{"question": "", "answer": "The Project Gutenberg eBook of Orley Farm\r\n    \r\nThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and\r\nmost other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions\r\nwhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms\r\nof the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online\r\nat www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,\r\nyou will have to check the laws of the country where you are located\r\nbefore using this eBook. Title: Orley Farm\r\n\r\nAuthor: Anthony Trollope\r\n\r\nRelease date: October 13, 2007 [eBook #23000]\r\n                Most recently updated: March 31, 2014\r\n\r\nLanguage: English\r\n\r\nCredits: E-text prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ORLEY FARM ***\r\n\r\n\r\nE-text prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file\r\n      which includes the 40 illustrations by John Everett Millais\r\n      used in the First Edition of _Orley Farm_ (Chapman and Hall,\r\n      London, 1862). See 23000-h.htm or 23000-h.zip:\r\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/23000/pg23000-images.html)\r\n      or\r\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23000/23000-h.zip)\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nORLEY FARM\r\n\r\nby\r\n\r\nANTHONY TROLLOPE\r\n\r\nFirst published in serial form March, 1861, through October, 1862,\r\nand in book form in 1862, both by Chapman and Hall. [Illustration: ORLEY FARM. (Frontispiece)]\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCONTENTS\r\n\r\n   VOLUME I\r\n\r\n            I. THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE GREAT ORLEY FARM CASE. II. LADY MASON AND HER SON. III. THE CLEEVE. IV. THE PERILS OF YOUTH. V. SIR PEREGRINE MAKES A SECOND PROMISE. VI. THE COMMERCIAL ROOM, BULL INN, LEEDS. VII."}
{"question": "", "answer": "THE MASONS OF GROBY PARK. VIII. MRS. MASON'S HOT LUNCHEON. IX. A CONVIVIAL MEETING. X. MR., MRS., AND MISS FURNIVAL. XI. MRS. FURNIVAL AT HOME. XII. MR. FURNIVAL'S CHAMBERS. XIII. GUILTY, OR NOT GUILTY. XIV. DINNER AT THE CLEEVE. XV. A MORNING CALL AT MOUNT PLEASANT VILLA. XVI. MR. DOCKWRATH IN BEDFORD ROW. XVII. VON BAUHR. XVIII. THE ENGLISH VON BAUHR. XIX. THE STAVELEY FAMILY. XX. MR. DOCKWRATH IN HIS OWN OFFICE. XXI. CHRISTMAS IN HARLEY STREET. XXII. CHRISTMAS AT NONINGSBY. XXIII. CHRISTMAS AT GROBY PARK. XXIV. CHRISTMAS IN GREAT ST. HELENS. XXV. MR. FURNIVAL AGAIN AT HIS CHAMBERS. XXVI. WHY SHOULD I NOT? XXVII. COMMERCE. XXVIII. MONKTON GRANGE. XXIX. BREAKING COVERT. XXX. ANOTHER FALL. XXXI. FOOTSTEPS IN THE CORRIDOR. XXXII. WHAT BRIDGET BOLSTER HAD TO SAY. XXXIII. THE ANGEL OF LIGHT. XXXIV. MR. FURNIVAL LOOKS FOR ASSISTANCE. XXXV. LOVE WAS STILL THE LORD OF ALL. XXXVI. WHAT THE YOUNG MEN THOUGHT ABOUT IT. XXXVII. PEREGRINE'S ELOQUENCE. XXXVIII. OH, INDEED! XXXIX. WHY SHOULD HE GO? XL. I CALL IT AWFUL. VOLUME II\r\n\r\n          XLI. HOW CAN I SAVE HIM? XLII. JOHN KENNEBY GOES TO HAMWORTH. XLIII. JOHN KENNEBY'S COURTSHIP. XLIV. SHOWING HOW LADY MASON COULD BE VERY NOBLE. XLV. SHOWING HOW MRS. ORME COULD BE VERY WEAK MINDED. XLVI. A WOMAN'S IDEA OF FRIENDSHIP. XLVII. THE GEM OF THE FOUR FAMILIES. XLVIII. THE ANGEL OF LIGHT UNDER A CLOUD. XLIX. MRS. FURNIVAL CAN'T PUT UP WITH IT. L. IT IS QUITE IMPOSSIBLE. LI. MRS. FURNIVAL'S JOURNEY TO HAMWORTH. LII."}
{"question": "", "answer": "SHOWING HOW THINGS WENT ON AT NONINGSBY. LIII. LADY MASON RETURNS HOME. LIV. TELLING ALL THAT HAPPENED BENEATH THE LAMP-POST. LV. WHAT TOOK PLACE IN HARLEY STREET. LVI. HOW SIR PEREGRINE DID BUSINESS WITH MR. ROUND. LVII. THE LOVES AND HOPES OF ALBERT FITZALLEN. LVIII. MISS STAVELEY DECLINES TO EAT MINCED VEAL. LIX. NO SURRENDER. LX. WHAT REBEKAH DID FOR HER SON. LXI. THE STATE OF PUBLIC OPINION. LXII. WHAT THE FOUR LAWYERS THOUGHT ABOUT IT. LXIII. THE EVENING BEFORE THE TRIAL. LXIV. THE FIRST JOURNEY TO ALSTON. LXV. FELIX GRAHAM RETURNS TO NONINGSBY. LXVI. SHOWING HOW MISS FURNIVAL TREATED HER LOVERS. LXVII. MR. MOULDER BACKS HIS OPINION. LXVIII. THE FIRST DAY OF THE TRIAL. LXIX. THE TWO JUDGES. LXX. HOW AM I TO BEAR IT? LXXI. SHOWING HOW JOHN KENNEBY AND BRIDGET BOLSTER BORE\r\n               THEMSELVES IN COURT. LXXII. MR. FURNIVAL'S SPEECH. LXXIII. MRS. ORME TELLS THE STORY. LXXIV. YOUNG LOCHINVAR. LXXV. THE LAST DAY. LXXVI. I LOVE HER STILL. LXXVII. JOHN KENNEBY'S DOOM. LXXVIII. THE LAST OF THE LAWYERS. LXXIX. FAREWELL. LXXX. SHOWING HOW AFFAIRS SETTLED THEMSELVES AT NONINGSBY. ILLUSTRATIONS\r\n\r\n   VOLUME I\r\n\r\n      ORLEY FARM. FRONTISPIECE\r\n      SIR PEREGRINE AND HIS HEIR. CHAPTER III\r\n      THERE WAS SORROW IN HER HEART,\r\n         AND DEEP THOUGHT IN HER MIND. CHAPTER V\r\n      \"THERE IS NOTHING LIKE IRON, SIR; NOTHING.\" CHAPTER VI\r\n      AND THEN THEY ALL MARCHED OUT OF THE ROOM,\r\n         EACH WITH HIS OWN GLASS. CHAPTER IX\r\n      MR. FURNIVAL'S WELCOME HOME. CHAPTER XI\r\n      \"YOUR SON LUCIUS DID SAY--SHOPPING.\" CHAPTER XIII\r\n      OVER THEIR WINE."}
{"question": "", "answer": "CHAPTER XIV\r\n      VON BAUHR'S DREAM. CHAPTER XVII\r\n      THE ENGLISH VON BAUHR AND HIS PUPIL. CHAPTER XVIII\r\n      CHRISTMAS AT NONINGSBY--MORNING. CHAPTER XXII\r\n      CHRISTMAS AT NONINGSBY--EVENING. CHAPTER XXII\r\n      \"WHY SHOULD I NOT?\" CHAPTER XXV\r\n      MONKTON GRANGE. CHAPTER XXVIII\r\n      FELIX GRAHAM IN TROUBLE. CHAPTER XXIX\r\n      FOOTSTEPS IN THE CORRIDOR. CHAPTER XXXI\r\n      THE ANGEL OF LIGHT. CHAPTER XXXIII\r\n      LUCIUS MASON IN HIS STUDY. CHAPTER XXXVI\r\n      PEREGRINE'S ELOQUENCE. CHAPTER XXXVII\r\n      LADY STAVELY INTERRUPTING HER SON\r\n         AND SOPHIA FURNIVAL. CHAPTER XXXIX\r\n\r\n   VOLUME II\r\n\r\n      JOHN KENNEBY AND MIRIAM DOCKWRATH. CHAPTER XLII\r\n      GUILTY. CHAPTER XLIV\r\n      LADY MASON AFTER HER CONFESSION. CHAPTER XLV\r\n      \"BREAD SAUCE IS SO TICKLISH.\" CHAPTER XLVII\r\n      \"NEVER IS A VERY LONG WORD.\" CHAPTER L\r\n      \"TOM,\" SHE SAID, \"I HAVE COME BACK.\" CHAPTER LI\r\n      LADY MASON GOING BEFORE THE MAGISTRATES. CHAPTER LIII\r\n      SIR PEREGRINE AT MR. ROUND'S OFFICE. CHAPTER LVI\r\n      \"TELL ME, MADELINE, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?\" CHAPTER LVIII\r\n      \"NO SURRENDER.\" CHAPTER LIX\r\n      MR. CHAFFANBRASS AND MR. SOLOMON ARAM. CHAPTER LXII\r\n      THE COURT. CHAPTER LXIV\r\n      THE DRAWING-ROOM AT NONINGSBY. CHAPTER LXV\r\n      \"AND HOW ARE THEY ALL AT NONINGSBY?\" CHAPTER LXVI\r\n      LADY MASON LEAVING THE COURT. CHAPTER LXX\r\n      \"HOW CAN I BEAR IT?\" CHAPTER LXX\r\n      BRIDGET BOLSTER IN COURT. CHAPTER LXXI\r\n      LUCIUS MASON, AS HE LEANED ON THE GATE\r\n         THAT WAS NO LONGER HIS OWN. CHAPTER LXXIII\r\n      FAREWELL! CHAPTER LXXIX\r\n      FAREWELL! CHAPTER LXXIX\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nVOLUME I. CHAPTER I. THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE GREAT ORLEY FARM CASE. It is not true that a rose by any other name will smell as sweet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Were it true, I should call this story \"The Great Orley Farm Case.\" But who would ask for the ninth number of a serial work burthened\r\nwith so very uncouth an appellation? Thence, and therefore,--Orley\r\nFarm. I say so much at commencing in order that I may have an opportunity\r\nof explaining that this book of mine will not be devoted in any\r\nspecial way to rural delights. The name might lead to the idea that\r\nnew precepts were to be given, in the pleasant guise of a novel, as\r\nto cream-cheeses, pigs with small bones, wheat sown in drills, or\r\nartificial manure. No such aspirations are mine. I make no attempts\r\nin that line, and declare at once that agriculturists will gain\r\nnothing from my present performance. Orley Farm, my readers, will be\r\nour scene during a portion of our present sojourn together, but the\r\nname has been chosen as having been intimately connected with certain\r\nlegal questions which made a considerable stir in our courts of law. It was twenty years before the date at which this story will be\r\nsupposed to commence that the name of Orley Farm first became known\r\nto the wearers of the long robe. At that time had died an old\r\ngentleman, Sir Joseph Mason, who left behind him a landed estate in\r\nYorkshire of considerable extent and value. This he bequeathed, in a\r\nproper way, to his eldest son, the Joseph Mason, Esq., of our date."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Joseph had been a London merchant; had made his own money, having\r\ncommenced the world, no doubt, with half a crown; had become, in\r\nturn, alderman, mayor, and knight; and in the fulness of time was\r\ngathered to his fathers. He had purchased this estate in Yorkshire\r\nlate in life--we may as well become acquainted with the name, Groby\r\nPark--and his eldest son had lived there with such enjoyment of the\r\nprivileges of an English country gentleman as he had been able to\r\nmaster for himself. Sir Joseph had also had three daughters, full\r\nsisters of Joseph of Groby, whom he endowed sufficiently and gave\r\nover to three respective loving husbands. And then shortly before his\r\ndeath, three years or so, Sir Joseph had married a second wife, a\r\nlady forty-five years his junior, and by her he also left one son, an\r\ninfant only two years old when he died. For many years this prosperous gentleman had lived at a small country\r\nhouse, some five-and-twenty miles from London, called Orley Farm. This had been his first purchase of land, and he had never given up\r\nhis residence there, although his wealth would have entitled him to\r\nthe enjoyment of a larger establishment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the birth of his youngest\r\nson, at which time his eldest was nearly forty years old, he made\r\ncertain moderate provision for the infant, as he had already made\r\nmoderate provision for his young wife; but it was then clearly\r\nunderstood by the eldest son that Orley Farm was to go with the Groby\r\nPark estate to him as the heir. When, however, Sir Joseph died, a\r\ncodicil to his will, executed with due legal formalities, bequeathed\r\nOrley Farm to his youngest son, little Lucius Mason. Then commenced those legal proceedings which at last developed\r\nthemselves into the great Orley Farm Case. The eldest son contested\r\nthe validity of the codicil; and indeed there were some grounds\r\non which it appeared feasible that he should do so. This codicil\r\nnot only left Orley Farm away from him to baby Lucius, but also\r\ninterfered in another respect with the previous will. It devised a\r\nsum of two thousand pounds to a certain Miriam Usbech, the daughter\r\nof one Jonathan Usbech who was himself the attorney who had attended\r\nupon Sir Joseph for the making out of this very will, and also of\r\nthis very codicil. This sum of two thousand pounds was not, it is\r\ntrue, left away from the surviving Joseph, but was to be produced out\r\nof certain personal property which had been left by the first will to\r\nthe widow. And then old Jonathan Usbech had died, while Sir Joseph\r\nMason was still living."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All the circumstances of the trial need not be detailed here. It was\r\nclearly proved that Sir Joseph had during his whole life expressed\r\nhis intention of leaving Orley Farm to his eldest son; that he was a\r\nman void of mystery, and not given to secrets in his money matters,\r\nand one very little likely to change his opinion on such subjects. It\r\nwas proved that old Jonathan Usbech at the time in which the will was\r\nmade was in very bad circumstances, both as regards money and health. His business had once not been bad, but he had eaten and drunk it,\r\nand at this period was feeble and penniless, overwhelmed both by gout\r\nand debt. He had for many years been much employed by Sir Joseph in\r\nmoney matters, and it was known that he was so employed almost up to\r\nthe day of his death. The question was whether he had been employed\r\nto make this codicil. The body of the will was in the handwriting of the widow, as was also\r\nthe codicil. It was stated by her at the trial that the words were\r\ndictated to her by Usbech in her husband's hearing, and that the\r\ndocument was then signed by her husband in the presence of them both,\r\nand also in the presence of two other persons--a young man employed\r\nby her husband as a clerk, and by a servant-maid."}
{"question": "", "answer": "These two last,\r\ntogether with Mr. Usbech, were the three witnesses whose names\r\nappeared in the codicil. There had been no secrets between Lady Mason\r\nand her husband as to his will. She had always, she said, endeavoured\r\nto induce him to leave Orley Farm to her child from the day of the\r\nchild's birth, and had at last succeeded. In agreeing to this Sir\r\nJoseph had explained to her, somewhat angrily, that he wished to\r\nprovide for Usbech's daughter, and that now he would do so out of\r\nmoneys previously intended for her, the widow, and not out of the\r\nestate which would go to his eldest son. To this she had assented\r\nwithout a word, and had written the codicil in accordance with the\r\nlawyer's dictation, he, the lawyer, suffering at the time from gout\r\nin his hand. Among other things Lady Mason proved that on the date of\r\nthe signatures Mr. Usbech had been with Sir Joseph for sundry hours. Then the young clerk was examined. He had, he said, witnessed in\r\nhis time four, ten, twenty, and, under pressure, he confessed to\r\nas many as a hundred and twenty business signatures on the part of\r\nhis employer, Sir Joseph. He thought he had witnessed a hundred\r\nand twenty, but would take his oath he had not witnessed a hundred\r\nand twenty-one."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He did remember witnessing a signature of his\r\nmaster about the time specified by the date of the codicil, and he\r\nremembered the maid-servant also signing at the same time. Mr. Usbech\r\nwas then present; but he did not remember Mr. Usbech having the\r\npen in his hand. Mr. Usbech, he knew, could not write at that time,\r\nbecause of the gout; but he might, no doubt, have written as much\r\nas his own name. He swore to both the signatures--his own and his\r\nmaster's; and in cross-examination swore that he thought it probable\r\nthat they might be forgeries. On re-examination he was confident that\r\nhis own name, as there appearing, had been written by himself; but\r\non re-cross-examination, he felt sure that there was something wrong. It ended in the judge informing him that his word was worth nothing,\r\nwhich was hard enough on the poor young man, seeing that he had done\r\nhis best to tell all that he remembered. Then the servant-girl came\r\ninto the witness-box. She was sure it was her own handwriting. She\r\nremembered being called in to write her name, and seeing the master\r\nwrite his. It had all been explained to her at the time, but she\r\nadmitted that she had not understood the explanation. She had also\r\nseen the clerk write his name, but she was not sure that she had seen\r\nMr. Usbech write. Mr. Usbech had had a pen in his hand; she was sure\r\nof that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The last witness was Miriam Usbech, then a very pretty, simple girl\r\nof seventeen. Her father had told her once that he hoped Sir Joseph\r\nwould make provision for her. This had been shortly before her\r\nfather's death. At her father's death she had been sent for to Orley\r\nFarm, and had remained there till Sir Joseph died. She had always\r\nregarded Sir Joseph and Lady Mason as her best friends. She had known\r\nSir Joseph all her life, and did not think it unnatural that he\r\nshould provide for her. She had heard her father say more than once\r\nthat Lady Mason would never rest till the old gentleman had settled\r\nOrley Farm upon her son. Not half the evidence taken has been given here, but enough probably\r\nfor our purposes. The will and codicil were confirmed, and Lady Mason\r\ncontinued to live at the farm. Her evidence was supposed to have been\r\nexcellently given, and to have been conclusive. She had seen the\r\nsignature, and written the codicil, and could explain the motive. She\r\nwas a woman of high character, of great talent, and of repute in the\r\nneighbourhood; and, as the judge remarked, there could be no possible\r\nreason for doubting her word. Nothing also could be simpler or\r\nprettier than the evidence of Miriam Usbech, as to whose fate and\r\ndestiny people at the time expressed much sympathy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That stupid young\r\nclerk was responsible for the only weak part of the matter; but if\r\nhe proved nothing on one side, neither did he prove anything on the\r\nother. This was the commencement of the great Orley Farm Case, and having\r\nbeen then decided in favour of the infant it was allowed to slumber\r\nfor nearly twenty years. The codicil was confirmed, and Lady Mason\r\nremained undisturbed in possession of the house, acting as guardian\r\nfor her child till he came of age, and indeed for some time beyond\r\nthat epoch. In the course of a page or two I shall beg my readers to\r\nallow me to introduce this lady to their acquaintance. Miriam Usbech, of whom also we shall see something, remained at the\r\nfarm under Lady Mason's care till she married a young attorney, who\r\nin process of time succeeded to such business as her father left\r\nbehind him. She suffered some troubles in life before she settled\r\ndown in the neighbouring country town as Mrs. Dockwrath, for she had\r\nhad another lover, the stupid young clerk who had so villainously\r\nbroken down in his evidence; and to this other lover, whom she had\r\nbeen unable to bring herself to accept, Lady Mason had given her\r\nfavour and assistance. Poor Miriam was at that time a soft, mild-eyed\r\ngirl, easy to be led, one would have said; but in this matter Lady\r\nMason could not lead her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was in vain to tell her that the\r\ncharacter of young Dockwrath did not stand high, and that young\r\nKenneby, the clerk, should be promoted to all manner of good things. Soft and mild-eyed as Miriam was, Love was still the lord of all. In\r\nthis matter she would not be persuaded; and eventually she gave her\r\ntwo thousand pounds to Samuel Dockwrath, the young attorney with the\r\nquestionable character. This led to no breach between her and her patroness. Lady Mason,\r\nwishing to do the best for her young friend, had favoured John\r\nKenneby, but she was not a woman at all likely to quarrel on such a\r\nground as this. \"Well, Miriam,\" she had said, \"you must judge for\r\nyourself, of course, in such a matter as this. You know my regard for\r\nyou.\" \"Oh yes, ma'am,\" said Miriam, eagerly. \"And I shall always be glad to promote your welfare as Mrs.\r\nDockwrath, if possible. I can only say that I should have had more\r\nsatisfaction in attempting to do so for you as Mrs. Kenneby.\" But,\r\nin spite of the seeming coldness of these words, Lady Mason had\r\nbeen constant to her friend for many years, and had attended to her\r\nwith more or less active kindness in all the sorrows arising from\r\nan annual baby and two sets of twins--a progeny which before the\r\ncommencement of my tale reached the serious number of sixteen, all\r\nliving."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Among other solid benefits conferred by Lady Mason had been the\r\nletting to Mr. Dockwrath of certain two fields, lying at the\r\nextremity of the farm property, and quite adjacent to the town of\r\nHamworth in which old Mr. Usbech had resided. These had been let by\r\nthe year, at a rent not considered to be too high at that period, and\r\nwhich had certainly become much lower in proportion to the value of\r\nthe land, as the town of Hamworth had increased. On these fields Mr.\r\nDockwrath expended some money, though probably not so much as he\r\naverred; and when noticed to give them up at the period of young\r\nMason's coming of age, expressed himself terribly aggrieved. \"Surely, Mr. Dockwrath, you are very ungrateful,\" Lady Mason had said\r\nto him. But he had answered her with disrespectful words; and hence\r\nhad arisen an actual breach between her and poor Miriam's husband. \"I\r\nmust say, Miriam, that Mr. Dockwrath is unreasonable,\" Lady Mason had\r\nsaid. And what could a poor wife answer? \"Oh! Lady Mason, pray let\r\nit bide a time till it all comes right.\" But it never did come right;\r\nand the affair of those two fields created the great Orley Farm Case,\r\nwhich it will be our business to unravel. And now a word or two as to this Orley Farm. In the first place let\r\nit be understood that the estate consisted of two farms."}
{"question": "", "answer": "One, called\r\nthe Old Farm, was let to an old farmer named Greenwood, and had been\r\nlet to him and to his father for many years antecedent to the days\r\nof the Masons. Mr. Greenwood held about three hundred acres of land,\r\npaying with admirable punctuality over four hundred a year in rent,\r\nand was regarded by all the Orley people as an institution on the\r\nproperty. Then there was the farm-house and the land attached to it. This was the residence in which Sir Joseph had lived, keeping in\r\nhis own hands this portion of the property. When first inhabited by\r\nhim the house was not fitted for more than the requirements of an\r\nordinary farmer, but he had gradually added to it and ornamented\r\nit till it was commodious, irregular, picturesque, and straggling. When he died, and during the occupation of his widow, it consisted\r\nof three buildings of various heights, attached to each other,\r\nand standing in a row. The lower contained a large kitchen, which\r\nhad been the living-room of the farm-house, and was surrounded\r\nby bake-house, laundry, dairy, and servants' room, all of fair\r\ndimensions. It was two stories high, but the rooms were low, and the\r\nroof steep and covered with tiles. The next portion had been added by\r\nSir Joseph, then Mr. Mason, when he first thought of living at the\r\nplace."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This also was tiled, and the rooms were nearly as low; but\r\nthere were three stories, and the building therefore was considerably\r\nhigher. For five-and-twenty years the farm-house, so arranged, had\r\nsufficed for the common wants of Sir Joseph and his family; but when\r\nhe determined to give up his establishment in the City, he added on\r\nanother step to the house at Orley Farm. On this occasion he built\r\na good dining-room, with a drawing-room over it, and bed-room over\r\nthat; and this portion of the edifice was slated. The whole stood in one line fronting on to a large lawn which fell\r\nsteeply away from the house into an orchard at the bottom. This\r\nlawn was cut in terraces, and here and there upon it there stood\r\napple-trees of ancient growth; for here had been the garden of the\r\nold farm-house. They were large, straggling trees, such as do not\r\ndelight the eyes of modern gardeners; but they produced fruit by the\r\nbushel, very sweet to the palate, though probably not so perfectly\r\nround, and large, and handsome as those which the horticultural skill\r\nof the present day requires. The face of the house from one end to\r\nthe other was covered with vines and passion-flowers, for the aspect\r\nwas due south; and as the whole of the later addition was faced by\r\na verandah, which also, as regarded the ground-floor, ran along the\r\nmiddle building, the place in summer was pretty enough."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As I have\r\nsaid before, it was irregular and straggling, but at the same time\r\nroomy and picturesque. Such was Orley Farm-house. There were about two hundred acres of land attached to it, together\r\nwith a large old-fashioned farm-yard, standing not so far from the\r\nhouse as most gentlemen farmers might perhaps desire. The farm\r\nbuildings, however, were well hidden, for Sir Joseph, though he would\r\nat no time go to the expense of constructing all anew, had spent more\r\nmoney than such a proceeding would have cost him doctoring existing\r\nevils and ornamenting the standing edifices. In doing this he had\r\nextended the walls of a brewhouse, and covered them with creepers, so\r\nas to shut out from the hall door the approach to the farm-yard, and\r\nhad put up a quarter of a mile of high ornamental paling for the same\r\npurpose. He had planted an extensive shrubbery along the brow of the\r\nhill at one side of the house, had built summer-houses, and sunk a\r\nha-ha fence below the orchard, and had contrived to give to the place\r\nthe unmistakable appearance of an English gentleman's country-house. Nevertheless, Sir Joseph had never bestowed upon his estate, nor had\r\nit ever deserved, a more grandiloquent name than that which it had\r\npossessed of old."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Orley Farm-house itself is somewhat more than a mile distant from\r\nthe town of Hamworth, but the land runs in the direction of the\r\ntown, not skirting the high road, but stretching behind the cottages\r\nwhich stand along the pathway; and it terminates in those two fields\r\nrespecting which Mr. Dockwrath the attorney became so irrationally\r\nangry at the period of which we are now immediately about to treat. These fields lie on the steep slope of Hamworth Hill, and through\r\nthem runs the public path from the hamlet of Roxeth up to Hamworth\r\nchurch; for, as all the world knows, Hamworth church stands high, and\r\nis a landmark to the world for miles and miles around. Within a circuit of thirty miles from London no land lies more\r\nbeautifully circumstanced with regard to scenery than the country\r\nabout Hamworth; and its most perfect loveliness commences just\r\nbeyond the slopes of Orley Farm. There is a little village called\r\nColdharbour, consisting of some half-dozen cottages, situated\r\nimmediately outside Lady Mason's gate,--and it may as well be stated\r\nhere that this gate is but three hundred yards from the house, and is\r\nguarded by no lodge. This village stands at the foot of Cleeve Hill. The land hereabouts ceases to be fertile, and breaks away into heath\r\nand common ground. Round the foot of the hill there are extensive\r\nwoods, all of which belong to Sir Peregrine Orme, the lord of the\r\nmanor."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Peregrine is not a rich man, not rich, that is, it being\r\nborne in mind that he is a baronet, that he represented his county in\r\nparliament for three or four sessions, and that his ancestors have\r\nowned The Cleeve estate for the last four hundred years; but he is by\r\ngeneral repute the greatest man in these parts. We may expect to hear\r\nmore of him also as the story makes its way. I know many spots in England and in other lands, world-famous in\r\nregard to scenery, which to my eyes are hardly equal to Cleeve Hill. From the top of it you are told that you may see into seven counties;\r\nbut to me that privilege never possessed any value. I should not\r\ncare to see into seventeen counties, unless the country which spread\r\nitself before my view was fair and lovely. The country which is so\r\nseen from Cleeve Hill is exquisitely fair and lovely;--very fair,\r\nwith glorious fields of unsurpassed fertility, and lovely with oak\r\nwoods and brown open heaths which stretch away, hill after hill, down\r\ntowards the southern coast. I could greedily fill a long chapter with\r\nthe well-loved glories of Cleeve Hill; but it may be that we must\r\npress its heather with our feet more than once in the course of our\r\npresent task, and if so, it will be well to leave something for those\r\ncoming visits. \"Ungrateful! I'll let her know whether I owe her any gratitude."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Haven't I paid her her rent every half-year as it came due? what more\r\nwould she have? Ungrateful, indeed! She is one of those women who\r\nthink that you ought to go down on your knees to them if they only\r\nspeak civilly to you. I'll let her know whether I'm ungrateful.\" These words were spoken by angry Mr. Samuel Dockwrath to his wife, as\r\nhe stood up before his parlour-fire after breakfast, and the woman to\r\nwhom he referred was Lady Mason. Mr. Samuel Dockwrath was very angry\r\nas he so spoke, or at any rate he seemed to be so. There are men who\r\ntake a delight in abusing those special friends whom their wives\r\nbest love, and Mr. Dockwrath was one of these. He had never given\r\nhis cordial consent to the intercourse which had hitherto existed\r\nbetween the lady of Orley Farm and his household, although he had not\r\ndeclined the substantial benefits which had accompanied it. His pride\r\nhad rebelled against the feeling of patronage, though his interest\r\nhad submitted to the advantages thence derived."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A family of sixteen\r\nchildren is a heavy burden for a country attorney with a small\r\npractice, even though his wife may have had a fortune of two thousand\r\npounds; and thus Mr. Dockwrath, though he had never himself loved\r\nLady Mason, had permitted his wife to accept all those numberless\r\nkindnesses which a lady with comfortable means and no children is\r\nalways able to bestow on a favoured neighbour who has few means and\r\nmany children. Indeed, he himself had accepted a great favour with\r\nreference to the holding of those two fields, and had acknowledged as\r\nmuch when first he took them into his hands some sixteen or seventeen\r\nyears back. But all that was forgotten now; and having held them for\r\nso long a period, he bitterly felt the loss, and resolved that it\r\nwould ill become him as a man and an attorney to allow so deep an\r\ninjury to pass unnoticed. It may be, moreover, that Mr. Dockwrath was\r\nnow doing somewhat better in the world than formerly, and that he\r\ncould afford to give up Lady Mason, and to demand also that his wife\r\nshould give her up."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Those trumpery presents from Orley Farm were very\r\nwell while he was struggling for bare bread, but now, now that he had\r\nturned the corner,--now that by his divine art and mystery of law\r\nhe had managed to become master of that beautiful result of British\r\nperseverance, a balance at his banker's, he could afford to indulge\r\nhis natural antipathy to a lady who had endeavoured in early life\r\nto divert from him the little fortune which had started him in the\r\nworld. Miriam Dockwrath, as she sat on this morning, listening to her\r\nhusband's anger, with a sick little girl on her knee, and four or\r\nfive others clustering round her, half covered with their matutinal\r\nbread and milk, was mild-eyed and soft as ever. Hers was a nature in\r\nwhich softness would ever prevail;--softness, and that tenderness of\r\nheart, always leaning, and sometimes almost crouching, of which a\r\nmild eye is the outward sign. But her comeliness and prettiness were\r\ngone. Female beauty of the sterner, grander sort may support the\r\nburden of sixteen children, all living,--and still survive. I have\r\nknown it to do so, and to survive with much of its youthful glory. But that mild-eyed, soft, round, plumpy prettiness gives way beneath\r\nsuch a weight as that: years alone tell on it quickly; but children\r\nand limited means combined with years leave to it hardly a chance. \"I'm sure I'm very sorry,\" said the poor woman, worn with her many\r\ncares."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Sorry; yes, and I'll make her sorry, the proud minx. There's an old\r\nsaying, that those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.\" \"But, Samuel, I don't think she means to be doing you any harm. You\r\nknow she always did say-- Don't, Bessy; how can you put your fingers\r\ninto the basin in that way?\" \"Sam has taken my spoon away, mamma.\" \"I'll let her know whether she's doing any harm or no. And what\r\nsignifies what was said sixteen years ago? Has she anything to show\r\nin writing? As far as I know, nothing of the kind was said.\" \"Oh, I remember it, Samuel; I do indeed!\" \"Let me tell you then that you had better not try to remember\r\nanything about it. If you ain't quiet, Bob, I'll make you, pretty\r\nquick; d'ye hear that? The fact is, your memory is not worth a curse. Where are you to get milk for all those children, do you think, when\r\nthe fields are gone?\" \"I'm sure I'm very sorry, Samuel.\" \"Sorry; yes, and somebody else shall be sorry too. And look here,\r\nMiriam, I won't have you going up to Orley Farm on any pretence\r\nwhatever; do you hear that?\" and then, having given that imperative\r\ncommand to his wife and slave, the lord and master of that\r\nestablishment walked forth into his office."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the whole Miriam Usbech might have done better had she followed\r\nthe advice of her patroness in early life, and married the stupid\r\nclerk. CHAPTER II. LADY MASON AND HER SON. I trust that it is already perceived by all persistent novel readers\r\nthat very much of the interest of this tale will be centred in the\r\nperson of Lady Mason. Such educated persons, however, will probably\r\nbe aware that she is not intended to be the heroine. The heroine, so\r\ncalled, must by a certain fixed law be young and marriageable. Some\r\nsuch heroine in some future number shall be forthcoming, with as\r\nmuch of the heroic about her as may be found convenient; but for the\r\npresent let it be understood that the person and character of Lady\r\nMason is as important to us as can be those of any young lady, let\r\nher be ever so gracious or ever so beautiful. In giving the details of her history, I do not know that I need go\r\nback beyond her grandfather and grandmother, who were thoroughly\r\nrespectable people in the hardware line; I speak of those relatives\r\nby the father's side. Her own parents had risen in the world,--had\r\nrisen from retail to wholesale, and considered themselves for a\r\nlong period of years to be good representatives of the commercial\r\nenergy and prosperity of Great Britain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But a fall had come upon\r\nthem,--as a fall does come very often to our excellent commercial\r\nrepresentatives--and Mr. Johnson was in the \"Gazette.\" It would be\r\nlong to tell how old Sir Joseph Mason was concerned in these affairs,\r\nhow he acted as the principal assignee, and how ultimately he took\r\nto his bosom as his portion of the assets of the estate, young Mary\r\nJohnson, and made her his wife and mistress of Orley Farm. Of the\r\nfamily of the Johnsons there were but three others, the father, the\r\nmother, and a brother. The father did not survive the disgrace of his\r\nbankruptcy, and the mother in process of time settled herself with\r\nher son in one of the Lancashire manufacturing towns, where John\r\nJohnson raised his head in business to some moderate altitude, Sir\r\nJoseph having afforded much valuable assistance. There for the\r\npresent we will leave them. I do not think that Sir Joseph ever repented of the perilous deed he\r\ndid in marrying that young wife. His home for many years had been\r\ndesolate and solitary; his children had gone from him, and did not\r\ncome to visit him very frequently in his poor home at the farm. They\r\nhad become grander people than him, had been gifted with aspiring\r\nminds, and in every turn and twist which they took, looked to do\r\nsomething towards washing themselves clean from the dirt of the\r\ncounting-house."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This was specially the case with Sir Joseph's son, to\r\nwhom the father had made over lands and money sufficient to enable\r\nhim to come before the world as a country gentleman with a coat of\r\narms on his coach-panel. It would be inconvenient for us to run off\r\nto Groby Park at the present moment, and I will therefore say no more\r\njust now as to Joseph junior, but will explain that Joseph senior was\r\nnot made angry by this neglect. He was a grave, quiet, rational man,\r\nnot however devoid of some folly; as indeed what rational man is so\r\ndevoid? He was burdened with an ambition to establish a family as the\r\nresult of his success in life; and having put forth his son into the\r\nworld with these views, was content that that son should act upon\r\nthem persistently. Joseph Mason, Esq., of Groby Park, in Yorkshire,\r\nwas now a county magistrate, and had made some way towards a footing\r\nin the county society around him. With these hopes, and ambition such\r\nas this, it was probably not expedient that he should spend much of\r\nhis time at Orley Farm."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The three daughters were circumstanced much\r\nin the same way: they had all married gentlemen, and were bent on\r\nrising in the world; moreover, the steadfast resolution of purpose\r\nwhich characterised their father was known by them all,--and by\r\ntheir husbands: they had received their fortunes, with some settled\r\ncontingencies to be forthcoming on their father's demise; why, then,\r\ntrouble the old gentleman at Orley Farm? Under such circumstances the old gentleman married his young\r\nwife,--to the great disgust of his four children. They of course\r\ndeclared to each other, corresponding among themselves by letter,\r\nthat the old gentleman had positively disgraced himself. It was\r\nimpossible that they should make any visits whatever to Orley Farm\r\nwhile such a mistress of the house was there;--and the daughters did\r\nmake no such visits. Joseph, the son, whose monetary connection with\r\nhis father was as yet by no means fixed and settled in its nature,\r\ndid make one such visit, and then received his father's assurance--so\r\nat least he afterwards said and swore--that this marriage should by\r\nno means interfere with the expected inheritance of the Orley Farm\r\nacres. But at that time no young son had been born,--nor, probably,\r\nwas any such young son expected. The farm-house became a much brighter abode for the old man, for the\r\nfew years which were left to him, after he had brought his young\r\nwife home. She was quiet, sensible, clever, and unremitting in her\r\nattention."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She burthened him with no requests for gay society, and\r\ntook his home as she found it, making the best of it for herself, and\r\nmaking it for him much better than he had ever hitherto known it. His\r\nown children had always looked down upon him, regarding him merely\r\nas a coffer from whence money might be had; and he, though he had\r\nnever resented this contempt, had in a certain measure been aware of\r\nit. But there was no such feeling shown by his wife. She took the\r\nbenefits which he gave her graciously and thankfully, and gave back\r\nto him in return, certainly her care and time, and apparently her\r\nlove. For herself, in the way of wealth and money, she never asked\r\nfor anything. And then the baby had come, young Lucius Mason, and there was of\r\ncourse great joy at Orley Farm. The old father felt that the world\r\nhad begun again for him, very delightfully, and was more than ever\r\nsatisfied with his wisdom in regard to that marriage. But the very\r\ngenteel progeny of his early youth were more than ever dissatisfied,\r\nand in their letters among themselves dealt forth harder and still\r\nharder words upon poor Sir Joseph. What terrible things might he not\r\nbe expected to do now that his dotage was coming on? Those three\r\nmarried ladies had no selfish fears--so at least they declared, but\r\nthey united in imploring their brother to look after his interests at\r\nOrley Farm."}
{"question": "", "answer": "How dreadfully would the young heir of Groby be curtailed\r\nin his dignities and seignories if it should be found at the last day\r\nthat Orley Farm was not to be written in his rent-roll! And then, while they were yet bethinking themselves how they might\r\nbest bestir themselves, news arrived that Sir Joseph had suddenly\r\ndied. Sir Joseph was dead, and the will when read contained a codicil\r\nby which that young brat was made the heir to the Orley Farm estate. I have said that Lady Mason during her married life had never asked\r\nof her husband anything for herself; but in the law proceedings which\r\nwere consequent upon Sir Joseph's death, it became abundantly evident\r\nthat she had asked him for much for her son,--and that she had been\r\nspecific in her requests, urging him to make a second heir, and to\r\nsettle Orley Farm upon her own boy, Lucius. She herself stated that\r\nshe had never done this except in the presence of a third person. She\r\nhad often done so in the presence of Mr. Usbech the attorney,--as to\r\nwhich Mr. Usbech was not alive to testify; and she had also done so\r\nmore than once in the presence of Mr. Furnival, a barrister,--as to\r\nwhich Mr. Furnival, being alive, did testify--very strongly. As to that contest nothing further need now be said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It resulted in\r\nthe favour of young Lucius Mason, and therefore, also, in the favour\r\nof the widow;--in the favour moreover of Miriam Usbech, and thus\r\nultimately in the favour of Mr. Samuel Dockwrath, who is now showing\r\nhimself to be so signally ungrateful. Joseph Mason, however, retired\r\nfrom the battle nothing convinced. His father, he said, had been\r\nan old fool, an ass, an idiot, a vulgar, ignorant fool; but he was\r\nnot a man to break his word. That signature to the codicil might be\r\nhis or might not. If his, it had been obtained by fraud. What could\r\nbe easier than to cheat an old doting fool? Many men agreed with\r\nJoseph Mason, thinking that Usbech the attorney had perpetrated this\r\nvillainy on behalf of his daughter; but Joseph Mason would believe,\r\nor say that he believed--a belief in which none but his sisters\r\njoined him,--that Lady Mason herself had been the villain. He was\r\nminded to press the case on to a Court of Appeal, up even to the\r\nHouse of Lords; but he was advised that in doing so he would spend\r\nmore money than Orley Farm was worth, and that he would, almost to a\r\ncertainty, spend it in vain. Under this advice he cursed the laws of\r\nhis country, and withdrew to Groby Park."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lady Mason had earned the respect of all those around her by the way\r\nin which she bore herself in the painful days of the trial, and also\r\nin those of her success,--especially also by the manner in which she\r\ngave her evidence. And thus, though she had not been much noticed\r\nby her neighbours during the short period of her married life, she\r\nwas visited as a widow by many of the more respectable people round\r\nHamworth. In all this she showed no feeling of triumph; she never\r\nabused her husband's relatives, or spoke much of the harsh manner\r\nin which she had been used. Indeed, she was not given to talk about\r\nher own personal affairs; and although, as I have said, many of her\r\nneighbours visited her, she did not lay herself out for society. She\r\naccepted and returned their attention, but for the most part seemed\r\nto be willing that the matter should so rest. The people around by\r\ndegrees came to know her ways, they spoke to her when they met her,\r\nand occasionally went through the ceremony of a morning call; but did\r\nnot ask her to their tea-parties, and did not expect to see her at\r\npicnic and archery meetings. Among those who took her by the hand in the time of her great trouble\r\nwas Sir Peregrine Orme of The Cleeve,--for such was the name which\r\nhad belonged time out of mind to his old mansion and park."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir\r\nPeregrine was a gentleman now over seventy years of age, whose family\r\nconsisted of the widow of his only son, and the only son of that\r\nwidow, who was of course the heir to his estate and title. Sir\r\nPeregrine was an excellent old man, as I trust may hereafter be\r\nacknowledged; but his regard for Lady Mason was perhaps in the first\r\ninstance fostered by his extreme dislike to her stepson, Joseph Mason\r\nof Groby. Mr. Joseph Mason of Groby was quite as rich a man as Sir\r\nPeregrine, and owned an estate which was nearly as large as The\r\nCleeve property; but Sir Peregrine would not allow that he was a\r\ngentleman, or that he could by any possible transformation become\r\none. He had not probably ever said so in direct words to any of the\r\nMason family, but his opinion on the matter had in some way worked\r\nits way down to Yorkshire, and therefore there was no love to spare\r\nbetween these two county magistrates. There had been a slight\r\nacquaintance between Sir Peregrine and Sir Joseph; but the ladies of\r\nthe two families had never met till after the death of the latter. Then, while that trial was still pending, Mrs. Orme had come forward\r\nat the instigation of her father-in-law, and by degrees there had\r\ngrown up an intimacy between the two widows."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When the first offers\r\nof assistance were made and accepted, Sir Peregrine no doubt did\r\nnot at all dream of any such result as this. His family pride, and\r\nespecially the pride which he took in his widowed daughter-in-law,\r\nwould probably have been shocked by such a surmise; but,\r\nnevertheless, he had seen the friendship grow and increase without\r\nalarm. He himself had become attached to Lady Mason, and had\r\ngradually learned to excuse in her that want of gentle blood and\r\nearly breeding which as a rule he regarded as necessary to a\r\ngentleman, and from which alone, as he thought, could spring many of\r\nthose excellences which go to form the character of a lady. It may therefore be asserted that Lady Mason's widowed life was\r\nsuccessful. That it was prudent and well conducted no one could\r\ndoubt. Her neighbours of course did say of her that she would not\r\ndrink tea with Mrs. Arkwright of Mount Pleasant villa because she was\r\nallowed the privilege of entering Sir Peregrine's drawing-room; but\r\nsuch little scandal as this was a matter of course. Let one live\r\naccording to any possible or impossible rule, yet some offence will\r\nbe given in some quarter. Those who knew anything of Lady Mason's\r\nprivate life were aware that she did not encroach on Sir Peregrine's\r\nhospitality. She was not at The Cleeve as much as circumstances would\r\nhave justified, and at one time by no means so much as Mrs. Orme\r\nwould have desired."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In person she was tall and comely. When Sir Joseph had brought her\r\nto his house she had been very fair,--tall, slight, fair, and very\r\nquiet,--not possessing that loveliness which is generally most\r\nattractive to men, because the beauty of which she might boast\r\ndepended on form rather than on the brightness of her eye, or the\r\nsoftness of her cheek and lips. Her face too, even at that age,\r\nseldom betrayed emotion, and never showed signs either of anger or of\r\njoy. Her forehead was high, and though somewhat narrow, nevertheless\r\ngave evidence of considerable mental faculties; nor was the evidence\r\nfalse, for those who came to know Lady Mason well, were always ready\r\nto acknowledge that she was a woman of no ordinary power. Her eyes\r\nwere large and well formed, but somewhat cold. Her nose was long and\r\nregular. Her mouth also was very regular, and her teeth perfectly\r\nbeautiful; but her lips were straight and thin. It would sometimes\r\nseem that she was all teeth, and yet it is certain that she never\r\nmade an effort to show them. The great fault of her face was in\r\nher chin, which was too small and sharp, thus giving on occasions\r\nsomething of meanness to her countenance. She was now forty-seven\r\nyears of age, and had a son who had reached man's estate; and yet\r\nperhaps she had more of woman's beauty at this present time than\r\nwhen she stood at the altar with Sir Joseph Mason."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The quietness and\r\nrepose of her manner suited her years and her position; age had given\r\nfulness to her tall form; and the habitual sadness of her countenance\r\nwas in fair accordance with her condition and character. And yet\r\nshe was not really sad,--at least so said those who knew her. The\r\nmelancholy was in her face rather than in her character, which was\r\nfull of energy,--if energy may be quiet as well as assured and\r\nconstant. Of course she had been accused a dozen times of matrimonial\r\nprospects. What handsome widow is not so accused? The world of\r\nHamworth had been very certain at one time that she was intent on\r\nmarrying Sir Peregrine Orme. But she had not married, and I think I\r\nmay say on her behalf that she had never thought of marrying. Indeed,\r\none cannot see how such a woman could make any effort in that line. It was impossible to conceive that a lady so staid in her manner\r\nshould be guilty of flirting; nor was there any man within ten miles\r\nof Hamworth who would have dared to make the attempt. Women for the\r\nmost part are prone to love-making--as nature has intended that they\r\nshould be; but there are women from whom all such follies seem to be\r\nas distant as skittles and beer are distant from the dignity of the\r\nLord Chancellor. Such a woman was Lady Mason."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At this time--the time which is about to exist for us as the period\r\nat which our narrative will begin--Lucius Mason was over twenty-two\r\nyears old, and was living at the farm. He had spent the last three or\r\nfour years of his life in Germany, where his mother had visited him\r\nevery year, and had now come home intending to be the master of his\r\nown destiny. His mother's care for him during his boyhood, and up to\r\nthe time at which he became of age, had been almost elaborate in its\r\nthoughtfulness. She had consulted Sir Peregrine as to his school, and\r\nSir Peregrine, looking to the fact of the lad's own property, and\r\nalso to the fact, known by him, of Lady Mason's means for such a\r\npurpose, had recommended Harrow. But the mother had hesitated, had\r\ngently discussed the matter, and had at last persuaded the baronet\r\nthat such a step would be injudicious. The boy was sent to a private\r\nschool of a high character, and Sir Peregrine was sure that he had\r\nbeen so sent at his own advice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Looking at the peculiar position of\r\nhis mother,\" said Sir Peregrine to his young daughter-in-law, \"at her\r\nvery peculiar position, and that of his relatives, I think it will be\r\nbetter that he should not appear to assume anything early in life;\r\nnothing can be better conducted than Mr. Crabfield's establishment,\r\nand after much consideration I have had no hesitation in recommending\r\nher to send her son to him.\" And thus Lucius Mason had been sent to\r\nMr. Crabfield, but I do not think that the idea originated with Sir\r\nPeregrine. \"And perhaps it will be as well,\" added the baronet, \"that he and\r\nPerry should not be together at school, though I have no objection to\r\ntheir meeting in the holidays. Mr. Crabfield's vacations are always\r\ntimed to suit the Harrow holidays.\" The Perry here mentioned was the\r\ngrandson of Sir Peregrine--the young Peregrine who in coming days was\r\nto be the future lord of The Cleeve. When Lucius Mason was modestly\r\nsent to Mr. Crabfield's establishment at Great Marlow, young\r\nPeregrine Orme, with his prouder hopes, commenced his career at the\r\npublic school. Mr. Crabfield did his duty by Lucius Mason, and sent him home at\r\nseventeen a handsome, well-mannered lad, tall and comely to the\r\neye, with soft brown whiskers sprouting on his cheek, well grounded\r\nin Greek, Latin, and Euclid, grounded also in French and Italian,\r\nand possessing many more acquirements than he would have learned\r\nat Harrow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But added to these, or rather consequent on them, was\r\na conceit which public-school education would not have created. When their mothers compared them in the holidays, not openly with\r\noutspoken words, but silently in their hearts, Lucius Mason was found\r\nby each to be the superior both in manners and knowledge; but each\r\nacknowledged also that there was more of ingenuous boyhood about\r\nPeregrine Orme. Peregrine Orme was a year the younger, and therefore his comparative\r\ndeficiencies were not the cause of any intense sorrow at The Cleeve;\r\nbut his grandfather would probably have been better satisfied--and\r\nperhaps also so would his mother--had he been less addicted to the\r\ncatching of rats, and better inclined towards Miss Edgeworth's novels\r\nand Shakespeare's plays, which were earnestly recommended to him by\r\nthe lady and the gentleman. But boys generally are fond of rats, and\r\nvery frequently are not fond of reading; and therefore, all this\r\nhaving been duly considered, there was not much deep sorrow in those\r\ndays at The Cleeve as to the boyhood of the heir. But there was great pride at Orley Farm, although that pride was\r\nshown openly to no one. Lady Mason in her visits at The Cleeve said\r\nbut little as to her son's present excellences."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As to his future\r\ncareer in life she did say much both to Sir Peregrine and to Mrs.\r\nOrme, asking the council of the one and expressing her fears to the\r\nother; and then, Sir Peregrine having given his consent, she sent the\r\nlad to Germany. He was allowed to come of age without any special signs of manhood,\r\nor aught of the glory of property; although, in his case, that coming\r\nof age did put him into absolute possession of his inheritance. On\r\nthat day, had he been so minded, he could have turned his mother out\r\nof the farm-house, and taken exclusive possession of the estate; but\r\nhe did in fact remain in Germany for a year beyond this period, and\r\nreturned to Orley Farm only in time to be present at the celebration\r\nof the twenty-first birthday of his friend Peregrine Orme. This\r\nceremony, as may be surmised, was by no means slurred over without\r\ndue rejoicing. The heir at the time was at Christchurch; but at such\r\na period a slight interruption to his studies was not to be lamented. There had been Sir Peregrine Ormes in those parts ever since the days\r\nof James I; and indeed in days long antecedent to those there had\r\nbeen knights bearing that name, some of whom had been honourably\r\nbeheaded for treason, others imprisoned for heresy; and one made\r\naway with on account of a supposed royal amour,--to the great\r\nglorification of all his descendants."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Looking to the antecedents of\r\nthe family, it was only proper that the coming of age of the heir\r\nshould be duly celebrated; but Lucius Mason had had no antecedents;\r\nno great-great-grandfather of his had knelt at the feet of an\r\nimproper princess; and therefore Lady Mason, though she had been at\r\nThe Cleeve, had not mentioned the fact that on that very day her son\r\nhad become a man. But when Peregrine Orme became a man--though still\r\nin his manhood too much devoted to rats--she gloried greatly in her\r\nquiet way, and whispered a hope into the baronet's ear that the young\r\nheir would not imitate the ambition of his ancestor. \"No, by Jove! it\r\nwould not do now at all,\" said Sir Peregrine, by no means displeased\r\nat the allusion. And then that question as to the future life of Lucius Mason became\r\none of great importance, and it was necessary to consult, not only\r\nSir Peregrine Orme, but the young man himself. His mother had\r\nsuggested to him first the law: the great Mr. Furnival, formerly of\r\nthe home circuit, but now practising only in London, was her very\r\nspecial friend, and would give her and her son all possible aid in\r\nthis direction. And what living man could give better aid than the\r\ngreat Mr. Furnival? But Lucius Mason would have none of the law."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This\r\nresolve he pronounced very clearly while yet in Germany, whither his\r\nmother visited him, bearing with her a long letter written by the\r\ngreat Mr. Furnival himself. But nevertheless young Mason would have\r\nnone of the law. \"I have an idea,\" he said, \"that lawyers are all\r\nliars.\" Whereupon his mother rebuked him for his conceited ignorance\r\nand want of charity; but she did not gain her point. She had, however, another string to her bow. As he objected to be a\r\nlawyer, he might become a civil engineer. Circumstances had made Sir\r\nPeregrine Orme very intimate with the great Mr. Brown. Indeed, Mr.\r\nBrown was under great obligations to Sir Peregrine, and Sir Peregrine\r\nhad promised to use his influence. But Lucius Mason said that civil\r\nengineers were only tradesmen of an upper class, tradesmen with\r\nintellects; and he, he said, wished to use his intellect, but he did\r\nnot choose to be a tradesman. His mother rebuked him again, as well\r\nhe deserved that she should,--and then asked him of what profession\r\nhe himself had thought. \"Philology,\" said he; \"or as a profession,\r\nperhaps literature. I shall devote myself to philology and the races\r\nof man. Nothing considerable has been done with them as a combined\r\npursuit.\" And with these views he returned home--while Peregrine Orme\r\nat Oxford was still addicted to the hunting of rats. But with philology and the races of man he consented to combine the\r\npursuit of agriculture."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When his mother found that he wished to take\r\nup his abode in his own house, she by no means opposed him, and\r\nsuggested that, as such was his intention, he himself should farm his\r\nown land. He was very ready to do this, and had she not represented\r\nthat such a step was in every way impolitic, he would willingly have\r\nrequested Mr. Greenwood of the Old Farm to look elsewhere, and have\r\nspread himself and his energies over the whole domain. As it was he\r\ncontented himself with desiring that Mr. Dockwrath would vacate his\r\nsmall holding, and as he was imperative as to that his mother gave\r\nway without making it the cause of a battle. She would willingly have\r\nleft Mr. Dockwrath in possession, and did say a word or two as to the\r\nmilk necessary for those sixteen children. But Lucius Mason was ducal\r\nin his ideas, and intimated an opinion that he had a right to do what\r\nhe liked with his own. Had not Mr. Dockwrath been told, when the\r\nfields were surrendered to him as a favour, that he would only have\r\nthem in possession till the heir should come of age? Mr. Dockwrath\r\nhad been so told; but tellings such as these are easily forgotten by\r\nmen with sixteen children."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And thus Mr. Mason became an agriculturist\r\nwith special scientific views as to chemistry, and a philologist\r\nwith the object of making that pursuit bear upon his studies with\r\nreference to the races of man. He was convinced that by certain\r\nadmixtures of ammonia and earths he could produce cereal results\r\nhitherto unknown to the farming world, and that by tracing out the\r\nroots of words he could trace also the wanderings of man since the\r\nexpulsion of Adam from the garden. As to the latter question his\r\nmother was not inclined to contradict him. Seeing that he would sit\r\nat the feet neither of Mr. Furnival nor of Mr. Brown, she had no\r\nobjection to the races of man. She could endure to be talked to about\r\nthe Oceanic Mongolidae and the Iapetidae of the Indo-Germanic class,\r\nand had perhaps her own ideas that such matters, though somewhat\r\nfoggy, were better than rats. But when he came to the other subject,\r\nand informed her that the properly plentiful feeding of the world\r\nwas only kept waiting for the chemists, she certainly did have her\r\nfears. Chemical agriculture is expensive; and though the results may\r\npossibly be remunerative, still, while we are thus kept waiting by\r\nthe backwardness of the chemists, there must be much risk in making\r\nany serious expenditure with such views."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Mother,\" he said, when he had now been at home about three months,\r\nand when the fiat for the expulsion of Samuel Dockwrath had already\r\ngone forth, \"I shall go to Liverpool to-morrow.\" \"To Liverpool, Lucius?\" \"Yes. That guano which I got from Walker is adulterated. I have\r\nanalyzed it, and find that it does not contain above thirty-two and a\r\nhalf hundredths of--of that which it ought to hold in a proportion of\r\nseventy-five per cent. of the whole.\" \"Does it not?\" \"No; and it is impossible to obtain results while one is working with\r\nsuch fictitious materials. Look at that bit of grass at the bottom of\r\nGreenwood's Hill.\" \"The fifteen-acre field? Why, Lucius, we always had the heaviest\r\ncrops of hay in the parish off that meadow.\" \"That's all very well, mother; but you have never tried,--nobody\r\nabout here ever has tried, what the land can really produce. I will\r\nthrow that and the three fields beyond it into one; I will get\r\nGreenwood to let me have that bit of the hill-side, giving him\r\ncompensation of course--\"\r\n\r\n\"And then Dockwrath would want compensation.\" \"Dockwrath is an impertinent rascal, and I shall take an opportunity\r\nof telling him so. But as I was saying, I will throw those seventy\r\nacres together, and then I will try what will be the relative effects\r\nof guano and the patent blood, But I must have real guano, and so I\r\nshall go to Liverpool.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I think I would wait a little, Lucius. It is almost too late for any\r\nchange of that kind this year.\" \"Wait! Yes, and what has come of waiting? We don't wait at all in\r\ndoubling our population every thirty-three years; but when we come\r\nto the feeding of them we are always for waiting. It is that waiting\r\nwhich has reduced the intellectual development of one half of the\r\nhuman race to its present terribly low state--or rather prevented its\r\nrising in a degree proportionate to the increase of the population. No more waiting for me, mother, if I can help it.\" \"But, Lucius, should not such new attempts as that be made by men\r\nwith large capital?\" said the mother. \"Capital is a bugbear,\" said the son, speaking on this matter quite\r\n_ex cathedrâ_, as no doubt he was entitled to do by his extensive\r\nreading at a German university--\"capital is a bugbear. The capital\r\nthat is really wanting is thought, mind, combination, knowledge.\" \"But, Lucius--\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, I know what you are going to say, mother. I don't boast that\r\nI possess all these things; but I do say that I will endeavour to\r\nobtain them.\" \"I have no doubt you will; but should not that come first?\" \"That is waiting again. We all know as much as this, that good manure\r\nwill give good crops if the sun be allowed full play upon the land,\r\nand nothing but the crop be allowed to grow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That is what I shall\r\nattempt at first, and there can be no great danger in that.\" And so\r\nhe went to Liverpool. Lady Mason during his absence began to regret that she had not left\r\nhim in the undisturbed and inexpensive possession of the Mongolidae\r\nand the Iapetidae. His rent from the estate, including that which she\r\nwould have paid him as tenant of the smaller farm, would have enabled\r\nhim to live with all comfort; and, if such had been his taste, he\r\nmight have become a philosophical student, and lived respectably\r\nwithout adding anything to his income by the sweat of his brow. But\r\nnow the matter was likely to become serious enough. For a gentleman\r\nfarmer determined to wait no longer for the chemists, whatever might\r\nbe the results, an immediate profitable return per acre could not be\r\nexpected as one of them. Any rent from that smaller farm would now\r\nbe out of the question, and it would be well if the payments made\r\nso punctually by old Mr. Greenwood were not also swallowed up in\r\nthe search after unadulterated guano. Who could tell whether in\r\nthe pursuit of science he might not insist on chartering a vessel,\r\nhimself, for the Peruvian coast? CHAPTER III. THE CLEEVE. I have said that Sir Peregrine Orme was not a rich man, meaning\r\nthereby that he was not a rich man considering his acknowledged\r\nposition in the county."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Such men not uncommonly have their tens,\r\ntwelves, and twenty thousands a year; but Sir Peregrine's estate\r\ndid not give him above three or four. He was lord of the manor of\r\nHamworth, and possessed seignorial rights, or rather the skeleton and\r\nremembrance of such rights with reference to a very large district of\r\ncountry; but his actual property--that from which he still received\r\nthe substantial benefits of ownership--was not so large as those\r\nof some of his neighbours. There was, however, no place within the\r\ncounty which was so beautifully situated as The Cleeve, or which had\r\nabout it so many of the attractions of age. The house itself had been\r\nbuilt at two periods,--a new set of rooms having been added to the\r\nremains of the old Elizabethan structure in the time of Charles II. It had not about it anything that was peculiarly grand or imposing,\r\nnor were the rooms large or even commodious; but everything was old,\r\nvenerable, and picturesque. Both the dining-room and the library were\r\npanelled with black wainscoating; and though the drawing-rooms were\r\npapered, the tall, elaborately-worked wooden chimney-pieces still\r\nstood in them, and a wooden band or belt round the rooms showed that\r\nthe panels were still there, although hidden by the modern paper. But it was for the beauty and wildness of its grounds that The Cleeve\r\nwas remarkable. The land fell here and there into narrow, wild\r\nravines and woody crevices."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The soil of the park was not rich, and\r\ncould give but little assistance to the chemists in supplying the\r\nplentiful food expected by Mr. Mason for the coming multitudes of the\r\nworld; it produced in some parts heather instead of grass, and was\r\nas wild and unprofitable as Cleeve Common, which stretched for miles\r\noutside the park palings; but it seemed admirably adapted for deer\r\nand for the maintenance of half-decayed venerable oaks. Young timber\r\nalso throve well about the place, and in this respect Sir Peregrine\r\nwas a careful landlord. There ran a river through the park,--the\r\nRiver Cleeve, from which the place and parish are said to have\r\ntaken their names;--a river, or rather a stream, very narrow and\r\ninconsiderable as to its volume of water, but which passed for some\r\ntwo miles through so narrow a passage as to give to it the appearance\r\nof a cleft or fissure in the rocks. The water tumbled over stones\r\nthrough this entire course, making it seem to be fordable almost\r\neverywhere without danger of wet feet; but in truth there was hardly\r\na spot at which it could be crossed without a bold leap from rock to\r\nrock. Narrow as was the aperture through which the water had cut its\r\nway, nevertheless a path had been contrived now on one side of the\r\nstream and now on the other, crossing it here and there by slight\r\nhanging wooden bridges."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The air here was always damp with spray, and\r\nthe rocks on both sides were covered with long mosses, as were also\r\nthe overhanging boughs of the old trees. This place was the glory\r\nof The Cleeve, and as far as picturesque beauty goes it was very\r\nglorious. There was a spot in the river from whence a steep path led\r\ndown from the park to the water, and at this spot the deer would come\r\nto drink. I know nothing more beautiful than this sight, when three\r\nor four of them could be so seen from one of the wooden bridges\r\ntowards the hour of sunset in the autumn. Sir Peregrine himself at this time was an old man, having passed his\r\nseventieth year. He was a fine, handsome English gentleman with white\r\nhair, keen gray eyes, a nose slightly aquiline, and lips now too\r\nclosely pressed together in consequence of the havoc which time had\r\nmade among his teeth. He was tall, but had lost something of his\r\nheight from stooping,--was slight in his form, but well made, and\r\nvain of the smallness of his feet and the whiteness of his hands. He\r\nwas generous, quick tempered, and opinionated; generally very mild to\r\nthose who would agree with him and submit to him, but intolerant of\r\ncontradiction, and conceited as to his experience of the world and\r\nthe wisdom which he had thence derived."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To those who were manifestly\r\nhis inferiors he was affable, to his recognised equals he was\r\ncourteous, to women he was almost always gentle;--but to men who\r\nclaimed an equality which he would not acknowledge, he could make\r\nhimself particularly disagreeable. In judging the position which a\r\nman should hold in the world, Sir Peregrine was very resolute in\r\nignoring all claims made by wealth alone. Even property in land could\r\nnot in his eyes create a gentleman. A gentleman, according to his\r\nideas, should at any rate have great-grandfathers capable of being\r\ntraced in the world's history; and the greater the number of such,\r\nand the more easily traceable they might be on the world's surface,\r\nthe more unquestionable would be the status of the claimant in\r\nquestion. Such being the case, it may be imagined that Joseph Mason,\r\nEsq., of Groby Park did not rank high in the estimation of Sir\r\nPeregrine Orme. I have said that Sir Peregrine was fond of his own opinion; but\r\nnevertheless he was a man whom it was by no means difficult to lead. In the first place he was singularly devoid of suspicion. The word of\r\na man or of a woman was to him always credible, until full proof had\r\ncome home to him that it was utterly unworthy of credit. After that\r\nsuch a man or woman might as well spare all speech as regards the\r\nhope of any effect on the mind of Sir Peregrine Orme."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He did not\r\neasily believe a fellow-creature to be a liar, but a liar to him once\r\nwas a liar always. And then he was amenable to flattery, and few that\r\nare so are proof against the leading-strings of their flatterers. All\r\nthis was well understood of Sir Peregrine by those about him. His\r\ngardener, his groom, and his woodman all knew his foibles. They all\r\nloved him, respected him, and worked for him faithfully; but each of\r\nthem had his own way in his own branch. And there was another person at The Cleeve who took into her own\r\nhands a considerable share of the management and leading of Sir\r\nPeregrine, though, in truth, she made no efforts in that direction. This was Mrs. Orme, the widow of his only child, and the mother of\r\nhis heir. Mrs. Orme was a younger woman than Mrs. Mason of Orley Farm\r\nby nearly five years, though her son was but twelve months junior to\r\nLucius Mason. She had been the daughter of a brother baronet, whose\r\nfamily was nearly as old as that of the Ormes; and therefore, though\r\nshe had come penniless to her husband, Sir Peregrine had considered\r\nthat his son had married well. She had been a great beauty, very\r\nsmall in size and delicate of limb, fair haired, with soft blue\r\nwondering eyes, and a dimpled cheek."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Such she had been when young\r\nPeregrine Orme brought her home to The Cleeve, and the bride at once\r\nbecame the darling of her father-in-law. One year she had owned\r\nof married joy, and then all the happiness of the family had been\r\nutterly destroyed, and for the few following years there had been no\r\nsadder household in all the country-side than that of Sir Peregrine\r\nOrme. His son, his only son, the pride of all who knew him, the hope\r\nof his political party in the county, the brightest among the bright\r\nones of the day for whom the world was just opening her richest\r\ntreasures, fell from his horse as he was crossing into a road, and\r\nhis lifeless body was brought home to The Cleeve. All this happened now twenty years since, but the widow still wears\r\nthe colours of mourning. Of her also the world of course said that\r\nshe would soon console herself with a second love; but she too has\r\ngiven the world the lie. From that day to the present she has never\r\nleft the house of her father-in-law; she has been a true child to\r\nhim, and she has enjoyed all a child's privileges. There has been\r\nbut little favour for any one at The Cleeve who has been considered\r\nby the baronet to disregard the wishes of the mistress of the\r\nestablishment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Any word from her has been law to him, and he has of\r\ncourse expected also that her word should be law to others. He has\r\nyielded to her in all things, and attended to her will as though she\r\nwere a little queen, recognizing in her feminine weakness a sovereign\r\npower, as some men can and do; and having thus for years indulged\r\nhimself in a quixotic gallantry to the lady of his household, he has\r\ndemanded of others that they also should bow the knee. During the last twenty years The Cleeve has not been a gay house. During the last ten those living there have been contented, and in\r\nthe main happy; but there has seldom been many guests in the old\r\nhall, and Sir Peregrine has not been fond of going to other men's\r\nfeasts. He inherited the property very early in life, and then there\r\nwere on it some few encumbrances. While yet a young man he added\r\nsomething to these, and now, since his own son's death, he has been\r\nsetting his house in order, that his grandson should receive the\r\nfamily acres intact."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Every shilling due on the property has been paid\r\noff; and it is well that this should be so, for there is reason to\r\nfear that the heir will want a helping hand out of some of youth's\r\ndifficulties,--perhaps once or twice before his passion for rats\r\ngives place to a good English gentleman-like resolve to hunt twice a\r\nweek, look after his timber, and live well within his means. The chief fault in the character of young Peregrine Orme was that\r\nhe was so young. There are men who are old at one-and-twenty,--are\r\nquite fit for Parliament, the magistrate's bench, the care of a wife,\r\nand even for that much sterner duty, the care of a balance at the\r\nbankers; but there are others who at that age are still boys,--whose\r\ninner persons and characters have not begun to clothe themselves with\r\nthe \"toga virilis.\" I am not sure that those whose boyhoods are so\r\nprotracted have the worst of it, if in this hurrying and competitive\r\nage they can be saved from being absolutely trampled in the dust\r\nbefore they are able to do a little trampling on their own account. Fruit that grows ripe the quickest is not the sweetest; nor when\r\nhoused and garnered will it keep the longest. For young Peregrine\r\nthere was no need of competitive struggles."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The days have not yet\r\ncome, though they are no doubt coming, when \"detur digniori\" shall\r\nbe the rule of succession to all titles, honours, and privileges\r\nwhatsoever. Only think what a life it would give to the education of\r\nthe country in general, if any lad from seventeen to twenty-one could\r\ngo in for a vacant dukedom; and if a goodly inheritance could be\r\nmade absolutely incompatible with incorrect spelling and doubtful\r\nproficiency in rule of three! Luckily for Peregrine junior these days are not yet at hand, or I\r\nfear that there would be little chance for him. While Lucius Mason\r\nwas beginning to think that the chemists might be hurried, and that\r\nagriculture might be beneficially added to philology, our friend\r\nPeregrine had just been rusticated, and the head of his college had\r\nintimated to the baronet that it would be well to take the young\r\nman's name off the college books. This accordingly had been done,\r\nand the heir of The Cleeve was at present at home with his mother\r\nand grandfather. What special act of grace had led to this severity\r\nwe need not inquire, but we may be sure that the frolics of which\r\nhe had been guilty had been essentially young in their nature."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He\r\nhad assisted in driving a farmer's sow into the man's best parlour,\r\nor had daubed the top of the tutor's cap with white paint, or had\r\nperhaps given liberty to a bag full of rats in the college hall at\r\ndinner-time. Such were the youth's academical amusements, and as they\r\nwere pursued with unremitting energy it was thought well that he\r\nshould be removed from Oxford. Then had come the terrible question of his university bills. One\r\nafter another, half a score of them reached Sir Peregrine, and then\r\ntook place that terrible interview,--such as most young men have had\r\nto undergo at least once,--in which he was asked how he intended to\r\nabsolve himself from the pecuniary liabilities which he had incurred. \"I am sure I don't know,\" said young Orme, sadly. \"But I shall be glad, sir, if you will favour me with your\r\nintentions,\" said Sir Peregrine, with severity. \"A gentleman does\r\nnot, I presume, send his orders to a tradesman without having some\r\nintention of paying him for his goods.\" [Illustration: SIR PEREGRINE AND HIS HEIR.] \"I intended that they should all be paid, of course.\" \"And how, sir? by whom?\" \"Well, sir,--I suppose I intended that you should pay them;\" and\r\nthe scapegrace as he spoke looked full up into the baronet's face\r\nwith his bright blue eyes,--not impudently, as though defying his\r\ngrandfather, but with a bold confidence which at once softened the\r\nold man's heart."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Peregrine turned away and walked twice the length of the library;\r\nthen, returning to the spot where the other stood, he put his hand on\r\nhis grandson's shoulder. \"Well, Peregrine, I will pay them,\" he said. \"I have no doubt that you did so intend when you incurred them;--and\r\nthat was perhaps natural. I will pay them; but for your own sake, and\r\nfor your dear mother's sake, I hope that they are not very heavy. Can\r\nyou give me a list of all that you owe?\" Young Peregrine said that he thought he could, and sitting down at\r\nonce he made a clean breast of it. With all his foibles, follies, and\r\nyouthful ignorances, in two respects he stood on good ground. He was\r\nneither false nor a coward. He continued to scrawl down items as long\r\nas there were any of which he could think, and then handed over the\r\nlist in order that his grandfather might add them up. It was the\r\nlast he ever heard of the matter; and when he revisited Oxford some\r\ntwelve months afterwards, the tradesmen whom he had honoured with his\r\ncustom bowed to him as low as though he had already inherited twenty\r\nthousand a year. Peregrine Orme was short in stature as was his mother, and he also\r\nhad his mother's wonderfully bright blue eyes; but in other respects\r\nhe was very like his father and grandfather;--very like all the\r\nOrmes who had lived for ages past."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His hair was light; his forehead\r\nwas not large, but well formed and somewhat prominent; his nose\r\nhad something, though not much, of the eagle's beak; his mouth was\r\nhandsome in its curve, and his teeth were good, and his chin was\r\ndivided by a deep dimple. His figure was not only short, but stouter\r\nthan that of the Ormes in general. He was very strong on his legs; he\r\ncould wrestle, and box, and use the single-stick with a quickness and\r\nprecision that was the terror of all the freshmen who had come in his\r\nway. Mrs. Orme, his mother, no doubt thought that he was perfect. Looking\r\nat the reflex of her own eyes in his, and seeing in his face so sweet\r\na portraiture of the nose and mouth and forehead of him whom she\r\nhad loved so dearly and lost so soon, she could not but think him\r\nperfect. When she was told that the master of Lazarus had desired\r\nthat her son should be removed from his college, she had accused the\r\ntyrant of unrelenting, persecuting tyranny; and the gentle arguments\r\nof Sir Peregrine had no effect towards changing her ideas. On that\r\ndisagreeable matter of the bills little or nothing was said to her. Indeed, money was a subject with which she was never troubled."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir\r\nPeregrine conceived that money was a man's business, and that the\r\nsoftness of a woman's character should be preserved by a total\r\nabsence of all pecuniary thoughts and cares. And then there arose at The Cleeve a question as to what should\r\nimmediately be done with the heir. He himself was by no means so well\r\nprepared with an answer as had been his friend Lucius Mason. When\r\nconsulted by his grandfather, he said that he did not know. He would\r\ndo anything that Sir Peregrine wished. Would Sir Peregrine think\r\nit well that he should prepare himself for the arduous duties of a\r\nmaster of hounds? Sir Peregrine did not think this at all well, but\r\nit did not appear that he himself was prepared with any immediate\r\nproposition. Then Peregrine discussed the matter with his mother,\r\nexplaining that he had hoped at any rate to get the next winter's\r\nhunting with the H.H. ;--which letters have represented the Hamworth\r\nFox Hunt among sporting men for many years past. To this his mother\r\nmade no objection, expressing a hope, however, that he would go\r\nabroad in the spring. \"Home-staying youths have ever homely wits,\"\r\nshe said to him, smiling on him ever so sweetly. \"That's quite true, mother,\" he said. \"And that's why I should like\r\nto go to Leicestershire this winter.\" But going to Leicestershire\r\nthis winter was out of the question. CHAPTER IV. THE PERILS OF YOUTH."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Going to Leicestershire was quite out of the question for young Orme\r\nat this period of his life, but going to London unfortunately was\r\nnot so. He had become acquainted at Oxford with a gentleman of\r\ngreat skill in his peculiar line of life, whose usual residence\r\nwas in the metropolis; and so great had been the attraction found\r\nin the character and pursuits of this skilful gentleman, that our\r\nhero had not been long at The Cleeve, after his retirement from\r\nthe university, before he visited his friend. Cowcross Street,\r\nSmithfield, was the site of this professor's residence, the\r\ndestruction of rats in a barrel was his profession, and his name\r\nwas Carroty Bob. It is not my intention to introduce the reader to\r\nCarroty Bob in person, as circumstances occurred about this time\r\nwhich brought his intimacy with Mr. Orme to an abrupt conclusion. It\r\nwould be needless to tell how our hero was induced to back a certain\r\nterrier, presumed to be the pride of Smithfield; how a great match\r\ncame off, second only in importance to a contest for the belt of\r\nEngland; how money was lost and quarrels arose, and how Peregrine\r\nOrme thrashed one sporting gent within an inch of his life, and\r\nfought his way out of Carroty Bob's house at twelve o'clock at night. The tale of the row got into the newspapers, and of course reached\r\nThe Cleeve."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Peregrine sent for his grandson into his study, and\r\ninsisted on knowing everything;--how much money there was to pay, and\r\nwhat chance there might be of an action and damages. Of an action and\r\ndamages there did not seem to be any chance, and the amount of money\r\nclaimed was not large. Rats have this advantage, that they usually\r\ncome cheaper than race-horses; but then, as Sir Peregrine felt\r\nsorely, they do not sound so well. \"Do you know, sir, that you are breaking your mother's heart?\" said\r\nSir Peregrine, looking very sternly at the young man--as sternly as\r\nhe was able to look, let him do his worst. Peregrine the younger had a very strong idea that he was not doing\r\nanything of the kind. He had left her only a quarter of an hour\r\nsince; and though she had wept during the interview, she had forgiven\r\nhim with many caresses, and had expressed her opinion that the chief\r\nfault had lain with Carroty Bob and those other wretched people\r\nwho had lured her dear child into their villainous den. She had\r\naltogether failed to conceal her pride at his having fought his way\r\nout from among them, and had ended by supplying his pocket out of\r\nher own immediate resources. \"I hope not, sir,\" said Peregrine the\r\nyounger, thinking over some of these things. \"But you will, sir, if you go on with this shameless career. I do not\r\nspeak of myself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I do not expect you to sacrifice your tastes for me;\r\nbut I did think that you loved your mother!\" \"So I do;--and you too.\" \"I am not speaking about myself sir. When I think what your father\r\nwas at your age;--how nobly--\" And then the baronet was stopped in\r\nhis speech, and wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. \"Do you think\r\nthat your father, sir, followed such pursuits as these? Do you think\r\nthat he spent his time in the pursuit of--rats?\" \"Well; I don't know; I don't think he did. But I have heard you say,\r\nsir, that you sometimes went to cockfights when you were young.\" \"To cockfights! well, yes. But let me tell you, sir, that I always\r\nwent in the company of gentlemen--that is, when I did go, which was\r\nvery seldom.\" The baronet in some after-dinner half-hour had allowed\r\nthis secret of his youth to escape from him, imprudently. \"And I went to the house in Cowcross Street with Lord John Fitzjoly.\" \"The last man in all London with whom you ought to associate! But I\r\nam not going to argue with you, sir. If you think, and will continue\r\nto think, that the slaughtering of vermin is a proper pursuit--\"\r\n\r\n\"But, sir, foxes are vermin also.\" \"Hold your tongue, sir, and listen to me. You know very well what\r\nI mean, sir."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If you think that--rats are a proper pursuit for a\r\ngentleman in your sphere of life, and if all that I can say has\r\nno effect in changing your opinion--I shall have done. I have not\r\nmany years of life before me, and when I shall be no more, you can\r\nsquander the property in any vile pursuits that may be pleasing to\r\nyou. But, sir, you shall not do it while I am living; nor, if I can\r\nhelp it, shall you rob your mother of such peace of mind as is left\r\nfor her in this world. I have only one alternative for you, sir--.\" Sir Peregrine did not stop to explain what might be the other branch\r\nof this alternative. \"Will you give me your word of honour as\r\na gentleman that you will never again concern yourself in this\r\ndisgusting pursuit?\" \"Never, grandfather!\" said Peregrine, solemnly. Sir Peregrine before he answered bethought himself that any pledge\r\ngiven for a whole life-time must be foolish; and he bethought himself\r\nalso that if he could wean his heir from rats for a year or so, the\r\ntaste would perish from lack of nourishment. \"I will say for two\r\nyears,\" said Sir Peregrine, still maintaining his austere look. \"For two years!\" repeated Peregrine the younger; \"and this is the\r\nfourth of October.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Yes, sir; for two years,\" said the baronet, more angry than ever at\r\nthe young man's pertinacity, and yet almost amused at his grandson's\r\nalready formed resolve to go back to his occupation at the first\r\nopportunity allowed. \"Couldn't you date it from the end of August, sir? The best of the\r\nmatches always come off in September.\" \"No, sir; I will not date it from any other time than the present. Will you give me your word of honour as a gentleman, for two years?\" Peregrine thought over the proposition for a minute or two in sad\r\nanticipation of all that he was to lose, and then slowly gave his\r\nadhesion to the terms. \"Very well, sir;--for two years.\" And then he\r\ntook out his pocket-book and wrote in it slowly. It was at any rate manifest that he intended to keep his word, and\r\nthat was much; so Sir Peregrine accepted the promise for what it was\r\nworth. \"And now,\" said he, \"if you have got nothing better to do, we\r\nwill ride down to Crutchley Wood.\" \"I should like it of all things,\" said his grandson. \"Samson wants me to cut a new bridle-path through from the larches at\r\nthe top of the hill down to Crutchley Bottom; but I don't think I'll\r\nhave it done. Tell Jacob to let us have the nags; I'll ride the gray\r\npony. And ask your mother if she'll ride with us.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was the manner of Sir Peregrine to forgive altogether when he did\r\nforgive; and to commence his forgiveness in all its integrity from\r\nthe first moment of the pardon. There was nothing he disliked so\r\nmuch as being on bad terms with those around him, and with none more\r\nso than with his grandson. Peregrine well knew how to make himself\r\npleasant to the old man, and when duly encouraged would always do so. And thus the family party, as they rode on this occasion through the\r\nwoods of The Cleeve, discussed oaks and larches, beech and birches,\r\nas though there were no such animal as a rat in existence, and no\r\nsuch place known as Cowcross Street. \"Well, Perry, as you and Samson are both of one mind, I suppose the\r\npath must be made,\" said Sir Peregrine, as he got off his horse at\r\nthe entrance of the stable-yard, and prepared to give his feeble aid\r\nto Mrs. Orme. Shortly after this the following note was brought up to The Cleeve by\r\na messenger from Orley Farm:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   MY DEAR SIR PEREGRINE,\r\n\r\n   If you are quite disengaged at twelve o'clock to-morrow, I\r\n   will walk over to The Cleeve at that hour. Or if it would\r\n   suit you better to call here as you are riding, I would\r\n   remain within till you come. I want your kind advice on a\r\n   certain matter. Most sincerely yours,\r\n\r\n   MARY MASON. Thursday."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lady Mason, when she wrote this note, was well aware that it would\r\nnot be necessary for her to go to The Cleeve. Sir Peregrine's\r\ncourtesy would not permit him to impose any trouble on a lady when\r\nthe alternative of taking that trouble on himself was given to him. Moreover, he liked to have some object for his daily ride; he liked\r\nto be consulted \"on certain matters;\" and he especially liked being\r\nso consulted by Lady Mason. So he sent word back that he would be at\r\nthe farm at twelve on the following day, and exactly at that hour his\r\ngray pony or cob might have been seen slowly walking up the avenue to\r\nthe farm-house. The Cleeve was not distant from Orley Farm more than two miles by\r\nthe nearest walking-path, although it could not be driven much under\r\nfive. With any sort of carriage one was obliged to come from The\r\nCleeve House down to the lodge on the Hamworth and Alston road, and\r\nthen to drive through the town of Hamworth, and so back to the farm. But in walking one would take the path along the river for nearly a\r\nmile, thence rise up the hill to the top of Crutchley Wood, descend\r\nthrough the wood to Crutchley Bottom, and, passing along the valley,\r\ncome out at the foot of Cleeve Hill, just opposite to Orley Farm\r\nGate."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The distance for a horseman was somewhat greater, seeing that\r\nthere was not as yet any bridle-way through Crutchley Wood. Under\r\nthese circumstances the journey between the two houses was very\r\nfrequently made on foot; and for those walking from The Cleeve House\r\nto Hamworth the nearest way was by Lady Mason's gate. Lady Mason's drawing-room was very pretty, though it was by no means\r\nfashionably furnished. Indeed, she eschewed fashion in all things,\r\nand made no pretence of coming out before the world as a great lady. She had never kept any kind of carriage, though her means, combined\r\nwith her son's income, would certainly have justified her in a\r\npony-chaise. Since Lucius had become master of the house he had\r\npresented her with such a vehicle, and also with the pony and harness\r\ncomplete; but as yet she had never used it, being afraid, as she said\r\nto him with a smile, of appearing ambitious before the stern citizens\r\nof Hamworth. \"Nonsense, mother,\" he had replied, with a considerable\r\namount of young dignity in his face. \"We are all entitled to those\r\ncomforts for which we can afford to pay without injury to any one. I\r\nshall take it ill of you if I do not see you using it.\" \"Oh, Sir Peregrine, this is so kind of you,\" said Lady Mason, coming\r\nforward to meet her friend."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was plainly dressed, without any full\r\nexuberance of costume, and yet everything about her was neat and\r\npretty, and everything had been the object of feminine care. A very\r\nplain dress may occasion as much study as the most elaborate,--and\r\nmay be quite as worthy of the study it has caused. Lady Mason, I am\r\ninclined to think, was by no means indifferent to the subject, but\r\nthen to her belonged the great art of hiding her artifice. \"Not at all; not at all,\" said Sir Peregrine, taking her hand and\r\npressing it, as he always did. \"What is the use of neighbours if they\r\nare not neighbourly?\" This was all very well from Sir Peregrine in\r\nthe existing case; but he was not a man who by any means recognised\r\nthe necessity of being civil to all who lived near him. To the great\r\nand to the poor he was neighbourly; but it may be doubted whether\r\nhe would have thought much of Lady Mason if she had been less good\r\nlooking or less clever. \"Ah! I know how good you always are to me. But I'll tell you why I am\r\ntroubling you now. Lucius went off two days since to Liverpool.\" \"My grandson told me that he had left home.\" \"He is an excellent young man, and I am sure that I have every reason\r\nto be thankful.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Peregrine, remembering the affair in Cowcross\r\nStreet, and certain other affairs of a somewhat similar nature,\r\nthought that she had; but for all that he would not have exchanged\r\nhis own bright-eyed lad for Lucius Mason with all his virtues and all\r\nhis learning. \"And indeed I am thankful,\" continued the widow. \"Nothing can be\r\nbetter than his conduct and mode of life; but--\"\r\n\r\n\"I hope he has no attraction at Liverpool, of which you disapprove.\" \"No, no; there is nothing of that kind. His attraction is--; but\r\nperhaps I had better explain the whole matter. Lucius, you know, has\r\ntaken to farming.\" \"He has taken up the land which you held yourself, has he not?\" \"Yes, and a little more; and he is anxious to add even to that. He is\r\nvery energetic about it, Sir Peregrine.\" \"Well; the life of a gentleman farmer is not a bad one; though in\r\nhis special circumstances I would certainly have recommended a\r\nprofession.\" \"Acting upon your advice I did urge him to go to the bar. But he has\r\na will of his own, and a mind altogether made up as to the line of\r\nlife which he thinks will suit him best. What I fear now is, that he\r\nwill spend more money upon experiments than he can afford.\" \"Experimental farming is an expensive amusement,\" said Sir Peregrine,\r\nwith a very serious shake of his head."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I am afraid it is; and now he has gone to Liverpool to buy--guano,\"\r\nsaid the widow, feeling some little shame in coming to so\r\ninconsiderable a conclusion after her somewhat stately prologue. \"To buy guano! Why could he not get his guano from Walker, as my man\r\nSymonds does?\" \"He says it is not good. He analyzed it, and--\"\r\n\r\n\"Fiddlestick! Why didn't he order it in London, if he didn't like\r\nWalker's. Gone to Liverpool for guano! I'll tell you what it is, Lady\r\nMason; if he intends to farm his land in that way, he should have a\r\nvery considerable capital at his back. It will be a long time before\r\nhe sees his money again.\" Sir Peregrine had been farming all his\r\nlife, and had his own ideas on the subject. He knew very well that no\r\ngentleman, let him set to work as he might with his own land, could\r\ndo as well with it as a farmer who must make a living out of his\r\nfarming besides paying the rent;--who must do that or else have no\r\nliving; and he knew also that such operations as those which his\r\nyoung friend was now about to attempt was an amusement fitted only\r\nfor the rich. It may be also that he was a little old-fashioned, and\r\ntherefore prejudiced against new combinations between agriculture and\r\nchemistry."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"He must put a stop to that kind of work very soon, Lady\r\nMason; he must indeed; or he will bring himself to ruin--and you with\r\nhim.\" Lady Mason's face became very grave and serious. \"But what can I say\r\nto him, Sir Peregrine? In such a matter as that I am afraid that he\r\nwould not mind me. If you would not object to speaking to him?\" Sir Peregrine was graciously pleased to say that he would not object. It was a disagreeable task, he said, that of giving advice to a young\r\nman who was bound by no tie either to take it or even to receive it\r\nwith respect. \"You will not find him at all disrespectful; I think I can promise\r\nthat,\" said the frightened mother; and that matter was ended by a\r\npromise on the part of the baronet to take the case in hand, and to\r\nsee Lucius immediately on his return from Liverpool. \"He had better\r\ncome and dine at The Cleeve,\" said Sir Peregrine, \"and we will have\r\nit out after dinner.\" All of which made Lady Mason very grateful. CHAPTER V.\r\n\r\nSIR PEREGRINE MAKES A SECOND PROMISE. We left Lady Mason very grateful at the end of the last chapter for\r\nthe promise made to her by Sir Peregrine with reference to her son;\r\nbut there was still a weight on Lady Mason's mind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They say that the\r\npith of a lady's letter is in the postscript, and it may be that that\r\nwhich remained for Lady Mason to say, was after all the matter as to\r\nwhich she was most anxious for assistance. \"As you are here,\" she\r\nsaid to the baronet, \"would you let me mention another subject?\" \"Surely,\" said he, again putting down his hat and riding-stick. Sir Peregrine was not given to close observation of those around him,\r\nor he might have seen by the heightened colour of the lady's face,\r\nand by the slight nervous hesitation with which she began to speak,\r\nthat she was much in earnest as to this other matter. And had he been\r\nclever in his powers of observation he might have seen also that she\r\nwas anxious to hide this feeling. \"You remember the circumstances of\r\nthat terrible lawsuit?\" she said, at last. \"What; as to Sir Joseph's will? Yes; I remember them well.\" \"I know that I shall never forget all the kindness that you showed\r\nme,\" said she. \"I don't know how I should have lived through it\r\nwithout you and dear Mrs. Orme.\" \"But what about it now?\" \"I fear I am going to have further trouble.\" \"Do you mean that the man at Groby Park is going to try the case\r\nagain? It is not possible after such a lapse of time. I am no lawyer,\r\nbut I do not think that he can do it.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I do not know--I do not know what he intends, or whether he intends\r\nanything; but I am sure of this,--that he will give me trouble if he\r\ncan. But I will tell you the whole story, Sir Peregrine. It is not\r\nmuch, and perhaps after all may not be worth attention. You know the\r\nattorney in Hamworth who married Miriam Usbech?\" \"What, Samuel Dockwrath? Oh, yes; I know him well enough; and to tell\r\nthe truth I do not think very well of him. Is he not a tenant of\r\nyours?\" \"Not at present.\" And then Lady Mason explained the manner in which\r\nthe two fields had been taken out of the lawyer's hands by her son's\r\norder. \"Ah! he was wrong there,\" said the baronet. \"When a man has held land\r\nso long it should not be taken away from him except under pressing\r\ncircumstances; that is if he pays his rent.\" \"Mr. Dockwrath did pay his rent, certainly; and now, I fear, he is\r\ndetermined to do all he can to injure us.\" \"But what injury can Mr. Dockwrath do you?\" \"I do not know, but he has gone down to Yorkshire,--to Mr. Mason's\r\nplace; I know that; and he was searching through some papers of old\r\nMr. Usbech's before he went. Indeed, I may say that I know as a\r\nfact that he has gone to Mr. Mason with the hope that these law\r\nproceedings may be brought on again.\" \"You know it as a fact?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I think I may say so.\" \"But, dear Lady Mason, may I ask you how you know this as a fact?\" \"His wife was with me yesterday,\" she said, with some feeling of\r\nshame as she disclosed the source from whence she had obtained her\r\ninformation. \"And did she tell the tale against her own husband?\" \"Not as meaning to say anything against him, Sir Peregrine; you\r\nmust not think so badly of her as that; nor must you think that I\r\nwould willingly obtain information in such a manner. But you must\r\nunderstand that I have always been her friend; and when she found\r\nthat Mr. Dockwrath had left home on a matter in which I am so nearly\r\nconcerned, I cannot but think it natural that she should let me\r\nknow.\" To this Sir Peregrine made no direct answer. He could not quite say\r\nthat he thought it was natural, nor could he give any expressed\r\napproval of any such intercourse between Lady Mason and the\r\nattorney's wife. He thought it would be better that Mr. Dockwrath\r\nshould be allowed to do his worst, if he had any intention of doing\r\nevil, and that Lady Mason should pass it by without condescending to\r\nnotice the circumstance. But he made allowances for her weakness, and\r\ndid not give utterance to his disapproval in words."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I know you think that I have done wrong,\" she then said, appealing\r\nto him; and there was a tone of sorrow in her voice which went to his\r\nheart. \"No, not wrong; I cannot say that you have done wrong. It may be a\r\nquestion whether you have done wisely.\" \"Ah! if you only condemn my folly, I will not despair. It is probable\r\nI may not have done wisely, seeing that I had not you to direct me. But what shall I do now? Oh, Sir Peregrine, say that you will not\r\ndesert me if all this trouble is coming on me again!\" \"No, I will not desert you, Lady Mason; you may be sure of that.\" \"Dearest friend!\" \"But I would advise you to take no notice whatever of Mr. Dockwrath\r\nand his proceedings. I regard him as a person entirely beneath your\r\nnotice, and if I were you I should not move at all in this matter\r\nunless I received some legal summons which made it necessary for me\r\nto do so. I have not the honour of any personal acquaintance with Mr.\r\nMason of Groby Park.\" It was in this way that Sir Peregrine always\r\ndesignated his friend's stepson--\"but if I understand the motives by\r\nwhich he may probably be actuated in this or in any other matter,\r\nI do not think it likely that he will expend money on so very\r\nunpromising a case.\" \"He would do anything for vengeance.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I doubt if he would throw away his money even for that, unless he\r\nwere very sure of his prey. And in this matter, what can he possibly\r\ndo? He has the decision of the jury against him, and at the time he\r\nwas afraid to carry the case up to a court of appeal.\" \"But, Sir Peregrine, it is impossible to know what documents he may\r\nhave obtained since that.\" \"What documents can do you any harm;--unless, indeed, there should\r\nturn out to be a will subsequent to that under which your son\r\ninherits the property?\" \"Oh, no; there was no subsequent will.\" \"Of course there was not; and therefore you need not frighten\r\nyourself. It is just possible that some attempt may be made now that\r\nyour son is of age, but I regard even that as improbable.\" \"And you would not advise me then to say anything to Mr. Furnival?\" \"No; certainly not--unless you receive some legal notice which may\r\nmake it necessary for you to consult a lawyer. Do nothing; and if\r\nMrs. Dockwrath comes to you again, tell her that you are not disposed\r\nto take any notice of her information. Mrs. Dockwrath is, I am sure,\r\na very good sort of woman. Indeed I have always heard so. But, if\r\nI were you, I don't think that I should feel inclined to have much\r\nconversation with her about my private affairs. What you tell her you\r\ntell also to her husband.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then the baronet, having thus spoken\r\nwords of wisdom, sat silent in his arm-chair; and Lady Mason, still\r\nlooking into his face, remained silent also for a few minutes. \"I am so glad I asked you to come,\" she then said. \"I am delighted, if I have been of any service to you.\" \"Of any service! oh, Sir Peregrine, you cannot understand what it is\r\nto live alone as I do,--for of course I cannot trouble Lucius with\r\nthese matters; nor can a man, gifted as you are, comprehend how a\r\nwoman can tremble at the very idea that those law proceedings may\r\npossibly be repeated.\" Sir Peregrine could not but remember as he looked at her that during\r\nall those law proceedings, when an attack was made, not only on her\r\nincome but on her honesty, she had never seemed to tremble. She had\r\nalways been constant to herself, even when things appeared to be\r\ngoing against her. But years passing over her head since that time\r\nhad perhaps told upon her courage. \"But I will fear nothing now, as you have promised that you will\r\nstill be my friend.\" \"You may be very sure of that, Lady Mason. I believe that I may\r\nfairly boast that I do not easily abandon those whom I have once\r\nregarded with esteem and affection; among whom Lady Mason will, I am\r\nsure, allow me to say that she is reckoned as by no means the least.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then taking her hand, the old gentleman bowed over it and kissed\r\nit. \"My dearest, dearest friend!\" said she; and lifting Sir Peregrine's\r\nbeautifully white hand to her lips she also kissed that. It will be\r\nremembered that the gentleman was over seventy, and that this pretty\r\nscene could therefore be enacted without impropriety on either side. Sir Peregrine then went, and as he passed out of the door Lady\r\nMason smiled on him very sweetly. It is quite true that he was over\r\nseventy; but nevertheless the smile of a pretty woman still had\r\ncharms for him, more especially if there was a tear in her eye the\r\nwhile;--for Sir Peregrine Orme had a soft heart. As soon as the door was closed behind him Lady Mason seated herself\r\nin her accustomed chair, and all trace of the smile vanished from her\r\nface. She was alone now, and could allow her countenance to be a true\r\nindex of her mind. If such was the case her heart surely was very\r\nsad. She sat there perfectly still for nearly an hour, and during the\r\nwhole of that time there was the same look of agony on her brow. Once\r\nor twice she rubbed her hands across her forehead, brushing back her\r\nhair, and showing, had there been any one by to see it, that there\r\nwas many a gray lock there mixed with the brown hairs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had there been\r\nany one by, she would, it may be surmised, have been more careful. There was no smile in her face now, neither was there any tear in her\r\neye. The one and the other emblem were equally alien to her present\r\nmood. But there was sorrow at her heart, and deep thought in her\r\nmind. She knew that her enemies were conspiring against her,--against\r\nher and against her son; and what steps might she best take in order\r\nthat she might baffle them? [Illustration: There was sorrow in her heart,\r\nand deep thought in her mind.] \"I have got that woman on the hip now.\" Those were the words which\r\nMr. Dockwrath had uttered into his wife's ears, after two days spent\r\nin searching through her father's papers. The poor woman had once\r\nthought of burning all those papers--in old days before she had\r\nbecome Mrs. Dockwrath. Her friend, Lady Mason, had counselled her\r\nto do so, pointing out to her that they were troublesome, and could\r\nby no possibility lead to profit; but she had consulted her lover,\r\nand he had counselled her to burn nothing. \"Would that she had been\r\nguided by her friend!\" she now said to herself with regard to that\r\nold trunk, and perhaps occasionally with regard to some other things. \"I have got that woman on the hip at last!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "and there had been a\r\ngleam of satisfaction in Samuel's eye as he uttered the words which\r\nhad convinced his wife that it was not an idle threat. She knew\r\nnothing of what the box had contained; and now, even if it had not\r\nbeen kept safe from her under Samuel's private key, the contents\r\nwhich were of interest had of course gone. \"I have business in the\r\nnorth, and shall be away for about a week,\" Mr. Dockwrath had said to\r\nher on the following morning. \"Oh, very well; then I'll put up your things,\" she had answered in\r\nher usual mild, sad, whining, household voice. Her voice at home was\r\nalways sad and whining, for she was overworked, and had too many\r\ncares, and her lord was a tyrant to her rather than a husband. \"Yes, I must see Mr. Mason immediately. And look here, Miriam, I\r\npositively insist that you do not go to Orley Farm, or hold any\r\nintercourse whatever with Lady Mason. D'ye hear?\" Mrs. Dockwrath said that she did hear, and promised obedience. Mr.\r\nDockwrath probably guessed that the moment his back was turned all\r\nwould be told at the farm, and probably also had no real objection to\r\nher doing so. Had he in truth wished to keep his proceedings secret\r\nfrom Lady Mason he would not have divulged them to his wife."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then\r\nMr. Dockwrath did start for the north, bearing certain documents with\r\nhim; and soon after his departure Mrs. Dockwrath did pay a visit to\r\nOrley Farm. Lady Mason sat there perfectly still for about an hour thinking what\r\nshe would do. She had asked Sir Peregrine, and had the advantage of\r\nhis advice; but that did not weigh much with her. What she wanted\r\nfrom Sir Peregrine was countenance and absolute assistance in the\r\nday of trouble,--not advice. She had desired to renew his interest\r\nin her favour, and to receive from him his assurance that he would\r\nnot desert her; and that she had obtained. It was of course also\r\nnecessary that she should consult him; but in turning over within her\r\nown mind this and that line of conduct, she did not, consciously,\r\nattach any weight to Sir Peregrine's opinion. The great question for\r\nher to decide was this;--should she put herself and her case into the\r\nhands of her friend Mr. Furnival now at once, or should she wait till\r\nshe had received some certain symptom of hostile proceedings? If she\r\ndid see Mr. Furnival, what could she tell him? Only this, that Mr.\r\nDockwrath had found some document among the papers of old Mr. Usbech,\r\nand had gone off with the same to Groby Park in Yorkshire. What that\r\ndocument might be she was as ignorant as the attorney's wife."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When the hour was ended she had made up her mind that she would do\r\nnothing more in the matter, at any rate on that day. CHAPTER VI. THE COMMERCIAL ROOM, BULL INN, LEEDS. Mr. Samuel Dockwrath was a little man, with sandy hair, a pale face,\r\nand stone-blue eyes. In judging of him by appearance only and not by\r\nthe ear, one would be inclined to doubt that he could be a very sharp\r\nattorney abroad and a very persistent tyrant at home. But when Mr.\r\nDockwrath began to talk, one's respect for him began to grow. He\r\ntalked well and to the point, and with a tone of voice that could\r\ncommand where command was possible, persuade where persuasion was\r\nrequired, mystify when mystification was needed, and express with\r\naccuracy the tone of an obedient humble servant when servility was\r\nthought to be expedient. We will now accompany him on his little tour\r\ninto Yorkshire. Groby Park is about seven miles from Leeds, and as Mr. Dockwrath had\r\nin the first instance to travel from Hamworth up to London, he did\r\nnot reach Leeds till late in the evening."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was a nasty, cold,\r\ndrizzling night, so that the beauties and marvels of the large\r\nmanufacturing town offered him no attraction, and at nine o'clock\r\nhe had seated himself before the fire in the commercial room at The\r\nBull, had called for a pair of public slippers, and was about to\r\nsolace all his cares with a glass of mahogany-coloured brandy and\r\nwater and a cigar. The room had no present occupant but himself, and\r\ntherefore he was able to make the most of all its comforts. He had\r\ntaken the solitary arm-chair, and had so placed himself that the gas\r\nwould fall direct from behind his head on to that day's \"Leeds and\r\nHalifax Chronicle,\" as soon as he should choose to devote himself to\r\nlocal politics. The waiter had looked at him with doubtful eyes when he asked to be\r\nshown into the commercial room, feeling all but confident that such a\r\nguest had no right to be there. He had no bulky bundles of samples,\r\nnor any of those outward characteristics of a commercial \"gent\" with\r\nwhich all men conversant with the rail and road are acquainted, and\r\nwhich the accustomed eye of a waiter recognises at a glance. And\r\nhere it may be well to explain that ordinary travellers are in this\r\nrespect badly treated by the customs of England, or rather by the\r\nhotel-keepers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All inn-keepers have commercial rooms, as certainly\r\nas they have taps and bars, but all of them do not have commercial\r\nrooms in the properly exclusive sense. A stranger, therefore, who has\r\nasked for and obtained his mutton-chop in the commercial room of The\r\nDolphin, The Bear, and The George, not unnaturally asks to be shown\r\ninto the same chamber at the King's Head. But the King's Head does a\r\nbusiness with real commercials, and the stranger finds himself--out\r\nof his element. \"'Mercial, sir?\" said the waiter at The Bull Inn, Leeds, to Mr.\r\nDockwrath, in that tone of doubt which seemed to carry an answer to\r\nhis own question. But Mr. Dockwrath was not a man to be put down by\r\na waiter. \"Yes,\" said he. \"Didn't you hear me say so?\" And then the\r\nwaiter gave way. None of those lords of the road were in the house at\r\nthe moment, and it might be that none would come that night. Mr. Dockwrath had arrived by the 8.22 P.M. down, but the 8.45 P.M. up\r\nfrom the north followed quick upon his heels, and he had hardly put\r\nhis brandy and water to his mouth before a rush and a sound of many\r\nvoices were heard in the hall. There is a great difference between\r\nthe entrance into an inn of men who are not known there and of\r\nmen who are known."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The men who are not known are shy, diffident,\r\ndoubtful, and anxious to propitiate the chambermaid by great\r\ncourtesy. The men who are known are loud, jocular, and assured;--or\r\nelse, in case of deficient accommodation, loud, angry, and full of\r\nthreats. The guests who had now arrived were well known, and seemed\r\nat present to be in the former mood. \"Well, Mary, my dear, what's the\r\ntime of day with you?\" said a rough, bass voice, within the hearing\r\nof Mr. Dockwrath. \"Much about the old tune, Mr. Moulder,\" said the\r\ngirl at the bar. \"Time to look alive and keep moving. Will you have\r\nthem boxes up stairs, Mr. Kantwise?\" and then there were a few words\r\nabout the luggage, and two real commercial gentlemen walked into the\r\nroom. Mr. Dockwrath resolved to stand upon his rights, so he did not move\r\nhis chair, but looked up over his shoulder at the new comers. The\r\nfirst man who entered was short and very fat;--so fat that he could\r\nnot have seen his own knees for some considerable time past. His face\r\nrolled with fat, as also did all his limbs. His eyes were large, and\r\nbloodshot. He wore no beard, and therefore showed plainly the triple\r\nbagging of his fat chin. In spite of his overwhelming fatness, there\r\nwas something in his face that was masterful and almost vicious. His\r\nbody had been overcome by eating, but not as yet his spirit--one\r\nwould be inclined to say."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This was Mr. Moulder, well known on the\r\nroad as being in the grocery and spirit line; a pushing man, who\r\nunderstood his business, and was well trusted by his firm in spite of\r\nhis habitual intemperance. What did the firm care whether or no he\r\nkilled himself by eating and drinking? He sold his goods, collected\r\nhis money, and made his remittances. If he got drunk at night that\r\nwas nothing to them, seeing that he always did his quota of work the\r\nnext day. But Mr. Moulder did not get drunk. His brandy and water\r\nwent into his blood, and into his eyes, and into his feet, and into\r\nhis hands,--but not into his brain. The other was a little square man in the hardware line, of the name\r\nof Kantwise. He disposed of fire-irons, grates, ovens, and kettles,\r\nand was at the present moment heavily engaged in the sale of certain\r\nnewly-invented metallic tables and chairs lately brought out by the\r\nPatent Steel Furniture Company, for which Mr. Kantwise did business. He looked as though a skin rather too small for the purpose had been\r\ndrawn over his head and face so that his forehead and cheeks and chin\r\nwere tight and shiny. His eyes were small and green, always moving\r\nabout in his head, and were seldom used by Mr. Kantwise in the\r\nordinary way."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At whatever he looked he looked sideways; it was not\r\nthat he did not look you in the face, but he always looked at you\r\nwith a sidelong glance, never choosing to have you straight in front\r\nof him. And the more eager he was in conversation--the more anxious\r\nhe might be to gain his point, the more he averted his face and\r\nlooked askance; so that sometimes he would prefer to have his\r\nantagonist almost behind his shoulder. And then as he did this, he\r\nwould thrust forward his chin, and having looked at you round the\r\ncorner till his eyes were nearly out of his head, he would close\r\nthem both and suck in his lips, and shake his head with rapid little\r\nshakes, as though he were saying to himself, \"Ah, sir! you're a bad\r\nun, a very bad un.\" His nose--for I should do Mr. Kantwise injustice\r\nif I did not mention this feature--seemed to have been compressed\r\nalmost into nothing by that skin-squeezing operation. It was long\r\nenough, taking the measurement down the bridge, and projected\r\nsufficiently, counting the distance from the upper lip; but it had\r\nall the properties of a line; it possessed length without breadth. There was nothing in it from side to side. If you essayed to pull it,\r\nyour fingers would meet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When I shall have also said that the hair\r\non Mr. Kantwise's head stood up erect all round to the height of two\r\ninches, and that it was very red, I shall have been accurate enough\r\nin his personal description. That Mr. Moulder represented a firm good business, doing tea, coffee,\r\nand British brandy on a well-established basis of capital and profit,\r\nthe travelling commercial world in the north of England was well\r\naware. No one entertained any doubt about his employers, Hubbles and\r\nGrease of Houndsditch. Hubbles and Grease were all right, as they had\r\nbeen any time for the last twenty years. But I cannot say that there\r\nwas quite so strong a confidence felt in the Patent Steel Furniture\r\nCompany generally, or in the individual operations of Mr. Kantwise\r\nin particular. The world in Yorkshire and Lancashire was doubtful\r\nabout metallic tables, and it was thought that Mr. Kantwise was too\r\neloquent in their praise. Mr. Moulder when he had entered the room, stood still, to enable\r\nthe waiter to peel off from him his greatcoat and the large shawl\r\nwith which his neck was enveloped, and Mr. Kantwise performed the\r\nsame operation for himself, carefully folding up the articles of\r\nclothing as he took them off. Then Mr. Moulder fixed his eyes on Mr.\r\nDockwrath, and stared at him very hard. \"Who's the party, James?\" he\r\nsaid to the waiter, speaking in a whisper that was plainly heard by\r\nthe attorney."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Gen'elman by the 8.22 down,\" said James. \"Commercial?\" asked Mr. Moulder, with angry frown. \"He says so himself, anyways,\" said the waiter. \"Gammon!\" replied Mr. Moulder, who knew all the bearings of a\r\ncommercial man thoroughly, and could have put one together if he were\r\nonly supplied with a little bit--say the mouth, as Professor Owen\r\nalways does with the Dodoes. Mr. Moulder now began to be angry, for\r\nhe was a stickler for the rights and privileges of his class, and had\r\nan idea that the world was not so conservative in that respect as it\r\nshould be. Mr. Dockwrath, however, was not to be frightened, so he\r\ndrew his chair a thought nearer to the fire, took a sup of brandy and\r\nwater, and prepared himself for war if war should be necessary. \"Cold evening, sir, for the time of year,\" said Mr. Moulder, walking\r\nup to the fireplace, and rolling the lumps of his forehead about in\r\nhis attempt at a frown. In spite of his terrible burden of flesh, Mr.\r\nMoulder could look angry on occasions, but he could only do so when\r\nhe was angry. He was not gifted with a command of his facial muscles. \"Yes,\" said Mr. Dockwrath, not taking his eyes from off the Leeds\r\nand Halifax Chronicle. \"It is coldish. Waiter, bring me a cigar.\" This was very provoking, as must be confessed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Moulder had not\r\nbeen prepared to take any step towards turning the gentleman out,\r\nthough doubtless he might have done so had he chosen to exercise\r\nhis prerogative. But he did expect that the gentleman would have\r\nacknowledged the weakness of his footing, by moving himself a little\r\ntowards one side of the fire, and he did not expect that he would\r\nhave presumed to smoke without asking whether the practice was\r\nheld to be objectionable by the legal possessors of the room. Mr.\r\nDockwrath was free of any such pusillanimity. \"Waiter,\" he said\r\nagain, \"bring me a cigar, d'ye hear?\" The great heart of Moulder could not stand this unmoved. He had been\r\nan accustomed visitor to that room for fifteen years, and had always\r\ndone his best to preserve the commercial code unsullied. He was now\r\nso well known, that no one else ever presumed to take the chair\r\nat the four o'clock commercial dinner if he were present. It was\r\nincumbent on him to stand forward and make a fight, more especially\r\nin the presence of Kantwise, who was by no means stanch to his order. Kantwise would at all times have been glad to have outsiders in the\r\nroom, in order that he might puff his tables, and if possible effect\r\na sale;--a mode of proceeding held in much aversion by the upright,\r\nold-fashioned, commercial mind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Sir,\" said Mr. Moulder, having become very red about the cheeks and\r\nchin, \"I and this gentleman are going to have a bit of supper, and it\r\nain't accustomed to smoke in commercial rooms during meals. You know\r\nthe rules no doubt if you're commercial yourself;--as I suppose you\r\nare, seeing you in this room.\" Now Mr. Moulder was wrong in his law, as he himself was very well\r\naware. Smoking is allowed in all commercial rooms when the dinner has\r\nbeen some hour or so off the table. But then it was necessary that he\r\nshould hit the stranger in some way, and the chances were that the\r\nstranger would know nothing about commercial law. Nor did he; so he\r\nmerely looked Mr. Moulder hard in the face. But Mr. Kantwise knew the\r\nlaws well enough, and as he saw before him a possible purchaser of\r\nmetallic tables, he came to the assistance of the attorney. \"I think you are a little wrong there, Mr. Moulder; eh; ain't you?\" said he. \"Wrong about what?\" said Moulder, turning very sharply upon his\r\nbase-minded compatriot. \"Well, as to smoking. It's nine o'clock, and if the gentleman--\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't care a brass farthing about the clock,\" said the other, \"but\r\nwhen I'm going to have a bit of steak with my tea, in my own room, I\r\nchooses to have it comfortable.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Goodness me, Mr. Moulder, how many times have I seen you sitting\r\nthere with a pipe in your mouth, and half a dozen gents eating their\r\nteas the while in this very room? The rule of the case I take it to\r\nbe this; when--\"\r\n\r\n\"Bother your rules.\" \"Well; it was you spoke of them.\" \"The question I take to be this,\" said Moulder, now emboldened by\r\nthe opposition he had received. \"Has the gentleman any right to\r\nbe in this room at all, or has he not? Is he commercial, or is\r\nhe--miscellaneous? That's the chat, as I take it.\" \"You're on the square there, I must allow,\" said Kantwise. \"James,\" said Moulder, appealing with authority to the waiter, who\r\nhad remained in the room during the controversy;--and now Mr. Moulder\r\nwas determined to do his duty and vindicate his profession, let\r\nthe consequences be what they might. \"James, is that gentleman\r\ncommercial, or is he not?\" It was clearly necessary now that Mr. Dockwrath himself should take\r\nhis own part, and fight his own battle. \"Sir,\" said he, turning to\r\nMr. Moulder, \"I think you'll find it extremely difficult to define\r\nthat word;--extremely difficult. In this enterprising country all men\r\nare more or less commercial.\" \"Hear! hear!\" said Mr. Kantwise. \"That's gammon,\" said Mr. Moulder. \"Gammon it may be,\" said Mr. Dockwrath, \"but nevertheless it's\r\nright in law."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Taking the word in its broadest, strictest, and most\r\nintelligible sense, I am a commercial gentleman; and as such I do\r\nmaintain that I have a full right to the accommodation of this public\r\nroom.\" \"That's very well put,\" said Mr. Kantwise. \"Waiter,\" thundered out Mr. Moulder, as though he imagined that that\r\nfunctionary was down the yard at the taproom instead of standing\r\nwithin three feet of his elbow. \"Is this gent a commercial, or is he\r\nnot? Because if not,--then I'll trouble you to send Mr. Crump here. My compliments to Mr. Crump, and I wish to see him.\" Now Mr. Crump\r\nwas the landlord of the Bull Inn. \"Master's just stepped out, down the street,\" said James. \"Why don't you answer my question, sir?\" said Moulder, becoming\r\nredder and still more red about his shirt-collars. \"The gent said as how he was 'mercial,\" said the poor man. \"Was I to\r\ngo to contradict a gent and tell him he wasn't when he said as how he\r\nwas?\" \"If you please,\" said Mr. Dockwrath, \"we will not bring the waiter\r\ninto this discussion. I asked for the commercial room, and he did his\r\nduty in showing me to the door of it. The fact I take to be this; in\r\nthe south of England the rules to which you refer are not kept so\r\nstrictly as in these more mercantile localities.\" \"I've always observed that,\" said Kantwise."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I travelled for three years in Devonshire, Somersetshire, and\r\nWiltshire,\" said Moulder, \"and the commercial rooms were as well kept\r\nthere as any I ever see.\" \"I alluded to Surrey and Kent,\" said Mr. Dockwrath. \"They're uncommonly miscellaneous in Surrey and Kent,\" said Kantwise. \"There's no doubt in the world about that.\" \"If the gentleman means to say that he's come in here because he\r\ndidn't know the custom of the country, I've no more to say, of\r\ncourse,\" said Moulder. \"And in that case, I, for one, shall be very\r\nhappy if the gentleman cam make himself comfortable in this room as a\r\nstranger, and I may say guest;--paying his own shot, of course.\" \"And as for me, I shall be delighted,\" said Kantwise. \"I never did\r\nlike too much exclusiveness. What's the use of bottling oneself up? that's what I always say. Besides, there's no charity in it. We gents\r\nas are always on the road should show a little charity to them as\r\nain't so well accustomed to the work.\" At this allusion to charity Mr. Moulder snuffled through his nose to\r\nshow his great disgust, but he made no further answer. Mr. Dockwrath,\r\nwho was determined not to yield, but who had nothing to gain by\r\nfurther fighting, bowed his head, and declared that he felt very much\r\nobliged. Whether or no there was any touch of irony in his tone, Mr.\r\nMoulder's ears were not fine enough to discover."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So they now sat\r\nround the fire together, the attorney still keeping his seat in the\r\nmiddle. And then Mr. Moulder ordered his little bit of steak with his\r\ntea. \"With the gravy in it, James,\" he said, solemnly. \"And a bit\r\nof fat, and a few slices of onion, thin mind, put on raw, not with\r\nall the taste fried out; and tell the cook if she don't do it as\r\nit should be done, I'll be down into the kitchen and do it myself. You'll join me, Kantwise, eh?\" \"Well, I think not; I dined at three, you know.\" \"Dined at three! What of that? a dinner at three won't last a man for\r\never. You might as well join me.\" \"No, I think not. Have you got such a thing as a nice red herring in\r\nthe house, James?\" \"Get one round the corner, sir.\" \"Do, there's a good fellow; and I'll take it for a relish with my\r\ntea. I'm not so fond of your solids three times a day. They heat the\r\nblood too much.\" \"Bother,\" grunted Moulder; and then they went to their evening meal,\r\nover which we will not disturb them. The steak, we may presume, was\r\ncooked aright, as Mr. Moulder did not visit the kitchen, and Mr.\r\nKantwise no doubt made good play with his unsubstantial dainty, as he\r\nspoke no further till his meal was altogether finished. \"Did you ever hear anything of that Mr. Mason who lives near\r\nBradford?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "asked Mr. Kantwise, addressing himself to Mr. Moulder, as\r\nsoon as the things had been cleared from the table, and that latter\r\ngentleman had been furnished with a pipe and a supply of cold\r\nwithout. \"I remember his father when I was a boy,\" said Moulder, not troubling\r\nhimself to take his pipe from his mouth, \"Mason and Martock in the\r\nOld Jewry; very good people they were too.\" \"He's decently well off now, I suppose, isn't he?\" said Kantwise,\r\nturning away his face, and looking at his companion out of the\r\ncorners of his eyes. \"I suppose he is. That place there by the road-side is all his own, I\r\ntake it. Have you been at him with some of your rusty, rickety tables\r\nand chairs?\" \"Mr. Moulder, you forget that there is a gentleman here who won't\r\nunderstand that you're at your jokes. I was doing business at Groby\r\nPark, but I found the party uncommon hard to deal with.\" \"Didn't complete the transaction?\" \"Well, no; not exactly; but I intend to call again. He's close enough\r\nhimself, is Mr. Mason. But his lady, Mrs. M.! Lord love you, Mr.\r\nMoulder, that is a woman!\" \"She is; is she? As for me, I never have none of these private\r\ndealings. It don't suit my book at all; nor it ain't what I've been\r\naccustomed to. If a man's wholesale, let him be wholesale.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then,\r\nhaving enunciated this excellent opinion with much energy, he took a\r\nlong pull at his brandy and water. \"Very old fashioned, Mr. Moulder,\" said Kantwise, looking round the\r\ncorner, then shutting his eyes and shaking his head. \"May be,\" said Moulder, \"and yet none the worse for that. I call it\r\nhawking and peddling, that going round the country with your goods\r\non your back. It ain't trade.\" And then there was a lull in the\r\nconversation, Mr. Kantwise, who was a very religious gentleman,\r\nhaving closed his eyes, and being occupied with some internal\r\nanathema against Mr. Moulder. \"Begging your pardon, sir, I think you were talking about one Mr.\r\nMason who lives in these parts,\" said Dockwrath. \"Exactly. Joseph Mason, Esq., of Groby Park,\" said Mr. Kantwise, now\r\nturning his face upon the attorney. \"I suppose I shall be likely to find him at home to-morrow, if I\r\ncall?\" \"Certainly, sir; certainly; leastwise I should say so. Any personal\r\nacquaintance with Mr. Mason, sir? If so, I meant nothing offensive by\r\nmy allusion to the lady, sir; nothing at all, I can assure you.\" \"The lady's nothing to me, sir; nor the gentleman either;--only that\r\nI have a little business with him.\" \"Shall be very happy to join you in a gig, sir, to-morrow, as far\r\nas Groby Park; or fly, if more convenient. I shall only take a few\r\npatterns with me, and they're no weight at all,--none in the least,\r\nsir."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They go on behind, and you wouldn't know it, sir.\" To this,\r\nhowever, Mr. Dockwrath would not assent. As he wanted to see Mr.\r\nMason very specially, he should go early, and preferred going by\r\nhimself. \"No offence, I hope,\" said Mr. Kantwise. \"None in the least,\" said Mr. Dockwrath. \"And if you would allow me, sir, to have the pleasure of showing you\r\na few of my patterns, I'm sure I should be delighted.\" This he said\r\nobserving that Mr. Moulder was sitting over his empty glass with the\r\npipe in his hand, and his eyes fast closed. \"I think, sir, I could\r\nshow you an article that would please you very much. You see, sir,\r\nthat new ideas are coming in every day, and wood, sir, is altogether\r\ngoing out,--altogether going out as regards furniture. In another\r\ntwenty years, sir, there won't be such a thing as a wooden table\r\nin the country, unless with some poor person that can't afford to\r\nrefurnish. Believe me, sir, iron's the thing now-a-days.\" \"And indian-rubber,\" said Dockwrath. \"Yes; indian-rubber's wonderful too. Are you in that line, sir?\" \"Well; no; not exactly.\" \"It's not like iron, sir. You can't make a dinner-table for fourteen\r\npeople out of indian-rubber, that will shut up into a box 3-6 by\r\n2-4 deep, and 2-6 broad."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why, sir, I can let you have a set of\r\ndrawing-room furniture for fifteen ten that you've never seen\r\nequalled in wood for three times the money;--ornamented in the\r\ntastiest way, sir, and fit for any lady's drawing-room or boodoor. The ladies of quality are all getting them now for their boodoors. There's three tables, eight chairs, easy rocking-chair, music-stand,\r\nstool to match, and pair of stand-up screens, all gilt in real Louey\r\ncatorse; and it goes in three boxes 4-2 by 2-1 and 2-3. Think of\r\nthat, sir. For fifteen ten and the boxes in.\" Then there was a pause,\r\nafter which Mr. Kantwise added--\"If ready money, the carriage paid.\" And then he turned his head very much away, and looked back very hard\r\nat his expected customer. \"I'm afraid the articles are not in my line,\" said Mr. Dockwrath. \"It's the tastiest present for a gentleman to make to his lady that\r\nhas come out since--since those sort of things have come out at\r\nall. You'll let me show you the articles, sir. It will give me the\r\nsincerest pleasure.\" And Mr. Kantwise proposed to leave the room in\r\norder that he might introduce the three boxes in question. \"They would not be at all in my way,\" said Mr. Dockwrath."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"The trouble would be nothing,\" said Mr. Kantwise, \"and it gives me\r\nthe greatest pleasure to make them known when I find any one who\r\ncan appreciate such undoubted luxuries;\" and so saying Mr. Kantwise\r\nskipped out of the room, and soon returned with James and Boots, each\r\nof the three bearing on his shoulder a deal box nearly as big as a\r\ncoffin, all of which were deposited in different parts of the room. Mr. Moulder in the meantime snored heavily, his head falling on to\r\nhis breast every now and again. But nevertheless he held fast by his\r\npipe. Mr. Kantwise skipped about the room with wonderful agility,\r\nunfastening the boxes, and taking out the contents, while Joe the\r\nboots and James the waiter stood by assisting. They had never yet\r\nseen the glories of these chairs and tables, and were therefore\r\nnot unwilling to be present. It was singular to see how ready\r\nMr. Kantwise was at the work, how recklessly he threw aside the\r\nwhitey-brown paper in which the various pieces of painted iron were\r\nenveloped, and with what a practised hand he put together one article\r\nafter another. First there was a round loo-table, not quite so large\r\nin its circumference as some people might think desirable, but,\r\nnevertheless, a round loo-table. The pedestal with its three claws\r\nwas all together. With a knowing touch Mr. Kantwise separated the\r\nbottom of what looked like a yellow stick, and, lo!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "there were three\r\nlegs, which he placed carefully on the ground. Then a small bar was\r\nscrewed on to the top, and over the bar was screwed the leaf, or\r\ntable itself, which consisted of three pieces unfolding with hinges. These, when the screw had been duly fastened in the centre, opened\r\nout upon the bar, and there was the table complete. It was certainly a \"tasty\" article, and the pride with which Mr.\r\nKantwise glanced back at it was quite delightful. The top of the\r\ntable was blue, with a red bird of paradise in the middle; and the\r\nedges of the table, to the breadth of a couple of inches, were\r\nyellow. The pillar also was yellow, as were the three legs. \"It's the\r\nreal Louey catorse,\" said Mr. Kantwise, stooping down to go on with\r\ntable number two, which was, as he described it, a \"chess,\" having\r\nthe proper number of blue and light-pink squares marked upon it; but\r\nthis also had been made Louey catorse with reference to its legs and\r\nedges. The third table was a \"sofa,\" of proper shape, but rather\r\nsmall in size. Then, one after another, he brought forth and screwed\r\nup the chairs, stools, and sundry screens, and within a quarter of an\r\nhour he had put up the whole set complete. The red bird of paradise\r\nand the blue ground appeared on all, as did also the yellow legs and\r\nedgings which gave to them their peculiarly fashionable character."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"There,\" said Mr. Kantwise, looking at them with fond admiration, \"I\r\ndon't mind giving a personal guarantee that there's nothing equal to\r\nthat for the money either in England or in France.\" \"They are very nice,\" said Mr. Dockwrath. When a man has had produced\r\nbefore him for his own and sole delectation any article or articles,\r\nhow can he avoid eulogium? Mr. Dockwrath found himself obliged to\r\npause, and almost feared that he should find himself obliged to buy. \"Nice! I should rather think they are,\" said Mr. Kantwise, becoming\r\ntriumphant,--\"and for fifteen ten, delivered, boxes included. There's\r\nnothing like iron, sir, nothing; you may take my word for that. They're so strong, you know. Look here, sir.\" And then Mr. Kantwise,\r\ntaking two of the pieces of whitey-brown paper which had been laid\r\naside, carefully spread one on the centre of the round table, and the\r\nother on the seat of one of the chairs. Then lightly poising himself\r\non his toe, he stepped on to the chair, and from thence on to the\r\ntable. In that position he skillfully brought his feet together,\r\nso that his weight was directly on the leg, and gracefully waved\r\nhis hands over his head. James and Boots stood by admiring, with\r\nopen mouths, and Mr. Dockwrath, with his hands in his pockets, was\r\nmeditating whether he could not give the order without complying with\r\nthe terms as to ready money. [Illustration: \"There is nothing like iron, Sir; nothing.\"]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Look at that for strength,\" said Mr. Kantwise from his exalted\r\nposition. \"I don't think any lady of your acquaintance, sir, would\r\nallow you to stand on her rosewood or mahogany loo-table. And if she\r\ndid, you would not like to adventure it yourself. But look at this\r\nfor strength,\" and he waved his arms abroad, still keeping his feet\r\nskilfully together in the same exact position. At that moment Mr. Moulder awoke. \"So you've got your iron traps out,\r\nhave you?\" said he. \"What; you're there, are you? Upon my word I'd\r\nsooner you than me.\" \"I certainly should not like to see you up here, Mr. Moulder. I doubt\r\nwhether even this table would bear five-and-twenty stone. Joe, lend\r\nme your shoulder, there's a good fellow.\" And then Mr. Kantwise,\r\nbearing very lightly on the chair, descended to the ground without\r\naccident. \"Now, that's what I call gammon,\" said Moulder. \"What is gammon, Mr. Moulder?\" said the other, beginning to be angry. \"It's all gammon. The chairs and tables is gammon, and so is the\r\nstools and the screens.\" \"Mr. Moulder, I didn't call your tea and coffee and brandy gammon.\" \"You can't; and you wouldn't do any harm if you did. Hubbles and\r\nGrease are too well known in Yorkshire for you to hurt them. But as\r\nfor all that show-off and gimcrack-work, I tell you fairly it ain't\r\nwhat I call trade, and it ain't fit for a commercial room. It's\r\ngammon, gammon, gammon!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "James, give me a bedcandle.\" And so Mr.\r\nMoulder took himself off to bed. \"I think I'll go too,\" said Mr. Dockwrath. \"You'll let me put you up the set, eh?\" said Mr. Kantwise. \"Well; I'll think about it,\" said the attorney. \"I'll not just give\r\nyou an answer to-night. Good night, sir; I'm very much obliged to\r\nyou.\" And he too went, leaving Mr. Kantwise to repack his chairs and\r\ntables with the assistance of James the waiter. CHAPTER VII. THE MASONS OF GROBY PARK. Groby Park is about seven miles from Leeds, in the direction of\r\nBradford, and thither on the morning after the scene described in the\r\nlast chapter Mr. Dockwrath was driven in one of the gigs belonging\r\nto the Bull Inn. The park itself is spacious, but is flat and\r\nuninteresting, being surrounded by a thin belt of new-looking\r\nfir-trees, and containing but very little old or handsome timber. There are on the high road two very important lodges, between which\r\nis a large ornamented gate, and from thence an excellent road leads\r\nto the mansion, situated in the very middle of the domain. The house\r\nis Greek in its style of architecture,--at least so the owner says;\r\nand if a portico with a pediment and seven Ionic columns makes a\r\nhouse Greek, the house in Groby Park undoubtedly is Greek."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Here lived Mr. and Mrs. Mason, the three Misses Mason, and\r\noccasionally the two young Messrs. Mason; for the master of Groby\r\nPark was blessed with five children. He himself was a big, broad,\r\nheavy-browed man, in whose composition there was nothing of\r\ntenderness, nothing of poetry, and nothing of taste; but I cannot say\r\nthat he was on the whole a bad man. He was just in his dealings, or\r\nat any rate endeavoured to be so. He strove hard to do his duty as a\r\ncounty magistrate against very adverse circumstances. He endeavoured\r\nto enable his tenants and labourers to live. He was severe to his\r\nchildren, and was not loved by them; but nevertheless they were dear\r\nto him, and he endeavoured to do his duty by them. The wife of his\r\nbosom was not a pleasant woman, but nevertheless he did his duty by\r\nher; that is, he neither deserted her, nor beat her, nor locked her\r\nup. I am not sure that he would not have been justified in doing one\r\nof these three things, or even all the three; for Mrs. Mason of Groby\r\nPark was not a pleasant woman. But yet he was a bad man in that he could never forget and never\r\nforgive. His mind and heart were equally harsh and hard and\r\ninflexible. He was a man who considered that it behoved him as a man\r\nto resent all injuries, and to have his pound of flesh in all cases."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In his inner thoughts he had ever boasted to himself that he had\r\npaid all men all that he owed. He had, so he thought, injured no\r\none in any of the relations of life. His tradesmen got their money\r\nregularly. He answered every man's letter. He exacted nothing from\r\nany man for which he did not pay. He never ill-used a servant either\r\nby bad language or by over-work. He never amused himself, but devoted\r\nhis whole time to duties. He would fain even have been hospitable,\r\ncould he have gotten his neighbours to come to him and have induced\r\nhis wife to put upon the table sufficient food for them to eat. Such being his virtues, what right had any one to injure him? When he\r\ngot from his grocer adulterated coffee,--he analyzed the coffee, as\r\nhis half-brother had done the guano,--he would have flayed the man\r\nalive if the law would have allowed him. Had he not paid the man\r\nmonthly, giving him the best price as though for the best article? When he was taken in with a warranty for a horse, he pursued the\r\nculprit to the uttermost. Maid-servants who would not come from their\r\nbedrooms at six o'clock, he would himself disturb while enjoying\r\ntheir stolen slumbers. From his children he exacted all titles of\r\nrespect, because he had a right to them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He wanted nothing that\r\nbelonged to any one else, but he could not endure that aught should\r\nbe kept from him which he believed to be his own. It may be imagined,\r\ntherefore, in what light he esteemed Lady Mason and her son, and how\r\nhe regarded their residence at Orley Farm, seeing that he firmly\r\nbelieved that Orley Farm was his own, if all the truth were known. I have already hinted that Mrs. Mason was not a delightful woman. She had been a beauty, and still imagined that she had not lost all\r\npretension to be so considered. She spent, therefore, a considerable\r\nportion of her day in her dressing-room, spent a great deal of money\r\nfor clothes, and gave herself sundry airs. She was a little woman\r\nwith long eyes, and regular eyelashes, with a straight nose, and thin\r\nlips and regular teeth. Her face was oval, and her hair was brown. It had at least once been all brown, and that which was now seen was\r\nbrown also. But, nevertheless, although she was possessed of all\r\nthese charms, you might look at her for ten days together, and on the\r\neleventh you would not know her if you met her in the streets. But the appearance of Mrs. Mason was not her forte. She had been a\r\nbeauty; but if it had been her lot to be known in history, it was not\r\nas a beauty that she would have been famous."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Parsimony was her great\r\nvirtue, and a power of saving her strong point. I have said that she\r\nspent much money in dress, and some people will perhaps think that\r\nthe two points of character are not compatible. Such people know\r\nnothing of a true spirit of parsimony. It is from the backs and\r\nbellies of other people that savings are made with the greatest\r\nconstancy and the most satisfactory results. The parsimony of a mistress of a household is best displayed on\r\nmatters eatable;--on matters eatable and drinkable; for there is a\r\nfine scope for domestic savings in tea, beer, and milk. And in such\r\nmatters chiefly did Mrs. Mason operate, going as far as she dared\r\ntowards starving even her husband. But nevertheless she would feed\r\nherself in the middle of the day, having a roast fowl with bread\r\nsauce in her own room. The miser who starves himself and dies without\r\nan ounce of flesh on his bones, while his skinny head lies on a bag\r\nof gold, is after all, respectable. There has been a grand passion\r\nin his life, and that grandest work of man, self-denial. You cannot\r\naltogether despise one who has clothed himself with rags and fed\r\nhimself with bone-scrapings, while broadcloth and ortolans were\r\nwithin his easy reach."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But there are women, wives and mothers of\r\nfamilies, who would give the bone-scrapings to their husbands and the\r\nbones to their servants, while they hide the ortolans for themselves;\r\nand would dress children in rags, while they cram chests, drawers,\r\nand boxes with silks and satins for their own backs. Such a woman\r\none can thoroughly despise, and even hate; and such a woman was Mrs.\r\nMason of Groby Park. I shall not trouble the reader at present with much description of\r\nthe young Masons. The eldest son was in the army, and the younger at\r\nCambridge, both spending much more money than their father allowed\r\nthem. Not that he, in this respect, was specially close-fisted. He\r\nascertained what was sufficient,--amply sufficient as he was told by\r\nthe colonel of the regiment and the tutor of the college,--and that\r\namount he allowed, assuring both Joseph and John that if they spent\r\nmore, they would themselves have to pay for it out of the moneys\r\nwhich should enrich them in future years. But how could the sons\r\nof such a mother be other than spendthrifts? Of course they were\r\nextravagant; of course they spent more than they should have done;\r\nand their father resolved that he would keep his word with them\r\nreligiously. The daughters were much less fortunate, having no possible means of\r\nextravagance allowed to them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Both the father and mother decided\r\nthat they should go out into the county society, and therefore their\r\nclothing was not absolutely of rags. But any young lady who does go\r\ninto society, whether it be of county or town, will fully understand\r\nthe difference between a liberal and a stingy wardrobe. Girls with\r\nslender provisions of millinery may be fit to go out,--quite fit in\r\ntheir father's eyes; and yet all such going out may be matter of\r\nintense pain. It is all very well for the world to say that a girl\r\nshould be happy without reference to her clothes. Show me such a\r\ngirl, and I will show you one whom I should be very sorry that a boy\r\nof mine should choose as his sweetheart. The three Misses Mason, as they always were called by the Groby Park\r\npeople, had been christened Diana, Creusa, and Penelope, their mother\r\nhaving a passion for classic literature, which she indulged by a use\r\nof Lemprière's dictionary. They were not especially pretty, nor were\r\nthey especially plain. They were well grown and healthy, and quite\r\ncapable of enjoying themselves in any of the amusements customary to\r\nyoung ladies,--if only the opportunities were afforded them. Mr. Dockwrath had thought it well to write to Mr. Mason, acquainting\r\nthat gentleman with his intended visit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Mason, he said to\r\nhimself, would recognise his name, and know whence he came, and under\r\nsuch circumstances would be sure to see him, although the express\r\npurpose of the proposed interview should not have been explained to\r\nhim. Such in result was exactly the case. Mr. Mason did remember the\r\nname of Dockwrath, though he had never hitherto seen the bearer of\r\nit; and as the letter was dated from Hamworth, he felt sufficient\r\ninterest in the matter to await at home the coming of his visitor. \"I know your name, Mr. Mason, sir, and have known it long,\" said Mr.\r\nDockwrath, seating himself in the chair which was offered to him in\r\nthe magistrate's study; \"though I never had the pleasure of seeing\r\nyou before,--to my knowledge. My name is Dockwrath, sir, and I am a\r\nsolicitor. I live at Hamworth, and I married the daughter of old Mr.\r\nUsbech, sir, whom you will remember.\" Mr. Mason listened attentively as these details were uttered before\r\nhim so clearly, but he said nothing, merely bowing his head at each\r\nseparate statement. He knew all about old Usbech's daughter nearly as\r\nwell as Mr. Dockwrath did himself, but he was a man who knew how to\r\nbe silent upon occasions. \"I was too young, sir,\" continued Dockwrath, \"when you had that trial\r\nabout Orley Farm to have anything to do with the matter myself,\r\nbut nevertheless I remember all the circumstances as though it was\r\nyesterday."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I suppose, sir, you remember them also?\" \"Yes, Mr. Dockwrath, I remember them very well.\" \"Well, sir, my impression has always been that--\" And then the\r\nattorney stopped. It was quite his intention to speak out plainly\r\nbefore Mr. Mason, but he was anxious that that gentleman should speak\r\nout too. At any rate it might be well that he should be induced to\r\nexpress some little interest in the matter. \"Your impression, you say, has always been--\" said Mr. Mason,\r\nrepeating the words of his companion, and looking as ponderous and\r\ngrave as ever. His countenance, however, expressed nothing but his\r\nusual ponderous solemnity. \"My impression always was--that there was something that had not been\r\nas yet found out.\" \"What sort of thing, Mr. Dockwrath?\" \"Well; some secret. I don't think that your lawyers managed the\r\nmatter well, Mr. Mason.\" \"You think you would have done it better, Mr. Dockwrath?\" \"I don't say that, Mr. Mason. I was only a lad at the time, and could\r\nnot have managed it at all. But they didn't ferret about enough. Mr.\r\nMason, there's a deal better evidence than any that is given by word\r\nof mouth. A clever counsel can turn a witness pretty nearly any way\r\nhe likes, but he can't do that with little facts. He hasn't the time,\r\nyou see, to get round them. Your lawyers, sir, didn't get up the\r\nlittle facts as they should have done.\" \"And you have got them up since, Mr. Dockwrath?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I don't say that, Mr. Mason. You see all my interest lies in\r\nmaintaining the codicil. My wife's fortune came to her under that\r\ndeed. To be sure that's gone and spent long since, and the Lord\r\nChancellor with all the judges couldn't enforce restitution; but,\r\nnevertheless, I wouldn't wish that any one should have a claim\r\nagainst me on that account.\" \"Perhaps you will not object to say what it is that you do wish?\" \"I wish to see right done, Mr. Mason; that's all. I don't think that\r\nLady Mason or her son have any right to the possession of that place. I don't think that that codicil was a correct instrument; and in that\r\ncase of Mason versus Mason I don't think that you and your friends\r\ngot to the bottom of it.\" And then Mr. Dockwrath leaned back in his\r\nchair with an inward determination to say nothing more, until Mr.\r\nMason should make some sign. That gentleman, however, still remained ponderous and heavy, and\r\ntherefore there was a short period of silence--\"And have you got to\r\nthe bottom of it since, Mr. Dockwrath?\" at last he said. \"I don't say that I have,\" said the attorney. \"Might I ask then what it is you propose to effect by the visit with\r\nwhich you have honoured me?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Of course you are aware that these are\r\nvery private matters; and although I should feel myself under an\r\nobligation to you, or to any man who might assist me to arrive at any\r\ntrue facts which have hitherto been concealed, I am not disposed to\r\ndiscuss the affair with a stranger on grounds of mere suspicion.\" \"I shouldn't have come here, Mr. Mason, at very great expense, and\r\npersonal inconvenience to myself in my profession, if I had not some\r\ngood reason for doing so. I don't think that you ever got to the\r\nbottom of that matter, and I can't say that I have done so now; I\r\nhaven't even tried. But I tell you what, Mr. Mason; if you wish it, I\r\nthink I could put you in the way of--trying.\" \"My lawyers are Messrs. Round and Crook of Bedford Row. Will it not\r\nbe better that you should go to them, Mr. Dockwrath?\" \"No, Mr. Mason. I don't think it will be better that I should go\r\nto them. I know Round and Crook well, and don't mean to say a word\r\nagainst them; but if I go any farther into this affair I must do\r\nit with the principal. I am not going to cut my own throat for the\r\nsake of mending any man's little finger. I have a family of sixteen\r\nchildren, Mr. Mason, and I have to look about very sharp,--very sharp\r\nindeed.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then there was another pause, and Mr. Dockwrath began to\r\nperceive that Mr. Mason was not by nature an open, demonstrative, or\r\ncommunicative man. If anything further was to be done, he himself\r\nmust open out a little. \"The fact is, Mr. Mason, that I have come\r\nacross documents which you should have had at that trial. Round and\r\nCrook ought to have had them, only they weren't half sharp. Why, sir,\r\nMr. Usbech had been your father's man of business for years upon\r\nyears, and yet they didn't half go through his papers. They turned\r\n'em over and looked at 'em; but never thought of seeing what little\r\nfacts might be proved.\" \"And these documents are with you now, here?\" \"No, Mr. Mason, I am not so soft as that. I never carry about\r\noriginal documents unless when ordered to prove. Copies of one or two\r\nitems I have made; not regular copies, Mr. Mason, but just a line or\r\ntwo to refresh my memory.\" And Mr. Dockwrath took a small letter-case\r\nout of his breast coat pocket. By this time Mr. Mason's curiosity had been roused, and he began\r\nto think it possible that his visitor had discovered information\r\nwhich might be of importance to him. \"Are you going to show me any\r\ndocument?\" said he. \"That's as may be,\" said the attorney. \"I don't know as yet whether\r\nyou care to see it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have come a long way to do you a service, and\r\nit seems to me you are rather shy of coming forward to meet me. As I\r\nsaid before, I've a very heavy family, and I'm not going to cut the\r\nnose off my own face to put money into any other man's pocket. What\r\ndo you think my journey down here will cost me, including loss of\r\ntime, and interruption to my business?\" \"Look here, Mr. Dockwrath; if you are really able to put me into\r\npossession of any facts regarding the Orley Farm estate which I\r\nought to know, I will see that you are compensated for your time and\r\ntrouble. Messrs. Round and Crook--\"\r\n\r\n\"I'll have nothing to do with Round and Crook. So that's settled, Mr. Mason.\" \"Then, Mr. Dockwrath--\"\r\n\r\n\"Half a minute, Mr. Mason. I'll have nothing to do with Round and\r\nCrook; but as I know you to be a gentleman and a man of honour, I'll\r\nput you in possession of what I've discovered, and leave it to you\r\nafterwards to do what you think right about my expenses, time, and\r\nservices. You won't forget that it is a long way from Hamworth to\r\nGroby Park. And if you should succeed--\"\r\n\r\n\"If I am to look at this document, I must do so without pledging\r\nmyself to anything,\" said Mr. Mason, still with much solemnity."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He\r\nhad great doubts as to his new acquaintance, and much feared that\r\nhe was derogating from his dignity as a county magistrate and owner\r\nof Groby Park in holding any personal intercourse with him; but\r\nnevertheless he could not resist the temptation. He most firmly\r\nbelieved that that codicil had not expressed the genuine last will\r\nand fair disposition of property made by his father, and it might\r\ncertainly be the case that proof of all that he believed was to be\r\nfound among the papers of the old lawyer. He hated Lady Mason with\r\nall his power of hatred, and if there did, even yet, exist for him a\r\nchance of upsetting her claims and ruining her before the world, he\r\nwas not the man to forego that chance. \"Well, sir, you shall see it,\" said Mr. Dockwrath; \"or rather hear\r\nit, for there is not much to see.\" And so saying he extracted from\r\nhis pocket-book a very small bit of paper. \"I should prefer to read it, if it's all the same to you, Mr.\r\nDockwrath. I shall understand it much better in that way.\" \"As you like, Mr. Mason,\" said the attorney, handing him the small\r\nbit of paper. \"You will understand, sir, that it's no real copy, but\r\nonly a few dates and particulars, just jotted down to assist my own\r\nmemory.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "The document, supported by which Mr. Dockwrath had come\r\ndown to Yorkshire, consisted of half a sheet of note paper, and the\r\nwriting upon this covered hardly the half of it. The words which Mr.\r\nMason read were as follows:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   Date of codicil. 14th July 18--. Witnesses to the instrument. John Kenneby; Bridget\r\n   Bolster; Jonathan Usbech. N.B. Jonathan Usbech died before\r\n   the testator. Mason and Martock. Deed of separation; dated 14th July\r\n   18--. Executed at Orley Farm. Witnesses John Kenneby; and Bridget Bolster. Deed was\r\n   prepared in the office of Jonathan Usbech, and probably\r\n   executed in his presence. That was all that was written on the paper, and Mr. Mason read the\r\nwords to himself three times before he looked up, or said anything\r\nconcerning them. He was not a man quick at receiving new ideas into\r\nhis mind, or of understanding new points; but that which had once\r\nbecome intelligible to him and been made his own, remained so always. \"Well,\" said he, when he read the above words for the third time. \"You don't see it, sir?\" said Mr. Dockwrath. \"See what?\" said Mr. Mason, still looking at the scrap of paper. \"Why; the dates, to begin with.\" \"I see that the dates are the same;--the 14th of July in the same\r\nyear.\" \"Well,\" said Mr. Dockwrath, looking very keenly into the magistrate's\r\nface. \"Well,\" said Mr. Mason, looking over the paper at his boot."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"John Kenneby and Bridget Bolster were witnesses to both the\r\ninstruments,\" said the attorney. \"So I see,\" said the magistrate. \"But I don't remember that it came out in evidence that either of\r\nthem recollected having been called on for two signatures on the same\r\nday.\" \"No; there was nothing of that came out;--or was even hinted at.\" \"No; nothing even hinted at, Mr. Mason,--as you justly observe. That\r\nis what I mean by saying that Round and Crook's people didn't get up\r\ntheir little facts. Believe me, sir, there are men in the profession\r\nout of London who know quite as much as Round and Crook. They ought\r\nto have had those facts, seeing that the very copy of the document\r\nwas turned over by their hands.\" And Mr. Dockwrath hit the table\r\nheavily in the warmth of his indignation against his professional\r\nbrethren. Earlier in the interview Mr. Mason would have been made\r\nvery angry by such freedom, but he was not angry now. \"Yes; they ought to have known it,\" said he. But he did not even yet\r\nsee the point. He merely saw that there was a point worth seeing. \"Known it! Of course they ought to have known it. Look here, Mr.\r\nMason! If I had it on my mind that I'd thrown over a client of mine\r\nby such carelessness as that, I'd--I'd strike my own name off the\r\nrolls; I would indeed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I never could look a counsel in the face\r\nagain, if I'd neglected to brief him with such facts as those. I\r\nsuppose it was carelessness; eh, Mr. Mason?\" \"Oh, yes; I'm afraid so,\" said Mr. Mason, still rather in the dark. \"They could have had no object in keeping it back, I should say.\" \"No; none in life. But let us see, Mr. Dockwrath; how does it bear\r\nupon us? The dates are the same, and the witnesses the same.\" \"The deed of separation is genuine. There is no doubt about that.\" \"Oh; you're sure of that?\" \"Quite certain. I found it entered in the old office books. It was\r\nthe last of a lot of such documents executed between Mason and\r\nMartock after the old man gave up the business. You see she was\r\nalways with him, and knew all about it.\" \"About the partnership deed?\" \"Of course she did. She's a clever woman, Mr. Mason; very clever, and\r\nit's almost a pity that she should come to grief. She has carried it\r\non so well; hasn't she?\" Mr. Mason's face now became very black. \"Why,\" said he, \"if what you\r\nseem to allege be true, she must be a--a--a--. What do you mean, sir,\r\nby pity?\" Mr. Dockwrath shrugged his shoulders. \"It is very blue,\" said he,\r\n\"uncommon blue.\" \"She must be a swindler; a common swindler. Nay, worse than that.\" \"Oh, yes, a deal worse than that, Mr. Mason."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And as for\r\ncommon;--according to my way of thinking there's nothing at all\r\ncommon about it. I look upon it as about the best got-up plant I ever\r\nremember to have heard of. I do, indeed, Mr. Mason.\" The attorney\r\nduring the last ten minutes of the conversation had quite altered\r\nhis tone, understanding that he had already achieved a great part\r\nof his object; but Mr. Mason in his intense anxiety did not observe\r\nthis. Had Mr. Dockwrath, in commencing the conversation, talked about\r\n\"plants\" and \"blue,\" Mr. Mason would probably have rung his bell for\r\nthe servant. \"If it's anything, it's forgery,\" said Mr. Dockwrath,\r\nlooking his companion full in the face. \"I always felt sure that my father never intended to sign such a\r\ncodicil as that.\" \"He never did sign it, Mr. Mason.\" \"And,--and the witnesses!\" said Mr. Mason, still not enlightened as\r\nto the true extent of the attorney's suspicion. \"They signed the other deed; that is two of them did. There is no\r\ndoubt about that;--on that very day. They certainly did witness a\r\nsignature made by the old gentleman in his own room on that 14th of\r\nJuly. The original of that document, with the date and their names,\r\nwill be forthcoming soon enough.\" \"Well,\" said Mr. Mason. \"But they did not witness two signatures.\" \"You think not, eh!\" \"I'm sure of it. The girl Bolster would have remembered it, and would\r\nhave said so. She was sharp enough.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Who wrote all the names then at the foot of the will?\" said Mr.\r\nMason. \"Ah! that's the question. Who did write them? We know very well, Mr.\r\nMason, you and I that is, who did not. And having come to that, I\r\nthink we may give a very good guess who did.\" And then they both sat silent for some three or four minutes. Mr.\r\nDockwrath was quite at his ease, rubbing his chin with his hand,\r\nplaying with a paper-knife which he had taken from the study\r\ntable, and waiting till it should please Mr. Mason to renew the\r\nconversation. Mr. Mason was not at his ease, though all idea of\r\naffecting any reserve before the attorney had left him. He was\r\nthinking how best he might confound and destroy the woman who had\r\nrobbed him for so many years; who had defied him, got the better of\r\nhim, and put him to terrible cost; who had vexed his spirit through\r\nhis whole life, deprived him of content, and had been to him as a\r\nthorn ever present in a festering sore. He had always believed that\r\nshe had defrauded him, but this belief had been qualified by the\r\nunbelief of others. It might have been, he had half thought, that the\r\nold man had signed the codicil in his dotage, having been cheated and\r\nbullied into it by the woman."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There had been no day in her life on\r\nwhich he would not have ruined her, had it been in his power to do\r\nso. But now--now, new and grander ideas were breaking in upon his\r\nmind. Could it be possible that he might live to see her, not merely\r\ndeprived of her ill-gained money, but standing in the dock as a felon\r\nto receive sentence for her terrible misdeeds? If that might be so,\r\nwould he not receive great compensation for all that he had suffered? Would it not be sweet to his sense of justice that both of them\r\nshould thus at last have their own? He did not even yet understand\r\nall that Mr. Dockwrath suspected. He did not fully perceive why the\r\nwoman was supposed to have chosen as the date of her forgery, the\r\ndate of that other genuine deed. But he did understand, he did\r\nperceive--at least so he thought,--that new and perhaps conclusive\r\nevidence of her villainy was at last within his reach. \"And what shall we do now, Mr. Dockwrath?\" he said at last. \"Well; am I to understand that you do me the honour of asking my\r\nadvice upon that question as being your lawyer?\" This question immediately brought Mr. Mason back to business that he\r\ndid understand. \"A man in my position cannot very well change his\r\nlegal advisers at a moment's notice. You must be very well aware of\r\nthat, Mr. Dockwrath. Messrs. Round and Crook--\"\r\n\r\n\"Messrs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Round and Crook, sir, have neglected your business in a most\r\nshameful manner. Let me tell you that, sir.\" \"Well; that's as may be. I'll tell you what I'll do, Mr. Dockwrath;\r\nI'll think over this matter in quiet, and then I'll come up to town. Perhaps when there I may expect the honour of a further visit from\r\nyou.\" \"And you won't mention the matter to Round and Crook?\" \"I can't undertake to say that, Mr. Dockwrath. I think it will\r\nperhaps be better that I should mention it, and then see you\r\nafterwards.\" \"And how about my expenses down here?\" Just at this moment there came a light tap at the study door, and\r\nbefore the master of the house could give or withhold permission\r\nthe mistress of the house entered the room. \"My dear,\" she said, \"I\r\ndidn't know that you were engaged.\" \"Yes, I am engaged,\" said the gentleman. \"Oh, I'm sure I beg pardon. Perhaps this is the gentleman from\r\nHamworth?\" \"Yes, ma'am,\" said Mr. Dockwrath. \"I am the gentleman from Hamworth. I hope I have the pleasure of seeing you very well, ma'am?\" And\r\ngetting up from his chair he bowed politely. \"Mr. Dockwrath, Mrs. Mason,\" said the lady's husband, introducing\r\nthem; and then Mrs. Mason curtsied to the stranger. She too was very\r\nanxious to know what might be the news from Hamworth. \"Mr. Dockwrath will lunch with us, my dear,\" said Mr. Mason."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then\r\nthe lady, on hospitable cares intent, left them again to themselves. CHAPTER VIII. MRS. MASON'S HOT LUNCHEON. Though Mr. Dockwrath was somewhat elated by this invitation to lunch,\r\nhe was also somewhat abashed by it. He had been far from expecting\r\nthat Mr. Mason of Groby Park would do him any such honour, and was\r\nmade aware by it of the great hold which he must have made upon the\r\nattention of his host. But nevertheless he immediately felt that his\r\nhands were to a certain degree tied. He, having been invited to sit\r\ndown at Mr. Mason's table, with Mrs. M. and the family,--having been\r\ntreated as though he were a gentleman, and thus being for the time\r\nbeing put on a footing of equality with the county magistrate, could\r\nnot repeat that last important question: \"How about my expenses down\r\nhere?\" nor could he immediately go on with the grand subject in any\r\nframe of mind which would tend to further his own interests. Having\r\nbeen invited to lunch, he could not haggle with due persistency for\r\nhis share of the business in crushing Lady Mason, nor stipulate\r\nthat the whole concern should not be trusted to the management of\r\nRound and Crook. As a source of pride this invitation to eat was\r\npleasant to him, but he was forced to acknowledge to himself that it\r\ninterfered with business."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nor did Mr. Mason feel himself ready to go on with the conversation\r\nin the manner in which it had been hitherto conducted. His mind was\r\nfull of Orley Farm and his wrongs, and he could bring himself to\r\nthink of nothing else; but he could no longer talk about it to the\r\nattorney sitting there in his study. \"Will you take a turn about the\r\nplace while the lunch is getting ready?\" he said. So they took their\r\nhats and went out into the garden. \"It is dreadful to think of,\" said Mr. Mason, after they had twice\r\nwalked in silence the length of a broad gravel terrace. \"What; about her ladyship?\" said the attorney. \"Quite dreadful!\" and Mr. Mason shuddered. \"I don't think I ever\r\nheard of anything so shocking in my life. For twenty years, Mr.\r\nDockwrath, think of that. Twenty years!\" and his face as he spoke\r\nbecame almost black with horror. \"It is very shocking,\" said Mr. Dockwrath; \"very shocking. What on\r\nearth will be her fate if it be proved against her? She has brought\r\nit on herself; that is all that one can say of her.\" \"D---- her! d---- her!\" exclaimed the other, gnashing his teeth\r\nwith concentrated wrath. \"No punishment will be bad enough for her. Hanging would not be bad enough.\" \"They can't hang her, Mr. Mason,\" said Mr. Dockwrath, almost\r\nfrightened by the violence of his companion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No; they have altered the laws, giving every encouragement to\r\nforgers, villains, and perjurers. But they can give her penal\r\nservitude for life. They must do it.\" \"She is not convicted yet, you know.\" \"D---- her!\" repeated the owner of Groby Park again, as he thought of\r\nhis twenty years of loss. Eight hundred a year for twenty years had\r\nbeen taken away from him; and he had been worsted before the world\r\nafter a hard fight. \"D---- her!\" he continued to growl between his\r\nteeth. Mr. Dockwrath when he had first heard his companion say how\r\nhorrid and dreadful the affair was, had thought that Mr. Mason was\r\nalluding to the condition in which the lady had placed herself by her\r\nassumed guilt. But it was of his own condition that he was speaking. The idea which shocked him was the thought of the treatment which he\r\nhimself had undergone. The dreadful thing at which he shuddered was\r\nhis own ill usage. As for her;--pity for her! Did a man ever pity a\r\nrat that had eaten into his choicest dainties? \"The lunch is on the table, sir,\" said the Groby Park footman in the\r\nGroby Park livery. Under the present household arrangement of Groby\r\nPark all the servants lived on board wages."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Mason did not like\r\nthis system, though it had about it certain circumstances of economy\r\nwhich recommended it to her; it interfered greatly with the stringent\r\naptitudes of her character and the warmest passion of her heart; it\r\ntook away from her the delicious power of serving out the servants'\r\nfood, of locking up the scraps of meat, and of charging the maids\r\nwith voracity. But, to tell the truth, Mr. Mason had been driven by\r\nsheer necessity to take this step, as it had been found impossible to\r\ninduce his wife to give out sufficient food to enable the servants to\r\nlive and work. She knew that in not doing so she injured herself; but\r\nshe could not do it. The knife in passing through the loaf would make\r\nthe portion to be parted with less by one third than the portion to\r\nbe retained. Half a pound of salt butter would reduce itself to a\r\nquarter of a pound. Portions of meat would become infinitesimal. When standing with viands before her, she had not free will over her\r\nhands. She could not bring herself to part with victuals, though she\r\nmight ruin herself by retaining them. Therefore, by the order of the\r\nmaster, were the servants placed on board wages. Mr. Dockwrath soon found himself in the dining-room, where the three\r\nyoung ladies with their mamma were already seated at the table."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It\r\nwas a handsome room, and the furniture was handsome; but nevertheless\r\nit was a heavy room, and the furniture was heavy. The table was large\r\nenough for a party of twelve, and might have borne a noble banquet;\r\nas it was the promise was not bad, for there were three large plated\r\ncovers concealing hot viands, and in some houses lunch means only\r\nbread and cheese. Mr. Mason went through the form of introduction between Mr. Dockwrath\r\nand his daughters. \"That is Miss Mason, that Miss Creusa Mason, and\r\nthis Miss Penelope. John, remove the covers.\" And the covers were\r\nremoved, John taking them from the table with a magnificent action of\r\nhis arm which I am inclined to think was not innocent of irony. On\r\nthe dish before the master of the house,--a large dish which must I\r\nfancy have been selected by the cook with some similar attempt at\r\nsarcasm,--there reposed three scraps, as to the nature of which Mr.\r\nDockwrath, though he looked hard at them, was unable to enlighten\r\nhimself. But Mr. Mason knew them well, as he now placed his eyes on\r\nthem for the third time. They were old enemies of his, and his brow\r\nagain became black as he looked at them. The scraps in fact consisted\r\nof two drumsticks of a fowl and some indescribable bone out of the\r\nback of the same."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The original bird had no doubt first revealed\r\nall its glories to human eyes,--presuming the eyes of the cook to\r\nbe inhuman--in Mrs. Mason's \"boodoor.\" Then, on the dish before\r\nthe lady, there were three other morsels, black-looking and very\r\nsuspicious to the eye, which in the course of conversation were\r\nproclaimed to be ham,--broiled ham. Mrs. Mason would never allow\r\na ham in its proper shape to come into the room, because it is an\r\narticle upon which the guests are themselves supposed to operate\r\nwith the carving-knife. Lastly, on the dish before Miss Creusa there\r\nreposed three potatoes. The face of Mr. Mason became very black as he looked at the banquet\r\nwhich was spread upon his board, and Mrs. Mason, eyeing him across\r\nthe table, saw that it was so. She was not a lady who despised such\r\nsymptoms in her lord, or disregarded in her valour the violence of\r\nmarital storms. She had quailed more than once or twice under rebuke\r\noccasioned by her great domestic virtue, and knew that her husband,\r\nthough he might put up with much as regarded his own comfort, and\r\nthat of his children, could be very angry at injuries done to his\r\nhousehold honour and character as a hospitable English country\r\ngentleman. Consequently the lady smiled and tried to look self-satisfied as\r\nshe invited her guest to eat."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"This is ham,\" said she with a little\r\nsimper, \"broiled ham, Mr. Dockwrath; and there is chicken at the\r\nother end; I think they call it--devilled.\" \"Shall I assist the young ladies to anything first?\" said the\r\nattorney, wishing to be polite. \"Nothing, thank you,\" said Miss Penelope, with a very stiff bow. She also knew that Mr. Dockwrath was an attorney from Hamworth, and\r\nconsidered herself by no means bound to hold any sort of conversation\r\nwith him. \"My daughters only eat bread and butter in the middle of the day,\"\r\nsaid the lady. \"Creusa, my dear, will you give Mr. Dockwrath a\r\npotato. Mr. Mason, Mr. Dockwrath will probably take a bit of that\r\nchicken.\" \"I would recommend him to follow the girls' example, and confine\r\nhimself to the bread and butter,\" said the master of the house,\r\npushing about the scraps with his knife and fork. \"There is nothing\r\nhere for him to eat.\" \"My dear!\" exclaimed Mrs. Mason. \"There is nothing here for him to eat,\" repeated Mr. Mason. \"And\r\nas far as I can see there is nothing there either. What is it you\r\npretend to have in that dish?\" \"My dear!\" again exclaimed Mrs. Mason. \"What is it?\" repeated the lord of the house in an angry tone. \"Broiled ham, Mr. Mason.\" \"Then let the ham be brought in,\" said he. \"Diana, ring the bell.\" \"But the ham is not cooked, Mr. Mason,\" said the lady."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Broiled ham\r\nis always better when it has not been first boiled.\" \"Is there no cold meat in the house?\" he asked. \"I am afraid not,\" she replied, now trembling a little in\r\nanticipation of what might be coming after the stranger should have\r\ngone. \"You never like large joints yourself, Mr. Mason; and for\r\nourselves we don't eat meat at luncheon.\" \"Nor anybody else either, here,\" said Mr. Mason in his anger. \"Pray don't mind me, Mr. Mason,\" said the attorney, \"pray don't, Mr.\r\nMason. I am a very poor fist at lunch; I am indeed.\" \"I am sure I am very sorry, very sorry, Mr. Mason,\" continued the\r\nlady. \"If I had known that an early dinner was required, it should\r\nhave been provided;--although the notice given was so very short.\" \"I never dine early,\" said Mr. Dockwrath, thinking that some\r\nimputation of a low way of living was conveyed in this supposition\r\nthat he required a dinner under the pseudonym of a lunch. \"I never\r\ndo, upon my word--we are quite regular at home at half-past five, and\r\nall I ever take in the middle of the day is a biscuit and a glass of\r\nsherry,--or perhaps a bite of bread and cheese. Don't be uneasy about\r\nme, Mrs. Mason.\" The three young ladies, having now finished their repast, got up from\r\nthe table and retired, following each other out of the room in a\r\nline."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Mason remained for a minute or two longer, and then she\r\nalso went. \"The carriage has been ordered at three, Mr. M.,\" she\r\nsaid. \"Shall we have the pleasure of your company?\" \"No,\" growled\r\nthe husband. And then the lady went, sweeping a low curtsy to Mr.\r\nDockwrath as she passed out of the room. There was again a silence between the host and his guest for some two\r\nor three minutes, during which Mr. Mason was endeavouring to get the\r\nlunch out of his head, and to redirect his whole mind to Lady Mason\r\nand his hopes of vengeance. There is nothing perhaps so generally\r\nconsoling to a man as a well-established grievance; a feeling of\r\nhaving been injured, on which his mind can brood from hour to hour,\r\nallowing him to plead his own cause in his own court, within his\r\nown heart,--and always to plead it successfully. At last Mr. Mason\r\nsucceeded, and he could think of his enemy's fraud and forget his\r\nwife's meanness. \"I suppose I may as well order my gig now,\" said Mr.\r\nDockwrath, as soon as his host had arrived at this happy frame of\r\nmind. \"Your gig? ah, well. Yes. I do not know that I need detain you\r\nany longer. I can assure you that I am much obliged to you, Mr.\r\nDockwrath, and I shall hope to see you in London very shortly.\" \"You are determined to go to Round and Crook, I suppose?\" \"Oh, certainly.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You are wrong, sir. They'll throw you over again as sure as your\r\nname is Mason.\" \"Mr. Dockwrath, you must if you please allow me to judge of that\r\nmyself.\" \"Oh, of course, sir, of course. But I'm sure that a gentleman like\r\nyou, Mr. Mason, will understand--\"\r\n\r\n\"I shall understand that I cannot expect your services, Mr.\r\nDockwrath,--your valuable time and services,--without remunerating\r\nyou for them. That shall be fully explained to Messrs. Round and\r\nCrook.\" \"Very well, sir; very well. As long as I am paid for what I do, I am\r\ncontent. A professional gentleman of course expects that. How is he\r\nto get along else; particular with sixteen children?\" And then Mr.\r\nDockwrath got into the gig, and was driven back to the Bull at Leeds. CHAPTER IX. A CONVIVIAL MEETING. On the whole Mr. Dockwrath was satisfied with the results of his trip\r\nto Groby Park, and was in a contented frame of mind as he was driven\r\nback to Leeds. No doubt it would have been better could he have\r\npersuaded Mr. Mason to throw over Messrs. Round and Crook, and put\r\nhimself altogether into the hands of his new adviser; but this had\r\nbeen too much to expect. He had not expected it, and had made the\r\nsuggestion as the surest means of getting the best terms in his\r\npower, rather than with a hope of securing the actual advantage\r\nnamed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had done much towards impressing Mr. Mason with an idea of\r\nhis own sharpness, and perhaps something also towards breaking the\r\nprestige which surrounded the names of the great London firm. He\r\nwould now go to that firm and make his terms with them. They would\r\nprobably be quite as ready to acquiesce in the importance of his\r\ninformation as had been Mr. Mason. Before leaving the inn after breakfast he had agreed to join the\r\ndinner in the commercial room at five o'clock, and Mr. Mason's hot\r\nlunch had by no means induced him to alter his purpose. \"I shall dine\r\nhere,\" he had said when Mr. Moulder was discussing with the waiter\r\nthe all-important subject of dinner. \"At the commercial table sir?\" the waiter had asked, doubtingly. Mr. Dockwrath had answered boldly\r\nin the affirmative, whereat Mr. Moulder had growled; but Mr. Kantwise\r\nhad expressed satisfaction. \"We shall be extremely happy to enjoy\r\nyour company,\" Mr. Kantwise had said, with a graceful bow, making up\r\nby his excessive courtesy for the want of any courtesy on the part of\r\nhis brother-traveller. With reference to all this Mr. Moulder said\r\nnothing; the stranger had been admitted into the room, to a certain\r\nextent even with his own consent, and he could not now be turned out;\r\nbut he resolved within his own mind that for the future he would\r\nbe more firm in maintaining the ordinances and institutes of his\r\nprofession."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On his road home, Mr. Dockwrath had encountered Mr. Kantwise going to\r\nGroby Park, intent on his sale of a drawing-room set of the metallic\r\nfurniture; and when he again met him in the commercial room he asked\r\nafter his success. \"A wonderful woman that, Mr. Dockwrath,\" said Mr.\r\nKantwise, \"a really wonderful woman; no particular friend of yours I\r\nthink you say?\" \"None in the least, Mr. Kantwise,\"\r\n\r\n\"Then I may make bold to assert that for persevering sharpness she\r\nbeats all that I ever met, even in Yorkshire;\" and Mr. Kantwise\r\nlooked at his new friend over his shoulder, and shook his head as\r\nthough lost in wonder and admiration. \"What do you think she's done\r\nnow?\" \"She didn't give you much to eat, I take it.\" \"Much to eat! I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Dockwrath; my belief is\r\nthat woman would have an absolute pleasure in starving a Christian; I\r\ndo indeed. I'll tell you what she has done; she has made me put her\r\nup a set of them things at twelve, seventeen, six! I needn't tell you\r\nthat they were never made for the money.\" \"Why, then, did you part with them at a loss?\" \"Well; that's the question. I was soft, I suppose. She got round me,\r\nbadgering me, till I didn't know where I was. She wanted them as a\r\npresent for the curate's wife, she said. Whatever should induce her\r\nto make a present!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"She got them for twelve, seventeen, six; did she?\" said Dockwrath,\r\nthinking that it might be as well to remember this, if he should feel\r\ninclined to make a purchase himself. \"But they was strained, Mr. Dockwrath; I must admit they was\r\nstrained,--particularly the loo.\" \"You had gone through your gymnastics on it a little too often?\" asked the attorney. But this Mr. Kantwise would not acknowledge. The\r\nstrength of that table was such that he could stand on it for ever\r\nwithout injury to it; but nevertheless, in some other way it had\r\nbecome strained, and therefore he had sold the set to Mrs. Mason for\r\n£12 17_s._ 6_d._, that lady being minded to make a costly present to\r\nthe wife of the curate of Groby. When dinner-time came Mr. Dockwrath found that the party was swelled\r\nto the number of eight, five other undoubted commercials having\r\nbrought themselves to anchor at the Bull Inn during the day. To all\r\nof these, Mr. Kantwise introduced him. \"Mr. Gape, Mr. Dockwrath,\"\r\nsaid he, gracefully moving towards them the palm of his hand, and\r\neyeing them over his shoulder. \"Mr. Gape is in the stationery line,\"\r\nhe added, in a whisper to the attorney, \"and does for Cumming and\r\nJibber of St. Paul's Churchyard. Mr. Johnson, Mr. Dockwrath. Mr.\r\nJ. is from Sheffield. Mr. Snengkeld, Mr. Dockwrath;\" and then he\r\nimparted in another whisper the necessary information as to Mr.\r\nSnengkeld."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Soft goods, for Brown Brothers, of Snow Hill,\" and so\r\non through the whole fraternity. Each member bowed as his name was\r\nmentioned; but they did not do so very graciously, as Mr. Kantwise\r\nwas not a great man among them. Had the stranger been introduced to\r\nthem by Moulder,--Moulder the patriarch,--his reception among them\r\nwould have been much warmer. And then they sat down to dinner, Mr.\r\nMoulder taking the chair as president, and Mr. Kantwise sitting\r\nopposite to him, as being the longest sojourner at the inn. Mr.\r\nDockwrath sat at the right hand of Kantwise, discreetly avoiding the\r\nneighbourhood of Moulder, and the others ranged themselves according\r\nto fancy at the table. \"Come up along side of me, old fellow,\"\r\nMoulder said to Snengkeld. \"It ain't the first time that you and\r\nI have smacked our lips together over the same bit of roast beef.\" \"Nor won't, I hope, be the last by a long chalk, Mr. Moulder,\"\r\nsaid Snengkeld, speaking with a deep, hoarse voice which seemed to\r\nascend from some region of his body far below his chest. Moulder and\r\nSnengkeld were congenial spirits; but the latter, though the older\r\nman, was not endowed with so large a volume of body or so highly\r\ndominant a spirit. Brown Brothers, of Snow Hill, were substantial\r\npeople, and Mr. Snengkeld travelled in strict accordance with the\r\ngood old rules of trade which Moulder loved so well."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The politeness and general good manners of the company were something\r\nvery pretty to witness. Mr. Dockwrath, as a stranger, was helped\r\nfirst, and every courtesy was shown to him. Even Mr. Moulder carved\r\nthe beef for him with a loving hand, and Mr. Kantwise was almost\r\nsubservient in his attention. Mr. Dockwrath thought that he had\r\ncertainly done right in coming to the commercial table, and resolved\r\non doing so on all occasions of future journeys. So far all was good. The commercial dinner, as he had ascertained, would cost him only\r\ntwo shillings, and a much inferior repast eaten by himself elsewhere\r\nwould have stood in his bill for three. So far all was good; but the\r\ntest by which he was to be tried was now approaching him. When the dinner was just half over,--Mr. Moulder well knew how to\r\nmark the time,--that gentleman called for the waiter, and whispered\r\nan important order into that functionary's ears. The functionary\r\nbowed, retired from the room, and reappeared again in two minutes,\r\nbearing a bottle of sherry in each hand; one of these he deposited at\r\nthe right hand of Mr. Moulder; and the other at the right hand of Mr.\r\nKantwise."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Sir,\" said Mr. Moulder, addressing himself with great ceremony to\r\nMr. Dockwrath, \"the honour of a glass of wine with you, sir,\" and\r\nthe president, to give more importance to the occasion, put down his\r\nknife and fork, leaned back in his chair, and put both his hands upon\r\nhis waistcoat, looking intently at the attorney out of his little\r\neyes. Mr. Dockwrath was immediately aware that a crisis had come upon\r\nhim which demanded an instant decision. If he complied with the\r\npresident's invitation he would have to pay his proportion of all the\r\nwine bill that might be incurred that evening by the seven commercial\r\ngentlemen at the table, and he knew well that commercial gentlemen do\r\nsometimes call for bottle after bottle with a reckless disregard of\r\nexpense. But to him, with his sixteen children, wine at an hotel was\r\nterrible. A pint of beer and a glass of brandy and water were the\r\nluxuries which he had promised himself, and with manly fortitude\r\nhe resolved that he would not be coerced into extravagance by any\r\npresident or any Moulder. \"Sir,\" said he, \"I'm obliged by the honour, but I don't drink wine\r\nto my dinner.\" Whereupon Mr. Moulder bowed his head very solemnly,\r\nwinked at Snengkeld, and then drank wine with that gentleman. \"It's the rule of the room,\" whispered Mr. Kantwise into Mr.\r\nDockwrath's ear; but Mr. Dockwrath pretended not to hear him, and the\r\nmatter was allowed to pass by for the time."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Mr. Snengkeld asked him for the honour, as also did Mr. Gape,\r\nwho sat at Moulder's left hand; and then Mr. Dockwrath began to wax\r\nangry. \"I think I remarked before that I don't drink wine to my\r\ndinner,\" he said; and then the three at the president's end of the\r\ntable all looked at each other very solemnly, and they all winked;\r\nand after that there was very little conversation during the\r\nremainder of the meal, for men knew that the goddess of discord was\r\nin the air. The cheese came, and with that a bottle of port wine, which was\r\nhanded round, Mr. Dockwrath of course refusing to join in the\r\nconviviality; and then the cloth was drawn, and the decanters\r\nwere put before the president. \"James, bring me a little\r\nbrandy-and-water,\" said the attorney, striving to put a bold face on\r\nthe matter, but yet speaking with diminished voice. \"Half a moment, if you please, sir,\" said Moulder; and then he\r\nexclaimed with stentorian voice, \"James, the dinner bill.\" \"Yes,\r\nsir,\" said the waiter, and disappeared without any thought towards\r\nthe requisition for brandy-and-water from Mr. Dockwrath. For the next five minutes they all remained silent, except that Mr.\r\nMoulder gave the Queen's health as he filled his glass and pushed\r\nthe bottles from him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Gentlemen, the Queen,\" and then he lifted his\r\nglass of port up to the light, shut one eye as he looked at it, and\r\nimmediately swallowed the contents as though he were taking a dose\r\nof physic. \"I'm afraid they'll charge you for the wine,\" said Mr.\r\nKantwise, again whispering to his neighbour. But Mr. Dockwrath paid\r\nno apparent attention to what was said to him. He was concentrating\r\nhis energies with a view to the battle. James, the waiter, soon returned. He also knew well what was\r\nabout to happen, and he trembled as he handed in the document to\r\nthe president. \"Let's have it, James,\" said Moulder, with much\r\npleasantry, as he took the paper in his hand. \"The old ticket I\r\nsuppose; five bob a head.\" And then he read out the bill, the total\r\nof which, wine and beer included, came to forty shillings. \"Five\r\nshillings a head, gentlemen, as I said. You and I can make a pretty\r\ngood guess as to the figure; eh, Snengkeld?\" And then he put down his\r\ntwo half-crowns on the waiter, as also did Mr. Snengkeld, and then\r\nMr. Gape, and so on till it came to Mr. Kantwise. \"I think you and I will leave it, and settle at the bar,\" said\r\nKantwise, appealing to Dockwrath, and intending peace if peace were\r\nstill possible. \"No,\" shouted Moulder, from the other end of the table; \"let the man\r\nhave his money now, and then his troubles will be over."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If there's\r\nto be any fuss about it, let's have it out. I like to see the dinner\r\nbill settled as soon as the dinner is eaten. Then one gets an\r\nappetite for one's supper.\" \"I don't think I have the change,\" said Kantwise, still putting off\r\nthe evil day. \"I'll lend, it you,\" said Moulder, putting his hand into his\r\ntrousers-pockets. But the money was forthcoming out of Mr. Kantwise's\r\nown proper repositories, and with slow motion he put down the five\r\nshillings one after the other. And then the waiter came to Mr. Dockwrath. \"What's this?\" said the\r\nattorney, taking up the bill and looking at it. The whole matter had\r\nbeen sufficiently explained to him, but nevertheless Mr. Moulder\r\nexplained it again. \"In commercial rooms, sir, as no doubt you must\r\nbe well aware, seeing that you have done us the honour of joining us\r\nhere, the dinner bill is divided equally among all the gentlemen as\r\nsit down. It's the rule of the room, sir. You has what you like, and\r\nyou calls for what you like, and conwiviality is thereby encouraged. The figure generally comes to five shillings, and you afterwards\r\ngives what you like to the waiter. That's about it, ain't it, James?\" \"That's the rule, sir, in all commercial rooms as I ever see,\" said\r\nthe waiter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The matter had been so extremely well put by Mr. Moulder, and that\r\ngentleman's words had carried with them so much conviction, that\r\nDockwrath felt himself almost tempted to put down the money; as far\r\nas his sixteen children and general ideas of economy were concerned\r\nhe would have done so; but his legal mind could not bear to be\r\nbeaten. The spirit of litigation within him told him that the point\r\nwas to be carried. Moulder, Gape, and Snengkeld together could not\r\nmake him pay for wine he had neither ordered nor swallowed. His\r\npocket was guarded by the law of the land, and not by the laws of any\r\nspecial room in which he might chance to find himself. \"I shall pay\r\ntwo shillings for my dinner,\" said he, \"and sixpence for my beer;\"\r\nand then he deposited the half-crown. \"Do you mean us to understand,\" said Moulder, \"that after forcing\r\nyour way into this room, and sitting down along with gentlemen at\r\nthis table, you refuse to abide by the rules of the room?\" And Mr.\r\nMoulder spoke and looked as though he thought that such treachery\r\nmust certainly lead to most disastrous results. The disastrous result\r\nwhich a stranger might have expected at the moment would be a fit of\r\napoplexy on the part of the worthy president."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I neither ordered that wine nor did I drink it,\" said Mr. Dockwrath,\r\ncompressing his lips, leaning back in his chair, and looking up into\r\none corner of the ceiling. \"The gentleman certainly did not drink the wine,\" said Kantwise, \"I\r\nmust acknowledge that; and as for ordering it, why that was done by\r\nthe president, in course.\" \"Gammon!\" said Mr. Moulder, and he fixed his eyes steadfastly upon\r\nhis Vice. \"Kantwise, that's gammon. The most of what you says is\r\ngammon.\" \"Mr. Moulder, I don't exactly know what you mean by that word gammon,\r\nbut it's objectionable. To my feelings it's very objectionable. I\r\nsay that the gentleman did not drink the wine, and I appeal to the\r\ngentleman who sits at the gentleman's right, whether what I say\r\nis not correct. If what I say is correct, it can't be--gammon. Mr.\r\nBusby, did that gentleman drink the wine, or did he not?\" \"Not as I see,\" said Mr. Busby, somewhat nervous at being thus\r\nbrought into the controversy. He was a young man just commencing his\r\ntravels, and stood in awe of the great Moulder. \"Gammon!\" shouted Moulder, with a very red face. \"Everybody at the\r\ntable knows he didn't drink the wine. Everybody saw that he declined\r\nthe honour when proposed, which I don't know that I ever saw a\r\ngentleman do at a commercial table till this day, barring that he\r\nwas a teetotaller, which is gammon too. But its P.P."}
{"question": "", "answer": "here, as every\r\ncommercial gentleman knows, Kantwise as well as the best of us.\" \"P.P., that's the rule,\" growled Snengkeld, almost from under the\r\ntable. \"In commercial rooms, as the gentleman must be aware, the rule is as\r\nstated by my friend on my right,\" said Mr. Gape. \"The wine is ordered\r\nby the president or chairman, and is paid for in equal proportions by\r\nthe company or guests,\" and in his oratory Mr. Gape laid great stress\r\non the word \"or.\" \"The gentleman will easily perceive that such a\r\nrule as this is necessary in such a society; and unless--\"\r\n\r\nBut Mr. Gape was apt to make long speeches, and therefore Mr. Moulder\r\ninterrupted him. \"You had better pay your five shillings, sir, and\r\nhave no jaw about it. The man is standing idle there.\" \"It's not the value of the money,\" said Dockwrath, \"but I must\r\ndecline to acknowledge that I am amenable to the jurisdiction.\" \"There has clearly been a mistake,\" said Johnson from Sheffield, \"and\r\nwe had better settle it among us; anything is better than a row.\" Johnson from Sheffield was a man somewhat inclined to dispute the\r\nsupremacy of Moulder from Houndsditch. \"No, Johnson,\" said the president. \"Anything is not better than a\r\nrow. A premeditated infraction of our rules is not better than a\r\nrow.\" \"Did you say premeditated?\" said Kantwise. \"I think not\r\npremeditated.\" \"I did say premeditated, and I say it again.\" \"It looks uncommon like it,\" said Snengkeld."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"When a gentleman,\" said Gape, \"who does not belong to a society--\"\r\n\r\n\"It's no good having more talk,\" said Moulder, \"and we'll soon\r\nbring this to an end. Mr.--; I haven't the honour of knowing the\r\ngentleman's name.\" \"My name is Dockwrath, and I am a solicitor.\" \"Oh, a solicitor; are you? and you said last night you was\r\ncommercial! Will you be good enough to tell us, Mr. Solicitor--for I\r\ndidn't just catch your name, except that it begins with a dock--and\r\nthat's where most of your clients are to be found, I suppose--\"\r\n\r\n\"Order, order, order!\" said Kantwise, holding up both his hands. \"It's the chair as is speaking,\" said Mr. Gape, who had a true\r\nEnglishman's notion that the chair itself could not be called to\r\norder. \"You shouldn't insult the gentleman because he has his own ideas,\"\r\nsaid Johnson. \"I don't want to insult no one,\" continued Moulder; \"and those who\r\nknow me best, among whom I can't as yet count Mr. Johnson, though\r\nhopes I shall some day, won't say it of me.\" \"Hear--hear--hear!\" from both Snengkeld and Gape; to which Kantwise added a little\r\n\"hear--hear!\" of his own, of which Mr. Moulder did not quite approve. \"Mr. Snengkeld and Mr. Gape, they're my old friends, and they knows\r\nme. And they knows the way of a commercial room--which some gentlemen\r\ndon't seem as though they do."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I don't want to insult no one; but\r\nas chairman here at this conwivial meeting, I asks that gentleman\r\nwho says he is a solicitor whether he means to pay his dinner bill\r\naccording to the rules of the room, or whether he don't?\" \"I've paid for what I've had already,\" said Dockwrath, \"and I don't\r\nmean to pay for what I've not had.\" \"James,\" exclaimed Moulder,--and all the chairman was in his voice\r\nas he spoke,--\"my compliments to Mr. Crump, and I will request his\r\nattendance for five minutes;\" and then James left the room, and there\r\nwas silence for a while, during which the bottles made their round of\r\nthe table. \"Hadn't we better send back the pint of wine which Mr. Dockwrath\r\nhasn't used?\" suggested Kantwise. \"I'm d---- if we do!\" replied Moulder, with much energy; and the\r\ngeneral silence was not again broken till Mr. Crump made his\r\nappearance; but the chairman whispered a private word or two to his\r\nfriend Snengkeld. \"I never sent back ordered liquor to the bar yet,\r\nunless it was bad; and I'm not going to begin now.\" And then Mr. Crump came in. Mr. Crump was a very clean-looking\r\nperson, without any beard; and dressed from head to foot in black. He\r\nwas about fifty, with grizzly gray hair, which stood upright on his\r\nhead, and his face at the present moment wore on it an innkeeper's\r\nsmile."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But it could also assume an innkeeper's frown, and on\r\noccasions did so--when bills were disputed, or unreasonable strangers\r\nthought that they knew the distance in posting miles round the\r\nneighbourhood of Leeds better than did he, Mr. Crump, who had lived\r\nat the Bull Inn all his life. But Mr. Crump rarely frowned on\r\ncommercial gentlemen, from whom was derived the main stay of his\r\nbusiness and the main prop of his house. \"Mr. Crump,\" began Moulder, \"here has occurred a very unpleasant\r\ntransaction.\" \"I know all about it, gentlemen,\" said Mr. Crump. \"The waiter has\r\nacquainted me, and I can assure you, gentlemen, that I am extremely\r\nsorry that anything should have arisen to disturb the harmony of your\r\ndinner-table.\" \"We must now call upon you, Mr. Crump,\" began Mr. Moulder, who was\r\nabout to demand that Dockwrath should be turned bodily out of the\r\nroom. \"If you'll allow me one moment, Mr. Moulder,\" continued Mr. Crump,\r\n\"and I'll tell you what is my suggestion. The gentleman here, who I\r\nunderstand is a lawyer, does not wish to comply with the rules of the\r\ncommercial room.\" \"I certainly don't wish or intend to pay for drink that I didn't\r\norder and haven't had,\" said Dockwrath. \"Exactly,\" said Mr. Crump. \"And therefore, gentlemen, to get out of\r\nthe difficulty, we'll presume, if you please, that the bill is paid.\" \"The lawyer, as you call him, will have to leave the room,\" said\r\nMoulder."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Perhaps he will not object to step over to the coffee-room on the\r\nother side,\" suggested the landlord. \"I can't think of leaving my seat here under such circumstances,\"\r\nsaid Dockwrath. \"You can't,\" said Moulder. \"Then you must be made, as I take it.\" \"Let me see the man that will make me,\" said Dockwrath. Mr. Crump looked very apologetic and not very comfortable. \"There\r\nis a difficulty, gentlemen; there is a difficulty, indeed,\" he said. \"The fact is, the gentleman should not have been showed into the room\r\nat all;\" and he looked very angrily at his own servant, James. \"He said he was 'mercial,\" said James. \"So he did. Now he says as how\r\nhe's a lawyer. What's a poor man to do?\" \"I'm a commercial lawyer,\" said Dockwrath. \"He must leave the room, or I shall leave the house,\" said Moulder. \"Gentlemen, gentlemen!\" said Crump. \"This kind of thing does not\r\nhappen often, and on this occasion I must try your kind patience. If\r\nMr. Moulder would allow me to suggest that the commercial gentlemen\r\nshould take their wine in the large drawing-room up stairs this\r\nevening, Mrs. C. will do her best to make it comfortable for them in\r\nfive minutes. There of course they can be private.\" There was something in the idea of leaving Mr. Dockwrath alone in his\r\nglory which appeased the spirit of the great Moulder."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had known\r\nCrump, moreover, for many years, and was aware that it would be a\r\ndangerous, and probably an expensive proceeding to thrust out the\r\nattorney by violence. \"If the other gentlemen are agreeable, I am,\"\r\nsaid he. The other gentlemen were agreeable, and, with the exception\r\nof Kantwise, they all rose from their chairs. \"I must say I think you ought to leave the room as you don't\r\nchoose to abide by the rules,\" said Johnson, addressing himself to\r\nDockwrath. \"That's your opinion,\" said Dockwrath. \"Yes, it is,\" said Johnson. \"That's my opinion.\" \"My own happens to be different,\" said Dockwrath; and so he kept his\r\nchair. \"There, Mr. Crump,\" said Moulder, taking half a crown from his pocket\r\nand throwing it on the table. \"I sha'n't see you at a loss.\" \"Thank you, sir,\" said Mr. Crump; and he very humbly took up the\r\nmoney. \"I keep a little account for charity at home,\" said Moulder. \"It don't run very high, do it?\" asked Snengkeld, jocosely. \"Not out of the way, it don't. But now I shall have the pleasure of\r\nwriting down in it that I paid half a crown for a lawyer who couldn't\r\nafford to settle his own dinner bill. Sir, we have the pleasure of\r\nwishing you a good night.\" \"I hope you'll find the large drawing-room up stairs quite\r\ncomfortable,\" said Dockwrath."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then they all marched out of the room, each with his own glass,\r\nMr. Moulder leading the way with stately step. It was pleasant to see\r\nthem as they all followed their leader across the open passage of the\r\ngateway, in by the bar, and so up the chief staircase. Mr. Moulder\r\nwalked slowly, bearing the bottle of port and his own glass, and\r\nMr. Snengkeld and Mr. Gape followed in line, bearing also their\r\nown glasses, and maintaining the dignity of their profession under\r\ncircumstances of some difficulty. [Illustration: And then they all marched out of the room,\r\neach with his own glass.] \"Gentlemen, I really am sorry for this little accident,\" said Mr.\r\nCrump, as they were passing the bar; \"but a lawyer, you know--\"\r\n\r\n\"And such a lawyer, eh, Crump?\" said Moulder. \"It might be five-and-twenty pound to me to lay a hand on him!\" said\r\nthe landlord. When the time came for Mr. Kantwise to move, he considered the matter\r\nwell. The chances, however, as he calculated them, were against any\r\nprofitable business being done with the attorney, so he also left the\r\nroom. \"Good night, sir,\" he said as he went. \"I wish you a very good\r\nnight.\" \"Take care of yourself,\" said Dockwrath; and then the attorney spent\r\nthe rest of the evening alone. CHAPTER X.\r\n\r\nMR., MRS., AND MISS FURNIVAL."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I will now ask my readers to come with me up to London, in order\r\nthat I may introduce them to the family of the Furnivals. We shall\r\nsee much of the Furnivals before we reach the end of our present\r\nundertaking, and it will be well that we should commence our\r\nacquaintance with them as early as may be done. Mr. Furnival was a lawyer--I mean a barrister--belonging to Lincoln's\r\nInn, and living at the time at which our story is supposed to\r\ncommence in Harley Street. But he had not been long a resident in\r\nHarley Street, having left the less fashionable neighbourhood of\r\nRussell Square only two or three years before that period. On his\r\nmarriage he had located himself in a small house in Keppel Street,\r\nand had there remained till professional success, long waited for,\r\nenabled him to move further west, and indulge himself with the\r\ncomforts of larger rooms and more servants. At the time of which I am\r\nnow speaking Mr. Furnival was known, and well known, as a successful\r\nman; but he had struggled long and hard before that success had come\r\nto him, and during the earliest years of his married life had found\r\nthe work of keeping the wolf from the door to be almost more than\r\nenough for his energies. Mr. Furnival practised at the common law bar, and early in life had\r\nattached himself to the home circuit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I cannot say why he obtained no\r\ngreat success till he was nearer fifty than forty years of age. At\r\nthat time I fancy that barristers did not come to their prime till\r\na period of life at which other men are supposed to be in their\r\ndecadence. Nevertheless, he had married on nothing, and had kept the\r\nwolf from the door. To do this he had been constant at his work in\r\nseason and out of season, during the long hours of day and the long\r\nhours of night. Throughout his term times he had toiled in court,\r\nand during the vacations he had toiled out of court. He had reported\r\nvolumes of cases, having been himself his own short-hand writer,--as\r\nit is well known to most young lawyers, who as a rule always fill\r\nan upper shelf in their law libraries with Furnival and Staples'\r\nseventeen volumes in calf. He had worked for the booksellers, and for\r\nthe newspapers, and for the attorneys,--always working, however, with\r\nreference to the law; and though he had worked for years with the\r\nlowest pay, no man had heard him complain. That no woman had heard\r\nhim do so, I will not say; as it is more than probable that into the\r\nsympathising ears of Mrs. Furnival he did pour forth plaints as to\r\nthe small wages which the legal world meted out to him in return for\r\nhis labours."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was a constant, hard, patient man, and at last there\r\ncame to him the full reward of all his industry. What was the special\r\ncase by which Mr. Furnival obtained his great success no man could\r\nsay. In all probability there was no special case. Gradually it\r\nbegan to be understood that he was a safe man, understanding his\r\ntrade, true to his clients, and very damaging as an opponent. Legal\r\ngentlemen are, I believe, quite as often bought off as bought up. Sir\r\nRichard and Mr. Furnival could not both be required on the same side,\r\nseeing what a tower of strength each was in himself; but then Sir\r\nRichard would be absolutely neutralized if Mr. Furnival were employed\r\non the other side. This is a system well understood by attorneys, and\r\nhas been found to be extremely lucrative by gentlemen leading at the\r\nbar. Mr. Furnival was now fifty-five years of age, and was beginning\r\nto show in his face some traces of his hard work. Not that he was\r\nbecoming old, or weak, or worn; but his eye had lost its fire--except\r\nthe fire peculiar to his profession; and there were wrinkles in his\r\nforehead and cheeks; and his upper lip, except when he was speaking,\r\nhung heavily over the lower; and the loose skin below his eye was\r\nforming into saucers; and his hair had become grizzled; and on his\r\nshoulders, except when in court, there was a slight stoop."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As seen in\r\nhis wig and gown he was a man of commanding presence,--and for ten\r\nmen in London who knew him in this garb, hardly one knew him without\r\nit. He was nearly six feet high, and stood forth prominently, with\r\nsquare, broad shoulders and a large body. His head also was large;\r\nhis forehead was high, and marked strongly by signs of intellect; his\r\nnose was long and straight, his eyes were very gray, and capable to\r\nan extraordinary degree both of direct severity and of concealed\r\nsarcasm. Witnesses have been heard to say that they could endure\r\nall that Mr. Furnival could say to them, and continue in some sort\r\nto answer all his questions, if only he would refrain from looking\r\nat them. But he would never refrain; and therefore it was now well\r\nunderstood how great a thing it was to secure the services of Mr.\r\nFurnival. \"Sir,\" an attorney would say to an unfortunate client\r\ndoubtful as to the expenditure, \"your witnesses will not be able to\r\nstand in the box if we allow Mr. Furnival to be engaged on the other\r\nside.\" I am inclined to think that Mr. Furnival owed to this power of\r\nhis eyes his almost unequalled perfection in that peculiar branch of\r\nhis profession. His voice was powerful, and not unpleasant when used\r\nwithin the precincts of a court, though it grated somewhat harshly on\r\nthe ears in the smaller compass of a private room."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His flow of words\r\nwas free and good, and seemed to come from him without the slightest\r\neffort. Such at least was always the case with him when standing\r\nwigged and gowned before a judge. Latterly, however, he had tried his\r\neloquence on another arena, and not altogether with equal success. He\r\nwas now in Parliament, sitting as member for the Essex Marshes, and\r\nhe had not as yet carried either the country or the House with him,\r\nalthough he had been frequently on his legs. Some men said that\r\nwith a little practice he would yet become very serviceable as an\r\nhonourable and learned member; but others expressed a fear that he\r\nhad come too late in life to these new duties. I have spoken of Mr. Furnival's great success in that branch of\r\nhis profession which required from him the examination of evidence,\r\nbut I would not have it thought that he was great only in this, or\r\neven mainly in this. There are gentlemen at the bar, among whom\r\nI may perhaps notice my old friend Mr. Chaffanbrass as the most\r\nconspicuous, who have confined their talents to the browbeating\r\nof witnesses,--greatly to their own profit, and no doubt to the\r\nadvantage of society. But I would have it understood that Mr.\r\nFurnival was by no means one of these. He had been no Old Bailey\r\nlawyer, devoting himself to the manumission of murderers, or the\r\nsecurity of the swindling world in general."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had been employed on\r\nabstruse points of law, had been great in will cases, very learned as\r\nto the rights of railways, peculiarly apt in enforcing the dowries of\r\nmarried women, and successful above all things in separating husbands\r\nand wives whose lives had not been passed in accordance with the\r\nrecognised rules of Hymen. Indeed there is no branch of the Common\r\nLaw in which he was not regarded as great and powerful, though\r\nperhaps his proficiency in damaging the general characters of his\r\nopponents has been recognised as his especial forte. Under these\r\ncircumstances I should grieve to have him confounded with such men\r\nas Mr. Chaffanbrass, who is hardly known by the profession beyond\r\nthe precincts of his own peculiar court in the City. Mr. Furnival's\r\nreputation has spread itself wherever stuff gowns and horsehair wigs\r\nare held in estimation. Mr. Furnival when clothed in his forensic habiliments certainly\r\npossessed a solemn and severe dignity which had its weight even with\r\nthe judges. Those who scrutinised his appearance critically might\r\nhave said that it was in some respects pretentious; but the ordinary\r\njurymen of this country are not critical scrutinisers of appearance,\r\nand by them he was never held in light estimation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When in his\r\naddresses to them, appealing to their intelligence, education, and\r\nenlightened justice, he would declare that the property of his\r\nclients was perfectly safe in their hands, he looked to be such an\r\nadvocate as a litigant would fain possess when dreading the soundness\r\nof his own cause. Any cause was sound to him when once he had been\r\nfeed for its support, and he carried in his countenance his assurance\r\nof this soundness,--and the assurance of unsoundness in the cause of\r\nhis opponent. Even he did not always win; but on the occasion of his\r\nlosing, those of the uninitiated who had heard the pleadings would\r\nexpress their astonishment that he should not have been successful. When he was divested of his wig his appearance was not so perfect. There was then a hard, long straightness about his head and face,\r\ngiving to his countenance the form of a parallelogram, to which there\r\nbelonged a certain meanness of expression. He wanted the roundness of\r\nforehead, the short lines, and the graceful curves of face which are\r\nnecessary to unadorned manly comeliness. His whiskers were small,\r\ngrizzled, and ill grown, and required the ample relief of his wig. In no guise did he look other than a clever man; but in his dress as\r\na simple citizen he would perhaps be taken as a clever man in whose\r\ntenderness of heart and cordiality of feeling one would not at first\r\nsight place implicit trust."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As a poor man Mr. Furnival had done his duty well by his wife and\r\nfamily,--for as a poor man he had been blessed with four children. Three of these had died as they were becoming men and women, and now,\r\nas a rich man, he was left with one daughter, an only child. As a\r\npoor man Mr. Furnival had been an excellent husband, going forth\r\nin the morning to his work, struggling through the day, and then\r\nreturning to his meagre dinner and his long evenings of unremitting\r\ndrudgery. The bodily strength which had supported him through his\r\nwork in those days must have been immense, for he had allowed himself\r\nno holidays. And then success and money had come,--and Mrs. Furnival\r\nsometimes found herself not quite so happy as she had been when\r\nwatching beside him in the days of their poverty. The equal mind,--as mortal Delius was bidden to remember, and as Mr.\r\nFurnival might also have remembered had time been allowed him to\r\ncultivate the classics,--the equal mind should be as sedulously\r\nmaintained when things run well, as well as when they run hardly;\r\nand perhaps the maintenance of such equal mind is more difficult in\r\nthe former than in the latter stage of life. Be that as it may, Mr.\r\nFurnival could now be very cross on certain domestic occasions, and\r\ncould also be very unjust. And there was worse than this,--much worse\r\nbehind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He, who in the heyday of his youth would spend night after\r\nnight poring over his books, copying out reports, and never asking to\r\nsee a female habiliment brighter or more attractive than his wife's\r\nSunday gown, he, at the age of fifty-five, was now running after\r\nstrange goddesses! The member for the Essex Marshes, in these his\r\nlatter days, was obtaining for himself among other successes the\r\ncharacter of a Lothario; and Mrs. Furnival, sitting at home in her\r\ngenteel drawing-room near Cavendish Square, would remember with\r\nregret the small dingy parlour in Keppel Street. Mrs. Furnival in discussing her grievances would attribute them\r\nmainly to port wine. In his early days Mr. Furnival had been\r\nessentially an abstemious man. Young men who work fifteen hours a day\r\nmust be so. But now he had a strong opinion about certain Portuguese\r\nvintages, was convinced that there was no port wine in London equal\r\nto the contents of his own bin, saving always a certain green cork\r\nappertaining to his own club, which was to be extracted at the rate\r\nof thirty shillings a cork. And Mrs. Furnival attributed to these\r\nlatter studies not only a certain purple hue which was suffusing his\r\nnose and cheeks, but also that unevenness of character and those\r\nsupposed domestic improprieties to which allusion has been made."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It\r\nmay, however, be as well to explain that Mrs. Ball, the old family\r\ncook and housekeeper, who had ascended with the Furnivals in the\r\nworld, opined that made-dishes did the mischief. He dined out too\r\noften, and was a deal too particular about his dinner when he dined\r\nat home. If Providence would see fit to visit him with a sharp attack\r\nof the gout, it would--so thought Mrs. Ball--be better for all\r\nparties. Whether or no it may have been that Mrs. Furnival at fifty-five--for\r\nshe and her lord were of the same age--was not herself as attractive\r\nin her husband's eyes as she had been at thirty, I will not pretend\r\nto say. There can have been no just reason for any such change in\r\nfeeling, seeing that the two had grown old together. She, poor woman,\r\nwould have been quite content with the attentions of Mr. Furnival,\r\nthough his hair was grizzled and his nose was blue; nor did she ever\r\nthink of attracting to herself the admiration of any swain whose\r\ngeneral comeliness might be more free from all taint of age. Why then\r\nshould he wander afield--at the age of fifty-five? That he did wander\r\nafield, poor Mrs. Furnival felt in her agony convinced; and among\r\nthose ladies whom on this account she most thoroughly detested was\r\nour friend Lady Mason of Orley Farm."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lady Mason and the lawyer had\r\nfirst become acquainted in the days of the trial, now long gone\r\nby, on which occasion Mr. Furnival had been employed as the junior\r\ncounsel; and that acquaintance had ripened into friendship, and now\r\nflourished in full vigour,--to Mrs. Furnival's great sorrow and\r\ndisturbance. Mrs. Furnival herself was a stout, solid woman, sensible on most\r\npoints, but better adapted, perhaps, to the life in Keppel Street\r\nthan that to which she had now been promoted. As Kitty Blacker she\r\nhad possessed feminine charms which would have been famous had\r\nthey been better known. Mr. Furnival had fetched her from farther\r\nEast--from the region of Great Ormond street and the neighbourhood of\r\nSouthampton Buildings. Her cherry cheeks, and her round eye, and her\r\nfull bust, and her fresh lip, had conquered the hard-tasked lawyer;\r\nand so they had gone forth to fight the world together. Her eye\r\nwas still round, and her cheek red, and her bust full,--there had\r\ncertainly been no falling off there; nor will I say that her lip had\r\nlost its freshness. But the bloom of her charms had passed away, and\r\nshe was now a solid, stout, motherly woman, not bright in converse,\r\nbut by no means deficient in mother-wit, recognizing well the duties\r\nwhich she owed to others, but recognizing equally well those which\r\nothers owed to her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All the charms of her youth--had they not been\r\ngiven to him, and also all her solicitude, all her anxious fighting\r\nwith the hard world? When they had been poor together, had she not\r\npatched and turned and twisted, sitting silently by his side into the\r\nlong nights, because she would not ask him for the price of a new\r\ndress? And yet now, now that they were rich--? Mrs. Furnival, when\r\nshe put such questions within her own mind, could hardly answer this\r\nlatter one with patience. Others might be afraid of the great Mr.\r\nFurnival in his wig and gown; others might be struck dumb by his\r\npower of eye and mouth; but she, she, the wife of his bosom, she\r\ncould catch him without his armour. She would so catch him and let\r\nhim know what she thought of all her wrongs. So she said to herself\r\nmany a day, and yet the great deed, in all its explosiveness, had\r\nnever yet been done. Small attacks of words there had been many, but\r\nhitherto the courage to speak out her griefs openly had been wanting\r\nto her. I can now allow myself but a small space to say a few words of Sophia\r\nFurnival, and yet in that small space must be confined all the direct\r\ndescription which can be given of one of the principal personages\r\nof this story. At nineteen Miss Furnival was in all respects a\r\nyoung woman."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was forward in acquirements, in manner, in general\r\nintelligence, and in powers of conversation. She was a handsome, tall\r\ngirl, with expressive gray eyes and dark-brown hair. Her mouth, and\r\nhair, and a certain motion of her neck and turn of her head, had come\r\nto her from her mother, but her eyes were those of her father: they\r\nwere less sharp perhaps, less eager after their prey; but they were\r\nbright as his had been bright, and sometimes had in them more of\r\nabsolute command than he was ever able to throw into his own. Their golden days had come on them at a period of her life which\r\nenabled her to make a better use of them than her mother could do. She never felt herself to be struck dumb by rank or fashion, nor did\r\nshe in the drawing-rooms of the great ever show signs of an Eastern\r\norigin. She could adapt herself without an effort to the manners of\r\nCavendish Square;--ay, and if need were, to the ways of more glorious\r\nsquares even than that. Therefore was her father never ashamed to be\r\nseen with her on his arm in the houses of his new friends, though on\r\nsuch occasions he was willing enough to go out without disturbing the\r\nrepose of his wife."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No mother could have loved her children with a\r\nwarmer affection than that which had warmed the heart of poor Mrs.\r\nFurnival; but under such circumstances as these was it singular that\r\nshe should occasionally become jealous of her own daughter? Sophia Furnival was, as I have said, a clever, attractive girl,\r\nhandsome, well-read, able to hold her own with the old as well as\r\nwith the young, capable of hiding her vanity if she had any, mild\r\nand gentle to girls less gifted, animated in conversation, and yet\r\npossessing an eye that could fall softly to the ground, as a woman's\r\neye always should fall upon occasions. Nevertheless she was not altogether charming. \"I don't feel quite\r\nsure that she is real,\" Mrs. Orme had said of her, when on a certain\r\noccasion Miss Furnival had spent a day and a night at The Cleeve. CHAPTER XI. MRS. FURNIVAL AT HOME. Lucius Mason on his road to Liverpool had passed through London,\r\nand had found a moment to call in Harley Street. Since his return\r\nfrom Germany he had met Miss Furnival both at home at his mother's\r\nhouse--or rather his own--and at The Cleeve. Miss Furnival had been\r\nin the neighbourhood, and had spent two days with the great people at\r\nThe Cleeve, and one day with the little people at Orley Farm."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lucius\r\nMason had found that she was a sensible girl, capable of discussing\r\ngreat subjects with him; and had possibly found some other charms in\r\nher. Therefore he had called in Harley Street. On that occasion he could only call as he passed through London\r\nwithout delay; but he received such encouragement as induced him to\r\nspend a night in town on his return, in order that he might accept an\r\ninvitation to drink tea with the Furnivals. \"We shall be very happy\r\nto see you,\" Mrs. Furnival had said, backing the proposition which\r\nhad come from her daughter without any very great fervour; \"but I\r\nfear Mr. Furnival will not be at home. Mr. Furnival very seldom is at\r\nhome now.\" Young Mason did not much care for fervour on the part of\r\nSophia's mother, and therefore had accepted the invitation, though he\r\nwas obliged by so doing to curtail by some hours his sojourn among\r\nthe guano stores of Liverpool. It was the time of year at which few people are at home in London,\r\nbeing the middle of October; but Mrs. Furnival was a lady of whom at\r\nsuch periods it was not very easy to dispose. She could have made\r\nherself as happy as a queen even at Margate, if it could have suited\r\nFurnival and Sophia to be happy at Margate with her. But this did not\r\nsuit Furnival or Sophia."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As regards money, any or almost all other\r\nautumnal resorts were open to her, but she could be contented at\r\nnone of them because Mr. Furnival always pleaded that business--law\r\nbusiness or political business--took him elsewhere. Now Mrs. Furnival\r\nwas a woman who did not like to be deserted, and who could not, in\r\nthe absence of those social joys which Providence had vouchsafed to\r\nher as her own, make herself happy with the society of other women\r\nsuch as herself. Furnival was her husband, and she wanted him to\r\ncarve for her, to sit opposite to her at the breakfast table, to tell\r\nher the news of the day, and to walk to church with her on Sundays. They had been made one flesh and one bone, for better and worse,\r\nthirty years since; and now in her latter days she could not put up\r\nwith disseveration and dislocation. She had gone down to Brighton in August, soon after the House broke\r\nup, and there found that very handsome apartments had been taken for\r\nher--rooms that would have made glad the heart of many a lawyer's\r\nwife. She had, too, the command of a fly, done up to look like\r\na private brougham, a servant in livery, the run of the public\r\nassembly-rooms, a sitting in the centre of the most fashionable\r\nchurch in Brighton--all that the heart of woman could desire."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All\r\nbut the one thing was there; but, that one thing being absent, she\r\ncame moodily back to town at the end of September. She would have\r\nexchanged them all with a happy heart for very moderate accommodation\r\nat Margate, could she have seen Mr. Furnival's blue nose on the other\r\nside of the table every morning and evening as she sat over her\r\nshrimps and tea. Men who had risen in the world as Mr. Furnival had done do find it\r\nsometimes difficult to dispose of their wives. It is not that the\r\nladies are in themselves more unfit for rising than their lords, or\r\nthat if occasion demanded they would not as readily adapt themselves\r\nto new spheres. But they do not rise, and occasion does not demand\r\nit. A man elevates his wife to his own rank, and when Mr. Brown,\r\non becoming solicitor-general, becomes Sir Jacob, Mrs. Brown also\r\nbecomes my lady. But the whole set among whom Brown must be more\r\nor less thrown do not want her ladyship. On Brown's promotion she\r\ndid not become part of the bargain. Brown must henceforth have two\r\nexistences--a public and a private existence; and it will be well for\r\nLady Brown, and well also for Sir Jacob, if the latter be not allowed\r\nto dwindle down to a minimum."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If Lady B. can raise herself also, if she can make her own\r\noccasion--if she be handsome and can flirt, if she be impudent and\r\ncan force her way, if she have a daring mind and can commit great\r\nexpenditure, if she be clever and can make poetry, if she can in\r\nany way create a separate glory for herself, then, indeed, Sir Jacob\r\nwith his blue nose may follow his own path, and all will be well. Sir Jacob's blue nose seated opposite to her will not be her summum\r\nbonum. But worthy Mrs. Furnival--and she was worthy--had created for herself\r\nno such separate glory, nor did she dream of creating it; and\r\ntherefore she had, as it were, no footing left to her. On this\r\noccasion she had gone to Brighton, and had returned from it sulky\r\nand wretched, bringing her daughter back to London at the period of\r\nLondon's greatest desolation. Sophia had returned uncomplaining,\r\nremembering that good things were in store for her. She had been\r\nasked to spend her Christmas with the Staveleys at Noningsby--the\r\nfamily of Judge Staveley, who lives near Alston, at a very pretty\r\ncountry place so called. Mr. Furnival had been for many years\r\nacquainted with Judge Staveley,--had known the judge when he was a\r\nleading counsel; and now that Mr. Furnival was a rising man, and\r\nnow that he had a pretty daughter, it was natural that the young\r\nStaveleys and Sophia Furnival should know each other."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But poor Mrs.\r\nFurnival was too ponderous for this mounting late in life, and she\r\nhad not been asked to Noningsby. She was much too good a mother to\r\nrepine at her daughter's promised gaiety. Sophia was welcome to go;\r\nbut by all the laws of God and man it would behove her lord and\r\nhusband to eat his mincepie at home. \"Mr. Furnival was to be back in town this evening,\" the lady said, as\r\nthough apologizing to young Mason for her husband's absence, when he\r\nentered the drawing-room, \"but he has not come, and I dare say will\r\nnot come now.\" Mason did not care a straw for Mr. Furnival. \"Oh! won't he?\" said he. \"I suppose business keeps him.\" \"Papa is very busy about politics just at present,\" said Sophia,\r\nwishing to make matters smooth in her mother's mind. \"He was obliged\r\nto be at Romford in the beginning of the week, and then he went down\r\nto Birmingham. There is some congress going on there, is there not?\" \"All that must take a great deal of time,\" said Lucius. \"Yes; and it is a terrible bore,\" said Sophia. \"I know papa finds it\r\nso.\" \"Your papa likes it, I believe,\" said Mrs. Furnival, who would not\r\nhide even her grievances under a bushel. \"I don't think he likes being so much from home, mamma. Of course he\r\nlikes excitement, and success. All men do. Do they not, Mr. Mason?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"They all ought to do so, and women also.\" \"Ah! but women have no sphere, Mr. Mason.\" \"They have minds equal to those of men,\" said Lucius, gallantly, \"and\r\nought to be able to make for themselves careers as brilliant.\" \"Women ought not to have any spheres,\" said Mrs. Furnival. \"I don't know that I quite agree with you there, mamma.\" \"The world is becoming a great deal too fond of what you call\r\nexcitement and success. Of course it is a good thing for a man to\r\nmake money by his profession, and a very hard thing when he can't do\r\nit,\" added Mrs. Furnival, thinking of the olden days. \"But if success\r\nin life means rampaging about, and never knowing what it is to sit\r\nquiet over his own fireside, I for one would as soon manage to do\r\nwithout it.\" \"But, mamma, I don't see why success should always be rampageous.\" \"Literary women who have achieved a name bear their honours quietly,\"\r\nsaid Lucius. \"I don't know,\" said Mrs. Furnival. \"I am told that some of them are\r\nas fond of gadding as the men. As regards the old maids, I don't care\r\nso much about it; people who are not married may do what they like\r\nwith themselves, and nobody has anything to say to them. But it\r\nis very different for married people. They have no business to be\r\nenticed away from their homes by any success.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Mamma is all for a Darby and Joan life,\" said Sophia, laughing. \"No I am not, my dear; and you should not say so. I don't advocate\r\nanything that is absurd. But I do say that life should be lived at\r\nhome. That is the best part of it. What is the meaning of home if it\r\nisn't that?\" Poor Mrs. Furnival! she had no idea that she was complaining to a\r\nstranger of her husband. Had any one told her so she would have\r\ndeclared that she was discussing world-wide topics; but Lucius Mason,\r\nyoung as he was, knew that the marital shoe was pinching the lady's\r\ndomestic corn, and he made haste to change the subject. \"You know my mother, Mrs. Furnival?\" Mrs. Furnival said that she had the honour of acquaintance with Lady\r\nMason; but on this occasion also she exhibited but little fervour. \"I shall meet her up in town to-morrow,\" said Lucius. \"She is coming\r\nup for some shopping.\" \"Oh! indeed,\" said Mrs. Furnival. \"And then we go down home together. I am to meet her at the chymist's\r\nat the top of Chancery Lane.\" Now this was a very unnecessary communication on the part of young\r\nMason, and also an unfortunate one. \"Oh! indeed,\" said Mrs. Furnival\r\nagain, throwing her head a little back. Poor woman! she could not\r\nconceal what was in her mind, and her daughter knew all about it\r\nimmediately. The truth was this."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Furnival had been for some days\r\non the move, at Birmingham and elsewhere, and had now sent up sudden\r\nnotice that he should probably be at home that very night. He should\r\nprobably be at home that night, but in such case would be compelled\r\nto return to his friends at Birmingham on the following afternoon. Now if it were an ascertained fact that he was coming to London\r\nmerely with the view of meeting Lady Mason, the wife of his bosom\r\nwould not think it necessary to provide for him the warmest welcome. This of course was not an ascertained fact; but were there not\r\nterrible grounds of suspicion? Mr. Furnival's law chambers were in\r\nOld Square, Lincoln's Inn, close to Chancery Lane, and Lady Mason had\r\nmade her appointment with her son within five minutes' walk of that\r\nlocality. And was it not in itself a strange coincidence that Lady\r\nMason, who came to town so seldom, should now do so on the very day\r\nof Mr. Furnival's sudden return? She felt sure that they were to meet\r\non the morrow, but yet she could not declare even to herself that it\r\nwas an ascertained fact. \"Oh! indeed,\" she said; and Sophia understood all about it, though\r\nLucius did not. Then Mrs. Furnival sank into silence; and we need not follow, word\r\nfor word, the conversation between the young lady and the young\r\ngentleman."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Mason thought that Miss Furnival was a very nice girl,\r\nand was not at all ill pleased to have an opportunity of passing\r\nan evening in her company; and Miss Furnival thought--. What she\r\nthought, or what young ladies may think generally about young\r\ngentlemen, is not to be spoken openly; but it seemed as though she\r\nalso were employed to her own satisfaction, while her mother sat\r\nmoody in her own arm-chair. In the course of the evening the footman\r\nin livery brought in tea, handing it round on a big silver salver,\r\nwhich also added to Mrs. Furnival's unhappiness. She would have\r\nliked to sit behind her tea-tray as she used to do in the good\r\nold hard-working days, with a small pile of buttered toast on\r\nthe slop-bowl, kept warm by hot water below. In those dear old\r\nhard-working days, buttered toast had been a much-loved delicacy\r\nwith Furnival; and she, kind woman, had never begrudged her eyes, as\r\nshe sat making it for him over the parlour fire. Nor would she have\r\nbegrudged them now, neither her eyes nor the work of her hands, nor\r\nall the thoughts of her heart, if he would have consented to accept\r\nof her handiwork; but in these days Mr. Furnival had learned a relish\r\nfor other delicacies."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She also had liked buttered toast, always, however, taking the pieces\r\nwith the upper crust, in order that the more luscious morsels might\r\nbe left for him; and she had liked to prepare her own tea leisurely,\r\nputting in slowly the sugar and cream--skimmed milk it had used to\r\nbe, dropped for herself with a sparing hand, in order that his large\r\nbreakfast-cup might be whitened to his liking; but though the milk\r\nhad been skimmed and scanty, and though the tea itself had been put\r\nin with a sparing hand, she had then been mistress of the occasion. She had had her own way, and in stinting herself had found her own\r\nreward. But now--the tea had no flavour now that it was made in the\r\nkitchen and brought to her, cold and vapid, by a man in livery whom\r\nshe half feared to keep waiting while she ministered to her own\r\nwants. And so she sat moody in her arm-chair, cross and sulky, as her\r\ndaughter thought. But yet there was a vein of poetry in her heart, as\r\nshe sat there, little like a sibyl as she looked. Dear old days, in\r\nwhich her cares and solicitude were valued; in which she could do\r\nsomething for the joint benefit of the firm into which she had been\r\ntaken as a partner!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "How happy she had been in her struggles, how\r\npiteously had her heart yearned towards him when she thought that he\r\nwas struggling too fiercely, how brave and constant he had been; and\r\nhow she had loved him as he sat steady as a rock at his grinding\r\nwork! Now had come the great success of which they had both dreamed\r\ntogether, of which they had talked as arm in arm they were taking the\r\nexercise that was so needful to him, walking quickly round Russell\r\nSquare, quickly round Bloomsbury Square and Bedford Square, and so\r\nback to the grinding work in Keppel Street. It had come now--all of\r\nwhich they had dreamed, and more than all they had dared to hope. But of what good was it? Was he happy? No; he was fretful, bilious,\r\nand worn with toil which was hard to him because he ate and drank\r\ntoo much; he was ill at ease in public, only half understanding the\r\npolitical life which he was obliged to assume in his new ambition;\r\nand he was sick in his conscience--she was sure that must be so: he\r\ncould not thus neglect her, his loving, constant wife, without some\r\npangs of remorse. And was she happy? She might have revelled in silks\r\nand satins, if silks and satins would have done her old heart good. But they would do her no good."}
{"question": "", "answer": "How she had joyed in a new dress when\r\nit had been so hard to come by, so slow in coming, and when he would\r\ngo with her to the choosing of it! But her gowns now were hardly\r\nof more interest to her than the joints of meat which the butcher\r\nbrought to the door with the utmost regularity. It behoved the\r\nbutcher to send good beef and the milliner to send good silk, and\r\nthere was an end of it. Not but what she could have been ecstatic about a full skirt on a\r\nsmart body if he would have cared to look at it. In truth she was\r\nstill soft and young enough within, though stout, and solid, and\r\nsomewhat aged without. Though she looked cross and surly that night,\r\nthere was soft poetry within her heart. If Providence, who had\r\nbountifully given, would now by chance mercifully take away those\r\ngifts, would she not then forgive everything and toil for him again\r\nwith the same happiness as before? Ah! yes; she could forgive\r\neverything, anything, if he would only return and be contented to\r\nsit opposite to her once again. \"O mortal Delius, dearest lord and\r\nhusband!\" she exclaimed within her own breast, in language somewhat\r\ndiffering from that of the Roman poet, \"why hast thou not remembered\r\nto maintain a mind equal in prosperity as it was always equal and\r\nwell poised in adversity?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Oh my Delius, since prosperity has been too\r\nmuch for thee, may the Lord bless thee once more with the adversity\r\nwhich thou canst bear--which thou canst bear, and I with thee!\" Thus\r\ndid she sing sadly within her own bosom,--sadly, but with true poetic\r\ncadence; while Sophia and Lucius Mason, sitting by, when for a moment\r\nthey turned their eyes upon her, gave her credit only for the cross\r\nsolemnity supposed to be incidental to obese and declining years. And then there came a ring at the bell and a knock at the door, and a\r\nrush along the nether passages, and the lady knew that he of whom she\r\nhad been thinking had arrived. In olden days she had ever met him in\r\nthe narrow passage, and, indifferent to the maid, she had hung about\r\nhis neck and kissed him in the hall. But now she did not stir from\r\nthe chair. She could forgive him all and run again at the sound of\r\nhis footstep, but she must first know that such forgiveness and such\r\nrunning would be welcome. \"That's papa,\" said Sophia. \"Don't forget that I have not met him since I have been home from\r\nGermany,\" said Lucius. \"You must introduce me.\" In a minute or two Mr. Furnival opened the door and walked into the\r\nroom."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Men when they arrive from their travels now-a-days have no\r\nstrippings of greatcoats, no deposits to make of thick shawls and\r\ndouble gloves, no absolutely necessary changes of raiment. Such had\r\nbeen the case when he had used to come back cold and weary from the\r\ncircuits; but now he had left Birmingham since dinner by the late\r\nexpress, and enjoyed his nap in the train for two hours or so, and\r\nwalked into his own drawing-room as he might have done had he dined\r\nin his own dining-room. \"How are you, Kitty?\" he said to his wife, handing to her the\r\nforefinger of his right hand by way of greeting. \"Well, Sophy, my\r\nlove;\" and he kissed his daughter. \"Oh! Lucius Mason. I am very glad\r\nto see you. I can't say I should have remembered you unless I had\r\nbeen told. You are very welcome in Harley Street, and I hope you will\r\noften be here.\" [Illustration: Mr. Furnival's welcome home.] \"It's not very often he'd find you at home, Mr. Furnival,\" said the\r\naggrieved wife. \"Not so often as I could wish just at present; but things will be\r\nmore settled, I hope, before very long. How's your mother, Lucius?\" \"She's pretty well, thank you, sir. I've to meet her in town\r\nto-morrow, and go down home with her.\" There was then silence in the room for a few seconds, during which\r\nMrs. Furnival looked very sharply at her husband. \"Oh!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "she's to be in\r\ntown, is she?\" said Mr. Furnival, after a moment's consideration. He\r\nwas angry with Lady Mason at the moment for having put him into this\r\nposition. Why had she told her son that she was to be up in London,\r\nthus producing conversation and tittle-tattle which made deceit on\r\nhis part absolutely necessary? Lady Mason's business in London was\r\nof a nature which would not bear much open talking. She herself, in\r\nher earnest letter summoning Mr. Furnival up from Birmingham, had\r\nbesought him that her visit to his chambers might not be made matter\r\nof discussion. New troubles might be coming on her, but also they\r\nmight not; and she was very anxious that no one should know that\r\nshe was seeking a lawyer's advice on the matter. To all this Mr.\r\nFurnival had given in his adhesion; and yet she had put it into her\r\nson's power to come to his drawing-room and chatter there of her\r\nwhereabouts. For a moment or two he doubted; but at the expiration of\r\nthose moments he saw that the deceit was necessary. \"She's to be in\r\ntown, is she?\" said he. The reader will of course observe that this\r\ndeceit was practised, not as between husband and wife with reference\r\nto an assignation with a lady, but between the lawyer and the outer\r\nworld with reference to a private meeting with a client."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But then it\r\nis sometimes so difficult to make wives look at such matters in the\r\nright light. \"She's coming up for some shopping,\" said Lucius. \"Oh! indeed,\" said Mrs. Furnival. She would not have spoken if she\r\ncould have helped it, but she could not help it; and then there\r\nwas silence in the room for a minute or two, which Lucius vainly\r\nendeavoured to break by a few indifferent observations to Miss\r\nFurnival. The words, however, which he uttered would not take the\r\nguise of indifferent observations, but fell flatly on their ears, and\r\nat the same time solemnly, as though spoken with the sole purpose of\r\ncreating sound. \"I hope you have been enjoying yourself at Birmingham,\" said Mrs.\r\nFurnival. \"Enjoyed myself! I did not exactly go there for enjoyment.\" \"Or at Romford, where you were before?\" \"Women seem to think that men have no purpose but amusement when they\r\ngo about their daily work,\" said Mr. Furnival; and then he threw\r\nhimself back in his arm-chair, and took up the last Quarterly. Lucius Mason soon perceived that all the harmony of the evening had\r\nin some way been marred by the return of the master of the house, and\r\nthat he might be in the way if he remained; he therefore took his\r\nleave. \"I shall want breakfast punctually at half-past eight to-morrow\r\nmorning,\" said Mr. Furnival, as soon as the stranger had withdrawn."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I must be in chambers before ten;\" and then he took his candle and\r\nwithdrew to his own room. Sophia rang the bell and gave the servant the order; but Mrs.\r\nFurnival took no trouble in the matter whatever. In the olden days\r\nshe would have bustled down before she went to bed, and have seen\r\nherself that everything was ready, so that the master of the house\r\nmight not be kept waiting. But all this was nothing to her now. CHAPTER XII. MR. FURNIVAL'S CHAMBERS. Mr. Furnival's chambers were on the first floor in a very dingy\r\nedifice in Old Square, Lincoln's Inn. This square was always dingy,\r\neven when it was comparatively open and served as the approach from\r\nChancery Lane to the Lord Chancellor's Court; but now it has been\r\nbuilt up with new shops for the Vice-Chancellor, and to my eyes it\r\nseems more dingy than ever. He there occupied three rooms, all of them sufficiently spacious\r\nfor the purposes required, but which were made oppressive by their\r\ngeneral dinginess and by a smell of old leather which pervaded them. In one of them sat at his desk Mr. Crabwitz, a gentleman who had now\r\nbeen with Mr. Furnival for the last fifteen years, and who considered\r\nthat no inconsiderable portion of the barrister's success had been\r\nattributable to his own energy and genius."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Crabwitz was a\r\ngenteel-looking man, somewhat over forty years of age, very careful\r\nas to his gloves, hat, and umbrella, and not a little particular\r\nas to his associates. As he was unmarried, fond of ladies' society,\r\nand presumed to be a warm man in money matters, he had his social\r\nsuccesses, and looked down from a considerable altitude on some men\r\nwho from their professional rank might have been considered as his\r\nsuperiors. He had a small bachelor's box down at Barnes, and not\r\nunfrequently went abroad in the vacations. The door opening into the\r\nroom of Mr. Crabwitz was in the corner fronting you on the left-hand\r\nside as you entered the chambers. Immediately on your left was a\r\nlarge waiting-room, in which an additional clerk usually sat at an\r\nordinary table. He was not an authorised part of the establishment,\r\nbeing kept only from week to week; but nevertheless, for the last two\r\nor three years he had been always there, and Mr. Crabwitz intended\r\nthat he should remain, for he acted as fag to Mr. Crabwitz. This\r\nwaiting-room was very dingy, much more so than the clerk's room, and\r\nboasted of no furniture but eight old leathern chairs and two old\r\ntables. It was surrounded by shelves which were laden with books and\r\ndust, which by no chance were ever disturbed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But to my ideas the\r\nmost dingy of the three rooms was that large one in which the great\r\nman himself sat; the door of which directly fronted you as you\r\nentered. The furniture was probably better than that in the other\r\nchambers, and the place had certainly the appearance of warmth and\r\nlife which comes from frequent use; but nevertheless, of all the\r\nrooms in which I ever sat I think it was the most gloomy. There were\r\nheavy curtains to the windows, which had once been ruby but were now\r\nbrown; and the ceiling was brown, and the thick carpet was brown, and\r\nthe books which covered every portion of the wall were brown, and the\r\npainted wood-work of the doors and windows was of a dark brown. Here,\r\non the morning with which we have now to deal, sat Mr. Furnival over\r\nhis papers from ten to twelve, at which latter hour Lady Mason was\r\nto come to him. The holidays of Mr. Crabwitz had this year been cut\r\nshort in consequence of his patron's attendance at the great congress\r\nwhich was now sitting, and although all London was a desert, as he\r\nhad piteously complained to a lady of his acquaintance whom he had\r\nleft at Boulogne, he was there in the midst of the desert, and on\r\nthis morning was sitting in attendance at his usual desk."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why Mr. Furnival should have breakfasted by himself at half-past\r\neight in order that he might be at his chambers at ten, seeing that\r\nthe engagement for which he had come to town was timed for twelve,\r\nI will not pretend to say. He did not ask his wife to join him, and\r\nconsequently she did not come down till her usual time. Mr. Furnival\r\nbreakfasted by himself, and at ten o'clock he was in his chambers. Though alone for two hours he was not idle, and exactly at twelve Mr.\r\nCrabwitz opened his door and announced Lady Mason. When we last parted with her after her interview with Sir Peregrine\r\nOrme, she had resolved not to communicate with her friend the\r\nlawyer,--at any rate not to do so immediately. Thinking on that\r\nresolve she had tried to sleep that night; but her mind was\r\naltogether disturbed, and she could get no rest. What, if after\r\ntwenty years of tranquillity all her troubles must now be\r\nrecommenced? What if the battle were again to be fought,--with such\r\ntermination as the chances might send to her? Why was it that she was\r\nso much greater a coward now than she had been then? Then she had\r\nexpected defeat, for her friends had bade her not to be sanguine;\r\nbut in spite of that she had borne up and gone gallantly through the\r\nordeal."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But now she felt that if Orley Farm were hers to give she\r\nwould sooner abandon it than renew the contest. Then, at that former\r\nperiod of her life, she had prepared her mind to do or die in the\r\ncause. She had wrought herself up for the work, and had carried it\r\nthrough. But having done that work, having accomplished her terrible\r\ntask, she had hoped that rest might be in store for her. As she rose from her bed on the morning after her interview with Sir\r\nPeregrine, she determined that she would seek counsel from him in\r\nwhose counsel she could trust. Sir Peregrine's friendship was more\r\nvaluable to her than that of Mr. Furnival, but a word of advice\r\nfrom Mr. Furnival was worth all the spoken wisdom of the baronet,\r\nten times over. Therefore she wrote her letter, and proposed an\r\nappointment; and Mr. Furnival, tempted as I have said by some evil\r\nspirit to stray after strange goddesses in these his blue-nosed\r\ndays, had left his learned brethren at their congress in Birmingham,\r\nand had hurried up to town to assist the widow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had left that\r\ncongress, though the wisest Rustums of the law from all the civilised\r\ncountries of Europe were there assembled, with Boanerges at their\r\nhead, that great, old, valiant, learned, British Rustum, inquiring\r\nwith energy, solemnity, and caution, with much shaking of ponderous\r\nheads and many sarcasms from those which were not ponderous, whether\r\nany and what changes might be made in the modes of answering that\r\ngreat question, \"Guilty or not guilty?\" and that other equally great\r\nquestion, \"Is it meum or is it tuum?\" To answer which question justly\r\nshould be the end and object of every lawyer's work. There were\r\ngreat men there from Paris, very capable, the Ulpians, Tribonians,\r\nand Papinians of the new empire, armed with the purest sentiments\r\nexpressed in antithetical and magniloquent phrases, ravishing to\r\nthe ears, and armed also with a code which, taken in its integrity,\r\nwould necessarily, as the logical consequence of its clauses, drive\r\nall injustice from the face of the earth. And there were great\r\npractitioners from Germany, men very skilled in the use of questions,\r\nwho profess that the tongue of man, if adequately skilful, may always\r\nprevail on guilt to disclose itself; who believe in the power of\r\ntheir own craft to produce truth, as our forefathers believed in\r\ntorture; and sometimes with the same result."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And of course all that\r\nwas great on the British bench, and all that was famous at the\r\nBritish bar was there,--men very unlike their German brethren, men\r\nwho thought that guilt never should be asked to tell of itself,--men\r\nwho were customarily but unconsciously shocked whenever unwary guilt\r\ndid tell of itself. Men these were, mostly of high and noble feeling,\r\nborn and bred to live with upright hearts and clean hands, but taught\r\nby the peculiar tenets of their profession to think that that which\r\nwas high and noble in their private intercourse with the world need\r\nnot also be so esteemed in their legal practice. And there were\r\nItalians there, good-humoured, joking, easy fellows, who would laugh\r\ntheir clients in and out of their difficulties; and Spaniards, very\r\ngrave and serious, who doubted much in their minds whether justice\r\nmight not best be bought and sold; and our brethren from the United\r\nStates were present also, very eager to show that in this country\r\nlaw, and justice also, were clouded and nearly buried beneath their\r\nwig and gown. All these and all this did Mr. Furnival desert for the space of\r\ntwenty-four hours in order that he might comply with the request of\r\nLady Mason. Had she known what it was that she was calling on him\r\nto leave, no doubt she would have borne her troubles for another\r\nweek,--for another fortnight, till those Rustums at Birmingham had\r\nbrought their labours to a close."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She would not have robbed the\r\nEnglish bar of one of the warmest supporters of its present mode\r\nof practice, even for a day, had she known how much that support\r\nwas needed at the present moment. But she had not known; and Mr.\r\nFurnival, moved by her woman's plea, had not been hard enough in his\r\nheart to refuse her. When she entered the room she was dressed very plainly as was her\r\ncustom, and a thick veil covered her face; but still she was dressed\r\nwith care. There was nothing of the dowdiness of the lone lorn woman\r\nabout her, none of that lanky, washed-out appearance which sorrow and\r\ntrouble so often give to females. Had she given way to dowdiness, or\r\nsuffered herself to be, as it were, washed out, Mr. Furnival, we may\r\nsay, would not have been there to meet her;--of which fact Lady Mason\r\nwas perhaps aware. \"I am so grateful to you for this trouble,\" she said, as she raised\r\nher veil, and while he pressed her hand between both his own. \"I can\r\nonly ask you to believe that I would not have troubled you unless I\r\nhad been greatly troubled myself.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Furnival, as he placed her in an arm-chair by the fireside,\r\ndeclared his sorrow that she should be in grief, and then he took\r\nthe other arm-chair himself, opposite to her, or rather close to\r\nher,--much closer to her than he ever now seated himself to Mrs. F.\r\n\"Don't speak of my trouble,\" said he, \"it is nothing if I can do\r\nanything to relieve you.\" But though he was so tender, he did not\r\nomit to tell her of her folly in having informed her son that she was\r\nto be in London. \"And have you seen him?\" asked Lady Mason. \"He was in Harley Street with the ladies last night. But it does not\r\nmatter. It is only for your sake that I speak, as I know that you\r\nwish to keep this matter private. And now let us hear what it is. I\r\ncannot think that there can be anything which need really cause you\r\ntrouble.\" And he again took her hand,--that he might encourage her. Lady Mason let him keep her hand for a minute or so, as though she\r\ndid not notice it; and yet as she turned her eyes to him it might\r\nappear that his tenderness had encouraged her. Sitting there thus, with her hand in his,--with her hand in his\r\nduring the first portion of the tale,--she told him all that she\r\nwished to tell. Something more she told now to him than she had done\r\nto Sir Peregrine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I learned from her,\" she said, speaking about Mrs.\r\nDockwrath and her husband, \"that he had found out something about\r\ndates which the lawyers did not find out before.\" \"Something about dates,\" said Mr. Furnival, looking with all his eyes\r\ninto the fire. \"You do not know what about dates?\" \"No; only this; that he said that the lawyers in Bedford Row--\"\r\n\r\n\"Round and Crook.\" \"Yes; he said that they were idiots not to have found it out before;\r\nand then he went off to Groby Park. He came back last night; but of\r\ncourse I have not seen her since.\" By this time Mr. Furnival had dropped the hand, and was sitting\r\nstill, meditating, looking earnestly at the fire while Lady Mason\r\nwas looking earnestly at him. She was trying to gather from his face\r\nwhether he had seen signs of danger, and he was trying to gather from\r\nher words whether there might really be cause to apprehend danger. How was he to know what was really inside her mind; what were her\r\nactual thoughts and inward reasonings on this subject; what private\r\nknowledge she might have which was still kept back from him? In the\r\nordinary intercourse of the world when one man seeks advice from\r\nanother, he who is consulted demands in the first place that he shall\r\nbe put in possession of all the circumstances of the case. How else\r\nwill it be possible that he should give advice?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But in matters of law\r\nit is different. If I, having committed a crime, were to confess my\r\ncriminality to the gentleman engaged to defend me, might he not be\r\ncalled on to say: \"Then, O my friend, confess it also to the judge;\r\nand so let justice be done. Ruat coelum, and the rest of it?\" But\r\nwho would pay a lawyer for counsel such as that? In this case there was no question of payment. The advice to be given\r\nwas to a widowed woman from an experienced man of the world; but,\r\nnevertheless, he could only make his calculations as to her peculiar\r\ncase in the way in which he ordinarily calculated. Could it be\r\npossible that anything had been kept back from him? Were there facts\r\nunknown to him, but known to her, which would be terrible, fatal,\r\ndamning to his sweet friend if proved before all the world? He could\r\nnot bring himself to ask her, but yet it was so material that he\r\nshould know! Twenty years ago, at the time of the trial, he had at\r\none time thought,--it hardly matters to tell what, but those thoughts\r\nhad not been favourable to her cause. Then his mind had altered,\r\nand he had learned,--as lawyers do learn,--to believe in his own\r\ncase."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And when the day of triumph had come, he had triumphed loudly,\r\ncommiserating his dear friend for the unjust suffering to which she\r\nhad been subjected, and speaking in no low or modified tone as to\r\nthe grasping, greedy cruelty of that man of Groby Park. Nevertheless,\r\nthrough it all, he had felt that Round and Crook had not made the\r\nmost of their case. And now he sat, thinking, not so much whether or no she had been in\r\nany way guilty with reference to that will, as whether the counsel\r\nhe should give her ought in any way to be based on the possibility\r\nof her having been thus guilty. Nothing might be so damning to her\r\ncause as that he should make sure of her innocence, if she were not\r\ninnocent; and yet he would not ask her the question. If innocent, why\r\nwas it that she was now so much moved, after twenty years of quiet\r\npossession? \"It was a pity,\" he said, at last, \"that Lucius should have disturbed\r\nthat fellow in the possession of his fields.\" \"It was; it was!\" she said. \"But I did not think it possible that\r\nMiriam's husband should turn against me. Would it be wise, do you\r\nthink, to let him have the land again?\" \"No, I do not think that. It would be telling him, and telling others\r\nalso, that you are afraid of him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If he has obtained any information\r\nthat may be considered of value by Joseph Mason, he can sell it at a\r\nhigher price than the holding of these fields is worth.\" \"Would it be well--?\" She was asking a question and then checked\r\nherself. \"Would what be well?\" \"I am so harassed that I hardly know what I am saying. Would it be\r\nwise, do you think, if I were to pay him anything, so as to keep him\r\nquiet?\" \"What; buy him off, you mean?\" \"Well, yes;--if you call it so. Give him some sum of money in\r\ncompensation for his land; and on the understanding, you know--,\" and\r\nthen she paused. \"That depends on what he may have to sell,\" said Mr. Furnival, hardly\r\ndaring to look at her. \"Ah; yes,\" said the widow. And then there was another pause. \"I do not think that that would be at all discreet,\" said Mr.\r\nFurnival. \"After all, the chances are that it is all moonshine.\" \"You think so?\" \"Yes; I cannot but think so. What can that man possibly have found\r\namong the old attorney's papers that may be injurious to your\r\ninterests?\" \"Ah! I do not know; I understand so little of these things. At the\r\ntime they told me,--you told me that the law might possibly go\r\nagainst my boy's rights. It would have been bad then, but it would be\r\nten times more dreadful now.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But there were many questions capable of doubt then, which were\r\ndefinitely settled at the trial. As to your husband's intellect on\r\nthat day, for instance.\" \"There could be no doubt as to that.\" \"No; so it has been proved; and they will not raise that point again. Could he have possibly have made a later will?\" \"No; I am sure he did not. Had he done so it could not have been\r\nfound among Mr. Usbech's papers; for, as far as I remember, the poor\r\nman never attended to any business after that day.\" \"What day?\" \"The 14th of July, the day on which he was with Sir Joseph.\" It was singular, thought the barrister, with how much precision she\r\nremembered the dates and circumstances. That the circumstances of the\r\ntrial should be fresh on her memory was not wonderful; but how was\r\nit that she knew so accurately things which had occurred before the\r\ntrial,--when no trial could have been expected? But as to this he\r\nsaid nothing. \"And you are sure he went to Groby Park?\" \"Oh, yes; I have no doubt of it. I am quite sure.\" \"I do not know that we can do anything but wait. Have you mentioned\r\nthis to Sir Peregrine?\" It immediately occurred to Lady Mason's mind\r\nthat it would be by no means expedient, even if it were possible,\r\nto keep Mr. Furnival in ignorance of anything that she really did;\r\nand therefore explained that she had seen Sir Peregrine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I was so\r\ntroubled at the first moment that I hardly knew where to turn,\" she\r\nsaid. \"You were quite right to go to Sir Peregrine.\" \"I am so glad you are not angry with me as to that.\" \"And did he say anything--anything particular?\" \"He promised that he would not desert me, should there be any new\r\ndifficulty.\" \"That is well. It is always good to have the countenance of such a\r\nneighbour as he is.\" \"And the advice of such a friend as you are.\" And she again put out\r\nher hand to him. \"Well; yes. It is my trade, you know, to give advice,\" and he smiled\r\nas he took it. \"How should I live through such troubles without you?\" \"We lawyers are very much abused now-a-days,\" said Mr. Furnival,\r\nthinking of what was going on down at Birmingham at that very moment;\r\n\"but I hardly know how the world would get on without us.\" \"Ah! but all lawyers are not like you.\" \"Some perhaps worse, and a great many much better. But, as I was\r\nsaying, I do not think I would take any steps at present. The man\r\nDockwrath is a vulgar, low-minded, revengeful fellow; and I would\r\nendeavour to forget him.\" \"Ah, if I could!\" \"And why not? What can he possibly have learned to your injury?\" And\r\nthen as it seemed to Lady Mason that Mr. Furnival expected some reply\r\nto this question, she forced herself to give him one."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I suppose that\r\nhe cannot know anything.\" \"I tell you what I might do,\" said Mr. Furnival, who was still\r\nmusing. \"Round himself is not a bad fellow, and I am acquainted with\r\nhim. He was the junior partner in that house at the time of the\r\ntrial, and I know that he persuaded Joseph Mason not to appeal to the\r\nLords. I will contrive, if possible, to see him. I shall be able to\r\nlearn from him at any rate whether anything is being done.\" \"And then if I hear that there is not, I shall be comforted.\" \"Of course; of course.\" \"But if there is--\"\r\n\r\n\"I think there will be nothing of the sort,\" said Mr. Furnival,\r\nleaving his seat as he spoke. \"But if there is--I shall have your aid?\" and she slowly rose from\r\nher chair as she spoke. Mr. Furnival gave her a promise of this, as Sir Peregrine had done\r\nbefore; and then with her handkerchief to her eyes she thanked him. Her tears were not false as Mr. Furnival well saw; and seeing that\r\nshe wept, and seeing that she was beautiful, and feeling that in her\r\ngrief and in her beauty she had come to him for aid, his heart was\r\nsoftened towards her, and he put out his arms as though he would take\r\nher to his heart--as a daughter. \"Dearest friend,\" he said, \"trust me\r\nthat no harm shall come to you.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I will trust you,\" she said, gently stopping the motion of his arm. \"I will trust you, altogether. And when you have seen Mr. Round,\r\nshall I hear from you?\" At this moment, as they were standing close together, the door\r\nopened, and Mr. Crabwitz introduced another lady--who indeed had\r\nadvanced so quickly towards the door of Mr. Furnival's room, that the\r\nclerk had been hardly able to reach it before her. \"Mrs. Furnival, if you please, sir,\" said Mr. Crabwitz. CHAPTER XIII. GUILTY, OR NOT GUILTY. Unfortunately for Mr. Furnival, the intruder was Mrs.\r\nFurnival--whether he pleased or whether he did not please. There\r\nshe was in his law chamber, present in the flesh, a sight pleasing\r\nneither to her husband nor to her husband's client. She had knocked\r\nat the outside door, which, in the absence of the fag, had been\r\nopened by Mr. Crabwitz, and had immediately walked across the passage\r\ntowards her husband's room, expressing her knowledge that Mr.\r\nFurnival was within. Mr. Crabwitz had all the will in the world to\r\nstop her progress, but he found that he lacked the power to stay it\r\nfor a moment. The advantages of matrimony are many and great,--so many and so\r\ngreat, that all men, doubtless, ought to marry. But even matrimony\r\nmay have its drawbacks; among which unconcealed and undeserved\r\njealousy on the part of the wife is perhaps as disagreeable as any."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What is a man to do when he is accused before the world,--before\r\nany small fraction of the world, of making love to some lady of his\r\nacquaintance? What is he to say? What way is he to look? \"My love, I\r\ndidn't. I never did, and wouldn't think of it for worlds. I say it\r\nwith my hand on my heart. There is Mrs. Jones herself, and I appeal\r\nto her.\" He is reduced to that! But should any innocent man be so\r\nreduced by the wife of his bosom? I am speaking of undeserved jealousy, and it may therefore be thought\r\nthat my remarks do not apply to Mrs. Furnival. They do apply to\r\nher as much as to any woman. That general idea as to the strange\r\ngoddesses was on her part no more than a suspicion: and all women who\r\nso torment themselves and their husbands may plead as much as she\r\ncould. And for this peculiar idea as to Lady Mason she had no ground\r\nwhatever. Lady Mason may have had her faults, but a propensity to rob\r\nMrs. Furnival of her husband's affections had not hitherto been one\r\nof them. Mr. Furnival was a clever lawyer, and she had great need of\r\nhis assistance; therefore she had come to his chambers, and therefore\r\nshe had placed her hand in his. That Mr. Furnival liked his client\r\nbecause she was good looking may be true."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I like my horse, my\r\npicture, the view from my study window for the same reason. I am\r\ninclined to think that there was nothing more in it than that. \"My dear!\" said Mr. Furnival, stepping back a little, and letting his\r\nhands fall to his sides. Lady Mason also took a step backwards, and\r\nthen with considerable presence of mind recovered herself and put out\r\nher hand to greet Mrs. Furnival. \"How do you do, Lady Mason?\" said Mrs. Furnival, without any presence\r\nof mind at all. \"I hope I have the pleasure of seeing you very well. I did hear that you were to be in town--shopping; but I did not for a\r\nmoment expect the--gratification of finding you here.\" And every word\r\nthat the dear, good, heart-sore woman spoke, told the tale of her\r\njealousy as plainly as though she had flown at Lady Mason's cap with\r\nall the bold demonstrative energy of Spitalfields or St. Giles. \"I came up on purpose to see Mr. Furnival about some unfortunate law\r\nbusiness,\" said Lady Mason. \"Oh, indeed! Your son Lucius did say--shopping.\" [Illustration: \"Your son Lucius did say--shopping.\"] \"Yes; I told him so. When a lady is unfortunate enough to be driven\r\nto a lawyer for advice, she does not wish to make it known. I should\r\nbe very sorry if my dear boy were to guess that I had this new\r\ntrouble; or, indeed, if any one were to know it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am sure that I\r\nshall be as safe with you, dear Mrs. Furnival, as I am with your\r\nhusband.\" And she stepped up to the angry matron, looking earnestly\r\ninto her face. To a true tale of woman's sorrow Mrs. Furnival's heart could be as\r\nsnow under the noonday sun. Had Lady Mason gone to her and told her\r\nall her fears and all her troubles, sought counsel and aid from her,\r\nand appealed to her motherly feelings, Mrs. Furnival would have been\r\nurgent night and day in persuading her husband to take up the widow's\r\ncase. She would have bade him work his very best without fee or\r\nreward, and would herself have shown Lady Mason the way to Old\r\nSquare, Lincoln's Inn. She would have been discreet too, speaking no\r\nword of idle gossip to any one. When he, in their happy days, had\r\ntold his legal secrets to her, she had never gossiped,--had never\r\nspoken an idle word concerning them. And she would have been constant\r\nto her friend, giving great consolation in the time of trouble, as\r\none woman can console another. The thought that all this might be so\r\ndid come across her for a moment, for there was innocence written in\r\nLady Mason's eyes. But then she looked at her husband's face; and\r\nas she found no innocence there, her heart was again hardened."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The\r\nwoman's face could lie;--\"the faces of such women are all lies,\" Mrs.\r\nFurnival said to herself;--but in her presence his face had been\r\ncompelled to speak the truth. \"Oh dear, no; I shall say nothing of course,\" she said. \"I am\r\nquite sorry that I intruded. Mr. Furnival, as I happened to be in\r\nHolborn--at Mudie's for some books--I thought I would come down and\r\nask whether you intend to dine at home to-day. You said nothing about\r\nit either last night or this morning; and nowadays one really does\r\nnot know how to manage in such matters.\" \"I told you that I should return to Birmingham this afternoon; I\r\nshall dine there,\" said Mr. Furnival, very sulkily. \"Oh, very well. I certainly knew that you were going out of town. I did not at all expect that you would remain at home; but I thought\r\nthat you might, perhaps, like to have your dinner before you\r\nwent. Good morning, Lady Mason; I hope you may be successful in\r\nyour--lawsuit.\" And then, curtsying to her husband's client, she\r\nprepared to withdraw. \"I believe that I have said all that I need say, Mr. Furnival,\"\r\nsaid Lady Mason; \"so that if Mrs. Furnival wishes--,\" and she also\r\ngathered herself up as though she were ready to leave the room. \"I hardly know what Mrs. Furnival wishes,\" said the husband. \"My wishes are nothing,\" said the wife, \"and I really am quite sorry\r\nthat I came in.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then she did go, leaving her husband and the\r\nwoman of whom she was jealous once more alone together. Upon the\r\nwhole I think that Mr. Furnival was right in not going home that day\r\nto his dinner. As the door closed somewhat loudly behind the angry lady--Mr.\r\nCrabwitz having rushed out hardly in time to moderate the violence of\r\nthe slam--Lady Mason and her imputed lover were left looking at each\r\nother. It was certainly hard upon Lady Mason, and so she felt it. Mr. Furnival was fifty-five, and endowed with a bluish nose; and she\r\nwas over forty, and had lived for twenty years as a widow without\r\nincurring a breath of scandal. \"I hope I have not been to blame,\" said Lady Mason in a soft, sad\r\nvoice; \"but perhaps Mrs. Furnival specially wished to find you\r\nalone.\" \"No, no; not at all.\" \"I shall be so unhappy if I think that I have been in the way. If\r\nMrs. Furnival wished to speak to you on business I am not surprised\r\nthat she should be angry, for I know that barristers do not usually\r\nallow themselves to be troubled by their clients in their own\r\nchambers.\" \"Nor by their wives,\" Mr. Furnival might have added, but he did not. \"Do not mind it,\" he said; \"it is nothing. She is the best-tempered\r\nwoman in the world; but at times it is impossible to answer even for\r\nthe best-tempered.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I will trust you to make my peace with her.\" \"Yes, of course; she will not think of it after to-day; nor must you,\r\nLady Mason.\" \"Oh, no; except that I would not for the world be the cause of\r\nannoyance to my friends. Sometimes I am almost inclined to think that\r\nI will never trouble any one again with my sorrows, but let things\r\ncome and go as they may. Were it not for poor Lucius I should do so.\" Mr. Furnival, looking into her face, perceived that her eyes were\r\nfull of tears. There could be no doubt as to their reality. Her eyes\r\nwere full of genuine tears, brimming over and running down; and the\r\nlawyer's heart was melted. \"I do not know why you should say so,\" he\r\nsaid. \"I do not think your friends begrudge any little trouble they\r\nmay take for you. I am sure at least that I may so say for myself.\" \"You are too kind to me; but I do not on that account the less know\r\nhow much it is I ask of you.\" \"'The labour we delight in physics pain,'\" said Mr. Furnival\r\ngallantly. \"But, to tell the truth, Lady Mason, I cannot understand\r\nwhy you should be so much out of heart. I remember well how brave and\r\nconstant you were twenty years ago, when there really was cause for\r\ntrembling.\" \"Ah, I was younger then.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"So the almanac tells us; but if the almanac did not tell us I should\r\nnever know. We are all older, of course. Twenty years does not go by\r\nwithout leaving its marks, as I can feel myself.\" \"Men do not grow old as women do, who live alone and gather rust as\r\nthey feed on their own thoughts.\" \"I know no one whom time has touched so lightly as yourself, Lady\r\nMason; but if I may speak to you as a friend--\"\r\n\r\n\"If you may not, Mr. Furnival, who may?\" \"I should tell you that you are weak to be so despondent, or rather\r\nso unhappy.\" \"Another lawsuit would kill me, I think. You say that I was brave and\r\nconstant before, but you cannot understand what I suffered. I nerved\r\nmyself to bear it, telling myself that it was the first duty that I\r\nowed to the babe that was lying on my bosom. And when standing there\r\nin the Court, with that terrible array around me, with the eyes of\r\nall men on me, the eyes of men who thought that I had been guilty of\r\nso terrible a crime, for the sake of that child who was so weak I\r\ncould be brave. But it nearly killed me. Mr. Furnival, I could not\r\ngo through that again; no, not even for his sake."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If you can save me\r\nfrom that, even though it be by the buying off of that ungrateful\r\nman--\"\r\n\r\n\"You must not think of that.\" \"Must I not? ah me!\" \"Will you tell Lucius all this, and let him come to me?\" \"No; not for worlds. He would defy every one, and glory in the fight;\r\nbut after all it is I that must bear the brunt. No; he shall not know\r\nit;--unless it becomes so public that he must know it.\" And then, with some further pressing of the hand, and further words\r\nof encouragement which were partly tender as from the man, and partly\r\nforensic as from the lawyer, Mr. Furnival permitted her to go,\r\nand she found her son at the chemist's shop in Holborn as she had\r\nappointed. There were no traces of tears or of sorrow in her face as\r\nshe smiled on Lucius while giving him her hand, and then when they\r\nwere in a cab together she asked him as to his success at Liverpool. \"I am very glad that I went,\" said he, \"very glad indeed. I saw the\r\nmerchants there who are the real importers of the article, and I have\r\nmade arrangements with them.\" \"Will it be cheaper so, Lucius?\" \"Cheaper! not what women generally call cheaper. If there be anything\r\non earth that I hate, it is a bargain. A man who looks for bargains\r\nmust be a dupe or a cheat, and is probably both.\" \"Both, Lucius."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then he is doubly unfortunate.\" \"He is a cheat because he wants things for less than their value; and\r\na dupe because, as a matter of course, he does not get what he wants. I made no bargain at Liverpool,--at least, no cheap bargain; but\r\nI have made arrangements for a sufficient supply of a first-rate\r\nunadulterated article at its proper market price, and I do not fear\r\nbut the results will be remunerative.\" And then, as they went home in\r\nthe railway carriage the mother talked to her son about his farming\r\nas though she had forgotten her other trouble, and she explained to\r\nhim how he was to dine with Sir Peregrine. \"I shall be delighted to dine with Sir Peregrine,\" said Lucius, \"and\r\nvery well pleased to have an opportunity of talking to him about his\r\nown way of managing his land; but, mother, I will not promise to be\r\nguided by so very old-fashioned a professor.\" Mr. Furnival, when he was left alone, sat thinking over the interview\r\nthat had passed. At first, as was most natural, he bethought himself\r\nof his wife; and I regret to say that the love which he bore to her,\r\nand the gratitude which he owed to her, and the memory of all that\r\nthey had suffered and enjoyed together, did not fill his heart with\r\nthoughts towards her as tender as they should have done."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A black\r\nfrown came across his brow as he meditated on her late intrusion,\r\nand he made some sort of resolve that that kind of thing should be\r\nprevented for the future. He did not make up his mind how he would\r\nprevent it,--a point which husbands sometimes overlook in their\r\nmarital resolutions. And then, instead of counting up her virtues,\r\nhe counted up his own. Had he not given her everything; a house such\r\nas she had not dreamed of in her younger days? servants, carriages,\r\nmoney, comforts, and luxuries of all sorts? He had begrudged her\r\nnothing, had let her have her full share of all his hard-earned\r\ngains; and yet she could be ungrateful for all this, and allow her\r\nhead to be filled with whims and fancies as though she were a young\r\ngirl,--to his great annoyance and confusion. He would let her know\r\nthat his chambers, his law chambers, should be private even from her. He would not allow himself to become a laughing-stock to his own\r\nclerks and his own brethren through the impertinent folly of a woman\r\nwho owed to him everything;--and so on! I regret to say that he never\r\nonce thought of those lonely evenings in Harley Street, of those\r\nlong days which the poor woman was doomed to pass without the only\r\ncompanionship which was valuable to her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He never thought of that vow\r\nwhich they had both made at the altar, which she had kept so loyally,\r\nand which required of him a cherishing, comforting, enduring love. It never occurred to him that in denying her this he as much broke\r\nhis promise to her as though he had taken to himself in very truth\r\nsome strange goddess, leaving his wedded wife with a cold ceremony\r\nof alimony or such-like. He had been open-handed to her as regards\r\nmoney, and therefore she ought not to be troublesome! He had done his\r\nduty by her, and therefore he would not permit her to be troublesome! Such, I regret to say, were his thoughts and resolutions as he sat\r\nthinking and resolving about Mrs. Furnival. And then, by degrees, his mind turned away to that other lady,\r\nand they became much more tender. Lady Mason was certainly both\r\ninteresting and comely in her grief. Her colour could still come and\r\ngo, her hand was still soft and small, her hair was still brown and\r\nsmooth. There were no wrinkles in her brow though care had passed\r\nover it; her step could still fall lightly, though it had borne a\r\nheavy weight of sorrow. I fear that he made a wicked comparison--a\r\ncomparison that was wicked although it was made unconsciously. But by degrees he ceased to think of the woman and began to think of\r\nthe client, as he was in duty bound to do."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What was the real truth\r\nof all this? Was it possible that she should be alarmed in that way\r\nbecause a small country attorney had told his wife that he had found\r\nsome old paper, and because the man had then gone off to Yorkshire? Nothing could be more natural than her anxiety, supposing her to be\r\naware of some secret which would condemn her if discovered;--but\r\nnothing more unnatural if there were no such secret. And she must\r\nknow! In her bosom, if in no other, must exist the knowledge whether\r\nor no that will were just. If that will were just, was it possible\r\nthat she should now tremble so violently, seeing that its justice\r\nhad been substantially proved in various courts of law? But if it\r\nwere not just--if it were a forgery, a forgery made by her, or with\r\nher cognizance--and that now this truth was to be made known! How\r\nterrible would that be! But terrible is not the word which best\r\ndescribes the idea as it entered Mr. Furnival's mind. How wonderful\r\nwould it be; how wonderful would it all have been! By whose hand in\r\nsuch case had those signatures been traced?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Could it be possible that\r\nshe, soft, beautiful, graceful as she was now, all but a girl as she\r\nhad then been, could have done it, unaided,--by herself?--that she\r\ncould have sat down in the still hour of the night, with that old man\r\non one side and her baby in his cradle on the other, and forged that\r\nwill, signatures and all, in such a manner as to have carried her\r\npoint for twenty years,--so skilfully as to have baffled lawyers and\r\njurymen and resisted the eager greed of her cheated kinsman? If so,\r\nwas it not all wonderful! Had not she been a woman worthy of wonder! And then Mr. Furnival's mind, keen and almost unerring at seizing\r\nlegal points, went eagerly to work, considering what new evidence\r\nmight now be forthcoming. He remembered at once the circumstances of\r\nthose two chief witnesses, the clerk who had been so muddle-headed,\r\nand the servant-girl who had been so clear. They had certainly\r\nwitnessed some deed, and they had done so on that special day. If\r\nthere had been a fraud, if there had been a forgery, it had been so\r\nclever as almost to merit protection! But if there had been such\r\nfraud, the nature of the means by which it might be detected became\r\nplain to the mind of the barrister,--plainer to him without knowledge\r\nof any circumstances than it had done to Mr. Mason after many of such\r\ncircumstances had been explained to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But it was impossible. So said Mr. Furnival to himself, out\r\nloud;--speaking out loud in order that he might convince himself. It was impossible, he said again; but he did not convince himself. Should he ask her? No; it was not on the cards that he should do\r\nthat. And perhaps, if a further trial were forthcoming, it might be\r\nbetter for her sake that he should be ignorant. And then, having\r\ndeclared again that it was impossible, he rang his bell. \"Crabwitz,\"\r\nsaid he, without looking at the man, \"just step over to Bedford\r\nRow, with my compliments, and learn what is Mr. Round's present\r\naddress;--old Mr. Round, you know.\" Mr. Crabwitz stood for a moment or two with the door in his hand, and\r\nMr. Furnival, going back to his own thoughts, was expecting the man's\r\ndeparture. \"Well,\" he said, looking up and seeing that his myrmidon\r\nstill stood there. Mr. Crabwitz was not in a very good humour, and had almost made up\r\nhis mind to let his master know that such was the case. Looking at\r\nhis own general importance in the legal world, and the inestimable\r\nservices which he had rendered to Mr. Furnival, he did not think that\r\nthat gentleman was treating him well."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had been summoned back to\r\nhis dingy chamber almost without an excuse, and now that he was in\r\nLondon was not permitted to join even for a day the other wise men of\r\nthe law who were assembled at the great congress. For the last four\r\ndays his heart had been yearning to go to Birmingham, but had yearned\r\nin vain; and now his master was sending him about town as though he\r\nwere an errand-lad. \"Shall I step across to the lodge and send the porter's boy to Round\r\nand Crook's?\" asked Mr. Crabwitz. \"The porter's boy! no; go yourself; you are not busy. Why should I\r\nsend the porter's boy on my business?\" The fact probably was, that\r\nMr. Furnival forgot his clerk's age and standing. Crabwitz had been\r\nready to run anywhere when his employer had first known him, and Mr.\r\nFurnival did not perceive the change. \"Very well, sir; certainly I will go if you wish it;--on this\r\noccasion that is. But I hope, sir, you will excuse my saying--\"\r\n\r\n\"Saying what?\" \"That I am not exactly a messenger, sir. Of course I'll go now, as\r\nthe other clerk is not in.\" \"Oh, you're too great a man to walk across to Bedford Row, are you? Give me my hat, and I'll go.\" \"Oh, no, Mr. Furnival, I did not mean that. I'll step over to Bedford\r\nRow, of course;--only I did think--\"\r\n\r\n\"Think what?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"That perhaps I was entitled to a little more respect, Mr. Furnival. It's for your sake as much as my own that I speak, sir; but if the\r\ngentlemen in the Lane see me sent about like a lad of twenty, sir,\r\nthey'll think--\"\r\n\r\n\"What will they think?\" \"I hardly know what they'll think, but I know it will be very\r\ndisagreeable, sir;--very disagreeable to my feelings. I did think,\r\nsir, that perhaps--\"\r\n\r\n\"I'll tell you what it is, Crabwitz, if your situation here does not\r\nsuit you, you may leave it to-morrow. I shall have no difficulty in\r\nfinding another man to take your place.\" \"I am sorry to hear you speak in that way, Mr. Furnival, very\r\nsorry--after fifteen years, sir--.\" \"You find yourself too grand to walk to Bedford Row!\" \"Oh, no. I'll go now, of course, Mr. Furnival.\" And then Mr. Crabwitz\r\ndid go, meditating as he went many things to himself. He knew his own\r\nvalue, or thought that he knew it; and might it not be possible to\r\nfind some patron who would appreciate his services more justly than\r\ndid Mr. Furnival? CHAPTER XIV. DINNER AT THE CLEEVE. Lady Mason on her return from London found a note from Mrs. Orme\r\nasking both her and her son to dine at The Cleeve on the following\r\nday."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As it had been already settled between her and Sir Peregrine\r\nthat Lucius should dine there in order that he might be talked to\r\nrespecting his mania for guano, the invitation could not be refused;\r\nbut, as for Lady Mason herself, she would much have preferred to\r\nremain at home. Indeed, her uneasiness on that guano matter had been so outweighed\r\nby worse uneasiness from another source, that she had become, if not\r\nindifferent, at any rate tranquil on the subject. It might be well\r\nthat Sir Peregrine should preach his sermon, and well that Lucius\r\nshould hear it; but for herself it would, she thought, have been more\r\ncomfortable for her to eat her dinner alone. She felt, however, that\r\nshe could not do so. Any amount of tedium would be better than the\r\ndanger of offering a slight to Sir Peregrine, and therefore she wrote\r\na pretty little note to say that both of them would be at The Cleeve\r\nat seven. \"Lucius, my dear, I want you to do me a great favour,\" she said as\r\nshe sat by her son in the Hamworth fly. \"A great favour, mother! of course I will do anything for you that I\r\ncan.\" \"It is that you will bear with Sir Peregrine to-night.\" \"Bear with him! I do not know exactly what you mean. Of course I will\r\nremember that he is an old man, and not answer him as I would one of\r\nmy own age.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I am sure of that, Lucius, because you are a gentleman. As much\r\nforbearance as that a young man, if he be a gentleman, will always\r\nshow to an old man. But what I ask is something more than that. Sir\r\nPeregrine has been farming all his life.\" \"Yes; and see what are the results! He has three or four hundred\r\nacres of uncultivated land on his estate, all of which would grow\r\nwheat.\" \"I know nothing about that,\" said Lady Mason. \"Ah, but that's the question. My trade is to be that of a farmer, and\r\nyou are sending me to school. Then comes the question, Of what sort\r\nis the schoolmaster?\" \"I am not talking about farming now, Lucius.\" \"But he will talk of it.\" \"And cannot you listen to him without contradicting him--for my\r\nsake? It is of the greatest consequence to me,--of the very\r\ngreatest, Lucius, that I should have the benefit of Sir Peregrine's\r\nfriendship.\" \"If he would quarrel with you because I chanced to disagree with\r\nhim about the management of land, his friendship would not be worth\r\nhaving.\" \"I do not say that he will do so; but I am sure you can understand\r\nthat an old man may be tender on such points. At any rate I ask it\r\nfrom you as a favour. You cannot guess how important it is to me to\r\nbe on good terms with such a neighbour.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It is always so in England,\" said Lucius, after pausing for a while. \"Sir Peregrine is a man of family, and a baronet; of course all the\r\nworld, the world of Hamworth that is, should bow down at his feet. And I too must worship the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar, the\r\nKing of Fashion, has set up!\" \"Lucius, you are unkind to me.\" \"No, mother, not unkind; but like all men, I would fain act in such\r\nmatters as my own judgment may direct me.\" \"My friendship with Sir Peregrine Orme has nothing to do with his\r\nrank; but it is of importance to me that both you and I should stand\r\nwell in his sight.\" There was nothing more said on the matter; and\r\nthen they got down at the front door, and were ushered through the\r\nlow wide hall into the drawing-room. The three generations of the family were there,--Sir Peregrine, his\r\ndaughter-in-law, and the heir. Lucius Mason had been at The Cleeve\r\ntwo or three times since his return from Germany, and on going there\r\nhad always declared to himself that it was the same to him as though\r\nhe were going into the house of Mrs. Arkwright, the doctor's widow at\r\nHamworth,--or even into the kitchen of Farmer Greenwood. He rejoiced\r\nto call himself a democrat, and would boast that rank could have no\r\neffect on him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But his boast was an untrue boast, and he could not\r\ncarry himself at The Cleeve as he would have done and did in Mrs.\r\nArkwright's little drawing-room. There was a majesty in the manner\r\nof Sir Peregrine which did awe him; there were tokens of birth\r\nand a certain grace of manner about Mrs. Orme which kept down his\r\nassumption; and even with young Peregrine he found that though he\r\nmight be equal he could by no means be more than equal. He had\r\nlearned more than Peregrine Orme, had ten times more knowledge in his\r\nhead, had read books of which Peregrine did not even know the names\r\nand probably never would know them; but on his side also young Orme\r\npossessed something which the other wanted. What that something might\r\nbe Lucius Mason did not at all understand. Mrs. Orme got up from her corner on the sofa to greet her friend, and\r\nwith a soft smile and two or three all but whispered words led her\r\nforward to the fire. Mrs. Orme was not a woman given to much speech\r\nor endowed with outward warmth of manners, but she could make her few\r\nwords go very far; and then the pressure of her hand, when it was\r\ngiven, told more than a whole embrace from some other women. There\r\nare ladies who always kiss their female friends, and always call them\r\n\"dear.\" In such cases one cannot but pity her who is so bekissed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Orme did not kiss Lady Mason, nor did she call her dear; but she\r\nsmiled sweetly as she uttered her greeting, and looked kindness out\r\nof her marvellously blue eyes; and Lucius Mason, looking on over his\r\nmother's shoulders, thought that he would like to have her for his\r\nfriend in spite of her rank. If Mrs. Orme would give him a lecture on\r\nfarming it might be possible to listen to it without contradiction;\r\nbut there was no chance for him in that respect. Mrs. Orme never gave\r\nlectures to any one on any subject. \"So, Master Lucius, you have been to Liverpool, I hear,\" said Sir\r\nPeregrine. \"Yes, sir--I returned yesterday.\" \"And what is the world doing at Liverpool?\" \"The world is wide awake there, sir.\" \"Oh, no doubt; when the world has to make money it is always\r\nwide awake. But men sometimes may be wide awake and yet make no\r\nmoney;--may be wide awake, or at any rate think that they are so.\" \"Better that, Sir Peregrine, than wilfully go to sleep when there is\r\nso much work to be done.\" \"A man when he's asleep does no harm,\" said Sir Peregrine. \"What a comfortable doctrine to think of when the servant comes with\r\nthe hot water at eight o'clock in the morning!\" said his grandson. \"It is one that you study very constantly, I fear,\" said the old man,\r\nwho at this time was on excellent terms with his heir."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There had\r\nbeen no apparent hankering after rats since that last compact had\r\nbeen made, and Peregrine had been doing great things with the H. H.;\r\nwinning golden opinions from all sorts of sportsmen, and earning a\r\ngreat reputation for a certain young mare which had been bred by Sir\r\nPeregrine himself. Foxes are vermin as well as rats, as Perry in his\r\nwickedness had remarked; but a young man who can break an old one's\r\nheart by a predilection for rat-catching may win it as absolutely\r\nand irretrievably by prowess after a fox. Sir Peregrine had told to\r\nfour different neighbours how a fox had been run into, in the open,\r\nnear Alston, after twelve desperate miles, and how on that occasion\r\nPeregrine had been in at the death with the huntsman and only one\r\nother. \"And the mare, you know, is only four years old and hardly\r\nhalf trained,\" said Sir Peregrine, with great exultation. \"The young\r\nscamp, to have ridden her in that way!\" It may be doubted whether he\r\nwould have been a prouder man or said more about it if his grandson\r\nhad taken honours. And then the gong sounded, and, Sir Peregrine led Lady Mason into the\r\ndining-room."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lucius, who as we know thought no more of the Ormes than\r\nof the Joneses and Smiths, paused in his awe before he gave his arm\r\nto Mrs. Orme; and when he did so he led her away in perfect silence,\r\nthough he would have given anything to be able to talk to her as\r\nhe went. But he bethought himself that unfortunately he could find\r\nnothing to say. And when he sat down it was not much better. He had\r\nnot dined at The Cleeve before, and I am not sure whether the butler\r\nin plain clothes and the two men in livery did not help to create his\r\nconfusion,--in spite of his well-digested democratic ideas. The conversation during dinner was not very bright. Sir Peregrine\r\nsaid a few words now and again to Lady Mason, and she replied with\r\na few others. On subjects which did not absolutely appertain to the\r\ndinner, she perhaps was the greatest talker; but even she did not say\r\nmuch. Mrs. Orme as a rule never spoke unless she were spoken to in\r\nany company consisting of more than herself and one other; and young\r\nPeregrine seemed to imagine that carving at the top of the table,\r\nasking people if they would take stewed beef, and eating his own\r\ndinner, were occupations quite sufficient for his energies. \"Have a\r\nbit more beef, Mason; do. If you will, I will.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "So far he went in\r\nconversation, but no farther while his work was still before him. When the servants were gone it was a little better, but not much. \"Mason, do you mean to hunt this season?\" Peregrine asked. \"No,\" said the other. \"Well, I would if I were you. You will never know the fellows about\r\nhere unless you do.\" \"In the first place I can't afford the time,\" said Lucius, \"and in\r\nthe next place I can't afford the money.\" This was plucky on his\r\npart, and it was felt to be so by everybody in the room; but perhaps\r\nhad he spoken all the truth, he would have said also that he was not\r\naccustomed to horsemanship. \"To a fellow who has a place of his own as you have, it costs\r\nnothing,\" said Peregrine. \"Oh, does it not?\" said the baronet; \"I used to think differently.\" \"Well; not so much, I mean, as if you had everything to buy. Besides,\r\nI look upon Mason as a sort of Croesus. What on earth has he got\r\nto do with his money? And then as to time;--upon my word I don't\r\nunderstand what a man means when he says he has not got time for\r\nhunting.\" \"Lucius intends to be a farmer,\" said his mother. \"So do I,\" said Peregrine. \"By Jove, I should think so."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If I had two\r\nhundred acres of land in my own hand I should not want anything else\r\nin the world, and would never ask any one for a shilling.\" \"If that be so, I might make the best bargain at once that ever a man\r\nmade,\" said the baronet. \"If I might take you at your word, Master\r\nPerry--.\" \"Pray don't talk of it, sir,\" said Mrs. Orme. \"You may be quite sure of this, my dear--that I shall not do more\r\nthan talk of it.\" Then Sir Peregrine asked Lady Mason if she would\r\ntake any more wine; after which the ladies withdrew, and the lecture\r\ncommenced. But we will in the first place accompany the ladies into the\r\ndrawing-room for a few minutes. It was hinted in one of the first\r\nchapters of this story that Lady Mason might have become more\r\nintimate than she had done with Mrs. Orme, had she so pleased it; and\r\nby this it will of course be presumed that she had not so pleased. All this is perfectly true. Mrs. Orme had now been living at The\r\nCleeve the greater portion of her life, and had never while there\r\nmade one really well-loved friend. She had a sister of her own, and\r\ndear old friends of her childhood, who lived far away from her in\r\nthe northern counties. Occasionally she did see them, and was then\r\nvery happy; but this was not frequent with her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her sister, who was\r\nmarried to a peer, might stay at The Cleeve for a fortnight, perhaps\r\nonce in the year; but Mrs. Orme herself seldom left her own home. She\r\nthought, and certainly not without cause, that Sir Peregrine was not\r\nhappy in her absence, and therefore she never left him. Then, living\r\nthere so much alone, was it not natural that her heart should desire\r\na friend? But Lady Mason had been living much more alone. She had no sister to\r\ncome to her, even though it were but once a year. She had no intimate\r\nfemale friend, none to whom she could really speak with the full\r\nfreedom of friendship, and it would have been delightful to have\r\nbound to her by ties of love so sweet a creature as Mrs. Orme, a\r\nwidow like herself,--and like herself a widow with one only son. But\r\nshe, warily picking her steps through life, had learned the necessity\r\nof being cautious in all things. The countenance of Sir Peregrine had\r\nbeen invaluable to her, and might it not be possible that she should\r\nlose that countenance? A word or two spoken now and then again, a\r\nlook not intended to be noticed, an altered tone, or perhaps a change\r\nin the pressure of the old man's hand, had taught Lady Mason to think\r\nthat he might disapprove such intimacy. Probably at the moment she\r\nwas right, for she was quick at reading such small signs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It behoved\r\nher to be very careful, and to indulge in no pleasure which might be\r\ncostly; and therefore she had denied herself in this matter,--as in\r\nso many others. But now it had occurred to her that it might be well to change her\r\nconduct. Either she felt that Sir Peregrine's friendship for her was\r\ntoo confirmed to be shaken, or perhaps she fancied that she might\r\nstrengthen it by means of his daughter-in-law. At any rate she\r\nresolved to accept the offer which had once been tacitly made to her,\r\nif it were still open to her to do so. \"How little changed your boy is!\" she said, when they were seated\r\nnear to each other, with their coffee-cups between them. \"No; he does not change quickly; and, as you say, he is a boy still\r\nin many things. I do not know whether it may not be better that it\r\nshould be so.\" \"I did not mean to call him a boy in that sense,\" said Lady Mason. \"But you might; now your son is quite a man.\" \"Poor Lucius! yes; in his position it is necessary. His little bit\r\nof property is already his own; and then he has no one like Sir\r\nPeregrine to look out for him. Necessity makes him manly.\" \"He will be marrying soon, I dare say,\" suggested Mrs. Orme. \"Oh, I hope not. Do you think that early marriages are good for young\r\nmen?\" \"Yes, I think so. Why not?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "said Mrs. Orme, thinking of her own year\r\nof married happiness. \"Would you not wish to see Lucius marry?\" \"I fancy not. I should be afraid lest I should become as nothing to\r\nhim. And yet I would not have you think that I am selfish.\" \"I am sure that you are not that. I am sure that you love him better\r\nthan all the world besides. I can feel what that is myself.\" \"But you are not alone with your boy as I am. If he were to send me\r\nfrom him, there would be nothing left for me in this world.\" \"Send you from him! Ah, because Orley Farm belongs to him. But he\r\nwould not do that; I am sure he would not.\" \"He would do nothing unkind; but how could he help it if his wife\r\nwished it? But nevertheless I would not keep him single for that\r\nreason;--no, nor for any reason if I knew that he wished to marry. But it would be a blow to me.\" \"I sincerely trust that Peregrine may marry early,\" said Mrs. Orme,\r\nperhaps thinking that babies were preferable either to rats or foxes. \"Yes, it would be well I am sure, because you have ample means, and\r\nthe house is large; and you would have his wife to love.\" \"If she were nice it would be so sweet to have her for a daughter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I\r\nalso am very much alone, though perhaps not so much as you are, Lady\r\nMason.\" \"I hope not--for I am sometimes very lonely.\" \"I have often thought that.\" \"But I should be wicked beyond everything if I were to complain,\r\nseeing that Providence has given me so much that I had no right to\r\nexpect. What should I have done in my loneliness if Sir Peregrine's\r\nhand and door had never been opened to me?\" And then for the next\r\nhalf-hour the two ladies held sweet converse together, during which\r\nwe will go back to the gentlemen over their wine. [Illustration: Over their Wine.] \"Are you drinking claret?\" said Sir Peregrine, arranging himself and\r\nhis bottles in the way that was usual to him. He had ever been a\r\nmoderate man himself, but nevertheless he had a business-like way of\r\ngoing to work after dinner, as though there was a good deal to be\r\ndone before the drawing-room could be visited. \"No more wine for me, sir,\" said Lucius. \"No wine!\" said Sir Peregrine the elder. \"Why, Mason, you'll never get on if that's the way with you,\" said\r\nPeregrine the younger. \"I'll try at any rate,\" said the other. \"Water-drinker, moody thinker,\" and Peregrine sang a word or two from\r\nan old drinking-song. \"I am not quite sure of that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We Englishmen I suppose are the\r\nmoodiest thinkers in all the world, and yet we are not so much given\r\nto water-drinking as our lively neighbours across the Channel.\" Sir Peregrine said nothing more on the subject, but he probably\r\nthought that his young friend would not be a very comfortable\r\nneighbour. His present task, however, was by no means that of\r\nteaching him to drink, and he struck off at once upon the business he\r\nhad undertaken. \"So your mother tells me that you are going to devote\r\nall your energies to farming.\" \"Hardly that, I hope. There is the land, and I mean to see what I\r\ncan do with it. It is not much, and I intend to combine some other\r\noccupation with it.\" \"You will find that two hundred acres of land will give you a good\r\ndeal to do;--that is if you mean to make money by it.\" \"I certainly hope to do that,--in the long run.\" \"It seems to me the easiest thing in the world,\" said Peregrine. \"You'll find out your mistake some day; but with Lucius Mason it is\r\nvery important that he should make no mistake at the commencement. For a country gentleman I know no prettier amusement than\r\nexperimental farming;--but then a man must give up all idea of making\r\nhis rent out of the land.\" \"I can't afford that,\" said Lucius. \"No; and that is why I take the liberty of speaking to you."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I hope\r\nthat the great friendship which I feel for your mother will be\r\nallowed to stand as my excuse.\" \"I am very much obliged by your kindness, sir; I am indeed.\" \"The truth is, I think you are beginning wrong. You have now been to\r\nLiverpool, to buy guano, I believe.\" \"Yes, that and some few other things. There is a man there who has\r\ntaken out a patent--\"\r\n\r\n\"My dear fellow, if you lay out your money in that way, you will\r\nnever see it back again. Have you considered in the first place what\r\nyour journey to Liverpool has cost you?\" \"Exactly nine and sixpence per cent. on the money that I laid out\r\nthere. Now that is not much more than a penny in the pound on the sum\r\nexpended, and is not for a moment to be taken into consideration in\r\ncomparison with the advantage of an improved market.\" There was more in this than Sir Peregrine had expected to encounter. He did not for a moment doubt the truth of his own experience or\r\nthe folly and the danger of the young man's proceedings; but he did\r\ndoubt his own power of proving either the one or the other to one\r\nwho so accurately computed his expenses by percentages on his outlay. Peregrine opened his eyes and sat by, wondering in silence. What on\r\nearth did Mason mean by an improved market?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I am afraid then,\" said the baronet, \"that you must have laid out a\r\nlarge sum of money.\" \"A man can't do any good, Sir Peregrine, by hoarding his capital. I\r\ndon't think very much of capital myself--\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't you?\" \"Not of the theory of capital;--not so much as some people do; but\r\nif a man has got it, of course it should be expended on the trade to\r\nwhich it is to be applied.\" \"But some little knowledge--some experience is perhaps desirable\r\nbefore any great outlay is made.\" \"Yes; some little knowledge is necessary,--and some great knowledge\r\nwould be desirable if it were accessible;--but it is not, as I take\r\nit.\" \"Long years, perhaps, devoted to such pursuits--\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, Sir Peregrine; I know what you are going to say. Experience no\r\ndoubt will teach something. A man who has walked thirty miles a day\r\nfor thirty years will probably know what sort of shoes will best suit\r\nhis feet, and perhaps also the kind of food that will best support\r\nhim through such exertion; but there is very little chance of his\r\ninventing any quicker mode of travelling.\" \"But he will have earned his wages honestly,\" said Sir Peregrine,\r\nalmost angrily. In his heart he was very angry, for he did not love\r\nto be interrupted. \"Oh, yes; and if that were sufficient we might all walk our thirty\r\nmiles a day. But some of us must earn wages for other people, or the\r\nworld will make no progress."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Civilization, as I take it, consists in\r\nefforts made not for oneself but for others.\" \"If you won't take any more wine we will join the ladies,\" said the\r\nbaronet. \"He has not taken any at all,\" said Peregrine, filling his own glass\r\nfor the last time and emptying it. \"That young man is the most conceited puppy it was ever my misfortune\r\nto meet,\" said Sir Peregrine to Mrs. Orme, when she came to kiss him\r\nand take his blessing as she always did before leaving him for the\r\nnight. \"I am sorry for that,\" said she, \"for I like his mother so much.\" \"I also like her,\" said Sir Peregrine; \"but I cannot say that I shall\r\never be very fond of her son.\" \"I'll tell you what, mamma,\" said young Peregrine, the same evening\r\nin his mother's dressing-room. \"Lucius Mason was too many for the\r\ngovernor this evening.\" \"I hope he did not tease your grandfather.\" \"He talked him down regularly, and it was plain that the governor did\r\nnot like it.\" And then the day was over. CHAPTER XV. A MORNING CALL AT MOUNT PLEASANT VILLA. On the following day Lady Mason made two visits, using her new\r\nvehicle for the first time. She would fain have walked had she dared;\r\nbut she would have given terrible offence to her son by doing so."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He\r\nhad explained to her, and with some truth, that as their joint income\r\nwas now a thousand a year, she was quite entitled to such a luxury;\r\nand then he went on to say that as he had bought it for her, he\r\nshould be much hurt if she would not use it. She had put it off from\r\nday to day, and now she could put it off no longer. Her first visit was by appointment at The Cleeve. She had promised\r\nMrs. Orme that she would come up, some special purpose having been\r\nnamed;--but with the real idea, at any rate on the part of the\r\nlatter, that they might both be more comfortable together than alone. The walk across from Orley Farm to The Cleeve had always been very\r\ndear to Lady Mason. Every step of it was over beautiful ground, and a\r\ndelight in scenery was one of the few pleasures which her lot in life\r\nhad permitted her to enjoy. But to-day she could not allow herself\r\nthe walk. Her pleasure and delight must be postponed to her son's\r\nwishes! But then she was used to that. She found Mrs. Orme alone, and sat with her for an hour. I do not\r\nknow that anything was said between them which deserves to be\r\nspecially chronicled."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Orme, though she told her many things, did\r\nnot tell her what Sir Peregrine had said as he was going up to his\r\nbedroom on the preceding evening, nor did Lady Mason say much about\r\nher son's farming. She had managed to gather from Lucius that he\r\nhad not been deeply impressed by anything that had fallen from Sir\r\nPeregrine on the subject, and therefore thought it as well to hold\r\nher tongue. She soon perceived also, from the fact of Mrs. Orme\r\nsaying nothing about Lucius, that he had not left behind him any very\r\nfavourable impression. This was to her cause of additional sorrow,\r\nbut she knew that it must be borne. Nothing that she could say would\r\ninduce Lucius to make himself acceptable to Sir Peregrine. When the hour was over she went down again to her little carriage,\r\nMrs. Orme coming with her to look at it, and in the hall they met Sir\r\nPeregrine. \"Why does not Lady Mason stop for lunch?\" said he. \"It is past\r\nhalf-past one. I never knew anything so inhospitable as turning her\r\nout at this moment.\" \"I did ask her to stay,\" said Mrs. Orme. \"But I command her to stay,\" said Sir Peregrine, knocking his stick\r\nupon the stone floor of the hall. \"And let me see who will dare to\r\ndisobey me. John, let Lady Mason's carriage and pony stand in the\r\nopen coach-house till she is ready.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "So Lady Mason went back and did\r\nremain for lunch. She was painfully anxious to maintain the best\r\npossible footing in that house, but still more anxious not to have\r\nit thought that she was intruding. She had feared that Lucius by his\r\noffence might have estranged Sir Peregrine against herself; but that\r\nat any rate was not the case. After lunch she drove herself to Hamworth and made her second visit. On this occasion she called on one Mrs. Arkwright, who was a very\r\nold acquaintance, though hardly to be called an intimate friend. The late Mr. Arkwright,--Dr. Arkwright as he used to be styled\r\nin Hamworth,--had been Sir Joseph's medical attendant for many\r\nyears, and therefore there had been room for an intimacy. No real\r\nfriendship, that is no friendship of confidence, had sprung up; but\r\nnevertheless the doctor's wife had known enough of Lady Mason in her\r\nyounger days to justify her in speaking of things which would not\r\nhave been mentioned between merely ordinary acquaintance. \"I am glad\r\nto see you have got promotion,\" said the old lady, looking out at\r\nLady Mason's little phaeton on the gravel sweep which divided Mrs.\r\nArkwright's house from the street. For Mrs. Arkwright's house was\r\nMount Pleasant Villa, and therefore was entitled to a sweep. \"It was a present from Lucius,\" said the other, \"and as such must be\r\nused. But I shall never feel myself at home in my own carriage.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It is quite proper, my dear Lady Mason, quite proper. With his\r\nincome and with yours I do not wonder that he insists upon it. It is\r\nquite proper, and just at the present moment peculiarly so.\" Lady Mason did not understand this; but she would probably have\r\npassed it by without understanding it, had she not thought that there\r\nwas some expression more than ordinary in Mrs. Arkwright's face. \"Why\r\npeculiarly so at the present moment?\" she said. \"Because it shows that this foolish report which is going about has\r\nno foundation. People won't believe it for a moment when they see you\r\nout and about, and happy-like.\" \"What rumour, Mrs. Arkwright?\" And Lady Mason's heart sunk within her\r\nas she asked the question. She felt at once to what it must allude,\r\nthough she had conceived no idea as yet that there was any rumour on\r\nthe subject. Indeed, during the last forty-eight hours, since she had\r\nleft the chambers of Mr. Furnival, she had been more at ease within\r\nherself than during the previous days which had elapsed subsequent to\r\nthe ill-omened visit made to her by Miriam Dockwrath. It had seemed\r\nto her that Mr. Furnival anticipated no danger, and his manner and\r\nwords had almost given her confidence. But now,--now that a public\r\nrumour was spoken of, her heart was as low again as ever. \"Sure, haven't you heard?\" said Mrs. Arkwright."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Well, I wouldn't be\r\nthe first to tell you, only that I know that there is no truth in\r\nit.\" \"You might as well tell me now, as I shall be apt to believe worse\r\nthan the truth after what you have said.\" And then Mrs. Arkwright told her. \"People have been saying that Mr.\r\nMason is again going to begin those law proceedings about the farm;\r\nbut I for one don't believe it.\" \"People have said so!\" Lady Mason repeated. She meant nothing; it was\r\nnothing to her who the people were. If one said it now, all would\r\nsoon be saying it. But she uttered the words because she felt herself\r\nforced to say something, and the power of thinking what she might\r\nbest say was almost taken away from her. \"I am sure I don't know where it came from,\" said Mrs. Arkwright;\r\n\"but I would not have alluded to it if I had not thought that of\r\ncourse you had heard it. I am very sorry if my saying it has vexed\r\nyou.\" \"Oh, no,\" said Lady Mason, trying to smile. \"As I said before, we all know that there is nothing in it; and your\r\nhaving the pony chaise just at this time will make everybody see that\r\nyou are quite comfortable yourself.\" \"Thank you, yes; good-bye, Mrs. Arkwright.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then she made a great\r\neffort, feeling aware that she was betraying herself, and that it\r\nbehoved her to say something which might remove the suspicion which\r\nher emotion must have created. \"The very name of that lawsuit is so\r\ndreadful to me that I can hardly bear it. The memory of it is so\r\nterrible to me, that even my enemies would hardly wish that it should\r\ncommence again.\" \"Of course it is merely a report,\" said Mrs. Arkwright, almost\r\ntrembling at what she had done. \"That is all--at least I believe so. I had heard myself that some\r\nsuch threat had been made, but I did not think that any tidings of it\r\nhad got abroad.\" \"It was Mrs. Whiting told me. She is a great busybody, you know.\" Mrs. Whiting was the wife of the present doctor. \"Dear Mrs. Arkwright, it does not matter in the least. Of course I\r\ndo not expect that people should hold their tongue on my account. Good-bye, Mrs. Arkwright.\" And then she got into the little carriage,\r\nand did contrive to drive herself home to Orley Farm. \"Dear, dear, dear, dear!\" said Mrs. Arkwright to herself when she was\r\nleft alone. \"Only to think of that; that she should be knocked in a\r\nheap by a few words--in a moment, as we may say.\" And then she began\r\nto consider of the matter. \"I wonder what there is in it!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "There must\r\nbe something, or she would never have looked so like a ghost. What\r\nwill they do if Orley Farm is taken away from them after all!\" And\r\nthen Mrs. Arkwright hurried out on her daily little toddle through\r\nthe town, that she might talk about and be talked to on the same\r\nsubject. She was by no means an ill-natured woman, nor was she at\r\nall inclined to direct against Lady Mason any slight amount of venom\r\nwhich might alloy her disposition. But then the matter was of such\r\nimportance! The people of Hamworth had hardly yet ceased to talk of\r\nthe last Orley Farm trial; and would it not be necessary that they\r\nshould talk much more if a new trial were really pending? Looking at\r\nthe matter in that light, would not such a trial be a godsend to the\r\npeople of Hamworth? Therefore I beg that it may not be imputed to\r\nMrs. Arkwright as a fault that she toddled out and sought eagerly for\r\nher gossips. Lady Mason did manage to drive herself home; but her success in the\r\nmatter was more owing to the good faith and propriety of her pony,\r\nthan to any skilful workmanship on her own part. Her first desire had\r\nbeen to get away from Mrs. Arkwright, and having made that effort she\r\nwas now for a time hardly able to make any other. It was fast coming\r\nupon her now."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Let Sir Peregrine say what comforting words he might,\r\nlet Mr. Furnival assure her that she was safe with ever so much\r\nconfidence, nevertheless she could not but believe, could not but\r\nfeel inwardly convinced, that that which she so dreaded was to\r\nhappen. It was written in the book of her destiny that there should\r\nbe a new trial. And now, from this very moment, the misery would again begin. People\r\nwould point at her, and talk of her. Her success in obtaining Orley\r\nFarm for her own child would again be canvassed at every house in\r\nHamworth; and not only her success, but the means also by which that\r\nsuccess had been obtained. The old people would remember and the\r\nyoung people would inquire; and, for her, tranquillity, repose, and\r\nthat retirement of life which had been so valuable to her, were all\r\ngone. There could be no doubt that Dockwrath had spread the report\r\nimmediately on his return from Yorkshire; and had she well thought of\r\nthe matter she might have taken some comfort from this. Of course he\r\nwould tell the story which he did tell. His confidence in being able\r\nagain to drag the case before the Courts would by no means argue that\r\nothers believed as he believed. In fact the enemies now arraigned\r\nagainst her were only those whom she already knew to be so arraigned."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But she had not sufficient command of her thoughts to be able at\r\nfirst to take comfort from such a reflection as this. She felt, as\r\nshe was being carried home, that the world was going from her, and\r\nthat it would be well for her, were it possible, that she should die. But she was stronger when she reached her own door than she had been\r\nat Mrs. Arkwright's. There was still within her a great power of\r\nself-maintenance, if only time were allowed to her to look about and\r\nconsider how best she might support herself. Many women are in this\r\nrespect as she was. With forethought and summoned patience they can\r\nendure great agonies; but a sudden pang, unexpected, overwhelms them. She got out of the pony carriage with her ordinary placid face, and\r\nwalked up to her own room without having given any sign that she was\r\nuneasy; and then she had to determine how she should bear herself\r\nbefore her son. It had been with her a great object that both Sir\r\nPeregrine and Mr. Furnival should first hear of the tidings from her,\r\nand that they should both promise her their aid when they had heard\r\nthe story as she would tell it. In this she had been successful; and\r\nit now seemed to her that prudence would require her to act in the\r\nsame way towards Lucius."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had it been possible to keep this matter\r\nfrom him altogether, she would have given much to do so; but now it\r\nwould not be possible. It was clear that Mr. Dockwrath had chosen to\r\nmake the matter public, acting no doubt with forethought in doing\r\nso; and Lucius would be sure to hear words which would become common\r\nin Hamworth. Difficult as the task would be to her, it would be\r\nbest that she should prepare him. So she sat alone till dinner-time\r\nplanning how she would do this. She had sat alone for hours in the\r\nsame way planning how she would tell her story to Sir Peregrine; and\r\nagain as to her second story for Mr. Furnival. Those whose withers\r\nare unwrung can hardly guess how absolutely a sore under the collar\r\nwill embitter every hour for the poor jade who is so tormented! But she met him at dinner with a smiling face. He loved to see her\r\nsmile, and often told her so, almost upbraiding her when she would\r\nlook sad. Why should she be sad, seeing that she had everything that\r\na woman could desire? Her mind was burdened with no heavy thoughts as\r\nto feeding coming multitudes. She had no contests to wage with the\r\ndesultory chemists of the age."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His purpose was to work hard during\r\nthe hours of the day,--hard also during many hours of the night; and\r\nit was becoming that his mother should greet him softly during his\r\nfew intervals of idleness. He told her so, in some words not badly\r\nchosen for such telling; and she, loving mother that she was, strove\r\nvaliantly to obey him. During dinner she could not speak to him, nor immediately after\r\ndinner. The evil moment she put off from half-hour to half-hour,\r\nstill looking as though all were quiet within her bosom as she sat\r\nbeside him with her book in her hand. He was again at work before she\r\nbegan her story; he thought at least that he was at work, for he had\r\nbefore him on the table both Prichard and Latham, and was occupied\r\nin making copies from some drawings of skulls which purposed to\r\nrepresent the cerebral development of certain of our more distant\r\nAsiatic brethren. \"Is it not singular,\" said be, \"that the jaws of men born and bred\r\nin a hunter state should be differently formed from those of the\r\nagricultural tribes?\" \"Are they?\" said Lady Mason. \"Oh yes; the maxillary profile is quite different. You will see this\r\nespecially with the Mongolians, among the Tartar tribes. It seems to\r\nme to be very much the same difference as that between a man and a\r\nsheep, but Prichard makes no such remark."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Look here at this fellow;\r\nhe must have been intended to eat nothing but flesh; and that raw,\r\nand without any knife or fork.\" \"I don't suppose they had many knives or forks.\" \"By close observation I do not doubt that one could tell from a\r\nsingle tooth not only what food the owner of it had been accustomed\r\nto eat, but what language he had spoken. I say close observation, you\r\nknow. It could not be done in a day.\" \"I suppose not.\" And then the student again bent over his drawing. \"You see it would have been impossible for the owner of such a jaw\r\nas that to have ground a grain of corn between his teeth, or to have\r\nmasticated even a cabbage.\" \"Lucius,\" said Lady Mason, becoming courageous on the spur of the\r\nmoment, \"I want you to leave that for a moment and speak to me.\" \"Well,\" said he, putting down his pencil and turning round. \"Here I\r\nam.\" \"You have heard of the lawsuit which I had with your brother when you\r\nwere an infant?\" \"Of course I have heard of it; but I wish you would not call that man\r\nmy brother. He would not own me as such, and I most certainly would\r\nnot own him. As far as I can learn he is one of the most detestable\r\nhuman beings that ever existed.\" \"You have heard of him from an unfavourable side, Lucius; you should\r\nremember that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He is a hard man, I believe; but I do not know that he\r\nwould do anything which he thought to be unjust.\" \"Why then did he try to rob me of my property?\" \"Because he thought that it should have been his own. I cannot see\r\ninto his breast, but I presume that it was so.\" \"I do not presume anything of the kind, and never shall. I was an\r\ninfant and you were a woman,--a woman at that time without many\r\nfriends, and he thought that he could rob us under cover of the law. Had he been commonly honest it would have been enough for him to\r\nknow what had been my father's wishes, even if the will had not been\r\nrigidly formal. I look upon him as a robber and a thief.\" \"I am sorry for that, Lucius, because I differ from you. What I wish\r\nto tell you now is this,--that he is thinking of trying the question\r\nagain.\" \"What!--thinking of another trial now?\" and Lucius Mason pushed his\r\ndrawings and books from him with a vengeance. \"So I am told.\" \"And who told you? I cannot believe it, If he intended anything of\r\nthe kind I must have been the first person to hear of it. It would be\r\nmy business now, and you may be sure that he would have taken care to\r\nlet me know his purpose.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then by degrees she explained to him that the man himself, Mr.\r\nMason of Groby, had as yet declared no such purpose. She had intended\r\nto omit all mention of the name of Mr. Dockwrath, but she was unable\r\nto do so without seeming to make a mystery with her son. When she\r\ncame to explain how the rumour had arisen and why she had thought it\r\nnecessary to tell him this, she was obliged to say that it had all\r\narisen from the wrath of the attorney. \"He has been to Groby Park,\"\r\nshe said, \"and now that he has returned he is spreading this report.\" \"I shall go to him to-morrow,\" said Lucius, very sternly. \"No, no; you must not do that. You must promise me that you will not\r\ndo that.\" \"But I shall. You cannot suppose that I shall allow such a man as\r\nthat to tamper with my name without noticing it! It is my business\r\nnow.\" \"No, Lucius. The attack will be against me rather than you;--that is,\r\nif an attack be made. I have told you because I do not like to have a\r\nsecret from you.\" \"Of course you have told me. If you are attacked who should defend\r\nyou, if I do not?\" \"The best defence, indeed the only defence till they take some active\r\nstep, will be silence. Most probably they will not do anything,\r\nand then we can afford to live down such reports as these."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You can\r\nunderstand, Lucius, that the matter is grievous enough to me; and I\r\nam sure that for my sake you will not make it worse by a personal\r\nquarrel with such a man as that.\" \"I shall go to Mr. Furnival,\" said he, \"and ask his advice.\" \"I have done that already, Lucius. I thought it best to do so, when\r\nfirst I heard that Mr. Dockwrath was moving in the matter. It was for\r\nthat that I went up to town.\" \"And why did you not tell me?\" \"I then thought that you might be spared the pain of knowing anything\r\nof the matter. I tell you now because I hear to-day in Hamworth that\r\npeople are talking on the subject. You might be annoyed, as I was\r\njust now, if the first tidings had reached you from some stranger.\" He sat silent for a while, turning his pencil in his hand, and\r\nlooking as though he were going to settle the matter off hand by his\r\nown thoughts. \"I tell you what it is, mother; I shall not let the\r\nburden of this fall on your shoulders. You carried on the battle\r\nbefore, but I must do so now. If I can trace any word of scandal to\r\nthat fellow Dockwrath, I shall indict him for a libel.\" \"Oh, Lucius!\" \"I shall, and no mistake!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "What would he have said had he known that his mother had absolutely\r\nproposed to Mr. Furnival to buy off Mr. Dockwrath's animosity, almost\r\nat any price? CHAPTER XVI. MR. DOCKWRATH IN BEDFORD ROW. Mr. Dockwrath, as he left Leeds and proceeded to join the bosom of\r\nhis family, was not discontented with what he had done. It might not\r\nimprobably have been the case that Mr. Mason would altogether refuse\r\nto see him, and having seen him, Mr. Mason might altogether have\r\ndeclined his assistance. He might have been forced as a witness to\r\ndisclose his secret, of which he could make so much better a profit\r\nas a legal adviser. As it was, Mr. Mason had promised to pay him for\r\nhis services, and would no doubt be induced to go so far as to give\r\nhim a legal claim for payment. Mr. Mason had promised to come up to\r\ntown, and had instructed the Hamworth attorney to meet him there; and\r\nunder such circumstances the Hamworth attorney had but little doubt\r\nthat time would produce a considerable bill of costs in his favour. And then he thought that he saw his way to a great success. I should\r\nbe painting the Devil too black were I to say that revenge was\r\nhis chief incentive in that which he was doing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All our motives\r\nare mixed; and his wicked desire to do evil to Lady Mason in\r\nreturn for the evil which she had done to him was mingled with\r\nprofessional energy, and an ambition to win a cause that ought to\r\nbe won--especially a cause which others had failed to win. He said\r\nto himself, on finding those names and dates among old Mr. Usbech's\r\npapers, that there was still an opportunity of doing something\r\nconsiderable in this Orley Farm Case, and he had made up his mind to\r\ndo it. Professional energy, revenge, and money considerations would\r\nwork hand in hand in this matter; and therefore, as he left Leeds in\r\nthe second-class railway carriage for London, he thought over the\r\nresult of his visit with considerable satisfaction. He had left Leeds at ten, and Mr. Moulder had come down in the same\r\nomnibus to the station, and was travelling in the same train in\r\na first-class carriage. Mr. Moulder was a man who despised the\r\nsecond-class, and was not slow to say so before other commercials who\r\ntravelled at a cheaper rate than he did. \"Hubbles and Grease,\" he\r\nsaid, \"allowed him respectably, in order that he might go about their\r\nbusiness respectable; and he wasn't going to give the firm a bad name\r\nby being seen in a second-class carriage, although the difference\r\nwould go into his own pocket. That wasn't the way he had begun, and\r\nthat wasn't the way he was going to end.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "He said nothing to Mr.\r\nDockwrath in the morning, merely bowing in answer to that gentleman's\r\nsalutation. \"Hope you were comfortable last night in the back\r\ndrawing-room,\" said Mr. Dockwrath; but Mr. Moulder in reply only\r\nlooked at him. At the Mansfield station, Mr. Kantwise, with his huge wooden boxes,\r\nappeared on the platform, and he got into the same carriage with Mr.\r\nDockwrath. He had come on by a night train, and had been doing a\r\nstroke of business that morning. \"Well, Kantwise,\" Moulder holloaed\r\nout from his warm, well-padded seat, \"doing it cheap and nasty, eh?\" \"Not at all nasty, Mr. Moulder,\" said the other. \"And I find myself\r\namong as respectable a class of society in the second-class as you do\r\nin the first; quite so;--and perhaps a little better,\" Mr. Kantwise\r\nadded, as he took his seat immediately opposite to Mr. Dockwrath. \"I\r\nhope I have the pleasure of seeing you pretty bobbish this morning,\r\nsir.\" And he shook hands cordially with the attorney. \"Tidy, thank you,\" said Dockwrath. \"My company last night did not do\r\nme any harm; you may swear to that.\" \"Ha! ha! ha! I was so delighted that you got the better of Moulder; a\r\ndomineering party, isn't he? quite terrible! For myself, I can't put\r\nup with him sometimes.\" \"I didn't have to put up with him last night.\" \"No, no; it was very good, wasn't it now? very capital, indeed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All\r\nthe same I wish you'd heard Busby give us 'Beautiful Venice, City\r\nof Song!' A charming voice has Busby; quite charming.\" And there\r\nwas a pause for a minute or so, after which Mr. Kantwise resumed\r\nthe conversation. \"You'll allow me to put you up one of those\r\ndrawing-room sets?\" he said. \"Well, I am afraid not. I don't think they are strong enough where\r\nthere are children.\" \"Dear, dear; dear, dear; to hear you say so, Mr. Dockwrath! Why, they\r\nare made for strength. They are the very things for children, because\r\nthey don't break, you know.\" \"But they'd bend terribly.\" \"By no means. They're so elastic that they always recovers\r\nthemselves. I didn't show you that; but you might turn the backs of\r\nthem chairs nearly down to the ground, and they will come straight\r\nagain. You let me send you a set for your wife to look at. If she's\r\nnot charmed with them I'll--I'll--I'll eat them.\" \"Women are charmed with anything,\" said Mr. Dockwrath. \"A new bonnet\r\ndoes that.\" \"They know what they are about pretty well, as I dare say you have\r\nfound out. I'll send express to Sheffield and have a completely new\r\nset put up for you.\" \"For twelve seventeen six, of course?\" \"Oh! dear no, Mr. Dockwrath. The lowest figure for ready money,\r\ndelivered free, is fifteen ten.\" \"I couldn't think of paying more than Mrs. Mason.\" \"Ah! but that was a damaged set; it was, indeed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And she merely\r\nwanted it as a present for the curate's wife. The table was quite\r\nsprung, and the music-stool wouldn't twist.\" \"But you'll send them to me new?\" \"New from the manufactory; upon my word we will.\" \"A table that you have never acted upon--have never shown off on;\r\nstanding in the middle, you know?\" \"Yes; upon my honour. You shall have them direct from the workshop,\r\nand sent at once; you shall find them in your drawing-room on Tuesday\r\nnext.\" \"We'll say thirteen ten.\" \"I couldn't do it, Mr. Dockwrath--\" And so they went on, bargaining\r\nhalf the way up to town, till at last they came to terms for fourteen\r\neleven. \"And a very superior article your lady will find them,\" Mr.\r\nKantwise said as he shook hands with his new friend at parting. One day Mr. Dockwrath remained at home in the bosom of his family,\r\nsaying all manner of spiteful things against Lady Mason, and on the\r\nnext day he went up to town and called on Round and Crook. That one\r\nday he waited in order that Mr. Mason might have time to write; but\r\nMr. Mason had written on the very day of the visit to Groby Park,\r\nand Mr. Round junior was quite ready for Mr. Dockwrath when that\r\ngentleman called."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Dockwrath when at home had again cautioned his wife to have no\r\nintercourse whatever \"with that swindler at Orley Farm,\" wishing\r\nthereby the more thoroughly to imbue poor Miriam with a conviction\r\nthat Lady Mason had committed some fraud with reference to the will. \"You had better say nothing about the matter anywhere; d'you hear? People will talk; all the world will be talking about it before long. But that is nothing to you. If people ask you, say that you believe\r\nthat I am engaged in the case professionally, but that you know\r\nnothing further.\" As to all which Miriam of course promised the most\r\nexact obedience. But Mr. Dockwrath, though he only remained one day\r\nin Hamworth before he went to London, took care that the curiosity of\r\nhis neighbours should be sufficiently excited. Mr. Dockwrath felt some little trepidation at the heart as he walked\r\ninto the office of Messrs. Round and Crook in Bedford Row. Messrs. Round and Crook stood high in the profession, and were men who in\r\nthe ordinary way of business would have had no personal dealings\r\nwith such a man as Mr. Dockwrath. Had any such intercourse become\r\nnecessary on commonplace subjects Messrs. Round and Crook's\r\nconfidential clerk might have seen Mr. Dockwrath, but even he would\r\nhave looked down upon the Hamworth attorney as from a great moral\r\nheight."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But now, in the matter of the Orley Farm Case, Mr. Dockwrath\r\nhad determined that he would transact business only on equal terms\r\nwith the Bedford Row people. The secret was his--of his finding;\r\nhe knew the strength of his own position, and he would use it. But\r\nnevertheless he did tremble inwardly as he asked whether Mr. Round\r\nwas within;--or if not Mr. Round, then Mr. Crook. There were at present three members in the firm, though the old name\r\nremained unaltered. The Mr. Round and the Mr. Crook of former days\r\nwere still working partners;--the very Round and the very Crook who\r\nhad carried on the battle on the part of Mr. Mason of Groby twenty\r\nyears ago; but to them had been added another Mr. Round, a son of\r\nold Round, who, though his name did not absolutely appear in the\r\nnomenclature of the firm, was, as a working man, the most important\r\nperson in it. Old Mr. Round might now be said to be ornamental and\r\ncommunicative. He was a hale man of nearly seventy, who thought a\r\ngreat deal of his peaches up at Isleworth, who came to the office\r\nfive times a week--not doing very much hard work, and who took the\r\nlargest share in the profits. Mr. Round senior had enjoyed the\r\nreputation of being a sound, honourable man, but was now considered\r\nby some to be not quite sharp enough for the practice of the present\r\nday."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Crook had usually done the dirty work of the firm, having been\r\noriginally a managing clerk; and he still did the same--in a small\r\nway. He had been the man to exact penalties, look after costs, and\r\nattend to any criminal business, or business partly criminal in its\r\nnature, which might chance find its way to them. But latterly in all\r\ngreat matters Mr. Round junior, Mr. Matthew Round,--his father was\r\nRichard,--was the member of the firm on whom the world in general\r\nplaced the greatest dependence. Mr. Mason's letter had in the\r\nordinary way of business come to him, although it had been addressed\r\nto his father, and he had resolved on acting on it himself. When Mr. Dockwrath called Mr. Round senior was at Birmingham, Mr.\r\nCrook was taking his annual holiday, and Mr. Round junior was\r\nreigning alone in Bedford Row. Instructions had been given to the\r\nclerks that if Mr. Dockwrath called he was to be shown in, and\r\ntherefore he found himself seated, with much less trouble than he had\r\nexpected, in the private room of Mr. Round junior. He had expected\r\nto see an old man, and was therefore somewhat confused, not feeling\r\nquite sure that he was in company with one of the principals; but\r\nnevertheless, looking at the room, and especially at the arm-chair\r\nand carpet, he was aware that the legal gentleman who motioned him to\r\na seat could be no ordinary clerk."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The manner of this legal gentleman was not, as Mr. Dockwrath thought,\r\nquite so ceremoniously civil as it might be, considering the\r\nimportant nature of the business to be transacted between them. Mr. Dockwrath intended to treat on equal terms, and so intending\r\nwould have been glad to have shaken hands with his new ally at the\r\ncommencement of their joint operations. But the man before him,--a\r\nman younger than himself too,--did not even rise from his chair. \"Ah! Mr. Dockwrath,\" he said, taking up a letter from the table, \"will you\r\nhave the goodness to sit down?\" And Mr. Matthew Round wheeled his\r\nown arm-chair towards the fire, stretching out his legs comfortably,\r\nand pointing to a somewhat distant seat as that intended for the\r\naccommodation of his visitor. Mr. Dockwrath seated himself in the\r\nsomewhat distant seat, and deposited his hat upon the floor, not\r\nbeing as yet quite at home in his position; but he made up his mind\r\nas he did so that he would be at home before he left the room. \"I find that you have been down in Yorkshire with a client of ours,\r\nMr. Dockwrath,\" said Mr. Matthew Round. \"Yes, I have,\" said he of Hamworth. \"Ah! well--; you are in the profession yourself, I believe?\" \"Yes; I am an attorney.\" \"Would it not have been well to have come to us first?\" \"No, I think not. I have not the pleasure of knowing your name, sir.\" \"My name is Round--Matthew Round.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I beg your pardon, sir; I did not know,\" said Mr. Dockwrath, bowing. It was a satisfaction to him to learn that he was closeted with a Mr. Round, even if it were not the Mr. Round. \"No, Mr. Round, I can't say\r\nthat I should have thought of that. In the first place I didn't know\r\nwhether Mr. Mason employed any lawyer, and in the next--\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, well; it does not matter. It is usual among the profession;\r\nbut it does not in the least signify. Mr. Mason has written to us,\r\nand he says that you have found out something about that Orley Farm\r\nbusiness.\" \"Yes; I have found out something. At least, I rather think so.\" \"Well, what is, it, Mr. Dockwrath?\" \"Ah! that's the question. It's rather a ticklish business, Mr. Round;\r\na family affair, as I may say.\" \"Whose family?\" \"To a certain extent my family, and to a certain extent Mr. Mason's\r\nfamily. I don't know how far I should be justified in laying all the\r\nfacts before you--wonderful facts they are too--in an off-hand way\r\nlike that. These matters have to be considered a great deal. It is\r\nnot only the extent of the property. There is much more than that in\r\nit, Mr. Round.\" \"If you don't tell me what there is in it, I don't see what we are to\r\ndo."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am sure you did not give yourself the trouble of coming up here\r\nfrom Hamworth merely with the object of telling us that you are going\r\nto hold your tongue.\" \"Certainly not, Mr. Round.\" \"Then what did you come to say?\" \"May I ask you, Mr. Round, what Mr. Mason has told you with reference\r\nto my interview with him?\" \"Yes; I will read you a part of his letter--'Mr. Dockwrath is\r\nof opinion that the will under which the estate is now enjoyed\r\nis absolutely a forgery.' I presume you mean the codicil, Mr. Dockwrath?\" \"Oh yes! the codicil of course.\" \"'And he has in his possession documents which I have not seen,\r\nbut which seem to me, as described, to go far to prove that this\r\ncertainly must have been the case.' And then he goes on with\r\na description of dates, although it is clear that he does not\r\nunderstand the matter himself--indeed he says as much. Now of course\r\nwe must see these documents before we can give our client any\r\nadvice.\" A certain small portion of Mr. Mason's letter Mr. Round did\r\nthen read, but he did not read those portions in which Mr. Mason\r\nexpressed his firm determination to reopen the case against Lady\r\nMason, and even to prosecute her for forgery if it were found that he\r\nhad anything like a fair chance of success in doing so. \"I know that\r\nyou were convinced,\" he had said, addressing himself personally to\r\nMr."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Round senior, \"that Lady Mason was acting in good faith. I was\r\nalways convinced of the contrary, and am more sure of it now than\r\never.\" This last paragraph, Mr. Round junior had not thought it\r\nnecessary to read to Mr. Dockwrath. \"The documents to which I allude are in reference to my confidential\r\nfamily matters; and I certainly shall not produce them without\r\nknowing on what ground I am standing.\" \"Of course you are aware, Mr. Dockwrath, that we could compel you.\" \"There, Mr. Round, I must be allowed to differ.\" \"It won't come to that, of course. If you have anything worth\r\nshowing, you'll show it; and if we make use of you as a witness, it\r\nmust be as a willing witness.\" \"I don't think it probable that I shall be a witness in the matter at\r\nall.\" \"Ah, well; perhaps not. My own impression is that no case will be\r\nmade out; that there will be nothing to take before a jury.\" \"There again, I must differ from you, Mr. Round.\" \"Oh, of course! I suppose the real fact is, that it is a matter of\r\nmoney. You want to be paid for what information you have got. That is\r\nabout the long and the short of it; eh, Mr. Dockwrath?\" \"I don't know what you call the long and the short of it, Mr. Round;\r\nor what may be your way of doing business."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As a professional man, of\r\ncourse I expect to be paid for my work;--and I have no doubt that you\r\nexpect the same.\" \"No doubt, Mr. Dockwrath; but--as you have made the comparison,\r\nI hope you will excuse me for saying so--we always wait till our\r\nclients come to us.\" Mr. Dockwrath drew himself up with some intention of becoming angry;\r\nbut he hardly knew how to carry it out; and then it might be a\r\nquestion whether anger would serve his turn. \"Do you mean to say, Mr. Round, if you had found documents such as these, you would have done\r\nnothing about them--that you would have passed them by as worthless?\" \"I can't say that till I know what the documents are. If I found\r\npapers concerning the client of another firm, I should go to that\r\nfirm if I thought that they demanded attention.\" \"I didn't know anything about the firm;--how was I to know?\" \"Well! you know now, Mr. Dockwrath. As I understand it, our client\r\nhas referred you to us. If you have anything to say, we are ready to\r\nhear it. If you have anything to show, we are ready to look at it. If\r\nyou have nothing to say, and nothing to show--\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah, but I have; only--\"\r\n\r\n\"Only you want us to make it worth your while. We might as well have\r\nthe truth at once. Is not that about it?\" \"I want to see my way, of course.\" \"Exactly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And now, Mr. Dockwrath, I must make you understand that we\r\ndon't do business in that way.\" \"Then I shall see Mr. Mason again myself.\" \"That you can do. He will be in town next week, and, as I believe,\r\nwishes to see you. As regards your expenses, if you can show us\r\nthat you have any communication to make that is worth our client's\r\nattention, we will see that you are paid what you are out of pocket,\r\nand some fair remuneration for the time you may have lost;--not as an\r\nattorney, remember, for in that light we cannot regard you.\" \"I am every bit as much an attorney as you are.\" \"No doubt; but you are not Mr. Mason's attorney; and as long as it\r\nsuits him to honour us with his custom, you cannot be so regarded.\" \"That's as he pleases.\" \"No; it is not, Mr. Dockwrath. It is as he pleases whether he employs\r\nyou or us; but it is not as he pleases whether he employs both on\r\nbusiness of the same class. He may give us his confidence, or he may\r\nwithdraw it.\" \"Looking at the way the matter was managed before, perhaps the latter\r\nmay be the better for him.\" \"Excuse me, Mr. Dockwrath, for saying that that is a question I shall\r\nnot discuss with you.\" Upon this Mr. Dockwrath jumped from his chair, and took up his hat. \"Good morning to you, sir,\" said Mr."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Round, without moving from his\r\nchair; \"I will tell Mr. Mason that you have declined making any\r\ncommunication to us. He will probably know your address--if he should\r\nwant it.\" Mr. Dockwrath paused. Was he not about to sacrifice substantial\r\nadvantage to momentary anger? Would it not be better that he should\r\ncarry this impudent young London lawyer with him if it were possible? \"Sir,\" said he, \"I am quite willing to tell you all that I know of\r\nthis matter at present, if you will have the patience to hear it.\" \"Patience, Mr. Dockwrath! Why I am made of patience. Sit down again,\r\nMr. Dockwrath, and think of it.\" Mr. Dockwrath did sit down again, and did think of it; and it ended\r\nin his telling to Mr. Round all that he had told to Mr. Mason. As he\r\ndid so, he looked closely at Mr. Round's face, but there he could\r\nread nothing. \"Exactly,\" said Mr. Round. \"The fourteenth of July is\r\nthe date of both. I have taken a memorandum of that. A final deed for\r\nclosing partnership, was it? I have got that down. John Kenneby and\r\nBridget Bolster. I remember the names,--witnesses to both deeds, were\r\nthey? I understand; nothing about this other deed was brought up at\r\nthe trial? I see the point--such as it is. John Kenneby and Bridget\r\nBolster;--both believed to be living. Oh, you can give their address,\r\ncan you? Decline to do so now? Very well; it does not matter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I think\r\nI understand it all now, Mr. Dockwrath; and when we want you again,\r\nyou shall hear from us. Samuel Dockwrath, is it? Thank you. Good\r\nmorning. If Mr. Mason wishes to see you, he will write, of course. Good day, Mr. Dockwrath.\" And so Mr. Dockwrath went home, not quite contented with his day's\r\nwork. CHAPTER XVII. VON BAUHR. It will be remembered that Mr. Crabwitz was sent across from\r\nLincoln's Inn to Bedford Row to ascertain the present address of old\r\nMr. Round. \"Mr. Round is at Birmingham,\" he said, coming back. \"Every\r\none connected with the profession is at Birmingham, except--\"\r\n\r\n\"The more fools they,\" said Mr. Furnival. \"I am thinking of going down myself this evening,\" said Mr. Crabwitz. \"As you will be out of town, sir, I suppose I can be spared?\" \"You too!\" \"And why not me, Mr. Furnival? When all the profession is meeting\r\ntogether, why should not I be there as well as another? I hope you do\r\nnot deny me my right to feel an interest in the great subjects which\r\nare being discussed.\" \"Not in the least, Mr. Crabwitz. I do not deny you your right to be\r\nLord Chief Justice, if you can accomplish it. But you cannot be Lord\r\nChief Justice and my clerk at the same time. Nor can you be in my\r\nchambers if you are at Birmingham."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I rather think I must trouble you\r\nto remain here, as I cannot tell at what moment I may be in town\r\nagain.\" \"Then, sir, I'm afraid--\" Mr. Crabwitz began his speech and then\r\nfaltered. He was going to tell Mr. Furnival that he must suit himself\r\nwith another clerk, when he remembered his fees, and paused. It would\r\nbe very pleasant to him to quit Mr. Furnival, but where could he get\r\nsuch another place? He knew that he himself was invaluable, but then\r\nhe was invaluable only to Mr. Furnival. Mr. Furnival would be mad to\r\npart with him, Mr. Crabwitz thought; but then would he not be almost\r\nmore mad to part with Mr. Furnival? \"Eh; well?\" said Mr. Furnival. \"Oh! of course; if you desire it, Mr. Furnival, I will remain. But I\r\nmust say I think it is rather hard.\" \"Look here, Mr. Crabwitz; if you think my service is too hard upon\r\nyou, you had better leave it. But if you take upon yourself to\r\ntell me so again, you must leave it. Remember that.\" Mr. Furnival\r\npossessed the master mind of the two; and Mr. Crabwitz felt this as\r\nhe slunk back to his own room. So Mr. Round also was at Birmingham, and could be seen there. This\r\nwas so far well; and Mr. Furnival, having again with ruthless malice\r\nsent Mr. Crabwitz for a cab, at once started for the Euston Square\r\nStation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He could master Mr. Crabwitz, and felt a certain pleasure\r\nin having done so; but could he master Mrs. F.? That lady had on one\r\nor two late occasions shown her anger at the existing state of her\r\ndomestic affairs, and had once previously gone so far as to make\r\nher lord understand that she was jealous of his proceedings with\r\nreference to other goddesses. But she had never before done this in\r\nthe presence of other people;--she had never allowed any special\r\ngoddess to see that she was the special object of such jealousy. Now she had not only committed herself in this way, but had also\r\ncommitted him, making him feel himself to be ridiculous; and it was\r\nhighly necessary that some steps should be taken;--if he only knew\r\nwhat step! All which kept his mind active as he journeyed in the cab. At the station he found three or four other lawyers, all bound for\r\nBirmingham. Indeed, during this fortnight the whole line had been\r\nalive with learned gentlemen going to and fro, discussing weighty\r\npoints as they rattled along the iron road, and shaking their\r\nponderous heads at the new ideas which were being ventilated. Mr. Furnival, with many others--indeed, with most of those who\r\nwere so far advanced in the world as to be making bread by their\r\nprofession--was of opinion that all this palaver that was going on in\r\nthe various tongues of Babel would end as it began--in words. \"Vox et\r\npræterea nihil.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "To practical Englishmen most of these international\r\ncongresses seem to arrive at nothing else. Men will not be talked out\r\nof the convictions of their lives. No living orator would convince a\r\ngrocer that coffee should be sold without chicory; and no amount of\r\neloquence will make an English lawyer think that loyalty to truth\r\nshould come before loyalty to his client. And therefore our own\r\npundits, though on this occasion they went to Birmingham, summoned by\r\nthe greatness of the occasion, by the dignity of foreign names, by\r\ninterest in the question, and by the influence of such men as Lord\r\nBoanerges, went there without any doubt on their minds as to the\r\nrectitude of their own practice, and fortified with strong resolves\r\nto resist all idea of change. And indeed one cannot understand how the bent of any man's mind\r\nshould be altered by the sayings and doings of such a congress. \"Well, Johnson, what have you all been doing to-day?\" asked Mr.\r\nFurnival of a special friend whom he chanced to meet at the club\r\nwhich had been extemporized at Birmingham. \"We have had a paper read by Von Bauhr. It lasted three hours.\" \"Three hours! heavens! Von Bauhr is, I think, from Berlin.\" \"Yes; he and Dr. Slotacher. Slotacher is to read his paper the day\r\nafter to-morrow.\" \"Then I think I shall go to London again. But what did Von Bauhr say\r\nto you during those three hours?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Of course it was all in German, and I don't suppose that any one\r\nunderstood him,--unless it was Boanerges. But I believe it was the\r\nold story, going to show that the same man might be judge, advocate,\r\nand jury.\" \"No doubt;--if men were machines, and if you could find such machines\r\nperfect at all points in their machinery.\" \"And if the machines had no hearts?\" \"Machines don't have hearts,\" said Mr. Furnival; \"especially those in\r\nGermany. And what did Boanerges say? His answer did not take three\r\nhours more, I hope.\" \"About twenty minutes; but what he did say was lost on Von Bauhr, who\r\nunderstands as much English as I do German. He said that the practice\r\nof the Prussian courts had always been to him a subject of intense\r\ninterest, and that the general justice of their verdicts could not be\r\nimpugned.\" \"Nor ought it, seeing that a single trial for murder will occupy a\r\ncourt for three weeks. He should have asked Von Bauhr how much work\r\nhe usually got through in the course of a sessions. I don't seem\r\nto have lost much by being away. By-the-by, do you happen to know\r\nwhether Round is here?\" \"What, old Round? I saw him in the hall to-day yawning as though\r\nhe would burst.\" And then Mr. Furnival strolled off to look for\r\nthe attorney among the various purlieus frequented by the learned\r\nstrangers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Furnival,\" said another barrister, accosting him,--an elderly man,\r\nsmall, with sharp eyes and bushy eyebrows, dirty in his attire and\r\npoor in his general appearance, \"have you seen Judge Staveley?\" This\r\nwas Mr. Chaffanbrass, great at the Old Bailey, a man well able to\r\nhold his own in spite of the meanness of his appearance. At such a\r\nmeeting as this the English bar generally could have had no better\r\nrepresentative than Mr. Chaffanbrass. \"No; is he here?\" \"He must be here. He is the only man they could find who knows enough\r\nItalian to understand what that fat fellow from Florence will say\r\nto-morrow.\" \"We're to have the Italian to-morrow, are we?\" \"Yes; and Staveley afterwards. It's as good as a play; only, like\r\nall plays, it's three times too long. I wonder whether anybody here\r\nbelieves in it?\" \"Yes, Felix Graham does.\" \"He believes everything--unless it is the Bible. He is one of\r\nthose young men who look for an instant millennium, and who regard\r\nthemselves not only as the prophets who foretell it, but as the\r\npreachers who will produce it. For myself, I am too old for a new\r\ngospel, with Felix Graham as an apostle.\" \"They say that Boanerges thinks a great deal of him.\" \"That can't be true, for Boanerges never thought much of any one but\r\nhimself. Well, I'm off to bed, for I find a day here ten times more\r\nfatiguing than the Old Bailey in July.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the whole the meeting was rather dull, as such meetings usually\r\nare. It must not be supposed that any lawyer could get up at will, as\r\nthe spirit moved him, and utter his own ideas; or that all members of\r\nthe congress could speak if only they could catch the speaker's eye. Had this been so, a man might have been supported by the hope of\r\nhaving some finger in the pie, sooner or later. But in such case the\r\ncongress would have lasted for ever. As it was, the names of those\r\nwho were invited to address the meeting were arranged, and of course\r\nmen from each country were selected who were best known in their own\r\nspecial walks of their profession. But then these best-known men\r\ntook an unfair advantage of their position, and were ruthless in the\r\nlengthy cruelty of their addresses. Von Bauhr at Berlin was no doubt\r\na great lawyer, but he should not have felt so confident that the\r\nlegal proceedings of England and of the civilised world in general\r\ncould be reformed by his reading that book of his from the rostrum\r\nin the hall at Birmingham! The civilised world in general, as there\r\nrepresented, had been disgusted, and it was surmised that poor Dr.\r\nSlotacher would find but a meagre audience when his turn came. At last Mr. Furnival succeeded in hunting up Mr. Round, and found him\r\nrecruiting outraged nature with a glass of brandy and water and a\r\ncigar."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Looking for me, have you? Well, here I am; that is to say,\r\nwhat is left of me. Were you in the hall to-day?\" \"No; I was up in town.\" \"Ah! that accounts for your being so fresh. I wish I had been there. Do you ever do anything in this way?\" and Mr. Round touched the\r\noutside of his glass of toddy with his spoon. Mr. Furnival said that\r\nhe never did do anything in that way, which was true. Port wine was\r\nhis way, and it may be doubted whether on the whole it is not the\r\nmore dangerous way of the two. But Mr. Furnival, though he would\r\nnot drink brandy and water or smoke cigars, sat down opposite to Mr. Round, and had soon broached the subject which was on his mind. \"Yes,\" said the attorney, \"it is quite true that I had a letter on\r\nthe subject from Mr. Mason. The lady is not wrong in supposing that\r\nsome one is moving in the matter.\" \"And your client wishes you to take up the case again?\" \"No doubt he does. He was not a man that I ever greatly liked, Mr.\r\nFurnival, though I believe he means well. He thinks that he has been\r\nill used; and perhaps he was ill used--by his father.\" \"But that can be no possible reason for badgering the life out of his\r\nfather's widow twenty years after his father's death!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Of course he thinks that he has some new evidence. I can't say I\r\nlooked into the matter much myself. I did read the letter; but that\r\nwas all, and then I handed it to my son. As far as I remember, Mr.\r\nMason said that some attorney at Hamworth had been to him.\" \"Exactly; a low fellow whom you would be ashamed to see in your\r\noffice! He fancies that young Mason has injured him; and though he\r\nhas received numberless benefits from Lady Mason, this is the way in\r\nwhich he chooses to be revenged on her son.\" \"We should have nothing to do with such a matter as that, you know. It's not our line.\" \"No, of course it is not; I am well aware of that. And I am equally\r\nwell aware that nothing Mr. Mason can do can shake Lady Mason's\r\ntitle, or rather her son's title, to the property. But, Mr. Round, if\r\nhe be encouraged to gratify his malice--\"\r\n\r\n\"If who be encouraged?\" \"Your client, Mr. Mason of Groby;--there can be no doubt that he\r\nmight harass this unfortunate lady till he brought her nearly to the\r\ngrave.\" \"That would be a pity, for I believe she's still an uncommon pretty\r\nwoman.\" And the attorney indulged in a little fat inward chuckle;\r\nfor in these days Mr. Furnival's taste with reference to strange\r\ngoddesses was beginning to be understood by the profession."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"She is a very old friend of mine,\" said Mr. Furnival, gravely, \"a\r\nvery old friend indeed; and if I were to desert her now, she would\r\nhave no one to whom she could look.\" \"Oh, ah, yes; I'm sure you're very kind;\" and Mr. Round altered his\r\nface and tone, so that they might be in conformity with those of his\r\ncompanion. \"Anything I can do, of course I shall be very happy. I\r\nshould be slow, myself, to advise my client to try the matter again,\r\nbut to tell the truth anything of this kind would go to my son now. I\r\ndid read Mr. Mason's letter, but I immediately handed it to Matthew.\" \"I will tell you how you can oblige me, Mr. Round.\" \"Do tell me; I am sure I shall be very happy.\" \"Look into this matter yourself, and talk it over with Mr. Mason\r\nbefore you allow anything to be done. It is not that I doubt your\r\nson's discretion. Indeed we all know what an exceedingly good man of\r\nbusiness he is.\" \"Matthew is sharp enough,\" said the prosperous father. \"But then young men are apt to be too sharp. I don't know whether you\r\nremember the case about that Orley Farm, Mr. Round.\" \"As well as if it were yesterday,\" said the attorney. \"Then you must recollect how thoroughly you were convinced that your\r\nclient had not a leg to stand upon.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It was I that insisted that he should not carry it before the\r\nChancellor. Crook had the general management of those cases then, and\r\nwould have gone on; but I said, no. I would not see my client's money\r\nwasted in such a wild-goose chase. In the first place the property\r\nwas not worth it; and in the next place there was nothing to impugn\r\nthe will. If I remember right it all turned on whether an old man who\r\nhad signed as witness was well enough to write his name.\" \"That was the point.\" \"And I think it was shown that he had himself signed a receipt on\r\nthat very day--or the day after, or the day before. It was something\r\nof that kind.\" \"Exactly; those were the facts. As regards the result of a new trial,\r\nno sane man, I fancy, could have any doubt. You know as well as any\r\none living how great is the strength of twenty years of possession--\"\r\n\r\n\"It would be very strong on her side, certainly.\" \"He would not have a chance; of course not. But, Mr. Round, he might\r\nmake that poor woman so wretched that death would be a relief to her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now it may be possible that something looking like fresh evidence\r\nmay have been discovered; something of this kind probably has been\r\nfound, or this man would not be moving; he would not have gone to the\r\nexpense of a journey to Yorkshire had he not got hold of some new\r\nstory.\" \"He has something in his head; you may be sure of that.\" \"Don't let your son be run away with by this, or advise your client\r\nto incur the terrible expense of a new trial, without knowing what\r\nyou are about. I tell you fairly that I do dread such a trial on this\r\npoor lady's account. Reflect what it would be, Mr. Round, to any lady\r\nof your own family.\" \"I don't think Mrs. Round would mind it much; that is, if she were\r\nsure of her case.\" \"She is a strong-minded woman; but poor Lady Mason--.\" \"She was strong-minded enough too, if I remember right, at the last\r\ntrial. I shall never forget how composed she was when old Bennett\r\ntried to shake her evidence. Do you remember how bothered he was?\" \"He was an excellent lawyer,--was Bennett. There are few better men\r\nat the bar now-a-days.\" \"You wouldn't have found him down here, Mr. Furnival, listening to a\r\nGerman lecture three hours long. I don't know how it is, but I think\r\nwe all used to work harder in those days than the young men do now.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then these eulogists of past days went back to the memories of\r\ntheir youths, declaring how in the old glorious years, now gone, no\r\ncongress such as this would have had a chance of success. Men had\r\nmen's work to do then, and were not wont to play the fool, first at\r\none provincial town and then at another, but stuck to their oars and\r\nmade their fortunes. \"It seems to me, Mr. Furnival,\" said Mr. Round,\r\n\"that this is all child's play, and to tell the truth I am half\r\nashamed of myself for being here.\" \"And you'll look into that matter yourself, Mr. Round?\" \"Yes, I will, certainly.\" \"I shall take it as a great favour. Of course you will advise your\r\nclient in accordance with any new facts which may be brought before\r\nyou; but as I feel certain that no case against young Mason can have\r\nany merits, I do hope that you will be able to suggest to Mr. Mason\r\nof Groby that the matter should be allowed to rest.\" And then Mr.\r\nFurnival took his leave, still thinking how far it might be possible\r\nthat the enemy's side of the question might be supported by real\r\nmerits. Mr. Round was a good-natured old fellow, and if the case\r\ncould be inveigled out of his son's hands and into his own, it might\r\nbe possible that even real merits should avail nothing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I confess I am getting rather tired of it,\" said Felix Graham that\r\nevening to his friend young Staveley, as he stood outside his bedroom\r\ndoor at the top of a narrow flight of stairs in the back part of a\r\nlarge hotel at Birmingham. \"Tired of it! I should think you are too.\" \"But nevertheless I am as sure as ever that good will come from it. I am inclined to think that the same kind of thing must be endured\r\nbefore any improvement is made in anything.\" \"That all reformers have to undergo Von Bauhr?\" \"Yes, all of them that do any good. Von Bauhr's words were very dry,\r\nno doubt.\" \"You don't mean to say that you understood them?\" \"Not many of them. A few here and there, for the first half-hour,\r\ncame trembling home to my dull comprehension, and then--\"\r\n\r\n\"You went to sleep.\" \"The sounds became too difficult for my ears; but dry and dull and\r\nhard as they were, they will not absolutely fall to the ground. He\r\nhad a meaning in them, and that meaning will reproduce itself in some\r\nshape.\" \"Heaven forbid that it should ever do so in my presence! All the\r\niniquities of which the English bar may be guilty cannot be so\r\nintolerable to humanity as Von Bauhr.\" \"Well, good-night, old fellow; your governor is to give us his ideas\r\nto-morrow, and perhaps he will be as bad to the Germans as your Von\r\nBauhr was to us.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Then I can only say that my governor will be very cruel to the\r\nGermans.\" And so they two went to their dreams. In the mean time Von Bauhr was sitting alone looking back on the past\r\nhours with ideas and views very different from those of the many\r\nEnglish lawyers who were at that time discussing his demerits. To him\r\nthe day had been one long triumph, for his voice had sounded sweet\r\nin his own ears as, period after period, he had poured forth in full\r\nflowing language the gathered wisdom and experience of his life. Public men in England have so much to do that they cannot give time\r\nto the preparation of speeches for such meetings as these, but Von\r\nBauhr had been at work on his pamphlet for months. Nay, taking it in\r\nthe whole, had he not been at work on it for years? And now a kind\r\nProvidence had given him the opportunity of pouring it forth before\r\nthe assembled pundits gathered from all the nations of the civilised\r\nworld. As he sat there, solitary in his bedroom, his hands dropped down by\r\nhis side, his pipe hung from his mouth on to his breast, and his\r\neyes, turned up to the ceiling, were lighted almost with inspiration."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Men there at the congress, Mr. Chaffanbrass, young Staveley, Felix\r\nGraham, and others, had regarded him as an impersonation of dullness;\r\nbut through his mind and brain, as he sat there wrapped in his old\r\ndressing-gown, there ran thoughts which seemed to lift him lightly\r\nfrom the earth into an elysium of justice and mercy. And at the\r\nend of this elysium, which was not wild in its beauty, but trim\r\nand orderly in its gracefulness,--as might be a beer-garden at\r\nMunich,--there stood among flowers and vases a pedestal, grand above\r\nall other pedestals in that garden; and on this there was a bust with\r\nan inscription:--\"To Von Bauhr, who reformed the laws of nations.\" It was a grand thought; and though there was in it much of human\r\nconceit, there was in it also much of human philanthropy. If a reign\r\nof justice could be restored through his efforts--through those\r\nefforts in which on this hallowed day he had been enabled to make\r\nso great a progress--how beautiful would it be! And then as he sat\r\nthere, while the smoke still curled from his unconscious nostrils, he\r\nfelt that he loved all Germans, all Englishmen, even all Frenchmen,\r\nin his very heart of hearts, and especially those who had travelled\r\nwearily to this English town that they might listen to the results\r\nof his wisdom."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He said to himself, and said truly, that he loved\r\nthe world, and that he would willingly spend himself in these great\r\nendeavours for the amelioration of its laws and the perfection of its\r\njudicial proceedings. And then he betook himself to bed in a frame of\r\nmind that was not unenviable. [Illustration: Von Bauhr's Dream.] I am inclined, myself, to agree with Felix Graham that such efforts\r\nare seldom absolutely wasted. A man who strives honestly to do good\r\nwill generally do good, though seldom perhaps as much as he has\r\nhimself anticipated. Let Von Bauhr have his pedestal among the\r\nflowers, even though it be small and humble! CHAPTER XVIII. THE ENGLISH VON BAUHR. On the following morning, before breakfast, Felix Graham and Augustus\r\nStaveley prepared themselves for the labours of the coming day by a\r\nwalk into the country; for even at Birmingham, by perseverance, a\r\nwalk into the country may be attained,--and very pretty country it\r\nis when reached. These congress meetings did not begin before eleven,\r\nso that for those who were active time for matutinal exercise was\r\nallowed. Augustus Staveley was the only son of the judge who on that day was\r\nto defend the laws of England from such attacks as might be made on\r\nthem by a very fat advocate from Florence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Of Judge Staveley himself\r\nmuch need not be said now, except that he lived at Noningsby near\r\nAlston, distant from The Cleeve about nine miles, and that at his\r\nhouse Sophia Furnival had been invited to pass the coming Christmas. His son was a handsome clever fellow, who had nearly succeeded in\r\ngetting the Newdegate, and was now a member of the Middle Temple. He\r\nwas destined to follow the steps of his father, and become a light\r\nat the Common Law bar; but hitherto he had not made much essential\r\nprogress. The world had been too pleasant to him to allow of his\r\ngiving many of his hours to work. His father was one of the best men\r\nin the world, revered on the bench, and loved by all men; but he\r\nhad not sufficient parental sternness to admit of his driving his\r\nson well into harness. He himself had begun the world with little\r\nor nothing, and had therefore succeeded; but his son was already\r\npossessed of almost everything that he could want, and therefore his\r\nsuccess seemed doubtful. His chambers were luxuriously furnished, he\r\nhad his horse in Piccadilly, his father's house at Noningsby was\r\nalways open to him, and the society of London spread out for him all\r\nits allurements. Under such circumstances how could it be expected\r\nthat he should work? Nevertheless he did talk of working, and had\r\nsome idea in his head of the manner in which he would do so."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To a\r\ncertain extent he had worked, and he could talk fluently of the\r\nlittle that he knew. The idea of a _far niente_ life would have been\r\nintolerable to him; but there were many among his friends who began\r\nto think that such a life would nevertheless be his ultimate destiny. Nor did it much matter, they said, for the judge was known to have\r\nmade money. But his friend Felix Graham was rowing in a very different boat; and\r\nof him also many prophesied that he would hardly be able to push his\r\ncraft up against the strength of the stream. Not that he was an idle\r\nman, but that he would not work at his oars in the only approved\r\nmethod of making progress for his boat. He also had been at Oxford;\r\nbut he had done little there except talk at a debating society, and\r\nmake himself notorious by certain ideas on religious subjects which\r\nwere not popular at the University. He had left without taking a\r\ndegree, in consequence, as it was believed, of some such notions,\r\nand had now been called to the bar with a fixed resolve to open the\r\noyster with such weapons, offensive and defensive, as nature had\r\ngiven to him. But here, as at Oxford, he would not labour on the\r\nsame terms with other men, or make himself subject to the same\r\nconventional rules; and therefore it seemed only too probable that he\r\nmight win no prize."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had ideas of his own that men should pursue\r\ntheir labours without special conventional regulations, but should be\r\nguided in their work by the general great rules of the world,--such\r\nfor instance as those given in the commandments:--Thou shalt not bear\r\nfalse witness; Thou shalt not steal; and others. His notions no doubt\r\nwere great, and perhaps were good; but hitherto they had not led him\r\nto much pecuniary success in his profession. A sort of a name he\r\nhad obtained, but it was not a name sweet in the ears of practising\r\nattorneys. And yet it behoved Felix Graham to make money, for none was coming\r\nto him ready made from any father. Father or mother he had none, nor\r\nuncles and aunts likely to be of service to him. He had begun the\r\nworld with some small sum, which had grown smaller and smaller, till\r\nnow there was left to him hardly enough to create an infinitesimal\r\ndividend. But he was not a man to become downhearted on that\r\naccount. A living of some kind he could pick up, and did now procure\r\nfor himself, from the press of the day. He wrote poetry for the\r\nperiodicals, and politics for the penny papers with considerable\r\nsuccess and sufficient pecuniary results. He would sooner do this, he\r\noften boasted, than abandon his great ideas or descend into the arena\r\nwith other weapons than those which he regarded as fitting for an\r\nhonest man's hand."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Augustus Staveley, who could be very prudent for his friend, declared\r\nthat marriage would set him right. If Felix would marry he would\r\nquietly slip his neck into the collar and work along with the team,\r\nas useful a horse as ever was put at the wheel of a coach. But Felix\r\ndid not seem inclined to marry. He had notions about that also, and\r\nwas believed by one or two who knew him intimately to cherish an\r\ninsane affection for some unknown damsel, whose parentage, education,\r\nand future were not likely to assist his views in the outer world. Some said that he was educating this damsel for his wife,--moulding\r\nher, so that she might be made fit to suit his taste; but Augustus,\r\nthough he knew the secret of all this, was of opinion that it would\r\ncome right at last. \"He'll meet some girl in the world with a hatful\r\nof money, a pretty face, and a sharp tongue; then he'll bestow his\r\nmoulded bride on a neighbouring baker with two hundred pounds for her\r\nfortune;--and everybody will be happy.\" Felix Graham was by no means a handsome man. He was tall and thin,\r\nand his face had been slightly marked with the small-pox. He stooped\r\nin his gait as he walked, and was often awkward with his hands and\r\nlegs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he was full of enthusiasm, indomitable, as far as pluck\r\nwould make him so, in contests of all kinds, and when he talked on\r\nsubjects which were near his heart there was a radiance about him\r\nwhich certainly might win the love of the pretty girl with the sharp\r\ntongue and the hatful of money. Staveley, who really loved him, had\r\nalready selected the prize, and she was no other than our friend,\r\nSophia Furnival. The sharp tongue and the pretty face and the hatful\r\nof money would all be there; but then Sophia Furnival was a girl who\r\nmight perhaps expect in return for these things more than an ugly\r\nface which could occasionally become radiant with enthusiasm. The two men had got away from the thickness of the Birmingham smoke,\r\nand were seated on the top rung of a gate leading into a stubble\r\nfield. So far they had gone with mutual consent, but further than\r\nthis Staveley refused to go. He was seated with a cigar in his mouth. Graham also was smoking, but he was accommodated with a short pipe. [Illustration: The English Von Bauhr and his pupil.] \"A walk before breakfast is all very well,\" said Staveley, \"but I\r\nam not going on a pilgrimage. We are four miles from the inn this\r\nminute.\" \"And for your energies that is a good deal. Only think that you\r\nshould have been doing anything for two hours before you begin to\r\nfeed.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I wonder why matutinal labour should always be considered as so\r\nmeritorious. Merely, I take it, because it is disagreeable.\" \"It proves that the man can make an effort.\" \"Every prig who wishes to have it believed that he does more than his\r\nneighbours either burns the midnight lamp or gets up at four in the\r\nmorning. Good wholesome work between breakfast and dinner never seems\r\nto count for anything.\" \"Have you ever tried?\" \"Yes; I am trying now, here at Birmingham.\" \"Not you.\" \"That's so like you, Graham. You don't believe that anybody is\r\nattending to what is going on except yourself. I mean to-day to take\r\nin the whole theory of Italian jurisprudence.\" \"I have no doubt that you may do so with advantage. I do not suppose\r\nthat it is very good, but it must at any rate be better than our own. Come, let us go back to the town; my pipe is finished.\" \"Fill another, there's a good fellow. I can't afford to throw away my\r\ncigar, and I hate walking and smoking. You mean to assert that our\r\nwhole system is bad, and rotten, and unjust?\" \"I mean to say that I think so.\" \"And yet we consider ourselves the greatest people in the world,--or\r\nat any rate the honestest.\" \"I think we are; but laws and their management have nothing to do\r\nwith making people honest. Good laws won't make people honest, nor\r\nbad laws dishonest.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But a people who are dishonest in one trade will probably be\r\ndishonest in others. Now, you go so far as to say that all English\r\nlawyers are rogues.\" \"I have never said so. I believe your father to be as honest a man as\r\never breathed.\" \"Thank you, sir,\" and Staveley lifted his hat. \"And I would fain hope that I am an honest man myself.\" \"Ah, but you don't make money by it.\" \"What I do mean is this, that from our love of precedent and ceremony\r\nand old usages, we have retained a system which contains many of\r\nthe barbarities of the feudal times, and also many of its lies. We\r\ntry our culprit as we did in the old days of the ordeal. If luck\r\nwill carry him through the hot ploughshares, we let him escape\r\nthough we know him to be guilty. We give him the advantage of every\r\ntechnicality, and teach him to lie in his own defence, if nature has\r\nnot sufficiently so taught him already.\" \"You mean as to his plea of not guilty.\" \"No, I don't; that is little or nothing. We ask him whether or no he\r\nconfesses his guilt in a foolish way, tending to induce him to deny\r\nit; but that is not much. Guilt seldom will confess as long as a\r\nchance remains. But we teach him to lie, or rather we lie for him\r\nduring the whole ceremony of his trial."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We think it merciful to give\r\nhim chances of escape, and hunt him as we do a fox, in obedience to\r\ncertain laws framed for his protection.\" \"And should he have no protection?\" \"None certainly, as a guilty man; none which may tend towards the\r\nconcealing of his guilt. Till that be ascertained, proclaimed, and\r\nmade apparent, every man's hand should be against him.\" \"But if he is innocent?\" \"Therefore let him be tried with every possible care. I know you\r\nunderstand what I mean, though you look as though you did not. For\r\nthe protection of his innocence let astute and good men work their\r\nbest, but for the concealing of his guilt let no astute or good man\r\nwork at all.\" \"And you would leave the poor victim in the dock without defence?\" \"By no means. Let the poor victim, as you call him,--who in\r\nninety-nine cases out of a hundred is a rat who has been preying in\r\nour granaries,--let him, I say, have his defender,--the defender of\r\nhis possible innocence, not the protector of his probable guilt. It,\r\nall resolves itself into this. Let every lawyer go into court with\r\na mind resolved to make conspicuous to the light of day that which\r\nseems to him to be the truth. A lawyer who does not do that--who does\r\nthe reverse of that, has in my mind undertaken work which is unfit\r\nfor a gentleman and impossible for an honest man.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"What a pity it is that you should not have an opportunity of\r\nrivalling Von Bauhr at the congress!\" \"I have no doubt that Von Bauhr said a great deal of the same nature;\r\nand what Von Bauhr said will not wholly be wasted, though it may not\r\nyet have reached our sublime understandings.\" \"Perhaps he will vouchsafe to us a translation.\" \"It would be useless at present, seeing that we cannot bring\r\nourselves to believe it possible that a foreigner should in any\r\nrespect be wiser than ourselves. If any such point out to us our\r\nfollies, we at once claim those follies as the special evidences of\r\nour wisdom. We are so self-satisfied with our own customs, that we\r\nhold up our hands with surprise at the fatuity of men who presume\r\nto point out to us their defects. Those practices in which we most\r\nwidely depart from the broad and recognised morality of all civilised\r\nages and countries are to us the Palladiums of our jurisprudence. Modes of proceeding which, if now first proposed to us, would be\r\nthought to come direct from the devil, have been made so sacred by\r\ntime that they have lost all the horror of their falseness in the\r\nholiness of their age."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We cannot understand that other nations look\r\nupon such doings as we regard the human sacrifices of the Brahmins;\r\nbut the fact is that we drive a Juggernaut's car through every assize\r\ntown in the country, three times a year, and allow it to be dragged\r\nruthlessly through the streets of the metropolis at all times and\r\nseasons. Now come back to breakfast, for I won't wait here any\r\nlonger.\" Seeing that these were the ideas of Felix Graham, it is\r\nhardly a matter of wonder that such men as Mr. Furnival and Mr. Round\r\nshould have regarded his success at the bar as doubtful. \"Uncommon bad mutton chops these are,\" said Staveley, as they sat at\r\ntheir meal in the coffee-room of the Imperial Hotel. \"Are they?\" said Graham. \"They seem to me much the same as other\r\nmutton chops.\" \"They are uneatable. And look at this for coffee! Waiter, take this\r\naway, and have some made fresh.\" \"Yes, sir,\" said the waiter, striving to escape without further\r\ncomment. \"And waiter--\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, sir;\" and the poor overdriven functionary returned. \"Ask them from me whether they know how to make coffee. It does not\r\nconsist of an unlimited supply of lukewarm water poured over an\r\ninfinitesimal proportion of chicory. That process, time-honoured in\r\nthe hotel line, will not produce the beverage called coffee. Will you\r\nhave the goodness to explain that in the bar as coming from me?\" \"Yes, sir,\" said the waiter; and then he was allowed to disappear."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"How can you give yourself so much trouble with no possible hope of\r\nan advantageous result?\" said Felix Graham. \"That's what you weak men always say. Perseverance in such a course\r\nwill produce results. It is because we put up with bad things that\r\nhotel-keepers continue to give them to us. Three or four Frenchmen\r\nwere dining with my father yesterday at the King's Head, and I had to\r\nsit at the bottom of the table. I declare to you that I literally\r\nblushed for my country; I did indeed. It was useless to say anything\r\nthen, but it was quite clear that there was nothing that one of them\r\ncould eat. At any hotel in France you'll get a good dinner; but we're\r\nso proud that we are ashamed to take lessons.\" And thus Augustus\r\nStaveley was quite as loud against his own country, and as laudatory\r\nwith regard to others, as Felix Graham had been before breakfast. And so the congress went on at Birmingham. The fat Italian from\r\nTuscany read his paper; but as he, though judge in his own country\r\nand reformer here in England, was somewhat given to comedy, this\r\nmorning was not so dull as that which had been devoted to Von Bauhr. After him Judge Staveley made a very elegant, and some said, a very\r\neloquent speech; and so that day was done."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Many other days also wore\r\nthemselves away in this process; numerous addresses were read, and\r\nanswers made to them, and the newspapers for the time were full of\r\nlaw. The defence of our own system, which was supposed to be the most\r\nremarkable for its pertinacity, if not for its justice, came from Mr.\r\nFurnival, who roused himself to a divine wrath for the occasion. And\r\nthen the famous congress at Birmingham was brought to a close, and\r\nall the foreigners returned to their own countries. CHAPTER XIX. THE STAVELEY FAMILY. The next two months passed by without any events which deserve our\r\nspecial notice, unless it be that Mr. Joseph Mason and Mr. Dockwrath\r\nhad a meeting in the room of Mr. Matthew Round, in Bedford Row. Mr.\r\nDockwrath struggled hard to effect this without the presence of the\r\nLondon attorney; but he struggled in vain. Mr. Round was not the man\r\nto allow any stranger to tamper with his client, and Mr. Dockwrath\r\nwas forced to lower his flag before him. The result was that the\r\ndocument or documents which had been discovered at Hamworth were\r\nbrought up to Bedford Row; and Dockwrath at last made up his mind\r\nthat as he could not supplant Matthew Round, he would consent to\r\nfight under him as his lieutenant--or even as his sergeant or\r\ncorporal, if no higher position might be allowed to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"There is something in it, certainly, Mr. Mason,\" said young Round;\r\n\"but I cannot undertake to say as yet that we are in a position to\r\nprove the point.\" \"It will be proved,\" said Mr. Dockwrath. \"I confess it seems to me very clear,\" said Mr. Mason, who by this\r\ntime had been made to understand the bearings of the question. \"It\r\nis evident that she chose that day for her date because those two\r\npersons had then been called upon to act as witnesses to that other\r\ndeed.\" \"That of course is our allegation. I only say that we may have some\r\ndifficulty in proving it.\" \"The crafty, thieving swindler!\" exclaimed Mr. Mason. \"She has been\r\nsharp enough if it is as we think,\" said Round, laughing; and then\r\nthere was nothing more done in the matter for some time, to the great\r\ndisgust both of Mr. Dockwrath and Mr. Mason. Old Mr. Round had kept\r\nhis promise to Mr. Furnival; or, at least, had done something towards\r\nkeeping it. He had not himself taken the matter into his own hands,\r\nbut he had begged his son to be cautious. \"It's not the sort of\r\nbusiness that we care for, Mat,\" said he; \"and as for that fellow\r\ndown in Yorkshire, I never liked him.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "To this Mat had answered that\r\nneither did he like Mr. Mason; but as the case had about it some very\r\nremarkable points, it was necessary to look into it; and then the\r\nmatter was allowed to stand over till after Christmas. We will now change the scene to Noningsby, the judge's country\r\nseat, near Alston, at which a party was assembled for the Christmas\r\nholidays. The judge was there of course,--without his wig; in which\r\nguise I am inclined to think that judges spend the more comfortable\r\nhours of their existence; and there also was Lady Staveley, her\r\npresence at home being altogether a matter of course, inasmuch as she\r\nhad no other home than Noningsby. For many years past, ever since the\r\nhappy day on which Noningsby had been acquired, she had repudiated\r\nLondon; and the poor judge, when called upon by his duties to reside\r\nthere, was compelled to live like a bachelor, in lodgings. Lady\r\nStaveley was a good, motherly, warm-hearted woman, who thought a\r\ngreat deal about her flowers and fruit, believing that no one else\r\nhad them so excellent,--much also about her butter and eggs, which\r\nin other houses were, in her opinion, generally unfit to be eaten;\r\nshe thought also a great deal about her children, who were all\r\nswans,--though, as she often observed with a happy sigh, those of her\r\nneighbours were so uncommonly like geese."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But she thought most of\r\nall of her husband, who in her eyes was the perfection of all manly\r\nvirtues. She had made up her mind that the position of a puisne judge\r\nin England was the highest which could fall to the lot of any mere\r\nmortal. To become a Lord Chancellor, or a Lord Chief Justice, or\r\na Chief Baron, a man must dabble with Parliament, politics, and\r\ndirt; but the bench-fellows of these politicians were selected for\r\ntheir wisdom, high conduct, knowledge, and discretion. Of all such\r\nselections, that made by the late king when he chose her husband, was\r\nthe one which had done most honour to England, and had been in all\r\nits results most beneficial to Englishmen. Such was her creed with\r\nreference to domestic matters. The Staveley young people at present were only two in number,\r\nAugustus, namely, and his sister Madeline. The eldest daughter was\r\nmarried, and therefore, though she spent these Christmas holidays at\r\nNoningsby, must not be regarded as one of the Noningsby family. Of\r\nAugustus we have said enough; but as I intend that Madeline Staveley\r\nshall, to many of my readers, be the most interesting personage\r\nin this story, I must pause to say something of her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I must say\r\nsomething of her; and as, with all women, the outward and visible\r\nsigns of grace and beauty are those which are thought of the most, or\r\nat any rate spoken of the oftenest, I will begin with her exterior\r\nattributes. And that the muses may assist me in my endeavour,\r\nteaching my rough hands to draw with some accuracy the delicate lines\r\nof female beauty, I now make to them my humble but earnest prayer. Madeline Staveley was at this time about nineteen years of age. That\r\nshe was perfect in her beauty I cannot ask the muses to say, but that\r\nshe will some day become so, I think the goddesses may be requested\r\nto prophesy. At present she was very slight, and appeared to be\r\nalmost too tall for her form. She was indeed above the average height\r\nof women, and from her brother encountered some ridicule on this\r\nhead; but not the less were all her movements soft, graceful, and\r\nfawnlike as should be those of a young girl. She was still at this\r\ntime a child in heart and spirit, and could have played as a child\r\nhad not the instinct of a woman taught to her the expediency of a\r\nstaid demeanour."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There is nothing among the wonders of womanhood more\r\nwonderful than this, that the young mind and young heart,--hearts and\r\nminds young as youth can make them, and in their natures as gay,--can\r\nassume the gravity and discretion of threescore years and maintain\r\nit successfully before all comers. And this is done, not as a lesson\r\nthat has been taught, but as the result of an instinct implanted from\r\nthe birth. Let us remember the mirth of our sisters in our homes, and\r\ntheir altered demeanours when those homes were opened to strangers;\r\nand remember also that this change had come from the inward working\r\nof their own feminine natures! But I am altogether departing from Madeline Staveley's external\r\ngraces. It was a pity almost that she should ever have become grave,\r\nbecause with her it was her smile that was so lovely. She smiled with\r\nher whole face. There was at such moments a peculiar laughing light\r\nin her gray eyes, which inspired one with an earnest desire to be in\r\nher confidence; she smiled with her soft cheek, the light tints of\r\nwhich would become a shade more pink from the excitement, as they\r\nsoftly rippled into dimples; she smiled with her forehead which would\r\ncatch the light from her eyes and arch itself in its glory; but above\r\nall she smiled with her mouth, just showing, but hardly showing, the\r\nbeauty of the pearls within."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I never saw the face of a woman whose\r\nmouth was equal in pure beauty, in beauty that was expressive of\r\nfeeling, to that of Madeline Staveley. Many have I seen with a richer\r\nlip, with a more luxurious curve, much more tempting as baits to the\r\nvillainy and rudeness of man; but never one that told so much by\r\nits own mute eloquence of a woman's happy heart and a woman's happy\r\nbeauty. It was lovely as I have said in its mirth, but if possible it\r\nwas still more lovely in its woe; for then the lips would separate,\r\nand the breath would come, and in the emotion of her suffering the\r\nlife of her beauty would be unrestrained. Her face was oval, and some might say that it was almost too thin;\r\nthey might say so till they knew it well, but would never say so when\r\nthey did so know it. Her complexion was not clear, though it would be\r\nwrong to call her a brunette. Her face and forehead were never brown,\r\nbut yet she could not boast the pure pink and the pearly white which\r\ngo to the formation of a clear complexion. For myself I am not sure\r\nthat I love a clear complexion. Pink and white alone will not give\r\nthat hue which seems best to denote light and life, and to tell of\r\na mind that thinks and of a heart that feels."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I can name no colour\r\nin describing the soft changing tints of Madeline Staveley's face,\r\nbut I will make bold to say that no man ever found it insipid or\r\ninexpressive. And now what remains for me to tell? Her nose was Grecian, but\r\nperhaps a little too wide at the nostril to be considered perfect\r\nin its chiselling. Her hair was soft and brown,--that dark brown\r\nwhich by some lights is almost black; but she was not a girl whose\r\nloveliness depended much upon her hair. With some women it is their\r\ngreat charm,--Neæras who love to sit half sleeping in the shade,--but\r\nit is a charm that possesses no powerful eloquence. All beauty of a\r\nhigh order should speak, and Madeline's beauty was ever speaking. And\r\nnow that I have said that, I believe that I have told all that may\r\nbe necessary to place her outward form before the inward eyes of my\r\nreaders. In commencing this description I said that I would begin with her\r\nexterior; but it seems to me now that in speaking of these I have\r\nsufficiently noted also that which was within. Of her actual thoughts\r\nand deeds up to this period it is not necessary for our purposes that\r\nanything should be told; but of that which she might probably think\r\nor might possibly do, a fair guess may, I hope, be made from that\r\nwhich has been already written. Such was the Staveley family."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Those of their guests whom it is\r\nnecessary that I should now name, have been already introduced to us. Miss Furnival was there, as was also her father. He had not intended\r\nto make any prolonged stay at Noningsby,--at least so he had said in\r\nhis own drawing-room; but nevertheless he had now been there for a\r\nweek, and it seemed probable that he might stay over Christmas-day. And Felix Graham was there. He had been asked with a special purpose\r\nby his friend Augustus, as we already have heard; in order, namely,\r\nthat he might fall in love with Sophia Furnival, and by the aid of\r\nher supposed hatful of money avoid the evils which would otherwise so\r\nprobably be the consequence of his highly impracticable turn of mind. The judge was not averse to Felix Graham; but as he himself was a\r\nman essentially practical in all his views, it often occurred that,\r\nin his mild kindly way, he ridiculed the young barrister. And Sir\r\nPeregrine Orme was there, being absent from home as on a very rare\r\noccasion; and with him of course were Mrs. Orme and his grandson. Young Perry was making, or was prepared to make, somewhat of a\r\nprolonged stay at Noningsby. He had a horse there with him for the\r\nhunting, which was changed now and again; his groom going backwards\r\nand forwards between that place and The Cleeve."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Peregrine,\r\nhowever, intended to return before Christmas, and Mrs. Orme would go\r\nwith him. He had come for four days, which for him had been a long\r\nabsence from home, and at the end of the four days he would be gone. They were all sitting in the dining-room round the luncheon-table\r\non a hopelessly wet morning, listening to a lecture from the judge\r\non the abomination of eating meat in the middle of the day, when a\r\nservant came behind young Orme's chair and told him that Mr. Mason\r\nwas in the breakfast-parlour and wished to see him. \"Who wishes to see you?\" said the baronet in a tone of surprise. He\r\nhad caught the name, and thought at the moment that it was the owner\r\nof Groby Park. \"Lucius Mason,\" said Peregrine, getting up. \"I wonder what he can\r\nwant me for?\" \"Oh, Lucius Mason,\" said the grandfather. Since the discourse about\r\nagriculture he was not personally much attached even to Lucius; but\r\nfor his mother's sake he could be forgiven. \"Pray ask him into lunch,\" said Lady Staveley. Something had been\r\nsaid about Lady Mason since the Ormes had been at Noningsby, and the\r\nStaveley family were prepared to regard her with sympathy, and if\r\nnecessary with the right hand of fellowship. \"He is the great agriculturist, is he not?\" said Augustus. \"Bring him\r\nin by all means; there is no knowing how much we may not learn before\r\ndinner on such a day as this.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"He is an ally of mine; and you must not laugh at him,\" said Miss\r\nFurnival, who was sitting next to Augustus. But Lucius Mason did not come in. Young Orme remained with him for\r\nabout a quarter of an hour, and then returned to the room, declaring\r\nwith rather a serious face, that he must ride to Hamworth and back\r\nbefore dinner. \"Are you going with young Mason?\" asked his grandfather. \"Yes, sir; he wishes me to do something for him at Hamworth, and I\r\ncannot well refuse him.\" \"You are not going to fight a duel!\" said Lady Staveley, holding up\r\nher hands in horror as the idea came across her brain. \"A duel!\" screamed Mrs. Orme. \"Oh, Peregrine!\" \"There can be nothing of the sort,\" said the judge. \"I should think\r\nthat young Mason is not so foolish; and I am sure that Peregrine Orme\r\nis not.\" \"I have not heard of anything of the kind,\" said Peregrine, laughing. \"Promise me, Peregrine,\" said his mother. \"Say that you promise me.\" \"My dearest mother, I have no more thought of it than you\r\nhave;--indeed I may say not so much.\" \"You will be back to dinner?\" said Lady Staveley. \"Oh yes, certainly.\" \"And tell Mr. Mason,\" said the judge, \"that if he will return with\r\nyou we shall be delighted to see him.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "The errand which took Peregrine Orme off to Hamworth will be\r\nexplained in the next chapter, but his going led to a discussion\r\namong the gentlemen after dinner as to the position in which Lady\r\nMason was now placed. There was no longer any possibility of keeping\r\nthe matter secret, seeing that Mr. Dockwrath had taken great care\r\nthat every one in Hamworth should hear of it. He had openly declared\r\nthat evidence would now be adduced to prove that Sir Joseph Mason's\r\nwidow had herself forged the will, and had said to many people that\r\nMr. Mason of Groby had determined to indict her for forgery. This\r\nhad gone so far that Lucius had declared as openly that he would\r\nprosecute the attorney for a libel, and Dockwrath had sent him word\r\nthat he was quite welcome to do so if he pleased. \"It is a scandalous state of things,\" said Sir Peregrine, speaking\r\nwith much enthusiasm, and no little temper, on the subject. \"Here is\r\na question which was settled twenty years ago to the satisfaction of\r\nevery one who knew anything of the case, and now it is brought up\r\nagain that two men may wreak their vengeance on a poor widow. They\r\nare not men; they are brutes.\" \"But why does she not bring an action against this attorney?\" said\r\nyoung Staveley. \"Such actions do not easily lie,\" said his father."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It may be quite\r\ntrue that Dockwrath may have said all manner of evil things against\r\nthis lady, and yet it may be very difficult to obtain evidence of a\r\nlibel. It seems to me from what I have heard that the man himself\r\nwishes such an action to be brought.\" \"And think of the state of poor Lady Mason!\" said Mr. Furnival. \"Conceive the misery which it would occasion her if she were dragged\r\nforward to give evidence on such a matter!\" \"I believe it would kill her,\" said Sir Peregrine. \"The best means of assisting her would be to give her some\r\ncountenance,\" said the judge; \"and from all that I can hear of her,\r\nshe deserves it.\" \"She does deserve it,\" said Sir Peregrine, \"and she shall have it. The people at Hamworth shall see at any rate that my daughter regards\r\nher as a fit associate. I am happy to say that she is coming to The\r\nCleeve on my return home, and that she will remain there till after\r\nChristmas.\" \"It is a very singular case,\" said Felix Graham, who had been\r\nthinking over the position of the lady hitherto in silence. \"Indeed it is,\" said the judge; \"and it shows how careful men should\r\nbe in all matters relating to their wills. The will and the codicil,\r\nas it appears, are both in the handwriting of the widow, who acted\r\nas an amanuensis not only for her husband but for the attorney."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That\r\nfact does not in my mind produce suspicion; but I do not doubt that\r\nit has produced all this suspicion in the mind of the claimant. The\r\nattorney who advised Sir Joseph should have known better.\" \"It is one of those cases,\" continued Graham, \"in which the sufferer\r\nshould be protected by the very fact of her own innocence. No lawyer\r\nshould consent to take up the cudgels against her.\" \"I am afraid that she will not escape persecution from any such\r\nprofessional chivalry,\" said the judge. \"All that is moonshine,\" said Mr. Furnival. \"And moonshine is a very pretty thing if you were not too much afraid\r\nof the night air to go and look at it. If the matter be as you all\r\nsay, I do think that any gentleman would disgrace himself by lending\r\na hand against her.\" \"Upon my word, sir, I fully agree with you,\" said Sir Peregrine,\r\nbowing to Felix Graham over his glass. \"I will take permission to think, Sir Peregrine,\" said Mr. Furnival,\r\n\"that you would not agree with Mr. Graham if you had given to the\r\nmatter much deep consideration.\" \"I have not had the advantage of a professional education,\" said Sir\r\nPeregrine, again bowing, and on this occasion addressing himself to\r\nthe lawyer; \"but I cannot see how any amount of learning should alter\r\nmy views on such a subject.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Truth and honour cannot be altered by any professional\r\narrangements,\" said Graham; and then the conversation turned away\r\nfrom Lady Mason, and directed itself to those great corrections of\r\nlegal reform which had been debated during the past autumn. The Orley Farm Case, though in other forms and different language,\r\nwas being discussed also in the drawing-room. \"I have not seen much\r\nof her,\" said Sophia Furnival, who by some art had usurped the most\r\nprominent part in the conversation, \"but what I did see I liked much. She was at The Cleeve when I was staying there, if you remember, Mrs. Orme.\" Mrs. Orme said that she did remember. \"And we went over to Orley Farm. Poor lady! I think everybody ought\r\nto notice her under such circumstances. Papa, I know, would move\r\nheaven and earth for her if he could.\" \"I cannot move the heaven or the earth either,\" said Lady Staveley;\r\n\"but if I thought that my calling on her would be any satisfaction to\r\nher--\"\r\n\r\n\"It would, Lady Staveley,\" said Mrs. Orme. \"It would be a great\r\nsatisfaction to her. I cannot tell you how warmly I regard her, nor\r\nhow perfectly Sir Peregrine esteems her.\" \"We will drive over there next week, Madeline.\" \"Do, mamma. Everybody says that she is very nice.\" \"It will be so kind of you, Lady Staveley,\" said Sophia Furnival. \"Next week she will be staying with us,\" said Mrs. Orme."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And that\r\nwould save you three miles, you know, and we should be so glad to see\r\nyou.\" Lady Staveley declared that she would do both. She would call at\r\nThe Cleeve, and again at Orley Farm after Lady Mason's return home. She well understood, though she could not herself then say so, that\r\nthe greater part of the advantage to be received from her kindness\r\nwould be derived from its being known at Hamworth that the Staveley\r\ncarriage had been driven up to Lady Mason's door. \"Her son is very clever, is he not?\" said Madeline, addressing\r\nherself to Miss Furnival. Sophia shrugged her shoulders and put her head on one side with a\r\npretty grace. \"Yes, I believe so. People say so. But who is to tell\r\nwhether a young man be clever or no?\" \"But some are so much more clever than others. Don't you think so?\" \"Oh yes, as some girls are so much prettier than others. But if Mr.\r\nMason were to talk Greek to you, you would not think him clever.\" \"I should not understand him, you know.\" \"Of course not; but you would understand that he was a blockhead to\r\nshow off his learning in that way. You don't want him to be clever,\r\nyou see; you only want him to be agreeable.\" \"I don't know that I want either the one or the other.\" \"Do you not? I know I do."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I think that young men in society are bound\r\nto be agreeable, and that they should not be there if they do not\r\nknow how to talk pleasantly, and to give something in return for all\r\nthe trouble we take for them.\" \"I don't take any trouble for them,\" said Madeline laughing. \"Surely you must, if you only think of it. All ladies do, and so they\r\nought. But if in return for that a man merely talks Greek to me, I,\r\nfor my part, do not think that the bargain is fairly carried out.\" \"I declare you will make me quite afraid of Mr. Mason.\" \"Oh, he never talks Greek;--at least he never has to me. I rather\r\nlike him. But what I mean is this, that I do not think a man a bit\r\nmore likely to be agreeable because he has the reputation of being\r\nvery clever. For my part I rather think that I like stupid young\r\nmen.\" \"Oh, do you? Then now I shall know what you think of Augustus. We\r\nthink he is very clever; but I do not know any man who makes himself\r\nmore popular with young ladies.\" \"Ah, then he is a gay deceiver.\" \"He is gay enough, but I am sure he is no deceiver. A man may make\r\nhimself nice to young ladies without deceiving any of them; may he\r\nnot?\" \"You must not take me 'au pied de la lettre,' Miss Staveley, or I\r\nshall be lost."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Of course he may. But when young gentlemen are so very\r\nnice, young ladies are so apt to--\"\r\n\r\n\"To what?\" \"Not to fall in love with them exactly, but to be ready to be fallen\r\nin love with, and then if a man does do it he is a deceiver. I\r\ndeclare it seems to me that we don't allow them a chance of going\r\nright.\" \"I think that Augustus manages to steer through such difficulties\r\nvery cleverly.\" \"He sails about in the open sea, touching at all the most lovely\r\ncapes and promontories, and is never driven on shore by stress of\r\nweather! What a happy sailor he must be!\" \"I think he is happy, and that he makes others so.\" \"He ought to be made an admiral at once But we shall hear some day of\r\nhis coming to a terrible shipwreck.\" \"Oh, I hope not!\" \"He will return home in desperate plight, with only two planks left\r\ntogether, with all his glory and beauty broken and crumpled to pieces\r\nagainst some rock that he has despised in his pride.\" \"Why do you prophesy such terrible things for him?\" \"I mean that he will get married.\" \"Get married! of course he will. That's just what we all want. You\r\ndon't call that a shipwreck; do you?\" \"It's the sort of shipwreck that these very gallant barks have to\r\nencounter.\" \"You don't mean that he'll marry a disagreeable wife!\" \"Oh, no; not in the least."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I only mean to say that like other sons of\r\nAdam, he will have to strike his colours. I dare say, if the truth\r\nwere known, he has done so already.\" \"I am sure he has not.\" \"I don't at all ask to know his secrets, and I should look upon you\r\nas a very bad sister if you told them.\" \"But I am sure he has not got any,--of that kind.\" \"Would he tell you if he had?\" \"Oh, I hope so; any serious secret. I am sure he ought, for I am\r\nalways thinking about him.\" \"And would you tell him your secrets?\" \"I have none.\" \"But when you have, will you do so?\" \"Will I? Well, yes; I think so. But a girl has no such secret,\" she\r\ncontinued to say, after pausing for a moment. \"None, generally, at\r\nleast, which she tells, even to herself, till the time comes in\r\nwhich she tells it to all whom she really loves.\" And then there was\r\nanother pause for a moment. \"I am not quite so sure of that,\" said Miss Furnival. After which the\r\ngentlemen came into the drawing-room. Augustus Staveley had gone to work in a manner which he conceived to\r\nbe quite systematic, having before him the praiseworthy object of\r\nmaking a match between Felix Graham and Sophia Furnival. \"By George,\r\nGraham,\" he had said, \"the finest girl in London is coming down to\r\nNoningsby; upon my word I think she is.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And brought there expressly for your delectation, I suppose.\" \"Oh no, not at all; indeed, she is not exactly in my style; she is\r\ntoo,--too,--too--in point of fact, too much of a girl for me. She has\r\nlots of money, and is very clever, and all that kind of thing.\" \"I never knew you so humble before.\" \"I am not joking at all. She is a daughter of old Furnival's, whom\r\nby-the-by I hate as I do poison. Why my governor has him down at\r\nNoningsby I can't guess. But I tell you what, old fellow, he can give\r\nhis daughter five-and-twenty thousand pounds. Think of that, Master\r\nBrook.\" But Felix Graham was a man who could not bring himself to\r\nthink much of such things on the spur of the moment, and when he was\r\nintroduced to Sophia, he did not seem to be taken with her in any\r\nwonderful way. Augustus had asked his mother to help him, but she had laughed at\r\nhim. \"It would be a splendid arrangement,\" he had said with energy. \"Nonsense, Gus,\" she had answered. \"You should always let those\r\nthings take their chance. All I will ask of you is that you don't\r\nfall in love with her yourself; I don't think her family would be\r\nnice enough for you.\" But Felix Graham certainly was ungrateful for the friendship spent\r\nupon him, and so his friend felt it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Augustus had contrived to\r\nwhisper into the lady's ear that Mr. Graham was the cleverest young\r\nman now rising at the bar, and as far as she was concerned, some\r\namount of intimacy might at any rate have been produced; but he,\r\nGraham himself, would not put himself forward. \"I will pique him into\r\nit,\" said Augustus to himself, and therefore when on this occasion\r\nthey came into the drawing-room, Staveley immediately took a vacant\r\nseat beside Miss Furnival, with the very friendly object which he had\r\nproposed to himself. There was great danger in this, for Miss Furnival was certainly\r\nhandsome, and Augustus Staveley was very susceptible. But what will\r\nnot a man go through for his friend? \"I hope we are to have the\r\nhonour of your company as far as Monkton Grange the day we meet\r\nthere,\" he said. The hounds were to meet at Monkton Grange, some\r\nseven miles from Noningsby, and all the sportsmen from the house were\r\nto be there. \"I shall be delighted,\" said Sophia, \"that is to say if a seat in the\r\ncarriage can be spared for me.\" \"But we'll mount you. I know that you are a horsewoman.\" In answer to\r\nwhich Miss Furnival confessed that she was a horsewoman, and owned\r\nalso to having brought a habit and hat with her. \"That will be delightful. Madeline will ride also, and you will meet\r\nthe Miss Tristrams. They are the famous horsewomen of this part of\r\nthe country.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You don't mean that they go after the dogs, across the hedges.\" \"Indeed they do.\" \"And does Miss Staveley do that?\" \"Oh, no--Madeline is not good at a five-barred gate, and would make\r\nbut a very bad hand at a double ditch. If you are inclined to remain\r\namong the tame people, she will be true to your side.\" \"I shall certainly be one of the tame people, Mr. Staveley.\" \"I rather think I shall be with you myself; I have only one horse\r\nthat will jump well, and Graham will ride him. By-the-by, Miss\r\nFurnival, what do you think of my friend Graham?\" \"Think of him! Am I bound to have thought anything about him by this\r\ntime?\" \"Of course you are;--or at any rate of course you have. I have\r\nno doubt that you have composed in your own mind an essay on the\r\ncharacter of everybody here. People who think at all always do.\" \"Do they? My essay upon him then is a very short one.\" \"But perhaps not the less correct on that account. You must allow me\r\nto read it.\" \"Like all my other essays of that kind, Mr. Staveley, it has been\r\ncomposed solely for my own use, and will be kept quite private.\" \"I am so sorry for that, for I intended to propose a bargain to you. If you would have shown me some of your essays, I would have been\r\nequally liberal with some of mine.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And in this way, before the\r\nevening was over, Augustus Staveley and Miss Furnival became very\r\ngood friends. \"Upon my word she is a very clever girl,\" he said afterwards, as\r\nyoung Orme and Graham were sitting with him in an outside room which\r\nhad been fitted up for smoking. \"And uncommonly handsome,\" said Peregrine. \"And they say she'll have lots of money,\" said Graham. \"After all,\r\nStaveley, perhaps you could not do better.\" \"She's not my style at all,\" said he. \"But of course a man is obliged\r\nto be civil to girls in his own house.\" And then they all went to\r\nbed. CHAPTER XX. MR. DOCKWRATH IN HIS OWN OFFICE. In the conversation which had taken place after dinner at Noningsby\r\nwith regard to the Masons Peregrine Orme took no part, but his\r\nsilence had not arisen from any want of interest on the subject. He had been over to Hamworth that day on a very special mission\r\nregarding it, and as he was not inclined to speak of what he had then\r\nseen and done, he held his tongue altogether. \"I want you to do me a great favour,\" Lucius had said to him, when\r\nthe two were together in the breakfast-parlour at Noningsby; \"but I\r\nam afraid it will give you some trouble.\" \"I sha'n't mind that,\" said Peregrine, \"if that's all.\" \"You have heard of this row about Joseph Mason and my mother?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "It has\r\nbeen so talked of that I fear you must have heard it.\" \"About the lawsuit? Oh yes. It has certainly been spoken of at The\r\nCleeve.\" \"Of course it has. All the world is talking of it. Now there is a man\r\nnamed Dockwrath in Hamworth--;\" and then he went on to explain how it\r\nhad reached him from various quarters that Mr. Dockwrath was accusing\r\nhis mother of the crime of forgery; how he had endeavoured to\r\npersuade his mother to indict the man for libel; how his mother had\r\npleaded to him with tears in her eyes that she found it impossible to\r\ngo through such an ordeal; and how he, therefore, had resolved to go\r\nhimself to Mr. Dockwrath. \"But,\" said he, \"I must have some one with\r\nme, some gentleman whom I can trust, and therefore I have ridden over\r\nto ask you to accompany me as far as Hamworth.\" \"I suppose he is not a man that you can kick,\" said Peregrine. \"I am afraid not,\" said Lucius; \"he's over forty years old, and has\r\ndozens of children.\" \"And then he is such a low beast,\" said Peregrine. \"I have no idea of kicking him, but I think it would be wrong to\r\nallow him to go on saying these frightful things of my mother,\r\nwithout showing him that we are not afraid of him.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Upon this the\r\ntwo young men got on horseback, and riding into Hamworth, put their\r\nhorses up at the inn. \"And now I suppose we might as well go at once,\" said Peregrine, with\r\na very serious face. \"Yes,\" said the other; \"there's nothing to delay us. I cannot tell\r\nyou how much obliged I am to you for coming with me.\" \"Oh, don't say anything about that; of course I'm only too happy.\" But all the same he felt that his heart was beating, and that he\r\nwas a little nervous. Had he been called upon to go in and thrash\r\nsomebody, he would have been quite at home; but he did not feel at\r\nhis ease in making an inimical visit to an attorney's office. It would have been wise, perhaps, if in this matter Lucius had\r\nsubmitted himself to Lady Mason's wishes. On the previous evening\r\nthey had talked the matter over with much serious energy. Lucius\r\nhad been told in the streets of Hamworth by an intermeddling little\r\nbusybody of an apothecary that it behoved him to do something, as Mr.\r\nDockwrath was making grievous accusations against his mother. Lucius\r\nhad replied haughtily, that he and his mother would know how to\r\nprotect themselves, and the apothecary had retreated, resolving to\r\nspread the report everywhere. Lucius on his return home had declared\r\nto the unfortunate lady that she had now no alternative left to her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She must bring an action against the man, or at any rate put the\r\nmatter into the hands of a lawyer with a view of ascertaining whether\r\nshe could do so with any chance of success. If she could not, she\r\nmust then make known her reason for remaining quiet. In answer to\r\nthis, Lady Mason had begun by praying her son to allow the matter to\r\npass by. \"But it will not pass by,\" Lucius had said. \"Yes, dearest, if we leave it, it will,--in a month or two. We can do\r\nnothing by interference. Remember the old saying, You cannot touch\r\npitch without being defiled.\" But Lucius had replied, almost with anger, that the pitch had already\r\ntouched him, and that he was defiled. \"I cannot consent to hold the\r\nproperty,\" he had said, \"unless something be done.\" And then his\r\nmother had bowed her head as she sat, and had covered her face with\r\nher hands. \"I shall go to the man myself,\" Lucius had declared with energy. \"As your mother, Lucius, I implore you not to do so,\" she had said to\r\nhim through her tears. \"I must either do that or leave the country. It is impossible that I\r\nshould live here, hearing such things said of you, and doing nothing\r\nto clear your name.\" To this she had made no actual reply, and now\r\nhe was standing at the attorney's door about to do that which he had\r\nthreatened."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They found Mr. Dockwrath sitting at his desk at the other side of\r\nwhich was seated his clerk. He had not yet promoted himself to the\r\ndignity of a private office, but generally used his parlour as such\r\nwhen he was desirous of seeing his clients without disturbance. On\r\nthis occasion, however, when he saw young Mason enter, he made no\r\noffer to withdraw. His hat was on his head as he sat on his stool,\r\nand he did not even take it off as he returned the stiff salutation\r\nof his visitor. \"Keep your hat on your head, Mr. Orme,\" he said, as\r\nPeregrine was about to take his off. \"Well, gentlemen, what can I do\r\nfor you?\" Lucius looked at the clerk, and felt that there would be great\r\ndifficulty in talking about his mother before such a witness. \"We\r\nwish to see you in private, Mr. Dockwrath, for a few minutes--if it\r\nbe convenient.\" \"Is not this private enough?\" said Dockwrath. \"There is no one here\r\nbut my confidential clerk.\" \"If you could make it convenient--\" began Lucius. \"Well, then, Mr. Mason, I cannot make it convenient, and there is the\r\nlong and the short of it. You have brought Mr. Orme with you to hear\r\nwhat you've got to say, and I choose that my clerk shall remain by\r\nto hear it also. Seeing the position in which you stand there is no\r\nknowing what may come of such an interview as this.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"In what position do I stand, sir?\" \"If you don't know, Mr. Mason, I am not going to tell you. I feel\r\nfor you, I do upon my word. I feel for you, and I pity you.\" Mr.\r\nDockwrath as he thus expressed his commiseration was sitting with his\r\nhigh chair tilted back, with his knees against the edge of his desk,\r\nwith his hat almost down upon his nose as he looked at his visitors\r\nfrom under it, and he amused himself by cutting up a quill pen into\r\nsmall pieces with his penknife. It was not pleasant to be pitied by\r\nsuch a man as that, and so Peregrine Orme conceived. \"Sir, that is nonsense,\" said Lucius. \"I require no pity from you or\r\nfrom any man.\" \"I don't suppose there is one in all Hamworth that does not feel for\r\nyou,\" said Dockwrath. \"He means to be impudent,\" said Peregrine. \"You had better come to\r\nthe point with him at once.\" \"No, I don't mean to be impudent, young gentleman. A man may speak\r\nhis own mind in his own house I suppose without any impudence. You\r\nwouldn't stand cap in hand to me if I were to go down to you at The\r\nCleeve.\" \"I have come here to ask of you,\" said Lucius, \"whether it be true\r\nthat you are spreading these reports about the town with reference to\r\nLady Mason. If you are a man you will tell me the truth.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Well; I rather think I am a man.\" \"It is necessary that Lady Mason should be protected from such\r\ninfamous falsehoods, and it may be necessary to bring the matter into\r\na court of law--\"\r\n\r\n\"You may be quite easy about that, Mr. Mason. It will be necessary.\" \"As it may be necessary, I wish to know whether you will acknowledge\r\nthat these reports have come from you?\" \"You want me to give evidence against myself. Well, for once in a way\r\nI don't mind if I do. The reports have come from me. Now, is that\r\nmanly?\" And Mr. Dockwrath, as he spoke, pushed his hat somewhat off\r\nhis nose, and looked steadily across into the face of his opponent. Lucius Mason was too young for the task which he had undertaken, and\r\nallowed himself to be disconcerted. He had expected that the lawyer\r\nwould deny the charge, and was prepared for what he would say and do\r\nin such a case; but now he was not prepared. \"How on earth could you bring yourself to be guilty of such\r\nvillainy?\" said young Orme. \"Highty-tighty! What are you talking about, young man? The fact is,\r\nyou do not know what you are talking about. But as I have a respect\r\nfor your grandfather and for your mother I will give you and them a\r\npiece of advice, gratis. Don't let them be too thick with Lady Mason\r\ntill they see how this matter goes.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Mr. Dockwrath,\" said Lucius, \"you are a mean, low, vile scoundrel.\" \"Very well, sir. Adams, just take a note of that. Don't mind what Mr.\r\nOrme said. I can easily excuse him. He'll know the truth before long,\r\nand then he'll beg my pardon.\" \"I'll take my oath I look upon you as the greatest miscreant that\r\never I met,\" said Peregrine, who was of course bound to support his\r\nfriend. \"You'll change your mind, Mr. Orme, before long, and then you'll find\r\nthat you have met a worse miscreant than I am. Did you put down those\r\nwords, Adams?\" \"Them as Mr. Mason spoke? Yes; I've got them down.\" \"Read them,\" said the master. And the clerk read them, \"Mr. Dockwrath, you are a mean, low, vile\r\nscoundrel.\" \"And now, young gentlemen, if you have got nothing else to observe,\r\nas I am rather busy, perhaps you will allow me to wish you good\r\nmorning.\" \"Very well, Mr. Dockwrath,\" said Mason; \"you may be sure that you\r\nwill hear further from me.\" \"We shall be sure to hear of each other. There is no doubt in the\r\nworld about that,\" said the attorney. And then the two young men\r\nwithdrew with an unexpressed feeling in the mind of each of them,\r\nthat they had not so completely got the better of their antagonist as\r\nthe justice of their case demanded."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They then remounted their horses, and Orme accompanied his friend as\r\nfar as Orley Farm, from whence he got into the Alston road through\r\nThe Cleeve grounds. \"And what do you intend to do now?\" said\r\nPeregrine as soon as they were mounted. \"I shall employ a lawyer,\" said he, \"on my own footing; not my\r\nmother's lawyer, but some one else. Then I suppose I shall be guided\r\nby his advice.\" Had he done this before he made his visit to Mr.\r\nDockwrath, perhaps it might have been better. All this sat very\r\nheavily on poor Peregrine's mind; and therefore as the company were\r\ntalking about Lady Mason after dinner, he remained silent, listening,\r\nbut not joining in the conversation. The whole of that evening Lucius and his mother sat together, saying\r\nnothing. There was not absolutely any quarrel between them, but on\r\nthis terrible subject there was an utter want of accordance, and\r\nalmost of sympathy. It was not that Lucius had ever for a moment\r\nsuspected his mother of aught that was wrong. Had he done so he\r\nmight perhaps have been more gentle towards her in his thoughts and\r\nwords. He not only fully trusted her, but he was quite fixed in\r\nhis confidence that nothing could shake either her or him in their\r\nrights. But under these circumstances he could not understand how she\r\ncould consent to endure without resistance the indignities which were\r\nput upon her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"She should combat them for my sake, if not for her\r\nown,\" he said to himself over and over again. And he had said so also\r\nto her, but his words had had no effect. She, on the other hand, felt that he was cruel to her. She was\r\nweighed down almost to the ground by these sufferings which had\r\nfallen on her, and yet he would not be gentle and soft to her. She\r\ncould have borne it all, she thought, if he would have borne with\r\nher. She still hoped that if she remained quiet no further trial\r\nwould take place. At any rate this might be so. That it would be so\r\nshe had the assurance of Mr. Furnival. And yet all this evil which\r\nshe dreaded worse than death was to be precipitated on her by her\r\nson! So they sat through the long evening, speechless; each seated\r\nwith the pretence of reading, but neither of them capable of the\r\nattention which a book requires. He did not tell her then that he had been with Mr. Dockwrath, but she\r\nknew by his manner that he had taken some terrible step. She waited\r\npatiently the whole evening, hoping that he would tell her, but when\r\nthe hour came for her to go up to her room he had told her nothing. If he now were to turn against her, that would be worse than all!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She\r\nwent up to her room and sat herself down to think. All that passed\r\nthrough her brain on that night I may not now tell; but the grief\r\nwhich pressed on her at this moment with peculiar weight was the\r\nself-will and obstinacy of her boy. She said to herself that she\r\nwould be willing now to die,--to give back her life at once, if such\r\nmight be God's pleasure; but that her son should bring down her hairs\r\nwith shame and sorrow to the grave--! In that thought there was a\r\nbitterness of agony which she knew not how to endure! The next morning at breakfast he still remained silent, and his brow\r\nwas still black. \"Lucius,\" she said, \"did you do anything in that\r\nmatter yesterday?\" \"Yes, mother; I saw Mr. Dockwrath.\" \"Well?\" \"I took Peregrine Orme with me that I might have a witness, and I\r\nthen asked him whether he had spread these reports. He acknowledged\r\nthat he had done so, and I told him that he was a villain.\" Upon hearing this she uttered a long, low sigh, but she said nothing. What use could there now be in her saying aught? Her look of agony\r\nwent to the young man's heart, but he still thought that he had been\r\nright. \"Mother,\" he continued to say, \"I am very sorry to grieve\r\nyou in this way;--very sorry."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I could not hold up my head in\r\nHamworth,--I could not hold up my head anywhere, if I heard these\r\nthings said of you and did not resent it.\" \"Ah, Lucius, if you knew the weakness of a woman!\" \"And therefore you should let me bear it all. There is nothing I\r\nwould not suffer; no cost I would not undergo rather than you should\r\nendure all this. If you would only say that you would leave it to\r\nme!\" \"But it cannot be left to you. I have gone to a lawyer, to Mr.\r\nFurnival. Why will you not permit that I should act in it as he\r\nthinks best? Can you not believe that that will be the best for both\r\nof us?\" \"If you wish it, I will see Mr. Furnival.\" Lady Mason did not wish that, but she was obliged so far to yield as\r\nto say that he might do so if he would. Her wish was that he should\r\nbear it all and say nothing. It was not that she was indifferent to\r\ngood repute among her neighbours, or that she was careless as to what\r\nthe apothecaries and attorneys said of her; but it was easier for\r\nher to bear the evil than to combat it. The Ormes and the Furnivals\r\nwould support her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They and such-like persons would acknowledge her\r\nweakness, and would know that from her would not be expected such\r\nloud outbursting indignation as might be expected from a man. She had\r\ncalculated the strength of her own weakness, and thought that she\r\nmight still be supported by that,--if only her son would so permit. It was two days after this that Lucius was allowed the honour of\r\na conference by appointment with the great lawyer; and at the\r\nexpiration of an hour's delay he was shown into the room by Mr.\r\nCrabwitz. \"And, Crabwitz,\" said the barrister, before he addressed\r\nhimself to his young friend, \"just run your eye over those papers,\r\nand let Mr. Bideawhile have them to-morrow morning; and, Crabwitz--.\" \"Yes, sir.\" \"That opinion of Sir Richard's in the Ahatualpaca Mining Company--I\r\nhave not seen it, have I?\" \"It's all ready, Mr. Furnival.\" \"I will look at it in five minutes. And now, my young friend, what\r\ncan I do for you?\" It was quite clear from Mr. Furnival's tone and manner that he did\r\nnot mean to devote much time to Lucius Mason, and that he was not\r\ngenerally anxious to hold any conversation with him on the subject in\r\nquestion. Such, indeed, was the case."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Furnival was determined to\r\npull Lady Mason out of the sea of trouble into which she had fallen,\r\nlet the effort cost him what it might, but he did not wish to do so\r\nby the instrumentality, or even with the aid, of her son. \"Mr. Furnival,\" began Mason, \"I want to ask your advice about these\r\ndreadful reports which are being spread on every side in Hamworth\r\nabout my mother.\" \"If you will allow me then to say so, I think that the course which\r\nyou should pursue is very simple. Indeed there is, I think, only one\r\ncourse which you can pursue with proper deference to your mother's\r\nfeelings.\" \"And what is that, Mr. Furnival?\" \"Do nothing, and say nothing. I fear from what I have heard that you\r\nhave already done and said much more than was prudent.\" \"But how am I to hear such things as these spoken of my own mother?\" \"That depends on the people by whom the things are spoken. In this\r\nworld, if we meet a chimney-sweep in the path we do not hustle with\r\nhim for the right of way. Your mother is going next week to The\r\nCleeve. It was only yesterday that I heard that the Noningsby people\r\nare going to call on her. You can hardly, I suppose, desire for your\r\nmother better friends than such as these. And can you not understand\r\nwhy such people gather to her at this moment?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "If you can understand\r\nit you will not trouble yourself to interfere much more with Mr. Dockwrath.\" There was a rebuke in this which Lucius Mason was forced to endure;\r\nbut nevertheless as he retreated disconcerted from the barrister's\r\nchambers, he could not bring himself to think it right that such\r\ncalumny should be borne without resistance. He knew but little as yet\r\nof the ordinary life of gentlemen in England; but he did know,--so at\r\nleast he thought,--that it was the duty of a son to shield his mother\r\nfrom insult and libel. CHAPTER XXI. CHRISTMAS IN HARLEY STREET. It seems singular to me myself, considering the idea which I have\r\nin my own mind of the character of Lady Staveley, that I should be\r\ndriven to declare that about this time she committed an unpardonable\r\noffence, not only against good nature, but also against the domestic\r\nproprieties. But I am driven so to say, although she herself was of\r\nall women the most good-natured and most domestic; for she asked\r\nMr. Furnival to pass his Christmas-day at Noningsby, and I find it\r\nimpossible to forgive her that offence against the poor wife whom in\r\nthat case he must leave alone by her desolate hearth. She knew that\r\nhe was a married man as well as I do."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sophia, who had a proper regard\r\nfor the domestic peace of her parents, and who could have been happy\r\nat Noningsby without a father's care, not unfrequently spoke of her,\r\nso that her existence in Harley Street might not be forgotten by\r\nthe Staveleys--explaining, however, as she did so, that her dear\r\nmother never left her own fireside in winter, so that no suspicion\r\nmight be entertained that an invitation was desired for her also;\r\nnevertheless, in spite of all this, on two separate occasions did\r\nLady Staveley say to Mr. Furnival that he might as well prolong his\r\nvisit over Christmas. And yet Lady Staveley was not attached to Mr. Furnival with any\r\npeculiar warmth of friendship; but she was one of those women whose\r\nfoolish hearts will not allow themselves to be controlled in the\r\nexercise of their hospitality. Her nature demanded of her that she\r\nshould ask a guest to stay. She would not have allowed a dog to\r\ndepart from her house at this season of the year, without suggesting\r\nto him that he had better take his Christmas bone in her yard. It\r\nwas for Mr. Furnival to adjust all matters between himself and his\r\nwife. He was not bound to accept the invitation because she gave it;\r\nbut she, finding him there, already present in the house, did feel\r\nherself bound to give it;--for which offence, as I have said before,\r\nI cannot bring myself to forgive her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At his sin in staying away from home, or rather--as far as the story\r\nhas yet carried us--in thinking that he would do so, I am by no means\r\nso much surprised. An angry ill-pleased wife is no pleasant companion\r\nfor a gentleman on a long evening. For those who have managed that\r\nthings shall run smoothly over the domestic rug there is no happier\r\ntime of life than these long candlelight hours of home and silence. No spoken content or uttered satisfaction is necessary. The fact that\r\nis felt is enough for peace. But when the fact is not felt; when\r\nthe fact is by no means there; when the thoughts are running in a\r\ndirection altogether different; when bitter grievances from one to\r\nthe other fill the heart, rather than memories of mutual kindness;\r\nthen, I say, those long candlelight hours of home and silence are not\r\neasy of endurance. Mr. Furnival was a man who chose to be the master\r\nof his own destiny, so at least to himself he boasted; and therefore\r\nwhen he found himself encountered by black looks and occasionally by\r\nsullen words, he declared to himself that he was ill-used and that he\r\nwould not bear it. Since the domestic rose would no longer yield him\r\nhoney, he would seek his sweets from the stray honeysuckle on which\r\nthere grew no thorns. Mr. Furnival was no coward."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was not one of those men who wrong\r\ntheir wives by their absence, and then prolong their absence because\r\nthey are afraid to meet their wives. His resolve was to be free\r\nhimself, and to be free without complaint from her. He would have\r\nit so, that he might remain out of his own house for a month at the\r\ntime and then return to it for a week--at any rate without outward\r\nbickerings. I have known other men who have dreamed of such a state\r\nof things, but at this moment I can remember none who have brought\r\ntheir dream to bear. Mr. Furnival had written to his wife,--not from Noningsby, but\r\nfrom some provincial town, probably situated among the Essex\r\nmarshes,--saying various things, and among others that he should\r\nnot, as he thought, be at home at Christmas-day. Mrs. Furnival had\r\nremarked about a fortnight since that Christmas-day was nothing to\r\nher now; and the base man, for it was base, had hung upon this poor,\r\nsore-hearted word an excuse for remaining away from home. \"There are\r\nlawyers of repute staying at Noningsby,\" he had said, \"with whom it\r\nis very expedient that I should remain at this present crisis.\" --When\r\nyet has there been no crisis present to a man who has wanted an\r\nexcuse?--\"And therefore I may probably stay,\"--and so on."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Who does\r\nnot know the false mixture of excuse and defiance which such a letter\r\nis sure to maintain; the crafty words which may be taken as adequate\r\nreason if the receiver be timid enough so to receive them, or as a\r\nnoisy gauntlet thrown to the ground if there be spirit there for the\r\npicking of it up? Such letter from his little borough in the Essex\r\nmarshes did Mr. Furnival write to the partner of his cares, and there\r\nwas still sufficient spirit left for the picking up of the gauntlet. \"I shall be home to-morrow,\" the letter had gone on to say, \"but\r\nI will not keep you waiting for dinner, as my hours are always so\r\nuncertain. I shall be at my chambers till late, and will be with you\r\nbefore tea. I will then return to Alston on the following morning.\" There was at any rate good courage in this on the part of Mr.\r\nFurnival;--great courage; but with it coldness of heart, dishonesty\r\nof purpose, and black ingratitude. Had she not given everything to\r\nhim? Mrs. Furnival when she got the letter was not alone. \"There,\"\r\nsaid she; throwing it over to a lady who sat on the other side of\r\nthe fireplace handling a loose sprawling mass of not very clean\r\ncrochet-work. \"I knew he would stay away on Christmas-day. I told you\r\nso.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I didn't think it possible,\" said Miss Biggs, rolling up the big\r\nball of soiled cotton, that she might read Mr. Furnival's letter at\r\nher leisure. \"I didn't really think it possible--on Christmas-day! Surely, Mrs. Furnival, he can't mean Christmas-day? Dear, dear, dear! and then to throw it in your face in that way that you said you\r\ndidn't care about it.\" \"Of course I said so,\" answered Mrs. Furnival. \"I was not going to\r\nask him to come home as a favour.\" \"Not to make a favour of it, of course not.\" This was Miss Biggs\r\nfrom ----. I am afraid if I tell the truth I must say that she came\r\nfrom Red Lion Square! And yet nothing could be more respectable than\r\nMiss Biggs. Her father had been a partner with an uncle of Mrs.\r\nFurnival's; and when Kitty Blacker had given herself and her young\r\nprettinesses to the hardworking lawyer, Martha Biggs had stood at the\r\naltar with her, then just seventeen years of age, and had promised\r\nto her all manner of success for her coming life. Martha Biggs had\r\nnever, not even then, been pretty; but she had been very faithful. She had not been a favourite with Mr. Furnival, having neither wit\r\nnor grace to recommend her, and therefore in the old happy days of\r\nKeppel Street she had been kept in the background; but now, in this\r\npresent time of her adversity, Mrs. Furnival found the benefit of\r\nhaving a trusty friend."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If he likes better to be with these people down at Alston, I am sure\r\nit is the same to me,\" said the injured wife. \"But there's nobody special at Alston, is there?\" asked Miss Biggs,\r\nwhose soul sighed for a tale more piquant than one of mere general\r\nneglect. She knew that her friend had dreadful suspicions, but Mrs.\r\nFurnival had never as yet committed herself by uttering the name of\r\nany woman as her rival. Miss Biggs thought that a time had now come\r\nin which the strength of their mutual confidence demanded that such\r\nname should be uttered. It could not be expected that she should\r\nsympathise with generalities for ever. She longed to hate, to\r\nreprobate, and to shudder at the actual name of the wretch who had\r\nrobbed her friend of a husband's heart. And therefore she asked the\r\nquestion, \"There's nobody special at Alston, is there?\" Now Mrs. Furnival knew to a furlong the distance from Noningsby to\r\nOrley Farm, and knew also that the station at Hamworth was only\r\ntwenty-five minutes from that at Alston. She gave no immediate\r\nanswer, but threw up her head and shook her nostrils, as though she\r\nwere preparing for war; and then Miss Martha Biggs knew that there\r\nwas somebody special at Alston. Between such old friends why should\r\nnot the name be mentioned? On the following day the two ladies dined at six, and then waited tea\r\npatiently till ten."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had the thirst of a desert been raging within\r\nthat drawing-room, and had tea been within immediate call, those\r\nladies would have died ere they would have asked for it before his\r\nreturn. He had said he would be home to tea, and they would have\r\nwaited for him, had it been till four o'clock in the morning! Let the\r\nfemale married victim ever make the most of such positive wrongs as\r\nProvidence may vouchsafe to her. Had Mrs. Furnival ordered tea on\r\nthis evening before her husband's return, she would have been a woman\r\nblind to the advantages of her own position. At ten the wheels of Mr.\r\nFurnival's cab were heard, and the faces of both the ladies prepared\r\nthemselves for the encounter. \"Well, Kitty, how are you?\" said Mr. Furnival, entering the room with\r\nhis arms prepared for a premeditated embrace. \"What, Miss Biggs with\r\nyou? I did not know. How do you do, Miss Biggs?\" and Mr. Furnival\r\nextended his hand to the lady. They both looked at him, and they\r\ncould tell from the brightness of his eye and from the colour of his\r\nnose that he had been dining at his club, and that the bin with the\r\nprecious cork had been visited on his behalf. \"Yes, my dear, it's rather lonely being here in this big room all\r\nby oneself so long; so I asked Martha Biggs to come over to me. I\r\nsuppose there's no harm in that.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, if I'm in the way,\" began Miss Biggs, \"or if Mr. Furnival is\r\ngoing to stay at home for long--\"\r\n\r\n\"You are not in the way, and I am not going to stay at home for\r\nlong,\" said Mr. Furnival, speaking with a voice that was perhaps a\r\nlittle thick,--only a very little thick. No wife on good terms with\r\nher husband would have deigned to notice, even in her own mind, an\r\namount of thickness of voice which was so very inconsiderable. But\r\nMrs. Furnival at the present moment did notice it. \"Oh, I did not know,\" said Miss Biggs. \"You know now,\" said Mr. Furnival, whose ear at once appreciated the\r\nhostility of tone which had been assumed. \"You need not be rude to my friend after she has been waiting tea for\r\nyou till near eleven o'clock,\" said Mrs. Furnival. \"It is nothing to\r\nme, but you should remember that she is not used to it.\" \"I wasn't rude to your friend, and who asked you to wait tea till\r\nnear eleven o'clock? It is only just ten now, if that signifies.\" \"You expressly desired me to wait tea, Mr. Furnival. I have got your\r\nletter, and will show it you if you wish it.\" \"Nonsense; I just said I should be home--\"\r\n\r\n\"Of course you just said you would be home, and so we waited; and\r\nit's not nonsense; and I declare--! Never mind, Martha, don't mind\r\nme, there's a good creature."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I shall get over it soon;\" and then fat,\r\nsolid, good-humoured Mrs. Furnival burst out into an hysterical fit\r\nof sobbing. There was a welcome for a man on his return to his home\r\nafter a day's labour! Miss Biggs immediately got up and came round behind the drawing-room\r\ntable to her friend's head. \"Be calm, Mrs. Furnival,\" she said; \"do\r\nbe calm, and then you will be better soon. Here is the hartshorn.\" \"It doesn't matter, Martha: never mind: leave me alone,\" sobbed the\r\npoor woman. \"May I be excused for asking what is really the matter?\" said Mr.\r\nFurnival, \"for I'll be whipped if I know.\" Miss Biggs looked at him\r\nas if she thought that he ought to be whipped. \"I wonder you ever come near the place at all, I do,\" said Mrs.\r\nFurnival. \"What place?\" asked Mr. Furnival. \"This house in which I am obliged to live by myself, without a soul\r\nto speak to, unless when Martha Biggs comes here.\" \"Which would be much more frequent, only that I know I am not welcome\r\nby everybody.\" \"I know that you hate it. How can I help knowing it?--and you hate\r\nme too; I know you do;--and I believe you would be glad if you need\r\nnever come back here at all; I do. Don't, Martha; leave me alone. I\r\ndon't want all that fuss. There; I can bear it now, whatever it is. Do you choose to have your tea, Mr. Furnival?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "or do you wish to keep\r\nthe servants waiting out of their beds all night?\" \"D---- the servants,\" said Mr. Furnival. \"Oh laws!\" exclaimed Miss Biggs, jumping up out of her chair with her\r\nhands and fingers outstretched, as though never, never in her life\r\nbefore, had her ears been wounded by such wicked words as those. \"Mr. Furnival, I am ashamed of you,\" said his wife with gathered\r\ncalmness of stern reproach. Mr. Furnival was very wrong to swear; doubly wrong to swear before\r\nhis wife; trebly wrong to swear before a lady visitor; but it must\r\nbe confessed that there was provocation. That he was at this present\r\nperiod of his life behaving badly to his wife must be allowed, but on\r\nthis special evening he had intended to behave well. The woman had\r\nsought a ground of quarrel against him, and had driven him on till he\r\nhad forgotten himself in his present after-dinner humour. When a man\r\nis maintaining a whole household on his own shoulders, and working\r\nhard to maintain it well, it is not right that he should be brought\r\nto book because he keeps the servants up half an hour later than\r\nusual to wash the tea-things. It is very proper that the idle members\r\nof the establishment should conform to hours, but these hours must\r\ngive way to his requirements."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In those old days of which we have\r\nspoken so often he might have had his tea at twelve, one, two, or\r\nthree without a murmur. Though their staff of servants then was\r\nscanty enough, there was never a difficulty then in supplying any\r\nsuch want for him. If no other pair of hands could boil the kettle,\r\nthere was one pair of hands there which no amount of such work on his\r\nbehalf could tire. But now, because he had come in for his tea at\r\nten o'clock, he was asked if he intended to keep the servants out of\r\ntheir beds all night! \"Oh laws!\" said Miss Biggs, jumping up from her chair as though she\r\nhad been electrified. Mr. Furnival did not think it consistent with his dignity to keep up\r\nany dispute in the presence of Miss Biggs, and therefore sat himself\r\ndown in his accustomed chair without further speech. \"Would you\r\nwish to have tea now, Mr. Furnival?\" asked his wife again, putting\r\nconsiderable stress upon the word now. \"I don't care about it,\" said he. \"And I am sure I don't at this late hour,\" said Miss Biggs. \"But so\r\ntired as you are, dear--\"\r\n\r\n\"Never mind me, Martha; as for myself, I shall take nothing now.\" And\r\nthen they all sat without a word for the space of some five minutes. \"If you like to go, Martha,\" said Mrs. Furnival, \"don't mind waiting\r\nfor me.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, very well,\" and then Miss Biggs took her bedcandle and left the\r\nroom. Was it not hard upon her that she should be forced to absent\r\nherself at this moment, when the excitement of the battle was about\r\nto begin in earnest? Her footsteps lingered as she slowly retreated\r\nfrom the drawing-room door, and for one instant she absolutely\r\npaused, standing still with eager ears. It was but for an instant,\r\nand then she went on up stairs, out of hearing, and sitting herself\r\ndown by her bedside allowed the battle to rage in her imagination. Mr. Furnival would have sat there silent till his wife had gone also,\r\nand so the matter would have terminated for that evening,--had she\r\nso willed it. But she had been thinking of her miseries; and, having\r\ncome to some sort of resolution to speak of them openly, what time\r\ncould she find more appropriate for doing so than the present? \"Tom,\"\r\nshe said,--and as she spoke there was still a twinkle of the old\r\nlove in her eye, \"we are not going on together as well as we should\r\ndo,--not lately. Would it not be well to make a change before it is\r\ntoo late?\" \"What change?\" he asked; not exactly in an ill humour, but with a\r\nhusky, thick voice. He would have preferred now that she should have\r\nfollowed her friend to bed. \"I do not want to dictate to you, Tom, but--!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Oh Tom, if you knew how\r\nwretched I am!\" \"What makes you wretched?\" \"Because you leave me all alone; because you care more for other\r\npeople than you do for me; because you never like to be at home,\r\nnever if you can possibly help it. You know you don't. You are always\r\naway now upon some excuse or other; you know you are. I don't have\r\nyou home to dinner not one day in the week through the year. That\r\ncan't be right, and you know it is not. Oh Tom! you are breaking my\r\nheart, and deceiving me,--you are. Why did I go down and find that\r\nwoman in your chamber with you, when you were ashamed to own to me\r\nthat she was coming to see you? If it had been in the proper way of\r\nlaw business, you wouldn't have been ashamed. Oh, Tom!\" The poor woman had begun her plaint in a manner that was not\r\naltogether devoid of a discreet eloquence. If only she could have\r\nmaintained that tone, if she could have confined her words to the\r\ntale of her own grievances, and have been contented to declare that\r\nshe was unhappy, only because he was not with her, it might have\r\nbeen well. She might have touched his heart, or at any rate his\r\nconscience, and there might have been some enduring result for good."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But her feelings had been too many for her, and as her wrongs came to\r\nher mind, and the words heaped themselves upon her tongue, she could\r\nnot keep herself from the one subject which she should have left\r\nuntouched. Mr. Furnival was not the man to bear any interference such\r\nas this, or to permit the privacy of Lincoln's Inn to be invaded even\r\nby his wife. His brow grew very black, and his eyes became almost\r\nbloodshot. The port wine which might have worked him to softness, now\r\nworked him to anger, and he thus burst forth with words of marital\r\nvigour:\r\n\r\n\"Let me tell you once for ever, Kitty, that I will admit of no\r\ninterference with what I do, or the people whom I may choose to\r\nsee in my chambers in Lincoln's Inn. If you are such an infatuated\r\nsimpleton as to believe--\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes; of course I am a simpleton; of course I am a fool; women always\r\nare.\" \"Listen to me, will you?\" \"Listen, yes; it's my business to listen. Would you like that I\r\nshould give this house up for her, and go into lodgings somewhere? I\r\nshall have very little objection as matters are going now. Oh dear,\r\noh dear, that things should ever have come to this!\" \"Come to what?\" \"Tom, I could put up with a great deal,--more I think than most\r\nwomen; I could slave for you like a drudge, and think nothing about\r\nit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And now that you have got among grand people, I could see you go\r\nout by yourself without thinking much about that either. I am very\r\nlonely sometimes,--very; but I could bear that. Nobody has longed to\r\nsee you rise in the world half so anxious as I have done. But, Tom,\r\nwhen I know what your goings on are with a nasty, sly, false woman\r\nlike that, I won't bear it; and there's an end.\" In saying which\r\nfinal words Mrs. Furnival rose from her seat, and thrice struck her\r\nhand by no means lightly on the loo table in the middle of the room. \"I did not think it possible that you should be so silly. I did not\r\nindeed.\" \"Oh, yes, silly! very well. Women always are silly when they mind\r\nthat kind of thing. Have you got anything else to say, sir?\" \"Yes, I have; I have this to say, that I will not endure this sort of\r\nusage.\" \"Nor I won't,\" said Mrs. Furnival; \"so you may as well understand it\r\nat once. As long as there was nothing absolutely wrong, I would put\r\nup with it for the sake of appearances, and because of Sophia. For\r\nmyself I don't mind what loneliness I may have to bear. If you had\r\nbeen called on to go out to the East Indies or even to China, I could\r\nhave put up with it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But this sort of thing I won't put up with;--nor\r\nI won't be blind to what I can't help seeing. So now, Mr. Furnival,\r\nyou may know that I have made up my mind.\" And then, without waiting\r\nfurther parley, having wisked herself in her energy near to the door,\r\nshe stalked out, and went up with hurried steps to her own room. Occurrences of a nature such as this are in all respects unpleasant\r\nin a household. Let the master be ever so much master, what is he to\r\ndo? Say that his wife is wrong from the beginning to the end of the\r\nquarrel,--that in no way improves the matter. His anxiety is that the\r\nworld abroad shall not know he has ought amiss at home; but she, with\r\nher hot sense of injury, and her loud revolt against supposed wrongs,\r\ncares not who hears it. \"Hold your tongue, madam,\" the husband says. But the wife, bound though she be by an oath of obedience, will not\r\nobey him, but only screams the louder. All which, as Mr. Furnival sat there thinking of it, disturbed his\r\nmind much. That Martha Biggs would spread the tale through all\r\nBloomsbury and St. Pancras of course he was aware. \"If she drives\r\nme to it, it must be so,\" he said to himself at last. And then he\r\nalso betook himself to his rest. And so it was that preparations for\r\nChristmas were made in Harley Street. CHAPTER XXII."}
{"question": "", "answer": "CHRISTMAS AT NONINGSBY. The house at Noningsby on Christmas-day was quite full, and yet it\r\nwas by no means a small house. Mrs. Arbuthnot, the judge's married\r\ndaughter, was there, with her three children; and Mr. Furnival was\r\nthere, having got over those domestic difficulties in which we lately\r\nsaw him as best he might; and Lucius Mason was there, having been\r\nespecially asked by Lady Staveley when she heard that his mother was\r\nto be at The Cleeve. There could be no more comfortable country-house\r\nthan Noningsby; and it was, in its own way, pretty, though\r\nessentially different in all respects from The Cleeve. It was a new\r\nhouse from the cellar to the ceiling, and as a house was no doubt the\r\nbetter for being so. All the rooms were of the proper proportion, and\r\nall the newest appliances for comfort had been attached to it. But\r\nnevertheless it lacked that something, in appearance rather than in\r\nfact, which age alone can give to the residence of a gentleman in the\r\ncountry. The gardens also were new, and the grounds around them trim,\r\nand square, and orderly. Noningsby was a delightful house; no one\r\nwith money and taste at command could have created for himself one\r\nmore delightful; but then there are delights which cannot be created\r\neven by money and taste. It was a pleasant sight to see, the long, broad, well-filled\r\nbreakfast table, with all that company round it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There were some\r\neighteen or twenty gathered now at the table, among whom the judge\r\nsat pre-eminent, looming large in an arm-chair and having a double\r\nspace allotted to him;--some eighteen or twenty, children included. At the bottom of the table sat Lady Staveley, who still chose to\r\npreside among her own tea cups as a lady should do; and close to her,\r\nassisting in the toils of that presidency, sat her daughter Madeline. Nearest to them were gathered the children, and the rest had formed\r\nthemselves into little parties, each of which already well knew its\r\nown place at the board. In how very short a time will come upon one\r\nthat pleasant custom of sitting in an accustomed place! But here, at\r\nthese Noningsby breakfasts, among other customs already established,\r\nthere was one by which Augustus Staveley was always privileged to\r\nsit by the side of Sophia Furnival. No doubt his original object was\r\nstill unchanged. A match between that lady and his friend Graham was\r\nstill desirable, and by perseverance he might pique Felix Graham to\r\narouse himself. But hitherto Felix Graham had not aroused himself in\r\nthat direction, and one or two people among the party were inclined\r\nto mistake young Staveley's intentions. \"Gus,\" his sister had said to him the night before, \"I declare I\r\nthink you are going to make love to Sophia Furnival.\" \"Do you?\" he had replied."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"As a rule I do not think there is any one\r\nin the world for whose discernment I have so much respect as I have\r\nfor yours. But in this respect even you are wrong.\" \"Ah, of course you say so.\" \"If you won't believe me, ask her. What more can I say?\" \"I certainly sha'n't ask her, for I don't know her well enough.\" \"She's a very clever girl; let me tell you that, whoever falls in\r\nlove with her.\" \"I'm sure she is, and she is handsome too, very; but for all that she\r\nis not good enough for our Gus.\" \"Of course she is not, and therefore I am not thinking of her. And\r\nnow go to bed and dream that you have got the Queen of the Fortunate\r\nIslands for your sister-in-law.\" But although Staveley was himself perfectly indifferent to all the\r\ncharms of Miss Furnival, nevertheless he could hardly restrain his\r\ndislike to Lucius Mason, who, as he thought, was disposed to admire\r\nthe lady in question. In talking of Lucius to his own family and to\r\nhis special friend Graham, he had called him conceited, pedantic,\r\nuncouth, unenglish, and detestable. His own family, that is, his\r\nmother and sister, rarely contradicted him in anything; but Graham\r\nwas by no means so cautious, and usually contradicted him in\r\neverything."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Indeed, there was no sign of sterling worth so plainly\r\nmarked in Staveley's character as the full conviction which he\r\nentertained of the superiority of his friend Felix. \"You are quite wrong about him,\" Felix had said. \"He has not been at\r\nan English school, or English university, and therefore is not like\r\nother young men that you know; but he is, I think, well educated\r\nand clever. As for conceit, what man will do any good who is not\r\nconceited? Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who has a low opinion\r\nof himself.\" \"All the same, my dear fellow, I do not like Lucius Mason.\" \"And some one else, if you remember, did not like Dr. Fell.\" \"And now, good people, what are you all going to do about church?\" said Staveley, while they were still engaged with their rolls and\r\neggs. \"I shall walk,\" said the judge. \"And I shall go in the carriage,\" said the judge's wife. \"That disposes of two; and now it will take half an hour to settle\r\nfor the rest. Miss. Furnival, you no doubt will accompany my mother. As I shall be among the walkers you will see how much I sacrifice by\r\nthe suggestion.\" It was a mile to the church, and Miss Furnival knew the advantage\r\nof appearing in her seat unfatigued and without subjection to wind,\r\nmud, or rain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I must confess,\" she said, \"that under all the\r\ncircumstances, I shall prefer your mother's company to yours;\"\r\nwhereupon Staveley, in the completion of his arrangements, assigned\r\nthe other places in the carriage to the married ladies of the\r\ncompany. \"But I have taken your sister Madeline's seat in the carriage,\"\r\nprotested Sophia with great dismay. \"My sister Madeline generally walks.\" \"Then of course I shall walk with her;\" but when the time came Miss\r\nFurnival did go in the carriage whereas Miss Staveley went on foot. It so fell out, as they started, that Graham found himself walking at\r\nMiss Staveley's side, to the great disgust, no doubt, of half a dozen\r\nother aspirants for that honour. \"I cannot help thinking,\" he said,\r\nas they stepped briskly over the crisp white frost, \"that this\r\nChristmas-day of ours is a great mistake.\" \"Oh, Mr. Graham!\" she exclaimed\r\n\r\n\"You need not regard me with horror,--at least not with any special\r\nhorror on this occasion.\" \"But what you say is very horrid.\" \"That, I flatter myself, seems so only because I have not yet said\r\nit. That part of our Christmas-day which is made to be in any degree\r\nsacred is by no means a mistake.\" \"I am glad you think that.\" \"Or rather, it is not a mistake in as far as it is in any degree made\r\nsacred. But the peculiar conviviality of the day is so ponderous!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Its\r\nroast-beefiness oppresses one so thoroughly from the first moment\r\nof one's waking, to the last ineffectual effort at a bit of fried\r\npudding for supper!\" \"But you need not eat fried pudding for supper. Indeed, here, I am\r\nafraid, you will not have any supper offered you at all.\" \"No; not to me individually, under that name. I might also manage\r\nto guard my own self under any such offers. But there is always the\r\nflavour of the sweetmeat, in the air,--of all the sweetmeats edible\r\nand non-edible.\" \"You begrudge the children their snap-dragon. That's what it all\r\nmeans, Mr. Graham.\" \"No; I deny it; unpremeditated snap-dragon is dear to my soul; and I\r\ncould expend myself in blindman's buff.\" \"You shall then, after dinner; for of course you know that we all\r\ndine early.\" \"But blindman's buff at three, with snap-dragon at a quarter to\r\nfour--charades at five, with wine and sweet cake at half-past six,\r\nis ponderous. And that's our mistake. The big turkey would be very\r\ngood;--capital fun to see a turkey twice as big as it ought to\r\nbe! But the big turkey, and the mountain of beef, and the pudding\r\nweighing a hundredweight, oppress one's spirits by their combined\r\ngravity. And then they impart a memory of indigestion, a halo as it\r\nwere of apoplexy, even to the church services.\" \"I do not agree with you the least in the world.\" \"I ask you to answer me fairly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Is not additional eating an ordinary\r\nEnglishman's ordinary idea of Christmas-day?\" \"I am only an ordinary Englishwoman and therefore cannot say. It is\r\nnot my idea.\" \"I believe that the ceremony, as kept by us, is perpetuated by the\r\nbutchers and beersellers, with a helping hand from the grocers. It is\r\nessentially a material festival; and I would not object to it even on\r\nthat account if it were not so grievously overdone. How the sun is\r\nmoistening the frost on the ground. As we come back the road will be\r\nquite wet.\" \"We shall be going home then and it will not signify. Remember, Mr.\r\nGraham, I shall expect you to come forward in great strength for\r\nblindman's buff.\" As he gave her the required promise, he thought\r\nthat even the sports of Christmas-day would be bearable, if she also\r\nwere to make one of the sportsmen; and then they entered the church. [Illustration: Christmas at Noningsby--Morning.] I do not know of anything more pleasant to the eye than a pretty\r\ncountry church, decorated for Christmas-day. The effect in a city is\r\naltogether different. I will not say that churches there should not\r\nbe decorated, but comparatively it is a matter of indifference. No\r\none knows who does it. The peculiar munificence of the squire who\r\nhas sacrificed his holly bushes is not appreciated. The work of the\r\nfingers that have been employed is not recognised."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The efforts made\r\nfor hanging the pendent wreaths to each capital have been of no\r\nspecial interest to any large number of the worshippers. It has\r\nbeen done by contract, probably, and even if well done has none of\r\nthe grace of association. But here at Noningsby church, the winter\r\nflowers had been cut by Madeline and the gardener, and the red\r\nberries had been grouped by her own hands. She and the vicar's wife\r\nhad stood together with perilous audacity on the top of the clerk's\r\ndesk while they fixed the branches beneath the cushion of the\r\nold-fashioned turret, from which the sermons were preached. And\r\nall this had of course been talked about at the house; and some of\r\nthe party had gone over to see, including Sophia Furnival, who had\r\ndeclared that nothing could be so delightful, though she had omitted\r\nto endanger her fingers by any participation in the work. And the\r\nchildren had regarded the operation as a triumph of all that was\r\nwonderful in decoration; and thus many of them had been made happy. On their return from church, Miss Furnival insisted on walking,\r\nin order, as she said, that Miss Staveley might not have all the\r\nfatigue; but Miss Staveley would walk also, and the carriage, after\r\na certain amount of expostulation and delay, went off with its load\r\nincomplete. \"And now for the plum-pudding part of the arrangement,\" said Felix\r\nGraham."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Yes, Mr. Graham,\" said Madeline, \"now for the plum-pudding--and the\r\nblindman's buff.\" \"Did you ever see anything more perfect than the church, Mr. Mason?\" said Sophia. \"Anything more perfect? no; in that sort of way, perhaps, never. I\r\nhave seen the choir of Cologne.\" \"Come, come; that's not fair,\" said Graham. \"Don't import Cologne in\r\norder to crush us here down in our little English villages. You never\r\nsaw the choir of Cologne bright with holly berries.\" \"No; but I have with cardinal's stockings, and bishop's robes.\" \"I think I should prefer the holly,\" said Miss Furnival. \"And why\r\nshould not our churches always look like that, only changing the\r\nflowers and the foliage with the season? It would make the service so\r\nattractive.\" \"It would hardly do at Lent,\" said Madeline, in a serious tone. \"No, perhaps not at Lent exactly.\" Peregrine and Augustus Staveley were walking on in front, not perhaps\r\nas well satisfied with the day as the rest of the party. Augustus, on\r\nleaving the church, had made a little effort to assume his place as\r\nusual by Miss Furnival's side, but by some accident of war, Mason\r\nwas there before him. He had not cared to make one of a party of\r\nthree, and therefore had gone on in advance with young Orme. Nor was\r\nPeregrine himself much more happy. He did not know why, but he felt\r\nwithin his breast a growing aversion to Felix Graham."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Graham was a\r\npuppy, he thought, and a fellow that talked too much; and then he\r\nwas such a confoundedly ugly dog, and--and--and--Peregrine Orme did\r\nnot like him. He was not a man to analyze his own feelings in such\r\nmatters. He did not ask himself why he should have been rejoiced to\r\nhear that instant business had taken Felix Graham off to Hong Kong;\r\nbut he knew that he would have rejoiced. He knew also that Madeline\r\nStaveley was--. No; he did not know what she was; but when he was\r\nalone, he carried on with her all manner of imaginary conversations,\r\nthough when he was in her company he had hardly a word to say to her. Under these circumstances he fraternized with her brother; but even\r\nin that he could not receive much satisfaction, seeing that he could\r\nnot abuse Graham to Graham's special friend, nor could he breathe a\r\nsigh as to Madeline's perfections into the ear of Madeline's brother. The children,--and there were three or four assembled there besides\r\nthose belonging to Mrs. Arbuthnot, were by no means inclined to agree\r\nwith Mr. Graham's strictures as to the amusements of Christmas-day. To them it appeared that they could not hurry fast enough into the\r\nvortex of its dissipations."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The dinner was a serious consideration,\r\nespecially with reference to certain illuminated mince-pies which\r\nwere the crowning glory of that banquet; but time for these was\r\nalmost begrudged in order that the fast handkerchief might be tied\r\nover the eyes of the first blindman. \"And now we'll go into the schoolroom,\" said Marian Arbuthnot,\r\njumping up and leading the way. \"Come along, Mr. Felix,\" and Felix\r\nGraham followed her. Madeline had declared that Felix Graham should be blinded first, and\r\nsuch was his doom. \"Now mind you catch me, Mr. Felix; pray do,\" said\r\nMarian, when she had got him seated in a corner of the room. She was\r\na beautiful fair little thing, with long, soft curls, and lips red as\r\na rose, and large, bright blue eyes, all soft and happy and laughing,\r\nloving the friends of her childhood with passionate love, and fully\r\nexpecting an equal devotion from them. It is of such children that\r\nour wives and sweethearts should be made. \"But how am I to find you when my eyes are blinded?\" \"Oh, you can feel, you know. You can put your hand on the top of my\r\nhead. I mustn't speak, you know; but I'm sure I shall laugh; and\r\nthen you must guess that it's Marian.\" That was her idea of playing\r\nblindman's buff according to the strict rigour of the game. \"And you'll give me a big kiss?\" said Felix. \"Yes, when we've done playing,\" she promised with great seriousness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then a huge white silk handkerchief, as big as a small sail, was\r\nbrought down from grandpapa's dressing-room, so that nobody should\r\nsee the least bit \"in the world,\" as Marian had observed with great\r\nenergy; and the work of blinding was commenced. \"I ain't big enough\r\nto reach round,\" said Marian, who had made an effort, but in vain. \"You do it, aunt Mad,\" and she tendered the handkerchief to Miss\r\nStaveley, who, however, did not appear very eager to undertake the\r\ntask. \"I'll be the executioner,\" said grandmamma, \"the more especially as\r\nI shall not take any other share in the ceremony. This shall be the\r\nchair of doom. Come here, Mr. Graham, and submit yourself to me.\" And\r\nso the first victim was blinded. \"Mind you remember,\" said Marian,\r\nwhispering into his ear as he was led away. \"Green spirits and white;\r\nblue spirits and gray--,\" and then he was twirled round in the room\r\nand left to commence his search as best he might. Marian Arbuthnot was not the only soft little laughing darling that\r\nwished to be caught, and blinded, so that there was great pulling\r\nat the blindman's tails, and much grasping at his outstretched arms\r\nbefore the desired object was attained. And he wandered round the\r\nroom skilfully, as though a thought were in his mind false to his\r\ntreaty with Marian,--as though he imagined for a moment that some\r\nother prize might be caught."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But if so, the other prize evaded him\r\ncarefully, and in due progress of play, Marian's soft curls were\r\nwithin his grasp. \"I'm sure I didn't speak, or say a word,\" said she,\r\nas she ran up to her grandmother to have the handkerchief put over\r\nher eyes. \"Did I, grandmamma?\" \"There are more ways of speaking than one,\" said Lady Staveley. \"You\r\nand Mr. Graham understand each other, I think.\" \"Oh, I was caught quite fairly,\" said Marian--\"and now lead me round\r\nand round.\" To her at any rate the festivities of Christmas-day were\r\nnot too ponderous for real enjoyment. And then, at last, somebody caught the judge. I rather think it\r\nwas Madeline; but his time in truth was come, and he had no chance\r\nof escape. The whole room was set upon his capture, and though he\r\nbarricaded himself with chairs and children, he was duly apprehended\r\nand named. \"That's papa; I know by his watch-chain, for I made it.\" \"Nonsense, my dears,\" said the judge. \"I will do no such thing. I\r\nshould never catch anybody, and should remain blind for ever.\" \"But grandpapa must,\" said Marian. \"It's the game that he should be\r\nblinded when he's caught.\" \"Suppose the game was that we should be whipped when we are caught,\r\nand I was to catch you,\" said Augustus. \"But I would not play that game,\" said Marian. \"Oh, papa, you must,\" said Madeline. \"Do--and you shall catch Mr. Furnival.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"That would be a temptation,\" said the judge. \"I've never been able\r\nto do that yet, though I've been trying it for some years.\" \"Justice is blind,\" said Graham. \"Why should a judge be ashamed to\r\nfollow the example of his own goddess?\" And so at last the owner of\r\nthe ermine submitted, and the stern magistrate of the bench was led\r\nround with the due incantation of the spirits, and dismissed into\r\nchaos to seek for a new victim. [Illustration: Christmas at Noningsby--Evening.] One of the rules of blindman's buff at Noningsby was this, that\r\nit should not be played by candlelight,--a rule that is in every\r\nway judicious, as thereby an end is secured for that which might\r\notherwise be unending. And therefore when it became so dark in the\r\nschoolroom that there was not much difference between the blind man\r\nand the others, the handkerchief was smuggled away, and the game was\r\nat an end. \"And now for snap-dragon,\" said Marian. \"Exactly as you predicted, Mr. Graham,\" said Madeline: \"blindman's\r\nbuff at a quarter past three, and snap-dragon at five.\" \"I revoke every word that I uttered, for I was never more amused in\r\nmy life.\" \"And you will be prepared to endure the wine and sweet cake when they\r\ncome.\" \"Prepared to endure anything, and go through everything. We shall be\r\nallowed candles now, I suppose.\" \"Oh, no, by no means. Snap-dragon by candlelight! who ever heard\r\nof such a thing?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "It would wash all the dragon out of it, and leave\r\nnothing but the snap. It is a necessity of the game that it should be\r\nplayed in the dark,--or rather by its own lurid light.\" \"Oh, there is a lurid light; is there?\" \"You shall see;\" and then she turned away to make her preparations. To the game of snap-dragon, as played at Noningsby, a ghost was\r\nalways necessary, and aunt Madeline had played the ghost ever since\r\nshe had been an aunt, and there had been any necessity for such a\r\npart. But in previous years the spectators had been fewer in number\r\nand more closely connected with the family. \"I think we must drop the\r\nghost on this occasion,\" she said, coming up to her brother. \"You'll disgust them all dreadfully if you do,\" said he. \"The young\r\nSebrights have come specially to see the ghost.\" \"Well, you can do ghost for them.\" \"I! no; I can't act a ghost. Miss Furnival, you'd make a lovely\r\nghost.\" \"I shall be most happy to be useful,\" said Sophia. \"Oh, aunt Mad, you must be ghost,\" said Marian, following her. \"You foolish little thing, you; we are going to have a beautiful\r\nghost--a divine ghost,\" said uncle Gus. \"But we want Madeline to be the ghost,\" said a big Miss Sebright, ten\r\nor eleven years old. \"She's always ghost,\" said Marian. \"To be sure; it will be much better,\" said Miss Furnival."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I only\r\noffered my poor services hoping to be useful. No Banquo that ever\r\nlived could leave a worse ghost behind him than I should prove.\" It ended in there being two ghosts. It had become quite impossible\r\nto rob Miss Furnival of her promised part, and Madeline could not\r\nrefuse to solve the difficulty in this way without making more of the\r\nmatter than it deserved. The idea of two ghosts was delightful to\r\nthe children, more especially as it entailed two large dishes full\r\nof raisins, and two blue fires blazing up from burnt brandy. So the\r\ngirls went out, not without proffered assistance from the gentlemen,\r\nand after a painfully long interval of some fifteen or twenty\r\nminutes,--for Miss Furnival's back hair would not come down and\r\nadjust itself into ghostlike lengths with as much readiness as that\r\nof her friend,--they returned bearing the dishes before them on large\r\ntrays. In each of them the spirit was lighted as they entered the\r\nschoolroom door, and thus, as they walked in, they were illuminated\r\nby the dark-blue flames which they carried. \"Oh, is it not grand?\" said Marian, appealing to Felix Graham. \"Uncommonly grand,\" he replied. \"And which ghost do you think is the grandest? I'll tell you which\r\nghost I like the best,--in a secret, you know; I like aunt Mad the\r\nbest, and I think she's the grandest too.\" \"And I'll tell you in a secret that I think the same."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To my mind she\r\nis the grandest ghost I ever saw in my life.\" \"Is she indeed?\" asked Marian, solemnly, thinking probably that her\r\nnew friend's experience in ghosts must be extensive. However that\r\nmight be, he thought that as far as his experience in women went, he\r\nhad never seen anything more lovely than Madeline Staveley dressed in\r\na long white sheet, with a long bit of white cambric pinned round her\r\nface. And it may be presumed that the dress altogether is not unbecoming\r\nwhen accompanied by blue flames, for Augustus Staveley and Lucius\r\nMason thought the same thing of Miss Furnival, whereas Peregrine Orme\r\ndid not know whether he was standing on his head or his feet as he\r\nlooked at Miss Staveley. Miss Furnival may possibly have had some\r\ninkling of this when she offered to undertake the task, but I protest\r\nthat such was not the case with Madeline. There was no second thought\r\nin her mind when she first declined the ghosting, and afterwards\r\nundertook the part. No wish to look beautiful in the eyes of Felix\r\nGraham had come to her--at any rate as yet; and as to Peregrine Orme,\r\nshe had hardly thought of his existence. \"By heavens!\" said Peregrine\r\nto himself, \"she is the most beautiful creature that I ever saw;\" and\r\nthen he began to speculate within his own mind how the idea might be\r\nreceived at The Cleeve. But there was no such realised idea with Felix Graham."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He saw that\r\nMadeline Staveley was very beautiful, and he felt in an unconscious\r\nmanner that her character was very sweet. He may have thought that he\r\nmight have loved such a girl, had such love been a thing permitted to\r\nhim. But this was far from being the case. Felix Graham's lot in this\r\nlife, as regarded that share which his heart might have in it, was\r\nalready marked out for him;--marked out for himself and by himself. The future wife of his bosom had already been selected, and was now\r\nin course of preparation for the duties of her future life. He was\r\none of those few wise men who have determined not to take a partner\r\nin life at hazard, but to mould a young mind and character to those\r\npursuits and modes of thought which may best fit a woman for the\r\nduties she will have to perform. What little it may be necessary to\r\nknow of the earlier years of Mary Snow shall be told hereafter. Here\r\nit will be only necessary to say that she was an orphan, that as yet\r\nshe was little more than a child, and that she owed her maintenance\r\nand the advantage of her education to the charity and love of her\r\ndestined husband."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Therefore, as I have said, it was manifest that\r\nFelix Graham could not think of falling in love with Miss Staveley,\r\neven had not his very low position, in reference to worldly affairs,\r\nmade any such passion on his part quite hopeless. But with Peregrine\r\nOrme the matter was different. There could be no possible reason why\r\nPeregrine Orme should not win and wear the beautiful girl whom he so\r\nmuch admired. But the ghosts are kept standing over their flames, the spirit is\r\nbecoming exhausted, and the raisins will be burnt. At snap-dragon,\r\ntoo, the ghosts here had something to do. The law of the game is\r\nthis--a law on which Marian would have insisted had not the flames\r\nbeen so very hot--that the raisins shall become the prey of those\r\naudacious marauders only who dare to face the presence of the ghost,\r\nand to plunge their hands into the burning dish. As a rule the boys\r\ndo this, clawing out the raisins, while the girls pick them up and\r\neat them. But here at Noningsby the boys were too little to act thus\r\nas pioneers in the face of the enemy, and the raisins might have\r\nremained till the flames were burnt out, had not the beneficent ghost\r\nscattered abroad the richness of her own treasures. \"Now, Marian,\" said Felix Graham, bringing her up in his arms. \"But it will burn, Mr. Felix. Look there; see; there are a great many\r\nat that end. You do it.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I must have another kiss then.\" \"Very well, yes; if you get five.\" And then Felix dashed his hand in\r\namong the flames and brought forth a fistful of fruit, which imparted\r\nto his fingers and wristband a smell of brandy for the rest of the\r\nevening. \"If you take so many at a time I shall rap your knuckles with the\r\nspoon,\" said the ghost, as she stirred up the flames to keep them\r\nalive. \"But the ghost shouldn't speak,\" said Marian, who was evidently\r\nunacquainted with the best ghosts of tragedy. \"But the ghost must speak when such large hands invade the caldron;\"\r\nand then another raid was effected, and the threatened blow was\r\ngiven. Had any one told her in the morning that she would that day\r\nhave rapped Mr. Graham's knuckles with a kitchen spoon, she would not\r\nhave believed that person; but it is thus that hearts are lost and\r\nwon. And Peregrine Orme looked on from a distance, thinking of it all. That he should have been stricken dumb by the beauty of any girl was\r\nsurprising even to himself; for though young and almost boyish in his\r\nmanners, he had never yet feared to speak out in any presence. The\r\ntutor at his college had thought him insolent beyond parallel; and\r\nhis grandfather, though he loved him for his open face and plain\r\noutspoken words, found them sometimes almost too much for him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But\r\nnow he stood there looking and longing, and could not summon courage\r\nto go up and address a few words to this young girl even in the midst\r\nof their sports. Twice or thrice during the last few days he had\r\nessayed to speak to her, but his words had been dull and vapid, and\r\nto himself they had appeared childish. He was quite conscious of his\r\nown weakness. More than once, during that period of the snap-dragon,\r\ndid he say to himself that he would descend into the lists and break\r\na lance in that tourney; but still he did not descend, and his lance\r\nremained inglorious in its rest. At the other end of the long table the ghost also had two attendant\r\nknights, and neither of them refrained from the battle. Augustus\r\nStaveley, if he thought it worth his while to keep the lists at\r\nall, would not be allowed to ride through them unopposed from any\r\nbackwardness on the part of his rival. Lucius Mason was not likely\r\nto become a timid, silent, longing lover. To him it was not possible\r\nthat he should fear the girl whom he loved. He could not worship that\r\nwhich he wished to obtain for himself. It may be doubted whether he\r\nhad much faculty of worshipping anything in the truest meaning of\r\nthat word."}
{"question": "", "answer": "One worships that which one feels, through the inner and\r\nunexpressed conviction of the mind, to be greater, better, higher\r\nthan oneself; but it was not probable that Lucius Mason should so\r\nthink of any woman that he might meet. Nor, to give him his due, was it probable that he should be in any\r\nway afraid of any man that he might encounter. He would fear neither\r\nthe talent, nor the rank, nor the money influence, nor the dexterity\r\nof any such rival. In any attempt that he might make on a woman's\r\nheart he would regard his own chance as good against that of any\r\nother possible he. Augustus Staveley was master here at Noningsby,\r\nand was a clever, dashing, handsome, fashionable young fellow; but\r\nLucius Mason never dreamed of retreating before such forces as those. He had words with which to speak as fair as those of any man, and\r\nflattered himself that he as well knew how to use them. It was pretty to see with what admirable tact and judicious\r\nmanagement of her smiles Sophia received the homage of the two young\r\nmen, answering the compliments of both with ease, and so conducting\r\nherself that neither could fairly accuse her of undue favour to the\r\nother. But unfairly, in his own mind, Augustus did so accuse her. And why should he have been so venomous, seeing that he entertained\r\nno regard for the lady himself?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "His object was still plain\r\nenough,--that, namely, of making a match between his needy friend and\r\nthe heiress. His needy friend in the mean time played on through the long evening\r\nin thoughtless happiness; and Peregrine Orme, looking at the game\r\nfrom a distance, saw that rap given to the favoured knuckles with a\r\nbitterness of heart and an inner groaning of the spirit that will not\r\nbe incomprehensible to many. \"I do so love that Mr. Felix!\" said Marian, as her aunt Madeline\r\nkissed her in her little bed on wishing her good night. \"Don't you,\r\naunt Mad--?\" And so it was that Christmas-day was passed at Noningsby. CHAPTER XXIII. CHRISTMAS AT GROBY PARK. Christmas-day was always a time of very great trial to Mrs. Mason of\r\nGroby Park. It behoved her, as the wife of an old English country\r\ngentleman, to spread her board plenteously at that season, and in\r\nsome sort to make an open house of it. But she could not bring\r\nherself to spread any board with plenty, and the idea of an open\r\nhouse would almost break her heart. Unlimited eating! There was\r\nsomething in the very sounds of such words which was appalling to the\r\ninner woman. And on this Christmas-day she was doomed to go through an ordeal of\r\nvery peculiar severity."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It so happened that the cure of souls in the\r\nparish of Groby had been intrusted for the last two or three years to\r\na young, energetic, but not very opulent curate. Why the rector of\r\nGroby should be altogether absent, leaving the work in the hands\r\nof a curate, whom he paid by the lease of a cottage and garden and\r\nfifty-five pounds a year,--thereby behaving as he imagined with\r\nextensive liberality,--it is unnecessary here to inquire. Such was\r\nthe case, and the Rev. Adolphus Green, with Mrs. A. Green and the\r\nfour children, managed to live with some difficulty on the produce\r\nof the garden and the allotted stipend; but could not probably have\r\nlived at all in that position had not Mrs. Adolphus Green been\r\nblessed with some small fortune. It had so happened that Mrs. Adolphus Green had been instrumental in\r\nimparting some knowledge of singing to two of the Miss Masons, and\r\nhad continued her instructions over the last three years. This had\r\nnot been done in any preconcerted way, but the lessons had grown by\r\nchance. Mrs. Mason the while had looked on with a satisfied eye at an\r\narrangement that was so much to her taste. \"There are no regular lessons you know,\" she had said to her husband,\r\nwhen he suggested that some reward for so much work would be\r\nexpedient."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Mrs. Green finds it convenient to have the use of my\r\ndrawing-room, and would never see an instrument from year's end to\r\nyear's end if she were not allowed to come up here. Depend upon it\r\nshe gets a great deal more than she gives.\" But after two years of tuition Mr. Mason had spoken a second time. \"My dear,\" he said, \"I cannot allow the girls to accept so great a\r\nfavour from Mrs. Green without making her some compensation.\" \"I don't see that it is at all necessary,\" Mrs. Mason had\r\nanswered; \"but if you think so, we could send her down a hamper of\r\napples,--that is, a basketful.\" Now it happened that apples were very\r\nplentiful that year, and that the curate and his wife were blessed\r\nwith as many as they could judiciously consume. \"Apples! nonsense!\" said Mr. Mason. \"If you mean money, my dear, I couldn't do it. I wouldn't so offend a\r\nlady for all the world.\" \"You could buy them something handsome, in the way of furniture. That\r\nlittle room of theirs that they call the drawing-room has nothing in\r\nit at all. Get Jones from Leeds to send them some things that will\r\ndo for them.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And hence, after many inner misgivings, had arisen\r\nthat purchase of a drawing-room set from Mr. Kantwise,--that set of\r\nmetallic \"Louey Catorse furniture,\" containing three tables, eight\r\nchairs, &c., &c., as to which it may be remembered that Mrs. Mason\r\nmade such an undoubted bargain, getting them for less than cost\r\nprice. That they had been \"strained,\" as Mr. Kantwise himself\r\nadmitted in discoursing on the subject to Mr. Dockwrath, was not\r\nmatter of much moment. They would do extremely well for a curate's\r\nwife. And now on this Christmas-day the present was to be made over to the\r\nhappy lady. Mr. and Mrs. Green were to dine at Groby Park,--leaving\r\ntheir more fortunate children to the fuller festivities of the\r\ncottage; and the intention was that before dinner the whole\r\ndrawing-room set should be made over. It was with grievous pangs of\r\nheart that Mrs. Mason looked forward to such an operation. Her own\r\nhouse was plenteously furnished from the kitchens to the attics,\r\nbut still she would have loved to keep that metallic set of painted\r\ntrumpery. She knew that the table would not screw on; she knew that\r\nthe pivot of the music stool was bent; she knew that there was no\r\nplace in the house in which they could stand; she must have known\r\nthat in no possible way could they be of use to her or hers,--and\r\nyet she could not part with them without an agony."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her husband was\r\ninfatuated in this matter of compensation for the use of Mrs. Green's\r\nidle hours; no compensation could be necessary;--and then she paid\r\nanother visit to the metallic furniture. She knew in her heart of\r\nhearts that they could never be of use to anybody, and yet she made\r\nup her mind to keep back two out of the eight chairs. Six chairs\r\nwould be quite enough for Mrs. Green's small room. As there was to be feasting at five, real roast beef, plum-pudding\r\nand mince-pies;--\"Mince-pies and plum-pudding together are vulgar,\r\nmy dear,\" Mrs. Mason had said to her husband; but in spite of the\r\nvulgarity he had insisted;--the breakfast was of course scanty. Mr.\r\nMason liked a slice of cold meat in the morning, or the leg of a\r\nfowl, or a couple of fresh eggs as well as any man; but the matter\r\nwas not worth a continual fight. \"As we are to dine an hour earlier\r\nto-day I did not think you would eat meat,\" his wife said to him. \"Then there would be less expense in putting it on the table,\" he\r\nhad answered; and after that there was nothing more said about it. He always put off till some future day that great contest which he\r\nintended to wage and to win, and by which he hoped to bring it about\r\nthat plenty should henceforward be the law of the land at Groby Park. And then they all went to church."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Mason would not on any account\r\nhave missed church on Christmas-day or a Sunday. It was a cheap duty,\r\nand therefore rigidly performed. As she walked from her carriage up\r\nto the church-door she encountered Mrs. Green, and smiled sweetly as\r\nshe wished that lady all the compliments of the season. \"We shall see you immediately after church,\" said Mrs. Mason. \"Oh yes, certainly,\" said Mrs. Green. \"And Mr. Green with you?\" \"He intends to do himself the pleasure,\" said the curate's wife. \"Mind he comes, because we have a little ceremony to go through\r\nbefore we sit down to dinner,\" and Mrs. Mason smiled again ever\r\nso graciously. Did she think, or did she not think, that she was\r\ngoing to do a kindness to her neighbour? Most women would have sunk\r\ninto their shoes as the hour grew nigh at which they were to show\r\nthemselves guilty of so much meanness. She stayed for the sacrament, and it may here be remarked that on\r\nthat afternoon she rated both the footman and housemaid because they\r\nomitted to do so. She thought, we must presume, that she was doing\r\nher duty, and must imagine her to have been ignorant that she was\r\ncheating her husband and cheating her friend. She took the sacrament\r\nwith admirable propriety of demeanour, and then, on her return home,\r\nwithdrew another chair from the set."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There would still be six,\r\nincluding the rocking chair, and six would be quite enough for that\r\nlittle hole of a room. There was a large chamber up stairs at Groby Park which had been used\r\nfor the children's lessons, but which now was generally deserted. There was in it an old worn-out pianoforte,--and though Mrs. Mason\r\nhad talked somewhat grandly of the use of her drawing-room, it was\r\nhere that the singing had been taught. Into this room the metallic\r\nfurniture had been brought, and up to that Christmas morning it had\r\nremained here packed in its original boxes. Hither immediately after\r\nbreakfast Mrs. Mason had taken herself, and had spent an hour in her\r\nefforts to set the things forth to view. Two of the chairs she then\r\nput aside into a cupboard, and a third she added to her private store\r\non her return to her work after church. But, alas, alas! let her do what she would, she could not get the top\r\non to the table. \"It's all smashed, ma'am,\" said the girl whom she\r\nat last summoned to her aid. \"Nonsense, you simpleton; how can it be\r\nsmashed when it's new,\" said the mistress. And then she tried again,\r\nand again, declaring as she did do, that she would have the law of\r\nthe rogue who had sold her a damaged article."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nevertheless she had\r\nknown that it was damaged, and had bought it cheap on that account,\r\ninsisting in very urgent language that the table was in fact worth\r\nnothing because of its injuries. At about four Mr. and Mrs. Green walked up to the house and were\r\nshown into the drawing-room. Here was Mrs. Mason supported by\r\nPenelope and Creusa. As Diana was not musical, and therefore under\r\nno compliment to Mrs. Green, she kept out of the way. Mr. Mason also\r\nwas absent. He knew that something very mean was about to be done,\r\nand would not show his face till it was over. He ought to have taken\r\nthe matter in hand himself, and would have done so had not his mind\r\nbeen full of other things. He himself was a man terribly wronged and\r\nwickedly injured, and could not therefore in these present months\r\ninterfere much in the active doing of kindnesses. His hours were\r\nspent in thinking how he might best obtain justice,--how he might\r\nsecure his pound of flesh. He only wanted his own, but that he\r\nwould have;--his own, with due punishment on those who had for so\r\nmany years robbed him of it. He therefore did not attend at the\r\npresentation of the furniture. \"And now we'll go up stairs, if you please,\" said Mrs. Mason, with\r\nthat gracious smile for which she was so famous. \"Mr. Green, you must\r\ncome too."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dear Mrs. Green has been so very kind to my two girls; and\r\nnow I have got a few articles,--they are of the very newest fashion,\r\nand I do hope that Mrs. Green will like them.\" And so they all went\r\nup into the schoolroom. \"There's a new fashion come up lately,\" said Mrs. Mason as she walked\r\nalong the corridor, \"quite new:--of metallic furniture. I don't know\r\nwhether you have seen any.\" Mrs. Green said she had not seen any as\r\nyet. \"The Patent Steel Furniture Company makes it, and it has got very\r\ngreatly into vogue for small rooms. I thought that perhaps you would\r\nallow me to present you with a set for your drawing-room.\" \"I'm sure it is very kind of you to think of it,\" said Mrs. Green. \"Uncommonly so,\" said Mr. Green. But both Mr. Green and Mrs. Green\r\nknew the lady, and their hopes did not run high. And then the door was opened and there stood the furniture to view. There stood the furniture, except the three subtracted chairs, and\r\nthe loo table. The claw and leg of the table indeed were standing\r\nthere, but the top was folded up and lying on the floor beside it. \"I\r\nhope you'll like the pattern,\" began Mrs. Mason. \"I'm told that it\r\nis the prettiest that has yet been brought out."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There has been some\r\nlittle accident about the screw of the table, but the smith in the\r\nvillage will put that to rights in five minutes. He lives so close to\r\nyou that I didn't think it worth while to have him up here.\" \"It's very nice,\" said Mrs. Green, looking round her almost in\r\ndismay. \"Very nice indeed,\" said Mr. Green, wondering in his mind for\r\nwhat purpose such utter trash could have been manufactured, and\r\nendeavouring to make up his mind as to what they might possibly do\r\nwith it. Mr. Green knew what chairs and tables should be, and was\r\nwell aware that the things before him were absolutely useless for any\r\nof the ordinary purposes of furniture. \"And they are the most convenient things in the world,\" said Mrs.\r\nMason, \"for when you are going to change house you pack them all up\r\nagain in those boxes. Wooden furniture takes up so much room, and is\r\nso lumbersome.\" \"Yes, it is,\" said Mrs. Green. \"I'll have them all put up again and sent down in the cart\r\nto-morrow.\" \"Thank you; that will be very kind,\" said Mr. Green, and then the\r\nceremony of the presentation was over. On the following day the boxes\r\nwere sent down, and Mrs. Mason might have abstracted even another\r\nchair without detection, for the cases lay unheeded from month to\r\nmonth in the curate's still unfurnished room."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"The fact is they\r\ncannot afford a carpet,\" Mrs. Mason afterwards said to one of her\r\ndaughters, \"and with such things as those they are quite right to\r\nkeep them up till they can be used with advantage. I always gave Mrs.\r\nGreen credit for a good deal of prudence.\" And then, when the show was over, they descended again into the\r\ndrawing-room,--Mr. Green and Mrs. Mason went first, and Creusa\r\nfollowed. Penelope was thus so far behind as to be able to speak to\r\nher friend without being heard by the others. \"You know mamma,\" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders and a look\r\nof scorn in her eye. \"The things are very nice.\" \"No, they are not, and you know they are not. They are worthless;\r\nperfectly worthless.\" \"But we don't want anything.\" \"No; and if there had been no pretence of a gift it would all have\r\nbeen very well. What will Mr. Green think?\" \"I rather think he likes iron chairs;\" and then they were in the\r\ndrawing-room. Mr. Mason did not appear till dinner-time, and came in only just in\r\ntime to give his arm to Mrs. Green. He had had letters to write,--a\r\nletter to Messrs. Round and Crook, very determined in its tone; and a\r\nletter also to Mr. Dockwrath, for the little attorney had so crept on\r\nin the affair that he was now corresponding with the principal."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I'll\r\nteach those fellows in Bedford Row to know who I am,\" he had said to\r\nhimself more than once, sitting on his high stool at Hamworth. And then came the Groby Park Christmas dinner. To speak the truth Mr.\r\nMason had himself gone to the neighbouring butcher, and ordered the\r\nsurloin of beef, knowing that it would be useless to trust to orders\r\nconveyed through his wife. He had seen the piece of meat put on\r\none side for him, and had afterwards traced it on to the kitchen\r\ndresser. But nevertheless when it appeared at table it had been\r\nsadly mutilated. A steak had been cut off the full breadth of it--a\r\nmonstrous cantle from out its fair proportions. The lady had seen the\r\njovial, thick, ample size of the goodly joint, and her heart had been\r\nunable to spare it. She had made an effort and turned away, saying to\r\nherself that the responsibility was all with him. But it was of no\r\nuse. There was that within her which could not do it. \"Your master\r\nwill never be able to carve such a mountain of meat as that,\" she had\r\nsaid, turning back to the cook. \"Deed, an' it's he that will, ma'am,\"\r\nsaid the Irish mistress of the spit; for Irish cooks are cheaper than\r\nthose bred and born in England. But nevertheless the thing was done,\r\nand it was by her own fair hands that the envious knife was used."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I\r\ncouldn't do it, ma'am,\" the cook had said; \"I couldn't railly.\" Mr. Mason's face became very black when he saw the raid that had been\r\neffected, and when he looked up across the table his wife's eye was\r\non him. She knew what she had to expect, and she knew also that it\r\nwould not come now. Her eye steadily looked at his, quivering with\r\nfear; for Mr. Mason could be savage enough in his anger. And what had\r\nshe gained? One may as well ask what does the miser gain who hides\r\naway his gold in an old pot, or what does that other madman gain\r\nwho is locked up for long long years because he fancies himself the\r\ngrandmother of the Queen of England? But there was still enough beef on the table for all of them to\r\neat, and as Mrs. Mason was not intrusted with the carving of it,\r\ntheir plates were filled. As far as a sufficiency of beef can make\r\na good dinner Mr. and Mrs. Green did have a good dinner on that\r\nChristmas-day. Beyond that their comfort was limited, for no one was\r\nin a humour for happy conversation. And over and beyond the beef there was a plum-pudding and three\r\nmince-pies. Four mince-pies had originally graced the dish, but\r\nbefore dinner one had been conveyed away to some up stairs receptacle\r\nfor such spoils."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The pudding also was small, nor was it black and\r\nrich, and laden with good things as a Christmas pudding should be\r\nladen. Let us hope that what the guests so lost was made up to them\r\non the following day, by an absence of those ill effects which\r\nsometimes attend upon the consumption of rich viands. \"And now, my dear, we'll have a bit of bread and cheese and a glass\r\nof beer,\" Mr. Green said when he arrived at his own cottage. And so\r\nit was that Christmas-day was passed at Groby Park. CHAPTER XXIV. CHRISTMAS IN GREAT ST. HELENS. We will now look in for a moment at the Christmas doings of our fat\r\nfriend, Mr. Moulder. Mr. Moulder was a married man living in lodgings\r\nover a wine-merchant's vaults in Great St. Helens. He was blessed--or\r\ntroubled, with no children, and prided himself greatly on the\r\nmaterial comfort with which his humble home was surrounded. \"His\r\nwife,\" he often boasted, \"never wanted for plenty of the best of\r\neating; and for linen and silks and such-like, she could show her\r\ndrawers and her wardrobes with many a great lady from Russell Square,\r\nand not be ashamed, neither!\" And then, as for drink,--\"tipple,\" as\r\nMr. Moulder sportively was accustomed to name it among his friends,\r\nhe opined that he was not altogether behind the mark in that respect."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"He had got some brandy--he didn't care what anybody might say about\r\nCognac and eau de vie; but the brandy which he had got from Betts'\r\nprivate establishment seventeen years ago, for richness of flavour\r\nand fullness of strength, would beat any French article that anybody\r\nin the city could show. That at least was his idea. If anybody didn't\r\nlike it, they needn't take it. There was whisky that would make your\r\nhair stand on end.\" So said Mr. Moulder, and I can believe him; for\r\nit has made my hair stand on end merely to see other people drinking\r\nit. And if comforts of apparel, comforts of eating and drinking, and\r\ncomforts of the feather-bed and easy-chair kind can make a woman\r\nhappy, Mrs. Moulder was no doubt a happy woman. She had quite fallen\r\nin to the mode of life laid out for her. She had a little bit of hot\r\nkidney for breakfast at about ten; she dined at three, having seen\r\nherself to the accurate cooking of her roast fowl, or her bit of\r\nsweetbread, and always had her pint of Scotch ale. She turned over\r\nall her clothes almost every day. In the evening she read Reynolds's\r\nMiscellany, had her tea and buttered muffins, took a thimbleful of\r\nbrandy and water at nine, and then went to bed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The work of her\r\nlife consisted in sewing buttons on to Moulder's shirts, and seeing\r\nthat his things were properly got up when he was at home. No doubt\r\nshe would have done better as to the duties of the world, had the\r\nworld's duties come to her. As it was, very few such had come in her\r\ndirection. Her husband was away from home three-fourths of the year,\r\nand she had no children that required attention. As for society, some\r\nfour or five times a year she would drink tea with Mrs. Hubbles at\r\nClapham. Mrs. Hubbles was the wife of the senior partner in the firm,\r\nand on such occasions Mrs. Moulder dressed herself in her best, and\r\nhaving travelled to Clapham in an omnibus, spent the evening in dull\r\npropriety on one corner of Mrs. Hubbles's sofa. When I have added to\r\nthis that Moulder every year took her to Broadstairs for a fortnight,\r\nI think that I have described with sufficient accuracy the course of\r\nMrs. Moulder's life. On the occasion of this present Christmas-day Mr. Moulder entertained\r\na small party."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And he delighted in such occasional entertainments,\r\ntaking extraordinary pains that the eatables should be of the\r\nvery best; and he would maintain an hospitable good humour to the\r\nlast,--unless anything went wrong in the cookery, in which case he\r\ncould make himself extremely unpleasant to Mrs. M. Indeed, proper\r\ncooking for Mr. M. and the proper starching of the bands of his\r\nshirts were almost the only trials that Mrs. Moulder was doomed to\r\nsuffer. \"What the d---- are you for?\" he would say, almost throwing\r\nthe displeasing viands at her head across the table, or tearing the\r\nrough linen from off his throat. \"It ain't much I ask of you in\r\nreturn for your keep;\" and then he would scowl at her with bloodshot\r\neyes till she shook in her shoes. But this did not happen often, as\r\nexperiences had made her careful. But on this present Christmas festival all went swimmingly to the\r\nend. \"Now, bear a hand, old girl,\" was the harshest word he said\r\nto her; and he enjoyed himself like Duncan, shut up in measureless\r\ncontent. He had three guests with him on this auspicious day. There\r\nwas his old friend Snengkeld, who had dined with him on every\r\nChristmas since his marriage; there was his wife's brother, of whom\r\nwe will say a word or two just now;--and there was our old friend,\r\nMr. Kantwise."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Kantwise was not exactly the man whom Moulder would\r\nhave chosen as his guest, for they were opposed to each other in\r\nall their modes of thought and action; but he had come across the\r\ntravelling agent of the Patent Metallic Steel Furniture Company on\r\nthe previous day, and finding that he was to be alone in London on\r\nthis general holiday, he had asked him out of sheer good nature. Moulder could be very good natured, and full of pity when the sorrow\r\nto be pitied arose from some such source as the want of a Christmas\r\ndinner. So Mr. Kantwise had been asked, and precisely at four o'clock\r\nhe made his appearance at Great St. Helens. But now, as to this brother-in-law. He was no other than that John\r\nKenneby whom Miriam Usbech did not marry,--whom Miriam Usbech might,\r\nperhaps, have done well to marry. John Kenneby, after one or two\r\nattempts in other spheres of life, had at last got into the house\r\nof Hubbles and Grease, and had risen to be their book-keeper. He\r\nhad once been tried by them as a traveller, but in that line he had\r\nfailed. He did not possess that rough, ready, self-confident tone\r\nof mind which is almost necessary for a man who is destined to move\r\nabout quickly from one circle of persons to another."}
{"question": "", "answer": "After a six\r\nmonths' trial he had given that up, but during the time, Mr. Moulder,\r\nthe senior traveller of the house, had married his sister. John\r\nKenneby was a good, honest, painstaking fellow, and was believed\r\nby his friends to have put a few pounds together in spite of the\r\ntimidity of his character. When Snengkeld and Kenneby were shown up into the room, they found\r\nnobody there but Kantwise. That Mrs. Moulder should be down stairs\r\nlooking after the roast turkey was no more than natural; but why\r\nshould not Moulder himself be there to receive his guests? He soon\r\nappeared, however, coming up without his coat. \"Well, Snengkeld, how are you, old fellow; many happy returns, and\r\nall that; the same to you, John. I'll tell you what, my lads; it's a\r\nprime 'un. I never saw such a bird in all my days.\" \"What, the turkey?\" said Snengkeld. \"You didn't think it'd be a ostrich, did you?\" \"Ha, ha, ha!\" laughed Snengkeld. \"No, I didn't expect nothing but a\r\nturkey here on Christmas-day.\" \"And nothing but a turkey you'll have, my boys. Can you eat turkey,\r\nKantwise?\" Mr. Kantwise declared that his only passion in the way of eating was\r\nfor a turkey. \"As for John, I'm sure of him. I've seen him at the work before.\" Whereupon John grinned but said nothing. \"I never see such a bird in my life, certainly.\" \"From Norfolk, I suppose,\" said Snengkeld, with a great appearance of\r\ninterest."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, you may swear to that. It weighed twenty-four pounds, for I put\r\nit into the scales myself, and old Gibbetts let me have it for a\r\nguinea. The price marked on it was five-and-twenty, for I saw it. He's had it hanging for a fortnight, and I've been to see it wiped\r\ndown with vinegar regular every morning. And now, my boys, it's done\r\nto a turn. I've been in the kitchen most of the time myself; and\r\neither I or Mrs. M. has never left it for a single moment.\" \"How did you manage about divine service?\" said Kantwise; and then,\r\nwhen he had spoken, closed his eyes and sucked his lips. Mr. Moulder looked at him for a minute, and then said, \"Gammon.\" \"Ha, ha, ha!\" laughed Snengkeld. And then Mrs. Moulder appeared,\r\nbringing the turkey with her; for she would trust it to no hands less\r\ncareful than her own. \"By George, it is a bird,\" said Snengkeld, standing over it and\r\neyeing it minutely. \"Uncommon nice it looks,\" said Kantwise. \"All the same, I wouldn't eat none, if I were you,\" said Moulder,\r\n\"seeing what sinners have been a basting it.\" And then they all sat\r\ndown to dinner, Moulder having first resumed his coat. For the next three or four minutes Moulder did not speak a word. The\r\nturkey was on his mind, with the stuffing, the gravy, the liver, the\r\nbreast, the wings, and the legs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He stood up to carve it, and while\r\nhe was at the work he looked at it as though his two eyes were hardly\r\nsufficient. He did not help first one person and then another, so\r\nending by himself; but he cut up artistically as much as might\r\nprobably be consumed, and located the fragments in small heaps or\r\nshares in the hot gravy; and then, having made a partition of the\r\nspoils, he served it out with unerring impartiality. To have robbed\r\nany one of his or her fair slice of the breast would, in his mind,\r\nhave been gross dishonesty. In his heart he did not love Kantwise,\r\nbut he dealt by him with the utmost justice in the great affair of\r\nthe turkey's breast. When he had done all this, and his own plate was\r\nladen, he gave a long sigh. \"I shall never cut up such another bird\r\nas that, the longest day that I have to live,\" he said; and then he\r\ntook out his large red silk handkerchief and wiped the perspiration\r\nfrom his brow. \"Deary me, M.; don't think of that now,\" said the wife. \"What's the use?\" said Snengkeld. \"Care killed a cat.\" \"And perhaps you may,\" said John Kenneby, trying to comfort him; \"who\r\nknows?\" \"It's all in the hands of Providence,\" said Kantwise, \"and we should\r\nlook to him.\" \"And how does it taste?\" asked Moulder, shaking the gloomy thoughts\r\nfrom his mind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Uncommon,\" said Snengkeld, with his mouth quite full. \"I never eat\r\nsuch a turkey in all my life.\" \"Like melted diamonds,\" said Mrs. Moulder, who was not without a\r\ntouch of poetry. \"Ah, there's nothing like hanging of 'em long enough, and watching of\r\n'em well. It's that vinegar as done it;\" and then they went seriously\r\nto work, and there was nothing more said of any importance until the\r\neating was nearly over. And now Mrs. M. had taken away the cloth, and they were sitting\r\ncozily over their port wine. The very apple of the eye of the evening\r\nhad not arrived even yet. That would not come till the pipes were\r\nbrought out, and the brandy was put on the table, and the whisky was\r\nthere that made the people's hair stand on end. It was then that the\r\nfloodgates of convivial eloquence would be unloosed. In the mean time\r\nit was necessary to sacrifice something to gentility, and therefore\r\nthey sat over their port wine. \"Did you bring that letter with you, John?\" said his sister. John\r\nreplied that he had done so, and that he had also received another\r\nletter that morning from another party on the same subject. \"Do show it to Moulder, and ask him,\" said Mrs. M.\r\n\r\n\"I've got 'em both on purpose,\" said John; and then he brought\r\nforth two letters, and handed one of them to his brother-in-law. It contained a request, very civilly worded, from Messrs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Round\r\nand Crook, begging him to call at their office in Bedford Row on\r\nthe earliest possible day, in order that they might have some\r\nconversation with him regarding the will of the late Sir Joseph\r\nMason, who died in 18--. \"Why, this is law business,\" said Moulder, who liked no business\r\nof that description. \"Don't you go near them, John, if you ain't\r\nobliged.\" And then Kenneby gave his explanation on the matter, telling how in\r\nformer years,--many years ago, he had been a witness in a lawsuit. And then as he told it he sighed, remembering Miriam Usbech, for\r\nwhose sake he had remained unmarried even to this day. And he went\r\non to narrate how he had been bullied in the court, though he had\r\nvaliantly striven to tell the truth with exactness; and as he spoke,\r\nan opinion of his became manifest that old Usbech had not signed\r\nthe document in his presence. \"The girl signed it certainly,\" said\r\nhe, \"for I handed her the pen. I recollect it, as though it were\r\nyesterday.\" \"They are the very people we were talking of at Leeds,\" said Moulder,\r\nturning to Kantwise. \"Mason and Martock; don't you remember how you\r\nwent out to Groby Park to sell some of them iron gimcracks? That was\r\nold Mason's son. They are the same people.\" \"Ah, I shouldn't wonder,\" said Kantwise, who was listening all the\r\nwhile. He never allowed intelligence of this kind to pass by him\r\nidly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And who's the other letter from?\" asked Moulder. \"But, dash my wigs,\r\nit's past six o'clock. Come, old girl, why don't you give us the\r\ntobacco and stuff?\" \"It ain't far to fetch,\" said Mrs. Moulder. And then she put the\r\ntobacco and \"stuff\" upon the table. \"The other letter is from an enemy of mine,\" said John Kenneby,\r\nspeaking very solemnly; \"an enemy of mine, named Dockwrath, who lives\r\nat Hamworth. He's an attorney too.\" \"Dockwrath!\" said Moulder. Mr. Kantwise said nothing, but he looked round over his shoulder at\r\nKenneby, and then shut his eyes. \"That was the name of the man whom we left in the commercial room at\r\nthe Bull,\" said Snengkeld. \"He went out to Mason's at Groby Park that same day,\" said Moulder. \"Then it's the same man,\" said Kenneby; and there was as much\r\nsolemnity in the tone of his voice as though the unravelment of\r\nall the mysteries of the iron mask was now about to take place. Mr.\r\nKantwise still said nothing, but he also perceived that it was the\r\nsame man. \"Let me tell you, John Kenneby,\" said Moulder, with the air of one\r\nwho understood well the subject that he was discussing, \"if they two\r\nbe the same man, then the man who wrote that letter to you is as big\r\na blackguard as there is from this to hisself.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And Mr. Moulder in\r\nthe excitement of the moment puffed hard at his pipe, took a long\r\npull at his drink, and dragged open his waistcoat. \"I don't know\r\nwhether Kantwise has anything to say upon that subject,\" added\r\nMoulder. \"Not a word at present,\" said Kantwise. Mr. Kantwise was a very\r\ncareful man, and usually calculated with accuracy the value which he\r\nmight extract from any circumstances with reference to his own main\r\nchance. Mr. Dockwrath had not as yet paid him for the set of metallic\r\nfurniture, and therefore he also might well have joined in that\r\nsweeping accusation; but it might be that by a judicious use of what\r\nhe now heard he might obtain the payment of that little bill,--and\r\nperhaps other collateral advantages. And then the letter from Dockwrath to Kenneby was brought forth and\r\nread. \"My dear John,\" it began,--for the two had known each other\r\nwhen they were lads together,--and it went on to request Kenneby's\r\nattendance at Hamworth for the short space of a few hours,--\"I want\r\nto have a little conversation with you about a matter of considerable\r\ninterest to both of us; and as I cannot expect you to undertake\r\nexpense I enclose a money order for thirty shillings.\" \"He's in earnest at any rate,\" said Mr. Moulder. \"No mistake about that,\" said Snengkeld. But Mr. Kantwise spoke never a word."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was at last decided that John Kenneby should go both to Hamworth\r\nand to Bedford Row, but that he should go to Hamworth first. Moulder\r\nwould have counselled him to have gone to neither, but Snengkeld\r\nremarked that there were too many at work to let the matter sleep,\r\nand John himself observed that \"anyways he hadn't done anything to be\r\nashamed of.\" \"Then go,\" said Moulder at last, \"only don't say more than you are\r\nobliged to.\" \"I does not like these business talkings on Christmas night,\" said\r\nMrs. Moulder, when the matter was arranged. \"What can one do?\" asked Moulder. \"It's a tempting of Providence in my mind,\" said Kantwise, as he\r\nreplenished his glass, and turned his eyes up to the ceiling. \"Now that's gammon,\" said Moulder. And then there arose among them a\r\nlong and animated discussion on matters theological. \"I'll tell you what my idea of death is,\" said Moulder, after a\r\nwhile. \"I ain't a bit afeard of it. My father was an honest man as\r\ndid his duty by his employers, and he died with a bottom of brandy\r\nbefore him and a pipe in his mouth. I sha'n't live long myself--\"\r\n\r\n\"Gracious, Moulder, don't!\" said Mrs. M.\r\n\r\n\"No, more I sha'n't, 'cause I'm fat as he was; and I hope I may die\r\nas he did. I've been honest to Hubbles and Grease. They've made\r\nthousands of pounds along of me, and have never lost none."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Who can\r\nsay more than that? When I took to the old girl there, I insured my\r\nlife, so that she shouldn't want her wittles and drink--\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, M., don't!\" \"And I ain't afeard to die. Snengkeld, my old pal, hand us the\r\nbrandy.\" Such is the modern philosophy of the Moulders, pigs out of the sty\r\nof Epicurus. And so it was they passed Christmas-day in Great St.\r\nHelens. CHAPTER XXV. MR. FURNIVAL AGAIN AT HIS CHAMBERS. The Christmas doings at The Cleeve were not very gay. There was no\r\nvisitor there, except Lady Mason, and it was known that she was\r\nin trouble. It must not, however, be supposed that she constantly\r\nbewailed herself while there, or made her friends miserable by a\r\nsuccession of hysterical tears. By no means. She made an effort to be\r\nserene, and the effort was successful--as such efforts usually are. On the morning of Christmas-day they duly attended church, and Lady\r\nMason was seen by all Hamworth sitting in The Cleeve pew. In no way\r\ncould the baronet's friendship have been shown more plainly than\r\nin this, nor could a more significant mark of intimacy have been\r\ngiven;--all which Sir Peregrine well understood. The people of\r\nHamworth had chosen to talk scandal about Lady Mason, but he at any\r\nrate would show how little attention he paid to the falsehoods that\r\nthere were circulated."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So he stood by her at the pew door as she\r\nentered, with as much deference as though she had been a duchess; and\r\nthe people of Hamworth, looking on, wondered which would be right,\r\nMr. Dockwrath or Sir Peregrine. After dinner Sir Peregrine gave a toast. \"Lady Mason, we will drink\r\nthe health of the absent boys. God bless them! I hope they are\r\nenjoying themselves.\" \"God bless them!\" said Mrs. Orme, putting her handkerchief to her\r\neyes. \"God bless them both!\" said Lady Mason, also putting her handkerchief\r\nto her eyes. Then the ladies left the room, and that was the extent\r\nof their special festivity. \"Robert,\" said Sir Peregrine immediately\r\nafterwards to his butler, \"let them have what port wine they want in\r\nthe servants' hall--within measure.\" \"Yes, Sir Peregrine.\" \"And Robert, I shall not want you again.\" \"Thank you, Sir Peregrine.\" From all which it may be imagined that the Christmas doings at The\r\nCleeve were chiefly maintained below stairs. \"I do hope they are happy,\" said Mrs. Orme, when the two ladies\r\nwere together in the drawing-room. \"They have a very nice party at\r\nNoningsby.\" \"Your boy will be happy, I'm sure,\" said Lady Mason. \"And why not Lucius also?\" It was sweet in Lady Mason's ear to hear her son called by his\r\nChristian name. All these increasing signs of interest and intimacy\r\nwere sweet, but especially any which signified some favour shown to\r\nher son. \"This trouble weighs heavy on him,\" she replied."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It is only\r\nnatural that he should feel it.\" \"Papa does not seem to think much of it,\" said Mrs. Orme. \"If I were\r\nyou, I would strive to forget it.\" \"I do strive,\" said the other; and then she took the hand which Mrs.\r\nOrme had stretched out to her, and that lady got up and kissed her. \"Dearest friend,\" said Mrs. Orme, \"if we can comfort you we will.\" And then they sobbed in each other's arms. In the mean time Sir Peregrine was sitting alone, thinking. He sat\r\nthinking, with his glass of claret untouched by his side, and with\r\nthe biscuit which he had taken lying untouched upon the table. As he\r\nsat he had raised one leg upon the other, placing his foot on his\r\nknee, and he held it there with his hand upon his instep. And so he\r\nsat without moving for some quarter of an hour, trying to use all\r\nhis mind on the subject which occupied it. At last he roused himself,\r\nalmost with a start, and leaving his chair, walked three or four\r\ntimes the length of the room. \"Why should I not?\" at last he said to\r\nhimself, stopping suddenly and placing his hand upon the table. \"Why\r\nshould I not, if it pleases me? It shall not injure him--nor her.\" And then he walked again. \"But I will ask Edith,\" he said, still\r\nspeaking to himself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If she says that she disapproves of it, I will\r\nnot do it.\" And then he left the room, while the wine still remained\r\nuntasted on the table. [Illustration: \"Why should I not?\"] On the day following Christmas Mr. Furnival went up to town, and Mr. Round junior,--Mat Round, as he was called in the profession,--came\r\nto him at his chambers. A promise had been made to the barrister by\r\nRound and Crook that no active steps should be taken against Lady\r\nMason on the part of Joseph Mason of Groby, without notice being\r\ngiven to Mr. Furnival. And this visit by appointment was made in\r\nconsequence of that promise. \"You see,\" said Matthew Round, when that visit was nearly brought to\r\na close, \"that we are pressed very hard to go on with this, and if we\r\ndo not, somebody else will.\" \"Nevertheless, if I were you, I should decline,\" said Mr. Furnival. \"You're looking to your client, not to ours, sir,\" said the attorney. \"The fact is that the whole case is very queer. It was proved on the\r\nlast trial that Bolster and Kenneby were witnesses to a deed on the\r\n14th of July, and that was all that was proved. Now we can prove that\r\nthey were on that day witnesses to another deed. Were they witnesses\r\nto two?\" \"Why should they not be?\" \"That is for us to see."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We have written to them both to come up to\r\nus, and in order that we might be quite on the square I thought it\r\nright to tell you.\" \"Thank you; yes; I cannot complain of you. And what form do you think\r\nthat your proceedings will take?\" \"Joseph Mason talks of indicting her for--forgery,\" said the\r\nattorney, pausing a moment before he dared to pronounce the dread\r\nword. \"Indict her for forgery!\" said Furnival, with a start. And yet the\r\nidea was one which had been for some days present to his mind's eye. \"I do not say so,\" said Round. \"I have as yet seen none of the\r\nwitnesses myself. If they are prepared to prove that they did sign\r\ntwo separate documents on that day, the thing must pass off.\" It was\r\nclear to Mr. Furnival that even Mr. Round junior would be glad that\r\nit should pass off. And then he also sat thinking. Might it not be\r\nprobable that, with a little judicious exercise of their memory,\r\nthose two witnesses would remember that they had signed two\r\ndocuments; or at any rate, looking to the lapse of the time, that\r\nthey might be induced to forget altogether whether they had signed\r\none, two, or three? Or even if they could be mystified so that\r\nnothing could be proved, it would still be well with his client."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Indeed no magistrate would commit such a person as Lady Mason,\r\nespecially after so long an interval, and no grand jury would find a\r\nbill against her, except upon evidence that was clear, well defined,\r\nand almost indubitable. If any point of doubt could be shown, she\r\nmight be brought off without a trial, if only she would be true\r\nto herself. At the former trial there was the existing codicil,\r\nand the fact also that the two surviving reputed witnesses would\r\nnot deny their signatures. These signatures--if they were genuine\r\nsignatures--had been attached with all proper formality, and the form\r\nused went to state that the testator had signed the instrument in the\r\npresence of them all, they all being present together at the same\r\ntime. The survivors had both asserted that when they did affix their\r\nnames the three were then present, as was also Sir Joseph; but\r\nthere had been a terrible doubt even then as to the identity of the\r\ndocument; and a doubt also as to there having been any signature made\r\nby one of the reputed witnesses--by that one, namely, who at the\r\ntime of that trial was dead. Now another document was forthcoming,\r\npurporting to have been witnessed, on the same day, by these two\r\nsurviving witnesses!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "If that document were genuine, and if these\r\ntwo survivors should be clear that they had written their names but\r\nonce on that 14th of July, in such case could it be possible to\r\nquash further public inquiry? The criminal prosecution might not be\r\npossible as a first proceeding, but if the estate were recovered at\r\ncommon law, would not the criminal prosecution follow as a matter of\r\ncourse? And then Mr. Furnival thought it all over again and again. If this document were genuine,--this new document which the man\r\nDockwrath stated that he had found,--this deed of separation of\r\npartnership which purported to have been executed on that 14th of\r\nJuly! That was now the one important question. If it were genuine! And why should there not be as strong a question of the honesty\r\nof that document as of the other? Mr. Furnival well knew that no\r\nfraudulent deed would be forged and produced without a motive; and\r\nthat if he impugned this deed he must show the motive. Motive enough\r\nthere was, no doubt. Mason might have had it forged in order to get\r\nthe property, or Dockwrath to gratify his revenge. But in such case\r\nit would be a forgery of the present day. There could have been no\r\nmotive for such a forgery twenty years ago. The paper, the writing,\r\nthe attested signature of Martock, the other party to it, would prove\r\nthat it had not been got up and manufactured now."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dockwrath would not\r\ndare to bring forward such a forgery as that. There was no hope of\r\nany such result. But might not he, Furnival, if the matter were pushed before a jury,\r\nmake them think that the two documents stood balanced against each\r\nother? and that Lady Mason's respectability, her long possession,\r\ntogether with the vile malignity of her antagonists, gave the greater\r\nprobability of honesty to the disputed codicil? Mr. Furnival did\r\nthink that he might induce a jury to acquit her; but he terribly\r\nfeared that he might not be able to induce the world to acquit her\r\nalso. As he thought of all the case, he seemed to put himself apart\r\nfrom the world at large. He did not question himself as to his own\r\nbelief, but seemed to feel that it would suffice for him if he could\r\nso bring it about that her other friends should think her innocent. It would by no means suffice for him to secure for her son the\r\nproperty, and for her a simple acquittal. It was not that he dreaded\r\nthe idea of thinking her guilty himself; perhaps he did so think her\r\nnow--he half thought her so, at any rate; but he greatly dreaded the\r\nidea of others thinking so. It might be well to buy up Dockwrath, if\r\nit were possible. If it were possible! But then it was not possible\r\nthat he himself could have a hand in such a matter. Could Crabwitz do\r\nit?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "No; he thought not. And then, at this moment, he was not certain\r\nthat he could depend on Crabwitz. And why should he trouble himself in this way? Mr. Furnival was a\r\nman loyal to his friends at heart. Had Lady Mason been a man, and had\r\nhe pulled that man through great difficulties in early life, he\r\nwould have been loyally desirous of carrying him through the same or\r\nsimilar difficulties at any after period. In that cause which he had\r\nonce battled he was always ready to do battle, without reference to\r\nany professional consideration of triumph or profit. It was to this\r\nfeeling of loyalty that he had owed much of his success in life. And\r\nin such a case as this it may be supposed that that feeling would be\r\nstrong. But then such a feeling presumed a case in which he could\r\nsympathise--in which he could believe. Would it be well that he\r\nshould allow himself to feel the same interest in this case, to\r\nmaintain respecting it the same personal anxiety, if he ceased to\r\nbelieve in it? He did ask himself the question, and he finally\r\nanswered it in the affirmative. He had beaten Joseph Mason once in a\r\ngood stand-up fight; and having done so, having thus made the matter\r\nhis own, it was necessary to his comfort that he should beat him\r\nagain, if another fight were to be fought."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lady Mason was his client,\r\nand all the associations of his life taught him to be true to her as\r\nsuch. And as we are thus searching into his innermost heart we must say\r\nmore than this. Mrs. Furnival perhaps had no sufficient grounds for\r\nthose terrible fears of hers; but nevertheless the mistress of Orley\r\nFarm was very comely in the eyes of the lawyer. Her eyes, when full\r\nof tears, were very bright, and her hand, as it lay in his, was very\r\nsoft. He laid out for himself no scheme of wickedness with reference\r\nto her; he purposely entertained no thoughts which he knew to be\r\nwrong; but, nevertheless, he did feel that he liked to have her by\r\nhim, that he liked to be her adviser and friend, that he liked to\r\nwipe the tears from those eyes--not by a material handkerchief from\r\nhis pocket, but by immaterial manly sympathy from his bosom; and that\r\nhe liked also to feel the pressure of that hand. Mrs. Furnival had\r\nbecome solid, and heavy, and red; and though he himself was solid,\r\nand heavy, and red also--more so, indeed, in proportion than his poor\r\nwife, for his redness, as I have said before, had almost reached a\r\npurple hue; nevertheless his eye loved to look upon the beauty of a\r\nlovely woman, his ear loved to hear the tone of her voice, and his\r\nhand loved to meet the soft ripeness of her touch."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was very wrong\r\nthat it should have been so, but the case is not without a parallel. And therefore he made up his mind that he would not desert Lady\r\nMason. He would not desert her; but how would he set about the\r\nfighting that would be necessary in her behalf? He was well aware of\r\nthis, that if he fought at all, he must fight now. It would not do to\r\nlet the matter go on till she should be summoned to defend herself. Steps which might now be available would be altogether unavailable in\r\ntwo or three months' time--would be so, perhaps, if he allowed two or\r\nthree weeks to pass idly by him. Mr. Round, luckily, was not disposed\r\nto hurry his proceedings; nor, as far as he was concerned, was there\r\nany bitterness of antagonism. But with both Mason and Dockwrath there\r\nwould be hot haste, and hotter malice. From those who were really her\r\nenemies she could expect no quarter. He was to return on that evening to Noningsby, and on the following\r\nday he would go over to The Cleeve. He knew that Lady Mason was\r\nstaying there; but his object in making that visit would not be\r\nmerely that he might see her, but also that he might speak to Sir\r\nPeregrine, and learn how far the baronet was inclined to support\r\nhis neighbour in her coming tribulation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He would soon be able to\r\nascertain what Sir Peregrine really thought--whether he suspected the\r\npossibility of any guilt; and he would ascertain also what was the\r\ngeneral feeling in the neighbourhood of Hamworth. It would be a great\r\nthing if he could spread abroad a conviction that she was an injured\r\nwoman. It would be a great thing even if he could make it known that\r\nthe great people of the neighbourhood so thought. The jurymen of\r\nAlston would be mortal men; and it might be possible that they should\r\nbe imbued with a favourable bias on the subject before they assembled\r\nin their box for its consideration. He wished that he knew the truth in the matter; or rather he wished\r\nhe could know whether or no she were innocent, without knowing\r\nwhether or no she were guilty. The fight in his hands would be\r\nconducted on terms so much more glorious if he could feel sure of her\r\ninnocence. But then if he attempted that, and she were not innocent,\r\nall might be sacrificed by the audacity of his proceedings. He could\r\nnot venture that, unless he were sure of his ground. For a moment or\r\ntwo he thought that he would ask her the question. He said to himself\r\nthat he could forgive the fault."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That it had been repented ere this\r\nhe did not doubt, and it would be sweet to say to her that it was\r\nvery grievous, but that yet it might be forgiven. It would be sweet\r\nto feel that she was in his hands, and that he would treat her with\r\nmercy and kindness. But then a hundred other thoughts forbade him to\r\nthink more of this. If she had been, guilty,--if she declared her\r\nguilt to him,--would not restitution be necessary? In that case her\r\nson must know it, and all the world must know it. Such a confession\r\nwould be incompatible with that innocence before the world which it\r\nwas necessary that she should maintain. Moreover, he must be able to\r\nproclaim aloud his belief in her innocence; and how could he do that,\r\nknowing her to be guilty--knowing that she also knew that he had such\r\nknowledge? It was impossible that he should ask any such question, or\r\nadmit of any such confidence. It would be necessary, if the case did come to a trial, that\r\nshe should employ some attorney. The matter must come into the\r\nbarrister's hands in the usual way, through a solicitor's house, and\r\nit would be well that the person employed should have a firm faith in\r\nhis client. What could he say--he, as a barrister--if the attorney\r\nsuggested to him that the lady might possibly be guilty? As he\r\nthought of all these things he almost dreaded the difficulties before\r\nhim."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He rang the bell for Crabwitz,--the peculiar bell which Crabwitz was\r\nbound to answer,--having first of all gone through a little ceremony\r\nwith his cheque-book. Crabwitz entered, still sulky in his demeanour,\r\nfor as yet the old anger had not been appeased, and it was still a\r\ndoubtful matter in the clerk's mind whether or no it might not be\r\nbetter for him to seek a master who would better appreciate his\r\nservices. A more lucrative position it might be difficult for him to\r\nfind; but money is not everything, as Crabwitz said to himself more\r\nthan once. \"Crabwitz,\" said Mr. Furnival, looking with a pleasant face at his\r\nclerk, \"I am leaving town this evening, and I shall be absent for the\r\nnext ten days. If you like you can go away for a holiday.\" \"It's rather late in the season now, sir,\" said Crabwitz, gloomily,\r\nas though he were determined not to be pleased. \"It is a little late, as you say; but I really could not manage it\r\nearlier. Come, Crabwitz, you and I should not quarrel. Your work has\r\nbeen a little hard, but then so has mine also.\" \"I fancy you like it, sir.\" \"Ha! ha! Like it, indeed! But so do you like it--in its way. Come,\r\nCrabwitz, you have been an excellent servant to me; and I don't think\r\nthat, on the whole, I have been a bad master to you.\" \"I am making no complaint, sir.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But you're cross because I've kept you in town a little too long. Come, Crabwitz, you must forget all that. You have worked very hard\r\nthis year past. Here is a cheque for fifty pounds. Get out of town\r\nfor a fortnight or so, and amuse yourself.\" \"I'm sure I'm very much obliged, sir,\" said Crabwitz, putting out\r\nhis hand and taking the cheque. He felt that his master had got the\r\nbetter of him, and he was still a little melancholy on that account. He would have valued his grievance at that moment almost more\r\nthan the fifty pounds, especially as by the acceptance of it he\r\nsurrendered all right to complain for some considerable time to come. \"By-the-by, Crabwitz,\" said Mr. Furnival, as the clerk was about to\r\nleave the room. \"Yes, sir,\" said Crabwitz. \"You have never chanced to hear of an attorney named Dockwrath, I\r\nsuppose?\" \"What! in London, Mr. Furnival?\" \"No; I fancy he has no place of business in town. He lives I know at\r\nHamworth.\" \"It's he you mean, sir, that is meddling in this affair of Lady\r\nMason's.\" \"What! you have heard of that; have you?\" \"Oh! yes, sir. It's being a good deal talked about in the profession. Messrs. Round and Crook's leading young man was up here with me the\r\nother day, and he did say a good deal about it. He's a very decent\r\nyoung man, considering his position, is Smart.\" \"And he knows Dockwrath, does he?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Well, sir, I can't say that he knows much of the man; but Dockwrath\r\nhas been at their place of business pretty constant of late, and he\r\nand Mr. Matthew seem thick enough together.\" \"Oh! they do; do they?\" \"So Smart tells me. I don't know how it is myself, sir. I don't\r\nsuppose this Dockwrath is a very--\"\r\n\r\n\"No, no; exactly. I dare say not. You've never seen him yourself,\r\nCrabwitz?\" \"Who, sir? I, sir? No, sir, I've never set eyes on the man, sir. From\r\nall I hear it's not very likely he should come here; and I'm sure it\r\nis not at all likely that I should go to him.\" Mr. Furnival sat thinking awhile, and the clerk stood waiting\r\nopposite to him, leaning with both his hands upon the table. \"You\r\ndon't know any one in the neighbourhood of Hamworth, I suppose?\" Mr.\r\nFurnival said at last. \"Who, sir? I, sir? Not a soul, sir. I never was there in my life.\" \"I'll tell you why I ask. I strongly suspect that that man Dockwrath\r\nis at some very foul play.\" And then he told to his clerk so much of\r\nthe whole story of Lady Mason and her affairs as he chose that he\r\nshould know. \"It is plain enough that he may give Lady Mason a great\r\ndeal of annoyance,\" he ended by saying. \"There's no doubting that, sir,\" said Crabwitz."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And, to tell the\r\ntruth, I believe his mind is made up to do it.\" \"You don't think that anything could be done by seeing him? Of course\r\nLady Mason has got nothing to compromise. Her son's estate is as safe\r\nas my hat; but--\"\r\n\r\n\"The people at Round's think it isn't quite so safe, sir.\" \"Then the people at Round's know nothing about it. But Lady Mason is\r\nso averse to legal proceedings that it would be worth her while to\r\nhave matters settled. You understand?\" \"Yes, sir; I understand. Would not an attorney be the best person,\r\nsir?\" \"Not just at present, Crabwitz. Lady Mason is a very dear friend of\r\nmine--\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, sir; we know that,\" said Crabwitz. \"If you could make any pretence for running down to Hamworth--change\r\nof air, you know, for a week or so. It's a beautiful country; just\r\nthe place you like. And you might find out whether anything could be\r\ndone, eh?\" Mr. Crabwitz was well aware, from the first, that he did not get\r\nfifty pounds for nothing. CHAPTER XXVI. WHY SHOULD I NOT? A day or two after his conversation with Crabwitz, as described in\r\nthe last chapter, Mr. Furnival was driven up to the door of Sir\r\nPeregrine Orme's house in a Hamworth fly. He had come over by train\r\nfrom Alston on purpose to see the baronet, whom he found seated in\r\nhis library."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At that very moment he was again asking himself those\r\nquestions which he had before asked as he was walking up and down his\r\nown dining-room. \"Why should I not?\" he said to himself,--\"unless,\r\nindeed, it will make her unhappy.\" And then the barrister was shown\r\ninto his room, muffled up to his eyes in his winter clothing. Sir Peregrine and Mr. Furnival were well known to each other, and had\r\nalways met as friends. They had been interested on the same side in\r\nthe first Orley Farm Case, and possessed a topic of sympathy in their\r\nmutual dislike to Joseph Mason of Groby Park. Sir Peregrine therefore\r\nwas courteous, and when he learned the subject on which he was to be\r\nconsulted he became almost more than courteous. \"Oh! yes; she's staying here, Mr. Furnival. Would you like to see\r\nher?\" \"Before I leave I shall be glad to see her, Sir Peregrine; but if I\r\nam justified in regarding you as specially her friend, it may perhaps\r\nbe well that I should first have some conversation with you.\" Sir\r\nPeregrine in answer to this declared that Mr. Furnival certainly\r\nwould be so justified; that he did regard himself as Lady Mason's\r\nspecial friend, and that he was ready to hear anything that the\r\nbarrister might have to say to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Many of the points of this case have already been named so often, and\r\nwill, I fear, be necessarily named so often again that I will spare\r\nthe repetition when it is possible. Mr. Furnival on this occasion\r\ntold Sir Peregrine--not all that he had heard, but all that he\r\nthought it necessary to tell, and soon became fully aware that in the\r\nbaronet's mind there was not the slightest shadow of suspicion that\r\nLady Mason could have been in any way to blame. He, the baronet, was\r\nthoroughly convinced that Mr. Mason was the great sinner in this\r\nmatter, and that he was prepared to harass an innocent and excellent\r\nlady from motives of disappointed cupidity and long-sustained malice,\r\nwhich made him seem in Sir Peregrine's eyes a being almost too vile\r\nfor humanity. And of Dockwrath he thought almost as badly--only that\r\nDockwrath was below the level of his thinking. Of Lady Mason he spoke\r\nas an excellent and beautiful woman driven to misery by unworthy\r\npersecution; and so spoke with an enthusiasm that was surprising\r\nto Mr. Furnival. It was very manifest that she would not want for\r\nfriendly countenance, if friendly countenance could carry her through\r\nher difficulties. There was no suspicion against Lady Mason in the mind of Sir\r\nPeregrine, and Mr. Furnival was careful not to arouse any such\r\nfeeling."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When he found that the baronet spoke of her as being\r\naltogether pure and good, he also spoke of her in the same tone; but\r\nin doing so his game was very difficult. \"Let him do his worst, Mr.\r\nFurnival,\" said Sir Peregrine; \"and let her remain tranquil; that is\r\nmy advice to Lady Mason. It is not possible that he can really injure\r\nher.\" \"It is possible that he can do nothing--very probable that he can do\r\nnothing; but nevertheless, Sir Peregrine--\"\r\n\r\n\"I would have no dealing with him or his. I would utterly disregard\r\nthem. If he, or they, or any of them choose to take steps to annoy\r\nher, let her attorney manage that in the usual way. I am no lawyer\r\nmyself, Mr. Furnival, but that I think is the manner in which things\r\nof this kind should be arranged. I do not know whether they have\r\nstill the power of disputing the will, but if so, let them do it.\" Gradually, by very slow degrees, Mr. Furnival made Sir Peregrine\r\nunderstand that the legal doings now threatened were not of that\r\nnature;--that Mr. Mason did not now talk of proceeding at law for\r\nthe recovery of the property, but for the punishment of his father's\r\nwidow as a criminal; and at last the dreadful word \"forgery\" dropped\r\nfrom his lips. \"Who dares to make such a charge as that?\" demanded the baronet,\r\nwhile fire literally flashed from his eyes in his anger."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And when he\r\nwas told that Mr. Mason did make such a charge he called him \"a mean,\r\nunmanly dastard.\" \"I do not believe that he would dare to make it\r\nagainst a man,\" said Sir Peregrine. But there was the fact of the charge--the fact that it had been\r\nplaced in the hands of respectable attorneys, with instructions to\r\nthem to press it on--and the fact also that the evidence by which\r\nthat charge was to be supported possessed at any rate a _primâ facie_\r\nappearance of strength. All that it was necessary to explain to Sir\r\nPeregrine, as it would also be necessary to explain it to Lady Mason. \"Am I to understand, then, that you also think--?\" began Sir\r\nPeregrine. \"You are not to understand that I think anything injurious to the\r\nlady; but I do fear that she is in a position of much jeopardy, and\r\nthat great care will be necessary.\" \"Good heavens! Do you mean to say that an innocent person can under\r\nsuch circumstances be in danger in this country?\" \"An innocent person, Sir Peregrine, may be in danger of very great\r\nannoyance, and also of very great delay in proving that innocence. Innocent people have died under the weight of such charges. We must\r\nremember that she is a woman, and therefore weaker than you or I.\" \"Yes, yes; but still--. You do not say that you think she can be in\r\nany real danger?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "It seemed, from the tone of the old man's voice, as\r\nthough he were almost angry with Mr. Furnival for supposing that such\r\ncould be the case. \"And you intend to tell her all this?\" he asked. \"I fear that, as her friend, neither you nor I will be warranted in\r\nkeeping her altogether in the dark. Think what her feelings would be\r\nif she were summoned before a magistrate without any preparation!\" \"No magistrate would listen to such a charge,\" said Sir Peregrine. \"In that he must be guided by the evidence.\" \"I would sooner throw up my commission than lend myself in any way to\r\na proceeding so iniquitous.\" This was all very well, and the existence of such a feeling showed\r\ngreat generosity, and perhaps also poetic chivalry on the part of\r\nSir Peregrine Orme; but it was not the way of the world, and so Mr.\r\nFurnival was obliged to explain. Magistrates would listen to the\r\ncharge--would be forced to listen to the charge,--if the evidence\r\nwere apparently sound. A refusal on the part of a magistrate to do\r\nso would not be an act of friendship to Lady Mason, as Mr. Furnival\r\nendeavoured to explain. \"And you wish to see her?\" Sir Peregrine\r\nasked at last. \"I think she should be told; but as she is in your house, I will,\r\nof course, do nothing in which you do not concur.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Upon which\r\nSir Peregrine rang the bell and desired the servant to take his\r\ncompliments to Lady Mason and beg her attendance in the library if\r\nit were quite convenient. \"Tell her,\" said Sir Peregrine, \"that Mr.\r\nFurnival is here.\" When the message was given to her she was seated with Mrs. Orme, and\r\nat the moment she summoned strength to say that she would obey the\r\ninvitation, without displaying any special emotion while the servant\r\nwas in the room; but when the door was shut, her friend looked at her\r\nand saw that she was as pale as death. She was pale and her limbs\r\nquivered, and that look of agony, which now so often marked her face,\r\nwas settled on her brow. Mrs. Orme had never yet seen her with such\r\nmanifest signs of suffering as she wore at this instant. \"I suppose I must go to them,\" she said, slowly rising from her seat;\r\nand it seemed to Mrs. Orme that she was forced to hold by the table\r\nto support herself. \"Mr. Furnival is a friend, is he not?\" \"Oh, yes! a kind friend, but--\"\r\n\r\n\"They shall come in here if you like it better, dear.\" \"Oh, no! I will go to them. It would not do that I should seem so\r\nweak. What must you think of me to see me so?\" \"I do not wonder at it, dear,\" said Mrs. Orme, coming round to her;\r\n\"such cruelty would kill me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I wonder at your strength rather than\r\nyour weakness.\" And then she kissed her. What was there about the\r\nwoman that had made all those fond of her that came near her? Mrs. Orme walked with her across the hall, and left her only at the\r\nlibrary door. There she pressed her hand and again kissed her, and\r\nthen Lady Mason turned the handle of the door and entered the room. Mr. Furnival, when he looked at her, was startled by the pallor of\r\nher face, but nevertheless he thought that she had never looked so\r\nbeautiful. \"Dear Lady Mason,\" said he, \"I hope you are well.\" Sir Peregrine advanced to her and handed her over to his own\r\narm-chair. Had she been a queen in distress she could not have been\r\ntreated with more gentle deference. But she never seemed to count\r\nupon this, or in any way to assume it as her right. I should accuse\r\nher of what I regard as a sin against all good taste were I to say\r\nthat she was humble in her demeanour; but there was a soft meekness\r\nabout her, an air of feminine dependence, a proneness to lean\r\nand almost to cling as she leaned, which might have been felt as\r\nirresistible by any man. She was a woman to know in her deep sorrow\r\nrather than in her joy and happiness; one with whom one would love to\r\nweep rather than to rejoice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And, indeed, the present was a time with\r\nher for weeping, not for rejoicing. Sir Peregrine looked as though he were her father as he took her\r\nhand, and the barrister immediately comforted himself with the\r\nremembrance of the baronet's great age. It was natural, too, that\r\nLady Mason should hang on him in his own house. So Mr. Furnival\r\ncontented himself at the first moment with touching her hand and\r\nhoping that she was well. She answered hardly a word to either of\r\nthem, but she attempted to smile as she sat down, and murmured\r\nsomething about the trouble she was giving them. \"Mr. Furnival thinks it best that you should be made aware of the\r\nsteps which are being taken by Mr. Mason of Groby Park,\" began Sir\r\nPeregrine. \"I am no lawyer myself, and therefore of course I cannot\r\nput my advice against his.\" \"I am sure that both of you will tell me for the best,\" she said. \"In such a matter as this it is right that you should be guided by\r\nhim. That he is as firmly your friend as I am there can be no doubt.\" \"I believe Lady Mason trusts me in that,\" said the lawyer. \"Indeed I do; I would trust you both in anything,\" she said. \"And there can be no doubt that he must be able to direct you for\r\nthe best."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I say so much at the first, because I myself so thoroughly\r\ndespise that man in Yorkshire,--I am so convinced that anything which\r\nhis malice may prompt him to do must be futile, that I could not\r\nmyself have thought it needful to pain you by what must now be said.\" This was a dreadful commencement, but she bore it, and even was\r\nrelieved by it. Indeed, no tale that Mr. Furnival could have to tell\r\nafter such an exordium would be so bad as that which she had feared\r\nas the possible result of his visit. He might have come there to let\r\nher know that she was at once to be carried away--immediately to be\r\ntaken to her trial--perhaps to be locked up in gaol. In her ignorance\r\nof the law she could only imagine what might or might not happen to\r\nher at any moment, and therefore the words which Sir Peregrine had\r\nspoken relieved her rather than added to her fears. And then Mr. Furnival began his tale, and gradually put before her\r\nthe facts of the matter. This he did with a choice of language and a\r\ndelicacy of phraseology which were admirable, for he made her clearly\r\nunderstand the nature of the accusation which was brought against her\r\nwithout using any word which was in itself harsh in its bearing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He\r\nsaid nothing about fraud, or forgery, or false evidence, but he made\r\nit manifest to her that Joseph Mason had now instructed his lawyer\r\nto institute a criminal proceeding against her for having forged a\r\ncodicil to her husband's will. \"I must bear it as best I may,\" she said. \"May the Lord give me\r\nstrength to bear it!\" \"It is terrible to think of,\" said Sir Peregrine; \"but nobody can\r\ndoubt how it will end. You are not to suppose that Mr. Furnival\r\nintends to express any doubt as to your ultimate triumph. What we\r\nfear for you is the pain you must endure before this triumph comes.\" Ah, if that were all! As the baronet finished speaking she looked\r\nfurtively into the lawyer's face to see how far the meaning of these\r\nsmooth words would be supported by what she might read there. Would\r\nhe also think that a final triumph did certainly await her? Sir\r\nPeregrine's real opinion was easily to be learned, either from his\r\ncountenance or from his words; but it was not so with Mr. Furnival. In Mr. Furnival's face, and from Mr. Furnival's words, could be\r\nlearned only that which Mr. Furnival wished to declare. He saw that\r\nglance, and fully understood it; and he knew instinctively, on the\r\nspur of the moment, that he must now either assure her by a lie, or\r\nbreak down all her hopes by the truth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That final triumph was not\r\ncertain to her--was very far from certain! Should he now be honest to\r\nhis friend, or dishonest? One great object with him was to secure the\r\nsupport which Sir Peregrine could give by his weight in the county;\r\nand therefore, as Sir Peregrine was present, it was needful that he\r\nshould be dishonest. Arguing thus he looked the lie, and Lady Mason\r\nderived more comfort from that look than from all Sir Peregrine's\r\nwords. And then those various details were explained to her which Mr.\r\nFurnival understood that Mr. Dockwrath had picked up. They went into\r\nthat matter of the partnership deed, and questions were asked as to\r\nthe man Kenneby and the woman Bolster. They might both, Lady Mason\r\nsaid, have been witnesses to half a dozen deeds on that same day, for\r\naught she knew to the contrary. She had been present with Sir Joseph,\r\nas far as she could now remember, during the whole of that morning,\r\n\"in and out, Sir Peregrine, as you can understand.\" Sir Peregrine\r\nsaid that he did understand perfectly. She did know that Mr. Usbech\r\nhad been there for many hours that day, probably from ten to two\r\nor three, and no doubt therefore much business was transacted. She\r\nherself remembered nothing but the affair of the will; but then that\r\nwas natural, seeing that there was no other affair in which she had\r\nspecially interested herself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No doubt these people did witness both the deeds,\" said Sir\r\nPeregrine. \"For myself, I cannot conceive how that wretched man can\r\nbe so silly as to spend his money on such a case as this.\" \"He would do anything for revenge,\" said Mr. Furnival. And then Lady Mason was allowed to go back to the drawing-room, and\r\nwhat remained to be said was said between the two gentlemen alone. Sir Peregrine was very anxious that his own attorneys should be\r\nemployed, and he named Messrs. Slow and Bideawhile, than whom there\r\nwere no more respectable men in the whole profession. But then Mr.\r\nFurnival feared that they were too respectable. They might look at\r\nthe matter in so straightforward a light as to fancy their client\r\nreally guilty; and what might happen then? Old Slow would not conceal\r\nthe truth for all the baronets in England--no, nor for all the pretty\r\nwomen. The touch of Lady Mason's hand and the tear in her eye would\r\nbe nothing to old Slow. Mr. Furnival, therefore, was obliged to\r\nexplain that Slow and Bideawhile did not undertake that sort of\r\nbusiness. \"But I should wish it to be taken up through them. There must be\r\nsome expenditure, Mr. Furnival, and I should prefer that they should\r\narrange about that.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Furnival made no further immediate objection, and consented at\r\nlast to having an interview with one of the firm on the subject,\r\nprovided, of course, that that member of the firm came to him at his\r\nchambers. And then he took his leave. Nothing positive had been done,\r\nor even settled to be done, on this morning; but the persons most\r\ninterested in the matter had been made to understand that the affair\r\nwas taking an absolute palpable substance, and that steps must be\r\ntaken--indeed would be taken almost immediately. Mr. Furnival, as he\r\nleft the house, resolved to employ the attorneys whom he might think\r\nbest adapted for the purpose. He would settle that matter with Slow\r\nand Bideawhile afterwards. And then, as he returned to Noningsby, he wondered at his persistence\r\nin the matter. He believed that his client had been guilty; he\r\nbelieved that this codicil was no real instrument made by Sir Joseph\r\nMason. And so believing, would it not be better for him to wash his\r\nhands of the whole affair? Others did not think so, and would it not\r\nbe better that such others should be her advisers? Was he not taking\r\nup for himself endless trouble and annoyance that could have no\r\nuseful purpose? So he argued with himself, and yet by the time that\r\nhe had reached Noningsby he had determined that he would stand by\r\nLady Mason to the last."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He hated that man Mason, as he declared to\r\nhimself when providing himself with reasons for his resolve, and\r\nregarded his bitter, malicious justice as more criminal than any\r\ncrime of which Lady Mason might have been guilty. And then as he\r\nleaned back in the railway carriage he still saw her pale face before\r\nhim, still heard the soft tone of her voice, and was still melted by\r\nthe tear in her eye. Young man, young friend of mine, who art now\r\nfilled to the overflowing of thy brain with poetry, with chivalry,\r\nand love, thou seest seated opposite to thee there that grim old man,\r\nwith long snuffy nose, with sharp piercing eyes, with scanty frizzled\r\nhairs. He is rich and cross, has been three times married, and has\r\noften quarrelled with his children. He is fond of his wine, and\r\nsnores dreadfully after dinner. To thy seeming he is a dry, withered\r\nstick, from which all the sap of sentiment has been squeezed by the\r\nrubbing and friction of years. Poetry, the feeling if not the words\r\nof poetry,--is he not dead to it, even as the pavement is dead over\r\nwhich his wheels trundle? Oh, my young friend! thou art ignorant in\r\nthis--as in most other things. He may not twitter of sentiment, as\r\nthou doest; nor may I trundle my hoop along the high road as do the\r\nlittle boys. The fitness of things forbids it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But that old man's\r\nheart is as soft as thine, if thou couldst but read it. The body\r\ndries up and withers away, and the bones grow old; the brain, too,\r\nbecomes decrepit, as do the sight, the hearing, and the soul. But the\r\nheart that is tender once remains tender to the last. Lady Mason, when she left the library, walked across the hall towards\r\nthe drawing-room, and then she paused. She would fain remain alone\r\nfor a while if it were possible, and therefore she turned aside into\r\na small breakfast parlour, which was used every morning, but which\r\nwas rarely visited afterwards during the day. Here she sat, leaving\r\nthe door slightly open, so that she might know when Mr. Furnival left\r\nthe baronet. Here she sat for a full hour, waiting--waiting--waiting. There was no sofa or lounging-chair in the room, reclining in which\r\nshe could remain there half sleeping, sitting comfortably at her\r\nease; but she placed herself near the table, and leaning there with\r\nher face upon her hand, she waited patiently till Mr. Furnival had\r\ngone. That her mind was full of thoughts I need hardly say, but yet\r\nthe hour seemed very long to her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At last she heard the library door\r\nopen, she heard Sir Peregrine's voice as he stood in the hall and\r\nshook hands with his departing visitor, she heard the sound of the\r\nwheels as the fly moved upon the gravel, and then she heard Sir\r\nPeregrine again shut the library door behind him. She did not immediately get up from her chair; she still waited\r\nawhile, perhaps for another period of ten minutes, and then she\r\nnoiselessly left the room, and moving quickly and silently across the\r\nhall she knocked at Sir Peregrine's door. This she did so gently that\r\nat first no answer was made to her. Then she knocked again, hardly\r\nlouder but with a repeated rap, and Sir Peregrine summoned her to\r\ncome in. \"May I trouble you once more--for one moment?\" she said. \"Certainly, certainly; it is no trouble. I am glad that you are here\r\nin the house at this time, that you may see me at any moment that you\r\nmay wish.\" \"I do not know why you should be so good to me.\" \"Because you are in great grief, in undeserved grief, because--. Lady\r\nMason, my services are at your command. I will act for you as I would\r\nfor a--daughter.\" \"You hear now of what it is that they accuse me.\" \"Yes, he said; I do hear;\" and as he spoke he came round so that he\r\nwas standing near to her, but with his back to the fireplace."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I do\r\nhear, and I blush to think that there is a man in England, holding\r\nthe position of a county magistrate, who can so forget all that is\r\ndue to honesty, to humanity, and to self-respect.\" \"You do not then think that I have been guilty of this thing?\" \"Guilty--I think you guilty! No, nor does he think so. It is\r\nimpossible that he should think so. I am no more sure of my own\r\ninnocence than of yours;\" and as he spoke he took both her hands and\r\nlooked into her face, and his eyes also were full of tears. \"You\r\nmay be sure of this, that neither I nor Edith will ever think you\r\nguilty.\" \"Dearest Edith,\" she said; she had never before called Sir\r\nPeregrine's daughter-in-law by her Christian name, and as she now did\r\nso she almost felt that she had sinned. But Sir Peregrine took it in\r\ngood part. \"She is dearest,\" he said; \"and be sure of this, that she\r\nwill be true to you through it all.\" And so they stood for a while without further speech. He still held\r\nboth her hands, and the tears still stood in his eyes. Her eyes were\r\nturned to the ground, and from them the tears were running fast. At\r\nfirst they ran silently, without audible sobbing, and Sir Peregrine,\r\nwith his own old eyes full of salt water, hardly knew that she was\r\nweeping."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But gradually the drops fell upon his hand, one by one at\r\nfirst, and then faster and faster; and soon there came a low sob, a\r\nsob all but suppressed, but which at last forced itself forth, and\r\nthen her head fell upon his shoulder. \"My dear,\" he said, himself\r\nhardly able to speak; \"my poor dear, my ill-used dear!\" and as she\r\nwithdrew one hand from his, that she might press a handkerchief to\r\nher face, his vacant arm passed itself round her waist. \"My poor,\r\nill-used dear!\" he said again, as he pressed her to his old heart,\r\nand leaning over her he kissed her lips. So she stood for some few seconds, feeling that she was pressed\r\nclose by the feeble pressure of his arm, and then she gradually sank\r\nthrough from his embrace, and fell upon her knees at his feet. She\r\nknelt at his feet, supporting herself with one arm upon the table,\r\nand with the other hand she still held his hand over which her head\r\nwas bowed. \"My friend,\" she said, still sobbing, and sobbing loudly\r\nnow; \"my friend, that God has sent me in my trouble.\" And then, with\r\nwords that were wholly inaudible, she murmured some prayer on his\r\nbehalf. \"I am better now,\" she said, raising herself quickly to her feet when\r\na few seconds had passed. \"I am better now,\" and she stood erect\r\nbefore him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"By God's mercy I will endure it; I think I can endure it\r\nnow.\" \"If I can lighten the load--\"\r\n\r\n\"You have lightened it--of half its weight; but, Sir Peregrine, I\r\nwill leave this--\"\r\n\r\n\"Leave this! go away from The Cleeve!\" \"Yes; I will not destroy the comfort of your home by the wretchedness\r\nof my position. I will not--\"\r\n\r\n\"Lady Mason, my house is altogether at your service. If you will be\r\nled by me in this matter, you will not leave it till this cloud shall\r\nhave passed by you. You will be better to be alone now;\" and then\r\nbefore she could answer him further, he led her to the door. She\r\nfelt that it was better for her to be alone, and she hastened up the\r\nstairs to her own chamber. \"And why should I not?\" said Sir Peregrine to himself, as he again\r\nwalked the length of the library. CHAPTER XXVII. COMMERCE. Lucius Mason was still staying at Noningsby when Mr. Furnival made\r\nhis visit to Sir Peregrine, and on that afternoon he received a note\r\nfrom his mother. Indeed, there were three notes passed between them\r\non that afternoon, for he wrote an answer to his mother, and then\r\nreceived a reply to that answer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lady Mason told him that she did not\r\nintend to return home to the Farm quite immediately, and explained\r\nthat her reason for not doing so was the necessity that she should\r\nhave assistance and advice at this period of her trouble. She did\r\nnot say that she misdoubted the wisdom of her son's counsels; but it\r\nappeared to him that she intended to signify to him that she did so,\r\nand he answered her in words that were sore and almost bitter. \"I am\r\nsorry,\" he said, \"that you and I cannot agree about a matter that is\r\nof such vital concern to both of us; but as it is so, we can only act\r\nas each thinks best, you for yourself and I for myself. I am sure,\r\nhowever, that you will believe that my only object is your happiness\r\nand your fair name, which is dearer to me than anything else in the\r\nworld.\" In answer to this, she had written again immediately, filling\r\nher letter with sweet words of motherly love, telling him that she\r\nwas sure, quite sure, of his affection and kind spirit, and excusing\r\nherself for not putting the matter altogether in his hands by saying\r\nthat she was forced to lean on those who had supported her from the\r\nbeginning--through that former trial which had taken place when he,\r\nLucius, was yet a baby."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And, dearest Lucius, you must not be angry\r\nwith me,\" she went on to say; \"I am suffering much under this cruel\r\npersecution, but my sufferings would be more than doubled if my own\r\nboy quarrelled with me.\" Lucius, when he received this, flung up his\r\nhead. \"Quarrel with her,\" he said to himself; \"nothing on earth would\r\nmake me quarrel with her; but I cannot say that that is right which I\r\nthink to be wrong.\" His feelings were good and honest, and kindly too\r\nin their way; but tenderness of heart was not his weakness. I should\r\nwrong him if I were to say that he was hard-hearted, but he flattered\r\nhimself that he was just-hearted, which sometimes is nearly the\r\nsame--as had been the case with his father before him, and was now\r\nthe case with his half-brother Joseph. The day after this was his last at Noningsby. He had told Lady\r\nStaveley that he intended to go, and though she had pressed his\r\nfurther stay, remarking that none of the young people intended to\r\nmove till after twelfth-night, nevertheless he persisted. With\r\nthe young people of the house themselves he had not much advanced\r\nhimself; and altogether he did not find himself thoroughly happy in\r\nthe judge's house. They were more thoughtless than he--as he thought;\r\nthey did not understand him, and therefore he would leave them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Besides, there was a great day of hunting coming on, at which\r\neverybody was to take a part, and as he did not hunt that gave\r\nhim another reason for going. \"They have nothing to do but amuse\r\nthemselves,\" he said to himself; \"but I have a man's work before me,\r\nand a man's misfortunes. I will go home and face both.\" In all this there was much of conceit, much of pride, much of\r\ndeficient education,--deficiency in that special branch of education\r\nwhich England has imparted to the best of her sons, but which\r\nis now becoming out of fashion. He had never learned to measure\r\nhimself against others,--I do not mean his knowledge or his\r\nbook-acquirements, but the every-day conduct of his life,--and\r\nto perceive that that which is insignificant in others must be\r\ninsignificant in himself also. To those around him at Noningsby his\r\nextensive reading respecting the Iapetidæ recommended him not at all,\r\nnor did his agricultural ambitions;--not even to Felix Graham, as a\r\ncompanion, though Felix Graham could see further into his character\r\nthan did the others. He was not such as they were. He had not the\r\nunpretentious, self-controlling humour, perfectly free from all\r\nconceit, which was common to them. Life did not come easy to him,\r\nand the effort which he was ever making was always visible. All men\r\nshould ever be making efforts, no doubt; but those efforts should\r\nnot be conspicuous."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But yet Lucius Mason was not a bad fellow, and\r\nyoung Staveley showed much want of discernment when he called him\r\nempty-headed and selfish. Those epithets were by no means applicable\r\nto him. That he was not empty-headed is certain; and he was moreover\r\ncapable of a great self-sacrifice. That his talents and good qualities were appreciated by one person\r\nin the house, seemed evident to Lady Staveley and the other married\r\nladies of the party. Miss Furnival, as they all thought, had not\r\nfound him empty-headed. And, indeed, it may be doubted whether Lady\r\nStaveley would have pressed his stay at Noningsby, had Miss Furnival\r\nbeen less gracious. Dear Lady Staveley was always living in a fever\r\nlest her only son, the light of her eyes, should fall irrevocably\r\nin love with some lady that was by no means good enough for him. Revocably in love he was daily falling; but some day he would go too\r\ndeep, and the waters would close over his well-loved head. Now in her\r\ndear old favouring eyes Sophia Furnival was by no means good enough,\r\nand it had been quite clear that Augustus had become thoroughly lost\r\nin his attempts to bring about a match between Felix Graham and\r\nthe barrister's daughter. In preparing the bath for his friend he\r\nhad himself fallen bodily into the water. He was always at Miss\r\nFurnival's side as long as Miss Furnival would permit it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But it\r\nseemed to Lady Staveley that Miss Furnival, luckily, was quite as\r\nfond of having Lucius Mason at her side;--that of the two she perhaps\r\npreferred Lucius Mason. That her taste and judgment should be so bad\r\nwas wonderful to Lady Staveley; but this depravity though wonderful\r\nwas useful; and therefore Lucius Mason might have been welcome to\r\nremain at Noningsby. It may, however, be possible that Miss Furnival knew what she was\r\ndoing quite as well as Lady Staveley could know for her. In the\r\nfirst place she may possibly have thought it indiscreet to admit Mr.\r\nStaveley's attentions with too much freedom. She may have doubted\r\ntheir sincerity; or feared to give offence to the family, or Mr.\r\nMason may in her sight have been the preferable suitor. That his\r\ngifts of intellect were at any rate equal to those of the other there\r\ncan be no doubt. Then, his gifts of fortune were already his own, and\r\nfor ought that Miss Furnival knew, might be equal to any that would\r\never appertain to the other gentleman. That Lady Staveley should\r\nthink her swan better looking than Lady Mason's goose was very\r\nnatural; but then Lady Mason would no doubt have regarded the two\r\nbirds in an exactly opposite light. It is only fair to conceive that\r\nMiss Furnival was a better judge than either of them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the evening before his departure the whole party had been playing\r\ncommerce; for the rule of the house during these holidays was this,\r\nthat all the amusements brought into vogue were to be adapted to the\r\nchildren. If the grown-up people could adapt themselves to them, so\r\nmuch the better for them; if not, so much the worse; they must in\r\nsuch case provide for themselves. On the whole, the grown-up people\r\nseemed to live nearly as jovial a life as did the children. Whether\r\nthe judge himself was specially fond of commerce I cannot say; but he\r\npersisted in putting in the whole pool, and played through the entire\r\ngame, rigidly fighting for the same pool on behalf of a very small\r\ngrandchild, who sat during the whole time on his knee. There are\r\nthose who call cards the devil's books, but we will presume that the\r\njudge was of a different way of thinking. On this special evening Sophia had been sitting next to Augustus,--a\r\nyoung man can always arrange these matters in his own house,--but had\r\nnevertheless lost all her lives early in the game. \"I will not have\r\nany cheating to-night,\" she had said to her neighbour; \"I will take\r\nmy chance, and if I die, I die. One can die but once.\" And so she\r\nhad died, three times indeed instead of once only, and had left the\r\ntable. Lucius Mason also had died."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He generally did die the first,\r\nhaving no aptitude for a collection of kings or aces, and so they two\r\ncame together over the fire in the second drawing-room, far away from\r\nthe card-players. There was nothing at all remarkable in this, as Mr.\r\nFurnival and one or two others who did not play commerce were also\r\nthere; but nevertheless they were separated from those of the party\r\nwho were most inclined to criticise their conduct. \"So you are leaving to-morrow, Mr. Mason,\" said Sophia. \"Yes. I go home to-morrow after breakfast; to my own house, where for\r\nsome weeks to come I shall be absolutely alone.\" \"Your mother is staying at The Cleeve, I think.\" \"Yes,--and intends remaining there as she tells me. I wish with all\r\nmy heart she were at Orley Farm.\" \"Papa saw her yesterday. He went over to The Cleeve on purpose to see\r\nher; and this morning he has been talking to me about her. I cannot\r\ntell you how I grieve for her.\" \"It is very sad; very sad. But I wish she were in her own house. Under the circumstances as they now are, I think it would be better\r\nfor her to be there than elsewhere. Her name has been disgraced--\"\r\n\r\n\"No, Mr. Mason; not disgraced.\" \"Yes; disgraced. Mark you; I do not say that she has been disgraced;\r\nand pray do not suppose it possible that I should think so."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But a\r\ngreat opprobrium has been thrown on her name, and it would be better,\r\nI think, that she should remain at home till she has cast it off from\r\nher. Even for myself, I feel it almost wrong to be here; nor would I\r\nhave come had I known when I did come as much as I do know now.\" \"But no one can for a moment think that your mother has done anything\r\nthat she should not have done.\" \"Then why do so many people talk of her as though she had committed a\r\ngreat crime? Miss Furnival, I know that she is innocent. I know it as\r\nsurely as I know the fact of my own existence--\"\r\n\r\n\"And we all feel the same thing.\" \"But if you were in my place,--if it were your father whose name was\r\nso bandied about in people's mouths, you would think that it behoved\r\nhim to do nothing, to go nowhere, till he had forced the world to\r\nconfess his innocence. And this is ten times stronger with regard to\r\na woman. I have given my mother my counsel, and I regret to say that\r\nshe differs from me.\" \"Why do you not speak to papa?\" \"I did once. I went to him at his chambers, and he rebuked me.\" \"Rebuked you, Mr. Mason! He did not do that intentionally I am sure. I have heard him say that you are an excellent son.\" \"But nevertheless he did rebuke me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He considered that I was\r\ntravelling beyond my own concerns, in wishing to interfere for the\r\nprotection of my mother's name. He said that I should leave it to\r\nsuch people as the Staveleys and the Ormes to guard her from ignominy\r\nand disgrace.\" \"Oh, he did not mean that!\" \"But to me it seems that it should be a son's first duty. They are\r\ntalking of trouble and of cost. I would give every hour I have in the\r\nday, and every shilling I own in the world to save her from one week\r\nof such suffering as she now endures; but it cuts me to the heart\r\nwhen she tells me that because she is suffering, therefore she must\r\nseparate herself from me. I think it would be better for her, Miss\r\nFurnival, to be staying at home with me, than to be at The Cleeve.\" \"The kindness of Mrs. Orme must be a great support to her.\" \"And why should not my kindness be a support to her,--or rather my\r\naffection? We know from whom all these scandals come. My desire is to\r\nmeet that man in a court of law and thrust these falsehoods down his\r\nthroat.\" \"Ah! but you are a man.\" \"And therefore I would take the burden from her shoulders. But no;\r\nshe will not trust to me. The truth, Miss Furnival, is this, that she\r\nhas not yet learned to think of me as a man."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To her I am still the\r\nboy for whom she is bound to provide, not the son who should bear\r\nfor her all her cares. As it is I feel that I do not dare again to\r\ntrouble her with my advice.\" \"Grandmamma is dead,\" shouted out a shrill small voice from the\r\ncard-table. \"Oh, grandmamma, do have one of my lives. Look! I've got\r\nthree,\" said another. \"Thank you, my dears; but the natural term of my existence has come,\r\nand I will not rebel against fate.\" \"Oh, grandmamma,--we'll let you have another grace.\" \"By no means, Charley. Indeed I am not clear that I am entitled to\r\nChristian burial, as it is.\" \"A case of felo de se, I rather think,\" said her son. \"About this\r\ntime of the night suicide does become common among the elders. Unfortunately for me, the pistol that I have been snapping at my own\r\nhead for the last half-hour always hangs fire.\" There was not much of love-making in the conversation which had taken\r\nplace between young Mason and Sophia; not much at least up to this\r\npoint; but a confidence had been established, and before he left her\r\nhe did say a word or two that was more tender in its nature. \"You\r\nmust not be in dudgeon with me,\" he said, \"for speaking to you of all\r\nthis. Hitherto I have kept it all to myself, and perhaps I should\r\nstill have done so.\" \"Oh no; do not say that.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I am in great grief. It is dreadful to me to hear these things said,\r\nand as yet I have found no sympathy.\" \"I can assure you, Mr. Mason, that I do sympathise with you most\r\nsincerely. I only wish my sympathy could be of more value.\" \"It will be invaluable,\" he said, not looking at her, but fixing his\r\neyes upon the fire, \"if it be given with constancy from the first to\r\nthe last of this sad affair.\" \"It shall be so given,\" said Miss Furnival, also looking at the fire. \"It will be tolerably long, and men will say cruel things of us. I\r\ncan foresee this, that it will be very hard to prove to the world\r\nwith certainty that there is no foundation whatever for these\r\ncharges. If those who are now most friendly to us turn away from\r\nus--\"\r\n\r\n\"I will never turn away from you, Mr. Mason.\" \"Then give me your hand on that, and remember that such a promise\r\nin my ears means much.\" He in his excitement had forgotten that\r\nthere were others in the room who might be looking at them, and that\r\nthere was a vista open upon them direct from all the eyes at the\r\ncard-table; but she did not forget it. Miss Furnival could be very\r\nenthusiastic, but she was one of those who in her enthusiasm rarely\r\nforgot anything. Nevertheless, after a moment's pause, she gave him\r\nher hand."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"There it is,\" she said; \"and you may be sure of this, that\r\nwith me also such a promise does mean something. And now I will say\r\ngood night.\" And so, having received the pressure of her hand, she\r\nleft him. \"I will get you your candle,\" he said, and so he did. \"Good night, papa,\" she said, kissing her father. And then, with\r\na slight muttered word to Lady Staveley, she withdrew, having\r\nsacrificed the remainder of that evening for the sake of acceding to\r\nMr. Mason's request respecting her pledge. It could not be accounted\r\nstrange that she should give her hand to the gentleman with whom she\r\nwas immediately talking as she bade him good night. \"And now grandpapa is dead too,\" said Marian, \"and there's nobody\r\nleft but us three.\" \"And we'll divide,\" said Fanny Sebright; and so the game of commerce\r\nwas brought to an end. CHAPTER XXVIII. MONKTON GRANGE. During these days Peregrine Orme--though he was in love up to his\r\nvery chin, seriously in love, acknowledging this matter to himself\r\nopenly, pulling his hair in the retirement of his bedroom, and\r\nresolving that he would do that which he had hitherto in life always\r\nbeen successful in doing--ask, namely, boldly for that he wanted\r\nsorely--Peregrine Orme, I say, though he was in this condition, did\r\nnot in these days neglect his hunting."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A proper attendance upon the\r\nproceedings of the H. H. was the only duty which he had hitherto\r\nundertaken in return for all that his grandfather had done for him,\r\nand I have no doubt that he conceived that he was doing a duty in\r\ngoing hither and thither about the county to their most distant\r\nmeets. At this period of the present season it happened that\r\nNoningsby was more central to the proceedings of the hunt than The\r\nCleeve, and therefore he was enabled to think that he was remaining\r\naway from home chiefly on business. On one point, however, he had\r\nstoutly come to a resolution. That question should be asked of\r\nMadeline Staveley before he returned to his grandfather's house. And now had arrived a special hunting morning,--special, because\r\nthe meet was in some degree a show meet, appropriate for ladies,\r\nat a comfortable distance from Noningsby, and affording a chance\r\nof amusement to those who sat in carriages as well as to those on\r\nhorseback. Monkton Grange was the well-known name of the place,\r\na name perhaps dearer to the ladies than to the gentlemen of the\r\ncountry, seeing that show meets do not always give the best sport. Monkton Grange is an old farm-house, now hardly used as such,\r\nhaving been left, as regards the habitation, in the hands of a head\r\nlabourer; but it still possesses the marks of ancient respectability\r\nand even of grandeur."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is approached from the high road by a long\r\ndouble avenue of elms, which still stand in all their glory. The road\r\nitself has become narrow, and the space between the side row of trees\r\nis covered by soft turf, up which those coming to the meet love to\r\ngallop, trying the fresh metal of their horses. And the old house\r\nitself is surrounded by a moat, dry indeed now for the most part, but\r\nnevertheless an evident moat, deep and well preserved, with a bridge\r\nover it which Fancy tells us must once have been a drawbridge. It\r\nis here, in front of the bridge, that the old hounds sit upon their\r\nhaunches, resting quietly round the horses of the huntsmen, while\r\nthe young dogs move about, and would wander if the whips allowed\r\nthem--one of the fairest sights to my eyes that this fair country\r\nof ours can show. And here the sportsmen and ladies congregate by\r\ndegrees, men from a distance in dog-carts generally arriving first,\r\nas being less able to calculate the time with accuracy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There is room\r\nhere too in the open space for carriages, and there is one spot on\r\nwhich always stands old Lord Alston's chariot with the four posters;\r\nan ancient sportsman he, who still comes to some few favourite meets;\r\nand though Alston Court is but eight miles from the Grange, the\r\npost-horses always look as though they had been made to do their\r\nbest, for his lordship likes to move fast even in his old age. He is\r\na tall thin man, bent much with age, and apparently too weak for much\r\nwalking; he is dressed from head to foot in a sportsman's garb, with\r\na broad stiffly starched coloured handkerchief tied rigidly round his\r\nneck. One would say that old as he is he has sacrificed in no way\r\nto comfort. It is with difficulty that he gets into his saddle, his\r\nservant holding his rein and stirrup and giving him perhaps some\r\nother slight assistance; but when he is there, there he will remain\r\nall day, and when his old blood warms he will gallop along the road\r\nwith as much hot fervour as his grandson. An old friend he of Sir\r\nPeregrine's. \"And why is not your grandfather here to-day?\" he said\r\non this occasion to young Orme. \"Tell him from me that if he fails\r\nus in this way, I shall think he is getting old.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lord Alston was in\r\ntruth five years older than Sir Peregrine, but Sir Peregrine at this\r\ntime was thinking of other things. [Illustration: Monkton Grange.] And then a very tidy little modern carriage bustled up the road,\r\na brougham made for a pair of horses which was well known to all\r\nhunting men in these parts. It was very unpretending in its colour\r\nand harness; but no vehicle more appropriate to its purpose ever\r\ncarried two thorough-going sportsmen day after day about the country. In this as it pulled up under the head tree of the avenue were seated\r\nthe two Miss Tristrams. The two Miss Tristrams were well known to the\r\nHamworth Hunt--I will not merely say as fearless riders,--of most\r\ngirls who hunt as much can be said as that; but they were judicious\r\nhorsewomen; they knew when to ride hard, and when hard riding, as\r\nregarded any necessary for the hunt, would be absolutely thrown\r\naway. They might be seen for half the day moving about the roads as\r\nleisurely, or standing as quietly at the covert's side as might the\r\nseniors of the fields. But when the time for riding did come, when\r\nthe hounds were really running--when other young ladies had begun\r\nto go home--then the Miss Tristrams were always there;--there or\r\nthereabouts, as their admirers would warmly boast. Nor did they commence their day's work as did other girls who came\r\nout on hunting mornings."}
{"question": "", "answer": "With most such it is clear to see that the\r\nobject is pretty much the same here as in the ballroom. \"Spectatum\r\nveniunt; veniunt spectentur ut ipsæ,\" as it is proper, natural, and\r\ndesirable that they should do. By that word \"spectatum\" I would wish\r\nto signify something more than the mere use of the eyes. Perhaps an\r\noccasional word dropped here and there into the ears of a cavalier\r\nmay be included in it; and the \"spectentur\" also may include a word\r\nso received. But the Miss Tristrams came for hunting. Perhaps there\r\nmight be a slight shade of affectation in the manner by which they\r\nwould appear to come for that and that only. They would talk of\r\nnothing else, at any rate during the earlier portion of the day, when\r\nmany listeners were by. They were also well instructed as to the\r\ncountry to be drawn, and usually had a word of import to say to the\r\nhuntsman. They were good-looking, fair-haired girls, short in size,\r\nwith bright gray eyes, and a short decisive mode of speaking. It must\r\nnot be imagined that they were altogether indifferent to such matters\r\nas are dear to the hearts of other girls."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They were not careless as\r\nto admiration, and if report spoke truth of them were willing enough\r\nto establish themselves in the world; but all their doings of that\r\nkind had a reference to their favourite amusement, and they would as\r\nsoon have thought of flirting with men who did not hunt as some other\r\ngirls would with men who did not dance. I do not know that this kind of life had been altogether successful\r\nwith them, or that their father had been right to permit it. He\r\nhimself had formerly been a hunting man, but he had become fat and\r\nlazy, and the thing had dropped away from him. Occasionally he did\r\ncome out with them, but when he did not do so some other senior of\r\nthe field would have them nominally under charge; but practically\r\nthey were as independent when going across the country as the young\r\nmen who accompanied them. I have expressed a doubt whether this life\r\nwas successful with them, and indeed such doubt was expressed by many\r\nof their neighbours. It had been said of each of them for the last\r\nthree years that she was engaged, now to this man, and then to that\r\nother; but neither this man nor that other had yet made good the\r\nassertion, and now people were beginning to say that no man was\r\nengaged to either of them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Hunting young ladies are very popular\r\nin the hunting-field; I know no place in which girls receive more\r\nworship and attention; but I am not sure but they may carry their\r\nenthusiasm too far for their own interests, let their horsemanship be\r\nas perfect as it may be. The two girls on this occasion sat in their carriage till the groom\r\nbrought up their horses, and then it was wonderful to see with what\r\nease they placed themselves in their saddles. On such occasions they\r\nadmitted no aid from the gentlemen around them, but each stepping\r\nfor an instant on a servant's hand, settled herself in a moment on\r\nhorseback. Nothing could be more perfect than the whole thing, but\r\nthe wonder was that Mr. Tristram should have allowed it. The party from Noningsby consisted of six or seven on horseback,\r\nbesides those in the carriage. Among the former there were the two\r\nyoung ladies, Miss Furnival and Miss Staveley, and our friends Felix\r\nGraham, Augustus Staveley, and Peregrine Orme. Felix Graham was not\r\nby custom a hunting man, as he possessed neither time nor money for\r\nsuch a pursuit; but to-day he was mounted on his friend Staveley's\r\nsecond horse, having expressed his determination to ride him as long\r\nas they two, the man and the horse, could remain together. \"I give you fair warning,\" Felix had said, \"if I do not spare my own\r\nneck, you cannot expect me to spare your horse's legs.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You may do your worst,\" Staveley had answered. \"If you give him his\r\nhead, and let him have his own way, he won't come to grief, whatever\r\nyou may do.\" On their road to Monkton Grange, which was but three miles from\r\nNoningsby, Peregrine Orme had ridden by the side of Miss Staveley,\r\nthinking more of her than of the affairs of the hunt, prominent as\r\nthey were generally in his thoughts. How should he do it, and when,\r\nand in what way should he commence the deed? He had an idea that it\r\nmight be better for him if he could engender some closer intimacy\r\nbetween himself and Madeline before he absolutely asked the fatal\r\nquestion; but the closer intimacy did not seem to produce itself\r\nreadily. He had, in truth, known Madeline Staveley for many years,\r\nalmost since they were children together; but lately, during these\r\nChristmas holidays especially, there had not been between them that\r\nclose conversational alliance which so often facilitates such an\r\noverture as that which Peregrine was now desirous of making. And,\r\nworse again, he had seen that there was such close conversational\r\nalliance between Madeline and Felix Graham. He did not on that\r\naccount dislike the young barrister, or call him, even within his own\r\nbreast, a snob or an ass."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He knew well that he was neither the one\r\nnor the other; but he knew as well that he could be no fit match\r\nfor Miss Staveley, and, to tell the truth, he did not suspect that\r\neither Graham or Miss Staveley would think of such a thing. It was\r\nnot jealousy that tormented him, so much as a diffidence in his\r\nown resources. He made small attempts which did not succeed, and\r\ntherefore he determined that he would at once make a grand attempt. He would create himself an opportunity before he left Noningsby, and\r\nwould do it even to-day on horseback, if he could find sufficient\r\nopportunity. In taking a determined step like that, he knew that he\r\nwould not lack the courage. \"Do you mean to ride to-day,\" he said to Madeline, as they were\r\napproaching the bottom of the Grange avenue. For the last half-mile\r\nhe had been thinking what he would say to her, and thinking in\r\nvain; and now, at the last moment, he could summon no words to his\r\nassistance more potent for his purpose than these. \"If you mean by riding, Mr. Orme, going across the fields with you\r\nand the Miss Tristrams, certainly not. I should come to grief, as you\r\ncall it, at the first ditch.\" \"And that is just what I shall do,\" said Felix Graham, who was at her\r\nother side."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Then, if you take my advice, you'll remain with us in the wood, and\r\nact as squire of dames. What on earth would Marian do if aught but\r\ngood was to befall you?\" \"Dear Marian! She gave me a special commission to bring her the fox's\r\ntail. Foxes' tails are just like ladies.\" \"Thank you, Mr. Graham. I've heard you make some pretty compliments,\r\nand that is about the prettiest.\" \"A faint heart will never win either the one or the other, Miss\r\nStaveley.\" \"Oh, ah, yes. That will do very well. Under these circumstances I\r\nwill accept the comparison.\" All of which very innocent conversation was overheard by Peregrine\r\nOrme, riding on the other side of Miss Staveley's horse. And why not? Neither Graham nor Miss Staveley had any objection. But how was it\r\nthat he could not join in and take his share in it? He had made one\r\nlittle attempt at conversation, and that having failed he remained\r\nperfectly silent till they reached the large circle at the head of\r\nthe avenue. \"It's no use, this sort of thing,\" he said to himself. \"I\r\nmust do it at a blow, if I do it at all;\" and then he rode away to\r\nthe master of the hounds. As our party arrived at the open space the Miss Tristrams were\r\nstepping out of their carriage, and they came up to shake hands with\r\nMiss Staveley."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I am so glad to see you,\" said the eldest; \"it is so nice to have\r\nsome ladies out besides ourselves.\" \"Do keep up with us,\" said the second. \"It's a very open country\r\nabout here, and anybody can ride it.\" And then Miss Furnival was\r\nintroduced to them. \"Does your horse jump, Miss Furnival?\" \"I really do not know,\" said Sophia; \"but I sincerely trust that if\r\nhe does, he will refrain to-day.\" \"Don't say so,\" said the eldest sportswoman. \"If you'll only begin\r\nit will come as easy to you as going along the road;\" and then, not\r\nbeing able to spare more of these idle moments, they both went off to\r\ntheir horses, walking as though their habits were no impediments to\r\nthem, and in half a minute they were seated. \"What is Harriet on to-day?\" asked Staveley of a constant member of\r\nthe hunt. Now Harriet was the eldest Miss Tristram. \"A little brown mare she got last week. That was a terrible brush we\r\nhad on Friday. You weren't out, I think. We killed in the open, just\r\nat the edge of Rotherham Common. Harriet was one of the few that was\r\nup, and I don't think the chestnut horse will be the better of it\r\nthis season.\" \"That was the horse she got from Griggs?\" \"Yes; she gave a hundred and fifty for him; and I'm told he was as\r\nnearly done on Friday as any animal you ever put your eyes on."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They\r\nsay Harriet cried when she got home.\" Now the gentleman who was\r\ntalking about Harriet on this occasion was one with whom she would no\r\nmore have sat down to table than with her own groom. But though Harriet may have cried when she got home on that fatal\r\nFriday evening, she was full of the triumph of the hunt on this\r\nmorning. It is not often that the hounds run into a fox and\r\nabsolutely surround and kill him on the open ground, and when this\r\nis done after a severe run, there are seldom many there to see it. If a man can fairly take a fox's brush on such an occasion as that,\r\nlet him do it; otherwise let him leave it to the huntsman. On the\r\noccasion in question it seems that Harriet Tristram might have done\r\nso, and some one coming second to her had been gallant enough to do\r\nit for her. \"Oh, my lord, you should have been out on Friday,\" she said to Lord\r\nAlston. \"We had the prettiest thing I ever saw.\" \"A great deal too pretty for me, my dear.\" \"Oh, you who know the roads so well would certainly have been up. I\r\nsuppose it was thirteen miles from Cobbleton's Bushes to Rotherham\r\nCommon.\" \"Not much less, indeed,\" said his lordship, unwilling to diminish the\r\nlady's triumph. Had a gentleman made the boast his lordship would\r\nhave demonstrated that it was hardly more than eleven."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I timed it accurately from the moment he went away,\" said the lady,\r\n\"and it was exactly fifty-seven minutes. The first part of it was\r\nawfully fast. Then we had a little check at Moseley Bottom. But for\r\nthat, nobody could have lived through it. I never shall forget how\r\ndeep it was coming up from there to Cringleton. I saw two men get off\r\nto ease their horses up the deep bit of plough; and I would have done\r\nso too, only my horse would not have stood for me to get up.\" \"I hope he was none the worse for it,\" said the sporting character\r\nwho had been telling Staveley just now how she had cried when she got\r\nhome that night. \"To tell the truth, I fear it has done him no good. He would not\r\nfeed, you know, that night at all.\" \"And broke out into cold sweats,\" said the gentleman. \"Exactly,\" said the lady, not quite liking it, but still enduring\r\nwith patience. \"Rather groggy on his pins the next morning?\" suggested her friend. \"Very groggy,\" said Harriet, regarding the word as one belonging to\r\nfair sporting phraseology. \"And inclined to go very much on the points of his toes. I know all\r\nabout it, Miss Tristam, as well as though I'd seen him.\" \"There's nothing but rest for it, I suppose.\" \"Rest and regular exercise--that's the chief thing; and I should give\r\nhim a mash as often as three times a week."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He'll be all right again\r\nin three or four weeks,--that is if he's sound, you know.\" \"Oh, as sound as a bell,\" said Miss Tristram. \"He'll never be the same horse on a road though,\" said the sporting\r\ngentlemen, shaking his head and whispering to Staveley. And now the time had come at which they were to move. They always met\r\nat eleven; and at ten minutes past, to the moment, Jacob the huntsman\r\nwould summons the old hounds from off their haunches. \"I believe we\r\nmay be moving, Jacob,\" said Mr. Williams, the master. \"The time be up,\" said Jacob, looking at a ponderous timekeeper that\r\nmight with truth be called a hunting-watch; and then they all moved\r\nslowly away back from the Grange, down a farm-road which led to\r\nMonkton Wood, distant from the old house perhaps a quarter of a mile. \"May we go as far as the wood?\" said Miss Furnival to Augustus. \"Without being made to ride over hedges, I mean.\" \"Oh, dear, yes; and ride about the wood half the day. It will be an\r\nhour and a half before a fox will break--even if he ever breaks.\" \"Dear me! how tired you will be of us. Now do say something pretty,\r\nMr. Staveley.\" \"It's not my _métier_. We shall be tired, not of you, but of the\r\nthing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Galloping up and down the same cuts in the wood for an hour\r\nand a half is not exciting; nor does it improve the matter much if we\r\nstand still, as one should do by rights.\" \"That would be very slow.\" \"You need not be afraid. They never do here. Everybody will be\r\nrushing about as though the very world depended on their galloping.\" \"I'm so glad; that's just what I like.\" \"Everybody except Lord Alston, Miss Tristram, and, the other old\r\nstagers. They will husband their horses, and come out as fresh at\r\ntwo o'clock as though they were only just out. There is nothing so\r\nvaluable as experience in hunting.\" \"Do you think it nice seeing a young lady with so much hunting\r\nknowledge?\" \"Now you want me to talk slander, but I won't do it. I admire the\r\nMiss Tristrams exceedingly, and especially Julia.\" \"And which is Julia?\" \"The youngest; that one riding by herself.\" \"And why don't you go and express your admiration?\" \"Ah, me! why don't we all express the admiration that we feel, and\r\npour sweet praises into the ears of the lady that excites it? Because\r\nwe are cowards, Miss Furnival, and are afraid even of such a weak\r\nthing as a woman.\" \"Dear me! I should hardly have thought that you would suffer from\r\nsuch terror as that.\" \"Because you don't quite know me, Miss Furnival.\" \"And Miss Julia Tristram is the lady that has excited it?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If it be not she, it is some other fair votary of Diana at present\r\nriding into Monkton Wood.\" \"Ah, now you are giving me a riddle to guess, and I never guess\r\nriddles. I won't even try at it. But they all seem to be stopping.\" \"Yes, they are putting the hounds into covert. Now if you want to\r\nshow yourself a good sportsman, look at your watch. You see that\r\nJulia Tristram has got hers in her hand.\" \"What's that for?\" \"To time the hounds; to see how long they'll be before they find. It's very pretty work in a small gorse, but in a great wood like this\r\nI don't care much for being so accurate. But for heaven's sake don't\r\ntell Julia Tristram; I should not have a chance if she thought I was\r\nso slack.\" And now the hounds were scattering themselves in the wood, and the\r\nparty rode up the centre roadway towards a great circular opening in\r\nthe middle of it. Here it was the recognised practice of the horsemen\r\nto stand, and those who properly did their duty would stand there;\r\nbut very many lingered at the gate, knowing that there was but one\r\nother exit from the wood, without overcoming the difficulty of a very\r\nintricate and dangerous fence. \"There be a gap, bain't there?\" said one farmer to another, as they\r\nwere entering."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Yes, there be a gap, and young Grubbles broke his 'orse's back a\r\ngetting over of it last year,\" said the second farmer. \"Did he though?\" said the first; and so they both remained at the\r\ngate. And others, a numerous body, including most of the ladies, galloped\r\nup and down the cross ways, because the master of the hounds and the\r\nhuntsman did so. \"D---- those fellows riding up and down after me\r\nwherever I go,\" said the master. \"I believe they think I'm to be\r\nhunted.\" This seemed to be said more especially to Miss Tristram, who\r\nwas always in the master's confidence; and I fear that the fellows\r\nalluded to included Miss Furnival and Miss Staveley. And then there came the sharp, eager sound of a hound's voice; a\r\nsingle, sharp, happy opening bark, and Harriet Tristram was the first\r\nto declare that the game was found. \"Just five minutes and twenty\r\nseconds, my lord,\" said Julia Tristram to Lord Alston. \"That's not\r\nbad in a large wood like this.\" \"Uncommonly good,\" said his lordship. \"And when are we to get out of\r\nit?\" \"They'll be here for the next hour, I'm afraid,\" said the lady, not\r\nmoving her horse from the place where she stood, though many of the\r\nmore impetuous of the men were already rushing away to the gates. \"I have seen a fox go away from here without resting a minute; but\r\nthat was later in the season, at the end of February."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Foxes are away\r\nfrom home then.\" All which observations showed a wonderfully acute\r\nsporting observation on the part of Miss Tristram. And then the music of the dogs became fast and frequent, as they\r\ndrove the brute across and along from one part of the large wood to\r\nanother. Sure there is no sound like it for filling a man's heart\r\nwith an eager desire to be at work. What may be the trumpet in battle\r\nI do not know, but I can imagine that it has the same effect. And\r\nnow a few of them were standing on that wide circular piece of grass,\r\nwhen a sound the most exciting of them all reached their ears. \"He's\r\naway!\" shouted a whip from a corner of the wood. The good-natured\r\nbeast, though as yet it was hardly past Christmas-time, had consented\r\nto bless at once so many anxious sportsmen, and had left the back of\r\nthe covert with the full pack at his heels. \"There is no gate that way, Miss Tristram,\" said a gentleman. \"There's a double ditch and bank that will do as well,\" said she, and\r\naway she went directly after the hounds, regardless altogether of the\r\ngates. Peregrine Orme and Felix Graham, who were with her, followed\r\nclose upon her track. CHAPTER XXIX. BREAKING COVERT."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"There's a double ditch and bank that will do as well,\" Miss Tristram\r\nhad said when she was informed that there was no gate out of the\r\nwood at the side on which the fox had broken. The gentleman who had\r\ntendered the information might as well have held his tongue, for Miss\r\nTristram knew the wood intimately, was acquainted with the locality\r\nof all its gates, and was acquainted also with the points at which it\r\nmight be left, without the assistance of any gate at all, by those\r\nwho were well mounted and could ride their horses. Therefore she had\r\nthus replied, \"There's a double ditch and bank that will do as well.\" And for the double ditch and bank at the end of one of the grassy\r\nroadways Miss Tristram at once prepared herself. \"That's the gap where Grubbles broke his horse's back,\" said a man in\r\na red coat to Peregrine Orme, and so saying he made up his wavering\r\nmind and galloped away as fast as his nag could carry him. But\r\nPeregrine Orme would not avoid a fence at which a lady was not afraid\r\nto ride; and Felix Graham, knowing little but fearing nothing,\r\nfollowed Peregrine Orme. At the end of the roadway, in the middle of the track, there was the\r\ngap."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For a footman it was doubtless the easiest way over the fence,\r\nfor the ditch on that side was half filled up, and there was space\r\nenough left of the half-broken bank for a man's scrambling feet; but\r\nMiss Tristram at once knew that it was a bad place for a horse. The\r\nsecond or further ditch was the really difficult obstacle, and there\r\nwas no footing in the gap from which a horse could take his leap. To\r\nthe right of this the fence was large and required a good horse, but\r\nMiss Tristram knew her animal and was accustomed to large fences. The\r\ntrained beast went well across on to the bank, poised himself there\r\nfor a moment, and taking a second spring carried his mistress across\r\ninto the further field apparently with ease. In that field the dogs\r\nwere now running, altogether, so that a sheet might have covered\r\nthem; and Miss Tristram, exulting within her heart and holding in her\r\nhorse, knew that she had got away uncommonly well. Peregrine Orme followed,--a little to the right of the lady's\r\npassage, so that he might have room for himself, and do no mischief\r\nin the event of Miss Tristram or her horse making any mistake at\r\nthe leap. He also got well over. But, alas! in spite of such early\r\nsuccess he was destined to see nothing of the hunt that day!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Felix\r\nGraham, thinking that he would obey instructions by letting his horse\r\ndo as he pleased, permitted the beast to come close upon Orme's track\r\nand to make his jump before Orme's horse had taken his second spring. \"Have a care,\" said Peregrine, feeling that the two were together on\r\nthe bank, \"or you'll shove me into the ditch.\" He however got well\r\nover. Felix, attempting to \"have a care\" just when his doing so could be\r\nof no avail, gave his horse a pull with the curb as he was preparing\r\nfor his second spring. The outside ditch was broad and deep and well\r\nbanked up, and required that an animal should have all his power. It\r\nwas at such a moment as this that he should have been left to do his\r\nwork without injudicious impediment from his rider. But poor Graham\r\nwas thinking only of Orme's caution, and attempted to stop the beast\r\nwhen any positive and absolute stop was out of the question. The\r\nhorse made his jump, and, crippled as he was, jumped short. He came\r\nwith his knees against the further bank, threw his rider, and then in\r\nhis struggle to right himself rolled over him. Felix felt at once that he was much hurt--that he had indeed come to\r\ngrief; but still he was not stunned nor did he lose his presence of\r\nmind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The horse succeeded in gaining his feet, and then Felix also\r\njumped up and even walked a step or two towards the head of the\r\nanimal with the object of taking the reins. But he found that he\r\ncould not raise his arm, and he found also that he could hardly\r\nbreathe. Both Peregrine and Miss Tristram looked back. \"There's nothing\r\nwrong I hope,\" said the lady; and then she rode on. And let it be\r\nunderstood that in hunting those who are in advance generally do\r\nride on. The lame and the halt and the wounded, if they cannot pick\r\nthemselves up, have to be picked up by those who come after them. But\r\nPeregrine saw that there was no one else coming that way. The memory\r\nof young Grubbles' fate had placed an interdict on that pass out\r\nof the wood, which nothing short of the pluck and science of Miss\r\nTristram was able to disregard. Two cavaliers she had carried with\r\nher. One she had led on to instant slaughter, and the other remained\r\nto look after his fallen brother-in-arms. Miss Tristram in the mean\r\ntime was in the next field and had settled well down to her work. \"Are you hurt, old fellow?\" said Peregrine, turning back his horse,\r\nbut still not dismounting. \"Not much, I think,\" said Graham, smiling. \"There's something wrong\r\nabout my arm,--but don't you wait.\" And then he found that he spoke\r\nwith difficulty. \"Can you mount again?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I don't think I'll mind that. Perhaps I'd better sit down.\" Then\r\nPeregrine Orme knew that Graham was hurt, and jumping off his own\r\nhorse he gave up all hope of the hunt. \"Here, you fellow, come and hold these horses.\" So invoked, a boy who\r\nin following the sport had got as far as this ditch did as he was\r\nbid, and scrambled over. \"Sit down, Graham: there; I'm afraid you\r\nare hurt. Did he roll on you?\" But Felix merely looked up into his\r\nface,--still smiling. He was now very pale, and for the moment could\r\nnot speak. Peregrine came close to him, and gently attempted to raise\r\nthe wounded limb; whereupon Graham shuddered, and shook his head. \"I fear it is broken,\" said Peregrine. Graham nodded his head, and\r\nraised his left hand to his breast; and Peregrine then knew that\r\nsomething else was amiss also. I don't know any feeling more disagreeable than that produced by\r\nbeing left alone in a field, when out hunting, with a man who has\r\nbeen very much hurt and who is incapable of riding or walking. The hurt man himself has the privilege of his infirmities and may\r\nremain quiescent; but you, as his only attendant, must do something. You must for the moment do all, and if you do wrong the whole\r\nresponsibility lies on your shoulders."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If you leave a wounded man on\r\nthe damp ground, in the middle of winter, while you run away, five\r\nmiles perhaps, to the next doctor, he may not improbably--as you\r\nthen think--be dead before you come back. You don't know the way;\r\nyou are heavy yourself, and your boots are very heavy. You must stay\r\ntherefore; but as you are no doctor you don't in the least know what\r\nis the amount of the injury. In your great trouble you begin to roar\r\nfor assistance; but the woods re-echo your words, and the distant\r\nsound of the huntsman's horn, as he summons his hounds at a check,\r\nonly mocks your agony. But Peregrine had a boy with him. \"Get upon that horse,\" he said at\r\nlast; \"ride round to Farmer Griggs, and tell them to send somebody\r\nhere with a spring cart. He has got a spring cart I know;--and a\r\nmattress in it.\" \"But I hain't no gude at roiding like,\" said the boy, looking with\r\ndismay at Orme's big horse. \"Then run; that will be better, for you can go through the wood. You\r\nknow where Farmer Griggs lives. The first farm the other side of the\r\nGrange.\" \"Ay, ay, I knows where Farmer Griggs lives well enough.\" \"Run, then; and if the cart is here in half an hour I'll give you a\r\nsovereign.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Inspirited by the hopes of such wealth, golden wealth, wealth for a\r\nlifetime, the boy was quickly back over the fence, and Peregrine was\r\nleft alone with Felix Graham. He was now sitting down, with his feet\r\nhanging into the ditch, and Peregrine was kneeling behind him. \"I am\r\nsorry I can do nothing more,\" said he; \"but I fear we must remain\r\nhere till the cart comes.\" \"I am--so--vexed--about your hunt,\" said Felix, gasping as he spoke. He had in fact broken his right arm which had been twisted under him\r\nas the horse rolled, and two of his ribs had been staved in by the\r\npommel of his saddle. Many men have been worse hurt and have hunted\r\nagain before the end of the season, but the fracture of three bones\r\ndoes make a man uncomfortable for the time. \"Now the cart--is--sent\r\nfor, couldn't you--go on?\" But it was not likely that Peregrine Orme\r\nwould do that. \"Never mind me,\" he said. \"When a fellow is hurt he\r\nhas always to do as he's told. You'd better have a drop of sherry. Look here: I've got a flask at my saddle. There; you can support\r\nyourself with that arm a moment. Did you ever see horses stand so\r\nquiet. I've got hold of yours, and now I'll fasten them together. I\r\nsay, Whitefoot, you don't kick, do you?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then he contrived to\r\npicket the horses to two branches, and having got out his case of\r\nsherry, poured a small modicum into the silver mug which was attached\r\nto the apparatus and again supported Graham while he drank. \"You'll\r\nbe as right as a trivet by-and-by; only you'll have to make Noningsby\r\nyour headquarters for the next six weeks.\" And then the same idea\r\npassed through the mind of each of them;--how little a man need be\r\npitied for such a misfortune if Madeline Staveley would consent to be\r\nhis nurse. [Illustration: Felix Graham in trouble.] No man could have less surgical knowledge than Peregrine Orme, but\r\nnevertheless he was such a man as one would like to have with him if\r\none came to grief in such a way. He was cheery and up-hearted, but at\r\nthe same time gentle and even thoughtful. His voice was pleasant and\r\nhis touch could be soft. For many years afterwards Felix remembered\r\nhow that sherry had been held to his lips, and how the young heir of\r\nThe Cleeve had knelt behind him in his red coat, supporting him as he\r\nbecame weary with waiting, and saying pleasant words to him through\r\nthe whole. Felix Graham was a man who would remember such things. In running through the wood the boy first encountered three horsemen. They were the judge, with his daughter Madeline and Miss Furnival."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"There be a mon there who be a'most dead,\" said the boy, hardly able\r\nto speak from want of breath. \"I be agoing for Farmer Griggs' cart.\" And then they stopped him a moment to ask for some description, but\r\nthe boy could tell them nothing to indicate that the wounded man\r\nwas one of their friends. It might however be Augustus, and so the\r\nthree rode on quickly towards the fence, knowing nothing of the\r\ncircumstances of the ditches which would make it out of their power\r\nto get to the fallen sportsman. But Peregrine heard the sound of the horses and the voices of the\r\nhorsemen. \"By Jove, there's a lot of them coming down here,\" said he. \"It's the judge and two of the girls. Oh, Miss Staveley, I'm so glad\r\nyou've come. Graham has had a bad fall and hurt himself. You haven't\r\na shawl, have you? the ground is so wet under him.\" \"It doesn't signify at all,\" said Felix, looking round and seeing the\r\nfaces of his friends on the other side of the bank. Madeline Staveley gave a slight shriek which her father did not\r\nnotice, but which Miss Furnival heard very plainly. \"Oh papa,\" she\r\nsaid, \"cannot you get over to him?\" And then she began to bethink\r\nherself whether it were possible that she should give up something of\r\nher dress to protect the man who was hurt from the damp muddy ground\r\non which he lay."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Can you hold my horse, dear,\" said the judge, slowly dismounting;\r\nfor the judge, though he rode every day on sanitary considerations,\r\nhad not a sportsman's celerity in leaving and recovering his saddle. But he did get down, and burdened as he was with a great-coat, he\r\ndid succeed in crossing that accursed fence. Accursed it was from\r\nhenceforward in the annals of the H. H., and none would ride it but\r\ndare-devils who professed themselves willing to go at anything. Miss Tristram, however, always declared that there was nothing in\r\nit--though she avoided it herself, whispering to her friends that she\r\nhad led others to grief there, and might possibly do so again if she\r\npersevered. \"Could you hold the horse?\" said Madeline to Miss Furnival; \"and I\r\nwill go for a shawl to the carriage.\" Miss Furnival declared that to\r\nthe best of her belief she could not, but nevertheless the animal was\r\nleft with her, and Madeline turned round and galloped back towards\r\nthe carriage. She made her horse do his best though her eyes were\r\nnearly blinded with tears, and went straight on for the carriage,\r\nthough she would have given much for a moment to hide those tears\r\nbefore she reached it. \"Oh, mamma! give me a thick shawl; Mr. Graham has hurt himself in the\r\nfield, and is lying on the grass.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then in some incoherent and\r\nquick manner she had to explain what she knew of the accident before\r\nshe could get a carriage-cloak out of the carriage. This, however,\r\nshe did succeed in doing, and in some manner, very unintelligible\r\nto herself afterwards, she did gallop back with her burden. She\r\npassed the cloak over to Peregrine, who clambered up the bank to get\r\nit, while the judge remained on the ground, supporting the young\r\nbarrister. Felix Graham, though he was weak, was not stunned or\r\nsenseless, and he knew well who it was that had procured for him that\r\ncomfort. And then the carriage followed Madeline, and there was quite a\r\nconcourse of servants and horses and ladies on the inside of the\r\nfence. But the wounded man was still unfortunately on the other side. No cart from Farmer Griggs made its appearance, though it was now\r\nmore than half an hour since the boy had gone. Carts, when they are\r\nwanted in such sudden haste, do not make their appearance. It was two\r\nmiles through the wood to Mr. Griggs's farm-yard, and more than three\r\nmiles back by any route which the cart could take. And then it might\r\nbe more than probable that in Farmer Griggs's establishment there was\r\nnot always a horse ready in harness, or a groom at hand prepared to\r\nyoke him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Peregrine had become very impatient, and had more than once\r\ninvoked a silent anathema on the farmer's head; but nevertheless\r\nthere was no appearance of the cart. \"We must get him across the ditches into the carriage,\" said the\r\njudge. \"If Lady Staveley will let us do that,\" said Peregrine. \"The difficulty is not with Lady Staveley but with these nasty\r\nditches,\" said the judge, for he had been up to his knees in one of\r\nthem, and the water had penetrated his boots. But the task was at\r\nlast done. Mrs. Arbuthnot stood up on the back seat of the carriage\r\nso that she might hold the horses, and the coachman and footman got\r\nacross into the field. \"It would be better to let me lie here all\r\nday,\" said Felix, as three of them struggled back with their burden,\r\nthe judge bringing up the rear with two hunting-whips and Peregrine's\r\ncap. \"How on earth any one would think of riding over such a place as\r\nthat!\" said the judge. But then, when he had been a young man it had\r\nnot been the custom for barristers to go out hunting. Madeline, as she saw the wounded man carefully laid on the back seat\r\nof the carriage, almost wished that she could have her mother's place\r\nthat she might support him. Would they be careful enough with him? Would they remember how terrible must be the pain of that motion to\r\none so hurt as he was?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then she looked into his face as he was\r\nmade to lean back, and she saw that he still smiled. Felix Graham was\r\nby no means a handsome man; I should hardly sin against the truth if\r\nI were to say that he was ugly. But Madeline, as she looked at him\r\nnow lying there utterly without colour but always with that smile on\r\nhis countenance, thought that no face to her liking had ever been\r\nmore gracious. She still rode close to him as they went down the\r\ngrassy road, saying never a word. And Miss Furnival rode there also,\r\nsomewhat in the rear, condoling with the judge as to his wet feet. \"Miss Furnival,\" he said, \"when a judge forgets himself and goes out\r\nhunting he has no right to expect anything better. What would your\r\nfather have said had he seen me clambering up the bank with young\r\nOrme's hunting-cap between my teeth? I positively did.\" \"He would have rushed to assist you,\" said Miss Furnival, with a\r\nlittle burst of enthusiasm which was hardly needed on the occasion. And then Peregrine came after them leading Graham's horse. He had\r\nbeen compelled to return to the field and ride both the horses back\r\ninto the wood; one after the other, while the footman held them. That\r\nriding back over fences in cold blood is the work that really tries\r\na man's nerve. And a man has to do it too when no one is looking on."}
{"question": "", "answer": "How he does crane and falter and look about for an easy place at such\r\na moment as that! But when the blood is cold, no places are easy. The procession got back to Noningsby without adventure, and Graham\r\nas a matter of course was taken up to his bed. One of the servants\r\nhad been despatched to Alston for a surgeon, and in an hour or\r\ntwo the extent of the misfortune was known. The right arm was\r\nbroken--\"very favourably,\" as the doctor observed. But two ribs were\r\nbroken--\"rather unfavourably.\" There was some talk of hæmorrhage and\r\ninward wounds, and Sir Jacob from Saville Row was suggested by Lady\r\nStaveley. But the judge, knowing the extent of Graham's means, made\r\nsome further preliminary inquiries, and it was considered that Sir\r\nJacob would not be needed--at any rate not as yet. \"Why don't they send for him?\" said Madeline to her mother with\r\nrather more than her wonted energy. \"Your papa does not think it necessary, my dear. It would be very\r\nexpensive, you know.\" \"But, mamma, would you let a man die because it would cost a few\r\npounds to cure him?\" \"My dear, we all hope that Mr. Graham won't die--at any rate not at\r\npresent. If there be any danger you may be sure that your papa will\r\nsend for the best advice.\" But Madeline was by no means satisfied. She could not understand\r\neconomy in a matter of life and death."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If Sir Jacob's coming would\r\nhave cost fifty pounds, or a hundred, what would that have signified,\r\nweighed in such a balance? Such a sum would be nothing to her father. Had Augustus fallen and broken his arm all the Sir Jacobs in London\r\nwould not have been considered too costly could their joint coming\r\nhave mitigated any danger. She did not however dare to speak to her\r\nmother again, so she said a word or two to Peregrine Orme, who was\r\nconstant in his attendance on Felix. Peregrine had been very kind,\r\nand she had seen it, and her heart therefore warmed towards him. \"Don't you think he ought to have more advice, Mr. Orme?\" \"Well, no; I don't know. He's very jolly, you know; only he can't\r\ntalk. One of the bones ran into him, but I believe he's all right.\" \"Oh, but that is so frightful!\" and the tears were again in her eyes. \"If I were him I should think one doctor enough. But it's easy enough\r\nhaving a fellow down from London, you know, if you like it.\" \"If he should get worse, Mr. Orme--.\" And then Peregrine made her a\r\nsort of promise, but in doing so an idea shot through his poor heart\r\nof what the truth might really be. He went back and looked at Felix\r\nwho was sleeping."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If it is so I must bear it,\" he said to himself;\r\n\"but I'll fight it on;\" and a quick thought ran through his brain of\r\nhis own deficiencies. He knew that he was not clever and bright in\r\ntalk like Felix Graham. He could not say the right thing at the right\r\nmoment without forethought. How he wished that he could! But still he\r\nwould fight it on, as he would have done any losing match,--to the\r\nlast. And then he sat down by Felix's head, and resolved that he\r\nwould be loyal to his new friend all the same--loyal in all things\r\nneedful. But still he would fight it on. CHAPTER XXX. ANOTHER FALL. Felix Graham had plenty of nurses, but Madeline was not one of them. Augustus Staveley came home while the Alston doctor was still busy\r\nat the broken bones, and of course he would not leave his friend. He\r\nwas one of those who had succeeded in the hunt, and consequently had\r\nheard nothing of the accident till the end of it. Miss Tristram had\r\nbeen the first to tell him that Mr. Graham had fallen in leaving the\r\ncovert, but having seen him rise to his legs she had not thought he\r\nwas seriously hurt. \"I do not know much about your friend,\" she had said; \"but I think I\r\nmay comfort you by an assurance that your horse is none the worse. I\r\ncould see as much as that.\" \"Poor Felix!\" said, Staveley."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"He has lost a magnificent run. I\r\nsuppose we are nine or ten miles from Monkton Grange now?\" \"Eleven if we are a yard,\" said the lady. \"It was an ugly country,\r\nbut the pace was nothing wonderful.\" And then others dropped in, and\r\nat last came tidings about Graham. At first there was a whisper that\r\nhe was dead. He had ridden over Orme, it was said; had nearly killed\r\nhim, and had quite killed himself. Then the report became less fatal. Both horses were dead, but Graham was still living though with most\r\nof his bones broken. \"Don't believe it,\" said Miss Tristram. \"In what condition Mr. Graham\r\nmay be I won't say; but that your horse was safe and sound after he\r\ngot over the fence, of that you may take my word.\" And thus, in a\r\nstate of uncertainty, obtaining fresh rumours from every person he\r\npassed, Staveley hurried home. \"Right arm and two ribs,\" Peregrine\r\nsaid to him, as he met him in the hall. \"Is that all?\" said Augustus. It was clear therefore that he did not think so much about it as his\r\nsister. \"If you'd let her have her head she'd never have come down like\r\nthat,\" Augustus said, as he sat that evening by his friend's bedside. \"But he pulled off, I fancy, to avoid riding over me,\" said\r\nPeregrine. \"Then he must have come too quick at his leap,\" said Augustus."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You\r\nshould have steadied him as he came to it.\" From all which Graham\r\nperceived that a man cannot learn how to ride any particular horse by\r\ntwo or three words of precept. \"If you talk any more about the horse, or the hunt, or the accident,\r\nneither of you shall stay in the room,\" said Lady Staveley, who came\r\nin at that moment. But they both did stay in the room, and said a\r\ngreat deal more about the hunt, and the horse, and the accident\r\nbefore they left it; and even became so far reconciled to the\r\ncircumstance that they had a hot glass of brandy and water each,\r\nsitting by Graham's fire. \"But, Augustus, do tell me how he is,\" Madeline said to her brother,\r\nas she caught him going to his room. She had become ashamed of asking\r\nany more questions of her mother. \"He's all right; only he'll be as fretful as a porcupine, shut up\r\nthere. At least I should be. Are there lots of novels in the house? Mind you send for a batch to-morrow. Novels are the only chance a man\r\nhas when he's laid up like that.\" Before breakfast on the following\r\nmorning Madeline had sent off to the Alston circulating library a\r\nlist of all the best new novels of which she could remember the\r\nnames."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No definite day had hitherto been fixed for Peregrine's return to\r\nThe Cleeve, and under the present circumstances he still remained at\r\nNoningsby assisting to amuse Felix Graham. For two days after the\r\naccident such seemed to be his sole occupation; but in truth he was\r\nlooking for an opportunity to say a word or two to Miss Staveley, and\r\npaving his way as best he might for that great speech which he was\r\nfully resolved that he would make before he left the house. Once or\r\ntwice he bethought himself whether he would not endeavour to secure\r\nfor himself some confidant in the family, and obtain the sanction and\r\nspecial friendship either of Madeline's mother, or her sister, or her\r\nbrother. But what if after that she should reject him? Would it not\r\nbe worse for him then that any one should have known of his defeat? He could, as he thought, endure to suffer alone; but on such a matter\r\nas that pity would be unendurable. So as he sat there by Graham's\r\nfireside, pretending to read one of poor Madeline's novels for the\r\nsake of companionship, he determined that he would tell no one of his\r\nintention;--no one till he could make the opportunity for telling\r\nher. And when he did meet her, and find, now and again, some moment for\r\nsaying a word alone to her, she was very gracious to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had been\r\nso kind and gentle with Felix, there was so much in him that was\r\nsweet and good and honest, so much that such an event as this brought\r\nforth and made manifest, that Madeline, and indeed the whole family,\r\ncould not but be gracious to him. Augustus would declare that he was\r\nthe greatest brick he had ever known, repeating all Graham's words as\r\nto the patience with which the embryo baronet had knelt behind him on\r\nthe cold muddy ground, supporting him for an hour, till the carriage\r\nhad come up. Under such circumstances how could Madeline refrain from\r\nbeing gracious to him? \"But it is all from favour to Graham!\" Peregrine would say to himself\r\nwith bitterness; and yet though he said so he did not quite believe\r\nit. Poor fellow! It was all from favour to Graham. And could he have\r\nthoroughly believed the truth of those words which he repeated to\r\nhimself so often, he might have spared himself much pain. He might\r\nhave spared himself much pain, and possibly some injury; for if aught\r\ncould now tend to mature in Madeline's heart an affection which was\r\nbut as yet nascent, it would be the offer of some other lover. But\r\nsuch reasoning on the matter was much too deep for Peregrine Orme. \"It may be,\" he said to himself, \"that she only pities him because he\r\nis hurt. If so, is not this time better for me than any other?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "If it\r\nbe that she loves him, let me know it, and be out of my pain.\" It did\r\nnot then occur to him that circumstances such as those in question\r\ncould not readily be made explicit;--that Madeline might refuse\r\nhis love, and yet leave him no wiser than he now was as to her\r\nreasons for so refusing;--perhaps, indeed, leave him less wise, with\r\nincreased cause for doubt and hopeless hope, and the green melancholy\r\nof a rejected lover. Madeline during these two days said no more about the London doctor;\r\nbut it was plain to all who watched her that her anxiety as to the\r\npatient was much more keen than that of the other ladies of the\r\nhouse. \"She always thinks everybody is going to die,\" Lady Staveley\r\nsaid to Miss Furnival, intending, not with any consummate prudence,\r\nto account to that acute young lady for her daughter's solicitude. \"We had a cook here, three months since, who was very ill, and\r\nMadeline would never be easy till the doctor assured her that the\r\npoor woman's danger was altogether past.\" \"She is so very warm-hearted,\" said Miss Furnival in reply. \"It is\r\nquite delightful to see her. And she will have such pleasure when she\r\nsees him come down from his room.\" Lady Staveley on this immediate occasion said nothing to her\r\ndaughter, but Mrs. Arbuthnot considered that a sisterly word might\r\nperhaps be spoken in due season."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"The doctor says he is doing quite well now,\" Mrs. Arbuthnot said to\r\nher, as they were sitting alone. \"But does he indeed? Did you hear him?\" said Madeline, who was\r\nsuspicious. \"He did so, indeed. I heard him myself. But he says also that he\r\nought to remain here, at any rate for the next fortnight,--if mamma\r\ncan permit it without inconvenience.\" \"Of course she can permit it. No one would turn any person out of\r\ntheir house in such a condition as that!\" \"Papa and mamma both will be very happy that he should stay here;--of\r\ncourse they would not do what you call turning him out. But, Mad,\r\nmy darling,\"--and then she came up close and put her arm round\r\nher sister's waist. \"I think mamma would be more comfortable in\r\nhis remaining here if your charity towards him were--what shall I\r\nsay?--less demonstrative.\" \"What do you mean, Isabella?\" \"Dearest, dearest; you must not be angry with me. Nobody has hinted\r\nto me a word on the subject, nor do I mean to hint anything that can\r\npossibly be hurtful to you.\" \"But what do you mean?\" \"Don't you know, darling? He is a young man--and--and--people see\r\nwith such unkind eyes, and hear with such scandal-loving ears. There\r\nis that Miss Furnival--\"\r\n\r\n\"If Miss Furnival can think such things, I for one do not care what\r\nshe thinks.\" \"No, nor do I;--not as regards any important result. But may it not\r\nbe well to be careful?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "You know what I mean, dearest?\" \"Yes--I know. At least I suppose so. And it makes me know also how\r\nvery cold and shallow and heartless people are! I won't ask any more\r\nquestions, Isabella; but I can't know that a fellow-creature is\r\nsuffering in the house,--and a person like him too, so clever, whom\r\nwe all regard as a friend,--the most intimate friend in the world\r\nthat Augustus has,--and the best too, as I heard papa himself\r\nsay--without caring whether he is going to live or die.\" \"There is no danger now, you know.\" \"Very well; I am glad to hear it. Though I know very well that there\r\nmust be danger after such a terrible accident as that.\" \"The doctor says there is none.\" \"At any rate I will not--\" And then instead of finishing her sentence\r\nshe turned away her head and put up her handkerchief to wipe away a\r\ntear. \"You are not angry with me, dear?\" said Mrs. Arbuthnot. \"Oh, no,\" said Madeline; and then they parted. For some days after that Madeline asked no question whatever about\r\nFelix Graham, but it may be doubted whether this did not make the\r\nmatter worse. Even Sophia Furnival would ask how he was at any rate\r\ntwice a day, and Lady Staveley continued to pay him regular visits\r\nat stated intervals. As he got better she would sit with him, and\r\nbrought back reports as to his sayings."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Madeline never discussed\r\nany of these; and refrained alike from the conversation, whether\r\nhis broken bones or his unbroken wit were to be the subject of it. And then Mrs. Arbuthnot, knowing that she would still be anxious,\r\ngave her private bulletins as to the state of the sick man's\r\nprogress;--all which gave an air of secrecy to the matter, and caused\r\neven Madeline to ask herself why this should be so. On the whole I think that Mrs. Arbuthnot was wrong. Mrs. Arbuthnot\r\nand the whole Staveley family would have regarded a mutual attachment\r\nbetween Mr. Graham and Madeline as a great family misfortune. The\r\njudge was a considerate father to his children, holding that a\r\nfather's control should never be brought to bear unnecessarily. In\r\nlooking forward to the future prospects of his sons and daughters\r\nit was his theory that they should be free to choose their life's\r\ncompanions for themselves. But nevertheless it could not be agreeable\r\nto him that his daughter should fall in love with a man who had\r\nnothing, and whose future success at his own profession seemed to be\r\nso very doubtful. On the whole I think that Mrs. Arbuthnot was wrong,\r\nand that the feeling that did exist in Madeline's bosom might more\r\npossibly have died away, had no word been said about it--even by a\r\nsister. And then another event happened which forced her to look into her\r\nown heart. Peregrine Orme did make his proposal."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He waited patiently\r\nduring those two or three days in which the doctor's visits were\r\nfrequent, feeling that he could not talk about himself while any\r\nsense of danger pervaded the house. But then at last a morning came\r\non which the surgeon declared that he need not call again till\r\nthe morrow; and Felix himself, when the medical back was turned,\r\nsuggested that it might as well be to-morrow week. He began also to\r\nscold his friends, and look bright about the eyes, and drink his\r\nglass of sherry in a pleasant dinner-table fashion, not as if he were\r\nswallowing his physic. And Peregrine, when he saw all this, resolved\r\nthat the moment had come for the doing of his deed of danger. The\r\ntime would soon come at which he must leave Noningsby, and he would\r\nnot leave Noningsby till he had learned his fate. Lady Staveley, who with a mother's eye had seen her daughter's\r\nsolicitude for Felix Graham's recovery,--had seen it, and\r\nanimadverted on it to herself,--had seen also, or at any rate had\r\nsuspected, that Peregrine Orme looked on her daughter with favouring\r\neyes. Now Peregrine Orme would have satisfied Lady Staveley as a\r\nson-in-law. She liked his ways and manners of thought--in spite of\r\nthose rumours as to the rat-catching which had reached her ears."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She\r\nregarded him as quite clever enough to be a good husband, and no\r\ndoubt appreciated the fact that he was to inherit his title and The\r\nCleeve from an old grandfather instead of a middle-aged father. She\r\ntherefore had no objection to leave Peregrine alone with her one\r\newe-lamb, and therefore the opportunity which he sought was at last\r\nfound. \"I shall be leaving Noningsby to-morrow, Miss Staveley,\" he said one\r\nday, having secured an interview in the back drawing-room--in that\r\nhappy half-hour which occurs in winter before the world betakes\r\nitself to dress. Now I here profess my belief, that out of every\r\nten set offers made by ten young lovers, nine of such offers are\r\ncommenced with an intimation that the lover is going away. There is\r\na dash of melancholy in such tidings well suited to the occasion. If\r\nthere be any spark of love on the other side it will be elicited by\r\nthe idea of a separation. And then, also, it is so frequently the\r\nactual fact. This making of an offer is in itself a hard piece of\r\nbusiness,--a job to be postponed from day to day. It is so postponed,\r\nand thus that dash of melancholy, and that idea of separation are\r\nbrought in at the important moment with so much appropriate truth. \"I shall be leaving Noningsby to-morrow, Miss Staveley,\" Peregrine\r\nsaid. \"Oh dear! we shall be so sorry. But why are you going?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "What will Mr.\r\nGraham and Augustus do without you? You ought to stay at least till\r\nMr. Graham can leave his room.\" \"Poor Graham!--not that I think he is much to be pitied either; but\r\nhe won't be about for some weeks to come yet.\" \"You do not think he is worse; do you?\" \"Oh, dear, no; not at all.\" And Peregrine was unconsciously irritated\r\nagainst his friend by the regard which her tone evinced. \"He is quite\r\nwell; only they will not let him be moved. But, Miss Staveley, it was\r\nnot of Mr. Graham that I was going to speak.\" \"No--only I thought he would miss you so much.\" And then she blushed,\r\nthough the blush in the dark of the evening was lost upon him. She\r\nremembered that she was not to speak about Felix Graham's health, and\r\nit almost seemed as though Mr. Orme had rebuked her for doing so in\r\nsaying that he had not come there to speak of him. \"Lady Staveley's house has been turned up side down since this\r\naffair, and it is time now that some part of the trouble should\r\ncease.\" \"Oh! mamma does not mind it at all.\" \"I know how good she is; but nevertheless, Miss Staveley, I must go\r\nto-morrow.\" And then he paused a moment before he spoke again. \"It\r\nwill depend entirely upon you,\" he said, \"whether I may have the\r\nhappiness of returning soon to Noningsby.\" \"On me, Mr. Orme!\" \"Yes, on you."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I do not know how to speak properly that which I have\r\nto say; but I believe I may as well say it out at once. I have come\r\nhere now to tell you that I love you and to ask you to be my wife.\" And then he stopped as though there were nothing more for him to say\r\nupon the matter. It would be hardly extravagant to declare that Madeline's breath was\r\ntaken away by the very sudden manner in which young Orme had made his\r\nproposition. It had never entered her head that she had an admirer in\r\nhim. Previously to Graham's accident she had thought nothing about\r\nhim. Since that event she had thought about him a good deal; but\r\naltogether as of a friend of Graham's. He had been good and kind to\r\nGraham, and therefore she had liked him and had talked to him. He\r\nhad never said a word to her that had taught her to regard him as\r\na possible lover; and now that he was an actual lover, a declared\r\nlover standing before her, waiting for an answer, she was so\r\nastonished that she did not know how to speak. All her ideas too,\r\nas to love,--such ideas as she had ever formed, were confounded by\r\nhis abruptness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She would have thought, had she brought herself\r\nabsolutely to think upon it, that all speech of love should be very\r\ndelicate; that love should grow slowly, and then be whispered softly,\r\ndoubtingly, and with infinite care. Even had she loved him, or had\r\nshe been in the way towards loving him, such violence as this would\r\nhave frightened her and scared her love away. Poor Peregrine! His\r\nintentions had been so good and honest! He was so true and hearty,\r\nand free from all conceit in the matter! It was a pity that he should\r\nhave marred his cause by such ill judgment. But there he stood waiting an answer,--and expecting it to be as\r\nopen, definite, and plain as though he had asked her to take a walk\r\nwith him. \"Madeline,\" he said, stretching out his hand when he\r\nperceived that she did not speak to him at once. \"There is my hand. If it be possible give me yours.\" \"Oh, Mr. Orme!\" \"I know that I have not said what I had to say very--very gracefully. But you will not regard that I think. You are too good, and too\r\ntrue.\" She had now seated herself, and he was standing before her. She had\r\nretreated to a sofa in order to avoid the hand which he had offered\r\nher; but he followed her, and even yet did not know that he had no\r\nchance of success."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Mr. Orme,\" she said at last, speaking hardly\r\nabove her breath, \"what has made you do this?\" \"What has made me do it? What has made me tell you that I love you?\" \"You cannot be in earnest!\" \"Not in earnest! By heavens, Miss Staveley, no man who has said the\r\nsame words was ever more in earnest. Do you doubt me when I tell you\r\nthat I love you?\" \"Oh, I am so sorry!\" And then she hid her face upon the arm of the\r\nsofa and burst into tears. Peregrine stood there, like a prisoner on his trial, waiting for a\r\nverdict. He did not know how to plead his cause with any further\r\nlanguage; and indeed no further language could have been of any\r\navail. The judge and jury were clear against him, and he should have\r\nknown the sentence without waiting to have it pronounced in set\r\nterms. But in plain words he had made his offer, and in plain words\r\nhe required that an answer should be given to him. \"Well,\" he said,\r\n\"will you not speak to me? Will you not tell me whether it shall be\r\nso?\" \"No,--no,--no,\" she said. \"You mean that you cannot love me.\" And as he said this the agony\r\nof his tone struck her ear and made her feel that he was suffering. Hitherto she had thought only of herself, and had hardly recognised\r\nit as a fact that he could be thoroughly in earnest."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Mr. Orme, I am very sorry. Do not speak as though you were angry\r\nwith me. But--\"\r\n\r\n\"But you cannot love me?\" And then he stood again silent, for there\r\nwas no reply. \"Is it that, Miss Staveley, that you mean to answer? If\r\nyou say that with positive assurance, I will trouble you no longer.\" Poor Peregrine! He was but an unskilled lover! \"No!\" she sobbed forth through her tears; but he had so framed his\r\nquestion that he hardly knew what No meant. \"Do you mean that you cannot love me, or may I hope that a day will\r\ncome--? May I speak to you again--?\" \"Oh, no, no! I can answer you now. It grieves me to the heart. I know\r\nyou are so good. But, Mr. Orme--\"\r\n\r\n\"Well--\"\r\n\r\n\"It can never, never be.\" \"And I must take that as answer?\" \"I can make no other.\" He still stood before her,--with gloomy and\r\nalmost angry brow, could she have seen him; and then he thought he\r\nwould ask her whether there was any other love which had brought\r\nabout her scorn for him. It did not occur to him, at the first\r\nmoment, that in doing so he would insult and injure her. \"At any rate I am not flattered by a reply which is at once so\r\ndecided,\" he began by saying. \"Oh! Mr. Orme, do not make me more unhappy--\"\r\n\r\n\"But perhaps I am too late. Perhaps--\" Then he remembered himself and\r\npaused."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Never mind,\" he said, speaking to himself rather than to\r\nher. \"Good-bye, Miss Staveley. You will at any rate say good-bye to\r\nme. I shall go at once now.\" \"Go at once! Go away, Mr. Orme?\" \"Yes; why should I stay here? Do you think that I could sit down to\r\ntable with you all after that? I will ask your brother to explain my\r\ngoing; I shall find him in his room. Good-bye.\" She took his hand mechanically, and then he left her. When she came\r\ndown to dinner she looked furtively round to his place and saw that\r\nit was vacant. CHAPTER XXXI. FOOTSTEPS IN THE CORRIDOR. \"Upon my word I am very sorry,\" said the judge. \"But what made him go\r\noff so suddenly? I hope there's nobody ill at The Cleeve!\" And then\r\nthe judge took his first spoonful of soup. \"No, no; there is nothing of that sort,\" said Augustus. \"His\r\ngrandfather wants him, and Orme thought he might as well start at\r\nonce. He was always a sudden harum-scarum fellow like that.\" \"He's a very pleasant, nice young man,\" said Lady Staveley; \"and\r\nnever gives himself any airs. I like him exceedingly.\" Poor Madeline did not dare to look either at her mother or her\r\nbrother, but she would have given much to know whether either of them\r\nwere aware of the cause which had sent Peregrine Orme so suddenly\r\naway from the house."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At first she thought that Augustus surely did\r\nknow, and she was wretched as she thought that he might probably\r\nspeak to her on the subject. But he went on talking about Orme and\r\nhis abrupt departure till she became convinced that he knew nothing\r\nand suspected nothing of what had occurred. But her mother said never a word after that eulogium which she had\r\nuttered, and Madeline read that eulogium altogether aright. It said\r\nto her ears that if ever young Orme should again come forward with\r\nhis suit, her mother would be prepared to receive him as a suitor;\r\nand it said, moreover, that if that suitor had been already sent away\r\nby any harsh answer, she would not sympathise with that harshness. The dinner went on much as usual, but Madeline could not bring\r\nherself to say a word. She sat between her brother-in-law, Mr.\r\nArbuthnot, on one side, and an old friend of her father's, of thirty\r\nyears' standing, on the other. The old friend talked exclusively to\r\nLady Staveley, and Mr. Arbuthnot, though he now and then uttered a\r\nword or two, was chiefly occupied with his dinner. During the last\r\nthree or four days she had sat at dinner next to Peregrine Orme, and\r\nit seemed to her now that she always had been able to talk to him. She had liked him so much too! Was it not a pity that he should have\r\nbeen so mistaken!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then as she sat after dinner, eating five or\r\nsix grapes, she felt that she was unable to recall her spirits and\r\nlook and speak as she was wont to do: a thing had happened which had\r\nknocked the ground from under her--had thrown her from her equipoise,\r\nand now she lacked the strength to recover herself and hide her\r\ndismay. After dinner, while the gentlemen were still in the dining-room, she\r\ngot a book, and nobody disturbed her as she sat alone pretending to\r\nread it. There never had been any intimate friendship between her and\r\nMiss Furnival, and that young lady was now employed in taking the\r\nchief part in a general conversation about wools. Lady Staveley got\r\nthrough a good deal of wool in the course of the year, as also did\r\nthe wife of the old thirty-years' friend; but Miss Furnival, short as\r\nher experience had been, was able to give a few hints to them both,\r\nand did not throw away the occasion. There was another lady there,\r\nrather deaf, to whom Mrs. Arbuthnot devoted herself, and therefore\r\nMadeline was allowed to be alone. Then the men came in, and she was obliged to come forward and\r\nofficiate at the tea-table. The judge insisted on having the teapot\r\nand urn brought into the drawing-room, and liked to have his cup\r\nbrought to him by one of his own daughters."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So she went to work and\r\nmade the tea; but still she felt that she scarcely knew how to go\r\nthrough her task. What had happened to her that she should be thus\r\nbeside herself, and hardly capable of refraining from open tears? She knew that her mother was looking at her, and that now and again\r\nlittle things were done to give her ease if any ease were possible. \"Is anything the matter with my Madeline?\" said her father, looking\r\nup into her face, and holding the hand from which he had taken his\r\ncup. \"No, papa; only I have got a headache.\" \"A headache, dear; that's not usual with you.\" \"I have seen that she has not been well all the evening,\" said Lady\r\nStaveley; \"but I thought that perhaps she might shake it off. You had\r\nbetter go, my dear, if you are suffering. Isabella, I'm sure, will\r\npour out the tea for us.\" And so she got away, and skulked slowly up stairs to her own room. She felt that it was skulking. Why should she have been so weak as to\r\nhave fled in that way? She had no headache--nor was it heartache that\r\nhad now upset her. But a man had spoken to her openly of love, and no\r\nman had ever so spoken to her before. She did not go direct to her own chamber, but passed along the\r\ncorridor towards her mother's dressing-room."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was always her custom\r\nto remain there some half-hour before she went to bed, doing little\r\nthings for her mother, and chatting with any other girl who might be\r\nintimate enough to be admitted there. Now she might remain there for\r\nan hour alone without danger of being disturbed; and she thought to\r\nherself that she would remain there till her mother came, and then\r\nunburthen herself of the whole story. As she went along the corridor she would have to pass the room which\r\nhad been given up to Felix Graham. She saw that the door was ajar,\r\nand as she came close up to it, she found the nurse in the act of\r\ncoming out from the room. Mrs. Baker had been a very old servant in\r\nthe judge's family, and had known Madeline from the day of her birth. Her chief occupation for some years had been nursing when there was\r\nanybody to nurse, and taking a general care and surveillance of the\r\nfamily's health when there was no special invalid to whom she could\r\ndevote herself. Since Graham's accident she had been fully employed,\r\nand had greatly enjoyed the opportunities it had given her. Mrs. Baker was in the doorway as Madeline attempted to pass by on\r\ntiptoe. \"Oh, he's a deal better now, Miss Madeline, so that you\r\nneedn't be afeard of disturbing;--ain't you, Mr. Graham?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "So she was\r\nthus brought into absolute contact with her friend, for the first\r\ntime since he had hurt himself. [Illustration: Footsteps in the corridor.] \"Indeed I am,\" said Felix; \"I only wish they'd let me get up and go\r\ndown stairs. Is that Miss Staveley, Mrs. Baker?\" \"Yes, sure. Come, my dear, he's got his dressing-gown on, and you may\r\njust come to the door and ask him how he does.\" \"I am very glad to hear that you are so much better, Mr. Graham,\"\r\nsaid Madeline, standing in the doorway with averted eyes, and\r\nspeaking with a voice so low that it only just reached his ears. \"Thank you, Miss Staveley; I shall never know how to express what I\r\nfeel for you all.\" \"And there's none of 'em have been more anxious about you than she,\r\nI can tell you; and none of 'em ain't kinder-hearteder,\" said Mrs.\r\nBaker. \"I hope you will be up soon and be able to come down to the\r\ndrawing-room,\" said Madeline. And then she did glance round, and for\r\na moment saw the light of his eye as he sat upright in the bed. He\r\nwas still pale and thin, or at least she fancied so, and her heart\r\ntrembled within her as she thought of the danger he had passed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I do so long to be able to talk to you again; all the others come\r\nand visit me, but I have only heard the sounds of your footsteps as\r\nyou pass by.\" \"And yet she always walks like a mouse,\" said Mrs. Baker. \"But I have always heard them,\" he said. \"I hope Marian thanked you\r\nfor the books. She told me how you had gotten them for me.\" \"She should not have said anything about them; it was Augustus who\r\nthought of them,\" said Madeline. \"Marian comes to me four or five times a day,\" he continued; \"I do\r\nnot know what I should do without her.\" \"I hope she is not noisy,\" said Madeline. \"Laws, miss, he don't care for noise now, only he ain't good at\r\nmoving yet, and won't be for some while.\" \"Pray take care of yourself, Mr. Graham,\" she said; \"I need not\r\ntell you how anxious we all are for your recovery. Good night, Mr. Graham.\" And then she passed on to her mother's dressing-room, and\r\nsitting herself down in an arm-chair opposite to the fire began to\r\nthink--to think, or else to try to think. And what was to be the subject of her thoughts? Regarding Peregrine\r\nOrme there was very little room for thinking. He had made her an\r\noffer, and she had rejected it as a matter of course, seeing that she\r\ndid not love him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had no doubt on that head, and was well aware\r\nthat she could never accept such an offer. On what subject then was\r\nit necessary that she should think? How odd it was that Mr. Graham's room door should have been open\r\non this especial evening, and that nurse should have been standing\r\nthere, ready to give occasion for that conversation! That was the\r\nidea that first took possession of her brain. And then she recounted\r\nall those few words which had been spoken as though they had had some\r\nspecial value--as though each word had been laden with interest. She\r\nfelt half ashamed of what she had done in standing there and speaking\r\nat his bedroom door, and yet she would not have lost the chance for\r\nworlds. There had been nothing in what had passed between her and the\r\ninvalid. The very words, spoken elsewhere, or in the presence of her\r\nmother and sister, would have been insipid and valueless; and yet she\r\nsat there feeding on them as though they were of flavour so rich that\r\nshe could not let the sweetness of them pass from her. She had been\r\nstunned at the idea of poor Peregrine's love, and yet she never asked\r\nherself what was this new feeling. She did not inquire--not yet at\r\nleast--whether there might be danger in such feelings. She remained there, with eyes fixed on the burning coals, till her\r\nmother came up."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"What, Madeline,\" said Lady Staveley, \"are you here\r\nstill? I was in hopes you would have been in bed before this.\" \"My headache is gone now, mamma; and I waited because--\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, dear; because what?\" and her mother came and stood over her\r\nand smoothed her hair. \"I know very well that something has been the\r\nmatter. There has been something; eh, Madeline?\" \"Yes, mamma.\" \"And you have remained up that we may talk about it. Is that it,\r\ndearest?\" \"I did not quite mean that, but perhaps it will be best. I can't be\r\ndoing wrong, mamma, in telling you.\" \"Well; you shall judge of that yourself;\" and Lady Staveley sat down\r\non the sofa so that she was close to the chair which Madeline still\r\noccupied. \"As a general rule I suppose you could not be doing wrong;\r\nbut you must decide. If you have any doubt, wait till to-morrow.\" \"No, mamma; I will tell you now. Mr. Orme--\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, dearest. Did Mr. Orme say anything specially to you before he\r\nwent away?\" \"He--he--\"\r\n\r\n\"Come to me, Madeline, and sit here. We shall talk better then.\" And the mother made room beside her on the sofa for her daughter,\r\nand Madeline, running over, leaned with her head upon her mother's\r\nshoulder. \"Well, darling; what did he say? Did he tell you that he\r\nloved you?\" \"Yes, mamma.\" \"And you answered him--\"\r\n\r\n\"I could only tell him--\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, I know. Poor fellow!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, Madeline, is he not an excellent\r\nyoung man;--one, at any rate, that is lovable? Of course in such a\r\nmatter the heart must answer for itself. But I, looking at the offer\r\nas a mother--I could have been well pleased--\"\r\n\r\n\"But, mamma, I could not--\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, love, there shall be an end of it; at least for the present. When I heard that he had gone suddenly away I thought that something\r\nhad happened.\" \"I am so sorry that he should be unhappy, for I know that he is\r\ngood.\" \"Yes, he is good; and your father likes him, and Augustus. In such a\r\nmatter as this, Madeline, I would never say a word to persuade you. I\r\nshould think it wrong to do so. But it may be, dearest, that he has\r\nflurried you by the suddenness of his offer; and that you have not\r\nyet thought much about it.\" \"But, mamma, I know that I do not love him.\" \"Of course. That is natural. It would have been a great misfortune if\r\nyou had loved him before you had reason to know that he loved you;--a\r\ngreat misfortune. But now,--now that you cannot but think of him, now\r\nthat you know what his wishes are, perhaps you may learn--\"\r\n\r\n\"But I have refused him, and he has gone away.\" \"Young gentlemen under such circumstances sometimes come back again.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"He won't come back, mamma, because--because I told him so plainly--I\r\nam sure he understands that it is all to be at an end.\" \"But if he should, and if you should then think differently towards\r\nhim--\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, no!\" \"But if you should, it may be well that you should know how all your\r\nfriends esteem him. In a worldly view the marriage would be in all\r\nrespects prudent; and as to disposition and temper, which I admit are\r\nmuch more important, I confess I think that he has all the qualities\r\nbest adapted to make a wife happy. But, as I said before, the heart\r\nmust speak for itself.\" \"Yes; of course. And I know that I shall never love him;--not in that\r\nway.\" \"You may be sure, dearest, that there will be no constraint put\r\nupon you. It might be possible that I or your papa should forbid a\r\ndaughter's marriage, if she had proposed to herself an imprudent\r\nmatch; but neither he nor I would ever use our influence with a child\r\nto bring about a marriage because we think it prudent in a worldly\r\npoint of view.\" And then Lady Staveley kissed her daughter. \"Dear mamma, I know how good you are to me.\" And she answered her\r\nmother's embrace by the pressure of her arm. But nevertheless she did\r\nnot feel herself to be quite comfortable."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was something in\r\nthe words which her mother had spoken which grated against her most\r\ncherished feelings;--something, though she by no means knew what. Why had her mother cautioned her in that way, that there might be a\r\ncase in which she would refuse her sanction to a proposed marriage? Isabella's marriage had been concluded with the full agreement of\r\nthe whole family; and she, Madeline, had certainly never as yet\r\ngiven cause either to father or mother to suppose that she would\r\nbe headstrong and imprudent. Might not the caution have been\r\nomitted?--or was it intended to apply in any way to circumstances as\r\nthey now existed? \"You had better go now, dearest,\" said Lady Staveley, \"and for\r\nthe present we will not think any more about this gallant young\r\nknight.\" And then Madeline, having said good night, went off rather\r\ncrestfallen to her own room. In doing so she again had to pass\r\nGraham's door, and as she went by it, walking not quite on tiptoe,\r\nshe could not help asking herself whether or no he would really\r\nrecognise the sound of her footsteps. It is hardly necessary to say that Lady Staveley had conceived\r\nto herself a recognised purpose in uttering that little caution\r\nto her daughter; and she would have been quite as well pleased\r\nhad circumstances taken Felix Graham out of her house instead of\r\nPeregrine Orme."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Felix Graham must necessarily remain for the next\r\nfortnight, and there could be no possible benefit in Orme's return,\r\nat any rate till Graham should have gone. CHAPTER XXXII. WHAT BRIDGET BOLSTER HAD TO SAY. It has been said in the earlier pages of this story that there was\r\nno prettier scenery to be found within thirty miles of London than\r\nthat by which the little town of Hamworth was surrounded. This was\r\nso truly the case that Hamworth was full of lodgings which in the\r\nautumn season were always full of lodgers. The middle of winter was\r\ncertainly not the time for seeing the Hamworth hills to advantage;\r\nnevertheless it was soon after Christmas that two rooms were taken\r\nthere by a single gentleman who had come down for a week, apparently\r\nwith no other view than that of enjoying himself. He did say\r\nsomething about London confinement and change of air; but he was\r\nmanifestly in good health, had an excellent appetite, said a great\r\ndeal about fresh eggs,--which at that time of the year was hardly\r\nreasonable, and brought with him his own pale brandy. This gentleman\r\nwas Mr. Crabwitz. The house at which he was to lodge had been selected with\r\nconsiderable judgment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was kept by a tidy old widow known as Mrs.\r\nTrump; but those who knew anything of Hamworth affairs were well\r\naware that Mrs. Trump had been left without a shilling, and could not\r\nhave taken that snug little house in Paradise Row and furnished it\r\ncompletely, out of her own means. No. Mrs. Trump's lodging-house was\r\none of the irons which Samuel Dockwrath ever kept heating in the\r\nfire, for the behoof of those fourteen children. He had taken a lease\r\nof the house in Paradise Row, having made a bargain and advanced a\r\nfew pounds while it was yet being built; and he then had furnished\r\nit and put in Mrs. Trump. Mrs. Trump received from him wages and a\r\npercentage; but to him were paid over the quota of shillings per\r\nweek in consideration for which the lodgers were accommodated. All\r\nof which Mr. Crabwitz had ascertained before he located himself in\r\nParadise Row. And when he had so located himself he soon began to talk to Mrs.\r\nTrump about Mr. Dockwrath. He himself, as he told her in confidence,\r\nwas in the profession of the law; he had heard of Mr. Dockwrath, and\r\nshould be very glad if that gentleman would come over and take a\r\nglass of brandy and water with him some evening. \"And a very clever sharp gentleman he is,\" said Mrs. Trump. \"With a tolerably good business, I suppose?\" asked Crabwitz. \"Pretty fair for that, sir."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he do be turning his hand to\r\neverything. He's a mortal long family of his own, and he has need of\r\nit all, if it's ever so much. But he'll never be poor for the want of\r\nlooking after it.\" But Mr. Dockwrath did not come near his lodger on the first evening,\r\nand Mr. Crabwitz made acquaintance with Mrs. Dockwrath before he saw\r\nher husband. The care of the fourteen children was not supposed to\r\nbe so onerous but that she could find a moment now and then to see\r\nwhether Mrs. Trump kept the furniture properly dusted, and did not\r\ninfringe any of the Dockwrathian rules. These were very strict; and\r\nwhenever they were broken it was on the head of Mrs. Dockwrath that\r\nthe anger of the ruler mainly fell. \"I hope you find everything comfortable, sir,\" said poor Miriam,\r\nhaving knocked at the sitting-room door when Crabwitz had just\r\nfinished his dinner. \"Yes, thank you; very nice. Is that Mrs. Dockwrath?\" \"Yes, sir. I'm Mrs. Dockwrath. As it's we who own the room I looked\r\nin to see if anything's wanting.\" \"You are very kind. No; nothing is wanting. But I should be delighted\r\nto make your acquaintance if you would stay for a moment. Might I ask\r\nyou to take a chair?\" and Mr. Crabwitz handed her one. \"Thank you; no, sir I won't intrude.\" \"Not at all, Mrs. Dockwrath."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the fact is, I'm a lawyer myself,\r\nand I should be so glad to become known to your husband. I have heard\r\na great deal of his name lately as to a rather famous case in which\r\nhe is employed.\" \"Not the Orley Farm case?\" said Mrs. Dockwrath immediately. \"Yes, yes; exactly.\" \"And is he going on with that, sir?\" asked Mrs. Dockwrath with great\r\ninterest. \"Is he not? I know nothing about it myself, but I always supposed\r\nthat such was the case. If I had such a wife as you, Mrs. Dockwrath,\r\nI should not leave her in doubt as to what I was doing in my own\r\nprofession.\" \"I know nothing about it, Mr. Cooke;\"--for it was as Mr. Cooke that\r\nhe now sojourned at Hamworth. Not that it should be supposed he had\r\nreceived instructions from Mr. Furnival to come down to that place\r\nunder a false name. From Mr. Furnival he had received no further\r\ninstructions on that matter than those conveyed at the end of a\r\nprevious chapter. \"I know nothing about it, Mr. Cooke; and don't want\r\nto know generally. But I am anxious about this Orley Farm case. I do\r\nhope that he's going to drop it.\" And then Mr. Crabwitz elicited her\r\nview of the case with great ease."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On that evening, about nine, Mr. Dockwrath did go over to Paradise\r\nRow, and did allow himself to be persuaded to mix a glass of brandy\r\nand water and light a cigar. \"My missus tells me, sir, that you\r\nbelong to the profession as well as myself.\" \"Oh yes; I'm a lawyer, Mr. Dockwrath.\" \"Practising in town as an attorney, sir?\" \"Not as an attorney on my own hook exactly. I chiefly employ my time\r\nin getting up cases for barristers. There's a good deal done in that\r\nway.\" \"Oh, indeed,\" said Mr. Dockwrath, beginning to feel himself the\r\nbigger man of the two; and from that moment he patronised his\r\ncompanion instead of allowing himself to be patronised. This went against the grain with Mr. Crabwitz, but, having an object\r\nto gain, he bore it. \"We hear a great deal up in London just at\r\npresent about this Orley Farm case, and I always hear your name as\r\nconnected with it. I had no idea when I was taking these lodgings\r\nthat I was coming into a house belonging to that Mr. Dockwrath.\" \"The same party, sir,\" said Mr. Dockwrath, blowing the smoke out of\r\nhis mouth as he looked up to the ceiling. And then by degrees Mr. Crabwitz drew him into conversation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dockwrath was by nature quite as clever a man as Crabwitz, and in\r\nsuch a matter as this was not one to be outwitted easily; but in\r\ntruth he had no objection to talk about the Orley Farm case. \"I have\r\ntaken it up on public motives, Mr. Cooke,\" he said, \"and I mean to go\r\nthrough with it.\" \"Oh, of course; in such a case as that you will no doubt go through\r\nwith it?\" \"That's my intention, I assure you. And I tell you what; young\r\nMason,--that's the son of the widow of the old man who made the\r\nwill--\"\r\n\r\n\"Or rather who did not make it, as you say.\" \"Yes, yes; he made the will; but he did not make the codicil--and\r\nthat young Mason has no more right to the property than you have.\" \"Hasn't he now?\" \"No; and I can prove it too.\" \"Well; the general opinion in the profession is that Lady Mason will\r\nstand her ground and hold her own. I don't know what the points are\r\nmyself, but I have heard it discussed, and that is certainly what\r\npeople think.\" \"Then people will find that they are very much mistaken.\" \"I was talking to one of Round's young men about it, and I fancy they\r\nare not very sanguine.\" \"I do not care a fig for Round or his young men. It would be quite\r\nas well for Joseph Mason if Round and Crook gave up the matter\r\naltogether."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It lies in a nutshell, and the truth must come out\r\nwhatever Round and Crook may choose to say. And I'll tell you\r\nmore--old Furnival, big a man as he thinks himself, cannot save her.\" \"Has he anything to do with it?\" asked Mr. Cooke. \"Yes; the sly old fox. My belief is that only for him she'd give up\r\nthe battle, and be down on her marrow-bones asking for mercy.\" \"She'd have little chance of mercy, from what I hear of Joseph\r\nMason.\" \"She'd have to give up the property of course. And even then I don't\r\nknow whether he'd let her off. By heavens! he couldn't let her off\r\nunless I chose.\" And then by degrees he told Mr. Cooke some of the\r\ncircumstances of the case. But it was not till the fourth evening that Mr. Dockwrath spent with\r\nhis lodger that the intimacy had so far progressed as to enable Mr.\r\nCrabwitz to proceed with his little scheme. On that day Mr. Dockwrath\r\nhad received a notice that at noon on the following morning Mr.\r\nJoseph Mason and Bridget Bolster would both be at the house of\r\nMessrs. Round and Crook in Bedford Row, and that he could attend at\r\nthat hour if it so pleased him. It certainly would so please him,\r\nhe said to himself when he got that letter; and in the evening he\r\nmentioned to his new friend the business which was taking him to\r\nLondon."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If I might advise you in the matter, Mr. Dockwrath,\" said Crabwitz,\r\n\"I should stay away altogether.\" \"And why so?\" \"Because that's not your market. This poor devil of a woman--for she\r\nis a poor devil of a woman--\"\r\n\r\n\"She'll be poor enough before long.\" \"It can't be any gratification to you running her down.\" \"Ah, but the justice of the thing.\" \"Bother. You're talking now to a man of the world. Who can say what\r\nis the justice or the injustice of anything after twenty years of\r\npossession? I have no doubt the codicil did express the old man's\r\nwish,--even from your own story. But of course you are looking for\r\nyour market. Now it seems to me that there's a thousand pounds in\r\nyour way as clear as daylight.\" \"I don't see it myself, Mr. Cooke.\" \"No; but I do. The sort of thing is done every day. You have your\r\nfather-in-law's office journal?\" \"Safe enough.\" \"Burn it;--or leave it about in these rooms like;--so that somebody\r\nelse may burn it.\" \"I'd like to see the thousand pounds first.\" \"Of course you'd do nothing till you knew about that;--nothing except\r\nkeeping away from Round and Crook to-morrow. The money would be\r\nforthcoming if the trial were notoriously dropped by next assizes.\" Dockwrath sat thinking for a minute or two, and every moment of\r\nthought made him feel more strongly that he could not now succeed in\r\nthe manner pointed out by Mr. Cooke."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But where would be the market\r\nyou are talking of?\" said he. \"I could manage that,\" said Crabwitz. \"And go shares in the business?\" \"No, no; nothing of the sort.\" And then he added, remembering that he\r\nmust show that he had some personal object, \"If I got a trifle in the\r\nmatter it would not come out of your allowance.\" The attorney again sat silent for a while, and now he remained so for\r\nfull five minutes, during which Mr. Crabwitz puffed the smoke from\r\nbetween his lips with a look of supreme satisfaction. \"May I ask,\" at\r\nlast Mr. Dockwrath said, \"whether you have any personal interest in\r\nthis matter?\" \"None in the least;--that is to say, none as yet.\" \"You did not come down here with any view--\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh dear no; nothing of the sort. But I see at a glance that it is\r\none of those cases in which a compromise would be the most judicious\r\nsolution of difficulties. I am well used to this kind of thing, Mr. Dockwrath.\" \"It would not do, sir,\" said Mr. Dockwrath, after some further slight\r\nperiod of consideration. \"It wouldn't do. Round and Crook have all\r\nthe dates, and so has Mason too. And the original of that partnership\r\ndeed is forthcoming; and they know what witnesses to depend on. No,\r\nsir; I've begun this on public grounds, and I mean to carry it on."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I\r\nam in a manner bound to do so as the representative of the attorney\r\nof the late Sir Joseph Mason;--and by heavens, Mr. Cooke, I'll do my\r\nduty.\" \"I dare say you're right,\" said Mr. Crabwitz, mixing a quarter of a\r\nglass more brandy and water. \"I know I'm right, sir,\" said Dockwrath. \"And when a man knows he's\r\nright, he has a deal of inward satisfaction in the feeling.\" After\r\nthat Mr. Crabwitz was aware that he could be of no use at Hamworth,\r\nbut he stayed out his week in order to avoid suspicion. On the following day Mr. Dockwrath did proceed to Bedford Row,\r\ndetermined to carry out his original plan, and armed with that inward\r\nsatisfaction to which he had alluded. He dressed himself in his best,\r\nand endeavoured as far as was in his power to look as though he were\r\nequal to the Messrs. Round. Old Crook he had seen once, and him he\r\nalready despised. He had endeavoured to obtain a private interview\r\nwith Mrs. Bolster before she could be seen by Matthew Round; but in\r\nthis he had not succeeded. Mrs. Bolster was a prudent woman, and,\r\nacting doubtless under advice, had written to him, saying that she\r\nhad been summoned to the office of Messrs. Round and Crook, and would\r\nthere declare all that she knew about the matter. At the same time\r\nshe returned to him a money order which he had sent to her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Punctually at twelve he was in Bedford Row, and there he saw a\r\nrespectable-looking female sitting at the fire in the inner part of\r\nthe outer office. This was Bridget Bolster, but he would by no means\r\nhave recognised her. Bridget had risen in the world and was now head\r\nchambermaid at a large hotel in the west of England. In that capacity\r\nshe had laid aside whatever diffidence may have afflicted her earlier\r\nyears, and was now able to speak out her mind before any judge or\r\njury in the land. Indeed she had never been much afflicted by such\r\ndiffidence, and had spoken out her evidence on that former occasion,\r\nnow twenty years since, very plainly. But as she now explained to the\r\nhead clerk, she had at that time been only a poor ignorant slip of a\r\ngirl, with no more than eight pounds a year wages. Dockwrath bowed to the head clerk, and passed on to Mat Round's\r\nprivate room. \"Mr. Matthew is inside, I suppose,\" said he, and hardly\r\nwaiting for permission he knocked at the door, and then entered. There he saw Mr. Matthew Round, sitting in his comfortable arm-chair,\r\nand opposite to him sat Mr. Mason of Groby Park. Mr. Mason got up and shook hands with the Hamworth attorney, but\r\nRound junior made his greeting without rising, and merely motioned\r\nhis visitor to a chair. \"Mr. Mason and the young ladies are quite well, I hope?\" said Mr.\r\nDockwrath, with a smile."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Quite well, I thank you,\" said the county magistrate. \"This matter has progressed since I last had the pleasure of seeing\r\nthem. You begin to think I was right; eh, Mr. Mason?\" \"Don't let us triumph till we are out of the wood,\" said Mr. Round. \"It is a deal easier to spend money in such an affair as this than it\r\nis to make money by it. However we shall hear to-day more about it.\" \"I do not know about making money,\" said Mr. Mason, very solemnly. \"But that I have been robbed by that woman out of my just rights in\r\nthat estate for the last twenty years,--that I may say I do know.\" \"Quite true, Mr. Mason; quite true,\" said Mr. Dockwrath with\r\nconsiderable energy. \"And whether I make money or whether I lose money I intend to proceed\r\nin this matter. It is dreadful to think that in this free and\r\nenlightened country so abject an offender should have been able to\r\nhold her head up so long without punishment and without disgrace.\" \"That is exactly what I feel,\" said Dockwrath. \"The very stones and\r\ntrees of Hamworth cry out against her.\" \"Gentlemen,\" said Mr. Round, \"we have first to see whether there has\r\nbeen any injustice or not. If you will allow me I will explain to you\r\nwhat I now propose to do.\" \"Proceed, sir,\" said Mr. Mason, who was by no means satisfied with\r\nhis young attorney."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Bridget Bolster is now in the next room, and as far as I can\r\nunderstand the case at present, she would be the witness on whom your\r\ncase, Mr. Mason, would most depend. The man Kenneby I have not yet\r\nseen; but from what I understand he is less likely to prove a willing\r\nwitness than Mrs. Bolster.\" \"I cannot go along with you there, Mr. Round,\" said Dockwrath. \"Excuse me, sir, but I am only stating my opinion. If I should find\r\nthat this woman is unable to say that she did not sign two separate\r\ndocuments on that day--that is, to say so with a positive and point\r\nblank assurance, I shall recommend you, as my client, to drop the\r\nprosecution.\" \"I will never drop it,\" said Mr. Mason. \"You will do as you please,\" continued Round; \"I can only say what\r\nunder such circumstances will be the advice given to you by this\r\nfirm. I have talked the matter over very carefully with my father and\r\nwith our other partner, and we shall not think well of going on with\r\nit unless I shall now find that your view is strongly substantiated\r\nby this woman.\" Then outspoke Mr. Dockwrath, \"Under these circumstances, Mr. Mason,\r\nif I were you, I should withdraw from the house at once. I certainly\r\nwould not have my case blown upon.\" \"Mr. Mason, sir, will do as he pleases about that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As long as the\r\nbusiness with which he honours us is straight-forward, we will do it\r\nfor him, as for an old client, although it is not exactly in our own\r\nline. But we can only do it in accordance with our own judgment. I\r\nwill proceed to explain what I now propose to do. The woman Bolster\r\nis in the next room, and I, with the assistance of my head clerk,\r\nwill take down the headings of what evidence she can give.\" \"In our presence, sir,\" said Mr. Dockwrath; \"or if Mr. Mason should\r\ndecline, at any rate in mine.\" \"By no means, Mr. Dockwrath,\" said Round. \"I think Mr. Dockwrath should hear her story,\" said Mr. Mason. \"He certainly will not do so in this house or in conjunction with me. In what capacity should he be present, Mr. Mason?\" \"As one of Mr. Mason's legal advisers,\" said Dockwrath. \"If you are to be one of them, Messrs. Round and Crook cannot be the\r\nothers. I think I explained that to you before. It now remains for\r\nMr. Mason to say whether he wishes to employ our firm in this matter\r\nor not. And I can tell him fairly,\" Mr. Round added this after a\r\nslight pause, \"that we shall be rather pleased than otherwise if he\r\nwill put the case into other hands.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Of course I wish you to conduct it,\" said Mr. Mason, who, with all\r\nhis bitterness against the present holders of Orley Farm, was afraid\r\nof throwing himself into the hands of Dockwrath. He was not an\r\nignorant man, and he knew that the firm of Round and Crook bore a\r\nhigh reputation before the world. \"Then,\" said Round, \"I must do my business in accordance with my own\r\nviews of what is right. I have reason to believe that no one has\r\nyet tampered with this woman,\" and as he spoke he looked hard at\r\nDockwrath, \"though probably attempts may have been made.\" \"I don't know who should tamper with her,\" said Dockwrath, \"unless it\r\nbe Lady Mason--whom I must say you seem very anxious to protect.\" \"Another word like that, sir, and I shall be compelled to ask you to\r\nleave the house. I believe that this woman has been tampered with by\r\nno one. I will now learn from her what is her remembrance of the\r\ncircumstances as they occurred twenty years since, and I will then\r\nread to you her deposition. I shall be sorry, gentlemen, to keep you\r\nhere, perhaps for an hour or so, but you will find the morning papers\r\non the table.\" And then Mr. Round, gathering up certain documents,\r\npassed into the outer office, and Mr. Mason and Mr. Dockwrath were\r\nleft alone. \"He is determined to get that woman off,\" said Mr. Dockwrath, in a\r\nwhisper."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I believe him to be an honest man,\" said Mr. Mason, with some\r\nsternness. \"Honesty, sir! It is hard to say what is honesty and what is\r\ndishonesty. Would you believe it, Mr. Mason, only last night I had a\r\nthousand pounds offered me to hold my tongue about this affair?\" Mr. Mason at the moment did not believe this, but he merely looked\r\nhard into his companion's face, and said nothing. \"By the heavens above us what I tell you is true! a thousand pounds,\r\nMr. Mason! Only think how they are going it to get this thing\r\nstifled. And where should the offer come from but from those who know\r\nI have the power?\" \"Do you mean to say that the offer came from this firm?\" \"Hush-sh, Mr. Mason. The very walls hear and talk in such a place as\r\nthis. I'm not to know who made the offer, and I don't know. But a man\r\ncan give a very good guess sometimes. The party who was speaking to\r\nme is up to the whole transaction, and knows exactly what is going on\r\nhere--here, in this house. He let it all out, using pretty nigh the\r\nsame words as Round used just now. He was full about the doubt that\r\nRound and Crook felt--that they'd never pull it through. I'll tell\r\nyou what it is, Mr. Mason, they don't mean to pull it through.\" \"What answer did you make to the man?\" \"What answer!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "why I just put my thumb this way over my shoulder. No, Mr. Mason, if I can't carry on without bribery and corruption,\r\nI won't carry on at all. He'd called at the wrong house with that\r\ndodge, and so he soon found.\" \"And you think he was an emissary from Messrs. Round and Crook?\" \"Hush-sh-sh. For heaven's sake, Mr. Mason, do be a little lower. You\r\ncan put two and two together as well as I can, Mr. Mason. I find they\r\nmake four. I don't know whether your calculation will be the same. My\r\nbelief is, that these people are determined to save that woman. Don't\r\nyou see it in that young fellow's eye--that his heart is all on the\r\nother side. Now he's got hold of that woman Bolster, and he'll teach\r\nher to give such evidence as will upset us. But I'll be even with him\r\nyet, Mr. Mason. If you'll only trust me, we'll both be even with him\r\nyet.\" Mr. Mason at the present moment said nothing further, and when\r\nDockwrath pressed him to continue the conversation in whispers, he\r\ndistinctly said that he would rather say no more upon the subject\r\njust then. He would wait for Mr. Round's return. \"Am I at liberty,\"\r\nhe asked, \"to mention that offer of the thousand pounds?\" \"What--to Mat Round?\" said Dockwrath. \"Certainly not, Mr. Mason. It\r\nwouldn't be our game at all.\" \"Very well, sir.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then Mr. Mason took up a newspaper, and no\r\nfurther words were spoken till the door opened and Mr. Round\r\nre-entered the room. This he did with slow, deliberate step, and stopping on the\r\nhearth-rug, he stood leaning with his back against the mantelpiece. It was clear from his face to see that he had much to tell, and clear\r\nalso that he was not pleased at the turn which affairs were taking. \"Well, gentlemen, I have examined the woman,\" he said, \"and here is\r\nher deposition.\" \"And what does she say?\" asked Mr. Mason. \"Come, out with it, sir,\" said Dockwrath. \"Did she, or did she not\r\nsign two documents on that day?\" \"Mr. Mason,\" said Round, turning to that gentleman, and altogether\r\nignoring Dockwrath and his question; \"I have to tell you that her\r\nstatement, as far as it goes, fully corroborates your view of the\r\ncase. As far as it goes, mind you.\" \"Oh, it does; does it?\" said Dockwrath. \"And she is the only important witness?\" said Mr. Mason with great\r\nexultation. \"I have never said that; what I did say was this--that your case\r\nmust break down unless her evidence supported it. It does support\r\nit--strongly; but you will want more than that.\" \"And now if you please, Mr. Round, what is it that she has deposed?\" asked Dockwrath. \"She remembers it all then?\" said Mason. \"She is a remarkably clear-headed woman, and apparently does remember\r\na great deal."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But her remembrance chiefly and most strongly goes to\r\nthis--that she witnessed only one deed.\" \"She can prove that, can she?\" said Mason, and the tone of his voice\r\nwas loudly triumphant. \"She declares that she never signed but one deed in the whole of her\r\nlife--either on that day or on any other; and over and beyond this\r\nshe says now--now that I have explained to her what that other deed\r\nmight have been--that old Mr. Usbech told her that it was about a\r\npartnership.\" \"He did, did he?\" said Dockwrath, rising from his chair and clapping\r\nhis hands. \"Very well. I don't think we shall want more than that,\r\nMr. Mason.\" There was a tone of triumph in the man's voice, and a look of\r\ngratified malice in his countenance which disgusted Mr. Round and\r\nirritated him almost beyond his power of endurance. It was quite true\r\nthat he would much have preferred to find that the woman's evidence\r\nwas in favour of Lady Mason. He would have been glad to learn that\r\nshe actually had witnessed the two deeds on the same day. His tone\r\nwould have been triumphant, and his face gratified, had he returned\r\nto the room with such tidings. His feelings were all on that side,\r\nthough his duty lay on the other. He had almost expected that it\r\nwould be so."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As it was, he was prepared to go on with his duty, but\r\nhe was not prepared to endure the insolence of Mr. Dockwrath. There\r\nwas a look of joy also about Mr. Mason which added to his annoyance. It might be just and necessary to prosecute that unfortunate woman at\r\nOrley Farm, but he could not gloat over such work. \"Mr. Dockwrath,\" he said, \"I will not put up with such conduct here. If you wish to rejoice about this, you must go elsewhere.\" \"And what are we to do now?\" said Mr. Mason. \"I presume there need be\r\nno further delay.\" \"I must consult with my partner. If you can make it convenient to\r\ncall this day week--\"\r\n\r\n\"But she will escape.\" \"No, she will not escape. I shall not be ready to say anything before\r\nthat. If you are not in town, then I can write to you.\" And so the\r\nmeeting was broken up, and Mr. Mason and Mr. Dockwrath left the\r\nlawyer's office together. Mr. Mason and Mr. Dockwrath left the office in Bedford Row together,\r\nand thus it was almost a necessity that they should walk together for\r\nsome distance through the streets. Mr. Mason was going to his hotel\r\nin Soho Square, and Mr. Dockwrath turned with him through the passage\r\nleading into Red Lion Square, linking his own arm in that of his\r\ncompanion. The Yorkshire county magistrate did not quite like this,\r\nbut what was he to do?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Did you ever see anything like that, sir?\" said Mr. Dockwrath; \"for\r\nby heavens I never did.\" \"Like what?\" said Mr. Mason. \"Like that fellow there;--that Round. It is my opinion that he\r\ndeserves to have his name struck from the rolls. Is it not clear that\r\nhe is doing all in his power to bring that wretched woman off? And\r\nI'll tell you what, Mr. Mason, if you let him play his own game in\r\nthat way, he will bring her off.\" \"But he expressly admitted that this woman Bolster's evidence is\r\nconclusive.\" \"Yes; he was so driven into a corner that he could not help admitting\r\nthat. The woman had been too many for him, and he found that he\r\ncouldn't cushion her. But do you mind my words, Mr. Mason. He intends\r\nthat you shall be beaten. It's as plain as the nose on your face. You\r\ncan read it in the very look of him, and in every tone of his voice. At any rate I can. I'll tell you what it is\"--and then he squeezed\r\nvery close to Mr. Mason--\"he and old Furnival understand each other\r\nin this matter like two brothers. Of course Round will have his bill\r\nagainst you. Win or lose, he'll get his costs out of your pocket. But\r\nhe can make a deuced pretty thing out of the other side as well."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Let\r\nme tell you, Mr. Mason, that when notes for a thousand pounds are\r\nflying here and there, it isn't every lawyer that will see them pass\r\nby him without opening his hand.\" \"I do not think that Mr. Round would take a bribe,\" said Mr. Mason\r\nvery stiffly. \"Wouldn't he? Just as a hound would a pat of butter. It's your own\r\nlook-out, you know, Mr. Mason. I haven't got an estate of twelve\r\nhundred a year depending on it. But remember this;--if she escapes\r\nnow, Orley Farm is gone for ever.\" All this was extremely disagreeable to Mr. Mason. In the first place\r\nhe did not at all like the tone of equality which the Hamworth\r\nattorney had adopted; he did not like to acknowledge that his affairs\r\nwere in any degree dependent on a man of whom he thought so badly as\r\nhe did of Mr. Dockwrath; he did not like to be told that Round and\r\nCrook were rogues,--Round and Crook whom he had known all his life;\r\nbut least of all did he like the feeling of suspicion with which,\r\nin spite of himself, this man had imbued him, or the fear that his\r\nvictim might at last escape him. Excellent, therefore, as had been\r\nthe evidence with which Bridget Bolster had declared herself ready\r\nto give in his favour, Mr. Mason was not a contented man when he sat\r\ndown to his solitary beefsteak in Soho Square. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE ANGEL OF LIGHT."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In speaking of the character and antecedents of Felix Graham I have\r\nsaid that he was moulding a wife for himself. The idea of a wife thus\r\nmoulded to fit a man's own grooves, and educated to suit matrimonial\r\npurposes according to the exact views of the future husband was by no\r\nmeans original with him. Other men have moulded their wives, but I do\r\nnot know that as a rule the practice has been found to answer. It is\r\nopen, in the first place, to this objection,--that the moulder does\r\nnot generally conceive such idea very early in life, and the idea\r\nwhen conceived must necessarily be carried out on a young subject. Such a plan is the result of much deliberate thought, and has\r\ngenerally arisen from long observation, on the part of the thinker,\r\nof the unhappiness arising from marriages in which there has been no\r\nmoulding. Such a frame of mind comes upon a bachelor, perhaps about\r\nhis thirty-fifth year, and then he goes to work with a girl of\r\nfourteen. The operation takes some ten years, at the end of which the\r\nmoulded bride regards her lord as an old man. On the whole I think\r\nthat the ordinary plan is the better, and even the safer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dance\r\nwith a girl three times, and if you like the light of her eye and\r\nthe tone of voice with which she, breathless, answers your little\r\nquestions about horseflesh and music--about affairs masculine and\r\nfeminine,--then take the leap in the dark. There is danger, no doubt;\r\nbut the moulded wife is, I think, more dangerous. With Felix Graham the matter was somewhat different, seeing that he\r\nwas not yet thirty, and that the lady destined to be the mistress\r\nof his family had already passed through three or four years of her\r\nnoviciate. He had begun to be prudent early in life; or had become\r\nprudent rather by force of sentiment than by force of thought. Mary\r\nSnow was the name of his bride-elect; and it is probable that, had\r\nnot circumstances thrown Mary Snow in his way, he would not have gone\r\nout of his way to seek a subject for his experiment. Mary Snow was\r\nthe daughter of an engraver,--not of an artist who receives four or\r\nfive thousand pounds for engraving the chef-d'oeuvre of a modern\r\npainter,--but of a man who executed flourishes on ornamental cards\r\nfor tradespeople, and assisted in the illustration of circus\r\nplaybills. With this man Graham had become acquainted through certain\r\ntransactions of his with the press, and had found him to be a\r\nwidower, drunken, dissolute, and generally drowned in poverty. One\r\nchild the man had, and that child was Mary Snow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "How it came to pass that the young barrister first took upon himself\r\nthe charge of maintaining and educating this poor child need not now\r\nbe told. His motives had been thoroughly good, and in the matter he\r\nhad endeavoured to act the part of a kind Samaritan. He had found her\r\npretty, half starved, dirty, ignorant, and modest; and so finding\r\nher had made himself responsible for feeding, cleaning, and teaching\r\nher,--and ultimately for marrying her. One would have said that in\r\nundertaking a task of such undoubted charity as that comprised in the\r\nthree first charges, he would have encountered no difficulty from\r\nthe drunken, dissolute, impoverished engraver. But the man from the\r\nbeginning was cunning; and before Graham had succeeded in obtaining\r\nthe custody of the child, the father had obtained a written\r\nundertaking from him that he would marry her at a certain age if\r\nher conduct up to that age had been becoming. As to this latter\r\nstipulation no doubt had arisen; and indeed Graham had so acted by\r\nher that had she fallen away the fault would have been all her own. There wanted now but one year to the coming of that day on which he\r\nwas bound to make himself a happy man, and hitherto he himself had\r\nnever doubted as to the accomplishment of his undertaking."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had told his friends,--those with whom he was really intimate,\r\nAugustus Staveley and one or two others,--what was to be his\r\nmatrimonial lot in life; and they had ridiculed him for his quixotic\r\nchivalry. Staveley especially had been strong in his conviction that\r\nno such marriage would ever take place, and had already gone so far\r\nas to plan another match for his friend. \"You know you do not love her,\" he had said, since Felix had been\r\nstaying on this occasion at Noningsby. \"I know no such thing,\" Felix had answered, almost in anger. \"On the\r\ncontrary I know that I do love her.\" \"Yes, as I love my niece Marian, or old Aunt Bessy, who always\r\nsupplied me with sugar-candy when I was a boy.\" \"It is I that have supplied Mary with her sugar-candy, and the love\r\nthus engendered is the stronger.\" \"Nevertheless you are not in love with her, and never will be, and if\r\nyou marry her you will commit a great sin.\" \"How moral you have grown!\" \"No, I'm not. I'm not a bit moral. But I know very well when a man\r\nis in love with a girl, and I know very well that you're not in love\r\nwith Mary Snow. And I tell you what, my friend, if you do marry her\r\nyou are done for life. There will absolutely be an end of you.\" \"You mean to say that your royal highness will drop me.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I mean to say nothing about myself. My dropping you or not dropping\r\nyou won't alter your lot in life. I know very well what a poor man\r\nwants to give him a start; and a fellow like you who has such quaint\r\nideas on so many things requires all the assistance he can get. You\r\nshould look out for money and connection.\" \"Sophia Furnival, for instance.\" \"No; she would not suit you. I perceive that now.\" \"So I supposed. Well, my dear fellow, we shall not come to\r\nloggerheads about that. She is a very fine girl, and you are welcome\r\nto the hatful of money--if you can get it.\" \"That's nonsense. I'm not thinking of Sophia Furnival any more than\r\nyou are. But if I did it would be a proper marriage. Now--\" And then\r\nhe went on with some further very sage remarks about Miss Snow. All this was said as Felix Graham was lying with his broken bones in\r\nthe comfortable room at Noningsby; and to tell the truth, when it was\r\nso said his heart was not quite at ease about Mary Snow. Up to this\r\ntime, having long since made up his mind that Mary should be his\r\nwife, he had never allowed his thoughts to be diverted from that\r\npurpose. Nor did he so allow them now,--as long as he could prevent\r\nthem from wandering."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, lying there at Noningsby, thinking of those sweet Christmas\r\nevenings, how was it possible that they should not wander? His friend\r\nhad told him that he did not love Mary Snow; and then, when alone,\r\nhe asked himself whether in truth he did love her. He had pledged\r\nhimself to marry her, and he must carry out that pledge. But\r\nnevertheless did he love her? And if not her, did he love any other? Mary Snow knew very well what was to be her destiny, and indeed had\r\nknown it for the last two years. She was now nineteen years old,--and\r\nMadeline Staveley was also nineteen; she was nineteen, and at twenty\r\nshe was to become a wife, as by agreement between Felix Graham and\r\nMr. Snow, the drunken engraver. They knew their destiny,--the future\r\nhusband and the future wife,--and each relied with perfect faith on\r\nthe good faith and affection of the other. Graham, while he was thus being lectured by Staveley, had under\r\nhis pillow a letter from Mary. He wrote to her regularly--on every\r\nSunday, and on every Tuesday she answered him. Nothing could be more\r\nbecoming than the way she obeyed all his behests on such matters;\r\nand it really did seem that in his case the moulded wife would turn\r\nout to have been well moulded. When Staveley left him he again read\r\nMary's letter. Her letters were always of the same length, filling\r\ncompletely the four sides of a sheet of note paper."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They were\r\nexcellently well written; and as no one word in them was ever\r\naltered or erased, it was manifest enough to Felix that the original\r\ncomposition was made on a rough draft. As he again read through the\r\nfour sides of the little sheet of paper, he could not refrain from\r\nconjecturing what sort of a letter Madeline Staveley might write. Mary Snow's letter ran as follows:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   3 Bloomfield Terrace, Peckham,\r\n   Tuesday, 10 January, 18--. MY DEAREST FELIX,\r\n\r\n--she had so called him for the last twelvemonth by common consent\r\nbetween Graham and the very discreet lady under whose charge she at\r\npresent lived. Previously to that she had written to him as, My dear\r\nMr. Graham. MY DEAREST FELIX,\r\n\r\n   I am very glad to hear that your arm and your two ribs are\r\n   getting so much better. I received your letter yesterday,\r\n   and was glad to hear that you are so comfortable in\r\n   the house of the very kind people with whom you are\r\n   staying. If I knew them I would send them my respectful\r\n   remembrances, but as I do not know them I suppose it would\r\n   not be proper. But I remember them in my prayers.--\r\n\r\nThis last assurance was inserted under the express instruction\r\nof Mrs. Thomas, who however did not read Mary's letters, but\r\noccasionally, on some subjects, gave her hints as to what she ought\r\nto say."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nor was there hypocrisy in this, for under the instruction of\r\nher excellent mentor she had prayed for the kind people.--\r\n\r\n   I hope you will be well enough to come and pay me a visit\r\n   before long, but pray do not come before you are well\r\n   enough to do so without giving yourself any pain. I am\r\n   glad to hear that you do not mean to go hunting any more,\r\n   for it seems to me to be a dangerous amusement. And then the first paragraph came to an end. My papa called here yesterday. He said he was very badly\r\n   off indeed, and so he looked. I did not know what to\r\n   say at first, but he asked me so much to give him some\r\n   money, that I did give him at last all that I had. It was\r\n   nineteen shillings and sixpence. Mrs. Thomas was angry,\r\n   and told me I had no right to give away your money, and\r\n   that I should not have given more than half a crown. I\r\n   hope you will not be angry with me. I do not want any more\r\n   at present. But indeed he was very bad, especially about\r\n   his shoes. I do not know that I have any more to say except that\r\n   I put back thirty lines of Télémaque into French every\r\n   morning before breakfast. It never comes near right, but\r\n   nevertheless M. Grigaud says it is well done."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He says that\r\n   if it came quite right I should compose French as well as\r\n   M. Fénelon, which of course I cannot expect. I will now say good-bye, and I am yours most\r\n   affectionately,\r\n\r\n   MARY SNOW. There was nothing in this letter to give any offence to Felix Graham,\r\nand so he acknowledged to himself. He made himself so acknowledge,\r\nbecause on the first reading of it he had felt that he was half angry\r\nwith the writer. It was clear that there was nothing in the letter\r\nwhich would justify censure;--nothing which did not, almost, demand\r\npraise. He would have been angry with her had she limited her filial\r\ndonation to the half-crown which Mrs. Thomas had thought appropriate. He was obliged to her for that attention to her French which he had\r\nspecially enjoined. Nothing could be more proper than her allusion to\r\nthe Staveleys;--and altogether the letter was just what it ought to\r\nbe. Nevertheless it made him unhappy and irritated him. Was it well\r\nthat he should marry a girl whose father was \"indeed very bad, but\r\nespecially about his shoes?\" Staveley had told him that connection\r\nwould be necessary for him, and what sort of a connection would this\r\nbe? And was there one word in the whole letter that showed a spark\r\nof true love? Did not the footfall of Madeline Staveley's step as\r\nshe passed along the passage go nearer to his heart than all the\r\noutspoken assurance of Mary Snow's letter?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nevertheless he had undertaken to do this thing, and he would do\r\nit,--let the footfall of Madeline Staveley's step be ever so sweet in\r\nhis ear. And then, lying back in his bed, he began to think whether\r\nit would have been as well that he should have broken his neck\r\ninstead of his ribs in getting out of Monkton Grange covert. Mrs. Thomas was a lady who kept a school consisting of three little\r\ngirls and Mary Snow. She had in fact not been altogether successful\r\nin the line of life she had chosen for herself, and had hardly been\r\nable to keep her modest door-plate on her door, till Graham, in\r\nsearch of some home for his bride, then in the first noviciate of her\r\nmoulding, had come across her. Her means were now far from plentiful;\r\nbut as an average number of three children still clung to her, and\r\nas Mary Snow's seventy pounds per annum--to include clothes--were\r\npunctually paid, the small house at Peckham was maintained. Under\r\nthese circumstances Mary Snow was somebody in the eyes of Mrs.\r\nThomas, and Felix Graham was a very great person indeed. Graham had received his letter on a Wednesday, and on the following\r\nMonday Mary, as usual, received one from him. These letters always\r\ncame to her in the evening, as she was sitting over her tea with Mrs.\r\nThomas, the three children having been duly put to bed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Graham's\r\nletters were very short, as a man with a broken right arm and two\r\nbroken ribs is not fluent with his pen. But still a word or two did\r\ncome to her. \"Dearest Mary, I am doing better and better, and I hope\r\nI shall see you in about a fortnight. Quite right in giving the\r\nmoney. Stick to the French. Your own F. G.\" But as he signed himself\r\nher own, his mind misgave him that he was lying. \"It is very good of him to write to you while he is in such a state,\"\r\nsaid Mrs. Thomas. \"Indeed it is,\" said Mary--\"very good indeed.\" And then she went\r\non with the history of \"Rasselas\" in his happy valley, by which\r\nstudy Mrs. Thomas intended to initiate her into that course of\r\nnovel-reading which has become necessary for a British lady. But Mrs.\r\nThomas had a mind to improve the present occasion. It was her duty to\r\ninculcate in her pupil love and gratitude towards the beneficent man\r\nwho was doing so much for her. Gratitude for favours past and love\r\nfor favours to come; and now, while that scrap of a letter was lying\r\non the table, the occasion for doing so was opportune. \"Mary, I do hope you love Mr. Graham with all your heart and all your\r\nstrength.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "She would have thought it wicked to say more; but so far\r\nshe thought she might go, considering the sacred tie which was to\r\nexist between her pupil and the gentleman in question. \"Oh, yes, indeed I do;\" and then Mary's eyes fell wishfully on the\r\ncover of the book which lay in her lap while her finger kept the\r\nplace. Rasselas is not very exciting, but it was more so than Mrs.\r\nThomas. \"You would be very wicked if you did not. And I hope you think\r\nsometimes of the very responsible duties which a wife owes to her\r\nhusband. And this will be more especially so with you than with any\r\nother woman--almost that I ever heard of.\" There was something in this that was almost depressing to poor Mary's\r\nspirit, but nevertheless she endeavoured to bear up against it and\r\ndo her duty. \"I shall do all I can to please him, Mrs. Thomas;--and\r\nindeed I do try about the French. And he says I was right to give\r\npapa that money.\" \"But there will be many more things than that when you've stood at\r\nthe altar with him and become his wife;--bone of his bone, Mary.\" And\r\nshe spoke these last words in a very solemn tone, shaking her head,\r\nand the solemn tone almost ossified poor Mary's heart as she heard\r\nit. \"Yes; I know there will. But I shall endeavour to find out what he\r\nlikes.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I don't think he is so particular about his eating and drinking as\r\nsome other gentlemen; though no doubt he will like his things nice.\" \"I know he is fond of strong tea, and I sha'n't forget that.\" \"And about dress. He is not very rich you know, Mary; but it will\r\nmake him unhappy if you are not always tidy. And his own shirts--I\r\nfancy he has no one to look after them now, for I so often see the\r\nbuttons off. You should never let one of them go into his drawers\r\nwithout feeling them all to see that they're on tight.\" \"I'll remember that,\" said Mary, and then she made another little\r\nfurtive attempt to open the book. \"And about your own stockings, Mary. Nothing is so useful to a young\r\nwoman in your position as a habit of darning neat. I'm sometimes\r\nalmost afraid that you don't like darning.\" \"Oh yes I do.\" That was a fib; but what could she do, poor girl, when\r\nso pressed? \"Because I thought you would look at Jane Robinson's and Julia\r\nWright's which are lying there in the basket. I did Rebecca's myself\r\nbefore tea, till my old eyes were sore.\" \"Oh, I didn't know,\" said Mary, with some slight offence in her tone. \"Why didn't you ask me to do them downright if you wanted?\" \"It's only for the practice it will give you.\" \"Practice! I'm always practising something.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "But nevertheless she\r\nlaid down the book, and dragged the basket of work up on to the\r\ntable. \"Why, Mrs. Thomas, it's impossible to mend these; they're all\r\ndarn.\" \"Give them to me,\" said Mrs. Thomas. And then there was silence\r\nbetween them for a quarter of an hour during which Mary's thoughts\r\nwandered away to the events of her future life. Would his stockings\r\nbe so troublesome as these? But Mrs. Thomas was at heart an honest woman, and as a rule was\r\nhonest also in practice. Her conscience told her that Mr. Graham\r\nmight probably not approve of this sort of practice for conjugal\r\nduties, and in spite of her failing eyes she resolved to do her duty. \"Never mind them, Mary,\" said she. \"I remember now that you were\r\ndoing your own before dinner.\" \"Of course I was,\" said Mary sulkily. \"And as for practice, I don't\r\nsuppose he'll want me to do more of that than anything else.\" \"Well, dear, put them by.\" And Miss Snow did put them by, resuming\r\nRasselas as she did so. Who darned the stockings of Rasselas and felt\r\nthat the buttons were tight on his shirts? What a happy valley must\r\nit have been if a bride expectant were free from all such cares as\r\nthese! \"I suppose, Mary, it will be some time in the spring of next year.\" Mrs. Thomas was not reading, and therefore a little conversation from\r\ntime to time was to her a solace."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"What will be, Mrs. Thomas?\" \"Why, the marriage.\" \"I suppose it will. He told father it should be early in 18--, and I\r\nshall be past twenty then.\" \"I wonder where you'll go to live.\" \"I don't know. He has never said anything about that.\" \"I suppose not; but I'm sure it will be a long way away from\r\nPeckham.\" In answer to this Mary said nothing, but could not help\r\nwishing that it might be so. Peckham to her had not been a place\r\nbright with happiness, although she had become in so marked a way a\r\nchild of good fortune. And then, moreover, she had a deep care on her\r\nmind with which the streets and houses and pathways of Peckham were\r\nclosely connected. It would be very expedient that she should go far,\r\nfar away from Peckham when she had become, in actual fact, the very\r\nwife of Felix Graham. \"Miss Mary,\" whispered the red-armed maid of all work, creeping up\r\nto Mary's bedroom door, when they had all retired for the night, and\r\nwhispering through the chink. \"Miss Mary. I've somethink to say.\" And Mary opened the door. \"I've got a letter from him;\" and the maid\r\nof all work absolutely produced a little note enclosed in a green\r\nenvelope. \"Sarah, I told you not,\" said Mary, looking very stern and hesitating\r\nwith her finger whether or no she would take the letter. \"But he did so beg and pray."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Besides, miss, as he says hisself he\r\nmust have his answer. Any gen'leman, he says, 'as a right to a\r\nanswer. And if you'd a seed him yourself I'm sure you'd have took it. He did look so nice with a blue and gold hankercher round his neck. He was a-going to the the-a-tre he said.\" \"And who was going with him, Sarah?\" \"Oh, no one. Only his mamma and sister, and them sort. He's all\r\nright--he is.\" And then Mary Snow did take the letter. \"And I'll come for the answer when you're settling the room after\r\nbreakfast to-morrow?\" said the girl. \"No; I don't know. I sha'n't send any answer at all. But, Sarah, for\r\nheaven's sake, do not say a word about it!\" \"Who, I? Laws love you, miss. I wouldn't;--not for worlds of gold.\" And then Mary was left alone to read a second letter from a second\r\nsuitor. \"Angel of light!\" it began, \"but cold as your own fair name.\" Poor\r\nMary thought it was very nice and very sweet, and though she was so\r\nmuch afraid of it that she almost wished it away, yet she read it a\r\nscore of times. Stolen pleasures always are sweet. She had not cared\r\nto read those two lines from her own betrothed lord above once, or at\r\nthe most twice; and yet they had been written by a good man,--a man\r\nsuperlatively good to her, and written too with considerable pain. [Illustration: The Angel of Light.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She sat down all trembling to think of what she was doing; and then,\r\nas she thought, she read the letter again. \"Angel of light! but cold\r\nas your own fair name.\" Alas, alas! it was very sweet to her! CHAPTER XXXIV. MR. FURNIVAL LOOKS FOR ASSISTANCE. \"And you think that nothing can be done down there?\" said Mr.\r\nFurnival to his clerk, immediately after the return of Mr. Crabwitz\r\nfrom Hamworth to London. \"Nothing at all, sir,\" said Mr. Crabwitz, with laconic significance. \"Well; I dare say not. If the matter could have been arranged at a\r\nreasonable cost, without annoyance to my friend Lady Mason, I should\r\nhave been glad; but, on the whole, it will perhaps be better that the\r\nlaw should take its course. She will suffer a good deal, but she will\r\nbe the safer for it afterwards.\" \"Mr. Furnival, I went so far as to offer a thousand pounds!\" \"A thousand pounds! Then they'll think we're afraid of them.\" \"Not a bit more than they did before. Though I offered the money, he\r\ndoesn't know the least that the offer came from our side. But I'll\r\ntell you what it is, Mr. Furnival--. I suppose I may speak my mind.\" \"Oh, yes! But remember this, Crabwitz; Lady Mason is no more in\r\ndanger of losing the property than you are. It is a most vexatious\r\nthing, but there can be no doubt as to what the result will be.\" \"Well, Mr. Furnival,--I don't know.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"In such matters, I am tolerably well able to form an opinion.\" \"Oh, certainly!\" \"And that's my opinion. Now I shall be very glad to hear yours.\" \"My opinion is this, Mr. Furnival, that Sir Joseph never made that\r\ncodicil.\" \"And what makes you think so?\" \"The whole course of the evidence. It's quite clear there was another\r\ndeed executed that day, and witnessed by Bolster and Kenneby. Had\r\nthere been two documents for them to witness, they would have\r\nremembered it so soon after the occurrence.\" \"Well, Crabwitz, I differ from you,--differ from you in toto. But\r\nkeep your opinion to yourself, that's all. I've no doubt you did\r\nthe best for us you could down at Hamworth, and I'm much obliged to\r\nyou. You'll find we've got our hands quite full again,--almost too\r\nfull.\" Then he turned round to his table, and to the papers upon it;\r\nwhereupon, Crabwitz took the hint, and left the room. But when he had gone, Mr. Furnival again raised his eyes from the\r\npapers on the table, and leaning back in his chair, gave himself up\r\nto further consideration of the Orley Farm case. Crabwitz he knew was\r\na sharp, clever man, and now the opinion formed by Crabwitz, after\r\nhaving seen this Hamworth attorney, tallied with his own opinion. Yes; it was his own opinion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had never said as much, even to\r\nhimself, with those inward words which a man uses when he assures\r\nhimself of the result of his own thoughts; but he was aware that it\r\nwas his own opinion. In his heart of hearts, he did believe that that\r\ncodicil had been fraudulently manufactured by his friend and client,\r\nLady Mason. Under these circumstances, what should he do? He had the handle of\r\nhis pen between his teeth, as was his habit when he was thinking, and\r\ntried to bring himself to some permanent resolution. How beautiful had she looked while she stood in Sir Peregrine's\r\nlibrary, leaning on the old man's arm--how beautiful and how\r\ninnocent! That was the form which his thoughts chiefly took. And then\r\nshe had given him her hand, and he still felt the soft silken touch\r\nof her cool fingers. He would not be a man if he could desert a woman\r\nin such a strait. And such a woman! If even guilty, had she not\r\nexpiated her guilt by deep sorrow? And then he thought of Mr. Mason\r\nof Groby Park; and he thought of Sir Peregrine's strong conviction,\r\nand of Judge Staveley's belief; and he thought also of the strong\r\nhold which public opinion and twenty years of possession would still\r\ngive to the cause he favoured. He would still bring her through!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Yes;\r\nin spite of her guilt, if she were guilty; on the strength of her\r\ninnocency, if she were innocent; but on account of her beauty, and\r\nsoft hand, and deep liquid eye. So at least he would have owned,\r\ncould he have been honest enough to tell himself the whole truth. But he must prepare himself for the battle in earnest. It was not as\r\nthough he had been briefed in this case, and had merely to perform\r\nthe duty for which he had been hired. He was to undertake the\r\nwhole legal management of the affair. He must settle what attorney\r\nshould have the matter in hand, and instruct that attorney how to\r\nreinstruct him, and how to reinstruct those other barristers who must\r\nnecessarily be employed on the defence, in a case of such magnitude. He did not yet know under what form the attack would be made; but he\r\nwas nearly certain that it would be done in the shape of a criminal\r\ncharge. He hoped that it might take the direct form of an accusation\r\nof forgery. The stronger and more venomous the charge made, the\r\nstronger also would be public opinion in favour of the accused,\r\nand the greater the chance of an acquittal. But if she were to be\r\nfound guilty on any charge, it would matter little on what. Any\r\nsuch verdict of guilty would be utter ruin and obliteration of her\r\nexistence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He must consult with some one, and at last he made up his mind to go\r\nto his very old friend, Mr. Chaffanbrass. Mr. Chaffanbrass was safe,\r\nand he might speak out his mind to him without fear of damaging the\r\ncause. Not that he could bring himself to speak out his real mind,\r\neven to Mr. Chaffanbrass. He would so speak that Mr. Chaffanbrass\r\nshould clearly understand him; but still, not even to his ears, would\r\nhe say that he really believed Lady Mason to have been guilty. How\r\nwould it be possible that he should feign before a jury his assured,\r\nnay, his indignant conviction of his client's innocence, if he had\r\never whispered to any one his conviction of her guilt? On that same afternoon he sent to make an appointment with Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass, and immediately after breakfast, on the following\r\nmorning, had himself taken to that gentleman's chambers. The chambers\r\nof this great guardian of the innocence--or rather not-guiltiness\r\nof the public--were not in any so-named inn, but consisted of two\r\ngloomy, dark, panelled rooms in Ely Place. The course of our story,\r\nhowever, will not cause us to make many visits to Ely Place, and\r\nany closer description of them may be spared. I have said that Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass and Mr. Furnival were very old friends. So they were."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They had known each other for more than thirty years, and each knew\r\nthe whole history of the other's rise and progress in the profession;\r\nbut any results of their friendship at present were but scanty. They\r\nmight meet each other in the streets, perhaps, once in the year; and\r\noccasionally--but very seldom--might be brought together on subjects\r\nconnected with their profession; as was the case when they travelled\r\ntogether down to Birmingham. As to meeting in each other's houses, or\r\ncoming together for the sake of the friendship which existed,--the\r\nidea of doing so never entered the head of either of them. All the world knows Mr. Chaffanbrass--either by sight or by\r\nreputation. Those who have been happy enough to see the face and\r\ngait of the man as, in years now gone, he used to lord it at the Old\r\nBailey, may not have thought much of the privilege which was theirs. But to those who have only read of him, and know of his deeds simply\r\nby their triumphs, he was a man very famous and worthy to be seen. \"Look; that's Chaffanbrass. It was he who cross-examined ---- at the\r\nOld Bailey, and sent him howling out of London, banished for ever\r\ninto the wilderness.\" \"Where, where? Is that Chaffanbrass? What a\r\ndirty little man!\" To this dirty little man in Ely Place, Mr. Furnival now went in his\r\ndifficulty."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Furnival might feel himself sufficient to secure the\r\nacquittal of an innocent person, or even of a guilty person, under\r\nordinary circumstances; but if any man in England could secure the\r\nacquittal of a guilty person under extraordinary circumstances, it\r\nwould be Mr. Chaffanbrass. This had been his special line of work for\r\nthe last thirty years. Mr. Chaffanbrass was a dirty little man; and when seen without his\r\ngown and wig, might at a first glance be thought insignificant. But\r\nhe knew well how to hold his own in the world, and could maintain\r\nhis opinion, unshaken, against all the judges in the land. \"Well,\r\nFurnival, and what can I do for you?\" he said, as soon as the member\r\nfor the Essex Marshes was seated opposite to him. \"It isn't often\r\nthat the light of your countenance shines so far east as this. Somebody must be in trouble, I suppose?\" \"Somebody is in trouble,\" said Mr. Furnival; and then he began\r\nto tell his story. Mr. Chaffanbrass listened almost in silence\r\nthroughout. Now and then he asked a question by a word or two,\r\nexpressing no opinion whatever as he did so; but he was satisfied to\r\nleave the talking altogether in the hands of his visitor till the\r\nwhole tale was told. \"Ah,\" he said then, \"a clever woman!\" \"An uncommonly sweet creature too,\" said Mr. Furnival. \"I dare say,\" said Mr. Chaffanbrass; and then there was a pause. \"And what can I do for you?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "said Mr. Chaffanbrass. \"In the first place I should be very glad to have your advice; and\r\nthen--. Of course I must lead in defending her,--unless it were well\r\nthat I should put the case altogether in your hands.\" \"Oh no! don't think of that. I couldn't give the time to it. My heart\r\nis not in it, as yours is. Where will it be?\" \"At Alston, I suppose.\" \"At the Spring assizes. That will be--. Let me see; about the 10th of\r\nMarch.\" \"I should think we might get it postponed till the summer. Round is\r\nnot at all hot about it.\" \"Should we gain anything by that? If a prisoner be innocent why\r\ntorment him by delay. He is tolerably sure of escape. If he be\r\nguilty, extension of time only brings out the facts the clearer. As far as my experience goes, the sooner a man is tried the\r\nbetter,--always.\" \"And you would consent to hold a brief?\" \"Under you? Well; yes. I don't mind it at Alston. Anything to oblige\r\nan old friend. I never was proud, you know.\" \"And what do you think about it, Chaffanbrass?\" \"Ah! that's the question.\" \"She must be pulled through. Twenty years of possession! Think of\r\nthat.\" \"That's what Mason, the man down in Yorkshire, is thinking of. There's no doubt of course about that partnership deed?\" \"I fear not. Round would not go on with it if that were not all\r\ntrue.\" \"It depends on those two witnesses, Furnival."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I remember the case of\r\nold, though it was twenty years ago, and I had nothing to do with it. I remember thinking that Lady Mason was a very clever woman, and that\r\nRound and Crook were rather slow.\" \"He's a brute; is that fellow, Mason of Groby Park.\" \"A brute; is he? We'll get him into the box and make him say as much\r\nfor himself. She's uncommonly pretty, isn't she?\" \"She is a pretty woman.\" \"And interesting? It will all tell, you know. A widow with one son,\r\nisn't she?\" \"Yes, and she has done her duty admirably since her husband's death. You will find too that she has the sympathies of all the best\r\npeople in her neighbourhood. She is staying now at the house of Sir\r\nPeregrine Orme, who would do anything for her.\" \"Anything, would he?\" \"And the Staveleys know her. The judge is convinced of her\r\ninnocence.\" \"Is he? He'll probably have the Home Circuit in the summer. His\r\nconviction expressed from the bench would be more useful to her. You\r\ncan make Staveley believe everything in a drawing-room or over a\r\nglass of wine; but I'll be hanged if I can ever get him to believe\r\nanything when he's on the bench.\" \"But, Chaffanbrass, the countenance of such people will be of great\r\nuse to her down there. Everybody will know that she's been staying\r\nwith Sir Peregrine.\" \"I've no doubt she's a clever woman.\" \"But this new trouble has half killed her.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I don't wonder at that either. These sort of troubles do vex people. A pretty woman like that should have everything smooth; shouldn't\r\nshe? Well, we'll do the best we can. You'll see that I'm properly\r\ninstructed. By-the-by, who is her attorney? In such a case as that\r\nyou couldn't have a better man than old Solomon Aram. But Solomon\r\nAram is too far east from you, I suppose?\" \"Isn't he a Jew?\" \"Upon my word I don't know. He's an attorney, and that's enough for\r\nme.\" And then the matter was again discussed between them, and it was\r\nagreed that a third counsel would be wanting. \"Felix Graham is very\r\nmuch interested in the case,\" said Mr. Furnival, \"and is as firmly\r\nconvinced of her innocence as--as I am.\" And he managed to look his\r\nally in the face and to keep his countenance firmly. \"Ah,\" said Mr. Chaffanbrass. \"But what if he should happen to change\r\nhis opinion about his own client?\" \"We could prevent that, I think.\" \"I'm not so sure. And then he'd throw her over as sure as your name's\r\nFurnival.\" \"I hardly think he'd do that.\" \"I believe he'd do anything.\" And Mr. Chaffanbrass was quite moved\r\nto enthusiasm. \"I've heard that man talk more nonsense about the\r\nprofession in one hour, than I ever heard before since I first put a\r\ncotton gown on my back. He does not understand the nature of the duty\r\nwhich a professional man owes to his client.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But he'd work well if he had a case at heart himself. I don't like\r\nhim, but he is clever.\" \"You can do as you like, of course. I shall be out of my ground down\r\nat Alston, and of course I don't care who takes the fag of the work. But I tell you this fairly;--if he does go into the case and then\r\nturns against us or drops it,--I shall turn against him and drop into\r\nhim.\" \"Heaven help him in such a case as that!\" And then these two great\r\nluminaries of the law shook hands and parted. One thing was quite clear to Mr. Furnival as he had himself carried\r\nin a cab from Ely Place to his own chambers in Lincoln's Inn. Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass was fully convinced of Lady Mason's guilt. He had not\r\nactually said so, but he had not even troubled himself to go through\r\nthe little ceremony of expressing a belief in her innocence. Mr.\r\nFurnival was well aware that Mr. Chaffanbrass would not on this\r\naccount be less likely to come out strongly with such assurances\r\nbefore a jury, or to be less severe in his cross-examination of a\r\nwitness whose evidence went to prove that guilt; but nevertheless\r\nthe conviction was disheartening. Mr. Chaffanbrass would know, almost\r\nby instinct, whether an accused person was or was not guilty; and\r\nhe had already perceived, by instinct, that Lady Mason was guilty."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Furnival sighed as he stepped out of his cab, and again wished\r\nthat he could wash his hands of the whole affair. He wished it very\r\nmuch;--but he knew that his wish could not be gratified. \"Solomon Aram!\" he said to himself, as he again sat down in his\r\narm-chair. \"It will sound badly to those people down at Alston. At\r\nthe Old Bailey they don't mind that kind of thing.\" And then he made\r\nup his mind that Solomon Aram would not do. It would be a disgrace to\r\nhim to take a case out of Solomon Aram's hands. Mr. Chaffanbrass\r\ndid not understand all this. Mr. Chaffanbrass had been dealing with\r\nSolomon Arams all his life. Mr. Chaffanbrass could not see the effect\r\nwhich such an alliance would have on the character of a barrister\r\nholding Mr. Furnival's position. Solomon Aram was a good man in his\r\nway no doubt;--perhaps the best man going. In taking every dodge to\r\nprevent a conviction no man could be better than Solomon Aram. All\r\nthis Mr. Furnival felt;--but he felt also that he could not afford\r\nit. \"It would be tantamount to a confession of guilt to take such a\r\nman as that down into the country,\" he said to himself, trying to\r\nexcuse himself. And then he also made up his mind that he would sound Felix Graham."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If Felix Graham could be induced to take up the case thoroughly\r\nbelieving in the innocence of his client, no man would be more useful\r\nas a junior. Felix Graham went the Home Circuit on which Alston was\r\none of the assize towns. CHAPTER XXXV. LOVE WAS STILL THE LORD OF ALL. Why should I not? Such had been the question which Sir Peregrine Orme\r\nhad asked himself over and over again, in these latter days, since\r\nLady Mason had been staying at his house; and the purport of the\r\nquestion was this:--Why should he not make Lady Mason his wife? I and my readers can probably see very many reasons why he should not\r\ndo so; but then we are not in love with Lady Mason. Her charms and\r\nher sorrows,--her soft, sad smile and her more lovely tears have not\r\noperated upon us. We are not chivalrous old gentlemen, past seventy\r\nyears of age, but still alive, keenly alive, to a strong feeling of\r\nromance. That visit will perhaps be remembered which Mr. Furnival\r\nmade at The Cleeve, and the subsequent interview between Lady Mason\r\nand the baronet. On that day he merely asked himself the question,\r\nand took no further step. On the subsequent day and the day after,\r\nit was the same. He still asked himself the question, sitting alone\r\nin his library; but he did not ask it as yet of any one else."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When\r\nhe met Lady Mason in these days his manner to her was full of the\r\ndeference due to a lady and of the affection due to a dear friend;\r\nbut that was all. Mrs. Orme, seeing this, and cordially concurring in\r\nthis love for her guest, followed the lead which her father-in-law\r\ngave, and threw herself into Lady Mason's arms. They two were fast\r\nand bosom friends. And what did Lady Mason think of all this? In truth there was much in\r\nit that was sweet to her, but there was something also that increased\r\nthat idea of danger which now seemed to envelop her whole existence. Why had Sir Peregrine so treated her in the library, behaving towards\r\nher with such tokens of close affection? He had put his arm round her\r\nwaist and kissed her lips and pressed her to his old bosom. Why had\r\nthis been so? He had assured her that he would be to her as a father,\r\nbut her woman's instinct had told her that the pressure of his hand\r\nhad been warmer than that which a father accords to his adopted\r\ndaughter. No idea of anger had come upon her for a moment; but she\r\nhad thought about it much, and had thought about it almost in dismay. What if the old man did mean more than a father's love? It seemed to\r\nher as though it must be a dream that he should do so; but what if he\r\ndid?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "How should she answer him? In such circumstances what should she\r\ndo or say? Could she afford to buy his friendship,--even his warmest\r\nlove at the cost of the enmity of so many others? Would not Mrs. Orme\r\nhate her, Mrs. Orme, whom she truly, dearly, eagerly loved? Mrs.\r\nOrme's affection was, of all personal gratifications, the sweetest\r\nto her. And the young heir,--would not he hate her? Nay, would he\r\nnot interfere and with some strong hand prevent so mean a deed on the\r\npart of his grandfather? And if so, would she not thus have lost them\r\naltogether? And then she thought of that other friend whose aid would\r\nbe so indispensable to her in this dreadful time of tribulation. How\r\nwould Mr. Furnival receive such tidings, if it should come to pass\r\nthat such tidings were to be told? Lady Mason was rich with female charms, and she used them partly with\r\nthe innocence of the dove, but partly also with the wisdom of the\r\nserpent. But in such use as she did make of these only weapons which\r\nProvidence had given to her, I do not think that she can be regarded\r\nas very culpable. During those long years of her young widowhood in\r\nwhich nothing had been wanting to her, her conduct had been free from\r\nany hint of reproach. She had been content to find all her joy in\r\nher duties and in her love as a mother."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now a great necessity for\r\nassistance had come upon her. It was necessary that she should bind\r\nmen to her cause, men powerful in the world and able to fight her\r\nbattle with strong arms. She did so bind them with the only chains at\r\nher command,--but she had no thought, nay, no suspicion of evil in so\r\ndoing. It was very painful to her when she found that she had caused\r\nunhappiness to Mrs. Furnival; and it caused her pain now, also, when\r\nshe thought of Sir Peregrine's new love. She did wish to bind these\r\nmen to her by a strong attachment; but she would have stayed this\r\nfeeling at a certain point had it been possible for her so to manage\r\nit. In the mean time Sir Peregrine still asked himself that question. He\r\nhad declared to himself when first the idea had come to him, that\r\nnone of those whom he loved should be injured. He would even ask his\r\ndaughter-in-law's consent, condescending to plead his cause before\r\nher, making her understand his motives, and asking her acquiescence\r\nas a favour. He would be so careful of his grandson that this second\r\nmarriage--if such event did come to pass--should not put a pound out\r\nof his pocket, or at any rate should not hamper the succession of the\r\nestate with a pound of debt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then he made excuses to himself as\r\nto the step which he proposed to take, thinking how he would meet his\r\nfriends, and how he would carry himself before his old servants. Old men have made more silly marriages than this which he then\r\ndesired. Gentlemen such as Sir Peregrine in age and station have\r\nmarried their housemaids,--have married young girls of eighteen\r\nyears of age,--have done so and faced their friends and servants\r\nafterwards. The bride that he proposed to himself was a lady, an old\r\nfriend, a woman over forty, and one whom by such a marriage he could\r\ngreatly assist in her deep sorrow. Why should he not do it? After much of such thoughts as these, extended over nearly a week,\r\nhe resolved to speak his mind to Mrs. Orme. If it were to be done it\r\nshould be done at once. The incredulous unromantic readers of this\r\nage would hardly believe me if I said that his main object was to\r\nrender assistance to Lady Mason in her difficulty; but so he assured\r\nhimself, and so he believed. This assistance to be of true service\r\nmust be given at once;--and having so resolved he sent for Mrs. Orme\r\ninto the library. \"Edith, my darling,\" he said, taking her hand and pressing it between\r\nboth his own as was often the wont with him in his more affectionate\r\nmoods."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I want to speak to you--on business that concerns me nearly;\r\nmay perhaps concern us all nearly. Can you give me half an hour?\" \"Of course I can--what is it, sir? I am a bad hand at business; but\r\nyou know that.\" \"Sit down, dear; there; sit there, and I will sit here. As to this\r\nbusiness, no one can counsel me as well as you.\" \"Dearest father, I should be a poor councillor in anything.\" \"Not in this, Edith. It is about Lady Mason that I would speak to\r\nyou. We both love her dearly; do we not?\" \"I do.\" \"And are glad to have her here?\" \"Oh, so glad. When this trial is only over, it will be so sweet, to\r\nhave her for a neighbour. We really know her now. And it will be so\r\npleasant to see much of her.\" There was nothing discouraging in this, but still the words in some\r\nslight degree grated against Sir Peregrine's feelings. At the present\r\nmoment he did not wish to think of Lady Mason as living at Orley\r\nFarm, and would have preferred that his daughter-in-law should have\r\nspoken of her as being there, at The Cleeve. \"Yes; we know her now,\" he said. \"And believe me in this, Edith; no\r\nknowledge obtained of a friend in happiness is at all equal to that\r\nwhich is obtained in sorrow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had Lady Mason been prosperous, had she\r\nnever become subject to the malice and avarice of wicked people, I\r\nshould never have loved her as I do love her.\" \"Nor should I, father.\" \"She is a cruelly ill-used woman, and a woman worthy of the kindest\r\nusage. I am an old man now, but it has never before been my lot to\r\nbe so anxious for a fellow-creature as I am for her. It is dreadful\r\nto think that innocence in this country should be subject to such\r\nattacks.\" \"Indeed it is; but you do not think that there is any danger?\" This was all very well, and showed that Mrs. Orme's mind was well\r\ndisposed towards the woman whom he loved. But he had known that\r\nbefore, and he began to feel that he was not approaching the object\r\nwhich he had in view. \"Edith,\" at last he said abruptly, \"I love her\r\nwith my whole heart. I would fain make her--my wife.\" Sir Peregrine\r\nOrme had never in his course through life failed in anything for lack\r\nof courage; and when the idea came home to him that he was trembling\r\nat the task which he had imposed on himself, he dashed at it at once. It is so that forlorn hopes are led, and become not forlorn; it is so\r\nthat breaches are taken. \"Your wife!\" said Mrs. Orme."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She would not have breathed a syllable\r\nto pain him if she could have helped it, but the suddenness of the\r\nannouncement overcame her for a moment. \"Yes, Edith, my wife. Let us discuss the matter before you condemn\r\nit. But in the first place I would have you to understand this--I\r\nwill not marry her if you say that it will make you unhappy. I have\r\nnot spoken to her as yet, and she knows nothing of this project.\" Sir\r\nPeregrine, it may be presumed, had not himself thought much of that\r\nkiss which he had given her. \"You,\" he continued to say, \"have given\r\nup your whole life to me. You are my angel. If this thing will make\r\nyou unhappy it shall not be done.\" Sir Peregrine had not so considered it, but with such a woman as Mrs.\r\nOrme this was, of course, the surest way to overcome opposition. On\r\nher own behalf, thinking only of herself, she would stand in the\r\nway of nothing that could add to Sir Peregrine's happiness. But\r\nnevertheless the idea was strong in her mind that such a marriage\r\nwould be imprudent. Sir Peregrine at present stood high before the\r\nworld. Would he stand so high if he did this thing? His gray hair\r\nand old manly bearing were honoured and revered by all who knew him. Would this still be so if he made himself the husband of Lady Mason?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She loved so dearly, she valued so highly the honour that was paid\r\nto him! She was so proud of her own boy in that he was the grandson\r\nof so perfect a gentleman! Would not this be a sad ending to such\r\na career? Such were the thoughts which ran through her mind at the\r\nmoment. \"Make me unhappy!\" she said getting up and going over to him. \"It is\r\nyour happiness of which I would think. Will it make you more happy?\" \"It will enable me to befriend her more effectually.\" \"But, dearest father, you must be the first consideration to us,--to\r\nme and Peregrine. Will it make you more happy?\" \"I think it will,\" he answered slowly. \"Then I, for one, will say nothing against it,\" she answered. She was\r\nvery weak, it will be said. Yes, she was weak. Many of the sweetest,\r\nkindest, best of women are weak in this way. It is not every woman\r\nthat can bring herself to say hard, useful, wise words in opposition\r\nto the follies of those they love best. A woman to be useful and wise\r\nno doubt should have such power. For myself I am not so sure that I\r\nlike useful and wise women. \"Then I for one will say nothing against\r\nit,\" said Mrs. Orme, deficient in utility, wanting in wisdom, but\r\nfull of the sweetest affection. \"You are sure that you will not love her the less yourself?\" said Sir\r\nPeregrine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Yes; I am sure of that. If it were to be so, I should endeavour to\r\nlove her the more.\" \"Dearest Edith. I have only one other person to tell.\" \"Do you mean Peregrine?\" she said in her softest voice. \"Yes. Of course he must be told. But as it would not be well to ask\r\nhis consent,--as I have asked yours--\" and then as he said this she\r\nkissed his brow. \"But you will let him know it?\" \"Yes; that is if she accepts my proposition. Then he shall know it\r\nimmediately. And, Edith, my dear, you may be sure of this; nothing\r\nthat I do shall be allowed in any way to injure his prospects or to\r\nhamper him as regards money when I am gone. If this marriage takes\r\nplace I cannot do very much for her in the way of money; she will\r\nunderstand that. Something I can of course.\" And then Mrs. Orme stood over the fire, looking at the hot coals, and\r\nthinking what Lady Mason's answer would be. She esteemed Lady Mason\r\nvery highly, regarding her as a woman sensible and conscientious at\r\nall points, and she felt by no means certain that the offer would\r\nbe accepted. What if Lady Mason should say that such an arrangement\r\nwould not be possible for her. Mrs. Orme felt that under such\r\ncircumstances she at any rate would not withdraw her love from Lady\r\nMason."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And now I may as well speak to her at once,\" said Sir Peregrine. \"Is\r\nshe in the drawing-room?\" \"I left her there.\" \"Will you ask her to come to me--with my love?\" \"I had better not say anything I suppose?\" Sir Peregrine, in his heart of hearts wished that his daughter-in-law\r\ncould say it all, but he would not give her such a commission. \"No;\r\nperhaps not.\" And then Mrs. Orme was going to leave him. \"One word more, Edith. You and I, darling, have known each other so\r\nlong and loved each other so well, that I should be unhappy if I were\r\nto fall in your estimation.\" \"There is no fear of that, father.\" \"Will you believe me when I assure you that my great object in doing\r\nthis is to befriend a good and worthy woman whom I regard as ill\r\nused--beyond all ill usage of which I have hitherto known anything?\" She then assured him that she did so believe, and she assured him\r\ntruly; after that she left him and went away to send in Lady Mason\r\nfor her interview. In the mean time Sir Peregrine got up and stood\r\nwith his back to the fire. He would have been glad that the coming\r\nscene could be over, and yet I should be wronging him to say that\r\nhe was afraid of it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There would be a pleasure to him in telling\r\nher that he loved her so dearly and trusted her with such absolute\r\nconfidence. There would be a sort of pleasure to him in speaking even\r\nof her sorrow, and in repeating his assurance that he would fight the\r\nbattle for her with all the means at his command. And perhaps also\r\nthere would be some pleasure in the downcast look of her eye, as she\r\naccepted the tender of his love. Something of that pleasure he had\r\nknown already. And then he remembered the other alternative. It was\r\nquite upon the cards that she should decline his offer. He did not by\r\nany means shut his eyes to that. Did she do so, his friendship should\r\nby no means be withdrawn from her. He would be very careful from the\r\nonset that she should understand so much as that. And then he heard\r\nthe light footsteps in the hall; the gentle hand was raised to the\r\ndoor, and Lady Mason was standing in the room. \"Dear Lady Mason,\" he said, meeting her half way across the room, \"it\r\nis very kind of you to come to me when I send for you in this way.\" \"It would be my duty to come to you, if it were half across the\r\nkingdom;--and my pleasure also.\" \"Would it?\" said he, looking into her face with all the wishfulness\r\nof a young lover. From that moment she knew what was coming."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Strange\r\nas was the destiny which was to be offered to her at this period of\r\nher life, yet she foresaw clearly that the offer was to be made. What\r\nshe did not foresee, what she could not foretell, was the answer\r\nwhich she might make to it! \"It would certainly be my sweetest pleasure to send for you if you\r\nwere away from us,--to send for you or to follow you,\" said he. \"I do not know how to make return for all your kind regard to me;--to\r\nyou and to dear Mrs. Orme.\" \"Call her Edith, will you not? You did so call her once.\" \"I call her so often when we are alone together, now; and yet I feel\r\nthat I have no right.\" \"You have every right. You shall have every right if you will accept\r\nit. Lady Mason, I am an old man,--some would say a very old man. But\r\nI am not too old to love you. Can, you accept the love of an old man\r\nlike me?\" Lady Mason was, as we are aware, not taken in the least by surprise;\r\nbut it was quite necessary that she should seem to be so taken. This\r\nis a little artifice which is excusable in almost any lady at such\r\na period. \"Sir Peregrine,\" she said, \"you do not mean more than the\r\nlove of a most valued friend?\" \"Yes, much more."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I mean the love of a husband for his wife; of a wife\r\nfor her husband.\" \"Sir Peregrine! Ah me! You have not thought of this, my friend. You\r\nhave not remembered the position in which I am placed. Dearest,\r\ndearest friend; dearest of all friends,\"--and then she knelt before\r\nhim, leaning on his knees, as he sat in his accustomed large\r\narm-chair. \"It may not be so. Think of the sorrow that would come to\r\nyou and yours, if my enemies should prevail.\" \"By ---- they shall not prevail!\" swore Sir Peregrine, roundly; and\r\nas he swore the oath he put his two hands upon her shoulders. \"No; we will hope not. I should die here at your feet if I thought\r\nthat they could prevail. But I should die twenty deaths were I to\r\ndrag you with me into disgrace. There will be disgrace even in\r\nstanding at that bar.\" \"Who will dare to say so, when I shall stand there with you?\" said\r\nSir Peregrine. There was a feeling expressed in his face as he spoke these words,\r\nwhich made it glorious, and bright, and beautiful. She, with her eyes\r\nladen with tears, could not see it; but nevertheless, she knew that\r\nit was bright and beautiful. And his voice was full of hot eager\r\nassurance,--that assurance which had the power to convey itself from\r\none breast to another. Would it not be so?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "If he stood there with her\r\nas her husband and lord, would it not be the case that no one would\r\ndare to impute disgrace to her? And yet she did not wish it. Even yet, thinking of all this as she\r\ndid think of it, according to the truth of the argument which he\r\nhimself put before her, she would still have preferred that it should\r\nnot be so. If she only knew with what words to tell him so;--to tell\r\nhim so and yet give no offence! For herself, she would have married\r\nhim willingly. Why should she not? Nay, she could and would have\r\nloved him, and been to him a wife, such as he could have found in no\r\nother woman. But she said within her heart that she owed him kindness\r\nand gratitude--that she owed them all kindness, and that it would\r\nbe bad to repay them in such a way as this. She also thought of Sir\r\nPeregrine's gray hairs, and of his proud standing in the county, and\r\nthe respect in which men held him. Would it be well in her to drag\r\nhim down in his last days from the noble pedestal on which he stood,\r\nand repay him thus for all that he was doing for her? \"Well,\" said he, stroking her soft hair with his hands--the hair\r\nwhich appeared in front of the quiet prim cap she wore, \"shall it be\r\nso?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Will you give me the right to stand there with you and defend you\r\nagainst the tongues of wicked men? We each have our own weakness, and\r\nwe also have each our own strength. There I may boast that I should\r\nbe strong.\" She thought again for a moment or two without rising from her knees,\r\nand also without speaking. Would such strength suffice? And if it did\r\nsuffice, would it then be well with him? As for herself, she did love\r\nhim. If she had not loved him before, she loved him now. Who had ever\r\nbeen to her so noble, so loving, so gracious as he? In her ears no\r\nyoung lover's vows had ever sounded. In her heart such love as all\r\nthe world knows had never been known. Her former husband had been\r\nkind to her in his way, and she had done her duty by him carefully,\r\npainfully, and with full acceptance of her position. But there had\r\nbeen nothing there that was bright, and grand, and noble. She would\r\nhave served Sir Peregrine on her knees in the smallest offices, and\r\ndelighted in such services. It was not for lack of love that she must\r\nrefuse him. But still she did not answer him, and still he stroked\r\nher hair. \"It would be better that you had never seen me,\" at last she said;\r\nand she spoke with truth the thought of her mind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That she must do\r\nhis bidding, whatever that bidding might be, she had in a certain way\r\nacknowledged to herself. If he would have it so, so it must be. How\r\ncould she refuse him anything, or be disobedient in aught to one to\r\nwhom she owed so much? But still it would be wiser otherwise, wiser\r\nfor all--unless it were for herself alone. \"It would be better that\r\nyou had never seen me,\" she said. \"Nay, not so, dearest. That it would not be better for me,--for me\r\nand Edith I am quite sure. And I would fain hope that for you--\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, Sir Peregrine! you know what I mean. You know how I value your\r\nkindness. What should I be if it were withdrawn from me?\" \"It shall not be withdrawn. Do not let that feeling actuate you. Answer me out of your heart, and however your heart may answer,\r\nremember this, that my friendship and support shall be the same. If\r\nyou will take me for your husband, as your husband will I stand by\r\nyou. If you cannot,--then I will stand by you as your father.\" What could she say? A word or two she did speak as to Mrs. Orme and\r\nher feelings, delaying her absolute reply--and as to Peregrine Orme\r\nand his prospects; but on both, as on all other points, the baronet\r\nwas armed with his answer. He had spoken to his darling Edith, and\r\nshe had gladly given her consent."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To her it would be everything to\r\nhave so sweet a friend. And then as to his heir, every care should\r\nbe taken that no injury should be done to him; and speaking of this,\r\nSir Peregrine began to say a few words, plaintively, about money. But then Lady Mason stopped him. \"No,\" she said, \"she could not,\r\nand would not, listen to that. She would have no settlement. No\r\nconsideration as to money should be made to weigh with her. It was\r\nin no degree for that--\" And then she wept there till she would have\r\nfallen had he not supported her. What more is there to be told. Of course she accepted him. As far as\r\nI can see into such affairs no alternative was allowed to her. She\r\nalso was not a wise woman at all points. She was one whose feelings\r\nwere sometimes too many for her, and whose feelings on this occasion\r\nhad been much too many for her. Had she been able to throw aside from\r\nher his offer, she would have done so; but she had felt that she was\r\nnot able. \"If you wish it, Sir Peregrine,\" she said at last. \"And can you love an old man?\" he had asked. Old men sometimes will\r\nask questions such as these. She did not answer him, but stood by his\r\nside; and, then again he kissed her, and was happy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He resolved from that moment that Lady Mason should no longer be\r\nregarded as the widow of a city knight, but as the wife elect of a\r\ncountry baronet. Whatever ridicule he might incur in this matter, he\r\nwould incur at once. Men and women had dared to speak of her cruelly,\r\nand they should now learn that any such future speech would be spoken\r\nof one who was exclusively his property. Let any who chose to be\r\nspeakers under such circumstances look to it. He had devoted himself\r\nto her that he might be her knight and bear her scathless through the\r\nfury of this battle. With God's help he would put on his armour at\r\nonce for that fight. Let them who would now injure her look to it. As\r\nsoon as might be she should bear his name; but all the world should\r\nknow at once what was her right to claim his protection. He had never\r\nbeen a coward, and he would not now be guilty of the cowardice of\r\nhiding his intentions. If there were those who chose to smile at the\r\nold man's fancy, let them smile. There would be many, he knew, who\r\nwould not understand an old man's honour and an old man's chivalry. \"My own one,\" he then said, pressing her again to his side, \"will\r\nyou tell Edith, or shall I? She expects it.\" But Lady Mason begged\r\nthat he would tell the tale."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was necessary, she said, that she\r\nshould be alone for a while. And then, escaping, she went to her own\r\nchamber. \"Ask Mrs. Orme if she will kindly step to me,\" said Sir Peregrine,\r\nhaving rang his bell for the servant. Lady Mason escaped across the hall to the stairs, and succeeded in\r\nreaching her room without being seen by any one. Then she sat herself\r\ndown, and began to look her future world in the face. Two questions\r\nshe had to ask. Would it be well for her that this marriage should\r\ntake place? and would it be well for him? In an off-hand way she\r\nhad already answered both questions; but she had done so by feeling\r\nrather than by thought. No doubt she would gain much in the coming struggle by such a\r\nposition as Sir Peregrine would give her. It did seem to her that Mr.\r\nDockwrath and Joseph Mason would hardly dare to bring such a charge\r\nas that threatened against the wife of Sir Peregrine Orme. And then,\r\ntoo, what evidence as to character would be so substantial as the\r\nevidence of such a marriage? But how would Mr. Furnival bear it,\r\nand if he were offended would it be possible that the fight should\r\nbe fought without him? No; that would be impossible. The lawyer's\r\nknowledge, experience, and skill were as necessary to her as the\r\nbaronet's position and character. But why should Mr. Furnival be\r\noffended by such a marriage?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"She did not know,\" she said to herself. \"She could not see that there should be cause of offence.\" But yet\r\nsome inner whisper of her conscience told her that there would be\r\noffence. Must Mr. Furnival be told; and must he be told at once? And\r\nthen what would Lucius say and think, and how should she answer the\r\nstrong words which her son would use to her? He would use strong\r\nwords she knew, and would greatly dislike this second marriage of his\r\nmother. What grown-up son is ever pleased to hear that his mother is\r\nabout to marry? The Cleeve must be her home now--that is, if she did\r\nthis deed. The Cleeve must be her home, and she must be separated\r\nin all things from Orley Farm. As she thought of this her mind went\r\nback, and back to those long gone days in which she had been racked\r\nwith anxiety that Orley Farm should be the inheritance of the little\r\nbaby that was lying at her feet. She remembered how she had pleaded\r\nto the father, pointing out the rights of her son--declaring, and\r\nwith justice, that for herself she had asked for nothing; but that\r\nfor him--instead of asking might she not demand? Was not that other\r\nson provided for, and those grown-up women with their rich husbands? \"Is he not your child as well as they?\" she had pleaded. \"Is he not\r\nyour own, and as well worthy of your love?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had succeeded in\r\ngetting the inheritance for the baby at her feet;--but had his having\r\nit made her happy, or him? Then her child had been all in all to her;\r\nbut now she felt that that child was half estranged from her about\r\nthis very property, and would become wholly estranged by the method\r\nshe was taking to secure it! \"I have toiled for him,\" she said to\r\nherself, \"rising up early, and going to bed late; but the thief\r\ncometh in the night and despoileth it.\" Who can guess the bitterness\r\nof her thoughts as she said this? But her last thoughts, as she sat there thinking, were of him--Sir\r\nPeregrine. Would it be well for him that he should do this? And in\r\nthus considering she did not turn her mind chiefly to the usual\r\nview in which such a marriage would be regarded. Men might call Sir\r\nPeregrine an old fool and laugh at him; but for that she would, with\r\nGod's help, make him amends. In those matters, he could judge for\r\nhimself; and should he judge it right thus to link his life to hers,\r\nshe would be true and leal to him in all things. But then, about this trial. If there came disgrace and ruin, and\r\nan utter overthrow? If--? Would it not be well at any rate that no\r\nmarriage should take place till that had been decided?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She could not\r\nfind it in her heart to bring down his old gray hairs with utter\r\nsorrow to the grave. CHAPTER XXXVI. WHAT THE YOUNG MEN THOUGHT ABOUT IT. Lucius Mason at this time was living at home at Orley Farm, not by\r\nany means in a happy frame of mind. It will be perhaps remembered\r\nthat he had at one time had an interview with Mr. Furnival in that\r\nlawyer's chambers, which was by no means consoling to him, seeing\r\nthat Mr. Furnival had pooh-poohed him and his pretensions in a very\r\noff-hand way; and he had since paid a very memorable visit to Mr.\r\nDockwrath in which he had hardly been more successful. Nevertheless,\r\nhe had gone to another lawyer. He had felt it impossible to remain\r\ntranquil, pursuing the ordinary avocations of his life, while such\r\ndreadful charges were being made openly against his mother, and\r\nbeing so made without any authorised contradiction. He knew that she\r\nwas innocent. No doubt on that matter ever perplexed his mind for a\r\nmoment. But why was she such a coward that she would not allow him\r\nto protect her innocence in the only way which the law permitted? He\r\ncould hardly believe that he had no power of doing so even without\r\nher sanction; and therefore he went to another lawyer. The other lawyer did him no good."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was not practicable that he, the\r\nson, should bring an action for defamatory character on the part of\r\nthe mother, without that mother's sanction. Moreover, as this new\r\nlawyer saw in a moment, any such interference on the part of Lucius,\r\nand any interposition of fresh and new legal proceedings would\r\ncripple and impede the advisers to whom Lady Mason had herself\r\nconfided her own case. The new lawyer could do nothing, and thus\r\nLucius, again repulsed, betook himself to Orley Farm in no happy\r\nframe of mind. For some day or two after this he did not see his mother. He would\r\nnot go down to The Cleeve, though they sent up and asked him; and she\r\nwas almost afraid to go across to the house and visit him. \"He will\r\nbe in church on Sunday,\" she had said to Mrs. Orme. But he was not\r\nin church on Sunday, and then on Sunday afternoon she did go to him. This, it will be understood, was before Sir Peregrine had made his\r\noffer, and therefore as to that, there was as yet no embarrassment on\r\nthe widow's mind. \"I cannot help feeling, mother,\" he said, after she had sat there\r\nwith him for a short time, \"that for the present there is a division\r\nbetween you and me.\" \"Oh, Lucius!\" \"It is no use our denying it to ourselves. It is so. You are in\r\ntrouble, and you will not listen to my advice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You leave my house and\r\ntake to the roof of a new and an untried friend.\" \"No, Lucius; not that.\" \"Yes. I say a new friend. Twelve months ago, though you might call\r\nthere, you never did more than that--and even that but seldom. They\r\nare new friends; and yet, now that you are in trouble, you choose to\r\nlive with them.\" \"Dear Lucius, is there any reason why I should not visit at The\r\nCleeve?\" \"Yes; if you ask me--yes;\" and now he spoke very sternly. \"There is a\r\ncloud upon you, and you should know nothing of visitings and of new\r\nfriendships till that cloud has been dispersed. While these things\r\nare being said of you, you should set at no other table than this,\r\nand drink of no man's cup but mine. I know your innocence,\" and as\r\nhe went on to speak, he stood up before her and looked down fully\r\ninto her face, \"but others do not. I know how unworthy are these\r\nfalsehoods with which wicked men strive to crush you, but others\r\nbelieve that they are true accusations. They cannot be disregarded,\r\nand now it seems,--now that you have allowed them to gather to a\r\nhead, they will result in a trial, during which you will have to\r\nstand at the bar charged with a dreadful crime.\" \"Oh, Lucius!\" and she hid her eyes in her hands. \"I could not have\r\nhelped it. How could I have helped it?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Well; it must be so now. And till that trial is over, here should\r\nbe your place. Here, at my right hand; I am he who am bound to stand\r\nby you. It is I whose duty it is to see that your name be made white\r\nagain, though I spend all I have, ay, and my life in doing it. I am\r\nthe one man on whose arm you have a right to lean. And yet, in such\r\ndays as these, you leave my house and go to that of a stranger.\" \"He is not a stranger, Lucius.\" \"He cannot be to you as a son should be. However, it is for you to\r\njudge. I have no control in this matter, but I think it right that\r\nyou should know what are my thoughts.\" And then she had crept back again to The Cleeve. Let Lucius say what\r\nhe might, let this additional sorrow be ever so bitter, she could not\r\nobey her son's behests. If she did so in one thing she must do so in\r\nall. She had chosen her advisers with her best discretion, and by\r\nthat choice she must abide--even though it separated her from her\r\nson. She could not abandon Sir Peregrine Orme and Mr. Furnival. So\r\nshe crept back and told all this to Mrs. Orme. Her heart would have\r\nutterly sunk within her could she not have spoken openly to some one\r\nof this sorrow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But he loves you,\" Mrs. Orme had said, comforting her. \"It is not\r\nthat he does not love you.\" \"But he is so stern to me.\" And then Mrs. Orme had kissed her, and\r\npromised that none should be stern to her, there, in that house. On\r\nthe morning after this Sir Peregrine had made his offer, and then\r\nshe felt that the division between her and her boy would be wider\r\nthan ever. And all this had come of that inheritance which she had\r\ndemanded so eagerly for her child. And now Lucius was sitting alone in his room at Orley Farm, having,\r\nfor the present, given up all idea of attempting anything himself by\r\nmeans of the law. He had made his way into Mr. Dockwrath's office,\r\nand had there insulted the attorney in the presence of witnesses. His\r\nhope now was that the attorney might bring an action against him. If\r\nthat were done he would thus have the means of bringing out all the\r\nfacts of the case before a jury and a judge. It was fixed in his mind\r\nthat if he could once drag that reptile before a public tribunal,\r\nand with loud voice declare the wrong that was being done, all might\r\nbe well. The public would understand and would speak out, and the\r\nreptile would be scorned and trodden under foot. Poor Lucius!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "It\r\nis not always so easy to catch public sympathy, and it will occur\r\nsometimes that the wrong reptile is crushed by the great public heel. [Illustration: Lucius Mason in his Study.] He had his books before him as he sat there--his Latham and his\r\nPritchard, and he had the jawbone of one savage and the skull of\r\nanother. His Liverpool bills for unadulterated guano were lying on\r\nthe table, and a philosophical German treatise on agriculture which\r\nhe had resolved to study. It became a man, he said to himself, to do\r\na man's work in spite of any sorrow. But, nevertheless, as he sat\r\nthere, his studies were but of little service to him. How many men\r\nhave declared to themselves the same thing, but have failed when the\r\ntrial came! Who, can command the temper and the mind? At ten I will\r\nstrike the lyre and begin my poem. But at ten the poetic spirit is\r\nunder a dark cloud--because the water for the tea had not boiled when\r\nit was brought in at nine. And so the lyre remains unstricken. And Lucius found that he could not strike his lyre. For days he had\r\nsat there and no good note had been produced. And then he had walked\r\nover his land, having a farming man at his heels, thinking that he\r\ncould turn his mind to the actual and practical working of his land. But little good had come of that either."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was January, and the land\r\nwas sloppy and half frozen. There was no useful work to be done on\r\nit. And then what farmer Greenwood had once said of him was true\r\nenough, \"The young maister's spry and active surely, but he can't let\r\nunself down to stable doong and the loik o' that.\" He had some grand\r\nidea of farming--a conviction that the agricultural world in general\r\nwas very backward, and that he would set it right. Even now in his\r\nsorrow, as he walked through his splashy, frozen fields, he was\r\ntormented by a desire to do something, he knew not what, that might\r\nbe great. He had no such success on the present occasion and returned\r\ndisconsolate to the house. This happened about noon on the day after\r\nthat on which Sir Peregrine had declared himself. He returned as\r\nI have said to the house, and there at the kitchen door he met a\r\nlittle girl whom he knew well as belonging to The Cleeve. She was a\r\nfavourite of Mrs. Orme's, was educated and clothed by her, and ran\r\non her messages. Now she had brought a letter up to Lucius from his\r\nmother. Curtsying low she so told him, and he at once went into the\r\nsitting-room where he found it lying on his table. His hand was\r\nnervous as he opened it; but if he could have seen how tremulous had\r\nbeen the hand that wrote it!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "The letter was as follows:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   DEAREST LUCIUS,\r\n\r\n   I know you will be very much surprised at what I am going\r\n   to tell you, but I hope you will not judge me harshly. If I know myself at all I would take no step of any kind\r\n   for my own advantage which could possibly injure you. At\r\n   the present moment we unfortunately do not agree about a\r\n   subject which is troubling us both, and I cannot therefore\r\n   consult you as I should otherwise have done. I trust that\r\n   by God's mercy these troubles may come to an end, and that\r\n   there may be no further differences between you and me. Sir Peregrine Orme has made me an offer of marriage and I\r\n   have accepted it--\r\n\r\nLucius Mason when he had read so far threw down the letter upon the\r\ntable, and rising suddenly from his chair walked rapidly up and\r\ndown the room. \"Marry him!\" he said out loud, \"marry him!\" The idea\r\nthat their fathers and mothers should marry and enjoy themselves is\r\nalways a thing horrible to be thought of in the minds of the rising\r\ngeneration. Lucius Mason now began to feel against his mother the\r\nsame sort of anger which Joseph Mason had felt when his father had\r\nmarried again. \"Marry him!\" And then he walked rapidly about the\r\nroom, as though some great injury had been threatened to him. And so it had, in his estimation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Was it not her position in life to\r\nbe his mother? Had she not had her young days? But it did not occur\r\nto him to think what those young days had been. And this then was the\r\nmeaning of her receding from his advice and from his roof! She had\r\nbeen preparing for herself in the world new hopes, a new home, and a\r\nnew ambition. And she had so prevailed upon the old man that he was\r\nabout to do this foolish thing! Then again he walked up and down the\r\nroom, injuring his mother much in his thoughts. He gave her credit\r\nfor none of those circumstances which had truly actuated her in\r\naccepting the hand which Sir Peregrine had offered her. In that\r\nmatter touching the Orley Farm estate he could acquit his mother\r\ninstantly,--with acclamation. But in this other matter he had\r\npronounced her guilty before she had been allowed to plead. Then he\r\ntook up the letter and finished it. Sir Peregrine Orme has made me an offer of marriage and\r\n   I have accepted it. It is very difficult to explain in a\r\n   letter all the causes that have induced me to do so. The\r\n   first perhaps is this, that I feel myself so bound to him\r\n   by love and gratitude, that I think it my duty to fall in\r\n   with all his wishes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He has pointed out to me that as my\r\n   husband he can do more for me than would be possible for\r\n   him without that name. I have explained to him that I\r\n   would rather perish than that he should sacrifice himself;\r\n   but he is pleased to say that it is no sacrifice. At any\r\n   rate he so wishes it, and as Mrs. Orme has cordially\r\n   assented, I feel myself bound to fall in with his views. It was only yesterday that Sir Peregrine made his offer. I\r\n   mention this that you may know that I have lost no time in\r\n   telling you. Dearest Lucius, believe that I shall be as ever\r\n   Your most affectionate mother,\r\n\r\n   MARY MASON. The little girl will wait for an answer if she finds that\r\n   you are at the farm. \"No,\" he said to himself, still walking about the room. \"She can\r\nnever be to me the same mother that she was. I would have sacrificed\r\neverything for her. She should have been the mistress of my house, at\r\nany rate till she herself should have wished it otherwise. But now--\"\r\nAnd then his mind turned away suddenly to Sophia Furnival. I cannot myself but think that had that affair of the trial been set\r\nat rest Lady Mason would have been prudent to look for another home."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The fact that Orley Farm was his house and not hers occurred almost\r\ntoo frequently to Lucius Mason; and I am not certain that it would\r\nhave been altogether comfortable as a permanent residence for his\r\nmother after he should have brought home to it some such bride as her\r\nhe now proposed to himself. It was necessary that he should write an answer to his mother, which\r\nhe did at once. Orley Farm, -- January. DEAR MOTHER,\r\n\r\n   It is I fear too late for me to offer any counsel on the\r\n   subject of your letter. I cannot say that I think you are\r\n   right. Your affectionate son,\r\n\r\n   LUCIUS MASON. And then, having finished this, he again walked the room. \"It is all\r\nup between me and her,\" he said, \"as real friends in life and heart. She shall still have the respect of a son, and I shall have the\r\nregard of a mother. But how can I trim my course to suit the welfare\r\nof the wife of Sir Peregrine Orme?\" And then he lashed himself into\r\nanger at the idea that his mother should have looked for other solace\r\nthan that which he could have given. Nothing more from The Cleeve reached him that day; but early on\r\nthe following morning he had a visitor whom he certainly had not\r\nexpected. Before he sat down to his breakfast he heard the sound of\r\na horse's feet before the door, and immediately afterwards Peregrine\r\nOrme entered the sitting-room."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was duly shown in by the servant,\r\nand in his ordinary way came forward quickly and shook hands. Then he\r\nwaited till the door was closed, and at once began upon the subject\r\nwhich had brought him there. \"Mason,\" he said, \"you have heard of this that is being done at The\r\nCleeve?\" Lucius immediately fell back a step or two, and considered for a\r\nmoment how he should answer. He had pressed very heavily on his\r\nmother in his own thoughts, but he was not prepared to hear her\r\nharshly spoken of by another. \"Yes,\" said he, \"I have heard.\" \"And I understand from your mother that you do not approve of it.\" \"Approve of it! No; I do not approve of it.\" \"Nor by heavens do I!\" \"I do not approve of it,\" said Mason, speaking with deliberation;\r\n\"but I do not know that I can take any steps towards preventing it.\" \"Cannot you see her, and talk to her, and tell her how wrong it is?\" \"Wrong! I do not know that she is wrong in that sense. I do not know\r\nthat you have any right to blame her. Why do not you speak to your\r\ngrandfather?\" \"So I have--as far as it was possible for me. But you do not know Sir\r\nPeregrine. No one has any influence over him, but my mother;--and now\r\nalso your mother.\" \"And what does Mrs. Orme say?\" \"She will say nothing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I know well that she disapproves of it. She\r\nmust disapprove of it, though she will not say so. She would rather\r\nburn off both her hands than displease my grandfather. She says that\r\nhe asked her and that she consented.\" \"It seems to me that it is for her and you to prevent this.\" \"No; it is for your mother to prevent it. Only think of it, Mason. He is over seventy, and, as he says himself, he will not burden the\r\nestate with a new jointure. Why should she do it?\" \"You are wronging her there. It is no affair of money. She is not\r\ngoing to marry him for what she can get.\" \"Then why should she do it?\" \"Because he tells her. These troubles about the lawsuit have turned\r\nher head, and she has put herself entirely into his hands. I think\r\nshe is wrong. I could have protected her from all this evil, and\r\nwould have done so. I could have done more, I think, than Sir\r\nPeregrine can do. But she has thought otherwise, and I do not know\r\nthat I can help it.\" \"But will you speak to her? Will make her perceive that she is\r\ninjuring a family that is treating her with kindness?\" \"If she will come here I will speak to her. I cannot do it there. I\r\ncannot go down to your grandfather's house with such an object as\r\nthat.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"All the world will turn against her if she marries him,\" said\r\nPeregrine. And then there was silence between them for a moment or\r\ntwo. \"It seems to me,\" said Lucius at last, \"that you wrong my mother very\r\nmuch in this matter, and lay all the blame where but the smallest\r\npart of the blame is deserved. She has no idea of money in her mind,\r\nor any thought of pecuniary advantage. She is moved solely by what\r\nyour grandfather has said to her,--and by an insane dread of some\r\ncoming evil which she thinks may be lessened by his assistance. You\r\nare in the house with them, and can speak to him,--and if you please\r\nto her also. I do not see that I can do either.\" \"And you will not help me to break it off?\" \"Certainly,--if I can see my way.\" \"Will you write to her?\" \"Well; I will think about it.\" \"Whether she be to blame or not it must be your duty as well as mine\r\nto prevent such a marriage if it be possible. Think what people will\r\nsay of it?\" After some further discussion Peregrine remounted his horse, and rode\r\nback to The Cleeve, not quite satisfied with young Mason. \"If you do speak to her,--to my mother, do it gently.\" Those were the\r\nlast words whispered by Lucius as Peregrine Orme had his foot in the\r\nstirrup."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Young Peregrine Orme, as he rode home, felt that the world was using\r\nhim very unkindly. Everything was going wrong with him, and an idea\r\nentered his head that he might as well go and look for Sir John\r\nFranklin at the North Pole, or join some energetic traveller in the\r\nmiddle of Central Africa. He had proposed to Madeline Staveley and\r\nhad been refused. That in itself caused a load to lie on his heart\r\nwhich was almost unendurable;--and now his grandfather was going to\r\ndisgrace himself. He had made his little effort to be respectable\r\nand discreet, devoting himself to the county hunt and county\r\ndrawing-rooms, giving up the pleasures of London and the glories of\r\ndissipation. And for what? Then Peregrine began to argue within himself as some others have done\r\nbefore him--\r\n\r\n\"Were it not better done as others use--\" he said to himself, in that\r\nor other language; and as he rode slowly into the courtyard of The\r\nCleeve, he thought almost with regret of his old friend Carroty Bob. CHAPTER XXXVII. PEREGRINE'S ELOQUENCE. In the last chapter Peregrine Orme called at Orley Farm with the\r\nview of discussing with Lucius Mason the conduct of their respective\r\nprogenitors; and, as will be remembered, the young men agreed in\r\na general way that their progenitors were about to make fools of\r\nthemselves. Poor Peregrine, however, had other troubles on his mind. Not only had his grandfather been successful in love, but he had\r\nbeen unsuccessful."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As he had journeyed home from Noningsby to The\r\nCleeve in a high-wheeled vehicle which he called his trap, he had\r\ndetermined, being then in a frame of mind somewhat softer than was\r\nusual with him, to tell all his troubles to his mother. It sounds as\r\nthough it were lack-a-daisical--such a resolve as this on the part\r\nof a dashing young man, who had been given to the pursuit of rats,\r\nand was now a leader among the sons of Nimrod in the pursuit of\r\nfoxes. Young men of the present day, when got up for the eyes of the\r\nworld, look and talk as though they could never tell their mothers\r\nanything,--as though they were harder than flint, and as little in\r\nwant of a woman's counsel and a woman's help as a colonel of horse\r\non the morning of a battle. But the rigid virility of his outward\r\naccoutrements does in no way alter the man of flesh and blood who\r\nwears them; the young hero, so stern to the eye, is, I believe, as\r\noften tempted by stress of sentiment to lay bare the sorrow of his\r\nheart as is his sister. On this occasion Peregrine said to himself\r\nthat he would lay bare the sorrow of his heart."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He would find out\r\nwhat others thought of that marriage which he had proposed to\r\nhimself; and then, if his mother encouraged him, and his grandfather\r\napproved, he would make another attack, beginning on the side of the\r\njudge, or perhaps on that of Lady Staveley. But he found that others, as well as he, were labouring under a\r\nstress of sentiment; and when about to tell his own tale, he had\r\nlearned that a tale was to be told to him. He had dined with Lady\r\nMason, his mother, and his grandfather, and the dinner had been very\r\nsilent. Three of the party were in love, and the fourth was burdened\r\nwith the telling of the tale. The baronet himself said nothing on the\r\nsubject as he and his grandson sat over their wine; but later in the\r\nevening Peregrine was summoned to his mother's room, and she, with\r\nconsiderable hesitation and much diffidence, informed him of the\r\ncoming nuptials. \"Marry Lady Mason!\" he had said. \"Yes, Peregrine. Why should he not do so if they both wish it?\" Peregrine thought that there were many causes and impediments\r\nsufficiently just why no such marriage should take place, but he\r\nhad not his arguments ready at his fingers' ends. He was so stunned\r\nby the intelligence that he could say but little about it on that\r\noccasion. By the few words that he did say, and by the darkness of\r\nhis countenance, he showed plainly enough that he disapproved."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And\r\nthen his mother said all that she could in the baronet's favour,\r\npointing out that in a pecuniary way Peregrine would receive benefit\r\nrather than injury. \"I'm not thinking of the money, mother.\" \"No, my dear; but it is right that I should tell you how considerate\r\nyour grandfather is.\" \"All the same, I wish he would not marry this woman.\" \"Woman, Peregrine! You should not speak in that way of a friend whom\r\nI dearly love.\" \"She is a woman all the same.\" And then he sat sulkily looking at the\r\nfire. His own stress of sentiment did not admit of free discussion\r\nat the present moment, and was necessarily postponed. On that other\r\naffair he was told that his grandfather would be glad to see him on\r\nthe following morning; and then he left his mother. \"Your grandfather, Peregrine, asked for my assent,\" said Mrs. Orme;\r\n\"and I thought it right to give it.\" This she said to make him\r\nunderstand that it was no longer in her power to oppose the match. And she was thoroughly glad that this was so, for she would have\r\nlacked the courage to oppose Sir Peregrine in anything. On the next morning Peregrine saw his grandfather before breakfast. His mother came to his room door while he was dressing to whisper\r\na word of caution to him. \"Pray, be courteous to him,\" she\r\nsaid. \"Remember how good he is to you--to us both! Say that you\r\ncongratulate him.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But I don't,\" said Peregrine. \"Ah, but, Peregrine--\"\r\n\r\n\"I'll tell you what I'll do, mother. I'll leave the house altogether\r\nand go away, if you wish it.\" \"Oh, Peregrine! How can you speak in that way? But he's waiting now. Pray, pray, be kind in your manner to him.\" He descended with the same sort of feeling which had oppressed him on\r\nhis return home after his encounter with Carroty Bob in Smithfield. Since then he had been on enduring good terms with his grandfather,\r\nbut now again all the discomforts of war were imminent. \"Good morning, sir,\" he said, on going into his grandfather's\r\ndressing-room. \"Good morning, Peregrine.\" And then there was silence for a moment or\r\ntwo. \"Did you see your mother last night?\" \"Yes; I did see her.\" \"And she told you what it is that I propose to do?\" \"Yes, sir; she told me.\" \"I hope you understand, my boy, that it will not in any way affect\r\nyour own interests injuriously.\" \"I don't care about that, sir--one way or the other.\" \"But I do, Peregrine. Having seen to that I think that I have a right\r\nto please myself in this matter.\" \"Oh, yes, sir; I know you have the right.\" \"Especially as I can benefit others. Are you aware that your mother\r\nhas cordially given her consent to the marriage?\" \"She told me that you had asked her, and that she had agreed to it. She would agree to anything.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Peregrine, that is not the way in which you should speak of your\r\nmother.\" And then the young man stood silent, as though there was nothing more\r\nto be said. Indeed, he had nothing more to say. He did not dare to\r\nbring forward in words all the arguments against the marriage which\r\nwere now crowding themselves into his memory, but he could not induce\r\nhimself to wish the old man joy, or to say any of those civil things\r\nwhich are customary on such occasions. The baronet sat for a while,\r\nsilent also, and a cloud of anger was coming across his brow; but he\r\nchecked that before he spoke. \"Well, my boy,\" he said, and his voice\r\nwas almost more than usually kind, \"I can understand your thoughts,\r\nand we will say nothing of them at present. All I will ask of you is\r\nto treat Lady Mason in a manner befitting the position in which I\r\nintend to place her.\" \"If you think it will be more comfortable, sir, I will leave The\r\nCleeve for a time.\" \"I hope that may not be necessary--Why should it? Or at any rate, not\r\nas yet,\" he added, as a thought as to his wedding day occurred to\r\nhim. And then the interview was over, and in another half-hour they\r\nmet again at breakfast. In the breakfast-room Lady Mason was also present."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Peregrine was the\r\nlast to enter, and as he did so his grandfather was already standing\r\nin his usual place, with the book of Prayers in his hand, waiting\r\nthat the servants should arrange themselves at their chairs before he\r\nknelt down. There was no time then for much greeting, but Peregrine\r\ndid shake hands with her as he stept across to his accustomed corner. He shook hands with her, and felt that her hand was very cold; but he\r\ndid not look at her, nor did he hear any answer given to his muttered\r\nwords. When they all got up she remained close to Mrs. Orme, as\r\nthough she might thus be protected from the anger which she feared\r\nfrom Sir Peregrine's other friends. And at breakfast also she sat\r\nclose to her, far away from the baronet, and almost hidden by the urn\r\nfrom his grandson. Sitting there she said nothing; neither in truth\r\ndid she eat anything. It was a time of great suffering to her, for\r\nshe knew that her coming could not be welcomed by the young heir. \"It\r\nmust not be,\" she said to herself over and over again. \"Though he\r\nturn me out of the house, I must tell him that it cannot be so.\" After breakfast Peregrine had ridden over to Orley Farm, and there\r\nheld his consultation with the other heir."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On his returning to The\r\nCleeve, he did not go into the house, but having given up his horse\r\nto a groom, wandered away among the woods. Lucius Mason had suggested\r\nthat he, Peregrine Orme, should himself speak to Lady Mason on this\r\nmatter. He felt that his grandfather would be very angry, should he\r\ndo so. But he did not regard that much. He had filled himself full\r\nwith the theory of his duties, and he would act up to it. He would\r\nsee her, without telling any one what was his purpose, and put it\r\nto her whether she would bring down this destruction on so noble a\r\ngentleman. Having thus resolved, he returned to the house, when it\r\nwas already dark, and making his way into the drawing-room, sat\r\nhimself down before the fire, still thinking of his plan. The room\r\nwas dark, as such rooms are dark for the last hour or two before\r\ndinner in January, and he sat himself in an arm-chair before the\r\nfire, intending to sit there till it would be necessary that he\r\nshould go to dress. It was an unaccustomed thing with him so to place\r\nhimself at such a time, or to remain in the drawing-room at all till\r\nhe came down for a few minutes before dinner; but he did so now,\r\nhaving been thrown out of his usual habits by the cares upon his\r\nmind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had been so seated about a quarter of an hour, and was\r\nalready nearly asleep, when he heard the rustle of a woman's garment,\r\nand looking round, with such light as the fire gave him, perceived\r\nthat Lady Mason was in the room. She had entered very quietly, and\r\nwas making her way in the dark to a chair which she frequently\r\noccupied, between the fire and one of the windows, and in doing so\r\nshe passed so near Peregrine as to touch him with her dress. \"Lady Mason,\" he said, speaking, in the first place, in order that\r\nshe might know that she was not alone, \"it is almost dark; shall I\r\nring for candles for you?\" She started at hearing his voice, begged his pardon for disturbing\r\nhim, declined his offer of light, and declared that she was going up\r\nagain to her own room immediately. But it occurred to him that if it\r\nwould be well that he should speak to her, it would be well that he\r\nshould do so at once; and what opportunity could be more fitting than\r\nthe present? \"If you are not in a hurry about anything,\" he said,\r\n\"would you mind staying here for a few minutes?\" \"Oh no, certainly not.\" But he could perceive that her voice trembled\r\nin uttering even these few words."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I think I'd better light a candle,\" he said; and then he did light\r\none of those which stood on the corner of the mantelpiece,--a\r\nsolitary candle, which only seemed to make the gloom of the large\r\nroom visible. She, however, was standing close to it, and would have\r\nmuch preferred that the room should have been left to its darkness. \"Won't you sit down for a few minutes?\" and then she sat down. \"I'll\r\njust shut the door, if you don't mind.\" And then, having done so, he\r\nreturned to his own chair and again faced the fire. He saw that she\r\nwas pale and nervous, and he did not like to look at her as he spoke. He began to reflect also that they might probably be interrupted by\r\nhis mother, and he wished that they could adjourn to some other room. That, however, seemed to be impossible; so he summoned up all his\r\ncourage, and began his task. \"I hope you won't think me uncivil, Lady Mason, for speaking to you\r\nabout this affair.\" \"Oh no, Mr. Orme; I am sure that you will not be uncivil to me.\" \"Of course I cannot help feeling a great concern in it, for it's very\r\nnearly the same, you know, as if he were my father. Indeed, if you\r\ncome to that, it's almost worse; and I can assure you it is nothing\r\nabout money that I mind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Many fellows in my place would be afraid\r\nabout that, but I don't care twopence what he does in that respect. He is so honest and so noble-hearted, that I am sure he won't do me a\r\nwrong.\" \"I hope not, Mr. Orme; and certainly not in respect to me.\" \"I only mention it for fear you should misunderstand me. But there\r\nare other reasons, Lady Mason, why this marriage will make me--make\r\nme very unhappy.\" \"Are there? I shall be so unhappy if I make others unhappy.\" \"You will then,--I can assure you of that. It is not only me, but\r\nyour own son. I was up with him to-day, and he thinks of it the same\r\nas I do.\" \"What did he say, Mr. Orme?\" \"What did he say? Well, I don't exactly remember his words; but he\r\nmade me understand that your marriage with Sir Peregrine would make\r\nhim very unhappy. He did indeed. Why do you not see him yourself, and\r\ntalk to him?\" \"I thought it best to write to him in the first place.\" \"Well, now you have written; and don't you think it would be well\r\nthat you should go up and see him? You will find that he is quite as\r\nstrong against it as I am,--quite.\" Peregrine, had he known it, was using the arguments which were of all\r\nthe least likely to induce Lady Mason to pay a visit to Orley Farm."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She dreaded the idea of a quarrel with her son, and would have made\r\nalmost any sacrifice to prevent such a misfortune; but at the present\r\nmoment she feared the anger of his words almost more than the anger\r\nimplied by his absence. If this trial could be got over, she would\r\nreturn to him and almost throw herself at his feet; but till that\r\ntime, might it not be well that they should be apart? At any rate,\r\nthese tidings of his discontent could not be efficacious in inducing\r\nher to seek him. \"Dear Lucius!\" she said, not addressing herself to her companion, but\r\nspeaking her thoughts. \"I would not willingly give him cause to be\r\ndiscontented with me.\" \"He is, then, very discontented. I can assure you of that.\" \"Yes; he and I think differently about all this.\" \"Ah, but don't you think you had better speak to him before you quite\r\nmake up your mind? He is your son, you know; and an uncommon clever\r\nfellow too. He'll know how to say all this much better than I do.\" \"Say what, Mr. Orme?\" \"Why, of course you can't expect that anybody will like such a\r\nmarriage as this;--that is, anybody except you and Sir Peregrine.\" \"Your mother does not object to it.\" \"My mother! But you don't know my mother yet. She would not object to\r\nhave her head cut off if anybody wanted it that she cared about."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I\r\ndo not know how it has all been managed, but I suppose Sir Peregrine\r\nasked her. Then of course she would not object. But look at the\r\ncommon sense of it, Lady Mason. What does the world always say when\r\nan old man like my grandfather marries a young woman?\" \"But I am not--.\" So far she got, and then she stopped herself. \"We have all liked you very much. I'm sure I have for one; and I'll\r\ngo in for you, heart and soul, in this shameful law business. When\r\nLucius asked me, I didn't think anything of going to that scoundrel\r\nin Hamworth; and all along I've been delighted that Sir Peregrine\r\ntook it up. By heavens! I'd be glad to go down to Yorkshire myself,\r\nand walk into that fellow that wants to do you this injury. I would\r\nindeed; and I'll stand by you as strong as anybody. But, Lady Mason,\r\nwhen it comes to one's grandfather marrying, it--it--it--. Think what\r\npeople in the county will say of him. If it was your father, and if\r\nhe had been at the top of the tree all his life, how would you like\r\nto see him get a fall, and be laughed at as though he were in the mud\r\njust when he was too old ever to get up again?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am not sure whether Lucius Mason, with all his cleverness, could\r\nhave put the matter much better, or have used a style of oratory more\r\nefficacious to the end in view. Peregrine had drawn his picture with\r\na coarse pencil, but he had drawn it strongly, and with graphic\r\neffect. And then he paused; not with self-confidence, or as giving\r\nhis companion time to see how great had been his art, but in want of\r\nwords, and somewhat confused by the strength of his own thoughts. So\r\nhe got up and poked the fire, turning his back to it, and then sat\r\ndown again. \"It is such a deuce of a thing, Lady Mason,\" he said,\r\n\"that you must not be angry with me for speaking out.\" \"Oh, Mr. Orme, I am not angry, and I do not know what to say to you.\" \"Why don't you speak to Lucius?\" \"What could he say more than you have said? Dear Mr. Orme, I would\r\nnot injure him,--your grandfather, I mean,--for all that the world\r\nholds.\" \"You will injure him;--in the eyes of all his friends.\" \"Then I will not do it. I will go to him, and beg him that it may not\r\nbe so. I will tell him that I cannot. Anything will be better than\r\nbringing him to sorrow or disgrace.\" \"By Jove! but will you really?\" Peregrine was startled and almost\r\nfrightened at the effect of his own eloquence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What would the baronet\r\nsay when he learned that he had been talked out of his wife by his\r\ngrandson? \"Mr. Orme,\" continued Lady Mason, \"I am sure you do not understand\r\nhow this matter has been brought about. If you did, however much it\r\nmight grieve you, you would not blame me, even in your thoughts. From the first to the last my only desire has been to obey your\r\ngrandfather in everything.\" \"But you would not marry him out of obedience?\" \"I would--and did so intend. I would, certainly; if in doing so I did\r\nhim no injury. You say that your mother would give her life for him. So would I;--that or anything else that I could give, without hurting\r\nhim or others. It was not I that sought for this marriage; nor did I\r\nthink of it. If you were in my place, Mr. Orme, you would know how\r\ndifficult it is to refuse.\" Peregrine again got up, and standing with his back to the fire,\r\nthought over it all again. His soft heart almost relented towards the\r\nwoman who had borne his rough words with so much patient kindness. Had Sir Peregrine been there then, and could he have condescended so\r\nfar, he might have won his grandson's consent without much trouble."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Peregrine, like some other generals, had expended his energy in\r\ngaining his victory, and was more ready now to come to easy terms\r\nthan he would have been had he suffered in the combat. [Illustration: Peregrine's Eloquence.] \"Well,\" he said after a while, \"I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you\r\nfor the manner in which you have taken what I said to you. Nobody\r\nknows about it yet, I suppose; and perhaps, if you will talk to the\r\ngovernor--\"\r\n\r\n\"I will talk to him, Mr. Orme.\" \"Thank you; and then perhaps all things may turn out right. I'll go\r\nand dress now.\" And so saying he took his departure, leaving her to\r\nconsider how best she might act at this crisis of her life, so that\r\nthings might go right, if such were possible. The more she thought of\r\nit, the less possible it seemed that her affairs should be made to go\r\nright. CHAPTER XXXVIII. OH, INDEED! The dinner on that day at The Cleeve was not very dull. Peregrine had\r\nsome hopes that the idea of the marriage might be abandoned, and was\r\nat any rate much better disposed towards Lady Mason than he had been. He spoke to her, asking her whether she had been out, and suggesting\r\nroast mutton or some such creature comfort."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This was lost neither on\r\nSir Peregrine nor on Mrs. Orme, and they both exerted themselves to\r\nsay a few words in a more cheery tone than had been customary in the\r\nhouse for the last day or two. Lady Mason herself did not say much;\r\nbut she had sufficient tact to see the effort which was being made;\r\nand though she spoke but little she smiled and accepted graciously\r\nthe courtesies that were tendered to her. Then the two ladies went away, and Peregrine was again left with his\r\ngrandfather. \"That was a nasty accident that Graham had going out of\r\nMonkton Grange,\" said he, speaking on the moment of his closing the\r\ndining-room door after his mother. \"I suppose you heard all about\r\nit, sir?\" Having fought his battle so well before dinner, he was\r\ndetermined to give some little rest to his half-vanquished enemy. \"The first tidings we heard were that he was dead,\" said Sir\r\nPeregrine, filling his glass. \"No; he wasn't dead. But of course you know that now. He broke an arm\r\nand two ribs, and got rather a bad squeeze. He was just behind me,\r\nyou know, and I had to wait for him. I lost the run, and had to see\r\nHarriet Tristram go away with the best lead any one has had to a\r\nfast thing this year. That's an uncommon nasty place at the back of\r\nMonkton Grange.\" \"I hope, Peregrine, you don't think too much about Harriet Tristram.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Think of her! who? I? Think of her in what sort of a way? I think\r\nshe goes uncommonly well to hounds.\" \"That may be, but I should not wish to see you pin your happiness on\r\nany lady that was celebrated chiefly for going well to hounds.\" \"Do you mean marry her?\" and Peregrine immediately made a strong\r\ncomparison in his mind between Miss Tristram and Madeline Staveley. \"Yes; that's what I did mean.\" \"I wouldn't have her if she owned every fox-cover in the county. No,\r\nby Jove! I know a trick worth two of that. It's jolly enough to see\r\nthem going, but as to being in love with them--in that sort of way--\"\r\n\r\n\"You are quite right, my boy; quite right. It is not that that a man\r\nwants in a wife.\" \"No,\" said Peregrine, with a melancholy cadence in his voice,\r\nthinking of what it was that he did want. And so they sat sipping\r\ntheir wine. The turn which the conversation had taken had for the\r\nmoment nearly put Lady Mason out of the young man's head. \"You would be very young to marry yet,\" said the baronet. \"Yes, I should be young; but I don't know that there is any harm in\r\nthat.\" \"Quite the contrary, if a young man feels himself to be sufficiently\r\nsettled. Your mother I know would be very glad that you should marry\r\nearly;--and so should I, if you married well.\" What on earth could all this mean?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "It could not be that his\r\ngrandfather knew that he was in love with Miss Staveley; and had this\r\nbeen known his grandfather would not have talked of Harriet Tristram. \"Oh yes; of course a fellow should marry well. I don't think much of\r\nmarrying for money.\" \"Nor do I, Peregrine;--I think very little of it.\" \"Nor about being of very high birth.\" \"Well; it would make me unhappy--very unhappy if you were to marry\r\nbelow your own rank.\" \"What do you call my own rank?\" \"I mean any girl whose father is not a gentleman, and whose mother is\r\nnot a lady; and of whose education among ladies you could not feel\r\ncertain.\" \"I could be quite certain about her,\" said Peregrine, very\r\ninnocently. \"Her! what her?\" \"Oh, I forgot that we were talking about nobody.\" \"You don't mean Harriet Tristram?\" \"No, certainly not.\" \"Of whom were you thinking, Peregrine? May I ask--if it be not too\r\nclose a secret?\" And then again there was a pause, during which\r\nPeregrine emptied his glass and filled it again. He had no objection\r\nto talk to his grandfather about Miss Staveley, but he felt ashamed\r\nof having allowed the matter to escape him in this sort of way. \"I\r\nwill tell you why I ask, my boy,\" continued the baronet. \"I am going\r\nto do that which many people will call a very foolish thing.\" \"You mean about Lady Mason.\" \"Yes; I mean my own marriage with Lady Mason."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We will not talk about\r\nthat just at present, and I only mention it to explain that before I\r\ndo so, I shall settle the property permanently. If you were married\r\nI should at once divide it with you. I should like to keep the old\r\nhouse myself, till I die--\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, Sir!\" \"But sooner than give you cause of offence I would give that up.\" \"I would not consent to live in it unless I did so as your guest.\" \"Until your marriage I think of settling on you a thousand a\r\nyear;--but it would add to my happiness if I thought it likely that\r\nyou would marry soon. Now may I ask of whom were you thinking?\" Peregrine paused for a second or two before he made any reply, and\r\nthen he brought it out boldly. \"I was thinking of Madeline Staveley.\" \"Then, my boy, you were thinking of the prettiest girl and the\r\nbest-bred lady in the county. Here's her health;\" and he filled for\r\nhimself a bumper of claret. \"You couldn't have named a woman whom I\r\nshould be more proud to see you bring home. And your mother's opinion\r\nof her is the same as mine. I happen to know that;\" and with a look\r\nof triumph he drank his glass of wine, as though much that was very\r\njoyful to him had been already settled. \"Yes,\" said Peregrine mournfully, \"she is a very nice girl; at least\r\nI think so.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"The man who can win her, Peregrine, may consider himself to be a\r\nlucky fellow. You were quite right in what you were saying about\r\nmoney. No man feels more sure of that than I do. But if I am not\r\nmistaken Miss Staveley will have something of her own. I rather think\r\nthat Arbuthnot got ten thousand pounds.\" \"I'm sure I don't know, sir,\" said Peregrine; and his voice was by no\r\nmeans as much elated as that of his grandfather. \"I think he did; or if he didn't get it all, the remainder is settled\r\non him. And the judge is not a man to behave better to one child than\r\nto another.\" \"I suppose not.\" And then the conversation flagged a little, for the enthusiasm was\r\nall one side. It was moreover on that side which naturally would have\r\nbeen the least enthusiastic. Poor Peregrine had only told half his\r\nsecret as yet, and that not the most important half. To Sir Peregrine\r\nthe tidings, as far as he had heard them, were very pleasant. He did\r\nnot say to himself that he would purchase his grandson's assent to\r\nhis own marriage by giving his consent to his grandson's marriage. But it did seem to him that the two affairs, acting upon each other,\r\nmight both be made to run smooth. His heir could have made no better\r\nchoice in selecting the lady of his love."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Peregrine had feared\r\nmuch that some Miss Tristram or the like might have been tendered to\r\nhim as the future Lady Orme, and he was agreeably surprised to find\r\nthat a new mistress for The Cleeve had been so well chosen. He would\r\nbe all kindness to his grandson and win from him, if it might be\r\npossible, reciprocal courtesy and complaisance. \"Your mother will be\r\nvery pleased when she hears this,\" he said. \"I meant to tell my mother,\" said Peregrine, still very dolefully,\r\n\"but I do not know that there is anything in it to please her. I only\r\nsaid that I--I admired Miss Staveley.\" \"My dear boy, if you'll take my advice you'll propose to her at once. You have been staying in the same house with her, and--\"\r\n\r\n\"But I have.\" \"Have what?\" \"I have proposed to her.\" \"Well?\" \"And she has refused me. You know all about it now, and there's no\r\nsuch great cause for joy.\" \"Oh, you have proposed to her. Have you spoken to her father or\r\nmother?\" \"What was the use when she told me plainly that she did not care for\r\nme? Of course I should have asked her father. As to Lady Staveley,\r\nshe and I got on uncommonly well. I'm almost inclined to think that\r\nshe would not have objected.\" \"It would be a very nice match for them, and I dare say she would not\r\nhave objected.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then for some ten minutes they sat looking at the\r\nfire. Peregrine had nothing more to say about it, and the baronet was\r\nthinking how best he might encourage his grandson. \"You must try again, you know,\" at last he said. \"Well; I fear not. I do not think it would be any good. I'm not quite\r\nsure she does not care for some one else.\" \"Who is he?\" \"Oh, a fellow that's there. The man who broke his arm. I don't say\r\nshe does, you know, and of course you won't mention it.\" Sir Peregrine gave the necessary promises, and then endeavoured to\r\ngive encouragement to the lover. He would himself see the judge, if\r\nit were thought expedient, and explain what liberal settlement would\r\nbe made on the lady in the event of her altering her mind. \"Young\r\nladies, you know, are very prone to alter their minds on such\r\nmatters,\" said the old man. In answer to which Peregrine declared\r\nhis conviction that Madeline Staveley would not alter her mind. But\r\nthen do not all despondent lovers hold that opinion of their own\r\nmistresses? Sir Peregrine had been a great gainer by what had occurred, and so\r\nhe felt it. At any rate all the novelty of the question of his own\r\nmarriage was over, as between him and Peregrine; and then he had\r\nacquired a means of being gracious which must almost disarm his\r\ngrandson of all power of criticism."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When he, an old man, was ready to\r\ndo so much to forward the views of a young man, could it be possible\r\nthat the young man should oppose his wishes? And Peregrine was aware\r\nthat his power of opposition was thus lessened. In the evening nothing remarkable occurred between them. Each had his\r\nor her own plans; but these plans could not be furthered by anything\r\nto be said in a general assembly. Lady Mason had already told to Mrs.\r\nOrme all that had passed in the drawing-room before dinner, and Sir\r\nPeregrine had determined that he would consult Mrs. Orme as to that\r\nmatter regarding Miss Staveley. He did not think much of her refusal. Young ladies always do refuse--at first. On the day but one following this there came another visit from Mr.\r\nFurnival, and he was for a long time closeted with Sir Peregrine. Matthew Round had, he said, been with him, and had felt himself\r\nobliged in the performance of his duty to submit a case to counsel\r\non behalf of his client Joseph Mason. He had not as yet received the\r\nwritten opinion of Sir Richard Leatherham, to whom he had applied;\r\nbut nevertheless, as he wished to give every possible notice, he had\r\ncalled to say that his firm were of opinion that an action must be\r\nbrought either for forgery or for perjury. \"For perjury!\" Mr. Furnival had said. \"Well; yes. We would wish to be as little harsh as possible."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But if\r\nwe convict her of having sworn falsely when she gave evidence as to\r\nhaving copied the codicil herself, and having seen it witnessed by\r\nthe pretended witnesses;--why in that case of course the property\r\nwould go back.\" \"I can't give any opinion as to what might be the result in such a\r\ncase,\" said Mr. Furnival. Mr. Round had gone on to say that he thought it improbable that the\r\naction could be tried before the summer assizes. \"The sooner the better as far as we are concerned,\" said Mr.\r\nFurnival. \"If you really mean that, I will see that there shall be no\r\nunnecessary delay.\" Mr. Furnival had declared that he did really mean\r\nit, and so the interview had ended. Mr. Furnival had really meant it, fully concurring in the opinion\r\nwhich Mr. Chaffanbrass had expressed on this matter; but nevertheless\r\nthe increasing urgency of the case had almost made him tremble. He still carried himself with a brave outside before Mat Round,\r\nprotesting as to the utter absurdity as well as cruelty of the\r\nwhole proceeding; but his conscience told him that it was not\r\nabsurd. \"Perjury!\" he said to himself, and then he rang the bell for\r\nCrabwitz. The upshot of that interview was that Mr. Crabwitz received\r\na commission to arrange a meeting between that great barrister, the\r\nmember for the Essex Marshes, and Mr. Solomon Aram. \"Won't it look rather, rather--rather--; you know what I mean, sir?\" Crabwitz had asked."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"We must fight these people with their own weapons,\" said Mr.\r\nFurnival;--not exactly with justice, seeing that Messrs. Round and\r\nCrook were not at all of the same calibre in the profession as Mr.\r\nSolomon Aram. Mr. Furnival had already at this time seen Mr. Slow, of the firm of\r\nSlow and Bideawhile, who were Sir Peregrine's solicitors. This he had\r\ndone chiefly that he might be able to tell Sir Peregrine that he had\r\nseen him. Mr. Slow had declared that the case was one which his firm\r\nwould not be prepared to conduct, and he named a firm to which he\r\nshould recommend his client to apply. But Mr. Furnival, carefully\r\nconsidering the whole matter, had resolved to take the advice and\r\nbenefit by the experience of Mr. Chaffanbrass. And then he went down once more to The Cleeve. Poor Mr. Furnival! In\r\nthese days he was dreadfully buffeted about both as regards his outer\r\nman and his inner conscience by this unfortunate case, giving up to\r\nit time that would otherwise have turned itself into heaps of gold;\r\ngiving up domestic conscience--for Mrs. Furnival was still hot in\r\nher anger against poor Lady Mason; and giving up also much peace of\r\nmind, for he felt that he was soiling his hands by dirty work."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But\r\nhe thought of the lady's pale sweet face, of her tear-laden eye, of\r\nher soft beseeching tones, and gentle touch; he thought of these\r\nthings--as he should not have thought of them;--and he persevered. On this occasion he was closeted with Sir Peregrine for a couple of\r\nhours, and each heard much from the other that surprised him very\r\nmuch. Sir Peregrine, when he was told that Mr. Solomon Aram from\r\nBucklersbury, and Mr. Chaffanbrass from the Old Bailey, were to be\r\nretained for the defence of his future wife, drew himself up and said\r\nthat he could hardly approve of it. The gentlemen named were no doubt\r\nvery clever in criminal concerns; he could understand as much as\r\nthat, though he had not had great opportunity of looking into affairs\r\nof that sort. But surely, in Lady Mason's case, assistance of such a\r\ndescription would hardly be needed. Would it not be better to consult\r\nMessrs. Slow and Bideawhile? And then it turned out that Messrs. Slow and Bideawhile had been\r\nconsulted; and Mr. Furnival, not altogether successfully, endeavoured\r\nto throw dust into the baronet's eyes, declaring that in a combat\r\nwith the devil one must use the devil's weapons."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He assured Sir\r\nPeregrine that he had given the matter his most matured and indeed\r\nmost painful professional consideration; there were unfortunate\r\ncircumstances which required peculiar care; it was a matter which\r\nwould depend entirely on the evidence of one or two persons who might\r\nbe suborned; and in such a case it would be well to trust to those\r\nwho knew how to break down and crush a lying witness. In such work as\r\nthat Slow and Bideawhile would be innocent and ignorant as babes. As\r\nto breaking down and crushing a witness anxious to speak the truth,\r\nMr. Furnival at that time said nothing. \"I will not think that falsehood and fraud can prevail,\" said Sir\r\nPeregrine proudly. \"But they do prevail sometimes,\" said Mr. Furnival. And then with\r\nmuch outer dignity of demeanour, but with some shame-faced tremblings\r\nof the inner man hidden under the guise of that outer dignity, Sir\r\nPeregrine informed the lawyer of his great purpose. \"Indeed!\" said Mr. Furnival, throwing himself back into his chair\r\nwith a start. \"Yes, Mr. Furnival. I should not have taken the liberty to trouble\r\nyou with a matter so private in its nature, but for your close\r\nprofessional intimacy and great friendship with Lady Mason.\" \"Oh, indeed!\" said Mr. Furnival; and the baronet could understand\r\nfrom the lawyer's tone that even he did not approve. CHAPTER XXXIX. WHY SHOULD HE GO?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I am well aware, Mr. Staveley, that you are one of those gentlemen\r\nwho amuse themselves by frequently saying such things to girls. I had\r\nlearned your character in that respect before I had been in the house\r\ntwo days.\" \"Then, Miss Furnival, you learned what was very false. May I ask who\r\nhas blackened me in this way in your estimation?\" It will be easily\r\nseen from this that Mr. Augustus Staveley and Miss Furnival were at\r\nthe present moment alone together in one of the rooms at Noningsby. \"My informant,\" she replied, \"has been no one special sinner whom you\r\ncan take by the throat and punish. Indeed, if you must shoot anybody,\r\nit should be chiefly yourself, and after that your father, and\r\nmother, and sisters. But you need not talk of being black. Such sins\r\nare venial now-a-days, and convey nothing deeper than a light shade\r\nof brown.\" \"I regard a man who can act in such a way as very base.\" \"Such a way as what, Mr. Staveley?\" \"A man who can win a girl's heart for his own amusement.\" \"I said nothing about the winning of hearts. That is treachery of\r\nthe worst dye; but I acquit you of any such attempt. When there is a\r\nquestion of the winning of hearts men look so different.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I don't know how they look,\" said Augustus, not altogether satisfied\r\nas to the manner in which he was being treated--\"but such has been my\r\naudacity,--my too great audacity on the present occasion.\" \"You are the most audacious of men, for your audacity would carry you\r\nto the feet of another lady to-morrow without the slightest check.\" \"And that is the only answer I am to receive from you?\" \"It is quite answer enough. What would you have me do? Get up and\r\ndecline the honour of being Mrs. Augustus Staveley with a curtsy?\" \"No--I would have you do nothing of the kind. I would have you get up\r\nand accept the honour,--with a kiss.\" \"So that you might have the kiss, and I might have the--; I was going\r\nto say disappointment, only that would be untrue. Let me assure you\r\nthat I am not so demonstrative in my tokens of regard.\" \"I wonder whether you mean that you are not so honest?\" \"No, Mr. Staveley; I mean nothing of the kind; and you are very\r\nimpertinent to express such a supposition. What have I done or said\r\nto make you suppose that I have lost my heart to you?\" \"As you have mine, it is at any rate human nature in me to hope that\r\nI might have yours.\" \"Psha! your heart! You have been making a shuttlecock of it till it\r\nis doubtful whether you have not banged it to pieces."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I know two\r\nladies who carry in their caps two feathers out of it. It is so\r\neasy to see when a man is in love. They all go cross-gartered like\r\nMalvolio;--cross-gartered in their looks and words and doings.\" \"And there is no touch of all this in me?\" \"You cross-gartered! You have never got so far yet as a\r\nlack-a-daisical twist to the corner of your mouth. Did you watch Mr.\r\nOrme before he went away?\" \"Why; was he cross-gartered?\" \"But you men have no eyes; you never see anything. And your idea of\r\nlove-making is to sit under a tree wishing, wondering whether the\r\nripe fruit will fall down into your mouth. Ripe fruit does sometimes\r\nfall, and then it is all well with you. But if it won't, you pass on\r\nand say that it is sour. As for climbing--\"\r\n\r\n\"The fruit generally falls too fast to admit of such exercise,\" said\r\nStaveley, who did not choose that all the sharp things should be said\r\non the other side. \"And that is the result of your very extended experience? The\r\norchards which have been opened to you have not, I fear, been of the\r\nfirst quality. Mr. Staveley, my hand will do very well by itself. Such is not the sort of climbing that is required. That is what I\r\ncall stooping to pick up the fruit that has fallen.\" And as she\r\nspoke, she moved a little away from him on the sofa."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And how is a man to climb?\" \"Do you really mean that you want a lesson? But if I were to tell\r\nyou, my words would be thrown away. Men will not labour who have\r\ngotten all that they require without work. Why strive to deserve any\r\nwoman, when women are plenty who do not care to be deserved? That\r\nplan of picking up the fallen apples is so much the easier.\" The lesson might perhaps have been given, and Miss Furnival might\r\nhave imparted to Mr. Staveley her idea of \"excelsior\" in the matter\r\nof love-making, had not Mr. Staveley's mother come into the room at\r\nthat moment. Mrs. Staveley was beginning to fear that the results of\r\nher Christmas hospitality would not be satisfactory. Peregrine Orme,\r\nwhom she would have been so happy to welcome to the warmest corner of\r\nher household temple as a son, had been sent away in wretchedness and\r\ndisappointment. Madeline was moping about the house, hardly making an\r\neffort to look like herself; attributing, in her mother's ears, all\r\nher complaint to that unexpected interview with Peregrine Orme, but\r\nnot so attributing it--as her mother fancied--with correctness. And\r\nthere was Felix Graham still in the room up stairs, the doctor having\r\nsaid that he might be moved in a day or two;--that is, such movement\r\nmight possibly be effected without detriment;--but having said also\r\nthat another ten days of uninterrupted rest would be very desirable."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And now, in addition to this, her son Augustus was to be found on\r\nevery wet morning closeted somewhere with Sophia Furnival;--on every\r\nwet morning, and sometimes on dry mornings also! [Illustration: Lady Stavely interrupting her Son\r\nand Sophia Furnival.] And then, on this very day, Lady Staveley had discovered that Felix\r\nGraham's door in the corridor was habitually left open. She knew\r\nher child too well, and was too clear and pure in her own mind, to\r\nsuppose that there was anything wrong in this;--that clandestine\r\ntalkings were arranged, or anything planned in secret. What she\r\nfeared was that which really occurred. The door was left open, and as\r\nMadeline passed Felix would say a word, and then Madeline would pause\r\nand answer him. Such words as they were might have been spoken before\r\nall the household, and if so spoken would have been free from danger. But they were not free from danger when spoken in that way, in the\r\npassage of a half-closed doorway;--all which Lady Staveley understood\r\nperfectly. \"Baker,\" she had said, with more of anger in her voice than was usual\r\nwith her, \"why do you leave that door open?\" \"I think it sweetens the room, my lady;\" and, indeed, Felix Graham\r\nsometimes thought so too. \"Nonsense; every sound in the house must be heard. Keep it shut, if\r\nyou please.\" \"Yes, my lady,\" said Mrs. Baker--who also understood perfectly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"He is better, my darling,\" said Mrs. Baker to Madeline, the same\r\nday; \"and, indeed, for that he is well enough as regards eating and\r\ndrinking. But it would be cruelty to move him yet. I heard what the\r\ndoctor said.\" \"Who talks of moving him?\" \"Well, he talks of it himself; and the doctor said it might be\r\npossible. But I know what that means.\" \"What does it mean?\" \"Why, just this: that if we want to get rid of him, it won't quite be\r\nthe death of him.\" \"But who wants to get rid of him?\" \"I'm sure I don't. I don't mind my trouble the least in life. He's as\r\nnice a young gentleman as ever I sat beside the bed of; and he's full\r\nof spirit--he is.\" And then Madeline appealed to her mother. Surely her mother would not\r\nlet Mr. Graham be sent out of the house in his present state, merely\r\nbecause the doctor said it might be possible to move him without\r\ncausing his instant death! And tears stood in poor Madeline's eyes\r\nas she thus pleaded the cause of the sick and wounded. This again\r\ntormented Lady Staveley, who found it necessary to give further\r\ncaution to Mrs. Baker. \"Baker,\" she said, \"how can you be so foolish\r\nas to be talking to Miss Madeline about Mr. Graham's arm?\" \"Who, my lady? I, my lady?\" \"Yes, you; when you know that the least thing frightens her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Don't\r\nyou remember how ill it made her when Roger\"--Roger was an old family\r\ngroom--\"when Roger had that accident?\" Lady Staveley might have saved\r\nherself the trouble of the reminiscence as to Roger, for Baker knew\r\nmore about it than that. When Roger's scalp had been laid bare by a\r\nfall, Miss Madeline had chanced to see it, and had fainted; but Miss\r\nMadeline was not fainting now. Baker knew all about it, almost better\r\nthan Lady Staveley herself. It was of very little use talking to\r\nBaker about Roger the groom. Baker thought that Mr. Felix Graham\r\nwas a very nice young man, in spite of his \"not being exactly\r\nhandsomelike about the physgognomy,\" as she remarked to one of the\r\nyounger maids, who much preferred Peregrine Orme. Coming away from this last interval with Mrs. Baker, Lady Staveley\r\ninterrupted her son and Sophia Furnival in the back drawing-room, and\r\nbegan to feel that her solicitude for her children would be almost\r\ntoo much for her. Why had she asked that nasty girl to her house, and\r\nwhy would not the nasty girl go away? As for her going away, there\r\nwas no present hope; for it had been arranged that she should stay\r\nfor another fortnight. Why could not the Fates have been kind, and\r\nhave allowed Felix Graham and Miss Furnival to fall in love with each\r\nother?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I can never make a daughter of her if he does marry her,\"\r\nLady Staveley said to herself, as she looked at them. Augustus looked as though he were detected, and stammered out some\r\nquestion about his mother and the carriage; but Miss Furnival did not\r\nfor a moment lose her easy presence of mind. \"Lady Staveley,\" said\r\nshe, \"why does not your son go and hunt, or shoot, or fish, instead\r\nof staying in the house all day? It seems to me that his time is so\r\nheavy on his hands that he will almost have to hang himself.\" \"I'm sure I can't tell,\" said Lady Staveley, who was not so perfect\r\nan actor as her guest. \"I do think gentlemen in the house in the morning always look so\r\nunfortunate. You have been endeavouring to make yourself agreeable,\r\nbut you know you've been yawning.\" \"Do you suppose then that men never sit still in the morning?\" said\r\nAugustus. \"Oh, in their chambers, yes; or on the bench, and perhaps also behind\r\ncounters; but they very seldom do so in a drawing-room. You have been\r\nfidgeting about with the poker till you have destroyed the look of\r\nthe fireplace.\" \"Well, I'll go and fidget up stairs with Graham,\" said he; and so he\r\nleft the room. \"Nasty, sly girl,\" said Lady Staveley to herself as she took up her\r\nwork and sat herself down in her own chair."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Augustus did go up to his friend and found him reading letters. There\r\nwas no one else in the room, and the door when Augustus reached it\r\nwas properly closed. \"I think I shall be off to-morrow, old boy,\"\r\nsaid Felix. \"Then I think you'll do no such thing,\" said Augustus. \"What's in the\r\nwind now?\" \"The doctor said this morning that I could be moved without danger.\" \"He said that it might possibly be done in two or three days--that\r\nwas all. What on earth makes you so impatient? You've nothing to do. Nobody else wants to see you; and nobody here wants to get rid of\r\nyou.\" \"You're wrong in all your three statements.\" \"The deuce I am! Who wants to get rid of you?\" \"That shall come last. I have something to do, and somebody else\r\ndoes want to see me. I've got a letter from Mary here, and another\r\nfrom Mrs. Thomas;\" and he held up to view two letters which he had\r\nreceived, and which had, in truth, startled him. \"Mary's duenna;--the artist who is supposed to be moulding the wife.\" \"Yes; Mary's duenna, or Mary's artist, whichever you please.\" \"And which of them wants to see you? It's just like a woman, to\r\nrequire a man's attendance exactly when he is unable to move.\" Then Felix, though he did not give up the letters to be read,\r\ndescribed to a certain extent their contents. \"I don't know what\r\non earth has happened,\" he said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Mary is praying to be forgiven,\r\nand saying that it is not her fault; and Mrs. Thomas is full\r\nof apologies, declaring that her conscience forces her to tell\r\neverything; and yet, between them both, I do not know what has\r\nhappened.\" \"Miss Snow has probably lost the key of the workbox you gave her.\" \"I have not given her a workbox.\" \"Then the writing-desk. That's what a man has to endure when he will\r\nmake himself head schoolmaster to a young lady. And so you're going\r\nto look after your charge with your limbs still in bandages?\" \"Just so;\" and then he took up the two letters and read them again,\r\nwhile Staveley still sat on the foot of the bed. \"I wish I knew what\r\nto think about it,\" said Felix. \"About what?\" said the other. And then there was another pause, and\r\nanother reading of a portion of the letters. \"There seems something--something almost frightful to me,\" said Felix\r\ngravely, \"in the idea of marrying a girl in a few months' time, who\r\nnow, at so late a period of our engagement, writes to me in that sort\r\nof cold, formal way.\" \"It's the proper moulded-wife style, you may depend,\" said Augustus. \"I'll tell you what, Staveley, if you can talk to me seriously for\r\nfive minutes, I shall be obliged to you. If that is impossible to\r\nyou, say so, and I will drop the matter.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Well, go on; I am serious enough in what I intend to express, even\r\nthough I may not be so in my words.\" \"I'm beginning to have my doubts about this dear girl.\" \"I've had my doubts for some time.\" \"Not, mark you, with regard to myself. The question is not now\r\nwhether I can love her sufficiently for my own happiness. On that\r\nside I have no longer the right to a doubt.\" \"But you wouldn't marry her if you did not love her.\" \"We need not discuss that. But what if she does not love me? What if\r\nshe would think it a release to be freed from this engagement? How am\r\nI to find that out?\" Augustus sat for a while silent, for he did feel that the matter was\r\nserious. The case as he looked at it stood thus:--His friend Graham\r\nhad made a very foolish bargain, from which he would probably be glad\r\nto escape, though he could not now bring himself to say as much. But\r\nthis bargain, bad for him, would probably be very good for the young\r\nlady. The young lady, having no shilling of her own, and no merits\r\nof birth or early breeding to assist her outlook in the world, might\r\nprobably regard her ready-made engagement to a clever, kind-hearted,\r\nhigh-spirited man, as an advantage not readily to be abandoned."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Staveley, as a sincere friend, was very anxious that the match should\r\nbe broken off; but he could not bring himself to tell Graham that\r\nhe thought that the young lady would so wish. According to his idea\r\nthe young lady must undergo a certain amount of disappointment,\r\nand receive a certain amount of compensation. Graham had been very\r\nfoolish, and must pay for his folly. But in preparing to do so, it\r\nwould be better that he should see and acknowledge the whole truth of\r\nthe matter. \"Are you sure that you have found out your own feelings?\" Staveley\r\nsaid at last; and his tone was then serious enough even for his\r\nfriend. \"It hardly matters whether I have or have not,\" said Felix. \"It matters above all things;--above all things, because as to them\r\nyou may come to something like certainty. Of the inside of her heart\r\nyou cannot know so much. The fact I take it is this--that you would\r\nwish to escape from this bondage.\" \"No; not unless I thought she regarded it as bondage also. It may be\r\nthat she does. As for myself, I believe that at the present moment\r\nsuch a marriage would be for me the safest step that I could take.\" \"Safe as against what danger?\" \"All dangers. How, if I should learn to love another woman,--some one\r\nutterly out of my reach,--while I am still betrothed to her?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I rarely flatter you, Graham, and don't mean to do it now; but no\r\ngirl ought to be out of your reach. You have talent, position, birth,\r\nand gifts of nature, which should make you equal to any lady. As for\r\nmoney, the less you have the more you should look to get. But if\r\nyou would cease to be mad, two years would give you command of an\r\nincome.\" \"But I shall never cease to be mad.\" \"Who is it that cannot be serious, now?\" \"Well, I will be serious--serious enough. I can afford to be so, as\r\nI have received my medical passport for to-morrow. No girl, you say,\r\nought to be out of my reach. If the girl were one Miss Staveley,\r\nshould she be regarded as out of my reach?\" \"A man doesn't talk about his own sister,\" said Staveley, having got\r\nup from the bed and walked to the window, \"and I know you don't mean\r\nanything.\" \"But, by heavens! I do mean a great deal.\" \"What is it you mean, then?\" \"I mean this--What would you say if you learned that I was a suitor\r\nfor her hand?\" Staveley had been right in saying that a man does not talk about\r\nhis own sister. When he had declared, with so much affectionate\r\nadmiration for his friend's prowess, that he might aspire to the\r\nhand of any lady, that one retiring, modest-browed girl had not been\r\nthought of by him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A man in talking to another man about women is\r\nalways supposed to consider those belonging to himself as exempt from\r\nthe incidents of the conversation. The dearest friends do not talk\r\nto each other about their sisters when they have once left school;\r\nand a man in such a position as that now taken by Graham has to make\r\nfight for his ground as closely as though there had been no former\r\nintimacies. My friend Smith in such a matter as that, though I have\r\nbeen hail fellow with him for the last ten years, has very little\r\nadvantage over Jones, who was introduced to the house for the first\r\ntime last week. And therefore Staveley felt himself almost injured\r\nwhen Felix Graham spoke to him about Madeline. \"What would I say? Well--that is a question one does not understand,\r\nunless--unless you really meant to state it as a fact that it was\r\nyour intention to propose to her.\" \"But I mean rather to state it as a fact that it is not my intention\r\nto propose to her.\" \"Then we had better not speak of her.\" \"Listen to me a moment. In order that I may not do so, it will be\r\nbetter for me--better for us all, that I should leave the house.\" \"Do you mean to say--?\" \"Yes, I do mean to say! I mean to say all that your mind is now\r\nsuggesting to you."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I quite understand your feelings when you declare\r\nthat a man does not like to talk of his own sister, and therefore we\r\nwill talk of your sister no more. Old fellow, don't look at me as\r\nthough you meant to drop me.\" Augustus came back to the bedside, and again seating himself, put his\r\nhand almost caressingly over his friend's shoulder. \"I did not think\r\nof this,\" he said. \"No; one never does think of it,\" Graham replied. \"And she?\" \"She knows no more of it than that bed-post,\" said Graham. \"The\r\ninjury, such as there is, is all on one side. But I'll tell you who\r\nsuspects it.\" \"Baker?\" \"Your mother. I am much mistaken if you will not find that she, with\r\nall her hospitality, would prefer that I should recover my strength\r\nelsewhere.\" \"But you have done nothing to betray yourself.\" \"A mother's ears are very sharp. I know that it is so. I cannot\r\nexplain to you how. Do you tell her that I think of getting up to\r\nLondon to-morrow, and see how she will take it. And, Staveley, do not\r\nfor a moment suppose that I am reproaching her. She is quite right."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I believe that I have in no way committed myself--that I have said\r\nno word to your sister with which Lady Staveley has a right to feel\r\nherself aggrieved; but if she has had the wit to read the thoughts of\r\nmy bosom, she is quite right to wish that I were out of the house.\" Poor Lady Staveley had been possessed of no such wit at all. The\r\nsphynx which she had read had been one much more in her own line. She\r\nhad simply read the thoughts in her daughter's bosom--or rather, the\r\nfeelings in her daughter's heart. Augustus Staveley hardly knew what he ought to say. He was not\r\nprepared to tell his friend that he was the very brother-in-law for\r\nwhose connection he would be desirous. Such a marriage for Madeline,\r\neven should Madeline desire it, would not be advantageous. When\r\nAugustus told Graham that he had gifts of nature which made him equal\r\nto any lady, he did not include his own sister. And yet the idea of\r\nacquiescing in his friend's sudden departure was very painful to him. \"There can be no reason why you should not stay up here, you know,\"\r\nat last he said;--and in so saying he pronounced an absolute verdict\r\nagainst poor Felix. On few matters of moment to a man's own heart can he speak out\r\nplainly the whole truth that is in him. Graham had intended so to\r\ndo, but had deceived himself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had not absolutely hoped that his\r\nfriend would say, \"Come among us, and be one of us; take her, and\r\nbe my brother.\" But yet there came upon his heart a black load of\r\ndisappointment, in that the words which were said were the exact\r\nopposite of these. Graham had spoken of himself as unfit to match\r\nwith Madeline Staveley, and Madeline Staveley's brother had taken him\r\nat his word. The question which Augustus asked himself was this--Was\r\nit, or was it not practicable that Graham should remain there without\r\ndanger of intercourse with his sister? To Felix the question came in\r\na very different shape. After having spoken as he had spoken--might\r\nhe be allowed to remain there, enjoying such intercourse, or might he\r\nnot? That was the question to which he had unconsciously demanded an\r\nanswer;--and unconsciously he had still hoped that the question might\r\nbe answered in his favour. He had so hoped, although he was burdened\r\nwith Mary Snow, and although he had spoken of his engagement with\r\nthat lady in so rigid a spirit of self-martyrdom. But the question\r\nhad been answered against him. The offer of a further asylum in the\r\nseclusion of that bedroom had been made to him by his friend with a\r\nsort of proviso that it would not be well that he should go further\r\nthan the bedroom, and his inner feelings at once grated against each\r\nother, making him wretched and almost angry."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Thank you, no; I understand how kind you are, but I will not do\r\nthat. I will write up to-night, and shall certainly start to-morrow.\" \"My dear fellow--\"\r\n\r\n\"I should get into a fever, if I were to remain in this house after\r\nwhat I have told you. I could not endure to see you, or your mother,\r\nor Baker, or Marian, or any one else. Don't talk about it. Indeed,\r\nyou ought to feel that it is not possible. I have made a confounded\r\nass of myself, and the sooner I get away the better. I say--perhaps\r\nyou would not be angry if I was to ask you to let me sleep for an\r\nhour or so now. After that I'll get up and write my letters.\" He was very sore. He knew that he was sick at heart, and ill at ease,\r\nand cross with his friend; and knew also that he was unreasonable\r\nin being so. Staveley's words and manner had been full of kindness. Graham was aware of this, and was therefore the more irritated with\r\nhimself. But this did not prevent his being angry and cross with his\r\nfriend. \"Graham,\" said the other, \"I see clearly enough that I have annoyed\r\nyou.\" \"Not in the least. A man falls into the mud, and then calls to\r\nanother man to come and see him. The man in the mud of course is not\r\ncomfortable.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But you have called to me, and I have not been able to help you.\" \"I did not suppose you would, so there has been no disappointment. Indeed, there was no possibility for help. I shall follow out the\r\nline of life which I have long since chalked out for myself, and\r\nI do not expect that I shall be more wretched than other poor\r\ndevils around me. As far as my idea goes, it all makes very little\r\ndifference. Now leave me; there's a good fellow.\" \"Dear old fellow, I would give my right hand if it would make you\r\nhappy!\" \"But it won't. Your right hand will make somebody else happy, I\r\nhope.\" \"I'll come up to you again before dinner.\" \"Very well. And, Staveley, what we have now said cannot be forgotten\r\nbetween us; but when we next meet, and ever after, let it be as\r\nthough it were forgotten.\" Then he settled himself down on the bed,\r\nand Augustus left the room. It will not be supposed that Graham did go to sleep, or that he had\r\nany thought of doing so. When he was alone those words of his friend\r\nrang over and over again in his ears, \"No girl ought to be out of\r\nyour reach.\" Why should Madeline Staveley be out of his reach, simply\r\nbecause she was his friend's sister? He had been made welcome to that\r\nhouse, and therefore he was bound to do nothing unhandsome by the\r\nfamily."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But then he was bound by other laws, equally clear, to do\r\nnothing unhandsome by any other family--or by any other lady. If\r\nthere was anything in Staveley's words, they applied as strongly to\r\nStaveley's sister as to any other girl. And why should not he, a\r\nlawyer, marry a lawyer's daughter? Sophia Furnival, with her hatful\r\nof money, would not be considered too high for him; and in what\r\nrespect was Madeline Staveley above Sophia Furnival? That the one\r\nwas immeasurably above the other in all those respects which in his\r\nestimation tended towards female perfection, he knew to be true\r\nenough; but the fruit which he had been forbidden to gather hung no\r\nhigher on the social tree than that other fruit which he had been\r\nspecially invited to pluck and garner. And then Graham was not a man to think any fruit too high for him. He had no overweening idea of his own deserts, either socially or\r\nprofessionally, nor had he taught himself to expect great things from\r\nhis own genius; but he had that audacity of spirit which bids a man\r\nhope to compass that which he wishes to compass,--that audacity which\r\nis both the father and mother of success,--that audacity which seldom\r\nexists without the inner capability on which it ought to rest. But then there was Mary Snow! Augustus Staveley thought but little of\r\nMary Snow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "According to his theory of his friend's future life, Mary\r\nSnow might be laid aside without much difficulty. If this were so,\r\nwhy should not Madeline be within his reach? But then was it so? Had\r\nhe not betrothed himself to Mary Snow in the presence of the girl's\r\nfather, with every solemnity and assurance, in a manner fixed beyond\r\nthat of all other betrothals? Alas, yes; and for this reason it was\r\nright that he should hurry away from Noningsby. Then he thought of Mary's letter, and of Mrs. Thomas's letter. What\r\nwas it that had been done? Mary had written as though she had been\r\ncharged with some childish offence; but Mrs. Thomas talked solemnly\r\nof acquitting her own conscience. What could have happened that had\r\ntouched Mrs. Thomas in the conscience? But his thoughts soon ran away from the little house at Peckham,\r\nand settled themselves again at Noningsby. Should he hear more of\r\nMadeline's footsteps?--and if not, why should they have been banished\r\nfrom the corridor? Should he hear her voice again at the door,--and\r\nif not, why should it have been hushed? There is a silence which may\r\nbe more eloquent than the sounds which it follows. Had no one in that\r\nhouse guessed the feelings in his bosom, she would have walked along\r\nthe corridor as usual, and spoken a word with her sweet voice in\r\nanswer to his word."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He felt sure that this would be so no more; but\r\nwho had stopped it, and why should such sounds be no more heard? At last he did go to sleep, not in pursuance of any plan formed for\r\ndoing so; for had he been asked he would have said that sleep was\r\nimpossible for him. But he did go to sleep, and when he awoke it was\r\ndark. He had intended to have got up and dressed on that afternoon,\r\nor to have gone through such ceremony of dressing as was possible for\r\nhim,--in preparation of his next day's exercise; and now he rose up\r\nin his bed with a start, angry with himself in having allowed the\r\ntime to pass by him. \"Lord love you, Mr. Graham, why how you have slept!\" said Mrs. Baker. \"If I haven't just sent your dinner down again to keep hot. Such a\r\nbeautiful pheasant, and the bread sauce'll be lumpy now, for all the\r\nworld like pap.\" \"Never mind the bread sauce, Mrs. Baker;--the pheasant's the thing.\" \"And her ladyship's been here, Mr. Graham, only she wouldn't have you\r\nwoke. She won't hear of your being moved to-morrow, nor yet won't the\r\njudge. There was a rumpus down stairs when Mr. Augustus as much as\r\nmentioned it. I know one who--\"\r\n\r\n\"You know one who--you were saying?\" \"Never mind.--It ain't one more than another, but it's all. You ain't\r\nto leave this to-morrow, so you may just give it over."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And indeed\r\nyour things is all at the wash, so you can't;--and now I'll go down\r\nfor the pheasant.\" Felix still declared very positively that he should go, but his\r\ndoing so did not shake Mrs. Baker. The letter-bag he knew did not\r\nleave till eight, and as yet it was not much past five. He would see\r\nStaveley again after his dinner, and then he would write. When Augustus left the room in the middle of the day he encountered\r\nMadeline wandering about the house. In these days she did wander\r\nabout the house, as though there were something always to be done in\r\nsome place apart from that in which she then was. And yet the things\r\nwhich she did were but few. She neither worked nor read, and as for\r\nhousehold duties, her share in them was confined almost entirely to\r\nthe morning and evening teapot. \"It isn't true that he's to go to-morrow morning, Augustus, is it?\" said she. \"Who, Graham? Well; he says that he will. He is very anxious to get\r\nto London; and no doubt he finds it stupid enough lying there and\r\ndoing nothing.\" \"But he can do as much there as he can lying by himself in his own\r\nchambers, where I don't suppose he would have anybody to look after\r\nhim. He thinks he's a trouble and all that, and therefore he wants to\r\ngo."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But you know mamma doesn't mind about trouble of that kind; and\r\nwhat should we think of it afterwards if anything bad was to happen\r\nto your friend because we allowed him to leave the house before\r\nhe was in a fit state to be moved? Of course Mr. Pottinger says\r\nso--\" Mr. Pottinger was the doctor. \"Of course Mr. Pottinger says\r\nso, because he thinks he has been so long here, and he doesn't\r\nunderstand.\" \"But Mr. Pottinger would like to keep a patient.\" \"Oh no; he's not at all that sort of man. He'd think of mamma,--the\r\ntrouble I mean of having a stranger in the house. But you know mamma\r\nwould think nothing of that, especially for such an intimate friend\r\nof yours.\" Augustus turned slightly round so as to look more fully into his\r\nsister's face, and he saw that a tear was gathered in the corner of\r\nher eye. She perceived his glance and partly shrank under it, but she\r\nsoon recovered herself and answered it. \"I know what you mean,\" she\r\nsaid, \"and if you choose to think so, I can't help it. But it is\r\nhorrible--horrible--\" and then she stopped herself, finding that a\r\nlittle sob would become audible if she trusted herself to further\r\nwords. \"You know what I mean, Mad?\" he said, putting his arm affectionately\r\nround her waist. \"And what is it that I mean?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Come; you and I never\r\nhave any secrets;--you always say so when you want to get at mine. Tell me what it is that I mean.\" \"I haven't got any secret.\" \"But what did I mean?\" \"You looked at me, because I don't want you to let them send Mr.\r\nGraham away. If it was old Mr. Furnival I shouldn't like them to turn\r\nhim out of this house when he was in such a state as that.\" \"Poor Mr. Furnival; no; I think he would bear it worse than Felix.\" \"Then why should he go? And why--should you look at me in that way?\" \"Did I look at you, Mad? Well, I believe I did. We are to have no\r\nsecrets; are we?\" \"No,\" said she. But she did not say it in the same eager voice with\r\nwhich hitherto she had declared that they would always tell each\r\nother everything. \"Felix Graham is my friend,\" said he, \"my special friend; and I hope\r\nyou will always like my friends. But--\"\r\n\r\n\"Well?\" she said. \"You know what I mean, Mad\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" she said. \"That is all, dearest.\" And then she knew that he also had cautioned\r\nher not to fall in love with Felix Graham, and she felt angry with\r\nhim for the caution. \"Why--why--why--?\" But she hardly knew as yet\r\nhow to frame the question which she desired to ask herself. CHAPTER XL. I CALL IT AWFUL. \"Oh indeed!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Those had been the words with which Mr. Furnival had\r\nreceived the announcement made by Sir Peregrine as to his proposed\r\nnuptials. And as he uttered them the lawyer drew himself up stiffly\r\nin his chair, looking much more like a lawyer and much less like an\r\nold family friend than he had done the moment before. Whereupon Sir Peregrine drew himself up also. \"Yes,\" he said. \"I\r\nshould be intrusive if I were to trouble you with my motives, and\r\ntherefore I need only say further as regards the lady, that I trust\r\nthat my support, standing as I shall do in the position of her\r\nhusband, will be more serviceable to her than it could otherwise have\r\nbeen in this trial which she will, I presume, be forced to undergo.\" \"No doubt; no doubt,\" said Mr. Furnival; and then the interview\r\nhad ended. The lawyer had been anxious to see his client, and had\r\nintended to ask permission to do so; but he had felt on hearing Sir\r\nPeregrine's tidings that it would be useless now to make any attempt\r\nto see her alone, and that he could speak to her with no freedom\r\nin Sir Peregrine's presence. So he left The Cleeve, having merely\r\nintimated to the baronet the fact of his having engaged the services\r\nof Mr. Chaffanbrass and Mr. Solomon Aram. \"You will not see Lady\r\nMason?\" Sir Peregrine had asked."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Thank you; I do not know that\r\nI need trouble her,\" Mr. Furnival had answered. \"You of course\r\nwill explain to her how the case at present stands. I fear she\r\nmust reconcile herself to the fact of a trial. You are aware, Sir\r\nPeregrine, that the offence imputed is one for which bail will be\r\ntaken. I should propose yourself and her son. Of course I should be\r\nhappy to lend my own name, but as I shall be on the trial, perhaps it\r\nmay be as well that this should be avoided.\" Bail will be taken! These words were dreadful in the ears of the\r\nexpectant bridegroom. Had it come to this; that there was a question\r\nwhether or no she should be locked up in a prison, like a felon? But\r\nnevertheless his heart did not misgive him. Seeing how terribly she\r\nwas injured by others, he felt himself bound by the stronger law to\r\ncling to her himself. Such was the special chivalry of the man. Mr. Furnival on his return to London thought almost more of Sir\r\nPeregrine than he did either of Lady Mason or of himself. Was it not\r\na pity? Was it not a thousand pities that that aged noble gentleman\r\nshould be sacrificed? He had felt angry with Sir Peregrine when the\r\ntidings were first communicated to him; but now, as he journeyed up\r\nto London this feeling of anger was transferred to his own client."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This must be her doing, and such doing on her part, while she was in\r\nher present circumstances, was very wicked. And then he remembered\r\nher guilt,--her probable guilt, and his brow became very black. Her\r\nsupposed guilt had not been horrible to him while he had regarded it\r\nas affecting herself alone, and in point of property affecting Joseph\r\nMason and her son Lucius. He could look forward, sometimes almost\r\ntriumphantly, to the idea of washing her--so far as this world's\r\nwashing goes--from that guilt, and setting her up again clear before\r\nthe world, even though in doing so he should lend a hand in robbing\r\nJoseph Mason of his estate. But this dragging down of another--and\r\nsuch another--head into the vortex of ruin and misery was horrible to\r\nhim. He was not straitlaced, or mealy-mouthed, or overburthened with\r\nscruples. In the way of his profession he could do many a thing at\r\nwhich--I express a single opinion with much anxious deference--at\r\nwhich an honest man might be scandalized if it came beneath his\r\njudgment unprofessionally. But this he could not stand. Something\r\nmust be done in the matter. The marriage must be stayed till after\r\nthe trial,--or else he must himself retire from the defence and\r\nexplain both to Lady Mason and to Sir Peregrine why he did so. And then he thought of the woman herself, and his spirit within him\r\nbecame very bitter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had any one told him that he was jealous of the\r\npreference shown by his client to Sir Peregrine, he would have fumed\r\nwith anger, and thought that he was fuming justly. But such was in\r\ntruth the case. Though he believed her to have been guilty of this\r\nthing, though he believed her to be now guilty of the worse offence\r\nof dragging the baronet to his ruin, still he was jealous of her\r\nregard. Had she been content to lean upon him, to trust to him as her\r\ngreat and only necessary friend, he could have forgiven all else, and\r\nplaced at her service the full force of his professional power,--even\r\nthough by doing so he might have lowered himself in men's minds. And\r\nwhat reward did he expect? None. He had formed no idea that the woman\r\nwould become his mistress. All that was as obscure before his mind's\r\neye, as though she had been nineteen and he five-and-twenty. He was to dine at home on this day, that being the first occasion of\r\nhis doing so for--as Mrs. Furnival declared--the last six months. In\r\ntruth, however, the interval had been long, though not so long as\r\nthat. He had a hope that having announced his intention, he might\r\nfind the coast clear and hear Martha Biggs spoken of as a dear\r\none lately gone. But when he arrived at home Martha Biggs was\r\nstill there."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Under circumstances as they now existed Mrs. Furnival\r\nhad determined to keep Martha Biggs by her, unless any special\r\nedict for her banishment should come forth. Then, in case of such\r\nspecial edict, Martha Biggs should go, and thence should arise the\r\nnew casus belli. Mrs. Furnival had made up her mind that war was\r\nexpedient,--nay, absolutely necessary. She had an idea, formed no\r\ndoubt from the reading of history, that some allies require a smart\r\nbrush now and again to blow away the clouds of distrust which become\r\nengendered by time between them; and that they may become better\r\nallies than ever afterwards. If the appropriate time for such a brush\r\nmight ever come, it had come now. All the world,--so she said to\r\nherself,--was talking of Mr. Furnival and Lady Mason. All the world\r\nknew of her injuries. Martha Biggs was second cousin to Mr. Crook's brother's wife--I speak\r\nof that Mr. Crook who had been professionally known for the last\r\nthirty years as the partner of Mr. Round. It had been whispered in\r\nthe office in Bedford Row--such whisper I fear originating with old\r\nRound--that Mr. Furnival admired his fair client. Hence light had\r\nfallen upon the eyes of Martha Biggs, and the secret of her friend\r\nwas known to her. Need I trace the course of the tale with closer\r\naccuracy? \"Oh, Kitty,\" she had said to her friend with tears that evening--\"I\r\ncannot bear to keep it to myself any more!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I cannot when I see you\r\nsuffering so. It's awful.\" \"Cannot bear to keep what, Martha?\" \"Oh, I know. Indeed all the town knows it now.\" \"Knows what? You know how I hate that kind of thing. If you have\r\nanything to say, speak out.\" This was not kind to such a faithful friend as Martha Biggs; but\r\nMartha knew what sacrifices friendship such as hers demanded, and she\r\ndid not resent it. \"Well then;--if I am to speak out, it's--Lady Mason. And I do say\r\nthat it's shameful, quite shameful;--and awful; I call it awful.\" Mrs. Furnival had not said much at the time to encourage the fidelity\r\nof her friend, but she was thus justified in declaring to herself\r\nthat her husband's goings on had become the talk of all the\r\nworld;--and his goings on especially in that quarter in which she\r\nhad long regarded them with so much dismay. She was not therefore\r\nprepared to welcome him on this occasion of his coming home to dinner\r\nby such tokens of friendly feeling as the dismissal of her friend to\r\nRed Lion Square. When the moment for absolute war should come Martha\r\nBiggs should be made to depart. Mr. Furnival when he arrived at his own house was in a thoughtful\r\nmood, and disposed for quiet and domestic meditation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had Miss Biggs\r\nnot been there he could have found it in his heart to tell everything\r\nabout Lady Mason to his wife, asking her counsel as to what he should\r\ndo with reference to that marriage. Could he have done so, all would\r\nhave been well; but this was not possible while that red-faced lump\r\nof a woman from Red Lion Square sat in his drawing-room, making\r\neverything uncomfortable. The three sat down to dinner together, and very little was said\r\nbetween them. Mr. Furnival did try to be civil to his wife, but wives\r\nsometimes have a mode of declining such civilities without committing\r\nthemselves to overt acts of war. To Miss Biggs Mr. Furnival could not\r\nbring himself to say anything civil, seeing that he hated her; but\r\nsuch words as he did speak to her she received with grim griffin-like\r\nausterity, as though she were ever meditating on the awfulness of his\r\nconduct. And so in truth she was. Why his conduct was more awful in\r\nher estimation since she had heard Lady Mason's name mentioned, than\r\nwhen her mind had been simply filled with general ideas of vague\r\nconjugal infidelity, I cannot say; but such was the case. \"I call it\r\nawful,\" were the first words she again spoke when she found herself\r\nonce more alone with Mrs. Furnival in the drawing-room."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then\r\nshe sat down over the fire, thinking neither of her novel nor her\r\nknitting, with her mind deliciously filled with the anticipation of\r\ncoming catastrophes. \"If I sit up after half-past ten would you mind going to bed?\" said\r\nMrs. Furnival, when they had been in the drawing-room about ten\r\nminutes. \"Oh no, not in the least,\" said Miss Biggs. \"I'll be sure to go.\" But she thought it very unkind, and she felt as a child does who is\r\ndeceived in a matter of being taken to the play. If no one goes the\r\nchild can bear it. But to see others go, and to be left behind, is\r\ntoo much for the feelings of any child,--or of Martha Biggs. Mr. Furnival had no inclination for sitting alone over his wine on\r\nthis occasion. Had it been possible for him he would have preferred\r\nto have gone quickly up stairs, and to have taken his cup of coffee\r\nfrom his wife's hand with some appreciation of domestic comfort. But\r\nthere could be no such comfort to him while Martha Biggs was there,\r\nso he sat down stairs, sipping his port according to his custom, and\r\nlooking into the fire for a solution of his difficulties about Lady\r\nMason. He began to wish that he had never seen Lady Mason, and to\r\nreflect that the intimate friendship of pretty women often brings\r\nwith it much trouble. He was resolved on one thing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He would not go\r\ndown into court and fight that battle for Lady Orme. Were he to do so\r\nthe matter would have taken quite a different phase,--one that he had\r\nnot at all anticipated. In case that his present client should then\r\nhave become Lady Orme, Mr. Chaffanbrass and Mr. Solomon Aram might\r\ncarry on the battle between them, with such assistance as they might\r\nbe able to get from Messrs. Slow and Bideawhile. He became angry as\r\nhe drank his port, and in his anger he swore that it should be so. And then as his anger became hot at the close of his libations, he\r\nremembered that Martha Biggs was up stairs, and became more angry\r\nstill. And thus when he did go into the drawing-room at some time in\r\nthe evening not much before ten, he was not in a frame of mind likely\r\nto bring about domestic comfort. He walked across the drawing-room, sat down in an arm-chair by the\r\ntable, and took up the last number of a review, without speaking to\r\neither of them. Whereupon Mrs. Furnival began to ply her needle which\r\nhad been lying idly enough upon her work, and Martha Biggs fixed\r\nher eyes intently upon her book. So they sat twenty minutes without\r\na word being spoken, and then Mrs. Furnival inquired of her lord\r\nwhether he chose to have tea. \"Of course I shall,--when you have it,\" said he. \"Don't mind us,\" said Mrs. Furnival."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Pray don't mind me,\" said Martha Biggs. \"Don't let me be in the\r\nway.\" \"No, I won't,\" said Mr. Furnival. Whereupon Miss Biggs again jumped\r\nup in her chair as though she had been electrified. It may be\r\nremembered that on a former occasion Mr. Furnival had sworn at\r\nher--or at least in her presence. \"You need not be rude to a lady in your own house, because she is my\r\nfriend,\" said Mrs. Furnival. \"Bother,\" said Mr. Furnival. \"And now if we are going to have any\r\ntea, let us have it.\" \"I don't think I'll mind about tea to-night, Mrs. Furnival,\" said\r\nMiss Biggs, having received a notice from her friend's eye that it\r\nmight be well for her to depart. \"My head aches dreadful, and I shall\r\nbe better in bed. Good-night, Mrs. Furnival.\" And then she took her\r\ncandle and went away. For the next five minutes there was not a word said. No tea had been\r\nordered, although it had been mentioned. Mrs. Furnival had forgotten\r\nit among the hot thoughts that were running through her mind, and Mr.\r\nFurnival was indifferent upon the subject. He knew that something was\r\ncoming, and he resolved that he would have the upper hand let that\r\nsomething be what it might. He was being ill used,--so he said to\r\nhimself--and would not put up with it. At last the battle began. He was not looking, but he heard her first\r\nmovement as she prepared herself. \"Tom!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "she said, and then the voice\r\nof the war goddess was again silent. He did not choose to answer her\r\nat the instant, and then the war goddess rose from her seat and again\r\nspoke. \"Tom!\" she said, standing over him and looking at him. \"What is it you mean?\" said he, allowing his eyes to rise to her face\r\nover the top of his book. \"Tom!\" she said for the third time. \"I'll have no nonsense, Kitty,\" said he. \"If you have anything to\r\nsay, say it.\" Even then she had intended to be affectionate,--had so intended at\r\nthe first commencement of her address. She had no wish to be a war\r\ngoddess. But he had assisted her attempt at love by no gentle word,\r\nby no gentle look, by no gentle motion. \"I have this to say,\" she\r\nreplied; \"you are disgracing both yourself and me, and I will not\r\nremain in this house to be a witness to it.\" \"Then you may go out of the house.\" These words, be it remembered,\r\nwere uttered not by the man himself, but by the spirit of port wine\r\nwithin the man. \"Tom, do you say that;--after all?\" \"By heavens I do say it! I'll not be told in my own drawing-room,\r\neven by you, that I am disgracing myself.\" \"Then why do you go after that woman down to Hamworth? All the world\r\nis talking of you. At your age too! You ought to be ashamed of\r\nyourself.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I can't stand this,\" said he, getting up and throwing the book from\r\nhim right across the drawing-room floor; \"and, by heavens! I won't\r\nstand it.\" \"Then why do you do it, sir?\" \"Kitty, I believe the devil must have entered into you to drive you\r\nmad.\" \"Oh, oh, oh! very well, sir. The devil in the shape of drink\r\nand lust has entered into you. But you may understand this;\r\nI--will--not--consent to live with you while such deeds as these are\r\nbeing done.\" And then without waiting for another word, she stormed\r\nout of the room. VOLUME II. CHAPTER XLI. HOW CAN I SAVE HIM? \"I will not consent to live with you while such deeds as these are\r\nbeing done.\" Such were the last words which Mrs. Furnival spoke as\r\nshe walked out of her own drawing-room, leaving her husband still\r\nseated in his arm-chair. What was he to do? Those who would hang by the letter of the law in\r\nsuch matters may say that he should have rung the bell, sent for his\r\nwife, explained to her that obedience was a necessary duty on her\r\npart, and have finished by making her understand that she must and\r\nwould continue to live wherever he chose that she should live. There\r\nbe those who say that if a man be anything of a man, he can always\r\ninsure obedience in his own household."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He has the power of the purse\r\nand the power of the law; and if, having these, he goes to the wall,\r\nit must be because he is a poor creature. Those who so say have\r\nprobably never tried the position. Mr. Furnival did not wish to send for his wife, because by doing so\r\nhe would have laid bare his sore before his servants. He could not\r\nfollow her, because he knew that he should not find her alone in her\r\nroom. Nor did he wish for any further parley, because he knew that\r\nshe would speak loud, and probably sob--nay, very possibly proceed to\r\na fainting fit. And, moreover, he much doubted whether he would have\r\nthe power to keep her in the house if it should be her pleasure to\r\nleave it. And then what should he do? The doing of something in such\r\na catastrophe was, he thought, indispensable. Was ever a man so ill treated? Was ever jealousy so groundless? Here\r\nwas a woman, with whom he was on the point of quarrelling, who was\r\nengaged to be married to another man, whom for months past he had\r\nonly seen as a client; and on her account he was to be told by his\r\nwife that she would not consent to live with him! Yes; it was quite\r\nindispensable that he should do something. At last he went to bed, and slept upon it; not sharing the marital\r\ncouch, but occupying his own dressing-room."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the morning, however,\r\nas he sat down to his solitary breakfast, he was as far as ever from\r\nhaving made up his mind what that something should be. A message\r\nwas brought to him by an elderly female servant with a grave\r\nface,--the elderly servant who had lived with them since their\r\npoorer days,--saying that \"Missus would not come down to breakfast\r\nthis morning.\" There was no love sent, no excuse as to illness, no\r\nsemblance of a peaceable reason, assumed even to deceive the servant. It was clear to Mr. Furnival that the servant was intended to know\r\nall about it. \"And Miss Biggs says, sir, that if you please you're\r\nnot to wait for her.\" \"Very well, that'll do,\" said Mr. Furnival, who had not the slightest\r\nintention of waiting for Miss Biggs; and then he sat himself down to\r\neat his bacon, and bethink himself what step he would take with this\r\nrecreant and troublesome spouse. While he was thus employed the post came. The bulk of his letters as\r\na matter of course went to his chambers; but there were those among\r\nhis correspondents who wrote to him at Harley Street. To-day he\r\nreceived three or four letters, but our concern will be with one\r\nonly. This one bore the Hamworth post-mark, and he opened it the\r\nfirst, knowing that it came from Lady Mason. It was as follows:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   _Private_\r\n\r\n   THE CLEEVE, 23rd January, 18--."}
{"question": "", "answer": "MY DEAR MR. FURNIVAL,\r\n\r\n   I am so very sorry that I did not see you to-day! Indeed,\r\n   your leaving without seeing me has made me unhappy, for I\r\n   cannot but think that it shows that you are displeased. Under these circumstances I must write to you and explain\r\n   to you how that came to pass which Sir Peregrine told you. I have not let him know that I am writing to you, and I\r\n   think for his sake that I had better not. But he is so\r\n   good, and has shown to me such nobleness and affection,\r\n   that I can hardly bring myself to have any secret from\r\n   him. You may conceive what was my surprise when I first\r\n   understood that he wished to make me his wife. It is\r\n   hardly six months since I thought that I was almost\r\n   exceeding my station in visiting at his house. Then by\r\n   degrees I began to be received as a friend, and at last I\r\n   found myself treated with the warmest love. But still I\r\n   had no thought of this, and I knew that it was because of\r\n   my great trouble that Sir Peregrine and Mrs. Orme were so\r\n   good to me. When he sent for me into his library and told me what\r\n   he wished, I could not refuse him anything. I promised\r\n   obedience to him as though I were a child; and in this way\r\n   I found myself engaged to be his wife."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When he told me\r\n   that he would have it so, how could I refuse him, knowing\r\n   as I do all that he has done for me, and thinking of it\r\n   as I do every minute? As for loving him, of course I love\r\n   him. Who that knows him does not love him? He is made to\r\n   be loved. No one is so good and so noble as he. But of\r\n   love of that sort I had never dreamed. Ah me, no!--a woman\r\n   burdened as I am does not think of love. He told me that he would have it so, and I said that I\r\n   would obey him; and he tried to prove to me that in this\r\n   dreadful trial it would be better for me. But I would not\r\n   wish it on that account. He has done enough for me without\r\n   my causing him such injury. When I argued it with him,\r\n   trying to say that others would not like it, he declared\r\n   that Mrs. Orme would be well pleased, and, indeed, so she\r\n   told me afterwards herself. And thus I yielded to him,\r\n   and agreed that I would be his wife. But I was not happy,\r\n   thinking that I should injure him; and I promised only\r\n   because I could not deny him. But the day before yesterday young Mr. Orme, his grandson,\r\n   came to me and told me that such a marriage would be very\r\n   wrong. And I do believe him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He said that old family\r\n   friends would look down upon his grandfather and ridicule\r\n   him if he were to make this marriage. And I can see that\r\n   it would be so. I would not have such injury come upon him\r\n   for the gain of all the world to myself. So I have made\r\n   up my mind to tell him that it cannot be, even though I\r\n   should anger him. And I fear that it will anger him, for\r\n   he loves to have his own way,--especially in doing good;\r\n   and he thinks that our marriage would rescue me altogether\r\n   from the danger of this trial. So I have made up my mind to tell him, but I have not\r\n   found courage to do it yet; and I do wish, dear Mr.\r\n   Furnival, that I might see you first. I fear that I may\r\n   have lost your friendship by what has already been done. If so, what will become of me? When I heard that you had\r\n   gone without asking for me, my heart sank within me. I\r\n   have two friends whom I so dearly love, and I would fain\r\n   do as both direct me, if that may be possible. And now I\r\n   propose to go up to London to-morrow, and to be at your\r\n   chambers about one o'clock. I have told Sir Peregrine and\r\n   Mrs. Orme that I am going; but he is too noble-minded\r\n   to ask questions now that he thinks I may feel myself\r\n   constrained to tell him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So I will call in Lincoln's Inn\r\n   at one o'clock, and I trust that if possible you will see\r\n   me. I am greatly in want of your advice, for in truth I\r\n   hardly know what to do. Pray believe me to be always your attached friend,\r\n\r\n   MARY MASON. There was hardly a word,--I believe not a word in that letter that\r\nwas not true. Her acceptance of Sir Peregrine had been given exactly\r\nin the manner and for the reasons there explained; and since she had\r\naccepted him she had been sorry for having done so, exactly in the\r\nway now described. She was quite willing to give up her husband if it\r\nwas thought best,--but she was not willing to give up her friend. She\r\nwas not willing to give up either friend, and her great anxiety was\r\nso to turn her conduct that she might keep them both. Mr. Furnival was gratified as he read the letter--gratified in spite\r\nof his present frame of mind. Of course he would see her;--and of\r\ncourse, as he himself well knew, would take her again into favour. But he must insist on her carrying out her purpose of abandoning the\r\nmarriage project. If, arising from this abandonment, there should\r\nbe any coolness on the part of Sir Peregrine, Mr. Furnival would\r\nnot regret it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Furnival did not feel quite sure whether in the\r\nconduct of this case he was not somewhat hampered by the--energetic\r\nzeal of Sir Peregrine's line of defence. When he had finished the perusal of his letter and the consideration\r\nwhich it required, he put it carefully into his breast coat pocket,\r\nenvelope and all. What might not happen if he left that envelope\r\nabout in that house? And then he took it out again, and observed upon\r\nthe cover the Hamworth post-mark, very clear. Post-marks now-a-days\r\nare very clear, and everybody may know whence a letter comes. His\r\nletters had been brought to him by the butler; but was it not\r\nprobable that that ancient female servant might have seen them first,\r\nand have conveyed to her mistress intelligence as to this post-mark? If so--; and Mr. Furnival almost felt himself to be guilty as he\r\nthought of it. While he was putting on his greatcoat in the hall, the butler\r\nassisting him, the ancient female servant came to him again. There\r\nwas a look about her face which told of war, and declared her\r\nto be, if not the chief lieutenant of his wife, at any rate her\r\ncolour-serjeant. Martha Biggs no doubt was chief lieutenant. \"Missus\r\ndesires me to ask,\" said she, with her grim face and austere voice,\r\n\"whether you will be pleased to dine at home to-day?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And yet the\r\ngrim, austere woman could be affectionate and almost motherly in her\r\nministrations to him when things were going well, and had eaten his\r\nsalt and broken his bread for more than twenty years. All this was\r\nvery hard! \"Because,\" continued the woman, \"missus says she thinks\r\nshe shall be out this evening herself.\" \"Where is she going?\" \"Missus didn't tell me, sir.\" He almost determined to go up stairs and call upon her to tell him\r\nwhat she was going to do, but he remembered that if he did it would\r\nsurely make a row in the house. Miss Biggs would put her head out\r\nof some adjacent door and scream, \"Oh laws!\" and he would have to\r\ndescend his own stairs with the consciousness that all his household\r\nwere regarding him as a brute. So he gave up that project. \"No,\" he\r\nsaid, \"I shall not dine at home;\" and then he went his way. \"Missus is very aggravating,\" said the butler, as soon as the door\r\nwas closed. \"You don't know what cause she has, Spooner,\" said the housekeeper\r\nvery solemnly. \"Is it at his age? I believe it's all nonsense, I do;--feminine\r\nfancies, and vagaries of the weaker sex.\" \"Yes, I dare say; that's what you men always say. But if he don't\r\nlook out he'll find missus'll be too much for him. What'd he do if\r\nshe were to go away from him?\" \"Do?--why live twice as jolly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It would only be the first rumpus of\r\nthe thing.\" I am afraid that there was some truth in what Spooner said. It is the\r\nfirst rumpus of the thing, or rather the fear of that, which keeps\r\ntogether many a couple. At one o'clock there came a timid female rap at Mr. Furnival's\r\nchamber door, and the juvenile clerk gave admittance to Lady Mason. Crabwitz, since the affair of that mission down at Hamworth, had\r\nso far carried a point of his, that a junior satellite was now\r\npermanently installed; and for the future the indignity of opening\r\ndoors, and \"just stepping out\" into Chancery Lane, would not await\r\nhim. Lady Mason was dressed all in black,--but this was usual\r\nwith her when she left home. To-day, however, there was about her\r\nsomething blacker and more sombre than usual. The veil which she wore\r\nwas thick, and completely hid her face; and her voice, as she asked\r\nfor Mr. Furnival, was low and plaintive. But, nevertheless, she had\r\nby no means laid aside the charm of womanhood; or it might be more\r\njust to say that the charm of womanhood had not laid aside her. There\r\nwas that in her figure, step, and gait of going which compelled men\r\nto turn round and look at her. We all know that she had a son some\r\ntwo or three and twenty years of age, and that she had not been quite\r\na girl when she married."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, notwithstanding this, she was yet\r\nyoung; and though she made no effort--no apparent effort--to maintain\r\nthe power and influence which beauty gives, yet she did maintain it. He came forward and took her by the hand with all his old\r\naffectionate regard, and, muttering some words of ordinary\r\nsalutation, led her to a chair. It may be that she muttered something\r\nalso, but if so the sound was too low to reach his ears. She sat down\r\nwhere he placed her, and as she put her hand on the table near her\r\narm, he saw that she was trembling. \"I got your letter this morning,\" he said, by way of beginning the\r\nconversation. \"Yes,\" she said; and then, finding that it was not possible that he\r\nshould hear her through her veil, she raised it. She was very pale,\r\nand there was a look of painful care, almost of agony, round her\r\nmouth. He had never seen her look so pale,--but he said to himself at\r\nthe same time that he had never seen her look so beautiful. \"And to tell you the truth, Lady Mason, I was very glad to get it. You and I had better speak openly to each other about this;--had we\r\nnot?\" \"Oh, yes,\" she said. And then there was a struggle within her not to\r\ntremble--a struggle that was only too evident. She was aware of this,\r\nand took her hand off the table."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I vexed you because I did not see you at The Cleeve the other day.\" \"Because I thought that you were angry with me.\" \"And I was so.\" \"Oh, Mr. Furnival!\" \"Wait a moment, Lady Mason. I was angry;--or rather sorry and\r\nvexed to hear of that which I did not approve. But your letter has\r\nremoved that feeling. I can now understand the manner in which\r\nthis engagement was forced upon you; and I understand also--do I\r\nnot?--that the engagement will not be carried out?\" She did not answer him immediately, and he began to fear that\r\nshe repented of her purpose. \"Because,\" said he, \"under no other\r\ncircumstances could I--\"\r\n\r\n\"Stop, Mr. Furnival. Pray do not be severe with me.\" And she looked\r\nat him with eyes which would almost have melted his wife,--and which\r\nhe was quite unable to withstand. Had it been her wish, she might\r\nhave made him promise to stand by her, even though she had persisted\r\nin her engagement. \"No, no; I will not be severe.\" \"I do not wish to marry him,\" she went on to say. \"I have resolved to\r\ntell him so. That was what I said in my letter.\" \"Yes, yes.\" \"I do not wish to marry him. I would not bring his gray hairs with\r\nsorrow to the grave--no, not to save myself from--\" And then, as she\r\nthought of that from which she desired to save herself, she trembled\r\nagain, and was silent."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It would create in men's minds such a strong impression against you,\r\nwere you to marry him at this moment!\" \"It is of him I am thinking;--of him and Lucius. Mr. Furnival, they\r\nmight do their worst with me, if it were not for that thought. My\r\nboy!\" And then she rose from her chair, and stood upright before him,\r\nas though she were going to do or say some terrible thing. He still\r\nkept his chair, for he was startled, and hardly knew what he would be\r\nabout. That last exclamation had come from her almost with a shriek,\r\nand now her bosom was heaving as though her heart would burst with\r\nthe violence of her sobbing. \"I will go,\" she said. \"I had better\r\ngo.\" And she hurried away towards the door. \"No, no; do not go yet.\" And he rose to stop her, but she was quite\r\npassive. \"I do not know why you should be so much moved now.\" But\r\nhe did know. He did understand the very essence and core of her\r\nfeelings;--as probably may the reader also. But it was impossible\r\nthat he should allow her to leave him in her present state. She sat down again, and leaning both her arms upon the table, hid\r\nher face within her hands. He was now standing, and for the moment\r\ndid not speak to her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Indeed he could not bring himself to break the\r\nsilence, for he saw her tears, and could still hear the violence of\r\nher sobs. And then she was the first to speak. \"If it were not for\r\nhim,\" she said, raising her head, \"I could bear it all. What will he\r\ndo? what will he do?\" \"You mean,\" said Mr. Furnival, speaking very slowly, \"if\r\nthe--verdict--should go against us.\" \"It will go against us,\" she said. \"Will it not?--tell me the truth. You are so clever, you must know. Tell me how it will go. Is there\r\nanything I can do to save him?\" And she took hold of his arm with\r\nboth her hands, and looked up eagerly--oh, with such terrible\r\neagerness!--into his face. Would it not have been natural now that he should have asked her to\r\ntell him the truth? And yet he did not dare to ask her. He thought\r\nthat he knew it. He felt sure,--almost sure, that he could look into\r\nher very heart, and read there the whole of her secret. But still\r\nthere was a doubt,--enough of doubt to make him wish to ask the\r\nquestion. Nevertheless he did not ask it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Mr. Furnival,\" she said; and as she spoke there was a hardness came\r\nover the soft lines of her feminine face; a look of courage which\r\namounted almost to ferocity, a look which at the moment recalled\r\nto his mind, as though it were but yesterday, the attitude and\r\ncountenance she had borne as she stood in the witness-box at that\r\nother trial, now so many years since,--that attitude and countenance\r\nwhich had impressed the whole court with so high an idea of her\r\ncourage. \"Mr. Furnival, weak as I am, I could bear to die here on the\r\nspot,--now--if I could only save him from this agony. It is not for\r\nmyself I suffer.\" And then the terrible idea occurred to him that she\r\nmight attempt to compass her escape by death. But he did not know\r\nher. That would have been no escape for her son. \"And you too think that I must not marry him?\" she said, putting up\r\nher hands to her brows as though to collect her thoughts. \"No; certainly not, Lady Mason.\" \"No, no. It would be wrong. But, Mr. Furnival, I am so driven that I\r\nknow not how I should act. What if I should lose my mind?\" And as she\r\nlooked at him there was that about her eyes which did tell him that\r\nsuch an ending might be possible. \"Do not speak in such a way,\" he said. \"No, I will not. I know that it is wrong."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I will go down there, and\r\ntell him that it must not--must not be so. But I may stay at The\r\nCleeve;--may I not?\" \"Oh, certainly--if he wishes it,--after your understanding with him.\" \"Ah; he may turn me out, may he not? And they are so kind to me,\r\nso gentle and so good. And Lucius is so stern. But I will go back. Sternness will perhaps be better for me now than love and kindness.\" In spite of everything, in the teeth of his almost certain conviction\r\nof her guilt, he would now, even now, have asked her to come to his\r\nown house, and have begged her to remain there till the trial was\r\nover,--if only he had had the power to do so. What would it be to him\r\nwhat the world might say, if she should be proved guilty? Why should\r\nnot he have been mistaken as well as others? And he had an idea\r\nthat if he could get her into his own hands he might still bring\r\nher through triumphantly,--with assistance from Solomon Aram and\r\nChaffanbrass. He was strongly convinced of her guilt, but by no means\r\nstrongly convinced that her guilt could be proved. But then he had no\r\nhouse at the present moment that he could call his own."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His Kitty,\r\nthe Kitty of whom he still sometimes thought with affection,--that\r\nKitty whose soft motherly heart would have melted at such a story\r\nof a woman's sorrows, if only it had been rightly approached,--that\r\nKitty was now vehemently hostile, hostile both to him and to this\r\nvery woman for whom he would have asked her care. \"May God help me!\" said the poor woman. \"I do not know where else to\r\nturn for aid. Well; I may go now then. And, indeed, why should I take\r\nup your time further?\" But before she did go, Mr. Furnival gave her much counsel. He did not\r\nask as to her guilt, but he did give her that advice which he would\r\nhave thought most expedient had her guilt been declared and owned. He\r\ntold her that very much would depend on her maintaining her present\r\nposition and standing; that she was so to carry herself as not to\r\nlet people think that she was doubtful about the trial; and that\r\nabove all things she was to maintain a composed and steadfast manner\r\nbefore her son. As to the Ormes, he bade her not to think of leaving\r\nThe Cleeve, unless she found that her remaining there would be\r\ndisagreeable to Sir Peregrine after her explanation with him. That\r\nshe was to decline the marriage engagement, he was very positive; on\r\nthat subject there was to be no doubt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then she went; and as she passed down the dark passage into the\r\nnew square by the old gate of the Chancellor's court, she met a stout\r\nlady. The stout lady eyed her savagely, but was not quite sure as to\r\nher identity. Lady Mason in her trouble passed the stout lady without\r\ntaking any notice of her. CHAPTER XLII. JOHN KENNEBY GOES TO HAMWORTH. When John Kenneby dined with his sister and brother-in-law on\r\nChristmas-day he agreed, at the joint advice of the whole party there\r\nassembled, that he would go down and see Mr. Dockwrath at Hamworth,\r\nin accordance with the invitation received from that gentleman;--his\r\nenemy, Dockwrath, who had carried off Miriam Usbech, for whom John\r\nKenneby still sighed,--in a gentle easy manner indeed,--but still\r\nsighed as though it were an affair but of yesterday. But though he\r\nhad so agreed, and though he had never stirred from that resolve, he\r\nby no means did it immediately. He was a slow man, whose life had\r\noffered him but little excitement; and the little which came to him\r\nwas husbanded well and made to go a long way. He thought about this\r\njourney for nearly a month before he took it, often going to his\r\nsister and discussing it with her, and once or twice seeing the great\r\nMoulder himself. At last he fixed a day and did go down to Hamworth. He had, moreover, been invited to the offices of Messrs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Round and\r\nCrook, and that visit also was as yet unpaid. A clerk from the house\r\nin Bedford Row had found him out at Hubbles and Grease's, and had\r\ndiscovered that he would be forthcoming as a witness. On the special\r\nsubject of his evidence not much had then passed, the clerk having\r\nhad no discretion given him to sift the matter. But Kenneby had\r\npromised to go to Bedford Row, merely stipulating for a day at some\r\nlittle distance of time. That day was now near at hand; but he was\r\nto see Dockwrath first, and hence it occurred that he now made his\r\njourney to Hamworth. But another member of that Christmas party at Great St. Helen's had\r\nnot been so slow in carrying out his little project. Mr. Kantwise had\r\nat once made up his mind that it would be as well that he should see\r\nDockwrath. It would not suit him to incur the expense of a journey\r\nto Hamworth, even with the additional view of extracting payment for\r\nthat set of metallic furniture; but he wrote to the attorney telling\r\nhim that he should be in London in the way of trade on such and such\r\na day, and that he had tidings of importance to give with reference\r\nto the great Orley Farm case."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dockwrath did see him, and the result\r\nwas that Mr. Kantwise got his money, fourteen eleven;--at least he\r\ngot fourteen seven six, and had a very hard fight for the three odd\r\nhalf-crowns,--and Dockwrath learned that John Kenneby, if duly used,\r\nwould give evidence on his side of the question. And then Kenneby did go down to Hamworth. He had not seen Miriam\r\nUsbech since the days of her marriage. He had remained hanging\r\nabout the neighbourhood long enough to feast his eyes with the\r\nagony of looking at the bride, and then he had torn himself away. Circumstances since that had carried him one way and Miriam another,\r\nand they had never met. Time had changed him very little, and what\r\nchange time had made was perhaps for the better. He hesitated\r\nless when he spoke, he was less straggling and undecided in his\r\nappearance, and had about him more of manhood than in former days. But poor Miriam had certainly not been altered for the better by\r\nyears and circumstances as far as outward appearance went. Kenneby as he walked up from the station to the house,--and from old\r\nremembrances he knew well where the house stood,--gave up his mind\r\nentirely to the thought of seeing Miriam, and in his memories of old\r\nlove passages almost forgot the actual business which now brought him\r\nto the place."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To him it seemed as though he was going to meet the\r\nsame Miriam he had left,--the Miriam to whom in former days he had\r\nhardly ventured to speak of love, and to whom he must not now venture\r\nso to speak at all. He almost blushed as he remembered that he would\r\nhave to take her hand. There are men of this sort, men slow in their thoughts but very keen\r\nin their memories; men who will look for the glance of a certain\r\nbright eye from a window-pane, though years have rolled on since\r\nlast they saw it,--since last they passed that window. Such men will\r\nbethink themselves, after an interval of weeks, how they might have\r\nbrought up wit to their use and improved an occasion which chance\r\nhad given them. But when the bright eyes do glance, such men pass\r\nby abashed; and when the occasion offers, their wit is never at\r\nhand. Nevertheless they are not the least happy of mankind, these\r\nnever-readies; they do not pick up sudden prizes, but they hold\r\nfast by such good things as the ordinary run of life bestows upon\r\nthem. There was a lady even now, a friend of Mrs. Moulder, ready to\r\nbestow herself and her fortune on John Kenneby,--a larger fortune\r\nthan Miriam had possessed, and one which would not now probably be\r\nneutralised by so large a family as poor Miriam had bestowed upon her\r\nhusband. How would Miriam meet him?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was of this he thought, as he\r\napproached the door. Of course he must call her Mrs. Dockwrath,\r\nthough the other name was so often on his tongue. He had made up\r\nhis mind, for the last week past, that he would call at the private\r\ndoor of the house, passing by the door of the office. Otherwise\r\nthe chances were that he would not see Miriam at all. His enemy,\r\nDockwrath, would be sure to keep him from her presence. Dockwrath had\r\never been inordinately jealous. But when he came to the office-door\r\nhe hardly had the courage to pass on to that of the private dwelling. His heart beat too quickly, and the idea of seeing Miriam was almost\r\ntoo much for him. But, nevertheless, he did carry out his plan, and\r\ndid knock at the door of the house. And it was opened by Miriam herself. He knew her instantly in spite\r\nof all the change. He knew her, but the whole course of his feelings\r\nwere altered at the moment, and his blood was made to run the other\r\nway. And she knew him too. \"La, John,\" she said, \"who'd have thought\r\nof seeing you?\" And she shifted the baby whom she carried from one\r\narm to the other as she gave him her hand in token of welcome. [Illustration: John Kenneby and Miriam Dockwrath.] \"It is a long time since we met,\" he said. He felt hardly any\r\ntemptation now to call her Miriam."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Indeed it would have seemed\r\naltogether in opposition to the common order of things to do so. She\r\nwas no longer Miriam, but the maternal Dockwrath;--the mother of that\r\nlong string of dirty children whom he saw gathered in the passage\r\nbehind her. He had known as a fact that she had all the children, but\r\nthe fact had not made the proper impression on his mind till he had\r\nseen them. \"A long time! 'Deed then it is. Why we've hardly seen each other\r\nsince you used to be a courting of me; have we? But, my! John; why\r\nhaven't you got a wife for yourself these many years? But come in. I'm glad to see every bit of you, so I am; though I've hardly a place\r\nto put you to sit down in.\" And then she opened a door and took him\r\ninto a little sitting-room on the left-hand side of the passage. His feeling of intense enmity to Dockwrath was beginning to wear\r\naway, and one of modified friendship for the whole family was\r\nsupervening. It was much better that it should be so. He could not\r\nunderstand before how Dockwrath had had the heart to write to him and\r\ncall him John, but now he did understand it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He felt that he could\r\nhimself be friendly with Dockwrath now, and forgive him all the\r\ninjury; he felt also that it would not go so much against the grain\r\nwith him to marry that friend as to whom his sister would so often\r\nsolicit him. \"I think you may venture to sit down upon them,\" said Miriam, \"though\r\nI can't say that I have ever tried myself.\" This speech referred to\r\nthe chairs with which her room was supplied, and which Kenneby seemed\r\nto regard with suspicion. \"They are very nice I'm sure,\" said he, \"but I don't think I ever saw\r\nany like them.\" \"Nor nobody else either. But don't you tell him so,\" and she nodded\r\nwith her head to the side of the house on which the office stood. \"I\r\nhad as nice a set of mahoganys as ever a woman could want, and bought\r\nwith my own money too, John; but he's took them away to furnish some\r\nof his lodgings opposite, and put them things here in their place. Don't, Sam; you'll have 'em all twisted about nohows in no time if\r\nyou go to use 'em in that way.\" \"I wants to see the pictur' on the table,\" said Sam. \"Drat the picture,\" said Mrs. Dockwrath."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It was hard, wasn't it,\r\nJohn, to see my own mahoganys, as I had rubbed with my own hands till\r\nthey was ever so bright, and as was bought with my own money too,\r\ntook away and them things brought here? Sam, if you twist that round\r\nany more, I'll box your ears. One can't hear oneself speak with the\r\nnoise.\" \"They don't seem to be very useful,\" said Kenneby. \"Useful! They're got up for cheatery;--that's what they're got up\r\nfor. And that Dockwrath should be took in with 'em--he that's so\r\nsharp at everything,--that's what surprises me. But laws, John, it\r\nisn't the sharp ones that gets the best off. You was never sharp, but\r\nyou're as smirk and smooth as though you came out of a band-box. I am\r\nglad to see you, John, so I am.\" And she put her apron up to her eyes\r\nand wiped away a tear. \"Is Mr. Dockwrath at home?\" said John. \"Sam, run round and see if your father's in the office. He'll be home\r\nto dinner, I know. Molly, do be quiet with your sister. I never see\r\nsuch a girl as you are for bothering. You didn't come down about\r\nbusiness, did you, John?\" And then Kenneby explained to her that he\r\nhad been summoned by Dockwrath as to the matter of this Orley Farm\r\ntrial."}
{"question": "", "answer": "While he was doing so, Sam returned to say that his father had\r\nstepped out, but would be back in half an hour, and Mrs. Dockwrath,\r\nfinding it impossible to make use of her company sitting-room, took\r\nher old lover into the family apartment which they all ordinarily\r\noccupied. \"You can sit down there at any rate without it all crunching under\r\nyou, up to nothing.\" And she emptied for him as she spoke the seat\r\nof an old well-worn horse-hair bottomed arm-chair. \"As to them tin\r\nthings I wouldn't trust myself on one of them; and so I told him,\r\nangry as it made him. But now about poor Lady Mason--. Sam and Molly,\r\nyou go into the garden, there's good children. They is so ready with\r\ntheir ears, John; and he contrives to get everything out of 'em. Now\r\ndo tell me about this.\" Kenneby could not help thinking that the love match between Miriam\r\nand her husband had not turned out in all respects well, and I fear\r\nthat he derived from the thought a certain feeling of consolation. \"He\" was spoken about in a manner that did not betoken unfailing love\r\nand perfect confidence. Perhaps Miriam was at this moment thinking\r\nthat she might have done better with her youth and her money! She\r\nwas thinking of nothing of the kind. Her mind was one that dwelt on\r\nthe present, not on the past."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was unhappy about her furniture,\r\nunhappy about the frocks of those four younger children, unhappy that\r\nthe loaves of bread went faster and faster every day, very unhappy\r\nnow at the savageness with which her husband prosecuted his anger\r\nagainst Lady Mason. But it did not occur to her to be unhappy because\r\nshe had not become Mrs. Kenneby. Mrs. Dockwrath had more to tell in the matter than had Kenneby, and\r\nwhen the elder of the children who were at home had been disposed of\r\nshe was not slow to tell it. \"Isn't it dreadful, John, to think that\r\nthey should come against her now, and the will all settled as it was\r\ntwenty year ago? But you won't say anything against her; will you\r\nnow, John? She was always a good friend to you; wasn't she? Though\r\nit wasn't much use; was it?\" It was thus that she referred to the\r\nbusiness before them, and to the love passages of her early youth at\r\nthe same time. \"It's a very dreadful affair,\" said Kenneby, very solemnly; \"and the\r\nmore I think of it the more dreadful it becomes.\" \"But you won't say anything against her, will you? You won't go over\r\nto his side; eh, John?\" \"I don't know much about sides,\" said he. \"He'll get himself into trouble with it; I know he will. I do so wish\r\nyou'd tell him, for he can't hurt you if you stand up to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If I\r\nspeak,--Lord bless you, I don't dare to call my soul my own for a\r\nweek afterwards.\" \"Is he so very--\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, dreadful, John. He's bid me never speak a word to her. But for\r\nall that I used till she went away down to The Cleeve yonder. And\r\nwhat do you think they say now? And I do believe it too. They say\r\nthat Sir Peregrine is going to make her his lady. If he does that it\r\nstands to reason that Dockwrath and Joseph Mason will get the worst\r\nof it. I'm sure I hope they will; only he'll be twice as hard if he\r\ndon't make money by it in some way.\" \"Will he, now?\" \"Indeed he will. You never knew anything like him for hardness if\r\nthings go wrong awhile. I know he's got lots of money, because he's\r\nalways buying up bits of houses; besides, what has he done with mine? but yet sometimes you'd hardly think he'd let me have bread enough\r\nfor the children--and as for clothes--!\" Poor Miriam! It seemed that\r\nher husband shared with her but few of the spoils or triumphs of his\r\nprofession. Tidings now came in from the office that Dockwrath was there. \"You'll\r\ncome round and eat a bit of dinner with us?\" said she, hesitatingly. He felt that she hesitated, and hesitated himself in his reply. \"He\r\nmust say something in the way of asking you, you know, and then say\r\nyou'll come."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His manner's nothing to you, you know. Do now. It does\r\nme good to look at you, John; it does indeed.\" And then, without\r\nmaking any promise, he left her and went round to the office. Kenneby had made up his mind, talking over the matter with Moulder\r\nand his sister, that he would be very reserved in any communication\r\nwhich he might make to Dockwrath as to his possible evidence at the\r\ncoming trial; but nevertheless when Dockwrath had got him into his\r\noffice, the attorney made him give a succinct account of everything\r\nhe knew, taking down his deposition in a regular manner. \"And now if\r\nyou'll just sign that,\" Dockwrath said to him when he had done. \"I don't know about signing,\" said Kenneby. \"A man should never write\r\nhis own name unless he knows why.\" \"You must sign your own deposition;\" and the attorney frowned at him\r\nand looked savage. \"What would a judge say to you in court if you had\r\nmade such a statement as this, affecting the character of a woman\r\nlike Lady Mason, and then had refused to sign it? You'd never be able\r\nto hold up your head again.\" \"Wouldn't I?\" said Kenneby gloomily; and he did sign it. This was a\r\ngreat triumph to Dockwrath. Mat Round had succeeded in getting the\r\ndeposition of Bridget Bolster, but he had got that of John Kenneby."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And now,\" said Dockwrath, \"I'll tell you what we'll do;--we'll go to\r\nthe Blue Posts--you remember the Blue Posts?--and I'll stand a beef\r\nsteak and a glass of brandy and water. I suppose you'll go back to\r\nLondon by the 3 P.M. train. We shall have lots of time.\" Kenneby said that he should go back by the 3 P.M. train, but he\r\ndeclined, with considerable hesitation, the beefsteak and brandy and\r\nwater. After what had passed between him and Miriam he could not go\r\nto the Blue Posts with her husband. \"Nonsense, man,\" said Dockwrath. \"You must dine somewhere.\" But Kenneby said that he should dine in London. He always preferred\r\ndining late. Besides, it was a long time since he had been at\r\nHamworth, and he was desirous of taking a walk that he might renew\r\nhis associations. \"Associations!\" said Dockwrath with a sneer. According to his ideas\r\na man could have no pleasant associations with a place unless he had\r\nmade money there or been in some way successful. Now John Kenneby\r\nhad enjoyed no success at Hamworth. \"Well then, if you prefer\r\nassociations to the Blue Posts I'll say good-bye to you. I don't\r\nunderstand it myself. We shall see each other at the trial you know.\" Kenneby with a sigh said that he supposed they should. \"Are you going into the house,\" said Dockwrath, \"to see her again?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "and he indicated with his head the side on which his wife was, as she\r\nbefore had indicated his side. \"Well, yes; I think I'll say good-bye.\" \"Don't be talking to her about this affair. She understands nothing\r\nabout it, and everything goes up to that woman at Orley Farm.\" And so\r\nthey parted. \"And he wanted you to go to the Blue Posts, did he?\" said Miriam when\r\nshe heard of the proposition. \"It's like him. If there is to be any\r\nmoney spent it's anywhere but at home.\" \"But I ain't going,\" said John. \"He'll go before the day's out, though he mayn't get his dinner\r\nthere. And he'll be ever so free when he's there. He'll stand brandy\r\nand water to half Hamworth when he thinks he can get anything by\r\nit; but if you'll believe me, John, though I've all the fag of the\r\nhouse on me, and all them children, I can't get a pint of beer--not\r\nregular--betwixt breakfast and bedtime.\" Poor Miriam! Why had she not\r\ntaken advice when she was younger? John Kenneby would have given her\r\nwhat beer was good for her, quite regularly. Then he went out and took his walk, sauntering away to the gate of\r\nOrley Farm, and looking up the avenue."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He ventured up some way, and\r\nthere at a distance before him he saw Lucius Mason walking up and\r\ndown, from the house towards the road and back again, swinging a\r\nheavy stick in his hand, with his hat pressed down over his brows. Kenneby had no desire to speak to him; so he returned to the gate,\r\nand thence went back to the station, escaping the town by a side\r\nlane; and in this way he got back to London without holding further\r\ncommunication with the people of Hamworth. CHAPTER XLIII. JOHN KENNEBY'S COURTSHIP. \"She's as sweet a temper, John, as ever stirred a lump of sugar in\r\nher tea,\" said Mrs. Moulder to her brother, as they sat together over\r\nthe fire in Great St. Helen's on that same evening,--after his return\r\nfrom Hamworth. \"That she is,--and so Smiley always found her. 'She's\r\nalways the same,' Smiley said to me many a day. And what can a man\r\nwant more than that?\" \"That's quite true,\" said John. \"And then as to her habits--I never knew her take a drop too much\r\nsince first I set eyes on her, and that's nigh twenty years ago. She\r\nlikes things comfortable;--and why shouldn't she, with two hundred a\r\nyear of her own coming out of the Kingsland Road brick-fields? As for\r\ndress, her things is beautiful, and she is the woman that takes care\r\nof 'em!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why, I remember an Irish tabinet as Smiley gave her when\r\nfirst that venture in the brick-fields came up money; if that tabinet\r\nis as much as turned yet, why, I'll eat it. And then, the best of\r\nit is, she'll have you to-morrow. Indeed she will; or to-night, if\r\nyou'll ask her. Goodness gracious! if there ain't Moulder!\" And the\r\nexcellent wife jumped up from her seat, poked the fire, emptied the\r\nmost comfortable arm-chair, and hurried out to the landing at the top\r\nof the stairs. Presently the noise of a loudly wheezing pair of lungs\r\nwas heard, and the commercial traveller, enveloped from head to foot\r\nin coats and comforters, made his appearance. He had just returned\r\nfrom a journey, and having deposited his parcels and packages at\r\nthe house of business of Hubbles and Grease in Houndsditch, had now\r\nreturned to the bosom of his family. It was a way he had, not to let\r\nhis wife know exactly the period of his return. Whether he thought\r\nthat by so doing he might keep her always on the alert and ready for\r\nmarital inspection, or whether he disliked to tie himself down by the\r\nobligation of a fixed time for his return, Mrs. Moulder had never\r\nmade herself quite sure. But on neither view of the subject did she\r\nadmire this practice of her lord."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had on many occasions pointed\r\nout to him how much more snug she could make him if he would only let\r\nher know when he was coming. But he had never taken the hint, and in\r\nthese latter days she had ceased to give it. \"Why, I'm uncommon cold,\" he said in answer to his wife's inquiries\r\nafter his welfare. \"And so would you be too, if you'd come up from\r\nLeeds since you'd had your dinner. What, John, are you there? The two\r\nof you are making yourself snug enough, I suppose, with something\r\nhot?\" \"Not a drop he's had yet since he's been in the house,\" said Mrs.\r\nMoulder. \"And he's hardly as much as darkened the door since you\r\nleft it.\" And Mrs. Moulder added, with some little hesitation in her\r\nvoice, \"Mrs. Smiley is coming in to-night, Moulder.\" \"The d---- she is! There's always something of that kind when I gets\r\nhome tired out, and wants to be comfortable. I mean to have my supper\r\nto myself, as I likes it, if all the Mother Smileys in London choose\r\nto come the way. What on earth is she coming here for this time of\r\nnight?\" \"Why, Moulder, you know.\" \"No; I don't know. I only know this, that when a man's used up with\r\nbusiness he don't want to have any of that nonsense under his nose.\" \"If you mean me--\" began John Kenneby."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I don't mean you; of course not; and I don't mean anybody. Here,\r\ntake my coats, will you? and let me have a pair of slippers. If Mrs.\r\nSmiley thinks that I'm going to change my pants, or put myself about\r\nfor her--\"\r\n\r\n\"Laws, Moulder, she don't expect that.\" \"She won't get it any way. Here's John dressed up as if he was\r\ngoing to a box in the the-atre. And you--why should you be going to\r\nexpense, and knocking out things that costs money, because Mother\r\nSmiley's coming? I'll Smiley her.\" \"Now, Moulder--\" But Mrs. Moulder knew that it was of no use speaking\r\nto him at the present moment. Her task should be this,--to feed and\r\ncosset him if possible into good humour before her guest should\r\narrive. Her praises of Mrs. Smiley had been very fairly true. But\r\nnevertheless she was a lady who had a mind and voice of her own,\r\nas any lady has a right to possess who draws in her own right two\r\nhundred a year out of a brick-field in the Kingsland Road. Such a one\r\nknows that she is above being snubbed, and Mrs. Smiley knew this of\r\nherself as well as any lady; and if Moulder, in his wrath, should\r\ncall her Mother Smiley, or give her to understand that he regarded\r\nher as an old woman, that lady would probably walk herself off in a\r\ngreat dudgeon,--herself and her share in the brick-field."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To tell the\r\ntruth, Mrs. Smiley required that considerable deference should be\r\npaid to her. Mrs. Moulder knew well what was her husband's present ailment. He had\r\ndined as early as one, and on his journey up from Leeds to London had\r\nrefreshed himself with drink only. That last glass of brandy which\r\nhe had taken at the Peterborough station had made him cross. If she\r\ncould get him to swallow some hot food before Mrs. Smiley came, all\r\nmight yet be well. \"And what's it to be, M.?\" she said in her most insinuating\r\nvoice--\"there's a lovely chop down stairs, and there's nothing so\r\nquick as that.\" \"Chop!\" he said, and it was all he did say at the moment. \"There's a 'am in beautiful cut,\" she went on, showing by the urgency\r\nof her voice how anxious she was on the subject. For the moment he did not answer her at all, but sat facing the fire,\r\nand running his fat fingers through his uncombed hair. \"Mrs. Smiley!\" he said; \"I remember when she was kitchen-maid at old Pott's.\" \"She ain't nobody's kitchen-maid now,\" said Mrs. Moulder, almost\r\nprepared to be angry in the defence of her friend. \"And I never could make out when it was that Smiley married\r\nher,--that is, if he ever did.\" \"Now, Moulder, that's shocking of you. Of course he married her. She\r\nand I is nearly an age as possible, though I think she is a year over\r\nme."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She says not, and it ain't nothing to me. But I remember the\r\nwedding as if it was yesterday. You and I had never set eyes on each\r\nother then, M.\" This last she added in a plaintive tone, hoping to\r\nsoften him. \"Are you going to keep me here all night without anything?\" he then\r\nsaid. \"Let me have some whisky,--hot, with;--and don't stand there\r\nlooking at nothing.\" \"But you'll take some solids with it, Moulder? Why it stands to\r\nreason you'll be famished.\" \"Do as you're bid, will you, and give me the whisky. Are you going to\r\ntell me when I'm to eat and when I'm to drink, like a child?\" This he\r\nsaid in that tone of voice which made Mrs. Moulder know that he meant\r\nto be obeyed; and though she was sure that he would make himself\r\ndrunk, she was compelled to minister to his desires. She got the\r\nwhisky and hot water, the lemon and sugar, and set the things beside\r\nhim; and then she retired to the sofa. John Kenneby the while sat\r\nperfectly silent looking on. Perhaps he was considering whether he\r\nwould be able to emulate the domestic management of Dockwrath or of\r\nMoulder when he should have taken to himself Mrs. Smiley and the\r\nKingsland brick-field. \"If you've a mind to help yourself, John, I suppose you'll do it,\"\r\nsaid Moulder. \"None for me just at present, thank'ee,\" said Kenneby."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I suppose you wouldn't swallow nothing less than wine in them togs?\" said the other, raising his glass to his lips. \"Well, here's better\r\nluck, and I'm blessed if it's not wanting. I'm pretty well tired of\r\nthis go, and so I mean to let 'em know pretty plainly.\" All this was understood by Mrs. Moulder, who knew that it only\r\nsignified that her husband was half tipsy, and that in all\r\nprobability he would be whole tipsy before long. There was no\r\nhelp for it. Were she to remonstrate with him in his present mood,\r\nhe would very probably fling the bottle at her head. Indeed,\r\nremonstrances were never of avail with him. So she sat herself down,\r\nthinking how she would run down when she heard Mrs. Smiley's step,\r\nand beg that lady to postpone her visit. Indeed it would be well to\r\nsend John to convey her home again. Moulder swallowed his glass of hot toddy fast, and then mixed\r\nanother. His eyes were very bloodshot, and he sat staring at the\r\nfire. His hands were thrust into his pockets between the periods of\r\nhis drinking, and he no longer spoke to any one. \"I'm ---- if I stand\r\nit,\" he growled forth, addressing himself. \"I've stood it a ---- deal\r\ntoo long.\" And then he finished the second glass."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was a sort\r\nof understanding on the part of his wife that such interjections\r\nas these referred to Hubbles and Grease, and indicated a painfully\r\nadvanced state of drink. There was one hope; the double heat, that of\r\nthe fire and of the whisky, might make him sleep; and if so, he would\r\nbe safe for two or three hours. \"I'm blessed if I do, and that's all,\" said Moulder, grasping the\r\nwhisky-bottle for the third time. His wife sat behind him very\r\nanxious, but not daring to interfere. \"It's going over the table,\r\nM.,\" she then said. \"D---- the table!\" he answered; and then his head fell forward on his\r\nbreast, and he was fast asleep with the bottle in his hand. \"Put your hand to it, John,\" said Mrs. Moulder in a whisper. But John\r\nhesitated. The lion might rouse himself if his prey were touched. \"He'll let it go easy if you put your hand to it. He's safe enough\r\nnow. There. If we could only get him back from the fire a little, or\r\nhis face'll be burnt off of him.\" \"But you wouldn't move him?\" \"Well, yes; we'll try. I've done it before, and he's never stirred. Come here, just behind. The casters is good, I know. Laws! ain't he\r\nheavy?\" And then they slowly dragged him back."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He grunted out some\r\nhalf-pronounced threat as they moved him; but he did not stir, and\r\nhis wife knew that she was again mistress of the room for the next\r\ntwo hours. It was true that he snored horribly, but then she was used\r\nto that. \"You won't let her come up, will you?\" said John. \"Why not? She knows what men is as well I do. Smiley wasn't that way\r\noften, I believe; but he was awful when he was. He wouldn't sleep it\r\noff, quite innocent, like that; but would break everything about the\r\nplace, and then cry like a child after it. Now Moulder's got none of\r\nthat about him. The worst of it is, how am I ever to get him into bed\r\nwhen he wakes?\" While the anticipation of this great trouble was still on her mind,\r\nthe ring at the bell was heard, and John Kenneby went down to the\r\nouter door that he might pay to Mrs. Smiley the attention of waiting\r\nupon her up stairs. And up stairs she came, bristling with silk--the\r\nidentical Irish tabinet, perhaps, which had never been turned--and\r\nconscious of the business which had brought her. \"What--Moulder's asleep is he?\" she said as she entered the room. \"I\r\nsuppose that's as good as a pair of gloves, any way.\" \"He ain't just very well,\" said Mrs. Moulder, winking at her friend;\r\n\"he's tired after a long journey.\" \"Oh-h! ah-h!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "said Mrs. Smiley, looking down upon the sleeping\r\nbeauty, and understanding everything at a glance. \"It's uncommon bad\r\nfor him, you know, because he's so given to flesh.\" \"It's as much fatigue as anything,\" said the wife. \"Yes, I dare say;\" and Mrs. Smiley shook her head. \"If he fatigues\r\nhimself so much as that often he'll soon be off the hooks.\" Much was undoubtedly to be borne from two hundred a year in a\r\nbrick-field, especially when that two hundred a year was coming so\r\nvery near home; but there is an amount of impertinent familiarity\r\nwhich must be put down even in two hundred a year. \"I've known worse\r\ncases than him, my dear; and that ended worse.\" \"Oh, I dare say. But you're mistook if you mean Smiley. It was\r\n'sepilus as took him off, as everybody knows.\" \"Well, my dear, I'm sure I'm not going to say anything against that. And now, John, do help her off with her bonnet and shawl, while I get\r\nthe tea-things.\" Mrs. Smiley was a firm set, healthy-looking woman of--about forty. She had large, dark, glassy eyes, which were bright without\r\nsparkling. Her cheeks were very red, having a fixed settled colour\r\nthat never altered with circumstances. Her black wiry hair was\r\nended in short crisp curls, which sat close to her head. It almost\r\ncollected like a wig, but the hair was in truth her own."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her mouth\r\nwas small, and her lips thin, and they gave to her face a look of\r\nsharpness that was not quite agreeable. Nevertheless she was not a\r\nbad-looking woman, and with such advantages as two hundred a year and\r\nthe wardrobe which Mrs. Moulder had described, was no doubt entitled\r\nto look for a second husband. \"Well, Mr. Kenneby, and how do you find yourself this cold weather? Dear, how he do snore; don't he?\" \"Yes,\" said Kenneby, very thoughtfully, \"he does rather.\" He was\r\nthinking of Miriam Usbech as she was twenty years ago, and of Mrs.\r\nSmiley as she appeared at present. Not that he felt inclined to\r\ngrumble at the lot prepared for him, but that he would like to take a\r\nfew more years to think about it. And then they sat down to tea. The lovely chops which Moulder had\r\ndespised, and the ham in beautiful cut which had failed to tempt\r\nhim, now met with due appreciation. Mrs. Smiley, though she had\r\nnever been known to take a drop too much, did like to have things\r\ncomfortable; and on this occasion she made an excellent meal,\r\nwith a large pocket-handkerchief of Moulder's--brought in for the\r\noccasion--stretched across the broad expanse of the Irish tabinet. \"We sha'n't wake him, shall we?\" said she, as she took her last bit\r\nof muffin. \"Not till he wakes natural, of hisself,\" said Mrs. Moulder."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"When\r\nhe's worked it off, he'll rouse himself, and I shall have to get him\r\nto bed.\" \"He'll be a bit patchy then, won't he?\" \"Well, just for a while of course he will,\" said Mrs. Moulder. \"But\r\nthere's worse than him. To-morrow morning, maybe, he'll be just as\r\nsweet as sweet. It don't hang about him, sullen like. That's what I\r\nhate, when it hangs about 'em.\" Then the tea-things were taken away,\r\nMrs. Smiley in her familiarity assisting in the removal, and--in\r\nspite of the example now before them--some more sugar and some more\r\nspirits, and some more hot water were put upon the table. \"Well,\r\nI don't mind just the least taste in life, Mrs. Moulder, as we're\r\nquite between friends; and I'm sure you'll want it to-night to keep\r\nyourself up.\" Mrs. Moulder would have answered these last words with\r\nsome severity had she not felt that good humour now might be of great\r\nvalue to her brother. \"Well, John, and what is it you've got to say to her?\" said Mrs.\r\nMoulder, as she put down her empty glass. Between friends who\r\nunderstood each other so well, and at their time of life, what was\r\nthe use of ceremony? \"La, Mrs. Moulder, what should he have got to say? Nothing I'm sure\r\nas I'd think of listening to.\" \"You try her, John.\" \"Not but what I've the greatest respect in life for Mr. Kenneby,\r\nand always did have."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If you must have anything to do with men, I've\r\nalways said, recommend me to them as is quiet and steady, and hasn't\r\ngot too much of the gab;--a quiet man is the man for me any day.\" \"Well, John?\" said Mrs. Moulder. \"Now, Mrs. Moulder, can't you keep yourself to yourself, and we shall\r\ndo very well. Laws, how he do snore! When his head goes bobbing that\r\nway I do so fear he'll have a fit.\" \"No he won't; he's coming to, all right. Well, John?\" \"I'm sure I shall be very happy,\" said John, \"if she likes it. She\r\nsays that she respects me, and I'm sure I've a great respect for her. I always had--even when Mr. Smiley was alive.\" \"It's very good of you to say so,\" said she; not speaking however as\r\nthough she were quite satisfied. What was the use of his remembering\r\nSmiley just at present? \"Enough's enough between friends any day,\" said Mrs. Moulder. \"So\r\ngive her your hand, John.\" \"I think it'll be right to say one thing first,\" said Kenneby, with a\r\nsolemn and deliberate tone. \"And what's that?\" said Mrs. Smiley, eagerly. \"In such a matter as this,\" continued Kenneby, \"where the hearts are\r\nconcerned--\"\r\n\r\n\"You didn't say anything about hearts yet,\" said Mrs. Smiley, with\r\nsome measure of approbation in her voice. \"Didn't I?\" said Kenneby. \"Then it was an omission on my part, and I\r\nbeg leave to apologise."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But what I was going to say is this: when the\r\nhearts are concerned, everything should be honest and above-board.\" \"Oh of course,\" said Mrs. Moulder; \"and I'm sure she don't suspect\r\nnothing else.\" \"You'd better let him go on,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"My heart has not been free from woman's lovely image.\" \"And isn't free now, is it, John?\" said Mrs. Moulder. \"I've had my object, and though she's been another's, still I've kept\r\nher image on my heart.\" \"But it ain't there any longer, John? He's speaking of twenty years\r\nago, Mrs. Smiley.\" \"It's quite beautiful to hear him,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"Go on, Mr. Kenneby.\" \"The years are gone by as though they was nothing, and still I've had\r\nher image on my heart. I've seen her to-day.\" \"Her gentleman's still alive, ain't he?\" asked Mrs. Smiley. \"And likely to live,\" said Mrs. Moulder. \"I've seen her to-day,\" Kenneby continued; \"and now the Adriatic's\r\nfree to wed another.\" Neither of the ladies present exactly understood the force of the\r\nquotation; but as it contained an appropriate reference to marriage,\r\nand apparently to a second marriage, it was taken by both of them in\r\ngood part. He was considered to have made his offer, and Mrs. Smiley\r\nthereupon formally accepted him. \"He's spoke quite handsome, I'm\r\nsure,\" said Mrs. Smiley to his sister; \"and I don't know that any\r\nwoman has a right to expect more. As to the brick-fields--.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then\r\nthere was a slight reference to business, with which it will not be\r\nnecessary that the readers of this story should embarrass themselves. Soon after that Mr. Kenneby saw Mrs. Smiley home in a cab, and poor\r\nMrs. Moulder sat by her lord till he roused himself from his sleep. Let us hope that her troubles with him were as little vexatious as\r\npossible; and console ourselves with the reflection that at twelve\r\no'clock the next morning, after the second bottle of soda and brandy,\r\nhe was \"as sweet as sweet.\" CHAPTER XLIV. SHOWING HOW LADY MASON COULD BE VERY NOBLE. Lady Mason returned to The Cleeve after her visit to Mr. Furnival's\r\nchambers, and nobody asked her why she had been to London or whom she\r\nhad seen. Nothing could be more gracious than the deference which was\r\nshown to her, and the perfect freedom of action which was accorded\r\nto her. On that very day Lady Staveley had called at The Cleeve,\r\nexplaining to Sir Peregrine and Mrs. Orme that her visit was made\r\nexpressly to Lady Mason. \"I should have called at Orley Farm, of\r\ncourse,\" said Lady Staveley, \"only that I hear that Lady Mason is\r\nlikely to prolong her visit with you. I must trust to you, Mrs. Orme,\r\nto make all that understood.\" Sir Peregrine took upon himself to say\r\nthat it all should be understood, and then drawing Lady Staveley\r\naside, told her of his own intended marriage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I cannot but be\r\naware,\" he said, \"that I have no business to trouble you with an\r\naffair that is so exclusively our own; but I have a wish, which\r\nperhaps you may understand, that there should be no secret about it. I think it better, for her sake, that it should be known. If the\r\nconnection can be of any service to her, she should reap that benefit\r\nnow, when some people are treating her name with a barbarity which\r\nI believe to be almost unparalleled in this country.\" In answer to\r\nthis Lady Staveley was of course obliged to congratulate him, and she\r\ndid so with the best grace in her power; but it was not easy to say\r\nmuch that was cordial, and as she drove back with Mrs. Arbuthnot to\r\nNoningsby the words which were said between them as to Lady Mason\r\nwere not so kindly meant towards that lady as their remarks on their\r\njourney to The Cleeve. Lady Staveley had hoped,--though she had hardly expressed her hope\r\neven to herself, and certainly had not spoken of it to any one\r\nelse,--that she might have been able to say a word or two to Mrs.\r\nOrme about young Peregrine, a word or two that would have shown her\r\nown good feeling towards the young man,--her own regard, and almost\r\naffection for him, even though this might have been done without\r\nany mention of Madeline's name."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She might have learned in this way\r\nwhether young Orme had made known at home what had been his hopes and\r\nwhat his disappointments, and might have formed some opinion whether\r\nor no he would renew his suit. She would not have been the first to\r\nmention her daughter's name; but if Mrs. Orme should speak of it,\r\nthen the subject would be free for her, and she could let it be known\r\nthat the heir of The Cleeve should at any rate have her sanction and\r\ngood will. What happiness could be so great for her as that of having\r\na daughter so settled, within eight miles of her? And then it was not\r\nonly that a marriage between her daughter and Peregrine Orme would be\r\nan event so fortunate, but also that those feelings with reference\r\nto Felix Graham were so unfortunate! That young heart, she thought,\r\ncould not as yet be heavy laden, and it might be possible that the\r\nwhole affair should be made to run in the proper course,--if only\r\nit could be done at once. But now, that tale which Sir Peregrine\r\nhad told her respecting himself and Lady Mason had made it quite\r\nimpossible that anything should be said on the other subject. And\r\nthen again, if it was decreed that the Noningsby family and the\r\nfamily of The Cleeve should be connected, would not such a marriage\r\nas this between the baronet and Lady Mason be very injurious?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "So that\r\nLady Staveley was not quite happy as she returned to her own house. Lady Staveley's message, however, for Lady Mason was given with all\r\nits full force. Sir Peregrine had felt grateful for what had been\r\ndone, and Mrs. Orme, in talking of it, made quite the most of it. Civility from the Staveleys to the Ormes would not, in the ordinary\r\ncourse of things, be accounted of any special value. The two families\r\nmight, and naturally would, know each other on intimate terms. But\r\nthe Ormes would as a matter of course stand the highest in general\r\nestimation. Now, however, the Ormes had to bear up Lady Mason with\r\nthem. Sir Peregrine had so willed it, and Mrs. Orme had not for a\r\nmoment thought of contesting the wish of one whose wishes she had\r\nnever contested. No words were spoken on the subject; but still with\r\nboth of them there was a feeling that Lady Staveley's countenance\r\nand open friendship would be of value. When it had come to this\r\nwith Sir Peregrine Orme, he was already disgraced in his own\r\nestimation,--already disgraced, although he declared to himself a\r\nthousand times that he was only doing his duty as a gentleman. On that evening Lady Mason said no word of her new purpose. She\r\nhad pledged herself both to Peregrine Orme and to Mr. Furnival."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To\r\nboth she had made a distinct promise that she would break off her\r\nengagement, and she knew well that the deed should be done at once. But how was she to do it? With what words was she to tell him that\r\nshe had changed her mind and would not take the hand that he had\r\noffered to her? She feared to be a moment alone with Peregrine lest\r\nhe should tax her with the non-fulfilment of her promise. But in\r\ntruth Peregrine at the present moment was thinking more of another\r\nmatter. It had almost come home to him that his grandfather's\r\nmarriage might facilitate his own; and though he still was far from\r\nreconciling himself to the connection with Lady Mason, he was almost\r\ndisposed to put up with it. On the following day, at about noon, a chariot with a pair of\r\npost-horses was brought up to the door of The Cleeve at a very fast\r\npace, and the two ladies soon afterwards learned that Lord Alston was\r\ncloseted with Sir Peregrine. Lord Alston was one of Sir Peregrine's\r\noldest friends. He was a man senior both in age and standing to the\r\nbaronet; and, moreover, he was a friend who came but seldom to The\r\nCleeve, although his friendship was close and intimate. Nothing was\r\nsaid between Mrs. Orme and Lady Mason, but each dreaded that Lord\r\nAlston had come to remonstrate about the marriage. And so in truth he\r\nhad."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The two old men were together for about an hour, and then Lord\r\nAlston took his departure without asking for, or seeing any other\r\none of the family. Lord Alston had remonstrated about the marriage,\r\nusing at last very strong language to dissuade the baronet from\r\na step which he thought so unfortunate; but he had remonstrated\r\naltogether in vain. Every word he had used was not only fruitless,\r\nbut injurious; for Sir Peregrine was a man whom it was very difficult\r\nto rescue by opposition, though no man might be more easily led by\r\nassumed acquiescence. \"Orme, my dear fellow,\" said his lordship, towards the end of the\r\ninterview, \"it is my duty, as an old friend, to tell you this.\" \"Then, Lord Alston, you have done your duty.\" \"Not while a hope remains that I may prevent this marriage.\" \"There is ground for no such hope on your part; and permit me to\r\nsay that the expression of such a hope to me is greatly wanting in\r\ncourtesy.\" \"You and I,\" continued Lord Alston, without apparent attention to the\r\nlast words which Sir Peregrine had spoken, \"have nearly come to the\r\nend of our tether here. Our careers have been run; and I think I may\r\nsay as regards both, but I may certainly say as regards you, that\r\nthey have been so run that we have not disgraced those who preceded\r\nus."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Our dearest hopes should be that our names may never be held as a\r\nreproach by those who come after us.\" \"With God's blessing I will do nothing to disgrace my family.\" \"But, Orme, you and I cannot act as may those whose names in the\r\nworld are altogether unnoticed. I know that you are doing this from a\r\nfeeling of charity to that lady.\" \"I am doing it, Lord Alston, because it so pleases me.\" \"But your first charity is due to your grandson. Suppose that he was\r\nmaking an offer of his hand to the daughter of some nobleman,--as he\r\nis so well entitled to do,--how would it affect his hopes if it were\r\nknown that you at the time had married a lady whose misfortune made\r\nit necessary that she should stand at the bar in a criminal court?\" \"Lord Alston,\" said Sir Peregrine, rising from his chair, \"I trust\r\nthat my grandson may never rest his hopes on any woman whose heart\r\ncould be hardened against him by such a thought as that.\" \"But what if she should be guilty?\" said Lord Alston. \"Permit me to say,\" said Sir Peregrine, still standing, and standing\r\nnow bolt upright, as though his years did not weigh on him a feather,\r\n\"that this conversation has gone far enough. There are some surmises\r\nto which I cannot listen, even from Lord Alston.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then his lordship shrugged his shoulders, declared that in speaking\r\nas he had spoken he had endeavoured to do a friendly duty by an old\r\nfriend,--certainly the oldest, and almost the dearest friend he\r\nhad,--and so he took his leave. The wheels of the chariot were heard\r\ngrating over the gravel, as he was carried away from the door at a\r\ngallop, and the two ladies looked into each other's faces, saying\r\nnothing. Sir Peregrine was not seen from that time till dinner; but\r\nwhen he did come into the drawing-room his manner to Lady Mason was,\r\nif possible, more gracious and more affectionate than ever. \"So Lord Alston was here to-day,\" Peregrine said to his mother that\r\nnight before he went to bed. \"Yes, he was here.\" \"It was about this marriage, mother, as sure as I am standing here.\" \"I don't think Lord Alston would interfere about that, Perry.\" \"Wouldn't he? He would interfere about anything he did not like; that\r\nis, as far as the pluck of it goes. Of course he can't like it. Who\r\ncan?\" \"Perry, your grandfather likes it; and surely he has a right to\r\nplease himself.\" \"I don't know about that. You might say the same thing if he wanted\r\nto kill all the foxes about the place, or do any other outlandish\r\nthing. Of course he might kill them, as far as the law goes, but\r\nwhere would he be afterwards? She hasn't said anything to him, has\r\nshe?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I think not.\" \"Nor to you?\" \"No; she has not spoken to me; not about that.\" \"She promised me positively that she would break it off.\" \"You must not be hard on her, Perry.\" Just as these words were spoken, there came a low knock at Mrs.\r\nOrme's dressing-room door. This room, in which Mrs. Orme was wont to\r\nsit for an hour or so every night before she went to bed, was the\r\nscene of all the meetings of affection which took place between the\r\nmother and the son. It was a pretty little apartment, opening from\r\nMrs. Orme's bed-room, which had at one time been the exclusive\r\nproperty of Peregrine's father. But by degrees it had altogether\r\nassumed feminine attributes; had been furnished with soft chairs,\r\na sofa, and a lady's table; and though called by the name of Mrs.\r\nOrme's dressing-room, was in fact a separate sitting-room devoted to\r\nher exclusive use. Sir Peregrine would not for worlds have entered it\r\nwithout sending up his name beforehand, and this he did on only very\r\nrare occasions. But Lady Mason had of late been admitted here, and\r\nMrs. Orme now knew that it was her knock. \"Open the door, Perry,\" she said; \"it is Lady Mason.\" He did open the\r\ndoor, and Lady Mason entered. \"Oh, Mr. Orme, I did not know that you were here.\" \"I am just off. Good night, mother.\" \"But I am disturbing you.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No, we had done;\" and he stooped down and kissed his mother. \"Good\r\nnight, Lady Mason. Hadn't I better put some coals on for you, or the\r\nfire will be out?\" He did put on the coals, and then he went his way. Lady Mason while he was doing this had sat down on the sofa, close\r\nto Mrs. Orme; but when the door was closed Mrs. Orme was the first\r\nto speak. \"Well, dear,\" she said, putting her hand caressingly on\r\nthe other's arm. I am inclined to think that had there been no one\r\nwhom Mrs. Orme was bound to consult but herself, she would have\r\nwished that this marriage should have gone on. To her it would have\r\nbeen altogether pleasant to have had Lady Mason ever with her in\r\nthe house; and she had none of those fears as to future family\r\nretrospections respecting which Lord Alston had spoken with so much\r\nknowledge of the world. As it was, her manner was so caressing and\r\naffectionate to her guest, that she did much more to promote Sir\r\nPeregrine's wishes than to oppose them. \"Well, dear,\" she said, with\r\nher sweetest smile. \"I am so sorry that I have driven your son away.\" \"He was going. Besides, it would make no matter; he would stay here\r\nall night sometimes, if I didn't drive him away myself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He comes here\r\nand writes his letters at the most unconscionable hours, and uses up\r\nall my note-paper in telling some horsekeeper what is to be done with\r\nhis mare.\" \"Ah, how happy you must be to have him!\" \"Well, I suppose I am,\" she said, as a tear came into her eyes. \"We are so hard to please. I am all anxiety now that he should be\r\nmarried; and if he were married, then I suppose I should grumble\r\nbecause I did not see so much of him. He would be more settled if he\r\nwould marry, I think. For myself I approve of early marriages for\r\nyoung men.\" And then she thought of her own husband whom she had\r\nloved so well and lost so soon. And so they sat silent for a while,\r\neach thinking of her own lot in life. \"But I must not keep you up all night,\" said Lady Mason. \"Oh, I do so like you to be here,\" said the other. Then again she\r\ntook hold of her arm, and the two women kissed each other. \"But, Edith,\" said the other, \"I came in here to-night with a\r\npurpose. I have something that I wish to say to you. Can you listen\r\nto me?\" \"Oh yes,\" said Mrs. Orme; \"surely.\" \"Has your son been talking to you about--about what was said between\r\nhim and me the other day?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am sure he has, for I know he tells you\r\neverything,--as he ought to do.\" \"Yes, he did speak to me,\" said Mrs. Orme, almost trembling with\r\nanxiety. \"I am so glad, for now it will be easier for me to tell you. And\r\nsince that I have seen Mr. Furnival, and he says the same. I tell you\r\nbecause you are so good and so loving to me. I will keep nothing from\r\nyou; but you must not tell Sir Peregrine that I talked to Mr.\r\nFurnival about this.\" Mrs. Orme gave the required promise, hardly thinking at the moment\r\nwhether or no she would be guilty of any treason against Sir\r\nPeregrine in doing so. \"I think I should have said nothing to him, though he is so very old\r\na friend, had not Mr. Orme--\"\r\n\r\n\"You mean Peregrine?\" \"Yes; had not he been so--so earnest about it. He told me that if I\r\nmarried Sir Peregrine I should be doing a cruel injury to him--to his\r\ngrandfather.\" \"He should not have said that.\" \"Yes, Edith,--if he thinks it. He told me that I should be turning\r\nall his friends against him. So I promised him that I would speak to\r\nSir Peregrine, and break it off if it be possible.\" \"He told me that.\" \"And then I spoke to Mr. Furnival, and he told me that I should be\r\nblamed by all the world if I were to marry him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I cannot tell you all\r\nhe said, but he said this: that if--if--\"\r\n\r\n\"If what, dear?\" \"If in the court they should say--\"\r\n\r\n\"Say what?\" \"Say that I did this thing,--then Sir Peregrine would be crushed, and\r\nwould die with a broken heart.\" \"But they cannot say that;--it is impossible. You do not think it\r\npossible that they can do so?\" And then again she took hold of Lady\r\nMason's arm, and looked up anxiously, into her face. She looked up\r\nanxiously, not suspecting anything, not for a moment presuming it\r\npossible that such a verdict could be justly given, but in order that\r\nshe might see how far the fear of a fate so horrible was operating on\r\nher friend. Lady Mason's face was pale and woe-worn, but not more so\r\nthan was now customary with her. \"One cannot say what may be possible,\" she answered slowly. \"I\r\nsuppose they would not go on with it if they did not think they had\r\nsome chance of success.\" \"You mean as to the property?\" \"Yes; as to the property.\" \"But why should they not try that, if they must try it, without\r\ndragging you there?\" \"Ah, I do not understand; or at least I cannot explain it. Mr.\r\nFurnival says that it must be so; and therefore I shall tell Sir\r\nPeregrine to-morrow that all this must be given up.\" And then they\r\nsat together silently, holding each other by the hand."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Good night, Edith,\" Lady Mason said at last, getting up from her\r\nseat. \"Good night, dearest.\" \"You will let me be your friend still, will you not?\" said Lady\r\nMason. \"My friend! Oh yes; always my friend. Why should this interfere\r\nbetween you and me?\" \"But he will be very angry--at least I fear that he will. Not\r\nthat--not that he will have anything to regret. But the very strength\r\nof his generosity and nobleness will make him angry. He will be\r\nindignant because I do not let him make this sacrifice for me. And\r\nthen--and then--I fear I must leave this house.\" \"Oh no, not that; I will speak to him. He will do anything for me.\" \"It will be better perhaps that I should go. People will think that I\r\nam estranged from Lucius. But if I go, you will come to me? He will\r\nlet you do that; will he not?\" And then there were warm, close promises given, and embraces\r\ninterchanged. The women did love each other with a hearty, true\r\nlove, and each longed that they might be left together. And yet how\r\ndifferent they were, and how different had been their lives! The prominent thought in Lady Mason's mind as she returned to her own\r\nroom was this:--that Mrs. Orme had said no word to dissuade her from\r\nthe line of conduct which she had proposed to herself. Mrs. Orme\r\nhad never spoken against the marriage as Peregrine had spoken, and\r\nMr. Furnival."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her heart had not been stern enough to allow her to\r\ndo that. But was it not clear that her opinion was the same as\r\ntheirs? Lady Mason acknowledged to herself that it was clear, and\r\nacknowledged to herself also that no one was in favour of the\r\nmarriage. \"I will do it immediately after breakfast,\" she said to\r\nherself. And then she sat down,--and sat through the half the night\r\nthinking of it. Mrs. Orme, when she was left alone, almost rebuked herself in that\r\nshe had said no word of counsel against the undertaking which Lady\r\nMason proposed for herself. For Mr. Furnival and his opinion she did\r\nnot care much. Indeed, she would have been angry with Lady Mason\r\nfor speaking to Mr. Furnival on the subject, were it not that her\r\npity was too deep to admit of any anger. That the truth must be\r\nestablished at the trial Mrs. Orme felt all but confident. When alone\r\nshe would feel quite sure on this point, though a doubt would always\r\ncreep in on her when Lady Mason was with her. But now, as she sat\r\nalone, she could not realise the idea that the fear of a verdict\r\nagainst her friend should offer any valid reason against the\r\nmarriage. The valid reasons, if there were such, must be looked for\r\nelsewhere. And were these other reasons so strong in their validity?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Peregrine desired the marriage; and so did Lady Mason herself, as\r\nregarded her own individual wishes. Mrs. Orme was sure that this was\r\nso. And then for her own self, she,--Sir Peregrine's daughter-in-law,\r\nthe only lady concerned in the matter,--she also would have liked it. But her son disliked it, and she had yielded so far to the wishes of\r\nher son. Well; was it not right that with her those wishes should be\r\nall but paramount? And thus she endeavoured to satisfy her conscience\r\nas she retired to rest. On the following morning the four assembled at breakfast. Lady Mason\r\nhardly spoke at all to any one. Mrs. Orme, who knew what was about to\r\ntake place, was almost as silent; but Sir Peregrine had almost more\r\nto say than usual to his grandson. He was in good spirits, having\r\nfirmly made up his mind on a certain point; and he showed this by\r\ntelling Peregrine that he would ride with him immediately after\r\nbreakfast. \"What has made you so slack about your hunting during the\r\nlast two or three days?\" he asked. \"I shall hunt to-morrow,\" said Peregrine. \"Then you can afford time to ride with me through the woods after\r\nbreakfast.\" And so it would have been arranged had not Lady Mason\r\nimmediately said that she hoped to be able to say a few words to Sir\r\nPeregrine in the library after breakfast. \"_Place aux dames_,\" said\r\nhe. \"Peregrine, the horses can wait.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And so the matter was arranged\r\nwhile they were still sitting over their toast. Peregrine, as this was said, had looked at his mother, but she had\r\nnot ventured to take her eyes for a moment from the teapot. Then he\r\nhad looked at Lady Mason, and saw that she was, as it were, going\r\nthrough a fashion of eating her breakfast. In order to break the\r\nabsolute silence of the room he muttered something about the weather,\r\nand then his grandfather, with the same object, answered him. After\r\nthat no words were spoken till Sir Peregrine, rising from his chair,\r\ndeclared that he was ready. He got up and opened the door for his guest, and then hurrying across\r\nthe hall, opened the library door for her also, holding it till she\r\nhad passed in. Then he took her left hand in his, and passing his\r\nright arm round her waist, asked her if anything disturbed her. \"Oh yes,\" she said, \"yes; there is much that disturbs me. I have done\r\nvery wrong.\" \"How done wrong, Mary?\" She could not recollect that he had called\r\nher Mary before, and the sound she thought was very sweet;--was very\r\nsweet, although she was over forty, and he over seventy years of age. \"I have done very wrong, and I have now come here that I may undo it. Dear Sir Peregrine, you must not be angry with me.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I do not think that I shall be angry with you; but what is it,\r\ndearest?\" But she did not know how to find words to declare her purpose. It was\r\ncomparatively an easy task to tell Mrs. Orme that she had made up\r\nher mind not to marry Sir Peregrine, but it was by no means easy to\r\ntell the baronet himself. And now she stood there leaning over the\r\nfireplace, with his arm round her waist,--as it behoved her to stand\r\nno longer, seeing the resolution to which she had come. But still she\r\ndid not speak. \"Well, Mary, what is it? I know there is something on your mind or\r\nyou would not have summoned me in here. Is it about the trial? Have\r\nyou seen Mr. Furnival again?\" \"No; it is not about the trial,\" she said, avoiding the other\r\nquestion. \"What is it then?\" \"Sir Peregrine, it is impossible that we should be married.\" And thus\r\nshe brought forth her tidings, as it were at a gasp, speaking at the\r\nmoment with a voice that was almost indicative of anger. \"And why not?\" said he, releasing her from his arm and looking at\r\nher. \"It cannot be,\" she said. \"And why not, Lady Mason?\" \"It cannot be,\" she said again, speaking with more emphasis, and with\r\na stronger tone. \"And is that all that you intend to tell me? Have I done anything\r\nthat has offended you?\" \"Offended me! No."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I do not think that would be possible. The offence\r\nis on the other side--\"\r\n\r\n\"Then, my dear,--\"\r\n\r\n\"But listen to me now. It cannot be. I know that it is wrong. Everything tells me that such a marriage on your part would be a\r\nsacrifice,--a terrible sacrifice. You would be throwing away your\r\ngreat rank--\"\r\n\r\n\"No,\" shouted Sir Peregrine; \"not though I married a\r\nkitchen-maid,--instead of a lady who in social life is my equal.\" \"Ah, no; I should not have said rank. You cannot lose that;--but your\r\nstation in the world, the respect of all around you, the--the--the--\"\r\n\r\n\"Who has been telling you all this?\" \"I have wanted no one to tell me. Thinking of it has told it me all. My own heart which is full of gratitude and love for you has told\r\nme.\" \"You have not seen Lord Alston?\" \"Lord Alston! oh, no.\" \"Has Peregrine been speaking to you?\" \"Peregrine!\" \"Yes; Peregrine; my grandson?\" \"He has spoken to me.\" \"Telling you to say this to me. Then he is an ungrateful boy;--a very\r\nungrateful boy. I would have done anything to guard him from wrong in\r\nthis matter.\" \"Ah; now I see the evil that I have done. Why did I ever come into\r\nthe house to make quarrels between you?\" \"There shall be no quarrel. I will forgive him even that if you will\r\nbe guided by me. And, dearest Mary, you must be guided by me now."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This matter has gone too far for you to go back--unless, indeed, you\r\nwill say that personally you have an aversion to the marriage.\" \"Oh, no; no; it is not that,\" she said eagerly. She could not help\r\nsaying it with eagerness. She could not inflict the wound on his\r\nfeelings which her silence would then have given. \"Under those circumstances, I have a right to say that the marriage\r\nmust go on.\" \"No; no.\" \"But I say it must. Sit down, Mary.\" And she did sit down, while he\r\nstood leaning over her and thus spoke. \"You speak of sacrificing\r\nme. I am an old man with not many more years before me. If I did\r\nsacrifice what little is left to me of life with the object of\r\nbefriending one whom I really love, there would be no more in it than\r\nwhat a man might do, and still feel that the balance was on the right\r\nside. But here there will be no sacrifice. My life will be happier,\r\nand so will Edith's. And so indeed will that boy's, if he did but\r\nknow it. For the world's talk, which will last some month or two, I\r\ncare nothing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This I will confess, that if I were prompted to this\r\nonly by my own inclination, only by love for you--\" and as he spoke\r\nhe held out his hand to her, and she could not refuse him hers--\"in\r\nsuch a case I should doubt and hesitate and probably keep aloof from\r\nsuch a step. But it is not so. In doing this I shall gratify my own\r\nheart, and also serve you in your great troubles. Believe me, I have\r\nthought of that.\" \"I know you have, Sir Peregrine,--and therefore it cannot be.\" \"But therefore it shall be. The world knows it now; and were we to\r\nbe separated after what has past, the world would say that I--I had\r\nthought you guilty of this crime.\" \"I must bear all that.\" And now she stood before him, not looking him\r\nin the face, but with her face turned down towards the ground, and\r\nspeaking hardly above her breath. \"By heavens, no; not whilst I can stand by your side. Not whilst I\r\nhave strength left to support you and thrust the lie down the throat\r\nof such a wretch as Joseph Mason. No, Mary, go back to Edith and tell\r\nher that you have tried it, but that there is no escape for you.\" And\r\nthen he smiled at her. His smile at times could be very pleasant! But she did not smile as she answered him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Sir Peregrine,\" she said;\r\nand she endeavoured to raise her face to his but failed. \"Well, my love.\" \"Sir Peregrine, I am guilty.\" \"Guilty! Guilty of what?\" he said, startled rather than instructed by\r\nher words. \"Guilty of all this with which they charge me.\" And then she threw\r\nherself at his feet, and wound her arms round his knees. [Illustration: Guilty.] CHAPTER XLV. SHOWING HOW MRS. ORME COULD BE VERY WEAK MINDED. I venture to think, I may almost say to hope, that Lady Mason's\r\nconfession at the end of the last chapter will not have taken anybody\r\nby surprise. If such surprise be felt I must have told my tale badly. I do not like such revulsions of feeling with regard to my characters\r\nas surprises of this nature must generate. That Lady Mason had\r\ncommitted the terrible deed for which she was about to be tried, that\r\nMr. Furnival's suspicion of her guilt was only too well founded, that\r\nMr. Dockwrath with his wicked ingenuity had discovered no more than\r\nthe truth, will, in its open revelation, have caused no surprise to\r\nthe reader;--but it did cause terrible surprise to Sir Peregrine\r\nOrme. And now we must go back a little and endeavour to explain how it was\r\nthat Lady Mason had made this avowal of her guilt. That she had not\r\nintended to do so when she entered Sir Peregrine's library is very\r\ncertain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had such been her purpose she would not have asked Mrs. Orme\r\nto visit her at Orley Farm. Had such a course of events been in her\r\nmind she would not have spoken of her departure from The Cleeve as\r\ndoubtful. No. She had intended still to keep her terrible secret to\r\nherself; still to have leaned upon Sir Peregrine's arm as on the arm\r\nof a trusting friend. But he had overcome her by his generosity; and\r\nin her fixed resolve that he should not be dragged down into this\r\nabyss of misery the sudden determination to tell the truth at least\r\nto him had come upon her. She did tell him all; and then, as soon as\r\nthe words were out of her mouth, the strength which had enabled her\r\nto do so deserted her, and she fell at his feet overcome by weakness\r\nof body as well as spirit. But the words which she spoke did not at first convey to his mind\r\ntheir full meaning. Though she had twice repeated the assertion\r\nthat she was guilty, the fact of her guilt did not come home to his\r\nunderstanding as a thing that he could credit. There was something,\r\nhe doubted not, to surprise and harass him,--something which when\r\nrevealed and made clear might, or might not, affect his purpose of\r\nmarrying,--something which it behoved this woman to tell before she\r\ncould honestly become his wife, something which was destined to give\r\nhis heart a blow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he was very far as yet from understanding the\r\nwhole truth. Let us think of those we love best, and ask ourselves\r\nhow much it would take to convince us of their guilt in such a\r\nmatter. That thrusting of the lie down the throat of Joseph Mason had\r\nbecome to him so earnest a duty, that the task of believing the lie\r\nto be on the other side was no easy one. The blow which he had to\r\nsuffer was a cruel blow. Lady Mason, however, was merciful, for she\r\nmight have enhanced the cruelty tenfold. He stood there wondering and bewildered for some minutes of time,\r\nwhile she, with her face hidden, still clung round his knees. \"What\r\nis it?\" at last he said. \"I do not understand.\" But she had no answer\r\nto make to him. Her great resolve had been quickly made and quickly\r\ncarried out, but now the reaction left her powerless. He stooped down\r\nto raise her; but when he moved she fell prone upon the ground; he\r\ncould hear her sobs as though her bosom would burst with them. And then by degrees the meaning of her words began to break upon him. \"I am guilty of all this with which they charge me.\" Could that be\r\npossible? Could it be that she had forged that will; that with base,\r\npremeditated contrivance she had stolen that property; stolen it and\r\nkept it from that day to this;--through all these long years?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And\r\nthen he thought of her pure life, of her womanly, dignified repose,\r\nof her devotion to her son,--such devotion indeed!--of her sweet pale\r\nface and soft voice! He thought of all this, and of his own love and\r\nfriendship for her,--of Edith's love for her! He thought of it all,\r\nand he could not believe that she was guilty. There was some other\r\nfault, some much lesser fault than that, with which she charged\r\nherself. But there she lay at his feet, and it was necessary that he\r\nshould do something towards lifting her to a seat. He stooped and took her by the hand, but his feeble strength was not\r\nsufficient to raise her. \"Lady Mason,\" he said, \"speak to me. I do\r\nnot understand you. Will you not let me seat you on the sofa?\" But she, at least, had realised the full force of the revelation she\r\nhad made, and lay there covered with shame, broken-hearted, and\r\nunable to raise her eyes from the ground. With what inward struggles\r\nshe had played her part during the last few months, no one might ever\r\nknow! But those struggles had been kept to herself. The world, her\r\nworld, that world for which she had cared, in which she had lived,\r\nhad treated her with honour and respect, and had looked upon her as\r\nan ill-used innocent woman. But now all that would be over. Every one\r\nnow must know what she was."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then, as she lay there, that thought\r\ncame to her. Must every one know it? Was there no longer any hope\r\nfor her? Must Lucius be told? She could bear all the rest, if only\r\nhe might be ignorant of his mother's disgrace;--he, for whom all\r\nhad been done! But no. He, and every one must know it. Oh! if the\r\nbeneficent Spirit that sees all and pities all would but take her\r\nthat moment from the world! When Sir Peregrine asked her whether he should seat her on the sofa,\r\nshe slowly picked herself up, and with her head still crouching\r\ntowards the ground, placed herself where she before had been sitting. He had been afraid that she would have fainted, but she was not one\r\nof those women whose nature easily admits of such relief as that. Though she was always pale in colour and frail looking, there was\r\nwithin her a great power of self-sustenance. She was a woman who with\r\na good cause might have dared anything. With the worst cause that a\r\nwoman could well have, she had dared and endured very much. She did\r\nnot faint, nor gasp as though she were choking, nor become hysteric\r\nin her agony; but she lay there, huddled up in the corner of the\r\nsofa, with her face hidden, and all those feminine graces forgotten\r\nwhich had long stood her in truth so royally. The inner, true, living\r\nwoman was there at last,--that and nothing else."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he,--what was he to do? It went against his heart to harass her\r\nat that moment; but then it was essential that he should know the\r\ntruth. The truth, or a suspicion of the truth was now breaking upon\r\nhim; and if that suspicion should be confirmed, what was he to do? It was at any rate necessary that everything should be put beyond a\r\ndoubt. \"Lady Mason,\" he said, \"if you are able to speak to me--\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" she said, gradually straightening herself, and raising her\r\nhead though she did not look at him. \"Yes. I am able.\" But there was\r\nsomething terrible in the sound of her voice. It was such a sound of\r\nagony that he felt himself unable to persist. \"If you wish it I will leave you, and come back,--say in an hour.\" \"No, no; do not leave me.\" And her whole body was shaken with a\r\ntremour, as though of an ague fit. \"Do not go away, and I will tell\r\nyou everything. I did it.\" \"Did what?\" \"I--forged the will. I did it all.--I am guilty.\" There was the whole truth now, declared openly and in the most simple\r\nwords, and there was no longer any possibility that he should doubt. It was very terrible,--a terrible tragedy. But to him at this present\r\nmoment the part most frightful was his and her present position. What\r\nshould he do for her? How should he counsel her?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "In what way so act\r\nthat he might best assist her without compromising that high sense\r\nof right and wrong which in him was a second nature. He felt at\r\nthe moment that he would still give his last shilling to rescue\r\nher,--only that there was the property! Let the heavens fall, justice\r\nmust be done there. Even a wretch such as Joseph Mason must have that\r\nwhich was clearly his own. As she spoke those last words, she had risen from the sofa, and was\r\nnow standing before him resting with her hands upon the table, like a\r\nprisoner in the dock. \"What!\" he said; \"with your own hands?\" \"Yes; with my own hands. When he would not do justice to my baby,\r\nwhen he talked of that other being the head of his house, I did it,\r\nwith my own hands,--during the night.\" \"And you wrote the names,--yourself?\" \"Yes; I wrote them all.\" And then there was again silence in the\r\nroom; but she still stood, leaning on the table, waiting for him to\r\nspeak her doom. He turned away from the spot in which he had confronted her and\r\nwalked to the window. What was he to do? How was he to help her? And\r\nhow was he to be rid of her? How was he to save his daughter from\r\nfurther contact with a woman such as this?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And how was he to bid his\r\ndaughter behave to this woman as one woman should behave to another\r\nin her misery? Then too he had learned to love her himself,--had\r\nyearned to call her his own; and though this in truth was a minor\r\nsorrow, it was one which at the moment added bitterness to the\r\nothers. But there she stood, still waiting her doom, and it was\r\nnecessary that that doom should be spoken by him. \"If this can really be true--\"\r\n\r\n\"It is true. You do not think that a woman would falsely tell such a\r\ntale as that against herself!\" \"Then I fear--that this must be over between you and me.\" There was a relief to her, a sort of relief, in those words. The doom\r\nas so far spoken was so much a matter of course that it conveyed no\r\npenalty. Her story had been told in order that that result might be\r\nattained with certainty. There was almost a tone of scorn in her\r\nvoice as she said, \"Oh yes; all that must be over.\" \"And what next would you have me do?\" he asked. \"I have nothing to request,\" she said. \"If you must tell it to all\r\nthe world, do so.\" \"Tell it; no. It will not be my business to be an informer.\" \"But you must tell it. There is Mrs. Orme.\" \"Yes: to Edith!\" \"And I must leave the house. Oh, where shall I go when he knows it?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And where will he go?\" Wretched miserable woman, but yet so worthy\r\nof pity! What a terrible retribution for that night's work was now\r\ncoming on her! He again walked to the window to think how he might answer these\r\nquestions. Must he tell his daughter? Must he banish this criminal\r\nat once from his house? Every one now had been told of his intended\r\nmarriage; every one had been told through Lord Alston, Mr. Furnival,\r\nand such as they. That at any rate must now be untold. And would it\r\nbe possible that she should remain there, living with them at The\r\nCleeve, while all this was being done? In truth he did not know how\r\nto speak. He had not hardness of heart to pronounce her doom. \"Of course I shall leave the house,\" she said, with something almost\r\nof pride in her voice. \"If there be no place open to me but a gaol I\r\nwill do that. Perhaps I had better go now and get my things removed\r\nat once. Say a word of love for me to her;--a word of respectful\r\nlove.\" And she moved as though she were going to the door. But he would not permit her to leave him thus. He could not let the\r\npoor, crushed, broken creature wander forth in her agony to bruise\r\nherself at every turn, and to be alone in her despair."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was still\r\nthe woman whom he had loved; and, over and beyond that, was she not\r\nthe woman who had saved him from a terrible downfall by rushing\r\nherself into utter ruin for his sake? He must take some steps in her\r\nbehalf--if he could only resolve what those steps should be. She was\r\nmoving to the door, but stopping her, he took her by the hand. \"You\r\ndid it,\" he said, \"and he, your husband, knew nothing of it?\" The\r\nfact itself was so wonderful, that he had hardly as yet made even\r\nthat all his own. \"I did it, and he knew nothing of it. I will go now, Sir Peregrine; I\r\nam strong enough.\" \"But where will you go?\" \"Ah me, where shall I go?\" And she put the hand which was at liberty\r\nup to her temple, brushing back her hair as though she might thus\r\ncollect her thoughts. \"Where shall I go? But he does not know it yet. I will go now to Orley Farm. When must he be told? Tell me that. When\r\nmust he know it?\" \"No, Lady Mason; you cannot go there to-day. It's very hard to say\r\nwhat you had better do.\" \"Very hard,\" she echoed, shaking her head. \"But you must remain here at present;--at The Cleeve I mean; at any\r\nrate for to-day. I will think about it. I will endeavour to think\r\nwhat may be the best.\" \"But--we cannot meet now. She and I;--Mrs. Orme?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then again\r\nhe was silent; for in truth the difficulties were too many for him. Might it not be best that she should counterfeit illness and be\r\nconfined to her own room? But then he was averse to recommend any\r\ncounterfeit; and if Mrs. Orme did not go to her in her assumed\r\nillness, the counterfeit would utterly fail of effect in the\r\nhousehold. And then, should he tell Mrs. Orme? The weight of these\r\ntidings would be too much for him, if he did not share them with some\r\none. So he made up his mind that he must tell them to her--though to\r\nno other one. \"I must tell her,\" he said. \"Oh yes,\" she replied; and he felt her hand tremble in his, and\r\ndropped it. He had forgotten that he thus held her as all these\r\nthoughts pressed upon his brain. \"I will tell it to her, but to no one else. If I might advise you, I\r\nwould say that it will be well for you now to take some rest. You are\r\nagitated, and--\"\r\n\r\n\"Agitated! yes. But you are right, Sir Peregrine. I will go at once\r\nto my room. And then--\"\r\n\r\n\"Then, perhaps,--in the course of the morning, you will see me\r\nagain.\" \"Where?--will you come to me there?\" \"I will see you in her room, in her dressing-room. She will be down\r\nstairs, you know.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "From which last words the tidings were conveyed to\r\nLady Mason that she was not to see Mrs. Orme again. And then she went, and as she slowly made her way across the hall\r\nshe felt that all of evil, all of punishment that she had ever\r\nanticipated, had now fallen upon her. There are periods in the lives\r\nof some of us--I trust but of few--when, with the silent inner voice\r\nof suffering, we call on the mountains to fall and crush us, and\r\non the earth to gape open and take us in. When, with an agony of\r\nintensity, we wish that our mothers had been barren. In those moments\r\nthe poorest and most desolate are objects to us of envy, for their\r\nsufferings can be as nothing to our own. Lady Mason, as she crept\r\nsilently across the hall, saw a servant girl pass down towards the\r\nentrance to the kitchen, and would have given all, all that she had\r\nin the world, to have changed places with that girl. But no change\r\nwas possible for her. Neither would the mountains crush her, nor\r\nwould the earth take her in. There was her burden, and she must bear\r\nit to the end. There was the bed which she had made for herself, and\r\nshe must lie upon it. No escape was possible to her. She had herself\r\nmixed the cup, and she must now drink of it to the dregs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Slowly and very silently she made her way up to her own room, and\r\nhaving closed the door behind her sat herself down upon the bed. It\r\nwas as yet early in the morning, and the servant had not been in the\r\nchamber. There was no fire there although it was still mid-winter. Of such details as these Sir Peregrine had remembered nothing when\r\nhe recommended her to go to her own room. Nor did she think of them\r\nat first as she placed herself on the bed-side. But soon the bitter\r\nair pierced her through and through, and she shivered with the cold\r\nas she sat there. After a while she got herself a shawl, wrapped it\r\nclose around her, and then sat down again. She bethought herself that\r\nshe might have to remain in this way for hours, so she rose again\r\nand locked the door. It would add greatly to her immediate misery\r\nif the servants were to come while she was there, and see her in\r\nher wretchedness. Presently the girls did come, and being unable to\r\nobtain entrance were told by Lady Mason that she wanted the chamber\r\nfor the present. Whereupon they offered to light the fire, but she\r\ndeclared that she was not cold. Her teeth were shaking in her head,\r\nbut any suffering was better than the suffering of being seen. [Illustration: Lady Mason after her Confession.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She did not lie down, or cover herself further than she was covered\r\nwith that shawl, nor did she move from her place for more than an\r\nhour. By degrees she became used to the cold. She was numbed, and\r\nas it were, half dead in all her limbs, but she had ceased to shake\r\nas she sat there, and her mind had gone back to the misery of her\r\nposition. There was so much for her behind that was worse! What\r\nshould she do when even this retirement should not be allowed to her? Instead of longing for the time when she should be summoned to meet\r\nSir Peregrine, she dreaded its coming. It would bring her nearer to\r\nthat other meeting when she would have to bow her head and crouch\r\nbefore her son. She had been there above an hour and was in truth ill with the cold\r\nwhen she heard,--and scarcely heard,--a light step come quickly along\r\nthe passage towards her door. Her woman's ear instantly told her who\r\nowned that step, and her heart once more rose with hope. Was she\r\ncoming there to comfort her, to speak to the poor bruised sinner one\r\nword of feminine sympathy? The quick light step stopped at the door,\r\nthere was a pause, and then a low, low knock was heard. Lady Mason\r\nasked no question, but dropping from the bed hurried to the door and\r\nturned the key."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She turned the key, and as the door was opened half\r\nhid herself behind it;--and then Mrs. Orme was in the room. \"What! you have no fire?\" she said, feeling that the air struck her\r\nwith a sudden chill. \"Oh, this is dreadful! My poor, poor dear!\" And\r\nthen she took hold of both Lady Mason's hands. Had she possessed the\r\nwisdom of the serpent as well as the innocence of the dove she could\r\nnot have been wiser in her first mode of addressing the sufferer. For\r\nshe knew it all. During that dreadful hour Sir Peregrine had told\r\nher the whole story; and very dreadful that hour had been to her. He,\r\nwhen he attempted to give counsel in the matter, had utterly failed. He had not known what to suggest, nor could she say what it might\r\nbe wisest for them all to do; but on one point her mind had been at\r\nonce resolved. The woman who had once been her friend, whom she had\r\nlearned to love, should not leave the house without some sympathy\r\nand womanly care. The guilt was very bad; yes, it was terrible;\r\nshe acknowledged that it was a thing to be thought of only with\r\nshuddering. But the guilt of twenty years ago did not strike her\r\nsenses so vividly as the abject misery of the present day."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was\r\nno pity in her bosom for Mr. Joseph Mason when she heard the story,\r\nbut she was full of pity for her who had committed the crime. It was\r\ntwenty years ago, and had not the sinner repented? Besides, was she\r\nto be the judge? \"Judge not, and ye shall not be judged,\" she said,\r\nwhen she thought that Sir Peregrine spoke somewhat harshly in the\r\nmatter. So she said, altogether misinterpreting the Scripture in her\r\ndesire to say something in favour of the poor woman. But when it was hinted to her that Lady Mason might return to Orley\r\nFarm without being again seen by her, her woman's heart at once\r\nrebelled. \"If she has done wrong,\" said Mrs. Orme--\r\n\r\n\"She has done great wrong--fearful wrong,\" said Sir Peregrine. \"It will not hurt me to see her because she has done wrong. Not see\r\nher while she is in the house! If she were in the prison, would I not\r\ngo to see her?\" And then Sir Peregrine had said no more, but he loved\r\nhis daughter-in-law all the better for her unwonted vehemence. \"You will do what is right,\" he said--\"as you always do.\" Then he\r\nleft her; and she, after standing for a few moments while she shaped\r\nher thoughts, went straight away to Lady Mason's room. She took Lady Mason by both her hands and found that they were icy\r\ncold. \"Oh, this is dreadful,\" she said. \"Come with me, dear.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "But\r\nLady Mason still stood, up by the bed-head, whither she had retreated\r\nfrom the door. Her eyes were still cast upon the ground and she\r\nleaned back as Mrs. Orme held her, as though by her weight she would\r\nhinder her friend from leading her from the room. \"You are frightfully cold,\" said Mrs. Orme. \"Has he told you?\" said Lady Mason, asking the question in the lowest\r\npossible whisper, and still holding back as she spoke. \"Yes; he has told me;--but no one else--no one else.\" And then for a\r\nfew moments nothing was spoken between them. \"Oh, that I could die!\" said the poor wretch, expressing in words\r\nthat terrible wish that the mountains might fall upon her and crush\r\nher. \"You must not say that. That would be wicked, you know. He can\r\ncomfort you. Do you not know that He will comfort you, if you are\r\nsorry for your sins and go to Him?\" But the woman in her intense suffering could not acknowledge to\r\nherself any idea of comfort. \"Ah, me!\" she exclaimed, with a deep\r\nbursting sob which went straight to Mrs. Orme's heart. And then a\r\nconvulsive fit of trembling seized her so strongly that Mrs. Orme\r\ncould hardly continue to hold her hands. \"You are ill with the cold,\" she said. \"Come with me, Lady Mason, you\r\nshall not stay here longer.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lady Mason then permitted herself to be led out of the room, and the\r\ntwo went quickly down the passage to the head of the front stairs,\r\nand from thence to Mrs. Orme's room. In crossing the house they had\r\nseen no one and been seen by no one; and Lady Mason when she came to\r\nthe door hurried in, that she might again hide herself in security\r\nfor the moment. As soon as the door was closed Mrs. Orme placed her\r\nin an arm-chair which she wheeled up to the front of the fire, and\r\nseating herself on a stool at the poor sinner's feet, chafed her\r\nhands within her own. She took away the shawl and made her stretch\r\nout her feet towards the fire, and thus seated close to her, she\r\nspoke no word for the next half-hour as to the terrible fact that\r\nhad become known to her. Then, on a sudden, as though the ice of her\r\nheart had thawed from the warmth of the other's kindness, Lady Mason\r\nburst into a flood of tears, and flinging herself upon her friend's\r\nneck and bosom begged with earnest piteousness to be forgiven. And Mrs. Orme did forgive her. Many will think that she was wrong to\r\ndo so, and I fear it must be acknowledged that she was not strong\r\nminded."}
{"question": "", "answer": "By forgiving her I do not mean that she pronounced absolution\r\nfor the sin of past years, or that she endeavoured to make the\r\nsinner think that she was no worse for her sin. Mrs. Orme was a good\r\nchurchwoman but not strong, individually, in points of doctrine. All\r\nthat she left mainly to the woman's conscience and her own dealings\r\nwith her Saviour,--merely saying a word of salutary counsel as to a\r\ncertain spiritual pastor who might be of aid. But Mrs. Orme forgave\r\nher,--as regarded herself. She had already, while all this was\r\nunknown, taken this woman to her heart as pure and good. It now\r\nappeared that the woman had not been pure, had not been good!--And\r\nthen she took her to her heart again! Criminal as the woman was,\r\ndisgraced and debased, subject almost to the heaviest penalties of\r\noutraged law and justice, a felon against whom the actual hands of\r\nthe law's myrmidons would probably soon prevail, a creature doomed to\r\nbear the scorn of the lowest of her fellow-creatures,--such as she\r\nwas, this other woman, pure and high, so shielded from the world's\r\nimpurity that nothing ignoble might touch her,--this lady took her\r\nto her heart again and promised in her ear with low sweet words of\r\nconsolation that they should still be friends. I cannot say that Mrs.\r\nOrme was right. That she was weak minded I feel nearly certain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But,\r\nperhaps, this weakness of mind may never be brought against her to\r\nher injury, either in this world or in the next. I will not pretend to give the words which passed between them at\r\nthat interview. After a while Lady Mason allowed herself to be guided\r\nall in all by her friend's advice as though she herself had been a\r\nchild. It was decided that for the present,--that is for the next day\r\nor two,--Lady Mason should keep her room at The Cleeve as an invalid. Counterfeit in this there would be none certainly, for indeed she was\r\nhardly fit for any place but her own bed. If inclined and able to\r\nleave her room, she should be made welcome to the use of Mrs. Orme's\r\ndressing-room. It would only be necessary to warn Peregrine that for\r\nthe present he must abstain from coming there. The servants, Mrs.\r\nOrme said, had heard of their master's intended marriage. They would\r\nnow hear that this intention had been abandoned. On this they would\r\nput their own construction, and would account in their own fashion\r\nfor the fact that Sir Peregrine and his guest no longer saw each\r\nother. But no suspicion of the truth would get abroad when it was\r\nseen that Lady Mason was still treated as a guest at The Cleeve. As\r\nto such future steps as might be necessary to be taken, Mrs. Orme\r\nwould consult with Sir Peregrine, and tell Lady Mason from time to\r\ntime."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And as for the sad truth, the terrible truth,--that, at any\r\nrate for the present, should be told to no other ears. And so the\r\nwhole morning was spent, and Mrs. Orme saw neither Sir Peregrine nor\r\nher son till she went down to the library in the first gloom of the\r\nwinter evening. CHAPTER XLVI. A WOMAN'S IDEA OF FRIENDSHIP. Sir Peregrine after the hour that he had spent with his\r\ndaughter-in-law,--that terrible hour during which Lady Mason had sat\r\nalone on the bed-side,--returned to the library and remained there\r\nduring the whole of the afternoon. It may be remembered that he had\r\nagreed to ride through the woods with his grandson; but that purpose\r\nhad been abandoned early in the day, and Peregrine had in consequence\r\nbeen hanging about the house. He soon perceived that something was\r\namiss, but he did not know what. He had looked for his mother, and\r\nhad indeed seen her for a moment at her door; but she had told him\r\nthat she could not then speak to him. Sir Peregrine also had shut\r\nhimself up, but about the hour of dusk he sent for his grandson; and\r\nwhen Mrs. Orme, on leaving Lady Mason, went down to the library, she\r\nfound them both together. They were standing with their backs to the fire, and the gloom in the\r\nroom was too dark to allow of their faces being seen, but she felt\r\nthat the conversation between them was of a serious nature."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Indeed\r\nwhat conversation in that house could be other than serious on\r\nthat day? \"I see that I am disturbing you,\" she said, preparing to\r\nretreat. \"I did not know that you were together.\" \"Do not go, Edith,\" said the old man. \"Peregrine, put a chair for\r\nyour mother. I have told him that all this is over now between me and\r\nLady Mason.\" She trembled as she heard the words, for it seemed to her that there\r\nmust be danger now in even speaking of Lady Mason,--danger with\r\nreference to that dreadful secret, the divulging of which would be so\r\nfatal. \"I have told him,\" continued Sir Peregrine, \"that for a few minutes I\r\nwas angry with him when I heard from Lady Mason that he had spoken to\r\nher; but I believe that on the whole it is better that it should have\r\nbeen so.\" \"He would be very unhappy if anything that he had done had distressed\r\nyou,\" said Mrs. Orme, hardly knowing what words to use, or how to\r\nspeak. Nor did she feel quite certain as yet how much had been told\r\nto her son, and how much was concealed from him. \"No, no, no,\" said the old man, laying his arm affectionately on the\r\nyoung man's shoulder. \"He has done nothing to distress me. There is\r\nnothing wrong--nothing wrong between him and me. Thank God for that. But, Perry, we will think now of that other matter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Have you told\r\nyour mother anything about it?\" And he strove to look away from the\r\nwretchedness of his morning's work to something in his family that\r\nstill admitted of a bright hope. \"No, sir; not yet. We won't mind that just now.\" And then they all\r\nremained silent, Mrs. Orme sitting, and the two men still standing\r\nwith their backs towards the fire. Her mind was too intent on the\r\nunfortunate lady up stairs to admit of her feeling interest in that\r\nother unknown matter to which Sir Peregrine had alluded. \"If you have done with Perry,\" she said at last, \"I would be glad to\r\nspeak to you for a minute or two.\" \"Oh yes,\" said Peregrine;--\"we have done.\" And then he went. \"You have told him,\" said she, as soon as they were left together. \"Told him; what, of her? Oh no. I have told him that that,--that\r\nidea of mine has been abandoned.\" From this time forth Sir Peregrine\r\ncould never endure to speak of his proposed marriage, nor to hear it\r\nspoken of. \"He conceives that this has been done at her instance,\" he\r\ncontinued. \"And so it has,\" said Mrs. Orme, with much more of decision in her\r\nvoice than was customary with her. \"And so it has,\" he repeated after her. \"Nobody must know of this,\"--said she very solemnly, standing up and\r\nlooking into his face with eager eyes. \"Nobody but you and I.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"All the world, I fear, will know it soon,\" said Sir Peregrine. \"No; no. Why should all the world know it? Had she not told us we\r\nshould not have known it. We should not have suspected it. Mr.\r\nFurnival, who understands these things;--he does not think her\r\nguilty.\" \"But, Edith--the property!\" \"Let her give that up--after a while; when all this has passed by. That man is not in want. It will not hurt him to be without it a\r\nlittle longer. It will be enough for her to do that when this trial\r\nshall be over.\" \"But it is not hers. She cannot give it up. It belongs to her\r\nson,--or is thought to belong to him. It is not for us to be\r\ninformers, Edith--\"\r\n\r\n\"No, no; it is not for us to be informers. We must remember that.\" \"Certainly. It is not for us to tell the story of her guilt; but her\r\nguilt will remain the same, will be acted over and over again every\r\nday, while the proceeds of the property go into the hands of Lucius\r\nMason. It is that which is so terrible, Edith;--that her conscience\r\nshould have been able to bear that load for the last twenty years! A\r\ndeed done,--that admits of no restitution, may admit of repentance. We may leave that to the sinner and his conscience, hoping that he\r\nstands right with his Maker."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But here, with her, there has been a\r\ncontinual theft going on from year to year,--which is still going\r\non. While Lucius Mason holds a sod of Orley Farm, true repentance\r\nwith her must be impossible. It seems so to me.\" And Sir Peregrine\r\nshuddered at the doom which his own rectitude of mind and purpose\r\nforced him to pronounce. \"It is not she that has it,\" said Mrs. Orme. \"It was not done for\r\nherself.\" \"There is no difference in that,\" said he sharply. \"All sin\r\nis selfish, and so was her sin in this. Her object was the\r\naggrandisement of her own child; and when she could not accomplish\r\nthat honestly, she did it by fraud, and--and--and--. Edith, my dear,\r\nyou and I must look at this thing as it is. You must not let your\r\nkind heart make your eyes blind in a matter of such moment.\" \"No, father; nor must the truth make our hearts cruel. You talk of\r\nrestitution and repentance. Repentance is not the work of a day. How\r\nare we to say by what struggles her poor heart has been torn?\" \"I do not judge her.\" \"No, no; that is it. We may not judge her; may we? But we may assist\r\nher in her wretchedness. I have promised that I will do all I can to\r\naid her. You will allow me to do so;--you will; will you not?\" And\r\nshe pressed his arm and looked up into his face, entreating him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Since first they two had known each other, he had never yet denied\r\nher a request. It was a law of his life that he would never do so. But now he hesitated, not thinking that he would refuse her, but\r\nfeeling that on such an occasion it would be necessary to point out\r\nto her how far she might go without risk of bringing censure on her\r\nown name. But in this case, though the mind of Sir Peregrine might\r\nbe the more logical, the purpose of his daughter-in-law was the\r\nstronger. She had resolved that such communication with crime would\r\nnot stain her, and she already knew to what length she would go in\r\nher charity. Indeed, her mind was fully resolved to go far enough. \"I hardly know as yet what she intends to do; any assistance that you\r\ncan give her must, I should say, depend on her own line of conduct.\" \"But I want your advice as to that. I tell you what I purpose. It is\r\nclear that Mr. Furnival thinks she will gain the day at this trial.\" \"But Mr. Furnival does not know the truth.\" \"Nor will the judge and the lawyers, and all the rest. As you say so\r\nproperly, it is not for us to be the informers. If they can prove it,\r\nlet them. But you would not have her tell them all against herself?\" And then she paused, waiting for his answer. \"I do not know."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I do not know what to say. It is not for me to advise\r\nher.\" \"Ah, but it is for you,\" she said; and as she spoke she put her\r\nlittle hand down on the table with an energy which startled him. \"She\r\nis here--a wretched woman, in your house. And why do you know the\r\ntruth? Why has it been told to you and me? Because without telling it\r\nshe could not turn you from that purpose of yours. It was generous,\r\nfather--confess that; it was very generous.\" \"Yes, it was generous,\" said Sir Peregrine. \"It was very generous. It would be base in us if we allowed ourselves\r\nto forget that. But I was telling you my plan. She must go to this\r\ntrial.\" \"Oh yes; there will be no doubt as to that.\" \"Then--if she can escape, let the property be given up afterwards.\" \"I do not see how it is to be arranged. The property will belong to\r\nLucius, and she cannot give it up then. It is not so easy to put\r\nmatters right when guilt and fraud have set them wrong.\" \"We will do the best we can. Even suppose that you were to tell\r\nLucius afterwards;--you yourself! if that were necessary, you know.\" And so by degrees she talked him over; but yet he would come to no\r\ndecision as to what steps he himself must take. What if he himself\r\nshould go to Mr."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Round, and pledge himself that the whole estate\r\nshould be restored to Mr. Mason of Groby, on condition that the trial\r\nwere abandoned? The world would probably guess the truth after that;\r\nbut the terrible trial and the more terrible punishment which would\r\nfollow it might be thus escaped. Poor Sir Peregrine! Even when\r\nhe argued thus within himself, his conscience told him that in\r\ntaking such a line of conduct, he himself would be guilty of some\r\noutrage against the law by aiding a criminal in her escape. He had\r\nheard of misprision of felony; but nevertheless, he allowed his\r\ndaughter-in-law to prevail. Before such a step as this could be taken\r\nthe consent of Lady Mason must of course be obtained; but as to that\r\nMrs. Orme had no doubt. If Lucius could be induced to abandon the\r\nproperty without hearing the whole story, it would be well. But if\r\nthat could not be achieved,--then the whole story must be told to\r\nhim. \"And you will tell it,\" Mrs. Orme said to him. \"It would be\r\neasier for me to cut off my right arm,\" he answered; \"but I will do\r\nmy best.\" And then came the question as to the place of Lady Mason's immediate\r\nresidence. It was evident to Mrs. Orme that Sir Peregrine expected\r\nthat she would at once go back to Orley Farm;--not exactly on that\r\nday, nor did he say on the day following."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But his words made it\r\nvery manifest that he did not think it right that she should under\r\nexisting circumstances remain at The Cleeve. Sir Peregrine, however,\r\nas quickly understood that Mrs. Orme did not wish her to go away for\r\nsome days. \"It would injure the cause if she were to leave us quite at once,\"\r\nsaid Mrs. Orme. \"But how can she stay here, my dear,--with no one to see her; with\r\nnone but the servants to wait upon her?\" \"I should see her,\" said Mrs. Orme, boldly. \"Do you mean constantly--in your old, friendly way?\" \"Yes, constantly; and,\" she added after a pause, \"not only here, but\r\nat Orley Farm also.\" And then there was another pause between them. Sir Peregrine certainly was not a cruel man, nor was his heart by any\r\nmeans hardened against the lady with whom circumstances had lately\r\njoined him so closely. Indeed, since the knowledge of her guilt had\r\nfully come upon him, he had undertaken the conduct of her perilous\r\naffairs in a manner more confidential even than that which had\r\nexisted while he expected to make her his wife. But, nevertheless,\r\nit went sorely against the grain with him when it was proposed that\r\nthere should still exist a close intimacy between the one cherished\r\nlady of his household and the woman who had been guilty of so base\r\na crime."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It seemed to him that he might touch pitch and not be\r\ndefiled;--he or any man belonging to him. But he could not reconcile\r\nit to himself that the widow of his son should run such risk. In\r\nhis estimation there was something almost more than human about the\r\npurity of the only woman that blessed his hearth. It seemed to him\r\nas though she were a sacred thing, to be guarded by a shrine,--to be\r\nprotected from all contact with the pollutions of the outer world. And now it was proposed to him that she should take a felon to her\r\nbosom as her friend! \"But will that be necessary, Edith?\" he said; \"and after all that has\r\nbeen revealed to us now, will it be wise?\" \"I think so,\" she said, speaking again with a very low voice. \"Why,\r\nshould I not?\" \"Because she has shown herself unworthy of such friendship;--unfit\r\nfor it I should say.\" \"Unworthy! Dear father, is she not as worthy and as fit as she was\r\nyesterday? If we saw clearly into each other's bosom, whom should we\r\nthink worthy?\" \"But you would not choose for your friend one--one who could do such\r\na deed as that?\" \"No; I would not choose her because she had so acted; nor perhaps if\r\nI knew all beforehand would I open my heart to one who had so done. But it is different now."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What are love and friendship worth if they\r\ncannot stand against such trials as these?\" \"Do you mean, Edith, that no crime would separate you from a friend?\" \"I have not said that. There are circumstances always. But if she\r\nrepents,--as I am sure she does, I cannot bring myself to desert her. Who else is there that can stand by her now; what other woman? At any\r\nrate I have promised her, and you would not have me break my word.\" Thus she again gained her point, and it was settled that for the\r\npresent Lady Mason should be allowed to occupy her own room,--her own\r\nroom, and occasionally Mrs. Orme's sitting-room, if it pleased her\r\nto do so. No day was named for her removal, but, Mrs. Orme perfectly\r\nunderstood that the sooner such a day could be fixed the better Sir\r\nPeregrine would be pleased. And, indeed, his household as at present\r\narranged was not a pleasant one. The servants had all heard of his\r\nintended marriage, and now they must also hear that that intention\r\nwas abandoned. And yet the lady would remain up stairs as a guest\r\nof his! There was much in this that was inconvenient; but under\r\ncircumstances as they now existed, what could he do? When all this was arranged and Mrs. Orme had dressed for dinner, she\r\nagain went to Lady Mason."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She found her in bed, and told her that at\r\nnight she would come to her and tell her all. And then she instructed\r\nher own servant as to attending upon the invalid. In doing this she\r\nwas cunning in letting a word fall here and there, that might teach\r\nthe woman that that marriage purpose was all over; but nevertheless\r\nthere was so much care and apparent affection in her mode of\r\nspeaking, and she gave her orders for Lady Mason's comfort with so\r\nmuch earnestness, that no idea could get abroad in the household that\r\nthere had been any cause for absolute quarrel. Late at night, when her son had left her, she did go again to her\r\nguest's room, and sitting down by the bed-side she told her all that\r\nhad been planned, pointing out however with much care that, as a\r\npart of those plans, Orley Farm was to be surrendered to Joseph\r\nMason. \"You think that is right; do you not?\" said Mrs. Orme, almost\r\ntrembling as she asked a question so pertinent to the deed which the\r\nother had done, and to that repentance for the deed which was now so\r\nmuch to be desired. \"Yes,\" said the other, \"of course it will be right.\" And then the\r\nthought that it was not in her power to abandon the property occurred\r\nto her also. If the estate must be voluntarily surrendered, no one\r\ncould so surrender it but Lucius Mason."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She knew this, and felt at\r\nthe moment that of all men he would be the least likely to do so,\r\nunless an adequate reason was made clearly plain to him. The same\r\nthought at the same moment was passing through the minds of them\r\nboth; but Lady Mason could not speak out her thought, and Mrs. Orme\r\nwould not say more on that terrible day to trouble the mind of the\r\npoor creature whose sufferings she was so anxious to assuage. And then Lady Mason was left alone, and having now a partner in her\r\nsecret, slept sounder than she had done since the tidings first\r\nreached her of Mr. Dockwrath's vengeance. CHAPTER XLVII. THE GEM OF THE FOUR FAMILIES. And now we will go back to Noningsby. On that evening Graham ate his\r\npheasant with a relish although so many cares sat heavy on his mind,\r\nand declared, to Mrs. Baker's great satisfaction, that the cook had\r\nmanaged to preserve the bread sauce uninjured through all the perils\r\nof delay which it had encountered. \"Bread sauce is so ticklish; a simmer too much and it's clean done\r\nfor,\" Mrs. Baker said with a voice of great solicitude. But she had\r\nbeen accustomed perhaps to patients whose appetites were fastidious."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The pheasant and the bread sauce and the mashed potatoes, all\r\nprepared by Mrs. Baker's own hands to be eaten as spoon meat,\r\ndisappeared with great celerity; and then, as Graham sat sipping the\r\nsolitary glass of sherry that was allowed to him, meditating that\r\nhe would begin his letter the moment the glass was empty, Augustus\r\nStaveley again made his appearance. [Illustration: \"Bread Sauce is so ticklish.\"] \"Well, old fellow,\" said he, \"how are you now?\" and he was\r\nparticularly careful so to speak as to show by his voice that his\r\naffection for his friend was as strong as ever. But in doing so he\r\nshowed also that there was some special thought still present in his\r\nmind,--some feeling which was serious in its nature if not absolutely\r\npainful. \"Staveley,\" said the other, gravely, \"I have acquired knowledge\r\nto-day which I trust I may carry with me to my grave.\" \"And what is that?\" said Augustus, looking round to Mrs. Baker as\r\nthough he thought it well that she should be out of the room before\r\nthe expected communication was made. But Mrs. Baker's attention was\r\nso riveted by her patient's earnestness, that she made no attempt to\r\ngo. \"It is a wasting of the best gifts of Providence,\" said Graham, \"to\r\neat a pheasant after one has really done one's dinner.\" \"Oh, that's it, is it?\" said Augustus. \"So it is, sir,\" said Mrs. Baker, thinking that the subject quite\r\njustified the manner."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And of no use whatsoever to eat only a little bit of one as a man\r\ndoes then. To know what a pheasant is you should have it all to\r\nyourself.\" \"So you should, sir,\" said Mrs. Baker, quite delighted and very much\r\nin earnest. \"And you should have nothing else. Then, if the bird be good to begin\r\nwith, and has been well hung--\"\r\n\r\n\"There's a deal in that,\" said Mrs. Baker. \"Then, I say, you'll know what a pheasant is. That's the lesson which\r\nI have learned to-day, and I give it you as an adequate return for\r\nthe pheasant itself.\" \"I was almost afeard it would be spoilt by being brought up the\r\nsecond time,\" said Mrs. Baker. \"And so I said to my lady; but she\r\nwouldn't have you woke, nohow.\" And then Mrs. Baker, having heard the\r\nlast of the lecture, took away the empty wine-glass and shut the door\r\nbehind her. \"And now I'll write those two letters,\" said Graham. \"What I've\r\nwritten hitherto I wrote in bed, and I feel almost more awkward now I\r\nam up than I did then.\" \"But what letters are they?\" \"Well, one to my laundress to tell her I shall be there to-morrow,\r\nand one to Mary Snow to say that I'll see her the day after.\" \"Then, Felix, don't trouble yourself to write either. You positively\r\nwon't go to-morrow--\"\r\n\r\n\"Who says so?\" \"The governor."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He has heard from my mother exactly what the doctor\r\nsaid, and declares that he won't allow it. He means to see the doctor\r\nhimself before you stir. And he wants to see you also. I am to tell\r\nyou he'll come to you directly after breakfast.\" \"I shall be delighted to see your father, and am very much gratified\r\nby his kindness, but--\"\r\n\r\n\"But what--\"\r\n\r\n\"I'm a free agent, I suppose,--to go when I please?\" \"Not exactly. The law is unwritten; but by traditional law a man laid\r\nup in his bedroom is not free to go and come. No action for false\r\nimprisonment would lie if Mrs. Baker kept all your clothes away from\r\nyou.\" \"I should like to try the question.\" \"You will have the opportunity, for you may be sure that you'll not\r\nleave this to-morrow.\" \"It would depend altogether on the evidence of the doctor.\" \"Exactly so. And as the doctor in this case would clearly be on the\r\nside of the defendants, a verdict on behalf of the plaintiff would\r\nnot be by any means attainable.\" After that the matter was presumed\r\nto be settled, and Graham said no more as to leaving Noningsby on\r\nthe next day. As things turned out afterwards he remained there for\r\nanother week. \"I must at any rate write a letter to Mary Snow,\" he said. And to\r\nMary Snow he did write some three or four lines, Augustus sitting by\r\nthe while."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Augustus Staveley would have been very glad to know the\r\ncontents, or rather the spirit of those lines; but nothing was said\r\nabout them, and the letter was at last sealed up and intrusted to\r\nhis care for the post-bag. There was very little in it that could\r\nhave interested Augustus Staveley or any one else. It contained the\r\nordinary, but no more than the ordinary terms of affection. He told\r\nher that he found it impracticable to move himself quite immediately. And then as to that cause of displeasure,--that cause of supposed\r\ndispleasure as to which both Mary and Mrs. Thomas had written, he\r\ndeclared that he did not believe that anything had been done that he\r\nshould not find it easy to forgive after so long an absence. Augustus then remained there for another hour, but not a word was\r\nsaid between the young men on that subject which was nearest, at the\r\nmoment, to the hearts of both of them. Each was thinking of Madeline,\r\nbut neither of them spoke as though any such subject were in their\r\nthoughts. \"Heaven and earth!\" said Augustus at last, pulling out his watch. \"It\r\nonly wants three minutes to seven. I shall have a dozen messages from\r\nthe judge before I get down, to know whether he shall come and help\r\nme change my boots. I'll see you again before I go to bed. Good-bye,\r\nold fellow.\" And then Graham was again alone."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If Lady Staveley were really angry with him for loving her\r\ndaughter,--if his friend Staveley were in very truth determined\r\nthat such love must under no circumstances be sanctioned,--would\r\nthey treat him as they were treating him? Would they under such\r\ncircumstances make his prolonged stay in the house an imperative\r\nnecessity? He could not help asking himself this question, and\r\nanswering it with some gleam of hope. And then he acknowledged\r\nto himself that it was ungenerous in him to do so. His remaining\r\nthere,--the liberty to remain there which had been conceded to\r\nhim,--had arisen solely from the belief that a removal in his present\r\nstate would be injudicious. He assured himself of this over and over\r\nagain, so that no false hope might linger in his heart. And yet hope\r\ndid linger there whether false or true. Why might he not aspire to\r\nthe hand of Madeline Staveley,--he who had been assured that he need\r\nregard no woman as too high for his aspirations? \"Mrs. Baker,\" he said that evening, as that excellent woman was\r\ntaking away his tea-things, \"I have not heard Miss Staveley's voice\r\nthese two days.\" \"Well, no; no more you have,\" said she. \"There's two ways, you know,\r\nMr. Graham, of going to her part of the house. There's the door that\r\nopens at the end of the passage by her mamma's room. She's been that\r\nway, and that's the reason, I suppose. There ain't no other, I'm\r\nsure.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"One likes to hear one's friends if one can't see them; that's all.\" \"To be sure one does. I remember as how when I had the measles--I was\r\nliving with my lady's mother, as maid to the young ladies. There was\r\nfour of 'em, and I dressed 'em all--God bless 'em. They've all got\r\nhusbands now and grown families--only there ain't one among 'em equal\r\nto our Miss Madeline, though there's some of 'em much richer. When\r\nmy lady married him,--the judge, you know,--he was the poorest of\r\nthe lot. They didn't think so much of him when he came a-courting in\r\nthose days.\" \"He was only a practising barrister then.\" \"Oh yes; he knew well how to practise, for Miss Isabella--as she was\r\nthen--very soon made up her mind about him. Laws, Mr. Graham, she\r\nused to tell me everything in them days. They didn't want her to\r\nhave nothing to say to Mr. Staveley at first; but she made up her\r\nmind, and though she wasn't one of them as has many words, like Miss\r\nFurnival down there, there was no turning her.\" \"Did she marry at last against their wish?\" \"Oh dear, no; nothing of that sort. She wasn't one of them flighty\r\nones neither. She just made up her own mind and bided. And now I\r\ndon't know whether she hasn't done about the best of 'em all. Them\r\nOliphants is full of money, they do say--full of money. That was\r\nMiss Louisa, who came next."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, Lord love you, Mr. Graham, he's so\r\ncrammed with gout as he can't ever put a foot to the ground; and as\r\ncross;--as cross as cross. We goes there sometimes, you know. Then\r\nthe girls is all plain; and young Mr. Oliphant, the son,--why he\r\nnever so much as speaks to his own father; and though they're rolling\r\nin money, they say he can't pay for the coat on his back. Now our Mr.\r\nAugustus, unless it is that he won't come down to morning prayers and\r\nalways keeps the dinner waiting, I don't think there's ever a black\r\nlook between him and his papa. And as for Miss Madeline,--she's the\r\ngem of the four families. Everybody gives that up to her.\" If Madeline's mother married a barrister in opposition to the wishes\r\nof her family--a barrister who then possessed nothing but his\r\nwits--why should not Madeline do so also? That was of course the line\r\nwhich his thoughts took. But then, as he said to himself, Madeline's\r\nfather had been one of the handsomest men of his day, whereas he was\r\none of the ugliest; and Madeline's father had been encumbered with no\r\nMary Snow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A man who had been such a fool as he, who had gone so far\r\nout of the regular course, thinking to be wiser than other men, but\r\nbeing in truth much more silly, could not look for that success and\r\nhappiness in life which men enjoy who have not been so lamentably\r\ndeficient in discretion! 'Twas thus that he lectured himself; but\r\nstill he went on thinking of Madeline Staveley. There had been some disagreeable confusion in the house that\r\nafternoon after Augustus had spoken to his sister. Madeline had gone\r\nup to her own room, and had remained there, chewing the cud of her\r\nthoughts. Both her sister and her brother had warned her about this\r\nman. She could moreover divine that her mother was suffering under\r\nsome anxiety on the same subject. Why was all this? Why should these\r\nthings be said and thought? Why should there be uneasiness in the\r\nhouse on her account in this matter of Mr. Graham? She acknowledged\r\nto herself that there was such uneasiness;--and she almost\r\nacknowledged to herself the cause. But while she was still sitting over her own fire, with her needle\r\nuntouched beside her, her father had come home, and Lady Staveley had\r\nmentioned to him that Mr. Graham thought of going on the next day. \"Nonsense, my dear,\" said the judge. \"He must not think of such a\r\nthing. He can hardly be fit to leave his room yet.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Pottinger does say that it has gone on very favourably,\" pleaded\r\nLady Staveley. \"But that's no reason he should destroy the advantages of his healthy\r\nconstitution by insane imprudence. He's got nothing to do. He wants\r\nto go merely because he thinks he is in your way.\" Lady Staveley looked wishfully up in her husband's face, longing to\r\ntell him all her suspicions. But as yet her grounds for them were so\r\nslight that even to him she hesitated to mention them. \"His being here is no trouble to me, of course,\" she said. \"Of course not. You tell him so, and he'll stay,\" said the judge. \"I\r\nwant to see him to-morrow myself;--about this business of poor Lady\r\nMason's.\" Immediately after that he met his son. And Augustus also told him\r\nthat Graham was going. \"Oh no; he's not going at all,\" said the judge. \"I've settled that\r\nwith your mother.\" \"He's very anxious to be off,\" said Augustus gravely. \"And why? Is there any reason?\" \"Well; I don't know.\" For a moment he thought he would tell his\r\nfather the whole story; but he reflected that his doing so would\r\nbe hardly fair towards his friend. \"I don't know that there is any\r\nabsolute reason; but I'm quite sure that he is very anxious to go.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "The judge at once perceived that there was something in the wind,\r\nand during that hour in which the pheasant was being discussed up\r\nin Graham's room, he succeeded in learning the whole from his wife. Dear, good, loving wife! A secret of any kind from him was an\r\nimpossibility to her, although that secret went no further than her\r\nthoughts. \"The darling girl is so anxious about him, that--that I'm afraid,\"\r\nsaid she. \"He's by no means a bad sort of man, my love,\" said the judge. \"But he's got nothing--literally nothing,\" said the mother. \"Neither had I, when I went a wooing,\" said the judge. \"But,\r\nnevertheless, I managed to have it all my own way.\" \"You don't mean really to make a comparison?\" said Lady Staveley. \"In\r\nthe first place you were at the top of your profession.\" \"Was I? If so I must have achieved that distinction at a very early\r\nage.\" And then he kissed his wife very affectionately. Nobody was\r\nthere to see, and under such circumstances a man may kiss his wife\r\neven though he be a judge, and between fifty and sixty years old. After that he again spoke to his son, and in spite of the resolves\r\nwhich Augustus had made as to what friendship required of him,\r\nsucceeded in learning the whole truth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Late in the evening, when all the party had drunk their cups of tea,\r\nwhen Lady Staveley was beginning her nap, and Augustus was making\r\nhimself agreeable to Miss Furnival--to the great annoyance of\r\nhis mother, who half rousing herself every now and then, looked\r\nsorrowfully at what was going on with her winking eyes,--the judge\r\ncontrived to withdraw with Madeline into the small drawing-room,\r\ntelling her as he put his arm around her waist, that he had a few\r\nwords to say to her. \"Well, papa,\" said she, as at his bidding she sat herself down beside\r\nhim on the sofa. She was frightened, because such summonses were very\r\nunusual; but nevertheless her father's manner towards her was always\r\nso full of love that even in her fear she felt a comfort in being\r\nwith him. \"My darling,\" he said, \"I want to ask you one or two questions--about\r\nour guest here who has hurt himself,--Mr. Graham.\" \"Yes, papa.\" And now she knew that she was trembling with nervous\r\ndread. \"You need not think that I am in the least angry with you, or that I\r\nsuspect you of having done or said, or even thought anything that is\r\nwrong. I feel quite confident that I have no cause to do so.\" \"Oh, thank you, papa.\" \"But I want to know whether Mr. Graham has ever spoken to you--as a\r\nlover.\" \"Never, papa.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Because under the circumstances of his present stay here, his doing\r\nso would, I think, have been ungenerous.\" \"He never has, papa, in any way--not a single word.\" \"And you have no reason to regard him in that light.\" \"No, papa.\" But in the speaking of these last two words there was a\r\nslight hesitation,--the least possible shade of doubt conveyed, which\r\nmade itself immediately intelligible to the practised ear of the\r\njudge. \"Tell me all, my darling;--everything that there is in your heart, so\r\nthat we may help each other if that may be possible.\" \"He has never said anything to me, papa.\" \"Because your mamma thinks that you are more anxious about him than\r\nyou would be about an ordinary visitor.\" \"Does she?\" \"Has any one else spoken to you about Mr. Graham?\" \"Augustus did, papa; and Isabella, some time ago.\" \"Then I suppose they thought the same.\" \"Yes; I suppose they did.\" \"And now, dear, is there anything else you would like to say to me\r\nabout it?\" \"No, papa, I don't think there is.\" \"But remember this always;--that my only wishes respecting you, and\r\nyour mother's wishes also, are to see you happy and good.\" \"I am very happy, papa.\" \"And very good also to the best of my belief.\" And then he kissed\r\nher, and they went back again into the large drawing-room."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Many of my readers, and especially those who are old and wise,--if I\r\nchance to have any such,--will be inclined to think that the judge\r\nbehaved foolishly in thus cross-questioning his daughter on a matter,\r\nwhich, if it were expedient that it should die away, would die away\r\nthe more easily the less it were talked about. But the judge was\r\nan odd man in many of the theories of his life. One of them, with\r\nreference to his children, was very odd, and altogether opposed to\r\nthe usual practice of the world. It was this,--that they should be\r\nallowed, as far as was practicable, to do what they liked. Now the\r\ngeneral opinion of the world is certainly quite the reverse--namely\r\nthis, that children, as long as they are under the control of their\r\nparents, should be hindered and prevented in those things to which\r\nthey are most inclined. Of course the world in general, in carrying\r\nout this practice, excuses it by an assertion,--made to themselves\r\nor others,--that children customarily like those things which they\r\nought not to like. But the judge had an idea quite opposed to this. Children, he said, if properly trained would like those things which\r\nwere good for them. Now it may be that he thought his daughter had\r\nbeen properly trained. \"He is a very clever young man, my dear; you may be sure of that,\"\r\nwere the last words which the judge said to his wife that night."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But then he has got nothing,\" she replied; \"and he is so uncommonly\r\nplain.\" The judge would not say a word more, but he could not help thinking\r\nthat this last point was one which might certainly be left to the\r\nyoung lady. CHAPTER XLVIII. THE ANGEL OF LIGHT UNDER A CLOUD. On the following morning, according to appointment, the judge visited\r\nFelix Graham in his room. It was only the second occasion on which he\r\nhad done so since the accident, and he was therefore more inclined to\r\nregard him as an invalid than those who had seen him from day to day. \"I am delighted to hear that your bones have been so amenable,\" said\r\nthe judge. \"But you must not try them too far. We'll get you down\r\nstairs into the drawing-room, and see how you get on there by the\r\nnext few days.\" \"I don't want to trouble you more than I can help,\" said Felix,\r\nsheepishly. He knew that there were reasons why he should not go\r\ninto that drawing-room, but of course he could not guess that those\r\nreasons were as well known to the judge as they were to himself. \"You sha'n't trouble us--more than you can help. I am not one of\r\nthose men who tell my friends that nothing is a trouble. Of course\r\nyou give trouble.\" \"I am so sorry!\" \"There's your bed to make, my dear fellow, and your gruel to warm."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You know Shakspeare pretty well by heart I believe, and he puts that\r\nmatter,--as he did every other matter,--in the best and truest point\r\nof view. Lady Macbeth didn't say she had no labour in receiving the\r\nking. 'The labour we delight in physics pain,' she said. Those were\r\nher words, and now they are mine.\" \"With a more honest purpose behind,\" said Felix. \"Well, yes; I've no murder in my thoughts at present. So that is all\r\nsettled, and Lady Staveley will be delighted to see you down stairs\r\nto-morrow.\" \"I shall be only too happy,\" Felix answered, thinking within his own\r\nmind that he must settle it all in the course of the day with\r\nAugustus. \"And now perhaps you will be strong enough to say a few words about\r\nbusiness.\" \"Certainly,\" said Graham. \"You have heard of this Orley Farm case, in which our neighbour Lady\r\nMason is concerned.\" \"Oh yes; we were all talking of it at your table;--I think it was the\r\nnight, or a night or two, before my accident.\" \"Very well; then you know all about it. At least as much as the\r\npublic knows generally. It has now been decided on the part of Joseph\r\nMason,--the husband's eldest son, who is endeavouring to get the\r\nproperty,--that she shall be indicted for perjury.\" \"For perjury!\" \"Yes; and in doing that, regarding the matter from his point of view,\r\nthey are not deficient in judgment.\" \"But how could she have been guilty of perjury?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"In swearing that she had been present when her husband and the three\r\nwitnesses executed the deed. If they have any ground to stand on--and\r\nI believe they have none whatever, but if they have, they would much\r\nmore easily get a verdict against her on that point than on a charge\r\nof forgery. Supposing it to be the fact that her husband never\r\nexecuted such a deed, it would be manifest that she must have sworn\r\nfalsely in swearing that she saw him do so.\" \"Why, yes; one would say so.\" \"But that would afford by no means conclusive evidence that she had\r\nforged the surreptitious deed herself.\" \"It would be strong presumptive evidence that she was cognizant of\r\nthe forgery.\" \"Perhaps so,--but uncorroborated would hardly bring a verdict after\r\nsuch a lapse of years. And then moreover a prosecution for forgery,\r\nif unsuccessful, would produce more painful feeling. Whether\r\nsuccessful or unsuccessful it would do so. Bail could not be taken in\r\nthe first instance, and such a prosecution would create a stronger\r\nfeeling that the poor lady was being persecuted.\" \"Those who really understand the matter will hardly thank them for\r\ntheir mercy.\" \"But then so few will really understand it. The fact however is\r\nthat she will be indicted for perjury. I do not know whether the\r\nindictment has not been already laid. Mr. Furnival was with me in\r\ntown yesterday, and at his very urgent request, I discussed the whole\r\nsubject with him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I shall be on the Home Circuit myself on these next\r\nspring assizes, but I shall not take the criminal business at Alston. Indeed I should not choose that this matter should be tried before me\r\nunder any circumstances, seeing that the lady is my near neighbour. Now Furnival wants you to be engaged on the defence as junior\r\ncounsel.\" \"With himself?\" \"Yes; with himself,--and with Mr. Chaffanbrass.\" \"With Mr. Chaffanbrass!\" said Graham, in a tone almost of horror--as\r\nthough he had been asked to league himself with all that was most\r\ndisgraceful in the profession;--as indeed perhaps he had been. \"Yes--with Mr. Chaffanbrass.\" \"Will that be well, judge, do you think?\" \"Mr. Chaffanbrass no doubt is a very clever man, and it may be wise\r\nin such a case as this to have the services of a barrister who is\r\nperhaps unequalled in his power of cross-examining a witness.\" \"Does his power consist in making a witness speak the truth, or in\r\nmaking him conceal it?\" \"Perhaps in both. But here, if it be the case as Mr. Furnival\r\nsuspects, that witnesses will be suborned to give false evidence--\"\r\n\r\n\"But surely the Rounds would have nothing to do with such a matter as\r\nthat?\" \"No, probably not. I am sure that old Richard Round would abhor any\r\nsuch work as you or I would do. They take the evidence as it is\r\nbrought to them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I believe there is no doubt that at any rate one\r\nof the witnesses to the codicil in question will now swear that the\r\nsignature to the document is not her signature.\" \"A woman--is it?\" \"Yes; a woman. In such a case it may perhaps be allowable to employ\r\nsuch a man as Mr. Chaffanbrass; and I should tell you also, such\r\nanother man as Mr. Solomon Aram.\" \"Solomon Aram, too! Why, judge, the Old Bailey will be left bare.\" \"The shining lights will certainly be down at Alston. Now under those\r\ncircumstances will you undertake the case?\" \"Would you;--in my place?\" \"Yes; if I were fully convinced of the innocence of my client at the\r\nbeginning.\" \"But what if I were driven to change my opinion as the thing\r\nprogressed?\" \"You must go on, in such a case, as a matter of course.\" \"I suppose I can have a day or two to think of it?\" \"Oh yes. I should not myself be the bearer to you of Mr. Furnival's\r\nmessage, were it not that I think that Lady Mason is being very\r\ncruelly used in the matter. If I were a young man in your position,\r\nI should take up the case _con amore_, for the sake of beauty and\r\nwomanhood."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I don't say that that Quixotism is very wise; but still I\r\ndon't think it can be wrong to join yourself even with such men as\r\nChaffanbrass and Mr. Solomon Aram, if you can feel confident that you\r\nhave justice and truth on your side.\" Then after a few more words the\r\ninterview was over, and the judge left the room making some further\r\nobservation as to his hope of seeing Graham in the drawing-room on\r\nthe next day. On the following morning there came from Peckham two more letters for\r\nGraham, one of course from Mary Snow, and one from Mrs. Thomas. We\r\nwill first give attention to that from the elder lady. She commenced\r\nwith much awe, declaring that her pen trembled within her fingers,\r\nbut that nevertheless she felt bound by her conscience and that\r\nduty which she owed to Mr. Graham, to tell him everything that had\r\noccurred,--\"word by word,\" as she expressed it. And then Felix,\r\nlooking at the letter, saw that he held in his hand two sheets of\r\nletter paper, quite full of small writing, the latter of which was\r\ncrossed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She went on to say that her care had been unremitting, and\r\nher solicitude almost maternal; that Mary's conduct had on the whole\r\nbeen such as to inspire her with \"undeviating confidence;\" but that\r\nthe guile of the present age was such, especially in respect to\r\nfemale servants--who seemed, in Mrs. Thomas's opinion, to be sent in\r\nthese days express from a very bad place for the express assistance\r\nof a very bad gentleman--that it was impossible for any woman, let\r\nher be ever so circumspect, to say \"what was what, or who was who.\" From all which Graham learned that Mrs. Thomas had been \"done;\" but\r\nby the middle of the third page he had as yet learned nothing as to\r\nthe manner of the doing. But by degrees the long reel unwinded itself;--angel of light, and\r\nall. Mary Snow had not only received but had answered a lover's\r\nletter. She had answered that lover's letter by making an appointment\r\nwith him; and she had kept that appointment,--with the assistance of\r\nthe agent sent express from that very bad gentleman. All this Mrs.\r\nThomas had only discovered afterwards by finding the lover's letter,\r\nand the answer which the angel of light had written."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Both of these\r\nshe copied verbatim, thinking probably that the original documents\r\nwere too precious to be intrusted to the post; and then ended by\r\nsaying that an additional year of celibacy, passed under a closer\r\nespionage, and with more severe moral training, might still perhaps\r\nmake Mary Snow fit for the high destiny which had been promised to\r\nher. The only part of this letter which Felix read twice was that which\r\ncontained the answer from the angel of light to her lover. \"You have\r\nbeen very wicked to address me,\" the angel of light said severely. \"And it is almost impossible that I should ever forgive you!\" If only\r\nshe could have brought herself to end there! But her nature, which\r\nthe lover had greatly belied in likening it to her name, was not cold\r\nenough for this. So she added a few more words very indiscreetly. \"As\r\nI want to explain to you why I can never see you again, I will meet\r\nyou on Thursday afternoon, at half-past four, a little way up Clapham\r\nLane, at the corner of the doctor's wall, just beyond the third\r\nlamp.\" It was the first letter she had ever written to a lover, and\r\nthe poor girl had betrayed herself by keeping a copy of it. And then Graham came to Mary Snow's letter to himself, which, as it\r\nwas short, the reader shall have entire."}
{"question": "", "answer": "MY DEAR MR. GRAHAM,\r\n\r\n   I never was so unhappy in my life, and I am sure I don't\r\n   know how to write to you. Of course I do not think you\r\n   will ever see me again unless it be to upbraid me for my\r\n   perfidy, and I almost hope you won't, for I should sink\r\n   into the ground before your eyes. And yet I didn't mean to\r\n   do anything very wrong, and when I did meet him I wouldn't\r\n   as much as let him take me by the hand;--not of my own\r\n   accord. I don't know what she has said to you, and I think\r\n   she ought to have let me read it; but she speaks to me now\r\n   in such a way that I don't know how to bear it. She has\r\n   rummaged among everything I have got, but I am sure she\r\n   could find nothing except those two letters. It wasn't my\r\n   fault that he wrote to me, though I know now I ought not\r\n   to have met him. He is quite a genteel young man, and very\r\n   respectable in the medical line; only I know that makes\r\n   no difference now, seeing how good you have been to me. I\r\n   don't ask you to forgive me, but it nearly kills me when I\r\n   think of poor papa. Yours always, most unhappy, and very sorry for what I have\r\n   done,\r\n\r\n   MARY SNOW. Poor Mary Snow! Could any man under such circumstances have been\r\nangry with her?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the first place if men will mould their wives,\r\nthey must expect that kind of thing; and then, after all, was there\r\nany harm done? If ultimately he did marry Mary Snow, would she make\r\na worse wife because she had met the apothecary's assistant at the\r\ncorner of the doctor's wall, under the third lamp-post? Graham, as he\r\nsat with the letters before him, made all manner of excuses for her;\r\nand this he did the more eagerly, because he felt that he would have\r\nwillingly made this affair a cause for breaking off his engagement,\r\nif his conscience had not told him that it would be unhandsome in him\r\nto do so. When Augustus came he could not show the letters to him. Had he done\r\nso it would have been as much as to declare that now the coast was\r\nclear as far as he was concerned. He could not now discuss with his\r\nfriend the question of Mary Snow, without also discussing the other\r\nquestion of Madeline Staveley. So he swept the letters away, and\r\ntalked almost entirely about the Orley Farm case. \"I only wish I were thought good enough for the chance,\" said\r\nAugustus. \"By heavens! I would work for that woman as I never could\r\nwork again for any fee that could be offered me.\" \"So would I; but I don't like my fellow-labourers.\" \"I should not mind that.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I suppose,\" said Graham, \"there can be no possible doubt as to her\r\nabsolute innocence?\" \"None whatever. My father has no doubt. Furnival has no doubt. Sir\r\nPeregrine has no doubt,--who, by-the-by, is going to marry her.\" \"Nonsense!\" \"Oh, but he is though. He has taken up her case _con amore_ with a\r\nvengeance.\" \"I should be sorry for that. It makes me think him a fool, and her--a\r\nvery clever woman.\" And so that matter was discussed, but not a word was said between\r\nthem about Mary Snow, or as to that former conversation respecting\r\nMadeline Staveley. Each felt then there was a reserve between them;\r\nbut each felt also that there was no way of avoiding this. \"The\r\ngovernor seems determined that you sha'n't stir yet awhile,\" Augustus\r\nsaid as he was preparing to take his leave. \"I shall be off in a day or two at the furthest all the same,\" said\r\nGraham. \"And you are to drink tea down stairs to-night. I'll come and fetch\r\nyou as soon as we're out of the dining-room. I can assure you that\r\nyour first appearance after your accident has been duly announced to\r\nthe public, and that you are anxiously expected.\" And then Staveley\r\nleft him. So he was to meet Madeline that evening. His first feeling at the\r\nthought was one of joy, but he soon brought himself almost to wish\r\nthat he could leave Noningsby without any such meeting."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There\r\nwould have been nothing in it,--nothing that need have called for\r\nobservation or remark,--had he not told his secret to Augustus. But\r\nhis secret had been told to one, and might be known to others in the\r\nhouse. Indeed he felt sure that it was suspected by Lady Staveley. It\r\ncould not, as he said to himself, have been suspected by the judge,\r\nor the judge would not have treated him in so friendly a manner, or\r\nhave insisted so urgently on his coming down among them. And then, how should he carry himself in her presence? If he were to\r\nsay nothing to her, his saying nothing would be remarked; and yet\r\nhe felt that all his powers of self-control would not enable him to\r\nspeak to her in the same manner that he would speak to her sister. He\r\nhad to ask himself, moreover, what line of conduct he did intend to\r\nfollow. If he was still resolved to marry Mary Snow, would it not be\r\nbetter that he should take this bull by the horns and upset it at\r\nonce? In such case, Madeline Staveley must be no more to him than her\r\nsister. But then he had two intentions. In accordance with one he\r\nwould make Mary Snow his wife; and in following the other he would\r\nmarry Miss Staveley. It must be admitted that the two brides which he\r\nproposed to himself were very different."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The one that he had moulded\r\nfor his own purposes was not, as he admitted, quite equal to her of\r\nwhom nature, education, and birth had had the handling. Again he dined alone; but on this occasion Mrs. Baker was able to\r\nelicit from him no enthusiasm as to his dinner. And yet she had done\r\nher best, and placed before him a sweetbread and dish of sea-kale\r\nthat ought to have made him enthusiastic. \"I had to fight with the\r\ngardener for that like anything,\" she said, singing her own praises\r\nwhen he declined to sing them. \"Dear me! They'll think that I am a dreadful person to have in the\r\nhouse.\" \"Not a bit. Only they sha'n't think as how I'm going to be said 'no'\r\nto in that way when I've set my mind on a thing. I know what's going\r\nand I know what's proper. Why, laws, Mr. Graham, there's heaps of\r\nthings there and yet there's no getting of 'em;--unless there's a\r\nparty or the like of that. What's the use of a garden I say,--or of\r\na gardener neither, if you don't have garden stuff? It's not to look\r\nat. Do finish it now;--after all the trouble I had, standing over him\r\nin the cold while he cut it.\" \"Oh dear, oh dear, Mrs. Baker, why did you do that?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"He thought to perish me, making believe it took him so long to get\r\nat it; but I'm not so easy perished; I can tell him that! I'd have\r\nstood there till now but what I had it. Miss Madeline see'd me as I\r\nwas coming in, and asked me what I'd been doing.\" \"I hope you didn't tell her that I couldn't live without sea-kale?\" \"I told her that I meant to give you your dinner comfortable as long\r\nas you had it up here; and she said--; but laws, Mr. Graham, you\r\ndon't care what a young lady says to an old woman like me. You'll see\r\nher yourself this evening, and then you can tell her whether or no\r\nthe sea-kale was worth the eating! It's not so badly biled, I will\r\nsay that for Hannah Cook, though she is rampagious sometimes.\" He\r\nlonged to ask her what words Madeline had used, even in speaking on\r\nsuch a subject as this; but he did not dare to do so. Mrs. Baker was\r\nvery fond of talking about Miss Madeline, but Graham was by no means\r\nassured that he should find an ally in Mrs. Baker if he told her all\r\nthe truth. At last the hour arrived, and Augustus came to convoy him down to\r\nthe drawing-room. It was now many days since he had been out of that\r\nroom, and the very fact of moving was an excitement to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He hardly\r\nknew how he might feel in walking down stairs, and could not quite\r\nseparate the nervousness arising from his shattered bones from that\r\nother nervousness which came from his--shattered heart. The word is\r\nundoubtedly a little too strong, but as it is there, there let it\r\nstay. When he reached the drawing-room, he almost felt that he had\r\nbetter decline to enter it. The door however was opened, and he was\r\nin the room before he could make up his mind to any such step, and\r\nhe found himself being walked across the floor to some especial seat,\r\nwhile a dozen kindly anxious faces were crowding round him. \"Here's an arm-chair, Mr. Graham, kept expressly for you, near the\r\nfire,\" said Lady Staveley. \"And I am extremely glad to see you well\r\nenough to fill it.\" \"Welcome out of your room, sir,\" said the judge. \"I compliment you,\r\nand Pottinger also, upon your quick recovery; but allow me to tell\r\nyou that you don't yet look a man fit to rough it alone in London.\" \"I feel very well, sir,\" said Graham. And then Mrs. Arbuthnot greeted him, and Miss Furnival, and four or\r\nfive others who were of the party, and he was introduced to one or\r\ntwo whom he had not seen before. Marian too came up to him,--very\r\ngently, as though he were as brittle as glass, having been warned by\r\nher mother."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, Mr. Felix,\" she said, \"I was so unhappy when your\r\nbones were broken. I do hope they won't break again.\" And then he perceived that Madeline was in the room and was coming\r\nup to him. She had in truth not been there when he first entered,\r\nhaving thought it better, as a matter of strategy, to follow upon his\r\nfootsteps. He was getting up to meet her, when Lady Staveley spoke to\r\nhim. \"Don't move, Mr. Graham. Invalids, you know, are chartered.\" \"I am very glad to see you once more down stairs,\" said Madeline, as\r\nshe frankly gave him her hand,--not merely touching his--\"very, very\r\nglad. But I do hope you will get stronger before you venture to leave\r\nNoningsby. You have frightened us all very much by your terrible\r\naccident.\" All this was said in her peculiarly sweet silver voice, not speaking\r\nas though she were dismayed and beside herself, or in a hurry to get\r\nthrough a lesson which she had taught herself. She had her secret to\r\nhide, and had schooled herself how to hide it. But in so schooling\r\nherself she had been compelled to acknowledge to herself that the\r\nsecret did exist. She had told herself that she must meet him, and\r\nthat in meeting him she must hide it. This she had done with absolute\r\nsuccess."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Such is the peculiar power of women; and her mother, who had\r\nlistened not only to every word, but to every tone of her voice, gave\r\nher exceeding credit. \"There's more in her than I thought there was,\" said Sophia Furnival\r\nto herself, who had also listened and watched. \"It has not gone very deep, with her,\" said the judge, who on this\r\nmatter was not so good a judge as Miss Furnival. \"She cares about me just as Mrs. Baker does,\" said Graham to himself,\r\nwho was the worst judge of them all. He muttered something quite\r\nunintelligible in answer to the kindness of her words; and then\r\nMadeline, having gone through her task, retired to the further side\r\nof the round table, and went to work among the teacups. And then the conversation became general, turning altogether on the\r\naffairs of Lady Mason. It was declared as a fact by Lady Staveley\r\nthat there was to be a marriage between Sir Peregrine Orme and his\r\nguest, and all in the room expressed their sorrow. The women were\r\nespecially indignant. \"I have no patience with her,\" said Mrs.\r\nArbuthnot. \"She must know that such a marriage at his time of life\r\nmust be ridiculous, and injurious to the whole family.\" The women were very indignant,--all except Miss Furnival, who did not\r\nsay much, but endeavoured to palliate the crimes of Lady Mason in\r\nthat which she did say."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I do not know that she is more to blame\r\nthan any other lady who marries a gentleman thirty years older than\r\nherself.\" \"I do then,\" said Lady Staveley, who delighted in contradicting\r\nMiss Furnival. \"And so would you too, my dear, if you had known Sir\r\nPeregrine as long as I have. And if--if--if--but it does not matter. I am very sorry for Lady Mason,--very. I think she is a woman cruelly\r\nused by her own connections; but my sympathies with her would\r\nbe warmer if she had refrained from using her power over an old\r\ngentleman like Sir Peregrine, in the way she has done.\" In all which\r\nexpression of sentiment the reader will know that poor dear Lady\r\nStaveley was wrong from the beginning to the end. \"For my part,\" said the judge, \"I don't see what else she was to do. If Sir Peregrine asked her, how could she refuse?\" \"My dear!\" said Lady Staveley. \"According to that, papa, every lady must marry any gentleman that\r\nasks her,\" said Mrs. Arbuthnot. \"When a lady is under so deep a weight of obligation I don't know how\r\nshe is to refuse. My idea is that Sir Peregrine should not have asked\r\nher.\" \"And mine too,\" said Felix. \"Unless indeed he did it under an\r\nimpression that he could fight for her better as her husband than\r\nsimply as a friend.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And I feel sure that that is what he did think,\" said Madeline, from\r\nthe further side of the table. And her voice sounded in Graham's ears\r\nas the voice of Eve may have sounded to Adam. No; let him do what he\r\nmight in the world;--whatever might be the form in which his future\r\ncareer should be fashioned, one thing was clearly impossible to him. He could not marry Mary Snow. Had he never learned to know what were\r\nthe true charms of feminine grace and loveliness, it might have been\r\npossible for him to do so, and to have enjoyed afterwards a fair\r\namount of contentment. But now even contentment would be impossible\r\nto him under such a lot as that. Not only would he be miserable, but\r\nthe woman whom he married would be wretched also. It may be said that\r\nhe made up his mind definitely, while sitting in that arm-chair, that\r\nhe would not marry Mary Snow. Poor Mary Snow! Her fault in the matter\r\nhad not been great. When Graham was again in his room, and the servant who was obliged\r\nto undress him had left him, he sat over his fire, wrapped in his\r\ndressing-gown, bethinking himself what he would do. \"I will tell the\r\njudge everything,\" he said at last. \"Then, if he will let me into his\r\nhouse after that, I must fight my own battle.\" And so he betook\r\nhimself to bed. CHAPTER XLIX."}
{"question": "", "answer": "MRS. FURNIVAL CAN'T PUT UP WITH IT. When Lady Mason last left the chambers of her lawyer in Lincoln's\r\nInn, she was watched by a stout lady as she passed through the narrow\r\npassage leading from the Old to the New Square. That fact will I\r\ntrust be remembered, and I need hardly say that the stout lady was\r\nMrs. Furnival. She had heard betimes of the arrival of that letter\r\nwith the Hamworth post-mark, had felt assured that it was written by\r\nthe hands of her hated rival, and had at once prepared for action. \"I shall leave this house to-day,--immediately after breakfast,\" she\r\nsaid to Miss Biggs, as they sat disconsolately at the table with the\r\nurn between them. \"And I think you will be quite right, my dear,\" replied Miss Biggs. \"It is your bounden duty to put down such wicked iniquity as\r\nthis;--not only for your own sake, but for that of morals in general. What in the world is there so beautiful and so lovely as a high tone\r\nof moral sentiment?\" To this somewhat transcendental question Mrs.\r\nFurnival made no reply. That a high tone of moral sentiment as a\r\nthing in general, for the world's use, is very good, she was no doubt\r\naware; but her mind at the present moment was fixed exclusively on\r\nher own peculiar case."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That Tom Furnival should be made to give up\r\nseeing that nasty woman who lived at Hamworth, and to give up also\r\nhaving letters from her,--that at present was the extent of her moral\r\nsentiment. His wicked iniquity she could forgive with a facility\r\nnot at all gratifying to Miss Biggs, if only she could bring about\r\nsuch a result as that. So she merely grunted in answer to the above\r\nproposition. \"And will you sleep away from this?\" asked Miss Biggs. \"Certainly I will. I will neither eat here, nor sleep here, nor stay\r\nhere till I know that all this is at an end. I have made up my mind\r\nwhat I will do.\" \"Well?\" asked the anxious Martha. \"Oh, never mind. I am not exactly prepared to talk about it. There\r\nare things one can't talk about,--not to anybody. One feels as though\r\none would burst in mentioning it. I do, I know.\" Martha Biggs could not but feel that this was hard, but she knew that\r\nfriendship is nothing if it be not long enduring. \"Dearest Kitty!\" she exclaimed. \"If true sympathy can be of service to you--\"\r\n\r\n\"I wonder whether I could get respectable lodgings in the\r\nneighbourhood of Red Lion Square for a week?\" said Mrs. Furnival,\r\nonce more bringing the conversation back from the abstract to the\r\nconcrete."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In answer to this Miss Biggs of course offered the use of her own\r\nbedroom and of her father's house; but her father was an old man, and\r\nMrs. Furnival positively refused to agree to any such arrangement. At\r\nlast it was decided that Martha should at once go off and look for\r\nlodgings in the vicinity of her own home, that Mrs. Furnival should\r\nproceed to carry on her own business in her own way,--the cruelty\r\nbeing this, that she would not give the least hint as to what that\r\nway might be,--and that the two ladies should meet together in the\r\nRed Lion Square drawing-room at the close of the day. \"And about dinner, dear?\" asked Miss Biggs. \"I will get something at a pastrycook's,\" said Mrs. Furnival. \"And your clothes, dear?\" \"Rachel will see about them; she knows.\" Now Rachel was the old\r\nfemale servant of twenty years' standing; and the disappointment\r\nexperienced by poor Miss Biggs at the ignorance in which she was left\r\nwas greatly enhanced by a belief that Rachel knew more than she did. Mrs. Furnival would tell Rachel but would not tell her. This was\r\nvery, very hard, as Miss Biggs felt. But, nevertheless, friendship,\r\nsincere friendship is long enduring, and true patient merit will\r\ngenerally receive at last its appropriate reward. Then Mrs. Furnival had sat down, Martha Biggs having been duly sent\r\nforth on the mission after the lodgings, and had written a letter to\r\nher husband."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This she intrusted to Rachel, whom she did not purpose\r\nto remove from that abode of iniquity from which she herself was\r\nfleeing, and having completed her letter she went out upon her own\r\nwork. The letter ran as follows:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   Harley Street--Friday. MY DEAREST TOM,\r\n\r\n   I cannot stand this any longer, so I have thought it best\r\n   to leave the house and go away. I am very sorry to be\r\n   forced to such a step as this, and would have put up with\r\n   a good deal first; but there are some things which I\r\n   cannot put up with,--and won't. I know that a woman has\r\n   to obey her husband, and I have always obeyed you, and\r\n   thought it no hardship even when I was left so much alone;\r\n   but a woman is not to see a slut brought in under her very\r\n   nose,--and I won't put up with it. We've been married now\r\n   going on over twenty-five years, and it's terrible to\r\n   think of being driven to this. I almost believe it will\r\n   drive me mad, and then, when I'm a lunatic, of course you\r\n   can do as you please. I don't want to have any secrets from you. Where I shall\r\n   go I don't yet know, but I've asked Martha Biggs to take\r\n   lodgings for me somewhere near her. I must have somebody\r\n   to speak to now and again, so you can write to 23 Red Lion\r\n   Square till you hear further."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It's no use sending for me,\r\n   for I _won't come_;--not till I know that you think better\r\n   of your present ways of going on. I don't know whether you\r\n   have the power to get the police to come after me, but I\r\n   advise you not. If you do anything of that sort the people\r\n   about shall hear of it. And now, Tom, I want to say one word to you. You can't\r\n   think it's a happiness to me going away from my own home\r\n   where I have lived respectable so many years, or leaving\r\n   you whom I've loved with all my whole heart. It makes me\r\n   very very unhappy, so that I could sit and cry all day if\r\n   it weren't for pride and because the servants shouldn't\r\n   see me. To think that it has come to this after all! Oh,\r\n   Tom, I wonder whether you ever think of the old days when\r\n   we used to be so happy in Keppel Street! There wasn't\r\n   anybody then that you cared to see, except me;--I do\r\n   believe that. And you'd always come home then, and I never\r\n   thought bad of it though you wouldn't have a word to speak\r\n   to me for hours. Because you were doing your duty. But you\r\n   ain't doing your duty now, Tom."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You know you ain't doing\r\n   your duty when you never dine at home, and come home so\r\n   cross with wine that you curse and swear, and have that\r\n   nasty woman coming to see you at your chambers. Don't tell\r\n   me it's about law business. Ladies don't go to barristers'\r\n   chambers about law business. All that is done by\r\n   attorneys. I've heard you say scores of times that you\r\n   never would see people themselves, and yet you see her. Oh, Tom, you have made me so wretched! But I can forgive\r\n   it all, and will never say another word about it to fret\r\n   you, if you'll only promise me to have nothing more to\r\n   say to that woman. Of course I'd like you to come home to\r\n   dinner, but I'd put up with that. You've made your own way\r\n   in the world, and perhaps it's only right you should enjoy\r\n   it. I don't think so much dining at the club can be good\r\n   for you, and I'm afraid you'll have gout, but I don't\r\n   want to bother you about that. Send me a line to say that\r\n   you won't see her any more, and I'll come back to Harley\r\n   Street at once. If you can't bring yourself to do that,\r\n   you--and--I--must--part. I can put up with a great deal,\r\n   but I can't put up with that;--_and won't_. Your affectionate loving wife,\r\n\r\n   C. FURNIVAL."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I wonder whether you ever think of the old days when we used to be\r\nso happy in Keppel Street?\" Ah me, how often in after life, in those\r\nsuccessful days when the battle has been fought and won, when all\r\nseems outwardly to go well,--how often is this reference made to the\r\nhappy days in Keppel Street! It is not the prize that can make us\r\nhappy; it is not even the winning of the prize, though for the one\r\nshort half-hour of triumph that is pleasant enough. The struggle, the\r\nlong hot hour of the honest fight, the grinding work,--when the teeth\r\nare set, and the skin moist with sweat and rough with dust, when all\r\nis doubtful and sometimes desperate, when a man must trust to his own\r\nmanhood knowing that those around him trust to it not at all,--that\r\nis the happy time of life. There is no human bliss equal to twelve\r\nhours of work with only six hours in which to do it. And when\r\nthe expected pay for that work is worse than doubtful, the inner\r\nsatisfaction is so much the greater. Oh, those happy days in Keppel\r\nStreet, or it may be over in dirty lodgings in the Borough, or\r\nsomewhere near the Marylebone workhouse;--anywhere for a moderate\r\nweekly stipend. Those were to us, and now are to others, and always\r\nwill be to many, the happy days of life. How bright was love, and how\r\nfull of poetry!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Flashes of wit glanced here and there, and how they\r\ncame home and warmed the cockles of the heart. And the unfrequent\r\nbottle! Methinks that wine has utterly lost its flavour since those\r\ndays. There is nothing like it; long work, grinding weary work, work\r\nwithout pay, hopeless work; but work in which the worker trusts\r\nhimself, believing it to be good. Let him, like Mahomet, have one\r\nother to believe in him, and surely nothing else is needed. \"Ah me! I\r\nwonder whether you ever think of the old days when we used to be so\r\nhappy in Keppel Street?\" Nothing makes a man so cross as success, or so soon turns a pleasant\r\nfriend into a captious acquaintance. Your successful man eats too\r\nmuch and his stomach troubles him; he drinks too much and his nose\r\nbecomes blue. He wants pleasure and excitement, and roams about\r\nlooking for satisfaction in places where no man ever found it. He\r\nfrets himself with his banker's book, and everything tastes amiss to\r\nhim that has not on it the flavour of gold. The straw of an omnibus\r\nalways stinks; the linings of the cabs are filthy. There are but\r\nthree houses round London at which an eatable dinner may be obtained. And yet a few years since how delicious was that cut of roast goose\r\nto be had for a shilling at the eating-house near Golden Square."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs.\r\nJones and Mrs. Green, Mrs. Walker and all the other mistresses, are\r\ntoo vapid and stupid and humdrum for endurance. The theatres are dull\r\nas Lethe, and politics have lost their salt. Success is the necessary\r\nmisfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it\r\ncomes early. Mrs. Furnival, when she had finished her letter and fastened it, drew\r\none of the heavy dining-room arm-chairs over against the fire, and\r\nsat herself down to consider her past life, still holding the letter\r\nin her lap. She had not on that morning been very careful with her\r\ntoilet, as was perhaps natural enough. The cares of the world were\r\nheavy on her, and he would not be there to see her. Her hair was\r\nrough, and her face was red, and she had hardly had the patience\r\nto make straight the collar round her neck. To the eye she was\r\nan untidy, angry, cross-looking woman. But her heart was full of\r\ntenderness,--full to overflowing. She loved him now as well as ever\r\nshe had loved him:--almost more as the thought of parting from\r\nhim pressed upon her! Was he not all in all to her? Had she not\r\nworshipped him during her whole life? Could she not forgive him? Forgive him! Yes. Forgive him with the fullest, frankest, freest\r\npardon, if he would only take forgiveness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Should she burn that\r\nletter in the fire, send to Biggs saying that the lodgings were not\r\nwanted, and then throw herself at Tom's feet, imploring him to have\r\nmercy upon her? All that she could do within her heart, and make her\r\nwords as passionate, as soft, and as poetical as might be those of a\r\nyoung wife of twenty. But she felt that such words,--though she could\r\nframe the sentence while sitting there,--could never get themselves\r\nspoken. She had tried it, and it had been of no avail. Not only\r\nshould she be prepared for softness, but he also must be so prepared\r\nand at the same moment. If he should push her from him and call her\r\na fool when she attempted that throwing of herself at his feet, how\r\nwould it be with her spirit then? No. She must go forth and the\r\nletter must be left. If there were any hope of union for the future\r\nit must come from a parting for the present. So she went up stairs\r\nand summoned Rachel, remaining with her in consultation for some\r\nhalf-hour. Then she descended with her bonnet and shawl, got into a\r\ncab while Spooner stood at the door looking very serious, and was\r\ndriven away,--whither, no one knew in Harley Street except Mrs.\r\nFurnival herself, and that cabman. \"She'll never put her foot inside this hall door again. That's my\r\nidea of the matter,\" said Spooner."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Indeed and she will,\" said Rachel, \"and be a happier woman than ever\r\nshe's been since the house was took.\" \"If I know master,\" said Spooner, \"he's not the man to get rid of an\r\nold woman, easy like that, and then 'ave her back agin.\" Upon hearing\r\nwhich words, so very injurious to the sex in general, Rachel walked\r\ninto the house not deigning any further reply. And then, as we have seen, Mrs. Furnival was there, standing in the\r\ndark shadow of the Lincoln's Inn passage, when Lady Mason left the\r\nlawyer's chambers. She felt sure that it was Lady Mason, but she\r\ncould not be quite sure. The woman, though she came out from the\r\nentry which led to her husband's chambers, might have come down\r\nfrom some other set of rooms. Had she been quite certain she would\r\nhave attacked her rival there, laying bodily hands upon her in the\r\npurlieus of the Lord Chancellor's Court. As it was, the poor bruised\r\ncreature was allowed to pass by, and as she emerged out into the\r\nlight at the other end of the passage Mrs. Furnival became quite\r\ncertain of her identity. \"Never mind,\" she said to herself. \"She sha'n't escape me long. Him\r\nI could forgive, if he would only give it up; but as for her--! Let\r\nwhat come of it, come may, I will tell that woman what I think of her\r\nconduct before I am many hours older.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then, giving one look up to\r\nthe windows of her husband's chambers, she walked forth through the\r\ndusty old gate into Chancery Lane, and made her way on foot up to No. 23 Red Lion Square. \"I'm glad I've done it,\" she said to herself as\r\nshe went; \"very glad. There's nothing else for it, when things come\r\nto such a head as that.\" And in this frame of mind she knocked at her\r\nfriend's door. \"Well!\" said Martha Biggs, with her eyes, and mouth, and arms, and\r\nheart all open. \"Have you got me the lodgings?\" said Mrs. Furnival. \"Yes, close by;--in Orange Street. I'm afraid you'll find them very\r\ndull. And what have you done?\" \"I have done nothing, and I don't at all mind their being dull. They\r\ncan't possibly be more dull than Harley Street.\" \"And I shall be near you; sha'n't I?\" said Martha Biggs. \"Umph,\" said Mrs. Furnival. \"I might as well go there at once and\r\nget myself settled.\" So she did, the affectionate Martha of course\r\naccompanying her; and thus the affairs of that day were over. Her intention was to go down to Hamworth at once, and make her way\r\nup to Orley Farm, at which place she believed that Lady Mason was\r\nliving. Up to this time she had heard no word of the coming trial\r\nbeyond what Mr. Furnival had told her as to his client's \"law\r\nbusiness.\" And whatever he had so told her, she had scrupulously\r\ndisbelieved."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In her mind all that went for nothing. Law business! she\r\nwas not so blind, so soft, so green, as to be hoodwinked by such\r\nstuff as that. Beautiful widows don't have personal interviews with\r\nbarristers in their chambers over and over again, let them have what\r\nlaw business they may. At any rate Mrs. Furnival took upon herself to\r\nsay that they ought not to have such interviews. She would go down to\r\nOrley Farm and she would have an interview with Lady Mason. Perhaps\r\nthe thing might be stopped in that way. On the following morning she received a note from her husband the\r\nconsideration of which delayed her proceedings for that day. \"DEAR KITTY,\" the note ran. I think you are very foolish. If regard for me had not\r\n   kept you at home, some consideration with reference to\r\n   Sophia should have done so. What you say about that poor\r\n   lady at Orley Farm is too absurd for me to answer. If you\r\n   would have spoken to me about her, I would have told you\r\n   that which would have set your mind at rest, at any rate\r\n   as regards her. I cannot do this in a letter, nor could I\r\n   do it in the presence of your friend, Miss Biggs. I hope you will come back at once; but I shall not add\r\n   to the absurdity of your leaving your own house by any\r\n   attempt to bring you back again by force."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As you must want\r\n   money I enclose a check for fifty pounds. I hope you will\r\n   be back before you want more; but if not I will send it as\r\n   soon as you ask for it. Yours affectionately as always,\r\n\r\n   T. FURNIVAL. There was about this letter an absence of sentiment, and an absence\r\nof threat, and an absence of fuss, which almost overset her. Could\r\nit be possible that she was wrong about Lady Mason? Should she go to\r\nhim and hear his own account before she absolutely declared war by\r\nbreaking into the enemy's camp at Orley Farm? Then, moreover, she was\r\ntouched and almost overcome about the money. She wished he had not\r\nsent it to her. That money difficulty had occurred to her, and been\r\nmuch discussed in her own thoughts. Of course she could not live away\r\nfrom him if he refused to make her any allowance,--at least not for\r\nany considerable time. He had always been liberal as regards money\r\nsince money had been plenty with him, and therefore she had some\r\nsupply with her. She had jewels too which were her own; and though,\r\nas she had already determined, she would not part with them without\r\ntelling him what she was about to do, yet she could, if pressed, live\r\nin this way for the next twelve months;--perhaps, with close economy,\r\neven for a longer time than that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In her present frame of mind she\r\nhad looked forward almost with gratification to being pinched and\r\nmade uncomfortable. She would wear her ordinary and more dowdy\r\ndresses; she would spend much of her time in reading sermons; she\r\nwould get up very early and not care what she ate or drank. In short,\r\nshe would make herself as uncomfortable as circumstances would admit,\r\nand thoroughly enjoy her grievances. But then this check of fifty pounds, and this offer of as much more\r\nas she wanted when that was gone, rather took the ground from under\r\nher feet. Unless she herself chose to give way she might go on living\r\nin Orange Street to the end of the chapter, with every material\r\ncomfort about her,--keeping her own brougham if she liked, for the\r\nchecks she now knew would come without stint. And he would go on\r\nliving in Harley street, seeing Lady Mason as often as he pleased. Sophia would be the mistress of the house, and as long as this was\r\nso, Lady Mason would not show her face there. Now this was not a\r\ncourse of events to which Mrs. Furnival could bring herself to look\r\nforward with satisfaction. All this delayed her during that day, but before she went to bed she\r\nmade up her mind that she would at any rate go down to Hamworth. Tom,\r\nshe knew, was deceiving her; of that she felt morally sure."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She would\r\nat any rate go down to Hamworth, and trust to her own wit for finding\r\nout the truth when there. CHAPTER L.\r\n\r\nIT IS QUITE IMPOSSIBLE. All was now sadness at The Cleeve. It was soon understood among the\r\nservants that there was to be no marriage, and the tidings spread\r\nfrom the house, out among the neighbours and into Hamworth. But no\r\none knew the reason of this change;--none except those three, the\r\nwoman herself who had committed the crime and the two to whom she had\r\ntold it. On that same night, the night of the day on which the tale\r\nhad been told, Lady Mason wrote a line,--almost a single line to her\r\nson. DEAREST LUCIUS,\r\n\r\n   All is over between me and Sir Peregrine. It is better\r\n   that it should be so. I write to tell you this without\r\n   losing an hour. For the present I remain here with my\r\n   dear--dearest friends. Your own affectionate mother,\r\n\r\n   M. MASON. This note she had written in obedience to the behests of Mrs. Orme,\r\nand even under her dictation--with the exception of one or two words,\r\n\"I remain here with my friends,\" Mrs. Orme had said; but Lady Mason\r\nhad put in the two epithets, and had then declared her own conviction\r\nthat she had now no right to use such language. \"Yes, of me you may, certainly,\" said Mrs. Orme, keeping close to her\r\nshoulder. \"Then I will alter it,\" said Lady Mason."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I will write it again and\r\nsay I am staying with you.\" But this Mrs. Orme had forbidden. \"No; it will be better so,\" she\r\nsaid. \"Sir Peregrine would wish it. I am sure he would. He quite\r\nagrees that--\" Mrs. Orme did not finish her sentence, but the letter\r\nwas despatched, written as above. The answer which Lucius sent down\r\nbefore breakfast the next morning was still shorter. DEAREST MOTHER,\r\n\r\n   I am greatly rejoiced that it is so. Your affectionate son,\r\n\r\n   L. M.\r\n\r\n\r\nHe sent this note, but he did not go down to her, nor was there any\r\nother immediate communication between them. All was now sadness at The Cleeve. Peregrine knew that that marriage\r\nproject was over, and he knew also that his grandfather and Lady\r\nMason did not now meet each other; but he knew nothing of the cause,\r\nthough he could not but remark that he did not see her. On that day\r\nshe did not come down either to dinner or during the evening; nor\r\nwas she seen on the following morning. He, Peregrine, felt aware\r\nthat something had occurred at that interview in the library after\r\nbreakfast, but was lost in surmising what that something had been."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That Lady Mason should have told his grandfather that the marriage\r\nmust be given up would have been only in accordance with the promise\r\nmade by her to him; but he did not think that that alone would\r\nhave occasioned such utter sadness, such deathlike silence in the\r\nhousehold. Had there been a quarrel Lady Mason would have gone\r\nhome;--but she did not go home. Had the match been broken off without\r\na quarrel, why should she mysteriously banish herself to two rooms so\r\nthat no one but his mother should see her? And he too had his own peculiar sorrow. On that morning Sir Peregrine\r\nhad asked him to ride through the grounds, and it had been the\r\nbaronet's intention to propose during that ride that he should go\r\nover to Noningsby and speak to the judge about Madeline. We all know\r\nhow that proposition had been frustrated. And now Peregrine, thinking\r\nover the matter, saw that his grandfather was not in a position at\r\nthe present moment to engage himself ardently in any such work. By\r\nwhatever means or whatever words he had been induced to agree to the\r\nabandonment of that marriage engagement, that abandonment weighed\r\nvery heavily on his spirits. It was plain to see that he was a broken\r\nman, broken in heart and in spirit. He shut himself up alone in his\r\nlibrary all that afternoon, and had hardly a word to say when he came\r\nout to dinner in the evening."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was very pale too, and slow and weak\r\nin his step. He tried to smile as he came up to his daughter-in-law\r\nin the drawing-room; but his smile was the saddest thing of all. And\r\nthen Peregrine could see that he ate nothing. He was very gentle\r\nin his demeanour to the servants, very courteous and attentive\r\nto Mrs. Orme, very kind to his grandson. But yet his mind was\r\nheavy;--brooding over some sorrow that oppressed it. On the following\r\nmorning it was the same, and the grandson knew that he could look to\r\nhis grandfather for no assistance at Noningsby. Immediately after breakfast Peregrine got on his horse, without\r\nspeaking to any one of his intention,--almost without having formed\r\nan intention, and rode off in the direction of Alston. He did not\r\ntake the road, but went out through The Cleeve woods, on to the\r\ncommon, by which, had he turned to the left, he might have gone to\r\nOrley Farm; but when on the top of the rise from Crutchley Bottom he\r\nturned to the right, and putting his horse into a gallop, rode along\r\nthe open ground till he came to an enclosure into which he leaped. From thence he made his way through a farm gate into a green country\r\nlane, along which he still pressed his horse, till he found himself\r\ndivided from the end of a large wood by but one field."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He knew the\r\nground well, and the direction in which he was going. He could pass\r\nthrough that wood, and then down by an old farm-house at the other\r\nend of it, and so on to the Alston road, within a mile of Noningsby. He knew the ground well, for he had ridden over every field of it. When a man does so after thirty he forgets the spots which he passes\r\nin his hurry, but when he does so before twenty he never forgets. That field and that wood Peregrine Orme would never forget. There was\r\nthe double ditch and bank over which Harriet Tristram had ridden with\r\nso much skill and courage. There was the spot on which he had knelt\r\nso long, while Felix Graham lay back against him, feeble and almost\r\nspeechless. And there, on the other side, had sat Madeline on her\r\nhorse, pale with anxiety but yet eager with hope, as she asked\r\nquestion after question as to him who had been hurt. Peregrine rode up to the ditch, and made his horse stand while he\r\nlooked at it. It was there, then, on that spot, that he had felt the\r\nfirst pang of jealousy. The idea had occurred to him that he for\r\nwhom he had been doing a friend's offices with such zealous kindness\r\nwas his worst enemy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had he,--he, Peregrine Orme,--broken his arms\r\nand legs, or even broken his neck, would she have ridden up, all\r\nthoughtless of herself, and thrown her very life into her voice as\r\nshe had done when she knew that Felix Graham had fallen from his\r\nhorse? And then he had gone on with his work, aiding the hurt man as\r\nzealously as before, but still feeling that he was bound to hate him. And afterwards, at Noningsby, he had continued to minister to him as\r\nto his friend,--zealously doing a friend's offices, but still feeling\r\nthat the man was his enemy. Not that he was insincere. There was no\r\nplace for insincerity or treachery within his heart. The man had done\r\nno ill,--was a good fellow--was entitled to his kindness by all the\r\nsocial laws which he knew. They two had gone together from the same\r\ntable to the same spot, and had been close together when the one had\r\ncome to sorrow. It was his duty to act as Graham's friend; and yet\r\nhow could he not feel that he must hate him?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And now he sat looking at the fence, wishing,--wishing;--no,\r\ncertainly not wishing that Graham's hurt had been more serious; but\r\nwishing that in falling from his horse he might utterly have fallen\r\nout of favour with that sweet young female heart; or rather wishing,\r\ncould he so have expressed it, that he himself might have had the\r\nfall, and the broken bones, and all the danger,--so that he might\r\nalso have had the interest which those eyes and that voice had shown. And then quickly he turned his horse, and without giving the beast\r\ntime to steady himself he rammed him at the fence. The leap out of\r\nthe wood into the field was difficult, but that back into the wood\r\nwas still worse. The up-jump was higher, and the ditch which must be\r\nfirst cleared was broader. Nor did he take it at the easiest part as\r\nhe had done on that day when he rode his own horse and then Graham's\r\nback into the wood. But he pressed his animal exactly at the spot\r\nfrom which his rival had fallen. There were still the marks of the\r\nbeast's struggle, as he endeavoured to save himself before he came\r\ndown, head foremost, into the ditch. The bank had been somewhat\r\nnarrowed and pared away, and it was clearly the last place in the\r\nface of the whole opening into the wood, which a rider with his\r\nsenses about him would have selected for his jump."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The horse knowing his master's humour, and knowing also,--which is so\r\nvitally important,--the nature of his master's courage, jumped at the\r\nbank, without pausing. As I have said, no time had been given him to\r\nsteady himself,--not a moment to see where his feet should go, to\r\nunderstand and make the most of the ground that he was to use. He\r\njumped and jumped well, but only half gained the top of the bank. The\r\npoor brute, urged beyond his power, could not get his hind feet up so\r\nnear the surface as to give him a fulcrum for a second spring. For a\r\nmoment he strove to make good his footing, still clinging with his\r\nfore feet, and then slowly came down backwards into the ditch, then\r\nregained his feet, and dragging himself with an effort from the mud,\r\nmade his way back into the field. Peregrine Orme had kept his seat\r\nthroughout. His legs were accustomed to the saddle and knew how to\r\ncling to it, while there was a hope that he might struggle through. And now that he was again in the field he wheeled his horse to a\r\ngreater distance, striking him with his whip, and once more pushed\r\nhim at the fence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The gallant beast went at it bravely, slightly\r\nswerving from the fatal spot to which Peregrine had endeavoured once\r\nmore to guide him, leaped with a full spring from the unworn turf,\r\nand, barely touching the bank, landed himself and his master lightly\r\nwithin the precincts of the wood. \"Ah-h!\" said Peregrine, shouting angrily at the horse, as though the\r\nbrute had done badly instead of well. And then he rode down slowly\r\nthrough the wood, and out by Monkton Grange farm, round the moat, and\r\ndown the avenue, and before long he was standing at Noningsby gate. He had not made up his mind to any plan of action, nor indeed had he\r\ndetermined that he would ask to see any of the family or even enter\r\nthe place. The woman at the lodge opened the gate, and he rode in\r\nmechanically, asking if any of them were at home. The judge and Mr.\r\nAugustus were gone up to London, but my lady and the other ladies\r\nwere in the house. Mr. Graham had not gone, the woman said in answer\r\nto his question; nor did she know when he was going. And then, armed\r\nwith this information, Peregrine Orme rode round to the stables, and\r\ngave up his horse to a groom. \"Yes, Lady Staveley was at home,\" the servant said at the door. \"Would Mr. Orme walk into the drawing-room, where he would find the\r\nyoung ladies?\" But Mr. Orme would not do this."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He would go into a\r\nsmall book-room with which he was well acquainted, and have his name\r\ntaken up to Lady Staveley. \"He did not,\" he said, \"mean to stay very\r\nlong; but particularly wished to see Lady Staveley.\" In a few minutes\r\nLady Staveley came to him, radiant with her sweetest smile, and with\r\nboth her hands held out to greet him. \"My dear Mr. Orme,\" she said, \"I am delighted to see you; but what\r\nmade you run away from us so suddenly?\" She had considered her words\r\nin that moment as she came across the hall, and had thought that in\r\nthis way she might best enable him to speak. \"Lady Staveley,\" he said, \"I have come here on purpose to tell you. Has your daughter told you anything?\" \"Who--Madeline?\" \"Yes, Madeline. I mean Miss Staveley. Has she said anything to you\r\nabout me?\" \"Well; yes, she has. Will you not sit down, Mr. Orme, and then\r\nwe shall be more comfortable.\" Hitherto he had stood up, and had\r\nblurted out his words with a sudden, determined, and almost ferocious\r\nair,--as though he were going to demand the girl's hand, and\r\nchallenge all the household if it were refused him. But Lady Staveley\r\nunderstood his manner and his nature, and liked him almost the better\r\nfor his abruptness. \"She has spoken to me, Mr. Orme; she has told me of what passed\r\nbetween you on the last day that you were with us.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And yet you are surprised that I should have gone! I wonder at that,\r\nLady Staveley. You must have known--\"\r\n\r\n\"Well; perhaps I did know; but sit down, Mr. Orme. I won't let you\r\nget up in that restless way, if we are to talk together. Tell me\r\nfrankly; what is it you think that I can do for you?\" \"I don't suppose you can do anything;--but I thought I would come\r\nover and speak to you. I don't suppose I've any chance?\" He had\r\nseated himself far back on a sofa, and was holding his hat between\r\nhis knees, with his eyes fixed on the ground; but as he spoke the\r\nlast words he looked round into her face with an anxious inquiring\r\nglance which went direct to her heart. \"What can I say, Mr. Orme?\" \"Ah, no. Of course nothing. Good-bye, Lady Staveley. I might as well\r\ngo. I know that I was a fool for coming here. I knew it as I was\r\ncoming. Indeed I hardly meant to come in when I found myself at the\r\ngate.\" \"But you must not go from us like that.\" \"I must though. Do you think that I could go in and see her? If I did\r\nI should make such a fool of myself that I could never again hold up\r\nmy head. And I am a fool. I ought to have known that a fellow like me\r\ncould have no chance with her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I could knock my own head off, if I\r\nonly knew how, for having made such an ass of myself.\" \"No one here thinks so of you, Mr. Orme.\" \"No one here thinks what?\" \"That it was--unreasonable in you to propose to Madeline. We all know\r\nthat you did her much honour.\" \"Psha!\" said he, turning away from her. \"Ah! but you must listen to me. That is what we all think--Madeline\r\nherself, and I, and her father. No one who knows you could think\r\notherwise. We all like you, and know how good and excellent you are. And as to worldly station, of course you stand above her.\" \"Psha!\" he said again angrily. How could any one presume to talk of\r\nthe worldly station of his goddess? For just then Madeline Staveley\r\nto him was a goddess! \"That is what we think, indeed, Mr. Orme. As for myself, had my girl\r\ncome to me telling me that you had proposed to her, and telling me\r\nalso that--that--that she felt that she might probably like you, I\r\nshould have been very happy to hear it.\" And Lady Staveley as she\r\nspoke, put out her hand to him. \"But what did she say?\" asked Peregrine, altogether disregarding the\r\nhand. \"Ah, she did not say that. She told me that she had declined the\r\nhonour that you had offered her;--that she did not regard you as she\r\nmust regard the man to whom she would pledge her heart.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But did she say that she could never love me?\" And now as he asked\r\nthe question he stood up again, looking down with all his eyes into\r\nLady Staveley's face,--that face which would have been so friendly to\r\nhim, so kind and so encouraging, had it been possible. \"Never is a long word, Mr. Orme.\" \"Ah, but did she say it? Come, Lady Staveley; I know I have been a\r\nfool, but I am not a cowardly fool. If it be so;--if I have no hope,\r\ntell me at once, that I may go away. In that case I shall be better\r\nanywhere out of the county.\" \"I cannot say that you should have no hope.\" \"You think then that there is a chance?\" and for a moment he looked\r\nas though all his troubles were nearly over. \"If you are so impetuous, Mr. Orme, I cannot speak to you. If you\r\nwill sit down for a minute or two I will tell you exactly what I\r\nthink about it.\" And then he sat down, trying to look as though he\r\nwere not impetuous. \"I should be deceiving you if I were not to tell\r\nyou that she speaks of the matter as though it were all over,--as\r\nthough her answer to you was a final one.\" \"Ah; I knew it was so.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But then, Mr. Orme, many young ladies who have been at the first\r\nmoment quite as sure of their decision have married the gentlemen\r\nwhom they refused, and have learned to love them with all their\r\nhearts.\" \"But she isn't like other girls,\" said Peregrine. \"I believe she is a great deal better than many, but nevertheless she\r\nmay be like others in that respect. I do not say that it will be so,\r\nMr. Orme. I would not on any account give you hopes which I believed\r\nto be false. But if you are anxious in the matter--\"\r\n\r\n\"I am as anxious about it as I am about my soul!\" \"Oh fie, Mr. Orme! You should not speak in that way. But if you are\r\nanxious, I would advise you to wait.\" \"And see her become the wife of some one else.\" \"Listen to me, Mr. Orme. Madeline is very young. And so indeed are\r\nyou too;--almost too young to marry as yet, even if my girl were\r\nwilling that it should be so. But we all like you very much; and\r\nas you both are so very young, I think that you might wait with\r\npatience,--say for a year. Then come to Noningsby again, and try your\r\nfortune once more. That is my advice.\" \"Will you tell me one thing, Lady Staveley?\" \"What is that, Mr. Orme?\" \"Does she care for any one else?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lady Staveley was prepared to do anything she could for her young\r\nfriend except to answer that question. She did believe that Madeline\r\ncared for somebody else,--cared very much. But she did not think that\r\nany way would be opened by which that caring would be made manifest;\r\nand she thought also that if wholly ungratified by any word of\r\nintercourse that feeling would die away. Could she have told\r\neverything to Peregrine Orme she would have explained to him that his\r\nbest chance lay in that liking for Felix Graham; or, rather, that as\r\nhis rejection had been caused by that liking, his chance would be\r\ngood again when that liking should have perished from starvation. But\r\nall this Lady Staveley could not explain to him; nor would it have\r\nbeen satisfactory to her feelings had it been in her power to do so. Still there remained the question, \"Does she care for any one else?\" \"Mr. Orme,\" she said, \"I will do all for you that a mother can do or\r\nought to do; but I must not admit that you have a right to ask such\r\na question as that. If I were to answer that now, you would feel\r\nyourself justified in asking it again when perhaps it might not be so\r\neasy to answer.\" \"I beg your pardon, Lady Staveley;\" and Peregrine blushed up to his\r\neyes. \"I did not intend--\"\r\n\r\n\"No; do not beg my pardon, seeing that you have given me no offence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As I said just now, all that a mother can and ought to do I will do\r\nfor you. I am very frank, and tell you that I should be rejoiced to\r\nhave you for my son-in-law.\" \"I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you.\" \"But neither by me nor by her father will any constraint ever be put\r\non the inclinations of our child. At any rate as to whom she will not\r\naccept she will always be allowed to judge for herself. I have told\r\nyou that to us you would be acceptable as a suitor; and after that\r\nI think it will be best to leave the matter for the present without\r\nany further words. Let it be understood that you will spend next\r\nChristmas at Noningsby, and then you will both be older and perhaps\r\nknow your own minds better.\" \"That's a year, you know.\" \"A year is not so very long--at your time of life.\" By which latter\r\nremark Lady Staveley did not show her knowledge of human nature. \"And I suppose I had better go now?\" said Peregrine sheepishly. \"If you like to go into the drawing-room, I'm sure they will all be\r\nvery glad to see you.\" But Peregrine declared that he would not do this on any account. \"You\r\ndo not know, Lady Staveley, what a fool I should make myself. It\r\nwould be all over with me then.\" \"You should be more moderate in your feelings, Mr. Orme.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It's all very well saying that; but you wouldn't be moderate if\r\nNoningsby were on fire, or if you thought the judge was going to\r\ndie.\" \"Good gracious, Mr. Orme!\" \"It's the same sort of thing to me, I can tell you. A man can't be\r\nmoderate when he feels that he should like to break his own neck. I\r\ndeclare I almost tried to do it to-day.\" \"Oh, Mr. Orme!\" \"Well; I did. But don't suppose I say that as a sort of threat. I'm\r\nsafe enough to live for the next sixty years. It's only the happy\r\npeople and those that are some good in the world that die. Good-bye,\r\nLady Staveley. I'll come back next Christmas;--that is if it isn't\r\nall settled before then; but I know it will be no good.\" Then he got\r\non his horse and rode very slowly home, along the high road to The\r\nCleeve. Lady Staveley did not go in among the other ladies till luncheon was\r\nannounced, and when she did so, she said no word about her visitor. Nevertheless it was known by them all that Peregrine Orme had been\r\nthere. \"Ah, that's Mr. Orme's roan-coloured horse,\" Sophia Furnival\r\nhad said, getting up and thrusting her face close to the drawing-room\r\nwindow. It was barely possible to see a portion of the road from the\r\ndrawing-room; but Sophia's eyes had been sharp enough to see that\r\nportion. \"A groom has probably come over with a note,\" said Mrs. Arbuthnot."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Very likely,\" said Sophia. But they all knew from her voice that the\r\nrider was no groom, and that she did not intend it to be thought that\r\nhe was a groom. Madeline said not a word, and kept her countenance\r\nmarvellously; but she knew well enough that Peregrine had been with\r\nher mother; and guessed also why he had been there. Madeline had asked herself some serious questions, and had answered\r\nthem also, since that conversation which she had had with her father. He had assured her that he desired only her happiness; and though in\r\nso saying he had spoken nothing of marriage, she had well understood\r\nthat he had referred to her future happiness,--at that time when by\r\nher own choice she should be leaving her father's house. And now\r\nshe asked herself boldly in what way might that happiness be best\r\nsecured. Hitherto she had refrained from any such home questions. Latterly, within the last week or two, ideas of what love meant had\r\nforced themselves upon her mind. How could it have been otherwise? But she had never dared to tell herself either that she did love, or\r\nthat she did not. Mr. Orme had come to her with his offer, plainly\r\nasking her for the gift of her heart, and she had immediately been\r\naware that any such gift on her part was impossible,--any such gift\r\nin his favour. She had known without a moment's thought that there\r\nwas no room for hesitation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had he asked her to take wings and fly\r\naway with him over the woods, the feat would not have been to her\r\nmore impossible than that of loving him as his wife. Yet she liked\r\nhim,--liked him much in these latter days, because he had been so\r\ngood to Felix Graham. When she felt that she liked him as she refused\r\nhim, she felt also that it was for this reason that she liked him. On the day of Graham's accident she had thought nothing of him,--had\r\nhardly spoken to him. But now she loved him--with a sort of love,\r\nbecause he had been so good to Graham. Though in her heart she knew\r\nall this, she asked herself no questions till her father had spoken\r\nto her of her future happiness. Then, as she wandered about the house alone,--for she still went on\r\nwandering,--she did ask herself a question or two. What was it that\r\nhad changed her thus, and made her gay quick step so slow? what had\r\naltered the happy silver tone of her voice? what had created that\r\nload within her which seemed to weigh her down during every hour of\r\nthe day? She knew that there had been a change; that she was not as\r\nshe had been; and now she asked herself the question. Not on the\r\nfirst asking nor on the second did the answer come; not perhaps on\r\nthe twentieth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the answer did come at last, and she told herself\r\nthat her heart was no longer her own. She knew and acknowledged to\r\nherself that Felix Graham was its master and owner. And then came the second question. Under those circumstances what had\r\nshe better do? Her mother had told her,--and the words had fallen\r\ndeep into her ears,--that it would be a great misfortune if she loved\r\nany man before she had reason to know that that man loved her. She\r\nhad no such knowledge as regarded Felix Graham. A suspicion that it\r\nmight be so she did feel,--a suspicion which would grow into a hope\r\nlet her struggle against it as she might. Baker, that injudicious\r\nBaker, had dropped in her hearing a word or two, which assisted this\r\nsuspicion. And then the open frank question put to her by her father\r\nwhen he demanded whether Graham had addressed her as a lover, had\r\ntended towards the same result. What had she better do? Of one thing\r\nshe now felt perfectly certain. Let the world go as it might in\r\nother respects, she could never leave her father's house as a bride\r\nunless the bridegroom were Felix Graham. A marriage with him might\r\nprobably be impracticable, but any other marriage would be absolutely\r\nimpossible."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If her father or her mother told her not to think of\r\nFelix Graham, as a matter of course she would obey them; but not even\r\nin obedience to father or mother could she say that she loved any one\r\nelse. And now, all these matters having been considered, what should she\r\ndo? Her father had invited her to tell everything to him, and she was\r\npossessed by a feeling that in this matter she might possibly find\r\nmore indulgence with her father than with her mother; but yet it was\r\nmore natural that her mother should be her confidante and adviser. She could speak to her mother, also, with a better courage, even\r\nthough she felt less certain of sympathy. Peregrine Orme had now been\r\nthere again, and had been closeted With Lady Staveley. On that ground\r\nshe would speak, and having so resolved she lost no time in carrying\r\nout her purpose. \"Mamma, Mr. Orme was here to-day; was he not?\" \"Yes, my love.\" Lady Staveley was sorry rather than otherwise that\r\nher daughter had asked her, but would have been puzzled to explain\r\nwhy such should have been the case. \"I thought so,\" said Madeline. \"He rode over, and told me among other things that the match between\r\nhis grandfather and Lady Mason is at an end. I was very glad to hear\r\nit, for I thought that Sir Peregrine was going to do a very foolish\r\nthing.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then there were a few further remarks on that subject,\r\nmade probably by Lady Staveley with some undefined intention of\r\ninducing her daughter to think that Peregrine Orme had come over\r\nchiefly on that matter. \"But, mamma--\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, my love.\" \"Did he say anything about--about what he was speaking to me about?\" \"Well, Madeline; he did. He did say something on that subject; but I\r\nhad not intended to tell you unless you had asked.\" \"I hope, mamma, he understands that what he wants can never\r\nhappen;--that is if he does want it now?\" \"He does want it certainly, my dear.\" \"Then I hope you told him that it can never be? I hope you did,\r\nmamma!\" \"But why should you be so certain about it, my love? He does not\r\nintend to trouble you with his suit,--nor do I. Why not leave that\r\nto time? There can be no reason why you should not see him again on\r\na friendly footing when this embarrassment between you shall have\r\npassed away.\" \"There would be no reason, mamma, if he were quite sure that there\r\ncould never be any other footing.\" \"Never is a very long word.\" [Illustration: \"Never is a very long word.\"] \"But it is the only true word, mamma. It would be wrong in you, it\r\nwould indeed, if you were to tell him to come again."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I like Mr. Orme\r\nvery much as a friend, and I should be very glad to know him,--that\r\nis if he chose to know me.\" And Madeline as she made this little\r\nproviso was thinking what her own worldly position might be as the\r\nwife of Felix Graham. \"But as it is quite impossible that he and I\r\nshould ever be anything else to each other, he should not be asked to\r\ncome here with any other intention.\" \"But Madeline, I do not see that it is so impossible.\" \"Mamma, it is impossible; quite impossible!\" To this assertion\r\nLady Staveley made no answer in words, but there was that in her\r\ncountenance which made her daughter understand that she did not quite\r\nagree in this assertion, or understand this impossibility. \"Mamma, it is quite, quite impossible!\" Madeline repeated. \"But why so?\" said Lady Staveley, frightened by her daughter's\r\nmanner, and almost fearing that something further was to come which\r\nhad by far better be left unsaid. \"Because, mamma, I have no love to give him. Oh, mamma, do not be\r\nangry with me; do not push me away. You know who it is that I love. You knew it before.\" And then she threw herself on her knees, and hid\r\nher face on her mother's lap. Lady Staveley had known it, but up to that moment she had hoped that\r\nthat knowledge might have remained hidden as though it were unknown. CHAPTER LI. MRS. FURNIVAL'S JOURNEY TO HAMWORTH."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When Peregrine got back to The Cleeve he learned that there was a\r\nlady with his mother. He had by this time partially succeeded in\r\nreasoning himself out of his despondency. He had learned at any rate\r\nthat his proposition to marry into the Staveley family had been\r\nregarded with favour by all that family except the one whose views\r\non that subject were by far the most important to him; and he had\r\nlearned, as he thought, that Lady Staveley had no suspicion that her\r\ndaughter's heart was preoccupied. But in this respect Lady Staveley\r\nhad been too cunning for him. \"Wait!\" he said to himself as he went\r\nslowly along the road. \"It's all very well to say wait, but there\r\nare some things which won't bear waiting for. A man who waits never\r\ngets well away with the hounds.\" Nevertheless as he rode into the\r\ncourtyard his hopes were somewhat higher than they had been when he\r\nrode out of it. \"A lady! what lady? You don't mean Lady Mason?\" No. The servant did not mean Lady Mason. It was an elderly stout lady\r\nwho had come in a fly, and the elderly stout lady was now in the\r\ndrawing-room with his mother. Lady Mason was still up stairs. We all\r\nknow who was that elderly stout lady, and we must now go back and say\r\na few words as to her journey from Orange Street to Hamworth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the preceding evening Mrs. Furnival had told Martha Biggs what was\r\nher intention; Or perhaps it would be more just to say that Martha\r\nBiggs had worked it out of her. Now that Mrs. Furnival had left the\r\nfashionable neighbourhood of Cavendish Square, and located herself in\r\nthat eastern homely district to which Miss Biggs had been so long\r\naccustomed, Miss Biggs had been almost tyrannical. It was not that\r\nshe was less attentive to her friend, or less willing to slave for\r\nher with a view to any possible or impossible result. But the friend\r\nof Mrs. Furnival's bosom could not help feeling her opportunity. Mrs.\r\nFurnival had now thrown herself very much upon her friend, and of\r\ncourse the friend now expected unlimited privileges;--as is always\r\nthe case with friends in such a position. It is very well to have\r\nfriends to lean upon, but it is not always well to lean upon one's\r\nfriends. \"I will be with you before you start in the morning,\" said Martha. \"It will not be at all necessary,\" said Mrs. Furnival. \"Oh, but I shall indeed. And, Kitty, I should think nothing of going\r\nwith you, if you would wish it. Indeed I think you should have a\r\nfemale friend alongside of you in such a trouble. You have only to\r\nsay the word and I'll go in a minute.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Furnival however did not say the word, and Miss Biggs was\r\nobliged to deny herself the pleasure of the journey. But true to her\r\nword she came in the morning in ample time to catch Mrs. Furnival\r\nbefore she started, and for half an hour poured out sweet counsel\r\ninto her friend's ear. If one's friends would as a rule refrain from\r\naction how much more strongly would real friendship flourish in the\r\nworld! \"Now, Kitty, I do trust you will persist in seeing her.\" \"That's why I'm going there.\" \"Yes; but she might put you off it, if you're not firm. Of course\r\nshe'll deny herself if you send in your name first. What I should do\r\nwould be this;--to ask to be shown in to her and then follow the\r\nservant. When the happiness of a life is at stake,--the happinesses\r\nof two lives I may say, and perhaps the immortal welfare of one of\r\nthem in another world,--one must not stand too much upon etiquette. You would never forgive yourself if you did. Your object is to save\r\nhim and to shame her out of her vile conduct. To shame her and\r\nfrighten her out of it if that be possible. Follow the servant in and\r\ndon't give them a moment to think. That's my advice.\" In answer to all this Mrs. Furnival did not say much, and what little\r\nshe did say was neither in the affirmative nor in the negative."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Martha knew that she was being ill treated, but not on that account\r\ndid she relax her friendly efforts. The time would soon come, if\r\nall things went well, when Mrs. Furnival would be driven by the\r\nloneliness of her position to open her heart in a truly loving and\r\nconfidential manner. Miss Biggs hoped sincerely that her friend and\r\nher friend's husband might be brought together again;--perhaps by\r\nher own efforts; but she did not anticipate,--or perhaps desire any\r\nspeedy termination of the present arrangements. It would be well\r\nthat Mr. Furnival should be punished by a separation of some months. Then, when he had learned to know what it was to have a home without\r\na \"presiding genius,\" he might, if duly penitent and open in his\r\nconfession, be forgiven. That was Miss Biggs's programme, and she\r\nthought it probable that Mrs. Furnival might want a good deal of\r\nconsolation before that day of open confession arrived. \"I shall go with you as far as the station, Kitty,\" she said in a\r\nvery decided voice. \"It will not be at all necessary,\" Mrs. Furnival replied. \"Oh, but I shall. You must want support at such a moment as this, and\r\nas far as I can give it you shall have it.\" \"But it won't be any support to have you in the cab with me. If you\r\nwill believe me, I had rather go alone. It is so necessary that I\r\nshould think about all this.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Martha would not believe her; and as for thinking, she was quite\r\nready to take that part of the work herself. \"Don't say another\r\nword,\" she said, as she thrust herself in at the cab-door after her\r\nfriend. Mrs. Furnival hardly did say another word, but Martha Biggs\r\nsaid many. She knew that Mrs. Furnival was cross, ill pleased, and\r\nnot disposed to confidence. But what of that? Her duty as a friend\r\nwas not altered by Mrs. Furnival's ill humour. She would persevere,\r\nand having in her hands so great an opportunity, did not despair but\r\nwhat the time might come when both Mr. and Mrs. Furnival would with\r\nunited voices hail her as their preserver. Poor Martha Biggs! She did\r\nnot mean amiss; but she was troublesome. It was very necessary that Mrs. Furnival should think over the step\r\nwhich she was taking. What was it that she intended to do when she\r\narrived at Hamworth? That plan of forcing her way into Lady Mason's\r\nhouse did not recommend itself to her the more in that it was\r\nrecommended by Martha Biggs. \"I suppose you will come up to us this\r\nevening?\" Martha said, when she left her friend in the railway\r\ncarriage. \"Not this evening, I think. I shall be so tired,\" Mrs.\r\nFurnival had replied. \"Then I shall come down to you,\" said Martha,\r\nalmost holloaing after her friend, as the train started."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Furnival\r\nwould not have been displeased had he known the state of his wife's\r\nmind at that moment towards her late visitor. During the whole of her\r\njourney down to Hamworth she tried to think what she would say to\r\nLady Mason, but instead of so thinking her mind would revert to the\r\nunpleasantness of Miss Biggs's friendship. When she left the train at the Hamworth station she was solicited by\r\nthe driver of a public vehicle to use his fly, and having ascertained\r\nfrom the man that he well knew the position of Orley Farm, she got\r\ninto the carriage and had herself driven to the residence of her\r\nhated rival. She had often heard of Orley Farm, but she had never as\r\nyet seen it, and now felt considerable anxiety both as regards the\r\nhouse and its occupant. \"This is Orley Farm, ma'am,\" said the man, stopping at the gate. \"Shall I drive up?\" But at this moment the gate was opened by a decent, respectable\r\nwoman,--Mrs. Furnival would not quite have called her a lady,--who\r\nlooked hard at the fly as it turned on to the private road. \"Perhaps this lady could tell me,\" said Mrs. Furnival, putting out\r\nher hand. \"Is this where Lady Mason lives?\" The woman was Mrs. Dockwrath."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On that day Samuel Dockwrath had gone\r\nto London, but before starting he had made known to his wife with\r\nfiendish glee that it had been at last decided by all the persons\r\nconcerned that Lady Mason should be charged with perjury, and tried\r\nfor that offence. \"You don't mean to say that the judges have said so?\" asked poor\r\nMiriam. \"I do mean to say that all the judges in England could not save her\r\nfrom having to stand her trial, and it is my belief that all the\r\nlawyers in the land cannot save her from conviction. I wonder whether\r\nshe ever thinks now of those fields which she took away from me!\" Then, when her master's back was turned, she put on her bonnet and\r\nwalked up to Orley Farm. She knew well that Lady Mason was at The\r\nCleeve, and believed that she was about to become the wife of Sir\r\nPeregrine; but she knew also that Lucius was at home, and it might\r\nbe well to let him know what was going on. She had just seen Lucius\r\nMason when she was met by Mrs. Furnival's fly. She had seen Lucius\r\nMason, and the angry manner in which he declared that he could in no\r\nway interfere in his mother's affairs had frightened her. \"But, Mr.\r\nLucius,\" she had said, \"she ought to be doing something, you know. There is no believing how bitter Samuel is about it.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"He may be as bitter as he likes, Mrs. Dockwrath,\" young Mason had\r\nanswered with considerable dignity in his manner. \"It will not in the\r\nleast affect my mother's interests. In the present instance, however,\r\nI am not her adviser.\" Whereupon Mrs. Dockwrath had retired, and as\r\nshe was afraid to go to Lady Mason at The Cleeve, she was about to\r\nreturn home when she opened the gate for Mrs. Furnival. She then\r\nexplained that Lady Mason was not at home and had not been at home\r\nfor some weeks; that she was staying with her friends at The Cleeve,\r\nand that in order to get there Mrs. Furnival must go back through\r\nHamworth and round by the high road. \"I knows the way well enough, Mrs. Dockwrath,\" said the driver. \"I've\r\nbeen at The Cleeve before now, I guess.\" So Mrs. Furnival was driven back to Hamworth, and on going over that\r\npiece of ground she resolved that she would follow Lady Mason to The\r\nCleeve. Why should she be afraid of Sir Peregrine Orme or of all the\r\nOrmes? Why should she fear any one while engaged in the performance\r\nof so sacred a duty? I must confess that in truth she was very much\r\nafraid, but nevertheless she had herself taken on to The Cleeve."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When\r\nshe arrived at the door, she asked of course for Lady Mason, but did\r\nnot feel at all inclined to follow the servant uninvited into the\r\nhouse as recommended by Miss Biggs. Lady Mason, the man said, was\r\nnot very well, and after a certain amount of parley at the door the\r\nmatter ended in her being shown into the drawing-room, where she was\r\nsoon joined by Mrs. Orme. \"I am Mrs. Furnival,\" she began, and then Mrs. Orme begged her to sit\r\ndown. \"I have come here to see Lady Mason--on some business--some\r\nbusiness not of a very pleasant nature. I'm sure I don't know how to\r\ntrouble you with it, and yet--\" And then even Mrs. Orme could see\r\nthat her visitor was somewhat confused. \"Is it about the trial?\" asked Mrs. Orme. \"Then there is really a lawsuit going on?\" \"A lawsuit!\" said Mrs. Orme, rather puzzled. \"You said something about a trial. Now, Mrs. Orme, pray do not\r\ndeceive me. I'm a very unhappy woman; I am indeed.\" \"Deceive you! Why should I deceive you?\" \"No, indeed. Why should you? And now I look at you I do not think you\r\nwill.\" \"Indeed I will not, Mrs. Furnival.\" \"And there is really a lawsuit then?\" Mrs. Furnival persisted in\r\nasking. \"I thought you would know all about it,\" said Mrs. Orme, \"as Mr.\r\nFurnival manages Lady Mason's law business. I thought that perhaps it\r\nwas about that that you had come.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then Mrs. Furnival explained that she knew nothing whatever about\r\nLady Mason's affairs, that hitherto she had not believed that there\r\nwas any trial or any lawsuit, and gradually explained the cause of\r\nall her trouble. She did not do this without sundry interruptions,\r\ncaused both by her own feelings and by Mrs. Orme's exclamations. But\r\nat last it all came forth; and before she had done she was calling\r\nher husband Tom, and appealing to her listener for sympathy. \"But indeed it's a mistake, Mrs. Furnival. It is indeed. There are\r\nreasons which make me quite sure of it.\" So spoke Mrs. Orme. How\r\ncould Lady Mason have been in love with Mr. Furnival,--if such a\r\nstate of things could be possible under any circumstances,--seeing\r\nthat she had been engaged to marry Sir Peregrine? Mrs. Orme did not\r\ndeclare her reasons, but repeated with very positive assurances her\r\nknowledge that Mrs. Furnival was labouring under some very grievous\r\nerror. \"But why should she always be at his chambers? I have seen her there\r\ntwice, Mrs. Orme. I have indeed;--with my own eyes.\" Mrs. Orme would have thought nothing of it if Lady Mason had\r\nbeen seen there every day for a week together, and regarded Mrs.\r\nFurnival's suspicions as an hallucination bordering on insanity. A\r\nwoman be in love with Mr. Furnival! A very pretty woman endeavour\r\nto entice away from his wife the affection of such a man as that!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "As these ideas passed through Mrs. Orme's mind she did not perhaps\r\nremember that Sir Peregrine, who was more than ten years Mr.\r\nFurnival's senior, had been engaged to marry the same lady. But then\r\nshe herself loved Sir Peregrine dearly, and she had no such feeling\r\nwith reference to Mr. Furnival. She however did what was most within\r\nher power to do to allay the suffering under which her visitor\r\nlaboured, and explained to her the position in which Lady Mason was\r\nplaced. \"I do not think she can see you,\" she ended by saying, \"for\r\nshe is in very great trouble.\" \"To be tried for perjury!\" said Mrs. Furnival, out of whose heart all\r\nhatred towards Lady Mason was quickly departing. Had she heard that\r\nshe was to be tried for murder,--that she had been convicted for\r\nmurder,--it would have altogether softened her heart towards her\r\nsupposed enemy. She could forgive her any offence but the one. \"Yes indeed,\" said Mrs. Orme, wiping a tear away from her eye as she\r\nthought of all the troubles present and to come. \"It is the saddest\r\nthing. Poor lady! It would almost break your heart if you were to see\r\nher. Since first she heard of this, which was before Christmas, she\r\nhas not had one quiet moment.\" \"Poor creature!\" said Mrs. Furnival. \"Ah, you would say so, if you knew all."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She has had to depend a great\r\ndeal upon Mr. Furnival for advice, and without that I don't know\r\nwhat she would do.\" This Mrs. Orme said, not wishing to revert to\r\nthe charge against Lady Mason which had brought Mrs. Furnival down\r\nto Hamworth, but still desirous of emancipating her poor friend\r\ncompletely from that charge. \"And Sir Peregrine also is very kind\r\nto her,--very.\" This she added; feeling that up to that moment Mrs.\r\nFurnival could have heard nothing of the intended marriage, but\r\nthinking it probable that she must do so before long. \"Indeed anybody\r\nwould be kind to her who saw her in her suffering. I am sure you\r\nwould, Mrs. Furnival.\" \"Dear, dear!\" said Mrs. Furnival who was beginning to entertain\r\nalmost a kindly feeling towards Mrs. Orme. \"It is such a dreadful position for a lady. Sometimes I think that\r\nher mind will fail her before the day comes.\" \"But what a very wicked man that other Mr. Mason must be!\" said Mrs.\r\nFurnival. That was a view of the matter on which Mrs. Orme could not say much. She disliked that Mr. Mason as much as she could dislike a man whom\r\nshe had never seen, but it was not open to her now to say that he was\r\nvery wicked in this matter. \"I suppose he thinks the property ought\r\nto belong to him,\" she answered. \"That was settled years ago,\" said Mrs. Furnival. \"Horrid, cruel man!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But after all I don't see why she should mind it so much.\" \"Oh, Mrs. Furnival!--to stand in a court and be tried.\" \"But if one is innocent! For my part, if I knew myself innocent I\r\ncould brave them all. It is the feeling that one is wrong that cows\r\none.\" And Mrs. Furnival thought of the little confession which she\r\nwould be called upon to make at home. And then feeling some difficulty as to her last words in such an\r\ninterview, Mrs. Furnival got up to go. \"Perhaps, Mrs. Orme,\" she\r\nsaid, \"I have been foolish in this.\" \"You have been mistaken, Mrs. Furnival. I am sure of that.\" \"I begin to think I have. But, Mrs. Orme, will you let me ask you\r\na favour? Perhaps you will not say anything about my coming here. I have been very unhappy; I have indeed; and--\" Mrs. Furnival's\r\nhandkerchief was now up at her eyes, and Mrs. Orme's heart was again\r\nfull of pity. Of course she gave the required promise; and, looking\r\nto the character of the woman, we may say that, of course, she kept\r\nit. \"Mrs. Furnival! What was she here about?\" Peregrine asked of his\r\nmother. \"I would rather not tell you, Perry,\" said his mother, kissing him;\r\nand then there were no more words spoken on the subject."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Furnival as she made her journey back to London began to dislike\r\nMartha Biggs more and more, and most unjustly attributed to that lady\r\nin her thoughts the folly of this journey to Hamworth. The journey\r\nto Hamworth had been her own doing, and had the idea originated with\r\nMiss Biggs the journey would never have been made. As it was, while\r\nshe was yet in the train, she came to the strong resolution of\r\nreturning direct from the London station to her own house in Harley\r\nStreet. It would be best to cut the knot at once, and thus by a bold\r\nstroke of the knife rid herself of the Orange Street rooms and Miss\r\nBiggs at the same time. She did drive to Harley Street, and on her\r\narrival at her own door was informed by the astonished Spooner that,\r\n\"Master was at home,--all alone in the dining-room. He was going to\r\ndine at home, and seemed very lonely like.\" There, as she stood in\r\nthe hall, there was nothing but the door between her and her husband,\r\nand she conceived that the sound of her arrival must have been\r\nheard by him. For a moment her courage was weak, and she thought of\r\nhurrying up stairs. Had she done so her trouble would still have been\r\nall before her. Some idea of this came upon her mind, and after a\r\nmoment's pause, she opened the dining-room door and found herself\r\nin her husband's presence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was sitting over the fire in his\r\narm-chair, very gloomily, and had not heard the arrival. He too had\r\nsome tenderness left in his heart, and this going away of his wife\r\nhad distressed him. \"Tom,\" she said, going up to him, and speaking in a low voice, \"I\r\nhave come back again.\" And she stood before him as a suppliant. [Illustration: \"Tom,\" she said, \"I have come back.\"] CHAPTER LII. SHOWING HOW THINGS WENT ON AT NONINGSBY. Yes, Lady Staveley had known it before. She had given a fairly\r\ncorrect guess at the state of her daughter's affections, though\r\nshe had not perhaps acknowledged to herself the intensity of her\r\ndaughter's feelings. But the fact might not have mattered if it had\r\nnever been told. Madeline might have overcome this love for Mr.\r\nGraham, and all might have been well if she had never mentioned\r\nit. But now the mischief was done. She had acknowledged to her\r\nmother,--and, which was perhaps worse, she had acknowledged to\r\nherself,--that her heart was gone, and Lady Staveley saw no cure for\r\nthe evil. Had this happened but a few hours earlier she would have\r\nspoken with much less of encouragement to Peregrine Orme. And Felix Graham was not only in the house, but was to remain there\r\nfor yet a while longer, spending a very considerable portion of his\r\ntime in the drawing-room."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was to come down on this very day at\r\nthree o'clock, after an early dinner, and on the next day he was\r\nto be promoted to the dining-room. As a son-in-law he was quite\r\nineligible. He had, as Lady Staveley understood, no private fortune,\r\nand he belonged to a profession which he would not follow in the only\r\nway by which it was possible to earn an income by it. Such being\r\nthe case, her daughter, whom of all girls she knew to be the most\r\nretiring, the least likely to speak of such feelings unless driven to\r\nit by great stress,--her daughter had positively declared to her that\r\nshe was in love with this man! Could anything be more hopeless? Could\r\nany position be more trying? \"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!\" she said, almost wringing her hands in\r\nher vexation,--\"No, my darling I am not angry,\" and she kissed her\r\nchild and smoothed her hair. \"I am not angry; but I must say I think\r\nit very unfortunate. He has not a shilling in the world.\" \"I will do nothing that you and papa do not approve,\" said Madeline,\r\nholding down her head. \"And then you know he doesn't think of such a thing himself--of\r\ncourse he does not. Indeed, I don't think he's a marrying man at\r\nall.\" \"Oh, mamma, do not talk in that way;--as if I expected anything."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I\r\ncould not but tell you the truth when you spoke of Mr. Orme as you\r\ndid.\" \"Poor Mr. Orme! he is such an excellent young man.\" \"I don't suppose he's better than Mr. Graham, mamma, if you speak of\r\ngoodness.\" \"I'm sure I don't know,\" said Lady Staveley, very much put beside\r\nherself. \"I wish there were no such things as young men at all. There's Augustus making a fool of himself.\" And she walked twice the\r\nlength of the room in an agony of maternal anxiety. Peregrine Orme\r\nhad suggested to her what she would feel if Noningsby were on fire;\r\nbut could any such fire be worse than these pernicious love flames? He had also suggested another calamity, and as Lady Staveley\r\nremembered that, she acknowledged to herself that the Fates were not\r\nso cruel to her as they might have been. So she kissed her daughter,\r\nagain assured her that she was by no means angry with her, and then\r\nthey parted. This trouble had now come to such a head that no course was any\r\nlonger open to poor Lady Staveley, but that one which she had adopted\r\nin all the troubles of her married life. She would tell the judge\r\neverything, and throw all the responsibility upon his back."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Let him\r\ndecide whether a cold shoulder or a paternal blessing should be\r\nadministered to the ugly young man up stairs, who had tumbled off\r\nhis horse the first day he went out hunting, and who would not earn\r\nhis bread as others did, but thought himself cleverer than all the\r\nworld. The feelings in Lady Staveley's breast towards Mr. Graham at\r\nthis especial time were not of a kindly nature. She could not make\r\ncomparisons between him and Peregrine Orme without wondering at her\r\ndaughter's choice. Peregrine was fair and handsome, one of the\r\ncurled darlings of the nation, bright of eye and smooth of skin,\r\ngood-natured, of a sweet disposition, a young man to be loved by\r\nall the world, and--incidentally--the heir to a baronetcy and a\r\ngood estate. All his people were nice, and he lived close in the\r\nneighbourhood! Had Lady Staveley been set to choose a husband for\r\nher daughter she could have chosen none better. And then she counted\r\nup Felix Graham. His eyes no doubt were bright enough, but taken\r\naltogether he was,--at least so she said to herself--hideously ugly. He was by no means a curled darling. And then he was masterful in\r\nmind, and not soft and pleasant as was young Orme. He was heir to\r\nnothing; and as to people of his own he had none in particular. Who\r\ncould say where he must live?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "As likely as not in Patagonia, having\r\nbeen forced to accept a judgeship in that new colony for the sake of\r\nbread. But her daughter should not go to Patagonia with him if she\r\ncould help it! So when the judge came home that evening, she told him\r\nall before she would allow him to dress for dinner. \"He certainly is not very handsome,\" the judge said, when Lady\r\nStaveley insisted somewhat strongly on that special feature of the\r\ncase. \"I think he is the ugliest young man I know,\" said her ladyship. \"He looks very well in his wig,\" said the judge. \"Wig! Madeline would not see him in a wig; nor anybody else very\r\noften, seeing the way he is going on about his profession. What are\r\nwe to do about it?\" \"Well. I should say, do nothing.\" \"And let him propose to the dear girl if he chooses to take the fancy\r\ninto his head?\" \"I don't see how we are to hinder him. But I have that impression of\r\nMr. Graham that I do not think he will do anything unhandsome by us. He has some singular ideas of his own about law, and I grant you that\r\nhe is plain--\"\r\n\r\n\"The plainest young man I ever saw,\" said Lady Staveley. \"But, if I know him, he is a man of high character and much more than\r\nordinary acquirement.\" \"I cannot understand Madeline,\" Lady Staveley went on, not caring\r\novermuch about Felix Graham's acquirements."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Well, my dear, I think the key to her choice is this, that she has\r\njudged not with her eyes, but with her ears, or rather with her\r\nunderstanding. Had she accepted Mr. Orme, I as a father should of\r\ncourse have been well satisfied. He is, I have no doubt, a fine young\r\nfellow, and will make a good husband some day.\" \"Oh, excellent!\" said her ladyship; \"and The Cleeve is only seven\r\nmiles.\" \"But I must acknowledge that I cannot feel angry with Madeline.\" \"Angry! no, not angry. Who would be angry with the poor child?\" \"Indeed, I am somewhat proud of her. It seems to me that she prefers\r\nmind to matter, which is a great deal to say for a young lady.\" \"Matter!\" exclaimed Lady Staveley, who could not but feel that the\r\nterm, as applied to such a young man as Peregrine Orme, was very\r\nopprobrious. \"Wit and intellect and power of expression have gone further with her\r\nthan good looks and rank and worldly prosperity. If that be so, and I\r\nbelieve it is, I cannot but love her the better for it.\" \"So do I love her, as much as any mother can love her daughter.\" \"Of course you do.\" And the judge kissed his wife. \"And I like wit and genius and all that sort of thing.\" \"Otherwise you would have not taken me, my dear.\" \"You were the handsomest man of your day. That's why I fell in love\r\nwith you.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"The compliment is a very poor one,\" said the judge. \"Never mind that. I like wit and genius too; but wit and genius are\r\nnone the better for being ugly; and wit and genius should know how to\r\nbutter their own bread before they think of taking a wife.\" \"You forget, my dear, that for aught we know wit and genius may be\r\nperfectly free from any such thought.\" And then the judge made it\r\nunderstood that if he were left to himself he would dress for dinner. When the ladies left the parlour that evening they found Graham\r\nin the drawing-room, but there was no longer any necessity for\r\nembarrassment on Madeline's part at meeting him. They had been in the\r\nroom together on three or four occasions, and therefore she could\r\ngive him her hand, and ask after his arm without feeling that every\r\none was watching her. But she hardly spoke to him beyond this, nor\r\nindeed did she speak much to anybody. The conversation, till the\r\ngentlemen joined them, was chiefly kept up by Sophia Furnival and\r\nMrs. Arbuthnot, and even after that the evening did not pass very\r\nbriskly. One little scene there was, during which poor Lady Staveley's eyes\r\nwere anxiously fixed upon her son, though most of those in the room\r\nsupposed that she was sleeping. Miss Furnival was to return to\r\nLondon on the following day, and it therefore behoved Augustus to be\r\nvery sad."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In truth he had been rather given to a melancholy humour\r\nduring the last day or two. Had Miss Furnival accepted all his civil\r\nspeeches, making him answers equally civil, the matter might very\r\nprobably have passed by without giving special trouble to any one. But she had not done this, and therefore Augustus Staveley had\r\nfancied himself to be really in love with her. What the lady's\r\nintentions were I will not pretend to say; but if she was in truth\r\ndesirous of becoming Mrs. Staveley, she certainly went about her\r\nbusiness in a discreet and wise manner. \"So you leave us to-morrow, immediately after breakfast,\" said he,\r\nhaving dressed his face with that romantic sobriety which he had been\r\npractising for the last three days. \"I am sorry to say that such is the fact,\" said Sophia. \"To tell you the truth I am not sorry,\" said Augustus; and he turned\r\naway his face for a moment, giving a long sigh. \"I dare say not, Mr. Staveley; but you need not have said so to me,\"\r\nsaid Sophia, pretending to take him literally at his word. \"Because I cannot stand this kind of thing any longer. I suppose I\r\nmust not see you in the morning,--alone?\" \"Well, I suppose not. If I can get down to prayers after having all\r\nmy things packed up, it will be as much as I can do.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And if I begged for half an hour as a last kindness--\"\r\n\r\n\"I certainly should not grant it. Go and ask your mother whether such\r\na request would be reasonable.\" \"Psha!\" \"Ah, but it's not psha! Half-hours between young ladies and young\r\ngentlemen before breakfast are very serious things.\" \"And I mean to be serious,\" said Augustus. \"But I don't,\" said Sophia. \"I am to understand then that under no possible circumstances--\"\r\n\r\n\"Bless me, Mr. Staveley, how solemn you are.\" \"There are occasions in a man's life when he is bound to be solemn. You are going away from us, Miss Furnival--\"\r\n\r\n\"One would think I was going to Jeddo, whereas I am going to Harley\r\nStreet.\" \"And I may come and see you there!\" \"Of course you may if you like it. According to the usages of the\r\nworld you would be reckoned very uncivil if you did not. For myself I\r\ndo not much care about such usages, and therefore if you omit it I\r\nwill forgive you.\" \"Very well; then I will say good-night,--and good-bye.\" These last\r\nwords he uttered in a strain which should have melted her heart, and\r\nas he took leave of her he squeezed her hand with an affection that\r\nwas almost painful. It may be remarked that if Augustus Staveley was quite in earnest\r\nwith Sophia Furnival, he would have asked her that all-important\r\nquestion in a straightforward manner as Peregrine Orme had asked it\r\nof Madeline."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Perhaps Miss Furnival was aware of this, and, being so\r\naware, considered that a serious half-hour before breakfast might not\r\nas yet be safe. If he were really in love he would find his way to\r\nHarley Street. On the whole I am inclined to think that Miss Furnival\r\ndid understand her business. On the following morning Miss Furnival went her way without any\r\nfurther scenes of tenderness, and Lady Staveley was thoroughly glad\r\nthat she was gone. \"A nasty, sly thing,\" she said to Baker. \"Sly\r\nenough, my lady,\" said Baker; \"but our Mr. Augustus will be one too\r\nmany for her. Deary me, to think of her having the imperance to think\r\nof him.\" In all which Miss Furnival was I think somewhat ill used. If young gentlemen, such as Augustus Staveley, are allowed to amuse\r\nthemselves with young ladies, surely young ladies such as Miss\r\nFurnival should be allowed to play their own cards accordingly. On that day, early in the morning, Felix Graham sought and obtained\r\nan interview with his host in the judge's own study. \"I have come\r\nabout two things,\" he said, taking the easy chair to which he was\r\ninvited. \"Two or ten, I shall be very happy,\" said the judge cheerily. \"I will take business first,\" said Graham. \"And then pleasure will be the sweeter afterwards,\" said the judge."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I have been thinking a great deal about this case of Lady Mason's,\r\nand I have read all the papers, old and new, which Mr. Furnival has\r\nsent me. I cannot bring myself to suppose it possible that she can\r\nhave been guilty of any fraud or deception.\" \"I believe her to be free from all guilt in the matter--as I told you\r\nbefore. But then of course you will take that as a private opinion,\r\nnot as one legally formed. I have never gone into the matter as you\r\nhave done.\" \"I confess that I do not like having dealings with Mr. Chaffanbrass\r\nand Mr. Aram.\" \"Mr. Chaffanbrass and Mr. Aram may not be so bad as you, perhaps\r\nin ignorance, suppose them to be. Does it not occur to you that we\r\nshould be very badly off without such men as Chaffanbrass and Aram?\" \"So we should without chimney-sweepers and scavengers.\" \"Graham, my dear fellow, judge not that you be not judged. I am older\r\nthan you, and have seen more of these men. Believe me that as you\r\ngrow older and also see more of them, your opinion will be more\r\nlenient,--and more just. Do not be angry with me for taking this\r\nliberty with you.\" \"My dear judge, if you knew how I value it;--how I should value any\r\nmark of such kindness that you can show me! However I have decided\r\nthat I will know something more of these gentlemen at once."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If I have\r\nyour approbation I will let Mr. Furnival know that I will undertake\r\nthe case.\" The judge signified his approbation, and thus the first of those two\r\nmatters was soon settled between them. \"And now for the pleasure,\" said the judge. \"I don't know much about pleasure,\" said Graham, fidgeting in his\r\nchair, rather uneasily. \"I'm afraid there is not much pleasure for\r\neither of us, or for anybody else, in what I'm going to say.\" \"Then there is so much more reason for having it said quickly. Unpleasant things should always be got over without delay.\" \"Nothing on earth can exceed Lady Staveley's kindness to me, and\r\nyours, and that of the whole family since my unfortunate accident.\" \"Don't think of it. It has been nothing. We like you, but we should\r\nhave done as much as that even if we had not.\" \"And now I'm going to tell you that I have fallen in love with\r\nyour daughter Madeline.\" As the judge wished to have the tale told\r\nquickly, I think he had reason to be satisfied with the very succinct\r\nterms used by Felix Graham. \"Indeed!\" said the judge. \"And that was the reason why I wished to go away at the earliest\r\npossible time--and still wish it.\" \"You are right there, Mr. Graham. I must say you are right there. Under all the circumstances of the case I think you were right to\r\nwish to leave us.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And therefore I shall go the first thing to-morrow morning\"--in\r\nsaying which last words poor Felix could not refrain from showing a\r\ncertain unevenness of temper, and some disappointment. \"Gently, gently, Mr. Graham. Let us have a few more words before we\r\naccede to the necessity of anything so sudden. Have you spoken to\r\nMadeline on this subject?\" \"Not a word.\" \"And I may presume that you do not intend to do so.\" For a moment or so Felix Graham sat without speaking, and then,\r\ngetting up from his chair, he walked twice the length of the room. \"Upon my word, judge, I will not answer for myself if I remain here,\"\r\nhe said at last. A softer-hearted man than Judge Staveley, or one who could make\r\nhimself more happy in making others happy, never sat on the English\r\nbench. Was not this a gallant young fellow before him,--gallant and\r\nclever, of good honest principles, and a true manly heart? Was he not\r\na gentleman by birth, education, and tastes? What more should a man\r\nwant for a son-in-law? And then his daughter had had the wit to love\r\nthis man so endowed. It was almost on his tongue to tell Graham that\r\nhe might go and seek the girl and plead his own cause to her. But bread is bread, and butcher's bills are bills! The man and the\r\nfather, and the successful possessor of some thousands a year, was\r\ntoo strong at last for the soft-hearted philanthropist."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Therefore,\r\nhaving collected his thoughts, he thus expressed himself upon the\r\noccasion:--\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Graham, I think you have behaved very well in this matter, and\r\nit is exactly what I should have expected from you.\" The judge at the\r\ntime knew nothing about Mary Snow. \"As regards yourself personally\r\nI should be proud to own you as my son-in-law, but I am of course\r\nbound to regard the welfare of my daughter. Your means I fear are but\r\nsmall.\" \"Very small indeed,\" said Graham. \"And though you have all those gifts which should bring you on in\r\nyour profession, you have learned to entertain ideas, which hitherto\r\nhave barred you from success. Now I tell you what you shall do. Remain here two or three days longer, till you are fit to travel,\r\nand abstain from saying anything to my daughter. Come to me again\r\nin three months, if you still hold the same mind, and I will pledge\r\nmyself to tell you then whether or no you have my leave to address my\r\nchild as a suitor.\" Felix Graham silently took the judge's hand, feeling that a strong\r\nhope had been given to him, and so the interview was ended. CHAPTER LIII. LADY MASON RETURNS HOME. Lady Mason remained at The Cleeve for something more than a week\r\nafter that day on which she made her confession, during which time\r\nshe was fully committed to take her trial at the next assizes at\r\nAlston on an indictment for perjury."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This was done in a manner that\r\nastonished even herself by the absence of all publicity or outward\r\nscandal. The matter was arranged between Mr. Matthew Round and Mr.\r\nSolomon Aram, and was so arranged in accordance with Mr. Furnival's\r\nwishes. Mr. Furnival wrote to say that at such a time he would call\r\nat The Cleeve with a post-chaise. This he did, and took Lady Mason\r\nwith him before two magistrates for the county who were sitting at\r\nDoddinghurst, a village five miles distant from Sir Peregrine's\r\nhouse. Here by agreement they were met by Lucius Mason who was\r\nto act as one of the bailsmen for his mother's appearance at the\r\ntrial. Sir Peregrine was the other, but it was brought about by\r\namicable management between the lawyers that his appearance before\r\nthe magistrates was not required. There were also there the two\r\nattorneys, Bridget Bolster the witness, one Torrington from London\r\nwho brought with him the absolute deed executed on that 14th of\r\nJuly with reference to the then dissolved partnership of Mason and\r\nMartock; and there was Mr. Samuel Dockwrath. I must not forget to say\r\nthat there was also a reporter for the press, provided by the special\r\ncare of the latter-named gentleman. [Illustration: Lady Mason going before the Magistrates.] The arrival in the village of four different vehicles, and the sight\r\nof such gentlemen as Mr. Furnival, Mr."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Round, and Mr. Aram, of course\r\naroused some excitement there; but this feeling was kept down as much\r\nas possible, and Lady Mason was very quickly allowed to return to the\r\ncarriage. Mr. Dockwrath made one or two attempts to get up a scene,\r\nand to rouse a feeling of public anger against the lady who was to be\r\ntried; but the magistrates put him down. They also seemed to be fully\r\nimpressed with a sense of Lady Mason's innocence in the teeth of the\r\nevidence which was given against her. This was the general feeling\r\non the minds of all people,--except of those who knew most about her. There was an idea that affairs had so been managed by Mr. Joseph\r\nMason and Mr. Dockwrath that another trial was necessary, but that\r\nthe unfortunate victim of Mr. Mason's cupidity and Mr. Dockwrath's\r\nmalice would be washed white as snow when the day of that trial came. The chief performers on the present occasion were Round and Aram, and\r\na stranger to such proceedings would have said that they were acting\r\nin concert. Mr. Round pressed for the indictment, and brought forward\r\nin a very short way the evidence of Bolster and Torrington. Mr. Aram\r\nsaid that his client was advised to reserve her defence, and was\r\nprepared with bail to any amount. Mr. Round advised the magistrates\r\nthat reasonable bail should be taken, and then the matter was\r\nsettled."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Furnival sat on a chair close to the elder of those two\r\ngentlemen, and whispered a word to him now and then. Lady Mason was\r\nprovided with an arm-chair close to Mr. Furnival's right hand, and\r\nclose to her right hand stood her son. Her face was covered by a\r\ndeep veil, and she was not called upon during the whole proceeding\r\nto utter one audible word. A single question was put to her by the\r\npresiding magistrate before the committal was signed, and it was\r\nunderstood that some answer was made to it; but this answer reached\r\nthe ears of those in the room by means of Mr. Furnival's voice. It was observed by most of those there that during the whole of the\r\nsitting Lady Mason held her son's hand; but it was observed also that\r\nthough Lucius permitted this he did not seem to return the pressure. He stood there during the entire proceedings without motion or\r\nspeech, looking very stern. He signed the bail-bond, but even that\r\nhe did without saying a word. Mr. Dockwrath demanded that Lady Mason\r\nshould be kept in custody till the bond should also have been signed\r\nby Sir Peregrine; but upon this Mr. Round remarked that he believed\r\nMr. Joseph Mason had intrusted to him the conduct of the case, and\r\nthe elder magistrate desired Mr. Dockwrath to abstain from further\r\ninterference. \"All right,\" said he to a person standing close to\r\nhim."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But I'll be too many for them yet, as you will see when she is\r\nbrought before a judge and jury.\" And then Lady Mason stood committed\r\nto take her trial at the next Alston assizes. When Lucius had come forward to hand her from the post-chaise in\r\nwhich she arrived Lady Mason had kissed him, but this was all\r\nthe intercourse that then passed between the mother and son. Mr.\r\nFurnival, however, informed him that his mother would return to Orley\r\nFarm on the next day but one. \"She thinks it better that she should be at home from this time to\r\nthe day of the trial,\" said Mr. Furnival; \"and on the whole Sir\r\nPeregrine is inclined to agree with her.\" \"I have thought so all through,\" said Lucius. \"But you are to understand that there is no disagreement between your\r\nmother and the family at The Cleeve. The idea of the marriage has, as\r\nI think very properly, been laid aside.\" \"Of course it was proper that it should be laid aside.\" \"Yes; but I must beg you to understand that there has been no\r\nquarrel. Indeed you will, I have no doubt, perceive that, as Mrs.\r\nOrme has assured me that she will see your mother constantly till the\r\ntime comes.\" \"She is very kind,\" said Lucius. But it was evident from the tone of\r\nhis voice that he would have preferred that all the Ormes should have\r\nremained away."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In his mind this time of suffering to his mother and\r\nto him was a period of trial and probation,--a period, if not of\r\nactual disgrace, yet of disgrace before the world; and he thought\r\nthat it would have best become his mother to have abstained from\r\nall friendship out of her own family, and even from all expressed\r\nsympathy, till she had vindicated her own purity and innocence. And\r\nas he thought of this he declared to himself that he would have\r\nsacrificed everything to her comfort and assistance if she would only\r\nhave permitted it. He would have loved her, and been tender to her,\r\nreceiving on his own shoulders all those blows which now fell so\r\nhardly upon hers. Every word should have been a word of kindness;\r\nevery look should have been soft and full of affection. He would have\r\ntreated her not only with all the love which a son could show to a\r\nmother, but with all the respect and sympathy which a gentleman could\r\nfeel for a lady in distress. But then, in order that such a state\r\nof things as this should have existed, it would have been necessary\r\nthat she should have trusted him. She should have leaned upon him,\r\nand,--though he did not exactly say so in talking over the matter\r\nwith himself, still he thought it,--on him and on him only. But\r\nshe had declined to lean upon him at all."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had gone away to\r\nstrangers,--she, who should hardly have spoken to a stranger during\r\nthese sad months! She would not have his care; and under those\r\ncircumstances he could only stand aloof, hold up his head, and look\r\nsternly. As for her innocence, that was a matter of course. He knew\r\nthat she was innocent. He wanted no one to tell him that his own\r\nmother was not a thief, a forger, a castaway among the world's worst\r\nwretches. He thanked no one for such an assurance. Every honest man\r\nmust sympathise with a woman so injured. It would be a necessity\r\nof his manhood and of his honesty! But he would have valued most a\r\nsympathy which would have abstained from all expression till after\r\nthat trial should be over. It should have been for him to act and for\r\nhim to speak during this terrible period. But his mother who was a\r\nfree agent had willed it otherwise. And there had been one other scene. Mr. Furnival had introduced Lady\r\nMason to Mr. Solomon Aram, having explained to her that it would be\r\nindispensable that Mr. Aram should see her, probably once or twice\r\nbefore the trial came on. \"But cannot it be done through you?\" said Lady Mason. \"Though of\r\ncourse I should not expect that you can so sacrifice your valuable\r\ntime.\" \"Pray believe me that that is not the consideration,\" said Mr.\r\nFurnival."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"We have engaged the services of Mr. Aram because he is\r\nsupposed to understand difficulties of this sort better than any\r\nother man in the profession, and his chance of rescuing you from\r\nthis trouble will be much better if you can bring yourself to have\r\nconfidence in him--full confidence.\" And Mr. Furnival looked into\r\nher face as he spoke with an expression of countenance that was very\r\neloquent. \"You must not suppose that I shall not do all in my power. In my proper capacity I shall be acting for you with all the energy\r\nthat I can use; but the case has now assumed an aspect which requires\r\nthat it should be in an attorney's hands.\" And then Mr. Furnival\r\nintroduced her to Mr. Solomon Aram. Mr. Solomon Aram was not, in outward appearance, such a man as Lady\r\nMason, Sir Peregrine Orme, or others quite ignorant in such matters\r\nwould have expected. He was not a dirty old Jew with a hooked\r\nnose and an imperfect pronunciation of English consonants. Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass, the barrister, bore more resemblance to a Jew of that\r\nancient type. Mr. Solomon Aram was a good-looking man about forty,\r\nperhaps rather over-dressed, but bearing about him no other sign of\r\nvulgarity. Nor at first sight would it probably have been discerned\r\nthat he was of the Hebrew persuasion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had black hair and a\r\nwell-formed face; but his eyes were closer than is common with most\r\nof us, and his nose seemed to be somewhat swollen about the bridge. When one knew that he was a Jew one saw that he was a Jew; but in the\r\nabsence of such previous knowledge he might have been taken for as\r\ngood a Christian as any other attorney. Mr. Aram raised his hat and bowed as Mr. Furnival performed the\r\nceremony of introduction. This was done while she was still seated in\r\nthe carriage, and as Lucius was waiting at the door to hand her down\r\ninto the house where the magistrates were sitting. \"I am delighted to\r\nhave the honour of making your acquaintance,\" said Mr. Aram. Lady Mason essayed to mutter some word; but no word was audible, nor\r\nwas any necessary. \"I have no doubt,\" continued the attorney, \"that\r\nwe shall pull through this little difficulty without any ultimate\r\ndamage whatsoever. In the mean time it is of course disagreeable to\r\na lady of your distinction.\" And then he made another bow. \"We are\r\npeculiarly happy in having such a tower of strength as Mr. Furnival,\"\r\nand then he bowed to the barrister. \"And my old friend Mr. Chaffanbrass is another tower of strength. Eh,\r\nMr. Furnival?\" And so the introduction was over."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lady Mason had quite understood Mr. Furnival;--had understood both\r\nhis words and his face, when he told her how indispensable it was\r\nthat she should have full confidence in this attorney. He had meant\r\nthat she should tell him all. She must bring herself to confess\r\neverything to this absolute stranger. And then--for the first\r\ntime--she felt sure that Mr. Furnival had guessed her secret. He also\r\nknew it, but it would not suit him that any one should know that he\r\nknew it! Alas, alas! would it not be better that all the world should\r\nknow it and that there might be an end? Had not her doom been told to\r\nher? Even if the paraphernalia of justice,--the judge, and the jury,\r\nand the lawyers, could be induced to declare her innocent before all\r\nmen, must she not confess her guilt to him,--to that one,--for whose\r\nverdict alone she cared? If he knew her to be guilty what matter who\r\nmight think her innocent? And she had been told that all must be\r\ndeclared to him. That property was his,--but his only through her\r\nguilt; and that property must be restored to its owner! So much Sir\r\nPeregrine Orme had declared to be indispensable,--Sir Peregrine Orme,\r\nwho in other matters concerning this case was now dark enough in his\r\njudgment. On that point, however, there need be no darkness. Though\r\nthe heaven should fall on her devoted head, that tardy justice must\r\nbe done!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "When this piece of business had been completed at Doddinghurst, Lady\r\nMason returned to The Cleeve, whither Mr. Furnival accompanied her. He had offered his seat in the post-chaise to Lucius, but the young\r\nman had declared that he was unwilling to go to The Cleeve, and\r\nconsequently there was no opportunity for conversation between Lady\r\nMason and her son. On her arrival she went at once to her room, and\r\nthere she continued to live as she had done for the last few days\r\ntill the morning of her departure came. To Mrs. Orme she told all\r\nthat had occurred, as Mr. Furnival did also to Sir Peregrine. On that\r\noccasion Sir Peregrine said very little to the barrister, merely\r\nbowing his head courteously as each different point was explained, in\r\nintimation of his having heard and understood what was said to him. Mr. Furnival could not but see that his manner was entirely altered. There was no enthusiasm now, no violence of invective against\r\nthat wretch at Groby Park, no positive assurance that his guest's\r\ninnocence must come out at the trial bright as the day! He showed no\r\ninclination to desert Lady Mason's cause, and indeed insisted on\r\nhearing the particulars of all that had been done; but he said very\r\nlittle, and those few words adverted to the terrible sadness of the\r\nsubject. He seemed too to be older than he had been, and less firm\r\nin his gait."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That terrible sadness had already told greatly upon\r\nhim. Those about him had observed that he had not once crossed the\r\nthreshold of his hall door since the morning on which Lady Mason had\r\ntaken to her own room. \"He has altered his mind,\" said the lawyer to himself as he was\r\ndriven back to the Hamworth station. \"He also now believes her to be\r\nguilty.\" As to his own belief, Mr. Furnival held no argument within\r\nhis own breast, but we may say that he was no longer perplexed by\r\nmuch doubt upon the matter. And then the morning came for Lady Mason's departure. Sir Peregrine\r\nhad not seen her since she had left him in the library after her\r\nconfession, although, as may be remembered, he had undertaken to do\r\nso. But he had not then known how Mrs. Orme might act when she heard\r\nthe story. As matters had turned out Mrs. Orme had taken upon herself\r\nthe care of their guest, and all intercourse between Lady Mason and\r\nSir Peregrine had passed through his daughter-in-law. But now, on\r\nthis morning, he declared that he would go to her up stairs in Mrs.\r\nOrme's room, and himself hand her down through the hall into the\r\ncarriage. Against this Lady Mason had expostulated, but in vain. \"It will be better so, dear,\" Mrs. Orme had said. \"It will teach the\r\nservants and people to think that he still respects and esteems you.\" \"But he does not!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "said she, speaking almost sharply. \"How would it\r\nbe possible? Ah, me--respect and esteem are gone from me for ever!\" \"No, not for ever,\" replied Mrs. Orme. \"You have much to bear, but no\r\nevil lasts for ever.\" \"Will not sin last for ever;--sin such as mine?\" \"Not if you repent;--repent and make such restitution as is possible. Lady Mason, say that you have repented. Tell me that you have asked\r\nHim to pardon you!\" And then, as had been so often the case during\r\nthese last days, Lady Mason sat silent, with hard, fixed eyes, with\r\nher hands clasped, and her lips compressed. Never as yet had Mrs.\r\nOrme induced her to say that she had asked for pardon at the cost of\r\ntelling her son that the property which he called his own had been\r\nprocured for him by his mother's fraud. That punishment, and that\r\nonly, was too heavy for her neck to bear. Her acquittal in the law\r\ncourt would be as nothing to her if it must be followed by an avowal\r\nof her guilt to her own son! Sir Peregrine did come up stairs and handed her down through the hall\r\nas he had proposed. When he came into the room she did not look at\r\nhim, but stood leaning against the table, with her eyes fixed upon\r\nthe ground. \"I hope you find yourself better,\" he said, as he put out his hand to\r\nher."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She did not even attempt to make a reply, but allowed him just\r\nto touch her fingers. \"Perhaps I had better not come down,\" said Mrs. Orme. \"It will be\r\neasier to say good-bye here.\" \"Good-bye,\" said Lady Mason, and her voice sounded in Sir Peregrine's\r\nears like a voice from the dead. \"God bless you and preserve you,\" said Mrs. Orme, \"and restore you to\r\nyour son. God will bless you if you will ask Him. No; you shall not\r\ngo without a kiss.\" And she put out her arms that Lady Mason might\r\ncome to her. The poor broken wretch stood for a moment as though trying to\r\ndetermine what she would do; and then, almost with a shriek, she\r\nthrew herself on to the bosom of the other woman, and burst into a\r\nflood of tears. She had intended to abstain from that embrace; she\r\nhad resolved that she would do so, declaring to herself that she was\r\nnot fit to be held against that pure heart; but the tenderness of the\r\noffer had overcome her; and now she pressed her friend convulsively\r\nin her arms, as though there might yet be comfort for her as long as\r\nshe could remain close to one who was so good to her. \"I shall come and see you very often,\" said Mrs. Orme,--\"almost\r\ndaily.\" \"No, no, no,\" exclaimed the other, hardly knowing the meaning of her\r\nown words. \"But I shall."}
{"question": "", "answer": "My father is waiting now, dear, and you had better go.\" Sir Peregrine had turned to the window, where he stood shading his\r\neyes with his hand. When he heard his daughter-in-law's last words he\r\nagain came forward, and offered Lady Mason his arm. \"Edith is right,\"\r\nhe said. \"You had better go now. When you are at home you will be\r\nmore composed.\" And then he led her forth, and down the stairs,\r\nand across the hall, and with infinite courtesy put her into the\r\ncarriage. It was a moment dreadful to Lady Mason; but to Sir\r\nPeregrine, also, it was not pleasant. The servants were standing\r\nround, officiously offering their aid,--those very servants who had\r\nbeen told about ten days since that this lady was to become their\r\nmaster's wife and their mistress. They had been told so with no\r\ninjunction as to secrecy, and the tidings had gone quickly through\r\nthe whole country. Now it was known that the match was broken off,\r\nthat the lady had been living up stairs secluded for the last week,\r\nand that she was to leave the house this morning, having been\r\ncommitted during the last day or two to stand her trial at the\r\nassizes for some terrible offence! He succeeded in his task."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He\r\nhanded her into the carriage, and then walked back through his own\r\nservants to the library without betraying to them the depth of his\r\nsorrow; but he knew that the last task had been too heavy for him. When it was done he shut himself up and sat there for hours without\r\nmoving. He also declared to himself that the world was too hard for\r\nhim, and that it would be well for him that he should die. Never till\r\nnow had he come into close contact with crime, and now the criminal\r\nwas one whom as a woman he had learned to love, and whom he had\r\nproposed to the world as his wife! The criminal was one who had\r\ndeclared her crime in order to protect him, and whom therefore he was\r\nstill bound in honour to protect! When Lady Mason arrived at Orley Farm her son was waiting at the door\r\nto receive her. It should have been said that during the last two\r\ndays,--that is ever since the committal,--Mrs. Orme had urged upon\r\nher very strongly that it would be well for her to tell everything to\r\nher son. \"What! now, at once?\" the poor woman had said. \"Yes, dear,\r\nat once,\" Mrs. Orme had answered. \"He will forgive you, for I know he\r\nis good. He will forgive you, and then the worst of your sorrow will\r\nbe over.\" But towards doing this Lady Mason had made no progress even\r\nin her mind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the violence of her own resolution she had brought\r\nherself to tell her guilt to Sir Peregrine. That effort had nearly\r\ndestroyed her, and now she knew that she could not frame the words\r\nwhich should declare the truth to Lucius. What; tell him the tale;\r\nwhereas her whole life had been spent in an effort to conceal it from\r\nhim? No. She knew that she could not do it. But the idea of doing so\r\nmade her tremble at the prospect of meeting him. \"I am very glad you have come home, mother,\" said Lucius, as he\r\nreceived her. \"Believe me that for the present this will be the best\r\nplace for both of us,\" and then he led her into the house. \"Dear Lucius, it would always be best for me to be with you, if it\r\nwere possible.\" He did not accuse her of hypocrisy in saying this; but he could not\r\nbut think that had she really thought and felt as she now spoke\r\nnothing need have prevented her remaining with him. Had not his house\r\never been open to her? Had he not been willing to make her defence\r\nthe first object of his life? Had he not longed to prove himself a\r\ngood son? But she had gone from him directly that troubles came upon\r\nher, and now she said that she would fain be with him always--if it\r\nwere possible! Where had been the impediment?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "In what way had it been\r\nnot possible? He thought of this with bitterness as he followed her\r\ninto the house, but he said not a word of it. He had resolved that he\r\nwould be a pattern son, and even now he would not rebuke her. She had lived in this house for some four-and-twenty years, but it\r\nseemed to her in no way like her home. Was it not the property of her\r\nenemy, Joseph Mason? and did she not know that it must go back into\r\nthat enemy's hands? How then could it be to her like a home? The room\r\nin which her bed was laid was that very room in which her sin had\r\nbeen committed. There in the silent hours of the night, while the\r\nold man lay near his death in the adjoining chamber, had she with\r\ninfinite care and much slow preparation done that deed, to undo\r\nwhich, were it possible, she would now give away her existence,--ay,\r\nher very body and soul. And yet for years she had slept in that room,\r\nif not happily at least tranquilly. It was matter of wonder to her\r\nnow, as she looked back at her past life, that her guilt had sat so\r\nlightly on her shoulders. The black unwelcome guest, the spectre\r\nof coming evil, had ever been present to her; but she had seen it\r\nindistinctly, and now and then the power had been hers to close her\r\neyes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Never again could she close them. Nearer to her, and still\r\nnearer, the spectre came; and now it sat upon her pillow, and put\r\nits claw upon her plate; it pressed upon her bosom with its fiendish\r\nstrength, telling her that all was over for her in this world:--ay,\r\nand telling her worse even than that. Her return to her old home\r\nbrought with it but little comfort. And yet she was forced to make an effort at seeming glad that she had\r\ncome there,--a terrible effort! He, her son, was not gay or disposed\r\nto receive from her a show of happiness; but he did think that she\r\nshould compose herself and be tranquil, and that she should resume\r\nthe ordinary duties of her life in her ordinarily quiet way. In\r\nall this she was obliged to conform herself to his wishes,--or to\r\nattempt so to conform herself, though her heart should break in the\r\nstruggle. If he did but know it all, then he would suffer her to be\r\nquiet,--suffer her to lie motionless in her misery! Once or twice she\r\nalmost said to herself that she would make the effort; but when she\r\nthought of him and his suffering, of his pride, of the respect which\r\nhe claimed from all the world as the honest son of an honest mother,\r\nof his stubborn will and stiff neck, which would not bend, but would\r\nbreak beneath the blow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had done all for him,--to raise him in\r\nthe world; and now she could not bring herself to undo the work that\r\nhad cost her so dearly! That evening she went through the ceremony of dinner with him, and he\r\nwas punctilious in waiting upon her as though bread and meat could\r\ncomfort her or wine could warm her heart. There was no warmth for her\r\nin all the vintages of the south, no comfort though gods should bring\r\nto her their banquets. She was heavy laden,--laden to the breaking of\r\nher back, and did not know where to lay her burden down. \"Mother,\" he said to her that night, lifting his head from the books\r\nover which he had been poring, \"There must be a few words between us\r\nabout this affair. They might as well be spoken now.\" \"Yes, Lucius; of course--if you desire it.\" \"There can be no doubt now that this trial will take place.\" \"No doubt;\" she said. \"There can be no doubt.\" \"Is it your wish that I should take any part in it?\" She remained silent, for some moments before she answered him,\r\nthinking,--striving to think, how best she might do him pleasure. \"What part?\" she said at last. \"A man's part, and a son's part. Shall I see these lawyers and learn\r\nfrom them what they are at?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Have I your leave to tell them that you\r\nwant no subterfuge, no legal quibbles,--that you stand firmly on your\r\nown clear innocence, and that you defy your enemies to sully it? Mother, those who have sent you to such men as that cunning attorney\r\nhave sent you wrong,--have counselled you wrong.\" \"It cannot be changed now, Lucius.\" \"It can be changed, if you will tell me to change it.\" And then again she paused. Ah, think of her anguish as she sought for\r\nwords to answer him! \"No, Lucius,\" she said, \"it cannot be changed\r\nnow.\" \"So be it, mother; I will not ask again,\" and then he moodily\r\nreturned to his books, while she returned to her thoughts. Ah, think\r\nof her misery! CHAPTER LIV. TELLING ALL THAT HAPPENED BENEATH THE LAMP-POST. When Felix Graham left Noningsby and made his way up to London, he\r\ncame at least to one resolution which he intended to be an abiding\r\none. That idea of a marriage with a moulded wife should at any rate\r\nbe abandoned. Whether it might be his great destiny to be the husband\r\nof Madeline Staveley, or whether he might fail in achieving this\r\npurpose, he declared to himself that it would be impossible that he\r\nshould ever now become the husband of Mary Snow. And the ease with\r\nwhich his conscience settled itself on this matter as soon as he had\r\nreceived from the judge that gleam of hope astonished even himself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He immediately declared to himself that he could not marry Mary Snow\r\nwithout perjury! How could he stand with her before the altar and\r\nswear that he would love her, seeing that he did not love her at\r\nall,--seeing that he altogether loved some one else? He acknowledged\r\nthat he had made an ass of himself in this affair of Mary Snow. This\r\nmoulding of a wife had failed with him, he said, as it always must\r\nfail with every man. But he would not carry his folly further. He would go to Mary Snow, tell her the truth, and then bear\r\nwhatever injury her angry father might be able to inflict on him. Independently of that angry father he would of course do for Mary\r\nSnow all that his circumstances would admit. Perhaps the gentleman of a poetic turn of mind whom Mary had\r\nconsented to meet beneath the lamp-post might assist him in his\r\nviews; but whether this might be so or not, he would not throw that\r\nmeeting ungenerously in her teeth. He would not have allowed that\r\noffence to turn him from his proposed marriage had there been nothing\r\nelse to turn him, and therefore he would not plead that offence as\r\nthe excuse for his broken troth. That the breaking of that troth\r\nwould not deeply wound poor Mary's heart--so much he did permit\r\nhimself to believe on the evidence of that lamp-post."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had written to Mrs. Thomas telling her when he would be at\r\nPeckham, but in his letter he had not said a word as to those\r\nterrible tidings which she had communicated to him. He had written\r\nalso to Mary, assuring her that he accused her of no injury against\r\nhim, and almost promising her forgiveness; but this letter Mary had\r\nnot shown to Mrs. Thomas. In these days Mary's anger against Mrs.\r\nThomas was very strong. That Mrs. Thomas should have used all her\r\nvigilance to detect such goings on as those of the lamp-post was\r\nonly natural. What woman in Mrs. Thomas's position,--or in any other\r\nposition,--would not have done so? Mary Snow knew that had she\r\nherself been the duenna she would have left no corner of a box\r\nunturned but she would have found those letters. And having found\r\nthem she would have used her power over the poor girl. She knew\r\nthat. But she would not have betrayed her to the man. Truth between\r\nwoman and woman should have prevented that. Were not the stockings\r\nwhich she had darned for Mrs. Thomas legion in number? Had she not\r\nconsented to eat the veriest scraps of food in order that those three\r\nbrats might be fed into sleekness to satisfy their mother's eyes? Had\r\nshe not reported well of Mrs. Thomas to her lord, though that house\r\nof Peckham was nauseous to her?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had she ever told to Mr. Graham any\r\none of those little tricks which were carried on to allure him into a\r\nbelief that things at Peckham were prosperous? Had she ever exposed\r\nthe borrowing of those teacups when he came, and the fact that those\r\nknobs of white sugar were kept expressly on his behoof? No; she would\r\nhave scorned to betray any woman; and that woman whom she had not\r\nbetrayed should have shown the same feeling towards her. Therefore\r\nthere was enmity at Peckham, and the stockings of those infants lay\r\nunmended in the basket. \"Mary, I have done it all for the best,\" said Mrs. Thomas, driven to\r\ndefend herself by the obdurate silence of her pupil. \"No, Mrs. Thomas, you didn't. You did it for the worst,\" said Mary. And then there was again silence between them. It was on the morning following this that Felix Graham was driven\r\nto the door in a cab. He still carried his arm in a sling, and was\r\nobliged to be somewhat slow in his movements, but otherwise he was\r\nagain well. His accident however was so far a godsend to both the\r\nwomen at Peckham that it gave them a subject on which they were\r\ncalled upon to speak, before that other subject was introduced. Mary\r\nwas very tender in her inquiries,--but tender in a bashful retiring\r\nway."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To look at her one would have said that she was afraid to touch\r\nthe wounded man lest he should be again broken. \"Oh, I'm all right,\" said he, trying to assume a look of good-humour. \"I sha'n't go hunting again in a hurry; you may be sure of that.\" \"We have all great reason to be thankful that Providence interposed\r\nto save you,\" said Mrs. Thomas, in her most serious tone. Had\r\nProvidence interposed to break Mrs. Thomas's collar-bone, or at least\r\nto do her some serious outward injury, what a comfort it would be,\r\nthought Mary Snow. \"Have you seen your father lately?\" asked Graham. \"Not since I wrote to you about the money that he--borrowed,\" said\r\nMary. \"I told her that she should not have given it to him,\" said Mrs.\r\nThomas. \"She was quite right,\" said Graham. \"Who could refuse assistance to\r\na father in distress?\" Whereupon Mary put her handkerchief up to her\r\neyes and began to cry. \"That's true of course,\" said Mrs. Thomas; \"but it would never do\r\nthat he should be a drain in that way. He should feel that if he had\r\nany feeling.\" \"So he has,\" said Mary. \"And you are driven close enough yourself\r\nsometimes, Mrs. Thomas. There's days when you'd like to borrow\r\nnineteen and sixpence if anybody would lend it you.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Very well,\" said Mrs. Thomas, crossing her hands over each other in\r\nher lap and assuming a look of resignation; \"I suppose all this will\r\nbe changed now. I have endeavoured to do my duty, and very hard it\r\nhas been.\" Felix felt that the sooner he rushed into the middle of the subject\r\nwhich brought him there, the better it would be for all parties. That\r\nthe two ladies were not very happy together was evident, and then he\r\nmade a little comparison between Madeline and Mary. Was it really\r\nthe case that for the last three years he had contemplated making\r\nthat poor child his wife? Would it not be better for him to tie a\r\nmillstone round his neck and cast himself into the sea? That was now\r\nhis thought respecting Mary Snow. \"Mrs. Thomas,\" he said, \"I should like to speak to Mary alone for a\r\nfew minutes if you could allow it.\" \"Oh certainly; by all means. It will be quite proper.\" And gathering\r\nup a bundle of the unfortunate stockings she took herself out of the\r\nroom. Mary, as soon as Graham had spoken, became almost pale, and sat\r\nperfectly still with her eyes fixed on her betrothed husband. While\r\nMrs. Thomas was there she was prepared for war and her spirit was hot\r\nwithin her, but all that heat fled in a moment when she found herself\r\nalone with the man to whom it belonged to speak her doom."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had\r\nalmost said that he would forgive her, but yet she had a feeling that\r\nthat had been done which could not altogether be forgiven. If he\r\nasked her whether she loved the hero of the lamp-post what would she\r\nsay? Had he asked her whether she loved him, Felix Graham, she would\r\nhave sworn that she did, and have thought that she was swearing\r\ntruly; but in answer to that other question if it were asked, she\r\nfelt that her answer must be false. She had no idea of giving up\r\nFelix of her own accord, if he were still willing to take her. She\r\ndid not even wish that he would not take her. It had been the lesson\r\nof her life that she was to be his wife, and, by becoming so, provide\r\nfor herself and for her wretched father. Nevertheless a dream of\r\nsomething different from that had come across her young heart, and\r\nthe dream had been so pleasant! How painfully, but yet with what a\r\nrapture, had her heart palpitated as she stood for those ten wicked\r\nminutes beneath the lamp-post! \"Mary,\" said Felix, as soon as they were alone,--and as he spoke he\r\ncame up to her and took her hand, \"I trust that I may never be the\r\ncause to you of any unhappiness;--that I may never be the means of\r\nmaking you sad.\" \"Oh, Mr. Graham, I am sure that you never will."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is I that have\r\nbeen bad to you.\" \"No, Mary, I do not think you have been bad at all. I should have\r\nbeen sorry that that had happened, and that I should not have known\r\nit.\" \"I suppose she was right to tell, only--\" In truth Mary did not at\r\nall understand what might be the nature of Graham's thoughts and\r\nfeelings on such a subject. She had a strong woman's idea that the\r\nman whom she ought to love would not be gratified by her meeting\r\nanother man at a private assignation, especially when that other man\r\nhad written to her a love-letter; but she did not at all know how far\r\nsuch a sin might be regarded as pardonable according to the rules of\r\nthe world recognised on such subjects. At first, when the letters\r\nwere discovered and the copies of them sent off to Noningsby, she\r\nthought that all was over. According to her ideas, as existing\r\nat that moment, the crime was conceived to be one admitting of\r\nno pardon; and in the hours spent under that conviction all her\r\nconsolation came from the feeling that there was still one who\r\nregarded her as an angel of light. But then she had received Graham's\r\nletter, and as she began to understand that pardon was possible, that\r\nother consolation waxed feeble and dim. If Felix Graham chose to take\r\nher, of course she was there for him to take."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It never for a moment\r\noccurred to her that she could rebel against such taking, even though\r\nshe did shine as an angel of light to one dear pair of eyes. \"I suppose she was right to tell you, only--\"\r\n\r\n\"Do not think, Mary, that I am going to scold you, or even that I am\r\nangry with you.\" \"Oh, but I know you must be angry.\" \"Indeed I am not. If I pledge myself to tell you the truth in\r\neverything, will you be equally frank with me?\" \"Yes,\" said Mary. But it was much easier for Felix to tell the truth\r\nthan for Mary to be frank. I believe that schoolmasters often tell\r\nfibs to schoolboys, although it would be so easy for them to tell the\r\ntruth. But how difficult it is for the schoolboy always to tell the\r\ntruth to his master! Mary Snow was now as a schoolboy before her\r\ntutor, and it may almost be said that the telling of the truth was\r\nto her impossible. But of course she made the promise. Who ever said\r\nthat she would not tell the truth when so asked? \"Have you ever thought, Mary, that you and I would not make each\r\nother happy if we were married?\" \"No; I have never thought that,\" said Mary innocently. She meant to\r\nsay exactly that which she thought Graham would wish her to say, but\r\nshe was slow in following his lead."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It has never occurred to you that though we might love each other\r\nvery warmly as friends--and so I am sure we always shall--yet we\r\nmight not suit each other in all respects as man and wife?\" \"I mean to do the very best I can; that is, if--if--if you are not\r\ntoo much offended with me now.\" \"But, Mary, it should not be a question of doing the best you can. Between man and wife there should be no need of such effort. It\r\nshould be a labour of love.\" \"So it will;--and I'm sure I'll labour as hard as I can.\" Felix began to perceive that the line he had taken would not answer\r\nthe required purpose, and that he must be somewhat more abrupt with\r\nher,--perhaps a little less delicate, in coming to the desired point. \"Mary,\" he said, \"what is the name of that gentleman whom--whom you\r\nmet out of doors you know?\" \"Albert Fitzallen,\" said Mary, hesitating very much as she pronounced\r\nthe name, but nevertheless rather proud of the sound. \"And you are--fond of him?\" asked Graham. Poor girl! What was she to say? \"No; I'm not very fond of him.\" \"Are you not? Then why did you consent to that secret meeting?\" \"Oh, Mr. Graham--I didn't mean it; indeed I didn't. And I didn't tell\r\nhim to write to me, nor yet to come looking after me. Upon my word I\r\ndidn't."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But then I thought when he sent me that letter that he didn't\r\nknow;--about you I mean; and so I thought I'd better tell him; and\r\nthat's why I went. Indeed that was the reason.\" \"Mrs. Thomas could have told him that.\" \"But I don't like Mrs. Thomas, and I wouldn't for worlds that she\r\nshould have had anything to do with it. I think Mrs. Thomas has\r\nbehaved very bad to me; so I do. And you don't half know her;--that\r\nyou don't.\" \"I will ask you one more question, Mary, and before answering it I\r\nwant to make you believe that my only object in asking it is to\r\nascertain how I may make you happy. When you did meet Mr.--this\r\ngentleman--\"\r\n\r\n\"Albert Fitzallen.\" \"When you did meet Mr. Fitzallen, did you tell him nothing else\r\nexcept that you were engaged to me? Did you say nothing to him as to\r\nyour feelings towards himself?\" \"I told him it was very wrong of him to write me that letter.\" \"And what more did you tell him?\" \"Oh, Mr. Graham, I won't see him any more; indeed I won't. I give you\r\nmy most solemn promise. Indeed I won't. And I will never write a line\r\nto him,--or look at him. And if he sends anything I'll send it to\r\nyou. Indeed I will. There was never anything of the kind before; upon\r\nmy word there wasn't."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I did let him take my hand, but I didn't know\r\nhow to help it when I was there. And he kissed me--only once. There;\r\nI've told it all now, as though you were looking at me. And I ain't a\r\nbad girl, whatever she may say of me. Indeed I ain't.\" And then poor\r\nMary Snow burst out into an agony of tears. Felix began to perceive that he had been too hard upon her. He had\r\nwished that the first overtures of a separation should come from her,\r\nand in wishing this he had been unreasonable. He walked for a while\r\nabout the room, and then going up to her he stood close by her and\r\ntook her hand. \"Mary,\" he said, \"I'm sure you're not a bad girl.\" \"No;\" she said, \"no, I ain't;\" still sobbing convulsively. \"I didn't\r\nmean anything wrong, and I couldn't help it.\" \"I am sure you did not, and nobody has said you did.\" \"Yes, they have. She has said so. She said that I was a bad girl. She\r\ntold me so, up to my face.\" \"She was very wrong if she said so.\" \"She did then, and I couldn't bear it.\" \"I have not said so, and I don't think so. Indeed in all this matter\r\nI believe that I have been more to blame than you.\" \"No;--I know I was wrong. I know I shouldn't have gone to see him.\" \"I won't even say as much as that, Mary."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What you should have\r\ndone;--only the task would have been too hard for any young girl--was\r\nto have told me openly that you--liked this young gentleman.\" \"But I don't want ever to see him again.\" \"Look here, Mary,\" he said. But now he had dropped her hand and taken\r\na chair opposite to her. He had begun to find that the task which he\r\nhad proposed to himself was not so easy even for him. \"Look here,\r\nMary. I take it that you do like this young gentleman. Don't answer\r\nme till I have finished what I am going to say. I suppose you do like\r\nhim,--and if so it would be very wicked in you to marry me.\" \"Oh, Mr. Graham--\"\r\n\r\n\"Wait a moment, Mary. But there is nothing wicked in your liking\r\nhim.\" It may be presumed that Mr. Graham would hold such an opinion\r\nas this, seeing that he had allowed himself the same latitude of\r\nliking. \"It was perhaps only natural that you should learn to do\r\nso. You have been taught to regard me rather as a master than as a\r\nlover.\" \"Oh, Mr. Graham, I'm sure I've loved you. I have indeed. And I will. I won't even think of Al--\"\r\n\r\n\"But I want you to think of him,--that is if he be worth thinking\r\nof.\" \"He's a very good young man, and always lives with his mother.\" \"It shall be my business to find out that. And now Mary, tell me\r\ntruly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If he be a good young man, and if he loves you well enough to\r\nmarry you, would you not be happier as his wife than you would as\r\nmine?\" There! The question that he wished to ask her had got itself asked at\r\nlast. But if the asking had been difficult, how much more difficult\r\nmust have been the answer! He had been thinking over all this for the\r\nlast fortnight, and had hardly known how to come to a resolution. Now\r\nhe put the matter before her without a moment's notice and expected\r\nan instant decision. \"Speak the truth, Mary;--what you think about\r\nit;--without minding what anybody may say of you.\" But Mary could not\r\nsay anything, so she again burst into tears. \"Surely you know the state of your own heart, Mary?\" \"I don't know,\" she answered. \"My only object is to secure your happiness;--the happiness of both\r\nof us, that is.\" \"I'll do anything you please,\" said Mary. \"Well then, I'll tell you what I think. I fear that a marriage\r\nbetween us would not make either of us contented with our lives. I'm\r\ntoo old and too grave for you.\" Yet Mary Snow was not younger than\r\nMadeline Staveley. \"You have been told to love me; and you think that\r\nyou do love me because you wish to do what you think to be your duty. But I believe that people can never really love each other merely\r\nbecause they are told to do so."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Of course I cannot say what sort of\r\na young man Mr. Fitzallen may be; but if I find that he is fit to\r\ntake care of you, and that he has means to support you,--with such\r\nlittle help as I can give,--I shall be very happy to promote such an\r\narrangement.\" Everybody will of course say that Felix Graham was base in not\r\ntelling her that all this arose, not from her love affair with Albert\r\nFitzallen, but from his own love affair with Madeline Staveley. But\r\nI am inclined to think that everybody will be wrong. Had he told her\r\nopenly that he did not care for her, but did care for some one else,\r\nhe would have left her no alternative. As it was, he did not mean\r\nthat she should have any alternative. But he probably consulted her\r\nfeelings best in allowing her to think that she had a choice. And\r\nthen, though he owed much to her, he owed nothing to her father;\r\nand had he openly declared his intention of breaking off the match\r\nbecause he had attached himself to some one else, he would have put\r\nhimself terribly into her father's power. He was willing to submit to\r\nsuch pecuniary burden in the matter as his conscience told him that\r\nhe ought to bear; but Mr."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Snow's ideas on the subject of recompense\r\nmight be extravagant; and therefore,--as regarded Snow the\r\nfather,--he thought that he might make some slight and delicate use\r\nof the meeting under the lamp-post. In doing so he would be very\r\ncareful to guard Mary from her father's anger. Indeed Mary would be\r\nsurrendered, out of his own care, not to that of her father, but to\r\nthe fostering love of the gentleman in the medical line of life. \"I'll do anything that you please,\" said Mary, upon whose mind and\r\nheart all these changes had come with a suddenness which prevented\r\nher from thinking,--much less speaking her thoughts. \"Perhaps you had better mention it to Mrs. Thomas.\" \"Oh, Mr. Graham, I'd rather not talk to her. I don't love her a bit.\" \"Well, I will not press it on you if you do not wish it. And have I\r\nyour permission to speak to Mr. Fitzallen;--and if he approves to\r\nspeak to his mother?\" \"I'll do anything you think best, Mr. Graham,\" said poor Mary. She\r\nwas poor Mary; for though she had consented to meet a lover beneath\r\nthe lamp-post, she had not been without ambition, and had looked\r\nforward to the glory of being wife to such a man as Felix Graham. She\r\ndid not however, for one moment, entertain any idea of resistance to\r\nhis will. And then Felix left her, having of course an interview with Mrs.\r\nThomas before he quitted the house."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To her, however, he said nothing. \"When anything is settled, Mrs. Thomas, I will let you know.\" The\r\nwords were so lacking in confidence that Mrs. Thomas when she heard\r\nthem knew that the verdict had gone against her. Felix for many months had been accustomed to take leave of Mary Snow\r\nwith a kiss. But on this day he omitted to kiss her, and then Mary\r\nknew that it was all over with her ambition. But love still remained\r\nto her. \"There is some one else who will be proud to kiss me,\" she\r\nsaid to herself, as she stood alone in the room when he closed the\r\ndoor behind him. CHAPTER LV. WHAT TOOK PLACE IN HARLEY STREET. \"Tom, I've come back again,\" said Mrs. Furnival, as soon as the\r\ndining-room door was closed behind her back. \"I'm very glad to see you; I am indeed,\" said he, getting up and\r\nputting out his hand to her. \"But I really never knew why you went\r\naway.\" \"Oh yes, you know. I'm sure you know why I went. But--\"\r\n\r\n\"I'll be shot if I did then.\" \"I went away because I did not like Lady Mason going to your\r\nchambers.\" \"Psha!\" \"Yes; I know I was wrong, Tom. That is I was wrong--about that.\" \"Of course you were, Kitty.\" \"Well; don't I say I was? And I've come back again, and I beg your\r\npardon;--that is about the lady.\" \"Very well. Then there's an end of it.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But Tom; you know I've been provoked. Haven't I now? How often have\r\nyou been home to dinner since you have been member of parliament for\r\nthat place?\" \"I shall be more at home now, Kitty.\" \"Shall you indeed? Then I'll not say another word to vex you. What on\r\nearth can I want, Tom, except just that you should sit at home with\r\nme sometimes on evenings, as you used to do always in the old days? And as for Martha Biggs--\"\r\n\r\n\"Is she come back too?\" \"Oh dear no. She's in Red Lion Square. And I'm sure, Tom, I never had\r\nher here except when you wouldn't dine at home. I wonder whether you\r\nknow how lonely it is to sit down to dinner all by oneself!\" \"Why; I do it every other day of my life. And I never think of\r\nsending for Martha Biggs; I promise you that.\" \"She isn't very nice, I know,\" said Mrs. Furnival--\"that is, for\r\ngentlemen.\" \"I should say not,\" said Mr. Furnival. Then the reconciliation had\r\nbeen effected, and Mrs. Furnival went up stairs to prepare for\r\ndinner, knowing that her husband would be present, and that Martha\r\nBiggs would not."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And just as she was taking her accustomed place at\r\nthe head of the table, almost ashamed to look up lest she should\r\ncatch Spooner's eye who was standing behind his master, Rachel went\r\noff in a cab to Orange Street, commissioned to pay what might be due\r\nfor the lodgings, to bring back her mistress's boxes, and to convey\r\nthe necessary tidings to Miss Biggs. \"Well I never!\" said Martha, as she listened to Rachel's story. \"And they're quite loving I can assure you,\" said Rachel. \"It'll never last,\" said Miss Biggs triumphantly--\"never. It's been\r\ndone too sudden to last.\" \"So I'll say good-night if you please, Miss Biggs,\" said Rachel, who\r\nwas in a hurry to get back to Harley Street. \"I think she might have come here before she went there; especially\r\nas it wasn't anything out of her way. She couldn't have gone shorter\r\nthan Bloomsbury Square, and Russell Square, and over Tottenham Court\r\nRoad.\" \"Missus didn't think of that, I dare say.\" \"She used to know the way about these parts well enough. But give her\r\nmy love, Rachel.\" Then Martha Biggs was again alone, and she sighed\r\ndeeply. It was well that Mrs. Furnival came back so quickly to her own house,\r\nas it saved the scandal of any domestic quarrel before her daughter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the following day Sophia returned, and as harmony was at that time\r\nreigning in Harley Street, there was no necessity that she should\r\nbe presumed to know anything of what had occurred. That she did\r\nknow,--know exactly what her mother had done, and why she had done\r\nit, and how she had come back, leaving Martha Biggs dumfounded by\r\nher return, is very probable, for Sophia Furnival was a clever girl,\r\nand one who professed to understand the ins and outs of her own\r\nfamily,--and perhaps of some other families. But she behaved very\r\nprettily to her papa and mamma on the occasion, never dropping a word\r\nwhich could lead either of them to suppose that she had interrogated\r\nRachel, been confidential with the housemaid, conversed on the\r\nsubject--even with Spooner, and made a morning call on Martha Biggs\r\nherself. There arose not unnaturally some conversation between the mother\r\nand daughter as to Lady Mason;--not as to Lady Mason's visits to\r\nLincoln's Inn and their impropriety as formerly presumed;--not at\r\nall as to that; but in respect to her present lamentable position\r\nand that engagement which had for a time existed between her and Sir\r\nPeregrine Orme. On this latter subject Mrs. Furnival had of course\r\nheard nothing during her interview with Mrs. Orme at Noningsby."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At\r\nthat time Lady Mason had formed the sole subject of conversation;\r\nbut in explaining to Mrs. Furnival that there certainly could be\r\nno unhallowed feeling between her husband and the lady, Mrs. Orme\r\nhad not thought it necessary to allude to Sir Peregrine's past\r\nintentions. Mrs. Furnival, however, had heard the whole matter\r\ndiscussed in the railway carriage, had since interrogated her\r\nhusband,--learning, however, not very much from him,--and now\r\ninquired into all the details from her daughter. \"And she and Sir Peregrine were really to be married?\" Mrs. Furnival,\r\nas she asked the question, thought with confusion of her own unjust\r\naccusations against the poor woman. Under such circumstances as\r\nthose Lady Mason must of course have been innocent as touching Mr.\r\nFurnival. \"Yes,\" said Sophia. \"There is no doubt whatsoever that they were\r\nengaged. Sir Peregrine told Lady Staveley so himself.\" \"And now it's all broken off again?\" \"Oh yes; it is all broken off now. I believe the fact to be this. Lord Alston, who lives near Noningsby, is a very old friend of Sir\r\nPeregrine's. When he heard of it he went to The Cleeve--I know that\r\nfor certain;--and I think he talked Sir Peregrine out of it.\" \"But, my conscience, Sophia--after he had made her the offer!\" \"I fancy that Mrs. Orme arranged it all. Whether Lord Alston saw\r\nher or not I don't know."}
{"question": "", "answer": "My belief is that Lady Mason behaved very\r\nwell all through, though they say very bitter things against her at\r\nNoningsby.\" \"Poor thing!\" said Mrs. Furnival, the feelings of whose heart were\r\nquite changed as regarded Lady Mason. \"I never knew a woman so badly treated.\" Sophia had her own reasons\r\nfor wishing to make the best of Lady Mason's case. \"And for myself\r\nI do not see why Sir Peregrine should not have married her if he\r\npleased.\" \"He is rather old, my dear.\" \"People don't think so much about that now-a-days as they used. If he\r\nliked it, and she too, who had a right to say anything? My idea is\r\nthat a man with any spirit would have turned Lord Alston out of the\r\nhouse. What business had he to interfere?\" \"But about the trial, Sophia?\" \"That will go on. There's no doubt about that. But they all say that\r\nit's the most unjust thing in the world, and that she must be proved\r\ninnocent. I heard the judge say so myself.\" \"But why are they allowed to try her then?\" \"Oh, papa will tell you that.\" \"I never like to bother your papa about law business.\" Particularly\r\nnot, Mrs. Furnival, when he has a pretty woman for his client! \"My wonder is that she should make herself so unhappy about it,\"\r\ncontinued Sophia. \"It seems that she is quite broken down.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But won't she have to go and sit in the court,--with all the people\r\nstaring at her?\" \"That won't kill her,\" said Sophia, who felt that she herself would\r\nnot perish under any such process. \"If I was sure that I was in the\r\nright, I think that I could hold up my head against all that. But\r\nthey say that she is crushed to the earth.\" \"Poor thing!\" said Mrs. Furnival. \"I wish that I could do anything\r\nfor her.\" And in this way they talked the matter over very\r\ncomfortably. Two or three days after this Sophia Furnival was sitting alone in the\r\ndrawing-room in Harley Street, when Spooner answered a double knock\r\nat the door, and Lucius Mason was shown up stairs. Mrs. Furnival had\r\ngone to make her peace in Red Lion Square, and there may perhaps\r\nbe ground for supposing that Lucius had cause to expect that Miss\r\nFurnival might be seen at this hour without interruption. Be that\r\nas it may, she was found alone, and he was permitted to declare his\r\npurpose unmolested by father, mother, or family friends. \"You remember how we parted at Noningsby,\" said he, when their first\r\ngreetings were well over. \"Oh, yes; I remember it very well. I do not easily forget words such\r\nas were spoken then.\" \"You said that you would never turn away from me.\" \"Nor will I;--that is with reference to the matter as to which we\r\nwere speaking.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Is our friendship then to be confined to one subject?\" \"By no means. Friendship cannot be so confined, Mr. Mason. Friendship\r\nbetween true friends must extend to all the affairs of life. What I\r\nmeant to say was this-- But I am quite sure that you understand me\r\nwithout any explanation.\" He did understand her. She meant to say that she had promised to\r\nhim her sympathy and friendship, but nothing more. But then he had\r\nasked for nothing more. The matter of doubt within his own heart was\r\nthis. Should he or should he not ask for more; and if he resolved\r\non answering this question in the affirmative, should he ask for it\r\nnow? He had determined that morning that he would come to some fixed\r\npurpose on this matter before he reached Harley Street. As he crossed\r\nout of Oxford Street from the omnibus he had determined that the\r\npresent was no time for love-making;--walking up Regent Street,\r\nhe had told himself that if he had one faithful heart to bear him\r\ncompany he could bear his troubles better;--as he made his way along\r\nthe north side of Cavendish Square he pictured to himself what would\r\nbe the wound to his pride if he were rejected;--and in passing the\r\nten or twelve houses which intervened in Harley Street between the\r\ncorner of the square and the abode of his mistress, he told himself\r\nthat the question must be answered by circumstances. \"Yes, I understand you,\" he said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And believe me in this--I would\r\nnot for worlds encroach on your kindness. I knew that when I pressed\r\nyour hand that night, I pressed the hand of a friend,--and nothing\r\nmore.\" \"Quite so,\" said Sophia. Sophia's wit was usually ready enough, but\r\nat that moment she could not resolve with what words she might make\r\nthe most appropriate reply to her--friend. What she did say was\r\nrather lame, but it was not dangerous. \"Since that I have suffered a great deal,\" said Lucius. \"Of course\r\nyou know that my mother has been staying at The Cleeve?\" \"Oh yes. I believe she left it only a day or two since.\" \"And you heard perhaps of her--. I hardly know how to tell you, if\r\nyou have not heard it.\" \"If you mean about Sir Peregrine, I have heard of that.\" \"Of course you have. All the world has heard of it.\" And Lucius Mason\r\ngot up and walked about the room holding his hand to his brow. \"All\r\nthe world are talking about it. Miss Furnival, you have never known\r\nwhat it is to blush for a parent.\" Miss Furnival at the moment felt a sincere hope that Mr. Mason might\r\nnever hear of Mrs. Furnival's visit to the neighbourhood of Orange\r\nStreet and of the causes which led to it, and by no means thought\r\nit necessary to ask for her friend's sympathy on that subject. \"No,\"\r\nsaid she, \"I never have; nor need you do so for yours."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why should not\r\nLady Mason have married Sir Peregrine Orme, if they both thought such\r\na marriage fitting?\" \"What; at such a time as this; with these dreadful accusations\r\nrunning in her ears? Surely this was no time for marrying! And what\r\nhas come of it? People now say that he has rejected her and sent her\r\naway.\" \"Oh no. They cannot say that.\" \"But they do. It is reported that Sir Peregrine has sent her away\r\nbecause he thinks her to be guilty. That I do not believe. No honest\r\nman, no gentleman, could think her guilty. But is it not dreadful\r\nthat such things should be said?\" \"Will not the trial take place very shortly now? When that is once\r\nover all these troubles will be at an end.\" \"Miss Furnival, I sometimes think that my mother will hardly have\r\nstrength to sustain the trial. She is so depressed that I almost fear\r\nher mind will give way; and the worst of it is that I am altogether\r\nunable to comfort her.\" \"Surely that at present should specially be your task.\" \"I cannot do it. What should I say to her? I think that she is wrong\r\nin what she is doing; thoroughly, absolutely wrong. She has got about\r\nher a parcel of lawyers. I beg your pardon, Miss Furnival, but you\r\nknow I do not mean such as your father.\" \"But has not he advised it?\" \"If so I cannot but think he is wrong."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They are the very scum of\r\nthe gaols; men who live by rescuing felons from the punishment they\r\ndeserve. What can my mother require of such services as theirs? It is\r\nthey that frighten her and make her dread all manner of evils. Why\r\nshould a woman who knows herself to be good and just fear anything\r\nthat the law can do to her?\" \"I can easily understand that such a position as hers must be very\r\ndreadful. You must not be hard upon her, Mr. Mason, because she is\r\nnot as strong as you might be.\" \"Hard upon her! Ah, Miss Furnival, you do not know me. If she would\r\nonly accept my love I would wait upon her as a mother does upon her\r\ninfant. No labour would be too much for me; no care would be too\r\nclose. But her desire is that this affair should never be mentioned\r\nbetween us. We are living now in the same house, and though I see\r\nthat this is killing her yet I may not speak of it.\" Then he got\r\nup from his chair, and as he walked about the room he took his\r\nhandkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. \"I wish I could comfort you,\" said she. And in saying so she spoke\r\nthe truth. By nature she was not tender hearted, but now she did\r\nsympathise with him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "By nature, too, she was not given to any deep\r\naffection, but she did feel some spark of love for Lucius Mason. \"I\r\nwish I could comfort you.\" And as she spoke she also got up from her\r\nchair. \"And you can,\" said he, suddenly stopping himself and coming close to\r\nher. \"You can comfort me,--in some degree. You and you only can do\r\nso. I know this is no time for declarations of love. Were it not that\r\nwe are already so much to each other, I would not indulge myself at\r\nsuch a moment with such a wish. But I have no one whom I can love;\r\nand--it is very hard to bear.\" And then he stood, waiting for her\r\nanswer, as though he conceived that he had offered her his hand. But Miss Furnival well knew that she had received no offer. \"If my\r\nwarmest sympathy can be of service to you--\"\r\n\r\n\"It is your love I want,\" he said, taking her hand as he spoke. \"Your\r\nlove, so that I may look on you as my wife;--your acceptance of my\r\nlove, so that we may be all in all to each other. There is my hand. I stand before you now as sad a man as there is in all London. But\r\nthere is my hand--will you take it and give me yours in pledge of\r\nyour love.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "I should be unjust to Lucius Mason were I to omit to say that he\r\nplayed his part with a becoming air. Unhappiness and a melancholy\r\nmood suited him perhaps better than the world's ordinary good-humour. He was a man who looked his best when under a cloud, and shone the\r\nbrightest when everything about him was dark. And Sophia also was not\r\nunequal to the occasion. There was, however, this difference between\r\nthem. Lucius was quite honest in all that he said and did upon the\r\noccasion; whereas Miss Furnival was only half honest. Perhaps she was\r\nnot capable of a higher pitch of honesty than that. \"There is my hand,\" said she; and they stood holding each other, palm\r\nto palm. \"And with it your heart?\" said Lucius. \"And with it my heart,\" answered Sophia. Nor as she spoke did she\r\nhesitate for a moment, or become embarrassed, or lose her command\r\nof feature. Had Augustus Staveley gone through the same ceremony at\r\nNoningsby in the same way I am inclined to think that she would have\r\nmade the same answer. Had neither done so, she would not on that\r\naccount have been unhappy. What a blessed woman would Lady Staveley\r\nhave been had she known what was being done in Harley Street at this\r\nmoment! In some short rhapsody of love it may be presumed that Lucius\r\nindulged himself when he found that the affair which he had in hand\r\nhad so far satisfactorily arranged itself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he was in truth\r\ntoo wretched at heart for any true enjoyment of the delights of\r\na favoured suitor. They were soon engaged again on that terrible\r\nsubject, seated side by side indeed and somewhat close, but the tone\r\nof their voices and their very words were hardly different from what\r\nthey might have been had no troth been plighted between them. His\r\npresent plan was that Sophia should visit Orley Farm for a time, and\r\ntake that place of dear and bosom friend which a woman circumstanced\r\nas was his mother must so urgently need. We, my readers, know well\r\nwho was now that loving friend, and we know also which was best\r\nfitted for such a task, Sophia Furnival or Mrs. Orme. But we have\r\nhad, I trust, better means of reading the characters of those ladies\r\nthan had fallen to the lot of Lucius Mason, and should not be angry\r\nwith him because his eyes were dark. Sophia hesitated a moment before she answered this proposition,--not\r\nas though she were slack in her love, or begrudged her services to\r\nhis mother; but it behoved her to look carefully at the circumstances\r\nbefore she would pledge herself to such an arrangement as that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If\r\nshe went to Orley Farm on such a mission would it not be necessary\r\nto tell her father and mother,--nay, to tell all the world that she\r\nwas engaged to Lucius Mason; and would it be wise to make such a\r\ncommunication at the present moment? Lucius said a word to her of\r\ngoing into court with his mother, and sitting with her, hand in hand,\r\nwhile that ordeal was passing by. In the publicity of such sympathy\r\nthere was something that suited the bearings of Miss Furnival's mind,\r\nThe idea that Lady Mason was guilty had never entered her head, and\r\ntherefore, on this she thought there could be no disgrace in such a\r\nproceeding. But nevertheless--might it not be prudent to wait till\r\nthat trial were over? \"If you are my wife you must be her daughter; and how can you better\r\ntake a daughter's part?\" pleaded Lucius. \"No, no; and I would do it with my whole heart. But, Lucius, does she\r\nknow me well enough? It is of her that we must think. After all that\r\nyou have told me, can we think that she would wish me to be there?\" It was his desire that his mother should learn to have such a wish,\r\nand this he explained to her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He himself could do but little at home\r\nbecause he could not yield his opinion on those matters of importance\r\nas to which he and his mother differed so vitally; but if she had a\r\nwoman with her in the house,--such a woman as his own Sophia,--then\r\nhe thought her heart would be softened and part of her sorrow might\r\nbe assuaged. Sophia at last said that she would think about it. It would be\r\nimproper, she said, to pledge herself to anything rashly. It might be\r\nthat as her father was to defend Lady Mason, he might on that account\r\nobject to his daughter being in the court. Lucius declared that this\r\nwould be unreasonable,--unless indeed Mr. Furnival should object to\r\nhis daughter's engagement. And might he not do so? Sophia thought\r\nit very probable that he might. It would make no difference in her,\r\nshe said. Her engagement would be equally binding,--as permanently\r\nbinding, let who would object to it. And as she made this\r\ndeclaration, there was of course a little love scene. But, for the\r\npresent, it might be best that in this matter she should obey her\r\nfather. And then she pointed out how fatal it might be to avert her\r\nfather from the cause while the trial was still pending. Upon the\r\nwhole she acted her part very prudently, and when Lucius left her\r\nshe was pledged to nothing but that one simple fact of a marriage\r\nengagement. CHAPTER LVI."}
{"question": "", "answer": "HOW SIR PEREGRINE DID BUSINESS WITH MR. ROUND. In the mean time Sir Peregrine was sitting at home trying to\r\ndetermine in what way he should act under the present emergency,\r\nactuated as he was on one side by friendship and on the other by\r\nduty. For the first day or two--nay for the first week after the\r\nconfession had been made to him,--he had been so astounded, had\r\nbeen so knocked to the earth, and had remained in such a state of\r\nbewilderment, that it had been impossible for him to form for himself\r\nany line of conduct. His only counsellor had been Mrs. Orme; and,\r\nthough he could not analyze the matter, he felt that her woman's\r\nideas of honour and honesty were in some way different from his ideas\r\nas a man. To her the sorrows and utter misery of Lady Mason seemed of\r\ngreater weight than her guilt. At least such was the impression which\r\nher words left. Mrs. Orme's chief anxiety in the matter still was\r\nthat Lady Mason should be acquitted;--as strongly so now as when they\r\nboth believed her to be as guiltless as themselves. But Sir Peregrine\r\ncould not look at it in this light. He did not say that he wished\r\nthat she might be found guilty;--nor did he wish it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he did\r\nannounce his opinion to his daughter-in-law that the ends of justice\r\nwould so be best promoted, and that if the matter were driven to a\r\ntrial it would not be for the honour of the court that a false\r\nverdict should be given. Nor would he believe that such a false\r\nverdict could be obtained. An English judge and an English jury were\r\nto him the Palladium of discerning truth. In an English court of law\r\nsuch a matter could not remain dark;--nor ought it, let whatever\r\nmisery betide. It was strange how that old man should have lived so\r\nnear the world for seventy years, should have taken his place in\r\nParliament and on the bench, should have rubbed his shoulders so\r\nconstantly against those of his neighbours, and yet have retained so\r\nstrong a reliance on the purity of the world in general. Here and\r\nthere such a man may still be found, but the number is becoming very\r\nfew. As for the property, that must of necessity be abandoned. Lady Mason\r\nhad signified her agreement to this; and therefore he was so far\r\nwilling that she should be saved from further outward punishment, if\r\nthat were still possible. His plan was this; and to his thinking it\r\nwas the only plan that was feasible."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Let the estate be at once given\r\nup to the proper owner,--even now, before the day of trial should\r\ncome; and then let them trust, not to Joseph Mason, but to Joseph\r\nMason's advisers to abstain from prosecuting the offender. Even this\r\ncourse he knew to be surrounded by a thousand difficulties; but it\r\nmight be possible. Of Mr. Round, old Mr. Round, he had heard a good\r\nreport. He was a kind man, and even in this very matter had behaved\r\nin a way that had shamed his client. Might it not be possible that\r\nMr. Round would engage to drop the prosecution if the immediate\r\nreturn of the property were secured? But to effect this must he not\r\ntell Mr. Round of the woman's guilt? And could he manage it himself? Must he not tell Mr. Furnival? And by so doing, would he not rob Lady\r\nMason of her sole remaining tower of strength?--for if Mr. Furnival\r\nknew that she was guilty, Mr. Furnival must of course abandon her\r\ncause. And then Sir Peregrine did not know how to turn himself, as he\r\nthus argued the matter within his own bosom. And then too his own disgrace sat very heavy on him. Whether or no\r\nthe law might pronounce Lady Mason to have been guilty, all the world\r\nwould know her guilt. When that property should be abandoned, and\r\nher wretched son turned out to earn his bread, it would be well\r\nunderstood that she had been guilty."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And this was the woman, this\r\nmidnight forger, whom he had taken to his bosom, and asked to be\r\nhis wife! He had asked her, and she had consented, and then he had\r\nproclaimed the triumph of his love to all the world. When he stood\r\nthere holding her to his breast he had been proud of her affection. When Lord Alston had come to him with his caution he had scorned his\r\nold friend and almost driven him from his door. When his grandson had\r\nspoken a word, not to him but to another, he had been full of wrath. He had let it be known widely that he would feel no shame in showing\r\nher to the world as Lady Orme. And now she was a forger, and a\r\nperjurer, and a thief;--a thief who for long years had lived on the\r\nproceeds of her dexterous theft. And yet was he not under a deep\r\nobligation to her--under the very deepest? Had she not saved him from\r\na worse disgrace;--saved him at the cost of all that was left to\r\nherself? Was he not still bound to stand by her? And did he not still\r\nlove her? Poor Sir Peregrine! May we not say that it would have been well for\r\nhim if the world and all its trouble could have now been ended so\r\nthat he might have done with it?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Orme was his only counsellor, and though she could not be\r\nbrought to agree with him in all his feelings, yet she was of\r\ninfinite comfort to him. Had she not shared with him this terrible\r\nsecret his mind would have given way beneath the burden. On the day\r\nafter Lady Mason's departure from The Cleeve, he sat for an hour in\r\nthe library considering what he would do, and then he sent for his\r\ndaughter-in-law. If it behoved him to take any step to stay the\r\ntrial, he must take it at once. The matter had been pressed on by\r\neach side, and now the days might be counted up to that day on\r\nwhich the judges would arrive in Alston. That trial would be very\r\nterrible to him in every way. He had promised, during those pleasant\r\nhours of his love and sympathy in which he had felt no doubt as to\r\nhis friend's acquittal, that he would stand by her when she was\r\narraigned. That was now impossible, and though he had not dared to\r\nmention it to Lady Mason, he knew that she would not expect that he\r\nshould do so. But to Mrs. Orme he had spoken on the matter, and she\r\nhad declared her purpose of taking the place which it would not now\r\nbecome him to fill! Sir Peregrine had started from his chair when she\r\nhad so spoken. What! his daughter!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She, the purest of the pure, to\r\nwhom the very air of a court of law would be a contamination;--she,\r\nwhose whiteness had never been sullied by contact with the world's\r\ndust; she set by the side of that terrible criminal, hand in hand\r\nwith her, present to all the world as her bosom friend! There had\r\nbeen but few words between them on the matter; but Sir Peregrine had\r\nfelt strongly that that might not be permitted. Far better than that\r\nit would be that he should humble his gray hairs and sit there to\r\nbe gazed at by the crowd. But on all accounts how much was it to be\r\ndesired that there should be no trial! \"Sit down, Edith,\" he said, as with her soft step she came up to him. \"I find that the assizes will be here, in Alston, at the end of next\r\nmonth.\" \"So soon as that, father?\" \"Yes; look here: the judges will come in on the 25th of March.\" \"Ah me--this is very sudden. But, father, will it not be best for her\r\nthat it should be over?\" Mrs. Orme still thought, had always thought that the trial itself was\r\nunavoidable. Indeed she had thought and she did think that it\r\nafforded to Lady Mason the only possible means of escape. Her mind on\r\nthe subject, if it could have been analyzed, would probably have been\r\nthis. As to the property, that question must for the present stand\r\nin abeyance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is quite right that it should go to its detestable\r\nowners,--that it should be made over to them at some day not very\r\ndistant. But for the present, the trial for that old, long-distant\r\ncrime was the subject for them to consider. Could it be wrong to wish\r\nfor an acquittal for the sinner,--an acquittal before this world's\r\nbar, seeing that a true verdict had undoubtedly been given before\r\nanother bar? Mrs. Orme trusted that no jury would convict her friend. Let Lady Mason go through that ordeal; and then, when the law had\r\ndeclared her innocent, let restitution be made. \"It will be very terrible to all if she be condemned,\" said Sir\r\nPeregrine. \"Very terrible! But Mr. Furnival--\"\r\n\r\n\"Edith, if it comes to that, she will be condemned. Mr. Furnival is a\r\nlawyer and will not say so; but from his countenance, when he speaks\r\nof her, I know that he expects it!\" \"Oh, father, do not say so.\" \"But if it is so--. My love, what is the purport of these courts of\r\nlaw if it be not to discover the truth, and make it plain to the\r\nlight of day?\" Poor Sir Peregrine! His innocence in this respect was\r\nperhaps beautiful, but it was very simple. Mr. Aram, could he have\r\nbeen induced to speak out his mind plainly, would have expressed,\r\nprobably, a different opinion. \"But she escaped before,\" said Mrs. Orme, who was clearly at present\r\non the same side with Mr. Aram."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Yes; she did;--by perjury, Edith. And now the penalty of that\r\nfurther crime awaits her. There was an old poet who said that the\r\nwicked man rarely escapes at last. I believe in my heart that he\r\nspoke the truth.\" \"Father, that old poet knew nothing of our faith.\" Sir Peregrine could not stop to explain, even if he knew how to do\r\nso, that the old poet spoke of punishment in this world, whereas the\r\nfaith on which his daughter relied is efficacious for pardon beyond\r\nthe grave. It would be much, ay, in one sense everything, if Lady\r\nMason could be brought to repent of the sin she had committed; but\r\nno such repentance would stay the bitterness of Joseph Mason or\r\nof Samuel Dockwrath. If the property were at once restored, then\r\nrepentance might commence. If the property were at once restored,\r\nthen the trial might be stayed. It might be possible that Mr. Round\r\nmight so act. He felt all this, but he could not argue on it. \"I\r\nthink, my dear,\" he said, \"that I had better see Mr. Round.\" \"But you will not tell him?\" said Mrs. Orme, sharply. \"No; I am not authorised to do that.\" \"But he will entice it from you! He is a lawyer, and he will wind\r\nanything out from a plain, chivalrous man of truth and honour.\" \"My dear, Mr. Round I believe is a good man.\" \"But if he asks you the question, what will you say?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I will tell him to ask me no such question.\" \"Oh, father, be careful. For her sake be careful. How is it that you\r\nknow the truth;--or that I know it? She told it here because in that\r\nway only could she save you from that marriage. Father, she has\r\nsacrificed herself for--for us.\" Sir Peregrine when this was said to him got up from his chair and\r\nwalked away to the window. He was not angry with her that she so\r\nspoke to him. Nay; he acknowledged inwardly the truth of her words,\r\nand loved her for her constancy. But nevertheless they were very\r\nbitter. How had it come to pass that he was thus indebted to so deep\r\na criminal? What had he done for her but good? \"Do not go from me,\" she said, following him. \"Do not think me\r\nunkind.\" \"No, no, no,\" he answered, striving almost ineffectually to repress a\r\nsob. \"You are not unkind.\" For two days after that not a word was spoken between them on the\r\nsubject, and then he did go to Mr. Round. Not a word on the subject\r\nwas spoken between Sir Peregrine and Mrs. Orme; but she was twice at\r\nOrley Farm during the time, and told Lady Mason of the steps which\r\nher father-in-law was taking. \"He won't betray me!\" Lady Mason had\r\nsaid."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Orme had answered this with what best assurance she should\r\ngive; but in her heart of hearts she feared that Sir Peregrine would\r\nbetray the secret. It was not a pleasant journey for Sir Peregrine. Indeed it may be\r\nsaid that no journeys could any longer be pleasant for him. He was\r\nold and worn and feeble; very much older and much more worn than he\r\nhad been at the period spoken of in the commencement of this story,\r\nthough but a few months had passed over his head since that time. For\r\nhim now it would have been preferable to remain in the arm-chair by\r\nthe fireside in his own library, receiving such comfort in his old\r\nage as might come to him from the affection of his daughter-in-law\r\nand grandson. But he thought that it behoved him to do this work; and\r\ntherefore, old and feeble as he was, he set himself to his task. He\r\nreached the station in London, had himself driven to Bedford Row in a\r\ncab, and soon found himself in the presence of Mr. Round. [Illustration: Sir Peregrine at Mr. Round's office.] There was much ceremonial talk between them before Sir Peregrine\r\ncould bring himself to declare the purport which had brought him\r\nthere. Mr. Round of course protested that he was very sorry for all\r\nthis affair. The case was not in his hands personally. He had hoped\r\nmany years since that the matter was closed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His client, Mr. Mason of\r\nGroby Park, had insisted that it should be reopened; and now he, Mr. Round, really hardly knew what to say about it. \"But, Mr. Round, do you think it is quite impossible that the trial\r\nshould even now be abandoned?\" asked Sir Peregrine very carefully. \"Well, I fear it is. Mason thinks that the property is his, and is\r\ndetermined to make another struggle for it. I am imputing nothing\r\nwrong to the lady. I really am not in a position to have any opinion\r\nof my own--\"\r\n\r\n\"No, no, no; I understand. Of course your firm is bound to do the\r\nbest it can for its client. But, Mr. Round;--I know I am quite safe\r\nwith you.\" \"Well; safe in one way I hope you are. But, Sir Peregrine, you must\r\nof course remember that I am the attorney for the other side,--for\r\nthe side to which you are opposed.\" \"But still;--all that you can want is your client's interest.\" \"Of course we desire to serve his interest.\" \"And with that view, Mr. Round, is it not possible that we might come\r\nto some compromise?\" \"What;--by giving up part of the property?\" \"By giving up all the property,\" said Sir Peregrine, with\r\nconsiderable emphasis. \"Whew-w-w.\" Mr. Round at the moment made no other answer than this,\r\nwhich terminated in a low whistle. \"Better that, at once, than that she should die broken-hearted,\" said\r\nSir Peregrine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was then silence between them for a minute or two, after which\r\nMr. Round, turning himself round in his chair so as to face his\r\nvisitor more fully, spoke as follows. \"I told you just now, Sir\r\nPeregrine, that I was Mr. Mason's attorney, and I must now tell you,\r\nthat as regards this interview between you and me, I will not hold\r\nmyself as being in that position. What you have said shall be as\r\nthough it had not been said; and as I am not, myself, taking any part\r\nin the proceedings, this may with absolute strictness be the case. But--\"\r\n\r\n\"If I have said anything that I ought not to have said--\" began Sir\r\nPeregrine. \"Allow me for one moment,\" continued Mr. Round. \"The fault is mine,\r\nif there be a fault, as I should have explained to you that the\r\nmatter could hardly be discussed with propriety between us.\" \"Mr. Round, I offer you my apology from the bottom of my heart.\" \"No, Sir Peregrine. You shall offer me no apology, nor will I accept\r\nany. I know no words strong enough to convey to you my esteem and\r\nrespect for your character.\" \"Sir!\" \"But I will ask you to listen to me for a moment. If any compromise\r\nbe contemplated, it should be arranged by the advice of Mr. Furnival\r\nand of Mr. Chaffanbrass, and the terms should be settled between Mr.\r\nAram and my son."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I cannot myself say that I see any possibility\r\nof such a result. It is not however for me to advise. If on that\r\nmatter you wish for advice, I think that you had better see Mr. Furnival.\" \"Ah!\" said Sir Peregrine, telling more and more of the story by every\r\nutterance he made. \"And now it only remains for me to assure you once more that the\r\nwords which have been spoken in this room shall be as though they had\r\nnot been spoken.\" And then Mr. Round made it very clear that there\r\nwas nothing more to be said between them on the subject of Lady\r\nMason. Sir Peregrine repeated his apology, collected his hat and\r\ngloves, and with slow step made his way down to his cab, while Mr. Round absolutely waited upon him till he saw him seated within the\r\nvehicle. \"So Mat is right after all,\" said the old attorney to himself as he\r\nstood alone with his back to his own fire, thrusting his hands into\r\nhis trousers-pockets. \"So Mat is right after all!\" The meaning of\r\nthis exclamation will be plain to my readers. Mat had declared to\r\nhis father his conviction that Lady Mason had forged the codicil in\r\nquestion, and the father was now also convinced that she had done so. \"Unfortunate woman!\" he said; \"poor, wretched woman!\" And then he\r\nbegan to calculate what might yet be her chances of escape."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the\r\nwhole he thought that she would escape. \"Twenty years of possession,\"\r\nhe said to himself \"and so excellent a character!\" But, nevertheless,\r\nhe repeated to himself over and over again that she was a wretched,\r\nmiserable woman. We may say that all the persons most concerned were convinced, or\r\nnearly convinced, of Lady Mason's guilt. Among her own friends Mr.\r\nFurnival had no doubt of it, and Mr. Chaffanbrass and Mr. Aram but\r\nvery little; whereas Sir Peregrine and Mrs. Orme of course had none. On the other side Mr. Mason and Mr. Dockwrath were both fully sure of\r\nthe truth, and the two Rounds, father and son, were quite of the same\r\nmind. And yet, except with Dockwrath and Sir Peregrine, the most\r\nhonest and the most dishonest of the lot, the opinion was that she\r\nwould escape. These were five lawyers concerned, not one of whom gave\r\nto the course of justice credit that it would ascertain the truth,\r\nand not one of whom wished that the truth should be ascertained. Surely had they been honest-minded in their profession they would\r\nall have so wished;--have so wished, or else have abstained from all\r\nprofessional intercourse in the matter. I cannot understand how any\r\ngentleman can be willing to use his intellect for the propagation\r\nof untruth, and to be paid for so using it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As to Mr. Chaffanbrass\r\nand Mr. Solomon Aram,--to them the escape of a criminal under their\r\nauspices would of course be a matter of triumph. To such work\r\nfor many years had they applied their sharp intellects and legal\r\nknowledge. But of Mr. Furnival;--what shall we say of him? Sir Peregrine went home very sad at heart, and crept silently back\r\ninto his own library. In the evening, when he was alone with Mrs.\r\nOrme, he spoke one word to her. \"Edith,\" he said, \"I have seen Mr. Round. We can do nothing for her there.\" \"I feared not,\" said she. \"No; we can do nothing for her there.\" After that Sir Peregrine took no step in the matter. What step could\r\nhe take? But he sat over his fire in his library, day after day,\r\nthinking over it all, and waiting till those terrible assizes should\r\nhave come. CHAPTER LVII. THE LOVES AND HOPES OF ALBERT FITZALLEN. Felix Graham, when he left poor Mary Snow, did not go on immediately\r\nto the doctor's shop. He had made up his mind that Mary Snow should\r\nnever be his wife, and therefore considered it wise to lose no time\r\nin making such arrangements as might be necessary both for his\r\nrelease and for hers. But, nevertheless, he had not the heart to\r\ngo about the work the moment that he left her. He passed by the\r\napothecary's, and looking in saw a young man working sedulously at a\r\npestle."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If Albert Fitzallen were fit to be her husband and willing\r\nto be so, poor as he was himself, he would still make some pecuniary\r\nsacrifice by which he might quiet his own conscience and make Mary's\r\nmarriage possible. He still had a sum of £1,200 belonging to him,\r\nthat being all his remaining capital; and the half of that he would\r\ngive to Mary as her dower. So in two days he returned, and again\r\nlooking in at the doctor's shop, again saw the young man at his work. \"Yes, sir, my name is Albert Fitzallen,\" said the medical aspirant,\r\ncoming round the counter. There was no one else in the shop, and\r\nFelix hardly knew how to accost him on so momentous a subject, while\r\nhe was still in charge of all that store of medicine, and liable\r\nto be called away at any moment to relieve the ailments of Clapham. Albert Fitzallen was a pale-faced, light-haired youth, with an\r\nincipient moustache, with his hair parted in equal divisions over\r\nhis forehead, with elaborate shirt-cuffs elaborately turned back,\r\nand with a white apron tied round him so that he might pursue his\r\nvocation without injury to his nether garments. His face, however,\r\nwas not bad, nor mean, and had there not been about him a little air\r\nof pretension, assumed perhaps to carry off the combined apron and\r\nbeard, Felix would have regarded him altogether with favourable eyes. \"Is it in the medical way?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "asked Fitzallen, when Graham suggested\r\nthat he should step out with him for a few minutes. Graham explained\r\nthat it was not in the medical way,--that it was in a way altogether\r\nof a private nature; and then the young man, pulling off his apron\r\nand wiping his hands on a thoroughly medicated towel, invoked the\r\nmaster of the establishment from an inner room, and in a few minutes\r\nMary Snow's two lovers were walking together, side by side, along the\r\ncauseway. \"I believe you know Miss Snow,\" said Felix, rushing at once into the\r\nmiddle of all those delicate circumstances. Albert Fitzallen drew himself up, and declared that he had that\r\nhonour. \"I also know her,\" said Felix. \"My name is Felix Graham--\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, sir, very well,\" said Albert. The street in which they were\r\nstanding was desolate, and the young man was able to assume a look\r\nof decided hostility without encountering any other eyes than those\r\nof his rival. \"If you have anything to say to me, sir, I am quite\r\nprepared to listen to you--to listen to you, and to answer you. I\r\nhave heard your name mentioned by Miss Snow.\" And Albert Fitzallen\r\nstood his ground as though he were at once going to cover himself\r\nwith his pistol arm. \"Yes, I know you have. Mary has told me what has passed between you. You may regard me, Mr. Fitzallen, as Mary's best and surest friend.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I know you have been a friend to her; I am aware of that. But, Mr.\r\nGraham, if you will allow me to say so, friendship is one thing, and\r\nthe warm love of a devoted bosom is another.\" \"Quite so,\" said Felix. \"A woman's heart is a treasure not to be bought by any efforts of\r\nfriendship,\" said Fitzallen. \"I fully agree with you there,\" said Graham. \"Far be it from me to make any boast,\" continued the other, \"or even\r\nto hint that I have gained a place in that lady's affections. I know\r\nmy own position too well, and say proudly that I am existing only on\r\nhope.\" Here, to show his pride, he hit himself with his closed fist\r\non his shirt-front. \"But, Mr. Graham, I am free to declare, even in\r\nyour presence, though you may be her best and surest friend,\"--and\r\nthere was not wanting from the tone of his voice a strong flavour of\r\nscorn as he repeated these words--\"that I do exist on hope, let your\r\nclaims be what they will. If you desire to make such hope on my part\r\na cause of quarrel, I have nothing to say against it.\" And then he\r\ntwirled all that he could twirl of that incipient moustache. \"By no means,\" said Graham. \"Oh, very well,\" said Fitzallen. \"Then we understand that the arena\r\nof love is open to us both."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I do not fail to appreciate the immense\r\nadvantages which you enjoy in this struggle.\" And then Fitzallen\r\nlooked up into Graham's ugly face, and thought of his own appearance\r\nin the looking-glass. \"What I want to know is this,\" said Felix. \"If you marry Mary Snow,\r\nwhat means have you of maintaining her? Would your mother receive her\r\ninto her house? I presume you are not a partner in that shop; but\r\nwould it be possible to get you in as a partner, supposing Mary were\r\nto marry you and had a little money as her fortune?\" \"Eh!\" said Albert, dropping his look of pride, allowing his hand to\r\nfall from his lips, and standing still before his companion with his\r\nmouth wide open. \"Of course you mean honestly by dear Mary.\" \"Oh, sir, yes, on the honour of a gentleman. My intentions, sir,\r\nare--. Mr. Graham, I love that young lady with a devotion of heart,\r\nthat--that--that--. Then you don't mean to marry her yourself; eh,\r\nMr. Graham?\" \"No, Mr. Fitzallen, I do not. And now, if you will so far confide in\r\nme, we will talk over your prospects.\" \"Oh, very well. I'm sure you are very kind. But Miss Snow did tell\r\nme--\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, I know she did, and she was quite right. But as you said just\r\nnow, a woman's heart cannot be bought by friendship."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have not been\r\na bad friend to Mary, but I had no right to expect that I could win\r\nher love in that way. Whether or no you may be able to succeed,\r\nI will not say, but I have abandoned the pursuit.\" In all which\r\nGraham intended to be exceedingly honest, but was, in truth, rather\r\nhypocritical. \"Then the course is open to me,\" said Fitzallen. \"Yes, the course is open,\" answered Graham. \"But the race has still to be run. Don't you think that Miss Snow is\r\nof her nature very--very cold?\" Felix remembered the one kiss beneath the lamp-post,--the one kiss\r\ngiven, and received. He remembered also that Mary's acquaintance with\r\nthe gentleman must necessarily have been short; and he made no answer\r\nto this question. But he made a comparison. What would Madeline have\r\nsaid and done had he attempted such an iniquity? And he thought of\r\nher flashing eyes and terrible scorn, of the utter indignation of all\r\nthe Staveley family, and of the wretched abyss into which the\r\noffender would have fallen. He brought back the subject at once to the young man's means, to\r\nhis mother, and to the doctor's shop; and though he learned nothing\r\nthat was very promising, neither did he learn anything that was the\r\nreverse. Albert Fitzallen did not ride a very high horse when he\r\nlearned that his supposed rival was so anxious to assist him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was\r\nquite willing to be guided by Graham, and, in that matter of the\r\nproposed partnership, was sure that old Balsam, the owner of the\r\nbusiness, would be glad to take a sum of money down. \"He has a son\r\nof his own,\" said Albert, \"but he don't take to it at all. He's gone\r\ninto wine and spirits; but he don't sell half as much as he drinks.\" Felix then proposed that he should call on Mrs. Fitzallen, and to\r\nthis Albert gave a blushing consent. \"Mother has heard of it,\" said\r\nAlbert, \"but I don't exactly know how.\" Perhaps Mrs. Fitzallen was as\r\nattentive as Mrs. Thomas had been to stray documents packed away in\r\nodd places. \"And I suppose I may call on--on--Mary?\" asked the lover,\r\nas Graham took his leave. But Felix could give no authority for this,\r\nand explained that Mrs. Thomas might be found to be a dragon still\r\nguarding the Hesperides. Would it not be better to wait till Mary's\r\nfather had been informed? and then, if all things went well, he might\r\nprosecute the affair in due form and as an acknowledged lover. All this was very nice, and as it was quite unexpected, Fitzallen\r\ncould not but regard himself as a fortunate young man. He had never\r\ncontemplated the possibility of Mary Snow being an heiress."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And when\r\nhis mother had spoken to him of the hopelessness of his passion, she\r\nhad suggested that he might perhaps marry his Mary in five or six\r\nyears. Now the dearest wish of his heart was brought close within\r\nhis reach, and he must have been a happy man. But yet, though this\r\ncertainly was so, nevertheless, there was a feeling of coldness about\r\nhis love, and almost of disappointment as he again took his place\r\nbehind the counter. The sorrows of Lydia in the play when she finds\r\nthat her passion meets with general approbation are very absurd\r\nbut, nevertheless, are quite true to nature. Lovers would be great\r\nlosers if the path of love were always to run smooth. Under such a\r\ndispensation, indeed, there would probably be no lovers. The matter\r\nwould be too tame. Albert did not probably bethink himself of a\r\nbecoming disguise, as did Lydia,--of an amiable ladder of ropes,\r\nof a conscious moon, or a Scotch parson; but he did feel, in some\r\nundefined manner, that the romance of his life had been taken away\r\nfrom him. Five minutes under a lamp-post with Mary Snow was sweeter\r\nto him than the promise of a whole bevy of evenings spent in the same\r\nsociety, with all the comforts of his mother's drawing-room around\r\nhim. Ah, yes, dear readers--my male readers of course I mean--were\r\nnot those minutes under the lamp-post always very pleasant?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Graham encountered none of this feeling when he discussed the\r\nsame subject with Albert's mother. She was sufficiently alive to the\r\nmaterial view of the matter, and knew how much of a man's married\r\nhappiness depends on his supplies of bread and butter. Six hundred\r\npounds! Mr. Graham was very kind--very kind indeed. She hadn't a word\r\nto say against Mary Snow. She had seen her, and thought her very\r\npretty and modest looking. Albert was certainly warmly attached to\r\nthe young lady. Of that she was quite certain. And she would say this\r\nof Albert,--that a better-disposed young man did not exist anywhere. He came home quite regular to his meals, and spent ten hours a day\r\nbehind the counter in Mr. Balsam's shop--ten hours a day, Sundays\r\nincluded, which Mrs. Fitzallen regarded as a great drawback to the\r\nmedical line--as should I also, most undoubtedly. But six hundred\r\npounds would make a great difference. Mrs. Fitzallen little doubted\r\nbut that sum would tempt Mr. Balsam into a partnership, or perhaps\r\nthe five hundred, leaving one hundred for furniture. In such a case\r\nAlbert would spend his Sundays at home, of course. After that, so\r\nmuch having been settled, Felix Graham got into an omnibus and took\r\nhimself back to his own chambers. So far was so good."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This idea of a model wife had already become a\r\nvery expensive idea, and in winding it up to its natural conclusion\r\npoor Graham was willing to spend almost every shilling that he could\r\ncall his own. But there was still another difficulty in his way. What\r\nwould Snow père say? Snow père was, he knew, a man with whom dealings\r\nwould be more difficult than with Albert Fitzallen. And then, seeing\r\nthat he had already promised to give his remaining possessions to\r\nAlbert Fitzallen, with what could he bribe Snow père to abandon that\r\nnatural ambition to have a barrister for his son-in-law? In these\r\ndays, too, Snow père had derogated even from the position in which\r\nGraham had first known him, and had become but little better than a\r\ndrunken, begging impostor. What a father-in-law to have had! And then\r\nFelix Graham thought of Judge Staveley. He sent, however, to the engraver, and the man was not long in\r\nobeying the summons. In latter days Graham had not seen him\r\nfrequently, having bestowed his alms through Mary, and was shocked at\r\nthe unmistakable evidence of the gin-shop which the man's appearance\r\nand voice betrayed. How dreadful to the sight are those watery\r\neyes; that red, uneven, pimpled nose; those fallen cheeks; and that\r\nhanging, slobbered mouth! Look at the uncombed hair, the beard half\r\nshorn, the weak, impotent gait of the man, and the tattered raiment,\r\nall eloquent of gin!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "You would fain hold your nose when he comes nigh\r\nyou, he carries with him so foul an evidence of his only and his\r\nhourly indulgence. You would do so, had you not still a respect for\r\nhis feelings, which he himself has entirely forgotten to maintain. How terrible is that absolute loss of all personal dignity which the\r\ndrunkard is obliged to undergo! And then his voice! Every tone has\r\nbeen formed by gin, and tells of the havoc which the compound has\r\nmade within his throat. I do not know whether such a man as this is\r\nnot the vilest thing which grovels on God's earth. There are women\r\nwhom we affect to scorn with the full power of our contempt; but I\r\ndoubt whether any woman sinks to a depth so low as that. She also may\r\nbe a drunkard, and as such may more nearly move our pity and affect\r\nour hearts, but I do not think she ever becomes so nauseous a thing\r\nas the man that has abandoned all the hopes of life for gin. You can\r\nstill touch her;--ay, and if the task be in one's way, can touch her\r\ngently, striving to bring her back to decency. But the other! Well,\r\none should be willing to touch him too, to make that attempt of\r\nbringing back upon him also. I can only say that the task is both\r\nnauseous and unpromising."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Look at him as he stands there before the\r\nfoul, reeking, sloppy bar, with the glass in his hand, which he has\r\njust emptied. See the grimace with which he puts it down, as though\r\nthe dram had been almost too unpalatable. It is the last touch of\r\nhypocrisy with which he attempts to cover the offence;--as though\r\nhe were to say, \"I do it for my stomach's sake; but you know how\r\nI abhor it.\" Then he skulks sullenly away, speaking a word to no\r\none,--shuffling with his feet, shaking himself in his foul rags,\r\npressing himself into a heap--as though striving to drive the warmth\r\nof the spirit into his extremities! And there he stands lounging at\r\nthe corner of the street, till his short patience is exhausted, and\r\nhe returns with his last penny for the other glass. When that has\r\nbeen swallowed the policeman is his guardian. Reader, such as you and I have come to that, when abandoned by the\r\nrespect which a man owes to himself. May God in his mercy watch over\r\nus and protect us both! Such a man was Snow père as he stood before Graham in his chambers in\r\nthe Temple. He could not ask him to sit down, so he himself stood up\r\nas he talked to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At first the man was civil, twirling his old hat\r\nabout, and shifting from one foot to the other;--very civil, and also\r\nsomewhat timid, for he knew that he was half drunk at the moment. But\r\nwhen he began to ascertain what was Graham's object in sending for\r\nhim, and to understand that the gentleman before him did not propose\r\nto himself the honour of being his son-in-law, then his civility left\r\nhim, and, drunk as he was, he spoke out his mind with sufficient\r\nfreedom. \"You mean to say, Mr. Graham\"--and under the effect of gin he turned\r\nthe name into Gorm--\"that you are going to throw that young girl\r\nover?\" \"I mean to say no such thing. I shall do for her all that is in my\r\npower. And if that is not as much as she deserves, it will, at any\r\nrate, be more than you deserve for her.\" \"And you won't marry her?\" \"No; I shall not marry her. Nor does she wish it. I trust that she\r\nwill be engaged, with my full approbation--\"\r\n\r\n\"And what the deuce, sir, is your full approbation to me? Whose\r\nchild is she, I should like to know? Look here, Mr. Gorm; perhaps\r\nyou forget that you wrote me this letter when I allowed you to have\r\nthe charge of that young girl?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And he took out from his breast a\r\nvery greasy pocket-book, and displayed to Felix his own much-worn\r\nletter,--holding it, however, at a distance, so that it should not\r\nbe torn from his hands by any sudden raid. \"Do you think, sir, I\r\nwould have given up my child if I didn't know she was to be married\r\nrespectable? My child is as dear to me as another man's.\" \"I hope she is. And you are a very lucky fellow to have her so well\r\nprovided for. I've told you all I've got to say, and now you may go.\" \"Mr. Gorm!\" \"I've nothing more to say; and if I had, I would not say it to you\r\nnow. Your child shall be taken care of.\" \"That's what I call pretty cool on the part of any gen'leman. And\r\nyou're to break your word,--a regular breach of promise, and nothing\r\nain't to come of it! I'll tell you what, Mr. Gorm, you'll find that\r\nsomething will come of it. What do you think I took this letter for?\" \"You took it, I hope, for Mary's protection.\" \"And by ---- she shall be protected.\" \"She shall, undoubtedly; but I fear not by you. For the present I\r\nwill protect her; and I hope that soon a husband will do so who will\r\nlove her. Now, Mr. Snow, I've told you all I've got to say, and I\r\nmust trouble you to leave me.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nevertheless there were many more words between them before Graham\r\ncould find himself alone in his chambers. Though Snow père might be\r\na thought tipsy--a sheet or so in the wind, as folks say, he was not\r\nmore tipsy than was customary with him, and knew pretty well what he\r\nwas about. \"And what am I to do with myself; Mr. Gorm?\" he asked in\r\na snivelling voice, when the idea began to strike him that it might\r\nperhaps be held by the courts of law that his intended son-in-law was\r\ndoing well by his daughter. \"Work,\" said Graham, turning upon him sharply and almost fiercely. \"That's all very well. It's very well to say 'Work!'\" \"You'll find it well to do it, too. Work, and don't drink. You hardly\r\nthink, I suppose, that if I had married your daughter I should have\r\nfound myself obliged to support you in idleness?\" \"It would have been a great comfort in my old age to have had a\r\ndaughter's house to go to,\" said Snow, naïvely, and now reduced to\r\nlachrymose distress. But when he found that Felix would do nothing for him; that he would\r\nnot on the present occasion lend him a sovereign, or even half a\r\ncrown, he again became indignant and paternal, and in this state of\r\nmind was turned out of the room. \"Heaven and earth!\" said Felix to himself, clenching his hands and\r\nstriking the table with both of them at the same moment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That was the\r\nman with whom he had proposed to link himself in the closest ties\r\nof family connection. Albert Fitzallen did not know Mr. Snow; but\r\nit might be a question whether it would not be Graham's duty to\r\nintroduce them to each other. CHAPTER LVIII. MISS STAVELEY DECLINES TO EAT MINCED VEAL. The house at Noningsby was now very quiet. All the visitors had gone,\r\nincluding even the Arbuthnots. Felix Graham and Sophia Furnival,\r\nthat terrible pair of guests, had relieved Mrs. Staveley of their\r\npresence; but, alas! the mischief they had done remained behind them. The house was very quiet, for Augustus and the judge were up in town\r\nduring the greater part of the week, and Madeline and her mother were\r\nalone. The judge was to come back to Noningsby but once before he\r\ncommenced the circuit which was to terminate at Alston; and it seemed\r\nto be acknowledged now on all sides that nothing more of importance\r\nwas to be done or said in that locality until after Lady Mason's\r\ntrial. It may be imagined that poor Madeline was not very happy. Felix had\r\ngone away, having made no sign, and she knew that her mother rejoiced\r\nthat he had so gone. She never accused her mother of cruelty, even\r\nwithin her own heart. She seemed to realise to herself the assurance\r\nthat a marriage with the man she loved was a happiness which she had\r\nno right to expect."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She knew that her father was rich. She was aware\r\nthat in all probability her own fortune would be considerable. She\r\nwas quite sure that Felix Graham was clever and fit to make his way\r\nthrough the world. And yet she did not think it hard that she should\r\nbe separated from him. She acknowledged from the very first that he\r\nwas not the sort of man whom she ought to have loved, and therefore\r\nshe was prepared to submit. It was, no doubt, the fact that Felix Graham had never whispered\r\nto her a word of love, and that therefore, on that ground, she had\r\nno excuse for hope. But, had that been all, she would not have\r\ndespaired. Had that been all, she might have doubted, but her doubt\r\nwould have been strongly mingled with the sweetness of hope. He had\r\nnever whispered a syllable of love, but she had heard the tone of his\r\nvoice as she spoke a word to him at his chamber door; she had seen\r\nhis eyes as they fell on her when he was lifted into the carriage;\r\nshe had felt the tremor of his touch on that evening when she walked\r\nup to him across the drawing-room and shook hands with him. Such a\r\ngirl as Madeline Staveley does not analyze her feelings on such a\r\nmatter, and then draw her conclusions."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But a conclusion is drawn; the\r\nmind does receive an impression; and the conclusion and impression\r\nare as true as though they had been reached by the aid of logical\r\nreasoning. Had the match been such as her mother would have approved,\r\nshe would have had a hope as to Felix Graham's love--strong enough\r\nfor happiness. As it was, there was no use in hoping; and therefore she\r\nresolved--having gone through much logical reasoning on this\r\nhead--that by her all ideas of love must be abandoned. As regarded\r\nherself, she must be content to rest by her mother's side as a flower\r\nungathered. That she could marry no man without the approval of her\r\nfather and mother was a thing to her quite certain; but it was, at\r\nany rate, as certain that she could marry no man without her own\r\napproval. Felix Graham was beyond her reach. That verdict she herself\r\npronounced, and to it she submitted. But Peregrine Orme was still\r\nmore distant from her;--Peregrine Orme, or any other of the curled\r\ndarlings who might come that way playing the part of a suitor. She knew what she owed to her mother, but she also knew her own\r\nprivileges. There was nothing said on the subject between the mother and\r\nchild during three days. Lady Staveley was more than ordinarily\r\naffectionate to her daughter, and in that way made known the thoughts\r\nwhich were oppressing her; but she did so in no other way."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All\r\nthis Madeline understood, and thanked her mother with the sweetest\r\nsmiles and the most constant companionship. Nor was she, even\r\nnow, absolutely unhappy, or wretchedly miserable; as under such\r\ncircumstances would be the case with many girls. She knew all that\r\nshe was prepared to abandon, but she understood also how much\r\nremained to her. Her life was her own, and with her life the energy\r\nto use it. Her soul was free. And her heart, though burdened with\r\nlove, could endure its load without sinking. Let him go forth on his\r\ncareer. She would remain in the shade, and be contented while she\r\nwatched it. So strictly wise and philosophically serene had Madeline become\r\nwithin a few days of Graham's departure, that she snubbed poor Mrs.\r\nBaker, when that good-natured and sharp-witted housekeeper said a\r\nword or two in praise of her late patient. \"We are very lonely, ain't we, miss, without Mr. Graham to look\r\nafter?\" said Mrs. Baker. \"I'm sure we are all very glad that he has so far recovered as to be\r\nable to be moved.\" \"That's in course,--though I still say that he went before he ought. He was such a nice gentleman. Where there's one better, there's\r\ntwenty worse; and as full of cleverness as an egg's full of meat.\" In\r\nanswer to which Madeline said nothing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"At any rate, Miss Madeline, you ought to say a word for him,\"\r\ncontinued Mrs. Baker; \"for he used to worship the sound of your\r\nvoice. I've known him lay there and listen, listen, listen, for your\r\nvery footfall.\" \"How can you talk such stuff, Mrs. Baker? You have never known\r\nanything of the kind--and even if he had, how could you know it? You\r\nshould not talk such nonsense to me, and I beg you won't again.\" Then\r\nshe went away, and began to read a paper about sick people written by\r\nFlorence Nightingale. But it was by no means Lady Staveley's desire that her daughter\r\nshould take to the Florence Nightingale line of life. The charities\r\nof Noningsby were done on a large scale, in a quiet, handsome,\r\nmethodical manner, and were regarded by the mistress of the mansion\r\nas a very material part of her life's duty; but she would have been\r\ndriven distracted had she been told that a daughter of hers was\r\nabout to devote herself exclusively to charity. Her ideas of general\r\nreligion were the same. Morning and evening prayers, church twice\r\non Sundays, attendance at the Lord's table at any rate once a month,\r\nwere to herself--and in her estimation for her own family--essentials\r\nof life. And they had on her their practical effects. She was not\r\ngiven to backbiting--though, when stirred by any motive near to her\r\nown belongings, she would say an ill-natured word or two."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was\r\nmild and forbearing to her inferiors. Her hand was open to the poor. She was devoted to her husband and her children. In no respect\r\nwas she self-seeking or self-indulgent. But, nevertheless, she\r\nappreciated thoroughly the comforts of a good income--for herself and\r\nfor her children. She liked to see nice-dressed and nice-mannered\r\npeople about her, preferring those whose fathers and mothers\r\nwere nice before them. She liked to go about in her own carriage,\r\ncomfortably. She liked the feeling that her husband was a judge, and\r\nthat he and she were therefore above other lawyers and other lawyers'\r\nwives. She would not like to have seen Mrs. Furnival walk out of a\r\nroom before her, nor perhaps to see Sophia Furnival when married take\r\nprecedence of her own married daughter. She liked to live in a large\r\nplace like Noningsby, and preferred country society to that of the\r\nneighbouring town. It will be said that I have drawn an impossible character, and\r\ndepicted a woman who served both God and Mammon. To this accusation\r\nI will not plead, but will ask my accusers whether in their life's\r\ntravail they have met no such ladies as Lady Staveley? But such as she was, whether good or bad, she had no desire whatever\r\nthat her daughter should withdraw herself from the world, and give\r\nup to sick women what was meant for mankind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her idea of a woman's\r\nduties comprehended the birth, bringing up, education, and settlement\r\nin life of children, also due attendance upon a husband, with a close\r\nregard to his special taste in cookery. There was her granddaughter\r\nMarian. She was already thinking what sort of a wife she would make,\r\nand what commencements of education would best fit her to be a good\r\nmother. It is hardly too much to say that Marian's future children\r\nwere already a subject of care to her. Such being her disposition, it\r\nwas by no means matter of joy to her when she found that Madeline was\r\nlaying out for herself little ways of life, tending in some slight\r\ndegree to the monastic. Nothing was said about it, but she fancied\r\nthat Madeline had doffed a ribbon or two in her usual evening attire. That she read during certain fixed hours in the morning was very\r\nmanifest. As to that daily afternoon service at four o'clock--she had\r\nvery often attended that, and it was hardly worthy of remark that\r\nshe now went to it every day. But there seemed at this time to be a\r\nmonotonous regularity about her visits to the poor, which told to\r\nLady Staveley's mind--she hardly knew what tale. She herself visited\r\nthe poor, seeing some of them almost daily. If it was foul weather\r\nthey came to her, and if it was fair weather she went to them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But\r\nMadeline, without saying a word to any one, had adopted a plan of\r\ngoing out exactly at the same hour with exactly the same object, in\r\nall sorts of weather. All this made Lady Staveley uneasy; and then,\r\nby way of counterpoise, she talked of balls, and offered Madeline\r\n_carte blanche_ as to a new dress for that special one which would\r\ngrace the assizes. \"I don't think I shall go,\" said Madeline; and\r\nthus Lady Staveley became really unhappy. Would not Felix Graham\r\nbe better than no son-in-law? When some one had once very strongly\r\npraised Florence Nightingale in Lady Staveley's presence, she had\r\nstoutly declared her opinion that it was a young woman's duty to get\r\nmarried. For myself, I am inclined to agree with her. Then came the\r\nsecond Friday after Graham's departure, and Lady Staveley observed,\r\nas she and her daughter sat at dinner alone, that Madeline would eat\r\nnothing but potatoes and sea-kale. \"My dear, you will be ill if you\r\ndon't eat some meat.\" \"Oh no, I shall not,\" said Madeline with her prettiest smile. \"But you always used to like minced veal.\" \"So I do, but I won't have any to-day, mamma, thank you.\" Then Lady Staveley resolved that she would tell the judge that Felix\r\nGraham, bad as he might be, might come there if he pleased. Even\r\nFelix Graham would be better than no son-in-law at all."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the following day, the Saturday, the judge came down with\r\nAugustus, to spend his last Sunday at home before the beginning of\r\nhis circuit, and some little conversation respecting Felix Graham did\r\ntake place between him and his wife. \"If they are both really fond of each other, they had better marry,\"\r\nsaid the judge, curtly. \"But it is terrible to think of their having no income,\" said his\r\nwife. \"We must get them an income. You'll find that Graham will fall on his\r\nlegs at last.\" \"He's a very long time before he begins to use them,\" said Lady\r\nStaveley. \"And then you know The Cleeve is such a nice property, and\r\nMr. Orme is--\"\r\n\r\n\"But, my love, it seems that she does not like Mr. Orme.\" \"No, she doesn't,\" said the poor mother in a tone of voice that\r\nwas very lachrymose. \"But if she would only wait she might like\r\nhim,--might she not now? He is such a very handsome young man.\" \"If you ask me, I don't think his beauty will do it.\" \"I don't suppose she cares for that sort of thing,\" said Lady\r\nStaveley, almost crying. \"But I'm sure of this, if she were to go and\r\nmake a nun of herself, it would break my heart,--it would, indeed. I\r\nshould never hold up my head again.\" What could Lady Staveley's idea have been of the sorrows of some\r\nother mothers, whose daughters throw themselves away after a\r\ndifferent fashion?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "After lunch on Sunday the judge asked his daughter to walk with him,\r\nand on that occasion the second church service was abandoned. She got\r\non her bonnet and gloves, her walking-boots and winter shawl, and\r\nputting her arm happily and comfortably within his, started for what\r\nshe knew would be a long walk. \"We'll get as far as the bottom of Cleeve Hill,\" said the judge. Now the bottom of Cleeve Hill, by the path across the fields and the\r\ncommon, was five miles from Noningsby. \"Oh, as for that, I'll walk to the top if you like,\" said Madeline. \"If you do, my dear, you'll have to go up alone,\" said the judge. And\r\nso they started. There was a crisp, sharp enjoyment attached to a long walk with her\r\nfather which Madeline always loved, and on the present occasion\r\nshe was willing to be very happy; but as she started, with her\r\narm beneath his, she feared she knew not what. She had a secret,\r\nand her father might touch upon it; she had a sore, though it was\r\nnot an unwholesome festering sore, and her father might probe the\r\nwound. There was, therefore, the slightest shade of hypocrisy in the\r\nalacrity with which she prepared herself, and in the pleasant tone of\r\nher voice as she walked down the avenue towards the gate."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But by the time that they had gone a mile, when their feet had left\r\nthe road and were pressing the grassy field-path, there was no longer\r\nany hypocrisy in her happiness. Madeline believed that no human being\r\ncould talk as did her father, and on this occasion he came out with\r\nhis freshest thoughts and his brightest wit. Nor did he, by any\r\nmeans, have the talk all to himself. The delight of Judge Staveley's\r\nconversation consisted chiefly in that--that though he might bring on\r\nto the carpet all the wit and all the information going, he rarely\r\nuttered much beyond his own share of words. And now they talked of\r\npictures and politics--of the new gallery that was not to be built at\r\nCharing Cross, and the great onslaught which was not to end in the\r\ndismissal of Ministers. And then they got to books--to novels, new\r\npoetry, magazines, essays, and reviews; and with the slightest touch\r\nof pleasant sarcasm the judge passed sentence on the latest efforts\r\nof his literary contemporaries. And thus at last they settled down on\r\na certain paper which had lately appeared in a certain Quarterly--a\r\npaper on a grave subject, which had been much discussed--and the\r\njudge on a sudden stayed his hand, and spared his raillery. \"You have\r\nnot heard, I suppose, who wrote that?\" said he. No; Madeline had not\r\nheard. She would much like to know."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When young people begin their\r\nworld of reading there is nothing so pleasant to them as knowing the\r\nlittle secrets of literature; who wrote this and that, of which folk\r\nare then talking;--who manages this periodical, and puts the salt and\r\npepper into those reviews. The judge always knew these events of the\r\ninner literary world, and would communicate them freely to Madeline\r\nas they walked. No; there was no longer the slightest touch of\r\nhypocrisy in her pleasant manner and eager voice as she answered,\r\n\"No, papa, I have not heard. Was it Mr. So-and-so?\" and she named an\r\nephemeral literary giant of the day. \"No,\" said the judge, \"it was\r\nnot So-and-so; but yet you might guess, as you know the gentleman.\" Then the slight shade of hypocrisy came upon her again in a moment. \"She couldn't guess,\" she said; \"she didn't know.\" But as she thus\r\nspoke the tone of her voice was altered. \"That article,\" said the\r\njudge, \"was written by Felix Graham. It is uncommonly clever, and yet\r\nthere are a great many people who abuse it.\" And now all conversation was stopped. Poor Madeline, who had been so\r\nready with her questions, so eager with her answers, so communicative\r\nand so inquiring, was stricken dumb on the instant."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had ceased\r\nfor some time to lean upon his arm, and therefore he could not feel\r\nher hand tremble; and he was too generous and too kind to look into\r\nher face; but he knew that he had touched the fibres of her heart,\r\nand that all her presence of mind had for the moment fled from her. Of course such was the case, and of course he knew it. Had he not\r\nbrought her out there, that they might be alone together when he\r\nsubjected her to the violence of this shower-bath? \"Yes,\" he continued, \"that was written by our friend Graham. Do you\r\nremember, Madeline, the conversation which you and I had about him in\r\nthe library some time since?\" \"Yes,\" she said, \"she remembered it.\" \"And so do I,\" said the judge, \"and have thought much about it since. A very clever fellow is Felix Graham. There can be no doubt of that.\" \"Is he?\" said Madeline. I am inclined to think that the judge also had lost something of his\r\npresence of mind, or, at least, of his usual power of conversation. He had brought his daughter out there with the express purpose of\r\nsaying to her a special word or two; he had beat very wide about the\r\nbush with the view of mentioning a certain name; and now that his\r\ndaughter was there, and the name had been mentioned, it seemed that\r\nhe hardly knew how to proceed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Yes, he is clever enough,\" repeated the judge, \"clever enough; and\r\nof high principles and an honest purpose. The fault which people find\r\nwith him is this,--that he is not practical. He won't take the world\r\nas he finds it. If he can mend it, well and good; we all ought to do\r\nsomething to mend it; but while we are mending it we must live in\r\nit.\" \"Yes, we must live in it,\" said Madeline, who hardly knew at the\r\nmoment whether it would be better to live or die in it. Had her\r\nfather remarked that they must all take wings and fly to heaven, she\r\nwould have assented. Then the judge walked on a few paces in silence, bethinking himself\r\nthat he might as well speak out at once the words which he had to\r\nsay. \"Madeline, my darling,\" said he, \"have you the courage to tell\r\nme openly what you think of Felix Graham?\" \"What I think of him, papa?\" \"Yes, my child. It may be that you are in some difficulty at this\r\nmoment, and that I can help you. It may be that your heart is sadder\r\nthan it would be if you knew all my thoughts and wishes respecting\r\nyou, and all your mother's. I have never had many secrets from my\r\nchildren, Madeline, and I should be pleased now if you could see into\r\nmy mind and know all my thoughts and wishes as they regard you.\" \"Dear papa!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"To see you happy--you and Augustus and Isabella--that is now\r\nour happiness; not to see you rich or great. High position and a\r\nplentiful income are great blessings in this world, so that they be\r\nachieved without a stain. But even in this world they are not the\r\ngreatest blessings. There are things much sweeter than them.\" As he\r\nsaid this, Madeline did not attempt to answer him, but she put her\r\narm once more within his, and clung to his side. \"Money and rank are only good, if every step by which they are gained\r\nbe good also. I should never blush to see my girl the wife of a poor\r\nman whom she loved; but I should be stricken to the core of my heart\r\nif I knew that she had become the wife of a rich man whom she did not\r\nlove.\" \"Papa!\" she said, clinging to him. She had meant to assure him that\r\nthat sorrow should never be his, but she could not get beyond the one\r\nword. \"If you love this man, let him come,\" said the judge, carried by his\r\nfeelings somewhat beyond the point to which he had intended to go. \"I know no harm of him. I know nothing but good of him. If you are\r\nsure of your own heart, let it be so. He shall be to me as another\r\nson,--to me and to your mother. Tell me, Madeline, shall it be so?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was sure enough of her own heart; but how was she to be sure of\r\nthat other heart? \"It shall be so,\" said her father. But a man could\r\nnot be turned into a lover and a husband because she and her father\r\nagreed to desire it;--not even if her mother would join in that\r\nwish. She had confessed to her mother that she loved this man, and\r\nthe confession had been repeated to her father. But she had never\r\nexpressed even a hope that she was loved in return. \"But he has never\r\nspoken to me, papa,\" she said, whispering the words ever so softly\r\nlest the winds should carry them. \"No; I know he has never spoken to you,\" said the judge. \"He told me\r\nso himself. I like him the better for that.\" So then there had been other communications made besides that which\r\nshe had made to her mother. Mr. Graham had spoken to her father, and\r\nhad spoken to him about her. In what way had he done this, and how\r\nhad he spoken? What had been his object, and when had it been done? Had she been indiscreet, and allowed him to read her secret? And then\r\na horrid thought came across her mind. Was he to come there and offer\r\nher his hand because he pitied and was sorry for her? The Friday\r\nfastings and the evening church and the sick visits would be better\r\nfar than that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She could not however muster courage to ask her father\r\nany question as to that interview between him and Mr. Graham. \"Well, my love,\" he said, \"I know it is impertinent to ask a young\r\nlady to speak on such a subject; but fathers are impertinent. Be\r\nfrank with me. I have told you what I think, and your mamma agrees\r\nwith me. Young Mr. Orme would have been her favourite--\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, papa, that is impossible.\" \"So I perceive, my dear, and therefore we will say no more about it. I only mention his name because I want you to understand that you may\r\nspeak to your mamma quite openly on the subject. He is a fine young\r\nfellow, is Peregrine Orme.\" \"I'm sure he is, papa.\" \"But that is no reason you should marry him if you don't like him.\" \"I could never like him,--in that way.\" \"Very well, my dear. There is an end of that, and I'm sorry for him. I think that if I had been a young man at The Cleeve, I should have\r\ndone just the same. And now let us decide this important question. When Master Graham's ribs, arms, and collar bones are a little\r\nstronger, shall we ask him to come back to Noningsby?\" \"If you please, papa.\" \"Very well, we'll have him here for the assize week. Poor fellow,\r\nhe'll have a hard job of work on hand just then, and won't have much\r\ntime for philandering."}
{"question": "", "answer": "With Chaffanbrass to watch him on his own\r\nside, and Leatherham on the other, I don't envy him his position. I\r\nalmost think I should keep my arm in the sling till the assizes were\r\nover, by way of exciting a little pity.\" \"Is Mr. Graham going to defend Lady Mason?\" \"To help to do so, my dear.\" \"But, papa, she is innocent; don't you feel sure of that?\" The judge was not quite so sure as he had been once. However, he said\r\nnothing of his doubts to Madeline. \"Mr. Graham's task on that account\r\nwill only be the more trying if it becomes difficult to establish her\r\ninnocence.\" \"Poor lady!\" said Madeline. \"You won't be the judge; will you, papa?\" \"No, certainly not. I would have preferred to have gone any other\r\ncircuit than to have presided in a case affecting so near a\r\nneighbour, and I may almost say a friend. Baron Maltby will sit in\r\nthat court.\" \"And will Mr. Graham have to do much, papa?\" \"It will be an occasion of very great anxiety to him, no doubt.\" And\r\nthen they began to return home,--Madeline forming a little plan in\r\nher mind by which Mr. Furnival and Mr. Chaffanbrass were to fail\r\nabsolutely in making out that lady's innocence, but the fact was to\r\nbe established to the satisfaction of the whole court, and of all the\r\nworld, by the judicious energy of Felix Graham."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On their homeward journey the judge again spoke of pictures and\r\nbooks, of failures and successes, and Madeline listened to him\r\ngratefully. But she did not again take much part in the conversation. She could not now express a very fluent opinion on any subject, and\r\nto tell the truth, could have been well satisfied to have been left\r\nentirely to her own thoughts. But just before they came out again\r\nupon the road, her father stopped her and asked a direct question. \"Tell me, Madeline, are you happy now?\" [Illustration: \"Tell me, Madeline, are you happy now?\"] \"Yes, papa.\" \"That is right. And what you are to understand is this; Mr. Graham\r\nwill now be privileged by your mother and me to address you. He has\r\nalready asked my permission to do so, and I told him that I must\r\nconsider the matter before I either gave it or withheld it. I shall\r\nnow give him that permission.\" Whereupon Madeline made her answer by\r\na slight pressure upon his arm. \"But you may be sure of this, my dear; I shall be very discreet, and\r\ncommit you to nothing. If he should choose to ask you any question,\r\nyou will be at liberty to give him any answer that you may think\r\nfit.\" But Madeline at once confessed to herself that no such liberty\r\nremained to her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If Mr. Graham should choose to ask her a certain\r\nquestion, it would be in her power to give him only one answer. Had\r\nhe been kept away, had her father told her that such a marriage might\r\nnot be, she would not have broken her heart. She had already told\r\nherself, that under such circumstances, she could live and still live\r\ncontented. But now,--now if the siege were made, the town would have\r\nto capitulate at the first shot. Was it not an understood thing that\r\nthe governor had been recommended by the king to give up the keys as\r\nsoon as they were asked for? \"You will tell your mamma of this my dear,\" said the judge, as they\r\nwere entering their own gate. \"Yes,\" said Madeline. But she felt that, in this matter, her father\r\nwas more surely her friend than her mother. And indeed she could\r\nunderstand her mother's opposition to poor Felix, much better than\r\nher father's acquiescence. \"Do, my dear. What is anything to us in this world, if we are not all\r\nhappy together? She thinks that you have become sad, and she must\r\nknow that you are so no longer.\" \"But I have not been sad, papa,\" said Madeline, thinking with some\r\npride of her past heroism. When they reached the hall-door she had one more question to ask; but\r\nshe could not look in her father's face as she asked. \"Papa, is that review you were speaking of here at Noningsby?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You will find it on my study table; but remember, Madeline, I don't\r\nabove half go along with him.\" The judge went into his study before dinner, and found that the\r\nreview had been taken. CHAPTER LIX. NO SURRENDER. Sir Peregrine Orme had gone up to London, had had his interview with\r\nMr. Round, and had failed. He had then returned home, and hardly a\r\nword on the subject had been spoken between him and Mrs. Orme. Indeed\r\nlittle or nothing was now said between them as to Lady Mason or the\r\ntrial. What was the use of speaking on a subject that was in every\r\nway the cause of so much misery? He had made up his mind that it was\r\nno longer possible for him to take any active step in the matter. He\r\nhad become bail for her appearance in court, and that was the last\r\ntrifling act of friendship which he could show her. How was it any\r\nlonger possible that he could befriend her? He could not speak up\r\non her behalf with eager voice, and strong indignation against her\r\nenemies, as had formerly been his practice. He could give her no\r\ncounsel. His counsel would have taught her to abandon the property\r\nin the first instance, let the result be what it might. He had made\r\nhis little effort in that direction by seeing the attorney, and his\r\nlittle effort had been useless."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was quite clear to him that there\r\nwas nothing further for him to do;--nothing further for him, who\r\nbut a week or two since was so actively putting himself forward and\r\nletting the world know that he was Lady Mason's champion. Would he have to go into court as a witness? His mind was troubled\r\nmuch in his endeavour to answer that question. He had been her\r\ngreat friend. For years he had been her nearest neighbour. His\r\ndaughter-in-law still clung to her. She had lived at his house. She\r\nhad been chosen to be his wife. Who could speak to her character, if\r\nhe could not do so? And yet, what could he say, if so called on? Mr.\r\nFurnival, Mr. Chaffanbrass--all those who would have the selection\r\nof the witnesses, believing themselves in their client's innocence,\r\nas no doubt they did, would of course imagine that he believed in it\r\nalso. Could he tell them that it would not be in his power to utter a\r\nsingle word in her favour? In these days Mrs. Orme went daily to the Farm. Indeed, she never\r\nmissed a day from that on which Lady Mason left The Cleeve up to the\r\ntime of the trial. It seemed to Sir Peregrine that his daughter's\r\naffection for this woman had grown with the knowledge of her guilt;\r\nbut, as I have said before, no discussion on the matter now took\r\nplace between them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Orme would generally take some opportunity\r\nof saying that she had been at Orley Farm; but that was all. Sir Peregrine during this time never left the house once, except for\r\nmorning service on Sundays. He hung his hat up on its accustomed peg\r\nwhen he returned from that ill-omened visit to Mr. Round, and did not\r\nmove it for days, ay, for weeks,--except on Sunday mornings. At first\r\nhis groom would come to him, suggesting to him that he should ride,\r\nand the woodman would speak to him about the young coppices; but\r\nafter a few days they gave up their efforts. His grandson also strove\r\nto take him out, speaking to him more earnestly than the servants\r\nwould do, but it was of no avail. Peregrine, indeed, gave up the\r\nattempt sooner, for to him his grandfather did in some sort confess\r\nhis own weakness. \"I have had a blow,\" said he; \"Peregrine, I have\r\nhad a blow. I am too old to bear up against it;--too old and too\r\nweak.\" Peregrine knew that he alluded in some way to that proposed\r\nmarriage, but he was quite in the dark as to the manner in which his\r\ngrandfather had been affected by it. \"People think nothing of that now, sir,\" said he, groping in the dark\r\nas he strove to administer consolation. \"People will think of it;--and I think of it. But never mind, my boy. I have lived my life, and am contented with it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have lived my life,\r\nand have great joy that such as you are left behind to take my place. If I had really injured you I should have broken my heart--have\r\nbroken my heart.\" Peregrine of course assured him that let what would come to him the\r\npride which he had in his grandfather would always support him. \"I\r\ndon't know anybody else that I could be so proud of,\" said Peregrine;\r\n\"for nobody else that I see thinks so much about other people. And I\r\nalways was, even when I didn't seem to think much about it;--always.\" Poor Peregrine! Circumstances had somewhat altered him since that\r\nday, now not more than six months ago, in which he had pledged\r\nhimself to abandon the delights of Cowcross Street. As long as there\r\nwas a hope for him with Madeline Staveley all this might be very\r\nwell. He preferred Madeline to Cowcross Street with all its delights. But when there should be no longer any hope--and indeed, as things\r\nwent now, there was but little ground for hoping--what then? Might it\r\nnot be that his trial had come on him too early in life, and that he\r\nwould solace himself in his disappointment, if not with Carroty Bob,\r\nwith companionships and pursuits which would be as objectionable, and\r\nperhaps more expensive?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "On three or four occasions his grandfather asked him how things\r\nwere going at Noningsby, striving to interest himself in something\r\nas to which the outlook was not altogether dismal, and by degrees\r\nlearned,--not exactly all the truth--but as much of the truth as\r\nPeregrine knew. \"Do as she tells you,\" said the grandfather, referring to Lady\r\nStaveley's last words. \"I suppose I must,\" said Peregrine, sadly. \"There's nothing else for\r\nit. But if there's anything that I hate in this world, it's waiting.\" \"You are both very young,\" said his grandfather. \"Yes; we are what people call young, I suppose. But I don't\r\nunderstand all that. Why isn't a fellow to be happy when he's young\r\nas well as when he's old?\" Sir Peregrine did not answer him, but no doubt thought that he might\r\nalter his opinion in a few years. There is great doubt as to what may\r\nbe the most enviable time of life with a man."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am inclined to think\r\nthat it is at that period when his children have all been born but\r\nhave not yet began to go astray or to vex him with disappointment;\r\nwhen his own pecuniary prospects are settled, and he knows pretty\r\nwell what his tether will allow him; when the appetite is still good\r\nand the digestive organs at their full power; when he has ceased to\r\ncare as to the length of his girdle, and before the doctor warns\r\nhim against solid breakfasts and port wine after dinner; when his\r\naffectations are over and his infirmities have not yet come upon him;\r\nwhile he can still walk his ten miles, and feel some little pride in\r\nbeing able to do so; while he has still nerve to ride his horse to\r\nhounds, and can look with some scorn on the ignorance of younger men\r\nwho have hardly yet learned that noble art. As regards men, this,\r\nI think, is the happiest time of life; but who shall answer the\r\nquestion as regards women? In this respect their lot is more liable\r\nto disappointment. With the choicest flowers that blow the sweetest\r\naroma of their perfection lasts but for a moment. The hour that sees\r\nthem at their fullest glory sees also the beginning of their fall. On one morning before the trial Sir Peregrine rang his bell and\r\nrequested that Mr. Peregrine might be asked to come to him. Mr."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Peregrine was out at the moment, and did not make his appearance much\r\nbefore dark, but the baronet had fully resolved upon having this\r\ninterview, and ordered that the dinner should be put back for half\r\nan hour. \"Tell Mrs. Orme, with my compliments,\" he said, \"that if it\r\ndoes not put her to inconvenience we will not dine till seven.\" It\r\nput Mrs. Orme to no inconvenience; but I am inclined to agree with\r\nthe cook, who remarked that the compliments ought to have been sent\r\nto her. \"Sit down, Peregrine,\" he said, when his grandson entered his room\r\nwith his thick boots and muddy gaiters. \"I have been thinking of\r\nsomething.\" \"I and Samson have been cutting down trees all day,\" said Peregrine. \"You've no conception how the water lies down in the bottom there;\r\nand there's a fall every yard down to the river. It's a sin not to\r\ndrain it.\" \"Any sins of that kind, my boy, shall lie on your own head for the\r\nfuture. I will wash my hands of them.\" \"Then I'll go to work at once,\" said Peregrine, not quite\r\nunderstanding his grandfather. \"You must go to work on more than that, Peregrine.\" And then the old\r\nman paused. \"You must not think that I am doing this because I am\r\nunhappy for the hour, or that I shall repent it when the moment has\r\ngone by.\" \"Doing what?\" asked Peregrine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I have thought much of it, and I know that I am right. I cannot get\r\nout as I used to do, and do not care to meet people about business.\" \"I never knew you more clear-headed in my life, sir.\" \"Well, perhaps not. We'll say nothing about that. What I intend to do\r\nis this;--to give up the property into your hands at Lady-day. You\r\nshall be master of The Cleeve from that time forth.\" \"Sir?\" \"The truth is, you desire employment, and I don't. The property is\r\nsmall, and therefore wants the more looking after. I have never had\r\na regular land steward, but have seen to that myself. If you'll take\r\nmy advice you'll do the same. There is no better employment for a\r\ngentleman. So now, my boy, you may go to work and drain wherever you\r\nlike. About that Crutchley bottom I have no doubt you're right. I\r\ndon't know why it has been neglected.\" These last words the baronet\r\nuttered in a weak, melancholy tone, asking, as it were, forgiveness\r\nfor his fault; whereas he had spoken out the purport of his great\r\nresolution with a clear, strong voice, as though the saying of the\r\nwords pleased him well. \"I could not hear of such a thing as that,\" said his grandson, after\r\na short pause. \"But you have heard it, Perry, and you may be quite sure that I\r\nshould not have named it had I not fully resolved upon it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have\r\nbeen thinking of it for days, and have quite made up my mind. You\r\nwon't turn me out of the house, I know.\" \"All the same, I will not hear of it,\" said the young man, stoutly. \"Peregrine!\" \"I know very well what it all means, sir, and I am not at all\r\nastonished. You have wished to do something out of sheer goodness of\r\nheart, and you have been balked.\" \"We will not talk about that, Peregrine.\" \"But I must say a few words about it. All that has made you unhappy,\r\nand--and--and--\" He wanted to explain that his grandfather was\r\nashamed of his baffled attempt, and for that reason was cowed and\r\ndown at heart at the present moment; but that in the three or four\r\nmonths when this trial would be over and the wonder passed away, all\r\nthat would be forgotten, and he would be again as well as ever. But\r\nPeregrine, though he understood all this, was hardly able to express\r\nhimself. \"My boy,\" said the old man, \"I know very well what you mean. What\r\nyou say is partly true, and partly not quite true. Some day, perhaps,\r\nwhen we are sitting here together over the fire, I shall be better\r\nable to talk over all this; but not now, Perry. God has been very\r\ngood to me, and given me so much that I will not repine at this\r\nsorrow. I have lived my life, and am content.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh yes, of course all that's true enough. And if God should choose\r\nthat you should--die, you know, or I either, some people would be\r\nsorry, but we shouldn't complain ourselves. But what I say is this:\r\nyou should never give up as long as you live. There's a sort of\r\nfeeling about it which I can't explain. One should always say to\r\noneself, No surrender.\" And Peregrine, as he spoke, stood up from his\r\nchair, thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets, and shook his head. [Illustration: \"No Surrender.\"] Sir Peregrine smiled as he answered him. \"But Perry, my boy, we can't\r\nalways say that. When the heart and the spirit and the body have all\r\nsurrendered, why should the voice tell a foolish falsehood?\" \"But it shouldn't be a falsehood,\" said Peregrine. \"Nobody should\r\never knock under of his own accord.\" \"You are quite right there, my boy; you are quite right there. Stick\r\nto that yourself. But, remember, that you are not to knock under to\r\nany of your enemies. The worst that you will meet with are folly, and\r\nvice, and extravagance.\" \"That's of course,\" said Peregrine, by no means wishing on the\r\npresent occasion to bring under discussion his future contests with\r\nany such enemies as those now named by his grandfather. \"And now, suppose you dress for dinner,\" said the baronet. \"I've got\r\nahead of you there you see. What I've told you to-day I have already\r\ntold your mother.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I'm sure she doesn't think you right.\" \"If she thinks me wrong, she is too kind and well-behaved to\r\nsay so,--which is more than I can say for her son. Your mother,\r\nPerry, never told me that I was wrong yet, though she has had many\r\noccasions;--too many, too many. But, come, go and dress for dinner.\" \"You are wrong in this, sir, if ever you were wrong in your life,\"\r\nsaid Peregrine, leaving the room. His grandfather did not answer him\r\nagain, but followed him out of the door, and walked briskly across\r\nthe hall into the drawing-room. \"There's Peregrine been lecturing me about draining,\" he said to his\r\ndaughter-in-law, striving to speak in a half-bantering tone of voice,\r\nas though things were going well with him. \"Lecturing you!\" said Mrs. Orme. \"And he's right, too. There's nothing like it. He'll make a better\r\nfarmer, I take it, than Lucius Mason. You'll live to see him know the\r\nvalue of an acre of land as well as any man in the county. It's the\r\nvery thing that he's fit for. He'll do better with the property than\r\never I did.\" There was something beautiful in the effort which the old man was\r\nmaking when watched by the eyes of one who knew him as well as did\r\nhis daughter-in-law. She knew him, and understood all the workings of\r\nhis mind, and the deep sorrow of his heart."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In very truth, the star\r\nof his life was going out darkly under a cloud; but he was battling\r\nagainst his sorrow and shame--not that he might be rid of them\r\nhimself, but that others might not have to share them. That doctrine\r\nof \"No surrender\" was strong within his bosom, and he understood\r\nthe motto in a finer sense than that in which his grandson had used\r\nit. He would not tell them that his heart was broken,--not if he\r\ncould help it. He would not display his wound if it might be in his\r\npower to hide it. He would not confess that lands, and houses, and\r\nseignorial functions were no longer of value in his eyes. As far as\r\nmight be possible he would bear his own load till that and the memory\r\nof his last folly might be hidden together in the grave. But he knew that he was no longer fit for a man's work, and that\r\nit would be well that he should abandon it. He had made a terrible\r\nmistake. In his old age he had gambled for a large stake, and had\r\nlost it all. He had ventured to love;--to increase the small number\r\nof those who were nearest and dearest to him, to add one to those\r\nwhom he regarded as best and purest,--and he had been terribly\r\ndeceived."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had for many years almost worshipped the one lady who\r\nhad sat at his table, and now in his old age he had asked her to\r\nshare her place of honour with another. What that other was need not\r\nnow be told. And the world knew that this woman was to have been his\r\nwife! He had boasted loudly that he would give her that place and\r\nthose rights. He had ventured his all upon her innocence and her\r\npurity. He had ventured his all,--and he had lost. I do not say that on this account there was any need that he should\r\nbe stricken to the ground,--that it behoved him as a man of high\r\nfeeling to be broken-hearted. He would have been a greater man had\r\nhe possessed the power to bear up against all this, and to go forth\r\nto the world bearing his burden bravely on his shoulders. But Sir\r\nPeregrine Orme was not a great man, and possessed few or none of the\r\nelements of greatness. He was a man of a singularly pure mind, and\r\nendowed with a strong feeling of chivalry. It had been everything to\r\nhim to be spoken of by the world as a man free from reproach,--who\r\nhad lived with clean hands and with clean people around him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All\r\nmanner of delinquencies he could forgive in his dependents which did\r\nnot tell of absolute baseness; but it would have half killed him had\r\nhe ever learned that those he loved had become false or fraudulent. When his grandson had come to trouble about the rats, he had acted,\r\nnot over-cleverly, a certain amount of paternal anger; but had\r\nPeregrine broken his promise to him, no acting would have been\r\nnecessary. It may therefore be imagined what were now his feelings as\r\nto Lady Mason. Her he could forgive for deceiving him. He had told his\r\ndaughter-in-law that he would forgive her; and it was a thing done. But he could not forgive himself in that he had been deceived. He\r\ncould not forgive himself for having mingled with the sweet current\r\nof his Edith's life the foul waters of that criminal tragedy. He\r\ncould not now bid her desert Lady Mason: for was it not true that the\r\nwoman's wickedness was known to them two, through her resolve not to\r\ninjure those who had befriended her? But all this made the matter\r\nworse rather than better to him. It is all very well to say, \"No\r\nsurrender;\" but when the load placed upon the back is too heavy to be\r\nborne, the back must break or bend beneath it. His load was too heavy to be borne, and therefore he said to himself\r\nthat he would put it down."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He would not again see Lord Alston and\r\nthe old friends of former days. He would attend no more at the\r\nmagistrates' bench, but would send his grandson out into his place. For the few days that remained to him in this world, he might be well\r\ncontented to abandon the turmoils and troubles of life. \"It will not\r\nbe for long,\" he said to himself over and over again. And then he\r\nwould sit in his arm-chair for hours, intending to turn his mind\r\nto such solemn thoughts as might befit a dying man. But, as he sat\r\nthere, he would still think of Lady Mason. He would remember her as\r\nshe had leaned against his breast on that day that he kissed her; and\r\nthen he would remember her as she was when she spoke those horrid\r\nwords to him--\"Yes; I did it; at night, when I was alone.\" And this\r\nwas the woman whom he had loved! This was the woman whom he still\r\nloved,--if all the truth might be confessed. His grandson, though he read much of his grandfather's mind, had\r\nfailed to read it all. He did not know how often Sir Peregrine\r\nrepeated to himself those words, \"No Surrender,\" or how gallantly\r\nhe strove to live up to them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lands and money and seats of honour\r\nhe would surrender, as a man surrenders his tools when he has done\r\nhis work; but his tone of feeling and his principle he would not\r\nsurrender, though the maintenance of them should crush him with their\r\nweight. The woman had been very vile, desperately false, wicked\r\nbeyond belief, with premeditated villany, for years and years;--and\r\nthis was the woman whom he had wished to make the bosom companion of\r\nhis latter days! \"Samson is happy now, I suppose, that he has got the axe in his\r\nhand,\" he said to his grandson. \"Pretty well for that, sir, I think.\" \"That man will cut down every tree about the place, if you'll let\r\nhim.\" And in that way he strove to talk about the affairs of the\r\nproperty. CHAPTER LX. WHAT REBEKAH DID FOR HER SON. Every day Mrs. Orme went up to Orley Farm and sat for two hours\r\nwith Lady Mason. We may say that there was now no longer any secret\r\nbetween them, and that she whose life had been so innocent, so pure,\r\nand so good, could look into the inmost heart and soul of that other\r\nwoman whose career had been supported by the proceeds of one terrible\r\nlife-long iniquity."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And now, by degrees, Lady Mason would begin to\r\nplead for herself, or rather, to put in a plea for the deed she had\r\ndone, acknowledging, however, that she, the doer of it, had fallen\r\nalmost below forgiveness through the crime. \"Was he not his son as\r\nmuch as that other one; and had I not deserved of him that he should\r\ndo this thing for me?\" And again \"Never once did I ask of him any\r\nfavour for myself from the day that I gave myself to him, because he\r\nhad been good to my father and mother. Up to the very hour of his\r\ndeath I never asked him to spend a shilling on my own account. But I\r\nasked him to do this thing for his child; and when at last he refused\r\nme, I told him that I myself would cause it to be done.\" \"You told him so?\" \"I did; and I think that he believed me. He knew that I was one who\r\nwould act up to my word. I told him that Orley Farm should belong to\r\nour babe.\" \"And what did he say?\" \"He bade me beware of my soul. My answer was very terrible, and I\r\nwill not shock you with it. Ah me! it is easy to talk of repentance,\r\nbut repentance will not come with a word.\" In these days Mrs. Orme became gradually aware that hitherto she had\r\ncomprehended but little of Lady Mason's character."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was a power\r\nof endurance about her, and a courage that was almost awful to the\r\nmind of the weaker, softer, and better woman. Lady Mason, during\r\nher sojourn at The Cleeve, had seemed almost to sink under her\r\nmisfortune; nor had there been any hypocrisy, any pretence in her\r\napparent misery. She had been very wretched;--as wretched a human\r\ncreature, we may say, as any crawling God's earth at that time. But\r\nshe had borne her load, and, bearing it, had gone about her work,\r\nstill striving with desperate courage as the ground on which she trod\r\ncontinued to give way beneath her feet, inch by inch. They had known\r\nand pitied her misery; they had loved her for misery--as it is in\r\nthe nature of such people to do;--but they had little known how great\r\nhad been the cause for it. They had sympathised with the female\r\nweakness which had succumbed when there was hardly any necessity for\r\nsuccumbing. Had they then known all, they would have wondered at the\r\nstrength which made a struggle possible under such circumstances. Even now she would not yield. I have said that there had been no\r\nhypocrisy in her misery during those weeks last past; and I have said\r\nso truly. But there had perhaps been some pretences, some acting of a\r\npart, some almost necessary pretence as to her weakness. Was she not\r\nbound to account to those around her for her great sorrow?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And was it\r\nnot above all things needful that she should enlist their sympathy\r\nand obtain their aid? She had been obliged to cry to them for help,\r\nthough obliged also to confess that there was little reason for such\r\ncrying. \"I am a woman, and weak,\" she had said, \"and therefore cannot\r\nwalk alone, now that the way is stony.\" But what had been the truth\r\nwith her? How would she have cried, had it been possible for her to\r\nutter the sharp cry of her heart? The waters had been closing over\r\nher head, and she had clutched at a hand to save her; but the owner\r\nof that hand might not know how imminent, how close was the danger. But in these days, as she sat in her own room with Mrs. Orme, the\r\nowner of that hand might know everything. The secret had been told,\r\nand there was no longer need for pretence. As she could now expose\r\nto view the whole load of her wretchedness, so also could she make\r\nknown the strength that was still left for endurance. And these two\r\nwomen who had become endeared to each other under such terrible\r\ncircumstances, came together at these meetings with more of the\r\nequality of friendship than had ever existed at The Cleeve."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It may\r\nseem strange that it should be so--strange that the acknowledged\r\nforger of her husband's will should be able to maintain a better\r\nclaim for equal friendship than the lady who was believed to be\r\ninnocent and true! But it was so. Now she stood on true ground;--now,\r\nas she sat there with Mrs. Orme, she could speak from her heart,\r\npouring forth the real workings of her mind. From Mrs. Orme she had\r\nno longer aught to fear; nor from Sir Peregrine. Everything was known\r\nto them, and she could now tell of every incident of her crime with\r\nan outspoken boldness that in itself was incompatible with the humble\r\nbearing of an inferior in the presence of one above her. And she did still hope. The one point to be gained was this; that\r\nher son, her only son, the child on whose behalf this crime had been\r\ncommitted, should never know her shame, or live to be disgraced by\r\nher guilt. If she could be punished, she would say, and he left in\r\nignorance of her punishment, she would not care what indignities\r\nthey might heap upon her. She had heard of penal servitude, of years,\r\nterribly long, passed in all the misery of vile companionship; of\r\nsolitary confinement, and the dull madness which it engenders; of\r\nall the terrors of a life spent under circumstances bearable only by\r\nthe uneducated, the rude, and the vile."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But all this was as nothing\r\nto her compared with the loss of honour to her son. \"I should live,\"\r\nshe would say; \"but he would die. You cannot ask me to become his\r\nmurderer!\" It was on this point that they differed always. Mrs. Orme would\r\nhave had her confess everything to Lucius, and strove to make her\r\nunderstand that if he were so told, the blow would fall less heavily\r\nthan it would do if the knowledge came to him from her conviction at\r\nthe trial. But the mother would not bring herself to believe that it\r\nwas absolutely necessary that he should ever know it. \"There was the\r\nproperty! Yes; but let the trial come, and if she were acquitted,\r\nthen let some arrangement be made about that. The lawyers might find\r\nout some cause why it should be surrendered.\" But Mrs. Orme feared\r\nthat if the trial were over, and the criminal saved from justice,\r\nthe property would not be surrendered. And then how would that wish\r\nof repentance be possible? After all was not that the one thing\r\nnecessary? I will not say that Mrs. Orme in these days ever regretted that her\r\nsympathy and friendship had been thus bestowed, but she frequently\r\nacknowledged to herself that the position was too difficult for her. There was no one whose assistance she could ask; for she felt that\r\nshe could not in this matter ask counsel from Sir Peregrine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She\r\nherself was good, and pure, and straightminded, and simple in her\r\nperception of right and wrong; but Lady Mason was greater than she in\r\nforce of character,--a stronger woman in every way, endowed with more\r\nforce of will, with more power of mind, with greater energy, and\r\na swifter flow of words. Sometimes she almost thought it would be\r\nbetter that she should stay away from Orley Farm; but then she\r\nhad promised to be true to her wretched friend, and the mother's\r\nsolicitude for her son still softened the mother's heart. In these days, till the evening came, Lucius Mason never made his way\r\ninto his mother's sitting-room, which indeed was the drawing-room of\r\nthe house,--and he and Mrs. Orme, as a rule, hardly ever met each\r\nother. If he saw her as she entered or left the place, he would lift\r\nhis hat to her and pass by without speaking. He was not admitted to\r\nthose councils of his mother's, and would not submit to ask after\r\nhis mother's welfare or to inquire as to her affairs from a stranger. On no other subject was it possible that he should now speak to the\r\ndaily visitor and the only visitor at Orley Farm. All this Mrs. Orme\r\nunderstood, and saw that the young man was alone and comfortless. He\r\npassed his hours below, in his own room, and twice a day his mother\r\nfound him in the parlour, and then they sat through their silent,\r\nmiserable meals."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She would then leave him, always saying some soft\r\nwords of motherly love, and putting her hand either upon his shoulder\r\nor his arm. On such occasions he was never rough to her, but he would\r\nnever respond to her caress. She had ill-treated him, preferring in\r\nher trouble the assistance of a stranger to his assistance. She would\r\nask him neither for his money nor his counsel, and as she had thus\r\nchosen to stand aloof from him, he also would stand aloof from her. Not for always,--as he said to himself over and over again; for his\r\nheart misgave him when he saw the lines of care so plainly written\r\non his mother's brow. Not for always should it be so. The day of the\r\ntrial would soon be present, and the day of the trial would soon be\r\nover; then again would they be friends. Poor young man! Unfortunate\r\nyoung man! Mrs. Orme saw all this, and to her it was very terrible. What would\r\nbe the world to her, if her boy should frown at her, and look black\r\nwhen she caressed him? And she thought that it was the fault of\r\nthe mother rather than of the son; as indeed was not all that\r\nwretchedness the mother's fault? But then again, there was the one\r\ngreat difficulty. How could any step be taken in the right direction\r\ntill the whole truth had been confessed to him?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "The two women were sitting together in that up stairs room; and the\r\nday of the trial was now not a full week distant from them, when Mrs.\r\nOrme again tried to persuade the mother to intrust her son with the\r\nburden of all her misery. On the preceding day Mr. Solomon Aram had\r\nbeen down at Orley Farm, and had been with Lady Mason for an hour. \"He knows the truth!\" Lady Mason had said to her friend. \"I am sure\r\nof that.\" \"But did he ask you?\" \"Oh, no, he did not ask me that. He asked of little things that\r\nhappened at the time; but from his manner I am sure he knows it all. He says--that I shall escape.\" \"Did he say escape?\" \"No; not that word, but it was the same thing. He spoke to Lucius,\r\nfor I saw them on the lawn together.\" \"You do not know what he said to him?\" \"No; for Lucius would not speak to me, and I could not ask him.\" And\r\nthen they both were silent, for Mrs. Orme was thinking how she could\r\nbring about that matter that was so near her heart. Lady Mason was\r\nseated in a large old-fashioned arm-chair, in which she now passed\r\nnearly all her time. The table was by her side, but she rarely turned\r\nherself to it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She sat leaning with her elbow on her arm, supporting\r\nher face with her hand; and opposite to her, so close that she might\r\nlook into her face and watch every movement of her eyes, sat Mrs.\r\nOrme,--intent upon that one thing, that the woman before her should\r\nbe brought to repent the evil she had done. \"And you have not spoken to Lucius?\" \"No,\" she answered. \"No more than I have told you. What could I say\r\nto him about the man?\" \"Not about Mr. Aram. It might not be necessary to speak of him. He\r\nhas his work to do; and I suppose that he must do it in his own way?\" \"Yes; he must do it, in his own way. Lucius would not understand.\" \"Unless you told him everything, of course he could not understand.\" \"That is impossible.\" \"No, Lady Mason, it is not impossible. Dear Lady Mason, do not turn\r\nfrom me in that way. It is for your sake,--because I love you, that I\r\npress you to do this. If he knew it all--\"\r\n\r\n\"Could you tell your son such a tale?\" said Lady Mason, turning upon\r\nher sharply, and speaking almost with an air of anger. Mrs. Orme was for a moment silenced, for she could not at once bring\r\nherself to conceive it possible that she could be so circumstanced. But at last she answered. \"Yes,\" she said, \"I think I could, if--.\" And then she paused."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If you had done such a deed! Ah, you do not know, for the doing of\r\nit would be impossible to you. You can never understand what was my\r\nchildhood, and how my young years were passed. I never loved anything\r\nbut him;--that is, till I knew you, and--and--.\" But instead of\r\nfinishing her sentence she pointed down towards The Cleeve. \"How,\r\nthen, can I tell him? Mrs. Orme, I would let them pull me to pieces,\r\nbit by bit, if in that way I could save him.\" \"Not in that way,\" said Mrs. Orme; \"not in that way.\" But Lady Mason went on pouring forth the pent-up feelings of her\r\nbosom, not regarding the faint words of her companion. \"Till he lay\r\nin my arms I had loved nothing. From my earliest years I had been\r\ntaught to love money, wealth, and property; but as to myself the\r\nteachings had never come home to me. When they bade me marry the old\r\nman because he was rich, I obeyed them,--not caring for his riches,\r\nbut knowing that it behoved me to relieve them of the burden of my\r\nsupport. He was kinder to me than they had been, and I did for him\r\nthe best I could. But his money and his wealth were little to me. He\r\ntold me over and over again that when he died I should have the means\r\nto live, and that was enough."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I would not pretend to him that I cared\r\nfor the grandeur of his children who despised me. But then came my\r\nbaby, and the world was all altered for me. What could I do for the\r\nonly thing that I had ever called my own? Money and riches they had\r\ntold me were everything.\" \"But they had told you wrong,\" said Mrs. Orme, as she wiped the tears\r\nfrom her eyes. \"They had told me falsely. I had heard nothing but falsehoods from my\r\nyouth upwards,\" she answered fiercely. \"For myself I had not cared\r\nfor these things; but why should not he have money and riches and\r\nland? His father had them to give over and above what had already\r\nmade those sons and daughters so rich and proud. Why should not this\r\nother child also be his father's heir? Was he not as well born as\r\nthey? was he not as fair a child? What did Rebekah do, Mrs. Orme? Did\r\nshe not do worse; and did it not all go well with her? Why should my\r\nboy be an Ishmael? Why should I be treated as the bondwoman, and see\r\nmy little one perish of thirst in this world's wilderness?\" \"No Saviour had lived and died for the world in those days,\" said\r\nMrs. Orme. \"And no Saviour had lived and died for me,\" said the wretched woman,\r\nalmost shrieking in her despair."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The lines of her face were terrible\r\nto be seen as she thus spoke, and an agony of anguish loaded her brow\r\nupon which Mrs. Orme was frightened to look. She fell on her knees\r\nbefore the wretched woman, and taking her by both her hands strove\r\nall she could to find some comfort for her. \"Ah, do not say so. Do not say that. Whatever may come, that\r\nmisery--that worst of miseries need not oppress you. If that indeed\r\nwere true!\" \"It was true;--and how should it be otherwise?\" \"But now,--now. It need not be true now. Lady Mason, for your soul's\r\nsake say that it is so now.\" \"Mrs. Orme,\" she said, speaking with a singular quiescence of tone\r\nafter the violence of her last words, \"it seems to me that I care\r\nmore for his soul than for my own. For myself I can bear even that. But if he were a castaway--!\" I will not attempt to report the words that passed between them for\r\nthe next half-hour, for they concerned a matter which I may not dare\r\nto handle too closely in such pages as these. But Mrs. Orme still\r\nknelt there at her feet, pressing Lady Mason's hands, pressing\r\nagainst her knees, as with all the eagerness of true affection she\r\nendeavoured to bring her to a frame of mind that would admit of some\r\ncomfort."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But it all ended in this:--Let everything be told to Lucius,\r\nso that the first step back to honesty might be taken,--and then let\r\nthem trust to Him whose mercy can ever temper the wind to the shorn\r\nlamb. But, as Lady Mason had once said to herself, repentance will not come\r\nwith a word. \"I cannot tell him,\" she said at last. \"It is a thing\r\nimpossible. I should die at his feet before the words were spoken.\" \"I will do it for you,\" said Mrs. Orme, offering from pure charity\r\nto take upon herself a task perhaps as heavy as any that a human\r\ncreature could perform. \"I will tell him.\" \"No, no,\" screamed Lady Mason, taking Mrs. Orme by both her arms as\r\nshe spoke. \"You will not do so: say that you will not. Remember your\r\npromise to me. Remember why it is that you know it all yourself.\" \"I will not, surely, unless you bid me,\" said Mrs. Orme. \"No, no; I do not bid you. Mind, I do not bid you. I will not have it\r\ndone. Better anything than that, while it may yet be avoided. I have\r\nyour promise; have I not?\" \"Oh, yes; of course I should not do it unless you told me.\" And then,\r\nafter some further short stay, during which but little was said, Mrs.\r\nOrme got up to go. \"You will come to me to-morrow,\" said Lady Mason. \"Yes, certainly,\" said Mrs. Orme."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Because I feared that I had offended you.\" \"Oh, no; I will take no offence from you.\" \"You should not, for you know what I have to bear. You know, and no\r\none else knows. Sir Peregrine does not know. He cannot understand. But you know and understand it all. And, Mrs. Orme, what you do now\r\nwill be counted to you for great treasure,--for very great treasure. You are better than the Samaritan, for he went on his way. But you\r\nwill stay till the last. Yes; I know you will stay.\" And the poor\r\ncreature kissed her only friend;--kissed her hands and her forehead\r\nand her breast. Then Mrs. Orme went without speaking, for her heart\r\nwas full, and the words would not come to her; but as she went she\r\nsaid to herself that she would stay till the last. Standing alone on the steps before the front door she found Lucius\r\nMason all alone, and some feeling moved her to speak a word to him as\r\nshe passed. \"I hope all this does not trouble you much, Mr. Mason,\"\r\nshe said, offering her hand to him. She felt that her words were\r\nhypocritical as she was speaking them; but under such circumstances\r\nwhat else could she say to him? \"Well, Mrs. Orme, such an episode in one's family history does give\r\none some trouble. I am unhappy,--very unhappy; but not too much\r\nso to thank you for your most unusual kindness to my poor mother.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then, having been so far encouraged by her speaking to him, he\r\naccompanied her round the house on to the lawn, from whence a path\r\nled away through a shrubbery on to the road which would take her by\r\nthe village of Coldharbour to The Cleeve. \"Mr. Mason,\" she said, as they walked for a few steps together before\r\nthe house, \"do not suppose that I presume to interfere between you\r\nand your mother.\" \"You have a right to interfere now,\" he said. \"But I think you might comfort her if you would be more with her. Would it not be better if you could talk freely together about all\r\nthis?\" \"It would be better,\" he said; \"but I fear that that is no longer\r\npossible. When this trial is over, and the world knows that she is\r\ninnocent; when people shall see how cruelly she has been used--\"\r\n\r\nMrs. Orme might not tell the truth to him, but she could with\r\ndifficulty bear to hear him dwell thus confidently on hopes which\r\nwere so false. \"The future is in the hands of God, Mr. Mason; but for\r\nthe present--\"\r\n\r\n\"The present and the future are both in His hands, Mrs. Orme. I know\r\nmy mother's innocence, and would have done a son's part towards\r\nestablishing it;--but she would not allow me. All this will soon be\r\nover now, and then, I trust, she and I will once again understand\r\neach other."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Till then I doubt whether I shall be wise to interfere. Good morning, Mrs. Orme; and pray believe that I appreciate at its\r\nfull worth all that you are doing for her.\" Then he again lifted his\r\nhat and left her. Lady Mason from her window saw them as they walked together, and her\r\nheart for a moment misgave her. Could it be that her friend was\r\ntreacherous to her? Was it possible that even now she was telling\r\neverything that she had sworn that she would not tell? Why were they\r\ntwo together, seeing that they passed each other day by day without\r\nintercourse? And so she watched with anxious eyes till they parted,\r\nand then she saw that Lucius stood idly on the terrace swinging his\r\nstick as he looked down the hill towards the orchard below him. He\r\nwould not have stood thus calmly had he already heard his mother's\r\nshame. This she knew, and having laid aside her immediate fears she\r\nretreated back to her chair. No; she would not tell him: at any rate\r\ntill the trial should be over. CHAPTER LXI. THE STATE OF PUBLIC OPINION. The day of the trial was now quickly coming on, and the London world,\r\nespecially the world of lawyers, was beginning to talk much on the\r\nsubject."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Men about the Inns of Court speculated as to the verdict,\r\noffering to each other very confident opinions as to the result, and\r\noffering, on some occasions, bets as well as opinions. The younger\r\nworld of barristers was clearly of opinion that Lady Mason was\r\ninnocent; but a portion, an unhappy portion, was inclined to fear,\r\nthat, in spite of her innocence, she would be found guilty. The elder\r\nworld of barristers was not, perhaps, so demonstrative, but in that\r\nworld the belief in her innocence was not so strong, and the fear of\r\nher condemnation much stronger. The attorneys, as a rule, regarded\r\nher as guilty. To the policeman's mind every man not a policeman is\r\na guilty being, and the attorneys perhaps share something of this\r\nfeeling. But the attorneys to a man expected to see her acquitted. Great was their faith in Mr. Furnival; great their faith in Solomon\r\nAram; but greater than in all was their faith in Mr. Chaffanbrass. If\r\nMr. Chaffanbrass could not pull her through, with a prescription of\r\ntwenty years on her side, things must be very much altered indeed in\r\nour English criminal court. To the outer world, that portion of the\r\nworld which had nothing to do with the administration of the law, the\r\nidea of Lady Mason having been guilty seemed preposterous. Of course\r\nshe was innocent, and of course she would be found to be innocent."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And of course, also, that Joseph Mason of Groby Park was, and would\r\nbe found to be, the meanest, the lowest, the most rapacious of\r\nmankind. And then the story of Sir Peregrine's attachment and proposed\r\nmarriage, joined as it was to various hints of the manner in which\r\nthat marriage had been broken off, lent a romance to the whole\r\naffair, and added much to Lady Mason's popularity. Everybody had\r\nnow heard of it, and everybody was also aware, that though the\r\nidea of a marriage had been abandoned, there had been no quarrel. The friendship between the families was as close as ever, and\r\nSir Peregrine,--so it was understood--had pledged himself to an\r\nacquittal. It was felt to be a public annoyance that an affair of so\r\nexciting a nature should be allowed to come off in the little town of\r\nAlston. The court-house, too, was very defective in its arrangements,\r\nand ill qualified to give accommodation to the great body of would-be\r\nattendants at the trial. One leading newspaper went so far as to\r\nsuggest, that in such a case as this, the antediluvian prejudices\r\nof the British grandmother--meaning the Constitution--should be set\r\naside, and the trial should take place in London. But I am not aware\r\nthat any step was taken towards the carrying out of so desirable a\r\nproject. Down at Hamworth the feeling in favour of Lady Mason was not\r\nperhaps so strong as it was elsewhere."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dockwrath was a man not much\r\nrespected, but nevertheless many believed in him; and down there, in\r\nthe streets of Hamworth, he was not slack in propagating his view of\r\nthe question. He had no doubt, he said, how the case would go. He had\r\nno doubt, although he was well aware that Mr. Mason's own lawyers\r\nwould do all they could to throw over their own client. But he was\r\ntoo strong, he said, even for that. The facts as he would bring them\r\nforward would confound Round and Crook, and compel any jury to find\r\na verdict of guilty. I do not say that all Hamworth believed in\r\nDockwrath, but his energy and confidence did have its effect, and\r\nLady Mason's case was not upheld so strongly in her own neighbourhood\r\nas elsewhere. The witnesses in these days were of course very important persons,\r\nand could not but feel the weight of that attention which the world\r\nwould certainly pay to them. There would be four chief witnesses for\r\nthe prosecution; Dockwrath himself, who would be prepared to speak\r\nas to the papers left behind him by old Usbech; the man in whose\r\npossession now remained that deed respecting the partnership which\r\nwas in truth executed by old Sir Joseph on that fourteenth of\r\nJuly; Bridget Bolster; and John Kenneby. Of the manner in which Mr.\r\nDockwrath used his position we already know enough."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The man who held\r\nthe deed, one Torrington, was a relative of Martock, Sir Joseph's\r\npartner, and had been one of his executors. It was not much indeed\r\nthat he had to say, but that little sent him up high in the social\r\nscale during those days. He lived at Kennington, and he was asked\r\nout to dinner in that neighbourhood every day for a week running, on\r\nthe score of his connection with the great Orley Farm case. Bridget\r\nBolster was still down at the hotel in the West of England, and\r\nbeing of a solid, sensible, and somewhat unimaginative turn of mind,\r\nprobably went through her duties to the last without much change of\r\nmanner. But the effect of the coming scenes upon poor John Kenneby\r\nwas terrible. It was to him as though for the time they had made of\r\nhim an Atlas, and compelled him to bear on his weak shoulders the\r\nweight of the whole world. Men did talk much about Lady Mason and the\r\ncoming trial; but to him it seemed as though men talked of nothing\r\nelse. At Hubbles and Grease's it was found useless to put figures\r\ninto his hands till all this should be over. Indeed it was doubted\r\nby many whether he would ever recover his ordinary tone of mind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It seemed to be understood that he would be cross-examined by\r\nChaffanbrass, and there were those who thought that John Kenneby\r\nwould never again be equal to a day's work after that which he would\r\nthen be made to endure. That he would have been greatly relieved\r\ncould the whole thing have been wiped away from him there can\r\nbe no manner of doubt; but I fancy that he would also have been\r\ndisappointed. It is much to be great for a day, even though the day's\r\ngreatness should cause the shipwreck of a whole life. \"I shall endeavour to speak the truth,\" said John Kenneby, solemnly. \"The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,\" said\r\nMoulder. \"Yes, Moulder, that will be my endeavour; and then I may lay my hand\r\nupon my bosom and think that I have done my duty by my country.\" And\r\nas Kenneby spoke he suited the action to the word. \"Quite right, John,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"Them's the sentiments of\r\na man, and I, as a woman having a right to speak where you are\r\nconcerned, quite approve of them.\" \"They'll get nothing but the truth out of John,\" said Mrs. Moulder;\r\n\"not if he knows it.\" These last words she added, actuated by\r\nadmiration of what she had heard of Mr. Chaffanbrass, and perhaps\r\nwith some little doubt as to her brother's firmness. \"That's where it is,\" said Moulder."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Lord bless you, John, they'll\r\nturn you round their finger like a bit of red tape. Truth! Gammon! What do they care for truth?\" \"But I care, Moulder,\" said Kenneby. \"I don't suppose they can make\r\nme tell falsehoods if I don't wish it.\" \"Not if you're the man I take you to be,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"Gammon!\" said Moulder. \"Mr. Moulder, that's an objectionable word,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"If\r\nJohn Kenneby is the man I take him to be,--and who's a right to speak\r\nif I haven't, seeing that I am going to commit myself for this world\r\ninto his hands?\" --and Mrs. Smiley, as she spoke, simpered, and looked\r\ndown with averted head on the fulness of her Irish tabinet--\"if\r\nhe's the man that I take him to be, he won't say on this thrilling\r\noccasion no more than the truth, nor yet no less. Now that isn't\r\ngammon--if I know what gammon is.\" It will have been already seen that the party in question were\r\nassembled at Mr. Moulder's room in Great St. Helen's. There had been\r\na little supper party there to commemorate the final arrangements\r\nas to the coming marriage, and the four were now sitting round the\r\nfire with their glasses of hot toddy at their elbows. Moulder was\r\narmed with his pipe, and was enjoying himself in that manner which\r\nmost delighted him. When last we saw him he had somewhat exceeded\r\ndiscretion in his cups, and was not comfortable."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But at the present\r\nnothing ailed him. The supper had been good, the tobacco was good,\r\nand the toddy was good. Therefore when the lovely Thais sitting\r\nbeside him,--Thais however on this occasion having been provided not\r\nfor himself but for his brother-in-law,--when Thais objected to the\r\nuse of his favourite word, he merely chuckled down in the bottom of\r\nhis fat throat, and allowed her to finish her sentence. Poor John Kenneby had more--much more, on his hands than this\r\ndreadful trial. Since he had declared that the Adriatic was free\r\nto wed another, he had found himself devoted and given up to Mrs.\r\nSmiley. For some days after that auspicious evening there had been\r\nconsiderable wrangling between Mrs. Moulder and Mrs. Smiley as to the\r\nproceeds of the brick-field; and on this question Moulder himself\r\nhad taken a part. The Moulder interest had of course desired that\r\nall right of management in the brick-field should be vested in\r\nthe husband, seeing that, according to the usages of this country,\r\nbrick-fields and their belongings appertain rather to men than to\r\nwomen; but Mrs. Smiley had soon made it evident that she by no means\r\nintended to be merely a sleeping partner in the firm. At one time\r\nKenneby had entertained a hope of escape; for neither would the\r\nMoulder interest give way, nor would the Smiley."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But two hundred a\r\nyear was a great stake, and at last the thing was arranged, very much\r\nin accordance with the original Smiley view. And now at this most\r\ntrying period of his life, poor Kenneby had upon his mind all the\r\ncares of a lover as well as the cares of a witness. \"I shall do my best,\" said John. \"I shall do my best and then throw\r\nmyself upon Providence.\" \"And take a little drop of something comfortable in your pocket,\"\r\nsaid his sister, \"so as to sperrit you up a little when your name's\r\ncalled.\" \"Sperrit him up!\" said Moulder; \"why I suppose he'll be standing in\r\nthat box the best part of a day. I knowed a man was a witness; it was\r\na case of horse-stealing; and the man who was the witness was the man\r\nwho'd took the horse.\" \"And he was witness against hisself!\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"No; he'd paid for it. That is to say, either he had or he hadn't. That was what they wanted to get out of him, and I'm blessed if he\r\ndidn't take 'em till the judge wouldn't set there any longer. And\r\nthen they hadn't got it out of him.\" \"But John Kenneby ain't one of that sort,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"I suppose that man did not want to unbosom himself,\" said Kenneby. \"Well; no. The likes of him seldom do like to unbosom themselves,\"\r\nsaid Moulder. \"But that will be my desire."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If they will only allow me to speak\r\nfreely whatever I know about this matter, I will give them no\r\ntrouble.\" \"You mean to act honest, John,\" said his sister. \"I always did, Mary Anne.\" \"Well now, I'll tell you what it is,\" said Moulder. \"As Mrs. Smiley\r\ndon't like it I won't say anything more about gammon;--not just at\r\npresent, that is.\" \"I've no objection to gammon, Mr. Moulder, when properly used,\" said\r\nMrs. Smiley, \"but I look on it as disrespectful; and seeing the\r\nposition which I hold as regards John Kenneby, anything disrespectful\r\nto him is hurtful to my feelings.\" \"All right,\" said Moulder. \"And now, John, I'll just tell you what\r\nit is. You've no more chance of being allowed to speak freely there\r\nthan--than--than--no more than if you was in church. What are them\r\nfellows paid for if you're to say whatever you pleases out in your\r\nown way?\" \"He only wants to say the truth, M.,\" said Mrs. Moulder, who probably\r\nknew less than her husband of the general usages of courts of law. \"Truth be ----,\" said Moulder. \"Mr. Moulder!\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"There's ladies by, if you'll please\r\nto remember.\" \"To hear such nonsense sets one past oneself,\" continued he; \"as if\r\nall those lawyers were brought together there--the cleverest and\r\nsharpest fellows in the kingdom, mind you--to listen to a man like\r\nJohn here telling his own story in his own way."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You'll have to tell\r\nyour story in their way; that is, in two different ways. There'll be\r\none fellow'll make you tell it his way first, and another fellow'll\r\nmake you tell it again his way afterwards; and its odds but what the\r\nfirst 'll be at you again after that, till you won't know whether you\r\nstand on your heels or your head.\" \"That can't be right,\" said Mrs. Moulder. \"And why can't it be right?\" said Moulder. \"They're paid for it;\r\nit's their duties; just as it's my duty to sell Hubbles and Grease's\r\nsugar. It's not for me to say the sugar's bad, or the samples not\r\nequal to the last. My duty is to sell, and I sell;--and it's their\r\nduty to get a verdict.\" \"But the truth, Moulder--!\" said Kenneby. \"Gammon!\" said Moulder. \"Begging your pardon, Mrs. Smiley, for making\r\nuse of the expression. Look you here, John; if you're paid to bring\r\na man off not guilty, won't you bring him off if you can? I've been\r\nat trials times upon times, and listened till I've wished from the\r\nbottom of my heart that I'd been brought up a barrister. Not that I\r\nthink much of myself, and I mean of course with education and all\r\nthat accordingly. It's beautiful to hear them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You'll see a little\r\nfellow in a wig, and he'll get up; and there'll be a man in the box\r\nbefore him,--some swell dressed up to his eyes, who thinks no end of\r\nstrong beer of himself; and in about ten minutes he'll be as flabby\r\nas wet paper, and he'll say--on his oath, mind you,--just anything\r\nthat that little fellow wants him to say. That's power, mind you, and\r\nI call it beautiful.\" \"But it ain't justice,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"Why not? I say it is justice. You can have it if you choose to pay\r\nfor it, and so can I. If I buy a greatcoat against the winter, and\r\nyou go out at night without having one, is it injustice because\r\nyou're perished by the cold while I'm as warm as a toast. I say it's\r\na grand thing to live in a country where one can buy a greatcoat.\" The argument had got so far, Mr. Moulder certainly having the best of\r\nit, when a ring at the outer door was heard. \"Now who on earth is that?\" said Moulder. \"Snengkeld, I shouldn't wonder,\" said his wife. \"I hope it ain't no stranger,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"Situated as John\r\nand I are now, strangers is so disagreeable.\" And then the door was\r\nopened by the maid-servant, and Mr. Kantwise was shown into the room. \"Halloo, Kantwise!\" said Mr. Moulder, not rising from his chair, or\r\ngiving any very decided tokens of welcome."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I thought you were down\r\nsomewhere among the iron foundries?\" \"So I was, Mr. Moulder, but I came up yesterday. Mrs. Moulder, allow\r\nme to have the honour. I hope I see you quite well; but looking\r\nat you I need not ask. Mr. Kenneby, sir, your very humble servant. The day's coming on fast; isn't it, Mr. Kenneby? Ma'am, your very\r\nobedient. I believe I haven't the pleasure of being acquainted.\" \"Mrs. Smiley, Mr. Kantwise. Mr. Kantwise, Mrs. Smiley,\" said the\r\nlady of the house, introducing her visitors to each other in the\r\nappropriate way. \"Quite delighted, I'm sure,\" said Kantwise. \"Smiley as is, and Kenneby as will be this day three weeks,\" said\r\nMoulder; and then they all enjoyed that little joke, Mrs. Smiley by\r\nno means appearing bashful in the matter although Mr. Kantwise was a\r\nstranger. \"I thought I should find Mr. Kenneby here,\" said Kantwise, when the\r\nsubject of the coming nuptials had been sufficiently discussed, \"and\r\ntherefore I just stepped in. No intrusion, I hope, Mr. Moulder.\" \"All right,\" said Moulder; \"make yourself at home. There's the stuff\r\non the table. You know what the tap is.\" \"I've just parted from--Mr. Dockwrath,\" said Kantwise, speaking\r\nin a tone of voice which implied the great importance of the\r\ncommunication, and looking round the table to see the effect of it\r\nupon the circle. \"Then you've parted from a very low-lived party, let me tell you\r\nthat,\" said Moulder."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had not forgotten Dockwrath's conduct in the\r\ncommercial room at Leeds, and was fully resolved that he never would\r\nforgive it. \"That's as may be,\" said Kantwise. \"I say nothing on that subject at\r\nthe present moment, either one way or the other. But I think you'll\r\nall agree as to this: that at the present moment Mr. Dockwrath fills\r\na conspicuous place in the public eye.\" \"By no means so conspicuous as John Kenneby,\" said Mrs. Smiley, \"if I\r\nmay be allowed in my position to hold an opinion.\" \"That's as may be, ma'am. I say nothing about that. What I hold by\r\nis, that Mr. Dockwrath does hold a conspicuous place in the public\r\neye. I've just parted with him in Gray's Inn Lane, and he says--that\r\nit's all up now with Lady Mason.\" \"Gammon!\" said Moulder. And on this occasion Mrs. Smiley did not\r\nrebuke him. \"What does he know about it more than any one else? Will\r\nhe bet two to one? Because, if so, I'll take it;--only I must see the\r\nmoney down.\" \"I don't know what he'll bet, Mr. Moulder; only he says it's all up\r\nwith her.\" \"Will he back his side, even handed?\" \"I ain't a betting man, Mr. Moulder. I don't think it's right."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And on\r\nsuch a matter as this, touching the liberty and almost life of a lady\r\nwhom I've had the honour of seeing, and acquainted as I am with the\r\nlady of the other party, Mrs. Mason that is of Groby Park, I should\r\nrather, if it's no offence to you, decline the subject of--betting.\" \"Bother!\" \"Now M., in your own house, you know!\" said his wife. \"So it is bother. But never mind that. Go on, Kantwise. What is this\r\nyou were saying about Dockwrath?\" \"Oh, that's about all. I thought you would like to know what they\r\nwere doing,--particularly Mr. Kenneby. I do hear that they mean to be\r\nuncommonly hard upon him.\" The unfortunate witness shifted uneasily in his seat, but at the\r\nmoment said nothing himself. \"Well, now, I can't understand it,\" said Mrs. Smiley, sitting upright\r\nin her chair, and tackling herself to the discussion as though she\r\nmeant to express her opinion, let who might think differently. \"How\r\nis any one to put words into my mouth if I don't choose to speak\r\nthen? There's John's waistcoat is silk.\" Upon which they all looked\r\nat Kenneby's waistcoat, and, with the exception of Kantwise,\r\nacknowledged the truth of the assertion. \"That's as may be,\" said he, looking round at it from the corner of\r\nhis eyes. \"And do you mean to say that all the barristers in London will make\r\nme say that it's made of cloth? It's ridic'lous--nothing short of\r\nridic'lous.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You've never tried, my dear,\" said Moulder. \"I don't know about being your dear, Mr. Moulder--\"\r\n\r\n\"Nor yet don't I neither, Mrs. Smiley,\" said the wife. \"Mr. Kenneby's my dear, and I ain't ashamed to own him,--before men\r\nand women. But if he allows hisself to be hocussed in that way, I\r\ndon't know but what I shall be ashamed. I call it hocussing--just\r\nhocussing.\" \"So it is, ma'am,\" said Kantwise, \"only this, you know, if I hocus\r\nyou, why you hocus me in return; so it isn't so very unfair, you\r\nknow.\" \"Unfair!\" said Moulder. \"It's the fairest thing that is. It's the\r\nbulwark of the British Constitution.\" \"What! being badgered and browbeat?\" asked Kenneby, who was thinking\r\nwithin himself that if this were so he did not care if he lived\r\nsomewhere beyond the protection of that blessed Ægis. \"Trial by jury is,\" said Moulder. \"And how can you have trial by jury\r\nif the witnesses are not to be cross-questioned?\" To this position no one was at the moment ready to give an answer,\r\nand Mr. Moulder enjoyed a triumph over his audience. That he lived\r\nin a happy and blessed country Moulder was well aware, and with\r\nthose blessings he did not wish any one to tamper. \"Mother,\" said a\r\nfastidious child to his parent, \"the bread is gritty and the butter\r\ntastes of turnips.\" \"Turnips indeed,--and gritty!\" said the mother. \"Is it not a great thing to have bread and butter at all?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "I own that\r\nmy sympathies are with the child. Bread and butter is a great thing;\r\nbut I would have it of the best if that be possible. After that Mr. Kantwise was allowed to dilate upon the subject\r\nwhich had brought him there. Mr. Dockwrath had been summoned to\r\nBedford Row, and there had held a council of war together with Mr.\r\nJoseph Mason and Mr. Matthew Round. According to his own story Mr.\r\nMatthew had quite come round and been forced to acknowledge all that\r\nDockwrath had done for the cause. In Bedford Row there was no doubt\r\nwhatever as to the verdict. \"That woman Bolster is quite clear that\r\nshe only signed one deed,\" said Kantwise. \"I shall say nothing--nothing here,\" said Kenneby. \"Quite right, John,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"Your feelings on the occasion\r\nbecome you.\" \"I'll lay an even bet she's acquitted,\" said Moulder. \"And I'll do it\r\nin a ten-p'und note.\" CHAPTER LXII. WHAT THE FOUR LAWYERS THOUGHT ABOUT IT. I have spoken of the state of public opinion as to Lady Mason's\r\ncoming trial, and have explained that for the most part men's\r\nthoughts and sympathies took part with her. But I cannot say that\r\nsuch was the case with the thoughts of those who were most closely\r\nconcerned with her in the matter,--whatever may have been their\r\nsympathies. Of the state of Mr. Furnival's mind on the matter enough\r\nhas been said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But if he had still entertained any shadow of doubt\r\nas to his client's guilt or innocence, none whatever was entertained\r\neither by Mr. Aram or by Mr. Chaffanbrass. From the day on which they\r\nhad first gone into the real circumstances of the case, looking into\r\nthe evidence which could be adduced against their client, and looking\r\nalso to their means of rebutting that evidence, they had never felt\r\na shadow of doubt upon the subject. But yet neither of them had ever\r\nsaid that she was guilty. Aram, in discussing with his clerks the\r\nwork which it was necessary that they should do in the matter, had\r\nnever expressed such an opinion; nor had Chaffanbrass done so in the\r\nconsultations which he had held with Aram. As to the verdict they\r\nhad very often expressed an opinion--differing considerably. Mr.\r\nAram was strongly of opinion that Lady Mason would be acquitted,\r\nresting that opinion mainly on his great confidence in the powers\r\nof Mr. Chaffanbrass. But Mr. Chaffanbrass would shake his head, and\r\nsometimes say that things were not now as they used to be. \"That may be so in the City,\" said Mr. Aram. \"But you won't find a\r\nCity jury down at Alston.\" \"It's not the juries, Aram. It's the judges. It usedn't to be so,\r\nbut it is now. When a man has the last word, and will take the\r\ntrouble to use it, that's everything."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If I were asked what point I'd\r\nbest like to have in my favour I'd say, a deaf judge. Or if not that,\r\none regularly tired out. I've sometimes thought I'd like to be a\r\njudge myself, merely to have the last word.\" \"That wouldn't suit you at all, Mr. Chaffanbrass, for you'd be sick\r\nof it in a week.\" \"At any rate I'm not fit for it,\" said the great man meekly. \"I'll\r\ntell you what, Aram, I can look back on life and think that I've done\r\na deal of good in my way. I've prevented unnecessary bloodshed. I've\r\nsaved the country thousands of pounds in the maintenance of men\r\nwho've shown themselves well able to maintain themselves. And I've\r\nmade the Crown lawyers very careful as to what sort of evidence they\r\nwould send up to the Old Bailey. But my chances of life have been\r\nsuch that they haven't made me fit to be a judge. I know that.\" \"I wish I might see you on the bench to-morrow;--only that we\r\nshouldn't know what to do without you,\" said the civil attorney. It\r\nwas no more than the fair every-day flattery of the world, for the\r\npractice of Mr. Solomon Aram in his profession was quite as surely\r\nattained as was that of Mr. Chaffanbrass. And it could hardly be\r\ncalled flattery, for Mr. Solomon Aram much valued the services of\r\nMr. Chaffanbrass, and greatly appreciated the peculiar turn of that\r\ngentleman's mind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The above conversation took place in Mr. Solomon Aram's private room\r\nin Bucklersbury. In that much-noted city thoroughfare Mr. Aram rented\r\nthe first floor of a house over an eating establishment. He had no\r\ngreat paraphernalia of books and boxes and clerks' desks, as are\r\napparently necessary to attorneys in general. Three clerks he did\r\nemploy, who sat in one room, and he himself sat in that behind\r\nit. So at least they sat when they were to be found at the parent\r\nestablishment; but, as regarded the attorney himself and his senior\r\nassistant, the work of their lives was carried on chiefly in the\r\ncourts of law. The room in which Mr. Aram was now sitting was\r\nfurnished with much more attention to comfort than is usual in\r\nlawyers' chambers. Mr. Chaffanbrass was at present lying, with his\r\nfeet up, on a sofa against the wall, in a position of comfort never\r\nattained by him elsewhere till the after-dinner hours had come to\r\nhim; and Mr. Aram himself filled an easy lounging-chair. Some few law\r\npapers there were scattered on the library table, but none of those\r\npiles of dusty documents which give to a stranger, on entering an\r\nordinary attorney's room, so terrible an idea of the difficulty and\r\ndreariness of the profession. There were no tin boxes with old names\r\nlabelled on them; there were no piles of letters, and no pigeon-holes\r\nloaded with old memoranda."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the whole Mr. Aram's private room was\r\nsmart and attractive; though, like himself, it had an air rather of\r\npretence than of steady and assured well-being. [Illustration: Mr. Chaffanbrass and Mr. Solomon Aram.] It is not quite the thing for a barrister to wait upon an attorney,\r\nand therefore it must not be supposed that Mr. Chaffanbrass had come\r\nto Mr. Aram with any view to immediate business; but nevertheless, as\r\nthe two men understood each other, they could say what they had to\r\nsay as to this case of Lady Mason's, although their present positions\r\nwere somewhat irregular. They were both to meet Mr. Furnival and\r\nFelix Graham on that afternoon in Mr. Furnival's chambers with\r\nreference to the division of those labours which were to be commenced\r\nat Alston on the day but one following, and they both thought that\r\nit might be as well that they should say a word to each other on the\r\nsubject before they went there. \"I suppose you know nothing about the panel down there, eh?\" said\r\nChaffanbrass. \"Well, I have made some inquiries; but I don't think there's\r\nanything especial to know;--nothing that matters. If I were you, Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass, I wouldn't have any Hamworth people on the jury, for\r\nthey say that a prophet is never a prophet in his own country.\" \"But do you know the Hamworth people?\" \"Oh, yes; I can tell you as much as that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I don't think it will\r\nmatter much who is or is not on the jury.\" \"And why not?\" \"If those two witnesses break down--that is, Kenneby and Bolster, no\r\njury can convict her. And if they don't--\"\r\n\r\n\"Then no jury can acquit her. But let me tell you, Aram, that it's\r\nnot every man put into a jury-box who can tell whether a witness has\r\nbroken down or not.\" \"But from what I hear, Mr. Chaffanbrass, I don't think either of\r\nthese can stand a chance;--that is, if they both come into your\r\nhands.\" \"But they won't both come into my hands,\" said the anxious hero of\r\nthe Old Bailey. \"Ah! that's where it is. That's where we shall fail. Mr. Furnival is\r\na great man, no doubt.\" \"A very great man,--in his way,\" said Mr. Chaffanbrass. \"But if he lets one of those two slip through his fingers the thing's\r\nover.\" \"You know my opinion,\" said Chaffanbrass. \"I think it is all over. If\r\nyou're right in what you say,--that they're both ready to swear in\r\ntheir direct evidence that they only signed one deed on that day, no\r\nvacillation afterwards would have any effect on the judge. It's just\r\npossible, you know, that their memory might deceive them.\" \"Possible! I should think so. I'll tell you what, Mr. Chaffanbrass,\r\nif the matter was altogether in your hands I should have no\r\nfear,--literally no fear.\" \"Ah, you're partial, Aram.\" \"It couldn't be so managed, could it, Mr. Chaffanbrass?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "It would be a\r\ngreat thing; a very great thing.\" But Mr. Chaffanbrass said that he\r\nthought it could not be managed. The success or safety of a client\r\nis a very great thing;--in a professional point of view a very\r\ngreat thing indeed. But there is a matter which in legal eyes is\r\ngreater even than that. Professional etiquette required that the\r\ncross-examination of these two most important witnesses should not be\r\nleft in the hands of the same barrister. And then the special attributes of Kenneby and Bridget Bolster were\r\ndiscussed between them, and it was manifest that Aram knew with great\r\naccuracy the characters of the persons with whom he had to deal. That\r\nKenneby might be made to say almost anything was taken for granted. With him there would be very great scope for that peculiar skill with\r\nwhich Mr. Chaffanbrass was so wonderfully gifted. In the hands of\r\nMr. Chaffanbrass it was not improbable that Kenneby might be made to\r\nswear that he had signed two, three, four--any number of documents\r\non that fourteenth of July, although he had before sworn that he had\r\nonly signed one. Mr. Chaffanbrass indeed might probably make him\r\nsay anything that he pleased. Had Kenneby been unsupported the case\r\nwould have been made safe,--so said Mr. Solomon Aram,--by leaving\r\nKenneby in the hands of Mr. Chaffanbrass. But then Bridget Bolster\r\nwas supposed to be a witness of altogether a different class of\r\ncharacter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To induce her to say exactly the reverse of that which she\r\nintended to say might, no doubt, be within the power of man. Mr. Aram\r\nthought that it would be within the power of Mr. Chaffanbrass. He\r\nthought, however, that it would as certainly be beyond the power of\r\nMr. Furnival; and when the great man lying on the sofa mentioned the\r\nname of Mr. Felix Graham, Mr. Aram merely smiled. The question with\r\nhim was this:--Which would be the safest course?--to make quite sure\r\nof Kenneby by leaving him with Chaffanbrass; or to go for the double\r\nstake by handing Kenneby over to Mr. Furnival and leaving the task of\r\ndifficulty to the great master? \"When so much depends upon it, I do detest all this etiquette and\r\nprecedence,\" said Aram with enthusiasm. \"In such a case Mr. Furnival\r\nought not to think of himself.\" \"My dear Aram,\" said Mr. Chaffanbrass, \"men always think of\r\nthemselves first. And if we were to go out of the usual course, do\r\nyou conceive that the gentlemen on the other side would fail to\r\nnotice it?\" \"Which shall it be then?\" \"I'm quite indifferent. If the memory of either of these two persons\r\nis doubtful,--and after twenty years it may be so,--Mr. Furnival will\r\ndiscover it.\" \"Then on the whole I'm disposed to think that I'd let him take the\r\nman.\" \"Just as you please, Aram. That is, if he's satisfied also.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I'm not going to have my client overthrown, you know,\" said Aram. \"And then you'll take Dockwrath also, of course. I don't know that\r\nit will have much effect upon the case, but I shall like to see\r\nDockwrath in your hands; I shall indeed.\" \"I doubt he'll be too many for me.\" \"Ha, ha, ha!\" Aram might well laugh; for when had any one shown\r\nhimself able to withstand the powers of Mr. Chaffanbrass? \"They say he is a sharp fellow,\" said Mr. Chaffanbrass. \"Well, we\r\nmust be off. When those gentlemen at the West End get into Parliament\r\nit does not do to keep them waiting. Let one of your fellows get\r\na cab.\" And then the barrister and the attorney started from\r\nBucklersbury for the general meeting of their forces to be held in\r\nthe Old Square, Lincoln's Inn. We have heard how it came to pass that Felix Graham had been induced\r\nto become one of that legal phalanx which was employed on behalf of\r\nLady Mason. It was now some days since he had left Noningsby, and\r\nthose days with him had been very busy. He had never yet undertaken\r\nthe defence of a person in a criminal court, and had much to\r\nlearn,--or perhaps he rather fancied that he had. And then that\r\naffair of Mary Snow's new lover was not found to arrange itself\r\naltogether easily."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When he came to the details of his dealings with\r\nthe different parties, every one wanted from him twice as much money\r\nas he had expected. The chemist was very willing to have a partner,\r\nbut then a partnership in his business was, according to his view\r\nof the matter, a peculiarly expensive luxury. Snow père, moreover,\r\ncame forward with claims which he rested on various arguments, that\r\nGraham found it almost impossible to resist them. At first,--that is\r\nimmediately subsequent to the interview between him and his patron\r\ndescribed in a preceding chapter, Graham had been visited by a very\r\nrepulsive attorney who had talked loudly about the cruel wrongs of\r\nhis ill-used client. This phasis of the affair would have been by\r\nfar the preferable one; but the attorney and his client probably\r\ndisagreed. Snow wanted immediate money, and as no immediate money\r\nwas forthcoming through the attorney, he threw himself repentant at\r\nGraham's feet, and took himself off with twenty shillings. But his\r\npenitence, and his wants, and his tears, and the thwarted ambition\r\nof his parental mind were endless; and poor Felix hardly knew where\r\nto turn himself without seeing him. It seemed probable that every\r\ndenizen of the courts of law in London would be told before long\r\nthe sad tale of Mary Snow's injuries. And then Mrs. Thomas wanted\r\nmoney,--more money than she had a right to want in accordance with\r\nthe terms of their mutual agreement."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"She had been very much put\r\nabout,\" she said,--\"dreadfully put about. She had had to change her\r\nservant three times. There was no knowing the trouble Mary Snow had\r\ngiven her. She had, in a great measure, been forced to sacrifice her\r\nschool.\" Poor woman! she thought she was telling the truth while\r\nmaking these false plaints. She did not mean to be dishonest, but it\r\nis so easy to be dishonest without meaning it when one is very poor! Mary Snow herself made no claim on her lost lover, no claim for money\r\nor for aught besides. When he parted from her on that day without\r\nkissing her, Mary Snow knew that all that was over. But not the less\r\ndid Graham recognise her claim. The very bonnet which she must wear\r\nwhen she stood before the altar with Fitzallen must be paid for out\r\nof Graham's pocket. That hobby of moulding a young lady is perhaps of\r\nall hobbies the most expensive to which a young gentleman can apply\r\nhimself. And in these days he heard no word from Noningsby. Augustus Staveley\r\nwas up in town, and once or twice they saw each other. But, as may\r\neasily be imagined, nothing was said between them about Madeline. As\r\nAugustus had once declared, a man does not talk to his friend about\r\nhis own sister. And then hearing nothing--as indeed how could he\r\nhave heard anything?--Graham endeavoured to assure himself that that\r\nwas all over."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His hopes had ran high at that moment when his last\r\ninterview with the judge had taken place; but after all to what did\r\nthat amount? He had never even asked Madeline to love him. He had\r\nbeen such a fool that he had made no use of those opportunities which\r\nchance had thrown in his way. He had been told that he might fairly\r\naspire to the hand of any lady. And yet when he had really loved, and\r\nthe girl whom he had loved had been close to him, he had not dared\r\nto speak to her! How could he now expect that she, in his absence,\r\nshould care for him? With all these little troubles around him he went to work on Lady\r\nMason's case, and at first felt thoroughly well inclined to give her\r\nall the aid in his power. He saw Mr. Furnival on different occasions,\r\nand did much to charm that gentleman by his enthusiasm in this\r\nmatter. Mr. Furnival himself could no longer be as enthusiastic as he\r\nhad been. The skill of a lawyer he would still give if necessary, but\r\nthe ardour of the loving friend was waxing colder from day to day. Would it not be better, if such might be possible, that the whole\r\naffair should be given up to the hands of Chaffanbrass who could be\r\nenergetic without belief, and of Graham who was energetic because\r\nhe believed? So he would say to himself frequently."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But then he\r\nwould think again of her pale face and acknowledge that this was\r\nimpossible. He must go on till the end. But, nevertheless, if this\r\nyoung man could believe, would it not be well that he should bear the\r\nbrunt of the battle? That fighting of a battle without belief is, I\r\nthink, the sorriest task which ever falls to the lot of any man. But, as the day grew nigh, a shadow of unbelief, a dim passing\r\nshade--a shade which would pass, and then return, and then pass\r\nagain--flitted also across the mind of Felix Graham. His theory had\r\nbeen, and still was, that those two witnesses, Kenneby and Bolster,\r\nwere suborned by Dockwrath to swear falsely. He had commenced\r\nby looking at the matter with a full confidence in his client's\r\ninnocence, a confidence which had come from the outer world, from his\r\nsocial convictions, and the knowledge which he had of the confidence\r\nof others. Then it had been necessary for him to reconcile the\r\nstories which Kenneby and Bolster were prepared to tell with this\r\nstrong confidence, and he could only do so by believing that they\r\nwere both false and had been thus suborned. But what if they were not\r\nfalse? What if he were judging them wrongfully?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I do not say that\r\nhe had ceased to believe in Lady Mason; but a shadow of doubt would\r\noccasionally cross his mind, and give to the whole affair an aspect\r\nwhich to him was very tragical. He had reached Mr. Furnival's chambers on this day some few minutes\r\nbefore his new allies, and as he was seated there discussing the\r\nmatter which was now so interesting to them all, he blurted out a\r\nquestion which nearly confounded the elder barrister. \"I suppose there can really be no doubt as to her innocence?\" What was Mr. Furnival to say? Mr. Chaffanbrass and Mr. Aram had asked\r\nno such question. Mr. Round had asked no such question when he had\r\ndiscussed the whole matter confidentially with him. It was a sort of\r\nquestion never put to professional men, and one which Felix Graham\r\nshould not have asked. Nevertheless it must be answered. \"Eh?\" he said. \"I suppose we may take it for granted that Lady Mason is really\r\ninnocent,--that is, free from all falsehood or fraud in this matter?\" \"Really innocent! Oh yes; I presume we take that for granted, as a\r\nmatter of course.\" \"But you yourself, Mr. Furnival; you have no doubt about it? You have\r\nbeen concerned in this matter from the beginning, and therefore I\r\nhave no hesitation in asking you.\" But that was exactly the reason why he should have hesitated! At\r\nleast so Mr. Furnival thought. \"Who; I?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "No; I have no doubt; none in\r\nthe least,\" said he. And thus the lie, which he had been trying to\r\navoid, was at last told. The assurance thus given was very complete as far as the words were\r\nconcerned; but there was something in the tone of Mr. Furnival's\r\nvoice, which did not quite satisfy Felix Graham. It was not that he\r\nthought that Mr. Furnival had spoken falsely, but the answer had not\r\nbeen made in a manner to set his own mind at rest. Why had not Mr.\r\nFurnival answered him with enthusiasm? Why had he not, on behalf of\r\nhis old friend, shown something like indignation that any such doubt\r\nshould have been expressed? His words had been words of assurance;\r\nbut, considering the subject, his tone had contained no assurance. And thus the shadow of doubt flitted backwards and forwards before\r\nGraham's mind. Then the general meeting of the four lawyers was held, and the\r\nvarious arrangements necessary for the coming contest were settled. No such impertinent questions were asked then, nor were there\r\nany communications between them of a confidential nature. Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass and Solomon Aram might whisper together, as might also\r\nMr. Furnival and Felix Graham; but there could be no whispering\r\nwhen all the four were assembled. The programme of their battle was\r\nsettled, and then they parted with the understanding that they were\r\nto meet again in the court-house at Alston. CHAPTER LXIII. THE EVENING BEFORE THE TRIAL."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The eve of the trial had now come, and still there had been no\r\nconfidence between the mother and the son. No words of kindness had\r\nbeen spoken with reference to that terrible event which was so near\r\nat hand. Lucius had in his manner been courteous to his mother, but\r\nhe had at the same time been very stern. He had seemed to make no\r\nallowance for her sorrows, never saying to her one of those soft\r\nwords which we all love to hear from those around us when we are\r\nsuffering. Why should she suffer thus? Had she chosen to lean upon\r\nhim, he would have borne on her behalf all this trouble and vexation. As to her being guilty--as to her being found guilty by any twelve\r\njurymen in England,--no such idea ever entered his head. I have said\r\nthat many people had begun to suspect; but no such suspicions had\r\nreached his ears. What man, unless it should be Dockwrath, would\r\nwhisper to the son the possibility of his mother's guilt? Dockwrath\r\nhad done more than whisper it; but the words of such a man could have\r\nno avail with him against his mother's character. On that day Mrs. Orme had been with Lady Mason for some hours, and\r\nhad used all her eloquence to induce the mother even then to divulge\r\nher secret to her son."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Orme had suggested that Sir Peregrine\r\nshould tell him; she had offered to tell him herself; she had\r\nproposed that Lady Mason should write to Lucius. But all had been of\r\nno avail. Lady Mason had argued, and had argued with some truth, that\r\nit was too late to tell him now, with the view of obtaining from him\r\nsupport during the trial. If he were now told, he would not recover\r\nfrom the first shock of the blow in time to appear in court without\r\nshowing on his brow the perturbation of his spirit. His terrible\r\ngrief would reveal the secret to every one. \"When it is over,\"--she\r\nhad whispered at last, as Mrs. Orme continued to press upon her the\r\nabsolute necessity that Lucius should give up the property,--\"when it\r\nis over, you shall do it.\" With this Mrs. Orme was obliged to rest contented. She had not the\r\nheart to remind Lady Mason how probable it was that the truth might\r\nbe told out to all the world during the next two or three days;--that\r\na verdict of Guilty might make any further telling unnecessary. And\r\nindeed it was not needed that she should do so. In this respect Lady\r\nMason was fully aware of the nature of the ground on which she stood."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Orme had sat with her the whole afternoon, only leaving herself\r\ntime to be ready for Sir Peregrine's dinner; and as she left her she\r\npromised to be with her early on the following morning to go with her\r\ndown to the court. Mr. Aram was also to come to the Farm for her, and\r\na closed carriage had been ordered from the inn for the occasion. \"You won't let him prevent you?\" were the last words she spoke, as\r\nMrs. Orme then left her. \"He will not wish to do so,\" said Mrs. Orme. \"He has already given me\r\nhis permission. He never goes back from his word, you know.\" This had been said in allusion to Sir Peregrine. When Mrs. Orme had\r\nfirst proposed to accompany Lady Mason to the court and to sit by her\r\nside during the whole trial, he had been much startled. He had been\r\nstartled, and for a time had been very unwilling to accede to such\r\na step. The place which she now proposed to fill was one which he\r\nhad intended to fill himself;--but he had intended to stand by an\r\ninnocent, injured lady, not a perpetrator of midnight forgery. He\r\nhad intended to support a spotless being, who would then be his\r\nwife,--not a woman who for years had lived on the proceeds of fraud\r\nand felony, committed by herself!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Edith,\" he had said, \"you know that I am unwilling to oppose you;\r\nbut I think that in this your feelings are carrying you too far.\" \"No, father,\" she answered, not giving way at all, or showing herself\r\nminded to be turned from her purpose by anything he might say. \"Do not think so; think of her misery. How could she endure it by\r\nherself?\" \"Think of her guilt, Edith!\" \"I will leave others to think of that. But, father, her guilt will\r\nnot stain me. Are we not bound to remember what injury she might\r\nhave done to us, and how we might still have been ignorant of all\r\nthis, had not she herself confessed it--for our sakes--for our sakes,\r\nfather?\" And then Sir Peregrine gave way. When this argument was used to him,\r\nhe was forced to yield. It was true that, had not that woman been as\r\ngenerous as she was guilty, he would now have been bound to share her\r\nshame. The whole of this affair, taken together, had nearly laid him\r\nprostrate; but that which had gone the farthest towards effecting\r\nthis ruin, was the feeling that he owed so much to Lady Mason. As\r\nregarded the outer world, the injury to him would have been much more\r\nterrible had he married her; men would then have declared that all\r\nwas over with him; but as regards the inner man, I doubt whether he\r\nwould not have borne that better."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was easier for him to sustain\r\nan injury than a favour,--than a favour from one whom his judgment\r\ncompelled him to disown as a friend. But he had given way, and it was understood at The Cleeve that Mrs.\r\nOrme was to remain by Lady Mason's side during the trial. To the\r\ngeneral household there was nothing in this that was wonderful. They\r\nknew only of the old friendship. To them the question of her guilt\r\nwas still an open question. As others had begun to doubt, so had\r\nthey; but no one then presumed that Sir Peregrine or Mrs. Orme had\r\nany doubt. That they were assured of her innocence was the conviction\r\nof all Hamworth and its neighbourhood. \"He never goes back from his word, you know,\" Mrs. Orme had said;\r\nand then she kissed Lady Mason, and went her way. She had never left\r\nher without a kiss, had never greeted her without a warm pressure of\r\nthe hand, since that day on which the secret had been told in Sir\r\nPeregrine's library. It would be impossible to describe how great\r\nhad been the worth of this affection to Lady Mason; but it may\r\nalmost be said that it had kept her alive. She herself had said but\r\nlittle about it, uttering but few thanks; but not the less had she\r\nrecognised the value of what had been done for her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had even\r\nbecome more free herself in her intercourse with Mrs. Orme,--more\r\nopen in her mode of speech,--had put herself more on an equality with\r\nher friend, since there had ceased to be anything hidden between\r\nthem. Previously Lady Mason had felt, and had occasionally expressed\r\nthe feeling, that she was hardly fit to associate on equal terms with\r\nMrs. Orme; but now there was none of this,--now, as they sat together\r\nfor hours and hours, they spoke, and argued, and lived together as\r\nthough they were equal. But nevertheless, could she have shown her\r\nlove by any great deed, there was nothing which Lady Mason would not\r\nhave done for Mrs. Orme. She was now left alone, and according to her daily custom would\r\nremain there till the servant told her that Mr. Lucius was waiting\r\nfor her in the dining-room. In an early part of this story I have\r\nendeavoured to describe how this woman sat alone, with deep sorrow in\r\nher heart and deep thought on her mind, when she first learned what\r\nterrible things were coming on her. The idea, however, which the\r\nreader will have conceived of her as she sat there will have come\r\nto him from the skill of the artist, and not from the words of the\r\nwriter. If that drawing is now near him, let him go back to it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lady\r\nMason was again sitting in the same room--that pleasant room, looking\r\nout through the verandah on to the sloping lawn, and in the same\r\nchair; one hand again rested open on the arm of the chair, while the\r\nother supported her face as she leaned upon her elbow; and the sorrow\r\nwas still in her heart, and the deep thought in her mind. But the\r\nlines of her face were altered, and the spirit expressed by it was\r\nchanged. There was less of beauty, less of charm, less of softness;\r\nbut in spite of all that she had gone through there was more of\r\nstrength,--more of the power to resist all that this world could do\r\nto her. It would be wrong to say that she was in any degree a hypocrite. A\r\nman is no more a hypocrite because his manner and gait when he is\r\nalone are different from those which he assumes in company, than he\r\nis for wearing a dressing-gown in the morning, whereas he puts on a\r\nblack coat in the evening. Lady Mason in the present crisis of her\r\nlife endeavoured to be true in all her dealings with Mrs. Orme; but\r\nnevertheless Mrs. Orme had not yet read her character. As she now sat\r\nthinking of what the morrow would bring upon her,--thinking of all\r\nthat the malice of that man Dockwrath had brought upon her,--she\r\nresolved that she would still struggle on with a bold front."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It\r\nhad been brought home to her that he, her son, the being for whom\r\nher soul had been imperilled, and all her hopes for this world\r\ndestroyed,--that he must be told of his mother's guilt and shame. Let\r\nhim be told, and then let him leave her while his anguish and the\r\nfeeling of his shame were hot upon him. Should she be still a free\r\nwoman when this trial was over she would move herself away at once,\r\nand then let him be told. But still it would be well--well for his\r\nsake, that his mother should not be found guilty by the law. It was\r\nstill worth her while to struggle. The world was very hard to her,\r\nbruising her to the very soul at every turn, allowing her no hope,\r\noffering to her no drop of cool water in her thirst. But still for\r\nhim there was some future career; and that career perhaps need not be\r\nblotted by the public notice of his mother's guilt. She would still\r\nfight against her foes,--still show to that court, and to the world\r\nthat would then gaze at her, a front on which guilt should not seem\r\nto have laid its hideous, defacing hand. There was much that was wonderful about this woman. While she was\r\nwith those who regarded her with kindness she could be so soft and\r\nwomanly; and then, when alone, she could be so stern and hard!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And\r\nit may be said that she felt but little pity for herself. Though she\r\nrecognised the extent of her misery, she did not complain of it. Even\r\nin her inmost thoughts her plaint was this,--that he, her son, should\r\nbe doomed to suffer so deeply for her sin! Sometimes she would utter\r\nto that other mother a word of wailing, in that he would not be soft\r\nto her; but even in that she did not mean to complain of him. She\r\nknew in her heart of hearts that she had no right to expect such\r\nsoftness. She knew that it was better that it should be as it now\r\nwas. Had he stayed with her from morn till evening, speaking kind\r\nwords to her, how could she have failed to tell him? In sickness it\r\nmay irk us because we are not allowed to take the cool drink that\r\nwould be grateful; but what man in his senses would willingly swallow\r\nthat by which his very life would be endangered? It was thus she\r\nthought of her son, and what his love might have been to her. Yes; she would still bear up, as she had borne up at that other\r\ntrial. She would dress herself with care, and go down into the court\r\nwith a smooth brow. Men, as they looked at her, should not at once\r\nsay, \"Behold the face of a guilty woman!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was still a chance\r\nin the battle, though the odds were so tremendously against her. It\r\nmight be that there was but little to which she could look forward,\r\neven though the verdict of the jury should be in her favour; but all\r\nthat she regarded as removed from her by a great interval. She had\r\npromised that Lucius should know all after the trial,--that he should\r\nknow all, so that the property might be restored to its rightful\r\nowner; and she was fully resolved that this promise should be kept. But nevertheless there was a long interval. If she could battle\r\nthrough this first danger,--if by the skill of her lawyers she could\r\navert the public declaration of her guilt, might not the chances of\r\nwar still take some further turn in her favour? And thus, though\r\nher face was pale with suffering and thin with care, though she\r\nhad realised the fact that nothing short of a miracle could save\r\nher,--still she would hope for that miracle. But the absolute bodily labour which she was forced to endure was so\r\nhard upon her! She would dress herself, and smooth her brow for the\r\ntrial; but that dressing herself, and that maintenance of a smooth\r\nbrow would impose upon her an amount of toil which would almost\r\novertask her physical strength."}
{"question": "", "answer": "O reader, have you ever known what it\r\nis to rouse yourself and go out to the world on your daily business,\r\nwhen all the inner man has revolted against work, when a day of rest\r\nhas seemed to you to be worth a year of life? If she could have\r\nrested now, it would have been worth many years of life,--worth all\r\nher life. She longed for rest,--to be able to lay aside the terrible\r\nfatigue of being ever on the watch. From the burden of that necessity\r\nshe had never been free since her crime had been first committed. She had never known true rest. She had not once trusted herself to\r\nsleep without the feeling that her first waking thought would be\r\none of horror, as the remembrance of her position came upon her. In\r\nevery word she spoke, in every trifling action of her life, it was\r\nnecessary that she should ask herself how that word and action might\r\ntell upon her chances of escape. She had striven to be true and\r\nhonest,--true and honest with the exception of that one deed. But\r\nthat one deed had communicated its poison to her whole life. Truth\r\nand honesty,--fair, unblemished truth and open-handed, fearless\r\nhonesty,--had been impossible to her. Before she could be true and\r\nhonest it would be necessary that she should go back and cleanse\r\nherself from the poison of that deed. Such cleansing is to be done."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Men have sinned deep as she had sinned, and, lepers though they have\r\nbeen, they have afterwards been clean. But that task of cleansing\r\noneself is not an easy one;--the waters of that Jordan in which it is\r\nneedful to wash are scalding hot. The cool neighbouring streams of\r\nlife's pleasant valleys will by no means suffice. Since she had been home at Orley Farm she had been very scrupulous\r\nas to going down into the parlour both at breakfast and at dinner,\r\nso that she might take her meals with her son. She had not as yet\r\nomitted this on one occasion, although sometimes the task of sitting\r\nthrough the dinner was very severe upon her. On the present occasion,\r\nthe last day that remained to her before the trial--perhaps the last\r\nevening on which she would ever watch the sun set from those windows,\r\nshe thought that she would spare herself. \"Tell Mr. Lucius,\" she said\r\nto the servant who came to summon her, \"that I would be obliged to\r\nhim if he would sit down without me. Tell him that I am not ill, but\r\nthat I would rather not go down to dinner!\" But before the girl was\r\non the stairs she had changed her mind. Why should she now ask for\r\nthis mercy? What did it matter? So she gathered herself up from the\r\nchair, and going forth from the room, stopped the message before it\r\nwas delivered. She would bear on to the end."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She sat through the dinner, and answered the ordinary questions\r\nwhich Lucius put to her with her ordinary voice, and then, as was\r\nher custom, she kissed his brow as she left the room. It must be\r\nremembered that they were still mother and son, and that there had\r\nbeen no quarrel between them. And now, as she went up stairs, he\r\nfollowed her into the drawing-room. His custom had been to remain\r\nbelow, and though he had usually seen her again during the evening,\r\nthere had seldom or never been any social intercourse between them. On the present occasion, however, he followed her, and closing the\r\ndoor for her as he entered the room, he sat himself down on the sofa,\r\nclose to her chair. \"Mother,\" he said, putting out his hand and touching her arm, \"things\r\nbetween us are not as they should be.\" She shuddered, not at the touch, but at the words. Things were not as\r\nthey should be between them. \"No,\" she said. \"But I am sure of this,\r\nLucius, that you never had an unkind thought in your heart towards\r\nme.\" \"Never, mother. How could I,--to my own mother, who has ever been so\r\ngood to me? But for the last three months we have been to each other\r\nnearly as though we were strangers.\" \"But we have loved each other all the same,\" said she. \"But love should beget close social intimacy, and above all close\r\nconfidence in times of sorrow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There has been none such between us.\" What could she say to him? It was on her lips to promise him that\r\nsuch love should again prevail between them as soon as this trial\r\nshould be over; but the words stuck in her throat. She did not dare\r\nto give him so false an assurance. \"Dear Lucius,\" she said, \"if it\r\nhas been my fault, I have suffered for it.\" \"I do not say that it is your fault;--nor will I say that it has been\r\nmy own. If I have seemed harsh to you, I beg your pardon.\" \"No, Lucius, no; you have not been harsh. I have understood you\r\nthrough it all.\" \"I have been grieved because you did not seem to trust me;--but let\r\nthat pass now. Mother, I wish that there may be no unpleasant feeling\r\nbetween us when you enter on this ordeal to-morrow.\" \"There is none;--there shall be none.\" \"No one can feel more keenly,--no one can feel so keenly as I do, the\r\ncruelty with which you are treated. The sight of your sorrow has made\r\nme wretched.\" \"Oh, Lucius!\" \"I know how pure and innocent you are--\"\r\n\r\n\"No, Lucius, no.\" \"But I say yes; and knowing that, it has cut me to the quick to see\r\nthem going about a defence of your innocence by quips and quibbles,\r\nas though they were struggling for the escape of a criminal.\" \"Lucius!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And she put her hands up, praying for mercy, though she\r\ncould not explain to him how terribly severe were his words. \"Wait a moment, mother. To me such men as Mr. Chaffanbrass and his\r\ncomrades are odious. I will not, and do not believe that their\r\nservices are necessary to you--\"\r\n\r\n\"But, Lucius, Mr. Furnival--\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes; Mr. Furnival! It is he that has done it all. In my heart I wish\r\nthat you had never known Mr. Furnival;--never known him as a lawyer\r\nthat is,\" he added, thinking of his own strong love for the lawyer's\r\ndaughter. \"Do not upbraid me now, Lucius. Wait till it is all over.\" \"Upbraid you! No. I have come to you now that we may be friends. As things have gone so far, this plan of defence must of course be\r\ncarried on. I will say no more about that. But, mother, I will go\r\ninto the court with you to-morrow. That support I can at any rate\r\ngive you, and they shall see that there is no quarrel between us.\" But Lady Mason did not desire this. She would have wished that he\r\nmight have been miles away from the court had that been possible. \"Mrs. Orme is to be with me,\" she said. Then again there came a black frown upon his brow,--a frown such as\r\nthere had often been there of late. \"And will Mrs. Orme's presence\r\nmake the attendance of your own son improper?\" \"Oh, no; of course not."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I did not mean that, Lucius.\" \"Do you not like to have me near you?\" he asked; and as he spoke he\r\nrose up, and took her hand as he stood before her. She gazed for a moment into his face while the tears streamed down\r\nfrom her eyes, and then rising from her chair, she threw herself on\r\nto his bosom and clasped him in her arms. \"My boy! my boy!\" she said. \"Oh, if you could be near me, and away from this--away from this!\" She had not intended thus to give way, but the temptation had been\r\ntoo strong for her. When she had seen Mrs. Orme and Peregrine\r\ntogether,--when she had heard Peregrine's mother, with words\r\nexpressed in a joyful tone, affect to complain of the inroads which\r\nher son made upon her, she had envied her that joy. \"Oh, if it could\r\nbe so with me also!\" she always thought; and the words too had more\r\nthan once been spoken. Now at last, in this last moment, as it might\r\nbe, of her life at home, he had come to her with kindly voice, and\r\nshe could not repress her yearning. \"Lucius,\" she said; \"dearest Lucius! my own boy!\" And then the tears\r\nfrom her eyes streamed hot on to his bosom. \"Mother,\" he said, \"it shall be so. I will be with you.\" But she was now thinking of more than this--of much more. Was it\r\npossible for her to tell him now?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "As she held him in her arms, hiding\r\nher face upon his breast, she struggled hard to speak the word. Then\r\nin the midst of that struggle, while there was still something like a\r\nhope within her that it might be done, she raised her head and looked\r\nup into his face. It was not a face pleasant to look at, as was that\r\nof Peregrine Orme. It was hard in its outlines, and perhaps too manly\r\nfor his age. But she was his mother, and she loved it well. She\r\nlooked up at it, and raising her hands she stroked his cheeks. She\r\nthen kissed him again and again, with warm, clinging kisses. She\r\nclung to him, holding him close to her, while the sobs which she had\r\nso long repressed came forth from her with a violence that terrified\r\nhim. Then again she looked up into his face with one long wishful\r\ngaze; and after that she sank upon the sofa and hid her face within\r\nher hands. She had made the struggle, but it had been of no avail. She could not tell him that tale with her own voice. \"Mother,\" he said, \"what does this mean? I cannot understand such\r\ngrief as this.\" But for a while she was quite unable to answer. The\r\nflood-gates were at length opened, and she could not restrain the\r\ntorrent of her sobbings. \"You do not understand how weak a woman can be,\" she said at last."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But in truth he understood nothing of a woman's strength. He sat down\r\nby her, now and then taking her by the hand when she would leave it\r\nto him, and in his way endeavoured to comfort her. All comfort, we\r\nmay say, was out of the question; but by degrees she again became\r\ntranquil. \"It shall be to-morrow as you will have it. You will not\r\nobject to her being with me also?\" He did object, but he could not say so. He would have much preferred\r\nto be the only friend near to her, but he felt that he could not\r\ndeny her the solace of a woman's aid and a woman's countenance. \"Oh\r\nno,\" he said, \"if you wish it.\" He would have found it impossible to\r\ndefine even to himself the reason for his dislike to any assistance\r\ncoming from the family of the Ormes; but the feeling was there,\r\nstrong within his bosom. \"And when this is over, mother, we will go away,\" he said. \"If you\r\nwould wish to live elsewhere, I will sell the property. It will be\r\nbetter perhaps after all that has passed. We will go abroad for a\r\nwhile.\" She could make no answer to this except pressing his hand. Ah, if\r\nhe had been told--if she had allowed Mrs. Orme to do that kindness\r\nfor her, how much better for her would it now have been! Sell the\r\nproperty! Ah, me!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Were they not words of fearful sound in her\r\nears,--words of terrible import? \"Yes, it shall be so,\" she said, putting aside that last proposition\r\nof his. \"We will go together to-morrow. Mr. Aram said that he would\r\nsit at my side, but he cannot object to your being there between us.\" Mr. Aram's name was odious to Lucius Mason. His close presence would\r\nbe odious to him. But he felt that he could urge nothing against an\r\narrangement that had now become necessary. Mr. Aram, with all his\r\nquibbles, had been engaged, and the trial must now be carried through\r\nwith all the Aram tactics. After that Lucius left his mother, and took himself out into the dark\r\nnight, walking up and down on the road between his house and the\r\nouter gate, endeavouring to understand why his mother should be so\r\ndespondent. That she must fear the result of the trial, he thought,\r\nwas certain, but he could not bring himself to have any such fear. As\r\nto any suspicion of her guilt,--no such idea had even for one moment\r\ncast a shadow upon his peace of mind. CHAPTER LXIV. THE FIRST JOURNEY TO ALSTON. At that time Sir Richard Leatherham was the Solicitor-general, and\r\nhe had been retained as leading counsel for the prosecution."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was\r\nquite understood by all men who did understand what was going on in\r\nthe world, that this trial had been in truth instituted by Mr. Mason\r\nof Groby with the hope of recovering the property which had been left\r\naway from him by his father's will. The whole matter had now been so\r\nmuch discussed, that the true bearings of it were publicly known. If\r\non the former trial Lady Mason had sworn falsely, then there could be\r\nno doubt that that will, or the codicil to the will, was an untrue\r\ndocument, and the property would in that case revert to Mr. Mason,\r\nafter such further legal exercitations on the subject as the lawyers\r\nmight find necessary and profitable. As far as the public were\r\nconcerned, and as far as the Masons were concerned, it was known and\r\nacknowledged that this was another struggle on the part of the Groby\r\nPark family to regain the Orley Farm estate. But then the question\r\nhad become much more interesting than it had been in the days of the\r\nold trial, through the allegation which was now made of Lady Mason's\r\nguilt. Had the matter gone against her in the former trial, her child\r\nwould have lost the property, and that would have been all. But\r\nthe present issue would be very different. It would be much more\r\ntragical, and therefore of much deeper interest."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As Alston was so near to London, Sir Richard, Mr. Furnival,\r\nMr. Chaffanbrass, and others, were able to go up and down by\r\ntrain,--which arrangement was at ordinary assizes a great heartsore\r\nto the hotel-keepers and owners of lodging-houses in Alston. But on\r\nthis occasion the town was quite full in spite of this facility. The\r\nattorneys did not feel it safe to run up and down in that way, nor\r\ndid the witnesses. Mr. Aram remained, as did also Mr. Mat Round. Special accommodation had been provided for John Kenneby and Bridget\r\nBolster, and Mr. Mason of Groby had lodgings of his own. Mr. Mason of Groby had suggested to the attorneys in Bedford Row that\r\nhis services as a witness would probably be required, but they had\r\nseemed to think otherwise. \"We shall not call you,\" Mr. Round had\r\nsaid, \"and I do not suppose that the other side will do so. They\r\ncan't if they do not first serve you.\" But in spite of this Mr. Mason\r\nhad determined to be at Alston. If it were true that this woman had\r\nrobbed him;--if it could be proved that she had really forged a will,\r\nand then by crime of the deepest dye taken from him for years that\r\nwhich was his own, should he not be there to see? Should he not be a\r\nwitness to her disgrace? Should he not be the first to know and feel\r\nhis own tardy triumph? Pity! Pity for her!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "When such a word was named\r\nto him, it seemed to him as though the speaker were becoming to a\r\ncertain extent a partner in her guilt. Pity! Yes; such pity as an\r\nEnglishman who had caught the Nana Sahib might have felt for his\r\nvictim. He had complained twenty times since this matter had been\r\nmooted of the folly of those who had altered the old laws. That folly\r\nhad probably robbed him of his property for twenty years, and would\r\nnow rob him of half his revenge. Not that he ever spoke even to\r\nhimself of revenge. \"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.\" He would\r\nhave been as able as any man to quote the words, and as willing. Justice, outraged justice, was his theme. Whom had he ever robbed? To\r\nwhom had he not paid all that was owing? \"All that have I done from\r\nmy youth upwards.\" Such were his thoughts of himself; and with such\r\nthoughts was it possible that he should willingly be absent from\r\nAlston during such a trial? \"I really would stay away if I were you,\" Mat Round had said to him. \"I will not stay away,\" he had replied, with a look black as a\r\nthundercloud. Could there really be anything in those suspicions of\r\nDockwrath, that his own lawyer had wilfully thrown him over once, and\r\nwas now anxious to throw him over again? \"I will not stay away,\" he\r\nsaid; and Dockwrath secured his lodgings for him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "About this time\r\nhe was a good deal with Mr. Dockwrath, and almost regretted that he\r\nhad not followed that gentleman's advice at the commencement of the\r\ntrial, and placed the management of the whole concern in his hands. Thus Alston was quite alive on the morning of the trial, and the\r\ndoors of the court-house were thronged long before they were opened. They who were personally concerned in the matter, whose presence\r\nduring the ceremony would be necessary, or who had legal connection\r\nwith the matter in hand, were of course not driven to this tedious\r\nmanner of obtaining places. Mr. Dockwrath, for instance, did\r\nnot stand waiting at the door, nor did his friend Mr. Mason. Mr.\r\nDockwrath was a great man as far as this day was concerned, and could\r\ncommand admittance from the doorkeepers and others about the court. But for the outer world, for men and women who were not lucky enough\r\nto be lawyers, witnesses, jurymen, or high sheriff, there was no\r\nmeans of hearing and seeing the events of this stirring day except\r\nwhat might be obtained by exercise of an almost unlimited patience. There had been much doubt as to what arrangement for her attendance\r\nat the court it might be best for Lady Mason to make, and some\r\ndifficulty too as to who should decide as to these arrangements."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Aram had been down more than once, and had given a hint that it\r\nwould be well that something should be settled. It had ended in his\r\nsettling it himself,--he, with the assistance of Mrs. Orme. What\r\nwould Sir Peregrine have said had he known that on any subject these\r\ntwo had been leagued in council together? \"She can go from hence in a carriage--a carriage from the inn,\" Mrs.\r\nOrme had said. \"Certainly, certainly; a carriage from the inn; yes. But in the\r\nevening, ma'am?\" \"When the trial is over?\" said Mrs. Orme, inquiring from him his\r\nmeaning. \"We can hardly expect that it shall be over in one day, ma'am. She\r\nwill continue to be on bail, and can return home. I will see that she\r\nis not annoyed as she leaves the town.\" \"Annoyed?\" said Mrs. Orme. \"By the people I mean.\" \"Will there be anything of that, sir?\" she asked, turning pale at the\r\nidea. \"I shall be with her, you know.\" \"Through the whole affair, ma'am?\" \"Yes, through the whole affair.\" \"They'll want to have a look at her of course; but,--Mrs. Orme, we'll\r\nsee that you are not annoyed. Yes; she had better come back home the\r\nfirst day. The expense won't be much; will it?\" \"Oh no,\" said Mrs. Orme. \"I must return home, you know. How many days\r\nwill it be, sir?\" \"Well, perhaps two,--perhaps three. It may run on all the week. Of\r\ncourse you know, Mrs. Orme--\"\r\n\r\n\"Know what?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "she asked. \"When the trial is over, if--if it should go against us,--then you\r\nmust return alone.\" And so the matter had been settled, and Mr. Aram himself had ordered\r\nthe carriage from the inn. Sir Peregrine's carriage would have been\r\nat their disposal,--or rather Mrs. Orme's own carriage; but she had\r\nfelt that The Cleeve arms on The Cleeve panels would be out of place\r\nin the streets of Hamworth on such an occasion. It would of course be\r\nimpossible that she should not be recognised in the court, but she\r\nwould do as little as possible to proclaim her own presence. When the morning came, the very morning of the terrible day, Mrs.\r\nOrme came down early from her room, as it was necessary that she\r\nshould breakfast two hours before the usual time. She had said\r\nnothing of this to Sir Peregrine, hoping that she might have been\r\nable to escape in the morning without seeing him. She had told her\r\nson to be there; but when she made her appearance in the breakfast\r\nparlour, she found that his grandfather was already with him. She sat\r\ndown and took her cup of tea almost in silence, for they all felt\r\nthat on such a morning much speech was impossible for them. \"Edith, my dear,\" said the baronet, \"you had better eat something. Think of the day that is before you.\" \"Yes, father, I have,\" said she, and she lifted a morsel of bread to\r\nher mouth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You must take something with you,\" said he, \"or you will be faint in\r\nthe court. Have you thought how many hours you will be there?\" \"I will see to that,\" said Peregrine, speaking with a stern decision\r\nin his voice that was by no means natural to him. \"Will you be there, Perry?\" said his mother. \"Of course I shall. I will see that you have what you want. You will\r\nfind that I will be near you.\" \"But how will you get in, my boy?\" asked his grandfather. \"Let me alone for that. I have spoken to the sheriff already. There\r\nis no knowing what may turn up; so if anything does turn up you may\r\nbe sure that I am near you.\" Then another slight attempt at eating was made, the cup of tea was\r\nemptied, and the breakfast was finished. \"Is the carriage there,\r\nPerry?\" asked Mrs. Orme. \"Yes; it is at the door.\" \"Good-bye, father; I am so sorry to have disturbed you.\" \"Good-bye, Edith; God bless you, and give you strength to bear it. And, Edith--\"\r\n\r\n\"Sir?\" and she held his hand as he whispered to her. \"Say to her a word of kindness from me;--a word of kindness. Tell her\r\nthat I have forgiven her, but tell her also that man's forgiveness\r\nwill avail her nothing.\" \"Yes, father, I will.\" \"Teach her where to look for pardon. But tell her all the same that I\r\nhave forgiven her.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then he handed her into the carriage. Peregrine, as he stood\r\naside, had watched them as they whispered, and to his mind also as he\r\nfollowed them to the carriage a suspicion of what the truth might be\r\nnow made its way. Surely there would be no need of all this solemn\r\nmourning if she were innocent. Had she been esteemed as innocent, Sir\r\nPeregrine was not the man to believe that any jury of his countrymen\r\ncould find her guilty. Had this been the reason for that sudden\r\nchange,--for that breaking off of the intended marriage? Even\r\nPeregrine, as he went down the steps after his mother, had begun to\r\nsuspect the truth; and we may say that he was the last within all\r\nthat household who did so. During the last week every servant at The\r\nCleeve had whispered to her fellow-servant that Lady Mason had forged\r\nthe will. \"I shall be near you, mother,\" said Peregrine as he put his hand into\r\nthe carriage; \"remember that. The judge and the other fellows will\r\ngo out in the middle of the day to get a glass of wine. I'll have\r\nsomething for both of you near the court.\" Poor Mrs. Orme as she pressed her son's hand felt much relieved by\r\nthe assurance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was not that she feared anything, but she was going\r\nto a place that was absolutely new to her,--to a place in which the\r\neyes of many would be fixed on her,--to a place in which the eyes of\r\nall would be fixed on the companion with whom she would be joined. Her heart almost sank within her as the carriage drove away. She\r\nwould be alone till she reached Orley Farm, and there she would take\r\nup not only Lady Mason, but Mr. Aram also. How would it be with them\r\nin that small carriage while Mr. Aram was sitting opposite to them? Mrs. Orme by no means regretted this act of kindness which she was\r\ndoing, but she began to feel that the task was not a light one. As\r\nto Mr. Aram's presence in the carriage, she need have been under no\r\nuneasiness. He understood very well when his presence was desirable,\r\nand also when it was not desirable. When she arrived at the door of Orley Farm house she found Mr. Aram\r\nwaiting there to receive her. \"I am sorry to say,\" said he, raising\r\nhis hat, \"that Lady Mason's son is to accompany us.\" \"She did not tell me,\" said Mrs. Orme, not understanding why this\r\nshould make him sorry. \"It was arranged between them last night, and it is very unfortunate. I cannot explain this to her; but perhaps--\"\r\n\r\n\"Why is it unfortunate, sir?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Things will be said which--which--which would drive me mad if they\r\nwere said about my mother.\" And immediately there was a touch of\r\nsympathy between the high-bred lady and the Old Bailey Jew lawyer. \"Yes, yes,\" said Mrs. Orme. \"It will be dreadful.\" \"And then if they find her guilty! It may be so, you know. And how is\r\nhe to sit there and hear the judge's charge;--and then the verdict,\r\nand the sentence. If he is there he cannot escape. I'll tell you\r\nwhat, Mrs. Orme; he should not be there at all.\" But what could she do? Had it been possible that she should be an\r\nhour alone with Lady Mason, she would have explained all this to\r\nher,--or if not all, would have explained much of it. But now, with\r\nno minutes to spare, how could she make this understood? \"But all\r\nthat will not come to-day, will it, sir?\" \"Not all,--not the charge or the verdict. But he should not be there\r\neven to-day. He should have gone away; or if he remained at home, he\r\nshould not have shown himself out of the house.\" But this was too late now, for as they were still speaking Lady Mason\r\nappeared at the door, leaning on her son's arm. She was dressed from\r\nhead to foot in black, and over her face there was a thick black\r\nveil."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Aram spoke no word further as she stepped up the steps\r\nfrom the hall door to the carriage, but stood back, holding the\r\ncarriage-door open in his hand. Lucius merely bowed to Mrs. Orme as\r\nhe assisted his mother to take her place; and then following her,\r\nhe sat himself down in silence opposite to them. Mr. Aram, who had\r\ncarefully arranged his own programme, shut the door, and mounted on\r\nto the box beside the driver. Mrs. Orme had held out her own hand, and Lady Mason having taken\r\nit, still held it after she was seated. Then they started, and for\r\nthe first mile no word was spoken between them. Mrs. Orme was most\r\nanxious to speak, if it might only be for the sake of breaking the\r\nhorrid stillness of their greeting; but she could think of no word\r\nwhich it would be proper on such an occasion to say, either to\r\nLucius, or even before him. Had she been alone with Lady Mason there\r\nwould have been enough of words that she could have spoken. Sir\r\nPeregrine's message was as a burden upon her tongue till she could\r\ndeliver it; but she could not deliver it while Lucius Mason was\r\nsitting by her. Lady Mason herself was the first to speak. \"I did not know yesterday\r\nthat Lucius would come,\" she said, \"or I should have told you.\" \"I hope it does not inconvenience you,\" he said. \"Oh no; by no means.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I could not let my mother go out without me on such an occasion as\r\nthis. But I am grateful to you, Mrs. Orme, for coming also.\" \"I thought it would be better for her to have some lady with her,\"\r\nsaid Mrs. Orme. \"Oh yes, it is better--much better.\" And then no further word was\r\nspoken by any of them till the carriage drove up to the court-house\r\ndoor. It may be hoped that the journey was less painful to Mr. Aram\r\nthan to the others, seeing that he solaced himself on the coach-box\r\nwith a cigar. There was still a great crowd round the front of the court-house when\r\nthey reached it, although the doors were open, and the court was\r\nalready sitting. It had been arranged that this case--the great case\r\nof the assize--should come on first on this day, most of the criminal\r\nbusiness having been completed on that preceding; and Mr. Aram\r\nhad promised that his charge should be forthcoming exactly at ten\r\no'clock. Exactly at ten the carriage was driven up to the door,\r\nand Mr. Aram jumping from his seat directed certain policemen and\r\nsheriff's servants to make a way for the ladies up to the door, and\r\nthrough the hall of the court-house. Had he lived in Alston all his\r\nlife, and spent his days in the purlieus of that court, he could not\r\nhave been more at home or have been more promptly obeyed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And now I think we may go in,\" he said, opening the door and letting\r\ndown the steps with his own hands. At first he took them into a small room within the building, and\r\nthen bustled away himself into the court. \"I shall be back in half a\r\nminute,\" he said; and in half a dozen half-minutes he was back. \"We\r\nare all ready now, and shall have no trouble about our places. If you\r\nhave anything to leave,--shawls, or things of that sort,--they will\r\nbe quite safe here: Mrs. Hitcham will look after them.\" And then\r\nan old woman who had followed Mr. Aram into the room on the last\r\noccasion curtsied to them. But they had nothing to leave, and their\r\nlittle procession was soon made. Lucius at first offered his arm to his mother, and she had taken it\r\ntill she had gone through the door into the hall. Mr. Aram also had,\r\nwith some hesitation, offered his arm to Mrs. Orme; but she, in spite\r\nof that touch of sympathy, had managed, without speaking, to decline\r\nit. In the hall, however, when all the crowd of gazers had turned\r\ntheir eyes upon them and was only kept off from pressing on them by\r\nthe policemen and sheriff's officers, Lady Mason remembered herself,\r\nand suddenly dropping her son's arm, she put out her hand for Mrs.\r\nOrme."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Aram was now in front of them, and thus they two followed\r\nhim into the body of the court. The veils of both of them were down;\r\nbut Mrs. Orme's veil was not more than ordinarily thick, and she\r\ncould see everything that was around her. So they walked up through\r\nthe crowded way, and Lucius followed them by himself. They were very soon in their seats, the crowd offering them no\r\nimpediment. The judge was already on the bench,--not our old\r\nacquaintance Justice Staveley, but his friend and colleague Baron\r\nMaltby. Judge Staveley was sitting in the other court. Mrs. Orme and\r\nLady Mason soon found themselves seated on a bench, with a slight\r\nstanding desk before them, much as though they were seated in\r\na narrow pew. Up above them, on the same seat, were the three\r\nbarristers employed on Lady Mason's behalf; nearest to the judge\r\nwas Mr. Furnival; then came Felix Graham, and below him sat Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass, somewhat out of the line of precedence, in order that\r\nhe might more easily avail himself of the services of Mr. Aram. Lucius found himself placed next to Mr. Chaffanbrass, and his mother\r\nsat between him and Mrs. Orme. On the bench below them, immediately\r\nfacing a large table which was placed in the centre of the court, sat\r\nMr. Aram and his clerk. [Illustration: The Court.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Orme as she took her seat was so confused that she could hardly\r\nlook around her; and it may be imagined that Lady Mason must have\r\nsuffered at any rate as much in the same way. But they who were\r\nlooking at her--and it may be said that every one in the court was\r\nlooking at her--were surprised to see that she raised her veil as\r\nsoon as she was seated. She raised her veil, and never lowered it\r\nagain till she left the court, and repassed out into the hall. She\r\nhad thought much of this day,--even of the little incidents which\r\nwould occur,--and she was aware that her identification would be\r\nnecessary. Nobody should tell her to unveil herself, nor would she\r\nlet it be thought that she was afraid to face her enemies. So there\r\nshe sat during the whole day, bearing the gaze of the court. She had dressed herself with great care. It may be said of most women\r\nwho could be found in such a situation, that they would either give\r\nno special heed to their dress on such a morning, or that they would\r\nappear in garments of sorrow studiously unbecoming and lachrymose, or\r\nthat they would attempt to outface the world, and have appeared there\r\nin bright trappings, fit for happier days. But Lady Mason had dressed\r\nherself after none of these fashions."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Never had her clothes been\r\nbetter made, or worn with a better grace; but they were all black,\r\nfrom her bonnet-ribbon down to her boot, and were put on without\r\nany attempt at finery or smartness. As regards dress, she had never\r\nlooked better than she did now; and Mr. Furnival, when his eye caught\r\nher as she turned her head round towards the judge, was startled by\r\nthe grace of her appearance. Her face was very pale, and somewhat\r\nhard; but no one on looking at it could say that it was the\r\ncountenance of a woman overcome either by sorrow or by crime. She was\r\nperfect mistress of herself, and as she looked round the court, not\r\nwith defiant gaze, but with eyes half raised, and a look of modest\r\nbut yet conscious intelligence, those around her hardly dared to\r\nthink that she could be guilty. As she thus looked her gaze fell on one face that she had not seen\r\nfor years, and their eyes met. It was the face of Joseph Mason of\r\nGroby, who sat opposite to her; and as she looked at him her own\r\ncountenance did not quail for a moment. Her own countenance did not\r\nquail; but his eyes fell gradually down, and when he raised them\r\nagain she had averted her face. CHAPTER LXV. FELIX GRAHAM RETURNS TO NONINGSBY. \"If you love the man, let him come.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was thus that the judge had\r\ndeclared to his daughter his opinion of what had better be done in\r\nthat matter of Felix Graham. Then he had gone on to declare that he\r\nhad given his permission to Felix Graham to say anything that he had\r\ngot to say, and finally had undertaken to invite Felix Graham to\r\nspend the assize week at Noningsby. Of course in the mind of the\r\njudge all this amounted to an actual giving away of his daughter. He regarded the thing now as done, looking upon the young people as\r\nbetrothed, and his reflections mainly ran on the material part of\r\nthe business. How should Graham be made to earn an income, and what\r\nallowance must be made to him till he did so? There was a certain sum\r\nset apart for Madeline's fortune, but that would by no means suffice\r\nfor the livelihood of a married barrister in London. Graham no doubt\r\nearned something as it was, but that was done by his pen rather than\r\nby his wig, and the judge was inclined to think that the pen must\r\nbe abandoned before the wig could be made profitable. Such were the\r\ndirections which his thoughts took regarding Madeline's lot in life. With him the next week or two, with their events, did not signify\r\nmuch; whereas the coming years did signify a great deal."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At that time, on that Sunday afternoon, there still remained to\r\nMadeline the best part of a month to think of it all, before Felix\r\nshould reappear upon the scene. But then she could not think of it\r\nby herself in silence. Her father had desired her to tell her mother\r\nwhat had passed, and she felt that a great difficulty still lay\r\nbefore her. She knew that her mother did not wish her to marry Felix\r\nGraham. She knew that her mother did wish her to marry Peregrine\r\nOrme. And therefore though no mother and child had ever treated each\r\nother with a sweeter confidence, or loved each other with warmer\r\nhearts, there was as it were a matter of disunion between them. But\r\nnevertheless she must tell her mother, and the dread of this telling\r\nweighed heavy upon her as she sat that night in the drawing-room\r\nreading the article which Felix had written. But she need not have been under any alarm. Her father, when he told\r\nher to discuss the matter with her mother, had by no means intended\r\nto throw on her shoulders the burden of converting Lady Staveley to\r\nthe Graham interest. He took care to do this himself effectually, so\r\nthat in fact there should be no burden left for Madeline's shoulders. \"Well, my dear,\" he said that same Sunday evening to his wife, \"I\r\nhave had it all out with Madeline this afternoon.\" \"About Mr. Graham, do you mean?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Yes; about Mr. Graham. I have promised that he shall come here for\r\nthe assize week.\" \"Oh, dear!\" \"It's done, my love; and I believe we shall find it all for the\r\nbest. The bishops' daughters always marry clergymen, and the judges'\r\ndaughters ought to marry lawyers.\" \"But you can't give him a practice. The bishops have livings to give\r\naway.\" \"Perhaps I may show him how to make a practice for himself, which\r\nwould be better. Take my word for it that it will be best for her\r\nhappiness. You would not have liked to be disappointed yourself, when\r\nyou made up your mind to be married.\" \"No, I should not,\" said Lady Staveley. \"And she will have a will of her own quite as strong as you had.\" And\r\nthen there was silence in the room for some time. \"You'll be kind to him when he comes?\" said the judge. \"Oh, yes,\" said Lady Staveley, in a voice that was by no means devoid\r\nof melancholy. \"Nobody can be so kind as you when you please. And as it is to be--\"\r\n\r\n\"I always did like him,\" said Lady Staveley, \"although he is so very\r\nplain.\" \"You'll soon get used to that, my dear.\" \"And as for poor young Mr. Orme--\"\r\n\r\n\"As for poor young Mr. Orme, as you call him, he will not die of a\r\nbroken heart. Poor young Mr. Orme has all the world before him and\r\nwill soon console himself.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But he is so attached to her. And then The Cleeve is so near.\" \"We must give up all that, my dear.\" \"Very well,\" said Lady Staveley; and from that moment it may be said\r\nthat she had given in her adhesion to the Graham connection. When\r\nsome time after she gave her orders to Baker as to preparing a room\r\nfor Mr. Graham, it was made quite clear to that excellent woman by\r\nher mistress's manner and anxiety as to the airing of the sheets,\r\nthat Miss Madeline was to have her own way in the matter. But long previous to these preparations Madeline and her mother had\r\ndiscussed the matter fully. \"Papa says that Mr. Graham is to come\r\nhere for the assize week,\" said Lady Staveley. \"Yes; so he told me,\" Madeline replied, very bashfully. \"I suppose it's all for the best.\" \"I hope it is,\" said Madeline. What could she do but hope so? \"Your papa understands everything so very well that I am sure he\r\nwould not let him come if it were not proper.\" \"I suppose not,\" said Madeline. \"And now I look upon the matter as all settled.\" \"What matter, mamma?\" \"That he--that he is to come here as your lover.\" \"Oh, no, mamma. Pray don't imagine that. It is not so at all. What\r\nshould I do if you were to say anything to make him think so?\" \"But you told me that you loved him.\" \"So I do, mamma.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And he told your papa that he was desperately in love with you.\" \"I don't know, mamma.\" \"But he did;--your papa told me so, and that's why he asked him to\r\ncome down here again. He never would have done it without.\" Madeline had her own idea about this, believing that her father had\r\nthought more of her wants in the matter than he had of those of Felix\r\nGraham; but as to this she said nothing. \"Nevertheless, mamma, you\r\nmust not say that to any one,\" she answered. \"Mr. Graham has never\r\nspoken to me,--not a word. I should of course have told you had he\r\ndone so.\" \"Yes, I am sure of that. But, Madeline, I suppose it's all the same. He asked papa for permission to speak to you, and your papa has given\r\nit.\" \"I'm sure I don't know, mamma.\" It was a quarter of an hour after that when Lady Staveley again\r\nreturned to the subject. \"I am sure Mr. Graham is very clever, and\r\nall that.\" \"Papa says that he is very clever indeed.\" \"I'm quite sure he is, and he makes himself very nice in the house,\r\nalways talking when there are people to dinner. Mr. Arbuthnot never\r\nwill talk when there are people to dinner. But Mr. Arbuthnot has got\r\na very nice place in Warwickshire, and they say he'll come in for the\r\ncounty some day.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Of course, mamma, if there should be anything of that sort, we\r\nshould not be rich people, like Isabella and Mr. Arbuthnot.\" \"Not at first, dear.\" \"Neither first nor last. But I don't care about that. If you and papa\r\nwill like him, and--and--if it should come to that!--Oh, mamma, he is\r\nso good, and so clever, and he understands things, and talks about\r\nthings as though he knew how to make himself master of them. And he\r\nis honest and proud. Oh, mamma, if it should be so, I do hope you\r\nwill love him.\" And then Lady Staveley promised that she would love him, thinking\r\nnevertheless that had things gone differently she would have extended\r\na more motherly warmth of affection to Peregrine Orme. And about this time Peregrine Orme made another visit to Noningsby. His intention was to see the judge, explaining what steps his\r\ngrandfather had taken as to The Cleeve property, and then once more\r\nto have thrown himself at Madeline's feet. But circumstances as they\r\nturned out prevented this. Although he had been at some trouble to\r\nascertain when the judge would be at Noningsby, nevertheless, on his\r\narrival, the judge was out. He would be home, the servant said,\r\nto dinner, but not before; and therefore he had again seen Lady\r\nStaveley, and after seeing her had not thrown himself at Madeline's\r\nfeet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had made up his mind to give a systematic and detailed account of\r\nhis pecuniary circumstances, and had selected nearly the very words\r\nin which this should be made, not actuated by any idea that such a\r\nprocess would have any weight with Madeline, or by any means assist\r\nhim with her, but hoping that he might thus procure the judge's\r\npermission to press his suit. But all this preparation and all his\r\nchosen words were of no use to him. When he saw Lady Staveley's face\r\nhe at once knew that she had no comfort to offer to him. \"Well,\" he\r\nsaid; \"is there any chance for me?\" He had intended to speak in a\r\nvery different tone, but words which have been prepared seldom manage\r\nto fit themselves into their appropriate places. \"Oh, Mr. Orme,\" she said, taking him by the hand, and holding it. \"I\r\nwish it were different; I wish it could be different.\" \"There is no hope then?\" And as he spoke there was a sound in his\r\nvoice as though the tidings would utterly unman him. \"I should be wicked to deceive you,\" she said. \"There is no hope.\" And then as she looked up at the sorrow so plainly written in the\r\nlines of his young, handsome face, tears came into her eyes and\r\nrolled down her cheeks. How could it be that a daughter of hers\r\nshould be indifferent to the love of such a suitor as this?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Peregrine, when he saw her sorrow, repressed his own. \"Very\r\nwell,\" said he; \"I will at any rate know how to take an answer. And\r\nfor your kindness to me in the matter I am much obliged. I ought to\r\nhave known myself better than to have supposed she could have cared\r\nfor me.\" \"I am sure she feels that you have done her great honour.\" \"Psha! honour! But never mind--Good-bye, Lady Staveley.\" \"Will you not see her?\" \"No. Why should I see her? Give her my love--my best love--\"\r\n\r\n\"I will--I will.\" \"And tell her that I hope she may be happy, and make some fellow\r\nhappy who is more fortunate than I am. I shall get out of the way\r\nsomewhere, so that I shall not make a fool of myself when I see it.\" And then he took his departure, and rode back again to The Cleeve. This happened two days before the commencement of the trial, and the\r\nday before that on which Graham was to arrive at Noningsby. When Graham received the judge's note asking him to put up at\r\nNoningsby for the assize week, he was much astonished. It was very\r\nshort. DEAR GRAHAM,\r\n\r\n   As you are coming down to Alston, special in Lady Mason's\r\n   case, you may as well come and stay here. Lady Staveley\r\n   bids me say that she will be delighted."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Your elder\r\n   brethren will no doubt go back to London each night, so\r\n   that you will not be expected to remain with them. Yours always, &c.\r\n\r\n\r\nWhat could be the intention of the judge in taking so strange a step\r\nas this? The judge had undertaken to see him in three months, having\r\ngiven him some faint idea that there then might be a chance of hope. But now, before one month was over, he was actually sending for him\r\nto the house, and inviting him to stay there. What would all the bar\r\nworld say when they found that a young barrister was living at the\r\njudge's house during the assizes? Would it not be in every man's\r\nmouth that he was a suitor accepted both by the judge's daughter and\r\nby the judge? There would be nothing in that to go against the grain\r\nwith him, if only the fact were so. That the fact should be so he\r\ncould not venture to hope even on this hint; but he accepted the\r\njudge's invitation, sent his grateful thanks to Lady Staveley;--as\r\nto Lady Staveley's delight, he was sure that the judge must have\r\nromanced a little, for he had clearly recognised Lady Staveley as his\r\nenemy;--and then he prepared himself for the chances of war. On the evening before the trial he arrived at Noningsby just in time\r\nfor dinner."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had been obliged to remain an hour or two at Alston in\r\nconference with Mr. Aram, and was later than he had expected he would\r\nbe. He had been afraid to come early in the day, lest by doing so he\r\nmight have seemed to overstep the margin of his invitation. When he\r\ndid arrive, the two ladies were already dressing, and he found the\r\njudge in the hall. \"A pretty fellow you are,\" said the judge. \"It's dinner-time already,\r\nand of course you take an hour to dress.\" \"Mr. Aram--\" began Felix. \"Oh, yes, Mr. Aram! I'll give you fifteen minutes, but not a moment\r\nmore.\" And so Felix was hurried on up to his bedroom--the old bedroom\r\nin which he had passed so many hours, and been so very uneasy. As\r\nhe entered the room all that conversation with Augustus Staveley\r\nreturned upon his memory. He had seen his friend in London, and told\r\nhim that he was going down to Noningsby. Augustus had looked grave,\r\nbut had said nothing about Madeline. Augustus was not in his father's\r\nconfidence in this matter, and had nothing to do but to look grave. On that very morning, moreover, some cause had been given to himself\r\nfor gravity of demeanour. At the door of his room he met Mrs. Baker, and, hurried though he was\r\nby the judge's strict injunction, he could not but shake hands with\r\nhis old and very worthy friend."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Quite strong again,\" said he, in answer to her tender inquiries. \"So you are, I do declare. I will say this, Mr. Graham, for\r\nwholesomeness of flesh you beat anything I ever come nigh. There's\r\na many would have been weeks and weeks before they could have been\r\nmoved.\" \"It was your good nursing, Mrs. Baker.\" \"Well, I think we did take care of you among us. Do you remember the\r\npheasant, Mr. Graham?\" \"Remember it! I should think so; and how I improved the occasion.\" \"Yes; you did improve fast enough. And the sea-kale, Mr. Graham. Laws! the row I had with John Gardener about that! And, Mr. Graham,\r\ndo you remember how a certain friend used to come and ask after you\r\nat the door? Dear, dear, dear! I nearly caught it about that.\" But Graham in his present frame of mind could not well endure to\r\ndiscuss his remembrances on that subject with Mrs. Baker, so he\r\ngood-humouredly pushed her out of the room, saying that the judge\r\nwould be mad if he delayed. \"That's true, too, Mr. Graham. And it won't do for you to take up Mr.\r\nAugustus's tricks in the house yet; will it?\" And then she left the\r\nroom. \"What does she mean by 'yet'?\" Felix said to himself as he went\r\nthrough the ceremony of dressing with all the haste in his power."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was in the drawing-room almost within the fifteen minutes, and\r\nthere he found none but the judge and his wife and daughter. He had\r\nat first expected to find Augustus there, but had been told by Mrs.\r\nBaker that he was to come down on the following morning. His first\r\ngreeting from Lady Staveley was something like that he had already\r\nreceived up stairs, only made in less exuberant language. He was\r\ncongratulated on his speedy recovery and made welcome by a kind\r\nsmile. Then he shook hands with Madeline, and as he did so he\r\nobserved that the judge was at the trouble to turn away, so that he\r\nshould not watch the greeting. This he did see, but into Madeline's\r\nface he hardly ventured to look. He touched her hand, however, and\r\nsaid a word; and she also murmured something about his injury. \"And\r\nnow we'll go to dinner,\" said the judge. \"Give your arm that is not\r\nbroken to Lady Staveley.\" And so the meeting was over. \"Augustus will\r\nbe in Alston to-morrow when the court is opened,\" said the judge. \"That is to say if he finds it possible to get up so soon; but to-day\r\nhe had some engagements in town.\" The truth however was that the\r\njudge had chosen to be alone with Felix after dinner. The dinner was very pleasant, but the judge talked for the whole\r\nparty. Madeline hardly spoke at all, nor did Lady Staveley say much."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Felix managed to put in a few words occasionally, as it always\r\nbecomes a good listener to do, but the brunt of the battle lay with\r\nthe host. One thing Felix observed painfully,--that not a word was\r\nspoken about Lady Mason or Orley Farm. When he had been last there\r\nthe judge had spoken of it openly before the whole party, expressing\r\nhis opinion that she was a woman much injured; but now neither did\r\nhe say anything nor did Lady Staveley. He would probably not have\r\nobserved this had not a feeling crept upon him during the last\r\nfortnight, that that thorough conviction which men had felt as to her\r\ninnocence was giving way. While the ladies were there, however, he\r\ndid not himself allude to the subject. When they had left the room and the door had been closed behind\r\nthem, the judge began the campaign--began it, and as far as he was\r\nconcerned, ended it in a very few minutes. \"Graham,\" said he, \"I am\r\nglad to see you.\" \"Thank you, judge,\" said he. \"Of course you know, and I know, what that amounts to now. My idea is\r\nthat you acted as an honest man when you were last here. You are not\r\na rich man--\"\r\n\r\n\"Anything but that.\" \"And therefore I do not think it would have been well had you\r\nendeavoured to gain my daughter's affections without speaking to\r\nme,--or to her mother.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Judge Staveley always spoke of his wife\r\nas though she were an absolute part of himself. \"She and I have\r\ndiscussed the matter now,--and you are at liberty to address yourself\r\nto Madeline if you please.\" \"My dear judge--\"\r\n\r\n\"Of course you understand that I am not answering for her?\" \"Oh, of course not.\" \"That's your look out. You must fight your own battle there. What you\r\nare allowed to understand is this,--that her father and mother will\r\ngive their consent to an engagement, if she finds that she can bring\r\nherself to give hers. If you are minded to ask her, you may do so.\" \"Of course I shall ask her.\" \"She will have five thousand pounds on her marriage, settled upon\r\nherself and her children,--and as much more when I die, settled\r\nin the same way. Now fill your glass.\" And in his own easy way he\r\nturned the subject round and began to talk about the late congress at\r\nBirmingham. Felix felt that it was not open to him at the present moment to say\r\nanything further about Madeline; and though he was disappointed at\r\nthis,--for he would have wished to go on talking about her all the\r\nevening--perhaps it was better for him. The judge would have said\r\nnothing further to encourage him, and he would have gradually been\r\ntaught to think that his chance with Madeline was little, and then\r\nless."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"He must have been a fool,\" my readers will say, \"not to\r\nhave known that Madeline was now his own.\" Probably. But then\r\nmodest-minded young men are fools. At last he contrived to bring the conversation round from the\r\nBirmingham congress to the affairs of his new client; and indeed he\r\ncontrived to do so in spite of the judge, who was not particularly\r\nanxious to speak on the subject. \"After all that we said and did at\r\nBirmingham, it is odd that I should so soon find myself joined with\r\nMr. Furnival.\" \"Not at all odd. Of course you must take up your profession as others\r\nhave taken it up before you. Very many young men dream of a Themis\r\nfit for Utopia. You have slept somewhat longer than others, and your\r\ndreams have been more vivid.\" \"And now I wake to find myself leagued with the Empson and Dudley of\r\nour latter-day law courts.\" \"Fie, Graham, fie. Do not allow yourself to speak in that tone of men\r\nwhom you know to be zealous advocates, and whom you do not know to be\r\ndishonest opponents.\" \"It is they and such as they that make so many in these days feel the\r\nneed of some Utopia,--as it was in the old days of our history. But I\r\nbeg your pardon for nicknaming them, and certainly ought not to have\r\ndone so in your presence.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Well; if you repent yourself, and will be more charitable for the\r\nfuture, I will not tell of you.\" \"I have never yet even seen Mr. Chaffanbrass in court,\" said Felix,\r\nafter a pause. \"The more shame for you, never to have gone to the court in which he\r\npractises. A barrister intending to succeed at the common law bar\r\ncannot have too wide an experience in such matters.\" \"But then I fear that I am a barrister not intending to succeed.\" \"I am very sorry to hear it,\" said the judge. And then again the\r\nconversation flagged for a minute or two. \"Have you ever seen him at a country assize town before, judge?\" asked Felix. \"Whom? Chaffanbrass? I do not remember that I have.\" \"His coming down in this way is quite unusual, I take it.\" \"Rather so, I should say. The Old Bailey is his own ground.\" \"And why should they think it necessary in such a case as this to\r\nhave recourse to such a proceeding?\" \"It would be for me to ask you that, seeing that you are one of the\r\ncounsel.\" \"Do you mean to say, judge, that between you and me you are unwilling\r\nto give an opinion on such a subject?\" \"Well; you press me hard, and I think I may fairly say that I am\r\nunwilling. I would sooner discuss the matter with you after the\r\nverdict than before it. Come; we will go into the drawing-room.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was not much in this. Indeed if it were properly looked at\r\nthere was nothing in it. But nevertheless Graham, as he preceded the\r\njudge out of the dining-room, felt that his heart misgave him about\r\nLady Mason. When first the matter had been spoken of at Noningsby,\r\nJudge Staveley had been fully convinced of Lady Mason's innocence,\r\nand had felt no reserve in expressing his opinion. He had expressed\r\nsuch an opinion very openly. Why should he now affect so much\r\nreticence, seeing that the question had been raised in the presence\r\nof them two alone? It was he who had persuaded Graham to undertake\r\nthis work, and now he went back from what he had done, and refused\r\neven to speak upon the subject. \"It must be that he thinks she is\r\nguilty,\" said Graham to himself, as he lay down that night in bed. But there had been something more for him to do before bedtime came. He followed the judge into the drawing-room, and in five minutes\r\nperceived that his host had taken up a book with the honest intention\r\nof reading it. Some reference was made to him by his wife, but he\r\nshowed at once that he did not regard Graham as company, and that he\r\nconceived himself to be entitled to enjoy the full luxury of home. \"Upon my word I don't know,\" he answered, without taking his eye off\r\nthe page. And then nobody spoke to him another word."}
{"question": "", "answer": "After another short interval Lady Staveley went to sleep. When Felix\r\nGraham had before been at Noningsby, she would have rebelled against\r\nnature with all her force rather than have slept while he was left to\r\nwhisper what he would to her darling. But now he was authorised to\r\nwhisper, and why should not Lady Staveley sleep if she wished it? She\r\ndid sleep, and Felix was left alone with his love. [Illustration: The Drawing-Room at Noningsby.] And yet he was not altogether alone. He could not say to her those\r\nwords which he was now bound to say; which he longed to say in order\r\nthat he might know whether the next stage of his life was to be light\r\nor dark. There sat the judge, closely intent no doubt upon his book,\r\nbut wide awake. There also sat Lady Staveley, fast asleep certainly;\r\nbut with a wondrous power of hearing even in her sleep. And yet how\r\nwas he to talk to his love unless he talked of love? He wished that\r\nthe judge would help them to converse; he wished that some one else\r\nwas there; he wished at last that he himself was away. Madeline sat\r\nperfectly tranquil stitching a collar. Upon her there was incumbent\r\nno duty of doing anything beyond that. But he was in a measure bound\r\nto talk. Had he dared to do so he also would have taken up a book;\r\nbut that he knew to be impossible."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Your brother will be down to-morrow,\" he said at last. \"Yes; he is to go direct to Alston. He will be here in the\r\nevening,--to dinner.\" \"Ah, yes; I suppose we shall all be late to-morrow.\" \"Papa always is late when the assizes are going on,\" said Madeline. \"Alston is not very far,\" said Felix. \"Only two miles,\" she answered. And during the whole of that long evening the conversation between\r\nthem did not reach a more interesting pitch than that. \"She must think me an utter fool,\" said Felix to himself, as he sat\r\nstaring at the fire. \"How well her brother would have made the most\r\nof such an opportunity!\" And then he went to bed, by no means in a\r\ngood humour with himself. On the next morning he again met her at breakfast, but on that\r\noccasion there was no possible opportunity for private conversation. The judge was all alive, and talked enough for the whole party during\r\nthe twenty minutes that was allowed to them before they started\r\nfor Alston. \"And now we must be off. We'll say half-past seven for\r\ndinner, my dear.\" And then they also made their journey to Alston. CHAPTER LXVI. SHOWING HOW MISS FURNIVAL TREATED HER LOVERS. It is a great thing for young ladies to live in a household in which\r\nfree correspondence by letter is permitted. \"Two for mamma, four for\r\nAmelia, three for Fanny, and one for papa.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "When the postman has left\r\nhis budget they should be dealt out in that way, and no more should\r\nbe said about it,--except what each may choose to say. Papa's letter\r\nis about money of course, and interests nobody. Mamma's contain the\r\ncharacter of a cook and an invitation to dinner, and as they interest\r\neverybody, are public property. But Fanny's letters and Amelia's\r\nshould be private; and a well-bred mamma of the present day scorns\r\neven to look at the handwriting of the addresses. Now in Harley\r\nStreet things were so managed that nobody did see the handwriting\r\nof the addresses of Sophia's letters till they came into her own\r\nhand,--that is, neither her father nor her mother did so. That both\r\nSpooner and Mrs. Ball examined them closely is probable enough. This was well for her now, for she did not wish it to be known as yet\r\nthat she had accepted an offer from Lucius Mason, and she did wish\r\nto have the privilege of receiving his letters. She fancied that she\r\nloved him. She told herself over and over again that she did so. She\r\ncompared him within her own mind to Augustus Staveley, and always\r\ngave the preference to Lucius. She liked Augustus also, and could\r\nhave accepted him as well, had it been the way of the world in\r\nEngland for ladies to have two accepted lovers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Such is not the\r\nway of the world in England, and she therefore had been under the\r\nnecessity of choosing one. She had taken the better of the two, she\r\ndeclared to herself very often; but nevertheless was it absolutely\r\nnecessary that the other should be abandoned altogether? Would it not\r\nbe well at any rate to wait till this trial should be over? But then\r\nthe young men themselves were in such a hurry! Lucius, like an honest man, had proposed to go at once to Mr.\r\nFurnival when he was accepted; but to this Sophia had objected, \"The\r\npeculiar position in which my father stands to your mother at the\r\npresent moment,\" said she, \"would make it very difficult for him\r\nto give you an answer now.\" Lucius did not quite understand the\r\nreasoning, but he yielded. It did not occur to him for a moment that\r\neither Mr. or Miss Furnival could doubt the validity of his title to\r\nthe Orley Farm property. But there was no reason why he should not write to her. \"Shall I\r\naddress here?\" he had asked. \"Oh yes,\" said Sophia; \"my letters are\r\nquite private.\" And he had written very frequently, and she had\r\nanswered him. His last letter before the trial I propose to publish,\r\ntogether with Sophia's answer, giving it as my opinion that the\r\ngentleman's production affords by no means a good type of a lover's\r\nletter. But then his circumstances were peculiar."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Miss Furnival's\r\nanswer was, I think, much better. Orley Farm, ---- ---- ----. MY OWN SOPHIA,\r\n\r\n   My only comfort--I may really say my only comfort now--is\r\n   in writing to you. It is odd that at my age, and having\r\n   begun the world early as I did, I should now find myself\r\n   so much alone. Were it not for you, I should have no\r\n   friend. I cannot describe to you the sadness of this\r\n   house, nor the wretched state in which my mother exists. I\r\n   sometimes think that had she been really guilty of those\r\n   monstrous crimes which people lay to her charge, she could\r\n   hardly have been more miserable. I do not understand it;\r\n   nor can I understand why your father has surrounded her\r\n   with lawyers whom he would not himself trust in a case of\r\n   any moment. To me she never speaks on the subject, which\r\n   makes the matter worse--worse for both of us. I see her\r\n   at breakfast and at dinner, and sometimes sit with her\r\n   for an hour in the evening; but even then we have no\r\n   conversation. The end of it is I trust soon coming, and\r\n   then I hope that the sun will again be bright. In these\r\n   days it seems as though there were a cloud over the whole\r\n   earth. I wish with all my heart that you could have been here\r\n   with her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I think that your tone and strength of mind\r\n   would have enabled her to bear up against these troubles\r\n   with more fortitude. After all, it is but the shadow of\r\n   a misfortune which has come across her, if she would but\r\n   allow herself so to think. As it is, Mrs. Orme is with\r\n   her daily, and nothing I am sure can be more kind. But I\r\n   can confess to you, though I could do so to no one else,\r\n   that I do not willingly see an intimacy kept up between\r\n   my mother and The Cleeve. Why was there that strange\r\n   proposition as to her marriage; and why, when it was once\r\n   made, was it abandoned? I know that my mother has been\r\n   not only guiltless, but guileless, in these matters as to\r\n   which she is accused; but nevertheless her affairs will\r\n   have been so managed that it will be almost impossible for\r\n   her to remain in this neighbourhood. When all this is over, I think I shall sell this place. What is there to bind me,--to bind me or you to Orley\r\n   Farm? Sometimes I have thought that I could be happy here,\r\n   devoting myself to agriculture,--\r\n\r\n\"Fiddlesticks!\" Sophia exclaimed, as she read this,\r\n\r\n   --and doing something to lessen the dense ignorance of\r\n   those around me; but for such work as that a man should\r\n   be able to extend himself over a larger surface than that\r\n   which I can influence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "My dream of happiness now carries\r\n   me away from this to other countries,--to the sunny\r\n   south. Could you be happy there? A friend of mine whom I\r\n   well knew in Germany, has a villa on the Lake of Como,--\r\n\r\n\"Indeed, sir, I'll do no such thing,\" said Sophia to herself,\r\n\r\n   --and there I think we might forget all this annoyance. I shall not write again now till the trial is over. I have\r\n   made up my mind that I will be in court during the whole\r\n   proceedings. If my mother will admit it, I will remain\r\n   there close to her, as her son should do in such an\r\n   emergency. If she will not have this, still I will be\r\n   there. No one shall say that I am afraid to see my mother\r\n   in any position to which fortune can bring her, or that I\r\n   have ever doubted her innocence. God bless you, my own one. Yours,\r\n\r\n   L. M.\r\n\r\n\r\nTaking this letter as a whole perhaps we may say that there was not\r\nas much nonsense in it as young gentlemen generally put into their\r\nlove-letters to young ladies; but I am inclined to think that it\r\nwould have been a better love-letter had there been more nonsense. At\r\nany rate there should have been less about himself, and more about\r\nthe lady. He should have omitted the agriculture altogether, and been\r\nmore sure of his loved one's tastes before he suggested the sunny\r\nsouth and the Como villa."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is true that he was circumstanced as few\r\nlovers are, with reference to his mother; but still I think he might\r\nhave been less lachrymose. Sophia's answer, which was sent after the\r\nlapse of a day or two, was as follows:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   Harley Street, ---- ---- ----. MY DEAR LUCIUS,\r\n\r\n   I am not surprised that you should feel somewhat\r\n   low-spirited at the present moment; but you will find,\r\n   I have no doubt, that the results of the next week will\r\n   cure all that. Your mother will be herself again when this\r\n   trial is over, and you will then wonder that it should\r\n   ever have had so depressing an influence either upon you\r\n   or upon her. I cannot but suppose that papa has done the\r\n   best as to her advisers. I know how anxious he is about\r\n   it, and they say that he is very clever in such matters. Pray give your mother my love. I cannot but think she\r\n   is lucky to have Mrs. Orme with her. What can be more\r\n   respectable than a connection at such a time with such\r\n   people? As to your future residence, do not make up your mind\r\n   to anything while your spirits are thus depressed. If\r\n   you like to leave Orley Farm, why not let it instead of\r\n   selling it? As for me, if it should be fated that our lots\r\n   are to go together, I am inclined to think that I should\r\n   prefer to live in England."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In London papa's position might\r\n   probably be of some service, and I should like no life\r\n   that was not active. But it is too early in the day to\r\n   talk thus at present. You must not think me cold hearted\r\n   if I say that what has as yet been between us must not be\r\n   regarded as an absolute and positive engagement. I, on my\r\n   part, hope that it may become so. My heart is not cold,\r\n   and I am not ashamed to own that I esteem you favourably;\r\n   but marriage is a very serious thing, and there is so much\r\n   to be considered! I regard myself as a free agent, and in\r\n   a great measure independent of my parents on such a matter\r\n   as that; but still I think it well to make no positive\r\n   promise without consulting them. When this trial is over\r\n   I will speak to my father, and then you will come up to\r\n   London and see us. Mind you give my love to your mother; and--if it have any\r\n   value in your eyes--accept it yourself. Your affectionate friend,\r\n\r\n   SOPHIA FURNIVAL. I feel very confident that Mrs. Furnival was right in declining\r\nto inquire very closely into the circumstances of her daughter's\r\ncorrespondence. A young lady who could write such a letter to her\r\nlover as that requires but little looking after; and in those points\r\nas to which she may require it, will--if she be so minded--elude it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Such as Miss Furnival was, no care on her mother's part would, I\r\nthink, have made her better. Much care might have made her worse, as,\r\nhad she been driven to such resources, she would have received her\r\nletters under a false name at the baker's shop round the corner. But the last letter was not written throughout without interruption. She was just declaring how on her part she hoped that her present\r\nuncertain tenure of her lover's hand might at some future time become\r\ncertain, when Augustus Staveley was announced. Sophia, who was\r\nalone in the drawing-room, rose from her table, gracefully, slipped\r\nher note under the cover of the desk, and courteously greeted her\r\nvisitor. \"And how are they all at dear Noningsby?\" she asked. [Illustration: \"And how are they all at Noningsby?\"] \"Dear Noningsby is nearly deserted. There is no one there but my\r\nmother and Madeline.\" \"And who more would be wanting to make it still dear,--unless it be\r\nthe judge? I declare, Mr. Staveley, I was quite in love with your\r\nfather when I left. Talk of honey falling from people's mouths!--he\r\ndrops nothing less than champagne and pineapples.\" \"How very difficult of digestion his conversation must be!\" \"By no means. If the wine be good and the fruit ripe, nothing can be\r\nmore wholesome. And is everybody else gone? Let me see;--Mr. Graham\r\nwas still there when I left.\" \"He came away shortly afterwards,--as soon, that is, as his arm would\r\nallow him.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"What a happy accident that was for him, Mr. Staveley!\" \"Happy!--breaking three of his ribs, his arm, and his collar-bone! I\r\nthought it very unhappy.\" \"Ah, that's because your character is so deficient in true chivalry. I call it a very happy accident which gives a gentleman an\r\nopportunity of spending six weeks under the same roof with the lady\r\nof his love. Mr. Graham is a man of spirit, and I am by no means sure\r\nthat he did not break his bones on purpose.\" Augustus for a moment thought of denying the imputation with regard\r\nto his sister, but before he had spoken he had changed his mind. He\r\nwas already aware that his friend had been again invited down to\r\nNoningsby, and if his father chose to encourage Graham, why should\r\nhe make difficulties? He had conceived some general idea that Felix\r\nGraham was not a guest to be welcomed into a rich man's family as a\r\nson-in-law. He was poor and crotchety, and as regards professional\r\nmatters unsteady. But all that was a matter for his father to\r\nconsider, not for him. So he held his peace as touching Graham, and\r\ncontrived to change the subject, veering round towards that point of\r\nthe compass which had brought him into Harley Street. \"Perhaps then, Miss Furnival, it might answer some purpose if I were\r\nto get myself run over outside there."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I could get one of Pickford's\r\nvans, or a dray from Barclay and Perkins', if that might be thought\r\nserviceable.\" \"It would be of no use in the world, Mr. Staveley. Those very\r\ncharitable middle-aged ladies opposite, the Miss Mac Codies, would\r\nhave you into their house in no time, and when you woke from your\r\nfirst swoon, you would find yourself in their best bedroom, with one\r\non each side of you.\" \"And you in the mean time--\"\r\n\r\n\"I should send over every morning at ten o'clock to inquire after\r\nyou--in mamma's name. 'Mrs. Furnival's compliments, and hopes Mr.\r\nStaveley will recover the use of his legs.' And the man would bring\r\nback word: 'The doctor hopes he may, miss; but his left eye is gone\r\nfor ever.' It is not everybody that can tumble discreetly. Now you, I\r\nfancy, would only disfigure yourself.\" \"Then I must try what fortune can do for me without the brewer's\r\ndray.\" \"Fortune has done quite enough for you, Mr. Staveley; I do not advise\r\nyou to tempt her any further.\" \"Miss Furnival, I have come to Harley Street to-day on purpose to\r\ntempt her to the utmost. There is my hand--\"\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Staveley, pray keep your hand for a while longer in your own\r\npossession.\" \"Undoubtedly I shall do so, unless I dispose of it this morning. When\r\nwe were at Noningsby together, I ventured to tell you what I felt for\r\nyou--\"\r\n\r\n\"Did you, Mr. Staveley?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "If your feelings were anything beyond the\r\ncommon, I don't remember the telling.\" \"And then,\" he continued, without choosing to notice her words, \"you\r\naffected to believe that I was not in earnest in what I said to you.\" \"And you must excuse me if I affect to believe the same thing of you\r\nstill.\" Augustus Staveley had come into Harley Street with a positive resolve\r\nto throw his heart and hand and fortune at the feet of Miss Furnival. I fear that I shall not raise him in the estimation of my readers by\r\nsaying so. But then my readers will judge him unfairly. They will\r\nforget that they have had a much better opportunity of looking into\r\nthe character of Miss Furnival than he had had; and they will also\r\nforget that they have had no such opportunity of being influenced by\r\nher personal charms. I think I remarked before that Miss Furnival\r\nwell understood how best to fight her own battle. Had she shown\r\nherself from the first anxious to regard as a definite offer the\r\nfirst words tending that way which Augustus had spoken to her,\r\nhe would at once have become indifferent about the matter. As a\r\nconsequence of her judicious conduct he was not indifferent. We\r\nalways want that which we can't get easily. Sophia had made herself\r\ndifficult to be gotten, and therefore Augustus fancied that he wanted\r\nher."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Since he had been in town he had been frequently in Harley\r\nStreet, and had been arguing with himself on the matter. What match\r\ncould be more discreet or better? Not only was she very handsome, but\r\nshe was clever also. And not only was she handsome and clever, but\r\nmoreover she was an heiress. What more could his friends want for\r\nhim, and what more could he want for himself? His mother did in truth\r\nregard her as a nasty, sly girl; but then his mother did not know\r\nSophia, and in such matters mothers are so ignorant! Miss Furnival, on his thus repeating his offer, again chose to affect\r\na belief that he was not in earnest. I am inclined to think that she\r\nrather liked this kind of thing. There is an excitement in the game;\r\nand it is one which may be played without great danger to either\r\nparty if it be played cautiously and with some skill. As regards\r\nAugustus at the present moment, I have to say--with some regret--that\r\nhe abandoned all idea of caution, and that he showed very little\r\nskill. \"Then,\" said he, \"I must beg you to lay aside an affectation which is\r\nso very injurious both to my honour and to my hopes of happiness.\" \"Your honour, Mr. Staveley, is quite safe, I am certain.\" \"I wish that my happiness were equally so,\" said he. \"But at any rate\r\nyou will let me have an answer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sophia--\"\r\n\r\nAnd now he stood up, looking at her with something really like love\r\nin his eyes, and Miss Furnival began to understand that if she so\r\nchose it the prize was really within her reach. But then was it a\r\nprize? Was not the other thing the better prize? The other thing was\r\nthe better prize;--if only that affair about the Orley Farm were\r\nsettled. Augustus Staveley was a good-looking handsome fellow, but\r\nthen there was that in the manner and gait of Lucius Mason which\r\nbetter suited her taste. There are ladies who prefer Worcester ware\r\nto real china; and, moreover, the order for the Worcester ware had\r\nalready been given. \"Sophia, let a man be ever so light-hearted, there will come to him\r\nmoments of absolute and almost terrible earnestness.\" \"Even to you, Mr. Staveley.\" \"I have at any rate done nothing to deserve your scorn.\" \"Fie, now; you to talk of my scorn! You come here with soft words\r\nwhich run easily from your tongue, feeling sure that I shall be proud\r\nin heart when I hear them whispered into my ears; and now you pretend\r\nto be angry because I do not show you that I am elated. Do you think\r\nit probable that I should treat with scorn anything of this sort that\r\nyou might say to me seriously?\" \"I think you are doing so.\" \"Have you generally found yourself treated with scorn when you have\r\nbeen out on this pursuit?\" \"By heavens!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "you have no right to speak to me so. In what way shall I\r\nput my words to make them sound seriously to you? Do you want me to\r\nkneel at your feet, as our grandfathers used to do?\" \"Oh, certainly not. Our grandmothers were very stupid in desiring\r\nthat.\" \"If I put my hand on my heart will you believe me better?\" \"Not in the least.\" \"Then through what formula shall I go?\" \"Go through no formula, Mr. Staveley. In such affairs as these very\r\nlittle, as I take it, depends on the words that are uttered. When\r\nheart has spoken to heart, or even head to head, very little other\r\nspeaking is absolutely necessary.\" \"And my heart has not spoken to yours?\" \"Well;--no;--not with that downright plain open language which a\r\nheart in earnest always knows how to use. I suppose you think you\r\nlike me?\" \"Sophia, I love you well enough to make you my wife to-morrow.\" \"Yes; and to be tired of your bargain on the next day. Has it ever\r\noccurred to you that giving and taking in marriage is a very serious\r\nthing?\" \"A very serious thing; but I do not think that on that account it\r\nshould be avoided.\" \"No; but it seems to me that you are always inclined to play at\r\nmarriage. Do not be angry with me, but for the life of me I can never\r\nthink you are in earnest.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But I shall be angry--very angry--if I do not get from you some\r\nanswer to what I have ventured to say.\" \"What, now; to-day;--this morning? If you insist upon that, the\r\nanswer can only be of one sort. If I am driven to decide this morning\r\non the question that you have asked me, great as the honour is--and\r\ncoming from you, Mr. Staveley, it is very great--I must decline it. I\r\nam not able, at any rate at the present moment, to trust my happiness\r\naltogether in your hands.\" When we think of the half-written letter\r\nwhich at this moment Miss Furnival had within her desk, this was not\r\nwonderful. And then, without having said anything more that was of note,\r\nAugustus Staveley went his way. As he walked up Harley Street, he\r\nhardly knew whether or no he was to consider himself as bound to Miss\r\nFurnival; nor did he feel quite sure whether or no he wished to be so\r\nbound. She was handsome, and clever, and an heiress; but yet he was\r\nnot certain that she possessed all those womanly charms which are\r\ndesirable in a wife. He could not but reflect that she had never yet\r\nsaid a soft word to him. CHAPTER LXVII. MR. MOULDER BACKS HIS OPINION. As the day of the trial drew nigh, the perturbation of poor John\r\nKenneby's mind became very great."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Moulder had not intended to\r\nfrighten him, but had thought it well to put him up to what he\r\nbelieved to be the truth. No doubt he would be badgered and bullied. \"And,\" as Moulder said to his wife afterwards, \"wasn't it better that\r\nhe should know what was in store for him?\" The consequence was, that\r\nhad it been by any means possible, Kenneby would have run away on the\r\nday before the trial. But it was by no means possible, for Dockwrath had hardly left him\r\nalone for an instant. Dockwrath at this time had crept into a sort of\r\nemployment in the case from which Matthew Round had striven in vain\r\nto exclude him. Mr. Round had declared once or twice that if Mr.\r\nMason encouraged Dockwrath in interfering, he, Round, would throw\r\nthe matter up. But professional men cannot very well throw up their\r\nbusiness, and Round went on, although Dockwrath did interfere, and\r\nalthough Mr. Mason did encourage him. On the eve of the trial he went\r\ndown to Alston with Kenneby and Bolster; and Mr. Moulder, at the\r\nexpress instance of Kenneby, accompanied them. \"What can I do? I can't stop the fellow's gab,\" Moulder had said. But\r\nKenneby pleaded hard that some friend might be near him in the day of\r\nhis trouble, and Moulder at last consented."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I wish it was me,\" Mrs. Smiley had said, when they talked the matter\r\nover in Great St. Helens; \"I'd let the barrister know what was what\r\nwhen he came to knock me about.\" Kenneby wished it also, with all his\r\nheart. Mr. Mason went down by the same train, but he travelled by the first\r\nclass. Dockwrath, who was now holding his head up, would have gone\r\nwith him, had he not thought it better to remain with Kenneby. \"He\r\nmight jump out of the carriage and destroy himself,\" he said to Mr.\r\nMason. \"If he had any of the feelings of an Englishman within his breast,\"\r\nsaid Mason, \"he would be anxious to give assistance towards the\r\npunishment of such a criminal as that.\" \"He has only the feelings of a tomtit,\" said Dockwrath. Lodgings had been taken for the two chief witnesses together, and\r\nMoulder and Dockwrath shared the accommodation with them. As they sat\r\ndown to tea together, these two gentlemen doubtless felt that Bridget\r\nBolster was not exactly fitting company for them. But the necessities\r\nof an assize week, and of such a trial as this, level much of these\r\ndistinctions, and they were both prepared to condescend and become\r\naffable. \"Well, Mrs. Bolster, and how do you find yourself?\" asked Dockwrath. Bridget was a solid, square-looking woman, somewhat given to flesh,\r\nand now not very quick in her movements."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the nature of her past\r\nlife had given to her a certain amount of readiness, and an absence\r\nof that dread of her fellow-creatures, which so terribly afflicted\r\npoor Kenneby. And then also she was naturally not a stupid woman, or\r\none inclined to be muddle-headed. Perhaps it would be too much to say\r\nthat she was generally intelligent, but what she did understand, she\r\nunderstood thoroughly. \"Pretty well, I thank you, Mr. Dockwrath. I sha'n't be sorry to have\r\na bit of something to my tea.\" Bridget Bolster perfectly understood that she was to be well fed\r\nwhen thus brought out for work in her country's service. To have\r\neverything that she wanted to eat and drink at places of public\r\nentertainment, and then to have the bills paid for her behind her\r\nback, was to Bridget Bolster the summit of transitory human bliss. \"And you shall have something to your tea,\" said Dockwrath. \"What's\r\nit to be?\" \"A steak's as good as anything at these places,\" suggested Moulder. \"Or some ham and eggs,\" suggested Dockwrath. \"Kidneys is nice,\" said Bridget. \"What do you say, Kenneby?\" asked Dockwrath. \"It is nothing to me,\" said Kenneby; \"I have no appetite. I think\r\nI'll take a little brandy-and-water.\" Mr. Moulder possessed the most commanding spirit, and the steak was\r\nordered. They then made themselves as comfortable as circumstances\r\nwould admit, and gradually fell into a general conversation about\r\nthe trial."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It had been understood among them since they first came\r\ntogether, that as a matter of etiquette the witnesses were not to\r\nbe asked what they had to say. Kenneby was not to divulge his facts\r\nin plain language, nor Bridget Bolster those which belonged to her;\r\nbut it was open to them all to take a general view of the matter,\r\nand natural that at the present moment they should hardly be able\r\nto speak of anything else. And there was a very divided opinion on\r\nthe subject in dispute; Dockwrath, of course, expressing a strong\r\nconviction in favour of a verdict of guilty, and Moulder being as\r\ncertain of an acquittal. At first Moulder had been very unwilling\r\nto associate with Dockwrath; for he was a man who maintained his\r\nanimosities long within his breast; but Dockwrath on this occasion\r\nwas a great man, and there was some slight reflection of greatness\r\non the associates of Dockwrath; it was only by the assistance of\r\nDockwrath that a place could be obtained within the court, and, upon\r\nthe whole, it became evident to Moulder that during such a crisis as\r\nthis the society of Dockwrath must be endured. \"They can't do anything to one if one do one's best?\" said Kenneby,\r\nwho was sitting apart from the table while the others were eating. \"Of course they can't,\" said Dockwrath, who wished to inspirit the\r\nwitnesses on his own side."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It ain't what they do, but what they say,\" said Moulder; \"and then\r\neverybody is looking at you. I remember a case when I was young on\r\nthe road; it was at Nottingham. There had been some sugars delivered,\r\nand the rats had got at it. I'm blessed if they didn't ask me\r\nbackwards and forwards so often that I forgot whether they was\r\nseconds or thirds, though I'd sold the goods myself. And then the\r\nlawyer said he'd have me prosecuted for perjury. Well, I was that\r\nfrightened, I could not stand in the box. I ain't so green now by a\r\ngood deal.\" \"I'm sure you're not, Mr. Moulder,\" said Bridget, who well understood\r\nthe class to which Moulder belonged. \"After that I met that lawyer in the street, and was ashamed to look\r\nhim in the face. I'm blessed if he didn't come up and shake hands\r\nwith me, and tell me that he knew all along that his client hadn't a\r\nleg to stand on. Now I call that beautiful.\" \"Beautiful!\" said Kenneby. \"Yes, I do. He fought that battle just as if he was sure of winning,\r\nthough he knew he was going to lose. Give me the man that can fight a\r\nlosing battle. Anybody can play whist with four by honours in his own\r\nhands.\" \"I don't object to four by honours either,\" said Dockwrath; \"and\r\nthat's the game we are going to play to-morrow.\" \"And lose the rubber after all,\" said Moulder."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No, I'm blessed if we do, Mr. Moulder. If I know anything of my own\r\nprofession--\"\r\n\r\n\"Humph!\" ejaculated Moulder. \"And I shouldn't be here in such a case as this if I didn't;--but if\r\nI do, Lady Mason has no more chance of escape than--than--than that\r\nbit of muffin has.\" And as he spoke the savoury morsel in question\r\ndisappeared from the fingers of the commercial traveller. For a moment or two Moulder could not answer him. The portion of food\r\nin question was the last on his plate; it had been considerable in\r\nsize, and required attention in mastication. Then the remaining gravy\r\nhad to be picked up on the blade of the knife, and the particles of\r\npickles collected and disposed of by the same process. But when all\r\nthis had been well done, Moulder replied--\r\n\r\n\"That may be your opinion, Mr. Dockwrath, and I dare say you may know\r\nwhat you're about.\" \"Well; I rather think I do, Mr. Moulder.\" \"Mine's different. Now when one gentleman thinks one thing and\r\nanother thinks another, there's nothing for it in my mind but for\r\neach gentleman to back his own. That's about the ticket in this\r\ncountry, I believe.\" \"That's just as a gentleman may feel disposed,\" said Dockwrath. \"No it ain't. What's the use of a man having an opinion if he won't\r\nback it?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "He's bound to back it, or else he should give way, and\r\nconfess he ain't so sure about it as he said he was. There's no\r\ncoming to an end if you don't do that. Now there's a ten-pound note,\"\r\nand Moulder produced that amount of the root of all evil; \"I'll put\r\nthat in John Kenneby's hands, and do you cover it.\" And then he\r\nlooked as though there were no possible escape from the proposition\r\nwhich he had made. \"I decline to have anything to do with it,\" said Kenneby. \"Gammon,\" said Moulder; \"two ten-pound notes won't burn a hole in\r\nyour pocket.\" \"Suppose I should be asked a question about it to-morrow; where\r\nshould I be then?\" \"Don't trouble yourself, Mr. Kenneby,\" said Dockwrath; \"I'm not going\r\nto bet.\" \"You ain't, ain't you?\" said Moulder. \"Certainly not, Mr. Moulder. If you understood professional matters\r\na little better, you'd know that a professional gentleman couldn't\r\nmake a bet as to a case partly in his own hands without very great\r\nimpropriety.\" And Dockwrath gathered himself up, endeavouring to\r\nimpress a sense of his importance on the two witnesses, even should\r\nhe fail of doing so upon Mr. Moulder. Moulder repocketed his ten-pound note, and laughed with a long, low\r\nchuckle. According to his idea of things, he had altogether got the\r\nbetter of the attorney upon that subject."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As he himself put it so\r\nplainly, what criterion is there by which a man can test the validity\r\nof his own opinion if he be not willing to support it by a bet? A man\r\nis bound to do so, or else to give way and apologise. For many years\r\nhe had insisted upon this in commercial rooms as a fundamental law in\r\nthe character and conduct of gentlemen, and never yet had anything\r\nbeen said to him to show that in such a theory he was mistaken. During all this Bridget Bolster sat there much delighted. It was not\r\nnecessary to her pleasure that she should say much herself. There she\r\nwas seated in the society of gentlemen and of men of the world, with\r\na cup of tea beside her, and the expectation of a little drop of\r\nsomething warm afterwards. What more could the world offer to her, or\r\nwhat more had the world to offer to anybody? As far as her feelings\r\nwent she did not care if Lady Mason were tried every month in the\r\nyear! Not that her feelings towards Lady Mason were cruel. It was\r\nnothing to her whether Lady Mason should be convicted or acquitted. But it was much to her to sit quietly on her chair and have nothing\r\nto do, to eat and drink of the best, and be made much of; and it was\r\nvery much to her to hear the conversation of her betters."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the following morning Dockwrath breakfasted by appointment with\r\nMr. Mason,--promising, however, that he would return to his friends\r\nwhom he left behind him, and introduce them into the court in proper\r\ntime. As I have before hinted, Mr. Mason's confidence in Dockwrath\r\nhad gone on increasing day by day since they had first met each other\r\nat Groby Park, till he now wished that he had altogether taken the\r\nadvice of the Hamworth attorney and put this matter entirely into\r\nhis hands. By degrees Joseph Mason had learned to understand and\r\nthoroughly to appreciate the strong points in his own case; and\r\nnow he was so fully convinced of the truth of those surmises which\r\nDockwrath had been the first to make, that no amount of contrary\r\nevidence could have shaken him. And why had not Round and Crook\r\nfound this out when the matter was before investigated? Why had they\r\nprevented him from appealing to the Lord Chancellor when, through\r\ntheir own carelessness, the matter had gone against him in the\r\ninferior court? And why did they now, even in these latter days,\r\nwhen they were driven to reopen the case by the clearness of the\r\nevidence submitted to them,--why did they even now wound his ears,\r\nirritate his temper, and oppose the warmest feelings of his heart by\r\nexpressing pity for this wicked criminal, whom it was their bounden\r\nduty to prosecute to the very utmost?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Was it not by their fault that\r\nOrley Farm had been lost to him for the last twenty years? And yet\r\nyoung Round had told him, with the utmost composure, that it would\r\nbe useless for him to look for any of those moneys which should have\r\naccrued to him during all those years! After what had passed, young\r\nRound should have been anxious to grind Lucius Mason into powder, and\r\nmake money of his very bones! Must he not think, when he considered\r\nall these things, that Round and Crook had been wilfully dishonest\r\nto him, and that their interest had been on the side of Lady Mason? He did so think at last, under the beneficent tutelage of his new\r\nadviser, and had it been possible would have taken the case out of\r\nthe hands of Round and Crook even during the week before the trial. \"We mustn't do it now,\" Dockwrath had said, in his triumph. \"If we\r\ndid, the whole thing would be delayed. But they shall be so watched\r\nthat they shall not be able to throw the thing over. I've got them in\r\na vice, Mr. Mason; and I'll hold them so tight that they must convict\r\nher whether they will or no.\" And the nature and extent of Mr. Dockwrath's reward had been already\r\nsettled. When Lucius Mason should be expelled from Orley Farm with\r\nignominy, he, Dockwrath, should become the tenant."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The very rent was\r\nsettled with the understanding that it should be remitted for the\r\nfirst year. It would be pleasant to him to have back his two fields\r\nin this way;--his two fields, and something else beyond! It may be\r\nremembered that Lucius Mason had once gone to his office insulting\r\nhim. It would now be his turn to visit Lucius Mason at his domicile. He was disposed to think that such visit would be made by him with\r\nmore effect than had attended that other. \"Well, sir, we're all right,\" he said, as he shook hands with Mr.\r\nMason of Groby; \"there's no screw loose that I can find.\" \"And will that man be able to speak?\" Mr. Mason was alluding to John\r\nKenneby. \"I think he will, as corroborating the woman Bolster. That's all we\r\nshall want. We shall put up the woman first; that is, after I have\r\ndone. I don't think they'll make much of her, Mr. Mason.\" \"They can't make her say that she signed two deeds if she is willing\r\nto tell the truth. There's no danger, you think, that she's been\r\ntampered with,--that she has taken money.\" \"No, no; there's been nothing of that.\" \"They'd do anything, you know,\" said Mr. Mason. \"Think of such a man\r\nas Solomon Aram! He's been used to it all his life, you know.\" \"They could not do it, Mr. Mason; I've been too sharp on them. And\r\nI tell you what,--they know it now."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There isn't one of them that\r\ndoesn't know we shall get a verdict.\" And then for a few minutes\r\nthere was silence between the two friends. \"I'll tell you what, Dockwrath,\" said Mr. Mason, after a while; \"I've\r\nso set my heart upon this--upon getting justice at last--that I do\r\nthink it would kill me if I were to be beaten. I do, indeed. I've\r\nknown this, you know, all my life; and think what I've felt! For\r\ntwenty-two years, Dockwrath! By ----! in all that I have read I don't\r\nthink I ever heard of such a hardship! That she should have robbed\r\nme for two-and-twenty years!--And now they say that she will be\r\nimprisoned for twelve months!\" \"She'll get more than that, Mr. Mason.\" \"I know what would have been done to her thirty years ago, when\r\nthe country was in earnest about such matters. What did they do to\r\nFauntleroy?\" \"Things are changed since then, ain't they?\" said Dockwrath, with\r\na laugh. And then he went to look up his flock, and take them into\r\ncourt. \"I'll meet you in the hall, Mr. Mason, in twenty minutes from\r\nthis time.\" And so the play was beginning on each side. CHAPTER LXVIII. THE FIRST DAY OF THE TRIAL. And now the judge was there on the bench, the barristers and the\r\nattorneys were collected, the prisoner was seated in their presence,\r\nand the trial was begun."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As is usual in cases of much public moment,\r\nwhen a person of mark is put upon his purgation, or the offence is\r\none which has attracted notice, a considerable amount of time was\r\nspent in preliminaries. But we, who are not bound by the necessities\r\nunder which the court laboured, will pass over these somewhat\r\nrapidly. The prisoner was arraigned on the charge of perjury, and\r\npleaded \"not guilty\" in a voice which, though low, was audible to all\r\nthe court. At that moment the hum of voices had stayed itself, and\r\nthe two small words, spoken in a clear, silver tone, reached the ears\r\nof all that then were there assembled. Some had surmised it to be\r\npossible that she would at the last moment plead guilty, but such\r\npersons had not known Lady Mason. And then by slow degrees a jury was\r\nsworn, a considerable number of jurors having been set aside at the\r\ninstance of Lady Mason's counsel. Mr. Aram had learned to what part\r\nof the county each man belonged, and upon his instructions those who\r\ncame from the neighbourhood of Hamworth were passed over. The comparative lightness of the offence divested the commencement\r\nof the trial of much of that importance and apparent dignity which\r\nattach themselves to most celebrated criminal cases. The prisoner was\r\nnot bidden to look upon the juror, nor the juror to look upon the\r\nprisoner, as though a battle for life and death were to be fought\r\nbetween them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A true bill of perjury had come down to the court from\r\nthe grand jury, but the court officials could not bring themselves\r\non such an occasion to open the case with all that solemnity and\r\ndeference to the prisoner which they would have exhibited had she\r\nbeen charged with murdering her old husband. Nor was it even the same\r\nas though she had been accused of forgery. Though forgery be not now\r\na capital crime, it was so within our memories, and there is still\r\na certain grandeur in the name. But perjury sounds small and petty,\r\nand it was not therefore till the trial had advanced a stage or two\r\nthat it assumed that importance which it afterwards never lost. That\r\nthis should be so cut Mr. Mason of Groby to the very soul. Even Mr.\r\nDockwrath had been unable to make him understand that his chance\r\nof regaining the property was under the present circumstances much\r\ngreater than it would have been had Lady Mason been arraigned for\r\nforgery. He would not believe that the act of forgery might possibly\r\nnot have been proved. Could she have been first whipped through the\r\nstreet for the misdemeanour, and then hung for the felony, his spirit\r\nwould not have been more than sufficiently appeased. The case was opened by one Mr. Steelyard, the junior counsel for\r\nthe prosecution; but his work on this occasion was hardly more than\r\nformal."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He merely stated the nature of the accusation against Lady\r\nMason, and the issue which the jury were called upon to try. Then got\r\nup Sir Richard Leatherham, the solicitor-general, and at great length\r\nand with wonderful perspicuity explained all the circumstances of\r\nthe case, beginning with the undoubted will left by Sir Joseph Mason,\r\nthe will independently of the codicil, and coming down gradually to\r\nthe discovery of that document in Mr. Dockwrath's office, which led\r\nto the surmise that the signature of those two witnesses had been\r\nobtained, not to a codicil to a will, but to a deed of another\r\ncharacter. In doing this Sir Richard did not seem to lean very\r\nheavily upon Lady Mason, nor did he say much as to the wrongs\r\nsuffered by Mr. Mason of Groby. When he alluded to Mr. Dockwrath and\r\nhis part in these transactions, he paid no compliment to the Hamworth\r\nattorney; but in referring to his learned friend on the other side\r\nhe protested his conviction that the defence of Lady Mason would be\r\nconducted not only with zeal, but in that spirit of justice and truth\r\nfor which the gentlemen opposite to him were so conspicuous in their\r\nprofession."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All this was wormwood to Joseph Mason; but nevertheless,\r\nthough Sir Richard was so moderate as to his own side, and so\r\ncourteous to that opposed to him, he made it very clear before he sat\r\ndown that if those witnesses were prepared to swear that which he was\r\ninstructed they would swear, either they must be utterly unworthy of\r\ncredit--a fact which his learned friends opposite were as able to\r\nelicit as any gentlemen who had ever graced the English bar--or else\r\nthe prisoner now on her trial must have been guilty of the crime of\r\nperjury now imputed to her. Of all those in court now attending to the proceedings, none listened\r\nwith greater care to the statement made by Sir Richard than Joseph\r\nMason, Lady Mason herself, and Felix Graham. To Joseph Mason it\r\nappeared that his counsel was betraying him. Sir Richard and Round\r\nwere in a boat together and were determined to throw him over\r\nyet once again. Had it been possible he would have stopped the\r\nproceedings, and in this spirit he spoke to Dockwrath. To Joseph\r\nMason it would have seemed right that Sir Richard should begin by\r\nholding up Lady Mason to the scorn and indignation of the twelve\r\nhonest jurymen before him. Mr. Dockwrath, whose intelligence was\r\nkeener in such matters, endeavoured to make his patron understand\r\nthat he was wrong; but in this he did not succeed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If he lets her\r\nescape me,\" said Mason, \"I think it will be the death of me.\" To Lady Mason it appeared as though the man who was now showing to\r\nall the crowd there assembled the chief scenes of her past life, had\r\nbeen present and seen everything that she had ever done. He told the\r\njury of all who had been present in the room when that true deed had\r\nbeen signed; he described how old Usbech had sat there incapable of\r\naction; how that affair of the partnership had been brought to a\r\nclose; how those two witnesses had thereupon appended their name to a\r\ndeed; how those witnesses had been deceived, or partially deceived,\r\nas to their own signatures when called upon to give their testimony\r\nat a former trial; and he told them also that a comparison of\r\nthe signatures on the codicil with those signatures which were\r\nundoubtedly true would lead an expert and professional judge of\r\nwriting to tell them that the one set of signatures or the other must\r\nbe forgeries. Then he went on to describe how the pretended codicil\r\nmust in truth have been executed--speaking of the solitary room in\r\nwhich the bad work had been done, of the midnight care and terrible\r\nsolicitude for secrecy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then, with apparent mercy, he attempted\r\nto mitigate the iniquity of the deed by telling the jury that it had\r\nnot been done by that lady with any view to self-aggrandisement, but\r\nhad been brought about by a lamentable, infatuated, mad idea that she\r\nmight in this way do that justice to her child which that child's\r\nfather had refused to do at her instance. He also, when he told of\r\nthis, spoke of Rebekah and her son; and Mrs. Orme when she heard him\r\ndid not dare to raise her eyes from the table. Lucius Mason, when he\r\nhad listened to this, lifted his clenched hand on high, and brought\r\nit down with loud violence on the raised desk in front of him. \"I\r\nknow the merits of that young man,\" said Sir Richard, looking at\r\nhim; \"I am told that he is a gentleman, good, industrious, and high\r\nspirited. I wish he were not here; I wish with all my heart he were\r\nnot here.\" And then a tear, an absolute and true drop of briny\r\nmoisture, stood in the eye of that old experienced lawyer. Lucius,\r\nwhen he heard this, for a moment covered his face. It was but for a\r\nmoment, and then he looked up again, turning his eyes slowly round\r\nthe entire court, and as he did so grasping his mother by the arm. \"He'll look in a different sort of fashion by to-morrow evening, I\r\nguess,\" said Dockwrath into his neighbour's ear."}
{"question": "", "answer": "During all this time\r\nno change came over Lady Mason's face. When she felt her son's hand\r\nupon her arm her muscles had moved involuntarily; but she recovered\r\nherself at the moment, and then went on enduring it all with absolute\r\ncomposure. Nevertheless it seemed to her as though that man who stood\r\nbefore her, telling his tale so calmly, had read the secrets of her\r\nvery soul. What chance could there be for her when everything was\r\nthus known? To every word that was spoken Felix Graham gave all his mind. While\r\nMr. Chaffanbrass sat fidgeting, or reading, or dreaming, caring\r\nnothing for all that his learned brother might say, Graham listened\r\nto every fact that was stated, and to every surmise that was\r\npropounded. To him the absolute truth in this affair was matter of\r\ngreat moment, but yet he felt that he dreaded to know the truth. Would it not be better for him that he should not know it? But yet he\r\nlistened, and his active mind, intent on the various points as they\r\nwere evolved, would not restrain itself from forming opinions. With\r\nall his ears he listened, and as he did so Mr. Chaffanbrass, amidst\r\nhis dreaming, reading, and fidgeting, kept an attentive eye upon him. To him it was a matter of course that Lady Mason should be guilty. Had she not been guilty, he, Mr. Chaffanbrass, would not have been\r\nrequired."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Chaffanbrass well understood that the defence of\r\ninjured innocence was no part of his mission. Then at last Sir Richard Leatherham brought to a close his long tale,\r\nand the examination of the witnesses was commenced. By this time\r\nit was past two o'clock, and the judge went out of court for a few\r\nminutes to refresh himself with a glass of wine and a sandwich. And\r\nnow young Peregrine Orme, in spite of all obstacles, made his way up\r\nto his mother and led her also out of court. He took his mother's\r\narm, and Lady Mason followed with her son, and so they made their way\r\ninto the small outer room which they had first entered. Not a word\r\nwas said between them on the subject which was filling the minds of\r\nall of them. Lucius stood silent and absorbed while Peregrine offered\r\nrefreshment to both the ladies. Lady Mason, doing as she was bid,\r\nessayed to eat and to drink. What was it to her whether she ate and\r\ndrank or was a-hungered? To maintain by her demeanour the idea in\r\nmen's minds that she might still possibly be innocent--that was her\r\nwork. And therefore, in order that those two young men might still\r\nthink so, she ate and drank as she was bidden. On their return to court Mr. Steelyard got up to examine Dockwrath,\r\nwho was put into the box as the first witness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The attorney produced\r\ncertain documents supposed to be of relevancy, which he had found\r\namong his father-in-law's papers, and then described how he had found\r\nthat special document which gave him to understand that Bolster and\r\nKenneby had been used as witnesses to a certain signature on that\r\n14th of July. He had known all the circumstances of the old trial,\r\nand hence his suspicions had been aroused. Acting upon this he had\r\ngone immediately down to Mr. Mason in Yorkshire, and the present\r\ntrial was the result of his care and intelligence. This was in effect\r\nthe purport of his direct evidence, and then he was handed over to\r\nthe tender mercies of the other side. On the other side Mr. Chaffanbrass rose to begin the battle. Mr.\r\nFurnival had already been engaged in sundry of those preliminary\r\nskirmishes which had been found necessary before the fight had been\r\ncommenced in earnest, and therefore the turn had now come for Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass. All this, however, had been arranged beforehand, and\r\nit had been agreed that if possible Dockwrath should be made to fall\r\ninto the clutches of the Old Bailey barrister."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was pretty to see\r\nthe meek way in which Mr. Chaffanbrass rose to his work; how gently\r\nhe smiled, how he fidgeted about a few of the papers as though he\r\nwere not at first quite master of his situation, and how he arranged\r\nhis old wig in a modest, becoming manner, bringing it well forward\r\nover his forehead. His voice also was low and soft;--so low that\r\nit was hardly heard through the whole court, and persons who had\r\ncome far to listen to him began to feel themselves disappointed. And it was pretty also to see how Dockwrath armed himself for the\r\nencounter,--how he sharpened his teeth, as it were, and felt the\r\npoints of his own claws. The little devices of Mr. Chaffanbrass did\r\nnot deceive him. He knew what he had to expect; but his pluck was\r\ngood, as is the pluck of a terrier when a mastiff prepares to attack\r\nhim. Let Mr. Chaffanbrass do his worst; that would all be over in an\r\nhour or so. But when Mr. Chaffanbrass had done his worst, Orley Farm\r\nwould still remain. \"I believe you were a tenant of Lady Mason's at one time, Mr. Dockwrath?\" asked the barrister. \"I was; and she turned me out. If you will allow me I will tell\r\nyou how all that happened, and how I was angered by the usage I\r\nreceived.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Dockwrath was determined to make a clean breast of it,\r\nand rather go before his tormentor in telling all that there was to\r\nbe told, than lag behind as an unwilling witness. \"Do,\" said Mr. Chaffanbrass. \"That will be very kind of you. When I\r\nhave learned all that, and one other little circumstance of the same\r\nnature, I do not think I shall want to trouble you any more.\" And\r\nthen Mr. Dockwrath did tell it all;--how he had lost the two fields,\r\nhow he had thus become very angry, how this anger had induced him at\r\nonce to do that which he had long thought of doing,--search, namely,\r\namong the papers of old Mr. Usbech, with the view of ascertaining\r\nwhat might be the real truth as regarded that doubtful codicil. \"And you found what you searched for, Mr. Dockwrath?\" \"I did,\" said Dockwrath. \"Without very much delay, apparently?\" \"I was two or three days over the work.\" \"But you found exactly what you wanted?\" \"I found what I expected to find.\" \"And that, although all those papers had been subjected to the\r\nscrutiny of Messrs. Round and Crook at the time of that other trial\r\ntwenty years ago?\" \"I was sharper than them, Mr. Chaffanbrass,--a deal sharper.\" \"So I perceive,\" said Chaffanbrass, and now he had pushed back his\r\nwig a little, and his eyes had begun to glare with an ugly red light."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Yes,\" he said, \"it will be long, I think, before my old friends\r\nRound and Crook are as sharp as you are, Mr. Dockwrath.\" \"Upon my word I agree with you, Mr. Chaffanbrass.\" \"Yes; Round and Crook are babies to you, Mr. Dockwrath;\" and now Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass began to pick at his chin with his finger, as he was\r\naccustomed to do when he warmed to his subject. \"Babies to you! You\r\nhave had a good deal to do with them, I should say, in getting up\r\nthis case.\" \"I have had something to do with them.\" \"And very much they must have enjoyed your society, Mr. Dockwrath! And what wrinkles they must have learned from you! What a pleasant\r\noasis it must have been in the generally somewhat dull course of\r\ntheir monotonous though profitable business! I quite envy Round and\r\nCrook having you alongside of them in their inner council-chamber.\" \"I know nothing about that, sir.\" \"No; I dare say you don't;--but they'll remember it. Well, when you'd\r\nturned over your father-in-law's papers for three days you found what\r\nyou looked for?\" \"Yes, I did.\" \"You had been tolerably sure that you would find it before you began,\r\neh?\" \"Well, I had expected that something would turn up.\" \"I have no doubt you did,--and something has turned up. That\r\ngentleman sitting next to you there,--who is he?\" \"Joseph Mason, Esquire, of Groby Park,\" said Dockwrath. \"So I thought."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is he that is to have Orley Farm, if Lady Mason and\r\nher son should lose it?\" \"In that case he would be the heir.\" \"Exactly. He would be the heir. How pleasant it must be to you to\r\nfind yourself on such affectionate terms with--the heir! And when\r\nhe comes into his inheritance, who is to be tenant? Can you tell us\r\nthat?\" Dockwrath here paused for a moment. Not that he hesitated as to\r\ntelling the whole truth. He had fully made up his mind to do so,\r\nand to brazen the matter out, declaring that of course he was to be\r\nconsidered worthy of his reward. But there was that in the manner and\r\neye of Chaffanbrass which stopped him for a moment, and his enemy\r\nimmediately took advantage of this hesitation. \"Come sir,\" said he,\r\n\"out with it. If I don't get it from you, I shall from somebody else. You've been very plain-spoken hitherto. Don't let the jury think that\r\nyour heart is failing you at last.\" \"There is no reason why my heart should fail me,\" said Dockwrath, in\r\nan angry tone. \"Is there not? I must differ from you there, Mr. Dockwrath. The heart\r\nof any man placed in such a position as that you now hold must, I\r\nthink, fail him. But never mind that. Who is to be the tenant of\r\nOrley Farm when my client has been deprived of it?\" \"I am.\" \"Just so."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You were turned out from those two fields when young Mason\r\ncame home from Germany?\" \"I was.\" \"You immediately went to work and discovered this document?\" \"I did.\" \"You put up Joseph Mason to this trial?\" \"I told him my opinion.\" \"Exactly. And if the result be successful, you are to be put in\r\npossession of the land.\" \"I shall become Mr. Mason's tenant at Orley Farm.\" \"Yes, you will become Mr. Mason's tenant at Orley Farm. Upon my word,\r\nMr. Dockwrath, you have made my work to-day uncommonly easy for\r\nme,--uncommonly easy. I don't know that I have anything else to ask\r\nyou.\" And then Mr. Chaffanbrass, as he sat down, looked up to the\r\njury with an expression of countenance which was in itself worth any\r\nfee that could be paid to him for that day's work. His face spoke as\r\nplain as a face could speak, and what his face said was this: \"After\r\nthat, gentlemen of the jury, very little more can be necessary. You\r\nnow see the motives of our opponents, and the way in which those\r\nmotives have been allowed to act. We, who are altogether upon the\r\nsquare in what we are doing, desire nothing more than that.\" All\r\nwhich Mr. Chaffanbrass said by his look, his shrug, and his gesture,\r\nmuch more eloquently than he could have done by the use of any words."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Dockwrath, as he left the box and went back to his seat--in\r\ndoing which he had to cross the table in the middle of the\r\ncourt--endeavoured to look and move as though all were right with\r\nhim. He knew that the eyes of the court were on him, and especially\r\nthe eyes of the judge and jury. He knew also how men's minds are\r\nunconsciously swayed by small appearances. He endeavoured therefore\r\nto seem indifferent; but in doing so he swaggered, and was conscious\r\nthat he swaggered; and he felt as he gained his seat that Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass had been too much for him. Then one Mr. Torrington from London was examined by Sir Richard\r\nLeatherham, and he proved, apparently beyond all doubt, that a\r\ncertain deed which he produced was genuine. That deed bore the same\r\ndate as the codicil which was now questioned, had been executed at\r\nOrley Farm by old Sir Joseph, and bore the signatures of John Kenneby\r\nand Bridget Bolster as witnesses. Sir Richard, holding the deeds in\r\nhis hands, explained to the jury that he did not at the present stage\r\nof the proceedings ask them to take it as proved that those names\r\nwere the true signatures of the two persons indicated. (\"I should\r\nthink not,\" said Mr. Furnival, in a loud voice.) But he asked them to\r\nsatisfy themselves that the document as now existing purported to\r\nbear those two signatures."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It would be for them to judge, when the\r\nevidence brought before them should be complete, whether or no that\r\ndeed were a true document. And then the deed was handed up into the\r\njury-box, and the twelve jurymen all examined it. The statement made\r\nby this Mr. Torrington was very simple. It had become his business\r\nto know the circumstances of the late partnership between Mason and\r\nMartock, and these circumstances he explained. Then Sir Richard\r\nhanded him over to be cross-examined. It was now Graham's turn to begin his work; but as he rose to do so\r\nhis mind misgave him. Not a syllable that this Torrington had said\r\nappeared to him to be unworthy of belief. The man had not uttered a\r\nword, of the truth of which Graham did not feel himself positively\r\nassured; and, more than that,--the man had clearly told all that was\r\nwithin him to tell, all that it was well that the jury should hear\r\nin order that they might thereby be assisted in coming to a true\r\ndecision. It had been hinted in his hearing, both by Chaffanbrass and\r\nAram, that this man was probably in league with Dockwrath, and Aram\r\nhad declared with a sneer that he was a puzzle-pated old fellow. He\r\nmight be puzzle-pated, and had already shown that he was bashful and\r\nunhappy in his present position; but he had shown also, as Graham\r\nthought, that he was anxious to tell the truth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And, moreover, Graham had listened with all his mind to the\r\ncross-examination of Dockwrath, and he was filled with disgust--with\r\ndisgust, not so much at the part played by the attorney as at that\r\nplayed by the barrister. As Graham regarded the matter, what had the\r\niniquities and greed of Dockwrath to do with it? Had reason been\r\nshown why the statement made by Dockwrath was in itself unworthy of\r\nbelief,--that that statement was in its own essence weak,--then the\r\ncharacter of the man making it might fairly affect its credibility. But presuming that statement to be wrong,--presuming that it was\r\ncorroborated by other evidence, how could it be affected by any\r\namount of villainy on the part of Dockwrath? All that Chaffanbrass\r\nhad done or attempted was to prove that Dockwrath had had his own\r\nend to serve. Who had ever doubted it? But not a word had been said,\r\nnot a spark of evidence elicited, to show that the man had used a\r\nfalsehood to further those views of his. Of all this the mind of\r\nFelix Graham had been full; and now, as he rose to take his own share\r\nof the work, his wit was at work rather in opposition to Lady Mason\r\nthan on her behalf. This Torrington was a little old man, and Graham had watched how his\r\nhands had trembled when Sir Richard first addressed him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Sir\r\nRichard had been very kind,--as was natural to his own witness, and\r\nthe old man had gradually regained his courage. But now as he turned\r\nhis face round to the side where he knew that he might expect to\r\nfind an enemy, that tremor again came upon him, and the stick which\r\nhe held in his hand was heard as it tapped gently against the side\r\nof the witness-box. Graham, as he rose to his work, saw that Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass had fixed his eye upon him, and his courage rose the\r\nhigher within him as he felt the gaze of the man whom he so much\r\ndisliked. Was it within the compass of his heart to bully an old man\r\nbecause such a one as Chaffanbrass desired it of him? By heaven, no! He first asked Mr. Torrington his age, and having been told that he\r\nwas over seventy, Graham went on to assure him that nothing which\r\ncould be avoided should be said to disturb his comfort. \"And now, Mr.\r\nTorrington,\" he asked, \"will you tell me whether you are a friend of\r\nMr. Dockwrath's, or have had any acquaintance with him previous to\r\nthe affairs of this trial?\" This question he repeated in various\r\nforms, but always in a mild voice, and without the appearance of any\r\ndisbelief in the answers which were given to him. All these questions\r\nTorrington answered by a plain negative."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had never seen Dockwrath\r\ntill the attorney had come to him on the matter of that partnership\r\ndeed. He had never eaten or drunk with him, nor had there ever been\r\nbetween them any conversation of a confidential nature. \"That will\r\ndo, Mr. Torrington,\" said Graham; and as he sat down, he again turned\r\nround and looked Mr. Chaffanbrass full in the face. After that nothing further of interest was done that day. A few\r\nunimportant witnesses were examined on legal points, and then the\r\ncourt was adjourned. CHAPTER LXIX. THE TWO JUDGES. Felix Graham as he left the Alston court-house on the close of the\r\nfirst day of the trial was not in a happy state of mind. He did not\r\nactually accuse himself of having omitted any duty which he owed to\r\nhis client; but he did accuse himself of having undertaken a duty for\r\nwhich he felt himself to be manifestly unfit. Would it not have been\r\nbetter, as he said to himself, for that poor lady to have had any\r\nother possible advocate than himself? Then as he passed out in the\r\ncompany of Mr. Furnival and Mr. Chaffanbrass, the latter looked at\r\nhim with a scorn which he did not know how to return. In his heart he\r\ncould do so; and should words be spoken between them on the subject,\r\nhe would be well able and willing enough to defend himself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But had\r\nhe attempted to bandy looks with Mr. Chaffanbrass, it would have\r\nseemed even to himself that he was proclaiming his resolution to put\r\nhimself in opposition to his colleagues. He felt as though he were engaged to fight a battle in which truth\r\nand justice, nay heaven itself must be against him. How can a man\r\nput his heart to the proof of an assertion in the truth of which he\r\nhimself has no belief? That though guilty this lady should be treated\r\nwith the utmost mercy compatible with the law;--for so much, had her\r\nguilt stood forward as acknowledged, he could have pleaded with all\r\nthe eloquence that was in him. He could still pity her, sympathise\r\nwith her, fight for her on such ground as that; but was it possible\r\nthat he, believing her to be false, should stand up before the crowd\r\nassembled in that court, and use such intellect as God had given him\r\nin making others think that the false and the guilty one was true and\r\ninnocent, and that those accusers were false and guilty whom he knew\r\nto be true and innocent? It had been arranged that Baron Maltby should stay that night at\r\nNoningsby. The brother-judges therefore occupied the Noningsby\r\ncarriage together, and Graham was driven back in a dog-cart by\r\nAugustus Staveley. \"Well, old boy,\" said Augustus, \"you did not soil your conscience\r\nmuch by bullying that fellow.\" \"No, I did not,\" said Graham; and then he was silent."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Chaffanbrass made an uncommonly ugly show of the Hamworth attorney,\"\r\nsaid Augustus, after a pause; but to this Graham at first made no\r\nanswer. \"If I were on the jury,\" continued the other, \"I would not believe a\r\nsingle word that came from that fellow's mouth, unless it were fully\r\nsupported by other testimony. Nor will the jury believe him.\" \"I tell you what, Staveley,\" said Graham, \"you will oblige me greatly\r\nin this matter if you will not speak to me of the trial till it is\r\nover.\" \"I beg your pardon.\" \"No; don't do that. Nothing can be more natural than that you and\r\nI should discuss it together in all its bearings. But there are\r\nreasons, which I will explain to you afterwards, why I would rather\r\nnot do so.\" \"All right,\" said Augustus. \"I'll not say another word.\" \"And for my part, I will get through the work as well as I may.\" And\r\nthen they both sat silent in the gig till they came to the corner of\r\nNoningsby wall. \"And is that other subject tabooed also?\" said Augustus. \"What other subject?\" \"That as to which we said something when you were last\r\nhere,--touching my sister Madeline.\" Graham felt that his face was on fire, but he did not know how to\r\nanswer. \"In that it is for you to decide whether or no there should\r\nbe silence between us,\" he said at last."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I certainly do not wish that there should be any secret between us,\"\r\nsaid Augustus. \"Then there shall be none. It is my intention to make an offer to\r\nher before I leave Noningsby. I can assure you for your satisfaction,\r\nthat my hopes do not run very high.\" \"For my satisfaction, Felix! I don't know why you should suppose me\r\nto be anxious that you should fail.\" And as he so spoke he stopped\r\nhis horse at the hall-door, and there was no time for further speech. \"Papa has been home a quarter of an hour,\" said Madeline, meeting\r\nthem in the hall. \"Yes, he had the pull of us by having his carriage ready,\" said her\r\nbrother. \"We had to wait for the ostler.\" \"He says that if you are not ready in ten minutes he will go to\r\ndinner without you. Mamma and I are dressed.\" And as she spoke she\r\nturned round with a smile to Felix, making him feel that both she and\r\nher father were treating him as though he were one of the family. \"Ten minutes will be quite enough for me,\" said he. \"If the governor only would sit down,\" said Augustus, \"it would be\r\nall right. But that's just what he won't do. Mad, do send somebody to\r\nhelp me to unpack.\" And then they all bustled away, so that the pair\r\nof judges might not be kept waiting for their food."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Felix Graham hurried up stairs, three steps at a time, as though all\r\nhis future success at Noningsby depended on his being down in the\r\ndrawing-room within the period of minutes stipulated by the judge. As he dressed himself with the utmost rapidity, thinking perhaps not\r\nso much as he should have done of his appearance in the eyes of his\r\nlady-love, he endeavoured to come to some resolve as to the task\r\nwhich was before him. How was he to find an opportunity of speaking\r\nhis mind to Madeline, if, during the short period of his sojourn at\r\nNoningsby, he left the house every morning directly after breakfast,\r\nand returned to it in the evening only just in time for dinner? When he entered the drawing-room both the judges were there, as was\r\nalso Lady Staveley and Madeline. Augustus alone was wanting. \"Ring\r\nthe bell, Graham,\" the judge said, as Felix took his place on the\r\ncorner of the rug. \"Augustus will be down about supper-time.\" And\r\nthen the bell was rung and the dinner ordered. \"Papa ought to remember,\" said Madeline, \"that he got his carriage\r\nfirst at Alston.\" \"I heard the wheels of the gig,\" said the judge. \"They were just two\r\nminutes after us.\" \"I don't think Augustus takes longer than other young men,\" said Lady\r\nStaveley. \"Look at Graham there."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He can't be supposed to have the use of all\r\nhis limbs, for he broke half a dozen of them a month ago; and yet\r\nhe's ready. Brother Maltby, give your arm to Lady Staveley. Graham,\r\nif you'll take Madeline, I'll follow alone.\" He did not call her Miss\r\nStaveley, as Felix specially remarked, and so remarking, pressed the\r\nlittle hand somewhat closer to his side. It was the first sign of\r\nlove he had ever given her, and he feared that some mark of anger\r\nmight follow it. There was no return to his pressure;--not the\r\nslightest answer was made with those sweet finger points; but there\r\nwas no anger. \"Is your arm quite strong again?\" she asked him as they\r\nsat down, as soon as the judge's short grace had been uttered. \"Fifteen minutes to the second,\" said Augustus, bustling into the\r\nroom, \"and I think that an unfair advantage has been taken of me. But\r\nwhat can a juvenile barrister expect in the presence of two judges?\" And then the dinner went on, and a very pleasant little dinner-party\r\nit was. Not a word was said, either then or during the evening, or on the\r\nfollowing morning, on that subject which was engrossing so much of\r\nthe mind of all of them. Not a word was spoken as to that trial which\r\nwas now pending, nor was the name of Lady Mason mentioned."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was\r\nunderstood even by Madeline that no allusion could with propriety be\r\nmade to it in the presence of the judge before whom the cause was now\r\npending, and the ground was considered too sacred for feet to tread\r\nupon it. Were it not that this feeling is so general an English judge\r\nand English counsellors would almost be forced to subject themselves\r\nin such cases to the close custody which jurymen are called upon to\r\nendure. But, as a rule, good taste and good feeling are as potent as\r\nlocks and walls. \"Do you know, Mr. Graham,\" said Madeline, in that sort of whisper\r\nwhich a dinner-table allows, \"that Mrs. Baker says you have cut her\r\nsince you got well.\" \"I! I cut one of my very best friends! How can she say anything so\r\nuntrue? If I knew where she lived I'd go and pay her a visit after\r\ndinner.\" \"I don't think you need do that,--though she has a very snug little\r\nroom of her own. You were in it on Christmas-day when we had the\r\nsnapdragon,--when you and Marion carried away the dishes.\" \"I remember. And she is base enough to say that I have cut her? I did\r\nsee her for a moment yesterday, and then I spoke to her.\" \"Ah, but you should have had a long chat with her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She expects you\r\nto go back over all the old ground, how you were brought in helpless,\r\nhow the doctor came to you, and how you took all the messes she\r\nprepared for you like a good boy. I'm afraid, Mr. Graham, you don't\r\nunderstand old women.\" \"Nor young ones either,\" it was on his tongue to say, but he did not\r\nsay it. \"When I was a young man,\" said the baron, carrying on some\r\nconversation which had been general at the table, \"I never had an\r\nopportunity of breaking my ribs out hunting.\" \"Perhaps if you had,\" said Augustus, \"you might have used it with\r\nmore effect than my friend here, and have deprived the age of one\r\nof its brightest lights, and the bench of one of its most splendid\r\nornaments.\" \"Hear, hear, hear!\" said his father. \"Augustus is coming out in a new character,\" said his mother. \"I am heartily obliged to him,\" said the baron. \"But, as I was saying\r\nbefore, these sort of things never came in my way. If I remember\r\nright, my father would have thought I was mad had I talked of going\r\nout hunting. Did you hunt, Staveley?\" When the ladies were gone the four lawyers talked about law, though\r\nthey kept quite clear of that special trial which was going on at\r\nAlston. Judge Staveley, as we know, had been at the Birmingham\r\ncongress; but not so his brother the baron."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Baron Maltby, indeed,\r\nthought but little of the Birmingham doings, and was inclined to be a\r\nlittle hard upon his brother in that he had taken a part in it. \"I think that the matter is one open to discussion,\" said the host. \"Well, I hope so,\" said Graham. \"At any rate I have heard no\r\narguments which ought to make us feel that our mouths are closed.\" \"Arguments on such a matter are worth nothing at all,\" said the\r\nbaron. \"A man with what is called a logical turn of mind may prove\r\nanything or disprove anything; but he never convinces anybody. On any\r\nmatter that is near to a man's heart, he is convinced by the tenour\r\nof his own thoughts as he goes on living, not by the arguments of a\r\nlogician, or even by the eloquence of an orator. Talkers are apt to\r\nthink that if their listener cannot answer them they are bound to\r\ngive way; but non-talkers generally take a very different view of the\r\nsubject.\" \"But does that go to show that a question should not be ventilated?\" asked Felix. \"I don't mean to be uncivil,\" said the baron, \"but of all words in\r\nthe language there is none which I dislike so much as that word\r\nventilation. A man given to ventilating subjects is worse than a man\r\nwho has a mission.\" \"Bores of that sort, however,\" said Graham, \"will show themselves\r\nfrom time to time and are not easily put down."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Some one will have a\r\nmission to reform our courts of law, and will do it too.\" \"I only hope it may not be in my time,\" said the baron. \"I can't go quite so far as that,\" said the other judge. \"But no\r\ndoubt we all have the same feeling more or less. I know pretty well\r\nwhat my friend Graham is driving at.\" \"And in your heart you agree with me,\" said Graham. \"If you would carry men's heads with you they would do you more good\r\nthan their hearts,\" said the judge. And then as the wine bottles\r\nwere stationary, the subject was cut short and they went into the\r\ndrawing-room. Graham had no opportunity that evening of telling his tale to\r\nMadeline Staveley. The party was too large for such tale-telling or\r\nelse not large enough. And then the evening in the drawing-room was\r\nover before it had seemed to begin; and while he was yet hoping that\r\nthere might be some turn in his favour, Lady Staveley wished him\r\ngood-night, and Madeline of course did the same. As he again pressed\r\nher hand he could not but think how little he had said to her since\r\nhe had been in the house, and yet it seemed to him as though that\r\nlittle had made him more intimate with her than he had ever found\r\nhimself before."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had made an attempt to separate himself from\r\nthe company by proposing to go and call on Mrs. Baker in her own\r\nquarters; but Madeline had declared it to be too late for such an\r\nexpedition, explaining that when Mrs. Baker had no patient on hand\r\nshe was accustomed to go early to her bed. In the present instance,\r\nhowever, she had been wrong, for when Felix reached the door of his\r\nown room, Mrs. Baker was coming out of it. \"I was just looking if everything was right,\" said she. \"It seems\r\nnatural to me to come and look after you, you know.\" \"And it is quite as natural to me to be looked after.\" \"Is it though? But the worst of you gentlemen when you get well is\r\nthat one has done with you. You go away, and then there's no more\r\nabout it. I always begrudge to see you get well for that reason.\" \"When you have a man in your power you like to keep him there.\" \"That's always the way with the women you know. I hope we shall see\r\none of them tying you by the leg altogether before long.\" \"I don't know anything about that,\" said Felix, sheepishly. \"Don't you? Well, if you don't I suppose nobody don't. But\r\nnevertheless I did hear a little bird say--eh! Mr. Graham.\" \"Those little birds are the biggest liars in the world.\" \"Are they now? Well perhaps they are."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And how do you think our Miss\r\nMadeline is looking? She wasn't just well for one short time after\r\nyou went away.\" \"Has she been ill?\" \"Well, not ill; not so that she came into my hands. She's looking\r\nherself again now, isn't she?\" \"She is looking, as she always does, uncommonly well.\" \"Do you remember how she used to come and say a word to you standing\r\nat the door? Dear heart! I'll be bound now I care more for her than\r\nyou do.\" \"Do you?\" said Graham. \"Of course I do. And then how angry her ladyship was with me,--as\r\nthough it were my fault. I didn't do it. Did I, Mr. Graham? But,\r\nLord love you, what's the use of being angry? My lady ought to have\r\nremembered her own young days, for it was just the same thing with\r\nher. She had her own way, and so will Miss Madeline.\" And then with\r\nsome further inquiries as to his fire, his towels, and his sheets,\r\nMrs. Baker took herself off. Felix Graham had felt a repugnance to taking the gossiping old woman\r\nopenly into his confidence, and yet he had almost asked her whether\r\nhe might in truth count upon Madeline's love. Such at any rate had\r\nbeen the tenour of his gossiping; but nevertheless he was by no means\r\ncertified."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had the judge's assurance in allowing him to be there;\r\nhe had the assurance given to him by Augustus in the few words spoken\r\nto him at the door that evening; and he ought to have known that he\r\nhad received sufficient assurance from Madeline herself. But in truth\r\nhe knew nothing of the kind. There are men who are much too forward\r\nin believing that they are regarded with favour; but there are others\r\nof whom it may be said that they are as much too backward. The world\r\nhears most of the former, and talks of them the most, but I doubt\r\nwhether the latter are not the more numerous. The next morning of course there was a hurry and fuss at breakfast in\r\norder that they might get off in time for the courts. The judges were\r\nto take their seats at ten, and therefore it was necessary that they\r\nshould sit down to breakfast some time before nine. The achievement\r\ndoes not seem to be one of great difficulty, but nevertheless it left\r\nno time for lovemaking. But for one instant Felix was able to catch Madeline alone in the\r\nbreakfast-parlour. \"Miss Staveley,\" said he, \"will it be possible\r\nthat I should speak to you alone this evening;--for five minutes?\" \"Speak to me alone?\" she said, repeating his words; and as she did\r\nso she was conscious that her whole face had become suffused with\r\ncolour. \"Is it too much to ask?\" \"Oh, no!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Then if I leave the dining-room soon after you have done so--\"\r\n\r\n\"Mamma will be there, you know,\" she said. Then others came into the\r\nroom and he was able to make no further stipulation for the evening. Madeline, when she was left alone that morning, was by no means\r\nsatisfied with her own behaviour, and accused herself of having been\r\nunnecessarily cold to him. She knew the permission which had been\r\naccorded to him, and she knew also--knew well--what answer would\r\nbe given to his request. In her mind the matter was now fixed. She\r\nhad confessed to herself that she loved him, and she could not now\r\ndoubt of his love to her. Why then should she have answered him with\r\ncoldness and doubt? She hated the missishness of young ladies, and\r\nhad resolved that when he asked her a plain question she would give\r\nhim a plain answer. It was true that the question had not been asked\r\nas yet; but why should she have left him in doubt as to her kindly\r\nfeeling? \"It shall be but for this one day,\" she said to herself as she sat\r\nalone in her room. CHAPTER LXX. HOW AM I TO BEAR IT? When the first day's work was over in the court, Lady Mason and\r\nMrs. Orme kept their seats till the greater part of the crowd\r\nhad dispersed, and the two young men, Lucius Mason and Peregrine,\r\nremained with them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Aram also remained, giving them sundry little\r\ninstructions in a low voice as to the manner in which they should go\r\nhome and return the next morning,--telling them the hour at which\r\nthey must start, and promising that he would meet them at the door\r\nof the court. To all this Mrs. Orme endeavoured to give her best\r\nattention, as though it were of the last importance; but Lady Mason\r\nwas apparently much the more collected of the two, and seemed to take\r\nall Mr. Aram's courtesies as though they were a matter of course. There she sat, still with her veil up, and though all those who had\r\nbeen assembled there during the day turned their eyes upon her as\r\nthey passed out, she bore it all without quailing. It was not that\r\nshe returned their gaze, or affected an effrontery in her conduct;\r\nbut she was able to endure it without showing that she suffered as\r\nshe did so. \"The carriage is there now,\" said Mr. Aram, who had left the court\r\nfor a minute; \"and I think you may get into it quietly.\" This\r\naccordingly they did, making their way through an avenue of idlers\r\nwho still remained that they might look upon the lady who was accused\r\nof having forged her husband's will. [Illustration: Lady Mason leaving the Court.] \"I will stay with her to-night,\" whispered Mrs. Orme to her son as\r\nthey passed through the court."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Do you mean that you will not come to The Cleeve at all?\" \"Not to-night; not till the trial be over. Do you remain with your\r\ngrandfather.\" \"I shall be here to-morrow of course to see how you go on.\" \"But do not leave your grandfather this evening. Give him my love,\r\nand say that I think it best that I should remain at Orley Farm till\r\nthe trial be over. And, Peregrine, if I were you I would not talk to\r\nhim much about the trial.\" \"But why not?\" \"I will tell you when it is over. But it would only harass him at\r\nthe present moment.\" And then Peregrine handed his mother into the\r\ncarriage and took his own way back to The Cleeve. As he returned he was bewildered in his mind by what he had heard,\r\nand he also began to feel something like a doubt as to Lady Mason's\r\ninnocence. Hitherto his belief in it had been as fixed and assured as\r\nthat of her own son. Indeed it had never occurred to him as possible\r\nthat she could have done the thing with which she was charged. He\r\nhad hated Joseph Mason for suspecting her, and had hated Dockwrath\r\nfor his presumed falsehood in pretending to suspect her. But\r\nwhat was he to think of this question now, after hearing the\r\nclear and dispassionate statement of all the circumstances by the\r\nsolicitor-general?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Hitherto he had understood none of the particulars\r\nof the case; but now the nature of the accusation had been made\r\nplain, and it was evident to him that at any rate that far-sighted\r\nlawyer believed in the truth of his own statement. Could it be\r\npossible that Lady Mason had forged the will,--that this deed had\r\nbeen done by his mother's friend, by the woman who had so nearly\r\nbecome Lady Orme of The Cleeve? The idea was terrible to him as he\r\nrode home, but yet he could not rid himself of it. And if this were\r\nso, was it also possible that his grandfather suspected it? Had that\r\nmarriage been stopped by any such suspicion as this? Was it this that\r\nhad broken the old man down and robbed him of all his spirit? That\r\nhis mother could not have any such suspicion seemed to him to be made\r\nclear by the fact that she still treated Lady Mason as her friend. And then why had he been specially enjoined not to speak to his\r\ngrandfather as to the details of the trial? But it was impossible for him to meet Sir Peregrine without speaking\r\nof the trial. When he entered the house, which he did by some back\r\nentrance from the stables, he found his grandfather standing at his\r\nown room door. He had heard the sounds of the horse, and was unable\r\nto restrain his anxiety to learn. \"Well,\" said Sir Peregrine, \"what has happened?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It is not over as yet. It will last, they say, for three days.\" \"But come in, Peregrine;\" and he shut the door, anxious rather that\r\nthe servants should not witness his own anxiety than that they should\r\nnot hear tidings which must now be common to all the world. \"They\r\nhave begun it?\" \"Oh, yes! they have begun it.\" \"Well, how far has it gone?\" \"Sir Richard Leatherham told us the accusation they make against her,\r\nand then they examined Dockwrath and one or two others. They have not\r\ngot further than that.\" \"And the--Lady Mason--how does she bear it?\" \"Very well I should say. She does not seem to be nearly as nervous\r\nnow, as she was while staying with us.\" \"Ah! indeed. She is a wonderful woman,--a very wonderful woman. So\r\nshe bears up? And your mother, Peregrine?\" \"I don't think she likes it.\" \"Likes it! Who could like such a task as that?\" \"But she will go through with it.\" \"I am sure she will. She will go through with anything that she\r\nundertakes. And--and--the judge said nothing--I suppose?\" \"Very little, sir.\" And Sir Peregrine again sat down in his arm-chair as though the work\r\nof conversation were too much for him. But neither did he dare to\r\nspeak openly on the subject; and yet there was so much that he was\r\nanxious to know. Do you think she will escape? That was the question\r\nwhich he longed to ask but did not dare to utter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then, after a while, they dined together. And Peregrine\r\ndetermined to talk of other things; but it was in vain. While the\r\nservants were in the room nothing was said. The meat was carved and\r\nthe plates were handed round, and young Orme ate his dinner; but\r\nthere was a constraint upon them both which they were quite unable to\r\ndispel, and at last they gave it up and sat in silence till they were\r\nalone. When the door was closed, and they were opposite to each other over\r\nthe fire, in the way which was their custom when they two only were\r\nthere, Sir Peregrine could restrain his desire no longer. It must be\r\nthat his grandson, who had heard all that had passed in court that\r\nday, should have formed some opinion of what was going on,--should\r\nhave some idea as to the chance of that battle which was being\r\nfought. He, Sir Peregrine, could not have gone into the court\r\nhimself. It would have been impossible for him to show himself there. But there had been his heart all the day. How had it gone with that\r\nwoman whom a few weeks ago he had loved so well that he had regarded\r\nher as his wife? \"Was your mother very tired?\" he said, again endeavouring to draw\r\nnear the subject. \"She did looked fagged while sitting in court.\" \"It was a dreadful task for her,--very dreadful.\" \"Nothing could have turned her from it,\" said Peregrine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No,--you are right there. Nothing would have turned her from it. She\r\nthought it to be her duty to that poor lady. But she--Lady Mason--she\r\nbore it better, you say?\" \"I think she bears it very well,--considering what her position is.\" \"Yes, yes. It is very dreadful. The solicitor-general when he\r\nopened,--was he very severe upon her?\" \"I do not think he wished to be severe.\" \"But he made it very strong against her.\" \"The story, as he told it, was very strong against her;--that is, you\r\nknow, it would be if we were to believe all that he stated.\" \"Yes, yes, of course. He only stated what he has been told by others. You could not see how the jury took it?\" \"I did not look at them. I was thinking more of her and of Lucius.\" \"Lucius was there?\" \"Yes; he sat next to her. And Sir Richard said, while he was telling\r\nthe story, that he wished her son were not there to hear it. Upon my\r\nword, sir, I almost wished so too.\" \"Poor fellow,--poor fellow! It would have been better for him to stay\r\naway.\" \"And yet had it been my mother--\"\r\n\r\n\"Your mother, Perry! It could not have been your mother. She could\r\nnot have been so placed.\" \"If it be Lady Mason's misfortune, and not her fault--\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah, well; we will not talk about that. And there will be two days\r\nmore you say?\" \"So said Aram, the attorney.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"God help her;--may God help her! It would be very dreadful for a\r\nman, but for a woman the burden is insupportable.\" Then they both sat silent for a while, during which Peregrine was\r\nengrossed in thinking how he could turn his grandfather from the\r\nconversation. \"And you heard no one express any opinion?\" asked Sir Peregrine,\r\nafter a pause. \"You mean about Lady Mason?\" And Peregrine began to perceive that his\r\nmother was right, and that it would have been well if possible to\r\navoid any words about the trial. \"Do they think that she will--will be acquitted? Of course the people\r\nthere were talking about it?\" \"Yes, sir, they were talking about it. But I really don't know as to\r\nany opinion. You see, the chief witnesses have not been examined.\" \"And you, Perry, what do you think?\" \"I, sir! Well, I was altogether on her side till I heard Sir Richard\r\nLeatherham.\" \"And then--?\" \"Then I did not know what to think. I suppose it's all right; but one\r\nnever can understand what those lawyers are at. When Mr. Chaffanbrass\r\ngot up to examine Dockwrath, he seemed to be just as confident on his\r\nside as the other fellow had been on the other side. I don't think\r\nI'll have any more wine, sir, thank you.\" But Sir Peregrine did not move."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He sat in his old accustomed way,\r\nnursing one leg over the knee of the other, and thinking of the\r\nmanner in which she had fallen at his feet, and confessed it all. Had he married her, and gone with her proudly into the court,--as he\r\nwould have done,--and had he then heard a verdict of guilty given by\r\nthe jury;--nay, had he heard such proof of her guilt as would have\r\nconvinced himself, it would have killed him. He felt, as he sat\r\nthere, safe over his own fireside, that his safety was due to her\r\ngenerosity. Had that other calamity fallen upon him, he could not\r\nhave survived it. His head would have fallen low before the eyes of\r\nthose who had known him since they had known anything, and would\r\nnever have been raised again. In his own spirit, in his inner life,\r\nthe blow had come to him; but it was due to her effort on his behalf\r\nthat he had not been stricken in public. When he had discussed the\r\nmatter with Mrs. Orme, he had seemed in a measure to forget this. It\r\nhad not at any rate been the thought which rested with the greatest\r\nweight upon his mind. Then he had considered how she, whose life had\r\nbeen stainless as driven snow, should bear herself in the presence of\r\nsuch deep guilt. But now,--now as he sat alone, he thought only of\r\nLady Mason."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Let her be ever so guilty,--and her guilt had been very\r\nterrible,--she had behaved very nobly to him. From him at least she\r\nhad a right to sympathy. And what chance was there that she should escape? Of absolute escape\r\nthere was no chance whatever. Even should the jury acquit her, she\r\nmust declare her guilt to the world,--must declare it to her son,\r\nby taking steps for the restoration of the property. As to that Sir\r\nPeregrine felt no doubt whatever. That Joseph Mason of Groby would\r\nrecover his right to Orley Farm was to him a certainty. But how\r\nterrible would be the path over which she must walk before this\r\ndeed of retribution could be done! \"Ah, me! ah, me!\" he said, as\r\nhe thought of all this,--speaking to himself, as though he were\r\nunconscious of his grandson's presence. \"Poor woman! poor woman!\" Then Peregrine felt sure that she had been guilty, and was sure also\r\nthat his grandfather was aware of it. \"Will you come into the other room, sir?\" he said. \"Yes, yes; if you like it.\" And then the one leg fell from the other,\r\nand he rose to do his grandson's bidding. To him now and henceforward\r\none room was much the same as another. In the mean time the party bound for Orley Farm had reached that\r\nplace, and to them also came the necessity of wearing through that\r\ntedious evening."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the mind of Lucius Mason not even yet had a\r\nshadow of suspicion fallen. To him, in spite of it all, his mother\r\nwas still pure. But yet he was stern to her, and his manner was very\r\nharsh. It may be that had such suspicion crossed his mind he would\r\nhave been less stern, and his manner more tender. As it was he could\r\nunderstand nothing that was going on, and almost felt that he was\r\nkept in the dark at his mother's instance. Why was it that a man\r\nrespected by all the world, such as Sir Richard Leatherham, should\r\nrise in court and tell such a tale as that against his mother; and\r\nthat the power of answering that tale on his mother's behalf should\r\nbe left to such another man as Mr. Chaffanbrass? Sir Richard had told\r\nhis story plainly, but with terrible force; whereas Chaffanbrass had\r\ncontented himself with brow-beating another lawyer with the lowest\r\nquirks of his cunning. Why had not some one been in court able to use\r\nthe language of passionate truth and ready to thrust the lie down the\r\nthroats of those who told it? Tea and supper had been prepared for them, and they sat down\r\ntogether; but the nature of the meal may be imagined. Lady Mason had\r\nstriven with terrible effort to support herself during the day, and\r\neven yet she did not give way."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was quite as necessary that she\r\nshould restrain herself before her son as before all those others\r\nwho had gazed at her in court. And she did sustain herself. She took\r\na knife and fork in her hand and ate a few morsels. She drank her\r\ncup of tea, and remembering that there in that house she was still\r\nhostess, she made some slight effort to welcome her guest. \"Surely\r\nafter such a day of trouble you will eat something,\" she said to her\r\nfriend. To Mrs. Orme it was marvellous that the woman should even\r\nbe alive,--let alone that she should speak and perform the ordinary\r\nfunctions of her daily life. \"And now,\" she said--Lady Mason said--as\r\nsoon as that ceremony was over, \"now as we are so tired I think we\r\nwill go up stairs. Will you light our candles for us, Lucius?\" And so\r\nthe candles were lit, and the two ladies went up stairs. A second bed had been prepared in Lady Mason's room, and into this\r\nchamber they both went at once. Mrs. Orme, as soon as she had\r\nentered, turned round and held out both her hands in order that she\r\nmight comfort Lady Mason by taking hers; but Lady Mason, when she had\r\nclosed the door, stood for a moment with her face towards the wall,\r\nnot knowing how to bear herself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was but for a moment, and then\r\nslowly moving round, with her two hands clasped together, she sank on\r\nher knees at Mrs. Orme's feet, and hid her face in the skirt of Mrs.\r\nOrme's dress. \"My friend--my friend!\" said Lady Mason. \"Yes, I am your friend--indeed I am. But, dear Lady Mason--\" And she\r\nendeavoured to think of words by which she might implore her to rise\r\nand compose herself. \"How is it you can bear with such a one as I am? How is it that you\r\ndo not hate me for my guilt?\" \"He does not hate us when we are guilty.\" \"I do not know. Sometimes I think that all will hate me,--here and\r\nhereafter--except you. Lucius will hate me, and how shall I bear\r\nthat? Oh, Mrs. Orme, I wish he knew it!\" \"I wish he did. He shall know it now,--to-night, if you will allow me\r\nto tell him.\" \"No. It would kill me to bear his looks. I wish he knew it, and was\r\naway, so that he might never look at me again.\" \"He too would forgive you if he knew it all.\" \"Forgive! How can he forgive?\" And as she spoke she rose again to her\r\nfeet, and her old manner came upon her. \"Do you think what it is that\r\nI have done for him? I,--his mother,--for my only child? And after\r\nthat, is it possible that he should forgive me?\" \"You meant him no harm.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But I have ruined him before all the world. He is as proud as\r\nyour boy; and could he bear to think that his whole life would be\r\ndisgraced by his mother's crime?\" \"Had I been so unfortunate he would have forgiven me.\" \"We are speaking of what is impossible. It could not have been so. Your youth was different from mine.\" \"God has been very good to me, and not placed temptation in my\r\nway;--temptation, I mean, to great faults. But little faults require\r\nrepentance as much as great ones.\" \"But then repentance is easy; at any rate it is possible.\" \"Oh, Lady Mason, is it not possible for you?\" \"But I will not talk of that now. I will not hear you compare\r\nyourself with such a one as I am. Do you know I was thinking to-day\r\nthat my mind would fail me, and that I should be mad before this is\r\nover? How can I bear it? how can I bear it?\" And rising from her\r\nseat, she walked rapidly through the room, holding back her hair from\r\nher brows with both her hands. [Illustration: \"How can I bear it?\"] And how was she to bear it? The load on her back was too much for her\r\nshoulders. The burden with which she had laden herself was too heavy\r\nto be borne. Her power of endurance was very great. Her strength in\r\nsupporting the extreme bitterness of intense sorrow was wonderful."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But now she was taxed beyond her power. \"How am I to bear it?\" she\r\nsaid again, as still holding her hair between her fingers, she drew\r\nher hands back over her head. \"You do not know. You have not tried it. It is impossible,\" she said\r\nin her wildness, as Mrs. Orme endeavoured to teach her the only\r\nsource from whence consolation might be had. \"I do not believe in\r\nthe thief on the cross, unless it was that he had prepared himself\r\nfor that day by years of contrition. I know I shock you,\" she added,\r\nafter a while. \"I know that what I say will be dreadful to you. But\r\ninnocence will always be shocked by guilt. Go, go and leave me. It\r\nhas gone so far now that all is of no use.\" Then she threw herself on\r\nthe bed, and burst into a convulsive passion of tears. Once again Mrs. Orme endeavoured to obtain permission from her to\r\nundertake that embassy to her son. Had Lady Mason acceded, or been\r\nnear acceding, Mrs. Orme's courage would probably have been greatly\r\nchecked. As it was she pressed it as though the task were one to be\r\nperformed without difficulty. Mrs. Orme was very anxious that Lucius\r\nshould not sit in the court throughout the trial. She felt that if he\r\ndid so the shock,--the shock which was inevitable,--must fall upon\r\nhim there; and than that she could conceive nothing more terrible."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then also she believed that if the secret were once made known\r\nto Lucius, and if he were for a time removed from his mother's side,\r\nthe poor woman might be brought to a calmer perception of her true\r\nposition. The strain would be lessened, and she would no longer feel\r\nthe necessity of exerting so terrible a control over her feelings. \"You have acknowledged that he must know it sooner or later,\" pleaded\r\nMrs. Orme. \"But this is not the time,--not now, during the trial. Had he known\r\nit before--\"\r\n\r\n\"It would keep him away from the court.\" \"Yes, and I should never see him again! What will he do when he hears\r\nit? Perhaps it would be better that he should go without seeing me.\" \"He would not do that.\" \"It would be better. If they take me to the prison, I will never see\r\nhim again. His eyes would kill me. Do you ever watch him and see the\r\npride that there is in his eye? He has never yet known what disgrace\r\nmeans; and now I, his mother, have brought him to this!\" It was all in vain as far as that night was concerned. Lady Mason\r\nwould give no such permission. But Mrs. Orme did exact from her a\r\nkind of promise that Lucius should be told on the next evening, if it\r\nthen appeared, from what Mr. Aram should say, that the result of the\r\ntrial was likely to be against them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lucius Mason spent his evening alone; and though he had as yet heard\r\nnone of the truth, his mind was not at ease, nor was he happy at\r\nheart. Though he had no idea of his mother's guilt, he did conceive\r\nthat after this trial it would be impossible that they should remain\r\nat Orley Farm. His mother's intended marriage with Sir Peregrine, and\r\nthen the manner in which that engagement had been broken off; the\r\ncourse of the trial, and its celebrity; the enmity of Dockwrath; and\r\nlastly, his own inability to place himself on terms of friendship\r\nwith those people who were still his mother's nearest friends, made\r\nhim feel that in any event it would be well for them to change their\r\nresidence. What could life do for him there at Orley Farm, after all\r\nthat had passed? He had gone to Liverpool and bought guano, and now\r\nthe sacks were lying in his barn unopened. He had begun to drain, and\r\nthe ugly unfinished lines of earth were lying across his fields. He\r\nhad no further interest in it, and felt that he could no longer go to\r\nwork on that ground as though he were in truth its master. But then, as he thought of his future hopes, his place of residence\r\nand coming life, there was one other beyond himself and his mother\r\nto whom his mind reverted."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What would Sophia wish that he should\r\ndo?--his own Sophia,--she who had promised him that her heart should\r\nbe with his through all the troubles of this trial? Before he went\r\nto bed that night he wrote to Sophia, and told her what were his\r\ntroubles and what his hopes. \"This will be over in two days more,\"\r\nhe said, \"and then I will come to you. You will see me, I trust, the\r\nday after this letter reaches you; but nevertheless I cannot debar\r\nmyself from the satisfaction of writing. I am not happy, for I am\r\ndissatisfied with what they are doing for my mother; and it is only\r\nwhen I think of you, and the assurance of your love, that I can feel\r\nanything like content. It is not a pleasant thing to sit by and\r\nhear one's mother charged with the foulest frauds that practised\r\nvillains can conceive! Yet I have had to bear it, and have heard\r\nno denial of the charge in true honest language. To-day, when the\r\nsolicitor-general was heaping falsehoods on her name, I could hardly\r\nrefrain myself from rushing at his throat. Let me have a line of\r\ncomfort from you, and then I will be with you on Friday.\" That line of comfort never came, nor did Lucius on the Friday make\r\nhis intended visit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Miss Furnival had determined, some day or two\r\nbefore this, that she would not write to Lucius again till this\r\ntrial was over; and even then it might be a question whether a\r\ncorrespondence with the heir of Noningsby would not be more to her\r\ntaste. CHAPTER LXXI. SHOWING HOW JOHN KENNEBY AND BRIDGET BOLSTER\r\nBORE THEMSELVES IN COURT. On the next morning they were all in their places at ten o'clock,\r\nand the crowd had been gathered outside the doors of the court from\r\na much earlier hour. As the trial progressed the interest in it\r\nincreased, and as people began to believe that Lady Mason had in\r\ntruth forged a will, so did they the more regard her in the light of\r\na heroine. Had she murdered her husband after forging his will, men\r\nwould have paid half a crown apiece to have touched her garments, or\r\na guinea for the privilege of shaking hands with her. Lady Mason had\r\nagain taken her seat with her veil raised, with Mrs. Orme on one side\r\nof her and her son on the other. The counsel were again ranged on the\r\nseats behind, Mr. Furnival sitting the nearest to the judge, and Mr.\r\nAram again occupied the intermediate bench, so placing himself that\r\nhe could communicate either with his client or with the barristers. These were now their established places, and great as was the crowd,\r\nthey found no difficulty in reaching them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "An easy way is always made\r\nfor the chief performers in a play. This was to be the great day as regarded the evidence. \"It is a\r\ncase that depends altogether on evidence,\" one young lawyer said to\r\nanother. \"If the counsel know how to handle the witnesses, I should\r\nsay she is safe.\" The importance of this handling was felt by every\r\none, and therefore it was understood that the real game would\r\nbe played out on this middle day. It had been all very well for\r\nChaffanbrass to bully Dockwrath and make the wretched attorney\r\nmiserable for an hour or so, but that would have but little bearing\r\non the verdict. There were two persons there who were prepared to\r\nswear that on a certain day they had only signed one deed. So much\r\nthe solicitor-general had told them, and nobody doubted that it\r\nwould be so. The question now was this, would Mr. Furnival and Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass succeed in making them contradict themselves when they\r\nhad so sworn? Could they be made to say that they had signed two\r\ndeeds, or that they might have done so? It was again the duty of Mr. Furnival to come first upon the\r\nstage,--that is to say, he was to do so as soon as Sir Richard had\r\nperformed his very second-rate part of eliciting the evidence in\r\nchief."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Poor John Kenneby was to be the first victim, and he was\r\nplaced in the box before them all very soon after the judge had\r\ntaken his seat. Why had he not emigrated to Australia, and escaped\r\nall this,--escaped all this, and Mrs. Smiley also? That was John\r\nKenneby's reflection as he slowly mounted the two steps up into\r\nthe place of his torture. Near to the same spot, and near also to\r\nDockwrath who had taken these two witnesses under his special charge,\r\nsat Bridget Bolster. She had made herself very comfortable that\r\nmorning with buttered toast and sausages; and when at Dockwrath's\r\ninstance Kenneby had submitted to a slight infusion of Dutch\r\ncourage,--a bottle of brandy would not have sufficed for the\r\npurpose,--Bridget also had not refused the generous glass. \"Not that\r\nI wants it,\" said she, meaning thereby to express an opinion that she\r\ncould hold her own, even against the great Chaffanbrass, without any\r\nsuch extraneous aid. She now sat quite quiet, with her hands crossed\r\non her knees before her, and her eyes immovably fixed on the table\r\nwhich stood in the centre of the court. In that position she remained\r\ntill her turn came; and one may say that there was no need for fear\r\non account of Bridget Bolster. And then Sir Richard began. What would be the nature of Kenneby's\r\ndirect evidence the reader pretty well knows."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Richard took a long\r\ntime in extracting it, for he was aware that it would be necessary\r\nto give his witness some confidence before he came to his main\r\nquestions. Even to do this was difficult, for Kenneby would speak in\r\na voice so low that nobody could hear him; and on the second occasion\r\nof the judge enjoining him to speak out, he nearly fainted. It is odd\r\nthat it never occurs to judges that a witness who is naturally timid\r\nwill be made more so by being scolded. When I hear a judge thus use\r\nhis authority, I always wish that I had the power of forcing him to\r\nsome very uncongenial employment,--jumping in a sack, let us say; and\r\nthen when he jumped poorly, as he certainly would, I would crack my\r\nwhip and bid him go higher and higher. The more I so bade him, the\r\nmore he would limp; and the world looking on, would pity him and\r\nexecrate me. It is much the same thing when a witness is sternly told\r\nto speak louder. But John Kenneby at last told his plain story. He remembered the day\r\non which he had met old Usbech and Bridget Bolster and Lady Mason\r\nin Sir Joseph's chamber. He had then witnessed a signature by Sir\r\nJoseph, and had only witnessed one on that day;--of that he was\r\nperfectly certain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He did not think that old Usbech had signed the\r\ndeed in question, but on that matter he declined to swear positively. He remembered the former trial. He had not then been able to swear\r\npositively whether Usbech had or had not signed the deed. As far as\r\nhe could remember, that was the point to which his cross-examination\r\non that occasion had chiefly been directed. So much John Kenneby did\r\nat last say in language that was sufficiently plain. And then Mr. Furnival arose. The reader is acquainted with the state\r\nof his mind on the subject of this trial. The enthusiasm on behalf of\r\nLady Mason, which had been aroused by his belief in her innocence, by\r\nhis old friendship, by his ancient adherence to her cause, and by his\r\nadmiration for her beauty, had now greatly faded. It had faded much\r\nwhen he found himself obliged to call in such fellow-labourers as\r\nChaffanbrass and Aram, and had all but perished when he learned from\r\ncontact with them to regard her guilt as certain. But, nevertheless,\r\nnow that he was there, the old fire returned to him. He had wished\r\ntwenty times that he had been able to shake the matter from him and\r\nleave his old client in the hands of her new advisers. It would be\r\nbetter for her, he had said to himself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But on this day--on these\r\nthree days--seeing that he had not shaken the matter off, he rose to\r\nhis work as though he still loved her, as though all his mind was\r\nstill intent on preserving that ill-gotten inheritance for her son. It may almost be doubted whether at moments during these three days\r\nhe did not again persuade himself that she was an injured woman. Aram, as may be remembered, had felt misgivings as to Mr. Furnival's\r\npowers for such cross-examination; but Chaffanbrass had never doubted\r\nit. He knew that Mr. Furnival could do as much as himself in that\r\nway; the difference being this,--that Mr. Furnival could do something\r\nelse besides. \"And now, Mr. Kenneby, I'll ask you a few questions,\" he said; and\r\nKenneby turned round to him. The barrister spoke in a mild low voice,\r\nbut his eye transfixed the poor fellow at once; and though Kenneby\r\nwas told a dozen times to look at the jury and speak to the jury, he\r\nnever was able to take his gaze away from Mr. Furnival's face. \"You remember the old trial,\" he said; and as he spoke he held in his\r\nhand what was known to be an account of that transaction."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then there\r\narose a debate between him and Sir Richard, in which Chaffanbrass,\r\nand Graham, and Mr. Steelyard all took part, as to whether Kenneby\r\nmight be examined as to his former examination; and on this point\r\nGraham pleaded very volubly, bringing up precedents without\r\nnumber,--striving to do his duty to his client on a point with which\r\nhis own conscience did not interfere. And at last it was ruled by the\r\njudge that this examination might go on;--whereupon both Sir Richard\r\nand Mr. Steelyard sat down as though they were perfectly satisfied. Kenneby, on being again asked, said that he did remember the old\r\ntrial. \"It is necessary, you know, that the jury should hear you, and if you\r\nlook at them and speak to them, they would stand a better chance.\" Kenneby for a moment allowed his eye to travel up to the jury box,\r\nbut it instantly fell again, and fixed itself on the lawyer's face. \"You do remember that trial?\" \"Yes, sir, I remember it,\" whispered Kenneby. \"Do you remember my asking you then whether you had been in the habit\r\nof witnessing Sir Joseph Mason's signature?\" \"Did you ask me that, sir?\" \"That is the question which I put to you. Do you remember my doing\r\nso?\" \"I dare say you did, sir.\" \"I did, and I will now read your answer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We shall give to the jury a\r\ncopy of the proceedings of that trial, my lord, when we have proved\r\nit,--as of course we intend to do.\" And then there was another little battle between the barristers. But\r\nas Lady Mason was now being tried for perjury, alleged to have been\r\ncommitted at that other trial, it was of course indispensable that\r\nall the proceedings of that trial should be made known to the jury. \"You said on that occasion,\" continued Furnival, \"that you were sure\r\nyou had witnessed three signatures of Sir Joseph's that summer,--that\r\nyou had probably witnessed three in July, that you were quite sure\r\nyou had witnessed three in one week in July, that you were nearly\r\nsure you had witnessed three in one day, that you could not tell what\r\nday that might have been, and that you had been used as a witness so\r\noften that you really did not remember anything about it. Can you say\r\nwhether that was the purport of the evidence you gave then?\" \"If it's down there--\" said John Kenneby, and then he stopped\r\nhimself. \"It is down here; I have read it.\" \"I suppose it's all right,\" said Kenneby. \"I must trouble you to speak out,\" said the judge; \"I cannot hear\r\nyou, and it is impossible that the jury should do so.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "The judge's\r\nwords were not uncivil, but his voice was harsh, and the only\r\nperceptible consequence of the remonstrance was to be seen in the\r\nthick drops of perspiration standing on John Kenneby's brow. \"That is the evidence which you gave on the former trial? May the\r\njury presume that you then spoke the truth to the best of your\r\nknowledge?\" \"I tried to speak the truth, sir.\" \"You tried to speak the truth? But do you mean to say that you\r\nfailed?\" \"No, I don't think I failed.\" \"When, therefore, you told the jury that you were nearly sure that\r\nyou had witnessed three signatures of Sir Joseph's in one day, that\r\nwas truth?\" \"I don't think I ever did.\" \"Ever did what?\" \"Witness three papers in one day.\" \"You don't think you ever did?\" \"I might have done, to be sure.\" \"But then, at that trial, about twelve months after the man's death,\r\nyou were nearly sure you had done so.\" \"Was I?\" \"So you told the jury.\" \"Then I did, sir.\" \"Then you did what?\" \"Did witness all those papers.\" \"You think then now that it is probable you witnessed three\r\nsignatures on the same day?\" \"No, I don't think that.\" \"Then what do you think?\" \"It is so long ago, sir, that I really don't know.\" \"Exactly. It is so long ago that you cannot depend on your memory.\" \"I suppose I can't, sir.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But you just now told the gentleman who examined you on the other\r\nside, that you were quite sure you did not witness two deeds on the\r\nday he named,--the 14th of July. Now, seeing that you doubt your own\r\nmemory, going back over so long a time, do you wish to correct that\r\nstatement?\" \"I suppose I do.\" \"What correction do you wish to make?\" \"I don't think I did.\" \"Don't think you did what?\" \"I don't think I signed two--\"\r\n\r\n\"I really cannot hear the witness,\" said the judge\r\n\r\n\"You must speak out louder,\" said Mr. Furnival, himself speaking very\r\nloudly. \"I mean to do it as well as I can,\" said Kenneby. \"I believe you do,\" said Furnival; \"but in so meaning you must be\r\nvery careful to state nothing as a certainty, of the certainty of\r\nwhich you are not sure. Are you certain that on that day you did not\r\nwitness two deeds?\" \"I think so.\" \"And yet you were not certain twenty years ago, when the fact was so\r\nmuch nearer to you?\" \"I don't remember.\" \"You don't remember whether you were certain twelve months after the\r\noccurrence, but you think you are certain now.\" \"I mean, I don't think I signed two.\" \"It is, then, only a matter of thinking?\" \"No;--only a matter of thinking.\" \"And you might have signed the two?\" \"I certainly might have done so.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"What you mean to tell the jury is this: that you have no remembrance\r\nof signing twice on that special day, although you know that you have\r\nacted as witness on behalf of Sir Joseph Mason more than twice on the\r\nsame day?\" \"Yes.\" \"That is the intended purport of your evidence?\" \"Yes, sir.\" And then Mr. Furnival travelled off to that other point of Mr.\r\nUsbech's presence and alleged handwriting. On that matter Kenneby\r\nhad not made any positive assertion, though he had expressed a very\r\nstrong opinion. Mr. Furnival was not satisfied with this, but wished\r\nto show that Kenneby had not on that matter even a strong opinion. He\r\nagain reverted to the evidence on the former trial, and read various\r\nquestions with their answers; and the answers as given at that time\r\ncertainly did not, when so taken, express a clear opinion on the part\r\nof the person who gave them; although an impartial person on reading\r\nthe whole evidence would have found that a very clear opinion was\r\nexpressed. When first asked, Kenneby had said that he was nearly sure\r\nthat Mr. Usbech had not signed the document. But his very anxiety to\r\nbe true had brought him into trouble. Mr. Furnival on that occasion\r\nhad taken advantage of the word \"nearly,\" and had at last succeeded\r\nin making him say that he was not sure at all."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Evidence by means\r\nof torture,--thumbscrew and suchlike,--we have for many years past\r\nabandoned as barbarous, and have acknowledged that it is of its very\r\nnature useless in the search after truth. How long will it be before\r\nwe shall recognise that the other kind of torture is equally opposed\r\nboth to truth and civilization? \"But Mr. Usbech was certainly in the room on that day?\" continued Mr.\r\nFurnival. \"Yes, he was there.\" \"And knew what you were all doing, I suppose?\" \"Yes, I suppose he knew.\" \"I presume it was he who explained to you the nature of the deed you\r\nwere to witness?\" \"I dare say he did.\" \"As he was the lawyer, that would be natural.\" \"I suppose it would.\" \"And you don't remember the nature of that special deed, as explained\r\nto you on the day when Bridget Bolster was in the room?\" \"No, I don't.\" \"It might have been a will?\" \"Yes, it might. I did sign one or two wills for Sir Joseph, I think.\" \"And as to this individual document, Mr. Usbech might have signed it\r\nin your presence, for anything you know to the contrary?\" \"He might have done so.\" \"Now, on your oath, Kenneby, is your memory strong enough to enable\r\nyou to give the jury any information on this subject upon which they\r\nmay firmly rely in convicting that unfortunate lady of the terrible\r\ncrime laid to her charge.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then for a moment Kenneby glanced round\r\nand fixed his eyes upon Lady Mason's face. \"Think a moment before\r\nyou answer; and deal with her as you would wish another should deal\r\nwith you if you were so situated. Can you say that you remember that\r\nUsbech did not sign it?\" \"Well, sir, I don't think he did.\" \"But he might have done so?\" \"Oh, yes; he might.\" \"You do not remember that he did do so?\" \"Certainly not.\" \"And that is about the extent of what you mean to say?\" \"Yes, sir.\" \"Let me understand,\" said the judge--and then the perspiration became\r\nmore visible on poor Kenneby's face;--\"do you mean to say that you\r\nhave no memory on the matter whatever?--that you simply do not\r\nremember whether Usbech did or did not sign it?\" \"I don't think he signed it.\" \"But why do you think he did not, seeing that his name is there?\" \"I didn't see him.\" \"Do you mean,\" continued the judge, \"that you didn't see him, or that\r\nyou don't remember that you saw him?\" \"I don't remember that I saw him.\" \"But you may have done so? He may have signed, and you may have seen\r\nhim do so, only you don't remember it?\" \"Yes, my lord.\" And then Kenneby was allowed to go down. As he did so, Joseph Mason,\r\nwho sat near to him, turned upon him a look black as thunder."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr.\r\nMason gave him no credit for his timidity, but believed that he had\r\nbeen bought over by the other side. Dockwrath, however, knew better. \"They did not quite beat him about his own signature,\" said he; \"but\r\nI knew all along that we must depend chiefly upon Bolster.\" Then Bridget Bolster was put into the box, and she was examined by\r\nMr. Steelyard. She had heard Kenneby instructed to look up, and she\r\ntherefore fixed her eyes upon the canopy over the judge's seat. There\r\nshe fixed them, and there she kept them till her examination was\r\nover, merely turning them for a moment on to Mr. Chaffanbrass, when\r\nthat gentleman became particularly severe in his treatment of her. What she said in answer to Mr. Steelyard, was very simple. She had\r\nnever witnessed but one signature in her life, and that she had done\r\nin Sir Joseph's room. The nature of the document had been explained\r\nto her. \"But,\" as she said, \"she was young and giddy then, and what\r\nwent in at one ear went out at another.\" She didn't remember Mr.\r\nUsbech signing, but he might have done so. She thought he did not. As\r\nto the two signatures purporting to be hers, she could not say which\r\nwas hers and which was not. But this she would swear positively,\r\nthat they were not both hers. To this she adhered firmly, and Mr.\r\nSteelyard handed her over to Mr. Chaffanbrass. [Illustration: Bridget Bolster in Court.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then Mr. Chaffanbrass rose from his seat, and every one knew that his\r\nwork was cut out for him. Mr. Furnival had triumphed. It may be said\r\nthat he had demolished his witness; but his triumph had been very\r\neasy. It was now necessary to demolish Bridget Bolster, and the\r\nopinion was general that if anybody could do it Mr. Chaffanbrass\r\nwas the man. But there was a doggedness about Bridget Bolster which\r\ninduced many to doubt whether even Chaffanbrass would be successful. Mr. Aram trusted greatly; but the bar would have preferred to stake\r\ntheir money on Bridget. Chaffanbrass as he rose pushed back his small ugly wig from his\r\nforehead, thrusting it rather on one side as he did so, and then,\r\nwith his chin thrown forward, and a wicked, ill-meaning smile upon\r\nhis mouth, he looked at Bridget for some moments before he spoke to\r\nher. She glanced at him, and instantly fixed her eyes back upon the\r\ncanopy. She then folded her hands one on the other upon the rail\r\nbefore her, compressed her lips, and waited patiently. \"I think you say you're--a chambermaid?\" That was the first question\r\nwhich Chaffanbrass asked, and Bridget Bolster gave a little start as\r\nshe heard his sharp, angry, disagreeable voice. \"Yes, I am, sir, at Palmer's Imperial Hotel, Plymouth, Devonshire;\r\nand have been for nineteen years, upper and under.\" \"Upper and under! What do upper and under mean?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"When I was under, I had another above me; and now, as I'm upper, why\r\nthere's others under me.\" So she explained her position at the hotel,\r\nbut she never took her eyes from the canopy. \"You hadn't begun being--chambermaid, when you signed these\r\ndocuments?\" \"I didn't sign only one of 'em.\" \"Well, one of them. You hadn't begun being chambermaid then?\" \"No, I hadn't; I was housemaid at Orley Farm.\" \"Were you upper or under there?\" \"Well, I believe I was both; that is, the cook was upper in the\r\nhouse.\" \"Oh, the cook was upper. Why wasn't she called to sign her name?\" \"That I can't say. She was a very decent woman,--that I can say,--and\r\nher name was Martha Mullens.\" So far Mr. Chaffanbrass had not done much; but that was only the\r\npreliminary skirmish, as fencers play with their foils before they\r\nbegin. \"And now, Bridget Bolster, if I understand you,\" he said, \"you\r\nhave sworn that on the 14th of July you only signed one of these\r\ndocuments.\" \"I only signed once, sir. I didn't say nothing about the 14th of\r\nJuly, because I don't remember.\" \"But when you signed the one deed, you did not sign any other?\" \"Neither then nor never.\" \"Do you know the offence for which that lady is being tried--Lady\r\nMason?\" \"Well, I ain't sure; it's for doing something about the will.\" \"No, woman, it is not.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then, as Mr. Chaffanbrass raised his\r\nvoice, and spoke with savage earnestness, Bridget again started, and\r\ngave a little leap up from the floor. But she soon settled herself\r\nback in her old position. \"No one has dared to accuse her of that,\"\r\ncontinued Mr. Chaffanbrass, looking over at the lawyers on the other\r\nside. \"The charge they have brought forward against her is that of\r\nperjury--of having given false evidence twenty years ago in a court\r\nof law. Now look here, Bridget Bolster; look at me, I say.\" She\r\ndid look at him for a moment, and then turned her eyes back to the\r\ncanopy. \"As sure as you're a living woman, you shall be placed there\r\nand tried for the same offence,--for perjury,--if you tell me a\r\nfalsehood respecting this matter.\" \"I won't say nothing but what's right,\" said Bridget. \"You had better not. Now look at these two signatures;\" and he handed\r\nto her two deeds, or rather made one of the servants of the court\r\nhold them for him; \"which of those signatures is the one which you\r\ndid not sign?\" \"I can't say, sir.\" \"Did you write that further one,--that with your hand on it?\" \"I can't say, sir.\" \"Look at it, woman, before you answer me.\" Bridget looked at it, and then repeated the same words--\r\n\r\n\"I can't say, sir.\" \"And now look at the other.\" And she again looked down for a moment. \"Did you write that?\" \"I can't say, sir.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Will you swear that you wrote either?\" \"I did write one once.\" \"Don't prevaricate with me, woman. Were either of those signatures\r\nthere written by you?\" \"I suppose that one was.\" \"Will you swear that you wrote either the one or the other?\" \"I'll swear I did write one, once.\" \"Will you swear you wrote one of those you have before you? You can\r\nread, can't you?\" \"Oh yes, I can read.\" \"Then look at them.\" Again she turned her eyes on them for half a\r\nmoment. \"Will you swear that you wrote either of those?\" \"Not if there's another anywhere else,\" said Bridget, at last. \"Another anywhere else,\" said Chaffanbrass, repeating her words;\r\n\"what do you mean by another?\" \"If you've got another that anybody else has done, I won't say which\r\nof the three is mine. But I did one, and I didn't do no more.\" Mr. Chaffanbrass continued at it for a long time, but with very\r\nindifferent success. That affair of the signatures, which was\r\nindeed the only point on which evidence was worth anything, he then\r\nabandoned, and tried to make her contradict herself about old Usbech. But on this subject she could say nothing. That Usbech was present\r\nshe remembered well, but as to his signing the deed, or not signing\r\nit, she would not pretend to say anything. \"I know he was cram full of gout,\" she said; \"but I don't remember\r\nnothing more.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "But it may be explained that Mr. Chaffanbrass had altogether altered\r\nhis intention and the very plan of his campaign with reference to\r\nthis witness, as soon as he saw what was her nature and disposition. He discovered very early in the affair that he could not force her\r\nto contradict herself and reduce her own evidence to nothing, as\r\nFurnival had done with the man. Nothing would flurry this woman,\r\nor force her to utter words of which she herself did not know the\r\nmeaning. The more he might persevere in such an attempt, the more\r\ndogged and steady she would become. He therefore soon gave that\r\nup. He had already given it up when he threatened to accuse her of\r\nperjury, and resolved that as he could not shake her he would shake\r\nthe confidence which the jury might place in her. He could not make a\r\nfool of her, and therefore he would make her out to be a rogue. Her\r\nevidence would stand alone, or nearly alone; and in this way he might\r\nturn her firmness to his own purpose, and explain that her dogged\r\nresolution to stick to one plain statement arose from her having been\r\nspecially instructed so to do, with the object of ruining his client."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For more than half an hour he persisted in asking her questions with\r\nthis object; hinting that she was on friendly terms with Dockwrath;\r\nasking her what pay she had received for her evidence; making her\r\nacknowledge that she was being kept at free quarters, and on the fat\r\nof the land. He even produced from her a list of the good things\r\nshe had eaten that morning at breakfast, and at last succeeded\r\nin obtaining information as to that small but indiscreet glass\r\nof spirits. It was then, and then only, that poor Bridget became\r\ndiscomposed. Beefsteaks, sausages, and pigs' fry, though they were\r\ntaken three times a day, were not disgraceful in her line of life;\r\nbut that little thimble of brandy, taken after much pressing and in\r\nthe openness of good fellowship, went sorely against the grain with\r\nher. \"When one has to be badgered like this, one wants a drop of\r\nsomething more than ordinary,\" she said at last. And they were the\r\nonly words which she did say which proved any triumph on the part\r\nof Mr. Chaffanbrass. But nevertheless Mr. Chaffanbrass was not\r\ndissatisfied. Triumph, immediate triumph over a poor maid-servant\r\ncould hardly have been the object of a man who had been triumphant in\r\nsuch matters for the last thirty years. Would it not be practicable\r\nto make the jury doubt whether that woman could be believed? That was\r\nthe triumph he desired."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As for himself, Mr. Chaffanbrass knew well\r\nenough that she had spoken nothing but the truth. But had he so\r\nmanaged that the truth might be made to look like falsehood,--or\r\nat any rate to have a doubtful air? If he had done that, he had\r\nsucceeded in the occupation of his life, and was indifferent to his\r\nown triumph. CHAPTER LXXII. MR. FURNIVAL'S SPEECH. All this as may be supposed disturbed Felix Graham not a little. He\r\nperceived that each of those two witnesses had made a great effort to\r\nspeak the truth;--an honest, painful effort to speak the truth, and\r\nin no way to go beyond it. His gall had risen within him while he had\r\nlistened to Mr. Furnival, and witnessed his success in destroying the\r\npresence of mind of that weak wretch who was endeavouring to do his\r\nbest in the cause of justice. And again, when Mr. Chaffanbrass had\r\nseized hold of that poor dram, and used all his wit in deducing from\r\nit a self-condemnation from the woman before him;--when the practised\r\nbarrister had striven to show that she was an habitual drunkard,\r\ndishonest, unchaste, evil in all her habits, Graham had felt almost\r\ntempted to get up and take her part. No doubt he had evinced this,\r\nfor Chaffanbrass had understood what was going on in his colleague's\r\nmind, and had looked round at him from time to time with an air of\r\nscorn that had been almost unendurable."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then it had become the duty of the prosecutors to prove the\r\ncircumstances of the former trial. This was of course essentially\r\nnecessary, seeing that the offence for which Lady Mason was now on\r\nher defence was perjury alleged to have been committed at that trial. And when this had been done at considerable length by Sir Richard\r\nLeatherham,--not without many interruptions from Mr. Furnival and\r\nmuch assistance from Mr. Steelyard,--it fell upon Felix Graham to\r\nshow by cross-examination of Crook the attorney, what had been the\r\nnature and effect of Lady Mason's testimony. As he arose to do this,\r\nMr. Chaffanbrass whispered into his ear, \"If you feel yourself\r\nunequal to it I'll take it up. I won't have her thrown over for any\r\netiquette,--nor yet for any squeamishness.\" To this Graham vouchsafed\r\nno answer. He would not even reply by a look, but he got up and did\r\nhis work. At this point his conscience did not interfere with him,\r\nfor the questions which he asked referred to facts which had really\r\noccurred. Lady Mason's testimony at that trial had been believed by\r\neverybody. The gentleman who had cross-examined her on the part of\r\nJoseph Mason, and who was now dead, had failed to shake her evidence. The judge who tried the case had declared to the jury that it was\r\nimpossible to disbelieve her evidence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That judge was still living,\r\na poor old bedridden man, and in the course of this latter trial his\r\nstatement was given in evidence. There could be no doubt that at the\r\ntime Lady Mason's testimony was taken as worthy of all credit. She\r\nhad sworn that she had seen the three witnesses sign the codicil, and\r\nno one had then thrown discredit on her. The upshot of all was this,\r\nthat the prosecuting side proved satisfactorily that such and such\r\nthings had been sworn by Lady Mason; and Felix Graham on the side of\r\nthe defence proved that, when she had so sworn, her word had been\r\nconsidered worthy of credence by the judge and by the jury, and had\r\nhardly been doubted even by the counsel opposed to her. All this\r\nreally had been so, and Felix Graham used his utmost ingenuity in\r\nmaking clear to the court how high and unassailed had been the\r\nposition which his client then held. All this occupied the court till nearly four o'clock, and then as\r\nthe case was over on the part of the prosecution, the question arose\r\nwhether or no Mr. Furnival should address the jury on that evening,\r\nor wait till the following day. \"If your lordship will sit till seven\r\no'clock,\" said Mr. Furnival, \"I think I can undertake to finish\r\nwhat remarks I shall have to make by that time.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I should not mind\r\nsitting till nine for the pleasure of hearing Mr. Furnival,\" said the\r\njudge, who was very anxious to escape from Alston on the day but one\r\nfollowing. And thus it was decided that Mr. Furnival should commence\r\nhis speech. I have said that in spite of some previous hesitation his old fire\r\nhad returned to him when he began his work in court on behalf of\r\nhis client. If this had been so when that work consisted in the\r\ncross-examination of a witness, it was much more so with him now when\r\nhe had to exhibit his own powers of forensic eloquence. When a man\r\nknows that he can speak with ease and energy, and that he will be\r\nlistened to with attentive ears, it is all but impossible that he\r\nshould fail to be enthusiastic, even though his cause be a bad one. It was so with him now. All his old fire came back upon him, and\r\nbefore he had done he had almost brought himself again to believe\r\nLady Mason to be that victim of persecution as which he did not\r\nhesitate to represent her to the jury. \"Gentlemen of the jury,\" he said, \"I never rose to plead a client's\r\ncause with more confidence than I now feel in pleading that of my\r\nfriend Lady Mason. Twenty years ago I was engaged in defending her\r\nrights in this matter, and I then succeeded."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I little thought at that\r\ntime that I should be called on after so long an interval to renew\r\nmy work. I little thought that the pertinacity of her opponent would\r\nhold out for such a period. I compliment him on the firmness of his\r\ncharacter, on that equable temperament which has enabled him to sit\r\nthrough all this trial, and to look without dismay on the unfortunate\r\nlady whom he has considered it to be his duty to accuse of perjury. I\r\ndid not think that I should live to fight this battle again. But so\r\nit is; and as I had but little doubt of victory then,--so have I none\r\nnow. Gentlemen of the jury, I must occupy some of your time and of\r\nthe time of the court in going through the evidence which has been\r\nadduced by my learned friend against my client; but I almost feel\r\nthat I shall be detaining you unnecessarily, so sure I am that the\r\ncircumstances, as they have been already explained to you, could not\r\njustify you in giving a verdict against her.\" As Mr. Furnival's speech occupied fully three hours, I will not\r\ntrouble my readers with the whole of it. He began by describing the\r\nformer trial, and giving his own recollections as to Lady Mason's\r\nconduct on that occasion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In doing this, he fully acknowledged on her\r\nbehalf that she did give as evidence that special statement which her\r\nopponents now endeavoured to prove to have been false. \"If it were\r\nthe case,\" he said, \"that that codicil--or that pretended codicil,\r\nwas not executed by old Sir Joseph Mason, and was not witnessed by\r\nUsbech, Kenneby, and Bridget Bolster,--then, in that case, Lady\r\nMason has been guilty of perjury.\" Mr. Furnival, as he made this\r\nacknowledgement, studiously avoided the face of Lady Mason. But as\r\nhe made this assertion, almost everybody in the court except her own\r\ncounsel did look at her. Joseph Mason opposite and Dockwrath fixed\r\ntheir gaze closely upon her. Sir Richard Leatherham and Mr. Steelyard\r\nturned their eyes towards her, probably without meaning to do so. The judge looked over his spectacles at her. Even Mr. Aram glanced\r\nround at her surreptitiously; and Lucius turned his face upon his\r\nmother's, almost with an air of triumph. But she bore it all without\r\nflinching;--bore it all without flinching, though the state of her\r\nmind at that moment must have been pitiable. And Mrs. Orme, who held\r\nher hand all the while, knew that it was so. The hand which rested in\r\nhers was twitched as it were convulsively, but the culprit gave no\r\noutward sign of her guilt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Furnival then read much of the evidence given at the former\r\ntrial, and especially showed how the witnesses had then failed to\r\nprove that Usbech had not been required to write his name. It was\r\nquite true, he said, that they had been equally unable to prove that\r\nhe had done so; but that amounted to nothing; the \"onus probandi\" lay\r\nwith the accusing side. There was the signature, and it was for them\r\nto prove that it was not that which it pretended to be. Lady Mason\r\nhad proved that it was so; and because that had then been held to\r\nbe sufficient, they now, after twenty years, took this means of\r\ninvalidating her testimony. From that he went to the evidence given\r\nat the present trial, beginning with the malice and interested\r\nmotives of Dockwrath. Against three of them only was it needful that\r\nhe should allege anything, seeing that the statements made by the\r\nothers were in no way injurious to Lady Mason,--if the statements\r\nmade by those three were not credible. Torrington, for instance, had\r\nproved that other deed; but what of that, if on the fatal 14th of\r\nJuly Sir Joseph Mason had executed two deeds? As to Dockwrath,--that\r\nhis conduct had been interested and malicious there could be no\r\ndoubt; and he submitted to the jury that he had shown himself to be a\r\nman unworthy of credit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As to Kenneby,--that poor weak creature, as\r\nMr. Furnival in his mercy called him,--he, Mr. Furnival, could not\r\ncharge his conscience with saying that he believed him to have been\r\nguilty of any falsehood. On the contrary, he conceived that Kenneby\r\nhad endeavoured to tell the truth. But he was one of those men whose\r\nminds were so inconsequential that they literally did not know truth\r\nfrom falsehood. He had not intended to lie when he told the jury\r\nthat he was not quite sure he had never witnessed two signatures by\r\nSir Joseph Mason on the same day, nor did he lie when he told them\r\nagain that he had witnessed three. He had meant to declare the truth;\r\nbut he was, unfortunately, a man whose evidence could not be of\r\nmuch service in any case of importance, and could be of no service\r\nwhatever in a criminal charge tried, as was done in this instance,\r\nmore than twenty years after the alleged commission of the offence. With regard to Bridget Bolster, he had no hesitation whatever in\r\ntelling the jury that she was a woman unworthy of belief,--unworthy\r\nof that credit which the jury must place in her before they could\r\nconvict any one on her unaided testimony. It must have been clear to\r\nthem all that she had come into court drilled and instructed to make\r\none point-blank statement, and to stick to that. She had refused to\r\ngive any evidence as to her own signature."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She would not even look at\r\nher own name as written by herself; but had contented herself with\r\nrepeating over and over again those few words which she had been\r\ninstructed so to say;--the statement namely, that she had never put\r\nher hand to more than one deed. Then he addressed himself, as he concluded his speech, to that part\r\nof the subject which was more closely personal to Lady Mason herself. \"And now, gentlemen of the jury,\" he said, \"before I can dismiss you\r\nfrom your weary day's work, I must ask you to regard the position of\r\nthe lady who has been thus accused, and the amount of probability of\r\nher guilt which you may assume from the nature of her life. I shall\r\ncall no witnesses as to her character, for I will not submit her\r\nfriends to the annoyance of those questions which the gentlemen\r\nopposite might feel it their duty to put to them. Circumstances\r\nhave occurred--so much I will tell you, and so much no doubt\r\nyou all personally know, though it is not in evidence before\r\nyou;--circumstances have occurred which would make it cruel on my\r\npart to place her old friend Sir Peregrine Orme in that box. The\r\nstory, could I tell it to you, is one full of romance, but full also\r\nof truth and affection."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But though Sir Peregrine Orme is not here,\r\nthere sits his daughter by Lady Mason's side,--there she has sat\r\nthrough this tedious trial, giving comfort to the woman that she\r\nloves,--and there she will sit till your verdict shall have made\r\nher further presence here unnecessary. His lordship and my learned\r\nfriend there will tell you that you cannot take that as evidence of\r\ncharacter. They will be justified in so telling you; but I, on the\r\nother hand, defy you not to take it as such evidence. Let us make\r\nwhat laws we will, they cannot take precedence of human nature. There\r\ntoo sits my client's son. You will remember that at the beginning of\r\nthis trial the solicitor-general expressed a wish that he were not\r\nhere. I do not know whether you then responded to that wish, but I\r\nbelieve I may take it for granted that you do not do so now. Had any\r\nwoman dear to either of you been so placed through the malice of an\r\nenemy, would you have hesitated to sit by her in her hour of trial? Had you doubted of her innocence you might have hesitated; for who\r\ncould endure to hear announced in a crowded court like this the guilt\r\nof a mother or a wife? But he has no doubt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nor, I believe, has any\r\nliving being in this court,--unless it be her kinsman opposite, whose\r\nlife for the last twenty years has been made wretched by a wicked\r\nlonging after the patrimony of his brother. \"Gentlemen of the jury, there sits my client with as loving a friend\r\non one side as ever woman had, and with her only child on the other. During the incidents of this trial the nature of the life she has\r\nled during the last twenty years,--since the period of that terrible\r\ncrime with which she is charged,--has been proved before you. I may\r\nfearlessly ask you whether so fair a life is compatible with the\r\nidea of guilt so foul? I have known her intimately during all those\r\nyears,--not as a lawyer, but as a friend,--and I confess that the\r\naudacity of this man Dockwrath, in assailing such a character\r\nwith such an accusation, strikes me almost with admiration. What! Forgery!--for that, gentlemen of the jury, is the crime with which\r\nshe is substantially charged. Look at her, as she sits there! That\r\nshe, at the age of twenty, or not much more,--she who had so well\r\nperformed the duties of her young life, that she should have forged\r\na will,--have traced one signature after another in such a manner as\r\nto have deceived all those lawyers who were on her track immediately\r\nafter her husband's death! For, mark you, if this be true, with\r\nher own hand she must have done it!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was no accomplice there. Look at her! Was she a forger? Was she a woman to deceive the sharp\r\nbloodhounds of the law? Could she, with that young baby on her bosom,\r\nhave wrested from such as him\"--and as he spoke he pointed with his\r\nfinger, but with a look of unutterable scorn, to Joseph Mason, who\r\nwas sitting opposite to him--\"that fragment of his old father's\r\nproperty which he coveted so sorely? Where had she learned such\r\nskilled artifice? Gentlemen, such ingenuity in crime as that has\r\nnever yet been proved in a court of law, even against those who have\r\nspent a life of wretchedness in acquiring such skill; and now you are\r\nasked to believe that such a deed was done by a young wife, of whom\r\nall that you know is that her conduct in every other respect had been\r\nbeyond all praise! Gentlemen, I might have defied you to believe\r\nthis accusation had it even been supported by testimony of a high\r\ncharacter. Even in such case you would have felt that there was more\r\nbehind than had been brought to your knowledge. But now, having seen,\r\nas you have, of what nature are the witnesses on whose testimony she\r\nhas been impeached, it is impossible that you should believe this\r\nstory."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had Lady Mason been a woman steeped in guilt from her infancy,\r\nhad she been noted for cunning and fraudulent ingenuity, had she been\r\nknown as an expert forger, you would not have convicted her on this\r\nindictment, having had before you the malice and greed of Dockwrath,\r\nthe stupidity--I may almost call it idiocy, of Kenneby, and the\r\ndogged resolution to conceal the truth evinced by the woman Bolster. With strong evidence you could not have believed such a charge\r\nagainst so excellent a lady. With such evidence as you have had\r\nbefore you, you could not have believed the charge against a\r\npreviously convicted felon. \"And what has been the object of this terrible persecution,--of the\r\ndreadful punishment which has been inflicted on this poor lady? For\r\nremember, though you cannot pronounce her guilty, her sufferings have\r\nbeen terribly severe. Think what it must have been for a woman with\r\nhabits such as hers, to have looked forward for long, long weeks\r\nto such a martyrdom as this! Think what she must have suffered in\r\nbeing dragged here and subjected to the gaze of all the county as a\r\nsuspected felon!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Think what must have been her feelings when I told\r\nher, not knowing how deep an ingenuity might be practised against\r\nher, that I must counsel her to call to her aid the unequalled\r\ntalents of my friend Mr. Chaffanbrass\"--\"Unequalled no longer, but\r\nfar surpassed,\" whispered Chaffanbrass, in a voice that was audible\r\nthrough all the centre of the court. \"Her punishment has been\r\nterrible,\" continued Mr. Furnival. \"After what she has gone through,\r\nit may well be doubted whether she can continue to reside at that\r\nsweet spot which has aroused such a feeling of avarice in the bosom\r\nof her kinsman. You have heard that Sir Joseph Mason had promised his\r\neldest son that Orley Farm should form a part of his inheritance. It\r\nmay be that the old man did make such a promise. If so, he thought\r\nfit to break it. But is it not wonderful that a man wealthy as is Mr.\r\nMason--for his fortune is large; who has never wanted anything that\r\nmoney can buy; a man for whom his father did so much,--that he should\r\nbe stirred up by disappointed avarice to carry in his bosom for\r\ntwenty years so bitter a feeling of rancour against those who are\r\nnearest to him by blood and ties of family! Gentlemen, it has been\r\na fearful lesson; but it is one which neither you nor I will ever\r\nforget! \"And now I shall leave my client's case in your hands."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As to the\r\nverdict which you will give, I have no apprehension. You know as well\r\nas I do that she has not been guilty of this terrible crime. That\r\nyou will so pronounce I do not for a moment doubt. But I do hope\r\nthat that verdict will be accompanied by some expression on your\r\npart which may show to the world at large how great has been the\r\nwickedness displayed in the accusation.\" And yet as he sat down he knew that she had been guilty! To his ear\r\nher guilt had never been confessed; but yet he knew that it was so,\r\nand, knowing that, he had been able to speak as though her innocence\r\nwere a thing of course. That those witnesses had spoken truth he also\r\nknew, and yet he had been able to hold them up to the execration of\r\nall around them as though they had committed the worst of crimes from\r\nthe foulest of motives! And more than this, stranger than this, worse\r\nthan this,--when the legal world knew--as the legal world soon did\r\nknow--that all this had been so, the legal world found no fault with\r\nMr. Furnival, conceiving that he had done his duty by his client in a\r\nmanner becoming an English barrister and an English gentleman. CHAPTER LXXIII. MRS. ORME TELLS THE STORY. It was late when that second day's work was over, and when Mrs. Orme\r\nand Lady Mason again found themselves in the Hamworth carriage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They\r\nhad sat in court from ten in the morning till past seven, with a\r\nshort interval of a few minutes in the middle of the day, and were\r\nweary to the very soul when they left it. Lucius again led out his\r\nmother, and as he did so he expressed to her in strong language his\r\napproval of Mr. Furnival's speech. At last some one had spoken out on\r\nhis mother's behalf in that tone which should have been used from the\r\nfirst. He had been very angry with Mr. Furnival, thinking that the\r\nbarrister had lost sight of his mother's honour, and that he was\r\nplaying with her happiness. But now he was inclined to forgive him. Now at last the truth had been spoken in eloquent words, and the\r\npersecutors of his mother had been addressed in language such as it\r\nwas fitting that they should hear. To him the last two hours had been\r\ntwo hours of triumph, and as he passed through the hall of the court\r\nhe whispered in his mother's ear that now, at last, as he hoped, her\r\ntroubles were at an end. And another whisper had been spoken as they passed through that hall. Mrs. Orme went out leaning on the arm of her son, but on the other\r\nside of her was Mr. Aram. He had remained in his seat till they had\r\nbegun to move, and then he followed them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Orme was already half\r\nway across the court when he made his way up to her side and very\r\ngently touched her arm. \"Sir?\" said she, looking round. \"Do not let her be too sure,\" he said. \"Do not let her be over\r\nconfident. All that may go for nothing with a jury.\" Then he lifted\r\nhis hat and left her. All that go for nothing with a jury! She hardly understood this, but\r\nyet she felt that it all should go for nothing if right were done. Her mind was not argumentative, nor yet perhaps was her sense of true\r\njustice very acute. When Sir Peregrine had once hinted that it would\r\nbe well that the criminal should be pronounced guilty, because in\r\ntruth she had been guilty, Mrs. Orme by no means agreed with him. But\r\nnow, having heard how those wretched witnesses had been denounced,\r\nknowing how true had been the words they had spoken, knowing how\r\nfalse were those assurances of innocence with which Mr. Furnival had\r\nbeen so fluent, she felt something of that spirit which had actuated\r\nSir Peregrine, and had almost thought that justice demanded a verdict\r\nagainst her friend. \"Do not let her be over-confident,\" Mr. Aram had said. But in truth\r\nMrs. Orme, as she had listened to Mr. Furnival's speech, had become\r\nalmost confident that Lady Mason would be acquitted. It had seemed to\r\nher impossible that any jury should pronounce her to be guilty after\r\nthat speech."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The state of her mind as she listened to it had been\r\nvery painful. Lady Mason's hand had rested in her own during a great\r\nportion of it; and it would have been natural that she should give\r\nsome encouragement to her companion by a touch, by a slight pressure,\r\nas the warm words of praise fell from the lawyer's mouth. But how\r\ncould she do so, knowing that the praise was false? It was not\r\npossible to her to show her friendship by congratulating her friend\r\non the success of a lie. Lady Mason also had, no doubt, felt this,\r\nfor after a while her hand had been withdrawn, and they had both\r\nlistened in silence, giving no signs to each other as to their\r\nfeelings on the subject. But as they sat together in the carriage Lucius did give vent to his\r\nfeelings. \"I cannot understand why all that should not have been said\r\nbefore, and said in a manner to have been as convincing as it was\r\nto-day.\" \"I suppose there was no opportunity before the trial,\" said Mrs.\r\nOrme, feeling that she must say something, but feeling also how\r\nimpossible it was to speak on the subject with any truth in the\r\npresence both of Lady Mason and her son. \"But an occasion should have been made,\" said Lucius."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It is\r\nmonstrous that my mother should have been subjected to this\r\naccusation for months and that no one till now should have spoken out\r\nto show how impossible it is that she should have been guilty.\" \"Ah! Lucius, you do not understand,\" said his mother. \"And I hope I never may,\" said he. \"Why did not the jury get up in\r\ntheir seats at once and pronounce their verdict when Mr. Furnival's\r\nspeech was over? Why should they wait there, giving another day of\r\nprolonged trouble, knowing as they must do what their verdict will\r\nbe? To me all this is incomprehensible, seeing that no good can in\r\nany way come from it.\" And so he went on, striving to urge his companions to speak upon a\r\nsubject which to them did not admit of speech in his presence. It was\r\nvery painful to them, for in addressing Mrs. Orme he almost demanded\r\nfrom her some expression of triumph. \"You at least have believed in\r\nher innocence,\" he said at last, \"and have not been ashamed to show\r\nthat you did so.\" \"Lucius,\" said his mother, \"we are very weary; do not speak to us\r\nnow. Let us rest till we are at home.\" Then they closed their eyes\r\nand there was silence till the carriage drove up to the door of Orley\r\nFarm House."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The two ladies immediately went up stairs, but Lucius, with more\r\ncheerfulness about him than he had shown for months past, remained\r\nbelow to give orders for their supper. It had been a joy to him to\r\nhear Joseph Mason and Dockwrath exposed, and to listen to those words\r\nwhich had so clearly told the truth as to his mother's history. All\r\nthat torrent of indignant eloquence had been to him an enumeration of\r\nthe simple facts,--of the facts as he knew them to be,--of the facts\r\nas they would now be made plain to all the world. At last the day had\r\ncome when the cloud would be blown away. He, looking down from the\r\nheight of his superior intellect on the folly of those below him, had\r\nbeen indignant at the great delay;--but that he would now forgive. They had not been long in the house, perhaps about fifteen minutes,\r\nwhen Mrs. Orme returned down stairs and gently entered the\r\ndining-room. He was still there, standing with his back to the fire\r\nand thinking over the work of the day. \"Your mother will not come down this evening, Mr. Mason.\" \"Not come down?\" \"No; she is very tired,--very tired indeed. I fear you hardly know\r\nhow much she has gone through.\" \"Shall I go to her?\" said Lucius. \"No, Mr. Mason, do not do that. I will return to her now."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And--but;--in a few minutes, Mr. Mason, I will come back to you\r\nagain, for I shall have something to say to you.\" \"You will have tea here?\" \"I don't know. I think not. When I have spoken to you I will go back\r\nto your mother. I came down now in order that you might not wait for\r\nus.\" And then she left the room and again went up stairs. It annoyed\r\nhim that his mother should thus keep away from him, but still he\r\ndid not think that there was any special reason for it. Mrs. Orme's\r\nmanner had been strange; but then everything around them in these\r\ndays was strange, and it did not occur to him that Mrs. Orme would\r\nhave aught to say in her promised interview which would bring to him\r\nany new cause for sorrow. Lady Mason, when Mrs. Orme returned to her, was sitting exactly in\r\nthe position in which she had been left. Her bonnet was off and was\r\nlying by her side, and she was seated in a large arm-chair, again\r\nholding both her hands to the sides of her head. No attempt had been\r\nmade to smooth her hair or to remove the dust and soil which had\r\ncome from the day's long sitting in the court. She was a woman very\r\ncareful in her toilet, and scrupulously nice in all that touched her\r\nperson. But now all that had been neglected, and her whole appearance\r\nwas haggard and dishevelled."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You have not told him?\" she said. \"No; I have not told him yet; but I have bidden him expect me. He\r\nknows that I am coming to him.\" \"And how did he look?\" \"I did not see his face.\" And then there was silence between them\r\nfor a few minutes, during which Mrs. Orme stood at the back of Lady\r\nMason's chair with her hand on Lady Mason's shoulder. \"Shall I go\r\nnow, dear?\" said Mrs. Orme. \"No; stay a moment; not yet. Oh, Mrs. Orme!\" \"You will find that you will be stronger and better able to bear it\r\nwhen it has been done.\" \"Stronger! Why should I wish to be stronger? How will he bear it?\" \"It will be a blow to him, of course.\" \"It will strike him to the ground, Mrs. Orme. I shall have murdered\r\nhim. I do not think that he will live when he knows that he is so\r\ndisgraced.\" \"He is a man, and will bear it as a man should do. Shall I do\r\nanything for you before I go?\" \"Stay a moment. Why must it be to-night?\" \"He must not be in the court to-morrow. And what difference will one\r\nday make? He must know it when the property is given up.\" Then there was a knock at the door, and a girl entered with a\r\ndecanter, two wine-glasses, and a slice or two of bread and butter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You must drink that,\" said Mrs. Orme, pouring out a glass of wine. \"And you?\" \"Yes, I will take some too. There. I shall be stronger now. Nay, Lady\r\nMason, you shall drink it. And now if you will take my advice you\r\nwill go to bed.\" \"You will come to me again?\" \"Yes; directly it is over. Of course I shall come to you. Am I not to\r\nstay here all night?\" \"But him;--I will not see him. He is not to come.\" \"That will be as he pleases.\" \"No. You promised that. I cannot see him when he knows what I have\r\ndone for him.\" \"Not to hear him say that he forgives you?\" \"He will not forgive me. You do not know him. Could you bear to look\r\nat your boy if you had disgraced him for ever?\" \"Whatever I might have done he would not desert me. Nor will Lucius\r\ndesert you. Shall I go now?\" \"Ah, me! Would that I were in my grave!\" Then Mrs. Orme bent over her and kissed her, pressed both her hands,\r\nthen kissed her again, and silently creeping out of the room made her\r\nway once more slowly down the stairs. Mrs. Orme, as will have been seen, was sufficiently anxious to\r\nperform the task which she had given herself, but yet her heart sank\r\nwithin her as she descended to the parlour."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was indeed a terrible\r\ncommission, and her readiness to undertake it had come not from any\r\nfeeling on her own part that she was fit for the work and could do\r\nit without difficulty, but from the eagerness with which she had\r\npersuaded Lady Mason that the thing must be done by some one. And\r\nnow who else could do it? In Sir Peregrine's present state it would\r\nhave been a cruelty to ask him; and then his feelings towards Lucius\r\nin the matter were not tender as were those of Mrs. Orme. She had\r\nbeen obliged to promise that she herself would do it, or otherwise\r\nshe could not have urged the doing. And now the time had come. Immediately on their return to the house Mrs. Orme had declared that\r\nthe story should be told at once; and then Lady Mason, sinking into\r\nthe chair from which she had not since risen, had at length agreed\r\nthat it should be so. The time had now come, and Mrs. Orme, whose\r\nfootsteps down the stairs had not been audible, stood for a moment\r\nwith the handle of the door in her hand. Had it been possible she also would now have put it off till the\r\nmorrow,--would have put it off till any other time than that which\r\nwas then present. All manner of thoughts crowded on her during those\r\nfew seconds. In what way should she do it? What words should she use? How should she begin?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was to tell this young man that his mother\r\nhad committed a crime of the very blackest dye, and now she felt that\r\nshe should have prepared herself and resolved in what fashion this\r\nshould be done. Might it not be well, she asked herself for one\r\nmoment, that she should take the night to think of it and then see\r\nhim in the morning? The idea, however, only lasted her for a moment,\r\nand then, fearing lest she might allow herself to be seduced into\r\nsome weakness, she turned the handle and entered the room. He was still standing with his back to the fire, leaning against\r\nthe mantelpiece, and thinking over the occurrences of the day that\r\nwas past. His strongest feeling now was one of hatred to Joseph\r\nMason,--of hatred mixed with thorough contempt. What must men say of\r\nhim after such a struggle on his part to ruin the fame of a lady and\r\nto steal the patrimony of a brother! \"Is she still determined not to\r\ncome down?\" he said as soon as he saw Mrs. Orme. \"No; she will not come down to-night, Mr. Mason. I have something\r\nthat I must tell you.\" \"What! is she ill? Has it been too much for her?\" \"Mr. Mason,\" she said, \"I hardly know how to do what I have\r\nundertaken.\" And he could see that she actually trembled as she spoke\r\nto him. \"What is it, Mrs. Orme? Is it anything about the property?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I think\r\nyou need hardly be afraid of me. I believe I may say I could bear\r\nanything of that kind.\" \"Mr. Mason--\" And then again she stopped herself. How was she to speak this horrible word? \"Is it anything about the trial?\" He was now beginning to be\r\nfrightened, feeling that something terrible was coming; but still of\r\nthe absolute truth he had no suspicion. \"Oh! Mr. Mason, if it were possible that I could spare you I would do\r\nso. If there were any escape,--any way in which it might be avoided.\" \"What is it?\" said he. And now his voice was hoarse and low, for a\r\nfeeling of fear had come upon him. \"I am a man and can bear it,\r\nwhatever it is.\" \"You must be a man then, for it is very terrible. Mr. Mason, that\r\nwill, you know--\"\r\n\r\n\"You mean the codicil?\" \"The will that gave you the property--\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes.\" \"It was not done by your father.\" \"Who says so?\" \"It is too sure. It was not done by him,--nor by them,--those other\r\npeople who were in the court to-day.\" \"But who says so? How is it known? If my father did not sign it, it\r\nis a forgery; and who forged it? Those wretches have bought over some\r\none and you have been deceived, Mrs. Orme. It is not of the property\r\nI am thinking, but of my mother. If it were as you say, my mother\r\nmust have known it?\" \"Ah! yes.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And you mean that she did know it; that she knew it was a forgery?\" \"Oh! Mr. Mason.\" \"Heaven and earth! Let me go to her. If she were to tell me so\r\nherself I would not believe it of her. Ah! she has told you?\" \"Yes; she has told me.\" \"Then she is mad. This has been too much for her, and her brain has\r\ngone with it. Let me go to her, Mrs. Orme.\" \"No, no; you must not go to her.\" And Mrs. Orme put herself directly\r\nbefore the door. \"She is not mad,--not now. Then, at that time, we\r\nmust think she was so. It is not so now.\" \"I cannot understand you.\" And he put his left hand up to his\r\nforehead as though to steady his thoughts. \"I do not understand you. If the will be a forgery, who did it?\" This question she could not answer at the moment. She was still\r\nstanding against the door, and her eyes fell to the ground. \"Who did\r\nit?\" he repeated. \"Whose hand wrote my father's name?\" \"You must be merciful, Mr. Mason.\" \"Merciful;--to whom?\" \"To your mother.\" \"Merciful to my mother! Mrs. Orme, speak out to me. If the will was\r\nforged, who forged it? You cannot mean to tell me that she did it!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "She did not answer him at the moment in words, but coming close up to\r\nhim she took both his hands in hers, and then looked steadfastly up\r\ninto his eyes. His face had now become almost convulsed with emotion,\r\nand his brow was very black. \"Do you wish me to believe that my\r\nmother forged the will herself?\" Then again he paused, but she\r\nsaid nothing. \"Woman, it's a lie,\" he exclaimed; and then tearing\r\nhis hands from her, shaking her off, and striding away with quick\r\nfootsteps, he threw himself on a sofa that stood in the furthest part\r\nof the room. She paused for a moment and then followed him very gently. She\r\nfollowed him and stood over him in silence for a moment, as he lay\r\nwith his face from her. \"Mr. Mason,\" she said at last, \"you told me\r\nthat you would bear this like a man.\" But he made her no answer, and she went on. \"Mr. Mason, it is, as I\r\ntell you. Years and years ago, when you were a baby, and when she\r\nthought that your father was unjust to you--for your sake,--to remedy\r\nthat injustice, she did this thing.\" \"What; forged his name! It must be a lie. Though an angel came to\r\ntell me so, it would be a lie! What; my mother!\" And now he turned\r\nround and faced her, still however lying on the sofa. \"It is true, Mr. Mason."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Oh, how I wish that it were not! But you\r\nmust forgive her. It is years ago, and she has repented of it, Sir\r\nPeregrine has forgiven her,--and I have done so.\" And then she told him the whole story. She told him why the marriage\r\nhad been broken off, and described to him the manner in which the\r\ntruth had been made known to Sir Peregrine. It need hardly be said,\r\nthat in doing so, she dealt as softly as was possible with his\r\nmother's name; but yet she told him everything. \"She wrote it\r\nherself, in the night.\" \"What all; all the names herself?\" \"Yes, all.\" \"Mrs. Orme, it cannot be so. I will not believe it. To me it is\r\nimpossible. That you believe it I do not doubt, but I cannot. Let\r\nme go to her. I will go to her myself. But even should she say so\r\nherself, I will not believe it.\" But she would not let him go up stairs even though he attempted to\r\nmove her from the door, almost with violence. \"No; not till you say\r\nthat you will forgive her and be gentle with her. And it must not be\r\nto-night. We will be up early in the morning, and you can see her\r\nbefore we go;--if you will be gentle to her.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "He still persisted that he did not believe the story, but it became\r\nclear to her, by degrees, that the meaning of it all had at last sunk\r\ninto his mind, and that he did believe it. Over and over again she\r\ntold him all that she knew, explaining to him what his mother had\r\nsuffered, making him perceive why she had removed herself out of his\r\nhands, and had leant on others for advice. And she told him also that\r\nthough they still hoped that the jury might acquit her, the property\r\nmust be abandoned. \"I will leave the house this night if you wish it,\" he said. \"When it is all over, when she has been acquitted and shall have gone\r\naway, then let it be done. Mr. Mason, you will go with her; will you\r\nnot?\" and then again there was a pause. \"Mrs. Orme, it is impossible that I should say now what I may do. It\r\nseems to me as though I could not live through it. I do not believe\r\nit. I cannot believe it.\" As soon as she had exacted a promise from him that he would not go\r\nto his mother, at any rate without further notice, she herself went\r\nup stairs and found Lady Mason lying on her bed. At first Mrs. Orme\r\nthought that she was asleep, but no such comfort had come to the poor\r\nwoman. \"Does he know it?\" she asked."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Orme's task for that night was by no means yet done. After\r\nremaining for a while with Lady Mason she again returned to Lucius,\r\nand was in this way a bearer of messages between them. There was at\r\nlast no question as to doubting the story. He did believe it. He\r\ncould not avoid the necessity for such belief. \"Yes,\" he said, when\r\nMrs. Orme spoke again of his leaving the place, \"I will go and hide\r\nmyself; and as for her--\"\r\n\r\n\"But you will go with her,--if the jury do not say that she was\r\nguilty--\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, Mrs. Orme!\" \"If they do, you will come back for her, when the time of her\r\npunishment is over? She is still your mother, Mr. Mason.\" At last the work of the night was done, and the two ladies went to\r\ntheir beds. The understanding was that Lucius should see his mother\r\nbefore they started in the morning, but that he should not again\r\naccompany them to the court. Mrs. Orme's great object had been,--her\r\ngreat object as regarded the present moment,--to prevent his presence\r\nin court when the verdict should be given. In this she had succeeded. She could now wish for an acquittal with a clear conscience; and\r\ncould as it were absolve the sinner within her own heart, seeing that\r\nthere was no longer any doubt as to the giving up of the property."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Whatever might be the verdict of the jury Joseph Mason of Groby\r\nwould, without doubt, obtain the property which belonged to him. \"Good-night, Mr. Mason,\" Mrs. Orme said at last, as she gave him her\r\nhand. \"Good-night. I believe that in my madness I spoke to you to-night\r\nlike a brute.\" \"No, no. It was nothing. I did not think of it.\" \"When you think of how it was with me, you will forgive me.\" She pressed his hand and again told him that she had not thought of\r\nit. It was nothing. And indeed it had been as nothing to her. There\r\nmay be moments in a man's life when any words may be forgiven, even\r\nthough they be spoken to a woman. When Mrs. Orme was gone, he stood for a while perfectly motionless\r\nin the dining-room, and then coming out into the hall he opened the\r\nfront door, and taking his hat, went out into the night. It was still\r\nwinter, but the night, though cold and very dark, was fine, and the\r\nair was sharp with the beginning frost. Leaving the door open he\r\nwalked forth, and passing out on to the road went down from thence\r\nto the gate. It had been his constant practice to walk up and down\r\nfrom his own hall door to his own gate on the high road, perhaps\r\ncomforting himself too warmly with the reflection that the ground\r\non which he walked was all his own."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had no such comfort now, as\r\nhe made his way down the accustomed path and leaned upon the gate,\r\nthinking over what he had heard. [Illustration: Lucius Mason, as he leaned on the Gate\r\nthat was no longer his own.] A forger! At some such hour as this, with patient premeditated care,\r\nshe had gone to work and committed one of the vilest crimes known\r\nto man. And this was his mother! And he, he, Lucius Mason, had been\r\nliving for years on the fruit of this villainy;--had been so living\r\ntill this terrible day of retribution had come upon him! I fear that\r\nat that moment he thought more of his own misery than he did of hers,\r\nand hardly considered, as he surely should have done, that mother's\r\nlove which had led to all this guilt. And for a moment he resolved\r\nthat he would not go back to the house. His head, he said to himself,\r\nshould never again rest under a roof which belonged of right\r\nto Joseph Mason. He had injured Joseph Mason;--had injured him\r\ninnocently, indeed, as far as he himself was concerned; but he had\r\ninjured him greatly, and therefore now hated him all the more. \"He\r\nshall have it instantly,\" he said, and walked forth into the high\r\nroad as though he would not allow his feet to rest again on his\r\nbrother's property. But he was forced to remember that this could not be so."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His mother's\r\ntrial was not yet over, and even in the midst of his own personal\r\ntrouble he remembered that the verdict to her was still a matter of\r\nterrible import. He would not let it be known that he had abandoned\r\nthe property, at any rate till that verdict had been given. And then\r\nas he moved back to the house he tried to think in what way it would\r\nbecome him to behave to his mother. \"She can never be my mother\r\nagain,\" he said to himself. They were terrible words;--but then was\r\nnot his position very terrible? And when at last he had bolted the front door, going through the\r\naccustomed task mechanically, and had gone up stairs to his own room,\r\nhe had failed to make up his mind on this subject. Perhaps it would\r\nbe better that he should not see her. What could he say to her? What\r\nword of comfort could he speak? It was not only that she had beggared\r\nhim! Nay; it was not that at all! But she had doomed him to a life of\r\ndisgrace which no effort of his own could wipe away. And then as he\r\nthrew himself on his bed he thought of Sophia Furnival. Would she\r\nshare his disgrace with him? Was it possible that there might be\r\nsolace there? Quite impossible, we should say, who know her well. CHAPTER LXXIV. YOUNG LOCHINVAR."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Judge Staveley, whose court had not been kept sitting to a late hour\r\nby any such eloquence as that of Mr. Furnival, had gone home before\r\nthe business of the other court had closed. Augustus, who was his\r\nfather's marshal, remained for his friend, and had made his way in\r\namong the crowd, so as to hear the end of the speech. \"Don't wait dinner for us,\" he had said to his father. \"If you do you\r\nwill be hating us all the time; and we sha'n't be there till between\r\neight and nine.\" \"I should be sorry to hate you,\" said the judge, \"and so I won't.\" When therefore Felix Graham escaped from the court at about half-past\r\nseven, the two young men were able to take their own time and eat\r\ntheir dinner together comfortably, enjoying their bottle of champagne\r\nbetween them perhaps more thoroughly than they would have done had\r\nthe judge and Mrs. Staveley shared it with them. But Felix had something of which to think besides the\r\nchampagne--something which was of more consequence to him even than\r\nthe trial in which he was engaged. Madeline had promised that she\r\nwould meet him that evening;--or rather had not so promised. When\r\nasked to do so she had not refused, but even while not refusing had\r\nreminded him that her mother would be there. Her manner to him had,\r\nhe thought, been cold, though she had not been ungracious."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Upon the\r\nwhole, he could not make up his mind to expect success. \"Then he must\r\nhave been a fool!\" the reader learned in such matters will say. The\r\nreader learned in such matters is, I think, right. In that respect he\r\nwas a fool. \"I suppose we must give the governor the benefit of our company over\r\nhis wine,\" said Augustus, as soon as their dinner was over. \"I suppose we ought to do so.\" \"And why not? Is there any objection?\" \"To tell the truth,\" said Graham, \"I have an appointment which I am\r\nvery anxious to keep.\" \"An appointment? Where? Here at Noningsby, do you mean?\" \"In this house. But yet I cannot say that it is absolutely an\r\nappointment. I am going to ask your sister what my fate is to be.\" \"And that is the appointment! Very well, my dear fellow; and may God\r\nprosper you. If you can convince the governor that it is all right, I\r\nshall make no objection. I wish, for Madeline's sake, that you had\r\nnot such a terrible bee in your bonnet.\" \"And you will go to the judge alone?\" \"Oh, yes. I'll tell him--. What shall I tell him?\" \"The truth, if you will. Good-bye, old fellow. You will not see me\r\nagain to-night, nor yet to-morrow in this house, unless I am more\r\nfortunate than I have any right to hope to be.\" \"Faint heart never won fair lady, you know,\" said Augustus."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"My heart is faint enough then; but nevertheless I shall say what I\r\nhave got to say.\" And then he got up from the table. \"If you don't come down to us,\" said Augustus, \"I shall come up to\r\nyou. But may God speed you. And now I'll go to the governor.\" Felix made his way from the small breakfast-parlour in which they had\r\ndined across the hall into the drawing-room, and there he found Lady\r\nStaveley alone. \"So the trial is not over yet, Mr. Graham?\" she said. \"No; there will be another day of it.\" \"And what will be the verdict? Is it possible that she really forged\r\nthe will?\" \"Ah! that I cannot say. You know that I am one of her counsel, Lady\r\nStaveley?\" \"Yes; I should have remembered that, and been more discreet. If you\r\nare looking for Madeline, Mr. Graham, I think that she is in the\r\nlibrary.\" \"Oh! thank you;--in the library.\" And then Felix got himself out of\r\nthe drawing-room into the hall again not in the most graceful manner. He might have gone direct from the drawing-room to the library, but\r\nthis he did not remember. It was very odd, he thought, that Lady\r\nStaveley, of whose dislike to him he had felt sure, should have thus\r\nsent him direct to her daughter, and have become a party, as it were,\r\nto an appointment between them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he had not much time to think of\r\nthis before he found himself in the room. There, sure enough, was\r\nMadeline waiting to listen to his story. She was seated when he\r\nentered, with her back to him; but as she heard him she rose, and,\r\nafter pausing for a moment, she stepped forward to meet him. \"You and Augustus were very late to-day,\" she said. \"Yes. I was kept there, and he was good enough to wait for me.\" \"You said you wanted to--speak to me,\" she said, hesitating a little,\r\nbut yet very little; \"to speak to me alone; and so mamma said I had\r\nbetter come in here. I hope you are not vexed that I should have told\r\nher.\" \"Certainly not, Miss Staveley.\" \"Because I have no secrets from mamma.\" \"Nor do I wish that anything should be secret. I hate all secrecies. Miss Staveley, your father knows of my intention.\" On this point Madeline did not feel it to be necessary to say\r\nanything. Of course her father knew of the intention. Had she not\r\nreceived her father's sanction for listening to Mr. Graham she would\r\nnot have been alone with him in the library. It might be that the\r\ntime would come in which she would explain all this to her lover,\r\nbut that time had not come yet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So when he spoke of her father she\r\nremained silent, and allowing her eyes to fall to the ground she\r\nstood before him, waiting to hear his question. \"Miss Staveley,\" he said;--and he was conscious himself of being very\r\nawkward. Much more so, indeed, than there was any need, for Madeline\r\nwas not aware that he was awkward. In her eyes he was quite master\r\nof the occasion, and seemed to have everything his own way. He had\r\nalready done all that was difficult in the matter, and had done it\r\nwithout any awkwardness. He had already made himself master of her\r\nheart, and it was only necessary now that he should enter in and take\r\npossession. The ripe fruit had fallen, as Miss Furnival had once\r\nchosen to express it, and there he was to pick it up,--if only he\r\nconsidered it worth his trouble to do so. That manner of the picking\r\nwould not signify much, as Madeline thought. That he desired to take\r\nit into his garner and preserve it for his life's use was everything\r\nto her, but the method of his words at the present moment was\r\nnot much. He was her lord and master. He was the one man who had\r\nconquered and taken possession of her spirit; and as to his being\r\nawkward, there was not much in that. Nor do I say that he was\r\nawkward."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He spoke his mind in honest, plain terms, and I do not know\r\nhe could have done better. \"Miss Staveley,\" he said, \"in asking you to see me alone, I have made\r\na great venture. I am indeed risking all that I most value.\" And then\r\nhe paused, as though he expected that she would speak. But she still\r\nkept her eyes upon the ground, and still stood silent before him. \"I cannot but think you must guess my purpose,\" he said, \"though I\r\nacknowledge that I have had nothing that can warrant me in hoping for\r\na favourable answer. There is my hand; if you can take it you need\r\nnot doubt that you have my heart with it.\" And then he held out to\r\nher his broad, right hand. Madeline still stood silent before him and still fixed her eyes upon\r\nthe ground, but very slowly she raised her little hand and allowed\r\nher soft slight fingers to rest upon his open palm. It was as though\r\nshe thus affixed her legal signature and seal to the deed of gift. She had not said a word to him; not a word of love or a word of\r\nassent; but no such word was now necessary. \"Madeline, my own Madeline,\" he said; and then taking unfair\r\nadvantage of the fingers which she had given him he drew her to his\r\nbreast and folded her in his arms."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was nearly an hour after this when he returned to the\r\ndrawing-room. \"Do go in now,\" she said. \"You must not wait any\r\nlonger; indeed you must go.\" \"And you--; you will come in presently.\" \"It is already nearly eleven. No, I will not show myself again\r\nto-night. Mamma will soon come up to me, I know. Good-night, Felix. Do you go now, and I will follow you.\" And then after some further\r\nlittle ceremony he left her. When he entered the drawing-room Lady Staveley was there, and the\r\njudge with his teacup beside him, and Augustus standing with his back\r\nto the fire. Felix walked up to the circle, and taking a chair sat\r\ndown, but at the moment said nothing. \"You didn't get any wine after your day's toil, Master Graham,\" said\r\nthe judge. \"Indeed I did, sir. We had some champagne.\" \"Champagne, had you? Then I ought to have waited for my guest, for I\r\ngot none. You had a long day of it in court.\" \"Yes, indeed, sir.\" \"And I am afraid not very satisfactory.\" To this Graham made no\r\nimmediate answer, but he could not refrain from thinking that the\r\nday, taken altogether, had been satisfactory to him. And then Baker came into the room, and going close up to Lady\r\nStaveley, whispered something in her ear. \"Oh, ah, yes,\" said Lady\r\nStaveley. \"I must wish you good night, Mr. Graham.\" And she took his\r\nhand, pressing it very warmly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But though she wished him good night\r\nthen, she saw him again before he went to bed. It was a family in\r\nwhich all home affairs were very dear, and a new son could not be\r\nwelcomed into it without much expression of affection. \"Well, sir! and how have you sped since dinner?\" the judge asked as\r\nsoon as the door was closed behind his wife. \"I have proposed to your daughter and she has accepted me.\" And as\r\nhe said so he rose from the chair in which he had just now seated\r\nhimself. \"Then, my boy, I hope you will make her a good husband;\" and the\r\njudge gave him his hand. \"I will try to do so. I cannot but feel, however, how little right I\r\nhad to ask her, seeing that I am likely to be so poor a man.\" \"Well, well, well--we will talk of that another time. At present we\r\nwill only sing your triumphs--\r\n\r\n\r\n   \"So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,\r\n    There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.\" \"Felix, my dear fellow, I congratulate you with all my heart,\" said\r\nAugustus. \"But I did not know you were good as a warrior.\" \"Ah, but he is though,\" said the judge. \"What do you think of his\r\nwounds? And if all that I hear be true, he has other battles on hand. But we must not speak about that till this poor lady's trial is\r\nover.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I need hardly tell you, sir,\" said Graham, with that sheep-like air\r\nwhich a man always carries on such occasions, \"that I regard myself\r\nas the most fortunate man in the world.\" \"Quite unnecessary,\" said the judge. \"On such occasions that is taken\r\nas a matter of course.\" And then the conversation between them for\r\nthe next ten minutes was rather dull and flat. Up stairs the same thing was going on, in a manner somewhat more\r\nanimated, between the mother and daughter,--for ladies on such\r\noccasions can be more animated than men. \"Oh, mamma, you must love him,\" Madeline said. \"Yes, my dear; of course I shall love him now. Your papa says that he\r\nis very clever.\" \"I know papa likes him. I knew that from the very first. I think that\r\nwas the reason why--\"\r\n\r\n\"And I suppose clever people are the best,--that is to say, if they\r\nare good.\" \"And isn't he good?\" \"Well--I hope so. Indeed, I'm sure he is. Mr. Orme was a very good\r\nyoung man too;--but it's no good talking about him now.\" \"Mamma, that never could have come to pass.\" \"Very well, my dear. It's over now, and of course all that I looked\r\nfor was your happiness.\" \"I know that, mamma; and indeed I am very happy. I'm sure I could not\r\never have liked any one else since I first knew him.\" Lady Staveley still thought it very odd, but she had nothing else to\r\nsay."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As regarded the pecuniary considerations of the affair she left\r\nthem altogether to her husband, feeling that in this way she could\r\nrelieve herself from misgivings which might otherwise make her\r\nunhappy. \"And after all I don't know that his ugliness signifies,\"\r\nshe said to herself. And so she made up her mind that she would\r\nbe loving and affectionate to him, and sat up till she heard his\r\nfootsteps in the passage, in order that she might speak to him, and\r\nmake him welcome to the privileges of a son-in-law. \"Mr. Graham,\" she said, opening her door as he passed by. \"Of course she has told you,\" said Felix. \"Oh yes, she has told me. We don't have many secrets in this house. And I'm sure I congratulate you with all my heart; and I think you\r\nhave got the very best girl in all the world. Of course I'm her\r\nmother; but I declare, if I was to talk of her for a week, I could\r\nnot say anything of her but good.\" \"I know how fortunate I am.\" \"Yes, you are fortunate. For there is nothing in the world equal to\r\na loving wife who will do her duty. And I'm sure you'll be good to\r\nher.\" \"I will endeavour to be so.\" \"A man must be very bad indeed who would be bad to her,--and I\r\ndon't think that of you."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And it's a great thing, Mr. Graham, that\r\nMadeline should have loved a man of whom her papa is so fond. I\r\ndon't know what you have done to the judge, I'm sure.\" This she said,\r\nremembering in the innocence of her heart that Mr. Arbuthnot had been\r\na son-in-law rather after her own choice, and that the judge always\r\ndeclared that his eldest daughter's husband had seldom much to say\r\nfor himself. \"And I hope that Madeline's mother will receive me as kindly as\r\nMadeline's father,\" said he, taking Lady Staveley's hand and pressing\r\nit. \"Indeed I will. I will love you very dearly if you will let me. My\r\ngirls' husbands are the same to me as sons.\" Then she put up her face\r\nand he kissed it, and so they wished each other good night. He found Augustus in his own room, and they two had hardly sat\r\nthemselves down over the fire, intending to recall the former scenes\r\nwhich had taken place in that very room, when a knock was heard at\r\nthe door, and Mrs. Baker entered. \"And so it's all settled, Mr. Felix,\" said she. \"Yes,\" said he; \"all settled.\" \"Well now! didn't I know it from the first?\" \"Then what a wicked old woman you were not to tell,\" said Augustus. \"That's all very well, Master Augustus. How would you like me to tell\r\nof you;--for I could, you know?\" \"You wicked old woman, you couldn't do anything of the kind.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, couldn't I? But I defy all the world to say a word of Miss\r\nMadeline but what's good,--only I did know all along which way the\r\nwind was blowing. Lord love you, Mr. Graham, when you came in here\r\nall of a smash like, I knew it wasn't for nothing.\" \"You think he did it on purpose then,\" said Staveley. \"Did it on purpose? What; make up to Miss Madeline? Why, of course he\r\ndid it on purpose. He's been a-thinking of it ever since Christmas\r\nnight, when I saw you, Master Augustus, and a certain young lady when\r\nyou came out into the dark passage together.\" \"That's a downright falsehood, Mrs. Baker.\" \"Oh--very well. Perhaps I was mistaken. But now, Mr. Graham, if you\r\ndon't treat our Miss Madeline well--\"\r\n\r\n\"That's just what I've been telling him,\" said her brother. \"If he\r\nuses her ill, as he did his former wife--breaks her heart as he did\r\nwith that one--\"\r\n\r\n\"His former wife!\" said Mrs. Baker. \"Haven't you heard of that? Why, he's had two already.\" \"Two wives already! Oh now, Master Augustus, what an old fool I am\r\never to believe a word that comes out of your mouth.\" Then having\r\nuttered her blessing, and having had her hand cordially grasped by\r\nthis new scion of the Staveley family, the old woman left the young\r\nmen to themselves, and went to her bed. \"Now that it is done--,\" said Felix. \"You wish it were undone.\" \"No, by heaven!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I think I may venture to say that it will never come\r\nto me to wish that. But now that it is done, I am astonished at my\r\nown impudence almost as much as at my success. Why should your father\r\nhave welcomed me to his house as his son-in-law, seeing how poor are\r\nmy prospects?\" \"Just for that reason; and because he is so different from other men. I have no doubt that he is proud of Madeline for having liked a man\r\nwith an ugly face and no money.\" \"If I had been beautiful like you, I shouldn't have had a chance with\r\nhim.\" \"Not if you'd been weighted with money also. Now, as for myself, I\r\nconfess I'm not nearly so magnanimous as my father, and, for Mad's\r\nsake, I do hope you will get rid of your vagaries. An income, I know,\r\nis a very commonplace sort of thing; but when a man has a family\r\nthere are comforts attached to it.\" \"I am at any rate willing to work,\" said Graham somewhat moodily. \"Yes, if you may work exactly in your own way. But men in the world\r\ncan't do that. A man, as I take it, must through life allow himself\r\nto be governed by the united wisdom of others around him. He cannot\r\ntake upon himself to judge as to every step by his own lights."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If\r\nhe does, he will be dead before he has made up his mind as to the\r\npreliminaries.\" And in this way Augustus Staveley from the depth of\r\nhis life's experience spoke words of worldly wisdom to his future\r\nbrother-in-law. On the next morning before he started again for Alston and his now\r\nodious work, Graham succeeded in getting Madeline to himself for five\r\nminutes. \"I saw both your father and mother last night,\" said he,\r\n\"and I shall never forget their goodness to me.\" \"Yes, they are good.\" \"It seems like a dream to me that they should have accepted me as\r\ntheir son-in-law.\" \"But it is no dream to me, Felix;--or if so, I do not mean to wake\r\nany more. I used to think that I should never care very much for\r\nanybody out of my own family;--but now--\" And she then pressed her\r\nlittle hand upon his arm. \"And Felix,\" she said, as he prepared to leave her, \"you are not to\r\ngo away from Noningsby when the trial is over. I wanted mamma to tell\r\nyou, but she said I'd better do it.\" CHAPTER LXXV. THE LAST DAY. Mrs. Orme was up very early on that last morning of the trial, and\r\nhad dressed herself before Lady Mason was awake. It was now March,\r\nbut yet the morning light was hardly sufficient for her as she went\r\nthrough her toilet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They had been told to be in the court very\r\npunctually at ten, and in order to do so they must leave Orley Farm\r\nat nine. Before that, as had been arranged over night, Lucius was to\r\nsee his mother. \"You haven't told him! he doesn't know!\" were the first words which\r\nLady Mason spoke as she raised her head from the pillow. But then she\r\nremembered. \"Ah! yes,\" she said, as she again sank back and hid her\r\nface, \"he knows it all now.\" \"Yes, dear; he knows it all; and is it not better so? He will come\r\nand see you, and when that is over you will be more comfortable than\r\nyou have been for years past.\" Lucius also had been up early, and when he learned that Mrs. Orme was\r\ndressed, he sent up to her begging that he might see her. Mrs. Orme\r\nat once went to him, and found him seated at the breakfast-table with\r\nhis head resting on his arm. His face was pale and haggard, and his\r\nhair was uncombed. He had not been undressed that night, and his\r\nclothes hung on him as they always do hang on a man who has passed\r\na sleepless night in them. To Mrs. Orme's inquiry after himself he\r\nanswered not a word, nor did he at first ask after his mother. \"That\r\nwas all true that you told me last night?\" \"Yes, Mr. Mason; it was true.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And she and I must be outcasts for ever. I will endeavour to bear\r\nit, Mrs. Orme. As I did not put an end to my life last night I\r\nsuppose that I shall live and bear it. Does she expect to see me?\" \"I told her that you would come to her this morning.\" \"And what shall I say? I would not condemn my own mother; but how can\r\nI not condemn her?\" \"Tell her at once that you will forgive her.\" \"But it will be a lie. I have not forgiven her. I loved my mother and\r\nesteemed her as a pure and excellent woman. I was proud of my mother. How can I forgive her for having destroyed such feelings as those?\" \"There should be nothing that a son would not forgive his mother.\" \"Ah! that is so easily spoken. Men talk of forgiveness when their\r\nanger rankles deepest in their hearts. In the course of years I shall\r\nforgive her. I hope I shall. But to say that I can forgive her now\r\nwould be a farce. She has broken my heart, Mrs. Orme.\" \"And has not she suffered herself? Is not her heart broken?\" \"I have been thinking of that all night. I cannot understand how she\r\nshould have lived for the last six months. Well; is it time that I\r\nshould go to her?\" Mrs. Orme again went up stairs, and after another interval of half\r\nan hour returned to fetch him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She almost regretted that she had\r\nundertaken to bring them together on that morning, thinking that\r\nit might have been better to postpone the interview till the trial\r\nshould be over. She had expected that Lucius would have been softer\r\nin his manner. But it was too late for any such thought. \"You will find her dressed now, Mr. Mason,\" said she; \"but I conjure\r\nyou, as you hope for mercy yourself, to be merciful to her. She is\r\nyour mother, and though she has injured you by her folly, her heart\r\nhas been true to you through it all. Go now, and remember that\r\nharshness to any woman is unmanly.\" \"I can only act as I think best,\" he replied in that low stern voice\r\nwhich was habitual to him; and then with slow steps he went up to his\r\nmother's room. When he entered it she was standing with her eyes fixed upon the door\r\nand her hands clasped together. So she stood till he had closed the\r\ndoor behind him, and had taken a few steps on towards the centre of\r\nthe room. Then she rushed forward, and throwing herself on the ground\r\nbefore him clasped him round the knees with her arms. \"My boy, my\r\nboy!\" she said. And then she lay there bathing his feet with her\r\ntears. \"Oh! mother, what is this that she has told me?\" But Lady Mason at the moment spoke no further words."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It seemed as\r\nthough her heart would have burst with sobs, and when for a moment\r\nshe lifted up her face to his, the tears were streaming down her\r\ncheeks. Had it not been for that relief she could not have borne the\r\nsufferings which were heaped upon her. \"Mother, get up,\" he said. \"Let me raise you. It is dreadful that you\r\nshould lie there. Mother, let me lift you.\" But she still clung to\r\nhis knees, grovelling on the ground before him. \"Lucius, Lucius,\" she\r\nsaid, and she then sank away from him as though the strength of her\r\nmuscles would no longer allow her to cling to him. She sank away from\r\nhim and lay along the ground hiding her face upon the floor. \"Mother,\" he said, taking her gently by the arm as he knelt at her\r\nside, \"if you will rise I will speak to you.\" \"Your words will kill me,\" she said. \"I do not dare to look at you. Oh! Lucius, will you ever forgive me?\" And yet she had done it all for him. She had done a rascally deed,\r\nan hideous cut-throat deed, but it had been done altogether for him. No thought of her own aggrandisement had touched her mind when she\r\nresolved upon that forgery. As Rebekah had deceived her lord and\r\nrobbed Esau, the first-born, of his birthright, so had she robbed him\r\nwho was as Esau to her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "How often had she thought of that, while her\r\nconscience was pleading hard against her! Had it been imputed as a\r\ncrime to Rebekah that she had loved her own son well, and loving him\r\nhad put a crown upon his head by means of her matchless guile? Did\r\nshe love Lucius, her babe, less than Rebekah had loved Jacob? And had\r\nshe not striven with the old man, struggling that she might do this\r\njust thing without injustice, till in his anger he had thrust her\r\nfrom him. \"I will not break my promise for the brat,\" the old man had\r\nsaid;--and then she did the deed. But all that was as nothing now. She felt no comfort now from that Bible story which had given her\r\nsuch encouragement before the thing was finished. Now the result of\r\nevil-doing had come full home to her, and she was seeking pardon with\r\na broken heart, while burning tears furrowed her cheeks,--not from\r\nhim whom she had thought to injure, but from the child of her own\r\nbosom, for whose prosperity she had been so anxious. Then she slowly arose and allowed him to place her upon the sofa. \"Mother,\" he said, \"it is all over here.\" \"Ah! yes.\" \"Whither we had better go, I cannot yet say,--or when. We must wait\r\ntill this day is ended.\" \"Lucius, I care nothing for myself,--nothing. It is nothing to me\r\nwhether or no they say that I am guilty."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is of you only that I am\r\nthinking.\" \"Our lot, mother, must still be together. If they find you guilty\r\nyou will be imprisoned, and then I will go, and come back when they\r\nrelease you. For you and me the future world will be very different\r\nfrom the past.\" \"It need not be so,--for you, Lucius. I do not wish to keep you near\r\nme now.\" \"But I shall be near you. Where you hide your shame there will I\r\nhide mine. In this world there is nothing left for us. But there is\r\nanother world before you,--if you can repent of your sin.\" This too\r\nhe said very sternly, standing somewhat away from her, and frowning\r\nthe while with those gloomy eyebrows. Sad as was her condition he\r\nmight have given her solace, could he have taken her by the hand and\r\nkissed her. Peregrine Orme would have done so, or Augustus Staveley,\r\ncould it have been possible that they should have found themselves\r\nin that position. Though Lucius Mason could not do so, he was not\r\nless just than they, and, it may be, not less loving in his heart. He could devote himself for his mother's sake as absolutely as could\r\nthey. But to some is given and to some is denied that cruse of\r\nheavenly balm with which all wounds can be assuaged and sore hearts\r\never relieved of some portion of their sorrow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Of all the virtues\r\nwith which man can endow himself surely none other is so odious as\r\nthat justice which can teach itself to look down upon mercy almost as\r\na vice! \"I will not ask you to forgive me,\" she said, plaintively. \"Mother,\" he answered, \"were I to say that I forgave you my words\r\nwould be a mockery. I have no right either to condemn or to forgive. I accept my position as it has been made for me, and will endeavour\r\nto do my duty.\" It would have been almost better for her that he should have\r\nupbraided her for her wickedness. She would then have fallen again\r\nprostrate before him, if not in body at least in spirit, and\r\nher weakness would have stood for her in place of strength. But\r\nnow it was necessary that she should hear his words and bear his\r\nlooks,--bear them like a heavy burden on her back without absolutely\r\nsinking. It had been that necessity of bearing and never absolutely\r\nsinking which, during years past, had so tried and tested the\r\nstrength of her heart and soul. Seeing that she had not sunk, we may\r\nsay that her strength had been very wonderful. And then she stood up and came close to him. \"But you will give me\r\nyour hand, Lucius?\" \"Yes, mother; there is my hand. I shall stand by you through it all.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he did not offer to kiss her; and there was still some pride in\r\nher heart which would not allow her to ask him for an embrace. \"And now,\" he said, \"it is time that you should prepare to go. Mrs.\r\nOrme thinks it better that I should not accompany you.\" \"No, Lucius, no; you must not hear them proclaim my guilt in court.\" \"That would make but little difference. But nevertheless I will not\r\ngo. Had I known this before I should not have gone there. It was to\r\ntestify my belief in your innocence; nay, my conviction--\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, Lucius, spare me!\" \"Well, I will speak of it no more. I shall be here to-night when you\r\ncome back.\" \"But if they say that I am guilty they will take me away.\" \"If so I will come to you,--in the morning if they will let me. But,\r\nmother, in any case I must leave this house to-morrow.\" Then again\r\nhe gave her his hand, but he left her without touching her with his\r\nlips. When the two ladies appeared in court together without Lucius Mason\r\nthere was much question among the crowd as to the cause of his\r\nabsence. Both Dockwrath and Joseph Mason looked at it in the right\r\nlight, and accepted it as a ground for renewed hope. \"He dare not\r\nface the verdict,\" said Dockwrath."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And yet when they had left the\r\ncourt on the preceding evening, after listening to Mr. Furnival's\r\nspeech, their hopes had not been very high. Dockwrath had not\r\nadmitted with words that he feared defeat, but when Mason had gnashed\r\nhis teeth as he walked up and down his room at Alston, and striking\r\nthe table with his clenched fist had declared his fears, \"By heavens\r\nthey will escape me again!\" Dockwrath had not been able to give him\r\nsubstantial comfort. \"The jury are not such fools as to take all\r\nthat for gospel,\" he had said. But he had not said it with that tone\r\nof assured conviction which he had always used till Mr. Furnival's\r\nspeech had been made. There could have been no greater attestation\r\nto the power displayed by Mr. Furnival than Mr. Mason's countenance\r\nas he left the court on that evening. \"I suppose it will cost me\r\nhundreds of pounds,\" he said to Dockwrath that evening. \"Orley Farm\r\nwill pay for it all,\" Dockwrath had answered; but his answer had\r\nshown no confidence. And, if we think well of it, Joseph Mason was\r\ndeserving of pity. He wanted only what was his own; and that Orley\r\nFarm ought to be his own he had no smallest doubt. Mr. Furnival had\r\nnot in the least shaken him; but he had made him feel that others\r\nwould be shaken. \"If it could only be left to the judge,\" thought Mr.\r\nMason to himself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then he began to consider whether this British\r\npalladium of an unanimous jury had not in it more of evil than of\r\ngood. Young Peregrine Orme again met his mother at the door of the court,\r\nand at her instance gave his arm to Lady Mason. Mr. Aram was also\r\nthere; but Mr. Aram had great tact, and did not offer his arm to Mrs.\r\nOrme, contenting himself with making a way for her and walking beside\r\nher. \"I am glad that her son has not come to-day,\" he said, not\r\nbringing his head suspiciously close to hers, but still speaking so\r\nthat none but she might hear him. \"He has done all the good that he\r\ncould do, and as there is only the judge's charge to hear, the jury\r\nwill not notice his absence. Of course we hope for the best, Mrs.\r\nOrme, but it is doubtful.\" As Felix Graham took his place next to Chaffanbrass, the old lawyer\r\nscowled at him, turning his red old savage eyes first on him and then\r\nfrom him, growling the while, so that the whole court might notice\r\nit. The legal portion of the court did notice it and were much\r\namused. \"Good morning, Mr. Chaffanbrass,\" said Graham quite aloud as\r\nhe took his seat; and then Chaffanbrass growled again. Considering\r\nthe lights with which he had been lightened, there was a species of\r\nhonesty about Mr. Chaffanbrass which certainly deserved praise."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He\r\nwas always true to the man whose money he had taken, and gave to his\r\ncustomer, with all the power at his command, that assistance which he\r\nhad professed to sell. But we may give the same praise to the hired\r\nbravo who goes through with truth and courage the task which he has\r\nundertaken. I knew an assassin in Ireland who professed that during\r\ntwelve years of practice in Tipperary he had never failed when he had\r\nonce engaged himself. For truth and honesty to their customers--which\r\nare great virtues--I would bracket that man and Mr. Chaffanbrass\r\ntogether. And then the judge commenced his charge, and as he went on with it\r\nhe repeated all the evidence that was in any way of moment, pulling\r\nthe details to pieces, and dividing that which bore upon the subject\r\nfrom that which did not. This he did with infinite talent and with a\r\nperspicuity beyond all praise. But to my thinking it was remarkable\r\nthat he seemed to regard the witnesses as a dissecting surgeon may\r\nbe supposed to regard the subjects on which he operates for the\r\nadvancement of science. With exquisite care he displayed what each\r\nhad said and how the special saying of one bore on that special\r\nsaying of another."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he never spoke of them as though they had been\r\nlive men and women who were themselves as much entitled to justice\r\nat his hands as either the prosecutor in this matter or she who was\r\nbeing prosecuted; who, indeed, if anything, were better entitled\r\nunless he could show that they were false and suborned; for unless\r\nthey were suborned or false they were there doing a painful duty to\r\nthe public, for which they were to receive no pay and from which they\r\nwere to obtain no benefit. Of whom else in that court could so much\r\nbe said? The judge there had his ermine and his canopy, his large\r\nsalary and his seat of honour. And the lawyers had their wigs, and\r\ntheir own loud voices, and their places of precedence. The attorneys\r\nhad their seats and their big tables, and the somewhat familiar\r\nrespect of the tipstaves. The jury, though not much to be envied,\r\nwere addressed with respect and flattery, had their honourable seats,\r\nand were invariably at least called gentlemen. But why should there\r\nbe no seat of honour for the witnesses?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "To stand in a box, to be\r\nbawled after by the police, to be scowled at and scolded by the\r\njudge, to be browbeaten and accused falsely by the barristers, and\r\nthen to be condemned as perjurers by the jury,--that is the fate of\r\nthe one person who during the whole trial is perhaps entitled to\r\nthe greatest respect, and is certainly entitled to the most public\r\ngratitude. Let the witness have a big arm-chair, and a canopy over\r\nhim, and a man behind him with a red cloak to do him honour and keep\r\nthe flies off; let him be gently invited to come forward from some\r\ninner room where he can sit before a fire. Then he will be able to\r\nspeak out, making himself heard without scolding, and will perhaps be\r\nable to make a fair fight with the cocks who can crow so loudly on\r\ntheir own dunghills. The judge in this case did his work with admirable skill, blowing\r\naside the froth of Mr. Furnival's eloquence, and upsetting the\r\nsophistry and false deductions of Mr. Chaffanbrass. The case for the\r\njury, as he said, hung altogether upon the evidence of Kenneby and\r\nthe woman Bolster. As far as he could see, the evidence of Dockwrath\r\nhad little to do with it; and alleged malice and greed on the part of\r\nDockwrath could have nothing to do with it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The jury might take it\r\nas proved that Lady Mason at the former trial had sworn that she\r\nhad been present when her husband signed the codicil and had seen\r\nthe different signatures affixed to it. They might also take it\r\nas proved, that that other deed,--the deed purporting to close a\r\npartnership between Sir Joseph Mason and Mr. Martock,--had been\r\nexecuted on the 14th of July, and that it had been signed by Sir\r\nJoseph, and also by those two surviving witnesses, Kenneby and\r\nBolster. The question, therefore, for the consideration of the jury\r\nhad narrowed itself to this: had two deeds been executed by Sir\r\nJoseph Mason, both bearing the same date? If this had not been done,\r\nand if that deed with reference to the partnership were a true\r\ndeed, then must the other be false and fraudulent; and if false and\r\nfraudulent, then must Lady Mason have sworn falsely, and been guilty\r\nof that perjury with which she was now charged. There might, perhaps,\r\nbe one loophole to this argument by which an escape was possible. Though both deeds bore the date of 14th July, there might have been\r\nerror in this. It was possible, though no doubt singular, that that\r\ndate should have been inserted in the partnership deed, and the deed\r\nitself be executed afterwards."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But then the woman Bolster told them\r\nthat she had been called to act as witness but once in her life, and\r\nif they believed her in that statement, the possibility of error as\r\nto the date would be of little or no avail on behalf of Lady Mason. For himself, he could not say that adequate ground had been shown\r\nfor charging Bolster with swearing falsely. No doubt she had been\r\nobstinate in her method of giving her testimony, but that might have\r\narisen from an honest resolution on her part not to allow herself to\r\nbe shaken. The value of her testimony must, however, be judged by\r\nthe jury themselves. As regarded Kenneby, he must say that the man\r\nhad been very stupid. No one who had heard him would accuse him for\r\na moment of having intended to swear falsely, but the jury might\r\nperhaps think that the testimony of such a man could not be taken as\r\nhaving much value with reference to circumstances which happened more\r\nthan twenty years since. The charge took over two hours, but the substance of it has been\r\nstated. Then the jury retired to consider their verdict, and the\r\njudge, and the barristers, and some other jury proceeded to the\r\nbusiness of some other and less important trial."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lady Mason and Mrs.\r\nOrme sat for a while in their seats--perhaps for a space of twenty\r\nminutes--and then, as the jury did not at once return into court,\r\nthey retired to the sitting-room in which they had first been placed. Here Mr. Aram accompanied them, and here they were of course met by\r\nPeregrine Orme. \"His lordship's charge was very good--very good, indeed,\" said Mr.\r\nAram. \"Was it?\" asked Peregrine. \"And very much in our favour,\" continued the attorney. \"You think then,\" said Mrs. Orme, looking up into his face, \"you\r\nthink that--\" But she did not know how to go on with her question. \"Yes, I do. I think we shall have a verdict; I do, indeed. I would\r\nnot say so before Lady Mason if my opinion was not very strong. The\r\njury may disagree. That is not improbable. But I cannot anticipate\r\nthat the verdict will be against us.\" There was some comfort in this; but how wretched was the nature of\r\nthe comfort! Did not the attorney, in every word which he spoke,\r\ndeclare his own conviction of his client's guilt. Even Peregrine Orme\r\ncould not say out boldly that he felt sure of an acquittal because\r\nno other verdict could be justly given. And then why was not Mr.\r\nFurnival there, taking his friend by the hand and congratulating her\r\nthat her troubles were so nearly over?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Furnival at this time did\r\nnot come near her; and had he done so, what could he have said to\r\nher? He and Sir Richard Leatherham left the court together, and the latter\r\nwent at once back to London without waiting to hear the verdict. Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass also, and Felix Graham retired from the scene of their\r\nlabours, and as they did so, a few words were spoken between them. \"Mr. Graham,\" said the ancient hero of the Old Bailey, \"you are too\r\ngreat for this kind of work I take it. If I were you, I would keep\r\nout of it for the future.\" \"I am very much of the same way of thinking, Mr. Chaffanbrass,\" said\r\nthe other. \"If a man undertakes a duty, he should do it. That's my opinion,\r\nthough I confess it's a little old fashioned; especially if he takes\r\nmoney for it, Mr. Graham.\" And then the old man glowered at him with\r\nhis fierce eyes, and nodded his head and went on. What could Graham\r\nsay to him? His answer would have been ready enough had there been\r\ntime or place in which to give it. But he had no answer ready\r\nwhich was fit for the crowded hall of the court-house, and so Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass went on his way. He will now pass out of our sight,\r\nand we will say of him, that he did his duty well according to his\r\nlights."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There, in that little room, sat Lady Mason and Mrs. Orme till late in\r\nthe evening, and there, with them, remained Peregrine. Some sort of\r\nrefreshment was procured for them, but of the three days they passed\r\nin the court, that, perhaps, was the most oppressive. There was\r\nno employment for them, and then the suspense was terrible! That\r\nsuspense became worse and worse as the hours went on, for it was\r\nclear that at any rate some of the jury were anxious to give a\r\nverdict against her. \"They say that there's eight and four,\" said Mr.\r\nAram, at one of the many visits which he made to them; \"but there's\r\nno saying how true that may be.\" \"Eight and four!\" said Peregrine. \"Eight to acquit, and four for guilty,\" said Aram. \"If so, we're\r\nsafe, at any rate, till the next assizes.\" But it was not fated that Lady Mason should be sent away from the\r\ncourt in doubt. At eight o'clock Mr. Aram came to them, hot with\r\nhaste, and told them that the jury had sent for the judge. The judge\r\nhad gone home to his dinner, but would return to court at once when\r\nhe heard that the jury had agreed. \"And must we go into court again?\" said Mrs. Orme. \"Lady Mason must do so.\" \"Then of course I shall go with her. Are you ready now, dear?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lady Mason was unable to speak, but she signified that she was ready,\r\nand then they went into court. The jury were already in the box, and\r\nas the two ladies took their seats, the judge entered. But few of the\r\ngas-lights were lit, so that they in the court could hardly see each\r\nother, and the remaining ceremony did not take five minutes. \"Not guilty, my lord,\" said the foreman. Then the verdict was\r\nrecorded, and the judge went back to his dinner. Joseph Mason and\r\nDockwrath were present and heard the verdict. I will leave the reader\r\nto imagine with what an appetite they returned to their chamber. CHAPTER LXXVI. I LOVE HER STILL. It was all over now, and as Lucius had said to his mother, there was\r\nnothing left for them but to go and hide themselves. The verdict had\r\nreached him before his mother's return, and on the moment of his\r\nhearing it he sat down and commenced the following letter to Mr.\r\nFurnival:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   Orley Farm, March --, 18--. DEAR SIR,\r\n\r\n   I beg to thank you, in my mother's name, for your great\r\n   exertions in the late trial. I must acknowledge that I\r\n   have been wrong in thinking that you gave her bad advice,\r\n   and am now convinced that you acted with the best judgment\r\n   on her behalf."}
{"question": "", "answer": "May I beg that you will add to your great\r\n   kindness by inducing the gentlemen who undertook the\r\n   management of the case as my mother's attorneys to let\r\n   me know as soon as possible in what sum I am indebted to\r\n   them? I believe I need trouble you with no preamble as to my\r\n   reasons when I tell you that I have resolved to abandon\r\n   immediately any title that I may have to the possession of\r\n   Orley Farm, and to make over the property at once, in any\r\n   way that may be most efficacious, to my half-brother,\r\n   Mr. Joseph Mason, of Groby Park. I so strongly feel the\r\n   necessity of doing this at once, without even a day's\r\n   delay, that I shall take my mother to lodgings in London\r\n   to-morrow, and shall then decide on what steps it may be\r\n   best that we shall take. My mother will be in possession\r\n   of about £200 a year, subject to such deduction as the\r\n   cost of the trial may make from it. I hope that you will not think that I intrude upon you\r\n   too far when I ask you to communicate with my brother's\r\n   lawyers on the subject of this surrender. I do not know\r\n   how else to do it; and of course you will understand that\r\n   I wish to screen my mother's name as much as may be in my\r\n   power with due regard to honesty."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I hope I need not insist\r\n   on the fact,--for it is a fact,--that nothing will change\r\n   my purpose as to this. If I cannot have it done through\r\n   you, I must myself go to Mr. Round. I am, moreover, aware\r\n   that in accordance with strict justice my brother should\r\n   have upon me a claim for the proceeds of the estate since\r\n   the date of our father's death. If he wishes it I will\r\n   give him such claim, making myself his debtor by any\r\n   form that may be legal. He must, however, in such case\r\n   be made to understand that his claim will be against a\r\n   beggar; but, nevertheless, it may suit his views to have\r\n   such a claim upon me. I cannot think that, under the\r\n   circumstances, I should be justified in calling on my\r\n   mother to surrender her small income; but should you be of\r\n   a different opinion, it shall be done. I write thus to you at once as I think that not a day\r\n   should be lost. I will trouble you with another line from\r\n   London, to let you know what is our immediate address. Pray believe me to be\r\n   Yours, faithfully and obliged,\r\n\r\n   LUCIUS MASON. T. Furnival, Esq.,\r\n   Old Square, Lincoln's Inn Fields. As soon as he had completed this letter, which was sufficiently good\r\nfor its purpose, and clearly explained what was the writer's will on\r\nthe subject of it, he wrote another, which I do not think was equally\r\nefficacious."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The second was addressed to Miss Furnival, and being\r\na love letter, was not so much within the scope of the writer's\r\npeculiar powers. DEAREST SOPHIA,\r\n\r\n   I hardly know how to address you; or what I should tell\r\n   you or what conceal. Were we together, and was that\r\n   promise renewed which you once gave me, I should tell you\r\n   all;--but this I cannot do by letter. My mother's trial is\r\n   over, and she is acquitted; but that which I have learned\r\n   during the trial has made me feel that I am bound to\r\n   relinquish to my brother-in-law all my title to Orley\r\n   Farm, and I have already taken the first steps towards\r\n   doing so. Yes, Sophia, I am now a beggar on the face of\r\n   the world. I have nothing belonging to me, save those\r\n   powers of mind and body which God has given me; and I am,\r\n   moreover, a man oppressed with a terribly heavy load of\r\n   grief. For some short time I must hide myself with my\r\n   mother; and then, when I shall have been able to brace\r\n   my mind to work, I shall go forth and labour in whatever\r\n   field may be open to me. But before I go, Sophia, I wish to say a word of farewell\r\n   to you, that I may understand on what terms we part. Of\r\n   course I make no claim."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am aware that that which I now\r\n   tell you must be held as giving you a valid excuse for\r\n   breaking any contract that there may have been between\r\n   us. But, nevertheless, I have hope. That I love you very\r\n   dearly I need hardly now say; and I still venture to think\r\n   that the time may come when I shall again prove myself\r\n   to be worthy of your hand. If you have ever loved me you\r\n   cannot cease to do so merely because I am unfortunate; and\r\n   if you love me still, perhaps you will consent to wait. If\r\n   you will do so,--if you will say that I am rich in that\r\n   respect,--I shall go to my banishment not altogether a\r\n   downcast man. May I say that I am still your own\r\n\r\n   LUCIUS MASON? No; he decidedly might not say so. But as the letter was not\r\nyet finished when his mother and Mrs. Orme returned, I will not\r\nanticipate matters by giving Miss Furnival's reply. Mrs. Orme came back that night to Orley Farm, but without the\r\nintention of remaining there. Her task was over, and it would be well\r\nthat she should return to The Cleeve. Her task was over; and as the\r\nhour must come in which she would leave the mother in the hands of\r\nher son, the present hour would be as good as any."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They again went together to the room which they had shared for the\r\nlast night or two, and there they parted. They had not been there\r\nlong when the sound of wheels was heard on the gravel, and Mrs. Orme\r\ngot up from her seat. \"There is Peregrine with the carriage,\" said\r\nshe. \"And you are going?\" said Lady Mason. \"If I could do you good, I would stay,\" said Mrs. Orme. \"No, no; of course you must go. Oh, my darling, oh, my friend,\" and\r\nshe threw herself into the other's arms. \"Of course I will write to you,\" said Mrs. Orme. \"I will do so\r\nregularly.\" \"May God bless you for ever. But it is needless to ask for blessings\r\non such as you. You are blessed.\" \"And you too;--if you will turn to Him you will be blessed.\" \"Ah me. Well, I can try now. I feel that I can at any rate try.\" \"And none who try ever fail. And now, dear, good-bye.\" \"Good-bye, my angel. But, Mrs. Orme, I have one word I must first\r\nsay; a message that I must send to him. Tell him this, that never in\r\nmy life have I loved any man as well as I have loved him and as I do\r\nlove him. That on my knees I beg his pardon for the wrong I have done\r\nhim.\" \"But he knows how great has been your goodness to him.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"When the time came I was not quite a devil to drag him down with me\r\nto utter destruction!\" \"He will always remember what was your conduct then.\" \"But tell him, that though I loved him, and though I loved you with\r\nall my heart,--with all my heart, I knew through it all, as I know\r\nnow, that I was not a fitting friend for him or you. No; do not\r\ninterrupt me, I always knew it; and though it was so sweet to me to\r\nsee your faces, I would have kept away; but that he would not have\r\nit. I came to him to assist me because he was great and strong, and\r\nhe took me to his bosom with his kindness, till I destroyed his\r\nstrength; though his greatness nothing can destroy.\" \"No, no; he does not think that you have injured him.\" \"But tell him what I say; and tell him that a poor bruised, broken\r\ncreature, who knows at least her own vileness, will pray for him\r\nnight and morning. And now good-bye. Of my heart towards you I cannot\r\nspeak.\" \"Good-bye then, and, Lady Mason, never despair. There is always room\r\nfor hope; and where there is hope there need not be unhappiness.\" Then they parted, and Mrs. Orme went down to her son. \"Mother, the carriage is here,\" he said. \"Yes, I heard it. Where is Lucius? Good-bye, Mr. Mason.\" \"God bless you, Mrs. Orme."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Believe me I know how good you have been\r\nto us.\" As she gave him her hand, she spoke a few words to him. \"My last\r\nrequest to you, Mr. Mason, is to beg that you will be tender to your\r\nmother.\" \"I will do my best, Mrs. Orme.\" \"All her sufferings and your own, have come from her great love for\r\nyou.\" \"That I know and feel, but had her ambition for me been less it would\r\nhave been better for both of us.\" And there he stood bare-headed at\r\nthe door while Peregrine Orme handed his mother into the carriage. Thus Mrs. Orme took her last leave of Orley Farm, and was parted from\r\nthe woman she had loved with so much truth and befriended with so\r\nmuch loyalty. Very few words were spoken in the carriage between Peregrine and\r\nhis mother while they were being taken back through Hamworth to The\r\nCleeve. To Peregrine the whole matter was unintelligible. He knew\r\nthat the verdict had been in favour of Lady Mason, and yet there\r\nhad been no signs of joy at Orley Farm, or even of contentment. He\r\nhad heard also from Lucius, while they had been together for a few\r\nminutes, that Orley Farm was to be given up. \"You'll let it I suppose,\" Peregrine had asked. \"It will not be mine to let. It will belong to my brother,\" Lucius\r\nhad answered."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then Peregrine had asked no further question; nor had\r\nLucius offered any further information. But his mother, as he knew, was worn out with the work she had done,\r\nand at the present moment he felt that the subject was one which\r\nwould hardly bear questions. So he sat by her side in silence; and\r\nbefore the carriage had reached The Cleeve his mind had turned away\r\nfrom the cares and sorrows of Lady Mason, and was once more at\r\nNoningsby. After all, as he said to himself, who could be worse off\r\nthan he was. He had nothing to hope. They found Sir Peregrine standing in the hall to receive them, and\r\nMrs. Orme, though she had been absent only three days, could not but\r\nperceive the havoc which this trial had made upon him. It was not\r\nthat the sufferings of those three days had broken him down, but that\r\nnow, after that short absence, she was able to perceive how great had\r\nbeen upon him the effect of his previous sufferings. He had never\r\nheld up his head since the day on which Lady Mason had made to him\r\nher first confession. Up to that time he had stood erect, and though\r\nas he walked his steps had shown that he was no longer young, he\r\nhad walked with a certain air of strength and manly bearing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Till\r\nLady Mason had come to The Cleeve no one would have said that Sir\r\nPeregrine looked as though his energy and life had passed away. But\r\nnow, as he put his arm round his daughter's waist, and stooped down\r\nto kiss her cheek, he was a worn-out, tottering old man. During these three days he had lived almost altogether alone, and had\r\nbeen ashamed to show to those around him the intense interest which\r\nhe felt in the result of the trial. His grandson had on each day\r\nbreakfasted alone, and had left the house before his grandfather was\r\nout of his room; and on each evening he had returned late,--as he\r\nnow returned with his mother,--and had dined alone. Then he had sat\r\nwith his grandfather for an hour or two, and had been constrained\r\nto talk over the events of the day without being allowed to ask Sir\r\nPeregrine's opinion as to Lady Mason's innocence or to express his\r\nown. These three days had been dreadful to Sir Peregrine. He had not\r\nleft the house, but had crept about from room to room, ever and again\r\ntaking up some book or paper and putting it down unread, as his mind\r\nreverted to the one subject which now for him bore any interest. On\r\nthe second of these three days a note had been brought to him from\r\nhis old friend Lord Alston."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Dear Orme,\" the note had run, \"I am not\r\nquite happy as I think of the manner in which we parted the other\r\nday. If I offended in any degree, I send this as a peacemaker, and\r\nbeg to shake your hand heartily. Let me have a line from you to say\r\nthat it is all right between us. Neither you nor I can afford to\r\nlose an old friend at our time of life. Yours always, Alston.\" But\r\nSir Peregrine had not answered it. Lord Alston's servant had been\r\ndismissed with a promise that an answer should be sent, but at the\r\nend of the three days it had not yet been written. His mind indeed\r\nwas still sore towards Lord Alston. The counsel which his old friend\r\nhad given him was good and true, but it had been neglected, and its\r\nvery truth and excellence now made the remembrance of it unpalatable. He had, nevertheless, intended to write; but the idea of such\r\nexertion from hour to hour had become more distressing to him. He had of course heard of Lady Mason's acquittal; and indeed tidings\r\nof the decision to which the jury had come went through the country\r\nvery quickly. There is a telegraphic wire for such tidings which has\r\nbeen very long in use, and which, though always used, is as yet but\r\nvery little understood."}
{"question": "", "answer": "How is it that information will spread itself\r\nquicker than men can travel, and make its way like water into all\r\nparts of the world? It was known all through the country that night\r\nthat Lady Mason was acquitted; and before the next night it was as\r\nwell known that she had acknowledged her guilt by giving up the\r\nproperty. Little could be said as to the trial while Peregrine remained in the\r\nroom with his mother and his grandfather; but this he had the tact to\r\nperceive, and soon left them together. \"I shall see you, mother, up\r\nstairs before you go to bed,\" he said as he sauntered out. \"But you must not keep her up,\" said his grandfather. \"Remember all\r\nthat she has gone through.\" With this injunction he went off, and as\r\nhe sat alone in his mother's room he tried to come to some resolution\r\nas to Noningsby. He knew he had no ground for hope;--no chance, as\r\nhe would have called it. And if so, would it not be better that\r\nhe should take himself off? Nevertheless he would go to Noningsby\r\nonce more. He would not be such a coward but that he would wish her\r\ngood-bye before he went, and hear the end of it all from her own\r\nlips. When he had left the room Lady Mason's last message was given to Sir\r\nPeregrine. \"Poor soul, poor soul!\" he said, as Mrs. Orme began her\r\nstory."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Her son knows it all then now.\" \"I told him last night,--with her consent; so that he should not go\r\ninto the court to-day. It would have been very bad, you know, if they\r\nhad--found her guilty.\" \"Yes, yes; very bad--very bad indeed. Poor creature! And so you told\r\nhim. How did he bear it?\" \"On the whole, well. At first he would not believe me.\" \"As for me, I could not have done it. I could not have told him.\" \"Yes, sir, you would;--you would, if it had been required of you.\" \"I think it would have killed me. But a woman can do things for which\r\na man's courage would never be sufficient. And he bore it manfully.\" \"He was very stern.\" \"Yes;--and he will be stern. Poor soul!--I pity her from my very\r\nheart. But he will not desert her; he will do his duty by her.\" \"I am sure he will. In that respect he is a good young man.\" \"Yes, my dear. He is one of those who seem by nature created to bear\r\nadversity. No trouble or sorrow would I think crush him. But had\r\nprosperity come to him, it would have made him odious to all around\r\nhim. You were not present when they met?\" \"No--I thought it better to leave them.\" \"Yes, yes. And he will give up the place at once.\" \"To-morrow he will do so. In that at any rate he has true spirit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To-morrow early they will go to London, and she I suppose will never\r\nsee Orley Farm again.\" And then Mrs. Orme gave Sir Peregrine that\r\nlast message.--\"I tell you everything as she told me,\" Mrs. Orme\r\nsaid, seeing how deeply he was affected. \"Perhaps I am wrong.\" \"No, no, no,\" he said. \"Coming at such a moment, her words seemed to be almost sacred.\" \"They are sacred. They shall be sacred. Poor soul, poor soul!\" \"She did a great crime.\" \"Yes, yes.\" \"But if a crime can be forgiven,--can be excused on account of its\r\nmotives--\"\r\n\r\n\"It cannot, my dear. Nothing can be forgiven on that ground.\" \"No; we know that; we all feel sure of that. But yet how can one help\r\nloving her? For myself, I shall love her always.\" \"And I also love her.\" And then the old man made his confession. \"I loved her well;--better than I had ever thought to love any one\r\nagain, but you and Perry. I loved her very dearly, and felt that I\r\nshould have been proud to have called her my wife. How beautiful she\r\nwas in her sorrow, when we thought that her life had been pure and\r\ngood!\" \"And it had been good,--for many years past.\" \"No; for the stolen property was still there. But yet how graceful\r\nshe was, and how well her sorrows sat upon her!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "What might she not\r\nhave done had the world used her more kindly, and not sent in her\r\nway that sore temptation! She was a woman for a man to have loved to\r\nmadness.\" \"And yet how little can she have known of love!\" \"I loved her.\" And as the old man said so he rose to his feet with\r\nsome show of his old energy. \"I loved her,--with all my heart! It is\r\nfoolish for an old man so to say; but I did love her; nay, I love her\r\nstill. But that I knew that it would be wrong,--for your sake, and\r\nfor Perry's--\" And then he stopped himself, as though he would fain\r\nhear what she might say to him. \"Yes; it is all over now,\" she said in the softest, sweetest, lowest\r\nvoice. She knew that she was breaking down a last hope, but she knew\r\nalso that that hope was vain. And then there was silence in the room\r\nfor some ten minutes' space. \"It is all over,\" he then said, repeating her last words. \"But you have us still,--Perry and me. Can any one love you better\r\nthan we do?\" And she got up and went over to him and stood by him,\r\nand leaned upon him. \"Edith, my love, since you came to my house there has been an angel\r\nin it watching over me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I shall know that always; and when I turn\r\nmy face to the wall, as I soon shall, that shall be my last earthly\r\nthought.\" And so in tears they parted for that night. But the sorrow\r\nthat was bringing him to his grave came from the love of which he had\r\nspoken. It is seldom that a young man may die from a broken heart;\r\nbut if an old man have a heart still left to him, it is more fragile. CHAPTER LXXVII. JOHN KENNEBY'S DOOM. On the evening but one after the trial was over Mr. Moulder\r\nentertained a few friends to supper at his apartments in Great St.\r\nHelen's, and it was generally understood that in doing so he intended\r\nto celebrate the triumph of Lady Mason. Through the whole affair he\r\nhad been a strong partisan on her side, had expressed a very loud\r\nopinion in favour of Mr. Furnival, and had hoped that that scoundrel\r\nDockwrath would get all that he deserved from the hands of Mr.\r\nChaffanbrass. When the hour of Mr. Dockwrath's punishment had come he\r\nhad been hardly contented, but the inadequacy of Kenneby's testimony\r\nhad restored him to good humour, and the verdict had made him\r\ntriumphant. \"Didn't I know it, old fellow?\" he had said, slapping his friend\r\nSnengkeld on the back."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"When such a low scoundrel as Dockwrath is\r\npitted against a handsome woman like Lady Mason he'll not find a jury\r\nin England to give a verdict in his favour.\" Then he asked Snengkeld\r\nto come to his little supper; and Kantwise also he invited, though\r\nKantwise had shown Dockwrath tendencies throughout the whole\r\naffair;--but Moulder was fond of Kantwise as a butt for his own\r\nsarcasm. Mrs. Smiley, too, was asked, as was natural, seeing that she\r\nwas the betrothed bride of one of the heroes of the day; and Moulder,\r\nin the kindness of his heart, swore that he never was proud, and told\r\nBridget Bolster that she would be welcome to take a share of what was\r\ngoing. \"Laws, M.,\" said Mrs. Moulder, when she was told of this. \"A\r\nchambermaid from an inn! What will Mrs. Smiley say?\" \"I ain't going to trouble myself with what Mother Smiley may say or\r\nthink about my friends. If she don't like it, she may do the other\r\nthing. What was she herself when you first knew her?\" \"Yes, Moulder; but then money do make a difference, you know.\" Bridget Bolster, however, was invited, and she came in spite of the\r\ngrandeur of Mrs. Smiley. Kenneby also of course was there, but he was\r\nnot in a happy frame of mind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Since that wretched hour in which he\r\nhad heard himself described by the judge as too stupid to be held\r\nof any account by the jury he had become a melancholy, misanthropic\r\nman. The treatment which he received from Mr. Furnival had been very\r\ngrievous to him, but he had borne with that, hoping that some word of\r\neulogy from the judge would set him right in the public mind. But no\r\nsuch word had come, and poor John Kenneby felt that the cruel hard\r\nworld was too much for him. He had been with his sister that morning,\r\nand words had dropped from him which made her fear that he would\r\nwish to postpone his marriage for another space of ten years or so. \"Brick-fields!\" he had said. \"What can such a one as I have to do\r\nwith landed property? I am better as I am.\" Mrs. Smiley, however, did not at all seem to think so, and welcomed\r\nJohn Kenneby back from Alston very warmly in spite of the disgrace to\r\nwhich he had been subjected. It was nothing to her that the judge had\r\ncalled her future lord a fool; nor indeed was it anything to any one\r\nbut himself. According to Moulder's views it was a matter of course\r\nthat a witness should be abused. For what other purpose was he had\r\ninto the court? But deep in the mind of poor Kenneby himself the\r\ninjurious words lay festering."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had struggled hard to tell the\r\ntruth, and in doing so had simply proved himself to be an ass. \"I\r\nain't fit to live with anybody else but myself,\" he said to himself,\r\nas he walked down Bishopsgate Street. At this time Mrs. Smiley was not yet there. Bridget had arrived, and\r\nhad been seated in a chair at one corner of the fire. Mrs. Moulder\r\noccupied one end of a sofa opposite, leaving the place of honour at\r\nthe other end for Mrs. Smiley. Moulder sat immediately in front of\r\nthe fire in his own easy chair, and Snengkeld and Kantwise were on\r\neach side of him. They were of course discussing the trial when Mrs.\r\nSmiley was announced; and it was well that she made a diversion by\r\nher arrival, for words were beginning to run high. \"A jury of her countrymen has found her innocent,\" Moulder had said\r\nwith much heat; \"and any one who says she's guilty after that is\r\na libeller and a coward, to my way of thinking. If a jury of her\r\ncountrymen don't make a woman innocent, what does?\" \"Of course she's innocent,\" said Snengkeld; \"from the very moment\r\nthe words was spoken by the foreman. If any newspaper was to say she\r\nwasn't she'd have her action.\" \"That's all very well,\" said Kantwise, looking up to the ceiling\r\nwith his eyes nearly shut. \"But you'll see. What'll you bet me, Mr.\r\nMoulder, that Joseph Mason don't get the property?\" \"Gammon!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "answered Moulder. \"Well, it may be gammon; but you'll see.\" \"Gentlemen, gentlemen!\" said Mrs. Smiley, sailing into the room;\r\n\"upon my word one hears all you say ever so far down the street.\" \"And I didn't care if they heard it right away to the Mansion House,\"\r\nsaid Moulder. \"We ain't talking treason, nor yet highway robbery.\" Then Mrs. Smiley was welcomed;--her bonnet was taken from her and her\r\numbrella, and she was encouraged to spread herself out over the sofa. \"Oh, Mrs. Bolster; the witness!\" she said, when Mrs. Moulder went\r\nthrough some little ceremony of introduction. And from the tone of\r\nher voice it appeared that she was not quite satisfied that Mrs.\r\nBolster should be there as a companion for herself. \"Yes, ma'am. I was the witness as had never signed but once,\" said\r\nBridget, getting up and curtsying. Then she sat down again, folding\r\nher hands one over the other on her lap. \"Oh, indeed!\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"But where's the other witness, Mrs.\r\nMoulder? He's the one who is a deal more interesting to me. Ha, ha,\r\nha! But as you all know it here, what's the good of not telling the\r\ntruth? Ha, ha, ha!\" \"John's here,\" said Mrs. Moulder. \"Come, John, why don't you show\r\nyourself?\" \"He's just alive, and that's about all you can say for him,\" said\r\nMoulder. \"Why, what's there been to kill him?\" said Mrs. Smiley."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Well, John,\r\nI must say you're rather backward in coming forward, considering what\r\nthere's been between us. You might have come and taken my shawl, I'm\r\nthinking.\" \"Yes, I might,\" said Kenneby gloomily. \"I hope I see you pretty well,\r\nMrs. Smiley.\" \"Pretty bobbish, thank you. Only I think it might have been Maria\r\nbetween friends like us.\" \"He's sadly put about by this trial,\" whispered Mrs. Moulder. \"You\r\nknow he is so tender-hearted that he can't bear to be put upon like\r\nanother.\" \"But you didn't want her to be found guilty; did you, John?\" \"That I'm sure he didn't,\" said Moulder. \"Why it was the way he gave\r\nhis evidence that brought her off.\" \"It wasn't my wish to bring her off,\" said Kenneby; \"nor was it my\r\nwish to make her guilty. All I wanted was to tell the truth and do my\r\nduty. But it was no use. I believe it never is any use.\" \"I think you did very well,\" said Moulder. \"I'm sure Lady Mason ought to be very much obliged to you,\" said\r\nKantwise. \"Nobody needn't care for what's said to them in a court,\" said\r\nSnengkeld. \"I remember when once they wanted to make out that I'd\r\ntaken a parcel of teas--\"\r\n\r\n\"Stolen, you mean, sir,\" suggested Mrs. Smiley. \"Yes; stolen. But it was only done by the opposite side in court, and\r\nI didn't think a halfporth of it. They knew where the teas was well\r\nenough.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Speaking for myself,\" said Kenneby, \"I must say I don't like it.\" \"But the paper as we signed,\" said Bridget, \"wasn't the old\r\ngentleman's will,--no more than this is;\" and she lifted up her\r\napron. \"I'm rightly sure of that.\" Then again the battle raged hot and furious, and Moulder became angry\r\nwith his guest, Bridget Bolster. Kantwise finding himself supported\r\nin his views by the principal witness at the trial took heart\r\nagainst the tyranny of Moulder and expressed his opinion, while Mrs.\r\nSmiley, with a woman's customary dislike to another woman, sneered\r\nill-naturedly at the idea of Lady Mason's innocence. Poor Kenneby had\r\nbeen forced to take the middle seat on the sofa between his bride and\r\nsister; but it did not appear that the honour of his position had\r\nany effect in lessening his gloom or mitigating the severity of the\r\njudgment which had been passed on him. \"Wasn't the old gentleman's will!\" said Moulder, turning on poor\r\nBridget in his anger with a growl. \"But I say it was the old\r\ngentleman's will. You never dared say as much as that in court.\" \"I wasn't asked,\" said Bridget. \"You weren't asked! Yes, you was asked often enough.\" \"I'll tell you what it is,\" said Kantwise, \"Mrs. Bolster's right in\r\nwhat she says as sure as your name's Moulder.\" \"Then as sure as my name's Moulder she's wrong. I suppose we're to\r\nthink that a chap like you knows more about it than the jury!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "We all\r\nknow who your friend is in the matter. I haven't forgot our dinner at\r\nLeeds, nor sha'n't in a hurry.\" \"Now, John,\" said Mrs. Smiley, \"nobody can know the truth of this so\r\nwell as you do. You've been as close as wax, as was all right till\r\nthe lady was out of her troubles. That's done and over, and let us\r\nhear among friends how the matter really was.\" And then there was\r\nsilence among them in order that his words might come forth freely. \"Come, my dear,\" said Mrs. Smiley with a tone of encouraging love. \"There can't be any harm now; can there?\" \"Out with it, John,\" said Moulder. \"You're honest, anyways.\" \"There ain't no gammon about you,\" said Snengkeld. \"Mr. Kenneby can speak if he likes, no doubt,\" said Kantwise; \"though\r\nmaybe it mayn't be very pleasant to him to do so after all that's\r\ncome and gone.\" \"There's nothing that's come and gone that need make our John hold\r\nhis tongue,\" said Mrs. Moulder. \"He mayn't be just as bright as some\r\nof those lawyers, but he's a deal more true-hearted.\" \"But he can't say as how it was the old gentleman's will as we\r\nsigned. I'm well assured of that,\" said Bridget. But Kenneby, though thus called upon by the united strength of the\r\ncompany to solve all their doubts, still remained silent. \"Come,\r\nlovey,\" said Mrs. Smiley, putting forth her hand and giving his arm a\r\ntender squeeze."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If you've anything to say to clear that woman's character,\" said\r\nMoulder, \"you owe it to society to say it; because she is a woman,\r\nand because her enemies is villains.\" And then again there was\r\nsilence while they waited for him. \"I think it will go with him to his grave,\" said Mrs. Smiley, very\r\nsolemnly. \"I shouldn't wonder,\" said Snengkeld. \"Then he must give up all idea of taking a wife,\" said Moulder. \"He won't do that I'm sure,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"That he won't. Will you, John?\" said his sister. \"There's no knowing what may happen to me in this world,\" said\r\nKenneby, \"but sometimes I almost think I ain't fit to live in it,\r\nalong with anybody else.\" \"You'll make him fit, won't you, my dear?\" said Mrs. Moulder. \"I don't exactly know what to say about it,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"If\r\nMr. Kenneby ain't willing, I'm not the woman to bind him to his word,\r\nbecause I've had his promise over and over again, and could prove\r\nit by a number of witnesses before any jury in the land. I'm an\r\nindependent woman as needn't be beholden to any man, and I should\r\nnever think of damages. Smiley left me comfortable before all the\r\nworld, and I don't know but what I'm a fool to think of changing. Anyways if Mr. Kenneby--\"\r\n\r\n\"Come, John. Why don't you speak to her?\" said Mrs. Moulder. \"And what am I to say?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "said Kenneby, thrusting himself forth from\r\nbetween the ample folds of the two ladies' dresses. \"I'm a blighted\r\nman; one on whom the finger of scorn has been pointed. His lordship\r\nsaid that I was--stupid; and perhaps I am.\" \"She don't think nothing of that, John.\" \"Certainly not,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"As long as a man can pay twenty shillings in the pound and a trifle\r\nover, what does it matter if all the judges in the land was to call\r\nhim stupid?\" said Snengkeld. \"Stupid is as stupid does,\" said Kantwise. \"Stupid be d----,\" said Moulder. \"Mr. Moulder, there's ladies present,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"Come, John, rouse yourself a bit,\" said his sister. \"Nobody here\r\nthinks the worse of you for what the judge said.\" \"Certainly not,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"And as it becomes me to speak,\r\nI'll say my mind. I'm accustomed to speak freely before friends, and\r\nas we are all friends here, why should I be ashamed?\" \"For the matter of that nobody says you are,\" said Moulder. \"And I don't mean, Mr. Moulder. Why should I? I can pay my way, and\r\ndo what I like with my own, and has people to mind me when I speak,\r\nand needn't mind nobody else myself;--and that's more than everybody\r\ncan say. Here's John Kenneby and I, is engaged as man and wife. He\r\nwon't say as it's not so, I'll be bound.\" \"No,\" said Kenneby, \"I'm engaged I know.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"When I accepted John Kenneby's hand and heart,--and well I remember\r\nthe beauteous language in which he expressed his feelings, and always\r\nshall,--I told him, that I respected him as a man that would do his\r\nduty by a woman, though perhaps he mightn't be so cute in the way\r\nof having much to say for himself as some others. 'What's the good,'\r\nsaid I, 'of a man's talking, if so be he's ashamed to meet the baker\r\nat the end of the week?' So I listened to the vows he made me, and\r\nhave considered that he and I was as good as one. Now that he's been\r\nput upon by them lawyers, I'm not the woman to turn my back upon\r\nhim.\" \"That you're not,\" said Moulder. \"No I ain't, Mr. Moulder, and so, John, there's my hand again, and\r\nyou're free to take it if you like.\" And so saying she put forth her\r\nhand almost into his lap. \"Take it, John!\" said Mrs. Moulder. But poor Kenneby himself did not\r\nseem to be very quick in availing himself of the happiness offered to\r\nhim. He did raise his right arm slightly; but then he hesitated, and\r\nallowed it to fall again between him and his sister. \"Come, John, you know you mean it,\" said Mrs. Moulder. And then with\r\nboth her hands she lifted his, and placed it bodily within the grasp\r\nof Mrs. Smiley's, which was still held forth to receive it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I know I'm engaged,\" said Kenneby. \"There's no mistake about it,\" said Moulder. \"There needn't be none,\" said Mrs. Smiley, softly blushing; \"and I\r\nwill say this of myself--as I have been tempted to give a promise,\r\nI'm not the woman to go back from my word. There's my hand, John; and\r\nI don't care though all the world hears me say so.\" And then they sat\r\nhand in hand for some seconds, during which poor Kenneby was unable\r\nto escape from the grasp of his bride elect. One may say that all\r\nchance of final escape for him was now gone by. \"But he can't say as how it was the old gentlemen's will as we\r\nsigned,\" said Bridget, breaking the silence which ensued. \"And now, ladies and gentlemen,\" said Kantwise, \"as Mrs. Bolster has\r\ncome back to that matter, I'll tell you something that will surprise\r\nyou. My friend Mr. Moulder here, who is as hospitable a gentleman as\r\nI know anywhere wouldn't just let me speak before.\" \"That's gammon, Kantwise. I never hindered you from speaking.\" \"How I do hate that word. If you knew my aversion, Mr. Moulder--\"\r\n\r\n\"I can't pick my words for you, old fellow.\" \"But what were you going to tell us, Mr. Kantwise?\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"Something that will make all your hairs stand on end, I think.\" And\r\nthen he paused and looked round upon them all."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was at this moment\r\nthat Kenneby succeeded in getting his hand once more to himself. \"Something that will surprise you all, or I'm very much mistaken. Lady Mason has confessed her guilt.\" He had surprised them all. \"You don't say so,\" exclaimed Mrs.\r\nMoulder. \"Confessed her guilt,\" said Mrs. Smiley. \"But what guilt, Mr. Kantwise?\" \"She forged the will,\" said Kantwise. \"I knew that all along,\" said Bridget Bolster. \"I'm d---- if I believe it,\" said Moulder. \"You can do as you like about that,\" said Kantwise; \"but she has. And I'll tell you what's more: she and young Mason have already left\r\nOrley Farm and given it all up into Joseph Mason's hands.\" \"But didn't she get a verdict?\" asked Snengkeld. \"Yes, she got a verdict. There's no doubt on earth about that.\" \"Then it's my opinion she can't make herself guilty if she wished it;\r\nand as for the property, she can't give it up. The jury has found a\r\nverdict, and nobody can go beyond that. If anybody tries she'll have\r\nher action against 'em.\" That was the law as laid down by Snengkeld. \"I don't believe a word of it,\" said Moulder. \"Dockwrath has told\r\nhim. I'll bet a hat that Kantwise got it from Dockwrath.\" It turned out that Kantwise had received his information from\r\nDockwrath; but nevertheless, there was that in his manner, and in the\r\nnature of the story as it was told to them, that did produce belief."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Moulder for a long time held out, but it became clear at last that\r\neven he was shaken; and now, even Kenneby acknowledged his conviction\r\nthat the signature to the will was not his own. \"I know'd very well that I never did it twice,\" said Bridget Bolster\r\ntriumphantly, as she sat down to the supper table. I am inclined to think, that upon the whole the company in Great St.\r\nHelen's became more happy as the conviction grew upon them that a\r\ngreat and mysterious crime had been committed, which had baffled two\r\ncourts of law, and had at last thrust itself forth into the open\r\ndaylight through the workings of the criminal's conscience. When\r\nKantwise had completed his story, the time had come in which it\r\nbehoved Mrs. Moulder to descend to the lower regions, and give some\r\naid in preparation of the supper. During her absence the matter\r\nwas discussed in every way, and on her return, when she was laden\r\nwith good things, she found that all the party was contented except\r\nMoulder and her brother. \"It's a very terrible thing,\" said Mrs. Smiley, later in the evening,\r\nas she sat with her steaming glass of rum and water before her. \"Very\r\nterrible indeed; ain't it, John? I do wish now I'd gone down and\r\nsee'd her, I do indeed. Don't you, Mrs. Moulder?\" \"If all this is true I should like just to have had a peep at her.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"At any rate we shall have pictures of her in all the papers,\" said\r\nMrs. Smiley. CHAPTER LXXVIII. THE LAST OF THE LAWYERS. \"I should have done my duty by you, Mr. Mason, which those men have\r\nnot, and you would at this moment have been the owner of Orley Farm.\" It will easily be known that these words were spoken by Mr.\r\nDockwrath, and that they were addressed to Joseph Mason. The two\r\nmen were seated together in Mr. Mason's lodgings at Alston, late\r\non the morning after the verdict had been given, and Mr. Dockwrath\r\nwas speaking out his mind with sufficient freedom. On the previous\r\nevening he had been content to put up with the misery of the\r\nunsuccessful man, and had not added any reproaches of his own. He\r\nalso had been cowed by the verdict, and the two had been wretched and\r\ncrestfallen together. But the attorney since that had slept upon the\r\nmatter, and had bethought himself that he at any rate would make out\r\nhis little bill. He could show that Mr. Mason had ruined their joint\r\naffairs by his adherence to those London attorneys. Had Mr. Mason\r\nlistened to the advice of his new adviser all would have been well. So at least Dockwrath was prepared to declare, finding that by so\r\ndoing he would best pave the way for his own important claim. But Mr. Mason was not a man to be bullied with tame endurance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"The\r\nfirm bears the highest name in the profession, sir,\" he said; \"and I\r\nhad just grounds for trusting them.\" \"And what has come of your just grounds, Mr. Mason? Where are you? That's the question. I say that Round and Crook have thrown you over. They have been hand and glove with old Furnival through the whole\r\ntransaction; and I'll tell you what's more, Mr. Mason. I told you how\r\nit would be from the beginning.\" \"I'll move for a new trial.\" \"A new trial; and this a criminal prosecution! She's free of you now\r\nfor ever, and Orley Farm will belong to that son of hers till he\r\nchooses to sell it. It's a pity; that's all. I did my duty by you\r\nin a professional way, Mr. Mason; and you won't put the loss on my\r\nshoulders.\" \"I've been robbed;--damnably robbed, that's all that I know.\" \"There's no mistake on earth about that, Mr. Mason; you have been\r\nrobbed; and the worst of it is, the costs will be so heavy! You'll be\r\ngoing down to Yorkshire soon I suppose, sir.\" \"I don't know where I shall go!\" said the squire of Groby, not\r\ncontent to be cross-questioned by the attorney from Hamworth. \"Because it's as well, I suppose, that we should settle something\r\nabout the costs before you leave. I don't want to press for my money\r\nexactly now, but I shall be glad to know when I'm to get it.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If you have any claim on me, Mr. Dockwrath, you can send it to Mr. Round.\" \"If I have any claim! What do you mean by that, sir? And I shall\r\nsend nothing in to Mr. Round. I have had quite enough of Mr. Round\r\nalready. I told you from the beginning, Mr. Mason, that I would have\r\nnothing to do with this affair as connected with Mr. Round. I have\r\ndevoted myself entirely to this matter since you were pleased to\r\nengage my services at Groby Park. It is not by my fault that you have\r\nfailed. I think, Mr. Mason, you will do me the justice to acknowledge\r\nthat.\" And then Dockwrath was silent for a moment, as though waiting\r\nfor an answer. \"I have nothing to say upon the subject, Mr. Dockwrath,\" said Mason. \"But, by heaven, something must be said. That won't do at all, Mr.\r\nMason. I presume you do not think that I have been working like a\r\nslave for the last four months for nothing.\" Mr. Mason was in truth an honest man, and did not wish that any one\r\nshould work on his account for nothing;--much less did he wish that\r\nsuch a one as Dockwrath should do so. But then, on the other side,\r\nin his present frame of mind he was by no means willing to yield\r\nanything to any one. \"I neither deny nor allow your claim, Mr.\r\nDockwrath,\" said he."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But I shall pay nothing except through my\r\nregular lawyers. You can send your account to me if you please, but I\r\nshall send it on to Mr. Round without looking at it.\" \"Oh, that's to be the way, is it? That's your gratitude. Very well,\r\nMr. Mason; I shall now know what to do. And I think you'll find--\"\r\n\r\nHere Mr. Dockwrath was interrupted by the lodging-house servant, who\r\nbrought in a note for Mr. Mason. It was from Mr. Furnival, and the\r\ngirl who delivered it said that the gentleman's messenger was waiting\r\nfor an answer. \"SIR,\" said the note,\r\n\r\n\r\n   A communication has been made to me this morning on the\r\n   part of your brother, Mr. Lucius Mason, which may make\r\n   it desirable that I should have an interview with you. If not inconvenient to you, I would ask you to meet me\r\n   to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock at the chambers of\r\n   your own lawyer, Mr. Round, in Bedford Row. I have\r\n   already seen Mr. Round, and find that he can meet us. I am, sir,\r\n   Your very obedient servant,\r\n\r\n   THOMAS FURNIVAL. J. Mason, Esq., J.P.\r\n   (of Groby Park). Mr. Furnival when he wrote this note had already been over to Orley\r\nFarm, and had seen Lucius Mason. He had been at the farm almost\r\nbefore daylight, and had come away with the assured conviction that\r\nthe property must be abandoned by his client. \"We need not talk about it, Mr. Furnival,\" Lucius had said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It must\r\nbe so.\" \"You have discussed the matter with your mother?\" \"No discussion is necessary, but she is quite aware of my intention. She is prepared to leave the place--for ever.\" \"But the income--\"\r\n\r\n\"Belongs to my brother Joseph. Mr. Furnival, I think you may\r\nunderstand that the matter is one in which it is necessary that I\r\nshould act, but as to which I trust I may not have to say many words. If you cannot arrange this for me, I must go to Mr. Round.\" Of course Mr. Furnival did understand it all. His client had been\r\nacquitted, and he had triumphed; but he had known for many a long day\r\nthat the estate did belong of right to Mr. Mason of Groby; and though\r\nhe had not suspected that Lucius would have been so told, he could\r\nnot be surprised at the result of such telling. It was clear to him\r\nthat Lady Mason had confessed, and that restitution would therefore\r\nbe made. \"I will do your bidding,\" said he. \"And, Mr. Furnival,--if it be possible, spare my mother.\" Then the\r\nmeeting was over, and Mr. Furnival returning to Hamworth wrote his\r\nnote to Mr. Joseph Mason. Mr. Dockwrath had been interrupted by the messenger in the middle\r\nof his threat, but he caught the name of Furnival as the note was\r\ndelivered. Then he watched Mr. Mason as he read it and read it again."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If you please, sir, I was to wait for an answer,\" said the girl. Mr. Mason did not know what answer it would behove him to give. He\r\nfelt that he was among Philistines while dealing with all these\r\nlawyers, and yet he was at a loss in what way to reply to one without\r\nleaning upon another. \"Look at that,\" he said, sulkily handing the\r\nnote to Dockwrath. \"You must see Mr. Furnival, by all means,\" said Dockwrath. \"But--\"\r\n\r\n\"But what?\" \"In your place I should not see him in the presence of Mr. Round,--unless I was attended by an adviser on whom I could rely.\" Mr. Mason, having given a few moments' consideration to the matter,\r\nsat himself down and wrote a line to Mr. Furnival, saying that he\r\nwould be in Bedford Row at the appointed time. \"I think you are quite right,\" said Dockwrath. \"But I shall go alone,\" said Mr. Mason. \"Oh, very well; you will of course judge for yourself. I cannot say\r\nwhat may be the nature of the communication to be made; but if it be\r\nanything touching the property, you will no doubt jeopardise your own\r\ninterests by your imprudence.\" \"Good morning, Mr. Dockwrath,\" said Mr. Mason. \"Oh, very well. Good morning, sir."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You shall hear from me very\r\nshortly, Mr. Mason; and I must say that, considering everything, I\r\ndo not know that I ever came across a gentleman who behaved himself\r\nworse in a peculiar position than you have done in yours.\" And so\r\nthey parted. Punctually at eleven o'clock on the following day Mr. Mason was in\r\nBedford Row. \"Mr. Furnival is with Mr. Round,\" said the clerk, \"and\r\nwill see you in two minutes.\" Then he was shown into the dingy office\r\nwaiting-room, where he sat with his hat in his hand, for rather more\r\nthan two minutes. At that moment Mr. Round was describing to Mr. Furnival the manner\r\nin which he had been visited some weeks since by Sir Peregrine Orme. \"Of course, Mr. Furnival, I knew which way the wind blew when I heard\r\nthat.\" \"She must have told him everything.\" \"No doubt, no doubt. At any rate he knew it all.\" \"And what did you say to him?\" \"I promised to hold my tongue;--and I kept my promise. Mat knows\r\nnothing about it to this day.\" The whole history thus became gradually clear to Mr. Furnival's\r\nmind, and he could understand in what manner that marriage had been\r\navoided. Mr. Round also understood it, and the two lawyers confessed\r\ntogether, that though the woman had deserved the punishment which had\r\ncome upon her, her character was one which might have graced a better\r\ndestiny."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And now, I suppose, my fortunate client may come in,\" said\r\nMr. Round. Whereupon the fortunate client was released from his\r\ncaptivity, and brought into the sitting-room of the senior partner. \"Mr. Mason, Mr. Furnival,\" said the attorney, as soon as he had\r\nshaken hands with his client. \"You know each other very well by name,\r\ngentlemen.\" Mr. Mason was very stiff in his bearing and demeanour, but remarked\r\nthat he had heard of Mr. Furnival before. \"All the world has heard of him,\" said Mr. Round. \"He hasn't hid\r\nhis light under a bushel.\" Whereupon Mr. Mason bowed, not quite\r\nunderstanding what was said to him. \"Mr. Mason,\" began the barrister, \"I have a communication to make to\r\nyou, very singular in its nature, and of great importance. It is one\r\nwhich I believe you will regard as being of considerable importance\r\nto yourself, and which is of still higher moment to my--my friend,\r\nLady Mason.\" \"Lady Mason, sir--\" began the other; but Mr. Furnival stopped him. \"Allow me to interrupt you, Mr. Mason. I think it will be better that\r\nyou should hear me before you commit yourself to any expression as to\r\nyour relative.\" \"She is no relative of mine.\" \"But her son is. However,--if you will allow me, I will go on. Having\r\nthis communication to make, I thought it expedient for your own sake\r\nthat it should be done in the presence of your own legal adviser and\r\nfriend.\" \"Umph!\" grunted the disappointed litigant."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I have already explained to Mr. Round that which I am about to\r\nexplain to you, and he was good enough to express himself as\r\nsatisfied with the step which I am taking.\" \"Quite so, Mr. Mason. Mr. Furnival is behaving, and I believe has\r\nbehaved throughout, in a manner becoming the very high position which\r\nhe holds in his profession.\" \"I suppose he has done his best on his side,\" said Mason. \"Undoubtedly I have,--as I should have done on yours, had it so\r\nchanced that I had been honoured by holding a brief from your\r\nattorneys. But the communication which I am going to make now I make\r\nnot as a lawyer but as a friend. Mr. Mason, my client Lady Mason,\r\nand her son Lucius Mason, are prepared to make over to you the full\r\npossession of the estate which they have held under the name of Orley\r\nFarm.\" The tidings, as so given, were far from conveying to the sense of the\r\nhearer the full information which they bore. He heard the words, and\r\nat the moment conceived that Orley Farm was intended to come into\r\nhis hands by some process to which it was thought desirable that\r\nhe should be brought to agree. He was to be induced to buy it, or\r\nto be bought over from further opposition by some concession of an\r\nindefinitely future title."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But that the estate was to become his\r\nat once, without purchase, and by the mere free will of his hated\r\nrelatives, was an idea that he did not realise. \"Mr. Furnival,\" he said, \"what future steps I shall take I do not yet\r\nknow. That I have been robbed of my property I am as firmly convinced\r\nnow as ever. But I tell you fairly, and I tell Mr. Round so too, that\r\nI will have no dealings with that woman.\" \"Your father's widow, sir,\" said Mr. Furnival, \"is an unhappy lady,\r\nwho is now doing her best to atone for the only fault of which I\r\nbelieve her to have been guilty. If you were not unreasonable as well\r\nas angry, you would understand that the proposition which I am now\r\nmaking to you is one which should force you to forgive any injury\r\nwhich she may hitherto have done to you. Your half-brother Lucius\r\nMason has instructed me to make over to you the possession of Orley\r\nFarm.\" These last words Mr. Furnival uttered very slowly, fixing his\r\nkeen grey eyes full upon the face of Joseph Mason as he did so, and\r\nthen turning round to the attorney he said, \"I presume your client\r\nwill understand me now.\" \"The estate is yours, Mr. Mason,\" said Round. \"You have nothing to do\r\nbut to take possession of it.\" \"What do you mean?\" said Mason, turning round upon Furnival. \"Exactly what I say."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Your half-brother Lucius surrenders to you the\r\nestate.\" \"Without payment?\" \"Yes; without payment. On his doing so you will of course absolve him\r\nfrom all liability on account of the proceeds of the property while\r\nin his hands.\" \"That will be a matter of course,\" said Mr. Round. \"Then she has robbed me,\" said Mason, jumping up to his feet. \"By\r\n----, the will was forged after all.\" \"Mr. Mason,\" said Mr. Round, \"if you have a spark of generosity\r\nin you, you will accept the offer made to you without asking any\r\nquestion. By no such questioning can you do yourself any good,--nor\r\ncan you do that poor lady any harm.\" \"I knew it was so,\" he said loudly, and as he spoke he twice walked\r\nthe length of the room. \"I knew it was so;--twenty years ago I\r\nsaid the same. She forged the will. I ask you, as my lawyer, Mr. Round,--did she not forge the will herself?\" \"I shall answer no such question, Mr. Mason.\" \"Then by heavens I'll expose you. If I spend the whole value of the\r\nestate in doing it I'll expose you, and have her punished yet. The\r\nslippery villain! For twenty years she has robbed me.\" \"Mr. Mason, you are forgetting yourself in your passion,\" said Mr.\r\nFurnival. \"What you have to look for now is the recovery of the\r\nproperty.\" But here Mr. Furnival showed that he had not made himself\r\nmaster of Joseph Mason's character."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No,\" shouted the angry man;--\"no, by heaven. What I have first to\r\nlook to is her punishment, and that of those who have assisted her. I\r\nknew she had done it,--and Dockwrath knew it. Had I trusted him, she\r\nwould now have been in gaol.\" Mr. Furnival and Mr. Round were both desirous of having the matter\r\nquietly arranged, and with this view were willing to put up with\r\nmuch. The man had been ill used. When he declared for the fortieth\r\ntime that he had been robbed for twenty years, they could not deny\r\nit. When with horrid oaths he swore that that will had been a\r\nforgery, they could not contradict him. When he reviled the laws of\r\nhis country, which had done so much to facilitate the escape of a\r\ncriminal, they had no arguments to prove that he was wrong. They bore\r\nwith him in his rage, hoping that a sense of his own self-interest\r\nmight induce him to listen to reason. But it was all in vain. The\r\nproperty was sweet, but that sweetness was tasteless when compared to\r\nthe sweetness of revenge. \"Nothing shall make me tamper with justice;--nothing,\" said he. \"But even if it were as you say, you cannot do anything to her,\" said\r\nRound. \"I'll try,\" said Mason. \"You have been my attorney, and what you know\r\nin the matter you are bound to tell. And I'll make you tell, sir.\" \"Upon my word,\" said Round, \"this is beyond bearing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Mason, I\r\nmust trouble you to walk out of my office.\" And then he rang the\r\nbell. \"Tell Mr. Mat I want to see him.\" But before that younger\r\npartner had joined his father Joseph Mason had gone. \"Mat,\" said the\r\nold man, \"I don't interfere with you in many things, but on this I\r\nmust insist. As long as my name is in the firm Mr. Joseph Mason of\r\nGroby shall not be among our customers.\" \"The man's a fool,\" said Mr. Furnival. \"The end of all that will be\r\nthat two years will go by before he gets his property; and, in the\r\nmeantime, the house and all about it will go to ruin.\" In these days there was a delightful family concord between Mr.\r\nFurnival and his wife, and perhaps we may be allowed to hope that the\r\npeace was permanent. Martha Biggs had not been in Harley Street since\r\nwe last saw her there, and was now walking round Red Lion Square by\r\nthe hour with some kindred spirit, complaining bitterly of the return\r\nwhich had been made for her friendship. \"What I endured, and what I\r\nwas prepared to endure for that woman, no breathing creature can ever\r\nknow,\" said Martha Biggs, to that other Martha; \"and now--\"\r\n\r\n\"I suppose the fact is he don't like to see you there,\" said the\r\nother. \"And is that a reason?\" said our Martha."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Had I been in her place I\r\nwould not have put my foot in his house again till I was assured that\r\nmy friend should be as welcome there as myself. But then, perhaps, my\r\nideas of friendship may be called romantic.\" But though there were heart-burnings and war in Red Lion Square,\r\nthere was sweet peace in Harley Street. Mrs. Furnival had learned\r\nthat beyond all doubt Lady Mason was an unfortunate woman on whose\r\nbehalf her husband was using his best energies as a lawyer; and\r\nthough rumours had begun to reach her that were very injurious to the\r\nlady's character, she did not on that account feel animosity against\r\nher. Had Lady Mason been guilty of all the sins in the calendar\r\nexcept one, Mrs. Furnival could find it within her heart to forgive\r\nher. But Sophia was now more interested about Lady Mason than was her\r\nmother, and during those days of the trial was much more eager to\r\nlearn the news as it became known. She had said nothing to her mother\r\nabout Lucius, nor had she said anything as to Augustus Staveley. Miss\r\nFurnival was a lady who on such subjects did not want the assistance\r\nof a mother's counsel. Then, early on the morning that followed the\r\ntrial, they heard the verdict and knew that Lady Mason was free. \"I am so glad,\" said Mrs. Furnival; \"and I am sure it was your papa's\r\ndoing.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But we will hope that she was really innocent,\" said Sophia. \"Oh, yes; of course; and so I suppose she was. I am sure I hope so. But, nevertheless, we all know that it was going very much against\r\nher.\" \"I believe papa never thought she was guilty for a moment.\" \"I don't know, my dear; your papa never talks of the clients for whom\r\nhe is engaged. But what a thing it is for Lucius! He would have lost\r\nevery acre of the property.\" \"Yes; it's a great thing for him, certainly.\" And then she began to\r\nconsider whether the standing held by Lucius Mason in the world was\r\nnot even yet somewhat precarious. It was on the same day--in the evening--that she received her lover's\r\nletter. She was alone when she read it, and she made herself quite\r\nmaster of its contents before she sat herself to think in what way it\r\nwould be expedient that she should act. \"I am bound to relinquish to\r\nmy brother-in-law my title to Orley Farm.\" Why should he be so bound,\r\nunless--? And then she also came to that conclusion which Mr. Round\r\nhad reached, and which Joseph Mason had reached, when they heard that\r\nthe property was to be given up. \"Yes, Sophia, I am a beggar,\" the\r\nletter went on to say. She was very sorry, deeply sorry;--so, at\r\nleast, she said to herself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As she sat there alone, she took out her\r\nhandkerchief and pressed it to her eyes. Then, having restored it to\r\nher pocket, after moderate use, she refolded her letter, and put that\r\ninto the same receptacle. \"Papa,\" said she, that evening, \"what will Mr. Lucius Mason do now? will he remain at Orley Farm?\" \"No, my dear. He will leave Orley Farm, and, I think, will go abroad\r\nwith his mother.\" \"And who will have Orley Farm?\" \"His brother Joseph, I believe.\" \"And what will Lucius have?\" \"I cannot say. I do not know that he will have anything. His mother\r\nhas an income of her own, and he, I suppose, will go into some\r\nprofession.\" \"Oh, indeed. Is not that very sad for him, poor fellow?\" In answer to\r\nwhich her father made no remark. That night, in her own room, she answered her lover's letter, and her\r\nanswer was as follows:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   Harley Street, March, 18--. MY DEAR MR. MASON,\r\n\r\n   I need hardly tell you that I was grieved to the heart by\r\n   the tidings conveyed in your letter. I will not ask you\r\n   for that secret which you withhold from me, feeling that\r\n   I have no title to inquire into it; nor will I attempt to\r\n   guess at the cause which induces you to give up to your\r\n   brother the property which you were always taught to\r\n   regard as your own."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That you are actuated by noble motives\r\n   I am sure; and you may be sure of this, that I shall\r\n   respect you quite as highly in your adversity as I have\r\n   ever done in your prosperity. That you will make your way\r\n   in the world, I shall never doubt; and it may be that the\r\n   labour which you will now encounter will raise you to\r\n   higher standing than any you could have achieved, had the\r\n   property remained in your possession. I think you are right in saying, with reference to our\r\n   mutual regard for each other, that neither should be\r\n   held as having any claim upon the other. Under present\r\n   circumstances, any such claim would be very silly. Nothing\r\n   would hamper you in your future career so much as a long\r\n   marriage engagement; and for myself, I am aware that the\r\n   sorrow and solicitude thence arising would be more than I\r\n   could support. Apart from this, also, I feel certain that\r\n   I should never obtain my father's sanction for such an\r\n   engagement, nor could I make it, unless he sanctioned it. I feel so satisfied that you will see the truth of this,\r\n   that I need not trouble you, and harass my own heart by\r\n   pursuing the subject any further. My feelings of friendship for you--of affectionate\r\n   friendship--will be as true as ever. I shall look to your\r\n   future career with great hope, and shall hear of your\r\n   success with the utmost satisfaction."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And I trust that\r\n   the time may come, at no very distant date, when we may\r\n   all welcome your return to London, and show you that our\r\n   regard for you has never been diminished. May God bless and preserve you in the trials which are\r\n   before you, and carry you through them with honour and\r\n   safety. Wherever you may be I shall watch for tidings of\r\n   you with anxiety, and always hear them with gratification. I need hardly bid you remember that you have no more\r\n   affectionate friend\r\n\r\n   Than yours always most sincerely,\r\n\r\n   SOPHIA FURNIVAL. P.S.--I believe that a meeting between us at the present\r\n   moment would only cause pain to both of us. It might drive\r\n   you to speak of things which should be wrapped in silence. At any rate, I am sure that you will not press it on me. Lucius, when he received this letter, was living with his mother in\r\nlodgings near Finsbury Circus, and the letter had been redirected\r\nfrom Hamworth to a post-office in that neighbourhood. It was his\r\nintention to take his mother with him to a small town on one of the\r\nrivers that feed the Rhine, and there remain hidden till he could\r\nfind some means by which he might earn his bread. He was sitting with\r\nher in the evening, with two dull tallow candles on the table between\r\nthem, when his messenger brought the letter to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He read it in\r\nsilence very deliberately, then crushed it in his hand, and threw it\r\nfrom him with violence into the fire. \"I hope there is nothing further to distress you, Lucius,\" said his\r\nmother, looking up into his face as though she were imploring his\r\nconfidence. \"No, nothing; nothing that matters. It is an affair quite private to\r\nmyself.\" Sir Peregrine had spoken with great truth when he declared that\r\nLucius Mason was able to bear adversity. This last blow had now come\r\nupon him, but he made no wailings as to his misery, nor did he say\r\na word further on the subject. His mother watched the paper as the\r\nflame caught it and reduced it to an ash; but she asked no further\r\nquestion. She knew that her position with him did not permit of her\r\nasking, or even hoping, for his confidence. \"I had no right to expect it would be otherwise,\" he said to himself. But even to himself he spoke no word of reproach against Miss\r\nFurnival. He had realised the circumstances by which he was\r\nsurrounded, and had made up his mind to bear their result. As for Miss Furnival, we may as well declare here that she did not\r\nbecome Mrs. Staveley. Our old friend Augustus conceived that he had\r\nreceived a sufficient answer on the occasion of his last visit to\r\nHarley Street, and did not repeat it immediately."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Such little scenes\r\nas that which took place there had not been uncommon in his life; and\r\nwhen in after months he looked back upon the affair, he counted it up\r\nas one of those miraculous escapes which had marked his career. CHAPTER LXXIX. FAREWELL. \"That letter you got this morning, my dear, was it not from Lady\r\nMason?\" \"It was from Lady Mason, father; they go on Thursday.\" \"On Thursday; so soon as that.\" And then Sir Peregrine, who had asked\r\nthe question, remained silent for a while. The letter, according\r\nto the family custom, had been handed to Mrs. Orme over the\r\nbreakfast-table; but he had made no remark respecting it till they\r\nwere alone together and free from the servants. It had been a\r\nfarewell letter, full of love and gratitude, and full also of\r\nrepentance. Lady Mason had now been for three weeks in London, and\r\nonce during that time Mrs. Orme had gone up to visit her. She had\r\nthen remained with her friend for hours, greatly to Lady Mason's\r\ncomfort, and now this letter had come, bringing a last adieu. [Illustration: Farewell!] \"You may read it, sir, if you like,\" said Mrs. Orme, handing him the\r\nletter. It was evident, by his face, that he was gratified by the\r\nprivilege; and he read it, not once only, but over and over again."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As\r\nhe did so, he placed himself in the shade, and sat with his back to\r\nMrs. Orme; but nevertheless she could see that from time to time he\r\nrubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, and gradually raised his\r\nhandkerchief to his face. \"Thank you, dearest,\" he said, as he gave the letter back to her. \"I think that we may forgive her now, even all that she has done,\"\r\nsaid Mrs. Orme. \"Yes--yes--yes,\" he answered. \"For myself, I forgave her from the\r\nfirst.\" \"I know you did. But as regards the property,--it has been given up\r\nnow.\" And then again they were silent. \"Edith,\" he said, after a while, \"I have forgiven her altogether. To\r\nme she is the same as though she had never done that deed. Are we not\r\nall sinners?\" \"Surely, father.\" \"And can I say because she did one startling thing that the total of\r\nher sin is greater than mine? Was I ever tempted as she was tempted? Was my youth made dangerous for me as was hers? And then she did\r\nnothing for herself; she did it all for another. We may think of that\r\nnow.\" \"I have thought of it always.\" \"It did not make the sin the less; but among her fellow-mortals--\"\r\nAnd then he stopped himself, wanting words to express his meaning. The sin, till it was repented, was damning; but now that it was\r\nrepented, he could almost love the sinner for the sin."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Edith,\" he said, again. And he looked at her so wishfully! She knew\r\nwell what was the working of his heart, and she knew also that she\r\ndid not dare to encourage him. \"I trust,\" said Mrs. Orme, \"that she will bear her present lot for a\r\nfew years; and then, perhaps--\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! then I shall be in my grave. A few months will do that.\" \"Oh, sir!\" \"Why should I not save her from such a life as that?\" \"From that which she had most to fear she has been saved.\" \"Had she not so chosen it herself, she could now have demanded from\r\nme a home. Why should I not give it to her now?\" \"A home here, sir?\" \"Yes;--why not? But I know what you would say. It would be wrong,--to\r\nyou and Perry.\" \"It would be wrong to yourself, sir. Think of it, father. It is the\r\nfact that she did that thing. We may forgive her, but others will not\r\ndo so on that account. It would not be right that you should bring\r\nher here.\" Sir Peregrine knew that it would not be right. Though he was old, and\r\nweak in body, and infirm in purpose, his judgment had not altogether\r\nleft him. He was well aware that he would offend all social laws if\r\nhe were to do that which he contemplated, and ask the world around\r\nhim to respect as Lady Orme--as his wife, the woman who had so deeply\r\ndisgraced herself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But yet he could hardly bring himself to confess\r\nthat it was impossible. He was as a child who knows that a coveted\r\ntreasure is beyond his reach, but still covets it, still longs for\r\nit, hoping against hope that it may yet be his own. It seemed to him\r\nthat he might yet regain his old vitality if he could wind his arm\r\nonce more about her waist, and press her to his side, and call her\r\nhis own. It would be so sweet to forgive her; to make her sure that\r\nshe was absolutely forgiven; to teach her that there was one at\r\nleast who would not bring up against her her past sin, even in his\r\nmemory. As for his grandson, the property should be abandoned to him\r\naltogether. 'Twas thus he argued with himself; but yet, as he argued,\r\nhe knew that it could not be so. \"I was harsh to her when she told me,\" he said, after another\r\npause--\"cruelly harsh.\" \"She does not think so.\" \"No. If I had spurned her from me with my foot, she would not have\r\nthought so. She had condemned herself, and therefore I should have\r\nspared her.\" \"But you did spare her. I am sure she feels that from the first to\r\nthe last your conduct to her has been more than kind.\" \"And I owed her more than kindness, for I loved her;--yes, I loved\r\nher, and I do love her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Though I am a feeble old man, tottering to my\r\ngrave, yet I love her--love her as that boy loves the fair girl for\r\nwhom he longs. He will overcome it, and forget it, and some other one\r\nas fair will take her place. But for me it is all over.\" What could she say to him? In truth, it was all over,--such love\r\nat least as that of which his old heart was dreaming in its dotage. There is no Medea's caldron from which our limbs can come out young\r\nand fresh; and it were well that the heart should grow old as does\r\nthe body. \"It is not all over while we are with you,\" she said, caressing him. But she knew that what she said was a subterfuge. \"Yes, yes; I have you, dearest,\" he answered. But he also knew that\r\nthat pretence at comfort was false and hollow. \"And she starts on Thursday,\" he said; \"on next Thursday.\" \"Yes, on Thursday. It will be much better for her to be away from\r\nLondon. While she is there she never ventures even into the street.\" \"Edith, I shall see her before she goes.\" \"Will that be wise, sir?\" \"Perhaps not. It may be foolish,--very foolish; but still I shall\r\nsee her. I think you forget, Edith, that I have never yet bidden her\r\nfarewell. I have not spoken to her since that day when she behaved so\r\ngenerously.\" \"I do not think that she expects it, father.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No; she expects nothing for herself. Had it been in her nature to\r\nexpect such a visit, I should not have been anxious to make it. I\r\nwill go to-morrow. She is always at home you say?\" \"Yes, she is always at home.\" \"And, Lucius--\"\r\n\r\n\"You will not find him there in the daytime.\" \"I shall go to-morrow, dear. You need not tell Peregrine.\" Mrs. Orme still thought that he was wrong, but she had nothing\r\nfurther to say. She could not hinder his going, and therefore, with\r\nhis permission she wrote a line to Lady Mason, telling her of his\r\npurpose. And then, with all the care in her power, and with infinite\r\nsoftness of manner, she warned him against the danger which she so\r\nmuch feared. What might be the result, if, overcome by tenderness,\r\nhe should again ask Lady Mason to become his wife? Mrs. Orme firmly\r\nbelieved that Lady Mason would again refuse; but, nevertheless, there\r\nwould be danger. \"No,\" said he, \"I will not do that. When I have said so you may\r\naccept my word.\" Then she hastened to apologise to him, but he\r\nassured her with a kiss that he was in nowise angry with her. He held by his purpose, and on the following day he went up to\r\nLondon. There was nothing said on the matter at breakfast, nor did\r\nshe make any further endeavour to dissuade him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was infirm, but\r\nstill she knew that the actual fatigue would not be of a nature to\r\ninjure him. Indeed her fear respecting him was rather in regard to\r\nhis staying at home than to his going abroad. It would have been well\r\nfor him could he have been induced to think himself fit for more\r\nactive movement. Lady Mason was alone when he reached the dingy little room near\r\nFinsbury Circus, and received him standing. She was the first to\r\nspeak, and this she did before she had even touched his hand. She\r\nstood to meet him, with her eyes turned to the ground, and her hands\r\ntightly folded together before her. \"Sir Peregrine,\" she said, \"I did\r\nnot expect from you this mark of your--kindness.\" \"Of my esteem and affection, Lady Mason,\" he said. \"We have known\r\neach other too well to allow of our parting without a word. I am an\r\nold man, and it will probably be for ever.\" Then she gave him her hand, and gradually lifted her eyes to his\r\nface. \"Yes,\" she said; \"it will be for ever. There will be no coming\r\nback for me.\" \"Nay, nay; we will not say that. That's as may be hereafter. But it\r\nwill not be at once. It had better not be quite at once. Edith tells\r\nme that you go on Thursday.\" \"Yes, sir; we go on Thursday.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had still allowed her hand to remain in his, but now she withdrew\r\nit, and asked him to sit down. \"Lucius is not here,\" she said. \"He\r\nnever remains at home after breakfast. He has much to settle as to\r\nour journey; and then he has his lawyers to see.\" Sir Peregrine had not at all wished to see Lucius Mason, but he did\r\nnot say so. \"You will give him my regards,\" he said, \"and tell him\r\nthat I trust that he may prosper.\" \"Thank you. I will do so. It is very kind of you to think of him.\" \"I have always thought highly of him as an excellent young man.\" \"And he is excellent. Where is there any one who could suffer without\r\na word as he suffers? No complaint ever comes from him; and yet--I\r\nhave ruined him.\" \"No, no. He has his youth, his intellect, and his education. If such\r\na one as he cannot earn his bread in the world--ay, and more than\r\nhis bread--who can do so? Nothing ruins a young man but ignorance,\r\nidleness, and depravity.\" \"Nothing;--unless those of whom he should be proud disgrace him\r\nbefore the eyes of the world. Sir Peregrine, I sometimes wonder at my\r\nown calmness. I wonder that I can live. But, believe me, that never\r\nfor a moment do I forget what I have done."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I would have poured out\r\nfor him my blood like water, if it would have served him; but instead\r\nof that I have given him cause to curse me till the day of his death. Though I still live, and eat, and sleep, I think of that always. The\r\nremembrance is never away from me. They bid those who repent put on\r\nsackcloth, and cover themselves with ashes. That is my sackcloth, and\r\nit is very sore. Those thoughts are ashes to me, and they are very\r\nbitter between my teeth.\" He did not know with what words to comfort her. It all was as she\r\nsaid, and he could not bid her even try to free herself from that\r\nsackcloth and from those ashes. It must be so. Were it not so with\r\nher, she would not have been in any degree worthy of that love which\r\nhe felt for her. \"God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,\" he said. \"Yes,\" she said, \"for the shorn lamb--\" And then she was silent\r\nagain. But could that bitter, biting wind be tempered for the\r\nshe-wolf who, in the dead of night, had broken into the fold, and\r\nwith prowling steps and cunning clutch had stolen the fodder from the\r\nsheep? That was the question as it presented itself to her; but she\r\nsat silent, and refrained from putting it into words. She sat silent,\r\nbut he read her heart."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"For the shorn lamb--\" she had said, and he\r\nhad known her thoughts, as they followed, quick, one upon another,\r\nthrough her mind. \"Mary,\" he said, seating himself now close beside\r\nher on the sofa, \"if his heart be as true to you as mine, he will\r\nnever remember these things against you.\" \"It is my memory, not his, that is my punishment,\" she said. Why could he not take her home with him, and comfort her, and heal\r\nthat festering wound, and stop that ever-running gush of her heart's\r\nblood? But he could not. He had pledged his word and pawned his\r\nhonour. All the comfort that could be his to bestow must be given in\r\nthose few minutes that remained to him in that room. And it must be\r\ngiven, too, without falsehood. He could not bring himself to tell her\r\nthat the sackcloth need not be sore to her poor lacerated body, nor\r\nthe ashes bitter between her teeth. He could not tell her that the\r\ncup of which it was hers to drink might yet be pleasant to the taste,\r\nand cool to the lips! What could he tell her? Of the only source of\r\ntrue comfort others, he knew, had spoken,--others who had not spoken\r\nin vain. He could not now take up that matter, and press it on her\r\nwith available strength. For him there was but one thing to say."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He\r\nhad forgiven her; he still loved her; he would have cherished her in\r\nhis bosom had it been possible. He was a weak, old, foolish man; and\r\nthere was nothing of which he could speak but of his own heart. \"Mary,\" he said, again taking her hand, \"I wish--I wish that I could\r\ncomfort you.\" \"And yet on you also have I brought trouble, and misery--and--all but\r\ndisgrace!\" \"No, my love, no; neither misery nor disgrace,--except this misery,\r\nthat I shall be no longer near to you. Yes, I will tell you all now. Were I alone in the world, I would still beg you to go back with me.\" \"It cannot be; it could not possibly be so.\" \"No; for I am not alone. She who loves you so well, has told me so. It must not be. But that is the source of my misery. I have learned\r\nto love you too well, and do not know how to part with you. If this\r\nhad not been so, I would have done all that an old man might to\r\ncomfort you.\" \"But it has been so,\" she said. \"I cannot wash out the past. Knowing\r\nwhat I did of myself, Sir Peregrine, I should never have put my foot\r\nover your threshold.\" \"I wish I might hear its step again upon my floors. I wish I might\r\nhear that light step once again.\" \"Never, Sir Peregrine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No one again ever shall rejoice to hear either\r\nmy step or my voice, or to see my form, or to grasp my hand. The\r\nworld is over for me, and may God soon grant me relief from my\r\nsorrow. But to you--in return for your goodness--\"\r\n\r\n\"For my love.\" \"In return for your love, what am I to say? I could have loved you\r\nwith all my heart had it been so permitted. Nay, I did do so. Had\r\nthat dream been carried out, I should not have sworn falsely when I\r\ngave you my hand. I bade her tell you so from me, when I parted with\r\nher.\" \"She did tell me.\" \"I have known but little love. He--Sir Joseph--was my master rather\r\nthan my husband. He was a good master, and I served him truly--except\r\nin that one thing. But I never loved him. But I am wrong to talk\r\nof this, and I will not talk of it longer. May God bless you, Sir\r\nPeregrine! It will be well for both of us now that you should leave\r\nme.\" \"May God bless you, Mary, and preserve you, and give back to you the\r\ncomforts of a quiet spirit, and a heart at rest! Till you hear that I\r\nam under the ground you will know that there is one living who loves\r\nyou well.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then he took her in his arms, twice kissed her on the\r\nforehead, and left the room without further speech on either side. [Illustration: Farewell!] Lady Mason, as soon as she was alone, sat herself down, and her\r\nthoughts ran back over the whole course of her life. Early in her\r\ndays, when the world was yet beginning to her, she had done one evil\r\ndeed, and from that time up to those days of her trial she had been\r\nthe victim of one incessant struggle to appear before the world as\r\nthough that deed had not been done,--to appear innocent of it before\r\nthe world, but, beyond all things, innocent of it before her son. For twenty years she had striven with a labour that had been all but\r\nunendurable; and now she had failed, and every one knew her for what\r\nshe was. Such had been her life; and then she thought of the life\r\nwhich might have been hers. In her earlier days she had known what\r\nit was to be poor, and had seen and heard those battles after money\r\nwhich harden our hearts, and quench the poetry of our natures. But it\r\nhad not been altogether so with her. Had things gone differently with\r\nher it might afterwards have been said that she had gone through the\r\nfire unscathed. But the beast had set his foot upon her, and when the\r\ntemptation came it was too much for her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Not for herself would she\r\nhave sinned, or have robbed that old man, who had been to her a kind\r\nmaster. But when a child was born to her, her eyes were blind, and\r\nshe could not see that wealth ill gotten for her child would be\r\nas sure a curse as wealth ill gotten for herself. She remembered\r\nRebekah, and with the cunning of a second Rebekah she filched a\r\nworld's blessing for her baby. Now she thought of all this as\r\npictures of that life which might have been hers passed before her\r\nmind's eye. And they were pleasant pictures, had they not burnt into her very\r\nsoul as she looked at them. How sweet had been that drawing-room at\r\nThe Cleeve, as she sat there in luxurious quiet with her new friend! How sweet had been that friendship with a woman pure in all her\r\nthoughts, graceful to the eye, and delicate in all her ways! She knew\r\nnow, as she thought of this, that to her had been given the power\r\nto appreciate such delights as these. How full of charm to her\r\nwould have been that life, in which there had been so much of\r\ntrue, innocent affection;--had the load ever been absent from her\r\nshoulders!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then she thought of Sir Peregrine, with his pleasant,\r\nancient manner and truth of heart, and told herself that she could\r\nhave been happy with the love of even so old a man as that,--had that\r\nburden been away from her! But the burden had never been away--never\r\ncould be away. Then she thought once more of her stern but just son,\r\nand as she bowed her head and kissed the rod, she prayed that her\r\nrelease might come to her soon. And now we will say farewell to her, and as we do so the chief\r\ninterest of our tale will end. I may, perhaps be thought to owe an\r\napology to my readers in that I have asked their sympathy for a woman\r\nwho had so sinned as to have placed her beyond the general sympathy\r\nof the world at large. If so, I tender my apology, and perhaps feel\r\nthat I should confess a fault. But as I have told her story that\r\nsympathy has grown upon myself till I have learned to forgive her,\r\nand to feel that I too could have regarded her as a friend. Of her\r\nfuture life I will not venture to say anything. But no lesson is\r\ntruer than that which teaches us to believe that God does temper the\r\nwind to the shorn lamb."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To how many has it not seemed, at some one\r\nperiod of their lives, that all was over for them, and that to them\r\nin their afflictions there was nothing left but to die! And yet they\r\nhave lived to laugh again, to feel that the air was warm and the\r\nearth fair, and that God in giving them ever-springing hope had given\r\neverything. How many a sun may seem to set on an endless night, and\r\nyet rising again on some morrow--\r\n\r\n\r\n   \"He tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore\r\n    Flames in the forehead of the morning sky!\" For Lady Mason let us hope that the day will come in which she also\r\nmay once again trick her beams in some modest, unassuming way, and\r\nthat for her the morning may even yet be sweet with a glad warmth. For us, here in these pages, it must be sufficient to say this last\r\nkindly farewell. As to Lucius Mason and the arrangement of his affairs with his\r\nstep-brother a very few concluding words will suffice. When Joseph\r\nMason left the office of Messrs. Round and Crook he would gladly\r\nhave sacrificed all hope of any eventual pecuniary benefit from\r\nthe possession of Orley Farm could he by doing so have secured\r\nthe condign punishment of her who had so long kept him out of his\r\ninheritance. But he soon found that he had no means of doing this."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the first place he did not know where to turn for advice. He had\r\nquarrelled absolutely with Dockwrath, and though he now greatly\r\ndistrusted the Rounds, he by no means put implicit trust in him of\r\nHamworth. Of the Rounds he suspected that they were engaged to serve\r\nhis enemy, of Dockwrath he felt sure that he was anxious only to\r\nserve himself. Under these circumstances he was driven into the arms\r\nof a third attorney, and learned from him, after a delay that cut\r\nhim to the soul, that he could take no further criminal proceeding\r\nagainst Lady Mason. It would be impossible to have her even indicted\r\nfor the forgery,--seeing that two juries, at the interval of twenty\r\nyears, had virtually acquitted her,--unless new evidence which should\r\nbe absolute and positive in its kind should be forthcoming. But there\r\nwas no new evidence of any kind. The offer made to surrender the\r\nproperty was no evidence for a jury whatever it might be in the mind\r\nof the world at large. \"And what am I to do?\" asked Mason. \"Take the goods the gods provide you,\" said the attorney. \"Accept the\r\noffer which your half-brother has very generously made you.\" \"Generously!\" shouted Mason of Groby. \"Well, on his part it is generous. It is quite within his power to\r\nkeep it; and were he to do so no one would say he was wrong. Why\r\nshould he judge his mother?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then Mr. Joseph Mason went to another attorney; but it was of no\r\navail. The time was passing away, and he learned that Lady Mason and\r\nLucius had actually started for Germany. In his agony for revenge he\r\nhad endeavoured to obtain some legal order that should prevent her\r\ndeparture;--\"ne exeat regno,\" as he repeated over and over again to\r\nhis advisers learned in the law. But it was of no avail. Lady Mason\r\nhad been tried and acquitted, and no judge would interfere. \"We should soon have her back again, you know, if we had evidence of\r\nforgery,\" said the last attorney. \"Then, by ----! we will have her back again,\" said Mason. But the threat was vain; nor could he get any one even to promise him\r\nthat she could be prosecuted and convicted. And by degrees the desire\r\nfor vengeance slackened as the desire for gain resumed its sway. Many men have threatened to spend a property upon a lawsuit who\r\nhave afterwards felt grateful that their threats were made abortive. And so it was with Mr. Mason. After remaining in town over a month\r\nhe took the advice of the first of those new lawyers and allowed\r\nthat gentleman to put himself in communication with Mr. Furnival. The result was that by the end of six months he again came out of\r\nYorkshire to take upon himself the duties and privileges of the owner\r\nof Orley Farm."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then came his great fight with Dockwrath, which in the end ruined\r\nthe Hamworth attorney, and cost Mr. Mason more money than he ever\r\nliked to confess. Dockwrath claimed to be put in possession of Orley\r\nFarm at an exceedingly moderate rent, as to the terms of which he was\r\nprepared to prove that Mr. Mason had already entered into a contract\r\nwith him. Mr. Mason utterly ignored such contract, and contended that\r\nthe words contained in a certain note produced by Dockwrath amounted\r\nonly to a proposition to let him the land in the event of certain\r\ncircumstances and results--which circumstances and results never took\r\nplace. This lawsuit Mr. Joseph Mason did win, and Mr. Samuel Dockwrath was,\r\nas I have said, ruined. What the attorney did to make it necessary\r\nthat he should leave Hamworth I do not know; but Miriam, his wife,\r\nis now the mistress of that lodging-house to which her own mahogany\r\nfurniture was so ruthlessly removed. CHAPTER LXXX. SHOWING HOW AFFAIRS SETTLED THEMSELVES AT NONINGSBY. We must now go back to Noningsby for one concluding chapter, and then\r\nour work will be completed. \"You are not to go away from Noningsby\r\nwhen the trial is over, you know. Mamma said that I had better tell\r\nyou so.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was thus that Madeline had spoken to Felix Graham as he\r\nwas going out to the judge's carriage on the last morning of the\r\ncelebrated great Orley Farm case, and as she did so she twisted one\r\nof her little fingers into one of his buttonholes. This she did with\r\na prettiness of familiarity, and the assumption of a right to give\r\nhim orders and hold him to obedience, which was almost intoxicating\r\nin its sweetness. And why should she not be familiar with him? Why\r\nshould she not hold him to obedience by his buttonhole? Was he not\r\nher own? Had she not chosen him and taken him up to the exclusion of\r\nall other such choosings and takings? \"I shall not go till you send me,\" he said, putting up his hand as\r\nthough to protect his coat, and just touching her fingers as he did\r\nso. \"Mamma says it will be stupid for you in the mornings, but it will\r\nnot be worse for you than for Augustus. He stays till after Easter.\" \"And I shall stay till after Whitsuntide unless I am turned out.\" \"Oh! but you will be turned out. I am not going to make myself\r\nanswerable for any improper amount of idleness. Papa says you have\r\ngot all the law courts to reform.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"There must be a double Hercules for such a set of stables as that,\"\r\nsaid Felix; and then with the slight ceremony to which I have before\r\nadverted he took his leave for the day. \"I suppose there will be no use in delaying it,\" said Lady Staveley\r\non the same morning as she and her daughter sat together in the\r\ndrawing-room. They had already been talking over the new engagement\r\nby the hour, together; but that is a subject on which mothers\r\nwith marriageable daughters never grow tired, as all mothers and\r\nmarriageable daughters know full well. \"Oh! mamma, I think it must be delayed.\" \"But why, my love? Mr. Graham has not said so?\" \"You must call him Felix, mamma. I'm sure it's a nice name.\" \"Very well, my dear, I will.\" \"No; he has said nothing yet. But of course he means to wait\r\ntill,--till it will be prudent.\" \"Men never care for prudence of that kind when they are really in\r\nlove;--and I'm sure he is.\" \"Is he, mamma?\" \"He will marry on anything or nothing. And if you speak to him he\r\ntells you of how the young ravens were fed. But he always forgets\r\nthat he's not a young raven himself.\" \"Now you're only joking, mamma.\" \"Indeed I'm quite in earnest. But I think your papa means to make up\r\nan income for you,--only you must not expect to be rich.\" \"I do not want to be rich. I never did.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I suppose you will live in London, and then you can come down here\r\nwhen the courts are up. I do hope he won't ever want to take a\r\nsituation in the colonies.\" \"Who, Felix? Why should he go to the colonies?\" \"They always do,--the clever young barristers who marry before they\r\nhave made their way. That would be very dreadful. I really think it\r\nwould kill me.\" \"Oh! mamma, he sha'n't go to any colony.\" \"To be sure there are the county courts now, and they are better. I\r\nsuppose you wouldn't like to live at Leeds or Merthyr-Tydvil?\" \"Of course I shall live wherever he goes; but I don't know why you\r\nshould send him to Merthyr-Tydvil.\" \"Those are the sort of places they do go to. There is young Mrs. Bright Newdegate,--she had to go to South Shields, and her babies\r\nare all dreadfully delicate. She lost two, you know. I do think the\r\nLord Chancellor ought to think about that. Reigate, or Maidstone, or\r\nanywhere about Great Marlow would not be so bad.\" And in this way\r\nthey discussed the coming event and the happy future, while Felix\r\nhimself was listening to the judge's charge and thinking of his\r\nclient's guilt. Then there were two or three days passed at Noningsby of almost\r\nunalloyed sweetness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It seemed that they had all agreed that Prudence\r\nshould go by the board, and that Love with sweet promises, and hopes\r\nbright as young trees in spring, should have it all her own way. Judge Staveley was a man who on such an occasion--knowing with whom\r\nhe had to deal--could allow ordinary prudence to go by the board. There are men, and excellent men too, from whose minds the cares\r\nof life never banish themselves, who never seem to remember that\r\nprovision is made for the young ravens. They toil and spin always,\r\nthinking sternly of the worst and rarely hoping for the best. They\r\nare ever making provision for rainy days, as though there were to be\r\nno more sunshine. So anxious are they for their children that they\r\ntake no pleasure in them, and their fear is constant that the earth\r\nwill cease to produce her fruits. Of such was not the judge. \"Dulce\r\nest desipere in locis,\" he would say, \"and let the opportunities be\r\nfrequent and the occasions many.\" Such a love-making opportunity as\r\nthis surely should be one. So Graham wandered about through the dry March winds with his future\r\nbride by his side, and never knew that the blasts came from the\r\npernicious east. And she would lean on his arm as though he had been\r\nthe friend of her earliest years, listening to and trusting him in\r\nall things."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That little finger, as they stood together, would get up\r\nto his buttonhole, and her bright frank eyes would settle themselves\r\non his, and then her hand would press closely upon his arm, and he\r\nknew that she was neither ashamed nor afraid of her love. Her love to\r\nher was the same as her religion. When it was once acknowledged by\r\nher to be a thing good and trustworthy, all the world might know it. Was it not a glory to her that he had chosen her, and why should she\r\nconceal her glory? Had it been that some richer, greater man had won\r\nher love,--some one whose titles were known and high place in the\r\nworld approved,--it may well be that then she would have been less\r\nfree with him. \"Papa would like it best if you would give up your writing, and think\r\nof nothing but the law,\" she said to him. In answer to which he told\r\nher, with many compliments to the special fox in question, that story\r\nof the fox who had lost his tail and thought it well that other foxes\r\nshould dress themselves as he was dressed. \"At any rate papa looks very well without his tail,\" said Madeline\r\nwith somewhat of a daughter's pride. \"But you shall wear yours all\r\nthe same, if you like it,\" she added with much of a young maiden's\r\nlove."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As they were thus walking near the house on the afternoon of the\r\nthird or fourth day after the trial, one of the maids came to them\r\nand told Madeline that a gentleman was in the house who wished to see\r\nher. \"A gentleman!\" said Madeline. \"Mr. Orme, miss. My lady told me to ask you up if you were anywhere\r\nnear.\" \"I suppose I must go,\" said Madeline, from whom all her pretty\r\nfreedom of manner and light happiness of face departed on the moment. She had told Felix everything as to poor Peregrine in return for that\r\nstory of his respecting Mary Snow. To her it seemed as though that\r\nhad made things equal between them,--for she was too generous to\r\nobserve that though she had given nothing to her other lover, Felix\r\nhad been engaged for many months to marry his other love. But girls,\r\nI think, have no objection to this. They do not desire first fruits,\r\nor even early fruits, as men do. Indeed, I am not sure whether\r\nexperience on the part of a gentleman in his use of his heart is not\r\nsupposed by most young ladies to enhance the value of the article. Madeline was not in the least jealous of Mary Snow; but with great\r\ngood nature promised to look after her, and patronise her when she\r\nshould have become Mrs. Albert Fitzallen. \"But I don't think I should\r\nlike that Mrs. Thomas,\" she said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You would have mended the stockings for her all the same.\" \"O yes, I would have done that;--and so did Miss Snow. But I would\r\nhave kept my box locked. She should never have seen my letters.\" It was now absolutely necessary that she should return to the house,\r\nand say to Peregrine Orme what words of comfort might be possible for\r\nher. If she could have spoken simply with her heart, she would have\r\nsaid much that was friendly, even though it might not be comfortable. But it was necessary that she should express herself in words, and\r\nshe felt that the task was very difficult. \"Will you come in?\" she\r\nsaid to Felix. \"No, I think not. But he's a splendid fellow, and to me was a stanch\r\nfriend. If I can catch him as he comes out I will speak to him.\" And then Madeline, with hesitating steps, with her hat still on her\r\nhead, and her gloves on her hands, walked through the hall into the\r\ndrawing-room. There she found her mother seated on the sofa, and\r\nPeregrine Orme standing before her. Madeline walked up to him with\r\nextended hand and a kindly welcome, though she felt that the colour\r\nwas high in her cheeks. Of course it would be impossible to come out\r\nfrom such an interview as this without having confessed her position,\r\nor hearing it confessed by her mother in her presence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That, however,\r\nhad been already done, and Peregrine knew that the prize was gone. \"How do you do, Miss Staveley?\" said he. \"As I am going to leave The\r\nCleeve for a long time, I have come over to say good-bye to Lady\r\nStaveley--and to you.\" \"Are you going away, Mr. Orme?\" \"Yes, I shall go abroad,--to Central Africa, I think. It seems a wild\r\nsort of place with plenty of animals to kill.\" \"But isn't it very dangerous?\" \"No, I don't think so. The people always come back alive. I've a sort\r\nof idea that nothing will kill me. At any rate I couldn't stay here.\" \"Madeline, dear, I've told Mr. Orme that you have accepted Mr.\r\nGraham. With a friend such as he is I know that you will not be\r\nanxious to keep this a secret.\" \"No, mamma.\" \"I was sure of that; and now that your papa has consented to it, and\r\nthat it is quite fixed, I am sure that it is better that he should\r\nknow it. We shall always look upon him as a very dear friend--if he\r\nwill allow us.\" Then it was necessary that Peregrine should speak, which he did as\r\nfollows, holding Madeline's hand for the first three or four seconds\r\nof the time:--\"Miss Staveley, I will say this of myself, that if ever\r\na fellow loved a girl truly, I loved you;--and I do so now as well or\r\nbetter than ever."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is no good my pretending to be contented, and\r\nall that sort of thing. I am not contented, but very unhappy. I have\r\nnever wished for but one thing in my life; and for that I would have\r\ngiven all that I have in the world. I know that I cannot have it, and\r\nthat I am not fit to have it.\" \"Oh, Mr. Orme, it is not that.\" \"But it is that. I knew you before Graham did, and loved you quite\r\nas soon. I believe--though of course I don't mean to ask any\r\nquestions--but I believe I told you so before he ever did.\" \"Marriages, they say, are planned in heaven,\" said Lady Staveley. \"Perhaps they are. I only wish this one had not been planned there. I cannot help it,--I cannot express my satisfaction, though I will\r\nheartily wish for your happiness. I knew from the first how it would\r\nbe, and was always sure that I was a fool to love you. I should have\r\ngone away when I first thought of it, for I used to feel that you\r\nnever cared to speak to me.\" \"Oh, indeed I did,\" said poor Madeline. \"No, you did not. And why should you when I had nothing to say for\r\nmyself? I ought to have fallen in love with some foolish chit with as\r\nlittle wit about her as I have myself.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I hope you will fall in love with some very nice girl,\" said Lady\r\nStaveley; \"and that we shall know her and love her very much.\" \"Oh, I dare say I shall marry some day. I feel now as though I should\r\nlike to break my neck, but I don't suppose I shall. Good-bye, Lady\r\nStaveley.\" \"Good-bye, Mr. Orme; and may God send that you may be happy.\" \"Good-bye, Madeline. I shall never call you so again,--except to\r\nmyself. I do wish you may be happy,--I do indeed. As for him,--he has\r\nbeen before me, and taken away all that I wanted to win.\" By this time the tears were in his eyes, and his voice was not free\r\nfrom their effect. Of this he was aware, and therefore, pressing her\r\nhand, he turned upon his heel and abruptly left the room. He had been\r\nunable to say that he wished also that Felix might be happy; but this\r\nomission was forgiven him by both the ladies. Poor Madeline, as he\r\nwent, muttered a kind farewell, but her tears had mastered her also,\r\nso that she could hardly speak. He went directly to the stables, there got upon his horse, and then\r\nwalked slowly down the avenue towards the gate. He had got the better\r\nof that tear-compelling softness as soon as he found himself beyond\r\nthe presence of the girl he loved, and was now stern in his mood,\r\nstriving to harden his heart."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had confessed himself a fool in\r\ncomparison with Felix Graham; but yet,--he asked himself,--in spite\r\nof that, was it not possible that he would have made her a better\r\nhusband than the other? It was not to his title or his estate that he\r\ntrusted as he so thought, but to a feeling that he was more akin to\r\nher in circumstances, in ways of life, and in tenderness of heart. As\r\nall this was passing through his mind, Felix Graham presented himself\r\nto him in the road. \"Orme,\" said he, \"I heard that you were in the house, and have come\r\nto shake hands with you. I suppose you have heard what has taken\r\nplace. Will you not shake hands with me?\" \"No,\" said Peregrine, \"I will not.\" \"I am sorry for that, for we were good friends, and I owe you much\r\nfor your kindness. It was a fair stand-up fight, and you should not\r\nbe angry.\" \"I am angry, and I don't want your friendship. Go and tell her that I\r\nsay so, if you like.\" \"No, I will not do that.\" \"I wish with all my heart that we had both killed ourselves at that\r\nbank.\" \"For shame, Orme, for shame!\" \"Very well, sir; let it be for shame.\" And then he passed on, meaning\r\nto go through the gate, and leaving Graham on the grass by the\r\nroad-side."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But before he had gone a hundred yards down the road his\r\nbetter feelings came back upon him, and he returned. \"I am unhappy,\" he said, \"and sore at heart. You must not mind what\r\nwords I spoke just now.\" \"No, no; I am sure you did not mean them,\" said Felix, putting his\r\nhand on the horse's mane. \"I did mean them then, but I do not mean them now. I won't say\r\nanything about wishes. Of course you will be happy with her. Anybody\r\nwould be happy with her. I suppose you won't die, and give a fellow\r\nanother chance.\" \"Not if I can help it,\" said Graham. \"Well, if you are to live, I don't wish you any evil. I do wish you\r\nhadn't come to Noningsby, that's all. Good-bye to you.\" And he held\r\nout his hand, which Graham took. \"We shall be good friends yet, for all that is come and gone,\" said\r\nGraham; and then there were no more words between them. Peregrine did as he said, and went abroad, extending his travels to\r\nmany wild countries, in which, as he used to say, any one else would\r\nhave been in danger. No danger ever came to him,--so at least he\r\nfrequently wrote word to his mother. Gorillas he slew by scores,\r\nlions by hundreds, and elephants sufficient for an ivory palace."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The\r\nskins, and bones, and other trophies, he sent home in various ships;\r\nand when he appeared in London as a lion, no man doubted his word. But then he did not write a book, nor even give lectures; nor did he\r\npresume to know much about the huge brutes he had slain, except that\r\nthey were pervious to powder and ball. Sir Peregrine had endeavoured to keep him at home by giving up the\r\nproperty into his hands; but neither for grandfather, nor for mother,\r\nnor for lands and money would he remain in the neighbourhood of\r\nNoningsby. \"No, mother,\" he said; \"it will be better for me to be\r\naway.\" And away he went. The old baronet lived to see him return, though with plaintive wail\r\nhe often declared to his daughter-in-law that this was impossible. He\r\nlived, but he never returned to that living life which had been his\r\nbefore he had taken up the battle for Lady Mason. He would sometimes\r\nallow Mrs. Orme to drive him about the grounds, but otherwise he\r\nremained in the house, sitting solitary over his fire,--with a\r\nbook, indeed, open before him, but rarely reading. He was waiting\r\npatiently, as he said, till death should come to him. Mrs. Orme kept her promise, and wrote constantly to Lady\r\nMason,--hearing from her as constantly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When Lucius had been six\r\nmonths in Germany, he decided on going to Australia, leaving his\r\nmother for the present in the little German town in which they were\r\nstaying. For her, on the whole, the change was for the better. As\r\nto his success in a thriving colony, there can be but little doubt. Felix Graham was soon married to Madeline; and as yet I have not\r\nheard of any banishment either to Patagonia or to Merthyr-Tydvil. And now I may say, Farewell. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ORLEY FARM ***\r\n\r\n\r\n    \r\n\r\nUpdated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will\r\nbe renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright\r\nlaw means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,\r\nso the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United\r\nStates without permission and without paying copyright\r\nroyalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part\r\nof this license, apply to copying and distributing Project\r\nGutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™\r\nconcept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,\r\nand may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following\r\nthe terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use\r\nof the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for\r\ncopies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very\r\neasy."}
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{"question": "", "answer": "The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Belton Estate\r\n    \r\nThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and\r\nmost other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions\r\nwhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms\r\nof the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online\r\nat www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,\r\nyou will have to check the laws of the country where you are located\r\nbefore using this eBook. Title: The Belton Estate\r\n\r\nAuthor: Anthony Trollope\r\n\r\nRelease date: January 1, 2004 [eBook #4969]\r\n                Most recently updated: November 30, 2015\r\n\r\nLanguage: English\r\n\r\nCredits: E-text prepared by Andrew Turek and revised by Rita Bailey and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BELTON ESTATE ***\r\n\r\n\r\nE-text prepared by Andrew Turek\r\nand revised by Rita Bailey and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. THE BELTON ESTATE\r\n\r\nby\r\n\r\nANTHONY TROLLOPE\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nFirst published in serial form in the _Fortnightly Review_\r\nin 1865 and in book form the same year\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCONTENTS\r\n\r\n        I. THE REMNANTS OF THE AMEDROZ FAMILY. II. THE HEIR PROPOSES TO VISIT HIS COUSINS. III. WILL BELTON. IV. SAFE AGAINST LOVE-MAKING. V. NOT SAFE AGAINST LOVE-MAKING. VI. SAFE AGAINST LOVE-MAKING ONCE AGAIN. VII. MISS AMEDROZ GOES TO PERIVALE. VIII. CAPTAIN AYLMER MEETS HIS CONSTITUENTS. IX. CAPTAIN AYLMER'S PROMISE TO HIS AUNT. X. SHOWING HOW CAPTAIN AYLMER KEPT HIS PROMISE. XI. MISS AMEDROZ IS TOO CANDID BY HALF. XII."}
{"question": "", "answer": "MISS AMEDROZ RETURNS HOME. XIII. MR. WILLIAM BELTON TAKES A WALK IN THE COUNTRY. XIV. MR. WILLIAM BELTON TAKES A WALK IN LONDON. XV. EVIL WORDS. XVI. THE HEIR'S SECOND VISIT TO BELTON. XVII. AYLMER PARK. XVIII. MRS. ASKERTON'S STORY. XIX. MISS AMEDROZ HAS ANOTHER CHANCE. XX. WILLIAM BELTON DOES NOT GO OUT HUNTING. XXI. MRS. ASKERTON'S GENEROSITY. XXII. PASSIONATE PLEADING. XXIII. THE LAST DAY AT BELTON. XXIV. THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY HOTEL. XXV. MISS AMEDROZ HAS SOME HASHED CHICKEN. XXVI. THE AYLMER PARK HASHED CHICKEN COMES TO AN END. XXVII. ONCE MORE BACK TO BELTON. XXVIII. MISS AMEDROZ IS PURSUED. XXIX. THERE IS NOTHING TO TELL. XXX. MARY BELTON. XXXI. TAKING POSSESSION. XXXII. CONCLUSION. CHAPTER I. THE REMNANTS OF THE AMEDROZ FAMILY. Mrs. Amedroz, the wife of Bernard Amedroz, Esq., of Belton Castle,\r\nand mother of Charles and Clara Amedroz, died when those children\r\nwere only eight and six years old, thereby subjecting them to the\r\ngreatest misfortune which children born in that sphere of life can be\r\nmade to suffer. And, in the case of this boy and girl the misfortune\r\nwas aggravated greatly by the peculiarities of the father's\r\ncharacter. Mr. Amedroz was not a bad man,--as men are held to be bad\r\nin the world's esteem. He was not vicious,--was not a gambler or a\r\ndrunkard,--was not self-indulgent to a degree that brought upon him\r\nany reproach; nor was he regardless of his children."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he was an\r\nidle, thriftless man, who, at the age of sixty-seven, when the reader\r\nwill first make his acquaintance, had as yet done no good in the\r\nworld whatever. Indeed he had done terrible evil; for his son Charles\r\nwas now dead,--had perished by his own hand,--and the state of things\r\nwhich had brought about this woful event had been chiefly due to the\r\nfather's neglect. Belton Castle is a pretty country seat, standing in a small\r\nbut beautifully wooded park, close under the Quantock hills in\r\nSomersetshire; and the little town of Belton clusters round the park\r\ngates. Few Englishmen know the scenery of England well, and the\r\nprettinesses of Somersetshire are among those which are the least\r\nknown. But the Quantock hills are very lovely, with their rich\r\nvalleys lying close among them, and their outlying moorlands running\r\noff towards Dulverton and the borders of Devonshire,--moorlands which\r\nare not flat, like Salisbury Plain, but are broken into ravines and\r\ndeep watercourses and rugged dells hither and thither; where old oaks\r\nare standing, in which life seems to have, dwindled down to the last\r\nspark; but the last spark is still there, and the old oaks give forth\r\ntheir scanty leaves from year to year. In among the hills, somewhat off the high road from Minehead to\r\nTaunton, and about five miles from the sea, stands the little town,\r\nor village, of Belton, and the modern house of Mr. Amedroz, which\r\nis called Belton Castle."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The village,--for it is in truth no more,\r\nthough it still maintains a charter for a market, and there still\r\nexists on Tuesdays some pretence of an open sale of grain and\r\nbutcher's meat in the square before the church-gate,--contains\r\nabout two thousand persons. That and the whole parish of Belton did\r\nonce,--and that not long ago,--belong to the Amedroz family. They had\r\ninherited it from the Beltons of old, an Amedroz having married the\r\nheiress of the family. And as the parish is large, stretching away to\r\nExmoor on one side, and almost to the sea on the other, containing\r\nthe hamlet of Redicote, lying on the Taunton high road,--Redicote,\r\nwhere the post-office is placed, a town almost in itself, and one\r\nwhich is now much more prosperous than Belton,--as the property when\r\nit came to the first Amedroz had limits such as these, the family had\r\nbeen considerable in the county. But these limits had been straitened\r\nin the days of the grandfather and the father of Bernard Amedroz; and\r\nhe, when he married a Miss Winterfield of Taunton, was thought to\r\nhave done very well, in that mortgages were paid off the property\r\nwith his wife's money to such an extent as to leave him in clear\r\npossession of an estate that gave him two thousand a year."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As Mr.\r\nAmedroz had no grand neighbours near him, as the place is remote\r\nand the living therefore cheap, and as with this income there was\r\nno question of annual visits to London, Mr. and Mrs. Amedroz might\r\nhave done very well with such of the good things of the world as had\r\nfallen to their lot. And had the wife lived such would probably have\r\nbeen the case; for the Winterfields were known to be prudent people. But Mrs. Amedroz had died young, and things with Bernard Amedroz had\r\ngone badly. And yet the evil had not been so much with him as with that terrible\r\nboy of his. The father had been nearly forty when he married. He had\r\nthen never done any good; but as neither had he done much harm, the\r\nfriends of the family had argued well of his future career. After\r\nhim, unless he should leave a son behind him, there would be no\r\nAmedroz left among the Quantock hills; and by some arrangement\r\nin respect to that Winterfield money which came to him on his\r\nmarriage,--the Winterfields having a long-dated connection with the\r\nBeltons of old,--the Amedroz property was, at Bernard's marriage,\r\nentailed back upon a distant Belton cousin, one Will Belton, whom\r\nno one had seen for many years, but who was by blood nearer to the\r\nsquire, in default of children of his own, than any other of his\r\nrelatives."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And now Will Belton was the heir to Belton Castle; for\r\nCharles Amedroz, at the age of twenty-seven, had found the miseries\r\nof the world to be too many for him, and had put an end to them and\r\nto himself. Charles had been a clever fellow,--a very clever fellow in the eyes\r\nof his father. Bernard Amedroz knew that he himself was not a clever\r\nfellow, and admired his son accordingly; and when Charles had been\r\nexpelled from Harrow for some boyish freak,--in his vengeance against\r\na neighbouring farmer, who had reported to the school authorities the\r\ndoings of a few beagles upon his land, Charles had cut off the heads\r\nof all the trees in a young fir plantation,--his father was proud of\r\nthe exploit. When he was rusticated a second time from Trinity, and\r\nwhen the father received an intimation that his son's name had better\r\nbe taken from the College books, the squire was not so well pleased;\r\nbut even then he found some delight in the stories which reached him\r\nof his son's vagaries; and when the young man commenced Bohemian life\r\nin London, his father did nothing to restrain him. Then there came\r\nthe old story--debts, endless debts; and lies, endless lies."}
{"question": "", "answer": "During\r\nthe two years before his death, his father paid for him, or undertook\r\nto pay, nearly ten thousand pounds, sacrificing the life assurances\r\nwhich were to have made provision for his daughter; sacrificing, to a\r\ngreat extent, his own life income,--sacrificing everything, so that\r\nthe property might not be utterly ruined at his death. That Charles\r\nAmedroz should be a brighter, greater man than any other Amedroz,\r\nhad still been the father's pride. At the last visit which Charles\r\nhad paid to Belton his father had called upon him to pledge himself\r\nsolemnly that his sister should not be made to suffer by what had\r\nbeen done for him. Within a month of that time he had blown his\r\nbrains out in his London lodgings, thus making over the entire\r\nproperty to Will Belton at his father's death. At that last pretended\r\nsettlement with his father and his father's lawyer, he had kept back\r\nthe mention of debts as heavy nearly as those to which he had owned;\r\nand there were debts of honour, too, of which he had not spoken,\r\ntrusting to the next event at Newmarket to set him right. The next\r\nevent at Newmarket had set him more wrong than ever, and so there had\r\ncome an end to everything with Charles Amedroz."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This had happened in the spring, and the afflicted father,--afflicted\r\nwith the double sorrow of his son's terrible death and his daughter's\r\nruin,--had declared that he would turn his face to the wall and die. But the old squire's health, though far from strong, was stronger\r\nthan he had deemed it, and his feelings, sharp enough, were less\r\nsharp than he had thought them; and when a month had passed by, he\r\nhad discovered that it would be better that he should live, in order\r\nthat his daughter might still have bread to eat and a house of her\r\nown over her head. Though he was now an impoverished man, there was\r\nstill left to him the means of keeping up the old home; and he told\r\nhimself that it must, if possible, be so kept that a few pounds\r\nannually might be put by for Clara. The old carriage-horses were\r\nsold, and the park was let to a farmer, up to the hall door of the\r\ncastle. So much the squire could do; but as to the putting by of\r\nthe few pounds, any dependence on such exertion as that on his part\r\nwould, we may say, be very precarious. Belton Castle was not in truth a castle."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Immediately before the front\r\ndoor, so near to the house as merely to allow of a broad road running\r\nbetween it and the entrance porch, there stood an old tower, which\r\ngave its name to the residence,--an old square tower, up which the\r\nAmedroz boys for three generations had been able to climb by means\r\nof the ivy and broken stones in one of the inner corners,--and this\r\ntower was a remnant of a real castle that had once protected the\r\nvillage of Belton. The house itself was an ugly residence, three\r\nstories high, built in the time of George II., with low rooms and\r\nlong passages, and an immense number of doors. It was a large\r\nunattractive house,--unattractive, that is, as regarded its own\r\nattributes,--but made interesting by the beauty of the small park in\r\nwhich it stood. Belton Park did not, perhaps, contain much above a\r\nhundred acres, but the land was so broken into knolls and valleys,\r\nin so many places was the rock seen to be cropping up through the\r\nverdure, there were in it so many stunted old oaks, so many points\r\nof vantage for the lover of scenery, that no one would believe it\r\nto be other than a considerable domain. The farmer who took it, and\r\nwho would not under any circumstances undertake to pay more than\r\nseventeen shillings an acre for it, could not be made to think that\r\nit was in any way considerable."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Belton Park, since first it\r\nwas made a park, had never before been regarded after this fashion. Farmer Stovey, of the Grange, was the first man of that class who\r\nhad ever assumed the right to pasture his sheep in Belton chase,--as\r\nthe people around were still accustomed to call the woodlands of the\r\nestate. It was full summer at Belton, and four months had now passed since\r\nthe dreadful tidings had reached the castle. It was full summer,\r\nand the people of the village were again going about their ordinary\r\nbusiness; and the shop-girls, with their lovers from Redicote, were\r\nagain to be seen walking among the oaks in the park on a Sunday\r\nevening; and the world in that district of Somersetshire was getting\r\nitself back into its grooves. The fate of the young heir had\r\ndisturbed the grooves greatly, and had taught many in those parts to\r\nfeel that the world was coming to an end. They had not loved young\r\nAmedroz, for he had been haughty when among them, and there had been\r\nwrongs committed by the dissolute young squire, and grief had come\r\nfrom his misdoings upon more than one household; but to think that he\r\nshould have destroyed himself with his own hand! And then, to think\r\nthat Miss Clara would become a beggar when the old squire should die! All the neighbours around understood the whole history of the entail,\r\nand knew that the property was to go to Will Belton."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now Will Belton\r\nwas not a gentleman! So, at least, said the Belton folk, who had\r\nheard that the heir had been brought up as a farmer somewhere in\r\nNorfolk. Will Belton had once been at the Castle as a boy, now some\r\nfifteen years ago, and then there had sprung up a great quarrel\r\nbetween him and his distant cousin Charles;--and Will, who was rough\r\nand large of stature, had thrashed the smaller boy severely; and the\r\nthing had grown to have dimensions larger than those which generally\r\nattend the quarrels of boys; and Will had said something which\r\nhad shown how well he understood his position in reference to the\r\nestate;--and Charles had hated him. So Will had gone, and had been\r\nno more seen among the oaks whose name he bore. And the people, in\r\nspite of his name, regarded him as an interloper. To them, with their\r\nshort memories and scanty knowledge of the past, Amedroz was more\r\nhonourable than Belton, and they looked upon the coming man as an\r\nintruder. Why should not Miss Clara have the property? Miss Clara had\r\nnever done harm to any one! Things got back into their old grooves, and at the end of the third\r\nmonth the squire was once more seen in the old family pew at church. He was a large man, who had been very handsome, and who now, in his\r\nyellow leaf, was not without a certain beauty of manliness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He wore\r\nhis hair and his beard long; before his son's death they were grey,\r\nbut now they were very white. And though he stooped, there was still\r\na dignity in his slow step,--a dignity that came to him from nature\r\nrather than from any effort. He was a man who, in fact, did little or\r\nnothing in the world,--whose life had been very useless; but he had\r\nbeen gifted with such a presence that he looked as though he were\r\none of God's nobler creatures. Though always dignified he was ever\r\naffable, and the poor liked him better than they might have done had\r\nhe passed his time in searching out their wants and supplying them. They were proud of their squire, though he had done nothing for them. It was something to them to have a man who could so carry himself\r\nsitting in the family pew in their parish church. They knew that he\r\nwas poor, but they all declared that he was never mean. He was a\r\nreal gentleman,--was this last Amedroz of the family; therefore they\r\ncurtsied low, and bowed on his reappearance among them, and made all\r\nthose signs of reverential awe which are common to the poor when they\r\nfeel reverence for the presence of a superior. Clara was there with him, but she had shown herself in the pew for\r\nfour or five weeks before this."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had not been at home when the\r\nfearful news had reached Belton, being at that time with a certain\r\nlady who lived on the further side of the county, at Perivale,--a\r\ncertain Mrs. Winterfield, born a Folliott, a widow, who stood to Miss\r\nAmedroz in the place of an aunt. Mrs. Winterfield was, in truth, the\r\nsister of a gentleman who had married Clara's aunt,--there having\r\nbeen marriages and intermarriages between the Winterfields and\r\nthe Folliotts, and the Belton-Amedroz families. With this lady in\r\nPerivale, which I maintain to be the dullest little town in England,\r\nMiss Amedroz was staying when the news reached her father, and when\r\nit was brought direct from London to herself. Instantly she had\r\nhurried home, making the journey with all imaginable speed though her\r\nheart was all but broken within her bosom. She had found her father\r\nstricken to the ground, and it was the more necessary, therefore,\r\nthat she should exert herself. It would not do that she also should\r\nyield to that longing for death which terrible calamities often\r\nproduce for a season. Clara Amedroz, when she first heard the news of her brother's fate,\r\nhad felt that she was for ever crushed to the ground. She had known\r\ntoo well what had been the nature of her brother's life, but she\r\nhad not expected or feared any such termination to his career as\r\nthis which had now come upon him--to the terrible affliction of all\r\nbelonging to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She felt at first, as did also her father, that\r\nshe and he were annihilated as regards this world, not only by an\r\nenduring grief, but also by a disgrace which would never allow her\r\nagain to hold up her head. And for many a long year much of this\r\nfeeling clung to her;--clung to her much more strongly than to her\r\nfather. But strength was hers to perceive, even before she had\r\nreached her home, that it was her duty to repress both the feeling\r\nof shame and the sorrow, as far as they were capable of repression. Her brother had been weak, and in his weakness had sought a coward's\r\nescape from the ills of the world around him. She must not also be a\r\ncoward! Bad as life might be to her henceforth, she must endure it\r\nwith such fortitude as she could muster. So resolving she returned to\r\nher father, and was able to listen to his railings with a fortitude\r\nthat was essentially serviceable both to him and to herself. \"Both of you! Both of you!\" the unhappy father had said in his woe. \"The wretched boy has destroyed you as much as himself!\" \"No, sir,\"\r\nshe had answered, with a forbearance in her misery, which, terrible\r\nas was the effort, she forced herself to accomplish for his sake. \"It\r\nis not so. No thought of that need add to your grief. My poor brother\r\nhas not hurt me;--not in the way you mean.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"He has ruined us all,\"\r\nsaid the father; \"root and branch, man and woman, old and young,\r\nhouse and land. He has brought the family to an end;--ah me, to such\r\nan end!\" After that the name of him who had taken himself from among\r\nthem was not mentioned between the father and daughter, and Clara\r\nsettled herself to the duties of her new life, striving to live as\r\nthough there was no great sorrow around her--as though no cloud-storm\r\nhad burst over her head. The family lawyer, who lived at Taunton, had communicated the fact of\r\nCharles's death to Mr. Belton, and Belton had acknowledged the letter\r\nwith the ordinary expressions of regret. The lawyer had alluded to\r\nthe entail, saying that it was improbable that Mr. Amedroz would have\r\nanother son. To this Belton had replied that for his cousin Clara's\r\nsake he hoped that the squire's life might be long spared. The lawyer\r\nsmiled as he read the wish, thinking to himself that luckily no wish\r\non the part of Will Belton could influence his old client either for\r\ngood or evil. What man, let alone what lawyer, will ever believe\r\nin the sincerity of such a wish as that expressed by the heir to a\r\nproperty? And yet where is the man who will not declare to himself\r\nthat such, under such circumstances, would be his own wish? Clara Amedroz at this time was not a very young lady."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had already\r\npassed her twenty-fifth birthday, and in manners, appearance, and\r\nhabits was, at any rate, as old as her age. She made no pretence to\r\nyouth, speaking of herself always as one whom circumstances required\r\nto take upon herself age in advance of her years. She did not dress\r\nyoung, or live much with young people, or correspond with other\r\ngirls by means of crossed letters; nor expect that, for her, young\r\npleasures should be provided. Life had always been serious with her;\r\nbut now, we may say, since the terrible tragedy in the family, it\r\nmust be solemn as well as serious. The memory of her brother must\r\nalways be upon her; and the memory also of the fact that her father\r\nwas now an impoverished man, on whose behalf it was her duty to care\r\nthat every shilling spent in the house did its full twelve pennies'\r\nworth of work. There was a mixture in this of deep tragedy and of\r\nlittle care, which seemed to destroy for her the poetry as well as\r\nthe pleasure of life. The poetry and tragedy might have gone hand\r\nin hand together; and so might the cares and pleasures of life have\r\ndone, had there been no black sorrow of which she must be ever\r\nmindful."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But it was her lot to have to scrutinize the butcher's bill\r\nas she was thinking of her brother's fate; and to work daily among\r\nsmall household things while the spectre of her brother's corpse was\r\never before her eyes. A word must be said to explain how it had come to pass that the life\r\nled by Miss Amedroz had been more than commonly serious before that\r\ntragedy had befallen the family. The name of the lady who stood to\r\nClara in the place of an aunt has been already mentioned. When a girl\r\nhas a mother, her aunt may be little or nothing to her. But when\r\nthe mother is gone, if there be an aunt unimpeded with other family\r\nduties, then the family duties of that aunt begin--and are assumed\r\nsometimes with great vigour. Such had been the case with Mrs.\r\nWinterfield. No woman ever lived, perhaps, with more conscientious\r\nideas of her duty as a woman than Mrs. Winterfield of Prospect Place,\r\nPerivale. And this, as I say it, is intended to convey no scoff\r\nagainst that excellent lady. She was an excellent lady--unselfish,\r\ngiven to self-restraint, generous, pious, looking to find in her\r\nreligion a safe path through life--a path as safe as the facts of\r\nAdam's fall would allow her feet to find."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was a woman fearing\r\nmuch for others, but fearing also much for herself, striving to\r\nmaintain her house in godliness, hating sin, and struggling with the\r\nweakness of her humanity so that she might not allow herself to hate\r\nthe sinners. But her hatred for the sin she found herself bound at\r\nall times to pronounce--to show it by some act at all seasons. To\r\nfight the devil was her work--was the appointed work of every living\r\nsoul, if only living souls could be made to acknowledge the necessity\r\nof the task. Now an aunt of that kind, when she assumes her duties\r\ntowards a motherless niece, is apt to make life serious. But, it will be said, Clara Amedroz could have rebelled; and Clara's\r\nfather was hardly made of such stuff that obedience to the aunt would\r\nbe enforced on her by parental authority. Doubtless Clara could\r\nhave rebelled against her aunt. Indeed, I do not know that she had\r\nhitherto been very obedient. But there were family facts about these\r\nWinterfield connections which would have made it difficult for her\r\nto ignore her so-called aunt, even had she wished to do so. Mrs.\r\nWinterfield had twelve hundred a year at her own disposal, and she\r\nwas the only person related to the Amedroz family from whom Mr.\r\nAmedroz had a right to have expectations on his daughter's behalf."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara had, in a measure, been claimed by the lady, and the father had\r\nmade good the lady's claim, and Clara had acknowledged that a portion\r\nof her life was due to the demands of Perivale. These demands had\r\nundoubtedly made her life serious. Life at Perivale was a very serious thing. As regards amusement,\r\nordinarily so called, the need of any such institution was not\r\nacknowledged at Prospect House. Food, drink, and raiment were\r\nacknowledged to be necessary to humanity, and, in accordance with the\r\nrules of that house, they were supplied in plenty, and good of their\r\nkind. Such ladies as Mrs. Winterfield generally keep good tables,\r\nthinking no doubt that the eatables should do honour to the grace\r\nthat is said for them. And Mrs. Winterfield herself always wore a\r\nthick black silk dress,--not rusty or dowdy with age,--but with\r\nsome gloss of the silk on it; giving away, with secret, underhand,\r\nundiscovered charity, her old dresses to another lady of her own\r\nsort, on whom fortune had not bestowed twelve hundred a year. And\r\nMrs. Winterfield kept a low, four-wheeled, one-horsed little phaeton,\r\nin which she made her pilgrimages among the poor of Perivale, driven\r\nby the most solemn of stable-boys, dressed up in a white great coat,\r\nthe most priggish of hats, and white cotton gloves. At the rate of\r\nfive miles an hour was she driven about, and this driving was to\r\nher the amusement of life."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But such an occupation to Clara Amedroz\r\nassisted to make life serious. In person Mrs. Winterfield was tall and thin, wearing on her brow\r\nthin braids of false hair. She had suffered much from acute ill\r\nhealth, and her jaws were sunken, and her eyes were hollow, and there\r\nwas a look of woe about her which seemed ever to be telling of her\r\nown sorrows in this world and of the sorrows of others in the world\r\nto come. Ill-nature was written on her face, but in this her face was\r\na false face. She had the manners of a cross, peevish woman; but her\r\nmanners also were false, and gave no proper idea of her character. But still, such as she was, she made life very serious to those who\r\nwere called upon to dwell with her. I need, I hope, hardly say that a young lady such as Miss Amedroz,\r\neven though she had reached the age of twenty-five,--for at the time\r\nto which I am now alluding she had nearly done so,--and was not young\r\nof her age, had formed for herself no plan of life in which her\r\naunt's money figured as a motive power. She had gone to Perivale\r\nwhen she was very young, because she had been told to do so, and had\r\ncontinued to go, partly from obedience, partly from habit, and partly\r\nfrom affection."}
{"question": "", "answer": "An aunt's dominion, when once well established in\r\nearly years, cannot easily be thrown altogether aside,--even though\r\na young lady have a will of her own. Now Clara Amedroz had a strong\r\nwill of her own, and did not at all,--at any rate in these latter\r\ndays,--belong to that school of divinity in which her aunt shone\r\nalmost as a professor. And this circumstance, also, added to the\r\nseriousness of her life. But in regard to her aunt's money she had\r\nentertained no established hopes; and when her aunt opened her mind\r\nto her on that subject, a few days before the arrival of the fatal\r\nnews at Perivale, Clara, though she was somewhat surprised, was by\r\nno means disappointed. Now there was a certain Captain Aylmer in the\r\nquestion, of whom in this opening chapter it will be necessary to say\r\na few words. Captain Frederic Folliott Aylmer was, in truth, the nephew of Mrs.\r\nWinterfield, whereas Clara Amedroz was not, in truth, her niece. And\r\nCaptain Aylmer was also Member of Parliament for the little borough\r\nof Perivale, returned altogether on the Low Church interest,--for\r\na devotion to which, and for that alone, Perivale was noted\r\namong boroughs. These facts together added not a little to Mrs.\r\nWinterfield's influence and professorial power in the place, and gave\r\na dignity to the one-horse chaise which it might not otherwise have\r\npossessed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Captain Aylmer was only the second son of his father,\r\nSir Anthony Aylmer, who had married a Miss Folliott, sister of our\r\nMrs. Winterfield. On Frederic Aylmer his mother's estate was settled. That and Mrs. Winterfield's property lay in the neighbourhood of\r\nPerivale; and now, on the occasion to which I am alluding, Mrs.\r\nWinterfield thought it necessary to tell Clara that the property must\r\nall go together. She had thought about it, and had doubted about it,\r\nand had prayed about it, and now she found that such a disposition of\r\nit was her duty. \"I am quite sure you're right, aunt,\" Clara had said. She knew very\r\nwell what had come of that provision which her father had attempted\r\nto make for her, and knew also how great were her father's\r\nexpectations in regard to Mrs. Winterfield's money. \"I hope I am; but I have thought it right to tell you. I shall feel\r\nmyself bound to tell Frederic. I have had many doubts, but I think\r\nI am right.\" \"I am sure you are, aunt. What would he think of me if, at some\r\nfuture time, he should have to find that I had been in his way?\" \"The future time will not be long now, my dear.\" \"I hope it may; but long or short, it is better so.\" \"I think it is, my dear; I think it is. I think it is my duty.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "It must be understood that Captain Aylmer was member for Perivale on\r\nthe Low Church interest, and that, therefore, when at Perivale he was\r\ndecidedly a Low Churchman. I am not aware that the peculiarity stuck\r\nto him very closely at Aylmer Castle, in Yorkshire, or among his\r\nfriends in London; but there was no hypocrisy in this, as the world\r\ngoes. Women in such matters are absolutely false if they be not\r\nsincere; but men, with political views, and with much of their\r\nfuture prospects in jeopardy also, are allowed to dress themselves\r\ndifferently for different scenes. Whatever be the peculiar interest\r\non which a man goes into Parliament, of course he has to live up to\r\nthat in his own borough. Whether malt, the franchise, or teetotalism\r\nbe his rallying point, of course he is full of it when among his\r\nconstituents. But it is not desirable that he should be full of it\r\nalso at his club. Had Captain Aylmer become Prime Minister, he would\r\nno doubt, have made Low Church bishops. It was the side to which he\r\nhad taken himself in that matter,--not without good reasons. And\r\nhe could say a sharp word or two in season about vestments; he was\r\nstrong against candles, and fought for his side fairly well."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No one\r\nhad good right to complain of Captain Aylmer as being insincere; but\r\nhad his aunt known the whole history of her nephew's life, I doubt\r\nwhether she would have made him her heir,--thinking that in doing so\r\nshe was doing the best for the good cause. The whole history of her niece's life she did know, and she knew that\r\nClara was not with her, heart and soul. Had Clara left the old woman\r\nin doubt on this subject, she would have been a hypocrite. Captain\r\nAylmer did not often spend a Sunday at Perivale, but when he did, he\r\nwent to church three times, and submitted himself to the yoke. He was\r\nthinking of the borough votes quite as much as of his aunt's money,\r\nand was carrying on his business after the fashion of men. But Clara\r\nfound herself compelled to maintain some sort of a fight, though she\r\nalso went to church three times on Sunday. And there was another\r\nreason why Mrs. Winterfield thought it right to mention Captain\r\nAylmer's name to her niece on this occasion. \"I had hoped,\" she said, \"that it might make no difference in what\r\nway my money was left.\" Clara well understood what this meant, as will, probably, the reader\r\nalso. \"I can't say but what it will make a difference,\" she answered,\r\nsmiling; \"but I shall always think that you have done right. Why\r\nshould I stand in Captain Aylmer's way?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I had hoped your ways might have been the same,\" said the old lady,\r\nfretfully. \"But they cannot be the same.\" \"No; you do not see things as he sees them. Things that are serious\r\nto him are, I fear, only light to you. Dear Clara, would I could\r\nsee you more in earnest as to the only matter that is worth our\r\nearnestness.\" Miss Amedroz said nothing as to the Captain's\r\nearnestness, though, perhaps, her ideas as to his ideas about\r\nreligion were more correct than those held by Mrs. Winterfield. But\r\nit would not have suited her to raise any argument on that subject. \"I pray for you, Clara,\" continued the old lady; \"and will do so as\r\nlong as the power of prayer is left to me. I hope,--I hope you do not\r\ncease to pray for yourself?\" \"I endeavour, aunt.\" \"It is an endeavour which, if really made, never fails.\" Clara said nothing more, and her aunt also remained silent. Soon\r\nafterwards, the four-wheeled carriage, with the demure stable-boy,\r\ncame to the door, and Clara was driven up and down through the\r\nstreets of Perivale in a manner which was an injury to her. She knew\r\nthat she was suffering an injustice, but it was one of which she\r\ncould not make complaint. She submitted to her aunt, enduring the\r\npenances that were required of her; and, therefore, her aunt had\r\nopportunity enough to see her shortcomings. Mrs. Winterfield did see\r\nthem, and judged her accordingly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Captain Aylmer, being a man and a\r\nMember of Parliament, was called upon to bear no such penances, and,\r\ntherefore, his shortcomings were not suspected. But, after all, what title had she ever possessed to entertain\r\nexpectations from Mrs. Winterfield? When she thought of it all in her\r\nroom that night, she told herself that it was strange that her aunt\r\nshould have spoken to her in such a way on such a subject. But, then,\r\nso much had been said to her on the matter by her father, so much, no\r\ndoubt, had reached her aunt's ears also, the hope that her position\r\nwith reference to the rich widow at Perivale might be beneficial to\r\nher had been so often discussed at Belton as a make-weight against\r\nthe extravagance of the heir, there had already been so much of this\r\nmistake, that she taught herself to perceive that the communication\r\nwas needed. \"In her honesty she has not chosen to leave me with false\r\nhopes,\" said Clara to herself. And at that moment she loved her aunt\r\nfor her honesty. Then, on the day but one following this conversation as to the\r\ndestiny of her aunt's property, came the terrible tidings of her\r\nbrother's death. Captain Aylmer, who had been in London at the time,\r\nhurried down to Perivale, and had been the first to tell Miss Amedroz\r\nwhat had happened."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The words spoken between them then had not been\r\nmany, but Clara knew that Captain Aylmer had been kind to her; and\r\nwhen he had offered to accompany her to Belton, she had thanked him\r\nwith a degree of gratitude which had almost seemed to imply more of\r\nregard between them than Clara would have acknowledged to exist. But\r\nin moments such as those, soft words may be spoken and hands may be\r\npressed without any of that meaning which soft words and the grasping\r\nof hands generally carry with them. As far as Taunton Captain Aylmer\r\ndid go with Miss Amedroz, and there they parted, he on his journey up\r\nto town, and she for her father's desolate house at Belton. CHAPTER II. THE HEIR PROPOSES TO VISIT HIS COUSINS. It was full summer at Belton, and the sweet scent of the new hay\r\nfilled the porch of the old house with fragrance, as Clara sat there\r\nalone with her work. Immediately before the house door, between that\r\nand the old tower, there stood one of Farmer Stovey's hay-carts, now\r\nempty, with an old horse between the shafts looking as though he were\r\nasleep in the sun. Immediately beyond the tower the men were loading\r\nanother cart, and the women and children were chattering as they\r\nraked the scattered remnants up to the rows."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Under the shadow of the\r\nold tower, but in sight of Clara as she sat in the porch, there lay\r\nthe small beer-barrels of the hay-makers, and three or four rakes\r\nwere standing erect against the old grey wall. It was now eleven\r\no'clock, and Clara was waiting for her father, who was not yet out\r\nof his room. She had taken his breakfast to him in bed, as was her\r\ncustom; for he had fallen into idle ways, and the luxury of his bed\r\nwas, of all his remaining luxuries, the one that he liked the best. After a while he came down to her, having an open letter in his hand. Clara saw that he intended either to show it to her or to speak of\r\nit, and asked him therefore, with some tone of interest in her voice,\r\nfrom whom it had come. But Mr. Amedroz was fretful at the moment, and\r\ninstead of answering her began to complain of his tenant's ill-usage\r\nof him. \"What has he got his cart there for? I haven't let him the road up to\r\nthe hall door. I suppose he will bring his things into the parlour\r\nnext.\" \"I rather like it, papa.\" \"Do you? I can only say that you're lucky in your tastes. I don't\r\nlike it, I can tell you.\" \"Mr. Stovey is out there. Shall I ask him to have the things moved\r\nfurther off?\" \"No, my dear,--no."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I must bear it, as I do all the rest of it. What\r\ndoes it matter? There'll be an end of it soon. He pays his rent, and\r\nI suppose he is right to do as he pleases. But I can't say that I\r\nlike it.\" \"Am I to see the letter, papa?\" she asked, wishing to turn his mind\r\nfrom the subject of the hay-cart. \"Well, yes. I brought it for you to see; though perhaps I should be\r\ndoing better if I burned it, and said nothing more about it. It is a\r\nmost impudent production; and heartless,--very heartless.\" Clara was accustomed to such complaints as these from her father. Everything that everybody did around him he would call heartless. The man pitied himself so much in his own misery, that he expected\r\nto live in an atmosphere of pity from others; and though the pity\r\ndoubtless was there, he misdoubted it. He thought that Farmer Stovey\r\nwas cruel in that he had left the hay-cart near the house, to wound\r\nhis eyes by reminding him that he was no longer master of the ground\r\nbefore his own hall door. He thought that the women and children were\r\ncruel to chatter so near his ears. He almost accused his daughter of\r\ncruelty, because she had told him that she liked the contiguity of\r\nthe hay-making. Under such circumstances as those which enveloped him\r\nand her, was it not heartless in her to like anything?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "It seemed to\r\nhim that the whole world of Belton should be drowned in woe because\r\nof his misery. \"Where is it from, papa?\" she asked. \"There, you may read it. Perhaps it is better that you should know\r\nthat it has been written.\" Then she read the letter, which was as\r\nfollows:--\r\n\r\n\"Plaistow Hall, -- July, 186--.\" Though she had never before seen the handwriting, she knew at once\r\nfrom whence came the letter, for she had often heard of Plaistow\r\nHall. It was the name of the farm at which her distant cousin, Will\r\nBelton, lived, and her father had more than once been at the trouble\r\nof explaining to her, that though the place was called a hall, the\r\nhouse was no more than a farmhouse. He had never seen Plaistow\r\nHall, and had never been in Norfolk; but so much he could take upon\r\nhimself to say, \"They call all the farms halls down there.\" It was\r\nnot wonderful that he should dislike his heir; and, perhaps, not\r\nunnatural that he should show his dislike after this fashion. Clara,\r\nwhen she read the address, looked up into her father's face. \"You\r\nknow who it is now,\" he said. And then she read the letter. Plaistow Hall, -- July, 186--."}
{"question": "", "answer": "MY DEAR SIR,\r\n\r\n   I have not written to you before since your bereavement,\r\n   thinking it better to wait awhile; but I hope you have\r\n   not taken me to be unkind in this, or have supposed me\r\n   to be unmindful of your sorrow. Now I take up my pen,\r\n   hoping that I may make you understand how greatly I was\r\n   distressed by what has occurred. I believe I am now the\r\n   nearest male relative that you have, and as such I am very\r\n   anxious to be of service to you if it may be possible. Considering the closeness of our connection, and my\r\n   position in reference to the property, it seems bad that\r\n   we should never meet. I can assure you that you would find\r\n   me very friendly if we could manage to come together. I should think nothing of running across to Belton, if you\r\n   would receive me at your house. I could come very well\r\n   before harvest, if that would suit you, and would stay\r\n   with you for a week. Pray give my kindest regards to my\r\n   cousin Clara, whom I can only just remember as a very\r\n   little girl. She was with her aunt at Perivale when I was\r\n   at Belton as a boy. She shall find a friend in me if she\r\n   wants a friend. Your affectionate cousin,\r\n\r\n   W. BELTON."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara read the letter very slowly, so that she might make herself\r\nsure of its tone and bearing before she was called upon by her\r\nfather to express her feeling respecting it. She knew that she would\r\nbe expected to abuse it violently, and to accuse the writer of\r\nvulgarity, insolence, and cruelty; but she had already learned that\r\nshe must not allow herself to accede to all her father's fantasies. For his sake, and for his protection, it was necessary that she\r\nshould differ from him, and even contradict him. Were she not to do\r\nso, he would fall into a state of wailing and complaining that would\r\nexaggerate itself almost to idiotcy. And it was imperative that\r\nshe herself should exercise her own opinion on many points, almost\r\nwithout reference to him. She alone knew how utterly destitute she\r\nwould be when he should die. He, in the first days of his agony, had\r\nsobbed forth his remorse as to her ruin; but, even when doing so,\r\nhe had comforted himself with the remembrance of Mrs. Winterfield's\r\nmoney, and Mrs. Winterfield's affection for his daughter. And the\r\naunt, when she had declared her purpose to Clara, had told herself\r\nthat the provision made for Clara by her father was sufficient. To\r\nneither of them had Clara told her own position. She could not inform\r\nher aunt that her father had given up to the poor reprobate who had\r\ndestroyed himself all that had been intended for her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had she done so\r\nshe would have been asking her aunt for charity. Nor would she bring\r\nherself to add to her father's misery, by destroying the hopes which\r\nstill supported him. She never spoke of her own position in regard\r\nto money, but she knew that it had become her duty to live a wary,\r\nwatchful life, taking much upon herself in their impoverished\r\nhousehold, and holding her own opinion against her father's when her\r\ndoing so became expedient. So she finished the letter in silence, and\r\ndid not speak at the moment when the movement of her eyes declared\r\nthat she had completed the task. \"Well,\" said he. \"I do not think my cousin means badly.\" \"You don't! I do, then. I think he means very badly. What business\r\nhas he to write to me, talking of his position?\" \"I can't see anything amiss in his doing so, papa. I think he wishes\r\nto be friendly. The property will be his some day, and I don't see\r\nwhy that should not be mentioned, when there is occasion.\" \"Upon my word, Clara, you surprise me. But women never understand\r\ndelicacy in regard to money. They have so little to do with it,\r\nand think so little about it, that they have no occasion for such\r\ndelicacy.\" Clara could not help the thought that to her mind the subject was\r\npresent with sufficient frequency to make delicacy very desirable,\r\nif only it were practicable. But of this she said nothing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And what\r\nanswer will you send to him, papa?\" she asked. \"None at all. Why should I trouble myself to write to him?\" \"I will take the trouble off your hands.\" \"And what will you say to him?\" \"I will ask him to come here, as he proposes.\" \"Clara!\" \"Why not, papa? He is the heir to the property, and why should he\r\nnot be permitted to see it? There are many things in which his\r\nco-operation with you might be a comfort to you. I can't tell you\r\nwhether the tenants and people are treating you well, but he can do\r\nso; and, moreover, I think he means to be kind. I do not see why\r\nwe should quarrel with our cousin because he is the heir to your\r\nproperty. It is not through any doing of his own that he is so.\" This reasoning had no effect upon Mr. Amedroz, but his daughter's\r\nresolution carried the point against him in spite of his want of\r\nreason. No letter was written that day, or on the next; but on the\r\nday following a formal note was sent off by Clara, in which Mr.\r\nBelton was told that Mr. Amedroz would be happy to receive him at\r\nBelton Castle. The letter was written by the daughter, but the father\r\nwas responsible for the formality. He sat over her while she wrote\r\nit, and nearly drove her distracted by discussing every word and\r\nphrase."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At last, Clara was so annoyed with her own production, that\r\nshe was almost tempted to write another letter unknown to her father;\r\nbut the formal note went. MY DEAR SIR,\r\n\r\n   I am desired by my father to say that he will be happy\r\n   to receive you at Belton Castle, at the time fixed by\r\n   yourself. Yours truly,\r\n\r\n   CLARA AMEDROZ. There was no more than that, but that had the desired effect; and by\r\nreturn of post there came a rejoinder, saying that Will Belton would\r\nbe at the Castle on the fifteenth of August. \"They can do without me\r\nfor about ten days,\" he said in his postscript, writing in a familiar\r\ntone, which did not seem to have been at all checked by the coldness\r\nof his cousin's note,--\"as our harvest will be late; but I must be\r\nback for a week's work before the partridges.\" \"Heartless! quite heartless!\" Mr. Amedroz said as he read this. \"Partridges! to talk of partridges at such a time as this!\" Clara, however, would not acknowledge that she agreed with her\r\nfather; but she could not altogether restrain a feeling on her own\r\npart that her cousin's good humour towards her and Mr. Amedroz should\r\nhave been repressed by the tone of her letter to him. The man was to\r\ncome, however, and she would not judge of him until he was there."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In one house in the neighbourhood, and in only one, had Miss Amedroz\r\na friend with whom she was intimate; and as regarded even this single\r\nfriend, the intimacy was the effect rather of circumstances than of\r\nreal affection. She liked Mrs. Askerton, and saw her almost daily;\r\nbut she could hardly tell herself that she loved her neighbour. In the little town of Belton, close to the church, there stood a\r\npretty, small house, called Belton Cottage. It was so near the church\r\nthat strangers always supposed it to be the parsonage; but the\r\nrectory stood away out in the country, half a mile from the town,\r\non the road to Redicote, and was a large house, three stories high,\r\nwith grounds of its own, and very ugly. Here lived the old bachelor\r\nrector, seventy years of age, given much to long absences when he\r\ncould achieve them, and never on good terms with his bishop. His two\r\ncurates lived at Redicote, where there was a second church. Belton\r\nCottage, which was occupied by Colonel Askerton and Mrs. Askerton,\r\nwas on the Amedroz property, and had been hired some two years since\r\nby the Colonel, who was then a stranger in the country and altogether\r\nunknown to the Belton people. But he had come there for shooting, and\r\ntherefore his coming had been understood."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Even as long ago as two\r\nyears since, there had been neither use nor propriety in keeping the\r\nshooting for the squire's son, and it had been let with the cottage\r\nto Colonel Askerton. So Colonel Askerton had come there with his\r\nwife, and no one in the neighbourhood had known anything about them. Mr. Amedroz, with his daughter, had called upon them, and gradually\r\nthere had grown up an intimacy between Clara and Mrs. Askerton. There\r\nwas an opening from the garden of Belton Cottage into the park, so\r\nthat familiar intercourse was easy, and Mrs. Askerton was a woman who\r\nknew well how to make herself pleasant to such another woman as Miss\r\nAmedroz. The reader may as well know at once that rumours prejudicial to the\r\nAskertons reached Belton before they had been established there\r\nfor six months. At Taunton, which was twenty miles distant, these\r\nrumours were very rife, and there were people there who knew with\r\naccuracy,--though, probably without a grain of truth in their\r\naccuracy,--every detail in the history of Mrs. Askerton's life. And\r\nsomething, too, reached Clara's ears--something from old Mr. Wright,\r\nthe rector, who loved scandal, and was very ill-natured. \"A very\r\nnice woman,\" the rector had said; \"but she does not seem to have any\r\nbelongings in particular.\" \"She has got a husband,\" Clara had replied\r\nwith some little indignation, for she had never loved Mr. Wright. \"Yes; I suppose she has got a husband.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then Clara had, in her own\r\njudgment, accused the rector of lying, evil-speaking, and slandering,\r\nand had increased the measure of her cordiality to Mrs. Askerton. But\r\nsomething more she had heard on the same subject at Perivale. \"Before\r\nyou throw yourself into close intimacy with the lady, I think you\r\nshould know something about her,\" Mrs. Winterfield had said to her. \"I do know something about her; I know that she has the manners and\r\neducation of a lady, and that she is living affectionately with her\r\nhusband, who is devoted to her. What more ought I to know?\" \"If you\r\nreally do know all that, you know a great deal,\" Mrs. Winterfield had\r\nreplied. \"Do you know anything against her, aunt?\" Clara asked, after a pause. There was another pause before Mrs. Winterfield answered. \"No\r\nmy dear; I cannot say that I do. But I think that young ladies,\r\nbefore they make intimate friendships, should be very sure of their\r\nfriends.\" \"You have already acknowledged that I know a great deal about her,\"\r\nClara replied. And then the conversation was at an end. Clara had not\r\nbeen quite ingenuous, as she acknowledged to herself. She was aware\r\nthat her aunt would not permit herself to repeat rumours as to the\r\ntruth of which she had no absolute knowledge. She understood that the\r\nweakness of her aunt's caution was due to the old lady's sense of\r\ncharity and dislike of slander."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Clara had buckled on her armour\r\nfor Mrs. Askerton, and was glad, therefore, to achieve her little\r\nvictory. When we buckle on our armour in any cause, we are apt to\r\ngo on buckling it, let the cause become as weak as it may; and\r\nClara continued her intimacy with Mrs. Askerton, although there was\r\nsomething in the lady's modes of speech, and something also in her\r\nmodes of thinking, which did not quite satisfy the aspirations of\r\nMiss Amedroz as to a friend. Colonel Askerton himself was a pleasant, quiet man, who seemed to\r\nbe contented with the life which he was leading. For six weeks in\r\nApril and May he would go up to town, leaving Mrs. Askerton at the\r\ncottage,--as to which, probably jovial, absence in the metropolis\r\nthere seemed to be no spirit of grudging on the part of the wife. On\r\nthe first of September a friend would come to the cottage and remain\r\nthere for six weeks' shooting; and during the winter the Colonel and\r\nhis wife always went to Paris for a fortnight. Such had been their\r\nlife for the last two years; and thus,--so said Mrs. Askerton to\r\nClara,--did they intend to live as long as they could keep the\r\ncottage at Belton. Society at Belton they had none, and,--as they\r\nsaid,--desired none. Between them and Mr. Wright there was only a\r\nspeaking acquaintance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The married curate at Redicote would not\r\nlet his wife call on Mrs. Askerton, and the unmarried curate was a\r\nhard-worked, clerical hack,--a parochial minister at all times and\r\nseasons, who went to no houses except the houses of the poor, and who\r\nwould hold communion with no man, and certainly with no woman, who\r\nwould not put up with clerical admonitions for Sunday backslidings. Mr. Amedroz himself neither received guests nor went as a guest to\r\nother men's houses. He would occasionally stand for a while at the\r\ngate of the Colonel's garden, and repeat the list of his own woes as\r\nlong as his neighbour would stand there to hear it. But there was no\r\nsociety at Belton, and Clara, as far as she herself was aware, was\r\nthe only person with whom Mrs. Askerton held any social intercourse,\r\nexcept what she might have during her short annual holiday in Paris. \"Of course, you are right,\" she said, when Clara told her of the\r\nproposed coming of Mr. Belton. \"If he turn out to be a good fellow,\r\nyou will have gained a great deal. And should he be a bad fellow,\r\nyou will have lost nothing. In either case you will know him, and\r\nconsidering how he stands towards you, that itself is desirable.\" \"But if he should annoy papa?\" \"In your papa's condition, my dear, the coming of any one will annoy\r\nhim."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At least, he will say so; though I do not in the least doubt\r\nthat he will like the excitement better even than you will.\" \"I can't say there will be much excitement to me.\" \"No excitement in a young man's coming into the house! Without\r\nshocking your propriety, allow me to say that that is impossible. Of\r\ncourse, he is coming to see whether he can't make matters all right\r\nby marrying you.\" \"That's nonsense, Mrs. Askerton.\" \"Very well. Let it be nonsense. But why shouldn't he? It's just what\r\nhe ought to do. He hasn't got a wife; and, as far as I know, you\r\nhaven't got a lover.\" \"I certainly have not got a lover.\" \"Our religious nephew at Perivale does not seem to be of any use.\" \"I wish, Mrs. Askerton, you would not speak of Captain Aylmer in that\r\nway. I don't know any man whom I like so much, or at any rate better,\r\nthan Captain Aylmer; but I hate the idea that no girl can become\r\nacquainted with an unmarried man without having her name mentioned\r\nwith his, and having to hear ill-natured remarks of that kind.\" \"I hope you will learn to like this other man much better. Think how\r\nnice it will be to be mistress of the old place after all. And then\r\nto go back to the old family name!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "If I were you I would make up my\r\nmind not to let him leave the place till I had brought him to my\r\nfeet.\" \"If you go on like that I will not speak to you about him again.\" \"Or rather not to my feet,--for gentlemen have laid aside the humble\r\nway of making love for the last twenty years at least; but I don't\r\nknow whether the women haven't gained quite as much by the change as\r\nthe men.\" \"As I know nothing will stop you when you once get into a vein of\r\nthat kind, I shall go,\" said Clara. \"And till this man has come and\r\ngone I shall not mention his name again in your presence.\" \"So be it,\" said Mrs. Askerton; \"but as I will promise to say nothing\r\nmore about him, you need not go on his account.\" But Clara had got\r\nup, and did leave the cottage at once. CHAPTER III. WILL BELTON. Mr. Belton came to the castle, and nothing further had been said at\r\nthe cottage about his coming. Clara had seen Mrs. Askerton in the\r\nmeantime frequently, but that lady had kept her promise--almost to\r\nClara's disappointment. For she--though she had in truth disliked the\r\nproposition that her cousin could be coming with any special views\r\nwith reference to herself had nevertheless sufficient curiosity about\r\nthe stranger to wish to talk about him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her father, indeed, mentioned\r\nBelton's name very frequently, saying something with reference to him\r\nevery time he found himself in his daughter's presence. A dozen times\r\nhe said that the man was heartless to come to the house at such a\r\ntime, and he spoke of his cousin always as though the man were guilty\r\nof a gross injustice in being heir to the property. But not the less\r\non that account did he fidget himself about the room in which Belton\r\nwas to sleep, about the food that Belton was to eat, and especially\r\nabout the wine that Belton was to drink. What was he to do for wine? The stock of wine in the cellars at Belton Castle was, no doubt, very\r\nlow. The squire himself drank a glass or two of port daily, and had\r\nsome remnant of his old treasures by him, which might perhaps last\r\nhim his time; and occasionally there came small supplies of sherry\r\nfrom the grocer at Taunton; but Mr. Amedroz pretended to think that\r\nWill Belton would want champagne and claret;--and he would continue\r\nto make these suggestions in spite of his own repeated complaints\r\nthat the man was no better than an ordinary farmer. \"I've no doubt\r\nhe'll like beer,\" said Clara. \"Beer!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "said her father, and then\r\nstopped himself, as though he were lost in doubt whether it would\r\nbest suit him to scorn his cousin for having so low a taste as that\r\nsuggested on his behalf, or to ridicule his daughter's idea that the\r\nhousehold difficulty admitted of so convenient a solution. The day of the arrival at last came, and Clara certainly was in a\r\ntwitter, although she had steadfastly resolved that she would be in\r\nno twitter at all. She had told her aunt by letter of the proposed\r\nvisit, and Mrs. Winterfield had expressed her approbation, saying\r\nthat she hoped it would lead to good results. Of what good results\r\ncould her aunt be thinking? The one probable good result would\r\nsurely be this--that relations so nearly connected should know each\r\nother. Why should there be any fuss made about such a visit? But,\r\nnevertheless, Clara, though she made no outward fuss, knew that\r\ninwardly she was not as calm about the man's coming as she would have\r\nwished herself to be. He arrived about five o'clock in a gig from Taunton. Five was the\r\nordinary dinner hour at Belton, but it had been postponed till six on\r\nthis day, in the hope that the cousin might make his appearance at\r\nany rate by that hour."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Amedroz had uttered various complaints\r\nas to the visitor's heartlessness in not having written to name the\r\nhour of his arrival, and was manifestly intending to make the most of\r\nthe grievance should he not present himself before six;--but this\r\nindulgence was cut short by the sound of the gig wheels. Mr. Amedroz\r\nand his daughter were sitting in a small drawing-room, which looked\r\nout to the front of the house and he, seated in his accustomed\r\nchair, near the window, could see the arrival. For a moment or two\r\nhe remained quiet in his chair, as though he would not allow so\r\ninsignificant a thing as his cousin's coming to ruffle him;--but he\r\ncould not maintain this dignified indifference, and before Belton was\r\nout of the gig he had shuffled out into the hall. Clara followed her father almost unconsciously and soon found herself\r\nshaking hands with a big man, over six feet high, broad in the\r\nshoulders, large limbed, with bright quick grey eyes, a large mouth,\r\nteeth almost too perfect and a well-formed nose, with thick short\r\nbrown hair and small whiskers which came but half-way down his\r\ncheeks--a decidedly handsome man with a florid face, but still,\r\nperhaps, with something of the promised roughness of the farmer. But\r\na more good-humoured looking countenance Clara felt at once that she\r\nhad never beheld. \"And you are the little girl that I remember when I was a boy at Mr. Folliott's?\" he said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His voice was clear, and rather loud, but it\r\nsounded very pleasantly in that sad old house. \"Yes; I am the little girl,\" said Clara, smiling. \"Dear, dear! and that's twenty years ago now,\" said he. \"But you oughtn't to remind me of that, Mr. Belton.\" \"Oughtn't I? Why not?\" \"Because it shows how very old I am.\" \"Ah, yes;--to be sure. But there's nobody here that signifies. How\r\nwell I remember this room;--and the old tower out there. It isn't\r\nchanged a bit!\" \"Not to the outward eye, perhaps,\" said the squire. \"That's what I mean. So they're making hay still. Our hay has been\r\nall up these three weeks. I didn't know you ever meadowed the park.\" Here he trod with dreadful severity upon the corns of Mr. Amedroz,\r\nbut he did not perceive it. And when the squire muttered something\r\nabout a tenant, and the inconvenience of keeping land in his own\r\nhands, Belton would have gone on with the subject had not Clara\r\nchanged the conversation. The squire complained bitterly of this to\r\nClara when they were alone, saying that it was very heartless. She had a little scheme of her own,--a plan arranged for the saying\r\nof a few words to her cousin on the earliest opportunity of their\r\nbeing alone together,--and she contrived that this should take place\r\nwithin half an hour after his arrival, as he went through the hall\r\nup to his room."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Mr. Belton,\" she said, \"I'm sure you will not take\r\nit amiss if I take a cousin's privilege at once and explain to you\r\nsomething of our way of living here. My dear father is not very\r\nstrong.\" \"He is much altered since I saw him last.\" \"Oh, yes. Think of all that he has had to bear! Well, Mr. Belton,\r\nthe fact is, that we are not so well off as we used to be, and are\r\nobliged to live in a very quiet way. You will not mind that?\" \"Who? I?\" \"I take it very kind of you, your coming all this way to see us--\"\r\n\r\n\"I'd have come three times the distance.\" \"But you must put up with us as you find us, you know. The truth is\r\nwe are very poor.\" \"Well, now;--that's just what I wanted to know. One couldn't write\r\nand ask such a question; but I was sure I should find out if I came.\" \"You've found it out already, you see.\" \"As for being poor, it's a thing I don't think very much about,--not\r\nfor young people. But it isn't comfortable when a man gets old. Now\r\nwhat I want to know is this; can't something be done?\" \"The only thing to do is to be very kind to him. He has had to let\r\nthe park to Mr. Stovey, and he doesn't like talking about it.\" \"But if it isn't talked about, how can it be mended?\" \"It can't be mended.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"We'll see about that. But I'll be kind to him; you see if I ain't. And I'll tell you what, I'll be kind to you too, if you'll let me. You have got no brother now.\" \"No,\" said Clara; \"I have got no brother now.\" Belton was looking\r\nfull into her face, and saw that her eyes had become clouded with\r\ntears. \"I will be your brother,\" said he. \"You see if I don't. When I say\r\na thing I mean it. I will be your brother.\" And he took her hand,\r\ncaressing it, and showing her that he was not in the least afraid\r\nof her. He was blunt in his bearing, saying things which her father\r\nwould have called indelicate and heartless, as though they gave\r\nhim no effort, and placing himself at once almost in a position of\r\nascendency. This Clara had not intended. She had thought that her\r\nfarmer cousin, in spite of the superiority of his prospects as heir\r\nto the property, would have acceded to her little hints with silent\r\nacquiescence; but instead of this he seemed prepared to take upon\r\nhimself the chief part in the play that was to be acted between them. \"Shall it be so?\" he said, still holding her hand. \"You are very kind.\" \"I will be more than kind; I will love you dearly if you will let me. You don't suppose that I have looked you up here for nothing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Blood\r\nis thicker than water, and you have nobody now so near to you as I\r\nam. I don't see why you should be so poor, as the debts have been\r\npaid.\" \"Papa has had to borrow money on his life interest in the place.\" \"That's the mischief! Never mind. We'll see if we can't do something. And in the meantime don't make a stranger of me. Anything does for\r\nme. Lord bless you! if you were to see how I rough it sometimes! I can eat beans and bacon with any one; and what's more, I can go\r\nwithout 'em if I can't get 'em.\" \"We'd better get ready for dinner now. I always dress, because papa\r\nlikes to see it.\" This she said as a hint to her cousin that he\r\nwould be expected to change his coat, for her father would have been\r\nannoyed had his guest sat down to dinner without such ceremony. Will\r\nBelton was not very good at taking hints; but he did understand this,\r\nand made the necessary change in his apparel. The evening was long and dull, and nothing occurred worthy of remark\r\nexcept the surprise manifested by Mr. Amedroz when Belton called his\r\ndaughter by her Christian name. This he did without the slightest\r\nhesitation, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for\r\nhim to do. She was his cousin, and cousins of course addressed each\r\nother in that way."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara's quick eye immediately saw her father's\r\nslight gesture of dismay, but Belton caught nothing of this. The\r\nsquire took an early opportunity of calling him Mr. Belton with some\r\nlittle peculiarity of expression; but this was altogether lost upon\r\nWill, who five times in the next five minutes addressed \"Clara\" as\r\nthough they were already on the most intimate terms. She would have\r\nanswered him in the same way, and would have called him Will, had she\r\nnot been afraid of offending her father. Mr. Amedroz had declared his purpose of coming down to breakfast\r\nduring the period of his cousin's visit, and at half-past nine he was\r\nin the parlour. Clara had been there some time, but had not seen her\r\ncousin. He entered the room immediately after her father, bringing\r\nhis hat with him in his hand, and wiping the drops of perspiration\r\nfrom his brow. \"You have been out, Mr. Belton,\" said the squire. \"All round the place, sir. Six o'clock doesn't often find me in bed,\r\nsummer or winter. What's the use of laying in bed when one has had\r\nenough of sleep?\" \"But that's just the question,\" said Clara; \"whether one has had\r\nenough at six o'clock.\" \"Women want more than men, of course. A man, if he means to do any\r\ngood with land, must be out early. The grass will grow of itself at\r\nnights, but it wants looking after as soon as the daylight comes.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I don't know that it would do much good to the grass here,\" said the\r\nsquire, mournfully. \"As much here as anywhere. And indeed I've got something to say about\r\nthat.\" He had now seated himself at the breakfast-table, and was\r\nplaying with his knife and fork. \"I think, sir, you're hardly making\r\nthe best you can out of the park.\" \"We won't mind talking about it, if you please,\" said the squire. \"Well; of course I won't, if you don't like it; but upon my word you\r\nought to look about you; you ought indeed.\" \"In what way do you mean?\" said Clara. \"If your father doesn't like to keep the land in his own hands, he\r\nshould let it to some one who would put stock in it,--not go on\r\ncutting it year after year, and putting nothing back, as this fellow\r\nwill do. I've been talking to Stovey, and that's just what he means.\" \"Nobody here has got money to put stock on the land,\" said the\r\nsquire, angrily. \"Then you should look for somebody somewhere else. That's all. I'll\r\ntell you what now, Mr. Amedroz, I'll do it myself.\" By this time he\r\nhad helped himself to two large slices of cold mutton, and was eating\r\nhis breakfast and talking with an equal amount of energy for either\r\noccupation. \"That's out of the question,\" said the squire. \"I don't see why it should be out of the question."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It would be better\r\nfor you,--and better for me too, if this place is ever to be mine.\" On hearing this the squire winced, but said nothing. This terrible\r\nfellow was so vehemently outspoken that the poor old man was\r\nabsolutely unable to keep pace with him,--even to the repeating\r\nof his wish that the matter should be talked of no further. \"I'll\r\ntell you what I'll do, now,\" continued Belton. \"There's altogether,\r\noutside the palings and in, about a hundred and fifty acres of\r\nit. I'll give you one pound two and sixpence an acre, and I won't\r\ncut an acre of grass inside the park;--no, nor much of it outside\r\neither;--only just enough to give me a little fodder for the cattle\r\nin winter.\" \"And give up Plaistow Hall?\" asked Clara. \"Lord love you, no. I've a matter of nine hundred acres on hand\r\nthere, and most of it under the plough. I've counted it up, and it\r\nwould just cost me a thousand pounds to stock this place. I should\r\ncome and look at it twice a year or so, and I should see my money\r\nhome again, if I didn't get any profit out of it.\" Mr. Amedroz was astonished. The man had only been in his house one\r\nnight, and was proposing to take all his troubles off his hands. He\r\ndid not relish the proposition at all."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He did not like to be accused\r\nof not doing as well for himself as others could do for him. He did\r\nnot wish to make any change,--although he remembered at the moment\r\nhis anger with Farmer Stovey respecting the haycarts. He did not\r\ndesire that the heir should have any immediate interest in the place. But he was not strong enough to meet the proposition with a direct\r\nnegative. \"I couldn't get rid of Stovey in that way,\" he said,\r\nplaintively. \"I've settled it all with Stovey already,\" said Belton. \"He'll be\r\nglad enough to walk off with a twenty-pound note, which I'll give\r\nhim. He can't make money out of the place. He hasn't got means to\r\nstock it, and then see the wages that hay-making runs away with! He'd\r\nlose by it even at what he's paying, and he knows it. There won't be\r\nany difficulty about Stovey.\" By twelve o'clock on that day Mr. Stovey had been brought into the\r\nhouse, and had resigned the land. It had been let to Mr. William\r\nBelton at an increased rental,--a rental increased by nearly forty\r\npounds per annum,--and that gentleman had already made many of his\r\narrangements for entering upon his tenancy. The twenty pounds had\r\nalready been paid to Stovey, and the transaction was complete. Mr.\r\nAmedroz sat in his chair bewildered, dismayed--and, as he himself\r\ndeclared,--shocked, quite shocked, at the precipitancy of the young\r\nman. It might be for the best. He didn't know."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He didn't feel at\r\nall sure. But such hurrying in such a matter was, under all the\r\ncircumstances of the family, to say the least of it, very indelicate. He was angry with himself for having yielded, and angry with Clara\r\nfor having allowed him to do so. \"It doesn't signify much,\" he said,\r\nat last. \"Of course he'll have it all to himself before long.\" \"But, papa, it really seems to be a much better arrangement for you. You'll get more money--\"\r\n\r\n\"Money is not everything, my dear.\" \"But you'd sooner have Mr. Belton, our own cousin, about the place,\r\nthan Mr. Stovey.\" \"I don't know. We shall see. The thing is done now, and there is\r\nno use in complaining. I must say he hasn't shown a great deal of\r\ndelicacy.\" On that afternoon Belton asked Clara to go out with him, and walk\r\nround the place. He had been again about the grounds, and had made\r\nplans, and counted up capabilities, and calculated his profit and\r\nlosses. \"If you don't dislike scrambling about,\" said he, \"I'll show\r\nyou everything that I intend to do.\" \"But I can't have any changes made, Mr. Belton,\" said Mr. Amedroz,\r\nwith some affectation of dignity in his manner. \"I won't have the\r\nfences moved, or anything of that kind.\" \"Nothing shall be done, sir, that you don't approve. I'll just manage\r\nit all as if I was acting as your own--bailiff.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Son,\" he was going\r\nto say, but he remembered the fate of his cousin Charles just in time\r\nto prevent the use of the painful word. \"I don't want to have anything done,\" said Mr. Amedroz. \"Then nothing shall be done. We'll just mend a fence or two, to keep\r\nin the cattle, and leave other things as they are. But perhaps Clara\r\nwill walk out with me all the same.\" Clara was quite ready to walk out, and had already tied on her hat\r\nand taken her parasol. \"Your father is a little nervous,\" said he, as soon as they were\r\nbeyond hearing of the house. \"Can you wonder at it, when you remember all that he has suffered?\" \"I don't wonder at it in the least; and I don't wonder at his\r\ndisliking me either.\" \"I don't think he dislikes you, Mr. Belton.\" \"Oh, but he does. Of course he does. I'm the heir to the place\r\ninstead of you. It is natural that he should dislike me. But I'll\r\nlive it down. You see if I don't. I'll make him so fond of me, he'll\r\nalways want to have me here. I don't mind a little dislike to begin\r\nwith.\" \"You're a wonderful man, Mr. Belton.\" \"I wish you wouldn't call me Mr. Belton. But of course you must do\r\nas you please about that. If I can make him call me Will, I suppose\r\nyou'll call me so too.\" \"Oh, yes; then I will.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It don't much matter what a person is called; does it? Only one\r\nlikes to be friendly with one's friends. I suppose you don't like my\r\ncalling you Clara.\" \"Now you've begun you had better go on.\" \"I mean to. I make it a rule never to go back in the world. Your\r\nfather is half sorry that he has agreed about the place; but I shan't\r\nlet him off now. And I'll tell you what. In spite of what he says,\r\nI'll have it as different as possible before this time next year. Why, there's lots of timber that ought to come out of the plantation;\r\nand there's places where the roots want stubbing up horribly. These\r\nthings always pay for themselves if they are properly done. Any good\r\ndone in the world always pays.\" Clara often remembered those words\r\nafterwards when she was thinking of her cousin's character. Any good\r\ndone in the world always pays! \"But you mustn't offend my father, even though it should do good,\"\r\nshe said. \"I understand,\" he answered. \"I won't tread on his toes. Where do you\r\nget your milk and butter?\" \"We buy them.\" \"From Stovey, I suppose.\" \"Yes; from Mr. Stovey. It goes against the rent.\" \"And it ought to go against the grain too,--living in the country and\r\npaying for milk! I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you a cow. It shall be a little present from me to you.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "He said nothing of\r\nthe more important present which this would entail upon him in the\r\nmatter of the grass for the cow; but she understood the nature of the\r\narrangement, and was anxious to prevent it. \"Oh, Mr. Belton, I think we'd better not attempt that,\" she said. \"But we will attempt it. I've pledged myself to do nothing to oppose\r\nyour father; but I've made no such promise as to you. We'll have a\r\ncow before I'm many days older. What a pretty place this is! I do\r\nlike these rocks so much, and it is such a comfort to be off the\r\nflat.\" \"It is pretty.\" \"Very pretty. You've no conception what an ugly place Plaistow is. The land isn't actual fen now, but it was once. And it's quite flat. And there is a great dike, twenty feet wide, oozing through it,--just\r\noozing, you know; and lots of little dikes, at right angles with the\r\nbig one. And the fields are all square. And there are no hedges,--and\r\nhardly a tree to be seen in the place.\" \"What a picture you have drawn! I should commit suicide if I lived\r\nthere.\" \"Not if you had so much to do as I have.\" \"And what is the house like?\" \"The house is good enough,--an old-fashioned manor-house, with high\r\nbrick chimneys, and brick gables, tiled all over, and large square\r\nwindows set in stone. The house is good enough, only it stands in the\r\nmiddle of a farm-yard."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I said there were no trees, but there is an\r\navenue.\" \"Come, that's something.\" \"It was an old family seat, and they used to have avenues in those\r\ndays; but it doesn't lead up to the present hall door. It comes\r\nsideways up to the farm-yard; so that the whole thing must have\r\nbeen different once, and there must have been a great court-yard. In Elizabeth's time Plaistow Manor was rather a swell place, and\r\nbelonged to some Roman Catholics who came to grief, and then the\r\nHowards got it. There's a whole history about it, only I don't much\r\ncare about those things.\" \"And is it yours now?\" \"It's between me and my uncle, and I pay him rent for his part. He's\r\na clergyman you know, and he has a living in Lincolnshire,--not far\r\noff.\" \"And do you live alone in that big house?\" \"There's my sister. You've heard of Mary;--haven't you?\" Then Clara remembered that there was a Miss Belton,--a poor sickly\r\ncreature, with a twisted spine and a hump back, as to whose welfare\r\nshe ought to have made inquiries. \"Oh, yes; of course,\" said Clara. \"I hope she's better than she used\r\nto be,--when we heard of her.\" \"She'll never be better. But then she does not become much worse. I think she does grow a little weaker. She's older than I am, you\r\nknow,--two years older; but you would think she was quite an old\r\nwoman to look at her.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then, for the next half-hour, they talked\r\nabout Mary Belton as they visited every corner of the place. Belton\r\nstill had an eye to business as he went on talking, and Clara\r\nremarked how many sticks he moved as he went, how many stones he\r\nkicked on one side, and how invariably he noted any defect in the\r\nfences. But still he talked of his sister, swearing that she was as\r\ngood as gold, and at last wiping away the tears from his eyes as he\r\ndescribed her maladies. \"And yet I believe she is better off than any\r\nof us,\" he said, \"because she is so good.\" Clara began to wish that\r\nshe had called him Will from the beginning, because she liked him\r\nso much. He was just the man to have for a cousin,--a true loving\r\ncousin, stalwart, self-confident, with a grain or two of tyranny in\r\nhis composition as becomes a man in relation to his intimate female\r\nrelatives; and one, moreover, with whom she could trust herself to\r\nbe familiar without any danger of love-making! She saw his character\r\nclearly, and told herself that she understood it perfectly. He was a\r\njewel of a cousin, and she must begin to call him Will as speedily as\r\npossible. At last they came round in their walk to the gate leading into\r\nColonel Askerton's garden; and here in the garden, close to the gate,\r\nthey found Mrs. Askerton."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I fancy that she had been watching for\r\nthem, or at any rate watching for Clara, so that she might know how\r\nher friend was carrying herself with her cousin. She came at once to\r\nthe wicket, and there she was introduced by Clara to Mr. Belton. Mr.\r\nBelton as he made his bow muttered something awkwardly, and seemed\r\nto lose his self-possession for the moment. Mrs. Askerton was very\r\ngracious to him, and she knew well how to be both gracious and\r\nungracious. She talked about the scenery, and the charms of the\r\nold place, and the dullness of the people around them, and the\r\ninexpediency of looking for society in country places; till after\r\nawhile Mr. Belton was once more at his ease. \"How is Colonel Askerton?\" asked Clara. \"He's in-doors. Will you come and see him? He's reading a French\r\nnovel, as usual. It's the only thing he ever does in summer. Do you\r\never read French novels, Mr. Belton?\" \"I read very little at all, and when I do I read English.\" \"Ah, you're a man who has a pursuit in life, no doubt.\" \"I should rather think so,--that is, if you mean, by a pursuit,\r\nearning my bread. A man has not much time for French novels with a\r\nthousand acres of land on his hands; even if he knew how to read\r\nFrench, which I don't.\" \"But you're not always at work on your farm?\" \"It's pretty constant, Mrs. Askerton."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then I shoot, and hunt.\" \"You're a sportsman?\" \"All men living in the country are,--more or less.\" \"Colonel Askerton shoots a great deal. He has the shooting of Belton,\r\nyou know. He'll be delighted, I'm sure, to see you if you are here\r\nsome time in September. But you, coming from Norfolk, would not care\r\nfor partridge-shooting in Somersetshire.\" \"I don't see why it shouldn't be as good here as there.\" \"Colonel Askerton thinks he has got a fair head of game upon the\r\nplace.\" \"I dare say. Game is easily kept if people knew how to set about it.\" \"Colonel Askerton has a very good keeper, and has gone to a great\r\ndeal of expense since he has been here.\" \"I'm my own head-keeper,\" said Belton; \"and so I will be,--or rather\r\nshould be, if I had this place.\" Something in the lady's tone had grated against his feelings and\r\noffended him; or perhaps he thought that she assumed too many of the\r\nairs of proprietorship because the shooting of the place had been let\r\nto her husband for thirty pounds a-year. \"I hope you don't mean to say you'll turn us out,\" said Mrs.\r\nAskerton, laughing. \"I have no power to turn anybody out or in,\" said he. \"I've got\r\nnothing to do with it.\" Clara, perceiving that matters were not going quite pleasantly\r\nbetween her old and new friend, thought it best to take her\r\ndeparture."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Belton, as he went, lifted his hat from his head, and\r\nClara could not keep herself from thinking that he was not only very\r\nhandsome, but that he looked very much like a gentleman, in spite of\r\nhis occupation as a farmer. \"By-bye, Clara,\" said Mrs. Askerton; \"come down and see me to-morrow,\r\nthere's a dear. Don't forget what a dull life I have of it.\" Clara\r\nsaid that she would come. \"And I shall be so happy to see Mr. Belton\r\nif he will call before he leaves you.\" At this Belton again raised\r\nhis hat from his head, and muttered some word or two of civility. But\r\nthis, his latter muttering, was different from the first, for he had\r\naltogether regained his presence of mind. \"You didn't seem to get on very well with my friend,\" said Clara,\r\nlaughing, as soon as they had turned away from the cottage. \"Well, no;--that is to say, not particularly well or particularly\r\nbadly. At first I took her for somebody else I knew slightly ever so\r\nlong ago, and I was thinking of that other person at the time.\" \"And what was the other person's name?\" \"I can't even remember that at the present moment.\" \"Mrs. Askerton was a Miss Oliphant.\" \"That wasn't the other lady's name. But, independently of that, they\r\ncan't be the same. The other lady married a Mr. Berdmore.\" \"A Mr. Berdmore!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara as she repeated the name felt convinced that\r\nshe had heard it before, and that she had heard it in connection\r\nwith Mrs. Askerton. She certainly had heard the name of Berdmore\r\npronounced, or had seen it written, or had in some shape come across\r\nthe name in Mrs. Askerton's presence; or at any rate somewhere on\r\nthe premises occupied by that lady. More than this she could not\r\nremember; but the name, as she had now heard it from her cousin,\r\nbecame at once distinctly connected in her memory with her friends at\r\nthe cottage. \"Yes,\" said Belton; \"a Mr. Berdmore. I knew more of him than of her,\r\nthough for the matter of that, I knew very little of him either. She\r\nwas a fast-going girl, and his friends were very sorry. But I think\r\nthey are both dead or divorced, or that they have come to grief in\r\nsome way.\" \"And is Mrs. Askerton like the fast-going lady?\" \"In a certain way. Not that I remember what the fast-going lady was\r\nlike; but there was something about this woman that put me in mind of\r\nthe other. Vigo was her name; now I recollect it,--a Miss Vigo. It's\r\nnine or ten years ago now, and I was little more than a boy.\" \"Her name was Oliphant.\" \"I don't suppose they have anything to do with each other. What riled\r\nme was the way she talked of the shooting. People do when they take\r\na little shooting."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They pay some trumpery thirty or forty pounds a\r\nyear, and then they seem to think that it's almost the same as though\r\nthey owned the property themselves. I've known a man talk of his\r\nmanor because he had the shooting of a wood and a small farm round\r\nit. They are generally shopkeepers out of London, gin distillers, or\r\nbrewers, or people like that.\" \"Why, Mr. Belton, I didn't think you could be so furious!\" \"Can't I? When my back's up, it is up! But it isn't up yet.\" \"And I hope it won't be up while you remain in Somersetshire.\" \"I won't answer for that. There's Stovey's empty cart standing\r\njust where it stood yesterday; and he promised he'd have it home\r\nbefore three to-day. My back will be up with him if he doesn't mind\r\nhimself.\" It was nearly six o'clock when they got back to the house, and Clara\r\nwas surprised to find that she had been out three hours with her\r\ncousin. Certainly it had been very pleasant. The usual companion\r\nof her walks, when she had a companion, was Mrs. Askerton; but Mrs.\r\nAskerton did not like real walking. She would creep about the grounds\r\nfor an hour or so, and even such companionship as that was better to\r\nClara than absolute solitude; but now she had been carried about the\r\nplace, getting over stiles and through gates, and wandering through\r\nthe copses, till she was tired and hungry, and excited and happy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, papa,\" she said, \"we have had such a walk!\" \"I thought we were to have dined at five,\" he replied, in a low\r\nwailing voice. \"No, papa, indeed,--indeed you said six.\" \"That was for yesterday.\" \"You said we were to make it six while Mr. Belton was here.\" \"Very well;--if it must be, I suppose it must be.\" \"You don't mean on my account,\" said Will. \"I'll undertake to eat\r\nmy dinner, sir, at any hour that you'll undertake to give it me. If\r\nthere's a strong point about me at all, it is my appetite.\" Clara, when she went to her father's room that evening, told him what\r\nMr. Belton had said about the shooting, knowing that her father's\r\nfeelings would agree with those which had been expressed by her\r\ncousin. Mr. Amedroz of course made this an occasion for further\r\ngrumbling, suggesting that Belton wanted to get the shooting for\r\nhimself as he had got the farm. But, nevertheless, the effect which\r\nClara had intended was produced, and before she left him he had\r\nabsolutely proposed that the shooting and the land should go\r\ntogether. \"I'm sure that Mr. Belton doesn't mean that at all,\" said Clara. \"I don't care what he means,\" said the squire. \"And it wouldn't do to treat Colonel Askerton in that way,\" said\r\nClara. \"I shall treat him just as I like,\" said the squire. CHAPTER IV. SAFE AGAINST LOVE-MAKING. A dear cousin, and safe against love-making!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "This was Clara's verdict\r\nrespecting Will Belton, as she lay thinking of him in bed that night. Why that warranty against love-making should be a virtue in her eyes\r\nI cannot, perhaps, explain. But all young ladies are apt to talk\r\nto themselves in such phrases about gentlemen with whom they are\r\nthrown into chance intimacy;--as though love-making were in itself\r\na thing injurious and antagonistic to happiness, instead of being,\r\nas it is, the very salt of life. Safe against love-making! And yet\r\nMrs. Askerton, her friend, had spoken of the probability of such\r\nlove-making as being the great advantage of his coming. And there\r\ncould not be a second opinion as to the expediency of a match between\r\nher and her cousin in a worldly point of view. Clara, moreover,\r\nhad already perceived that he was a man fit to guide a wife, very\r\ngood-humoured,--and good-tempered also, anxious to give pleasure to\r\nothers, a man of energy and forethought, who would be sure to do well\r\nin the world and hold his head always high among his fellows;--as\r\ngood a husband as a girl could have. Nevertheless, she congratulated\r\nherself in that she felt satisfied that he was safe against\r\nlove-making! Might it be possible that that pressing of hands at\r\nTaunton had been so tender, and those last words spoken with Captain\r\nAylmer so soft, that on his account she felt delighted to think that\r\nher cousin was warranted not to make love?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And what did Will Belton think about his cousin, insured as he was\r\nthus supposed to be against the dangers of love? He, also, lay awake\r\nfor awhile that night, thinking over this new friendship. Or rather\r\nhe thought of it walking about his room, and looking out at the\r\nbright harvest moon;--for with him to be in bed was to be asleep. He sat himself down, and he walked about, and he leaned out of the\r\nwindow into the cool night air; and he made some comparisons in his\r\nmind, and certain calculations; and he thought of his present home,\r\nand of his sister, and of his future prospects as they were concerned\r\nwith the old place at which he was now staying; and he portrayed to\r\nhimself, in his mind, Clara's head and face and figure and feet;--and\r\nhe resolved that she should be his wife. He had never seen a girl who\r\nseemed to suit him so well. Though he had only been with her for a\r\nday, he swore to himself that he knew he could love her. Nay;--he\r\nswore to himself that he did love her. Then,--when he had quite made\r\nup his mind, he tumbled into his bed and was asleep in five minutes. Miss Amedroz was a handsome young woman, tall, well-made, active, and\r\nfull of health. She carried herself as though she thought her limbs\r\nwere made for use, and not simply for ease upon a sofa."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her head and\r\nneck stood well upon her shoulders, and her waist showed none of\r\nthose waspish proportions of which ladies used to be more proud than\r\nI believe them to be now, in their more advanced state of knowledge\r\nand taste. There was much about her in which she was like her cousin,\r\nas though the blood they had in common between them had given to both\r\nthe same proportions and the same comeliness. Her hair was of a dark\r\nbrown colour, as was his. Her eyes were somewhat darker than his,\r\nand perhaps not so full of constant movement; but they were equally\r\nbright, and possessed that quick power of expressing tenderness which\r\nbelonged to them. Her nose was more finely cut, as was also her chin,\r\nand the oval of her face; but she had the same large expressive\r\nmouth, and the same perfection of ivory-white teeth. As has been said\r\nbefore, Clara Amedroz, who was now nearly twenty-six years of age,\r\nwas not a young-looking young woman. To the eyes of many men that\r\nwould have been her fault; but in the eyes of Belton it was no fault. He had not made himself fastidious as to women by much consort with\r\nthem, and he was disposed to think that she who was to become his\r\nwife had better be something more than a girl not long since taken\r\nout of the nursery."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was well to do in the world, and could\r\nsend his wife out in her carriage, with all becoming bravery of\r\nappurtenances. And he would do so, too, when he should have a wife. But still he would look to his wife to be a useful partner to him. She should be a woman not above agricultural solicitude, or too proud\r\nto have a care for her cows. Clara, he was sure, had no false pride;\r\nand yet,--as he was sure also, she was at every point such a lady as\r\nwould do honour to the carriage and the bravery when it should be\r\nforthcoming. And then such a marriage as this would put an end to all\r\nthe trouble which he felt in reference to the entail on the estate. He knew that he was to be master of Belton, and of course had,\r\nin that knowledge, the satisfaction which men do feel from the\r\nconsciousness of their future prosperity. And this with him was\r\nenhanced by a strong sympathy with old-fashioned prejudices as to\r\nfamily. He would be Belton of Belton; and there had been Beltons of\r\nBelton in old days, for a longer time backwards than he was able to\r\ncount. But still the prospect had not been without its alloy, and he\r\nhad felt real distress at the idea of turning his cousin out of her\r\nfather's house. Such a marriage as that he now contemplated would put\r\nall these things right."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When he got up in the morning he was quite as keen about it as he had\r\nbeen on the previous evening;--and as he thought about it the more,\r\nhe became keener and still more keen. On the previous evening, as he\r\nwas leaning out of the window endeavouring to settle in his own mind\r\nwhat would be the proper conduct of the romance of the thing, he had\r\nconsidered that he had better not make his proposal quite at once. He was to remain eight days at Belton, and as eight days was not a\r\nlong period of acquaintance, he had reflected that it might be well\r\nfor him to lay what foundation for love it might be in his power to\r\nconstruct during his present sojourn, and then return and complete\r\nthe work before Christmas. But as he was shaving himself, the\r\nhabitual impatience of his nature predominated, and he became\r\ndisposed to think that delay would be useless, and might perhaps be\r\ndangerous. It might be possible that Clara would be unable to give\r\nhim a decisive answer so quickly as to enable him to return home an\r\naccepted lover; but if such doubt were left, such doubt would give\r\nhim an excuse for a speedy return to Belton. He did not omit to tell\r\nhimself that very probably he might not succeed at all. He was a man\r\nnot at all apt to feel assurance that he could carry all before him\r\nin love."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But in this matter, as in all others which required from him\r\nany personal effort, he prepared himself to do his best, leaving the\r\nconsequences to follow as they might. When he threw his seed corn\r\ninto the earth with all such due appliances of agricultural skill and\r\nindustry as his capital and experience enabled him to use, he did his\r\npart towards the production of next year's crop; and after that he\r\nmust leave it to a higher Power to give to him, or to withhold from\r\nhim, the reward of his labour. He had found that, as a rule, the\r\nreward had been given when the labour had been honest; and he was now\r\nprepared to follow the same plan, with the same hopes, in this matter\r\nof his love-making. After much consideration,--very much consideration, a consideration\r\nwhich took him the whole time that he was brushing his hair and\r\nwashing his teeth,--he resolved that he would, in the first instance,\r\nspeak to Mr. Amedroz. Not that he intended that the father should win\r\nthe daughter for him. He had an idea that he would like to do that\r\nwork for himself. But he thought that the old squire would be better\r\npleased if his consent were asked in the first instance. The present\r\nday was Sunday, and he would not speak on the subject till Monday. This day he would devote to the work of securing his future\r\nfather-in-law's good opinion; to that,--and to his prayers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And he had gained very much upon Mr. Amedroz before the evening\r\nof the day was over. He was a man before whom difficulties seemed\r\nto yield, and who had his own way simply because he had become\r\naccustomed to ask for it,--to ask for it and to work for it. He had\r\nso softened the squire's tone of thought towards him, that the future\r\nstocking of the land was spoken of between them with something like\r\nenergy on both sides; and Mr. Amedroz had given his consent, without\r\nany difficulty, to the building of a shed for winter stall-feeding. Clara sat by listening, and perceived that Will Belton would soon be\r\nallowed to do just what he pleased with the place. Her father talked\r\nas she had not heard him talk since her poor brother's death, and\r\nwas quite animated on the subject of woodcraft. \"We don't know much\r\nabout timber down where I am,\" said Will, \"just because we've got no\r\ntrees.\" \"I'll show you your way,\" said the old man. \"I've managed the timber\r\non the estate myself for the last forty years.\" Will Belton of course\r\ndid not say a word as to the gross mismanagement which had been\r\napparent even to him. What a cousin he was! Clara thought,--what a\r\nparagon among cousins! And then he was so manifestly safe against\r\nlove-making! So safe, that he only cared to talk about timber, and\r\noxen, and fences, and winter-forage!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But it was all just as it ought\r\nto be; and if her father did not call him Will before long, she\r\nherself would set the way by doing so first. A very paragon among\r\ncousins! \"What a flatterer you are,\" she said to him that night. \"A flatterer! I?\" \"Yes, you. You have flattered papa out of all his animosity already. I shall be jealous soon; for he'll think more of you than of me.\" \"I hope he'll come to think of us as being nearly equally near to\r\nhim,\" said Belton, with a tone that was half serious and half tender. Now that he had made up his mind, he could not keep his hand from the\r\nwork before him an instant. But Clara had also made up her mind, and\r\nwould not be made to think that her cousin could mean anything that\r\nwas more than cousinly. \"Upon my word,\" she said, laughing, \"that is very cool on your part.\" \"I came here determined to be friends with him at any rate.\" \"And you did so without any thought of me. But you said you would be\r\nmy brother, and I shall not forget your promise. Indeed, indeed, I\r\ncannot tell you how glad I am that you have come,--both for papa's\r\nsake and my own. You have done him so much good that I only dread to\r\nthink that you are going so soon.\" \"I'll be back before long."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I think nothing of running across here\r\nfrom Norfolk. You'll see enough of me before next summer.\" Soon after breakfast on the next morning he got Mr. Amedroz out into\r\nthe grounds, on the plea of showing him the proposed site for the\r\ncattle shed; but not a word was said about the shed on that occasion. He went to work at his other task at once, and when that was well on\r\nhand the squire was quite unfitted for the consideration of any less\r\nimportant matter, however able to discuss it Belton might have been\r\nhimself. \"I've got something particular that I want to say to you, sir,\"\r\nBelton began. Now Mr. Amedroz was of opinion that his cousin had been saying\r\nsomething very particular ever since his arrival, and was rather\r\nfrightened at this immediate prospect of a new subject. \"There's nothing wrong; is there?\" \"No, nothing wrong;--at least, I hope it's not wrong. Would not it be\r\na good plan, sir, if I were to marry my cousin Clara?\" What a terrible young man! Mr. Amedroz felt that his breath was so\r\ncompletely taken away from him that he was quite unable to speak a\r\nword of answer at the moment. Indeed, he was unable to move, and\r\nstood still, where he had been fixed by the cruel suddenness of the\r\nproposition made to him. \"Of course I know nothing of what she may think about it,\" continued\r\nBelton."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I thought it best to come to you before I spoke a word to\r\nher. And I know that in many ways she is above me. She is better\r\neducated, and reads more, and all that sort of thing. And it may be\r\nthat she'd rather marry a London man than a fellow who passes all\r\nhis time in the country. But she couldn't get one who would love her\r\nbetter or treat her more kindly. And then as to the property; you\r\nmust own it would be a good arrangement. You'd like to know it would\r\ngo to your own child and your own grandchild;--wouldn't you, sir? And\r\nI'm not badly off, without looking to this place at all, and could\r\ngive her everything she wants. But then I don't know that she'd care\r\nto marry a farmer.\" These last words he said in a melancholy tone, as\r\nthough aware that he was confessing his own disgrace. The squire had listened to it all, and had not as yet said a word. And now, when Belton ceased, he did not know what word to speak. He\r\nwas a man whose thoughts about women were chivalrous, and perhaps a\r\nlittle old-fashioned. Of course, when a man contemplates marriage,\r\nhe could do nothing better, nothing more honourable, than consult\r\nthe lady's father in the first instance. But he felt that even a\r\nfather should be addressed on such a subject with great delicacy. There should be ambages in such a matter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The man who resolved to\r\ncommit himself to such a task should come forward with apparent\r\ndifficulty,--with great diffidence, and even with actual difficulty. He should keep himself almost hidden, as behind a mask, and should\r\ntell of his own ambition with doubtful, quivering voice. And the\r\nambages should take time. He should approach the citadel to be taken\r\nwith covered ways,--working his way slowly and painfully. But this\r\nyoung man, before he had been in the house three days, said all\r\nthat he had to say without the slightest quaver in his voice, and\r\nevidently expected to get an answer about the squire's daughter as\r\nquickly as he had got it about the squire's land. \"You have surprised me very much,\" said the old man at last, drawing\r\nhis breath. \"I'm quite in earnest about it. Clara seems to me to be the very girl\r\nto make a good wife to such a one as I am. She's got everything that\r\na woman ought to have;--by George she has!\" \"She is a good girl, Mr. Belton.\" \"She is as good as gold, every inch of her.\" \"But you have not known her very long, Mr. Belton.\" \"Quite long enough for my purposes. You see I knew all about her\r\nbeforehand,--who she is, and where she comes from. There's a great\r\ndeal in that, you know.\" Mr. Amedroz shuddered at the expressions used."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was grievous to\r\nhim to hear his daughter spoken of as one respecting whom some one\r\nknew who she was and whence she came. Such knowledge respecting the\r\ndaughter of such a family was, as a matter of course, common to all\r\npolite persons. \"Yes,\" said Mr. Amedroz, stiffly: \"you know as much\r\nas that about her, certainly.\" \"And she knows as much about me. Now the question is, whether you\r\nhave any objection to make?\" \"Really, Mr. Belton, you have taken me so much by surprise that I do\r\nnot feel myself competent to answer you at once.\" \"Shall we say in an hour's time, sir?\" An hour's time! Mr. Amedroz,\r\nif he could have been left to his own guidance, would have thought a\r\nmonth very little for such a work. \"I suppose you would wish me to see Clara first,\" said Mr. Amedroz. \"Oh dear, no. I would much rather ask her myself;--if only I could\r\nget your consent to my doing so.\" \"And you have said nothing to her?\" \"Not a word.\" \"I am glad of that. You would have behaved badly, I think, had you\r\ndone so while staying under my roof.\" \"I thought it best, at any rate, to come to you first. But as I must\r\nbe back at Plaistow on this day week, I haven't much time to lose."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So\r\nif you could think about it this afternoon, you know--\"\r\n\r\nMr. Amedroz, much bewildered, promised that he would do his best, and\r\neventually did bring himself to give an answer on the next morning. \"I have been thinking about this all night,\" said Mr. Amedroz. \"I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you,\" said Belton, feeling rather\r\nashamed of his own remissness as he remembered how soundly he had\r\nhimself slept. \"If you are quite sure of yourself--\"\r\n\r\n\"Do you mean sure of loving her? I am as sure of that as anything.\" \"But men are so apt to change their fancies.\" \"I don't know much about my fancies; but I don't often change my\r\npurpose when I'm in earnest. In such a matter as this I couldn't\r\nchange. I'll say as much as that for myself, though it may seem\r\nbold.\" \"Of course, in regard to money such a marriage would be advantageous\r\nto my child. I don't know whether you know it, but I shall have\r\nnothing to give her--literally nothing.\" \"All the better, sir, as far as I am concerned. I'm not one who wants\r\nto be saved from working by a wife's fortune.\" \"But most men like to get something when they marry.\" \"I want to get nothing;--nothing, that is, in the way of money. If\r\nClara becomes my wife I'll never ask you for one shilling.\" \"I hope her aunt will do something for her.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "This the old man said in\r\na wailing voice, as though the expression of such a hope was grievous\r\nto him. \"If she becomes my wife, Mrs. Winterfield will be quite at liberty to\r\nleave her money elsewhere.\" There were old causes of dislike between\r\nMr. Belton and Mrs. Winterfield, and even now Mrs. Winterfield was\r\nalmost offended because Mr. Belton was staying at Belton Castle. \"But all that is quite uncertain,\" continued Mr. Amedroz. \"And I have your leave to speak to Clara myself?\" \"Well, Mr. Belton; yes; I think so. I do not see why you should not\r\nspeak to her. But I fear you are a little too precipitate. Clara has\r\nknown you so very short a time, that you can hardly have a right to\r\nhope that she should learn to regard you at once as you would have\r\nher do.\" As he heard this, Belton's face became long and melancholy. He had taught himself to think that he could dispense with that delay\r\ntill Christmas which he had at first proposed to himself, and that he\r\nmight walk into the arena at once, and perhaps win the battle in the\r\nfirst round. \"Three days is such a very short time,\" said the squire. \"It is short certainly,\" said Belton. The father's leave was however given, and armed with that, Belton was\r\nresolved that he would take, at any rate, some preliminary steps in\r\nlove-making before he returned to Plaistow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What would be the nature\r\nof the preliminary steps taken by such a one as him, the reader by\r\nthis time will probably be able to surmise. CHAPTER V.\r\n\r\nNOT SAFE AGAINST LOVE-MAKING. \"Why don't you call him Will?\" Clara said to her father. This\r\nquestion was asked on the evening of that Monday on which Mr. Amedroz\r\nhad given his consent as to the marriage proposal. \"Call him Will! Why should I?\" \"You used to do so, when he was a boy.\" \"Of course I did; but that is years ago. He would think it\r\nimpertinent now.\" \"Indeed he would not; he would like it. He has told me so. It sounds\r\nso cold to him to be called Mr. Belton by his relations.\" The father looked at his daughter as though for a moment he almost\r\nsuspected that matters had really been arranged between her and her\r\nfuture lover without his concurrence, and before his sanction had\r\nbeen obtained. But if for a moment such a thought did cross his mind,\r\nit did not dwell there. He trusted Belton; but as to his daughter, he\r\nknew that he might be sure of her. It would be impossible with her to\r\nkeep such a secret from him, even for half a day. And yet, how odd\r\nit was! Here was a man who in three days had fallen in love with his\r\ndaughter; and here was his daughter apparently quite as ready to be\r\nin love with the man."}
{"question": "", "answer": "How could she, who was ordinarily circumspect,\r\nand almost cold in her demeanour towards strangers--who was from\r\ncircumstances and from her own disposition altogether hostile to\r\nflirting intimacies--how could his Clara have changed her nature\r\nso speedily? The squire did not understand it, but was prepared to\r\nbelieve that it was all for the best. \"I'll call him Will, if you\r\nlike it,\" said he. \"Do, papa, and then I can do so also. He is such a good fellow, and\r\nI am so fond of him.\" On the next morning Mr. Amedroz did, with much awkwardness, call\r\nhis guest by his Christian name. Clara caught her cousin's eye and\r\nsmiled, and he also smiled. At that moment he was more in love than\r\never. Could anything be more charming than this? Immediately after\r\nbreakfast he was going over to Redicote, to see a builder in a small\r\nway who lived there, and whom he proposed to employ in putting up the\r\nshed for the cattle; but he almost begrudged the time, so anxious was\r\nhe to begin his suit. But his plan had been laid out and he would\r\nfollow it. \"I think I shall be back by three o'clock,\" he said to\r\nClara, \"and then we'll have our walk.\" \"I'll be ready; and you can call for me at Mrs. Askerton's. I must go\r\ndown there, and it will save you something in your walk to pick me up\r\nat the cottage.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And so the arrangements for the day were made. Clara had promised that she would soon call at the cottage, and was,\r\nindeed, rather anxious to see Mrs. Askerton on her own account. What\r\nshe had heard from her cousin as to a certain Miss Vigo of old days\r\nhad interested her, and also what she had heard of a certain Mr.\r\nBerdmore. It had been evident to her that her cousin had thought\r\nlittle about it. The likeness of the lady he then saw to the lady he\r\nhad before known, had at first struck him; but when he found that the\r\ntwo ladies were not represented by one and the same person, he was\r\nsatisfied, and there was an end of the matter for him. But it was\r\nnot so with Clara. Her feminine mind dwelt on the matter with more\r\nearnestness than he had cared to entertain, and her clearer intellect\r\nsaw possibilities which did not occur to him. But it was not till\r\nshe found herself walking across the park to the cottage that\r\nshe remembered that any inquiries as to her past life might be\r\ndisagreeable to Mrs. Askerton. She had thought of asking her friend\r\nplainly whether the names of Vigo and Berdmore had ever been familiar\r\nto her; but she reminded herself that there had been rumours afloat,\r\nand that there might be a mystery."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Askerton would sometimes talk\r\nof her early life; but she would do this with dreamy, indistinct\r\nlanguage, speaking of the sorrows of her girlhood, but not specifying\r\ntheir exact nature, seldom mentioning any names, and never referring\r\nwith clear personality to those who had been nearest to her when\r\nshe had been a child. Clara had seen her friend's maiden name, Mary\r\nOliphant, written in a book, and seeing it had alluded to it. On\r\nthat occasion Mrs. Askerton had spoken of herself as having been an\r\nOliphant, and thus Clara had come to know the fact. But now, as she\r\nmade her way to the cottage, she remembered that she had learned\r\nnothing more than this as to Mrs. Askerton's early life. Such being\r\nthe case, she hardly knew how to ask any question about the two names\r\nthat had been mentioned. And yet, why should she not ask such a\r\nquestion? Why should she doubt Mrs. Askerton? And if she did doubt,\r\nwhy should not her doubts be solved? She found Colonel Askerton and his wife together, and she certainly\r\nwould ask no such question in his presence. He was a slight built,\r\nwiry man, about fifty, with iron-grey hair and beard,--who seemed to\r\nhave no trouble in life, and to desire but few pleasures. Nothing\r\ncould be more regular than the course of his days, and nothing more\r\nidle."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He breakfasted at eleven, smoked and read till the afternoon,\r\nwhen he rode for an hour or two; then he dined, read again, smoked\r\nagain, and went to bed. In September and October he shot, and twice\r\nin the year, as has been before stated, went away to seek a little\r\nexcitement elsewhere. He seemed to be quite contented with his lot,\r\nand was never heard to speak an angry word to any one. Nobody cared\r\nfor him much; but then he troubled himself with no one's affairs. He\r\nnever went to church, and had not eaten or drank in any house but his\r\nown since he had come to Belton. \"Oh, Clara, you naughty girl,\" said Mrs. Askerton, \"why didn't you\r\ncome yesterday? I was expecting you all day.\" \"I was busy. Really, we've grown to be quite industrious people since\r\nmy cousin came.\" \"They tell me he's taking the land into his own hands,\" said the\r\nColonel. \"Yes, indeed; and he is going to build sheds, and buy cattle; and\r\nI don't know what he doesn't mean to do; so that we shall be alive\r\nagain.\" \"I hope he won't want my shooting.\" \"He has shooting of his own in Norfolk,\" said Clara. \"Then he'll hardly care to come here for that purpose. When I heard\r\nof his proceedings I began to be afraid.\" \"I don't think he would do anything to annoy you for the world,\" said\r\nClara, enthusiastically. \"He's the most unselfish person I ever met.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"He'd have a perfect right to take the shooting if he liked it,--that\r\nis always supposing that he and your father agreed about it.\" \"They agree about everything now. He has altogether disarmed papa's\r\nprejudices, and it seems to be recognised that he is to have his own\r\nway about the place. But I don't think he'll interfere about the\r\nshooting.\" \"He won't, my dear, if you ask him not,\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"I'll ask him in a moment if Colonel Askerton wishes it.\" \"Oh dear no,\" said he. \"It would be teaching the ostler to grease the\r\nhorse's teeth. Perhaps he hasn't thought of it.\" \"He thinks of everything,\" said Clara. \"I wonder whether he's thinking of--\" So far Mrs. Askerton spoke,\r\nand then she paused. Colonel Askerton looked up at Clara with an\r\nill-natured smile, and Clara felt that she blushed. Was it not cruel\r\nthat she could not say a word in favour of a friend and a cousin,--a\r\ncousin who had promised to be a brother to her, without being treated\r\nwith such words and such looks as these? But she was determined not\r\nto be put down. \"I'm quite sure of this,\" she said, \"that my cousin\r\nwould do nothing unfair or ungentlemanlike.\" \"There would be nothing unfair or ungentlemanlike in it. I shouldn't\r\ntake it amiss at all;--but I should simply take up my bed and walk. Pray tell him that I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing him\r\nbefore he goes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I did call yesterday, but he was out.\" \"He'll be here soon. He's to come here for me.\" But Colonel\r\nAskerton's horse was brought to the door, and he could not therefore\r\nwait to make Mr. Belton's acquaintance on that occasion. \"What a phoenix this cousin of yours is,\" said Mrs. Askerton, as\r\nsoon as her husband was gone. \"He is a splendid fellow;--he is indeed. There's so much life about\r\nhim! He's always doing something. He says that doing good will always\r\npay in the long run. Isn't that a fine doctrine?\" \"Quite a practical phoenix!\" \"It has done papa so much good! At this moment he's out somewhere,\r\nthinking of what is going on, instead of moping in the house. He\r\ncouldn't bear the idea of Will's coming, and now he is already\r\nbeginning to complain because he's going away.\" \"Will, indeed!\" \"And why not Will? He's my cousin.\" \"Yes;--ten times removed. But so much the better if he's to be\r\nanything more than a cousin.\" \"He is to be nothing more, Mrs. Askerton.\" \"You're quite sure of that?\" \"I am quite sure of it. And I cannot understand why there should be\r\nsuch a suspicion because he and I are thrown closely together, and\r\nare fond of each other. Whether he is a sixth, eighth, or tenth\r\ncousin makes no difference. He is the nearest I have on that side;\r\nand since my poor brother's death he is papa's heir."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is so natural\r\nthat he should be my friend;--and such a comfort that he should be\r\nsuch a friend as he is! I own it seems cruel to me that under such\r\ncircumstances there should be any suspicion.\" \"Suspicion, my dear;--suspicion of what?\" \"Not that I care for it. I am prepared to love him as if he\r\nwere my brother. I think him one of the finest creatures I ever\r\nknew,--perhaps the finest I ever did know. His energy and good-nature\r\ntogether are just the qualities to make the best kind of man. I am\r\nproud of him as my friend and my cousin, and now you may suspect what\r\nyou please.\" \"But, my dear, why should not he fall in love with you? It would be\r\nthe most proper, and also the most convenient thing in the world.\" \"I hate talking of falling in love;--as though a woman has nothing\r\nelse to think of whenever she sees a man.\" \"A woman has nothing else to think of.\" \"I have,--a great deal else. And so has he.\" \"It's quite out of the question on his part, then?\" \"Quite out of the question. I'm sure he likes me. I can see it in his\r\nface, and hear it in his voice, and am so happy that it is so. But it\r\nisn't in the way that you mean. Heaven knows that I may want a friend\r\nsome of these days, and I feel that I may trust to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His feelings\r\nto me will be always those of a brother.\" \"Perhaps so. I have seen that fraternal love before under similar\r\ncircumstances, and it has always ended in the same way.\" \"I hope it won't end in any way between us.\" \"But the joke is that this suspicion, as you call it,--which makes\r\nyou so indignant,--is simply a suggestion that a thing should happen\r\nwhich, of all things in the world, would be the best for both of\r\nyou.\" \"But the thing won't happen, and therefore let there be an end of it. I hate the twaddle talk of love, whether it's about myself or about\r\nany one else. It makes me feel ashamed of my sex, when I find that\r\nI cannot talk of myself to another woman without being supposed to\r\nbe either in love or thinking of love,--either looking for it or\r\navoiding it. When it comes, if it comes prosperously, it's a very\r\ngood thing. But I for one can do without it, and I feel myself\r\ninjured when such a state of things is presumed to be impossible.\" \"It is worth any one's while to irritate you, because your\r\nindignation is so beautiful.\" \"It is not beautiful to me; for I always feel ashamed afterwards of\r\nmy own energy. And now, if you please, we won't say anything more\r\nabout Mr. Will Belton.\" \"May I not talk about him, even as the enterprising cousin?\" \"Certainly; and in any other light you please."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Do you know he seemed\r\nto think that he had known you ever so many years ago.\" Clara, as\r\nshe said this, did not look direct at her friend's face; but still\r\nshe could perceive that Mrs. Askerton was disconcerted. There came a\r\nshade of paleness over her face, and a look of trouble on her brow,\r\nand for a moment or two she made no reply. \"Did he?\" she then said. \"And when was that?\" \"I suppose it was in London. But, after all, I believe it was not\r\nyou, but somebody whom he remembers to have been like you. He says\r\nthat the lady was a Miss Vigo.\" As she pronounced the name, Clara\r\nturned her face away, feeling instinctively that it would be kind to\r\ndo so. \"Miss Vigo!\" said Mrs. Askerton at once; and there was that in the\r\ntone of her voice which made Clara feel that all was not right with\r\nher. \"I remember that there were Miss Vigos; two of them, I think. I didn't know that they were like me especially.\" \"And he says that the one he remembers married a Mr. Berdmore.\" \"Married a Mr. Berdmore!\" The tone of voice was still the same, and\r\nthere was an evident struggle, as though the woman was making a\r\nvehement effort to speak in her natural voice. Then Clara looked at\r\nher, feeling that if she abstained from doing so, the very fact of\r\nher so abstaining would be remarkable."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was the look of pain on\r\nMrs. Askerton's brow, and her cheeks were still pale, but she smiled\r\nas she went on speaking. \"I'm sure I'm flattered, for I remember that\r\nthey were both considered beauties. Did he know anything more of\r\nher?\" \"No; nothing more.\" \"There must have been some casual likeness I suppose.\" Mrs. Askerton\r\nwas a clever woman, and had by this time almost recovered her\r\nself-possession. Then there came a ring at the front door, and in\r\nanother minute Mr. Belton was in the room. Mrs. Askerton felt that it\r\nwas imperative on her to make some allusion to the conversation which\r\nhad just taken place, and dashed at the subject at once. \"Clara tells\r\nme that I am exactly like some old friend of yours, Mr. Belton.\" Then he looked at her closely as he answered her. \"I have no right to\r\nsay that she was my friend, Mrs. Askerton,\" he said; \"indeed there\r\nwas hardly what might be called an acquaintance between us; but you\r\ncertainly are extremely like a certain Miss Vigo that I remember.\" \"I often wonder that one person isn't more often found to be like\r\nanother,\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"People often are like,\" said he; \"but not like in such a way as to\r\ngive rise to mistakes as to identity. Now, I should have stopped you\r\nin the street and called you Mrs. Berdmore.\" \"Didn't I once see or hear the name of Berdmore in this house?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "asked\r\nClara. Then that look of pain returned. Mrs. Askerton had succeeded in\r\nrecovering the usual tone of her countenance, but now she was once\r\nmore disturbed. \"I think I know the name,\" said she. \"I fancy that I have seen it in this house,\" said Clara. \"You may more likely have heard it, my dear. My memory is very poor,\r\nbut if I remember rightly, Colonel Askerton did know a Captain\r\nBerdmore,--a long while ago, before he was married; and you may\r\nprobably have heard him mention the name.\" This did not quite satisfy\r\nClara, but she said nothing more about it then. If there was a\r\nmystery which Mrs. Askerton did not wish to have explored, why should\r\nshe explore it? Soon after this Clara got up to go, and Mrs. Askerton, making another\r\nattempt to be cheerful, was almost successful. \"So you're going back\r\ninto Norfolk on Saturday, Clara tells me. You are making a very short\r\nvisit now that you're come among us.\" \"It is a long time for me to be away from home. Farmers can hardly\r\never dare to leave their work. But in spite of my farm, I am talking\r\nof coming here again about Christmas.\" \"But you are going to have a farming establishment here too?\" \"That will be nothing. Clara will look after that for me; will you\r\nnot?\" Then they went, and Belton had to consider how he would begin\r\nthe work before him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had some idea that too much precipitancy\r\nmight do him an injury, but he hardly knew how to commence without\r\ncoming to the point at once. When they were out together in the park,\r\nhe went back at first to the subject of Mrs. Askerton. \"I would almost have sworn they were one and the same woman,\" he\r\nsaid. \"But you see that they are not.\" \"It's not only the likeness, but the voice. It so chanced that I once\r\nsaw that Miss Vigo in some trouble. I happened to meet her in company\r\nwith a man who was,--who was tipsy, in fact, and I had to relieve\r\nher.\" \"Dear me,--how disagreeable!\" \"It's a long time ago, and there can't be any harm in mentioning it\r\nnow. It was the man she was going to marry, and whom she did marry.\" \"What;--the Mr. Berdmore?\" \"Yes; he was often in that way. And there was a look about Mrs.\r\nAskerton just now so like the look of that Miss Vigo then, that I\r\ncannot get rid of the idea.\" \"They can't be the same, as she was certainly a Miss Oliphant. And\r\nyou hear, too, what she says.\" \"Yes;--I heard what she said. You have known her long?\" \"These two years.\" \"And intimately?\" \"Very intimately. She is our only neighbour; and her being here has\r\ncertainly been a great comfort to me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is sad not having some woman\r\nnear one that one can speak to;--and then, I really do like her very\r\nmuch.\" \"No doubt it's all right.\" \"Yes; it's all right,\" said Clara. After that there was nothing more\r\nsaid about Mrs. Askerton, and Belton began his work. They had gone\r\nfrom the cottage, across the park, away from the house, up to a high\r\nrock which stood boldly out of the ground, from whence could be seen\r\nthe sea on one side, and on the other a far tract of country almost\r\naway to the moors. And when they reached this spot they seated\r\nthemselves. \"There,\" said Clara, \"I consider this to be the prettiest\r\nspot in England.\" \"I haven't seen all England,\" said Belton. \"Don't be so matter-of-fact, Will. I say it's the prettiest in\r\nEngland, and you can't contradict me.\" \"And I say you're the prettiest girl in England, and you can't\r\ncontradict me.\" This annoyed Clara, and almost made her feel that her paragon of a\r\ncousin was not quite so perfect as she had represented him to be. \"I\r\nsee,\" she said, \"that if I talk nonsense I'm to be punished.\" \"Is it a punishment to you to know that I think you very handsome?\" he said, turning round and looking full into her face. \"It is disagreeable to me--very, to have any such subject talked\r\nabout at all. What would you think if I began to pay you foolish\r\npersonal compliments?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"What I say isn't foolish; and there's a great difference. Clara,\r\nI love you better than all the world put together.\" She now looked at him; but still she did not believe it. It could\r\nnot be that after all her boastings she should have made so gross a\r\nblunder. \"I hope you do love me,\" she said; \"indeed, you are bound to\r\ndo so, for you promised that you would be my brother.\" \"But that will not satisfy me now, Clara. Clara, I want to be your\r\nhusband.\" \"Will!\" she exclaimed. \"Now you know it all; and if I have been too sudden, I must beg your\r\npardon.\" \"Oh, Will, forget that you have said this. Do not go on until\r\neverything must be over between us.\" \"Why should anything be over between us? Why should it be wrong in me\r\nto love you?\" \"What will papa say?\" \"Mr. Amedroz knows all about it already, and has given me his\r\nconsent. I asked him directly I had made up my own mind, and he told\r\nme that I might go to you.\" \"You have asked papa? Oh dear, oh dear, what am I to do?\" \"Am I so odious to you then?\" As he said this he got up from his seat\r\nand stood before her. He was a tall, well-built, handsome man, and he\r\ncould assume a look and mien that were almost noble when he was moved\r\nas he was moved now. \"Odious!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Do you not know that I have loved you as my cousin--that\r\nI have already learned to trust you as though you were really my\r\nbrother? But this breaks it all.\" \"You cannot love me then as my wife?\" \"No.\" She pronounced the monosyllable alone, and then he walked away\r\nfrom her as though that one little word settled the question for him,\r\nnow and for ever. He walked away from her, perhaps a distance of two\r\nhundred yards, as though the interview was over, and he were leaving\r\nher. She, as she saw him go, wished that he would return that she\r\nmight say some word of comfort to him. Not that she could have said\r\nthe only word that would have comforted him. At the first blush of\r\nthe thing, at the first sound of the address which he had made to\r\nher, she had been angry with him. He had disappointed her, and she\r\nwas indignant. But her anger had already melted and turned itself to\r\nruth. She could not but love him better, in that he had loved her so\r\nwell; but yet she could not love him with the love which he desired. But he did not leave her. When he had gone from her down the hill\r\nthe distance that has been named, he turned back, and came up to her\r\nslowly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had a trick of standing and walking with his thumbs fixed\r\ninto the armholes of his waistcoat, while his large hands rested on\r\nhis breast. He would always assume this attitude when he was assured\r\nthat he was right in his views, and was eager to carry some point\r\nat issue. Clara already understood that this attitude signified his\r\nintention to be autocratic. He now came close up to her, and again\r\nstood over her, before he spoke. \"My dear,\" he said, \"I have been\r\nrough and hasty in what I have said to you, and I have to ask you to\r\npardon my want of manners.\" \"No, no, no,\" she exclaimed. \"But in a matter of so much interest to us both you will not let an\r\nawkward manner prejudice me.\" \"It is not that; indeed, it is not.\" \"Listen to me, dearest. It is true that I promised to be your\r\nbrother, and I will not break my word unless I break it by your own\r\nsanction. I did promise to be your brother, but I did not know then\r\nhow fondly I should come to love you. Your father, when I told him of\r\nthis, bade me not to be hasty; but I am hasty, and I haven't known\r\nhow to wait. Tell me that I may come at Christmas for my answer,\r\nand I will not say a word to trouble you till then. I will be your\r\nbrother, at any rate till Christmas.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Be my brother always.\" A black cloud crossed his brow as this request reached his ears. She was looking anxiously into his face, watching every turn in\r\nthe expression of his countenance. \"Will you not let it wait till\r\nChristmas?\" he asked. She thought it would be cruel to refuse this request, and yet she\r\nknew that no such waiting could be of service to him. He had been\r\nawkward in his love-making, and was aware of it. He should have\r\ncontrived this period of waiting for himself; giving her no option\r\nbut to wait and think of it. He should have made no proposal, but\r\nhave left her certain that such proposal was coming. In such case she\r\nmust have waited--and if good could have come to him from that, he\r\nmight have received it. But, as the question was now presented to\r\nher, it was impossible that she should consent to wait. To have given\r\nsuch consent would have been tantamount to receiving him as her\r\nlover. She was therefore forced to be cruel. \"It will be of no avail to postpone my answer when I know what it\r\nmust be. Why should there be suspense?\" \"You mean that it is impossible that you should love me?\" \"Not in that way, Will.\" \"And why not?\" Then there was a pause. \"But I am a fool to ask such a\r\nquestion as that, and I should be worse than a fool were I to press\r\nit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It must then be considered as settled?\" She got up and clung to his arm. \"Oh, Will, do not look at me like\r\nthat!\" \"It must then be considered as settled?\" he repeated. \"Yes, Will, yes. Pray consider it as settled.\" He then sat down on\r\nthe rock again, and she came and sat by him,--near to him, but not\r\nclose as she had been before. She turned her eyes upon him, gazing on\r\nhim, but did not speak to him; and he sat also without speaking for a\r\nwhile, with his eyes fixed upon the ground. \"I suppose we may go back\r\nto the house?\" he said at last. \"Give me your hand, Will, and tell me that you will still love me--as\r\nyour sister.\" He gave her his hand. \"If you ever want a brother's care you shall\r\nhave it from me,\" he said. \"But not a brother's love?\" \"No. How can the two go together? I shan't cease to love you because\r\nmy love is in vain. Instead of making me happy it will make me\r\nwretched. That will be the only difference.\" \"I would give my life to make you happy, if that were possible.\" \"You will not give me your life in the way that I would have it.\" After that they walked in silence back to the house, and when he had\r\nopened the front door for her, he parted from her and stood alone\r\nunder the porch, thinking of his misfortune. CHAPTER VI."}
{"question": "", "answer": "SAFE AGAINST LOVE-MAKING ONCE AGAIN. For a considerable time Belton stood under the porch of the house,\r\nthinking of what had happened to him, and endeavouring to steady\r\nhimself under the blow which he had received. I do not know that he\r\nhad been sanguine of success. Probably he had made to himself no\r\nassurances on the subject. But he was a man to whom failure, of\r\nitself, was intolerable. In any other event of life he would have\r\ntold himself that he would not fail--that he would persevere and\r\nconquer. He could imagine no other position as to which he could at\r\nonce have been assured of failure, in any project on which he had set\r\nhis heart. But as to this project it was so. He had been told that\r\nshe could not love him--that she could never love him;--and he had\r\nbelieved her. He had made his attempt and had failed; and, as he\r\nthought of this, standing under the porch, he became convinced that\r\nlife for him was altogether changed, and that he who had been so\r\nhappy must now be a wretched man. He was still standing there when Mr. Amedroz came down into the\r\nhall, dressed for dinner, and saw his figure through the open doors. \"Will,\" he said, coming up to him, \"it only wants five minutes to\r\ndinner.\" Belton started and shook himself, as though he were shaking\r\noff a lethargy, and declared that he was quite ready."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then he\r\nremembered that he would be expected to dress, and rushed up-stairs,\r\nthree steps at a time, to his own room. When he came down, Clara and\r\nher father were already in the dining-room, and he joined them there. Mr. Amedroz, though he was not very quick in reading facts from the\r\nmanners of those with whom he lived, had felt assured that things had\r\ngone wrong between Belton and his daughter. He had not as yet had a\r\nminute in which to speak to Clara, but he was certain that it was so. Indeed, it was impossible not to read terrible disappointment and\r\ndeep grief in the young man's manner. He made no attempt to conceal\r\nit, though he did not speak of it. Through the whole evening, though\r\nhe was alone for a while with the squire, and alone also for a time\r\nwith Clara, he never mentioned or alluded to the subject of his\r\nrejection. But he bore himself as though he knew and they knew--as\r\nthough all the world knew that he had been rejected. And yet he did\r\nnot remain silent. He talked of his property and of his plans, and\r\nexplained how things were to be done in his absence. Once only was\r\nthere something like an allusion made to his sorrow. \"But you will be\r\nhere at Christmas?\" said Mr. Amedroz, in answer to something which\r\nBelton had said as to work to be done in his absence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I do not know\r\nhow that may be now,\" said Belton. And then they had all been silent. It was a terrible evening to Clara. She endeavoured to talk, but\r\nfound it to be impossible. All the brightness of the last few days\r\nhad disappeared, and the world seemed to her to be more sad and\r\nsolemn than ever. She had no idea when she was refusing him that he\r\nwould have taken it to heart as he had done. The question had come\r\nbefore her for decision so suddenly, that she had not, in fact, had\r\ntime to think of this as she was making her answer. All she had done\r\nwas to feel that she could not be to him what he wished her to be. And even as yet she had hardly asked herself why she must be so\r\nsteadfast in her refusal. But she had refused him steadfastly, and\r\nshe did not for a moment think of reducing the earnestness of her\r\nresolution. It seemed to be manifest to her, from his present manner,\r\nthat he would never ask the question again; but she was sure, let it\r\nbe asked ever so often, that it could not be answered in any other\r\nway. Mr. Amedroz, not knowing why it was so, became cross and querulous,\r\nand scolded his daughter. To Belton, also, he was captious, making\r\nlittle difficulties, and answering him with petulance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This the\r\nrejected lover took with most extreme patience, as though such a\r\ntrifling annoyance had no effect in adding anything to his misery. He\r\nstill held his purpose of going on the Saturday, and was still intent\r\non work which was to be done before he went; but it seemed that he\r\nwas satisfied to do everything now as a duty, and that the enjoyment\r\nof the thing, which had heretofore been so conspicuous, was over. At last they separated, and Clara, as was her wont, went up to her\r\nfather's room. \"Papa,\" she said, \"what is all this about Mr. Belton?\" \"All what, my dear? what do you mean?\" \"He has asked me to be,--to be his wife; and has told me that he came\r\nwith your consent.\" \"And why shouldn't he have my consent? What is there amiss with him? Why shouldn't you marry him if he likes you? You seemed, I thought,\r\nto be very fond of him.\" This surprised Clara more than anything. She could hardly have told\r\nherself why, but she would have thought that such a proposition\r\nfrom her cousin would have made her father angry,--unreasonably\r\nangry;--angry with him for presuming to have such an idea; but now it\r\nseemed that he was going to be angry with her for not accepting her\r\ncousin out of hand. \"Yes, papa; I am fond of him; but not like that. I did not expect\r\nthat he would think of me in that way.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But why shouldn't he think of you? It would be a very good marriage\r\nfor you, as far as money is concerned.\" \"You would not have me marry any one for that reason;--would you,\r\npapa?\" \"But you seemed to like him. Well; of course I can't make you like\r\nhim. I meant to do for the best; and when he came to me as he did,\r\nI thought he was behaving very handsomely, and very much like a\r\ngentleman.\" \"I am sure he would do that.\" \"And if I could have thought that this place would be your home when\r\nI am gone, it would have made me very happy;--very happy.\" She now came and stood close to him and took his hand. \"I hope, papa,\r\nyou do not make yourself uneasy about me. I shall do very well. I'm\r\nsure you can't want me to go away and leave you.\" \"How will you do very well? I'm sure I don't know. And if your aunt\r\nWinterfield means to provide for you, it would only be kind in her\r\nto let me know it, so that I might not have the anxiety always on my\r\nmind.\" Clara knew well enough what was to be the disposition of her aunt's\r\nproperty, but she could not tell her father of that now. She almost\r\nfelt that it was her duty to do so, but she could not bring herself\r\nto do it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She could only beg him not to be anxious on her behalf,\r\nmaking vague assurances that she would do very well. \"And you are\r\ndetermined not to change your mind about Will?\" he said at last. \"I shall not change my mind about that, papa, certainly,\" she\r\nanswered. Then he turned away from her, and she saw that he was\r\ndispleased. When alone, she was forced to ask herself why it was that she was so\r\ncertain. Alas! there could in truth be no doubt on that subject in\r\nher own mind. When she sat down, resolved to give herself an answer,\r\nthere was no doubt. She could not love her cousin, Will Belton,\r\nbecause her heart belonged to Captain Aylmer. But she knew that she had received nothing in exchange for her heart. He had been kind to her on that journey to Taunton, when the agony\r\narising from her brother's death had almost crushed her. He had\r\noften been kind to her on days before that,--so kind, so soft in\r\nhis manners, approaching so nearly to the little tendernesses of\r\nincipient love-making, that the idea of regarding him as her lover\r\nhad of necessity forced itself upon her. But in nothing had he gone\r\nbeyond those tendernesses, which need not imperatively be made\r\nto mean anything, though they do often mean so much."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was now\r\ntwo years since she had first thought that Captain Aylmer was\r\nthe most perfect gentleman she knew, and nearly two years since\r\nMrs. Winterfield had expressed to her a hope that Captain Aylmer\r\nmight become her husband. She had replied that such a thing was\r\nimpossible,--as any girl would have replied; and had in consequence\r\ntreated Captain Aylmer with all the coolness which she had been\r\nable to assume whenever she was in company with him in her aunt's\r\npresence. Nor was it natural to her to be specially gracious to a man\r\nunder such trying circumstances, even when no Mrs. Winterfield was\r\nthere to behold. And so things had gone on. Captain Aylmer had now\r\nand again made himself very pleasant to her,--at certain trying\r\nperiods of joy or trouble almost more than pleasant. But nothing had\r\ncome of it, and Clara had told herself that Captain Aylmer had no\r\nspecial feeling in her favour. She had told herself this, ever since\r\nthat journey together from Perivale to Taunton; but never till now\r\nhad she also confessed to herself what was her own case. She made a comparison between the two men. Her cousin Will was, she\r\nthought, the more generous, the more energetic,--perhaps, by nature,\r\nthe man of the higher gifts. In person he was undoubtedly the\r\nsuperior."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was full of noble qualities;--forgetful of self,\r\nindustrious, full of resources, a very man of men, able to command,\r\neager in doing work for others' good and his own,--a man altogether\r\nuncontaminated by the coldness and selfishness of the outer world. But he was rough, awkward, but indifferently educated, and with few\r\nof those tastes which to Clara Amedroz were delightful. He could\r\nnot read poetry to her, he could not tell her of what the world of\r\nliterature was doing now or of what it had done in times past. He\r\nknew nothing of the inner world of worlds which governs the world. She doubted whether he could have told her who composed the existing\r\ncabinet, or have given the name of a single bishop beyond the see in\r\nwhich his own parish was situated. But Captain Aylmer knew everybody,\r\nand had read everything, and understood, as though by instinct, all\r\nthe movements of the world in which he lived. But what mattered any such comparison? Even though she should be able\r\nto prove to herself beyond the shadow of a doubt that her cousin Will\r\nwas of the two the fitter to be loved,--the one more worthy of her\r\nheart,--no such proof could alter her position. Love does not go by\r\nworth. She did not love her cousin as she must love any man to whom\r\nshe could give her hand,--and, alas! she did love that other man."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On this night I doubt whether Belton did slumber with that solidity\r\nof repose which was usual to him. At any rate, before he came down in\r\nthe morning he had found time for sufficient thought, and had brought\r\nhimself to a resolution. He would not give up the battle as lost. To\r\nhis thinking there was something weak and almost mean in abandoning\r\nany project which he had set before himself. He had been awkward, and\r\nhe exaggerated to himself his own awkwardness. He had been hasty, and\r\nhad gone about his task with inconsiderate precipitancy. It might be\r\nthat he had thus destroyed all his chance of success. But, as he said\r\nto himself, \"he would never say die, as long as there was a puff of\r\nbreath left to him.\" He would not mope, and hang down his head, and\r\nwear the willow. Such a state of things would ill suit either the\r\nroughness or the readiness of his life. No! He would bear like a man\r\nthe disappointment which had on this occasion befallen him, and would\r\nreturn at Christmas and once more try his fortune. At breakfast, therefore, the cloud had passed from his brow. When he\r\ncame in he found Clara alone in the room, and he simply shook hands\r\nwith her after his ordinary fashion. He said nothing of yesterday,\r\nand almost succeeded in looking as though yesterday had been in\r\nno wise memorable."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was not so much at her ease, but she also\r\nreceived some comfort from his demeanour. Mr. Amedroz came down\r\nalmost immediately, and Belton soon took an opportunity of saying\r\nthat he would be back at Christmas if Mr. Amedroz would receive him. \"Certainly,\" said the squire. \"I thought it had been all settled.\" \"So it was;--till I said a word yesterday which foolishly seemed to\r\nunsettle it. But I have thought it over again, and I find that I can\r\nmanage it.\" \"We shall be so glad to have you!\" said Clara. \"And I shall be equally glad to come. They are already at work, sir,\r\nabout the sheds.\" \"Yes; I saw the carts full of bricks go by,\" said the squire,\r\nquerulously. \"I didn't know there was to be any brickwork. You said\r\nyou would have it made of deal slabs with oak posts.\" \"You must have a foundation, sir. I propose to carry the brickwork a\r\nfoot and a half above the ground.\" \"I suppose you know best. Only that kind of thing is so very ugly.\" \"If you find it to be ugly after it is done, it shall be pulled down\r\nagain.\" \"No;--it can never come down again.\" \"It can;--and it shall, if you don't like it. I never think anything\r\nof changes like that.\" \"I think they'll be very pretty!\" said Clara. \"I dare say,\" said the squire; \"but at any rate it won't make much\r\ndifference to me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I shan't be here long to see them.\" This was rather melancholy; but Belton bore up even against this,\r\nspeaking cheery words and expressing bright hopes,--so that it\r\nseemed, both to Clara and to her father, that he had in a great\r\nmeasure overcome the disappointment of the preceding day. It was\r\nprobable that he was a man not prone to be deeply sensitive in such\r\nmatters for any long period. The period now had certainly not been\r\nlong, and yet Will Belton was alive again. Immediately after breakfast there occurred a little incident which\r\nwas not without its effect upon them all. There came up on the drive,\r\nimmediately before the front door, under the custody of a boy, a cow. It was an Alderney cow, and any man or woman at all understanding\r\ncows, would at once have perceived that this cow was perfect in her\r\nkind. Her eyes were mild, and soft, and bright. Her legs were like\r\nthe legs of a deer; and in her whole gait and demeanour she almost\r\ngave the lie to her own name, asserting herself to have sprung from\r\nsome more noble origin among the woods, than may be supposed to\r\nbe the origin of the ordinary domestic cow,--a useful animal, but\r\nheavy in its appearance, and seen with more pleasure at some little\r\ndistance than at close quarters."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But this cow was graceful in its\r\nmovements, and almost tempted one to regard her as the far-off\r\ndescendant of the elk or the antelope. \"What's that?\" said Mr. Amedroz, who, having no cows of his own, was\r\nnot pleased to see one brought up in that way before his hall door. \"There's somebody's cow come here.\" Clara understood it in a moment; but she was pained, and said\r\nnothing. Had the cow come without any such scene as that of\r\nyesterday, she would have welcomed the animal with all cordiality,\r\nand would have sworn to her cousin that the cow should be cherished\r\nfor his sake. But after what had passed it was different. How was she\r\nto take any present from him now? But Belton faced the difficulty without any bashfulness or apparent\r\nregret. \"I told you I would give you a cow,\" said he, \"and here she\r\nis.\" \"What can she want with a cow?\" said Mr. Amedroz. \"I am sure she wants one very much. At any rate she won't refuse the\r\npresent from me; will you, Clara?\" What could she say? \"Not if papa will allow me to keep it.\" \"But we've no place to put it!\" said the squire. \"We haven't got\r\ngrass for it!\" \"There's plenty of grass,\" said Belton. \"Come, Mr. Amedroz; I've made\r\na point of getting this little creature for Clara, and you mustn't\r\nstand in the way of my gratification.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Of course he was successful,\r\nand of course Clara thanked him with tears in her eyes. The next two days passed by without anything special to mark them,\r\nand then the cousin was to go. During the period of his visit he did\r\nnot see Colonel Askerton, nor did he again see Mrs. Askerton. He\r\nwent to the cottage once, with the special object of returning the\r\nColonel's call; but the master was out, and he was not specially\r\ninvited in to see the mistress. He said nothing more to Clara about\r\nher friends, but he thought of the matter more than once, as he\r\nwas going about the place, and became aware that he would like to\r\nascertain whether there was a mystery, and if so, what was its\r\nnature. He knew that he did not like Mrs. Askerton, and he felt\r\nalso that Mrs. Askerton did not like him. This was, as he thought,\r\nunfortunate; for might it not be the case, that in the one matter\r\nwhich was to him of so much importance, Mrs. Askerton might have\r\nconsiderable influence over Clara? During these days nothing special was said between him and Clara. The\r\nlast evening passed over without anything to brighten it or to make\r\nit memorable."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Amedroz, in his passive, but gently querulous way,\r\nwas sorry that Belton was going to leave him, as his cousin had been\r\nthe creation of some new excitement for him, but he said nothing on\r\nthe subject; and when the time for going to bed had come, he bade his\r\nguest farewell with some languid allusion to the pleasure which he\r\nwould have in seeing him again at Christmas. Belton was to start very\r\nearly in the morning,--before six, and of course he was prepared to\r\ntake leave also of Clara. But she told him very gently, so gently\r\nthat her father did not hear it, that she would be up to give him a\r\ncup of coffee before he went. \"Oh no,\" he said. \"But I shall. I won't have you go without seeing you out of the\r\ndoor.\" And on the following morning she was up before him. She hardly\r\nunderstood, herself, why she was doing this. She knew that it should\r\nbe her object to avoid any further special conversation on that\r\nsubject which they had discussed up among the rocks. She knew that\r\nshe could give him no comfort, and that he could give none to her. It\r\nwould seem that he was willing to let the remembrance of the scene\r\npass away, so that it should be as though it had never been; and\r\nsurely it was not for her to disturb so salutary an arrangement!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But yet she was up to bid him Godspeed as he went. She could not\r\nbear,--so she excused the matter to herself,--she could not bear to\r\nthink that he should regard her as ungrateful. She knew all that he\r\nhad done for them. She had perceived that the taking of the land, the\r\nbuilding of the sheds, the life which he had contrived in so short a\r\ntime to throw into the old place, had all come from a desire on his\r\npart to do good to those in whose way he stood by family arrangements\r\nmade almost before his birth; and she longed to say to him one\r\nword of thanks. And had he not told her,--once in the heat of\r\nhis disappointment; for then at that moment, as Clara said to\r\nherself, she supposed that he must have been in some measure\r\ndisappointed,--had he not even then told her that when she wanted\r\na brother's care, a brother's care should be given to her by him? Was she not therefore bound to do for him what she would do for a\r\nbrother? She, with her own hands, brought the coffee into the little breakfast\r\nparlour, and handed the cup into his hands. The gig, which had come\r\novernight from Taunton, was not yet at the door, and there was a\r\nminute or two during which they must speak to each other."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Who has not\r\nseen some such girl when she has come down early, without the full\r\ncompleteness of her morning toilet, and yet nicer, fresher, prettier\r\nto the eye of him who is so favoured, than she has ever been in more\r\nformal attire? And what man who has been so favoured has not loved\r\nher who has so favoured him, even though he may not previously have\r\nbeen enamoured as deeply as poor Will Belton? \"This is so good of you,\" he said. \"I wish I knew how to be good to you,\" she answered,--not meaning to\r\ntrench upon dangerous ground, but feeling, as the words came from\r\nher, that she had done so. \"You have been so good to us, so very good\r\nto papa, that we owe you everything. I am so grateful to you for\r\nsaying that you will come back at Christmas.\" He had resolved that he would refrain from further love-making till\r\nthe winter; but he found it very hard to refrain when so addressed. To take her in his arms, and kiss her twenty times, and swear that he\r\nwould never let her go,--to claim her at once savagely as his own,\r\nthat was the line of conduct to which temptation prompted him. How\r\ncould she look at him so sweetly, how could she stand before him,\r\nministering to him with all her pretty maidenly charms brought so\r\nclose to him, without intending that he should love her? But he did\r\nrefrain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Blood is thicker than water,\" said he. \"That's the real\r\nreason why I first came.\" \"I understand that quite, and it is that feeling that makes you so\r\ngood. But I'm afraid you are spending a great deal of money here--and\r\nall for our sakes.\" \"Not at all. I shall get my money back again. And if I didn't, what\r\nthen? I've plenty of money. It is not money that I want.\" She could not ask him what it was that he did want, and she was\r\nobliged therefore to begin again. \"Papa will look forward so to the\r\nwinter now.\" \"And so shall I.\" \"But you must come for longer then;--you won't go away at the end of\r\na week? Say that you won't.\" \"I'll see about it. I can't tell quite yet. You'll write me a line to\r\nsay when the shed is finished, won't you?\" \"That I will, and I'll tell you how Bessy goes on.\" Bessy was the\r\ncow. \"I will be so very fond of her. She'll come to me for apples\r\nalready.\" Belton thought that he would go to her, wherever she might be, even\r\nif he were to get no apples. \"It's all cupboard love with them,\" he\r\nsaid. \"I'll tell you what I'll do;--when I come, I'll bring you a dog\r\nthat will follow you without thinking of apples.\" Then the gig was\r\nheard on the gravel before the door, and Belton was forced to go."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For\r\na moment he reflected whether, as her cousin, it was not his duty to\r\nkiss her. It was a matter as to which he had doubt,--as is the case\r\nwith many male cousins; but ultimately he resolved that if he kissed\r\nher at all he would not kiss her in that light, and so he again\r\nrefrained. \"Good-bye,\" he said, putting out his great hand to her. \"Good-bye, Will, and God bless you.\" I almost think he might have\r\nkissed her, asking himself no questions as to the light in which it\r\nwas done. As he turned from her he saw the tears in her eyes; and as he sat in\r\nthe gig, thinking of them, other tears came into his own. By heaven,\r\nhe would have her yet! He was a man who had not read much of romance. To him all the imagined mysteries of passion had not been made common\r\nby the perusal of legions of love stories;--but still he knew enough\r\nof the game to be aware that women had been won in spite, as it were,\r\nof their own teeth. He knew that he could not now run away with her,\r\ntaking her off by force; but still he might conquer her will by his\r\nown."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As he remembered the tears in her eyes, and the tone of her\r\nvoice, and the pressure of her hand, and the gratitude that had\r\nbecome tender in its expression, he could not but think that he would\r\nbe wise to love her still. Wise or foolish, he did love her still;\r\nand it should not be owing to fault of his if she did not become his\r\nwife. As he drove along he saw little of the Quantock hills, little\r\nof the rich Somersetshire pastures, little of the early beauty of the\r\nAugust morning. He saw nothing but her eyes, moistened with bright\r\ntears, and before he reached Taunton he had rebuked himself with many\r\nrevilings in that he had parted from her and not kissed her. Clara stood at the door watching the gig till it was out of\r\nsight,--watching it as well as her tears would allow. What a grand\r\ncousin he was! Had it not been a pity,--a thousand pities,--that\r\nthat grievous episode should have come to mar the brotherly love,\r\nthe sisterly confidence, which might otherwise have been so perfect\r\nbetween them? But perhaps it might all be well yet. Clara knew,\r\nor thought that she knew, that men and women differed in their\r\nappreciation of love. She, having once loved, could not change. Of\r\nthat she was sure. Her love might be fortunate or unfortunate."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It\r\nmight be returned, or it might simply be her own, to destroy all\r\nhope of happiness for her on earth. But whether it were this or that,\r\nwhether productive of good or evil, the love itself could not be\r\nchanged. But with men she thought it might be different. Her cousin,\r\ndoubtless, had been sincere in the full sincerity of his heart when\r\nhe made his offer. And had she accepted it,--had she been able to\r\naccept it,--she believed that he would have loved her truly and\r\nconstantly. Such was his nature. But she also believed that love with\r\nhim, unrequited love, would have no enduring effect, and that he\r\nhad already resolved, with equal courage and wisdom, to tread this\r\nshort-lived passion out beneath his feet. One night had sufficed\r\nto him for that treading out. As she thought of this the tears ran\r\nplentifully down her cheek; and going again to her room she remained\r\nthere crying till it was time for her to wipe away the marks of her\r\nweeping, that she might go to her father. But she was very glad that Will bore it so well;--very glad! Her\r\ncousin was safe against love-making once again. CHAPTER VII. MISS AMEDROZ GOES TO PERIVALE. It had been settled for some time past that Miss Amedroz was to go\r\nto Perivale for a few days in November."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Indeed it seemed to be a\r\nrecognised fact in her life that she was to make the journey from\r\nBelton to Perivale and back very often, as there prevailed an idea\r\nthat she owed a divided duty. This was in some degree hard upon her,\r\nas she had very little gratification in these visits to her aunt. Had\r\nthere been any intention on the part of Mrs. Winterfield to provide\r\nfor her, the thing would have been intelligible according to the\r\nusual arrangements which are made in the world on such matters; but\r\nMrs. Winterfield had scarcely a right to call upon her niece for\r\ndutiful attendance after having settled it with her own conscience\r\nthat her property was all to go to her nephew. But Clara entertained\r\nno thought of rebelling, and had agreed to make the accustomed\r\njourney in November, travelling then, as she did on all such\r\njourneys, at her aunt's expense. Two things only occurred to disturb her tranquillity before she went,\r\nand they were not of much violence. Mr. Wright, the clergyman, called\r\nat Belton Castle, and in the course of conversation with Mr. Amedroz\r\nrenewed one of those ill-natured rumours which had before been spread\r\nabout Mrs. Askerton. Clara did not see him, but she heard an account\r\nof it all from her father. \"Does it mean, papa,\" she said, speaking almost with anger, \"that you\r\nwant me to give up Mrs. Askerton?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"How can you be so unkind as to ask me such a question?\" he replied. \"You know how I hate to be bothered. I tell you what I hear, and then\r\nyou can decide for yourself.\" \"But that isn't quite fair either, papa. That man comes here--\"\r\n\r\n\"That man, as you call him, is the rector of the parish, and I've\r\nknown him for forty years.\" \"And have never liked him, papa.\" \"I don't know much about liking anybody, my dear. Nobody likes me,\r\nand so why should I trouble myself?\" \"But, papa, it all amounts to this--that somebody has said that the\r\nAskertons are not Askertons at all, but ought to be called something\r\nelse. Now we know that he served as Captain and Major Askerton for\r\nseven years in India--and in fact it all means nothing. If I know\r\nanything, I know that he is Colonel Askerton.\" \"But do you know that she is his wife? That is what Mr. Wright asks. I don't say anything. I think it's very indelicate talking about such\r\nthings.\" \"If I am asked whether I have seen her marriage certificate,\r\ncertainly I have not; nor probably did you ever do so as to any lady\r\nthat you ever knew. But I know that she is her husband's wife, as we\r\nall of us know things of that sort. I know she was in India with him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I've seen things of hers marked with her name that she has had at\r\nleast for ten years.\" \"I don't know anything about it, my dear,\" said Mr. Amedroz, angrily. \"But Mr. Wright ought to know something about it before he says such\r\nthings. And then this that he's saying now isn't the same that he\r\nsaid before.\" \"I don't know what he said before.\" \"He said they were both of them using a feigned name.\" \"It's nothing to me what name they use. I know I wish they hadn't\r\ncome here, if I'm to be troubled about them in this way--first by\r\nWright and then by you.\" \"They have been very good tenants, papa.\" \"You needn't tell me that, Clara, and remind me about the shooting\r\nwhen you know how unhappy it makes me.\" After this Clara said nothing more, and simply determined that Mr.\r\nWright and his gossip should have no effect upon her intimacy with\r\nMrs. Askerton. But not the less did she continue to remember what her\r\ncousin had said about Miss Vigo. And she had been ruffled a second time by certain observations which\r\nMrs. Askerton made to her respecting her cousin--or rather by little\r\nwords which were dropped on various occasions. It was very clear\r\nthat Mrs. Askerton did not like Mr. Belton, and that she wished to\r\nprejudice Clara against him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It's a pity he shouldn't be a lover\r\nof yours,\" the lady said, \"because it would be such a fine instance\r\nof Beauty and the Beast.\" It will of course be understood that Mrs.\r\nAskerton had never been told of the offer that had been made. \"You don't mean to say that he's not a handsome man,\" said Clara. \"I never observe whether a man is handsome or not; but I can see very\r\nwell whether he knows what to do with his arms and legs, or whether\r\nhe has the proper use of his voice before ladies.\" Clara remembered a\r\nword or two spoken by her cousin to herself, in speaking which he had\r\nseemed to have a very proper use of his voice. \"I know when a man is\r\nat ease like a gentleman, and when he is awkward like a--\"\r\n\r\n\"Like a what?\" said Clara. \"Finish what you've got to say.\" \"Like a ploughboy, I was going to say,\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"I declare I think you have a spite against him, because he said you\r\nwere like some Miss Vigo,\" replied Clara, sharply. Mrs. Askerton was\r\non that occasion silenced, and she said nothing more about Mr. Belton\r\ntill after Clara had returned from Perivale. The journey itself from Belton to Perivale was always a nuisance, and\r\nwas more so now than usual, as it was made in the disagreeable month\r\nof November."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was kept at the little inn at Redicote an old\r\nfly--so called--which habitually made the journey to the Taunton\r\nrailway-station, under the conduct of an old grey horse and an\r\nolder and greyer driver, whenever any of the old ladies of the\r\nneighbourhood were minded to leave their homes. This vehicle usually\r\ntravelled at the rate of five miles an hour; but the old grey driver\r\nwas never content to have time allowed to him for the transit\r\ncalculated upon such a rate of speed. Accidents might happen, and why\r\nshould he be made, as he would plaintively ask, to drive the poor\r\nbeast out of its skin? He was consequently always at Belton a full\r\nhour before the time, and though Clara was well aware of all this,\r\nshe could not help herself. Her father was fussy and impatient, the\r\nman was fussy and impatient; and there was nothing for her but to go. On the present occasion she was taken off in this way the full sixty\r\nminutes too soon, and after four dreary hours spent upon the road,\r\nfound herself landed at the Taunton station, with a terrible gulf of\r\ntime to be passed before she could again proceed on her journey. One little accident had occurred to her. The old horse, while\r\ntrotting leisurely along the level high road, had contrived to tumble\r\ndown."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara did not think very much of this, as the same thing had\r\nhappened with her before; but, even with an hour or more to spare,\r\nthere arises a question whether under such circumstances the train\r\ncan be saved. But the grey old man reassured her. \"Now, miss,\" said\r\nhe, coming to the window, while he left his horse recumbent and\r\napparently comfortable on the road, \"where'd you have been now, zure,\r\nif I hadn't a few minutes in hand for you?\" Then he walked off to\r\nsome neighbouring cottage, and having obtained assistance, succeeded\r\nin putting his beast again upon his legs. After that he looked once\r\nmore in at the window. \"Who's right now, I wonder?\" he said, with an\r\nair of triumph. And when he came to her for his guerdon at Taunton,\r\nhe was evidently cross in not having it increased because of the\r\naccident. That hour at the Taunton station was terrible to her. I know of no\r\nhours more terrible than those so passed. The minutes will not go\r\naway, and utterly fail in making good their claim to be called\r\nwinged. A man walks up and down the platform, and in that way obtains\r\nsomething of the advantage of exercise; but a woman finds herself\r\nbound to sit still within the dreary dulness of the waiting-room. There are, perhaps, people who under such circumstances can read, but\r\nthey are few in number."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The mind altogether declines to be active,\r\nwhereas the body is seized by a spirit of restlessness to which delay\r\nand tranquillity are loathsome. The advertisements on the walls are\r\nexamined, the map of some new Eden is studied--some Eden in which\r\nan irregular pond and a church are surrounded by a multiplicity\r\nof regular villas and shrubs--till the student feels that no\r\nconsideration of health or economy would induce him to live there. Then the porters come in and out, till each porter has made himself\r\nodious to the sight. Everything is hideous, dirty, and disagreeable;\r\nand the mind wanders away, to consider why station-masters do not\r\nmore frequently commit suicide. Clara Amedroz had already got beyond\r\nthis stage, and was beginning to think of herself rather than of the\r\nstation-master, when at last there sounded, close to her ears, the\r\nbell of promise, and she knew that the train was at hand. At Taunton there branched away from the main line that line which\r\nwas to take her to Perivale, and therefore she was able to take her\r\nown place quietly in the carriage when she found that the down-train\r\nfrom London was at hand. This she did, and could then watch with\r\nequanimity, while the travellers from the other train went through\r\nthe penance of changing their seats. But she had not been so watching\r\nfor many seconds when she saw Captain Frederic Aylmer appear upon the\r\nplatform."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Immediately she sank back into her corner and watched no\r\nmore. Of course he was going to Perivale; but why had not her aunt\r\ntold her that she was to meet him? Of course she would be staying in\r\nthe same house with him, and her present small attempt to avoid him\r\nwould thus be futile. The attempt was made; but nevertheless she was\r\nprobably pleased when she found that it was made in vain. He came at\r\nonce to the carriage in which she was sitting, and had packed his\r\ncoats, and dressing-bag, and desk about the carriage before he had\r\ndiscovered who was his fellow-traveller. \"How do you do, Captain\r\nAylmer?\" she said, as he was about to take his seat. \"Miss Amedroz! Dear me; how very odd! I had not the slightest\r\nexpectation of meeting you here. The pleasure is of course the\r\ngreater.\" \"Nor I of seeing you. Mrs. Winterfield has not mentioned to me that\r\nyou were coming to Perivale.\" \"I didn't know it myself till the day before yesterday. I'm going to\r\ngive an account of my stewardship to the good-natured Perivalians who\r\nsend me to Parliament. I'm to dine with the mayor to-morrow, and as\r\nsome big-wig has come in his way who is going to dine with him also,\r\nthe thing has been got up in a hurry. But I'm delighted to find that\r\nyou are to be with us.\" \"I generally go to my aunt about this time of the year.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It is very good-natured of you.\" Then he asked after her father,\r\nand she told him of Mr. Belton's visit, telling him nothing--as the\r\nreader will hardly require to be told--of Mr. Belton's offer. And so,\r\nby degrees, they fell into close and intimate conversation. \"I am so glad, for your father's sake!\" said the captain, with\r\nsympathetic voice, speaking still of Mr. Belton's visit. \"That's what I feel, of course.\" \"It is just as it should be, as he stands in that position to the\r\nproperty. And so he is a nice sort of fellow, is he?\" \"Nice is no word for him. He is perfect!\" \"Dear me! This is terrible! You remember that they hated some old\r\nGreek patriot when they could find no fault in him?\" \"I'll defy you to hate my cousin Will.\" \"What sort of looking man is he?\" \"Extremely handsome;--at least I should say so.\" \"Then I certainly must hate him. And clever?\" \"Well;--not what you would call clever. He is very clever about\r\nfields and cattle.\" \"Come, there is some relief in that.\" \"But you must not mistake me. He is clever; and then there's a\r\nway about him of doing everything just as he likes it, which is\r\nwonderful. You feel quite sure that he'll become master of\r\neverything.\" \"But I do not feel at all sure that I should like him the better for\r\nthat!\" \"But he doesn't meddle in things that he doesn't understand. And then\r\nhe is so generous!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "His spending all that money down there is only\r\ndone because he thinks it will make the place pleasanter to papa.\" \"Has he got plenty of money?\" \"Oh, plenty! At least, I think so. He says that he has.\" \"The idea of any man owning that he had got plenty of money! What\r\na happy mortal! And then to be handsome, and omnipotent, and to\r\nunderstand cattle and fields! One would strive to emulate him rather\r\nthan envy him, had not one learned to acknowledge that it is not\r\ngiven to every one to get to Corinth.\" \"You may laugh at him, but you'd like him if you knew him.\" \"One never can be sure of that from a lady's account of a man. When\r\na man talks to me about another man, I can generally tell whether I\r\nshould like him or not--particularly if I know the man well who is\r\ngiving the description; but it is quite different when a woman is the\r\ndescriber.\" \"You mean that you won't take my word?\" \"We see with different eyes in such matters. I have no doubt your\r\ncousin is a worthy man--and as prosperous a gentleman as the Thane\r\nof Cawdor in his prosperous days;--but probably if he and I came\r\ntogether we shouldn't have a word to say to each other.\" Clara almost hated Captain Aylmer for speaking as he did, and yet she\r\nknew that it was true."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Will Belton was not an educated man, and were\r\nthey two to meet in her presence,--the captain and the farmer,--she\r\nfelt that she might have to blush for her cousin. But yet he was the\r\nbetter man of the two. She knew that he was the better man of the\r\ntwo, though she knew also that she could not love him as she loved\r\nthe other. Then they changed the subject of their conversation, and discussed\r\nMrs. Winterfield, as they had often done before. Captain Aylmer had\r\nsaid that he should return to London on the Saturday, the present day\r\nbeing Tuesday, and Clara accused him of escaping always from the real\r\nhard work of his position. \"I observe that you never stay a Sunday at\r\nPerivale,\" she said. \"Well;--not often. Why should I? Sunday is just the day that people\r\nlike to be at home.\" \"I should have thought it would not have made much difference to a\r\nbachelor in that way.\" \"But Sunday is a day that one specially likes to pass after one's own\r\nfashion.\" \"Exactly;--and therefore you don't stay with my aunt. I understand it\r\nall completely.\" \"Now you mean to be ill-natured!\" \"I mean to say that I don't like Sundays at Perivale at all, and that\r\nI should do just as you do if I had the power. But women,--women,\r\nthat is, of my age,--are such slaves!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "We are forced to give an\r\nobedience for which we can see no cause, and for which we can\r\nunderstand no necessity. I couldn't tell my aunt that I meant to go\r\naway on Saturday.\" \"You have no business which makes imperative calls upon your time.\" \"That means that I can't plead pretended excuses. But the true reason\r\nis that we are dependent.\" \"There is something in that, I suppose.\" \"Not that I am dependent on her. But my position generally is\r\ndependent, and I cannot assist myself.\" Captain Aylmer found it difficult to make any answer to this, feeling\r\nthe subject to be one which could hardly be discussed between him and\r\nMiss Amedroz. He not unnaturally looked to be the heir of his aunt's\r\nproperty, and any provision made out of that property for Clara,\r\nwould so far lessen that which would come to him. For anything that\r\nhe knew, Mrs. Winterfield might leave everything she possessed to\r\nher niece. The old lady had not been open and candid to him whom she\r\nmeant to favour in her will, as she had been to her to whom no such\r\nfavour was to be shown. But Captain Aylmer did know, with tolerable\r\naccuracy, what was the state of affairs at Belton, and was aware\r\nthat Miss Amedroz had no prospect of maintenance on which to depend,\r\nunless she could depend on her aunt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was now pleading that she\r\nwas not dependent on that lady, and Captain Aylmer felt that she was\r\nwrong. He was a man of the world, and was by no means inclined to\r\nabandon any right that was his own; but it seemed to him that he\r\nwas almost bound to say some word to show that in his opinion Clara\r\nshould hold herself bound to comply with her aunt's requirements. \"Dependence is a disagreeable word,\" he said; \"and one never quite\r\nknows what it means.\" \"If you were a woman you'd know. It means that I must stay at\r\nPerivale on Sundays, while you can go up to London or down to\r\nYorkshire. That's what it means.\" \"What you do mean, I think, is this;--that you owe a duty to\r\nyour aunt, the performance of which is not altogether agreeable. Nevertheless it would be foolish in you to omit it.\" \"It isn't that;--not that at all. It would not be foolish, not in\r\nyour sense of the word, but it would be wrong. My aunt has been kind\r\nto me, and therefore I am bound to her for this service. But she is\r\nkind to you also, and yet you are not bound. That's why I complain. You sail away under false pretences, and yet you think you do your\r\nduty. You have to see your lawyer,--which means going to your club;\r\nor to attend to your tenants,--which means hunting and shooting.\" \"I haven't got any tenants.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You know very well that you could remain over Sunday without doing\r\nany harm to anybody;--only you don't like going to church three\r\ntimes, and you don't like hearing my aunt read a sermon afterwards. Why shouldn't you stay, and I go to the club?\" \"With all my heart, if you can manage it.\" \"But I can't; we ain't allowed to have clubs, or shooting, or to\r\nhave our own way in anything, putting forward little pretences about\r\nlawyers.\" \"Come, I'll stay if you'll ask me.\" \"I'm sure I won't do that. In the first place you'd go to sleep, and\r\nthen she would be offended; and I don't know that your sufferings\r\nwould make mine any lighter. I'm not prepared to alter the ways of\r\nthe world, but I feel myself entitled to grumble at them sometimes.\" Mrs. Winterfield inhabited a large brick house in the centre of the\r\ntown. It had a long frontage to the street; for there was not only\r\nthe house itself, with its three square windows on each side of the\r\ndoor, and its seven windows over that, and again its seven windows in\r\nthe upper story,--but the end of the coach-house also abutted on the\r\nstreet, on which was the family clock, quite as much respected in\r\nPerivale as was the town-clock; and between the coach-house and the\r\nmansion there was the broad entrance into the yard, and the entrance\r\nalso to the back door."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No Perivalian ever presumed to doubt that Mrs.\r\nWinterfield's house was the most important house in the town. Nor\r\ndid any stranger doubt it on looking at the frontage. But then it\r\nwas in all respects a town house to the eye,--that is, an English\r\ntown house, being as ugly and as respectable as unlimited bricks and\r\nmortar could make it. Immediately opposite to Mrs. Winterfield lived\r\nthe leading doctor and a retired builder, so that the lady's eye was\r\nnot hurt by any sign of a shop. The shops, indeed, came within a very\r\nfew yards of her on either side; but as the neighbouring shops on\r\neach side were her own property, this was not unbearable. To me, had\r\nI lived there, the incipient growth of grass through some of the\r\nstones which formed the margin of the road would have been altogether\r\nunendurable. There is no sign of coming decay which is so melancholy\r\nto the eye as any which tells of a decrease in the throng of men. Of\r\nmen or horses there was never any throng now in that end of Perivale. That street had formed part of the main line of road from Salisbury\r\nto Taunton, and coaches, waggons, and posting-carriages had been\r\nfrequent on it; but now, alas! it was deserted. Even the omnibuses\r\nfrom the railway-station never came there unless they were ordered to\r\ncall at Mrs. Winterfield's door. For Mrs. Winterfield herself, this\r\ndesolation had, I think, a certain melancholy attraction."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It suited\r\nher tone of mind and her religious views that she should be thus\r\ndaily reminded that things of this world were passing away and going\r\nto destruction. She liked to have ocular proof that grass was growing\r\nin the highways under mortal feet, and that it was no longer worth\r\nman's while to renew human flags in human streets. She was drawing\r\nnear to the pavements which would ever be trodden by myriads of\r\nbright sandals, and which yet would never be worn, and would be\r\ncarried to those jewelled causeways on which no weed could find a\r\nspot for its useless growth. Behind the house there was a square prim garden, arranged in\r\nparallelograms, tree answering to tree at every corner, round which\r\nit was still her delight to creep when the weather permitted. Poor\r\nClara! how much advice she had received during these creepings, and\r\nhow often had she listened to inquiries as to the schooling of the\r\ngardener's children. Mrs. Winterfield was always unhappy about her\r\ngardener. Serious footmen are very plentiful, and even coachmen are\r\nto be found who, at a certain rate of extra payment, will be punctual\r\nat prayer time, and will promise to read good little books; but\r\ngardeners, as a class, are a profane people, who think themselves\r\nentitled to claim liberty of conscience, and who will not submit to\r\nthe domestic despotism of a serious Sunday."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They live in cottages\r\nby themselves, and choose to have an opinion of their own on church\r\nmatters. Mrs. Winterfield was aware that she ought to bid high for\r\nsuch a gardener as she wanted. A man must be paid well who will\r\nsubmit to daily inquiries as to the spiritual welfare of himself, his\r\nwife, and family. But even though she did bid high, and though she\r\npaid generously, no gardener would stop with her. One conscientious\r\nman attempted to bargain for freedom from religion during the six\r\nunimportant days of the week, being strong, and willing therefore to\r\ngive up his day of rest; but such liberty could not be allowed to\r\nhim, and he also went. \"He couldn't stop,\" he said, \"in justice to\r\nthe greenhouses, when missus was so constant down upon him about his\r\nsprittual backsliding. And, after all, where did he backslide? It was\r\nonly a pipe of tobacco with the babby in his arms, instead of that\r\ndarned evening lecture.\" Poor Mrs. Winterfield! She had been strong in her youth, and had\r\nherself sat through evening lectures with a fortitude which other\r\npeople cannot attain. And she was strong too in her age, with the\r\nstrength of a martyr, submitting herself with patience to wearinesses\r\nwhich are insupportable to those who have none of the martyr spirit. The sermons of Perivale were neither bright, nor eloquent, nor\r\nencouraging."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All the old vicar or the young curate could tell she had\r\nheard hundreds of times. She knew it all by heart, and could have\r\npreached their sermons to them better than they could preach them to\r\nher. It was impossible that she could learn anything from them; and\r\nyet she would sit there thrice a day, suffering from cold in winter,\r\nfrom cough in spring, from heat in summer, and from rheumatism in\r\nautumn; and now that her doctor had forbidden her to go more than\r\ntwice, recommending her to go only once, she really thought that she\r\nregarded the prohibition as a grievance. Indeed, to such as her, that\r\nexpectation of the jewelled causeway, and of the perfect pavement\r\nthat shall never be worn, must be everything. But if she was\r\nright,--right as to herself and others,--then why has the world been\r\nmade so pleasant? Why is the fruit of the earth so sweet; and the\r\ntrees,--why are they so green; and the mountains so full of glory? Why are women so lovely? and why is it that the activity of man's\r\nmind is the only sure forerunner of man's progress? In listening\r\nthrice a day to outpourings from the clergymen at Perivale, there\r\ncertainly was no activity of mind. Now, in these days, Mrs. Winterfield was near to her reward. That she\r\nhad ensured that I cannot doubt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had fed the poor, and filled the\r\nyoung full with religious teachings,--perhaps not wisely, and in her\r\nown way only too well, but yet as her judgment had directed her. She\r\nhad cared little for herself,--forgiving injuries done to her, and\r\nnot forgiving those only which she thought were done to the Lord. She\r\nhad lived her life somewhat as the martyr lived, who stood for years\r\non his pillar unmoved, while his nails grew through his flesh. So had\r\nshe stood, doing, I fear, but little positive good with her large\r\nmeans,--but thinking nothing of her own comfort here, in comparison\r\nwith the comfort of herself and others in the world to which she was\r\ngoing. On this occasion her nephew and niece reached her together; the prim\r\nboy, with the white cotton gloves and the low four-wheeled carriage,\r\nhaving been sent down to meet Clara. For Mrs. Winterfield was a lady\r\nwho thought it unbecoming that her niece,--though only an adopted\r\nniece,--should come to her door in an omnibus. Captain Aylmer had\r\ndriven the four-wheeled carriage from the station, dispossessing the\r\nboy, and the luggage had been confided to the public conveyance. \"It is very fortunate that you should come together,\" said Mrs.\r\nWinterfield. \"I didn't know when to expect you, Fred. Indeed, you\r\nnever say at what hour you'll come.\" \"I think it safer to allow myself a little margin, aunt, because one\r\nhas so many things to do.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I suppose it is so with a gentleman,\" said Mrs. Winterfield. After\r\nwhich Clara looked at Captain Aylmer, but did not betray any of her\r\nsuspicions. \"But I knew Clara would come by this train,\" continued\r\nthe old lady; \"so I sent Tom to meet her. Ladies always can be\r\npunctual; they can do that at any rate.\" Mrs. Winterfield was one of\r\nthose women who have always believed that their own sex is in every\r\nrespect inferior to the other. CHAPTER VIII. CAPTAIN AYLMER MEETS HIS CONSTITUENTS. On the first evening of their visit Captain Aylmer was very attentive\r\nto his aunt. He was quite alive to the propriety of such attentions,\r\nand to their expediency; and Clara was amused as she watched him\r\nwhile he sat by her side, by the hour together, answering little\r\nquestions and making little remarks suited to the temperament of the\r\nold lady's mind. She, herself, was hardly called upon to join in the\r\nconversation on that evening, and as she sat and listened, she could\r\nnot but think that Will Belton would have been less adroit, but that\r\nhe would also have been more straightforward. And yet why should\r\nnot Captain Aylmer talk to his aunt? Will Belton would also have\r\ntalked to his aunt if he had one, but then he would have talked his\r\nown talk, and not his aunt's talk. Clara could hardly make up her\r\nmind whether Captain Aylmer was or was not a sincere man."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the\r\nfollowing day Aylmer was out all the morning, paying visits among his\r\nconstituents, and at three o'clock he was to make his speech in the\r\nTown-hall. Special places in the gallery were to be kept for Mrs.\r\nWinterfield and her niece, and the old woman was quite resolved that\r\nshe would be there. As the day advanced she became very fidgety, and\r\nat length she was quite alive to the perils of having to climb up the\r\nTown-hall stairs; but she persevered, and at ten minutes before three\r\nshe was seated in her place. \"I suppose they will begin with prayer,\" she said to Clara. Clara,\r\nwho knew nothing of the manner in which things were done at such\r\nmeetings, said that she supposed so. A town councillor's wife who\r\nsat on the other side of Mrs. Winterfield, here took the liberty of\r\nexplaining that as the Captain was going to talk politics there would\r\nbe no prayers. \"But they have prayers in the Houses of Parliament,\"\r\nsaid Mrs. Winterfield, with much anger. To this the town councillor's\r\nwife, who was almost silenced by the great lady's wrath, said that\r\nindeed she did not know. After this Mrs. Winterfield continued to\r\nhope for the best, till the platform was filled and the proceedings\r\nhad commenced. Then she declared the present men of Perivale to be\r\na godless set, and expressed herself very sorry that her nephew had\r\never had anything to do with them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No good can come of it, my dear,\"\r\nshe said. Clara from the beginning had feared that no good would come\r\nof her aunt's visit to the Town-hall. The business was put on foot at once, and with some little\r\nflourishing at the commencement, Captain Aylmer made his speech;--the\r\nsame speech which we have all heard and read so often, specially\r\nadapted to the meridian of Perivale. He was a Conservative, and of\r\ncourse he told his hearers that a good time was coming; that he and\r\nhis family were really about to buckle themselves to the work, and\r\nthat Perivale would hear things that would surprise it. The malt tax\r\nwas to go, and the farmers were to have free trade in beer,--the\r\narguments from the other side having come beautifully round in their\r\nappointed circle,--and old England was to be old England once again. He did the thing tolerably well, as such gentlemen usually do, and\r\nPerivale was contented with its member, with the exception of one\r\nPerivalian. To Mrs. Winterfield, sitting up there and listening with\r\nall her ears, it seemed that he had hitherto omitted all allusion to\r\nany subject that was worthy of mention. At last he said some word\r\nabout the marriage and divorce court, condemning the iniquity of\r\nthe present law, to which Perivale had opposed itself violently by\r\npetition and general meetings; and upon hearing this Mrs. Winterfield\r\nhad thumped with her umbrella, and faintly cheered him with her weak\r\nold voice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the surrounding Perivalians had heard the cheer, and\r\nit was repeated backwards and forwards through the room, till the\r\nmember's aunt thought that it might be her nephew's mission to annul\r\nthat godless Act of Parliament, and restore the matrimonial bonds of\r\nEngland to their old rigidity. When Captain Aylmer came out to hand\r\nher up to her little carriage, she patted him, and thanked him, and\r\nencouraged him; and on her way home she congratulated herself to\r\nClara that she should have such a nephew to leave behind her in her\r\nplace. Captain Aylmer was dining with the mayor on that evening, and Mrs.\r\nWinterfield was therefore able to indulge herself in talking about\r\nhim. \"I don't see much of young men, of course,\" she said; \"but I do\r\nnot even hear of any that are like him.\" Again Clara thought of her\r\ncousin Will. Will was not at all like Frederic Aylmer; but was he not\r\nbetter? And yet, as she thought thus, she remembered that she had\r\nrefused her cousin Will because she loved that very Frederic Aylmer\r\nwhom her mind was thus condemning. \"I'm sure he does his duty as a member of Parliament very well,\" said\r\nClara. \"That alone would not be much; but when that is joined to so much\r\nthat is better, it is a great deal. I am told that very few of the\r\nmen in the House now are believers at all.\" \"Oh, aunt!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It is terrible to think of, my dear.\" \"But, aunt; they have to take some oath, or something of that sort,\r\nto show that they are Christians.\" \"Not now, my dear. They've done away with all that since we had Jew\r\nmembers. An atheist can go into Parliament now; and I'm told that\r\nmost of them are that, or nearly as bad. I can remember when no\r\nPapist could sit in Parliament. But they seem to me to be doing away\r\nwith everything. It's a great comfort to me that Frederic is what he\r\nis.\" \"I'm sure it must be, aunt.\" Then there was a pause, during which, however, Mrs. Winterfield gave\r\nno sign that the conversation was to be considered as being over. Clara knew her aunt's ways so well, that she was sure something more\r\nwas coming, and therefore waited patiently, without any thought of\r\ntaking up her book. \"I was speaking to him about you yesterday,\" Mrs.\r\nWinterfield said at last. \"That would not interest him very much.\" \"Why not? Do you suppose he is not interested in those I love? Indeed, it did interest him; and he told me what I did not know\r\nbefore, and what you ought to have told me.\" Clara now blushed, she knew not why, and became agitated. \"I don't\r\nknow that I have kept anything from you that I ought to have told,\"\r\nshe said. \"He says that the provision made for you by your father has all been\r\nsquandered.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If he used that word he has been very unkind,\" said Clara, angrily. \"I don't know what word he used, but he was not unkind at all; he\r\nnever is. I think he was very generous.\" \"I do not want his generosity, aunt.\" \"That is nonsense, my dear. If he has told me the truth, what have\r\nyou to depend on?\" \"I don't want to depend on anything. I hate hearing about it.\" \"Clara, I wonder you can talk in that way. If you were only seventeen\r\nit would be very foolish; but at your age it is inexcusable. When I\r\nam gone, and your father is gone, who is to provide for you? Will\r\nyour cousin do it--Mr. Belton, who is to have the property?\" \"Yes, he would--if I would let him;--of course I would not let him. But, aunt, pray do not go on. I would sooner have to starve than talk\r\nabout it at all.\" There was another pause; but Clara again knew that the conversation\r\nwas not over; and she knew also that it would be vain for her to\r\nendeavour to begin another subject. Nor could she think of anything\r\nelse to say, so much was she agitated. \"What makes you suppose that Mr. Belton would be so liberal?\" asked\r\nMrs. Winterfield. \"I don't know. I can't say."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He is the nearest relation I shall have;\r\nand of all the people I ever knew he is the best, and the most\r\ngenerous, and the least selfish. When he came to us papa was quite\r\nhostile to him--disliking his very name; but when the time came, papa\r\ncould not bear to think of his going, because he had been so good.\" \"Clara!\" \"Well, aunt.\" \"I hope you know my affection for you.\" \"Of course I do, aunt; and I hope you trust mine for you also.\" \"Is there anything between you and Mr. Belton besides cousinship?\" \"Nothing.\" \"Because if I thought that, my trouble would of course be at an end.\" \"There is nothing;--but pray do not let me be a trouble to you.\" Clara, for a moment, almost resolved to tell her aunt the whole\r\ntruth; but she remembered that she would be treating her cousin badly\r\nif she told the story of his rejection. There was another short period of silence, and then Mrs. Winterfield\r\nwent on. \"Frederic thinks that I should make some provision for you\r\nby will. That, of course, is the same as though he offered to do it\r\nhimself. I told him that it would be so, and I read him my will last\r\nnight. He said that that made no difference, and recommended me to\r\nadd a codicil. I asked him how much I ought to give you, and he said\r\nfifteen hundred pounds."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There will be as much as that after burying\r\nme without burden to the estate. You must acknowledge that he has\r\nbeen very generous.\" But Clara, in her heart, did not at all thank Captain Aylmer for\r\nhis generosity. She would have had everything from him, or nothing. It was grievous to her to think that she should owe to him a bare\r\npittance to keep her out of the workhouse,--to him who had twice\r\nseemed to be on the point of asking her to share everything with him. She did not love her cousin Will as she loved him; but her cousin\r\nWill's assurance to her that he would treat her with a brother's\r\ncare was sweeter to her by far than Frederic Aylmer's well-balanced\r\ncounsel to his aunt on her behalf. In her present mood, too, she\r\nwanted no one to have forethought for her; she desired no provision;\r\nfor her, in the discomfiture of heart, there was consolation in the\r\nfeeling that when she should find herself alone in the world, she\r\nwould have been ill-treated by her friends all round her. There was a\r\ncharm in the prospect of her desolation of which she did not wish to\r\nbe robbed by the assurance of some seventy pounds a year, to be given\r\nto her by Captain Frederic Aylmer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To be robbed of one's grievance is\r\nthe last and foulest wrong,--a wrong under which the most enduring\r\ntemper will at last yield and become soured,--by which the strongest\r\nback will be broken. \"Well, my dear,\" continued Mrs. Winterfield,\r\nwhen Clara made no response to this appeal for praise. \"It is so hard for me to say anything about it, aunt. What can I say\r\nbut that I don't want to be a burden to any one?\" \"That is a position which very few women can attain,--that is, very\r\nfew single women.\" \"I think it would be well if all single women were strangled by the\r\ntime they are thirty,\" said Clara with a fierce energy which\r\nabsolutely frightened her aunt. \"Clara! how can you say anything so wicked,--so abominably wicked!\" \"Anything would be better than being twitted in this way. How can I\r\nhelp it that I am not a man and able to work for my bread? But I am\r\nnot above being a housemaid, and so Captain Aylmer shall find. I'd\r\nsooner be a housemaid, with nothing but my wages, than take the money\r\nwhich you say he is to give me. It will be of no use, aunt, for I\r\nshall not take it.\" \"It is I that am to leave it to you. It is not to be a present from\r\nFrederic.\" \"It is the same thing, aunt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He says you are to do it; and you told\r\nme just now that it was to come out of his pocket.\" \"I should have done it myself long ago, had you told me all the truth\r\nabout your father's affairs.\" \"How was I to tell you? I would sooner have bitten my tongue out. But\r\nI will tell you the truth now. If I had known that all this was to be\r\nsaid to me about money, and that our poverty was to be talked over\r\nbetween you and Captain Aylmer, I would not have come to Perivale. I\r\nwould rather that you should be angry with me and think that I had\r\nforgotten you.\" \"You would not say that, Clara, if you remembered that this will\r\nprobably be your last visit to me.\" \"No, no; it will not be the last. But do not talk about these things. And it will be so much better that I should be here when he is not\r\nhere.\" \"I had hoped that when I died you might both be with me together,--as\r\nhusband and wife.\" \"Such hopes never come to anything.\" \"I still think that he would wish it.\" \"That is nonsense, aunt. It is indeed, for neither of us wish it.\" A\r\nlie on such a subject from a woman under such circumstances is hardly\r\nto be considered a lie at all."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is spoken with no mean object, and\r\nis the only bulwark which the woman has ready at her need to cover\r\nher own weakness. \"From what he said yesterday,\" continued Mrs. Winterfield, \"I think\r\nit is your own fault.\" \"Pray,--pray do not talk in that way. It cannot be matter of any\r\nfault that two people do not want to marry each other.\" \"Of course I asked him no positive question. It would be indelicate\r\neven in me to have done that. But he spoke as though he thought very\r\nhighly of you.\" \"No doubt he does. And so do I of Mr. Possitt.\" \"Mr. Possitt is a very excellent young man,\" said Mrs. Winterfield,\r\ngravely. Mr. Possitt was, indeed, her favourite curate at Perivale,\r\nand always dined at the house on Sundays between services, when Mrs.\r\nWinterfield was very particular in seeing that he took two glasses of\r\nher best port wine to support him. \"But Mr. Possitt has nothing but\r\nhis curacy.\" \"There is no danger, aunt, I can assure you.\" \"I don't know what you call danger; but Frederic seemed to think that\r\nyou are always sharp with him. You don't want to quarrel with him, I\r\nhope, because I love him better than any one in the world?\" \"Oh, aunt, what cruel things you say to me without thinking of them!\" \"I do not mean to be cruel, but I will say nothing more about him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As\r\nI told you before, that I had not thought it expedient to leave away\r\nany portion of my little property from Frederic,--believing as I\r\ndid then, that the money intended for you by your father was still\r\nremaining,--it is best that you should now know that I have at last\r\nlearnt the truth, and that I will at once see my lawyer about making\r\nthis change.\" \"Dear aunt, of course I thank you.\" \"I want no thanks, Clara. I humbly strive to do what I believe to be\r\nmy duty. I have never felt myself to be more than a steward of my\r\nmoney. That I have often failed in my stewardship I know well;--for\r\nin what duties do we not all fail?\" Then she gently laid herself\r\nback in her arm-chair, closing her eyes, while she kept fast clasped\r\nin her hands the little book of daily devotion which she had been\r\nstriving to read when the conversation had been commenced. Clara\r\nknew then that nothing more was to be said, and that she was not at\r\npresent to interrupt her aunt. From her posture, and the closing of\r\nher eyelids, Mrs. Winterfield might have been judged to be asleep;\r\nbut Clara could see the gentle motion of her lips, and was aware that\r\nher aunt was solacing herself with prayer. Clara was angry with herself, and angry with all the world."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She knew\r\nthat the old lady who was sitting then before her was very good; and\r\nthat all this that had now been said had come from pure goodness, and\r\na desire that strict duty might be done; and Clara was angry with\r\nherself in that she had not been more ready with her thanks, and\r\nmore demonstrative with her love and gratitude. Mrs. Winterfield was\r\naffectionate as well as good, and her niece's coldness, as the niece\r\nwell knew, had hurt her sorely. But still what could Clara have done\r\nor said? She told herself that it was beyond her power to burst out\r\ninto loud praises of Captain Aylmer; and of such nature was the\r\ngratitude which Mrs. Winterfield had desired. She was not grateful\r\nto Captain Aylmer, and wanted nothing that was to come from his\r\ngenerosity. And then her mind went away to that other portion of her\r\naunt's discourse. Could it be possible that this man was in truth\r\nattached to her, and was repelled simply by her own manner? She was\r\naware that she had fallen into a habit of fighting with him, of\r\nsparring against him with words about indifferent things, and calling\r\nhis conduct in question in a manner half playful and half serious. Could it be the truth that she was thus robbing herself of that which\r\nwould be to her,--as to herself she had frankly declared,--the one\r\ntreasure which she would desire?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Twice, as has been said before,\r\nwords had seemed to tremble on his lips which might have settled\r\nthe question for her for ever; and on both occasions, as she knew,\r\nshe herself had helped to laugh off the precious word that had been\r\ncoming. But had he been thoroughly in earnest,--in earnest as she\r\nwould have him to be,--no laugh would have deterred him from his\r\npurpose. Could she have laughed Will Belton out of his declaration? At last the lips ceased to move, and she knew that her aunt was in\r\ntruth asleep. The poor old lady hardly ever slept at night; but\r\nnature, claiming something of its due, would give her rest such as\r\nthis in her arm-chair by the fire-side. They were sitting in a large\r\ndouble drawing-room upstairs, in which there were, as was customary\r\nwith Mrs. Winterfield in winter, two fires; and the candles were in\r\nthe back-room, while the two ladies sat in that looking out into the\r\nstreet. This Mrs. Winterfield did to save her eyes from the candles,\r\nand yet to be within reach of light if it were wanted. And Clara also\r\nsat motionless in the dark, careful not to disturb her aunt, and\r\ndesirous of being with her when she should awake. Captain Aylmer had\r\ndeclared his purpose of being home early from the Mayor's dinner, and\r\nthe ladies were to wait for his arrival before tea was brought to\r\nthem."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara was herself almost asleep when the door was opened, and\r\nCaptain Aylmer entered the room. \"H--sh!\" she said, rising gently from her chair, and putting up her\r\nfinger. He saw her by the dull light of the fire, and closed the door\r\nwithout a sound. Clara then crept into the back-room, and he followed\r\nher with noiseless step. \"She did not sleep at all last night,\" said\r\nClara; \"and now the unusual excitement of the day has fatigued her,\r\nand I think it is better not to wake her.\" The rooms were large,\r\nand they were able to place themselves at such a distance from the\r\nsleeper that their low words could hardly disturb her. \"Was she very tired when she got home?\" he asked. \"Not very. She has been talking much since that.\" \"Has she spoken about her will to you?\" \"Yes;--she has.\" \"I thought she would.\" Then he was silent, as though he expected that\r\nshe would speak again on that matter. But she had no wish to discuss\r\nher aunt's will with him, and therefore, to break the silence, asked\r\nhim some trifling question. \"Are you not home earlier than you\r\nexpected?\" \"It was very dull, and there was nothing more to be said. I did come\r\naway early, and perhaps have given affront. I hope you will accept\r\nthe compliment implied.\" \"Your aunt will, when she wakes. She will be delighted to find you\r\nhere.\" \"I am awake,\" said Mrs. Winterfield."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I heard Frederic come in. It is\r\nvery good of him to come so soon. Clara, my dear, we will have tea.\" During tea, Captain Aylmer was called upon to give an account of\r\nthe Mayor's feast,--how the rector had said grace before dinner,\r\nand Mr. Possitt had done so after dinner, and how the soup had been\r\nuneatable. \"Dear me!\" said Mrs. Winterfield. \"And yet his wife was\r\nhousekeeper formerly in a family that lived very well!\" The Mrs.\r\nWinterfields of this world allow themselves little spiteful pleasures\r\nof this kind, repenting of them, no doubt, in those frequent moments\r\nin which they talk to their friends of their own terrible vilenesses. Captain Aylmer then explained that his own health had been drunk,\r\nand his aunt desired to know whether, in returning thanks, he had\r\nbeen able to say anything further against that wicked Divorce Act\r\nof Parliament. This her nephew was constrained to answer with a\r\nnegative, and so the conversation was carried on till tea was over. She was very anxious to hear every word that he could be made to\r\nutter as to his own doings in Parliament, and as to his doings in\r\nPerivale, and hung upon him with that wondrous affection which old\r\npeople with warm hearts feel for those whom they have selected as\r\ntheir favourites. Clara saw it all, and knew that her aunt was almost\r\ndoting."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I think I'll go up to bed now, my dears,\" said Mrs. Winterfield,\r\nwhen she had taken her cup of tea. \"I am tired with those weary\r\nstairs in the Town-hall, and I shall be better in my own room.\" Clara\r\noffered to go with her, but this attendance her aunt declined,--as\r\nshe did always. So the bell was rung, and the old maid-servant walked\r\noff with her mistress, and Miss Amedroz and Captain Aylmer were left\r\ntogether. \"I don't think she will last long,\" said Captain Aylmer, soon after\r\nthe door was closed. \"I should be sorry to believe that; but she is certainly much\r\naltered.\" \"She has great courage to keep her up,--and a feeling that she should\r\nnot give way, but do her duty to the last. In spite of all that,\r\nhowever, I can see how changed she is since the summer. Have you\r\never thought how sad it will be if she should be alone when the day\r\ncomes?\" \"She has Martha, who is more to her now than any one else,--unless it\r\nis you.\" \"You could not remain with her over Christmas, I suppose?\" \"Who, I? What would my father do? Papa is as old, or nearly as old,\r\nas my aunt.\" \"But he is strong.\" \"He is very lonely. He would be more lonely than she is, for he has\r\nno such servant as Martha to be with him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Women can do better than\r\nmen, I think, when they come to my aunt's age.\" From this they got into a conversation as to the character of the\r\nlady with whom they were both so nearly connected, and, in spite of\r\nall that Clara could do to prevent it, continual references were\r\nmade by Captain Aylmer to her money and her will, and the need of an\r\naddition to that will on Clara's behalf. At last she was driven to\r\nspeak out. \"Captain Aylmer,\" she said, \"the subject is so distasteful\r\nto me, that I must ask you not to speak about it.\" \"In my position I am driven to think about it.\" \"I cannot, of course, help your thoughts; but I can assure you that\r\nthey are unnecessary.\" \"It seems to me so hard that there should be such a gulf between you\r\nand me.\" This he said after he had been silent for a while; and as he\r\nspoke he looked away from her at the fire. \"I don't know that there is any particular gulf,\" she replied. \"Yes, there is. And it is you that make it. Whenever I attempt to\r\nspeak to you as a friend you draw yourself off from me, and shut\r\nyourself up. I know that it is not jealousy.\" \"Jealousy, Captain Aylmer!\" \"Jealousy with my aunt, I mean.\" \"No, indeed.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You are infinitely too proud for that; but I am sure that a stranger\r\nseeing it all would think that it was so.\" \"I don't know what it is that I do or that I ought not to do. But\r\nall my life everything that I have done at Perivale has always been\r\nwrong.\" \"It would have been so natural that you and I should be friends.\" \"If we are enemies, Captain Aylmer, I don't know it.\" \"But if ever I venture to speak of your future life you always repel\r\nme;--as though you were determined to let me know that it should not\r\nbe a matter of care to me.\" \"That is exactly what I am determined to let you know. You are, or\r\nwill be, a rich man, and you have everything the world can give you. I am, or shall be, a very poor woman.\" \"Is that a reason why I should not be interested in your welfare?\" \"Yes;--the best reason in the world. We are not related to each\r\nother, though we have a common connection in dear Mrs. Winterfield. And nothing, to my idea, can be more objectionable than any sort of\r\ndependence from a woman of my age on a man of yours,--there being no\r\nreal tie of blood between them. I have spoken very plainly, Captain\r\nAylmer, for you have made me do it.\" \"Very plainly,\" he said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If I have said anything to offend you, I beg your pardon; but I was\r\ndriven to explain myself.\" Then she got up and took her bed-candle in\r\nher hand. \"You have not offended me,\" he said, as he also rose. \"Good-night, Captain Aylmer.\" He took her hand and kept it. \"Say that we are friends.\" \"Why should we not be friends?\" \"There is no reason on my part why we should not be the dearest\r\nfriends,\" he said. \"Were it not that I am so utterly without\r\nencouragement, I should say the very dearest.\" He still held her\r\nhand, and was looking into her face as he spoke. For a moment she\r\nstood there, bearing his gaze, as though she expected some further\r\nwords to be spoken. Then she withdrew her hand, and again saying, in\r\na clear voice, \"Good-night, Captain Aylmer,\" she left the room. CHAPTER IX. CAPTAIN AYLMER'S PROMISE TO HIS AUNT. What had Captain Aylmer meant by telling her that they might be the\r\ndearest friends--by saying so much as that, and then saying no more? Of course Clara asked herself that question as soon as she was alone\r\nin her bedroom, after leaving Captain Aylmer below. And she made\r\ntwo answers to herself--two answers which were altogether distinct\r\nand contradictory one of the other."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At first she decided that he\r\nhad said so much and no more because he was deceitful--because\r\nit suited his vanity to raise hopes which he had no intention of\r\nfulfilling--because he was fond of saying soft things which were\r\nintended to have no meaning. This was her first answer to herself. But in her second she accused herself as much as she had before\r\naccused him. She had been cold to him, unfriendly, and harsh. As her\r\naunt had told her, she spoke sharp words to him, and repulsed the\r\nkindness which he offered her. What right had she to expect from him\r\na declaration of love when she was studious to stop him at every\r\navenue by which he might approach it? A little management on her\r\nside would, she almost knew, make things right. But then the idea of\r\nany such management distressed her;--nay, more, disgusted her. The\r\nmanagement, if any were necessary, must come from him. And it was\r\nmanifest enough that if he had any strong wishes in this matter he\r\nwas not a good manager. Her cousin, Will Belton, knew how to manage\r\nmuch better. On the next morning, however, all her thoughts respecting Captain\r\nAylmer were dissipated by tidings which Martha brought to her\r\nbedside."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her aunt was ill. Martha was afraid that her mistress was\r\nvery ill. She did not dare to send specially for the doctor on her\r\nown responsibility, as Mrs. Winterfield had strong and peculiar\r\nfeelings about doctors' visits, and had on this very morning declined\r\nto be so visited. On the next day the doctor would come in the usual\r\ncourse of things, for she had submitted for some years back to such\r\nperiodical visitings; but she had desired that nothing might be done\r\nout of the common way. Martha, however, declared that if she were\r\nalone with her mistress the doctor would be sent for; and she now\r\npetitioned for aid from Clara. Clara was, of course, by her aunt's\r\nbedside in a few minutes, and in a few minutes more the doctor from\r\nthe other side of the way was there also. It was ten o'clock before Captain Aylmer and Miss Amedroz met\r\nat breakfast, and they had before that been together in Mrs.\r\nWinterfield's room. The doctor had told Captain Aylmer that his aunt\r\nwas very ill--very ill, dangerously ill. She had been wrong to go\r\ninto such a place as the cold, unaired Town-hall, and that, too,\r\nin the month of November; and the fatigue had also been too much\r\nfor her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Winterfield, too, had admitted to Clara that she knew\r\nherself to be very ill. \"I felt it coming on me last night,\" she\r\nsaid, \"when I was talking to you; and I felt it still more strongly\r\nwhen I left you after tea. I have lived long enough. God's will be\r\ndone.\" At that moment, when she said she had lived long enough, she\r\nforgot her intention with reference to her will. But she remembered\r\nit before Clara had left the room. \"Tell Frederic,\" she said, \"to\r\nsend at once for Mr. Palmer.\" Now Clara knew that Mr. Palmer was the\r\nattorney, and resolved that she would give no such message to Captain\r\nAylmer. But Mrs. Winterfield sent for her nephew, who had just left\r\nher, and herself gave her orders to him. In the course of the morning\r\nthere came tidings from the attorney's office that Mr. Palmer was\r\naway from Perivale, that he would be back on the morrow, and that he\r\nwould of course wait on Mrs. Winterfield immediately on his return. Captain Aylmer and Miss Amedroz discussed nothing but their aunt's\r\nstate of health that morning over the breakfast-table. Of course,\r\nunder such circumstances in the house, there was no further immediate\r\nreference made to that offer of dearest friendship. It was clear to\r\nthem both that the doctor did not expect that Mrs. Winterfield would\r\nagain leave her bed; and it was clear to Clara also that her aunt was\r\nof the same opinion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I shall hardly be able to go home now,\" she said. \"It will be kind of you if you can remain.\" \"And you?\" \"I shall remain over the Sunday. If by that time she is at all\r\nbetter, I will run up to town and come down again before the end of\r\nthe week. I know you don't believe it, but a man really has some\r\nthings which he must do.\" \"I don't disbelieve you, Captain Aylmer.\" \"But you must write to me daily if I do go.\" To this Clara made no objection;--and she must write also to some one\r\nelse. She must let her cousin know how little chance there was that\r\nshe would be at home at Christmas, explaining to him at the same time\r\nthat his visit to her father would on that account be all the more\r\nwelcome. \"Are you going to her now?\" he asked, as Clara got up immediately\r\nafter breakfast. \"I shall be in the house all the morning, and if you\r\nwant me you will of course send for me.\" \"She may perhaps like to see you.\" \"I will come up every now and again. I would remain there altogether,\r\nonly I should be in the way.\" Then he got a newspaper and made\r\nhimself comfortable over the fire, while she went up to her weary\r\ntask in her aunt's room."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Neither on that day nor on the next did the lawyer come, and on\r\nthe following morning all earthly troubles were over with Mrs.\r\nWinterfield. It was early on the Sunday morning that she died, and\r\nlate on the Saturday evening Mr. Palmer had sent up to say that\r\nhe had been detained at Taunton, but that he would wait on Mrs.\r\nWinterfield early on the Monday morning. On the Friday the poor lady\r\nhad said much on the subject, but had been comforted by an assurance\r\nfrom her nephew that the arrangement should be carried out exactly\r\nas she wished it, whether the codicil was or was not added to the\r\nwill. To Clara she said nothing more on the subject, nor at such a\r\ntime did Captain Aylmer feel that he could offer her any assurance\r\non the matter. But Clara knew that the will was not altered; and\r\nthough at the time she was not thinking much about money, she had,\r\nnevertheless, very clearly made up her own mind as to her own\r\nconduct. Nothing should induce her to take a present of fifteen\r\nhundred pounds,--or, indeed, of as many pence from Captain Aylmer. During those hours of sickness in the house they had been much thrown\r\ntogether, and no one could have been kinder or more gentle to her\r\nthan he had been."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had come to call her Clara, as people will do\r\nwhen joined together in such duties, and had been very pleasant as\r\nwell as affectionate in his manner with her. It had seemed to her\r\nthat he also wished to take upon himself the cares and love of an\r\nadopted brother. But as an adopted brother she would have nothing\r\nto do with him. The two men whom she liked best in the world would\r\nassume each the wrong place; and between them both she felt that she\r\nwould be left friendless. On the Saturday afternoon they had both surmised how it was going to\r\nbe with Mrs. Winterfield, and Captain Aylmer had told Mr. Palmer that\r\nhe feared his coming on the Monday would be useless. He explained\r\nalso what was required, and declared that he would be at once ready\r\nto make good the deficiency in the will. Mr. Palmer seemed to think\r\nthat this would be better even than the making of a codicil in the\r\nlast moments of the lady's life; and, therefore, he and Captain\r\nAylmer were at rest on that subject. During the greater part of the Saturday night both Clara and Captain\r\nAylmer remained with their aunt; and once when the morning was almost\r\nthere, and the last hour was near at hand, she had said a word or two\r\nwhich both of them had understood, in which she implored her darling\r\nFrederic to take a brother's care of Clara Amedroz."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Even in that\r\nmoment Clara had repudiated the legacy, feeling sure in her heart\r\nthat Frederic Aylmer was aware what was the nature of the care which\r\nhe ought to owe, if he would consent to owe any care to her. He\r\npromised his aunt that he would do as she desired him, and it was\r\nimpossible that Clara should then, aloud, repudiate the compact. But\r\nshe said nothing, merely allowing her hand to rest with his beneath\r\nthe thin, dry hand of the dying woman. To her aunt, however, when for\r\na moment they were alone together, she showed all possible affection,\r\nwith thanks and tears, and warm kisses, and prayers for forgiveness\r\nas to all those matters in which she had offended. \"My pretty\r\none;--my dear,\" said the old woman, raising her hand on to the head\r\nof the crouching girl, who was hiding her moist eyes on the bed. Never during her life had her aunt appeared to her in so loving\r\na mood as now, when she was leaving it. Then, with some eager\r\nimpassioned words, in which she pronounced her ideas of what should\r\nbe the religious duties of a woman, Mrs. Winterfield bade farewell\r\nto her niece. After that, she had a longer interview with her nephew,\r\nand then it seemed that all worldly cares were over with her. The Sunday was passed in all that blankness of funeral grief which is\r\nabsolutely necessary on such occasions."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It cannot be said that either\r\nClara or Captain Aylmer were stricken with any of that agony of woe\r\nwhich is produced on us by the death of those whom we have loved so\r\nwell that we cannot bring ourselves to submit to part with them. They\r\nwere both truly sorry for their aunt, in the common parlance of the\r\nworld; but their sorrow was of that modified sort which does not numb\r\nthe heart, and make the surviving sufferer feel that there never can\r\nbe a remedy. Nevertheless, it demanded sad countenances, few words,\r\nand those spoken hardly above a whisper; an absence of all amusement\r\nand almost of all employment, and a full surrender to the trappings\r\nof woe. They two were living together without other companion in the\r\nbig house,--sitting down together to dinner and to tea; but on this\r\nday hardly a dozen words were spoken between them, and those dozen\r\nwere spoken with no purport. On the Monday Captain Aylmer gave orders\r\nfor the funeral, and then went away to London, undertaking to be back\r\non the day before the last ceremony. Clara was rather glad that he\r\nshould be gone, though she feared the solitude of the big house. She\r\nwas glad that he should be gone, as she found it impossible to talk\r\nto him with ease to herself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She knew that he was about to assume\r\nsome position as protector or quasi guardian over her, in conformity\r\nwith her aunt's express wish, and she was quite resolved that she\r\nwould submit to no such guardianship from his hands. That being so,\r\nthe shorter period there might be for any such discussion the better. The funeral was to take place on the Saturday, and during the four\r\ndays that intervened she received two visits from Mr. Possitt. Mr.\r\nPossitt was very discreet in what he said, and Clara was angry with\r\nherself for not allowing his words to have any avail with her. She\r\ntold herself that they were commonplace; but she told herself, also,\r\nafter his first visit, that she had no right to expect anything else\r\nbut commonplace words. How often are men found who can speak words\r\non such occasions that are not commonplaces,--that really stir the\r\nsoul, and bring true comfort to the listener? The humble listener\r\nmay receive comfort even from commonplace words; but Clara was not\r\nhumble, and rebuked herself for her own pride. On the second occasion\r\nof his coming she did endeavour to receive him with a meek heart,\r\nand to accept what he said with an obedient spirit. But the struggle\r\nwithin her bosom was hard, and when he bade her to kneel and pray\r\nwith him, she doubted for a moment between rebellion and hypocrisy. But she had determined to be meek, and so hypocrisy carried the hour."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What would a clergyman say on such an occasion if the object of his\r\nsolicitude were to decline the offer, remarking that prayer at that\r\nmoment did not seem to be opportune; and that, moreover, he, the\r\nperson thus invited, would like, first of all, to know what was to\r\nbe the special object of the proposed prayer, if he found that he\r\ncould, at the spur of the moment, bring himself at all into a fitting\r\nmood for the task? Of him who would decline, without argument, the\r\nclergyman would opine that he was simply a reprobate. Of him who\r\nwould propose to accompany an hypothetical acceptance with certain\r\nstipulations, he would say to himself that he was a stiff-necked\r\nwrestler against grace, whose condition was worse than that of the\r\nreprobate. Men and women, conscious that they will be thus judged,\r\nsubmit to the hypocrisy, and go down upon their knees unprepared,\r\nmaking no effort, doing nothing while they are there, allowing their\r\nconsciences to be eased if they can only feel themselves numbed into\r\nsome ceremonial awe by the occasion. So it was with Clara, when Mr.\r\nPossitt, with easy piety, went through the formula of his devotion,\r\nhardly ever having realised to himself the fact that, of all works in\r\nwhich man can engage himself, that of prayer is the most difficult."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It is a sad loss to me,\" said Mr. Possitt, as he sat for half an\r\nhour with Clara, after she had thus submitted herself. Mr. Possitt\r\nwas a weakly, pale-faced little man, who worked so hard in the parish\r\nthat on every day, Sundays included, he went to bed as tired in all\r\nhis bones as a day labourer from the fields;--\"a very great loss. There are not many now who understand what a clergyman has to go\r\nthrough, as our dear friend did.\" If he was mindful of his two\r\nglasses of port wine on Sundays, who could blame him? \"She was a very kind woman, Mr. Possitt.\" \"Yes, indeed;--and so thoughtful! That she will have an exceeding\r\ngreat reward, who can doubt? Since I knew her she always lived as a\r\nsaint upon earth. I suppose there's nothing known as to who will live\r\nin this house, Miss Amedroz?\" \"Nothing;--I should think.\" \"Captain Aylmer won't keep it in his own hands?\" \"I cannot tell in the least; but as he is obliged to live in London\r\nbecause of Parliament, and goes to Yorkshire always in the autumn, he\r\ncan hardly want it.\" \"I suppose not. But it will be a sad loss,--a sad loss to have this\r\nhouse empty. Ah!--I shall never forget her kindness to me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Do you\r\nknow, Miss Amedroz,\"--and as he told his little secret he became\r\nbeautifully confidential;--\"do you know, she always used to send me\r\nten guineas at Christmas to help me along. She understood, as well as\r\nany one, how hard it is for a gentleman to live on seventy pounds a\r\nyear. You will not wonder that I should feel that I've had a loss.\" It is hard for a gentleman to live upon seventy pounds a year; and it\r\nis very hard, too, for a lady to live upon nothing a year, which lot\r\nin life fate seemed to have in store for Miss Amedroz. On the Friday evening Captain Aylmer came back, and Clara was in\r\ntruth glad to see him. Her aunt's death had been now far enough back\r\nto admit of her telling Martha that she would not dine till Captain\r\nAylmer had come, and to allow her to think somewhat of his comfort. People must eat and drink even when the grim monarch is in the house;\r\nand it is a relief when they first dare to do so with some attention\r\nto the comforts which are ordinarily so important to them. For\r\nthemselves alone women seldom care to exercise much trouble in this\r\ndirection; but the presence of a man at once excuses and renders\r\nnecessary the ceremony of a dinner. So Clara prepared for the\r\narrival, and greeted the comer with some returning pleasantness of\r\nmanner."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And he, too, was pleasant with her, telling her of his plans,\r\nand speaking to her as though she were one of those whom it was\r\nnatural that he should endeavour to interest in his future welfare. \"When I come back to-morrow,\" he said, \"the will must be opened and\r\nread. It had better be done here.\" They were sitting over the fire in\r\nthe dining-room, after dinner, and Clara knew that the coming back\r\nto which he alluded was his return from the funeral. But she made no\r\nanswer to this, as she wished to say nothing about her aunt's will. \"And after that,\" he continued, \"you had better let me take you out.\" \"I am very well,\" she said. \"I do not want any special taking out.\" \"But you have been confined to the house the whole week.\" \"Women are accustomed to that, and do not feel it as you would. However, I will walk with you if you'll take me.\" \"Of course I'll take you. And then we must settle our future plans. Have you fixed upon any day yet for returning? Of course, the longer\r\nyou stay, the kinder you will be.\" \"I can do no good to any one by staying.\" \"You do good to me;--but I suppose I'm nobody. I wish I could tell\r\nwhat to do about this house. Dear, good old woman!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I know she would\r\nhave wished that I should keep it in my own hands, with some idea of\r\nliving here at some future time;--but of course I never shall live\r\nhere.\" \"Why not?\" \"Would you like it yourself?\" \"I am not Member of Parliament for Perivale, and should not be the\r\nleading person in the town. You would be a sort of king here; and\r\nthen, some day, you will have your mother's property as well as your\r\naunt's; and you would be near to your own tenants.\" \"But that does not answer my question. Could you bring yourself to\r\nlive here,--even if it were your own?\" \"Why not?\" \"Because it is so deadly dull;--because it has no attraction\r\nwhatever;--because of all lives it is the one you would like the\r\nleast. No one should live in a provincial town but they who make\r\ntheir money by doing so.\" \"And what are the wives and daughters of such people to do,--and\r\nespecially their widows? I have no doubt I could live here very\r\nhappily if I had anybody near me that I liked. I should not wish to\r\nhave to depend altogether on Mr. Possitt for society.\" \"And you would find him about the best.\" \"Mr. Possitt has been with me twice whilst you were away, and he,\r\ntoo, asked what you meant to do about the house.\" \"And what did you say?\" \"What could I say? Of course I said I did not know."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I suppose he\r\nwas meditating whether you would live here and ask him to dinner on\r\nSundays!\" \"Mr. Possitt is a very good sort of man,\" said the Captain,\r\ngravely;--for Captain Aylmer, in the carrying out of his principles,\r\nalways spoke seriously of everything connected with the Church in\r\nPerivale. \"And quite worthy to be asked to dinner on Sundays,\" said Clara. \"But\r\nI did not give him any hope. How could I? Of course I knew that you\r\nwould not live here, though I did not tell him so.\" \"No; I don't suppose I shall. But I see very plainly that you think\r\nI ought to do so.\" \"I've the old-fashioned idea as to a man's living near to his own\r\nproperty; that is all. No doubt it was good for other people in\r\nPerivale, besides Mr. Possitt, that my dear aunt lived here; and if\r\nthe house is shut up, or let to some stranger, they will feel her\r\nloss the more. But I don't know that you are bound to sacrifice\r\nyourself to them.\" \"If I were to marry,\" said Captain Aylmer, very slowly and in a low\r\nvoice, \"of course I should have to think of my wife's wishes.\" \"But if your wife, when she accepted you, knew that you were living\r\nhere, she would hardly take upon herself to demand that you should\r\ngive up your residence.\" \"She might find it very dull.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"She would make her own calculations as to that before she accepted\r\nyou.\" \"No doubt;--but I can't fancy any woman taking a man who was tied by\r\nhis leg to Perivale. What do the people do who live in Perivale?\" \"Earn their bread.\" \"Yes;--that's just what I said. But I shouldn't earn mine here.\" \"I have the feeling I spoke of very strongly about papa's place,\"\r\nsaid Clara, changing the conversation suddenly. \"I very often think\r\nof the future fate of Belton Castle when papa shall have gone. My\r\ncousin has got his house at Plaistow, and I don't suppose he'd live\r\nthere.\" \"And where will you go?\" he asked. As soon as she had spoken, Clara regretted her own imprudence in\r\nhaving ventured to speak upon her own affairs. She had been well\r\npleased to hear him talk of his plans, and had been quite resolved\r\nnot to talk of her own. But now, by her own speech, she had set him\r\nto make inquiries as to her future life. She did not at first answer\r\nthe question; but he repeated it. \"And where will you live yourself?\" \"I hope I may not have to think of that for some time to come yet.\" \"It is impossible to help thinking of such things.\" \"I can assure you that I haven't thought about it; but I suppose I\r\nshall endeavour to--to--; I don't know what I shall endeavour to do.\" \"Will you come and live at Perivale?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Why here more than anywhere else?\" \"In this house I mean.\" \"That would suit me admirably;--would it not? I'm afraid Mr. Possitt\r\nwould not find me a good neighbour. To tell the truth, I think that\r\nany lady who lives here alone ought to be older than I am. The\r\nPerivalians would not show to a young woman that sort of respect\r\nwhich they have always felt for this house.\" \"I didn't mean alone,\" said Captain Aylmer. Then Clara got up and made some excuse for leaving him, and there was\r\nnothing more said between them,--nothing, at least, of moment, on\r\nthat evening. She had become uneasy when he asked her whether she\r\nwould like to live in his house at Perivale. But afterwards, when he\r\nsuggested that she was to have some companion with her there, she\r\nfelt herself compelled to put an end to the conversation. And yet she\r\nknew that this was always the way, both with him and with herself. He\r\nwould say things which would seem to promise that in another minute\r\nhe would be at her feet, and then he would go no further. And she,\r\nwhen she heard those words,--though in truth she would have had him\r\nat her feet if she could,--would draw away, and recede, and forbid\r\nhim as it were to go on. But Clara continued to make her comparisons,\r\nand knew well that her cousin Will would have gone on in spite of any\r\nsuch forbiddings."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On that night, however, when she was alone, she could console herself\r\nwith thinking how right she had been. In that front bedroom, the\r\ndoor of which was opposite to her own, with closed shutters, in the\r\nterrible solemnity of lifeless humanity, was still lying the body of\r\nher aunt! What would she have thought of herself if at such a moment\r\nshe could have listened to words of love, and promised herself as a\r\nwife while such an inmate was in the house? She little knew that he,\r\nwithin that same room, had pledged himself, to her who was now lying\r\nthere waiting for her last removal--had pledged himself, just seven\r\ndays since, to make the offer which, when he was talking to her, she\r\nwas always half hoping and half fearing! He could have meant nothing else when he told her that he had not\r\nintended to suggest that she should live there alone in that great\r\nhouse at Perivale. She could not hinder herself from thinking of\r\nthis, unfit as was the present moment for any such thoughts. How was\r\nit possible that she should not speculate on the subject, let her\r\nresolutions against any such speculation be ever so strong? She had\r\nconfessed to herself that she loved the man, and what else could she\r\nwish but that he also should love her?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But there came upon her some\r\nfaint suspicion--some glimpse of what was almost a dream--that he\r\nmight possibly in this matter be guided rather by duty than by love. It might be that he would feel himself constrained to offer his hand\r\nto her--constrained by the peculiarity of his position towards her. If so--should she discover that such were his motives--there would be\r\nno doubt as to the nature of her answer. CHAPTER X. SHOWING HOW CAPTAIN AYLMER KEPT HIS PROMISE. The next day was necessarily very sad. Clara had declared her\r\ndetermination to follow her aunt to the churchyard, and did so,\r\ntogether with Martha, the old servant. There were three or four\r\nmourning coaches, as family friends came over from Taunton, one\r\nor two of whom were to be present at the reading of the will. How\r\nmelancholy was the occasion, and how well the work was done; how\r\nsubstantial and yet how solemn was the luncheon, spread after the\r\nfuneral for the gentlemen; and how the will was read, without a\r\nword of remark, by Mr. Palmer, need hardly be told here."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The will\r\ncontained certain substantial legacies to servants--the amount to\r\nthat old handmaid Martha being so great as to produce a fit of\r\nfainting, after which the old handmaid declared that if ever there\r\nwas, by any chance, an angel of light upon the earth, it was her late\r\nmistress; and yet Martha had had her troubles with her mistress; and\r\nthere was a legacy of two hundred pounds to the gentleman who was\r\ncalled upon to act as co-executor with Captain Aylmer. Other clause\r\nin the will there was none, except that one substantial clause which\r\nbequeathed to her well-beloved nephew, Frederic Folliott Aylmer,\r\neverything of which the testatrix died possessed. The will had been\r\nmade at some moment in which Clara's spirit of independence had\r\noffended her aunt, and her name was not mentioned. That nothing\r\nshould have been left to Clara was the one thing that surprised the\r\nrelatives from Taunton who were present. The relatives from Taunton,\r\nto give them their due, expected nothing for themselves; but as there\r\nhad been great doubt as to the proportions in which the property\r\nwould be divided between the nephew and adopted niece, there was\r\naroused a considerable excitement as to the omission of the name of\r\nMiss Amedroz--an excitement which was not altogether unpleasant. When\r\npeople complain of some cruel shame, which does not affect themselves\r\npersonally, the complaint is generally accompanied by an unexpressed\r\nand unconscious feeling of satisfaction."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the present occasion, when the will had been read and refolded,\r\nCaptain Aylmer, who was standing on the rug near the fire, spoke a\r\nfew words. His aunt, he said, had desired to add a codicil to the\r\nwill, of the nature of which Mr. Palmer was well aware. She had\r\nexpressed her intention to leave fifteen hundred pounds to her\r\nniece, Miss Amedroz; but death had come upon her too quickly to\r\nenable her to perform her purpose. Of this intention on the part of\r\nMrs. Winterfield, Mr. Palmer was as well aware as himself; and he\r\nmentioned the subject now, merely with the object of saying that, as\r\na matter of course, the legacy to Miss Amedroz was as good as though\r\nthe codicil had been completed. On such a question as that there\r\ncould arise no question as to legal right; but he understood that the\r\nlegal claim of Miss Amedroz, under such circumstances, was as valid\r\nas his own. It was therefore no affair of generosity on his part. Then there was a little buzz of satisfaction on the part of those\r\npresent, and the meeting was broken up. A certain old Mrs. Folliott, who was cousin to everybody concerned,\r\nhad come over from Taunton to see how things were going."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had\r\nalways been at variance with Mrs. Winterfield, being a woman who\r\nloved cards and supper parties, and who had throughout her life\r\nstabled her horses in stalls very different to those used by the\r\nlady of Perivale. Now this Mrs. Folliott was the first to tell Clara\r\nof the will. Clara, of course, was altogether indifferent. She had\r\nknown for months past that her aunt had intended to leave nothing\r\nto her, and her only hope had been that she might be left free from\r\nany commiseration or remark on the subject. But Mrs. Folliott, with\r\nsundry shakings of the head, told her how her aunt had omitted to\r\nname her--and then told her also of Captain Aylmer's generosity. \"We all did think, my dear,\" said Mrs. Folliott, \"that she would\r\nhave done better than that for you, or at any rate that she would\r\nnot have left you dependent on him.\" Captain Aylmer's horses were\r\nalso supposed to be stabled in strictly Low Church stalls, and were\r\ntherefore regarded by Mrs. Folliott with much dislike. \"I and my aunt understood each other perfectly,\" said Clara. \"I dare say. But if so, you really were the only person that did\r\nunderstand her. No doubt what she did was quite right, seeing that\r\nshe was a saint; but we sinners would have thought it very wicked to\r\nhave made such a will, and then to have trusted to the generosity of\r\nanother person after we were dead.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But there is no question of trusting to any one's generosity, Mrs. Folliott.\" \"He need not pay you a shilling, you know, unless he likes it.\" \"And he will not be asked to pay me a shilling.\" \"I don't suppose he will go back after what he has said publicly.\" \"My dear Mrs. Folliott,\" said Clara earnestly, \"pray do not let us\r\ntalk about it. It is quite unnecessary. I never expected any of my\r\naunt's property, and knew all along that it was to go to Captain\r\nAylmer,--who, indeed, was Mrs. Winterfield's heir naturally. Mrs.\r\nWinterfield was not really my aunt, and I had no claim on her.\" \"But everybody understood that she was to provide for you.\" \"As I was not one of the everybodies myself, it will not signify.\" Then Mrs. Folliott retreated, having, as she thought, performed her\r\nduty to Clara, and contented herself henceforth with abusing Mrs.\r\nWinterfield's will in her own social circles at Taunton. On the evening of that day, when all the visitors were gone and the\r\nhouse was again quiet, Captain Aylmer thought it expedient to explain\r\nto Clara the nature of his aunt's will, and the manner in which she\r\nwould be allowed to inherit under it the amount of money which her\r\naunt had intended to bequeath to her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When she became impatient and\r\nobjected to listen to him, he argued with her, pointing out to her\r\nthat this was a matter of business to which it was now absolutely\r\nnecessary that she should attend. \"It may be the case,\" he said,\r\n\"and, indeed, I hope it will, that no essential difference will be\r\nmade by it;--except that it will gratify you to know how careful\r\nshe was of your interests in her last moments. But you are bound in\r\nduty to learn your own position; and I, as her executor, am bound to\r\nexplain it to you. But perhaps you would rather discuss it with Mr. Palmer.\" \"Oh no;--save me from that.\" \"You must understand, then, that I shall pay over to you the sum of\r\nfifteen hundred pounds as soon as the will has been proved.\" \"I understand nothing of the kind. I know very well that if I were\r\nto take it, I should be accepting a present from you, and to that I\r\ncannot consent.\" \"But Clara--\"\r\n\r\n\"It is no good, Captain Aylmer. Though I don't pretend to understand\r\nmuch about law, I do know that I can have no claim to anything that\r\nis not put into the will; and I won't have what I could not claim. My mind is quite made up, and I hope I mayn't be annoyed about it. Nothing is more disagreeable than having to discuss money matters.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Perhaps Captain Aylmer thought that the having no money matters to\r\ndiscuss might be even more disagreeable. \"Well,\" he said, \"I can only\r\nask you to consult any friend whom you can trust upon the matter. Ask\r\nyour father, or Mr. Belton, and I have no doubt that either of them\r\nwill tell you that you are as much entitled to the legacy as though\r\nit had been written in the will.\" \"On such a matter, Captain Aylmer, I don't want to ask anybody. You\r\ncan't pay me the money unless I choose to take it, and I certainly\r\nshall not do that.\" Upon hearing this he smiled, assuming, as\r\nClara fancied that he was sometimes wont to do, a look of quiet\r\nsuperiority; and then, for that time, he allowed the subject to be\r\ndropped between them. But Clara knew that she must discuss it at length with her father,\r\nand the fear of that discussion made her unhappy. She had already\r\nwritten to say that she would return home on the day but one after\r\nthe funeral, and had told Captain Aylmer of her purpose. So very\r\nprudent a man as he of course could not think it right that a young\r\nlady should remain with him, in his house, as his visitor; and to her\r\ndecision on this point he had made no objection."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She now heartily\r\nwished that she had named the day after the funeral, and that she\r\nhad not been deterred by her dislike of making a Sunday journey. She\r\ndreaded this day, and would have been very thankful if he would have\r\nleft her and gone back to London. But he intended, he said, to remain\r\nat Perivale throughout the next week, and she must endure the day as\r\nbest she might be able. She wished that it were possible to ask Mr.\r\nPossitt to his accustomed dinner; but she did not dare to make the\r\nproposition to the master of the house. Though Captain Aylmer had\r\ndeclared Mr. Possitt to be a very worthy man, Clara surmised that he\r\nwould not be anxious to commence that practice of a Sabbatical dinner\r\nso soon after his aunt's decease. The day, after all, would be but\r\none day, and Clara schooled herself into a resolution to bear it with\r\ngood humour. Captain Aylmer had made a positive promise to his aunt on her\r\ndeathbed that he would ask Clara Amedroz to be his wife, and he had\r\nno more idea of breaking his word than he had of resigning the whole\r\nproperty which had been left to him. Whether Clara would accept him\r\nhe had much doubt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was a man by no means brilliant, not naturally\r\nself-confident, nor was he, perhaps, to be credited with the\r\npossession of high principles of the finest sort; but he was clever,\r\nin the ordinary sense of the word, knowing his own interest, knowing,\r\ntoo, that that interest depended on other things besides money; and\r\nhe was a just man, according to the ordinary rules of justice in the\r\nworld. Not for the first time, when he was sitting by the bedside of\r\nhis dying aunt, had he thought of asking Clara to marry him. Though\r\nhe had never hitherto resolved that he would do so--though he had\r\nnever till then brought himself absolutely to determine that he would\r\ntake so important a step--he had pondered over it often, and was\r\naware that he was very fond of Clara. He was, in truth, as much in\r\nlove with her as it was in his nature to be in love. He was not a\r\nman to break his heart for a girl;--nor even to make a strong fight\r\nfor a wife, as Belton was prepared to do. If refused once, he might\r\nprobably ask again,--having some idea that a first refusal was not\r\nalways intended to mean much,--and he might possibly make a third\r\nattempt, prompted by some further calculation of the same nature."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But\r\nit might be doubted whether, on the first, second, or third occasion,\r\nhe would throw much passion into his words; and those who knew him\r\nwell would hardly expect to see him die of a broken heart, should he\r\nultimately be unsuccessful. When he had first thought of marrying Miss Amedroz he had imagined\r\nthat she would have shared with him his aunt's property, and indeed\r\nsuch had been his belief up to the days of the last illness of Mrs.\r\nWinterfield. The match therefore had recommended itself to him as\r\nbeing prudent as well as pleasant; and though his aunt had never\r\nhitherto pressed the matter upon him, he had understood what her\r\nwishes were. When she first told him, three or four days before her\r\ndeath, that her property was left altogether to him, and then, on\r\nhearing how totally her niece was without hope of provision from her\r\nfather, had expressed her desire to give a sum of money to Clara, she\r\nhad spoken plainly of her desire;--but she had not on that occasion\r\nasked him for any promise. But afterwards, when she knew that she was\r\ndying, she had questioned him as to his own feelings, and he, in his\r\nanxiety to gratify her in her last wishes, had given her the promise\r\nwhich she was so anxious to hear. He made no difficulty in doing so. It was his own wish as well as hers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In a money point of view he\r\nmight no doubt now do better; but then money was not everything. He\r\nwas very fond of Clara, and felt that if she would accept him he\r\nwould be proud of his wife. She was well born and well educated, and\r\nit was the proper sort of thing for him to do. No doubt he had some\r\nidea, seeing how things had now arranged themselves, that he would\r\nbe giving much more than he would get; and perhaps the manner of\r\nhis offer might be affected by that consideration; but not on that\r\naccount did he feel at all sure that he would be accepted. Clara\r\nAmedroz was a proud girl,--perhaps too proud. Indeed, it was her\r\nfault. If her pride now interfered with her future fortune in life,\r\nit should be her own fault, not his. He would do his duty to her and\r\nto his aunt;--he would do it perseveringly and kindly; and then, if\r\nshe refused him, the fault would not be his. Such, I think, was the state of Captain Aylmer's mind when he got up\r\non the Sunday morning, resolving that he would on that day make good\r\nhis promise. And it must be remembered, on his behalf, that he would\r\nhave prepared himself for his task with more animation if he had\r\nhitherto received warmer encouragement."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had felt himself to be\r\nrepulsed in the little efforts which he had already made to please\r\nthe lady, and had no idea whatever as to the true state of her\r\nfeelings. Had he known what she knew, he would, I think, have been\r\nanimated enough, and gone to his task as happy and thriving a lover\r\nas any. But he was a man somewhat diffident of himself, though\r\nsufficiently conscious of the value of the worldly advantages which\r\nhe possessed;--and he was, perhaps, a little afraid of Clara, giving\r\nher credit for an intellect superior to his own. He had promised to walk with her on the Saturday after the reading\r\nof the will, intending to take her out through the gardens down to\r\na farm, now belonging to himself, which lay at the back of the town,\r\nand which was held by an old widow who had been senior in life to\r\nher late landlady; but no such walk had been possible, as it was\r\ndark before the last of the visitors from Taunton had gone. At\r\nbreakfast on Sunday he again proposed the walk, offering to take her\r\nimmediately after luncheon. \"I suppose you will not go to church?\" he\r\nsaid. \"Not to-day. I could hardly bring myself to do it to-day.\" \"I think you are right. I shall go. A man can always do these things\r\nsooner than a lady can. But you will come out afterwards?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "To this\r\nshe assented, and then she was left alone throughout the morning. The walk she did not mind. That she and Captain Aylmer should walk\r\ntogether was all very well. They might probably have done so had Mrs.\r\nWinterfield been still alive. It was the long evening afterwards that\r\nshe dreaded--the long winter evening, in which she would have to sit\r\nwith him as his guest, and with him only. She could not pass these\r\nhours without talking to him, and she felt that she could not talk to\r\nhim naturally and easily. It would, however, be but for once, and she\r\nwould bear it. They went together down to the house of Mrs. Partridge, the tenant,\r\nand made their kindly speeches to the old woman. Mrs. Partridge\r\nalready knew that Captain Aylmer was to be her landlord, but having\r\nhitherto seen more of Miss Amedroz than of the Captain, and having\r\nalways regarded her landlady's niece as being connected irrevocably\r\nwith the property, she addressed them as though the estate were a\r\njoint affair. \"I shan't be here to trouble you long;--that I shan't, Miss Clara,\"\r\nsaid the old woman. \"I am sure Captain Aylmer would be very sorry to lose you,\" replied\r\nClara, speaking loud, and close to the poor woman's ear, for she was\r\ndeaf. \"I never looked to live after she was gone, Miss Clara;--never. No\r\nmore I didn't. Deary;--deary! And I suppose you'll be living at the\r\nbig house now; won't ye?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"The big house belongs to Captain Aylmer, Mrs. Partridge.\" She was\r\ndriven to bawl out her words, and by no means liked the task. Then\r\nCaptain Aylmer said something, but his speech was altogether lost. \"Oh;--it belongs to the Captain, do it? They told me that was the way\r\nof the will; but I suppose it's all one.\" \"Yes; it's all one,\" said Captain Aylmer, gaily. \"It's not exactly all one, as you call it,\" said Clara, attempting to\r\nlaugh, but still shouting at the top of her voice. \"Ah;--I don't understand; but I hope you'll both live there\r\ntogether,--and I hope you'll be as good to the poor as she that is\r\ngone. Well, well; I didn't ever think that I should be still here,\r\nwhile she is lying under the stones up in the old church!\" Captain Aylmer had determined that he would ask his question on the\r\nway back from the farm, and now resolved that he might as well begin\r\nwith some allusion to Mrs. Partridge's words about the house. The\r\nafternoon was bright and cold, and the lane down to the farmhouse\r\nhad been dried by the wind, so that the day was pleasant for walking. \"We might as well go on to the bridge,\" he said, as they left the\r\nfarm-yard. \"I always think that Perivale church looks better from\r\nCreevy bridge than any other point.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Perivale church stood high in\r\nthe centre of the town, on an eminence, and was graced with a spire\r\nwhich was declared by the Perivalians to be preferable to that of\r\nSalisbury in proportion, though it was acknowledged to be somewhat\r\ninferior to it in height. The little river Creevy, which ran through\r\na portion of the suburbs of the town, and which, as there seen, was\r\nhardly more than a ditch, then sloped away behind Creevy Grange, as\r\nthe farm of Mrs. Partridge was called, and was crossed by a small\r\nwooden bridge, from which there was a view, not only of the church,\r\nbut of all that side of the hill on which Mrs. Winterfield's large\r\nbrick house stood conspicuously. So they walked down to Creevy\r\nbridge, and, when there, stood leaning on the parapet and looking\r\nback upon the town. \"How well I know every house and spot in the place as I see them from\r\nhere,\" he said. \"A good many of the houses are your own,--or will be some day; and\r\ntherefore you should know them.\" \"I remember, when I used to be here as a boy fishing, I always\r\nthought Aunt Winterfield's house was the biggest house in the\r\ncounty.\" \"It can't be nearly so large as your father's house in Yorkshire.\" \"No; certainly it is not."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Aylmer Park is a large place; but the house\r\ndoes not stretch itself out so wide as that; nor does it stand on\r\nthe side of a hill so as to show out its proportions with so much\r\nostentation. The coach-house and the stables, and the old brewhouse,\r\nseem to come half way down the hill. And when I was a boy I had much\r\nmore respect for my aunt's red-brick house in Perivale than I had for\r\nAylmer Park.\" \"And now it's your own.\" \"Yes; now it's my own,--and all my respect for it is gone. I used to\r\nthink the Creevy the best river in England for fish; but I wouldn't\r\ngive a sixpence now for all the perch I ever caught in it.\" \"Perhaps your taste for perch is gone also.\" \"Yes; and my taste for jam. I never believed in the store-room at\r\nAylmer Park as I did in my aunt's store-room here.\" \"I don't doubt but what it is full now.\" \"I dare say; but I shall never have the curiosity even to inquire. Ah, dear,--I wish I knew what to do about the house.\" \"You won't sell it, I suppose?\" \"Not if I could either live in it, or let it. It would be wrong to\r\nlet it stand idle.\" \"But you need not decide quite at once.\" \"That's just what I want to do. I want to decide at once.\" \"Then I'm sure I cannot advise you."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It seems to me very unlikely\r\nthat you should come and live here by yourself. It isn't like a\r\ncountry-house exactly.\" \"I shan't live there by myself certainly. You heard what Mrs.\r\nPartridge said just now.\" \"What did Mrs. Partridge say?\" \"She wanted to know whether it belonged to both of us, and whether it\r\nwas not all one. Shall it be all one, Clara?\" She was leaning over the rail of the bridge as he spoke, with her\r\neyes fixed on the slowly moving water. When she heard his words,\r\nshe raised her face and looked full upon him. She was in some sort\r\nprepared for the moment, though it would be untrue to say that she\r\nhad now expected it. Unconsciously she had made some resolve that\r\nif ever the question were put to her by him, she would not be taken\r\naltogether off her guard; and now that the question was put to her,\r\nshe was able to maintain her composure. Her first feeling was one\r\nof triumph,--as it must be in such a position to any woman who has\r\nalready acknowledged to herself that she loves the man who then asks\r\nher to be his wife. She looked up into Captain Aylmer's face, and his\r\neye almost quailed beneath hers. Even should he be triumphant, he was\r\nnot perfectly assured that his triumph would be a success. \"Shall what be all one?\" she asked. \"Shall it be your house and my house?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Can you tell me that you will\r\nlove me and be my wife?\" Again she looked at him, and he repeated his\r\nquestion. \"Clara, can you love me well enough to take me for your\r\nhusband?\" \"I can,\" she said. Why should she hesitate, and play the coy girl,\r\nand pretend to any doubts in her mind which did not exist there? She did love him, and had so told herself with much earnestness. To\r\nhim, while his words had been doubtful,--while he had simply played\r\nat making love to her, she had given no hint of the state of her\r\naffections. She had so carried herself before him as to make him\r\ndoubt whether success could be possible for him. But now,--why should\r\nshe hesitate now? It was as she had hoped,--or as she had hardly\r\ndared to hope. He did love her. \"I can,\" she said; and then, before\r\nhe could speak again, she repeated her words with more emphasis. \"Indeed I can; with all my heart.\" As regarded herself, she was quite equal to the occasion; but had she\r\nknown more of the inner feelings of men and women in general, she\r\nwould have been slower to show her own. What is there that any man\r\ndesires,--any man or any woman,--that does not lose half its value\r\nwhen it is found to be easy of access and easy of possession? Wine is\r\nvalued by its price, not its flavour."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Open your doors freely to Jones\r\nand Smith, and Jones and Smith will not care to enter them. Shut your\r\ndoors obdurately against the same gentlemen, and they will use all\r\ntheir little diplomacy to effect an entrance. Captain Aylmer, when he\r\nheard the hearty tone of the girl's answer, already began almost to\r\ndoubt whether it was wise on his part to devote the innermost bin of\r\nhis cellar to wine that was so cheap. Not that he had any idea of receding. Principle, if not love,\r\nprevented that. \"Then the question about the house is decided,\" he\r\nsaid, giving his hand to Clara as he spoke. \"I don't care a bit about the house now,\" she answered. \"That's unkind.\" \"I am thinking so much more of you,--of you and of myself. What does\r\nan old house matter?\" \"It's in very good repair,\" said Captain Aylmer. \"You must not laugh at me,\" she said; and in truth he was not\r\nlaughing at her. \"What I mean is that anything about a house is\r\nindifferent to me now. It is as though I had got all that I want in\r\nthe world. Is it wrong of me to say so?\" \"Oh, dear, no;--not wrong at all. How can it be wrong?\" He did\r\nnot tell her that he also had got all he wanted; but his lack\r\nof enthusiasm in this respect did not surprise her, or at first\r\neven vex her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had always known him to be a man careful of his\r\nwords,--knowing their value,--not speaking with hurried rashness as\r\nwould her dear cousin Will. And she doubted whether, after all, such\r\nhurried words mean as much as words which are slower and calmer. After all his heat in love and consequent disappointment, Will\r\nBelton had left her apparently well contented. His fervour had been\r\nshort-lived. She loved her cousin dearly, and was so very glad that\r\nhis fervour had been short-lived! \"When you asked me, I could but tell you the truth,\" she said,\r\nsmiling at him. The truth is very well, but he would have liked it better had the\r\ntruth come to him by slower degrees. When his aunt had told him to\r\nmarry Clara Amedroz, he had been at once reconciled to the order by a\r\nfeeling on his own part that the conquest of Clara would not be too\r\nfacile. She was a woman of value, not to be snapped up easily,--or by\r\nany one. So he had thought then; but he began to fancy now that he\r\nhad been wrong in that opinion. The walk back to the house was not of itself very exciting, though\r\nto Clara it was a short period of unalloyed bliss. No doubt had then\r\ncome upon her to cloud her happiness, and she was \"wrapped up in\r\nmeasureless content.\" It was well that they should both be silent\r\nat such a moment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Only yesterday had been buried their dear old\r\nfriend,--the friend who had brought them together, and been so\r\nanxious for their future happiness! And Clara Amedroz was not a young\r\ngirl, prone to jump out of her shoes with elation because she had got\r\na lover. She could be steadily happy without many immediate words\r\nabout her happiness. When they had reached the house, and were once\r\nmore together in the drawing-room, she again gave him her hand, and\r\nwas the first to speak. \"And you; are you contented?\" she asked. Who\r\ndoes not know the smile of triumph with which a girl asks such a\r\nquestion at such a moment as that? \"Contented?--well,--yes; I think I am,\" he said. But even those words did not move her to doubt. \"If you are,\" she\r\nsaid, \"I am. And now I will leave you till dinner, that you may think\r\nover what you have done.\" \"I had thought about it before, you know,\" he replied. Then he\r\nstooped over her and kissed her. It was the first time he had done\r\nso; but his kiss was as cold and proper as though they had been man\r\nand wife for years! But it sufficed for her, and she went to her room\r\nas happy as a queen. CHAPTER XI. MISS AMEDROZ IS TOO CANDID BY HALF."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara, when she left her accepted lover in the drawing-room and went\r\nup to her own chamber, had two hours for consideration before she\r\nwould see him again;--and she had two hours for enjoyment. She was\r\nvery happy. She thoroughly believed in the man who was to be her\r\nhusband, feeling confident that he possessed those qualities which\r\nshe thought to be most necessary for her married happiness. She had\r\nquizzed him at times, pretending to make it matter of accusation\r\nagainst him that his life was not in truth all that his aunt believed\r\nit to be;--but had it been more what Mrs. Winterfield would have\r\nwished, it would have been less to Clara's taste. She liked his\r\nposition in the world; she liked the feeling that he was a man of\r\ninfluence; perhaps she liked to think that to some extent he was a\r\nman of fashion. He was not handsome, but he looked always like a\r\ngentleman. He was well educated, given to reading, prudent, steady\r\nin his habits, a man likely to rise in the world; and she loved him. I fear the reader by this time may have begun to think that her love\r\nshould never have been given to such a man. To this accusation I will\r\nmake no plea at present, but I will ask the complainant whether such\r\nmen are not always loved."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Much is said of the rashness of women in\r\ngiving away their hearts wildly; but the charge when made generally\r\nis, I think, an unjust one. I am more often astonished by the\r\nprudence of girls than by their recklessness. A woman of thirty will\r\noften love well and not wisely; but the girls of twenty seem to\r\nme to like propriety of demeanour, decency of outward life, and a\r\ncompetence. It is, of course, good that it should be so; but if it\r\nis so, they should not also claim a general character for generous\r\nand passionate indiscretion, asserting as their motto that Love shall\r\nstill be Lord of All. Clara was more than twenty; but she was not\r\nyet so far advanced in age as to have lost her taste for decency of\r\ndemeanour and propriety of life. A Member of Parliament, with a small\r\nhouse near Eaton Square, with a moderate income, and a liking for\r\ncommittees, who would write a pamphlet once every two years, and\r\nread Dante critically during the recess, was, to her, the model for\r\na husband. For such a one she would read his blue books, copy his\r\npamphlets, and learn his translations by heart. She would be safe in\r\nthe hands of such a man, and would know nothing of the miseries which\r\nher brother had encountered."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her model may not appear, when thus\r\ndescribed, to be a very noble one; but I think it is the model most\r\napproved among ladies of her class in England. She made up her mind on various points during those two hours of\r\nsolitude. In the first place, she would of course keep her purpose of\r\nreturning home on the following day. It was not probable that Captain\r\nAylmer would ask her to change it; but let him ask ever so much it\r\nmust not be changed. She must at once have the pleasure of telling\r\nher father that all his trouble about her would now be over; and\r\nthen, there was the consideration that her further sojourn in the\r\nhouse, with Captain Aylmer as her lover, would hardly be more proper\r\nthan it would have been had he not occupied that position. And what\r\nwas she to say if he pressed her as to the time of their marriage? Her aunt's death would of course be a sufficient reason why it should\r\nbe delayed for some few months; and, upon the whole, she thought it\r\nwould be best to postpone it till the next session of Parliament\r\nshould have nearly expired. But she would be prepared to yield to\r\nCaptain Aylmer, should he name any time after Easter. It was clearly\r\nhis intention to keep up the house in Perivale as his country\r\nresidence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She did not like Perivale or the house, but she would\r\nsay nothing against such an arrangement. Indeed, with what face\r\ncould she do so? She was going to bring nothing to the common\r\naccount,--absolutely nothing but herself! As she thought of this her\r\nlove grew warmer, and she hardly knew how sufficiently to testify to\r\nherself her own gratitude and affection. She became conscious, as she was preparing herself for dinner, of\r\nsome special attention to her toilet. She was more than ordinarily\r\ncareful with her hair, and felt herself to be aware of an anxiety to\r\nlook her best. She had now been for some time so accustomed to dress\r\nherself in black, that in that respect her aunt's death had made no\r\ndifference to her. Deep mourning had ceased from habit to impress her\r\nwith any special feeling of funereal solemnity. But something about\r\nherself, or in the room, at last struck her with awe, bidding her\r\nremember how death had of late been busy among those who had been her\r\ndearest and nearest friends; and she sat down, almost frightened at\r\nher own heartlessness, in that she was allowing herself to be happy\r\nat such a time. Her aunt had been carried away to her grave only\r\nyesterday, and her brother's death had occurred under circumstances\r\nof peculiar distress within the year;--and yet she was happy,\r\ntriumphant,--almost lost in the joy of her own position!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She remained\r\nfor a while in her chair, with her black dress hanging across her\r\nlap, as she argued with herself as to her own state of mind. Was it\r\na sign of a hard heart within her, that she could be happy at such\r\na time? Ought the memory of her poor brother to have such an effect\r\nupon her as to make any joy of spirits impossible to her? Should she\r\nat the present moment be so crushed by her aunt's demise, as to be\r\nincapable of congratulating herself upon her own success? Should\r\nshe have told him, when he asked her that question upon the bridge,\r\nthat there could be no marrying or giving in marriage between them,\r\nno talking on such a subject in days so full of sorrow as these? I do not know that she quite succeeded in recognising it as a\r\ntruth that sorrow should be allowed to bar out no joy that it does\r\nnot bar out of absolute necessity,--by its own weight, without\r\nreference to conventional ideas; that sorrow should never, under any\r\ncircumstances, be nursed into activity, as though it were a thing in\r\nitself divine or praiseworthy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I do not know that she followed out\r\nher arguments till she had taught herself that it is the Love that is\r\ndivine,--the Love which, when outraged by death or other severance,\r\nproduces that sorrow which man would control if he were strong\r\nenough, but which he cannot control by reason of the weakness of\r\nhis humanity. I doubt whether so much as this made itself plain\r\nto her, as she sat there before her toilet table, with her sombre\r\ndress hanging from her hands on to the ground. But something of the\r\nstrength of such reasoning was hers. Knowing herself to be full of\r\njoy, she would not struggle to make herself believe that it behoved\r\nher to be unhappy. She told herself that she was doing what was good\r\nfor others as well as for herself;--what would be very good for her\r\nfather, and what should be good, if it might be within her power to\r\nmake it so, for him who was to be her husband. The blackness of the\r\ncloud of her brother's death would never altogether pass away from\r\nher. It had tended, as she knew well, to make her serious, grave, and\r\nold, in spite of her own efforts to the contrary. The cloud had been\r\nso black with her that it had nearly lost for her the prize which was\r\nnow her own."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But she told herself that that blackness was an injury\r\nto her, and not a benefit, and that it had now become a duty to\r\nher,--for his sake, if not for her own,--to dispel its shadows rather\r\nthan encourage them. She would go down to him full of joy, though not\r\nfull of mirth, and would confess to him frankly, that in receiving\r\nthe assurance of his love, she had received everything that had\r\nseemed to have any value for her in the world. Hitherto she had been\r\nindependent;--she had specially been careful to show to him her\r\nresolve to be independent of him. Now she would put aside all that,\r\nand let him know that she recognised in him her lord and master as\r\nwell as husband. To her father had been left no strength on which\r\nshe could lean, and she had been forced therefore to trust to her\r\nown strength. Now she would be dependent on him who was to be her\r\nhusband. As heretofore she had rejected his offers of assistance\r\nalmost with disdain, so now would she accept them without scruple,\r\nlooking to him to be her guide in all things, putting from her that\r\ncarping spirit in which she had been wont to judge of his actions,\r\nand believing in him,--as a wife should believe in her husband."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Such were the resolutions which Clara made in the first hour of\r\nsolitude which came to her after her engagement; and they would\r\nhave been wise resolutions but for this flaw--that the stronger was\r\nsubmitting itself to the weaker, the greater to the less, the more\r\nhonest to the less honest, that which was nearly true to that which\r\nwas in great part false. The theory of man and wife--that special\r\ntheory in accordance with which the wife is to bend herself in loving\r\nsubmission before her husband, is very beautiful; and would be good\r\naltogether if it could only be arranged that the husband should be\r\nthe stronger and the greater of the two. The theory is based upon\r\nthat hypothesis;--and the hypothesis sometimes fails of confirmation. In ordinary marriages the vessel rights itself, and the stronger and\r\nthe greater takes the lead, whether clothed in petticoats, or in\r\ncoat, waistcoat, and trousers; but there sometimes comes a terrible\r\nshipwreck, when the woman before marriage has filled herself full\r\nwith ideas of submission, and then finds that her golden-headed god\r\nhas got an iron body and feet of clay. Captain Aylmer when he was left alone had also something to think\r\nabout; and as there were two hours left for such thought before he\r\nwould again meet Clara, and as he had nothing else with which to\r\noccupy himself during those two hours, he again strolled down to\r\nthe bridge on which he had made his offer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He strolled down there,\r\nthinking that he was thinking, but hardly giving much mind to his\r\nthoughts, which he allowed to run away with themselves as they\r\nlisted. Of course he was going to be married. That was a thing\r\nsettled. And he was perfectly satisfied with himself in that he had\r\ndone nothing in a hurry, and could accuse himself of no folly even if\r\nhe had no great cause for triumph. He had been long thinking that he\r\nshould like to have Clara Amedroz for his wife;--long thinking that\r\nhe would ask her to marry him; and having for months indulged such\r\nthoughts he could not take blame to himself for having made to his\r\naunt that deathbed promise which she had exacted. At the moment in\r\nwhich she asked him the question he was himself anxious to do the\r\nthing she desired of him. How then could he have refused her? And,\r\nhaving given the promise, it was a matter of course with him to\r\nfulfil it. He was a man who would have never respected himself\r\nagain--would have hated himself for ever, had he failed to keep a\r\npromise from which no living being could absolve him. He had been\r\nright therefore to make the promise, and having made it, had been\r\nright to keep it, and to do the thing at once."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And Clara was very\r\ngood and very wise, and sometimes looked very well, and would never\r\ndisgrace him; and as she was in worldly matters to receive much and\r\ngive nothing, she would probably be willing to make herself amenable\r\nto any arrangements as to their future mode of life which he might\r\npropose. In respect of this matter he was probably thinking of\r\nlodgings for himself in London during the parliamentary session,\r\nwhile she remained alone in the big red house upon which his eyes\r\nwere fixed at the time. There was much of convenience in all this,\r\nwhich might perhaps atone to him for the sacrifice which he was\r\nundoubtedly making of himself. Had marriage simply been of itself\r\na thing desirable, he could doubtless have disposed of himself\r\nto better advantage. His prospects, present fortune, and general\r\nposition were so favourable, that he might have dared to lift\r\nhis expectations, in regard both to wealth and rank, very high. The Aylmers were a considerable people, and he, though a younger\r\nbrother, had much more than a younger brother's portion. His seat\r\nin Parliament was safe; his position in society was excellent and\r\nsecure; he was exactly so placed that marriage with a fortune was\r\nthe only thing wanting to put the finishing coping-stone to his\r\nedifice;--that, and perhaps also the useful glory of having some\r\nLady Mary or Lady Emily at the top of his table. Lady Emily Aylmer?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Yes;--it would have sounded better, and there was a certain Lady\r\nEmily who might have suited. Now, as some slight regrets stole upon\r\nhim gently, he failed to remember that this Lady Emily had not a\r\nshilling in the world. Yes; some faint regrets did steal upon him, though he went on telling\r\nhimself that he had acted rightly. His stars, which were generally\r\nvery good to him, had not perhaps on this occasion been as good as\r\nusual. No doubt he had to a certain degree become encumbered with\r\nClara Amedroz. Had not the direct and immediate leap with which she\r\nhad come into his arms shown him somewhat too plainly that one word\r\nof his mouth tending towards matrimony had been regarded by her as\r\nbeing too valuable to be lost? The fruit that falls easily from the\r\ntree, though it is ever the best, is never valued by the gardener. Let him have well-nigh broken his neck in gathering it, unripe and\r\ncrude, from the small topmost boughs of the branching tree, and the\r\npippin will be esteemed by him as invaluable. On that morning, as\r\nCaptain Aylmer had walked home from church, he had doubted much what\r\nwould be Clara's answer to him. Then the pippin was at the end of\r\nthe dangerous bough. Now it had fallen to his feet, and he did not\r\nscruple to tell himself that it was his, and always might have been\r\nhis as a matter of course."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Well, the apple had come of a good kind,\r\nand, though there might be specks upon it, though it might not be fit\r\nfor any special glory of show or pride of place among the dessert\r\nservice, still it should be garnered and used, and no doubt would be\r\na very good apple for eating. Having so concluded, Captain Aylmer\r\nreturned to the house, washed his hands, changed his boots, and went\r\ndown to the drawing-room just as dinner was ready. She came up to him\r\nalmost radiant with joy, and put her hand upon his arm. \"Martha did\r\nnot know but what you were here,\" she said, \"and told them to put\r\ndinner on the table.\" \"I hope I have not kept you waiting.\" \"Oh, dear, no. And what if you did? Ladies never care about things\r\ngetting cold. It is gentlemen only who have feelings in such matters\r\nas that.\" \"I don't know that there is much difference; but, however--\" Then\r\nthey were in the dining-room, and as the servant remained there\r\nduring dinner, there was nothing in their conversation worth\r\nrepeating. After dinner they still remained down stairs, seating\r\nthemselves on the two sides of the fire, Clara having fully resolved\r\nthat she would not on such an evening as this leave Captain Aylmer to\r\ndrink his glass of port wine by himself. \"I suppose I may stay with you, mayn't I?\" she said. \"Oh, dear, yes; I'm sure I'm very much obliged."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I'm not at all wedded\r\nto solitude.\" Then there was a slight pause. \"That's lucky,\" she said, \"as you have made up your mind to be wedded\r\nin another sort of way.\" Her voice as she spoke was very low, but\r\nthere was a gentle ring of restrained joyousness in it which ought to\r\nhave gone at once to his heart and made him supremely blessed for the\r\ntime. \"Well,--yes,\" he answered. \"We are in for it now, both of us;--are we\r\nnot? I hope you have no misgivings about it, Clara.\" \"Who? I? I have misgivings! No, indeed. I have no misgivings,\r\nFrederic; no doubts, no scruples, no alloy in my happiness. With me\r\nit is all as I would have it be. Ah; you haven't understood why it\r\nhas been that I have seemed to be harsh to you when we have met.\" \"No, I have not,\" said he. This was true; but it is true also that it\r\nwould have been well that he should be kept in his ignorance. She was\r\nminded, however, to tell him everything, and therefore she went on. \"I don't know how to tell you; and yet, circumstanced as we are now,\r\nit seems that I ought to tell you everything.\" \"Yes, certainly; I think that,\" said Aylmer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was one of those men\r\nwho consider themselves entitled to see, hear, and know every little\r\ndetail of a woman's conduct, as a consequence of the circumstances of\r\nhis engagement, and who consider themselves shorn of their privilege\r\nif anything be kept back. If any gentleman had said a soft word to\r\nClara eight years ago, that soft word ought to be repeated to him\r\nnow. I am afraid that these particular gentlemen sometimes hear\r\nsome fibs; and I often wonder that their own early passages in the\r\ntournays of love do not warn them that it must be so. When James has\r\nsat deliciously through all the moonlit night with his arm round\r\nMary's waist, and afterwards sees Mary led to the altar by John, does\r\nit not occur to him that some John may have also sat with his arm\r\nround Anna's waist,--that Anna whom he is leading to the altar? These\r\nthings should not be inquired into too curiously; but the curiosity\r\nof some men on such matters has no end. For the most part, women like\r\ntelling,--only they do not choose to be pressed beyond their own\r\nmodes of utterance. \"I should like to know that I have your full\r\nconfidence,\" said he. \"You have got my full confidence,\" she replied. \"I mean that you should tell me anything that there is to be told.\" \"It was only this, that I had learned to love you before I thought\r\nthat my love would be returned.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh;--was that it?\" said Captain Aylmer, in a tone which seemed to\r\nimply something like disappointment. \"Yes, Fred; that was it. And how could I, under such circumstances,\r\ntrust myself to be gentle with you, or to look to you for assistance? How could I guess then all that I know now?\" \"Of course you couldn't.\" \"And therefore I was driven to be harsh. My aunt used to speak to me\r\nabout it.\" \"I don't wonder at that, for she was very anxious that we should be\r\nmarried.\" Clara for a moment felt herself to be uncomfortable as she heard\r\nthese words, half perceiving that they implied some instigation on\r\nthe part of Mrs. Winterfield. Could it be that Captain Aylmer's offer\r\nhad been made in obedience to a promise? \"Did you know of her\r\nanxiety?\" she asked. \"Well;--yes; that is to say, I guessed it. It was natural enough that\r\nthe same idea should come to her and to me too. Of course, seeing us\r\nso much thrown together, she could not but think of our being married\r\nas a chance upon the cards.\" \"She used to tell me that I was harsh to you;--abrupt, she called it. But what could I do? I'll tell you, Fred, how I first found out that\r\nI really cared for you. What I tell you now is of course a secret;\r\nand I should speak of it to no one under any circumstances but those\r\nwhich unite us two together."}
{"question": "", "answer": "My cousin Will, when he was at Belton,\r\nmade me an offer.\" \"He did, did he? You did not tell me that when you were saying all\r\nthose fine things in his praise in the railway carriage.\" \"Of course I did not. Why should I? I wasn't bound to tell you my\r\nsecrets then, sir.\" \"But he did absolutely offer to you?\" \"Is there anything so wonderful in that? But, wonderful or not, he\r\ndid.\" \"And you refused him?\" \"I refused him certainly.\" \"It wouldn't have been a bad match, if all that you say about his\r\nproperty is true.\" \"If you come to that, it would have been a very good match; and\r\nperhaps you think I was silly to decline it?\" \"I don't say that.\" \"Papa thought so;--but, then, I couldn't tell papa the whole truth,\r\nas I can tell it to you now, Captain Aylmer. I couldn't tell dear\r\npapa that my heart was not my own to give to my cousin Will; nor\r\ncould I give Will any such reason. Poor Will! I could only say to him\r\nbluntly that I wouldn't have him.\" \"And you would, if it hadn't been,--hadn't been--for me.\" \"Nay, Fred; there you tax me too far. What might have come of my\r\nheart if you hadn't fallen in my way, who can say? I love Will Belton\r\ndearly, and hope that you may do so--\"\r\n\r\n\"I must see him first.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Of course;--but, as I was saying, I doubt whether, under any\r\ncircumstances, he would have been the man I should have chosen for a\r\nhusband. But as it was,--it was impossible. Now you know it all, and\r\nI think that I have been very frank with you.\" \"Oh! very frank.\" He would not take her little jokes, nor understand\r\nher little prettinesses. That he was a man not prone to joking she\r\nknew well, but still it went against the grain with her to find that\r\nhe was so very hard in his replies to her attempts. It was not easy for Clara to carry on the conversation after this,\r\nso she proposed that they should go up-stairs into the drawing-room. Such a change even as that would throw them into a different way of\r\ntalking, and prevent the necessity of any further immediate allusion\r\nto Will Belton. For Clara was aware, though she hardly knew why, that\r\nher frankness to her future husband had hardly been successful, and\r\nshe regretted that she had on this occasion mentioned her cousin's\r\nname. They went up-stairs and again sat themselves in chairs over\r\nthe fire; but for a while conversation did not seem to come to them\r\nfreely. Clara felt that it was now Captain Aylmer's turn to begin,\r\nand Captain Aylmer felt--that he wished he could read the newspaper. He had nothing in particular that he desired to say to his lady-love."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That morning, as he was shaving himself, he had something to say that\r\nwas very particular,--as to which he was at that moment so nervous,\r\nthat he had cut himself slightly through the trembling of his hand. But that had now been said, and he was nervous no longer. That had\r\nnow been said, and the thing settled so easily, that he wondered at\r\nhis own nervousness. He did not know that there was anything that\r\nrequired much further immediate speech. Clara had thought somewhat\r\nof the time which might be proposed for their marriage, making some\r\nlittle resolves, with which the reader is already acquainted; but no\r\nideas of this kind presented themselves to Captain Aylmer. He had\r\nasked his cousin to be his wife, thereby making good his promise to\r\nhis aunt. There could be no further necessity for pressing haste. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. It is not to be supposed that the thriving lover actually spoke to\r\nhimself in such language as that,--or that he confessed to himself\r\nthat Clara Amedroz was an evil to him rather than a blessing. But\r\nhis feelings were already so far tending in that direction, that he\r\nwas by no means disposed to make any further promise, or to engage\r\nhimself in closer connection with matrimony by the mention of any\r\nspecial day."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara, finding that her companion would not talk without\r\nencouragement from her, had to begin again, and asked all those\r\nnatural questions about his family, his brother, his sister, his home\r\nhabits, and the old house in Yorkshire, the answers to which must\r\nbe so full of interest to her. But even on these subjects he was\r\ndry, and indisposed to answer with the full copiousness of free\r\ncommunication which she desired. And at last there came a question\r\nand an answer,--a word or two on one side, and then a word or two on\r\nthe other, from which Clara got a wound which was very sore to her. \"I have always pictured to myself,\" she said, \"your mother as a woman\r\nwho has been very handsome.\" \"She is still a handsome woman, though she is over sixty.\" \"Tall, I suppose?\" \"Yes, tall, and with something of--of--what shall I say--dignity,\r\nabout her.\" \"She is not grand, I hope?\" \"I don't know what you call grand.\" \"Not grand in a bad sense;--I'm sure she is not that. But there are\r\nsome ladies who seem to stand so high above the level of ordinary\r\nfemales as to make us who are ordinary quite afraid of them.\" \"My mother is certainly not ordinary,\" said Captain Aylmer. \"And I am,\" said Clara, laughing. \"I wonder what she'll say to\r\nme,--or, rather, what she will think of me.\" Then there was a\r\nmoment's silence, after which Clara, still laughing, went on."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I see,\r\nFred, that you have not a word of encouragement to give me about your\r\nmother.\" \"She is rather particular,\" said Captain Aylmer. Then Clara drew herself up, and ceased to laugh. She had called\r\nherself ordinary with that half-insincere depreciation of self which\r\nis common to all of us when we speak of our own attributes, but which\r\nwe by no means intend that they who hear us shall accept as strictly\r\ntrue, or shall re-echo as their own approved opinions. But in this\r\ninstance Captain Aylmer, though he had not quite done that, had done\r\nalmost as bad. \"Then I suppose I had better keep out of her way,\" said Clara, by no\r\nmeans laughing as she spoke. \"Of course when we are married you must go and see her.\" \"You do not, at any rate, promise me a very agreeable visit, Fred. But I dare say I shall survive it. After all, it is you that I am to\r\nmarry, and not your mother; and as long as you are not majestic to\r\nme, I need not care for her majesty.\" \"I don't know what you mean by majesty.\" \"You must confess that you speak of her as of something very\r\nterrible.\" \"I say that she is particular;--and so she is. And as my respect for\r\nher opinion is equal to my affection for her person, I hope that you\r\nwill make a great effort to gain her esteem.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I never make any efforts of that kind. If esteem doesn't come\r\nwithout efforts it isn't worth having.\" \"There I disagree with you altogether;--but I especially disagree\r\nwith you as you are speaking about my mother, and about a lady who\r\nis to become your own mother-in-law. I trust that you will make such\r\nefforts, and that you will make them successfully. Lady Aylmer is not\r\na woman who will give you her heart at once, simply because you have\r\nbecome her son's wife. She will judge you by your own qualities, and\r\nwill not scruple to condemn you should she see cause.\" Then there was a longer silence, and Clara's heart was almost in\r\nrebellion even on this, the first day of her engagement. But she\r\nquelled her high spirit, and said no further word about Lady Aylmer. Nor did she speak again till she had enabled herself to smile as she\r\nspoke. \"Well, Fred,\" she said, putting her hand upon his arm, \"I'll do my\r\nbest, and woman can do no more. And now I'll say good night, for I\r\nmust pack for to-morrow's journey before I go to bed.\" Then he kissed\r\nher,--with a cold, chilling kiss,--and she left him for the night. CHAPTER XII. MISS AMEDROZ RETURNS HOME. Clara was to start by a train leaving Perivale at eight on the\r\nfollowing morning, and therefore there was not much time for\r\nconversation before she went."}
{"question": "", "answer": "During the night she had endeavoured so\r\nto school herself as to banish from her breast all feelings of anger\r\nagainst her lover, and of regret as regarded herself. Probably, as\r\nshe told herself, she had made more of what he had said than he had\r\nintended that she should do; and then, was it not natural that he\r\nshould think much of his mother, and feel anxious as to the way in\r\nwhich she might receive his wife? As to that feeling of anger on her\r\nown part, she did get quit of it;--but the regret was not to be so\r\neasily removed. It was not only what Captain Aylmer had said about\r\nhis mother that clung to her, doing much to quench her joy; but there\r\nhad been a coldness in his tone to her throughout the evening which\r\nshe recognised almost unconsciously, and which made her heart heavy\r\nin spite of the joy which she repeatedly told herself ought to be her\r\nown. And she also felt,--though she was not clearly aware that she\r\ndid so,--that his manner towards her had become less affectionate,\r\nless like that of a lover, since the honest tale she had told him of\r\nher own early love for him. She should have been less honest, and\r\nmore discreet; less bold, and more like in her words to the ordinary\r\nrun of women."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had known this as she was packing last night, and\r\nshe told herself that it was so as she was dressing on this her last\r\nmorning at Perivale. That frankness of hers had not been successful,\r\nand she regretted that she had not imposed on herself some little\r\nreticence,--or even a little of that coy pretence of indifference\r\nwhich is so often used by ladies when they are wooed. She had been\r\nboldly honest, and had found her honesty to be bad policy. She\r\nthought, at least, that she had found its policy to be bad. Whether\r\nin truth it may not have been very good,--have been the best policy\r\nin the world,--tending to give her the first true intimation which\r\nshe had ever yet received of the real character of the man who was\r\nnow so much to her,--that is altogether another question. But it was clearly her duty to make the best of her present\r\ncircumstances, and she went down-stairs with a smiling face and with\r\npleasant words on her tongue. When she entered the breakfast-room\r\nCaptain Aylmer was there; but Martha was there also, and her pleasant\r\nwords were received indifferently in the presence of the servant. When the old woman was gone, Captain Aylmer assumed a grave face, and\r\nbegan a serious little speech which he had prepared. But he broke\r\ndown in the utterance of it, and was saying things very different\r\nfrom what he had intended before he had completed it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Clara,\" he began, \"what occurred between us yesterday is a source of\r\ngreat satisfaction to me.\" \"I am glad of that, Frederic,\" said she, trying to be a little less\r\nserious than her lover. \"Of very great satisfaction,\" he continued; \"and I cannot but think\r\nthat we were justified by the circumstances of our position in\r\nforgetting for a time the sad solemnity of the occasion. When I\r\nremember that it was but the day before yesterday that I followed my\r\ndear old aunt to the grave, I am astonished to think that yesterday I\r\nshould have made an offer of marriage.\" What could be the good of his talking in this strain? Clara, too,\r\nhad had her own misgivings on the same subject,--little qualms of\r\nconscience that had come to her as she remembered her old friend\r\nin the silent watches of the night; but such thoughts were for the\r\nsilent watches, and not for open expression in the broad daylight. But he had paused, and she must say something. \"One's excuse to oneself is this,--that she would have wished it so.\" \"Exactly. She would have wished it. Indeed she did wish it, and\r\ntherefore--\" He paused in what he was saying, and felt himself to be\r\non difficult ground. Her eye was full upon him, and she waited for a\r\nmoment or two as though expecting that he would finish his words. But\r\nas he did not go on, she finished them for him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And therefore you sacrificed your own feelings.\" Her heart was\r\nbecoming sore, and she was unable to restrain the utterance of her\r\nsarcasm. \"Just so,\" said he; \"or, rather, not exactly that. I don't mean that\r\nI am sacrificed; for, of course, as I have just now said, nothing as\r\nregards myself can be more satisfactory. But yesterday should have\r\nbeen a solemn day to us; and as it was not--\"\r\n\r\n\"I thought it very solemn.\" \"What I mean is that I find an excuse in remembering that I was doing\r\nwhat she asked me to do.\" \"What she asked you to do, Fred?\" \"What I had promised, I mean.\" \"What you had promised? I did not hear that before.\" These last words\r\nwere spoken in a very low voice, but they went direct to Captain\r\nAylmer's ears. \"But you have heard me declare,\" he said, \"that as regards myself\r\nnothing could be more satisfactory.\" \"Fred,\" she said, \"listen to me for a moment. You and I engaged\r\nourselves to each other yesterday as man and wife.\" \"Of course we did.\" \"Listen to me, dear Fred. In doing that there was nothing in my mind\r\nunbefitting the sadness of the day."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Even in death we must think of\r\nlife, and if it were well for you and me that we should be together,\r\nit would surely have been but a foolish ceremony between us to have\r\nabstained from telling each other that it would be so because my aunt\r\nhad died last week. But it may be, and I think it is the case, that\r\nthe feelings arising from her death have made us both too\r\nprecipitate.\" \"I don't understand how that can be.\" \"You have been anxious to keep a promise made to her, without\r\nconsidering sufficiently whether in doing so you would secure your\r\nown happiness; and I--\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't know about you, but as regards myself I must be considered\r\nto be the best judge.\" \"And I have been too much in a hurry in believing that which I wished\r\nto believe.\" \"What do you mean by all this, Clara?\" \"I mean that our engagement shall be at an end;--not necessarily so\r\nfor always. But that as an engagement binding us both, it shall for\r\nthe present cease to exist. You shall be again free--\"\r\n\r\n\"But I don't choose to be free.\" \"When you think of it you will find it best that it should be so. You\r\nhave performed your promise honestly, even though at a sacrifice to\r\nyourself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Luckily for you,--for both of us, I should say,--the full\r\ntruth has come out; and we can consider quietly what will be best for\r\nus to do, independently of that promise. We will part, therefore, as\r\ndear friends, but not as engaged to each other as man and wife.\" \"But we are engaged, and I will not hear of its being broken.\" \"A lady's word, Fred, is always the most potential before\r\nmarriage;--and you must therefore yield to me in this matter. I am\r\nsure your judgment will approve of my decision when you think of it. There shall be no engagement between us. I shall consider myself\r\nquite free,--free to do as I please altogether; and you, of course,\r\nwill be free also.\" \"If you please, of course it must be so.\" \"I do please, Fred.\" \"And yesterday, then, is to go for nothing.\" \"Not exactly. It cannot go for nothing with me. I told you too many\r\nof my secrets for that. But nothing that was done or said yesterday\r\nis to be held as binding upon either of us.\" \"And you made up your mind to that last night?\" \"It is at any rate made up to that now. Come,--I shall have to go\r\nwithout my breakfast if I do not eat it at once. Will you have your\r\ntea now, or wait and take it comfortably when I am gone?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Captain Aylmer breakfasted with her, and took her to the station, and\r\nsaw her off with all possible courtesy and attention, and then he\r\nwalked back by himself to his own great house in Perivale. Not a word\r\nmore had been said between him and Clara as to their engagement, and\r\nhe recognised it as a fact that he was no longer bound to her as her\r\nfuture husband. Indeed, he had no power of not recognising the fact,\r\nso decided had been her language, and so imperious her manner. It had\r\nbeen of no avail that he had said that the engagement should stand. She had told him that her voice was to be the more potential, and he\r\nhad felt that it was so. Well;--might it not be best for him that it\r\nshould be so? He had kept his promise to his aunt, and had done all\r\nthat lay in his power to make Clara Amedroz his wife. If she chose to\r\nrebel against her own good fortune simply because he spoke to her a\r\nfew words which seemed to him to be fitting, might it not be well for\r\nhim to take her at her word? Such were his first thoughts; but as the day wore on with him,\r\nsomething more generous in his nature came to his aid, and something\r\nalso that was akin to real love. Now that she was no longer his own,\r\nhe again felt a desire to have her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now that there would be again\r\nsomething to be done in winning her, he was again stirred by a man's\r\ndesire to do that something. He ought not to have told her of the\r\npromise. He was aware that what he had said on that point had been\r\ndropped by him accidentally, and that Clara's resolution after that\r\nhad not been unnatural. He would, therefore, give her another chance,\r\nand resolved before he went to bed that night that he would allow a\r\nfortnight to pass away, and would then write to her, renewing his\r\noffer with all the strongest declarations of affection which he would\r\nbe enabled to make. Clara on her way home was not well satisfied with herself or with her\r\nposition. She had had great joy, during the few hours of joy which\r\nhad been hers, in thinking of the comfort which her news would give\r\nto her father. He would be released from all further trouble on her\r\naccount by the tidings which she would convey to him,--by the tidings\r\nwhich she had intended to convey to him. But now the story which she\r\nwould have to tell would by no means be comfortable. She would have\r\nto explain to him that her aunt had left no provision for her, and\r\nthat would be the beginning and the end of her story. As for those\r\nconversations about the fifteen hundred pounds,--of them she would\r\nsay nothing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When she reflected on what had taken place between\r\nherself and Captain Aylmer she was more resolved than ever that she\r\nwould not touch any portion of that money,--or of any money that\r\nshould come from him. Nor would she tell her father anything of the\r\nmarriage engagement which had been made on one day and unmade on the\r\nnext. Why should she add to his distress by showing him what good\r\nthings might have been hers had she only had the wit to keep them? No;--she would tell her father simply of the will, and then comfort\r\nhim in his affliction as best she might. As regarded her position with Captain Aylmer, the more she thought of\r\nit the more sure she became that everything was over in that quarter. She had, indeed, told him that such need not necessarily be the\r\ncase,--but this she had done in her desire at the moment to mitigate\r\nthe apparent authoritativeness of her own decision, rather than with\r\nany idea of leaving the matter open for further consideration. She\r\nwas sure that Captain Aylmer would be glad of a means of escape,\r\nand that he would not again place himself in the jeopardy which the\r\npromise exacted from him by his aunt had made so nearly fatal to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And for herself, though she still loved the man,--so loved him that\r\nshe lay back in the corner of her carriage weeping behind her veil\r\nas she thought of what she had lost,--still she would not take him,\r\nthough he should again press his suit upon her with all the ardour\r\nat his command. No, indeed. No man should ever be made to regard her\r\nas a burden imposed upon him by an extorted promise! What;--let a\r\nman sacrifice himself to a sense of duty on her behalf! And then she\r\nrepeated the odious words to herself, till she came to think that it\r\nhad fallen from his lips and not from her own. In writing to her father from Perivale, she had merely told him of\r\nMrs. Winterfield's death and of her own intended return. At the\r\nTaunton station she met the well-known old fly and the well-known\r\nold driver, and was taken home in the accustomed manner. As she\r\ndrew nearer to Belton the sense of her distress became stronger and\r\nstronger, till at last she almost feared to meet her father. What\r\ncould she say to him when he should repeat to her, as he would be\r\nsure to do, his lamentation as to her future poverty? On arriving at the house she learned that he was up-stairs in his\r\nbedroom. He had been ill, the servant said, and though he was not now\r\nin bed, he had not come down-stairs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So she ran up to his room, and\r\nfinding him seated in an old arm-chair by the fire-side, knelt down\r\nat his feet, as she took his hand and asked him as to his health. \"What has Mrs. Winterfield done for you in her will?\" These were the\r\nfirst words he spoke to her. \"Never mind about wills now, papa. I want you to tell me of\r\nyourself.\" \"Nonsense, Clara. Answer my question.\" \"Oh, papa, I wish you would not think so much about money for me.\" \"Not think about it? Why am I not to think about it? What else have I\r\ngot to think of? Tell me at once, Clara, what she has done. You ought\r\nto have written to me directly the will was made known.\" There was no help for her, and the terrible word must be spoken. \"She\r\nhas left her property to Captain Aylmer, papa; and I must say that I\r\nthink she is right.\" \"You do not mean everything?\" \"She has provided for her servants.\" \"And has made no provision for you?\" \"No, papa.\" \"Do you mean to tell me that she has left you nothing,--absolutely\r\nnothing?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "The old man's manner was altogether altered as he asked\r\nthis question; and there came over his face so unusual a look of\r\nenergy,--of the energy of anger,--that Clara was frightened, and knew\r\nnot how to answer him with that tone of authority which she was\r\naccustomed to use when she found it necessary to exercise control\r\nover him. \"Do you mean to say that there is nothing,--nothing?\" And\r\nas he repeated the question he pushed her away from his knees and\r\nstood up with an effort, leaning against the back of his chair. \"Dear papa, do not let this distress you.\" \"But is it so? Is there in truth nothing?\" \"Nothing, papa. Remember that she was not really my aunt.\" \"Nonsense, child;--nonsense! How can you talk such trash to me as\r\nthat? And then you tell me not to distress myself! I am to know\r\nthat you will be a beggar in a year or two,--probably in a few\r\nmonths,--and that is not to distress me! She has been a wicked\r\nwoman!\" \"Oh, papa, do not say that.\" \"A wicked woman. A very wicked woman. It is always so with those who\r\npretend to be more religious than their neighbours. She has been a\r\nvery wicked woman, alluring you into her house with false hopes.\" \"No, papa;--no; I must contradict you. She had given me no ground for\r\nsuch hope.\" \"I say she had,--even though she may not have made a promise. I say\r\nshe had."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Did not everybody think that you were to have her money?\" \"I don't know what people may have thought. Nobody has had any right\r\nto think about it at all.\" \"That is nonsense, Clara. You know that I expected it;--that you\r\nexpected it yourself.\" \"No;--no, no!\" \"Clara,--how can you tell me that?\" \"Papa, I knew that she intended to leave me nothing. She told me so\r\nwhen I was there in the spring.\" \"She told you so?\" \"Yes, papa. She told me that Frederic Aylmer was to have all her\r\nproperty. She explained to me everything that she meant to do, and I\r\nthought that she was right.\" \"And why was not I told when you came home?\" \"Dear papa!\" \"Dear papa, indeed. What is the meaning of dear papa? Why have I been\r\ndeceived?\" \"What good could I do by telling you? You could not change it.\" \"You have been very undutiful; and as for her, her wickedness and\r\ncruelty shock me,--shock me. They do, indeed. That she should have\r\nknown your position, and had you with her always,--and then have\r\nmade such a will as that! Quite heartless! She must have been quite\r\nheartless.\" Clara now began to find that she must in justice to her aunt's memory\r\ntell her father something more. And yet it would be very difficult\r\nto tell him anything that would not bring greater affliction upon\r\nhim, and would not also lead her into deeper trouble."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Should it come\r\nto pass that her aunt's intention with reference to the fifteen\r\nhundred pounds was mentioned, she would be subjected to an endless\r\npersecution as to the duty of accepting that money from Captain\r\nAylmer. But her present feelings would have made her much prefer\r\nto beg her bread upon the roads than accept her late lover's\r\ngenerosity. And then again, how could she explain to her father Mrs.\r\nWinterfield's mistake about her own position without seeming to\r\naccuse her father of having robbed her? But nevertheless she must\r\nsay something, as Mr. Amedroz continued to apply that epithet of\r\nheartless to Mrs. Winterfield, going on with it in a low droning\r\ntone, that was more injurious to Clara's ears than the first full\r\nenergy of his anger. \"Heartless,--quite heartless;--shockingly\r\nheartless,--shockingly heartless!\" \"The truth is, papa,\" Clara said at last, \"that when my aunt told\r\nme about her will, she did not know but what I had some adequate\r\nprovision from my own family.\" \"Oh, Clara!\" \"That is the truth, papa;--for she explained the whole thing to me. I could not tell her that she was mistaken, and thus ask for her\r\nmoney.\" \"But she knew everything about that poor wretched boy.\" And now the\r\nfather dropped back into his chair, and buried his face in his hands. When he did this Clara again knelt at his feet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She felt that she had\r\nbeen cruel, and that she had defended her aunt at the cost of her own\r\nfather. She had, as it were, thrown in his teeth his own imprudence,\r\nand twitted him with the injuries which he had done to her. \"Papa,\"\r\nshe said, \"dear papa, do not think about it at all. What is the use? After all, money is not everything. I care nothing for money. If you\r\nwill only agree to banish the subject altogether, we shall be so\r\ncomfortable.\" \"How is it to be banished?\" \"At any rate we need not speak of it. Why should we talk on a subject\r\nwhich is simply uncomfortable, and which we cannot mend?\" \"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!\" And now he swayed himself backwards and\r\nforwards in his chair, bewailing his own condition and hers, and his\r\npast imprudence, while the tears ran down his cheeks. She still knelt\r\nthere at his feet, looking up into his face with loving, beseeching\r\neyes, praying him to be comforted, and declaring that all would still\r\nbe well if he would only forget the subject, or, at any rate, cease\r\nto speak of it. But still he went on wailing, complaining of his lot\r\nas a child complains, and refusing all consolation. \"Yes; I know,\"\r\nsaid he, \"it has all been my fault. But how could I help it? What was\r\nI to do?\" \"Papa, nobody has said that anything was your fault; nobody has\r\nthought so.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I never spent anything on myself--never, never; and yet,--and\r\nyet,--and yet--!\" \"Look at it with more courage, papa. After all, what harm will it be\r\nif I should have to go out and earn my own bread like any other young\r\nwoman? I am not afraid.\" At last he wept himself into an apathetic tranquillity, as though he\r\nhad at present no further power for any of the energy of grief; and\r\nshe left him while she went about the house and learned how things\r\nhad gone on during her absence. It seemed, from the tidings which\r\nthe servant gave her, that he had been ill almost since she had been\r\ngone. He had, at any rate, chosen to take his meals in his own room,\r\nand as far as was remembered, had not once left the house since she\r\nhad been away. He had on two or three occasions spoken of Mr. Belton,\r\nappearing to be anxious for his coming, and asking questions as to\r\nthe cattle and the work that was still going on about the place; and\r\nClara, when she returned to his room, tried to interest him again\r\nabout her cousin. But he had in truth been too much distressed by the\r\nill news as to Mrs. Winterfield's will to be able to rally himself,\r\nand the evening that was spent up in his room was very comfortless\r\nto both of them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara had her own sorrows to bear as well as her\r\nfather's, and could take no pleasant look out into the world of her\r\nown circumstances. She had gained her lover merely to lose him,--and\r\nhad lost him under circumstances that were very painful to her\r\nwoman's feeling. Though he had been for one night betrothed to her as\r\nher husband, he had never loved her. He had asked her to be his wife\r\nsimply in fulfilment of a death-bed promise! The more she thought\r\nof it the more bitter did the idea of it become to her. And she\r\ncould not also but think of her cousin. Poor Will! He, at any rate,\r\nhad loved her, though his eagerness in love had been, as she told\r\nherself, but short-lived. As she thought of him, it seemed but the\r\nother day that he had been with her up on the rock in the park;--but\r\nas she thought of Captain Aylmer, to whom she had become engaged only\r\nyesterday, and from whom she had separated herself only that morning,\r\nshe felt that an eternity of time had passed since she had parted\r\nfrom him. On the following day, a dull, dark, melancholy day, towards the end\r\nof November, she went out to saunter about the park, leaving her\r\nfather still in his bedroom, and after a while made her way down to\r\nthe cottage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She found Mrs. Askerton as usual alone in the little\r\ndrawing-room, sitting near the window with a book in her hand; but\r\nClara knew at once that her friend had not been reading,--that she\r\nhad been sitting there looking out upon the clouds, with her mind\r\nfixed upon things far away. The general cheerfulness of this woman\r\nhad often been cause of wonder to Clara, who knew how many of her\r\nhours were passed in solitude; but there did occasionally come upon\r\nher periods of melancholy in which she was unable to act up to the\r\nsettled rule of her life, and in which she would confess that the\r\ndays and weeks and months were too long for her. \"So you are back,\" said Mrs. Askerton, as soon as the first greeting\r\nwas over. \"Yes; I am back.\" \"I supposed you would not stay there long after the funeral.\" \"No; what good could I do?\" \"And Captain Aylmer is still there, I suppose?\" \"I left him at Perivale.\" There was a slight pause, as Mrs. Askerton hesitated before she asked\r\nher next question. \"May I be told anything about the will?\" she said. \"The weary will! If you knew how I hated the subject you would not\r\nask me. But you must not think I hate it because it has given me\r\nnothing.\" \"Given you nothing?\" \"Nothing! But that does not make me hate it. It is the nature of the\r\nsubject that is so odious."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have now told you all,--everything that\r\nthere is to be told, though we were to talk for a week. If you are\r\ngenerous you will not say another word about it.\" \"But I am so sorry.\" \"There,--that's it. You won't perceive that the expression of such\r\nsorrow is a personal injury to me. I don't want you to be sorry.\" \"How am I to help it?\" \"You need not express it. I don't come pitying you for supposed\r\ntroubles. You have plenty of money; but if you were so poor that you\r\ncould eat nothing but cold mutton, I shouldn't condole with you as to\r\nthe state of your larder. I should pretend to think that poultry and\r\npiecrust were plentiful with you.\" \"No, you wouldn't, dear;--not if I were as dear to you as you are to\r\nme.\" \"Well, then, be sorry; and let there be an end of it. Remember how\r\nmuch of all this I must of necessity have to go through with poor\r\npapa.\" \"Ah, yes; I can believe that.\" \"And he is so far from well. Of course you have not seen him since\r\nI have been gone.\" \"No; we never see him unless he comes up to the gate there.\" Then\r\nthere was another pause for a moment. \"And what about Captain\r\nAylmer?\" asked Mrs. Askerton. \"Well;--what about him?\" \"He is the heir now?\" \"Yes;--he is the heir.\" \"And that is all?\" \"Yes; that is all. What more should there be?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "The poor old house at\r\nPerivale will be shut up, I suppose.\" \"I don't care about the old house much, as it is not to be your\r\nhouse.\" \"No;--it is not to be my house certainly.\" \"There were two ways in which it might have become yours.\" \"Though there were ten ways, none of those ways have come my way,\"\r\nsaid Clara. \"Of course I know that you are so close that though there were\r\nanything to tell you would not tell it.\" \"I think I would tell you anything that was proper to be told; but\r\nnow there is nothing proper,--or improper.\" \"Was it proper or improper when Mr. Belton made an offer to you,--as\r\nI knew he would do, of course; as I told you that he would? Was that\r\nso improper that it could not be told?\" Clara was aware that the tell-tale colour in her face at once took\r\nfrom her the possibility of even pretending that the allegation was\r\nuntrue, and that in any answer she might give she must acknowledge\r\nthe fact. \"I do not think,\" she said, \"that it is considered fair to\r\ngentlemen to tell such stories as that.\" \"Then I can only say that the young ladies I have known are generally\r\nvery unfair.\" \"But who told you?\" \"Who told me? My maid. Of course she got it from yours. Those things\r\nare always known.\" \"Poor Will!\" \"Poor Will, indeed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He is coming here again, I hear, almost\r\nimmediately, and it needn't be 'poor Will' unless you like it. But as\r\nfor me, I am not going to be an advocate in his favour. I tell you\r\nfairly that I did not like what little I saw of poor Will.\" \"I like him of all things.\" \"You should teach him to be a little more courteous in his demeanour\r\nto ladies; that is all. I will tell you something else, too, about\r\npoor Will--but not now. Some other day I will tell you something of\r\nyour cousin Will.\" Clara did not care to ask any questions as to this something that was\r\nto be told, and therefore took her leave and went away. CHAPTER XIII. MR. WILLIAM BELTON TAKES A WALK IN THE COUNTRY. Clara Amedroz had made one great mistake about her cousin, Will\r\nBelton, when she came to the conclusion that she might accept his\r\nproffered friendship without any apprehension that the friend would\r\nbecome a lover; and she made another, equally great, when she\r\nconvinced herself that his love had been as short-lived as it had\r\nbeen eager. Throughout his journey back to Plaistow, he had thought\r\nof nothing else but his love, and had resolved to persevere, telling\r\nhimself sometimes that he might perhaps be successful, and feeling\r\nsure at other times that he would encounter renewed sorrow and\r\npermanent disappointment,--but equally resolved in either mood that\r\nhe would persevere."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Not to persevere in pursuit of any desired\r\nobject,--let the object be what it might,--was, to his thinking,\r\nunmanly, weak, and destructive of self-respect. He would sometimes\r\nsay of himself, joking with other men, that if he did not succeed in\r\nthis or that thing, he could never speak to himself again. To no man\r\ndid he talk of his love in such a strain as this; but there was a\r\nwoman to whom he spoke of it; and though he could not joke on such a\r\nmatter, the purport of what he said showed the same feeling. To be\r\nfinally rejected, and to put up with such rejection, would make him\r\nalmost contemptible in his own eyes. This woman was his sister, Mary Belton. Something has been already\r\nsaid of this lady, which the reader may perhaps remember. She was\r\na year or two older than her brother, with whom she always lived,\r\nbut she had none of those properties of youth which belonged to him\r\nin such abundance. She was, indeed, a poor cripple, unable to walk\r\nbeyond the limits of her own garden, feeble in health, dwarfed in\r\nstature, robbed of all the ordinary enjoyments of life by physical\r\ndeficiencies, which made even the task of living a burden to her. To\r\neat was a pain, or at best a trouble. Sleep would not comfort her in\r\nbed, and weariness during the day made it necessary that the hours\r\npassed in bed should be very long."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was one of those whose lot in\r\nlife drives us to marvel at the inequalities of human destiny, and to\r\ninquire curiously within ourselves whether future compensation is to\r\nbe given. It is said of those who are small and crooked-backed in their bodies,\r\nthat their minds are equally cross-grained and their tempers as\r\nungainly as their stature. But no one had ever said this of Mary\r\nBelton. Her friends, indeed, were very few in number; but those who\r\nknew her well loved her as they knew her, and there were three or\r\nfour persons in the world who were ready at all times to swear that\r\nshe was faultless. It was the great happiness of her life that among\r\nthose three or four her own brother was the foremost. Will Belton's\r\nlove for his sister amounted almost to veneration, and his devotion\r\nto her was so great, that in all the affairs of his life he was\r\nprepared to make her comfort one of his first considerations. And\r\nshe, knowing this, had come to fear that she might be an embargo on\r\nhis prosperity, and a stumbling-block in the way of his success. It\r\nhad occurred to her that he would have married earlier in life if\r\nshe had not been, as it were, in his way; and she had threatened him\r\nplayfully,--for she could be playful,--that she would leave him if he\r\ndid not soon bring a mistress home to Plaistow Hall."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I will go to\r\nuncle Robert,\" she had said. Now uncle Robert was the clergyman in\r\nLincolnshire of whom mention has been made, and he was among those\r\ntwo or three who believed in Mary Belton with an implicit faith,--as\r\nwas also his wife. \"I will go to uncle Robert, Will, and then you\r\nwill be driven to get a wife.\" \"If my sister ever leaves my house, whether there be a wife in it or\r\nnot,\" Will had answered, \"I will never put trust in any woman again.\" Plaistow Manor-house or Hall was a fine brick mansion, built in\r\nthe latter days of Tudor house architecture, with many gables and\r\ncountless high chimneys,--very picturesque to the eye, but not in\r\nall respects comfortable as are the modern houses of the well-to-do\r\nsquirearchy of England. And, indeed, it was subject to certain\r\nobjectionable characteristics which in some degree justified the\r\nscorn which Mr. Amedroz intended to throw upon it when he declared\r\nit to be a farmhouse. The gardens belonging to it were large and\r\nexcellent; but they did not surround it, and allowed the farm\r\nappurtenances to come close up to it on two sides. The door which\r\nshould have been the front door, opening from the largest room in the\r\nhouse, which had been the hall and which was now the kitchen, led\r\ndirectly into the farmyard."}
{"question": "", "answer": "From the further end of this farm-yard a\r\nmagnificent avenue of elms stretched across the home pasture down to\r\na hedge which crossed it at the bottom. That there had been a road\r\nthrough the rows of trees,--or, in other words, that there had in\r\ntruth been an avenue to the house on that side,--was, of course,\r\ncertain. But now there was no vestige of such road, and the front\r\nentrance to Plaistow Hall was by a little path across the garden from\r\na modern road which had been made to run cruelly near to the house. Such was Plaistow Hall, and such was its mistress. Of the master, the\r\nreader, I hope, already knows so much as to need no further\r\ndescription. As Belton drove himself home from the railway station late on that\r\nAugust night, he made up his mind that he would tell his sister all\r\nhis story about Clara Amedroz. She had ever wished that he should\r\nmarry, and now he had made his attempt. Little as had been her\r\nopportunity of learning the ways of men and women from experience in\r\nsociety, she had always seemed to him to know exactly what every one\r\nshould do in every position of life. And she would be tender with\r\nhim, giving him comfort even if she could not give him hope."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Moreover\r\nMary might be trusted with his secret; for Belton felt, as men always\r\ndo feel, a great repugnance to have it supposed that his suit to a\r\nwoman had been rejected. Women, when they have loved in vain, often\r\nalmost wish that their misfortune should be known. They love to\r\ntalk about their wounds mystically,--telling their own tales under\r\nfeigned names, and extracting something of a bitter sweetness\r\nout of the sadness of their own romance. But a man, when he has\r\nbeen rejected,--rejected with a finality that is acknowledged by\r\nhimself,--is unwilling to speak or hear a word upon the subject,\r\nand would willingly wash the episode out from his heart if it were\r\npossible. But not on that his first night would he begin to speak of Clara\r\nAmedroz. He would not let his sister believe that his heart was too\r\nfull of the subject to allow of his thinking of other matters. Mary\r\nwas still up, waiting for him when he arrived, with tea, and cream,\r\nand fruit ready for him. \"Oh, Mary!\" he said, \"why are you not in\r\nbed? You know that I would have come to you up-stairs.\" She excused\r\nherself, smiling, declaring that she could not deny herself the\r\npleasure of being with him for half an hour on his first return from\r\nhis travels. \"Of course I want to know what they are like,\" she said. \"He is a nice-looking old man,\" said Will, \"and she is a nice-looking\r\nyoung woman.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"That is graphic and short, at any rate.\" \"And he is weak and silly, but she is strong and--and--and--\"\r\n\r\n\"Not silly also, I hope?\" \"Anything but that. I should say she is very clever.\" \"I'm afraid you don't like her, Will.\" \"Yes, I do.\" \"Really?\" \"Yes; really.\" \"And did she take your coming well?\" \"Very well. I think she is much obliged to me for going.\" \"And Mr. Amedroz?\" \"He liked my coming too,--very much.\" \"What;--after that cold letter?\" \"Yes, indeed. I shall explain it all by degrees. I have taken a lease\r\nof all the land, and I'm to go back at Christmas; and as to the old\r\ngentleman,--he'd have me live there altogether if I would.\" \"Why, Will?\" \"Is it not odd? I'm so glad I didn't make up my mind not to go when I\r\ngot that letter. And yet I don't know.\" These last words he added\r\nslowly, and in a low voice, and Mary at once knew that everything was\r\nnot quite as it ought to be. \"Is there anything wrong, Will?\" \"No, nothing wrong; that is to say, there is nothing to make me\r\nregret that I went. I think I did some good to them.\" \"It was to do good to them that you went there.\" \"They wanted to have some one near them who could be to them as one\r\nof their own family."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He is too old,--too much worn out to be capable\r\nof managing things; and the people there were, of course, robbing\r\nhim. I think I have put a stop to that.\" \"And you are to go again at Christmas?\" \"Yes; they can do without me at my uncle's, and you will be there. I\r\nhave taken the land, and already bought some of the stock for it, and\r\nam going to buy more.\" \"I hope you won't lose money, Will.\" \"No;--not ultimately, that is. I shall get the place in good\r\ncondition, and I shall have paid myself when he goes, in that way,\r\nif in no other. Besides, what's a little money? I owe it to them for\r\nrobbing her of her inheritance.\" \"You do not rob her, Will.\" \"It is hard upon her, though.\" \"Does she feel it hard?\" \"Whatever may be her feelings on such a matter, she is a woman much\r\ntoo proud to show them.\" \"I wish I knew whether you liked her or not.\" \"I do like her,--I love her better than any one in the world; better\r\neven than you, Mary; for I have asked her to be my wife.\" \"Oh, Will!\" \"And she has refused me. Now you know the whole of it,--the whole\r\nhistory of what I have done while I have been away.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And he stood\r\nup before her, with his thumbs thrust into the arm-holes of his\r\nwaistcoat, with something serious and almost solemn in his gait, in\r\nspite of a smile which played about his mouth. \"Oh, Will!\" \"I meant to have told you, of course, Mary,--to have told you\r\neverything; but I did not mean to tell it to-night; only it has\r\nsomehow fallen from me. Out of the full heart the mouth speaks, they\r\nsay.\" \"I never can like her if she refuses your love.\" \"Why not? That is unlike you, Mary. Why should she be bound to love\r\nme because I love her?\" \"Is there any one else, Will?\" \"How can I tell? I did not ask her. I would not have asked her for\r\nthe world, though I would have given the world to know.\" \"And she is so very beautiful?\" \"Beautiful! It isn't that so much;--though she is beautiful. But,--but,--I can't tell you why,--but she is the only girl that\r\nI ever saw who would suit me for a wife. Oh, dear!\" \"My own Will!\" \"But I'm not going to keep you up all night, Mary. And I'll tell you\r\nsomething else; I'm not going to break my heart for love. And I'll\r\ntell you something else again; I'm not going to give it up yet. I\r\nbelieve I've been a fool. Indeed, I know I've been a fool."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I went\r\nabout it just as if I were buying a horse, and had told the seller\r\nthat that was my price,--he might take it or leave it. What right had\r\nI to suppose that any girl was to be had in that way; much less such\r\na girl as Clara Amedroz?\" \"It would have been a great match for her.\" \"I'm not so sure of that, Mary. Her education has been different from\r\nmine, and it may well be that she should marry above me. But I swear\r\nI will not speak another word to you to-night. To-morrow, if you're\r\nwell enough, I'll talk to you all day.\" Soon after that he did get\r\nher to go up to her room, though, of course, he broke that oath of\r\nhis as to not speaking another word. After that he walked out by\r\nmoonlight round the house, wandering about the garden and farmyard,\r\nand down through the avenue, having in his own mind some pretence of\r\nthe watchfulness of ownership, but thinking little of his property\r\nand much of his love. Here was a thing that he desired with all his\r\nheart, but it seemed to be out of his reach,--absolutely out of his\r\nreach. He was sick and weary with a feeling of longing,--sick with\r\nthat covetousness wherewith Ahab coveted the vineyard of Naboth. What\r\nwas the world to him if he could not have this thing on which he had\r\nset his heart?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had told his sister that he would not break his\r\nheart; and so much, he did not doubt, would be true. A man or woman\r\nwith a broken heart was in his estimation a man or woman who should\r\ndie of love; and he did not look for such a fate as that. But he\r\nexperienced the palpable misery of a craving emptiness within his\r\nbreast, and did believe of himself that he never could again be in\r\ncomfort unless he could succeed with Clara Amedroz. He stood leaning\r\nagainst one of the trees, striking his hands together, and angry with\r\nhimself at the weakness which had reduced him to such a state. What\r\ncould any man be worth who was so little master of himself as he had\r\nnow become? After awhile he made his way back through the farmyard, and in at the\r\nkitchen door, which he locked and bolted; and then, throwing himself\r\ndown into a wooden arm-chair which always stood there, in the corner\r\nof the huge hearth, he took a short pipe from the mantelpiece, filled\r\nit with tobacco, and lighting it almost unconsciously, began to smoke\r\nwith vehemence. Plaistow Hall was already odious to him, and he\r\nlonged to be back at Belton, which he had left only that morning. Yes, on that very morning she had brought to him his coffee, looking\r\nsweetly into his face,--so sweetly as she ministered to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And he\r\nmight then well have said one word more in pleading his suit, if he\r\nhad not been too awkward to know what that word should be. And was it\r\nnot his own awkwardness that had brought him to this state of misery? What right had he to suppose that any girl should fall in love with\r\nsuch a one as he at first sight,--without a moment's notice to her\r\nown heart? And then, when he had her there, almost in his arms, why\r\nhad he let her go without kissing her? It seemed to him now that if\r\nhe might have once kissed her, even that would have been a comfort to\r\nhim in his present affliction. \"D----tion!\" he said at last, as he\r\njumped to his feet and kicked the chair on one side, and threw the\r\npipe among the ashes. I trust it will be understood that he addressed\r\nhimself, and not his lady-love in this uncivil way,--\"D----tion!\" Then when the chair had been well kicked out of his way, he took\r\nhimself up to bed. I wonder whether Clara's heart would have been\r\nhardened or softened towards him had she heard the oath, and\r\nunderstood all the thoughts and motives which had produced it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the next morning poor Mary Belton was too ill to come down-stairs;\r\nand as her brother spent his whole day out upon the farm, remaining\r\namong reapers and wheat stacks till nine o'clock in the evening,\r\nnothing was said about Clara on that day. Then there came a Sunday,\r\nand it was a matter of course that the subject of which they both\r\nwere thinking should be discussed. Will went to church, and, as was\r\ntheir custom on Sundays, they dined immediately on his return. Then,\r\nas the afternoon was very warm, he took her out to a favourite seat\r\nshe had in the garden, and it became impossible that they could\r\nlonger abstain. \"And you really mean to go again at Christmas?\" she asked. \"Certainly I shall;--I promised.\" \"Then I am sure you will.\" \"And I must go from time to time because of the land I have taken. Indeed there seems to be an understanding that I am to manage the\r\nproperty for Mr. Amedroz.\" \"And does she wish you to go?\" \"Yes,--she says so.\" \"Girls, I believe, think sometimes that men are indifferent in their\r\nlove. They suppose that a man can forget it at once when he is not\r\naccepted, and that things can go on just as before.\" \"I suppose she thinks so of me,\" said Belton wofully. \"She must either think that, or else be willing to give herself the\r\nchance of learning to like you better.\" \"There's nothing of that, I'm sure."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She's as true as steel.\" \"But she would hardly want you to go there unless she thought you\r\nmight overcome either your love or her indifference. She would not\r\nwish you to be there that you might be miserable.\" \"Before I had asked her to be my wife I had promised to be her\r\nbrother. And so I will, if she should ever want a brother. I am not\r\ngoing to desert her because she will not do what I want her to do,\r\nor be what I want her to be. She understands that. There is to be no\r\nquarrel between us.\" \"But she would be heartless if she were to encourage you to be with\r\nher simply for the assistance you may give her, knowing at the same\r\ntime that you could not be happy in her presence.\" \"She is not heartless.\" \"Then she must suppose that you are.\" \"I dare say she doesn't think that I care much about it. When I told\r\nher, I did it all of a heap, you see; and I fancy she thought I was\r\njust mad at the time.\" \"And did you speak about it again?\" \"No; not a word. I shouldn't wonder if she hadn't forgotten it before\r\nI went away.\" \"That would be impossible.\" \"You wouldn't say so if you knew how it was done."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was all over in\r\nhalf an hour; and she had given me such an answer that I thought I\r\nhad no right to say anything more about it. The morning when I left\r\nher she did seem to be kinder.\" \"I wish I knew whether she cares for any one else.\" \"Ah! I so often think of that. But I couldn't ask her, you know. I\r\nhad no right to pry into her secrets. When I came away, she got up to\r\nsee me off; and I almost felt tempted to carry her into the gig and\r\ndrive her off.\" \"I don't think that would have done, Will.\" \"I don't suppose anything will do. We all know what happens to the\r\nchild who cries for the top brick of the chimney. The child has to\r\ndo without it. The child goes to bed and forgets it; but I go to\r\nbed,--and can't forget it.\" \"My poor Will!\" Then he got up and shook himself, and stalked about the\r\ngarden,--always keeping within a few yards of his sister's\r\nchair,--and carried on a strong battle within his breast, struggling\r\nto get the better of the weakness which his love produced, though\r\nresolved that the love itself should be maintained. \"I wish it wasn't Sunday,\" he said at last, \"because then I could go\r\nand do something. If I thought that no one would see me, I'd fill a\r\ndung-cart or two, even though it is Sunday."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I'll tell you what;--I'll\r\ngo and take a walk as far as Denvir Sluice; and I'll be back to tea. You won't mind?\" \"Denvir Sluice is eight miles off.\" \"Exactly,--I'll be there and back in something over three hours.\" \"But, Will,--there's a broiling sun.\" \"It will do me good. Anything that will take something out of me is\r\nwhat I want. I know I ought to stay and read to you; but I couldn't\r\ndo it. I've got the fidgets inside, if you know what that means. To\r\nhave the big hay-rick on fire, or something of that sort, is what\r\nwould do me most good.\" Then he started, and did walk to Denvir Sluice and back in three\r\nhours. The road from Plaistow Hall to Denvir Sluice was not in itself\r\ninteresting. It ran through a perfectly flat country, without a tree. For the greater part of the way it was constructed on the top of a\r\ngreat bank by the side of a broad dike, and for five miles its course\r\nwas straight as a line. A country walk less picturesque could hardly\r\nbe found in England. The road, too, was very dusty, and the sun\r\nwas hot above Belton's head as he walked. But nevertheless, he\r\npersevered, going on till he struck his stick against the waterfall\r\nwhich was called Denvir Sluice, and then returned,--not once\r\nslackening his pace, and doing the whole distance at a rate somewhat\r\nabove five miles an hour."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They used to say in the nursery that cold\r\npudding is good to settle a man's love; but the receipt which Belton\r\ntried was a walk of sixteen miles, along a dusty road, after dinner,\r\nin the middle of an August day. I think it did him some good. When he got back he took a long draught\r\nof home-brewed beer, and then went up-stairs to dress himself. \"What a state you are in,\" Mary said to him when he showed himself\r\nfor a moment in the sitting-room. \"I did it from milestone to milestone in eleven minutes, backwards\r\nand forwards, all along the five-mile reach.\" Then Mary knew from his answer that the exercise had been of service\r\nto him, perceiving that he had been able to take an interest in his\r\nown prowess as a walker. \"I only hope you won't have a fever,\" she said. \"The people who stand still are they who get fevers,\" he answered. \"Hard work never does harm to any one. If John Bowden would walk his\r\nfive miles an hour on a Sunday afternoon he wouldn't have the gout so\r\noften.\" John Bowden was a neighbour in the next parish, and Mary was\r\ndelighted to find that her brother could take a pride in his\r\nperformance. By degrees Miss Belton began to know with some accuracy the way in\r\nwhich Will had managed his affairs at Belton Castle, and was enabled\r\nto give him salutary advice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You see, Will,\" she said, \"ladies are different from men in this,\r\nthat they cannot allow themselves to be in love so suddenly.\" \"I don't see how a person is to help it. It isn't like jumping into a\r\nriver, which a person can do or not, just as he pleases.\" \"But I fancy it is something like jumping into a river, and that a\r\nperson can help it. What the person can't help is being in when the\r\nplunge has once been made.\" \"No, by George! There's no getting out of that river.\" \"And ladies don't take the plunge till they've had time to think what\r\nmay come after it. Perhaps you were a little too sudden with our\r\ncousin Clara?\" \"Of course I was. Of course I was a fool, and a brute too.\" \"I know you were not a brute, and I don't think you were a fool; but\r\nyet you were too sudden. You see a lady cannot always make up her\r\nmind to love a man, merely because she is asked--all in a moment. She\r\nshould have a little time to think about it before she is called upon\r\nfor an answer.\" \"And I didn't give her two minutes.\" \"You never do give two minutes to anyone;--do you, Will? But you'll\r\nbe back there at Christmas, and then she will have had time to turn\r\nyou and it over in her mind.\" \"And you think that I may have a chance?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Certainty you may have a chance.\" \"Although she was so sure about it?\" \"She spoke of her own mind and her own heart as she knew them then. But it depends chiefly on this, Will,--whether there is any one else. For anything we know, she may be engaged now.\" \"Of course she may.\" Then Belton speculated on the extreme\r\nprobability of such a contingency; arguing within his own heart that\r\nof course every unmarried man who might see Clara would want to marry\r\nher, and that there could not but be some one whom even she would be\r\nable to love. When he had been home about a fortnight, there came a letter to him\r\nfrom Clara, which was a great treasure to him. In truth, it simply\r\ntold him of the completion of the cattle-shed, of her father's\r\nhealth, and of the milk which the little cow gave; but she signed\r\nherself his affectionate cousin, and the letter was very gratifying\r\nto him. There were two lines of a postscript, which could not but\r\nflatter him:--\"Papa is so anxious for Christmas, that you may be here\r\nagain;--and so, indeed, am I also.\" Of course it will be understood\r\nthat this was written before Clara's visit to Perivale, and before\r\nMrs. Winterfield's death. Indeed, much happened in Clara's history\r\nbetween the writing of that letter and Will Belton's winter visit to\r\nthe Castle. But Christmas came at last, all too slowly for Will;--and he started\r\non his journey."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On this occasion he arranged to stay a week in\r\nLondon, having a lawyer there whom he desired to see; and thinking,\r\nperhaps, that a short time spent among the theatres might assist him\r\nin his love troubles. CHAPTER XIV. MR. WILLIAM BELTON TAKES A WALK IN LONDON. At the time of my story there was a certain Mr. Green, a worthy\r\nattorney, who held chambers in Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, much\r\nto the profit of himself and family,--and to the profit and comfort\r\nalso of a numerous body of clients,--a man much respected in the\r\nneighbourhood of Chancery Lane, and beloved, I do not doubt, in the\r\nneighbourhood of Bushey, in which delightfully rural parish he was\r\npossessed of a genteel villa and ornamental garden. With Mr. Green's\r\nprivate residence we shall, I believe, have no further concern; but\r\nto him at his chambers in Stone Buildings I must now introduce the\r\nreader of these memoirs. He was a man not yet forty years of age,\r\nwith still much of the salt of youth about him, a pleasant companion\r\nas well as a good lawyer, and one who knew men and things in London,\r\nas it is given to pleasant clever fellows, such as Joseph Green, to\r\nknow them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now Mr. Green, and his father before him, had been the\r\nlegal advisers of the Amedroz family, and our Mr. Joseph Green had\r\nhad but a bad time of it with Charles Amedroz in the last years of\r\nthat unfortunate young man's life. But lawyers endure these troubles,\r\nsubmitting themselves to the extravagances, embarrassments, and even\r\nvillany of the bad subjects among their clients' families, with a\r\ngood-humoured patience that is truly wonderful. That, however, was\r\nall over now as regarded Mr. Green and the Amedrozes, and he had\r\nnothing further to do but to save for the father what relics of the\r\nproperty he might secure. And he was also legal adviser to our friend\r\nWill Belton, there having been some old family connection among them,\r\nand had often endeavoured to impress upon his old client at Belton\r\nCastle his own strong conviction that the heir was a generous fellow,\r\nwho might be trusted in everything. But this had been taken amiss\r\nby the old squire, who, indeed, was too much disposed to take all\r\nthings amiss and to suspect everybody. \"I understand,\" he had said\r\nto his daughter. \"I know all about it. Belton and Mr. Green have\r\nbeen dear friends always. I can't trust my own lawyer any longer.\" In\r\nall which the old squire showed much ingratitude. It will, however,\r\nbe understood that these suspicions were rife before the time of\r\nBelton's visit to the family estate."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Some four or five days before Christmas there came a visitor to Mr.\r\nGreen with whom the reader is acquainted, and who was no less a man\r\nthan the Member for Perivale. Captain Aylmer, when Clara parted from\r\nhim on the morning of her return to Belton Castle, had resolved that\r\nhe would repeat his offer of marriage by letter. A month had passed\r\nby since then, and he had not as yet repeated it. But his intention\r\nwas not altered. He was a deliberate man, who did not do such things\r\nquite as quickly as his rival, and who upon this occasion had thought\r\nit prudent to turn over more than once in his mind all that he\r\nproposed to do. Nor had he as yet taken any definite steps as to that\r\nfifteen hundred pounds which he had promised to Clara in her aunt's\r\nname, and which Clara had been, and was, so unwilling to receive. He\r\nhad now actually paid it over, having purchased government stock in\r\nClara's name for the amount, and had called upon Mr. Green, in order\r\nthat that gentleman, as Clara's lawyer, might make the necessary\r\ncommunication to her. \"I suppose there's nothing further to be done?\" asked Captain Aylmer. \"Nothing further by me,\" said the lawyer. \"Of course I shall write to\r\nher, and explain that she must make arrangements as to the interest. I am very glad that her aunt thought of her in her last moments.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Mrs. Winterfield would have provided for her before, had she known\r\nthat everything had been swallowed up by that unfortunate young man.\" \"All's well that ends well. Fifteen hundred pounds are better than\r\nnothing.\" \"Is it not enough?\" said the Captain, blushing. \"It isn't for me to have an opinion about that, Captain Aylmer. It depends on the nature of the claim; and that again depends on\r\nthe relative position of the aunt and niece when they were alive\r\ntogether.\" \"You are aware that Miss Amedroz was not Mrs. Winterfield's niece?\" \"Do not think for a moment that I am criticising the amount of the\r\nlegacy. I am very glad of it, as, without it, there was literally no\r\nprovision,--no provision at all.\" \"You will write to herself?\" \"Oh yes, certainly to herself. She is a better man of business than\r\nher father;--and then this is her own, to do as she likes with it.\" \"She can't refuse it, I suppose?\" \"Refuse it!\" \"Even though she did not wish to take it, it would be legally her\r\nproperty, just as though it had been really left by the will?\" \"Well; I don't know. I dare say you could have resisted the payment. But that has been made now, and there seems to be an end of it.\" At this moment a clerk entered the room and handed a card to his\r\nemployer. \"Here's the heir himself,\" said Mr. Green. \"What heir?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Will Belton;--the heir of the property which Mr. Amedroz holds.\" Captain Aylmer had soon explained that he was not personally\r\nacquainted with Mr. William Belton; but, having heard much about\r\nhim, declared himself anxious to make the acquaintance. Our friend\r\nWill, therefore, was ushered into the room, and the two rivals for\r\nClara's favour were introduced to each other. Each had heard much\r\nof the other, and each had heard of the other from the same person. But Captain Aylmer knew much more as to Belton than Belton knew in\r\nrespect to him. Aylmer knew that Belton had proposed to Clara and had\r\nbeen rejected; and he knew also that Belton was now again going down\r\nto Somersetshire. \"You are to spend your Christmas, I believe, with our friends at\r\nBelton Castle?\" said the Captain. \"Yes;--and am now on my way there. I believe you know them\r\nalso,--intimately.\" Then there was some explanation as to the\r\nWinterfield connection, a few remarks as to the precarious state of\r\nthe old squire's health, a message or two from Captain Aylmer, which\r\nof course were of no importance, and the Captain took his leave. Then Green and Belton became very comfortably intimate in their\r\nconversation, calling each other Will and Joe,--for they were old\r\nand close friends. And they discussed matters in that cozy tone of\r\nconfidential intercourse which is so directly at variance with the\r\ntones used by men when they ordinarily talk of business."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"He has\r\nbrought me good news for your friend, Miss Amedroz,\" said the lawyer. \"What good news?\" \"That aunt of hers left her fifteen hundred pounds, after all. Or\r\nrather, she did not leave it, but desired on her death-bed that it\r\nmight be given.\" \"That's the same thing, I suppose?\" \"Oh quite;--that is to say, it's the same thing if the person who has\r\nto hand over the money does not dispute the legacy. But it shows how\r\nthe old lady's conscience pricked her at last. And after all it was a\r\nshabby sum, and should have been three times as much.\" \"Fifteen hundred pounds! And that is all she will have when her\r\nfather dies?\" \"Every farthing, Will. You'll take all the rest.\" \"I wish she wasn't going to have that.\" \"Why? Why on earth should you of all men grudge her such a moderate\r\nmaintenance, seeing that you have not got to pay it?\" \"It isn't a maintenance. How could it be a maintenance for such as\r\nher? What sort of maintenance would it be?\" \"Much better than nothing. And so you would feel if she were your\r\ndaughter.\" \"She shall be my daughter, or my sister, or whatever you like to call\r\nher. You don't think that I'll take the whole estate and leave her to\r\nstarve on the interest of fifteen hundred pounds a year!\" \"You'd better make her your wife at once, Will.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Will Belton blushed as he answered, \"That, perhaps, would be easier\r\nsaid than done. That is not in my power,--even if I should wish it. But the other is in my power.\" \"Will, take my advice, and don't make any romantic promises when you\r\nare down at Belton. You'll be sure to regret them if you do. And you\r\nshould remember that in truth Miss Amedroz has no greater claim on\r\nyou than any other lady in the land.\" \"Isn't she my cousin?\" \"Well;--yes. She is your cousin, but a distant one only; and I'm not\r\naware that cousinship gives any claim.\" \"Who is she to have a claim on? I'm the nearest she has got. Besides,\r\nam not I going to take all the property which ought to be hers?\" \"That's just it. There's no such ought in the case. The property is\r\nas much your own as this poker is mine. That's exactly the mistake I\r\nwant you to guard against. If you liked her, and chose to marry her,\r\nthat would be all very well; presuming that you don't want to get\r\nmoney in marriage.\" \"I hate the idea of marrying for money.\" \"All right. Then marry Miss Amedroz if you please. But don't make any\r\nrash undertakings to be her father, or her brother, or her uncle, or\r\nher aunt. Such romance always leads a man into trouble.\" \"But I've done it already.\" \"What do you mean?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I've told her that I would be her brother, and that as long as I had\r\na shilling she should never want sixpence. And I mean it. And as for\r\nwhat you say about romance and repenting it, that simply comes from\r\nyour being a lawyer.\" \"Thank ye, Will.\" \"If one goes to a chemist, of course one gets physic, and has to put\r\nup with the bad smells.\" \"Thank you again.\" \"But the chemist may be a very good sort of fellow at home all the\r\nsame, and have a cupboard full of sweetmeats and a garden full of\r\nflowers. However, the thing is done as far as I am concerned, and I\r\ncan almost find it in my heart to be sorry that Clara has got this\r\ndriblet of money. Fifteen hundred pounds! It would keep her out of\r\nthe workhouse, and that is about all.\" \"If you knew how many ladies in her position would think that the\r\nheavens had rained wealth upon them if some one would give them\r\nfifteen hundred pounds!\" \"Very well. At any rate I won't take it away from her. And now I want\r\nyou to tell me something else. Do you remember a fellow we used to\r\nknow named Berdmore?\" \"Philip Berdmore?\" \"He may have been Philip, or Daniel, or Jeremiah, for anything I\r\nknow. But the man I mean was very much given to taking his liquor\r\nfreely.\" \"That was Jack Berdmore, Philip's brother. Oh yes, I remember him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He's dead now. He drank himself to death at last, out in India.\" \"He was in the army?\" \"Yes;--and what a pleasant fellow he was at times! I see Phil\r\nconstantly, and Phil's wife, but they never speak of Jack.\" \"He got married, didn't he, after we used to see him?\" \"Oh yes;--he and Phil married sisters. It was a sad affair, that.\" \"I remember being with him and her,--and the sister too, after they\r\nwere engaged, and he got so drunk that we were obliged to take him\r\naway. There was a large party of us at Richmond, but I don't think\r\nyou were there.\" \"But I heard of it.\" \"And she was a Miss Vigo?\" \"Exactly. I see the younger sister constantly. Phil isn't very rich,\r\nand he's got a lot of children,--but he's very happy.\" \"What became of the other sister?\" \"Of Jack's wife?\" \"Yes. What became of her?\" \"I haven't an idea. Something bad, I suppose, as they never speak of\r\nher.\" \"And how long is he dead?\" \"He died about three years since. I only knew it from Phil's telling\r\nme that he was in mourning for him. Then he did speak of him for a\r\nmoment or two, and I came to know that he had carried on to the end\r\nin the same way. If a fellow takes to drink in this country, he'll\r\nnever get cured in India.\" \"I suppose not.\" \"Never.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And now I want to find out something about his widow.\" \"And why?\" \"Ah;--I'm not sure that I can tell you why. Indeed I'm sure that I\r\ncannot. But still you might be able to assist me.\" \"There were heaps of people who used to know the Vigos,\" said the\r\nlawyer. \"No end of people,--though I couldn't for the life of me say who any\r\nof them were.\" \"They used to come out in London with an aunt, but nobody knew much\r\nabout her. I fancy they had neither father nor mother.\" \"They were very pretty.\" \"And how well they danced! I don't think I ever knew a girl who\r\ndanced so pleasantly,--giving herself no airs, you know,--as Mary\r\nVigo.\" \"Her name was Mary,\" said Belton, remembering that Mrs. Askerton's\r\nname was also Mary. \"Jack Berdmore married Mary.\" \"Well now, Joe, you must find out for me what became of her. Was she\r\nwith her husband when he died?\" \"Nobody was with him. Phil told me so. No one, that is, but a young\r\nlieutenant and his own servant. It was very sad. He had D.T., and all\r\nthat sort of thing.\" \"And where was she?\" \"At Jericho, for anything that I know.\" \"Will you find out?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then Mr. Joseph Green thought for a moment of\r\nhis capabilities in that line, and having made an engagement to dine\r\nwith his friend at his club on the evening before Will left London,\r\nsaid at last that he thought he could find out through certain mutual\r\nfriends who had known the Berdmores in the old days. \"But the fact\r\nis,\" said the lawyer, \"that the world is so good-natured,--instead of\r\nbeing ill-natured, as people say,--that it always forgets those who\r\nwant to be forgotten.\" We must now go back for a few moments to Captain Aylmer and his\r\naffairs. Having given a full month to the consideration of his\r\nposition as regarded Miss Amedroz, he made up his mind to two things. In the first place, he would at once pay over to her the money\r\nwhich was to be hers as her aunt's legacy, and then he would renew\r\nhis offer. To that latter determination he was guided by mixed\r\nmotives,--by motives which, when joined together, rarely fail to be\r\noperative. His conscience told him that he ought to do so,--and then\r\nthe fact of her having, as it were, taken herself away from him, made\r\nhim again wish to possess her. And there was another cause which,\r\nperhaps, operated in the same direction. He had consulted his mother,\r\nand she had strongly advised him to have nothing further to do with\r\nMiss Amedroz."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lady Aylmer abused her dead sister heartily for having\r\ninterfered in the matter, and endeavoured to prove to her son that\r\nhe was released from his promise by having in fact performed it. But\r\non this point his conscience interfered,--backed by his wishes,--and\r\nhe made his resolve as has been above stated. On leaving Mr. Green's\r\nchambers he went to his own lodgings, and wrote his letter, as\r\nfollows:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   Mount Street, December, 186--. DEAREST CLARA,\r\n\r\n   When you parted from me at Perivale you said certain\r\n   things about our engagement which I have come to\r\n   understand better since then, than I did at the time. It escaped from me that my dear aunt and I had had some\r\n   conversation about you, and that I had told her what was\r\n   my intention. Something was said about a promise, and I\r\n   think it was that word which made you unhappy. At such a\r\n   time as that, when I and my aunt were talking together,\r\n   and when she was, as she well knew, on her deathbed,\r\n   things will be said which would not be thought of in other\r\n   circumstances. I can only assure you now, that the promise\r\n   I gave her was a promise to do that which I had previously\r\n   resolved upon doing. If you can believe what I say on this\r\n   head, that ought to be sufficient to remove the feeling\r\n   which induced you to break our engagement."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I now write to renew my offer to you, and to assure you\r\n   that I do so with my whole heart. You will forgive me if\r\n   I tell you that I cannot fail to remember, and always to\r\n   bear in my mind, the sweet assurances which you gave me of\r\n   your regard for myself. As I do not know that anything has\r\n   occurred to alter your opinion of me, I write this letter\r\n   in strong hope that it may be successful. I believe that\r\n   your fear was in respect to my affection for you, not as\r\n   to yours for me. If this was so, I can assure you that\r\n   there is no necessity for such fear. I need not tell you that I shall expect your answer with\r\n   great anxiety. Yours most affectionately,\r\n\r\n   F. F. AYLMER. P.S. I have to-day caused to be bought in your name Bank\r\n   Stock to the amount of fifteen hundred pounds, the amount\r\n   of the legacy coming to you from my aunt. This letter, and that from Mr. Green respecting the money, both\r\nreached Clara on the same morning. Now, having learned so much as to\r\nthe position of affairs at Belton Castle, we may return to Will and\r\nhis dinner engagement with Mr. Joseph Green. \"And what have you heard about Mrs. Berdmore?\" Belton asked, almost\r\nas soon as the two men were together. \"I wish I knew why you want to know.\" \"I don't want to do anybody any harm.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Do you want to do anybody any good?\" \"Any good! I can't say that I want to do any particular good. The\r\ntruth is, I think I know where she is, and that she is living under a\r\nfalse name.\" \"Then you know more of her than I do.\" \"I don't know anything. I'm only in doubt. But as the lady I mean\r\nlives near to friends of mine, I should like to know.\" \"That you may expose her?\" \"No;--by no means. But I hate the idea of deceit. The truth is, that\r\nany one living anywhere under a false name should be exposed,--or\r\nshould be made to assume their right name.\" \"I find that Mrs. Berdmore left her husband some years before he\r\ndied. There was nothing in that to create wonder, for he was a man\r\nwith whom a woman could hardly continue to live. But I fear she left\r\nhim under protection that was injurious to her character.\" \"And how long ago is that?\" \"I do not know. Some years before his death.\" \"And how long ago did he die?\" \"About three years since. My informant tells me that he believes she\r\nhas since married. Now you know all that I know.\" And Belton also\r\nknew that Mrs. Askerton of the cottage was the Miss Vigo with whom he\r\nhad been acquainted in earlier years."}
{"question": "", "answer": "After that they dined comfortably, and nothing passed between them\r\nwhich need be recorded as essential to our story till the time came\r\nfor them to part. Then, when they were both standing at the club\r\ndoor, the lawyer said a word or two which is essential. \"So you're\r\noff to-morrow?\" said he. \"Yes; I shall go down by the express.\" \"I wish you a pleasant journey. By-the-by, I ought to tell you that\r\nyou won't have any trouble in being either father or mother, or uncle\r\nor aunt to Miss Amedroz.\" \"Why not?\" \"I suppose it's no secret.\" \"What's no secret?\" \"She's going to be married to Captain Aylmer.\" Then Will Belton started so violently, and assumed on a sudden so\r\nmanifest a look of anger, that his tale was at once told to Mr.\r\nGreen. \"Who says so?\" he asked. \"I don't believe it.\" \"I'm afraid it's true all the same, Will.\" \"Who says it?\" \"Captain Aylmer was with me to-day, and he told me. He ought to be\r\ngood authority on such a subject.\" \"He told you that he was going to marry Clara Amedroz?\" \"Yes, indeed.\" \"And what made him come to you, to tell you?\" \"There was a question about some money which he had paid to her, and\r\nwhich, under existing circumstances, he thought it as well that he\r\nshould not pay. Matters of that kind are often necessarily told to\r\nlawyers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I should not have told it to you, Will, if I had not\r\nthought that it was good news.\" \"It is not good news,\" said Belton moodily. \"At any rate, old fellow, my telling it will do no harm. You must\r\nhave learned it soon.\" And he put his hand kindly,--almost tenderly,\r\non the other's arm. But Belton moved himself away angrily. The wound\r\nhad been so lately inflicted that he could not as yet forgive the\r\nhand that had seemed to strike him. \"I'm sorry that it should be so bad with you, Will.\" \"What do you mean by bad? It is not bad with me. It is very well\r\nwith me. Keep your pity for those who want it.\" Then he walked off\r\nby himself across the broad street before the club door, leaving\r\nhis friend without a word of farewell, and made his way up into St.\r\nJames's Square, choosing, as was evident to Mr. Green, the first\r\nstreet that would take him out of sight. \"He's hit, and hit hard,\" said the lawyer, looking after him. \"Poor\r\nfellow! I might have guessed it from what he said. I never knew of\r\nhis caring for any woman before.\" Then Mr. Green put on his gloves\r\nand went away home. We will now follow Will Belton into St. James's Square, and we shall\r\nfollow a very unhappy gentleman."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Doubtless he had hitherto known and\r\nappreciated the fact that Miss Amedroz had refused his offer, and had\r\noften declared, both to himself and to his sister, his conviction\r\nthat that refusal would never be reversed. But, in spite of that\r\nexpressed conviction, he had lived on hope. Till she belonged to\r\nanother man she might yet be his. He might win her at last by\r\nperseverance. At any rate he had it in his power to work towards the\r\ndesired end, and might find solace even in that working. And the\r\nmisery of his loss would not be so great to him,--as he found himself\r\nforced to confess to himself before he had completed his wanderings\r\non this night,--in not having her for his own, as it would be in\r\nknowing that she had given herself to another man. He had often told\r\nhimself that of course she would become the wife of some man, but he\r\nhad never yet realised to himself what it would be to know that she\r\nwas the wife of any one specified rival. He had been sad enough on\r\nthat moonlight night in the avenue at Plaistow,--when he had leaned\r\nagainst the tree, striking his hands together as he thought of his\r\ngreat want; but his unhappiness then had been as nothing to his agony\r\nnow. Now it was all over,--and he knew the man who had supplanted\r\nhim! How he hated him!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "With what an unchristian spirit did he regard that\r\nworthy captain as he walked across St. James's Square, across Jermyn\r\nStreet, across Piccadilly, and up Bond Street, not knowing whither he\r\nwas going. He thought with an intense regret of the laws of modern\r\nsociety which forbid duelling,--forgetting altogether that even had\r\nthe old law prevailed, the conduct of the man whom he so hated would\r\nhave afforded him no _casus belli_. But he was too far gone in misery\r\nand animosity to be capable of any reason on the matter. Captain\r\nAylmer had interfered with his dearest wishes, and during this now\r\npassing hour he would willingly have crucified Captain Aylmer had\r\nit been within his power to do so. Till he had gone beyond Oxford\r\nStreet, and had wandered away into the far distance of Portman Square\r\nand Baker Street, he had not begun to think of any interest which\r\nClara Amedroz might have in the matter on which his thoughts were\r\nemployed. He was sojourning at an hotel in Bond Street, and had gone\r\nthitherwards more by habit than by thought; but he had passed the\r\ndoor of his inn, feeling it to be impossible to render himself up to\r\nhis bed in his present disturbed mood."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As he was passing the house\r\nin Bond Street he had been intent on the destruction of Captain\r\nAylmer,--and had almost determined that if Captain Aylmer could not\r\nbe made to vanish into eternity, he must make up his mind to go that\r\nroad himself. It was out of the question that he should go down to Belton. As to\r\nthat he had come to a very decided opinion by the time that he had\r\ncrossed Oxford Street. Go down to see her, when she had treated him\r\nafter this fashion! No, indeed. She wanted no brother now. She had\r\nchosen to trust herself to this other man, and he, Will Belton,\r\nwould not interfere further in her affairs. Then he drew upon his\r\nimagination for a picture of the future, in which he portrayed\r\nCaptain Aylmer as a ruined man, who would probably desert his wife,\r\nand make himself generally odious to all his acquaintance--a picture\r\nas to the realisation of which I am bound to say that Captain\r\nAylmer's antecedents gave no probability. But it was the looking\r\nat this self-drawn picture which first softened the artist's heart\r\ntowards the victim whom he had immolated on his imaginary canvas."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When Clara should be ruined by the baseness and villany and general\r\nscampishness of this man whom she was going to marry,--to whom she\r\nwas about to be weak enough and fool enough to trust herself,--then\r\nhe would interpose and be her brother once again,--a broken-hearted\r\nbrother no doubt, but a brother efficacious to keep the wolf from\r\nthe door of this poor woman and her--children. Then, as he thus\r\ncreated Captain Aylmer's embryo family of unprovided orphans,--for\r\nafter a while he killed the captain, making him to die some death\r\nthat was very disgraceful, but not very distinct even to his own\r\nimagination,--as he thought of those coming pledges of a love which\r\nwas to him so bitter, he stormed about the streets, performing antics\r\nof which no one would have believed him capable, who had known him as\r\nthe thriving Mr. William Belton, of Plaistow Hall, among the fens of\r\nNorfolk. But the character of a man is not to be judged from the pictures\r\nwhich he may draw or from the antics which he may play in his\r\nsolitary hours. Those who act generally with the most consummate\r\nwisdom in the affairs of the world, often meditate very silly doings\r\nbefore their wiser resolutions form themselves."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I beg, therefore,\r\nthat Mr. Belton may be regarded and criticised in accordance with his\r\nconduct on the following morning,--when his midnight rambles, which\r\nfinally took him even beyond the New Road, had been followed by a few\r\ntranquil hours in his Bond Street bedroom:--for at last he did bring\r\nhimself to return thither and put himself to bed after the usual\r\nfashion. He put himself to bed in a spirit somewhat tranquillised by\r\nthe exercise of the night, and at last--wept himself to sleep like a\r\nbaby. But he was by no means like a baby when he took him early on the\r\nfollowing morning to the Paddington Station, and booked himself\r\nmanfully for Taunton. He had had time to recognise the fact that he\r\nhad no ground of quarrel with his cousin because she had preferred\r\nanother man to him. This had happened to him as he was recrossing\r\nthe New Road about two o'clock, and was beginning to find that his\r\nlegs were weary under him. And, indeed, he had recognised one or two\r\nthings before he had gone to sleep with his tears dripping on to his\r\npillow. In the first place, he had ill-treated Joe Green, and had\r\nmade a fool of himself in his friend's presence. As Joe Green was a\r\nsensible, kind-hearted fellow, this did not much signify;--but not\r\non that account did he omit to tell himself of his own fault."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then\r\nhe discovered that it would ill become him to break his word to Mr.\r\nAmedroz and to his daughter, and to do so without a word of excuse,\r\nbecause Clara had exercised a right which was indisputably her own. He had undertaken certain work at Belton which required his presence,\r\nand he would go down and do his work as though nothing had occurred\r\nto disturb him. To remain away because of this misfortune would be to\r\nshow the white feather. It would be unmanly. All this he recognised\r\nas the pictures he had painted faded away from their canvases. As to\r\nCaptain Aylmer himself, he hoped that he might never be called upon\r\nto meet him. He still hoped that, even as he was resolutely cramming\r\nhis shirts into his portmanteau before he began his journey. His\r\ncousin Clara he thought he could meet, and tender to her some\r\nexpression of good wishes as to her future life, without giving way\r\nunder the effort. And to the old squire he could endeavour to make\r\nhimself pleasant, speaking of the relief from all trouble which this\r\nmarriage with Captain Aylmer would afford,--for now, in his cooler\r\nmoments, he could perceive that Captain Aylmer was not a man apt\r\nto ruin himself, or his wife and children. But to Captain Aylmer\r\nhimself, he could not bring himself to say pleasant things or to\r\nexpress pleasant wishes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She who was to be Captain Aylmer's wife, who\r\nloved him, would of course have told him what had occurred up among\r\nthe rocks in Belton Park; and if that was so, any meeting between\r\nWill and Captain Aylmer would be death to the former. Thinking of all this he journeyed down to Taunton, and thinking of\r\nall this he made his way from Taunton across to Belton Park. CHAPTER XV. EVIL WORDS. Clara Amedroz had received her two letters together,--that, namely,\r\nfrom the attorney, and that from Captain Aylmer,--and the result of\r\nthose letters is already known. She accepted her lover's renewed\r\noffer of marriage, acknowledging the force of his logic, and putting\r\nfaith in the strength of his assurances. This she did without seeking\r\nadvice from any one. Who was there from whom she could seek advice on\r\nsuch a matter as that?--who, at least, was there at Belton? That her\r\nfather would, as a matter of course, bid her accept Captain Aylmer,\r\nwas, she thought, certain; and she knew well that Mrs. Askerton would\r\ndo the same. She asked no counsel from any one, but taking the two\r\nletters up to her own room, sat down to consider them. That which\r\nreferred to her aunt's money, together with the postscript in Captain\r\nAylmer's letter on the same subject, would be of the least possible\r\nmoment if she could bring herself to give a favourable answer to the\r\nother proposition."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But should she not be able to do this,--should she\r\nhesitate as to doing so at once,--then she must write to the lawyer\r\nin very strong terms, refusing altogether to have anything to do with\r\nthe money. And in such a case as this, not a word could she say to\r\nher father either on one subject or on the other. But why should she not accept the offer made to her? Captain Aylmer\r\ndeclared that he had determined to ask her to be his wife before he\r\nhad made any promise to Mrs. Winterfield. If this were in truth so,\r\nthen the very ground on which she had separated herself from him\r\nwould be removed. Why should she hesitate in acknowledging to herself\r\nthat she loved the man and believed him to be true? So she sat\r\nherself down and answered both the letters,--writing to the lawyer\r\nfirst. To him she said that nothing need be done about the money or\r\nthe interest till he should see or hear from Captain Aylmer again. Then to Captain Aylmer she wrote very shortly, but very openly,--with\r\nthe same ill-judged candour which her spoken words to him had\r\ndisplayed. Of course she would be his; his without hesitation, now\r\nthat she knew that he expressed his own wishes, and not merely\r\nthose of his aunt. \"As to the money,\" she said, \"it would be simply\r\nnonsense now for us to have any talk of money."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is yours in any\r\nway, and you had better manage about it as you please. I have written\r\nan ambiguous letter to Mr. Green, which will simply plague him, and\r\nwhich you may go and see if you like.\" Then she added her postscript,\r\nin which she said that she should now at once tell her father, as\r\nthe news would remove from his mind all solicitude as to her future\r\nposition. That Captain Aylmer did go to Mr. Green we already know,\r\nand we know also that he told Mr. Green of his intended marriage. Nothing was said by Captain Aylmer as to any proposed period for\r\ntheir marriage; but that was only natural. It was not probable that\r\nany man would name a day till he knew whether or not he was accepted. Indeed, Clara, on thinking over the whole affair, was now disposed to\r\nfind fault rather with herself than with her lover, and forgetting\r\nhis coldness and formality at Perivale, remembered only the fact of\r\nhis offer to her, and his assurance now received that he had intended\r\nto make it before the scene which had taken place between him and\r\nhis aunt. She did find fault with herself, telling herself that\r\nshe had quarrelled with him without sufficient cause;--and the\r\neager, loving candour of her letter to him was attributable to those\r\nself-accusations."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Papa,\" she said, after the postman had gone away from Belton, so\r\nthat there might be no possibility of any recall of her letter, \"I\r\nhave something to tell you which I hope will give you pleasure.\" \"It isn't often that I hear anything of that kind,\" said he. \"But I think that this will give you pleasure. I do indeed. I am\r\ngoing to be married.\" \"Going to what?\" \"Going to be married, papa. That is, if I have your leave. Of course\r\nany offer of that kind that I have accepted is subject to your\r\napproval.\" \"And I have been told nothing about it!\" \"It began at Perivale, and I could not tell you then. You do not ask\r\nme who is to be my husband.\" \"It is not Will Belton?\" \"Poor Will! No; it is not Will. It is Frederic Aylmer. I think you\r\nwould prefer him as a son-in-law even to my cousin Will.\" \"No I shouldn't. Why should I prefer a man whom I don't even know,\r\nwho lives in London, and who will take you away, so that I shall\r\nnever see you again?\" \"Dear papa;--don't speak of it in that way. I thought you would be\r\nglad to know that I was to be so--so--so happy!\" \"But why is it to be done this way,--of a sudden? Why didn't he come\r\nto me? Will came to me the very first thing.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"He couldn't come all the way to Belton very well;--particularly as\r\nhe does not know you.\" \"Will came here.\" \"Oh, papa, don't make difficulties. Of course that was different. He\r\nwas here when he first thought of it. And even then he didn't think\r\nvery much about it.\" \"He did all that he could, I suppose?\" \"Well;--yes. I don't know how that might be.\" And Clara almost\r\nlaughed as she felt the difficulties into which she was creeping. \"Dear Will. He is much better as a cousin than as a husband.\" \"I don't see that at all. Captain Aylmer will not have the Belton\r\nestate or Plaistow Hall.\" \"Surely he is well enough off to take care of a wife. He will have\r\nthe whole of the Perivale estate, you know.\" \"I don't know anything about it. According to my ideas of what is\r\nproper he should have spoken to me first. If he could not come he\r\nmight have written. No doubt my ideas may be old-fashioned, and I'm\r\ntold that Captain Aylmer is a fashionable young man.\" \"Indeed he is not, papa. He is a hard-working member of Parliament.\" \"I don't know that he is any better for that. People seem to think\r\nthat if a man is a member of Parliament he may do what he pleases. There is Thompson, the member for Minehead, who has bought some sort\r\nof place out by the moors. I never saw so vulgar, pig-headed a fellow\r\nin my life."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Being in Parliament used to be something when I was\r\nyoung, but it won't make a man a gentleman now-a-days. It seems to\r\nme that none but brewers, and tallow-chandlers, and lawyers go into\r\nParliament now. Will Belton could go into Parliament if he pleased,\r\nbut he knows better than that. He won't make himself such a fool.\" This was not comfortable to Clara; but she knew her father, and\r\nallowed him to go on with his grumbling. He would come round by\r\ndegrees, and he would appreciate, if he could not be induced to\r\nacknowledge, the wisdom of the step she was about to take. \"When is it to be?\" he asked. \"Nothing of that kind has ever been mentioned, papa.\" \"It had better be soon, if I am to have anything to do with it.\" Now\r\nit was certainly the case that the old man was very ill. He had not\r\nbeen out of the house since Clara had returned home; and, though he\r\nwas always grumbling about his food, he could hardly be induced to\r\neat anything when the morsels for which he expressed a wish were got\r\nfor him. \"Of course you will be consulted, papa, before anything is settled.\" \"I don't want to be in anybody's way, my dear.\" \"And may I tell Frederic that you have given your consent?\" \"What's the use of my consenting or not consenting? If you had been\r\nanxious to oblige me you would have taken your cousin Will.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, papa, how could I accept a man I didn't love?\" \"You seemed to me to be very fond of him at first; and I must say, I\r\nthought he was ill-treated.\" \"Papa, papa; do not say such things as that to me!\" \"What am I to do? You tell me, and I can't altogether hold my\r\ntongue.\" Then there was a pause. \"Well, my dear, as for my consent,\r\nof course you may have it,--if it's worth anything. I don't know that\r\nI ever heard anything bad about Captain Aylmer.\" He had heard nothing bad about Captain Aylmer! Clara, as she left her\r\nfather, felt that this was very grievous. Whatever cause she might\r\nhave had for discontent with her lover, she could not but be aware\r\nthat he was a man whom any father might be proud to welcome as a\r\nsuitor for his daughter. He was a man as to whom no ill tales had\r\never been told;--who had never been known to do anything wrong or\r\nimprudent; who had always been more than respectable, and as to whose\r\nworldly position no exception could be taken. She had been entitled\r\nto expect her father's warmest congratulations, and her tidings had\r\nbeen received as though she had proposed to give her hand to one\r\nwhose character and position only just made it not imperative on the\r\nfather to withhold his consent!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "All this was hard, and feeling it\r\nto be so, she went up-stairs, all alone, and cried bitterly as she\r\nthought of it. On the next day she went down to the cottage and saw Mrs. Askerton. She went there with the express purpose of telling her friend of her\r\nengagement,--desirous of obtaining in that quarter the sympathy which\r\nher father declined to give her. Had her communication to him been\r\naccepted in a different spirit, she might probably have kept her\r\nsecret from Mrs. Askerton till something further had been fixed about\r\nher marriage; but she was in want of a few kind words, and pined\r\nfor some of that encouragement which ladies in love usually wish to\r\nreceive, at any rate from some one chosen friend. But when she found\r\nherself alone with Mrs. Askerton she hardly knew how to tell her\r\nnews; and at first could not tell it at all, as that lady was eager\r\nin speaking on another subject. \"When do you expect your cousin?\" Mrs. Askerton asked, almost as soon\r\nas Clara was seated. \"The day after to-morrow.\" \"And he is in London now?\" \"He may be. I dare say he is. But I don't know anything about it.\" \"I can tell you then that he is. Colonel Askerton has heard of his\r\nbeing there.\" \"You seem to speak of it as though there were some offence in it. Is\r\nthere any reason why he should not be in London if he pleases?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"None in the least. I would much rather that he should be there than\r\nhere.\" \"Why so? Will his coming hurt you?\" \"I don't like him. I don't like him at all;--and now you know the\r\ntruth. You believe in him;--I don't. You think him to be a fine\r\nfellow and a gentleman, whereas I don't think him to be either.\" \"Mrs. Askerton!\" \"This is strong language, I know.\" \"Very strong language.\" \"Yes, my dear; but the truth is, Clara, that you and I, living\r\ntogether here this sort of hermit's life, each seeing so much of\r\nthe other and seeing nothing of anybody else, must either be real\r\nfriends, telling each other what we think, or we must be nothing. We\r\ncan't go on with the ordinary make-believes of society, saying little\r\ncivil speeches and not going beyond them. Therefore I have made up my\r\nmind to tell you in plain language that I don't like your cousin, and\r\ndon't believe in him.\" \"I don't know what you mean by believing in a man.\" \"I believe in you. Sometimes I have thought that you believe in me,\r\nand sometimes I have feared that you do not. I think that you are\r\ngood, and honest, and true; and therefore I like to see your face and\r\nhear your voice,--though it is not often that you say very pleasant\r\nthings to me.\" \"Do I say unpleasant things?\" \"I am not going to quarrel with you,--not if I can help it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What\r\nbusiness has Mr. Belton to go about London making inquiries as to me? What have I done to him, that he should honour me so far?\" \"Has he made inquiries?\" \"Yes; he has. If you have been contented with me as I am,--if you are\r\nsatisfied, why should he want to learn more? If you have any question\r\nto ask me I will answer it. But what right can he have to be asking\r\nquestions among strangers?\" Clara had no question to ask, and yet she could not say that she was\r\nsatisfied. She would have been better satisfied to have known more of\r\nMrs. Askerton, but yet she had never condescended to make inquiries\r\nabout her friend. But her curiosity was now greatly raised; and,\r\nindeed, Mrs. Askerton's manner was so strange, her vehemence so\r\nunusual, and her eagerness to rush into dangerous subjects so unlike\r\nher usual tranquillity in conversation, that Clara did not know how\r\nto answer her. \"I know nothing of any questioning,\" she said. \"I am sure you don't. Had I thought you did, much as I love\r\nyou,--valuable as your society is to me down in this desert,--I would\r\nnever speak to you again. But remember,--if you want to ask any\r\nquestions, and will ask them of me,--of me,--I will answer them, and\r\nwill not be angry.\" \"But I don't want to ask any questions.\" \"You may some day; and then you can remember what I say.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And am I to understand that you are determined to quarrel with my\r\ncousin Will?\" \"Quarrel with him! I don't suppose that I shall see him. After what\r\nI have said it is not probable that you will bring him here, and the\r\nservant will have orders to say that I am not at home if he should\r\ncall. Luckily he and Colonel Askerton did not meet when he was here\r\nbefore.\" \"This is the most strange thing I ever heard in my life.\" \"You will understand it better, my dear, when he makes his\r\ncommunication to you.\" \"What communication?\" \"You'll find that he'll have a communication to make. He has been\r\nso diligent and so sharp that he'll have a great deal to tell, I do\r\nnot doubt. Only, remember, Clara, that if anything that he tells you\r\nmakes any difference in your feelings towards me, I shall expect\r\nyou to come to me and say so openly. If he makes his statement, let\r\nme make mine. I have a right to ask for that, after what I have\r\npromised.\" \"You may be sure that I will.\" \"I want nothing more. I have no distrust in you,--none in the least. I tell you that I believe in you. If you will do that, and will keep\r\nMr. William Belton out of my way during his visit to these parts,\r\nI shall be satisfied.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "For some time past Mrs. Askerton had been\r\nwalking about the room, but, as she now finished speaking, she\r\nsat herself down as though the subject was fully discussed and\r\ncompleted. For a minute or two she made an effort to resume her usual\r\ntranquillity of manner, and in doing so attempted to smile, as though\r\nridiculing her own energy. \"I knew I should make a fool of myself\r\nwhen you came,\" she said; \"and now I have done it.\" \"I don't think you have been a fool at all, but you may have been\r\nmistaken.\" \"Very well, my dear, we shall see. It's very odd what a dislike I\r\ntook to that man the first time I saw him.\" \"And I am so fond of him!\" \"Yes; he has cozened you as he has your father. I am only glad that\r\nhe did not succeed in cozening you further than he did. But I ought\r\nto have known you better than to suppose you could give your heart of\r\nhearts to one who is--\"\r\n\r\n\"Do not abuse him any more.\" \"Who is so very unlike the sort of people with whom you have lived. I\r\nmay, at any rate, say that.\" \"I don't know that. I haven't lived much with any one yet,--except\r\npapa, and my aunt, and you.\" \"But you know a gentleman when you see him.\" \"Come, Mrs. Askerton, I will not stand this. I thought you had done\r\nwith the subject, and now you begin again."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I had come here on purpose\r\nto tell you something of real importance,--that is, to me; but I must\r\ngo away without telling you, unless you will give over abusing my\r\ncousin.\" \"I will not say a word more about him,--not at present.\" \"I feel so sure that you are mistaken, you know.\" \"Very well;--and I feel sure that you are mistaken. We will leave it\r\nso, and go to this matter of importance.\" But Clara felt it to be\r\nvery difficult to tell her tidings after such a conversation as that\r\nwhich had just occurred. When she had entered the room her mind had\r\nbeen tuned to the subject, and she could have found fitting words\r\nwithout much difficulty to herself; but now her thoughts had been\r\nscattered and her feelings hurt, and she did not know how to bring\r\nherself back to the subject of her engagement. She paused, therefore,\r\nand sat with a doubtful, hesitating look, meditating some mode of\r\nescape. \"I am all ears,\" said Mrs. Askerton; and Clara thought that\r\nshe discovered something of ridicule or of sarcasm in the tone of her\r\nfriend's voice. \"I believe I'll put it off till another day,\" she said. \"Why so? You don't think that anything really important to you will\r\nnot be important to me also?\" \"I'm sure of that, but somehow--\"\r\n\r\n\"You mean to say that I have ruffled you?\" \"Well;--perhaps; a little.\" \"Then be unruffled again, like my own dear, honest Clara."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have been\r\nruffled too, but I'll be as tranquil now as a drawing-room cat.\" Then\r\nMrs. Askerton got up from her chair, and seated herself by Clara's\r\nside on the sofa. \"Come; you can't go till you've told me; and if you\r\nhesitate, I shall think that you mean to quarrel with me.\" \"I'll come to you to-morrow.\" \"No, no; you shall tell me to-day. All to-morrow you'll be preparing\r\nfor your cousin.\" \"What nonsense!\" \"Or else you'll come prepared to vindicate him, and then we shan't\r\nget on any further. Tell me what it is to-day. You can't leave me in\r\ncuriosity after what you have said.\" \"You've heard of Captain Aylmer, I think.\" \"Of course I've heard of him.\" \"But you've never seen him?\" \"You know I never have.\" \"I told you that he was at Perivale when Mrs. Winterfield died.\" \"And now he has proposed, and you are going to accept him? That will\r\nindeed be important. Is it so?--say. But don't I know it is so? Why\r\ndon't you speak?\" \"If you know it, why need I speak?\" \"But it is so? Oh, Clara, I am so glad. I congratulate you with all\r\nmy heart,--with all my heart. My dearest, dearest Clara! What a happy\r\narrangement! What a success! It is just as it should be. Dear, good\r\nman! to come forward in that sensible way, and put an end to all the\r\nlittle family difficulties!\" \"I don't know so much about success."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Who is it that is successful?\" \"You, to be sure.\" \"Then by the same measurement he must be unsuccessful.\" \"Don't be a fool, Clara.\" \"Of course I have been successful if I've got a man that I can love\r\nas my husband.\" \"Now, my dear, don't be a fool. Of course all that is between you and\r\nhim, and I don't in the least doubt that it is all as it should be. If Captain Aylmer had been the elder brother instead of the younger,\r\nand had all the Aylmer estates instead of the Perivale property, I\r\nknow you would not accept him if you did not like him.\" \"I hope not.\" \"I am sure you would not. But when a girl with nothing a year has\r\nmanaged to love a man with two or three thousand a year, and has\r\nmanaged to be loved by him in return,--instead of going through the\r\nsame process with the curate or village doctor,--it is a success,\r\nand her friends will always think so. And when a girl marries a\r\ngentleman, and a member of Parliament, instead of--; well, I'm not\r\ngoing to say anything personal,--her friends will congratulate her\r\nupon his position. It may be very wicked, and mercenary, and all\r\nthat; but it's the way of the world.\" \"I hate hearing about the world.\" \"Yes, my dear; all proper young ladies like you do hate it. But I\r\nobserve that such girls as you never offend its prejudices."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You can't\r\nbut know that you would have done a wicked as well as a foolish thing\r\nto marry a man without an adequate income.\" \"But I needn't marry at all.\" \"And what would you live on then? Come Clara, we needn't quarrel\r\nabout that. I've no doubt he's charming, and beautiful, and--\"\r\n\r\n\"He isn't beautiful at all; and as for charming--\"\r\n\r\n\"He has charmed you at any rate.\" \"He has made me believe that I can trust him without doubt, and love\r\nhim without fear.\" \"An excellent man! And the income will be an additional comfort;\r\nyou'll allow that?\" \"I'll allow nothing.\" \"And when is it to be?\" \"Oh,--perhaps in six or seven years.\" \"Clara!\" \"Perhaps sooner; but there's been no word said about time.\" \"Is not Mr. Amedroz delighted?\" \"Not a bit. He quite scolded me when I told him.\" \"Why;--what did he want?\" \"You know papa.\" \"I know he scolds at everything, but I shouldn't have thought he\r\nwould have scolded at that. And when does he come here?\" \"Who come here?\" \"Captain Aylmer.\" \"I don't know that he is coming at all.\" \"He must come to be married.\" \"All that is in the clouds as yet. I did not like to tell you,\r\nbut you mustn't suppose that because I've told you, everything is\r\nsettled. Nothing is settled.\" \"Nothing except the one thing?\" \"Nothing else.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was more than an hour after that before Clara went away, and when\r\nshe did so she was surprised to find that she was followed out of the\r\nhouse by Colonel Askerton. It was quite dusk at this time, the days\r\nbeing just at their shortest, and Colonel Askerton, according to his\r\ncustom, would have been riding, or returning from his ride. Clara\r\nhad been over two hours at the cottage, and had been aware when she\r\nreached it that he had not as yet gone out. It appeared now that\r\nhe had not ridden at all, and, as she remembered to have seen his\r\nhorse led before the window, it at once occurred to her that he had\r\nremained at home with the view of catching her as she went away. He\r\ncame up to her just as she was passing through the gate, and offered\r\nher his right hand as he raised his hat with his left. It sometimes\r\nhappens to all of us in life that we become acquainted with persons\r\nintimately,--that is, with an assumed intimacy,--whom in truth we\r\ndo not know at all. We meet such persons frequently, often eating\r\nand drinking in their company, being familiar with their appearance,\r\nand well-informed generally as to their concerns; but we never find\r\nourselves holding special conversations with them, or in any way\r\nfitting the modes of our life to the modes of their life."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Accident\r\nhas brought us together, and in one sense they are our friends. We\r\nshould probably do any little kindness for them, or expect the same\r\nfrom them; but there is nothing in common between us, and there is\r\ngenerally a mutual though unexpressed agreement that there shall\r\nbe nothing in common. Miss Amedroz was intimately acquainted with\r\nColonel Askerton after this fashion. She saw him very frequently, and\r\nhis name was often on her tongue; but she rarely, if ever, conversed\r\nwith him, and knew of his habits only from his wife's words\r\nrespecting them. When, therefore, he followed her through the garden\r\ngate into the park, she was driven to suppose that he had something\r\nspecial to say to her. \"I'm afraid you'll have a dark walk, Miss Amedroz,\" he said. \"It's only just across the park, and I know the way so well.\" \"Yes,--of course. I saw you coming out, and as I want to say a word\r\nor two, I have ventured to follow you. When Mr. Belton was down here\r\nI did not have the pleasure of meeting him.\" \"I remember that you missed each other.\" \"Yes, we did. I understand from my wife that he will be here again in\r\na day or two.\" \"He will be with us the day after to-morrow.\" \"I hope you will excuse my saying that it will be very desirable that\r\nwe should miss each other again.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara felt that her face became\r\nred with anger as she listened to Colonel Askerton's words. He spoke\r\nslowly, as was his custom, and without any of that violence of\r\nexpression which his wife had used; but on that very account there\r\nwas more, if possible, of meaning in his words than in hers. William\r\nBelton was her cousin, and such a speech as that which Colonel\r\nAskerton had made, spoken with deliberation and unaccompanied by any\r\nprevious explanation, seemed to her almost to amount to insult. But\r\nas she did not know how to answer him at the spur of the moment, she\r\nremained silent. Then he continued, \"You may be sure, Miss Amedroz,\r\nthat I should not make so strange a request to you if I had not good\r\nreason for making it.\" \"I think it a very strange request.\" \"And nothing but a strong conviction of its propriety on my part\r\nwould have induced me to make it.\" \"If you do not want to see my cousin, why cannot you avoid him\r\nwithout saying anything to me on the subject?\" \"Because you would not then have understood as thoroughly as I wish\r\nyou to do why I kept out of his way. For my wife's sake,--and for\r\nyours, if you will allow me to say so,--I do not wish to come to any\r\nopen quarrel with him; but if we met, a quarrel would, I think, be\r\ninevitable."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mary has probably explained to you the nature of his\r\noffence against us?\" \"Mrs. Askerton has told me something as to which I am quite sure that\r\nshe is mistaken.\" \"I will say nothing about that, as I have no wish at all to set you\r\nagainst your cousin. I will bid you good-night now as you are close\r\nat home.\" Then he turned round and left her. Clara, as she thought of all this, could not but call to mind her\r\ncousin's remembrances about Miss Vigo and Mr. Berdmore. What if he\r\nmade some inquiry as to the correctness of his old recollections? Nothing, she thought, could be more natural. And then she reflected\r\nthat, in the ordinary way of the world, persons feel none of that\r\nviolent objection to the asking of questions about their antecedents\r\nwhich was now evinced by both Colonel and Mrs. Askerton. But of\r\none thing she felt quite assured,--that her cousin, Will Belton,\r\nwould make no inquiry which he ought not to make; and would make no\r\nimproper use of any information which he might obtain. CHAPTER XVI. THE HEIR'S SECOND VISIT TO BELTON. Clara began to doubt whether any possible arrangement of the\r\ncircumstances of her life could be regarded as fortunate. She was\r\nvery fond, in a different degree and after a different fashion, of\r\nboth Captain Aylmer and Mr. Belton. As regarded both, her position\r\nwas now exactly what she herself would have wished."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The man that\r\nshe loved was betrothed to her, and the other man, whom she loved\r\nindeed also as a brother, was coming to her in that guise,--with the\r\nunderstanding that that was to be his position. And yet everything\r\nwas going wrong! Her father, though he did not actually say anything\r\nagainst Captain Aylmer, showed by a hundred little signs, of which\r\nhe was a skilful master, that the Aylmer alliance was distasteful to\r\nhim, and that he thought himself to be aggrieved in that his daughter\r\nwould not marry her cousin; whereas, over at the cottage, there was\r\na still more bitter feeling against Mr. Belton--a feeling so bitter,\r\nthat it almost induced Clara to wish that her cousin was not coming\r\nto them. But the cousin did come, and was driven up to the door in the gig\r\nfrom Taunton, just as had been the case on his previous visit. Then,\r\nhowever, he had come in the full daylight, and the hay-carts had been\r\nabout, and all the prettiness and warmth of summer had been there;\r\nnow it was mid-winter, and there had been some slight beginnings of\r\nsnow, and the wind was moaning about the old tower, and the outside\r\nof the house looked very unpleasant from the hall-door."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As it had\r\nbecome dusk in the afternoon, the old squire had been very careful in\r\nhis orders as to preparations for Will's comfort,--as though Clara\r\nwould have forgotten all those things in the preoccupation of her\r\nmind, caused by the constancy of her thoughts towards Will's rival. He even went so far as to creep across the up-stairs landing-place to\r\nsee that the fire was lighted in Will's room, this being the first\r\ntime that he had left his chamber for many days,--and had given\r\nspecial orders as to the food which was to be prepared for Will's\r\ndinner,--in a very different spirit from that which had dictated\r\nsome former orders when Will was about to make his first visit, and\r\nwhen his coming had been regarded by the old man as a heartless,\r\nindelicate, and almost hostile proceeding. \"I wish I could go down to receive him,\" said Mr. Amedroz,\r\nplaintively. \"I hope he won't take it amiss.\" \"You may be sure he won't do that.\" \"Perhaps I can to-morrow.\" \"Dear papa, you had better not think of it till the weather is\r\nmilder.\" \"Milder! how is it to get milder at this time of the year?\" \"Of course he'll come up to you, papa.\" \"He's very good. I know he's very good. No one else would do as\r\nmuch.\" Clara understood accurately what all this meant."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Of course she was\r\nglad that her father should feel so kindly towards her cousin, and\r\nthink so much of his coming; but every word said by the old man\r\nin praise of Will Belton implied an equal amount of dispraise as\r\nregarded Captain Aylmer, and contained a reproach against his\r\ndaughter for having refused the former and accepted the latter. Clara was in the hall when Belton arrived, and received him as he\r\nentered, enveloped in his damp great-coats. \"It is so good of you to\r\ncome in such weather,\" she said. \"Nice seasonable weather, I call it,\" he said. It was the same\r\ncomfortable, hearty, satisfactory voice which had done so much\r\ntowards making his way for him on his first arrival at Belton Castle. The voices to which Clara was most accustomed were querulous,--as\r\nthough the world had been found by the owners of them to be but a bad\r\nplace. But Belton's voice seemed to speak of cheery days and happy\r\nfriends, and a general state of things which made life worth having. Nevertheless, forty-eight hours had not yet passed over his head\r\nsince he was walking about London in such misery that he had almost\r\ncursed the hour in which he was born. His misery still remained with\r\nhim, as black now as it had been then; and yet his voice was cheery."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The sick birds, we are told, creep into holes, that they may die\r\nalone and unnoticed; and the wounded beasts hide themselves that\r\ntheir grief may not be seen of their fellows. A man has the same\r\ninstinct to conceal the weakness of his sufferings; but, if he be a\r\nman, he hides it in his own heart, keeping it for solitude and the\r\nwatches of the night, while to the outer world he carries a face on\r\nwhich his care has made no marks. \"You will be sorry to hear that papa is too ill to come down-stairs.\" \"Is he, indeed? I am truly sorry. I had heard he was ill; but did not\r\nknow he was so ill as that.\" \"Perhaps he fancies himself weaker than he is.\" \"We must try and cure him of that. I can see him, I hope?\" \"Oh dear, yes. He is most anxious for you to go to him. As soon as\r\never you can come up-stairs I will take you.\" He had already stripped\r\nhimself of his wrappings, and declaring himself ready, at once\r\nfollowed Clara to the squire's room. \"I'm sorry, sir, to find you in this way,\" he said. \"I'm very poorly, Will;--very,\" said the squire, putting out his\r\nhand as though he were barely able to lift it above his knee. Now it\r\ncertainly was the fact that half an hour before he had been walking\r\nacross the passage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"We must see if we can't soon make you better among us,\" said Will. The squire shook his head with a slow, melancholy movement, not\r\nraising his eyes from the ground. \"I don't think you'll ever see me\r\nmuch better, Will,\" he said. And yet half an hour since he had been\r\ntalking of being down in the dining-room on the next day. \"I shan't\r\ntrouble you much longer,\" said the squire. \"You'll soon have it all\r\nwithout paying rent for it.\" This was very unpleasant, and almost frustrated Belton's attempts to\r\nbe cheery. But he persevered nevertheless. \"It'll be a long time yet\r\nbefore that day comes, sir.\" \"Ah; that's easily said. But never mind. Why should I want to remain\r\nwhen I shall have once seen her properly settled. I've nothing to\r\nlive for except that she may have a home.\" On this subject it was quite impossible that Belton should say\r\nanything. Clara was standing by him, and she, as he knew, was engaged\r\nto Captain Aylmer. So circumstanced, what could he say as to Clara's\r\nsettlement in life? That something should be said between him and the\r\nold man, and something also between him and Clara, was a matter of\r\ncourse; but it was quite out of the question that he should discuss\r\nClara's prospects in life in presence of them both together. \"Papa's illness makes him a little melancholy,\" said Clara. \"Of course,--of course. It always does,\" said Will."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I think he will be better when the weather becomes milder,\" said\r\nClara. \"I suppose I may be allowed to know how I feel myself,\" said the\r\nsquire. \"But don't keep Will up here when he wants his dinner. There;\r\nthat'll do. You'd better leave me now.\" Then Will went out to his old\r\nroom, and a quarter of an hour afterwards he found himself seated\r\nwith Clara at the dinner-table; and a quarter of an hour after that\r\nthe dinner was over, and they had both drawn their chairs to the\r\nfire. Neither of them knew how to begin with the other. Clara was under no\r\nobligation to declare her engagement to her cousin, but yet she felt\r\nthat it would be unhandsome in her not to do so. Had Will never made\r\nthe mistake of wanting to marry her himself, she would have done so\r\nas a matter of course. Had she supposed him to cherish any intention\r\nof renewing that mistake she would have felt herself bound to tell\r\nhim,--so that he might save himself from unnecessary pain. But she\r\ngave him credit for no such intention, and yet she could not but\r\nremember that scene among the rocks. And then was she, or was she\r\nnot, to say anything to him about the Askertons? With him also the\r\ndifficulty was as great."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He did not in truth believe that the tidings\r\nwhich he had heard from his friend the lawyer required corroboration;\r\nbut yet it was necessary that he should know from herself that she\r\nhad disposed of her hand;--and it was necessary also that he should\r\nsay some word to her as to their future standing and friendship. \"You must be very anxious to see how your farm goes on,\" said she. He had not thought much of his agricultural venture at Belton for\r\nthe last three or four days, and would hardly have been vexed had he\r\nbeen told that every head of cattle about the place had died of the\r\nmurrain. Some general idea of the expediency of going on with a thing\r\nwhich he had commenced still actuated him; but it was the principle\r\ninvolved, and not the speculation itself, which interested him. But\r\nhe could not explain all this, and he therefore was driven to some\r\ncold agreement with her. \"The farm!--you mean the stock. Yes; I shall\r\ngo and have a look at them early to-morrow. I suppose they're all\r\nalive.\" \"Pudge says that they are doing uncommonly well.\" Pudge was a leading\r\nman among the Belton labourers, whom Will had hired to look after his\r\nconcerns. \"That's all right. I dare say Pudge knows quite as much about it as I\r\ndo.\" \"But the master's eye is everything.\" \"Pudge's eye is quite as good as mine; and probably much better, as\r\nhe knows the country.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You used to say that it was everything for a man to look after his\r\nown interests.\" \"And I do look after them. Pudge and I will go and have a look at\r\nevery beast to-morrow, and I shall look very wise and pretend to know\r\nmore about it than he does. In stock-farming the chief thing is not\r\nto have too many beasts. They used to say that half-stocking was\r\nwhole profit, and whole-stocking was half profit. If the animals have\r\nplenty to eat, and the rent isn't too high, they'll take care of\r\ntheir owner.\" \"But then there is so much illness.\" \"I always insure.\" Clara perceived that the subject of the cattle didn't suit the\r\npresent occasion. When he had before been at Belton he had liked\r\nnothing so much as talking about the cattle-sheds, and the land, and\r\nthe kind of animals which would suit the place; but now the novelty\r\nof the thing was gone,--and the farmer did not wish to talk of his\r\nfarm. In her anxiety to find a topic which would not be painful, she\r\nwent from the cattle to the cow. \"You can't think what a pet Bessy\r\nhas been with us. And she seems to think that she is privileged to go\r\neverywhere, and do anything.\" \"I hope they have taken care that she has had winter food.\" \"Winter food!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why Pudge, and all the Pudges, and all the family in\r\nthe house, and all your cattle would have to want, before Bessy would\r\nbe allowed to miss a meal. Pudge always says, with his sententious\r\nshake of the head, that the young squire was very particular about\r\nBessy.\" \"Those Alderneys want a little care,--that's all.\" Bessy was of no better service to Clara in her present difficulty\r\nthan the less aristocratic herd of common cattle. There was a pause\r\nfor a moment, and then she began again. \"How did you leave your\r\nsister, Will?\" \"Much the same as usual. I think she has borne the first of the cold\r\nweather better than she did last year.\" \"I do so wish that I knew her.\" \"Perhaps you will some day. But I don't suppose that you ever will.\" \"Why not?\" \"It's not likely that you'll ever come to Plaistow now;--and Mary\r\nnever leaves it except to go to my uncle's.\" Clara instantly knew that he had heard of her engagement, though\r\nshe could not imagine from what source he had heard it. There was\r\nsomething in the tone of his voice,--something especially in the\r\nexpression of that word \"now,\" which told her that it must be so. \"I should be so glad to go there if I could,\" she said, with that\r\nspecial hypocrisy which belongs to women, and is allowed to them;\r\n\"but, of course, I cannot leave papa in his present state.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And if you did leave him you would not go to Plaistow.\" \"Not unless you and Mary asked me.\" \"And you wouldn't if we did. How could you?\" \"What do you mean, Will? It seems as though you were almost savage to\r\nme.\" \"Am I? Well;--I feel savage, but not to you.\" \"Nor to any one, I hope, belonging to me.\" She knew that it was\r\nall coming; that the whole subject of her future life must now be\r\ndiscussed; and she began to fear that the discussion might not be\r\neasy. But she did not know how to give it a direction. She feared\r\nthat he would become angry, and yet she knew not why. He had accepted\r\nhis own rejection tranquilly, and could hardly take it as an offence\r\nthat she should now be engaged to Captain Aylmer. \"Mr. Green has told me,\" said he, \"that you are going to be married.\" \"How could Mr. Green have known?\" \"He did know;--at least I suppose he knew, for he told me.\" \"How very odd.\" \"I suppose it is true?\" Clara did not make any immediate answer, and\r\nthen he repeated the question. \"I suppose it is true?\" \"It is true that I am engaged.\" \"To Captain Aylmer?\" \"Yes; to Captain Aylmer. You know that I had known him very long. I\r\nhope that you are not angry with me because I did not write and tell\r\nyou."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Strange as it may seem, seeing that you had heard it already, it\r\nis not a week yet since it was settled; and had I written to you, I\r\ncould only have addressed my letter to you here.\" \"I wasn't thinking about that. I didn't specially want you to write\r\nto me. What difference would it make?\" \"But I should have felt that I owed it to your kindness and\r\nyour--regard for me.\" \"My regard! What's the use of regard?\" \"You are not going to quarrel with me, Will,\r\nbecause--because--because--. If you had really been my brother, as\r\nyou once said you would be, you could not but have approved of what\r\nI have done.\" \"But I am not your brother.\" \"Oh, Will; that sounds so cruel!\" \"I am not your brother, and I have no right to approve or\r\ndisapprove.\" \"I will not say that I could make my engagement with Captain Aylmer\r\ndependent on your approval. It would not be fair to him to do so, and\r\nit would put me into a false position.\" \"Have I asked you to make any such absurd sacrifice?\" \"Listen to me, Will. I say that I could not do that. But, short of\r\nthat, there is nothing I would not do to satisfy you. I think so much\r\nof your judgment and goodness, and so very much of your affection; I\r\nlove you so dearly, that--. Oh, Will, say a kind word to me!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"A kind word; yes, but what sort of kindness?\" \"You must know that Captain Aylmer--\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't talk to me of Captain Aylmer. Have I said anything against\r\nhim? Have I ventured to make any objection? Of course, I know his\r\nsuperiority to myself. I know that he is a man of the world, and that\r\nI am not; that he is educated, and that I am ignorant; that he has a\r\nposition, and that I have none; that he has much to offer, and that I\r\nhave nothing. Of course, I see the difference; but that does not make\r\nme comfortable.\" \"Will, I had learned to love him before I had ever seen you.\" \"Why didn't you tell me so, that I might have known there was no\r\nhope, and have gone away utterly,--out of the kingdom? If it was all\r\nsettled then, why didn't you tell me, and save me from breaking my\r\nheart with false hopes?\" \"Nothing was settled then. I hardly knew my own mind; but yet I loved\r\nhim. There; cannot you understand it? Have I not told you enough?\" \"Yes, I understand it.\" \"And do you blame me?\" He paused awhile before he answered her. \"No; I do not blame you. I\r\nsuppose I must blame no one but myself. But you should bear with me. I was so happy, and now I am so wretched.\" There was nothing that she could say to comfort him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had\r\naltogether mistaken the nature of the man's regard, and had even\r\nmistaken the very nature of the man. So much she now learned, and\r\ncould tell herself that had she known him better she would either\r\nhave prevented this second visit, or would have been careful that he\r\nshould have learned the truth from herself before he came. Now she\r\ncould only wait till he should again have got strength to hide his\r\nsuffering under the veil of his own manliness. \"I have not a word to say against what you are doing,\" he said at\r\nlast; \"not a word. But you will understand what I mean when I tell\r\nyou that it is not likely that you will come to Plaistow.\" \"Some day, Will, when you have a wife of your own--\"\r\n\r\n\"Very well; but we won't talk about that at present, if you please. When I have, things will be different. In the meantime your course\r\nand mine will be separate. You, I suppose, will be with him in\r\nLondon, while I shall be,--at the devil as likely as not.\" \"How can you speak to me in that way? Is that like being my brother?\" \"I don't feel like being your brother. However, I beg your pardon,\r\nand now we will have done with it. Spilt milk can't be helped, and\r\nmy milk pans have got themselves knocked over. That's all. Don't you\r\nthink we ought to go up to your father again?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the following day Belton and Mr. Amedroz discussed the same\r\nsubject, but the conversation went off very quietly. Will was\r\ndetermined not to exhibit his weakness before the father as he had\r\ndone before the daughter. When the squire, with a maundering voice,\r\ndrawled out some expression of regret that his daughter's choice had\r\nnot fallen in another place, Will was able to say that bygones must\r\nbe bygones. He regretted it also, but that was now over. And when\r\nthe squire endeavoured to say a few ill-natured words about Captain\r\nAylmer, Will stopped him at once by asserting that the Captain was\r\nall that he ought to be. \"And it would have made me so happy to think that my daughter's child\r\nshould come to live in his grandfather's old house,\" murmured Mr.\r\nAmedroz. \"And there's no knowing that he mayn't do so yet,\" said Will. \"But\r\nall these things are so doubtful that a man is wrong to fix his\r\nhappiness upon them.\" After that he went out to ramble about the\r\nplace, and before the third day was over Clara was able to perceive\r\nthat, in spite of what he had said, he was as busy about the cattle\r\nas though his bread depended on them. Nothing had been said as yet about the Askertons, and Clara had\r\nresolved that their name should not first be mentioned by her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs.\r\nAskerton had prophesied that Will would have some communication to\r\nmake about herself, and Clara would at any rate see whether her\r\ncousin would, of his own accord, introduce the subject. But three\r\ndays passed by, and he had made no allusion to the cottage or its\r\ninhabitants. This in itself was singular, as the Askertons were\r\nthe only local friends whom Clara knew, and as Belton had become\r\npersonally acquainted with Mrs. Askerton. But such was the case;\r\nand when Mr. Amedroz once said something about Mrs. Askerton in the\r\npresence of both Clara and Belton, they both of them shrank from the\r\nsubject in a manner that made Clara understand that any conversation\r\nabout the Askertons was to be avoided. On the fourth day Clara saw\r\nMrs. Askerton, but then Will Belton's name was not mentioned. There\r\nwas therefore, among them all, a sense of some mystery which made\r\nthem uncomfortable, and which seemed to admit of no solution. Clara\r\nwas more sure than ever that her cousin had made no inquiries that he\r\nshould not have made, and that he would put no information that he\r\nmight have to an improper use. But of such certainty on her part she\r\ncould say nothing. Three weeks passed by, and it seemed as though Belton's visit were\r\nto come to an end without any further open trouble."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now and then\r\nsomething was said about Captain Aylmer; but it was very little, and\r\nBelton made no further reference to his own feelings. It had come\r\nto be understood that his visit was to be limited to a month; and\r\nto both him and Clara the month wore itself away slowly, neither\r\nof them having much pleasure in the society of the other. The old\r\nsquire came down-stairs once for an hour or two, and spent the whole\r\ntime in bitter complaints. Everything was wrong, and everybody was\r\nill-treating him. Even with Will he quarrelled, or did his best to\r\nquarrel, in regard to everything about the place, though at the\r\nsame time he did not cease to grumble at his visitor for going away\r\nand leaving him. Belton bore it all so well that the grumbling\r\nand quarrelling did not lead to much; but it required all his\r\ngood-humour and broad common sense to prevent serious troubles and\r\nmisunderstanding. During the period of her cousin's visit at Belton, Clara received two\r\nletters from Captain Aylmer, who was spending the Christmas holidays\r\nwith his father and mother, and on the day previous to that of her\r\ncousin's departure there came a third. In neither of these letters\r\nwas there much said about Sir Anthony, but they were all very full\r\nof Lady Aylmer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the first he wrote with something of the personal\r\nenthusiasm of a lover, and therefore Clara hardly felt the little\r\ndrawbacks to her happiness which were contained in certain innuendoes\r\nrespecting Lady Aylmer's ideas, and Lady Aylmer's hopes, and Lady\r\nAylmer's fears. Clara was not going to marry Lady Aylmer, and did not\r\nfear but that she could hold her own against any mother-in-law in\r\nthe world when once they should be brought face to face. And as long\r\nas Captain Aylmer seemed to take her part rather than that of his\r\nmother it was all very well. The second letter was more trying to\r\nher temper, as it contained one or two small morsels of advice as to\r\nconduct which had evidently originated with her ladyship. Now there\r\nis nothing, I take it, so irritating to an engaged young lady as\r\ncounsel from her intended husband's mamma. An engaged young lady, if\r\nshe be really in love, will take almost anything from her lover as\r\nlong as she is sure that it comes altogether from himself. He may\r\ntake what liberties he pleases with her dress. He may prescribe high\r\nchurch or low church,--if he be not, as is generally the case, in\r\na condition to accept, rather than to give, prescriptions on that\r\nsubject. He may order almost any course of reading,--providing that\r\nhe supply the books. And he may even interfere with the style of\r\ndancing, and recommend or prohibit partners."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he may not thrust\r\nhis mother down his future wife's throat. In answer to the second\r\nletter, Clara did not say much to show her sense of objection. Indeed\r\nshe said nothing. But in saying nothing she showed her objection,\r\nand Captain Aylmer understood it. Then came the third letter, and\r\nas it contained matter touching upon our story, it shall be given\r\nentire,--and I hope it may be taken by gentlemen about to marry as a\r\nfair specimen of the sort of letter they ought not to write to the\r\ngirls of their hearts:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   Aylmer Castle, 19th January, 186--. DEAREST CLARA,--I got your letter of the 16th yesterday,\r\n   and was sorry you said nothing in reference to my mother's\r\n   ideas as to the house at Perivale. Of course she knew that\r\n   I heard from you, and was disappointed when I was obliged\r\n   to tell her that you had not alluded to the subject. She\r\n   is very anxious about you, and, having now given her\r\n   assent to our marriage, is of course desirous of knowing\r\n   that her kindly feeling is reciprocated. I assured her\r\n   that my own Clara was the last person to be remiss in such\r\n   a matter, and reminded her that young ladies are seldom\r\n   very careful in their mode of answering letters. Remember,\r\n   therefore, that I am now your guarantee, and send some\r\n   message to relieve me from my liability."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When I told her of your father's long illness, which she\r\n   laments greatly, and of your cousin's continued presence\r\n   at Belton Castle, she seemed to think that Mr. Belton's\r\n   visit should not be prolonged. When I told her that he was\r\n   your nearest relative, she remarked that cousins are the\r\n   same as any other people,--which indeed they are. I know\r\n   that my Clara will not suppose that I mean more by this\r\n   than the words convey. Indeed I mean less. But not having\r\n   the advantage of a mother of your own, you will not be\r\n   sorry to know what are my mother's opinions on matters\r\n   which so nearly concern you. And now I come to another subject, as to which what I\r\n   shall say will surprise you very much. You know, I think,\r\n   that my aunt Winterfield and I had some conversation about\r\n   your neighbours, the Askertons; and you will remember\r\n   that my aunt, whose ideas on such matters were always\r\n   correct, was a little afraid that your father had not\r\n   made sufficient inquiry respecting them before he allowed\r\n   them to settle near him as tenants. It now turns out that\r\n   she is,--very far, indeed, from what she ought to be. My\r\n   mother at first thought of writing to you about this; but\r\n   she is a little fatigued, and at last resolved that under\r\n   all the circumstances it might be as well that I should\r\n   tell you."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It seems that Mrs. Askerton was married before\r\n   to a certain Captain Berdmore, and that she left her\r\n   first husband during his lifetime under the protection\r\n   of Colonel Askerton. I believe they, the Colonel and\r\n   Mrs. Askerton, have been since married. Captain Berdmore\r\n   died about four years ago in India, and it is probable\r\n   that such a marriage has taken place. But under these\r\n   circumstances, as Lady Aylmer says, you will at once\r\n   perceive that all acquaintance between you and the lady\r\n   should be brought to an end. Indeed, your own sense of\r\n   what is becoming to you, either as an unmarried girl or as\r\n   my future wife, or indeed as a woman at all, will at once\r\n   make you feel that this must be so. I think, if I were\r\n   you, I would tell the whole to Mr. Amedroz; but this I\r\n   will leave to your own discretion. I can assure you that\r\n   Lady Aylmer has full proof as to the truth of what I tell\r\n   you. I go up to London in February. I suppose I may hardly hope\r\n   to see you before the recess in July or August; but I\r\n   trust that before that we shall have fixed the day when\r\n   you will make me the happiest of men. Yours, with truest affection,\r\n\r\n   F. F. AYLMER. It was a disagreeable, nasty letter from the first line to the last."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was not a word in it which did not grate against Clara's\r\nfeelings,--not a thought expressed which did not give rise to fears\r\nas to her future happiness. But the information which it contained\r\nabout the Askertons,--\"the communication,\" as Mrs. Askerton herself\r\nwould have called it,--made her for the moment almost forget Lady\r\nAylmer and her insolence. Could this story be true? And if true, how\r\nfar would it be imperative on her to take the hint, or rather obey\r\nthe order which had been given her? What steps should she take to\r\nlearn the truth? Then she remembered Mrs. Askerton's promise--\"If you\r\nwant to ask any questions, and will ask them of me, I will answer\r\nthem.\" The communication, as to which Mrs. Askerton had prophesied,\r\nhad now been made;--but it had been made, not by Will Belton, whom\r\nMrs. Askerton had reviled, but by Captain Aylmer, whose praises Mrs.\r\nAskerton had so loudly sung. As Clara thought of this, she could not\r\nanalyse her own feelings, which were not devoid of a certain triumph. She had known that Belton would not put on his armour to attack a\r\nwoman. Captain Aylmer had done so, and she was hardly surprised at\r\nhis doing it. Yet Captain Aylmer was the man she loved! Captain\r\nAylmer was the man she had promised to marry. But, in truth, she\r\nhardly knew which was the man she loved!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "This letter came on a Sunday morning, and on that day she and Belton\r\nwent to church together. On the following morning early he was to\r\nstart for Taunton. At church they saw Mrs. Askerton, whose attendance\r\nthere was not very frequent. It seemed, indeed, as though she had\r\ncome with the express purpose of seeing Belton once during his visit. As they left the church she bowed to him, and that was all they saw\r\nof each other throughout the month that he remained in Somersetshire. \"Come to me to-morrow, Clara,\" Mrs. Askerton said as they all passed\r\nthrough the village together. Clara muttered some reply, having not\r\nas yet made up her mind as to what her conduct must be. Early on the\r\nnext morning Will Belton went away, and again Clara got up to give\r\nhim his breakfast. On this occasion he had no thought of kissing\r\nher. He went away without having had a word said to him about\r\nMrs. Askerton, and then Clara settled herself down to the work of\r\ndeliberation. What should she do with reference to the communication\r\nthat had been made to her by Captain Aylmer? CHAPTER XVII. AYLMER PARK. Aylmer Park and the great house of the Aylmers together formed an\r\nimportant, and, as regarded in some minds, an imposing country\r\nresidence. The park was large, including some three or four hundred\r\nacres, and was peopled, rather thinly, by aristocratic deer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It\r\nwas surrounded by an aristocratic paling, and was entered, at three\r\ndifferent points, by aristocratic lodges. The sheep were more\r\nnumerous than the deer, because Sir Anthony, though he had a large\r\nincome, was not in very easy circumstances. The ground was quite\r\nflat; and though there were thin belts of trees, and some ornamental\r\ntimber here and there, it was not well wooded. It had no special\r\nbeauty of its own, and depended for its imposing qualities chiefly\r\non its size, on its three sets of double lodges, and on its\r\nold-established character as an important family place in the county. The house was of stone, with a portico of Ionic columns which looked\r\nas though it hardly belonged of right to the edifice, and stretched\r\nitself out grandly, with two pretentious wings, which certainly gave\r\nit a just claim to be called a mansion. It required a great many\r\nservants to keep it in order, and the numerous servants required an\r\nexperienced duenna, almost as grand in appearance as Lady Aylmer\r\nherself, to keep them in order. There was an open carriage and a\r\nclose carriage, and a butler, and two footmen, and three gamekeepers,\r\nand four gardeners, and there was a coachman, and there were grooms,\r\nand sundry inferior men and boys about the place to do the work\r\nwhich the gardeners and gamekeepers and grooms did not choose to\r\ndo themselves."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And they all became fat, and lazy, and stupid, and\r\nrespectable together; so that, as the reader will at once perceive,\r\nAylmer Park was kept up in the proper English style. Sir Anthony\r\nvery often discussed with his steward the propriety of lessening the\r\nexpenditure of his residence, and Lady Aylmer always attended and\r\nprobably directed these discussions; but it was found that nothing\r\ncould be done. Any attempt to remove a gamekeeper or a gardener would\r\nevidently throw the whole machinery of Aylmer Park out of gear. If\r\nretrenchment was necessary Aylmer Park must be abandoned, and the\r\nglory of the Aylmers must be allowed to pale. But things were not so\r\nbad as that with Sir Anthony. The gardeners, grooms, and gamekeepers\r\nwere maintained; ten domestic servants sat down to four heavy meals\r\nin the servants' hall every day, and Lady Aylmer contented herself\r\nwith receiving little or no company, and with stingy breakfasts and\r\nbad dinners for herself and her husband and daughter. By all this it\r\nmust be seen that she did her duty as the wife of an English country\r\ngentleman, and properly maintained his rank as a baronet. He was a heavy man, over seventy years of age, much afflicted with\r\ngout, and given to no pursuit on earth which was available for\r\nhis comfort."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had been a hunting man, and he had shot also; but\r\nnot with that energy which induces a sportsman to carry on those\r\namusements in opposition to the impediments of age. He had been, and\r\nstill was, a county magistrate; but he had never been very successful\r\nin the justice-room, and now seldom troubled the county with his\r\njudicial incompetence. He had been fond of good dinners and good\r\nwine, and still, on occasions, would make attempts at enjoyment in\r\nthat line; but the gout and Lady Aylmer together were too many for\r\nhim, and he had but small opportunity for filling up the blanks of\r\nhis existence out of the kitchen or cellar. He was a big man, with\r\na broad chest, and a red face, and a quantity of white hair,--and\r\nwas much given to abusing his servants. He took some pleasure in\r\nstanding, with two sticks on the top of the steps before his own\r\nfront door, and railing at any one who came in his way. But he could\r\nnot do this when Lady Aylmer was by; and his dependents, knowing his\r\nhabits, had fallen into an ill-natured way of deserting the side of\r\nthe house which he frequented. With his eldest son, Anthony Aylmer,\r\nhe was not on very good terms; and though there was no positive\r\nquarrel, the heir did not often come to Aylmer Park."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Of his son\r\nFrederic he was proud,--and the best days of his life were probably\r\nthose which Captain Aylmer spent at the house. The table was then\r\nsomewhat more generously spread, and this was an excuse for having\r\nup the special port in which he delighted. Altogether his life was\r\nnot very attractive; and though he had been born to a baronetcy, and\r\neight thousand a-year, and the possession of Aylmer Park, I do not\r\nthink that he was, or had been, a happy man. Lady Aylmer was more fortunate. She had occupations of which her\r\nhusband knew nothing, and for which he was altogether unfit. Though\r\nshe could not succeed in making retrenchments, she could and did\r\nsucceed in keeping the household books. Sir Anthony could only blow\r\nup the servants when they were thoughtless enough to come in his way,\r\nand in doing that was restricted by his wife's presence. But Lady\r\nAylmer could get at them day and night. She had no gout to impede\r\nher progress about the house and grounds, and could make her way to\r\nplaces which the master never saw; and then she wrote many letters\r\ndaily, whereas Sir Anthony hardly ever took a pen in his hand. And\r\nshe knew the cottages of all the poor about the place, and knew also\r\nall their sins of omission and commission."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was driven out, too,\r\nevery day, summer and winter, wet and dry, and consumed enormous\r\npackets of wool and worsted, which were sent to her monthly from\r\nYork. And she had a companion in her daughter, whereas Sir Anthony\r\nhad no companion. Wherever Lady Aylmer went Miss Aylmer went with\r\nher, and relieved what might otherwise have been the tedium of her\r\nlife. She had been a beauty on a large scale, and was still aware\r\nthat she had much in her personal appearance which justified pride. She carried herself uprightly, with a commanding nose and broad\r\nforehead; and though the graces of her own hair had given way to\r\na front, there was something even in the front which added to her\r\ndignity, if it did not make her a handsome woman. Miss Aylmer, who was the eldest of the younger generation, and who\r\nwas now gently descending from her fortieth year, lacked the strength\r\nof her mother's character, but admired her mother's ways, and\r\nfollowed Lady Aylmer in all things,--at a distance. She was very\r\ngood,--as indeed was Lady Aylmer,--entertaining a high idea of duty,\r\nand aware that her own life admitted of but little self-indulgence. She had no pleasures, she incurred no expenses; and was quite\r\nalive to the fact that as Aylmer Park required a regiment of lazy,\r\ngormandizing servants to maintain its position in the county, the\r\nAylmers themselves should not be lazy, and should not gormandize."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No\r\none was more careful with her few shillings than Miss Aylmer. She\r\nhad, indeed, abandoned a life's correspondence with an old friend\r\nbecause she would not pay the postage on letters to Italy. She knew\r\nthat it was for the honour of the family that one of her brothers\r\nshould sit in Parliament, and was quite willing to deny herself a\r\nnew dress because sacrifices must be made to lessen electioneering\r\nexpenses. She knew that it was her lot to be driven about slowly in a\r\ncarriage with a livery servant before her and another behind her, and\r\nthen eat a dinner which the cook-maid would despise. She was aware\r\nthat it was her duty to be snubbed by her mother, and to encounter\r\nher father's ill-temper, and to submit to her brother's indifference,\r\nand to have, so to say, the slightest possible modicum of personal\r\nindividuality. She knew that she had never attracted a man's love,\r\nand might hardly hope to make friends for the comfort of her coming\r\nage. But still she was contented, and felt that she had consolation\r\nfor it all in the fact that she was an Aylmer. She read many novels,\r\nand it cannot but be supposed that something of regret would steal\r\nover her as she remembered that nothing of the romance of life had\r\never, or could ever, come in her way. She wept over the loves of many\r\nwomen, though she had never been happy or unhappy in her own."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She\r\nread of gaiety, though she never encountered it, and must have known\r\nthat the world elsewhere was less dull than it was at Aylmer Park. But she took her life as it came, without a complaint, and prayed\r\nthat God would make her humble in the high position to which it had\r\npleased Him to call her. She hated Radicals, and thought that Essays\r\nand Reviews, and Bishop Colenso, came direct from the Evil One. She\r\ntaught the little children in the parish, being specially urgent to\r\nthem always to curtsey when they saw any of the family;--and was as\r\nignorant, meek, and stupid a poor woman as you shall find anywhere in\r\nEurope. It may be imagined that Captain Aylmer, who knew the comforts of his\r\nclub and was accustomed to life in London, would feel the dulness\r\nof the paternal roof to be almost unendurable. In truth, he was not\r\nvery fond of Aylmer Park, but he was more gifted with patience than\r\nmost men of his age and position, and was aware that it behoved him\r\nto keep the Fifth Commandment if he expected to have his own days\r\nprolonged in the land. He therefore made his visits periodically,\r\nand contented himself with clipping a few days at both ends from the\r\nlength prescribed by family tradition, which his mother was desirous\r\nof exacting. September was always to be passed at Aylmer Park,\r\nbecause of the shooting."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In September, indeed, the eldest son himself\r\nwas wont to be there,--probably with a friend or two,--and the fat\r\nold servants bestirred themselves, and there was something of life\r\nabout the place. At Christmas, Captain Aylmer was there as the\r\nonly visitor, and Christmas was supposed to extend from the middle\r\nof December to the opening of Parliament. It must, however, be\r\nexplained, that on the present occasion his visit had been a matter\r\nof treaty and compromise. He had not gone to Aylmer Park at all till\r\nhis mother had in some sort assented to his marriage with Clara\r\nAmedroz. To this Lady Aylmer had been very averse, and there had been\r\nmany serious letters. Belinda Aylmer, the daughter of the house, had\r\nhad a bad time in pleading her brother's cause,--and some very harsh\r\nwords had been uttered;--but ultimately the matter had been arranged,\r\nand, as is usual in such contests, the mother had yielded to the son. Captain Aylmer had therefore gone down a few days before Christmas,\r\nwith a righteous feeling that he owed much to his mother for her\r\ncondescension, and almost prepared to make himself very disagreeable\r\nto Clara by way of atoning to his family for his folly in desiring to\r\nmarry her. Lady Aylmer was very plain-spoken on the subject of all Clara's\r\nshortcomings,--very plain-spoken, and very inquisitive. \"She will\r\nnever have one shilling, I suppose?\" she said. \"Yes, ma'am.\" Captain Aylmer always called his mother ma'am."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"She\r\nwill have that fifteen hundred pounds that I told you of.\" \"That is to say, you will have back the money which you yourself have\r\ngiven her, Fred. I suppose that is the English of it?\" Then Lady\r\nAylmer raised her eyebrows and looked very wise. \"Just so, ma'am.\" \"You can't call that having anything of her own. In point of fact she\r\nis penniless.\" \"It is no good harping on that,\" said Captain Aylmer, somewhat\r\nsharply. \"Not in the least, my dear; no good at all. Of course you have looked\r\nit all in the face. You will be a poor man instead of a rich man, but\r\nyou will have enough to live on,--that is if she doesn't have a large\r\nfamily;--which of course she will.\" \"I shall do very well, ma'am.\" \"You might do pretty well, I dare say, if you could live\r\nprivately,--at Perivale, keeping up the old family house there, and\r\nhaving no expenses; but you'll find even that close enough with your\r\nseat in Parliament, and the necessity there is that you should be\r\nhalf the year in London. Of course she won't go to London. She can't\r\nexpect it. All that had better be made quite clear at once.\" Hence\r\nhad come the letter about the house at Perivale, containing Lady\r\nAylmer's advice on that subject, as to which Clara made no reply. Lady Aylmer, though she had given in her assent, was still not\r\naltogether without hope."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It might be possible that the two young\r\npeople could be brought to see the folly and error of their ways\r\nbefore it would be too late; and that Lady Aylmer, by a judicious\r\ncourse of constant advice, might be instrumental in opening the eyes,\r\nif not of the lady, at any rate of the gentleman. She had great\r\nreliance on her own powers, and knew well that a falling drop will\r\nhollow a stone. Her son manifested no hot eagerness to complete his\r\nfolly in a hurry, and to cut the throat of his prospects out of hand. Time, therefore, would be allowed to her, and she was a woman who\r\ncould use time with patience. Having, through her son, despatched her\r\nadvice about the house at Perivale,--which simply amounted to this,\r\nthat Clara should expressly state her willingness to live there alone\r\nwhenever it might suit her husband to be in London or elsewhere,--she\r\nwent to work on other points connected with the Amedroz family, and\r\neventually succeeded in learning something very much like the truth\r\nas to poor Mrs. Askerton and her troubles. At first she was so\r\ncomfortably horror-stricken by the iniquity she had unravelled,--so\r\ndelightfully shocked and astounded,--as to believe that the facts as\r\nthey then stood would suffice to annul the match. \"You don't tell me,\" she said to Belinda, \"that Frederic's wife\r\nwill have been the friend of such a woman as that!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And Lady Aylmer,\r\nsitting up-stairs with her household books before her, put up her\r\ngreat fat hands and her great fat arms, and shook her head,--front\r\nand all,--in most satisfactory dismay. \"But I suppose Clara did not know it.\" Belinda had considered it to\r\nbe an act of charity to call Miss Amedroz Clara since the family\r\nconsent had been given. \"Didn't know it! They have been living in that sort of way that they\r\nmust have been confidantes in everything. Besides, I always hold that\r\na woman is responsible for her female friends.\" \"I think if she consents to drop her at once,--that is, absolutely\r\nto make a promise that she will never speak to her again,--Frederic\r\nought to take that as sufficient. That is, of course, mamma, unless\r\nshe has had anything to do with it herself.\" \"After this I don't know how I'm to trust her. I don't indeed. It\r\nseems to me that she has been so artful throughout. It has been a\r\nregular case of catching.\" \"I suppose, of course, that she has been anxious to marry\r\nFrederic;--but perhaps that was natural.\" \"Anxious;--look at her going there just when he had to meet his\r\nconstituents. How young women can do such things passes me! And how\r\nit is that men don't see it all, when it's going on just under their\r\nnoses, I can't understand. And then her getting my poor dear sister\r\nto speak to him when she was dying!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I didn't think your aunt would\r\nhave been so weak.\" It will be thus seen that there was entire\r\nconfidence on this subject between Lady Aylmer and her daughter. We know what were the steps taken with reference to the discovery,\r\nand how the family were waiting for Clara's reply. Lady Aylmer,\r\nthough in her words she attributed so much mean cunning to Miss\r\nAmedroz, still was disposed to believe that that lady would show\r\nrather a high spirit on this occasion; and trusted to that high\r\nspirit as the means for making the breach which she still hoped to\r\naccomplish. It had been intended,--or rather desired,--that Captain\r\nAylmer's letter should have been much sharper and authoritative than\r\nhe had really made it; but the mother could not write the letter\r\nherself, and had felt that to write in her own name would not have\r\nserved to create anger on Clara's part against her betrothed. But\r\nshe had quite succeeded in inspiring her son with a feeling of\r\nhorror against the iniquity of the Askertons. He was prepared to be\r\nindignantly moral; and perhaps,--perhaps,--the misguided Clara might\r\nbe silly enough to say a word for her lost friend! Such being the\r\npresent position of affairs, there was certainly ground for hope. And now they were all waiting for Clara's answer. Lady Aylmer had\r\nwell calculated the course of post, and knew that a letter might\r\nreach them by Wednesday morning."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Of course she will not write on\r\nSunday,\" she had said to her son, \"but you have a right to expect\r\nthat not another day should go by.\" Captain Aylmer, who felt that\r\nthey were putting Clara on her trial, shook his head impatiently,\r\nand made no immediate answer. Lady Aylmer, triumphantly feeling that\r\nshe had the culprit on the hip, did not care to notice this. She was\r\ndoing the best she could for his happiness,--as she had done for\r\nhis health, when in days gone by she had administered to him his\r\ninfantine rhubarb and early senna; but as she had never then expected\r\nhim to like her doses, neither did she now expect that he should\r\nbe well pleased at the remedial measures to which he was to be\r\nsubjected. No letter came on the Wednesday, nor did any come on the Thursday,\r\nand then it was thought by the ladies at the Park that the time had\r\ncome for speaking a word or two. Belinda, at her mother's instance,\r\nbegan the attack,--not in her mother's presence, but when she only\r\nwas with her brother. \"Isn't it odd, Frederic, that Clara shouldn't write about those\r\npeople at Belton?\" \"Somersetshire is the other side of London, and letters take a long\r\ntime.\" \"But if she had written on Monday, her answer would have been here on\r\nWednesday morning;--indeed, you would have had it Tuesday evening,\r\nas mamma sent over to Whitby for the day mail letters.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Poor Belinda\r\nwas a bad lieutenant, and displayed too much of her senior officer's\r\ntactics in thus showing how much calculation and how much solicitude\r\nthere had been as to the expected letter. \"If I am contented I suppose you may be,\" said the brother. \"But it does seem to me to be so very important! If she hasn't got\r\nyour letter, you know, it would be so necessary that you should write\r\nagain, so that the--the--the contamination should be stopped as\r\nsoon as possible.\" Captain Aylmer shook his head and walked away. He was, no doubt, prepared to be morally indignant,--morally very\r\nindignant,--at the Askerton iniquity; but he did not like the word\r\ncontamination as applied to his future wife. \"Frederic,\" said his mother, later on the same day,--when the\r\nhardly-used groom had returned from his futile afternoon's inquiry at\r\nthe neighbouring post-town,--\"I think you should do something in this\r\naffair.\" \"Do what, ma'am? Go off to Belton myself?\" \"No, no. I certainly would not do that. In the first place it would\r\nbe very inconvenient to you, and in the next place it would not be\r\nfair upon us. I did not mean that at all. But I think that something\r\nshould be done. She should be made to understand.\" \"You may be sure, ma'am, that she understands as well as anybody.\" \"I dare say she is clever enough at these kind of things.\" \"What kind of things?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Don't bite my nose off, Frederic, because I am anxious about your\r\nwife.\" \"What is it that you wish me to do? I have written to her, and can\r\nonly wait for her answer.\" \"It may be that she feels a delicacy in writing to you on such a\r\nsubject; though I own--. However, to make a long story short, if you\r\nlike, I will write to her myself.\" \"I don't see that that would do any good. It would only give her\r\noffence.\" \"Give her offence, Frederic, to receive a letter from her future\r\nmother-in-law;--from me! Only think, Frederic, what you are saying.\" \"If she thought she was being bullied about this, she would turn\r\nrusty at once.\" \"Turn rusty! What am I to think of a young lady who is prepared\r\nto turn rusty,--at once, too, because she is cautioned by the\r\nmother of the man she professes to love against an improper\r\nacquaintance,--against an acquaintance so very improper?\" Lady\r\nAylmer's eloquence should have been heard to be appreciated. It is\r\nbut tame to say that she raised her fat arms and fat hands, and\r\nwagged her front,--her front that was the more formidable as it was\r\nthe old one, somewhat rough and dishevelled, which she was wont to\r\nwear in the morning. The emphasis of her words should have been\r\nheard, and the fitting solemnity of her action should have been seen. \"If there were any doubt,\" she continued to say, \"but there is no\r\ndoubt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There are the damning proofs.\" There are certain words usually\r\nconfined to the vocabularies of men, which women such as Lady Aylmer\r\ndelight to use on special occasions, when strong circumstances demand\r\nstrong language. As she said this she put her hand below the table,\r\npressing it apparently against her own august person; but she was in\r\ntruth indicating the position of a certain valuable correspondence,\r\nwhich was locked up in the drawer of her writing-table. \"You can write if you like it, of course; but I think you ought to\r\nwait a few more days.\" \"Very well, Frederic; then I will wait. I will wait till Sunday. I do\r\nnot wish to take any step of which you do not approve. If you have\r\nnot heard by Sunday morning, then I will write to her--on Monday.\" On the Saturday afternoon life was becoming inexpressibly\r\ndisagreeable to Captain Aylmer, and he began to meditate an escape\r\nfrom the Park. In spite of the agreement between him and his mother,\r\nwhich he understood to signify that nothing more was to be said as\r\nto Clara's wickedness, at any rate till Sunday after post-hour, Lady\r\nAylmer had twice attacked him on the Saturday, and had expressed her\r\nopinion that affairs were in a very frightful position. Belinda went\r\nabout the house in melancholy guise, with her eyes rarely lifted off\r\nthe ground, as though she were prophetically weeping the utter ruin\r\nof her brother's respectability."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And even Sir Anthony had raised\r\nhis eyes and shaken his head, when, on opening the post-bag at the\r\nbreakfast-table,--an operation which was always performed by Lady\r\nAylmer in person,--her ladyship had exclaimed, \"Again no letter!\" Then Captain Aylmer thought that he would fly, and resolved that,\r\nin the event of such flight, he would give special orders as to the\r\nre-direction of his own letters from the post-office at Whitby. That evening, after dinner, as soon as his mother and sister had left\r\nthe room, he began the subject with his father. \"I think I shall go\r\nup to town on Monday, sir,\" said he. \"So soon as that. I thought you were to stop till the 9th.\" \"There are things I must see to in London, and I believe I had better\r\ngo at once.\" \"Your mother will be greatly disappointed.\" \"I shall be sorry for that;--but business is business, you know.\" Then the father filled his glass and passed the bottle. He himself\r\ndid not at all like the idea of his son's going before the appointed\r\ntime, but he did not say a word of himself. He looked at the red-hot\r\ncoals, and a hazy glimmer of a thought passed through his mind, that\r\nhe too would escape from Aylmer Park,--if it were possible. \"If you'll allow me, I'll take the dog-cart over to Whitby on Monday,\r\nfor the express train.\" \"You can do that certainly, but--\"\r\n\r\n\"Sir?\" \"Have you spoken to your mother yet?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Not yet. I will to-night.\" \"I think she'll be a little angry, Fred.\" There was a sudden tone of\r\nsubdued confidence in the old man's voice as he made this suggestion,\r\nwhich, though it was by no means a customary tone, his son well\r\nunderstood. \"Don't you think she will be;--eh, a little?\" \"She shouldn't go on as she does with me about Clara,\" said the\r\nCaptain. \"Ah,--I supposed there was something of that. Are you drinking port?\" \"Of course I know that she means all that is good,\" said the son,\r\npassing back the bottle. \"Oh yes;--she means all that is good.\" \"She is the best mother in the world.\" \"You may say that, Fred;--and the best wife.\" \"But if she can't have her own way altogether--\" Then the son paused,\r\nand the father shook his head. \"Of course she likes to have her own way,\" said Sir Anthony. \"It's all very well in some things.\" \"Yes;--it's very well in some things.\" \"But there are things which a man must decide for himself.\" \"I suppose there are,\" said Sir Anthony, not venturing to think what\r\nthose things might be as regarded himself. \"Now, with reference to marrying--\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't know what you want with marrying at all, Fred. You ought to\r\nbe very happy as you are. By heavens, I don't know any one who ought\r\nto be happier. If I were you, I know--\"\r\n\r\n\"But you see, sir, that's all settled.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If it's all settled, I suppose there's an end of it.\" \"It's no good my mother nagging at one.\" \"My dear boy, she's been nagging at me, as you call it, for forty\r\nyears. That's her way. The best woman in the world, as we were\r\nsaying;--but that's her way. And it's the way with most of them. They\r\ncan do anything if they keep it up;--anything. The best thing is to\r\nbear it if you've got it to bear. But why on earth you should go and\r\nmarry, seeing that you're not the eldest son, and that you've got\r\neverything on earth that you want as a bachelor, I can't understand. I can't indeed, Fred. By heaven, I can't!\" Then Sir Anthony gave a\r\nlong sigh, and sat musing awhile, thinking of the club in London to\r\nwhich he belonged, but which he never entered;--of the old days in\r\nwhich he had been master of a bedroom near St. James's Street,--of\r\nhis old friends whom he never saw now, and of whom he never heard,\r\nexcept as one and another, year after year, shuffled away from their\r\nwives to that world in which there is no marrying or giving in\r\nmarriage. \"Ah, well,\" he said, \"I suppose we may as well go into\r\nthe drawing-room. If it is settled, I suppose it is settled. But it\r\nreally seems to me that your mother is trying to do the best she can\r\nfor you. It really does.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Captain Aylmer did not say anything to his mother that night as to\r\nhis going, but as he thought of his prospects in the solitude of his\r\nbedroom, he felt really grateful to his father for the solicitude\r\nwhich Sir Anthony had displayed on his behalf. It was not often\r\nthat he received paternal counsel, but now that it had come he\r\nacknowledged its value. That Clara Amedroz was a self-willed woman he\r\nthought that he was aware. She was self-reliant, at any rate,--and by\r\nno means ready to succumb with that pretty feminine docility which he\r\nwould like to have seen her evince. He certainly would not wish to be\r\n\"nagged\" by his wife. Indeed he knew himself well enough to assure\r\nhimself that he would not stand it for a day. In his own house he\r\nwould be master, and if there came tempests he would rule them. He\r\ncould at least promise himself that. As his mother had been strong,\r\nso had his father been weak. But he had,--as he felt thankful in\r\nknowing,--inherited his mother's strength rather than his father's\r\nweakness. But, for all that, why have a tempest to rule at all? Even\r\nthough a man do rule his domestic tempests, he cannot have a very\r\nquiet house with them. Then again he remembered how very easily Clara\r\nhad been won. He wished to be just to all men and women, and to Clara\r\namong the number."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He desired even to be generous to her,--with a\r\nmoderate generosity. But above all things he desired not to be duped. What if Clara had in truth instigated her aunt to that deathbed\r\nscene, as his mother had more than once suggested! He did not believe\r\nit. He was sure that it had not been so. But what if it were so? His\r\ndesire to be generous and trusting was moderate;--but his desire not\r\nto be cheated, not to be deceived, was immoderate. Upon the whole\r\nmight it not be well for him to wait a little longer, and ascertain\r\nhow Clara really intended to behave herself in this emergency of the\r\nAskertons? Perhaps, after all, his mother might be right. On the Sunday the expected letter came;--but before its contents are\r\nmade known, it will be well that we should go back to Belton, and see\r\nwhat was done by Clara in reference to the tidings which her lover\r\nhad sent her. CHAPTER XVIII. MRS. ASKERTON'S STORY. When Clara received the letter from Captain Aylmer on which so much\r\nis supposed to hang, she made up her mind to say nothing of it to any\r\none,--not to think of it if she could avoid thinking of it,--till her\r\ncousin should have left her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She could not mention it to him; for,\r\nthough there was no one from whom she would sooner have asked advice\r\nthan from him, even on so delicate a matter as this, she could not do\r\nso in the present case, as her informant was her cousin's successful\r\nrival. When, therefore, Mrs. Askerton on leaving the church had\r\nspoken some customary word to Clara, begging her to come to the\r\ncottage on the following day, Clara had been unable to answer,--not\r\nhaving as yet made up her mind whether she would or would not go\r\nto the cottage again. Of course the idea of consulting her father\r\noccurred to her,--or rather the idea of telling him; but any such\r\ntelling would lead to some advice from him which she would find\r\nit difficult to obey, and to which she would be unable to trust. And, moreover, why should she repeat this evil story against her\r\nneighbours? She had a long morning by herself after Will had started, and then\r\nshe endeavoured to arrange her thoughts and lay down for herself a\r\nline of conduct. Presuming this story to be true, to what did it\r\namount? It certainly amounted to very much."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If, in truth, this woman\r\nhad left her own husband and gone away to live with another man, she\r\nhad by doing so,--at any rate while she was doing so,--fallen in such\r\na way as to make herself unfit for the society of an unmarried young\r\nwoman who meant to keep her name unblemished before the world. Clara\r\nwould not attempt any further unravelling of the case, even in her\r\nown mind;--but on that point she could not allow herself to have a\r\ndoubt. Without condemning the unhappy victim, she understood well\r\nthat she would owe it to all those who held her dear, if not to\r\nherself, to eschew any close intimacy with one in such a position. The rules of the world were too plainly written to allow her to guide\r\nherself by any special judgment of her own in such a matter. But\r\nif this friend of hers,--having been thus unfortunate,--had since\r\nredeemed, or in part redeemed, her position by a second marriage,\r\nwould it be then imperative upon her to remember the past for ever,\r\nand to declare that the stain was indelible? Clara felt that with a\r\nprevious knowledge of such a story she would probably have avoided\r\nany intimacy with Mrs. Askerton. She would then have been justified\r\nin choosing whether such intimacy should or should not exist, and\r\nwould so have chosen out of deference to the world's opinion. But\r\nnow it was too late for that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Askerton had for years been her\r\nfriend; and Clara had to ask herself _this_ question; was it now\r\nneedful,--did her own feminine purity demand,--that she should throw\r\nher friend over because in past years her life had been tainted by\r\nmisconduct. It was clear enough at any rate that this was expected from\r\nher,--nay, imperatively demanded by him who was to be her lord,--by\r\nhim to whom her future obedience would be due. Whatever might be her\r\nimmediate decision, he would have a right to call upon her to be\r\nguided by his judgment as soon as she would become his wife. And\r\nindeed, she felt that he had such right now,--unless she should\r\ndecide that no such right should be his, now or ever. It was still\r\nwithin her power to say that she could not submit herself to such a\r\nrule as his,--but having received his commands she must do that or\r\nobey them. Then she declared to herself, not following the matter out\r\nlogically, but urged to her decision by sudden impulse, that at any\r\nrate she would not obey Lady Aylmer. She would have nothing to do, in\r\nany such matter, with Lady Aylmer. Lady Aylmer should be no god to\r\nher. That question about the house at Perivale had been very painful\r\nto her. She felt that she could have endured the dreary solitude at\r\nPerivale without complaint, if, after her marriage, her husband's\r\ncircumstances had made such a mode of living expedient."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But to have\r\nbeen asked to pledge her consent to such a life before her marriage,\r\nto feel that he was bargaining for the privilege of being rid of\r\nher, to know that the Aylmer people were arranging that he, if he\r\nwould marry her, should be as little troubled with his wife as\r\npossible;--all this had been very grievous to her. She had tried\r\nto console herself by the conviction that Lady Aylmer,--not\r\nFrederic,--had been the sinner; but even in that consolation there\r\nhad been the terrible flaw that the words had come to her written by\r\nFrederic's hand. Could Will Belton have written such a letter to his\r\nfuture wife? In her present emergency she must be guided by her own judgment or\r\nher own instincts,--not by any edicts from Aylmer Park! If in what\r\nshe might do she should encounter the condemnation of Captain Aylmer,\r\nshe would answer him,--she would be driven to answer him,--by\r\ncounter-condemnation of him and his mother. Let it be so. Anything\r\nwould be better than a mean, truckling subservience to the imperious\r\nmistress of Aylmer Park. But what should she do as regarded Mrs. Askerton? That the story was\r\ntrue she was beginning to believe. That there was some such history\r\nwas made certain to her by the promise which Mrs. Askerton had given\r\nher. \"If you want to ask any questions, and will ask them of me, I will\r\nanswer them.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Such a promise would not have been volunteered unless\r\nthere was something special to be told. It would be best, perhaps, to\r\ndemand from Mrs. Askerton the fulfilment of this promise. But then\r\nin doing so she must own from whence her information had come. Mrs.\r\nAskerton had told her that the \"communication\" would be made by her\r\ncousin Will. Her cousin Will had gone away without a word of Mrs.\r\nAskerton, and now the \"communication\" had come from Captain Aylmer! The Monday and Tuesday were rainy days, and the rain was some excuse\r\nfor her not going to the cottage. On the Wednesday her father was\r\nill, and his illness made a further excuse for her remaining at home. But on the Wednesday evening there came a note to her from Mrs.\r\nAskerton. \"You naughty girl, why do you not come to me? Colonel\r\nAskerton has been away since yesterday morning, and I am forgetting\r\nthe sound of my own voice. I did not trouble you when your divine\r\ncousin was here,--for reasons; but unless you come to me now I\r\nshall think that his divinity has prevailed. Colonel Askerton is in\r\nIreland, about some property, and will not be back till next week.\" Clara sent back a promise by the messenger, and on the following\r\nmorning she put on her hat and shawl, and started on her dreaded\r\ntask. When she left the house she had not even yet quite made up her\r\nmind what she would do."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At first she put her lover's letter into\r\nher pocket, so that she might have it for reference; but, on second\r\nthoughts, she replaced it in her desk, dreading lest she might be\r\npersuaded into showing or reading some part of it. There had come a\r\nsharp frost after the rain, and the ground was hard and dry. In order\r\nthat she might gain some further last moment for thinking, she walked\r\nround, up among the rocks, instead of going straight to the cottage;\r\nand for a moment,--though the air was sharp with frost,--she sat upon\r\nthe stone where she had been seated when her cousin Will blurted out\r\nthe misfortune of his heart. She sat there on purpose that she might\r\nthink of him, and recall his figure, and the tones of his voice, and\r\nthe look of his eyes, and the gesture of his face. What a man he\r\nwas;--so tender, yet so strong; so thoughtful of others, and yet so\r\nself-sufficient! She had, unconsciously, imputed to him one fault,\r\nthat he had loved and then forgotten his love;--unconsciously,\r\nfor she had tried to think that this was a virtue rather than a\r\nfault;--but now,--with a full knowledge of what she was doing, but\r\nwithout any intention of doing it,--she acquitted him of that one\r\nfault. Now that she could acquit him, she owned that it would have\r\nbeen a fault. To have loved, and so soon to have forgotten it!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "No; he\r\nhad loved her truly, and alas! he was one who could not be made to\r\nforget it. Then she went on to the cottage, exercising her thoughts\r\nrather on the contrast between the two men than on the subject to\r\nwhich she should have applied them. \"So you have come at last!\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"Till I got your\r\nmessage I thought there was to be some dreadful misfortune.\" \"What misfortune?\" \"Something dreadful! One often anticipates something very bad without\r\nexactly knowing what. At least, I do. I am always expecting a\r\ncatastrophe;--when I am alone that is;--and then I am so often\r\nalone.\" \"That simply means low spirits, I suppose?\" \"It's more than that, my dear.\" \"Not much more, I take it.\" \"Once when we were in India we lived close to the powder magazine,\r\nand we were always expecting to be blown up. You never lived near a\r\npowder magazine.\" \"No, never;--unless there's one at Belton. But I should have thought\r\nthat was exciting.\" \"And then there was the gentleman who always had the sword hanging\r\nover him by the horse's hair.\" \"What do you mean, Mrs. Askerton?\" \"Don't look so innocent, Clara. You know what I mean. What were the\r\nresults at last of your cousin's diligence as a detective officer?\" \"Mrs. Askerton, you wrong my cousin greatly. He never once mentioned\r\nyour name while he was with us."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He did not make a single allusion to\r\nyou, or to Colonel Askerton, or to the cottage.\" \"He did not?\" \"Never once.\" \"Then I beg his pardon. But not the less has he been busy making\r\ninquiries.\" \"But why should you say that there is a powder magazine, or a sword\r\nhanging over your head?\" \"Ah, why?\" Here was the subject ready opened to her hand, and yet Clara did not\r\nknow how to go on with it. It seemed to her now that it would have\r\nbeen easier for her to commence it, if Mrs. Askerton had made no\r\ncommencement herself. As it was, she knew not how to introduce the\r\nsubject of Captain Aylmer's letter, and was almost inclined to wait,\r\nthinking that Mrs. Askerton might tell her own story without any such\r\nintroduction. But nothing of the kind was forthcoming. Mrs. Askerton\r\nbegan to talk of the frost, and then went on to abuse Ireland,\r\ncomplaining of the hardship her husband endured in being forced to go\r\nthither in winter to look after his tenants. \"What did you mean,\" said Clara, at last, \"by the sword hanging over\r\nyour head?\" \"I think I told you what I meant pretty plainly. If you did not\r\nunderstand me I cannot tell you more plainly.\" \"It is odd that you should say so much, and not wish to say more.\" \"Ah!--you are making your inquiries now.\" \"In my place would not you do so too?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "How can I help it when you\r\ntalked of a sword? Of course you make me ask what the sword is.\" \"And am I bound to satisfy your curiosity?\" \"You told me, just before my cousin came here, that if I asked any\r\nquestion you would answer me.\" \"And I am to understand that you are asking such a question now?\" \"Yes;--if it will not offend you.\" \"But what if it will offend me,--offend me greatly? Who likes to be\r\ninquired into?\" \"But you courted such inquiry from me.\" \"No, Clara, I did not do that. I'll tell you what I did. I gave you\r\nto understand that if it was needful that you should hear about\r\nme and my antecedents,--certain matters as to which Mr. Belton\r\nhad been inquiring into in a manner that I thought to be most\r\nunjustifiable,--I would tell you that story.\" \"And do so without being angry with me for asking.\" \"I meant, of course, that I would not make it a ground for\r\nquarrelling with you. If I wished to tell you I could do so without\r\nany inquiry.\" \"I have sometimes thought that you did wish to tell me.\" \"Sometimes I have,--almost.\" \"But you have no such wish now?\" \"Can't you understand? It may well be that one so much alone as\r\nI am,--living here without a female friend, or even acquaintance,\r\nexcept yourself,--should often feel a longing for that comfort which\r\nfull confidence between us would give me.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Then why not--\"\r\n\r\n\"Stop a moment. Can't you understand that I may feel this, and yet\r\nentertain the greatest horror against inquiry? We all like to tell\r\nour own sorrows, but who likes to be inquired into? Many a woman\r\nburns to make a full confession, who would be as mute as death before\r\na policeman.\" \"I am no policeman.\" \"But you are determined to ask a policeman's questions?\" To this Clara made no immediate reply. She felt that she was acting\r\nalmost falsely in going on with such questions, while she was in fact\r\naware of all the circumstances which Mrs. Askerton could tell;--but\r\nshe did not know how to declare her knowledge and to explain it. She\r\nsincerely wished that Mrs. Askerton should be made acquainted with\r\nthe truth; but she had fallen into a line of conversation which did\r\nnot make her own task easy. But the idea of her own hypocrisy was\r\ndistressing to her, and she rushed at the difficulty with hurried,\r\neager words, resolving that, at any rate, there should be no longer\r\nany doubt between them. \"Mrs. Askerton,\" she said, \"I know it all. There is nothing for you\r\nto tell. I know what the sword is.\" \"What is it that you know?\" \"That you were married long ago to--Mr. Berdmore.\" \"Then Mr. Belton did do me the honour of talking about me when he was\r\nhere?\" As she said this she rose from her chair, and stood before\r\nClara with flashing eyes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Not a word. He never mentioned your name, or the name of any one\r\nbelonging to you. I have heard it from another.\" \"From what other?\" \"I do not know that that signifies,--but I have learned it.\" \"Well;--and what next?\" \"I do not know what next. As so much has been told me, and as you\r\nhad said that I might ask you, I have come to you, yourself. I shall\r\nbelieve your own story more thoroughly from yourself than from any\r\nother teller.\" \"And suppose I refuse to answer you?\" \"Then I can say nothing further.\" \"And what will you do?\" \"Ah;--that I do not know. But you are harsh to me, while I am longing\r\nto be kind to you. Can you not see that this has been all forced upon\r\nme,--partly by yourself?\" \"And the other part;--who has forced that upon you? Who is your\r\ninformant? If you mean to be generous, be generous altogether. Is it\r\na man or a woman that has taken the trouble to rip up old sorrows\r\nthat my name may be blackened? But what matters? There;--I was\r\nmarried to Captain Berdmore. I left him, and went away with my\r\npresent husband. For three years I was a man's mistress, and not\r\nhis wife. When that poor creature died we were married, and then\r\ncame here. Now you know it all;--all;--all,--though doubtless your\r\ninformant has made a better story of it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "After that, perhaps, I have\r\nbeen very wicked to sully the air you breathe by my presence.\" \"Why do you say that,--to me?\" \"But no;--you do not know it all. No one can ever know it all. No one\r\ncan ever know how I suffered before I was driven to escape, or how\r\ngood to me has been he who--who--who--\" Then she turned her back upon\r\nClara, and, walking off to the window, stood there, hiding the tears\r\nwhich clouded her eyes, and concealing the sobs which choked her\r\nutterance. For some moments,--for a space which seemed long to both of\r\nthem,--Clara kept her seat in silence. She hardly dared to speak, and\r\nthough she longed to show her sympathy, she knew not what to say. At\r\nlast she too rose and followed the other to the window. She uttered\r\nno words, however, but gently putting her arm around Mrs. Askerton's\r\nwaist, stood there close to her, looking out upon the cold wintry\r\nflower-beds,--not venturing to turn her eyes upon her companion. The\r\nmotion of her arm was at first very gentle, but after a while she\r\npressed it closer, and thus by degrees drew her friend to her with an\r\neager, warm, and enduring pressure. Mrs. Askerton made some little\r\neffort towards repelling her, some faint motion of resistance; but\r\nas the embrace became warmer the poor woman yielded herself to it,\r\nand allowed her face to fall upon Clara's shoulder."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So they stood,\r\nspeaking no word, making no attempt to rid themselves of the tears\r\nwhich were blinding their eyes, but gazing out through the moisture\r\non the bleak wintry scene before them. Clara's mind was the more\r\nactive at the moment, for she was resolving that in this episode\r\nof her life she would accept no lesson whatever from Lady Aylmer's\r\nteaching;--no, nor any lesson whatever from the teaching of any\r\nAylmer in existence. And as for the world's rules, she would fit\r\nherself to them as best she could; but no such fitting should drive\r\nher to the unwomanly cruelty of deserting this woman whom she had\r\nknown and loved,--and whom she now loved with a fervour which she had\r\nnever before felt towards her. \"You have heard it all now,\" said Mrs. Askerton at last. \"And is it not better so?\" \"Ah;--I do not know. How should I know?\" \"Do you not know?\" And as she spoke Clara pressed her arm still\r\ncloser. \"Do you not know yet?\" Then, turning herself half round, she\r\nclasped the other woman full in her arms, and kissed her forehead and\r\nher lips. \"Do you not know yet?\" \"But you will go away, and people will tell you that you are wrong.\" \"What people?\" said Clara, thinking as she spoke of the whole family\r\nat Aylmer Park. \"Your husband will tell you so.\" \"I have no husband,--as yet,--to order me what to think or what not\r\nto think.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No;--not quite as yet. But you will tell him all this.\" \"He knows it. It was he who told me.\" \"What!--Captain Aylmer?\" \"Yes; Captain Aylmer.\" \"And what did he say?\" \"Never mind. Captain Aylmer is not my husband,--not as yet. If he\r\ntakes me, he must take me as I am, not as he might possibly have\r\nwished me to be. Lady Aylmer--\"\r\n\r\n\"And does Lady Aylmer know it?\" \"Yes. Lady Aylmer is one of those hard, severe women who never\r\nforgive.\" \"Ah, I see it all now. I understand it all. Clara, you must forget\r\nme, and come here no more. You shall not be ruined because you are\r\ngenerous.\" \"Ruined! If Lady Aylmer's displeasure can ruin me, I must put up with\r\nruin. I will not accept her for my guide. I am too old, and have had\r\nmy own way too long. Do not let that thought trouble you. In this\r\nmatter I shall judge for myself. I have judged for myself already.\" \"And your father?\" \"Papa knows nothing of it.\" \"But you will tell him?\" \"I do not know. Poor papa is very ill. If he were well I would tell\r\nhim, and he would think as I do.\" \"And your cousin?\" \"You say that he has heard it all.\" \"I think so. Do you know that I remembered him the first moment that\r\nI saw him. But what could I do?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "When you mentioned to me my old name,\r\nmy real name, how could I be honest? I have been driven to do that\r\nwhich has made honesty to me impossible. My life has been a lie; and\r\nyet how could I help it? I must live somewhere,--and how could I live\r\nanywhere without deceit?\" \"And yet that is so sad.\" \"Sad indeed! But what could I do? Of course I was wrong in the\r\nbeginning. Though how am I to regret it, when it has given me such a\r\nhusband as I have? Ah!--if you could know it all, I think,--I think\r\nyou would forgive me.\" Then by degrees she told it all, and Clara was there for hours\r\nlistening to her story. The reader will not care to hear more of\r\nit than he has heard. Nor would Clara have desired any closer\r\nrevelation; but as it is often difficult to obtain a confidence,\r\nso is it impossible to stop it in the midst of its effusion. Mrs.\r\nAskerton told the history of her life,--of her first foolish\r\nengagement, her belief, her half-belief, in the man's reformation, of\r\nthe miseries which resulted from his vices, of her escape and shame,\r\nof her welcome widowhood, and of her second marriage. And as she told\r\nit, she paused at every point to insist on the goodness of him who\r\nwas now her husband."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I shall tell him this,\" she said at last, \"as\r\nI do everything; and then he will know that I have in truth got a\r\nfriend.\" She asked again and again about Mr. Belton, but Clara could only tell\r\nher that she knew nothing of her cousin's knowledge. Will might have\r\nheard it all, but if so he had kept his information to himself. \"And now what shall you do?\" Mrs. Askerton asked of Clara, at length\r\nprepared to go. \"Do? in what way? I shall do nothing.\" \"But you will write to Captain Aylmer?\" \"Yes;--I shall write to him.\" \"And about this?\" \"Yes;--I suppose I must write to him.\" \"And what will you say?\" \"That I cannot tell. I wish I knew what to say. If it were to his\r\nmother I could write my letter easily enough.\" \"And what would you say to her?\" \"I would tell her that I was responsible for my own friends. But I\r\nmust go now. Papa will complain that I am so long away.\" Then there\r\nwas another embrace, and at last Clara found her way out of the house\r\nand was alone again in the park. She clearly acknowledged to herself that she had a great difficulty\r\nbefore her. She had committed herself altogether to Mrs. Askerton,\r\nand could no longer entertain any thought of obeying the very plainly\r\nexpressed commands which Captain Aylmer had given her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The story as\r\ntold by Captain Aylmer had been true throughout; but, in the teeth\r\nof that truth, she intended to maintain her acquaintance with Mrs.\r\nAskerton. From that there was now no escape. She had been carried\r\naway by impulse in what she had done and said at the cottage, but\r\nshe could not bring herself to regret it. She could not believe that\r\nit was her duty to throw over and abandon a woman whom she loved,\r\nbecause that woman had once, in her dire extremity, fallen away from\r\nthe path of virtue. But how was she to write the letter? When she reached her father he complained of her absence, and almost\r\nscolded her for having been so long at the cottage. \"I cannot see,\"\r\nsaid he, \"what you find in that woman to make so much of her.\" \"She is the only neighbour I have, papa.\" \"And better none than her, if all that people say of her is true.\" \"All that people say is never true, papa.\" \"There is no smoke without fire. I am not at all sure that it's good\r\nfor you to be so much with her.\" \"Oh, papa,--don't treat me like a child.\" \"And I'm sure it's not good for me that you should be so much away. For anything I have seen of you all day you might have been at\r\nPerivale."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But you are going soon, altogether, so I suppose I may as\r\nwell make up my mind to it.\" \"I'm not going for a long time yet, papa.\" \"What do you mean by that?\" \"I mean that there's nothing to take me away from here at present.\" \"You are engaged to be married.\" \"But it will be a long engagement. It is one of those engagements in\r\nwhich neither party is very anxious for an immediate change.\" There\r\nwas something bitter in Clara's tone as she said this, which the old\r\nman perceived, but could only half understand. Clara remained with\r\nhim then for the rest of the day, going down-stairs for five minutes,\r\nto her dinner, and then returning to him and reading aloud while he\r\ndozed. Her winter evenings at Belton Castle were not very bright, but\r\nshe was used to them and made no complaint. When she left her father for the night she got out her desk and\r\nprepared herself for her letter to her lover. She was determined\r\nthat it should be finished that night before she went to bed. And it\r\nwas so finished; though the writing of it gave her much labour, and\r\noccupied her till the late hours had come upon her. When completed it\r\nwas as follows:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   Belton Castle, Thursday Night. DEAR FREDERIC,--I received your letter last Sunday,\r\n   but I could not answer it sooner, as it required much\r\n   consideration, and also some information which I have only\r\n   obtained to-day."}
{"question": "", "answer": "About the plan of living at Perivale I\r\n   will not say much now, as my mind is so full of other\r\n   things. I think, however, I may promise that I will never\r\n   make any needless difficulty as to your plans. My cousin\r\n   Will left us on Monday, so your mother need not have any\r\n   further anxiety on that head. It does papa good to have\r\n   him here, and for that reason I am sorry that he has gone. I can assure you that I don't think what you said about\r\n   him meant anything at all particular. Will is my nearest\r\n   cousin, and of course you would be glad that I should like\r\n   him,--which I do, very much. And now about the other subject, which I own has\r\n   distressed me, as you supposed it would;--I mean about\r\n   Mrs. Askerton. I find it very difficult in your letter to\r\n   divide what comes from your mother and what from yourself. Of course I want to make the division, as every word from\r\n   you has great weight with me. At present I don't know Lady\r\n   Aylmer personally, and I cannot think of her as I do of\r\n   you. Indeed, were I to know her ever so well, I could not\r\n   have the same deference for her that I have for the man\r\n   who is to be my husband. I only say this, as I fear that\r\n   Lady Aylmer and I may not perhaps agree about Mrs.\r\n   Askerton."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I find that your story about Mrs. Askerton is in the main\r\n   true. But the person who told it you does not seem to have\r\n   known any of the provocations which she received. She\r\n   was very badly treated by Captain Berdmore, who, I am\r\n   afraid, was a terrible drunkard; and at last she found it\r\n   impossible to stay with him. So she went away. I cannot\r\n   tell you how horrid it all was, but I am sure that if I\r\n   could make you understand it, it would go a long way in\r\n   inducing you to excuse her. She was married to Colonel\r\n   Askerton as soon as Captain Berdmore died, and this took\r\n   place before she came to Belton. I hope you will remember\r\n   that. It all occurred out in India, and I really hardly\r\n   know what business we have to inquire about it now. At any rate, as I have been acquainted with her a long\r\n   time, and very intimately, and as I am sure that she has\r\n   repented of anything that has been wrong, I do not think\r\n   that I ought to quarrel with her now. Indeed I have\r\n   promised her that I will not. I think I owe it you to tell\r\n   you the whole truth, and that is the truth. Pray give my regards to your mother, and tell her that\r\n   I am sure she would judge differently if she were in my\r\n   place."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This poor woman has no other friend here; and who\r\n   am I, that I should take upon myself to condemn her? I\r\n   cannot do it. Dear Frederic, pray do not be angry with\r\n   me for asserting my own will in this matter. I think\r\n   you would wish me to have an opinion of my own. In my\r\n   present position I am bound to have one, as I am, as yet,\r\n   responsible for what I do myself. I shall be very, very\r\n   sorry, if I find that you differ from me; but still I\r\n   cannot be made to think that I am wrong. I wish you were\r\n   here, that we might talk it over together, as I think that\r\n   in that case you would agree with me. If you can manage to come to us at Easter, or any other\r\n   time when Parliament does not keep you in London, we shall\r\n   be so delighted to see you. Dear Frederic,\r\n   Yours very affectionately,\r\n\r\n   CLARA AMEDROZ. CHAPTER XIX. MISS AMEDROZ HAS ANOTHER CHANCE. It was on a Sunday morning that Clara's letter reached Aylmer Park,\r\nand Frederic Aylmer found it on his plate as he took his place at the\r\nbreakfast-table. Domestic habits at Aylmer Park had grown with the\r\ngrowth of years till they had become adamantine, and domestic habits\r\nrequired prayers every morning at a quarter before nine o'clock."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At twenty minutes before nine Lady Aylmer would always be in the\r\ndining-room to make the tea and open the post-bag, and as she was\r\nalways there alone, she knew more about other people's letters than\r\nother people ever knew about hers. When these operations were over\r\nshe rang the bell, and the servants of the family, who by that time\r\nhad already formed themselves into line in the hall, would march\r\nin, and settle themselves on benches prepared for them near the\r\nside-board,--which benches were afterwards carried away by the\r\nretiring procession. Lady Aylmer herself always read prayers, as Sir\r\nAnthony never appeared till the middle of breakfast. Belinda would\r\nusually come down in a scurry as she heard her mother's bell, in such\r\na way as to put the army in the hall to some confusion; but Frederic\r\nAylmer, when he was at home, rarely entered the room till after the\r\nservice was over. At Perivale no doubt he was more strict in his\r\nconduct; but then at Perivale he had special interests and influences\r\nwhich were wanting to him at Aylmer Park. During those five minutes\r\nLady Aylmer would deal round the letters to the several plates of the\r\ninmates of her house,--not without looking at the post-office marks\r\nupon them; and on this occasion she had dealt a letter from Clara to\r\nher son. The arrival of the letter was announced to Frederic Aylmer before he\r\ntook his seat."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Frederic,\" said her ladyship, in her most portentous voice, \"I am\r\nglad to say that at last there is a letter from Belton.\" He made no immediate reply, but making his way slowly to his place,\r\ntook up the little packet, turned it over in his hand, and then put\r\nit into his pocket. Having done this, he began very slowly with his\r\ntea and egg. For three minutes his mother was contented to make,\r\nor to pretend to make, some effort in the same direction. Then her\r\nimpatience became too much for her, and she began to question him. \"Will you not read it, Frederic?\" \"Of course I shall, ma'am.\" \"But why not do so now, when you know how anxious we are?\" \"There are letters which one would sooner read in private.\" \"But when a matter is of so much importance--\" said Belinda. \"The importance, Bel, is to me, and not to you,\" said her brother. \"All we want to know is,\" continued the sister, \"that she promises\r\nto be guided by you in this matter; and of course we feel quite sure\r\nthat she will.\" \"If you are quite sure that must be sufficient for you.\" \"I really think you need not quarrel with your sister,\" said Lady\r\nAylmer, \"because she is anxious as to the--the respectability, I must\r\nsay, for there is no other word, of a young lady whom you propose to\r\nmake your wife."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I can assure you that I am very anxious myself,--very\r\nanxious indeed.\" Captain Aylmer made no answer to this, but he did not take the letter\r\nfrom his pocket. He drank his tea in silence, and in silence sent\r\nup his cup to be refilled. In silence also was it returned to him. He ate his two eggs and his three bits of toast, according to his\r\ncustom, and when he had finished, sat out his three or four minutes\r\nas was usual. Then he got up to retire to his room, with the envelope\r\nstill unbroken in his pocket. \"You will go to church with us, I suppose?\" said Lady Aylmer. \"I won't promise, ma'am; but if I do, I'll walk across the park,--so\r\nthat you need not wait for me.\" Then both the mother and sister knew that the member for Perivale did\r\nnot intend to go to church on that occasion. To morning service Sir\r\nAnthony always went, the habits of Aylmer Park having in them more of\r\nadamant in reference to him than they had as regarded his son. When the father, mother, and daughter returned, Captain Aylmer had\r\nread his letter, and had, after doing so, received further tidings\r\nfrom Belton Castle,--further tidings which for the moment prevented\r\nthe necessity of any reference to the letter, and almost drove it\r\nfrom his own thoughts. When his mother entered the library he was\r\nstanding before the fire with a scrap of paper in his hand."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Since you have been at church there has come a telegraphic message,\"\r\nhe said. \"What is it, Frederic? Do not frighten me,--if you can avoid it!\" \"You need not be frightened, ma'am, for you did not know him. Mr.\r\nAmedroz is dead.\" \"No!\" said Lady Aylmer, seating herself. \"Dead!\" said Belinda, holding up her hands. \"God bless my soul!\" said the baronet, who had now followed the\r\nladies into the room. \"Dead! Why, Fred, he was five years younger\r\nthan I am!\" Then Captain Aylmer read the words of the message:--\"Mr. Amedroz died\r\nthis morning at five o'clock. I have sent word to the lawyer and to\r\nMr. Belton.\" \"Who does it come from?\" asked Lady Aylmer. \"From Colonel Askerton.\" Lady Aylmer paused, and shook her head, and moved her foot uneasily\r\nupon the carpet. The tidings, as far as they went, might be\r\nunexceptionable, but the source from whence they had come had\r\nevidently polluted them in her ladyship's judgment. Then she uttered\r\na series of inter-ejaculations, expressions of mingled sorrow and\r\nanger. \"There was no one else near her,\" said Captain Aylmer,\r\napologetically. \"Is there no clergyman in the parish?\" \"He lives a long way off. The message had to be sent at once.\" \"Are there no servants in the house? It looks,--it looks--. But I\r\nam the last person in the world to form a harsh judgment of a young\r\nwoman at such a moment as this. What did she say in her letter,\r\nFred?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Captain Aylmer had devoted two hours of consideration to the letter\r\nbefore the telegram had come to relieve his mind by a fresh subject,\r\nand in those two hours he had not been able to extract much of\r\ncomfort out of the document. It was, as he felt, a stubborn,\r\nstiff-necked, disobedient, almost rebellious letter. It contained\r\na manifest defiance of his mother, and exhibited doctrines of most\r\nquestionable morality. It had become to him a matter of doubt whether\r\nhe could possibly marry a woman who could entertain such ideas and\r\nwrite such a letter. If the doubt was to be decided in his own mind\r\nagainst Clara, he had better show the letter at once to his mother,\r\nand allow her ladyship to fight the battle for him;--a task which,\r\nas he well knew, her ladyship would not be slow to undertake. But he\r\nhad not succeeded in answering the question satisfactorily to himself\r\nwhen the telegram arrived and diverted all his thoughts. Now that Mr.\r\nAmedroz was dead, the whole thing might be different. Clara would\r\ncome away from Belton and Mrs. Askerton, and begin life, as it were,\r\nafresh. It seemed as though in such an emergency she ought to have\r\nanother chance; and therefore he did not hasten to pronounce his\r\njudgment. Lady Aylmer also felt something of this, and forbore to\r\npress her question when it was not answered. \"She will have to leave Belton now, I suppose?\" said Sir Anthony."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"The property will belong to a distant cousin,--a Mr. William\r\nBelton.\" \"And where will she go?\" said Lady Aylmer. \"I suppose she has no\r\nplace that she can call her home?\" \"Would it not be a good thing to ask her here?\" said Belinda. Such\r\na question as that was very rash on the part of Miss Aylmer. In the\r\nfirst place, the selection of guests for Aylmer Park was rarely left\r\nto her; and in this special case she should have understood that such\r\na proposal should have been fully considered by Lady Aylmer before it\r\nreached Frederic's ears. \"I think it would be a very good plan,\" said Captain Aylmer,\r\ngenerously. Lady Aylmer shook her head. \"I should like much to know what she has\r\nsaid about that unfortunate connection before I offer to take her by\r\nthe hand myself. I'm sure Fred will feel that I ought to do so.\" But Fred retreated from the room without showing the letter. He\r\nretreated from the room and betook himself to solitude, that he might\r\nagain endeavour to make up his mind as to what he would do. He put\r\non his hat and his great-coat and gloves, and went off,--without\r\nhis luncheon,--that he might consider it all. Clara Amedroz had now\r\nno home,--and, indeed, very little means of providing one. If he\r\nintended that she should be his wife, he must furnish her with a home\r\nat once."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It seemed to him that three houses might possibly be open to\r\nher,--of which one, the only one which under such circumstances would\r\nbe proper, was Aylmer Park. The other two were Plaistow Hall and Mrs.\r\nAskerton's cottage at Belton. As to the latter,--should she ever take\r\nshelter there, everything must be over between him and her. On that\r\npoint there could be no doubt. He could not bring himself to marry\r\na wife out of Mrs. Askerton's drawing-room, nor could he expect his\r\nmother to receive a young woman brought into the family under such\r\ncircumstances. And Plaistow Hall was almost as bad. It was as bad to\r\nhim, though it would, perhaps, be less objectionable in the eyes of\r\nLady Aylmer. Should Clara go to Plaistow Hall there must be an end to\r\neverything. Of that also he taught himself to be quite certain. Then\r\nhe took out Clara's letter and read it again. She acknowledged the\r\nstory about the woman to be true,--such a story as it was too,--and\r\nyet refused to quarrel with the woman;--had absolutely promised the\r\nwoman not to quarrel with her! Then he read and re-read the passage\r\nin which Clara claimed the right of forming her own opinion in such\r\nmatters. Nothing could be more indelicate;--nothing more unfit for\r\nhis wife. He began to think that he had better show the letter to\r\nhis mother, and acknowledge that the match must be broken off."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That\r\nsoftening of his heart which had followed upon the receipt of the\r\ntelegraphic message departed from him as he dwelt upon the stubborn,\r\nstiff-necked, unfeminine obstinacy of the letter. Then he remembered\r\nthat nothing had as yet been done towards putting his aunt's fifteen\r\nhundred pounds absolutely into Clara's hands; and he remembered also\r\nthat she might at the present moment be in great want. William Belton\r\nmight, not improbably, assist her in her want, and this idea was\r\nwormwood to him in spite of his almost formed resolution to give up\r\nhis own claims. He calculated that the income arising from fifteen\r\nhundred pounds would be very small, and he wished that he had\r\ncounselled his aunt to double the legacy. He thought very much\r\nabout the amount of the money and the way in which it might be best\r\nexpended, and was, after his cold fashion, really solicitous as to\r\nClara's welfare. If he could have fashioned her future life, and his\r\nown too, in accordance with his own now existing wishes, I think he\r\nwould have arranged that neither of them should marry at all, and\r\nthat to him should be assigned the duty and care of being Clara's\r\nprotector,--with full permission to tell her his mind as often as he\r\npleased on the subject of Mrs. Askerton."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then he went in and wrote\r\na note to Mr. Green, the lawyer, desiring that the interest of the\r\nfifteen hundred pounds for one year might be at once remitted to Miss\r\nAmedroz. He knew that he ought to write to her himself immediately,\r\nwithout loss of a post; but how was he to write while things were\r\nin their present position? Were he now to condole with her on her\r\nfather's death, without any reference to the great Askerton iniquity,\r\nhe would thereby be condoning all that was past, and acknowledging\r\nthe truth and propriety of her arguments. And he would be doing even\r\nworse than that. He would be cutting the ground absolutely from\r\nbeneath his own feet as regarded that escape from his engagement\r\nwhich he was contemplating. What a cold-hearted, ungenerous wretch he must have been! That\r\nwill be the verdict against him. But the verdict will be untrue. Cold-hearted and ungenerous he was; but he was no wretch,--as men and\r\nwomen are now-a-days called wretches. He was chilly hearted, but yet\r\nquite capable of enough love to make him a good son, a good husband,\r\nand a good father too. And though he was ungenerous from the nature\r\nof his temperament, he was not close-fisted or over covetous. And he\r\nwas a just man, desirous of obtaining nothing that was not fairly his\r\nown."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, in truth, the artists have been so much in the habit of\r\npainting for us our friends' faces without any of those flaws and\r\nblotches with which work and high living are apt to disfigure us,\r\nthat we turn in disgust from a portrait in which the roughnesses and\r\npimples are made apparent. But it was essential that he should now do something, and before\r\nhe sat down to dinner he did show Clara's letter to his mother. \"Mother,\" he said, as he sat himself down in her little room\r\nup-stairs;--and she knew well by the tone of his voice, and by\r\nthe mode of his address, that there was to be a solemn occasion,\r\nand a serious deliberative council on the present existing family\r\ndifficulty,--\"mother, of course I have intended to let you know what\r\nis the nature of Clara's answer to my letter.\" \"I am glad there is to be no secret between us, Frederic. You know\r\nhow I dislike secrets in families.\" As she said this she took the\r\nletter out of her son's hands with an eagerness that was almost\r\ngreedy. As she read it, he stood over her, watching her eyes, as they\r\nmade their way down the first page and on to the second, and across\r\nto the third, and so, gradually on, till the whole reading was\r\naccomplished."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What Clara had written about her cousin Will, Lady\r\nAylmer did not quite understand; and on this point now she was so\r\nlittle anxious that she passed over that portion of the letter\r\nreadily. But when she came to Mrs. Askerton and the allusions to\r\nherself, she took care to comprehend the meaning and weight of every\r\nword. \"Divide your words and mine! Why should we want to divide them? Not agree with me about Mrs. Askerton! How is it possible that any\r\ndecent young woman should not agree with me! It is a matter in which\r\nthere is no room for a doubt. True;--the story true! Of course it\r\nis true. Does she not know that it would not have reached her from\r\nAylmer Park if it were not true? Provocation! Badly treated! Went\r\naway! Married to Colonel Askerton as soon as Captain Berdmore died! Why, Frederic, she cannot have been taught to understand the first\r\nprinciple of morals in life! And she that was so much with my poor\r\nsister! Well, well!\" The reader should understand that the late Mrs.\r\nWinterfield and Lady Aylmer had never been able to agree with each\r\nother on religious subjects. \"Remember that they are married. Why\r\nshould we remember anything of the kind? It does not make an atom\r\nof difference to the woman's character. Repented! How can Clara\r\nsay whether she has repented or not? But that has nothing to do\r\nwith it. Not quarrel with her,--as she calls it!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Not give her up! Then, Frederic, of course it must be all over, as far as you are\r\nconcerned.\" When she had finished her reading, she returned the\r\nletter, still open, to her son, shaking her head almost triumphantly. \"As far as I am a judge of a young woman's character, I can only give\r\nyou one counsel,\" said Lady Aylmer solemnly. \"I think that she should have another chance,\" said Captain Aylmer. \"What other chance can you give her? It seems to me that she is\r\nobstinately bent on her own destruction.\" \"You might ask her to come here, as Belinda suggested.\" \"Belinda was very foolish to suggest anything of the kind without\r\nmore consideration.\" \"I suppose that my future wife would be made welcome here?\" \"Yes, Frederic, certainly. I do not know who could be more welcome. But is she to be your wife?\" \"We are engaged.\" \"But does not that letter break any engagement? Is there not enough\r\nin that to make such a marriage quite out of the question? What do\r\nyou think about it yourself, Frederic?\" \"I think that she should have another chance.\" What would Clara have thought of all this herself, if she could have\r\nheard the conversation between Lady Aylmer and her betrothed husband,\r\nand have known that her lover was proposing to give her \"another\r\nchance?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "But it is lucky for us that we seldom know what our best\r\nfriends say on our behalf, when they discuss us and our faults behind\r\nour backs. \"What chance, Frederic, can she have? She knows all about this horrid\r\nwoman, and yet refuses to give her up! What chance can she have after\r\nthat?\" \"I think that you might have her here,--and talk to her.\" Lady\r\nAylmer, in answer to this, simply shook her head. And I think she was\r\nright in supposing that such shaking of her head was a sufficient\r\nreply to her son's proposition. What talking could possibly be of\r\nservice to such a one as this Miss Amedroz? Why should she throw her\r\npearls before swine? \"We must either ask her to come here, or else I\r\nmust go to her,\" said Captain Aylmer. \"I don't see that at all, Frederic.\" \"I think it must be so. As she is situated at present she has got no\r\nhome; and I think it would be very horrid that she should be driven\r\ninto that woman's house, simply because she has no other shelter for\r\nher head.\" \"I suppose she can remain where she is for the present?\" \"She is all alone, you know; and it must be very gloomy;--and her\r\ncousin can turn her out at a moment's notice.\" \"But all that would not entitle her to come here, unless--\"\r\n\r\n\"No;--I quite understand that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But you cannot wonder that I should\r\nfeel the hardship of her position.\" \"Who is to be blamed if it be hard? You see, Frederic, I take my\r\nstanding upon that letter;--her own letter. How am I to ask a young\r\nwoman into my house who declares openly that my opinion on such a\r\nmatter goes for nothing with her? How am I to do it? That's what I\r\nask you. How am I to do it? It's all very well for Belinda to suggest\r\nthis and that. But how am I to do it? That's what I want to know.\" But at last Lady Aylmer managed to answer the question for herself,\r\nand did do it. But this was not done on that Sunday afternoon, nor\r\non the Monday, nor on the Tuesday. The question was closely debated,\r\nand at last the anxious mother perceived that the giving of the\r\ninvitation would be more safe than withholding it. Captain Aylmer\r\nat last expressed his determination to go to Belton unless the\r\ninvitation were given; and then, should he do that, there might be\r\ndanger that he would never be again seen at Aylmer Park till he\r\nbrought Clara Amedroz with him as his wife. The position was one of\r\ngreat difficulty, but the interests at stake were so immense that\r\nsomething must be risked. It might be that Clara would not come\r\nwhen invited, and in that case her obstinacy would be a great point\r\ngained."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And if she did come--! Well; Lady Aylmer admitted to herself\r\nthat the game would be difficult,--difficult and very troublesome;\r\nbut yet it might be played, and perhaps won. Lady Aylmer was a woman\r\nwho had great confidence in herself. Not so utterly had victory in\r\nsuch contests deserted her hands, that she need fear to break a lance\r\nwith Miss Amedroz beneath her own roof, when the occasion was so\r\npressing. The invitation was therefore sent in a note written by herself,\r\nand was enclosed in a letter from her son. After much consultation\r\nand many doubts on the subject, it was at last agreed that nothing\r\nfurther should now be urged about Mrs. Askerton. \"She shall have her\r\nchance,\" said Lady Aylmer over and over again, repeating her son's\r\nwords. \"She shall have her chance.\" Lady Aylmer, therefore, in her\r\nnote, confined herself strictly to the giving of the invitation, and\r\nto a suggestion that, as Clara had now no settled home of her own,\r\na temporary sojourn at Aylmer Park might be expedient. And Captain\r\nAylmer in his letter hardly said much more. He knew, as he wrote the\r\nwords, that they were cold and comfortless, and that he ought on such\r\nan occasion to have written words that should have been warm at any\r\nrate, even though they might not have contained comfort."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, to\r\nhave written with affection, he should have written at once, and he\r\nhad postponed his letter from the Sunday till the Wednesday. It had\r\nbeen absolutely necessary that that important question as to the\r\ninvitation should be answered before he could write at all. When all this was settled he went up to London; and there was an\r\nunderstanding between him and his mother that he should return\r\nto Aylmer Park with Clara, in the event of her acceptance of the\r\ninvitation. \"You won't go down to Belton for her?\" said the mother. \"No;--I do not think that will be necessary,\" said the son. \"I should think not,\" said the mother. CHAPTER XX. WILLIAM BELTON DOES NOT GO OUT HUNTING. We will now follow the other message which was sent down into\r\nNorfolk, and which did not get into Belton's hands till the Monday\r\nmorning. He was sitting with his sister at breakfast, and was\r\nprepared for hunting, when the paper was brought into the room. Telegraphic messages were not very common at Plaistow Hall, and on\r\nthe arrival of any that had as yet reached that house, something\r\nof that awe had been felt with which such missives were always\r\naccompanied in their earliest days. \"A telegruff message, mum, for\r\nMr. William,\" said the maid, looking at her mistress with eyes opened\r\nwide, as she handed the important bit of paper to her master."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Will\r\nopened it rapidly, laying down the knife and fork with which he was\r\nabout to operate upon a ham before him. He was dressed in boots and\r\nbreeches, and a scarlet coat,--in which garb he was, in his sister's\r\neyes, the most handsome man in Norfolk. \"Oh, Mary!\" he exclaimed. \"What is it, Will?\" \"Mr. Amedroz is dead.\" Miss Belton put out her hand for the paper before she spoke again, as\r\nthough she could better appreciate the truth of what she heard when\r\nreading it herself on the telegraph slip than she had done from her\r\nbrother's words. \"How sudden! how terribly sudden!\" she said. \"Sudden indeed. When I left him he was not well, certainly, but I\r\nshould have said that he might have lived for twenty years. Poor old\r\nman! I can hardly say why it was so, but I had taken a liking to\r\nhim.\" \"You take a liking to everybody, Will.\" \"No I don't. I know people I don't like.\" Will Belton as he said this\r\nwas thinking of Captain Aylmer, and he pressed the heel of his boot\r\nhard against the floor. \"And Mr. Amedroz is dead! It seems to be so terribly sudden. What\r\nwill she do, Will?\" \"That's what I'm thinking about.\" \"Of course you are, my dear. I can see that. I wish,--I wish--\"\r\n\r\n\"It's no good wishing anything, Mary. I don't think wishing ever did\r\nany good yet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If I might have my wish, I shouldn't know how to have\r\nit.\" \"I was wishing that you didn't think so much about it.\" \"You need not be troubled about me. I shall do very well. But what is\r\nto become of her,--now at once? Might she not come here? You are now\r\nthe nearest female relation that she has.\" Mary looked at him with\r\nher anxious, painful eyes, and he knew by her look that she did not\r\napprove of his plan. \"I could go away,\" he continued. \"She could come\r\nto you without being troubled by seeing me. \"And where would you go, Will?\" \"What does it matter? To the devil, I suppose.\" \"Oh, Will, Will!\" \"You know what I mean. I'd go anywhere. Where is she to find a home\r\ntill,--till she is married?\" He had paused at the word; but was\r\ndetermined not to shrink from it, and bolted it out in a loud, sharp\r\ntone, so that both he and she recognised all the meaning of the\r\nword,--all that was conveyed in the idea. He hated himself when he\r\nendeavoured to conceal from his own mind any of the misery that was\r\ncoming upon him. He loved her. He could not get over it. The passion\r\nwas on him,--like a palsy, for the shaking off of which no sufficient\r\nphysical energy was left to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It clung to him in his goings out\r\nand comings in with a painful, wearing tenacity, against which he\r\nwould now and again struggle, swearing that it should be so no\r\nlonger,--but against which he always struggled in vain. It was with\r\nhim when he was hunting. He was ever thinking of it when the bird\r\nrose before his gun. As he watched the furrow, as his men and horses\r\nwould drive it straight and deep through the ground, he was thinking\r\nof her,--and not of the straightness and depth of the furrow, as had\r\nbeen his wont in former years. Then he would turn away his face, and\r\nstand alone in his field, blinded by the salt drops in his eyes,\r\nweeping at his own weakness. And when he was quite alone, he would\r\nstamp his foot on the ground, and throw abroad his arms, and curse\r\nhimself. What Nessus's shirt was this that had fallen upon him, and\r\nunmanned him from the sole of his foot to the top of his head? He\r\nwent through the occupations of the week. He hunted, and shot, and\r\ngave his orders, and paid his men their wages;--but he did it all\r\nwith a palsy of love upon him as he did it. He wanted her, and he\r\ncould not overcome the want. He could not bear to confess to himself\r\nthat the thing by which he had set so much store could never belong\r\nto him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His sister understood it all, and sometimes he was almost\r\nangry with her because of her understanding it. She sympathised with\r\nhim in all his moods, and sometimes he would shake away her sympathy\r\nas though it scalded him. \"Where is she to find a home till,--till\r\nshe is married?\" he said. Not a word had as yet been said between them about the property which\r\nwas now his estate. He was now Belton of Belton, and it must be\r\nsupposed that both he and she had remembered that it was so. But\r\nhitherto not a word had been said between them on that point. Now she\r\nwas compelled to allude to it. \"Cannot she live at the Castle for the\r\npresent?\" \"What;--all alone?\" \"Of course she is remaining there now.\" \"Yes,\" said he, \"of course she is there now. Now! Why, remember what\r\nthese telegraphic messages are. He died only on yesterday morning. Of course she is there, but I do not think it can be good that she\r\nshould remain there. There is no one near her where she is but that\r\nMrs. Askerton. It can hardly be good for her to have no other female\r\nfriend at such a time as this.\" \"I do not think that Mrs. Askerton will hurt her.\" \"Mrs. Askerton will not hurt her at all,--and as long as Clara does\r\nnot know the story, Mrs. Askerton may serve as well as another. But\r\nyet--\"\r\n\r\n\"Can I go to her, Will?\" \"No, dearest."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The journey would kill you in winter. And he would not\r\nlike it. We are bound to think of that for her sake,--cold-hearted,\r\nthankless, meagre-minded creature as I know he is.\" \"I do not know why he should be so bad.\" \"No, nor I. But I know that he is. Never mind. Why should we talk\r\nabout him? I suppose she'll have to go there,--to Aylmer Park. I\r\nsuppose they will send for her, and keep her there till it's all\r\nfinished. I'll tell you what, Mary,--I shall give her the place.\" \"What,--Belton Castle?\" \"Why not? Will it ever be of any good to you or me? Do you want to go\r\nand live there?\" \"No, indeed;--not for myself.\" \"And do you think that I could live there? Besides, why should she be\r\nturned out of her father's house?\" \"He would not be mean enough to take it.\" \"He would be mean enough for anything. Besides, I should take very\r\ngood care that it should be settled upon her.\" \"That's nonsense, Will;--it is indeed. You are now William Belton of\r\nBelton, and you must remain so.\" \"Mary,--I would sooner be Will Belton with Clara Amedroz by my side\r\nto get through the world with me, and not the interest of an acre\r\neither at Belton Castle or at Plaistow Hall! And I believe I should\r\nbe the richer man at the end,--if there were any good in that.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then\r\nhe went out of the room, and she heard him go through the kitchen,\r\nand knew that he passed out into the farm-yard, towards the stable,\r\nby the back-door. He intended, it seemed, to go on with his hunting\r\nin spite of this death which had occurred. She was sorry for it,\r\nbut she could not venture to stop him. And she was sorry also that\r\nnothing had been settled as to the writing of any letter to Clara. She, however, would take upon herself to write while he was gone. He went straight out towards the stables, hardly conscious of what he\r\nwas doing or where he was going, and found his hack ready saddled for\r\nhim in the stall. Then he remembered that he must either go or come\r\nto some decision that he would not go. The horse that he intended\r\nto ride had been sent on to the meet, and if he were not to be used,\r\nsome message must be despatched as to the animal's return. But Will\r\nwas half inclined to go, although he knew that the world would judge\r\nhim to be heartless if he were to go hunting immediately on the\r\nreceipt of the tidings which had reached him that morning. He thought\r\nthat he would like to set the world at defiance in this matter. Let\r\nFrederic Aylmer go into mourning for the old man who was dead."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Let\r\nFrederic Aylmer be solicitous for the daughter who was left lonely in\r\nthe old house. No doubt he, Will Belton, had inherited the dead man's\r\nestate, and should, therefore, in accordance with all the ordinary\r\nrules of the world on such matters, submit himself at any rate to the\r\ndecency of funereal reserve. An heir should not be seen out hunting\r\non the day on which such tidings as to his heritage had reached him. But he did not wish, in his present mood, to be recognised as the\r\nheir. He did not want the property. He would have preferred to rid\r\nhimself altogether of any of the obligations which the ownership of\r\nthe estate entailed upon him. It was not permitted to him to have the\r\ncustody of the old squire's daughter, and therefore he was unwilling\r\nto meddle with any of the old squire's concerns. Belton had gone into the stable, and had himself loosed the animal,\r\nleading him out into the yard as though he were about to mount him. Then he had given the reins to a stable boy, and had walked away\r\namong the farm buildings, not thinking of what he was doing. The lad\r\nstood staring at him with open mouth, not at all understanding his\r\nmaster's hesitation. The meet, as the boy knew, was fourteen miles\r\noff, and Belton had not allowed himself above an hour and a half for\r\nthe journey."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was his practice to jump into the saddle and bustle\r\nout of the place, as though seconds were important to him. He would\r\nlook at his watch with accuracy, and measure his pace from spot to\r\nspot, as though minutes were too valuable to be lost. But now he\r\nwandered away like one distraught, and the stable boy knew that\r\nsomething was wrong. \"I thout he was a thinken of the white cow as\r\nchoked 'erself with the tunnup that was skipped in the chopping,\"\r\nsaid the boy, as he spoke of his master afterwards to the old groom. At last, however, a thought seemed to strike Belton. \"Do you get on\r\nBrag,\" he said to the boy, \"and ride off to Goldingham Corner, and\r\ntell Daniel to bring the horse home again. I shan't hunt to-day. And\r\nI think I shall go away from home. If so, tell him to be sure the\r\nhorses are out every morning;--and tell him to stop their beans. I\r\nmightn't hunt again for the next month.\" Then he returned into the\r\nhouse, and went to the parlour in which his sister was sitting. \"I\r\nshan't go out to-day,\" he said. \"I thought you would not, Will,\" she answered. \"Not that I see any harm in it.\" \"I don't say that there is any harm, but it is as well on such\r\noccasions to do as others do.\" \"That's humbug, Mary.\" \"No, Will; I do not think that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When any practice has become the\r\nfixed rule of the society in which we live, it is always wise to\r\nadhere to that rule, unless it call upon us to do something that is\r\nactually wrong. One should not offend the prejudices of the world,\r\neven if one is quite sure that they are prejudices.\" \"It hasn't been that that has brought me back, Mary. I'll tell you\r\nwhat. I think I'll go down to Belton--after all.\" His sister did not know what to say in answer to this. Her chief\r\nanxiety was, of course, on behalf of her brother. That he should be\r\nmade to forget Clara Amedroz, if that were only possible, was her\r\ngreat desire; and his journey at such a time as this down to Belton\r\nwas not the way to accomplish such forgetting. And then she felt that\r\nClara might very possibly not wish to see him. Had Will simply been\r\nher cousin, such a visit might be very well; but he had attempted to\r\nbe more than her cousin, and therefore it would probably not be well. Captain Aylmer might not like it; and Mary felt herself bound to\r\nconsider even Captain Aylmer's likings in such a matter. And yet she\r\ncould not bear to oppose him in anything. \"It would be a very long\r\njourney,\" she said. \"What does that signify?\" \"And then it might so probably be for nothing.\" \"Why should it be for nothing?\" \"Because--\"\r\n\r\n\"Because what?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why don't you speak out? You need not be afraid of\r\nhurting me. Nothing that you can say can make it at all worse than it\r\nis.\" \"Dear Will, I wish I could make it better.\" \"But you can't. Nobody can make it either better or worse. I promised\r\nher once before that I would go to her when she might be in trouble,\r\nand I will be as good as my word. I said I would be a brother to\r\nher;--and so I will. So help me God, I will!\" Then he rushed out of\r\nthe room, striding through the door as though he would knock it down,\r\nand hurried up-stairs to his own chamber. When there he stripped\r\nhimself of his hunting things, and dressed himself again with all\r\nthe expedition in his power; and then he threw a heap of clothes\r\ninto a large portmanteau, and set himself to work packing as though\r\neverything in the world were to depend upon his catching a certain\r\ntrain. And he went to a locked drawer, and taking out a cheque-book,\r\nfolded it up and put it into his pocket. Then he rang the bell\r\nviolently; and as he was locking the portmanteau, pressing down the\r\nlid with all his weight and all his strength, he ordered that a\r\ncertain mare should be put into a certain dog-cart, and that somebody\r\nmight be ready to drive over with him to the Downham Station."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Within\r\ntwenty minutes of the time of his rushing up-stairs he appeared again\r\nbefore his sister with a great-coat on, and a railway rug hanging\r\nover his arm. \"Do you mean that you are going to-day?\" said she. \"Yes. I'll catch the 11.40 up-train at Downham. What's the good of\r\ngoing unless I go at once? If I can be of any use it will be at the\r\nfirst. It may be that she will have nobody there to do anything for\r\nher.\" \"There is the clergyman, and Colonel Askerton,--even if Captain\r\nAylmer has not gone down.\" \"The clergyman and Colonel Askerton are nothing to her. And if that\r\nman is there I can come back again.\" \"You will not quarrel with him?\" \"Why should I quarrel with him? What is there to quarrel about? I'm\r\nnot such a fool as to quarrel with a man because I hate him. If he\r\nis there I shall see her for a minute or two, and then I shall come\r\nback.\" \"I know it is no good my trying to dissuade you.\" \"None on earth. If you knew it all you would not try to dissuade me. Before I thought of asking her to be my wife,--and yet I thought of\r\nthat very soon;--but before I ever thought of that, I told her that\r\nwhen she wanted a brother's help I would give it her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Of course I was\r\nthinking of the property,--that she shouldn't be turned out of her\r\nfather's house like a beggar. I hadn't any settled plan then;--how\r\ncould I? But I meant her to understand that when her father died\r\nI would be the same to her that I am to you. If you were alone, in\r\ndistress, would I not go to you?\" \"But I have no one else, Will,\" said she, stretching out her hand to\r\nhim where he stood. \"That makes no difference,\" he replied, almost roughly. \"A promise is\r\na promise, and I resolved from the first that my promise should hold\r\ngood in spite of my disappointment. Dear, dear;--it seems but the\r\nother day when I made it,--and now, already, everything is changed.\" As he was speaking the servant entered the room, and told him that\r\nthe horse and gig were ready for him. \"I shall just do it nicely,\"\r\nsaid he, looking at his watch. \"I have over an hour. God bless you,\r\nMary. I shan't be away long. You may be sure of that.\" \"I don't suppose you can tell as yet, Will.\" \"What should keep me long? I shall see Green as I go by, and that is\r\nhalf of my errand. I dare say I shan't stay above a night down in\r\nSomersetshire.\" \"You'll have to give some orders about the estate.\" \"I shall not say a word on the subject,--to anybody; that is, not to\r\nanybody there."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am going to look after her, and not the estate.\" Then he stooped down and kissed his sister, and in another minute was\r\nturning the corner out of the farm-yard on to the road at a quick\r\npace, not losing a foot of ground in the turn, in that fashion of\r\nrapidity which the horses at Plaistow Hall soon learned from their\r\nmaster. The horse is a closely sympathetic beast, and will make his\r\nturns, and do his trottings, and comport himself generally in strict\r\nunison with the pulsations of his master's heart. When a horse won't\r\njump it is generally the case that the inner man is declining to jump\r\nalso, let the outer man seem ever so anxious to accomplish the feat. Belton, who was generally very communicative with his servants,\r\nalways talking to any man he might have beside him in his dog-cart\r\nabout the fields and cattle and tillage around him, said not a word\r\nto the boy who accompanied him on this occasion. He had a good\r\nmany things to settle in his mind before he got to London, and he\r\nbegan upon the work as soon as he had turned the corner out of the\r\nfarm-yard. As regarded this Belton estate, which was now altogether\r\nhis own, he had always had doubts and qualms,--qualms of feeling\r\nrather than of conscience; and he had, also, always entertained\r\na strong family ambition. His people, ever so far back, had been\r\nBeltons of Belton."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They told him that his family could be traced\r\nback to very early days,--before the Plantagenets, as he believed,\r\nthough on this point of the subject he was very hazy in his\r\ninformation,--and he liked the idea of being the man by whom the\r\nfamily should be reconstructed in its glory. Worldly circumstances\r\nhad been so kind to him, that he could take up the Belton estate with\r\nmore of the prestige of wealth than had belonged to any of the owners\r\nof the place for many years past. Should it come to pass that living\r\nthere would be desirable, he could rebuild the old house, and make\r\nnew gardens, and fit himself out with all the pleasant braveries of\r\na well-to-do English squire. There need be no pinching and scraping,\r\nno question whether a carriage would be possible, no doubt as to\r\nthe prudence of preserving game. All this had given much that was\r\ndelightful to his prospects. And he had, too, been instigated by a\r\nsomewhat weak desire to emerge from that farmer's rank into which he\r\nknew that many connected with him had supposed him to have sunk. It\r\nwas true that he farmed land that was half his own,--and that, even\r\nat Plaistow, he was a wealthy man; but Plaistow Hall, with all its\r\ncomforts, was a farm-house; and the ambition to be more than a farmer\r\nhad been strong upon him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But then there had been the feeling that in taking the Belton estate\r\nhe would be robbing his cousin Clara of all that should have been\r\nhers. It must be remembered that he had not been brought up in the\r\nbelief that he would ever become the owner of Belton. All his high\r\nambition in that matter had originated with the wretched death of\r\nClara's brother. Could he bring himself to take it all with pleasure,\r\nseeing that it came to him by so sad a chance,--by a catastrophe so\r\ndeplorable? When he would think of this, his mind would revolt from\r\nits own desires, and he would declare to himself that his inheritance\r\nwould come to him with a stain of blood upon it. He, indeed, would\r\nhave been guiltless; but how could he take his pleasure in the shades\r\nof Belton without thinking of the tragedy which had given him the\r\nproperty? Such had been the thoughts and desires, mixed in their\r\nnature and militating against each other, which had induced him to\r\noffer his first visit to his cousin's house. We know what was the\r\neffect of that visit, and by what pleasant scheme he had endeavoured\r\nto overcome all his difficulties, and so to become master of Belton\r\nthat Clara Amedroz should also be its mistress. There had been a way\r\nwhich, after two days' intimacy with Clara, seemed to promise him\r\ncomfort and happiness on all sides."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he had come too late, and\r\nthat way was closed against him! Now the estate was his, and what was\r\nhe to do with it? Clara belonged to his rival, and in what way would\r\nit become him to treat her? He was still thinking simply of the\r\ncruelty of the circumstances which had thrown Captain Aylmer between\r\nhim and his cousin, when he drove himself up to the railway station\r\nat Downham. \"Take her back steady, Jem,\" he said to the boy. \"I'll be sure to take her wery steady,\" Jem answered. \"And tell Compton to have the samples of barley ready for me. I may\r\nbe back any day, and we shall be sowing early this spring.\" Then he left his cart, followed the porter who had taken his luggage\r\neagerly, knowing that Mr. Belton was always good for sixpence, and in\r\nfive minutes' time he was again in motion. On his arrival in London he drove at once to the chambers of his\r\nfriend, Mr. Green, and luckily found the lawyer there. Had he missed\r\ndoing this, it was his intention to go out to his friend's house; and\r\nin that case he could not have gone down to Taunton till the next\r\nmorning; but now he would be able to say what he wished to say, and\r\nhear what he wished to hear, and would travel down by the night-mail\r\ntrain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was anxious that Clara should feel that he had hurried\r\nto her without a moment's delay. It would do no good. He knew that. Nothing that he could do would alter her, or be of any service to\r\nhim. She had accepted this man, and had herself no power of making\r\na change, even if she should wish it. But still there was to him\r\nsomething of gratification in the idea that she should be made\r\nto feel that he, Belton, was more instant in his affection, more\r\nurgent in his good offices, more anxious to befriend her in her\r\ndifficulties, than the man whom she had consented to take for her\r\nhusband. Aylmer would probably go down to Belton, but Will was very\r\nanxious to be the first on the ground,--very anxious,--though his\r\ndoing so could be of no use. All this was wrong on his part. He knew\r\nthat it was wrong, and he abused himself for his own selfishness. But\r\nsuch self-abuse gave him no aid in escaping from his own wickedness. He would, if possible, be at Belton before Captain Aylmer; and he\r\nwould, if possible, make Clara feel that, though he was not a member\r\nof Parliament, though he was not much given to books, though he was\r\nonly a farmer, yet he had at any rate as much heart and spirit as the\r\nfine gentleman whom she preferred to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I thought I should see you,\" said the lawyer; \"but I hardly expected\r\nyou so soon as this.\" \"I ought to have been a day sooner, only we don't get our telegraphic\r\nmessages on a Sunday.\" He still kept his great-coat on; and it seemed\r\nby his manner that he had no intention of staying where he was above\r\na minute or two. \"You'll come out and dine with me to-day?\" said Mr. Green. \"I can't do that, for I shall go down by the mail train.\" \"I never saw such a fellow in my life. What good will that do? It is\r\nquite right that you should be there in time for the funeral; but I\r\ndon't suppose he will be buried before this day week.\" But Belton had never thought about the funeral. When he had spoken to\r\nhis sister of saying but a few words to Clara and then returning, he\r\nhad forgotten that there would be any such ceremony, or that he would\r\nbe delayed by any such necessity. \"I was not thinking about the funeral,\" said Belton. \"You'll only find yourself uncomfortable there.\" \"Of course I shall be uncomfortable.\" \"You can't do anything about the property, you know.\" \"What do you mean by doing anything?\" said Belton, in an angry tone. \"You can't very well take possession of the place, at any rate, till\r\nafter the funeral. It would not be considered the proper thing to\r\ndo.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You think, then, that I'm a bird of prey, smelling the feast from\r\nafar off, and hurrying at the dead man's carcase as soon as the\r\nbreath is out of his body?\" \"I don't think anything of the kind, my dear fellow.\" \"Yes, you do, or you wouldn't talk to me about doing the proper\r\nthing! I don't care a straw about the proper thing! If I find that\r\nthere's anything to be done to-morrow that can be of any use, I shall\r\ndo it, though all Somersetshire should think it improper! But I'm not\r\ngoing to look after my own interests!\" \"Take off your coat and sit down, Will, and don't look so angry at\r\nme. I know that you're not greedy, well enough. Tell me what you are\r\ngoing to do, and let me see if I can help you.\" Belton did as he was told; he pulled off his coat and sat himself\r\ndown by the fire. \"I don't know that you can do anything to help\r\nme,--at least, not as yet. But I must go and see after her. Perhaps\r\nshe may be all alone.\" \"I suppose she is all alone.\" \"He hasn't gone down, then?\" \"Who;--Captain Aylmer? No;--he hasn't gone down, certainly. He is in\r\nYorkshire.\" \"I'm glad of that!\" \"He won't hurry himself. He never does, I fancy. I had a letter from\r\nhim this morning about Miss Amedroz.\" \"And what did he say?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"He desired me to send her seventy-five pounds,--the interest of her\r\naunt's money.\" \"Seventy-five pounds!\" said Will Belton, contemptuously. \"He thought she might want money at once; and I sent her the cheque\r\nto-day. It will go down by the same train that carries you.\" \"Seventy-five pounds! And you are sure that he has not gone himself?\" \"It isn't likely that he should have written to me, and passed\r\nthrough London himself, at the same time;--but it is possible, no\r\ndoubt. I don't think he even knew the old squire; and there is no\r\nreason why he should go to the funeral.\" \"No reason at all,\" said Belton,--who felt that Captain Aylmer's\r\npresence at the Castle would be an insult to himself. \"I don't know\r\nwhat on earth he should do there,--except that I think him just the\r\nfellow to intrude where he is not wanted.\" And yet Will was in his\r\nheart despising Captain Aylmer because he had not already hurried\r\ndown to the assistance of the girl whom he professed to love. \"He is engaged to her, you know,\" said the lawyer, in a low voice. \"What difference does that make with such a fellow as he is, a\r\ncold-blooded fish of a man, who thinks of nothing in the world but\r\nbeing respectable? Engaged to her! Oh, damn him!\" \"I've not the slightest objection. I don't think, however, that\r\nyou'll find him at Belton before you."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No doubt she will have heard\r\nfrom him; and it strikes me as very possible that she may go to\r\nAylmer Park.\" \"What should she go there for?\" \"Would it not be the best place for her?\" \"No. My house would be the best place for her. I am her nearest\r\nrelative. Why should she not come to us?\" Mr. Green turned round his chair and poked the fire, and fidgeted\r\nabout for some moments before he answered. \"My dear fellow, you must\r\nknow that that wouldn't do.\" He then said, \"You ought to feel that it\r\nwouldn't do;--you ought indeed.\" \"Why shouldn't my sister receive Miss Amedroz as well as that old\r\nwoman down in Yorkshire?\" \"If I may tell you, I will.\" \"Of course you may tell me.\" \"Because Miss Amedroz is engaged to be married to that old woman's\r\nson, and is not engaged to be married to your sister's brother. The\r\nthing is done, and what is the good of interfering. As far as she is\r\nconcerned, a great burden is off your hands.\" \"What do you mean by a burden?\" \"I mean that her engagement to Captain Aylmer makes it unnecessary\r\nfor you to suppose that she is in want of any pecuniary assistance. You told me once before that you would feel yourself called upon to\r\nsee that she wanted nothing.\" \"So I do now.\" \"But Captain Aylmer will look after that.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I tell you what it is, Joe; I mean to settle the Belton property\r\nin such a way that she shall have it, and that he shan't be\r\nable to touch it. And it shall go to some one who shall have my\r\nname,--William Belton. That's what I want you to arrange for me.\" \"After you are dead, you mean.\" \"I mean now, at once. I won't take the estate from her. I hate the\r\nplace and everything belonging to it. I don't mean her. There is no\r\nreason for hating her.\" \"My dear Will, you are talking nonsense.\" \"Why is it nonsense? I may give what belongs to me to whom I please.\" \"You can do nothing of the kind;--at any rate, not by my assistance. You talk as though the world were all over with you,--as though you\r\nwere never to be married or have any children of your own.\" \"I shall never marry.\" \"Nonsense, Will. Don't make such an ass of yourself as to suppose\r\nthat you'll not get over such a thing as this. You'll be married and\r\nhave a dozen children yet to provide for. Let the eldest have Belton\r\nCastle, and everything will go on then in the proper way.\" Belton had now got the poker into his hands, and sat silent for some\r\ntime, knocking the coals about. Then he got up, and took his hat, and\r\nput on his coat."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Of course I can't make you understand me,\" he said;\r\n\"at any rate not all at once. I'm not such a fool as to want to give\r\nup my property just because a girl is going to be married to a man I\r\ndon't like. I'm not such an ass as to give him my estate for such a\r\nreason as that;--for it will be giving it to him, let me tie it up\r\nas I may. But I've a feeling about it which makes it impossible for\r\nme to take it. How would you like to get a thing by another fellow\r\nhaving destroyed himself?\" \"You can't help that. It's yours by law.\" \"Of course it is. I know that. And as it's mine I can do what I like\r\nwith it. Well;--good-bye. When I've got anything to say, I'll write.\" Then he went down to his cab and had himself driven to the Great\r\nWestern Railway Hotel. Captain Aylmer had sent to his betrothed seventy-five pounds; the\r\nexact interest at five per cent. for one year of the sum which his\r\naunt had left her. This was the first subject of which Belton thought\r\nwhen he found himself again in the railway carriage, and he continued\r\nthinking of it half the way down to Taunton. Seventy-five pounds! As though this favoured lover were prepared to give her exactly her\r\ndue, and nothing more than her due!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had he been so placed, he, Will\r\nBelton, what would he have done? Seventy-five pounds might have\r\nbeen more money than she would have wanted, for he would have taken\r\nher to his own house,--to his own bosom, as soon as she would have\r\npermitted, and would have so laboured on her behalf, taking from her\r\nshoulders all money troubles, that there would have been no question\r\nas to principal or interest between them. At any rate he would not\r\nhave confined himself to sending to her the exact sum which was her\r\ndue. But then Aylmer was a cold-blooded man,--more like a fish than a\r\nman. Belton told himself over and over again that he had discovered\r\nthat at the single glance which he had had when he saw Captain Aylmer\r\nin Green's chambers. Seventy-five pounds indeed! He himself was\r\nprepared to give his whole estate to her, if she would take it,--even\r\nthough she would not marry him, even though she was going to throw\r\nherself away upon that fish! Then he felt somewhat as Hamlet did when\r\nhe jumped upon Laertes at the grave of Ophelia. Send her seventy-five\r\npounds indeed, while he was ready to drink up Esil for her, or to\r\nmake over to her the whole Belton estate, and thus abandon the idea\r\nfor ever of being Belton of Belton!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "He reached Taunton in the middle of the night,--during the small\r\nhours of the morning in a winter night; but yet he could not bring\r\nhimself to go to bed. So he knocked up an ostler at the nearest inn,\r\nand ordered out a gig. He would go down to the village of Redicote,\r\non the Minehead road, and put up at the public-house there. He could\r\nnot now have himself driven at once to Belton Castle, as he would\r\nhave done had the old squire been alive. He fancied that his presence\r\nwould be a nuisance if he did so. So he went to the little inn at\r\nRedicote, reaching that place between four and five o'clock in the\r\nmorning; and very uncomfortable he was when he got there. But in his\r\npresent frame of mind he preferred discomfort. He liked being tired\r\nand cold, and felt, when he was put into a chill room, without fire,\r\nand with a sanded floor, that things with him were as they ought to\r\nbe. Yes,--he could have a fly over to Belton Castle after breakfast. Having learned so much, and ordered a dish of eggs and bacon for his\r\nmorning's breakfast, he went up-stairs to a miserable little bedroom,\r\nto dress himself after his night's journey. CHAPTER XXI. MRS. ASKERTON'S GENEROSITY. The death of the old man at Belton Castle had been very sudden."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At\r\nthree o'clock in the morning Clara had been called into his room, and\r\nat five o'clock she was alone in the world,--having neither father,\r\nmother, nor brother; without a home, without a shilling that she\r\ncould call her own;--with no hope as to her future life, if,--as she\r\nhad so much reason to suppose,--Captain Aylmer should have chosen to\r\naccept her last letter as a ground for permanent separation. But at\r\nthis moment, on this saddest morning, she did not care much for that\r\nchance. It seemed to be almost indifferent to her, that question of\r\nLady Aylmer and her anger. The more that she was absolutely in need\r\nof external friendship, the more disposed was she to reject it, and\r\nto declare to herself that she was prepared to stand alone in the\r\nworld. For the last week she had understood from the doctor that her father\r\nwas in truth sinking, and that she might hardly hope ever to see him\r\nagain convalescent. She had therefore in some sort prepared herself\r\nfor her loneliness, and anticipated the misery of her position. As\r\nsoon as it was known to the women in the room that life had left the\r\nold man, one of them had taken her by the hand and led her back to\r\nher own chamber. \"Now, Miss Clara, you had better lie down on the bed\r\nagain;--you had indeed; you can do nothing sitting up.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "She took the\r\nold woman's advice, and allowed them to do with her as they would. It\r\nwas true that there was no longer any work by which she could make\r\nherself useful in that house,--in that house, or, as far as she could\r\nsee, in any other. Yes; she would go to bed, and lying there would\r\nfeel how convenient it would be for many persons if she also could\r\nbe taken away to her long rest, as her father, and aunt, and brother\r\nhad been taken before her. Her name and family had been unfortunate,\r\nand it would be well that there should be no Amedroz left to trouble\r\nthose more fortunate persons who were to come after them. In her\r\nsorrow and bitterness she included both her cousin Will and Captain\r\nAylmer among those more fortunate ones for whose sake it might be\r\nwell that she should be made to vanish from off the earth. She\r\nhad read Captain Aylmer's letter over and over again since she\r\nhad answered it, and had read nearly as often the copy of her own\r\nreply,--and had told herself, as she read them, that of course he\r\nwould not forgive her. He might perhaps pardon her, if she would\r\nsubmit to him in everything; but that she would not submit to his\r\ncommands respecting Mrs. Askerton she was fully resolved,--and,\r\ntherefore, there could be no hope."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then, when she remembered how\r\nlately her dear father's spirit had fled, she hated herself for\r\nhaving allowed her mind to dwell on anything beyond her loss of him. She was still in her bedroom, having fallen into that half-waking\r\nslumber which the numbness of sorrow so often produces, when word\r\nwas brought to her that Mrs. Askerton was in the house. It was\r\nthe first time that Mrs. Askerton had ever crossed the door, and\r\nthe remembrance that it was so came upon her at once. During her\r\nfather's lifetime it had seemed to be understood that their neighbour\r\nshould have no admittance there;--but now,--now that her father was\r\ngone,--the barrier was to be overthrown. And why not? Why should not\r\nMrs. Askerton come to her? Why, if Mrs. Askerton chose to be kind to\r\nher, should she not altogether throw herself into her friend's arms? Of course her doing so would give mortal offence to everybody at\r\nAylmer Park; but why need she stop to think of that? She had already\r\nmade up her mind that she would not obey orders from Aylmer Park on\r\nthis subject. She had not seen Mrs. Askerton since that interview between them\r\nwhich was described some few chapters back. Then everything had been\r\ntold between them, so that there was no longer any mystery either on\r\nthe one side or on the other."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then Clara had assured her friend of\r\nher loving friendship in spite of any edicts to the contrary which\r\nmight come from Aylmer Park; and after that what could be more\r\nnatural than that Mrs. Askerton should come to her in her sorrow. \"She says she'll come up to you if you'll let her,\" said the servant. But Clara declined this proposition, and in a few minutes went down\r\nto the small parlour in which she had lately lived, and where she\r\nfound her visitor. \"My poor dear, this has been very sudden,\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"Very sudden;--very sudden. And yet, now that he has gone, I know\r\nthat I expected it.\" \"Of course I came to you as soon as I heard of it, because I knew\r\nyou were all alone. If there had been any one else I should not have\r\ncome.\" \"It is very good of you.\" \"Colonel Askerton thought that perhaps he had better come. I told him\r\nof all that which we said to each other the other day. He thought at\r\nfirst that it would be better that I should not see you.\" \"It was very good of you to come,\" said Clara again, and as she spoke\r\nshe put out her hand and took Mrs. Askerton's,--continuing to hold it\r\nfor awhile; \"very good indeed.\" \"I told him that I could not but go down to you,--that I thought you\r\nwould not understand it if I stayed away.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"At any rate it was good of you to come to me.\" \"I don't believe,\" said Mrs. Askerton, \"that what people call\r\nconsolation is ever of any use. It is a terrible thing to lose a\r\nfather.\" \"Very terrible. Ah, dear, I have hardly yet found out how sad it is. As yet I have only been thinking of myself, and wishing that I could\r\nbe with him.\" \"Nay, Clara.\" \"How can I help it? What am I to do, or where am I to go? Of what use\r\nis life to such a one as me? And for him,--who would dare to wish him\r\nback again? When people have fallen and gone down in the world it is\r\nbad for them to go on living. Everything is a trouble, and there is\r\nnothing but vexation.\" \"Think what I have suffered, dear.\" \"But you have had somebody to care for you,--somebody whom you could\r\ntrust.\" \"And have not you?\" \"No; no one.\" \"What do you mean, Clara?\" \"I mean what I say. I have no one. It is no use asking\r\nquestions,--not now, at such a time as this. And I did not mean to\r\ncomplain. Complaining is weak and foolish. I have often told myself\r\nthat I could bear anything, and so I will. When I can bring myself to\r\nthink of what I have lost in my father I shall be better, even though\r\nI shall be more sorrowful."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As it is, I hate myself for being so\r\nselfish.\" \"You will let me come and stay with you to-day, will you not?\" \"No, dear; not to-day.\" \"Why not to-day, Clara?\" \"I shall be better alone. I have so many things to think of.\" \"I know well that it would be better that you should not be\r\nalone,--much better. But I will not press it. I cannot insist with\r\nyou as another woman would.\" \"You are wrong there; quite wrong. I would be led by you sooner than\r\nby any woman living. What other woman is there to whom I would listen\r\nfor a moment?\" As she said this, even in the depth of her sorrow she\r\nthought of Lady Aylmer, and strengthened herself in her resolution to\r\nrebel against her lover's mother. Then she continued, \"I wish I knew\r\nmy cousin Mary,--Mary Belton; but I have never seen her.\" \"Is she nice?\" \"So Will tells me; and I know that what he says must be true,--even\r\nabout his sister.\" \"Will, Will! You are always thinking of your cousin Will. If he be\r\nreally so good he will show it now.\" \"How can he show it? What can he do?\" \"Does he not inherit all the property?\" \"Of course he does. And what of that? When I say that I have no\r\nfriend I am not thinking of my poverty.\" \"If he has that regard for you which he pretends, he can do much to\r\nassist you."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why should he not come here at once?\" \"God forbid.\" \"Why? Why do you say so? He is your nearest relative.\" \"If you do not understand I cannot explain.\" \"Has he been told what has happened?\" Mrs. Askerton asked. \"Colonel Askerton sent a message to him, I believe.\" \"And to Captain Aylmer also?\" \"Yes; and to Captain Aylmer. It was Colonel Askerton who sent it.\" \"Then he will come, of course.\" \"I think not. Why should he come? He did not even know poor papa.\" \"But, my dear Clara, has he not known you?\" \"You will see that he will not come. And I tell you beforehand that\r\nhe will be right to stay away. Indeed, I do not know how he could\r\ncome;--and I do not want him here.\" \"I cannot understand you, Clara.\" \"I suppose not. I cannot very well understand myself.\" \"I should not be at all surprised if Lady Aylmer were to come\r\nherself.\" \"Oh, heavens! How little you can know of Lady Aylmer's position and\r\ncharacter!\" \"But if she is to be your mother-in-law?\" \"And even if she were! The idea of Lady Aylmer coming away from\r\nAylmer Park,--all the way from Yorkshire, to such a house as this! If\r\nthey told me that the Queen was coming it would hardly disconcert me\r\nmore. But, dear, there is no danger of that at least.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I do not know what may have passed between you and him; but unless\r\nthere has been some quarrel he will come. That is, he will do so if\r\nhe is at all like any men whom I have known.\" \"He will not come.\" Then Mrs. Askerton made some half-whispered offers of services to\r\nbe rendered by Colonel Askerton, and soon afterwards took her leave,\r\nhaving first asked permission to come again in the afternoon, and\r\nwhen that was declined, having promised to return on the following\r\nmorning. As she walked back to the cottage she could not but think\r\nmore of Clara's engagement to Captain Aylmer than she did of the\r\nsquire's death. As regarded herself, of course she could not grieve\r\nfor Mr. Amedroz; and as regarded Clara, Clara's father had for some\r\ntime past been apparently so insignificant, even in his own house,\r\nthat it was difficult to acknowledge the fact that the death of such\r\na one as he might leave a great blank in the world. But what had\r\nClara meant by declaring so emphatically that Captain Aylmer would\r\nnot visit Belton, and by speaking of herself as one who had neither\r\nposition nor friends in the world? If there had been a quarrel,\r\nindeed, then it was sufficiently intelligible;--and if there was any\r\nsuch quarrel, from what source must it have arisen?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Askerton\r\nfelt the blood rise to her cheeks as she thought of this, and told\r\nherself that there could be but one such source. Mrs. Askerton knew\r\nthat Clara had received orders from Aylmer Castle to discontinue all\r\nacquaintance with herself, and, therefore, there could be no doubt\r\nas to the cause of the quarrel. It had come to this then, that Clara\r\nwas to lose her husband because she was true to her friend; or rather\r\nbecause she would not consent to cast an additional stone at one who\r\nfor some years past had become a mark for many stones. I am not prepared to say that Mrs. Askerton was a high-minded woman. Misfortunes had come upon her in life of a sort which are too apt to\r\nquench high nobility of mind in woman. There are calamities which,\r\nby their natural tendencies, elevate the character of women and\r\nadd strength to the growth of feminine virtues;--but then, again,\r\nthere are other calamities which few women can bear without some\r\ndegradation, without some injury to that delicacy and tenderness\r\nwhich is essentially necessary to make a woman charming,--as a woman. In this, I think, the world is harder to women than to men; that a\r\nwoman often loses much by the chance of adverse circumstances which\r\na man only loses by his own misconduct."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That there are women whom no\r\ncalamity can degrade is true enough;--and so it is true that there\r\nare some men who are heroes; but such are exceptions both among men\r\nand women. Not such a one had Mrs. Askerton been. Calamity had come\r\nupon her;--partly, indeed, by her own fault, though that might have\r\nbeen pardoned;--but the weight of her misfortunes had been too great\r\nfor her strength, and she had become in some degree hardened by what\r\nshe had endured; if not unfeminine, still she was feminine in an\r\ninferior degree, with womanly feelings of a lower order. And she had\r\nlearned to intrigue, not being desirous of gaining aught by dishonest\r\nintriguing, but believing that she could only hold her own by\r\ncarrying on her battle after that fashion. In all this I am speaking\r\nof the general character of the woman, and am not alluding to the\r\none sin which she had committed. Thus, when she had first become\r\nacquainted with Miss Amedroz, her conscience had not rebuked her\r\nin that she was deceiving her new friend. When asked casually in\r\nconversation as to her maiden name, she had not blushed as she\r\nanswered the question with a falsehood. When, unfortunately, the\r\nname of her first husband had in some way made itself known to Clara\r\nshe had been ready again with some prepared fib."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And when she had\r\nrecognised William Belton, she had thought that the danger to herself\r\nof having any one near her who might know her, quite justified her\r\nin endeavouring to create ill-will between Clara and her cousin. \"Self-preservation is the first law of nature,\" she would have\r\nsaid; and would have failed to remember, as she did always fail to\r\nremember,--that nature does not require by any of its laws that\r\nself-preservation should be aided by falsehood. But though she was not high-minded, so also was she not ungenerous;\r\nand now, as she began to understand that Clara was sacrificing\r\nherself because of that promise which had been given when they two\r\nhad stood together at the window in the cottage drawing-room, she\r\nwas capable of feeling more for her friend than for herself. She was\r\ncapable even of telling herself that it was cruel on her part even\r\nto wish for any continuance of Clara's acquaintance. \"I have made\r\nmy bed, and I must lie upon it,\" she said to herself; and then she\r\nresolved that, instead of going up to the house on the following\r\nday, she would write to Clara, and put an end to the intimacy which\r\nexisted between them. \"The world is hard, and harsh, and unjust,\" she\r\nsaid, still speaking to herself. \"But that is not her fault; I will\r\nnot injure her because I have been injured myself.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Colonel Askerton was up at the house on the same day, but he did\r\nnot ask for Miss Amedroz, nor did she see him. Nobody else came to\r\nthe house then, or on the following morning, or on that afternoon,\r\nthough Clara did not fail to tell herself that Captain Aylmer might\r\nhave been there if he had chosen to take the journey and to leave\r\nhome as soon as he had received the message; and she made the same\r\ncalculation as to her cousin Will,--though in that calculation, as we\r\nknow, she was wrong. These two days had been very desolate with her,\r\nand she had begun to look forward to Mrs. Askerton's coming,--when\r\ninstead of that there came a messenger with a letter from the\r\ncottage. \"You can do as you like, my dear,\" Colonel Askerton had said on the\r\nprevious evening to his wife. He had listened to all she had been\r\nsaying without taking his eyes from off his newspaper, though she had\r\nspoken with much eagerness. \"But that is not enough. You should say more to me than that.\" \"Now I think you are unreasonable. For myself, I do not care how this\r\nmatter goes; nor do I care one straw what any tongues may say. They\r\ncannot reach me, excepting so far as they may reach me through you.\" \"But you should advise me.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I always do,--copiously, when I think that I know better than you;\r\nbut in this matter I feel so sure that you know better than I, that I\r\ndon't wish to suggest anything.\" Then he went on with his newspaper,\r\nand she sat for a while looking at him, as though she expected that\r\nsomething more would be said. But nothing more was said, and she was\r\nleft entirely to her own guidance. Since the days in which her troubles had come upon Mrs. Askerton,\r\nClara Amedroz was the first female friend who had come near her\r\nto comfort her, and she was very loth to abandon such comfort. There had, too, been something more than comfort, something almost\r\napproaching to triumph, when she found that Clara had clung to her\r\nwith affection after hearing the whole story of her life. Though\r\nher conscience had not pricked her while she was exercising all her\r\nlittle planned deceits, she had not taken much pleasure in them. How\r\nshould any one take pleasure in such work? Many of us daily deceive\r\nour friends, and are so far gone in deceit that the deceit alone is\r\nhardly painful to us. But the need of deceiving a friend is always\r\npainful. The treachery is easy; but to be treacherous to those\r\nwe love is never easy,--never easy, even though it be so common."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There had been a double delight to this poor woman in the near\r\nneighbourhood of Clara Amedroz since there had ceased to be any\r\nnecessity for falsehood on her part. But now, almost before her joy\r\nhad commenced, almost before she had realised the sweetness of her\r\ntriumph, had come upon her this task of doing that herself which\r\nClara in her generosity had refused to do. \"I have made my bed and I\r\nmust lie upon it,\" she said. And then, instead of going down to the\r\nhouse as she had promised, she wrote the following letter to Miss\r\nAmedroz:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   The Cottage, Monday. DEAREST CLARA,--I need not tell you that I write as I do\r\n   now with a bleeding heart. A few days since I should have\r\n   laughed at any woman who used such a phrase of herself,\r\n   and declared her to be an affected fool; but now I know\r\n   how true such a word may be. My heart is bleeding, and\r\n   I feel myself to be overcome by my disgrace. You told\r\n   me that I did not understand you yesterday. Of course I\r\n   understood you. Of course I know how it all is, and why\r\n   you spoke as you did of Captain Aylmer. He has chosen to\r\n   think that you could not know me without pollution, and\r\n   has determined that you must give up either me or him. Though he has judged me I am not going to judge him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The\r\n   world is on his side; and, perhaps, he is right. He knows\r\n   nothing of my trials and difficulties,--and why should\r\n   he? I do not blame him for demanding that his future wife\r\n   shall not be intimate with a woman who is supposed to have\r\n   lost her fitness for the society of women. At any rate, dearest, you must obey him,--and we will see\r\n   each other no more. I am quite sure that I should be very\r\n   wicked were I to allow you to injure your position in life\r\n   on my account. You at any rate love him, and would be\r\n   happy with him, and as you are engaged to him, you have no\r\n   just ground for resenting his interference. You will understand me now as well as though I were to\r\n   fill sheets and sheets of paper with what I could say\r\n   on the subject. The simple fact is, that you and I must\r\n   forget each other, or simply remember one another as past\r\n   friends. You will know in a day or two what your plans\r\n   are. If you remain here, we will go away. If you go away,\r\n   we will remain here;--that is, if your cousin will keep\r\n   us as tenants. I do not of course know what you may have\r\n   written to Captain Aylmer since our interview up here,\r\n   but I beg that you will write to him now, and make him\r\n   understand that he need have no fears in respect of me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You may send him this letter if you will. Oh, dear! if you\r\n   could know what I suffer as I write this. I feel that I owe you an apology for harassing you on such\r\n   a subject at such a time; but I know that I ought not to\r\n   lose a day in telling you that you are to see nothing more\r\n   of the friend who has loved you. MARY ASKERTON. Clara's first impulse on receiving this letter was to go off at once\r\nto the cottage, and insist on her privilege of choosing her own\r\nfriends. If she preferred Mrs. Askerton to Captain Aylmer, that was\r\nno one's business but her own. And she would have done so had she not\r\nbeen afraid of meeting with Colonel Askerton. To him she would not\r\nhave known how to speak on such a subject;--nor would she have known\r\nhow to conduct herself at the cottage without speaking of it. And\r\nthen, after a while, she felt that were she to do so,--should she\r\nnow deliberately determine to throw herself into Mrs. Askerton's\r\narms,--she must at the same time give up all idea of becoming Captain\r\nAylmer's wife. As she thought of this she asked herself various\r\nquestions concerning him, which she did not find it easy to answer. Did she wish to be his wife? Could she assure herself that if they\r\nwere married they would make each other happy? Did she love him?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She\r\nwas still able to declare to herself that the answer to the last\r\nquestion should be an affirmative; but, nevertheless, she thought\r\nthat she could give him up without great unhappiness. And when she\r\nbegan to think of Lady Aylmer, and to remember that Frederic Aylmer's\r\nimperative demands upon her obedience had, in all probability, been\r\ndictated by his mother, she was again anxious to go at once to the\r\ncottage, and declare that she would not submit to any interference\r\nwith her own judgment. On the next morning the postman brought to her a letter which was of\r\nmuch moment to her,--but he brought to her also tidings which moved\r\nher more even than the letter. The letter was from the lawyer,\r\nand enclosed a cheque for seventy-five pounds, which he had been\r\ninstructed to pay to her, as the interest of the money left to her\r\nby her aunt. What should be her answer to that letter she knew very\r\nwell,--and she instantly wrote it, sending back the cheque to Mr.\r\nGreen. The postman's news, more important than the letter, told her\r\nthat William Belton was at the inn at Redicote. CHAPTER XXII. PASSIONATE PLEADING. Clara wrote her letter to the lawyer, returning the cheque, before\r\nshe would allow herself a moment to dwell upon the news of her\r\ncousin's arrival."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She felt that it was necessary to do that before\r\nshe should even see her cousin,--thus providing against any\r\ndifficulty which might arise from adverse advice on his part; and as\r\nsoon as the letter was written she sent it to the post-office in the\r\nvillage. She would do almost anything that Will might tell her to do,\r\nbut Captain Aylmer's money she would not take, even though Will might\r\nso direct her. They would tell her, no doubt, among them, that the\r\nmoney was her own,--that she might take it without owing any thanks\r\nfor it to Captain Aylmer. But she knew better than that,--as she\r\ntold herself over and over again. Her aunt had left her nothing, and\r\nnothing would she have from Captain Aylmer,--unless she had all that\r\nCaptain Aylmer had to give, after the fashion in which women best\r\nlove to take such gifts. Then, when she had done that, she was able to think of her cousin's\r\nvisit. \"I knew he would come,\" she said to herself, as she sat\r\nherself in one of the old chairs in the hall, with a large shawl\r\nwrapped round her shoulders."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had just been to the front door,\r\nwith the nominal purpose of despatching her messenger thence to the\r\npost-office; but she had stood for a minute or two under the portico,\r\nlooking in the direction by which Belton would come from Redicote,\r\nexpecting, or rather hoping, that she might see his figure or hear\r\nthe sound of his gig. But she saw nothing and heard nothing, and so\r\nreturned into the hall, slowly shutting the door. \"I knew that he\r\nwould come,\" she said, repeating to herself the same words, over and\r\nover again. Yet when Mrs. Askerton had told her that he would do this\r\nthing which he had now done, she had expressed herself as almost\r\nfrightened by the idea. \"God forbid,\" she had said. Nevertheless now\r\nthat he was there at Redicote, she assured herself that his coming\r\nwas a thing of which she had been certain; and she took a joy in the\r\nknowledge of his nearness to her which she did not attempt to define\r\nto herself. Had he not said that he would be a brother to her, and\r\nwas it not a brother's part to go to a sister in affliction? \"I knew\r\nthat he would come. I was sure of it. He is so true.\" As to Captain\r\nAylmer's not coming she said nothing, even to herself; but she felt\r\nthat she had been equally sure on that subject. Of course, Captain\r\nAylmer would not come!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had sent her seventy-five pounds in lieu\r\nof coming, and in doing so was true to his character. Both men were\r\ndoing exactly that which was to have been expected of them. So at\r\nleast Clara Amedroz now assured herself. She did not ask herself how\r\nit was that she had come to love the thinner and the meaner of the\r\ntwo men, but she knew well that such had been her fate. On a sudden she rose from her chair, as though remembering a duty to\r\nbe performed, and went to the kitchen and directed that breakfast\r\nmight be got ready for Mr. Belton. He would have travelled all\r\nnight,--and would be in want of food. Since the old squire's death\r\nthere had been no regular meal served in the house, and Clara had\r\ntaken such scraps of food and cups of tea as the old servant of the\r\nhouse had brought to her. But now the cloth must be spread again,\r\nand as she did this with her own hands she remembered the dinners\r\nwhich had been prepared for Captain Aylmer at Perivale after his\r\naunt's death. It seemed to her that she was used to be in the house\r\nwith death, and that the sadness and solemn ceremonies of woe were\r\nbecoming things familiar to her. There grew upon her a feeling that\r\nit must be so with her always. The circumstances of her life would\r\never be sad."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What right had she to expect any other fate after such\r\na catastrophe as that which her brother had brought upon the family? It was clear to her that she had done wrong in supposing that she\r\ncould marry and live with a prosperous man of the world like Captain\r\nAylmer. Their natures were different, and no such union could lead to\r\nany good. So she told herself, with much misery of spirit, as she was\r\npreparing the breakfast-table for William Belton. But William Belton did not come to eat the breakfast. He got what he\r\nwanted in that way at the inn at Redicote, and even then hesitated,\r\nloitering at the bar, before he would go over. What was he to say,\r\nand how would he be received? After all, had he not done amiss in\r\ncoming to a house at which he probably might not be wanted? Would\r\nit not be thought that his journey had been made solely with a view\r\nto his own property? He would be regarded as the heir pouncing upon\r\nthe inheritance before as yet the old owner was under the ground. At\r\nany rate it would be too early for him to make his visit yet awhile;\r\nand, to kill time, he went over to a carpenter who had been employed\r\nby him about the place at Belton. The carpenter spoke to him as\r\nthough everything were his own, and was very intent upon future\r\nimprovements."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This made Will more disgusted with himself than ever,\r\nand before he could get out of the carpenter's yard he thoroughly\r\nwished himself back at Plaistow. But having come so far, he could\r\nhardly return without seeing his cousin, and at last he had himself\r\ndriven over, reaching the house between eleven and twelve o'clock in\r\nthe day. Clara met him in the hall, and at once led him into the room which\r\nshe had prepared for him. He had given her his hand in the hall, but\r\ndid not speak to her till she had spoken to him after the closing of\r\nthe room door behind them. \"I thought that you would come,\" she said,\r\nstill holding him by the hand. \"I did not know what to do,\" he answered. \"I couldn't say which was\r\nbest. Now I am here I shall only be in your way.\" He did not dare to\r\npress her hand, nor could he bring himself to take his away from her. \"In my way;--yes; as an angel, to tell me what to do in my trouble. I knew you would come, because you are so good. But you will have\r\nbreakfast;--see, I have got it ready for you.\" \"Oh no; I breakfasted at Redicote. I would not trouble you.\" \"Trouble me, Will! Oh, Will, if you knew!\" Then there came tears in\r\nher eyes, and at the sight of them both his own were filled. How\r\nwas he to stand it?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "To take her to his bosom and hold her there for\r\nalways; to wipe away her tears so that she should weep no more; to\r\ndevote himself and all his energy and all that was his to comfort\r\nher,--this he could have done; but he knew not how to do anything\r\nshort of this. Every word that she spoke to him was an encouragement\r\nto this, and yet he knew that it could not be so. To say a word of\r\nhis love, or even to look it, would now be an unmanly insult. And\r\nyet, how was he not to look it,--not to speak of it? \"It is such a\r\ncomfort that you should be here with me,\" she said. \"Then I am glad I am here, though I do not know what I can do. Did he\r\nsuffer much, Clara?\" \"No, I think not; very little. He sank at last quicker than I\r\nexpected, but just as I thought he would go. He used to speak of you\r\nso often, and always with regard and esteem!\" \"Dear old man!\" \"Yes, Will; he was, in spite of his little faults. No father ever\r\nloved his daughter better than he loved me.\" After a while the servant brought in the tea, explaining to Belton\r\nthat Miss Clara had neither eaten nor drank that morning. \"She\r\nwouldn't take anything till you came, sir.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then Will added his\r\nentreaties, and Clara was persuaded, and by degrees there grew\r\nbetween them more ease of manner and capability for talking than had\r\nbeen within their reach when they first met. And during the morning\r\nmany things were explained, as to which Clara would a few hours\r\npreviously have thought it to be almost impossible that she should\r\nspeak to her cousin. She had told him of her aunt's money, and the\r\nway in which she had on that very morning sent back the cheque to the\r\nlawyer; and she had said something also as to Lady Aylmer's views,\r\nand her own views as to Lady Aylmer. With Will this subject was one\r\nmost difficult of discussion; and he blushed and fidgeted in his\r\nchair, and walked about the room, and found himself unable to look\r\nClara in the face as she spoke to him. But she went on, goading him\r\nwith the name, which of all names was the most distasteful to him;\r\nand mentioning that name almost in terms of reproach,--of reproach\r\nwhich he felt it would be ungenerous to reciprocate, but which he\r\nwould have exaggerated to unmeasured abuse if he had given his tongue\r\nlicence to speak his mind. \"I was right to send back the money;--wasn't I, Will? Say that I was\r\nright. Pray tell me that you think so!\" \"I don't understand it at present, you see; I am no lawyer.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But it doesn't want a lawyer to know that I couldn't take the money\r\nfrom him. I am sure you feel that.\" \"If a man owes money of course he ought to pay it.\" \"But he doesn't owe it, Will. It is intended for generosity.\" \"You don't want anybody's generosity, certainly.\" Then he reflected\r\nthat Clara must, after all, depend entirely on the generosity of\r\nsome one till she was married; and he wanted to explain to her that\r\neverything he had in the world was at her service,--was indeed her\r\nown. Or he would have explained, if he knew how, that he did not\r\nintend to take advantage of the entail,--that the Belton estate\r\nshould belong to her as the natural heir of her father. But he\r\nconceived that the moment for explaining this had hardly as yet\r\narrived, and that he had better confine himself to some attempt at\r\nteaching her that no extraneous assistance would be necessary to her. \"In money matters,\" said he, \"of course you are to look to me. That\r\nis a matter of course. I'll see Green about the other affairs. Green\r\nand I are friends. We'll settle it.\" \"That's not what I meant, Will.\" \"But it's what I mean. This is one of those things in which a man has\r\nto act on his own judgment. Your father and I understood each other.\" \"He did not understand that I was to accept your bounty.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Bounty is a nasty word, and I hate it. You accepted me,--as your\r\nbrother, and as such I mean to act.\" The word almost stuck in his\r\nthroat, but he brought it out at last in a fierce tone, of which she\r\nunderstood accurately the cause and meaning. \"All money matters about\r\nthe place must be settled by me. Indeed, that's why I came down.\" \"Not only for that, Will?\" \"Just to be useful in that way, I mean.\" \"You came to see me,--because you knew I should want you.\" Surely\r\nthis was malice prepense! Knowing what was his want, how could she\r\nexasperate it by talking thus of her own? \"As for money, I have no\r\nclaim on any one. No creature was ever more forlorn. But I will not\r\ntalk of that.\" \"Did you not say that you would treat me as a brother?\" \"I did not mean that I was to be a burden on you.\" \"I know what I meant, and that is sufficient.\" Belton had been at the house some hours before he made any sign\r\nof leaving her, and when he did so he had to explain something\r\nof his plans. He would remain, he said, for about a week in the\r\nneighbourhood. She of course was obliged to ask him to stay at the\r\nhouse,--at the house which was in fact his own; but he declined to do\r\nthis, blurting out his reason at last very plainly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Captain Aylmer\r\nwould not like it, and I suppose you are bound to think of what he\r\nlikes and dislikes.\" \"I don't know what right Captain Aylmer would\r\nhave to dislike any such thing,\" said Clara. But, nevertheless,\r\nshe allowed the reason to pass as current, and did not press her\r\ninvitation. Will declared that he would stay at the inn at Redicote,\r\nstriving to explain in some very unintelligible manner that such an\r\narrangement would be very convenient. He would remain at Redicote,\r\nand would come over to Belton every day during his sojourn in the\r\ncountry. Then he asked one question in a low whisper as to the last\r\nsad ceremony, and, having received an answer, started off with the\r\ndeclared intention of calling on Colonel Askerton. The next two or three days passed uncomfortably enough with Will\r\nBelton. He made his head-quarters at the little inn of Redicote, and\r\ndrove himself backwards and forwards between that place and the\r\nestate which was now his own. On each of these days he saw Colonel\r\nAskerton, whom he found to be a civil pleasant man, willing enough to\r\nrid himself of the unpleasant task he had undertaken, but at the same\r\ntime, willing also to continue his services if any further services\r\nwere required of him. But of Mrs. Askerton on these occasions Will\r\nsaw nothing, nor had he ever spoken to her since the time of his\r\nfirst visit to the Castle."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then came the day of the funeral, and\r\nafter that rite was over he returned with his cousin to the house. There was no will to be read. The old squire had left no will, nor\r\nwas there anything belonging to him at the time of his death that he\r\ncould bequeath. The furniture in the house, the worn-out carpets and\r\nold-fashioned chairs, belonged to Clara; but, beyond that, property\r\nhad she none, nor had it been in her father's power to endow her with\r\nanything. She was alone in the world, penniless, with a conviction\r\non her own mind that her engagement with Frederic Aylmer must of\r\nnecessity come to an end, and with a feeling about her cousin which\r\nshe could hardly analyse, but which told her that she could not go to\r\nhis house in Norfolk, nor live with him at Belton Castle, nor trust\r\nherself in his hands as she would into those of a real brother. On the afternoon of the day on which her father had been buried, she\r\nbrought to him a letter, asking him to read it, and tell her what\r\nshe should do. The letter was from Lady Aylmer, and contained an\r\ninvitation to Aylmer Castle. It had been accompanied, as the reader\r\nmay possibly remember, by a letter from Captain Aylmer himself. Of\r\nthis she of course informed her cousin; but she did not find it to be\r\nnecessary to show the letter of one rival to the other."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lady Aylmer's\r\nletter was cold in its expression of welcome, but very dictatorial\r\nin pointing out the absolute necessity that Clara should accept the\r\ninvitation so given. \"I think you will not fail to agree with me,\r\ndear Miss Amedroz,\" the letter said, \"that under these strange and\r\nperplexing circumstances, this is the only roof which can, with\r\nany propriety, afford you a shelter.\" \"And why not the poor-house?\" she said, aloud to her cousin, when she perceived that his eye had\r\ndescended so far on the page. He shook his head angrily, but said\r\nnothing; and when he had finished the letter he folded it and gave it\r\nback still in silence. \"And what am I to do?\" she said. \"You tell me\r\nthat I am to come to you for advice in everything.\" \"You must decide for yourself here.\" \"And you won't advise me. You won't tell me whether she is right?\" \"I suppose she is right.\" \"Then I had better go?\" \"If you mean to marry Captain Aylmer, you had better go.\" \"I am engaged to him.\" \"Then you had better go.\" \"But I will not submit myself to her tyranny.\" \"Let the marriage take place at once, and you will have to submit\r\nonly to his. I suppose you are prepared for that?\" \"I do not know. I do not like tyranny.\" Again he stood silent for awhile, looking at her, and then he\r\nanswered: \"I should not tyrannise over you, Clara.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, Will, Will, do not speak like that. Do not destroy everything.\" \"What am I to say?\" \"What would you say if your sister, your real sister, asked advice in\r\nsuch a strait? If you had a sister, who came to you, and told you all\r\nher difficulty, you would advise her. You would not say words to make\r\nthings worse for her.\" \"It would be very different.\" \"But you said you would be my brother.\" \"How am I to know what you feel for this man? It seems to me that you\r\nhalf hate him, half fear him, and sometimes despise him.\" \"Hate him!--No, I never hate him.\" \"Go to him, then, and ask him what you had better do. Don't ask me.\" Then he hurried out of the room, slamming the door behind him. But\r\nbefore he had half gone down the stairs he remembered the ceremony\r\nat which he had just been present, and how desolate she was in the\r\nworld, and he returned to her. \"I beg your pardon, Clara,\" he said,\r\n\"I am passionate; but I must be a beast to show my passion to you\r\non such a day as this. If I were you I should accept Lady Aylmer's\r\ninvitation,--merely thanking her for it in the ordinary way. I should\r\nthen go and see how the land lay. That is the advice I should give my\r\nsister.\" \"And I will,--if it is only because you tell me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But as for a home,--tell her you have one of your own,--at Belton\r\nCastle, from which no one can turn you out, and where no one can\r\nintrude on you. This house belongs to you.\" Then, before she could\r\nanswer him, he had left the room; and she listened to his heavy quick\r\nfootsteps as he went across the hall and out of the front door. He walked across the park and entered the little gate of Colonel\r\nAskerton's garden, as though it were his habit to go to the cottage\r\nwhen he was at Belton. There had been various matters on which the\r\ntwo men had been brought into contact concerning the old squire's\r\ndeath and the tenancy of the cottage, so that they had become almost\r\nintimate. Belton had nothing new that he specially desired to say to\r\nColonel Askerton, whom, indeed, he had seen only a short time before\r\nat the funeral; but he wanted the relief of speaking to some one\r\nbefore he returned to the solitude of the inn at Redicote. On this\r\noccasion, however, the Colonel was out, and the maid asked him if he\r\nwould see Mrs. Askerton. When he said something about not troubling\r\nher, the girl told him that her mistress wished to speak to him, and\r\nthen he had no alternative but to allow himself to be shown into the\r\ndrawing-room."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I want to see you a minute,\" said Mrs. Askerton, bowing to him\r\nwithout putting out her hand, \"that I might ask you how you find your\r\ncousin.\" \"She is pretty well, I think.\" \"Colonel Askerton has seen more of her than I have since her father's\r\ndeath, and he says that she does not bear it well. He thinks that she\r\nis ill.\"\r\n\r\n\"I do not think her ill. Of course she is not in good spirits.\" \"No; exactly. How should she be? But he thinks she seems so worn. I\r\nhope you will excuse me, Mr. Belton, but I love her so well that I\r\ncannot bear to be quite in the dark as to her future. Is anything\r\nsettled yet?\" \"She is going to Aylmer Castle.\" \"To Aylmer Castle! Is she indeed? At once?\" \"Very soon. Lady Aylmer has asked her.\" \"Lady Aylmer! Then I suppose--\"\r\n\r\n\"You suppose what?\" Will Belton asked. \"I did not think she would have gone to Aylmer Castle,--though I dare\r\nsay it is the best thing she could do. She seemed to me to dislike\r\nthe Aylmers,--that is, Lady Aylmer,--so much! But I suppose she is\r\nright?\" \"She is right to go if she likes it.\" \"She is circumstanced so cruelly! Is she not? Where else could she\r\ngo? I do so feel for her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I believe I need hardly tell you, Mr.\r\nBelton, that she would be as welcome here as flowers in May,--but\r\nthat I do not dare to ask her to come to us.\" She said this in a low\r\nvoice, turning her eyes away from him, looking first upon the ground,\r\nand then again up at the window,--but still not daring to meet his\r\neye. \"I don't exactly know about that,\" said Belton awkwardly. \"You know, I hope, that I love her dearly.\" \"Everybody does that,\" said Will. \"You do, Mr. Belton.\" \"Yes;--I do; just as though she were--my sister.\" \"And as your sister would you let her come here,--to us?\" He sat\r\nsilent for awhile, thinking, and she waited patiently for his answer. But she spoke again before he answered her. \"I am well aware that you\r\nknow all my history, Mr. Belton.\" \"I shouldn't tell it her, if you mean that, though she were my\r\nsister. If she were my wife I should tell her.\" \"And why your wife?\" \"Because then I should be sure it would do no harm.\" \"Then I find that you can be generous, Mr. Belton. But she knows it\r\nall as well as you do.\" \"I did not tell her.\" \"Nor did I;--but I should have done so had not Captain Aylmer been\r\nbefore me. And now tell me whether I could ask her to come here.\" \"It would be useless, as she is going to Aylmer Castle.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But she is going there simply to find a home,--having no other.\" \"That is not so, Mrs. Askerton. She has a home as perfectly her own\r\nas any woman in the land. Belton Castle is hers, to do what she may\r\nplease with it. She can live here if she likes it, and nobody can say\r\na word to her. She need not go to Aylmer Castle to look for a home.\" \"You mean you would lend her the house?\" \"It is hers.\" \"I do not understand you, Mr. Belton.\" \"It does not signify;--we will say no more about it.\" \"And you think she likes going to Lady Aylmer's?\" \"How should I say what she likes?\" Then there was another pause before Mrs. Askerton spoke again. \"I can\r\ntell you one thing,\" she said: \"she does not like him.\" \"That is her affair.\" \"But she should be taught to know her own mind before she throws\r\nherself away altogether. You would not wish your cousin to marry a\r\nman whom she does not love because at one time she had come to think\r\nthat she loved him. That is the truth of it, Mr. Belton. If she goes\r\nto Aylmer Castle she will marry him,--and she will be an unhappy\r\nwoman always afterwards. If you would sanction her coming here for\r\na few days, I think all that would be cured. She would come in a\r\nmoment, if you advised her.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then he went away, allowing himself to make no further answer at the\r\nmoment, and discussed the matter with himself as he walked back to\r\nRedicote, meditating on it with all his mind, and all his heart,\r\nand all his strength. And, as he meditated, it came on to rain\r\nbitterly,--a cold piercing February rain,--and the darkness of night\r\ncame upon him, and he floundered on through the thick mud of the\r\nSomersetshire lanes, unconscious of the weather and of the darkness. There was a way open to him by which he might even yet get what he\r\nwanted. He thought he saw that there was a way open to him through\r\nthe policy of this woman, whom he perceived to have become friendly\r\nto him. He saw, or thought that he saw, it all. No day had absolutely\r\nbeen fixed for this journey to Yorkshire; and if Clara were induced\r\nto go first to the cottage, and stay there with Mrs. Askerton, no\r\nsuch journey might ever be taken. He could well understand that\r\nsuch a visit on her part would give a mortal offence to all the\r\nAylmers. That tyranny of which Clara spoke with so much dread would\r\nbe exhibited then without reserve, and so there would be an end\r\naltogether of the Aylmer alliance. But were she once to start for\r\nAylmer Park, then there would be no hope for him. Then her fate would\r\nbe decided,--and his."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As far as he could see, too,--as far as he\r\ncould see then, there would be no dishonesty in this plan. Why should\r\nClara not go to Mrs. Askerton's house? What could be more natural\r\nthan such a visit at such a time? If she were in truth his sister\r\nhe would not interfere to prevent it if she wished it. He had told\r\nhimself that the woman should be forgiven her offence, and had\r\nthought that that forgiveness should be complete. If the Aylmers\r\nwere so unreasonable as to quarrel with her on this ground, let\r\nthem quarrel with her. Mrs. Askerton had told him that Clara did\r\nnot really like Captain Aylmer. Perhaps it was so; and if so, what\r\ngreater kindness could he do her than give her an opportunity for\r\nescaping such a union? The whole of the next day he remained at Redicote, thinking,\r\ndoubting, striving to reconcile his wishes and his honesty. It rained\r\nall day, and as he sat alone, smoking in the comfortless inn, he\r\ntold himself that the rain was keeping him;--but in truth it was not\r\nthe rain. Had he resolved to do his best to prevent this visit to\r\nYorkshire, or had he resolved to further it, I think he would have\r\ngone to Belton without much fear of the rain. On the second day after\r\nthe funeral he did go, and he had then made up his mind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara,\r\nif she would listen to him, should show her independence of Lady\r\nAylmer by staying a few days with the Askertons before she went to\r\nYorkshire, and by telling Lady Aylmer that such was her intention. \"If she really loves the man,\" he said to himself, \"she will go at\r\nonce, in spite of anything that I can say. If she does not, I shall\r\nbe saving her.\" \"How cruel of you not to come yesterday!\" Clara said, as soon as she\r\nsaw him. \"It rained hard,\" he answered. \"But men like you care so little for rain; but that is when you have\r\nbusiness to take you out,--or pleasure.\" \"You need not be so severe. The truth is I had things to trouble me.\" \"What troubled you, Will? I thought all the trouble was mine.\" \"I suppose everybody thinks that his own shoe pinches the hardest.\" \"Your shoe can't pinch you very bad, I should think. Sometimes when\r\nI think of you it seems that you are an embodiment of prosperity and\r\nhappiness.\" \"I don't see it myself;--that's all. Did you write to Lady Aylmer,\r\nClara?\" \"I wrote; but I didn't send it. I would not send any letter till\r\nI had shown it to you, as you are my confessor and adviser. There;\r\nread it. Nothing, I think, could be more courteous or less humble.\" He took the letter and read it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara had simply expressed herself\r\nwilling to accept Lady Aylmer's invitation, and asked her ladyship to\r\nfix a day. There was no mention of Captain Aylmer's name in the note. \"And you think this is best?\" he said. His voice was hardly like his\r\nown as he spoke. There was wanting to it that tone of self-assurance\r\nwhich his voice almost always possessed, even when self-assurance was\r\nlacking to his words. \"I thought it was your own advice,\" she said. \"Well;--yes; that is, I don't quite know. You couldn't go for a week\r\nor so yet, I suppose.\" \"Perhaps in about a week.\" \"And what will you do till then?\" \"What will I do!\" \"Yes;--where do you mean to stay?\" \"I thought, Will, that perhaps you would let me--remain here.\" \"Let you!--Oh, heavens! Look here, Clara.\" \"What is it, Will?\" \"Before heaven I want to do for you what may be the best for\r\nyou,--without thinking of myself;--without thinking of myself, if I\r\ncould only help it.\" \"I have never doubted you. I never will doubt you. I believe in you\r\nnext to my God. I do, Will; I do.\" He walked up and down the room\r\nhalf-a-dozen times before he spoke again, while she stood by the\r\ntable watching him. \"I wish,\" she said, \"I knew what it is that\r\ntroubles you.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "To this he made no answer, but went on walking till\r\nshe came up to him, and putting both her hands upon his arm said, \"It\r\nwill be better, Will, that I should go;--will it not? Speak to me,\r\nand say so. I feel that it will be better.\" Then he stopped in his\r\nwalk and looked down upon her, as her hands still rested upon his\r\nshoulder. He gazed upon her for some few seconds, remaining quite\r\nmotionless, and then, opening his arms, he surrounded her with his\r\nembrace, and pressing her with all his strength close to his bosom,\r\nkissed her forehead, and her cheeks, and her lips, and her eyes. His\r\nwill was so masterful, his strength so great, and his motion so\r\nquick, that she was powerless to escape from him till he relaxed his\r\nhold. Indeed she hardly struggled, so much was she surprised and so\r\nsoon released. But the moment that he left her he saw that her face\r\nwas burning red, and that the tears were streaming from her eyes. She\r\nstood for a moment trembling, with her hands clenched, and with a\r\nlook of scorn upon her lips and brow that he had never seen before;\r\nand then she threw herself on a sofa, and, burying her face, sobbed\r\naloud, while her whole body was shaken as with convulsions. He leaned\r\nover her repentant, not knowing what to do, not knowing how to speak."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All ideas of his scheme had gone from him now. He had offended her\r\nfor ever,--past redemption. What could be the use now of any scheme? And as he stood there he hated himself because of his scheme. The\r\nutter misery and disgrace of the present moment had come upon him\r\nbecause he had thought more of himself than of her. It was but a few\r\nmoments since she had told him that she trusted him next to her God;\r\nand yet, in those few moments, he had shown himself utterly unworthy\r\nof that trust, and had destroyed all her confidence. But he could not\r\nleave her without speaking to her. \"Clara!\" he said;--\"Clara.\" But\r\nshe did not answer him. \"Clara; will you not speak to me? Will you\r\nnot let me ask you to forgive me?\" But still she only sobbed. For\r\nher, at that moment, we may say that sobbing was easier than speech. How was she to pardon so great an offence? How was she to resent such\r\npassionate love? But he could not continue to stand there motionless, all but\r\nspeechless, while she lay with her face turned away from him. He must\r\nat any rate in some manner take himself away out of the room; and\r\nthis he could not do, even in his present condition of unlimited\r\ndisgrace, without a word of farewell. \"Perhaps I had better go and\r\nleave you,\" he said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then at last there came a voice, \"Oh, Will, why have you done this? Why have you treated me so badly?\" When he had last seen her face\r\nher mouth had been full of scorn, but there was no scorn now in her\r\nvoice. \"Why--why--why?\" Why indeed;--except that it was needful for him that she should know\r\nthe depth of his passion. \"If you will forgive me, Clara, I will not\r\noffend you so again,\" he said. \"You have offended me. What am I to say? What am I to do? I have no\r\nother friend.\" \"I am a wretch. I know that I am a wretch.\" \"I did not suspect that you would be so cruel. Oh, Will!\" But before he went she told him that she had forgiven him, and she\r\nhad preached to him a solemn, sweet sermon on the wickedness of\r\nyielding to momentary impulses. Her low, grave words sank into his\r\nears as though they were divine; and when she said a word to him,\r\nblushing as she spoke, of the sin of his passion, and of what her\r\nsin would be if she were to permit it, he sat by her weeping like an\r\ninfant, tears which were certainly tears of innocence. She had been\r\nvery angry with him; but I think she loved him better when her sermon\r\nwas finished, than she had ever loved him before."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was no further question as to her going to Aylmer Castle, nor\r\nwas any mention made of Mrs. Askerton's invitation to the cottage. The letter for Lady Aylmer was sent, and it was agreed between them\r\nthat Will should remain at Redicote till the answer from Yorkshire\r\nshould come, and should then convey Clara as far as London on her\r\njourney. And when he took leave of her that afternoon, she was able\r\nto give him her hand in her old hearty, loving way, and to call him\r\nWill with the old hearty, loving tone. And he,--he was able to accept\r\nthese tokens of her graciousness, as though they were signs of a\r\npardon which she had been good to give, but which he certainly had\r\nnot deserved. As he went back to Redicote, he swore to himself that he would never\r\nlove any woman but her,--even though she must be the wife of Captain\r\nAylmer. CHAPTER XXIII. THE LAST DAY AT BELTON. In course of post there came an answer from Lady Aylmer, naming a\r\nday for Clara's journey to Yorkshire, and also a letter from Captain\r\nAylmer, in which he stated that he would meet her in London and\r\nconvey her down to Aylmer Park. \"The House is sitting,\" he said, \"and\r\ntherefore I shall be a little troubled about my time; but I cannot\r\nallow that your first meeting with my mother should take place in\r\nmy absence.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "This was all very well, but at the end of the letter\r\nthere was a word of caution that was not so well. \"I am sure, my dear\r\nClara, that you will remember how much is due to my mother's age,\r\nand character, and position. Nothing will be wanted to the happiness\r\nof our marriage, if you can succeed in gaining her affection, and\r\ntherefore I make it my first request to you that you should endeavour\r\nto win her good opinion.\" There was nothing perhaps really amiss,\r\ncertainly nothing unreasonable, in such words from a future husband\r\nto his future wife; but Clara, as she read them, shook her head and\r\npressed her foot against the ground in anger. It would not do. Sorrow\r\nwould come, and trouble and disappointment. She did not say so, even\r\nto herself, in words; but the words, though not spoken, were audible\r\nenough to herself. She could not, would not, bend to Lady Aylmer, and\r\nshe knew that trouble would come of this visit. I fear that many ladies will condemn Miss Amedroz when I tell them\r\nthat she showed this letter to her cousin Will. It does not promise\r\nwell for any of the parties concerned when a young woman with two\r\nlovers can bring herself to show the love-letters of him to whom\r\nshe is engaged to the other lover whom she has refused! But I have\r\ntwo excuses to put forward in Clara's defence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the first place,\r\nCaptain Aylmer's love-letters were not in truth love-letters, but\r\nwere letters of business; and in the next place, Clara was teaching\r\nherself to regard Will Belton as her brother, and to forget that he\r\nhad ever assumed the part of a lover. She was so teaching herself, but I cannot say that the lesson was\r\none easily learned; nor had the outrage upon her of which Will had\r\nbeen guilty, and which was described in the last chapter, made the\r\nteaching easier. But she had determined, nevertheless, that it should\r\nbe so. When she thought of Will her heart would become very soft\r\ntowards him; and sometimes, when she thought of Captain Aylmer, her\r\nheart would become anything but soft towards him. Unloving feelings\r\nwould be very strong within her bosom as she re-read his letters, and\r\nremembered that he had not come to her, but had sent her seventy-five\r\npounds to comfort her in her trouble! Nevertheless, he was to be\r\nher husband, and she would do her duty. What might have happened\r\nhad Will Belton come to Belton Castle before she had known Frederic\r\nAylmer,--of that she stoutly resolved that she would never think at\r\nall; and consequently the thought was always intruding upon her. \"You will sleep one night in town, of course?\" said Will. \"I suppose so. You know all about it. I shall do as I'm told.\" \"You can't go down to Yorkshire from here in one day."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Where would you\r\nlike to stay in London?\" \"How on earth should I know? Ladies do sleep at hotels in London\r\nsometimes, I suppose?\" \"Oh yes. I can write and have rooms ready for you.\" \"Then that difficulty is over,\" said Clara. But in Belton's estimation the difficulty was not exactly over. Captain Aylmer would, of course, be in London that night, and it was\r\na question with Will whether or no Clara was not bound in honour\r\nto tell the--accursed beast, I am afraid Mr. Belton called him in\r\nhis soliloquies--where she would lodge on the occasion. Or would\r\nit suffice that he, Will, should hand her over to the enemy at the\r\nstation of the Great Northern Railway on the following morning? All the little intricacies of the question presented themselves to\r\nWill's imagination. How careful he would be with her, that the inn\r\naccommodation should suffice for her comfort! With what pleasure\r\nwould he order a little dinner for them two, making something of a\r\ngentle _fête_ of the occasion! How sedulously would he wait upon her\r\nwith those little attentions, amounting almost to worship, with which\r\nsuch men as Will Belton are prone to treat all women in exceptionable\r\ncircumstances, when the ordinary routine of life has been disturbed! If she had simply been his cousin, and if he had never regarded\r\nher otherwise, how happily could he have done all this!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "As things\r\nnow were, if it was left to him to do, he should do it, with what\r\npatience and grace might be within his power; he would do it, though\r\nhe would be mindful every moment of the bitterness of the transfer\r\nwhich he would so soon be obliged to make; but he doubted whether it\r\nwould not be better for Clara's sake that the transfer should be made\r\nover-night. He would take her up to London, because in that way he\r\ncould be useful; and then he would go away and hide himself. \"Has\r\nCaptain Aylmer said where he would meet you?\" he asked after a pause. \"Of course I must write and tell him.\" \"And is he to come to you,--when you reach London?\" \"He has said nothing about that. He will probably be at the House of\r\nCommons, or too busy somewhere to come to me then. But why do you\r\nask? Do you wish to hurry through town?\" \"Oh dear, no.\" \"Or perhaps you have friends you want to see. Pray don't let me be in\r\nyour way. I shall do very well, you know.\" Belton rebuked her by a look before he answered her. \"I was only\r\nthinking,\" he said, \"of what would be most convenient for yourself. I have nobody to see, and nothing to do, and nowhere to go to.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then\r\nClara understood it all, and said that she would write to Captain\r\nAylmer and ask him to join them at the hotel. She determined that she would see Mrs. Askerton before she went; and\r\nas that lady did not come to the Castle, Clara called upon her at\r\nthe cottage. This she did the day before she left, and she took her\r\ncousin with her. Belton had been at the cottage once or twice since\r\nthe day on which Mrs. Askerton had explained to him how the Aylmer\r\nalliance might be extinguished, but Colonel Askerton had always been\r\nthere, and no reference had been made to the former conversation. Colonel Askerton was not there now, and Belton was almost afraid that\r\nwords would be spoken to which he would hardly know how to listen. \"And so you are really going?\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"Yes; we start to-morrow,\" said Clara. \"I am not thinking of the journey to London,\" said Mrs. Askerton,\r\n\"but of the danger and privations of your subsequent progress to the\r\nNorth.\" \"I shall do very well. I am not afraid that any one will eat me.\" \"There are so many different ways of eating people! Are there not,\r\nMr. Belton?\" \"I don't know about eating, but there are a great many ways of boring\r\npeople,\" said he. \"And I should think they will be great at that kind of thing at\r\nAylmer Castle."}
{"question": "", "answer": "One never hears of Sir Anthony, but I can fancy Lady\r\nAylmer to be a terrible woman.\" \"I shall manage to hold my own, I dare say,\" said Clara. \"I hope you will; I do hope you will,\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"I don't\r\nknow whether you will be powerful to do so, or whether you will fail;\r\nmy heart is not absolute; but I do know what will be the result if\r\nyou are successful.\" \"It is much more then than I know myself.\" \"That I can believe too. Do you travel down to Yorkshire alone?\" \"No; Captain Aylmer will meet me in town.\" Then Mrs. Askerton looked at Mr. Belton, but made no immediate reply;\r\nnor did she say anything further about Clara's journey. She looked\r\nat Mr. Belton, and Will caught her eye, and understood that he was\r\nbeing rebuked for not having carried out that little scheme which had\r\nbeen prepared for him. But he had come to hate the scheme, and almost\r\nhated Mrs. Askerton for proposing it. He had declared to himself\r\nthat her welfare, Clara's welfare, was the one thing which he should\r\nregard; and he had told himself that he was not strong enough, either\r\nin purpose or in wit, to devise schemes for her welfare. She was\r\nbetter able to manage things for herself than he was to manage them\r\nfor her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If she loved this \"accursed beast,\" let her marry him;\r\nonly,--for that was now his one difficulty,--only he could not bring\r\nhimself to think it possible that she should love him. \"I suppose you will never see this place again?\" said Mrs. Askerton\r\nafter a long pause. \"I hope I shall, very often,\" said Clara. \"Why should I not see it\r\nagain? It is not going out of the family.\" \"No; not exactly out of the family. That is, it will belong to your\r\ncousin.\" \"And cousins may be as far apart as strangers, you mean; but Will and\r\nI are not like that; are we, Will?\" \"I hardly know what we are like,\" said he. \"You do not mean to say that you will throw me over? But the truth\r\nis, Mrs. Askerton, that I do not mean to be thrown over. I look upon\r\nhim as my brother, and I intend to cling to him as sisters do cling.\" \"You will hardly come back here before you are married,\" said Mrs.\r\nAskerton. It was a terrible speech for her to make, and could only\r\nbe excused on the ground that the speaker was in truth desirous of\r\ndoing that which she thought would benefit both of those whom she\r\naddressed. \"Of course you are going to your wedding now?\" \"I am doing nothing of the kind,\" said Clara. \"How can you speak in\r\nthat way to me so soon after my father's death?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is a rebuke to me\r\nfor being here at all.\" \"I intend no rebuke, as you well know. What I mean is this; if you do\r\nnot stay in Yorkshire till you are married, let the time be when it\r\nmay, where do you intend to go in the meantime?\" \"My plans are not settled yet.\" \"She will have this house if she pleases,\" said Will. \"There will be\r\nno one else here. It will be her own, to do as she likes with it.\" \"She will hardly come here,--to be alone.\" \"I will not be inquired into, my dear,\" said Clara, speaking with\r\nrestored good-humour. \"Of course I am an unprotected female, and\r\nsubject to disadvantages. Perhaps I have no plans for the future; and\r\nif I have plans, perhaps I do not mean to divulge them.\" \"I had better come to the point at once,\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"If--if--if it should ever suit you, pray come here to us. Flowers\r\nshall not be more welcome in May. It is difficult to speak of it all,\r\nthough you both understand everything as well as I do. I cannot press\r\nmy invitation as another woman might.\" \"Yes, you can,\" said Clara with energy. \"Of course you can.\" \"Can I? Then I do. Dear Clara, do come to us.\" And then as she spoke\r\nMrs. Askerton knelt on the ground at her visitor's knees."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Mr.\r\nBelton, do tell her that when she is tired with the grandeur of\r\nAylmer Park she may come to us here.\" \"I don't know anything about the grandeur of Aylmer Park,\" said Will,\r\nsuddenly. \"But she may come here;--may she not?\" \"She will not ask my leave,\" said he. \"She says that you are her brother. Whose leave should she ask?\" \"He knows that I should ask his rather than that of any living\r\nperson,\" said Clara. \"There, Mr. Belton. Now you must say that she may come;--or that she\r\nmay not.\" \"I will say nothing. She knows what to do much better than I can tell\r\nher.\" Mrs. Askerton was still kneeling, and again appealed to Clara. \"You hear what he says. What do you say yourself? Will you come\r\nto us?--that is, if such a visit will suit you,--in point of\r\nconvenience?\" \"I will make no promise; but I know no reason why I should not.\" \"And I must be content with that? Well: I will be content.\" Then\r\nshe got up. \"For such a one as I am, that is a great deal. And, Mr.\r\nBelton, let me tell you this;--I can be grateful to you, though you\r\ncannot be gracious to me.\" \"I hope I have not been ungracious,\" said he. \"Upon my word, I cannot compliment you. But there is something so\r\nmuch better than grace, that I can forgive you. You know, at any\r\nrate, how thoroughly I wish you well.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Upon this Clara got up to take her leave, and the demonstrative\r\naffection of an embrace between the two women afforded a remedy for\r\nthe awkwardness of the previous conversation. \"God bless you, dearest,\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"May I write to you?\" \"Certainly,\" said Clara. \"And you will answer my letters?\" \"Of course I will. You must tell me everything about the place;--and\r\nespecially as to Bessy. Bessy is never to be sold;--is she, Will?\" Bessy was the cow which Belton had given her. \"Not if you choose to keep her.\" \"I will go down and see to her myself,\" said Mrs. Askerton, \"and will\r\nutter little prayers of my own over her horns,--that certain events\r\nthat I desire may come to pass. Good-bye, Mr. Belton. You may be as\r\nungracious as you please, but it will not make any difference.\" When Clara and her cousin left the cottage they did not return to the\r\nhouse immediately, but took a last walk round the park, and through\r\nthe shrubbery, and up to the rocks on which a remarkable scene had\r\nonce taken place between them. Few words were spoken as they were\r\nwalking, and there had been no agreement as to the path they would\r\ntake. Each seemed to understand that there was much of melancholy in\r\ntheir present mood, and that silence was more fitting than speech. But when they reached the rocks Belton sat himself down, asking\r\nClara's leave to stop there for a moment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I don't suppose I shall\r\never come to this place again,\" said he. \"You are as bad as Mrs. Askerton,\" said Clara. \"I do not think I shall ever come to this place again,\" said he,\r\nrepeating his words very solemnly. \"At any rate, I will never do so\r\nwillingly, unless--\"\r\n\r\n\"Unless what?\" \"Unless you are either my wife, or have promised to become so.\" \"Oh, Will; you know that that is impossible.\" \"Then it is impossible that I should come here again.\" \"You know that I am engaged to another man.\" \"Of course I do. I am not asking you to break your engagement. I am\r\nsimply telling you that in spite of that engagement I love you as\r\nwell as I did love you before you had made it. I have a right to let\r\nyou know the truth.\" As if she had not known it without his telling\r\nit to her now! \"It was here that I told you that I loved you. I now\r\nrepeat it here; and will never come here again unless I may say the\r\nsame thing over and over and over. That is all. We might as well go\r\non now.\" But when he got up she sat down, as though unwilling to\r\nleave the spot. It was still winter, and the rock was damp with cold\r\ndrippings from the trees, and the moss around was wet, and little\r\npools of water had formed themselves in the shallow holes upon the\r\nsurface."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She did not speak as she seated herself; but he was of\r\ncourse obliged to wait till she should be ready to accompany him. \"It\r\nis too cold for you to sit there,\" he said. \"Come, Clara; I will not\r\nhave you loiter here. It is cold and wet.\" \"It is not colder for me than for you.\" \"You are not used to that sort of thing as I am.\" \"Will,\" she said, \"you must never speak to me again as you spoke just\r\nnow. Promise me that you will not.\" \"Promises will do no good in such a matter.\" \"It is almost a repetition of what you did before;--though of course\r\nit is not so bad as that.\" \"Everything I do is bad.\" \"No, Will:--dear Will! Almost everything you do is good. But of what\r\nuse can it be to either of us for you to be thinking of that which\r\ncan never be? Cannot you think of me as your sister,--and only as\r\nyour sister?\" \"No; I cannot.\" \"Then it is not right that we should be together.\" \"I know nothing of right. You ask me a question, and I suppose you\r\ndon't wish that I should tell you a lie.\" \"Of course I do not wish that.\" \"Therefore I tell you the truth. I love you,--as any other man loves\r\nthe girl that he does love; and, as far as I know myself now, I never\r\ncan be happy unless you are my own.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, Will, how can that be when I am engaged to marry another man?\" \"As to your engagement I should care nothing. Does he love you as I\r\nlove you? If he loves you, why is he not here? If he loves you, why\r\ndoes he let his mother ill-use you, and treat you with scorn? If he\r\nloves you as I love you, how could he write to you as he does write? Would I write to you such a letter as that? Would I let you be here\r\nwithout coming to you,--to be looked after by any one else? If you\r\nhad said that you would be my wife, would I leave you in solitude and\r\nsorrow, and then send you seventy-five pounds to console you? If you\r\nthink he loves you, Clara--\"\r\n\r\n\"He thought he was doing right when he sent me the money.\" \"But he shouldn't have thought it right. Never mind. I don't want to\r\naccuse him; but this I know,--and you know; he does not love you as I\r\nlove you.\" \"What can I say to answer you?\" \"Say that you will wait till you have seen him. Say that I may have a\r\nhope,--a chance; that if he is cold, and hard, and,--and,--and, just\r\nwhat we know he is, then I may have a chance.\" \"How can I say that when I am engaged to him? Cannot you understand\r\nthat I am wrong to let you speak of him as you do?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"How else am I to speak of him? Tell me this. Do you love him?\" \"Yes;--I do.\" \"I don't believe it!\" \"Will!\" \"I don't believe it. Nothing on earth shall make me believe it. It is\r\nimpossible;--impossible!\" \"Do you mean to insult me, Will?\" \"No; I do not mean to insult you, but I mean to tell you the truth. I\r\ndo not think you love that man as you ought to love the man whom you\r\nare going to marry. I should tell you just the same thing if I were\r\nreally your brother. Of course it isn't that I suppose you love any\r\none else,--me for instance. I'm not such a fool as that. But I don't\r\nthink you love him; and I'm quite sure he doesn't love you. That's\r\njust what I believe; and if I do believe it, how am I to help telling\r\nyou?\" \"You've no right to have such beliefs.\" \"How am I to help it? Well;--never mind. I won't let you sit there\r\nany longer. At any rate you'll be able to understand now that I shall\r\nnever come to this place any more.\" Clara, as she got up to obey him,\r\nfelt that she also ought never to see it again;--unless,\r\nindeed,--unless--\r\n\r\nThey passed that evening together without any reference to the scene\r\non the rock, or any allusion to their own peculiar troubles."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara,\r\nthough she would not admit to Mrs. Askerton that she was going away\r\nfrom the place for ever, was not the less aware that such might very\r\nprobably be the case. She had no longer any rights of ownership at\r\nBelton Castle, and all that had taken place between her and her\r\ncousin tended to make her feel that under no circumstances could she\r\nagain reside there. Nor was it probable that she would be able to\r\nmake to Mrs. Askerton the visit of which they had been talking. If\r\nLady Aylmer were wise,--so Clara thought,--there would be no mention\r\nof Mrs. Askerton at Aylmer Park; and, if so, of course she would not\r\noutrage her future husband by proposing to go to a house of which\r\nshe knew that he disapproved. If Lady Aylmer were not wise;--if\r\nshe should take upon herself the task of rebuking Clara for her\r\nfriendship,--then, in such circumstances as those, Clara believed\r\nthat the visit to Mrs. Askerton might be possible. But she determined that she would leave the home in which she had\r\nbeen born, and had passed so many happy and so many unhappy days, as\r\nthough she were never to see it again."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All her packing had been done,\r\ndown to the last fragment of an old letter that was stuffed into her\r\nwriting-desk; but, nevertheless, she went about the house with a\r\ncandle in her hand, as though she were still looking that nothing had\r\nbeen omitted, while she was in truth saying farewell in her heart to\r\nevery corner which she knew so well. When at last she came down to\r\npour out for her desolate cousin his cup of tea, she declared that\r\neverything was done. \"You may go to work now, Will,\" she said, \"and\r\ndo what you please with the old place. My jurisdiction in it is\r\nover.\" \"Not altogether,\" said he. He no longer spoke like a despairing\r\nlover. Indeed there was a smile round his mouth, and his voice was\r\ncheery. \"Yes;--altogether. I give over my sovereignty from this moment;--and\r\na dirty dilapidated sovereignty it is.\" \"That's all very well to say.\" \"And also very well to do. What best pleases me in going to Aylmer\r\nCastle just now is the power it gives me of doing at once that which\r\notherwise I might have put off till the doing of it had become much\r\nmore unpleasant. Mr. Belton, there is the key of the cellar,--which\r\nI believe gentlemen always regard as the real sign of possession. I\r\ndon't advise you to trust much to the contents.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "He took the key from\r\nher, and without saying a word chucked it across the room on to an\r\nold sofa. \"If you won't take it, you had better, at any rate, have it\r\ntied up with the others,\" she said. \"I dare say you'll know where to find it when you want it,\" he\r\nanswered. \"I shall never want it.\" \"Then it's as well there as anywhere else.\" \"But you won't remember, Will.\" \"I don't suppose I shall have occasion for remembering.\" Then he\r\npaused a moment before he went on. \"I have told you before that I do\r\nnot intend to take possession of the place. I do not regard it as\r\nmine at all.\" \"And whose is it, then?\" \"Yours.\" \"No, dear Will; it is not mine. You know that.\" \"I intend that it shall be so, and therefore you might as well put\r\nthe keys where you will know how to find them.\" After he had gone she did take up the key, and tied it with sundry\r\nothers, which she intended to give to the old servant who was to be\r\nleft in charge of the house. But after a few moments' consideration\r\nshe took the cellar key again off the bunch, and put it back upon the\r\nsofa,--in the place to which he had thrown it. On the following morning they started on their journey."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The old fly\r\nfrom Redicote was not used on this occasion, as Belton had ordered a\r\npair of post-horses and a comfortable carriage from Taunton. \"I think\r\nit such a shame,\" said Clara, \"going away for the last time without\r\nhaving Jerry and the grey horse.\" Jerry was the man who had once\r\ndriven her to Taunton when the old horse fell with her on the road. \"But Jerry and the grey horse could not have taken you and me too,\r\nand all our luggage,\" said Will. \"Poor Jerry! I suppose not,\" said\r\nClara; \"but still there is an injury done in going without him.\" There were four or five old dependents of the family standing round\r\nthe door to bid her adieu, to all of whom she gave her hand with a\r\ncordial pressure. They, at least, seemed to regard her departure as\r\nfinal. And of course it was final. She had assured herself of that\r\nduring the night. And just as they were about to start, both Colonel\r\nand Mrs. Askerton walked up to the door. \"He wouldn't let you go\r\nwithout bidding you farewell,\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"I am so glad to\r\nshake hands with him,\" Clara answered. Then the Colonel spoke a word\r\nto her, and, as he did so, his wife contrived to draw Will Belton for\r\na moment behind the carriage. \"Never give it up, Mr. Belton,\" said\r\nshe, eagerly. \"If you persevere she'll be yours yet.\" \"I fear not,\"\r\nhe said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Stick to her like a man,\" said she, pressing his hand in\r\nher vehemence. \"If you do, you'll live to thank me for having told\r\nyou so.\" Will had not a word to say for himself, but he thought that\r\nhe would stick to her. Indeed, he thought that he had stuck to her\r\npretty well. At last they were off, and the village of Belton was behind them. Will, glancing into his cousin's face, saw that her eyes were laden\r\nwith tears, and refrained from speaking. As they passed the ugly\r\nred-brick rectory-house, Clara for a moment put her face to the\r\nwindow, and then withdrew it. \"There is nobody there,\" she said, \"who\r\nwill care to see me. Considering that I have lived here all my life,\r\nis it not odd that there should be so few to bid me good-bye?\" \"People do not like to put themselves forward on such occasions,\"\r\nsaid Will. \"People!--there are no people. No one ever had so few to care for\r\nthem as I have. And now--. But never mind; I mean to do very well,\r\nand I shall do very well.\" Belton would not take advantage of her in\r\nher sadness, and they reached the station at Taunton almost without\r\nanother word. Of course they had to wait there for half an hour, and of course the\r\nwaiting was very tedious. To Will it was very tedious indeed, as he\r\nwas not by nature good at waiting."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To Clara, who on this occasion\r\nsat perfectly still in the waiting-room, with her toes on the fender\r\nbefore the fire, the evil of the occasion was not so severe. \"The man\r\nwould take two hours for the journey, though I told him an hour and a\r\nhalf would be enough,\" said Will, querulously. \"But we might have had an accident.\" \"An accident! What accident? People don't have accidents every day.\" At last the train came and they started. Clara, though she had with\r\nher her best friend,--I may almost say the friend whom in the world\r\nshe loved the best,--did not have an agreeable journey. Belton would\r\nnot talk; but as he made no attempt at reading, Clara did not like\r\nto have recourse to the book which she had in her travelling-bag. He\r\nsat opposite to her, opening the window and shutting it as he thought\r\nshe might like it, but looking wretched and forlorn. At Swindon\r\nhe brightened up for a moment under the excitement of getting her\r\nsomething to eat, but that relaxation lasted only for a few minutes. After that he relapsed again into silence till the train had passed\r\nSlough, and he knew that in another half-hour they would be in\r\nLondon. Then he leant over her and spoke. \"This will probably be the last opportunity I shall have of saying a\r\nfew words to you,--alone.\" \"I don't know that at all, Will.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It will be the last for a long time at any rate. And as I have got\r\nsomething to say, I might as well say it now. I have thought a great\r\ndeal about the property,--the Belton estate, I mean; and I don't\r\nintend to take it as mine. \"That is sheer nonsense, Will. You must take it, as it is yours, and\r\ncan't belong to any one else.\" \"I have thought it over, and I am quite sure that all the business of\r\nthe entail was wrong,--radically wrong from first to last. You are to\r\nunderstand that my special regard for you has nothing whatever to do\r\nwith it. I should do the same thing if I felt that I hated you.\" \"Don't hate me, Will!\" \"You know what I mean. I think the entail was all wrong, and I shan't\r\ntake advantage of it. It's not common sense that I should have\r\neverything because of poor Charley's misfortune.\" \"But it seems to me that it does not depend upon you or upon me, or\r\nupon anybody. It is yours,--by law, you know.\" \"And therefore it won't be sufficient for me to give it up without\r\nmaking it yours by law also,--which I intend to do. I shall stay in\r\ntown to-morrow and give instructions to Mr. Green. I have thought\r\nit proper to tell you this now, in order that you may mention it to\r\nCaptain Aylmer.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "They were leaning over in the carriage one towards the other; her\r\nface had been slightly turned away from him; but now she slowly\r\nraised her eyes till they met his, and looking into the depth of\r\nthem, and seeing there all his love and all his suffering, and the\r\ngreat nobility of his nature, her heart melted within her. Gradually,\r\nas her tears came,--would come, in spite of all her constraint, she\r\nagain turned her face towards the window. \"I can't talk now,\" she\r\nsaid, \"indeed I can't.\" \"There is no need for any more talking about it,\" he replied. And\r\nthere was no more talking between them on that subject, or on any\r\nother, till the tickets had been taken and the train was again in\r\nmotion. Then he referred to it again for a moment. \"You will tell\r\nCaptain Aylmer, my dear.\" \"I will tell him what you say, that he may know your generosity. But\r\nof course he will agree with me that no such offer can be accepted. It is quite,--quite,--quite,--out of the question.\" \"You had better tell him and say nothing more; or you can ask him\r\nto see Mr. Green,--after to-morrow. He, as a man who understands\r\nbusiness, will know that this arrangement must be made, if I choose\r\nto make it. Come; here we are. Porter, a four-wheeled cab. Do you go\r\nwith him, and I'll look after the luggage.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara, as she got into the cab, felt that she ought to have been\r\nmore stout in her resistance to his offer. But it would be better,\r\nperhaps, that she should write to him from Aylmer Park, and get\r\nFrederic to write also. CHAPTER XXIV. THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY HOTEL. At the door of the hotel of the Great Northern Railway Station they\r\nmet Captain Aylmer. Rooms had been taken there because they were to\r\nstart by an early train on that line in the morning, and Captain\r\nAylmer had undertaken to order dinner. There was nothing particular\r\nin the meeting to make it unpleasant to our friend Will. The\r\nfortunate rival could do no more in the hall of the inn than give his\r\nhand to his affianced bride, as he might do to any other lady, and\r\nthen suggest to her that she should go up-stairs and see her room. When he had done this, he also offered his hand to Belton; and Will,\r\nthough he would almost sooner have cut off his own, was obliged to\r\ntake it. In a few minutes the two men were standing alone together in\r\nthe sitting-room. \"I suppose you found it cold coming up?\" said the captain. \"Not particularly,\" said Will. \"It's rather a long journey from Belton.\" \"Not very long,\" said Will. \"Not for you, perhaps; but Miss Amedroz must be tired.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Belton was angry at having his cousin called Miss Amedroz,--feeling\r\nthat the reserve of the name was intended to keep him at a distance. But he would have been equally angry had Aylmer called her Clara. \"My cousin,\" said Will stoutly, \"is able to bear slight fatigue of\r\nthat kind without suffering.\" \"I didn't suppose she suffered; but journeys are always tedious,\r\nespecially where there is so much road work. I believe you are twenty\r\nmiles from the station?\" \"Belton Castle is something over twenty miles from Taunton.\" \"We are seven from our station at Aylmer Park, and we think that a\r\ngreat deal.\" \"I'm more than that at Plaistow,\" said Will. \"Oh, indeed. Plaistow is in Norfolk, I believe?\" \"Yes;--Plaistow is in Norfolk.\" \"I suppose you'll leave it now and go into Somersetshire,\" suggested\r\nCaptain Aylmer. \"Certainly not. Why should I leave it?\" \"I thought, perhaps,--as Belton Castle is now your own--\"\r\n\r\n\"Plaistow Hall is more my own than Belton Castle, if that signifies\r\nanything,--which it doesn't.\" This he said in an angry tone, which,\r\nas he became conscious of it, he tried to rectify. \"I've a deal of\r\nstock and all that sort of thing at Plaistow, and couldn't very well\r\nleave it, even if I wished it,\" he said. \"You've pretty good shooting too, I suppose,\" said Aylmer. \"As far as partridges go I'll back it against most properties of the\r\nsame extent in any county.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I'm too busy a man myself,\" said the Captain, \"to do much at\r\npartridges. We think more of pheasants down with us.\" \"I dare say.\" \"But a Norfolk man like you is of course keen about birds.\" \"We are obliged to put up with what we've got, you know;--not but\r\nwhat I believe there is a better general head of game in Norfolk than\r\nin any other county in England.\" \"That's what makes your hunting rather poor.\" \"Our hunting poor! Why do you say it's poor?\" \"So many of you are against preserving foxes.\" \"I'll tell you what, Captain Aylmer; I don't know what pack you\r\nhunt with, but I'll bet you a five-pound note that we killed more\r\nfoxes last year than you did;--that is, taking three days a week. Nine-and-twenty brace and a half in a short season I don't call poor\r\nat all.\" Captain Aylmer saw that the man was waxing angry, and made no further\r\nallusion either to the glories or deficiencies of Norfolk. As he\r\ncould think of no other subject on which to speak at the spur of\r\nthe moment, he sat himself down and took up a paper; Belton took up\r\nanother, and so they remained till Clara made her appearance. That\r\nCaptain Aylmer read his paper is probable enough. He was not a man\r\neasily disconcerted, and there was nothing in his present position\r\nto disconcert him. But I feel sure that Will Belton did not read a\r\nword."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was angry with this rival, whom he hated, and was angry with\r\nhimself for showing his anger. He would have wished to appear to the\r\nbest advantage before this man, or rather before Clara in this man's\r\npresence; and he knew that in Clara's absence he was making such a\r\nfool of himself that he would be unable to recover his prestige. He\r\nhad serious thoughts within his own breast whether it would not be\r\nas well for him to get up from his seat and give Captain Aylmer a\r\nthoroughly good thrashing;--\"Drop into him and punch his head,\" as\r\nhe himself would have expressed it. For the moment such an exercise\r\nwould give him immense gratification. The final results would, no\r\ndoubt, be disastrous; but then, all future results, as far as he\r\ncould see them, were laden with disaster. He was still thinking of\r\nthis, eyeing the man from under the newspaper, and telling himself\r\nthat the feat would probably be too easy to afford much enjoyment,\r\nwhen Clara re-entered the room. Then he got up, acting on the spur of\r\nthe moment,--got up quickly and suddenly, and began to bid her adieu. \"But you are going to dine here, Will?\" she said. \"No; I think not.\" \"You promised you would. You told me you had nothing to do to-night.\" Then she turned to Captain Aylmer. \"You expect my cousin to dine with\r\nus to-day?\" \"I ordered dinner for three,\" said Captain Aylmer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, very well; it's all the same thing to me,\" said Will. \"And to me,\" said Captain Aylmer. \"It's not at all the same thing to me,\" said Clara. \"I don't know\r\nwhen I may see my cousin again. I should think it very bad of you,\r\nWill, if you went away this evening.\" \"I'll go out just for half an hour,\" said he, \"and be back to\r\ndinner.\" \"We dine at seven,\" said the Captain. Then Belton took his hat and\r\nleft the two lovers together. \"Your cousin seems to be a rather surly sort of gentleman.\" Those\r\nwere the first words which Captain Aylmer spoke when he was alone\r\nwith the lady of his love. Nor was he demonstrative of his affection\r\nby any of the usual signs of regard which are permitted to accepted\r\nlovers. He did not offer to kiss her, nor did he attempt to take\r\nher hand with a warmer pressure now that he was alone with her. He\r\nprobably might have gone through some such ceremony had he first met\r\nClara in a position propitious to such purposes; but, as it was, he\r\nhad been a little ruffled by Will Belton's want of good breeding, and\r\nhad probably forgotten that any such privileges might have been his. I wonder whether any remembrance flashed across Clara's mind at this\r\nmoment of her cousin Will's great iniquity in the sitting-room at\r\nBelton Castle."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She thought of it very often, and may possibly have\r\nthought of it now. \"I don't believe that he is surly, Frederic,\" she said. \"He may,\r\nperhaps, be out of humour.\" \"And why should he be out of humour with me? I only suggested to him\r\nthat it might suit him to live at Belton instead of at that farm of\r\nhis, down in Norfolk.\" \"He is very fond of Plaistow, I fancy.\" \"But that's no reason why he should be cross with me. I don't envy\r\nhim his taste, that's all. If he can't understand that he, with his\r\nname, ought to live on the family property which belongs to him, it\r\nisn't likely that anything that I can say will open his eyes upon the\r\nsubject.\" \"The truth is, Frederic, he has some romantic notion about the Belton\r\nestate.\" \"What romantic notion?\" \"He thinks it should not be his at all.\" \"Whose then? Who does he think should have it?\" \"Of course there can be nothing in it, you know; of course it's all\r\nnonsense.\" \"But what is his idea? Who does he think should be the owner?\" \"He means--that it should be--mine. But of course, Frederic, it is\r\nall nonsense; we know that.\" It did not seem to be quite clear at the moment that Frederic had\r\naltogether made up his mind upon the subject."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As he heard these\r\ntidings from Clara there came across his face a puzzled, dubious\r\nlook, as though he did not quite understand the proposition which\r\nhad been suggested to him;--as though some consideration were wanted\r\nbefore he could take the idea home to himself and digest it, so as\r\nto enable himself to express an opinion upon it. There might be\r\nsomething in it,--some show of reason which did not make itself clear\r\nto Clara's feminine mind. \"I have never known what was the precise\r\nnature of your father's marriage settlement,\" said he. Then Clara began to explain with exceeding eagerness that there was\r\nno question as to the accuracy of the settlement, or the legality\r\nof the entail;--that indeed there was no question as to anything. Her cousin Will was romantic, and that was the end of it. Of\r\ncourse,--quite as a matter of course, this romance would lead to\r\nnothing; and she had only mentioned the subject now to show that her\r\ncousin's mind might possibly be disturbed when the question of his\r\nfuture residence was raised. \"I quite feel with you,\" she said, \"that\r\nit will be much nicer that he should live at the old family place;\r\nbut just at present I do not speak about it.\" \"If he is thinking of not claiming Belton, it is quite another\r\nthing,\" said Aylmer. \"It is his without any claiming,\" said Clara. \"Ah, well; it will all be settled before long,\" said Aylmer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It is settled already,\" said Clara. At seven the three met again, and when the dinner was on the table\r\nthere was some little trouble as to the helping of the fish. Which of\r\nthe two men should take the lead on the occasion? But Clara decided\r\nthe question by asking her cousin to make himself useful. There can\r\nbe little doubt but that Captain Aylmer would have distributed the\r\nmutton chops with much more grace, and have carved the roast fowl\r\nwith much more skill; but it suited Clara that Will should have the\r\nemployment, and Will did the work. Captain Aylmer, throughout the\r\ndinner, endeavoured to be complaisant, and Clara exerted herself to\r\ntalk as though all matters around them were easy. Will, too, made his\r\neffort, every now and then speaking a word, and restraining himself\r\nfrom snapping at his rival; but the restraint was in itself evident,\r\nand there were symptoms throughout the dinner that the untamed man\r\nwas longing to fly at the throat of the man that was tamed. \"Is it supposed that I ought to go away for a little while?\" said\r\nClara, as soon as she had drank her own glass of wine. \"Oh dear, no,\" said the Captain. \"We'll have a cup of coffee;--that\r\nis, if Mr. Belton likes it.\" \"It's all the same to me,\" said Will. \"But won't you have some more wine?\" Clara asked. \"No more for me,\" said Captain Aylmer. \"Perhaps Mr. Belton--\"\r\n\r\n\"Who; I?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "No; I don't want any more wine,\" said Will; and then they\r\nwere all silent. It was very hard upon Clara. After a while the coffee came, and even\r\nthat was felt to be a comfort. Though there was no pouring out to\r\nbe done, no actual employment enacted, still the manoeuvring of the\r\ncups created a diversion. \"If either of you like to smoke,\" she said,\r\n\"I shan't mind it in the least.\" But neither of them would smoke. \"At\r\nwhat hour shall we get to Aylmer Park to-morrow?\" Clara asked. \"At half-past four,\" said the Captain. \"Oh, indeed;--so early as that.\" What was she to say next? Will, who\r\nhad not touched his coffee, and who was sitting stiffly at the table\r\nas though he were bound in duty not to move, was becoming more and\r\nmore grim every moment. She almost repented that she had asked him\r\nto remain with them. Certainly there was no comfort in his company,\r\neither to them or to himself. \"How long shall you remain in town,\r\nWill, before you go down to Plaistow?\" she asked. \"One day,\" he replied. \"Give my kind love,--my very kindest love to Mary. I wish I knew her. I wish I could think that I might soon know her.\" \"You'll never know her,\" said Belton. The tone of his voice was\r\nactually savage as he spoke;--so much so that Aylmer turned in his\r\nchair to look at him, and Clara did not dare to answer him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But now\r\nthat he had been made to speak, it seemed that he was determined to\r\npersevere. \"How should you ever know her? Nothing will ever bring you\r\ninto Norfolk, and nothing will ever take her out of it.\" \"I don't quite see why either of those assertions should be made.\" \"Nevertheless they're both true. Had you ever meant to come to\r\nNorfolk you would have come now.\" He had not even asked her to come,\r\nhaving arranged with his sister that in their existing circumstances\r\nany such asking would not be a kindness; and yet he rebuked her now\r\nfor not coming! \"My mother is very anxious that Miss Amedroz should pay her a visit\r\nat Aylmer Park,\" said the Captain. \"And she's going to Aylmer Park, so your mother's anxiety need not\r\ndisturb her any longer.\" \"Come, Will, don't be out of temper with us,\" said Clara. \"It is our\r\nlast night together. We, who are so dear to each other, ought not to\r\nquarrel.\" \"I'm not quarrelling with you,\" said he. \"I can hardly suppose that Mr. Belton wants to quarrel with me,\" said\r\nCaptain Aylmer, smiling. \"I'm sure he does not,\" said Clara. Belton sat silent, with his eyes\r\nfixed upon the table, and with a dark frown upon his brow. He did\r\nlong to quarrel with Captain Aylmer; but was still anxious, if it\r\nmight be possible, to save himself from what he knew would be a\r\ntransgression."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"To use a phrase common with us down in Yorkshire,\" said Aylmer, \"I\r\nshould say that Mr. Belton had got out of bed the wrong side this\r\nmorning.\" \"What the d---- does it matter to you, sir, what side I got out of\r\nbed?\" said Will, clenching both his fists. Oh;--if he might only have\r\nbeen allowed to have a round of five minutes with Aylmer, he would\r\nhave been restored to good temper for that night, let the subsequent\r\nresults have been what they might. He moved his feet impatiently on\r\nthe floor, as though he were longing to kick something; and then he\r\npushed his coffee-cup away from him, upsetting half the contents upon\r\nthe table, and knocking down a wine-glass, which was broken. \"Will;--Will!\" said Clara, looking at him with imploring eyes. \"Then he shouldn't talk to me about getting out of bed on the wrong\r\nside. I didn't say anything to him.\" \"It is unkind of you, Will, to quarrel with Captain Aylmer because he\r\nis my friend.\" \"I don't want to quarrel with him; or, rather, as I won't quarrel\r\nwith him because you don't wish it, I'll go away. I can't do more\r\nthan that. I didn't want to dine with him here. There's my cousin\r\nClara, Captain Aylmer; I love her better than all the world besides. Love her! It seems to me that there's nothing else in the world for\r\nme to love. I'd give my heart for her this minute."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All that I have in\r\nthe world is hers. Oh,--love her! I don't believe that it's in you\r\nto know what I mean when I say that I love her! She tells me that\r\nshe's going to be your wife. You can't suppose that I can be very\r\ncomfortable under those circumstances,--or that I can be very fond of\r\nyou. I'm not very fond of you. Now I'll go away, and then I shan't\r\ntrouble you any more. But look here,--if ever you should ill-treat\r\nher, whether you marry her or whether you don't, I'll crush every\r\nbone in your skin.\" Having so spoken he went to the door, but stopped\r\nhimself before he left the room. \"Good-bye, Clara. I've got a word or\r\ntwo more to say to you, but I'll write you a line down-stairs. You\r\ncan show it to him if you please. It'll only be about business. Good-night.\" She had got up and followed him to the door, and he had taken her by\r\nthe hand. \"You shouldn't let your passion get the better of you in\r\nthis way,\" she said; but the tone of her voice was very soft, and her\r\neyes were full of love. \"I suppose not,\" said he. \"I can forgive him,\" said Captain Aylmer. \"D---- your forgiveness,\" said Will Belton. Then Clara dropped the\r\nhand and started back, and the door was shut, and Will Belton was\r\ngone. \"Your cousin seems to be a nice sort of young man,\" said Aylmer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Cannot you understand it all, Frederic, and pardon him?\" \"I can pardon him easily enough; but one doesn't like men who are\r\ngiven to threatening. He's not the sort of man that I took him to\r\nbe.\" \"Upon my word I think he's as nearly perfect as a man can be.\" \"Then you like men to swear at you, and to swagger like Bobadils,\r\nand to misbehave themselves, so that one has to blush for them if\r\na servant chances to hear them. Do you really think that he has\r\nconducted himself to-day like a gentleman?\" \"I know that he is a gentleman,\" said Clara. \"I must confess I have no reason for supposing him to be so but your\r\nassurance.\" \"And I hope that is sufficient, Frederic.\" Captain Aylmer did not answer her at once, but sat for awhile silent,\r\nconsidering what he would say. Clara, who understood his moods, knew\r\nthat he did not mean to drop the subject, and resolved that she would\r\ndefend her cousin, let Captain Aylmer attack him as he would. \"Upon my word, I hardly know what to say about it,\" said Aylmer. \"Suppose, then, that we say nothing more. Will not that be best?\" \"No, Clara. I cannot now let the matter pass by in that way. You have\r\nasked me whether I do not think Mr. Belton to be a gentleman, and I\r\nmust say that I doubt it. Pray hear me out before you answer me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I\r\ndo not want to be harder upon him than I can help; and I would have\r\nborne, and I did bear from him, a great deal in silence. But he said\r\nthat to me which I cannot allow to pass without notice. He had the\r\nbad taste to speak to me of his--his regard for you.\" \"I cannot see what harm he did by that;--except to himself.\" \"I believe that it is understood among gentlemen that one man never\r\nspeaks to another man about the lady the other man means to marry,\r\nunless they are very intimate friends indeed. What I mean is, that if\r\nMr. Belton had understood how gentlemen live together he would never\r\nhave said anything to me about his affection for you. He should at\r\nany rate have supposed me to be ignorant of it. There is something\r\nin the very idea of his doing so that is in the highest degree\r\nindelicate. I wonder, Clara, that you do not see this yourself.\" \"I think he was indiscreet.\" \"Indiscreet! Indiscreet is not the word for such conduct. I must say,\r\nthat as far as my opinion goes, it was ungentlemanlike.\" \"I don't believe that there is a nobler-minded gentleman in all\r\nLondon than my cousin Will.\" \"Perhaps it gratified you to hear from him the assurance of his\r\nlove?\" said Captain Aylmer. \"If it is your wish to insult me, Frederic, I will leave you.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It is my wish to make you understand that your judgment has been\r\nwrong.\" \"That is simply a matter of opinion, and as I do not wish to argue\r\nwith you about it, I had better go. At any rate I am very tired. Good-night, Frederic.\" He then told her what arrangements he had made\r\nfor the morrow, at what hour she would be called, and when she would\r\nhave her breakfast. After that he let her go without making any\r\nfurther allusion to Will Belton. It must be admitted that the meeting between the lovers had not been\r\nauspicious; and it must be acknowledged, also, that Will Belton had\r\nbehaved very badly. I am not aware of the existence of that special\r\nunderstanding among gentlemen in respect to the ladies they are\r\ngoing to marry which Captain Aylmer so eloquently described; but,\r\nnevertheless, I must confess that Belton would have done better had\r\nhe kept his feelings to himself. And when he talked of crushing his\r\nrival's bones, he laid himself justly open to severe censure. But,\r\nfor all that, he was no Bobadil. He was angry, sore, and miserable;\r\nand in his anger, soreness, and misery, he had allowed himself to\r\nbe carried away. He felt very keenly his own folly, even as he was\r\nleaving the room, and as he made his way out of the hotel he hated\r\nhimself for his own braggadocio."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I wish some one would crush my\r\nbones,\" he said to himself almost audibly. \"No one ever deserved to\r\nbe crushed better than I do.\" Clara, when she got to her own room, was very serious and very sad. What was to be the end of it all? This had been her first meeting\r\nafter her father's death with the man whom she had promised to marry;\r\nindeed, it was the first meeting after her promise had been given;\r\nand they had only met to quarrel. There had been no word of love\r\nspoken between them. She had parted from him now almost in anger,\r\nwithout the slightest expression of confidence between them,--almost\r\nas those part who are constrained by circumstances to be together,\r\nbut who yet hate each other and know that they hate each other. Was\r\nthere in truth any love between him and her? And if there was none,\r\ncould there be any advantage, any good either to him or to her, in\r\nthis journey of hers to Aylmer Park? Would it not be better that she\r\nshould send for him and tell him that they were not suited for each\r\nother, and that thus she should escape from all the terrors of Lady\r\nAylmer? As she thought of this, she could not but think of Will\r\nBelton also. Not a gentleman! If Will Belton was not a gentleman, she\r\ndesired to know nothing further of gentlemen."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Women are so good and\r\nkind that those whom they love they love almost the more when they\r\ncommit offences, because of the offences so committed. Will Belton\r\nhad been guilty of great offences,--of offences for which Clara was\r\nprepared to lecture him in the gravest manner should opportunities\r\nfor such lectures ever come;--but I think that they had increased\r\nher regard for him rather than diminished it. She could not, however,\r\nmake up her mind to send for Captain Aylmer, and when she went to bed\r\nshe had resolved that the visit to Yorkshire must be made. Before she left the room the following morning, a letter was brought\r\nto her from her cousin, which had been written that morning. She\r\nasked the maid to inquire for him, and sent down word to him that if\r\nhe were in the house she specially wished to see him; but the tidings\r\ncame from the hall porter that he had gone out very early, and had\r\nexpressly said that he should not breakfast at the inn. The letter was as follows:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   DEAR CLARA,\r\n\r\n   I meant to have handed to you the enclosed in person, but\r\n   I lost my temper last night,--like a fool as I am,--and so\r\n   I couldn't do it. You need not have any scruple about the\r\n   money which I send,--£100 in ten ten-pound notes,--as it\r\n   is your own."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There is the rent due up to your father's\r\n   death, which is more than what I now enclose, and there\r\n   will be a great many other items, as to all of which you\r\n   shall have a proper account. When you want more, you had\r\n   better draw on me, till things are settled. It shall all\r\n   be done as soon as possible. It would not be comfortable\r\n   for you to go away without money of your own, and I\r\n   suppose you would not wish that he should pay for your\r\n   journeys and things before you are married. Of course I made a fool of myself yesterday. I believe\r\n   that I usually do. It is not any good my begging your\r\n   pardon, for I don't suppose I shall ever trouble you any\r\n   more. Good-bye, and God bless you. Your affectionate Cousin,\r\n\r\n   WILLIAM BELTON. It was a bad day for me when I made up my mind to go to\r\n   Belton Castle last summer. Clara, when she had read the letter, sat down and cried, holding the\r\nbundle of notes in her hand. What would she do with them? Should she\r\nsend them back? Oh no;--she would do nothing to displease him, or to\r\nmake him think that she was angry with him. Besides, she had none of\r\nthat dislike to taking his money which she had felt as to receiving\r\nmoney from Captain Aylmer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had said that she would be his sister,\r\nand she would take from him any assistance that a sister might\r\nproperly take from a brother. She went down-stairs and met Captain Aylmer in the sitting-room. He\r\nstepped up to her as soon as the door was closed, and she could at\r\nonce see that he had determined to forget the unpleasantnesses of the\r\nprevious evening. He stepped up to her, and gracefully taking her by\r\none hand, and passing the other behind her waist, saluted her in a\r\nbecoming and appropriate manner. She did not like it. She especially\r\ndisliked it, believing in her heart of hearts that she would never\r\nbecome the wife of this man whom she had professed to love,--and whom\r\nshe really had once loved. But she could only bear it. And, to say\r\nthe truth, there was not much suffering of that kind to be borne. Their journey down to Yorkshire was very prosperous. He maintained\r\nhis good humour throughout the day, and never once said a word about\r\nWill Belton. Nor did he say a word about Mrs. Askerton. \"Do your best\r\nto please my mother, Clara,\" he said, as they were driving up from\r\nthe park lodges to the house. This was fair enough, and she therefore\r\npromised him that she would do her best. CHAPTER XXV. MISS AMEDROZ HAS SOME HASHED CHICKEN."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara felt herself to be a coward as the Aylmer Park carriage, which\r\nhad been sent to meet her at the station, was drawn up at Sir Anthony\r\nAylmer's door. She had made up her mind that she would not bow down\r\nto Lady Aylmer, and yet she was afraid of the woman. As she got out\r\nof the carriage, she looked up, expecting to see her in the hall;\r\nbut Lady Aylmer was too accurately acquainted with the weights and\r\nmeasures of society for any such movement as that. Had her son\r\nbrought Lady Emily to the house as his future bride, Lady Aylmer\r\nwould probably have been in the hall when the arrival took place;\r\nand had Clara possessed ten thousand pounds of her own, she would\r\nprobably have been met at the drawing-room door; but as she had\r\nneither money nor title,--as she in fact brought with her no\r\nadvantages of any sort, Lady Aylmer was found stitching a bit of\r\nworsted, as though she had expected no one to come to her. And\r\nBelinda Aylmer was stitching also,--by special order from her mother. The reader will remember that Lady Aylmer was not without strong\r\nhope that the engagement might even yet be broken off. Snubbing, she\r\nthought, might probably be efficacious to this purpose, and so Clara\r\nwas to be snubbed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara, who had just promised to do her best to gain Lady Aylmer's\r\nopinion, and who desired to be in some way true to her promise,\r\nthough she thoroughly believed that her labour would be in vain, put\r\non her pleasantest smile as she entered the room. Belinda, under the\r\npressure of the circumstances, forgetting somewhat of her mother's\r\ninjunctions, hurried to the door to welcome the stranger. Lady Aylmer\r\nkept her chair, and even maintained her stitch, till Clara was half\r\nacross the room. Then she got up, and, with great mastery over her\r\nvoice, made her little speech. \"We are delighted to see you, Miss Amedroz,\" she said, putting out\r\nher hand,--of which Clara, however, felt no more than the finger. \"Quite delighted,\" said Belinda, yielding a fuller grasp. Then there\r\nwere affectionate greetings between Frederic and his mother and\r\nFrederic and his sister, during which Clara stood by, ill at ease. Captain Aylmer said not a word as to the footing on which his future\r\nwife had come to his father's house. He did not ask his mother to\r\nreceive her as another daughter, or his sister to take his Clara to\r\nher heart as a sister. There had been no word spoken of recognised\r\nintimacy. Clara knew that the Aylmers were cold people. She had\r\nlearned as much as that from Captain Aylmer's words to herself, and\r\nfrom his own manner."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But she had not expected to be so frozen by them\r\nas was the case with her now. In ten minutes she was sitting down\r\nwith her bonnet still on, and Lady Aylmer was again at her stitches. \"Shall I show you your room?\" said Belinda. \"Wait a moment, my dear,\" said Lady Aylmer. \"Frederic has gone to see\r\nif Sir Anthony is in his study.\" Sir Anthony was found in his study, and now made his appearance. \"So this is Clara Amedroz,\" he said. \"My dear, you are welcome\r\nto Aylmer Park.\" This was so much better, that the kindness\r\nexpressed,--though there was nothing special in it,--brought a tear\r\ninto Clara's eye, and almost made her love Sir Anthony. \"By the by, Sir Anthony, have you seen Darvel? Darvel was wanting\r\nto see you especially about Nuggins. Nuggins says that he'll take\r\nthe bullocks now.\" This was said by Lady Aylmer, and was skilfully\r\narranged by her to put a stop to anything like enthusiasm on the part\r\nof Sir Anthony. Clara Amedroz had been invited to Aylmer Park, and\r\nwas to be entertained there, but it would not be expedient that she\r\nshould be made to think that anybody was particularly glad to see\r\nher, or that the family was at all proud of the proposed connection. Within five minutes after this she was up in her room, and had\r\nreceived from Belinda tenders of assistance as to her lady's maid."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Both the mother and daughter had been anxious to learn whether Clara\r\nwould bring her own maid. Lady Aylmer, thinking that she would do so,\r\nhad already blamed her for extravagance. \"Of course Fred will have\r\nto pay for the journey and all the rest of it,\" she had said. But\r\nas soon as she had perceived that Clara had come without a servant,\r\nshe had perceived that any young woman who travelled in that way\r\nmust be unfit to be mated with her son. Clara, whose intelligence in\r\nsuch matters was sharp enough, assured Belinda that she wanted no\r\nassistance. \"I dare say you think it very odd,\" she said, \"but I\r\nreally can dress myself.\" And when the maid did come to unpack the\r\nthings, Clara would have sent her away at once had she been able. But\r\nthe maid, who was not a young woman, was obdurate. \"Oh no, miss; my\r\nlady wouldn't be pleased. If you please, miss, I'll do it.\" And so\r\nthe things were unpacked. Clara was told that they dined at half-past seven, and she remained\r\nalone in her room till dinner-time, although it had not yet struck\r\nfive when she had gone up-stairs. The maid had brought her a cup of\r\ntea, and she seated herself at her fire, turning over in her mind the\r\ndifferent members of the household in which she found herself. It\r\nwould never do."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She told herself over and over again that it would\r\nnever come to pass that that woman should be her mother-in-law, or\r\nthat that other woman should be her sister. It was manifest to her\r\nthat she was distasteful to them; and she had not lost a moment in\r\nassuring herself that they were distasteful to her. What purpose\r\ncould it answer that she should strive,--not to like them, for no\r\nsuch strife was possible,--but to appear to like them? The whole\r\nplace and everything about it was antipathetic to her. Would it not\r\nbe simply honest to Captain Aylmer that she should tell him so at\r\nonce, and go away? Then she remembered that Frederic had not spoken\r\nto her a single word since she had been under his father's roof. What\r\nsort of welcome would have been accorded to her had she chosen to go\r\ndown to Plaistow Hall? At half-past seven she made her way by herself down-stairs. In this\r\nthere was some difficulty, as she remembered nothing of the rooms\r\nbelow, and she could not at first find a servant. But a man at last\r\ndid come to her in the hall, and by him she was shown into the\r\ndrawing-room. Here she was alone for a few minutes. As she looked\r\nabout her, she thought that no room she had ever seen had less of the\r\ncomfort of habitation. It was not here that she had met Lady Aylmer\r\nbefore dinner."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There had, at any rate, been in that other room work\r\nthings, and the look of life which life gives to a room. But here\r\nthere was no life. The furniture was all in its place, and everything\r\nwas cold and grand and comfortless. They were making company of her\r\nat Aylmer Park! Clara was intelligent in such matters, and understood\r\nit all thoroughly. Lady Aylmer was the first person to come to her. \"I hope my maid has\r\nbeen with you,\" said she;--to which Clara muttered something intended\r\nfor thanks. \"You'll find Richards a very clever woman, and quite a\r\nproper person.\" \"I don't at all doubt that.\" \"She has been here a good many years, and has perhaps little ways of\r\nher own,--but she means to be obliging.\" \"I shall give her very little trouble, Lady Aylmer. I am used to\r\ndress myself.\" I am afraid this was not exactly true as to Clara's\r\npast habits; but she could dress herself, and intended to do so in\r\nfuture, and in this way justified the assertion to herself. \"You had better let Richards come to you, my dear, while you are\r\nhere,\" said Lady Aylmer, with a slight smile on her countenance which\r\noutraged Clara more even than the words. \"We like to see young ladies\r\nnicely dressed here.\" To be told that she was to be nicely dressed\r\nbecause she was at Aylmer Park! Her whole heart was already up in\r\nrebellion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Do her best to please Lady Aylmer! It would be utterly\r\nimpossible to her to make any attempt whatever in that direction. There was something in her ladyship's eye,--a certain mixture of\r\ncunning, and power, and hardness in the slight smile that would\r\ngather round her mouth, by which Clara was revolted. She already\r\nunderstood much of Lady Aylmer, but in one thing she was mistaken. She thought that she saw simply the natural woman; but she did, in\r\ntruth, see the woman specially armed with an intention of being\r\ndisagreeable, made up to give offence, and prepared to create dislike\r\nand enmity. At the present moment nothing further was said, as\r\nCaptain Aylmer entered the room, and his mother immediately began to\r\ntalk to him in whispers. The two first days of Clara's sojourn at Aylmer Park passed by\r\nwithout the occurrence of anything that was remarkable. That which\r\nmost surprised and annoyed her, as regarded her own position, was the\r\ncoldness of all the people around her, as connected with the actual\r\nfact of her engagement. Sir Anthony was very courteous to her, but\r\nhad never as yet once alluded to the fact that she was to become\r\none of his family as his daughter-in-law."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lady Aylmer called her\r\nMiss Amedroz,--using the name with a peculiar emphasis, as though\r\ndetermined to show that Miss Amedroz was to be Miss Amedroz as far\r\nas any one at Aylmer Park was concerned,--and treated her almost as\r\nthough her presence in the house was intrusive. Belinda was as cold\r\nas her mother in her mother's presence; but when alone with Clara\r\nwould thaw a little. She, in her difficulty, studiously avoided\r\ncalling the new-comer by any name at all. As to Captain Aylmer, it\r\nwas manifest to Clara that he was suffering almost more than she\r\nsuffered herself. His position was so painful that she absolutely\r\npitied him for the misery to which he was subjected by his own\r\nmother. They still called each other Frederic and Clara, and that\r\nwas the only sign of special friendship which manifested itself\r\nbetween them. And Clara, though she pitied him, could not but learn\r\nto despise him. She had hitherto given him credit at any rate for\r\na will of his own. She had believed him to be a man able to act in\r\naccordance with the dictates of his own conscience. But now she\r\nperceived him to be so subject to his mother that he did not dare\r\nto call his heart his own. What was to be the end of it all?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And\r\nif there could only be one end, would it not be well that that\r\nend should be reached at once, so that she might escape from her\r\npurgatory? But on the afternoon of the third day there seemed to have come a\r\nchange over Lady Aylmer. At lunch she was especially civil,--civil to\r\nthe extent of picking out herself for Clara, with her own fork, the\r\nbreast of a hashed fowl from a dish that was before her. This she did\r\nwith considerable care,--I may say, with a show of care; and then,\r\nthough she did not absolutely call Clara by her Christian name, she\r\ndid call her \"my dear.\" Clara saw it all, and felt that the usual\r\nplacidity of the afternoon would be broken by some special event. At\r\nthree o'clock, when the carriage as usual came to the door, Belinda\r\nwas out of the way, and Clara was made to understand that she and\r\nLady Aylmer were to be driven out without any other companion. \"Belinda is a little busy, my dear. So, if you don't mind, we'll go\r\nalone.\" Clara of course assented, and got into the carriage with a\r\nconviction that now she would hear her fate. She was rather inclined\r\nto think that Lady Aylmer was about to tell her that she had failed\r\nin obtaining the approbation of Aylmer Park, and that she must be\r\nreturned as goods of a description inferior to the order given."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If\r\nsuch were the case, the breast of the chicken had no doubt been\r\nadministered as consolation. Clara had endeavoured, since she had\r\nbeen at Aylmer Park, to investigate her own feelings in reference\r\nto Captain Aylmer; but had failed, and knew that she had failed. She wished to think that she loved him, as she could not endure the\r\nthought of having accepted a man whom she did not love. And she told\r\nherself that he had done nothing to forfeit her love. A woman who\r\nreally loves will hardly allow that her love should be forfeited by\r\nany fault. True love breeds forgiveness for all faults. And, after\r\nall, of what fault had Captain Aylmer been guilty? He had preached\r\nto her out of his mother's mouth. That had been all! She had first\r\naccepted him, and then rejected him, and then accepted him again;\r\nand now she would fain be firm, if firmness were only possible to\r\nher. Nevertheless, if she were told that she was to be returned as\r\ninferior, she would hold up her head under such disgrace as best she\r\nmight, and would not let the tidings break her heart. \"My dear,\" said Lady Aylmer, as soon as the trotting horses and\r\nrolling wheels made noise enough to prevent her words from reaching\r\nthe servants on the box, \"I want to say a few words to you;--and I\r\nthink that this will be a good opportunity.\" \"A very good opportunity,\" said Clara."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Of course, my dear, you are aware that I have heard of something\r\ngoing on between you and my son Frederic.\" Now that Lady Aylmer had\r\ntaught herself to call Clara \"my dear,\" it seemed that she could\r\nhardly call her so often enough. \"Of course I know that Captain Aylmer has told you of our engagement. But for that, I should not be here.\" \"I don't know how that might be,\" said Lady Aylmer; \"but at any rate,\r\nmy dear, he has told me that since the day of my sister's death there\r\nhas been--in point of fact, a sort of engagement.\" \"I don't think Captain Aylmer has spoken of it in that way.\" \"In what way? Of course he has not said a word that was not nice and\r\nlover-like, and all that sort of thing. I believe he would have done\r\nanything in the world that his aunt had told him; and as to his--\"\r\n\r\n\"Lady Aylmer!\" said Clara, feeling that her voice was almost\r\ntrembling with anger, \"I am sure you cannot intend to be unkind to\r\nme?\" \"Certainly not.\" \"Or to insult me?\" \"Insult you, my dear! You should not use such strong words, my dear;\r\nindeed you should not. Nothing of the kind is near my thoughts.\" \"If you disapprove of my marrying your son, tell me so at once, and I\r\nshall know what to do.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It depends, my dear;--it depends on circumstances, and that is just\r\nwhy I want to speak to you.\" \"Then tell me the circumstances,--though indeed I think it would have\r\nbeen better if they could have been told to me by Captain Aylmer\r\nhimself.\" \"There, my dear, you must allow me to judge. As a mother, of course\r\nI am anxious for my son. Now Frederic is a poor man. Considering the\r\nkind of society in which he has to live, and the position which he\r\nmust maintain as a Member of Parliament, he is a very poor man.\" This was an argument which Clara certainly had not expected that\r\nany of the Aylmer family would condescend to use. She had always\r\nregarded Captain Aylmer as a rich man since he had inherited Mrs.\r\nWinterfield's property, knowing that previously to that he had been\r\nable to live in London as rich men usually do live. \"Is he?\" said\r\nshe. \"It may seem odd to you, Lady Aylmer, but I do not think that a\r\nword has ever passed between me and your son as to the amount of his\r\nincome.\" \"Not odd at all, my dear. Young ladies are always thoughtless about\r\nthose things, and when they are looking to be married think that\r\nmoney will come out of the skies.\" \"If you mean that I have been looking to be married--\"\r\n\r\n\"Well;--expecting. I suppose you have been expecting it.\" Then she\r\npaused; but as Clara said nothing, she went on."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Of course, Frederic\r\nhas got my sister's moiety of the Perivale property;--about eight\r\nhundred a year, or something of that sort, when all deductions are\r\nmade. He will have the other moiety when I die, and if you and he can\r\nbe satisfied to wait for that event,--which may not perhaps be very\r\nlong--\" Then there was another pause, indicative of the melancholy\r\nnatural to such a suggestion, during which Clara looked at Lady\r\nAylmer, and made up her mind that her ladyship would live for the\r\nnext twenty-five years at least. \"If you can wait for that,\" she\r\ncontinued, \"it may be all very well, and though you will be poor\r\npeople, in Frederic's rank of life, you will be able to live.\" \"That will be so far fortunate,\" said Clara. \"But you'll have to wait,\" said Lady Aylmer, turning upon her\r\ncompanion almost fiercely. \"That is, you certainly will have to do so\r\nif you are to depend upon Frederic's income alone.\" \"I have nothing of my own,--as he knows; absolutely nothing.\" \"That does not seem to be quite so clear,\" said Lady Aylmer, speaking\r\nnow very cautiously,--or rather with a purpose of great caution; \"I\r\ndon't think that that is quite so clear. Frederic has been telling me\r\nthat there seems to be some sort of a doubt about the settlement of\r\nthe Belton estate.\" \"There is no sort of doubt whatsoever;--no shadow of a doubt. He is\r\nquite mistaken.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Don't be in such a hurry, my dear. It is not likely that you\r\nyourself should be a very good lawyer.\" \"Lady Aylmer, I must be in a hurry lest there should be any mistake\r\nabout this. There is no question here for lawyers. Frederic must have\r\nbeen misled by a word or two which I said to him with quite another\r\npurpose. Everybody concerned knows that the Belton estate goes to my\r\ncousin Will. My poor father was quite aware of it.\" \"That is all very well; and pray remember, my dear, that you need not\r\nattack me in this way. I am endeavouring, if possible, to arrange the\r\naccomplishment of your own wishes. It seems that Mr. Belton himself\r\ndoes not claim the property.\" \"There is no question of claiming. Because he is a man more generous\r\nthan any other person in the world,--romantically generous, he\r\nhas offered to give me the property which was my father's for his\r\nlifetime; but I do not suppose that you would wish, or that Captain\r\nAylmer would wish, that I should accept such an offer as that.\" There\r\nwas a tone in her voice as she said this, and a glance in her eye as\r\nshe turned her face full upon her companion, which almost prevailed\r\nagainst Lady Aylmer's force of character. \"I really don't know, my dear,\" said Lady Aylmer. \"You are so\r\nviolent.\" \"I certainly am eager about this."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No consideration on earth would\r\ninduce me to take my cousin's property from him.\" \"It always seemed to me that that entail was a most unfair\r\nproceeding.\" \"What would it signify even if it were,--which it was not? Papa got\r\ncertain advantages on those conditions. But what can all that matter? It belongs to Will Belton.\" Then there was another pause, and Clara thought that that subject\r\nwas over between them. But Lady Aylmer had not as yet completed her\r\npurpose. \"Shall I tell you, my dear, what I think you ought to do?\" \"Certainly, Lady Aylmer; if you wish it.\" \"I can at any rate tell you what it would become any young lady to\r\ndo under such circumstances. I suppose you will give me credit for\r\nknowing as much as that. Any young lady placed as you are would be\r\nrecommended by her friends,--if she had friends able and fit to give\r\nher advice,--to put the whole matter into the hands of her natural\r\nfriends and her lawyer together. Hear me out, my dear, if you please. At least you can do that for me, as I am taking a great deal of\r\ntrouble on your behalf. You should let Frederic see Mr. Green. I\r\nunderstand that Mr. Green was your father's lawyer. And then Mr.\r\nGreen can see Mr. Belton. And so the matter can be arranged."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It seems\r\nto me, from what I hear, that in this way, and in this way only,\r\nsomething can be done as to the proposed marriage. In no other way\r\ncan anything be done.\" Then Lady Aylmer had finished her argument, and throwing herself back\r\ninto the carriage, seemed to intimate that she desired no reply. She had believed and did believe that her guest was so intent upon\r\nmarrying her son, that no struggle would be regarded as too great\r\nfor the achievement of that object. And such belief was natural on\r\nher part. Mothers always so think of girls engaged to their sons,\r\nand so think especially when the girls are penniless, and the sons\r\nare well to do in the world. But such belief, though it is natural,\r\nis sometimes wrong;--and it was altogether wrong in this instance. \"Then,\" said Clara, speaking very plainly, \"nothing can be done.\" \"Very well, my dear.\" After that there was not a word said between them till the carriage\r\nwas once more within the park. Then Lady Aylmer spoke again. \"I\r\npresume you see, my dear, that under these circumstances any\r\nthought of marriage between you and my son must be quite out of the\r\nquestion,--at any rate for a great many years.\" \"I will speak to Captain Aylmer about it, Lady Aylmer.\" \"Very well, my dear. So do. Of course he is his own master."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he is\r\nmy son as well, and I cannot see him sacrificed without an effort to\r\nsave him.\" When Clara came down to dinner on that day she was again Miss\r\nAmedroz, and she could perceive,--from Belinda's manner quite as\r\nplainly as from that of her ladyship,--that she was to have no more\r\ntit-bits of hashed chicken specially picked out for her by Lady\r\nAylmer's own fork. That evening and the two next days passed, just\r\nas had passed the two first days, and everything was dull, cold, and\r\nuncomfortable. Twice she had walked out with Frederic, and on each\r\noccasion had thought that he would refer to what his mother had said;\r\nbut he did not venture to touch upon the subject. Clara more than\r\nonce thought that she would do so herself; but when the moments came\r\nshe found that it was impossible. She could not bring herself to say\r\nanything that should have the appearance of a desire on her part to\r\nhurry on a marriage. She could not say to him, \"If you are too poor\r\nto be married,--or even if you mean to put forward that pretence,\r\nsay so at once.\" He still called her Clara, and still asked her to\r\nwalk with him, and still talked, when they were alone together, in\r\na distant cold way, of the events of their future combined life. Would they live at Perivale? Would it be necessary to refurnish the\r\nhouse?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Should he keep any of the land on his own hands? These are\r\nall interesting subjects of discussion between an engaged man and\r\nthe girl to whom he is engaged; but the man, if he wish to make\r\nthem thoroughly pleasant to the lady, should throw something of the\r\nurgency of a determined and immediate purpose into the discussion. Something should be said as to the actual destination of the rooms. A day should be fixed for choosing the furnishing. Or the gentleman\r\nshould declare that he will at once buy the cows for the farm. But\r\nwith Frederic Aylmer all discussions seemed to point to some cold,\r\ndistant future, to which Clara might look forward as she did to the\r\njoys of heaven. Will Belton would have bought the ring long since,\r\nand bespoken the priest, and arranged every detail of the honeymoon\r\ntour,--and very probably would have stood looking into a cradle shop\r\nwith longing eyes. At last there came an absolute necessity for some plain speaking. Captain Aylmer declared his intention of returning to London that he\r\nmight resume his parliamentary duties. He had purposed to remain till\r\nafter Easter, but it was found to be impossible. \"I find I must go\r\nup to-morrow,\" he said at breakfast. \"They are going to make a stand\r\nabout the Poor-rates, and I must be in the House in the evening.\" Clara felt herself to be very cold and uncomfortable."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As things were\r\nat present arranged she was to be left at Aylmer Park without a\r\nfriend. And how long was she to remain there? No definite ending had\r\nbeen proposed for her visit. Something must be said and something\r\nsettled before Captain Aylmer went away. \"You will come down for Easter, of course,\" said his mother. \"Yes; I shall come down for Easter, I think,--or at any rate at\r\nWhitsuntide.\" \"You must come at Easter, Frederic,\" said his mother. \"I don't doubt but I shall,\" said he. \"Miss Amedroz should lay her commands upon him,\" said Sir Anthony\r\ngallantly. \"Nonsense,\" said Lady Aylmer. \"I have commands to lay upon him all the same,\" said Clara; \"and if\r\nhe will give me half an hour this morning he shall have them.\" To\r\nthis Captain Aylmer, of course, assented,--as how could he escape\r\nfrom such assent,--and a regular appointment was made. Captain Aylmer\r\nand Miss Amedroz were to be closeted together in the little back\r\ndrawing-room immediately after breakfast. Clara would willingly have\r\navoided any such formality could she have done so compatibly with the\r\nexigencies of the occasion. She had been obliged to assert herself\r\nwhen Lady Aylmer had rebuked Sir Anthony, and then Lady Aylmer had\r\ndetermined that an air of business should be assumed. Clara, as\r\nshe was marched off into the back drawing-room, followed by her\r\nlover with more sheep-like gait even than her own, felt strongly\r\nthe absurdity and the wretchedness of her position."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But she was\r\ndetermined to go through with her purpose. \"I am very sorry that I have to leave you so soon,\" said Captain\r\nAylmer as soon as the door was shut and they were alone together. \"Perhaps it may be better as it is, Frederic; as in this way we shall\r\nall come to understand each other, and something will be settled.\" \"Well, yes; perhaps that will be best.\" \"Your mother has told me that she disapproves of our marriage.\" \"No; not that, I think. I don't think she can have quite said that.\" \"She says that you cannot marry while she is alive,--that is, that\r\nyou cannot marry me because your income would not be sufficient.\" \"I certainly was speaking to her about my income.\" \"Of course I have got nothing.\" Here she paused. \"Not a penny-piece\r\nin the world that I can call my own.\" \"Oh yes, you have.\" \"Nothing. Nothing!\" \"You have your aunt's legacy?\" \"No; I have not. She left me no legacy. But as that is between you\r\nand me, if we think of marrying each other, that would make no\r\ndifference.\" \"None at all, of course.\" \"But in truth I have got nothing. Your mother said something to me\r\nabout the Belton estate; as though there was some idea that possibly\r\nit might come to me.\" \"Your cousin himself seemed to think so.\" \"Frederic, do not let us deceive ourselves. There can be nothing of\r\nthe kind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I could not accept any portion of the property from my\r\ncousin,--even though our marriage were to depend upon it.\" \"Of course it does not.\" \"But if your means are not sufficient for your wants I am quite\r\nready to accept that reason as being sufficient for breaking our\r\nengagement.\" \"There need be nothing of the kind.\" \"As for waiting for the death of another person,--for your mother's\r\ndeath, I should think it very wrong. Of course, if our engagement\r\nstands there need be no hurry; but--some time should be fixed.\" Clara\r\nas she said this felt that her face and forehead were suffused with a\r\nblush; but she was determined that it should be said, and the words\r\nwere pronounced. \"I quite think so too,\" said he. \"I am glad that we agree. Of course, I will leave it to you to fix\r\nthe time.\" \"You do not mean at this very moment?\" said Captain Aylmer, almost\r\naghast. \"No; I did not mean that.\" \"I'll tell you what. I'll make a point of coming down at Easter. I\r\nwasn't sure about it before, but now I will be. And then it shall be\r\nsettled.\" Such was the interview; and on the next morning Captain Aylmer\r\nstarted for London. Clara felt aware that she had not done or said\r\nall that should have been done and said; but, nevertheless, a step in\r\nthe right direction had been taken. CHAPTER XXVI. THE AYLMER PARK HASHED CHICKEN COMES TO AN END."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Easter in this year fell about the middle of April, and it still\r\nwanted three weeks of that time when Captain Aylmer started for\r\nLondon. Clara was quite alive to the fact that the next three weeks\r\nwould not be a happy time for her. She looked forward, indeed, to so\r\nmuch wretchedness during this period, that the days as they came were\r\nnot quite so bad as she had expected them to be. At first Lady Aylmer\r\nsaid little or nothing to her. It seemed to be agreed between them\r\nthat there was to be war, but that there was no necessity for any of\r\nthe actual operations of war during the absence of Captain Aylmer. Clara had become Miss Amedroz again; and though an offer to be\r\ndriven out in the carriage was made to her every day, she was in\r\ngeneral able to escape the infliction;--so that at last it came to be\r\nunderstood that Miss Amedroz did not like carriage exercise. \"She has\r\nnever been used to it,\" said Lady Aylmer to her daughter. \"I suppose\r\nnot,\" said Belinda; \"but if she wasn't so very cross she'd enjoy it\r\njust for that reason.\" Clara sometimes walked about the grounds with\r\nBelinda, but on such occasions there was hardly anything that could\r\nbe called conversation between them, and Frederic Aylmer's name was\r\nnever mentioned."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Captain Aylmer had not been gone many days before she received a\r\nletter from her cousin, in which he spoke with absolute certainty of\r\nhis intention of giving up the estate. He had, he said, consulted\r\nMr. Green, and the thing was to be done. \"But it will be better,\r\nI think,\" he went on to say, \"that I should manage it for you till\r\nafter your marriage. I simply mean what I say. You are not to suppose\r\nthat I shall interfere in any way afterwards. Of course there will be\r\na settlement, as to which I hope you will allow me to see Mr. Green\r\non your behalf.\" In the first draught of his letter he had inserted a\r\nsentence in which he expressed a wish that the property should be so\r\nsettled that it might at last all come to some one bearing the name\r\nof Belton. But as he read this over, the condition,--for coming from\r\nhim it would be a condition,--seemed to him to be ungenerous, and he\r\nexpunged it. \"What does it matter who has it,\" he said to himself\r\nbitterly, \"or what he is called? I will never set my eyes upon his\r\nchildren, nor yet upon the place when he has become the master of\r\nit.\" Clara wrote both to her cousin and to the lawyer, repeating\r\nher assurance,--with great violence, as Lady Aylmer would have\r\nsaid,--that she would have nothing to do with the Belton estate."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She\r\ntold Mr. Green that it would be useless for him to draw up any deeds. \"It can't be made mine unless I choose to have it,\" she said, \"and I\r\ndon't choose to have it.\" Then there came upon her a terrible fear. What if she should marry Captain Aylmer after all; and what if he,\r\nwhen he should be her husband, should take the property on her\r\nbehalf! Something must be done before her marriage to prevent the\r\npossibility of such results,--something as to the efficacy of which\r\nfor such prevention she could feel altogether certain. But could she marry Captain Aylmer at all in her present mood? During\r\nthese three weeks she was unconsciously teaching herself to hope that\r\nshe might be relieved from her engagement. She did not love him. She\r\nwas becoming aware that she did not love him. She was beginning to\r\ndoubt whether, in truth, she had ever loved him. But yet she felt\r\nthat she could not escape from her engagement if he should show\r\nhimself to be really actuated by any fixed purpose to carry it out;\r\nnor could she bring herself to be so weak before Lady Aylmer as to\r\nseem to yield. The necessity of not striking her colours was forced\r\nupon her by the warfare to which she was subjected. She was unhappy,\r\nfeeling that her present position in life was bad, and unworthy of\r\nher."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She could have brought herself almost to run away from Aylmer\r\nPark, as a boy runs away from school, were it not that she had no\r\nplace to which to run. She could not very well make her appearance\r\nat Plaistow Hall, and say that she had come there for shelter and\r\nsuccour. She could, indeed, go to Mrs. Askerton's cottage for awhile;\r\nand the more she thought of the state of her affairs, the more did\r\nshe feel sure that that would, before long, be her destiny. It must\r\nbe her destiny,--unless Captain Aylmer should return at Easter with\r\npurposes so firmly fixed that even his mother should not be able to\r\nprevail against them. And now, in these days, circumstances gave her a new friend,--or\r\nperhaps, rather, a new acquaintance, where she certainly had looked\r\nneither for the one or for the other. Lady Aylmer and Belinda and the\r\ncarriage and the horses used, as I have said, to go off without her. This would take place soon after luncheon. Most of us know how the\r\nevents of the day drag themselves on tediously in such a country\r\nhouse as Aylmer Park,--a country house in which people neither read,\r\nnor flirt, nor gamble, nor smoke, nor have resort to the excitement\r\nof any special amusement. Lunch was on the table at half-past one,\r\nand the carriage was at the door at three. Eating and drinking\r\nand the putting on of bonnets occupied the hour and a half."}
{"question": "", "answer": "From\r\nbreakfast to lunch Lady Aylmer, with her old \"front,\" would occupy\r\nherself with her household accounts. For some days after Clara's\r\narrival she put on her new \"front\" before lunch; but of late,--since\r\nthe long conversation in the carriage,--the new \"front\" did not\r\nappear till she came down for the carriage. According to the theory\r\nof her life, she was never to be seen by any but her own family\r\nin her old \"front.\" At breakfast she would appear with head so\r\nmysteriously enveloped,--with such a bewilderment of morning caps,\r\nthat old \"front\" or new \"front\" was all the same. When Sir Anthony\r\nperceived this change,--when he saw that Clara was treated as though\r\nshe belonged to Aylmer Park, then he told himself that his son's\r\nmarriage with Miss Amedroz was to be; and, as Miss Amedroz seemed\r\nto him to be a very pleasant young woman, he would creep out of his\r\nown quarters when the carriage was gone and have a little chat with\r\nher,--being careful to creep away again before her ladyship's return. This was Clara's new friend. \"Have you heard from Fred since he has been gone?\" the old man asked\r\none day, when he had come upon Clara still seated in the parlour in\r\nwhich they had lunched. He had been out, at the front of the house,\r\nscolding the under-gardener; but the man had taken away his barrow\r\nand left him, and Sir Anthony had found himself without employment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Only a line to say that he is to be here on the sixteenth.\" \"I don't think people write so many love-letters as they did when I\r\nwas young,\" said Sir Anthony. \"To judge from the novels, I should think not. The old novels used to\r\nbe full of love-letters.\" \"Fred was never good at writing, I think.\" \"Members of Parliament have too much to do, I suppose,\" said Clara. \"But he always writes when there is any business. He's a capital man\r\nof business. I wish I could say as much for his brother,--or for\r\nmyself.\" \"Lady Aylmer seems to like work of that sort.\" \"So she does. She's fond of it,--I am not. I sometimes think that\r\nFred takes after her. Where was it you first knew him?\" \"At Perivale. We used, both of us, to be staying with Mrs. Winterfield.\" \"Yes, yes; of course. The most natural thing in life. Well, my dear,\r\nI can assure you that I am quite satisfied.\" \"Thank you, Sir Anthony. I'm glad to hear you say even as much as\r\nthat.\" \"Of course money is very desirable for a man situated like Fred; but\r\nhe'll have enough, and if he is pleased, I am. Personally, as regards\r\nyourself, I am more than pleased. I am indeed.\" \"It's very good of you to say so.\" Sir Anthony looked at Clara, and his heart was softened towards her\r\nas he saw that there was a tear in her eye."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A man's heart must be\r\nvery hard when it does not become softened by the trouble of a woman\r\nwith whom he finds himself alone. \"I don't know how you and Lady\r\nAylmer get on together,\" said he; \"but it will not be my fault if we\r\nare not friends.\" \"I am afraid that Lady Aylmer does not like me,\" said Clara. \"Indeed. I was afraid there was something of that. But you must\r\nremember she is hard to please. You'll find she'll come round in\r\ntime.\" \"She thinks that Captain Aylmer should not marry a woman without\r\nmoney.\" \"That's all very well; but I don't see why Fred shouldn't please\r\nhimself. He's old enough to know what he wants.\" \"Is he, Sir Anthony? That's just the question. I'm not quite sure\r\nthat he does know what he wants.\" \"Fred doesn't know, do you mean?\" \"I don't quite think he does, sir. And the worst of it is, I am in\r\ndoubt as well as he.\" \"In doubt about marrying him?\" \"In doubt whether it will be good for him or for any of us. I don't\r\nlike to come into a family that does not desire to have me.\" \"You shouldn't think so much of Lady Aylmer as all that, my dear.\" \"But I do think a great deal of her.\" \"I shall be very glad to have you as a daughter-in-law."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And as for\r\nLady Aylmer--between you and me, my dear, you shouldn't take every\r\nword she says so much to heart. She's the best woman in the world,\r\nand I'm sure I'm bound to say so. But she has her temper, you know;\r\nand I don't think you ought to give way to her altogether. There's\r\nthe carriage. It won't do you any good if we're found together\r\ntalking over it all; will it?\" Then the baronet hobbled off, and Lady\r\nAylmer, when she entered the room, found Clara sitting alone. Whether it was that the wife was clever enough to extract from her\r\nhusband something of the conversation that had passed between him\r\nand Clara, or whether she had some other source of information,--or\r\nwhether her conduct might proceed from other grounds, we need not\r\ninquire; but from that afternoon Lady Aylmer's manner and words to\r\nClara became much less courteous than they had been before. She would\r\nalways speak as though some great iniquity was being committed, and\r\nwent about the house with a portentous frown, as though some terrible\r\nmeasure must soon be taken with the object of putting an end to the\r\npresent extremely improper state of things. All this was so manifest\r\nto Clara, that she said to Sir Anthony one day that she could no\r\nlonger bear the look of Lady Aylmer's displeasure,--and that she\r\nwould be forced to leave Aylmer Park before Frederic's return, unless\r\nthe evil were mitigated."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had by this time told Sir Anthony that\r\nshe much doubted whether the marriage would be possible, and that she\r\nreally believed that it would be best for all parties that the idea\r\nshould be abandoned. Sir Anthony, when he heard this, could only\r\nshake his head and hobble away. The trouble was too deep for him to\r\ncure. But Clara still held on; and now there wanted but two days to Captain\r\nAylmer's return, when, all suddenly, there arose a terrible storm at\r\nAylmer Park, and then came a direct and positive quarrel between Lady\r\nAylmer and Clara,--a quarrel direct and positive, and, on the part of\r\nboth ladies, very violent. Nothing had hitherto been said at Aylmer Park about Mrs.\r\nAskerton,--nothing, that is, since Clara's arrival. And Clara had\r\nbeen thankful for this silence. The letter which Captain Aylmer had\r\nwritten to her about Mrs. Askerton will perhaps be remembered, and\r\nClara's answer to that letter. The Aylmer Park opinion as to this\r\npoor woman, and as to Clara's future conduct towards the poor woman,\r\nhad been expressed very strongly; and Clara had as strongly resolved\r\nthat she would not be guided by Aylmer Park opinions in that matter. She had anticipated much that was disagreeable on this subject, and\r\nhad therefore congratulated herself not a little on the absence of\r\nall allusion to it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Lady Aylmer had, in truth, kept Mrs. Askerton\r\nin reserve, as a battery to be used against Miss Amedroz if all other\r\nmodes of attack should fail,--as a weapon which would be powerful\r\nwhen other weapons had been powerless. For awhile she had thought\r\nit possible that Clara might be the owner of the Belton estate, and\r\nthen it had been worth the careful mother's while to be prepared to\r\naccept a daughter-in-law so dowered. We have seen how the question\r\nof such ownership had enabled her to put forward the plea of poverty\r\nwhich she had used on her son's behalf. But since that Frederic had\r\ndeclared his intention of marrying the young woman in spite of his\r\npoverty, and Clara seemed to be equally determined. \"He has been fool\r\nenough to speak the word, and she is determined to keep him to it,\"\r\nsaid Lady Aylmer to her daughter. Therefore the Askerton battery was\r\nbrought to bear,--not altogether unsuccessfully. The three ladies were sitting together in the drawing-room, and had\r\nbeen as mute as fishes for half an hour. In these sittings they were\r\ngenerally very silent, speaking only in short little sentences. \"Will\r\nyou drive with us to-day, Miss Amedroz?\" \"Not to-day, I think, Lady\r\nAylmer.\" \"As you are reading, perhaps you won't mind our leaving\r\nyou?\" \"Pray do not put yourself to inconvenience for me, Miss\r\nAylmer.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Such and such like was their conversation; but on a sudden,\r\nafter a full half-hour's positive silence, Lady Aylmer asked a\r\nquestion altogether of another kind. \"I think, Miss Amedroz, my son\r\nwrote to you about a certain Mrs. Askerton?\" Clara put down her work and sat for a moment almost astonished. It was not only that Lady Aylmer had asked so very disagreeable a\r\nquestion, but that she had asked it with so peculiar a voice,--a\r\nvoice as it were a command, in a manner that was evidently intended\r\nto be taken as serious, and with a look of authority in her eye, as\r\nthough she were resolved that this battery of hers should knock the\r\nenemy absolutely in the dust! Belinda gave a little spring in her\r\nchair, looked intently at her work, and went on stitching faster\r\nthan before. \"Yes he did,\" said Clara, finding that an answer was\r\nimperatively demanded from her. \"It was quite necessary that he should write. I believe it to be an\r\nundoubted fact that Mrs. Askerton is,--is,--is,--not at all what she\r\nought to be.\" \"Which of us is what we ought to be?\" said Clara. \"Miss Amedroz, on this subject I am not at all inclined to joke. Is\r\nit not true that Mrs. Askerton--\"\r\n\r\n\"You must excuse me, Lady Aylmer, but what I know of Mrs. Askerton,\r\nI know altogether in confidence; so that I cannot speak to you of her\r\npast life.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But, Miss Amedroz, pray excuse me if I say that I must speak of\r\nit. When I remember the position in which you do us the honour of\r\nbeing our visitor here, how can I help speaking of it?\" Belinda\r\nwas stitching very hard, and would not even raise her eyes. Clara,\r\nwho still held her needle in her hand, resumed her work, and for a\r\nmoment or two made no further answer. But Lady Aylmer had by no means\r\ncompleted her task. \"Miss Amedroz,\" she said, \"you must allow me to\r\njudge for myself in this matter. The subject is one on which I feel\r\nmyself obliged to speak to you.\" \"But I have got nothing to say about it.\" \"You have, I believe, admitted the truth of the allegations made\r\nby us as to this woman.\" Clara was becoming very angry. A red spot\r\nshowed itself on each cheek, and a frown settled upon her brow. She\r\ndid not as yet know what she would say or how she would conduct\r\nherself. She was striving to consider how best she might assert her\r\nown independence. But she was fully determined that in this matter\r\nshe would not bend an inch to Lady Aylmer. \"I believe we may take\r\nthat as admitted?\" said her ladyship. \"I am not aware that I have admitted anything to you, Lady Aylmer, or\r\nsaid anything that can justify you in questioning me on the subject.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Justify me in questioning a young woman who tells me that she is to\r\nbe my future daughter-in-law!\" \"I have not told you so. I have never told you anything of the kind.\" \"Then on what footing, Miss Amedroz, do you do us the honour of being\r\nwith us here at Aylmer Park?\" \"On a very foolish footing.\" \"On a foolish footing! What does that mean?\" \"It means that I have been foolish in coming to a house in which I am\r\nsubjected to such questioning.\" \"Belinda, did you ever hear anything like this? Miss Amedroz, I must\r\npersevere, however much you may dislike it. The story of this woman's\r\nlife,--whether she be Mrs. Askerton or not, I don't know--\"\r\n\r\n\"She is Mrs. Askerton,\" said Clara. \"As to that I do not profess to know, and I dare say that you are\r\nno wiser than myself. But what she has been we do know.\" Here Lady\r\nAylmer raised her voice and continued to speak with all the eloquence\r\nwhich assumed indignation could give her. \"What she has been we do\r\nknow, and I ask you, as a duty which I owe to my son, whether you\r\nhave put an end to your acquaintance with so very disreputable a\r\nperson,--a person whom even to have known is a disgrace?\" \"I know her, and--\"\r\n\r\n\"Stop one minute, if you please. My questions are these--Have you put\r\nan end to that acquaintance?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And are you ready to give a promise that\r\nit shall never be resumed?\" \"I have not put an end to that acquaintance,--or rather that\r\naffectionate friendship as I should call it, and I am ready to\r\npromise that it shall be maintained with all my heart.\" \"Belinda, do you hear her?\" \"Yes, mamma.\" And Belinda slowly shook her head, which was now bowed\r\nlower than ever over her lap. \"And that is your resolution?\" \"Yes, Lady Aylmer; that is my resolution.\" \"And you think that becoming to you, as a young woman?\" \"Just so; I think that becoming to me,--as a young woman.\" \"Then let me tell you, Miss Amedroz, that I differ from you\r\naltogether,--altogether.\" Lady Aylmer, as she repeated the last word,\r\nraised her folded hands as though she were calling upon heaven to\r\nwitness how thoroughly she differed from the young woman! \"I don't see how I am to help that, Lady Aylmer. I dare say we may\r\ndiffer on many subjects.\" \"I dare say we do. I dare say we do. And I need not point out to you\r\nhow very little that would be a matter of regret to me, but for the\r\nhold you have upon my unfortunate son.\" \"Hold upon him, Lady Aylmer! How dare you insult me by such\r\nlanguage?\" Hereupon Belinda again jumped in her chair; but Lady\r\nAylmer looked as though she enjoyed the storm."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You undoubtedly have a hold upon him, Miss Amedroz, and I think that\r\nit is a great misfortune. Of course, when he hears what your conduct\r\nis with reference to this--person, he will release himself from his\r\nentanglement.\" \"He can release himself from his entanglement whenever he chooses,\"\r\nsaid Clara, rising from her chair. \"Indeed, he is released. I shall\r\nlet Captain Aylmer know that our engagement must be at an end, unless\r\nhe will promise that I shall never in future be subjected to the\r\nunwarrantable insolence of his mother.\" Then she walked off to the\r\ndoor, not regarding, and indeed not hearing, the parting shot that\r\nwas fired at her. And now what was to be done! Clara went up to her own room, making\r\nherself strong and even comfortable, with an inward assurance that\r\nnothing should ever induce her even to sit down to table again with\r\nLady Aylmer. She would not willingly enter the same room with Lady\r\nAylmer, or have any speech with her. But what should she at once do? She could not very well leave Aylmer Park without settling whither\r\nshe would go; nor could she in any way manage to leave the house\r\non that afternoon. She almost resolved that she would go to Mrs.\r\nAskerton. Everything was of course over between her and Captain\r\nAylmer, and therefore there was no longer any hindrance to her doing\r\nso on that score. But what would be her cousin Will's wish?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "He, now,\r\nwas the only friend to whom she could trust for good council. What\r\nwould be his advice? Should she write and ask him? No;--she could not\r\ndo that. She could not bring herself to write to him, telling him\r\nthat the Aylmer \"entanglement\" was at an end. Were she to do so, he,\r\nwith his temperament, would take such letter as meaning much more\r\nthan it was intended to mean. But she would write a letter to Captain\r\nAylmer. This she thought that she would do at once, and she began it. She got as far as \"My dear Captain Aylmer,\" and then she found that\r\nthe letter was one which could not be written very easily. And she\r\nremembered, as the greatness of the difficulty of writing the letter\r\nbecame plain to her, that it could not now be sent so as to reach\r\nCaptain Aylmer before he would leave London. If written at all,\r\nit must be addressed to him at Aylmer Park, and the task might be\r\ndone to-morrow as well as to-day. So that task was given up for the\r\npresent. But she did write a letter to Mrs. Askerton,--a letter which she\r\nwould send or not on the morrow, according to the state of her mind\r\nas it might then be. In this she declared her purpose of leaving\r\nAylmer Park on the day after Captain Aylmer's arrival, and asked\r\nto be taken in at the cottage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "An answer was to be sent to her,\r\naddressed to the Great Northern Railway Hotel. Richards, the maid, came up to her before dinner, with offers of\r\nassistance for dressing,--offers made in a tone which left no doubt\r\non Clara's mind that Richards knew all about the quarrel. But Clara\r\ndeclined to be dressed, and sent down a message saying that she would\r\nremain in her room, and begging to be supplied with tea. She would\r\nnot even condescend to say that she was troubled with a headache. Then Belinda came up to her, just before dinner was announced, and\r\nwith a fluttered gravity advised Miss Amedroz to come down-stairs. \"Mamma thinks it will be much better that you should show yourself,\r\nlet the final result be what it may.\" \"But I have not the slightest desire to show myself.\" \"There are the servants, you know.\" \"But, Miss Aylmer, I don't care a straw for the servants;--really not\r\na straw.\" \"And papa will feel it so.\" \"I shall be sorry if Sir Anthony is annoyed;--but I cannot help it. It has not been my doing.\" \"And mamma says that my brother would of course wish it.\" \"After what your mother has done, I don't see what his wishes would\r\nhave to do with it,--even if she knew them,--which I don't think she\r\ndoes.\" \"But if you will think of it, I'm sure you'll find it is the proper\r\nthing to do."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There is nothing to be avoided so much as an open\r\nquarrel, that all the servants can see.\" \"I must say, Miss Aylmer, that I disregard the servants. After what\r\npassed down-stairs, of course I have had to consider what I should\r\ndo. Will you tell your mother that I will stay here, if she will\r\npermit it?\" \"Of course. She will be delighted.\" \"I will remain, if she will permit it, till the morning after Captain\r\nAylmer's arrival. Then I shall go.\" \"Where to, Miss Amedroz?\" \"I have already written to a friend, asking her to receive me.\" Miss Aylmer paused a moment before she asked her next question;--but\r\nshe did ask it, showing by her tone and manner that she had been\r\ndriven to summon up all her courage to enable her to do so. \"To what\r\nfriend, Miss Amedroz? Mamma will be glad to know.\" \"That is a question which Lady Aylmer can have no right to ask,\" said\r\nClara. \"Oh;--very well. Of course, if you don't like to tell, there's no\r\nmore to be said.\" \"I do not like to tell, Miss Aylmer.\" Clara had her tea in her room that evening, and lived there the\r\nwhole of the next day. The family down-stairs was not comfortable."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Anthony could not be made to understand why his guest kept her\r\nroom,--which was not odd, as Lady Aylmer was very sparing in the\r\ninformation she gave him; and Belinda found it to be impossible to\r\nsit at table, or to say a few words to her father and mother, without\r\nshowing at every moment her consciousness that a crisis had occurred. By the next day's post the letter to Mrs. Askerton was sent, and\r\nat the appointed time Captain Aylmer arrived. About an hour after\r\nhe entered the house, Belinda went up-stairs with a message from\r\nhim;--would Miss Amedroz see him? Miss Amedroz would see him, but\r\nmade it a condition of doing so that she should not be required to\r\nmeet Lady Aylmer. \"She need not be afraid,\" said Lady Aylmer. \"Unless\r\nshe sends me a full apology, with a promise that she will have no\r\nfurther intercourse whatever with that woman, I will never willingly\r\nsee her again.\" A meeting was therefore arranged between Captain\r\nAylmer and Miss Amedroz in a sitting-room up-stairs. \"What is all this, Clara?\" said Captain Aylmer, at once. \"Simply this,--that your mother has insulted me most wantonly.\" \"She says that it is you who have been uncourteous to her.\" \"Be it so;--you can of course believe whichever you please, and it is\r\ndesirable, no doubt, that you should prefer to believe your mother.\" \"But I do not wish there to be any quarrel.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But there is a quarrel, Captain Aylmer, and I must leave your\r\nfather's house. I cannot stay here after what has taken place. Your\r\nmother told me;--I cannot tell you what she told me, but she made\r\nagainst me just those accusations which she knew it would be the\r\nhardest for me to bear.\" \"I'm sure you have mistaken her.\" \"No; I have not mistaken her.\" \"And where do you propose to go?\" \"To Mrs. Askerton.\" \"Oh, Clara!\" \"I have written to Mrs. Askerton to ask her to receive me for awhile. Indeed, I may almost say that I had no other choice.\" \"If you go there, Clara, there will be an end to everything.\" \"And there must be an end of what you call everything, Captain\r\nAylmer,\" said she, smiling. \"It cannot be for your good to bring into\r\nyour family a wife of whom your mother would think so badly as she\r\nthinks of me.\" There was a great deal said, and Captain Aylmer walked very often up\r\nand down the room, endeavouring to make some arrangement which might\r\nseem in some sort to appease his mother. Would Clara only allow a\r\ntelegram to be sent to Mrs. Askerton, to explain that she had changed\r\nher mind? But Clara would allow no such telegram to be sent, and on\r\nthat evening she packed up all her things."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Captain Aylmer saw her\r\nagain and again, sending Belinda backwards and forwards, and making\r\ndifferent appointments up to midnight; but it was all to no purpose,\r\nand on the next morning she took her departure alone in the Aylmer\r\nPark carriage for the railway station. Captain Aylmer had proposed to\r\ngo with her; but she had so stoutly declined his company that he was\r\nobliged to abandon his intention. She saw neither of the ladies on\r\nthat morning, but Sir Anthony came out to say a word of farewell to\r\nher in the hall. \"I am very sorry for all this,\" said he. \"It is a\r\npity,\" said Clara, \"but it cannot be helped. Good-bye, Sir Anthony.\" \"I hope we may meet again under pleasanter circumstances,\" said the\r\nbaronet. To this Clara made no reply, and was then handed into the\r\ncarriage by Captain Aylmer. \"I am so bewildered,\" said he, \"that I cannot now say anything\r\ndefinite, but I shall write to you, and probably follow you.\" \"Do not follow me, pray, Captain Aylmer,\" said she. Then she was\r\ndriven to the station; and as she passed through the lodges of the\r\npark entrance she took what she intended to be a final farewell of\r\nAylmer Park. CHAPTER XXVII. ONCE MORE BACK TO BELTON. When the carriage was driven away, Sir Anthony and Captain Aylmer\r\nwere left standing alone at the hall door of the house."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The servants\r\nhad slunk off, and the father and son, looking at each other, felt\r\nthat they also must slink away, or else have some words together on\r\nthe subject of their guest's departure. The younger gentleman would\r\nhave preferred that there should be no words, but Sir Anthony was\r\ncurious to know something of what had passed in the house during the\r\nlast few days. \"I'm afraid things are not going quite comfortable,\"\r\nhe said. \"It seems to me, sir,\" said his son, \"that things very seldom do go\r\nquite comfortable.\" \"But, Fred,--what is it all about? Your mother says that Miss Amedroz\r\nis behaving very badly.\" \"And Miss Amedroz says that my mother is behaving very badly.\" \"Of course;--that's only natural. And what do you say?\" \"I say nothing, sir. The less said the soonest mended.\" \"That's all very well; but it seems to me that you, in your position,\r\nmust say something. The long and the short of it is this. Is she to\r\nbe your wife?\" \"Upon my word, sir, I don't know.\" They were still standing out under the portico, and as Sir Anthony\r\ndid not for a minute or two ask any further questions, Captain Aylmer\r\nturned as though he were going into the house. But his father had\r\nstill a word or two to say. \"Stop a moment, Fred. I don't often\r\ntrouble you with advice.\" \"I'm sure I'm always glad to hear it when you offer any.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I know very well that in most things your opinion is better than\r\nmine. You've had advantages which I never had. But I've had more\r\nexperience than you, my dear boy. It stands to reason that in some\r\nthings I must have had more experience than you.\" There was a tone of\r\nmelancholy in the father's voice as he said this which quite touched\r\nhis son, and which brought the two closer together out in the porch. \"Take my word for it,\" continued Sir Anthony, \"that you are much\r\nbetter off as you are than you could be with a wife.\" \"Do you mean to say that no man should marry?\" \"No;--I don't mean to say that. An eldest son ought to marry, so that\r\nthe property may have an heir. And poor men should marry, I suppose,\r\nas they want wives to do for them. And sometimes, no doubt, a man\r\nmust marry--when he has got to be very fond of a girl, and has\r\ncompromised himself, and all that kind of thing. I would never advise\r\nany man to sully his honour.\" As Sir Anthony said this he raised\r\nhimself a little with his two sticks and spoke out in a bolder voice. The voice however, sank again as he descended from the realms of\r\nhonour to those of prudence. \"But none of these cases are yours,\r\nFred."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To be sure you'll have the Perivale property; but that is\r\nnot a family estate, and you'll be much better off by turning it\r\ninto money. And in the way of comfort, you can be a great deal more\r\ncomfortable without a wife than you can with one. What do you want a\r\nwife for? And then, as to Miss Amedroz,--for myself I must say that I\r\nlike her uncommonly. She has been very pleasant in her ways with me. But,--somehow or another, I don't think you are so much in love with\r\nher but what you can do without her.\" Hereupon he paused and looked\r\nhis son full in the face. Fred had also been thinking of the matter\r\nin his own way, and asking himself the same question,--whether he was\r\nin truth so much in love with Clara that he could not live without\r\nher. \"Of course I don't know,\" continued Sir Anthony, \"what has taken\r\nplace just now between you and her, or what between her and your\r\nmother; but I suppose the whole thing might fall through without\r\nany further trouble to you,--or without anything unhandsome on your\r\npart?\" But Captain Aylmer still said nothing. The whole thing might,\r\nno doubt, fall through, but he wished to be neither unjust nor\r\nungenerous,--and he specially wished to avoid anything unhandsome. After a further pause of a few minutes, Sir Anthony went on again,\r\npouring forth the words of experience. \"Of course marriage is all\r\nvery well."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I married rather early in life, and have always found your\r\nmother to be a most excellent woman. A better woman doesn't breathe. I'm as sure of that as I am of anything. But God bless me,--of course\r\nyou can see. I can't call anything my own. I'm tied down here and I\r\ncan't move. I've never got a shilling to spend, while all these lazy\r\nhounds about the place are eating me up. There isn't a clerk with a\r\nhundred a year in London that isn't better off than I am as regards\r\nready money. And what comfort have I in a big house, and no end\r\nof gardens, and a place like this? What pleasures do I get out of\r\nit? That comes of marrying and keeping up one's name in the county\r\nrespectably! What do I care for the county? D---- the county! I often\r\nwish that I'd been a younger son,--as you are.\" Captain Aylmer had no answer to make to all this. It was, no doubt,\r\nthe fact that age and good living had made Sir Anthony altogether\r\nincapable of enjoying the kind of life which he desiderated, and that\r\nhe would probably have eaten and drunk himself into his grave long\r\nsince had that kind of life been within his reach. This, however,\r\nthe son could not explain to the father."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But in fitting, as he\r\nendeavoured to do, his father's words to his own case, Captain\r\nAylmer did perceive that a bachelor's life might perhaps be the\r\nmost suitable to his own peculiar case. Only he would do nothing\r\nunhandsome. As to that he was quite resolved. Of course Clara must\r\nshow herself to be in some degree amenable to reason and to the\r\nordinary rules of the world; but he was aware that his mother was\r\nhot-tempered, and he generously made up his mind that he would give\r\nMiss Amedroz even yet another chance. At the hotel in London Clara found a short note from Mrs. Askerton,\r\nin which she was warmly assured that everything should be done to\r\nmake her comfortable at the cottage as long as she should wish to\r\nstay there. But the very warmth of affection thus expressed made\r\nher almost shrink from what she was about to do. Mrs. Askerton was\r\nno doubt anxious for her coming; but would her cousin Will Belton\r\napprove of the visit; and what would her cousin Mary say about it? If she was being driven into this step against her own approval, by\r\nthe insolence of Lady Aylmer,--if she was doing this thing simply\r\nbecause Lady Aylmer had desired her not to do it, and was doing it in\r\nopposition to the wishes of the man she had promised to marry as well\r\nas to her own judgment, there could not but be cause for shrinking."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And yet she believed that she was right. If she could only have had\r\nsome one to tell her,--some one in whom she could trust implicitly to\r\ndirect her! She had hitherto been very much prone to rebel against\r\nauthority. Against her aunt she had rebelled, and against her father,\r\nand against her lover. But now she wished with all her heart that\r\nthere might be some one to whom she could submit with perfect faith. If she could only know what her cousin Will would think. In him she\r\nthought she could have trusted with that perfect faith;--if only he\r\nwould have been a brother to her. But it was too late now for doubting, and on the next day she found\r\nherself getting out of the old Redicote fly, at Colonel Askerton's\r\ndoor. He came out to meet her, and his greeting was very friendly. Hitherto there had been no great intimacy between him and her, owing\r\nrather to the manner of life adopted by him than to any cause of\r\nmutual dislike between them. Mrs. Askerton had shown herself desirous\r\nof some social intercourse since she had been at Belton, but with\r\nColonel Askerton there had been nothing of this. He had come there\r\nintending to live alone, and had been satisfied to carry out his\r\npurpose. But now Clara had come to his house as a guest, and he\r\nassumed towards her altogether a new manner."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"We are so glad to have\r\nyou,\" he said, taking both her hands. Then she passed on into the\r\ncottage, and in a minute was in her friend's arms. \"Dear Clara;--dearest Clara, I am so glad to have you here.\" \"It is very good of you.\" \"No, dear; the goodness is with you to come. But we won't quarrel\r\nabout that. We will both be ever so good. And he is so happy that\r\nyou should be here. You'll get to know him now. But come up-stairs. There's a fire in your room, and I'll be your maid for the\r\noccasion,--because then we can talk.\" Clara did as she was bid and\r\nwent up-stairs; and as she sat over the fire while her friend knelt\r\nbeside her,--for Mrs. Askerton was given to such kneelings,--she\r\ncould not but tell herself that Belton Cottage was much more\r\ncomfortable than Aylmer Park. During the whole time of her sojourn\r\nat Aylmer Park no word of real friendship had once greeted her\r\nears. Everything there had been cold and formal, till coldness and\r\nformality had given way to violent insolence. \"And so you have quarrelled with her ladyship,\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"I knew you would.\" \"I have not said anything about quarrelling with her.\" \"But of course you have. Come, now; don't make yourself disagreeable. You have had a downright battle;--have you not?\" \"Something very like it, I'm afraid.\" \"I am so glad,\" said Mrs. Askerton, rubbing her hands. \"That is ill-natured.\" \"Very well."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Let it be ill-natured. One isn't to be good-natured all\r\nround, or what would be the use of it? And what sort of woman is\r\nshe?\" \"Oh dear; I couldn't describe her. She is very large, and wears a\r\ngreat wig, and manages everything herself, and I've no doubt she's a\r\nvery good woman in her own way.\" \"I can see her at once;--and a very pillar of virtue as regards\r\nmorality and going to church. Poor me! Does she know that you have\r\ncome here?\" \"I have no doubt she does. I did not tell her, nor would I tell her\r\ndaughter; but I told Captain Aylmer.\" \"That was right. That was very right. I'm so glad of that. But who\r\nwould doubt that you would show a proper spirit? And what did he\r\nsay?\" \"Not much, indeed.\" \"I won't trouble you about him. I don't in the least doubt but all\r\nthat will come right. And what sort of man is Sir Anthony?\" \"A common-place sort of a man; very gouty, and with none of his\r\nwife's strength. I liked him the best of them all.\" \"Because you saw the least of him, I suppose.\" \"He was kind in his manner to me.\" \"And they were like she-dragons. I understand it all, and can see\r\nthem just as though I had been there. I felt that I knew what would\r\ncome of it when you first told me that you were going to Aylmer Park. I did, indeed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I could have prophesied it all.\" \"What a pity you did not.\" \"It would have done no good;--and your going there has done good. It\r\nhas opened your eyes to more than one thing, I don't doubt. But tell\r\nme,--have you told them in Norfolk that you were coming here?\" \"No;--I have not written to my cousin.\" \"Don't be angry with me if I tell you something. I have.\" \"Have what?\" \"I have told Mr. Belton that you were coming here. It was in this\r\nway. I had to write to him about our continuing in the cottage. Colonel Askerton always makes me write if it's possible, and of\r\ncourse we were obliged to settle something as to the place.\" \"I'm sorry you said anything about me.\" \"How could I help it? What would you have thought of me, or what\r\nwould he have thought, if, when writing to him, I had not mentioned\r\nsuch a thing as your visit? Besides, it's much better that he should\r\nknow.\" \"I am sorry that you said anything about it.\" \"You are ashamed that he should know that you are here,\" said Mrs.\r\nAskerton, in a tone of reproach. \"Ashamed! No; I am not ashamed. But I would sooner that he had not\r\nbeen told,--as yet. Of course he would have been told before long.\" \"But you are not angry with me?\" \"Angry! How can I be angry with any one who is so kind to me?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "That evening passed by very pleasantly, and when she went again to\r\nher own room, Clara was almost surprised to find how completely she\r\nwas at home. On the next day she and Mrs. Askerton together went up\r\nto the house, and roamed through all the rooms, and Clara seated\r\nherself in all the accustomed chairs. On the sofa, just in the spot\r\nto which Belton had thrown it, she found the key of the cellar. She took it up in her hand, thinking that she would give it to the\r\nservant; but again she put it back upon the sofa. It was his key, and\r\nhe had left it there, and if ever there came an occasion she would\r\nremind him where he had put it. Then they went out to the cow, who\r\nwas at her ease in a little home paddock. \"Dear Bessy,\" said Clara. \"See how well she knows me.\" But I think\r\nthe tame little beast would have known any one else as well who\r\nhad gone up to her as Clara did, with food in her hand. \"She is\r\nquite as sacred as any cow that ever was worshipped among the\r\ncow-worshippers,\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"I suppose they milk her and\r\nsell the butter, but otherwise she is not regarded as an ordinary cow\r\nat all.\" \"Poor Bessy,\" said Clara. \"I wish she had never come here. What is to be done with her?\" \"Done with her!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She'll stay here till\r\nshe dies a natural death, and then a romantic pair of mourners will\r\nfollow her to her grave, mixing their sympathetic tears comfortably\r\nas they talk of the old days; and in future years, Bessy will grow to\r\nbe a divinity of the past, never to be mentioned without tenderest\r\nreminiscences. I have not the slightest difficulty in prophesying as\r\nto Bessy's future life and posthumous honours.\" They roamed about\r\nthe place the whole morning, through the garden and round the farm\r\nbuildings, and in and out of the house; and at every turn something\r\nwas said about Will Belton. But Clara would not go up to the rocks,\r\nalthough Mrs. Askerton more than once attempted to turn in that\r\ndirection. He had said that he never would go there again except\r\nunder certain circumstances. She knew that those circumstances would\r\nnever come to pass; but yet neither would she go there. She would\r\nnever go there till her cousin was married. Then, if in those days\r\nshe should ever be present at Belton Castle, she would creep up to\r\nthe spot all alone, and allow herself to think of the old days. On the following morning there came to her a letter bearing the\r\nDownham post-mark,--but at the first glance she knew that it was not\r\nfrom her cousin Will."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Will wrote with a bold round hand, that was\r\nextremely plain and caligraphic when he allowed himself time for the\r\nwork in hand, as he did with the commencement of his epistles, but\r\nwhich would become confused and altogether anti-caligraphic when he\r\nfell into a hurry towards the end of his performance,--as was his\r\nwont. But the address of this letter was written in a pretty, small,\r\nfemale hand,--very careful in the perfection of every letter, and\r\nvery neat in every stroke. It was from Mary Belton, between whom and\r\nClara there had never hitherto been occasion for correspondence. The\r\nletter was as follows:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   Plaistow Hall, April, 186--. MY DEAR COUSIN CLARA,\r\n\r\n   William has heard from your friends at Belton, who are\r\n   tenants on the estate, and as to whom there seems to be\r\n   some question whether they are to remain. He has written,\r\n   saying, I believe, that there need be no difficulty if\r\n   they wish to stay there. But we learn, also, from Mrs.\r\n   Askerton's letter, that you are expected at the cottage,\r\n   and therefore I will address this to Belton, supposing\r\n   that it may find you there. You and I have never yet known each other;--which has\r\n   been a grief to me; but this grief, I hope, may be cured\r\n   some day before long."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I myself, as you know, am such a\r\n   poor creature that I cannot go about the world to see my\r\n   friends as other people do;--at least, not very well; and\r\n   therefore I write to you with the object of asking you to\r\n   come and see me here. This is an interesting old house in\r\n   its way; and though I must not conceal from you that life\r\n   here is very, very quiet, I would do my best to make the\r\n   days pass pleasantly with you. I had heard that you were\r\n   gone to Aylmer Park. Indeed, William told me of his taking\r\n   you up to London. Now it seems you have left Yorkshire,\r\n   and I suppose you will not return there very soon. If it\r\n   be so, will it not be well that you should come to me for\r\n   a short time? Both William and I feel that just for the present,--for\r\n   a little time,--you would perhaps prefer to be alone\r\n   with me. He must go to London for awhile, and then on to\r\n   Belton, to settle your affairs and his. He intends to be\r\n   absent for six weeks. If you would not be afraid of the\r\n   dullness of this house for so long a time, pray come to\r\n   us. The pleasure to me would be very great, and I hope\r\n   that you have some of that feeling, which with me is so\r\n   strong, that we ought not to be any longer personally\r\n   strangers to each other."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You could then make up your mind\r\n   as to what you would choose to do afterwards. I think\r\n   that by the end of that time,--that is, when William\r\n   returns,--my uncle and aunt from Sleaford will be with\r\n   us. He is a clergyman, you know; and if you then like to\r\n   remain, they will be delighted to make your acquaintance. It seems to be a long journey for a young lady to make\r\n   alone, from Belton to Plaistow; but travelling is so easy\r\n   now-a-days, and young ladies seem to be so independent,\r\n   that you may be able to manage it. Hoping to see you soon,\r\n   I remain\r\n\r\n   Your affectionate Cousin,\r\n\r\n   MARY BELTON. This letter she received before breakfast, and was therefore able to\r\nread it in solitude, and to keep its receipt from the knowledge of\r\nMrs. Askerton, if she should be so minded. She understood at once all\r\nthat it intended to convey,--a hint that Plaistow Hall would be a\r\nbetter resting place for her than Mrs. Askerton's cottage; and an\r\nassurance that if she would go to Plaistow Hall for her convenience,\r\nno advantage should be taken of her presence there by the owner of\r\nthe house for his convenience. As she sat thinking of the offer which\r\nhad been made to her she fancied that she could see and hear her\r\ncousin Will as he discussed the matter with his sister, and with a\r\nhalf assumption of surliness declared his own intention of going\r\naway."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Captain Aylmer after that interview in London had spoken of\r\nBelton's conduct as being unpardonable; but Clara had not only\r\npardoned him, but had, in her own mind, pronounced his virtues to be\r\nso much greater than his vices as to make him almost perfect. \"But\r\nI will not drive him out of his own house,\" she said. \"What does it\r\nmatter where I go?\" \"Colonel Askerton has had a letter from your cousin,\" said Mrs.\r\nAskerton as soon as the two ladies were alone together. \"And what does he say?\" \"Not a word about you.\" \"So much the better. I have given him trouble enough, and am glad to\r\nthink that he should be free of me for awhile. Is Colonel Askerton to\r\nstay at the cottage?\" \"Now, Clara, you are a hypocrite. You know that you are a hypocrite.\" \"Very likely,--but I don't know why you should accuse me just now.\" \"Yes, you do. Have not you heard from Norfolk also?\" \"Yes;--I have.\" \"I was sure of it. I knew he would never have written in that way, in\r\nanswer to my letter, ignoring your visit here altogether, unless he\r\nhad written to you also.\" \"But he has not written to me. My letter is from his sister. There\r\nit is.\" Whereupon she handed the letter to Mrs. Askerton, and waited\r\npatiently while it was being read. Her friend returned it to her\r\nwithout a word, and Clara was the first to speak again."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It is a nice\r\nletter, is it not? I never saw her you know.\" \"So she says.\" \"But is it not a kind letter?\" \"I suppose it is meant for kindness. It is not very complimentary\r\nto me. It presumes that such a one as I may be treated without the\r\nslightest consideration. And so I may. It is only fit that I should\r\nbe so treated. If you ask my advice, I advise you to go at once;--at\r\nonce.\" \"But I have not asked your advice, dear; nor do I intend to ask it.\" \"You would not have shown it me if you had not intended to go.\" \"How unreasonable you are! You told me just now that I was a\r\nhypocrite for not telling you of my letter, and now you are angry\r\nwith me because I have shown it you.\" \"I am not angry. I think you have been quite right to show it me. I\r\ndon't know how else you could have acted upon it.\" \"But I do not mean to act upon it. I shall not go to Plaistow. There\r\nare two reasons against it, each sufficient. I shall not leave you\r\njust yet,--unless you send me away; and I shall not cause my cousin\r\nto be turned out of his own house.\" \"Why should he be turned out? Why should you not go to him? You love\r\nhim;--and as for him, he is more in love than any man I ever knew."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Go\r\nto Plaistow Hall, and everything will run smooth.\" \"No, dear; I shall not do that.\" \"Then you are foolish. I am bound to tell you so, as I have inveigled\r\nyou here.\" \"I thought I had invited myself.\" \"No; I asked you to come, and when I asked you I knew that I was\r\nwrong. Though I meant to be kind, I knew that I was unkind. I saw\r\nthat my husband disapproved it, though he had not the heart to tell\r\nme so. I wish he had. I wish he had.\" \"Mrs. Askerton, I cannot tell you how much you wrong yourself, and\r\nhow you wrong me also. I am more than contented to be here.\" \"But you should not be contented to be here. It is just that. In\r\nlearning to love me,--or rather, perhaps, to pity me, you lower\r\nyourself. Do you think that I do not see it all, and know it all? Of\r\ncourse it is bad to be alone, but I have no right not to be alone.\" There was nothing for Clara to do but to draw herself once again\r\nclose to the poor woman, and to embrace her with protestations of\r\nfair, honest, equal regard and friendship. \"Do you think I do not\r\nunderstand that letter?\" continued Mrs. Askerton."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If it had come\r\nfrom Lady Aylmer I could have laughed at it, because I believe Lady\r\nAylmer to be an overbearing virago, whom it is good to put down\r\nin every way possible. But this comes from a pure-minded woman,\r\none whom I believe to be little given to harsh judgments on her\r\nfellow-sinners; and she tells you, in her calm wise way, that it is\r\nbad for you to be here with me.\" \"She says nothing of the kind.\" \"But does she not mean it? Tell me honestly;--do you not know that\r\nshe means it?\" \"I am not to be guided by what she means.\" \"But you are to be guided by what her brother means. It is to come\r\nto that, and you may as well bend your neck at once. It is to come\r\nto that, and the sooner the better for you. It is easy to see that\r\nyou are badly off for guidance when you take up me as your friend.\" When she had so spoken Mrs. Askerton got up and went to the door. \"No, Clara, do not come with me; not now,\" she said, turning to her\r\ncompanion, who had risen as though to follow her. \"I will come to you\r\nsoon, but I would rather be alone now. And, look here, dear; you must\r\nanswer your cousin's letter. Do so at once, and say that you will go\r\nto Plaistow. In any event it will be better for you.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara, when she was alone, did answer her cousin's letter, but she\r\ndid not accept the invitation that had been given her. She assured\r\nMiss Belton that she was most anxious to know her, and hoped that she\r\nmight do so before long, either at Plaistow or at Belton; but that\r\nat present she was under an engagement to stay with her friend Mrs.\r\nAskerton. In an hour or two Mrs. Askerton returned, and Clara handed\r\nto her the note to read. \"Then all I can say is you are very silly,\r\nand don't know on which side your bread is buttered.\" It was evident\r\nfrom Mrs. Askerton's voice that she had recovered her mood and tone\r\nof mind. \"I don't suppose it will much signify, as it will all come\r\nright at last,\" she said afterwards. And then, after luncheon, when\r\nshe had been for a few minutes with her husband in his own room, she\r\ntold Clara that the Colonel wanted to speak to her. \"You'll find\r\nhim as grave as a judge, for he has got something to say to you in\r\nearnest. Nobody can be so stern as he is when he chooses to put on\r\nhis wig and gown.\" So Clara went into the Colonel's study, and seated\r\nherself in a chair which he had prepared for her. She remained there for over an hour, and during the hour the\r\nconversation became very animated."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Colonel Askerton's assumed gravity\r\nhad given way to ordinary eagerness, during which he had walked about\r\nthe room in the vehemence of his argument; and Clara, in answering\r\nhim, had also put forth all her strength. She had expected that he\r\nalso was going to speak to her on the propriety of her going to\r\nNorfolk; but he made no allusion to that subject, although all that\r\nhe did say was founded on Will Belton's letter to himself. Belton, in\r\nspeaking of the cottage, had told Colonel Askerton that Miss Amedroz\r\nwould be his future landlord, and had then gone on to explain that\r\nit was his, Belton's, intention to destroy the entail, and allow the\r\nproperty to descend from the father to the daughter. \"As Miss Amedroz\r\nis with you now,\" he said, \"may I beg you to take the trouble to\r\nexplain the matter to her at length, and to make her understand that\r\nthe estate is now, at this moment, in fact her own. Her possession of\r\nit does not depend on any act of hers,--or, indeed, upon her own will\r\nor wish in the matter.\" On this subject Colonel Askerton had argued,\r\nusing all his skill to make Clara in truth perceive that she was\r\nher father's heiress,--through the generosity undoubtedly of her\r\ncousin,--and that she had no alternative but to assume the possession\r\nwhich was thus thrust upon her. And so eloquent was the Colonel that Clara was staggered, though she\r\nwas not convinced."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It is quite impossible,\" she said. \"Though he may\r\nbe able to make it over to me, I can give it back again.\" \"I think not. In such a matter as this a lady in your position can\r\nonly be guided by her natural advisers,--her father's lawyer and\r\nother family friends.\" \"I don't know why a young lady should be in any way different from an\r\nold gentleman.\" \"But an old gentleman would not hesitate under such circumstances. The entail in itself was a cruelty, and the operation of it on your\r\npoor brother's death was additionally cruel.\" \"It is cruel that any one should be poor,\" argued Clara; \"but that\r\ndoes not take away the right of a rich man to his property.\" There was much more of this sort said between them, till Clara was\r\nat any rate convinced that Colonel Askerton believed that she ought\r\nto be the owner of the property. And then at last he ventured upon\r\nanother argument which soon drove Clara out of the room. \"There is,\r\nI believe, one way in which it can all be made right,\" said he. \"What way?\" said Clara, forgetting in her eagerness the obviousness\r\nof the mode which her companion was about to point out. \"Of course, I know nothing of this myself,\" he said smiling; \"but\r\nMary thinks that you and your cousin might arrange it between you if\r\nyou were together.\" \"You must not listen to what she says about that, Colonel Askerton.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Must I not? Well; I will not listen to more than I can help; but\r\nMary, as you know, is a persistent talker. I, at any rate, have done\r\nmy commission.\" Then Clara left him and was alone for what remained\r\nof the afternoon. It could not be, she said to herself, that the property ought to be\r\nhers. It would make her miserable, were she once to feel that she had\r\naccepted it. Some small allowance out of it, coming to her from the\r\nbrotherly love of her cousin,--some moderate stipend sufficient for\r\nher livelihood, she thought she could accept from him. It seemed\r\nto her that it was her destiny to be dependent on charity,--to eat\r\nbread given to her from the benevolence of a friend; and she thought\r\nthat she could endure his benevolence better than that of any other. Benevolence from Aylmer Park or from Perivale would be altogether\r\nunendurable. But why should it not be as Colonel Askerton had proposed? That this\r\ncousin of hers loved her with all his heart,--with a constancy for\r\nwhich she had at first given him no credit, she was well aware. And,\r\nas regarded herself, she loved him better than all the world beside. She had at last become conscious that she could not now marry Captain\r\nAylmer without sin,--without false vows, and fatal injury to herself\r\nand him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To the prospect of that marriage, as her future fate, an\r\nend must be put at any rate,--an end, if that which had already\r\ntaken place was not to be regarded as end enough. But yet she had\r\nbeen engaged to Captain Aylmer,--was engaged to him even now. When\r\nlast her cousin had mentioned to her Captain Aylmer's name she had\r\ndeclared that she loved him still. How then could she turn round\r\nnow, and so soon accept the love of another man? How could she bring\r\nherself to let her cousin assume to himself the place of a lover,\r\nwhen it was but the other day that she had rebuked him for expressing\r\nthe faintest hope in that direction? But yet,--yet--! As for going to Plaistow, that was quite out of the\r\nquestion. \"So you are to be the heiress after all,\" said Mrs. Askerton to her\r\nthat night in her bedroom. \"No; I am not to be the heiress after all,\" said Clara, rising\r\nagainst her friend impetuously. \"You'll have to be lady of Belton in one way or the other at any\r\nrate,\" said Mrs. Askerton. CHAPTER XXVIII. MISS AMEDROZ IS PURSUED. \"I suppose now, my dear, it may be considered that everything is\r\nsettled about that young lady,\" said Lady Aylmer to her son, on the\r\nsame day that Miss Amedroz left Aylmer Park. \"Nothing is settled, ma'am,\" said the Captain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You don't mean to tell me that after what has passed you intend to\r\nfollow her up any further.\" \"I shall certainly endeavour to see her again.\" \"Then, Frederic, I must tell you that you are very wrong\r\nindeed;--almost worse than wrong. I would say wicked, only I feel\r\nsure that you will think better of it. You cannot mean to tell me\r\nthat you would--marry her after what has taken place?\" \"The question is whether she would marry me.\" \"That is nonsense, Frederic. I wonder that you, who are generally so\r\nclear-sighted, cannot see more plainly than that. She is a scheming,\r\nartful young woman, who is playing a regular game to catch a\r\nhusband.\" \"If that were so, she would have been more humble to you, ma'am.\" \"Not a bit, Fred. That's just it. That has been her cleverness. She\r\ntried that on at first, and found that she could not get round me. Don't allow yourself to be deceived by that, I pray. And then there\r\nis no knowing how she may be bound up with those horrid people, so\r\nthat she cannot throw them over, even if she would.\" \"I don't think you understand her, ma'am.\" \"Oh;--very well. But I understand this, and you had better understand\r\nit too;--that she will never again enter a house of which I am the\r\nmistress; nor can I ever enter a house in which she is received."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If you choose to make her your wife after that, I have done.\" Lady\r\nAylmer had not done, or nearly done; but we need hear no more of her\r\nthreats or entreaties. Her son left Aylmer Park immediately after\r\nEaster Sunday, and as he went, the mother, nodding her head, declared\r\nto her daughter that that marriage would never come off, let Clara\r\nAmedroz be ever so sly, or ever so clever. \"Think of what I have said to you, Fred,\" said Sir Anthony, as he\r\ntook his leave of his son. \"Yes, sir, I will.\" \"You can't be better off than you are;--you can't, indeed.\" With\r\nthese words in his ears Captain Aylmer started for London, intending\r\nto follow Clara down to Belton. He hardly knew his own mind on this\r\nmatter of his purposed marriage. He was almost inclined to agree\r\nwith his father that he was very well off as he was. He was almost\r\ninclined to agree with his mother in her condemnation of Clara's\r\nconduct. He was almost inclined to think that he had done enough\r\ntowards keeping the promise made to his aunt on her deathbed,--but\r\nstill he was not quite contented with himself. He desired to be\r\nhonest and true, as far as his ideas went of honesty and truth, and\r\nhis conscience told him that Clara had been treated with cruelty by\r\nhis mother."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am inclined to think that Lady Aylmer, in spite of her\r\nhigh experience and character for wisdom, had not fought her battle\r\naltogether well. No man likes to be talked out of his marriage by his\r\nmother, and especially not so when the talking takes the shape of\r\nthreats. When she told him that under no circumstances would she\r\nagain know Clara Amedroz, he was driven by his spirit of manhood to\r\ndeclare to himself that that menace from her should not have the\r\nslightest influence on him. The word or two which his father said was\r\nmore effective. After all it might be better for him in his peculiar\r\nposition to have no wife at all. He did begin to believe that he\r\nhad no need for a wife. He had never before thought so much of his\r\nfather's example as he did now. Clara was manifestly a hot-tempered\r\nwoman,--a very hot-tempered woman indeed! Now his mother was also\r\na hot-tempered woman, and he could see the result in the present\r\ncondition of his father's life. He resolved that he would follow\r\nClara to Belton, so that some final settlement might be made between\r\nthem; but in coming to this resolution he acknowledged to himself\r\nthat should she decide against him he would not break his heart. She,\r\nhowever, should have her chance. Undoubtedly it was only right that\r\nshe should have her chance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the difficulty of the circumstances in which he was placed was\r\nso great, that it was almost impossible for him to make up his mind\r\nfixedly to any purpose in reference to Clara. As he passed through\r\nLondon on his way to Belton he called at Mr. Green's chambers with\r\nreference to that sum of fifteen hundred pounds, which it was now\r\nabsolutely necessary that he should make over to Miss Amedroz, and\r\nfrom Mr. Green he learned that William Belton had given positive\r\ninstructions as to the destination of the Belton estate. He would not\r\ninherit it, or have anything to do with it under the entail,--from\r\nthe effects of which he desired to be made entirely free. Mr. Green,\r\nwho knew that Captain Aylmer was engaged to marry his client, and\r\nwho knew nothing of any interruption to that agreement, felt no\r\nhesitation in explaining all this to Captain Aylmer. \"I suppose you\r\nhad heard of it before,\" said Mr. Green. Captain Aylmer certainly\r\nhad heard of it, and had been very much struck by the idea; but up\r\nto this moment he had not quite believed in it. Coming simply from\r\nWilliam Belton to Clara Amedroz, such an offer might be no more than\r\na strong argument used in love-making. \"Take back the property, but\r\ntake me with it, of course.\" That Captain Aylmer thought might have\r\nbeen the correct translation of Mr. William Belton's romance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he\r\nwas forced to look at the matter differently when he found that it\r\nhad been put into a lawyer's hands. \"Yes,\" said he, \"I have heard of\r\nit. Mr. Belton mentioned it to me himself.\" This was not strictly\r\ntrue. Clara had mentioned it to him; but Belton had come into the\r\nroom immediately afterwards, and Captain Aylmer might probably have\r\nbeen mistaken. \"He's quite in earnest,\" said Mr. Green. \"Of course, I can say nothing, Mr. Green, as I am myself so nearly\r\ninterested in the matter. It is a great question, no doubt, how far\r\nsuch an entail as that should be allowed to operate.\" \"I think it should stand, as a matter of course. I think Belton is\r\nwrong,\" said Mr. Green. \"Of course I can give no opinion,\" said the other. \"I'll tell you what you can do, Captain Aylmer. You can suggest to\r\nMiss Amedroz that there should be a compromise. Let them divide it. They are both clients of mine, and in that way I shall do my duty to\r\neach. Let them divide it. Belton has money enough to buy up the other\r\nmoiety, and in that way would still be Belton of Belton.\" Captain Aylmer had not the slightest objection to such a plan. Indeed, he regarded it as in all respects a wise and salutary\r\narrangement."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The moiety of the Belton estate might probably be worth\r\ntwenty-five thousand pounds, and the addition of such a sum as that\r\nto his existing means would make all the difference in the world as\r\nto the expediency of his marriage. His father's arguments would all\r\nfall to the ground if twenty-five thousand pounds were to be obtained\r\nin this way; and he had but little doubt that such a change in\r\naffairs would go far to mitigate his mother's wrath. But he was by\r\nno means mercenary in his views;--so, at least, he assured himself. Clara should have her chance with or without the Belton estate,--or\r\nwith or without the half of it. He was by no means mercenary. Had he\r\nnot made his offer to her,--and repeated it almost with obstinacy,\r\nwhen she had no prospect of any fortune? He could always remember\r\nthat of himself at least; and remembering that now, he could take\r\na delight in these bright money prospects without having to accuse\r\nhimself in the slightest degree of mercenary motives. This fortune\r\nwas a godsend which he could take with clean hands;--if only he\r\nshould ultimately be able to take the lady who possessed the fortune! From London he wrote to Clara, telling her that he proposed to visit\r\nher at Belton."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His letter was written before he had seen Mr. Green,\r\nand was not very fervent in its expressions; but, nevertheless, it\r\nwas a fair letter, written with the intention of giving her a fair\r\nchance. He had seen with great sorrow,--\"with heartfelt grief,\" that\r\nquarrel between his mother and his own Clara. Thinking, as he felt\r\nhimself obliged to think, about Mrs. Askerton, he could not but\r\nfeel that his mother had cause for her anger. But he himself was\r\nunprejudiced, and was ready, and anxious also,--the word anxious\r\nwas underscored,--to carry out his engagement. A few words between\r\nthem might probably set everything right, and therefore he proposed\r\nto meet her at the Belton Castle house, at such an hour, on such\r\na day. He should run down to Perivale on his journey, and perhaps\r\nClara would let him have a line addressed to him there. Such was his\r\nletter. \"What do you think of that?\" said Clara, showing it to Mrs. Askerton\r\non the afternoon of the day on which she had received it. \"What do you think of it?\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"I can only hope, that\r\nhe will not come within the reach of my hands.\" \"You are not angry with me for showing it to you?\" \"No;--why should I be angry with you? Of course I knew it all without\r\nany showing. Do not tell Colonel Askerton, or they will be killing\r\neach other.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Of course I shall not tell Colonel Askerton; but I could not help\r\nshowing this to you.\" \"And you will meet him?\" \"Yes; I shall meet him. What else can I do?\" \"Unless, indeed, you were to write and tell him that it would do no\r\ngood.\" \"It will be better that he should come.\" \"If you allow him to talk you over you will be a wretched woman all\r\nyour life.\" \"It will be better that he should come,\" said Clara again. And then\r\nshe wrote to Captain Aylmer at Perivale, telling him that she would\r\nbe at the house at the hour he had named, on the day he had named. When that day came she walked across the park a little before the\r\ntime fixed, not wishing to meet Captain Aylmer before she had reached\r\nthe house. It was now nearly the middle of April, and the weather was\r\nsoft and pleasant. It was almost summer again, and as she felt this,\r\nshe thought of all the events which had occurred since the last\r\nsummer,--of their agony of grief at the catastrophe which had closed\r\nher brother's life, of her aunt's death first, and then of her\r\nfather's following so close upon the other, and of the two offers of\r\nmarriage made to her,--as to which she was now aware that she had\r\naccepted the wrong man and rejected the wrong man."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was steadily\r\nminded, now, at this moment, that before she parted from Captain\r\nAylmer, her engagement with him should be brought to a close. Now,\r\nat this coming interview, so much at any rate should be done. She\r\nhad tried to make herself believe that she felt for him that sort of\r\naffection which a woman should have for the man she is to marry, but\r\nshe had failed. She hardly knew whether she had in truth ever loved\r\nhim; but she was quite sure that she did not love him now. No;--she\r\nhad done with Aylmer Park, and she could feel thankful, amidst all\r\nher troubles, that that difficulty should vex her no more. In showing\r\nCaptain Aylmer's letter to Mrs. Askerton she had made no such promise\r\nas this, but her mind had been quite made up. \"He certainly shall not\r\ntalk me over,\" she said to herself as she walked across the park. But she could not see her way so clearly out of that further\r\ndifficulty with regard to her cousin. It might be that she would be\r\nable to rid herself of the one lover with comparative ease; but she\r\ncould not bring herself to entertain the idea of accepting the other."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was true that this man longed for her,--desired to call her his\r\nown, with a wearing, anxious, painful desire which made his heart\r\ngrievously heavy,--heavy as though with lead hanging to its strings;\r\nand it was true that Clara knew that it was so. It was true also that\r\nhis spirit had mastered her spirit, and that his persistence had\r\nconquered her resistance,--the resistance, that is, of her feelings. But there remained with her a feminine shame, which made it seem to\r\nher to be impossible that she should now reject Captain Aylmer, and\r\nas a consequence of that rejection, accept Will Belton's hand. As\r\nshe thought of this, she could not see her way out of her trouble in\r\nthat direction with any of that clearness which belonged to her in\r\nreference to Captain Aylmer. She had been an hour in the house before he came, and never did an\r\nhour go so heavily with her. There was no employment for her about\r\nthe place, and Mrs. Bunce, the old woman who now lived there, could\r\nnot understand why her late mistress chose to remain seated among the\r\nunused furniture. Clara had of course told her that a gentleman was\r\ncoming. \"Not Mr. Will?\" said the woman. \"No; it is not Mr. Will,\"\r\nsaid Clara; \"his name is Captain Aylmer.\" \"Oh, indeed.\" And then Mrs.\r\nBunce looked at her with a mystified look. Why on earth should not\r\nthe gentleman call on Miss Amedroz at Mrs. Askerton's cottage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I'll\r\nbe sure to show 'un up, when a comes, at any rate,\" said the old\r\nwoman solemnly;--and Clara felt that it was all very uncomfortable. At last the gentleman did come, and was shown up with all the\r\nceremony of which Mrs. Bunce was capable. \"Here he be, mum.\" Then\r\nMrs. Bunce paused a moment before she retreated, anxious to learn\r\nwhether the new comer was a friend or a foe. She concluded from\r\nthe Captain's manner that he was a very dear friend, and then she\r\ndeparted. \"I hope you are not surprised at my coming,\" said Captain Aylmer,\r\nstill holding Clara by the hand. \"A little surprised,\" she said, smiling. \"But not annoyed?\" \"No;--not annoyed.\" \"As soon as you had left Aylmer Park I felt that it was the right\r\nthing to do;--the only thing to do,--as I told my mother.\" \"I hope you have not come in opposition to her wishes,\" said Clara,\r\nunable to control a slight tone of banter as she spoke. \"In this matter I found myself compelled to act in accordance with my\r\nown judgment,\" said he, untouched by her sarcasm. \"Then I suppose that Lady Aylmer is,--is vexed with you for coming\r\nhere. I shall be so sorry for that;--so very sorry, as no good can\r\ncome of it.\" \"Well;--I am not so sure of that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "My mother is a most excellent\r\nwoman, one for whose opinions on all matters I have the highest\r\npossible value;--a value so high, that--that--that--\"\r\n\r\n\"That you never ought to act in opposition to it. That is what you\r\nreally mean, Captain Aylmer; and upon my word I think that you are\r\nright.\" \"No, Clara; that is not what I mean,--not exactly that. Indeed, just\r\nat present I mean the reverse of that. There are some things on which\r\na man must act on his own judgment, irrespectively of the opinions of\r\nany one else.\" \"Not of a mother, Captain Aylmer?\" \"Yes;--of a mother. That is to say, a man must do so. With a lady of\r\ncourse it is different. I was very, very sorry that there should have\r\nbeen any unpleasantness at Aylmer Park.\" \"It was not pleasant to me, certainly.\" \"Nor to any of us, Clara.\" \"At any rate, it need not be repeated.\" \"I hope not.\" \"No;--it certainty need not be repeated. I know now that I was wrong\r\nto go to Aylmer Park. I felt sure beforehand that there were many\r\nthings as to which I could not possibly agree with Lady Aylmer, and I\r\nought not to have gone.\" \"I don't see that at all, Clara.\" \"I do see it now.\" \"I can't understand you. What things? Why should you be determined to\r\ndisagree with my mother? Surely you ought at any rate to endeavour to\r\nthink as she thinks.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I cannot do that, Captain Aylmer.\" \"I am sorry to hear you speak in this way. I have come here all the\r\nway from Yorkshire to try to put things straight between us; but you\r\nreceive me as though you would remember nothing but that unpleasant\r\nquarrel.\" \"It was so unpleasant,--so very unpleasant! I had better speak out\r\nthe truth at once. I think that Lady Aylmer ill-used me cruelly. I\r\ndo. No one can talk me out of that conviction. Of course I am sorry\r\nto be driven to say as much to you,--and I should never have said\r\nit, had you not come here. But when you speak of me and your mother\r\ntogether, I must say what I feel. Your mother and I, Captain Aylmer,\r\nare so opposed to each other, not only in feeling, but in opinions\r\nalso, that it is impossible that we should be friends;--impossible\r\nthat we should not be enemies if we are brought together.\" This she said with great energy, looking intently into his face as\r\nshe spoke. He was seated near her, on a chair from which he was\r\nleaning over towards her, holding his hat in both hands between his\r\nlegs. Now, as he listened to her, he drew his chair still nearer,\r\nridding himself of his hat, which he left upon the carpet, and\r\nkeeping his eyes upon hers as though he were fascinated. \"I am sorry\r\nto hear you speak like this,\" he said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It is best to say the truth.\" \"But, Clara, if you intend to be my wife--\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, no;--that is impossible now.\" \"What is impossible?\" \"Impossible that I should become your wife. Indeed I have convinced\r\nmyself that you do not wish it.\" \"But I do wish it.\" \"No;--no. If you will question your heart about it quietly, you will\r\nfind that you do not wish it.\" \"You wrong me, Clara.\" \"At any rate it cannot be so.\" \"I will not take that answer from you,\" he said, getting up from his\r\nchair, and walking once up and down the room. Then he returned to it,\r\nand repeated his words. \"I will not take that answer from you. An\r\nengagement such as ours cannot be put aside like an old glove. You\r\ndo not mean to tell me that all that has been between us is to mean\r\nnothing.\" There was something now like feeling in his tone, something\r\nlike passion in his gesture, and Clara, though she had no thought\r\nof changing her purpose, was becoming unhappy at the idea of his\r\nunhappiness. \"It has meant nothing,\" she said. \"We have been like children\r\ntogether, playing at being in love. It is a game from which you will\r\ncome out scatheless, but I have been scalded.\" \"Scalded!\" \"Well;--never mind. I do not mean to complain, and certainly not of\r\nyou.\" \"I have come here all the way from Yorkshire in order that things may\r\nbe put right between us.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You have been very good,--very good to come, and I will not say that\r\nI regret your trouble. It is best, I think, that we should meet each\r\nother once more face to face, so that we may understand each other. There was no understanding anything during those terrible days at\r\nAylmer Park.\" Then she paused, but as he did not speak at once she\r\nwent on. \"I do not blame you for anything that has taken place, but I\r\nam quite sure of this,--that you and I could never be happy together\r\nas man and wife.\" \"I do not know why you say so; I do not indeed.\" \"You would disapprove of everything that I should do. You do\r\ndisapprove of what I am doing now.\" \"Disapprove of what?\" \"I am staying with my friend, Mrs. Askerton.\" He felt that this was hard upon him. As she had shown herself\r\ninclined to withdraw herself from him, he had become more resolute in\r\nhis desire to follow her up, and to hold by his engagement. He was\r\nnot employed now in giving her another chance,--as he had proposed to\r\nhimself to do,--but was using what eloquence he had to obtain another\r\nchance for himself. Lady Aylmer had almost made him believe that\r\nClara would be the suppliant, but now he was the suppliant himself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In his anxiety to keep her he was willing even to pass over her\r\nterrible iniquity in regard to Mrs. Askerton,--that great sin which\r\nhad led to all these troubles. He had once written to her about Mrs.\r\nAskerton, using very strong language, and threatening her with his\r\nmother's full displeasure. At that time Mrs. Askerton had simply been\r\nher friend. There had been no question then of her taking refuge\r\nunder that woman's roof. Now she had repelled Lady Aylmer's counsels\r\nwith scorn, was living as a guest in Mrs. Askerton's house; and yet\r\nhe was willing to pass over the Askerton difficulty without a word. He was willing not only to condone past offences, but to wink at\r\nexisting iniquity! But she,--she who was the sinner, would not permit\r\nof this. She herself dragged up Mrs. Askerton's name, and seemed to\r\nglory in her own shame. \"I had not intended,\" said he, \"to speak of your friend.\" \"I only mention her to show how impossible it is that we should ever\r\nagree upon some subjects,--as to which a husband and wife should\r\nalways be of one mind. I knew this from the moment in which I got\r\nyour letter,--and only that I was a coward I should have said so\r\nthen.\" \"And you mean to quarrel with me altogether?\" \"No;--why should we quarrel?\" \"Why, indeed?\" said he."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But I wish it to be settled,--quite settled, as from the nature of\r\nthings it must be, that there shall be no attempt at renewal of our\r\nengagement. After what has passed, how could I enter your mother's\r\nhouse?\" \"But you need not enter it.\" Now in his emergency he was willing\r\nto give up anything,--everything. He had been prepared to talk her\r\nover into a reconciliation with his mother, to admit that there had\r\nbeen faults on both sides, to come down from his high pedestal and\r\ndiscuss the matter as though Clara and his mother stood upon the same\r\nfooting. Having recognised the spirit of his lady-love, he had told\r\nhimself that so much indignity as that must be endured. But now, he\r\nhad been carried so far beyond this, that he was willing, in the\r\nsudden vehemence of his love, to throw his mother over altogether,\r\nand to accede to any terms which Clara might propose to him. \"Of\r\ncourse, I would wish you to be friends,\" he said, using now all the\r\ntones of a suppliant; \"but if you found that it could not be so--\"\r\n\r\n\"Do you think that I would divide you from your mother?\" \"There need be no question as to that.\" \"Ah;--there you are wrong. There must be such questions. I should\r\nhave thought of it sooner.\" \"Clara, you are more to me than my mother. Ten times more.\" As he\r\nsaid this he came up and knelt down beside her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You are everything\r\nto me. You will not throw me over.\" He was a suppliant indeed, and\r\nsuch supplications are very potent with women. Men succeed often by\r\nthe simple earnestness of their prayers. Women cannot refuse to give\r\nthat which is asked for with so much of the vehemence of true desire. \"Clara, you have promised to be my wife. You have twice promised; and\r\ncan have no right to go back because you are displeased with what my\r\nmother may have said. I am not responsible for my mother. Clara, say\r\nthat you will be my wife.\" As he spoke he strove to take her hand,\r\nand his voice sounded as though there were in truth something of\r\npassion in his heart. CHAPTER XXIX. THERE IS NOTHING TO TELL. Captain Aylmer had never before this knelt to Clara Amedroz. Such\r\nkneeling on the part of lovers used to be the fashion because lovers\r\nin those days held in higher value than they do now that which they\r\nasked their ladies to give,--or because they pretended to do so. The\r\nforms at least of supplication were used; whereas in these wiser days\r\nAugustus simply suggests to Caroline that they two might as well\r\nmake fools of themselves together,--and so the thing is settled\r\nwithout the need of much prayer. Captain Aylmer's engagement had\r\nbeen originally made somewhat after this fashion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had not,\r\nindeed, spoken of the thing contemplated as a folly, not being a\r\nman given to little waggeries of that nature; but he had been calm,\r\nunenthusiastic, and reasonable. He had not attempted to evince any\r\npassion, and would have been quite content that Clara should believe\r\nthat he married as much from obedience to his aunt as from love\r\nfor herself, had he not found that Clara would not take him at all\r\nunder such a conviction. But though she had declined to come to\r\nhim after that fashion,--though something more than that had been\r\nneeded,--still she had been won easily, and, therefore, lightly\r\nprized. I fear that it is so with everything that we value,--with our\r\nhorses, our houses, our wines, and, above all, with our women. Where\r\nis the man who has heart and soul big enough to love a woman with\r\nincreased force of passion because she has at once recognised in him\r\nall that she has herself desired? Captain Aylmer having won his spurs\r\neasily, had taken no care in buckling them, and now found, to his\r\nsurprise, that he was like to lose them. He had told himself that he\r\nwould only be too glad to shuffle his feet free of their bondage; but\r\nnow that they were going from him, he began to find that they were\r\nvery necessary for the road that he was to travel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Clara,\" he said,\r\nkneeling by her side, \"you are more to me than my mother; ten times\r\nmore!\" This was all new to her. Hitherto, though she had never desired\r\nthat he should assume such attitude as this, she had constantly\r\nbeen unconsciously wounded by his coldness,--by his cold propriety\r\nand unbending self-possession. His cold propriety and unbending\r\nself-possession were gone now, and he was there at her feet. Such an\r\nargument, used at Aylmer Park, would have conquered her,--would have\r\nwon her at once, in spite of herself; but now she was minded to be\r\nresolute. She had sworn to herself that she would not peril herself,\r\nor him, by joining herself to a man with whom she had so little\r\nsympathy, and who apparently had none with her. But in what way\r\nwas she to answer such a prayer as that which was now made to her? The man who addressed her was entitled to use all the warmth of an\r\naccepted lover. He only asked for that which had already been given\r\nto him. \"Captain Aylmer--,\" she began. \"Why is it to be Captain Aylmer? What have I done that you should use\r\nme in this way? It was not I who,--who,--made you unhappy at Aylmer\r\nPark.\" \"I will not go back to that. It is of no use. Pray get up. It shocks\r\nme to see you in this way.\" \"Tell me, then, that it is once more all right between us."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Say that,\r\nand I shall be happier than I ever was before;--yes, than I ever was\r\nbefore. I know how much I love you now, how sore it would be to lose\r\nyou. I have been wrong. I had not thought enough of that, but I will\r\nthink of it now.\" She found that the task before her was very difficult,--so difficult\r\nthat she almost broke down in performing it. It would have been so\r\neasy and, for the moment, so pleasant to have yielded. He had his\r\nhand upon her arm, having attempted to take her hand. In preventing\r\nthat she had succeeded, but she could not altogether make herself\r\nfree from him without rising. For a moment she had paused,--paused as\r\nthough she were about to yield. For a moment, as he looked into her\r\neyes, he had thought that he would again be victorious. Perhaps there\r\nwas something in his glance, some too visible return of triumph to\r\nhis eyes, which warned her of her danger. \"No!\" she said, getting up\r\nand walking away from him; \"no!\" \"And what does 'no' mean, Clara?\" Then he also rose, and stood\r\nleaning on the table. \"Does it mean that you will be forsworn?\" \"It means this,--that I will not come between you and your mother;\r\nthat I will not be taken into a family in which I am scorned; that I\r\nwill not go to Aylmer Park myself or be the means of preventing you\r\nfrom going there.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"There need be no question of Aylmer Park.\" \"There shall be none!\" \"But, so much being allowed, you will be my wife?\" \"No, Captain Aylmer;--no. I cannot be your wife. Do not press it\r\nfurther; you must know that on such a subject I would think much\r\nbefore I answered you. I have thought much, and I know that I am\r\nright.\" \"And your promised word is to go for nothing?\" \"If it will comfort you to say so, you may say it. If you do not\r\nperceive that the mistake made between us has been as much your\r\nmistake as mine, and has injured me more than it has injured you, I\r\nwill not remind you of it,--will never remind you of it after this.\" \"But there has been no mistake,--and there shall be no injury.\" \"Ah, Captain Aylmer! you do not understand; you cannot understand. I would not for worlds reproach you; but do you think I suffered\r\nnothing from your mother?\" \"And must I pay for her sins?\" \"There shall be no paying, no punishment, and no reproaches. There\r\nshall be none at least from me. But,--do not think that I speak in\r\nanger or in pride,--I will not marry into Lady Aylmer's family.\" \"This is too bad,--too bad! After all that is past, it is too bad!\" \"What can I say? Would you advise me to do that which would make us\r\nboth wretched?\" \"It would not make me wretched. It would make me happy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It would\r\nsatisfy me altogether.\" \"It cannot be, Captain Aylmer. It cannot be. When I speak to you in\r\nthat way, will you not let it be final?\" He paused a moment before he spoke again, and then he turned sharp\r\nupon her. \"Tell me this, Clara; do you love me? Have you ever loved\r\nme?\" She did not answer him, but stood there, listening quietly to\r\nhis accusations. \"You have never loved me, and yet you have allowed\r\nyourself to say that you did. Is not that true?\" Still she did not\r\nanswer. \"I ask you whether that is not true?\" But though he asked\r\nher, and paused for an answer, looking the while full into her face,\r\nyet she did not speak. \"And now I suppose you will become your\r\ncousin's wife?\" he said. \"It will suit you to change, and to say that\r\nyou love him.\" Then at last she spoke. \"I did not think that you would have treated\r\nme in this way, Captain Aylmer! I did not expect that you would\r\ninsult me!\" \"I have not insulted you.\" \"But your manner to me makes my task easier than I could have hoped\r\nit to be. You asked me whether I ever loved you? I once thought that\r\nI did so; and so thinking, told you, without reserve, all my feeling."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When I came to find that I had been mistaken, I conceived myself\r\nbound by my engagement to rectify my own error as best I could; and I\r\nresolved, wrongly,--as I now think, very wrongly,--that I could learn\r\nas your wife to love you. Then came circumstances which showed me\r\nthat a release would be good for both of us, and which justified me\r\nin accepting it. No girl could be bound by any engagement to a man\r\nwho looked on and saw her treated in his own home, by his own mother,\r\nas you saw me treated at Aylmer Park. I claim to be released myself,\r\nand I know that this release is as good for you as it is for me.\" \"I am the best judge of that.\" \"For myself at any rate I will judge. For myself I have decided. Now\r\nI have answered the questions which you asked me as to my love for\r\nyourself. To that other question which you have thought fit to put\r\nto me about my cousin, I refuse to give any answer whatsoever.\" Then,\r\nhaving said so much, she walked out of the room, closing the door\r\nbehind her, and left him standing there alone. We need not follow her as she went up, almost mechanically, into her\r\nown room,--the room that used to be her own,--and then shut herself\r\nin, waiting till she should be assured, first by sounds in the house,\r\nand then by silence, that he was gone."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That she fell away greatly\r\nfrom the majesty of her demeanour when she was thus alone, and\r\ndescended to the ordinary ways of troubled females, we may be quite\r\nsure. But to her there was no further difficulty. Her work for the\r\nday was done. In due time she would take herself to the cottage, and\r\nall would be well, or, at any rate, comfortable with her. But what\r\nwas he to do? How was he to get himself out of the house, and take\r\nhimself back to London? While he had been in pursuit of her, and\r\nwhen he was leaving his vehicle at the public-house in the village\r\nof Belton, he,--like some other invading generals,--had failed to\r\nprovide adequately for his retreat. When he was alone he took a turn\r\nor two about the room, half thinking that Clara would return to him. She could hardly leave him alone in a strange house,--him, who, as he\r\nhad twice told her, had come all the way from Yorkshire to see her. But she did not return, and gradually he came to understand that he\r\nmust provide for his own retreat without assistance. He was hardly\r\naware, even now, how greatly he had transcended his usual modes of\r\nspeech and action, both in the energy of his supplication and in the\r\nviolence of his rebuke."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had been lifted for awhile out of himself\r\nby the excitement of his position, and now that he was subsiding\r\ninto quiescence, he was unconscious that he had almost mounted into\r\npassion,--that he had spoken of love very nearly with eloquence. But\r\nhe did recognise this as a fact,--that Clara was not to be his wife,\r\nand that he had better get back from Belton to London as quickly as\r\npossible. It would be well for him to teach himself to look back on\r\nthe result of his aunt's dying request as an episode in his life\r\nsatisfactorily concluded. His mother had undoubtedly been right. Clara, he could now see, would have led him a devil of a life; and\r\neven had she come to him possessed of a moiety of the property,--a\r\nsupposition as to which he had very strong doubts,--still she might\r\nhave been dear at the money. \"No real feeling,\" he said to himself,\r\nas he walked about the room,--\"none whatever; and then so deficient\r\nin delicacy!\" But still he was discontented,--because he had been\r\nrejected, and therefore tried to make himself believe that he could\r\nstill have her if he chose to persevere. \"But no,\" he said, as he\r\ncontinued to pace the room, \"I have done everything,--more than\r\neverything that honour demands. I shall not ask her again. It is\r\nher own fault. She is an imperious woman, and my mother read her\r\ncharacter aright.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "It did not occur to him, as he thus consoled\r\nhimself for what he had lost, that his mother's accusation against\r\nClara had been altogether of a different nature. When we console\r\nourselves by our own arguments, we are not apt to examine their\r\naccuracy with much strictness. But whether he were consoled or not, it was necessary that he should\r\ngo, and in his going he felt himself to be ill-treated. He left the\r\nroom, and as he went down-stairs was disturbed and tormented by the\r\ncreaking of his own boots. He tried to be dignified as he walked\r\nthrough the hall, and was troubled at his failure, though he was not\r\nconscious of any one looking at him. Then it was grievous that he\r\nshould have to let himself out of the front door without attendance. At ordinary times he thought as little of such things as most men,\r\nand would not be aware whether he opened a door for himself or had\r\nit opened for him by another;--but now there was a distressing\r\nawkwardness in the necessity for self-exertion. He did not know the\r\nturn of the handle, and was unfamiliar with the manner of exit. He\r\nwas being treated with indignity, and before he had escaped from\r\nthe house had come to think that the Amedroz and Belton people were\r\nsomewhat below him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He endeavoured to go out without a noise, but\r\nthere was a slam of the door, without which he could not get the lock\r\nto work; and Clara, up in her own room, knew all about it. \"Carriage;--yes; of course I want the carriage,\" he said to the\r\nunfortunate boy at the public-house. \"Didn't you hear me say that\r\nI wanted it?\" He had come down with a pair of horses, and as he saw\r\nthem being put to the vehicle he wished he had been contented with\r\none. As he was standing there, waiting, a gentleman rode by, and\r\nthe boy, in answer to his question, told him that the horseman\r\nwas Colonel Askerton. Before the day was over Colonel Askerton\r\nwould probably know all that had happened to him. \"Do move a little\r\nquicker; will you?\" he said to the boy and the old man who was to\r\ndrive him. Then he got into the carriage, and was driven out of\r\nBelton, devoutly purposing that he never would return; and as he made\r\nhis way back to Perivale he thought of a certain Lady Emily, who\r\nwould, as he assured himself, have behaved much better than Clara\r\nAmedroz had done in any such scene as that which had just taken\r\nplace. When Clara was quite sure that Captain Aylmer was off the premises,\r\nshe, too, descended, but she did not immediately leave the house."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She\r\nwalked through the room, and rang for the old woman, and gave certain\r\ndirections,--as to the performance of which she certainly was not\r\nvery anxious, and was careful to make Mrs. Bunce understand that\r\nnothing had occurred between her and the gentleman that was either\r\nexalting or depressing in its nature. \"I suppose Captain Aylmer went\r\nout, Mrs. Bunce?\" \"Oh yes, miss, a went out. I stood and see'd un\r\nfrom the top of the kitchen stairs.\" \"You might have opened the\r\ndoor for him, Mrs. Bunce.\" \"Indeed then I never thought of it, miss,\r\nseeing the house so empty and the like.\" Clara said that it did not\r\nsignify; and then, after an hour of composure, she walked back across\r\nthe park to the cottage. \"Well?\" said Mrs. Askerton as soon as Clara was inside the\r\ndrawing-room. \"Well,\" replied Clara. \"What have you got to tell? Do tell me what you have to tell.\" \"I have nothing to tell.\" \"Clara, that is impossible. Have you seen him? I know you have seen\r\nhim, because he went by from the house about an hour since.\" \"Oh yes; I have seen him.\" \"And what have you said to him?\" \"Pray do not ask me these questions just now. I have got to think of\r\nit all;--to think what he did say and what I said.\" \"But you will tell me.\" \"Yes; I suppose so.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then Mrs. Askerton was silent on the subject\r\nfor the remainder of the day, allowing Clara even to go to bed\r\nwithout another question. And nothing was asked on the following\r\nmorning,--nothing till the usual time for the writing of letters. \"Shall you have anything for the post?\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"There is plenty of time yet.\" \"Not too much if you mean to go out at all. Come, Clara, you had\r\nbetter write to him at once.\" \"Write to whom? I don't know that I have any letter to write at all.\" Then there was a pause. \"As far as I can see,\" she said, \"I may give\r\nup writing altogether for the future, unless some day you may care to\r\nhear from me.\" \"But you are not going away.\" \"Not just yet;--if you will keep me. To tell you the truth, Mrs.\r\nAskerton, I do not yet know where on earth to take myself.\" \"Wait here till we turn you out.\" \"I have got to put my house in order. You know what I mean. The job\r\nought not to be a troublesome one, for it is a very small house.\" \"I suppose I know what you mean.\" \"It will not be a very smart establishment. But I must look it all in\r\nthe face; must I not? Though it were to be no house at all, I cannot\r\nstay here all my life.\" \"Yes, you may."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You have lost Aylmer Park because you were too noble\r\nnot to come to us.\" \"No,\" said Clara, speaking aloud, with bright eyes,--almost with her\r\nhands clenched. \"No;--I deny that.\" \"I shall choose to think so for my own purposes. Clara, you are\r\nsavage to me;--almost always savage; but next to him I love you\r\nbetter than all the world beside. And so does he. 'It's her courage,'\r\nhe said to me the other day. 'That she should dare to do as she\r\npleases here, is nothing; but to have dared to persevere in the\r\nfangs of that old dragon,'--it was just what he said,--'that was\r\nwonderful!'\" \"There is an end of the old dragon now, so far as I am concerned.\" \"Of course there is;--and of the young dragon too. You wouldn't have\r\nhad the heart to keep me in suspense if you had accepted him again. You couldn't have been so pleasant last night if that had been so.\" \"I did not know I was very pleasant.\" \"Yes, you were. You were soft and gracious,--gracious for you, at\r\nleast. And now, dear, do tell me about it. Of course I am dying to\r\nknow.\" \"There is nothing to tell.\" \"That is nonsense. There must be a thousand things to tell. At any\r\nrate it is quite decided?\" \"Yes; it is quite decided.\" \"All the dragons, old and young, are banished into outer darkness.\" \"Either that, or else they are to have all the light to themselves.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Such light as glimmers through the gloom of Aylmer Park. And was he\r\ncontented? I hope not. I hope you had him on his knees before he left\r\nyou.\" \"Why should you hope that? How can you talk such nonsense?\" \"Because I wish that he should recognise what he has lost;--that he\r\nshould know that he has been a fool;--a mean fool.\" \"Mrs. Askerton, I will not have him spoken of like that. He is a man\r\nvery estimable,--of estimable qualities.\" \"Fiddle-de-dee. He is an ape,--a monkey to be carried on his mother's\r\norgan. His only good quality was that you could have carried him on\r\nyours. I can tell you one thing;--there is not a woman breathing that\r\nwill ever carry William Belton on hers. Whoever his wife may be, she\r\nwill have to dance to his piping.\" \"With all my heart;--and I hope the tunes will be good.\" \"But I wish I could have been present to have heard what\r\npassed;--hidden, you know, behind a curtain. You won't tell me?\" \"I will tell you not a word more.\" \"Then I will get it out from Mrs. Bunce. I'll be bound she was\r\nlistening.\" \"Mrs. Bunce will have nothing to tell you; I do not know why you\r\nshould be so curious.\" \"Answer me one question at least:--when it came to the last, did he\r\nwant to go on with it? Was the final triumph with him or with you?\" \"There was no final triumph."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Such things, when they have to end, do\r\nnot end triumphantly.\" \"And is that to be all?\" \"Yes;--that is to be all.\" \"And you say that you have no letter to write.\" \"None;--no letter; none at present; none about this affair. Captain\r\nAylmer, no doubt, will write to his mother, and then all those who\r\nare concerned will have been told.\" Clara Amedroz held her purpose and wrote no letter, but Mrs. Askerton\r\nwas not so discreet, or so indiscreet, as the case might be. She did\r\nwrite,--not on that day or on the next, but before a week had passed\r\nby. She wrote to Norfolk, telling Clara not a word of her letter, and\r\nby return of post the answer came. But the answer was for Clara, not\r\nfor Mrs. Askerton, and was as follows:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   Plaistow Hall, April, 186--. MY DEAR CLARA,\r\n\r\n   I don't know whether I ought to tell you but I suppose I\r\n   may as well tell you, that Mary has had a letter from Mrs.\r\n   Askerton. It was a kind, obliging letter, and I am very\r\n   grateful to her. She has told us that you have separated\r\n   yourself altogether from the Aylmer Park people. I don't\r\n   suppose you'll think I ought to pretend to be very sorry. I can't be sorry, even though I know how much you have\r\n   lost in a worldly point of view. I could not bring myself\r\n   to like Captain Aylmer, though I tried hard. Oh Mr. Belton, Mr. Belton!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "He and I never could have been friends, and it is no use\r\n   my pretending regret that you have quarrelled with them. But that, I suppose, is all over, and I will not say a\r\n   word more about the Aylmers. I am writing now chiefly at Mary's advice, and because she\r\n   says that something should be settled about the estate. Of\r\n   course it is necessary that you should feel yourself to be\r\n   the mistress of your own income, and understand exactly\r\n   your own position. Mary says that this should be arranged\r\n   at once, so that you may be able to decide how and\r\n   where you will live. I therefore write to say that I\r\n   will have nothing to do with your father's estate at\r\n   Belton;--nothing, that is, for myself. I have written to\r\n   Mr. Green to tell him that you are to be considered as the\r\n   heir. If you will allow me to undertake the management of\r\n   the property as your agent, I shall be delighted. I think\r\n   I could do it as well as any one else: and, as we agreed\r\n   that we would always be dear and close friends, I think\r\n   that you will not refuse me the pleasure of serving you in\r\n   this way. And now Mary has a proposition to make, as to which she\r\n   will write herself to-morrow, but she has permitted me to\r\n   speak of it first. If you will accept her as a visitor,\r\n   she will go to you at Belton."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She thinks, and I think too,\r\n   that you ought to know each other. I suppose nothing would\r\n   make you come here, at present, and therefore she must\r\n   go to you. She thinks that all about the estate would be\r\n   settled more comfortably if you two were together. At any\r\n   rate, it would be very nice for her,--and I think you\r\n   would like my sister Mary. She proposes to start about the\r\n   10th of May. I should take her as far as London and see\r\n   her off, and she would bring her own maid with her. In\r\n   this way she thinks that she would get as far as Taunton\r\n   very well. She had, perhaps, better stay there for one\r\n   night, but that can all be settled if you will say that\r\n   you will receive her at the house. I cannot finish my letter without saying one word for\r\n   myself. You know what my feelings have been, and I think\r\n   you know that they still are, and always must be, the\r\n   same. From almost the first moment that I saw you I have\r\n   loved you. When you refused me I was very unhappy; but\r\n   I thought I might still have a chance, and therefore I\r\n   resolved to try again. Then, when I heard that you were\r\n   engaged to Captain Aylmer, I was indeed broken-hearted. Of\r\n   course I could not be angry with you. I was not angry, but\r\n   I was simply broken-hearted."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I found that I loved you so\r\n   much that I could not make myself happy without you. It\r\n   was all of no use, for I knew that you were to be married\r\n   to Captain Aylmer. I knew it, or thought that I knew it. There was nothing to be done,--only I knew that I was\r\n   wretched. I suppose it is selfishness, but I felt, and\r\n   still feel, that unless I can have you for my wife, I\r\n   cannot be happy or care for anything. Now you are free\r\n   again,--free, I mean, from Captain Aylmer;--and how is it\r\n   possible that I should not again have a hope? Nothing but\r\n   your marriage or death could keep me from hoping. I don't know much about the Aylmers. I know nothing of\r\n   what has made you quarrel with the people at Aylmer\r\n   Park;--nor do I want to know. To me you are once more that\r\n   Clara Amedroz with whom I used to walk in Belton Park,\r\n   with your hand free to be given wherever your heart can\r\n   go with it. While it is free I shall always ask for it. I know that it is in many ways above my reach. I quite\r\n   understand that in education and habits of thinking you\r\n   are my superior. But nobody can love you better than I do. I sometimes fancy that nobody could ever love you so well."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mary thinks that I ought to allow a time to go by before\r\n   I say all this again;--but what is the use of keeping it\r\n   back? It seems to me to be more honest to tell you at once\r\n   that the only thing in the world for which I care one\r\n   straw is that you should be my wife. Your most affectionate Cousin,\r\n\r\n   WILLIAM BELTON. \"Miss Belton is coming here, to the castle, in a fortnight,\" said\r\nClara that morning at breakfast. Both Colonel Askerton and his wife\r\nwere in the room, and she was addressing herself chiefly to the\r\nformer. \"Indeed, Miss Belton! And is he coming?\" said Colonel Askerton. \"So you have heard from Plaistow?\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"Yes;--in answer to your letter. No, Colonel Askerton, my cousin\r\nWilliam is not coming. But his sister purposes to be here, and I must\r\ngo up to the house and get it ready.\" \"That will do when the time comes,\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"I did not mean quite immediately.\" \"And are you to be her guest, or is she to be yours?\" said Colonel\r\nAskerton. \"It's her brother's home, and therefore I suppose I must be hers. Indeed it must be so, as I have no means of entertaining any one.\" \"Something, no doubt, will be settled,\" said the Colonel. \"Oh, what a weary word that is,\" said Clara; \"weary, at least, for\r\na woman's ears!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "It sounds of poverty and dependence, and endless\r\ntrouble given to others, and all the miseries of female dependence. If I were a young man I should be allowed to settle for myself.\" \"There would be no question about the property in that case,\" said\r\nthe Colonel. \"And there need be no question now,\" said Mrs. Askerton. When the two women were alone together, Clara, of course, scolded her\r\nfriend for having written to Norfolk without letting it be known that\r\nshe was doing so;--scolded her, and declared how vain it was for her\r\nto make useless efforts for an unattainable end; but Mrs. Askerton\r\nalways managed to slip out of these reproaches, neither asserting\r\nherself to be right, nor owning herself to be wrong. \"But you must\r\nanswer his letter,\" she said. \"Of course I shall do that.\" \"I wish I knew what he said.\" \"I shan't show it you, if you mean that.\" \"All the same I wish I knew what he said.\" Clara, of course, did answer the letter; but she wrote her answer to\r\nMary, sending, however, one little scrap to Mary's brother. She wrote\r\nto Mary at great length, striving to explain, with long and laborious\r\narguments, that it was quite impossible that she should accept the\r\nBelton estate from her cousin. That subject, however, and the manner\r\nof her future life, she would discuss with her dear cousin Mary, when\r\nMary should have arrived."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then Clara said how she would go to\r\nTaunton to meet her cousin, and how she would prepare William's house\r\nfor the reception of William's sister; and how she would love her\r\ncousin when she should come to know her. All of which was exceedingly\r\nproper and pretty. Then there was a little postscript, \"Give the\r\nenclosed to William.\" And this was the note to William:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   DEAR WILLIAM,\r\n\r\n   Did you not say that you would be my brother? Be my\r\n   brother always. I will accept from your hands all that\r\n   a brother could do; and when that arrangement is quite\r\n   fixed, I will love you as much as Mary loves you, and\r\n   trust you as completely; and I will be obedient, as a\r\n   younger sister should be. Your loving Sister,\r\n\r\n   C. A. \"It's all no good,\" said William Belton, as he crunched the note in\r\nhis hand. \"I might as well shoot myself. Get out of the way there,\r\nwill you?\" And the injured groom scudded across the farm-yard,\r\nknowing that there was something wrong with his master. CHAPTER XXX. MARY BELTON. It was about the middle of the pleasant month of May when Clara\r\nAmedroz again made that often repeated journey to Taunton, with the\r\nobject of meeting Mary Belton. She had transferred herself and her\r\nown peculiar belongings back from the cottage to the house, and had\r\nagain established herself there so that she might welcome her new\r\nfriend."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But she was not satisfied with simply receiving her guest at\r\nBelton, and therefore she made the journey to Taunton, and settled\r\nherself for the night at the inn. She was careful to get a bedroom\r\nfor an \"invalid lady,\" close to the sitting-room, and before she went\r\ndown to the station she saw that the cloth was laid for tea, and that\r\nthe tea parlour had been made to look as pleasant as was possible\r\nwith an inn parlour. She was very nervous as she stood upon the platform waiting for the\r\nnew comer to show herself. She knew that Mary was a cripple, but did\r\nnot know how far her cousin was disfigured by her infirmity; and\r\nwhen she saw a pale-faced little woman, somewhat melancholy, but yet\r\npretty withal, with soft, clear eyes, and only so much appearance\r\nof a stoop as to soften the hearts of those who saw her, Clara was\r\nagreeably surprised, and felt herself to be suddenly relieved of an\r\nunpleasant weight. She could talk to the woman she saw there, as to\r\nany other woman, without the painful necessity of treating her always\r\nas an invalid. \"I think you are Miss Belton?\" she said, holding out\r\nher hand. The likeness between Mary and her brother was too great to\r\nallow of Clara being mistaken. \"And you are Clara Amedroz? It is so good of you to come to meet me!\" \"I thought you would be dull in a strange town by yourself.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It will be much nicer to have you with me.\" Then they went together up to the inn; and when they had taken their\r\nbonnets off, Mary Belton kissed her cousin. \"You are very nearly what\r\nI fancied you,\" said Mary. \"Am I? I hope you fancied me to be something that you could like.\" \"Something that I could love very dearly. You are a little taller\r\nthan what Will said; but then a gentleman is never a judge of a\r\nlady's height. And he said you were thin.\" \"I am not very fat.\" \"No; not very fat; but neither are you thin. Of course, you know, I\r\nhave thought a great deal about you. It seems as though you had come\r\nto be so very near to us; and blood is thicker than water, is it not? If cousins are not friends, who can be?\" In the course of that evening they became very confidential together,\r\nand Clara thought that she could love Mary Belton better than any\r\nwoman that she had ever known. Of course they were talking about\r\nWilliam, and Clara was at first in constant fear lest some word\r\nshould be said on her lover's behalf,--some word which would drive\r\nher to declare that she would not admit him as a lover; but Mary\r\nabstained from the subject with marvellous care and tact."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Though she\r\nwas talking through the whole evening of her brother, she so spoke\r\nof him as almost to make Clara believe that she could not have heard\r\nof that episode in his life. Mrs. Askerton would have dashed at the\r\nsubject at once; but then, as Clara told herself, Mary Belton was\r\nbetter than Mrs. Askerton. A few words were said about the estate, and they originated in\r\nClara's declaration that Mary would have to be regarded as the\r\nmistress of the house to which they were going. \"I cannot agree to\r\nthat,\" said Mary. \"But the house is William's, you know,\" said Clara. \"He says not.\" \"But of course that must be nonsense, Mary.\" \"It is very evident that you know nothing of Plaistow ways, or you\r\nwould not say that anything coming from William was nonsense. We are\r\naccustomed to regard all his words as law, and when he says that a\r\nthing is to be so, it always is so.\" \"Then he is a tyrant at home.\" \"A beneficent despot. Some despots, you know, always were\r\nbeneficent.\" \"He won't have his way in this thing.\" \"I'll leave you and him to fight about that, my dear. I am so\r\ncompletely under his thumb that I always obey him in everything. You\r\nmust not, therefore, expect to range me on your side.\" The next day they were at Belton Castle, and in a very few hours\r\nClara felt that she was quite at home with her cousin."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the second\r\nday Mrs. Askerton came up and called,--according to an arrangement to\r\nthat effect made between her and Clara. \"I'll stay away if you like\r\nit,\" Mrs. Askerton had said. But Clara had urged her to come, arguing\r\nwith her that she was foolish to be thinking always of her own\r\nmisfortune. \"Of course I am always thinking of it,\" she had replied,\r\n\"and always thinking that other people are thinking of it. Your\r\ncousin, Miss Belton, knows all my history, of course. But what\r\nmatters? I believe it would be better that everybody should know it. I suppose she's very straight-laced and prim.\" \"She is not prim at\r\nall,\" said Clara. \"Well, I'll come,\" said Mrs. Askerton, \"but I shall\r\nnot be a bit surprised if I hear that she goes back to Norfolk the\r\nnext day.\" So Mrs. Askerton came, and Miss Belton did not go back to Norfolk. Indeed, at the end of the visit, Mrs. Askerton had almost taught\r\nherself to believe that William Belton had kept his secret, even from\r\nhis sister. \"She's a dear little woman,\" Mrs. Askerton afterwards\r\nsaid to Clara. \"Is she not?\" \"And so thoroughly like a lady.\" \"Yes; I think she is a lady.\" \"A princess among ladies! What a pretty little conscious way she has\r\nof asserting herself when she has an opinion and means to stick to\r\nit! I never saw a woman who got more strength out of her weakness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Who would dare to contradict her?\" \"But then she knows everything so well,\" said Clara. \"And how like her brother she is!\" \"Yes;--there is a great family likeness.\" \"And in character, too. I'm sure you'd find, if you were to try her,\r\nthat she has all his personal firmness, though she can't show it as\r\nhe does by kicking out his feet and clenching his fist.\" \"I'm glad you like her,\" said Clara. \"I do like her very much.\" \"It is so odd,--the way you have changed. You used to speak of him as\r\nthough he was merely a clod of a farmer, and of her as a stupid old\r\nmaid. Now, nothing is too good to say of them.\" \"Exactly, my dear;--and if you do not understand why, you are not so\r\nclever as I take you to be.\" Life went on very pleasantly with them at Belton for two or three\r\nweeks;--but with this drawback as regarded Clara, that she had no\r\nmeans of knowing what was to be the course of her future life. During\r\nthese weeks she twice received letters from her cousin Will, and\r\nanswered both of them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But these letters referred to matters of\r\nbusiness which entailed no contradiction,--to certain details of\r\nmoney due to the estate before the old squire's death, and to that\r\nvexed question of Aunt Winterfield's legacy, which had by this time\r\ndrifted into Belton's hands, and as to which he was inclined to act\r\nin accordance with his cousin's wishes, though he was assured by Mr.\r\nGreen that the legacy was as good a legacy as had ever been left by\r\nan old woman. \"I think,\" he said in his last letter, \"that we shall\r\nbe able to throw him over in spite of Mr. Green.\" Clara, as she read\r\nthis, could not but remember that the man to be thrown over was the\r\nman to whom she had been engaged, and she could not but remember also\r\nall the circumstances of the intended legacy,--of her aunt's death,\r\nand of the scenes which had immediately followed her death. It was so\r\nodd that William Belton should now be discussing with her the means\r\nof evading all her aunt's intentions,--and that he should be doing\r\nso, not as her accepted lover. He had, indeed, called himself her\r\nbrother, but he was in truth her rejected lover. From time to time during these weeks Mrs. Askerton would ask her\r\nwhether Mr. Belton was coming to Belton, and Clara would answer her\r\nwith perfect truth that she did not believe that he had any such\r\nintention. \"But he must come soon,\" Mrs. Askerton would say."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And when\r\nClara would answer that she knew nothing about it, Mrs. Askerton\r\nwould ask further questions about Mary Belton. \"Your cousin must know\r\nwhether her brother is coming to look after the property?\" But Miss\r\nBelton, though she heard constantly from her brother, gave no such\r\nintimation. If he had any intention of coming, she did not speak\r\nof it. During all these days she had not as yet said a word of\r\nher brother's love. Though his name was daily in her mouth,--and\r\nlatterly, was frequently mentioned by Clara,--there had been no\r\nallusion to that still enduring hope of which Will Belton himself\r\ncould not but speak,--when he had any opportunity of speaking at all. And this continued till at last Clara was driven to suppose that Mary\r\nBelton knew nothing of her brother's hopes. But at last there came a change,--a change which to Clara was as\r\ngreat as that which had affected her when she first found that\r\nher delightful cousin was not safe against love-making. She had\r\nmade up her mind that the sister did not intend to plead for her\r\nbrother,--that the sister probably knew nothing of the brother's\r\nnecessity for pleading,--that the brother probably had no further\r\nneed for pleading! When she remembered his last passionate words, she\r\ncould not but accuse herself of hypocrisy when she allowed place in\r\nher thoughts to this latter supposition. He had been so intently\r\nearnest! The nature of the man was so eager and true!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But yet, in\r\nspite of all that had been said, of all the fire in his eyes, and\r\nlife in his words, and energy in his actions, he had at last seen\r\nthat his aspirations were foolish, and his desires vain. It could not\r\notherwise be that she and Mary should pass these hours in such calm\r\nrepose without an allusion to the disturbing subject! After this\r\nfashion, and with such meditations as these, had passed by the last\r\nweeks;--and then at last there came the change. \"I have had a letter from William this morning,\" said Mary. \"And so have not I,\" said Clara, \"and yet I expect to hear from him.\" \"He means to be here soon,\" said Mary. \"Oh, indeed!\" \"He speaks of being here next week.\" For a moment or two Clara had yielded to the agitation caused by her\r\ncousin's tidings; but with a little gush she recovered her presence\r\nof mind, and was able to speak with all the hypothetical propriety of\r\na female. \"I am glad to hear it,\" she said. \"It is only right that he\r\nshould come.\" \"He has asked me to say a word to you,--as to the purport of his\r\njourney.\" Then again Clara's courage and hypocrisy were so far subdued that\r\nthey were not able to maintain her in a position adequate to the\r\noccasion. \"Well,\" she said laughing, \"what is the word?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I hope it is\r\nnot that I am to pack up, bag and baggage, and take myself elsewhere. Cousin William is one of those persons who are willing to do\r\neverything except what they are wanted to do. He will go on talking\r\nabout the Belton estate, when I want to know whether I may really\r\nlook for as much as twelve shillings a week to live upon.\" \"He wants me to speak to you about--about the earnest love he bears\r\nfor you.\" \"Oh dear! Mary;--could you not suppose it all to be said? It is an\r\nold trouble, and need not be repeated.\" \"No,\" said Mary, \"I cannot suppose it to be all said.\" Clara looking\r\nup as she heard the voice, was astonished both by the fire in the\r\nwoman's eye and by the force of her tone. \"I will not think so meanly\r\nof you as to believe that such words from such a man can be passed by\r\nas meaning nothing. I will not say that you ought to be able to love\r\nhim; in that you cannot control your heart; but if you cannot love\r\nhim, the want of such love ought to make you suffer,--to suffer much\r\nand be very sad.\" \"I cannot agree to that, Mary.\" \"Is all his life nothing, then? Do you know what love means with\r\nhim;--this love which he bears to you?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Do you understand that it\r\nis everything to him?--that from the first moment in which he\r\nacknowledged to himself that his heart was set upon you, he could not\r\nbring himself to set it upon any other thing for a moment? Perhaps\r\nyou have never understood this; have never perceived that he is so\r\nmuch in earnest, that to him it is more than money, or land, or\r\nhealth,--more than life itself;--that he so loves that he would\r\nwillingly give everything that he has for his love? Have you known\r\nthis?\" Clara would not answer these questions for a while. What if she had\r\nknown it all, was she therefore bound to sacrifice herself? Could it\r\nbe the duty of any woman to give herself to a man simply because a\r\nman wanted her? That was the argument as it was put forward now by\r\nMary Belton. \"Dear, dearest Clara,\" said Mary Belton, stretching herself forward\r\nfrom her chair, and putting out her thin, almost transparent, hand,\r\n\"I do not think that you have thought enough of this; or, perhaps,\r\nyou have not known it. But his love for you is as I say. To him it is\r\neverything. It pervades every hour of every day, every corner in his\r\nlife! He knows nothing of anything else while he is in his present\r\nstate.\" \"He is very good;--more than good.\" \"He is very good.\" \"But I do not see that;--that-- Of course I know how disinterested he\r\nis.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Disinterested is a poor word. It insinuates that in such a matter\r\nthere could be a question of what people call interest.\" \"And I know, too, how much he honours me.\" \"Honour is a cold word. It is not honour, but love,--downright true,\r\nhonest love. I hope he does honour you. I believe you to be an\r\nhonest, true woman; and, as he knows you well, he probably does\r\nhonour you;--but I am speaking of love.\" Again Clara was silent. She\r\nknew what should be her argument if she were determined to oppose her\r\ncousin's pleadings; and she knew also,--she thought she knew,--that\r\nshe did intend to oppose them; but there was a coldness in the\r\nargument to which she was averse. \"You cannot be insensible to such\r\nlove as that!\" said Mary, going on with the cause which she had in\r\nhand. \"You say that he is fond of me.\" \"Fond of you! I have not used such trifling expressions as that.\" \"That he loves me.\" \"You know he loves you. Have you ever doubted a word that he has\r\nspoken to you on any subject?\" \"I believe he speaks truly.\" \"You know he speaks truly. He is the very soul of truth.\" \"But, Mary--\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, Clara! But remember; do not answer me lightly. Do not play\r\nwith a man's heart because you have it in your power.\" \"You wrong me. I could never do like that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You tell me that he loves\r\nme;--but what if I do not love him? Love will not be constrained. Am\r\nI to say that I love him because I believe that he loves me?\" This was the argument, and Clara found herself driven to use it,--not\r\nso much from its special applicability to herself, as on account of\r\nits general fitness. Whether it did or did not apply to herself she\r\nhad no time to ask herself at that moment; but she felt that no man\r\ncould have a right to claim a woman's hand on the strength of his own\r\nlove,--unless he had been able to win her love. She was arguing on\r\nbehalf of women in general rather than on her own behalf. \"If you mean to tell me that you cannot love him, of course I must\r\ngive over,\" said Mary, not caring at all for men and women in\r\ngeneral, but full of anxiety for her brother. \"Do you mean to say\r\nthat,--that you can never love him?\" It almost seemed, from her\r\nface, that she was determined utterly to quarrel with her new-found\r\ncousin,--to quarrel and to go at once away if she got an answer that\r\nwould not please her. \"Dear Mary, do not press me so hard.\" \"But I want to press you hard. It is not right that he should lose\r\nhis life in longing and hoping.\" \"He will not lose his life, Mary.\" \"I hope not;--not if I can help it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I trust that he will be strong\r\nenough to get rid of his trouble,--to put it down and trample it\r\nunder his feet.\" Clara, as she heard this, began to ask herself what\r\nit was that was to be trampled under Will's feet. \"I think he will\r\nbe man enough to overcome his passion; and then, perhaps,--you may\r\nregret what you have lost.\" \"Now you are unkind to me.\" \"Well; what would you have me say? Do I not know that he is offering\r\nyou the best gift that he can give? Did I not begin by swearing to\r\nyou that he loved you with a passion of love that cannot but be\r\nflattering to you? If it is to be love in vain, this to him is a\r\ngreat misfortune. And, yet, when I say that I hope that he will\r\nrecover, you tell me that I am unkind.\" \"No;--not for that.\" \"May I tell him to come and plead for himself?\" Again Clara was silent, not knowing how to answer that last question. And when she did answer it, she answered it thoughtlessly. \"Of course\r\nhe knows that he can do that.\" \"He says that he has been forbidden.\" \"Oh, Mary, what am I to say to you? You know it all, and I wonder\r\nthat you can continue to question me in this way.\" \"Know all what?\" \"That I have been engaged to Captain Aylmer.\" \"But you are not engaged to him now.\" \"No--I am not.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And there can be no renewal there, I suppose?\" \"Oh, no!\" \"Not even for my brother would I say a word if I thought--\"\r\n\r\n\"No;--there is nothing of that; but--. If you cannot understand, I do\r\nnot think that I can explain it.\" It seemed to Clara that her cousin,\r\nin her anxiety for her brother, did not conceive that a woman,\r\neven if she could suddenly transfer her affections from one man to\r\nanother, could not bring herself to say that she had done so. \"I must write to him to-day,\" said Mary, \"and I must give him some\r\nanswer. Shall I tell him that he had better not come here till you\r\nare gone?\" \"That will perhaps be best,\" said Clara. \"Then he will never come at all.\" \"I can go;--can go at once. I will go at once. You shall never have\r\nto say that my presence prevented his coming to his own house. I\r\nought not to be here. I know it now. I will go away, and you may tell\r\nhim that I am gone.\" \"No, dear; you will not go.\" \"Yes;--I must go. I fancied things might be otherwise, because he\r\nonce told me that--he--would--be--a brother to me. And I said I would\r\nhold him to that;--not only because I want a brother so badly, but\r\nbecause I love him so dearly. But it cannot be like that.\" \"You do not think that he will ever desert you?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But I will go away, so that he may come to his own house. I ought\r\nnot to be here. Of course I ought not to be at Belton,--either in\r\nthis house or in any other. Tell him that I will be gone before he\r\ncan come, and tell him also that I will not be too proud to accept\r\nfrom him what it may be fit that he should give me. I have no one but\r\nhim;--no one but him;--no one but him.\" Then she burst into tears,\r\nand throwing back her head, covered her face with her hands. Miss Belton, upon this, rose slowly from the chair on which she was\r\nsitting, and making her way painfully across to Clara, stood leaning\r\non the weeping girl's chair. \"You shall not go while I am here,\" she\r\nsaid. \"Yes; I must go. He cannot come till I am gone.\" \"Think of it all once again, Clara. May I not tell him to come, and\r\nthat while he is coming you will see if you cannot soften your heart\r\ntowards him?\" \"Soften my heart! Oh, if I could only harden it!\" \"He would wait. If you would only bid him wait, he would be so happy\r\nin waiting.\" \"Yes--till to-morrow morning. I know him. Hold out your little finger\r\nto him, and he has your whole hand and arm in a moment.\" \"I want you to say that you will try to love him.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Clara was in truth trying not to love him. She was ashamed of\r\nherself because she did love the one man, when, but a few weeks\r\nsince, she had confessed that she loved another. She had mistaken\r\nherself and her own feelings, not in reference to her cousin, but in\r\nsupposing that she could really have sympathised with such a man as\r\nCaptain Aylmer. It was necessary to her self-respect that she should\r\nbe punished because of that mistake. She could not save herself from\r\nthis condemnation,--she would not grant herself a respite--because,\r\nby doing so, she would make another person happy. Had Captain Aylmer\r\nnever crossed her path, she would have given her whole heart to her\r\ncousin. Nay; she had so given it,--had done so, although Captain\r\nAylmer had crossed her path and come in her way. But it was matter of\r\nshame to her to find that this had been possible, and she could not\r\nbring herself to confess her shame. The conversation at last ended, as such conversations always do end,\r\nwithout any positive decision. Mary wrote of course to her brother,\r\nbut Clara was not told of the contents of the letter. We, however,\r\nmay know them, and may understand their nature, without learning\r\nabove two lines of the letter. \"If you can be content to wait awhile,\r\nyou will succeed,\" said Mary; \"but when were you ever content to\r\nwait for anything?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If there is anything I hate, it is waiting,\"\r\nsaid Will, when he received the letter; nevertheless the letter made\r\nhim happy, and he went about his farm with a sanguine heart, as he\r\narranged matters for another absence. \"Away long?\" he said, in answer\r\nto a question asked him by his head man; \"how on earth can I say how\r\nlong I shall be away? You can go on well enough without me by this\r\ntime, I should think. You will have to learn, for there is no knowing\r\nhow often I may be away, or for how long.\" When Mary said that the letter had been written, Clara again spoke\r\nabout going. \"And where will you go?\" said Mary. \"I will take a lodging in Taunton.\" \"He would only follow you there, and there would be more trouble. That would be all. He must act as your guardian, and in that\r\ncapacity, at any rate, you must submit to him.\" Clara, therefore,\r\nconsented to remain at Belton; but, before Will arrived, she returned\r\nfrom the house to the cottage. \"Of course I understand all about it,\" said Mrs. Askerton; \"and let\r\nme tell you this,--that if it is not all settled within a week from\r\nhis coming here, I shall think that you are without a heart."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He is\r\nto be knocked about, and cuffed, and kept from his work, and made to\r\nrun up and down between here and Norfolk, because you cannot bring\r\nyourself to confess that you have been a fool.\" \"I have never said that I have not been a fool,\" said Clara. \"You have made a mistake,--as young women will do sometimes, even\r\nwhen they are as prudent and circumspect as you are,--and now you\r\ndon't quite like the task of putting it right.\" It was all true, and Clara knew that it was true. The putting right\r\nof mistakes is never pleasant; and in this case it was so unpleasant\r\nthat she could not bring herself to acknowledge that it must be done. And yet, I think, that by this time she was aware of the necessity. CHAPTER XXXI. TAKING POSSESSION. \"I want her to have it all,\" said William Belton to Mr. Green, the\r\nlawyer, when they came to discuss the necessary arrangements for the\r\nproperty. \"But that would be absurd.\" \"Never mind. It is what I wish. I suppose a man may do what he likes\r\nwith his own.\" \"She won't take it,\" said the lawyer. \"She must take it, if you manage the matter properly,\" said Will. \"I don't suppose it will make much difference,\" said the\r\nlawyer,--\"now that Captain Aylmer is out of the running.\" \"I know nothing about that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Of course I am very glad that he should\r\nbe out of the running, as you call it. He is a bad sort of fellow,\r\nand I didn't want him to have the property. But all that has had\r\nnothing to do with it. I'm not doing it because I think she is ever\r\nto be my wife.\" From this the reader will understand that Belton was still fidgeting\r\nhimself and the lawyer about the estate when he passed through\r\nLondon. The matter in dispute, however, was so important that he\r\nwas induced to seek the advice of others besides Mr. Green, and at\r\nlast was brought to the conclusion that it was his paramount duty\r\nto become Belton of Belton. There seemed in the minds of all these\r\ncouncillors to be some imperative and almost imperious requirement\r\nthat the acres should go back to a man of his name. Now, as there\r\nwas no one else of the family who could stand in his way, he had\r\nno alternative but to become Belton of Belton. He would, however,\r\nsell his estate in Norfolk, and raise money for endowing Clara with\r\ncommensurate riches. Such was his own plan;--but having fallen among\r\ncounsellors he would not exactly follow his own plan, and at last\r\nsubmitted to an arrangement in accordance with which an annuity of\r\neight hundred pounds a year was to be settled upon Clara, and this\r\nwas to lie as a charge upon the estate in Norfolk."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It seems to me to be very shabby,\" said William Belton. \"It seems to me to be very extravagant,\" said the leader among the\r\ncounsellors. \"She is not entitled to sixpence.\" But at last the arrangement as above described was the one to which\r\nthey all assented. When Belton reached the house which was now his own he found no one\r\nthere but his sister. Clara was at the cottage. As he had been told\r\nthat she was to return there, he had no reason to be annoyed. But,\r\nnevertheless, he was annoyed, or rather discontented, and had not\r\nbeen a quarter of an hour about the place before he declared his\r\nintention to go and seek her. \"Do no such thing, Will; pray do not,\" said his sister. \"And why not?\" \"Because it will be better that you should wait. You will only injure\r\nyourself and her by being impetuous.\" \"But it is absolutely necessary that she should know her own\r\nposition. It would be cruelty to keep her in ignorance;--though for\r\nthe matter of that I shall be ashamed to tell her. Yes;--I shall be\r\nashamed to look her in the face. What will she think of it after I\r\nhad assured her that she should have the whole?\" \"But she would not have taken it, Will. And had she done so, she\r\nwould have been very wrong. Now she will be comfortable.\" \"I wish I could be comfortable,\" said he."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If you will only wait--\"\r\n\r\n\"I hate waiting. I do not see what good it will do. Besides, I don't\r\nmean to say anything about that,--not to-day, at least. I don't\r\nindeed. As for being here and not seeing her, that is out of the\r\nquestion. Of course she would think that I had quarrelled with her,\r\nand that I meant to take everything to myself, now that I have the\r\npower.\" \"She won't suspect you of wishing to quarrel with her, Will.\" \"I should in her place. It is out of the question that I should be\r\nhere, and not go to her. It would be monstrous. I will wait till they\r\nhave done lunch, and then I will go up.\" It was at last decided that he should walk up to the cottage,\r\ncall upon Colonel Askerton, and ask to see Clara in the Colonel's\r\npresence. It was thought that he could make his statement about the\r\nmoney better before a third person who could be regarded as Clara's\r\nfriend, than could possibly be done between themselves. He did,\r\ntherefore, walk across to the cottage, and was shown into Colonel\r\nAskerton's study. \"There he is,\" Mrs. Askerton said, as soon as she heard the sound of\r\nthe bell. \"I knew that he would come at once.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "During the whole morning Mrs. Askerton had been insisting that Belton\r\nwould make his appearance on that very day,--the day of his arrival\r\nat Belton, and Clara had been asserting that he would not do so. \"Why should he come?\" Clara had said. \"Simply to take you to his own house, like any other of his goods and\r\nchattels.\" \"I am not his goods or his chattels.\" \"But you soon will be; and why shouldn't you accept your lot quietly? He is Belton of Belton, and everything here belongs to him.\" \"I do not belong to him.\" \"What nonsense! When a man has the command of the situation, as he\r\nhas, he can do just what he pleases. If he were to come and carry you\r\noff by violence, I have no doubt the Beltonians would assist him, and\r\nsay that he was right. And you of course would forgive him. Belton of\r\nBelton may do anything.\" \"That is nonsense, if you please.\" \"Indeed if you had any of that decent feeling of feminine inferiority\r\nwhich ought to belong to all women, he would have found you sitting\r\non the door-step of his house waiting for him.\" That had been said early in the morning, when they first knew that he\r\nhad arrived; but they had been talking about him ever since,--talking\r\nabout him under pressure from Mrs. Askerton, till Clara had been\r\ndriven to long that she might be spared."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If he chooses to come, he\r\nwill come,\" she said. \"Of course he will come,\" Mrs. Askerton had\r\nanswered, and then they heard the ring of the bell. \"There he is. I could swear to the sound of his foot. Doesn't he step as though\r\nhe were Belton of Belton, and conscious that everything belonged\r\nto him?\" Then there was a pause. \"He has been shown in to Colonel\r\nAskerton. What on earth could he want with him?\" \"He has called to tell him something about the cottage,\" said Clara,\r\nendeavouring to speak as though she were calm through it all. \"Cottage! Fiddlestick! The idea of a man coming to look after his\r\ntrumpery cottage on the first day of his showing himself as lord of\r\nhis own property! Perhaps he is demanding that you shall be delivered\r\nup to him. If he does I shall vote for obeying.\" \"And I for disobeying,--and shall vote very strongly too.\" Their suspense was yet prolonged for another ten minutes, and at the\r\nend of that time the servant came in and asked if Miss Amedroz would\r\nbe good enough to go into the master's room. \"Mr. Belton is there,\r\nFanny?\" asked Mrs. Askerton. The girl confessed that Mr. Belton was\r\nthere, and then Clara, without another word, got up and left the\r\nroom. She had much to do in assuming a look of composure before she\r\nopened the door; but she made the effort, and was not unsuccessful."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In another second she found her hand in her cousin's, and his bright\r\neye was fixed upon her with that eager friendly glance which made his\r\nface so pleasant to those whom he loved. \"Your cousin has been telling me of the arrangements he has been\r\nmaking for you with the lawyers,\" said Colonel Askerton. \"I can only\r\nsay that I wish all the ladies had cousins so liberal, and so able to\r\nbe liberal.\" \"I thought I would see Colonel Askerton first, as you are staying at\r\nhis house. And as for liberality,--there is nothing of the kind. You\r\nmust understand, Clara, that a fellow can't do what he likes with\r\nhis own in this country. I have found myself so bullied by lawyers\r\nand that sort of people, that I have been obliged to yield to them. I wanted that you should have the old place, to do just what you\r\npleased with it.\" \"That was out of the question, Will.\" \"Of course it was,\" said Colonel Askerton. Then, as Belton himself\r\ndid not proceed to the telling of his own story, the Colonel told\r\nit for him, and explained what was the income which Clara was to\r\nreceive. \"But that is as much out of the question,\" said she, \"as the other. I\r\ncannot rob you in that way. I cannot and I shall not. And why should\r\nI? What do I want with an income?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Something I ought to have, if only\r\nfor the credit of the family, and that I am willing to take from your\r\nkindness; but--\"\r\n\r\n\"It's all settled now, Clara.\" \"I don't think that you can lessen the weight of your obligation,\r\nMiss Amedroz, after what has been done up in London,\" said the\r\nColonel. \"If you had said a hundred a year--\"\r\n\r\n\"I have been allowed to say nothing,\" said Belton; \"those people have\r\nsaid eight,--and so it is settled. When are you coming over to see\r\nMary?\" To this question he got no definite answer, and as he went away\r\nimmediately afterwards he hardly seemed to expect one. He did not\r\neven ask for Mrs. Askerton, and as that lady remarked, behaved\r\naltogether like a bear. \"But what a munificent bear!\" she said. \"Fancy;--eight hundred a year of your own. One begins to doubt\r\nwhether it is worth one's while to marry at all with such an income\r\nas that to do what one likes with! However, it all means nothing. It\r\nwill all be his own again before you have even touched it.\" \"You must not say anything more about that,\" said Clara gravely. \"And why must I not?\" \"Because I shall hear nothing more of it. There is an end of all\r\nthat,--as there ought to be.\" \"Why an end? I don't see an end."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There will be no end till Belton\r\nof Belton has got you and your eight hundred a year as well as\r\neverything else.\" \"You will find that--he--does not mean--anything--more,\" said Clara. \"You think not?\" \"I am--sure of it.\" Then there was a little sound in her throat\r\nas though she were in some danger of being choked; but she soon\r\nrecovered herself, and was able to express herself clearly. \"I have\r\nonly one favour to ask you now, Mrs. Askerton, and that is that you\r\nwill never say anything more about him. He has changed his mind. Of\r\ncourse he has, or he would not come here like that and have gone away\r\nwithout saying a word.\" \"Not a word! A man gives you eight hundred a year, and that is not\r\nsaying a word!\" \"Not a word except about money! But of course he is right. I know\r\nthat he is right. After what has passed he would be very wrong\r\nto--to--think about it any more. You joke about his being Belton of\r\nBelton. But it does make a difference.\" \"It does;--does it?\" \"It has made a difference. I see and feel it now. I shall never--hear\r\nhim--ask me--that question--any more.\" \"And if you did hear him, what answer would you make him?\" \"I don't know.\" \"That is just it. Women are so cross-grained that it is a wonder to\r\nme that men should ever have anything to do with them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They have\r\nabout them some madness of a phantasy which they dignify with the\r\nname of feminine pride, and under the cloak of this they believe\r\nthemselves to be justified in tormenting their lovers' lives out. The only consolation is that they torment themselves as much. Can\r\nanything be more cross-grained than you are at this moment? You were\r\nresolved just now that it would be the most unbecoming thing in the\r\nworld if he spoke a word more about his love for the next twelve\r\nmonths--\"\r\n\r\n\"Mrs. Askerton, I said nothing about twelve months.\" \"And now you are broken-hearted because he did not blurt it all out\r\nbefore Colonel Askerton in a business interview, which was very\r\nproperly had at once, and in which he has had the exceeding good\r\ntaste to confine himself altogether to the one subject.\" \"I am not complaining.\" \"It was good taste; though if he had not been a bear he might have\r\nasked after me, who am fighting his battles for him night and day.\" \"But what will he do next?\" \"Eat his dinner, I should think, as it is now nearly five o'clock. Your father used always to dine at five.\" \"I can't go to see Mary,\" she said, \"till he comes here again.\" \"He will be here fast enough. I shouldn't wonder if he was to come\r\nhere to-night.\" And he did come again that night."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When Belton's interview was over in the Colonel's study, he left the\r\nhouse,--without even asking after the mistress, as that mistress had\r\ntaken care to find out,--and went off, rambling about the estate\r\nwhich was now his own. It was a beautiful place, and he was not\r\ninsensible to the gratification of being its owner. There is much\r\nin the glory of ownership,--of the ownership of land and houses, of\r\nbeeves and woolly flocks, of wide fields and thick-growing woods,\r\neven when that ownership is of late date, when it conveys to the\r\nowner nothing but the realisation of a property on the soil; but\r\nthere is much more in it when it contains the memories of old years;\r\nwhen the glory is the glory of race as well as the glory of power\r\nand property. There had been Beltons of Belton living there for\r\nmany centuries, and now he was the Belton of the day, standing on\r\nhis own ground,--the descendant and representative of the Beltons\r\nof old,--Belton of Belton without a flaw in his pedigree! He felt\r\nhimself to be proud of his position,--prouder than he could have been\r\nof any other that might have been vouchsafed to him. And yet amidst\r\nit all he was somewhat ashamed of his pride. \"The man who can do it\r\nfor himself is the real man after all,\" he said. \"But I have got\r\nit by a fluke,--and by such a sad chance too!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then he wandered on,\r\nthinking of the circumstances under which the property had fallen\r\ninto his hands, and remembering how and when and where the first idea\r\nhad occurred to him of making Clara Amedroz his wife. He had then\r\nfelt that if he could only do that he could reconcile himself to the\r\nheirship. And the idea had grown upon him instantly, and had become a\r\npassion by the eagerness with which he had welcomed it. From that day\r\nto this he had continued to tell himself that he could not enjoy his\r\ngood fortune unless he could enjoy it with her. There had come to be\r\na horrid impediment in his way,--a barrier which had seemed to have\r\nbeen placed there by his evil fortune, to compensate the gifts given\r\nto him by his good fortune, and that barrier had been Captain Aylmer. He had not, in fact, seen much of his rival, but he had seen enough\r\nto make it matter of wonder to him that Clara could be attached to\r\nsuch a man. He had thoroughly despised Captain Aylmer, and had longed\r\nto show his contempt of the man by kicking him out of the hotel at\r\nthe London railway station. At that moment all the world had seemed\r\nto him to be wrong and wretched. But now it seemed that all the world might so easily be made right\r\nagain! The impediment had got itself removed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Belton did not even yet\r\naltogether comprehend by what means Clara had escaped from the meshes\r\nof the Aylmer Park people, but he did know that she had escaped. Her eyes had been opened before it was too late, and she was a free\r\nwoman,--to be compassed if only a man might compass her. While\r\nshe had been engaged to Captain Aylmer, Will had felt that she\r\nwas not assailable. Though he had not been quite able to restrain\r\nhimself,--as on that fatal occasion when he had taken her in his arms\r\nand kissed her,--still he had known that as she was an engaged woman,\r\nhe could not, without insulting her, press his own suit upon her. But\r\nnow all that was over. Let him say what he liked on that head, she\r\nwould have no proper plea for anger. She was assailable;--and, as\r\nthis was so, why the mischief should he not set about the work at\r\nonce? His sister bade him to wait. Why should he wait when one\r\nfortunate word might do it? Wait! He could not wait. How are you to\r\nbid a starving man to wait when you put him down at a well-covered\r\nboard? Here was he, walking about Belton Park,--just where she used\r\nto walk with him;--and there was she at Belton Cottage, within half\r\nan hour of him at this moment, if he were to go quickly; and yet Mary\r\nwas telling him to wait! No; he would not wait."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There could be no\r\nreason for waiting. Wait, indeed, till some other Captain Aylmer\r\nshould come in the way and give him more trouble! So he wandered on, resolving that he would see his cousin again\r\nthat very day. Such an interview as that which had just taken place\r\nbetween two such dear friends was not natural,--was not to be\r\nendured. What might not Clara think of it! To meet her for the first\r\ntime after her escape from Aylmer Park, and to speak to her only\r\non matters concerning money! He would certainly go to her again on\r\nthat afternoon. In his walking he came to the bottom of the rising\r\nground on the top of which stood the rock on which he and Clara had\r\ntwice sat. But he turned away, and would not go up to it. He hoped\r\nthat he might go up to it very soon,--but, except under certain\r\ncircumstances, he would never go up to it again. \"I am going across to the cottage immediately after dinner,\" he said\r\nto his sister. \"Have you an appointment?\" \"No; I have no appointment. I suppose a man doesn't want an\r\nappointment to go and see his own cousin down in the country.\" \"I don't know what their habits are.\" \"I shan't ask to go in; but I want to see her.\" Mary looked at him with loving, sorrowing eyes, but she said no more."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She loved him so well that she would have given her right hand to get\r\nfor him what he wanted;--but she sorrowed to think that he should\r\nwant such a thing so sorely. Immediately after his dinner, he took\r\nhis hat and went out without saying a word further, and made his way\r\nonce more across to the gate of the cottage. It was a lovely summer\r\nevening, at that period of the year in which our summer evenings just\r\nbegin, when the air is sweeter and the flowers more fragrant, and the\r\nforms of the foliage more lovely than at any other time. It was now\r\neight o'clock, but it was hardly as yet evening; none at least of the\r\ngloom of evening had come, though the sun was low in the heavens. At\r\nthe cottage they were all sitting out on the lawn; and as Belton came\r\nnear he was seen by them, and he saw them. \"I told you so,\" said Mrs. Askerton, to Clara, in a whisper. \"He is not coming in,\" Clara answered. \"He is going on.\" But when he had come nearer, Colonel Askerton called to him over the\r\ngarden paling, and asked him to join them. He was now standing within\r\nten or fifteen yards of them, though the fence divided them. \"I have\r\ncome to ask my cousin Clara to take a walk with me,\" he said. \"She\r\ncan be back by your tea time.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "He made his request very placidly, and\r\ndid not in any way look like a lover. \"I am sure she will be glad to go,\" said Mrs. Askerton. But Clara\r\nsaid nothing. \"Do take a turn with me, if you are not tired,\" said he. \"She has not been out all day, and cannot be tired,\" said Mrs.\r\nAskerton, who had now walked up to the paling. \"Clara, get your hat. But, Mr. Belton, what have I done that I am to be treated in this\r\nway? Perhaps you don't remember that you have not spoken to me since\r\nyour arrival.\" \"Upon my word, I beg your pardon,\" said he, endeavouring to stretch\r\nhis hand across the bushes. \"I forgot I didn't see you this morning.\" \"I suppose I mustn't be angry, as this is your day of taking\r\npossession; but it is exactly on such days as this that one likes to\r\nbe remembered.\" \"I didn't mean to forget you, Mrs. Askerton; I didn't, indeed. And\r\nas for the special day, that's all bosh, you know. I haven't taken\r\nparticular possession of anything that I know of.\" \"I hope you will, Mr. Belton, before the day is over,\" said she. Clara had at length arisen, and had gone into the house to fetch her\r\nhat. She had not spoken a word, and even yet her cousin did not know\r\nwhether she was coming. \"I hope you will take possession of a great\r\ndeal that is very valuable."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Clara has gone to get her hat.\" \"Do you think she means to walk?\" \"I think she does, Mr. Belton. And there she is at the door. Mind you\r\nbring her back to tea.\" Clara, as she came forth, felt herself quite unable to speak, or\r\nwalk, or look after her usual manner. She knew herself to be a\r\nvictim,--to be so far a victim that she could no longer control her\r\nown fate. To Captain Aylmer, at any rate, she had never succumbed. In all her dealings with him she had fought upon an equal footing. She had never been compelled to own herself mastered. But now she\r\nwas being led out that she might confess her own submission, and\r\nacknowledge that hitherto she had not known what was good for her. She knew that she would have to yield. She must have known how happy\r\nshe was to have an opportunity of yielding; but yet,--yet, had there\r\nbeen any room for choice, she thought she would have refrained from\r\nwalking with her cousin that evening. She had wept that afternoon\r\nbecause she had thought that he would not come again; and now that\r\nhe had come at the first moment that was possible for him, she was\r\nalmost tempted to wish him once more away. \"I suppose you understand that when I came up this morning I came\r\nmerely to talk about business,\" said Belton, as soon as they were off\r\ntogether."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It was very good of you to come at all so soon after your arrival.\" \"I told those people in London that I would have it all settled at\r\nonce, and so I wanted to have it off my mind.\" \"I don't know what I ought to say to you. Of course I shall not want\r\nso much money as that.\" \"We won't talk about the money any more to-day. I hate talking about\r\nmoney.\" \"It is not the pleasantest subject in the world.\" \"No,\" said he; \"no indeed. I hate it,--particularly between friends. So you have come to grief with your friends, the Aylmers?\" \"I hope I haven't come to grief,--and the Aylmers, as a family, never\r\nwere my friends. I'm obliged to contradict you, point by point,--you\r\nsee.\" \"I don't like Captain Aylmer at all,\" said Will, after a pause. \"So I saw Will; and I dare say he was not very fond of you.\" \"Fond of me! I didn't want him to be fond of me. I don't suppose he\r\never thought much about me. I could not help thinking of him.\" --She\r\nhad nothing to say to this, and therefore walked on silently by his\r\nside. \"I suppose he has not any idea of coming back here again?\" \"What; to Belton? No, I do not think he will come to Belton any\r\nmore.\" \"Nor will you go to Aylmer Park?\" \"No; certainly not."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Of all the places on earth, Will, to which you\r\ncould send me, Aylmer Park is the one to which I should go most\r\nunwillingly.\" \"I don't want to send you there.\" \"You never could be made to understand what a woman she is; how\r\ndisagreeable, how cruel, how imperious, how insolent.\" \"Was she so bad as all that?\" \"Indeed she was, Will. I can't but tell the truth to you.\" \"And he was nearly as bad as she.\" \"No, Will; no; do not say that of him.\" \"He was such a quarrelsome fellow. He flew at me just because I said\r\nwe had good hunting down in Norfolk.\" \"We need not talk about all that, Will.\" \"No;--of course not. It's all passed and gone, I suppose.\" \"Yes;--it is all passed and gone. You did not know my Aunt\r\nWinterfield, or you would understand my first reason for liking him.\" \"No,\" said Will; \"I never saw her.\" Then they walked on together for a while without speaking, and Clara\r\nwas beginning to feel some relief,--some relief at first; but as\r\nthe relief came, there came back to her the dead, dull, feeling of\r\nheaviness at her heart which had oppressed her after his visit in the\r\nmorning. She had been right, and Mrs. Askerton had been wrong. He had\r\nreturned to her simply as her cousin, and now he was walking with her\r\nand talking to her in this strain, to teach her that it was so."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But\r\nof a sudden they came to a place where two paths diverged, and he\r\nturned upon her and asked her quickly which path they should take. \"Look, Clara,\" he said, \"will you go up there with me?\" It did not\r\nneed that she should look, as she knew that the way indicated by him\r\nled up among the rocks. \"I don't much care which way,\" she said, faintly. \"Do you not? But I do. I care very much. Don't you remember where\r\nthat path goes?\" She had no answer to give to this. She remembered\r\nwell, and remembered how he had protested that he would never go to\r\nthe place again unless he could go there as her accepted lover. And\r\nshe had asked herself sundry questions as to that protestation. Could\r\nit be that for her sake he would abstain from visiting the prettiest\r\nspot on his estate,--that he would continue to regard the ground as\r\nhallowed because of his memories of her? \"Which way shall we go?\" he\r\nasked. \"I suppose it does not much signify,\" said she, trembling. \"But it does signify. It signifies very much to me. Will you go up to\r\nthe rocks?\" \"I am afraid we shall be late, if we stay out long.\" \"What matters how late? Will you come?\" \"I suppose so,--if you wish it, Will.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had anticipated that the high rock was to be the altar at which\r\nthe victim was to be sacrificed; but now he would not wait till he\r\nhad taken her to the sacred spot. He had of course intended that he\r\nwould there renew his offer; but he had perceived that his offer had\r\nbeen renewed, and had, in fact, been accepted, during this little\r\nparley as to the pathway. There was hardly any necessity for further\r\nwords. So he must have thought; for, as quick as lightning, he flung\r\nhis arms around her, and kissed her again, as he had kissed her on\r\nthat other terrible occasion,--that occasion on which he had felt\r\nthat he might hardly hope for pardon. \"William, William,\" she said; \"how can you serve me like that?\" But\r\nhe had a full understanding as to his own privileges, and was well\r\naware that he was in the right now, as he had been before that he was\r\ntrespassing egregiously. \"Why are you so rough with me?\" she said. \"Clara, say that you love me.\" \"I will say nothing to you because you are so rough.\" They were now walking up slowly towards the rocks. And as he had his\r\narm round her waist, he was contented for awhile to allow her to walk\r\nwithout speaking. But when they were on the summit it was necessary\r\nfor him that he should have a word from her of positive assurance. \"Clara, say that you love me.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Have I not always loved you, Will, since almost the first moment\r\nthat I saw you?\" \"But that won't do. You know that is not fair. Come, Clara; I've had\r\na deal of trouble,--and grief too; haven't I? You should say a word\r\nto make up for it;--that is, if you can say it.\" \"What can a word like that signify to you to-day? You have got\r\neverything.\" \"Have I got you?\" Still she paused. \"I will have an answer. Have I\r\ngot you? Are you now my own?\" \"I suppose so, Will. Don't now. I will not have it again. Does not\r\nthat satisfy you?\" \"Tell me that you love me.\" \"You know that I love you.\" \"Better than anybody in the world?\" \"Yes;--better than anybody in the world.\" \"And after all you will be--my wife?\" \"Oh, Will,--how you question one!\" \"You shall say it, and then it will all be fair and honest.\" \"Say what? I'm sure I thought I had said everything.\" \"Say that you mean to be my wife.\" \"I suppose so,--if you wish it.\" \"Wish it!\" said he, getting up from his seat, and throwing his hat\r\ninto the bushes on one side; \"wish it! I don't think you have ever\r\nunderstood how I have wished it. Look here, Clara; I found when I got\r\ndown to Norfolk that I couldn't live without you. Upon my word it is\r\ntrue. I don't suppose you'll believe me.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I didn't think it could be so bad with you as that.\" \"No;--I don't suppose women ever do believe. And I wouldn't have\r\nbelieved it of myself. I hated myself for it. By George, I did. That\r\nis when I began to think it was all up with me.\" \"All up with you! Oh, Will!\" \"I had quite made up my mind to go to New Zealand. I had, indeed. I\r\ncouldn't have kept my hands off that man if we had been living in the\r\nsame country. I should have wrung his neck.\" \"Will, how can you talk so wickedly?\" \"There's no understanding it till you have felt it. But never mind. It's all right now; isn't it, Clara?\" \"If you think so.\" \"Think so! Oh, Clara, I am such a happy fellow. Do give me a kiss. You have never given me one kiss yet.\" \"What nonsense! I didn't think you were such a baby.\" \"By George, but you shall;--or you shall never get home to tea\r\nto-night. My own, own, own darling. Upon my word, Clara, when I begin\r\nto think about it I shall be half mad.\" \"I think you are quite that already.\" \"No, I'm not;--but I shall be when I'm alone. What can I say to you,\r\nClara, to make you understand how much I love you? You remember the\r\nsong, 'For Bonnie Annie Laurie I'd lay me down and dee.' Of course\r\nit is all nonsense talking of dying for a woman."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What a man has to\r\ndo is to live for her. But that is my feeling. I'm ready to give you\r\nmy life. If there was anything to do for you, I'd do it if I could,\r\nwhatever it was. Do you understand me?\" \"Dear Will! Dearest Will!\" \"Am I dearest?\" \"Are you not sure of it?\" \"But I like you to tell me so. I like to feel that you are not\r\nashamed to own it. You ought to say it a few times to me, as I have\r\nsaid it so very often to you.\" \"You'll hear enough of it before you've done with me.\" \"I shall never have heard enough of it. Oh, Heavens, only think, when\r\nI was coming down in the train last night I was in such a bad way.\" \"And are you in a good way now?\" \"Yes; in a very good way. I shall crow over Mary so when I get home.\" \"And what has poor Mary done?\" \"Never mind.\" \"I dare say she knows what is good for you better than you know\r\nyourself. I suppose she has told you that you might do a great deal\r\nbetter than trouble yourself with a wife?\" \"Never mind what she has told me. It is settled now;--is it not?\" \"I hope so, Will.\" \"But not quite settled as yet. When shall it be? That is the next\r\nquestion.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "But to that question Clara positively refused to make any reply that\r\nher lover would consider to be satisfactory. He continued to press\r\nher till she was at last driven to remind him how very short a time\r\nit was since her father had been among them; and then he was very\r\nangry with himself, and declared himself to be a brute. \"Anything but\r\nthat,\" she said. \"You are the kindest and the best of men;--but at\r\nthe same time the most impatient.\" \"That's what Mary says; but what's the good of waiting? She wanted me\r\nto wait to-day.\" \"And as you would not, you have fallen into a trap out of which you\r\ncan never escape. But pray let us go. What will they think of us?\" \"I shouldn't wonder if they didn't think something near the truth.\" \"Whatever they think, we will go back. It is ever so much past nine.\" \"Before you stir, Clara, tell me one thing. Are you really happy?\" \"Very happy.\" \"And are you glad that this has been done?\" \"Very glad. Will that satisfy you?\" \"And you do love me?\" \"I do--I do--I do. Can I say more than that?\" \"More than anybody else in the world?\" \"Better than all the world put together.\" \"Then,\" said he, holding her tight in his arms, \"show me that you\r\nlove me.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "And as he made his request he was quick to explain to her\r\nwhat, according to his ideas, was the becoming mode by which lovers\r\nmight show their love. I wonder whether it ever occurred to Clara, as\r\nshe thought of it all before she went to bed that night, that Captain\r\nAylmer and William Belton were very different in their manners. And\r\nif so, I must wonder further whether she most approved the manners of\r\nthe patient man or the man who was impatient. CHAPTER XXXII. CONCLUSION. About two months after the scene described in the last chapter, when\r\nthe full summer had arrived, Clara received two letters from the two\r\nlovers, the history of whose loves have just been told, and these\r\nshall be submitted to the reader, as they will serve to explain the\r\nmanner in which the two men proposed to arrange their affairs. We\r\nwill first have Captain Aylmer's letter, which was the first read;\r\nClara kept the latter for the last, as children always keep their\r\nsweetest morsels. Aylmer Park, August, 186--. MY DEAR MISS AMEDROZ,\r\n\r\n   I heard before leaving London that you are engaged to\r\n   marry your cousin Mr. William Belton, and I think that\r\n   perhaps you may be satisfied to have a line from me to let\r\n   you know that I quite approve of the marriage. \"I do not care very much for his approval or disapproval,\" said Clara\r\nas she read this."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No doubt it will be the best thing you can do, especially\r\n   as it will heal all the sores arising from the entail. \"There never was any sore,\" said Clara. Pray give my compliments to Mr. Belton, and offer him\r\n   my congratulations, and tell him that I wish him all\r\n   happiness in the married state. \"Married fiddlestick!\" said Clara. In this she was unreasonable;\r\nbut the euphonious platitudes of Captain Aylmer were so unlike the\r\nvehement protestations of Mr. Belton that she must be excused if by\r\nthis time she had come to entertain something of an unreasonable\r\naversion for the former. I hope you will not receive my news with perfect\r\n   indifference when I tell you that I also am going to be\r\n   married. The lady is one whom I have known for a long\r\n   time, and have always esteemed very highly. She is Lady\r\n   Emily Tagmaggert, the youngest daughter of the Earl of\r\n   Mull. Why Clara should immediately have conceived a feeling of supreme\r\ncontempt for Lady Emily Tagmaggert, and assured herself that\r\nher ladyship was a thin, dry, cross old maid with a red nose, I\r\ncannot explain; but I do know that such were her thoughts, almost\r\ninstantaneously, in reference to Captain Aylmer's future bride. Lady Emily is a very intimate friend of my sister's; and\r\n   you, who know how our family cling together, will feel how\r\n   thankful I must be when I tell you that my mother quite\r\n   approves of the engagement."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I suppose we shall be married\r\n   early in the spring. We shall probably spend some months\r\n   every year at Perivale, and I hope that we may look\r\n   forward to the pleasure of seeing you sometimes as a guest\r\n   beneath our roof. On reading this Clara shuddered, and made some inward protestation\r\nwhich seemed to imply that she had no wish whatever to revisit the\r\ndull streets of the little town with which she had been so well\r\nacquainted. \"I hope she'll be good to poor Mr. Possit,\" said Clara,\r\n\"and give him port wine on Sundays.\" I have one more thing that I ought to say. You will\r\n   remember that I intended to pay my aunt's legacy\r\n   immediately after her death, but that I was prevented\r\n   by circumstances which I could not control. I have paid\r\n   it now into Mr. Green's hands on your account, together\r\n   with the sum of £59 18_s._ 3_d._, which is due upon it as\r\n   interest at the rate of five per cent. I hope that this\r\n   may be satisfactory. \"It is not satisfactory at all,\" said Clara, putting down the letter,\r\nand resolving that Will Belton should be instructed to repay the\r\nmoney instantly. It may, however, be explained here that in this\r\nmatter Clara was doomed to be disappointed; and that she was forced,\r\nby Mr. Green's arguments, to receive the money. \"Then it shall go to\r\nthe hospital at Perivale,\" she declared when those arguments were\r\nused."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As to that, Mr. Green was quite indifferent, but I do not think\r\nthat the legacy which troubled poor Aunt Winterfield so much on her\r\ndying bed was ultimately applied to so worthy a purpose. \"And now, my dear Miss Amedroz,\" continued the letter,\r\n\r\n   I will say farewell, with many assurances of my unaltered\r\n   esteem, and with heartfelt wishes for your future\r\n   happiness. Believe me to be always,\r\n\r\n   Most faithfully and sincerely yours,\r\n\r\n   FREDERIC F. AYLMER. \"Esteem!\" said Clara, as she finished the letter. \"I wonder which\r\nhe esteems the most, me or Lady Emily Tagmaggert. He will never get\r\nbeyond esteem with any one.\" The letter which was last read was as follows:--\r\n\r\n\r\n   Plaistow, August, 186--. DEAREST CLARA,\r\n\r\n   I don't think I shall ever get done, and I am coming to\r\n   hate farming. It is awful lonely here, too, and I pass all\r\n   my evenings by myself, wondering why I should be doomed\r\n   to this kind of thing, while you and Mary are comfortable\r\n   together at Belton. We have begun with the wheat, and as\r\n   soon as that is safe I shall cut and run. I shall leave\r\n   the barley to Bunce. Bunce knows as much about it as I\r\n   do,--and as for remaining here all the summer, it's out of\r\n   the question. My own dear, darling love, of course I don't intend to\r\n   urge you to do anything that you don't like; but upon my\r\n   honour I don't see the force of what you say."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You know I\r\n   have as much respect for your father's memory as anybody,\r\n   but what harm can it do to him that we should be married\r\n   at once? Don't you think he would have wished it himself? It can be ever so quiet. So long as it's done, I don't\r\n   care a straw how it's done. Indeed, for the matter of\r\n   that, I always think it would be best just to walk to\r\n   church and to walk home again without saying anything to\r\n   anybody. I hate fuss and nonsense, and really I don't\r\n   think anybody would have a right to say anything if we\r\n   were to do it at once in that sort of way. I have had a\r\n   bad time of it for the last twelvemonth. You must allow\r\n   that, and I think that I ought to be rewarded. As for living, you shall have your choice. Indeed you\r\n   shall live anywhere you please;--at Timbuctoo if you like\r\n   it. I don't want to give up Plaistow, because my father\r\n   and grandfather farmed the land themselves; but I am quite\r\n   prepared not to live here. I don't think it would suit\r\n   you, because it has so much of the farm-house about it. Only I should like you sometimes to come and look at the\r\n   old place. What I should like would be to pull down the\r\n   house at Belton and build another."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But you mustn't propose\r\n   to put it off till that's done, as I should never have the\r\n   heart to do it. If you think that would suit you, I'll\r\n   make up my mind to live at Belton for a constancy; and\r\n   then I'd go in for a lot of cattle, and don't doubt I'd\r\n   make a fortune. I'm almost sick of looking at the straight\r\n   ridges in the big square fields every day of my life. Give my love to Mary. I hope she fights my battle for me. Pray think of all this, and relent if you can. I do so\r\n   long to have an end of this purgatory. If there was any\r\n   use, I wouldn't say a word; but there's no good in being\r\n   tortured, when there is no use. God bless you, dearest\r\n   love. I do love you so well! Yours most affectionately,\r\n\r\n   W. BELTON. She kissed the letter twice, pressed it to her bosom, and then sat\r\nsilent for half an hour thinking of it;--of it, and the man who wrote\r\nit, and of the man who had written the other letter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She could not\r\nbut remember how that other man had thought to treat her, when it was\r\nhis intention and her intention that they two should join their lots\r\ntogether;--how cold he had been; how full of caution and counsel; how\r\nhe had preached to her himself and threatened her with the preaching\r\nof his mother; how manifestly he had purposed to make her life a\r\nsacrifice to his life; how he had premeditated her incarceration at\r\nPerivale, while he should be living a bachelor's life in London! Will\r\nBelton's ideas of married life were very different. Only come to me\r\nat once,--now, immediately, and everything else shall be disposed\r\njust as you please. This was his offer. What he proposed to give,--or\r\nrather his willingness to be thus generous, was very sweet to her;\r\nbut it was not half so sweet as his impatience in demanding his\r\nreward. How she doted on him because he considered his present state\r\nto be a purgatory! How could she refuse anything she could give to\r\none who desired her gifts so strongly? As for her future residence, it would be a matter of indifference to\r\nher where she should live, so long as she might live with him; but\r\nfor him,--she felt that but one spot in the world was fit for him. He was Belton of Belton, and it would not be becoming that he should\r\nlive elsewhere."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Of course she would go with him to Plaistow Hall as\r\noften as he might wish it; but Belton Castle should be his permanent\r\nresting-place. It would be her duty to be proud for him, and\r\ntherefore, for his sake, she would beg that their home might be in\r\nSomersetshire. \"Mary,\" she said to her cousin soon afterwards, \"Will sends his love\r\nto you.\" \"And what else does he say?\" \"I couldn't tell you everything. You shouldn't expect it.\" \"I don't expect it; but perhaps there may be something to be told.\" \"Nothing that I need tell,--specially. You, who know him so well, can\r\nimagine what he would say.\" \"Dear Will! I am sure he would mean to write what was pleasant.\" Then the matter would have dropped had Clara been so minded,--but\r\nshe, in truth, was anxious to be forced to talk about the letter. She wished to be urged by Mary to do that which Will urged her to\r\ndo;--or, at least, to learn whether Mary thought that her brother's\r\nwish might be gratified without impropriety. \"Don't you think we\r\nought to live here?\" she said. \"By all means,--if you both like it.\" \"He is so good,--so unselfish, that he will only ask me to do what\r\nI like best.\" \"And which would you like best?\" \"I think he ought to live here because it is the old family property. I confess that the name goes for something with me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He says that he\r\nwould build a new house.\" \"Does he think he could have it ready by the time you are married?\" \"Ah;--that is just the difficulty. Perhaps, after all, you had\r\nbetter read his letter. I don't know why I should not show it to\r\nyou. It will only tell you what you know already,--that he is the\r\nmost generous fellow in all the world.\" Then Mary read the letter. \"What am I to say to him?\" Clara asked. \"It seems so hard to refuse\r\nanything to one who is so true, and good, and generous.\" \"It is hard.\" \"But you see my poor, dear father's death has been so recent.\" \"I hardly know,\" said Mary, \"how the world feels about such things.\" \"I think we ought to wait at least twelve months,\" said Clara, very\r\nsadly. \"Poor Will! He will be broken-hearted a dozen times before that. But\r\nthen, when his happiness does come, he will be all the happier.\" Clara, when she heard this, almost hated her cousin Mary,--not for\r\nher own sake, but on Will's account. Will trusted so implicitly to\r\nhis sister, and yet she could not make a better fight for him than\r\nthis! It almost seemed that Mary was indifferent to her brother's\r\nhappiness. Had Will been her brother, Clara thought, and had any girl\r\nasked her advice under similar circumstances, she was sure that she\r\nwould have answered in a different way."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She would have told such girl\r\nthat her first duty was owing to the man who was to be her husband,\r\nand would not have said a word to her about the feeling of the world. After all, what did the feeling of the world signify to them, who\r\nwere going to be all the world to each other? On that afternoon she went up to Mrs. Askerton's; and succeeded in\r\ngetting advice from her also, though she did not show Will's letter\r\nto that lady. \"Of course, I know what he says,\" said Mrs. Askerton. \"Unless I have mistaken the man, he wants to be married to-morrow.\" \"He is not so bad as that,\" said Clara. \"Then the next day, or the day after. Of course he is impatient, and\r\ndoes not see any earthly reason why his impatience should not be\r\ngratified.\" \"He is impatient.\" \"And I suppose you hesitate because of your father's death.\" \"It seems but the other day;--does it not?\" said Clara. \"Everything seems but the other day to me. It was but the other day\r\nthat I myself was married.\" \"And, of course, though I would do anything I could that he would ask\r\nme to do--\"\r\n\r\n\"But would you do anything?\" \"Anything that was not wrong I would. Why should I not, when he is so\r\ngood to me?\" \"Then write to him, my dear, and tell him that it shall be as\r\nhe wishes it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Believe me, the days of Jacob are over. Men don't\r\nunderstand waiting now, and it's always as well to catch your fish\r\nwhen you can.\" \"You don't suppose I have any thought of that kind?\" \"I am sure you have not;--and I'm sure that he deserves no such\r\nthought;--but the higher that are his deserts, the greater should be\r\nhis reward. If I were you, I should think of nothing but him, and I\r\nshould do exactly as he would have me.\" Clara kissed her friend as\r\nshe parted from her, and again resolved that all that woman's sins\r\nshould be forgiven her. A woman who could give such excellent advice\r\ndeserved that every sin should be forgiven her. \"They'll be married\r\nyet before the summer is over,\" Mrs. Askerton said to her husband\r\nthat afternoon. \"I believe a man may have anything he chooses to ask\r\nfor, if he'll only ask hard enough.\" And they were married in the autumn, if not actually in the summer. With what precise words Clara answered her lover's letter I will\r\nnot say; but her answer was of such a nature that he found himself\r\ncompelled to leave Plaistow, even before the wheat was garnered. Great confidence was placed in Bunce on that occasion, and I have\r\nreason to believe that it was not misplaced."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They were married in\r\nSeptember;--yes, in September, although that letter of Will's was\r\nwritten in August, and by the beginning of October they had returned\r\nfrom their wedding trip to Plaistow. Clara insisted that she should\r\nbe taken to Plaistow, and was very anxious when there to learn all\r\nthe particulars of the farm. She put down in a little book how many\r\nacres there were in each field, and what was the average produce of\r\nthe land. She made inquiry about four-crop rotation, and endeavoured,\r\nwith Bunce, to go into the great subject of stall-feeding. But Belton\r\ndid not give her as much encouragement as he might have done. \"We'll\r\ncome here for the shooting next year,\" he said; \"that is, if there is\r\nnothing to prevent us.\" \"I hope there'll be nothing to prevent us.\" \"There might be, perhaps; but we'll always come if there is not. For\r\nthe rest of it, I'll leave it to Bunce, and just run over once or\r\ntwice in the year. It would not be a nice place for you to live at\r\nlong.\" \"I like it of all things. I am quite interested about the farm.\" \"You'd get very sick of it if you were here in the winter. The truth\r\nis that if you farm well, you must farm ugly. The picturesque nooks\r\nand corners have all to be turned inside out, and the hedgerows must\r\nbe abolished, because we want the sunshine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now, down at Belton, just\r\nabout the house, we won't mind farming well, but will stick to the\r\npicturesque.\" The new house was immediately commenced at Belton, and was made\r\nto proceed with all imaginable alacrity. It was supposed at one\r\ntime,--at least Belton himself said that he so supposed,--that the\r\nbuilding would be ready for occupation at the end of the first\r\nsummer; but this was not found to be possible. \"We must put it off\r\ntill May, after all,\" said Belton, as he was walking round the\r\nunfinished building with Colonel Askerton. \"It's an awful bore, but\r\nthere's no getting people really to pull out in this country.\" \"I think they've pulled out pretty well. Of course you couldn't have\r\ngone into a damp house for the winter.\" \"Other people can get a house built within twelve months. Look what\r\nthey do in London.\" \"And other people with their wives and children die in consequence of\r\ncolds and sore throats and other evils of that nature. I wouldn't go\r\ninto a new house, I know, till I was quite sure it was dry.\" As Will at this time was hardly ten months married, he was not as\r\nyet justified in thinking about his own wife and children; but he\r\nhad already found it expedient to make arrangements for the autumn,\r\nwhich would prevent that annual visit to Plaistow which Clara had\r\ncontemplated, and which he had regarded with his characteristic\r\nprudence as being subject to possible impediments."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was to be\r\nabsent himself for the first week in September, but was to return\r\nimmediately after that. This he did; and before the end of that\r\nmonth he was justified in talking of his wife and family. \"I suppose\r\nit wouldn't have done to have been moving now,--under all the\r\ncircumstances,\" he said to his friend, Mrs. Askerton, as he still\r\ngrumbled about the unfinished house. \"I don't think it would have done at all, under all the\r\ncircumstances,\" said Mrs. Askerton. But in the following spring or early summer they did get into the new\r\nhouse;--and a very nice house it was, as will, I think, be believed\r\nby those who have known Mr. William Belton. And when they were well\r\nsettled, at which time little Will Belton was some seven or eight\r\nmonths old,--little Will, for whom great bonfires had been lit, as\r\nthough his birth in those parts was a matter not to be regarded\r\nlightly; for was he not the first Belton of Belton who had been born\r\nthere for more than a century?--when that time came visitors appeared\r\nat the new Belton Castle, visitors of importance, who were entitled\r\nto, and who received, great consideration. These were no less than\r\nCaptain Aylmer, member for Perivale, and his newly-married bride,\r\nLady Emily Aylmer, _née_ Tagmaggert. They were then just married,\r\nand had come down to Belton Castle immediately after their honeymoon\r\ntrip."}
{"question": "", "answer": "How it had come to pass that such friendship had sprung up,--or\r\nrather how it had been revived,--it would be bootless here to say. But old alliances, such as that which had existed between the Aylmer\r\nand the Amedroz families, do not allow themselves to die out easily,\r\nand it is well for us all that they should be long-lived. So Captain\r\nAylmer brought his bride to Belton Park, and a small fatted calf was\r\nkilled, and the Askertons came to dinner,--on which occasion Captain\r\nAylmer behaved very well, though we may imagine that he must have had\r\nsome misgivings on the score of his young wife. The Askertons came\r\nto dinner, and the old rector, and the squire from a neighbouring\r\nparish, and everything was very handsome and very dull. Captain\r\nAylmer was much pleased with his visit, and declared to Lady Emily\r\nthat marriage had greatly improved Mr. William Belton. Now Will had\r\nbeen very dull the whole evening, and very unlike the fiery, violent,\r\nunreasonable man whom Captain Aylmer remembered to have met at the\r\nstation hotel of the Great Northern Railway. \"I was as sure of it as possible,\" Clara said to her husband that\r\nnight. \"Sure of what, my dear?\" \"That she would have a red nose.\" \"Who has got a red nose?\" \"Don't be stupid, Will. Who should have it but Lady Emily?\" \"Upon my word I didn't observe it.\" \"You never observe anything, Will; do you?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But don't you think she is\r\nvery plain?\" \"Upon my word I don't know. She isn't as handsome as some people.\" \"Don't be a fool, Will. How old do you suppose her to be?\" \"How old? Let me see. Thirty, perhaps.\" \"If she's not over forty, I'll consent to change noses with her.\" \"No;--we won't do that; not if I know it.\" \"I cannot conceive why any man should marry such a woman as that. Not\r\nbut what she's a very good woman, I dare say; only what can a man get\r\nby it? To be sure there's the title, if that's worth anything.\" But Will Belton was never good for much conversation at this hour,\r\nand was too fast asleep to make any rejoinder to the last remark. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BELTON ESTATE ***\r\n\r\n\r\n    \r\n\r\nUpdated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will\r\nbe renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright\r\nlaw means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,\r\nso the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United\r\nStates without permission and without paying copyright\r\nroyalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part\r\nof this license, apply to copying and distributing Project\r\nGutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™\r\nconcept and trademark."}
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{"question": "", "answer": "The Project Gutenberg eBook of Battle of the Monkey & the Crab\r\n    \r\nThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and\r\nmost other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions\r\nwhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms\r\nof the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online\r\nat www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,\r\nyou will have to check the laws of the country where you are located\r\nbefore using this eBook. Title: Battle of the Monkey & the Crab\r\n\r\nAuthor: Anonymous\r\n\r\nIllustrator: Eitaku\r\n\r\nTranslator: David Thompson\r\n\r\nRelease date: April 8, 2008 [eBook #25021]\r\n                Most recently updated: January 3, 2021\r\n\r\nLanguage: English\r\n\r\nCredits: Produced by Jacqueline Jeremy and the Online Distributed\r\n        Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was\r\n        produced from images generously made available by The\r\n        Internet Archive/American Libraries.) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BATTLE OF THE MONKEY & THE CRAB ***\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nProduced by Jacqueline Jeremy and the Online Distributed\r\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was\r\nproduced from images generously made available by The\r\nInternet Archive/American Libraries.) JAPANESE FAIRY TALE SERIES. No. 3\r\n\r\nBATTLE OF THE MONKEY & THE CRAB\r\n\r\n[Illustration]\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n[Illustration]\r\n\r\n    ~Griffith, Farran & Co.,\r\n     London. Kobunsha\r\n     Tokyo~\r\n\r\n~All Rights Reserved.~\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBATTLE OF THE MONKEY & THE CRAB. [Illustration]\r\n\r\nA monkey and a crab once met when going round a mountain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "[Illustration]\r\n\r\nThe monkey had picked up a persimmon-seed, and the crab had a piece\r\nof toasted rice-cake. The monkey seeing this, and wishing to get\r\nsomething that could be turned to good account at once, said:\r\n\"Pray, exchange that rice-cake for this persimmon-seed.\" The crab,\r\nwithout a word, gave up his cake, and took the persimmon-seed and\r\nplanted it. At once it sprung up, and soon became a tree so high\r\none had to look up at it. The tree was full of persimmons but the\r\ncrab had no means of climbing the tree. So he asked the monkey to\r\nclimb up and get the persimmons for him. The monkey got up on a\r\nlimb of the tree and began to eat the persimmons. The unripe\r\npersimmons he threw at the crab, but all the ripe and good ones\r\nhe put in his pouch. The crab under the tree thus got his shell\r\nbadly bruised and only by good luck escaped into his hole, where he\r\nlay distressed with pain and not able to get up. Now when the\r\nrelatives and household of the crab heard how matters stood they\r\nwere surprised and angry, and declared war and attacked the\r\nmonkey, who leading forth a numerous following bid defiance to the\r\nother party. The crabs, finding themselves unable to meet and\r\ncope with this force, became still more exasperated and enraged,\r\nand retreated into their hole, and held a council of war."}
{"question": "", "answer": "[Illustration]\r\n\r\n[Illustration]\r\n\r\n[Illustration]\r\n\r\nThen came a rice-mortar, a pounder, a bee, and an egg, and together\r\nthey devised a deep-laid plot to be avenged. [Illustration]\r\n\r\n[Illustration]\r\n\r\nFirst, they requested that peace be made with the crabs; and\r\nthus they induced the king of the monkeys to enter their hole\r\nunattended, and seated him on the hearth. The monkey not suspecting\r\nany plot, took the _hibashi_, or poker, to stir up the slumbering\r\nfire, when bang! went the egg, which was lying hidden in the ashes,\r\nand burned the monkey's arm. Surprised and alarmed he plunged his\r\narm into the pickle-tub in the kitchen to relieve the pain of the\r\nburn. Then the bee which was hidden near the tub stung him sharply\r\nin his face already wet with tears. [Illustration]\r\n\r\n[Illustration]\r\n\r\n[Illustration]\r\n\r\nWithout waiting to brush off the bee and howling bitterly, he\r\nrushed for the back door: but just then some sea-weed entangled his\r\nlegs and made him slip. Then, down came the pounder tumbling on him\r\nfrom a shelf, and the mortar too came rolling down on him from the\r\nroof of the porch, and broke his back and so weakened him that he\r\nwas unable to rise up. Then out came the crabs in a crowd and\r\nbrandishing on high their pinchers they pinched the monkey to\r\npieces."}
{"question": "", "answer": "[Illustration]\r\n\r\n_Printed by the Kobunsha in Tokyo, Japan_\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nEnd of Project Gutenberg's Battle of the Monkey & the Crab, by Anonymous\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BATTLE OF THE MONKEY & THE CRAB ***\r\n\r\n\r\n    \r\n\r\nUpdated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will\r\nbe renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright\r\nlaw means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,\r\nso the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United\r\nStates without permission and without paying copyright\r\nroyalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part\r\nof this license, apply to copying and distributing Project\r\nGutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™\r\nconcept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,\r\nand may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following\r\nthe terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use\r\nof the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for\r\ncopies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very\r\neasy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation\r\nof derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project\r\nGutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may\r\ndo practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected\r\nby U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark\r\nlicense, especially commercial redistribution."}
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{"question": "", "answer": "The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Bundle of Letters\r\n    \r\nThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and\r\nmost other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions\r\nwhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms\r\nof the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online\r\nat www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,\r\nyou will have to check the laws of the country where you are located\r\nbefore using this eBook. Title: A Bundle of Letters\r\n\r\nAuthor: Henry James\r\n\r\nRelease date: December 1, 2000 [eBook #2425]\r\n                Most recently updated: January 1, 2021\r\n\r\nLanguage: English\r\n\r\nCredits: Transcribed from the 1887 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price. Proofing by Andy McLauchan and David Stapleton\r\n\r\n\r\n*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BUNDLE OF LETTERS ***\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nTranscribed from the 1887 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email\r\nccx074@coventry.ac.uk. Proofing by Andy McLauchan and David Stapleton. A BUNDLE OF LETTERS\r\nby Henry James\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER I\r\n\r\n\r\nFROM MISS MIRANDA MOPE, IN PARIS, TO MRS. ABRAHAM C. MOPE, AT BANGOR,\r\nMAINE. September 5th, 1879. My dear mother--I have kept you posted as far as Tuesday week last, and,\r\nalthough my letter will not have reached you yet, I will begin another\r\nbefore my news accumulates too much."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am glad you show my letters round\r\nin the family, for I like them all to know what I am doing, and I can't\r\nwrite to every one, though I try to answer all reasonable expectations. But there are a great many unreasonable ones, as I suppose you know--not\r\nyours, dear mother, for I am bound to say that you never required of me\r\nmore than was natural. You see you are reaping your reward: I write to\r\nyou before I write to any one else. There is one thing, I hope--that you don't show any of my letters to\r\nWilliam Platt. If he wants to see any of my letters, he knows the right\r\nway to go to work. I wouldn't have him see one of these letters, written\r\nfor circulation in the family, for anything in the world. If he wants\r\none for himself, he has got to write to me first. Let him write to me\r\nfirst, and then I will see about answering him. You can show him this if\r\nyou like; but if you show him anything more, I will never write to you\r\nagain. I told you in my last about my farewell to England, my crossing the\r\nChannel, and my first impressions of Paris."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have thought a great deal\r\nabout that lovely England since I left it, and all the famous historic\r\nscenes I visited; but I have come to the conclusion that it is not a\r\ncountry in which I should care to reside. The position of woman does not\r\nseem to me at all satisfactory, and that is a point, you know, on which I\r\nfeel very strongly. It seems to me that in England they play a very\r\nfaded-out part, and those with whom I conversed had a kind of depressed\r\nand humiliated tone; a little dull, tame look, as if they were used to\r\nbeing snubbed and bullied, which made me want to give them a good\r\nshaking. There are a great many people--and a great many things,\r\ntoo--over here that I should like to perform that operation upon. I\r\nshould like to shake the starch out of some of them, and the dust out of\r\nthe others. I know fifty girls in Bangor that come much more up to my\r\nnotion of the stand a truly noble woman should take, than those young\r\nladies in England. But they had a most lovely way of speaking (in\r\nEngland), and the men are _remarkably handsome_. (You can show this to\r\nWilliam Platt, if you like.) I gave you my first impressions of Paris, which quite came up to my\r\nexpectations, much as I had heard and read about it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The objects of\r\ninterest are extremely numerous, and the climate is remarkably cheerful\r\nand sunny. I should say the position of woman here was considerably\r\nhigher, though by no means coming up to the American standard. The\r\nmanners of the people are in some respects extremely peculiar, and I feel\r\nat last that I am indeed in _foreign parts_. It is, however, a truly\r\nelegant city (very superior to New York), and I have spent a great deal\r\nof time in visiting the various monuments and palaces. I won't give you\r\nan account of all my wanderings, though I have been most indefatigable;\r\nfor I am keeping, as I told you before, a most _exhaustive_ journal,\r\nwhich I will allow you the _privilege_ of reading on my return to Bangor. I am getting on remarkably well, and I must say I am sometimes surprised\r\nat my universal good fortune. It only shows what a little energy and\r\ncommon-sense will accomplish. I have discovered none of these objections\r\nto a young lady travelling in Europe by herself of which we heard so much\r\nbefore I left, and I don't expect I ever shall, for I certainly don't\r\nmean to look for them. I know what I want, and I always manage to get\r\nit. I have received a great deal of politeness--some of it really most\r\npressing, and I have experienced no drawbacks whatever."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have made a\r\ngreat many pleasant acquaintances in travelling round (both ladies and\r\ngentlemen), and had a great many most interesting talks. I have\r\ncollected a great deal of information, for which I refer you to my\r\njournal. I assure you my journal is going to be a splendid thing. I do\r\njust exactly as I do in Bangor, and I find I do perfectly right; and at\r\nany rate, I don't care if I don't. I didn't come to Europe to lead a\r\nmerely conventional life; I could do that at Bangor. You know I never\r\n_would_ do it at Bangor, so it isn't likely I am going to make myself\r\nmiserable over here. So long as I accomplish what I desire, and make my\r\nmoney hold out, I shall regard the thing as a success. Sometimes I feel\r\nrather lonely, especially in the evening; but I generally manage to\r\ninterest myself in something or in some one. In the evening I usually\r\nread up about the objects of interest I have visited during the day, or I\r\npost up my journal. Sometimes I go to the theatre; or else I play the\r\npiano in the public parlour. The public parlour at the hotel isn't much;\r\nbut the piano is better than that fearful old thing at the Sebago House. Sometimes I go downstairs and talk to the lady who keeps the books--a\r\nFrench lady, who is remarkably polite."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She is very pretty, and always\r\nwears a black dress, with the most beautiful fit; she speaks a little\r\nEnglish; she tells me she had to learn it in order to converse with the\r\nAmericans who come in such numbers to this hotel. She has given me a\r\ngreat deal of information about the position of woman in France, and much\r\nof it is very encouraging. But she has told me at the same time some\r\nthings that I should not like to write to you (I am hesitating even about\r\nputting them into my journal), especially if my letters are to be handed\r\nround in the family. I assure you they appear to talk about things here\r\nthat we never think of mentioning at Bangor, or even of thinking about. She seems to think she can tell me everything, because I told her I was\r\ntravelling for general culture. Well, I _do_ want to know so much that\r\nit seems sometimes as if I wanted to know everything; and yet there are\r\nsome things that I think I don't want to know. But, as a general thing,\r\neverything is intensely interesting; I don't mean only everything that\r\nthis French lady tells me, but everything I see and hear for myself. I\r\nfeel really as if I should gain all I desire. I meet a great many Americans, who, as a general thing, I must say, are\r\nnot as polite to me as the people over here."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The people over\r\nhere--especially the gentlemen--are much more what I should call\r\n_attentive_. I don't know whether Americans are more _sincere_; I\r\nhaven't yet made up my mind about that. The only drawback I experience\r\nis when Americans sometimes express surprise that I should be travelling\r\nround alone; so you see it doesn't come from Europeans. I always have my\r\nanswer ready; \"For general culture, to acquire the languages, and to see\r\nEurope for myself;\" and that generally seems to satisfy them. Dear\r\nmother, my money holds out very well, and it _is_ real interesting. CHAPTER II\r\n\r\n\r\nFROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. September 16th. Since I last wrote to you I have left that hotel, and come to live in a\r\nFrench family. It's a kind of boarding-house combined with a kind of\r\nschool; only it's not like an American hoarding-house, nor like an\r\nAmerican school either. There are four or five people here that have\r\ncome to learn the language--not to take lessons, but to have an\r\nopportunity for conversation. I was very glad to come to such a place,\r\nfor I had begun to realise that I was not making much progress with the\r\nFrench. It seemed to me that I should feel ashamed to have spent two\r\nmonths in Paris, and not to have acquired more insight into the language."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I had always heard so much of French conversation, and I found I was\r\nhaving no more opportunity to practise it than if I had remained at\r\nBangor. In fact, I used to hear a great deal more at Bangor, from those\r\nFrench Canadians that came down to cut the ice, than I saw I should ever\r\nhear at that hotel. The lady that kept the books seemed to want so much\r\nto talk to me in English (for the sake of practice, too, I suppose), that\r\nI couldn't bear to let her know I didn't like it. The chambermaid was\r\nIrish, and all the waiters were German, so that I never heard a word of\r\nFrench spoken. I suppose you might hear a great deal in the shops; only,\r\nas I don't buy anything--I prefer to spend my money for purposes of\r\nculture--I don't have that advantage. I have been thinking some of taking a teacher, but I am well acquainted\r\nwith the grammar already, and teachers always keep you bothering over the\r\nverbs. I was a good deal troubled, for I felt as if I didn't want to go\r\naway without having, at least, got a general idea of French conversation. The theatre gives you a good deal of insight, and as I told you in my\r\nlast, I go a good deal to places of amusement."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I find no difficulty\r\nwhatever in going to such places alone, and am always treated with the\r\npoliteness which, as I told you before, I encounter everywhere. I see\r\nplenty of other ladies alone (mostly French), and they generally seem to\r\nbe enjoying themselves as much as I. But at the theatre every one talks\r\nso fast that I can scarcely make out what they say; and, besides, there\r\nare a great many vulgar expressions which it is unnecessary to learn. But\r\nit was the theatre, nevertheless, that put me on the track. The very\r\nnext day after I wrote to you last I went to the Palais Royal, which is\r\none of the principal theatres in Paris. It is very small, but it is very\r\ncelebrated, and in my guide-book it is marked with _two stars_, which is\r\na sign of importance attached only to _first-class_ objects of interest. But after I had been there half an hour I found I couldn't understand a\r\nsingle word of the play, they gabbled it off so fast, and they made use\r\nof such peculiar expressions. I felt a good deal disappointed and\r\ntroubled--I was afraid I shouldn't gain all I had come for. But while I\r\nwas thinking it over--thinking what I _should_ do--I heard two gentlemen\r\ntalking behind me. It was between the acts, and I couldn't help\r\nlistening to what they said. They were talking English, but I guess they\r\nwere Americans."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Well,\" said one of them, \"it all depends on what you are after. I'm\r\nFrench; that's what I'm after.\" \"Well,\" said the other, \"I'm after Art.\" \"Well,\" said the first, \"I'm after Art too; but I'm after French most.\" Then, dear mother, I am sorry to say the second one swore a little. He\r\nsaid, \"Oh, damn French!\" \"No, I won't damn French,\" said his friend. \"I'll acquire it--that's\r\nwhat I'll do with it. I'll go right into a family.\" \"What family'll you go into?\" \"Into some French family. That's the only way to do--to go to some place\r\nwhere you can talk. If you're after Art, you want to stick to the\r\ngalleries; you want to go right through the Louvre, room by room; you\r\nwant to take a room a day, or something of that sort. But, if you want\r\nto acquire French, the thing is to look out for a family. There are lots\r\nof French families here that take you to board and teach you. My second\r\ncousin--that young lady I told you about--she got in with a crowd like\r\nthat, and they booked her right up in three months. They just took her\r\nright in and they talked to her. That's what they do to you; they set\r\nyou right down and they talk _at_ you. You've got to understand them;\r\nyou can't help yourself. That family my cousin was with has moved away\r\nsomewhere, or I should try and get in with them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They were very smart\r\npeople, that family; after she left, my cousin corresponded with them in\r\nFrench. But I mean to find some other crowd, if it takes a lot of\r\ntrouble!\" I listened to all this with great interest, and when he spoke about his\r\ncousin I was on the point of turning around to ask him the address of the\r\nfamily that she was with; but the next moment he said they had moved\r\naway; so I sat still. The other gentleman, however, didn't seem to be\r\naffected in the same way as I was. \"Well,\" he said, \"you may follow up that if you like; I mean to follow up\r\nthe pictures. I don't believe there is ever going to be any considerable\r\ndemand in the United States for French; but I can promise you that in\r\nabout ten years there'll be a big demand for Art! And it won't be\r\ntemporary either.\" That remark may be very true, but I don't care anything about the demand;\r\nI want to know French for its own sake. I don't want to think I have\r\nbeen all this while without having gained an insight . . . The very next\r\nday, I asked the lady who kept the books at the hotel whether she knew of\r\nany family that could take me to board and give me the benefit of their\r\nconversation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She instantly threw up her hands, with several little\r\nshrill cries (in their French way, you know), and told me that her\r\ndearest friend kept a regular place of that kind. If she had known I was\r\nlooking out for such a place she would have told me before; she had not\r\nspoken of it herself, because she didn't wish to injure the hotel by\r\nbeing the cause of my going away. She told me this was a charming\r\nfamily, who had often received American ladies (and others as well) who\r\nwished to follow up the language, and she was sure I should be delighted\r\nwith them. So she gave me their address, and offered to go with me to\r\nintroduce me. But I was in such a hurry that I went off by myself; and I\r\nhad no trouble in finding these good people. They were delighted to\r\nreceive me, and I was very much pleased with what I saw of them. They\r\nseemed to have plenty of conversation, and there will be no trouble about\r\nthat. I came here to stay about three days ago, and by this time I have seen a\r\ngreat deal of them. The price of board struck me as rather high; but I\r\nmust remember that a quantity of conversation is thrown in. I have a\r\nvery pretty little room--without any carpet, but with seven mirrors, two\r\nclocks, and five curtains."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I was rather disappointed after I arrived to\r\nfind that there are several other Americans here for the same purpose as\r\nmyself. At least there are three Americans and two English people; and\r\nalso a German gentleman. I am afraid, therefore, our conversation will\r\nbe rather mixed, but I have not yet time to judge. I try to talk with\r\nMadame de Maisonrouge all I can (she is the lady of the house, and the\r\n_real_ family consists only of herself and her two daughters). They are\r\nall most elegant, interesting women, and I am sure we shall become\r\nintimate friends. I will write you more about them in my next. Tell\r\nWilliam Platt I don't care what he does. CHAPTER III\r\n\r\n\r\nFROM MISS VIOLET RAY, IN PARIS, TO MISS AGNES RICH, IN NEW YORK. September 21st. We had hardly got here when father received a telegram saying he would\r\nhave to come right back to New York. It was for something about his\r\nbusiness--I don't know exactly what; you know I never understand those\r\nthings, never want to. We had just got settled at the hotel, in some\r\ncharming rooms, and mother and I, as you may imagine, were greatly\r\nannoyed. Father is extremely fussy, as you know, and his first idea, as\r\nsoon as he found he should have to go back, was that we should go back\r\nwith him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He declared he would never leave us in Paris alone, and that\r\nwe must return and come out again. I don't know what he thought would\r\nhappen to us; I suppose he thought we should be too extravagant. It's\r\nfather's theory that we are always running up bills, whereas a little\r\nobservation would show him that we wear the same old _rags_ FOR MONTHS. But father has no observation; he has nothing but theories. Mother and\r\nI, however, have, fortunately, a great deal of _practice_, and we\r\nsucceeded in making him understand that we wouldn't budge from Paris, and\r\nthat we would rather be chopped into small pieces than cross that\r\ndreadful ocean again. So, at last, he decided to go back alone, and to\r\nleave us here for three months. But, to show you how fussy he is, he\r\nrefused to let us stay at the hotel, and insisted that we should go into\r\na _family_. I don't know what put such an idea into his head, unless it\r\nwas some advertisement that he saw in one of the American papers that are\r\npublished here. There are families here who receive American and English people to live\r\nwith them, under the pretence of teaching them French. You may imagine\r\nwhat people they are--I mean the families themselves. But the Americans\r\nwho choose this peculiar manner of seeing Paris must be actually just as\r\nbad."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mother and I were horrified, and declared that main force should\r\nnot remove us from the hotel. But father has a way of arriving at his\r\nends which is more efficient than violence. He worries and fusses; he\r\n\"nags,\" as we used to say at school; and, when mother and I are quite\r\nworn out, his triumph is assured. Mother is usually worn out more easily\r\nthan I, and she ends by siding with father; so that, at last, when they\r\ncombine their forces against poor little me, I have to succumb. You\r\nshould have heard the way father went on about this \"family\" plan; he\r\ntalked to every one he saw about it; he used to go round to the banker's\r\nand talk to the people there--the people in the post-office; he used to\r\ntry and exchange ideas about it with the waiters at the hotel. He said\r\nit would be more safe, more respectable, more economical; that I should\r\nperfect my French; that mother would learn how a French household is\r\nconducted; that he should feel more easy, and five hundred reasons more. They were none of them good, but that made no difference. It's all\r\nhumbug, his talking about economy, when every one knows that business in\r\nAmerica has completely recovered, that the prostration is all over, and\r\nthat immense fortunes are being made. We have been economising for the\r\nlast five years, and I supposed we came abroad to reap the benefits of\r\nit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As for my French, it is quite as perfect as I want it to be. (I assure\r\nyou I am often surprised at my own fluency, and, when I get a little more\r\npractice in the genders and the idioms, I shall do very well in this\r\nrespect.) To make a long story short, however, father carried his point,\r\nas usual; mother basely deserted me at the last moment, and, after\r\nholding out alone for three days, I told them to do with me what they\r\npleased! Father lost three steamers in succession by remaining in Paris\r\nto argue with me. You know he is like the schoolmaster in Goldsmith's\r\n\"Deserted Village\"--\"e'en though vanquished, he would argue still.\" He\r\nand mother went to look at some seventeen families (they had got the\r\naddresses somewhere), while I retired to my sofa, and would have nothing\r\nto do with it. At last they made arrangements, and I was transported to\r\nthe establishment from which I now write you. I write you from the bosom\r\nof a Parisian menage--from the depths of a second-rate boarding-house. Father only left Paris after he had seen us what he calls comfortably\r\nsettled here, and had informed Madame de Maisonrouge (the mistress of the\r\nestablishment--the head of the \"family\") that he wished my French\r\npronunciation especially attended to. The pronunciation, as it happens,\r\nis just what I am most at home in; if he had said my genders or my idioms\r\nthere would have been some sense."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But poor father has no tact, and this\r\ndefect is especially marked since he has been in Europe. He will be\r\nabsent, however, for three months, and mother and I shall breathe more\r\nfreely; the situation will be less intense. I must confess that we\r\nbreathe more freely than I expected, in this place, where we have been\r\nfor about a week. I was sure, before we came, that it would prove to be\r\nan establishment of the _lowest description_; but I must say that, in\r\nthis respect, I am agreeably disappointed. The French are so clever that\r\nthey know even how to manage a place of this kind. Of course it is very\r\ndisagreeable to live with strangers, but as, after all, if I were not\r\nstaying with Madame de Maisonrouge I should not be living in the Faubourg\r\nSt. Germain, I don't know that from the point of view of exclusiveness it\r\nis any great loss to be here. Our rooms are very prettily arranged, and the table is remarkably good. Mamma thinks the whole thing--the place and the people, the manners and\r\ncustoms--very amusing; but mamma is very easily amused. As for me, you\r\nknow, all that I ask is to be let alone, and not to have people's society\r\nforced upon me. I have never wanted for society of my own choosing, and,\r\nso long as I retain possession of my faculties, I don't suppose I ever\r\nshall."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As I said, however, the place is very well managed, and I succeed\r\nin doing as I please, which, you know, is my most cherished pursuit. Madame de Maisonrouge has a great deal of tact--much more than poor\r\nfather. She is what they call here a belle femme, which means that she\r\nis a tall, ugly woman, with style. She dresses very well, and has a\r\ngreat deal of talk; but, though she is a very good imitation of a lady, I\r\nnever see her behind the dinner-table, in the evening, smiling and\r\nbowing, as the people come in, and looking all the while at the dishes\r\nand the servants, without thinking of a _dame de comptoir_ blooming in a\r\ncorner of a shop or a restaurant. I am sure that, in spite of her fine\r\nname, she was once a _dame de comptoir_. I am also sure that, in spite\r\nof her smiles and the pretty things she says to every one, she hates us\r\nall, and would like to murder us. She is a hard, clever Frenchwoman, who\r\nwould like to amuse herself and enjoy her Paris, and she must be bored to\r\ndeath at passing all her time in the midst of stupid English people who\r\nmumble broken French at her. Some day she will poison the soup or the\r\n_vin rouge_; but I hope that will not be until after mother and I shall\r\nhave left her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She has two daughters, who, except that one is decidedly\r\npretty, are meagre imitations of herself. The \"family,\" for the rest, consists altogether of our beloved\r\ncompatriots, and of still more beloved Englanders. There is an\r\nEnglishman here, with his sister, and they seem to be rather nice people. He is remarkably handsome, but excessively affected and patronising,\r\nespecially to us Americans; and I hope to have a chance of biting his\r\nhead off before long. The sister is very pretty, and, apparently, very\r\nnice; but, in costume, she is Britannia incarnate. There is a very\r\npleasant little Frenchman--when they are nice they are charming--and a\r\nGerman doctor, a big blonde man, who looks like a great white bull; and\r\ntwo Americans, besides mother and me. One of them is a young man from\r\nBoston,--an aesthetic young man, who talks about its being \"a real Corot\r\nday,\" etc., and a young woman--a girl, a female, I don't know what to\r\ncall her--from Vermont, or Minnesota, or some such place. This young\r\nwoman is the most extraordinary specimen of artless Yankeeism that I ever\r\nencountered; she is really too horrible. I have been three times to\r\nClementine about your underskirt, etc. CHAPTER IV\r\n\r\n\r\nFROM LOUIS LEVERETT, IN PARIS, TO HARVARD TREMONT, IN BOSTON. September 25th. My dear Harvard--I have carried out my plan, of which I gave you a hint\r\nin my last, and I only regret that I should not have done it before."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It\r\nis human nature, after all, that is the most interesting thing in the\r\nworld, and it only reveals itself to the truly earnest seeker. There is\r\na want of earnestness in that life of hotels and railroad trains, which\r\nso many of our countrymen are content to lead in this strange Old World,\r\nand I was distressed to find how far I, myself; had been led along the\r\ndusty, beaten track. I had, however, constantly wanted to turn aside\r\ninto more unfrequented ways; to plunge beneath the surface and see what I\r\nshould discover. But the opportunity had always been missing; somehow, I\r\nnever meet those opportunities that we hear about and read about--the\r\nthings that happen to people in novels and biographies. And yet I am\r\nalways on the watch to take advantage of any opening that may present\r\nitself; I am always looking out for experiences, for sensations--I might\r\nalmost say for adventures. The great thing is to _live_, you know--to feel, to be conscious of one's\r\npossibilities; not to pass through life mechanically and insensibly, like\r\na letter through the post-office. There are times, my dear Harvard, when\r\nI feel as if I were really capable of everything--capable _de tout_, as\r\nthey say here--of the greatest excesses as well as the greatest heroism. Oh, to be able to say that one has lived--_qu'on a vecu_, as they say\r\nhere--that idea exercises an indefinable attraction for me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You will,\r\nperhaps, reply, it is easy to say it; but the thing is to make people\r\nbelieve you! And, then, I don't want any second-hand, spurious\r\nsensations; I want the knowledge that leaves a trace--that leaves strange\r\nscars and stains and reveries behind it! But I am afraid I shock you,\r\nperhaps even frighten you. If you repeat my remarks to any of the West Cedar Street circle, be sure\r\nyou tone them down as your discretion will suggest. For yourself; you\r\nwill know that I have always had an intense desire to see something of\r\n_real French life_. You are acquainted with my great sympathy with the\r\nFrench; with my natural tendency to enter into the French way of looking\r\nat life. I sympathise with the artistic temperament; I remember you used\r\nsometimes to hint to me that you thought my own temperament too artistic. I don't think that in Boston there is any real sympathy with the artistic\r\ntemperament; we tend to make everything a matter of right and wrong. And\r\nin Boston one can't _live--on ne peut pas vivre_, as they say here. I\r\ndon't mean one can't reside--for a great many people manage that; but one\r\ncan't live aesthetically--I may almost venture to say, sensuously. This\r\nis why I have always been so much drawn to the French, who are so\r\naesthetic, so sensuous."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am so sorry that Theophile Gautier has passed\r\naway; I should have liked so much to go and see him, and tell him all\r\nthat I owe him. He was living when I was here before; but, you know, at\r\nthat time I was travelling with the Johnsons, who are not aesthetic, and\r\nwho used to make me feel rather ashamed of my artistic temperament. If I\r\nhad gone to see the great apostle of beauty, I should have had to go\r\nclandestinely--_en cachette_, as they say here; and that is not my\r\nnature; I like to do everything frankly, freely, _naivement, au grand\r\njour_. That is the great thing--to be free, to be frank, to be _naif_. Doesn't Matthew Arnold say that somewhere--or is it Swinburne, or Pater? When I was with the Johnsons everything was superficial; and, as regards\r\nlife, everything was brought down to the question of right and wrong. They were too didactic; art should never be didactic; and what is life\r\nbut an art? Pater has said that so well, somewhere. With the Johnsons I\r\nam afraid I lost many opportunities; the tone was gray and cottony, I\r\nmight almost say woolly. But now, as I tell you, I have determined to\r\ntake right hold for myself; to look right into European life, and judge\r\nit without Johnsonian prejudices. I have taken up my residence in a\r\nFrench family, in a real Parisian house."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You see I have the courage of\r\nmy opinions; I don't shrink from carrying out my theory that the great\r\nthing is to _live_. You know I have always been intensely interested in Balzac, who never\r\nshrank from the reality, and whose almost _lurid_ pictures of Parisian\r\nlife have often haunted me in my wanderings through the old\r\nwicked-looking streets on the other side of the river. I am only sorry\r\nthat my new friends--my French family--do not live in the old city--_au\r\ncoeur du vieux Paris_, as they say here. They live only in the Boulevard\r\nHaussman, which is less picturesque; but in spite of this they have a\r\ngreat deal of the Balzac tone. Madame de Maisonrouge belongs to one of\r\nthe oldest and proudest families in France; but she has had reverses\r\nwhich have compelled her to open an establishment in which a limited\r\nnumber of travellers, who are weary of the beaten track, who have the\r\nsense of local colour--she explains it herself; she expresses it so\r\nwell--in short, to open a sort of boarding-house. I don't see why I\r\nshould not, after all, use that expression, for it is the correlative of\r\nthe term _pension bourgeoise_, employed by Balzac in the _Pere Goriot_. Do you remember the _pension bourgeoise_ of Madame Vauquer _nee_ de\r\nConflans? But this establishment is not at all like that: and indeed it\r\nis not at all _bourgeois_; there is something distinguished, something\r\naristocratic, about it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The Pension Vauquer was dark, brown, sordid,\r\n_graisseuse_; but this is in quite a different tone, with high, clear,\r\nlightly-draped windows, tender, subtle, almost morbid, colours, and\r\nfurniture in elegant, studied, reed-like lines. Madame de Maisonrouge\r\nreminds me of Madame Hulot--do you remember \"la belle Madame Hulot?\" --in\r\n_Les Barents Pauvres_. She has a great charm; a little artificial, a\r\nlittle fatigued, with a little suggestion of hidden things in her life;\r\nbut I have always been sensitive to the charm of fatigue, of duplicity. I am rather disappointed, I confess, in the society I find here; it is\r\nnot so local, so characteristic, as I could have desired. Indeed, to\r\ntell the truth, it is not local at all; but, on the other hand, it is\r\ncosmopolitan, and there is a great advantage in that. We are French, we\r\nare English, we are American, we are German; and, I believe, there are\r\nsome Russians and Hungarians expected. I am much interested in the study\r\nof national types; in comparing, contrasting, seizing the strong points,\r\nthe weak points, the point of view of each. It is interesting to shift\r\none's point of view--to enter into strange, exotic ways of looking at\r\nlife. The American types here are not, I am sorry to say, so interesting as\r\nthey might be, and, excepting myself; are exclusively feminine. We are\r\n_thin_, my dear Harvard; we are pale, we are sharp."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There is something\r\nmeagre about us; our line is wanting in roundness, our composition in\r\nrichness. We lack temperament; we don't know how to live; _nous ne\r\nsavons pas vivre_, as they say here. The American temperament is\r\nrepresented (putting myself aside, and I often think that my temperament\r\nis not at all American) by a young girl and her mother, and another young\r\ngirl without her mother--without her mother or any attendant or appendage\r\nwhatever. These young girls are rather curious types; they have a\r\ncertain interest, they have a certain grace, but they are disappointing\r\ntoo; they don't go far; they don't keep all they promise; they don't\r\nsatisfy the imagination. They are cold, slim, sexless; the physique is\r\nnot generous, not abundant; it is only the drapery, the skirts and\r\nfurbelows (that is, I mean in the young lady who has her mother) that are\r\nabundant. They are very different: one of them all elegance, all\r\nexpensiveness, with an air of high fashion, from New York; the other a\r\nplain, pure, clear-eyed, straight-waisted, straight-stepping maiden from\r\nthe heart of New England. And yet they are very much alike too--more\r\nalike than they would care to think themselves for they eye each other\r\nwith cold, mistrustful, deprecating looks. They are both specimens of\r\nthe emancipated young American girl--practical, positive, passionless,\r\nsubtle, and knowing, as you please, either too much or too little."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And\r\nyet, as I say, they have a certain stamp, a certain grace; I like to talk\r\nwith them, to study them. The fair New Yorker is, sometimes, very amusing; she asks me if every one\r\nin Boston talks like me--if every one is as \"intellectual\" as your poor\r\ncorrespondent. She is for ever throwing Boston up at me; I can't get rid\r\nof Boston. The other one rubs it into me too; but in a different way;\r\nshe seems to feel about it as a good Mahommedan feels toward Mecca, and\r\nregards it as a kind of focus of light for the whole human race. Poor\r\nlittle Boston, what nonsense is talked in thy name! But this New England\r\nmaiden is, in her way, a strange type: she is travelling all over Europe\r\nalone--\"to see it,\" she says, \"for herself.\" For herself! What can that\r\nstiff slim self of hers do with such sights, such visions! She looks at\r\neverything, goes everywhere, passes her way, with her clear quiet eyes\r\nwide open; skirting the edge of obscene abysses without suspecting them;\r\npushing through brambles without tearing her robe; exciting, without\r\nknowing it, the most injurious suspicions; and always holding her course,\r\npassionless, stainless, fearless, charmless! It is a little figure in\r\nwhich, after all, if you can get the right point of view, there is\r\nsomething rather striking. By way of contrast, there is a lovely English girl, with eyes as shy as\r\nviolets, and a voice as sweet!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She has a sweet Gainsborough head, and a\r\ngreat Gainsborough hat, with a mighty plume in front of it, which makes a\r\nshadow over her quiet English eyes. Then she has a sage-green robe,\r\n\"mystic, wonderful,\" all embroidered with subtle devices and flowers, and\r\nbirds of tender tint; very straight and tight in front, and adorned\r\nbehind, along the spine, with large, strange, iridescent buttons. The\r\nrevival of taste, of the sense of beauty, in England, interests me\r\ndeeply; what is there in a simple row of spinal buttons to make one\r\ndream--to _donnor a rever_, as they say here? I think that a great\r\naesthetic renascence is at hand, and that a great light will be kindled\r\nin England, for all the world to see. There are spirits there that I\r\nshould like to commune with; I think they would understand me. This gracious English maiden, with her clinging robes, her amulets and\r\ngirdles, with something quaint and angular in her step, her carriage\r\nsomething mediaeval and Gothic, in the details of her person and dress,\r\nthis lovely Evelyn Vane (isn't it a beautiful name?) is deeply,\r\ndelightfully picturesque. She is much a woman--elle _est bien femme_, as\r\nthey say here; simpler, softer, rounder, richer than the young girls I\r\nspoke of just now. Not much talk--a great, sweet silence. Then the\r\nviolet eye--the very eye itself seems to blush; the great shadowy hat,\r\nmaking the brow so quiet; the strange, clinging, clutching, pictured\r\nraiment!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "As I say, it is a very gracious, tender type. She has her\r\nbrother with her, who is a beautiful, fair-haired, gray-eyed young\r\nEnglishman. He is purely objective; and he, too, is very plastic. CHAPTER V\r\n\r\n\r\nFROM MIRANDA HOPE TO HER MOTHER. September 26th. You must not be frightened at not hearing from me oftener; it is not\r\nbecause I am in any trouble, but because I am getting on so well. If I\r\nwere in any trouble I don't think I should write to you; I should just\r\nkeep quiet and see it through myself. But that is not the case at\r\npresent and, if I don't write to you, it is because I am so deeply\r\ninterested over here that I don't seem to find time. It was a real\r\nprovidence that brought me to this house, where, in spite of all\r\nobstacles, I am able to do much good work. I wonder how I find the time\r\nfor all I do; but when I think that I have only got a year in Europe, I\r\nfeel as if I wouldn't sacrifice a single hour. The obstacles I refer to are the disadvantages I have in learning French,\r\nthere being so many persons around me speaking English, and that, as you\r\nmay say, in the very bosom of a French family. It seems as if you heard\r\nEnglish everywhere; but I certainly didn't expect to find it in a place\r\nlike this."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am not discouraged, however, and I talk French all I can,\r\neven with the other English boarders. Then I have a lesson every day\r\nfrom Miss Maisonrouge (the elder daughter of the lady of the house), and\r\nFrench conversation every evening in the salon, from eight to eleven,\r\nwith Madame herself, and some friends of hers that often come in. Her\r\ncousin, Mr. Verdier, a young French gentleman, is fortunately staying\r\nwith her, and I make a point of talking with him as much as possible. I\r\nhave _extra private lessons_ from him, and I often go out to walk with\r\nhim. Some night, soon, he is to accompany me to the opera. We have also\r\na most interesting plan of visiting all the galleries in Paris together. Like most of the French, he converses with great fluency, and I feel as\r\nif I should really gain from him. He is remarkably handsome, and\r\nextremely polite--paying a great many compliments, which, I am afraid,\r\nare not always _sincere_. When I return to Bangor I will tell you some\r\nof the things he has said to me. I think you will consider them\r\nextremely curious, and very beautiful _in their way_. The conversation in the parlour (from eight to eleven) is often\r\nremarkably brilliant, and I often wish that you, or some of the Bangor\r\nfolks, could be there to enjoy it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Even though you couldn't understand\r\nit I think you would like to hear the way they go on; they seem to\r\nexpress so much. I sometimes think that at Bangor they don't express\r\nenough (but it seems as if over there, there was less to express). It\r\nseems as if; at Bangor, there were things that folks never _tried_ to\r\nsay; but here, I have learned from studying French that you have no idea\r\nwhat you _can_ say, before you try. At Bangor they seem to give it up\r\nbeforehand; they don't make any effort. (I don't say this in the least\r\nfor William Platt, _in particular_.) I am sure I don't know what they will think of me when I get back. It\r\nseems as if; over here, I had learned to come out with everything. I\r\nsuppose they will think I am not sincere; but isn't it more sincere to\r\ncome out with things than to conceal them? I have become very good\r\nfriends with every one in the house--that is (you see, I _am_ sincere),\r\nwith _almost_ every one. It is the most interesting circle I ever was\r\nin. There's a girl here, an American, that I don't like so much as the\r\nrest; but that is only because she won't let me. I should like to like\r\nher, ever so much, because she is most lovely and most attractive; but\r\nshe doesn't seem to want to know me or to like me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She comes from New\r\nYork, and she is remarkably pretty, with beautiful eyes and the most\r\ndelicate features; she is also remarkably elegant--in this respect would\r\nbear comparison with any one I have seen over here. But it seems as if\r\nshe didn't want to recognise me or associate with me; as if she wanted to\r\nmake a difference between us. It is like people they call \"haughty\" in\r\nbooks. I have never seen any one like that before--any one that wanted\r\nto make a difference; and at first I was right down interested, she\r\nseemed to me so like a proud young lady in a novel. I kept saying to\r\nmyself all day, \"haughty, haughty,\" and I wished she would keep on so. But she did keep on; she kept on too long; and then I began to feel hurt. I couldn't think what I have done, and I can't think yet. It's as if she\r\nhad got some idea about me, or had heard some one say something. If some\r\ngirls should behave like that I shouldn't make any account of it; but\r\nthis one is so refined, and looks as if she might be so interesting if I\r\nonce got to know her, that I think about it a good deal. I am bound to\r\nfind out what her reason is--for of course she has got some reason; I am\r\nright down curious to know."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I went up to her to ask her the day before yesterday; I thought that was\r\nthe best way. I told her I wanted to know her better, and would like to\r\ncome and see her in her room--they tell me she has got a lovely room--and\r\nthat if she had heard anything against me, perhaps she would tell me when\r\nI came. But she was more distant than ever, and she just turned it off;\r\nsaid that she had never heard me mentioned, and that her room was too\r\nsmall to receive visitors. I suppose she spoke the truth, but I am sure\r\nshe has got some reason, all the same. She has got some idea, and I am\r\nbound to find out before I go, if I have to ask everybody in the house. I\r\n_am_ right down curious. I wonder if she doesn't think me refined--or if\r\nshe had ever heard anything against Bangor? I can't think it is that. Don't you remember when Clara Barnard went to visit New York, three years\r\nago, how much attention she received? And you know Clara _is_ Bangor, to\r\nthe soles of her shoes. Ask William Platt--so long as he isn't a\r\nnative--if he doesn't consider Clara Barnard refined. Apropos, as they say here, of refinement, there is another American in\r\nthe house--a gentleman from Boston--who is just crowded with it. His\r\nname is Mr. Louis Leverett (such a beautiful name, I think), and he is\r\nabout thirty years old."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He is rather small, and he looks pretty sick; he\r\nsuffers from some affection of the liver. But his conversation is\r\nremarkably interesting, and I delight to listen to him--he has such\r\nbeautiful ideas. I feel as if it were hardly right, not being in French;\r\nbut, fortunately, he uses a great many French expressions. It's in a\r\ndifferent style from the conversation of Mr. Verdier--not so\r\ncomplimentary, but more intellectual. He is intensely fond of pictures,\r\nand has given me a great many ideas about them which I should never have\r\ngained without him; I shouldn't have known where to look for such ideas. He thinks everything of pictures; he thinks we don't make near enough of\r\nthem. They seem to make a good deal of them here; but I couldn't help\r\ntelling him the other day that in Bangor I really don't think we do. If I had any money to spend I would buy some and take them back, to hang\r\nup. Mr. Leverett says it would do them good--not the pictures, but the\r\nBangor folks. He thinks everything of the French, too, and says we don't\r\nmake nearly enough of _them_. I couldn't help telling him the other day\r\nthat at any rate they make enough of themselves. But it is very\r\ninteresting to hear him go on about the French, and it is so much gain to\r\nme, so long as that is what I came for."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I talk to him as much as I dare\r\nabout Boston, but I do feel as if this were right down wrong--a stolen\r\npleasure. I can get all the Boston culture I want when I go back, if I carry out my\r\nplan, my happy vision, of going there to reside. I ought to direct all\r\nmy efforts to European culture now, and keep Boston to finish off. But\r\nit seems as if I couldn't help taking a peep now and then, in\r\nadvance--with a Bostonian. I don't know when I may meet one again; but\r\nif there are many others like Mr. Leverett there, I shall be certain not\r\nto want when I carry out my dream. He is just as full of culture as he\r\ncan live. But it seems strange how many different sorts there are. There are two of the English who I suppose are very cultivated too; but\r\nit doesn't seem as if I could enter into theirs so easily, though I try\r\nall I can. I do love their way of speaking, and sometimes I feel almost\r\nas if it would be right to give up trying to learn French, and just try\r\nto learn to speak our own tongue as these English speak it. It isn't the\r\nthings they say so much, though these are often rather curious, but it is\r\nin the way they pronounce, and the sweetness of their voice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It seems as\r\nif they must _try_ a good deal to talk like that; but these English that\r\nare here don't seem to try at all, either to speak or do anything else. They are a young lady and her brother. I believe they belong to some\r\nnoble family. I have had a good deal of intercourse with them, because I\r\nhave felt more free to talk to them than to the Americans--on account of\r\nthe language. It seems as if in talking with them I was almost learning\r\na new one. I never supposed, when I left Bangor, that I was coming to Europe to\r\nlearn _English_! If I do learn it, I don't think you will understand me\r\nwhen I get back, and I don't think you'll like it much. I should be a\r\ngood deal criticised if I spoke like that at Bangor. However, I verily\r\nbelieve Bangor is the most critical place on earth; I have seen nothing\r\nlike it over here. Tell them all I have come to the conclusion that they\r\nare _a great deal too fastidious_. But I was speaking about this English\r\nyoung lady and her brother. I wish I could put them before you. She is\r\nlovely to look at; she seems so modest and retiring. In spite of this,\r\nhowever, she dresses in a way that attracts great attention, as I\r\ncouldn't help noticing when one day I went out to walk with her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was\r\never so much looked at; but she didn't seem to notice it, until at last I\r\ncouldn't help calling attention to it. Mr. Leverett thinks everything of\r\nit; he calls it the \"costume of the future.\" I should call it rather the\r\ncostume of the past--you know the English have such an attachment to the\r\npast. I said this the other day to Madame do Maisonrouge--that Miss Vane\r\ndressed in the costume of the past. _De l'an passe, vous voulez dire_? said Madame, with her little French laugh (you can get William Platt to\r\ntranslate this, he used to tell me he knew so much French). You know I told you, in writing some time ago, that I had tried to get\r\nsome insight into the position of woman in England, and, being here with\r\nMiss Vane, it has seemed to me to be a good opportunity to get a little\r\nmore. I have asked her a great deal about it; but she doesn't seem able\r\nto give me much information. The first time I asked her she told me the\r\nposition of a lady depended upon the rank of her father, her eldest\r\nbrother, her husband, etc. She told me her own position was very good,\r\nbecause her father was some relation--I forget what--to a lord."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She\r\nthinks everything of this; and that proves to me that the position of\r\nwoman in her country cannot be satisfactory; because, if it were, it\r\nwouldn't depend upon that of your relations, even your nearest. I don't\r\nknow much about lords, and it does try my patience (though she is just as\r\nsweet as she can live) to hear her talk as if it were a matter of course\r\nthat I should. I feel as if it were right to ask her as often as I can if she doesn't\r\nconsider every one equal; but she always says she doesn't, and she\r\nconfesses that she doesn't think she is equal to \"Lady\r\nSomething-or-other,\" who is the wife of that relation of her father. I\r\ntry and persuade her all I can that she is; but it seems as if she didn't\r\nwant to be persuaded; and when I ask her if Lady So-and-so is of the same\r\nopinion (that Miss Vane isn't her equal), she looks so soft and pretty\r\nwith her eyes, and says, \"Of course she is!\" When I tell her that this\r\nis right down bad for Lady So-and-so, it seems as if she wouldn't believe\r\nme, and the only answer she will make is that Lady So-and-so is\r\n\"extremely nice.\" I don't believe she is nice at all; if she were nice,\r\nshe wouldn't have such ideas as that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I tell Miss Vane that at Bangor we\r\nthink such ideas vulgar; but then she looks as though she had never heard\r\nof Bangor. I often want to shake her, though she _is_ so sweet. If she\r\nisn't angry with the people who make her feel that way, I am angry for\r\nher. I am angry with her brother too, for she is evidently very much\r\nafraid of him, and this gives me some further insight into the subject. She thinks everything of her brother, and thinks it natural that she\r\nshould be afraid of him, not only physically (for this _is_ natural, as\r\nhe is enormously tall and strong, and has very big fists), but morally\r\nand intellectually. She seems unable, however, to take in any argument,\r\nand she makes me realise what I have often heard--that if you are timid\r\nnothing will reason you out of it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Vane, also (the brother), seems to have the same prejudices, and when\r\nI tell him, as I often think it right to do, that his sister is not his\r\nsubordinate, even if she does think so, but his equal, and, perhaps in\r\nsome respects his superior, and that if my brother, in Bangor, were to\r\ntreat me as he treates this poor young girl, who has not spirit enough to\r\nsee the question in its true light, there would be an indignation,\r\nmeeting of the citizens to protest against such an outrage to the\r\nsanctity of womanhood--when I tell him all this, at breakfast or dinner,\r\nhe bursts out laughing so loud that all the plates clatter on the table. But at such a time as this there is always one person who seems\r\ninterested in what I say--a German gentleman, a professor, who sits next\r\nto me at dinner, and whom I must tell you more about another time. He is\r\nvery learned, and has a great desire for information; he appreciates a\r\ngreat many of my remarks, and after dinner, in the salon, he often comes\r\nto me to ask me questions about them. I have to think a little,\r\nsometimes, to know what I did say, or what I do think. He takes you\r\nright up where you left off; and he is almost as fond of discussing\r\nthings as William Platt is."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He is splendidly educated, in the German\r\nstyle, and he told me the other day that he was an \"intellectual broom.\" Well, if he is, he sweeps clean; I told him that. After he has been\r\ntalking to me I feel as if I hadn't got a speck of dust left in my mind\r\nanywhere. It's a most delightful feeling. He says he's an observer; and\r\nI am sure there is plenty over here to observe. But I have told you\r\nenough for to-day. I don't know how much longer I shall stay here; I am\r\ngetting on so fast that it sometimes seems as if I shouldn't need all the\r\ntime I have laid out. I suppose your cold weather has promptly begun, as\r\nusual; it sometimes makes me envy you. The fall weather here is very\r\ndull and damp, and I feel very much as if I should like to be braced up. CHAPTER VI\r\n\r\n\r\nFROM MISS EVELYN VANE, IN PARIS, TO THE LADY AUGUSTA FLEMING, AT\r\nBRIGHTON. Paris, September 30th. Dear Lady Augusta--I am afraid I shall not be able to come to you on\r\nJanuary 7th, as you kindly proposed at Homburg. I am so very, very\r\nsorry; it is a great disappointment to me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I have just heard that it\r\nhas been settled that mamma and the children are coming abroad for a part\r\nof the winter, and mamma wishes me to go with them to Hyeres, where\r\nGeorgina has been ordered for her lungs. She has not been at all well\r\nthese three months, and now that the damp weather has begun she is very\r\npoorly indeed; so that last week papa decided to have a consultation, and\r\nhe and mamma went with her up to town and saw some three or four doctors. They all of them ordered the south of France, but they didn't agree about\r\nthe place; so that mamma herself decided for Hyeres, because it is the\r\nmost economical. I believe it is very dull, but I hope it will do\r\nGeorgina good. I am afraid, however, that nothing will do her good until\r\nshe consents to take more care of herself; I am afraid she is very wild\r\nand wilful, and mamma tells me that all this month it has taken papa's\r\npositive orders to make her stop in-doors. She is very cross (mamma\r\nwrites me) about coming abroad, and doesn't seem at all to mind the\r\nexpense that papa has been put to--talks very ill-naturedly about losing\r\nthe hunting, etc. She expected to begin to hunt in December, and wants\r\nto know whether anybody keeps hounds at Hyeres. Fancy a girl wanting to\r\nfollow the hounds when her lungs are so bad!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I daresay that when she\r\ngets there she will he glad enough to keep quiet, as they say that the\r\nheat is intense. It may cure Georgina, but I am sure it will make the\r\nrest of us very ill.\r\n\r\nMamma, however, is only going to bring Mary and Gus and Fred and Adelaide\r\nabroad with her; the others will remain at Kingscote until February\r\n(about the 3d), when they will go to Eastbourne for a month with Miss\r\nTurnover, the new governess, who has turned out such a very nice person. She is going to take Miss Travers, who has been with us so long, but who\r\nis only qualified for the younger children, to Hyeres, and I believe some\r\nof the Kingscote servants. She has perfect confidence in Miss T.; it is\r\nonly a pity she has such an odd name. Mamma thought of asking her if she\r\nwould mind taking another when she came; but papa thought she might\r\nobject. Lady Battledown makes all her governesses take the same name;\r\nshe gives 5 pounds more a year for the purpose. I forget what it is she\r\ncalls them; I think it's Johnson (which to me always suggests a lady's\r\nmaid). Governesses shouldn't have too pretty a name; they shouldn't have\r\na nicer name than the family. I suppose you heard from the Desmonds that I did not go back to England\r\nwith them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When it began to be talked about that Georgina should be\r\ntaken abroad, mamma wrote to me that I had better stop in Paris for a\r\nmonth with Harold, so that she could pick me up on their way to Hyeres. It saves the expense of my journey to Kingscote and back, and gives me\r\nthe opportunity to \"finish\" a little in French. You know Harold came here six weeks ago, to get up his French for those\r\ndreadful examinations that he has to pass so soon. He came to live with\r\nsome French people that take in young men (and others) for this purpose;\r\nit's a kind of coaching place, only kept by women. Mamma had heard it\r\nwas very nice; so she wrote to me that I was to come and stop here with\r\nHarold. The Desmonds brought me and made the arrangement, or the\r\nbargain, or whatever you call it. Poor Harold was naturally not at all\r\npleased; but he has been very kind, and has treated me like an angel. He\r\nis getting on beautifully with his French; for though I don't think the\r\nplace is so good as papa supposed, yet Harold is so immensely clever that\r\nhe can scarcely help learning. I am afraid I learn much less, but,\r\nfortunately, I have not to pass an examination--except if mamma takes it\r\ninto her head to examine me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But she will have so much to think of with\r\nGeorgina that I hope this won't occur to her. If it does, I shall be, as\r\nHarold says, in a dreadful funk. This is not such a nice place for a girl as for a young man, and the\r\nDesmonds thought it _exceedingly odd_ that mamma should wish me to come\r\nhere. As Mrs. Desmond said, it is because she is so very unconventional. But you know Paris is so very amusing, and if only Harold remains good-\r\nnatured about it, I shall be content to wait for the caravan (that's what\r\nhe calls mamma and the children). The person who keeps the\r\nestablishment, or whatever they call it, is rather odd, and _exceedingly\r\nforeign_; but she is wonderfully civil, and is perpetually sending to my\r\ndoor to see if I want anything. The servants are not at all like English\r\nservants, and come bursting in, the footman (they have only one) and the\r\nmaids alike, at all sorts of hours, in the _most sudden way_. Then when\r\none rings, it is half an hour before they come. All this is very\r\nuncomfortable, and I daresay it will be worse at Hyeres. There, however,\r\nfortunately, we shall have our own people. There are some very odd Americans here, who keep throwing Harold into\r\nfits of laughter. One is a dreadful little man who is always sitting\r\nover the fire, and talking about the colour of the sky."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I don't believe\r\nhe ever saw the sky except through the window--pane. The other day he\r\ntook hold of my frock (that green one you thought so nice at Homburg) and\r\ntold me that it reminded him of the texture of the Devonshire turf. And\r\nthen he talked for half an hour about the Devonshire turf; which I\r\nthought such a very extraordinary subject. Harold says he is mad. It is\r\nvery strange to be living in this way with people one doesn't know. I\r\nmean that one doesn't know as one knows them in England. The other Americans (beside the madman) are two girls, about my own age,\r\none of whom is rather nice. She has a mother; but the mother is always\r\nsitting in her bedroom, which seems so very odd. I should like mamma to\r\nask them to Kingscote, but I am afraid mamma wouldn't like the mother,\r\nwho is rather vulgar. The other girl is rather vulgar too, and is\r\ntravelling about quite alone. I think she is a kind of schoolmistress;\r\nbut the other girl (I mean the nicer one, with the mother) tells me she\r\nis more respectable than she seems. She has, however, the most\r\nextraordinary opinions--wishes to do away with the aristocracy, thinks it\r\nwrong that Arthur should have Kingscote when papa dies, etc. I don't see\r\nwhat it signifies to her that poor Arthur should come into the property,\r\nwhich will be so delightful--except for papa dying."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Harold says she\r\nis mad. He chaffs her tremendously about her radicalism, and he is so\r\nimmensely clever that she can't answer him, though she is rather clever\r\ntoo. There is also a Frenchman, a nephew, or cousin, or something, of the\r\nperson of the house, who is extremely nasty; and a German professor, or\r\ndoctor, who eats with his knife and is a great bore. I am so very sorry\r\nabout giving up my visit. I am afraid you will never ask me again. CHAPTER VII\r\n\r\n\r\nFROM LEON VERDIER, IN PARIS, TO PROSPER GOBAIN, AT LILLE. September 28th. My Dear Prosper--It is a long time since I have given you of my news, and\r\nI don't know what puts it into my head to-night to recall myself to your\r\naffectionate memory. I suppose it is that when we are happy the mind\r\nreverts instinctively to those with whom formerly we shared our\r\nexaltations and depressions, and _je t'eu ai trop dit, dans le bon temps,\r\nmon gros Prosper_, and you always listened to me too imperturbably, with\r\nyour pipe in your mouth, your waistcoat unbuttoned, for me not to feel\r\nthat I can count upon your sympathy to-day. _Nous en sommes nous\r\nflanquees des confidences_--in those happy days when my first thought in\r\nseeing an adventure _poindre a l'horizon_ was of the pleasure I should\r\nhave in relating it to the great Prosper."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As I tell thee, I am happy;\r\ndecidedly, I am happy, and from this affirmation I fancy you can\r\nconstruct the rest. Shall I help thee a little? Take three adorable\r\ngirls . . . three, my good Prosper--the mystic number--neither more nor\r\nless. Take them and place thy insatiable little Leon in the midst of\r\nthem! Is the situation sufficiently indicated, and do you apprehend the\r\nmotives of my felicity? You expected, perhaps, I was going to tell you that I had made my\r\nfortune, or that the Uncle Blondeau had at last decided to return into\r\nthe breast of nature, after having constituted me his universal legatee. But I needn't remind you that women are always for something in the\r\nhappiness of him who writes to thee--for something in his happiness, and\r\nfor a good deal more in his misery. But don't let me talk of misery now;\r\ntime enough when it comes; _ces demoiselles_ have gone to join the\r\nserried ranks of their amiable predecessors. Excuse me--I comprehend\r\nyour impatience. I will tell you of whom _ces demoiselles_ consist."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You have heard me speak of my _cousine_ de Maisonrouge, that grande\r\n_belle femme_, who, after having married, _en secondes_ noces--there had\r\nbeen, to tell the truth, some irregularity about her first union--a\r\nvenerable relic of the old noblesse of Poitou, was left, by the death of\r\nher husband, complicated by the indulgence of expensive tastes on an\r\nincome of 17,000 francs, on the pavement of Paris, with two little demons\r\nof daughters to bring up in the path of virtue. She managed to bring\r\nthem up; my little cousins are rigidly virtuous. If you ask me how she\r\nmanaged it, I can't tell you; it's no business of mine, and, _a fortiori_\r\nnone of yours. She is now fifty years old (she confesses to\r\nthirty-seven), and her daughters, whom she has never been able to marry,\r\nare respectively twenty-seven and twenty-three (they confess to twenty\r\nand to seventeen). Three years ago she had the thrice-blessed idea of\r\nopening a sort of _pension_ for the entertainment and instruction of the\r\nblundering barbarians who come to Paris in the hope of picking up a few\r\nstray particles of the language of Voltaire--or of Zola. The idea _lui a\r\nporte bonheur_; the shop does a very good business. Until within a few\r\nmonths ago it was carried on by my cousins alone; but lately the need of\r\na few extensions and embellishments has caused itself to be felt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "My\r\ncousin has undertaken them, regardless of expense; she has asked me to\r\ncome and stay with her--board and lodging gratis--and keep an eye on the\r\ngrammatical eccentricities of her _pensionnaires_. I am the extension,\r\nmy good Prosper; I am the embellishment! I live for nothing, and I\r\nstraighten up the accent of the prettiest English lips. The English lips\r\nare not all pretty, heaven knows, but enough of them are so to make it a\r\ngaining bargain for me. Just now, as I told you, I am in daily conversation with three separate\r\npairs. The owner of one of them has private lessons; she pays extra. My\r\ncousin doesn't give me a sou of the money; but I make bold, nevertheless,\r\nto say that my trouble is remunerated. But I am well, very well, with\r\nthe proprietors of the two other pairs. One of them is a little\r\nAnglaise, of about twenty--a little _figure de keepsake_; the most\r\nadorable miss that you ever, or at least that I ever beheld. She is\r\ndecorated all over with beads and bracelets and embroidered dandelions;\r\nbut her principal decoration consists of the softest little gray eyes in\r\nthe world, which rest upon you with a profundity of confidence--a\r\nconfidence that I really feel some compunction in betraying. She has a\r\ntint as white as this sheet of paper, except just in the middle of each\r\ncheek, where it passes into the purest and most transparent, most liquid,\r\ncarmine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Occasionally this rosy fluid overflows into the rest of her\r\nface--by which I mean that she blushes--as softly as the mark of your\r\nbreath on the window-pane. Like every Anglaise, she is rather pinched and prim in public; but it is\r\nvery easy to see that when no one is looking _elle ne demande qu'a se\r\nlaisser aller_! Whenever she wants it I am always there, and I have\r\ngiven her to understand that she can count upon me. I have reason to\r\nbelieve that she appreciates the assurance, though I am bound in honesty\r\nto confess that with her the situation is a little less advanced than\r\nwith the others. _Que voulez-vous_? The English are heavy, and the\r\nAnglaises move slowly, that's all. The movement, however, is\r\nperceptible, and once this fact is established I can let the pottage\r\nsimmer. I can give her time to arrive, for I am over-well occupied with\r\nher _concurrentes_. _Celles-ci_ don't keep me waiting, _par exemple_! These young ladies are Americans, and you know that it is the national\r\ncharacter to move fast. \"All right--go ahead!\" (I am learning a great\r\ndeal of English, or, rather, a great deal of American.) They go ahead at\r\na rate that sometimes makes it difficult for me to keep up. One of them\r\nis prettier than the other; but this hatter (the one that takes the\r\nprivate lessons) is really _une file prodigieuse_. _Ah, par exemple,\r\nelle brule ses vais-seux cella-la_!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She threw herself into my arms the\r\nvery first day, and I almost owed her a grudge for having deprived me of\r\nthat pleasure of gradation, of carrying the defences, one by one, which\r\nis almost as great as that of entering the place. Would you believe that at the end of exactly twelve minutes she gave me a\r\nrendezvous? It is true it was in the Galerie d'Apollon, at the Louvre;\r\nbut that was respectable for a beginning, and since then we have had them\r\nby the dozen; I have ceased to keep the account. _Non, c'est une file\r\nqui me depasse_. The little one (she has a mother somewhere, out of sight, shut up in a\r\ncloset or a trunk) is a good deal prettier, and, perhaps, on that account\r\n_elle y met plus de facons_. She doesn't knock about Paris with me by\r\nthe hour; she contents herself with long interviews in the _petit salon_,\r\nwith the curtains half-drawn, beginning at about three o'clock, when\r\nevery one is _a la promenade_. She is admirable, this little one; a\r\nlittle too thin, the bones rather accentuated, but the detail, on the\r\nwhole, most satisfactory. And you can say anything to her. She takes\r\nthe trouble to appear not to understand, but her conduct, half an hour\r\nafterwards, reassures you completely--oh, completely! However, it is the tall one, the one of the private lessons, that is the\r\nmost remarkable."}
{"question": "", "answer": "These private lessons, my good Prosper, are the most\r\nbrilliant invention of the age, and a real stroke of genius on the part\r\nof Miss Miranda! They also take place in the _petit salon_, but with the\r\ndoors tightly closed, and with explicit directions to every one in the\r\nhouse that we are not to be disturbed. And we are not, my good Prosper;\r\nwe are not! Not a sound, not a shadow, interrupts our felicity. My\r\n_cousine_ is really admirable; the shop deserves to succeed. Miss\r\nMiranda is tall and rather flat; she is too pale; she hasn't the adorable\r\n_rougeurs_ of the little Anglaise. But she has bright, keen, inquisitive\r\neyes, superb teeth, a nose modelled by a sculptor, and a way of holding\r\nup her head and looking every one in the face, which is the most finished\r\npiece of impertinence I ever beheld. She is making the _tour du monde_\r\nentirely alone, without even a soubrette to carry the ensign, for the\r\npurpose of seeing for herself _a quoi s'en tenir sur les hommes et les\r\nchoses--on les hommes_ particularly. _Dis donc_, Prosper, it must be a\r\n_drole de pays_ over there, where young persons animated by this ardent\r\ncuriosity are manufactured! If we should turn the tables, some day, thou\r\nand I, and go over and see it for ourselves. It is as well that we\r\nshould go and find them _chez elles_, as that they should come out here\r\nafter us."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_Dis donc, mon gras Prosper_ . . . CHAPTER VIII\r\n\r\n\r\nFROM DR. RUDOLF STAUB, IN PARIS, TO DR. JULIUS HIRSCH, AT GOTTINGEN. My dear brother in Science--I resume my hasty notes, of which I sent you\r\nthe first instalment some weeks ago. I mentioned then that I intended to\r\nleave my hotel, not finding it sufficiently local and national. It was\r\nkept by a Pomeranian, and the waiters, without exception, were from the\r\nFatherland. I fancied myself at Berlin, Unter den Linden, and I\r\nreflected that, having taken the serious step of visiting the\r\nhead-quarters of the Gallic genius, I should try and project myself; as\r\nmuch as possible, into the circumstances which are in part the\r\nconsequence and in part the cause of its irrepressible activity. It\r\nseemed to me that there could be no well-grounded knowledge without this\r\npreliminary operation of placing myself in relations, as slightly as\r\npossible modified by elements proceeding from a different combination of\r\ncauses, with the spontaneous home-life of the country. I accordingly engaged a room in the house of a lady of pure French\r\nextraction and education, who supplements the shortcomings of an income\r\ninsufficient to the ever-growing demands of the Parisian system of sense-\r\ngratification, by providing food and lodging for a limited number of\r\ndistinguished strangers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I should have preferred to have my room alone\r\nin the house, and to take my meals in a brewery, of very good appearance,\r\nwhich I speedily discovered in the same street; but this arrangement,\r\nthough very lucidly proposed by myself; was not acceptable to the\r\nmistress of the establishment (a woman with a mathematical head), and I\r\nhave consoled myself for the extra expense by fixing my thoughts upon the\r\nopportunity that conformity to the customs of the house gives me of\r\nstudying the table-manners of my companions, and of observing the French\r\nnature at a peculiarly physiological moment, the moment when the\r\nsatisfaction of the _taste_, which is the governing quality in its\r\ncomposition, produces a kind of exhalation, an intellectual\r\ntranspiration, which, though light and perhaps invisible to a superficial\r\nspectator, is nevertheless appreciable by a properly adjusted instrument. I have adjusted my instrument very satisfactorily (I mean the one I carry\r\nin my good square German head), and I am not afraid of losing a single\r\ndrop of this valuable fluid, as it condenses itself upon the plate of my\r\nobservation. A prepared surface is what I need, and I have prepared my\r\nsurface. Unfortunately here, also, I find the individual native in the minority. There are only four French persons in the house--the individuals\r\nconcerned in its management, three of whom are women, and one a man."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This\r\npreponderance of the feminine element is, however, in itself\r\ncharacteristic, as I need not remind you what an abnormally--developed\r\npart this sex has played in French history. The remaining figure is\r\napparently that of a man, but I hesitate to classify him so\r\nsuperficially. He appears to me less human than simian, and whenever I\r\nhear him talk I seem to myself to have paused in the street to listen to\r\nthe shrill clatter of a hand-organ, to which the gambols of a hairy\r\n_homunculus_ form an accompaniment. I mentioned to you before that my expectation of rough usage, in\r\nconsequence of my German nationality, had proved completely unfounded. No\r\none seems to know or to care what my nationality is, and I am treated, on\r\nthe contrary, with the civility which is the portion of every traveller\r\nwho pays the bill without scanning the items too narrowly. This, I\r\nconfess, has been something of a surprise to me, and I have not yet made\r\nup my mind as to the fundamental cause of the anomaly. My determination\r\nto take up my abode in a French interior was largely dictated by the\r\nsupposition that I should be substantially disagreeable to its inmates. I\r\nwished to observe the different forms taken by the irritation that I\r\nshould naturally produce; for it is under the influence of irritation\r\nthat the French character most completely expresses itself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "My presence,\r\nhowever, does not appear to operate as a stimulus, and in this respect I\r\nam materially disappointed. They treat me as they treat every one else;\r\nwhereas, in order to be treated differently, I was resigned in advance to\r\nbe treated worse. I have not, as I say, fully explained to myself this\r\nlogical contradiction; but this is the explanation to which I tend. The\r\nFrench are so exclusively occupied with the idea of themselves, that in\r\nspite of the very definite image the German personality presented to them\r\nby the war of 1870, they have at present no distinct apprehension of its\r\nexistence. They are not very sure that there are any Germans; they have\r\nalready forgotten the convincing proofs of the fact that were presented\r\nto them nine years ago. A German was something disagreeable, which they\r\ndetermined to keep out of their conception of things. I therefore think\r\nthat we are wrong to govern ourselves upon the hypothesis of the\r\n_revanche_; the French nature is too shallow for that large and powerful\r\nplant to bloom in it. The English-speaking specimens, too, I have not been willing to neglect\r\nthe opportunity to examine; and among these I have paid special attention\r\nto the American varieties, of which I find here several singular\r\nexamples. The two most remarkable are a young man who presents all the\r\ncharacteristics of a period of national decadence; reminding me strongly\r\nof some diminutive Hellenised Roman of the third century."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He is an\r\nillustration of the period of culture in which the faculty of\r\nappreciation has obtained such a preponderance over that of production\r\nthat the latter sinks into a kind of rank sterility, and the mental\r\ncondition becomes analogous to that of a malarious bog. I learn from him\r\nthat there is an immense number of Americans exactly resembling him, and\r\nthat the city of Boston, indeed, is almost exclusively composed of them. (He communicated this fact very proudly, as if it were greatly to the\r\ncredit of his native country; little perceiving the truly sinister\r\nimpression it made upon me.) What strikes one in it is that it is a phenomenon to the best of my\r\nknowledge--and you know what my knowledge is--unprecedented and unique in\r\nthe history of mankind; the arrival of a nation at an ultimate stage of\r\nevolution without having passed through the mediate one; the passage of\r\nthe fruit, in other words, from crudity to rottenness, without the\r\ninterposition of a period of useful (and ornamental) ripeness. With the\r\nAmericans, indeed, the crudity and the rottenness are identical and\r\nsimultaneous; it is impossible to say, as in the conversation of this\r\ndeplorable young man, which is one and which is the other; they are\r\ninextricably mingled. I prefer the talk of the French _homunculus_; it\r\nis at least more amusing. It is interesting in this manner to perceive, so largely developed, the\r\ngerms of extinction in the so-called powerful Anglo-Saxon family."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I find\r\nthem in almost as recognisable a form in a young woman from the State of\r\nMaine, in the province of New England, with whom I have had a good deal\r\nof conversation. She differs somewhat from the young man I just\r\nmentioned, in that the faculty of production, of action, is, in her, less\r\ninanimate; she has more of the freshness and vigour that we suppose to\r\nbelong to a young civilisation. But unfortunately she produces nothing\r\nbut evil, and her tastes and habits are similarly those of a Roman lady\r\nof the lower Empire. She makes no secret of them, and has, in fact,\r\nelaborated a complete system of licentious behaviour. As the\r\nopportunities she finds in her own country do not satisfy her, she has\r\ncome to Europe \"to try,\" as she says, \"for herself.\" It is the doctrine\r\nof universal experience professed with a cynicism that is really most\r\nextraordinary, and which, presenting itself in a young woman of\r\nconsiderable education, appears to me to be the judgment of a society. Another observation which pushes me to the same induction--that of the\r\npremature vitiation of the American population--is the attitude of the\r\nAmericans whom I have before me with regard to each other. There is\r\nanother young lady here, who is less abnormally developed than the one I\r\nhave just described, but who yet bears the stamp of this peculiar\r\ncombination of incompleteness and effeteness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "These three persons look\r\nwith the greatest mistrust and aversion upon each other; and each has\r\nrepeatedly taken me apart and assured me, secretly, that he or she only\r\nis the real, the genuine, the typical American. A type that has lost\r\nitself before it has been fixed--what can you look for from this? Add to this that there are two young Englanders in the house, who hate\r\nall the Americans in a lump, making between them none of the distinctions\r\nand favourable comparisons which they insist upon, and you will, I think,\r\nhold me warranted in believing that, between precipitate decay and\r\ninternecine enmities, the English-speaking family is destined to consume\r\nitself; and that with its decline the prospect of general pervasiveness,\r\nto which I alluded above, will brighten for the deep-lunged children of\r\nthe Fatherland! CHAPTER IX\r\n\r\n\r\nMIRANDA HOPE TO HER MOTHER. October 22d\r\n\r\nDear Mother--I am off in a day or two to visit some new country; I\r\nhaven't yet decided which. I have satisfied myself with regard to\r\nFrance, and obtained a good knowledge of the language. I have enjoyed my\r\nvisit to Madame de Maisonrouge deeply, and feel as if I were leaving a\r\ncircle of real friends."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Everything has gone on beautifully up to the\r\nend, and every one has been as kind and attentive as if I were their own\r\nsister, especially Mr. Verdier, the French gentleman, from whom I have\r\ngained more than I ever expected (in six weeks), and with whom I have\r\npromised to correspond. So you can imagine me dashing off the most\r\ncorrect French letters; and, if you don't believe it, I will keep the\r\nrough draft to show you when I go back. The German gentleman is also more interesting, the more you know him; it\r\nseems sometimes as if I could fairly drink in his ideas. I have found\r\nout why the young lady from New York doesn't like me! It is because I\r\nsaid one day at dinner that I admired to go to the Louvre. Well, when I\r\nfirst came, it seemed as if I _did_ admire everything! Tell William Platt his letter has come. I knew he would have to write,\r\nand I was bound I would make him! I haven't decided what country I will\r\nvisit yet; it seems as if there were so many to choose from. But I shall\r\ntake care to pick out a good one, and to meet plenty of fresh\r\nexperiences. Dearest mother, my money holds out, and it _is_ most interesting! *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BUNDLE OF LETTERS ***\r\n\r\n\r\n    \r\n\r\nUpdated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will\r\nbe renamed."}
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{"question": "", "answer": "The Project Gutenberg eBook of Stories from the Faerie Queen, Told to the Children\r\n    \r\nThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and\r\nmost other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions\r\nwhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms\r\nof the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online\r\nat www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,\r\nyou will have to check the laws of the country where you are located\r\nbefore using this eBook. Title: Stories from the Faerie Queen, Told to the Children\r\n\r\nAuthor: Edmund Spenser\r\n        Jean Lang\r\n\r\nIllustrator: Rose Le Quesne\r\n\r\nRelease date: November 11, 2012 [eBook #41350]\r\n\r\nLanguage: English\r\n\r\nCredits: Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\r\n        http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images\r\n        generously made available by The Internet Archive.) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES FROM THE FAERIE QUEEN, TOLD TO THE CHILDREN ***\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nProduced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\r\nhttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images\r\ngenerously made available by The Internet Archive.)"}
{"question": "", "answer": "TOLD TO THE CHILDREN SERIES\r\n\r\nEDITED BY LOUEY CHISHOLM\r\n\r\n\r\nTHE FAERIE QUEEN\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n[Illustration: I should like the crystal ball to shew me what my husband\r\nwill be like (page 33)]\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n  STORIES FROM\r\n  The Faerie Queen\r\n\r\n\r\n  TOLD TO THE CHILDREN BY\r\n  JEANIE LANG\r\n\r\n\r\n  WITH PICTURES BY\r\n  ROSE LE QUESNE\r\n\r\n\r\n  [Illustration]\r\n\r\n\r\n  LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK, LTD.\r\n  NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nTO DIANA\r\n\r\n\r\n  PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY\r\n  THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nABOUT THE FAERIE QUEEN\r\n\r\n\r\nMore than three hundred years ago there lived in England a poet named\r\nEdmund Spenser. He was brave and true and gentle, and he loved all that\r\nwas beautiful and good. Edmund Spenser wrote many poems, and the most beautiful of all is the one\r\ncalled 'The Faerie Queen.' He loved so dearly all things that are\r\nbeautiful and all things that are good, that his eyes could see Fairyland\r\nmore clearly than the eyes of other men ever could. There are many, many stories in 'The Faerie Queen,' and out of them all I\r\nhave told you only eight. Some day you will read the others for yourself. In this little book Miss Rose Le Quesne has made one pretty picture for\r\neach story. But when you are old enough to read for yourself 'The Faerie\r\nQueen' that Edmund Spenser wrote, you will find that there is a picture on\r\nevery page. JEANIE LANG."}
{"question": "", "answer": "LIST OF STORIES\r\n\r\n\r\n                                            Page\r\n\r\n  Una and the Lion,                            1\r\n\r\n  St. George and the Dragon,                  15\r\n\r\n  Britomart and the Magic Mirror,             32\r\n\r\n  The Quest of Sir Guyon,                     45\r\n\r\n  Pastorella,                                 60\r\n\r\n  Cambell and Triamond,                       79\r\n\r\n  Marinell, the Sea-Nymph's Son,              89\r\n\r\n  Florimell and the Witch,                   101\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nLIST OF PICTURES\r\n\r\n\r\n  BRITOMART AND THE MAGIC MIRROR. 'I should like the crystal ball to show me what\r\n    my husband will be like,                            _Frontispiece_\r\n\r\n                                                               At page\r\n\r\n  UNA AND THE LION. He followed her like a faithful dog,                             6\r\n\r\n  ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. The dragon was dead,                                            30\r\n\r\n  THE QUEST OF SIR GUYON. Great heaps of gold lay about him on every side,                48\r\n\r\n  PASTORELLA. In the middle of the ring of girls sat Pastorella,              64\r\n\r\n  CAMBELL AND TRIAMOND. She asked the Fates to let her sons have long, long lives,      80\r\n\r\n  MARINELL, THE SEA-NYMPH'S SON. But the knight was Britomart, the fair lady with a man's\r\n    armour and a man's heart,                                       92\r\n\r\n  FLORIMELL AND THE WITCH. Florimell's golden hair flew behind her,                       102\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nI\r\n\r\nUNA AND THE LION\r\n\r\n\r\nOnce upon a time, in a country not far from Fairyland, there lived a king\r\nand queen and their daughter, whose name was Una. Una was one of the most beautiful princesses that ever were seen, and she\r\nwas as good as she was beautiful. She and her father and mother loved each other very dearly, and they were\r\nvery happy together, until a dreadful thing happened in their kingdom and\r\ntook all their happiness away."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A hideous dragon came from another country, and killed men and women and\r\nlittle children. With its fiery breath it turned the trees and grass and\r\nflowers into black ashes, and it slew everybody that it came across. It would have killed Una's father and mother too, but they and some of\r\ntheir servants shut themselves up in a tower made of brass. The dragon\r\ntried very hard to get in and eat them up, but it could not break into a\r\ntower so strong. For seven years the king and queen hid in their tower, while the dragon\r\nlay outside. Many brave knights came and fought with the horrible monster and tried to\r\nsave the king and queen. But the dragon was stronger than all the knights,\r\nand killed every one of them. At last Una made up her mind to ride to Fairyland and ask the Queen of the\r\nFairies to send one of her knights to kill the dragon. Una took no soldiers nor servants with her, but a dwarf carried for her\r\nthe food and clothes she needed, and she rode on a little white ass. Her dress was of white, but she covered it and her beautiful, shining,\r\ngolden hair up with a black cloak to show that she felt sad. Her lovely\r\nface was very sorrowful, for she was so unhappy at the cruel things the\r\ndragon had done, and the danger her dear father and mother were in."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Una safely got to the court of the Faerie Queen, and a young knight,\r\nfearless and faithful and true, offered to come back with her to kill the\r\ndragon. His name was George, but on the breast of his silver armour, and on his\r\nsilver shield, a red cross was painted. So people called him the Red Cross\r\nKnight. The sun shone bright, and the birds sang sweetly, as Una and her knight\r\nrode away through the woods that lay between her father's kingdom and the\r\nlands of the Faerie Queen. The knight's great war-horse pranced and champed at its bit, and Una's\r\nlittle donkey put down its dainty feet gently on the grass and wondered at\r\nthe great big horse and his jingling harness as they went along side by\r\nside. Before they had gone very far a storm came on. The sky grew dark and rain\r\nfell heavily, and they would have been drenched had they not found shelter\r\nin a thick wood. There were wide paths in this wood, and tall trees whose\r\nleafy branches grew so close that no rain could come through. It was such a beautiful wood, and they were so happy talking together and\r\nlistening to the birds' sweet song, that they rode along without noticing\r\nwhere they went. So when the rain stopped and they wished to get back to the open road,\r\nthey could not find the way."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On and on they went, until they came to the\r\nmouth of a great dark cave. The knight sprang from his horse, and giving his spear to the dwarf to\r\nhold, went forward to see what might be hidden in the darkness. 'Do not be so rash!' cried Una; 'I know that this is a terribly dangerous\r\nplace, and that a dreadful monster stays in that black den!' The frightened dwarf also begged him to come away, but the knight said, 'I\r\nshould be ashamed to come back. If one is good, one need have no fear of\r\nthe darkness.' So into the darkness he went, and in the faint light that came from his\r\nshining armour he saw a hideous monster. It had a great ugly head and a\r\nlong speckled tail like a serpent's, and it rushed at the knight, roaring\r\nfuriously. He struck at it with his sword, but it wound its horrible tail\r\naround him, until he was nearly crushed to death. Una called to him not to fear, but to strike the monster bravely. And he,\r\nsmiting it with all his might, cut off its head. Then Una and he rode joyfully onwards, and, as evening fell, they found a\r\nway out of the wood. On the road they met an old man who looked kind and\r\ngood. He asked them to stay all night in his cottage in a little valley\r\nnear at hand, and they gladly went."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This old man was a wicked magician, and all he wanted was to do them harm. When they had lain down to rest, he began to work his magic on them. So\r\nwell did he do it, that he made the Red Cross Knight believe that Una was\r\nvery false and wicked, and that the best thing he could do was to go away\r\nfrom her. Very early in the morning the knight made the dwarf saddle his\r\nhorse, and they went off together and left Una asleep in the house of the\r\nwicked magician. When she awoke and found them gone, Una could only weep bitterly at what\r\nseemed to her their cruelty. She rode after them as quickly as she could, but her little donkey could\r\nonly go slowly, and in his anger and sorrow the knight had made his horse\r\ngallop so fast that she had no chance of overtaking them. Day after day, up hill and down dale, in woods and on lonely moors, she\r\nsought her knight. And her heart was very sad, because he whom she loved\r\nhad left her so ungently. One day when she was very tired she lay down to rest under the trees in a\r\nthick wood. She took off her black cloak, and her beautiful golden hair\r\nfell loosely round her face. Her face was so fair and so full of goodness\r\nthat it seemed to make sunshine in the shady place."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Suddenly there rushed at her from out of the wood a furious lion. He was\r\nhunting for something to kill and eat, and when he saw Una he ran at her\r\ngreedily, with hungry gaping jaws. But when it had looked at her lovely face, instead of tearing her in\r\npieces it gently licked her little white hands and feet. And Una's sad\r\nheart was so grateful to the noble beast that her tears dropped on him as\r\nhe did it. The lion would not leave her. He kept watch while she slept, and when she\r\nwas awake he followed her like a faithful dog. [Illustration: He followed her like a faithful dog (page 6)]\r\n\r\nTogether they wandered on, but never met any one that Una could ask if he\r\nhad seen the Red Cross Knight. At last, one evening, they saw a young woman walking up a steep mountain\r\npath, and carrying a pot of water on her back. Una called to her, but when\r\nthe woman looked round and saw a lovely lady and a lion, she got such a\r\nfright that she threw down the pot and ran for her life. Her old mother\r\nwas blind, and they lived in a hut on the mountain, and when she got there\r\nshe rushed in and shut the door. Una and the lion followed her, and the lion, with one blow from his strong\r\npaw, drove the door in."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The two women were hiding in a dark corner, half-dead from fear. Una tried\r\nto comfort them, and asked them if she and her lion might shelter there\r\nfor the night. When darkness came she lay down, very tired, to sleep,\r\nwhile her lion lay and watched at her feet. In the middle of the night a knock came to the door. It was a wicked\r\nrobber, who used to bring the things he stole and give them to those two\r\nbad women. The women were so afraid of the lion that they dared not come\r\nout of their hiding-place. So the thief, in a rage, burst the door open,\r\nand when he did this, the lion rushed at him and tore him in pieces. Next morning Una rose early and went away with the lion. When she had gone, the women came out, and when they saw the robber's dead\r\nbody, they were filled with rage at Una and her lion. They ran after her,\r\ncalling her bad names, but they could not overtake her. As they were going home they met the wicked magician. They told him about\r\nUna, and he rode quickly after her. By his magic he made himself armour\r\nthe same as that of the Red Cross Knight, and when Una saw him she thought\r\nit was her own true knight come back to her at last. He spoke to her as if\r\nhe was really her knight, and her heart was filled with gladness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But she was not the only one who thought that the wicked magician was the\r\nRed Cross Knight. Sansloy, a rough and wicked man, whose brother had been\r\nkilled in a fight with the Knight of the Red Cross, came riding along and\r\nmet them. When he saw the red cross on the magician's breast he rode at\r\nhim furiously. The old magician had to fight, whether he wanted to or not, and Sansloy\r\nfought so fiercely that he wounded him and cast him bleeding on the\r\nground. Then Sansloy dragged off his helmet and was going to kill him,\r\nwhen he found, instead of the Red Cross Knight's handsome young face, the\r\nwicked old face and grey hair of the magician. Sansloy was afraid of the magician, so he drew back and did not hurt him\r\nmore. But when he saw how beautiful Una was, he roughly dragged her off\r\nher ass, and made up his mind to take her away with him and make her his\r\nwife. When the lion saw the knight roughly take hold of Una, he made a fierce\r\nrush at him, and would have torn him in pieces; but Sansloy beat the lion\r\nback with his shield, and when the lion would have torn the shield from\r\nhim, he drove his sword deep into the lion's faithful heart. With a great\r\nroar the noble beast fell dead, and Sansloy threw Una before him on his\r\nhorse and galloped away with her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She wept and sobbed and begged him to\r\nlet her go, but Sansloy would not listen. And it seemed as if Una had no\r\nfriend left, or, at least, no friend that could help her. For the little\r\nwhite donkey trotted after her, afraid of nothing except to be left alone\r\nwithout his mistress. The darkness fell, and the stars that came out looked down like weeping\r\neyes on Una's sorrow and helplessness. Sansloy stopped his horse at last and lifted Una down. When she shrank\r\nfrom him in fear, he was so rough that she screamed for help until the\r\nwoods rang and echoed her screams. Now in the woods there lived wild people, some of whom were more like\r\nbeasts than men and women. They were dancing merrily in the starlight when\r\nthey heard Una's cries, and they stopped their dance and ran to see what\r\nwas wrong. When Sansloy saw them, with their rough long hair and hairy legs and arms\r\nand strange wild faces, he was so frightened that he jumped on his horse\r\nand galloped away. But the wild people of the woods were more gentle than the cowardly\r\nknight. When they saw Una, so beautiful and so frightened and so sad, they\r\nsmiled at her to show her that they meant to be kind. Then they knelt\r\nbefore her to show her that they would obey her, and gently kissed her\r\nfeet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So Una was no longer afraid, and when the wild people saw that she trusted\r\nthem, they were so glad that they jumped and danced and sang for joy. They\r\nbroke off green branches and strewed them before her as she walked, and\r\nthey crowned her with leaves to show that she was their queen. And so they\r\nled her home to their chief, and he and the beautiful nymphs of the wood\r\nall welcomed her with gladness. For a long time Una lived with them and was their queen, but at last a\r\nbrave knight came that way. His father had been a wild man of the woods,\r\nbut his mother was a gentle lady. He was brave and bold as his father had\r\nbeen. When he was a little boy and lived with the wild people, he used to\r\nsteal the baby lions from their mothers just for fun, and drive panthers,\r\nand antelopes, and wild boars, and tigers and wolves with bits and\r\nbridles, as if they were playing at horses. But he was gentle like his\r\nmother, although he was so fearless. And when Una told him the story of\r\nthe Red Cross Knight and the lion, and of all her adventures, his heart\r\nwas filled with pity. He vowed to help her to escape, and to try to find\r\nthe Red Cross Knight."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So one day he and she ran away, and by night had got\r\nfar out of reach of the wild men of the woods. When the wicked magician knew of Una's escape, he dressed himself up like\r\na pilgrim and came to meet her and the brave knight of the forest. 'Have you seen, or have you heard anything about my true knight, who bears\r\na red cross on his breast?' asked Una of the old man. 'Ah yes,' said the magician, 'I have seen him both living and dead. To-day\r\nI saw a terrible fight between him and another knight, and the other\r\nknight killed him.' When Una heard this cruel lie she fell down in a faint. The brave young\r\nknight lifted her up and gently tried to comfort her. 'Where is this man who has slain the Red Cross Knight, and taken from us\r\nall our joy?' he asked of the false pilgrim. 'He is near here now,' said the magician. 'I left him at a fountain,\r\nwashing his wounds.' Off hurried the knight, so fast that Una could not keep up with him, and\r\nsure enough, at a fountain they found a knight sitting. It was the wicked\r\nSansloy who had killed Una's lion and carried her away. The brave knight rushed up to him with his drawn sword. 'You have slain the Red Cross Knight,' he said; 'come and fight and be\r\npunished for your evil deed.'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "'I never slew the Red Cross Knight,' said Sansloy, in a great rage. 'Your\r\nenemies have sent you to me to be killed.' Then, like two wild beasts, they fought, only resting sometimes for a\r\nmoment that they might rush at each other again with the more strength and\r\nfury. Blood poured from their wounds, the earth was trampled by their feet, and\r\nthe sound of their fierce blows rang through the air. Una was so terrified at the dreadful sight that she ran away and left them\r\nfighting furiously. Before she had gone far she saw a little figure running through the woods\r\ntowards her. It was her own dwarf, and his woful face told her that some\r\nevil thing had happened to the Red Cross Knight. The knight had had many adventures since he left her in the magician's\r\nhut, and at last a giant had caught him, and kept him a prisoner in a\r\ndreary dungeon. The dwarf had run away, lest the giant should kill him. Una loved the Red Cross Knight so much that her heart almost broke when\r\nshe heard the dwarf's story. But she made up her mind to find her knight\r\nand free him. So on she went, up hill and down dale, beaten by driving\r\nrain and buffeted by bitter winds. At last, by good chance, she met a knight and his squire."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This knight was\r\nthe good Prince Arthur, of all the knights of the Faerie Queen the bravest\r\nand the best. To him she told her sorrowful tale. 'Be of good cheer and take comfort,' said the good prince. 'I will never\r\nleave you until I have freed the Red Cross Knight.' And the prince kept his promise. The story of St. George and the Dragon will tell you how Una and her\r\nknight met together again and were married, and forgot their past sorrows\r\nin their great happiness. II\r\n\r\nST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON\r\n\r\n\r\nLong, long ago, before the things that happened were written down in\r\nhistory books, a spiteful fairy came into the castle of an English king. She saw a beautiful baby-boy, the king's little son, lying asleep, and,\r\nout of mischief, she ran away with him and left her own ugly little fairy\r\nbaby there instead. But when she had stolen the baby, she could not be troubled to take care\r\nof him. So she laid him down in the furrow of a ploughed field. Soon a ploughman, with his horses, came that way. He was a kind man, and\r\nhe lifted the baby up off the cold brown earth and carried him home to his\r\ncottage. He called him Georgos, and brought him up as if he were his own\r\nboy. When Georgos was a big boy he did not care to be a ploughman."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He wished to\r\nbe a knight and fight for people who were not as strong as he was. So he\r\nwent to the court of the Faerie Queen, and she took him for one of her\r\nknights. She called him George, and gave him armour all shining with\r\nsilver and with a red cross on his shield and on his breast. You have heard the story of Una, so you know that it was George of the Red\r\nCross who left the fairy court to fight for her and to be her knight. There was no sadder knight to be found in all Fairyland than George of the\r\nRed Cross, after the wicked magician had made him think that Una was false\r\nand bad. With a heavy heart he rode away from the magician's cottage in\r\nthe grey dawn, with the dwarf sadly following him. As he went through the woods he met a knight riding with a beautiful lady\r\nin red robes that sparkled with jewels. The lady's horse was all decked\r\nout with gold, and from its bridle hung golden bells. Although she was so beautiful, she was really a wicked witch, who was\r\nnever so happy as when she was making men fight and kill each other. When she saw George coming, she said to the knight with whom she rode,\r\n'Here comes a knight! you must fight with him.'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "So the knight rode furiously at George, and George met him as fiercely,\r\nand both their spears splintered as they crashed against each other. Then,\r\nwith their swords they cut and thrust and hacked. The knight cut through a\r\npiece of George's helmet by the fury of one blow, but George gave him such\r\na stroke in return, that his sword went through the steel helmet right\r\ninto the knight's head, and he fell dead. When the witch saw him fall, she galloped away, screaming with fear. George rode after her and begged her not to be afraid, but the witch\r\npretended to cry bitterly. She told him she did not cry for sorrow that\r\nthe knight was dead, but only because she was frightened. She said that\r\nthe knight who lay there had wished to marry her, but that she did not\r\nlove him, and liked George much better. The witch looked so beautiful, with her red robes and splendid jewels, and\r\npretended so well to be simple and good, that George believed all that she\r\nsaid. 'Do not be afraid,' he said, 'I will take care of you, and be your\r\nfriend.' So he did not think of Una any more, but rode away happily with the witch,\r\nwho said her name was Fidessa. In the middle of the day, when the sun had grown very hot, they rested in\r\nthe shade of two great trees."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The spreading branches of the trees were overgrown with grey moss, and\r\ntheir green leaves were never still, but whispered and trembled as if the\r\nwind was blowing on them. George thought he would make a garland of these\r\nfresh leaves to put on Fidessa's dark hair. He plucked a little branch,\r\nand, as he broke it, red drops of blood trickled down from the place where\r\nit was broken. Then a sad voice spoke out of the tree, and told him that the trees were\r\nnot really trees, but a knight and a lady, who had been bewitched by the\r\nmagic of a wicked witch. The witch who had done it was Fidessa, and when Fidessa heard the tree\r\nspeak, she was afraid that George would find her out. But George was too\r\nsimple and too true to think that beautiful Fidessa could be so wicked. He\r\nwas very sorry for having hurt the tree-man, and with some earth plastered\r\nup the place that bled. Then he and Fidessa hurried away from the place of the shivering trees. When they had ridden for a long time they came to a gorgeous palace where\r\nonly bad people stayed. Fidessa made George come with her into the\r\npalace, and while they stayed there she got some of the wicked knights of\r\nthe palace to fight with George and try to kill him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But George was braver\r\nand stronger than any of these knights, and instead of their killing him,\r\nhe killed them. One day Fidessa went from home, and, while she was away, Una's dwarf, who\r\nhad never left George, went wandering through the palace. In a dark and horrible dungeon he found many knights, and kings, and\r\nladies and princes shut up as prisoners. The dwarf ran and told George, and the Red Cross Knight, fearing that he\r\nalso would be made a prisoner and cast into the dungeon if he stayed\r\nlonger in the enchanted palace, rode away. The wounds he had got in his\r\nlast fight were still unhealed, so that he could not go fast. When Fidessa got back and found him gone, she rode after him as fast as\r\never she could. When she found him he was resting, with his armour off, on the mossy grass\r\nby the side of a sparkling fountain. He was peacefully listening to the\r\nsweet song of birds, and to the tinkling water, when Fidessa's red robes\r\nshowed through the trees. She talked to him so cunningly that soon she persuaded him to think that\r\nshe loved him very much and meant him nothing but kindness. Now the witch knew that the water of the fountain was magic water, and if\r\nany one drank it all his strength would leave him. So she made George lie\r\ndown on the sandy gravel and drink."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In one minute his strength all went\r\nfrom him and he was no stronger than a tiny boy. No sooner had this happened than there walked out from amongst the trees\r\nan enormous ugly giant. In his hand, for a club, he carried a big oak-tree\r\nthat he had pulled out of the earth by the roots. When he saw George he\r\nrushed at him like an earthquake, and smote him such a mighty blow that\r\nGeorge fell fainting to the ground. Then the giant picked him up as if he\r\nhad been a helpless little baby, and carried him away, and threw him into\r\nthe darkest dungeon of his castle in the woods. Una's dwarf, who had hidden in the bushes and seen all that happened, ran\r\naway, lest the giant should kill him. But Fidessa, the wicked witch, made friends with the giant, and he made\r\nher his wife. He gave her a robe of purple and gold to wear, and put a splendid gold\r\ncrown on her head. And to make people more afraid of her than they were\r\nalready, he gave her a horrible beast with seven heads and a long scaly\r\ntail of brass to ride on. For months and months George was a prisoner in the gloomy dungeon. The\r\nlight never came into it, nor any air. He was chained with heavy iron\r\nbands, and was given scarcely anything to eat or to drink."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His face grew\r\nwhite and thin, and his eyes grew hollow. His strong arms became only skin\r\nand bone, and his legs were so feeble that he could not stand. He looked\r\nmore like a shadow than a man. One day, as he lay on the floor of the dungeon, feebly moaning and longing\r\nto die, the door burst open. A knight in shining armour of diamonds and gold stood before him, and\r\nbefore George could speak to him, there ran into the dreary cell, like a\r\nsunbeam in the dark, his own beautiful Una. Una nearly cried for joy at seeing her knight again, and for sorrow\r\nbecause he looked so terribly ill.\r\n\r\nShe told him that Prince Arthur, the knight who had saved him, had cut off\r\nthe giant's head, and slain the seven-headed monster, and made Fidessa\r\nprisoner. Then Prince Arthur tore off Fidessa's robe of purple and gold, and her\r\ngolden crown and all her sparkling jewels. And all her beauty faded away,\r\nand she looked like the hideous, wicked old witch that she really was. George shrank away from her in horror, and wondered how she could ever\r\nhave made him forget Una, or have made him think that she herself was good\r\nand beautiful. And Fidessa, frightened at being found out, ran away and hid herself in a\r\ndark cave in the lonely desert."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then Una took George, who was now no stronger than a little child who has\r\nbeen ill, to an old house not far away from the giant's castle. It was\r\ncalled the House of Holiness. There lived there a good old lady and her three good and beautiful\r\ndaughters, and they helped Una to nurse George until he grew strong again. And as he grew stronger, from the rest and their care and the dainty food\r\nthey gave him, those ladies of the House of Holiness taught the young\r\nknight many things. He learned to be more gentle than he had been before, and never to be\r\nproud nor boastful, and to love nothing that was not wholly good. He\r\nlearned, too, not to hate any one, nor to be angry or revengeful, and\r\nalways to be as generous and as merciful as he was brave. When he was quite strong once more, he went from the House of Holiness to\r\na place where an old hermit stayed, and from him George learned still more\r\nof what was good. George had always thought that he was a fairy's son, but the hermit told\r\nhim the story of how the bad fairy had stolen him from his father's castle\r\nwhen he was a baby. And although George loved his Faerie Queen and the\r\nfairy knights and ladies, he was glad to think that he was the son of an\r\nEnglish king."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The old man told him that if, all through his life, he was true, and\r\nbrave, and merciful and good, one day he should be called a saint. And he\r\nwould be the saint who belonged especially to all Englishmen and\r\nEnglishwomen, and to English boys and girls. '_Saint George shalt thou callèd be,\r\n  Saint George of Merry England, the sign of victory._'\r\n\r\nThen did George, his shining armour with its red crosses, and his sharp\r\nsword and glittering spear buckled on again, ride away once more with Una,\r\nto kill the dragon and set free the king and queen. It was a dreary country that they rode through, for the dragon had laid it\r\nall waste, but from far away they saw the tower of brass shining in the\r\nsun. As they drew nearer they saw a watchman on the top of the tower gazing\r\nacross the plain. Day after day for a long, long time he had looked for\r\nUna to come back with a knight to slay the dragon. When he saw Una and\r\nGeorge crossing the plain, he ran and told the king and queen, and the old\r\nking climbed up to the top of the tower to see for himself that the good\r\nnews was true. As they drew near the tower, George and Una heard a hideous roaring sound. It filled all the air and shook the ground like an earthquake."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It came\r\nfrom the dragon, that was stretched out in the sun on the side of a hill. When it saw the knight in gleaming armour riding towards it, it roused\r\nitself joyfully up to come and kill him, as it had killed all the other\r\nknights. George made Una go to a high piece of ground, from whence she could see\r\nthe fight, and where she would be out of danger, and then rode to meet the\r\nterrible beast. Half running and half flying, with its great ugly wings, the dragon came\r\nswiftly towards him. It was so big that its shadow looked like the dark\r\nshadow of a mountain on a valley. Its body was monstrous and horrible and\r\nvast, and was all swelled out with rage. It had scales all over it that\r\nshone like brass, and that were as strong as steel. Its wings were like\r\nbig sails, and when it flapped them and clashed its scales, the sound was\r\nlike the sound of a great army fighting. Its long tail was spotted red and\r\nblack, and at the end of it two sharp stings stuck out. It had cruel long\r\nclaws, and its gaping jaws had each three rows of iron teeth, all stained\r\nand wet with the blood of the people it had eaten last. It had eyes like\r\nflames, and its breath was fire and smoke. When it rushed at George, George rode hard at it with his spear."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But no\r\nspear was ever made that was strong enough to pierce that dragon's scales. The spear glanced off from its ugly, speckled breast, but the dragon,\r\nfurious at the hard thrust that George had given him, lashed out with its\r\ntail so furiously that both the horse and his rider were thrown to the\r\nground. Lightly they rose up again, and again George smote with his spear. Then the dragon, spreading its wings, rose from the ground like a giant\r\nbird, and seizing George and his horse in its claws, flew away with them. Right across the plain it flew, then, finding them heavy, it dropped them\r\non the ground. As it did this, George thrust with his spear under the\r\ndragon's stretched-out wing, and made a great gaping wound. The spear\r\nbroke, but the spear-head stuck in the wound, until the dragon, mad with\r\nrage and pain, plucked it out with its teeth. Then did fire and smoke rush out more terribly than before from the jaws\r\nof the furious dragon. It lashed its long tail so savagely that it folded\r\nin its coils George's foaming horse. The frantic horse, in its struggles\r\nto get free, threw George on the ground amongst the horrible blood. But\r\nGeorge sprang to his feet, and with his sharp sword struck again and again\r\nat the dragon's head. The sword could not pierce it, but the dragon,\r\nannoyed at George's fierce attack, thought it would fly out of his reach."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But when it tried, the wound George had made in its wing prevented it. Then its rage at George grew fifty times more furious. It roared till the\r\nwhole land shook, and it sent out from its inside such blazing flames that\r\nGeorge's face was scorched and his armour grew so hot that it burned into\r\nhis flesh. George was so tired and so faint and sore, that when he was burned as\r\nwell, he feared that the end had come. The dragon saw his faintness, and\r\nsmiting him a tremendous blow with its great tail, it threw him down, and\r\nGeorge fell backwards into a pool of water. Now this pool of water was a\r\nmagic spring. When George fell into it, all his faintness and weariness\r\nvanished. Una, who feared he was dead, saw him spring out of the water even fresher\r\nand stronger than he had been at the beginning of the fight. The dragon could not believe its eyes, and thought that George must be a\r\nnew knight who had come to fight it. Before it had got over its surprise, George struck its head so fiercely\r\nwith his sword, which still dripped from the magic water, that he made a\r\ngreat wound. The dragon, roaring like a hundred lions, struck at George with the stings\r\non the end of its tail. One of them went right through George's shield,\r\nand through his armour, and firmly stuck in his shoulder."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Though George\r\nwas faint with the pain it caused, he hit the dragon's tail such a blow\r\nthat he hewed off five joints and left only the ugly stump. Mad with rage, the dragon, belching out smoke and fire, and giving fearful\r\ncries, seized George's silver shield in its claws and tried to drag it\r\nfrom him. Again and again, and yet again, George struck at it with his\r\nsword. At last he hit the joint and cut the paw clean off. Even then, so\r\ntight was the grip that the claws had got, that it still hung bleeding\r\nfrom the shield. Then was the dragon's rage so frightful, that the flames and smoke from\r\nits mouth were like the flames and smoke that pour out of a burning\r\nmountain. All the sky was darkened, and as George shrank back in horror\r\nfrom the burning, choking, smelling darkness, his foot slipped in the\r\nmire, and he fell. Now there grew in that land a magic tree, all hung with fruit and rosy\r\napples. From the trunk of the tree there flowed a little stream of sweet\r\nbalm that could cure even deadly wounds and make weak people strong. The\r\ndragon was afraid of this tree and its magic stream, and dared not go near\r\nit. All night George lay as if he were dead, and Una, on the hillside, waited\r\nwith a heavy heart for morning to come."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He lay so close to the magic tree that the dragon dared not come near him,\r\nbut it thought that he must have died of his wounds. When the black night had rolled away and daylight spread over the land,\r\nGeorge arose from his sleep. His wounds were all healed by the magic balm,\r\nand he was stronger than before. When the dragon rushed at him with its great fierce mouth gaping wide,\r\nGeorge thrust his sword down its throat and wounded it so terribly that it\r\nrolled over like a huge mountain in an earthquake. The ground shook as it\r\nfell, and the last breaths that it drew stained the beautiful morning sky,\r\nlike smoke from a furnace. At first it seemed to Una too good to be true that the dragon was dead. But when the last of the black smoke had cleared away, and the monster lay\r\nquite still, she knew that George had won the fight and slain the dragon. The watchman on the brazen tower had also seen the dragon fall, and so the\r\nking had the gates of brass, that had been closed for so long, thrown wide\r\nopen. With sounds of trumpets and shouts of joy the king and queen and their\r\npeople came out to greet George and Una, and to thank George, who had\r\nsaved them and their land from the horrible dragon. The people crowded round the dead body of the monster."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The children wished\r\nto look at it closely, and when a bold little boy took hold of its claws,\r\nhis mother screamed with fright, and dragged him back. So long had they\r\nbeen in terror of their savage enemy, that even when it lay dead they\r\nstill feared that it might do them some harm. [Illustration: The dragon was dead (page 30)]\r\n\r\nThere never was a happier wedding than the wedding of Una and George, the\r\nRed Cross Knight, nor was there ever any bride more beautiful than Una. Her dress was spotless, like a white lily. It was not made of silver nor\r\nsilk, yet like silver and silk it shone and glistened. Her golden hair\r\nhung round her happy face, and her face was like the freshest flower of\r\nMay. Fairy music rang through the air, and there was nothing but happiness in\r\nthe land on the day that Una wedded brave George of Merry England. III\r\n\r\nBRITOMART AND THE MAGIC MIRROR\r\n\r\n\r\nLong years ago there lived a beautiful princess whose name was Britomart. When she was a little girl she did not care to play with dolls nor to sew,\r\nbut she loved to ride and to play boys' games. And when she grew older she\r\nlearned to fight with spears and swords like the knights at her father's\r\ncourt. Now a great magician called Merlin had once given a wonderful gift to the\r\nking, Britomart's father."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was a magic mirror, that looked like a ball of the clearest crystal. When the king looked in this mirror he saw all that was going to happen to\r\nhim, and which of his friends were false and which true. There was no\r\nhidden secret which that crystal ball could not tell. One day Britomart went into her father's room and looked into his magic\r\nmirror. 'What shall I wish to see?' she asked of herself. Then she thought, 'Some day I shall marry. I should like the crystal ball\r\nto show me what my husband will be like.' Even as she thought this, she saw, like a moving picture, a knight riding\r\nacross the crystal. He was tall and broad and strong, and looked very brave. The front of his\r\nshining helmet was drawn up, and from under it looked out the handsome\r\nface that his friends loved and his foes feared. He wore beautiful armour,\r\nall inlaid with gold, and she knew what his name was, and that he had won\r\nthis armour in a fight with another great knight, for on it was written:\r\n\r\n  '_Achilles' armes which Artegall did win._'\r\n\r\nFrom that day Britomart could think of nothing but the knight whose\r\npicture had ridden across the mirror and vanished away. She grew thoughtful and sad, and could not sleep, for she feared it was a\r\ndreadful thing to love a shadow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her old nurse slept in her room, and at night when she heard Britomart\r\ntossing about in bed and softly crying to herself, the old woman was very\r\nunhappy. Night after night she heard her, till she could bear it no\r\nlonger. She asked Britomart what was wrong, and Britomart sobbingly told\r\nher. Then the good old nurse comforted Britomart. She said she was sure that\r\nArtegall must be a real man, and not just a shadow, and that she would\r\nfind him. Then she tucked the bedclothes round Britomart, and put out the\r\nflickering lamp. When Britomart, much comforted, had fallen quietly\r\nasleep, her nurse sat and watched beside her, and dropped some tears\r\nbecause Britomart was no longer a little baby-girl for her to take care\r\nof, but a grown-up girl who loved a knight. Next day the old nurse went to the woods and gathered all sorts of herbs. She boiled them down together, and mixed them with milk and other things,\r\nand put them in an earthen pot. Round the pot she bound three of her hairs\r\nplaited together. Then she said a charm over the pot, and made Britomart\r\nturn round and round and round about it. She thought that this charm would\r\ncure Britomart of loving the knight, and make her gay and happy again. But\r\nthe old nurse's charm was no good. Britomart grew thin and sad and ill.\r\n\r\nThen the old woman thought of Merlin, the magician who had made the\r\nmirror."}
{"question": "", "answer": "'It is all his fault that my princess is so sad,' she said; 'he must make\r\nher happy again.' So she dressed Britomart and herself in shabby old clothes, and went to\r\nseek Merlin. The magician lived in a dark cave under a rock. The rock lay near a\r\nswift-rushing river that ran down between thickly wooded hills. Hollow,\r\nfearful sounds, and a clanking, as of chains, were always heard there. When Britomart and her nurse reached the lonely cave, and heard the noise\r\nof moans and groans and clanking chains, they were too frightened at first\r\nto go in. But at length they plucked up courage and entered the cave, and\r\nfound Merlin writing magic words on the dark floor. He knew very well,\r\nalthough they wore shabby old clothes, that his visitors were the Princess\r\nBritomart and the princess's nurse. But he pretended that he did not know\r\nthem, and asked them what they wanted. 'Three moons have come and gone,' said the nurse, 'since this fair maid\r\nfirst turned ill. I do not know what ails her, but if you cannot cure her,\r\nshe will die.' Merlin smiled. 'If that is all you want,' he said, 'you had better take her to a doctor.' 'If any doctor could have done her good,' said the nurse, 'I should not\r\nhave troubled you. But I fear that a witch or a wicked fairy must have\r\nbewitched her.' Then Merlin burst out laughing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "'Why do you go on pretending to me?' he said. 'I know all about it. This\r\nis the beautiful Princess Britomart, and you are her nurse.' At that Britomart blushed rosy red, but the nurse said:\r\n\r\n'If you know all our grief, then have pity on us, and give us your help.' Then Merlin told Britomart not to be sad, for Artegall was a real living\r\nknight, and one of the bravest and noblest that lived. His home was in\r\nFairyland, but he was a king's son that the fairies had stolen away when\r\nhe was a baby. 'You shall marry Artegall,' said the magician, 'and bring him back from\r\nFairyland to his own country, where he shall be king.' Then he gave her much advice, and told her of the great things that should\r\nbe done in the days to come by the sons that were to be hers and\r\nArtegall's. And Britomart and her nurse, with happy hearts, came away from the\r\nmagician's gloomy cave. 'But how shall we seek my knight?' asked Britomart of her nurse. 'How\r\nshall we find him?' The nurse said: 'Let us dress ourselves in some of the armour that your\r\nfather has taken from his enemies. You shall be a knight, and I will be\r\nyour squire. Together we will ride to Fairyland and find Artegall.' When Britomart was dressed in shining armour of silver and gold, she\r\nlooked a very handsome, tall, young knight."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her nurse dressed her as\r\ncarefully as she had dressed her long ago in her baby-clothes, and, when\r\nall her armour was on, she put into her hand a long spear. It was a magic\r\nspear, and there had never yet been born a knight who could sit on his\r\nsaddle when it struck him. In the silent night they got on their horses and rode away, no longer a\r\nprincess and her nurse, but a gallant knight and a little old squire, who\r\nseemed to find his big shield much too heavy for him. Before Britomart and her nurse had ridden very far, they saw two knights\r\nriding towards them. These were Guyon and the Red Cross Knight. Guyon rode furiously at Britomart, but Britomart rode as furiously at him\r\nwith her magic spear. And, for the first time in his life, Guyon found\r\nhimself thrown from his horse and sitting heavily down on the ground. He\r\nwas very much ashamed and very angry, and would have rushed at Britomart\r\nwith his sword. But the old palmer, who was with him, calmed his rage, and\r\nhe made friends with Britomart. And for some time Britomart and those two\r\nbrave knights rode on together, and shared fights and adventures. One day as they rode together, Britomart asked the Red Cross Knight if he\r\nknew a wicked knight called Artegall. 'He is not a wicked knight,' said the Red Cross Knight angrily. 'He is one\r\nof the bravest and the best.'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Britomart was so glad to hear him say this of Artegall, that she could\r\nscarcely hide her joy. But she went on pretending that she thought\r\nArtegall bad and cruel, just that she might hear his friend praise him. 'There is no knight more brave than Artegall,' said the Red Cross Knight. 'Ladies who suffer wrong, and little children who have none to care for\r\nthem, are always sure of having Artegall to fight for them. He is as good\r\nas he is brave, and as brave as he is good.' Britomart loved the Red Cross Knight because he was so true to his friend,\r\nand more than ever she loved Artegall, the knight of the Mirror. Presently her way and that of the Red Cross Knight parted, and she rode on\r\nwith her squire until they came to the sea-shore. The sea was beating against the rocks, and moaning as it cast itself\r\nagainst the high crags. Britomart made her old nurse unlace her helmet, and sat down and watched\r\nthe cold grey waves. 'I feel like a little boat beaten about by the sea,' she said. 'When shall\r\nI ever reach my harbour, and find the knight I seek?' For a long time she sat, sadly thinking. But at last she saw a knight\r\ncantering along the sand, and quickly put on her helmet and leaped on her\r\nhorse, and rode to meet him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was a bold knight, and told her to fly, or he would kill her. '_Fly!_' proudly said Britomart. 'Words only frighten babies. I will not\r\nfly. I will fight you!' Then they fought, and with her spear Britomart gave the knight a terrible\r\nwound, and rode away, leaving him lying senseless on the shore. Many other fights had Britomart as she sought Artegall, and always her\r\nmagic spear made her the winner. One day she came to a place where a great many knights were having a\r\ntournament. A beautiful golden girdle, sparkling with jewels, was to be the prize for\r\nthe knight that fought the best. For three days they had fought and fought, until the ground was strewed\r\nwith broken spears and swords. On the last day of the tournament a stranger knight had appeared. His\r\narmour did not shine with silver and gold like those of the other knights,\r\nbut looked like an old tree all overgrown with moss. His horse was decked\r\nwith oak-leaves, and he carried a battered old shield. 'The Savage Knight,' the others called him, and they would have laughed at\r\nhim and his shabby armour, had he not fought so well. All day long he\r\nfought, and one knight after another he threw wounded or dead on the\r\nground. At sunset they feared him as they might have feared a fierce lion,\r\nand none dared stand against him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Just then Britomart rode up with her golden armour gleaming against the\r\nsunset sky. She couched her spear and rode at the Savage Knight, and threw him to the\r\nground. The other knights then all rode at her, but them, too, she threw down with\r\nher magic spear. So they had to own that Britomart was the victor, and had won the golden\r\ngirdle. Now the Savage Knight was not really a savage knight. He was no other than\r\nArtegall, the knight of the Crystal Ball. Artegall was so ashamed, and so angry with Britomart for having thrown him\r\nfrom his horse, that when the tournament was over, he rode away to a wood,\r\nthrough which he knew that Britomart must pass. 'The stranger knight with his magic spear shall fight me once again,' he\r\nangrily said, 'and this time he shall not be the victor.' Presently, as he sat under the trees, and watched his horse grazing, he\r\nsaw Britomart riding up, brave and fearless, in her golden armour. Artegall sprang on his horse, and furiously rode at Britomart with his\r\nsteel-headed lance. But, in the twinkling of an eye, he found himself\r\nlying on the turf, again unseated by the magic spear. He rushed at Britomart then with his sword, and cut and thrust at her so\r\nsavagely that her horse backed away from him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At last he struck a great\r\nblow at her head, and the sword, glancing down her armour, struck her\r\nhorse with such force on its back that it fell to the ground, and\r\nBritomart had to jump off. She threw aside her spear and furiously smote\r\nArtegall with her sword. She cut his armour through, and wounded him so\r\ndeeply that blood from his wound streamed to the ground. The blows from\r\nArtegall's sword fell on her like hail, but she struck him as fiercely as\r\nhe struck her. The grass got trampled down and stained with blood, yet\r\nstill they smote and thrust and smote again. At last Artegall grew very tired, and Britomart was more tired still. When\r\nArtegall saw how tired she was, he gathered up all his strength and struck\r\nher a terrific blow, hoping to kill her quite. But the blow only sheared\r\noff the front part of her helmet, and left her face uncovered. And as Artegall's arm rose again for another deadly stroke, it stopped\r\nshort in the air. For instead of the grim face of the fierce knight he\r\nthought he was fighting, there looked out a face that Artegall thought was\r\nthe loveliest he had ever seen. Britomart's cheeks were hot and pink, and her hair, that was so long that\r\nit reached her feet, had burst from its band and framed her fair face like\r\na golden frame. The sword slipped from Artegall's fingers to the ground."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He knelt at\r\nBritomart's feet and begged her to forgive him for having treated her so\r\nroughly. But Britomart was still angry with him for that last fierce stroke of his. 'Rise!' she said, 'or I shall kill you!' and she held her sword over his\r\nhead. But Artegall would not rise, but only prayed her the more earnestly to\r\nforgive him. Then the old nurse drew near and begged Britomart to have a truce. 'Rest yourself for a little,' she said, 'and let the Savage Knight rest\r\ntoo.' Britomart agreed, and the knight raised the front of his helmet that he\r\nmight breathe more freely. When Britomart saw his face, so handsome and so brave, she knew at once\r\nthat the Savage Knight that she had tried to kill was Artegall, the knight\r\nof the Mirror. Her arm dropped, and her sword fell from her hand. She tried to speak roughly to him, but her tongue would not say the words. Together they rode off to a castle, where they stayed till they were\r\nrested and their wounds were healed. And each day that they were together Artegall loved Britomart more and\r\nmore, until at last he could stay no longer silent, but told her that he\r\nloved her more than all the world. So it was that the beautiful princess Britomart found her husband, the\r\ngallant knight of the Magic Mirror."}
{"question": "", "answer": "IV\r\n\r\nTHE QUEST OF SIR GUYON\r\n\r\n\r\nLong ago, on the first day of every year, the Queen of the Fairies used to\r\ngive a great feast. On that day all the bravest of her knights came to her court, and when\r\npeople wanted help to slay a dragon or a savage beast, or to drive away a\r\nwitch or wicked fairy, they also came and told their stories. To one of those feasts there came an old palmer dressed in black. His hair\r\nwas grey, and he leaned heavily on his long staff. He told a sad tale of\r\nthe evil things done in his land by a wicked witch. The Faery Queen turned to Guyon, one of the bravest and handsomest of her\r\nyoung knights. 'You shall go with this old man and save his land,' she\r\nsaid to him. 'I am not worthy,' said Sir Guyon, 'but I will do your bidding and my\r\nbest.' So he rode away with the palmer. His good horse had never paced so slowly\r\nbefore, for Guyon made him keep step with the feeble old man. It was not possible to go far from the fairy court without having fights\r\nand adventures, but in every fight Guyon was the victor, because he\r\nlistened to what the good old palmer said, and did not think that he\r\nhimself knew better. One day they came to a wide river on which floated a little boat, all\r\ndecked out with green branches."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In it sat a fair lady, who sang and\r\nlaughed and seemed very happy and very gay. She was a servant of the\r\nwicked witch for whom Guyon was looking, but this Guyon did not know. She\r\noffered to ferry Guyon across the river, but she said there was no room in\r\nher boat for the palmer. Guyon thought she looked so pretty and merry, and so kind, that he gladly\r\nwent with her. Together they gaily sailed down the river. When the birds sang, she sang\r\nalong with them, and when little waves gurgled and laughed against the\r\nside of the boat, she laughed too. But soon Guyon found that she was not really good, and he loved her gay\r\nlaugh no longer, and presently left her and wandered on alone in the\r\nisland to which she had brought him. At last he came to a gloomy glen where trees and shrubs grew so thickly\r\nthat no sunlight could get in. Sitting there in the darkness he found a\r\nrough and ugly man. His face was tanned with smoke and his eyes were\r\nbleared. Great heaps of gold lay about him on every side. When he saw\r\nGuyon, he dashed in a great fright at his money, and began to try to pour\r\nit into a hole and hide it, lest Guyon should steal it from him. But Guyon ran quickly at him and caught him by the arm."}
{"question": "", "answer": "'Who are you,' he asked, 'who hide your money in this lonely place,\r\ninstead of using it rightly or giving it away?' To which the man answered, 'I am Mammon, the Money God. I am the greatest\r\ngod beneath the sky. If you will be my servant, all this money shall be\r\nyours. Or if this be not gold enough for you, a mountain of gold, ten\r\ntimes more than what you see, shall be your very own.' But Guyon shook his head. 'I want none of your gold,' said he. 'Fair shields, gay steeds, bright arms be my delight,\r\n  Those be the riches fit for an adventurous knight.' Then said the Money God, 'Money will buy you all those things. It can buy\r\nyou crowns and kingdoms.' 'Money brings wars and wrongs, bloodshed and bitterness,' said Guyon. 'You\r\nmay keep your gold.' The Money God grew angry then. 'You do not know what you refuse,' he said. 'Come with me and see.' Guyon the fearless followed him into the thickest of the bushes and down a\r\ndark opening in the ground. On and on they went through the darkness. Ugly things came and glared at\r\nthem, and owls and night ravens flapped their wings, but Guyon had no\r\nfear. At length they came to a huge cave whose roof and floor and walls were all\r\nof gold, but the gold was dimmed by dust and cobwebs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A light like the\r\nlight of the moon from behind a dark cloud showed Guyon great iron\r\nchests and coffers full of money, but the ground was strewn with the\r\nskulls and dry bones of men who had tried to get the gold, and who had\r\nfailed and perished there. [Illustration: Great heaps of gold lay about him on every side (page 47)]\r\n\r\n'Will you serve me now?' asked Mammon. 'Only be my servant, and all these\r\nriches shall be yours.' 'I will not serve you,' answered Guyon. 'I place a higher happiness before\r\nmy eyes.' Then Mammon led him into another room where were a hundred blazing\r\nfurnaces. Hideous slaves of the Money God blew bellows and stirred the flames, and\r\nladled out of huge caldrons on the fires great spoonfuls of molten gold. When they saw Guyon in his shining armour, they stopped their work and\r\nstared at him in fear and amazement. Never before had they seen any one\r\nwho was not as horrible and as ugly as themselves. Once again Mammon\r\noffered him the gold he saw, but again Guyon refused it. Then did he bring him to a place where was a gate of beaten gold. Through\r\nthis gate they passed, and Guyon found himself in a vast golden room,\r\nupheld by golden pillars that shone and sparkled with precious stones."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On a throne in this room sat a beautiful lady, dressed in clothes more\r\ngorgeous than any that the greatest king on earth ever wore. 'That is my daughter,' said Mammon. 'She shall be your wife, and all these\r\ntreasures that are too great to be counted shall be yours, if only you\r\nwill be my servant.' 'I thank you, Mammon,' said Guyon, 'but my love is given to another lady.' The Money God was full of rage, yet still he thought that he might win\r\nGuyon to his will. He took him to a garden where dark cypresses hung their\r\nheads over the flaming blossoms of poppies that made men sleep for ever,\r\nand where every sort of poisonous flower and shrub flourished richly. It\r\nwas called the Garden of Proserpine. The most beautiful thing in the garden was a great tree, thickly leaved\r\nand heavily hung with shining golden apples. The branches of the tree hung\r\ntheir golden fruit over a dark river. When Guyon went to the river's brink and looked in, he saw many men\r\nstruggling and moaning in the dark and fearful water. Some were trying to\r\ngrasp the fruit that hung just beyond their reach, and others were trying\r\nvainly to get out. 'You fool!' said Mammon, 'why do you not pick some of the golden fruit\r\nthat hangs so easily within your reach?'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Guyon, although for three long days and nights he had been without\r\nsleep and meat and drink in the dark land of the Money God, was too true\r\nand good a knight to do what Mammon wished. Had he picked the fruit, he\r\nwould have put himself in Mammon's power, and at once been torn into a\r\nthousand pieces. 'I will not take the fruit,' he said; 'I will not be your slave.' And then, for days and days, Guyon knew no more. When he came to himself and opened his eyes, he found that his head was\r\nresting on the knee of the good old palmer. After the witch's beautiful servant had rowed Guyon away, the palmer had\r\ntried and tried to find a means of crossing the river, until at last he\r\nsucceeded. Day after day he sought Guyon, until one day a fairy voice called to him,\r\nloud and clear, 'Come hither! hither! oh come hastily!' He hurried to the place from whence the voice came, and in the dark\r\nthicket where Mammon had sat and counted his gold, he found Guyon lying. A beautiful spirit with golden hair and shining wings of many colours,\r\nlike the wings of a lovely bird, sat by Guyon's side, keeping all enemies\r\nand evil things far from him. When Guyon felt able for the journey, he and the palmer went on with their\r\ntravels, and he had many fights and many adventures."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But ever after he had\r\nbeen tempted to be Mammon's slave and had resisted him, he was a better\r\nand a braver knight. All his battles ended in victories, and he helped all those who needed\r\nhelp, and at last he and the palmer reached the shore of the sea across\r\nwhich was the land of the wicked witch. They got a little boat, and a boatman to row them, and for two days they\r\nwere far out at sea. On the morning of the third day, Guyon and the others heard the sound of\r\nraging water. In the trembling light of the dawn that was spreading across\r\nthe sea they saw great waves casting themselves high into the sky. It was a gulf, called the Gulf of Greediness, and in its furious waves\r\nmany ships were wrecked. But the palmer steered so straight and well that\r\nhe guided the little boat without harm through the angry seas. On one side of the gulf was a great black rock where screaming seamews and\r\ncormorants sat and waited for ships to be wrecked. It was a magic rock,\r\nand the water round it tried to draw Guyon's boat against its ragged\r\nsides, that it might be smashed to pieces like the other boats and ships\r\nwhose broken fragments tossed up and down in the tide. But so wisely did the palmer steer, and so strongly did the boatman row,\r\nthat they safely passed the magic rock and got into calm water."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And still\r\nthe boatman rowed so hard that the little boat cut through the water like\r\na silver blade, and the spray dashed off the oars into Guyon's face. 'I see land!' at last called Guyon. On every side they saw little islands. When they got nearer they found\r\nthat they looked fresh and green and pleasant. Tall trees with blossoms of\r\nwhite and red grew on them. 'Let us land!' cried Guyon. But the boatman shook his head. 'Those are the Wandering Islands,' he said. 'They are magic islands, and\r\nif any one lands on one of them he must wander for ever and ever.' On one island sat a beautiful lady, with her long hair flowing round her. She beckoned and called to them to come on shore, and when they would not\r\nlisten she jumped into a little boat and rowed swiftly after them. Then Guyon saw that it was the wicked witch's beautiful servant, and they\r\ntook no notice of her. So she got tired of coaxing, and went away, calling\r\nthem names. A terrible whirlpool, where the waves rushed furiously round and round,\r\nwas the next danger that they met. Then, when they were free of that, a\r\ngreat storm arose, and every fierce and ugly fish and monster that ever\r\nlived in the sea came rushing at the boat from out the foaming waves,\r\nroaring as if they were going to devour them. 'Have no fear,' said the palmer to Guyon."}
{"question": "", "answer": "'These ugly shapes were only\r\nmade by the wicked witch to frighten you.' With his palmer's staff he smote the sea. The waves sank down to rest,\r\nand all the ugly monsters vanished away. When the storm had ceased they saw on an island a lady, who wept and\r\nwailed and cried for help. Guyon, who was always ready to help those who wanted help, wished at once\r\nto go to her. But the palmer would not let him. 'She is another of the servants of the witch,' he said, 'and is only\r\npretending to be sad.' They came then to a peaceful bay that lay in the shadow of a great grey\r\nhill, and from it came the sweetest music that Guyon had ever heard. Five beautiful mermaids were swimming in the clear green water, and the\r\nmelody of their song made Guyon long to stop and listen. They had made\r\nthis song about Guyon:\r\n\r\n  'O thou fair son of gentle fairy,\r\n  Thou art in mighty arms most magnified\r\n  Above all knights that ever battle tried. O! turn thy rudder hitherward awhile,\r\n  Here may thy storm-beat vessel safely ride. This is the port of rest from troublous toil,\r\n  The world's sweet inn from pain and wearisome turmoil.' The rolling sea gently echoed their music, and the breaking waves kept\r\ntime with their voices."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The very wind seemed to blend with the melody and\r\nmake it so beautiful that Guyon longed and longed to go with them to their\r\npeaceful bay under the grey hill. But the palmer would not let him stop,\r\nand the boatman rowed onwards. Then a thick, choking, grey mist crept over the sea and blotted out\r\neverything, and they could not tell where to steer. And round the boat\r\nflew great flocks of fierce birds and bats, smiting the voyagers in their\r\nfaces with wicked wings. Still the boatman rowed steadily on, and steadily the palmer steered, till\r\nthe weather began to clear. And, when the fog was gone, they saw at last\r\nthe fair land to which the Faerie Queen had sent Guyon, that he might save\r\nit from the magic of the wicked witch. When they reached the shore the boatman stayed with his boat, and Guyon\r\nand the palmer landed. And the palmer was glad, for he felt that their\r\ntask was nearly done. Savage, roaring beasts rushed at them as soon as they reached the shore. But the palmer waved his staff at them, and they shrank trembling away. Soon Guyon and his guide came to the palace of the witch. The palace was made of ivory as white as the foam of the sea, and it\r\nglittered with gold. At the ivory gate stood a young man decked with\r\nflowers, and holding a staff in his hand."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He impudently held out a great\r\nbowl of wine for Guyon to drink. But Guyon threw the bowl on the ground,\r\nand broke the staff with which the man worked wicked magic. Then Guyon and the palmer passed on, through rich gardens full of\r\nbeautiful flowers, and came to another gate made of green boughs and\r\nbranches. Over it spread a vine, from which hung great bunches of grapes,\r\nred, and green, and purple and gold. A beautiful lady stood by the gate. She reached up to a bunch of purple\r\ngrapes, and squeezed their juice into a golden cup and offered it to\r\nGuyon. But Guyon dashed the cup to the ground, and left her raging at him. Past trees and flowers and clear fountains they went, and all the time\r\nthrough this lovely place there rang magic music. Sweet voices, the song\r\nof birds, the whispering winds, the sound of silvery instruments, and the\r\nmurmur of water all blended together to make melody. The farther they went, the more beautiful were the sights they saw, and\r\nthe sweeter the music. At last, lying on a bed of red roses, they found the wicked witch. Softly they crept through the flowery shrubs to where she lay, and before\r\nshe knew that they were near, Guyon threw over her a net that the palmer\r\nhad made. She struggled wildly to free herself, but before she could\r\nescape, Guyon bound her fast with chains."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then he broke down and destroyed the palace, and all the things that had\r\nseemed so beautiful, but that were only a part of her wicked magic. As Guyon and the palmer led the witch by her chains to their boat that\r\nwaited by the shore, the fierce beasts that had attacked them when they\r\nlanded came roaring at them again. But the palmer touched each one with his staff, and at once they were\r\nturned into men. For it was only the witch's magic that had made them\r\nbeasts. One of them, named Gryll, who had been a pig, was angry with the\r\npalmer, and said he had far rather stay a pig than be a man. 'Let Gryll be Gryll, and have his hoggish mind,\r\n  But let us hence depart whilst weather serves and wind,'\r\n\r\nsaid the palmer. So they sailed away to the fairy court, and gave their wicked prisoner to\r\nthe queen to be punished. And Sir Guyon was ready once again to do the Faerie Queen's commands, to\r\nwar against all evil things, and to fight bravely for the right. V\r\n\r\nPASTORELLA\r\n\r\n\r\nLong, long ago, in a far-away land, there lived a great noble, called the\r\nLord of Many Islands. He had a beautiful daughter named Claribel, and he\r\nwished her to marry a rich prince. But Claribel loved a brave young knight, and she married him without her\r\nfather's knowledge."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The Lord of Many Islands was fearfully angry when he found out that she\r\nwas married. He threw the young knight into one dark dungeon and Claribel into another,\r\nand there they were imprisoned for years and years, until the Lord of Many\r\nIslands was dead. Claribel was rich then, and she and her husband would\r\nhave been very happy together, but for a great loss that they had had. While she was in prison a little baby girl came to Claribel. She feared\r\nthat her angry father might kill the baby if he knew that it had been\r\nborn, so she gave it to her maid, and told her to give it to some one to\r\ntake care of. The maid carried the child far away to where there were no houses, but\r\nonly wild moors and thick woods. There was no one there to give it to, but\r\nshe dared not take it back in case its grandfather might kill it. She did\r\nnot know what to do, and she cried and cried until the baby's clothes were\r\nquite wet with her tears. It was a very pretty baby, and the maid noticed that on its little breast\r\nthere was a tiny purple mark, as if some one had painted on it an open\r\nrose. She drew its clothes over the mark, and then laid the baby gently\r\ndown behind some green bushes, and went home crying bitterly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When the baby found herself lying out in the cold with no one to care for\r\nher, she cried too. And she cried so loudly and so long, that a shepherd\r\ncalled Meliboeus heard her cries, and came to see what was wrong. When he found the beautiful baby, he wrapped her in his warm cloak and\r\ncarried her home to his wife. From that day the baby was their little\r\ngirl. They called her Pastorella, and loved her as if she were really\r\ntheir own. Pastorella grew up amongst shepherds and shepherdesses, yet she was never\r\nquite like them. None of the shepherdesses were as beautiful as she was,\r\nand none were as gentle nor as full of grace. So they called Pastorella\r\ntheir queen, and would often crown her with garlands of flowers. When Pastorella was grown up, there came one day to the country of plains\r\nand woods where she lived a brave and noble knight. His name was Calidore, and of all the knights of the Faerie Queen there\r\nwas none so gentle nor so courteous as he. He always thought of others\r\nfirst, and never did anything that he thought would hurt the feelings of\r\nany one. Yet he was brave and strong, and had done many gallant deeds. He was hunting a monster that had done much harm, when he came near the\r\nhome of Pastorella."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sheep were grazing on the plain, and nibbling the golden buds that the\r\nspring sunshine had brought to the broom. Shepherds were watching the\r\nsheep. Some were singing out of the happiness of their hearts, because of\r\nthe blue sky and the green grass and the spring flowers. Others were\r\nplaying on pipes they had made for themselves out of the fresh young\r\nwillow saplings. Calidore asked them if they had seen the monster that he sought. 'We have seen no monster, nor any dreadful thing that could do our sheep\r\nor us harm,' they answered, 'and if there be such things, we pray they may\r\nbe kept far from us.' Then one of them, seeing how hot and tired Sir Calidore was, asked him if\r\nhe would have something to drink and something to eat. Their food was very\r\nsimple, but Calidore thanked them, and gladly sat down to eat and drink\r\nalong with them. A little way from where they sat, some shepherds and shepherdesses were\r\ndancing. Hand in hand, the pretty shepherdesses danced round in a ring. Beyond them sat a circle of shepherds, who sang and piped for the girls to\r\ndance. And on a green hillock in the middle of the ring of girls sat\r\nPastorella. She wore a dainty gown that she herself had made, and on her\r\nhead was a crown of spring flowers that the shepherdesses had bound\r\ntogether with gay silken ribbons."}
{"question": "", "answer": "'Pastorella,' sang the shepherds and the girls, 'Pastorella is our queen.' Calidore sat and watched. And the more he looked at Pastorella, the more\r\nhe wanted to look. And he looked, and he looked, and he looked again at\r\nPastorella's sweet and lovely face, until Pastorella had stolen all his\r\nheart away. He forgot all about the monster he was hunting, and could only\r\nsay to himself, as the shepherds had sung, 'Pastorella ... Pastorella ...\r\nPastorella is my queen.' All day long he sat, until the evening dew began to fall, and the sunset\r\nslowly died away, and the shepherds called the sheep together and drove\r\nthem home. As long as Pastorella was there, Calidore felt that he could not move. But\r\npresently an old man with silver hair and beard, and a shepherd's crook in\r\nhis hand, came and called to Pastorella, 'Come, my daughter, it is time to\r\ngo home.' It was Meliboeus, and when Calidore saw Pastorella rise and call her sheep\r\nand turn to go, he did not know what to do, for he could only think of\r\nPastorella. But when good old Meliboeus saw the knight being left all alone, and the\r\nshadows falling, and the trees looking grey and cold, he said to him, 'I\r\nhave only a little cottage, turfed outside to keep out the wind and wet,\r\nbut it is better to be there than to roam all night in the lonely woods,\r\nand I bid you welcome, Sir Knight.'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "[Illustration: In the middle of the ring of girls sat Pastorella (page\r\n63)]\r\n\r\nAnd Calidore gladly went with him, for that was just what he was longing\r\nto do. All evening, as he listened to the talk of Meliboeus, who was a wise and\r\ngood old man, Calidore's eyes followed Pastorella. He offered Meliboeus\r\nsome gold to pay for his lodging, but Meliboeus said, 'I do not want your\r\ngold, but, if you will, stay with us and be our guest.' So, day after day, Calidore stayed with the shepherds. And, day after day,\r\nhe loved Pastorella more. He treated her and said pretty things to her as\r\nknights were used to treat and to speak to the court ladies. But\r\nPastorella was used to simpler things, and liked the simple things best. When Calidore saw this, he laid aside his armour and dressed himself like\r\na shepherd, with a crook instead of a spear. Every day he helped\r\nPastorella to drive her sheep to the field, and took care of them and\r\ndrove away the hungry wolves, so that she might do as she liked and never\r\nhave any care, knowing that he was there. Now, one of the shepherds, whose name was Corydon, for a long time had\r\nloved Pastorella. He would steal the little fluffy sparrows from their\r\nnests, and catch the young squirrels, and bring them to her as gifts."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He\r\nhelped her with her sheep, and tried in every way he knew to show her that\r\nhe loved her. When he saw Calidore doing things for Pastorella he grew very jealous and\r\nangry. He sulked and scowled and was very cross with Pastorella. One day when the shepherd who piped the best was playing, the other\r\nshepherds said that Calidore and Pastorella must dance. But Calidore put\r\nCorydon in his place, and when Pastorella took her own garland of flowers\r\nand placed it on Calidore's head, Calidore gently took it off and put it\r\non Corydon's. Another time, when the shepherds were wrestling, Corydon challenged\r\nCalidore to wrestle with him. Corydon was a very good wrestler, and he\r\nhoped to throw Calidore down. But in one minute Calidore had thrown\r\nCorydon flat on the ground. Then Pastorella gave the victor's crown of\r\noak-leaves to Calidore. But Calidore said 'Corydon has won the oak-leaves\r\nwell,' and placed the crown on Corydon's head. All the shepherds except Corydon soon came to like Calidore, for he was\r\nalways gentle and kind. But Corydon hated him, because he thought that\r\nPastorella cared for Calidore more than she cared for him. One day Pastorella and Corydon and Calidore went together to the woods to\r\ngather wild strawberries."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Pastorella's little fingers were busy picking\r\nthe ripe red fruit from amongst its fresh green leaves, when there glided\r\nfrom out the bushes a great beast of black and yellow, that walked quietly\r\nas a cat and had yellow, cruel eyes. It was a tiger, and when Pastorella heard a twig break under its great\r\npads, and looked up, it rushed at her fiercely. Pastorella screamed for\r\nhelp, and Corydon, who was near her, ran to see what was wrong. But when\r\nhe saw the savage tiger, he ran away again in a fearful fright. Calidore\r\nwas further off, but he, too, ran, and came just in time to see the tiger\r\nspring at Pastorella. He had no sword nor spear, but with his shepherd's\r\ncrook he struck the tiger such a terrific blow, that it dropped, stunned,\r\nto the ground. Before it could rise, he drew his knife and cut off its\r\nhead, which he laid at Pastorella's feet. From that day Pastorella loved Calidore, and he and she were very, very\r\nhappy together. It chanced that one day Calidore went far into the forest to hunt the\r\ndeer. While he was away a band of wicked robbers attacked the shepherds. They killed many of them, and took the rest prisoners. They burned down\r\nall their cottages, and stole their flocks of sheep. Amongst those that they drove away as captives were Meliboeus and his\r\nwife, Corydon, and Pastorella."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Through the dark night they drove them on,\r\nuntil they came to the sea. On an island near the coast was the robbers'\r\nhome. The island was covered with trees and thick brushwood, and the\r\nrobbers lived in underground caves, so well hidden amongst the bushes that\r\nit was hard to find them. The robbers meant to sell the shepherds and\r\nshepherdesses as slaves, but until merchants came to buy them they kept\r\ntheir prisoners in the darkest of the caves, and used them very cruelly. One morning the robber captain came to look at his captives. When he saw\r\nPastorella in her pretty gown, all soiled now and worn, with her long\r\ngolden hair and beautiful blue eyes, and her face white and thin with\r\nsuffering, he thought her so lovely that he determined to have her for his\r\nwife. From that day she was kindly treated. But when the robber told Pastorella\r\nthat he loved her and wanted her for his wife, she pretended she was ill.\r\n\r\n'I am much too ill to marry any one,' she said. To the island there came one day the ships of some merchants who wished to\r\nbuy slaves. They bought Meliboeus and Corydon and all the others. Then one\r\nof the robbers said to the captain:\r\n\r\n'They are all here but the fair shepherdess.' And he told the merchants that Pastorella would make a much more beautiful\r\nslave than any of those they had bought. Then the captain was very angry."}
{"question": "", "answer": "'She belongs to me,' he said. 'I will not sell her.' To show the merchants that Pastorella was ill and not fit to be a slave,\r\nat last he sent for her. The cave was lighted only by flickering candles, and Pastorella's fair\r\nface looked like a beautiful star in the darkness. Although she was so\r\npale, she was so beautiful that the merchants said that they must\r\ncertainly have her. 'I have told you I will not sell her,' said the captain sulkily. They offered him much gold, but still he would only say, 'I will not sell\r\nher.' 'If you will not sell this slave,' said the merchants, 'we will not buy\r\nany of the others.' Then the other robbers grew very angry with their captain, and tried to\r\ncompel him to give in. 'I shall kill the first who dares lay a hand on her!' furiously said the\r\ncaptain, drawing his sword. Then began a fearful fight. The candles were knocked down, and the robbers\r\nfought in the dark, no man knowing with whom he fought. But before the candles went out, the robbers in their fury killed all\r\ntheir prisoners, lest they might take the chance of escaping, or fight\r\nagainst them. Old Meliboeus and his wife were slain, and all the other\r\nshepherds and shepherdesses, excepting Corydon and Pastorella. Corydon, who was always good at running away, escaped in the darkness. The robber captain put Pastorella behind him, and fought for her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At last\r\nhe was stabbed through the heart and fell dead. The sword that killed him\r\npierced Pastorella's arm, and she, too, fell down in a faint. When she opened her eyes the robbers who were left had stopped fighting,\r\nand had lighted the candles, and were counting their dead and wounded. When she saw her dear father and mother and her friends lying cold and\r\nstill beside her, she began to sob and cry. As soon as the robbers knew\r\nthat she lived, they thrust her back into the darkest of their caves. The\r\nmost cruel of all the robbers was her gaoler. He would not allow her to\r\nbind up her wound, and he gave her scarcely anything to eat or to drink. He would not even let her rest, and so, in pain and hunger and sadness,\r\nPastorella passed her weary nights and days. Now when Calidore got back from his hunting, he expected to hear the\r\nshepherds' pipes, and their songs, and the bleating of the sheep, and to\r\nsee Pastorella in her dainty gown and with flowers in her golden hair\r\ncoming to meet him. Instead of that, the place which had been so gay was sad and silent. The\r\ncottages were smouldering black ruins, and there was no living creature\r\nthere. Calidore wildly sought everywhere for some trace of Pastorella. But when\r\nhe sought her in the woods and called 'Pastorella ... Pastorella ...',\r\nonly the trees echoed 'Pastorella.'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the plains he sought her, but they\r\nlay silent and lonely under the stars, and they, too, only echoed\r\n'Pastorella ... Pastorella....'\r\n\r\nWeek after week he searched for her, until one day he saw a man running\r\nacross the plain. The man's hair was standing up on his head as if he were\r\nin a terrible fright, and his clothes were in rags. When he got near, Calidore saw that it was Corydon. 'Where is Pastorella?' eagerly asked Calidore. Corydon burst into tears. 'Ah, well-a-day,' he said, 'I saw fair Pastorella die!' He then told Calidore all about the robbers' raid, and all that had\r\nhappened in that dreadful cave. Only one thing he did not know. He did not\r\nknow that Pastorella was alive. He had seen her fall down, and he thought\r\nthat she was dead. So Calidore's heart was nearly broken, and he vowed a vow that he would\r\nnot rest until he had punished the wicked men who had killed Pastorella. He made Corydon come with him to show him the way to the robbers' island. At first Corydon was too frightened to go, but at last Calidore persuaded\r\nhim. Together they set off, dressed like shepherds. But although Calidore\r\ncarried only a shepherd's crook, under his smock he wore his steel armour. When at last they had reached the island, they found some sheep grazing,\r\nand knew them for some of those that had belonged to Meliboeus."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When\r\nCorydon saw the sheep he had taken care of in the days when he was most\r\nhappy, he began to cry. But Calidore comforted him, and they went on to where some robber\r\nshepherds lay asleep in the shade. Corydon wanted to kill them as they\r\nslept, but Calidore had other plans, and would not let him. He awoke them, and they talked together. The robbers told him that they\r\ndid not care to look after sheep, but liked better to fight and rob and\r\nkill. When Calidore and Corydon said that they would help them to keep the\r\nsheep, the robbers were glad. All day they stayed with the flocks, and at\r\nnight the robbers took them home to their dark caves. There Calidore and\r\nCorydon heard news that made them glad, but made Calidore the more glad,\r\nfor he loved Pastorella more than Corydon had ever done. They learned that Pastorella was alive. And so, day after day, they went on with their work, and waited and\r\nwatched for a chance to set Pastorella free. One night when the robbers had been away all day stealing and killing, and\r\nwere all very tired, Calidore knew that the time had come to try to save\r\nPastorella. Corydon was too frightened to go with him. So all alone, at dead of night,\r\nCalidore went to the cave where the new robber captain, Pastorella's\r\ngaoler, slept."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Calidore had managed to get a little sword belonging to a\r\nrobber, but he had nothing else to fight with. When he came to the cave, he found the door fastened. He put his strong\r\nshoulder against it, and burst the door in. The crash awoke Pastorella's\r\ngaoler, and he ran to see what it was. With one blow of his sword Calidore\r\nkilled him. Then he called, till his voice rang through the gloomy cave,\r\n'_Pastorella!_'\r\n\r\nPastorella heard the noise, and lay trembling lest some new dreadful thing\r\nhad come upon her. But when, again and again, Calidore called her name,\r\nher heart jumped for joy, and she ran out of the darkness right into her\r\ntrue knight's arms. And Calidore threw his arms about her, and kissed her\r\na thousand times. The robbers had waked up, hearing the crash of the door, and the yell of\r\nthe robber as he died, and Calidore's cry of 'Pastorella.' Like a swarm of\r\nangry wasps they flocked to the door of the cave, but in the doorway stood\r\nCalidore with his sword, and slew every man who dared to try to kill him. He slew and slew until the doorway was blocked with dead bodies. Then\r\nthose robbers that still lived were afraid to touch him, and went away to\r\nrest until morning."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Calidore also rested, and when daylight came he found amongst the dead\r\nrobbers a better sword than the one he already had, and with that in his\r\nhand he walked out of the cave. The robbers were lying in wait for him, and rushed at him from every side\r\nwhen he appeared. But Calidore was like a lion in a herd of deer. With his sharp sword he\r\nthrust and smote, until the robbers who did not lie dead around him fled\r\nin terror, and hid themselves in their caves. Then Calidore went back to where he had left Pastorella, and cheered and\r\ncomforted her. Together they went through the robbers' caves, and took the\r\nrichest of their treasures of gold and precious jewels. All the sheep they\r\ngave to Corydon, who gladly drove them away. Then Calidore took Pastorella to the castle of one of his friends, a noble\r\nknight, whose gentle wife was called Claribel. Calidore had to go to hunt the monster that he was pursuing when he first\r\nmet the shepherds, so he left Pastorella with the knight and his lady. Pastorella was so gentle and beautiful that they loved her for her own\r\nsweet sake, as well as for Calidore's, and cared for her as if she was\r\ntheir own daughter. An old woman who had always been Claribel's maid was given as maid to\r\nPastorella. One morning as this woman helped her to dress, she noticed on Pastorella's\r\nwhite breast a curious little mark."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was as if some one had painted on\r\nthe fair skin a tiny purple rose with open petals. The old woman ran to\r\nher mistress, Claribel. 'Your baby lives!' she cried; 'the little baby I left crying under the\r\ngreen bushes is the beautiful Pastorella who is to marry Sir Calidore!' Claribel ran to Pastorella's room, and looked at the little rose, and\r\nasked many questions. And when Pastorella had answered her, she was quite\r\nsatisfied that she was indeed the baby-girl for whom her heart had been so\r\nhungry through all those years. 'My daughter, my daughter, that I mourned as dead!' she sobbed, as she\r\nheld Pastorella in her arms and kissed her again and again. When the knight knew that he was Pastorella's father, he was as glad as\r\nClaribel. So they lived happily together until Calidore had slain the\r\nmonster and come back to marry Pastorella. Then instead of Pastorella, the shepherd's daughter, with her little\r\ndainty gown and her wreath of wildflowers, he found a Pastorella in\r\njewels, and silks, and satins, who was the daughter of a great knight and\r\nhis lady, and grand-daughter of the Lord of Many Islands. Yet the Pastorella who married brave Sir Calidore was evermore Pastorella,\r\nthe simplest and sweetest bride that any knight ever brought to the court\r\nof the Faerie Queen."}
{"question": "", "answer": "VI\r\n\r\nCAMBELL AND TRIAMOND\r\n\r\n\r\nOnce upon a time a fairy had a lovely daughter called Cambina, and three\r\nsons who were born on the same day. The eldest son she named Priamond, the second Diamond, and the third\r\nTriamond. Priamond was very stout and big, but he could not strike hard. Diamond\r\nstruck very hard, but he was little and thin. But Triamond was tall and\r\nstout and strong as well. Priamond used to fight on foot. Triamond fought on horseback. But Diamond\r\ncould fight equally well on a horse or off it. Triamond fought with a spear and shield. Diamond fought with a battle-axe. But Priamond could fight just as well with an axe as he could with a spear\r\nand shield. Their fairy mother was so fond and so proud of her gallant sons, that she\r\ncould not bear to think of one of them dying. So she went to see three witches called the Three Fates, who lived in a\r\ndark place underground, and worked at their spinning-wheels day and night. She asked the Fates to let her sons have long, long lives. That they would\r\nnot promise, but they promised that if Priamond died first, all his\r\nstrength should go into the other two. And if Diamond should then die, all\r\nhis strength and Priamond's were to go into their brother Triamond. Priamond, Diamond, and Triamond loved each other very dearly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When they\r\ngrew up and all fell in love with the same lady, it did not make them less\r\ngood friends. The name of this lady was Canacee. She was very beautiful, and was the\r\ncleverest lady in all that land. She knew all about birds and beasts and\r\nplants and flowers, and was as witty as she was wise. Many knights wished to marry her, and these knights were so jealous of\r\neach other that they were constantly fighting about her. Canacee had a brother named Cambell, a wise young knight, who was sorry to\r\nsee how often the knights fought with each other about his sister. One day, when they were all gathered together, Cambell told them that\r\nhe had made a plan by which they could decide which of them was to marry\r\nCanacee. [Illustration: She asked the Fates to let her sons have long, long lives\r\n(page 80)]\r\n\r\n'Choose from amongst yourselves,' said he, 'the three knights that you all\r\nthink the bravest and the best fighters, and I shall fight them, one by\r\none. The knight who beats me shall have my sister Canacee for his wife.' Now all the knights knew that Canacee had given her brother a magic ring,\r\nand that, as long as he wore it, no matter how deep a wound he got, the\r\nwound would not bleed, and he would not die. 'It is very well for Cambell,' they said. 'We cannot kill him, but he can\r\nkill us.'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "So they would not fight, even to win Canacee. But the three brothers, Priamond, Diamond, and Triamond, were not afraid. 'We will fight with you, Cambell,' they said, 'for all of us love\r\nCanacee.' So a day was fixed for this great fight. On the morning of the day, no\r\nsooner was it light than the three brothers in their shining armour were\r\nready on the field. Crowds of people came to watch the fight, and there\r\nwere six judges to see that the knights fought fairly. Canacee, in a\r\nbeautiful dress, sat on a high platform whence she could see all that went\r\non. When Cambell strode into the field, he looked as if he were quite sure\r\nof defeating all three knights. Then came Priamond, Diamond, and Triamond, marching together, in splendid\r\narmour, with their gay-coloured banners flying. They bowed low before Canacee, the lady they loved, and the trumpets\r\nsounded and sweet music played. Then a trumpet blew loudly, and Cambell and stout Priamond began to fight. Furiously they struck at each other, and at last Priamond's spear went\r\nthrough Cambell's shoulder. But although the shoulder was pierced, and the\r\npain from the wound was terrible, not a single drop of blood fell from it. So they fought and fought, until Cambell's spear was driven through brave\r\nPriamond's neck. Like a great oak-tree that the storm has struck, Priamond\r\ntottered, then fell with a mighty crash. There, on the ground, he lay\r\nbleeding and dead."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When he died, all his strength passed into his two brothers, as the Three\r\nFates had promised to his fairy mother. A second time the trumpet sounded, and slight little Diamond, his\r\nbattle-axe in his hand, fiercely rushed at Cambell. So furiously did they hew and hack at each other, that their armour was\r\ncut and gashed as if it had been rotten wood. No blood flowed from\r\nCambell's wounds, but Diamond's blood gushed fast, and reddened the green\r\nturf. Fierce little Diamond grew tired at last of hacking and hewing and yet\r\nnever killing Cambell. So he put all his strength into one terrible\r\nstroke, and swung his axe round with all his might. Had the blow reached\r\nCambell it must have chopped his head in two, but Cambell swerved aside. Diamond had used so much force, that when he missed his aim his foot\r\nslipped. Cambell took the chance, let drive at him with all his power, and\r\nwith his axe cut Diamond's head clean off. For a moment Diamond's headless body stood still. Then gallant little\r\nDiamond fell dead on the ground. As he fell, all his strength, and the\r\nstrength of Priamond, went into Triamond, the youngest brother. Then Triamond, stronger and more angry than he had ever been before,\r\nlightly sprang up from where he had sat to watch the fight. His strokes fell like hail on Cambell's armour."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He struck, he thrust, he\r\nhewed, he hacked, till the sparks flew from his sword like the shining\r\ndrops that are dashed from a waterfall. Sometimes Triamond seemed to be winning; sometimes Cambell. The blood\r\ngushed from Triamond's wounds, till he grew faint. But although Cambell\r\nwas covered with wounds the magic ring stopped his blood from flowing, so\r\nthat he grew no less strong. When he saw Triamond growing weak, he smote\r\nhim in the throat with all his might, and Triamond fell down as if he were\r\ndead. But Triamond did not die. From the fearful wound all the strength that had\r\nbelonged to his brother Priamond ebbed away. Still he had his own strength\r\nand Diamond's strength left. So he rose up again, and Cambell, who had thought him dead, was so amazed\r\nthat Triamond gave him a hard stroke before he had time to defend himself. Then Cambell fought with more care, and seemed rather to try to save\r\nhimself than to try to kill Triamond. Triamond, seeing this, thought that\r\nCambell must be tired, and that he could easily beat him now. With that\r\nhe whirled up his sword to give a fearful blow. But Cambell, quick as\r\nlightning, thrust his sword under Triamond's upraised arm, so that it\r\npassed right through his body and came out at the other side."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Even then\r\nthe blow that Triamond struck was such a terrible one, that it cut through\r\nCambell's steel helmet and gashed open his head, and he fell senseless to\r\nthe ground. Triamond, too, fell down, and out of his wound all Diamond's strength\r\nebbed away. When those who looked on saw this, they thought that the fight was at an\r\nend, because the fighters all lay dead. Canacee began to cry because her brother and the brave knight who loved\r\nher were slain. But in a moment both knights rose to their feet again. Those who watched could not believe their eyes when they saw them begin to\r\nfight as fiercely as before. While every one stared in wonder and in fear, because they knew that soon\r\nthe knights must surely kill each other, a loud noise suddenly drowned the\r\nclash of weapons. It was a sound as of women and boys shouting and screaming in a panic. Cambell and Triamond stopped their fight for an instant to listen and to\r\nlook at the place from whence the noise came. They saw a golden chariot, decked with wonderful ornaments, whirling\r\ntowards them with the force of a storm. Two fierce lions drew the chariot,\r\nand in it sat a lady, whose face shone with beauty and goodness. It was Triamond's sister, Cambina, who knew more about magic than almost\r\nany one else in all Fairyland."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When the crowds who watched saw her and her growling lions, they huddled\r\ntogether like frightened sheep. Some laughed, most of them screamed, and\r\nall of them ran till the dust flew up in clouds. In one hand Cambina carried a magic wand with two serpents twisted round\r\nit. In the other she held a golden cup filled with a magic drink, that\r\nmade those who drank of it forget all anger and bitterness, and filled\r\ntheir hearts with happiness and friendship and peace. When Cambina came to the wooden barrier that shut off the watchers from\r\nthe field where the knights had fought, she softly struck the rail with\r\nher wand. It flew open, and the lions dashed in with Cambina's glittering chariot. She got out of her chariot and ran up to the two knights, and begged them\r\nto fight no more. But they would not listen, and began to fight again. Then she knelt on the bloodstained ground, and besought them with tears to\r\nlay down their swords. When they still went fiercely on, she smote them\r\nlightly with her magic wand. Their swords fell to the ground, and while they stared at each other in\r\nwonder, Cambina handed them her golden cup. They were so hot and thirsty\r\nthat they gladly drank. And, as they drank, all anger went out of their\r\nhearts, and love for each other took its place. They kissed, and shook\r\nhands, and vowed that they would be friends for evermore."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When the people saw this, they shouted and cheered for gladness till all\r\nthe air rang. And Canacee ran down from her platform and kissed Cambina, who had stopped\r\nthe fearful fight and made Canacee's brother and her lover friends. Then the trumpets sounded, and Cambina took Canacee into her chariot\r\nbeside her, and the lions galloped off to Canacee's palace. And all the\r\npeople thought how beautiful were these two lovely ladies, whose faces\r\nwere fresh as morning roses and radiant with happiness. Cambell and Canacee gave a great feast that lasted for days and days. And Triamond married Canacee, and Cambell married Cambina, and they all\r\nlived happily and peacefully ever afterwards. VII\r\n\r\nMARINELL, THE SEA-NYMPH'S SON\r\n\r\n\r\nSometimes when the sun is rising on the sea and making the waves all pink\r\nand gold, the sailors whose boats are sailing out of the grey night fancy\r\nthat they see fair ladies floating on the white crests of the waves, or\r\ndrying their long yellow hair in the warm sunshine. Sometimes poets who wander on the beach at night, or sit on the high\r\ncliffs where the sea-pinks grow, see those beautiful ladies playing in the\r\nsilver moonlight. And musicians hear them singing, singing, singing, till their songs\r\nsilence the sea-birds harsh cry, and their voices blend with the swish and\r\nthe rush of the sea and the moan of the waves on the shore."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The sailors tell stories of them, and the musicians put their songs into\r\ntheir hearts. But the poets write poems about them, and say:--\r\n\r\n  'There are no ladies so fair to see as the nymphs whose father is a king. Nereus is their father, and they are the Nereids. Their home is under the sea; as blue as the sea are their eyes. Their long, long hair is yellow like sand. Their silver voices are like lutes, and they steal men's hearts away.' Long, long ago, one of these nymphs became the wife of a brave knight, who\r\nfound her sleeping amongst the rocks and loved her for her beauty. Cymoënt\r\nwas her name, and the other nymphs called her Cymoënt the Black Browed,\r\nbecause dark lashes and eyebrows shaded her sea-blue eyes. The knight and the nymph had a son as strong and as brave as his father,\r\nand as beautiful as his mother, and Cymoënt called him Marinell. 'My son must be richer than any of the knights who live on the land,' said\r\nCymoënt to the king her father. 'Give him riches.' So the sea-king told the waves to cast on the shore riches that they had\r\nstolen from all the ships that had ever been wrecked. And the waves\r\nstrewed the strand with gold and amber and ivory and pearls, and every\r\nsort of jewel and precious stone."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The shore sparkled and shone with Marinell's riches, and no one dared\r\ntouch them, for Marinell had beaten a hundred knights in battle, and\r\nfought every man who dared venture to ride along these sands. Cymoënt feared that as Marinell had won so many fights, he might grow\r\nreckless and get killed. Now Neptune, who was king of all the seas, had a\r\nshepherd who could tell what was going to happen in the future. 'Tell me,' Cymoënt said to him, 'how long my Marinell will live, and from\r\nwhat dangers he must take most care to keep away.' 'Do not let him go near any women,' said the Shepherd of the Seas. 'I can\r\nsee that a woman will either hurt him very much, or kill him altogether.' So Cymoënt warned her son never to go near any woman. And many ladies were\r\nsad because handsome Marinell would not speak to them, and the lovely lady\r\nFlorimell was the saddest of all. One day as Marinell proudly rode along the glittering sand, he saw a\r\nknight in armour that shone as brightly as the gold that the little waves\r\nhad kissed. 'I am Lord of the Golden Strand!' said Marinell angrily, 'how dare the\r\nknight ride on the shore that is all my own!' He rode furiously up, and told the knight to fly. But the knight was Britomart, the fair lady with a man's armour and a\r\nman's heart."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She scorned his proud words, and smote him with her magic\r\nspear. And Britomart rode away, leaving Marinell lying as if he were dead. His red blood stained his armour, and reddened the little waves that crept\r\nup to see what was wrong. The water washed over his feet. 'He is asleep,' said the little waves. 'We will wake him.' But Marinell lay cold and still, and the blood dripped and dripped on to\r\nthe golden sand. Then the waves grew frightened, and the sea-birds screamed, '_Marinell is\r\ndead, is dead_ ... _dead_ ... _dead_....'\r\n\r\nSo the news came to his mother Cymoënt. Cymoënt and her sisters were\r\nplaying by a pond near the sea, round which grew nodding yellow daffodils. They were picking the daffodils and making them into garlands for their\r\nfair heads, when they heard the message of the birds, '_Marinell is dead,\r\ndead, dead_.' Cymoënt tore the daffodils from her hair, and fell on the ground in a\r\nfaint. All her sister nymphs wailed and wept and threw their gay flowers\r\naway, and Cymoënt lay with white face, and her head on the poor, torn\r\ndaffodils. [Illustration: But the knight was Britomart, the fair lady with a man's\r\narmour and a man's heart (page 92)]\r\n\r\nAt last she came out of her faint, and asked for her chariot, and all her\r\nsisters sent for their chariots too."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A team of dolphins drew the chariot of Cymoënt, and they were trained so\r\nwell that they cut through the water as swiftly as swallows, and did not\r\neven leave a track of white foam behind. Other fishes drew the chariots of\r\nthe other nymphs, and Neptune, King of all the Seas, was so sorry for the\r\nsorrow of Cymoënt and the other Nereids, that he told his waves to be\r\ngentle, and let them pass peacefully to where Marinell lay on the golden\r\nstrand. When they got near where he lay, they got out of their chariots, for they\r\nfeared that the dolphins and other fishes might get bruised and hurt by\r\nthe rocks and pebbles on the shore. And with their strong white arms they\r\nswiftly swam to where Marinell lay, still and silent in his blood. When Cymoënt saw her son's white face, she fainted again, and when she had\r\nrecovered from her faint, she cried and moaned so bitterly, that even the\r\nhard rocks nearly wept for sorrow. She and her sisters carefully looked at Marinell's wound, and one of them,\r\nwho knew much about healing, felt his pulse, and found that a little life\r\nwas still left in him. With their soft, silver-fringed mantles they wiped\r\nthe blood from the wound, and poured in soothing balm and nectar, and\r\nbound it up. Then they strewed Cymoënt's chariot with flowers, and lifted\r\nMarinell gently up, and laid him in it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And the dolphins, knowing to go\r\nquietly and swiftly, swam off with Cymoënt and Marinell to Cymoënt's bower\r\nunder the sea. Deep in the bottom of the sea was the bower. It was built of hollow waves,\r\nheaped high, like stormy clouds. In it they laid Marinell, and hastily\r\nsent for the doctor of all the folk under the sea, to come and try to cure\r\nthe dreadful wound. So clever and so wise was this doctor, that soon the\r\nnymphs could laugh and sport again because Marinell was well. But Cymoënt was afraid that some other harm might come to him if he went\r\non to the land. So she made him stay beside her, under the sea, until\r\nMarinell grew tired of doing nothing. He longed to gallop away on his\r\nhorse, his sword clanking by his side, and see the green woods and grey\r\ntowers of the land, instead of idling away the hours in a bower under the\r\nsea, where there was nothing for him to do, but to watch the fishes of\r\nsilver and blue and red, as they chased each other through the forests of\r\nseaweed. One day two great rivers were married, and all the sea-folk went to the\r\nwedding. A feast was given in the house of the Shepherd of the Seas, and\r\nwhile Cymoënt and the other nymphs were there, Marinell wandered about\r\noutside."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For because Marinell's father had been a knight and not one of\r\nthe sea-folk, Marinell might not eat the food they ate. While the feast went gaily on, Marinell heard piteous cries coming from\r\nunder a black cliff. And when he listened, he knew that the voice was the\r\nvoice of Florimell. The wicked old Shepherd of the Seas had found her tossing on the waves in\r\na little boat, and had taken her home to his deep-down caves to make her\r\nhis wife. But Florimell did not love the old man. She loved only\r\nMarinell. So nothing that the shepherd could do would make Florimell say\r\nthat she would marry him. At last, in a rage, he shut her up in a gloomy\r\nplace under a dark rock, where no sunshine ever came. 'She will soon grow tired of the dark and the loneliness,' he thought,\r\n'and then she will give in, and become my wife.' But Florimell would not give in. She was crying and sobbing when Marinell\r\ncame to the rock, and he heard her say, 'Marinell, Marinell, all this I\r\nsuffer for love of thee.' Marinell stood still and listened. Then he heard her say:--\r\n\r\n  'In spite of all this sorrow, yet will I never of my love repent,\r\n  But joy that for his sake I suffered prisonment.' Then she gave yet more pitiful sobs, for she was very sad and cold and\r\nhungry."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Yet always she would say again, between her sobs, 'I will never\r\nlove any man but Marinell.' Now Marinell had never in all his life truly loved any one. But when he\r\nheard Florimell's piteous voice, and knew how she loved him, and how much\r\nshe had suffered for his sake, his heart, that had been so hard, grew\r\nsoft. 'Poor little maid,' he said to himself, 'poor, beautiful little\r\nFlorimell.' No sooner had he begun to love Florimell, than he began to think of a plan\r\nby which to save her from the bad old shepherd. At first, he thought he would ask the shepherd to let her go. But he knew\r\nthat that would be no good. Then he thought that he would fight with the\r\nshepherd, and win her in that way. But that plan he also gave up. 'I will\r\nbreak into her prison, and steal her away,' he thought next. But he had no\r\nboat, and the sea flowed all round the rock, so that it was not possible. While he still thought and planned, the marriage-feast came to an end, and\r\nMarinell had to go home with his mother. He looked so miserable that no\r\none would have taken him for a wedding-guest. Each day that passed after the wedding found him looking more and more\r\nsad. He could not eat nor sleep for thinking of Florimell, shut up in a\r\ndreary dungeon from which he could not free her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For want of sleep and\r\nfood, and because he was so unhappy, Marinell grew ill. He was so weak\r\nthat he could not rise, and his mother, Cymoënt, was greatly distressed. 'The wound he got from Britomart cannot be rightly healed,' she said. So\r\nshe sent for the wise doctor of the seas. 'The old wound is quite whole,' said the doctor. 'This is a new pain which\r\nI cannot understand.' Then Cymoënt sent for a doctor who was so wise and so great that he was\r\nchief of all the doctors on the land. When he had examined Marinell he\r\nsaid, 'The name of this illness is Love.' Then Cymoënt begged Marinell to tell her which of the sea-nymphs it was\r\nthat he loved. 'Whoever she is that you love,' she said, 'I shall help you to gain her\r\nfor your wife.' So Marinell told his mother that it was no nymph of the sea that had given\r\nhis heart a deeper wound than ever Britomart's spear had dealt. 'I love Florimell,' he said, 'and she lies, a dreary prisoner, in the\r\ndarkest cave of the Herd of the Seas.' At first Cymoënt was sorry, for she did not wish her son to wed a maiden\r\nfrom the land. But when she knew how much Marinell loved Florimell, she\r\nwent to Neptune, the King of all the Seas, as he sat on his throne, his\r\nthree-pronged mace in his hand, and his long hair dripping with brine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To him she told all the tale of Marinell and Florimell and the wicked old\r\nshepherd. And Neptune wrote a royal warrant, and sealed it with the seal of the Sea\r\nGods, commanding his shepherd to give up Florimell at once to Cymoënt the\r\nsea-nymph. Thankfully Cymoënt took the warrant, and swiftly swam to the shepherd's\r\nsea-caves. The shepherd was very angry, but all the sea-folk had to obey Neptune, so\r\nhe sulkily opened the prison door and let Florimell go free. When the black-browed Cymoënt took hold of the little white hand of the\r\nmaiden her son loved, and looked on her lovely face, she was no longer\r\nsorry that Marinell did not wish to marry a sea-nymph. For no maiden in\r\nthe sea was as beautiful or as sweet as Florimell. She led Florimell to her bower, where Marinell lay so pale and weak and\r\nsad. And when Marinell saw Florimell standing blushing beside him, her\r\nhand in his mother's, all his sadness went away and his strength came\r\nback, and the pain in his heart was cured. And if you listen some night when the stars are out, and the moon has made\r\na silver path on the sea, you will hear the little waves that swish on the\r\nshore softly murmuring a little song."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And perhaps, if your ears are very\r\nquick, and the big waves' thunder does not drown the sound of their\r\nmelody, you may hear them whispering the names of two happy lovers,\r\nFlorimell and Marinell. VIII\r\n\r\nFLORIMELL AND THE WITCH\r\n\r\n\r\nIn Fairyland, where all the knights are brave, and all the ladies\r\nbeautiful, the lady who was once the most beautiful of all was called\r\nFlorimell. Many knights loved Florimell and wished to marry her. But Florimell loved\r\nonly one, and he was Marinell, the son of a sea-nymph and a fairy knight\r\nAnd Marinell loved no one, not even Florimell. Marinell was a bold knight, who had no sooner fought one fight than he was\r\nready for another. One day there was brought to the court news of his latest fight. Britomart, the maiden who feared no one, and who wore man's armour and\r\ncarried a magic spear, had fought with Marinell, and Marinell was dead. So\r\nsaid they who brought the news. 'What will Florimell do?' whispered the court ladies, one to the other. And all the knights were sad at heart for beautiful Florimell. When Florimell was told what had befallen Marinell, she rose up from where\r\nshe sat. 'I go to find him,' she said. 'Living or dead, I will find Marinell.' Florimell had long, long golden hair. Florimell's eyes were blue as the\r\nsky, and her cheeks were pink, like the sweetest rose in the garden. A\r\ncirclet of gold and jewels crowned her head."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She mounted her snow-white\r\npalfrey with its trappings of gold, and rode away through the green woods\r\nto look for Marinell. Four days she rode, but she did not find him. On the fourth day, as she\r\npassed through a lonely forest, a wicked robber saw her. He rode after her\r\nwith his heavy boar-spear, and drove his spurs into the sides of his tired\r\nhorse till the blood ran down. When Florimell saw him, she made her palfrey gallop. Off it flew, like the\r\nwind, with the thud of the other horse's hoofs and the crash of branches\r\nto urge it on. Florimell's golden hair flew behind her, till it looked like the shining\r\ntrack of a shooting star. Her face was white, and her frightened eyes\r\nshone like crystal. Some knights who saw her flash through the trees on her white palfrey,\r\nlike a streak of light, thought that she must be a spirit. [Illustration: Florimell's golden hair flew behind her (page 102)]\r\n\r\nBut when they saw the ugly robber on his panting horse, they knew that he\r\nwas real enough. They rode hard after him, and frightened him so much that\r\nhe hid himself in the thickest part of the forest. Florimell passed the knights without seeing them. And even after the\r\nrobber had ceased to follow her, she fancied that she heard his rough\r\nvoice and the thud of his horse's hoofs, and made her white palfrey go\r\nfaster and yet more fast."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At last, as the palfrey tossed its head in its stride, it jerked the reins\r\nfrom out her tired little hands, and went on where it pleased. All through the night they fled. The wild deer ran, startled, before them,\r\nand all the other beasts of the woods wondered at the sight of a white\r\npalfrey that galloped where it would under the grey boughs of the forest,\r\ncarrying a lady whose hair gleamed like gold in the light of the stars. When rosy dawn had come, the horse stopped at last, too tired to do\r\nanything but stand and pant with foam-flecked mouth and heaving sides. Then Florimell got off his back and coaxed him slowly on. When they had wandered thus for hours, they came to a hill that shaded a\r\nthickly wooded valley. Over the tops of the tall trees in the valley\r\nFlorimell saw a little blue curl of smoke. Glad at heart to think of\r\nfinding a shelter and resting-place for her horse and herself, she led her\r\npalfrey towards it. In a gloomy glen she found a little cottage built of sticks and reeds and\r\nturf. A wicked, ugly old witch and her wicked, ugly son lived in this hut. When Florimell came to the door, the old woman was sitting on the dusty\r\nfloor, busy with some of her evil magic."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When she looked up and saw\r\nbeautiful Florimell, with her golden hair, and her face like a drooping\r\nwhite lily, she got a great fright. For she thought that Florimell was a\r\ngood spirit come to punish her for all the bad things she had done. But Florimell, with tears trickling down and making her face look like a\r\nlily in the dew, begged her, in gentle, pleading words, to give her\r\nshelter. And so gentle and beautiful and sorrowful was Florimell, that, for the\r\nfirst time in the whole of her wicked life, the old witch felt some pity\r\nin her cruel heart. She told Florimell not to cry, and bade her sit down\r\nand rest. So Florimell sat down on the dusty floor and rested, as a little\r\nbird rests after a storm. She tried to tidy her robes that were rent by\r\nthe branches and briars through which she had passed, and she smoothed her\r\nhair, and arranged her sparkling jewels. The old hag sat and stared at her, and could not say a word, so much did\r\nshe marvel at Florimell's wondrous beauty. When it was midday, the witch's son came in. At the sight of Florimell he\r\nwas as frightened as his mother had been, and stared in wonder and in\r\nfear. But Florimell spoke to them both so gently and so kindly that soon\r\nthey no longer feared her. She stayed with them in the wretched little hut for some time."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And in that\r\ntime the witch's son came to love her, and to long to have her for his\r\nwife. He tried to do everything that he thought would please her. He would\r\nbring her from the woods the rosiest of the wild apples, and the prettiest\r\nof the wildflowers he made into garlands for her hair. He caught young\r\nbirds and taught them to whistle the tunes she liked, and young squirrels\r\nhe caught and tamed and gave to her. But Florimell feared both him and his wicked old mother. When her palfrey\r\nhad rested, and grazed on the grass in the glen until it was quite strong\r\nonce more, at daybreak one morning she put its golden trappings on again\r\nand rode away. She shivered at each shadow, and trembled at each sound,\r\nbecause she was so afraid that the witch or her son would follow her. But these two wicked people slept until it was broad daylight and\r\nFlorimell was far away. When they awoke and found her gone, they were\r\nfuriously angry, and the witch's son was so frantic that he scratched his\r\nown face and bit himself, and tore at his rough long hair. 'I shall bring her back, or else kill her!' said the witch. Then she went to a dark cave, and called out of it a horrible beast like a\r\nhyena. Its back was speckled with a thousand colours, and it could run\r\nfaster than any other beast."}
{"question": "", "answer": "'Fetch Florimell back to me!' said the witch, 'or else tear her in\r\npieces!' Off the beast rushed, and before long it saw Florimell on her white horse\r\nriding through the trees. There was no need to make the palfrey gallop when it saw the hideous beast\r\nwith long, soft strides coming swiftly after it. The white palfrey went as\r\nfast as a race-horse, but the beast went as fast as the wind. As they came\r\nout of the forest, the beast's hot breath was close behind Florimell. And\r\nby that time her horse was so tired that its pace slackened. They had come\r\nto where there were no more trees, and in front of them lay yellow sand,\r\nand a long, long stretch of blue-green sea. When Florimell saw the sea,\r\nshe leaped from her tired horse and ran and ran. 'I had rather be drowned,' she thought, 'than be killed by that loathsome\r\nmonster.' Now, an old fisherman had been drying his nets on the sand, and while they\r\ndried he slept in the bottom of his little boat, that lay heaving gently\r\nup and down in the shallows. When Florimell saw this boat, she ran towards it and jumped in, and, with\r\nan oar, pushed it off into deeper water. The beast got to the water's edge\r\njust too late, for it was afraid of the sea and dared not follow her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In a\r\nrage it fell upon the white palfrey and tore it in pieces, and was eating\r\nit when a good knight who knew Florimell passed that way. He knew that the\r\nwhite horse was Florimell's, so he attacked the beast, and cut it and\r\nstruck it so furiously with his sword that all its strength was beaten out\r\nof it and he could easily have killed it. But the knight thought that he\r\nwould rather catch the strange beast and lead it home with him. Lying on the sand near the dead white palfrey, he saw a golden girdle that\r\nsparkled with jewels, and that he had seen worn by Florimell. With this\r\ngirdle he bound the beast, and led it after him like a dog. As he led it,\r\nhe met a wicked giantess, and while he fought with her the beast escaped\r\nand ran away back to the witch's hut. When the witch saw Florimell's jewelled girdle she was glad, for she\r\nthought that the beast must have killed Florimell. She ran with it to her\r\nson, but the sight of it, without Florimell, made him so angry that he\r\ntried to kill both the beast and his mother. The witch was so frightened\r\nthat she set all her magic to work, to try to comfort her son. With snow\r\nand mercury and wax she made an image as like Florimell as she could."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Its\r\ncheeks were rosy, like Florimell's, and she took two little burning lamps\r\nand put them in silver sockets, so that they looked just like Florimell's\r\nbright eyes. Her hair she made of the very finest golden wire. She dressed\r\nthe image in some clothes that Florimell, in her flight, had left behind\r\nher, and round its waist she fastened Florimell's jewelled girdle. Then\r\nshe put a wicked fairy inside the image, and told him to do his very best\r\nto act and to talk and to walk like Florimell. This image she then led to\r\nher son, and he thought it was the real Florimell come back, and was\r\ndelighted. The false Florimell was not afraid of him as the real Florimell\r\nhad been, and would walk in the woods with him, and listen, quite pleased,\r\nto all that he had to say. But as they were in the forest one day, a bad knight saw them, and thought\r\nthe false Florimell so beautiful that he seized her and rode away with\r\nher, and left the witch's son more sad and angry than ever. When the real Florimell had escaped from the beast, the little boat that\r\nshe pushed off from the shore went gaily sailing onward and onward with\r\nthe tide. They were far out at sea when the old fisherman awoke. He got a\r\ngreat fright when he found himself far from the shore, and with a lovely\r\nlady beside him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he was a very bad old man, and when he saw\r\nFlorimell's fine jewels and beautiful clothes he thought he would rob her. He knocked her down into the bottom of his boat amongst the fishes'\r\nscales, and might have killed her, had not Florimell screamed and screamed\r\nfor help. There was no ship near, and the waves and the sea-birds could\r\nnot help her. But it chanced that the shepherd of all the flocks in the sea was driving\r\nhis chariot that way. He was an old man with long white hair and beard. Sometimes on a stormy day one may see him far out at sea, as he drives his\r\nflocks that look from far away like snowy froth and foam. When the shepherd saw the wicked fisherman struggling with Florimell, he\r\nbeat the old robber so hard with his staff that there soon was very little\r\nlife left in him. Then he lifted Florimell, all tearful and trembling,\r\ninto his chariot. When she could only cry, he gently kissed her. But his\r\nlips were frosty cold, and icicles from his long white beard dropped on to\r\nher breast and made her shiver. He took her to his home in a hollow rock at the bottom of the sea, and he\r\nasked her to be his wife. 'I cannot marry you,' said Florimell. 'I do not love you. My only love is\r\nMarinell.'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then the cunning old shepherd by magic made himself look like a fairy\r\nknight, and thought that Florimell would love him. 'I do not love you. I love Marinell,' still was Florimell's answer. He then tried to frighten Florimell and make her marry him, whether she\r\nwould or not. He turned himself into dreadful shapes--giants, and all\r\nsorts of animals and monsters. He went inside the waves, and made\r\nterrifying storms rage. But nothing that he might do would make Florimell\r\nconsent to marry him. At last he imprisoned her in a dark cavern. 'She will soon tire of that, and then she will marry me,' said he to\r\nhimself. But Florimell said the more, 'I love only Marinell. I am glad to suffer,\r\nbecause I suffer for Marinell's dear sake.' She might have died there, and been buried under the sea-flowers of\r\nscarlet and green, and had the gay little fishes dart over her grave, and\r\nnone might ever have known. But, by happy chance, Marinell came that way. He heard her voice coming\r\nout of her prison far beneath the sea, like the echo of a sad song, and\r\nsuddenly he knew that he loved her. The sea-nymph, his mother, told Neptune, King of the Seas, that his\r\nshepherd had imprisoned a beautiful maiden in his darkest cave, and begged\r\nhim to set Florimell free, that she might become Marinell's wife. So Florimell was set free at last, and all her troubles were ended."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Marinell took her away from the kingdom under the sea back to Fairyland,\r\nand they were married in a castle by the golden strand. Every beautiful\r\nlady and every brave knight in Fairyland was there. They had tournaments\r\nevery day, and each knight fought for the lady he thought the most\r\nbeautiful and loved the best. Marinell was victor in every fight but one, and in this he was beaten by\r\nanother brave knight. This knight had on his shield a device of a blazing\r\nsun on a golden field. When he had fought and won the prize, this shield was stolen from him by\r\nthe wicked knight who had run away with the false Florimell. No one could\r\nsee the faces of the knights, for their helmets covered them. So when the\r\nwicked knight came forward, carrying the blazing shield, and pretended\r\nthat he had won the prize, Florimell, who was queen of the revels, handed\r\nhim the victor's garland, and praised him for having fought so well. 'I did not fight for you!' roughly answered the knight. 'I would not fight\r\nfor you! I fight for one more beautiful.' Florimell blushed for shame, but before any one could answer him, the\r\nknight drew forward the false Florimell and threw back her veil. And even Marinell could not tell that she was not his own beautiful bride\r\nthat he loved so dearly, so exactly like the real Florimell had the witch\r\nmade the image."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Just then the knight whose shield had been stolen pushed through the\r\ncrowd. 'You false coward with your borrowed plumes!' he cried. 'Where is the\r\nsword you pretend that you fought with? Where are your wounds?' With that he showed his own bloody sword, and his own bleeding wounds, and\r\nevery one knew that the wicked knight had lied when he said that it was he\r\nwho had won the fight. 'This is not the real Florimell!' said the brave knight of the blazing\r\nshield, pointing at the image. 'It is a wicked fairy, who is a fit mate\r\nfor this base coward. Bring forward Florimell the bride, and let us see\r\nthem side by side!' So Florimell, blushing till her face looked like a nosegay of roses and\r\nlilies, was led forward, and stood beside the image of herself. But no\r\nsooner did she come near the image, than the image melted away, and\r\nvanished altogether. Nothing of it was left but the girdle of gold and\r\njewels that Florimell had lost on the day she escaped from the witch's\r\nhut. And this the brave knight picked up, and clasped round Florimell's\r\nwaist. The wicked knight had his armour taken from him, and was beaten\r\nuntil he ran howling away. And Florimell, the fairest lady in all Fairyland, lived happily ever after\r\nwith her gallant husband, Marinell, the Lord of the Golden Strand."}
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{"question": "", "answer": "The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortunes of Nigel, by Sir Walter Scott\r\n\r\nThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with\r\nalmost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or\r\nre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included\r\nwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org\r\n\r\n\r\nTitle: The Fortunes of Nigel\r\n\r\nAuthor: Sir Walter Scott\r\n\r\n\r\nRelease Date: June, 2004 [EBook #5950]\r\nThis file was first posted on September 24, 2002\r\nLast Updated: February 27, 2018\r\n\r\nLanguage: English\r\n\r\nCharacter set encoding: UTF-8\r\n\r\n*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL ***\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nProduced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the\r\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nTHE FORTUNES OF NIGEL\r\n\r\nBy Sir Walter Scott\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nA Tale Which Holdeth Children From Play & Old Men From The Chimney\r\nCorner --Sir Philip Sidney\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nINTRODUCTION\r\n\r\n  But why should lordlings all our praise engross? Rise, honest man, and sing the Man of Ross."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Pope\r\n\r\nHaving, in the tale of the Heart of Mid-Lothian, succeeded in some\r\ndegree in awakening an interest in behalf of one devoid of those\r\naccomplishments which belong to a heroine almost by right, I was next\r\ntempted to choose a hero upon the same unpromising plan; and as worth of\r\ncharacter, goodness of heart, and rectitude of principle, were necessary\r\nto one who laid no claim to high birth, romantic sensibility, or any of\r\nthe usual accomplishments of those who strut through the pages of this\r\nsort of composition, I made free with the name of a person who has left\r\nthe most magnificent proofs of his benevolence and charity that the\r\ncapital of Scotland has to display. To the Scottish reader little more need be said than that the man\r\nalluded to is George Heriot. But for those south of the Tweed, it may\r\nbe necessary to add, that the person so named was a wealthy citizen of\r\nEdinburgh, and the King's goldsmith, who followed James to the English\r\ncapital, and was so successful in his profession, as to die, in 1624,\r\nextremely wealthy for that period."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had no children; and after making\r\na full provision for such relations as might have claims upon him, he\r\nleft the residue of his fortune to establish an hospital, in which the\r\nsons of Edinburgh freemen are gratuitously brought up and educated for\r\nthe station to which their talents may recommend them, and are finally\r\nenabled to enter life under respectable auspices. The hospital in which\r\nthis charity is maintained is a noble quadrangle of the Gothic order,\r\nand as ornamental to the city as a building, as the manner in which the\r\nyouths are provided for and educated, renders it useful to the community\r\nas an institution. To the honour of those who have the management, (the\r\nMagistrates and Clergy of Edinburgh), the funds of the Hospital have\r\nincreased so much under their care, that it now supports and educates\r\none hundred and thirty youths annually, many of whom have done honour to\r\ntheir country in different situations. The founder of such a charity as this may be reasonably supposed to have\r\nwalked through life with a steady pace, and an observant eye, neglecting\r\nno opportunity of assisting those who were not possessed of the\r\nexperience necessary for their own guidance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In supposing his\r\nefforts directed to the benefit of a young nobleman, misguided by the\r\naristocratic haughtiness of his own time, and the prevailing tone\r\nof selfish luxury which seems more peculiar to ours, as well as the\r\nseductions of pleasure which are predominant in all, some amusement,\r\nor even some advantage, might, I thought, be derived from the manner in\r\nwhich I might bring the exertions of this civic Mentor to bear in his\r\npupil's behalf. I am, I own, no great believer in the moral utility\r\nto be derived from fictitious compositions; yet, if in any case a word\r\nspoken in season may be of advantage to a young person, it must surely\r\nbe when it calls upon him to attend to the voice of principle and\r\nself-denial, instead of that of precipitate passion. I could not,\r\nindeed, hope or expect to represent my prudent and benevolent citizen\r\nin a point of view so interesting as that of the peasant girl, who\r\nnobly sacrificed her family affections to the integrity of her moral\r\ncharacter. Still however, something I hoped might be done not altogether\r\nunworthy the fame which George Heriot has secured by the lasting\r\nbenefits he has bestowed on his country."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It appeared likely, that out of this simple plot I might weave something\r\nattractive; because the reign of James I., in which George Heriot\r\nflourished, gave unbounded scope to invention in the fable, while at the\r\nsame time it afforded greater variety and discrimination of character\r\nthan could, with historical consistency, have been introduced, if the\r\nscene had been laid a century earlier. Lady Mary Wortley Montague has\r\nsaid, with equal truth and taste, that the most romantic region of every\r\ncountry is that where the mountains unite themselves with the plains or\r\nlowlands. For similiar reasons, it may be in like manner said, that the\r\nmost picturesque period of history is that when the ancient rough and\r\nwild manners of a barbarous age are just becoming innovated upon, and\r\ncontrasted, by the illumination of increased or revived learning, and\r\nthe instructions of renewed or reformed religion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The strong contrast\r\nproduced by the opposition of ancient manners to those which are\r\ngradually subduing them, affords the lights and shadows necessary to\r\ngive effect to a fictitious narrative; and while such a period entitles\r\nthe author to introduce incidents of a marvellous and improbable\r\ncharacter, as arising out of the turbulent independence and ferocity,\r\nbelonging to old habits of violence, still influencing the manners of\r\na people who had been so lately in a barbarous state; yet, on the other\r\nhand, the characters and sentiments of many of the actors may, with\r\nthe utmost probability, be described with great variety of shading and\r\ndelineation, which belongs to the newer and more improved period, of\r\nwhich the world has but lately received the light. The reign of James I. of England possessed this advantage in a peculiar\r\ndegree. Some beams of chivalry, although its planet had been for some\r\ntime set, continued to animate and gild the horizon, and although\r\nprobably no one acted precisely on its Quixotic dictates, men and women\r\nstill talked the chivalrous language of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia; and\r\nthe ceremonial of the tilt-yard was yet exhibited, though it now only\r\nflourished as a Place de Carrousel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Here and there a high-spirited\r\nKnight of the Bath, witness the too scrupulous Lord Herbert of Cherbury,\r\nwas found devoted enough to the vows he had taken, to imagine himself\r\nobliged to compel, by the sword's-point, a fellow-knight or squire\r\nto restore the top-knot of ribbon which he had stolen from a fair\r\ndamsel;[Footnote: See Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Memoirs.] but yet,\r\nwhile men were taking each other's lives on such punctilios of honour,\r\nthe hour was already arrived when Bacon was about to teach the world\r\nthat they were no longer to reason from authority to fact, but to\r\nestablish truth by advancing from fact to fact, till they fixed an\r\nindisputable authority, not from hypothesis, but from experiment. The state of society in the reign of James I. was also strangely\r\ndisturbed, and the license of a part of the community was perpetually\r\ngiving rise to acts of blood and violence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The bravo of the Queen's day,\r\nof whom Shakspeare has given us so many varieties, as Bardolph, Nym,\r\nPistol, Peto, and the other companions of Falstaff, men who had their\r\nhumours, or their particular turn of extravaganza, had, since the\r\ncommencement of the Low Country wars, given way to a race of sworders,\r\nwho used the rapier and dagger, instead of the far less dangerous sword\r\nand buckler; so that a historian says on this subject, “that private\r\nquarrels were nourished, but especially between the Scots and English;\r\nand duels in every street maintained; divers sects and peculiar titles\r\npassed unpunished and unregarded, as the sect of the Roaring Boys,\r\nBonaventors, Bravadors, Quarterors, and such like, being persons\r\nprodigal, and of great expense, who, having run themselves into debt,\r\nwere constrained to run next into factions, to defend themselves\r\nfrom danger of the law. These received countenance from divers of the\r\nnobility; and the citizens, through lasciviousness consuming their\r\nestates, it was like that the number [of these desperadoes] would rather\r\nincrease than diminish; and under these pretences they entered into many\r\ndesperate enterprizes, and scarce any durst walk in the street after\r\nnine at night. [Footnote: history of the First Fourteen Years of King\r\nJames's Reign. See Somers's Tracts, edited by Scott, vol. ii. p.266.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "The same authority assures us farther, that “ancient gentlemen, who had\r\nleft their inheritance whole and well furnished with goods and chattels\r\n(having thereupon kept good houses) unto their sons, lived to see part\r\nconsumed in riot and excess, and the rest in possibility to be utterly\r\nlost; the holy state of matrimony made but a May-game, by which divers\r\nfamilies had been subverted; brothel houses much frequented, and even\r\ngreat persons, prostituting their bodies to the intent to satisfy their\r\nlusts, consumed their substance in lascivious appetites. And of\r\nall sorts, such knights and gentlemen, as either through pride or\r\nprodigality--had consumed their substance, repairing to the city, and to\r\nthe intent to consume their virtue also, lived dissolute lives; many\r\nof their ladies and daughters, to the intent to maintain themselves\r\naccording to their dignity, prostituting their bodies in shameful\r\nmanner. Ale-houses, dicing-houses, taverns, and places of iniquity,\r\nbeyond manner abounding in most places.”\r\n\r\nNor is it only in the pages of a puritanical, perhaps a satirical\r\nwriter, that we find so shocking and disgusting a picture of the\r\ncoarseness of the beginning of the seventeenth century."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the contrary,\r\nin all the comedies of the age, the principal character for gaiety and\r\nwit is a young heir, who has totally altered the establishment of\r\nthe father to whom he has succeeded, and, to use the old simile, who\r\nresembles a fountain, which plays off in idleness and extravagance\r\nthe wealth which its careful parents painfully had assembled in hidden\r\nreservoirs. And yet, while that spirit of general extravagance seemed at work over\r\na whole kingdom, another and very different sort of men were gradually\r\nforming the staid and resolved characters, which afterwards displayed\r\nthemselves during the civil wars, and powerfully regulated and affected\r\nthe character of the whole English nation, until, rushing from one\r\nextreme to another, they sunk in a gloomy fanaticism the splendid traces\r\nof the reviving fine arts. From the quotations which I have produced, the selfish and disgusting\r\nconduct of Lord Dalgarno will not perhaps appear overstrained; nor will\r\nthe scenes in Whitefriars and places of similar resort seem too highly\r\ncoloured. This indeed is far from being the case. It was in James I. 's\r\nreign that vice first appeared affecting the better classes in its\r\ngross and undisguised depravity. The entertainments and amusements of\r\nElizabeth's time had an air of that decent restraint which became the\r\ncourt of a maiden sovereign; and, in that earlier period, to use the\r\nwords of Burke, vice lost half its evil by being deprived of all its\r\ngrossness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In James's reign, on the contrary, the coarsest pleasures\r\nwere publicly and unlimitedly indulged, since, according to Sir John\r\nHarrington, the men wallowed in beastly delights; and even ladies\r\nabandoned their delicacy and rolled about in intoxication. After a\r\nludicrous account of a mask, in which the actors had got drunk, and\r\nbehaved themselves accordingly, he adds, “I have much marvelled at these\r\nstrange pageantries, and they do bring to my recollection what passed of\r\nthis sort in our Queen's days, in which I was sometimes an assistant and\r\npartaker: but never did I see such lack of good order and sobriety as I\r\nhave now done. The gunpowder fright is got out of all our heads, and we\r\nare going on hereabout as if the devil was contriving every man should\r\nblow up himself by wild riot, excess, and devastation of time and\r\ntemperance. The great ladies do go well masqued; and indeed, it be the\r\nonly show of their modesty to conceal their countenance, but alack, they\r\nmeet with such countenance to uphold their strange doings, that I marvel\r\nnot at aught that happens.” [Footnote: Harrington's Nugae Antique, vol. ii. p. 352."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For the gross debauchery of the period, too much encouraged\r\nby the example of the monarch, who was, in other respects, neither\r\nwithout talent nor a good-natured disposition, see Winwood's Memorials,\r\nHowell's Letters, and other Memorials of the time; but particularly,\r\nconsult the Private Letters and Correspondence of Steenie, _alias_\r\nBuckingham, with his reverend Dad and Gossip, King James, which abound\r\nwith the grossest as well as the most childish language. The learned Mr.\r\nD'Israeli, in an attempt to vindicate the character of James, has\r\nonly succeeded in obtaining for himself the character of a skilful and\r\ningenious advocate, without much advantage to his royal client]\r\n\r\nSuch being the state of the court, coarse sensuality brought along with\r\nit its ordinary companion, a brutal degree of undisguised selfishness,\r\ndestructive alike of philanthropy and good breeding; both of which, in\r\ntheir several spheres, depend upon the regard paid by each individual\r\nto the interest as well as the feelings of others. It is in such a time\r\nthat the heartless and shameless man of wealth and power may, like the\r\nsupposed Lord Dalgarno, brazen out the shame of his villainies, and\r\naffect to triumph in their consequences, so long as they were personally\r\nadvantageous to his own pleasures or profit. Alsatia is elsewhere explained as a cant name for Whitefriars, which,\r\npossessing certain privileges of sanctuary, became for that reason a\r\nnest of those mischievous characters who were generally obnoxious to the\r\nlaw."}
{"question": "", "answer": "These privileges were derived from its having been an establishment\r\nof the Carmelites, or White Friars, founded says Stow, in his Survey\r\nof London, by Sir Patrick Grey, in 1241. Edward I. gave them a plot of\r\nground in Fleet Street, to build their church upon. The edifice then\r\nerected was rebuilt by Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, in the reign of\r\nEdward. In the time of the Reformation the place retained its immunities\r\nas a sanctuary, and James I. confirmed and added to them by a charter\r\nin 1608. Shadwell was the first author who made some literary use of\r\nWhitefriars, in his play of the Squire of Alsatia, which turns upon the\r\nplot of the Adelphi of Terence. In this old play, two men of fortune, brothers, educate two young men,\r\n(sons to the one and nephews to the other,) each under his own separate\r\nsystem of rigour and indulgence. The elder of the subjects of this\r\nexperiment, who has been very rigidly brought up, falls at once into\r\nall the vices of the town, is debauched by the cheats and bullies of\r\nWhitefriars, and, in a word, becomes the Squire of Alsatia. The poet\r\ngives, as the natural and congenial inhabitants of the place, such\r\ncharacters as the reader will find in the note."}
{"question": "", "answer": "[Footnote: “Cheatly, a\r\nrascal, who by reason of debts dares not stir out of Whitefriars, but\r\nthere inveigles young heirs of entail, and helps them to goods and money\r\nupon great disadvantages, is bound for them, and shares with them till\r\nhe undoes them. A lewd, impudent, debauched fellow, very expert in the\r\ncant about town. “Shamwell, cousin to the Belfords, who, being ruined by Cheatly, is made\r\na decoy-duck for others, not daring to stir out of Alsatia, where he\r\nlives. Is bound with Cheatly for heirs, and lives upon them a dissolute\r\ndebauched life. “Captain Hackum, a blockheaded bully of Alsatia, a cowardly, impudent,\r\nblustering fellow, formerly a sergeant in Flanders, who has run from his\r\ncolours, and retreated into Whitefriars for a very small debt, where by\r\nthe Alsatians he is dubb'd a captain, marries one that lets lodgings,\r\nsells cherry-brandy, and is a bawd. “Scrapeall a hypocritical, repeating, praying, psalm-singing, precise\r\nfellow, pretending to great piety; a godly knave, who joins with\r\nCheatly, and supplies young heirs with goods, and money.”--Dramatis\r\nPersonae to the Squire of Alsatia, SHADWELL'S Works, vol. iv.] The play,\r\nas we learn from the dedication to the Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, was\r\nsuccessful above the author's expectations, “no comedy these many years\r\nhaving filled the theatre so long together."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And I had the great honour,”\r\n continues Shadwell, “to find so many friends, that the house was never\r\nso full since it was built as upon the third day of this play, and vast\r\nnumbers went away that could not be admitted.” [Footnote: Dedication to\r\nthe Squire of Alsatia, Shadwell's Works, vol. iv.] From the Squire of\r\nAlsatia the author derived some few hints, and learned the footing\r\non which the bullies and thieves of the Sanctuary stood with their\r\nneighbours, the fiery young students of the Temple, of which some\r\nintimation is given in the dramatic piece. Such are the materials to which the author stands indebted for the\r\ncomposition of the Fortunes of Nigel, a novel, which may be perhaps one\r\nof those that are more amusing on a second perusal, than when read a\r\nfirst time for the sake of the story, the incidents of which are few and\r\nmeagre. The Introductory Epistle is written, in Lucio's phrase, “according\r\nto the trick,” and would never have appeared had the writer meditated\r\nmaking his avowal of the work."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As it is the privilege of a masque or\r\nincognito to speak in a feigned voice and assumed character, the author\r\nattempted, while in disguise, some liberties of the same sort; and while\r\nhe continues to plead upon the various excuses which the introduction\r\ncontains, the present acknowledgment must serve as an apology for a\r\nspecies of “hoity toity, whisky frisky” pertness of manner, which, in\r\nhis avowed character, the author should have considered as a departure\r\nfrom the rules of civility and good taste. ABBOTSFORD. 1st July, 1831. INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE\r\n\r\nCAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK TO THE REVEREND DR. DRYASDUST\r\n\r\nDEAR SIR,\r\n\r\nI readily accept of, and reply to the civilities with which you have\r\nbeen pleased to honour me in your obliging letter, and entirely agree\r\nwith your quotation, of _“Quam bonum et quam jucundum!”_ We may indeed\r\nesteem ourselves as come of the same family, or, according to our\r\ncountry proverb, as being all one man's bairns; and there needed no\r\napology on your part, reverend and dear sir, for demanding of me any\r\ninformation which I may be able to supply respecting the subject of your\r\ncuriosity. The interview which you allude to took place in the course\r\nof last winter, and is so deeply imprinted on my recollection, that it\r\nrequires no effort to collect all its most minute details."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You are aware that the share which I had in introducing the Romance,\r\ncalled THE MONASTERY, to public notice, has given me a sort of character\r\nin the literature of our Scottish metropolis. I no longer stand in\r\nthe outer shop of our bibliopolists, bargaining for the objects of my\r\ncuriosity with an unrespective shop-lad, hustled among boys who come to\r\nbuy Corderies and copy-books, and servant girls cheapening a pennyworth\r\nof paper, but am cordially welcomed by the bibliopolist himself, with,\r\n“Pray, walk into the back-shop, Captain. Boy, get a chair for Captain\r\nClutterbuck. There is the newspaper, Captain--to-day's paper;” or, “Here\r\nis the last new work--there is a folder, make free with the leaves;”\r\n or, “Put it in your pocket and carry it home;” or, “We will make a\r\nbookseller of you, sir, and you shall have it at trade price.” Or,\r\nperhaps if it is the worthy trader's own publication, his liberality\r\nmay even extend itself to--“Never mind booking such a trifle to\r\n_you_, sir--it is an over-copy. Pray, mention the work to your reading\r\nfriends.” I say nothing of the snug well-selected literary party\r\narranged round a turbot, leg of five-year-old mutton, or some such gear,\r\nor of the circulation of a quiet bottle of Robert Cockburn's choicest\r\nblack--nay, perhaps, of his new ones. All these are comforts reserved\r\nto such as are freemen of the corporation of letters, and I have the\r\nadvantage of enjoying them in perfection."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But all things change under\r\nthe sun; and it is with no ordinary feelings of regret, that, in my\r\nannual visits to the metropolis, I now miss the social and warm-hearted\r\nwelcome of the quick-witted and kindly friend who first introduced me to\r\nthe public; who had more original wit than would have set up a dozen of\r\nprofessed sayers of good things, and more racy humour than would have\r\nmade the fortune of as many more. To this great deprivation has been\r\nadded, I trust for a time only, the loss of another bibliopolical\r\nfriend, whose vigorous intellect, and liberal ideas, have not only\r\nrendered his native country the mart of her own literature, but\r\nestablished there a Court of Letters, which must command respect, even\r\nfrom those most inclined to dissent from many of its canons. The effect\r\nof these changes, operated in a great measure by the strong sense and\r\nsagacious calculations of an individual, who knew how to avail himself,\r\nto an unhoped-for extent, of the various kinds of talent which his\r\ncountry produced, will probably appear more clearly to the generation\r\nwhich shall follow the present. I entered the shop at the Cross, to enquire after the health of my\r\nworthy friend, and learned with satisfaction, that his residence in the\r\nsouth had abated the rigour of the symptoms of his disorder."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Availing\r\nmyself, then, of the privileges to which I have alluded, I strolled\r\nonward in that labyrinth of small dark rooms, or _crypts_, to speak our\r\nown antiquarian language, which form the extensive back-settlements of\r\nthat celebrated publishing-house. Yet, as I proceeded from one obscure\r\nrecess to another, filled, some of them with old volumes, some with such\r\nas, from the equality of their rank on the shelves, I suspected to be\r\nthe less saleable modern books of the concern, I could not help feeling\r\na holy horror creep upon me, when I thought of the risk of intruding on\r\nsome ecstatic bard giving vent to his poetical fury; or it might be,\r\non the yet more formidable privacy of a band of critics, in the act of\r\nworrying the game which they had just run down."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In such a supposed case,\r\nI felt by anticipation the horrors of the Highland seers, whom their\r\ngift of deuteroscopy compels to witness things unmeet for mortal eye;\r\nand who, to use the expression of Collins,\r\n\r\n     ----“heartless, oft, like moody madness, stare,\r\n     To see the phantom train their secret work prepare.”\r\n\r\nStill, however, the irresistible impulse of an undefined curiosity\r\ndrove me on through this succession of darksome chambers, till, like the\r\njeweller of Delhi in the house of the magician Bennaskar, I at length\r\nreached a vaulted room, dedicated to secrecy and silence, and beheld,\r\nseated by a lamp, and employed in reading a. blotted _revise_,\r\n[Footnote: The uninitiated must be informed, that a second proof-sheet\r\nis so called.] the person, or perhaps I should rather say the Eidolon,\r\nor representative Vision of the AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY! You will not be\r\nsurprised at the filial instinct which enabled me at once to acknowledge\r\nthe features borne by this venerable apparition, and that I at once\r\nbended the knee, with the classical salutation of, _Salve, magne\r\nparens!_ The vision, however, cut me short, by pointing to a seat,\r\nintimating at the same time, that my presence was not expected, and that\r\nhe had something to say to me. I sat down with humble obedience, and endeavoured to note the features\r\nof him with whom I now found myself so unexpectedly in society."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But on\r\nthis point I can give your reverence no satisfaction; for, besides the\r\nobscurity of the apartment, and the fluttered state of my own nerves, I\r\nseemed to myself overwhelmed by a sense of filial awe, which prevented\r\nmy noting and recording what it is probable the personage before me\r\nmight most desire to have concealed. Indeed, his figure was so closely\r\nveiled and wimpled, either with a mantle, morning-gown, or some such\r\nloose garb, that the verses of Spenser might well have been applied--\r\n\r\n    “Yet, certes, by her face and physnomy,\r\n     Whether she man or woman only were,\r\n     That could not any creature well descry.”\r\n\r\nI must, however, go on as I have begun, to apply the masculine gender;\r\nfor, notwithstanding very ingenious reasons, and indeed something like\r\npositive evidence, have been offered to prove the Author of Waverley to\r\nbe two ladies of talent, I must abide by the general opinion, that he is\r\nof the rougher sex. There are in his writings too many things\r\n\r\n    “Quae maribus sola tribuuntur,”\r\n\r\nto permit me to entertain any doubt on that subject. I will proceed, in\r\nthe manner of dialogue, to repeat as nearly as I can what passed betwixt\r\nus, only observing, that in the course of the conversation, my timidity\r\nimperceptibly gave way under the familiarity of his address; and that,\r\nin the concluding part of our dialogue, I perhaps argued with fully as\r\nmuch confidence as was beseeming."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_Author of Waverley._ I was willing to see you, Captain Clutterbuck,\r\nbeing the person of my family whom I have most regard for, since the\r\ndeath of Jedediah Cleishbotham; and I am afraid I may have done you some\r\nwrong, in assigning to you The Monastery as a portion of my effects. I\r\nhave some thoughts of making it up to you, by naming you godfather\r\nto this yet unborn babe--(he indicated the proof-sheet with his\r\nfinger)--But first, touching The Monastery--How says the world--you are\r\nabroad and can learn? _Captain Clutterbuck._ Hem! hem!--The enquiry is delicate--I have not\r\nheard any complaints from the Publishers. _Author._ That is the principal matter; but yet an indifferent work is\r\nsometimes towed on by those which have left harbour before it, with the\r\nbreeze in their poop.--What say the Critics? _Captain._ There is a general--feeling--that the White Lady is no\r\nfavourite. _Author._ I think she is a failure myself; but rather in execution than\r\nconception. Could I have evoked an _esprit follet_, at the same time\r\nfantastic and interesting, capricious and kind; a sort of wildfire of\r\nthe elements, bound by no fixed laws, or motives of action; faithful and\r\nfond, yet teazing and uncertain----\r\n\r\n_Captain._ If you will pardon the interruption, sir, I think you are\r\ndescribing a pretty woman. _Author._ On my word, I believe I am. I must invest my elementary\r\nspirits with a little human flesh and blood--they are too fine-drawn for\r\nthe present taste of the public."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_Captain._ They object, too, that the object of your Nixie ought to\r\nhave been more uniformly noble--Her ducking the priest was no Naiad-like\r\namusement. _Author._ Ah! they ought to allow for the capriccios of what is, after\r\nall, but a better sort of goblin. The bath into which Ariel, the most\r\ndelicate creation of Shakspeare's imagination, seduces our jolly friend\r\nTrinculo, was not of amber or rose-water. But no one shall find me\r\nrowing against the stream. I care not who knows it--I write for general\r\namusement; and, though I never will aim at popularity by what I think\r\nunworthy means, I will not, on the other hand, be pertinacious in the\r\ndefence of my own errors against the voice of the public. _Captain._ You abandon, then, in the present work--(looking, in my turn,\r\ntowards the proof-sheet)--the mystic, and the magical, and the whole\r\nsystem of signs, wonders, and omens? There are no dreams, or presages,\r\nor obscure allusions to future events? _Author._ Not a Cock-lane scratch, my son--not one bounce on the drum of\r\nTedworth--not so much as the poor tick of a solitary death-watch in\r\nthe wainscot. All is clear and above board--a Scots metaphysician might\r\nbelieve every word of it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_Captain._ And the story is, I hope, natural and probable; commencing\r\nstrikingly, proceeding naturally, ending happily--like the course of a\r\nfamed river, which gushes from the mouth of some obscure and romantic\r\ngrotto--then gliding on, never pausing, never precipitating its course,\r\nvisiting, as it were, by natural instinct, whatever worthy subjects of\r\ninterest are presented by the country through which it passes--widening\r\nand deepening in interest as it flows on; and at length arriving at\r\nthe final catastrophe as at some mighty haven, where ships of all kinds\r\nstrike sail and yard? _Author._ Hey! hey! what the deuce is all this? Why, 'tis Ercles' vein,\r\nand it would require some one much more like Hercules than I, to produce\r\na story which should gush, and glide, and never pause, and visit, and\r\nwiden, and deepen, and all the rest on't. I should be chin-deep in the\r\ngrave, man, before I had done with my task; and, in the meanwhile, all\r\nthe quirks and quiddities which I might have devised for my reader's\r\namusement, would lie rotting in my gizzard, like Sancho's suppressed\r\nwitticisms, when he was under his master's displeasure.--There never was\r\na novel written on this plan while the world stood. _Captain._ Pardon me--Tom Jones. _Author._ True, and perhaps Amelia also. Fielding had high notions of\r\nthe dignity of an art which he may be considered as having founded. He\r\nchallenges a comparison between the Novel and the Epic."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Smollett, Le\r\nSage, and others, emancipating themselves from the strictness of\r\nthe rules he has laid down, have written rather a history of the\r\nmiscellaneous adventures which befall an individual in the course of\r\nlife, than the plot of a regular and connected epopeia, where every step\r\nbrings us a point nearer to the final catastrophe. These great masters\r\nhave been satisfied if they amused the reader upon the road; though the\r\nconclusion only arrived because the tale must have an end--just as the\r\ntraveller alights at the inn, because it is evening. _Captain._ A very commodious mode of travelling, for the author at\r\nleast."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In short, sir, you are of opinion with Bayes--“What the devil\r\ndoes the plot signify, except to bring in fine things?”\r\n\r\n_Author._ Grant that I were so, and that I should write with sense and\r\nspirit a few scenes unlaboured and loosely put together, but which had\r\nsufficient interest in them to amuse in one corner the pain of body; in\r\nanother, to relieve anxiety of mind; in a third place, to unwrinkle a\r\nbrow bent with the furrows of daily toil; in another, to fill the place\r\nof bad thoughts, or to suggest better; in yet another, to induce an\r\nidler to study the history of his country; in all, save where the\r\nperusal interrupted the discharge of serious duties, to furnish harmless\r\namusement,--might not the author of such a work, however inartificially\r\nexecuted, plead for his errors and negligences the excuse of the slave,\r\nwho, about to be punished for having spread the false report of a\r\nvictory, saved himself by exclaiming--“Am I to blame, O Athenians, who\r\nhave given you one happy day?”\r\n\r\n_Captain._ Will your goodness permit me to mention an anecdote of my\r\nexcellent grandmother? _Author._ I see little she can have to do with the subject, Captain\r\nClutterbuck. _Captain._ It may come into our dialogue on Bayes's plan.--The sagacious\r\nold lady--rest her soul!--was a good friend to the church, and could\r\nnever hear a minister maligned by evil tongues, without taking his\r\npart warmly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was one fixed point, however, at which she always\r\nabandoned the cause of her reverend _protege_--it was so soon as\r\nshe learned he had preached a regular sermon against slanderers and\r\nbackbiters. _Author._ And what is that to the purpose? _Captain._ Only that I have heard engineers say, that one may betray the\r\nweak point to the enemy, by too much ostentation of fortifying it. _Author._ And, once more I pray, what is that to the purpose? _Captain._ Nay, then, without farther metaphor, I am afraid this new\r\nproduction, in which your generosity seems willing to give me some\r\nconcern, will stand much in need of apology, since you think proper to\r\nbegin your defence before the case is on trial.-The story is hastily\r\nhuddled up, I will venture a pint of claret. _Author._ A pint of port, I suppose you mean? _Captain._ I say of claret--good claret of the Monastery. Ah, sir, would\r\nyou but take the advice of your friends, and try to deserve at least\r\none-half of the public favour you have met with, we might all drink\r\nTokay! _Author._ I care not what I drink, so the liquor be wholesome. _Captain._ Care for your reputation, then,--for your fame."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_Author._ My fame?--I will answer you as a very ingenious, able, and\r\nexperienced friend, being counsel for the notorious Jem MacCoul, replied\r\nto the opposite side of the bar, when they laid weight on his client's\r\nrefusing to answer certain queries, which they said any man who had a\r\nregard for his reputation would not hesitate to reply to. “My client,”\r\n said he-by the way, Jem was standing behind him at the time, and a rich\r\nscene it was-“is so unfortunate as to have no regard for his reputation;\r\nand I should deal very uncandidly with the Court, should I say he had\r\nany that was worth his attention.”--I am, though from very different\r\nreasons, in Jem's happy state of indifference. Let fame follow those who\r\nhave a substantial shape. A shadow--and an impersonal author is nothing\r\nbetter--can cast no shade. _Captain._ You are not now, perhaps, so impersonal as here-tofore. These\r\nLetters to the Member for the University of Oxford--_Author._ Show the\r\nwit, genius, and delicacy of the author, which I heartily wish to see\r\nengaged on a subject of more importance; and show, besides, that the\r\npreservation of my character of _incongnito_ has engaged early talent in\r\nthe discussion of a curious question of evidence. But a cause, however\r\ningeniously pleaded, is not therefore gained."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You may remember, the\r\nneatly-wrought chain of circumstantial evidence, so artificially brought\r\nforward to prove Sir Philip Francis's title to the Letters of Junius,\r\nseemed at first irrefragable; yet the influence of the reasoning has\r\npassed away, and Junius, in the general opinion, is as much unknown as\r\never. But on this subject I will not be soothed or provoked into saying\r\none word more. To say who I am not, would be one step towards saying\r\nwho I am; and as I desire not, any more than a certain justice of peace\r\nmentioned by Shenstone, the noise or report such things make in the\r\nworld, I shall continue to be silent on a subject, which, in my opinion,\r\nis very undeserving the noise that has been made about it, and still\r\nmore unworthy of the serious employment of such ingenuity as has been\r\ndisplayed by the young letter-writer. _Captain._ But allowing, my dear sir, that you care not for your\r\npersonal reputation, or for that of any literary person upon whose\r\nshoulders your faults may be visited, allow me to say, that common\r\ngratitude to the public, which has received you so kindly, and to the\r\ncritics, who have treated you so leniently, ought to induce you to\r\nbestow more pains on your story."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_Author._ I do entreat you, my son, as Dr. Johnson would have said,\r\n“free your mind from cant.” For the critics, they have their business,\r\nand I mine; as the nursery proverb goes--\r\n\r\n“The children in Holland take pleasure in making What the children in\r\nEngland take pleasure in breaking.”\r\n\r\nI am their humble jackal, too busy in providing food for them, to have\r\ntime for considering whether they swallow or reject it.--To the public,\r\nI stand pretty nearly in the relation of the postman who leaves a packet\r\nat the door of an individual. If it contains pleasing intelligence, a\r\nbillet from a mistress, a letter from an absent son, a remittance from\r\na correspondent supposed to be bankrupt,--the letter is acceptably\r\nwelcome, and read and re-read, folded up, filed, and safely deposited in\r\nthe bureau. If the contents are disagreeable, if it comes from a dun or\r\nfrom a bore, the correspondent is cursed, the letter is thrown into the\r\nfire, and the expense of postage is heartily regretted; while all the\r\ntime the bearer of the dispatches is, in either case, as little thought\r\non as the snow of last Christmas."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The utmost extent of kindness between\r\nthe author and the public which can really exist, is, that the world are\r\ndisposed to be somewhat indulgent to the succeeding works of an original\r\nfavourite, were it but on account of the habit which the public mind has\r\nacquired; while the author very naturally thinks well of _their_ taste,\r\nwho have so liberally applauded _his_ productions. But I deny there is\r\nany call for gratitude, properly so called, either on one side or the\r\nother. _Captain._ Respect to yourself, then, ought to teach caution. _Author._ Ay, if caution could augment the chance of my success. But,\r\nto confess to you the truth, the works and passages in which I have\r\nsucceeded, have uniformly been written with the greatest rapidity; and\r\nwhen I have seen some of these placed in opposition with others, and\r\ncommended as more highly finished, I could appeal to pen and standish,\r\nthat the parts in which I have come feebly off, were by much the more\r\nlaboured. Besides, I doubt the beneficial effect of too much delay, both\r\non account of the author and the public. A man should strike while the\r\niron is hot, and hoist sail while the wind is fair. If a successful\r\nauthor keep not the stage, another instantly takes his ground."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If\r\na writer lie by for ten years ere he produces a second work, he is\r\nsuperseded by others; or, if the age is so poor of genius that this does\r\nnot happen, his own reputation becomes his greatest obstacle. The public\r\nwill expect the new work to be ten times better than its predecessor;\r\nthe author will expect it should be ten times more popular, and 'tis a\r\nhundred to ten that both are disappointed. _Captain_. This may justify a certain degree of rapidity in publication,\r\nbut not that which is proverbially said to be no speed. You should take\r\ntime at least to arrange your story. _Author_. That is a sore point with me, my son. Believe me, I have not\r\nbeen fool enough to neglect ordinary precautions. I have repeatedly laid\r\ndown my future work to scale, divided it into volumes and chapters,\r\nand endeavoured to construct a story which I meant should evolve itself\r\ngradually and strikingly, maintain suspense, and stimulate curiosity;\r\nand which, finally, should terminate in a striking catastrophe. But I\r\nthink there is a demon who seats himself on the feather of my pen when I\r\nbegin to write, and leads it astray from the purpose. Characters expand\r\nunder my hand; incidents are multiplied; the story lingers, while the\r\nmaterials increase; my regular mansion turns out a Gothic anomaly, and\r\nthe work is closed long before I have attained the point I proposed. _Captain_. Resolution and determined forbearance might remedy that evil. _Author_."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Alas! my dear sir, you do not know the force of paternal\r\naffection. When I light on such a character as Bailie Jarvie, or\r\nDalgetty, my imagination brightens, and my conception becomes clearer\r\nat every step which I take in his company, although it leads me many\r\na weary mile away from the regular road, and forces me leap hedge and\r\nditch to get back into the route again. If I resist the temptation,\r\nas you advise me, my thoughts become prosy, flat, and dull; I write\r\npainfully to myself, and under a consciousness of flagging which makes\r\nme flag still more; the sunshine with which fancy had invested the\r\nincidents, departs from them, and leaves every thing dull and gloomy. I am no more the same author I was in my better mood, than the dog in a\r\nwheel, condemned to go round and round for hours, is like the same\r\ndog merrily chasing his own tail, and gambolling in all the frolic of\r\nunrestrained freedom. In short, sir, on such occasions, I think I am\r\nbewitched. _Captain_. Nay, sir, if you plead sorcery, there is no more to be\r\nsaid--he must needs go whom the devil drives. And this, I suppose, sir,\r\nis the reason why you do not make the theatrical attempt to which you\r\nhave been so often urged? _Author_. It may pass for one good reason for not writing a play, that\r\nI cannot form a plot."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the truth is, that the idea adopted by too\r\nfavourable judges, of my having some aptitude for that department of\r\npoetry, has been much founded on those scraps of old plays, which,\r\nbeing taken from a source inaccessible to collectors, they have hastily\r\nconsidered the offspring of my mother-wit. Now, the manner in which I\r\nbecame possessed of these fragments is so extraordinary, that I cannot\r\nhelp telling it to you. You must know, that, some twenty years since, I went down to visit an\r\nold friend in Worcestershire, who had served with me in the----Dragoons. _Captain._ Then you _have_ served, sir? _Author._ I have--or I have not, which signifies the same thing--Captain\r\nis a good travelling name.--I found my friend's house unexpectedly\r\ncrowded with guests, and, as usual, was condemned--the mansion being\r\nan old one--to the _haunted apartment._ I have, as a great modern said,\r\nseen too many ghosts to believe in them, so betook myself seriously\r\nto my repose, lulled by the wind rustling among the lime-trees, the\r\nbranches of which chequered the moonlight which fell on the floor\r\nthrough the diamonded casement, when, behold, a darker shadow interposed\r\nitself, and I beheld visibly on the floor of the apartment--\r\n\r\n_Captain._ The White Lady of Avenel, I suppose?--You have told the very\r\nstory before. _Author._ No--I beheld a female form, with mob-cap, bib, and apron,\r\nsleeves tucked up to the elbow, a dredging-box in the one hand, and in\r\nthe other a sauce-ladle."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I concluded, of course, that it was my friend's\r\ncook-maid walking in her sleep; and as I knew he had a value for Sally,\r\nwho could toss a pancake with any girl in the country, I got up\r\nto conduct her safely to the door. But as I approached her, she\r\nsaid,--“Hold, sir! I am not what you take me for;”--words which seemed\r\nso opposite to the circumstances, that I should not have much minded\r\nthem, had it not been for the peculiarly hollow sound in which they were\r\nuttered.--“Know, then,” she said, in the same unearthly accents, “that\r\nI am the spirit of Betty Barnes.”--“Who hanged herself for love of the\r\nstage-coachman,” thought I; “this is a proper spot of work!”--“Of that\r\nunhappy Elizabeth or Betty Barnes, long cook-maid to Mr. Warburton, the\r\npainful collector, but ah! the too careless custodier, of the largest\r\ncollection of ancient plays ever known--of most of which the titles only\r\nare left to gladden the Prolegomena of the Variorum Shakspeare."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Yes,\r\nstranger, it was these ill-fated hands That consigned to grease and\r\nconflagration the scores of small quartos, which, did they now exist,\r\nwould drive the whole Roxburghe Club out of their senses--it was these\r\nunhappy pickers and stealers that singed fat fowls and wiped dirty\r\ntrenchers with the lost works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger,\r\nJonson, Webster--what shall I say?--even of Shakspeare himself!”\r\n\r\nLike every dramatic antiquary, my ardent curiosity after some play named\r\nin the Book of the Master of Revels, had often been checked by finding\r\nthe object of my research numbered amongst the holocaust of victims\r\nwhich this unhappy woman had sacrificed to the God of Good Cheer. It is\r\nno wonder then, that, like the Hermit of Parnell,\r\n\r\n      “I broke the bands of fear, and madly cried,\r\n       'You careless jade!' --But scarce the words began,\r\n       When Betty brandish'd high her saucing-pan.”\r\n\r\n“Beware,” she said, “you do not, by your ill-timed anger, cut off the\r\nopportunity I yet have to indemnify the world for the errors of my\r\nignorance. In yonder coal-hole, not used for many a year, repose the few\r\ngreasy and blackened fragments of the elder Drama which were not totally\r\ndestroyed. Do thou then”--Why, what do you stare at, Captain? By my\r\nsoul, it is true; as my friend Major Longbow says, “What should I tell\r\nyou a lie for?”\r\n\r\n_Captain._ Lie, sir! Nay, Heaven forbid I should apply the word to a\r\nperson so veracious."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You are only inclined to chase your tail a little\r\nthis morning, that's all. Had you not better reserve this legend to form\r\nan introduction to “Three Recovered Dramas,” or so? _Author._ You are quite right--habit's a strange thing, my son. I had\r\nforgot whom I was speaking to. Yes, Plays for the closet, not for the\r\nstage--\r\n\r\n_Captain._ Right, and so you are sure to be acted; for the managers,\r\nwhile thousands of volunteers are desirous of serving them, are\r\nwonderfully partial to pressed men. _Author._ I am a living witness, having been, like a second Laberius,\r\nmade a dramatist whether I would or not. I believe my muse would be\r\n_Terry_-fied into treading the stage, even if I should write a sermon. _Captain._ Truly, if you did, I am afraid folks might make a farce\r\nof it; and, therefore, should you change your style, I still advise a\r\nvolume of dramas like Lord Byron's. _Author._ No, his lordship is a cut above me--I won't run my horse\r\nagainst his, if I can help myself. But there is my friend Allan has\r\nwritten just such a play as I might write myself, in a very sunny day,\r\nand with one of Bramah's extra-patent pens. I cannot make neat work\r\nwithout such appurtenances. _Captain._ Do you mean Allan Ramsay? _Author._ No, nor Barbara Allan either."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I mean Allan Cunningham, who\r\nhas just published his tragedy of Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, full of\r\nmerry-making and murdering, kissing and cutting of throats, and passages\r\nwhich lead to nothing, and which are very pretty passages for all\r\nthat. Not a glimpse of probability is there about the plot, but so much\r\nanimation in particular passages, and such a vein of poetry through the\r\nwhole, as I dearly wish I could infuse into my Culinary Remains, should\r\nI ever be tempted to publish them. With a popular impress, people would\r\nread and admire the beauties of Allan--as it is, they may perhaps only\r\nnote his defects--or, what is worse, not note him at all.--But\r\nnever mind them, honest Allan; you are a credit to Caledonia for all\r\nthat.--There are some lyrical effusions of his, too, which you would do\r\nwell to read, Captain. “It's hame, and it's hame,” is equal to Burns. _Captain._ I will take the hint. The club at Kennaquhair are turned\r\nfastidious since Catalan! visited the Abbey. My “Poortith Cauld” has\r\nbeen received both poorly and coldly, and “the Banks of Bonnie Doon”\r\n have been positively coughed down--_Tempora mutantur._\r\n\r\n_Author._ They cannot stand still, they will change with all of us. What\r\nthen? “A man's a man for a' that.”\r\n\r\nBut the hour of parting approaches. _Captain._ You are determined to proceed then in your own system? Are you aware that an unworthy motive may be assigned for this rapid\r\nsuccession of publication?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "You will be supposed to work merely for the\r\nlucre of gain. _Author._ Supposing that I did permit the great advantages which must\r\nbe derived from success in literature, to join with other motives in\r\ninducing me to come more frequently before the public,--that emolument\r\nis the voluntary tax which the public pays for a certain species of\r\nliterary amusement--it is extorted from no one, and paid, I presume,\r\nby those only who can afford it, and who receive gratification in\r\nproportion to the expense. If the capital sum which these volumes have\r\nput into circulation be a very large one, has it contributed to my\r\nindulgences only? or can I not say to hundreds, from honest Duncan the\r\npaper-manufacturer, to the most snivelling of the printer's devils,\r\n“Didst thou not share? Hadst thou not fifteen pence?” I profess I think\r\nour Modern Athens much obliged to me for having established such an\r\nextensive manufacture; and when universal suffrage comes in fashion,\r\nI intend to stand for a seat in the House on the interest of all the\r\nunwashed artificers connected with literature. _Captain._ This would be called the language of a calico-manufacturer. _Author._ Cant again, my dear son--there is lime in this sack,\r\ntoo--nothing but sophistication in this world!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I do say it, in spite of\r\nAdam Smith and his followers, that a successful author is a productive\r\nlabourer, and that his works constitute as effectual a part of the\r\npublic wealth, as that which is created by any other manufacture. If a\r\nnew commodity, having an actually intrinsic and commercial value, be\r\nthe result of the operation, why are the author's bales of books to be\r\nesteemed a less profitable part of the public stock than the goods of\r\nany other manufacturer? I speak with reference to the diffusion of the\r\nwealth arising to the public, and the degree of industry which even such\r\na trifling work as the present must stimulate and reward, before the\r\nvolumes leave the publisher's shop. Without me it could not exist,\r\nand to this extent I am a benefactor to the country. As for my own\r\nemolument, it is won by my toil, and I account myself answerable to\r\nHeaven only for the mode in which I expend it. The candid may hope it is\r\nnot all dedicated to selfish purposes; and, without much pretensions to\r\nmerit in him who disburses it, a part may “wander, heaven-directed, to\r\nthe poor.”\r\n\r\n_Captain._ Yet it is generally held base to write from the mere motives\r\nof gain. _Author._ It would be base to do so exclusively, or even to make it a\r\nprincipal motive for literary exertion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nay, I will venture to say,\r\nthat no work of imagination, proceeding from the mere consideration of\r\na certain sum of copy-money, ever did, or ever will, succeed. So the\r\nlawyer who pleads, the soldier who fights, the physician who prescribes,\r\nthe clergyman--if such there be--who preaches, without any zeal for his\r\nprofession, or without any sense of its dignity, and merely on account\r\nof the fee, pay, or stipend, degrade themselves to the rank of sordid\r\nmechanics. Accordingly, in the case of two of the learned faculties\r\nat least, their services are considered as unappreciable, and are\r\nacknowledged, not by any exact estimate of the services rendered, but by\r\na _honorarium,_ or voluntary acknowledgment. But let a client or patient\r\nmake the experiment of omitting this little ceremony of the honorarium,\r\nwhich is _cense_ to be a thing entirely out of consideration between\r\nthem, and mark how the learned gentleman will look upon his case. Cant\r\nset apart, it is the same thing with literary emolument. No man of\r\nsense, in any rank of life, is, or ought to be, above accepting a just\r\nrecompense for his time, and a reasonable share of the capital which\r\nowes its very existence to his exertions. When Czar Peter wrought in the\r\ntrenches, he took the pay of a common soldier; and nobles, statesmen,\r\nand divines, the most distinguished of their time, have not scorned to\r\nsquare accounts with their bookseller. _Captain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "(Sings._)\r\n\r\n    “O if it were a mean thing,\r\n       The gentles would not use it;\r\n     And if it were ungodly,\r\n       The clergy would refuse it.”\r\n\r\n_Author._ You say well. But no man of honour, genius, or spirit, would\r\nmake the mere love of gain, the chief, far less the only, purpose of his\r\nlabours. For myself, I am not displeased to find the game a winning one;\r\nyet while I pleased the public, I should probably continue it merely for\r\nthe pleasure of playing; for I have felt as strongly as most folks that\r\nlove of composition, which is perhaps the strongest of all instincts,\r\ndriving the author to the pen, the painter to the pallet, often without\r\neither the chance of fame or the prospect of reward. Perhaps I have said\r\ntoo much of this. I might, perhaps, with as much truth as most people,\r\nexculpate myself from the charge of being either of a greedy or\r\nmercenary disposition; but I am not, therefore, hypocrite enough to\r\ndisclaim the ordinary motives, on account of which the whole world\r\naround me is toiling unremittingly, to the sacrifice of ease, comfort,\r\nhealth, and life. I do not affect the disinterestedness of that\r\ningenious association of gentlemen mentioned by Goldsmith, who sold\r\ntheir magazine for sixpence a-piece, merely for their own amusement. _Captain._ I have but one thing more to hint.--The world say you will\r\nrun yourself out. _Author._ The world say true: and what then?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "When they dance no longer,\r\nI will no longer pipe; and I shall not want flappers enough to remind me\r\nof the apoplexy. _Captain._ And what will become of us then, your poor family? We shall\r\nfall into contempt and oblivion. _Author._ Like many a poor fellow, already overwhelmed with the number\r\nof his family, I cannot help going on to increase it--“'Tis my vocation,\r\nHal.”--Such of you as deserve oblivion--perhaps the whole of you--may be\r\nconsigned to it. At any rate, you have been read in your day, which is\r\nmore than can be said of some of your contemporaries, of less fortune\r\nand more merit. They cannot say but that you _had_ the crown. It is\r\nalways something to have engaged the public attention for seven years. Had I only written Waverley, I should have long since been, according to\r\nthe established phrase, “the ingenious author of a novel much admired\r\nat the time.” I believe, on my soul, that the reputation of Waverley\r\nis sustained very much by the praises of those, who may be inclined to\r\nprefer that tale to its successors. _Captain._ You are willing, then, to barter future reputation for\r\npresent popularity? _Author."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Meliora spero._ Horace himself expected not to survive in all\r\nhis works--I may hope to live in some of mine;--_non omnis moriar._ It\r\nis some consolation to reflect, that the best authors in all countries\r\nhave been the most voluminous; and it has often happened, that those\r\nwho have been best received in their own time, have also continued to\r\nbe acceptable to posterity. I do not think so ill of the present\r\ngeneration, as to suppose that its present favour necessarily infers\r\nfuture condemnation. _Captain._ Were all to act on such principles, the public would be\r\ninundated. _Author_ Once more, my dear son, beware of cant. You speak as if the\r\npublic were obliged to read books merely because they are printed--your\r\nfriends the booksellers would thank you to make the proposition good. The most serious grievance attending such inundations as you talk of,\r\nis, that they make rags dear. The multiplicity of publications does the\r\npresent age no harm, and may greatly advantage that which is to succeed\r\nus. _Captain._ I do not see how that is to happen."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_Author._ The complaints in the time of Elizabeth and James, of\r\nthe alarming fertility of the press, were as loud as they are at\r\npresent--yet look at the shore over which the inundation of that age\r\nflowed, and it resembles now the Rich Strand of the Faery Queen--\r\n\r\n     ----“Besrrew'd all with rich array,\r\n     Of pearl and precious stones of great assay;\r\n     And all the gravel mix'd with golden ore.”\r\n\r\nBelieve me, that even in the most neglected works of the present age,\r\nthe next may discover treasures. _Captain._ Some books will defy all alchemy. _Author._ They will be but few in number; since, as for the writers, who\r\nare possessed of no merit at all, unless indeed they publish their\r\nworks at their own expense, like Sir Richard Blackmore, their power of\r\nannoying the public will be soon limited by the difficulty of finding\r\nundertaking booksellers. _Captain._ You are incorrigible. Are there no bounds to your audacity? _Author._ There are the sacred and eternal boundaries of honour and\r\nvirtue. My course is like the enchanted chamber of Britomart--\r\n\r\n    “Where as she look'd about, she did behold\r\n     How over that same door was likewise writ,\r\n     _Be Bold--Be Bold,_ and everywhere _Be Bold._\r\n     Whereat she mused, and could not construe it;\r\n     At last she spied at that room's upper end\r\n     Another iron door, on which was writ--\r\n     BE NOT TOO BOLD.”\r\n\r\n_Captain._ Well, you must take the risk of proceeding on your own\r\nprinciples."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_Author._ Do you act on yours, and take care you do not stay idling here\r\ntill the dinner hour is over.--I will add this work to your patrimony,\r\n_valeat quantum._\r\n\r\nHere our dialogue terminated; for a little sooty-faced Apollyon from\r\nthe Canongate came to demand the proof-sheet on the part of Mr.\r\nM'Corkindale; and I heard Mr. C. rebuking Mr. F. in another compartment\r\nof the same labyrinth I have described, for suffering any one to\r\npenetrate so far into the _penetralia_ of their temple. I leave it to you to form your own opinion concerning the import of this\r\ndialogue, and I cannot but believe I shall meet the wishes of our common\r\nparent in prefixing this letter to the work which it concerns. I am, reverend and dear Sir,\r\n\r\nVery sincerely and affectionately\r\n\r\nYours,\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nTHE FORTUNES OF NIGEL\r\n\r\n  _Knifegrinder._ Story? Lord bless you! I have none to tell, sir. _Poetry of the Antijacobin._\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER I\r\n\r\n\r\n  Now Scot and English are agreed,\r\n  And Saunders hastes to cross the Tweed,\r\n  Where, such the splendours that attend him,\r\n  His very mother scarce had kend him. His metamorphosis behold,\r\n  From Glasgow frieze to cloth of gold;\r\n  His back-sword, with the iron hilt,\r\n  To rapier, fairly hatch'd and gilt;\r\n  Was ever seen a gallant braver! His very bonnet's grown a beaver."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_The Reformation._\r\n\r\nThe long-continued hostilities which had for centuries separated the\r\nsouth and the north divisions of the Island of Britain, had been happily\r\nterminated by the succession of the pacific James I. to the English\r\nCrown. But although the united crown of England and Scotland was worn\r\nby the same individual, it required a long lapse of time, and the\r\nsuccession of more than one generation, ere the inveterate national\r\nprejudices which had so long existed betwixt the sister kingdoms were\r\nremoved, and the subjects of either side of the Tweed brought to regard\r\nthose upon the opposite bank as friends and as brethren. These prejudices were, of course, most inveterate during the reign of\r\nKing James. The English subjects accused him of partiality to those of\r\nhis ancient kingdom; while the Scots, with equal injustice, charged\r\nhim with having forgotten the land of his nativity, and with neglecting\r\nthose early friends to whose allegiance he had been so much indebted. The temper of the king, peaceable even to timidity, inclined him\r\nperpetually to interfere as mediator between the contending factions,\r\nwhose brawls disturbed the Court."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, notwithstanding all his\r\nprecautions, historians have recorded many instances, where the mutual\r\nhatred of two nations, who, after being enemies for a thousand years,\r\nhad been so very recently united, broke forth with a fury which menaced\r\na general convulsion; and, spreading from the highest to the lowest\r\nclasses, as it occasioned debates in council and parliament, factions in\r\nthe court, and duels among the gentry, was no less productive of riots\r\nand brawls amongst the lower orders. While these heart-burnings were at the highest, there flourished in the\r\ncity of London an ingenious but whimsical and self opinioned mechanic,\r\nmuch devoted to abstract studies, David Ramsay by name, who, whether\r\nrecommended by his great skill in his profession, as the courtiers\r\nalleged, or, as was murmured among the neighbours, by his birthplace, in\r\nthe good town of Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, held in James's household the\r\npost of maker of watches and horologes to his Majesty. He scorned\r\nnot, however, to keep open shop within Temple Bar, a few yards to the\r\neastward of Saint Dunstan's Church. The shop of a London tradesman at that time, as it may be supposed, was\r\nsomething very different from those we now see in the same locality."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The\r\ngoods were exposed to sale in cases, only defended from the weather by\r\na covering of canvass, and the whole resembled the stalls and booths now\r\nerected for the temporary accommodation of dealers at a country fair,\r\nrather than the established emporium of a respectable citizen. But most\r\nof the shopkeepers of note, and David Ramsay amongst others, had their\r\nbooth connected with a small apartment which opened backward from it,\r\nand bore the same resemblance to the front shop that Robinson Crusoe's\r\ncavern did to the tent which he erected before it. To this Master Ramsay was often accustomed to retreat to the labour of\r\nhis abstruse calculations; for he aimed at improvements and discoveries\r\nin his own art, and sometimes pushed his researches, like Napier, and\r\nother mathematicians of the period, into abstract science. When thus\r\nengaged, he left the outer posts of his commercial establishment to be\r\nmaintained by two stout-bodied and strong-voiced apprentices, who kept\r\nup the cry of, “What d'ye lack? what d'ye lack?” accompanied with the\r\nappropriate recommendations of the articles in which they dealt. This direct and personal application for custom to those who chanced to\r\npass by, is now, we believe, limited to Monmouth Street, (if it\r\nstill exists even in that repository of ancient garments,) under the\r\nguardianship of the scattered remnant of Israel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But at the time we\r\nare speaking of, it was practised alike by Jew and Gentile, and served,\r\ninstead of all our present newspaper puffs and advertisements, to\r\nsolicit the attention of the public in general, and of friends in\r\nparticular, to the unrivalled excellence of the goods, which they\r\noffered to sale upon such easy terms, that it might fairly appear that\r\nthe venders had rather a view to the general service of the public, than\r\nto their own particular advantage. The verbal proclaimers of the excellence of their commodities, had this\r\nadvantage over those who, in the present day, use the public papers for\r\nthe same purpose, that they could in many cases adapt their address to\r\nthe peculiar appearance and apparent taste of the passengers. [This, as\r\nwe have said, was also the case in Monmouth Street in our remembrance. We have ourselves been reminded of the deficiencies of our femoral\r\nhabiliments, and exhorted upon that score to fit ourselves more\r\nbeseemingly; but this is a digression.] This direct and personal mode of\r\ninvitation to customers became, however, a dangerous temptation to the\r\nyoung wags who were employed in the task of solicitation during\r\nthe absence of the principal person interested in the traffic; and,\r\nconfiding in their numbers and civic union, the 'prentices of London\r\nwere often seduced into taking liberties with the passengers, and\r\nexercising their wit at the expense of those whom they had no hopes of\r\nconverting into customers by their eloquence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If this were resented by\r\nany act of violence, the inmates of each shop were ready to pour forth\r\nin succour; and in the words of an old song which Dr. Johnson was used\r\nto hum,--\r\n\r\n    “Up then rose the 'prentices all,\r\n     Living in London, both proper and tall.”\r\n\r\nDesperate riots often arose on such occasions, especially when the\r\nTemplars, or other youths connected with the aristocracy, were insulted,\r\nor conceived themselves to be so. Upon such occasions, bare steel was\r\nfrequently opposed to the clubs of the citizens, and death sometimes\r\nensued on both sides. The tardy and inefficient police of the time\r\nhad no other resource than by the Alderman of the ward calling out the\r\nhouseholders, and putting a stop to the strife by overpowering numbers,\r\nas the Capulets and Montagues are separated upon the stage. At the period when such was the universal custom of the most\r\nrespectable, as well as the most inconsiderable, shopkeepers in London,\r\nDavid Ramsay, on the evening to which we solicit the attention of\r\nthe reader, retiring to more abstruse and private labours, left\r\nthe administration of his outer shop, or booth, to the aforesaid\r\nsharp-witted, active, able-bodied, and well-voiced apprentices, namely,\r\nJenkin Vincent and Frank Tunstall. Vincent had been educated at the excellent foundation of Christ's Church\r\nHospital, and was bred, therefore, as well as born, a Londoner, with\r\nall the acuteness, address, and audacity which belong peculiarly to\r\nthe youth of a metropolis."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was now about twenty years old, short in\r\nstature, but remarkably strong made, eminent for his feats upon holidays\r\nat foot-ball, and other gymnastic exercises; scarce rivalled in\r\nthe broad-sword play, though hitherto only exercised in the form of\r\nsingle-stick. He knew every lane, blind alley, and sequestered court of\r\nthe ward, better than his catechism; was alike active in his master's\r\naffairs, and in his own adventures of fun and mischief; and so managed\r\nmatters, that the credit he acquired by the former bore him out, or at\r\nleast served for his apology, when the latter propensity led him into\r\nscrapes, of which, however, it is but fair to state, that they had\r\nhitherto inferred nothing mean or discreditable. Some aberrations there\r\nwere, which David Ramsay, his master, endeavoured to reduce to regular\r\norder when he discovered them, and others which he winked at--supposing\r\nthem to answer the purpose of the escapement of a watch, which disposes\r\nof a certain quantity of the extra power of that mechanical impulse\r\nwhich puts the whole in motion. The physiognomy of Jin Vin--by which abbreviation he was familiarly\r\nknown through the ward--corresponded with the sketch we have given\r\nof his character."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His head, upon which his 'prentice's flat cap was\r\ngenerally flung in a careless and oblique fashion, was closely covered\r\nwith thick hair of raven black, which curled naturally and closely, and\r\nwould have grown to great length, but for the modest custom enjoined by\r\nhis state in life and strictly enforced by his master, which compelled\r\nhim to keep it short-cropped,--not unreluctantly, as he looked with\r\nenvy on the flowing ringlets, in which the courtiers, and aristocratic\r\nstudents of the neighbouring Temple, began to indulge themselves, as\r\nmarks of superiority and of gentility. Vincent's eyes were deep set in his head, of a strong vivid black, full\r\nof fire, roguery, and intelligence, and conveying a humorous expression,\r\neven while he was uttering the usual small-talk of his trade, as if\r\nhe ridiculed those who were disposed to give any weight to his\r\ncommonplaces. He had address enough, however, to add little touches of\r\nhis own, which gave a turn of drollery even to this ordinary routine of\r\nthe booth; and the alacrity of his manner--his ready and obvious wish\r\nto oblige--his intelligence and civility, when he thought civility\r\nnecessary, made him a universal favourite with his master's customers. His features were far from regular, for his nose was flattish, his mouth\r\ntending to the larger size, and his complexion inclining to be more dark\r\nthan was then thought consistent with masculine beauty."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, in despite\r\nof his having always breathed the air of a crowded city, his complexion\r\nhad the ruddy and manly expression of redundant health; his turned-up\r\nnose gave an air of spirit and raillery to what he said, and seconded\r\nthe laugh of his eyes; and his wide mouth was garnished with a pair of\r\nwell-formed and well-coloured lips, which, when he laughed, disclosed a\r\nrange of teeth strong and well set, and as white as the very pearl. Such\r\nwas the elder apprentice of David Ramsay, Memory's Monitor, watchmaker,\r\nand constructor of horologes, to his Most Sacred Majesty James I.\r\n\r\nJenkin's companion was the younger apprentice, though, perhaps, he might\r\nbe the elder of the two in years. At any rate, he was of a much more\r\nstaid and composed temper. Francis Tunstall was of that ancient and\r\nproud descent who claimed the style of the “unstained;” because, amid\r\nthe various chances of the long and bloody wars of the Roses, they had,\r\nwith undeviating faith, followed the House of Lancaster, to which they\r\nhad originally attached themselves. The meanest sprig of such a tree\r\nattached importance to the root from which it derived itself; and\r\nTunstall was supposed to nourish in secret a proportion of that family\r\npride, which had exhorted tears from his widowed and almost indigent\r\nmother, when she saw herself obliged to consign him to a line of\r\nlife inferior, as her prejudices suggested, to the course held by his\r\nprogenitors."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Yet, with all this aristocratic prejudice, his master found\r\nthe well-born youth more docile, regular, and strictly attentive to\r\nhis duty, than his far more active and alert comrade. Tunstall also\r\ngratified his master by the particular attention which he seemed\r\ndisposed to bestow on the abstract principles of science connected with\r\nthe trade which he was bound to study, the limits of which were daily\r\nenlarged with the increase of mathematical science. Vincent beat his companion beyond the distance-post, in every thing like\r\nthe practical adaptation of thorough practice, in the dexterity of\r\nhand necessary to execute the mechanical branches of the art, and\r\ndoubled-distanced him in all respecting the commercial affairs of the\r\nshop. Still David Ramsay was wont to say, that if Vincent knew how to do\r\na thing the better of the two, Tunstall was much better acquainted with\r\nthe principles on which it ought to be done; and he sometimes objected\r\nto the latter, that he knew critical excellence too well ever to be\r\nsatisfied with practical mediocrity. The disposition of Tunstall was shy, as well as studious; and, though\r\nperfectly civil and obliging, he never seemed to feel himself in his\r\nplace while he went through the duties of the shop."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was tall\r\nand handsome, with fair hair, and well-formed limbs, good features,\r\nwell-opened light-blue eyes, a straight Grecian nose, and a countenance\r\nwhich expressed both good-humour and intelligence, but qualified by a\r\ngravity unsuitable to his years, and which almost amounted to dejection. He lived on the best of terms with his companion, and readily stood by\r\nhim whenever he was engaged in any of the frequent skirmishes, which, as\r\nwe have already observed, often disturbed the city of London about this\r\nperiod. But though Tunstall was allowed to understand quarter-staff (the\r\nweapon of the North country) in a superior degree, and though he was\r\nnaturally both strong and active, his interference in such affrays\r\nseemed always matter of necessity; and, as he never voluntarily joined\r\neither their brawls or their sports, he held a far lower place in the\r\nopinion of the youth of the ward than his hearty and active friend Jin\r\nVin. Nay, had it not been for the interest made for his comrade, by the\r\nintercession of Vincent, Tunstall would have stood some chance of being\r\naltogether excluded from the society of his contemporaries of the same\r\ncondition, who called him, in scorn, the Cavaliero Cuddy, and the Gentle\r\nTunstall."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the other hand, the lad himself, deprived of the fresh air in which\r\nhe had been brought up, and foregoing the exercise to which he had\r\nformerly been accustomed, while the inhabitant of his native mansion,\r\nlost gradually the freshness of his complexion, and, without showing any\r\nformal symptoms of disease, grew more thin and pale as he grew older,\r\nand at length exhibited the appearance of indifferent health, without\r\nany thing of the habits and complaints of an invalid, excepting a\r\ndisposition to avoid society, and to spend his leisure time in private\r\nstudy, rather than mingle in the sports of his companions, or even\r\nresort to the theatres, then the general rendezvous of his class; where,\r\naccording to high authority, they fought for half-bitten apples, cracked\r\nnuts, and filled the upper gallery with their clamours. Such were the two youths who called David Ramsay master; and with both\r\nof whom he used to fret from morning till night, as their peculiarities\r\ninterfered with his own, or with the quiet and beneficial course of his\r\ntraffic."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Upon the whole, however, the youths were attached to their master, and\r\nhe, a good-natured, though an absent and whimsical man, was scarce\r\nless so to them; and when a little warmed with wine at an occasional\r\njunketing, he used to boast, in his northern dialect, of his “twa bonnie\r\nlads, and the looks that the court ladies threw at them, when visiting\r\nhis shop in their caroches, when on a frolic into the city.” But David\r\nRamsay never failed, at the same time, to draw up his own tall,\r\nthin, lathy skeleton, extend his lean jaws into an alarming grin, and\r\nindicate, by a nod of his yard-long visage, and a twinkle of his little\r\ngrey eye, that there might be more faces in Fleet Street worth looking\r\nat than those of Frank and Jenkin. His old neighbour, Widow Simmons, the\r\nsempstress, who had served, in her day, the very tip-top revellers of\r\nthe Temple, with ruffs, cuffs, and bands, distinguished more deeply\r\nthe sort of attention paid by the females of quality, who so regularly\r\nvisited David Ramsay's shop, to its inmates. “The boy Frank,” she\r\nadmitted, “used to attract the attention of the young ladies, as having\r\nsomething gentle and downcast in his looks; but then he could not better\r\nhimself, for the poor youth had not a word to throw at a dog."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now Jin\r\nVin was so full of his jibes and jeers, and so willing, and so ready,\r\nand so serviceable, and so mannerly all the while, with a step that\r\nsprung like a buck's in Epping Forest, and his eye that twinkled as\r\nblack as a gipsy's, that no woman who knew the world would make a\r\ncomparison betwixt the lads. As for poor neighbour Ramsay himself, the\r\nman,” she said, “was a civil neighbour, and a learned man, doubtless,\r\nand might be a rich man if he had common sense to back his learning; and\r\ndoubtless, for a Scot, neighbour Ramsay was nothing of a bad man, but\r\nhe was so constantly grimed with smoke, gilded with brass filings,\r\nand smeared with lamp-black and oil, that Dame Simmons judged it would\r\nrequire his whole shopful of watches to induce any feasible woman to\r\ntouch the said neighbour Ramsay with any thing save a pair of tongs.”\r\n\r\nA still higher authority, Dame Ursula, wife to Benjamin Suddlechop, the\r\nbarber, was of exactly the same opinion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Such were, in natural qualities and public estimation, the two youths,\r\nwho, in a fine April day, having first rendered their dutiful service\r\nand attendance on the table of their master and his daughter, at their\r\ndinner at one o'clock,--Such, O ye lads of London, was the severe\r\ndiscipline undergone by your predecessors!--and having regaled\r\nthemselves upon the fragments, in company with two female domestics, one\r\na cook, and maid of all work, the other called Mistress Margaret's maid,\r\nnow relieved their master in the duty of the outward shop; and agreeably\r\nto the established custom, were soliciting, by their entreaties and\r\nrecommendations of their master's manufacture, the attention and\r\nencouragement of the passengers. In this species of service it may be easily supposed that Jenkin Vincent\r\nleft his more reserved and bashful comrade far in the background. The\r\nlatter could only articulate with difficulty, and as an act of duty\r\nwhich he was rather ashamed of discharging, the established words\r\nof form--“What d'ye lack?--What d'ye lack?--Clocks--watches--barnacles? --What d'ye lack?--Watches--clocks--barnacles?--What d'ye lack, sir?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "What\r\nd'ye lack, madam?--Barnacles--watches--clocks?”\r\n\r\nBut this dull and dry iteration, however varied by diversity of verbal\r\narrangement, sounded flat when mingled with the rich and recommendatory\r\noratory of the bold-faced, deep-mouthed, and ready-witted Jenkin\r\nVincent.--“What d'ye lack, noble sir?--What d'ye lack, beauteous madam?”\r\n he said, in a tone at once bold and soothing, which often was so applied\r\nas both to gratify the persons addressed, and to excite a smile from\r\nother hearers.--“God bless your reverence,” to a beneficed clergyman;\r\n“the Greek and Hebrew have harmed your reverence's eyes--Buy a pair of\r\nDavid Ramsay's barnacles. The King--God bless his Sacred Majesty!--never\r\nreads Hebrew or Greek without them.”\r\n\r\n“Are you well avised of that?” said a fat parson from the Vale of\r\nEvesham. “Nay, if the Head of the Church wears them,--God bless his\r\nSacred Majesty!--I will try what they can do for me; for I have not\r\nbeen able to distinguish one Hebrew letter from another, since--I cannot\r\nremember the time--when I had a bad fever."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Choose me a pair of his\r\nmost Sacred Majesty's own wearing, my good youth.”\r\n\r\n“This is a pair, and please your reverence,” said Jenkin, producing a\r\npair of spectacles which he touched with an air of great deference and\r\nrespect, “which his most blessed Majesty placed this day three weeks on\r\nhis own blessed nose; and would have kept them for his own sacred use,\r\nbut that the setting being, as your reverence sees, of the purest jet,\r\nwas, as his Sacred Majesty was pleased to say, fitter for a bishop than\r\nfor a secular prince.”\r\n\r\n“His Sacred Majesty the King,” said the worthy divine, “was ever a very\r\nDaniel in his judgment. Give me the barnacles, my good youth, and who\r\ncan say what nose they may bestride in two years hence?--our reverend\r\nbrother of Gloucester waxes in years.” He then pulled out his purse,\r\npaid for the spectacles, and left the shop with even a more important\r\nstep than that which had paused to enter it. “For shame,” said Tunstall to his companion; “these glasses will never\r\nsuit one of his years.”\r\n\r\n“You are a fool, Frank,” said Vincent, in reply; “had the good doctor\r\nwished glasses to read with, he would have tried them before buying. He does not want to look through them himself, and these will serve\r\nthe purpose of being looked at by other folks, as well as the best\r\nmagnifiers in the shop.--What d'ye lack?” he cried, resuming his\r\nsolicitations."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Mirrors for your toilette, my pretty madam; your\r\nhead-gear is something awry--pity, since it is so well fancied.” The\r\nwoman stopped and bought a mirror.--“What d'ye lack?--a watch, Master\r\nSergeant--a watch that will go as long as a lawsuit, as steady and true\r\nas your own eloquence?”\r\n\r\n“Hold your peace, sir,” answered the Knight of the Coif, who was\r\ndisturbed by Vin's address whilst in deep consultation with an eminent\r\nattorney; “hold your peace! You are the loudest-tongued varlet betwixt\r\nthe Devil's Tavern and Guildhall.”\r\n\r\n“A watch,” reiterated the undaunted Jenkin, “that shall not lose\r\nthirteen minutes in a thirteen years' lawsuit.--He's out of hearing--A\r\nwatch with four wheels and a bar-movement--a watch that shall tell you,\r\nMaster Poet, how long the patience of the audience will endure your next\r\npiece at the Black Bull.” The bard laughed, and fumbled in the pocket of\r\nhis slops till he chased into a corner, and fairly caught, a small piece\r\nof coin. “Here is a tester to cherish thy wit, good boy,” he said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Gramercy,” said Vin; “at the next play of yours I will bring down a\r\nset of roaring boys, that shall make all the critics in the pit, and the\r\ngallants on the stage, civil, or else the curtain shall smoke for it.”\r\n\r\n“Now, that I call mean,” said Tunstall, “to take the poor rhymer's\r\nmoney, who has so little left behind.”\r\n\r\n“You are an owl, once again,” said Vincent; “if he has nothing left to\r\nbuy cheese and radishes, he will only dine a day the sooner with some\r\npatron or some player, for that is his fate five days out of the seven. It is unnatural that a poet should pay for his own pot of beer; I will\r\ndrink his tester for him, to save him from such shame; and when his\r\nthird night comes round, he shall have penniworths for his coin, I\r\npromise you.--But here comes another-guess customer. Look at that\r\nstrange fellow--see how he gapes at every shop, as if he would swallow\r\nthe wares.--O! Saint Dunstan has caught his eye; pray God he swallow not\r\nthe images. See how he stands astonished, as old Adam and Eve ply\r\ntheir ding-dong!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Come, Frank, thou art a scholar; construe me that same\r\nfellow, with his blue cap with a cock's feather in it, to show he's of\r\ngentle blood, God wot--his grey eyes, his yellow hair, his sword with a\r\nton of iron in the handle--his grey thread-bare cloak--his step like a\r\nFrenchman--his look like a Spaniard--a book at his girdle, and a broad\r\ndudgeon-dagger on the other side, to show him half-pedant, half-bully. How call you that pageant, Frank?”\r\n\r\n“A raw Scotsman,” said Tunstall; “just come up, I suppose, to help the\r\nrest of his countrymen to gnaw old England's bones; a palmerworm, I\r\nreckon, to devour what the locust has spared.”\r\n\r\n“Even so, Frank,” answered Vincent; “just as the poet sings sweetly,--\r\n\r\n    'In Scotland he was born and bred,\r\n     And, though a beggar, must be fed. '”\r\n\r\n“Hush!” said Tunstall, “remember our master.”\r\n\r\n“Pshaw!” answered his mercurial companion; “he knows on which side\r\nhis bread is buttered, and I warrant you has not lived so long among\r\nEnglishmen, and by Englishmen, to quarrel with us for bearing an English\r\nmind. But see, our Scot has done gazing at St. Dunstan's, and comes our\r\nway. By this light, a proper lad and a sturdy, in spite of freckles and\r\nsun-burning.--He comes nearer still, I will have at him.”\r\n\r\n“And, if you do,” said his comrade, “you may get a broken head--he looks\r\nnot as if he would carry coals.”\r\n\r\n“A fig for your threat,” said Vincent, and instantly addressed the\r\nstranger."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Buy a watch, most noble northern Thane--buy a watch, to count\r\nthe hours of plenty since the blessed moment you left Berwick behind\r\nyou.--Buy barnacles, to see the English gold lies ready for your\r\ngripe.--Buy what you will, you shall have credit for three days; for,\r\nwere your pockets as bare as Father Fergus's, you are a Scot in London,\r\nand you will be stocked in that time.” The stranger looked sternly\r\nat the waggish apprentice, and seemed to grasp his cudgel in rather a\r\nmenacing fashion. “Buy physic,” said the undaunted Vincent, “if you will\r\nbuy neither time nor light--physic for a proud stomach, sir;--there is a\r\n'pothecary's shop on the other side of the way.”\r\n\r\nHere the probationary disciple of Galen, who stood at his master's door\r\nin his flat cap and canvass sleeves, with a large wooden pestle in his\r\nhand, took up the ball which was flung to him by Jenkin, with, “What\r\nd'ye lack, sir?--Buy a choice Caledonian salve, _Flos sulphvr. cum\r\nbutyro quant. suff._”\r\n\r\n“To be taken after a gentle rubbing-down with an English oaken towel,”\r\n said Vincent. The bonny Scot had given full scope to the play of this small artillery\r\nof city wit, by halting his stately pace, and viewing grimly, first the\r\none assailant, and then the other, as if menacing either repartee or\r\nmore violent revenge."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But phlegm or prudence got the better of his\r\nindignation, and tossing his head as one who valued not the raillery to\r\nwhich he had been exposed, he walked down Fleet Street, pursued by the\r\nhorse-laugh of his tormentors. “The Scot will not fight till he see his own blood,” said Tunstall, whom\r\nhis north of England extraction had made familiar with all manner of\r\nproverbs against those who lay yet farther north than himself. “Faith, I know not,” said Jenkin; “he looks dangerous, that\r\nfellow--he will hit some one over the noddle before he goes\r\nfar.--Hark!--hark!--they are rising.”\r\n\r\nAccordingly, the well-known cry of,\r\n“'Prentices--'prentices--Clubs--clubs!” now rang along Fleet Street; and\r\nJenkin, snatching up his weapon, which lay beneath the counter ready\r\nat the slightest notice, and calling to Tunstall to take his bat and\r\nfollow, leaped over the hatch-door which protected the outer-shop, and\r\nran as fast as he could towards the affray, echoing the cry as he ran,\r\nand elbowing, or shoving aside, whoever stood in his way."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His comrade,\r\nfirst calling to his master to give an eye to the shop, followed\r\nJenkin's example, and ran after him as fast as he could, but with more\r\nattention to the safety and convenience of others; while old David\r\nRamsay, with hands and eyes uplifted, a green apron before him, and a\r\nglass which he had been polishing thrust into his bosom, came forth\r\nto look after the safety of his goods and chattels, knowing, by old\r\nexperience, that, when the cry of “Clubs” once arose, he would have\r\nlittle aid on the part of his apprentices. CHAPTER II\r\n\r\n\r\n  This, sir, is one among the Seignory,\r\n  Has wealth at will, and will to use his wealth,\r\n  And wit to increase it. Marry, his worst folly\r\n  Lies in a thriftless sort of charity,\r\n  That goes a-gadding sometimes after objects,\r\n  Which wise men will not see when thrust upon them. _The Old Couple._\r\n\r\nThe ancient gentleman bustled about his shop, in pettish displeasure\r\nat being summoned hither so hastily, to the interruption of his more\r\nabstract studies; and, unwilling to renounce the train of calculation\r\nwhich he had put in progress, he mingled whimsically with the fragments\r\nof the arithmetical operation, his oratory to the passengers, and angry\r\nreflections on his idle apprentices. “What d'ye lack, sir?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Madam,\r\nwhat d'ye lack--clocks for hall or table--night-watches--day\r\nwatches?--_Locking wheel being 48--the power of retort 8--the striking\r\npins are 48_--What d'ye lack, honoured sir?--_The quotient--the\r\nmultiplicand_--That the knaves should have gone out this blessed\r\nminute!--_the acceleration being at the rate of 5 minutes, 55 seconds,\r\n53 thirds, 59 fourths_--I will switch them both when they come back--I\r\nwill, by the bones of the immortal Napier!”\r\n\r\nHere the vexed philosopher was interrupted by the entrance of a grave\r\ncitizen of a most respectable appearance, who, saluting him familiarly\r\nby the name of “Davie, my old acquaintance,” demanded what had put him\r\nso much out of sorts, and gave him at the same time a cordial grasp of\r\nhis hand. The stranger's dress was, though grave, rather richer than usual. His\r\npaned hose were of black velvet, lined with purple silk, which garniture\r\nappeared at the slashes. His doublet was of purple cloth, and his\r\nshort cloak of black velvet, to correspond with his hose; and both were\r\nadorned with a great number of small silver buttons richly wrought in\r\nfiligree. A triple chain of gold hung round his neck; and, in place of\r\na sword or dagger, he wore at his belt an ordinary knife for the purpose\r\nof the table, with a small silver case, which appeared to contain\r\nwriting materials."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He might have seemed some secretary or clerk engaged\r\nin the service of the public, only that his low, flat, and unadorned\r\ncap, and his well-blacked, shining shoes, indicated that he belonged to\r\nthe city. He was a well-made man, about the middle size, and seemed in\r\nfirm health, though advanced in years. His looks expressed sagacity and\r\ngood-humour: and the air of respectability which his dress announced,\r\nwas well supported by his clear eye, ruddy cheek, and grey hair. He used\r\nthe Scottish idiom in his first address, but in such a manner that it\r\ncould hardly be distinguished whether he was passing upon his friend a\r\nsort of jocose mockery, or whether it was his own native dialect, for\r\nhis ordinary discourse had little provincialism. In answer to the queries of his respectable friend, Ramsay groaned\r\nheavily, answering by echoing back the question, “What ails me, Master\r\nGeorge? Why, every thing ails me! I profess to you that a man may\r\nas well live in Fairyland as in the Ward of Farringdon-Without. My\r\napprentices are turned into mere goblins--they appear and disappear like\r\nspunkies, and have no more regularity in them than a watch without a\r\nscapement."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If there is a ball to be tossed up, or a bullock to be driven\r\nmad, or a quean to be ducked for scolding, or a head to be broken,\r\nJenkin is sure to be at the one end or the other of it, and then\r\naway skips Francis Tunstall for company. I think the prize-fighters,\r\nbear-leaders, and mountebanks, are in a league against me, my dear\r\nfriend, and that they pass my house ten times for any other in the city. Here's an Italian fellow come over, too, that they call Punchinello;\r\nand, altogether----”\r\n\r\n“Well,” interrupted Master George, “but what is all this to the present\r\ncase?”\r\n\r\n“Why,” replied Ramsay, “here has been a cry of thieves or murder, (I\r\nhope that will prove the least of it amongst these English pock-pudding\r\nswine!) and I have been interrupted in the deepest calculation ever\r\nmortal man plunged into, Master George.”\r\n\r\n“What, man!” replied Master George, “you must take patience--You are a\r\nman that deals in time, and can make it go fast and slow at pleasure;\r\nyou, of all the world, have least reason to complain, if a little of it\r\nbe lost now and then.--But here come your boys, and bringing in a slain\r\nman betwixt them, I think--here has been serious mischief, I am afraid.”\r\n\r\n“The more mischief the better sport,” said the crabbed old\r\nwatchmaker."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I am blithe, though, that it's neither of the twa loons\r\nthemselves.--What are ye bringing a corpse here for, ye fause villains?”\r\n he added, addressing the two apprentices, who, at the head of a\r\nconsiderable mob of their own class, some of whom bore evident marks of\r\na recent fray, were carrying the body betwixt them. “He is not dead yet, sir,” answered Tunstall. “Carry him into the apothecary's, then,” replied his master. “D'ye\r\nthink I can set a man's life in motion again, as if he were a clock or a\r\ntimepiece?”\r\n\r\n“For godsake, old friend,” said his acquaintance, “let us have him here\r\nat the nearest--he seems only in a swoon.”\r\n\r\n“A swoon?” said Ramsay, “and what business had he to swoon in the\r\nstreets? Only, if it will oblige my friend Master George, I would take\r\nin all the dead men in St. Dunstan's parish. Call Sam Porter to look\r\nafter the shop.” So saying, the stunned man, being the identical\r\nScotsman who had passed a short time before amidst the jeers of the\r\napprentices, was carried into the back shop of the artist, and there\r\nplaced in an armed chair till the apothecary from over the way came to\r\nhis assistance. This gentleman, as sometimes happens to those of the\r\nlearned professions, had rather more lore than knowledge, and began to\r\ntalk of the sinciput and occiput, and cerebrum and cerebellum, until he\r\nexhausted David Ramsay's brief stock of patience. “Bell-um!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "bell-ell-um!” he repeated, with great indignation; “What\r\nsignify all the bells in London, if you do not put a plaster on the\r\nchild's crown?”\r\n\r\nMaster George, with better-directed zeal, asked the apothecary whether\r\nbleeding might not be useful; when, after humming and hawing for a\r\nmoment, and being unable, upon the spur of the occasion, to suggest any\r\nthing else, the man of pharmacy observed, that it would, at all events,\r\nrelieve the brain or cerebrum, in case there was a tendency to the\r\ndepositation of any extravasated blood, to operate as a pressure upon\r\nthat delicate organ. Fortunately he was adequate to performing this operation; and, being\r\npowerfully aided by Jenkin Vincent (who was learned in all cases of\r\nbroken heads) with plenty of cold water, and a little vinegar, applied\r\naccording to the scientific method practised by the bottle-holders in a\r\nmodern ring, the man began to raise himself on his chair, draw his cloak\r\ntightly around him, and look about like one who struggles to recover\r\nsense and recollection. “He had better lie down on the bed in the little back closet,” said Mr.\r\nRamsay's visitor, who seemed perfectly familiar with the accommodations\r\nwhich the house afforded."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“He is welcome to my share of the truckle,” said Jenkin,--for in\r\nthe said back closet were the two apprentices accommodated in one\r\ntruckle-bed,--“I can sleep under the counter.”\r\n\r\n“So can I,” said Tunstall, “and the poor fellow can have the bed all\r\nnight.”\r\n\r\n“Sleep,” said the apothecary, “is, in the opinion of Galen,\r\na restorative and febrifuge, and is most naturally taken in a\r\ntruckle-bed.”\r\n\r\n“Where a better cannot be come by,”--said Master George; “but these are\r\ntwo honest lads, to give up their beds so willingly. Come, off with his\r\ncloak, and let us bear him to his couch--I will send for Dr. Irving, the\r\nking's chirurgeon--he does not live far off, and that shall be my share\r\nof the Samaritan's duty, neighbour Ramsay.”\r\n\r\n“Well, sir,” said the apothecary, “it is at your pleasure to send for\r\nother advice, and I shall not object to consult with Dr. Irving or any\r\nother medical person of skill, neither to continue to furnish such drugs\r\nas may be needful from my pharmacopeia."}
{"question": "", "answer": "However, whatever Dr. Irving,\r\nwho, I think, hath had his degrees in Edinburgh, or Dr. Any-one-beside,\r\nbe he Scottish or English, may say to the contrary, sleep, taken\r\ntimeously, is a febrifuge, or sedative, and also a restorative.”\r\n\r\nHe muttered a few more learned words, and concluded by informing\r\nRamsay's friend in English far more intelligible than his Latin, that he\r\nwould look to him as his paymaster, for medicines, care, and attendance,\r\nfurnished, or to be furnished, to this party unknown. Master George only replied by desiring him to send his bill for what he\r\nhad already to charge, and to give himself no farther trouble unless he\r\nheard from him. The pharmacopolist, who, from discoveries made by the\r\ncloak falling a little aside, had no great opinion of the faculty of\r\nthis chance patient to make reimbursement, had no sooner seen his case\r\nespoused by a substantial citizen, than he showed some reluctance to\r\nquit possession of it, and it needed a short and stern hint from Master\r\nGeorge, which, with all his good-humour, he was capable of expressing\r\nwhen occasion required, to send to his own dwelling this Esculapius of\r\nTemple Bar. When they were rid of Mr. Raredrench, the charitable efforts of Jenkin\r\nand Francis, to divest the patient of his long grey cloak, were firmly\r\nresisted on his own part.--“My life suner--my life suner,” he muttered\r\nin indistinct murmurs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In these efforts to retain his upper garment,\r\nwhich was too tender to resist much handling, it gave way at length with\r\na loud rent, which almost threw the patient into a second syncope,\r\nand he sat before them in his under garments, the looped and repaired\r\nwretchedness of which moved at once pity and laughter, and had certainly\r\nbeen the cause of his unwillingness to resign the mantle, which, like\r\nthe virtue of charity, served to cover so many imperfections. The man himself cast his eyes on his poverty-struck garb, and seemed so\r\nmuch ashamed of the disclosure, that, muttering between his teeth, that\r\nhe would be too late for his appointment, he made an effort to rise and\r\nleave the shop, which was easily prevented by Jenkin Vincent and his\r\ncomrade, who, at the nod of Master George, laid hold of and detained him\r\nin his chair. The patient next looked round him for a moment, and then said faintly,\r\nin his broad northern language--“What sort of usage ca' ye this,\r\ngentlemen, to a stranger a sojourner in your town? Ye hae broken my\r\nhead--ye hae riven my cloak, and now ye are for restraining my personal\r\nliberty!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "They were wiser than me,” he said, after a moment's pause,\r\n“that counselled me to wear my warst claithing in the streets of\r\nLondon; and, if I could have got ony things warse than these mean\r\ngarments,”--(“which would have been very difficult,” said Jin Vin, in a\r\nwhisper to his companion,)--“they would have been e'en ower gude for the\r\ngrips o' men sae little acquented with the laws of honest civility.”\r\n\r\n“To say the truth,” said Jenkin, unable to forbear any longer, although\r\nthe discipline of the times prescribed to those in his situation a\r\ndegree of respectful distance and humility in the presence of parents,\r\nmasters, or seniors, of which the present age has no idea--“to say the\r\ntruth, the good gentleman's clothes look as if they would not brook much\r\nhandling.”\r\n\r\n“Hold your peace, young man,” said Master George, with a tone of\r\nauthority; “never mock the stranger or the poor--the black ox has not\r\ntrod on your foot yet--you know not what lands you may travel in, or\r\nwhat clothes you may wear, before you die.”\r\n\r\nVincent held down his head and stood rebuked, but the stranger did not\r\naccept the apology which was made for him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I _am_ a stranger, sir,” said he, “that is certain; though methinks,\r\nthat, being such, I have been somewhat familiarly treated in this town\r\nof yours; but, as for my being poor, I think I need not be charged with\r\npoverty, till I seek siller of somebody.”\r\n\r\n“The dear country all over,” said Master George, in a whisper, to David\r\nRamsay, “pride and poverty.”\r\n\r\nBut David had taken out his tablets and silver pen, and, deeply immersed\r\nin calculations, in which he rambled over all the terms of arithmetic,\r\nfrom the simple unit to millions, billions, and trillions, neither heard\r\nnor answered the observation of his friend, who, seeing his abstraction,\r\nturned again to the Scot. “I fancy now, Jockey, if a stranger were to offer you a noble, you would\r\nchuck it back at his head?”\r\n\r\n“Not if I could do him honest service for it, sir,” said the Scot; “I\r\nam willing to do what I may to be useful, though I come of an honourable\r\nhouse, and may be said to be in a sort indifferently weel provided for.”\r\n\r\n“Ay!” said the interrogator, “and what house may claim the honour of\r\nyour descent?”\r\n\r\n“An ancient coat belongs to it, as the play says,” whispered Vincent to\r\nhis companion. “Come, Jockey, out with it,” continued Master George, observing that the\r\nScot, as usual with his countrymen, when asked a blunt, straightforward\r\nquestion, took a little time before answering it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I am no more Jockey, sir, than you are John,” said the stranger, as if\r\noffended at being addressed by a name, which at that time was used, as\r\nSawney now is, for a general appellative of the Scottish nation. “My\r\nname, if you must know it, is Richie Moniplies; and I come of the old\r\nand honourable house of Castle Collop, weel kend at the West-Port of\r\nEdinburgh.”\r\n\r\n“What is that you call the West-Port?” proceeded the interrogator. “Why, an it like your honour,” said Richie, who now, having recovered\r\nhis senses sufficiently to observe the respectable exterior of Master\r\nGeorge, threw more civility into his manner than at first, “the\r\nWest-Port is a gate of our city, as yonder brick arches at Whitehall\r\nform the entrance of the king's palace here, only that the West-Port is\r\nof stonern work, and mair decorated with architecture and the policy of\r\nbigging.”\r\n\r\n“Nouns, man, the Whitehall gateways were planned by the great Holbein,”\r\n answered Master George; “I suspect your accident has jumbled your\r\nbrains, my good friend."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I suppose you will tell me next, you have\r\nat Edinburgh as fine a navigable river as the Thames, with all its\r\nshipping?”\r\n\r\n“The Thames!” exclaimed Richie, in a tone of ineffable contempt--“God\r\nbless your honour's judgment, we have at Edinburgh the Water-of-Leith\r\nand the Nor-loch!”\r\n\r\n“And the Pow-Burn, and the Quarry-holes, and the Gusedub, ye fause\r\nloon!” answered Master George, speaking Scotch with a strong and natural\r\nemphasis; “it is such land-loupers as you, that, with your falset and\r\nfair fashions, bring reproach on our whole country.”\r\n\r\n“God forgie me, sir,” said Richie, much surprised at finding the\r\nsupposed southron converted into a native Scot, “I took your honour for\r\nan Englisher! But I hope there was naething wrang in standing up for\r\nane's ain country's credit in a strange land, where all men cry her\r\ndown?”\r\n\r\n“Do you call it for your country's credit, to show that she has a lying,\r\npuffing rascal, for one of her children?” said Master George. “But come,\r\nman, never look grave on it,--as you have found a countryman, so you\r\nhave found a friend, if you deserve one--and especially if you answer me\r\ntruly.”\r\n\r\n“I see nae gude it wad do me to speak ought else but truth,” said the\r\nworthy North Briton. “Well, then--to begin,” said Master George, “I suspect you are a son of\r\nold Mungo Moniplies, the flesher, at the West-Port.”\r\n\r\n“Your honour is a witch, I think,” said Richie, grinning."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“And how dared you, sir, to uphold him for a noble?”\r\n\r\n“I dinna ken, sir,” said Richie, scratching his head; “I hear muckle\r\nof an Earl of Warwick in these southern parts,--Guy, I think his name\r\nwas,--and he has great reputation here for slaying dun cows, and boars,\r\nand such like; and I am sure my father has killed more cows and boars,\r\nnot to mention bulls, calves, sheep, ewes, lambs, and pigs, than the\r\nhaill Baronage of England.”\r\n\r\n“Go to! you are a shrewd knave,” said Master George; “charm your tongue,\r\nand take care of saucy answers. Your father was an honest burgher, and\r\nthe deacon of his craft: I am sorry to see his son in so poor a coat.”\r\n\r\n“Indifferent, sir,” said Richie Moniplies, looking down on his\r\ngarments--“very indifferent; but it is the wonted livery of poor\r\nburghers' sons in our country--one of Luckie Want's bestowing upon\r\nus--rest us patient! The king's leaving Scotland has taken all custom\r\nfrae Edinburgh; and there is hay made at the Cross, and a dainty crop\r\nof fouats in the Grass-market. There is as much grass grows where my\r\nfather's stall stood, as might have been a good bite for the beasts he\r\nwas used to kill.”\r\n\r\n“It is even too true,” said Master George; “and while we make fortunes\r\nhere, our old neighbours and their families are starving at home."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This\r\nshould be thought upon oftener.--And how came you by that broken head,\r\nRichie?--tell me honestly.”\r\n\r\n“Troth, sir, I'se no lee about the matter,” answered Moniplies. “I was\r\ncoming along the street here, and ilk ane was at me with their jests and\r\nroguery. So I thought to mysell, ye are ower mony for me to mell with;\r\nbut let me catch ye in Barford's Park, or at the fit of the Vennel, I\r\ncould gar some of ye sing another sang. Sae ae auld hirpling deevil of\r\na potter behoved just to step in my way and offer me a pig, as he\r\nsaid, just to put my Scotch ointment in, and I gave him a push, as but\r\nnatural, and the tottering deevil coupit ower amang his ain pigs, and\r\ndamaged a score of them. And then the reird raise, and hadna these twa\r\ngentlemen helped me out of it, murdered I suld hae been, without remeid. And as it was, just when they got haud of my arm to have me out of the\r\nfray, I got the lick that donnerit me from a left-handed lighterman.”\r\n\r\nMaster George looked to the apprentices as if to demand the truth of\r\nthis story."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“It is just as he says, sir,” replied Jenkin; “only I heard nothing\r\nabout pigs.--The people said he had broke some crockery, and that--I beg\r\npardon, sir--nobody could thrive within the kenning of a Scot.”\r\n\r\n“Well, no matter what they said, you were an honest fellow to help the\r\nweaker side.--And you, sirrah,” continued Master George, addressing his\r\ncountryman, “will call at my house to-morrow morning, agreeable to this\r\ndirection.”\r\n\r\n“I will wait upon your honour,” said the Scot, bowing very low; “that\r\nis, if my honourable master will permit me.”\r\n\r\n“Thy master?” said George,--“Hast thou any other master save Want, whose\r\nlivery you say you wear?”\r\n\r\n“Troth, in one sense, if it please your honour, I serve twa masters,”\r\n said Richie; “for both my master and me are slaves to that same beldam,\r\nwhom we thought to show our heels to by coming off from Scotland. So\r\nthat you see, sir, I hold in a sort of black ward tenure, as we call it\r\nin our country, being the servant of a servant.”\r\n\r\n“And what is your master's name?” said Master George; and observing that\r\nRichie hesitated, he added, “Nay, do not tell me, if it is a secret.”\r\n\r\n“A secret that there is little use in keeping,” said Richie; “only ye\r\nken that our northern stomachs are ower proud to call in witnesses to\r\nour distress."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No that my master is in mair than present pinch, sir,” he\r\nadded, looking towards the two English apprentices, “having a large sum\r\nin the Royal Treasury--that is,” he continued, in a whisper to Master\r\nGeorge,--“the king is owing him a lot of siller; but it's ill getting at\r\nit, it's like.--My master is the young Lord Glenvarloch.”\r\n\r\nMaster George testified surprise at the name.--“_You_ one of the young\r\nLord Glenvarloch's followers, and in such a condition?”\r\n\r\n“Troth, and I am all the followers he has, for the present that is; and\r\nblithe wad I be if he were muckle better aff than I am, though I were to\r\nbide as I am.”\r\n\r\n“I have seen his father with four gentlemen and ten lackeys at his\r\nheels,” said Master George, “rustling in their laces and velvets. Well,\r\nthis is a changeful world, but there is a better beyond it.--The good\r\nold house of Glenvarloch, that stood by king and country five hundred\r\nyears!”\r\n\r\n“Your honour may say a thousand,” said the follower. “I will say what I know to be true, friend,” said the citizen, “and not\r\na word more.--You seem well recovered now--can you walk?”\r\n\r\n“Bravely, sir,” said Richie; “it was but a bit dover."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I was bred at the\r\nWest-Port, and my cantle will stand a clour wad bring a stot down.”\r\n\r\n“Where does your master lodge?”\r\n\r\n“We pit up, an it like your honour,” replied the Scot, “in a sma' house\r\nat the fit of ane of the wynds that gang down to the water-side, with\r\na decent man, John Christie, a ship-chandler, as they ca't. His father\r\ncame from Dundee. I wotna the name of the wynd, but it's right anent the\r\nmickle kirk yonder; and your honour will mind, that we pass only by our\r\nfamily-name of simple Mr. Nigel Olifaunt, as keeping ourselves retired\r\nfor the present, though in Scotland we be called the Lord Nigel.”\r\n\r\n“It is wisely done of your master,” said the citizen. “I will find\r\nout your lodgings, though your direction be none of the clearest.”\r\n So saying, and slipping a piece of money at the same time into Richie\r\nMoniplies's hand, he bade him hasten home, and get into no more affrays. “I will take care of that now, sir,” said Richie, with a look of\r\nimportance, “having a charge about me. And so, wussing ye a' weel, with\r\nspecial thanks to these twa young gentlemen----”\r\n\r\n“I am no gentleman,” said Jenkin, flinging his cap on his head; “I am\r\na tight London 'prentice, and hope to be a freeman one day."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Frank may\r\nwrite himself gentleman, if he will.”\r\n\r\n“I _was_ a gentleman once,” said Tunstall, “and I hope I have done\r\nnothing to lose the name of one.”\r\n\r\n“Weel, weel, as ye list,” said Richie Moniplies; “but I am mickle\r\nbeholden to ye baith--and I am not a hair the less like to bear it in\r\nmind that I say but little about it just now.--Gude-night to you, my\r\nkind countryman.” So saying, he thrust out of the sleeve of his ragged\r\ndoublet a long bony hand and arm, on which the muscles rose like\r\nwhip-cord. Master George shook it heartily, while Jenkin and Frank\r\nexchanged sly looks with each other. Richie Moniplies would next have addressed his thanks to the master of\r\nthe shop, but seeing him, as he afterwards said, “scribbling on his\r\nbit bookie, as if he were demented,” he contented his politeness\r\nwith “giving him a hat,” touching, that is, his bonnet, in token of\r\nsalutation, and so left the shop."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Now, there goes Scotch Jockey, with all his bad and good about him,”\r\n said Master George to Master David, who suspended, though unwillingly,\r\nthe calculations with which he was engaged, and keeping his pen within\r\nan inch of the tablets, gazed on his friend with great lack-lustre eyes,\r\nwhich expressed any thing rather than intelligence or interest in the\r\ndiscourse addressed to him.--“That fellow,” proceeded Master George,\r\nwithout heeding his friend's state of abstraction, “shows, with great\r\nliveliness of colouring, how our Scotch pride and poverty make liars\r\nand braggarts of us; and yet the knave, whose every third word to an\r\nEnglishman is a boastful lie, will, I warrant you, be a true and tender\r\nfriend and follower to his master, and has perhaps parted with his\r\nmantle to him in the cold blast, although he himself walked _in cuerpo,_\r\nas the Don says.--Strange! that courage and fidelity--for I will warrant\r\nthat the knave is stout--should have no better companion than this\r\nswaggering braggadocio humour.--But you mark me not, friend Davie.”\r\n\r\n“I do--I do, most heedfully,” said Davie.--“For, as the sun goeth round\r\nthe dial-plate in twenty-four hours, add, for the moon, fifty minutes\r\nand a half----”\r\n\r\n“You are in the seventh heavens, man,” said his companion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I crave your pardon,” replied Davie.--“Let the wheel A go round in\r\ntwenty-four hours--I have it--and the wheel B in twenty-four hours,\r\nfifty minutes and a half--fifty-seven being to fifty-four, as fifty-nine\r\nto twenty-four hours, fifty minutes and a half, or very nearly,--I crave\r\nyour forgiveness, Master George, and heartily wish you good-even.”\r\n\r\n“Good-even?” said Master George; “why, you have not wished me good-day\r\nyet. Come, old friend, lay by these tablets, or you will crack the inner\r\nmachinery of _your_ skull, as our friend yonder has got the outer-case\r\nof his damaged.--Good-night, quotha! I mean not to part with you so\r\neasily. I came to get my four hours' nunchion from you, man, besides a\r\ntune on the lute from my god-daughter, Mrs. Marget.”\r\n\r\n“Good faith! I was abstracted, Master George--but you know me. Whenever\r\nI get amongst the wheels,” said Mr. Ramsay, “why, 'tis----”\r\n\r\n“Lucky that you deal in small ones,” said his friend; as, awakened from\r\nhis reveries and calculations, Ramsay led the way up a little back-stair\r\nto the first storey, occupied by his daughter and his little household. The apprentices resumed their places in the front-shop, and relieved\r\nSam Porter; when Jenkin said to Tunstall--“Didst see, Frank, how the old\r\ngoldsmith cottoned in with his beggarly countryman?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "When would one\r\nof his wealth have shaken hands so courteously with a poor\r\nEnglishman?--Well, I'll say that for the best of the Scots, that they\r\nwill go over head and ears to serve a countryman, when they will not\r\nwet a nail of their finger to save a Southron, as they call us, from\r\ndrowning. And yet Master George is but half-bred Scot neither in that\r\nrespect; for I have known him do many a kind thing to the English too.”\r\n\r\n“But hark ye, Jenkin,” said Tunstall, “I think you are but half-bred\r\nEnglish yourself. How came you to strike on the Scotsman's side after\r\nall?”\r\n\r\n“Why, you did so, too,” answered Vincent. “Ay, because I saw you begin; and, besides, it is no Cumberland fashion\r\nto fall fifty upon one,” replied Tunstall. “And no Christ Church fashion neither,” said Jenkin. “Fair play and Old\r\nEngland for ever!--Besides, to tell you a secret, his voice had a twang\r\nin it--in the dialect I mean--reminded me of a little tongue, which I\r\nthink sweeter--sweeter than the last toll of St. Dunstan's will sound,\r\non the day that I am shot of my indentures--Ha!--you guess who I mean,\r\nFrank?”\r\n\r\n“Not I, indeed,” answered Tunstall.--“Scotch Janet, I suppose, the\r\nlaundress.”\r\n\r\n\r\n“Off with Janet in her own bucking-basket!--No, no, no!--You blind\r\nbuzzard,--do you not know I mean pretty Mrs. Marget?”\r\n\r\n“Umph!” answered Tunstall, dryly. A flash of anger, not unmingled with suspicion, shot from Jenkin's keen\r\nblack eyes. “Umph!--and what signifies umph?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am not the first 'prentice has\r\nmarried his master's daughter, I suppose?”\r\n\r\n“They kept their own secret, I fancy,” said Tunstall, “at least till\r\nthey were out of their time.”\r\n\r\n“I tell you what it is, Frank,” answered Jenkin, sharply, “that may\r\nbe the fashion of you gentlefolks, that are taught from your biggin to\r\ncarry two faces under the same hood, but it shall never be mine.”\r\n\r\n“There are the stairs, then,” said Tunstall, coolly; “go up and ask Mrs.\r\nMarget of our master just now, and see what sort of a face he will wear\r\nunder _his_ hood.”\r\n\r\n“No, I wonnot,” answered Jenkin; “I am not such a fool as that neither. But I will take my own time; and all the Counts in Cumberland shall not\r\ncut my comb, and this is that which you may depend upon.”\r\n\r\nFrancis made no reply; and they resumed their usual attention to the\r\nbusiness of the shop, and their usual solicitations to the passengers. CHAPTER III\r\n\r\n\r\n_Bobadil._ I pray you, possess no gallant of your acquaintance with a\r\nknowledge of my lodging. _Master Matthew._ Who, I, sir?--Lord, sir! _Ben\r\nJonson._\r\n\r\nThe next morning found Nigel Olifaunt, the young Lord of Glenvarloch,\r\nseated, sad and solitary, in his little apartment, in the mansion\r\nof John Christie, the ship-chandler; which that honest tradesman, in\r\ngratitude perhaps to the profession from which he derived his chief\r\nsupport, appeared to have constructed as nearly as possible upon the\r\nplan of a ship's cabin."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was situated near to Paul's Wharf, at the end of one of those\r\nintricate and narrow lanes, which, until that part of the city was swept\r\naway by the Great Fire in 1666, constituted an extraordinary labyrinth\r\nof small, dark, damp, and unwholesome streets and alleys, in one corner\r\nor other of which the plague was then as surely found lurking, as in the\r\nobscure corners of Constantinople in our own time. But John Christie's\r\nhouse looked out upon the river, and had the advantage, therefore,\r\nof free air, impregnated, however, with the odoriferous fumes of the\r\narticles in which the ship-chandler dealt, with the odour of pitch, and\r\nthe natural scent of the ooze and sludge left by the reflux of the tide. Upon the whole, except that his dwelling did not float with the\r\nflood-tide, and become stranded with the ebb, the young lord was nearly\r\nas comfortably accommodated as he was while on board the little trading\r\nbrig from the long town of Kirkaldy, in Fife, by which he had come a\r\npassenger to London. He received, however, every attention which could\r\nbe paid him by his honest landlord, John Christie; for Richie Moniplies\r\nhad not thought it necessary to preserve his master's _incognito_ so\r\ncompletely, but that the honest ship-chandler could form a guess that\r\nhis guest's quality was superior to his appearance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As for Dame Nelly, his wife, a round, buxom, laughter-loving dame,\r\nwith black eyes, a tight well-laced bodice, a green apron, and a red\r\npetticoat edged with a slight silver lace, and judiciously shortened so\r\nas to show that a short heel, and a tight clean ankle, rested upon her\r\nwell-burnished shoe,--she, of course, felt interest in a young man, who,\r\nbesides being very handsome, good-humoured, and easily satisfied with\r\nthe accommodations her house afforded, was evidently of a rank, as well\r\nas manners, highly superior to the skippers (or Captains, as they called\r\nthemselves) of merchant vessels, who were the usual tenants of the\r\napartments which she let to hire; and at whose departure she was sure to\r\nfind her well-scrubbed floor soiled with the relics of tobacco, (which,\r\nspite of King James's Counterblast, was then forcing itself into use,)\r\nand her best curtains impregnated with the odour of Geneva and strong\r\nwaters, to Dame Nelly's great indignation; for, as she truly said, the\r\nsmell of the shop and warehouse was bad enough without these additions. But all Mr. Olifaunt's habits were regular and cleanly, and his address,\r\nthough frank and simple, showed so much of the courtier and gentleman,\r\nas formed a strong contrast with the loud halloo, coarse jests, and\r\nboisterous impatience of her maritime inmates."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dame Nelly saw that her\r\nguest was melancholy also, notwithstanding his efforts to seem contented\r\nand cheerful; and, in short, she took that sort of interest in him,\r\nwithout being herself aware of the extent, which an unscrupulous gallant\r\nmight have been tempted to improve to the prejudice of honest John,\r\nwho was at least a score of years older than his helpmate. Olifaunt,\r\nhowever, had not only other matters to think of, but would have regarded\r\nsuch an intrigue, had the idea ever occurred to him, as an abominable\r\nand ungrateful encroachment upon the laws of hospitality, his religion\r\nhaving been by his late father formed upon the strict principles of the\r\nnational faith, and his morality upon those of the nicest honour. He\r\nhad not escaped the predominant weakness of his country, an overweening\r\nsense of the pride of birth, and a disposition to value the worth and\r\nconsequence of others according to the number and the fame of their\r\ndeceased ancestors; but this pride of family was well subdued, and\r\nin general almost entirely concealed, by his good sense and general\r\ncourtesy. Such as we have described him, Nigel Olifaunt, or rather the young\r\nLord Glenvarloch, was, when our narrative takes him up, under great\r\nperplexity respecting the fate of his trusty and only follower, Richard\r\nMoniplies, who had been dispatched by his young master, early the\r\npreceding morning, as far as the court at Westminster, but had not yet\r\nreturned."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His evening adventures the reader is already acquainted with,\r\nand so far knows more of Richie than did his master, who had not heard\r\nof him for twenty-four hours. Dame Nelly Christie, in the meantime, regarded her guest with some\r\nanxiety, and a great desire to comfort him, if possible. She placed on\r\nthe breakfast-table a noble piece of cold powdered beef, with its usual\r\nguards of turnip and carrot, recommended her mustard as coming direct\r\nfrom her cousin at Tewkesbury, and spiced the toast with her own\r\nhands--and with her own hands, also, drew a jug of stout and nappy ale,\r\nall of which were elements of the substantial breakfast of the period. When she saw that her guest's anxiety prevented him from doing justice\r\nto the good cheer which she set before him, she commenced her career\r\nof verbal consolation with the usual volubility of those women in her\r\nstation, who, conscious of good looks, good intentions, and good lungs,\r\nentertain no fear either of wearying themselves or of fatiguing their\r\nauditors. “Now, what the good year! are we to send you down to Scotland as thin\r\nas you came up?--I am sure it would be contrary to the course of nature. There was my goodman's father, old Sandie Christie, I have heard he was\r\nan atomy when he came up from the North, and I am sure he died, Saint\r\nBarnaby was ten years, at twenty stone weight."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I was a bare-headed girl\r\nat the time, and lived in the neighbourhood, though I had little thought\r\nof marrying John then, who had a score of years the better of me--but he\r\nis a thriving man and a kind husband--and his father, as I was saying,\r\ndied as fat as a church-warden. Well, sir, but I hope I have not\r\noffended you for my little joke--and I hope the ale is to your honour's\r\nliking,--and the beef--and the mustard?”\r\n\r\n“All excellent--all too good,” answered Olifaunt; “you have every thing\r\nso clean and tidy, dame, that I shall not know how to live when I go\r\nback to my own country--if ever I go back there.”\r\n\r\nThis was added as it seemed involuntarily, and with a deep sigh. “I warrant your honour go back again if you like it,” said the dame:\r\n“unless you think rather of taking a pretty well-dowered English lady,\r\nas some of your countryfolk have done. I assure you, some of the best of\r\nthe city have married Scotsmen."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was Lady Trebleplumb, Sir Thomas\r\nTrebleplumb the great Turkey merchant's widow, married Sir Awley\r\nMacauley, whom your honour knows, doubtless; and pretty Mistress\r\nDoublefee, old Sergeant Doublefee's daughter, jumped out of window,\r\nand was married at May-fair to a Scotsman with a hard name; and old\r\nPitchpost the timber merchant's daughters did little better, for they\r\nmarried two Irishmen; and when folks jeer me about having a Scotsman\r\nfor lodger, meaning your honour, I tell them they are afraid of their\r\ndaughters and their mistresses; and sure I have a right to stand up for\r\nthe Scots, since John Christie is half a Scotsman, and a thriving man,\r\nand a good husband, though there is a score of years between us; and so\r\nI would have your honour cast care away, and mend your breakfast with a\r\nmorsel and a draught.”\r\n\r\n“At a word, my kind hostess, I cannot,” said Olifaunt; “I am anxious\r\nabout this knave of mine, who has been so long absent in this dangerous\r\ntown of yours.”\r\n\r\nIt may be noticed in passing that Dame Nelly's ordinary mode of\r\nconsolation was to disprove the existence of any cause for distress; and\r\nshe is said to have carried this so far as to comfort a neighbour, who\r\nhad lost her husband, with the assurance that the dear defunct would be\r\nbetter to-morrow, which perhaps might not have proved an appropriate,\r\neven if it had been a possible, mode of relief."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On this occasion she denied stoutly that Richie had been absent\r\naltogether twenty hours; and as for people being killed in the streets\r\nof London, to be sure two men had been found in Tower-ditch last week,\r\nbut that was far to the east, and the other poor man that had his throat\r\ncut in the fields, had met his mishap near by Islington; and he that was\r\nstabbed by the young Templar in a drunken frolic, by Saint Clement's\r\nin the Strand, was an Irishman. All which evidence she produced to show\r\nthat none of these casualties had occurred in a case exactly parallel\r\nwith that of Richie, a Scotsman, and on his return from Westminster. “My better comfort is, my good dame,” answered Olifaunt, “that the lad\r\nis no brawler or quarreller, unless strongly urged, and that he has\r\nnothing valuable about him to any one but me.”\r\n\r\n“Your honour speaks very well,” retorted the inexhaustible hostess, who\r\nprotracted her task of taking away, and putting to rights, in order\r\nthat she might prolong her gossip."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I'll uphold Master Moniplies to be\r\nneither reveller nor brawler, for if he liked such things, he might\r\nbe visiting and junketing with the young folks about here in the\r\nneighbourhood, and he never dreams of it; and when I asked the young\r\nman to go as far as my gossip's, Dame Drinkwater, to taste a glass of\r\naniseed, and a bit of the groaning cheese,--for Dame Drinkwater has had\r\ntwins, as I told your honour, sir,--and I meant it quite civilly to the\r\nyoung man, but he chose to sit and keep house with John Christie; and\r\nI dare say there is a score of years between them, for your honour's\r\nservant looks scarce much older than I am. I wonder what they could have\r\nto say to each other. I asked John Christie, but he bid me go to sleep.”\r\n\r\n“If he comes not soon,” said his master, “I will thank you to tell me\r\nwhat magistrate I can address myself to; for besides my anxiety for the\r\npoor fellow's safety, he has papers of importance about him.”\r\n\r\n“O! your honour may be assured he will be back in a quarter of an hour,”\r\n said Dame Nelly; “he is not the lad to stay out twenty-four hours at a\r\nstretch."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And for the papers, I am sure your honour will pardon him for\r\njust giving me a peep at the corner, as I was giving him a small cup,\r\nnot so large as my thimble, of distilled waters, to fortify his stomach\r\nagainst the damps, and it was directed to the King's Most Excellent\r\nMajesty; and so doubtless his Majesty has kept Richie out of civility to\r\nconsider of your honour's letter, and send back a fitting reply.”\r\n\r\nDame Nelly here hit by chance on a more available topic of consolation\r\nthan those she had hitherto touched upon; for the youthful lord had\r\nhimself some vague hopes that his messenger might have been delayed at\r\nCourt until a fitting and favourable answer should be dispatched back to\r\nhim. Inexperienced, however, in public affairs as he certainly was,\r\nit required only a moment's consideration to convince him of the\r\nimprobability of an expectation so contrary to all he had heard of\r\netiquette, as well as the dilatory proceedings in a court suit, and he\r\nanswered the good-natured hostess with a sigh, that he doubted whether\r\nthe king would even look on the paper addressed to him, far less take it\r\ninto his immediate consideration. “Now, out upon you for a faint-hearted gentleman!” said the good\r\ndame; “and why should he not do as much for us as our gracious Queen\r\nElizabeth?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Many people say this and that about a queen and a king, but\r\nI think a king comes more natural to us English folks; and this good\r\ngentleman goes as often down by water to Greenwich, and employs as many\r\nof the barge-men and water-men of all kinds; and maintains, in his royal\r\ngrace, John Taylor, the water-poet, who keeps both a sculler and a pair\r\nof oars. And he has made a comely Court at Whitehall, just by the river;\r\nand since the king is so good a friend to the Thames, I cannot see,\r\nif it please your honour, why all his subjects, and your honour in\r\nspecialty, should not have satisfaction by his hands.”\r\n\r\n“True, dame--true,--let us hope for the best; but I must take my cloak\r\nand rapier, and pray your husband in courtesy to teach me the way to a\r\nmagistrate.”\r\n\r\n“Sure, sir,” said the prompt dame, “I can do that as well as he, who has\r\nbeen a slow man of his tongue all his life, though I will give him his\r\ndue for being a loving husband, and a man as well to pass in the world\r\nas any betwixt us and the top of the lane. And so there is the sitting\r\nalderman, that is always at the Guildhall, which is close by Paul's, and\r\nso I warrant you he puts all to rights in the city that wisdom can mend;\r\nand for the rest there is no help but patience."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I wish I were as\r\nsure of forty pounds as I am that the young man will come back safe and\r\nsound.”\r\n\r\nOlifaunt, in great and anxious doubt of what the good dame so strongly\r\naverred, flung his cloak on one shoulder, and was about to belt on his\r\nrapier, when first the voice of Richie Moniplies on the stair, and\r\nthen that faithful emissary's appearance in the chamber, put the matter\r\nbeyond question. Dame Nelly, after congratulating Moniplies on his\r\nreturn, and paying several compliments to her own sagacity for having\r\nforetold it, was at length pleased to leave the apartment. The truth\r\nwas, that, besides some instinctive feelings of good breeding which\r\ncombated her curiosity, she saw there was no chance of Richie's\r\nproceeding in his narrative while she was in the room, and she therefore\r\nretreated, trusting that her own address would get the secret out of one\r\nor other of the young men, when she should have either by himself. “Now, in Heaven's name, what is the matter?” said Nigel\r\nOlifaunt.--“Where have you been, or what have you been about? You look\r\nas pale as death. There is blood on your hand, and your clothes are\r\ntorn. What barns-breaking have you been at?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "You have been drunk,\r\nRichard, and fighting.”\r\n\r\n“Fighting I have been,” said Richard, “in a small way; but for being\r\ndrunk, that's a job ill to manage in this town, without money to come\r\nby liquor; and as for barns-breaking, the deil a thing's broken but my\r\nhead. It's not made of iron, I wot, nor my claithes of chenzie-mail; so\r\na club smashed the tane, and a claught damaged the tither. Some misleard\r\nrascals abused my country, but I think I cleared the causey of them. However, the haill hive was ower mony for me at last, and I got this\r\neclipse on the crown, and then I was carried, beyond my kenning, to\r\na sma' booth at the Temple Port, whare they sell the whirligigs and\r\nmony-go-rounds that measure out time as a man wad measure a tartan\r\nweb; and then they bled me, wold I nold I, and were reasonably civil,\r\nespecially an auld country-man of ours, of whom more hereafter.”\r\n\r\n“And at what o'clock might this be?” said Nigel. “The twa iron carles yonder, at the kirk beside the Port, were just\r\nbanging out sax o' the clock.”\r\n\r\n“And why came you not home as soon as you recovered?” said Nigel. “In troth, my lord, every _why_ has its _wherefore_, and this has a gude\r\nane,” answered his follower."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“To come hame, I behoved to ken whare hame\r\nwas; now, I had clean tint the name of the wynd, and the mair I asked,\r\nthe mair the folk leugh, and the farther they sent me wrang; sae I gave\r\nit up till God should send daylight to help me; and as I saw mysell near\r\na kirk at the lang run, I e'en crap in to take up my night's quarters in\r\nthe kirkyard.”\r\n\r\n“In the churchyard?” said Nigel--“But I need not ask what drove you to\r\nsuch a pinch.”\r\n\r\n“It wasna sae much the want o' siller, my Lord Nigel,” said Richie,\r\nwith an air of mysterious importance, “for I was no sae absolute without\r\nmeans, of whilk mair anon; but I thought I wad never ware a saxpence\r\nsterling on ane of their saucy chamberlains at a hostelry, sae lang as\r\nI could sleep fresh and fine in a fair, dry, spring night. Mony a time,\r\nwhen I hae come hame ower late, and faund the West-Port steekit, and the\r\nwaiter ill-willy, I have garr'd the sexton of Saint Cuthbert's calf-ward\r\nserve me for my quarters."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But then there are dainty green graffs in\r\nSaint Cuthbert's kirkyard, whare ane may sleep as if they were in a\r\ndown-bed, till they hear the lavrock singing up in the air as high as\r\nthe Castle; whereas, and behold, these London kirkyards are causeyed\r\nwith through-stanes, panged hard and fast thegither; and my cloak being\r\nsomething threadbare, made but a thin mattress, so I was fain to give\r\nup my bed before every limb about me was crippled. Dead folks may sleep\r\nyonder sound enow, but deil haet else.”\r\n\r\n“And what became of you next?” said his master. “I just took to a canny bulkhead, as they ca' them here; that is, the\r\nboards on the tap of their bits of outshots of stalls and booths,\r\nand there I sleepit as sound as if I was in a castle. Not but I was\r\ndisturbed with some of the night-walking queans and swaggering billies,\r\nbut when they found there was nothing to be got by me but a slash of my\r\nAndrew Ferrara, they bid me good-night for a beggarly Scot; and I was\r\ne'en weel pleased to be sae cheap rid of them. And in the morning, I cam\r\ndaikering here, but sad wark I had to find the way, for I had been\r\neast as far as the place they ca' Mile-End, though it is mair like\r\nsax-mile-end.”\r\n\r\n“Well, Richie,” answered Nigel, “I am glad all this has ended so\r\nwell--go get something to eat."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am sure you need it.”\r\n\r\n“In troth do I, sir,” replied Moniplies; “but, with your lordship's\r\nleave--”\r\n\r\n“Forget the lordship for the present, Richie, as I have often told you\r\nbefore.”\r\n\r\n“Faith,” replied Richie, “I could weel forget that your honour was a\r\nlord, but then I behoved to forget that I am a lord's man, and that's\r\nnot so easy. But, however,” he added, assisting his description with the\r\nthumb and the two forefingers of his right hand, thrust out after the\r\nfashion of a bird's claw, while the little finger and ring-finger were\r\nclosed upon the palm, “to the Court I went, and my friend that promised\r\nme a sight of his Majesty's most gracious presence, was as gude as\r\nhis word, and carried me into the back offices, where I got the best\r\nbreakfast I have had since we came here, and it did me gude for the rest\r\nof the day; for as to what I have eaten in this accursed town, it is aye\r\nsauced with the disquieting thought that it maun be paid for."}
{"question": "", "answer": "After a',\r\nthere was but beef banes and fat brose; but king's cauff, your honour\r\nkens, is better than ither folk's corn; at ony rate, it was a' in free\r\nawmous.--But I see,” he added, stopping short, “that your honour waxes\r\nimpatient.”\r\n\r\n“By no means, Richie,” said the young nobleman, with an air of\r\nresignation, for he well knew his domestic would not mend his pace for\r\ngoading; “you have suffered enough in the embassy to have a right to\r\ntell the story in your own way. Only let me pray for the name of the\r\nfriend who was to introduce you into the king's presence. You were very\r\nmysterious on the subject, when you undertook, through his means, to\r\nhave the Supplication put into his Majesty's own hands, since those\r\nsent heretofore, I have every reason to think, went no farther than his\r\nsecretary's.”\r\n\r\n“Weel, my lord,” said Richie, “I did not tell you his name and quality\r\nat first, because I thought you would be affronted at the like of him\r\nhaving to do in your lordship's affairs. But mony a man climbs up in\r\nCourt by waur help. It was just Laurie Linklater, one of the yeomen of\r\nthe kitchen, that was my father's apprentice lang syne.”\r\n\r\n“A yeoman in the kitchen--a scullion!” exclaimed Lord Nigel, pacing the\r\nroom in displeasure."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“But consider, sir,” said Richie, composedly, “that a' your great\r\nfriends hung back, and shunned to own you, or to advocate your petition;\r\nand then, though I am sure I wish Laurie a higher office, for your\r\nlordship's sake and for mine, and specially for his ain sake, being a\r\nfriendly lad, yet your lordship must consider, that a scullion, if a\r\nyeoman of the king's most royal kitchen may be called a scullion, may\r\nweel rank with a master-cook elsewhere; being that king's cauff, as I\r\nsaid before, is better than--”\r\n\r\n“You are right, and I was wrong,” said the young nobleman. “I have no\r\nchoice of means of making my case known, so that they be honest.”\r\n\r\n“Laurie is as honest a lad as ever lifted a ladle,” said Richie; “not\r\nbut what I dare to say he can lick his fingers like other folk, and\r\nreason good. But, in fine, for I see your honour is waxing impatient, he\r\nbrought me to the palace, where a' was astir for the king going out to\r\nhunt or hawk on Blackheath, I think they ca'd it. And there was a horse\r\nstood with all the quarries about it, a bonny grey as ever was foaled;\r\nand the saddle and the stirrups, and the curb and bit, o' burning gowd,\r\nor silver gilded at least; and down, sir, came the king, with all his\r\nnobles, dressed out in his hunting-suit of green, doubly laced, and laid\r\ndown with gowd."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I minded the very face o' him, though it was lang since\r\nI saw him. But my certie, lad, thought I, times are changed since ye\r\ncame fleeing down the back stairs of auld Holyrood House, in grit fear,\r\nhaving your breeks in your hand without time to put them on, and Frank\r\nStewart, the wild Earl of Bothwell, hard at your haunches; and if auld\r\nLord Glenvarloch hadna cast his mantle about his arm, and taken bluidy\r\nwounds mair than ane in your behalf, you wald not have craw'd sae\r\ncrouse this day; and so saying, I could not but think your lordship's\r\nSifflication could not be less than most acceptable; and so I banged\r\nin among the crowd of lords."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Laurie thought me mad, and held me by the\r\ncloak-lap till the cloth rave in his hand; and so I banged in right\r\nbefore the king just as he mounted, and crammed the Sifflication into\r\nhis hand, and he opened it like in amaze; and just as he saw the first\r\nline, I was minded to make a reverence, and I had the ill luck to hit\r\nhis jaud o' a beast on the nose with my hat, and scaur the creature,\r\nand she swarved aside, and the king, that sits na mickle better than a\r\ndraff-pock on the saddle, was like to have gotten a clean coup, and that\r\nmight have cost my craig a raxing-and he flung down the paper amang the\r\nbeast's feet, and cried, 'Away wi' the fause loon that brought it!' And\r\nthey grippit me, and cried treason; and I thought of the Ruthvens that\r\nwere dirked in their ain house, for, it may be, as small a forfeit. However, they spak only of scourging me, and had me away to the porter's\r\nlodge to try the tawse on my back, and I was crying mercy as loud as\r\nI could; and the king, when he had righted himself on the saddle, and\r\ngathered his breath, cried to do me nae harm; for, said he, he is ane\r\nof our ain Norland stots, I ken by the rowt of him,--and they a'\r\nlaughed and rowted loud eneugh."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then he said, 'Gie him a copy of\r\nthe Proclamation, and let him go down to the North by the next light\r\ncollier, before waur come o't.' So they let me go, and rode out, a\r\nsniggering, laughing, and rounding in ilk ither's lugs. A sair life I\r\nhad wi' Laurie Linklater; for he said it wad be the ruin of him. And\r\nthen, when I told him it was in your matter, he said if he had known\r\nbefore he would have risked a scauding for you, because he minded\r\nthe brave old lord, your father. And then he showed how I suld have\r\ndone,--and that I suld have held up my hand to my brow, as if the\r\ngrandeur of the king and his horse-graith thegither had casten the\r\nglaiks in my een, and mair jackanape tricks I suld hae played, instead\r\nof offering the Sifflication, he said, as if I had been bringing guts to\r\na bear.” [Footnote: I am certain this prudential advice is not original\r\non Mr. Linklater's part, but I am not at present able to produce my\r\nauthority."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I think it amounted to this, that James flung down a petition\r\npresented by some supplicant who paid no compliments to his horse,\r\nand expressed no admiration at the splendour of his furniture, saying,\r\n“Shall a king cumber himself about the petition of a beggar, while\r\nthe beggar disregards the king's splendour?” It is, I think, Sir John\r\nHarrington who recommends, as a sure mode to the king's favour, to\r\npraise the paces of the royal palfrey.] 'For,' said he, 'Richie, the king is a weel-natured and just man of\r\nhis ain kindly nature, but he has a wheen maggots that maun be cannily\r\nguided; and then, Richie,' says he, in a very laigh tone, 'I would tell\r\nit to nane but a wise man like yoursell, but the king has them about him\r\nwad corrupt an angel from heaven; but I could have gi'en you avisement\r\nhow to have guided him, but now it's like after meat mustard.' --'Aweel,\r\naweel, Laurie,' said I, 'it may be as you say', but since I am clear of\r\nthe tawse and the porter's lodge, sifflicate wha like, deil hae Richie\r\nMoniplies if he come sifflicating here again.'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "--And so away I came, and\r\nI wasna far by the Temple Port, or Bar, or whatever they ca' it, when I\r\nmet with the misadventure that I tauld you of before.”\r\n\r\n“Well, my honest Richie,” said Lord Nigel, “your attempt was well meant,\r\nand not so ill conducted, I think, as to have deserved so bad an issue;\r\nbut go to your beef and mustard, and we'll talk of the rest afterwards.”\r\n\r\n“There is nae mair to be spoken, sir,” said his follower, “except that\r\nI met ane very honest, fair-spoken, weel-put-on gentleman, or rather\r\nburgher, as I think, that was in the whigmaleery man's back-shop; and\r\nwhen he learned wha I was, behold he was a kindly Scot himsell, and,\r\nwhat is more, a town's-bairn o' the gude town, and he behoved to compel\r\nme to take this Portugal piece, to drink, forsooth--my certie, thought\r\nI, we ken better, for we will eat it--and he spoke of paying your\r\nlordship a visit.”\r\n\r\n“You did not tell him where I lived, you knave?” said the Lord Nigel,\r\nangrily. “'Sdeath! I shall have every clownish burgher from Edinburgh\r\ncome to gaze on my distress, and pay a shilling for having seen the\r\nmotion of the Poor Noble!”\r\n\r\n“Tell him where you lived?” said Richie, evading the question; “How\r\ncould I tell him what I kendna mysell?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "If I had minded the name of the\r\nwynd, I need not have slept in the kirkyard yestreen.”\r\n\r\n“See, then, that you give no one notice of our lodging,” said the young\r\nnobleman; “those with whom I have business I can meet at Paul's, or in\r\nthe Court of Requests.”\r\n\r\n“This is steeking the stable-door when the steed is stolen,” thought\r\nRichie to himself; “but I must put him on another pin.”\r\n\r\nSo thinking, he asked the young lord what was in the Proclamation which\r\nhe still held folded in his hand; “for, having little time to spell at\r\nit,” said he, “your lordship well knows I ken nought about it but the\r\ngrand blazon at the tap--the lion has gotten a claught of our auld\r\nScottish shield now, but it was as weel upheld when it had a unicorn on\r\nilk side of it.”\r\n\r\nLord Nigel read the Proclamation, and he coloured deep with shame and\r\nindignation as he read; for the purport was, to his injured feelings,\r\nlike the pouring of ardent spirits upon a recent wound."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“What deil's in the paper, my lord?” said Richie, unable to suppress his\r\ncuriosity as he observed his master change colour; “I wadna ask such a\r\nthing, only the Proclamation is not a private thing, but is meant for a'\r\nmen's hearing.”\r\n\r\n“It is indeed meant for all men's hearing,” replied Lord Nigel, “and it\r\nproclaims the shame of our country, and the ingratitude of our Prince.”\r\n\r\n“Now the Lord preserve us! and to publish it in London, too!” ejaculated\r\nMoniplies. “Hark ye, Richard,” said Nigel Olifaunt, “in this paper the Lords of the\r\nCouncil set forth, that, 'in consideration of the resort of idle persons\r\nof low condition forth from his Majesty's kingdom of Scotland to his\r\nEnglish Court--filling the same with their suits and supplications,\r\nand dishonouring the royal presence with their base, poor, and beggarly\r\npersons, to the disgrace of their country in the estimation of the\r\nEnglish; these are to prohibit the skippers, masters of vessels\r\nand others, in every part of Scotland, from bringing such miserable\r\ncreatures up to Court under pain of fine and impisonment.”'\r\n\r\n“I marle the skipper took us on board,” said Richie."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Then you need not marvel how you are to get back again,” said Lord\r\nNigel, “for here is a clause which says, that such idle suitors are to\r\nbe transported back to Scotland at his Majesty's expense, and punished\r\nfor their audacity with stripes, stocking, or incarceration, according\r\nto their demerits--that is to say, I suppose, according to the degree of\r\ntheir poverty, for I see no other demerit specified.”\r\n\r\n“This will scarcely,” said Richie, “square with our old proverb--\r\n\r\n     A King's face\r\n     Should give grace--\r\n\r\nBut what says the paper farther, my lord?”\r\n\r\n“O, only a small clause which especially concerns us, making some still\r\nheavier denunciations against those suitors who shall be so bold as to\r\napproach the Court, under pretext of seeking payment of old debts due\r\nto them by the king, which, the paper states, is, of all species of\r\nimportunity, that which is most odious to his Majesty.”\r\n\r\n“The king has neighbours in that matter,” said Richie; “but it is not\r\nevery one that can shift off that sort of cattle so easily as he does.”\r\n\r\nTheir conversation was here interrupted by a knocking at the door. Olifaunt looked out at the window, and saw an elderly respectable person\r\nwhom he knew not. Richie also peeped, and recognised, but, recognising,\r\nchose not to acknowledge, his friend of the preceding evening."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Afraid\r\nthat his share in the visit might be detected, he made his escape out\r\nof the apartment under pretext of going to his breakfast; and left their\r\nlandlady the task of ushering Master George into Lord Nigel's apartment,\r\nwhich she performed with much courtesy. CHAPTER IV\r\n\r\n\r\n  Ay, sir, the clouted shoe hath oft times craft in't,\r\n  As says the rustic proverb; and your citizen,\r\n  In's grogram suit, gold chain, and well-black'd shoes,\r\n  Bears under his flat cap ofttimes a brain\r\n  Wiser than burns beneath the cap and feather,\r\n  Or seethes within the statesman's velvet nightcap. _Read me my Riddle._\r\n\r\nThe young Scottish nobleman received the citizen with distant\r\npoliteness, expressing that sort of reserve by which those of the higher\r\nranks are sometimes willing to make a plebeian sensible that he is an\r\nintruder. But Master George seemed neither displeased nor disconcerted. He assumed the chair, which, in deference to his respectable appearance,\r\nLord Nigel offered to him, and said, after a moment's pause, during\r\nwhich he had looked attentively at the young man, with respect not\r\nunmingled with emotion--“You will forgive me for this rudeness, my\r\nlord; but I was endeavouring to trace in your youthful countenance the\r\nfeatures of my good old lord, your excellent father.”\r\n\r\nThere was a moment's pause ere young Glenvarloch replied, still with\r\na reserved manner,--“I have been reckoned like my father, sir; and am\r\nhappy to see any one that respects his memory."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the business which\r\ncalls me to this city is of a hasty as well as a private nature, and--”\r\n\r\n“I understand the hint, my lord,” said Master George, “and would not\r\nbe guilty of long detaining you from business, or more agreeable\r\nconversation. My errand is almost done when I have said that my name is\r\nGeorge Heriot, warmly befriended, and introduced into the employment\r\nof the Royal Family of Scotland, more than twenty years since, by your\r\nexcellent father; and that, learning from a follower of yours that your\r\nlordship was in this city in prosecution of some business of importance,\r\nit is my duty,--it is my pleasure,--to wait on the son of my respected\r\npatron; and, as I am somewhat known both at the Court, and in the city,\r\nto offer him such aid in the furthering of his affairs as my credit and\r\nexperience may be able to afford.”\r\n\r\n“I have no doubt of either, Master Heriot,” said Lord Nigel, “and I\r\nthank you heartily for the good-will with which you have placed them at\r\na stranger's disposal; but my business at Court is done and ended, and\r\nI intend to leave London and, indeed, the island, for foreign travel\r\nand military service."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I may add, that the suddenness of my departure\r\noccasions my having little time at my disposal.”\r\n\r\nMaster Heriot did not take the hint, but sat fast, with an embarrassed\r\ncountenance however, like one who had something to say that he knew not\r\nexactly how to make effectual. At length he said, with a dubious smile,\r\n“You are fortunate, my lord, in having so soon dispatched your business\r\nat Court. Your talking landlady informs me you have been but a fortnight\r\nin this city. It is usually months and years ere the Court and a suitor\r\nshake hands and part.”\r\n\r\n“My business,” said Lord Nigel, with a brevity which was intended to\r\nstop further discussion, “was summarily dispatched.”\r\n\r\nStill Master Heriot remained seated, and there was a cordial good-humour\r\nadded to the reverence of his appearance, which rendered it impossible\r\nfor Lord Nigel to be more explicit in requesting his absence. “Your lordship has not yet had time,” said the citizen, still attempting\r\nto sustain the conversation, “to visit the places of amusement,--the\r\nplayhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your\r\nlordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote:\r\nMeaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask\r\nwhat play?”\r\n\r\n“Oh! a well-known piece,” said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down\r\nthe Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in\r\nhis hand,--“an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old\r\nDebts._”\r\n\r\nMaster Heriot stooped down, saying, “Ah!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "my old acquaintance, Philip\r\nMassinger;” but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked\r\nat Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, “I trust your lordship does not\r\nthink this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your\r\nclaims?”\r\n\r\n“I should scarce have thought so myself,” said the young nobleman; “but\r\nso it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been\r\npleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful\r\nSupplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for\r\nthe service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies.”\r\n\r\n“It is impossible!” said the citizen--“it is absolutely impossible!--If\r\nthe king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still\r\nhe would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so\r\nflagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead\r\nin the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people.”\r\n\r\n“I should have been of your opinion,” answered Lord Nigel, in the same\r\ntone as before; “but there is no fighting with facts.”\r\n\r\n“What was the tenor of this Supplication?” said Heriot; “or by whom was\r\nit presented?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Something strange there must have been in the contents, or\r\nelse--”\r\n\r\n“You may see my original draught,” said the young lord, taking it out\r\nof a small travelling strong-box; “the technical part is by my lawyer in\r\nScotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope,\r\nwith due deference and modesty.”\r\n\r\nMaster Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. “Nothing,” he said,\r\n“can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can\r\nhave treated this petition with contempt?”\r\n\r\n“He threw it down on the pavement,” said the Lord of Glenvarloch, “and\r\nsent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the\r\npaupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes\r\nof the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with\r\nheart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England\r\nhimself.”\r\n\r\n“But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord?” said Heriot;\r\n“for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to\r\nthe message.”\r\n\r\n“By my servant,” said the Lord Nigel; “by the man you saw, and, I think,\r\nwere kind to.”\r\n\r\n“By your servant, my lord?” said the citizen; “he seems a shrewd fellow,\r\nand doubtless a faithful; but surely--”\r\n\r\n“You would say,” said Lord Nigel, “he is no fit messenger to a king's\r\npresence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Every attempt I had\r\nmade to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions\r\ngot no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow\r\npretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the\r\nking's presence,--and so--”\r\n\r\n“I understand,” said Heriot; “but, my lord, why should you not, in\r\nright of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an\r\naudience, which could not have been denied to you?”\r\n\r\nThe young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very\r\nplain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having\r\nseen service. “I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth,” he said,\r\nafter a momentary hesitation,--“I had no dress suitable for appearing\r\nat Court."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms.” “That had been, indeed, unseemly,” said the citizen; “but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic?” “I see little good it can do,” answered the young lord, “but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore----” He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.--“Will your lordship grant permission,” said Heriot, “that I ask your groom a few questions?” “His lordship's page, Master George,” answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, “if you are minded to speak according to the letter.” “Hold your saucy tongue,” said his master, “and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked.” “And _truly,_ if it like your pageship,” said the citizen, “for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset.” “Weel, weel, weel,” replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery--“though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else.” “Pages lie to their masters by right of custom,” said the citizen;"}
{"question": "", "answer": "“and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post.” “And that's e'en a bad resting-place,” said the well-grown page; “so come away with your questions, Master George.” “Well, then,” demanded the citizen, “I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master.” “Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir,” replied Moniplies; “there were enow to see it besides me.” “And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt?” said the citizen."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you\r\nwere better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than\r\ntell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned.”\r\n\r\n“There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter,” answered\r\nMoniplies, firmly; “his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had\r\ndirtied his fingers.”\r\n\r\n“You hear, sir,” said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. “Hush!” said the sagacious citizen; “this fellow is not ill named--he\r\nhas more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow,” for Moniplies,\r\nmuttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to\r\nshamble towards the door, “answer me this farther question--When you\r\ngave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it?”\r\n\r\n“Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George?”\r\n\r\n“That is what I desire and insist to know,” replied his interrogator. “Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip\r\ninto the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my\r\nlord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider\r\nthem baith at ance.”\r\n\r\n“A supplication of your own, you varlet!” said his master."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Ou dear, ay, my lord,” said Richie--“puir bodies hae their bits of\r\nsifflications as weel as their betters.”\r\n\r\n“And pray, what might your worshipful petition import?” said Master\r\nHeriot.--“Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we\r\nshall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah,\r\nand I will stand your friend with my lord.”\r\n\r\n“It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an\r\nauld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist\r\ngracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings\r\nand furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to\r\nmy father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his\r\nMajesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the\r\nsaam.”\r\n\r\n“What string of impertinence is this?” said his master. “Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke,” said Richie; “here's the\r\nbit double of the Sifflication.”\r\n\r\nMaster George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said,\r\nmuttering betwixt his teeth--“'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's\r\nmaist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of\r\nfifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for\r\njellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for\r\nthe privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "--I\r\nthink, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this\r\npetition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took\r\ncare to present your own Supplication before your master's?”\r\n\r\n“Troth did I not,” answered Moniplies. “I thought to have given my\r\nlord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the\r\ngate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an'\r\nthe loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I\r\ncrammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was\r\nbunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright\r\nand a' the risk--”\r\n\r\n“And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave,” said Nigel; “am I to\r\nbe insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending\r\nyour base concerns with mine?”\r\n\r\n“Nay, nay, nay, my lord,” said the good-humoured citizen, interposing,\r\n“I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow\r\nme interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You\r\nhave cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of\r\nconceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of\r\nhim another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll\r\nmake your peace.”\r\n\r\n“Na, na,” said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, “if he likes to\r\nstrike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has\r\nbeen little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just\r\nlet my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would\r\nrather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his\r\nbaton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us.”\r\n\r\n“Go, then,” said his master, “and get out of my sight.”\r\n\r\n“Aweel I wot that is sune done,” said Moniplies, retiring slowly; “I did\r\nnot come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an\r\nhour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer\r\nhis interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir.”\r\n\r\nAnd so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who\r\nhas sustained an injury, than who has done wrong."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The\r\nfellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me,\r\ntoo, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his\r\nown conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to\r\nbecome the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is\r\nsure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and\r\nin no degree with himself.”\r\n\r\n“Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless,” said the citizen;\r\n“for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer\r\nqualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust\r\nhim, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for\r\nyou see yourself how it may chance to fall.”\r\n\r\n“It is but too evident, Master Heriot,” said the young nobleman; “and I\r\nam sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I\r\nam, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my\r\nSupplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the\r\nrest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp,\r\nand die in the battle-front like my ancestors.”\r\n\r\n“It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father,\r\nmy lord,” replied Master George."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Nay, nay, never look down or shake\r\nyour head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not\r\nseen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to\r\nhis subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth\r\nin this hold bias with his duty.”\r\n\r\n“I were well pleased to think so, and yet----” said Nigel Olifaunt,--“I\r\nspeak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are\r\nunredressed.”\r\n\r\n“My lord,” said Master Heriot, “I speak of my royal master, not only\r\nwith the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a\r\nfavoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal\r\nScotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of\r\njustice even; but there are those around him who can throw without\r\ndetection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it.”\r\n\r\n“I am surprised, Master Heriot,” said the young lord, “to hear you, upon\r\nso short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with\r\nmy affairs.”\r\n\r\n“My lord,” replied the goldsmith, “the nature of my employment affords\r\nme direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no\r\nmeddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet\r\nendeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the\r\ncontrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have\r\nnot shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the\r\nCourt, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion,\r\nand how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek\r\nsuch intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I\r\nhave told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was\r\nlast night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been\r\nable, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information\r\nrespecting the impediments to your suit.”\r\n\r\n“Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited,”\r\n answered Nigel, still with some reserve; “yet I hardly know how I have\r\ndeserved this interest.”\r\n\r\n“First let me satisfy you that it is real,” said the citizen; “I blame\r\nyou not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger\r\nin my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship\r\nfrom relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted\r\nyou by so many ties. But mark the cause."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There is a mortgage over your\r\nfather's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly\r\nto Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at\r\nCampvere.”\r\n\r\n“I know nothing of a mortgage,” said the young lord; “but there is\r\na wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the\r\nforfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth\r\nof its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's\r\ngovernment for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be\r\nable to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor.”\r\n\r\n“A wadset in Scotland,” said Heriot, “is the same with a mortgage\r\non this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real\r\ncreditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less\r\na man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover\r\nof this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to\r\ngratify a yet more powerful third party."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He will probably suffer\r\nhis creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the\r\ntransaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch\r\nwill be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under\r\ncover of a sale, or some similar device.”\r\n\r\n“Can this be possible?” said Lord Nigel; “the Chancellor wept when I\r\ntook leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with\r\nletters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused\r\nhimself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses\r\nof his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would\r\ncarry deceit so far.”\r\n\r\n“I am not, it is true, of noble blood,” said the citizen; “but once more\r\nI bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in\r\ndishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest,\r\nsave as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had\r\nany advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters?”\r\n\r\n“None,” said Nigel Olifaunt, “except cold deeds and fair words."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have\r\nthought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one\r\nyesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order\r\nthat I might not want the means of exiling myself.”\r\n\r\n“Right,” said Heriot; “rather than you fled not, they would themselves\r\nfurnish wings for you to fly withal.”\r\n\r\n“I will to him this instant,” said the incensed youth, “and tell him my\r\nmind of his baseness.”\r\n\r\n“Under your favour,” said Heriot, detaining him, “you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though\r\nI would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you\r\nwould hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to\r\nyou.”\r\n\r\nThe word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who\r\nreplied hastily--“Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur\r\ndamage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of\r\nserving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting!”\r\n\r\n“Leave me alone for that,” said the citizen: “you have now erred as far\r\non the bow-hand."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it\r\nsuitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one)\r\nfor placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your\r\nfollower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the\r\nmatter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I\r\nwill not give up the good cause.”\r\n\r\n“Sir,” said the young nobleman, “your speech is so friendly, and my own\r\nstate so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even\r\nwhile I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger.”\r\n\r\n“We are, I trust, no longer such,” said the goldsmith; “and for my\r\nguerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are\r\nre-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George\r\nHeriot.”\r\n\r\n“You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot,” said Lord Nigel. “I do not fear that,” replied the goldsmith; “and I am glad to see you\r\nsmile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old\r\nlord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small\r\nrequest--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge\r\nhard by in Lombard Street."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white\r\nbroth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld\r\nScotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was\r\nbarrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company,\r\none or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find\r\nout a bonny Scots lass or so.”\r\n\r\n“I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot,” said Nigel, “but I hear\r\nthe city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to\r\nlet down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said\r\nthe best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for\r\nthe present.”\r\n\r\n“My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther,” said Master George. “I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at\r\nme so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for\r\nI never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting,\r\nthat, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to\r\nCourt in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live\r\nby lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an\r\nhundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are\r\nsettled.”\r\n\r\n“And if they are never favourably settled?” said Nigel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Then, my lord,” returned the citizen, “the miscarriage of such a sum\r\nwill be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of\r\nregret.”\r\n\r\n“Master Heriot,” said the Lord Nigel, “your favour is generously\r\noffered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your\r\nway through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be\r\ngrieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts\r\nwhich I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your\r\nmoney, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you\r\npunctually.”\r\n\r\n“I will convince you, my lord,” said the goldsmith, “that I mean to deal\r\nwith you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you\r\nshall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these\r\nmonies, and an obligation to content and repay me.”\r\n\r\nHe then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few\r\nlines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from\r\na side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an\r\nhundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically\r\nupon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was\r\nan unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the\r\nword of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's\r\nforms of transacting business."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Bear with me,” he said, “my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and\r\nthrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within\r\nthe toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment,\r\nwithout bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and,\r\nbody of me,” he said, looking out at the window, “yonder come my boys\r\nwith my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord;\r\nit is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in\r\nthe lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent\r\ngood; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held\r\nthousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift\r\nson sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of\r\na city-fortune.”\r\n\r\n“I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot,” said the\r\nLord Nigel. “I hope it will, my lord,” said the old man, with a smile; “but,” to use\r\nhonest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,'\r\n“it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one\r\nadopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "and well-a-day!--But I am patient\r\nand thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want\r\ninheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you\r\ngood-morrow, my lord.”\r\n\r\n“One orphan has cause to thank you already,” said Nigel, as he attended\r\nhim to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old\r\ncitizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood\r\nbecking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course\r\nregretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle\r\nwith a Dutch ship-master. “Our way of business, sir,” she said, “takes him much from home, and my\r\nhusband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound\r\nof oakum.”\r\n\r\n“All business must be minded, dame,” said the goldsmith. “Make my\r\nremembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your\r\ngoodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time\r\nand engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there\r\nbe those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so\r\nthat you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is,\r\nand whether he wants aught.”\r\n\r\n“And so he _is_ a real lord after all?” said the good dame. “I am sure I\r\nalways thought he looked like one."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But why does he not go to Parliament,\r\nthen?”\r\n\r\n“He will, dame,” answered Heriot, “to the Parliament of Scotland, which\r\nis his own country.”\r\n\r\n“Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then,” said the good dame; “and that's the\r\nthing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say.”\r\n\r\n“Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame,” replied the citizen. “Who, I, sir?” answered she; “no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot\r\nor English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather\r\nthan he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as\r\nfar as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too.”\r\n\r\n“Let your husband come to me, good dame,” said the goldsmith, who,\r\nwith all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and\r\ndisciplinarian. “The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and\r\nlet his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is\r\nmore seemly. God give ye good-morrow.”\r\n\r\n“Good-morrow to your worship,” said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so\r\nsoon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter,\r\nin contempt of his council, “Marry quep of your advice, for an old\r\nScotch tinsmith, as you are!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "My husband is as wise, and very near as\r\nold, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he\r\nis not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride\r\nupon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after\r\nhim, as well as they do.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER V\r\n\r\n\r\nWherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There\r\nare silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening,\r\nBullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling;\r\nLow-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by\r\nwhispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious\r\nsport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._\r\n\r\nIt was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was\r\nmounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been\r\ninformed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame\r\nChristie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy\r\nwhich we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to\r\nmaintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to\r\nWhitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King\r\nJames, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to\r\npurchase."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule,\r\nthat he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and\r\ncrowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm\r\nthe piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an\r\neye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the\r\nmetropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the\r\nsake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset,\r\nusually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure\r\nthemselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which\r\nwas at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to\r\nthose citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with\r\na charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe\r\nsubjects of plunder by the street-robber."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant\r\nattendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the\r\nancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to\r\nadjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master;\r\nin consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his\r\nden, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening\r\nhere and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the\r\nintensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for\r\na minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and\r\nheard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress\r\nMargaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with\r\na noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. “I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee,” muttered Heriot to\r\nhimself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,--“I pray you,\r\nneighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion\r\nwherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and\r\nthat other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have\r\nhad the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put\r\nyou in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand.”\r\n\r\nThere is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory\r\ndun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can\r\nresist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie,\r\nand answered in a pettish tone, “Wow, George, man, what needs aw this\r\ndin about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims\r\non me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious\r\nMajesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye\r\nmay ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an\r\nunmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine.”\r\n\r\nHeriot laughed, and replied, “Well, David, I see a demand of money is\r\nlike a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world\r\nat once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you\r\nwill dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret,\r\nmy god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the\r\nLord of Glenvarloch?”\r\n\r\n“The young Lord of Glenvarloch!” said the old mechanist; “wi' aw my\r\nheart, and blithe I will be to see him again."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We have not met these\r\nforty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a\r\nsweet youth.”\r\n\r\n“That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard\r\nDot-and-carry-one that you are,” answered the goldsmith. “A sweet youth\r\nhe would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is\r\nhis son, the Lord Nigel.”\r\n\r\n“His son!” said Ramsay; “maybe he will want something of a chronometer,\r\nor watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days.”\r\n\r\n“He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for\r\nwhat I know,” said his friend; “but, David, remember your bond, and\r\nuse me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the\r\ncock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon.”\r\n\r\n“She had the more credit by her cookery,” answered David, now fully\r\nawake; “a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our\r\nsaying.”\r\n\r\n“Well,” answered Master George, “but as there will be no sheep's-head\r\nto-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb\r\ncannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo\r\nMalagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide\r\ntryste, Davie.”\r\n\r\n“That will I--I will be true as a chronometer,” said Ramsay."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I will not trust you, though,” replied Heriot.--“Hear you, Jenkin boy,\r\ntell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she\r\nmust put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow,\r\nand to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a\r\nbrave young Scots lord.”\r\n\r\nJenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are\r\neither charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to\r\nwhich they must not enter a dissent. “Umph!” repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was\r\nsomething of a martinet in domestic discipline--“what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah?”\r\n\r\n“Sure, Master George Heriot,” said the apprentice, touching his cap,\r\n“I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an\r\ninvitation.”\r\n\r\n“Why, no,” said Master George; “she is a dutiful girl to her god-father,\r\nthough I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and\r\nyour comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her\r\nsafely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the\r\nporter stay in the fore-shop till your return."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I will send two of my\r\nknaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are\r\nbroken out worse and lighter than ever.”\r\n\r\n“We can keep their steel in order with good handbats,” said Jenkin; “and\r\nnever trouble your servants for the matter.”\r\n\r\n“Or, if need be,” said Tunstall, “we have swords as well as the\r\nTemplars.”\r\n\r\n“Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man,” said the citizen;--“An apprentice\r\nwith a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat\r\nand feather.”\r\n\r\n“Well, sir,” said Jenkin--“we will find arms fitting to our station, and\r\nwill defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very\r\nstones of the pavement.”\r\n\r\n“There spoke a London 'prentice bold,” said the citizen; “and, for your\r\ncomfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the\r\nFathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving\r\nlads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow\r\nat noon.” And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and\r\ncrossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became\r\nhis rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no\r\ninconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into\r\none of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A\r\nyoung man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then\r\ncropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched\r\nhat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered\r\nwith much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of,\r\n“How goes business, Andrew?”--“Aw the better for your worship's kind\r\ncountenance and maintenance.”\r\n\r\n“Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb,\r\nand fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife\r\ncourse in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never\r\ncome to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with\r\none quill.” [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the\r\nauthor's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred\r\nprinted quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of\r\nmanuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at\r\nthe end of the volume--\r\n\r\n    “With one good pen I wrote this book,\r\n       Made of a grey goose quill;\r\n     A pen it was when it I took,\r\n       And a pen I leave it still.”]\r\n\r\n“Ah!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "sir,” said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though\r\ninstructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and\r\nacquiescence, “how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the\r\nworld, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship!”\r\n\r\n“My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and\r\nworship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal\r\nhand. I will wait by you till it is done.”\r\n\r\nThe youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from\r\nhis hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on\r\nhis life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his\r\nmule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which\r\nHeriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present\r\nday; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of\r\nalarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also,\r\nalong which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although\r\nit was beginning already to assume that character."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It still might be\r\nconsidered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various\r\nhouses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them\r\ndown to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience\r\nof taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly\r\nowners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The\r\nnorth side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which,\r\nas in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly\r\narising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense\r\nof the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular\r\nbuildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid\r\nincrease of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a\r\nregular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the\r\nshrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which\r\nshould convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a\r\nconnected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the\r\ncity of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary\r\nvillage at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to\r\nWestminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to\r\nuse Johnson's expression “pours the full tide of London population.” The\r\nbuildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint\r\nidea of its present appearance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of\r\nthe beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated\r\nbrick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the\r\nWest-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of\r\nWhitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was\r\njust at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in\r\nconstructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass\r\nin order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in\r\nremoving the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and\r\nQueen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo\r\nJones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now\r\nengaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained\r\nhis royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings,\r\nand the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which\r\nformed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true,\r\noftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as\r\nyet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to\r\nreceive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving\r\nhis mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked\r\nat a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the\r\nmost trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece\r\nof plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an\r\nante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but\r\nuntrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and\r\nnearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and\r\ndraughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied\r\nby two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of\r\nrecognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first\r\nto Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which\r\nseemed to say, as plain as a look could, “Lies your business that way?”\r\n The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with\r\nas much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to\r\nthe door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The\r\nbroad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,--“Admit him\r\ninstanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not\r\nlearned, that gold and silver are ever welcome?”\r\n\r\nThe usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was\r\npresently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad\r\npicture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much\r\nthat was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments;\r\nbut they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost\r\nhalf their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which\r\nthey were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios,\r\namongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes\r\nof unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled\r\nmiserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled\r\nhimself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification\r\nof Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies\r\nagainst canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be\r\ndagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly\r\nprotuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure\r\nan air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured\r\nnightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His\r\nhigh-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled\r\nby a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap,\r\nin the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been\r\nstruck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight,\r\nin remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward\r\ntypes of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a\r\nsubject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a\r\nproblem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing\r\nuseful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having\r\nreal wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it,\r\nyet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most\r\nunworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet\r\none who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations,\r\nin which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where\r\nconquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was\r\nperpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public\r\nlabour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though\r\na pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant\r\nand uneducated."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there\r\nwere moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the\r\nspirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler\r\nwhere serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet\r\ntoo often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet\r\ngave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious\r\nrespecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet\r\ninconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular\r\ncases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and\r\ncomprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves\r\nas they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed\r\non him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his\r\ncharacter, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded\r\npeaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors\r\nhad, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly,\r\nalthough his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that\r\nlasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's\r\ndisposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of\r\ndissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their\r\nharvest in a bloody and universal civil war."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling\r\nGeordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all\r\nthose with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new\r\nclatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native\r\nPrince out of his siller. “God forbid, my liege,” said the citizen, “that I should have any such\r\ndisloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most\r\ngracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship,\r\nI were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your\r\nMajesty's pleasure anent it.”\r\n\r\n“Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's\r\nservice o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word\r\nas a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you,\r\nGeordie, keep yours.”\r\n\r\n“Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate,” said the goldsmith, “your\r\nMajesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and--”\r\n\r\n“What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and\r\nbairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair\r\nsense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain\r\ngate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they\r\ndidna.”\r\n\r\nGeorge Heriot bowed, and said no more."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He knew his master too well to\r\nvindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and\r\nJames, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of\r\nconscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of\r\nplate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell\r\nto bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen\r\nwhence he had procured it. “From Italy, may it please your Majesty,” replied Heriot. “It has naething in it tending to papistrie?” said the king, looking\r\ngraver than his wont. “Surely not, please your Majesty,” said Heriot; “I were not wise to\r\nbring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast.”\r\n\r\n“You would be the mair beast yourself to do so,” said the king; “it is\r\nweel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the\r\ngroundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time\r\ncalled, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes\r\nMaxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius.”\r\n\r\nHeriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver,\r\nfor such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable\r\nfor his Majesty's viewing the sculpture."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Saul of my body, man,” said the king, “it is a curious piece, and, as\r\nI think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master\r\nGeorge, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of\r\nSolomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to\r\nwalk with emulation.”\r\n\r\n“But whose footsteps,” said Maxwell, “only one of them--if a subject may\r\nsay so much--hath ever overtaken.”\r\n\r\n“Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon!” said the king, but with\r\na smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. “Look\r\nat the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And\r\nwhase handiwork may it be, Geordie?”\r\n\r\n“It was wrought, sir,” replied the goldsmith, “by the famous Florentine,\r\nBenvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I\r\nhope it will find a fitter master.”\r\n\r\n“Francis of France!” said the king; “send Solomon, King of the Jews, to\r\nFrancis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad,\r\nhad he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he\r\nwas a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at\r\nPavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent\r\nhim Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune\r\nhim a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than\r\nFrancis of France.”\r\n\r\n“I trust that such will be his good fortune,” said Heriot."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“It is a curious and very artificial sculpture,” said the king, in\r\ncontinuation; “but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there,\r\nis brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within\r\nreach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught\r\nhim that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the\r\nsmaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back.”\r\n\r\nGeorge Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the\r\nking that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in\r\nappearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed\r\nfor. “Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man,” said the king; “there\r\ncanna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in\r\nluve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in\r\nhis een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to\r\nye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But\r\na'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man?”\r\n\r\nThe goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property,\r\nbut that of a distressed countryman. “Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth,\r\nI warrant?” answered the king."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I ken the tricks of you burrows-town\r\nmerchants, man.”\r\n\r\n“I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity,” said Heriot; “the\r\npiece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds\r\nsterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment.”\r\n\r\n“A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to\r\nraise them!” said the irritated Monarch. “My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye\r\nare minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to\r\ntell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many\r\nmerks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of\r\nmy mouth, are sax months in arrear!”\r\n\r\nThe goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what\r\nhe was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked\r\nthe piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot,\r\nwould advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure,\r\nand wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters;\r\nthe money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. “By my honour,” said James, “and that is speaking like an honest and\r\nreasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and\r\nthat will make ae compting of it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it,\r\nand let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they\r\nreturn from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend\r\nGeordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the\r\nhaill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to\r\nthe Southland here.”\r\n\r\nGeorge Heriot was courtier enough to say, that “the wise naturally\r\nfollow the wisest, as stags follow their leader.”\r\n\r\n“Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest,” said James;\r\n“for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou\r\nthyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned\r\nas they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those\r\nwe have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae\r\nmony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en.”\r\n\r\n“I am sorry to hear this, my liege,” said Heriot. “May it please your\r\nGrace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character?”\r\n\r\n“They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed,” answered the king. “I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the\r\nheralds roar themselves hoarse with."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Yesterday, nae farther gane,\r\njust as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough\r\nEdinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was\r\nbidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have\r\nserved a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our\r\nhands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our\r\ngracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end,\r\nand, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to\r\nexcel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise\r\nyou we would have been laid endlang on the causeway.”\r\n\r\n“Your Majesty,” said Heriot, “is their common father, and therefore they\r\nare the bolder to press into your gracious presence.”\r\n\r\n“I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough,” said James; “but one would\r\nthink they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide\r\nthe inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can\r\ndeliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty.”\r\n\r\n“I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so,”\r\n said Heriot, “were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better\r\nfashions.”\r\n\r\n“By my halidome,” said the king, “ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie,\r\nand I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And, first,\r\nsee you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing\r\nyour eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of\r\nthe Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely\r\nmanner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the\r\nhem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel\r\nenacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards\r\nour lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having\r\na boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your\r\npouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our\r\nopen palm.” The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all\r\nthe prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's\r\nno small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord\r\nof Glenvarloch."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“What means this, ye fause loon?” said he, reddening and\r\nsputtering; “hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld\r\npresent your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as\r\nlief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae\r\nye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain\r\npleasure.”\r\n\r\n“I trust your Majesty,” said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, “will\r\nforgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the\r\nbehalf of a friend?”\r\n\r\n“Of a friend!” said the king; “so much the waur--so much the waur, I\r\ntell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would\r\nhave been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have\r\ncome back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and\r\npetitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other.”\r\n\r\n“Your Majesty, I trust,” said Heriot, “will judge me by former\r\nexperience, and will not suspect me of such presumption.”\r\n\r\n“I kenna,” said the placable monarch; “the world goes daft, I\r\nthink--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful\r\nservant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof,\r\nman, thou shouldst not ask twice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, troth, Steenie loves me so\r\ndearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but\r\nhimself.--Maxwell,” (for the usher had re-entered after having carried\r\noff the plate,) “get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In\r\nconscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld\r\nfiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic\r\npoet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged\r\nmy mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers,\r\nand latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were\r\nof something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the\r\ndishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were\r\nfain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's\r\ndowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made\r\nagainst Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as\r\nsackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder?”\r\n\r\n“It was the better for Jock,” said Heriot; “for, if I remember weel, it\r\nsaved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved\r\nfor other misdeeds.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, man, mind ye that?” said the king; “but he had other virtues, for\r\nhe was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow\r\nto a hound till all the woods rang again."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he came to an Annandale\r\nend at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through\r\nhim.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my\r\nconscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in\r\nthose shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for.”\r\n\r\n“And if your Majesty please to remember,” said the goldsmith, “the awful\r\ntask we had to gather silver-vessail and gold-work enough to make some\r\nshow before the Spanish Ambassador.”\r\n\r\n“Vera true,” said the king, now in a full tide of gossip, “and I mind\r\nnot the name of the right leal lord that helped us with every unce he\r\nhad in his house, that his native Prince might have some credit in the\r\neyes of them that had the Indies at their beck.”\r\n\r\n“I think, if your Majesty,” said the citizen, “will cast your eye on the\r\npaper in your hand, you will recollect his name.”\r\n\r\n“Ay!” said the king, “say ye sae, man?--Lord Glenvarloch, that was his\r\nname indeed--_Justus et tenax propositi_--A just man, but as obstinate\r\nas a baited bull. He stood whiles against us, that Lord Randal Olifaunt\r\nof Glenvarloch, but he was a loving and a leal subject in the main."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But\r\nthis supplicator maun be his son--Randal has been long gone where king\r\nand lord must go, Geordie, as weel as the like of you--and what does his\r\nson want with us?”\r\n\r\n“The settlement,” answered the citizen, “of a large debt due by your\r\nMajesty's treasury, for money advanced to your Majesty in great State\r\nemergency, about the time of the Raid of Ruthven.”\r\n\r\n“I mind the thing weel,” said King James--“Od's death, man, I was just\r\nout of the clutches of the Master of Glamis and his complices, and there\r\nwas never siller mair welcome to a born prince,--the mair the shame and\r\npity that crowned king should need sic a petty sum. But what need he dun\r\nus for it, man, like a baxter at the breaking? We aught him the siller,\r\nand will pay him wi' our convenience, or make it otherwise up to him,\r\nwhilk is enow between prince and subject--We are not _in meditatione\r\nfugae,_ man, to be arrested thus peremptorily.”\r\n\r\n“Alas!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "an it please your Majesty,” said the goldsmith, shaking his head, “it is the poor young nobleman's extreme necessity, and not his will, that makes him importunate; for he must have money, and that briefly, to discharge a debt due to Peregrine Peterson, Conservator of the Privileges at Campvere, or his haill hereditary barony and estate of Glenvarloch will be evicted in virtue of an unredeemed wadset.” “How say ye, man--how say ye?” exclaimed the king, impatiently; “the carle of a Conservator, the son of a Low-Dutch skipper, evict the auld estate and lordship of the house of Olifaunt?--God's bread, man, that maun not be--we maun suspend the diligence by writ of favour, or otherwise.” “I doubt that may hardly be,” answered the citizen, “if it please your Majesty; your learned counsel in the law of Scotland advise, that there is no remeid but in paying the money.” “Ud's fish,” said the king, “let him keep haud by the strong hand against the carle, until we can take some order about his affairs.” “Alas!” insisted the goldsmith, “if it like your Majesty, your own pacific government, and your doing of equal justice to all men, has made main force a kittle line to walk by, unless just within the bounds of the Highlands.” “Well--weel--weel, man,” said the perplexed monarch, whose ideas of justice, expedience, and convenience, became on such occasions strangely embroiled; “just it is we should pay our debts, that the young man may pay his; and he must"}
{"question": "", "answer": "be paid, and _in verbo regis_ he shall be paid--but how to come by the siller, man, is a difficult chapter--ye maun try the city, Geordie.” “To say the truth,” answered Heriot, “please your gracious Majesty, what betwixt loans and benevolences, and subsidies, the city is at this present----” “Donna tell me of what the city is,” said King James; “our Exchequer is as dry as Dean Giles's discourses on the penitentiary psalms--_Ex nihilo nihil fit_--It's ill taking the breeks aff a wild Highlandman--they that come to me for siller, should tell me how to come by it--the city ye maun try, Heriot; and donna think to be called Jingling Geordie for nothing--and _in verbo regis_ I will pay the lad if you get me the loan--I wonnot haggle on the terms; and, between you and me, Geordie, we will redeem the brave auld estate of Glenvarloch.--But wherefore comes not the young lord to Court, Heriot--is he comely--is he presentable in the presence?” “No one can be more so,” said George Heriot; “but----” “Ay, I understand ye,” said his Majesty--“I understand ye--_Res angusta domi_--puir lad-puir lad!--and his father a right true leal Scots heart, though stiff in some opinions."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Hark ye, Heriot, let the lad have twa\r\nhundred pounds to fit him out. And, here--here”--(taking the carcanet\r\nof rubies from his old hat)--“ye have had these in pledge before for a\r\nlarger sum, ye auld Levite that ye are. Keep them in gage, till I gie ye\r\nback the siller out of the next subsidy.”\r\n\r\n“If it please your Majesty to give me such directions in writing,” said\r\nthe cautious citizen. “The deil is in your nicety, George,” said the king; “ye are as preceese\r\nas a Puritan in form, and a mere Nullifidian in the marrow of the\r\nmatter. May not a king's word serve ye for advancing your pitiful twa\r\nhundred pounds?”\r\n\r\n“But not for detaining the crown jewels,” said George Heriot. And the king, who from long experience was inured to dealing\r\nwith suspicious creditors, wrote an order upon George Heriot, his\r\nwell-beloved goldsmith and jeweller, for the sum of two hundred pounds,\r\nto be paid presently to Nigel Olifaunt, Lord of Glenvarloch, to be\r\nimputed as so much debts due to him by the crown; and authorizing\r\nthe retention of a carcanet of balas rubies, with a great diamond,\r\nas described in a Catalogue of his Majesty's Jewels, to remain in\r\npossession of the said George Heriot, advancer of the said sum, and\r\nso forth, until he was lawfully contented and paid thereof."}
{"question": "", "answer": "By another\r\nrescript, his Majesty gave the said George Heriot directions to deal\r\nwith some of the monied men, upon equitable terms, for a sum of money\r\nfor his Majesty's present use, not to be under 50,000 merks, but as much\r\nmore as could conveniently be procured. “And has he ony lair, this Lord Nigel of ours?” said the king. George Heriot could not exactly answer this question; but believed “the\r\nyoung lord had studied abroad.”\r\n\r\n“He shall have our own advice,” said the king, “how to carry on his\r\nstudies to maist advantage; and it may be we will have him come to\r\nCourt, and study with Steenie and Babie Charles. And, now we think on't,\r\naway--away, George--for the bairns will be coming hame presently, and we\r\nwould not as yet they kend of this matter we have been treating anent. _Propera fedem,_ O Geordie. Clap your mule between your boughs, and\r\ngod-den with you.”\r\n\r\nThus ended the conference betwixt the gentle King Jamie and his\r\nbenevolent jeweller and goldsmith. CHAPTER VI\r\n\r\n\r\n  O I do know him--tis the mouldy lemon\r\n  Which our court wits will wet their lips withal,\r\n  When they would sauce their honied conversation\r\n  With somewhat sharper flavour--Marry sir,\r\n  That virtue's wellnigh left him--all the juice\r\n  That was so sharp and poignant, is squeezed out,\r\n  While the poor rind, although as sour as ever,\r\n  Must season soon the draff we give our grunters,\r\n  For two legg'd things are weary on't."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_The Chamberlain--A Comedy_\r\n\r\nThe good company invited by the hospitable citizen assembled at his\r\nhouse in Lombard Street at the “hollow and hungry hour” of noon, to\r\npartake of that meal which divides the day, being about the time when\r\nmodern persons of fashion, turning themselves upon their pillow, begin\r\nto think, not without a great many doubts and much hesitation, that\r\nthey will by and by commence it. Thither came the young Nigel, arrayed\r\nplainly, but in a dress, nevertheless, more suitable to his age and\r\nquality than he had formerly worn, accompanied by his servant Moniplies,\r\nwhose outside also was considerably improved. His solemn and stern\r\nfeatures glared forth from under a blue velvet bonnet, fantastically\r\nplaced sideways on his head--he had a sound and tough coat of English\r\nblue broad-cloth, which, unlike his former vestment, would have\r\nstood the tug of all the apprentices in Fleet Street. The buckler and\r\nbroadsword he wore as the arms of his condition, and a neat silver\r\nbadge, bearing his lord's arms, announced that he was an appendage of\r\naristocracy. He sat down in the good citizen's buttery, not a little\r\npleased to find his attendance upon the table in the hall was likely to\r\nbe rewarded with his share of a meal such as he had seldom partaken of. Mr. David Ramsay, that profound and ingenious mechanic, was safely\r\nconducted to Lombard Street, according to promise, well washed, brushed,\r\nand cleaned, from the soot of the furnace and the forge."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His daughter,\r\nwho came with him, was about twenty years old, very pretty, very\r\ndemure, yet with lively black eyes, that ever and anon contradicted the\r\nexpression of sobriety, to which silence, reserve, a plain velvet hood,\r\nand a cambric ruff, had condemned Mistress Marget, as the daughter of a\r\nquiet citizen. There were also two citizens and merchants of London, men ample in\r\ncloak, and many-linked golden chain, well to pass in the world, and\r\nexperienced in their craft of merchandise, but who require no particular\r\ndescription. There was an elderly clergyman also, in his gown and\r\ncassock, a decent venerable man, partaking in his manners of the\r\nplainness of the citizens amongst whom he had his cure. These may be dismissed with brief notice; but not so Sir Mungo\r\nMalagrowther, of Girnigo Castle, who claims a little more attention, as\r\nan original character of the time in which he flourished. That good knight knocked at Master Heriot's door just as the clock began\r\nto strike twelve, and was seated in his chair ere the last stroke\r\nhad chimed. This gave the knight an excellent opportunity of making\r\nsarcastic observations on all who came later than himself, not to\r\nmention a few rubs at the expense of those who had been so superfluous\r\nas to appear earlier."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Having little or no property save his bare designation, Sir Mungo had\r\nbeen early attached to Court in the capacity of whipping-boy, as the\r\noffice was then called, to King James the Sixth, and, with his Majesty,\r\ntrained to all polite learning by his celebrated preceptor, George\r\nBuchanan. The office of whipping-boy doomed its unfortunate occupant to\r\nundergo all the corporeal punishment which the Lord's Anointed, whose\r\nproper person was of course sacred, might chance to incur, in the course\r\nof travelling through his grammar and prosody. Under the stern rule,\r\nindeed, of George Buchanan, who did not approve of the vicarious mode\r\nof punishment, James bore the penance of his own faults, and Mungo\r\nMalagrowther enjoyed a sinecure; but James's other pedagogue, Master\r\nPatrick Young, went more ceremoniously to work, and appalled the very\r\nsoul of the youthful king by the floggings which he bestowed on the\r\nwhipping-boy, when the royal task was not suitably performed. And be\r\nit told to Sir Mungo's praise, that there were points about him in the\r\nhighest respect suited to his official situation. He had even in youth a\r\nnaturally irregular and grotesque set of features, which, when distorted\r\nby fear, pain, and anger, looked like one of the whimsical faces which\r\npresent themselves in a Gothic cornice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His voice also was high-pitched\r\nand querulous, so that, when smarting under Master Peter Young's\r\nunsparing inflictions, the expression of his grotesque physiognomy, and\r\nthe superhuman yells which he uttered, were well suited to produce all\r\nthe effects on the Monarch who deserved the lash, that could possibly be\r\nproduced by seeing another and an innocent individual suffering for his\r\ndelict. Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for such he became, thus got an early footing\r\nat Court, which another would have improved and maintained. But, when he\r\ngrew too big to be whipped, he had no other means of rendering himself\r\nacceptable. A bitter, caustic, and backbiting humour, a malicious wit,\r\nand an envy of others more prosperous than the possessor of such amiable\r\nqualities, have not, indeed, always been found obstacles to a courtier's\r\nrise; but then they must be amalgamated with a degree of selfish cunning\r\nand prudence, of which Sir Mungo had no share. His satire ran riot, his\r\nenvy could not conceal itself, and it was not long after his majority\r\ntill he had as many quarrels upon his hands as would have required a\r\ncat's nine lives to answer. In one of these rencontres he received,\r\nperhaps we should say fortunately, a wound, which served him as an\r\nexcuse for answering no invitations of the kind in future. Sir Rullion\r\nRattray, of Ranagullion, cut off, in mortal combat, three of the fingers\r\nof his right hand, so that Sir Mungo never could hold sword again."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At\r\na later period, having written some satirical verses upon the Lady\r\nCockpen, he received so severe a chastisement from some persons employed\r\nfor the purpose, that he was found half dead on the spot where they had\r\nthus dealt with him, and one of his thighs having been broken, and ill\r\nset, gave him a hitch in his gait, with which he hobbled to his grave. The lameness of his leg and hand, besides that they added considerably\r\nto the grotesque appearance of this original, procured him in future\r\na personal immunity from the more dangerous consequences of his own\r\nhumour; and he gradually grew old in the service of the Court, in safety\r\nof life and limb, though without either making friends or attaining\r\npreferment. Sometimes, indeed, the king was amused with his caustic\r\nsallies, but he had never art enough to improve the favourable\r\nopportunity; and his enemies (who were, for that matter, the whole\r\nCourt) always found means to throw him out of favour again. The\r\ncelebrated Archie Armstrong offered Sir Mungo, in his generosity, a\r\nskirt of his own fool's coat, proposing thereby to communicate to him\r\nthe privileges and immunities of a professed jester--“For,” said the man\r\nof motley, “Sir Mungo, as he goes on just now, gets no more for a good\r\njest than just the king's pardon for having made it.”\r\n\r\nEven in London, the golden shower which fell around him did not moisten\r\nthe blighted fortunes of Sir Mungo Malagrowther."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He grew old, deaf,\r\nand peevish--lost even the spirit which had formerly animated his\r\nstrictures--and was barely endured by James, who, though himself nearly\r\nas far stricken in years, retained, to an unusual and even an absurd\r\ndegree, the desire to be surrounded by young people. Sir Mungo, thus fallen into the yellow leaf of years and fortune, showed\r\nhis emaciated form and faded embroidery at Court as seldom as his duty\r\npermitted; and spent his time in indulging his food for satire in the\r\npublic walks, and in the aisles of Saint Paul's, which were then the\r\ngeneral resort of newsmongers and characters of all descriptions,\r\nassociating himself chiefly with such of his countrymen as he accounted\r\nof inferior birth and rank to himself. In this manner, hating and\r\ncontemning commerce, and those who pursued it, he nevertheless lived a\r\ngood deal among the Scottish artists and merchants, who had followed\r\nthe Court to London. To these he could show his cynicism without much\r\noffence; for some submitted to his jeers and ill-humour in deference\r\nto his birth and knighthood, which in those days conferred high\r\nprivileges--and others, of more sense, pitied and endured the old man,\r\nunhappy alike in his fortunes and his temper."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Amongst the latter was George Heriot, who, though his habits and\r\neducation induced him to carry aristocratical feelings to a degree which\r\nwould now be thought extravagant, had too much spirit and good sense to\r\npermit himself to be intruded upon to an unauthorized excess, or used\r\nwith the slightest improper freedom, by such a person as Sir Mungo, to\r\nwhom he was, nevertheless, not only respectfully civil, but essentially\r\nkind, and even generous. Accordingly, this appeared from the manner in which Sir Mungo\r\nMalagrowther conducted himself upon entering the apartment. He paid\r\nhis respects to Master Heriot, and a decent, elderly, somewhat\r\nsevere-looking female, in a coif, who, by the name of Aunt Judith, did\r\nthe honours of his house and table, with little or no portion of the\r\nsupercilious acidity, which his singular physiognomy assumed when he\r\nmade his bow successively to David Ramsay and the two sober citizens."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He thrust himself into the conversation of the latter, to observe he\r\nhad heard in Paul's, that the bankrupt concern of Pindivide, a great\r\nmerchant,--who, as he expressed it, had given the crows a pudding, and\r\non whom he knew, from the same authority, each of the honest citizens\r\nhas some unsettled claim,--was like to prove a total loss--“stock and\r\nblock, ship and cargo, keel and rigging, all lost, now and for ever.”\r\n\r\nThe two citizens grinned at each other; but, too prudent to make their\r\nprivate affairs the subject of public discussion, drew their heads\r\ntogether, and evaded farther conversation by speaking in a whisper. The old Scots knight next attacked the watchmaker with the same\r\ndisrespectful familiarity.--“Davie,” he said,--“Davie, ye donnard auld\r\nidiot, have ye no gane mad yet, with applying your mathematical science,\r\nas ye call it, to the book of Apocalypse? I expected to have heard ye\r\nmake out the sign of the beast, as clear as a tout on a bawbee whistle.”\r\n\r\n“Why, Sir Mungo,” said the mechanist, after making an effort to recall\r\nto his recollection what had been said to him, and by whom, “it may be,\r\nthat ye are nearer the mark than ye are yoursell aware of; for, taking\r\nthe ten horns o' the beast, ye may easily estimate by your digitals--”\r\n\r\n“My digits!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "you d--d auld, rusty, good-for-nothing time-piece!”\r\n exclaimed Sir Mungo, while, betwixt jest and earnest, he laid on his\r\nhilt his hand, or rather his claw, (for Sir Rullion's broadsword\r\nhas abridged it into that form,)--“D'ye mean to upbraid me with my\r\nmutilation?”\r\n\r\nMaster Heriot interfered. “I cannot persuade our friend David,” he said,\r\n“that scriptural prophecies are intended to remain in obscurity, until\r\ntheir unexpected accomplishment shall make, as in former days, that\r\nfulfilled which was written. But you must not exert your knightly valour\r\non him for all that.”\r\n\r\n“By my saul, and it would be throwing it away,” said Sir Mungo,\r\nlaughing. “I would as soon set out, with hound and horn, to hunt\r\na sturdied sheep; for he is in a doze again, and up to the chin in\r\nnumerals, quotients, and dividends.--Mistress Margaret, my pretty\r\nhoney,” for the beauty of the young citizen made even Sir Mungo\r\nMalagrowther's grim features relax themselves a little, “is your father\r\nalways as entertaining as he seems just now?”\r\n\r\nMistress Margaret simpered, bridled, looked to either side, then\r\nstraight before her; and, having assumed all the airs of bashful\r\nembarrassment and timidity which were necessary, as she thought, to\r\ncover a certain shrewd readiness which really belonged to her character,\r\nat length replied: “That indeed her father was very thoughtful, but she\r\nhad heard that he took the habit of mind from her grandfather.”\r\n\r\n“Your grandfather!” said Sir Mungo,--after doubting if he had heard her\r\naright,--“Said she her grandfather!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "The lassie is distraught!--I ken\r\nnae wench on this side of Temple Bar that is derived from so distant a\r\nrelation.”\r\n\r\n“She has got a godfather, however, Sir Mungo,” said George Heriot, again\r\ninterfering; “and I hope you will allow him interest enough with you, to\r\nrequest you will not put his pretty godchild to so deep a blush.”\r\n\r\n“The better--the better,” said Sir Mungo. “It is a credit to her, that,\r\nbred and born within the sound of Bow-bell, she can blush for any thing;\r\nand, by my saul, Master George,” he continued, chucking the irritated\r\nand reluctant damsel under the chin, “she is bonny enough to make amends\r\nfor her lack of ancestry--at least, in such a region as Cheapside,\r\nwhere, d'ye mind me, the kettle cannot call the porridge-pot--”\r\n\r\nThe damsel blushed, but not so angrily as before. Master George Heriot\r\nhastened to interrupt the conclusion of Sir Mungo's homely proverb, by\r\nintroducing him personally to Lord Nigel. Sir Mungo could not at first understand what his host said,--“Bread of\r\nHeaven, wha say ye, man?”\r\n\r\nUpon the name of Nigel Olifaunt, Lord Glenvarloch, being again hollowed\r\ninto his ear, he drew up, and, regarding his entertainer with some\r\nausterity, rebuked him for not making persons of quality acquainted with\r\neach other, that they might exchange courtesies before they mingled with\r\nother folks."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He then made as handsome and courtly a congee to his new\r\nacquaintance as a man maimed in foot and hand could do; and, observing\r\nhe had known my lord, his father, bid him welcome to London, and hoped\r\nhe should see him at Court. Nigel in an instant comprehended, as well from Sir Mungo's manner, as\r\nfrom a strict compression of their entertainer's lips, which intimated\r\nthe suppression of a desire to laugh, that he was dealing with an\r\noriginal of no ordinary description, and accordingly, returned his\r\ncourtesy with suitable punctiliousness. Sir Mungo, in the meanwhile,\r\ngazed on him with much earnestness; and, as the contemplation of natural\r\nadvantages was as odious to him as that of wealth, or other adventitious\r\nbenefits, he had no sooner completely perused the handsome form and good\r\nfeatures of the young lord, than like one of the comforters of the man\r\nof Uz, he drew close up to him, to enlarge on the former grandeur of the\r\nLords of Glenvarloch, and the regret with which he had heard, that their\r\nrepresentative was not likely to possess the domains of his ancestry."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Anon, he enlarged upon the beauties of the principal mansion of\r\nGlenvarloch--the commanding site of the old castle--the noble expanse\r\nof the lake, stocked with wildfowl for hawking--the commanding screen of\r\nforest, terminating in a mountain-ridge abounding with deer--and all the\r\nother advantages of that fine and ancient barony, till Nigel, in spite\r\nof every effort to the contrary, was unwillingly obliged to sigh. Sir Mungo, skilful in discerning when the withers of those he conversed\r\nwith were wrung, observed that his new acquaintance winced, and would\r\nwillingly have pressed the discussion; but the cook's impatient knock\r\nupon the dresser with the haft of his dudgeon-knife, now gave a signal\r\nloud enough to be heard from the top of the house to the bottom,\r\nsummoning, at the same time, the serving-men to place the dinner upon\r\nthe table, and the guests to partake of it. Sir Mungo, who was an admirer of good cheer,--a taste which, by the\r\nway, might have some weight in reconciling his dignity to these city\r\nvisits,--was tolled off by the sound, and left Nigel and the other\r\nguests in peace, until his anxiety to arrange himself in his due place\r\nof pre-eminence at the genial board was duly gratified."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Here, seated on\r\nthe left hand of Aunt Judith, he beheld Nigel occupy the station of yet\r\nhigher honour on the right, dividing that matron from pretty Mistress\r\nMargaret; but he saw this with the more patience, that there stood\r\nbetwixt him and the young lord a superb larded capon. The dinner proceeded according to the form of the times. All was\r\nexcellent of the kind; and, besides the Scottish cheer promised, the\r\nboard displayed beef and pudding, the statutory dainties of Old England. A small cupboard of plate, very choicely and beautifully wrought, did\r\nnot escape the compliments of some of the company, and an oblique\r\nsneer from Sir Mungo, as intimating the owner's excellence in his own\r\nmechanical craft. “I am not ashamed of the workmanship, Sir Mungo,” said the honest\r\ncitizen. “They say, a good cook knows how to lick his own fingers; and,\r\nmethinks, it were unseemly that I, who have furnished half the cupboards\r\nin broad Britain, should have my own covered with paltry pewter.”\r\n\r\nThe blessing of the clergyman now left the guests at liberty to attack\r\nwhat was placed before them; and the meal went forward with great\r\ndecorum, until Aunt Judith, in farther recommendation of the capon,\r\nassured her company that it was of a celebrated breed of poultry, which\r\nshe had herself brought from Scotland."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Then, like some of his countrymen, madam,” said the pitiless Sir Mungo,\r\nnot without a glance towards his landlord, “he has been well larded in\r\nEngland.”\r\n\r\n“There are some others of his countrymen,” answered Master Heriot,\r\n“to whom all the lard in England has not been able to render that good\r\noffice.”\r\n\r\nSir Mungo sneered and reddened, the rest of the company laughed; and the\r\nsatirist, who had his reasons for not coming to extremity with Master\r\nGeorge, was silent for the rest of the dinner. The dishes were exchanged for confections, and wine of the highest\r\nquality and flavour; and Nigel saw the entertainments of the wealthiest\r\nburgomasters, which he had witnessed abroad, fairly outshone by the\r\nhospitality of a London citizen. Yet there was nothing ostentatious, or\r\nwhich seemed inconsistent with the degree of an opulent burgher. While the collation proceeded, Nigel, according to the good-breeding of\r\nthe time, addressed his discourse principally to Mrs. Judith, whom he\r\nfound to be a woman of a strong Scottish understanding, more inclined\r\ntowards the Puritans than was her brother George, (for in that relation\r\nshe stood to him, though he always called her aunt,) attached to him in\r\nthe strongest degree, and sedulously attentive to all his comforts. As\r\nthe conversation of this good dame was neither lively nor fascinating,\r\nthe young lord naturally addressed himself next to the old horologer's\r\nvery pretty daughter, who sat upon his left hand."}
{"question": "", "answer": "From her, however,\r\nthere was no extracting any reply beyond the measure of a monosyllable;\r\nand when the young gallant had said the best and most complaisant things\r\nwhich his courtesy supplied, the smile that mantled upon her pretty\r\nmouth was so slight and evanescent, as scarce to be discernible. Nigel was beginning to tire of his company, for the old citizens were\r\nspeaking with his host of commercial matters in language to him totally\r\nunintelligible, when Sir Mungo Malagrowther suddenly summoned their\r\nattention. That amiable personage had for some time withdrawn from the company into\r\nthe recess of a projecting window, so formed and placed as to command\r\na view of the door of the house, and of the street. This situation was\r\nprobably preferred by Sir Mungo on account of the number of objects\r\nwhich the streets of a metropolis usually offer, of a kind congenial\r\nto the thoughts of a splenetic man."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What he had hitherto seen passing\r\nthere, was probably of little consequence; but now a trampling of horse\r\nwas heard without, and the knight suddenly exclaimed,--“By my faith,\r\nMaster George, you had better go look to shop; for here comes Knighton,\r\nthe Duke of Buckingham's groom, and two fellows after him, as if he were\r\nmy Lord Duke himself.”\r\n\r\n“My cash-keeper is below,” said Heriot, without disturbing himself,\r\n“and he will let me know if his Grace's commands require my immediate\r\nattention.”\r\n\r\n“Umph!--cash-keeper?” muttered Sir Mungo to himself; “he would have had\r\nan easy office when I first kend ye.--But,” said he, speaking aloud,\r\n“will you not come to the window, at least? for Knighton has trundled a\r\npiece of silver-plate into your house--ha! ha! ha!--trundled it upon its\r\nedge, as a callan' would drive a hoop. I cannot help laughing--ha! ha! ha!--at the fellow's impudence.”\r\n\r\n“I believe you could not help laughing,” said George Heriot, rising up\r\nand leaving the room, “if your best friend lay dying.”\r\n\r\n“Bitter that, my lord--ha?” said Sir Mungo, addressing Nigel. “Our\r\nfriend is not a goldsmith for nothing--he hath no leaden wit. But I will\r\ngo down, and see what comes on't.”\r\n\r\nHeriot, as he descended the stairs, met his cash-keeper coming up, with\r\nsome concern in his face.--“Why, how now, Roberts,” said the goldsmith,\r\n“what means all this, man?”\r\n\r\n“It is Knighton, Master Heriot, from the Court--Knighton, the Duke's\r\nman."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He brought back the salver you carried to Whitehall, flung it into\r\nthe entrance as if it had been an old pewter platter, and bade me tell\r\nyou the king would have none of your trumpery.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, indeed,” said George Heriot--“None of my trumpery!--Come hither\r\ninto the compting-room, Roberts.--Sir Mungo,” he added, bowing to the\r\nknight, who had joined, and was preparing to follow them, “I pray your\r\nforgiveness for an instant.”\r\n\r\nIn virtue of this prohibition, Sir Mungo, who, as well as the rest of\r\nthe company, had overheard what passed betwixt George Heriot and his\r\ncash-keeper, saw himself condemned to wait in the outer business-room,\r\nwhere he would have endeavoured to slake his eager curiosity by\r\nquestioning Knighton; but that emissary of greatness, after having added\r\nto the uncivil message of his master some rudeness of his own, had again\r\nscampered westward, with his satellites at his heels. In the meanwhile, the name of the Duke of Buckingham, the omnipotent\r\nfavourite both of the king and the Prince of Wales, had struck some\r\nanxiety into the party which remained in the great parlour. He was more\r\nfeared than beloved, and, if not absolutely of a tyrannical disposition,\r\nwas accounted haughty, violent, and vindictive. It pressed on Nigel's\r\nheart, that he himself, though he could not conceive how, nor why,\r\nmight be the original cause of the resentment of the Duke against his\r\nbenefactor."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The others made their comments in whispers, until the sounds\r\nreached Ramsay, who had not heard a word of what had previously passed,\r\nbut, plunged in those studies with which he connected every other\r\nincident and event, took up only the catchword, and replied,--“The\r\nDuke--the Duke of Buckingham--George Villiers--ay--I have spoke with\r\nLambe about him.”\r\n\r\n“Our Lord and our Lady! Now, how can you say so, father?” said his\r\ndaughter, who had shrewdness enough to see that her father was touching\r\nupon dangerous ground. “Why, ay, child,” answered Ramsay; “the stars do but incline, they\r\ncannot compel. But well you wot, it is commonly said of his Grace, by\r\nthose who have the skill to cast nativities, that there was a notable\r\nconjunction of Mars and Saturn--the apparent or true time of which,\r\nreducing the calculations of Eichstadius made for the latitude of\r\nOranienburgh, to that of London, gives seven hours, fifty-five minutes,\r\nand forty-one seconds----”\r\n\r\n“Hold your peace, old soothsayer,” said Heriot, who at that instant\r\nentered the room with a calm and steady countenance; “your calculations\r\nare true and undeniable when they regard brass and wire, and mechanical\r\nforce; but future events are at the pleasure of Him who bears the hearts\r\nof kings in his hands.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, but, George,” answered the watchmaker, “there was a concurrence\r\nof signs at this gentleman's birth, which showed his course would be\r\na strange one."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Long has it been said of him, he was born at the very\r\nmeeting of night and day, and under crossing and contending influences\r\nthat may affect both us and him. 'Full moon and high sea,\r\n     Great man shalt thou be;\r\n     Red dawning, stormy sky,\r\n     Bloody death shalt thou die. '”\r\n\r\n“It is not good to speak of such things,” said Heriot, “especially of\r\nthe great; stone walls have ears, and a bird of the air shall carry the\r\nmatter.”\r\n\r\nSeveral of the guests seemed to be of their host's opinion. The two\r\nmerchants took brief leave, as if under consciousness that something\r\nwas wrong. Mistress Margaret, her body-guard of 'prentices being in\r\nreadiness, plucked her father by the sleeve, and, rescuing him from a\r\nbrown study, (whether referring to the wheels of Time, or to that of\r\nFortune, is uncertain,) wished good-night to her friend Mrs. Judith, and\r\nreceived her godfather's blessing, who, at the same time, put upon\r\nher slender finger a ring of much taste and some value; for he seldom\r\nsuffered her to leave him without some token of his affection. Thus\r\nhonourably dismissed, and accompanied by her escort, she set forth on\r\nher return to Fleet Street."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Mungo had bid adieu to Master Heriot as he came out from the back\r\ncompting-room, but such was the interest which he took in the affairs\r\nof his friend, that, when Master George went upstairs, he could not\r\nhelp walking into that sanctum sanctorum, to see how Master Roberts was\r\nemployed. The knight found the cash-keeper busy in making extracts from\r\nthose huge brass-clasped leathern-bound manuscript folios, which are\r\nthe pride and trust of dealers, and the dread of customers whose year of\r\ngrace is out. The good knight leant his elbows on the desk, and said to\r\nthe functionary in a condoling tone of voice,--“What! you have lost a\r\ngood customer, I fear, Master Roberts, and are busied in making out his\r\nbill of charges?”\r\n\r\nNow, it chanced that Roberts, like Sir Mungo himself, was a little deaf,\r\nand, like Sir Mungo, knew also how to make the most of it; so that he\r\nanswered at cross purposes,--“I humbly crave your pardon, Sir Mungo, for\r\nnot having sent in your bill of charge sooner, but my master bade me not\r\ndisturb you."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I will bring the items together in a moment.” So saying, he\r\nbegan to turn over the leaves of his book of fate, murmuring, “Repairing\r\nane silver seal-new clasp to his chain of office--ane over-gilt brooch\r\nto his hat, being a Saint Andrew's cross, with thistles--a copper gilt\r\npair of spurs,--this to Daniel Driver, we not dealing in the article.”\r\n\r\nHe would have proceeded; but Sir Mungo, not prepared to endure the\r\nrecital of the catalogue of his own petty debts, and still less\r\nwilling to satisfy them on the spot, wished the bookkeeper, cavalierly,\r\ngood-night, and left the house without farther ceremony. The clerk\r\nlooked after him with a civil city sneer, and immediately resumed the\r\nmore serious labours which Sir Mungo's intrusion had interrupted. CHAPTER VII\r\n\r\n\r\n  Things needful we have thought on; but the thing\r\n  Of all most needful--that which Scripture terms,\r\n  As if alone it merited regard,\r\n  The ONE thing needful--that's yet unconsider'd. _The Chamberlain._\r\n\r\nWhen the rest of the company had taken their departure from Master\r\nHeriot's house, the young Lord of Glenvarloch also offered to take\r\nleave; but his host detained him for a few minutes, until all were gone\r\nexcepting the clergyman."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“My lord,” then said the worthy citizen, “we have had our permitted hour\r\nof honest and hospitable pastime, and now I would fain delay you for\r\nanother and graver purpose, as it is our custom, when we have the\r\nbenefit of good Mr. Windsor's company, that he reads the prayers of the\r\nchurch for the evening before we separate. Your excellent father, my\r\nlord, would not have departed before family worship--I hope the same\r\nfrom your lordship.”\r\n\r\n“With pleasure, sir,” answered Nigel; “and you add in the invitation an\r\nadditional obligation to those with which you have loaded me. When young\r\nmen forget what is their duty, they owe deep thanks to the friend who\r\nwill remind them of it.”\r\n\r\nWhile they talked together in this manner, the serving-men had removed\r\nthe folding-tables, brought forward a portable reading-desk, and placed\r\nchairs and hassocks for their master, their mistress, and the noble\r\nstranger. Another low chair, or rather a sort of stool, was placed close\r\nbeside that of Master Heriot; and though the circumstance was trivial,\r\nNigel was induced to notice it, because, when about to occupy that\r\nseat, he was prevented by a sign from the old gentleman, and motioned\r\nto another of somewhat more elevation. The clergyman took his station\r\nbehind the reading-desk. The domestics, a numerous family both of clerks\r\nand servants, including Moniplies, attended, with great gravity, and\r\nwere accommodated with benches."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The household were all seated, and, externally at least, composed\r\nto devout attention, when a low knock was heard at the door of the\r\napartment; Mrs. Judith looked anxiously at her brother, as if desiring\r\nto know his pleasure. He nodded his head gravely, and looked to the\r\ndoor. Mrs. Judith immediately crossed the chamber, opened the door, and\r\nled into the apartment a beautiful creature, whose sudden and singular\r\nappearance might have made her almost pass for an apparition. She\r\nwas deadly pale-there was not the least shade of vital red to enliven\r\nfeatures, which were exquisitely formed, and might, but for that\r\ncircumstance, have been termed transcendently beautiful. Her long black\r\nhair fell down over her shoulders and down her back, combed smoothly and\r\nregularly, but without the least appearance of decoration or ornament,\r\nwhich looked very singular at a period when head-gear, as it was called,\r\nof one sort or other, was generally used by all ranks. Her dress was of\r\nwhite, of the simplest fashion, and hiding all her person excepting\r\nthe throat, face, and hands. Her form was rather beneath than above the\r\nmiddle size, but so justly proportioned and elegantly made, that\r\nthe spectator's attention was entirely withdrawn from her size."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In\r\ncontradiction of the extreme plainness of all the rest of her attire,\r\nshe wore a necklace which a duchess might have envied, so large and\r\nlustrous were the brilliants of which it was composed; and around her\r\nwaist a zone of rubies of scarce inferior value. When this singular figure entered the apartment, she cast her eyes on\r\nNigel, and paused, as if uncertain whether to advance or retreat. The\r\nglance which she took of him seemed to be one rather of uncertainty and\r\nhesitation, than of bashfulness or timidity. Aunt Judith took her by the\r\nhand, and led her slowly forward--her dark eyes, however, continued to\r\nbe fixed on Nigel, with an expression of melancholy by which he felt\r\nstrangely affected. Even when she was seated on the vacant stool, which\r\nwas placed there probably for her accommodation, she again looked on him\r\nmore than once with the same pensive, lingering, and anxious expression,\r\nbut without either shyness or embarrassment, not even so much as to call\r\nthe slightest degree of complexion into her cheek."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So soon as this singular female had taken up the prayer-book, which\r\nwas laid upon her cushion, she seemed immersed in devotional duty; and\r\nalthough Nigel's attention to the service was so much disturbed by this\r\nextraordinary apparition, that he looked towards her repeatedly in\r\nthe course of the service, he could never observe that her eyes or her\r\nthoughts strayed so much as a single moment from the task in which she\r\nwas engaged. Nigel himself was less attentive, for the appearance of\r\nthis lady seemed so extraordinary, that, strictly as he had been bred up\r\nby his father to pay the most reverential attention during performance\r\nof divine service, his thoughts in spite of himself were disturbed by\r\nher presence, and he earnestly wished the prayers were ended, that\r\nhis curiosity might obtain some gratification. When the service was\r\nconcluded, and each had remained, according to the decent and edifying\r\npractice of the church, concentrated in mental devotion for a short\r\nspace, the mysterious visitant arose ere any other person stirred; and\r\nNigel remarked that none of the domestics left their places, oreven\r\nmoved, until she had first kneeled on one knee to Heriot, who seemed to\r\nbless her with his hand laid on her head, and a melancholy solemnity of\r\nlook and action."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She then bended her body, but without kneeling, to Mrs.\r\nJudith, and having performed these two acts of reverence, she left the\r\nroom; yet just in the act of her departure, she once more turned her\r\npenetrating eyes on Nigel with a fixed look, which compelled him to turn\r\nhis own aside. When he looked towards her again, he saw only the skirt\r\nof her white mantle as she left the apartment. The domestics then rose and dispersed themselves--wine, and fruit, and\r\nspices, were offered to Lord Nigel and to the clergyman, and the latter\r\ntook his leave. The young lord would fain have accompanied him, in hope\r\nto get some explanation of the apparition which he had beheld, but\r\nhe was stopped by his host, who requested to speak with him in his\r\ncompting-room. “I hope, my lord,” said the citizen, “that your preparations for\r\nattending Court are in such forwardness that you can go thither the day\r\nafter to-morrow. It is, perhaps, the last day, for some time, that his\r\nMajesty will hold open Court for all who have pretensions by birth,\r\nrank, or office to attend upon him. On the subsequent day he goes\r\nto Theobald's, where he is so much occupied with hunting and other\r\npleasures, that he cares not to be intruded on.”\r\n\r\n“I shall be in all outward readiness to pay my duty,” said the young\r\nnobleman, “yet I have little heart to do it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The friends from whom I\r\nought to have found encouragement and protection, have proved cold and\r\nfalse--I certainly will not trouble _them_ for their countenance on\r\nthis occasion--and yet I must confess my childish unwillingness to enter\r\nquite alone upon so new a scene.”\r\n\r\n“It is bold of a mechanic like me to make such an offer to a nobleman,”\r\n said Heriot; “but I must attend at Court to-morrow. I can accompany\r\nyou as far as the presence-chamber, from my privilege as being of the\r\nhousehold. I can facilitate your entrance, should you find difficulty,\r\nand I can point out the proper manner and time of approaching the king. But I do not know,” he added, smiling, “whether these little advantages\r\nwill not be overbalanced by the incongruity of a nobleman receiving them\r\nfrom the hands of an old smith.”\r\n\r\n“From the hands rather of the only friend I have found in London,” said\r\nNigel, offering his hand."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Nay, if you think of the matter in that way,” replied the honest\r\ncitizen, “there is no more to be said--I will come for you to-morrow,\r\nwith a barge proper to the occasion.--But remember, my good young lord,\r\nthat I do not, like some men of my degree, wish to take opportunity to\r\nstep beyond it, and associate with my superiors in rank, and therefore\r\ndo not fear to mortify my presumption, by suffering me to keep my\r\ndistance in the presence, and where it is fitting for both of us to\r\nseparate; and for what remains, most truly happy shall I be in proving\r\nof service to the son of my ancient patron.”\r\n\r\nThe style of conversation led so far from the point which had interested\r\nthe young nobleman's curiosity, that there was no returning to it that\r\nnight. He therefore exchanged thanks and greetings with George Heriot,\r\nand took his leave, promising to be equipped and in readiness to embark\r\nwith him on the second successive morning at ten o'clock. The generation of linkboys, celebrated by Count Anthony Hamilton, as\r\npeculiar to London, had already, in the reign of James I., begun their\r\nfunctions, and the service of one of them with his smoky torch, had\r\nbeen secured to light the young Scottish lord and his follower to their\r\nlodgings, which, though better acquainted than formerly with the city,\r\nthey might in the dark have run some danger of missing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This gave the\r\ningenious Mr. Moniplies an opportunity of gathering close up to his\r\nmaster, after he had gone through the form of slipping his left arm into\r\nthe handles of his buckler, and loosening his broadsword in the sheath,\r\nthat he might be ready for whatever should befall. “If it were not for the wine and the good cheer which we have had in\r\nyonder old man's house, my lord,” said this sapient follower, “and that\r\nI ken him by report to be a just living man in many respects, and a real\r\nEdinburgh gutterblood, I should have been well pleased to have seen how\r\nhis feet were shaped, and whether he had not a cloven cloot under the\r\nbraw roses and cordovan shoon of his.”\r\n\r\n“Why, you rascal,” answered Nigel, “you have been too kindly treated,\r\nand now that you have filled your ravenous stomach, you are railing on\r\nthe good gentleman that relieved you.”\r\n\r\n“Under favour, no, my lord,” said Moniplies,--“I would only like to see\r\nsomething mair about him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have eaten his meat, it is true--more shame\r\nthat the like of him should have meat to give, when your lordship and\r\nme could scarce have gotten, on our own account, brose and a bear\r\nbannock--I have drunk his wine, too.”\r\n\r\n“I see you have,” replied his master, “a great deal more than you should\r\nhave done.”\r\n\r\n“Under your patience, my lord,” said Moniplies, “you are pleased to say\r\nthat, because I crushed a quart with that jolly boy Jenkin, as they\r\ncall the 'prentice boy, and that was out of mere acknowledgment for his\r\nformer kindness--I own that I, moreover, sung the good old song of Elsie\r\nMarley, so as they never heard it chanted in their lives----”\r\n\r\nAnd withal (as John Bunyan says) as they went on their way, he sung--\r\n\r\n    “O, do ye ken Elsie Marley, honey--\r\n     The wife that sells the barley, honey? For Elsie Marley's grown sae fine,\r\n     She winna get up to feed the swine.--\r\n         O, do ye ken----”\r\n\r\nHere in mid career was the songster interrupted by the stern gripe\r\nof his master, who threatened to baton him to death if he brought the\r\ncity-watch upon them by his ill-timed melody."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I crave pardon, my lord--I humbly crave pardon--only when I think of\r\nthat Jen Win, as they call him, I can hardly help humming--'O, do ye\r\nken'--But I crave your honour's pardon, and will be totally dumb, if you\r\ncommand me so.”\r\n\r\n“No, sirrah!” said Nigel, “talk on, for I well know you would say and\r\nsuffer more under pretence of holding your peace, than when you get an\r\nunbridled license. How is it, then? What have you to say against Master\r\nHeriot?”\r\n\r\nIt seems more than probable, that in permitting this license, the young\r\nlord hoped his attendant would stumble upon the subject of the young\r\nlady who had appeared at prayers in a manner so mysterious. But whether\r\nthis was the case, or whether he merely desired that Moniplies should\r\nutter, in a subdued and under tone of voice, those spirits which might\r\notherwise have vented themselves in obstreperous song, it is certain he\r\npermitted his attendant to proceed with his story in his own way. “And therefore,” said the orator, availing himself of his immunity, “I\r\nwould like to ken what sort of carle this Maister Heriot is. He hath\r\nsupplied your lordship with wealth of gold, as I can understand; and if\r\nhe has, I make it for certain he hath had his ain end in it, according\r\nto the fashion of the world."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now, had your lordship your own good\r\nlands at your guiding, doubtless this person, with most of his\r\ncraft--goldsmiths they call themselves--I say usurers--wad be glad to\r\nexchange so many pounds of African dust, by whilk I understand gold,\r\nagainst so many fair acres, and hundreds of acres, of broad Scottish\r\nland.”\r\n\r\n“But you know I have no land,” said the young lord, “at least none that\r\ncan be affected by any debt which I can at present become obliged for--I\r\nthink you need not have reminded me of that.”\r\n\r\n“True, my lord, most true; and, as your lordship says, open to the\r\nmeanest capacity, without any unnecessary expositions."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now, therefore,\r\nmy lord, unless Maister George Heriot has something mair to allege as\r\na motive for his liberality, vera different from the possession of your\r\nestate--and moreover, as he could gain little by the capture of your\r\nbody, wherefore should it not be your soul that he is in pursuit of?”\r\n\r\n“My soul, you rascal!” said the young lord; “what good should my soul do\r\nhim?”\r\n\r\n“What do I ken about that?” said Moniplies; “they go about roaring and\r\nseeking whom they may devour--doubtless, they like the food that they\r\nrage so much about--and, my lord, they say,” added Moniplies, drawing up\r\nstill closer to his master's side, “they say that Master Heriot has one\r\nspirit in his house already.”\r\n\r\n“How, or what do you mean?” said Nigel; “I will break your head, you\r\ndrunken knave, if you palter with me any longer.”\r\n\r\n“Drunken?” answered his trusty adherent, “and is this the story?--why,\r\nhow could I but drink your lordship's health on my bare knees, when\r\nMaster Jenkin began it to me?--hang them that would not--I would have\r\ncut the impudent knave's hams with my broadsword, that should make\r\nscruple of it, and so have made him kneel when he should have found it\r\ndifficult to rise again."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But touching the spirit,” he proceeded, finding\r\nthat his master made no answer to his valorous tirade, “your lordship\r\nhas seen her with your own eyes.”\r\n\r\n“I saw no spirit,” said Glenvarloch, but yet breathing thick as one who\r\nexpects some singular disclosure, “what mean you by a spirit?”\r\n\r\n“You saw a young lady come in to prayers, that spoke not a word to\r\nany one, only made becks and bows to the old gentleman and lady of the\r\nhouse--ken ye wha she is?”\r\n\r\n“No, indeed,” answered Nigel; “some relation of the family, I suppose.”\r\n\r\n“Deil a bit--deil a bit,” answered Moniplies, hastily, “not a\r\nblood-drop's kin to them, if she had a drop of blood in her body--I tell\r\nyou but what all human beings allege to be truth, that swell within hue\r\nand cry of Lombard Street--that lady, or quean, or whatever you choose\r\nto call her, has been dead in the body these many a year, though she\r\nhaunts them, as we have seen, even at their very devotions.”\r\n\r\n“You will allow her to be a good spirit at least,” said Nigel Olifaunt,\r\n“since she chooses such a time to visit her friends?”\r\n\r\n“For that I kenna, my lord,” answered the superstitious follower; “I ken\r\nno spirit that would have faced the right down hammer-blow of Mess John\r\nKnox, whom my father stood by in his very warst days, bating a chance\r\ntime when the Court, which my father supplied with butcher-meat, was\r\nagainst him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But yon divine has another airt from powerful\r\nMaster Rollock, and Mess David Black, of North Leith, and sic\r\nlike.--Alack-a-day! wha can ken, if it please your lordship, whether\r\nsic prayers as the Southron read out of their auld blethering black\r\nmess-book there, may not be as powerful to invite fiends, as a right\r\nred-het prayer warm fraw the heart, may be powerful to drive them away,\r\neven as the Evil Spirit was driven by he smell of the fish's liver from\r\nthe bridal-chamber of Sara, the daughter of Raguel? As to whilk story,\r\nnevertheless, I make scruple to say whether it be truth or not, better\r\nmen than I am having doubted on that matter.”\r\n\r\n“Well, well, well,” said his master, impatiently, “we are now near home,\r\nand I have permitted you to speak of this matter for once, that we may\r\nhave an end to your prying folly, and your idiotical superstitions, for\r\never. For whom do you, or your absurd authors or informers, take this\r\nlady?”\r\n\r\n“I can sae naething preceesely as to that,” answered Moniplies;\r\n“certain it is her body died and was laid in the grave many a day since,\r\nnotwithstanding she still wanders on earth, and chiefly amongst Maister\r\nHeriot's family, though she hath been seen in other places by them that\r\nwell knew her. But who she is, I will not warrant to say, or how she\r\nbecomes attached, like a Highland Brownie, to some peculiar family."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They say she has a row of apartments of her own, ante-room, parlour, and\r\nbedroom; but deil a bed she sleeps in but her own coffin, and the walls,\r\ndoors, and windows are so chinked up, as to prevent the least blink of\r\ndaylight from entering; and then she dwells by torchlight--”\r\n\r\n“To what purpose, if she be a spirit?” said Nigel Olifaunt. “How can I tell your lordship?” answered his attendant. “I thank God I\r\nknow nothing of her likings, or mislikings--only her coffin is there;\r\nand I leave your lordship to guess what a live person has to do with a\r\ncoffin. As little as a ghost with a lantern, I trow.”\r\n\r\n“What reason,” repeated Nigel, “can a creature, so young and so\r\nbeautiful, have already habitually to contemplate her bed of last-long\r\nrest?”\r\n\r\n“In troth, I kenna, my lord,” answered Moniplies; “but there is the\r\ncoffin, as they told me who have seen it: it is made of heben-wood, with\r\nsilver nails, and lined all through with three-piled damask, might serve\r\na princess to rest in.”\r\n\r\n“Singular,” said Nigel, whose brain, like that of most active young\r\nspirits, was easily caught by the singular and the romantic; “does she\r\nnot eat with the family?”\r\n\r\n“Who!--she!”--exclaimed Moniplies, as if surprised at the question;\r\n“they would need a lang spoon would sup with her, I trow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Always there\r\nis something put for her into the Tower, as they call it, whilk is a\r\nwhigmaleery of a whirling-box, that turns round half on the tae side o'\r\nthe wa', half on the tother.”\r\n\r\n“I have seen the contrivance in foreign nunneries,” said the Lord of\r\nGlenvarloch. “And is it thus she receives her food?”\r\n\r\n“They tell me something is put in ilka day, for fashion's sake,” replied\r\nthe attendant; “but it's no to be supposed she would consume it, ony\r\nmair than the images of Bel and the Dragon consumed the dainty vivers\r\nthat were placed before them. There are stout yeomen and chamber-queans\r\nin the house, enow to play the part of Lick-it-up-a', as well as the\r\nthreescore and ten priests of Bel, besides their wives and children.”\r\n\r\n“And she is never seen in the family but when the hour of prayer\r\narrives?” said the master. “Never, that I hear of,” replied the servant. “It is singular,” said Nigel Olifaunt, musing. “Were it not for the\r\nornaments which she wears, and still more for her attendance upon the\r\nservice of the Protestant Church, I should know what to think, and\r\nshould believe her either a Catholic votaress, who, for some cogent\r\nreason, was allowed to make her cell here in London, or some unhappy\r\nPopish devotee, who was in the course of undergoing a dreadful penance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As it is, I know not what to deem of it.”\r\n\r\nHis reverie was interrupted by the linkboy knocking at the door of\r\nhonest John Christie, whose wife came forth with “quips, and becks, and\r\nwreathed smiles,” to welcome her honoured guest on his return to his\r\napartment. CHAPTER VIII\r\n\r\n\r\n  Ay! mark the matron well--and laugh not, Harry,\r\n  At her old steeple-hat and velvet guard--\r\n  I've call'd her like the ear of Dionysius;\r\n  I mean that ear-form'd vault, built o'er his dungeon,\r\n  To catch the groans and discontented murmurs\r\n  Of his poor bondsmen--Even so doth Martha\r\n  Drink up, for her own purpose, all that passes,\r\n  Or is supposed to pass, in this wide city--\r\n  She can retail it too, if that her profit\r\n  Shall call on her to do so; and retail it\r\n  For your advantage, so that you can make\r\n  Your profit jump with hers. The Conspiracy. We must now introduce to the reader's acquaintance another character,\r\nbusy and important far beyond her ostensible situation in society--in\r\na word, Dame Ursula Suddlechop, wife of Benjamin Suddlechop, the most\r\nrenowned barber in all Fleet Street. This dame had her own particular\r\nmerits, the principal part of which was (if her own report could be\r\ntrusted) an infinite desire to be of service to her fellow-creatures."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Leaving to her thin half-starved partner the boast of having the most\r\ndexterous snap with his fingers of any shaver in London, and the care\r\nof a shop where starved apprentices flayed the faces of those who\r\nwere boobies enough to trust them, the dame drove a separate and more\r\nlucrative trade, which yet had so many odd turns and windings, that it\r\nseemed in many respects to contradict itself. Its highest and most important duties were of a very secret and\r\nconfidential nature, and Dame Ursula Suddlechop was never known to\r\nbetray any transaction intrusted to her, unless she had either been\r\nindifferently paid for her service, or that some one found it convenient\r\nto give her a double douceur to make her disgorge the secret; and\r\nthese contingencies happened in so few cases, that her character for\r\ntrustiness remained as unimpeached as that for honesty and benevolence. In fact, she was a most admirable matron, and could be useful to the\r\nimpassioned and the frail in the rise, progress, and consequences of\r\ntheir passion. She could contrive an interview for lovers who could show\r\nproper reasons for meeting privately; she could relieve the frail fair\r\none of the burden of a guilty passion, and perhaps establish the hopeful\r\noffspring of unlicensed love as the heir of some family whose love was\r\nlawful, but where an heir had not followed the union. More than this she\r\ncould do, and had been concerned in deeper and dearer secrets."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had\r\nbeen a pupil of Mrs. Turner, and learned from her the secret of making\r\nthe yellow starch, and, it may be, two or three other secrets of more\r\nconsequence, though perhaps none that went to the criminal extent of\r\nthose whereof her mistress was accused. But all that was deep and dark\r\nin her real character was covered by the show of outward mirth and\r\ngood-humour, the hearty laugh and buxom jest with which the dame knew\r\nwell how to conciliate the elder part of her neighbours, and the many\r\npetty arts by which she could recommend herself to the younger, those\r\nespecially of her own sex. Dame Ursula was, in appearance, scarce past forty, and her full, but\r\nnot overgrown form, and still comely features, although her person was\r\nplumped out, and her face somewhat coloured by good cheer, had a joyous\r\nexpression of gaiety and good-humour, which set off the remains of\r\nbeauty in the wane. Marriages, births, and christenings were seldom\r\nthought to be performed with sufficient ceremony, for a considerable\r\ndistance round her abode, unless Dame Ursley, as they called her, was\r\npresent. She could contrive all sorts of pastimes, games, and jests,\r\nwhich might amuse the large companies which the hospitality of our\r\nancestors assembled together on such occasions, so that her presence was\r\nliterally considered as indispensable in the families of all citizens of\r\nordinary rank, at such joyous periods."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So much also was she supposed to\r\nknow of life and its labyrinths, that she was the willing confidant\r\nof half the loving couples in the vicinity, most of whom used to\r\ncommunicate their secrets to, and receive their counsel from, Dame\r\nUrsley. The rich rewarded her services with rings, owches, or gold\r\npieces, which she liked still better; and she very generously gave\r\nher assistance to the poor, on the same mixed principles as young\r\npractitioners in medicine assist them, partly from compassion, and\r\npartly to keep her hand in use. Dame Ursley's reputation in the city was the greater that her practice\r\nhad extended beyond Temple Bar, and that she had acquaintances, nay,\r\npatrons and patronesses, among the quality, whose rank, as their members\r\nwere much fewer, and the prospect of approaching the courtly sphere much\r\nmore difficult, bore a degree of consequence unknown to the present day,\r\nwhen the toe of the citizen presses so close on the courtier's heel. Dame Ursley maintained her intercourse with this superior rank of\r\ncustomers, partly by driving a small trade in perfumes, essences,\r\npomades, head-gears from France, dishes or ornaments from China, then\r\nalready beginning to be fashionable; not to mention drugs of various\r\ndescriptions, chiefly for the use of the ladies, and partly by other\r\nservices, more or less connected with the esoteric branches of her\r\nprofession heretofore alluded to."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Possessing such and so many various modes of thriving, Dame Ursley\r\nwas nevertheless so poor, that she might probably have mended her own\r\ncircumstances, as well as her husband's, if she had renounced them all,\r\nand set herself quietly down to the care of her own household, and to\r\nassist Benjamin in the concerns of his trade. But Ursula was luxurious\r\nand genial in her habits, and could no more have endured the stinted\r\neconomy of Benjamin's board, than she could have reconciled herself to\r\nthe bald chat of his conversation. It was on the evening of the day on which Lord Nigel Olifaunt dined with\r\nthe wealthy goldsmith, that we must introduce Ursula Suddlechop upon\r\nthe stage. She had that morning made a long tour to Westminster, was\r\nfatigued, and had assumed a certain large elbow-chair, rendered smooth\r\nby frequent use, placed on one side of her chimney, in which there was\r\nlit a small but bright fire. Here she observed, betwixt sleeping and\r\nwaking, the simmering of a pot of well-spiced ale, on the brown surface\r\nof which bobbed a small crab-apple, sufficiently roasted, while a little\r\nmulatto girl watched, still more attentively, the process of dressing\r\na veal sweetbread, in a silver stewpan which occupied the other side\r\nof the chimney. With these viands, doubtless, Dame Ursula proposed\r\nconcluding the well spent day, of which she reckoned the labour over,\r\nand the rest at her own command."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was deceived, however; for just\r\nas the ale, or, to speak technically, the lamb's-wool, was fitted for\r\ndrinking, and the little dingy maiden intimated that the sweetbread was\r\nready to be eaten, the thin cracked voice of Benjamin was heard from the\r\nbottom of the stairs. “Why, Dame Ursley--why, wife, I say--why, dame--why, love, you are\r\nwanted more than a strop for a blunt razor--why, dame--”\r\n\r\n“I would some one would draw a razor across thy windpipe, thou bawling\r\nass!” said the dame to herself, in the first moment of irritation\r\nagainst her clamorous helpmate; and then called aloud,--“Why, what is\r\nthe matter, Master Suddlechop? I am just going to slip into bed; I have\r\nbeen daggled to and fro the whole day.”\r\n\r\n“Nay, sweetheart, it is not me,” said the patient Benjamin, “but the\r\nScots laundry-maid from neighbour Ramsay's, who must speak with you\r\nincontinent.”\r\n\r\nAt the word sweetheart, Dame Ursley cast a wistful look at the mess\r\nwhich was stewed to a second in the stewpan, and then replied, with\r\na sigh,--“Bid Scots Jenny come up, Master Suddlechop."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I shall be very\r\nhappy to hear what she has to say;” then added in a lower tone, “and I\r\nhope she will go to the devil in the flame of a tar-barrel, like many a\r\nScots witch before her!”\r\n\r\nThe Scots laundress entered accordingly, and having heard nothing of the\r\nlast kind wish of Dame Suddlechop, made her reverence with considerable\r\nrespect, and said, her young mistress had returned home unwell, and\r\nwished to see her neighbour, Dame Ursley, directly. “And why will it not do to-morrow, Jenny, my good woman?” said Dame\r\nUrsley; “for I have been as far as Whitehall to-day already, and I am\r\nwell-nigh worn off my feet, my good woman.”\r\n\r\n“Aweel!” answered Jenny, with great composure, “and if that sae be sae,\r\nI maun take the langer tramp mysell, and maun gae down the waterside for\r\nauld Mother Redcap, at the Hungerford Stairs, that deals in comforting\r\nyoung creatures, e'en as you do yoursell, hinny; for ane o' ye the bairn\r\nmaun see before she sleeps, and that's a' that I ken on't.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, the old emissary, without farther entreaty, turned on her\r\nheel, and was about to retreat, when Dame Ursley exclaimed,--“No, no--if\r\nthe sweet child, your mistress, has any necessary occasion for good\r\nadvice and kind tendance, you need not go to Mother Redcap, Janet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She\r\nmay do very well for skippers' wives, chandlers' daughters, and such\r\nlike; but nobody shall wait on pretty Mistress Margaret, the daughter of\r\nhis most Sacred Majesty's horologer, excepting and saving myself. And\r\nso I will but take my chopins and my cloak, and put on my muffler,\r\nand cross the street to neighbour Ramsay's in an instant."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But tell me\r\nyourself, good Jenny, are you not something tired of your young lady's\r\nfrolics and change of mind twenty times a-day?”\r\n\r\n“In troth, not I,” said the patient drudge, “unless it may be when she\r\nis a wee fashious about washing her laces; but I have been her\r\nkeeper since she was a bairn, neighbour Suddlechop, and that makes a\r\ndifference.”\r\n\r\n“Ay,” said Dame Ursley, still busied putting on additional defences\r\nagainst the night air; “and you know for certain that she has two\r\nhundred pounds a-year in good land, at her own free disposal?”\r\n\r\n“Left by her grandmother, heaven rest her soul!” said the Scotswoman;\r\n“and to a daintier lassie she could not have bequeathed it.”\r\n\r\n“Very true, very true, mistress; for, with all her little whims, I have\r\nalways said Mistress Margaret Ramsay was the prettiest girl in the ward;\r\nand, Jenny, I warrant the poor child has had no supper?”\r\n\r\nJenny could not say but it was the case, for, her master being out, the\r\ntwa 'prentice lads had gone out after shutting shop, to fetch them home,\r\nand she and the other maid had gone out to Sandy MacGivan's, to see a\r\nfriend frae Scotland. “As was very natural, Mrs. Janet,” said Dame Ursley, who found her\r\ninterest in assenting to all sorts of propositions from all sorts of\r\npersons. “And so the fire went out, too,”--said Jenny."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Which was the most natural of the whole,” said Dame Suddlechop; “and\r\nso, to cut the matter short, Jenny, I'll carry over the little bit of\r\nsupper that I was going to eat. For dinner I have tasted none, and it\r\nmay be my young pretty Mistress Marget will eat a morsel with me; for\r\nit is mere emptiness, Mistress Jenny, that often puts these fancies\r\nof illness into young folk's heads.” So saying, she put the silver\r\nposset-cup with the ale into Jenny's hands and assuming her mantle with\r\nthe alacrity of one determined to sacrifice inclination to duty, she\r\nhid the stewpan under its folds, and commanded Wilsa, the little mulatto\r\ngirl, to light them across the street. “Whither away, so late?” said the barber, whom they passed seated with\r\nhis starveling boys round a mess of stockfish and parsnips, in the shop\r\nbelow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“If I were to tell you, Gaffer,” said the dame, with most contemptuous\r\ncoolness, “I do not think you could do my errand, so I will e'en keep it\r\nto myself.” Benjamin was too much accustomed to his wife's independent\r\nmode of conduct, to pursue his inquiry farther; nor did the dame tarry\r\nfor farther question, but marched out at the door, telling the eldest of\r\nthe boys “to sit up till her return, and look to the house the whilst.”\r\n\r\nThe night was dark and rainy, and although the distance betwixt the two\r\nshops was short, it allowed Dame Ursley leisure enough, while she strode\r\nalong with high-tucked petticoats, to embitter it by the following\r\ngrumbling reflections--“I wonder what I have done, that I must needs\r\ntrudge at every old beldam's bidding, and every young minx's maggot! I have been marched from Temple Bar to Whitechapel, on the matter of a\r\npinmaker's wife having pricked her fingers--marry, her husband that made\r\nthe weapon might have salved the wound.--And here is this fantastic ape,\r\npretty Mistress Marget, forsooth--such a beauty as I could make of a\r\nDutch doll, and as fantastic, and humorous, and conceited, as if she\r\nwere a duchess. I have seen her in the same day as changeful as a\r\nmarmozet and as stubborn as a mule. I should like to know whether\r\nher little conceited noddle, or her father's old crazy calculating\r\njolter-pate, breeds most whimsies."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But then there's that two hundred\r\npounds a-year in dirty land, and the father is held a close chuff,\r\nthough a fanciful--he is our landlord besides, and she has begged a\r\nlate day from him for our rent; so, God help me, I must be\r\ncomfortable--besides, the little capricious devil is my only key to get\r\nat Master George Heriot's secret, and it concerns my character to find\r\nthat out; and so, ANDIAMOS, as the lingua franca hath it.”\r\n\r\nThus pondering, she moved forward with hasty strides until she arrived\r\nat the watchmaker's habitation. The attendant admitted them by means of\r\na pass-key. Onward glided Dame Ursula, now in glimmer and now in gloom,\r\nnot like the lovely Lady Cristabelle through Gothic sculpture and\r\nancient armour, but creeping and stumbling amongst relics of old\r\nmachines, and models of new inventions in various branches of\r\nmechanics with which wrecks of useless ingenuity, either in a broken\r\nor half-finished shape, the apartment of the fanciful though ingenious\r\nmechanist was continually lumbered. At length they attained, by a very narrow staircase, pretty Mistress\r\nMargaret's apartment, where she, the cynosure of the eyes of every bold\r\nyoung bachelor in Fleet Street, sat in a posture which hovered between\r\nthe discontented and the disconsolate."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For her pretty back and shoulders\r\nwere rounded into a curve, her round and dimpled chin reposed in the\r\nhollow of her little palm, while the fingers were folded over her mouth;\r\nher elbow rested on a table, and her eyes seemed fixed upon the dying\r\ncharcoal, which was expiring in a small grate. She scarce turned her\r\nhead when Dame Ursula entered, and when the presence of that estimable\r\nmatron was more precisely announced in words by the old Scotswoman,\r\nMistress Margaret, without changing her posture, muttered some sort of\r\nanswer that was wholly unintelligible. “Go your ways down to the kitchen with Wilsa, good Mistress Jenny,” said\r\nDame Ursula, who was used to all sorts of freaks, on the part of her\r\npatients or clients, whichever they might be termed; “put the stewpan\r\nand the porringer by the fireside, and go down below--I must speak to my\r\npretty love, Mistress Margaret, by myself--and there is not a bachelor\r\nbetwixt this and Bow but will envy me the privilege.”\r\n\r\nThe attendants retired as directed, and Dame Ursula, having availed\r\nherself of the embers of charcoal, to place her stewpan to the best\r\nadvantage, drew herself as close as she could to her patient, and began\r\nin a low, soothing, and confidential tone of voice, to inquire what\r\nailed her pretty flower of neighbours. “Nothing, dame,” said Margaret somewhat pettishly, and changing her\r\nposture so as rather to turn her back upon the kind inquirer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Nothing, lady-bird!” answered Dame Suddlechop; “and do you use to send\r\nfor your friends out of bed at this hour for nothing?”\r\n\r\n“It was not I who sent for you, dame,” replied the malecontent maiden. “And who was it, then?” said Ursula; “for if I had not been sent for, I\r\nhad not been here at this time of night, I promise you!”\r\n\r\n“It was the old Scotch fool Jenny, who did it out of her own head, I\r\nsuppose,” said Margaret; “for she has been stunning me these two hours\r\nabout you and Mother Redcap.”\r\n\r\n“Me and Mother Redcap!” said Dame Ursula, “an old fool indeed, that\r\ncouples folk up so.--But come, come, my sweet little neighbour, Jenny\r\nis no such fool after all; she knows young folks want more and better\r\nadvice than her own, and she knows, too, where to find it for them; so\r\nyou must take heart of grace, my pretty maiden, and tell me what you are\r\nmoping about, and then let Dame Ursula alone for finding out a cure.”\r\n\r\n“Nay, an ye be so wise, Mother Ursula,” replied the girl, “you may guess\r\nwhat I ail without my telling you.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay, child,” answered the complaisant matron, “no one can play\r\nbetter than I at the good old game of What is my thought like?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now I'll\r\nwarrant that little head of yours is running on a new head-tire, a foot\r\nhigher than those our city dames wear--or you are all for a trip\r\nto Islington or Ware, and your father is cross and will not\r\nconsent--or----”\r\n\r\n“Or you are an old fool, Dame Suddlechop,” said Margaret, peevishly,\r\n“and must needs trouble yourself about matters you know nothing of.”\r\n\r\n“Fool as much as you will, mistress,” said Dame Ursula, offended in her\r\nturn, “but not so very many years older than yourself, mistress.”\r\n\r\n“Oh!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "we are angry, are we?” said the beauty; “and pray, Madam Ursula, how come you, that are not so many years older than me, to talk about such nonsense to me, who am so many years younger, and who yet have too much sense to care about head-gears and Islington?” “Well, well, young mistress,” said the sage counsellor, rising, “I perceive I can be of no use here; and methinks, since you know your own matters so much better than other people do, you might dispense with disturbing folks at midnight to ask their advice.” “Why, now you are angry, mother,” said Margaret, detaining her; “this comes of your coming out at eventide without eating your supper--I never heard you utter a cross word after you had finished your little morsel.--Here, Janet, a trencher and salt for Dame Ursula;--and what have you in that porringer, dame?--Filthy clammy ale, as I would live--Let Janet fling it out of the window, or keep it for my father's morning draught; and she shall bring you the pottle of sack that was set ready for him--good man, he will never find out the difference, for ale will wash down his dusty calculations quite as well as wine.” “Truly, sweetheart, I am of your opinion,” said Dame Ursula, whose temporary displeasure vanished at once before these preparations for good cheer; and so, settling herself on the great easy-chair, with a three-legged table before her, she began to dispatch, with good appetite, the little delicate dish"}
{"question": "", "answer": "which she had prepared for herself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She did not, however, fail in the duties of civility, and earnestly, but\r\nin vain, pressed Mistress Margaret to partake her dainties. The damsel\r\ndeclined the invitation. “At least pledge me in a glass of sack,” said Dame Ursula; “I have heard\r\nmy grandame say, that before the gospellers came in, the old Catholic\r\nfather confessors and their penitents always had a cup of sack together\r\nbefore confession; and you are my penitent.”\r\n\r\n“I shall drink no sack, I am sure,” said Margaret; “and I told you\r\nbefore, that if you cannot find out what ails me, I shall never have the\r\nheart to tell it.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, she turned away from Dame Ursula once more, and resumed her\r\nmusing posture, with her hand on her elbow, and her back, at least one\r\nshoulder, turned towards her confidant. “Nay, then,” said Dame Ursula, “I must exert my skill in good\r\nearnest.--You must give me this pretty hand, and I will tell you by\r\npalmistry, as well as any gipsy of them all, what foot it is you halt\r\nupon.”\r\n\r\n“As if I halted on any foot at all,” said Margaret, something\r\nscornfully, but yielding her left hand to Ursula, and continuing at the\r\nsame time her averted position. “I see brave lines here,” said Ursula, “and not ill to read\r\nneither--pleasure and wealth, and merry nights and late mornings to my\r\nBeauty, and such an equipage as shall shake Whitehall."}
{"question": "", "answer": "O, have I touched\r\nyou there?--and smile you now, my pretty one?--for why should not he be\r\nLord Mayor, and go to Court in his gilded caroch, as others have done\r\nbefore him?”\r\n\r\n“Lord Mayor? pshaw!” replied Margaret. “And why pshaw at my Lord Mayor, sweetheart? or perhaps you pshaw at my\r\nprophecy; but there is a cross in every one's line of life as well as\r\nin yours, darling. And what though I see a 'prentice's flat cap in this\r\npretty palm, yet there is a sparking black eye under it, hath not its\r\nmatch in the Ward of Farringdon-Without.”\r\n\r\n“Whom do you mean, dame?” said Margaret coldly. “Whom should I mean,” said Dame Ursula, “but the prince of 'prentices,\r\nand king of good company, Jenkin Vincent?”\r\n\r\n“Out, woman--Jenkin Vincent?--a clown--a Cockney!” exclaimed the\r\nindignant damsel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Ay, sets the wind in that quarter, Beauty!” quoth the dame; “why, it\r\nhas changed something since we spoke together last, for then I would\r\nhave sworn it blew fairer for poor Jin Vin; and the poor lad dotes on\r\nyou too, and would rather see your eyes than the first glimpse of the\r\nsun on the great holiday on May-day.”\r\n\r\n“I would my eyes had the power of the sun to blind his, then,” said\r\nMargaret, “to teach the drudge his place.”\r\n\r\n“Nay,” said Dame Ursula, “there be some who say that Frank Tunstall\r\nis as proper a lad as Jin Vin, and of surety he is third cousin to\r\na knighthood, and come of a good house; and so mayhap you may be for\r\nnorthward ho!”\r\n\r\n“Maybe I may”--answered Margaret, “but not with my father's 'prentice--I\r\nthank you, Dame Ursula.”\r\n\r\n“Nay, then, the devil may guess your thoughts for me,” said Dame Ursula;\r\n“this comes of trying to shoe a filly that is eternally wincing and\r\nshifting ground!”\r\n\r\n“Hear me, then,” said Margaret, “and mind what I say.--This day I dined\r\nabroad--”\r\n\r\n“I can tell you where,” answered her counsellor,--“with your godfather\r\nthe rich goldsmith--ay, you see I know something--nay, I could tell you,\r\nas I would, with whom, too.”\r\n\r\n“Indeed!” said Margaret, turning suddenly round with an accent of strong\r\nsurprise, and colouring up to the eyes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“With old Sir Mungo Malagrowther,” said the oracular dame,--“he was\r\ntrimmed in my Benjamin's shop in his way to the city.”\r\n\r\n“Pshaw! the frightful old mouldy skeleton!” said the damsel. “Indeed you say true, my dear,” replied the confidant,--“it is a shame\r\nto him to be out of Saint Pancras's charnel-house, for I know no\r\nother place he is fit for, the foul-mouthed old railer. He said to my\r\nhusband--”\r\n\r\n“Somewhat which signifies nothing to our purpose, I dare say,”\r\n interrupted Margaret. “I must speak, then.--There dined with us a\r\nnobleman--”\r\n\r\n“A nobleman! the maiden's mad!” said Dame Ursula. “There dined with us, I say,” continued Margaret, without regarding the\r\ninterruption, “a nobleman--a Scottish nobleman.”\r\n\r\n“Now Our Lady keep her!” said the confidant, “she is quite\r\nfrantic!--heard ever any one of a watchmaker's daughter falling in love\r\nwith a nobleman--and a Scots nobleman, to make the matter complete,\r\nwho are all as proud as Lucifer, and as poor as Job?--A Scots nobleman,\r\nquotha? I had lief you told me of a Jew pedlar."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I would have you think\r\nhow all this is to end, pretty one, before you jump in the dark.”\r\n\r\n“That is nothing to you, Ursula--it is your assistance,” said Mistress\r\nMargaret, “and not your advice, that I am desirous to have, and you know\r\nI can make it worth your while.”\r\n\r\n“O, it is not for the sake of lucre, Mistress Margaret,” answered\r\nthe obliging dame; “but truly I would have you listen to some\r\nadvice--bethink you of your own condition.”\r\n\r\n“My father's calling is mechanical,” said Margaret, “but our blood is\r\nnot so. I have heard my father say that we are descended, at a distance\r\nindeed, from the great Earls of Dalwolsey.” [Footnote: The head of the\r\nancient and distinguished house of Ramsay, and to whom, as their chief,\r\nthe individuals of that name look as their origin and source of gentry. Allan Ramsay, the pastoral poet, in the same manner, makes\r\n\r\n    “Dalhousie of an auld descent,\r\n     My chief, my stoup, my ornament.”]\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay,” said Dame Ursula; “even so--I never knew a Scot of you but was\r\ndescended, as ye call it, from some great house or other; and a piteous\r\ndescent it often is--and as for the distance you speak of, it is so\r\ngreat as to put you out of sight of each other."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Yet do not toss your\r\npretty head so scornfully, but tell me the name of this lordly northern\r\ngallant, and we will try what can be done in the matter.”\r\n\r\n“It is Lord Glenvarloch, whom they call Lord Nigel Olifaunt,” said\r\nMargaret in a low voice, and turning away to hide her blushes. “Marry, Heaven forefend!” exclaimed Dame Suddlechop; “this is the very\r\ndevil, and something worse!”\r\n\r\n“How mean you?” said the damsel, surprised at the vivacity of her\r\nexclamation. “Why, know ye not,” said the dame, “what powerful enemies he has at\r\nCourt? know ye not--But blisters on my tongue, it runs too fast for my\r\nwit--enough to say, that you had better make your bridal-bed under a\r\nfalling house, than think of young Glenvarloch.”\r\n\r\n“He IS unfortunate then?” said Margaret; “I knew it--I divined it--there\r\nwas sorrow in his voice when he said even what was gay--there was a\r\ntouch of misfortune in his melancholy smile--he had not thus clung to my\r\nthoughts had I seen him in all the mid-day glare of prosperity.”\r\n\r\n“Romances have cracked her brain!” said Dame Ursula; “she is a castaway\r\ngirl--utterly distraught--loves a Scots lord--and likes him the better\r\nfor being unfortunate!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Well, mistress, I am sorry this is a matter I\r\ncannot aid you in--it goes against my conscience, and it is an affair\r\nabove my condition, and beyond my management;--but I will keep your\r\ncounsel.”\r\n\r\n“You will not be so base as to desert me, after having drawn my secret\r\nfrom me?” said Margaret, indignantly; “if you do, I know how to have my\r\nrevenge; and if you do not, I will reward you well. Remember the house\r\nyour husband dwells in is my father's property.”\r\n\r\n“I remember it but too well, Mistress Margaret,” said Ursula, after\r\na moment's reflection, “and I would serve you in any thing in my\r\ncondition; but to meddle with such high matters--I shall never forget\r\npoor Mistress Turner, my honoured patroness, peace be with her!--she had\r\nthe ill-luck to meddle in the matter of Somerset and Overbury, and so\r\nthe great earl and his lady slipt their necks out of the collar, and\r\nleft her and some half-dozen others to suffer in their stead. I shall\r\nnever forget the sight of her standing on the scaffold with the ruff\r\nround her pretty neck, all done up with the yellow starch which I had so\r\noften helped her to make, and that was so soon to give place to a rough\r\nhempen cord."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Such a sight, sweetheart, will make one loath to meddle\r\nwith matters that are too hot or heavy for their handling.”\r\n\r\n“Out, you fool!” answered Mistress Margaret; “am I one to speak to you\r\nabout such criminal practices as that wretch died for? All I desire of\r\nyou is, to get me precise knowledge of what affair brings this young\r\nnobleman to Court.”\r\n\r\n“And when you have his secret,” said Ursula, “what will it avail you,\r\nsweetheart?--and yet I would do your errand, if you could do as much for\r\nme.”\r\n\r\n“And what is it you would have of me?” said Mistress Margaret. “What you have been angry with me for asking before,” answered Dame\r\nUrsula. “I want to have some light about the story of your godfather's\r\nghost, that is only seen at prayers.”\r\n\r\n“Not for the world,” said Mistress Margaret, “will I be a spy on my kind\r\ngodfather's secrets--No, Ursula--that I will never pry into, which he\r\ndesires to keep hidden."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But thou knowest that I have a fortune, of my\r\nown, which must at no distant day come under my own management--think of\r\nsome other recompense.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, that I well know,” said the counsellor--“it is that two hundred\r\nper year, with your father's indulgence, that makes you so wilful,\r\nsweetheart.”\r\n\r\n“It may be so,”--said Margaret Ramsay; “meanwhile, do you serve me\r\ntruly, and here is a ring of value in pledge, that when my fortune is in\r\nmy own hand, I will redeem the token with fifty broad pieces of gold.”\r\n\r\n“Fifty broad pieces of gold!” repeated the dame; “and this ring,\r\nwhich is a right fair one, in token you fail not of your word!--Well,\r\nsweetheart, if I must put my throat in peril, I am sure I cannot risk it\r\nfor a friend more generous than you; and I would not think of more than\r\nthe pleasure of serving you, only Benjamin gets more idle every day, and\r\nour family----”\r\n\r\n“Say no more of it,” said Margaret; “we understand each other. And now,\r\ntell me what you know of this young man's affairs, which made you so\r\nunwilling to meddle with them?”\r\n\r\n“Of that I can say no great matter as yet,” answered Dame Ursula; “only\r\nI know, the most powerful among his own countrymen are against him, and\r\nalso the most powerful at the Court here."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I will learn more of it;\r\nfor it will be a dim print that I will not read for your sake, pretty\r\nMistress Margaret. Know you where this gallant dwells?”\r\n\r\n“I heard by accident,” said Margaret, as if ashamed of the minute\r\nparticularity of her memory upon such an occasion,--“he lodges,\r\nI think--at one Christie's--if I mistake not--at Paul's Wharf--a\r\nship-chandler's.”\r\n\r\n“A proper lodging for a young baron!--Well, but cheer you up, Mistress\r\nMargaret--If he has come up a caterpillar, like some of his countrymen,\r\nhe may cast his slough like them, and come out a butterfly.--So I drink\r\ngood-night, and sweet dreams to you, in another parting cup of sack;\r\nand you shall hear tidings of me within four-and-twenty hours. And, once\r\nmore, I commend you to your pillow, my pearl of pearls, and Marguerite\r\nof Marguerites!”\r\n\r\nSo saying, she kissed the reluctant cheek of her young friend, or\r\npatroness, and took her departure with the light and stealthy pace of\r\none accustomed to accommodate her footsteps to the purposes of dispatch\r\nand secrecy. Margaret Ramsay looked after her for some time, in anxious silence. “I\r\ndid ill,” she at length murmured, “to let her wring this out of me; but\r\nshe is artful, bold and serviceable--and I think faithful--or, if not,\r\nshe will be true at least to her interest, and that I can command. I\r\nwould I had not spoken, however--I have begun a hopeless work."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For what\r\nhas he said to me, to warrant my meddling in his fortunes?--Nothing but\r\nwords of the most ordinary import--mere table-talk, and terms of course. Yet who knows”--she said, and then broke off, looking at the glass the\r\nwhile, which, as it reflected back a face of great beauty, probably\r\nsuggested to her mind a more favourable conclusion of the sentence than\r\nshe cared to trust her tongue withal. CHAPTER IX\r\n\r\n\r\n  So pitiful a thing is suitor's state! Most miserable man, whom wicked fate\r\n  Hath brought to Court to sue, for _had I wist_,\r\n  That few have found, and many a one hath miss'd! Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried,\r\n  What hell it is, in sueing long to bide:\r\n  To lose good days that might be better spent;\r\n  To waste long nights in pensive discontent;\r\n  To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;\r\n  To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;\r\n  To have thy Prince's grace, yet want her Peers';\r\n  To have thy asking, yet wait many years;\r\n  To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares--\r\n  To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs. To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,\r\n  To spend, to give, to want, to be undone."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_Mother Hubbard's Tale._\r\n\r\nOn the morning of the day on which George Heriot had prepared to escort\r\nthe young Lord of Glenvarloch to the Court at Whitehall, it may be\r\nreasonably supposed, that the young man, whose fortunes were likely to\r\ndepend on this cast, felt himself more than usually anxious. He rose\r\nearly, made his toilette with uncommon care, and, being enabled, by the\r\ngenerosity of his more plebeian countryman, to set out a very handsome\r\nperson to the best advantage, he obtained a momentary approbation from\r\nhimself as he glanced at the mirror, and a loud and distinct plaudit\r\nfrom his landlady, who declared at once, that, in her judgment, he would\r\ntake the wind out of the sail of every gallant in the presence--so much\r\nhad she been able to enrich her discourse with the metaphors of those\r\nwith whom her husband dealt. At the appointed hour, the barge of Master George Heriot arrived,\r\nhandsomely manned and appointed, having a tilt, with his own cipher, and\r\nthe arms of his company, painted thereupon. The young Lord of Glenvarloch received the friend, who had evinced such\r\ndisinterested attachment, with the kind courtesy which well became him. Master Heriot then made him acquainted with the bounty of his sovereign;\r\nwhich he paid over to his young friend, declining what he had himself\r\nformerly advanced to him. Nigel felt all the gratitude which the\r\ncitizen's disinterested friendship had deserved, and was not wanting in\r\nexpressing it suitably."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Yet, as the young and high-born nobleman embarked to go to the\r\npresence of his prince, under the patronage of one whose best, or most\r\ndistinguished qualification, was his being an eminent member of the\r\nGoldsmiths' Incorporation, he felt a little surprised, if not abashed,\r\nat his own situation; and Richie Moniplies, as he stepped over\r\nthe gangway to take his place forward in the boat, could not help\r\nmuttering,--“It was a changed day betwixt Master Heriot and his honest\r\nfather in the Kraemes;--but, doubtless, there was a difference between\r\nclinking on gold and silver, and clattering upon pewter.”\r\n\r\nOn they glided, by the assistance of the oars of four stout watermen,\r\nalong the Thames, which then served for the principal high-road betwixt\r\nLondon and Westminster; for few ventured on horseback through the narrow\r\nand crowded streets of the city, and coaches were then a luxury reserved\r\nonly for the higher nobility, and to which no citizen, whatever was his\r\nwealth, presumed to aspire. The beauty of the banks, especially on the\r\nnorthern side, where the gardens of the nobility descended from their\r\nhotels, in many places, down to the water's edge, was pointed out to\r\nNigel by his kind conductor, and was pointed out in vain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The mind of\r\nthe young Lord of Glenvarloch was filled with anticipations, not the\r\nmost pleasant, concerning the manner in which he was likely to be\r\nreceived by that monarch, in whose behalf his family had been nearly\r\nreduced to ruin; and he was, with the usual mental anxiety of those\r\nin such a situation, framing imaginary questions from the king, and\r\nover-toiling his spirit in devising answers to them. His conductor saw the labour of Nigel's mind, and avoided increasing it\r\nby farther conversation; so that, when he had explained to him briefly\r\nthe ceremonies observed at Court on such occasions of presentation, the\r\nrest of their voyage was performed in silence. They landed at Whitehall Stairs, and entered the Palace after announcing\r\ntheir names,--the guards paying to Lord Glenvarloch the respect and\r\nhonours due to his rank. The young man's heart beat high and thick within him as he came into the\r\nroyal apartments. His education abroad, conducted, as it had been, on\r\na narrow and limited scale, had given him but imperfect ideas of the\r\ngrandeur of a Court; and the philosophical reflections which taught him\r\nto set ceremonial and exterior splendour at defiance, proved, like other\r\nmaxims of mere philosophy, ineffectual, at the moment they were weighed\r\nagainst the impression naturally made on the mind of an inexperienced\r\nyouth, by the unusual magnificence of the scene."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The splendid apartments\r\nthrough which they passed, the rich apparel of the grooms, guards, and\r\n apartments, had something in it, trifling and commonplace as it might\r\nappear to practised courtiers, embarrassing, and even alarming, to one,\r\nwho went through these forms for the first time, and who was doubtful\r\nwhat sort of reception was to accompany his first appearance before his\r\nsovereign. Heriot, in anxious attention to save his young friend from any momentary\r\nawkwardness, had taken care to give the necessary password to the\r\nwarders, grooms of the chambers, ushers, or by whatever name they were\r\ndesignated; so they passed on without interruption. In this manner they passed several ante-rooms, filled chiefly with\r\nguards, attendants of the Court, and their acquaintances, male and\r\nfemale, who, dressed in their best apparel, and with eyes rounded by\r\neager curiosity to make the most of their opportunity, stood, with\r\nbeseeming modesty, ranked against the wall, in a manner which indicated\r\nthat they were spectators, not performers, in the courtly exhibition. Through these exterior apartments Lord Glenvarloch and his city friend\r\nadvanced into a large and splendid withdrawing-room, communicating with\r\nthe presence-chamber, into which ante-room were admitted those only who,\r\nfrom birth, their posts in the state or household, or by the particular\r\ngrant of the kings, had right to attend the Court, as men entitled to\r\npay their respects to their sovereign."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Amid this favoured and selected company, Nigel observed Sir Mungo\r\nMalagrowther, who, avoided and discountenanced by those who knew how\r\nlow he stood in Court interest and favour, was but too happy in the\r\nopportunity of hooking himself upon a person of Lord Glenvarloch's rank,\r\nwho was, as yet, so inexperienced as to feel it difficult to shake off\r\nan intruder. The knight forthwith framed his grim features to a ghastly smile, and,\r\nafter a preliminary and patronising nod to George Heriot, accompanied\r\nwith an aristocratic wave of the hand, which intimated at once\r\nsuperiority and protection, he laid aside altogether the honest citizen,\r\nto whom he owed many a dinner, to attach himself exclusively to the\r\nyoung lord, although he suspected he might be occasionally in the\r\npredicament of needing one as much as himself. And even the notice\r\nof this original, singular and unamiable as he was, was not entirely\r\nindifferent to Lord Glenvarloch, since the absolute and somewhat\r\nconstrained silence of his good friend Heriot, which left him at liberty\r\nto retire painfully to his own agitating reflections, was now relieved;\r\nwhile, on the other hand, he could not help feeling interest in the\r\nsharp and sarcastic information poured upon him by an observant, though\r\ndiscontented courtier, to whom a patient auditor, and he a man of\r\ntitle and rank, was as much a prize, as his acute and communicative\r\ndisposition rendered him an entertaining companion to Nigel Olifaunt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Heriot, in the meantime, neglected by Sir Mungo, and avoiding every\r\nattempt by which the grateful politeness of Lord Glenvarloch strove to\r\nbring him into the conversation, stood by, with a kind of half smile on\r\nhis countenance; but whether excited by Sir Mungo's wit, or arising at\r\nhis expense, did not exactly appear. In the meantime, the trio occupied a nook of the ante-room, next to\r\nthe door of the presence-chamber, which was not yet thrown open, when\r\nMaxwell, with his rod of office, came bustling into the apartment, where\r\nmost men, excepting those of high rank, made way for him. He stopped\r\nbeside the party in which we are interested, looked for a moment at\r\nthe young Scots nobleman, then made a slight obeisance to Heriot, and\r\nlastly, addressing Sir Mungo Malagrowther, began a hurried complaint\r\nto him of the misbehaviour of the gentlemen-pensioners and warders, who\r\nsuffered all sort of citizens, suitors, and scriveners, to sneak into\r\nthe outer apartments, without either respect or decency.--“The English,”\r\n he said, “were scandalised, for such a thing durst not be attempted in\r\nthe queen's days."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In her time, there was then the court-yard for the mobility, and the apartments for the nobility; and it reflects on your place, Sir Mungo,” he added, “belonging to the household as you do, that such things should not be better ordered.” Here Sir Mungo, afflicted, as was frequently the case on such occasions, with one of his usual fits of deafness, answered, “It was no wonder the mobility used freedoms, when those whom they saw in office were so little better in blood and havings than themselves.” “You are right, sir--quite right,” said Maxwell, putting his hand on the tarnished embroidery on the old knight's sleeve,--“when such fellows see men in office dressed in cast-off suits, like paltry stage-players, it is no wonder the Court is thronged with intruders.” “Were you lauding the taste of my embroidery, Maister Maxwell?” answered the knight, who apparently interpreted the deputy-chamberlain's meaning rather from his action than his words;--“it is of an ancient and liberal pattern, having been made by your mother's father, auld James Stitchell, a master-fashioner of honest repute, in Merlin's Wynd, whom I made a point to employ, as I am now happy to remember, seeing your father thought fit to intermarry with sic a person's daughter.” Maxwell looked stern; but, conscious there was nothing to be got of Sir Mungo in the way of amends, and that prosecuting the quarrel with such an adversary would only render him ridiculous, and make public a mis-alliance of which he had no"}
{"question": "", "answer": "reason to be proud, he covered his resentment with a sneer; and, expressing his regret that Sir Mungo was become too deaf to understand or attend to what was said to him, walked on, and planted himself beside the folding-doors of the presence-chamber, at which he was to perform the duty of deputy-chamberlain, or usher, so soon as they should be opened."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“The door of the presence is about to open,” said the goldsmith, in a\r\nwhisper, to his young friend; “my condition permits me to go no farther\r\nwith you. Fail not to present yourself boldly, according to your birth,\r\nand offer your Supplication; which the king will not refuse to accept,\r\nand, as I hope, to consider favourably.”\r\n\r\nAs he spoke, the door of the presence-chamber opened accordingly, and,\r\nas is usual on such occasions, the courtiers began to advance towards\r\nit, and to enter in a slow, but continuous and uninterrupted stream. As Nigel presented himself in his turn at the entrance, and mentioned\r\nhis name and title, Maxwell seemed to hesitate. “You are not known\r\nto any one,” he said. “It is my duty to suffer no one to pass to the\r\npresence, my lord, whose face is unknown to me, unless upon the word of\r\na responsible person.”\r\n\r\n“I came with Master George Heriot,” said Nigel, in some embarrassment at\r\nthis unexpected interruption. “Master Heriot's name will pass current for much gold and silver, my\r\nlord,” replied Maxwell, with a civil sneer, “but not for birth and\r\nrank. I am compelled by my office to be peremptory.--The entrance is\r\nimpeded--I am much concerned to say it--your lordship must stand back.”\r\n\r\n“What is the matter?” said an old Scottish nobleman, who had been\r\nspeaking with George Heriot, after he had separated from Nigel, and\r\nwho now came forward, observing the altercation betwixt the latter and\r\nMaxwell."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“It is only Master Deputy-Chamberlain Maxwell,” said Sir Mungo\r\nMalagrowther, “expressing his joy to see Lord Glenvarloch at Court,\r\nwhose father gave him his office--at least I think he is speaking to\r\nthat purport--for your lordship kens my imperfection.” A subdued laugh,\r\nsuch as the situation permitted, passed round amongst those who heard\r\nthis specimen of Sir Mungo's sarcastic temper. But the old nobleman\r\nstepped still more forward, saying,--“What!--the son of my gallant\r\nold opponent, Ochtred Olifaunt--I will introduce him to the presence\r\nmyself.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, he took Nigel by the arm, without farther ceremony, and was\r\nabout to lead him forward, when Maxwell, still keeping his rod across\r\nthe door, said, but with hesitation and embarrassment--“My lord, this\r\ngentleman is not known, and I have orders to be scrupulous.”\r\n\r\n“Tutti--taiti, man,” said the old lord, “I will be answerable he is his\r\nfather's son, from the cut of his eyebrow--and thou, Maxwell, knewest\r\nhis father well enough to have spared thy scruples. Let us pass, man.”\r\n So saying, he put aside the deputy-chamberlain's rod, and entered the\r\npresence-room, still holding the young nobleman by the arm. “Why, I must know you, man,” he said; “I must know you. I knew your\r\nfather well, man, and I have broke a lance and crossed a blade with him;\r\nand it is to my credit that I am living to brag of it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was king's-man\r\nand I was queen's-man during the Douglas wars--young fellows both,\r\nthat feared neither fire nor steel; and we had some old feudal quarrels\r\nbesides, that had come down from father to son, with our seal-rings,\r\ntwo-harided broad-swords, and plate-coats, and the crests on our\r\nburgonets.”\r\n\r\n“Too loud, my Lord of Huntinglen,” whispered a gentleman of the\r\nchamber,--“The King!--the King!”\r\n\r\nThe old earl (for such he proved) took the hint, and was silent;\r\nand James, advancing from a side-door, received in succession the\r\ncompliments of strangers, while a little group of favourite courtiers,\r\nor officers of the household, stood around him, to whom he addressed\r\nhimself from time to time. Some more pains had been bestowed on his\r\ntoilette than upon the occasion when we first presented the monarch to\r\nour readers; but there was a natural awkwardness about his figure which\r\nprevented his clothes from sitting handsomely, and the prudence or\r\ntimidity of his disposition had made him adopt the custom already\r\nnoticed, of wearing a dress so thickly quilted as might withstand the\r\nstroke of a dagger, which added an ungainly stiffness to his whole\r\nappearance, contrasting oddly with the frivolous, ungraceful, and\r\nfidgeting motions with which he accompanied his conversation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And yet,\r\nthough the king's deportment was very undignified, he had a manner so\r\nkind, familiar, and good-humoured, was so little apt to veil over or\r\nconceal his own foibles, and had so much indulgence and sympathy for\r\nthose of others, that his address, joined to his learning, and a\r\ncertain proportion of shrewd mother-wit, failed not to make a favourable\r\nimpression on those who approached his person. When the Earl of Huntinglen had presented Nigel to his sovereign, a\r\nceremony which the good peer took upon himself, the king received the\r\nyoung lord very graciously, and observed to his introducer, that he\r\n“was fain to see them twa stand side by side; for I trow, my Lord\r\nHuntinglen,” continued he, “your ancestors, ay, and e'en your lordship's\r\nself and this lad's father, have stood front to front at the sword's\r\npoint, and that is a worse posture.”\r\n\r\n“Until your Majesty,” said Lord Huntinglen, “made Lord Ochtred and me\r\ncross palms, upon the memorable day when your Majesty feasted all the\r\nnobles that were at feud together, and made them join hands in your\r\npresence--”\r\n\r\n“I mind it weel,” said the king; “I mind it weel--it was a blessed day,\r\nbeing the nineteen of September, of all days in the year--and it was a\r\nblithe sport to see how some of the carles girned as they clapped loofs\r\ntogether."}
{"question": "", "answer": "By my saul, I thought some of them, mair special the Hieland\r\nchiels, wad have broken out in our own presence; but we caused them to\r\nmarch hand in hand to the Cross, ourselves leading the way, and there\r\ndrink a blithe cup of kindness with ilk other, to the stanching of feud,\r\nand perpetuation of amity. Auld John Anderson was Provost that year--the\r\ncarle grat for joy, and the bailies and councillors danced bare-headed\r\nin our presence like five-year-auld colts, for very triumph.”\r\n\r\n“It was indeed a happy day,” said Lord Huntinglen, “and will not be\r\nforgotten in the history of your Majesty's reign.”\r\n\r\n“I would not that it were, my lord,” replied the monarch--“I would not\r\nthat it were pretermitted in our annals. Ay, ay--BEATI PACIFICI. My\r\nEnglish lieges here may weel make much of me, for I would have them\r\nto know, they have gotten the only peaceable man that ever came of my\r\nfamily. If James with the Fiery Face had come amongst you,” he said,\r\nlooking round him, “or my great grandsire, of Flodden memory!”\r\n\r\n“We should have sent him back to the north again,” whispered one English\r\nnobleman. “At least,” said another, in the same inaudible tone, “we should have\r\nhad a MAN to our sovereign, though he were but a Scotsman.”\r\n\r\n“And now, my young springald,” said the king to Lord Glenvarloch, “where\r\nhave you been spending your calf-time?”\r\n\r\n“At Leyden, of late, may it please your Majesty,” answered Lord Nigel. “Aha!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "a scholar,” said the king; “and, by my saul, a modest and\r\ningenuous youth, that hath not forgotten how to blush, like most of our\r\ntravelled Monsieurs. We will treat him conformably.”\r\n\r\nThen drawing himself up, coughing slightly, and looking around him with\r\nthe conscious importance of superior learning, while all the courtiers\r\nwho understood, or understood not, Latin, pressed eagerly forward to\r\nlisten, the sapient monarch prosecuted his inquiries as follows:--\r\n\r\n“Hem! hem! _salve bis, quaterque salve, glenvarlochides noster! Nuperumne ab lugduno batavorum britanniam rediisti?_”\r\n\r\nThe young nobleman replied, bowing low--\r\n\r\n“_Imo, rex augustissime--biennium fere apud lugdunenses Moratus sum._”\r\n\r\nJames proceeded--\r\n\r\n“_Biennium dicis? Bene, bene, optume factum est--non uno Die, quod\r\ndicunt,--intelligisti, domine glenvarlochiensis?_ Aha!”\r\n\r\nNigel replied by a reverent bow, and the king, turning to those behind\r\nhim, said--\r\n\r\n“_Adolescens quidem ingenui vultus ingenuique pudoris._” Then resumed\r\nhis learned queries. “_Et quid hodie lugdunenses loquuntur--vossius\r\nvester nihilne novi scripsit?--nihil certe, quod doleo, typis recenter\r\neditit_.”\r\n\r\n“_Valet quidem vossius, rex benevole._” replied Nigel, “_ast senex\r\nveneratissimus annum agit, ni fallor, septuagesimum._”\r\n\r\n“_Virum, mehercle, vix tam grandaevum crediderim_,” replied the\r\nmonarch."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“_et vorstius iste?--arminii improbi successor aeque ac\r\nsectator--herosne adhuc, ut cum homero loquar_, [ZOOS ESTI KAI EPI THONI\r\nDERKOV]?” text in Greek\r\n\r\nNigel, by good fortune, remembered that Vorstius, the divine last\r\nmentioned in his Majesty's queries about the state of Dutch literature,\r\nhad been engaged in a personal controversy with James, in which the\r\nking had taken so deep an interest, as at length to hint in his public\r\ncorrespondence with the United States, that they would do well to apply\r\nthe secular arm to stop the progress of heresy by violent measures\r\nagainst the Professor's person--a demand which their Mighty\r\nMightinesses' principles of universal toleration induced them to elude,\r\nthough with some difficulty. Knowing all this, Lord Glenvarloch, though\r\na courtier of only five minutes' standing, had address enough to reply--\r\n\r\n“_Vivum quidem, haud diu est, hominem videbam--vigere autem quis dicat\r\nqui sub fulminibus eloquentiae tuae, rex magne, jamdudum pronus jacet,\r\net prostratus?_”\r\n\r\n[Footnote: Lest any lady or gentleman should suspect there is aught of\r\nmystery concealed under the sentences printed in Italics, they will be\r\npleased to understand that they contain only a few commonplace Latin\r\nphrases, relating to the state of letters in Holland, which neither\r\ndeserve, nor would endure, a literal translation.] This last tribute to his polemical powers completed James's happiness,\r\nwhich the triumph of exhibiting his erudition had already raised to a\r\nconsiderable height. He rubbed his hands, snapped his fingers, fidgeted, chuckled,\r\nexclaimed--“_Euge! Belle!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Optime!_” and turning to the Bishops of Exeter\r\nand Oxford, who stood behind him, he said.--“Ye see, my lords, no bad\r\nspecimen of our Scottish Latinity, with which language we would all our\r\nsubjects of England were as well embued as this, and other youths of\r\nhonourable birth, in our auld kingdom; also, we keep the genuine and\r\nRoman pronunciation, like other learned nations on the continent, sae\r\nthat we hold communing with any scholar in the universe, who can but\r\nspeak the Latin tongue; whereas ye, our learned subjects of England,\r\nhave introduced into your universities, otherwise most learned, a\r\nfashion of pronouncing like unto the 'nippit foot and clippit foot' of\r\nthe bride in the fairy tale, whilk manner of speech, (take it not amiss\r\nthat I be round with you) can be understood by no nation on earth saving\r\nyourselves; whereby Latin, _quoad anglos_, ceaseth to be _communis\r\nlingua_, the general dragoman, or interpreter, between all the wise men\r\nof the earth.”\r\n\r\nThe Bishop of Exeter bowed, as in acquiescence to the royal censure;\r\nbut he of Oxford stood upright, as mindful over what subjects his see\r\nextended, and as being equally willing to become food for fagots in\r\ndefence of the Latinity of the university, as for any article of his\r\nreligious creed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The king, without awaiting an answer from either prelate, proceeded to\r\nquestion Lord Nigel, but in the vernacular tongue,--“Weel, my likely\r\nAlumnus of the Muses, and what make you so far from the north?”\r\n\r\n“To pay my homage to your Majesty,” said the young nobleman, kneeling on\r\none knee, “and to lay before you,” he added, “this my humble and dutiful\r\nSupplication.”\r\n\r\nThe presenting of a pistol would certainly have startled King James\r\nmore, but could (setting apart the fright) hardly have been more\r\nunpleasing to his indolent disposition. “And is it even so, man?” said he; “and can no single man, were it but\r\nfor the rarity of the case, ever come up frae Scotland, excepting EX\r\nPROPOSITO--on set purpose, to see what he can make out of his loving\r\nsovereign? It is but three days syne that we had weel nigh lost our\r\nlife, and put three kingdoms into dule-weeds, from the over haste of a\r\nclumsy-handed peasant, to thrust a packet into our hand, and now we are\r\nbeset by the like impediment in our very Court."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To our Secretary with\r\nthat gear, my lord--to our Secretary with that gear.”\r\n\r\n“I have already offered my humble Supplication to your Majesty's\r\nSecretary of State,” said Lord Glenvarloch--“but it seems----”\r\n\r\n“That he would not receive it, I warrant?” said the king, interrupting\r\nhim; “bu my saul, our Secretary kens that point of king-craft, called\r\nrefusing, better than we do, and will look at nothing but what he\r\nlikes himsell--I think I wad make a better Secretary to him than he to\r\nme.--Weel, my lord, you are welcome to London; and, as ye seem an acute\r\nand learned youth, I advise ye to turn your neb northward as soon as ye\r\nlike, and settle yoursell for a while at Saint Andrews, and we will be\r\nright glad to hear that you prosper in your studies.--_Incumbite Remis\r\nFortiter._”\r\n\r\nWhile the king spoke thus, he held the petition of the young lord\r\ncarelessly, like one who only delayed till the supplicant's back was\r\nturned, to throw it away, or at least lay it aside to be no more looked\r\nat. The petitioner, who read this in his cold and indifferent looks, and\r\nin the manner in which he twisted and crumpled together the paper,\r\narose with a bitter sense of anger and disappointment, made a profound\r\nobeisance, and was about to retire hastily."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Lord Huntinglen, who\r\nstood by him, checked his intention by an almost imperceptible touch\r\nupon the skirt of his cloak, and Nigel, taking the hint, retreated\r\nonly a few steps from the royal presence, and then made a pause. In\r\nthe meantime, Lord Huntinglen kneeled before James, in his turn, and\r\nsaid--“May it please your Majesty to remember, that upon one certain\r\noccasion you did promise to grant me a boon every year of your sacred\r\nlife?”\r\n\r\n“I mind it weel, man,” answered James, “I mind it weel, and good reason\r\nwhy--it was when you unclasped the fause traitor Ruthven's fangs\r\nfrom about our royal throat, and drove your dirk into him like a true\r\nsubject. We did then, as you remind us, (whilk was unnecessary,) being\r\npartly beside ourselves with joy at our liberation, promise we would\r\ngrant you a free boon every year; whilk promise, on our coming\r\nto menseful possession of our royal faculties, we did confirm,\r\n_restrictive_ always and _conditionaliter_, that your lordship's demand\r\nshould be such as we, in our royal discretion, should think reasonable.”\r\n\r\n“Even so, gracious sovereign,” said the old earl, “and may I yet\r\nfarther crave to know if I have ever exceeded the bounds of your royal\r\nbenevolence?”\r\n\r\n“By my word, man, no! '” said the king; “I cannot remember you have asked\r\nmuch for yourself, if it be not a dog or a hawk, or a buck out of our\r\npark at Theobald's, or such like."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But to what serves this preface?”\r\n\r\n“To the boon to which I am now to ask of your Grace,” said Lord\r\nHuntinglen; “which is, that your Majesty would be pleased, on the\r\ninstant, to look at the placet of Lord Glenvarloch, and do upon it\r\nwhat your own just and royal nature shall think meet and just, without\r\nreference to your Secretary or any other of your Council.”\r\n\r\n“By my saul, my lord, this is strange,” said the king; “ye are pleading\r\nfor the son of your enemy!”\r\n\r\n“Of one who WAS my enemy till your Majesty made him my friend,” answered\r\nLord Huntinglen. “Weel spoken, my lord!” said the king; “and with, a true Christian\r\nspirit. And, respecting the Supplication of this young man, I partly\r\nguess where the matter lies; and in plain troth I had promised to George\r\nHeriot to be good to the lad--But then, here the shoe pinches."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Steenie\r\nand Babie Charles cannot abide him--neither can your own son, my lord;\r\nand so, methinks, he had better go down to Scotland before he comes\r\ntoill luck by them.”\r\n\r\n“My son, an it please your Majesty, so far as he is concerned, shall not\r\ndirect my doings,” said the earl, “nor any wild-headed young man of them\r\nall.”\r\n\r\n“Why, neither shall they mine,” replied the monarch; “by my father's\r\nsaul, none of them all shall play Rex with me--I will do what I will,\r\nand what I ought, like a free king.”\r\n\r\n“Your Majesty will then grant me my boon?” said the Lord Huntinglen. “Ay, marry will I--marry will I,” said the king; “but follow me this\r\nway, man, where we may be more private.”\r\n\r\nHe led Lord Huntinglen with rather a hurried step through the courtiers,\r\nall of whom gazed earnestly on this unwonted scene, as is the fashion of\r\nall Courts on similar occasions. The king passed into a little cabinet,\r\nand bade, in the first moment, Lord Huntinglen lock or bar the door; but\r\ncountermanded his direction in the next, saying,--“No, no, no--bread o'\r\nlife, man, I am a free king--will do what I will and what I should--I am\r\n_justus et tenax propositi_, man--nevertheless, keep by the door, Lord\r\nHuntinglen, in case Steenie should come in with his mad humour.”\r\n\r\n“O my poor master!” groaned the Earl of Huntinglen."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“When you were in\r\nyour own cold country, you had warmer blood in your veins.”\r\n\r\nThe king hastily looked over the petition or memorial, every now and\r\nthen glancing his eye towards the door, and then sinking it hastily\r\non the paper, ashamed that Lord Huntinglen, whom he respected, should\r\nsuspect him of timidity. “To grant the truth,” he said, after he had finished his hasty perusal,\r\n“this is a hard case; and harder than it was represented to me, though I\r\nhad some inkling of it before. And so the lad only wants payment of the\r\nsiller due from us, in order to reclaim his paternal estate? But then,\r\nHuntinglen, the lad will have other debts--and why burden himsell with\r\nsae mony acres of barren woodland? let the land gang, man, let the land\r\ngang; Steenie has the promise of it from our Scottish Chancellor--it is\r\nthe best hunting-ground in Scotland--and Babie Charles and Steenie want\r\nto kill a buck there this next year--they maun hae the land--they maun\r\nhae the land; and our debt shall be paid to the young man plack and\r\nbawbee, and he may have the spending of it at our Court; or if he has\r\nsuch an eard hunger, wouns!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "man, we'll stuff his stomach with English\r\nland, which is worth twice as much, ay, ten times as much, as these\r\naccursed hills and heughs, and mosses and muirs, that he is sae keen\r\nafter.”\r\n\r\nAll this while the poor king ambled up and down the apartment in a\r\npiteous state of uncertainty, which was made more ridiculous by his\r\nshambling circular mode of managing his legs, and his ungainly fashion\r\non such occasions of fiddling with the bunches of ribbons which fastened\r\nthe lower part of his dress. Lord Huntinglen listened with great composure, and answered, “An it\r\nplease your Majesty, there was an answer yielded by Naboth when\r\nAhab coveted his vineyard--' The Lord forbid that I should give the\r\ninheritance of my fathers unto thee. '”\r\n\r\n“Ey, my lord--ey, my lord!” ejaculated James, while all the colour\r\nmounted both to his cheek and nose; “I hope ye mean not to teach me\r\ndivinity?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Ye need not fear, my lord, that I will shun to do justice to\r\nevery man; and, since your lordship will give me no help to take up\r\nthis in a more peaceful manner--whilk, methinks, would be better for the\r\nyoung man, as I said before,--why--since it maun be so--'sdeath, I am\r\na free king, man, and he shall have his money and redeem his land, and\r\nmake a kirk and a miln of it, an he will.” So saying, he hastily wrote\r\nan order on the Scottish Exchequer for the sum in question, and then\r\nadded, “How they are to pay it, I see not; but I warrant he will find\r\nmoney on the order among the goldsmiths, who can find it for every one\r\nbut me.--And now you see, my Lord of Huntinglen, that I am neither an\r\nuntrue man, to deny you the boon whilk I became bound for, nor an Ahab,\r\nto covet Naboth's vineyard; nor a mere nose-of-wax, to be twisted this\r\nway and that, by favourites and counsellors at their pleasure. I think\r\nyou will grant now that I am none of those?”\r\n\r\n“You are my own native and noble prince,” said Huntinglen, as he knelt\r\nto kiss the royal hand--“just and generous, whenever you listen to the\r\nworkings of your own heart.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay,” said the king, laughing good-naturedly, as he raised his\r\nfaithful servant from the ground, “that is what ye all say when I do any\r\nthing to please ye."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There--there, take the sign-manual, and away with\r\nyou and this young fellow. I wonder Steenie and Babie Charles have not\r\nbroken in on us before now.”\r\n\r\nLord Huntinglen hastened from the cabinet, foreseeing a scene at which\r\nhe was unwilling to be present, but which sometimes occurred when James\r\nroused himself so far as to exert his own free will, of which he boasted\r\nso much, in spite of that of his imperious favourite Steenie, as he\r\ncalled the Duke of Buckingham, from a supposed resemblance betwixt\r\nhis very handsome countenance, and that with which the Italian artists\r\nrepresented the protomartyr Stephen. In fact, the haughty favourite,\r\nwho had the unusual good fortune to stand as high in the opinion of the\r\nheir-apparent as of the existing monarch, had considerably diminished in\r\nhis respect towards the latter; and it was apparent, to the more\r\nshrewd courtiers, that James endured his domination rather from habit,\r\ntimidity, and a dread of encountering his stormy passions, than from any\r\nheartfelt continuation of regard towards him, whose greatness had been\r\nthe work of his own hands. To save himself the pain of seeing what was\r\nlikely to take place on the duke's return, and to preserve the king from\r\nthe additional humiliation which the presence of such a witness must\r\nhave occasioned, the earl left the cabinet as speedily as possible,\r\nhaving first carefully pocketed the important sign-manual."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No sooner had he entered the presence-room, than he hastily sought Lord\r\nGlenvarloch, who had withdrawn into the embrasure of one of the windows,\r\nfrom the general gaze of men who seemed disposed only to afford him the\r\nnotice which arises from surprise and curiosity, and, taking him by\r\nthe arm, without speaking, led him out of the presence-chamber into the\r\nfirst ante-room. Here they found the worthy goldsmith, who approached\r\nthem with looks of curiosity, which were checked by the old lord, who\r\nsaid hastily, “All is well.--Is your barge in waiting?” Heriot answered\r\nin the affirmative. “Then,” said Lord Huntinglen, “you shall give me a\r\ncast in it, as the watermen say; and I, in requital, will give you both\r\nyour dinner; for we must have some conversation together.”\r\n\r\nThey both followed the earl without speaking, and were in the second\r\nante-room when the important annunciation of the ushers, and the hasty\r\nmurmur with which all made ample way as the company repeated to each\r\nother,--“The Duke--the Duke!” made them aware of the approach of the\r\nomnipotent favourite. He entered, that unhappy minion of Court favour, sumptuously dressed\r\nin the picturesque attire which will live for ever on the canvas of\r\nVandyke, and which marks so well the proud age, when aristocracy, though\r\nundermined and nodding to its fall, still, by external show and profuse\r\nexpense, endeavoured to assert its paramount superiority over the\r\ninferior orders."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The handsome and commanding countenance, stately form,\r\nand graceful action and manners of the Duke of Buckingham, made him\r\nbecome that picturesque dress beyond any man of his time. At present,\r\nhowever, his countenance seemed discomposed, his dress a little\r\nmore disordered than became the place, his step hasty, and his voice\r\nimperative. All marked the angry spot upon his brow, and bore back so suddenly\r\nto make way for him, that the Earl of Huntinglen, who affected no\r\nextraordinary haste on the occasion, with his companions, who could not,\r\nif they would, have decently left him, remained as it were by themselves\r\nin the middle of the room, and in the very path of the angry favourite. He touched his cap sternly as he looked on Huntinglen, but unbonneted\r\nto Heriot, and sunk his beaver, with its shadowy plume, as low as the\r\nfloor, with a profound air of mock respect. In returning his greeting,\r\nwhich he did simply and unaffectedly, the citizen only said,--“Too much\r\ncourtesy, my lord duke, is often the reverse of kindness.”\r\n\r\n“I grieve you should think so, Master Heriot,” answered the duke; “I\r\nonly meant, by my homage, to claim your protection, sir--your patronage. You are become, I understand, a solicitor of suits--a promoter--an\r\nundertaker--a fautor of court suitors of merit and quality, who chance\r\nto be pennyless."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I trust your bags will bear you out in your new boast.”\r\n\r\n“They will bear me the farther, my lord duke,” answered the goldsmith,\r\n“that my boast is but small.”\r\n\r\n“O, you do yourself less than justice, my good Master Heriot,”\r\n continued the duke, in the same tone of irony; “you have a marvellous\r\ncourt-faction, to be the son of an Edinburgh tinker. Have the goodness\r\nto prefer me to the knowledge of the high-born nobleman who is honoured\r\nand advantaged by your patronage.”\r\n\r\n“That shall be my task,” said Lord Huntinglen, with emphasis. “My\r\nlord duke, I desire you to know Nigel Olifaunt, Lord Glenvarloch,\r\nrepresentative of one of the most ancient and powerful baronial houses\r\nin Scotland.--Lord Glenvarloch, I present you to his Grace the Duke of\r\nBuckingham, representative of Sir George Villiers, Knight of Brookesby,\r\nin the county of Leicester.”\r\n\r\nThe duke coloured still more high as he bowed to Lord Glenvarloch\r\nscornfully, a courtesy which the other returned haughtily, and with\r\nrestrained indignation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“We know each other, then,” said the duke, after\r\na moment's pause; and as if he had seen something in the young nobleman\r\nwhich merited more serious notice than the bitter raillery with which he\r\nhad commenced--“we know each other--and you know me, my lord, for your\r\nenemy.”\r\n\r\n“I thank you for your plainness, my lord duke,” replied Nigel; “an open\r\nenemy is better than a hollow friend.”\r\n\r\n“For you, my Lord Huntinglen,” said the duke, “methinks you have but now\r\noverstepped the limits of the indulgence permitted to you, as the father\r\nof the prince's friend, and my own.”\r\n\r\n“By my word, my lord duke,” replied the earl, “it is easy for any one\r\nto outstep boundaries, of the existence of which he was not aware. It is\r\nneither to secure my protection nor approbation, that my son keeps such\r\nexalted company.”\r\n\r\n“O, my lord, we know you, and indulge you,” said the duke; “you are one\r\nof those who presume for a life-long upon the merit of one good action.”\r\n\r\n“In faith, my lord, and if it be so,” said the old earl, “I have at\r\nleast the advantage of such as presume more than I do, without having\r\ndone any action of merit whatever."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I mean not to quarrel with you,\r\nmy lord--we can neither be friends nor enemies--you have your path, and\r\nI have mine.”\r\n\r\nBuckingham only replied by throwing on his bonnet, and shaking its lofty\r\nplume with a careless and scornful toss of the head. They parted thus;\r\nthe duke walking onwards through the apartments, and the others leaving\r\nthe Palace and repairing to Whitehall Stairs, where they embarked on\r\nboard the barge of the citizen. CHAPTER X\r\n\r\n\r\n  Bid not thy fortune troll upon the wheels\r\n  Of yonder dancing cubes of mottled bone;\r\n  And drown it not, like Egypt's royal harlot,\r\n  Dissolving her rich pearl in the brimm'd wine-cup. These are the arts, Lothario, which shrink acres\r\n  Into brief yards--bring sterling pounds to farthings,\r\n  Credit to infamy; and the poor gull,\r\n  Who might have lived an honour'd, easy life,\r\n  To ruin, and an unregarded grave. _The Changes._\r\n\r\nWhen they were fairly embarked on the Thames, the earl took from his\r\npocket the Supplication, and, pointing out to George Heriot the royal\r\nwarrant indorsed thereon, asked him, if it were in due and regular form? The worthy citizen hastily read it over, thrust forth his hand as if to\r\ncongratulate the Lord Glenvarloch, then checked himself, pulled out\r\nhis barnacles, (a present from old David Ramsay,) and again perused\r\nthe warrant with the most business-like and critical attention."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“It\r\nis strictly correct and formal,” he said, looking to the Earl of\r\nHuntinglen; “and I sincerely rejoice at it.”\r\n\r\n“I doubt nothing of its formality,” said the earl; “the king understands\r\nbusiness well, and, if he does not practise it often, it is only because\r\nindolence obscures parts which are naturally well qualified for the\r\ndischarge of affairs. But what is next to be done for our young friend,\r\nMaster Heriot? You know how I am circumstanced. Scottish lords living at\r\nthe English Court have seldom command of money; yet, unless a sum can be\r\npresently raised on this warrant, matters standing as you hastily\r\nhinted to me, the mortgage, wadset, or whatever it is called, will be\r\nforeclosed.”\r\n\r\n“It is true,” said Heriot, in some embarrassment; “there is a large sum\r\nwanted in redemption--yet, if it is not raised, there will be an expiry\r\nof the legal, as our lawyers call it, and the estate will be evicted.”\r\n\r\n“My noble--my worthy friends, who have taken up my cause so\r\nundeservedly, so unexpectedly,” said Nigel, “do not let me be a burden\r\non your kindness. You have already done too much where nothing was\r\nmerited.”\r\n\r\n“Peace, man, peace,” said Lord Huntinglen, “and let old Heriot and I\r\npuzzle this scent out."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He is about to open--hark to him!”\r\n\r\n“My lord,” said the citizen, “the Duke of Buckingham sneers at our city\r\nmoney-bags; yet they can sometimes open, to prop a falling and a noble\r\nhouse.”\r\n\r\n“We know they can,” said Lord Huntinglen--“mind not Buckingham, he is a\r\nPeg-a-Ramsay--and now for the remedy.”\r\n\r\n“I partly hinted to Lord Glenvarloch already,” said Heriot, “that the\r\nredemption money might be advanced upon such a warrant as the present,\r\nand I will engage my credit that it can. But then, in order to secure\r\nthe lender, he must come in the shoes of the creditor to whom he\r\nadvances payment.”\r\n\r\n“Come in his shoes!” replied the earl; “why, what have boots or shoes to\r\ndo with this matter, my good friend?”\r\n\r\n“It is a law phrase, my lord. My experience has made me pick up a few of\r\nthem,” said Heriot. “Ay, and of better things along with them, Master George,” replied Lord\r\nHuntinglen; “but what means it?”\r\n\r\n“Simply this,” resumed the citizen; “that the lender of this money will\r\ntransact with the holder of the mortgage, or wadset, over the estate of\r\nGlenvarloch, and obtain from him such a conveyance to his right as\r\nshall leave the lands pledged for the debt, in case the warrant upon\r\nthe Scottish Exchequer should prove unproductive."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I fear, in this\r\nuncertainty of public credit, that without some such counter security,\r\nit will be very difficult to find so large a sum.”\r\n\r\n“Ho la!” said the Earl of Huntinglen, “halt there! a thought\r\nstrikes me.--What if the new creditor should admire the estate as a\r\nhunting-field, as much as my Lord Grace of Buckingham seems to do, and\r\nshould wish to kill a buck there in the summer season? It seems to\r\nme, that on your plan, Master George, our new friend will be as well\r\nentitled to block Lord Glenvarloch out of his inheritance as the present\r\nholder of the mortgage.”\r\n\r\nThe citizen laughed. “I will engage,” he said, “that the keenest\r\nsportsman to whom I may apply on this occasion, shall not have a\r\nthought beyond the Lord Mayor's Easter-Hunt, in Epping Forest. But your\r\nlordship's caution is reasonable. The creditor must be bound to allow\r\nLord Glenvarloch sufficient time to redeem his estate by means of\r\nthe royal warrant, and must wave in his favour the right of instant\r\nforeclosure, which may be, I should think, the more easily managed, as\r\nthe right of redemption must be exercised in his own name.”\r\n\r\n“But where shall we find a person in London fit to draw the necessary\r\nwritings?” said the earl."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“If my old friend Sir John Skene of Halyards\r\nhad lived, we should have had his advice; but time presses, and--”\r\n\r\n“I know,” said Heriot, “an orphan lad, a scrivener, that dwells by\r\nTemple Bar; he can draw deeds both after the English and Scottish\r\nfashion, and I have trusted him often in matters of weight and of\r\nimportance. I will send one of my serving-men for him, and the mutual\r\ndeeds may be executed in your lordship's presence; for, as things stand,\r\nthere should be no delay.” His lordship readily assented; and, as they\r\nnow landed upon the private stairs leading down to the river from the\r\ngardens of the handsome hotel which he inhabited, the messenger was\r\ndispatched without loss of time. Nigel, who had sat almost stupefied while these zealous friends\r\nvolunteered for him in arranging the measures by which his fortune was\r\nto be disembarrassed, now made another eager attempt to force upon\r\nthem his broken expressions of thanks and gratitude. But he was again\r\nsilenced by Lord Huntinglen, who declared he would not hear a word on\r\nthat topic, and proposed instead, that they should take a turn in the\r\npleached alley, or sit upon the stone bench which overlooked the Thames,\r\nuntil his son's arrival should give the signal for dinner. “I desire to introduce Dalgarno and Lord Glenvarloch to each other,” he\r\nsaid, “as two who will be near neighbours, and I trust will be more kind\r\nones than their fathers were formerly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There is but three Scots miles\r\nbetwixt the castles, and the turrets of the one are visible from the\r\nbattlements of the other.”\r\n\r\nThe old earl was silent for a moment, and appeared to muse upon the\r\nrecollections which the vicinity of the castles had summoned up. “Does Lord Dalgarno follow the Court to Newmarket next week?” said\r\nHeriot, by way of removing the conversation. “He proposes so, I think,” answered Lord Huntinglen, relapsed into\r\nhis reverie for a minute or two, and then addressed Nigel somewhat\r\nabruptly--\r\n\r\n“My young friend, when you attain possession of your inheritance, as I\r\nhope you soon will, I trust you will not add one to the idle followers\r\nof the Court, but reside on your patrimonial estate, cherish your\r\nancient tenants, relieve and assist your poor kinsmen, protect the poor\r\nagainst subaltern oppression, and do what our fathers used to do, with\r\nfewer lights and with less means than we have.”\r\n\r\n“And yet the advice to keep the country,” said Heriot, “comes from an\r\nancient and constant ornament of the Court.”\r\n\r\n“From an old courtier, indeed,” said the earl, “and the first of my\r\nfamily that could so write himself--my grey beard falls on a cambric\r\nruff and a silken doublet--my father's descended upon a buff coat and\r\na breast-plate."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I would not that those days of battle returned; but I\r\nshould love well to make the oaks of my old forest of Dalgarno ring once\r\nmore with halloo, and horn, and hound, and to have the old stone-arched\r\nhall return the hearty shout of my vassals and tenants, as the bicker\r\nand the quaigh walked their rounds amongst them. I should like to see\r\nthe broad Tay once more before I die--not even the Thames can match it,\r\nin my mind.”\r\n\r\n“Surely, my lord,” said the citizen, “all this might be easily done--it\r\ncosts but a moment's resolution, and the journey of some brief days, and\r\nyou will be where you desire to be--what is there to prevent you?”\r\n\r\n“Habits, Master George, habits,” replied the earl, “which to young men\r\nare like threads of silk, so lightly are they worn, so soon broken; but\r\nwhich hang on our old limbs as if time had stiffened them into gyves of\r\niron. To go to Scotland for a brief space were but labour in vain; and\r\nwhen I think of abiding there, I cannot bring myself to leave my old\r\nmaster, to whom I fancy myself sometimes useful, and whose weal and\r\nwoe I have shared for so many years. But Dalgarno shall be a Scottish\r\nnoble.”\r\n\r\n“Has he visited the North?” said Heriot."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“He was there last year and made such a report of the country, that the\r\nprince has expressed a longing to see it.”\r\n\r\n“Lord Dalgarno is in high grace with his Highness and the Duke of\r\nBuckingham?” observed the goldsmith. “He is so,” answered the earl,--“I pray it may be for the advantage of\r\nthem all. The prince is just and equitable in his sentiments, though\r\ncold and stately in his manners, and very obstinate in his most trifling\r\npurposes; and the duke, noble and gallant, and generous and open, is\r\nfiery, ambitious, and impetuous. Dalgarno has none of these faults,\r\nand such as he may have of his own, may perchance be corrected by the\r\nsociety in which he moves.--See, here he comes.”\r\n\r\nLord Dalgarno accordingly advanced from the farther end of the alley to\r\nthe bench on which his father and his guests were seated, so that Nigel\r\nhad full leisure to peruse his countenance and figure. He was dressed\r\npoint-device, and almost to extremity, in the splendid fashion of the\r\ntime, which suited well with his age, probably about five-and-twenty,\r\nwith a noble form and fine countenance, in which last could easily be\r\ntraced the manly features of his father, but softened by a more\r\nhabitual air of assiduous courtesy than the stubborn old earl had ever\r\ncondescended to assume towards the world in general."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In other respects,\r\nhis address was gallant, free, and unencumbered either by pride or\r\nceremony--far remote certainly from the charge either of haughty\r\ncoldness or forward impetuosity; and so far his father had justly freed\r\nhim from the marked faults which he ascribed to the manners of the\r\nprince and his favourite Buckingham. While the old earl presented his young acquaintance Lord Glenvarloch to\r\nhis son, as one whom he would have him love and honour, Nigel marked the\r\ncountenance of Lord Dalgarno closely, to see if he could detect aught\r\nof that secret dislike which the king had, in one of his broken\r\nexpostulations, seemed to intimate, as arising from a clashing of\r\ninterests betwixt his new friend and the great Buckingham. But nothing\r\nof this was visible; on the contrary, Lord Dalgarno received his new\r\nacquaintance with the open frankness and courtesy which makes conquest\r\nat once, when addressed to the feelings of an ingenuous young man. It need hardly be told that his open and friendly address met equally\r\nready and cheerful acceptation from Nigel Olifaunt. For many months, and\r\nwhile a youth not much above two-and-twenty, he had been restrained by\r\ncircumstances from the conversation of his equals. When, on his father's\r\nsudden death, he left the Low Countries for Scotland, he had found\r\nhimself involved, to all appearance inextricably, with the details\r\nof the law, all of which threatened to end in the alienation of the\r\npatrimony which should support his hereditary rank."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His term of sincere\r\nmourning, joined to injured pride, and the swelling of the heart under\r\nunexpected and undeserved misfortune, together with the uncertainty\r\nattending the issue of his affairs, had induced the young Lord of\r\nGlenvarloch to live, while in Scotland, in a very private and reserved\r\nmanner. How he had passed his time in London, the reader is acquainted\r\nwith. But this melancholy and secluded course of life was neither\r\nagreeable to his age nor to his temper, which was genial and sociable. He hailed, therefore, with sincere pleasure, the approaches which a\r\nyoung man of his own age and rank made towards him; and when he had\r\nexchanged with Lord Dalgarno some of those words and signals by which,\r\nas surely as by those of freemasonry, young people recognise a mutual\r\nwish to be agreeable to each other, it seemed as if the two noblemen had\r\nbeen acquainted for some time. Just as this tacit intercourse had been established, one of Lord\r\nHuntinglen's attendants came down the alley, marshalling onwards a\r\nman dressed in black buckram, who followed him with tolerable speed,\r\nconsidering that, according to his sense of reverence and propriety, he\r\nkept his body bent and parallel to the horizon from the moment that he\r\ncame in sight of the company to which he was about to be presented."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Who is this, you cuckoldy knave,” said the old lord, who had retained\r\nthe keen appetite and impatience of a Scottish baron even during a long\r\nalienation from his native country; “and why does John Cook, with a\r\nmurrain to him, keep back dinner?”\r\n\r\n“I believe we are ourselves responsible for this person's intrusion,”\r\n said George Heriot; “this is the scrivener whom we desired to see.--Look\r\nup, man, and see us in the face as an honest man should, instead of\r\nbeating thy noddle charged against us thus, like a battering-ram.”\r\n\r\nThe scrivener did look up accordingly, with the action of an automaton\r\nwhich suddenly obeys the impulse of a pressed spring. But, strange to\r\ntell, not even the haste he had made to attend his patron's mandate,\r\na business, as Master Heriot's message expressed, of weight and\r\nimportance--nay not even the state of depression in which, out of sheer\r\nhumility, doubtless, he had his head stooped to the earth, from the\r\nmoment he had trod the demesnes of the Earl of Huntinglen, had called\r\nany colour into his countenance. The drops stood on his brow from haste\r\nand toil, but his cheek was still pale and tallow-coloured as before;\r\nnay, what seemed stranger, his very hair, when he raised his head, hung\r\ndown on either cheek as straight and sleek and undisturbed as it was\r\nwhen we first introduced him to our readers, seated at his quiet and\r\nhumble desk."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lord Dalgarno could not forbear a stifled laugh at the ridiculous and\r\npuritanical figure which presented itself like a starved anatomy to the\r\ncompany, and whispered at the same time into Lord Glenvarloch's ear--\r\n\r\n     “The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon,\r\n      Where got'st thou that goose-look?”\r\n\r\nNigel was too little acquainted with the English stage to understand a\r\nquotation which had already grown matter of common allusion in London. Lord Dalgarno saw that he was not understood, and continued, “That\r\nfellow, by his visage, should either be a saint, or a most hypocritical\r\nrogue--and such is my excellent opinion of human nature, that I always\r\nsuspect the worst. But they seem deep in business."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Will you take a\r\nturn with me in the garden, my lord, or will you remain a member of the\r\nserious conclave?”\r\n\r\n“With you, my lord, most willingly,” said Nigel; and they were turning\r\naway accordingly, when George Heriot, with the formality belonging\r\nto his station, observed, that, “as their business concerned Lord\r\nGlenvarloch, he had better remain, to make himself master of it, and\r\nwitness to it.”\r\n\r\n“My presence is utterly needless, my good lord;-and, my best friend,\r\nMaster Heriot,” said the young nobleman, “I shall understand nothing\r\nthe better for cumbering you with my ignorance in these matters; and can\r\nonly say at the end, as I now say at the beginning, that I dare not take\r\nthe helm out of the hand of the kind pilots who have already guided\r\nmy course within sight of a fair and unhoped-for haven."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Whatever you\r\nrecommend to me as fitting, I shall sign and seal; and the import of the\r\ndeeds I shall better learn by a brief explanation from Master Heriot, if\r\nhe will bestow so much trouble in my behalf, than by a thousand learned\r\nwords and law terms from this person of skill.”\r\n\r\n“He is right,” said Lord Huntinglen; “our young friend is right, in\r\nconfiding these matters to you and me, Master George Heriot--he has not\r\nmisplaced his confidence.”\r\n\r\nMaster George Heriot cast a long look after the two young noblemen, who\r\nhad now walked down the alley arm-in-arm, and at length said, “He hath\r\nnot, indeed, misplaced his confidence, as your lordship well and truly\r\nsays--but, nevertheless, he is not in the right path; for it behoves\r\nevery man to become acquainted with his own affairs, so soon as he hath\r\nany that are worth attending to.”\r\n\r\nWhen he had made this observation, they applied themselves, with the\r\nscrivener, to look into various papers, and to direct in what manner\r\nwritings should be drawn, which might at once afford sufficient security\r\nto those who were to advance the money, and at the same time preserve\r\nthe right of the young nobleman to redeem the family estate, provided he\r\nshould obtain the means of doing so, by the expected reimbursement from\r\nthe Scottish Exchequer, or otherwise. It is needless to enter into those\r\ndetails."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But it is not unimportant to mention, as an illustration of\r\ncharacter, that Heriot went into the most minute legal details with a\r\nprecision which showed that experience had made him master even of the\r\nintricacies of Scottish conveyancing; and that the Earl of Huntinglen,\r\nthough far less acquainted with technical detail, suffered no step of\r\nthe business to pass over, until he had attained a general but distinct\r\nidea of its import and its propriety. They seemed to be admirably seconded in their benevolent intentions\r\ntowards the young Lord Glenvarloch, by the skill and eager zeal of the\r\nscrivener, whom Heriot had introduced to this piece of business, the\r\nmost important which Andrew had ever transacted in his life, and the\r\nparticulars of which were moreover agitated in his presence between an\r\nactual earl, and one whose wealth and character might entitle him to be\r\nan alderman of his ward, if not to be lord mayor, in his turn. While they were thus in eager conversation on business, the good earl\r\neven forgetting the calls of his appetite, and the delay of dinner, in\r\nhis anxiety to see that the scrivener received proper instructions, and\r\nthat all was rightly weighed and considered, before dismissing him to\r\nengross the necessary deeds, the two young men walked together on the\r\nterrace which overhung the river, and talked on the topics which Lord\r\nDalgarno, the elder, and the more experienced, thought most likely to\r\ninterest his new friend."}
{"question": "", "answer": "These naturally regarded the pleasures attending a Court life; and Lord\r\nDalgarno expressed much surprise at understanding that Nigel proposed an\r\ninstant return to Scotland. “You are jesting with me,” he said. “All the Court rings--it is needless\r\nto mince it--with the extraordinary success of your suit--against the\r\nhighest interest, it is said, now influencing the horizon at Whitehall. Men think of you--talk of you--fix their eyes on you--ask each other,\r\nwho is this young Scottish lord, who has stepped so far in a single day? They augur, in whispers to each other, how high and how far you may push\r\nyour fortune--and all that you design to make of it, is, to return to\r\nScotland, eat raw oatmeal cakes, baked upon a peat-fire, have your hand\r\nshaken by every loon of a blue-bonnet who chooses to dub you cousin,\r\nthough your relationship comes by Noah; drink Scots twopenny ale,\r\neat half-starved red-deer venison, when you can kill it, ride upon a\r\ngalloway, and be called my right honourable and maist worthy lord!”\r\n\r\n“There is no great gaiety in the prospect before me, I confess,” said\r\nLord Glenvarloch, “even if your father and good Master Heriot should\r\nsucceed in putting my affairs on some footing of plausible hope."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And yet\r\nI trust to do something for my vassals as my ancestors before me, and to\r\nteach my children, as I have myself been taught, to make some personal\r\nsacrifices, if they be necessary, in order to maintain with dignity the\r\nsituation in which they are placed by Providence.”\r\n\r\nLord Dalgarno, after having once or twice stifled his laughter during\r\nthis speech, at length broke out into a fit of mirth, so hearty and\r\nso resistless, that, angry as he was, the call of sympathy swept Nigel\r\nalong with him, and despite of himself, he could not forbear to join\r\nin a burst of laughter, which he thought not only causeless, but almost\r\nimpertinent. He soon recollected himself, however, and said, in a tone qualified to\r\nallay Lord Dalgarno's extreme mirth: “This is all well, my lord; but how\r\nam I to understand your merriment?” Lord Dalgarno only answered him with\r\nredoubled peals of laughter, and at length held by Lord Glenvarloch's\r\ncloak, as if to prevent his falling down on the ground, in the extremity\r\nof his convulsion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At length, while Nigel stood half abashed, half angry, at becoming thus\r\nthe subject of his new acquaintance's ridicule, and was only restrained\r\nfrom expressing his resentment against the son, by a sense of the\r\nobligations he owed the father, Lord Dalgarno recovered himself, and\r\nspoke in a half-broken voice, his eyes still running with tears: “I\r\ncrave your pardon, my dear Lord Glenvarloch--ten thousand times do I\r\ncrave your pardon. But that last picture of rural dignity, accompanied\r\nby your grave and angry surprise at my laughing at what would have made\r\nany court-bred hound laugh, that had but so much as bayed the moon once\r\nfrom the court-yard at Whitehall, totally overcame me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why, my liefest\r\nand dearest lord, you, a young and handsome fellow, with high birth, a\r\ntitle, and the name of an estate, so well received by the king at your\r\nfirst starting, as makes your further progress scarce matter of doubt,\r\nif you know how to improve it--for the king has already said you are a\r\n'braw lad, and well studied in the more humane letters'--you, too, whom\r\nall the women, and the very marked beauties of the Court, desire to see,\r\nbecause you came from Leyden, were born in Scotland, and have gained a\r\nhard-contested suit in England--you, I say, with a person like a prince,\r\nan eye of fire, and a wit as quick, to think of throwing your cards on\r\nthe table when the game is in your very hand, running back to the\r\nfrozen north, and marrying--let me see--a tall, stalking, blue-eyed,\r\nfair-skinned bony wench, with eighteen quarters in her scutcheon, a sort\r\nof Lot's wife, newly descended from her pedestal, and with her to shut\r\nyourself up in your tapestried chamber! Uh, gad!--Swouns, I shall never\r\nsurvive the idea!”\r\n\r\nIt is seldom that youth, however high-minded, is able, from mere\r\nstrength of character and principle, to support itself against the force\r\nof ridicule."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Half angry, half mortified, and, to say truth, half ashamed\r\nof his more manly and better purpose, Nigel was unable, and flattered\r\nhimself it was unnecessary, to play the part of a rigid moral patriot,\r\nin presence of a young man whose current fluency of language, as well as\r\nhis experience in the highest circles of society, gave him, in spite of\r\nNigel's better and firmer thoughts, a temporary ascendency over him. He\r\nsought, therefore, to compromise the matter, and avoid farther debate,\r\nby frankly owning, that, if to return to his own country were not his\r\nchoice, it was at least a matter of necessity. “His affairs,” he said,\r\n“were unsettled, his income precarious.”\r\n\r\n“And where is he whose affairs are settled, or whose income is less than\r\nprecarious, that is to be found in attendance on the Court?” said Lord\r\nDalgarno; “all are either losing or winning. Those who have wealth, come\r\nhither to get rid of it, while the happy gallants, who, like you and I,\r\ndear Glenvarloch, have little or none, have every chance to be sharers\r\nin their spoils.”\r\n\r\n“I have no ambition of that sort,” said Nigel, “and if I had, I must\r\ntell you plainly, Lord Dalgarno, I have not the means to do so."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I can\r\nscarce as yet call the suit I wear my own; I owe it, and I do riot blush\r\nto say so, to the friendship of yonder good man.”\r\n\r\n“I will not laugh again, if I can help it,” said Lord Dalgarno. “But, Lord! that you should have gone to a wealthy goldsmith for your\r\nhabit--why, I could have brought you to an honest, confiding tailor,\r\nwho should have furnished you with half-a-dozen, merely for love of the\r\nlittle word, 'lordship,' which you place before your name;--and then\r\nyour goldsmith, if he be really a friendly goldsmith, should have\r\nequipped you with such a purse of fair rose-nobles as would have bought\r\nyou thrice as many suits, or done better things for you.”\r\n\r\n“I do not understand these fashions, my lord,” said Nigel, his\r\ndispleasure mastering his shame; “were I to attend the Court of my\r\nsovereign, it should be when I could maintain, without shifting or\r\nborrowing, the dress and retinue which my rank requires.”\r\n\r\n“Which my rank requires!” said Lord Dalgarno, repeating his last words;\r\n“that, now, is as good as if my father had spoke it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I fancy you\r\nwould love to move to Court with him, followed by a round score of\r\nold blue-bottles, with white heads and red noses, with bucklers and\r\nbroadswords, which their hands, trembling betwixt age and strong waters,\r\ncan make no use of--as many huge silver badges on their arms, to\r\nshow whose fools they are, as would furnish forth a court cupboard of\r\nplate--rogues fit for nothing but to fill our ante-chambers with the\r\nflavour of onions and genievre--pah!”\r\n\r\n“The poor knaves!” said Lord Glenvarloch; “they have served your father,\r\nit may be, in the wars. What would become of them were he to turn them\r\noff?”\r\n\r\n“Why, let them go to the hospital,” said Dalgarno, “or to the\r\nbridge-end, to sell switches. The king is a better man than my father,\r\nand you see those who have served in HIS wars do so every day; or, when\r\ntheir blue coats were well worn out, they would make rare scarecrows. Here is a fellow, now, comes down the walk; the stoutest raven dared\r\nnot come within a yard of that copper nose."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I tell you, there is more\r\nservice, as you will soon see, in my valet of the chamber, and such\r\na lither lad as my page Lutin, than there is in a score of these old\r\nmemorials of the Douglas wars, [Footnote: The cruel civil wars waged by\r\nthe Scottish barons during the minority of James VI., had the name from\r\nthe figure made in them by the celebrated James Douglas, Earl of Morton. Both sides executed their prisoners without mercy or favour.] where they\r\ncut each other's throats for the chance of finding twelve pennies Scots\r\non the person of the slain. Marry, my lord, to make amends, they will\r\neat mouldy victuals, and drink stale ale, as if their bellies were\r\npuncheons.--But the dinner-bell is going to sound--hark, it is clearing\r\nits rusty throat, with a preliminary jowl. That is another clamorous\r\nrelic of antiquity, that, were I master, should soon be at the bottom\r\nof the Thames. How the foul fiend can it interest the peasants and\r\nmechanics in the Strand, to know that the Earl of Huntinglen is sitting\r\ndown to dinner? But my father looks our way--we must not be late for the\r\ngrace, or we shall be in DIS-grace, if you will forgive a quibble which\r\nwould have made his Majesty laugh."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You will find us all of a piece, and,\r\nhaving been accustomed to eat in saucers abroad, I am ashamed you should\r\nwitness our larded capons, our mountains of beef, and oceans of brewis,\r\nas large as Highland hills and lochs; but you shall see better cheer\r\nto-morrow. Where lodge you? I will call for you. I must be your guide\r\nthrough the peopled desert, to certain enchanted lands, which you will\r\nscarce discover without chart and pilot. Where lodge you?”\r\n\r\n“I will meet you in Paul's,” said Nigel, a good deal embarrassed, “at\r\nany hour you please to name.”\r\n\r\n“O, you would be private,” said the young lord; “nay, fear not me--I\r\nwill be no intruder. But we have attained this huge larder of flesh,\r\nfowl, and fish. I marvel the oaken boards groan not under it.”\r\n\r\nThey had indeed arrived in the dining-parlour of the mansion, where the\r\ntable was superabundantly loaded, and where the number of attendants,\r\nto a certain extent, vindicated the sarcasms of the young nobleman. The chaplain, and Sir Mungo Malagrowther, were of the party. The latter\r\ncomplimented Lord Glenvarloch upon the impression he had made at Court."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“One would have thought ye had brought the apple of discord in your\r\npouch, my lord, or that you were the very firebrand of whilk Althea was\r\ndelivered, and that she had lain-in in a barrel of gunpowder, for the\r\nking, and the prince, and the duke, have been by the lugs about ye, and\r\nso have many more, that kendna before this blessed day that there was\r\nsuch a man living on the face of the earth.”\r\n\r\n“Mind your victuals, Sir Mungo,” said the earl; “they get cold while\r\nyou talk.”\r\n\r\n“Troth, and that needsna, my lord,” said the knight; “your lordship's\r\ndinners seldom scald one's mouth--the serving-men are turning auld, like\r\noursells, my lord, and it is far between the kitchen and the ha'.”\r\n\r\nWith this little explosion of his spleen, Sir Mungo remained satisfied,\r\nuntil the dishes were removed, when, fixing his eyes on the brave new\r\ndoublet of Lord Dalgarno, he complimented him on his economy, pretending\r\nto recognise it as the same which his father had worn in Edinburgh in\r\nthe Spanish ambassador's time. Lord Dalgarno, too much a man of the\r\nworld to be moved by any thing from such a quarter, proceeded to crack\r\nsome nuts with great deliberation, as he replied, that the doublet was\r\nin some sort his father's, as it was likely to cost him fifty pounds\r\nsome day soon."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Mungo forthwith proceeded in his own way to convey\r\nthis agreeable intelligence to the earl, observing, that his son was a\r\nbetter maker of bargains than his lordship, for he had bought a doublet\r\nas rich as that his lordship wore when the Spanish ambassador was at\r\nHolyrood, and it had cost him but fifty pounds Scots;--“that was no\r\nfool's bargain, my lord.”\r\n\r\n“Pounds sterling, if you please, Sir Mungo,” answered the earl, calmly;\r\n“and a fool's bargain it is, in all the tenses. Dalgarno WAS a fool when\r\nhe bought--I _will_ be a fool when I pay--and you, Sir Mungo, craving\r\nyour pardon, _are_ a fool _in praesenti_, for speaking of what concerns\r\nyou not.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, the earl addressed himself to the serious business of the\r\ntable and sent the wine around with a profusion which increased the\r\nhilarity, but rather threatened the temperance, of the company, until\r\ntheir joviality was interrupted by the annunciation that the scrivener\r\nhad engrossed such deeds as required to be presently executed. George Heriot rose from the table, observing, that wine-cups and legal\r\ndocuments were unseemly neighbours. The earl asked the scrivener if they\r\nhad laid a trencher and set a cup for him in the buttery and received\r\nthe respectful answer, that heaven forbid he should be such an\r\nungracious beast as to eat or drink until his lordship's pleasure was\r\nperformed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Thou shalt eat before thou goest,” said Lord Huntinglen; “and I will\r\nhave thee try, moreover, whether a cup of sack cannot bring some colour\r\ninto these cheeks of thine. It were a shame to my household, thou\r\nshouldst glide out into the Strand after such a spectre-fashion as\r\nthou now wearest--Look to it, Dalgarno, for the honour of our roof is\r\nconcerned.”\r\n\r\nLord Dalgarno gave directions that the man should be attended to. Lord\r\nGlenvarloch and the citizen, in the meanwhile, signed and interchanged,\r\nand thus closed a transaction, of which the principal party concerned\r\nunderstood little, save that it was under the management of a zealous\r\nand faithful friend, who undertook that the money should be forthcoming,\r\nand the estate released from forfeiture, by payment of the stipulated\r\nsum for which it stood pledged, and that at the term of Lambmas, and at\r\nthe hour of noon, and beside the tomb of the Regent Earl of Murray,\r\nin the High Kirk of Saint Giles, at Edinburgh, being the day and place\r\nassigned for such redemption. [Footnote: As each covenant in those days\r\nof accuracy had a special place nominated for execution, the tomb of the\r\nRegent Earl of Murray in Saint Giles's Church was frequently assigned\r\nfor the purpose.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "When this business was transacted, the old earl would fain have renewed\r\nhis carouse; but the citizen, alleging the importance of the deeds he\r\nhad about him, and the business he had to transact betimes the next\r\nmorning, not only refused to return to table, but carried with him to\r\nhis barge Lord Glenvarloch, who might, perhaps, have been otherwise\r\nfound more tractable. When they were seated in the boat, and fairly once more afloat on the\r\nriver, George Heriot looked back seriously on the mansion they had\r\nleft--“There live,” he said, “the old fashion and the new. The father\r\nis like a noble old broadsword, but harmed with rust, from neglect and\r\ninactivity; the son is your modern rapier, well-mounted, fairly gilt,\r\nand fashioned to the taste of the time--and it is time must evince if\r\nthe metal be as good as the show."}
{"question": "", "answer": "God grant it prove so, says an old\r\nfriend to the family.”\r\n\r\nNothing of consequence passed betwixt them, until Lord Glenvarloch,\r\nlanding at Paul's Wharf, took leave of his friend the citizen, and\r\nretired to his own apartment, where his attendant, Richie, not a little\r\nelevated with the events of the day, and with the hospitality of Lord\r\nHuntinglen's house-keeping, gave a most splendid account of them to\r\nthe buxom Dame Nelly, who rejoiced to hear that the sun at length was\r\nshining upon what Richie called “the right side of the hedge.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XI\r\n\r\n\r\n  You are not for the manner nor the times,\r\n  They have their vices now most like to virtues;\r\n  You cannot know them apait by any difference,\r\n  They wear the same clothes, eat the same meat--\r\n  Sleep i' the self-same beds, ride in those coaches,\r\n  Or very like four horses in a coach,\r\n  As the best men and women."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_Ben Jonson_\r\n\r\nOn the following morning, while Nigel, his breakfast finished, was\r\nthinking how he should employ the day, there was a little bustle upon\r\nthe stairs which attracted his attention, and presently entered Dame\r\nNelly, blushing like scarlet, and scarce able to bring out--“A young\r\nnobleman, sir--no one less,” she added, drawing her hand slightly over\r\nher lips, “would be so saucy--a young nobleman, sir, to wait on you!”\r\n\r\nAnd she was followed into the little cabin by Lord Dalgarno, gay,\r\neasy, disembarrassed, and apparently as much pleased to rejoin his\r\nnew acquaintance as if he had found him in the apartments of a palace. Nigel, on the contrary, (for youth is slave to such circumstances,)\r\nwas discountenanced and mortified at being surprised by so splendid a\r\ngallant in a chamber which, at the moment the elegant and high-dressed\r\ncavalier appeared in it, seemed to its inhabitant, yet lower, narrower,\r\ndarker, and meaner than it had ever shown before."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He would have made\r\nsome apology for the situation, but Lord Dalgarno cut him short--\r\n\r\n“Not a word of it,” he said, “not a single word--I know why you ride at\r\nanchor here--but I can keep counsel--so pretty a hostess would recommend\r\nworse quarters.”\r\n\r\n“On my word--on my honour,” said Lord Glenvarloch--\r\n\r\n“Nay, nay, make no words of the matter,” said Lord Dalgarno; “I am no\r\ntell-tale, nor shall I cross your walk; there is game enough in the\r\nforest, thank Heaven, and I can strike a doe for myself.”\r\n\r\nAll this he said in so significant a manner, and the explanation\r\nwhich he had adopted seemed to put Lord Glenvarloch's gallantry on so\r\nrespectable a footing, that Nigel ceased to try to undeceive him; and\r\nless ashamed, perhaps, (for such is human weakness,) of supposed vice\r\nthan of real poverty, changed the discourse to something else, and\r\nleft poor Dame Nelly's reputation and his own at the mercy of the young\r\ncourtier's misconstruction. He offered refreshments with some hesitation. Lord Dalgarno had long\r\nsince breakfasted, but had just come from playing a set of tennis, he\r\nsaid, and would willingly taste a cup of the pretty hostess's single\r\nbeer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This was easily procured, was drunk, was commended, and, as the\r\nhostess failed not to bring the cup herself, Lord Dalgarno profited by\r\nthe opportunity to take a second and more attentive view of her, and\r\nthen gravely drank to her husband's health, with an almost imperceptible\r\nnod to Lord Glenvarloch. Dame Nelly was much honoured, smoothed her\r\napron down with her hands, and said\r\n\r\n“Her John was greatly and truly honoured by their lordships--he was a\r\nkind painstaking man for his family, as was in the alley, or indeed, as\r\nfar north as Paul's Chain.”\r\n\r\nShe would have proceeded probably to state the difference betwixt their\r\nages, as the only alloy to their nuptial happiness; but her lodger, who\r\nhad no mind to be farther exposed to his gay friend's raillery, gave\r\nher, contrary to his wont, a signal to leave the room. Lord Dalgarno looked after her, and then looked at Glenvarloch, shook\r\nhis head, and repeated the well-known lines--\r\n\r\n“'My lord, beware of jealousy--It is the green-eyed monster which doth\r\nmake the meat it feeds on.'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "“But come,” he said, changing his tone, “I know not why I should worry\r\nyou thus--I who have so many follies of my own, when I should rather\r\nmake excuse for being here at all, and tell you wherefore I came.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, he reached a seat, and, placing another for Lord Glenvarloch,\r\nin spite of his anxious haste to anticipate this act of courtesy, he\r\nproceeded in the same tone of easy familiarity:--\r\n\r\n“We are neighbours, my lord, and are just made known to each other. Now, I know enough of the dear North, to be well aware that Scottish\r\nneighbours must be either dear friends or deadly enemies--must either\r\nwalk hand-in-hand, or stand sword-point to sword-point; so I choose the\r\nhand-in-hand, unless you should reject my proffer.”\r\n\r\n“How were it possible, my lord,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “to refuse what\r\nis offered so frankly, even if your father had not been a second father\r\nto me?”--And, as he took Lord Dalgarno's hand, he added--“I have, I\r\nthink, lost no time, since, during one day's attendance at Court, I have\r\nmade a kind friend and a powerful enemy.”\r\n\r\n“The friend thanks you,” replied Lord Dalgarno, “for your just opinion;\r\nbut, my dear Glenvarloch--or rather, for titles are too formal between\r\nus of the better file--what is your Christian name?”\r\n\r\n“Nigel,” replied Lord Glenvarloch. “Then we will be Nigel and Malcolm to each other,” said his visitor,\r\n“and my lord to the plebeian world around us."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I was about to ask you\r\nwhom you suppose your enemy?”\r\n\r\n“No less than the all-powerful favourite, the great Duke of Buckingham.”\r\n\r\n“You dream! What could possess you with such an opinion?” said Dalgarno. “He told me so himself,” replied Glenvarloch; “and, in so doing, dealt\r\nfrankly and honourably with me.”\r\n\r\n“O, you know him not yet,” said his companion; “the duke is moulded of\r\nan hundred noble and fiery qualities, that prompt him, like a generous\r\nhorse, to spring aside in impatience at the least obstacle to his\r\nforward course. But he means not what he says in such passing heats--I\r\ncan do more with him, I thank Heaven, than most who are around him; you\r\nshall go visit him with me, and you will see how you shall be received.”\r\n\r\n“I told you, my lord,” said Glenvarloch firmly, and with some\r\nhaughtiness, “the Duke of Buckingham, without the least offence,\r\ndeclared himself my enemy in the face of the Court; and he shall\r\nretract that aggression as publicly as it was given, ere I will make the\r\nslightest advance towards him.”\r\n\r\n“You would act becomingly in every other case,” said Lord Dalgarno,\r\n“but here you are wrong. In the Court horizon Buckingham is Lord of\r\nthe Ascendant, and as he is adverse or favouring, so sinks or rises the\r\nfortune of a suitor. The king would bid you remember your Phaedrus,\r\n\r\n     'Arripiens geminas, ripis cedentibus, ollas--'\r\n\r\nand so forth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You are the vase of earth; beware of knocking yourself\r\nagainst the vase of iron.”\r\n\r\n“The vase of earth,” said Glenvarloch, “will avoid the encounter, by\r\ngetting ashore out of the current--I mean to go no more to Court.”\r\n\r\n“O, to Court you necessarily must go; you will find your Scottish suit\r\nmove ill without it, for there is both patronage and favour necessary\r\nto enforce the sign-manual you have obtained. Of that we will speak more\r\nhereafter; but tell me in the meanwhile, my dear Nigel, whether you did\r\nnot wonder to see me here so early?”\r\n\r\n“I am surprised that you could find me out in this obscure corner,” said\r\nLord Glenvarloch."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“My page Lutin is a very devil for that sort of discovery,” replied\r\nLord Dalgarno; “I have but to say, 'Goblin, I would know where he or she\r\ndwells,' and he guides me thither as if by art magic.”\r\n\r\n“I hope he waits not now in the street, my lord,” said Nigel; “I will\r\nsend my servant to seek him.”\r\n\r\n“Do not concern yourself--he is by this time,” said Lord Dalgarno,\r\n“playing at hustle-cap and chuck-farthing with the most blackguard imps\r\nupon the wharf, unless he hath foregone his old customs.”\r\n\r\n“Are you not afraid,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “that in such company his\r\nmorals may become depraved?”\r\n\r\n“Let his company look to their own,” answered Lord Dalgarno, cooly; “for\r\nit will be a company of real fiends in which Lutin cannot teach more\r\nmischief than he can learn: he is, I thank the gods, most thoroughly\r\nversed in evil for his years. I am spared the trouble of looking after\r\nhis moralities, for nothing can make them either better or worse.”\r\n\r\n“I wonder you can answer this to his parents, my lord,” said Nigel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I wonder where I should find his parents,” replied his companion, “to\r\nrender an account to them.”\r\n\r\n“He may be an orphan,” said Lord Nigel; “but surely, being a page in\r\nyour lordship's family, his parents must be of rank.”\r\n\r\n“Of as high rank as the gallows could exalt them to,” replied Lord\r\nDalgarno, with the same indifference; “they were both hanged, I\r\nbelieve--at least the gipsies, from whom I bought him five years ago,\r\nintimated as much to me.--You are surprised at this, now. But is it not\r\nbetter that, instead of a lazy, conceited, whey-faced slip of gentility,\r\nto whom, in your old-world idea of the matter, I was bound to stand Sir\r\nPedagogue, and see that he washed his hands and face, said his prayers,\r\nlearned his acddens, spoke no naughty words, brushed his hat, and\r\nwore his best doublet only on Sunday,--that, instead of such a Jacky\r\nGoodchild, I should have something like this?”\r\n\r\nHe whistled shrill and clear, and the page he spoke of darted into the\r\nroom, almost with the effect of an actual apparition. From his height he\r\nseemed but fifteen, but, from his face, might be two or even three years\r\nolder, very neatly made, and richly dressed; with a thin bronzed visage,\r\nwhich marked his gipsy descent, and a pair of sparkling black eyes,\r\nwhich seemed almost to pierce through those whom he looked at."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“There he is,” said Lord Dalgarno, “fit for every element--prompt to\r\nexecute every command, good, bad, or indifferent--unmatched in his\r\ntribe, as rogue, thief, and liar.”\r\n\r\n“All which qualities,” said the undaunted page, “have each in turn stood\r\nyour lordship in stead.”\r\n\r\n“Out, you imp of Satan!” said his master; “vanish-begone-or my conjuring\r\nrod goes about your ears.” The boy turned, and disappeared as suddenly\r\nas he had entered. “You see,” said Lord Dalgarno, “that, in choosing my\r\nhousehold, the best regard I can pay to gentle blood is to exclude it\r\nfrom my service--that very gallows--bird were enough to corrupt a\r\nwhole antechamber of pages, though they were descended from kings and\r\nkaisers.”\r\n\r\n“I can scarce think that a nobleman should need the offices of such\r\nan attendant as your goblin,” said Nigel; “you are but jesting with my\r\ninexperience.”\r\n\r\n“Time will show whether I jest or not, my dear Nigel,” replied Dalgarno;\r\n“in the meantime, I have to propose to you to take the advantage of the\r\nflood-tide, to run up the river for pastime; and at noon I trust you\r\nwill dine with me.”\r\n\r\nNigel acquiesced in a plan which promised so much amusement; and his new\r\nfriend and he, attended by Lutin and Moniplies, who greatly resembled,\r\nwhen thus associated, the conjunction of a bear and a monkey, took\r\npossession of Lord Dalgarno's wherry, which, with its badged watermen,\r\nbearing his lordship's crest on their arms, lay in readiness to receive\r\nthem."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The air was delightful upon the river; and the lively conversation\r\nof Lord Dalgarno added zest to the pleasures of the little voyage. He could not only give an account of the various public buildings and\r\nnoblemen's houses which they passed in ascending the Thames, but knew\r\nhow to season his information with abundance of anecdote, political\r\ninnuendo, and personal scandal; if he had not very much wit, he was at\r\nleast completely master of the fashionable tone, which in that time, as\r\nin ours, more than amply supplies any deficiency of the kind. It was a style of conversation entirely new to his companion, as was the\r\nworld which Lord Dalgarno opened to his observation; and it is no wonder\r\nthat Nigel, notwithstanding his natural good sense and high spirit,\r\nadmitted, more readily than seemed consistent with either, the tone\r\nof authoritative instruction which his new friend assumed towards him. There would, indeed, have been some difficulty in making a stand. To\r\nattempt a high and stubborn tone of morality, in answer to the light\r\nstrain of Lord Dalgarno's conversation, which kept on the frontiers\r\nbetween jest and earnest, would have seemed pedantic and ridiculous; and\r\nevery attempt which Nigel made to combat his companion's propositions,\r\nby reasoning as jocose as his own, only showed his inferiority in\r\nthat gay species of controversy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And it must be owned, besides, though\r\ninternally disapproving much of what he heard, Lord Glenvarloch, young\r\nas he was in society, became less alarmed by the language and manners of\r\nhis new associate, than in prudence he ought to have been. Lord Dalgarno was unwilling to startle his proselyte, by insisting\r\nupon any topic which appeared particularly to jar with his habits or\r\nprinciples; and he blended his mirth and his earnest so dexterously,\r\nthat it was impossible for Nigel to discover how far he was serious in\r\nhis propositions, or how far they flowed from a wild and extravagant\r\nspirit of raillery. And, ever and anon, those flashes of spirit and\r\nhonour crossed his conversation, which seemed to intimate, that, when\r\nstirred to action by some adequate motive, Lord Dalgarno would prove\r\nsomething very different from the court-haunting and ease-loving\r\nvoluptuary, which he was pleased to represent as his chosen character. As they returned down the river, Lord Glenvarloch remarked, that the\r\nboat passed the mansion of Lord Huntinglen, and noticed the circumstance\r\nto Lord Dalgarno, observing, that he thought they were to have dined\r\nthere. “Surely no,” said the young nobleman, “I have more mercy on you\r\nthan to gorge you a second time with raw beef and canary wine. I propose\r\nsomething better for you, I promise you, than such a second Scythian\r\nfestivity."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And as for my father, he proposes to dine to-day with my\r\ngrave, ancient Earl of Northampton, whilome that celebrated putter-down\r\nof pretended prophecies, Lord Henry Howard.”\r\n\r\n“And do you not go with him?” said his companion. “To what purpose?” said Lord Dalgarno. “To hear his wise lordship speak\r\nmusty politics in false Latin, which the old fox always uses, that he\r\nmay give the learned Majesty of England an opportunity of correcting his\r\nslips in grammar? That were a rare employment!”\r\n\r\n“Nay,” said Lord Nigel, “but out of respect, to wait on my lord your\r\nfather.”\r\n\r\n“My lord my father,” replied Lord Dalgarno, “has blue-bottles enough to\r\nwait on him, and can well dispense with such a butterfly as myself. He\r\ncan lift the cup of sack to his head without my assistance; and, should\r\nthe said paternal head turn something giddy, there be men enough to\r\nguide his right honourable lordship to his lordship's right honourable\r\ncouch.--Now, do not stare at me, Nigel, as if my words were to sink the\r\nboat with us. I love my father--I love him dearly--and I respect him,\r\ntoo, though I respect not many things; a trustier old Trojan never\r\nbelted a broadsword by a loop of leather. But what then? He belongs to\r\nthe old world, I to the new."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He has his follies, I have mine; and the\r\nless either of us sees of the other's peccadilloes, the greater will be\r\nthe honour and respect--that, I think, is the proper phrase--I say the\r\n_respect_ in which we shall hold each other. Being apart, each of us is\r\nhimself, such as nature and circumstances have made him; but, couple us\r\nup too closely together, you will be sure to have in your leash either\r\nan old hypocrite or a young one, or perhaps both the one and t'other.”\r\n\r\nAs he spoke thus, the boat put into the landing-place at Blackfriars. Lord Dalgarno sprung ashore, and, flinging his cloak and rapier to his\r\npage, recommended to his companion to do the like. “We are coming among\r\na press of gallants,” he said; “and, if we walked thus muffled, we shall\r\nlook like your tawny-visaged Don, who wraps him close in his cloak, to\r\nconceal the defects of his doublet.”\r\n\r\n“I have known many an honest man do that, if it please your lordship,”\r\n said Richie Moniplies, who had been watching for an opportunity to\r\nintrude himself on the conversation, and probably remembered what had\r\nbeen his own condition, in respect to cloak and doublet, at a very\r\nrecent period."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lord Dalgarno stared at him, as if surprised at his assurance; but\r\nimmediately answered, “You may have known many things, friend; but, in\r\nthe meanwhile, you do not know what principally concerns your master,\r\nnamely, how to carry his cloak, so as to show to advantage the\r\ngold-laced seams, and the lining of sables. See how Lutin holds the\r\nsword, with his cloak cast partly over it, yet so as to set off the\r\nembossed hilt, and the silver work of the mounting.--Give your familiar\r\nyour sword, Nigel,” he continued, addressing Lord Glenvarloch, “that he\r\nmay practise a lesson in an art so necessary.”\r\n\r\n“Is it altogether prudent,” said Nigel, unclasping his weapon, and\r\ngiving it to Richie, “to walk entirely unarmed?”\r\n\r\n“And wherefore not?” said his companion. “You are thinking now of Auld\r\nReekie, as my father fondly calls your good Scottish capital, where\r\nthere is such bandying of private feuds and public factions, that a man\r\nof any note shall not cross your High Street twice, without endangering\r\nhis life thrice. Here, sir, no brawling in the street is permitted."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Your\r\nbull-headed citizen takes up the case so soon as the sword is drawn, and\r\nclubs is the word.”\r\n\r\n“And a hard word it is,” said Richie, “as my brain-pan kens at this\r\nblessed moment.”\r\n\r\n“Were I your master, sirrah,” said Lord Dalgarno, “I would make your\r\nbrain-pan, as you call it, boil over, were you to speak a word in my\r\npresence before you were spoken to.”\r\n\r\nRichie murmured some indistinct answer, but took the hint, and ranked\r\nhimself behind his master along with Lutin, who failed not to expose his\r\nnew companion to the ridicule of the passers-by, by mimicking, as often\r\nas he could do so unobserved by Richie, his stiff and upright stalking\r\ngait and discontented physiognomy. “And tell me now, my dear Malcolm,” said Nigel, “where we are bending\r\nour course, and whether we shall dine at an apartment of yours?”\r\n\r\n“An apartment of mine--yes, surely,” answered Lord Dalgarno, “you shall\r\ndine at an apartment of mine, and an apartment of yours, and of twenty\r\ngallants besides; and where the board shall present better cheer, better\r\nwine, and better attendance, than if our whole united exhibitions went\r\nto maintain it. We are going to the most noted ordinary of London.”\r\n\r\n“That is, in common language, an inn, or a tavern,” said Nigel. “An inn, or a tavern, my most green and simple friend!” exclaimed Lord\r\nDalgarno."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“No, no--these are places where greasy citizens take pipe\r\nand pot, where the knavish pettifoggers of the law spunge on their most\r\nunhappy victims--where Templars crack jests as empty as their nuts, and\r\nwhere small gentry imbibe such thin potations, that they get dropsies\r\ninstead of getting drunk. An ordinary is a late-invented institution,\r\nsacred to Bacchus and Comus, where the choicest noble gallants of the\r\ntime meet with the first and most ethereal wits of the age,--where the\r\nwine is the very soul of the choicest grape, refined as the genius of\r\nthe poet, and ancient and generous as the blood of the nobles. And then\r\nthe fare is something beyond your ordinary gross terrestrial food! Sea\r\nand land are ransacked to supply it; and the invention of six ingenious\r\ncooks kept eternally upon the rack to make their art hold pace with, and\r\nif possible enhance, the exquisite quality of the materials.”\r\n\r\n“By all which rhapsody,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “I can only understand,\r\nas I did before, that we are going to a choice tavern, where we shall be\r\nhandsomely entertained, on paying probably as handsome a reckoning.”\r\n\r\n“Reckoning!” exclaimed Lord Dalgarno in the same tone as before,\r\n“perish the peasantly phrase! What profanation!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Monsieur le Chevalier de\r\nBeaujeu, pink of Paris and flower of Gascony--he who can tell the age of\r\nhis wine by the bare smell, who distils his sauces in an alembic by the\r\naid of Lully's philosophy--who carves with such exquisite precision,\r\nthat he gives to noble, knight and squire, the portion of the pheasant\r\nwhich exactly accords with his rank--nay, he who shall divide a becafico\r\ninto twelve parts with such scrupulous exactness, that of twelve guests\r\nnot one shall have the advantage of the other in a hair's breadth, or\r\nthe twentieth part of a drachm, yet you talk of him and of a reckoning\r\nin the same breath! Why, man, he is the well-known and general referee\r\nin all matters affecting the mysteries of Passage, Hazard, In and\r\nIn, Penneeck, and Verquire, and what not--why, Beaujeu is King of\r\nthe Card-pack, and Duke of the Dice-box--HE call a reckoning like a\r\ngreen-aproned, red-nosed son of the vulgar spigot! O, my dearest Nigel,\r\nwhat a word you have spoken, and of what a person! That you know him\r\nnot, is your only apology for such blasphemy; and yet I scarce hold it\r\nadequate, for to have been a day in London and not to know Beaujeu, is a\r\ncrime of its own kind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But you _shall_ know him this blessed moment,\r\nand shall learn to hold yourself in horror for the enormities you have\r\nuttered.”\r\n\r\n“Well, but mark you,” said Nigel, “this worthy chevalier keeps not all\r\nthis good cheer at his own cost, does he?”\r\n\r\n“No, no,” answered Lord Dalgarno; “there is a sort of ceremony which my\r\nchevalier's friends and intimates understand, but with which you have no\r\nbusiness at present. There is, as majesty might say, a _symbolum_ to be\r\ndisbursed--in other words, a mutual exchange of courtesies take place\r\nbetwixt Beaujeu and his guests. He makes them a free present of the\r\ndinner and wine, as often as they choose to consult their own felicity\r\nby frequenting his house at the hour of noon, and they, in gratitude,\r\nmake the chevalier a present of a Jacobus."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then you must know, that,\r\nbesides Comus and Bacchus, that princess of sublunary affairs, the Diva\r\nFortuna, is frequently worshipped at Beaujeu's, and he, as officiating\r\nhigh-priest, hath, as in reason he should, a considerable advantage from\r\na share of the sacrifice.”\r\n\r\n“In other words,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “this man keeps a\r\ngaming-house.”\r\n\r\n“A house in which you may certainly game,” said Lord Dalgarno, “as you\r\nmay in your own chamber if you have a mind; nay, I remember old Tom\r\nTally played a hand at put for a wager with Quinze le Va, the Frenchman,\r\nduring morning prayers in St. Paul's; the morning was misty, and the\r\nparson drowsy, and the whole audience consisted of themselves and a\r\nblind woman, and so they escaped detection.”\r\n\r\n“For all this, Malcolm,” said the young lord, gravely, “I cannot dine\r\nwith you to-day, at this same ordinary.”\r\n\r\n“And wherefore, in the name of heaven, should you draw back from your\r\nword?” said Lord Dalgarno."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I do not retract my word, Malcolm; but I am bound, by an early promise\r\nto my father, never to enter the doors of a gaming-house.”\r\n\r\n“I tell you this is none,” said Lord Dalgarno; “it is but, in plain\r\nterms, an eating-house, arranged on civiller terms, and frequented by\r\nbetter company, than others in this town; and if some of them do amuse\r\nthemselves with cards and hazard, they are men of honour, and who play\r\nas such, and for no more than they can well afford to lose. It was not,\r\nand could not be, such houses that your father desired you to avoid. Besides, he might as well have made you swear you would never take\r\naccommodation of an inn, tavern, eating-house, or place of public\r\nreception of any kind; for there is no such place of public resort but\r\nwhere your eyes may be contaminated by the sight of a pack of pieces of\r\npainted pasteboard, and your ears profaned by the rattle of those little\r\nspotted cubes of ivory."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The difference is, that where we go, we may\r\nhappen to see persons of quality amusing themselves with a game; and in\r\nthe ordinary houses you will meet bullies and sharpers, who will strive\r\neither to cheat or to swagger you out of your money.”\r\n\r\n“I am sure you would not willingly lead me to do what is wrong,” said\r\nNigel; “but my father had a horror for games of chance, religious\r\nI believe, as well as prudential. He judged from I know not what\r\ncircumstance, a fallacious one I should hope, that I should have a\r\npropensity to such courses, and I have told you the promise which he\r\nexacted from me.”\r\n\r\n“Now, by my honour,” said Dalgarno, “what you have said affords the\r\nstrongest reason for my insisting that you go with me. A man who would\r\nshun any danger, should first become acquainted with its real bearing\r\nand extent, and that in the company of a confidential guide and guard. Do you think I myself game? Good faith, my father's oaks grow too far\r\nfrom London, and stand too fast rooted in the rocks of Perthshire, for\r\nme to troll them down with a die, though I have seen whole forests go\r\ndown like nine-pins. No, no--these are sports for the wealthy Southron,\r\nnot for the poor Scottish noble. The place is an eating-house, and as\r\nsuch you and I will use it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If others use it to game in, it is their\r\nfault, but neither that of the house nor ours.”\r\n\r\nUnsatisfied with this reasoning, Nigel still insisted upon the promise\r\nhe had given to his father, until his companion appeared rather\r\ndispleased, and disposed to impute to him injurious and unhandsome\r\nsuspicions. Lord Glenvarloch could not stand this change of tone. He\r\nrecollected that much was due from him to Lord Dalgarno, on account\r\nof his father's ready and efficient friendship, and something also on\r\naccount of the frank manner in which the young man himself had offered\r\nhim his intimacy. He had no reason to doubt his assurances, that the\r\nhouse where they were about to dine did not fall under the description\r\nof places which his father's prohibition referred; and finally, he was\r\nstrong in his own resolution to resist every temptation to join in\r\ngames of chance. He therefore pacified Lord Dalgarno, by intimating\r\nhis willingness to go along with him; and, the good-humour of the young\r\ncourtier instantaneously returning, he again ran on in a grotesque and\r\nrodomontade account of the host, Monsieur de Beaujeu, which he did not\r\nconclude until they had reached the temple of hospitality over which\r\nthat eminent professor presided. CHAPTER XII\r\n\r\n\r\n    ----This is the very barn-yard,\r\n    Where muster daily the prime cocks o' the game,\r\n    Ruffle their pinions, crow till they are hoarse,\r\n    And spar about a barleycorn."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Here too chickens,\r\n    The callow, unfledged brood of forward folly,\r\n    Learn first to rear the crest, and aim the spur,\r\n    And tune their note like full-plumed Chanticleer. _The Bear-Garden._\r\n\r\nThe Ordinary, now an ignoble sound, was in the days of James, a\r\nnew institution, as fashionable among the youth of that age as the\r\nfirst-rate modern club-houses are amongst those of the present day. It differed chiefly, in being open to all whom good clothes and good\r\nassurance combined to introduce there. The company usually dined\r\ntogether at an hour fixed, and the manager of the establishment presided\r\nas master of the ceremonies. Monsieur le Chevalier, (as he qualified himself,) Saint Priest de\r\nBeaujeu, was a sharp, thin Gascon, about sixty years old, banished from\r\nhis own country, as he said, on account of an affair of honour, in which\r\nhe had the misfortune to kill his antagonist, though the best swordsman\r\nin the south of France. His pretensions to quality were supported by\r\na feathered hat, a long rapier, and a suit of embroidered taffeta, not\r\nmuch the worse for wear, in the extreme fashion of the Parisian court,\r\nand fluttering like a Maypole with many knots of ribbon, of which it\r\nwas computed he bore at least five hundred yards about his person. But, notwithstanding this profusion of decoration, there were many who\r\nthought Monsieur le Chevalier so admirably calculated for his present\r\nsituation, that nature could never have meant to place him an inch\r\nabove it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was, however, part of the amusement of the place, for Lord\r\nDalgarno and other young men of quality to treat Monsieur de Beaujeu\r\nwith a great deal of mock ceremony, which being observed by the herd of\r\nmore ordinary and simple gulls, they paid him, in clumsy imitation, much\r\nreal deference. The Gascon's natural forwardness being much enhanced by\r\nthese circumstances, he was often guilty of presuming beyond the limits\r\nof his situation, and of course had sometimes the mortification to be\r\ndisagreeably driven back into them. When Nigel entered the mansion of this eminent person, which had been\r\nbut of late the residence of a great Baron of Queen Elizabeth's court,\r\nwho had retired to his manors in the country on the death of that\r\nprincess, he was surprised at the extent of the accommodation which it\r\nafforded, and the number of guests who were already assembled. Feathers\r\nwaved, spurs jingled, lace and embroidery glanced everywhere; and at\r\nfirst sight, at least, it certainly made good Lord Dalgarno's encomium,\r\nwho represented the company as composed almost entirely of youth of the\r\nfirst quality. A more close review was not quite so favourable. Several\r\nindividuals might be discovered who were not exactly at their ease\r\nin the splendid dresses which they wore, and who, therefore, might be\r\nsupposed not habitually familiar with such finery."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Again, there were\r\nothers, whose dress, though on a general view it did not seem inferior\r\nto that of the rest of the company, displayed, on being observed more\r\nclosely, some of these petty expedients, by which vanity endeavours to\r\ndisguise poverty. Nigel had very little time to make such observations, for the entrance\r\nof Lord Dalgarno created an immediate bustle and sensation among the\r\ncompany, as his name passed from one mouth to another. Some stood\r\nforward to gaze, others stood back to make way--those of his own rank\r\nhastened to welcome him--those of inferior degree endeavoured to catch\r\nsome point of his gesture, or of his dress, to be worn and practised\r\nupon a future occasion, as the newest and most authentic fashion. The _genius loci_, the Chevalier himself, was not the last to welcome\r\nthis prime stay and ornament of his establishment. He came shuffling\r\nforward with a hundred apish _conges_ and _chers milors_, to express his\r\nhappiness at seeing Lord Dalgarno again.--“I hope you do bring back the\r\nsun with you, _Milor_--You did carry away the sun and moon from your\r\npauvre Chevalier when you leave him for so long. Pardieu, I believe you\r\ntake them away in your pockets.”\r\n\r\n“That must have been because you left me nothing else in them,\r\nChevalier,” answered Lord Dalgarno; “but Monsieur le Chevalier, I pray\r\nyou to know my countryman and friend, Lord Glenvarloch!”\r\n\r\n“Ah, ha! tres honore--Je m'en souviens,--oui. J'ai connu autrefois un\r\nMilor Kenfarloque en Ecosse."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Yes, I have memory of him--le pere de milor\r\napparemment-we were vera intimate when I was at Oly Root with Monsieur\r\nde la Motte--I did often play at tennis vit Milor Kenfarloque at\r\nL'Abbaie d'Oly Root--il etoit meme plus fort que moi--Ah le beaucoup\r\nde revers qu'il avoit!--I have memory, too that he was among the pretty\r\ngirls--ah, un vrai diable dechaine--Aha! I have memory--”\r\n\r\n“Better have no more memory of the late Lord Glenvarloch,” said Lord\r\nDalgarno, interrupting the Chevalier without ceremony; who perceived\r\nthat the encomium which he was about to pass on the deceased was likely\r\nto be as disagreeable to the son as it was totally undeserved by the\r\nfather, who, far from being either a gamester or libertine, as the\r\nChevalier's reminiscences falsely represented him, was, on the contrary,\r\nstrict and severe in his course of life, almost to the extent of rigour. “You have the reason, milor,” answered the Chevalier, “you have the\r\nright--Qu'est ce que nous avons a faire avec le temps passe?--the time\r\npassed did belong to our fathers--our ancetres--very well--the time\r\npresent is to us--they have their pretty tombs with their memories and\r\narmorials, all in brass and marbre--we have the petits plats exquis, and\r\nthe soupe-a-Chevalier, which I will cause to mount up immediately.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, he made a pirouette on his heel, and put his attendants in\r\nmotion to place dinner on the table."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dalgarno laughed, and, observing\r\nhis young friend looked grave, said to him, in a tone of reproach--“Why,\r\nwhat!--you are not gull enough to be angry with such an ass as that?”\r\n\r\n“I keep my anger, I trust, for better purposes,” said Lord Glenvarloch;\r\n“but I confess I was moved to hear such a fellow mention my father's\r\nname--and you, too, who told me this was no gaming-house, talked to him\r\nof having left it with emptied pockets.”\r\n\r\n“Pshaw, man!” said Lord Dalgarno, “I spoke but according to the trick of\r\nthe time; besides, a man must set a piece or two sometimes, or he would\r\nbe held a cullionly niggard. But here comes dinner, and we will\r\nsee whether you like the Chevalier's good cheer better than his\r\nconversation.”\r\n\r\nDinner was announced accordingly, and the two friends, being seated in\r\nthe most honourable station at the board, were ceremoniously attended\r\nto by the Chevalier, who did the honours of his table to them and to the\r\nother guests, and seasoned the whole with his agreeable conversation. The dinner was really excellent, in that piquant style of cookery which\r\nthe French had already introduced, and which the home-bred young men of\r\nEngland, when they aspired to the rank of connoisseurs and persons of\r\ntaste, were under the necessity of admiring. The wine was also of the\r\nfirst quality, and circulated in great variety, and no less abundance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The conversation among so many young men was, of course, light, lively,\r\nand amusing; and Nigel, whose mind had been long depressed by anxiety\r\nand misfortune, naturally found himself at ease, and his spirits raised\r\nand animated. Some of the company had real wit, and could use it both politely and to\r\nadvantage; others were coxcombs, and were laughed at without discovering\r\nit; and, again, others were originals, who seemed to have no objection\r\nthat the company should be amused with their folly instead of their\r\nwit. And almost all the rest who played any prominent part in the\r\nconversation had either the real tone of good society which belonged to\r\nthe period, or the jargon which often passes current for it. In short, the company and conversation was so agreeable, that Nigel's\r\nrigour was softened by it, even towards the master of ceremonies, and\r\nhe listened with patience to various details which the Chevalier de\r\nBeaujeu, seeing, as he said, that Milor's taste lay for the “curieux\r\nand Futile,” chose to address to him in particular, on the subject of\r\ncookery."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To gratify, at the same time, the taste for antiquity, which\r\nhe somehow supposed that his new guest possessed, he launched out in\r\ncommendation of the great artists of former days, particularly one\r\nwhom he had known in his youth, “Maitre de Cuisine to the Marechal\r\nStrozzi--tres bon gentilhomme pourtant;” who had maintained his master's\r\ntable with twelve covers every day during the long and severe blockade\r\nof le petit Leyth, although he had nothing better to place on it than\r\nthe quarter of a carrion-horse now and then, and the grass and weeds\r\nthat grew on the ramparts. “Despardieux c'dtoit un homme superbe!” With\r\none tistle-head, and a nettle or two, he could make a soupe for twenty\r\nguests--an haunch of a little puppy-dog made a roti des plus excellens;\r\nbut his coupe de maitre was when the rendition--what you call the\r\nsurrender, took place and appened; and then, dieu me damme, he made out\r\nof the hind quarter of one salted horse, forty-five couverts; that the\r\nEnglish and Scottish officers and nobility, who had the honour to dine\r\nwith Monseigneur upon the rendition, could not tell what the devil any\r\nof them were made upon at all. The good wine had by this time gone so merrily round, and had such\r\ngenial effect on the guests, that those of the lower end of the table,\r\nwho had hitherto been listeners, began, not greatly to their own credit,\r\nor that of the ordinary, to make innovations."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“You speak of the siege of Leith,” said a tall, raw-boned man, with\r\nthick mustaches turned up with a military twist, a broad buff belt, a\r\nlong rapier, and other outward symbols of the honoured profession, which\r\nlives by killing other people--“you talk of the siege of Leith, and I\r\nhave seen the place--a pretty kind of a hamlet it is, with a plain wall,\r\nor rampart, and a pigeon-house or so of a tower at every angle. Uds\r\ndaggers and scabbards, if a leaguer of our days had been twenty-four\r\nhours, not to say so many months, before it, without carrying the place\r\nand all its cocklofts, one after another, by pure storm, they would have\r\ndeserved no better grace than the Provost-Marshal gives when his noose\r\nis reeved.”\r\n\r\n“Saar,” said the Chevalier, “Monsieur le Capitaine, I vas not at\r\nthe siege of the petit Leyth, and I know not what you say about the\r\ncockloft; but I will say for Monseigneur de Strozzi, that he understood\r\nthe grande guerre, and was grand capitaine--plus grand--that is more\r\ngreat, it may be, than some of the capitaines of Angleterre, who do\r\nspeak very loud--tenez, Monsieur, car c'est a vous!”\r\n\r\n“O Monsieur.” answered the swordsman, “we know the Frenchman will fight\r\nwell behind his barrier of stone, or when he is armed with back, breast,\r\nand pot.”\r\n\r\n“Pot!” exclaimed the Chevalier, “what do you mean by pot--do you mean to\r\ninsult me among my noble guests?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Saar, I have done my duty as a pauvre\r\ngentilhomme under the Grand Henri Quatre, both at Courtrai and Yvry,\r\nand, ventre saint gris! we had neither pot nor marmite, but did always\r\ncharge in our shirt.”\r\n\r\n“Which refutes another base scandal,” said Lord Dalgarno, laughing,\r\n“alleging that linen was scarce among the French gentlemen-at-arms.”\r\n\r\n“Gentlemen out at arms and elbows both, you mean, my lord,” said the\r\ncaptain, from the bottom of the table. “Craving your lordship's pardon,\r\nI do know something of these same gens-d'armes.”\r\n\r\n“We will spare your knowledge at present, captain, and save your modesty\r\nat the same time the trouble of telling us how that knowledge was\r\nacquired,” answered Lord Dalgarno, rather contemptuously. “I need not speak of it, my lord,” said the man of war; “the world knows\r\nit--all perhaps, but the men of mohair--the poor sneaking citizens of\r\nLondon, who would see a man of valour eat his very hilts for hunger, ere\r\nthey would draw a farthing from their long purses to relieve them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "O,\r\nif a band of the honest fellows I have seen were once to come near that\r\ncuckoo's nest of theirs!”\r\n\r\n“A cuckoo's nest!-and that said of the city of London!” said a gallant\r\nwho sat on the opposite side of the table, and who, wearing a splendid\r\nand fashionable dress, seemed yet scarce at home in it--“I will not\r\nbrook to hear that repeated.”\r\n\r\n“What!” said the soldier, bending a most terrific frown from a pair of\r\nbroad black eyebrows, handling the hilt of his weapon with one hand, and\r\ntwirling with the other his huge mustaches; “will you quarrel for your\r\ncity?”\r\n\r\n“Ay, marry will I,” replied the other. “I am a citizen, I care not who\r\nknows it; and he who shall speak a word in dispraise of the city, is an\r\nass and a peremptory gull, and I will break his pate, to teach him sense\r\nand manners.”\r\n\r\nThe company, who probably had their reasons for not valuing the\r\ncaptain's courage at the high rate which he himself put upon it, were\r\nmuch entertained at the manner in which the quarrel was taken up by\r\nthe indignant citizen; and they exclaimed on all sides, “Well run,\r\nBow-bell!”--“Well crowed, the cock of Saint Paul's!”--“Sound a charge\r\nthere, or the soldier will mistake his signals, and retreat when he\r\nshould advance.”\r\n\r\n“You mistake me, gentlemen,” said the captain, looking round with an\r\nair of dignity."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I will but inquire whether this cavaliero citizen is\r\nof rank and degree fitted to measure swords with a man of action; (for,\r\nconceive me, gentlemen, it is not with every one that I can match myself\r\nwithout loss of reputation;) and in that case he shall soon hear from me\r\nhonourably, by way of cartel.”\r\n\r\n“You shall feel me most dishonourably in the way of cudgel,” said the\r\ncitizen, starting up, and taking his sword, which he had laid in a\r\ncorner. “Follow me.”\r\n\r\n“It is my right to name the place of combat, by all the rules of\r\nthe sword,” said the captain; “and I do nominate the Maze, in\r\nTothill-Fields, for place--two gentlemen, who shall be indifferent\r\njudges, for witnesses;--and for time--let me say this day fortnight, at\r\ndaybreak.”\r\n\r\n“And I,” said the citizen, “do nominate the bowling-alley behind the\r\nhouse for place, the present good company for witnesses, and for time\r\nthe present moment.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, he cast on his beaver, struck the soldier across the\r\nshoulders with his sheathed sword, and ran down stairs. The captain\r\nshowed no instant alacrity to follow him; yet, at last, roused by the\r\nlaugh and sneer around him, he assured the company, that what he did he\r\nwould do deliberately, and, assuming his hat, which he put on with the\r\nair of Ancient Pistol, he descended the stairs to the place of combat,\r\nwhere his more prompt adversary was already stationed, with his sword\r\nunsheathed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Of the company, all of whom seemed highly delighted with\r\nthe approaching fray, some ran to the windows which overlooked the\r\nbowling-alley, and others followed the combatants down stairs. Nigel\r\ncould not help asking Dalgarno whether he would not interfere to prevent\r\nmischief. “It would be a crime against the public interest,” answered his friend;\r\n“there can no mischief happen between two such originals, which will not\r\nbe a positive benefit to society, and particularly to the Chevalier's\r\nestablishment, as he calls it. I have been as sick of that captain's\r\nbuff belt, and red doublet, for this month past, as e'er I was of aught;\r\nand now I hope this bold linendraper will cudgel the ass out of that\r\nfilthy lion's hide. See, Nigel, see the gallant citizen has ta'en his\r\nground about a bowl's-cast forward, in the midst of the alley--the very\r\nmodel of a hog in armour. Behold how he prances with his manly foot, and\r\nbrandishes his blade, much as if he were about to measure forth cambric\r\nwith it. See, they bring on the reluctant soldado, and plant him\r\nopposite to his fiery antagonist, twelve paces still dividing them--Lo,\r\nthe captain draws his tool, but, like a good general, looks over his\r\nshoulder to secure his retreat, in case the worse come on't. Behold the\r\nvaliant shop-keeper stoops his head, confident, doubtless, in the civic\r\nhelmet with which his spouse has fortified his skull--Why, this is the\r\nrarest of sport."}
{"question": "", "answer": "By Heaven, he will run a tilt at him, like a ram.”\r\n\r\nIt was even as Lord Dalgarno had anticipated; for the citizen, who\r\nseemed quite serious in his zeal for combat, perceiving that the man\r\nof war did not advance towards him, rushed onwards with as much good\r\nfortune as courage, beat down the captain's guard, and, pressing\r\non, thrust, as it seemed, his sword clear through the body of his\r\nantagonist, who, with a deep groan, measured his length on the ground. A score of voices cried to the conqueror, as he stood fixed in\r\nastonishment at his own feat, “Away, away with you!--fly, fly--fly by\r\nthe back door!--get into the Whitefriars, or cross the water to the\r\nBankside, while we keep off the mob and the constables.” And\r\nthe conqueror, leaving his vanquished foeman on the ground, fled\r\naccordingly, with all speed. “By Heaven,” said Lord Dalgarno, “I could never have believed that\r\nthe fellow would have stood to receive a thrust--he has certainly been\r\narrested by positive terror, and lost the use of his limbs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "See, they\r\nare raising him.”\r\n\r\nStiff and stark seemed the corpse of the swordsman, as one or two of\r\nthe guests raised him from the ground; but, when they began to open his\r\nwaistcoat to search for the wound which nowhere existed, the man of war\r\ncollected, his scattered spirits; and, conscious that the ordinary was\r\nno longer a stage on which to display his valour, took to his heels as\r\nfast as he could run, pursued by the laughter and shouts of the company. “By my honour,” said Lord Dalgarno, “he takes the same course with his\r\nconqueror."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I trust in heaven he will overtake him, and then the valiant\r\ncitizen will suppose himself haunted by the ghost of him he has slain.”\r\n\r\n“Despardieux, milor,” said the Chevalier, “if he had stayed one moment,\r\nhe should have had a _torchon_--what you call a dishclout, pinned to him\r\nfor a piece of shroud, to show he be de ghost of one grand fanfaron.”\r\n\r\n“In the meanwhile,” said Lord Dalgarno, “you will oblige us, Monsieur le\r\nChevalier, as well as maintain your own honoured reputation, by letting\r\nyour drawers receive the man-at-arms with a cudgel, in case he should\r\nventure to come way again.”\r\n\r\n“Ventre saint gris, milor,” said the Chevalier, “leave that to\r\nme.--Begar, the maid shall throw the wash-sud upon the grand poltron!”\r\n\r\nWhen they had laughed sufficiently at this ludicrous occurrence, the\r\nparty began to divide themselves into little knots--some took possession\r\nof the alley, late the scene of combat, and put the field to its proper\r\nuse of a bowling-ground, and it soon resounded with all the terms of the\r\ngame, as “run, run-rub, rub--hold bias, you infernal trundling timber!”\r\n thus making good the saying, that three things are thrown away in a\r\nbowling-green, namely, time, money, and oaths."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the house, many of the\r\ngentlemen betook themselves to cards or dice, and parties were formed at\r\nOmbre, at Basset, at Gleek, at Primero, and other games then in fashion;\r\nwhile the dice were used at various games, both with and without the\r\ntables, as Hazard, In-and-in, Passage, and so forth. The play, however,\r\ndid not appear to be extravagantly deep; it was certainly conducted with\r\ngreat decorum and fairness; nor did there appear any thing to lead the\r\nyoung Scotsman in the least to doubt his companion's assurance, that\r\nthe place was frequented by men of rank and quality, and that the\r\nrecreations they adopted were conducted upon honourable principles. Lord Dalgarno neither had proposed play to his friend, nor joined in the\r\namusement himself, but sauntered from one table to another, remarking\r\nthe luck of the different players, as well as their capacity to avail\r\nthemselves of it, and exchanging conversation with the highest and most\r\nrespectable of the guests."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At length, as if tired of what in modern\r\nphrase would have been termed lounging, he suddenly remembered that\r\nBurbage was to act Shakespeare's King Richard, at the Fortune, that\r\nafternoon, and that he could not give a stranger in London, like\r\nLord Glenvarloch, a higher entertainment than to carry him to that\r\nexhibition; “unless, indeed,” he added, in a whisper, “there is paternal\r\ninterdiction of the theatre as well as of the ordinary.”\r\n\r\n“I never heard my father speak of stage-plays,” said Lord Glenvarloch,\r\n“for they are shows of a modern date, and unknown in Scotland. Yet, if\r\nwhat I have heard to their prejudice be true, I doubt much whether he\r\nwould have approved of them.”\r\n\r\n“Approved of them!” exclaimed Lord Dalgarno--“why, George Buchanan wrote\r\ntragedies, and his pupil, learned and wise as himself, goes to see\r\nthem, so it is next door to treason to abstain; and the cleverest men in\r\nEngland write for the stage, and the prettiest women in London resort to\r\nthe playhouses, and I have a brace of nags at the door which will\r\ncarry us along the streets like wild-fire, and the ride will digest our\r\nvenison and ortolans, and dissipate the fumes of the wine, and so let's\r\nto horse--Godd'en to you, gentlemen--Godd'en, Chevalier de la Fortune.”\r\n\r\nLord Dalgarno's grooms were in attendance with two horses, and the young\r\nmen mounted, the proprietor upon a favourite barb, and Nigel upon a\r\nhigh-dressed jennet, scarce less beautiful."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As they rode towards the\r\ntheatre, Lord Dalgarno endeavoured to discover his friend's opinion of\r\nthe company to which he had introduced him, and to combat the exceptions\r\nwhich he might suppose him to have taken. “And wherefore lookest thou\r\nsad,” he said, “my pensive neophyte? Sage son of the Alma Mater of\r\nLow-Dutch learning, what aileth thee? Is the leaf of the living world\r\nwhich we have turned over in company, less fairly written than thou\r\nhadst been taught to expect? Be comforted, and pass over one little blot\r\nor two; thou wilt be doomed to read through many a page, as black as\r\nInfamy, with her sooty pinion, can make them. Remember, most immaculate\r\nNigel, that we are in London, not Leyden--that we are studying life, not\r\nlore."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Stand buff against the reproach of thine over-tender conscience,\r\nman, and when thou summest up, like a good arithmetician, the actions\r\nof the day, before you balance the account on your pillow, tell the\r\naccusing spirit, to his brimstone beard, that if thine ears have heard\r\nthe clatter of the devil's bones, thy hand hath not trowled them--that\r\nif thine eye hath seen the brawling of two angry boys, thy blade hath\r\nnot been bared in their fray.”\r\n\r\n“Now, all this may be wise and witty,” replied Nigel; “yet I own I\r\ncannot think but that your lordship, and other men of good quality\r\nwith whom we dined, might have chosen a place of meeting free from the\r\nintrusion of bullies, and a better master of your ceremonial than yonder\r\nforeign adventurer.”\r\n\r\n“All shall be amended, Sancte Nigelle, when thou shalt come forth a\r\nnew Peter the Hermit, to preach a crusade against dicing, drabbing, and\r\ncompany-keeping. We will meet for dinner in Saint Sepulchre's Church;\r\nwe will dine in the chancel, drink our flask in the vestry, the parson\r\nshall draw every cork, and the clerk say amen to every health. Come man,\r\ncheer up, and get rid of this sour and unsocial humour. Credit me, that\r\nthe Puritans who object to us the follies and the frailties incident to\r\nhuman nature, have themselves the vices of absolute devils, privy malice\r\nand backbiting hypocrisy, and spiritual pride in all its presumption."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There is much, too, in life which we must see, were it only to learn to\r\nshun it. Will Shakespeare, who lives after death, and who is presently\r\nto afford thee such pleasure as none but himself can confer, has\r\ndescribed the gallant Falconbridge as calling that man\r\n\r\n  ----' a bastard to the time,\r\n  That doth not smack of observation;\r\n  Which, though I will not practise to deceive,\r\n  Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn.”\r\n\r\nBut here we are at the door of the Fortune, where we shall have\r\nmatchless Will speaking for himself.--Goblin, and you other lout, leave\r\nthe horses to the grooms, and make way for us through the press.”\r\n\r\nThey dismounted, and the assiduous efforts of Lutin, elbowing, bullying,\r\nand proclaiming his master's name and title, made way through a crowd of\r\nmurmuring citizens, and clamorous apprentices, to the door, where Lord\r\nDalgarno speedily procured a brace of stools upon the stage for his\r\ncompanion and himself, where, seated among other gallants of the same\r\nclass, they had an opportunity of displaying their fair dresses\r\nand fashionable manners, while they criticised the piece during its\r\nprogress; thus forming, at the same time, a conspicuous part of the\r\nspectacle, and an important proportion of the audience. Nigel Olifaunt was too eagerly and deeply absorbed in the interest of\r\nthe scene, to be capable of playing his part as became the place\r\nwhere he was seated."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He felt all the magic of that sorcerer, who had\r\ndisplayed, within the paltry circle of a wooden booth, the long wars of\r\nYork and Lancaster, compelling the heroes of either line to stalk across\r\nthe scene in language and fashion as they lived, as if the grave had\r\ngiven up the dead for the amusement and instruction of the living. Burbage, esteemed the best Richard until Garrick arose, played the\r\ntyrant and usurper with such truth and liveliness, that when the Battle\r\nof Bosworth seemed concluded by his death, the ideas of reality and\r\ndeception were strongly contending in Lord Glenvarloch's imagination,\r\nand it required him to rouse himself from his reverie, so strange did\r\nthe proposal at first sound when his companion declared King Richard\r\nshould sup with them at the Mermaid. They were joined, at the same time, by a small party of the gentlemen\r\nwith whom they had dined, which they recruited by inviting two or three\r\nof the most accomplished wits and poets, who seldom failed to attend\r\nthe Fortune Theatre, and were even but too ready to conclude a day of\r\namusement with a night of pleasure."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Thither the whole party adjourned,\r\nand betwixt fertile cups of sack, excited spirits, and the emulous wit\r\nof their lively companions, seemed to realise the joyous boast of one of\r\nBen Jonson's contemporaries, when reminding the bard of\r\n\r\n            “Those lyric feasts,\r\n     Where men such clusters had,\r\n     As made them nobly wild, not mad;\r\n     While yet each verse of thine\r\n     Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XIII\r\n\r\n\r\n    Let the proud salmon gorge the feather'd hook,\r\n    Then strike, and then you have him--He will wince;\r\n    Spin out your line that it shall whistle from you\r\n    Some twenty yards or so, yet you shall have him--\r\n    Marry! you must have patience--the stout rock\r\n    Which is his trust, hath edges something sharp;\r\n    And the deep pool hath ooze and sludge enough\r\n    To mar your fishing--'less you are more careful. _Albion, or the Double Kings._\r\n\r\nIt is seldom that a day of pleasure, upon review, seems altogether\r\nso exquisite as the partaker of the festivity may have felt it while\r\npassing over him. Nigel Olifaunt, at least, did not feel it so, and it\r\nrequired a visit from his new acquaintance, Lord Dalgarno, to reconcile\r\nhim entirely to himself. But this visit took place early after\r\nbreakfast, and his friend's discourse was prefaced with a question, How\r\nhe liked the company of the preceding evening? “Why, excellently well,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “only I should have\r\nliked the wit better had it appeared to flow more freely."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Every man's\r\ninvention seemed on the stretch, and each extravagant simile seemed to\r\nset one half of your men of wit into a brown study to produce something\r\nwhich should out-herod it.”\r\n\r\n“And wherefore not?” said Lord Dalgarno, “or what are these fellows fit\r\nfor, but to play the intellectual gladiators before us? He of them who\r\ndeclares himself recreant, should, d--n him, be restricted to muddy ale,\r\nand the patronage of the Waterman's Company. I promise you, that many a\r\npretty fellow has been mortally wounded with a quibble or a carwitchet\r\nat the Mermaid, and sent from thence, in a pitiable estate, to Wit's\r\nhospital in the Vintry, where they languish to this day amongst fools\r\nand aldermen.”\r\n\r\n“It may be so,” said Lord Nigel; “yet I could swear by my honour, that\r\nlast night I seemed to be in company with more than one man whose genius\r\nand learning ought either to have placed him higher in our company, or\r\nto have withdrawn him altogether from a scene, where, sooth to speak,\r\nhis part seemed unworthily subordinate.”\r\n\r\n“Now, out upon your tender conscience,” said Lord Dalgarno; “and the\r\nfico for such outcasts of Parnassus! Why, these are the very leavings of\r\nthat noble banquet of pickled herrings and Rhenish, which lost London\r\nso many of her principal witmongers and bards of misrule. What would you\r\nhave said had you seen Nash or Green, when you interest yourself about\r\nthe poor mimes you supped with last night?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Suffice it, they had their\r\ndrench and their doze, and they drank and slept as much as may save\r\nthem from any necessity of eating till evening, when, if they are\r\nindustrious, they will find patrons or players to feed them. [Footnote:\r\nThe condition of men of wit and talents was never more melancholy than\r\nabout this period. Their lives were so irregular, and their means of\r\nliving so precarious, that they were alternately rioting in debauchery,\r\nor encountering and struggling with the meanest necessities. Two or\r\nthree lost their lives by a surfeit brought on by that fatal banquet of\r\nRhenish wine and pickled herrings, which is familiar to those who\r\nstudy the lighter literature of that age. The whole history is a most\r\nmelancholy picture of genius, degraded at once by its own debaucheries,\r\nand the patronage of heartless rakes and profligates.] For the rest of\r\ntheir wants, they can be at no loss for cold water while the New\r\nRiver head holds good; and your doublets of Parnassus are eternal in\r\nduration.”\r\n\r\n“Virgil and Horace had more efficient patronage,” said Nigel. “Ay,” replied his countryman, “but these fellows are neither Virgil nor\r\nHorace; besides, we have other spirits of another sort, to whom I will\r\nintroduce you on some early occasion. Our Swan of Avon hath sung his\r\nlast; but we have stout old Ben, with as much learning and genius as\r\never prompted the treader of sock and buskin."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is not, however, of\r\nhim I mean now to speak; but I come to pray you, of dear love, to row up\r\nwith me as far as Richmond, where two or three of the gallants whom you\r\nsaw yesterday, mean to give music and syllabubs to a set of beauties,\r\nwith some curious bright eyes among them--such, I promise you, as might\r\nwin an astrologer from his worship of the galaxy. My sister leads the\r\nbevy, to whom I desire to present you. She hath her admirers at Court;\r\nand is regarded, though I might dispense with sounding her praise, as\r\none of the beauties of the time.”\r\n\r\nThere was no refusing an engagement, where the presence of the party\r\ninvited, late so low in his own regard, was demanded by a lady of\r\nquality, one of the choice beauties of the time. Lord Glenvarloch\r\naccepted, as was inevitable, and spent a lively day among the gay\r\nand the fair. He was the gallant in attendance, for the day, upon his\r\nfriend's sister, the beautiful Countess of Blackchester, who aimed at\r\nonce at superiority in the realms of fashion, of power, and of wit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was, indeed, considerably older than her brother, and had probably\r\ncompleted her six lustres; but the deficiency in extreme youth was more\r\nthan atoned for, in the most precise and curious accuracy in attire,\r\nan early acquaintance with every foreign mode, and a peculiar gift\r\nin adapting the knowledge which she acquired, to her own particular\r\nfeatures and complexion. At Court, she knew as well as any lady in the\r\ncircle, the precise tone, moral, political, learned, or jocose, in which\r\nit was proper to answer the monarch, according to his prevailing humour;\r\nand was supposed to have been very active, by her personal interest,\r\nin procuring her husband a high situation, which the gouty old viscount\r\ncould never have deserved by any merit of his own commonplace conduct\r\nand understanding. It was far more easy for this lady than for her brother, to reconcile\r\nso young a courtier as Lord Glenvarloch to the customs and habits of\r\na sphere so new to him. In all civilised society, the females of\r\ndistinguished rank and beauty give the tone to manners, and, through\r\nthese, even to morals. Lady Blackchester had, besides, interest either\r\nin the Court, or over the Court, (for its source could not be well\r\ntraced,) which created friends, and overawed those who might have been\r\ndisposed to play the part of enemies."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At one time, she was understood to be closely leagued with the\r\nBuckingham family, with whom her brother still maintained a great\r\nintimacy; and, although some coldness had taken place betwixt the\r\nCountess and the Duchess of Buckingham, so that they were little seen\r\ntogether, and the former seemed considerably to have withdrawn herself\r\ninto privacy, it was whispered that Lady Blackchester's interest with\r\nthe great favourite was not diminished in consequence of her breach with\r\nhis lady. Our accounts of the private Court intrigues of that period, and of the\r\npersons to whom they were intrusted, are not full enough to enable us to\r\npronounce upon the various reports which arose out of the circumstances\r\nwe have detailed. It is enough to say, that Lady Blackchester possessed\r\ngreat influence on the circle around her, both from her beauty, her\r\nabilities, and her reputed talents for Court intrigue; and that Nigel\r\nOlifaunt was not long of experiencing its power, as he became a slave in\r\nsome degree to that species of habit, which carries so many men into a\r\ncertain society at a certain hour, without expecting or receiving any\r\nparticular degree of gratification, or even amusement. His life for several weeks may be thus described."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The ordinary was no\r\nbad introduction to the business of the day; and the young lord quickly\r\nfound, that if the society there was not always irreproachable, still\r\nit formed the most convenient and agreeable place of meeting with the\r\nfashionable parties, with whom he visited Hyde Park, the theatres, and\r\nother places of public resort, or joined the gay and glittering circle\r\nwhich Lady Blackchester had assembled around her. Neither did he\r\nentertain the same scrupulous horror which led him originally even to\r\nhesitate entering into a place where gaming was permitted; but, on the\r\ncontrary, began to admit the idea, that as there could be no harm done\r\nin beholding such recreation when only indulged in to a moderate degree,\r\nso, from a parity of reasoning, there could be no objection to joining\r\nin it, always under the same restrictions. But the young lord was a\r\nScotsman, habituated to early reflection, and totally unaccustomed to\r\nany habit which inferred a careless risk or profuse waste of money. Profusion was not his natural vice, or one likely to be acquired in\r\nthe course of his education; and, in all probability, while his father\r\nanticipated with noble horror the idea of his son approaching the\r\ngaming-table, he was more startled at the idea of his becoming a gaining\r\nthan a losing adventurer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The second, according to his principles, had\r\na termination, a sad one indeed, in the loss of temporal fortune--the\r\nfirst quality went on increasing the evil which he dreaded, and perilled\r\nat once both body and soul. However the old lord might ground his apprehension, it was so far\r\nverified by his son's conduct, that, from an observer of the various\r\ngames of chance which he witnessed, he came, by degrees, by moderate\r\nhazards, and small bets or wagers, to take a certain interest in them. Nor could it be denied, that his rank and expectations entitled him to\r\nhazard a few pieces (for his game went no deeper) against persons, who,\r\nfrom the readiness with which they staked their money, might be supposed\r\nwell able to afford to lose it. It chanced, or, perhaps, according to the common belief, his evil genius\r\nhad so decreed, that Nigel's adventures were remarkably successful. He\r\nwas temperate, cautious, cool-headed, had a strong memory, and a ready\r\npower of calculation; was besides, of a daring and intrepid character,\r\none upon whom no one that had looked even slightly, or spoken to\r\nthough but hastily, would readily have ventured to practise any thing\r\napproaching to trick, or which required to be supported by intimidation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "While Lord Glenvarloch chose to play, men played with him regularly,\r\nor, according to the phrase, upon the square; and, as he found his\r\nluck change, or wished to hazard his good fortune no farther, the more\r\nprofessed votaries of fortune, who frequented the house of Monsieur le\r\nChevalier de Saint Priest Beaujeu, did not venture openly to express\r\ntheir displeasure at his rising a winner. But when this happened\r\nrepeatedly, the gamesters murmured amongst themselves equally at the\r\ncaution and the success of the young Scotsman; and he became far from\r\nbeing a popular character among their society. It was no slight inducement to the continuance of this most evil habit,\r\nwhen it was once in some degree acquired, that it seemed to place\r\nLord Glenvarloch, haughty as he naturally was, beyond the necessity of\r\nsubjecting himself to farther pecuniary obligations, which his prolonged\r\nresidence in London must otherwise have rendered necessary. He had to\r\nsolicit from the ministers certain forms of office, which were to render\r\nhis sign-manual effectually useful; and these, though they could not be\r\ndenied, were delayed in such a manner, as to lead Nigel to believe there\r\nwas some secret opposition, which occasioned the demur in his business. His own impulse was, to have appeared at Court a second time, with the\r\nking's sign-manual in his pocket, and to have appealed to his Majesty\r\nhimself, whether the delay of the public officers ought to render his\r\nroyal generosity unavailing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the Lord Huntinglen, that good old\r\npeer, who had so frankly interfered in his behalf on a former occasion,\r\nand whom he occasionally visited, greatly dissuaded him from a similar\r\nadventure, and exhorted him quietly to await the deliverance of the\r\nministers, which should set him free from dancing attendance in London. Lord Dalgarno joined his father in deterring his young friend from a\r\nsecond attendance at Court, at least till he was reconciled with the\r\nDuke of Buckingham--“a matter in which,” he said, addressing his father,\r\n“I have offered my poor assistance, without being able to prevail on\r\nLord Nigel to make any--not even the least--submission to the Duke of\r\nBuckingham.”\r\n\r\n“By my faith, and I hold the laddie to be in the right on't, Malcom!”\r\n answered the stout old Scots lord.--“What right hath Buckingham, or,\r\nto speak plainly, the son of Sir George Villiers, to expect homage and\r\nfealty from one more noble than himself by eight quarters?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I heard him\r\nmyself, on no reason that I could perceive, term Lord Nigel his enemy;\r\nand it will never be by my counsel that the lad speaks soft word to him,\r\ntill he recalls the hard one.”\r\n\r\n“That is precisely my advice to Lord Glenvarloch,” answered Lord\r\nDalgarno; “but then you will admit, my dear father, that it would be the\r\nrisk of extremity for our friend to return into the presence, the duke\r\nbeing his enemy--better to leave it with me to take off the heat of the\r\ndistemperature, with which some pickthanks have persuaded the duke to\r\nregard our friend.”\r\n\r\n“If thou canst persuade Buckingham of his error, Malcolm,” said his\r\nfather, “for once I will say there hath been kindness and honesty in\r\nCourt service."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have oft told your sister and yourself, that in the\r\ngeneral I esteem it as lightly as may be.”\r\n\r\n“You need not doubt my doing my best in Nigel's case,” answered Lord\r\nDalgarno; “but you must think, my dear father, I must needs use slower\r\nand gentler means than those by which you became a favourite twenty\r\nyears ago.”\r\n\r\n“By my faith, I am afraid thou wilt,” answered his father.--“I tell\r\nthee, Malcolm, I would sooner wish myself in the grave, than doubt\r\nthine honesty or honour; yet somehow it hath chanced, that honest,\r\nready service, hath not the same acceptance at Court which it has in my\r\nyounger time--and yet you rise there.”\r\n\r\n“O, the time permits not your old-world service,” said Lord\r\nDalgarno; “we have now no daily insurrections, no nightly attempts at\r\nassassination, as were the fashion in the Scottish Court. Your prompt\r\nand uncourteous sword-in-hand attendance on the sovereign is no\r\nlonger necessary, and would be as unbeseeming as your old-fashioned\r\nserving-men, with their badges, broadswords, and bucklers, would be at a\r\ncourt-mask. Besides, father, loyal haste hath its inconveniences. I have\r\nheard, and from royal lips too, that when you stuck your dagger into the\r\ntraitor Ruthven, it was with such little consideration, that the point\r\nran a quarter of an inch into the royal buttock. The king\r\nnever talks of it but he rubs the injured part, and quotes his\r\n_'infandum-------renovare dolorem."}
{"question": "", "answer": "'_ But this comes of old fashions, and\r\nof wearing a long Liddesdale whinger instead of a poniard of Parma. Yet\r\nthis, my dear father, you call prompt and valiant service. The king, I\r\nam told, could not sit upright for a fortnight, though all the cushions\r\nin Falkland were placed in his chair of state, and the Provost of\r\nDunfermline's borrowed to the boot of all.”\r\n\r\n“It is a lie,” said the old earl, “a false lie, forge it who list!--It\r\nis true I wore a dagger of service by my side, and not a bodkin like\r\nyours, to pick one's teeth withal--and for prompt service--Odds nouns! it should be prompt to be useful when kings are crying treason and\r\nmurder with the screech of a half-throttled hen."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But you young courtiers\r\nknow nought of these matters, and are little better than the green geese\r\nthey bring over from the Indies, whose only merit to their masters is to\r\nrepeat their own words after them--a pack of mouthers, and flatterers,\r\nand ear-wigs.--Well, I am old and unable to mend, else I would break all\r\noff, and hear the Tay once more flinging himself over the Campsie Linn.”\r\n\r\n“But there is your dinner-bell, father,” said Lord Dalgarno, “which, if\r\nthe venison I sent you prove seasonable, is at least as sweet a sound.”\r\n\r\n“Follow me, then, youngsters, if you list,” said the old earl; and\r\nstrode on from the alcove in which this conversation was held, towards\r\nthe house, followed by the two young men. In their private discourse, Lord Dalgarno had little trouble in\r\ndissuading Nigel from going immediately to Court; while, on the other\r\nhand, the offers he made him of a previous introduction to the Duke\r\nof Buckingham, were received by Lord Glenvarloch with a positive and\r\ncontemptuous refusal. His friend shrugged his shoulders, as one who\r\nclaims the merit of having given to an obstinate friend the best\r\ncounsel, and desires to be held free of the consequences of his\r\npertinacity. As for the father, his table indeed, and his best liquor, of which\r\nhe was more profuse than necessary, were at the command of his young\r\nfriend, as well as his best advice and assistance in the prosecution of\r\nhis affairs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Lord Huntinglen's interest was more apparent than real;\r\nand the credit he had acquired by his gallant defence of the king's\r\nperson, was so carelessly managed by himself, and so easily eluded by\r\nthe favourites and ministers of the sovereign, that, except upon one or\r\ntwo occasions, when the king was in some measure taken by surprise, as\r\nin the case of Lord Glenvarloch, the royal bounty was never efficiently\r\nextended either to himself or to his friends. “There never was a man,” said Lord Dalgarno, whose shrewder knowledge of\r\nthe English Court saw where his father's deficiency lay, “that had it so\r\nperfectly in his power to have made his way to the pinnacle of fortune\r\nas my poor father. He had acquired a right to build up a staircase, step\r\nby step, slowly and surely, letting every boon, which he begged year\r\nafter year, become in its turn the resting-place for the next annual\r\ngrant. But your fortunes shall not shipwreck upon the same coast,\r\nNigel,” he would conclude. “If I have fewer means of influence than my\r\nfather has, or rather had, till he threw them away for butts of sack,\r\nhawks, hounds, and such carrion, I can, far better than he, improve that\r\nwhich I possess; and that, my dear Nigel, is all engaged in your behalf. Do not be surprised or offended that you now see me less than formerly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The stag-hunting is commenced, and the prince looks that I should attend\r\nhim more frequently. I must also maintain my attendance on the duke,\r\nthat I may have an opportunity of pleading your cause when occasion\r\nshall permit.”\r\n\r\n“I have no cause to plead before the duke,” said Nigel, gravely; “I have\r\nsaid so repeatedly.”\r\n\r\n“Why, I meant the phrase no otherwise, thou churlish and suspicious\r\ndisputant,” answered Dalgarno, “than as I am now pleading the duke's\r\ncause with thee. Surely I only mean to claim a share in our royal\r\nmaster's favourite benediction, _Beati Pacifici_.”\r\n\r\nUpon several occasions, Lord Glenvarloch's conversations, both with the\r\nold earl and his son, took a similar turn and had a like conclusion. He\r\nsometimes felt as if, betwixt the one and the other, not to mention the\r\nmore unseen and unboasted, but scarce less certain influence of Lady\r\nBlackchester, his affair, simple as it had become, might have been\r\nsomehow accelerated. But it was equally impossible to doubt the rough\r\nhonesty of the father, and the eager and officious friendship of Lord\r\nDalgarno; nor was it easy to suppose that the countenance of the lady,\r\nby whom he was received with such distinction, would be wanting, could\r\nit be effectual in his service."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nigel was further sensible of the truth of what Lord Dalgarno often\r\npointed out, that the favourite being supposed to be his enemy, every\r\npetty officer, through whose hands his affair must necessarily pass,\r\nwould desire to make a merit of throwing obstacles in his way, which\r\nhe could only surmount by steadiness and patience, unless he preferred\r\nclosing the breach, or, as Lord Dalgarno called it, making his peace\r\nwith the Duke of Buckingham. Nigel might, and doubtless would, have had recourse to the advice of his\r\nfriend George Heriot upon this occasion, having found it so advantageous\r\nformerly; but the only time he saw him after their visit to Court, he\r\nfound the worthy citizen engaged in hasty preparations for a journey to\r\nParis, upon business of great importance in the way of his profession,\r\nand by an especial commission from the Court and the Duke of Buckingham,\r\nwhich was likely to be attended with considerable profit. The good man\r\nsmiled as he named the Duke of Buckingham. He had been, he said, pretty\r\nsure that his disgrace in that quarter would not be of long duration. Lord Glenvarloch expressed himself rejoiced at that reconciliation,\r\nobserving, that it had been a most painful reflection to him, that\r\nMaster Heriot should, in his behalf, have incurred the dislike, and\r\nperhaps exposed himself to the ill offices, of so powerful a favourite."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“My lord,” said Heriot, “for your father's son I would do much; and yet\r\ntruly, if I know myself, I would do as much and risk as much, for the\r\nsake of justice, in the case of a much more insignificant person, as I\r\nhave ventured for yours. But as we shall not meet for some time, I must\r\ncommit to your own wisdom the farther prosecution of this matter.”\r\n\r\nAnd thus they took a kind and affectionate leave of each other. There were other changes in Lord Glenvarloch's situation, which require\r\nto be noticed. His present occupations, and the habits of amusement\r\nwhich he had acquired, rendered his living so far in the city a\r\nconsiderable inconvenience. He may also have become a little ashamed of\r\nhis cabin on Paul's Wharf, and desirous of being lodged somewhat\r\nmore according to his quality. For this purpose, he had hired a small\r\napartment near the Temple. He was, nevertheless, almost sorry for what\r\nhe had done, when he observed that his removal appeared to give some\r\npain to John Christie, and a great deal to his cordial and officious\r\nlandlady. The former, who was grave and saturnine in every thing he did,\r\nonly hoped that all had been to Lord Glenvarloch's mind, and that he had\r\nnot left them on account of any unbeseeming negligence on their part."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the tear twinkled in Dame Nelly's eye, while she recounted the\r\nvarious improvements she had made in the apartment, of express purpose\r\nto render it more convenient to his lordship. “There was a great sea-chest,” she said, “had been taken upstairs to the\r\nshopman's garret, though it left the poor lad scarce eighteen inches\r\nof opening to creep betwixt it and his bed; and Heaven knew--she did\r\nnot--whether it could ever be brought down that narrow stair again. Then\r\nthe turning the closet into an alcove had cost a matter of twenty round\r\nshillings; and to be sure, to any other lodger but his lordship, the\r\ncloset was more convenient. There was all the linen, too, which she had\r\nbought on purpose--But Heaven's will be done--she was resigned.”\r\n\r\nEverybody likes marks of personal attachment; and Nigel, whose heart\r\nreally smote him, as if in his rising fortunes he were disdaining the\r\nlowly accommodations and the civilities of the humble friends which had\r\nbeen but lately actual favours, failed not by every assurance in his\r\npower, and by as liberal payment as they could be prevailed upon to\r\naccept, to alleviate the soreness of their feelings at his departure;\r\nand a parting kiss from the fair lips of his hostess sealed his\r\nforgiveness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Richie Moniplies lingered behind his master, to ask whether, in case of\r\nneed, John Christie could help a canny Scotsman to a passage back to his\r\nown country; and receiving assurance of John's interest to that effect,\r\nhe said at parting, he would remind him of his promise soon.--“For,”\r\n said he, “if my lord is not weary of this London life, I ken one that\r\nis, videlicet, mysell; and I am weel determined to see Arthur's Seat\r\nagain ere I am many weeks older.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XIV\r\n\r\n\r\n  Bingo, why, Bingo! hey, boy--here, sir, here!--\r\n  He's gone and off, but he'll be home before us;--\r\n  'Tis the most wayward cur e'er mumbled bone,\r\n  Or dogg'd a master's footstep.--Bingo loves me\r\n  Better than ever beggar loved his alms;\r\n  Yet, when he takes such humour, you may coax\r\n  Sweet Mistress Fantasy, your worship's mistress,\r\n  Out of her sullen moods, as soon as Bingo. _The Dominie And His Dog_. Richie Moniplies was as good as his word. Two or three mornings after\r\nthe young lord had possessed himself of his new lodgings, he appeared\r\nbefore Nigel, as he was preparing to dress, having left his pillow at an\r\nhour much later than had formerly been his custom. As Nigel looked upon his attendant, he observed there was a gathering\r\ngloom upon his solemn features, which expressed either additional\r\nimportance, or superadded discontent, or a portion of both."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“How now,” he said, “what is the matter this morning, Richie, that you\r\nhave made your face so like the grotesque mask on one of the spouts\r\nyonder?” pointing to the Temple Church, of which Gothic building they\r\nhad a view from the window. Richie swivelled his head a little to the right with as little alacrity\r\nas if he had the crick in his neck, and instantly resuming his posture,\r\nreplied,--“Mask here, mask there--it were nae such matters that I have\r\nto speak anent.”\r\n\r\n“And what matters have you to speak anent, then?” said his master, whom\r\ncircumstances had inured to tolerate a good deal of freedom from his\r\nattendant. “My lord,”--said Richie, and then stopped to cough and hem, as if what\r\nhe had to say stuck somewhat in his throat."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I guess the mystery,” said Nigel, “you want a little money, Richie; will five pieces serve the present turn?” “My lord,” said Richie, “I may, it is like, want a trifle of money; and I am glad at the same time, and sorry, that it is mair plenty with your lordship than formerly.” “Glad and sorry, man!” said Lord Nigel, “why, you are reading riddles to me, Richie.” “My riddle will be briefly read,” said Richie; “I come to crave of your lordship your commands for Scotland.” “For Scotland!--why, art thou mad, man?” said Nigel; “canst thou not tarry to go down with me?” “I could be of little service,” said Richie, “since you purpose to hire another page and groom.” “Why, thou jealous ass,” said the young lord, “will not thy load of duty lie the lighter?--Go, take thy breakfast, and drink thy ale double strong, to put such absurdities out of thy head--I could be angry with thee for thy folly, man--but I remember how thou hast stuck to me in adversity.” “Adversity, my lord, should never have parted us,” said Richie; “methinks, had the warst come to warst, I could have starved as gallantly as your lordship, or more so, being in some sort used to it; for, though I was bred at a flasher's stall, I have not through my life had a constant intimacy with collops.” “Now, what is the meaning of all this trash?” said Nigel; “or has it no other end than to"}
{"question": "", "answer": "provoke my patience?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "You know well enough, that, had I\r\ntwenty serving-men, I would hold the faithful follower that stood by\r\nme in my distress the most valued of them all. But it is totally out of\r\nreason to plague me with your solemn capriccios.”\r\n\r\n“My lord,” said Richie, “in declaring your trust in me, you have done\r\nwhat is honourable to yourself, if I may with humility say so much, and\r\nin no way undeserved on my side. Nevertheless, we must part.”\r\n\r\n“Body of me, man, why?” said Lord Nigel; “what reason can there be for\r\nit, if we are mutually satisfied?”\r\n\r\n“My lord,” said Richie Moniplies, “your lordship's occupations are such\r\nas I cannot own or countenance by my presence.”\r\n\r\n“How now, sirrah!” said his master, angrily. “Under favour, my lord,” replied his domestic, “it is unequal dealing to\r\nbe equally offended by my speech and by my silence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If you can hear with\r\npatience the grounds of my departure, it may be, for aught I know, the\r\nbetter for you here and hereafter--if not, let me have my license of\r\ndeparture in silence, and so no more about it.”\r\n\r\n“Go to, sir!” said Nigel; “speak out your mind--only remember to whom\r\nyou speak it.”\r\n\r\n“Weel, weel, my lord--I speak it with humility;” (never did Richie look\r\nwith more starched dignity than when he uttered the word;) “but do\r\nyou think this dicing and card-shuffling, and haunting of taverns and\r\nplayhouses, suits your lordship--for I am sure it does not suit me?”\r\n\r\n“Why, you are not turned precisian or puritan, fool?” said Lord\r\nGlenvarloch, laughing, though, betwixt resentment and shame, it cost him\r\nsome trouble to do so. “My lord,” replied the follower, “I ken the purport of your query. I\r\nam, it may be, a little of a precisian, and I wish to Heaven I was mair\r\nworthy of the name; but let that be a pass-over.--I have stretched the\r\nduties of a serving-man as far as my northern conscience will permit. I\r\ncan give my gude word to my master, or to my native country, when I am\r\nin a foreign land, even though I should leave downright truth a wee bit\r\nbehind me. Ay, and I will take or give a slash with ony man that\r\nspeaks to the derogation of either."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But this chambering, dicing, and\r\nplay-haunting, is not my element--I cannot draw breath in it--and when\r\nI hear of your lordship winning the siller that some poor creature may\r\nfull sairly miss--by my saul, if it wad serve your necessity, rather\r\nthan you gained it from him, I wad take a jump over the hedge with your\r\nlordship, and cry 'Stand!' to the first grazier we met that was coming\r\nfrom Smithfield with the price of his Essex calves in his leathern\r\npouch!”\r\n\r\n“You are a simpleton,” said Nigel, who felt, however, much\r\nconscience-struck; “I never play but for small sums.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, my lord,” replied the unyielding domestic, “and--still with\r\nreverence--it is even sae much the waur. If you played with your equals,\r\nthere might be like sin, but there wad be mair warldly honour in it. Your lordship kens, or may ken, by experience of your ain, whilk is not\r\nas yet mony weeks auld, that small sums can ill be missed by those that\r\nhave nane larger; and I maun e'en be plain with you, that men notice it\r\nof your lordship, that ye play wi' nane but the misguided creatures that\r\ncan but afford to lose bare stakes.”\r\n\r\n“No man dare say so!” replied Nigel, very angrily."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I play with whom I\r\nplease, but I will only play for what stake I please.”\r\n\r\n“That is just what they say, my lord,” said the unmerciful Richie,\r\nwhose natural love of lecturing, as well as his bluntness of feeling,\r\nprevented him from having any idea of the pain which he was inflicting\r\non his master; “these are even their own very words. It was but\r\nyesterday your lordship was pleased, at that same ordinary, to win from\r\nyonder young hafflins gentleman, with the crimson velvet doublet, and\r\nthe cock's feather in his beaver--him, I mean, who fought with the\r\nranting captain--a matter of five pounds, or thereby. I saw him come\r\nthrough the hall; and, if he was not cleaned out of cross and pile, I\r\nnever saw a ruined man in my life.”\r\n\r\n“Impossible!” said Lord Glenvarloch--“Why, who is he? he looked like a\r\nman of substance.”\r\n\r\n“All is not gold that glistens, my lord,” replied Richie; “'broidery\r\nand bullion buttons make bare pouches. And if you ask who he is--maybe I\r\nhave a guess, and care not to tell.”\r\n\r\n“At least, if I have done any such fellow an injury,” said the Lord\r\nNigel, “let me know how I can repair it.”\r\n\r\n“Never fash your beard about that, my lord,--with reverence always,”\r\n said Richie,--“he shall be suitably cared after. Think on him but as\r\nane wha was running post to the devil, and got a shouldering from your\r\nlordship to help him on his journey."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I will stop him, if reason can;\r\nand so your lordship needs asks nae mair about it, for there is no use\r\nin your knowing it, but much the contrair.”\r\n\r\n“Hark you, sirrah,” said his master, “I have borne with you thus far,\r\nfor certain reasons; but abuse my good-nature no farther--and since you\r\nmust needs go, why, go a God's name, and here is to pay your journey.”\r\n So saying, he put gold into his hand, which Richie told over piece by\r\npiece, with the utmost accuracy. “Is it all right--or are they wanting in weight--or what the devil keeps\r\nyou, when your hurry was so great five minutes since?” said the young\r\nlord, now thoroughly nettled at the presumptuous precision with which\r\nRichie dealt forth his canons of morality. “The tale of coin is complete,” said Richie, with the most imperturbable\r\ngravity; “and, for the weight, though they are sae scrupulous in this\r\ntown, as make mouths at a piece that is a wee bit light, or that has\r\nbeen cracked within the ring, my sooth, they will jump at them in\r\nEdinburgh like a cock at a grosart. Gold pieces are not so plenty there,\r\nthe mair the pity!”\r\n\r\n“The more is your folly, then,” said Nigel, whose anger was only\r\nmomentary, “that leave the land where there is enough of them.”\r\n\r\n“My lord,” said Richie, “to be round with you, the grace of God is\r\nbetter than gold pieces."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When Goblin, as you call yonder Monsieur\r\nLutin,--and you might as well call him Gibbet, since that is what he is\r\nlike to end in,--shall recommend a page to you, ye will hear little such\r\ndoctrine as ye have heard from me.--And if they were my last words,” he\r\nsaid, raising his voice, “I would say you are misled, and are forsaking\r\nthe paths which your honourable father trode in; and, what is more, you\r\nare going--still under correction--to the devil with a dishclout, for ye\r\nare laughed at by them that lead you into these disordered bypaths.”\r\n\r\n“Laughed at!” said Nigel, who, like others of his age, was more sensible\r\nto ridicule than to reason--“Who dares laugh at me?”\r\n\r\n“My lord, as sure as I live by bread--nay, more, as I am a true\r\nman--and, I think, your lordship never found Richie's tongue bearing\r\naught but the truth--unless that your lordship's credit, my country's\r\nprofit, or, it may be, some sma' occasion of my ain, made it unnecessary\r\nto promulgate the haill veritie,--I say then, as I am a true man, when I\r\nsaw that puir creature come through the ha', at that ordinary, whilk is\r\naccurst (Heaven forgive me for swearing!)"}
{"question": "", "answer": "of God and man, with his teeth\r\nset, and his hands clenched, and his bonnet drawn over his brows like a\r\ndesperate man, Goblin said to me, 'There goes a dunghill chicken, that\r\nyour master has plucked clean enough; it will be long ere his lordship\r\nruffle a feather with a cock of the game.' And so, my lord, to speak\r\nit out, the lackeys, and the gallants, and more especially your sworn\r\nbrother, Lord Dalgarno, call you the sparrow-hawk.--I had some thought\r\nto have cracked Lutin's pate for the speech, but, after a', the\r\ncontroversy was not worth it.”\r\n\r\n“Do they use such terms of me?” said Lord Nigel. “Death and the devil!”\r\n\r\n“And the devil's dam, my lord,” answered Richie; “they are all three\r\nbusy in London.--And, besides, Lutin and his master laughed at you, my\r\nlord, for letting it be thought that--I shame to speak it--that ye were\r\nover well with the wife of the decent honest man whose house you but\r\nnow left, as not sufficient for your new bravery, whereas they said, the\r\nlicentious scoffers, that you pretended to such favour when you had not\r\ncourage enough for so fair a quarrel, and that the sparrow-hawk was\r\ntoo craven-crested to fly at the wife of a cheesemonger.”--He stopped a\r\nmoment, and looked fixedly in his master's face, which was inflamed with\r\nshame and anger, and then proceeded."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“My lord, I did you justice in my\r\nthought, and myself too; for, thought I, he would have been as deep in\r\nthat sort of profligacy as in others, if it hadna been Richie's four\r\nquarters.”\r\n\r\n“What new nonsense have you got to plague me with?” said Lord Nigel. “But go on, since it is the last time I am to be tormented with your\r\nimpertinence,--go on, and make the most of your time.”\r\n\r\n“In troth,” said Richie, “and so will I even do. And as Heaven has\r\nbestowed on me a tongue to speak and to advise----”\r\n\r\n“Which talent you can by no means be accused of suffering to remain\r\nidle,” said Lord Glenvarloch, interrupting him. “True, my lord,” said Richie, again waving his hand, as if to bespeak\r\nhis master's silence and attention; “so, I trust, you will think some\r\ntime hereafter. And, as I am about to leave your service, it is proper\r\nthat ye suld know the truth, that ye may consider the snares to which\r\nyour youth and innocence may be exposed, when aulder and doucer heads\r\nare withdrawn from beside you.--There has been a lusty, good-looking\r\nkimmer, of some forty, or bygane, making mony speerings about you, my\r\nlord.”\r\n\r\n“Well, sir, what did she want with me?” said Lord Nigel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“At first, my lord,” replied his sapient follower, “as she seemed to be\r\na well-fashioned woman, and to take pleasure in sensible company, I was\r\nno way reluctant to admit her to my conversation.”\r\n\r\n“I dare say not,” said Lord Nigel; “nor unwilling to tell her about my\r\nprivate affairs.”\r\n\r\n“Not I, truly, my lord,” said the attendant;--“for, though she asked me\r\nmony questions about your fame, your fortune, your business here, and\r\nsuch like, I did not think it proper to tell her altogether the truth\r\nthereanent.”\r\n\r\n“I see no call on you whatever,” said Lord Nigel, “to tell the woman\r\neither truth or lies upon what she had nothing to do with.”\r\n\r\n“I thought so, too, my lord,” replied Richie, “and so I told her\r\nneither.”\r\n\r\n“And what _did_ you tell her, then, you eternal babbler?” said his\r\nmaster, impatient of his prate, yet curious to know what it was all to\r\nend in. “I told her,” said Richie, “about your warldly fortune, and sae forth,\r\nsomething whilk is not truth just at this time; but which hath been\r\ntruth formerly, suld be truth now, and will be truth again,--and that\r\nwas, that you were in possession of your fair lands, whilk ye are but\r\nin right of as yet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Pleasant communing we had on that and other topics,\r\nuntil she showed the cloven foot, beginning to confer with me about some\r\nwench that she said had a good-will to your lordship, and fain she would\r\nhave spoken with you in particular anent it; but when I heard of such\r\ninklings, I began to suspect she was little better than--whew! “--Here\r\nhe concluded his narrative with a low, but very expressive whistle. “And what did your wisdom do in these circumstances?” said Lord Nigel,\r\nwho, notwithstanding his former resentment, could now scarcely forbear\r\nlaughing. “I put on a look, my lord,” replied Richie, bending his solemn brows,\r\n“that suld give her a heartscald of walking on such errands. I laid her\r\nenormities clearly before her, and I threatened her, in sae mony words,\r\nthat I would have her to the ducking-stool; and she, on the contrair\r\npart, miscawed me for a forward northern tyke--and so we parted never\r\nto meet again, as I hope and trust."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And so I stood between your lordship\r\nand that temptation, which might have been worse than the ordinary, or\r\nthe playhouse either; since you wot well what Solomon, King of the Jews,\r\nsayeth of the strange woman--for, said I to mysell, we have taken to\r\ndicing already, and if we take to drabbing next, the Lord kens what we\r\nmay land in!”\r\n\r\n“Your impertinence deserves correction, but it is the last which, for\r\na time at least, I shall have to forgive--and I forgive it,” said Lord\r\nGlenvarloch; “and, since we are to part, Richie, I will say no more\r\nrespecting your precautions on my account, than that I think you might\r\nhave left me to act according to my own judgment.”\r\n\r\n“Mickle better not,” answered Richie--“mickle better not; we are a'\r\nfrail creatures, and can judge better for ilk ither than in our ain\r\ncases. And for me, even myself, saving that case of the Sifflication,\r\nwhich might have happened to ony one, I have always observed myself to\r\nbe much more prudential in what I have done in your lordship's\r\nbehalf, than even in what I have been able to transact for my own\r\ninterest--whilk last, I have, indeed, always postponed, as in duty I\r\nought.”\r\n\r\n“I do believe thou hast,” said Lord Nigel, “having ever found thee true\r\nand faithful."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And since London pleases you so little, I will bid you a\r\nshort farewell; and you may go down to Edinburgh until I come thither\r\nmyself, when I trust you will re-enter into my service.”\r\n\r\n“Now, Heaven bless you, my lord,” said Richie Moniplies, with uplifted\r\neyes; “for that word sounds more like grace than ony has come out of\r\nyour mouth this fortnight.--I give you godd'en, my lord.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, he thrust forth his immense bony hand, seized on that of Lord\r\nGlenvarloch, raised it to his lips, then turned short on his heel, and\r\nleft the room hastily, as if afraid of showing more emotion than was\r\nconsistent with his ideas of decorum. Lord Nigel, rather surprised at\r\nhis sudden exit, called after him to know whether he was sufficiently\r\nprovided with money; but Richie, shaking his head, without making any\r\nother answer, ran hastily down stairs, shut the street-door heavily\r\nbehind him, and was presently seen striding along the Strand. His master almost involuntarily watched and distinguished the tall\r\nraw-boned figure of his late follower, from the window, for some time,\r\nuntil he was lost among the crowd of passengers. Nigel's reflections\r\nwere not altogether those of self-approval. It was no good sign of his\r\ncourse of life, (he could not help acknowledging this much to himself,)\r\nthat so faithful an adherent no longer seemed to feel the same pride\r\nin his service, or attachment to his person, which he had formerly\r\nmanifested."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Neither could he avoid experiencing some twinges of\r\nconscience, while he felt in some degree the charges which Richie\r\nhad preferred against him, and experienced a sense of shame and\r\nmortification, arising from the colour given by others to that, which\r\nhe himself would have called his caution and moderation in play. He had\r\nonly the apology, that it had never occurred to himself in this light. Then his pride and self-love suggested, that, on the other hand, Richie,\r\nwith all his good intentions, was little better than a conceited,\r\npragmatical domestic, who seemed disposed rather to play the tutor than\r\nthe lackey, and who, out of sheer love, as he alleged, to his master's\r\nperson, assumed the privilege of interfering with, and controlling, his\r\nactions, besides rendering him ridiculous in the gay world, from the\r\nantiquated formality, and intrusive presumption, of his manners. Nigel's eyes were scarce turned from the window, when his new landlord\r\nentering, presented to him a slip of paper, carefully bound round with\r\na string of flox-silk and sealed---it had been given in, he said, by a\r\nwoman, who did not stop an instant. The contents harped upon the same\r\nstring which Richie Moniplies had already jarred. The epistle was in the\r\nfollowing words:\r\n\r\nFor the Right Honourable hands of Lord Glenvarloch, “These, from a\r\nfriend unknown:--\r\n\r\n“MY LORD,\r\n\r\n“You are trusting to an unhonest friend, and diminishing an honest\r\nreputation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "An unknown but real friend of your lordship will speak in\r\none word what you would not learn from flatterers in so many days, as\r\nshould suffice for your utter ruin. He whom you think most true--I say\r\nyour friend Lord Dalgarno--is utterly false to you, and doth but seek,\r\nunder pretence of friendship, to mar your fortune, and diminish the good\r\nname by which you might mend it. The kind countenance which he shows\r\nto you, is more dangerous than the Prince's frown; even as to gain\r\nat Beaujeu's ordinary is more discreditable than to lose. Beware of\r\nboth.--And this is all from your true but nameless friend, IGNOTO.”\r\n\r\nLord Glenvarloch paused for an instant, and crushed the paper\r\ntogether--then again unfolded and read it with attention--bent\r\nhis brows--mused for a moment, and then tearing it to fragments,\r\nexclaimed--“Begone for a vile calumny! But I will watch--I will\r\nobserve--”\r\n\r\nThought after thought rushed on him; but, upon the whole, Lord\r\nGlenvarloch was so little satisfied with the result of his own\r\nreflections, that he resolved to dissipate them by a walk in the Park,\r\nand, taking his cloak and beaver, went thither accordingly. CHAPTER XV\r\n\r\n\r\n  Twas when fleet Snowball's head was woxen grey,\r\n  A luckless lev'ret met him on his way.--\r\n  Who knows not Snowball--he, whose race renown'd\r\n  Is still victorious on each coursing ground?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Swaffhanm Newmarket, and the Roman Camp,\r\n  Have seen them victors o'er each meaner stamp--\r\n  In vain the youngling sought, with doubling wile,\r\n  The hedge, the hill, the thicket, or the stile. Experience sage the lack of speed supplied,\r\n  And in the gap he sought, the victim died. So was I once, in thy fair street, Saint James,\r\n  Through walking cavaliers, and car-borne dames,\r\n  Descried, pursued, turn'd o'er again, and o'er,\r\n  Coursed, coted, mouth'd by an unfeeling bore. &c. &c. &c,\r\n\r\nThe Park of Saint James's, though enlarged, planted with verdant alleys,\r\nand otherwise decorated by Charles II., existed in the days of his\r\ngrandfather, as a public and pleasant promenade; and, for the sake of\r\nexercise or pastime, was much frequented by the better classes. Lord Glenvarloch repaired thither to dispel the unpleasant reflections\r\nwhich had been suggested by his parting with his trusty squire, Richie\r\nMoniplies, in a manner which was agreeable neither to his pride nor his\r\nfeelings; and by the corroboration which the hints of his late attendant\r\nhad received from the anonymous letter mentioned in the end of the last\r\nchapter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was a considerable number of company in the Park when he entered\r\nit, but, his present state of mind inducing him to avoid society,\r\nhe kept aloof from the more frequented walks towards Westminster\r\nand Whitehall, and drew to the north, or, as we should now say, the\r\nPiccadilly verge of the enclosure, believing he might there enjoy, or\r\nrather combat, his own thoughts unmolested. In this, however, Lord Glenvarloch was mistaken; for, as he strolled\r\nslowly along with his arms folded in his cloak, and his hat drawn over\r\nhis eyes, he was suddenly pounced upon by Sir Mungo Malagrowther,\r\nwho, either shunning or shunned, had retreated, or had been obliged to\r\nretreat, to the same less frequented corner of the Park. Nigel started when he heard the high, sharp, and querulous tones of the\r\nknight's cracked voice, and was no less alarmed when he beheld his tall\r\nthin figure hobbling towards him, wrapped in a thread-bare cloak, on\r\nwhose surface ten thousand varied stains eclipsed the original scarlet,\r\nand having his head surmounted with a well-worn beaver, bearing a black\r\nvelvet band for a chain, and a capon's feather for an ostrich plume. Lord Glenvarloch would fain have made his escape, but, as our motto\r\nintimates, a leveret had as little chance to free herself of an\r\nexperienced greyhound. Sir Mungo, to continue the simile, had long ago\r\nlearned to run cunning, and make sure of mouthing his game."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So\r\nNigel found himself compelled to stand and answer the hackneyed\r\nquestion--“What news to-day?”\r\n\r\n“Nothing extraordinary, I believe,” answered the young nobleman,\r\nattempting to pass on. “O, ye are ganging to the French ordinary belive,” replied the knight;\r\n“but it is early day yet--we will take a turn in the Park in the\r\nmeanwhile--it will sharpen your appetite.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, he quietly slipped his arm under Lord Glenvarloch's, in spite\r\nof all the decent reluctance which his victim could exhibit, by keeping\r\nhis elbow close to his side; and having fairly grappled the prize, he\r\nproceeded to take it in tow. Nigel was sullen and silent, in hopes to shake off his unpleasant\r\ncompanion; but Sir Mungo was determined, that if he did not speak, he\r\nshould at least hear. “Ye are bound for the ordinary, my lord?” said the cynic;--“weel, ye\r\ncanna do better--there is choice company there, and peculiarly selected,\r\nas I am tauld, being, dootless, sic as it is desirable that young\r\nnoblemen should herd withal--and your noble father wad have been blithe\r\nto see you keeping such worshipful society.”\r\n\r\n“I believe,” said Lord Glenvarloch, thinking himself obliged to say\r\nsomething, “that the society is as good as generally can be found in\r\nsuch places, where the door can scarcely be shut against those who come\r\nto spend their money.”\r\n\r\n“Right, my lord--vera right,” said his tormentor, bursting out into a\r\nchuckling, but most discordant laugh."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“These citizen chuffs and clowns\r\nwill press in amongst us, when there is but an inch of a door open. And\r\nwhat remedy?--Just e'en this, that as their cash gies them confidence,\r\nwe should strip them of it. Flay them, my lord--singe them as the\r\nkitchen wench does the rats, and then they winna long to come back\r\nagain.--Ay, ay--pluck them, plume them--and then the larded capons will\r\nnot be for flying so high a wing, my lord, among the goss-hawks and\r\nsparrow-hawks, and the like.”\r\n\r\nAnd, therewithal, Sir Mungo fixed on Nigel his quick, sharp, grey\r\neye, watching the effect of his sarcasm as keenly as the surgeon, in a\r\ndelicate operation, remarks the progress of his anatomical scalpel. Nigel, however willing to conceal his sensations, could not avoid\r\ngratifying his tormentor by wincing under the operation. He coloured\r\nwith vexation and anger; but a quarrel with Sir Mungo Malagrowther\r\nwould, he felt, be unutterably ridiculous; and he only muttered to\r\nhimself the words, “Impertinent coxcomb!” which, on this occasion,\r\nSir Mungo's imperfection of organ did not prevent him from hearing and\r\nreplying to."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Ay, ay--vera true,” exclaimed the caustic old courtier--“Impertinent\r\ncoxcombs they are, that thus intrude themselves on the society of their\r\nbetters; but your lordship kens how to gar them as gude--ye have the\r\ntrick on't.--They had a braw sport in the presence last Friday, how ye\r\nsuld have routed a young shopkeeper, horse and foot, ta'en his _spolia\r\nofima_, and a' the specie he had about him, down to the very silver\r\nbuttons of his cloak, and sent him to graze with Nebuchadnezzar, King\r\nof Babylon. Muckle honour redounded to your lordship thereby.--We were\r\ntauld the loon threw himsell into the Thames in a fit of desperation. There's enow of them behind--there was mair tint on Flodden-edge.”\r\n\r\n“You have been told a budget of lies, so far as I am concerned, Sir\r\nMungo,” said Nigel, speaking loud and sternly. “Vera likely--vera likely,” said the unabashed and undismayed Sir Mungo;\r\n“naething but lies are current in the circle.--So the chield is not\r\ndrowned, then?--the mair's the pity.--But I never believed that part of\r\nthe story--a London dealer has mair wit in his anger. I dare swear the\r\nlad has a bonny broom-shank in his hand by this time, and is scrubbing\r\nthe kennels in quest after rusty nails, to help him to begin his pack\r\nagain.--He has three bairns, they say; they will help him bravely to\r\ngrope in the gutters."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Your good lordship may have the ruining of him\r\nagain, my lord, if they have any luck in strand-scouring.”\r\n\r\n“This is more than intolerable,” said Nigel, uncertain whether to make\r\nan angry vindication of his character, or to fling the old tormentor\r\nfrom his arm. But an instant's recollection convinced him, that, to do\r\neither, would only give an air of truth and consistency to the scandals\r\nwhich he began to see were affecting his character, both in the higher\r\nand lower circles. Hastily, therefore, he formed the wiser resolution,\r\nto endure Sir Mungo's studied impertinence, under the hope of\r\nascertaining, if possible, from what source those reports arose which\r\nwere so prejudicial to his reputation. Sir Mungo, in the meanwhile, caught up, as usual, Nigel's last words, or\r\nrather the sound of them, and amplified and interpreted them in his own\r\nway. “Tolerable luck!” he repeated; “yes, truly, my lord, I am told that\r\nyou have tolerable luck, and that ye ken weel how to use that jilting\r\nquean, Dame Fortune, like a canny douce lad, willing to warm yourself in\r\nher smiles, without exposing yourself to her frowns. And that is what I\r\nca' having luck in a bag.”\r\n\r\n“Sir Mungo Malagrowther,” said Lord Glenvarloch, turning towards him\r\nseriously, “have the goodness to hear me for a moment.”\r\n\r\n“As weel as I can, my lord--as weel as I can,” said Sir Mungo, shaking\r\nhis head, and pointing the finger of his left hand to his ear."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I will try to speak very distinctly,” said Nigel, arming himself with\r\npatience. “You take me for a noted gamester; I give you my word that\r\nyou have not been rightly informed--I am none such. You owe me some\r\nexplanation, at least, respecting the source from which you have derived\r\nsuch false information.”\r\n\r\n“I never heard ye were a _great_ gamester, and never thought or said ye\r\nwere such, my lord,” said Sir Mungo, who found it impossible to\r\navoid hearing what Nigel said with peculiarly deliberate and distinct\r\npronunciation. “I repeat it--I never heard, said, or thought that\r\nyou were a ruffling gamester,--such as they call those of the first\r\nhead.--Look you, my lord, I call _him_ a gamester, that plays with equal\r\nstakes and equal skill, and stands by the fortune of the game, good or\r\nbad; and I call _him_ a ruffling gamester, or ane of the first head, who\r\nventures frankly and deeply upon such a wager."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he, my lord, who has\r\nthe patience and prudence never to venture beyond small game, such as,\r\nat most, might crack the Christmas-box of a grocer's 'prentice, who vies\r\nwith those that have little to hazard, and who therefore, having the\r\nlarger stock, can always rook them by waiting for his good fortune, and\r\nby rising from the game when luck leaves him--such a one as he, my\r\nlord, I do not call a _great_ gamester, to whatever other name he may be\r\nentitled.”\r\n\r\n“And such a mean-spirited, sordid wretch, you would infer that I am,”\r\n replied Lord Glenvarloch; “one who fears the skilful, and preys upon the\r\nignorant--who avoids playing with his equals, that he may make sure\r\nof pillaging his inferiors?--Is this what I am to understand has been\r\nreported of me?”\r\n\r\n“Nay, my lord, you will gain nought by speaking big with me,” said Sir\r\nMungo, who, besides that his sarcastic humour was really supported by\r\na good fund of animal courage, had also full reliance on the immunities\r\nwhich he had derived from the broadsword of Sir Rullion Rattray, and the\r\nbaton of the satellites employed by the Lady Cockpen."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“And for the truth\r\nof the matter,” he continued, “your lordship best knows whether you\r\never lost more than five pieces at a time since you frequented\r\nBeaujeu's--whether you have not most commonly risen a winner--and\r\nwhether the brave young gallants who frequent the ordinary--I mean\r\nthose of noble rank, and means conforming--are in use to play upon those\r\nterms?”\r\n\r\n“My father was right,” said Lord Glenvarloch, in the bitterness of his\r\nspirit; “and his curse justly followed me when I first entered that\r\nplace. There is contamination in the air, and he whose fortune avoids\r\nruin, shall be blighted in his honour and reputation.”\r\n\r\nSir Mungo, who watched his victim with the delighted yet wary eye of an\r\nexperienced angler, became now aware, that if he strained the line on\r\nhim too tightly, there was every risk of his breaking hold. In order to\r\ngive him room, therefore, to play, he protested that Lord Glenvarloch\r\n“should not take his free speech _in malam partem_."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If you were a trifle\r\nower sicker in your amusement, my lord, it canna be denied that it\r\nis the safest course to prevent farther endangerment of your somewhat\r\ndilapidated fortunes; and if ye play with your inferiors, ye are\r\nrelieved of the pain of pouching the siller of your friends and\r\nequals; forby, that the plebeian knaves have had the advantage, _tecum\r\ncertasse_, as Ajax Telamon sayeth, _apud Metamorphoseos_; and for the\r\nlike of them to have played with ane Scottish nobleman is an honest and\r\nhonourable consideration to compensate the loss of their stake, whilk, I\r\ndare say, moreover, maist of the churls can weel afford.”\r\n\r\n“Be that as it may, Sir Mungo,” said Nigel, “I would fain know--”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay,” interrupted Sir Mungo; “and, as you say, who cares whether the\r\nfat bulls of Bashan can spare it or no?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "gentlemen are not to limit their\r\nsport for the like of them.”\r\n\r\n“I wish to know, Sir Mungo,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “in what company you\r\nhave learned these offensive particulars respecting me?”\r\n\r\n“Dootless--dootless, my lord,” said Sir Mungo; “I have ever heard, and\r\nhave ever reported, that your lordship kept the best of company in a\r\nprivate way.--There is the fine Countess of Blackchester, but I think\r\nshe stirs not much abroad since her affair with his Grace of Buckingham;\r\nand there is the gude auld-fashioned Scottish nobleman, Lord Huntinglen,\r\nan undeniable man of quality--it is pity but he could keep caup and can\r\nfrae his head, whilk now and then doth'minish his reputation. And there\r\nis the gay young Lord Dalgarno, that carries the craft of gray hairs\r\nunder his curled love-locks--a fair race they are, father, daughter,\r\nand son, all of the same honourable family. I think we needna speak of\r\nGeorge Heriot, honest man, when we have nobility in question."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So that\r\nis the company I have heard of your keeping, my lord, out-taken those of\r\nthe ordinary.”\r\n\r\n“My company has not, indeed, been much more extended than amongst those\r\nyou mention,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “but in short--”\r\n\r\n“To Court?” said Sir Mungo, “that was just what I was going to say--Lord\r\nDalgarno says he cannot prevail on ye to come to Court, and that does ye\r\nprejudice, my lord--the king hears of you by others, when he should see\r\nyou in person--I speak in serious friendship, my lord. His Majesty,\r\nwhen you were named in the circle short while since, was heard to say,\r\n_'Jacta est alea!_--Glenvarlochides is turned dicer and drinker.' --My\r\nLord Dalgarno took your part, and he was e'en borne down by the popular\r\nvoice of the courtiers, who spoke of you as one who had betaken yourself\r\nto living a town life, and risking your baron's coronet amongst the\r\nflatcaps of the city.”\r\n\r\n“And this was publicly spoken of me,” said Nigel, “and in the king's\r\npresence?”\r\n\r\n“Spoken openly?” repeated Sir Mungo Malagrowther; “ay, by my troth\r\nwas it--that is to say, it was whispered privately--whilk is as open\r\npromulgation as the thing permitted; for ye may think the Court is not\r\nlike a place where men are as sib as Simmie and his brother, and roar\r\nout their minds as if they were at an ordinary.”\r\n\r\n“A curse on the Court and the ordinary both!” cried Nigel, impatiently."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“With all my heart,” said the knight; “I have got little by a knight's\r\nservice in the Court; and the last time I was at the ordinary, I lost\r\nfour angels.”\r\n\r\n“May I pray of you, Sir Mungo, to let me know,” said Nigel, “the names\r\nof those who thus make free with the character of one who can be but\r\nlittle known to them, and who never injured any of them?”\r\n\r\n“Have I not told you already,” answered Sir Mungo, “that the king said\r\nsomething to that effect--so did the Prince too;--and such being the\r\ncase, ye may take it on your corporal oath, that every man in the circle\r\nwho was not silent, sung the same song as they did.”\r\n\r\n“You said but now,” replied Glenvarloch, “that Lord Dalgarno interfered\r\nin my behalf.”\r\n\r\n“In good troth did he,” answered Sir Mungo, with a sneer; “but the young\r\nnobleman was soon borne down--by token, he had something of a catarrh,\r\nand spoke as hoarse as a roopit raven."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Poor gentleman, if he had had his\r\nfull extent of voice, he would have been as well listened to, dootless,\r\nas in a cause of his ain, whilk no man kens better how to plead to\r\npurpose.--And let me ask you, by the way,” continued Sir Mungo, “whether\r\nLord Dalgarno has ever introduced your lordship to the Prince, or the\r\nDuke of Buckingham, either of whom might soon carry through your suit?”\r\n\r\n“I have no claim on the favour of either the Prince or the Duke of\r\nBuckingham,” said Lord Glenvarloch.--“As you seem to have made my\r\naffairs your study, Sir Mungo, although perhaps something unnecessarily,\r\nyou may have heard that I have petitioned my Sovereign for payment of a\r\ndebt due to my family."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I cannot doubt the king's desire to do justice,\r\nnor can I in decency employ the solicitation of his Highness the Prince,\r\nor his Grace the Duke of Buckingham, to obtain from his Majesty what\r\neither should be granted me as a right, or refused altogether.”\r\n\r\nSir Mungo twisted his whimsical features into one of his most grotesque\r\nsneers, as he replied--\r\n\r\n“It is a vera clear and parspicuous position of the case, my lord; and\r\nin relying thereupon, you show an absolute and unimprovable acquaintance\r\nwith the King, Court, and mankind in general.-But whom have we got\r\nhere?--Stand up, my lord, and make way--by my word of honour, they are\r\nthe very men we spoke of--talk of the devil, and--humph!”\r\n\r\nIt must be here premised, that, during the conversation, Lord\r\nGlenvarloch, perhaps in the hope of shaking himself free of Sir Mungo,\r\nhad directed their walk towards the more frequented part of the Park;\r\nwhile the good knight had stuck to him, being totally indifferent which\r\nway they went, provided he could keep his talons clutched upon his\r\ncompanion. They were still, however, at some distance from the livelier\r\npart of the scene, when Sir Mungo's experienced eye noticed the\r\nappearances which occasioned the latter part of his speech to Lord\r\nGlenvarloch. A low respectful murmur arose among the numerous groups of\r\npersons which occupied the lower part of the Park."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They first clustered\r\ntogether, with their faces turned towards Whitehall, then fell back\r\non either hand to give place to a splendid party of gallants, who,\r\nadvancing from the Palace, came onward through the Park; all the other\r\ncompany drawing off the pathway, and standing uncovered as they passed. Most of these courtly gallants were dressed in the garb which the\r\npencil of Vandyke has made familiar even at the distance of nearly two\r\ncenturies; and which was just at this period beginning to supersede\r\nthe more fluttering and frivolous dress which had been adopted from the\r\nFrench Court of Henri Quatre. The whole train were uncovered excepting the Prince of Wales, afterwards\r\nthe most unfortunate of British monarchs, who came onward, having his\r\nlong curled auburn tresses, and his countenance, which, even in early\r\nyouth, bore a shade of anticipated melancholy, shaded by the Spanish hat\r\nand the single ostrich feather which drooped from it. On his right\r\nhand was Buckingham, whose commanding, and at the same time graceful,\r\ndeportment, threw almost into shade the personal demeanour and majesty\r\nof the Prince on whom he attended. The eye, movements, and gestures\r\nof the great courtier were so composed, so regularly observant of all\r\netiquette belonging to his situation, as to form a marked and strong\r\ncontrast with the forward gaiety and frivolity by which he recommended\r\nhimself to the favour of his “dear dad and gossip,” King James."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A\r\nsingular fate attended this accomplished courtier, in being at once\r\nthe reigning favourite of a father and son so very opposite in manners,\r\nthat, to ingratiate himself with the youthful Prince, he was obliged\r\nto compress within the strictest limits of respectful observance the\r\nfrolicsome and free humour which captivated his aged father. It is true, Buckingham well knew the different dispositions both of\r\nJames and Charles, and had no difficulty in so conducting himself as\r\nto maintain the highest post in the favour of both. It has indeed been\r\nsupposed, as we before hinted, that the duke, when he had completely\r\npossessed himself of the affections of Charles, retained his hold in\r\nthose of the father only by the tyranny of custom; and that James,\r\ncould he have brought himself to form a vigorous resolution, was, in\r\nthe latter years of his life especially, not unlikely to have discarded\r\nBuckingham from his counsels and favour. But if ever the king indeed\r\nmeditated such a change, he was too timid, and too much accustomed to\r\nthe influence which the duke had long exercised over him, to summon up\r\nresolution enough for effecting such a purpose; and at all events it\r\nis certain, that Buckingham, though surviving the master by whom he was\r\nraised, had the rare chance to experience no wane of the most splendid\r\ncourt-favour during two reigns, until it was at once eclipsed in his\r\nblood by the dagger of his assassin Felton."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To return from this digression: The Prince, with his train, advanced,\r\nand were near the place where Lord Glenvarloch and Sir Mungo had stood\r\naside, according to form, in order to give the Prince passage, and\r\nto pay the usual marks of respect. Nigel could now remark that Lord\r\nDalgarno walked close behind the Duke of Buckingham, and, as he thought,\r\nwhispered something in his ear as they came onward. At any rate, both\r\nthe Prince's and Duke of Buckingham's attention seemed to be directed\r\nby such circumstance towards Nigel, for they turned their heads in that\r\ndirection and looked at him attentively--the Prince with a countenance,\r\nthe grave, melancholy expression of which was blended with severity;\r\nwhile Buckingham's looks evinced some degree of scornful triumph. Lord Dalgarno did not seem to observe his friend, perhaps because the\r\nsunbeams fell from the side of the walk on which Nigel stood, obliging\r\nMalcolm to hold up his hat to screen his eyes. As the Prince passed, Lord Glenvarloch and Sir Mungo bowed, as respect\r\nrequired; and the Prince, returning their obeisance with that grave\r\nceremony which paid to every rank its due, but not a tittle beyond\r\nit, signed to Sir Mungo to come forward."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Commencing an apology for his\r\nlameness as he started, which he had just completed as his hobbling gait\r\nbrought him up to the Prince, Sir Mungo lent an attentive, and, as it\r\nseemed, an intelligent ear, to questions, asked in a tone so low, that\r\nthe knight would certainly have been deaf to them had they been put to\r\nhim by any one under the rank of Prince of Wales. After about a minute's\r\nconversation, the Prince bestowed on Nigel the embarrassing notice of\r\nanother fixed look, touched his hat slightly to Sir Mungo, and walked\r\non. “It is even as I suspected, my lord,” said Sir Mungo, with an air\r\nwhich he designed to be melancholy and sympathetic, but which, in\r\nfact, resembled the grin of an ape when he has mouthed a scalding\r\nchestnut--“Ye have back-friends, my lord, that is, unfriends--or, to be\r\nplain, enemies--about the person of the Prince.”\r\n\r\n“I am sorry to hear it,” said Nigel; “but I would I knew what they\r\naccuse me of.”\r\n\r\n“Ye shall hear, my lord,” said Sir Mungo, “the Prince's vera words--'Sir\r\nMungo,' said he, 'I rejoice to see you, and am glad your rheumatic\r\ntroubles permit you to come hither for exercise.' --I bowed, as in duty\r\nbound--ye might remark, my lord, that I did so, whilk formed the first\r\nbranch of our conversation.--His Highness then demanded of me, 'if he\r\nwith whom I stood, was the young Lord Glenvarloch.'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I answered, 'that\r\nyou were such, for his Highness's service;' whilk was the second\r\nbranch.--Thirdly, his Highness, resuming the argument, said, that 'truly\r\nhe had been told so,' (meaning that he had been told you were that\r\npersonage,) 'but that he could not believe, that the heir of that noble\r\nand decayed house could be leading an idle, scandalous, and precarious\r\nlife, in the eating-houses and taverns of London, while the king's\r\ndrums were beating, and colours flying in Germany in the cause of the\r\nPalatine, his son-in-law.' --I could, your lordship is aware, do nothing\r\nbut make an obeisance; and a gracious 'Give ye good-day, Sir Mungo\r\nMalagrowther,' licensed me to fall back to your lordship. And now,\r\nmy lord, if your business or pleasure calls you to the ordinary,\r\nor anywhere in the direction of the city--why, have with you; for,\r\ndootless, ye will think ye have tarried lang enough in the Park, as they\r\nwill likely turn at the head of the walk, and return this way--and you\r\nhave a broad hint, I think, not to cross the Prince's presence in a\r\nhurry.”\r\n\r\n“_You_ may stay or go as you please, Sir Mungo,” said Nigel, with an\r\nexpression of calm, but deep resentment; “but, for my own part, my\r\nresolution is taken. I will quit this public walk for pleasure of no\r\nman--still less will I quit it like one unworthy to be seen in places of\r\npublic resort."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I trust that the Prince and his retinue will return this\r\nway as you expect; for I will abide, Sir Mungo, and beard them.”\r\n\r\n“Beard them!” exclaimed Sir Mungo, in the extremity of surprise,--“Beard\r\nthe Prince of Wales--the heir-apparent of the kingdoms!--By my saul, you\r\nshall beard him yourself then.”\r\n\r\nAccordingly, he was about to leave Nigel very hastily, when some\r\nunwonted touch of good-natured interest in his youth and experience,\r\nseemed suddenly to soften his habitual cynicism. “The devil is in me for an auld fule!” said Sir Mungo; “but I must\r\nneeds concern mysell--I that owe so little either to fortune or\r\nmy fellow-creatures, must, I say, needs concern mysell--with this\r\nspringald, whom I will warrant to be as obstinate as a pig possessed\r\nwith a devil, for it's the cast of his family; and yet I maun e'en\r\nfling away some sound advice on him.--My dainty young Lord Glenvarloch,\r\nunderstand me distinctly, for this is no bairn's-play. When the Prince\r\nsaid sae much to me as I have repeated to you, it was equivalent to\r\na command not to appear in his presence; wherefore take an auld man's\r\nadvice that wishes you weel, and maybe a wee thing better than he has\r\nreason to wish ony body."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Jouk, and let the jaw gae by, like a canny\r\nbairn--gang hame to your lodgings, keep your foot frae taverns, and your\r\nfingers frae the dice-box; compound your affairs quietly wi' some ane\r\nthat has better favour than yours about Court, and you will get a round\r\nspell of money to carry you to Germany, or elsewhere, to push your\r\nfortune. It was a fortunate soldier that made your family four or five\r\nhundred years syne, and, if you are brave and fortunate, you may find\r\nthe way to repair it. But, take my word for it, that in this Court you\r\nwill never thrive.”\r\n\r\nWhen Sir Mungo had completed his exhortation, in which there was more of\r\nsincere sympathy with another's situation, than he had been heretofore\r\nknown to express in behalf of any one, Lord Glenvarloch replied, “I am\r\nobliged to you, Sir Mungo--you have spoken, I think, with sincerity, and\r\nI thank you. But in return for your good advice, I heartily entreat you\r\nto leave me; I observe the Prince and his train are returning down the\r\nwalk, and you may prejudice yourself, but cannot help me, by remaining\r\nwith me.”\r\n\r\n“And that is true,”--said Sir Mungo; “yet, were I ten years younger,\r\nI would be tempted to stand by you, and gie them the meeting. But at\r\nthreescore and upward, men's courage turns cauldrife; and they that\r\ncanna win a living, must not endanger the small sustenance of their\r\nage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I wish you weel through, my lord, but it is an unequal fight.” So\r\nsaying, he turned and limped away; often looking back, however, as if\r\nhis natural spirit, even in its present subdued state, aided by his\r\nlove of contradiction and of debate, rendered him unwilling to adopt the\r\ncourse necessary for his own security. Thus abandoned by his companion, whose departure he graced with better\r\nthoughts of him than those which he bestowed on his appearance, Nigel\r\nremained with his arms folded, and reclining against a solitary tree\r\nwhich overhung the path, making up his mind to encounter a moment which\r\nhe expected to be critical of his fate. But he was mistaken in supposing\r\nthat the Prince of Wales would either address him, or admit him to\r\nexpostulation, in such a public place as the Park. He did not remain\r\nunnoticed, however, for, when he made a respectful but haughty\r\nobeisance, intimating in look and manner that he was possessed of, and\r\nundaunted by, the unfavourable opinion which the Prince had so lately\r\nexpressed, Charles returned his reverence with such a frown, as is only\r\ngiven by those whose frown is authority and decision. The train passed\r\non, the Duke of Buckingham not even appearing to see Lord Glenvarloch;\r\nwhile Lord Dalgarno, though no longer incommoded by the sunbeams, kept\r\nhis eyes, which had perhaps been dazzled by their former splendour, bent\r\nupon the ground."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lord Glenvarloch had difficulty to restrain an indignation, to which,\r\nin the circumstances, it would have been madness to have given vent. He\r\nstarted from his reclining posture, and followed the Prince's train so\r\nas to keep them distinctly in sight; which was very easy, as they walked\r\nslowly. Nigel observed them keep their road towards the Palace, where\r\nthe Prince turned at the gate and bowed to the noblemen in attendance,\r\nin token of dismissing them, and entered the Palace, accompanied only by\r\nthe Duke of Buckingham, and one or two of his equerries. The rest of\r\nthe train, having returned in all dutiful humility the farewell of the\r\nPrince, began to disperse themselves through the Park. All this was carefully noticed by Lord Glenvarloch, who, as he adjusted\r\nhis cloak, and drew his sword-belt round so as to bring the hilt closer\r\nto his hand, muttered--“Dalgarno shall explain all this to me, for it is\r\nevident that he is in the secret!”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XVI\r\n\r\n\r\n  Give way--give way--I must and will have justice. And tell me not of privilege and place;\r\n  Where I am injured, there I'll sue redress. Look to it, every one who bars my access;\r\n  I have a heart to feel the injury,\r\n  A hand to night myself, and, by my honour,\r\n  That hand shall grasp what grey-beard Law denies me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_The Chamberlain._\r\n\r\nIt was not long ere Nigel discovered Lord Dalgarno advancing towards him\r\nin the company of another young man of quality of the Prince's train;\r\nand as they directed their course towards the south-eastern corner of\r\nthe Park, he concluded they were about to go to Lord Huntinglen's. They\r\nstopped, however, and turned up another path leading to the north; and\r\nLord Glenvarloch conceived that this change of direction was owing to\r\ntheir having seen him, and their desire to avoid him. Nigel followed them without hesitation by a path which, winding around\r\na thicket of shrubs and trees, once more conducted him to the less\r\nfrequented part of the Park. He observed which side of the thicket\r\nwas taken by Lord Dalgarno and his companion, and he himself, walking\r\nhastily round the other verge, was thus enabled to meet them face to\r\nface. “Good-morrow, my Lord Dalgarno,” said Lord Glenvarloch, sternly. “Ha! my friend Nigel,” answered Lord Dalgarno, in his usual careless and\r\nindifferent tone, “my friend Nigel, with business on his brow?--but you\r\nmust wait till we meet at Beaujeu's at noon--Sir Ewes Haldimund and I\r\nare at present engaged in the Prince's service.”\r\n\r\n“If you were engaged in the king's, my lord,” said Lord Glenvarloch,\r\n“you must stand and answer me.”\r\n\r\n“Hey-day!” said Lord Dalgarno, with an air of great astonishment, “what\r\npassion is this?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why, Nigel, this is King Cambyses' vein!--You have\r\nfrequented the theatres too much lately--Away with this folly, man; go,\r\ndine upon soup and salad, drink succory-water to cool your blood, go to\r\nbed at sun-down, and defy those foul fiends, Wrath and Misconstruction.”\r\n\r\n“I have had misconstruction enough among you,” said Glenvarloch, in the\r\nsame tone of determined displeasure, “and from you, my Lord Dalgarno, in\r\nparticular, and all under the mask of friendship.”\r\n\r\n“Here is a proper business!”--said Dalgarno, turning as if to appeal to\r\nSir Ewes Haldimund; “do you see this angry ruffler, Sir Ewes?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "A month\r\nsince, he dared not have looked one of yonder sheep in the face, and\r\nnow he is a prince of roisterers, a plucker of pigeons, a controller of\r\nplayers and poets--and in gratitude for my having shown him the way\r\nto the eminent character which he holds upon town, he comes hither to\r\nquarrel with his best friend, if not his only one of decent station.”\r\n\r\n“I renounce such hollow friendship, my lord,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “I\r\ndisclaim the character which, even to my very face, you labour to fix\r\nupon me, and ere we part I will call you to a reckoning for it.”\r\n\r\n“My lords both,” interrupted Sir Ewes Haldimund, “let me remind you that\r\nthe Royal Park is no place to quarrel in.”\r\n\r\n“I will make my quarrel good,” said Nigel, who did not know, or in\r\nhis passion might not have recollected, the privileges of the place,\r\n“wherever I find my enemy.”\r\n\r\n“You shall find quarelling enough,” replied Lord Dalgarno, calmly, “so\r\nsoon as you assign a sufficient cause for it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Ewes Haldimund,\r\nwho knows the Court, will warrant you that I am not backward on such\r\noccasions.--But of what is it that you now complain, after having\r\nexperienced nothing save kindness from me and my family?”\r\n\r\n“Of your family I complain not,” replied Lord Glenvarloch; “they have\r\ndone for me all they could, more, far more, than I could have expected;\r\nbut you, my lord, have suffered me, while you called me your friend, to\r\nbe traduced, where a word of your mouth would have placed my character\r\nin its true colours--and hence the injurious message which I just now\r\nreceived from the Prince of Wales. To permit the misrepresentation of a\r\nfriend, my lord, is to share in the slander.”\r\n\r\n“You have been misinformed, my Lord Glenvarloch,” said Sir Ewes\r\nHaldimund; “I have myself often heard Lord Dalgarno defend your\r\ncharacter, and regret that your exclusive attachment to the pleasures of\r\na London life prevented your paying your duty regularly to the King and\r\nPrince.”\r\n\r\n“While he himself,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “dissuaded me from presenting\r\nmyself at Court.”\r\n\r\n“I will cut this matter short,” said Lord Dalgarno, with haughty\r\ncoldness. “You seem to have conceived, my lord, that you and I were\r\nPylades and Orestes--a second edition of Damon and Pythias--Theseus and\r\nPirithoiis at the least."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You are mistaken, and have given the name of\r\nfriendship to what, on my part, was mere good-nature and compassion for\r\na raw and ignorant countryman, joined to the cumbersome charge which my\r\nfather gave me respecting you. Your character, my lord, is of no one's\r\ndrawing, but of your own making. I introduced you where, as in all such\r\nplaces, there was good and indifferent company to be met with--your\r\nhabits, or taste, made you prefer the worse. Your holy horror at the\r\nsight of dice and cards degenerated into the cautious resolution to play\r\nonly at those times, and with such persons, as might ensure your rising\r\na winner--no man can long do so, and continue to be held a gentleman. Such is the reputation you have made for yourself, and you have no right\r\nto be angry that I do not contradict in society what yourself know to be\r\ntrue. Let us pass on, my lord; and if you want further explanation, seek\r\nsome other time and fitter place.”\r\n\r\n“No time can be better than the present,” said Lord Glenvarloch, whose\r\nresentment was now excited to the uttermost by the cold-blooded and\r\ninsulting manner, in which Dalgarno vindicated himself,--“no place\r\nfitter than the place where we now stand. Those of my house have ever\r\navenged insult, at the moment, and on the spot, where it was offered,\r\nwere it at the foot of the throne.--Lord Dalgarno, you are a villain!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "draw and defend yourself.” At the same moment he unsheathed his rapier. “Are you mad?” said Lord Dalgarno, stepping back; “we are in the\r\nprecincts of the Court.”\r\n\r\n“The better,” answered Lord Glenvarloch; “I will cleanse them from a\r\ncalumniator and a coward.” He then pressed on Lord Dalgarno, and struck\r\nhim with the flat of the sword. The fray had now attracted attention, and the cry went round, “Keep\r\nthe peace--keep the peace--swords drawn in the Park!--What, ho! guards!--keepers--yeomen--rangers!” and a number of people came rushing\r\nto the spot from all sides. Lord Dalgarno, who had half drawn his sword on receiving the blow,\r\nreturned it to his scabbard when he observed the crowd thicken, and,\r\ntaking Sir Ewes Haldimund by the arm, walked hastily away, only saying\r\nto Lord Glenvarloch as they left him, “You shall dearly abye this\r\ninsult--we will meet again.”\r\n\r\nA decent-looking elderly man, who observed that Lord Glenvarloch\r\nremained on the spot, taking compassion on his youthful appearance,\r\nsaid to him, “Are you aware that this is a Star-Chamber business, young\r\ngentleman, and that it may cost you your right hand?--Shift for yourself\r\nbefore the keepers or constables come up--Get into Whitefriars or\r\nsomewhere, for sanctuary and concealment, till you can make friends or\r\nquit the city.”\r\n\r\nThe advice was not to be neglected. Lord Glenvarloch made hastily\r\ntowards the issue from the Park by Saint James's Palace, then Saint\r\nJames's Hospital."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The hubbub increased behind him; and several\r\npeace-officers of the Royal Household came up to apprehend the\r\ndelinquent. Fortunately for Nigel, a popular edition of the cause of the\r\naffray had gone abroad. It was said that one of the Duke of Buckingham's\r\ncompanions had insulted a stranger gentleman from the country, and that\r\nthe stranger had cudgelled him soundly. A favourite, or the companion\r\nof a favourite, is always odious to John Bull, who has, besides, a\r\npartiality to those disputants who proceed, as lawyers term it, _par\r\nwye du fait_, and both prejudices were in Nigel's favour. The officers,\r\ntherefore, who came to apprehend him, could learn from the spectators no\r\nparticulars of his appearance, or information concerning the road he had\r\ntaken; so that, for the moment, he escaped being arrested. What Lord Glenvarloch heard among the crowd as he passed along, was\r\nsufficient to satisfy him, that in his impatient passion he had placed\r\nhimself in a predicament of considerable danger. He was no stranger\r\nto the severe and arbitrary proceedings of the Court of Star-Chamber,\r\nespecially in cases of breach of privilege, which made it the terror\r\nof all men; and it was no farther back than the Queen's time that the\r\npunishment of mutilation had been actually awarded and executed, for\r\nsome offence of the same kind which he had just committed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had also\r\nthe comfortable reflection, that, by his violent quarrel with Lord\r\nDalgarno, he must now forfeit the friendship and good offices of that\r\nnobleman's father and sister, almost the only persons of consideration\r\nin whom he could claim any interest; while all the evil reports which\r\nhad been put in circulation concerning his character, were certain to\r\nweigh heavily against him, in a case where much must necessarily depend\r\non the reputation of the accused. To a youthful imagination, the idea\r\nof such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself;\r\nand every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled\r\nwith, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his\r\noffence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting\r\nsuspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him,\r\nthat his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering\r\nknife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure\r\nto consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name\r\nof Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the\r\nprivilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief\r\nJustice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Indeed, as the place\r\nabounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens,\r\nruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes,\r\nhomicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued\r\ntogether to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both\r\ndifficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants\r\nemanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety\r\nwas inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord\r\nGlenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed\r\nthe only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and\r\nsecure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure\r\nto provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in\r\nsome shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of\r\nsanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno\r\nto lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his\r\nintemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into\r\nthe purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. “Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that,” were his bitter reflections; “I\r\nhave made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels,\r\nand neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed\r\nimplicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even\r\nfrom the slightest approach of evil."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But if I escape from the perilous\r\nlabyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions,\r\nhave involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of\r\na name which was never sullied until I bore it.”\r\n\r\nAs Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the\r\nTemple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by\r\nwhich, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to\r\nthe sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from\r\nwhich his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there,\r\nhis pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of\r\nthe _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it\r\nwere not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public\r\nhaunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself\r\nin those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards\r\nhim, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the\r\nordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild\r\nyoung gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at\r\nthe theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his\r\nfather supposed he was employing in the study of the law."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Reginald\r\nLowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that\r\nlittle law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the\r\npaternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose,\r\nand therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science\r\nthan might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which\r\nhe had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the\r\nplace, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often\r\nvery far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed\r\nsundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of\r\nold Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below\r\nhim. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted\r\nwith the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable\r\nway. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by\r\nname and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's\r\nthis day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the\r\nboard before they could reach the ordinary. “I do not go there to-day,” answered Lord Glenvarloch. “Which way, then,\r\nmy lord?” said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to\r\nparade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but\r\na Scottish one."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I--I--” said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local\r\nknowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to\r\ntake refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation\r\nin which he stood--“I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars.”\r\n\r\n“What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia?” said\r\nLowestoffe-“-Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to\r\nthe infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to\r\nbe found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with,\r\nthough somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship\r\nwill pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would\r\nhave proposed such a voyage of discovery.”\r\n\r\n“I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have\r\nexpressed in the observation,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “but my present\r\ncircumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the\r\nsanctuary a matter of necessity.”\r\n\r\n“Indeed!” said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; “I thought your\r\nlordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg\r\npardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much\r\nlaw as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere\r\nimpecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in\r\nWhitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty.”\r\n\r\n“My misfortune has no connexion with want of money,” said Nigel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Why, then, I suppose,” said Lowestoffe, “you have been tilting,\r\nmy lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a\r\npurse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a\r\ntwelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of\r\ntheir worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so\r\nfar you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you\r\nelse.”\r\n\r\n“My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe,” answered\r\nLord Glenvarloch, “as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a\r\ngentleman in the Park, that is all.”\r\n\r\n“By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through\r\nhim at Barns Elms,” said the Templar. “Strike within the verge of\r\nthe Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands,\r\nespecially if your party be of rank and have favour.”\r\n\r\n“I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe,” said Nigel, “since I have\r\ngone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen\r\nat Beaujeu's.”\r\n\r\n“A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most\r\nunhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot\r\nbear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We\r\nconverse here greatly too open for your circumstances."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The Templars\r\nwould suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be\r\narrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter\r\nbetween Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on\r\neither side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers\r\nhere, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take\r\nsanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars\r\nabout you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We\r\nmust have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or\r\nthere will be no life there for you.”\r\n\r\nWhile Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into\r\nhis chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems\r\nand play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a\r\nboy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's\r\nshop; “and this,” he said, “must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass\r\nof old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me\r\na dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey,\r\nwhen I felt my breast ache with over study."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Marry, we will drink the\r\ngood lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you\r\nshall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall.”\r\n\r\nThe outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had\r\nre-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and\r\nadmit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble\r\nguest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners,\r\nthough much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were\r\ncalculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though\r\nhis experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of\r\nreposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his\r\ngratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and\r\naccommodation. “You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord,”\r\n said the Templar. “No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman\r\nthat has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve\r\nyour lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's\r\ntruth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno.”\r\n\r\n“May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe?” said Lord Glenvarloch."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“O, my lord,” replied the Templar, “it was for a hap that chanced after\r\nyou left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I\r\nthink you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play\r\nbegan--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when\r\nthere were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game\r\nat gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which\r\nwent for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I\r\nheld king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and\r\ntiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may\r\nsuppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as\r\nfair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk\r\npurse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his\r\nlordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood\r\nby and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was\r\nobliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I\r\nhave not a crow to pluck with his lordship."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Was it ever heard there was\r\na game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry\r\nquep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his\r\nhand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch\r\npenny makes every man equal.”\r\n\r\nAs Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord\r\nGlenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of\r\naristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the\r\ndice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society,\r\nto which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was\r\nimpossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of\r\nthe young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the\r\nconversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of\r\nWhite-friars. There also his host was at home. “You know, my lord,” said Master Lowestoffe, “that we Templars are a\r\npower and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold\r\nsome rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last\r\nyear, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity\r\nmyself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining\r\nan amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the\r\nChristian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make\r\nalliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States.”\r\n\r\n“I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of\r\nyour neighbours,” said Lord Glenvarloch. “You do us something too much honour, my lord,” said the Templar; “the\r\nAlsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose,\r\nsome common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of\r\nour bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate\r\nnot a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians\r\nhave--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing\r\nour friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within\r\ntheir bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the\r\nleague is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that\r\nI have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator\r\nwell approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that?”\r\n\r\nThe sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a\r\ndistant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote\r\nhuzza. “There is something doing,” said Lowestoffe, “in the Whitefriars at this\r\nmoment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff\r\nor bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the\r\nrescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim,” he\r\nsaid, calling out to the attendant, “and see what they are doing in\r\nAlsatia.--That bastard of a boy,” he continued, as the lad, accustomed\r\nto the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of\r\nthe apartment, and so down stairs, “is worth gold in this quarter--he\r\nserves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would\r\nthink him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time\r\nmost needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever\r\nmatched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from\r\nthat of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can\r\ntell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at\r\nthe upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your\r\nlordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's\r\ncordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your\r\nvalet or groom of the chamber?”\r\n\r\nLord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully\r\nsensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be\r\ndone for his extrication."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced,\r\nand led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes,\r\nportmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe,\r\nhe began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually\r\nto disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent\r\nsociety of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII\r\n\r\n\r\n Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now\r\n 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation\r\n More than by constant income--Single-suited\r\n They are, I grant you; yet each single suit\r\n Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers--\r\n And they be men, who, hazarding their all,\r\n Needful apparel, necessary income,\r\n And human body, and immortal soul,\r\n Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion;\r\n Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer,\r\n And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend;\r\n Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes,\r\n Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._\r\n\r\n“Your lordship,” said Reginald Lowestoffe, “must be content to exchange\r\nyour decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe\r\nkeeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about\r\nthe hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil\r\nand moderate hose."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in\r\n_cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured\r\nembroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of\r\nthe grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to\r\nchange your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you.”\r\n\r\nLowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed\r\nhis instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly\r\ndisguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he\r\nconsidered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act\r\nof violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of\r\nhis son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was\r\nsure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when\r\nhe reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and\r\ninsinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in\r\na situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most\r\nunseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a\r\npredicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his\r\nfriendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment--“Zounds!” he said, “my\r\nlord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours\r\nat the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Here\r\nis Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a\r\nprivy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to\r\nthe teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse\r\nof the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was\r\nafter some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy,\r\nthe man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that\r\nthey would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most\r\njudicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all\r\nis quiet.”\r\n\r\n“And who may Duke Hildebrod be?” said Lord Glenvarloch. “Nouns! my lord,” said the Templar, “have you lived so long on the town,\r\nand never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke\r\nHildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the\r\nman had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame.”\r\n\r\n“Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe,” said Lord\r\nGlenvarloch; “or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to\r\naught that may have passed in conversation respecting him.”\r\n\r\n“Why, then,” said Lowestoffe--“but, first, let me have the honour of\r\ntrussing you."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of\r\nset purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt\r\nbe seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will\r\nhave so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in\r\nAlsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the\r\npoints carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too\r\naccurately trussed--so.”\r\n\r\n“Arrange it as you will, sir,” said Nigel; “but let me hear at least\r\nsomething of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with\r\nother wretches, I am compelled to retreat.”\r\n\r\n“Why, my lord,” replied the Templar, “our neighbouring state of Alsatia,\r\nwhich the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations\r\nand revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a\r\nlawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have\r\nbeen more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the\r\nTemplars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have\r\nhad the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty\r\nrevolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state\r\nhas repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not\r\nforgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and\r\neven gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine\r\nmonths by an old fish-woman."}
{"question": "", "answer": "'I hen it fell under the dominion of a\r\nbroken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving\r\ntyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon\r\nresignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the\r\nfirst, whom Heaven long preserve.”\r\n\r\n“And is this potentate's government,” said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing\r\nhimself to take some interest in the conversation, “of a despotic\r\ncharacter?”\r\n\r\n“Pardon me, my lord,” said the Templar; “this said sovereign is too\r\nwise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding\r\nso important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a\r\ncouncil of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught\r\nat seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their\r\n_ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the\r\nhour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of\r\nthe commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of\r\nthe state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy\r\nsenate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high\r\noffice, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending\r\nsovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship,\r\nthat they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you\r\na place of residence.”\r\n\r\n“Does their authority extend to such regulation?” said Lord Glenvarloch."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord,”\r\n answered Lowestoffe; “and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means\r\nby which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his\r\nsenate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and\r\nfactious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or\r\nnew lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can\r\npay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As\r\nfor the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the\r\nregistration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of\r\ngarnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and\r\nthe Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should\r\ndispute these points of jurisdiction.”\r\n\r\n“Well, Master Lowestoffe,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “I must be controlled\r\nby the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of\r\ncourse, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank.”\r\n\r\n“It will be highly advisable, my lord,” said Lowestoffe; “and is a\r\ncase thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or\r\nwhatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked\r\nhim concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape\r\nthe usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise\r\nbelonging to his condition."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Complying with this essential stipulation,\r\nyour lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for\r\nnot a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with\r\nnews of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship\r\nmyself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the\r\ninfluence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple,\r\nwhich is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions\r\nwhen we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time\r\nis propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple\r\nwalks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your\r\npresent exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs\r\nthat go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor\r\nsunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a\r\nnobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars.”\r\n\r\nThey went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed\r\nthe gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar\r\nexclaimed,--“And now let us sing, with Ovid,\r\n\r\n     'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--'\r\n\r\nOff, off, ye lendings!” he continued, in the same vein."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Via, the\r\ncurtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord?” he continued,\r\nwhen he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading\r\nchange in his situation, “I trust you are not offended at my rattling\r\nfolly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give\r\nyou the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only\r\nbe your residence for a very few days.”\r\n\r\nNigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, “I am\r\nsensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own\r\nfolly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its\r\nbitterness.”\r\n\r\nReginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but,\r\nused to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the\r\nleast idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and\r\nthought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of\r\na wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the\r\nappearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it\r\nproduced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the\r\nelevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally\r\ninvolved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The brick\r\nbuildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for,\r\nin a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but,\r\nerected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their\r\nspeculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the\r\nlamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable\r\nexhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the\r\nwants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of\r\ncomplaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths,\r\nprofane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses\r\nand taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all\r\nthe other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be\r\nevident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at\r\nthe strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied\r\nwith the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary,\r\nwhich were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the\r\npassengers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“_Semi-reducta Venus_,” said the Templar, pointing to one of these\r\nnymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself\r\nbehind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant\r\nof a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.--“I\r\nknow the face of yonder waistcoateer,” continued the guide; “and I could\r\nwager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean\r\nhead-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male\r\ninhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades,\r\nwhom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and\r\npudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast\r\nagainst the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will\r\nhis writ of _capias_.”\r\n\r\nAs he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians,\r\nwhose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled\r\nwith the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under\r\nthe old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some\r\nstraggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their\r\nbroad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the\r\nostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an\r\nextravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully,\r\nthen, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Tour out,” said the one ruffian to the other; “tour the bien mort\r\ntwiring at the gentry cove!” [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is\r\ncoquetting with the strange gallants!] “I smell a spy,” replied the other, looking at Nigel. “Chalk him across\r\nthe peepers with your cheery.” [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with\r\nyour dagger.] “Bing avast, bing avast!” replied his companion; “yon other is rattling\r\nReginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and\r\nfree of the province.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke,\r\nthey went on without farther greeting. “_Grasso in aere_!” said the Templar. “You hear what a character the\r\nimpudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care\r\nnot.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for\r\nwe are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod.”\r\n\r\n“I will be called Grahame,” said Nigel; “it was my mother's name.”\r\n\r\n“Grime,” repeated the Templar, “will suit Alsatia well enough--both a\r\ngrim and grimy place of refuge.”\r\n\r\n“I said Grahame, sir, not Grime,” said Nigel, something shortly, and\r\nlaying an emphasis on the vowel--for few Scotsmen understand raillery\r\nupon the subject of their names."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I beg pardon, my lord,” answered the undisconcerted punster; “but\r\n_Graam_ will suit the circumstance, too--it signifies tribulation in\r\nthe High Dutch, and your lordship must be considered as a man under\r\ntrouble.”\r\n\r\nNigel laughed at the pertinacity of the Templar; who, proceeding to\r\npoint out a sign representing, or believed to represent, a dog attacking\r\na bull, and running at his head, in the true scientific style of\r\nonset,--“There,” said he, “doth faithful Duke Hildebrod deal forth laws,\r\nas well as ale and strong waters, to his faithful Alsatians. Being a\r\ndetermined champion of Paris Garden, he has chosen a sign corresponding\r\nto his habits; and he deals in giving drink to the thirsty, that he\r\nhimself may drink without paying, and receive pay for what is drunken by\r\nothers.--Let us enter the ever-open gate of this second Axylus.”\r\n\r\nAs they spoke, they entered the dilapidated tavern, which was,\r\nnevertheless, more ample in dimensions, and less ruinous, than many\r\nhouses in the same evil neighbourhood. Two or three haggard, ragged\r\ndrawers, ran to and fro, whose looks, like those of owls, seemed only\r\nadapted for midnight, when other creatures sleep, and who by day seemed\r\nbleared, stupid, and only half awake."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Guided by one of these blinking\r\nGanymedes, they entered a room, where the feeble rays of the sun were\r\nalmost wholly eclipsed by volumes of tobacco-smoke, rolled from the\r\ntubes of the company, while out of the cloudy sanctuary arose the old\r\nchant of--\r\n\r\n      “Old Sir Simon the King,\r\n       And old Sir Simon the King,\r\n       With his malmsey nose,\r\n       And his ale-dropped hose,\r\n       And sing hey ding-a-ding-ding.”\r\n\r\nDuke Hildebrod, who himself condescended to chant this ditty to his\r\nloving subjects, was a monstrously fat old man, with only one eye; and\r\na nose which bore evidence to the frequency, strength, and depth of\r\nhis potations. He wore a murrey-coloured plush jerkin, stained with the\r\noverflowings of the tankard, and much the worse for wear, and unbuttoned\r\nat bottom for the ease of his enormous paunch. Behind him lay a\r\nfavourite bull-dog, whose round head and single black glancing eye, as\r\nwell as the creature's great corpulence, gave it a burlesque resemblance\r\nto its master. The well-beloved counsellors who surrounded the ducal throne, incensed\r\nit with tobacco, pledged its occupier in thick clammy ale, and echoed\r\nback his choral songs, were Satraps worthy of such a Soldan. The buff\r\njerkin, broad belt, and long sword of one, showed him to be a Low\r\nCountry soldier, whose look of scowling importance, and drunken\r\nimpudence, were designed to sustain his title to call himself a Roving\r\nBlade. It seemed to Nigel that he had seen this fellow somewhere or\r\nother."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A hedge-parson, or buckle-beggar, as that order of priesthood\r\nhas been irreverently termed, sat on the Duke's left, and was easily\r\ndistinguished by his torn band, flapped hat, and the remnants of a rusty\r\ncassock. Beside the parson sat a most wretched and meagre-looking old\r\nman, with a threadbare hood of coarse kersey upon his head, and buttoned\r\nabout his neck, while his pinched features, like those of old Daniel,\r\nwere illuminated by\r\n\r\n                            --“an eye,\r\n  Through the last look of dotage still cunning and sly.”\r\n\r\nOn his left was placed a broken attorney, who, for some malpractices,\r\nhad been struck from the roll of practitioners, and who had nothing\r\nleft of his profession, except its roguery. One or two persons of\r\nless figure, amongst whom there was one face, which, like that of the\r\nsoldier, seemed not unknown to Nigel, though he could not recollect\r\nwhere he had seen it, completed the council-board of Jacob Duke\r\nHildebrod. The strangers had full time to observe all this; for his grace the Duke,\r\nwhether irresistibly carried on by the full tide of harmony, or whether\r\nto impress the strangers with a proper idea of his consequence, chose\r\nto sing his ditty to an end before addressing them, though, during the\r\nwhole time, he closely scrutinized them with his single optic."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When Duke Hildebrod had ended his song, he informed his Peers that a\r\nworthy officer of the Temple attended them, and commanded the captain\r\nand parson to abandon their easy chairs in behalf of the two strangers,\r\nwhom he placed on his right and left hand. The worthy representative of\r\nthe army and the church of Alsatia went to place themselves on a crazy\r\nform at the bottom of the table, which, ill calculated to sustain men\r\nof such weight, gave way under them, and the man of the sword and man of\r\nthe gown were rolled over each other on the floor, amidst the exulting\r\nshouts of the company. They arose in wrath, contending which should vent\r\nhis displeasure in the loudest and deepest oaths, a strife in which\r\nthe parson's superior acquaintance with theology enabled him greatly to\r\nexcel the captain, and were at length with difficulty tranquillised by\r\nthe arrival of the alarmed waiters with more stable chairs, and by a\r\nlong draught of the cooling tankard. When this commotion was appeased,\r\nand the strangers courteously accommodated with flagons, after the\r\nfashion of the others present, the Duke drank prosperity to the Temple\r\nin the most gracious manner, together with a cup of welcome to Master\r\nReginald Lowestoffe; and, this courtesy having been thankfully accepted,\r\nthe party honoured prayed permission to call for a gallon of Rhenish,\r\nover which he proposed to open his business."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The mention of a liquor so superior to their usual potations had an\r\ninstant and most favourable effect upon the little senate; and its\r\nimmediate appearance might be said to secure a favourable reception\r\nof Master Lowestoffe's proposition, which, after a round or two had\r\ncirculated, he explained to be the admission of his friend Master Nigel\r\nGrahame to the benefit of the sanctuary and other immunities of Alsatia,\r\nin the character of a grand compounder; for so were those termed who\r\npaid a double fee at their matriculation, in order to avoid laying\r\nbefore the senate the peculiar circumstances which compelled them to\r\ntake refuge there. The worthy Duke heard the proposition with glee, which glittered in his\r\nsingle eye; and no wonder, as it was a rare occurrence, and of peculiar\r\nadvantage to his private revenue. Accordingly, he commanded his ducal\r\nregister to be brought him, a huge book, secured with brass clasps like\r\na merchant's ledger, and whose leaves, stained with wine, and slabbered\r\nwith tobacco juice, bore the names probably of as many rogues as are to\r\nbe found in the Calendar of Newgate."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nigel was then directed to lay down two nobles as his ransom, and to\r\nclaim privilege by reciting the following doggerel verses, which were\r\ndictated to him by the Duke:--\r\n\r\n        “Your suppliant, by name\r\n         Nigel Grahame,\r\n         In fear of mishap\r\n         From a shoulder-tap;\r\n         And dreading a claw\r\n         From the talons of law,\r\n          That are sharper than briers:\r\n         His freedom to sue,\r\n         And rescue by you--\r\n         Thorugh weapon and wit,\r\n         From warrant and writ,\r\n         From bailiff's hand,\r\n         From tipstaff's wand,\r\n          Is come hither to Whitefriars.”\r\n\r\nAs Duke Hildebrod with a tremulous hand began to make the entry, and had\r\nalready, with superfluous generosity, spelled Nigel with two g's instead\r\nof one, he was interrupted by the parson. [Footnote: This curious\r\nregister is still in existence, being in possession of that eminent\r\nantiquary, Dr. Dryasdust, who liberally offered the author permission to\r\nhave the autograph of Duke Hildebrod engraved as an illustration of this\r\npassage. Unhappily, being rigorous as Ritson himself in adhering to the\r\nvery letter of his copy, the worthy Doctor clogged his munificence with\r\nthe condition that we should adopt the Duke's orthography, and entitle\r\nthe work “The Fortunes of Niggle,” with which stipulation we did\r\nnot think it necessary to comply.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "This reverend gentleman had been\r\nwhispering for a minute or two, not with the captain, but with that\r\nother individual, who dwelt imperfectly, as we have already mentioned,\r\nin Nigel's memory, and being, perhaps, still something malecontent on\r\naccount of the late accident, he now requested to be heard before the\r\nregistration took place. “The person,” he said, “who hath now had the assurance to propose\r\nhimself as a candidate for the privileges and immunities of this\r\nhonourable society, is, in plain terms, a beggarly Scot, and we have\r\nenough of these locusts in London already--if we admit such palmer-worms\r\nand caterpillars to the Sanctuary, we shall soon have the whole nation.”\r\n\r\n“We are not entitled to inquire,” said Duke Hildebrod, “whether he be\r\nScot, or French, or English; seeing he has honourably laid down his\r\ngarnish, he is entitled to our protection.”\r\n\r\n“Word of denial, most Sovereign Duke,” replied the parson, “I ask him no\r\nquestions--his speech betrayeth him--he is a Galilean--and his garnish\r\nis forfeited for his assurance in coming within this our realm; and I\r\ncall on you, Sir Duke, to put the laws in force against him!”\r\n\r\nThe Templar here rose, and was about to interrupt the deliberations of\r\nthe court, when the Duke gravely assured him that he should be heard\r\nin behalf of his friend, so soon as the council had finished their\r\ndeliberations."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The attorney next rose, and, intimating that he was to speak to the\r\npoint of law, said--“It was easy to be seen that this gentleman did not\r\ncome here in any civil case, and that he believed it to be the story\r\nthey had already heard of concerning a blow given within the verge of\r\nthe Park--that the Sanctuary would not bear out the offender in such\r\ncase--and that the queer old Chief would send down a broom which would\r\nsweep the streets of Alsatia from the Strand to the Stairs; and it\r\nwas even policy to think what evil might come to their republic, by\r\nsheltering an alien in such circumstances.”\r\n\r\nThe captain, who had sat impatiently while these opinions were\r\nexpressed, now sprung on his feet with the vehemence of a cork bouncing\r\nfrom a bottle of brisk beer, and, turning up his mustaches with a\r\nmartial air, cast a glance of contempt on the lawyer and churchman,\r\nwhile he thus expressed his opinion. “Most noble Duke Hildebrod!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "When I hear such base, skeldering, coistril\r\npropositions come from the counsellors of your grace, and when I\r\nremember the Huffs, the Muns, and the Tityretu's by whom your grace's\r\nancestors and predecessors were advised on such occasions, I begin to\r\nthink the spirit of action is as dead in Alsatia as in my old grannam;\r\nand yet who thinks so thinks a lie, since I will find as many roaring\r\nboys in the Friars as shall keep the liberties against all the\r\nscavengers of Westminster. And, if we should be overborne for a turn,\r\ndeath and darkness! have we not time to send the gentleman off by water,\r\neither to Paris Garden or to the bankside? and, if he is a gallant of\r\ntrue breed, will he not make us full amends for all the trouble we have?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Let other societies exist by the law, I say that we brisk boys of\r\nthe Fleet live in spite of it; and thrive best when we are in right\r\nopposition to sign and seal, writ and warrant, sergeant and tipstaff,\r\ncatchpoll, and bum-bailey.”\r\n\r\nThis speech was followed by a murmur of approbation, and Lowestoffe,\r\nstriking in before the favourable sound had subsided, reminded the Duke\r\nand his council how much the security of their state depended upon the\r\namity of the Templars, who, by closing their gates, could at pleasure\r\nshut against the Alsatians the communication betwixt the Friars and the\r\nTemple, and that as they conducted themselves on this occasion, so would\r\nthey secure or lose the benefit of his interest with his own body, which\r\nthey knew not to be inconsiderable. “And, in respect of my friend being\r\na Scotsman and alien, as has been observed by the reverend divine and\r\nlearned lawyer, you are to consider,” said Lowestoffe, “for what he is\r\npursued hither--why, for giving the bastinado, not to an Englishman, but\r\nto one of his own countrymen."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And for my own simple part,” he continued,\r\ntouching Lord Glenvarloch at the same time, to make him understand he\r\nspoke but in jest, “if all the Scots in London were to fight a Welsh\r\nmain, and kill each other to a man, the survivor would, in my humble\r\nopinion, be entitled to our gratitude, as having done a most acceptable\r\nservice to poor Old England.”\r\n\r\nA shout of laughter and applause followed this ingenious apology for the\r\nclient's state of alienage; and the Templar followed up his plea with\r\nthe following pithy proposition:--“I know well,” said he, “it is the\r\ncustom of the fathers of this old and honourable republic, ripely\r\nand well to consider all their proceedings over a proper allowance of\r\nliquor; and far be it from me to propose the breach of so laudable a\r\ncustom, or to pretend that such an affair as the present can be well and\r\nconstitutionally considered during the discussion of a pitiful gallon\r\nof Rhenish."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, as it is the same thing to this honourable conclave\r\nwhether they drink first and determine afterwards, or whether they\r\ndetermine first and drink afterwards, I propose your grace, with the\r\nadvice of your wise and potent senators, shall pass your edict, granting\r\nto mine honourable friend the immunities of the place, and assigning\r\nhim a lodging, according to your wise forms, to which he will presently\r\nretire, being somewhat spent with this day's action; whereupon I will\r\npresently order you a rundlet of Rhenish, with a corresponding quantity\r\nof neats' tongues and pickled herrings, to make you all as glorious as\r\nGeorge-a-Green.”\r\n\r\nThis overture was received with a general shout of applause, which\r\naltogether drowned the voice of the dissidents, if any there were\r\namongst the Alsatian senate who could have resisted a proposal so\r\npopular. The words of, kind heart! noble gentleman! generous gallant! flew from mouth to mouth; the inscription of the petitioner's name in\r\nthe great book was hastily completed, and the oath administered to him\r\nby the worthy Doge. Like the Laws of the Twelve Tables, of the ancient\r\nCambro-Britons, and other primitive nations, it was couched in poetry,\r\nand ran as follows:--\r\n\r\n “By spigot and barrel,\r\n  By bilboe and buff;\r\n  Thou art sworn to the quarrel\r\n  Of the blades of the huff."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For Whitefriars and its claims\r\n  To be champion or martyr,\r\n  And to fight for its dames\r\n  Like a Knight of the Garter.”\r\n\r\nNigel felt, and indeed exhibited, some disgust at this mummery; but,\r\nthe Templar reminding him that he was too far advanced to draw back,\r\nhe repeated the words, or rather assented as they were repeated by Duke\r\nHildebrod, who concluded the ceremony by allowing him the privilege of\r\nsanctuary, in the following form of prescriptive doggerel:--\r\n\r\n “From the touch of the tip,\r\n  From the blight of the warrant,\r\n  From the watchmen who skip\r\n  On the Harman Beck's errand;\r\n  From the bailiffs cramp speech,\r\n  That makes man a thrall,\r\n  I charm thee from each,\r\n  And I charm thee from all."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Thy freedom's complete\r\n  As a Blade of the Huff,\r\n  To be cheated and cheat,\r\n  To be cuff'd and to cuff;\r\n  To stride, swear, and swagger,\r\n  To drink till you stagger,\r\n  To stare and to stab,\r\n  And to brandish your dagger\r\n  In the cause of your drab;\r\n  To walk wool-ward in winter,\r\n  Drink brandy, and smoke,\r\n  And go _fresco_ in summer\r\n  For want of a cloak;\r\n  To eke out your living\r\n  By the wag of your elbow,\r\n  By fulham and gourd,\r\n  And by baring of bilboe;\r\n  To live by your shifts,\r\n  And to swear by your honour,\r\n  Are the freedom and gifts\r\n  Of which I am the donor.” [Footnote: Of the cant words used in this\r\ninauguratory oration, some are obvious in their meaning, others, as\r\nHarman Beck (constable), and the like, derive their source from that\r\nancient piece of lexicography, the Slang Dictionary]\r\n\r\nThis homily being performed, a dispute arose concerning the special\r\nresidence to be assigned the new brother of the Sanctuary; for, as\r\nthe Alsatians held it a maxim in their commonwealth, that ass's milk\r\nfattens, there was usually a competition among the inhabitants which\r\nshould have the managing, as it was termed, of a new member of the\r\nsociety."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The Hector who had spoken so warmly and critically in Nigel's behalf,\r\nstood out now chivalrously in behalf of a certain Blowselinda, or\r\nBonstrops, who had, it seems, a room to hire, once the occasional\r\nresidence of Slicing Dick of Paddington, who lately suffered at Tyburn,\r\nand whose untimely exit had been hitherto mourned by the damsel in\r\nsolitary widowhood, after the fashion of the turtle-dove. The captain's interest was, however, overruled, in behalf of the old\r\ngentleman in the kersey hood, who was believed, even at his extreme age,\r\nto understand the plucking of a pigeon, as well, or better, than any man\r\nin Alsatia. This venerable personage was an usurer of notoriety, called Trapbois,\r\nand had very lately done the state considerable service in advancing a\r\nsubsidy necessary to secure a fresh importation of liquors to the Duke's\r\ncellars, the wine-merchant at the Vintry being scrupulous to deal with\r\nso great a man for any thing but ready money. When, therefore, the old gentleman arose, and with much coughing,\r\nreminded the Duke that he had a poor apartment to let, the claims of all\r\nothers were set aside, and Nigel was assigned to Trapbois as his guest. No sooner was this arrangement made, than Lord Glenvarloch expressed to\r\nLowestoffe his impatience to leave this discreditable assembly, and took\r\nhis leave with a careless haste, which, but for the rundlet of Rhenish\r\nwine that entered just as he left the apartment, might have been taken\r\nin bad part."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The young Templar accompanied his friend to the house of\r\nthe old usurer, with the road to which he and some other youngsters\r\nabout the Temple were even but too well acquainted. On the way, he\r\nassured Lord Glenvarloch that he was going to the only clean house in\r\nWhitefriars; a property which it owed solely to the exertions of the old\r\nman's only daughter, an elderly damsel, ugly enough to frighten sin, yet\r\nlikely to be wealthy enough to tempt a puritan, so soon as the devil had\r\ngot her old dad for his due. As Lowestoffe spoke thus, they knocked at\r\nthe door of the house, and the sour stern countenance of the female by\r\nwhom it was opened, fully confirmed all that the Templar had said of\r\nthe hostess. She heard with an ungracious and discontented air the young\r\nTemplar's information, that the gentleman, his companion, was to be her\r\nfather's lodger, muttered something about the trouble it was likely\r\nto occasion, but ended by showing the stranger's apartment, which was\r\nbetter than could have been augured from the general appearance of the\r\nplace, and much larger in extent than that which he occupied at Paul's\r\nWharf, though inferior to it in neatness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lowestoffe, having thus seen his friend fairly installed in his new\r\napartment, and having obtained for him a note of the rate at which he\r\ncould be accommodated with victuals from a neighbouring cook's shop, now\r\ntook his leave, offering, at the same time, to send the whole, or any\r\npart of Lord Glenvarloch's baggage, from his former place of residence\r\nto his new lodging. Nigel mentioned so few articles, that the Templar\r\ncould not help observing, that his lordship, it would seem, did not\r\nintend to enjoy his new privileges long. “They are too little suited to my habits and taste, that I should do\r\nso,” replied Lord Glenvarloch. “You may change your opinion to-morrow,” said Lowestoffe; “and so I wish\r\nyou a good even. To-morrow I will visit you betimes.”\r\n\r\nThe morning came, but instead of the Templar, it brought only a letter\r\nfrom him. The epistle stated, that Lowestoffe's visit to Alsatia had\r\ndrawn down the animadversions of some crabbed old pantaloons among the\r\nbenchers, and that he judged it wise not to come hither at present, for\r\nfear of attracting too much attention to Lord Glenvarloch's place of\r\nresidence. He stated, that he had taken measures for the safety of his\r\nbaggage, and would send him, by a safe hand, his money-casket, and\r\nwhat articles he wanted. Then followed some sage advices, dictated by\r\nLowestoffe's acquaintance with Alsatia and its manners."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He advised him\r\nto keep the usurer in the most absolute uncertainty concerning the state\r\nof his funds-never to throw a main with the captain, who was in the\r\nhabit of playing dry-fisted, and paying his losses with three vowels;\r\nand, finally, to beware of Duke Hildebrod, who was as sharp, he said,\r\nas a needle, though he had no more eyes than are possessed by that\r\nnecessary implement of female industry. CHAPTER XVIII\r\n\r\n\r\n_Mother._ What I dazzled by a flash from Cupid's mirror, With which\r\nthe boy, as mortal urchins wont, Flings back the sunbeam in the eye of\r\npassengers--Then laughs to see them stumble! _Daughter._ Mother! no--It was a lightning-flash which dazzled me, And\r\nnever shall these eyes see true again. _Beef and Pudding.-An Old English\r\nComedy._\r\n\r\nIt is necessary that we should leave our hero Nigel for a time, although\r\nin a situation neither safe, comfortable, nor creditable, in order\r\nto detail some particulars which have immediate connexion with his\r\nfortunes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was but the third day after he had been forced to take refuge in the\r\nhouse of old Trapbois, the noted usurer of Whitefriars, commonly called\r\nGolden Trapbois, when the pretty daughter of old Ramsay, the watchmaker,\r\nafter having piously seen her father finish his breakfast, (from\r\nthe fear that he might, in an abstruse fit of thought, swallow the\r\nsalt-cellar instead of a crust of the brown loaf,) set forth from the\r\nhouse as soon as he was again plunged into the depth of calculation,\r\nand, accompanied only by that faithful old drudge, Janet, the Scots\r\nlaundress, to whom her whims were laws, made her way to Lombard Street,\r\nand disturbed, at the unusual hour of eight in the morning, Aunt Judith,\r\nthe sister of her worthy godfather. The venerable maiden received her young visitor with no great\r\ncomplacency; for, naturally enough, she had neither the same admiration\r\nof her very pretty countenance, nor allowance for her foolish and\r\ngirlish impatience of temper, which Master George Heriot entertained. Still Mistress Margaret was a favourite of her brother's, whose will was\r\nto Aunt Judith a supreme law; and she contented herself with asking her\r\nuntimely visitor, “what she made so early with her pale, chitty face, in\r\nthe streets of London?”\r\n\r\n“I would speak with the Lady Hermione,” answered the almost breathless\r\ngirl, while the blood ran so fast to her face as totally to remove the\r\nobjection of paleness which Aunt Judith had made to her complexion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“With the Lady Hermione?” said Aunt Judith--“with the Lady Hermione? and\r\nat this time in the morning, when she will scarce see any of the family,\r\neven at seasonable hours? You are crazy, you silly wench, or you abuse\r\nthe indulgence which my brother and the lady have shown to you.”\r\n\r\n“Indeed, indeed I have not,” repeated Margaret, struggling to retain the\r\nunbidden tear which seemed ready to burst out on the slightest occasion. “Do but say to the lady that your brother's god-daughter desires\r\nearnestly to speak to her, and I know she will not refuse to see me.”\r\n\r\nAunt Judith bent an earnest, suspicious, and inquisitive glance on her\r\nyoung visitor, “You might make me your secretary, my lassie,” she said,\r\n“as well as the Lady Hermione. I am older, and better skilled to advise. I live more in the world than one who shuts herself up within four\r\nrooms, and I have the better means to assist you.”\r\n\r\n“O! no--no--no,” said Margaret, eagerly, and with more earnest sincerity\r\nthan complaisance; “there are some things to which you cannot advise me,\r\nAunt Judith. It is a case--pardon me, my dear aunt--a case beyond your\r\ncounsel.”\r\n\r\n“I am glad on't, maiden,” said Aunt Judith, somewhat angrily; “for I\r\nthink the follies of the young people of this generation would drive mad\r\nan old brain like mine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Here you come on the viretot, through the whole\r\nstreets of London, to talk some nonsense to a lady, who scarce sees\r\nGod's sun, but when he shines on a brick wall. But I will tell her you\r\nare here.”\r\n\r\nShe went away, and shortly returned with a dry--“Miss Marget, the lady\r\nwill be glad to see you; and that's more, my young madam, than you had a\r\nright to count upon.”\r\n\r\nMistress Margaret hung her head in silence, too much perplexed by\r\nthe train of her own embarrassed thoughts, for attempting either to\r\nconciliate Aunt Judith's kindness, or, which on other occasions\r\nwould have been as congenial to her own humour, to retaliate on her\r\ncross-tempered remarks and manner. She followed Aunt Judith, therefore,\r\nin silence and dejection, to the strong oaken door which divided the\r\nLady Hermione's apartments from the rest of George Heriot's spacious\r\nhouse. At the door of this sanctuary it is necessary to pause, in order to\r\ncorrect the reports with which Richie Moniplies had filled his master's\r\near, respecting the singular appearance of that lady's attendance at\r\nprayers, whom we now own to be by name the Lady Hermione."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Some part\r\nof these exaggerations had been communicated to the worthy Scotsman by\r\nJenkin Vincent, who was well experienced in the species of wit which\r\nhas been long a favourite in the city, under the names of cross-biting,\r\ngiving the dor, bamboozling, cramming, hoaxing, humbugging, and\r\nquizzing; for which sport Richie Moniplies, with his solemn gravity,\r\ntotally unapprehensive of a joke, and his natural propensity to the\r\nmarvellous, formed an admirable subject. Farther ornaments the tale had\r\nreceived from Richie himself, whose tongue, especially when oiled with\r\ngood liquor, had a considerable tendency to amplification, and\r\nwho failed not, while he retailed to his master all the wonderful\r\ncircumstances narrated by Vincent, to add to them many conjectures of\r\nhis own, which his imagination had over-hastily converted into facts. Yet the life which the Lady Hermione had led for two years, during which\r\nshe had been the inmate of George Heriot's house, was so singular, as\r\nalmost to sanction many of the wild reports which went abroad. The house\r\nwhich the worthy goldsmith inhabited, had in former times belonged to a\r\npowerful and wealthy baronial family, which, during the reign of Henry\r\nVIII., terminated in a dowager lady, very wealthy, very devout, and most\r\nunalienably attached to the Catholic faith. The chosen friend of the\r\nHonourable Lady Foljambe was the Abbess of Saint Roque's Nunnery, like\r\nherself a conscientious, rigid, and devoted Papist."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When the house of\r\nSaint Roque was despotically dissolved by the fiat of the impetuous\r\nmonarch, the Lady Foljambe received her friend into her spacious\r\nmansion, together with two vestal sisters, who, like their Abbess, were\r\ndetermined to follow the tenor of their vows, instead of embracing the\r\nprofane liberty which the Monarch's will had thrown in their choice. For their residence, the Lady Foljambe contrived, with all secrecy--for\r\nHenry might not have relished her interference--to set apart a suite of\r\nfour rooms, with a little closet fitted up as an oratory, or chapel; the\r\nwhole apartments fenced by a stout oaken door to exclude strangers, and\r\naccommodated with a turning wheel to receive necessaries, according\r\nto the practice of all nunneries. In this retreat, the Abbess of Saint\r\nRoque and her attendants passed many years, communicating only with the\r\nLady Foljambe, who, in virtue of their prayers, and of the support she\r\nafforded them, accounted herself little less than a saint on earth. The\r\nAbbess, fortunately for herself, died before her munificent patroness,\r\nwho lived deep in Queen Elizabeth's time, ere she was summoned by fate. The Lady Foljambe was succeeded in this mansion by a sour fanatic\r\nknight, a distant and collateral relation, who claimed the same merit\r\nfor expelling the priestess of Baal, which his predecessor had founded\r\non maintaining the votaresses of Heaven."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Of the two unhappy nuns, driven\r\nfrom their ancient refuge, one went beyond sea; the other, unable from\r\nold age to undertake such a journey, died under the roof of a faithful\r\nCatholic widow of low degree. Sir Paul Crambagge, having got rid of\r\nthe nuns, spoiled the chapel of its ornaments, and had thoughts of\r\naltogether destroying the apartments, until checked by the reflection\r\nthat the operation would be an unnecessary expense, since he only\r\ninhabited three rooms of the large mansion, and had not therefore the\r\nslightest occasion for any addition to its accommodations. His son\r\nproved a waster and a prodigal, and from him the house was bought by our\r\nfriend George Heriot, who, finding, like Sir Paul, the house more than\r\nsufficiently ample for his accommodation, left the Foljambe apartments,\r\nor Saint Roque's rooms, as they were called, in the state in which he\r\nfound them. About two years and a half before our history opened, when Heriot was\r\nabsent upon an expedition to the Continent, he sent special orders to\r\nhis sister and his cash-keeper, directing that the Foljambe apartments\r\nshould be fitted up handsomely, though plainly, for the reception of\r\na lady, who would make them her residence for some time; and who would\r\nlive more or less with his own family according to her pleasure. He also\r\ndirected, that the necessary repairs should be made with secrecy,\r\nand that as little should be said as possible upon the subject of his\r\nletter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When the time of his return came nigh, Aunt Judith and the household\r\nwere on the tenter-hooks of impatience. Master George came, as he had\r\nintimated, accompanied by a lady, so eminently beautiful, that, had\r\nit not been for her extreme and uniform paleness, she might have been\r\nreckoned one of the loveliest creatures on earth. She had with her an\r\nattendant, or humble companion, whose business seemed only to wait upon\r\nher. This person, a reserved woman, and by her dialect a foreigner, aged\r\nabout fifty, was called by the lady Monna Paula, and by Master Heriot,\r\nand others, Mademoiselle Pauline. She slept in the same room with\r\nher patroness at night, ate in her apartment, and was scarcely ever\r\nseparated from her during the day. These females took possession of the nunnery of the devout Abbess, and,\r\nwithout observing the same rigorous seclusion, according to the letter,\r\nseemed wellnigh to restore the apartments to the use to which they had\r\nbeen originally designed. The new inmates lived and took their meals\r\napart from the rest of the family. With the domestics Lady Hermione, for\r\nso she was termed, held no communication, and Mademoiselle Pauline only\r\nsuch as was indispensable, which she dispatched as briefly as possible. Frequent and liberal largesses reconciled the servants to this conduct;\r\nand they were in the habit of observing to each other, that to do a\r\nservice for Mademoiselle Pauline, was like finding a fairy treasure."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To Aunt Judith the Lady Hermione was kind and civil, but their\r\nintercourse was rare; on which account the elder lady felt some pangs\r\nboth of curiosity and injured dignity. But she knew her brother so well,\r\nand loved him so dearly, that his will, once expressed, might be truly\r\nsaid to become her own. The worthy citizen was not without a spice of\r\nthe dogmatism which grows on the best disposition, when a word is a\r\nlaw to all around. Master George did not endure to be questioned by his\r\nfamily, and, when he had generally expressed his will, that the Lady\r\nHermione should live in the way most agreeable to her, and that no\r\ninquiries should be made concerning their history, or her motives for\r\nobserving such strict seclusion, his sister well knew that he would have\r\nbeen seriously displeased with any attempt to pry into the secret. But, though Heriot's servants were bribed, and his sister awed into\r\nsilent acquiescence in these arrangements, they were not of a nature to\r\nescape the critical observation of the neighbourhood. Some opined that\r\nthe wealthy goldsmith was about to turn papist, and re-establish Lady\r\nFoljambe's nunnery--others that he was going mad--others that he\r\nwas either going to marry, or to do worse."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Master George's constant\r\nappearance at church, and the knowledge that the supposed votaress\r\nalways attended when the prayers of the English ritual were read in the\r\nfamily, liberated him from the first of these suspicions; those who\r\nhad to transact business with him upon 'Change, could not doubt the\r\nsoundness of Master Heriot's mind; and, to confute the other rumours,\r\nit was credibly reported by such as made the matter their particular\r\ninterest, that Master George Heriot never visited his guest but in\r\npresence of Mademoiselle Pauline, who sat with her work in a remote part\r\nof the same room in which they conversed. It was also ascertained that\r\nthese visits scarcely ever exceeded an hour in length, and were usually\r\nonly repeated once a week, an intercourse too brief and too long\r\ninterrupted, to render it probable that love was the bond of their\r\nunion. The inquirers were, therefore, at fault, and compelled to relinquish\r\nthe pursuit of Master Heriot's secret, while a thousand ridiculous\r\ntales were circulated amongst the ignorant and superstitious, with some\r\nspecimens of which our friend Richie Moniplies had been _crammed_, as we\r\nhave seen, by the malicious apprentice of worthy David Ramsay. There was one person in the world who, it was thought, could (if she\r\nwould) have said more of the Lady Hermione than any one in London,\r\nexcept George Heriot himself; and that was the said David Ramsay's only\r\nchild, Margaret."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This girl was not much past the age of fifteen when the Lady Hermione\r\nfirst came to England, and was a very frequent visitor at her\r\ngodfather's, who was much amused by her childish sallies, and by the\r\nwild and natural beauty with which she sung the airs of her native\r\ncountry. Spoilt she was on all hands; by the indulgence of her\r\ngodfather, the absent habits and indifference of her father, and the\r\ndeference of all around to her caprices, as a beauty and as an heiress. But though, from these circumstances, the city-beauty had become as\r\nwilful, as capricious, and as affected, as unlimited indulgence seldom\r\nfails to render those to whom it is extended; and although she exhibited\r\nupon many occasions that affectation of extreme shyness, silence, and\r\nreserve, which misses in their teens are apt to take for an amiable\r\nmodesty; and, upon others, a considerable portion of that flippancy,\r\nwhich youth sometimes confounds with wit, Mistress Margaret had much\r\nreal shrewdness and judgment, which wanted only opportunities of\r\nobservation to refine it--a lively, good-humoured, playful disposition,\r\nand an excellent heart."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her acquired follies were much increased by\r\nreading plays and romances, to which she devoted a great deal of her\r\ntime, and from which she adopted ideas as different as possible from\r\nthose which she might have obtained from the invaluable and affectionate\r\ninstructions of an excellent mother; and the freaks of which she was\r\nsometimes guilty, rendered her not unjustly liable to the charge of\r\naffectation and coquetry. But the little lass had sense and shrewdness\r\nenough to keep her failings out of sight of her godfather, to whom she\r\nwas sincerely attached; and so high she stood in his favour, that, at\r\nhis recommendation, she obtained permission to visit the recluse Lady\r\nHermione. The singular mode of life which that lady observed; her great beauty,\r\nrendered even more interesting by her extreme paleness; the conscious\r\npride of being admitted farther than the rest of the world into the\r\nsociety of a person who was wrapped in so much mystery, made a\r\ndeep impression on the mind of Margaret Ramsay; and though their\r\nconversations were at no time either long or confidential, yet, proud of\r\nthe trust reposed in her, Margaret was as secret respecting their tenor\r\nas if every word repeated had been to cost her life."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No inquiry, however\r\nartfully backed by flattery and insinuation, whether on the part of Dame\r\nUrsula, or any other person equally inquisitive, could wring from the\r\nlittle maiden one word of what she heard or saw, after she entered these\r\nmysterious and secluded apartments. The slightest question concerning\r\nMaster Heriot's ghost, was sufficient, at her gayest moment, to check\r\nthe current of her communicative prattle, and render her silent. We mention this, chiefly to illustrate the early strength of Margaret's\r\ncharacter--a strength concealed under a hundred freakish whims and\r\nhumours, as an ancient and massive buttress is disguised by its\r\nfantastic covering of ivy and wildflowers. In truth, if the damsel had\r\ntold all she heard or saw within the Foljambe apartments, she would have\r\nsaid but little to gratify the curiosity of inquirers. At the earlier period of their acquaintance, the Lady Hermione was wont\r\nto reward the attentions of her little friend with small but elegant\r\npresents, and entertain her by a display of foreign rarities and\r\ncuriosities, many of them of considerable value. Sometimes the time\r\nwas passed in a way much less agreeable to Margaret, by her receiving\r\nlessons from Pauline in the use of the needle. But, although her\r\npreceptress practised these arts with a dexterity then only known in\r\nforeign convents, the pupil proved so incorrigibly idle and awkward,\r\nthat the task of needlework was at length given up, and lessons of music\r\nsubstituted in their stead."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Here also Pauline was excellently qualified\r\nas an instructress, and Margaret, more successful in a science for which\r\nNature had gifted her, made proficiency both in vocal and instrumental\r\nmusic. These lessons passed in presence of the Lady Hermione, to whom\r\nthey seemed to give pleasure. She sometimes added her own voice to the\r\nperformance, in a pure, clear stream of liquid melody; but this was only\r\nwhen the music was of a devotional cast. As Margaret became older, her\r\ncommunications with the recluse assumed a different character. She was\r\nallowed, if not encouraged, to tell whatever she had remarked out of\r\ndoors, and the Lady Hermione, while she remarked the quick, sharp, and\r\nretentive powers of observation possessed by her young friend, often\r\nfound sufficient reason to caution her against rashness in forming\r\nopinions, and giddy petulance in expressing them. The habitual awe with which she regarded this singular personage,\r\ninduced Mistress Margaret, though by no means delighting in\r\ncontradiction or reproof, to listen with patience to her admonitions,\r\nand to make full allowance for the good intentions of the patroness by\r\nwhom they were bestowed; although in her heart she could hardly conceive\r\nhow Madame Hermione, who never stirred from the Foljambe apartments,\r\nshould think of teaching knowledge of the world to one who walked twice\r\na-week between Temple Bar and Lombard Street, besides parading in\r\nthe Park every Sunday that proved to be fair weather."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Indeed, pretty\r\nMistress Margaret was so little inclined to endure such remonstrances,\r\nthat her intercourse with the inhabitants of the Foljambe apartments\r\nwould have probably slackened as her circle of acquaintance increased\r\nin the external world, had she not, on the one hand, entertained an\r\nhabitual reverence for her monitress, of which she could not divest\r\nherself, and been flattered, on the other, by being to a certain degree\r\nthe depository of a confidence for which others thirsted in vain. Besides, although the conversation of Hermione was uniformly serious, it\r\nwas not in general either formal or severe; nor was the lady offended by\r\nflights of levity which Mistress Margaret sometimes ventured on in her\r\npresence, even when they were such as made Monna Paula cast her eyes\r\nupwards, and sigh with that compassion which a devotee extends towards\r\nthe votaries of a trivial and profane world. Thus, upon the whole, the\r\nlittle maiden was disposed to submit, though not without some wincing,\r\nto the grave admonitions of the Lady Hermione; and the rather that the\r\nmystery annexed to the person of her monitress was in her mind early\r\nassociated with a vague idea of wealth and importance, which had been\r\nrather confirmed than lessened by many accidental circumstances which\r\nshe had noticed since she was more capable of observation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It frequently happens, that the counsel which we reckon intrusive when\r\noffered to us unasked, becomes precious in our eyes when the pressure of\r\ndifficulties renders us more diffident of our own judgment than we are\r\napt to find ourselves in the hours of ease and indifference; and this is\r\nmore especially the case if we suppose that our adviser may also possess\r\npower and inclination to back his counsel with effectual assistance. Mistress Margaret was now in that situation. She was, or believed\r\nherself to be, in a condition where both advice and assistance might be\r\nnecessary; and it was therefore, after an anxious and sleepless night,\r\nthat she resolved to have recourse to the Lady Hermione, who she knew\r\nwould readily afford her the one, and, as she hoped, might also possess\r\nmeans of giving her the other. The conversation between them will best\r\nexplain the purport of the visit. CHAPTER XIX\r\n\r\n\r\n  By this good light, a wench of matchless mettle! This were a leaguer-lass to love a soldier,\r\n  To bind his wounds, and kiss his bloody brow,\r\n  And sing a roundel as she help'd to arm him,\r\n  Though the rough foeman's drums were beat so nigh,\r\n  They seem'd to bear the burden."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_Old Play._\r\n\r\nWhen Mistress Margaret entered the Foljambe apartment, she found the\r\ninmates employed in their usual manner; the lady in reading, and her\r\nattendant in embroidering a large piece of tapestry, which had occupied\r\nher ever since Margaret had been first admitted within these secluded\r\nchambers. Hermione nodded kindly to her visitor, but did not speak; and Margaret,\r\naccustomed to this reception, and in the present case not sorry for it,\r\nas it gave her an interval to collect her thoughts, stooped over Monna\r\nPaula's frame and observed, in a half whisper, “You were just so far as\r\nthat rose, Monna, when I first saw you--see, there is the mark where I\r\nhad the bad luck to spoil the flower in trying to catch the stitch--I\r\nwas little above fifteen then. These flowers make me an old woman, Monna\r\nPaula.”\r\n\r\n“I wish they could make you a wise one, my child,” answered Monna Paula,\r\nin whose esteem pretty Mistress Margaret did not stand quite so high as\r\nin that of her patroness; partly owing to her natural austerity, which\r\nwas something intolerant of youth and gaiety, and partly to the jealousy\r\nwith which a favourite domestic regards any one whom she considers as a\r\nsort of rival in the affections of her mistress. “What is it you say to Monna, little one?” asked the lady."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Nothing, madam,” replied Mistress Margaret, “but that I have seen the\r\nreal flowers blossom three times over since I first saw Monna Paula\r\nworking in her canvass garden, and her violets have not budded yet.”\r\n\r\n“True, lady-bird,” replied Hermione; “but the buds that are longest in\r\nblossoming will last the longest in flower. You have seen them in the\r\ngarden bloom thrice, but you have seen them fade thrice also; now, Monna\r\nPaula's will remain in blow for ever--they will fear neither frost nor\r\ntempest.”\r\n\r\n“True, madam,” answered Mistress Margaret; “but neither have they life\r\nor odour.”\r\n\r\n“That, little one,” replied the recluse, “is to compare a life agitated\r\nby hope and fear, and chequered with success and disappointment, and\r\nfevered by the effects of love and hatred, a life of passion and of\r\nfeeling, saddened and shortened by its exhausting alternations, to a\r\ncalm and tranquil existence, animated but by a sense of duties, and only\r\nemployed, during its smooth and quiet course, in the unwearied discharge\r\nof them. Is that the moral of your answer?”\r\n\r\n“I do not know, madam,” answered Mistress Margaret; “but, of all birds\r\nin the air, I would rather be the lark, that sings while he is drifting\r\ndown the summer breeze, than the weathercock that sticks fast yonder\r\nupon his iron perch, and just moves so much as to discharge his duty,\r\nand tell us which way the wind blows.”\r\n\r\n“Metaphors are no arguments, my pretty maiden,” said the Lady Hermione,\r\nsmiling."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I am sorry for that, madam,” answered Margaret; “for they are such a\r\npretty indirect way of telling one's mind when it differs from one's\r\nbetters--besides, on this subject there is no end of them, and they are\r\nso civil and becoming withal.”\r\n\r\n“Indeed?” replied the lady; “let me hear some of them, I pray you.”\r\n\r\n“It would be, for example, very bold in me,” said Margaret, “to say\r\nto your ladyship, that, rather than live a quiet life, I would like a\r\nlittle variety of hope and fear, and liking and disliking--and--and--and\r\nthe other sort of feelings which your ladyship is pleased to speak of;\r\nbut I may say freely, and without blame, that I like a butterfly better\r\nthan a bettle, or a trembling aspen better than a grim Scots fir, that\r\nnever wags a leaf--or that of all the wood, brass, and wire that ever my\r\nfather's fingers put together, I do hate and detest a certain huge\r\nold clock of the German fashion, that rings hours and half hours, and\r\nquarters and half quarters, as if it were of such consequence that the\r\nworld should know it was wound up and going."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now, dearest lady, I wish\r\nyou would only compare that clumsy, clanging, Dutch-looking piece of\r\nlumber, with the beautiful timepiece that Master Heriot caused my father\r\nto make for your ladyship, which uses to play a hundred merry tunes, and\r\nturns out, when it strikes the hour, a whole band of morrice dancers, to\r\ntrip the hays to the measure.”\r\n\r\n“And which of these timepieces goes the truest, Margaret?” said the\r\nlady. “I must confess the old Dutchman has the advantage in that”--said\r\nMargaret. “I fancy you are right, madam, and that comparisons are no\r\narguments; at least mine has not brought me through.”\r\n\r\n“Upon my word, maiden Margaret,” said the lady, smiling, “you have been\r\nof late thinking very much of these matters.”\r\n\r\n“Perhaps too much, madam,” said Margaret, so low as only to be heard by\r\nthe lady, behind the back of whose chair she had now placed herself. The\r\nwords were spoken very gravely, and accompanied by a half sigh, which\r\ndid not escape the attention of her to whom they were addressed. The Lady Hermione turned immediately round, and looked earnestly at\r\nMargaret, then paused for a moment, and, finally, commanded Monna Paula\r\nto carry her frame and embroidery into the antechamber. When they were\r\nleft alone, she desired her young friend to come from behind the chair\r\non the back of which she still rested, and sit down beside her upon a\r\nstool."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I will remain thus, madam, under your favour,” answered Margaret,\r\nwithout changing her posture; “I would rather you heard me without\r\nseeing me.”\r\n\r\n“In God's name, maiden,” returned her patroness, “what is it you can\r\nhave to say, that may not be uttered face to face, to so true a friend\r\nas I am?”\r\n\r\nWithout making any direct answer, Margaret only replied, “You were\r\nright, dearest lady, when you said, I had suffered my feelings too much\r\nto engross me of late. I have done very wrong, and you will be angry\r\nwith me--so will my godfather, but I cannot help it--he must be\r\nrescued.”\r\n\r\n“_He?_” repeated the lady, with emphasis; “that brief little word does,\r\nindeed, so far explain your mystery;--but come from behind the chair,\r\nyou silly popinjay! I will wager you have suffered yonder gay young\r\napprentice to sit too near your heart. I have not heard you mention\r\nyoung Vincent for many a day--perhaps he has not been out of mouth and\r\nout of mind both. Have you been so foolish as to let him speak to you\r\nseriously?--I am told he is a bold youth.”\r\n\r\n“Not bold enough to say any thing that could displease me, madam,” said\r\nMargaret. “Perhaps, then, you were _not_ displeased,” said the lady; “or perhaps\r\nhe has not _spoken_, which would be wiser and better. Be open-hearted,\r\nmy love--your godfather will soon return, and we will take him into\r\nour consultations."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If the young man is industrious, and come of honest\r\nparentage, his poverty may be no such insurmountable obstacle. But you\r\nare both of you very young, Margaret--I know your godfather will expect,\r\nthat the youth shall first serve out his apprenticeship.”\r\n\r\nMargaret had hitherto suffered the lady to proceed, under the mistaken\r\nimpression which she had adopted, simply because she could not tell how\r\nto interrupt her; but pure despite at hearing her last words gave her\r\nboldness at length to say “I crave your pardon, madam; but neither\r\nthe youth you mention, nor any apprentice or master within the city of\r\nLondon--”\r\n\r\n“Margaret,” said the lady, in reply, “the contemptuous tone with which\r\nyou mention those of your own class, (many hundreds if not thousands of\r\nwhom are in all respects better than yourself, and would greatly honour\r\nyou by thinking of you,) is methinks, no warrant for the wisdom of your\r\nchoice--for a choice, it seems, there is. Who is it, maiden, to whom you\r\nhave thus rashly attached yourself?--rashly, I fear it must be.”\r\n\r\n“It is the young Scottish Lord Glenvarloch, madam,” answered Margaret,\r\nin a low and modest tone, but sufficiently firm, considering the\r\nsubject. “The young Lord of Glenvarloch!” repeated the lady, in great\r\nsurprise--“Maiden, you are distracted in your wits.”\r\n\r\n“I knew you would say so, madam,” answered Margaret."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“It is what another\r\nperson has already told me--it is, perhaps, what all the world would\r\ntell me--it is what I am sometimes disposed to tell myself. But look\r\nat me, madam, for I will now come before you, and tell me if there is\r\nmadness or distraction in my look and word, when I repeat to you again,\r\nthat I have fixed my affections on this young nobleman.”\r\n\r\n“If there is not madness in your look or word, maiden, there is infinite\r\nfolly in what you say,” answered the Lady Hermione, sharply. “When did\r\nyou ever hear that misplaced love brought any thing but wretchedness? Seek a match among your equals, Margaret, and escape the countless\r\nkinds of risk and misery that must attend an affection beyond your\r\ndegree.--Why do you smile, maiden? Is there aught to cause scorn in what\r\nI say?”\r\n\r\n“Surely no, madam,” answered Margaret. “I only smiled to think how it\r\nshould happen, that, while rank made such a wide difference between\r\ncreatures formed from the same clay, the wit of the vulgar should,\r\nnevertheless, jump so exactly the same length with that of the\r\naccomplished and the exalted. It is but the variation of the phrase\r\nwhich divides them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dame Ursley told me the very same thing which your\r\nladyship has but now uttered; only you, madam, talk of countless misery,\r\nand Dame Ursley spoke of the gallows, and Mistress Turner, who was\r\nhanged upon it.”\r\n\r\n“Indeed?” answered the Lady Hermione; “and who may Dame Ursley be,\r\nthat your wise choice has associated with me in the difficult task of\r\nadvising a fool?”\r\n\r\n“The barber's wife at next door, madam,” answered Margaret, with feigned\r\nsimplicity, but far from being sorry at heart, that she had found an\r\nindirect mode of mortifying her monitress. “She is the wisest woman that\r\nI know, next to your ladyship.”\r\n\r\n“A proper confidant,” said the lady, “and chosen with the same delicate\r\nsense of what is due to yourself and others!--But what ails you,\r\nmaiden--where are you going?”\r\n\r\n“Only to ask Dame Ursley's advice,” said Margaret, as if about to\r\ndepart; “for I see your ladyship is too angry to give me any, and the\r\nemergency is pressing.”\r\n\r\n“What emergency, thou simple one?” said the lady, in a kinder\r\ntone.--“Sit down, maiden, and tell me your tale. It is true you are a\r\nfool, and a pettish fool to boot; but then you are a child--an amiable\r\nchild, with all your self-willed folly, and we must help you, if we\r\ncan.--Sit down, I say, as you are desired, and you will find me a safer\r\nand wiser counseller than the barber-woman."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And tell me how you come to\r\nsuppose, that you have fixed your heart unalterably upon a man whom you\r\nhave seen, as I think, but once.”\r\n\r\n“I have seen him oftener,” said the damsel, looking down; “but I have\r\nonly spoken to him once. I should have been able to get that once out of\r\nmy head, though the impression was so deep, that I could even now repeat\r\nevery trifling word he said; but other things have since riveted it in\r\nmy bosom for ever.”\r\n\r\n“Maiden,” replied the lady, “_for ever_ is the word which comes most\r\nlightly on the lips in such circumstances, but which, not the less,\r\nis almost the last that we should use. The fashion of this world,\r\nits passions, its joys, and its sorrows, pass away like the winged\r\nbreeze--there is nought for ever but that which belongs to the world\r\nbeyond the grave.”\r\n\r\n“You have corrected me justly, madam,” said Margaret calmly; “I ought\r\nonly to have spoken of my present state of mind, as what will last me\r\nfor my lifetime, which unquestionably may be but short.”\r\n\r\n“And what is there in this Scottish lord that can rivet what concerns\r\nhim so closely in your fancy?” said the lady. “I admit him a personable\r\nman, for I have seen him; and I will suppose him courteous and\r\nagreeable."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But what are his accomplishments besides, for these surely\r\nare not uncommon attributes.”\r\n\r\n“He is unfortunate, madam--most unfortunate--and surrounded by snares\r\nof different kinds, ingeniously contrived to ruin his character, destroy\r\nhis estate, and, perhaps, to reach even his life. These schemes have\r\nbeen devised by avarice originally, but they are now followed close by\r\nvindictive ambition, animated, I think, by the absolute and concentrated\r\nspirit of malice; for the Lord Dalgarno--”\r\n\r\n“Here, Monna Paula--Monna Paula!” exclaimed the Lady Hermione,\r\ninterrupting her young friend's narrative. “She hears me not,” she\r\nanswered, rising and going out, “I must seek her--I will return\r\ninstantly.” She returned accordingly very soon after. “You mentioned a\r\nname which I thought was familiar to me,” she said; “but Monna Paula has\r\nput me right. I know nothing of your lord--how was it you named him?”\r\n\r\n“Lord Dalgarno,” said Margaret;--“the wickedest man who lives. Under\r\npretence of friendship, he introduced the Lord Glenvarloch to a\r\ngambling-house with the purpose of engaging him in deep play; but\r\nhe with whom the perfidious traitor had to deal, was too virtuous,\r\nmoderate, and cautious, to be caught in a snare so open. What did they\r\nnext, but turn his own moderation against him, and persuade others\r\nthat--because he would not become the prey of wolves, he herded with\r\nthem for a share of their booty!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And, while this base Lord Dalgarno was\r\nthus undermining his unsuspecting countryman, he took every measure\r\nto keep him surrounded by creatures of his own, to prevent him from\r\nattending Court, and mixing with those of his proper rank. Since the\r\nGunpowder Treason, there never was a conspiracy more deeply laid, more\r\nbasely and more deliberately pursued.”\r\n\r\nThe lady smiled sadly at Margaret's vehemence, but sighed the next\r\nmoment, while she told her young friend how little she knew the world\r\nshe was about to live in, since she testified so much surprise at\r\nfinding it full of villainy. “But by what means,” she added, “could you, maiden, become possessed of\r\nthe secret views of a man so cautious as Lord Dalgarno--as villains in\r\ngeneral are?”\r\n\r\n“Permit me to be silent on that subject,” said the maiden; “I could not\r\ntell you without betraying others--let it suffice that my tidings are as\r\ncertain as the means by which I acquired them are secret and sure. But I\r\nmust not tell them even to you.”\r\n\r\n“You are too bold, Margaret,” said the lady, “to traffic in such matters\r\nat your early age."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is not only dangerous, but even unbecoming and\r\nunmaidenly.”\r\n\r\n“I knew you would say that also,” said Margaret, with more meekness and\r\npatience than she usually showed on receiving reproof; “but, God knows,\r\nmy heart acquits me of every other feeling save that of the wish to\r\nassist this most innocent and betrayed man.--I contrived to send him\r\nwarning of his friend's falsehood;--alas! my care has only hastened his\r\nutter ruin, unless speedy aid be found. He charged his false friend with\r\ntreachery, and drew on him in the Park, and is now liable to the fatal\r\npenalty due for breach of privilege of the king's palace.”\r\n\r\n“This is indeed an extraordinary tale,” said Hermione; “is Lord\r\nGlenvarloch then in prison?”\r\n\r\n“No, madam, thank God, but in the Sanctuary at Whitefriars--it is matter\r\nof doubt whether it will protect him in such a case--they speak of a\r\nwarrant from the Lord Chief Justice--A gentleman of the temple has been\r\narrested, and is in trouble for having assisted him in his flight.--Even\r\nhis taking temporary refuge in that base place, though from extreme\r\nnecessity, will be used to the further defaming him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All this I know,\r\nand yet I cannot rescue him--cannot rescue him save by your means.”\r\n\r\n“By my means, maiden?” said the lady--“you are beside yourself!--What\r\nmeans can I possess in this secluded situation, of assisting this\r\nunfortunate nobleman?”\r\n\r\n“You have means,” said Margaret, eagerly; “you have those means, unless\r\nI mistake greatly, which can do anything--can do everything, in this\r\ncity, in this world--you have wealth, and the command of a small portion\r\nof it will enable me to extricate him from his present danger. He will\r\nbe enabled and directed how to make his escape--and I--” she paused. “Will accompany him, doubtless, and reap the fruits of your sage\r\nexertions in his behalf?” said the Lady Hermione, ironically. “May heaven forgive you the unjust thought, lady,” answered Margaret. “I will never see him more--but I shall have saved him, and the thought\r\nwill make me happy.”\r\n\r\n“A cold conclusion to so bold and warm a flame,” said the lady, with a\r\nsmile which seemed to intimate incredulity. “It is, however, the only one which I expect, madam--I could almost\r\nsay the only one which I wish--I am sure I will use no efforts to bring\r\nabout any other; if I am bold in his cause, I am timorous enough in my\r\nown. During our only interview I was unable to speak a word to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He\r\nknows not the sound of my voice--and all that I have risked, and must\r\nyet risk, I am doing for one, who, were he asked the question, would say\r\nhe has long since forgotten that he ever saw, spoke to, or sat beside, a\r\ncreature of so little signification as I am.”\r\n\r\n“This is a strange and unreasonable indulgence of a passion equally\r\nfanciful and dangerous,” said Lady Hermione. “You will _not_ assist me,\r\nthen?” said Margaret; “have good-day, then, madam--my secret, I trust,\r\nis safe in such honourable keeping.”\r\n\r\n“Tarry yet a little,” said the lady, “and tell me what resource you\r\nhave to assist this youth, if you were supplied with money to put it in\r\nmotion.”\r\n\r\n“It is superfluous to ask me the question, madam,” answered Margaret,\r\n“unless you purpose to assist me; and, if you do so purpose, it is still\r\nsuperfluous. You could not understand the means I must use, and time is\r\ntoo brief to explain.”\r\n\r\n“But have you in reality such means?” said the lady."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I have, with the command of a moderate sum,” answered Margaret Ramsay,\r\n“the power of baffling all his enemies--of eluding the passion of\r\nthe irritated king--the colder but more determined displeasure of the\r\nprince--the vindictive spirit of Buckingham, so hastily directed against\r\nwhomsoever crosses the path of his ambition--the cold concentrated\r\nmalice of Lord Dalgarno--all, I can baffle them all!”\r\n\r\n“But is this to be done without your own personal risk, Margaret?”\r\n replied the lady; “for, be your purpose what it will, you are not to\r\nperil your own reputation or person, in the romantic attempt of serving\r\nanother; and I, maiden, am answerable to your godfather,--to your\r\nbenefactor, and my own,--not to aid you in any dangerous or unworthy\r\nenterprise.”\r\n\r\n“Depend upon my word,--my oath,--dearest lady,” replied the supplicant,\r\n“that I will act by the agency of others, and do not myself design to\r\nmingle in any enterprise in which my appearance might be either perilous\r\nor unwomanly.”\r\n\r\n“I know not what to do,” said the Lady Hermione; “it is perhaps\r\nincautious and inconsiderate in me to aid so wild a project; yet the end\r\nseems honourable, if the means be sure--what is the penalty if he fall\r\ninto their power?”\r\n\r\n“Alas, alas! the loss of his right hand!” replied Margaret, her voice\r\nalmost stifled with sobs. “Are the laws of England so cruel?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then there is mercy in heaven alone,”\r\n said the lady, “since, even in this free land, men are wolves to each\r\nother.--Compose yourself, Margaret, and tell me what money is necessary\r\nto secure Lord Glenvarloch's escape.”\r\n\r\n“Two hundred pieces,” replied Margaret; “I would speak to you of\r\nrestoring them--and I must one day have the power--only that I\r\nknow--that is, I think--your ladyship is indifferent on that score.”\r\n\r\n“Not a word more of it,” said the lady; “call Monna Paula hither.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XX\r\n\r\n\r\n  Credit me, friend, it hath been ever thus,\r\n  Since the ark rested on Mount Ararat. False man hath sworn, and woman hath believed--\r\n  Repented and reproach'd, and then believed once more. _The New World._\r\n\r\nBy the time that Margaret returned with Monna Paula, the Lady Hermione\r\nwas rising from the table at which she had been engaged in writing\r\nsomething on a small slip of paper, which she gave to her attendant. “Monna Paula,” she said, “carry this paper to Roberts the cash-keeper;\r\nlet them give you the money mentioned in the note, and bring it hither\r\npresently.”\r\n\r\nMonna Paula left the room, and her mistress proceeded. “I do not know,” she said, “Margaret, if I have done, and am doing,\r\nwell in this affair."}
{"question": "", "answer": "My life has been one of strange seclusion, and I am\r\ntotally unacquainted with the practical ways of this world--an ignorance\r\nwhich I know cannot be remedied by mere reading.--I fear I am doing\r\nwrong to you, and perhaps to the laws of the country which affords me\r\nrefuge, by thus indulging you; and yet there is something in my heart\r\nwhich cannot resist your entreaties.”\r\n\r\n“O, listen to it--listen to it, dear, generous lady!” said Margaret,\r\nthrowing herself on her knees and grasping those of her benefactress\r\nand looking in that attitude like a beautiful mortal in the act\r\nof supplicating her tutelary angel; “the laws of men are but the\r\ninjunctions of mortality, but what the heart prompts is the echo of the\r\nvoice from heaven within us.”\r\n\r\n“Rise, rise, maiden,” said Hermione; “you affect me more than I thought\r\nI could have been moved by aught that should approach me. Rise and tell\r\nme whence it comes, that, in so short a time, your thoughts, your looks,\r\nyour speech, and even your slightest actions, are changed from those\r\nof a capricious and fanciful girl, to all this energy and impassioned\r\neloquence of word and action?”\r\n\r\n“I am sure I know not, dearest lady,” said Margaret, looking down; “but\r\nI suppose that, when I was a trifler, I was only thinking of trifles."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What I now reflect is deep and serious, and I am thankful if my speech\r\nand manner bear reasonable proportion to my thoughts.”\r\n\r\n“It must be so,” said the lady; “yet the change seems a rapid and\r\nstrange one. It seems to be as if a childish girl had at once shot up\r\ninto deep-thinking and impassioned woman, ready to make exertions alike,\r\nand sacrifices, with all that vain devotion to a favourite object of\r\naffection, which is often so basely rewarded.”\r\n\r\nThe Lady Hermione sighed bitterly, and Monna Paula entered ere the\r\nconversation proceeded farther. She spoke to her mistress in the foreign\r\nlanguage in which they frequently conversed, but which was unknown to\r\nMargaret. “We must have patience for a time,” said the lady to her visitor; “the\r\ncash-keeper is abroad on some business, but he is expected home in the\r\ncourse of half an hour.”\r\n\r\nMargaret wrung her hands in vexation and impatience. “Minutes are precious,” continued the lady; “that I am well aware of;\r\nand we will at least suffer none of them to escape us. Monna Paula shall\r\nremain below and transact our business, the very instant that Roberts\r\nreturns home.”\r\n\r\nShe spoke to her attendant accordingly, who again left the room. “You are very kind, madam--very good,” said the poor little Margaret,\r\nwhile the anxious trembling of her lip and of her hand showed all that\r\nsickening agitation of the heart which arises from hope deferred."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Be patient, Margaret, and collect yourself,” said the lady; “you\r\nmay, you must, have much to do to carry through this your bold\r\npurpose--reserve your spirits, which you may need so much--be\r\npatient--it is the only remedy against the evils of life.”\r\n\r\n“Yes, madam,” said Margaret, wiping her eyes, and endeavouring in\r\nvain to suppress the natural impatience of her temper,--“I have heard\r\nso--very often indeed; and I dare say I have myself, heaven forgive me,\r\nsaid so to people in perplexity and affliction; but it was before I\r\nhad suffered perplexity and vexation myself, and I am sure I will never\r\npreach patience to any human being again, now that I know how much the\r\nmedicine goes against the stomach.”\r\n\r\n“You will think better of it, maiden,” said the Lady Hermione; “I also,\r\nwhen I first felt distress, thought they did me wrong who spoke to me\r\nof patience; but my sorrows have been repeated and continued till I have\r\nbeen taught to cling to it as the best, and--religious duties excepted,\r\nof which, indeed, patience forms a part--the only alleviation which life\r\ncan afford them.”\r\n\r\nMargaret, who neither wanted sense nor feeling, wiped her tears hastily,\r\nand asked her patroness's forgiveness for her petulance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I might have thought”--she said, “I ought to have reflected, that even\r\nfrom the manner of your life, madam, it is plain you must have suffered\r\nsorrow; and yet, God knows, the patience which I have ever seen you\r\ndisplay, well entitles you to recommend your own example to others.”\r\n\r\nThe lady was silent for a moment, and then replied--\r\n\r\n“Margaret, I am about to repose a high confidence in you. You are no\r\nlonger a child, but a thinking and a feeling woman. You have told me as\r\nmuch of your secret as you dared--I will let you know as much of mine as\r\nI may venture to tell. You will ask me, perhaps, why, at a moment when\r\nyour own mind is agitated, I should force upon you the consideration of\r\nmy sorrows? and I answer, that I cannot withstand the impulse which now\r\ninduces me to do so. Perhaps from having witnessed, for the first time\r\nthese three years, the natural effects of human passion, my own\r\nsorrows have been awakened, and are for the moment too big for my own\r\nbosom--perhaps I may hope that you, who seem driving full sail on the\r\nvery rock on which I was wrecked for ever, will take warning by the tale\r\nI have to tell. Enough, if you are willing to listen, I am willing to\r\ntell you who the melancholy inhabitant of the Foljambe apartments really\r\nis, and why she resides here."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It will serve, at least, to while away the\r\ntime until Monna Paula shall bring us the reply from Roberts.”\r\n\r\nAt any other moment of her life, Margaret Ramsay would have heard\r\nwith undivided interest a communication so flattering in itself, and\r\nreferring to a subject upon which the general curiosity had been so\r\nstrongly excited. And even at this agitating moment, although she ceased\r\nnot to listen with an anxious ear and throbbing heart for the sound of\r\nMonna Paula's returning footsteps, she nevertheless, as gratitude and\r\npolicy, as well as a portion of curiosity dictated, composed herself,\r\nin appearance at least, to the strictest attention to the Lady Hermione,\r\nand thanked her with humility for the high confidence she was pleased\r\nto repose in her. The Lady Hermione, with the same calmness which always\r\nattended her speech and actions, thus recounted her story to her young\r\nfriend:\r\n\r\n“My father,” she said, “was a merchant, but he was of a city whose\r\nmerchants are princes. I am the daughter of a noble house in Genoa,\r\nwhose name stood as high in honour and in antiquity, as any inscribed in\r\nthe Golden Register of that famous aristocracy. “My mother was a noble Scottish woman. She was descended--do not\r\nstart--and not remotely descended, of the house of Glenvarloch--no\r\nwonder that I was easily led to take concern in the misfortunes of this\r\nyoung lord."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He is my near relation, and my mother, who was more than\r\nsufficiently proud of her descent, early taught me to take an interest\r\nin the name. My maternal grandfather, a cadet of that house of\r\nGlenvarloch, had followed the fortunes of an unhappy fugitive, Francis\r\nEarl of Bothwell, who, after showing his miseries in many a foreign\r\ncourt, at length settled in Spain upon a miserable pension, which\r\nhe earned by conforming to the Catholic faith. Ralph Olifaunt, my\r\ngrandfather, separated from him in disgust, and settled at Barcelona,\r\nwhere, by the friendship of the governor, his heresy, as it was termed,\r\nwas connived at. My father, in the course of his commerce, resided more\r\nat Barcelona than in his native country, though at times he visited\r\nGenoa. “It was at Barcelona that he became acquainted with my mother, loved\r\nher, and married her; they differed in faith, but they agreed in\r\naffection. I was their only child. In public I conformed to the\r\ndocterins and ceremonial of the Church of Rome; but my mother, by whom\r\nthese were regarded with horror, privately trained me up in those of the\r\nreformed religion; and my father, either indifferent in the matter, or\r\nunwilling to distress the woman whom he loved, overlooked or connived at\r\nmy secretly joining in her devotions."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“But when, unhappily, my father was attacked, while yet in the prime\r\nof life, by a slow wasting disease, which he felt to be incurable, he\r\nforesaw the hazard to which his widow and orphan might be exposed, after\r\nhe was no more, in a country so bigoted to Catholicism as Spain. He made\r\nit his business, during the two last years of his life, to realize and\r\nremit to England a large part of his fortune, which, by the faith and\r\nhonour of his correspondent, the excellent man under whose roof I now\r\nreside, was employed to great advantage. Had my father lived to complete\r\nhis purpose, by withdrawing his whole fortune from commerce, he himself\r\nwould have accompanied us to England, and would have beheld us settled\r\nin peace and honour before his death. But heaven had ordained it\r\notherwise. He died, leaving several sums engaged in the hands of his\r\nSpanish debtors; and, in particular, he had made a large and extensive\r\nconsignment to a certain wealthy society of merchants at Madrid, who\r\nshowed no willingness after his death to account for the proceeds. Would\r\nto God we had left these covetous and wicked men in possession of their\r\nbooty, for such they seemed to hold the property of their deceased\r\ncorrespondent and friend! We had enough for comfort, and even splendour,\r\nalready secured in England; but friends exclaimed upon the folly\r\nof permitting these unprincipled men to plunder us of our rightful\r\nproperty."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The sum itself was large, and the claim having been made,\r\nmy mother thought that my father's memory was interested in its being\r\nenforced, especially as the defences set up for the mercantile society\r\nwent, in some degree, to impeach the fairness of his transactions. “We went therefore to Madrid. I was then, my Margaret, about your age,\r\nyoung and thoughtless, as you have hitherto been--We went, I say, to\r\nMadrid, to solicit the protection of the Court and of the king, without\r\nwhich we were told it would be in vain to expect justice against an\r\nopulent and powerful association. “Our residence at the Spanish metropolis drew on from weeks to months. For my part, my natural sorrow for a kind, though not a fond father,\r\nhaving abated, I cared not if the lawsuit had detained us at Madrid for\r\never. My mother permitted herself and me rather more liberty than we\r\nhad been accustomed to. She found relations among the Scottish and Irish\r\nofficers, many of whom held a high rank in the Spanish armies; their\r\nwives and daughters became our friends and companions, and I had\r\nperpetual occasion to exercise my mother's native language, which I had\r\nlearned from my infancy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "By degrees, as my mother's spirits were low,\r\nand her health indifferent, she was induced, by her partial fondness for\r\nme, to suffer me to mingle occasionally in society which she herself did\r\nnot frequent, under the guardianship of such ladies as she imagined she\r\ncould trust, and particularly under the care of the lady of a general\r\nofficer, whose weakness or falsehood was the original cause of my\r\nmisfortunes. I was as gay, Margaret, and thoughtless--I again repeat\r\nit--as you were but lately, and my attention, like yours, became\r\nsuddenly riveted to one object, and to one set of feelings. “The person by whom they were excited was young, noble, handsome,\r\naccomplished, a soldier, and a Briton. So far our cases are nearly\r\nparallel; but, may heaven forbid that the parallel should become\r\ncomplete! This man, so noble, so fairly formed, so gifted, and so\r\nbrave--this villain, for that, Margaret, was his fittest name, spoke of\r\nlove to me, and I listened---Could I suspect his sincerity? If he was\r\nwealthy, noble, and long-descended, I also was a noble and an opulent\r\nheiress. It is true, that he neither knew the extent of my father's\r\nwealth, nor did I communicate to him (I do not even remember if I myself\r\nknew it at the time) the important circumstance, that the greater part\r\nof that wealth was beyond the grasp of arbitrary power, and not subject\r\nto the precarious award of arbitrary judges."}
{"question": "", "answer": "My lover might think,\r\nperhaps, as my mother was desirous the world at large should believe,\r\nthat almost our whole fortune depended on the precarious suit which we\r\nhad come to Madrid to prosecute--a belief which she had countenanced\r\nout of policy, being well aware that a knowledge of my father's having\r\nremitted such a large part of his fortune to England, would in no shape\r\naid the recovery of further sums in the Spanish courts. Yet, with no\r\nmore extensive views of my fortune than were possessed by the public,\r\nI believe that he, of whom I am speaking, was at first sincere in his\r\npretensions. He had himself interest sufficient to have obtained a\r\ndecision in our favour in the courts, and my fortune, reckoning only\r\nwhat was in Spain, would then have been no inconsiderable sum. To be\r\nbrief, whatever might be his motives or temptation for so far committing\r\nhimself, he applied to my mother for my hand, with my consent and\r\napproval. My mother's judgment had become weaker, but her passions had\r\nbecome more irritable, during her increasing illness. “You have heard of the bitterness of the ancient Scottish feuds, of\r\nwhich it may be said, in the language of Scripture, that the fathers eat\r\nsour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Unhappily--I\r\nshould say _happily_, considering what this man has now shown himself\r\nto be--some such strain of bitterness had divided his house from my\r\nmother's, and she had succeeded to the inheritance of hatred. When\r\nhe asked her for my hand, she was no longer able to command her\r\npassions--she raked up every injury which the rival families had\r\ninflicted upon each other during a bloody feud of two centuries--heaped\r\nhim with epithets of scorn, and rejected his proposal of alliance, as if\r\nit had come from the basest of mankind. “My lover retired in passion; and I remained to weep and murmur against\r\nfortune, and--I will confess my fault--against my affectionate parent. I had been educated with different feelings, and the traditions of the\r\nfeuds and quarrels of my mother's family in Scotland, which we're to her\r\nmonuments and chronicles, seemed to me as insignificant and unmeaning\r\nas the actions and fantasies of Don Quixote; and I blamed my mother\r\nbitterly for sacrificing my happiness to an empty dream of family\r\ndignity. “While I was in this humour, my lover sought a renewal of our\r\nintercourse. We met repeatedly in the house of the lady whom I\r\nhave mentioned, and who, in levity, or in the spirit of intrigue,\r\ncountenanced our secret correspondence. At length we were secretly\r\nmarried--so far did my blinded passion hurry me. My lover had secured\r\nthe assistance of a clergyman of the English church."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Monna Paula, who\r\nhad been my attendant from infancy, was one witness of our union. Let me\r\ndo the faithful creature justice--She conjured me to suspend my purpose\r\ntill my mother's death should permit us to celebrate our marriage\r\nopenly; but the entreaties of my lover, and my own wayward passion,\r\nprevailed over her remonstrances. The lady I have spoken of was another\r\nwitness, but whether she was in full possession of my bridegroom's\r\nsecret, I had never the means to learn. But the shelter of her name and\r\nroof afforded us the means of frequently meeting, and the love of my\r\nhusband seemed as sincere and as unbounded as my own. “He was eager, he said, to gratify his pride, by introducing me to one\r\nor two of his noble English friends. This could not be done at Lady\r\nD---'s; but by his command, which I was now entitled to consider as my\r\nlaw, I contrived twice to visit him at his own hotel, accompanied only\r\nby Monna Paula. There was a very small party, of two ladies and two\r\ngentlemen. There was music, mirth, and dancing. I had heard of the\r\nfrankness of the English nation, but I could not help thinking it\r\nbordered on license during these entertainments, and in the course\r\nof the collation which followed; but I imputed my scruples to my\r\ninexperience, and would not doubt the propriety of what was approved by\r\nmy husband."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I was soon summoned to other scenes: My poor mother's disease drew to\r\na conclusion--Happy I am that it took place before she discovered what\r\nwould have cut her to the soul. “In Spain you may have heard how the Catholic priests, and particularly\r\nthe monks, besiege the beds of the dying, to obtain bequests for the\r\ngood of the church. I have said that my mother's temper was irritated by\r\ndisease, and her judgment impaired in proportion. She gathered spirits\r\nand force from the resentment which the priests around her bed excited\r\nby their importunity, and the boldness of the stern sect of reformers,\r\nto which she had secretly adhered, seemed to animate her dying tongue. She avowed the religion she had so long concealed; renounced all hope\r\nand aid which did not come by and through its dictates; rejected with\r\ncontempt the ceremonial of the Romish church; loaded the astonished\r\npriests with reproaches for their greediness and hypocrisy, and\r\ncommanded them to leave her house. They went in bitterness and rage,\r\nbut it was to return with the inquisitorial power, its warrants, and its\r\nofficers; and they found only the cold corpse left of her, on whom they\r\nhad hoped to work their vengeance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As I was soon discovered to have\r\nshared my mother's heresy, I was dragged from her dead body, imprisoned\r\nin a solitary cloister, and treated with severity, which the Abbess\r\nassured me was due to the looseness of my life, as well as my spiritual\r\nerrors. I avowed my marriage, to justify the situation in which I found\r\nmyself--I implored the assistance of the Superior to communicate my\r\nsituation to my husband. She smiled coldly at the proposal, and told\r\nme the church had provided a better spouse for me; advised me to secure\r\nmyself of divine grace hereafter, and deserve milder treatment here, by\r\npresently taking the veil. In order to convince me that I had no other\r\nresource, she showed me a royal decree, by which all my estate was\r\nhypothecated to the convent of Saint Magdalen, and became their complete\r\nproperty upon my death, or my taking the vows. As I was, both from\r\nreligious principle, and affectionate attachment to my husband,\r\nabsolutely immovable in my rejection of the veil, I believe--may heaven\r\nforgive me if I wrong her--that the Abbess was desirous to make sure of\r\nmy spoils, by hastening the former event. “It was a small and a poor convent, and situated among the mountains\r\nof Guadarrama. Some of the sisters were the daughters of neighbouring\r\nHidalgoes, as poor as they were proud and ignorant; others were women\r\nimmured there on account of their vicious conduct."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The Superior herself\r\nwas of a high family, to which she owed her situation; but she was said\r\nto have disgraced her connexions by her conduct during youth, and now,\r\nin advanced age, covetousness and the love of power, a spirit too of\r\nseverity and cruelty, had succeeded to the thirst after licentious\r\npleasure. I suffered much under this woman--and still her dark, glassy\r\neye, her tall, shrouded form, and her rigid features, haunt my slumbers. “I was not destined to be a mother. I was very ill, and my recovery was\r\nlong doubtful. The most violent remedies were applied, if remedies\r\nthey indeed were. My health was restored at length, against my own\r\nexpectation and that of all around me. But, when I first again beheld\r\nthe reflection of my own face, I thought it was the visage of a ghost. I\r\nwas wont to be flattered by all, but particularly by my husband, for the\r\nfineness of my complexion--it was now totally gone, and, what is more\r\nextraordinary, it has never returned. I have observed that the few\r\nwho now see me, look upon me as a bloodless phantom--Such has been\r\nthe abiding effect of the treatment to which I was subjected. May God\r\nforgive those who were the agents of it!--I thank Heaven I can say so\r\nwith as sincere a wish, as that with which I pray for forgiveness of\r\nmy own sins."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They now relented somewhat towards me--moved perhaps\r\nto compassion by my singular appearance, which bore witness to my\r\nsufferings; or afraid that the matter might attract attention during\r\na visitation of the bishop, which was approaching. One day, as I was\r\nwalking in the convent-garden, to which I had been lately admitted, a\r\nmiserable old Moorish slave, who was kept to cultivate the little\r\nspot, muttered as I passed him, but still keeping his wrinkled face and\r\ndecrepit form in the same angle with the earth--'There is Heart's Ease\r\nnear the postern.' “I knew something of the symbolical language of flowers, once carried to\r\nsuch perfection among the Moriscoes of Spain; but if I had been ignorant\r\nof it, the captive would soon have caught at any hint which seemed\r\nto promise liberty. With all the haste consistent with the utmost\r\ncircumspection--for I might be observed by the Abbess or some of the\r\nsisters from the window--I hastened to the postern. It was closely\r\nbarred as usual, but when I coughed slightly, I was answered from the\r\nother side--and, O heaven! it was my husband's voice which said, 'Lose\r\nnot a minute here at present, but be on this spot when the vesper bell\r\nhas tolled.' “I retired in an ecstasy of joy. I was not entitled or permitted to\r\nassist at vespers, but was accustomed to be confined to my cell while\r\nthe nuns were in the choir."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Since my recovery, they had discontinued\r\nlocking the door; though the utmost severity was denounced against me\r\nif I left these precincts. But, let the penalty be what it would, I\r\nhastened to dare it.--No sooner had the last toll of the vesper bell\r\nceased to sound, than I stole from my chamber, reached the garden\r\nunobserved, hurried to the postern, beheld it open with rapture, and\r\nin the next moment was in my husband's arms. He had with him another\r\ncavalier of noble mien--both were masked and armed. Their horses, with\r\none saddled for my use, stood in a thicket hard by, with two other\r\nmasked horsemen, who seemed to be servants. In less than two minutes we\r\nwere mounted, and rode off as fast as we could through rough and devious\r\nroads, in which one of the domestics appeared to act as guide. “The hurried pace at which we rode, and the anxiety of the moment, kept\r\nme silent, and prevented my expressing my surprise or my joy save in a\r\nfew broken words. It also served as an apology for my husband's silence. At length we stopped at a solitary hut--the cavaliers dismounted, and I\r\nwas assisted from my saddle, not by M----M----my husband, I would say,\r\nwho seemed busied about his horse, but by the stranger. “'Go into the hut,' said my husband, 'change your dress with the\r\nspeed of lightning--you will find one to _assist_ you--we must forward\r\ninstantly when you have shifted your apparel.'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I entered the hut, and was received in the arms of the faithful Monna\r\nPaula, who had waited my arrival for many hours, half distracted with\r\nfear and anxiety. With her assistance I speedily tore off the detested\r\ngarments of the convent, and exchanged them for a travelling suit, made\r\nafter the English fashion. I observed that Monna Paula was in a similar\r\ndress. I had but just huddled on my change of attire, when we were\r\nhastily summoned to mount. A horse, I found, was provided for Monna\r\nPaula, and we resumed our route. On the way, my convent-garb, which had\r\nbeen wrapped hastily together around a stone, was thrown into a lake,\r\nalong the verge of which we were then passing. The two cavaliers rode\r\ntogether in front, my attendant and I followed, and the servants brought\r\nup the rear. Monna Paula, as we rode on, repeatedly entreated me to\r\nbe silent upon the road, as our lives depended on it. I was easily\r\nreconciled to be passive, for, the first fever of spirits which attended\r\nthe sense of liberation and of gratified affection having passed away, I\r\nfelt as it were dizzy with the rapid motion; and my utmost exertion was\r\nnecessary to keep my place on the saddle, until we suddenly (it was now\r\nvery dark) saw a strong light before us. “My husband reined up his horse, and gave a signal by a low whistle\r\ntwice repeated, which was answered from a distance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The whole party then\r\nhalted under the boughs of a large cork-tree, and my husband, drawing\r\nhimself close to my side, said, in a voice which I then thought was only\r\nembarrassed by fear for my safety,--'We must now part. Those to whom I\r\ncommit you are contrabandists, who only know you as English-women, but\r\nwho, for a high bribe, have undertaken to escort you through the passes\r\nof the Pyrenees as far as Saint Jean de Luz.' “'And do you not go with us?' I exclaimed with emphasis, though in a\r\nwhisper. “'It is impossible,' he said, 'and would ruin all--See that you speak\r\nin English in these people's hearing, and give not the least sign of\r\nunderstanding what they say in Spanish--your life depends on it; for,\r\nthough they live in opposition to, and evasion of, the laws of Spain,\r\nthey would tremble at the idea of violating those of the church--I see\r\nthem coming--farewell--farewell.' “The last words were hastily uttered-I endeavoured to detain him yet a\r\nmoment by my feeble grasp on his cloak. “'You will meet me, then, I trust, at Saint Jean de Luz?' “'Yes, yes,' he answered hastily, 'at Saint Jean de Luz you will meet\r\nyour protector.' “He then extricated his cloak from my grasp, and was lost in the\r\ndarkness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His companion approached--kissed my hand, which in the\r\nagony of the moment I was scarce sensible of, and followed my husband,\r\nattended by one of the domestics.”\r\n\r\nThe tears of Hermione here flowed so fast as to threaten the\r\ninterruption of her narrative. When she resumed it, it was with a kind\r\nof apology to Margaret. “Every circumstance,” she said, “occurring in those moments, when I\r\nstill enjoyed a delusive idea of happiness, is deeply imprinted in my\r\nremembrance, which, respecting all that has since happened, is waste and\r\nunvaried as an Arabian desert. But I have no right to inflict on you,\r\nMargaret, agitated as you are with your own anxieties, the unavailing\r\ndetails of my useless recollections.”\r\n\r\nMargaret's eyes were full of tears--it was impossible it could\r\nbe otherwise, considering that the tale was told by her suffering\r\nbenefactress, and resembled, in some respects, her own situation; and\r\nyet she must not be severely blamed, if, while eagerly pressing her\r\npatroness to continue her narrative, her eye involuntarily sought the\r\ndoor, as if to chide the delay of Monna Paula. The Lady Hermione saw and forgave these conflicting emotions; and\r\nshe, too, must be pardoned, if, in her turn, the minute detail of her\r\nnarrative showed, that, in the discharge of feelings so long locked\r\nin her own bosom, she rather forgot those which were personal to\r\nher auditor, and by which it must be supposed Margaret's mind was\r\nprincipally occupied, if not entirely engrossed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I told you, I think, that one domestic followed the gentlemen,” thus\r\nthe lady continued her story, “the other remained with us for the\r\npurpose, as it seemed, of introducing us to two persons whom M--, I\r\nsay, whom my husband's signal had brought to the spot. A word or two of\r\nexplanation passed between them and the servant, in a sort of _patois_,\r\nwhich I did not understand; and one of the strangers taking hold of my\r\nbridle, the other of Monna Paula's, they led us towards the light,\r\nwhich I have already said was the signal of our halting. I touched Monna\r\nPaula, and was sensible that she trembled very much, which surprised me,\r\nbecause I knew her character to be so strong and bold as to border upon\r\nthe masculine. “When we reached the fire, the gipsy figures of those who surrounded it,\r\nwith their swarthy features, large Sombrero hats, girdles stuck full\r\nof pistols and poniards, and all the other apparatus of a roving and\r\nperilous life, would have terrified me at another moment. But then I\r\nonly felt the agony of having parted from my husband almost in the very\r\nmoment of my rescue. The females of the gang--for there were four or\r\nfive women amongst these contraband traders--received us with a sort of\r\nrude courtesy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They were, in dress and manners, not extremely different\r\nfrom the men with whom they associated--were almost as hardy and\r\nadventurous, carried arms like them, and were, as we learned from\r\npassing circumstances, scarce less experienced in the use of them. “It was impossible not to fear these wild people; yet they gave us no\r\nreason to complain of them, but used us on all occasions with a kind of\r\nclumsy courtesy, accommodating themselves to our wants and our weakness\r\nduring the journey, even while we heard them grumbling to each other\r\nagainst our effeminacy,--like some rude carrier, who, in charge of a\r\npackage of valuable and fragile ware, takes every precaution for its\r\npreservation, while he curses the unwonted trouble which it occasions\r\nhim. Once or twice, when they were disappointed in their contraband\r\ntraffic, lost some goods in a rencontre with the Spanish officers of\r\nthe revenue, and were finally pursued by a military force, their murmurs\r\nassumed a more alarming tone, in the terrified ears of my attendant and\r\nmyself, when, without daring to seem to understand them, we heard them\r\ncurse the insular heretics, on whose account God, Saint James, and\r\nOur Lady of the Pillar, had blighted their hopes of profit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "These are\r\ndreadful recollections, Margaret.”\r\n\r\n“Why, then, dearest lady,” answered Margaret, “will you thus dwell on\r\nthem?”\r\n\r\n“It is only,” said the Lady Hermione, “because I linger like a criminal\r\non the scaffold, and would fain protract the time that must inevitably\r\nbring on the final catastrophe. Yes, dearest Margaret, I rest and dwell\r\non the events of that journey, marked as it was by fatigue and danger,\r\nthough the road lay through the wildest and most desolate deserts and\r\nmountains, and though our companions, both men and women, were fierce\r\nand lawless themselves, and exposed to the most merciless retaliation\r\nfrom those with whom they were constantly engaged--yet would I rather\r\ndwell on these hazardous events than tell that which awaited me at Saint\r\nJean de Luz.”\r\n\r\n“But you arrived there in safety?” said Margaret. “Yes, maiden,” replied the Lady Hermione; “and were guided by the chief\r\nof our outlawed band to the house which had been assigned for reception,\r\nwith the same punctilious accuracy with which he would have delivered a\r\nbale of uncustomed goods to a correspondent. I was told a gentleman\r\nhad expected me for two days--I rushed into the apartment, and, when\r\nI expected to embrace my husband--I found myself in the arms of his\r\nfriend!”\r\n\r\n“The villain!” exclaimed Margaret, whose anxiety had, in spite of\r\nherself, been a moment suspended by the narrative of the lady. “Yes,” replied Hermione, calmly, though her voice somewhat faltered, “it\r\nis the name that best--that well befits him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He, Margaret, for whom I\r\nhad sacrificed all--whose love and whose memory were dearer to me than\r\nmy freedom, when I was in the convent--than my life, when I was on my\r\nperilous journey--had taken his measures to shake me off, and transfer\r\nme, as a privileged wanton, to the protection of his libertine\r\nfriend. At first the stranger laughed at my tears and my agony, as the\r\nhysterical passion of a deluded and overreached wanton, or the wily\r\naffection of a courtezan. My claim of marriage he laughed at, assuring\r\nme he knew it was a mere farce required by me, and submitted to by his\r\nfriend, to save some reserve of delicacy; and expressed his surprise\r\nthat I should consider in any other light a ceremony which could be\r\nvalid neither in Spain nor England, and insultingly offered to remove\r\nmy scruples, by renewing such a union with me himself. My exclamations\r\nbrought Monna Paula to my aid--she was not, indeed, far distant, for she\r\nhad expected some such scene.”\r\n\r\n“Good heaven!” said Margaret, “was she a confidant of your base\r\nhusband?”\r\n\r\n“No,” answered Hermione, “do her not that injustice. It was her\r\npersevering inquiries that discovered the place of my confinement--it\r\nwas she who gave the information to my husband, and who remarked even\r\nthen that the news was so much more interesting to his friend than to\r\nhim, that she suspected, from an early period, it was the purpose of the\r\nvillain to shake me off."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the journey, her suspicions were confirmed. She had heard him remark to his companion, with a cold sarcastic\r\nsneer, the total change which my prison and my illness had made on my\r\ncomplexion; and she had heard the other reply, that the defect might be\r\ncured by a touch of Spanish red. This, and other circumstances, having\r\nprepared her for such treachery, Monna Paula now entered, completely\r\npossessed of herself, and prepared to support me. Her calm\r\nrepresentations went farther with the stranger than the expressions of\r\nmy despair. If he did not entirely believe our tale, he at least\r\nacted the part of a man of honour, who would not intrude himself\r\non defenceless females, whatever was their character; desisted from\r\npersecuting us with his presence; and not only directed Monna Paula how\r\nwe should journey to Paris, but furnished her with money for the purpose\r\nof our journey. From the capital I wrote to Master Heriot, my father's\r\nmost trusted correspondent; he came instantly to Paris on receiving\r\nthe letter; and--But here comes Monna Paula, with more than the sum you\r\ndesired. Take it, my dearest maiden--serve this youth if you will."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But,\r\nO Margaret, look for no gratitude in return!”\r\n\r\nThe Lady Hermione took the bag of gold from her attendant, and gave it\r\nto her young friend, who threw herself into her arms, kissed her on\r\nboth the pale cheeks, over which the sorrows so newly awakened by\r\nher narrative had drawn many tears, then sprung up, wiped her own\r\noverflowing eyes, and left the Foljambe apartments with a hasty and\r\nresolved step. CHAPTER XXI\r\n\r\n\r\n  Rove not from pole to pole-the man lives here\r\n  Whose razor's only equall'd by his beer;\r\n  And where, in either sense, the cockney-put\r\n  May, if he pleases, get confounded cut. _On the sign of an Alehouse kept by a Barber._\r\n\r\nWe are under the necessity of transporting our readers to the habitation\r\nof Benjamin Suddlechop, the husband of the active and efficient Dame\r\nUrsula, and who also, in his own person, discharged more offices than\r\none. For, besides trimming locks and beards, and turning whiskers upward\r\ninto the martial and swaggering curl, or downward into the drooping\r\nform which became mustaches of civil policy; besides also occasionally\r\nletting blood, either by cupping or by the lancet, extracting a stump,\r\nand performing other actions of petty pharmacy, very nearly as well as\r\nhis neighbour Raredrench, the apothecary: he could, on occasion, draw\r\na cup of beer as well as a tooth, tap a hogshead as well as a vein, and\r\nwash, with a draught of good ale, the mustaches which his art had just\r\ntrimmed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he carried on these trades apart from each other. His barber's shop projected its long and mysterious pole into Fleet\r\nStreet, painted party-coloured-wise, to represent the ribbons with\r\nwhich, in elder times, that ensign was garnished. In the window were\r\nseen rows of teeth displayed upon strings like rosaries--cups with a red\r\nrag at the bottom, to resemble blood, an intimation that patients\r\nmight be bled, cupped, or blistered, with the assistance of “sufficient\r\nadvice;” while the more profitable, but less honourable operations upon\r\nthe hair of the head and beard, were briefly and gravely announced. Within was the well-worn leather chair for customers, the guitar, then\r\ncalled a ghittern or cittern, with which a customer might amuse himself\r\ntill his predecessor was dismissed from under Benjamin's hands, and\r\nwhich, therefore, often flayed the ears of the patient metaphorically,\r\nwhile his chin sustained from the razor literal scarification. All,\r\ntherefore, in this department, spoke the chirurgeon-barber, or the\r\nbarber-chirurgeon. But there was a little back-room, used as a private tap-room, which had\r\na separate entrance by a dark and crooked alley, which communicated with\r\nFleet Street, after a circuitous passage through several by-lanes\r\nand courts."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This retired temple of Bacchus had also a connexion with\r\nBenjamin's more public shop by a long and narrow entrance, conducting to\r\nthe secret premises in which a few old topers used to take their morning\r\ndraught, and a few gill-sippers their modicum of strong waters, in a\r\nbashful way, after having entered the barber's shop under pretence of\r\nbeing shaved. Besides, this obscure tap-room gave a separate admission\r\nto the apartments of Dame Ursley, which she was believed to make use of\r\nin the course of her multifarious practice, both to let herself secretly\r\nout, and to admit clients and employers who cared not to be seen to\r\nvisit her in public. Accordingly, after the hour of noon, by which time\r\nthe modest and timid whetters, who were Benjamin's best customers, had\r\neach had his draught, or his thimbleful, the business of the tap was in\r\na manner ended, and the charge of attending the back-door passed from\r\none of the barber's apprentices to the little mulatto girl, the dingy\r\nIris of Dame Suddlechop. Then came mystery thick upon mystery; muffled\r\ngallants, and masked females, in disguises of different fashions, were\r\nseen to glide through the intricate mazes of the alley; and even the low\r\ntap on the door, which frequently demanded the attention of the\r\nlittle Creole, had in it something that expressed secrecy and fear of\r\ndiscovery."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was the evening of the same day when Margaret had held the long\r\nconference with the Lady Hermione, that Dame Suddlechop had directed her\r\nlittle portress to “keep the door fast as a miser's purse-strings; and,\r\nas she valued her saffron skin, to let in none but---” the name she\r\nadded in a whisper, and accompanied it with a nod. The little domestic\r\nblinked intelligence, went to her post, and in brief time thereafter\r\nadmitted and ushered into the presence of the dame, that very\r\ncity-gallant whose clothes sat awkwardly upon him, and who had behaved\r\nso doughtily in the fray which befell at Nigel's first visit to\r\nBeaujeu's ordinary. The mulatto introduced him--“Missis, fine young\r\ngentleman, all over gold and velvet “--then muttered to herself as she\r\nshut the door, “fine young gentleman, he!--apprentice to him who makes\r\nthe tick-tick.”\r\n\r\nIt was indeed--we are sorry to say it, and trust our readers will\r\nsympathize with the interest we take in the matter--it was indeed honest\r\nJin Vin, who had been so far left to his own devices, and abandoned by\r\nhis better angel, as occasionally to travesty himself in this fashion,\r\nand to visit, in the dress of a gallant of the day, those places of\r\npleasure and dissipation, in which it would have been everlasting\r\ndiscredit to him to have been seen in his real character and condition;\r\nthat is, had it been possible for him in his proper shape to have gained\r\nadmission."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was now a deep gloom on his brow, his rich habit was\r\nhastily put on, and buttoned awry; his belt buckled in a most disorderly\r\nfashion, so that his sword stuck outwards from his side, instead of\r\nhanging by it with graceful negligence; while his poniard, though fairly\r\nhatched and gilded, stuck in his girdle like a butcher's steel in\r\nthe fold of his blue apron. Persons of fashion had, by the way, the\r\nadvantage formerly of being better distinguished from the vulgar than at\r\npresent; for, what the ancient farthingale and more modern hoop were to\r\ncourt ladies, the sword was to the gentleman; an article of dress, which\r\nonly rendered those ridiculous who assumed it for the nonce, without\r\nbeing in the habit of wearing it. Vincent's rapier got between his legs,\r\nand, as he stumbled over it, he exclaimed--“Zounds! 'tis the second time\r\nit has served me thus--I believe the damned trinket knows I am no true\r\ngentleman, and does it of set purpose.”\r\n\r\n“Come, come, mine honest Jin Vin--come, my good boy,” said the dame, in\r\na soothing tone, “never mind these trankums--a frank and hearty London\r\n'prentice is worth all the gallants of the inns of court.”\r\n\r\n“I was a frank and hearty London 'prentice before I knew you, Dame\r\nSuddlechop,” said Vincent; “what your advice has made me, you may find a\r\nname for; since, fore George!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am ashamed to think about it myself.”\r\n\r\n“A-well-a-day,” quoth the dame, “and is it even so with thee?--nay,\r\nthen, I know but one cure;” and with that, going to a little corner\r\ncupboard of carved wainscoat, she opened it by the assistance of a key,\r\nwhich, with half-a-dozen besides, hung in a silver chain at her girdle,\r\nand produced a long flask of thin glass cased with wicker, bringing\r\nforth at the same time two Flemish rummer glasses, with long stalks and\r\ncapacious wombs. She filled the one brimful for her guest, and the other\r\nmore modestly to about two-thirds of its capacity, for her own\r\nuse, repeating, as the rich cordial trickled forth in a smooth oily\r\nstream--“Right Rosa Solis, as ever washed mulligrubs out of a moody\r\nbrain!”\r\n\r\nBut, though Jin Vin tossed off his glass without scruple, while the lady\r\nsippped hers more moderately, it did not appear to produce the expected\r\namendment upon his humour. On the contrary, as he threw himself into the\r\ngreat leathern chair, in which Dame Ursley was wont to solace herself of\r\nan evening, he declared himself “the most miserable dog within the sound\r\nof Bow-bell.”\r\n\r\n“And why should you be so idle as to think yourself so, silly boy?” said\r\nDame Suddlechop; “but 'tis always thus--fools and children never know\r\nwhen they are well."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why, there is not one that walks in St. Paul's,\r\nwhether in flat cap, or hat and feather, that has so many kind glances\r\nfrom the wenches as you, when ye swagger along Fleet Street with your\r\nbat under your arm, and your cap set aside upon your head. Thou knowest\r\nwell, that, from Mrs. Deputy's self down to the waist-coateers in the\r\nalley, all of them are twiring and peeping betwixt their fingers when\r\nyou pass; and yet you call yourself a miserable dog! and I must tell\r\nyou all this over and over again, as if I were whistling the chimes\r\nof London to a pettish child, in order to bring the pretty baby into\r\ngood-humour!”\r\n\r\nThe flattery of Dame Ursula seemed to have the fate of her cordial--it\r\nwas swallowed, indeed, by the party to whom she presented it, and that\r\nwith some degree of relish, but it did not operate as a sedative on the\r\ndisturbed state of the youth's mind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He laughed for an instant, half\r\nin scorn, and half in gratified vanity, but cast a sullen look on Dame\r\nUrsley as he replied to her last words,\r\n\r\n“You do treat me like a child indeed, when you sing over and over to me\r\na cuckoo song that I care not a copper-filing for.”\r\n\r\n“Aha!” said Dame Ursley; “that is to say, you care not if you please\r\nall, unless you please one--You are a true lover, I warrant, and care\r\nnot for all the city, from here to Whitechapel, so you could write\r\nyourself first in your pretty Peg-a-Ramsay's good-will. Well, well, take\r\npatience, man, and be guided by me, for I will be the hoop will bind you\r\ntogether at last.”\r\n\r\n“It is time you were so,” said Jenkin, “for hitherto you have rather\r\nbeen the wedge to separate us.”\r\n\r\nDame Suddlechop had by this time finished her cordial--it was not the\r\nfirst she had taken that day; and, though a woman of strong brain,\r\nand cautious at least, if not abstemious, in her potations, it may\r\nnevertheless be supposed that her patience was not improved by the\r\nregimen which she observed. “Why, thou ungracious and ingrate knave,” said Dame Ursley, “have not\r\nI done every thing to put thee in thy mistress's good graces?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She loves\r\ngentry, the proud Scottish minx, as a Welshman loves cheese, and has\r\nher father's descent from that Duke of Daldevil, or whatsoever she calls\r\nhim, as close in her heart as gold in a miser's chest, though she\r\nas seldom shows it--and none she will think of, or have, but a\r\ngentleman--and a gentleman I have made of thee, Jin Vin, the devil\r\ncannot deny that.”\r\n\r\n“You have made a fool of me,” said poor Jenkin, looking at the sleeve of\r\nhis jacket. “Never the worse gentleman for that,” said Dame Ursley, laughing. “And what is worse,” said he, turning his back to her suddenly, and\r\nwrithing in his chair, “you have made a rogue of me.”\r\n\r\n“Never the worse gentleman for that neither,” said Dame Ursley, in the\r\nsame tone; “let a man bear his folly gaily and his knavery stoutly, and\r\nlet me see if gravity or honesty will look him in the face now-a-days."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Tut, man, it was only in the time of King Arthur or King Lud, that a\r\ngentleman was held to blemish his scutcheon by a leap over the line\r\nof reason or honesty--It is the bold look, the ready hand, the fine\r\nclothes, the brisk oath, and the wild brain, that makes the gallant\r\nnow-a-days.”\r\n\r\n“I know what you have made me,” said Jin Vin; “since I have given up\r\nskittles and trap-ball for tennis and bowls, good English ale for thin\r\nBordeaux and sour Rhenish, roast-beef and pudding for woodcocks and\r\nkickshaws--my bat for a sword, my cap for a beaver, my forsooth for\r\na modish oath, my Christmas-box for a dice-box, my religion for the\r\ndevil's matins, and mine honest name for--Woman, I could brain thee,\r\nwhen I think whose advice has guided me in all this!”\r\n\r\n“Whose advice, then? whose advice, then? Speak out, thou poor, petty\r\ncloak-brusher, and say who advised thee!” retorted Dame Ursley, flushed\r\nand indignant--“Marry come up, my paltry companion--say by whose advice\r\nyou have made a gamester of yourself, and a thief besides, as your\r\nwords would bear--The Lord deliver us from evil!” And here Dame Ursley\r\ndevoutly crossed herself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Hark ye, Dame Ursley Suddlechop,” said Jenkin, starting up, his dark\r\neyes flashing with anger; “remember I am none of your husband--and, if\r\nI were, you would do well not to forget whose threshold was swept\r\nwhen they last rode the Skimmington [Footnote: A species of triumphal\r\nprocession in honour of female supremacy, when it rose to such a height\r\nas to attract the attention of the neighbourhood. It is described at\r\nfull length in Hudibras. (Part II. Canto II.) As the procession passed\r\non, those who attended it in an official capacity were wont to sweep\r\nthe threshold of the houses in which Fame affirmed the mistresses to\r\nexercise paramount authority, which was given and received as a hint\r\nthat their inmates might, in their turn, be made the subject of a\r\nsimilar ovation. The Skimmington, which in some degree resembled\r\nthe proceedings of Mumbo Jumbo in an African village, has been long\r\ndiscontinued in England, apparently because female rule has become\r\neither milder or less frequent than among our ancestors.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "upon such another scolding jade as yourself.” “I hope to see you ride up Holborn next,” said Dame Ursley, provoked out of all her holiday and sugar-plum expressions, “with a nosegay at your breast, and a parson at your elbow!” “That may well be,” answered Jin Vin, bitterly, “if I walk by your counsels as I have begun by them; but, before that day comes, you shall know that Jin Vin has the brisk boys of Fleet Street still at his wink.--Yes, you jade, you shall be carted for bawd and conjurer, double-dyed in grain, and bing off to Bridewell, with every brass basin betwixt the Bar and Paul's beating before you, as if the devil were banging them with his beef-hook.” Dame Ursley coloured like scarlet, seized upon the half-emptied flask of cordial, and seemed, by her first gesture, about to hurl it at the head of her adversary; but suddenly, and as if by a strong internal effort, she checked her outrageous resentment, and, putting the bottle to its more legitimate use, filled, with wonderful composure, the two glasses, and, taking up one of them, said, with a smile, which better became her comely and jovial countenance than the fury by which it was animated the moment before-- “Here is to thee, Jin Vin, my lad, in all loving kindness, whatever spite thou bearest to me, that have always been a mother to thee.” Jenkin's English good-nature could not resist this forcible appeal; he took up the other"}
{"question": "", "answer": "glass, and lovingly pledged the dame in her cup of reconciliation, and proceeded to make a kind of grumbling apology for his own violence-- “For you know,” he said, “it was you persuaded me to get these fine things, and go to that godless ordinary, and ruffle it with the best, and bring you home all the news; and you said, I, that was the cock of the ward, would soon be the cock of the ordinary, and would win ten times as much at gleek and primero, as I used to do at put and beggar-my-neighbour--and turn up doublets with the dice, as busily as I was wont to trowl down the ninepins in the skittle-ground--and then you said I should bring you such news out of the ordinary as should make us all, when used as you knew how to use it--and now you see what is to come of it all!” “'Tis all true thou sayest, lad,” said the dame; “but thou must have patience."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Rome was not built in a day--you cannot become used to your\r\ncourt-suit in a month's time, any more than when you changed your long\r\ncoat for a doublet and hose; and in gaming you must expect to lose as\r\nwell as gain--'tis the sitting gamester sweeps the board.”\r\n\r\n“The board has swept me, I know,” replied Jin Vin, “and that pretty\r\nclean out.--I would that were the worst; but I owe for all this finery,\r\nand settling-day is coming on, and my master will find my accompt worse\r\nthan it should be by a score of pieces. My old father will be called in\r\nto make them good; and I--may save the hangman a labour and do the job\r\nmyself, or go the Virginia voyage.”\r\n\r\n“Do not speak so loud, my dear boy,” said Dame Ursley; “but tell me why\r\nyou borrow not from a friend to make up your arrear. You could lend him\r\nas much when his settling-day came round.”\r\n\r\n“No, no--I have had enough of that work,” said Vincent. “Tunstall would\r\nlend me the money, poor fellow, an he had it; but his gentle, beggarly\r\nkindred, plunder him of all, and keep him as bare as a birch at\r\nChristmas. No--my fortune may be spelt in four letters, and these read,\r\nRUIN.”\r\n\r\n“Now hush, you simple craven,” said the dame; “did you never hear, that\r\nwhen the need is highest the help is nighest?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "We may find aid for you\r\nyet, and sooner than you are aware of. I am sure I would never have\r\nadvised you to such a course, but only you had set heart and eye on\r\npretty Mistress Marget, and less would not serve you--and what could\r\nI do but advise you to cast your city-slough, and try your luck where\r\nfolks find fortune?”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay--I remember your counsel well,” said Jenkin; “I was to be\r\nintroduced to her by you when I was perfect in my gallantries, and as\r\nrich as the king; and then she was to be surprised to find I was poor\r\nJin Vin, that used to watch, from matin to curfew, for one glance of\r\nher eye; and now, instead of that, she has set her soul on this Scottish\r\nsparrow-hawk of a lord that won my last tester, and be cursed to him;\r\nand so I am bankrupt in love, fortune, and character, before I am out of\r\nmy time, and all along of you, Mother Midnight.”\r\n\r\n“Do not call me out of my own name, my dear boy, Jin Vin,” answered\r\nUrsula, in a tone betwixt rage and coaxing,--“do not; because I am no\r\nsaint, but a poor sinful woman, with no more patience than she needs,\r\nto carry her through a thousand crosses. And if I have done you wrong by\r\nevil counsel, I must mend it and put you right by good advice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And for\r\nthe score of pieces that must be made up at settling-day, why, here is,\r\nin a good green purse, as much as will make that matter good; and\r\nwe will get old Crosspatch, the tailor, to take a long day for your\r\nclothes; and--”\r\n\r\n“Mother, are you serious?” said Jin Vin, unable to trust either his eyes\r\nor his ears. “In troth am I,” said the dame; “and will you call me Mother Midnight\r\nnow, Jin Vin?”\r\n\r\n“Mother Midnight!” exclaimed Jenkin, hugging the dame in his transport,\r\nand bestowing on her still comely cheek a hearty and not unacceptable\r\nsmack, that sounded like the report of a pistol,--“Mother Midday,\r\nrather, that has risen to light me out of my troubles--a mother more\r\ndear than she who bore me; for she, poor soul, only brought me into a\r\nworld of sin and sorrow, and your timely aid has helped me out of the\r\none and the other.” And the good-natured fellow threw himself back in\r\nhis chair, and fairly drew his hand across his eyes. “You would not have me be made to ride the Skimmington then,” said the\r\ndame; “or parade me in a cart, with all the brass basins of the ward\r\nbeating the march to Bridewell before me?”\r\n\r\n“I would sooner be carted to Tyburn myself,” replied the penitent."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Why, then, sit up like a man, and wipe thine eyes; and, if thou art\r\npleased with what I have done, I will show thee how thou mayst requite\r\nme in the highest degree.”\r\n\r\n“How?” said Jenkin Vincent, sitting straight up in his chair.--“You\r\nwould have me, then, do you some service for this friendship of yours?”\r\n\r\n“Ay, marry would I,” said Dame Ursley; “for you are to know, that though\r\nI am right glad to stead you with it, this gold is not mine, but was\r\nplaced in my hands in order to find a trusty agent, for a certain\r\npurpose; and so--But what's the matter with you?--are you fool enough to\r\nbe angry because you cannot get a purse of gold for nothing? I would\r\nI knew where such were to come by. I never could find them lying in my\r\nroad, I promise you.”\r\n\r\n“No, no, dame,” said poor Jenkin, “it is not for that; for, look you,\r\nI would rather work these ten bones to the knuckles, and live by my\r\nlabour; but--” (and here he paused.) “But what, man?” said Dame Ursley. “You are willing to work for what you\r\nwant; and yet, when I offer you gold for the winning, you look on me as\r\nthe devil looks over Lincoln.”\r\n\r\n“It is ill talking of the devil, mother,” said Jenkin."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I had him even\r\nnow in my head--for, look you, I am at that pass, when they say he\r\nwill appear to wretched ruined creatures, and proffer them gold for the\r\nfee-simple of their salvation. But I have been trying these two days to\r\nbring my mind strongly up to the thought, that I will rather sit down\r\nin shame, and sin, and sorrow, as I am like to do, than hold on in ill\r\ncourses to get rid of my present straits; and so take care, Dame Ursula,\r\nhow you tempt me to break such a good resolution.”\r\n\r\n“I tempt you to nothing, young man,” answered Ursula; “and, as I\r\nperceive you are too wilful to be wise, I will e'en put my purse in my\r\npocket, and look out for some one that will work my turn with better\r\nwill, and more thankfulness. And you may go your own course,--break\r\nyour indenture, ruin your father, lose your character, and bid pretty\r\nMistress Margaret farewell, for ever and a day.”\r\n\r\n“Stay, stay,” said Jenkin “the woman is in as great a hurry as a brown\r\nbaker when his oven is overheated. First, let me hear that which you\r\nhave to propose to me.”\r\n\r\n“Why, after all, it is but to get a gentleman of rank and fortune, who\r\nis in trouble, carried in secret down the river, as far as the Isle of\r\nDogs, or somewhere thereabout, where he may lie concealed until he can\r\nescape aboard."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I know thou knowest every place by the river's side as\r\nwell as the devil knows an usurer, or the beggar knows his dish.”\r\n\r\n“A plague of your similes, dame,” replied the apprentice; “for the devil\r\ngave me that knowledge, and beggary may be the end on't.--But what has\r\nthis gentleman done, that he should need to be under hiding? No Papist,\r\nI hope--no Catesby and Piercy business--no Gunpowder Plot?”\r\n\r\n“Fy, fy!--what do you take me for?” said Dame Ursula. “I am as good a\r\nchurchwoman as the parson's wife, save that necessary business will not\r\nallow me to go there oftener than on Christmas-day, heaven help me!--No,\r\nno--this is no Popish matter. The gentleman hath but struck another in\r\nthe Park--”\r\n\r\n“Ha! what?” said Vincent, interrupting her with a start. “Ay, ay, I see you guess whom I mean. It is even he we have spoken of so\r\noften--just Lord Glenvarloch, and no one else.”\r\n\r\nVincent sprung from his seat, and traversed the room with rapid and\r\ndisorderly steps. “There, there it is now--you are always ice or gunpowder. You sit in the\r\ngreat leathern armchair, as quiet as a rocket hangs upon the frame in a\r\nrejoicing-night till the match be fired, and then, whizz! you are in the\r\nthird heaven, beyond the reach of the human voice, eye, or brain.--When\r\nyou have wearied yourself with padding to and fro across the room, will\r\nyou tell me your determination, for time presses?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Will you aid me in\r\nthis matter, or not?”\r\n\r\n“No--no--no--a thousand times no,” replied Jenkin. “Have you not\r\nconfessed to me, that Margaret loves him?”\r\n\r\n“Ay,” answered the dame, “that she thinks she does; but that will not\r\nlast long.”\r\n\r\n“And have I not told you but this instant,” replied Jenkin, “that it was\r\nthis same Glenvarloch that rooked me, at the ordinary, of every penny I\r\nhad, and made a knave of me to boot, by gaining more than was my own?--O\r\nthat cursed gold, which Shortyard, the mercer, paid me that morning on\r\naccompt, for mending the clock of Saint Stephen's! If I had not, by ill\r\nchance, had that about me, I could but have beggared my purse, without\r\nblemishing my honesty; and, after I had been rooked of all the rest\r\namongst them, I must needs risk the last five pieces with that shark\r\namong the minnows!”\r\n\r\n“Granted,” said Dame Ursula. “All this I know; and I own, that as Lord\r\nGlenvarloch was the last you played with, you have a right to charge\r\nyour ruin on his head. Moreover, I admit, as already said, that Margaret\r\nhas made him your rival. Yet surely, now he is in danger to lose his\r\nhand, it is not a time to remember all this?”\r\n\r\n“By my faith, but it is, though,” said the young citizen. “Lose his\r\nhand, indeed? They may take his head, for what I care."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Head and hand\r\nhave made me a miserable wretch!”\r\n\r\n“Now, were it not better, my prince of flat-caps,” said Dame Ursula,\r\n“that matters were squared between you; and that, through means of the\r\nsame Scottish lord, who has, as you say, deprived you of your money and\r\nyour mistress, you should in a short time recover both?”\r\n\r\n“And how can your wisdom come to that conclusion, dame?” said the\r\napprentice. “My money, indeed, I can conceive--that is, if I comply with\r\nyour proposal; but--my pretty Marget!--how serving this lord, whom\r\nshe has set her nonsensical head upon, can do me good with her, is far\r\nbeyond my conception.”\r\n\r\n“That is because, in simple phrase,” said Dame Ursula, “thou knowest no\r\nmore of a woman's heart than doth a Norfolk gosling. Look you, man. Were I to report to Mistress Margaret that the young lord has miscarried\r\nthrough thy lack of courtesy in refusing to help him, why, then, thou\r\nwert odious to her for ever. She will loathe thee as she will loathe the\r\nvery cook who is to strike off Glenvarloch's hand with his cleaver--and\r\nthen she will be yet more fixed in her affections towards this lord."}
{"question": "", "answer": "London will hear of nothing but him--speak of nothing but him--think\r\nof nothing but him, for three weeks at least, and all that outcry will\r\nserve to keep him uppermost in her mind; for nothing pleases a girl so\r\nmuch as to bear relation to any one who is the talk of the whole world\r\naround her. Then, if he suffer this sentence of the law, it is a chance\r\nif she ever forgets him. I saw that handsome, proper young gentleman\r\nBabington, suffer in the Queen's time myself, and though I was then but\r\na girl, he was in my head for a year after he was hanged. But, above\r\nall, pardoned or punished, Glenvarloch will probably remain in London,\r\nand his presence will keep up the silly girl's nonsensical fancy about\r\nhim. Whereas, if he escapes--”\r\n\r\n“Ay, show me how that is to avail me?” said Jenkin. “If he escapes,”\r\n said the dame, resuming her argument, “he must resign the Court for\r\nyears, if not for life; and you know the old saying, 'out of sight, and\r\nout of mind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "'”\r\n\r\n“True--most true,” said Jenkin; “spoken like an oracle, most wise\r\nUrsula.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay, I knew you would hear reason at last,” said the wily dame; “and\r\nthen, when this same lord is off and away for once and for ever, who, I\r\npray you, is to be pretty pet's confidential person, and who is to fill\r\nup the void in her affections?--why, who but thou, thou pearl of\r\n'prentices! And then you will have overcome your own inclinations to\r\ncomply with hers, and every woman is sensible of that--and you will have\r\nrun some risk, too, in carrying her desires into effect--and what is it\r\nthat woman likes better than bravery, and devotion to her will? Then you\r\nhave her secret, and she must treat you with favour and observance, and\r\nrepose confidence in you, and hold private intercourse with you, till\r\nshe weeps with one eye for the absent lover whom she is never to see\r\nagain, and blinks with the other blithely upon him who is in presence;\r\nand then if you know not how to improve the relation in which you stand\r\nwith her, you are not the brisk lively lad that all the world takes you\r\nfor--Said I well?”\r\n\r\n“You have spoken like an empress, most mighty Ursula,” said Jenkin\r\nVincent; “and your will shall be obeyed.”\r\n\r\n“You know Alsatia well?” continued his tutoress."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Well enough, well enough,” replied he with a nod; “I have heard the\r\ndice rattle there in my day, before I must set up for gentleman, and go\r\namong the gallants at the Shavaleer Bojo's, as they call him,--the worse\r\nrookery of the two, though the feathers are the gayest.”\r\n\r\n“And they will have a respect for thee yonder, I warrant?”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay,” replied Vin, “when I am got into my fustian doublet again,\r\nwith my bit of a trunnion under my arm, I can walk Alsatia at midnight\r\nas I could do that there Fleet Street in midday--they will not one of\r\nthem swagger with the prince of 'prentices, and the king of clubs--they\r\nknow I could bring every tall boy in the ward down upon them.”\r\n\r\n“And you know all the watermen, and so forth?”\r\n\r\n“Can converse with every sculler in his own language, from Richmond to\r\nGravesend, and know all the water-cocks, from John Taylor the Poet to\r\nlittle Grigg the Grinner, who never pulls but he shows all his teeth\r\nfrom ear to ear, as if he were grimacing through a horse-collar.”\r\n\r\n“And you can take any dress or character upon you well, such as a\r\nwaterman's, a butcher's, a foot-soldier's,” continued Ursula, “or the\r\nlike?”\r\n\r\n“Not such a mummer as I am within the walls, and thou knowest that\r\nwell enough, dame,” replied the apprentice. “I can touch the players\r\nthemselves, at the Ball and at the Fortune, for presenting any thing\r\nexcept a gentleman."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Take but this d--d skin of frippery off me, which\r\nI think the devil stuck me into, and you shall put me into nothing else\r\nthat I will not become as if I were born to it.”\r\n\r\n“Well, we will talk of your transmutation by and by,” said the dame,\r\n“and find you clothes withal, and money besides; for it will take a good\r\ndeal to carry the thing handsomely through.”\r\n\r\n“But where is that money to come from, dame?” said Jenkin; “there is a\r\nquestion I would fain have answered before I touch it.”\r\n\r\n“Why, what a fool art thou to ask such a question! Suppose I am content\r\nto advance it to please young madam, what is the harm then?”\r\n\r\n“I will suppose no such thing,” said Jenkin, hastily; “I know that you,\r\ndame, have no gold to spare, and maybe would not spare it if you had--so\r\nthat cock will not crow. It must be from Margaret herself.”\r\n\r\n“Well, thou suspicious animal, and what if it were?” said Ursula. “Only this,” replied Jenkin, “that I will presently to her, and learn if\r\nshe has come fairly by so much ready money; for sooner than connive at\r\nher getting it by any indirection, I would hang myself at once."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is\r\nenough what I have done myself, no need to engage poor Margaret in such\r\nvillainy--I'll to her, and tell her of the danger--I will, by heaven!”\r\n\r\n“You are mad to think of it,” said Dame Suddlechop, considerably\r\nalarmed--“hear me but a moment. I know not precisely from whom she got\r\nthe money; but sure I am that she obtained it at her godfather's.”\r\n\r\n“Why, Master George Heriot is not returned from France,” said Jenkin."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“No,” replied Ursula, “but Dame Judith is at home--and the strange lady, whom they call Master Heriot's ghost--she never goes abroad.” “It is very true, Dame Suddlechop,” said Jenkin; “and I believe you have guessed right--they say that lady has coin at will; and if Marget can get a handful of fairy-gold, why, she is free to throw it away at will.” “Ah, Jin Vin,” said the dame, reducing her voice almost to a whisper, “we should not want gold at will neither, could we but read the riddle of that lady!” “They may read it that list,” said Jenkin, “I'll never pry into what concerns me not--Master George Heriot is a worthy and brave citizen, and an honour to London, and has a right to manage his own household as he likes best.--There was once a talk of rabbling him the fifth of November before the last, because they said he kept a nunnery in his house, like old Lady Foljambe; but Master George is well loved among the 'prentices, and we got so many brisk boys of us together as should have rabbled the rabble, had they had but the heart to rise.” “Well, let that pass,” said Ursula; “and now, tell me how you will manage to be absent from shop a day or two, for you must think that this matter will not be ended sooner.” “Why, as to that, I can say nothing,” said Jenkin, “I have always served duly and truly; I have no"}
{"question": "", "answer": "heart to play truant, and cheat my master of his time as well as his money.” “Nay, but the point is to get back his money for him,” said Ursula, “which he is not likely to see on other conditions."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Could you not ask\r\nleave to go down to your uncle in Essex for two or three days? He may be\r\nill, you know.”\r\n\r\n“Why, if I must, I must,” said Jenkin, with a heavy sigh; “but I will\r\nnot be lightly caught treading these dark and crooked paths again.”\r\n\r\n“Hush thee, then,” said the dame, “and get leave for this very evening;\r\nand come back hither, and I will introduce you to another implement,\r\nwho must be employed in the matter.--Stay, stay!--the lad is mazed--you\r\nwould not go into your master's shop in that guise, surely? Your trunk\r\nis in the matted chamber, with your 'prentice things--go and put them on\r\nas fast as you can.”\r\n\r\n“I think I am bewitched,” said Jenkin, giving a glance towards his\r\ndress, “or that these fool's trappings have made as great an ass of\r\nme as of many I have seen wear them; but let line once be rid of the\r\nharness, and if you catch me putting it on again, I will give you leave\r\nto sell me to a gipsy, to carry pots, pans, and beggar's bantlings, all\r\nthe rest of my life.” So saying, he retired to change his apparel. CHAPTER XXII\r\n\r\n\r\n  Chance will not do the work--Chance sends the breeze;\r\n  But if the pilot slumber at the helm,\r\n  The very wind that wafts us towards the port\r\n  May dash us on the shelves.--The steersman's part is vigilance,\r\n  Blow it or rough or smooth. _Old Play_."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We left Nigel, whose fortunes we are bound to trace by the engagement\r\ncontracted in our title-page, sad and solitary in the mansion of\r\nTrapbois the usurer, having just received a letter instead of a visit\r\nfrom his friend the Templar, stating reasons why he could not at\r\nthat time come to see him in Alsatia. So that it appeared that his\r\nintercourse with the better and more respectable class of society, was,\r\nfor the present, entirely cut off. This was a melancholy, and, to a\r\nproud mind like that of Nigel, a degrading reflection. He went to the window of his apartment, and found the street enveloped\r\nin one of those thick, dingy, yellow-coloured fogs, which often invest\r\nthe lower part of London and Westminster. Amid the darkness, dense and\r\npalpable, were seen to wander like phantoms a reveller or two, whom the\r\nmorning had surprised where the evening left them; and who now, with\r\ntottering steps, and by an instinct which intoxication could not wholly\r\novercome, were groping the way to their own homes, to convert day into\r\nnight, for the purpose of sleeping off the debauch which had turned\r\nnight into day. Although it was broad day in the other parts of the\r\ncity, it was scarce dawn yet in Alsatia; and none of the sounds of\r\nindustry or occupation were there heard, which had long before aroused\r\nthe slumberers in any other quarter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The prospect was too tiresome and\r\ndisagreeable to detain Lord Glenvarloch at his station, so, turning from\r\nthe window, he examined with more interest the furniture and appearance\r\nof the apartment which he tenanted. Much of it had been in its time rich and curious--there was a huge\r\nfour-post bed, with as much carved oak about it as would have made the\r\nhead of a man-of-war, and tapestry hangings ample enough to have\r\nbeen her sails. There was a huge mirror with a massy frame of gilt\r\nbrass-work, which was of Venetian manufacture, and must have been worth\r\na considerable sum before it received the tremendous crack, which,\r\ntraversing it from one corner to the other, bore the same proportion to\r\nthe surface that the Nile bears to the map of Egypt. The chairs were\r\nof different forms and shapes, some had been carved, some gilded, some\r\ncovered with damasked leather, some with embroidered work, but all were\r\ndamaged and worm-eaten. There was a picture of Susanna and the Elders\r\nover the chimney-piece, which might have been accounted a choice piece,\r\nhad not the rats made free with the chaste fair one's nose, and with the\r\nbeard of one of her reverend admirers. In a word, all that Lord Glenvarloch saw, seemed to have been articles\r\ncarried off by appraisement or distress, or bought as pennyworths at\r\nsome obscure broker's, and huddled together in the apartment, as in a\r\nsale-room, without regard to taste or congruity."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The place appeared to Nigel to resemble the houses near the sea-coast,\r\nwhich are too often furnished with the spoils of wrecked vessels, as\r\nthis was probably fitted up with the relics of ruined profligates.--“My\r\nown skiff is among the breakers,” thought Lord Glenvarloch, “though my\r\nwreck will add little to the profits of the spoiler.”\r\n\r\nHe was chiefly interested in the state of the grate, a huge assemblage\r\nof rusted iron bars which stood in the chimney, unequally supported\r\nby three brazen feet, moulded into the form of lion's claws, while the\r\nfourth, which had been bent by an accident, seemed proudly uplifted\r\nas if to paw the ground; or as if the whole article had nourished the\r\nambitious purpose of pacing forth into the middle of the apartment, and\r\nhad one foot ready raised for the journey. A smile passed over Nigel's\r\nface as this fantastic idea presented itself to his fancy.--“I must\r\nstop its march, however,” he thought; “for this morning is chill and raw\r\nenough to demand some fire.”\r\n\r\nHe called accordingly from the top of a large staircase, with a heavy\r\noaken balustrade, which gave access to his own and other apartments, for\r\nthe house was old and of considerable size; but, receiving no answer to\r\nhis repeated summons, he was compelled to go in search of some one who\r\nmight accommodate him with what he wanted."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nigel had, according to the fashion of the old world in Scotland,\r\nreceived an education which might, in most particulars, be termed\r\nsimple, hardy, and unostentatious; but he had, nevertheless, been\r\naccustomed to much personal deference, and to the constant attendance\r\nand ministry of one or more domestics. This was the universal custom in\r\nScotland, where wages were next to nothing, and where, indeed, a man of\r\ntitle or influence might have as many attendants as he pleased, for\r\nthe mere expense of food, clothes, and countenance. Nigel was therefore\r\nmortified and displeased when he found himself without notice or\r\nattendance; and the more dissatisfied, because he was at the same time\r\nangry with himself for suffering such a trifle to trouble him at all,\r\namongst matters of more deep concernment. “There must surely be some\r\nservants in so large a house as this,” said he, as he wandered over the\r\nplace, through which he was conducted by a passage which branched\r\noff from the gallery. As he went on, he tried the entrance to several\r\napartments, some of which he found were locked and others unfurnished,\r\nall apparently unoccupied; so that at length he returned to the\r\nstaircase, and resolved to make his way down to the lower part of the\r\nhouse, where he supposed he must at least find the old gentleman, and\r\nhis ill-favoured daughter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "With this purpose he first made his entrance\r\ninto a little low, dark parlour, containing a well-worn leathern\r\neasy-chair, before which stood a pair of slippers, while on the left\r\nside rested a crutch-handled staff; an oaken table stood before it, and\r\nsupported a huge desk clamped with iron, and a massive pewter inkstand. Around the apartment were shelves, cabinets, and other places convenient\r\nfor depositing papers. A sword, musketoon, and a pair of pistols, hung\r\nover the chimney, in ostentatious display, as if to intimate that the\r\nproprietor would be prompt in the defence of his premises. “This must be the usurer's den,” thought Nigel; and he was about to\r\ncall aloud, when the old man, awakened even by the slightest noise,\r\nfor avarice seldom sleeps sound, soon was heard from the inner room,\r\nspeaking in a voice of irritability, rendered more tremulous by his\r\nmorning cough. “Ugh, ugh, ugh--who is there? I say--ugh, ugh--who is there? Why,\r\nMartha!--ugh!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "ugh--Martha Trapbois--here be thieves in the house, and\r\nthey will not speak to me--why, Martha!--thieves, thieves--ugh, ugh,\r\nugh!”\r\n\r\nNigel endeavoured to explain, but the idea of thieves had taken\r\npossession of the old man's pineal gland, and he kept coughing and\r\nscreaming, and screaming and coughing, until the gracious Martha entered\r\nthe apartment; and, having first outscreamed her father, in order\r\nto convince him that there was no danger, and to assure him that the\r\nintruder was their new lodger, and having as often heard her sire\r\nejaculate--“Hold him fast--ugh, ugh--hold him fast till I come,” she at\r\nlength succeeded in silencing his fears and his clamour, and then\r\ncoldly and dryly asked Lord Glenvarloch what he wanted in her father's\r\napartment. Her lodger had, in the meantime, leisure to contemplate her appearance,\r\nwhich did not by any means improve the idea he had formed of it by\r\ncandlelight on the preceding evening. She was dressed in what was called\r\na Queen Mary's ruff and farthingale; not the falling ruff with which the\r\nunfortunate Mary of Scotland is usually painted, but that which, with\r\nmore than Spanish stiffness, surrounded the throat, and set off\r\nthe morose head, of her fierce namesake, of Smithfield memory."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This\r\nantiquated dress assorted well with the faded complexion, grey eyes,\r\nthin lips, and austere visage of the antiquated maiden, which was,\r\nmoreover, enhanced by a black hood, worn as her head-gear, carefully\r\ndisposed so as to prevent any of her hair from escaping to view,\r\nprobably because the simplicity of the period knew no art of disguising\r\nthe colour with which time had begun to grizzle her tresses. Her figure\r\nwas tall, thin, and flat, with skinny arms and hands, and feet of the\r\nlarger size, cased in huge high-heeled shoes, which added height to\r\na stature already ungainly. Apparently some art had been used by\r\nthe tailor, to conceal a slight defect of shape, occasioned by\r\nthe accidental elevation of one shoulder above the other; but the\r\npraiseworthy efforts of the ingenious mechanic, had only succeeded in\r\ncalling the attention of the observer to his benevolent purpose, without\r\ndemonstrating that he had been able to achieve it. Such was Mrs. Martha Trapbois, whose dry “What were you seeking here,\r\nsir?” fell again, and with reiterated sharpness, on the ear of Nigel,\r\nas he gazed upon her presence, and compared it internally to one of the\r\nfaded and grim figures in the old tapestry which adorned his bedstead. It was, however, necessary to reply, and he answered, that he came in\r\nsearch of the servants, as he desired to have a fire kindled in his\r\napartment on account of the rawness of the morning."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“The woman who does our char-work,” answered Mistress Martha, “comes at\r\neight o'clock-if you want fire sooner, there are fagots and a bucket of\r\nsea-coal in the stone-closet at the head of the stair--and there is a\r\nflint and steel on the upper shelf--you can light fire for yourself if\r\nyou will.”\r\n\r\n“No--no--no, Martha,” ejaculated her father, who, having donned his\r\nrustic tunic, with his hose all ungirt, and his feet slip-shod, hastily\r\ncame out of the inner apartment, with his mind probably full of robbers,\r\nfor he had a naked rapier in his hand, which still looked formidable,\r\nthough rust had somewhat marred its shine.--What he had heard at\r\nentrance about lighting a fire, had changed, however, the current of his\r\nideas. “No--no--no,” he cried, and each negative was more emphatic than\r\nits predecessor-“The gentleman shall not have the trouble to put on a\r\nfire--ugh--ugh. I'll put it on myself, for a con-si-de-ra-ti-on.”\r\n\r\nThis last word was a favourite expression with the old gentleman, which\r\nhe pronounced in a peculiar manner, gasping it out syllable by syllable,\r\nand laying a strong emphasis upon the last. It was, indeed, a sort\r\nof protecting clause, by which he guarded himself against all\r\ninconveniences attendant on the rash habit of offering service or\r\ncivility of any kind, the which, when hastily snapped at by those to\r\nwhom they are uttered, give the profferer sometimes room to repent his\r\npromptitude. “For shame, father,” said Martha, “that must not be."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Master Grahame will\r\nkindle his own fire, or wait till the char-woman comes to do it for him,\r\njust as likes him best.”\r\n\r\n“No, child--no, child. Child Martha, no,” reiterated the old miser--“no\r\nchar-woman shall ever touch a grate in my house; they put--ugh, ugh--the\r\nfaggot uppermost, and so the coal kindles not, and the flame goes up\r\nthe chimney, and wood and heat are both thrown away. Now, I will lay\r\nit properly for the gentleman, for a consideration, so that it shall\r\nlast--ugh, ugh--last the whole day.” Here his vehemence increased his\r\ncough so violently, that Nigel could only, from a scattered word here\r\nand there, comprehend that it was a recommendation to his daughter\r\nto remove the poker and tongs from the stranger's fireside, with an\r\nassurance, that, when necessary, his landlord would be in attendance to\r\nadjust it himself, “for a consideration.”\r\n\r\nMartha paid as little attention to the old man's injunctions as a\r\npredominant dame gives to those of a henpecked husband. She only\r\nrepeated, in a deeper and more emphatic tone of censure,--“For shame,\r\nfather--for shame!” then, turning to her guest, said, with her usual\r\nungraciousness of manner--“Master Grahame--it is best to be plain with\r\nyou at first. My father is an old, a very old man, and his wits, as you\r\nmay see, are somewhat weakened--though I would not advise you to make\r\na bargain with him, else you may find them too sharp for your own."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For\r\nmyself, I am a lone woman, and, to say truth, care little to see or\r\nconverse with any one. If you can be satisfied with house-room, shelter,\r\nand safety, it will be your own fault if you have them not, and they\r\nare not always to be found in this unhappy quarter. But, if you seek\r\ndeferential observance and attendance, I tell you at once you will not\r\nfind them here.”\r\n\r\n“I am not wont either to thrust myself upon acquaintance, madam, or\r\nto give trouble,” said the guest; “nevertheless, I shall need the\r\nassistance of a domestic to assist me to dress--Perhaps you can\r\nrecommend me to such?”\r\n\r\n“Yes, to twenty,” answered Mistress Martha, “who will pick your purse\r\nwhile they tie your points, and cut your throat while they smooth your\r\npillow.”\r\n\r\n“I will be his servant, myself,” said the old man, whose intellect,\r\nfor a moment distanced, had again, in some measure, got up with\r\nthe conversation. “I will brush his cloak--ugh, ugh--and tie his\r\npoints--ugh, ugh--and clean his shoes--ugh--and run on his errands with\r\nspeed and safety--ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh--for a consideration.”\r\n\r\n“Good-morrow to you, sir,” said Martha, to Nigel, in a tone of direct\r\nand positive dismissal. “It cannot be agreeable to a daughter that\r\na stranger should hear her father speak thus."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If you be really a\r\ngentleman, you will retire to your own apartment.”\r\n\r\n“I will not delay a moment,” said Nigel, respectfully, for he was\r\nsensible that circumstances palliated the woman's rudeness. “I would but\r\nask you, if seriously there can be danger in procuring the assistance of\r\na serving-man in this place?”\r\n\r\n“Young gentleman,” said Martha, “you must know little of Whitefriars to\r\nask the question. We live alone in this house, and seldom has a stranger\r\nentered it; nor should you, to be plain, had my will been consulted. Look at the door--see if that of a castle can be better secured; the\r\nwindows of the first floor are grated on the outside, and within, look\r\nto these shutters.”\r\n\r\nShe pulled one of them aside, and showed a ponderous apparatus of bolts\r\nand chains for securing the window-shutters, while her father, pressing\r\nto her side, seized her gown with a trembling hand, and said, in a low\r\nwhisper, “Show not the trick of locking and undoing them. Show him not\r\nthe trick on't, Martha--ugh, ugh--on _no_ consideration.” Martha went\r\non, without paying him any attention."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“And yet, young gentleman, we have been more than once like to find all\r\nthese defences too weak to protect our lives; such an evil effect on the\r\nwicked generation around us hath been made by the unhappy report of my\r\npoor father's wealth.”\r\n\r\n“Say nothing of that, housewife,” said the miser, his irritability\r\nincreased by the very supposition of his being wealthy--“Say nothing\r\nof that, or I will beat thee, housewife--beat thee with my staff, for\r\nfetching and carrying lies that will procure our throats to be cut\r\nat last--ugh, ugh.--I am but a poor man,” he continued, turning to\r\nNigel--“a very poor man, that am willing to do any honest turn upon\r\nearth, for a modest consideration.”\r\n\r\n“I therefore warn you of the life you must lead, young gentleman,” said\r\nMartha; “the poor woman who does the char-work will assist you so far as\r\nin her power, but the wise man is his own best servant and assistant.”\r\n\r\n“It is a lesson you have taught me, madam, and I thank you for it--I\r\nwill assuredly study it at leisure.”\r\n\r\n“You will do well,” said Martha; “and as you seem thankful for advice,\r\nI, though I am no professed counsellor of others, will give you more. Make no intimacy with any one in Whitefriars--borrow no money, on any\r\nscore, especially from my father, for, dotard as he seems, he will make\r\nan ass of you."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Last, and best of all, stay here not an instant longer\r\nthan you can help it. Farewell, sir.”\r\n\r\n“A gnarled tree may bear good fruit, and a harsh nature may give good\r\ncounsel,” thought the Lord of Glenvarloch, as he retreated to his own\r\napartment, where the same reflection occurred to him again and again,\r\nwhile, unable as yet to reconcile himself to the thoughts of becoming\r\nhis own fire-maker, he walked up and down his bedroom, to warm himself\r\nby exercise. At length his meditations arranged themselves in the following\r\nsoliloquy--by which expression I beg leave to observe once for all, that\r\nI do not mean that Nigel literally said aloud with his bodily organs,\r\nthe words which follow in inverted commas, (while pacing the room by\r\nhimself,) but that I myself choose to present to my dearest reader the\r\npicture of my hero's mind, his reflections and resolutions, in the form\r\nof a speech, rather than in that of a narrative. In other words, I have\r\nput his thoughts into language; and this I conceive to be the purpose of\r\nthe soliloquy upon the stage as well as in the closet, being at once the\r\nmost natural, and perhaps the only way of communicating to the spectator\r\nwhat is supposed to be passing in the bosom of the scenic personage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There are no such soliloquies in nature, it is true, but unless they\r\nwere received as a conventional medium of communication betwixt the poet\r\nand the audience, we should reduce dramatic authors to the recipe of\r\nMaster Puff, who makes Lord Burleigh intimate a long train of political\r\nreasoning to the audience, by one comprehensive shake of his noddle. In\r\nnarrative, no doubt, the writer has the alternative of telling that his\r\npersonages thought so and so, inferred thus and thus, and arrived at\r\nsuch and such a conclusion; but the soliloquy is a more concise and\r\nspirited mode of communicating the same information; and therefore thus\r\ncommuned, or thus might have communed, the Lord of Glenvarloch with his\r\nown mind. “She is right, and has taught me a lesson I will profit by. I have been,\r\nthrough my whole life, one who leant upon others for that assistance,\r\nwhich it is more truly noble to derive from my own exertions."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am\r\nashamed of feeling the paltry inconvenience which long habit had led me\r\nto annex to the want of a servant's assistance--I am ashamed of that;\r\nbut far, far more am I ashamed to have suffered the same habit of\r\nthrowing my own burden on others, to render me, since I came to this\r\ncity, a mere victim of those events, which I have never even\r\nattempted to influence--a thing never acting, but perpetually acted\r\nupon--protected by one friend, deceived by another; but in the advantage\r\nwhich I received from the one, and the evil I have sustained from the\r\nother, as passive and helpless as a boat that drifts without oar or\r\nrudder at the mercy of the winds and waves. I became a courtier, because\r\nHeriot so advised it--a gamester, because Dalgarno so contrived it--an\r\nAlsatian, because Lowestoffe so willed it. Whatever of good or bad has\r\nbefallen me, has arisen out of the agency of others, not from my own. My\r\nfather's son must no longer hold this facile and puerile course. Live\r\nor die, sink or swim, Nigel Olifaunt, from this moment, shall owe his\r\nsafety, success, and honour, to his own exertions, or shall fall with\r\nthe credit of having at least exerted his own free agency. I will write\r\nit down in my tablets, in her very words,--'The wise man is his own best\r\nassistant."}
{"question": "", "answer": "'”\r\n\r\nHe had just put his tablets in his pocket when the old charwoman, who,\r\nto add to her efficiency, was sadly crippled by rheumatism, hobbled into\r\nthe room, to try if she could gain a small gratification by waiting on\r\nthe stranger. She readily undertook to get Lord Glenvarloch's breakfast,\r\nand as there was an eating-house at the next door, she succeeded in a\r\nshorter time than Nigel had augured. As his solitary meal was finished, one of the Temple porters, or\r\ninferior officers, was announced, as seeking Master Grahame, on the part\r\nof his friend, Master Lowestoffe; and, being admitted by the old woman\r\nto his apartment, he delivered to Nigel a small mail-trunk, with the\r\nclothes he had desired should be sent to him, and then, with more\r\nmystery, put into his hand a casket, or strong-boy, which he carefully\r\nconcealed beneath his cloak. “I am glad to be rid on't,” said the\r\nfellow, as he placed it on the table. “Why, it is surely not so very heavy,” answered Nigel, “and you are a\r\nstout young man.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, sir,” replied the fellow; “but Samson himself would not have\r\ncarried such a matter safely through Alsatia, had the lads of the Huff\r\nknown what it was. Please to look into it, sir, and see all is right--I\r\nam an honest fellow, and it comes safe out of my hands. How long it may\r\nremain so afterwards, will depend on your own care."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I would not my good\r\nname were to suffer by any after-clap.”\r\n\r\nTo satisfy the scruples of the messenger, Lord Glenvarloch opened the\r\ncasket in his presence, and saw that his small stock of money, with\r\ntwo or three valuable papers which it contained, and particularly the\r\noriginal sign-manual which the king had granted in his favour, were in\r\nthe same order in which he had left them. At the man's further instance,\r\nhe availed himself of the writing materials which were in the casket, in\r\norder to send a line to Master Lowestoffe, declaring that his property\r\nhad reached him in safety. He added some grateful acknowledgments for\r\nLowestoffe's services, and, just as he was sealing and delivering his\r\nbillet to the messenger, his aged landlord entered the apartment. His\r\nthreadbare suit of black clothes was now somewhat better arranged than\r\nthey had been in the dishabille of his first appearance, and his nerves\r\nand intellects seemed to be less fluttered; for, without much coughing\r\nor hesitation, he invited Nigel to partake of a morning draught of\r\nwholesome single ale, which he brought in a large leathern tankard, or\r\nblack-jack, carried in the one hand, while the other stirred it round\r\nwith a sprig of rosemary, to give it, as the old man said, a flavour."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nigel declined the courteous proffer, and intimated by his manner,\r\nwhile he did so, that he desired no intrusion on the privacy of his\r\nown apartment; which, indeed, he was the more entitled to maintain,\r\nconsidering the cold reception he had that morning met with when\r\nstraying from its precincts into those of his landlord. But the open\r\ncasket contained matter, or rather metal, so attractive to old Trapbois,\r\nthat he remained fixed, like a setting-dog at a dead point, his nose\r\nadvanced, and one hand expanded like the lifted forepaw, by which that\r\nsagacious quadruped sometimes indicates that it is a hare which he has\r\nin the wind. Nigel was about to break the charm which had thus arrested\r\nold Trapbois, by shutting the lid of the casket, when his attention was\r\nwithdrawn from him by the question of the messenger, who, holding\r\nout the letter, asked whether he was to leave it at Mr. Lowestoffe's\r\nchambers in the Temple, or carry it to the Marshalsea?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "“The Marshalsea?” repeated Lord Glenvarloch; “what of the Marshalsea?”\r\n\r\n“Why, sir,” said the man, “the poor gentleman is laid up there in\r\nlavender, because, they say, his own kind heart led him to scald his\r\nfingers with another man's broth.”\r\n\r\nNigel hastily snatched back the letter, broke the seal, joined to the\r\ncontents his earnest entreaty that he might be instantly acquainted with\r\nthe cause of his confinement, and added, that, if it arose out of his\r\nown unhappy affair, it would be of a brief duration, since he had, even\r\nbefore hearing of a reason which so peremptorily demanded that he should\r\nsurrender himself, adopted the resolution to do so, as the manliest and\r\nmost proper course which his ill fortune and imprudence had left in his\r\nown power. He therefore conjured Mr. Lowestoffe to have no delicacy upon\r\nthis score, but, since his surrender was what he had determined upon as\r\na sacrifice due to his own character, that he would have the frankness\r\nto mention in what manner it could be best arranged, so as to extricate\r\nhim, Lowestoffe, from the restraint to which the writer could not but\r\nfear his friend had been subjected, on account of the generous interest\r\nwhich he had taken in his concerns. The letter concluded, that the\r\nwriter would suffer twenty-four hours to elapse in expectation of\r\nhearing from him, and, at the end of that period, was determined to put\r\nhis purpose in execution."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He delivered the billet to the messenger,\r\nand, enforcing his request with a piece of money, urged him, without a\r\nmoment's delay, to convey it to the hands of Master Lowestoffe. “I--I--I--will carry it to him myself,” said the old usurer, “for half\r\nthe consideration.”\r\n\r\nThe man who heard this attempt to take his duty and perquisites over his\r\nhead, lost no time in pocketing the money, and departed on his errand as\r\nfast as he could. “Master Trapbois,” said Nigel, addressing the old man somewhat\r\nimpatiently, “had you any particular commands for me?”\r\n\r\n“I--I--came to see if you rested well,” answered the old man; “and--if I\r\ncould do anything to serve you, on any consideration.”\r\n\r\n“Sir, I thank you,” said Lord Glenvarloch--“I thank you;” and, ere he\r\ncould say more, a heavy footstep was heard on the stair. “My God!” exclaimed the old man, starting up--“Why,\r\nDorothy--char-woman--why, daughter,--draw bolt, I say, housewives--the\r\ndoor hath been left a-latch!”\r\n\r\nThe door of the chamber opened wide, and in strutted the portly bulk\r\nof the military hero whom Nigel had on the preceding evening in vain\r\nendeavoured to recognise. CHAPTER XXIII\r\n\r\n\r\nSWASH-BUCKLER. Bilboe's the word--PIERROT. It hath been spoke too often,\r\nThe spell hath lost its charm--I tell thee, friend, The meanest cur that\r\ntrots the street, will turn, And snarl against your proffer'd bastinado. SWASH-BUCKLER. 'Tis art shall do it, then--I will dose the mongrels--Or,\r\nin plain terms, I'll use the private knife 'Stead of the brandish'd\r\nfalchion. _Old Play_."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The noble Captain Colepepper or Peppercull, for he was known by both\r\nthese names, and some others besides; had a martial and a swashing\r\nexterior, which, on the present occasion, was rendered yet more\r\npeculiar, by a patch covering his left eye and a part of the cheek. The sleeves of his thickset velvet jerkin were polished and shone with\r\ngrease,--his buff gloves had huge tops, which reached almost to the\r\nelbow; his sword-belt of the same materials extended its breadth from\r\nhis haunchbone to his small ribs, and supported on the one side his\r\nlarge black-hilted back-sword, on the other a dagger of like proportions\r\nHe paid his compliments to Nigel with that air of predetermined\r\neffrontery, which announces that it will not be repelled by any coldness\r\nof reception, asked Trapbois how he did, by the familiar title of old\r\nPeter Pillory, and then, seizing upon the black-jack, emptied it off at\r\na draught, to the health of the last and youngest freeman of Alsatia,\r\nthe noble and loving master Nigel Grahame."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When he had set down the empty pitcher and drawn his breath, he began to\r\ncriticise the liquor which it had lately contained.--“Sufficient single\r\nbeer, old Pillory--and, as I take it, brewed at the rate of a nutshell\r\nof malt to a butt of Thames--as dead as a corpse, too, and yet it\r\nwent hissing down my throat--bubbling, by Jove, like water upon hot\r\niron.--You left us early, noble Master Grahame, but, good faith, we had\r\na carouse to your honour--we heard _butt_ ring hollow ere we parted;\r\nwe were as loving as inkle-weavers--we fought, too, to finish off the\r\ngawdy. I bear some marks of the parson about me, you see--a note of the\r\nsermon or so, which should have been addressed to my ear, but missed its\r\nmark, and reached my left eye. The man of God bears my sign-manual too,\r\nbut the Duke made us friends again, and it cost me more sack than I\r\ncould carry, and all the Rhenish to boot, to pledge the seer in the way\r\nof love and reconciliation--But, Caracco! 'tis a vile old canting slave\r\nfor all that, whom I will one day beat out of his devil's livery into\r\nall the colours of the rainbow.--Basta!--Said I well, old Trapbois?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Where is thy daughter, man?--what says she to my suit?--'tis an honest\r\none--wilt have a soldier for thy son-in-law, old Pillory, to mingle the\r\nsoul of martial honour with thy thieving, miching, petty-larceny blood,\r\nas men put bold brandy into muddy ale?”\r\n\r\n“My daughter receives not company so early, noble captain,” said the\r\nusurer, and concluded his speech with a dry, emphatical “ugh, ugh.”\r\n\r\n“What, upon no con-si-de-ra-ti-on?” said the captain; “and wherefore not,\r\nold Truepenny? she has not much time to lose in driving her bargain,\r\nmethinks.”\r\n\r\n“Captain,” said Trapbois, “I was upon some little business with our\r\nnoble friend here, Master Nigel Green--ugh, ugh, ugh--”\r\n\r\n“And you would have me gone, I warrant you?” answered the bully; “but\r\npatience, old Pillory, thine hour is not yet come, man--You see,” he\r\nsaid, pointing to the casket, “that noble Master Grahame, whom you call\r\nGreen, has got the _decuses_ and the _smelt_.”\r\n\r\n“Which you would willingly rid him of, ha! ha!--ugh, ugh,” answered the\r\nusurer, “if you knew how--but, lack-a-day! thou art one of those that\r\ncome out for wool, and art sure to go home shorn."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why now, but that I\r\nam sworn against laying of wagers, I would risk some consideration that\r\nthis honest guest of mine sends thee home penniless, if thou darest\r\nventure with him--ugh, ugh--at any game which gentlemen play at.”\r\n\r\n“Marry, thou hast me on the hip there, thou old miserly cony-catcher!”\r\n answered the captain, taking a bale of dice from the sleeve of his coat;\r\n“I must always keep company with these damnable doctors, and they have\r\nmade me every baby's cully, and purged my purse into an atrophy; but\r\nnever mind, it passes the time as well as aught else--How say you,\r\nMaster Grahame?”\r\n\r\nThe fellow paused; but even the extremity of his impudence could\r\nscarcely hardly withstand the cold look of utter contempt with which\r\nNigel received his proposal, returning it with a simple, “I only play\r\nwhere I know my company, and never in the morning.”\r\n\r\n“Cards may be more agreeable,” said Captain Colepepper; “and, for\r\nknowing your company, here is honest old Pillory will tell you Jack\r\nColepepper plays as truly on the square as e'er a man that trowled\r\na die--Men talk of high and low dice, Fulhams and bristles, topping,\r\nknapping, slurring, stabbing, and a hundred ways of rooking besides;\r\nbut broil me like a rasher of bacon, if I could ever learn the trick on\r\n'em!”\r\n\r\n“You have got the vocabulary perfect, sir, at the least,” said Nigel, in\r\nthe same cold tone."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Yes, by mine honour have I,” returned the Hector; “they are phrases\r\nthat a gentleman learns about town.--But perhaps you would like a set at\r\ntennis, or a game at balloon--we have an indifferent good court hard\r\nby here, and a set of as gentleman-like blades as ever banged leather\r\nagainst brick and mortar.”\r\n\r\n“I beg to be excused at present,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “and to be\r\nplain, among the valuable privileges your society has conferred on me, I\r\nhope I may reckon that of being private in my own apartment when I have\r\na mind.”\r\n\r\n“Your humble servant, sir,” said the captain; “and I thank you for\r\nyour civility--Jack Colepepper can have enough of company, and thrusts\r\nhimself on no one.--But perhaps you will like to make a match at\r\nskittles?”\r\n\r\n“I am by no means that way disposed,” replied the young nobleman,\r\n\r\n“Or to leap a flea--run a snail--match a wherry, eh?”\r\n\r\n“No--I will do none of these,” answered Nigel. Here the old man, who had been watching with his little peery eyes,\r\npulled the bulky Hector by the skirt, and whispered, “Do not vapour him\r\nthe huff, it will not pass--let the trout play, he will rise to the hook\r\npresently.”\r\n\r\nBut the bully, confiding in his own strength, and probably mistaking\r\nfor timidity the patient scorn with which Nigel received his proposals,\r\nincited also by the open casket, began to assume a louder and more\r\nthreatening tone."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He drew himself up, bent his brows, assumed a look of\r\nprofessional ferocity, and continued, “In Alsatia, look ye, a man must\r\nbe neighbourly and companionable. Zouns! sir, we would slit any nose\r\nthat was turned up at us honest fellows.--Ay, sir, we would slit it\r\nup to the gristle, though it had smelt nothing all its life but musk,\r\nambergris, and court-scented water.--Rabbit me, I am a soldier, and care\r\nno more for a lord than a lamplighter!”\r\n\r\n“Are you seeking a quarrel, sir?” said Nigel, calmly, having in truth no\r\ndesire to engage himself in a discreditable broil in such a place, and\r\nwith such a character. “Quarrel, sir?” said the captain; “I am not seeking a quarrel, though I\r\ncare not how soon I find one. Only I wish you to understand you must\r\nbe neighbourly, that's all. What if we should go over the water to the\r\ngarden, and see a bull hanked this fine morning--'sdeath, will you do\r\nnothing?”\r\n\r\n“Something I am strangely tempted to do at this moment,” said Nigel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Videlicet,” said Colepepper, with a swaggering air, “let us hear the\r\ntemptation.”\r\n\r\n“I am tempted to throw you headlong from the window, unless you\r\npresently make the best of your way down stairs.”\r\n\r\n“Throw me from the window?--hell and furies!” exclaimed the captain; “I\r\nhave confronted twenty crooked sabres at Buda with my single rapier, and\r\nshall a chitty-faced, beggarly Scots lordling, speak of me and a window\r\nin the same breath?--Stand off, old Pillory, let me make Scotch collops\r\nof him--he dies the death!”\r\n\r\n“For the love of Heaven, gentlemen,” exclaimed the old miser, throwing\r\nhimself between them, “do not break the peace on any consideration! Noble guest, forbear the captain--he is a very Hector of\r\nTroy--Trusty Hector, forbear my guest, he is like to prove a very\r\nAchilles-ugh-ugh----”\r\n\r\nHere he was interrupted by his asthma, but, nevertheless, continued\r\nto interpose his person between Colepepper (who had unsheathed his\r\nwhinyard, and was making vain passes at his antagonist) and Nigel, who\r\nhad stepped back to take his sword, and now held it undrawn in his left\r\nhand. “Make an end of this foolery, you scoundrel!” said Nigel--“Do you come\r\nhither to vent your noisy oaths and your bottled-up valour on me?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "You\r\nseem to know me, and I am half ashamed to say I have at length been\r\nable to recollect you--remember the garden behind the ordinary,--you\r\ndastardly ruffian, and the speed with which fifty men saw you run from a\r\ndrawn sword.--Get you gone, sir, and do not put me to the vile labour of\r\ncudgelling such a cowardly rascal down stairs.”\r\n\r\nThe bully's countenance grew dark as night at this unexpected\r\nrecognition; for he had undoubtedly thought himself secure in his change\r\nof dress, and his black patch, from being discovered by a person who had\r\nseen him but once. He set his teeth, clenched his hands, and it seemed\r\nas if he was seeking for a moment's courage to fly upon his antagonist. But his heart failed, he sheathed his sword, turned his back in gloomy\r\nsilence, and spoke not until he reached the door, when, turning\r\nround, he said, with a deep oath, “If I be not avenged of you for this\r\ninsolence ere many days go by, I would the gallows had my body and the\r\ndevil my spirit!”\r\n\r\nSo saying, and with a look where determined spite and malice made his\r\nfeatures savagely fierce, though they could not overcome his fear, he\r\nturned and left the house."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nigel followed him as far as the gallery at\r\nthe head of the staircase, with the purpose of seeing him depart, and\r\nere he returned was met by Mistress Martha Trapbois, whom the noise of\r\nthe quarrel had summoned from her own apartment. He could not resist\r\nsaying to her in his natural displeasure--“I would, madam, you could\r\nteach your father and his friends the lesson which you had the goodness\r\nto bestow on me this morning, and prevail on them to leave me the\r\nunmolested privacy of my own apartment.”\r\n\r\n“If you came hither for quiet or retirement, young man,” answered she,\r\n“you have been advised to an evil retreat. You might seek mercy in the\r\nStar-Chamber, or holiness in hell, with better success than quiet in\r\nAlsatia. But my father shall trouble you no longer.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, she entered the apartment, and, fixing her eyes on the\r\ncasket, she said with emphasis--“If you display such a loadstone, it\r\nwill draw many a steel knife to your throat.”\r\n\r\nWhile Nigel hastily shut the casket, she addressed her father,\r\nupbraiding him, with small reverence, for keeping company with the\r\ncowardly, hectoring, murdering villain, John Colepepper."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Ay, ay, child,” said the old man, with the cunning leer which\r\nintimated perfect satisfaction with his own superior address--“I know--I\r\nknow--ugh--but I'll crossbite him--I know them all, and I can manage\r\nthem--ay, ay--I have the trick on't--ugh-ugh.”\r\n\r\n“_You_ manage, father!” said the austere damsel; “you will manage to\r\nhave your throat cut, and that ere long. You cannot hide from them your\r\ngains and your gold as formerly.”\r\n\r\n“My gains, wench? my gold?” said the usurer; “alack-a-day, few of these\r\nand hard got--few and hard got.”\r\n\r\n“This will not serve you, father, any longer,” said she, “and had not\r\nserved you thus long, but that Bully Colepepper had contrived a cheaper\r\nway of plundering your house, even by means of my miserable self.--But\r\nwhy do I speak to him of all this,” she said, checking herself, and\r\nshrugging her shoulders with an expression of pity which did not fall\r\nmuch short of scorn. “He hears me not--he thinks not of me.--Is it\r\nnot strange that the love of gathering gold should survive the care to\r\npreserve both property and life?”\r\n\r\n“Your father,” said Lord Glenvarloch, who could not help respecting the\r\nstrong sense and feeling shown by this poor woman, even amidst all\r\nher rudeness and severity, “your father seems to have his faculties\r\nsufficiently alert when he is in the exercise of his ordinary pursuits\r\nand functions."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I wonder he is not sensible of the weight of your\r\narguments.”\r\n\r\n“Nature made him a man senseless of danger, and that insensibility is\r\nthe best thing I have derived from him,” said she; “age has left him\r\nshrewdness enough to tread his old beaten paths, but not to seek new\r\ncourses. The old blind horse will long continue to go its rounds in the\r\nmill, when it would stumble in the open meadow.”\r\n\r\n“Daughter!--why, wench--why, housewife!” said the old man, awakening\r\nout of some dream, in which he had been sneering and chuckling in\r\nimagination, probably over a successful piece of roguery,--“go to\r\nchamber, wench--go to chamber--draw bolts and chain--look sharp to\r\ndoor--let none in or out but worshipful Master Grahame--I must take my\r\ncloak, and go to Duke Hildebrod--ay, ay, time has been, my own warrant\r\nwas enough; but the lower we lie, the more are we under the wind.”\r\n\r\nAnd, with his wonted chorus of muttering and coughing, the old man left\r\nthe apartment. His daughter stood for a moment looking after him, with\r\nher usual expression of discontent and sorrow. “You ought to persuade your father,” said Nigel, “to leave this evil\r\nneighbourhood, if you are in reality apprehensive for his safety.”\r\n\r\n“He would be safe in no other quarter,” said the daughter; “I would\r\nrather the old man were dead than publicly dishonoured. In other\r\nquarters he would be pelted and pursued, like an owl which ventures into\r\nsunshine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Here he was safe, while his comrades could avail themselves of\r\nhis talents; he is now squeezed and fleeced by them on every pretence. They consider him as a vessel on the strand, from which each may snatch\r\na prey; and the very jealousy which they entertain respecting him as a\r\ncommon property, may perhaps induce them to guard him from more private\r\nand daring assaults.”\r\n\r\n“Still, methinks, you ought to leave this place,” answered Nigel, “since\r\nyou might find a safe retreat in some distant country.”\r\n\r\n“In Scotland, doubtless,” said she, looking at him with a sharp and\r\nsuspicious eye, “and enrich strangers with our rescued wealth--Ha! young\r\nman?”\r\n\r\n“Madam, if you knew me,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “you would spare the\r\nsuspicion implied in your words.”\r\n\r\n“Who shall assure me of that?” said Martha, sharply. “They say you are\r\na brawler and a gamester, and I know how far these are to be trusted by\r\nthe unhappy.”\r\n\r\n“They do me wrong, by Heaven!” said Lord Glenvarloch. “It may be so,” said Martha; “I am little interested in the degree of\r\nyour vice or your folly; but it is plain, that the one or the other\r\nhas conducted you hither, and that your best hope of peace, safety, and\r\nhappiness, is to be gone, with the least possible delay, from a place\r\nwhich is always a sty for swine, and often a shambles.” So saying, she\r\nleft the apartment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was something in the ungracious manner of this female, amounting\r\nalmost to contempt of him she spoke to--an indignity to which\r\nGlenvarloch, notwithstanding his poverty, had not as yet been personally\r\nexposed, and which, therefore, gave him a transitory feeling of painful\r\nsurprise. Neither did the dark hints which Martha threw out concerning\r\nthe danger of his place of refuge, sound by any means agreeably to his\r\nears. The bravest man, placed in a situation in which he is surrounded\r\nby suspicious persons, and removed from all counsel and assistance,\r\nexcept those afforded by a valiant heart and a strong arm, experiences\r\na sinking of the spirit, a consciousness of abandonment, which for\r\na moment chills his blood, and depresses his natural gallantry of\r\ndisposition. But, if sad reflections arose in Nigel's mind, he had not time to\r\nindulge them; and, if he saw little prospect of finding friends in\r\nAlsatia, he found that he was not likely to be solitary for lack of\r\nvisitors."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had scarcely paced his apartment for ten minutes, endeavouring to\r\narrange his ideas on the course which he was to pursue on quitting\r\nAlsatia, when he was interrupted by the Sovereign of the quarter, the\r\ngreat Duke Hildebrod himself, before whose approach the bolts and chains\r\nof the miser's dwelling fell, or withdrew, as of their own accord; and\r\nboth the folding leaves of the door were opened, that he might roll\r\nhimself into the house like a huge butt of liquor, a vessel to which\r\nhe bore a considerable outward resemblance, both in size, shape,\r\ncomplexion, and contents. “Good-morrow to your lordship,” said the greasy puncheon, cocking his\r\nsingle eye, and rolling it upon Nigel with a singular expression of\r\nfamiliar impudence; whilst his grim bull-dog, which was close at his\r\nheels, made a kind of gurgling in his throat, as if saluting, in similar\r\nfashion, a starved cat, the only living thing in Trapbois' house which\r\nwe have not yet enumerated, and which had flown up to the top of the\r\ntester, where she stood clutching and grinning at the mastiff, whose\r\ngreeting she accepted with as much good-will as Nigel bestowed on that\r\nof the dog's master. “Peace, Belzie!--D--n thee, peace!” said Duke Hildebrod."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Beasts and\r\nfools will be meddling, my lord.”\r\n\r\n“I thought, sir,” answered Nigel, with as much haughtiness as was\r\nconsistent with the cool distance which he desired to preserve, “I\r\nthought I had told you, my name at present was Nigel Grahame.”\r\n\r\nHis eminence of Whitefriars on this burst out into a loud, chuckling,\r\nimpudent laugh, repeating the word, till his voice was almost\r\ninarticulate,--“Niggle Green--Niggle Green--Niggle Green!--why, my lord,\r\nyou would be queered in the drinking of a penny pot of Malmsey, if you\r\ncry before you are touched. Why, you have told me the secret even now,\r\nhad I not had a shrewd guess of it before. Why, Master Nigel, since that\r\nis the word, I only called you my lord, because we made you a peer\r\nof Alsatia last night, when the sack was predominant.--How you look\r\nnow!--Ha! ha! ha!”\r\n\r\nNigel, indeed, conscious that he had unnecessarily betrayed himself,\r\nreplied hastily,--“he was much obliged to him for the honours conferred,\r\nbut did not propose to remain in the Sanctuary long enough to enjoy\r\nthem.”\r\n\r\n“Why, that may be as you will, an you will walk by wise counsel,”\r\n answered the ducal porpoise; and, although Nigel remained standing, in\r\nhopes to accelerate his guest's departure, he threw himself into one of\r\nthe old tapestry-backed easy-chairs, which cracked under his weight, and\r\nbegan to call for old Trapbois."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The crone of all work appearing instead of her master, the Duke cursed\r\nher for a careless jade, to let a strange gentleman, and a brave guest,\r\ngo without his morning's draught. “I never take one, sir,” said Glenvarloch. “Time to begin--time to begin,” answered the Duke.--“Here, you old\r\nrefuse of Sathan, go to our palace, and fetch Lord Green's morning\r\ndraught. Let us see--what shall it be, my lord?--a humming double pot of\r\nale, with a roasted crab dancing in it like a wherry above bridge?--or,\r\nhum--ay, young men are sweet-toothed--a quart of burnt sack, with sugar\r\nand spice?--good against the fogs. Or, what say you to sipping a gill of\r\nright distilled waters? Come, we will have them all, and you shall take\r\nyour choice.--Here, you Jezebel, let Tim send the ale, and the sack, and\r\nthe nipperkin of double-distilled, with a bit of diet-loaf, or some such\r\ntrinket, and score it to the new comer.”\r\n\r\nGlenvarloch, bethinking himself that it might be as well to endure\r\nthis fellow's insolence for a brief season, as to get into farther\r\ndiscreditable quarrels, suffered him to take his own way, without\r\ninterruption, only observing, “You make yourself at home, sir, in my\r\napartment; but, for the time, you may use your pleasure. Meanwhile,\r\nI would fain know what has procured me the honour of this unexpected\r\nvisit?”\r\n\r\n“You shall know that when old Deb has brought the liquor--I never speak\r\nof business dry-lipped."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why, how she drumbles--I warrant she stops to\r\ntake a sip on the road, and then you will think you have had unchristian\r\nmeasure.--In the meanwhile, look at that dog there--look Belzebub in\r\nthe face, and tell me if you ever saw a sweeter beast--never flew but at\r\nhead in his life.”\r\n\r\nAnd, after this congenial panegyric, he was proceeding with a tale of a\r\ndog and a bull, which threatened to be somewhat of the longest, when\r\nhe was interrupted by the return of the old crone, and two of his own\r\ntapsters, bearing the various kinds of drinkables which he had demanded,\r\nand which probably was the only species of interruption he would have\r\nendured with equanimity. When the cups and cans were duly arranged upon the table, and when\r\nDeborah, whom the ducal generosity honoured with a penny farthing in\r\nthe way of gratuity, had withdrawn with her satellites, the worthy\r\npotentate, having first slightly invited Lord Glenvarloch to partake\r\nof the liquor which he was to pay for, and after having observed, that,\r\nexcepting three poached eggs, a pint of bastard, and a cup of clary, he\r\nwas fasting from every thing but sin, set himself seriously to reinforce\r\nthe radical moisture."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Glenvarloch had seen Scottish lairds and Dutch\r\nburgomasters at their potations; but their exploits (though each might\r\nbe termed a thirsty generation) were nothing to those of Duke Hildebrod,\r\nwho seemed an absolute sandbed, capable of absorbing any given quantity\r\nof liquid, without being either vivified or overflowed. He drank off\r\nthe ale to quench a thirst which, as he said, kept him in a fever from\r\nmorning to night, and night to morning; tippled off the sack to correct\r\nthe crudity of the ale; sent the spirits after the sack to keep all\r\nquiet, and then declared that, probably, he should not taste liquor till\r\n_post meridiem_, unless it was in compliment to some especial friend. Finally, he intimated that he was ready to proceed on the business\r\nwhich brought him from home so early, a proposition which Nigel readily\r\nreceived, though he could not help suspecting that the most important\r\npurpose of Duke Hildebrod's visit was already transacted. In this, however, Lord Glenvarloch proved to be mistaken. Hildebrod,\r\nbefore opening what he had to say, made an accurate survey of the\r\napartment, laying, from time to time, his finger on his nose, and\r\nwinking on Nigel with his single eye, while he opened and shut the\r\ndoors, lifted the tapestry, which concealed, in one or two places, the\r\ndilapidation of time upon the wainscoted walls, peeped into closets,\r\nand, finally, looked under the bed, to assure himself that the coast\r\nwas clear of listeners and interlopers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He then resumed his seat, and\r\nbeckoned confidentially to Nigel to draw his chair close to him. “I am well as I am, Master Hildebrod,” replied the young lord, little\r\ndisposed to encourage the familiarity which the man endeavoured to fix\r\non him; but the undismayed Duke proceeded as follows:\r\n\r\n“You shall pardon me, my lord--and I now give you the title right\r\nseriously--if I remind you that our waters may be watched; for though\r\nold Trapbois be as deaf as Saint Paul's, yet his daughter has sharp\r\nears, and sharp eyes enough, and it is of them that it is my business to\r\nspeak.”\r\n\r\n“Say away, then, sir,” said Nigel, edging his chair somewhat closer to\r\nthe Quicksand, “although I cannot conceive what business I have either\r\nwith mine host or his daughter.”\r\n\r\n“We will see that in the twinkling of a quart-pot,” answered the\r\ngracious Duke; “and first, my lord, you must not think to dance in a net\r\nbefore old Jack Hildebrod, that has thrice your years o'er his head, and\r\nwas born, like King Richard, with all his eye-teeth ready cut.”\r\n\r\n“Well, sir, go on,” said Nigel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Why, then, my lord, I presume to say, that, if you are, as I believe\r\nyou are, that Lord Glenvarloch whom all the world talk of--the Scotch\r\ngallant that has spent all, to a thin cloak and a light purse--be not\r\nmoved, my lord, it is so noised of you--men call you the sparrow-hawk,\r\nwho will fly at all--ay, were it in the very Park--Be not moved, my\r\nlord.”\r\n\r\n“I am ashamed, sirrah,” replied Glenvarloch, “that you should have power\r\nto move me by your insolence--but beware--and, if you indeed guess who\r\nI am, consider how long I may be able to endure your tone of insolent\r\nfamiliarity.”\r\n\r\n“I crave pardon, my lord,” said Hildebrod, with a sullen, yet apologetic\r\nlook; “I meant no harm in speaking my poor mind. I know not what honour\r\nthere may be in being familiar with your lordship, but I judge there\r\nis little safety, for Lowestoffe is laid up in lavender only for having\r\nshown you the way into Alsatia; and so, what is to come of those who\r\nmaintain you when you are here, or whether they will get most honour or\r\nmost trouble by doing so, I leave with your lordship's better judgment.”\r\n\r\n“I will bring no one into trouble on my account,” said Lord Glenvarloch. “I will leave Whitefriars to-morrow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nay, by Heaven, I will leave it\r\nthis day.”\r\n\r\n“You will have more wit in your anger, I trust,” said Duke Hildebrod;\r\n“listen first to what I have to say to you, and, if honest Jack\r\nHildebrod puts you not in the way of nicking them all, may he never cast\r\ndoublets, or dull a greenhorn again! And so, my lord, in plain words,\r\nyou must wap and win.”\r\n\r\n“Your words must be still plainer before I can understand them,” said\r\nNigel. “What the devil--a gamester, one who deals with the devil's bones and\r\nthe doctors, and not understand Pedlar's French! Nay, then, I must speak\r\nplain English, and that's the simpleton's tongue.”\r\n\r\n“Speak, then, sir,” said Nigel; “and I pray you be brief, for I have\r\nlittle more time to bestow on you.”\r\n\r\n“Well, then, my lord, to be brief, as you and the lawyers call it--I\r\nunderstand you have an estate in the north, which changes masters for\r\nwant of the redeeming ready.--Ay, you start, but you cannot dance in\r\na net before me, as I said before; and so the king runs the frowning\r\nhumour on you, and the Court vapours you the go-by; and the Prince\r\nscowls at you from under his cap; and the favourite serves you out the\r\npuckered brow and the cold shoulder; and the favourite's favourite--”\r\n\r\n“To go no further, sir,” interrupted Nigel, “suppose all this true--and\r\nwhat follows?”\r\n\r\n“What follows?” returned Duke Hildebrod."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Marry, this follows, that you\r\nwill owe good deed, as well as good will, to him who shall put you in\r\nthe way to walk with your beaver cocked in the presence, as an ye were\r\nEarl of Kildare; bully the courtiers; meet the Prince's blighting look\r\nwith a bold brow; confront the favourite; baffle his deputy, and--”\r\n\r\n“This is all well,” said Nigel! “but how is it to be accomplished?”\r\n\r\n“By making thee a Prince of Peru, my lord of the northern latitudes;\r\npropping thine old castle with ingots,--fertilizing thy failing fortunes\r\nwith gold dust--it shall but cost thee to put thy baron's coronet for a\r\nday or so on the brows of an old Caduca here, the man's daughter of the\r\nhouse, and thou art master of a mass of treasure that shall do all I\r\nhave said for thee, and--”\r\n\r\n“What, you would have me marry this old gentlewoman here, the daughter\r\nof mine host?” said Nigel, surprised and angry, yet unable to suppress\r\nsome desire to laugh."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Nay, my lord, I would have you marry fifty thousand good sterling\r\npounds; for that, and better, hath old Trapbois hoarded; and thou shall\r\ndo a deed of mercy in it to the old man, who will lose his golden smelts\r\nin some worse way--for now that he is well-nigh past his day of work,\r\nhis day of payment is like to follow.”\r\n\r\n“Truly, this is a most courteous offer,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “but may\r\nI pray of your candour, most noble duke, to tell me why you dispose of\r\na ward of so much wealth on a stranger like me, who may leave you\r\nto-morrow?”\r\n\r\n“In sooth, my lord,” said the Duke, “that question smacks more of the\r\nwit of Beaujeu's ordinary, than any word I have yet heard your lordship\r\nspeak, and reason it is you should be answered. Touching my peers, it is\r\nbut necessary to say, that Mistress Martha Trapbois will none of them,\r\nwhether clerical or laic. The captain hath asked her, so hath the\r\nparson, but she will none of them--she looks higher than either, and\r\nis, to say truth, a woman of sense, and so forth, too profound, and of\r\nspirit something too high, to put up with greasy buff or rusty prunella. For ourselves, we need but hint that we have a consort in the land of\r\nthe living, and, what is more to purpose, Mrs. Martha knows it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So, as\r\nshe will not lace her kersey hood save with a quality binding, you, my\r\nlord, must be the man, and must carry off fifty thousand decuses, the\r\nspoils of five thousand bullies, cutters, and spendthrifts,--always\r\ndeducting from the main sum some five thousand pounds for our princely\r\nadvice and countenance, without which, as matters stand in Alsatia, you\r\nwould find it hard to win the plate.”\r\n\r\n“But has your wisdom considered, sir,” replied Glenvarloch, “how this\r\nwedlock can serve me in my present emergence?”\r\n\r\n“As for that, my lord,” said Duke Hildebrod, “if, with forty or fifty\r\nthousand pounds in your pouch, you cannot save yourself, you will\r\ndeserve to lose your head for your folly, and your hand for being\r\nclose-fisted.”\r\n\r\n“But, since your goodness has taken my matters into such serious\r\nconsideration,” continued Nigel, who conceived there was no prudence\r\nin breaking with a man, who, in his way, meant him favour rather than\r\noffence, “perhaps you may be able to tell me how my kindred will be\r\nlikely to receive such a bride as you recommend to me?”\r\n\r\n“Touching that matter, my lord, I have always heard your countrymen knew\r\nas well as other folks, on which side their bread was buttered. And,\r\ntruly, speaking from report, I know no place where fifty thousand\r\npounds--fifty thousand pounds, I say--will make a woman more welcome\r\nthan it is likely to do in your ancient kingdom."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And, truly, saving the\r\nslight twist in her shoulder, Mrs. Martha Trapbois is a person of very\r\nawful and majestic appearance, and may, for aught I know, be come of\r\nbetter blood than any one wots of; for old Trapbois looks not over\r\nlike to be her father, and her mother was a generous, liberal sort of a\r\nwoman.”\r\n\r\n“I am afraid,” answered Nigel, “that chance is rather too vague to\r\nassure her a gracious reception into an honourable house.”\r\n\r\n“Why, then, my lord,” replied Hildebrod, “I think it like she will be\r\neven with them; for I will venture to say, she has as much ill-nature as\r\nwill make her a match for your whole clan.”\r\n\r\n“That may inconvenience me a little,” replied Nigel. “Not a whit--not a whit,” said the Duke, fertile in expedients; “if she\r\nshould become rather intolerable, which is not unlikely, your honourable\r\nhouse, which I presume to be a castle, hath, doubtless, both turrets and\r\ndungeons, and ye may bestow your bonny bride in either the one or the\r\nother, and then you know you will be out of hearing of her tongue, and\r\nshe will be either above or below the contempt of your friends.”\r\n\r\n“It is sagely counselled, most equitable sir,” replied Nigel, “and such\r\nrestraint would be a fit meed for her folly that gave me any power over\r\nher.”\r\n\r\n“You entertain the project then, my lord?” said Duke Hildebrod."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I must turn it in my mind for twenty-four hours,” said Nigel; “and I\r\nwill pray you so to order matters that I be not further interrupted by\r\nany visitors.”\r\n\r\n“We will utter an edict to secure your privacy,” said the Duke; “and you\r\ndo not think,” he added, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper,\r\n“that ten thousand is too much to pay to the Sovereign, in name of\r\nwardship?”\r\n\r\n“Ten thousand!” said Lord Glenvarloch; “why, you said five thousand but\r\nnow.”\r\n\r\n“Aha! art avised of that?” said the Duke, touching the side of his\r\nnose with his finger; “nay, if you have marked me so closely, you are\r\nthinking on the case more nearly than I believed, till you trapped me. Well, well, we will not quarrel about the consideration, as old Trapbois\r\nwould call it--do you win and wear the dame; it will be no hard matter\r\nwith your face and figure, and I will take care that no one interrupts\r\nyou. I will have an edict from the Senate as soon as they meet for their\r\nmeridiem.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, Duke Hildebrod took his leave. CHAPTER XXIV\r\n\r\n\r\n  This is the time--Heaven's maiden sentinel\r\n  Hath quitted her high watch--the lesser spangles\r\n  Are paling one by one; give me the ladder\r\n  And the short lever--bid Anthony\r\n  Keep with his carabine the wicket-gate;\r\n  And do thou bare thy knife and follow me,\r\n  For we will in and do it--darkness like this\r\n  Is dawning of our fortunes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_Old Play._\r\n\r\nWhen Duke Hildebrod had withdrawn, Nigel's first impulse was an\r\nirresistible feeling to laugh at the sage adviser, who would have thus\r\nconnected him with age, ugliness, and ill-temper; but his next thought\r\nwas pity for the unfortunate father and daughter, who, being the only\r\npersons possessed of wealth in this unhappy district, seemed like a\r\nwreck on the sea-shore of a barbarous country, only secured from plunder\r\nfor the moment by the jealousy of the tribes among whom it had been\r\ncast. Neither could he help being conscious that his own residence here\r\nwas upon conditions equally precarious, and that he was considered by\r\nthe Alsatians in the same light of a godsend on the Cornish coast, or a\r\nsickly but wealthy caravan travelling through the wilds of Africa, and\r\nemphatically termed by the nations of despoilers through whose regions\r\nit passes _Dummalafong_, which signifies a thing given to be devoured--a\r\ncommon prey to all men. Nigel had already formed his own plan to extricate himself, at whatever\r\nrisk, from his perilous and degrading situation; and, in order that he\r\nmight carry it into instant execution, he only awaited the return of\r\nLowestoffe's messenger."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He expected him, however, in vain, and could\r\nonly amuse himself by looking through such parts of his baggage as had\r\nbeen sent to him from his former lodgings, in order to select a small\r\npacket of the most necessary articles to take with him, in the event of\r\nhis quitting his lodgings secretly and suddenly, as speed and privacy\r\nwould, he foresaw, be particularly necessary, if he meant to obtain\r\nan interview with the king, which was the course his spirit and his\r\ninterest alike determined him to pursue. While he was thus engaged, he found, greatly to his satisfaction, that\r\nMaster Lowestoffe had transmitted not only his rapier and poniard, but a\r\npair of pistols, which he had used in travelling; of a smaller and more\r\nconvenient size than the large petronels, or horse pistols, which were\r\nthen in common use, as being made for wearing at the girdle or in the\r\npockets."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Next to having stout and friendly comrades, a man is chiefly\r\nemboldened by finding himself well armed in case of need, and Nigel,\r\nwho had thought with some anxiety on the hazard of trusting his life, if\r\nattacked, to the protection of the clumsy weapon with which Lowestoffe\r\nhad equipped him, in order to complete his disguise, felt an emotion\r\nof confidence approaching to triumph, as, drawing his own good and\r\nwell-tried rapier, he wiped it with his handkerchief, examined its\r\npoint, bent it once or twice against the ground to prove its well-known\r\nmetal, and finally replaced it in the scabbard, the more hastily, that\r\nhe heard a tap at the door of his chamber, and had no mind to be found\r\nvapouring in the apartment with his sword drawn. It was his old host who entered, to tell him with many cringes that the\r\nprice of his apartment was to be a crown per diem; and that, according\r\nto the custom of Whitefriars, the rent was always payable per advance,\r\nalthough he never scrupled to let the money lie till a week or\r\nfortnight, or even a month, in the hands of any honourable guest like\r\nMaster Grahame, always upon some reasonable consideration for the use. Nigel got rid of the old dotard's intrusion, by throwing down two pieces\r\nof gold, and requesting the accommodation of his present apartment for\r\neight days, adding, however, he did not think he should tarry so long."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The miser, with a sparkling eye and a trembling hand, clutched fast the\r\nproffered coin, and, having balanced the pieces with exquisite pleasure\r\non the extremity of his withered finger, began almost instantly to\r\nshow that not even the possession of gold can gratify for more than an\r\ninstant the very heart that is most eager in the pursuit of it. First,\r\nthe pieces might be light--with hasty hand he drew a small pair\r\nof scales from his bosom, and weighed them, first together, then\r\nseparately, and smiled with glee as he saw them attain the due\r\ndepression in the balance--a circumstance which might add to his\r\nprofits, if it were true, as was currently reported, that little of the\r\ngold coinage was current in Alsatia in a perfect state, and that none\r\never left the Sanctuary in that condition. Another fear then occurred to trouble the old miser's pleasure. He had\r\nbeen just able to comprehend that Nigel intended to leave the Friars\r\nsooner than the arrival of the term for which he had deposited the rent. This might imply an expectation of refunding, which, as a Scotch wag\r\nsaid, of all species of funding, jumped least with the old gentleman's\r\nhumour."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was beginning to enter a hypothetical caveat on this subject,\r\nand to quote several reasons why no part of the money once consigned as\r\nroom-rent, could be repaid back on any pretence, without great hardship\r\nto the landlord, when Nigel, growing impatient, told him that the money\r\nwas his absolutely, and without any intention on his part of resuming\r\nany of it--all he asked in return was the liberty of enjoying in private\r\nthe apartment he had paid for. Old Trapbois, who had still at his\r\ntongue's end much of the smooth language, by which, in his time, he had\r\nhastened the ruin of many a young spendthrift, began to launch out\r\nupon the noble and generous disposition of his new guest, until Nigel,\r\ngrowing impatient, took the old gentleman by the hand, and gently, yet\r\nirresistibly, leading him to the door of the chamber, put him out, but\r\nwith such decent and moderate exertion of his superior strength, as to\r\nrender the action in no shape indecorous, and, fastening the door, began\r\nto do that for his pistols which he had done for his favourite sword,\r\nexamining with care the flints and locks, and reviewing the state of his\r\nsmall provision of ammunition. In this operation he was a second time interrupted by a knocking at the\r\ndoor--he called upon the person to enter, having no doubt that it\r\nwas Lowestoffe's messenger at length arrived."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was, however, the\r\nungracious daughter of old Trapbois, who, muttering something about her\r\nfather's mistake, laid down upon the table one of the pieces of gold\r\nwhich Nigel had just given to him, saying, that what she retained was\r\nthe full rent for the term he had specified. Nigel replied, he had paid\r\nthe money, and had no desire to receive it again. “Do as you will with it, then,” replied his hostess, “for there it lies,\r\nand shall lie for me. If you are fool enough to pay more than is reason,\r\nmy father shall not be knave enough to take it.”\r\n\r\n“But your father, mistress,” said Nigel, “your father told me--”\r\n\r\n“Oh, my father, my father,” said she, interrupting him,--“my father\r\nmanaged these affairs while he was able--I manage them now, and that may\r\nin the long run be as well for both of us.”\r\n\r\nShe then looked on the table, and observed the weapons. “You have arms, I see,” she said; “do you know how to use them?”\r\n\r\n“I should do so mistress,” replied Nigel, “for it has been my\r\noccupation.”\r\n\r\n“You are a soldier, then?” she demanded."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“No farther as yet, than as every gentleman of my country is a soldier.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, that is your point of honour--to cut the throats of the poor--a\r\nproper gentlemanlike occupation for those who should protect them!”\r\n\r\n“I do not deal in cutting throats, mistress,” replied Nigel; “but I\r\ncarry arms to defend myself, and my country if it needs me.”\r\n\r\n“Ay,” replied Martha, “it is fairly worded; but men say you are as\r\nprompt as others in petty brawls, where neither your safety nor your\r\ncountry is in hazard; and that had it not been so, you would not have\r\nbeen in the Sanctuary to-day.”\r\n\r\n“Mistress,” returned Nigel, “I should labour in vain to make you\r\nunderstand that a man's honour, which is, or should be, dearer to him\r\nthan his life, may often call on and compel us to hazard our own\r\nlives, or those of others, on what would otherwise seem trifling\r\ncontingencies.”\r\n\r\n“God's law says nought of that,” said the female; “I have only read\r\nthere, that thou shall not kill. But I have neither time nor inclination\r\nto preach to you--you will find enough of fighting here if you like\r\nit, and well if it come not to seek you when you are least prepared."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Farewell for the present--the char-woman will execute your commands for\r\nyour meals.”\r\n\r\nShe left the room, just as Nigel, provoked at her assuming a superior\r\ntone of judgment and of censure, was about to be so superfluous as to\r\nenter into a dispute with an old pawnbroker's daughter on the subject of\r\nthe point of honour. He smiled at himself for the folly into which the\r\nspirit of self-vindication had so nearly hurried him. Lord Glenvarloch then applied to old Deborah the char-woman, by whose\r\nintermediation he was provided with a tolerably decent dinner; and the\r\nonly embarrassment which he experienced, was from the almost forcible\r\nentry of the old dotard his landlord, who insisted upon giving his\r\nassistance at laying the cloth. Nigel had some difficulty to prevent\r\nhim from displacing his arms and some papers which were lying on a small\r\ntable at which he had been sitting; and nothing short of a stern and\r\npositive injunction to the contrary could compel him to use another\r\nboard (though there were two in the room) for the purpose of laying the\r\ncloth. Having at length obliged him to relinquish his purpose, he could not\r\nhelp observing that the eyes of the old dotard seemed still anxiously\r\nfixed upon the small table on which lay his sword and pistols; and that,\r\namidst all the little duties which he seemed officiously anxious to\r\nrender to his guest, he took every opportunity of looking towards and\r\napproaching these objects of his attention."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At length, when Trapbois\r\nthought he had completely avoided the notice of his guest, Nigel,\r\nthrough the observation of one of the cracked mirrors, oh which channel\r\nof communication the old man had not calculated, beheld him actually\r\nextend his hand towards the table in question. He thought it unnecessary\r\nto use further ceremony, but telling his landlord, in a stern voice,\r\nthat he permitted no one to touch his arms, he commanded him to leave\r\nthe apartment. The old usurer commenced a maundering sort of apology, in\r\nwhich all that Nigel distinctly apprehended, was a frequent repetition\r\nof the word _consideration_, and which did not seem to him to require\r\nany other answer than a reiteration of his command to him to leave the\r\napartment, upon pain of worse consequences. The ancient Hebe who acted as Lord Glenvarloch's cup-bearer, took his\r\npart against the intrusion of the still more antiquated Ganymede, and\r\ninsisted on old Trapbois leaving the room instantly, menacing him at\r\nthe same time with her mistress's displeasure if he remained there any\r\nlonger. The old man seemed more under petticoat government than any\r\nother, for the threat of the char-woman produced greater effect upon him\r\nthan the more formidable displeasure of Nigel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He withdrew grumbling and\r\nmuttering, and Lord Glenvarloch heard him bar a large door at the nearer\r\nend of the gallery, which served as a division betwixt the other parts\r\nof the extensive mansion, and the apartment occupied by his guest,\r\nwhich, as the reader is aware, had its access from the landing-place at\r\nthe head of the grand staircase. Nigel accepted the careful sound of the bolts and bars as they were\r\nseverally drawn by the trembling hand of old Trapbois, as an omen\r\nthat the senior did not mean again to revisit him in the course of\r\nthe evening, and heartily rejoiced that he was at length to be left to\r\nuninterrupted solitude. The old woman asked if there was aught else to be done for his\r\naccommodation; and, indeed, it had hitherto seemed as if the pleasure of\r\nserving him, or more properly the reward which she expected, had renewed\r\nher youth and activity. Nigel desired to have candles, to have a fire\r\nlighted in his apartment, and a few fagots placed beside it, that he\r\nmight feed it from time to time, as he began to feel the chilly effects\r\nof the damp and low situation of the house, close as it was to the\r\nThames. But while the old woman was absent upon his errand, he began to\r\nthink in what way he should pass the long solitary evening with which he\r\nwas threatened. His own reflections promised to Nigel little amusement, and less\r\napplause."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had considered his own perilous situation in every light\r\nin which it could be viewed, and foresaw as little utility as comfort in\r\nresuming the survey. To divert the current of his ideas, books were, of\r\ncourse, the readiest resource; and although, like most of us, Nigel had,\r\nin his time, sauntered through large libraries, and even spent a long\r\ntime there without greatly disturbing their learned contents, he was now\r\nin a situation where the possession of a volume, even of very inferior\r\nmerit, becomes a real treasure. The old housewife returned shortly\r\nafterwards with fagots, and some pieces of half-burnt wax-candles, the\r\nperquisites, probably, real or usurped, of some experienced groom of\r\nthe chambers, two of which she placed in large brass candlesticks, of\r\ndifferent shapes and patterns, and laid the others on the table, that\r\nNigel might renew them from time to time as they burnt to the socket. She heard with interest Lord Glenvarloch's request to have a book--any\r\nsort of book--to pass away the night withal, and returned for answer,\r\nthat she knew of no other books in the house than her young mistress's\r\n(as she always denominated Mistress Martha Trapbois) Bible, which the\r\nowner would not lend; and her master's Whetstone of Witte, being the\r\nsecond part of Arithmetic, by Robert Record, with the Cossike Practice\r\nand Rule of Equation; which promising volume Nigel declined to borrow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She offered, however, to bring him some books from Duke Hildebrod--“who\r\nsometimes, good gentleman, gave a glance at a book when the State\r\naffairs of Alsatia left him as much leisure.”\r\n\r\nNigfil embraced the proposal, and his unwearied Iris scuttled away on\r\nthis second embassy. She returned in a short time with a tattered quarto\r\nvolume under her arm, and a bottle of sack in her hand; for the Duke,\r\njudging that mere reading was dry work, had sent the wine by way of\r\nsauce to help it down, not forgetting to add the price to the morning's\r\nscore, which he had already run up against the stranger in the\r\nSanctuary. Nigel seized on the book, and did not refuse the wine, thinking that a\r\nglass or two, as it really proved to be of good quality, would be no\r\nbad interlude to his studies. He dismissed, with thanks and assurance\r\nof reward, the poor old drudge who had been so zealous in his service;\r\ntrimmed his fire and candles, and placed the easiest of the old\r\narm-chairs in a convenient posture betwixt the fire and the table at\r\nwhich he had dined, and which now supported the measure of sack and the\r\nlights; and thus accompanying his studies with such luxurious appliances\r\nas were in his power, he began to examine the only volume with which the\r\nducal library of Alsatia had been able to supply him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The contents, though of a kind generally interesting, were not well\r\ncalculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was\r\nentitled “God's Revenge against Murther;” not, as the bibliomaniacal\r\nreader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under\r\nthat imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold\r\nby old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much\r\nmore than its weight in gold. [Footnote: Only three copies are known\r\nto exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two--one foxed and\r\ncropped, the other tall and in good condition--both in the possession\r\nof an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.--_Note by_ CAPTAIN\r\nCLUTTERBUCK.] Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book\r\ncontains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind;\r\nhe tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without\r\nburning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat\r\nheated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther\r\ninclination to that pastime."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He next attempted to compose a memorial\r\naddressed to the king, in which he set forth his case and his\r\ngrievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication\r\nwould be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in\r\na sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the\r\nfirst attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and\r\nshocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of\r\nsorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening\r\nhorrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by\r\nwhich men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for\r\nthe thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular\r\nambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising and\r\nmysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood\r\nhad come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals,\r\nhad told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The\r\nelements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them--earth\r\nhad ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen\r\nlimbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping\r\nlungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In other\r\ncircumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and\r\nbrought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to\r\nhave yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's\r\nhands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall,\r\nand the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of the candles by\r\nwhich he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited\r\nand irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies,\r\nespecially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was\r\ninculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion\r\nthat he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect\r\nof old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered\r\nhand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this\r\nuntimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel\r\nsprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's\r\nbreast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an\r\nhour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered\r\nby some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his\r\nlife rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely\r\nembarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still\r\nless how to get rid of him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As he again tried the means of intimidation,\r\nhe was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the\r\nperson of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She\r\nalso seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming\r\nclose to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even\r\nattempted to take it out of his hand. “For shame,” she said, “your sword on a man of eighty years and\r\nmore!-=this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!--give it to me to make a\r\nspindle of!”\r\n\r\n“Stand back,” said Nigel; “I mean your father no injury--but I _will_\r\nknow what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late\r\nhour of night, around my arms.”\r\n\r\n“Your arms!” repeated she; “alas!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "young man, the whole arms in the Tower\r\nof London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable\r\npiece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young\r\nspendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own\r\npurse.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the\r\ntable, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois\r\nso frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night,\r\nhad so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private\r\npassage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to\r\npossess himself of the treasure during his slumbers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He now exclaimed,\r\nat the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice--\r\n\r\n“It is mine--it is mine!--he gave it to me for a consideration--I will\r\ndie ere I part with my property!”\r\n\r\n“It is indeed his own, mistress,” said Nigel, “and I do entreat you to\r\nrestore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my\r\napartment in quiet.”\r\n\r\n“I will account with you for it, then,”--said the maiden, reluctantly\r\ngiving to her father the morsel of Mammon, on which he darted as if his\r\nbony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then\r\nmaking a contented muttering and mumbling, like an old dog after he\r\nhas been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the\r\npurpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry,\r\nthrough a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings\r\nwere drawn apart. “This shall be properly fastened to-morrow,” said the daughter to Nigel,\r\nspeaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his\r\nacquisition, could not hear her; “to-night I will continue to watch him\r\nclosely.--I wish you good repose.”\r\n\r\nThese few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet\r\nmade use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be\r\naccomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired\r\nto bed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various\r\nevents of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his\r\nrest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled\r\nstream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther\r\nhe seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources common\r\nin such cases; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his head\r\nwas giddy--he watched the embers of the wood fire till his eyes were\r\ndazzled--he listened to the dull moaning of the wind, the swinging and\r\ncreaking of signs which projected from the houses, and the baying of\r\nhere and there a homeless dog, till his very ear was weary. Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a sound which startled him\r\nat once. It was a female shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then\r\nremembered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort were current\r\namong the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and\r\nanother, succeeded so close, that he was certain, though the noise was\r\nremote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, seized his sword\r\nand pistols, and ran to the door of his chamber. Here he plainly heard\r\nthe screams redoubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from the\r\nusurer's apartment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All access to the gallery was effectually excluded\r\nby the intermediate door, which the brave young lord shook with eager,\r\nbut vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his\r\nrecollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some\r\ndifficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the\r\ncries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into\r\nsilence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise,\r\nwhich now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow\r\nstaircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices\r\nof men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. “D--n her, strike\r\nher down--silence her--beat her brains out!”--while the voice of his\r\nhostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of “murder,”\r\n and “help.” At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave\r\nway before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action,--a\r\ncocked pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his naked sword\r\nunder his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpowered, or, rather, were\r\non the point of overpowering, the daughter of Trapbois, whose resistance\r\nappeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with\r\nfragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It appeared that her\r\nlife was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn\r\na long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel,\r\nwho, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on\r\nthe spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at\r\nhis head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some\r\npale moonlight from the window; and the ruffian, after firing a pistol\r\nwithout effect, and fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost\r\nheart, made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped. Nigel fired his\r\nremaining pistol after him at a venture, and then called for light. “There is light in the kitchen,” answered Martha Trapbois, with more\r\npresence of mind than could have been expected. “Stay, you know not the\r\nway; I will fetch it myself.--Oh! my father--my poor father!--I knew\r\nit would come to this--and all along of the accursed gold!--They have\r\n_murdered_ him!”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XXV\r\n\r\n\r\n  Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us,\r\n  As a cross nurse might do a wayward child,\r\n  From all our toys and baubles. His rough call\r\n  Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth;\r\n  And well if they are such as may be answer'd\r\n  In yonder world, where all is judged of truly. _Old Play_. It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with\r\na light."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by\r\nall the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was\r\npredominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired\r\nwithout a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned\r\nall around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman\r\nprecipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In\r\nthe next moment she started up, and exclaiming--“There may be life yet!”\r\n strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without\r\na glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed\r\neither by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly. “Fear not,” she cried, “fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage\r\nis as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended\r\nmyself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor\r\nfather! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is\r\ndead--dead!”\r\n\r\nWhile she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old\r\nmiser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight\r\nand rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a\r\nwound, but saw none."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The daughter of the deceased, with more presence\r\nof mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable\r\nof exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf,\r\nwhich had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries\r\nfor assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish\r\nlife. She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of\r\nLord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the\r\nvain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed\r\nvain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown,\r\n(for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance\r\nof the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and\r\nclosely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other\r\nthe very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little\r\nbefore so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his\r\nmental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as\r\nif its amount had been necessary to his actual existence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“It is in vain--it is in vain,” said the daughter, desisting from her\r\nfruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually\r\ndislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the\r\nmurderers; “It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be\r\nthus; and now I witness it!”\r\n\r\nShe then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to\r\ndash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, “Accursed be ye both,\r\nfor you are the causes of this deed!”\r\n\r\nNigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should\r\nbe instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as\r\nwell as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him\r\nsharply. “Be silent,” she said, “be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own\r\nheart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this\r\nbefore me? I say, be silent,” she said again, and in a yet sterner\r\ntone--“Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on\r\nher knees?”\r\n\r\nLord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt\r\nnot the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged\r\nboth his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other\r\nassistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed,\r\nas if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily\r\nto his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“You are right,” she said, somewhat contemptuously, “and have ventured\r\nalready more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself,\r\nsince that is your purpose--leave me to my fate.”\r\n\r\nWithout stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own\r\nroom through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition\r\nhe sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at\r\nthe accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings\r\nof the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of\r\nsuch violent agitation. He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by\r\nthe body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having\r\ncovered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither\r\nsurprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly--“My\r\nmoan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever\r\nhave noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base\r\nvillain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by\r\nthe course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber\r\nthe earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward\r\nthe revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are\r\nawake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his\r\nduty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows\r\nwell I can reward."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why do ye tarry?--go instantly.”\r\n\r\n“I would,” said Nigel, “but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the\r\nvillains may return, and--”\r\n\r\n“True, most true,” answered Martha, “he may return; and, though I care\r\nlittle for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most\r\ntempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of\r\nimportance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I\r\nwill make you rich. I go myself to call for aid.”\r\n\r\nNigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in\r\na moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he\r\nthought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was\r\nbut short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois,\r\nhe concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in\r\npassing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the\r\nwatch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain\r\nin the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and\r\nbreathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour,\r\nsuffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the\r\nother, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat,\r\nand to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence,\r\nthough of justice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He turned his face from those wretched relics of\r\nmortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he\r\nfound, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence\r\nof these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more\r\nuncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected\r\nby, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also\r\nplayed her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn\r\ndamask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the\r\nslaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if\r\nhe was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and\r\nthe whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had\r\nlately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the\r\nterrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him,\r\nNigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of\r\nseveral torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur\r\nof voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with\r\nfirelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his\r\nfantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of\r\nbailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to\r\ninquire into the crime and its circumstances."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees,\r\ndisturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at\r\nsuch a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work\r\nbefore them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps\r\nover boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into\r\nstammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while\r\ntheir brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk,\r\nthey seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned\r\ncask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there\r\noccurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed\r\nmuch shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence,\r\nhad more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been\r\nsupposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The\r\ndaughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and\r\ndistinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of\r\nstruggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the\r\nmore readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm\r\nconcerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking\r\nunder the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury\r\nshe was capable of."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As their faces were blackened, and their figures\r\ndisguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully\r\nagitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen\r\nbefore. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until\r\nshe found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had\r\nescaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the\r\nreader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the\r\npremises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the\r\nwindow out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed\r\nsingular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong\r\niron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own\r\nhand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of\r\nevery thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the\r\nslain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but\r\nhis face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian\r\nsurgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him,\r\nhad consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him\r\nexamine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in\r\nwhich the sufferers seemed to have come by their end."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The circumstances\r\nof the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to\r\nall that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected\r\nall particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody\r\ntransaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until\r\nnext morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered\r\nman into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord\r\nGlenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in\r\nparticular of having committed the deed. “Do _you_ suspect no one?” answered Martha, looking fixedly on him. “Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to\r\nanswer them. That's the rule of the game.”\r\n\r\n“Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean?”\r\n\r\n“Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen\r\nCaptain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to\r\nchange his suits often.”\r\n\r\n“Send out, then,” said Martha, “and have him apprehended.”\r\n\r\n“If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with\r\nthe higher powers,” answered the judge. “You would have him escape,” resumed she, fixing her eyes on him\r\nsternly. “By cock and pie,” replied Hildebrod, “did it depend on me, the\r\nmurdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me\r\ntake my time."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that\r\nshould assist me are as drunk as fiddlers.”\r\n\r\n“I will have revenge--I _will_ have it,” repeated she; “and take heed\r\nyou trifle not with me.”\r\n\r\n“Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had\r\nbaited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him. I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have\r\ntrap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have\r\nthe means to get it.”\r\n\r\n“They who help me in my revenge,” said Martha, “shall share those\r\nmeans.”\r\n\r\n“Enough said,” replied Hildebrod; “and now I would have you go to my\r\nhouse, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself.”\r\n\r\n“I will send for the old char-woman,” replied Martha, “and we have the\r\nstranger gentleman, besides.”\r\n\r\n“Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman!” said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom\r\nhe drew a little apart. “I fancy the captain has made the stranger\r\ngentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I\r\ncan tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having\r\nchanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I\r\nrecommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The better\r\nfor you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep\r\nconditions, I trust?”\r\n\r\n“I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd,” said\r\nNigel. “Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear\r\nin her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you\r\nto-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to\r\nmy business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has\r\nput all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been\r\nasking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only\r\nmade him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up\r\nyour quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master\r\nNigel Grahame.”\r\n\r\nA young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the\r\nsleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took\r\nNigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise\r\nhis authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the\r\napartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger\r\nwere not the most pleasant."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They were intimated in a courteous whisper\r\nto Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to\r\nconsult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant\r\nfrom the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him,\r\nand would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of\r\nmusketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to\r\nresist. “And so, squire,” said the aquatic emissary, “my wherry is to wait you\r\nat the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would\r\ngive the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may.”\r\n\r\n“Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me?” said Nigel. “Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as\r\nlittle to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson.”\r\n\r\n“Did he send any token to me?” said Nigel. “Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it,” said\r\nthe fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he\r\nsaid,--“Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was\r\nwritten with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall\r\nwe meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a\r\ntwelve-oared barge?”\r\n\r\n“Where is the king just now, knowest thou?” answered Lord Glenvarloch. “The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a\r\nnoble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was\r\nto have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and\r\nthe Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as\r\nminnows.”\r\n\r\n“Well,” replied Nigel, “I will be ready to go at five; do thou come\r\nhither to carry my baggage.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay, master,” replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself\r\nwith the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and,\r\npointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs\r\noutstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he\r\nwhispered, “Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your\r\nbow-string for you before you can draw it.”\r\n\r\nFeeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the\r\nprosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord\r\nGlenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice\r\nin silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door\r\ncarefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope\r\nthat he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the\r\nkitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched,\r\nher eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a\r\ntrance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay\r\nbefore her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in\r\nhis power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor,\r\nand attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was\r\nin the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future\r\ndestination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether\r\nhe could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her\r\nsituation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend\r\nhis meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. “He\r\nmight mean well,” she said, “but he ought to know that the miserable had\r\nno friends.”\r\n\r\nNigel said, “He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about\r\nto leave the Friars--” She interrupted him--\r\n\r\n“You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you.”\r\n\r\n“You go with me!” exclaimed Lord Glenvarloch. “Yes,” she said, “I will persuade my father to leave this murdering\r\nden.” But, as she spoke, the more perfect recollection of what had\r\npassed crowded on her mind. She hid her face in her hands, and burst out\r\ninto a dreadful fit of sobs, moans, and lamentations, which terminated\r\nin hysterics, violent in proportion to the uncommon strength of her body\r\nand mind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lord Glenvarloch, shocked, confused, and inexperienced, was about to\r\nleave the house in quest of medical, or at least female assistance; but\r\nthe patient, when the paroxysm had somewhat spent its force, held him\r\nfast by the sleeve with one hand, covering her face with the other,\r\nwhile a copious flood of tears came to relieve the emotions of grief by\r\nwhich she had been so violently agitated. “Do not leave me,” she said--“do not leave me, and call no one. I have\r\nnever been in this way before, and would not now,” she said, sitting\r\nupright, and wiping her eyes with her apron,--“would not now--but\r\nthat--but that he loved _me_. if he loved nothing else that was\r\nhuman--To die so, and by such hands!”\r\n\r\nAnd again the unhappy woman gave way to a paroxysm of sorrow, mingling\r\nher tears with sobbing, wailing, and all the abandonment of female\r\ngrief, when at its utmost height. At length, she gradually recovered\r\nthe austerity of her natural composure, and maintained it as if by a\r\nforcible exertion of resolution, repelling, as she spoke, the repeated\r\nreturns of the hysterical affection, by such an effort as that by which\r\nepileptic patients are known to suspend the recurrence of their fits."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Yet her mind, however resolved, could not so absolutely overcome the\r\naffection of her nerves, but that she was agitated by strong fits of\r\ntrembling, which, for a minute or two at a time, shook her whole frame\r\nin a manner frightful to witness. Nigel forgot his own situation, and,\r\nindeed, every thing else, in the interest inspired by the unhappy woman\r\nbefore him--an interest which affected a proud spirit the more deeply,\r\nthat she herself, with correspondent highness of mind, seemed determined\r\nto owe as little as possible either to the humanity or the pity of\r\nothers. “I am not wont to be in this way,” she said,--“but--but--Nature will\r\nhave power over the frail beings it has made. Over you, sir, I have some\r\nright; for, without you, I had not survived this awful night. I wish\r\nyour aid had been either earlier or later--but you have saved my life,\r\nand you are bound to assist in making it endurable to me.”\r\n\r\n“If you will show me how it is possible,” answered Nigel. “You are going hence, you say, instantly--carry me with you,” said\r\nthe unhappy woman. “By my own efforts, I shall never escape from this\r\nwilderness of guilt and misery.”\r\n\r\n“Alas! what can I do for you?” replied Nigel. “My own way, and I must\r\nnot deviate from it, leads me, in all probability, to a dungeon."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I\r\nmight, indeed, transport you from hence with me, if you could afterwards\r\nbestow yourself with any friend.”\r\n\r\n“Friend!” she exclaimed--“I have no friend--they have long since\r\ndiscarded us. A spectre arising from the dead were more welcome than\r\nI should be at the doors of those who have disclaimed us; and, if they\r\nwere willing to restore their friendship to me now, I would despise it,\r\nbecause they withdrew it from him--from him”--(here she underwent strong\r\nbut suppressed agitation, and then added firmly)--“from _him_ who lies\r\nyonder.--I have no friend.” Here she paused; and then suddenly, as if\r\nrecollecting herself, added, “I have no friend, but I have that\r\nwill purchase many--I have that which will purchase both friends and\r\navengers.--It is well thought of; I must not leave it for a prey to\r\ncheats and ruffians.--Stranger, you must return to yonder room. Pass\r\nthrough it boldly to his--that is, to the sleeping apartment; push the\r\nbedstead aside; beneath each of the posts is a brass plate, as if to\r\nsupport the weight, but it is that upon the left, nearest to the wall,\r\nwhich must serve your turn--press the corner of the plate, and it will\r\nspring up and show a keyhole, which this key will open. You will then\r\nlift a concealed trap-door, and in a cavity of the floor you will\r\ndiscover a small chest."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Bring it hither; it shall accompany our journey,\r\nand it will be hard if the contents cannot purchase me a place of\r\nrefuge.”\r\n\r\n“But the door communicating with the kitchen has been locked by these\r\npeople,” said Nigel. “True, I had forgot; they had their reasons for that, doubtless,”\r\n answered she. “But the secret passage from your apartment is open, and\r\nyou may go that way.”\r\n\r\nLord Glenvarloch took the key, and, as he lighted a lamp to show him the\r\nway, she read in his countenance some unwillingness to the task imposed. “You fear?” said she--“there is no cause; the murderer and his victim\r\nare both at rest. Take courage, I will go with you myself--you cannot\r\nknow the trick of the spring, and the chest will be too heavy for you.”\r\n\r\n“No fear, no fear,” answered Lord Glenvarloch, ashamed of the\r\nconstruction she put upon a momentary hesitation, arising from a dislike\r\nto look upon what is horrible, often connected with those high-wrought\r\nminds which are the last to fear what is merely dangerous--“I will do\r\nyour errand as you desire; but for you, you must not--cannot go yonder.”\r\n\r\n“I can--I will,” she said. “I am composed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You shall see that I am so.”\r\n She took from the table a piece of unfinished sewing-work, and, with\r\nsteadiness and composure, passed a silken thread into the eye of a\r\nfine needle.--“Could I have done that,” she said, with a smile yet more\r\nghastly than her previous look of fixed despair, “had not my heart and\r\nhand been both steady?”\r\n\r\nShe then led the way rapidly up stairs to Nigel's chamber, and proceeded\r\nthrough the secret passage with the same haste, as if she had feared her\r\nresolution might have failed her ere her purpose was executed. At the\r\nbottom of the stairs she paused a moment, before entering the fatal\r\napartment, then hurried through with a rapid step to the sleeping\r\nchamber beyond, followed closely by Lord Glenvarloch, whose reluctance\r\nto approach the scene of butchery was altogether lost in the anxiety\r\nwhich he felt on account of the survivor of the tragedy. Her first action was to pull aside the curtains of her father's bed. The\r\nbed-clothes were thrown aside in confusion, doubtless in the action of\r\nhis starting from sleep to oppose the entrance of the villains into the\r\nnext apartment. The hard mattress scarcely showed the slight pressure\r\nwhere the emaciated body of the old miser had been deposited. His\r\ndaughter sank beside the bed, clasped her hands, and prayed to heaven,\r\nin a short and affectionate manner, for support in her affliction,\r\nand for vengeance on the villains who had made her fatherless."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A\r\nlow-muttered and still more brief petition recommended to Heaven the\r\nsoul of the sufferer, and invoked pardon for his sins, in virtue of the\r\ngreat Christian atonement. This duty of piety performed, she signed to Nigel to aid her; and,\r\nhaving pushed aside the heavy bedstead, they saw the brass plate which\r\nMartha had described. She pressed the spring, and, at once, the plate\r\nstarting up, showed the keyhole, and a large iron ring used in lifting\r\nthe trap-door, which, when raised, displayed the strong box, or small\r\nchest, she had mentioned, and which proved indeed so very weighty, that\r\nit might perhaps have been scarcely possible for Nigel, though a very\r\nstrong man, to have raised it without assistance. Having replaced everything as they had found it, Nigel, with such help\r\nas his companion was able to afford, assumed his load, and made a shift\r\nto carry it into the next apartment, where lay the miserable owner,\r\ninsensible to sounds and circumstances, which, if any thing could\r\nhave broken his long last slumber, would certainly have done so. His\r\nunfortunate daughter went up to his body, and had even the courage to\r\nremove the sheet which had been decently disposed over it. She put her\r\nhand on the heart, but there was no throb--held a feather to the lips,\r\nbut there was no motion--then kissed with deep reverence the starting\r\nveins of the pale forehead, and then the emaciated hand. “I would you could hear me,” she said,--“Father!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I would you could hear\r\nme swear, that, if I now save what you most valued on earth, it is only\r\nto assist me in obtaining vengeance for your death.”\r\n\r\nShe replaced the covering, and, without a tear, a sigh, or an additional\r\nword of any kind, renewed her efforts, until they conveyed the\r\nstrong-box betwixt them into Lord Glenvarloch's sleeping apartment. “It\r\nmust pass,” she said, “as part of your baggage. I will be in readiness\r\nso soon as the waterman calls.”\r\n\r\nShe retired; and Lord Glenvarloch, who saw the hour of their departure\r\napproach, tore down a part of the old hanging to make a covering, which\r\nhe corded upon the trunk, lest the peculiarity of its shape, and the\r\ncare with which it was banded and counterbanded with bars of steel,\r\nmight afford suspicions respecting the treasure which it contained. Having taken this measure of precaution, he changed the rascally\r\ndisguise, which he had assumed on entering Whitefriars, into a suit\r\nbecoming his quality, and then, unable to sleep, though exhausted\r\nwith the events of the night, he threw himself on his bed to await the\r\nsummons of the waterman. CHAPTER XXVI\r\n\r\n\r\n  Give us good voyage, gentle stream--we stun not\r\n  Thy sober ear with sounds of revelry;\r\n  Wake not the slumbering echoes of thy banks\r\n  With voice of flute and horn--we do but seek\r\n  On the broad pathway of thy swelling bosom\r\n  To glide in silent safety."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_The Double Bridal._\r\n\r\nGrey, or rather yellow light, was beginning to twinkle through the\r\nfogs of Whitefriars, when a low tap at the door of the unhappy miser\r\nannounced to Lord Glenvarloch the summons of the boatman. He found at\r\nthe door the man whom he had seen the night before, with a companion. “Come, come, master, let us get afloat,” said one of them, in a rough\r\nimpressive whisper, “time and tide wait for no man.”\r\n\r\n“They shall not wait for me,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “but I have some\r\nthings to carry with me.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay--no man will take a pair of oars now, Jack, unless he means to\r\nload the wherry like a six-horse waggon. When they don't want to shift\r\nthe whole kitt, they take a sculler, and be d--d to them. Come, come,\r\nwhere be your rattle-traps?”\r\n\r\nOne of the men was soon sufficiently loaded, in his own estimation at\r\nleast, with Lord Glenvarloch's mail and its accompaniments, with which\r\nburden he began to trudge towards the Temple Stairs. His comrade, who\r\nseemed the principal, began to handle the trunk which contained the\r\nmiser's treasure, but pitched it down again in an instant, declaring,\r\nwith a great oath, that it was as reasonable to expect a man to carry\r\nPaul's on his back."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The daughter of Trapbois, who had by this time\r\njoined them, muffled up in a long dark hood and mantle, exclaimed to\r\nLord Glenvarloch--“Let them leave it if they will, let them leave it\r\nall; let us but escape from this horrible place.”\r\n\r\nWe have mentioned elsewhere, that Nigel was a very athletic young man,\r\nand, impelled by a strong feeling of compassion and indignation, he\r\nshowed his bodily strength singularly on this occasion, by seizing on\r\nthe ponderous strong-box, and, by means of the rope he had cast around\r\nit, throwing it on his shoulders, and marching resolutely forward under\r\na weight, which would have sunk to the earth three young gallants,\r\nat the least, of our degenerate day. The waterman followed him in\r\namazement, calling out, “Why, master, master, you might as well gie me\r\nt'other end on't!” and anon offered his assistance to support it in some\r\ndegree behind, which after the first minute or two Nigel was fain to\r\naccept. His strength was almost exhausted when he reached the wherry,\r\nwhich was lying at the Temple Stairs according to appointment; and, when\r\nhe pitched the trunk into it, the weight sank the bow of the boat so low\r\nin the water as well-nigh to overset it. “We shall have as hard a fare of it,” said the waterman to his\r\ncompanion, “as if we were ferrying over an honest bankrupt with all his\r\nsecreted goods--Ho, ho!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "good woman, what, are you stepping in for?--our\r\ngunwale lies deep enough in the water without live lumber to boot.”\r\n\r\n“This person comes with me,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “she is for the\r\npresent under my protection.”\r\n\r\n“Come, come, master,” rejoined the fellow, “that is out of my\r\ncommission. You must not double my freight on me--she may go by\r\nland--and, as for protection, her face will protect her from Berwick to\r\nthe Land's End.”\r\n\r\n“You will not except at my doubling the loading, if I double the fare?”\r\n said Nigel, determined on no account to relinquish the protection of\r\nthis unhappy woman, for which he had already devised some sort of plan,\r\nlikely now to be baffled by the characteristic rudeness of the Thames\r\nwatermen. “Ay, by G----, but I will except, though,” said the fellow with the green\r\nplush jacket: “I will overload my wherry neither for love nor money--I\r\nlove my boat as well as my wife, and a thought better.”\r\n\r\n“Nay, nay, comrade,” said his mate, “that is speaking no true water\r\nlanguage. For double fare we are bound to row a witch in her eggshell if\r\nshe bid us; and so pull away, Jack, and let us have no more prating.”\r\n\r\nThey got into the stream-way accordingly, and, although heavily laden,\r\nbegan to move down the river with reasonable speed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The lighter vessels which passed, overtook, or crossed them, in their\r\ncourse, failed not to assail them with their boisterous raillery, which\r\nwas then called water-wit; for which the extreme plainness of Mistress\r\nMartha's features, contrasted with the youth, handsome figure, and good\r\nlooks of Nigel, furnished the principal topics; while the circumstance\r\nof the boat being somewhat overloaded, did not escape their notice. They\r\nwere hailed successively, as a grocer's wife upon a party of pleasure\r\nwith her eldest apprentice--as an old woman carrying her grandson to\r\nschool--and as a young strapping Irishman, conveying an ancient maiden\r\nto Dr. Rigmarole's, at Redriffe, who buckles beggars for a tester and\r\na dram of Geneva. All this abuse was retorted in a similar strain of\r\nhumour by Greenjacket and his companion, who maintained the war of wit\r\nwith the same alacrity with which they were assailed. Meanwhile, Lord Glenvarloch asked his desolate companion if she had\r\nthought on any place where she could remain in safety with her property. She confessed, in more detail than formerly, that her father's character\r\nhad left her no friends; and that, from the time he had betaken himself\r\nto Whitefriars, to escape certain legal consequences of his eager\r\npursuit of gain, she had lived a life of total seclusion; not\r\nassociating with the society which the place afforded, and, by her\r\nresidence there, as well as her father's parsimony, effectually cut off\r\nfrom all other company."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What she now wished, was, in the first place,\r\nto obtain the shelter of a decent lodging, and the countenance of honest\r\npeople, however low in life, until she should obtain legal advice as\r\nto the mode of obtaining justice on her father's murderer. She had\r\nno hesitation to charge the guilt upon Colepepper, (commonly called\r\nPeppercull,) whom she knew to be as capable of any act of treacherous\r\ncruelty, as he was cowardly, where actual manhood was required. He\r\nhad been strongly suspected of two robberies before, one of which\r\nwas coupled with an atrocious murder. He had, she intimated, made\r\npretensions to her hand as the easiest and safest way of obtaining\r\npossession of her father's wealth; and, on her refusing his addresses,\r\nif they could be termed so, in the most positive terms, he had thrown\r\nout such obscure hints of vengeance, as, joined with some imperfect\r\nassaults upon the house, had kept her in frequent alarm, both on her\r\nfather's account and her own. Nigel, but that his feeling of respectful delicacy to the unfortunate\r\nwoman forebade him to do so, could here have communicated a circumstance\r\ncorroborative of her suspicions, which had already occurred to his own\r\nmind. He recollected the hint that old Hildebrod threw forth on the\r\npreceding night, that some communication betwixt himself and Colepepper\r\nhad hastened the catastrophe."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As this communication related to the\r\nplan which Hildebrod had been pleased to form, of promoting a marriage\r\nbetwixt Nigel himself and the rich heiress of Trapbois, the fear\r\nof losing an opportunity not to be regained, together with the mean\r\nmalignity of a low-bred ruffian, disappointed in a favourite scheme,\r\nwas most likely to instigate the bravo to the deed of violence which\r\nhad been committed. The reflection that his own name was in some\r\ndegree implicated with the causes of this horrid tragedy, doubled Lord\r\nGlenvarloch's anxiety in behalf of the victim whom he had rescued, while\r\nat the same time he formed the tacit resolution, that, so soon as his\r\nown affairs were put upon some footing, he would contribute all in his\r\npower towards the investigation of this bloody affair. After ascertaining from his companion that she could form no better plan\r\nof her own, he recommended to her to take up her lodging for the time,\r\nat the house of his old landlord, Christie the ship-chandler, at Paul's\r\nWharf, describing the decency and honesty of that worthy couple, and\r\nexpressing his hopes that they would receive her into their own house,\r\nor recommend her at least to that of some person for whom they would be\r\nresponsible, until she should have time to enter upon other arrangements\r\nfor herself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The poor woman received advice so grateful to her in her desolate\r\ncondition, with an expression of thanks, brief indeed, but deeper\r\nthan any thing had yet extracted from the austerity of her natural\r\ndisposition. Lord Glenvarloch then proceeded to inform Martha, that certain reasons,\r\nconnected with his personal safety, called him immediately to Greenwich,\r\nand, therefore, it would not be in his power to accompany her to\r\nChristie's house, which he would otherwise have done with pleasure: but,\r\ntearing a leaf from his tablet, he wrote on it a few lines, addressed\r\nto his landlord, as a man of honesty and humanity, in which he described\r\nthe bearer as a person who stood in singular necessity of temporary\r\nprotection and good advice, for which her circumstances enabled her to\r\nmake ample acknowledgment. He therefore requested John Christie, as his\r\nold and good friend, to afford her the shelter of his roof for a short\r\ntime; or, if that might not be consistent with his convenience, at least\r\nto direct her to a proper lodging-and, finally, he imposed on him the\r\nadditional, and somewhat more difficult commission, to recommend her to\r\nthe counsel and services of an honest, at least a reputable and skilful\r\nattorney, for the transacting some law business of importance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The note\r\nhe subscribed with his real name, and, delivering it to his _protegee_,\r\nwho received it with another deeply uttered “I thank you,” which spoke\r\nthe sterling feelings of her gratitude better than a thousand combined\r\nphrases, he commanded the watermen to pull in for Paul's Wharf, which\r\nthey were now approaching. “We have not time,” said Green-jacket; “we cannot be stopping every\r\ninstant.”\r\n\r\nBut, upon Nigel insisting upon his commands being obeyed, and adding,\r\nthat it was for the purpose of putting the lady ashore, the waterman\r\ndeclared that he would rather have her room than her company, and put\r\nthe wherry alongside the wharf accordingly. Here two of the porters, who\r\nply in such places, were easily induced to undertake the charge of the\r\nponderous strong-box, and at the same time to guide the owner to the\r\nwell-known mansion of John Christie, with whom all who lived in that\r\nneighbourhood were perfectly acquainted. The boat, much lightened of its load, went down the Thames at a rate\r\nincreased in proportion. But we must forbear to pursue her in her voyage\r\nfor a few minutes, since we have previously to mention the issue of Lord\r\nGlenvarloch's recommendation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mistress Martha Trapbois reached the shop in perfect safety, and was\r\nabout to enter it, when a sickening sense of the uncertainty of her\r\nsituation, and of the singularly painful task of telling her story, came\r\nover her so strongly, that she paused a moment at the very threshold\r\nof her proposed place of refuge, to think in what manner she could best\r\nsecond the recommendation of the friend whom Providence had raised up\r\nto her. Had she possessed that knowledge of the world, from which her\r\nhabits of life had completely excluded her, she might have known\r\nthat the large sum of money which she brought along with her, might,\r\njudiciously managed, have been a passport to her into the mansions\r\nof nobles, and the palaces of princes. But, however conscious of its\r\ngeneral power, which assumes so many forms and complexions, she was so\r\ninexperienced as to be most unnecessarily afraid that the means by which\r\nthe wealth had been acquired, might exclude its inheretrix from shelter\r\neven in the house of a humble tradesman. While she thus delayed, a more reasonable cause for hesitation arose, in\r\na considerable noise and altercation within the house, which grew louder\r\nand louder as the disputants issued forth upon the street or lane before\r\nthe door."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The first who entered upon the scene was a tall raw-boned hard-favoured\r\nman, who stalked out of the shop hastily, with a gait like that of a\r\nSpaniard in a passion, who, disdaining to add speed to his locomotion by\r\nrunning, only condescends, in the utmost extremity of his angry haste,\r\nto add length to his stride. He faced about, so soon as he was out\r\nof the house, upon his pursuer, a decent-looking, elderly, plain\r\ntradesman--no other than John Christie himself, the owner of the shop\r\nand tenement, by whom he seemed to be followed, and who was in a state\r\nof agitation more than is usually expressed by such a person. “I'll hear no more on't,” said the personage who first appeared on the\r\nscene.--“Sir, I will hear no more on it. Besides being a most false\r\nand impudent figment, as I can testify--it is _Scandaalum Magnaatum_,\r\nsir--_Scandaalum Magnaatum_” he reiterated with a broad accentuation of\r\nthe first vowel, well known in the colleges of Edinburgh and Glasgow,\r\nwhich we can only express in print by doubling the said first of letters\r\nand of vowels, and which would have cheered the cockles of the reigning\r\nmonarch had he been within hearing,--as he was a severer stickler for\r\nwhat he deemed the genuine pronunciation of the Roman tongue, than for\r\nany of the royal prerogatives, for which he was at times disposed to\r\ninsist so strenuously in his speeches to Parliament."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I care not an ounce of rotten cheese,” said John Christie in reply,\r\n“what you call it--but it is TRUE; and I am a free Englishman, and have\r\nright to speak the truth in my own concerns; and your master is little\r\nbetter than a villain, and you no more than a swaggering coxcomb, whose\r\nhead I will presently break, as I have known it well broken before on\r\nlighter occasion.”\r\n\r\nAnd, so saying, he flourished the paring-shovel which usually made clean\r\nthe steps of his little shop, and which he had caught up as the readiest\r\nweapon of working his foeman damage, and advanced therewith upon him. The cautious Scot (for such our readers must have already pronounced\r\nhim, from his language and pedantry) drew back as the enraged\r\nship-chandler approached, but in a surly manner, and bearing his hand\r\non his sword-hilt rather in the act of one who was losing habitual\r\nforbearance and caution of deportment, than as alarmed by the attack of\r\nan antagonist inferior to himself in youth, strength, and weapons. “Bide back,” he said, “Maister Christie--I say bide back, and consult\r\nyour safety, man."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have evited striking you in your ain house under\r\nmuckle provocation, because I am ignorant how the laws here may\r\npronounce respecting burglary and hamesucken, and such matters; and,\r\nbesides, I would not willingly hurt ye, man, e'en on the causeway, that\r\nis free to us baith, because I mind your kindness of lang syne, and\r\npartly consider ye as a poor deceived creature. But deil d--n me, sir,\r\nand I am not wont to swear, but if you touch my Scotch shouther with\r\nthat shule of yours, I will make six inches of my Andrew Ferrara\r\ndeevilish intimate with your guts, neighbour.”\r\n\r\nAnd therewithal, though still retreating from the brandished shovel, he\r\nmade one-third of the basket-hilled broadsword which he wore, visible\r\nfrom the sheath. The wrath of John Christie was abated, either by his\r\nnatural temperance of disposition, or perhaps in part by the glimmer of\r\ncold steel, which flashed on him from his adversary's last action. “I would do well to cry clubs on thee, and have thee ducked at the\r\nwharf,” he said, grounding his shovel, however, at the same time, “for\r\na paltry swaggerer, that would draw thy bit of iron there on an honest\r\ncitizen before his own door; but get thee gone, and reckon on a salt eel\r\nfor thy supper, if thou shouldst ever come near my house again."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I wish\r\nit had been at the bottom of the Thames when it first gave the use of\r\nits roof to smooth-faced, oily-tongued, double-minded Scots thieves!”\r\n\r\n“It's an ill bird that fouls its own nest,” replied his adversary, not\r\nperhaps the less bold that he saw matters were taking the turn of a\r\npacific debate; “and a pity it is that a kindly Scot should ever\r\nhave married in foreign parts, and given life to a purse-proud,\r\npudding-headed, fat-gutted, lean-brained Southron, e'en such as you,\r\nMaister Christie."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But fare ye weel--fare ye weel, for ever and a day;\r\nand, if you quarrel wi' a Scot again, man, say as mickle ill o' himsell\r\nas ye like, but say nane of his patron or of his countrymen, or it will\r\nscarce be your flat cap that will keep your lang lugs from the sharp\r\nabridgement of a Highland whinger, man.”\r\n\r\n“And, if you continue your insolence to me before my own door, were\r\nit but two minutes longer,” retorted John Christie, “I will call the\r\nconstable, and make your Scottish ankles acquainted with an English pair\r\nof stocks!”\r\n\r\nSo saying, he turned to retire into his shop with some show of victory;\r\nfor his enemy, whatever might be his innate valour, manifested no\r\ndesire to drive matters to extremity--conscious, perhaps, that whatever\r\nadvantage he might gain in single combat with Jonn Christie, would\r\nbe more than overbalanced by incurring an affair with the constituted\r\nauthorities of Old England, not at that time apt to be particularly\r\nfavourable to their new fellow-subjects, in the various successive\r\nbroils which were then constantly taking place between the individuals\r\nof two proud nations, who still retained a stronger sense of their\r\nnational animosity during centuries, than of their late union for a few\r\nyears under the government of the same prince. Mrs. Martha Trapbois had dwelt too long in Alsatia, to be either\r\nsurprised or terrified at the altercation she had witnessed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Indeed,\r\nshe only wondered that the debate did not end in some of those acts of\r\nviolence by which they were usually terminated in the Sanctuary. As\r\nthe disputants separated from each other, she, who had no idea that the\r\ncause of the quarrel was more deeply rooted than in the daily scenes of\r\nthe same nature which she had heard of or witnessed, did not hesitate to\r\nstop Master Christie in his return to his shop, and present to him the\r\nletter which Lord Glenvarloch had given to her. Had she been better\r\nacquainted with life and its business, she would certainly have waited\r\nfor a more temperate moment; and she had reason to repent of her\r\nprecipitation, when, without saying a single word, or taking the trouble\r\nto gather more of the information contained in the letter than was\r\nexpressed in the subscription, the incensed ship chandler threw it down\r\non the ground, trampled it in high disdain, and, without addressing a\r\nsingle word to the bearer, except, indeed, something much more like\r\na hearty curse than was perfectly consistent with his own grave\r\nappearance, he retired into his shop, and shut the hatch-door."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was with the most inexpressible anguish that the desolate, friendless\r\nand unhappy female, thus beheld her sole hope of succour, countenance,\r\nand protection, vanish at once, without being able to conceive a reason;\r\nfor, to do her justice, the idea that her friend, whom she knew by\r\nthe name of Nigel Grahame, had imposed on her, a solution which might\r\nreadily have occurred to many in her situation, never once entered\r\nher mind. Although it was not her temper easily to bend her mind to\r\nentreaty, she could not help exclaiming after the ireful and retreating\r\nship-chandler,--“Good Master, hear me but a moment! for mercy's sake,\r\nfor honesty's sake!”\r\n\r\n“Mercy and honesty from him, mistress!” said the Scot, who, though he\r\nessayed not to interrupt the retreat of his antagonist, still kept stout\r\npossession of the field of action,--“ye might as weel expect brandy from\r\nbean-stalks, or milk from a craig of blue whunstane. The man is mad, bom\r\nmad, to boot.”\r\n\r\n“I must have mistaken the person to whom the letter was addressed,\r\nthen;” and, as she spoke, Mistress Martha Trapbois was in the act of\r\nstooping to lift the paper which had been so uncourteously received. Her\r\ncompanion, with natural civility, anticipated her purpose; but, what\r\nwas not quite so much in etiquette, he took a sly glance at it as he was\r\nabout to hand it to her, and his eye having caught the subscription, he\r\nsaid, with surprise, “Glenvarloch--Nigel Olifaunt of Glenvarloch!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Do you\r\nknow the Lord Glenvarloch, mistress?”\r\n\r\n“I know not of whom you speak,” said Mrs. Martha, peevishly. “I had that\r\npaper from one Master Nigel Gram.”\r\n\r\n“Nigel Grahame!--umph.-O, ay, very true--I had forgot,” said the\r\nScotsman. “A tall, well-set young man, about my height; bright blue\r\neyes like a hawk's; a pleasant speech, something leaning to the kindly\r\nnorth-country accentuation, but not much, in respect of his having been\r\nresident abroad?”\r\n\r\n“All this is true--and what of it all?” said the daughter of the miser. “Hair of my complexion?”\r\n\r\n“Yours is red,” replied she. “I pray you peace,” said the Scotsman. “I was going to say--of my\r\ncomplexion, but with a deeper shade of the chestnut. Weel, mistress, if\r\nI have guessed the man aright, he is one with whom I am, and have been,\r\nintimate and familiar,--nay,--I may truly say I have done him much\r\nservice in my time, and may live to do him more. I had indeed a sincere\r\ngood-will for him, and I doubt he has been much at a loss since we\r\nparted; but the fault is not mine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Wherefore, as this letter will not\r\navail you with him to whom it is directed, you may believe that heaven\r\nhath sent it to me, who have a special regard for the writer--I have,\r\nbesides, as much mercy and honesty within me as man can weel make his\r\nbread with, and am willing to aid any distressed creature, that is my\r\nfriend's friend, with my counsel, and otherwise, so that I am not put\r\nto much charges, being in a strange country, like a poor lamb that has\r\nwandered from its ain native hirsel, and leaves a tait of its woo' in\r\nevery d--d Southron bramble that comes across it.” While he spoke thus,\r\nhe read the contents of the letter, without waiting for permission,\r\nand then continued,--“And so this is all that you are wanting, my dove? nothing more than safe and honourable lodging, and sustenance, upon your\r\nown charges?”\r\n\r\n“Nothing more,” said she. “If you are a man and a Christian, you will\r\nhelp me to what I need so much.”\r\n\r\n“A man I am,” replied the formal Caledonian, “e'en sic as ye see me; and\r\na Christian I may call myself, though unworthy, and though I have\r\nheard little pure doctrine since I came hither--a' polluted with men's\r\ndevices--ahem!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Weel, and if ye be an honest woman,” (here he peeped\r\nunder her muffler,) “as an honest woman ye seem likely to be--though,\r\nlet me tell you, they are a kind of cattle not so rife in the streets\r\nof this city as I would desire them--I was almost strangled with my own\r\nband by twa rampallians, wha wanted yestreen, nae farther gane, to harle\r\nme into a change-house--however, if ye be a decent honest woman,” (here\r\nhe took another peep at features certainly bearing no beauty which\r\ncould infer suspicion,) “as decent and honest ye seem to be, why, I\r\nwill advise you to a decent house, where you will get douce, quiet\r\nentertainment, on reasonable terms, and the occasional benefit of my\r\nown counsel and direction--that is, from time to time, as my other\r\navocations may permit.”\r\n\r\n“May I venture to accept of such an offer from a stranger?” said Martha,\r\nwith natural hesitation. “Troth, I see nothing to hinder you, mistress,” replied the bonny Scot;\r\n“ye can but see the place, and do after as ye think best. Besides, we\r\nare nae such strangers, neither; for I know your friend, and you,\r\nit's like, know mine, whilk knowledge, on either hand, is a medium of\r\ncommunication between us, even as the middle of the string connecteth\r\nits twa ends or extremities."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I will enlarge on this farther as we\r\npass along, gin ye list to bid your twa lazy loons of porters there lift\r\nup your little kist between them, whilk ae true Scotsman might carry\r\nunder his arm. Let me tell you, mistress, ye will soon make a toom\r\npock-end of it in Lon'on, if you hire twa knaves to do the work of ane.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, he led the way, followed by Mistress Martha Trapbois, whose\r\nsingular destiny, though it had heaped her with wealth, had left her,\r\nfor the moment, no wiser counsellor, or more distinguished protector,\r\nthan honest Richie Moniplies, a discarded serving-man. CHAPTER XXVII\r\n\r\n\r\n  This way lie safety and a sure retreat;\r\n  Yonder lie danger, shame, and punishment\r\n  Most welcome danger then--Nay, let me say,\r\n  Though spoke with swelling heart--welcome e'en shame\r\n  And welcome punishment--for, call me guilty,\r\n  I do but pay the tax that's due to justice;\r\n  And call me guiltless, then that punishment\r\n  Is shame to those alone who do inflict it,\r\n                              _The Tribunal_. We left Lord Glenvarloch, to whose fortunes our story chiefly attaches\r\nitself, gliding swiftly down the Thames. He was not, as the reader may\r\nhave observed, very affable in his disposition, or apt to enter into\r\nconversation with those into whose company he was casually thrown."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This\r\nwas, indeed, an error in his conduct, arising less from pride, though\r\nof that feeling we do not pretend to exculpate him, than from a sort of\r\nbashful reluctance to mix in the conversation of those with whom he was\r\nnot familiar. It is a fault only to be cured by experience and knowledge\r\nof the world, which soon teaches every sensible and acute person the\r\nimportant lesson, that amusement, and, what is of more consequence,\r\nthat information and increase of knowledge, are to be derived from the\r\nconversation of every individual whatever, with whom he is thrown into\r\na natural train of communication. For ourselves, we can assure the\r\nreader--and perhaps if we have ever been able to afford him amusement,\r\nit is owing in a great degree to this cause--that we never found\r\nourselves in company with the stupidest of all possible companions in a\r\npost-chaise, or with the most arrant cumber-corner that ever occupied\r\na place in the mail-coach, without finding, that, in the course of our\r\nconversation with him, we had some ideas suggested to us, either grave\r\norgay, or some information communicated in the course of our journey,\r\nwhich we should have regretted not to have learned, and which we should\r\nbe sorry to have immediately forgotten."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Nigel was somewhat immured\r\nwithin the Bastile of his rank, as some philosopher (Tom Paine, we\r\nthink) has happily enough expressed that sort of shyness which men of\r\ndignified situations are apt to be beset with, rather from not exactly\r\nknowing how far, or with whom, they ought to be familiar, than from any\r\nreal touch of aristocratic pride. Besides, the immediate pressure of\r\nour adventurer's own affairs was such as exclusively to engross his\r\nattention. He sat, therefore, wrapt in his cloak, in the stern of the boat, with\r\nhis mind entirely bent upon the probable issue of the interview with his\r\nSovereign, which it was his purpose to seek; for which abstraction of\r\nmind he may be fully justified, although perhaps, by questioning\r\nthe watermen who were transporting him down the river, he might have\r\ndiscovered matters of high concernment to him. At any rate, Nigel remained silent till the wherry approached the\r\ntown of Greenwich, when he commanded the men to put in for the nearest\r\nlanding-place, as it was his purpose to go ashore there, and dismiss\r\nthem from further attendance. “That is not possible,” said the fellow with the green jacket, who, as\r\nwe have already said, seemed to take on himself the charge of pilotage. “We must go,” he continued, “to Gravesend, where a Scottish vessel,\r\nwhich dropped down the river last tide for the very purpose, lies\r\nwith her anchor a-peak, waiting to carry you to your own dear northern\r\ncountry."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Your hammock is slung, and all is ready for you, and you talk\r\nof going ashore at Greenwich, as seriously as if such a thing were\r\npossible!”\r\n\r\n“I see no impossibility,” said Nigel, “in your landing me where I desire\r\nto be landed; but very little possibility of your carrying me anywhere I\r\nam not desirous of going.”\r\n\r\n“Why, whether do you manage the wherry, or we, master?” asked\r\nGreen-jacket, in a tone betwixt jest and earnest; “I take it she will go\r\nthe way we row her.”\r\n\r\n“Ay,” retorted Nigel, “but I take it you will row her on the course I\r\ndirect you, otherwise your chance of payment is but a poor one.”\r\n\r\n“Suppose we are content to risk that,” said the undaunted waterman, “I\r\nwish to know how you, who talk so big--I mean no offence, master, but\r\nyou do talk big--would help yourself in such a case?”\r\n\r\n“Simply thus,” answered Lord Glenvarloch--“You saw me, an hour since,\r\nbring down to the boat a trunk that neither of you could lift. If we are\r\nto contest the destination of our voyage, the same strength which\r\ntossed that chest into the wherry, will suffice to fling you out of it;\r\nwherefore, before we begin the scuffle, I pray you to remember, that,\r\nwhither I would go, there I will oblige you to carry me.”\r\n\r\n“Gramercy for your kindness,” said Green-jacket; “and now mark me in\r\nreturn."}
{"question": "", "answer": "My comrade and I are two men--and you, were you as stout as\r\nGeorge-a-Green, can pass but for one; and two, you will allow, are more\r\nthan a match for one. You mistake in your reckoning, my friend.”\r\n\r\n“It is you who mistake,” answered Nigel, who began to grow warm; “it is\r\nI who am three to two, sirrah--I carry two men's lives at my girdle.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, he opened his cloak and showed the two pistols which he had\r\ndisposed at his girdle. Green-jacket was unmoved at the display. “I have got,” said he, “a pair of barkers that will match yours,” and he\r\nshowed that he also was armed with pistols; “so you may begin as soon as\r\nyou list.”\r\n\r\n“Then,” said Lord Glenvarloch, drawing forth and cocking a pistol,\r\n“the sooner the better."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Take notice, I hold you as a ruffian, who have\r\ndeclared you will put force on my person; and that I will shoot you\r\nthrough the head if you do not instantly put me ashore at Greenwich.”\r\n\r\nThe other waterman, alarmed at Nigel's gesture, lay upon his oar; but\r\nGreen-jacket replied coolly--“Look you, master, I should not care a\r\ntester to venture a life with you on this matter; but the truth is, I am\r\nemployed to do you good, and not to do you harm.”\r\n\r\n“By whom are you employed?” said the Lord Glenvarloch; “or who dare\r\nconcern themselves in me, or my affairs, without my authority?”\r\n\r\n“As to that,” answered the waterman, in the same tone of indifference,\r\n“I shall not show my commission. For myself, I care not, as I said,\r\nwhether you land at Greenwich to get yourself hanged, or go down to get\r\naboard the Royal Thistle, to make your escape to your own country; you\r\nwill be equally out of my reach either way. But it is fair to put the\r\nchoice before you.”\r\n\r\n“My choice is made,” said Nigel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I have told you thrice already it is\r\nmy pleasure to be landed at Greenwich.”\r\n\r\n“Write it on a piece of paper,” said the waterman, “that such is your\r\npositive will; I must have something to show to my employers, that the\r\ntransgression of their orders lies with yourself, not with me.”\r\n\r\n“I choose to hold this trinket in my hand for the present,” said Nigel,\r\nshowing his pistol, “and will write you the acquittance when I go\r\nashore.”\r\n\r\n“I would not go ashore with you for a hundred pieces,” said the\r\nwaterman. “Ill luck has ever attended you, except in small gaming; do me\r\nfair justice, and give me the testimony I desire."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If you are afraid of\r\nfoul play while you write it, you may hold my pistols, if you will.” He\r\noffered the weapons to Nigel accordingly, who, while they were under\r\nhis control, and all possibility of his being taken at disadvantage was\r\nexcluded, no longer hesitated to give the waterman an acknowledgment, in\r\nthe following terms:--\r\n\r\n“Jack in the Green, with his mate, belonging to the wherry called\r\nthe Jolly Raven, have done their duty faithfully by me, landing me\r\nat Greenwich by my express command; and being themselves willing and\r\ndesirous to carry me on board the Royal Thistle, presently lying at\r\nGravesend.” Having finished this acknowledgment, which he signed\r\nwith the letters, N. O. G. as indicating his name and title, he again\r\nrequested to know of the waterman, to whom he delivered it, the name of\r\nhis employers. “Sir,” replied Jack in the Green, “I have respected your secret, do not\r\nyou seek to pry into mine. It would do you no good to know for whom I\r\nam taking this present trouble; and, to be brief, you shall not know\r\nit--and, if you will fight in the quarrel, as you said even now, the\r\nsooner we begin the better. Only this you may be cock-sure of, that we\r\ndesigned you no harm, and that, if you fall into any, it will be of your\r\nown wilful seeking.” As he spoke, they approached the landing-place,\r\nwhere Nigel instantly jumped ashore."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The waterman placed his small\r\nmail-trunk on the stairs, observing that there were plenty of spare\r\nhands about, to carry it where he would. “We part friends, I hope, my lads,” said the young nobleman, offering at\r\nthe same time a piece of money more than double the usual fare, to the\r\nboatmen. “We part as we met,” answered Green-jacket; “and, for your money, I am\r\npaid sufficiently with this bit of paper. Only, if you owe me any love\r\nfor the cast I have given you, I pray you not to dive so deep into the\r\npockets of the next apprentice that you find fool enough to play the\r\ncavalier.--And you, you greedy swine,” said he to his companion, who\r\nstill had a longing eye fixed on the money which Nigel continued to\r\noffer, “push off, or, if I take a stretcher in hand, I'll break the\r\nknave's pate of thee.” The fellow pushed off, as he was commanded, but\r\nstill could not help muttering, “This was entirely out of waterman's\r\nrules.”\r\n\r\nGlenvarloch, though without the devotion of the “injured Thales” of the\r\nmoralist, to the memory of that great princess, had now attained\r\n\r\n     “The hallow'd soil which gave Eliza birth,”\r\n\r\nwhose halls were now less respectably occupied by her successor. It was\r\nnot, as has been well shown by a late author, that James was void either\r\nof parts or of good intentions; and his predecessor was at least as\r\narbitrary in effect as he was in theory."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, while Elizabeth possessed\r\na sternness of masculine sense and determination which rendered even her\r\nweaknesses, some of which were in themselves sufficiently ridiculous, in\r\na certain degree respectable, James, on the other hand, was so utterly\r\ndevoid of “firm resolve,” so well called by the Scottish bard,\r\n\r\n     “The stalk of carle-hemp in man,”\r\n\r\nthat even his virtues and his good meaning became laughable, from the\r\nwhimsical uncertainty of his conduct; so that the wisest things he ever\r\nsaid, and the best actions he ever did, were often touched with a strain\r\nof the ludicrous and fidgety character of the man. Accordingly, though\r\nat different periods of his reign he contrived to acquire with his\r\npeople a certain degree of temporary popularity, it never long outlived\r\nthe occasion which produced it; so true it is, that the mass of mankind\r\nwill respect a monarch stained with actual guilt, more than one whose\r\nfoibles render him only ridiculous. To return from this digression, Lord Glenvarloch soon received, as\r\nGreen-jacket had assured him, the offer of an idle bargeman to transport\r\nhis baggage where he listed; but that where was a question of momentary\r\ndoubt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At length, recollecting the necessity that his hair and beard\r\nshould be properly arranged before he attempted to enter the royal\r\npresence, and desirous, at the same time, of obtaining some information\r\nof the motions of the Sovereign and of the Court, he desired to be\r\nguided to the next barber's shop, which we have already mentioned as\r\nthe place where news of every kind circled and centred. He was speedily\r\nshown the way to such an emporium of intelligence, and soon found he was\r\nlikely to hear all he desired to know, and much more, while his head was\r\nsubjected to the art of a nimble tonsor, the glibness of whose tongue\r\nkept pace with the nimbleness of his fingers while he ran on, without\r\nstint or stop, in the following excursive manner:--\r\n\r\n“The Court here, master?--yes, master--much to the advantage of\r\ntrade--good custom stirring. His Majesty loves Greenwich--hunts every\r\nmorning in the Park--all decent persons admitted that have the entries\r\nof the Palace--no rabble--frightened the king's horse with their\r\nhallooing, the uncombed slaves.--Yes, sir, the beard more peaked? Yes, master, so it is worn. I know the last cut--dress several of the\r\ncourtiers--one valet-of-the-chamber, two pages of the body, the clerk\r\nof the kitchen, three running footmen, two dog-boys, and an honourable\r\nScottish knight, Sir Munko Malgrowler.”\r\n\r\n“Malagrowther, I suppose?” said Nigel, thrusting in his conjectural\r\nemendation, with infinite difficulty, betwixt two clauses of the\r\nbarber's text."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Yes, sir--Malcrowder, sir, as you say, sir--hard names the Scots have,\r\nsir, for an English mouth. Sir Munko is a handsome person, sir--perhaps\r\nyou know him--bating the loss of his fingers, and the lameness of his\r\nleg, and the length of his chin. Sir, it takes me one minute, twelve\r\nseconds, more time to trim that chin of his, than any chin that I know\r\nin the town of Greenwich, sir. But he is a very comely gentleman,\r\nfor all that; and a pleasant--a very pleasant gentleman, sir--and a\r\ngood-humoured, saving that he is so deaf he can never hear good of\r\nany one, and so wise, that he can never believe it; but he is a very\r\ngood-natured gentleman for all that, except when one speaks too low, or\r\nwhen a hair turns awry.--Did I graze you, sir? We shall put it to rights\r\nin a moment, with one drop of styptic--my styptic, or rather my wife's,\r\nsir--She makes the water herself. One drop of the styptic, sir, and a\r\nbit of black taffeta patch, just big enough to be the saddle to a flea,\r\nsir--Yes, sir, rather improves than otherwise. The Prince had a patch\r\nthe other day, and so had the Duke: and, if you will believe me, there\r\nare seventeen yards three quarters of black taffeta already cut into\r\npatches for the courtiers.”\r\n\r\n“But Sir Mungo Malagrowther?” again interjected Nigel, with difficulty."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Ay, ay, sir--Sir Munko, as you say; a pleasant, good-humoured gentleman\r\nas ever--To be spoken with, did you say? O ay, easily to be spoken\r\nwithal, that is, as easily as his infirmity will permit. He will\r\npresently, unless some one hath asked him forth to breakfast, be taking\r\nhis bone of broiled beef at my neighbour Ned Kilderkin's yonder,\r\nremoved from over the way. Ned keeps an eating-house, sir, famous for\r\npork-griskins; but Sir Munko cannot abide pork, no more than the\r\nKing's most Sacred Majesty,[Footnote: The Scots, till within the last\r\ngeneration, disliked swine's flesh as an article of food as much as the\r\nHighlanders do at present. It was remarked as extraordinary rapacity,\r\nwhen the Border depredators condescended to make prey of the accursed\r\nrace, whom the fiend made his habitation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Ben Jonson, in drawing James's\r\ncharacter, says, he loved “no part of a swine.”] nor my Lord Duke of\r\nLennox, nor Lord Dalgarno,--nay, I am sure, sir, if I touched you this\r\ntime, it was your fault, not mine.--But a single drop of the styptic,\r\nanother little patch that would make a doublet for a flea, just under\r\nthe left moustache; it will become you when you smile, sir, as well as\r\na dimple; and if you would salute your fair mistress--but I beg pardon,\r\nyou are a grave gentleman, very grave to be so young.--Hope I have given\r\nno offence; it is my duty to entertain customers--my duty, sir, and my\r\npleasure--Sir Munko Malcrowther?--yes, sir, I dare say he is at this\r\nmoment in Ned's eating-house, for few folks ask him out, now Lord\r\nHuntinglen is gone to London. You will get touched again--yes,\r\nsir--there you shall find him with his can of single ale, stirred with a\r\nsprig of rosemary, for he never drinks strong potations, sir, unless to\r\noblige Lord Huntinglen--take heed, sir--or any other person who asks him\r\nforth to breakfast--but single beer he always drinks at Ned's, with his\r\nbroiled bone of beef or mutton--or, it may be, lamb at the season--but\r\nnot pork, though Ned is famous for his griskins. But the Scots never eat\r\npork--strange that! some folk think they are a sort of Jews. There is a\r\nresemblance, sir,--Do you not think so?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then they call our most gracious\r\nSovereign the Second Solomon, and Solomon, you know, was King of the\r\nJews; so the thing bears a face, you see. I believe, sir, you will\r\nfind yourself trimmed now to your content. I will be judged by the fair\r\nmistress of your affections. Crave pardon--no offence, I trust. Pray,\r\nconsult the glass--one touch of the crisping tongs, to reduce this\r\nstraggler.--Thank your munificence, sir--hope your custom while you stay\r\nin Greenwich. Would you have a tune on that ghittern, to put your temper\r\nin concord for the day?--Twang, twang--twang, twang, dillo. Something\r\nout of tune, sir--too many hands to touch it--we cannot keep these\r\nthings like artists. Let me help you with your cloak, sir--yes,\r\nsir--You would not play yourself, sir, would you?--Way to Sir Munko's\r\neating-house?--Yes, sir; but it is Ned's eating-house, not Sir\r\nMunko's.--The knight, to be sure, eats there, and makes it his\r\neating-house in some sense, sir--ha, ha! Yonder it is, removed from over\r\nthe way, new white-washed posts, and red lattice--fat man in his doublet\r\nat the door--Ned himself, sir--worth a thousand pounds, they say--better\r\nsingeing pigs' faces than trimming courtiers--but ours is the less\r\nmechanical vocation.--Farewell, sir; hope your custom.” So saying, he\r\nat length permitted Nigel to depart, whose ears, so long tormented with\r\ncontinued babble, tingled when it had ceased, as if a bell had been rung\r\nclose to them for the same space of time."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Upon his arrival at the eating-house, where he proposed to meet with Sir\r\nMungo Malagrowther, from whom, in despair of better advice, he trusted\r\nto receive some information as to the best mode of introducing himself\r\ninto the royal presence, Lord Glenvarloch found, in the host with whom\r\nhe communed, the consequential taciturnity of an Englishman well to pass\r\nin the world. Ned Kilderkin spoke as a banker writes, only touching the\r\nneedful. Being asked if Sir Mungo Malagrowther was there? he replied,\r\nNo. Being interrogated whether he was expected? he said, Yes. And being\r\nagain required to say when he was expected, he answered, Presently. As Lord Glenvarloch next inquired, whether he himself could have any\r\nbreakfast? the landlord wasted not even a syllable in reply, but,\r\nushering him into a neat room where there were several tables, he placed\r\none of them before an armchair, and beckoning Lord Glenvarloch to take\r\npossession, he set before him, in a very few minutes, a substantial\r\nrepast of roast-beef, together with a foaming tankard, to which\r\nrefreshment the keen air of the river disposed him, notwithstanding his\r\nmental embarrassments, to do much honour."}
{"question": "", "answer": "While Nigel was thus engaged in discussing his commons, but raising his\r\nhead at the same time whenever he heard the door of the apartment open,\r\neagerly desiring the arrival of Sir Mungo Malagrowther, (an event which\r\nhad seldom been expected by any one with so much anxious interest,) a\r\npersonage, as it seemed, of at least equal importance with the knight,\r\nentered into the apartment, and began to hold earnest colloquy with\r\nthe publican, who thought proper to carry on the conference on his side\r\nunbonneted. This important gentleman's occupation might be guessed from\r\nhis dress. A milk-white jerkin, and hose of white kersey; a white apron\r\ntwisted around his body in the manner of a sash, in which, instead of a\r\nwar-like dagger, was stuck a long-bladed knife, hilted with buck's-horn;\r\na white nightcap on his head, under which his hair was neatly tucked,\r\nsufficiently pourtrayed him as one of those priests of Comus whom the\r\nvulgar call cooks; and the air with which he rated the publican for\r\nhaving neglected to send some provisions to the Palace, showed that he\r\nministered to royalty itself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“This will never answer,” he said, “Master Kilderkin--the king twice\r\nasked for sweetbreads, and fricasseed coxcombs, which are a favourite\r\ndish of his most Sacred Majesty, and they were not to be had, because\r\nMaster Kilderkin had not supplied them to the clerk of the kitchen, as\r\nby bargain bound.” Here Kilderkin made some apology, brief, according\r\nto his own nature, and muttered in a lowly tone after the fashion of all\r\nwho find themselves in a scrape. His superior replied, in a lofty\r\nstrain of voice, “Do not tell me of the carrier and his wain, and of the\r\nhen-coops coming from Norfolk with the poultry; a loyal man would have\r\nsent an express--he would have gone upon his stumps, like Widdrington. What if the king had lost his appetite, Master Kilderkin? What if his\r\nmost Sacred Majesty had lost his dinner? O, Master Kilderkin, if you had\r\nbut the just sense of the dignity of our profession, which is told of\r\nby the witty African slave, for so the king's most excellent Majesty\r\ndesignates him, Publius Terentius, _Tanguam in specula--in patinas\r\ninspicerejubeo_.”\r\n\r\n“You are learned, Master Linklater,” replied the English publican,\r\ncompelling, as it were with difficulty, his mouth to utter three or four\r\nwords consecutively."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“A poor smatterer,” said Mr. Linklater; “but it would be a shame to us,\r\nwho are his most excellent Majesty's countrymen, not in some sort to\r\nhave cherished those arts wherewith he is so deeply embued--_Regis ad\r\nexemplar_, Master Kilderkin, _totus componitur orbis_--which is as\r\nmuch as to say, as the king quotes the cook learns. In brief, Master\r\nKilderkin, having had the luck to be bred where humanities may be had\r\nat the matter of an English five groats by the quarter, I, like others,\r\nhave acquired--ahem-hem!--” Here, the speaker's eye having fallen upon\r\nLord Glenvarloch, he suddenly stopped in his learned harangue, with\r\nsuch symptoms of embarrassment as induced Ned Kilderkin to stretch his\r\ntaciturnity so far as not only to ask him what he ailed, but whether he\r\nwould take any thing. “Ail nothing,” replied the learned rival of the philosophical Syrus;\r\n“Nothing--and yet I do feel a little giddy. I could taste a glass of\r\nyour dame's _aqua mirabilis_.”\r\n\r\n“I will fetch it,” said Ned, giving a nod; and his back was no sooner\r\nturned, than the cook walked near the table where Lord Glenvarloch was\r\nseated, and regarding him with a look of significance, where more was\r\nmeant than met the ear, said,--“You are a stranger in Greenwich, sir."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I advise you to take the opportunity to step into the Park--the western\r\nwicket was ajar when I came hither; I think it will be locked presently,\r\nso you had better make the best of your way--that is, if you have any\r\ncuriosity. The venison are coming into season just now, sir, and there\r\nis a pleasure in looking at a hart of grease. I always think when they\r\nare bounding so blithely past, what a pleasure it would be, to broach\r\ntheir plump haunches on a spit, and to embattle their breasts in a noble\r\nfortification of puff-paste, with plenty of black pepper.”\r\n\r\nHe said no more, as Kilderkin re-entered with the cordial, but edged off\r\nfrom Nigel without waiting any reply, only repeating the same look of\r\nintelligence with which he had accosted him. Nothing makes men's wits so alert as personal danger. Nigel took the\r\nfirst opportunity which his host's attention to the yeoman of the royal\r\nkitchen permitted, to discharge his reckoning, and readily obtained a\r\ndirection to the wicket in question. He found it upon the latch, as\r\nhe had been taught to expect; and perceived that it admitted him to a\r\nnarrow footpath, which traversed a close and tangled thicket, designed\r\nfor the cover of the does and the young fawns."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Here he conjectured it\r\nwould be proper to wait; nor had he been stationary above five minutes,\r\nwhen the cook, scalded as much with heat of motion as ever he had been\r\nby his huge fire-place, arrived almost breathless, and with his pass-key\r\nhastily locked the wicket behind him. Ere Lord Glenvarloch had time to speculate upon this action, the man\r\napproached with anxiety, and said--“Good lord, my Lord Glenvarloch!--why\r\nwill you endanger yourself thus?”\r\n\r\n“You know me then, my friend?” said Nigel. “Not much of that, my lord--but I know your honour's noble house\r\nwell.--My name is Laurie Linklater, my lord.”\r\n\r\n“Linklater!” repeated Nigel. “I should recollect--'\r\n\r\n“Under your lordship's favour,” he continued, “I was 'prentice, my\r\nlord, to old Mungo Moniplies, the flesher at the wanton West-Port of\r\nEdinburgh, which I wish I saw again before I died. And, your honour's\r\nnoble father having taken Richie Moniplies into his house to wait on\r\nyour lordship, there was a sort of connexion, your lordship sees.”\r\n\r\n“Ah!” said Lord Glenvarloch, “I had almost forgot your name, but not\r\nyour kind purpose. You tried to put Richie in the way of presenting a\r\nsupplication to his Majesty?”\r\n\r\n“Most true, my lord,” replied the king's cook. “I had like to have come\r\nby mischief in the job; for Richie, who was always wilful, 'wadna be\r\nguided by me,' as the sang says."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But nobody amongst these brave English\r\ncooks can kittle up his Majesty's most sacred palate with our own gusty\r\nScottish dishes. So I e'en betook myself to my craft, and concocted a\r\nmess of friar's chicken for the soup, and a savoury hachis, that made\r\nthe whole cabal coup the crans; and, instead of disgrace, I came\r\nby preferment. I am one of the clerks of the kitchen now, make me\r\nthankful--with a finger in the purveyor's office, and may get my whole\r\nhand in by and by.”\r\n\r\n“I am truly glad,” said Nigel, “to hear that you have not suffered on my\r\naccount,--still more so at your good fortune.”\r\n\r\n“You bear a kind heart, my lord,” said Linklater, “and do not forget\r\npoor people; and, troth, I see not why they should be forgotten, since\r\nthe king's errand may sometimes fall in the cadger's gate. I have\r\nfollowed your lordship in the street, just to look at such a stately\r\nshoot of the old oak-tree; and my heart jumped into my throat, when I\r\nsaw you sitting openly in the eating-house yonder, and knew there was\r\nsuch danger to your person.”\r\n\r\n“What! there are warrants against me, then?” said Nigel. “It is even true, my lord; and there are those who are willing to\r\nblacken you as much as they can.--God forgive them, that would sacrifice\r\nan honourable house for their own base ends!”\r\n\r\n“Amen,” said Nigel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“For, say your lordship may have been a little wild, like other young\r\ngentlemen--”\r\n\r\n“We have little time to talk of it, my friend,” said Nigel. “The point\r\nin question is, how am I to get speech of the king?”\r\n\r\n“The king, my lord!” said Linklater in astonishment; “why, will not that\r\nbe rushing wilfully into danger?--scalding yourself, as I may say, with\r\nyour own ladle?”\r\n\r\n“My good friend,” answered Nigel, “my experience of the Court, and\r\nmy knowledge of the circumstances in which I stand, tell me, that the\r\nmanliest and most direct road is, in my case, the surest and the safest. The king has both a head to apprehend what is just, and a heart to do\r\nwhat is kind.”\r\n\r\n“It is e'en true, my lord, and so we, his old servants, know,” added\r\nLinklater; “but, woe's me, if you knew how many folks make it their\r\ndaily and nightly purpose to set his head against his heart, and his\r\nheart against his head--to make him do hard things because they are\r\ncalled just, and unjust things because they are represented as kind. Woe's me! it is with his Sacred Majesty, and the favourites who work\r\nupon him, even according to the homely proverb that men taunt my calling\r\nwith,--'God sends good meat, but the devil sends cooks. '”\r\n\r\n“It signifies not talking of it, my good friend,” said Nigel, “I must\r\ntake my risk, my honour peremptorily demands it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They may maim me, or\r\nbeggar me, but they shall not say I fled from my accusers. My peers\r\nshall hear my vindication.”\r\n\r\n“Your peers?” exclaimed the cook--“Alack-a-day, my lord, we are not in\r\nScotland, where the nobles can bang it out bravely, were it even\r\nwith the king himself, now and then. This mess must be cooked in the\r\nStar-Chamber, and that is an oven seven times heated, my lord;--and yet,\r\nif you are determined to see the king, I will not say but you may find\r\nsome favour, for he likes well any thing that is appealed directly to\r\nhis own wisdom, and sometimes, in the like cases, I have known him stick\r\nby his own opinion, which is always a fair one."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Only mind, if you will\r\nforgive me, my lord--mind to spice high with Latin; a curn or two of\r\nGreek would not be amiss; and, if you can bring in any thing about the\r\njudgment of Solomon, in the original Hebrew, and season with a merry\r\njest or so, the dish will be the more palatable.--Truly, I think, that,\r\nbesides my skill in art, I owe much to the stripes of the Rector of\r\nthe High School, who imprinted on my mind that cooking scene in\r\nthe Heautontimorumenos.”\r\n\r\n“Leaving that aside, my friend,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “can you inform\r\nme which way I shall most readily get to the sight and speech of the\r\nking?”\r\n\r\n“To the sight of him readily enough,” said Linklater; “he is galloping\r\nabout these alleys, to see them strike the hart, to get him an appetite\r\nfor a nooning--and that reminds me I should be in the kitchen. To the\r\nspeech of the king you will not come so easily, unless you could either\r\nmeet him alone, which rarely chances, or wait for him among the\r\ncrowd that go to see him alight. And now, farewell, my lord, and God\r\nspeed!--if I could do more for you, I would offer it.”\r\n\r\n“You have done enough, perhaps, to endanger yourself,” said Lord\r\nGlenvarloch."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I pray you to be gone, and leave me to my fate.”\r\n\r\nThe honest cook lingered, but a nearer burst of the horns apprized him\r\nthat there was no time to lose; and, acquainting Nigel that he would\r\nleave the postern-door on the latch to secure his retreat in that\r\ndirection, he bade God bless him, and farewell. In the kindness of this humble countryman, flowing partly from national\r\npartiality, partly from a sense of long-remembered benefits, which had\r\nbeen scarce thought on by those who had bestowed them, Lord Glenvarloch\r\nthought he saw the last touch of sympathy which he was to receive in\r\nthis cold and courtly region, and felt that he must now be sufficient to\r\nhimself, or be utterly lost. He traversed more than one alley, guided by the sounds of the chase,\r\nand met several of the inferior attendants upon the king's sport, who\r\nregarded him only as one of the spectators who were sometimes permitted\r\nto enter the Park by the concurrence of the officers about the Court. Still there was no appearance of James, or any of his principal\r\ncourtiers, and Nigel began to think whether, at the risk of incurring\r\ndisgrace similar to that which had attended the rash exploit of Richie\r\nMoniplies, he should not repair to the Palace-gate, in order to address\r\nthe king on his return, when Fortune presented him the opportunity of\r\ndoing so, in her own way."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was in one of those long walks by which the Park was traversed, when\r\nhe heard, first a distant rustling, then the rapid approach of hoofs\r\nshaking the firm earth on which he stood; then a distant halloo, warned\r\nby which he stood up by the side of the avenue, leaving free room for\r\nthe passage of the chase. The stag, reeling, covered with foam, and\r\nblackened with sweat, his nostrils extended as he gasped for breath,\r\nmade a shift to come up as far as where Nigel stood, and, without\r\nturning to bay, was there pulled down by two tall greyhounds of the\r\nbreed still used by the hardy deer-stalkers of the Scottish Highlands,\r\nbut which has been long unknown in England. One dog struck at the buck's\r\nthroat, another dashed his sharp nose and fangs, I might almost\r\nsay, into the animal's bowels. It would have been natural for Lord\r\nGlenvarloch, himself persecuted as if by hunters, to have thought upon\r\nthe occasion like the melancholy Jacques; but habit is a strange matter,\r\nand I fear that his feelings on the occasion were rather those of the\r\npractised huntsman than of the moralist. He had no time, however, to\r\nindulge them, for mark what befell."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A single horseman followed the chase, upon a steed so thoroughly\r\nsubjected to the rein, that it obeyed the touch of the bridle as if\r\nit had been a mechanical impulse operating on the nicest piece of\r\nmachinery; so that, seated deep in his demipique saddle, and so trussed\r\nup there as to make falling almost impossible, the rider, without either\r\nfear or hesitation, might increase or diminish the speed at which he\r\nrode, which, even on the most animating occasions of the chase, seldom\r\nexceeded three-fourths of a gallop, the horse keeping his haunches\r\nunder him, and never stretching forward beyond the managed pace of\r\nthe academy. The security with which he chose to prosecute even this\r\nfavourite, and, in the ordinary case, somewhat dangerous amusement, as\r\nwell as the rest of his equipage, marked King James. No attendant was\r\nwithin sight; indeed, it was often a nice strain of flattery to permit\r\nthe Sovereign to suppose he had outridden and distanced all the rest of\r\nthe chase. “Weel dune, Bash--weel dune, Battie!” he exclaimed as he came up."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“By\r\nthe honour of a king, ye are a credit to the Braes of Balwhither!--Haud\r\nmy horse, man,” he called out to Nigel, without stopping to see to whom\r\nhe had addressed himself--“Haud my naig, and help me doun out o' the\r\nsaddle--deil ding your saul, sirrah, canna ye mak haste before these\r\nlazy smaiks come up?--haud the rein easy--dinna let him swerve--now,\r\nhaud the stirrup--that will do, man, and now we are on terra firma.”\r\n So saying, without casting an eye on his assistant, gentle King Jamie,\r\nunsheathing the short, sharp hanger, (_couteau de chasse_,) which was\r\nthe only thing approaching to a sword that he could willingly endure the\r\nsight of, drew the blade with great satisfaction across the throat of\r\nthe buck, and put an end at once to its struggles and its agonies. Lord Glenvarloch, who knew well the silvan duty which the occasion\r\ndemanded, hung the bridle of the king's palfrey on the branch of a tree,\r\nand, kneeling duteously down, turned the slaughtered deer upon its back,\r\nand kept the _quarree_ in that position, while the king, too intent upon\r\nhis sport to observe any thing else, drew his _couteau_ down the breast\r\nof the animal, _secundum artem_; and, having made a cross cut, so as to\r\nascertain the depth of the fat upon the chest, exclaimed, in a sort of\r\nrapture, “Three inches of white fat on the brisket!--prime--prime--as\r\nI am a crowned sinner--and deil ane o' the lazy loons in but mysell!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Seven--aught--aught tines on the antlers. By G--d, a hart of aught\r\ntines, and the first of the season! Bash and Battie, blessings on the\r\nheart's-root of ye! Buss me, my bairns, buss me.” The dogs accordingly\r\nfawned upon him, licked him with bloody jaws, and soon put him in such\r\na state that it might have seemed treason had been doing its full work\r\nupon his anointed body. “Bide doun, with a mischief to ye--bide doun,\r\nwith a wanion,” cried the king, almost overturned by the obstreperous\r\ncaresses of the large stag-hounds. “But ye are just like ither folks,\r\ngie ye an inch and ye take an ell.--And wha may ye be, friend?” he said,\r\nnow finding leisure to take a nearer view of Nigel, and observing what\r\nin his first emotion of silvan delight had escaped him,--“Ye are nane\r\nof our train, man. In the name of God, what the devil are ye?”\r\n\r\n“An unfortunate man, sire,” replied Nigel. “I dare say that,” answered the king, snappishly, “or I wad have seen\r\nnaething of you. My lieges keep a' their happiness to themselves; but\r\nlet bowls row wrang wi' them, and I am sure to hear of it.”\r\n\r\n“And to whom else can we carry our complaints but to your Majesty, who\r\nis Heaven's vicegerent over us!” answered Nigel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Right, man, right--very weel spoken,” said the king; “but you should\r\nleave Heaven's vicegerent some quiet on earth, too.”\r\n\r\n“If your Majesty will look on me,” (for hitherto the king had been\r\nso busy, first with the dogs, and then with the mystic operation of\r\n_breaking_, in vulgar phrase, cutting up the deer, that he had scarce\r\ngiven his assistant above a transient glance,) “you will see whom\r\nnecessity makes bold to avail himself of an opportunity which may never\r\nagain occur.”\r\n\r\nKing James looked; his blood left his cheek, though it continued stained\r\nwith that of the animal which lay at his feet, he dropped the knife from\r\nhis hand, cast behind him a faltering eye, as if he either\r\nmeditated flight or looked out for assistance, and then\r\nexclaimed,--“Glenvarlochides! as sure as I was christened James Stewart. Here is a bonny spot of work, and me alone, and on foot too!” he added,\r\nbustling to get upon his horse. “Forgive me that I interrupt you, my liege,” said Nigel, placing himself\r\nbetween the king and his steed; “hear me but a moment!”\r\n\r\n“I'll hear ye best on horseback,” said the king. “I canna hear a word\r\non foot, man, not a word; and it is not seemly to stand cheek-for-chowl\r\nconfronting us that gate."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Bide out of our gate, sir, we charge you on\r\nyour allegiance.--The deil's in them a', what can they be doing?”\r\n\r\n“By the crown that you wear, my liege,” said Nigel, “and for which my\r\nancestors have worthily fought, I conjure you to be composed, and to\r\nhear me but a moment!”\r\n\r\nThat which he asked was entirely out of the monarch's power to grant. The timidity which he showed was not the plain downright cowardice,\r\nwhich, like a natural impulse, compels a man to flight, and which can\r\nexcite little but pity or contempt, but a much more ludicrous, as well\r\nas more mingled sensation. The poor king was frightened at once and\r\nangry, desirous of securing his safety, and at the same time ashamed\r\nto compromise his dignity; so that without attending to what Lord\r\nGlenvarloch endeavoured to explain, he kept making at his horse, and\r\nrepeating, “We are a free king, man,--we are a free king--we will not be\r\ncontrolled by a subject.--In the name of God, what keeps Steenie? And,\r\npraised be his name, they are coming--Hillo, ho--here, here--Steenie,\r\nSteenie!”\r\n\r\nThe Duke of Buckingham galloped up, followed by several courtiers\r\nand attendants of the royal chase, and commenced with his usual\r\nfamiliarity,--“I see Fortune has graced our dear dad, as usual.--But\r\nwhat's this?”\r\n\r\n“What is it? It is treason for what I ken,” said the king; “and a' your\r\nwyte, Steenie. Your dear dad and gossip might have been murdered, for\r\nwhat you care.”\r\n\r\n“Murdered?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Secure the villain!” exclaimed the Duke. “By Heaven, it is\r\nOlifaunt himself!” A dozen of the hunters dismounted at once, letting\r\ntheir horses run wild through the park. Some seized roughly on Lord\r\nGlenvarloch, who thought it folly to offer resistance, while others\r\nbusied themselves with the king. “Are you wounded, my liege--are you\r\nwounded?”\r\n\r\n“Not that I ken of,” said the king, in the paroxysm of his apprehension,\r\n(which, by the way, might be pardoned in one of so timorous a\r\ntemper, and who, in his time, had been exposed to so many strange\r\nattempts)--“Not that I ken of--but search him--search him. I am sure I\r\nsaw fire-arms under his cloak. I am sure I smelled powder--I am dooms\r\nsure of that.”\r\n\r\nLord Glenvarloch's cloak being stripped off, and his pistols discovered,\r\na shout of wonder and of execration on the supposed criminal purpose,\r\narose from the crowd now thickening every moment. Not that celebrated\r\npistol, which, though resting on a bosom as gallant and as loyal as\r\nNigel's, spread such cause less alarm among knights and dames at a late\r\nhigh solemnity--not that very pistol caused more temporary consternation\r\nthan was so groundlessly excited by the arms which were taken from Lord\r\nGlenvarloch's person; and not Mhic-Allastar-More himself could repel\r\nwith greater scorn and indignation, the insinuations that they were worn\r\nfor any sinister purposes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Away with the wretch--the parricide--the bloody-minded villain!” was\r\nechoed on all hands; and the king, who naturally enough set the same\r\nvalue on his own life, at which it was, or seemed to be, rated by\r\nothers, cried out, louder than all the rest, “Ay, ay--away with him. I have had enough of him and so has the country. But do him no bodily\r\nharm--and, for God's sake, sirs, if ye are sure ye have thoroughly\r\ndisarmed him, put up your swords, dirks, and skenes, for you will\r\ncertainly do each other a mischief.”\r\n\r\nThere was a speedy sheathing of weapons at the king's command; for those\r\nwho had hitherto been brandishing them in loyal bravado, began thereby\r\nto call to mind the extreme dislike which his Majesty nourished against\r\nnaked steel, a foible which seemed to be as constitutional as his\r\ntimidity, and was usually ascribed to the brutal murder of Rizzio having\r\nbeen perpetrated in his unfortunate mother's presence before he yet saw\r\nthe light. At this moment, the Prince, who had been hunting in a different part\r\nof the then extensive Park, and had received some hasty and confused\r\ninformation of what was going forward, came rapidly up, with one or two\r\nnoblemen in his train, and amongst others Lord Dalgarno. He sprung from\r\nhis horse and asked eagerly if his father were wounded."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Not that I am sensible of, Baby Charles--but a wee matter exhausted,\r\nwith struggling single-handed with the assassin.--Steenie, fill up a cup\r\nof wine--the leathern bottle is hanging at our pommel.--Buss me, then,\r\nBaby Charles,” continued the monarch, after he had taken this cup of\r\ncomfort; “O man, the Commonwealth and you have had a fair escape from\r\nthe heavy and bloody loss of a dear father; for we are _pater patriae_,\r\nas weel as _pater familias_.-_Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tarn\r\ncari capitis!_-Woe is me, black cloth would have been dear in England,\r\nand dry een scarce!”\r\n\r\nAnd, at the very idea of the general grief which must have attended his\r\ndeath, the good-natured monarch cried heartily himself. “Is this possible?” said Charles, sternly; for his pride was hurt at\r\nhis father's demeanour on the one hand, while on the other, he felt the\r\nresentment of a son and a subject, at the supposed attempt on the\r\nking's life. “Let some one speak who has seen what happened--My Lord of\r\nBuckingham!”\r\n\r\n“I cannot say my lord,” replied the Duke, “that I saw any actual\r\nviolence offered to his Majesty, else I should have avenged him on the\r\nspot.”\r\n\r\n“You would have done wrong, then, in your zeal, George,” answered the\r\nPrince; “such offenders were better left to be dealt with by the laws."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But was the villain not struggling with his Majesty?”\r\n\r\n“I cannot term it so, my lord,” said the Duke, who, with many faults,\r\nwould have disdained an untruth; “he seemed to desire to detain his\r\nMajesty, who, on the contrary, appeared to wish to mount his horse; but\r\nthey have found pistols on his person, contrary to the proclamation,\r\nand, as it proves to be by Nigel Olifaunt, of whose ungoverned\r\ndisposition your Royal Highness has seen some samples, we seem to be\r\njustified in apprehending the worst.”\r\n\r\n“Nigel Olifaunt!” said the Prince; “can that unhappy man so soon have\r\nengaged in a new trespass? Let me see those pistols.”\r\n\r\n“Ye are not so unwise as to meddle with such snap-haunces, Baby\r\nCharles?” said James--“Do not give him them, Steenie--I command you\r\non your allegiance! They may go off of their own accord, whilk often\r\nbefalls.--You will do it, then?--Saw ever a man sic wilful bairns as we\r\nare cumbered with!--Havena we guardsmen and soldiers enow, but you must\r\nunload the weapons yoursell--you, the heir of our body and dignities,\r\nand sae mony men around that are paid for venturing life in our cause?”\r\n\r\nBut without regarding his father's exclamations, Prince Charles, with\r\nthe obstinacy which characterised him in trifles, as well as matters of\r\nconsequence, persisted in unloading the pistols with his own hand, of\r\nthe double bullets with which each was charged."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The hands of all around\r\nwere held up in astonishment at the horror of the crime supposed to have\r\nbeen intended, and the escape which was presumed so narrow. Nigel had not yet spoken a word--he now calmly desired to be heard. “To what purpose?” answered the Prince coldly. “You knew yourself\r\naccused of a heavy offence, and, instead of rendering yourself up to\r\njustice, in terms of the proclamation, you are here found intruding\r\nyourself on his Majesty's presence, and armed with unlawful weapons.”\r\n\r\n“May it please you, sir,” answered Nigel, “I wore these unhappy weapons\r\nfor my own defence; and not very many hours since they were necessary to\r\nprotect the lives of others.”\r\n\r\n“Doubtless, my lord,” answered the Prince, still calm and\r\nunmoved,--“your late mode of life, and the associates with whom you have\r\nlived, have made you familiar with scenes and weapons of violence. But\r\nit is not to me you are to plead your cause.”\r\n\r\n“Hear me--hear me, noble Prince!” said Nigel, eagerly. “Hear me! You--even you yourself--may one day ask to be heard, and in vain.”\r\n\r\n“How, sir,” said the Prince, haughtily--“how am I to construe that, my\r\nlord?”\r\n\r\n“If not on earth, sir,” replied the prisoner, “yet to Heaven we must all\r\npray for patient and favourable audience.”\r\n\r\n“True, my lord,” said the Prince, bending his head with haughty\r\nacquiescence; “nor would I now refuse such audience to you, could it\r\navail you. But you shall suffer no wrong."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We will ourselves look into\r\nyour case.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay,” answered the king, “he hath made _appellatio ad Casarem_--we\r\nwill interrogate Glenvarlochides ourselves, time and place fitting; and,\r\nin the meanwhile, have him and his weapons away, for I am weary of the\r\nsight of them.”\r\n\r\nIn consequence of directions hastily given, Nigel was accordingly\r\nremoved from the presence, where, however, his words had not altogether\r\nfallen to the ground. “This is a most strange matter, George,” said\r\nthe Prince to the favourite; “this gentleman hath a good countenance, a\r\nhappy presence, and much calm firmness in his look and speech. I cannot\r\nthink he would attempt a crime so desperate and useless.”\r\n\r\n“I profess neither love nor favour to the young man,” answered\r\nBuckingham, whose high-spirited ambition bore always an open character:\r\n“but I cannot but agree with your Highness, that our dear gossip hath\r\nbeen something hasty in apprehending personal danger from him.”\r\n\r\n“By my saul, Steenie, ye are not blate, to say so!” said the king. “Do I\r\nnot ken the smell of pouther, think ye? Who else nosed out the Fifth of\r\nNovember, save our royal selves? Cecil, and Suffolk, and all of them,\r\nwere at fault, like sae mony mongrel tikes, when I puzzled it out:\r\nand trow ye that I cannot smell pouther?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why, 'sblood, man, Joannes\r\nBarclaius thought my ingine was in some measure inspiration, and terms\r\nhis history of the plot, Series patefacti divinitus parricidii; and\r\nSpondanus, in like manner, saith of us, Divinitus evasit.”\r\n\r\n“The land was happy in your Majesty's escape,” said the Duke of\r\nBuckingham, “and not less in the quick wit which tracked that labyrinth\r\nof treason by so fine and almost invisible a clew.”\r\n\r\n“Saul, man, Steenie, ye are right! There are few youths have sic true\r\njudgment as you, respecting the wisdom of their elders; and, as for this\r\nfause, traitorous smaik, I doubt he is a hawk of the same nest. Saw ye\r\nnot something papistical about him? Let them look that he bears not a\r\ncrucifix, or some sic Roman trinket, about him.”\r\n\r\n“It would ill become me to attempt the exculpation of this unhappy man,”\r\n said Lord Dalgarno, “considering the height of his present attempt,\r\nwhich has made all true men's blood curdle in their veins. Yet I cannot\r\navoid intimating, with all due submission to his Majesty's infallible\r\njudgment, in justice to one who showed himself formerly only my enemy,\r\nthough he now displays himself in much blacker colours, that this\r\nOlifaunt always appeared to me more as a Puritan than as a Papist.”\r\n\r\n“Ah, Dalgarno, art thou there, man?” said the king."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“And ye behoved to\r\nkeep back, too, and leave us to our own natural strength and the care of\r\nProvidence, when we were in grips with the villain!”\r\n\r\n“Providence, may it please your most Gracious Majesty, would not fail\r\nto aid, in such a strait, the care of three weeping kingdoms,” said Lord\r\nDalgarno. “Surely, man--surely,” replied the king--“but a sight of your father,\r\nwith his long whinyard, would have been a blithe matter a short while\r\nsyne; and in future we will aid the ends of Providence in our favour,\r\nby keeping near us two stout beef-eaters of the guard.--And so this\r\nOlifaunt is a Puritan?--not the less like to be a Papist, for all\r\nthat--for extremities meet, as the scholiast proveth. There are, as I\r\nhave proved in my book, Puritans of papistical principles--it is just a\r\nnew tout on an old horn.”\r\n\r\nHere the king was reminded by the Prince, who dreaded perhaps that he\r\nwas going to recite the whole Basilicon Doron, that it would be best to\r\nmove towards the Palace, and consider what was to be done for satisfying\r\nthe public mind, in whom the morning's adventure was likely to excite\r\nmuch speculation. As they entered the gate of the Palace, a female bowed\r\nand presented a paper, which the king received, and, with a sort\r\nof groan, thrust it into his side pocket. The Prince expressed some\r\ncuriosity to know its contents."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“The valet in waiting will tell you\r\nthem,” said the king, “when I strip off my cassock. D'ye think, Baby,\r\nthat I can read all that is thrust into my hands? See to me, man”--(he\r\npointed to the pockets of his great trunk breeches, which were stuffed\r\nwith papers)--“We are like an ass--that we should so speak--stooping\r\nbetwixt two burdens. Ay, ay, Asinus fortis accumbens inter terminos, as\r\nthe Vulgate hath it--Ay, ay, Vidi terrain quod esset optima, et supposui\r\nhumerum ad portandum, et factus sum tributis serviens--I saw this land\r\nof England, and became an overburdened king thereof.”\r\n\r\n“You are indeed well loaded, my dear dad and gossip,” said the Duke of\r\nBuckingham, receiving the papers which King James emptied out of his\r\npockets. “Ay, ay,” continued the monarch; “take them to you per aversionem,\r\nbairns--the one pouch stuffed with petitions, t'other with pasquinadoes;\r\na fine time we have on't. On my conscience, I believe the tale of Cadmus\r\nwas hieroglyphical, and that the dragon's teeth whilk he sowed were\r\nthe letters he invented. Ye are laughing, Baby Charles?--Mind what I\r\nsay.--When I came here first frae our ain country, where the men are\r\nas rude as the weather, by my conscience, England was a bieldy bit;\r\none would have thought the king had little to do but to walk by quiet\r\nwaters, per aquam refectionis. But, I kenna how or why, the place is\r\nsair changed--read that libel upon us and on our regimen."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The dragon's\r\nteeth are sown, Baby Charles; I pray God they bearna their armed harvest\r\nin your day, if I suld not live to see it. God forbid I should, for\r\nthere will be an awful day's kemping at the shearing of them.”\r\n\r\n“I shall know how to stifle the crop in the blade,--ha, George?” said\r\nthe Prince, turning to the favourite with a look expressive of some\r\ncontempt for his father's apprehensions, and full of confidence in the\r\nsuperior firmness and decision of his own counsels. While this discourse was passing, Nigel, in charge of a\r\npursuivant-at-arms, was pushed and dragged through the small town, all\r\nthe inhabitants of which, having been alarmed by the report of an attack\r\non the king's life, now pressed forward to see the supposed traitor. Amid the confusion of the moment, he could descry the face of the\r\nvictualler, arrested into a stare of stolid wonder, and that of the\r\nbarber grinning betwixt horror and eager curiosity. He thought that he\r\nalso had a glimpse of his waterman in the green jacket. He had no time for remarks, being placed in a boat with the pursuivant\r\nand two yeomen of the guard, and rowed up the river as fast as the\r\narms of six stout watermen could pull against the tide."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They passed\r\nthe groves of masts which even then astonished the stranger with the\r\nextended commerce of London, and now approached those low and blackened\r\nwalls of curtain and bastion, which exhibit here and there a piece of\r\nordnance, and here and there a solitary sentinel under arms, but have\r\notherwise so little of the military terrors of a citadel. A projecting\r\nlow-browed arch, which had loured over many an innocent, and many a\r\nguilty head, in similar circumstances, now spread its dark frowns over\r\nthat of Nigel. The boat was put close up to the broad steps against\r\nwhich the tide was lapping its lazy wave. The warder on duty looked from\r\nthe wicket, and spoke to the pursuivant in whispers. In a few minutes\r\nthe Lieutenant of the Tower appeared, received, and granted an\r\nacknowledgment for the body of Nigel, Lord Glenvarloch. CHAPTER XXVIII\r\n\r\n\r\n  Ye towers of Julius! London's lasting shame;\r\n  With many a foul and midnight murder fed! _Gray._\r\n\r\nSuch is the exclamation of Gray. Bandello, long before him, has said\r\nsomething like it; and the same sentiment must, in some shape or other,\r\nhave frequently occurred to those, who, remembering the fate of other\r\ncaptives in that memorable state-prison, may have had but too much\r\nreason to anticipate their own."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The dark and low arch, which seemed,\r\nlike the entrance to Dante's Hell, to forbid hope of regress--the\r\nmuttered sounds of the warders, and petty formalities observed in\r\nopening and shutting the grated wicket--the cold and constrained\r\nsalutation of the Lieutenant of the fortress, who showed his prisoner\r\nthat distant and measured respect which authority pays as a tax to\r\ndecorum, all struck upon Nigel's heart, impressing on him the cruel\r\nconsciousness of captivity. “I am a prisoner,” he said, the words escaping from him almost unawares;\r\n“I am a prisoner, and in the Tower!”\r\n\r\nThe Lieutenant bowed--“And it is my duty,” he said, “to show your\r\nlordship your chamber, where, I am compelled to say, my orders are\r\nto place you under some restraint. I will make it as easy as my duty\r\npermits.”\r\n\r\nNigel only bowed in return to this compliment, and followed the\r\nLieutenant to the ancient buildings on the western side of the parade,\r\nand adjoining to the chapel, used in those days as a state-prison, but\r\nin ours as the mess-room of the officers of the guard upon duty at the\r\nfortress. The double doors were unlocked, the prisoner ascended a few\r\nsteps, followed by the Lieutenant, and a warder of the higher class. They entered a large, but irregular, low-roofed, and dark apartment,\r\nexhibiting a very scanty proportion of furniture."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The warder had orders\r\nto light a fire, and attend to Lord Glenvarloch's commands in all things\r\nconsistent with his duty; and the Lieutenant, having made his reverence\r\nwith the customary compliment, that he trusted his lordship would not\r\nlong remain under his guardianship, took his leave. Nigel would have asked some questions of the warder, who remained to\r\nput the apartment into order, but the man had caught the spirit of his\r\noffice. He seemed not to hear some of the prisoner's questions, though\r\nof the most ordinary kind, did not reply to others, and when he did\r\nspeak, it was in a short and sullen tone, which, though not\r\npositively disrespectful, was such as at least to encourage no farther\r\ncommunication. Nigel left him, therefore, to do his work in silence, and proceeded\r\nto amuse himself with the melancholy task of deciphering the names,\r\nmottoes, verses, and hieroglyphics, with which his predecessors in\r\ncaptivity had covered the walls of their prison-house. There he saw\r\nthe names of many a forgotten sufferer mingled with others which will\r\ncontinue in remembrance until English history shall perish. There were\r\nthe pious effusions of the devout Catholic, poured forth on the eve of\r\nhis sealing his profession at Tyburn, mingled with those of the firm\r\nProtestant, about to feed the fires of Smithfield."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There the slender\r\nhand of the unfortunate Jane Grey, whose fate was to draw tears from\r\nfuture generations, might be contrasted with the bolder touch which\r\nimpressed deep on the walls the Bear and Ragged Staff, the proud emblem\r\nof the proud Dudleys. It was like the roll of the prophet, a record of\r\nlamentation and mourning, and yet not unmixed with brief\r\ninterjections of resignation, and sentences expressive of the firmest\r\nresolution. [Footnote: These memorials of illustrious criminals, or of\r\ninnocent persons who had the fate of such, are still preserved, though\r\nat one time, in the course of repairing the rooms, they were in some\r\ndanger of being whitewashed. They are preserved at present with becoming\r\nrespect, and have most of them been engraved.--_See_ BAYLEY'S _History\r\nand Antiquities of the Tower of London._]\r\n\r\nIn the sad task of examining the miseries of his predecessors in\r\ncaptivity, Lord Glenvarloch was interrupted by the sudden opening of\r\nthe door of his prison-room. It was the warder, who came to inform him,\r\nthat, by order of the Lieutenant of the Tower, his lordship was to\r\nhave the society and attendance of a fellow-prisoner in his place of\r\nconfinement."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nigel replied hastily, that he wished no attendance, and\r\nwould rather be left alone; but the warder gave him to understand, with\r\na kind of grumbling civility, that the Lieutenant was the best judge how\r\nhis prisoners should be accommodated, and that he would have no trouble\r\nwith the boy, who was such a slip of a thing as was scarce worth turning\r\na key upon.--“There, Giles,” he said, “bring the child in.”\r\n\r\nAnother warder put the “lad before him” into the room, and, both\r\nwithdrawing, bolt crashed and chain clanged, as they replaced these\r\nponderous obstacles to freedom. The boy was clad in a grey suit of the\r\nfinest cloth, laid down with silver lace, with a buff-coloured cloak\r\nof the same pattern. His cap, which was a Montero of black velvet, was\r\npulled over his brows, and, with the profusion of his long ringlets,\r\nalmost concealed his face. He stood on the very spot where the warder\r\nhad quitted his collar, about two steps from the door of the apartment,\r\nhis eyes fixed on the ground, and every joint trembling with confusion\r\nand terror. Nigel could well have dispensed with his society, but it was\r\nnot in his nature to behold distress, whether of body or mind, without\r\nendeavouring to relieve it. “Cheer up,” he said, “my pretty lad."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We are to be companions, it seems,\r\nfor a little time--at least I trust your confinement will be short,\r\nsince you are too young to have done aught to deserve long restraint. Come, come--do not be discouraged. Your hand is cold and trembles? the\r\nair is warm too--but it may be the damp of this darksome room. Place you\r\nby the fire.--What! weeping-ripe, my little man? I pray you, do not be\r\na child. You have no beard yet, to be dishonoured by your tears, but yet\r\nyou should not cry like a girl. Think you are only shut up for playing\r\ntruant, and you can pass a day without weeping, surely.”\r\n\r\nThe boy suffered himself to be led and seated by the fire, but, after\r\nretaining for a long time the very posture which he assumed in sitting\r\ndown, he suddenly changed it in order to wring his hands with an air of\r\nthe bitterest distress, and then, spreading them before his face, wept\r\nso plentifully, that the tears found their way in floods through his\r\nslender fingers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nigel was in some degree rendered insensible to his own situation, by\r\nhis feelings for the intense agony by which so young and beautiful\r\na creature seemed to be utterly overwhelmed; and, sitting down close\r\nbeside the boy, he applied the most soothing terms which occurred,\r\nto endeavour to alleviate his distress; and, with an action which the\r\ndifference of their age rendered natural, drew his hand kindly along the\r\nlong hair of the disconsolate child. The lad appeared so shy as even\r\nto shrink from this slight approach to familiarity--yet, when Lord\r\nGlenvarloch, perceiving and allowing for his timidity, sat down on the\r\nfarther side of the fire, he appeared to be more at his ease, and to\r\nhearken with some apparent interest to the arguments which from time to\r\ntime Nigel used, to induce him to moderate, at least, the violence of\r\nhis grief. As the boy listened, his tears, though they continued to flow\r\nfreely, seemed to escape from their source more easily, his sobs were\r\nless convulsive, and became gradually changed into low sighs, which\r\nsucceeded each other, indicating as much sorrow, perhaps, but less\r\nalarm, than his first transports had shown."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Tell me who and what you are, my pretty boy,” said Nigel.--“Consider\r\nme, child, as a companion, who wishes to be kind to you, would you but\r\nteach him how he can be so.”\r\n\r\n“Sir--my lord, I mean,” answered the boy, very timidly, and in a voice\r\nwhich could scarce be heard even across the brief distance which divided\r\nthem, “you are very good--and I--am very unhappy--”\r\n\r\nA second fit of tears interrupted what else he had intended to say, and\r\nit required a renewal of Lord Glenvarloch's good-natured expostulations\r\nand encouragements, to bring him once more to such composure as rendered\r\nthe lad capable of expressing himself intelligibly. At length, however,\r\nhe was able to say--“I am sensible of your goodness, my lord--and\r\ngrateful for it--but I am a poor unhappy creature, and, what is worse,\r\nhave myself only to thank for my misfortunes.”\r\n\r\n“We are seldom absolutely miserable, my young acquaintance,” said Nigel,\r\n“without being ourselves more or less responsible for it--I may well say\r\nso, otherwise I had not been here to-day--but you are very young, and\r\ncan have but little to answer for.”\r\n\r\n“O sir!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I wish I could say so--I have been self-willed and\r\nobstinate--and rash and ungovernable--and now--now, how dearly do I pay\r\nthe price of it!”\r\n\r\n“Pshaw, my boy,” replied Nigel; “this must be some childish frolic--some\r\nbreaking out of bounds--some truant trick--And yet how should any of\r\nthese have brought you to the Tower?--There is something mysterious\r\nabout you, young man, which I must inquire into.”\r\n\r\n“Indeed, indeed, my lord, there is no harm about me,” said the boy, more\r\nmoved it would seem to confession by the last words, by which he seemed\r\nconsiderably alarmed, than by all the kind expostulations and arguments\r\nwhich Nigel had previously used. “I am innocent--that is, I have done\r\nwrong, but nothing to deserve being in this frightful place.”\r\n\r\n“Tell me the truth, then,” said Nigel, in a tone in which command\r\nmingled with encouragement; “you have nothing to fear from me, and as\r\nlittle to hope, perhaps--yet, placed as I am, I would know with whom I\r\nspeak.”\r\n\r\n“With an unhappy--boy, sir--and idle and truantly disposed, as your\r\nlordship said,” answered the lad, looking up, and showing a countenance\r\nin which paleness and blushes succeeded each other, as fear and\r\nshamefacedness alternately had influence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I left my father's house\r\nwithout leave, to see the king hunt in the Park at Greenwich; there came\r\na cry of treason, and all the gates were shut--I was frightened, and\r\nhid myself in a thicket, and I was found by some of the rangers and\r\nexamined--and they said I gave no good account of myself--and so I was\r\nsent hither.”\r\n\r\n“I am an unhappy, a most unhappy being,” said Lord Glenvarloch, rising\r\nand walking through the apartment; “nothing approaches me but shares my\r\nown bad fate! Death and imprisonment dog my steps, and involve all who\r\nare found near me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Yet this boy's story sounds strangely.--You say you\r\nwere examined, my young friend--Let me pray you to say whether you told\r\nyour name, and your means of gaining admission into the Park--if so,\r\nthey surely would not have detained you?”\r\n\r\n“O, my lord,” said the boy, “I took care not to tell them the name of\r\nthe friend that let me in; and as to my father--I would not he knew\r\nwhere I now am for all the wealth in London!”\r\n\r\n“But do you not expect,” said Nigel, “that they will dismiss you till\r\nyou let them know who and what you are?”\r\n\r\n“What good will it do them to keep so useless a creature as myself?”\r\n said the boy; “they must let me go, were it but out of shame.”\r\n\r\n“Do not trust to that--tell me your name and station--I will communicate\r\nthem to the Lieutenant--he is a man of quality and honour, and will not\r\nonly be willing to procure your liberation, but also, I have no doubt,\r\nwill intercede with your father. I am partly answerable for such poor\r\naid as I can afford, to get you out of this embarrassment, since I\r\noccasioned the alarm owing to which you were arrested; so tell me your\r\nname, and your father's name.”\r\n\r\n“My name to you? O never, never!” answered the boy, in a tone of deep\r\nemotion, the cause of which Nigel could not comprehend."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Are you so much afraid of me, young man,” he replied, “because I am\r\nhere accused and a prisoner? Consider, a man may be both, and deserve\r\nneither suspicion nor restraint. Why should you distrust me? You seem\r\nfriendless, and I am myself so much in the same circumstances, that I\r\ncannot but pity your situation when I reflect on my own. Be wise; I have\r\nspoken kindly to you--I mean as kindly as I speak.”\r\n\r\n“O, I doubt it not, I doubt it not, my lord,” said the boy, “and I could\r\ntell you all--that is, almost all.”\r\n\r\n“Tell me nothing, my young friend, excepting what may assist me in being\r\nuseful to you,” said Nigel. “You are generous, my lord,” said the boy; “and I am sure--O sure,\r\nI might safely trust to your honour--But yet--but yet--I am so sore\r\nbeset--I have been so rash, so unguarded--I can never tell you of\r\nmy folly. Besides, I have already told too much to one whose heart I\r\nthought I had moved--yet I find myself here.”\r\n\r\n“To whom did you make this disclosure?” said Nigel. “I dare not tell,” replied the youth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“There is something singular about you, my young friend,” said Lord\r\nGlenvarloch, withdrawing with a gentle degree of compulsion the hand\r\nwith which the boy had again covered his eyes; “do not pain yourself\r\nwith thinking on your situation just at present--your pulse is high, and\r\nyour hand feverish--lay yourself on yonder pallet, and try to compose\r\nyourself to sleep. It is the readiest and best remedy for the fancies\r\nwith which you are worrying yourself.”\r\n\r\n“I thank you for your considerate kindness, my lord,” said the boy;\r\n“with your leave I will remain for a little space quiet in this chair--I\r\nam better thus than on the couch. I can think undisturbedly on what I\r\nhave done, and have still to do; and if God sends slumber to a creature\r\nso exhausted, it shall be most welcome.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, the boy drew his hand from Lord Nigel's, and, drawing around\r\nhim and partly over his face the folds of his ample cloak, he resigned\r\nhimself to sleep or meditation, while his companion, notwithstanding the\r\nexhausting scenes of this and the preceding day, continued his pensive\r\nwalk up and down the apartment. Every reader has experienced, that times occur, when far from being lord\r\nof external circumstances, man is unable to rule even the wayward realm\r\nof his own thoughts."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was Nigel's natural wish to consider his own\r\nsituation coolly, and fix on the course which it became him as a man\r\nof sense and courage to adopt; and yet, in spite of himself, and\r\nnotwithstanding the deep interest of the critical state in which he was\r\nplaced, it did so happen that his fellow-prisoner's situation occupied\r\nmore of his thoughts than did his own. There was no accounting for this\r\nwandering of the imagination, but also there was no striving with it. The pleading tones of one of the sweetest voices he had ever heard,\r\nstill rung in his ear, though it seemed that sleep had now fettered the\r\ntongue of the speaker. He drew near on tiptoe to satisfy himself whether\r\nit were so. The folds of the cloak hid the lower part of his face\r\nentirely; but the bonnet, which had fallen a little aside, permitted him\r\nto see the forehead streaked with blue veins, the closed eyes, and the\r\nlong silken eyelashes. “Poor child,” said Nigel to himself, as he looked on him, nestled up as\r\nit were in the folds of his mantle, “the dew is yet on thy eyelashes,\r\nand thou hast fairly wept thyself asleep. Sorrow is a rough nurse to one\r\nso young and delicate as thou art. Peace be to thy slumbers, I will\r\nnot disturb them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "My own misfortunes require my attention, and it is to\r\ntheir contemplation that I must resign myself.”\r\n\r\nHe attempted to do so, but was crossed at every turn by conjectures\r\nwhich intruded themselves as before, and which all regarded the sleeper\r\nrather than himself. He was angry and vexed, and expostulated with\r\nhimself concerning the overweening interest which he took in the\r\nconcerns of one of whom he knew nothing, saving that the boy was forced\r\ninto his company, perhaps as a spy, by those to whose custody he was\r\ncommitted--but the spell could not be broken, and the thoughts which he\r\nstruggled to dismiss, continued to haunt him. Thus passed half an hour, or more; at the conclusion of which, the\r\nharsh sound of the revolving bolts was again heard, and the voice of the\r\nwarder announced that a man desired to speak with Lord Glenvarloch. “A\r\nman to speak with me, under my present circumstances!--Who can it be?”\r\n And John Christie, his landlord of Paul's Wharf, resolved his doubts, by\r\nentering the apartment. “Welcome--most welcome, mine honest landlord!”\r\n said Lord Glenvarloch. “How could I have dreamt of seeing you in my\r\npresent close lodgings?” And at the same time, with the frankness of\r\nold kindness, he walked up to Christie and offered his hand; but John\r\nstarted back as from the look of a basilisk."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Keep your courtesies to yourself, my lord,” said he, gruffly; “I have\r\nhad as many of them already as may serve me for my life.”\r\n\r\n“Why, Master Christie,” said Nigel, “what means this? I trust I have not\r\noffended you?”\r\n\r\n“Ask me no questions, my lord,” said Christie, bluntly. “I am a man of\r\npeace--I came not hither to wrangle with you at this place and season. Just suppose that I am well informed of all the obligements from your\r\nhonour's nobleness, and then acquaint me, in as few words as may be,\r\nwhere is the unhappy woman--What have you done with her?”\r\n\r\n“What have I done with her!” said Lord Glenvarloch--“Done with whom? I\r\nknow not what you are speaking of.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, yes, my lord,” said Christie; “play surprise as well as you will,\r\nyou must have some guess that I am speaking of the poor fool that was my\r\nwife, till she became your lordship's light-o'-love.”\r\n\r\n“Your wife! Has your wife left you? and, if she has, do you come to ask\r\nher of me?”\r\n\r\n“Yes, my lord, singular as it may seem,” returned Christie, in a tone\r\nof bitter irony, and with a sort of grin widely discording from the\r\ndiscomposure of his features, the gleam of his eye, and the froth which\r\nstood on his lip, “I do come to make that demand of your lordship. Doubtless, you are surprised I should take the trouble; but, I cannot\r\ntell, great men and little men think differently."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She has lain in\r\nmy bosom, and drunk of my cup; and, such as she is, I cannot forget\r\nthat--though I will never see her again--she must not starve, my lord,\r\nor do worse, to gain bread, though I reckon your lordship may think I am\r\nrobbing the public in trying to change her courses.”\r\n\r\n“By my faith as a Christian, by my honour as a gentleman,” said Lord\r\nGlenvarloch, “if aught amiss has chanced with your wife, I know nothing\r\nof it. I trust in Heaven you are as much mistaken in imputing guilt to\r\nher, as in supposing me her partner in it.”\r\n\r\n“Fie! fie! my lord,” said Christie, “why will you make it so tough? She\r\nis but the wife of a clod-pated old chandler, who was idiot enough to\r\nmarry a wench twenty years younger than himself. Your lordship cannot\r\nhave more glory by it than you have had already; and, as for\r\nadvantage and solace, I take it Dame Nelly is now unnecessary to\r\nyour gratification. I should be sorry to interrupt the course of your\r\npleasure; an old wittol should have more consideration of his condition."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, your precious lordship being mewed up here among other choice\r\njewels of the kingdom, Dame Nelly cannot, I take it, be admitted\r\nto share the hours of dalliance which”--Here the incensed husband\r\nstammered, broke off his tone of irony, and proceeded, striking his\r\nstaff against the ground--“O that these false limbs of yours, which I\r\nwish had been hamstrung when they first crossed my honest threshold,\r\nwere free from the fetters they have well deserved! I would give you the\r\nodds of your youth, and your weapon, and would bequeath my soul to\r\nthe foul fiend if I, with this piece of oak, did not make you such an\r\nexample to all ungrateful, pick-thank courtiers, that it should be a\r\nproverb to the end of time, how John Christie swaddled his wife's fine\r\nleman!”\r\n\r\n“I understand not your insolence,” said Nigel, “but I forgive it,\r\nbecause you labour under some strange delusion. In so far as I can\r\ncomprehend your vehement charge, it is entirely undeserved on my part. You seem to impute to me the seduction of your wife--I trust she is\r\ninnocent. For me, at least, she is as innocent as an angel in bliss. I never thought of her--never touched her hand or cheek, save in\r\nhonourable courtesy.”\r\n\r\n“O, ay--courtesy!--that is the very word. She always praised your\r\nlordship's honourable courtesy. Ye have cozened me between ye, with your\r\ncourtesy. My lord--my lord, you came to us no very wealthy man--you know\r\nit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was for no lucre of gain I took you and your swash-buckler, your\r\nDon Diego yonder, under my poor roof. I never cared if the little room\r\nwere let or no; I could live without it. If you could not have paid for\r\nit, you should never have been asked. All the wharf knows John Christie\r\nhas the means and spirit to do a kindness. When you first darkened my\r\nhonest doorway, I was as happy as a man need to be, who is no youngster,\r\nand has the rheumatism. Nelly was the kindest and best-humoured\r\nwench--we might have a word now and then about a gown or a ribbon, but\r\na kinder soul on the whole, and a more careful, considering her years,\r\ntill you come--and what is she now!--But I will not be a fool to cry, if\r\nI can help it. _What_ she is, is not the question, but where she is; and\r\nthat I must learn, sir, of you.”\r\n\r\n“How can you, when I tell you,” replied Nigel, “that I am as ignorant as\r\nyourself, or rather much more so? Till this moment, I never heard of any\r\ndisagreement betwixt your dame and you.”\r\n\r\n“That is a lie,” said John Christie, bluntly. “How, you base villain!” said Lord Glenvarloch--“do you presume on my\r\nsituation?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "If it were not that I hold you mad, and perhaps made so\r\nby some wrong sustained, you should find my being weaponless were no\r\nprotection, I would beat your brains out against the wall.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay,” answered Christie, “bully as ye list. Ye have been at the\r\nordinaries, and in Alsatia, and learned the ruffian's rant, I doubt not. But I repeat, you have spoken an untruth, when you said you knew not of\r\nmy wife's falsehood; for, when you were twitted with it among your gay\r\nmates, it was a common jest among you, and your lordship took all the\r\ncredit they would give you for your gallantry and gratitude.”\r\n\r\nThere was a mixture of truth in this part of the charge which\r\ndisconcerted Lord Glenvarloch exceedingly; for he could not, as a man\r\nof honour, deny that Lord Dalgarno, and others, had occasionally jested\r\nwith him on the subject of Dame Nelly, and that, though he had not\r\nplayed exactly _le fanfaron des vices qu'il n'avoit pas_, he had not\r\nat least been sufficiently anxious to clear himself of the suspicion of\r\nsuch a crime to men who considered it as a merit. It was therefore with\r\nsome hesitation, and in a sort of qualifying tone, that he admitted that\r\nsome idle jests had passed upon such a supposition, although without\r\nthe least foundation in truth. John Christie would not listen to his\r\nvindication any longer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“By your own account,” he said, “you permitted\r\nlies to be told of you injest. How do I know you are speaking truth,\r\nnow you are serious? You thought it, I suppose, a fine thing to wear the\r\nreputation of having dishonoured an honest family,--who will not think\r\nthat you had real grounds for your base bravado to rest upon? I will not\r\nbelieve otherwise for one, and therefore, my lord, mark what I have to\r\nsay. You are now yourself in trouble--As you hope to come through\r\nit safely, and without loss of life and property, tell me where this\r\nunhappy woman is. Tell me, if you hope for heaven--tell me, if you fear\r\nhell--tell me, as you would not have the curse of an utterly ruined\r\nwoman, and a broken-hearted man, attend you through life, and bear\r\nwitness against you at the Great Day, which shall come after death. You\r\nare moved, my lord, I see it. I cannot forget the wrong you have done\r\nme. I cannot even promise to forgive it--but--tell me, and you shall\r\nnever see me again, or hear more of my reproaches.”\r\n\r\n“Unfortunate man,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “you have said more, far more\r\nthan enough, to move me deeply."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Were I at liberty, I would lend you my\r\nbest aid to search out him who has wronged you, the rather that I do\r\nsuspect my having been your lodger has been in some degree the remote\r\ncause of bringing the spoiler into the sheepfold.”\r\n\r\n“I am glad your lordship grants me so much,” said John Christie,\r\nresuming the tone of embittered irony with which he had opened\r\nthe singular conversation; “I will spare you farther reproach and\r\nremonstrance--your mind is made up, and so is mine.--So, ho, warder!”\r\n The warder entered, and John went on,--“I want to get out, brother. Look\r\nwell to your charge--it were better that half the wild beasts in their\r\ndens yonder were turned loose upon Tower Hill, than that this same\r\nsmooth-faced, civil-spoken gentleman, were again returned to honest\r\nmen's company!”\r\n\r\nSo saying, he hastily left the apartment; and Nigel had full leisure\r\nto lament the waywardness of his fate, which seemed never to tire of\r\npersecuting him for crimes of which he was innocent, and investing him\r\nwith the appearances of guilt which his mind abhorred."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He could not,\r\nhowever, help acknowledging to himself, that all the pain which he\r\nmight sustain from the present accusation of John Christie, was so far\r\ndeserved, from his having suffered himself, out of vanity, or rather an\r\nunwillingness to encounter ridicule, to be supposed capable of a\r\nbase inhospitable crime, merely because fools called it an affair of\r\ngallantry; and it was no balsam to the wound, when he recollected what\r\nRichie had told him of his having been ridiculed behind his back by the\r\ngallants of the ordinary, for affecting the reputation of an intrigue\r\nwhich he had not in reality spirit enough to have carried on. His\r\nsimulation had, in a word, placed him in the unlucky predicament of\r\nbeing rallied as a braggart amongst the dissipated youths, with whom the\r\nreality of the amour would have given him credit; whilst, on the other\r\nhand, he was branded as an inhospitable seducer by the injured husband,\r\nwho was obstinately persuaded of his guilt. CHAPTER XXIX\r\n\r\n\r\n  How fares the man on whom good men would look\r\n  With eyes where scorn and censure combated,\r\n  But that kind Christian love hath taught the lesson--\r\n  That they who merit most contempt and hate,\r\n  Do most deserve our pity.--\r\n                              _Old Play_."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It might have seemed natural that the visit of John Christie should have\r\nentirely diverted Nigel's attention from his slumbering companion, and,\r\nfor a time, such was the immediate effect of the chain of new ideas\r\nwhich the incident introduced; yet, soon after the injured man had\r\ndeparted, Lord Glenvarloch began to think it extraordinary that the boy\r\nshould have slept so soundly, while they talked loudly in his vicinity. Yet he certainly did not appear to have stirred. Was he well--was he\r\nonly feigning sleep? He went close to him to make his observations, and\r\nperceived that he had wept, and was still weeping, though his eyes were\r\nclosed. He touched him gently on the shoulder--the boy shrunk from his\r\ntouch, but did not awake. He pulled him harder, and asked him if he was\r\nsleeping. “Do they waken folk in your country to know whether they are asleep or\r\nno?” said the boy, in a peevish tone. “No, my young sir,” answered Nigel; “but when they weep in the manner\r\nyou do in your sleep, they awaken them to see what ails them.”\r\n\r\n“It signifies little to any one what ails me,” said the boy. “True,” replied Lord Glenvarloch; “but you knew before you went to\r\nsleep how little I could assist you in your difficulties, and you seemed\r\ndisposed, notwithstanding, to put some confidence in me.”\r\n\r\n“If I did, I have changed my mind,” said the lad."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“And what may have occasioned this change of mind, I trow?” said Lord\r\nGlenvarloch. “Some men speak through their sleep--perhaps you have the\r\ngift of hearing in it?”\r\n\r\n“No, but the Patriarch Joseph never dreamt truer dreams than I do.”\r\n\r\n“Indeed!” said Lord Glenvarloch. “And, pray, what dream have you had\r\nthat has deprived me of your good opinion; for that, I think, seems the\r\nmoral of the matter?”\r\n\r\n“You shall judge yourself,” answered the boy. “I dreamed I was in a wild\r\nforest, where there was a cry of hounds, and winding of horns, exactly\r\nas I heard in Greenwich Park.”\r\n\r\n“That was because you were in the Park this morning, you simple child,”\r\n said Nigel. “Stay, my lord,” said the youth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I went on in my dream, till, at the\r\ntop of a broad green alley, I saw a noble stag which had fallen into the\r\ntoils; and methought I knew that he was the very stag which the whole\r\nparty were hunting, and that if the chase came up, the dogs would tear\r\nhim to pieces, or the hunters would cut his throat; and I had pity on\r\nthe gallant stag, and though I was of a different kind from him, and\r\nthough I was somewhat afraid of him, I thought I would venture something\r\nto free so stately a creature; and I pulled out my knife, and just as I\r\nwas beginning to cut the meshes of the net, the animal started up in my\r\nface in the likeness of a tiger, much larger and fiercer than any you\r\nmay have seen in the ward of the wild beasts yonder, and was just about\r\nto tear me limb from limb, when you awaked me.”\r\n\r\n“Methinks,” said Nigel, “I deserve more thanks than I have got, for\r\nrescuing you from such a danger by waking you."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, my pretty master, methinks all this tale of a tiger and a stag has little to do with your change of temper towards me.” “I know not whether it has or no,” said the lad; “but I will not tell you who I am.” “You will keep your secret to yourself then, peevish boy,” said Nigel, turning from him, and resuming his walk through the room; then stopping suddenly, he said--“And yet you shall not escape from me without knowing that I penetrate your mystery.” “My mystery!” said the youth, at once alarmed and irritated--“what mean you, my lord?” “Only that I can read your dream without the assistance of a Chaldean interpreter, and my exposition is--that my fair companion does not wear the dress of her sex.” “And if I do not, my lord,” said his companion, hastily starting up, and folding her cloak tight around her, “my dress, such as it is, covers one who will not disgrace it.” “Many would call that speech a fair challenge,” said Lord Glenvarloch, looking on her fixedly; “women do not masquerade in men's clothes, to make use of men's weapons.” “I have no such purpose,” said the seeming boy; “I have other means of protection, and powerful--but I would first know what is _your_ purpose.” “An honourable and a most respectful one,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “whatever you are--whatever motive may have brought you into this ambiguous situation, I am sensible--every look, word, and action of yours, makes me sensible, that"}
{"question": "", "answer": "you are no proper subject of importunity, far less of ill usage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What circumstances can have forced you into so\r\ndoubtful a situation, I know not; but I feel assured there is, and can\r\nbe, nothing in them of premeditated wrong, which should expose you to\r\ncold-blooded insult. From me you have nothing to dread.”\r\n\r\n“I expected nothing less from your nobleness, my lord,” answered the\r\nfemale; “my adventure, though I feel it was both desperate and foolish,\r\nis not so very foolish, nor my safety here so utterly unprotected, as\r\nat first sight--and in this strange dress, it may appear to be. I have\r\nsuffered enough, and more than enough, by the degradation of having been\r\nseen in this unfeminine attire, and the comments you must necessarily\r\nhave made on my conduct--but I thank God that I am so far protected,\r\nthat I could not have been subjected to insult unavenged.” When this\r\nextraordinary explanation had proceeded thus far, the warder appeared,\r\nto place before Lord Glenvarloch a meal, which, for his present\r\nsituation, might be called comfortable, and which, if not equal to\r\nthe cookery of the celebrated Chevalier Beaujeu, was much superior in\r\nneatness and cleanliness to that of Alsatia. A warder attended to do the\r\nhonours of the table, and made a sign to the disguised female to rise\r\nand assist him in his functions. But Nigel, declaring that he knew the\r\nyouth's parents, interfered, and caused his companion to eat along with\r\nhim."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She consented with a sort of embarrassment, which rendered her\r\npretty features yet more interesting. Yet she maintained with a natural\r\ngrace that sort of good-breeding which belongs to the table; and\r\nit seemed to Nigel, whether already prejudiced in her favour by the\r\nextraordinary circumstances of their meeting, or whether really judging\r\nfrom what was actually the fact, that he had seldom seen a young person\r\ncomport herself with more decorous propriety, mixed with ingenuous\r\nsimplicity; while the consciousness of the peculiarity of her situation\r\nthrew a singular colouring over her whole demeanour, which could be\r\nneither said to be formal, nor easy, nor embarrassed, but was compounded\r\nof, and shaded with, an interchange of all these three characteristics. Wine was placed on the table, of which she could not be prevailed on\r\nto taste a glass. Their conversation was, of course, limited by the\r\npresence of the warder to the business of the table: but Nigel had, long\r\nere the cloth was removed, formed the resolution, if possible, of making\r\nhimself master of this young person's history, the more especially as he\r\nnow began to think that the tones of her voice and her features were not\r\nso strange to him as he had originally supposed. This, however, was a\r\nconviction which he adopted slowly, and only as it dawned upon him from\r\nparticular circumstances during the course of the repast."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At length the prison-meal was finished, and Lord Glenvarloch began to\r\nthink how he might most easily enter upon the topic he meditated, when\r\nthe warder announced a visitor. “Soh!” said Nigel, something displeased, “I find even a prison does not\r\nsave one from importunate visitations.”\r\n\r\nHe prepared to receive his guest, however, while his alarmed companion\r\nflew to the large cradle-shaped chair, which had first served her as a\r\nplace of refuge, drew her cloak around her, and disposed herself as much\r\nas she could to avoid observation. She had scarce made her arrangements\r\nfor that purpose when the door opened, and the worthy citizen, George\r\nHeriot, entered the prison-chamber. He cast around the apartment his usual sharp, quick glance of\r\nobservation, and, advancing to Nigel, said--“My lord, I wish I could say\r\nI was happy to see you.”\r\n\r\n“The sight of those who are unhappy themselves, Master Heriot, seldom\r\nproduces happiness to their friends--I, however, am glad to see you.”\r\n\r\nHe extended his hand, but Heriot bowed with much formal complaisance,\r\ninstead of accepting the courtesy, which in those times, when the\r\ndistinction of ranks was much guarded by etiquette and ceremony, was\r\nconsidered as a distinguished favour. “You are displeased with me, Master Heriot,” said Lord Glenvarloch,\r\nreddening, for he was not deceived by the worthy citizen's affectation\r\nof extreme reverence and respect."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“By no means, my lord,” replied Heriot; “but I have been in France, and\r\nhave thought it is well to import, along with other more substantial\r\narticles, a small sample of that good-breeding which the French are so\r\nrenowned for.”\r\n\r\n“It is not kind of you,” said Nigel, “to bestow the first use of it on\r\nan old and obliged friend.”\r\n\r\nHeriot only answered to this observation with a short dry cough, and\r\nthen proceeded. “Hem! hem! I say, ahem! My lord, as my French politeness may not carry\r\nme far, I would willingly know whether I am to speak as a friend, since\r\nyour lordship is pleased to term me such; or whether I am, as befits\r\nmy condition, to confine myself to the needful business which must be\r\ntreated of between us.”\r\n\r\n“Speak as a friend by all means, Master Heriot,” said Nigel; “I perceive\r\nyou have adopted some of the numerous prejudices against me, if not\r\nall of them. Speak out, and frankly--what I cannot deny I will at least\r\nconfess.”\r\n\r\n“And I trust, my lord, redress,” said Heriot. “So far as in my power, certainly,” answered Nigel. “Ah I my lord,” continued Heriot, “that is a melancholy though a\r\nnecessary restriction; for how lightly may any one do an hundred times\r\nmore than the degree of evil which it may be within his power to repair\r\nto the sufferers and to society!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But we are not alone here,” he said,\r\nstopping, and darting his shrewd eye towards the muffled figure of the\r\ndisguised maiden, whose utmost efforts had not enabled her so to adjust\r\nher position as altogether to escape observation. More anxious to\r\nprevent her being discovered than to keep his own affairs private, Nigel\r\nhastily answered--“'Tis a page of mine; you may speak freely before him. He is of France, and knows no English.”\r\n\r\n“I am then to speak freely,” said Heriot, after a second glance at the\r\nchair; “perhaps my words may be more free than welcome.”\r\n\r\n“Go on, sir,” said Nigel, “I have told you I can bear reproof.”\r\n\r\n“In one word, then, my lord--why do I find you in this place, and\r\nwhelmed with charges which must blacken a name rendered famous by ages\r\nof virtue?”\r\n\r\n“Simply, then, you find me here,” said Nigel, “because, to begin from my\r\noriginal error, I would be wiser than my father.”\r\n\r\n“It was a difficult task, my lord,” replied Heriot; “your father was\r\nvoiced generally as the wisest and one of the bravest men of Scotland.”\r\n\r\n“He commanded me,” continued Nigel, “to avoid all gambling; and I took\r\nupon me to modify this injunction into regulating my play according to\r\nmy skill, means, and the course of my luck.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, self opinion, acting on a desire of acquisition, my lord--you hoped\r\nto touch pitch and not to be defiled,” answered Heriot."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Well, my\r\nlord, you need not say, for I have heard with much regret, how far\r\nthis conduct diminished your reputation. Your next error I may without\r\nscruple remind you of--My lord, my lord, in whatever degree Lord\r\nDalgarno may have failed towards you, the son of his father should have\r\nbeen sacred from your violence.”\r\n\r\n“You speak in cold blood, Master Heriot, and I was smarting under a\r\nthousand wrongs inflicted on me under the mask of friendship.”\r\n\r\n“That is, he gave your lordship bad advice, and you,” said Heriot--\r\n\r\n“Was fool enough to follow his counsel,” answered Nigel--“But we will\r\npass this, Master Heriot, if you please. Old men and young men, men of\r\nthe sword and men of peaceful occupation, always have thought, always\r\nwill think, differently on such subjects.”\r\n\r\n“I grant,” answered Heriot, “the distinction between the old goldsmith\r\nand the young nobleman--still you should have had patience for Lord\r\nHuntinglen's sake, and prudence for your own. Supposing your quarrel\r\njust--”\r\n\r\n“I pray you to pass on to some other charge,” said Lord Glenvarloch. “I am not your accuser, my lord; but I trust in heaven, that your own\r\nheart has already accused you bitterly on the inhospitable wrong which\r\nyour late landlord has sustained at your hand.”\r\n\r\n“Had I been guilty of what you allude to,” said Lord Glenvarloch,--“had\r\na moment of temptation hurried me away, I had long ere now most bitterly\r\nrepented it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But whoever may have wronged the unhappy woman, it was not\r\nI--I never heard of her folly until within this hour.”\r\n\r\n“Come, my lord,” said Heriot, with some severity, “this sounds too much\r\nlike affectation. I know there is among our modern youth a new creed\r\nrespecting adultery as well as homicide--I would rather hear you speak\r\nof a revision of the Decalogue, with mitigated penalties in favour of\r\nthe privileged orders--I would rather hear you do this than deny a fact\r\nin which you have been known to glory.”\r\n\r\n“Glory!--I never did, never would have taken honour to myself from\r\nsuch a cause,” said Lord Glenvarloch. “I could not prevent other idle\r\ntongues, and idle brains, from making false inferences.”\r\n\r\n“You would have known well enough how to stop their mouths, my lord,”\r\n replied Heriot, “had they spoke of you what was unpleasing to your\r\nears, and what the truth did not warrant.--Come, my lord, remember your\r\npromise to confess; and, indeed, to confess is, in this case, in\r\nsome slight sort to redress. I will grant you are young--the woman\r\nhandsome--and, as I myself have observed, light-headed enough. Let me\r\nknow where she is. Her foolish husband has still some compassion for\r\nher--will save her from infamy--perhaps, in time, receive her back; for\r\nwe are a good-natured generation we traders."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Do not, my lord, emulate\r\nthose who work mischief merely for the pleasure of doing so--it is the\r\nvery devil's worst quality.”\r\n\r\n“Your grave remonstrances will drive me mad,” said Nigel. “There is\r\na show of sense and reason in what you say; and yet, it is positively\r\ninsisting on my telling the retreat of a fugitive of whom I know nothing\r\nearthly.”\r\n\r\n“It is well, my lord,” answered Heriot, coldly. “You have a right, such\r\nas it is, to keep your own secrets; but, since my discourse on these\r\npoints seems so totally unavailing, we had better proceed to business. Yet your father's image rises before me, and seems to plead that I\r\nshould go on.”\r\n\r\n“Be it as you will, sir,” said Glenvarloch; “he who doubts my word shall\r\nhave no additional security for it.”\r\n\r\n“Well, my lord.--In the Sanctuary at Whitefriars--a place of refuge so\r\nunsuitable to a young man of quality and character--I am told a murder\r\nwas committed.”\r\n\r\n“And you believe that I did the deed, I suppose?”\r\n\r\n“God forbid, my lord!” said Heriot. “The coroner's inquest hath sat,\r\nand it appeared that your lordship, under your assumed name of Grahame,\r\nbehaved with the utmost bravery.”\r\n\r\n“No compliment, I pray you,” said Nigel; “I am only too happy to find,\r\nthat I did not murder, or am not believed to have murdered, the old\r\nman.”\r\n\r\n“True, my lord,” said Heriot; “but even in this affair there lacks\r\nexplanation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Your lordship embarked this morning in a wherry with a\r\nfemale, and, it is said, an immense sum of money, in specie and other\r\nvaluables--but the woman has not since been heard of.”\r\n\r\n“I parted with her at Paul's Wharf,” said Nigel, “where she went ashore\r\nwith her charge. I gave her a letter to that very man, John Christie.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, that is the waterman's story; but John Christie denies that he\r\nremembers anything of the matter.”\r\n\r\n“I am sorry to hear this,” said the young nobleman; “I hope in Heaven\r\nshe has not been trepanned, for the treasure she had with her.”\r\n\r\n“I hope not, my lord,” replied Heriot; “but men's minds are much\r\ndisturbed about it. Our national character suffers on all hands."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Men\r\nremember the fatal case of Lord Sanquhar, hanged for the murder of a\r\nfencing-master; and exclaim, they will not have their wives whored, and\r\ntheir property stolen, by the nobility of Scotland.”\r\n\r\n“And all this is laid to my door!” said Nigel; “my exculpation is easy.”\r\n\r\n“I trust so, my lord,” said Heriot;--“nay, in this particular, I do not\r\ndoubt it.--But why did you leave Whitefriars under such circumstances?”\r\n\r\n“Master Reginald Lowestoffe sent a boat for me, with intimation to\r\nprovide for my safety.”\r\n\r\n“I am sorry to say,” replied Heriot, “that he denies all knowledge of\r\nyour lordship's motions, after having dispatched a messenger to you with\r\nsome baggage.”\r\n\r\n“The watermen told me they were employed by him.”\r\n\r\n“Watermen!” said Heriot; “one of these proves to be an idle apprentice,\r\nan old acquaintance of mine--the other has escaped; but the fellow who\r\nis in custody persists in saying he was employed by your lordship, and\r\nyou only.”\r\n\r\n“He lies!” said Lord Glenvarloch, hastily;--“He told me Master\r\nLowestoffe had sent him.--I hope that kind-hearted gentleman is at\r\nliberty?”\r\n\r\n“He is,” answered Heriot; “and has escaped with a rebuke from the\r\nbenchers, for interfering in such a matter as your lordship's. The Court\r\ndesire to keep well with the young Templars in these times of commotion,\r\nor he had not come off so well.”\r\n\r\n“That is the only word of comfort I have heard from you,” replied Nigel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“But this poor woman,--she and her trunk were committed to the charge of\r\ntwo porters.”\r\n\r\n“So said the pretended waterman; but none of the fellows who ply at the\r\nwharf will acknowledge the employment.--I see the idea makes you uneasy,\r\nmy lord; but every effort is made to discover the poor woman's place\r\nof retreat--if, indeed, she yet lives.--And now, my lord, my errand is\r\nspoken, so far as it relates exclusively to your lordship; what remains,\r\nis matter of business of a more formal kind.”\r\n\r\n“Let us proceed to it without delay,” said Lord Glenvarloch. “I would\r\nhear of the affairs of any one rather than of my own.”\r\n\r\n“You cannot have forgotten, my lord,” said Heriot, “the transaction\r\nwhich took place some weeks since at Lord Huntinglen's--by which a large\r\nsum of money was advanced for the redemption of your lordship's estate?”\r\n\r\n“I remember it perfectly,” said Nigel; “and your present austerity\r\ncannot make me forget your kindness on the occasion.”\r\n\r\nHeriot bowed gravely, and went on.--“That money was advanced under the\r\nexpectation and hope that it might be replaced by the contents of a\r\ngrant to your lordship, under the royal sign-manual, in payment of\r\ncertain monies due by the crown to your father.--I trust your lordship\r\nunderstood the transaction at the time--I trust you now understand my\r\nresumption of its import, and hold it to be correct?”\r\n\r\n“Undeniably correct,” answered Lord Glenvarloch."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“If the sums contained\r\nin the warrant cannot be recovered, my lands become the property of\r\nthose who paid off the original holders of the mortgage, and now stand\r\nin their right.”\r\n\r\n“Even so, my lord,” said Heriot. “And your lordship's unhappy\r\ncircumstances having, it would seem, alarmed these creditors, they\r\nare now, I am sorry to say, pressing for one or other of these\r\nalternatives--possession of the land, or payment of their debt.”\r\n\r\n“They have a right to one or other,” answered Lord Glenvarloch; “and as\r\nI cannot do the last in my present condition, I suppose they must enter\r\non possession.”\r\n\r\n“Stay, my lord,” replied Heriot; “if you have ceased to call me a friend\r\nto your person, at least you shall see I am willing to be such to your\r\nfather's house, were it but for the sake of your father's memory. If\r\nyou will trust me with the warrant under the sign-manual, I believe\r\ncircumstances do now so stand at Court, that I may be able to recover\r\nthe money for you.”\r\n\r\n“I would do so gladly,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “but the casket which\r\ncontains it is not in my possession. It was seized when I was arrested\r\nat Greenwich.”\r\n\r\n“It will be no longer withheld from you,” said Heriot; “for, I\r\nunderstand, my Master's natural good sense, and some information which\r\nhe has procured, I know not how, has induced him to contradict the whole\r\ncharge of the attempt on his person."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is entirely hushed up; and\r\nyou will only be proceeded against for your violence on Lord Dalgarno,\r\ncommitted within the verge of the Palace--and that you will find heavy\r\nenough to answer.”\r\n\r\n“I will not shrink under the weight,” said Lord Glenvarloch. “But that\r\nis not the present point.--If I had that casket--”\r\n\r\n“Your baggage stood in the little ante-room, as I passed,” said the\r\ncitizen; “the casket caught my eye. I think you had it of me. It was my\r\nold friend Sir Faithful Frugal's. Ay; he, too, had a son--”\r\n\r\nHere he stopped short. “A son who, like Lord Glenvarloch's, did no credit to his father.--Was\r\nit not so you would have ended the sentence, Master Heriot?” asked the\r\nyoung nobleman. “My lord, it was a word spoken rashly,” answered Heriot. “God may\r\nmend all in his own good time. This, however, I will say, that I have\r\nsometimes envied my friends their fair and flourishing families; and yet\r\nhave I seen such changes when death has removed the head, so many rich\r\nmen's sons penniless, the heirs of so many knights and nobles acreless,\r\nthat I think mine own estate and memory, as I shall order it, has a fair\r\nchance of outliving those of greater men, though God has given me no\r\nheir of my name. But this is from the purpose.--Ho! warder, bring in\r\nLord Glenvarloch's baggage.” The officer obeyed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Seals had been placed\r\nupon the trunk and casket, but were now removed, the warder said, in\r\nconsequence of the subsequent orders from Court, and the whole was\r\nplaced at the prisoner's free disposal. Desirous to bring this painful visit to a conclusion, Lord Glenvarloch\r\nopened the casket, and looked through the papers which it contained,\r\nfirst hastily, and then more slowly and accurately; but it was all in\r\nvain. The Sovereign's signed warrant had disappeared. “I thought and expected nothing better,” said George Heriot, bitterly. “The beginning of evil is the letting out of water. Here is a fair\r\nheritage lost, I dare say, on a foul cast at dice, or a conjuring trick\r\nat cards!--My lord, your surprise is well played. I give you full joy\r\nof your accomplishments. I have seen many as young brawlers and\r\nspendthrifts, but never as young and accomplished a dissembler.--Nay,\r\nman, never bend your angry brows on me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I speak in bitterness of heart,\r\nfrom what I remember of your worthy father; and if his son hears of his\r\ndegeneracy from no one else, he shall hear it from the old goldsmith.”\r\n\r\nThis new suspicion drove Nigel to the very extremity of his patience;\r\nyet the motives and zeal of the good old man, as well as the\r\ncircumstances of suspicion which created his displeasure, were so\r\nexcellent an excuse for it, that they formed an absolute curb on the\r\nresentment of Lord Glenvarloch, and constrained him, after two or three\r\nhasty exclamations, to observe a proud and sullen silence. At length,\r\nMaster Heriot resumed his lecture. “Hark you, my lord,” he said, “it is scarce possible that this most\r\nimportant paper can be absolutely assigned away. Let me know in what\r\nobscure corner, and for what petty sum, it lies pledged--something may\r\nyet be done.”\r\n\r\n“Your efforts in my favour are the more generous,” said Lord\r\nGlenvarloch, “as you offer them to one whom you believe you have cause\r\nto think hardly of--but they are altogether unavailing. Fortune has\r\ntaken the field against me at every point. Even let her win the battle.”\r\n\r\n“Zouns!” exclaimed Heriot, impatiently,--“you would make a saint swear!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Why, I tell you, if this paper, the loss of which seems to sit so\r\nlight on you, be not found, farewell to the fair lordship of\r\nGlenvarloch--firth and forest--lea and furrow--lake and stream--all that\r\nhas been in the house of Olifaunt since the days of William the Lion!”\r\n\r\n“Farewell to them, then,” said Nigel,--“and that moan is soon made.”\r\n\r\n“'Sdeath! my lord, you will make more moan for it ere you die,” said\r\nHeriot, in the same tone of angry impatience. “Not I, my old friend,” said Nigel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“If I mourn, Master Heriot, it will\r\nbe for having lost the good opinion of a worthy man, and lost it, as I\r\nmust say, most undeservedly.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay, young man,” said Heriot, shaking his head, “make me believe\r\nthat if you can.--To sum the matter up,” he said, rising from his seat,\r\nand walking towards that occupied by the disguised female, “for our\r\nmatters are now drawn into small compass, you shall as soon make me\r\nbelieve that this masquerading mummer, on whom I now lay the hand of\r\npaternal authority, is a French page, who understands no English.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, he took hold of the supposed page's cloak, and, not without\r\nsome gentle degree of violence, led into the middle of the apartment the\r\ndisguised fair one, who in vain attempted to cover her face, first with\r\nher mantle, and afterwards with her hands; both which impediments Master\r\nHeriot removed something unceremoniously, and gave to view the detected\r\ndaughter of the old chronologist, his own fair god-daughter, Margaret\r\nRamsay. “Here is goodly gear!” he said; and, as he spoke, he could not prevent\r\nhimself from giving her a slight shake, for we have elsewhere noticed\r\nthat he was a severe disciplinarian.--“How comes it, minion, that I\r\nfind you in so shameless a dress, and so unworthy a situation? Nay, your\r\nmodesty is now mistimed--it should have come sooner."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Speak, or I will--”\r\n\r\n“Master Heriot,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “whatever right you may have\r\nover this maiden elsewhere, while in my apartment she is under my\r\nprotection.”\r\n\r\n“Your protection, my lord!--a proper protector!--and how long, mistress,\r\nhave you been under my lord's protection? Speak out forsooth!”\r\n\r\n“For the matter of two hours, godfather,” answered the maiden, with a\r\ncountenance bent to the ground, and covered with blushes, “but it was\r\nagainst my will.”\r\n\r\n“Two hours!” repeated Heriot,--“space enough for mischief.--My lord,\r\nthis is, I suppose, another victim offered to your character of\r\ngallantry--another adventure to be boasted of at Beaujeu's ordinary? Methinks the roof under which you first met this silly maiden should\r\nhave secured _her_, at least, from such a fate.”\r\n\r\n“On my honour, Master Heriot,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “you remind me\r\nnow, for the first time, that I saw this young lady in your family. Her features are not easily forgotten, and yet I was trying in vain to\r\nrecollect where I had last looked on them. For your suspicions, they are\r\nas false as they are injurious both to her and me. I had but discovered\r\nher disguise as you entered. I am satisfied, from her whole behaviour,\r\nthat her presence here in this dress was involuntary; and God forbid\r\nthat I have been capable of taking advantage of it to her prejudice.”\r\n\r\n“It is well mouthed, my lord,” said Master Heriot; “but a cunning clerk\r\ncan read the Apocrypha as loud as the Scripture."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Frankly, my lord, you\r\nare come to that pass, where your words will not be received without a\r\nwarrant.”\r\n\r\n“I should not speak, perhaps,” said Margaret, the natural vivacity of\r\nwhose temper could never be long suppressed by any situation, however\r\ndisadvantageous, “but I cannot be silent. Godfather, you do me\r\nwrong--and no less wrong to this young nobleman. You say his words want\r\na warrant. I know where to find a warrant for some of them, and the rest\r\nI deeply and devoutly believe without one.”\r\n\r\n“And I thank you, maiden,” replied Nigel, “for the good opinion you have\r\nexpressed. I am at that point, it seems, though how I have been driven\r\nto it I know not, where every fair construction of my actions and\r\nmotives is refused me. I am the more obliged to her who grants me that\r\nright which the world denies me. For you, lady, were I at liberty, I\r\nhave a sword and arm should know how to guard your reputation.”\r\n\r\n“Upon my word, a perfect Amadis and Oriana!” said George Heriot. “I\r\nshould soon get my throat cut betwixt the knight and the princess, I\r\nsuppose, but that the beef-eaters are happily within halloo.--Come,\r\ncome, Lady Light-o'-Love--if you mean to make your way with me, it must\r\nbe by plain facts, not by speeches from romaunts and play-books."}
{"question": "", "answer": "How, in\r\nHeaven's name, came you here?”\r\n\r\n“Sir,” answered Margaret, “since I must speak, I went to Greenwich this\r\nmorning with Monna Paula, to present a petition to the king on the part\r\nof the Lady Hermione.”\r\n\r\n“Mercy-a-gad!” exclaimed Heriot, “is she in the dance, too? Could she\r\nnot have waited my return to stir in her affairs? But I suppose the\r\nintelligence I sent her had rendered her restless. Ah! woman, woman--he\r\nthat goes partner with you, had need of a double share of patience, for\r\nyou will bring none into the common stock.--Well, but what on earth had\r\nthis embassy of Monna Paula's to do with your absurd disguise? Speak\r\nout.”\r\n\r\n“Monna Paula was frightened,” answered Margaret, “and did not know\r\nhow to set about the errand, for you know she scarce ever goes out of\r\ndoors--and so--and so--I agreed to go with her to give her courage; and,\r\nfor the dress, I am sure you remember I wore it at a Christmas mumming,\r\nand you thought it not unbeseeming.”\r\n\r\n“Yes, for a Christmas parlour,” said Heriot, “but not to go a-masking\r\nthrough the country in."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I do remember it, minion, and I knew it even\r\nnow; that and your little shoe there, linked with a hint I had in the\r\nmorning from a friend, or one who called himself such, led to your\r\ndetection.”--Here Lord Glenvarloch could not help giving a glance at the\r\npretty foot, which even the staid citizen thought worth recollection--it\r\nwas but a glance, for he saw how much the least degree of observation\r\nadded to Margaret's distress and confusion. “And tell me, maiden,”\r\n continued Master Heriot, for what we have observed was by-play,--“did\r\nthe Lady Hermione know of this fair work?”\r\n\r\n“I dared not have told her for the world,” said Margaret--“she thought\r\none of our apprentices went with Monna Paula.”\r\n\r\nIt may be here noticed, that the words, “our apprentices,” seemed to\r\nhave in them something of a charm to break the fascination with which\r\nLord Glenvarloch had hitherto listened to the broken, yet interesting\r\ndetails of Margaret's history. “And wherefore went he not?--he had been a fitter companion for Monna\r\nPaula than you, I wot,” said the citizen. “He was otherwise employed,” said Margaret, in a voice scarce audible."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Master George darted a hasty glance at Nigel, and when he saw his\r\nfeatures betoken no consciousness, he muttered to himself,--“It must be\r\nbetter than I feared.--And so this cursed Spaniard, with her head full,\r\nas they all have, of disguises, trap-doors, rope-ladders, and masks,\r\nwas jade and fool enough to take you with her on this wild goose\r\nerrand?--And how sped you, I pray?”\r\n\r\n“Just as we reached the gate of the Park,” replied Margaret, “the cry\r\nof treason was raised. I know not what became of Monna, but I ran till I\r\nfell into the arms of a very decent serving-man, called Linklater; and I\r\nwas fain to tell him I was your god-daughter, and so he kept the rest of\r\nthem from me, and got me to speech of his Majesty, as I entreated him to\r\ndo.”\r\n\r\n“It is the only sign you showed in the whole matter that common sense\r\nhad not utterly deserted your little skull,” said Heriot. “His Majesty,” continued the damsel, “was so gracious as to receive me\r\nalone, though the courtiers cried out against the danger to his person,\r\nand would have searched me for arms, God help me, but the king forbade\r\nit. I fancy he had a hint from Linklater how the truth stood with me.”\r\n\r\n“Well, maiden, I ask not what passed,” said Heriot; “it becomes not\r\nme to pry into my Master's secrets."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had you been closeted with his\r\ngrandfather the Red Tod of Saint Andrews, as Davie Lindsay used to call\r\nhim, by my faith, I should have had my own thoughts of the matter; but\r\nour Master, God bless him, is douce and temperate, and Solomon in every\r\nthing, save in the chapter of wives and concubines.”\r\n\r\n“I know not what you mean, sir,” answered Margaret. “His Majesty was\r\nmost kind and compassionate, but said I must be sent hither, and that\r\nthe Lieutenant's lady, the Lady Mansel, would have a charge of me, and\r\nsee that I sustained no wrong; and the king promised to send me in a\r\ntilted barge, and under conduct of a person well known to you; and thus\r\nI come to be in the Tower.”\r\n\r\n“But how, or why, in this apartment, nymph?” said George\r\nHeriot--“Expound that to me, for I think the riddle needs reading.”\r\n\r\n“I cannot explain it, sir, further, than that the Lady Mansel sent me\r\nhere, in spite of my earnest prayers, tears, and entreaties. I was not\r\nafraid of any thing, for I knew I should be protected."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I could have\r\ndied then--could die now--for very shame and confusion!”\r\n\r\n“Well, well, if your tears are genuine,” said Heriot, “they may the\r\nsooner wash out the memory of your fault--Knows your father aught of\r\nthis escape of yours?”\r\n\r\n“I would not for the world he did,” replied she; “he believes me with\r\nthe Lady Hermione.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, honest Davy can regulate his horologes better than his\r\nfamily.--Come, damsel, now I will escort you back to the Lady Mansel,\r\nand pray her, of her kindness, that when she is again trusted with a\r\ngoose, she will not give it to the fox to keep.--The warders will let us\r\npass to my lady's lodgings, I trust.”\r\n\r\n“Stay but one moment,” said Lord Glenvarloch. “Whatever hard opinion you\r\nmay have formed of me, I forgive you, for time will show that you do\r\nme wrong; and you yourself, I think, will be the first to regret the\r\ninjustice you have done me. But involve not in your suspicions this\r\nyoung person, for whose purity of thought angels themselves should be\r\nvouchers. I have marked every look, every gesture; and whilst I can draw\r\nbreath, I shall ever think of her with--”\r\n\r\n“Think not at all of her, my lord,” answered George Heriot, interrupting\r\nhim; “it is, I have a notion, the best favour you can do her;--or think\r\nof her as the daughter of Davy Ramsay, the clockmaker, no proper\r\nsubject for fine speeches, romantic adventures, or high-flown Arcadian\r\ncompliments."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I give you god-den, my lord. I think not altogether so\r\nharshly as my speech may have spoken. If I can help--that is, if I saw\r\nmy way clearly through this labyrinth--but it avails not talking now. I\r\ngive your lordship god-den.--Here, warder! Permit us to pass to the\r\nLady Hansel's apartment.” The warder said he must have orders from the\r\nLieutenant; and as he retired to procure them, the parties remained\r\nstanding near each other, but without speaking, and scarce looking at\r\neach other save by stealth, a situation which, in two of the party at\r\nleast, was sufficiently embarrassing. The difference of rank, though in\r\nthat age a consideration so serious, could not prevent Lord Glenvarloch\r\nfrom seeing that Margaret Ramsay was one of the prettiest young women\r\nhe had ever beheld--from suspecting, he could scarce tell why, that he\r\nhimself was not indifferent to her--from feeling assured that he had\r\nbeen the cause of much of her present distress--admiration, self-love,\r\nand generosity, acting in favour of the same object; and when the yeoman\r\nreturned with permission to his guests to withdraw, Nigel's obeisance\r\nto the beautiful daughter of the mechanic was marked with an expression,\r\nwhich called up in her cheeks as much colour as any incident of the\r\neventful day had hitherto excited."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She returned the courtesy timidly\r\nand irresolutely--clung to her godfather's arm, and left the apartment,\r\nwhich, dark as it was, had never yet appeared so obscure to Nigel, as\r\nwhen the door closed behind her. CHAPTER XXX\r\n\r\n\r\n  Yet though thou shouldst be dragg'd in scorn\r\n  To yonder ignominious tree,\r\n  Thou shall not want one faithful friend\r\n  To share the cruel fates' decree. _Ballad of Jemmy Dawson._\r\n\r\nMaster George Heriot and his ward, as she might justly be termed, for\r\nhis affection to Margaret imposed on him all the cares of a guardian,\r\nwere ushered by the yeoman of the guard to the lodging of the\r\nLieutenant, where they found him seated with his lady. They were\r\nreceived by both with that decorous civility which Master Heriot's\r\ncharacter and supposed influence demanded, even at the hand of a\r\npunctilious old soldier and courtier like Sir Edward Mansel. Lady Mansel\r\nreceived Margaret with like courtesy, and informed Master George that\r\nshe was now only her guest, and no longer her prisoner."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“She is at liberty,” she said, “to return to her friends under your\r\ncharge--such is his Majesty's pleasure.”\r\n\r\n“I am glad of it, madam,” answered Heriot, “but only I could have wished\r\nher freedom had taken place before her foolish interview with that\r\nsingular young man; and I marvel your ladyship permitted it.”\r\n\r\n“My good Master Heriot,” said Sir Edward, “we act according to the\r\ncommands of one better and wiser than ourselves--our orders from his\r\nMajesty must be strictly and literally obeyed; and I need not say that\r\nthe wisdom of his Majesty doth more than ensure--”\r\n\r\n“I know his Majesty's wisdom well,” said Heriot; “yet there is an old\r\nproverb about fire and flax--well, let it pass.”\r\n\r\n“I see Sir Mungo Malagrowther stalking towards the door of the lodging,”\r\n said the Lady Mansel, “with the gait of a lame crane--it is his second\r\nvisit this morning.”\r\n\r\n“He brought the warrant for discharging Lord Glenvarloch of the charge\r\nof treason,” said Sir Edward. “And from him,” said Heriot, “I heard much of what had befallen; for I\r\ncame from France only late last evening, and somewhat unexpectedly.”\r\n\r\nAs they spoke, Sir Mungo entered the apartment--saluted the Lieutenant\r\nof the Tower and his lady with ceremonious civility--honoured George\r\nHeriot with a patronising nod of acknowledgment, and accosted Margaret\r\nwith--“Hey!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "my young charge, you have not doffed your masculine attire\r\nyet?”\r\n\r\n“She does not mean to lay it aside, Sir Mungo,” said Heriot, speaking\r\nloud, “until she has had satisfaction from you, for betraying her\r\ndisguise to me, like a false knight--and in very deed, Sir Mungo, I\r\nthink when you told me she was rambling about in so strange a dress, you\r\nmight have said also that she was under Lady Mansel's protection.”\r\n\r\n“That was the king's secret, Master Heriot,” said Sir Mungo, throwing\r\nhimself into a chair with an air of atrabilarious importance; “the other\r\nwas a well-meaning hint to yourself, as the girl's friend.”\r\n\r\n“Yes,” replied Heriot, “it was done like yourself--enough told to make\r\nme unhappy about her--not a word which could relieve my uneasiness.”\r\n\r\n“Sir Mungo will not hear that remark,” said the lady; “we must change\r\nthe subject.--Is there any news from Court, Sir Mungo? you have been to\r\nGreenwich?”\r\n\r\n“You might as well ask me, madam,” answered the Knight, “whether there\r\nis any news from hell.”\r\n\r\n“How, Sir Mungo, how!” said Sir Edward, “measure your words something\r\nbetter--You speak of the Court of King James.”\r\n\r\n“Sir Edward, if I spoke of the court of the twelve Kaisers, I would say\r\nit is as confused for the present as the infernal regions. Courtiers of\r\nforty years' standing, and such I may write myself, are as far to seek\r\nin the matter as a minnow in the Maelstrom."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Some folk say the king has\r\nfrowned on the Prince--some that the Prince has looked grave on the\r\nduke--some that Lord Glenvarloch will be hanged for high treason--and\r\nsome that there is matter against Lord Dalgarno that may cost him as\r\nmuch as his head's worth.”\r\n\r\n“And what do you, that are a courtier of forty years' standing, think of\r\nit all?” said Sir Edward Mansel. “Nay, nay, do not ask him, Sir Edward,” said the lady, with an\r\nexpressive look to her husband. “Sir Mungo is too witty,” added Master Heriot, “to remember that he who\r\nsays aught that may be repeated to his own prejudice, does but load a\r\npiece for any of the company to shoot him dead with, at their pleasure\r\nand convenience.”\r\n\r\n“What!” said the bold Knight, “you think I am afraid of the trepan? Why\r\nnow, what if I should say that Dalgarno has more wit than honesty,--the\r\nduke more sail than ballast,--the Prince more pride than prudence,--and\r\nthat the king--” The Lady Mansel held up her finger in a warning\r\nmanner--“that the king is my very good master, who has given me, for\r\nforty years and more, dog's wages, videlicit, bones and beating.--Why\r\nnow, all this is said, and Archie Armstrong [Footnote: The celebrated\r\nCourt jester.] says worse than this of the best of them every day.”\r\n\r\n“The more fool he,” said George Heriot; “yet he is not so utterly wrong,\r\nfor folly is his best wisdom."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But do not you, Sir Mungo, set your wit\r\nagainst a fool's, though he be a court fool.”\r\n\r\n“A fool, said you?” replied Sir Mungo, not having fully heard what\r\nMaster Heriot said, or not choosing to have it thought so,--“I have\r\nbeen a fool indeed, to hang on at a close-fisted Court here, when men of\r\nunderstanding and men of action have been making fortunes in every other\r\nplace of Europe. But here a man comes indifferently off unless he gets a\r\ngreat key to turn,” (looking at Sir Edward,) “or can beat tattoo with a\r\nhammer on a pewter plate.--Well, sirs, I must make as much haste back on\r\nmine errand as if I were a fee'd messenger.--Sir Edward and my lady,\r\nI leave my commendations with you--and my good-will with you, Master\r\nHeriot--and for this breaker of bounds, if you will act by my counsel,\r\nsome maceration by fasting, and a gentle use of the rod, is the best\r\ncure for her giddy fits.”\r\n\r\n“If you propose for Greenwich, Sir Mungo,” said the Lieutenant, “I can\r\nspare you the labour--the king comes immediately to Whitehall.”\r\n\r\n“And that must be the reason the council are summoned to meet in such\r\nhurry,” said Sir Mungo. “Well--I will, with your permission, go to the\r\npoor lad Glenvarloch, and bestow some comfort on him.”\r\n\r\nThe Lieutenant seemed to look up, and pause for a moment as if in doubt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“The lad will want a pleasant companion, who can tell him the nature of\r\nthe punishment which he is to suffer, and other matters of concernment. I will not leave him until I show him how absolutely he hath ruined\r\nhimself from feather to spur, how deplorable is his present state, and\r\nhow small his chance of mending it.”\r\n\r\n“Well, Sir Mungo,” replied the Lieutenant, “if you really think all\r\nthis likely to be very consolatory to the party concerned, I will send a\r\nwarder to conduct you.”\r\n\r\n“And I,” said George Heriot, “will humbly pray of Lady Mansel, that she\r\nwill lend some of her handmaiden's apparel to this giddy-brained girl;\r\nfor I shall forfeit my reputation if I walk up Tower Hill with her\r\nin that mad guise--and yet the silly lassie looks not so ill in it\r\nneither.”\r\n\r\n“I will send my coach with you instantly,” said the obliging lady. “Faith, madam, and if you will honour us by such courtesy, I will gladly\r\naccept it at your hands,” said the citizen, “for business presses hard\r\non me, and the forenoon is already lost, to little purpose.”\r\n\r\nThe coach being ordered accordingly, transported the worthy citizen and\r\nhis charge to his mansion in Lombard Street."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There he found his presence\r\nwas anxiously expected by the Lady Hermione, who had just received an\r\norder to be in readiness to attend upon the Royal Privy Council in the\r\ncourse of an hour; and upon whom, in her inexperience of business, and\r\nlong retirement from society and the world, the intimation had made as\r\ndeep an impression as if it had not been the necessary consequence of\r\nthe petition which she had presented to the king by Monna Paula. George\r\nHeriot gently blamed her for taking any steps in an affair so important\r\nuntil his return from France, especially as he had requested her\r\nto remain quiet, in a letter which accompanied the evidence he had\r\ntransmitted to her from Paris. She could only plead in answer the\r\ninfluence which her immediately stirring in the matter was likely to\r\nhave on the affair of her kinsman Lord Glenvarloch, for she was ashamed\r\nto acknowledge how much she had been gained on by the eager importunity\r\nof her youthful companion. The motive of Margaret's eagerness was, of\r\ncourse, the safety of Nigel; but we must leave it to time to show in\r\nwhat particulars that came to be connected with the petition of the\r\nLady Hermione. Meanwhile, we return to the visit with which Sir Mungo\r\nMalagrowther favoured the afflicted young nobleman in his place of\r\ncaptivity."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The Knight, after the usual salutations, and having prefaced his discourse with a great deal of professed regret for Nigel's situation, sat down beside him, and composing his grotesque features into the most lugubrious despondence, began his raven song as follows:-- “I bless God, my lord, that I was the person who had the pleasure to bring his Majesty's mild message to the Lieutenant, discharging the higher prosecution against ye, for any thing meditated against his Majesty's sacred person; for, admit you be prosecuted on the lesser offence, or breach of privilege of the Palace and its precincts, _usque ad mutilationem_, even to dismemberation, as it is most likely you will, yet the loss of a member is nothing to being hanged and drawn quick, after the fashion of a traitor.” “I should feel the shame of having deserved such a punishment,” answered Nigel, “more than the pain of undergoing it.” “Doubtless, my lord, the having, as you say, deserved it, must be an excruciation to your own mind,” replied his tormentor; “a kind of mental and metaphysical hanging, drawing, and quartering, which may be in some measure equipollent with the external application of hemp, iron, fire, and the like, to the outer man.” “I say, Sir Mungo,” repeated Nigel, “and beg you to understand my words, that I am unconscious of any error, save that of having arms on my person when I chanced to approach that of my Sovereign.” “Ye are right, my lord, to acknowledge nothing,” said"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Mungo."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“We\r\nhave an old proverb,--Confess, and--so forth. And indeed, as to the\r\nweapons, his Majesty has a special ill-will at all arms whatsoever, and\r\nmore especially pistols; but, as I said, there is an end of that matter. [Footnote: Wilson informs us that when Colonel Grey, a Scotsman who\r\naffected the buff dress even in the time of peace, appeared in that\r\nmilitary garb at Court, the king, seeing him with a case of pistols at\r\nhis girdle, which he never greatly liked, told him, merrily, “he was\r\nnow so fortified, that, if he were but well victualled, he would be\r\nimpregnable.”--WILSON'S _Life and Reign of James VI._, _apud_ KENNET'S\r\n_History of England_, vol. ii. p. 389. In 1612, the tenth year\r\nof James's reign, there was a rumour abroad that a shipload of\r\npocket-pistols had been exported from Spain, with a view to a general\r\nmassacre of the Protestants. Proclamations were of consequence sent\r\nforth, prohibiting all persons from carrying pistols under a foot long\r\nin the barrel. _Ibid_. p. 690.] I wish you as well through the next,\r\nwhich is altogether unlikely.”\r\n\r\n“Surely, Sir Mungo,” answered Nigel, “you yourself might say something\r\nin my favour concerning the affair in the Park."}
{"question": "", "answer": "None knows better\r\nthan you that I was at that moment urged by wrongs of the most heinous\r\nnature, offered to me by Lord Dalgarno, many of which were reported to\r\nme by yourself, much to the inflammation of my passion.”\r\n\r\n“Alack-a-day!-Alack-a-day!” replied Sir Mungo, “I remember but too well\r\nhow much your choler was inflamed, in spite of the various remonstrances\r\nwhich I made to you respecting the sacred nature of the place. Alas! alas! you cannot say you leaped into the mire for want of warning.”\r\n\r\n“I see, Sir Mungo, you are determined to remember nothing which can do\r\nme service,” said Nigel. “Blithely would I do ye service,” said the Knight; “and the best whilk I\r\ncan think of is, to tell you the process of the punishment to the whilk\r\nyou will be indubitably subjected, I having had the good fortune to\r\nbehold it performed in the Queen's time, on a chield that had written\r\na pasquinado. I was then in my Lord Gray's train, who lay leaguer here,\r\nand being always covetous of pleasing and profitable sights, I could not\r\ndispense with being present on the occasion.”\r\n\r\n“I should be surprised, indeed,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “if you had so\r\nfar put restraint upon your benevolence, as to stay away from such an\r\nexhibition.”\r\n\r\n“Hey! was your lordship praying me to be present at your own execution?”\r\n answered the Knight."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Troth, my lord, it will be a painful sight to a\r\nfriend, but I will rather punish myself than baulk you. It is a pretty\r\npageant, in the main--a very pretty pageant. The fallow came on with\r\nsuch a bold face, it was a pleasure to look on him. He was dressed all\r\nin white, to signify harmlessness and innocence. The thing was done on a\r\nscaffold at Westminster--most likely yours will be at the Charing. There\r\nwere the Sheriffs and the Marshal's men, and what not--the executioner,\r\nwith his cleaver and mallet, and his man, with a pan of hot charcoal,\r\nand the irons for cautery. He was a dexterous fallow that Derrick. This\r\nman Gregory is not fit to jipper a joint with him; it might be worth\r\nyour lordship's while to have the loon sent to a barber-surgeon's, to\r\nlearn some needful scantling of anatomy--it may be for the benefit of\r\nyourself and other unhappy sufferers, and also a kindness to Gregory.”\r\n\r\n“I will not take the trouble,” said Nigel.--“If the laws will demand my\r\nhand, the executioner may get it off as he best can. If the king leaves\r\nit where it is, it may chance to do him better service.”\r\n\r\n“Vera noble--vera grand, indeed, my lord,” said Sir Mungo; “it is\r\npleasant to see a brave man suffer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This fallow whom I spoke of--This\r\nTubbs, or Stubbs, or whatever the plebeian was called, came forward as\r\nbold as an emperor, and said to the people, 'Good friends, I come\r\nto leave here the hand of a true Englishman,' and clapped it on\r\nthe dressing-block with as much ease as if he had laid it on his\r\nsweetheart's shoulder; whereupon Derrick the hangman, adjusting, d'ye\r\nmind me, the edge of his cleaver on the very joint, hit it with the\r\nmallet with such force, that the hand flew off as far from the owner as\r\na gauntlet which the challenger casts down in the tilt-yard. Well, sir,\r\nStubbs, or Tubbs, lost no whit of countenance, until the fallow clapped\r\nthe hissing-hot iron on his raw stump. My lord, it fizzed like a rasher\r\nof bacon, and the fallow set up an elritch screech, which made some\r\nthink his courage was abated; but not a whit, for he plucked off his\r\nhat with his left hand, and waved it, crying, 'God save the Queen, and\r\nconfound all evil counsellors!'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "The people gave him three cheers, which\r\nhe deserved for his stout heart; and, truly, I hope to see your lordship\r\nsuffer with the same magnanimity.”\r\n\r\n“I thank you, Sir Mungo,” said Nigel, who had not been able to forbear\r\nsome natural feelings of an unpleasant nature during this lively\r\ndetail,--“I have no doubt the exhibition will be a very engaging one\r\nto you and the other spectators, whatever it may prove to the party\r\nprincipally concerned.”\r\n\r\n“Vera engaging,” answered Sir Mungo, “vera interesting--vera interesting\r\nindeed, though not altogether so much so as an execution for high\r\ntreason. I saw Digby, the Winters, Fawkes, and the rest of the gunpowder\r\ngang, suffer for that treason, whilk was a vera grand spectacle, as well\r\nin regard to their sufferings, as to their constancy in enduring.”\r\n\r\n“I am the more obliged to your goodness, Sir Mungo,” replied Nigel,\r\n“that has induced you, although you have lost the sight, to congratulate\r\nme on my escape from the hazard of making the same edifying appearance.”\r\n\r\n“As you say, my lord,” answered Sir Mungo, “the loss is chiefly\r\nin appearance. Nature has been very bountiful to us, and has given\r\nduplicates of some organs, that we may endure the loss of one of them,\r\nshould some such circumstance chance in our pilgrimage. See my poor\r\ndexter, abridged to one thumb, one finger, and a stump,--by the blow of\r\nmy adversary's weapon, however, and not by any carnificial knife."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Weel,\r\nsir, this poor maimed hand doth me, in some sort, as much service as\r\never; and, admit yours to be taken off by the wrist, you have still your\r\nleft hand for your service, and are better off than the little Dutch\r\ndwarf here about town, who threads a needle, limns, writes, and tosses a\r\npike, merely by means of his feet, without ever a hand to help him.”\r\n\r\n“Well, Sir Mungo,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “this is all no doubt very\r\nconsolatory; but I hope the king will spare my hand to fight for him\r\nin battle, where, notwithstanding all your kind encouragement, I could\r\nspend my blood much more cheerfully than on a scaffold.”\r\n\r\n“It is even a sad truth,” replied Sir Mungo, “that your lordship was\r\nbut too like to have died on a scaffold--not a soul to speak for you but\r\nthat deluded lassie Maggie Ramsay.”\r\n\r\n“Whom mean you?” said Nigel, with more interest than he had hitherto\r\nshown in the Knight's communications. “Nay, who should I mean, but that travestied lassie whom we dined with\r\nwhen we honoured Heriot the goldsmith? Ye ken best how you have made\r\ninterest with her, but I saw her on her knees to the king for you. She\r\nwas committed to my charge, to bring her up hither in honour and safety."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had I had my own will, I would have had her to Bridewell, to flog the\r\nwild blood out of her--a cutty quean, to think of wearing the breeches,\r\nand not so much as married yet!”\r\n\r\n“Hark ye, Sir Mungo Malagrowther,” answered Nigel, “I would have you\r\ntalk of that young person with fitting respect.”\r\n\r\n“With all the respect that befits your lordship's paramour, and Davy\r\nRamsay's daughter, I shall certainly speak of her, my lord,” said Sir\r\nMungo, assuming a dry tone of irony. Nigel was greatly disposed to have made a serious quarrel of it, but\r\nwith Sir Mungo such an affair would have been ridiculous; he smothered\r\nhis resentment, therefore, and conjured him to tell what he had heard\r\nand seen respecting this young person. “Simply, that I was in the ante-room when she had audience, and heard\r\nthe king say, to my great perplexity, '_Pulchra sane puella;_' and\r\nMaxwell, who hath but indifferent Latin ears, thought that his Majesty\r\ncalled on him by his own name of Sawney, and thrust into the presence,\r\nand there I saw our Sovereign James, with his own hand, raising up the\r\nlassie, who, as I said heretofore, was travestied in man's attire."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I\r\nshould have had my own thoughts of it, but our gracious Master is auld,\r\nand was nae great gillravager amang the queans even in his youth; and\r\nhe was comforting her in his own way and saying,--'Ye needna greet about\r\nit, my bonnie woman, Glenvarlochides shall have fair play; and, indeed,\r\nwhen the hurry was off our spirits, we could not believe that he had\r\nany design on our person. And touching his other offences, we will look\r\nwisely and closely into the matter.' So I got charge to take the young\r\nfence-louper to the Tower here, and deliver her to the charge of Lady\r\nMansel; and his Majesty charged me to say not a word to her about your\r\noffences, for, said he, the poor thing is breaking her heart for him.”\r\n\r\n“And on this you have charitably founded the opinion to the prejudice\r\nof this young lady, which you have now thought proper to express?” said\r\nLord Glenvarloch. “In honest truth, my lord,” replied Sir Mungo, “what opinion would you\r\nhave me form of a wench who gets into male habiliments, and goes on\r\nher knees to the king for a wild young nobleman? I wot not what the\r\nfashionable word may be, for the phrase changes, though the custom\r\nabides."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But truly I must needs think this young leddy--if you call\r\nWatchie Ramsay's daughter a young leddy--demeans herself more like a\r\nleddy of pleasure than a leddy of honour.”\r\n\r\n“You do her egregious wrong, Sir Mungo,” said Nigel; “or rather you have\r\nbeen misled by appearances.”\r\n\r\n“So will all the world be misled, my lord,” replied the satirist,\r\n“unless you were doing that to disabuse them which your father's son\r\nwill hardly judge it fit to do.”\r\n\r\n“And what may that be, I pray you?”\r\n\r\n“E'en marry the lass--make her Leddy Glenvarloch.--Ay, ay, ye may\r\nstart--but it's the course you are driving on. Rather marry than do\r\nworse, if the worst be not done already.”\r\n\r\n“Sir Mungo,” said Nigel, “I pray you to forbear this subject, and rather\r\nreturn to that of the mutilation, upon which it pleased you to enlarge a\r\nshort while since.”\r\n\r\n“I have not time at present,” said Sir Mungo, hearing the clock strike\r\nfour; “but so soon as you shall have received sentence, my lord, you may\r\nrely on my giving you the fullest detail of the whole solemnity; and I\r\ngive you my word, as a knight and a gentleman, that I will myself attend\r\nyou on the scaffold, whoever may cast sour looks on me for doing so."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I\r\nbear a heart, to stand by a friend in the worst of times.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, he wished Lord Glenvarloch farewell; who felt as heartily\r\nrejoiced at his departure, though it may be a bold word, as any person\r\nwho had ever undergone his society. But, when left to his own reflections, Nigel could not help feeling\r\nsolitude nearly as irksome as the company of Sir Mungo Malagrowther. The\r\ntotal wreck of his fortune,--which seemed now to be rendered unavoidable\r\nby the loss of the royal warrant, that had afforded him the means of\r\nredeeming his paternal estate,--was an unexpected and additional blow. When he had seen the warrant he could not precisely remember; but was\r\ninclined to think, it was in the casket when he took out money to pay\r\nthe miser for his lodgings at Whitefriars. Since then, the casket had\r\nbeen almost constantly under his own eye, except during the short time\r\nhe was separated from his baggage by the arrest in Greenwich Park."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It\r\nmight, indeed, have been taken out at that time, for he had no reason\r\nto think either his person or his property was in the hands of those who\r\nwished him well; but, on the other hand, the locks of the strong-box had\r\nsustained no violence that he could observe, and, being of a particular\r\nand complicated construction, he thought they could scarce be opened\r\nwithout an instrument made on purpose, adapted to their peculiarities,\r\nand for this there had been no time. But, speculate as he would on the\r\nmatter, it was clear that this important document was gone, and probable\r\nthat it had passed into no friendly hands. “Let it be so,” said Nigel\r\nto himself; “I am scarcely worse off respecting my prospects of fortune,\r\nthan when I first reached this accursed city."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But to be hampered with\r\ncruel accusations, and stained with foul suspicions-to be the object\r\nof pity of the most degrading kind to yonder honest citizen, and of the\r\nmalignity of that envious and atrabilarious courtier, who can endure\r\nthe good fortune and good qualities of another no more than the mole\r\ncan brook sunshine--this is indeed a deplorable reflection; and the\r\nconsequences must stick to my future life, and impede whatever my head,\r\nor my hand, if it is left me, might be able to execute in my favour.”\r\n\r\nThe feeling, that he is the object of general dislike and dereliction,\r\nseems to be one of the most unendurably painful to which a human being\r\ncan be subjected. The most atrocious criminals, whose nerves have not\r\nshrunk from perpetrating the most horrid cruelty, endure more from the\r\nconsciousness that no man will sympathise with their sufferings, than\r\nfrom apprehension of the personal agony of their impending punishment;\r\nand are known often to attempt to palliate their enormities, and\r\nsometimes altogether to deny what is established by the clearest proof,\r\nrather than to leave life under the general ban of humanity. It was no\r\nwonder that Nigel, labouring under the sense of general, though unjust\r\nsuspicion, should, while pondering on so painful a theme, recollect that\r\none, at least, had not only believed him innocent, but hazarded herself,\r\nwith all her feeble power, to interpose in his behalf. “Poor girl!” he repeated; “poor, rash, but generous maiden!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "your fate is\r\nthat of her in Scottish story, who thrust her arm into the staple of\r\nthe door, to oppose it as a bar against the assassins who threatened the\r\nmurder of her sovereign. The deed of devotion was useless; save to give\r\nan immortal name to her by whom it was done, and whose blood flows, it\r\nis said, in the veins of my house.”\r\n\r\nI cannot explain to the reader, whether the recollection of this\r\nhistorical deed of devotion, and the lively effect which the comparison,\r\na little overstrained perhaps, was likely to produce in favour of\r\nMargaret Ramsay, was not qualified by the concomitant ideas of ancestry\r\nand ancient descent with which that recollection was mingled."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the\r\ncontending feelings suggested a new train of ideas.--“Ancestry,” he\r\nthought, “and ancient descent, what are they to me?--My patrimony\r\nalienated--my title become a reproach--for what can be so absurd as\r\ntitled beggary?--my character subjected to suspicion,--I will not remain\r\nin this country; and should I, at leaving it, procure the society of one\r\nso lovely, so brave, and so faithful, who should say that I derogated\r\nfrom the rank which I am virtually renouncing?”\r\n\r\nThere was something romantic and pleasing, as he pursued this picture of\r\nan attached and faithful pair, becoming all the world to each other,\r\nand stemming the tide of fate arm in arm; and to be linked thus with a\r\ncreature so beautiful, and who had taken such devoted and disinterested\r\nconcern in his fortunes, formed itself into such a vision as romantic\r\nyouth loves best to dwell upon. Suddenly his dream was painfully dispelled, by the recollection, that\r\nits very basis rested upon the most selfish ingratitude on his own part."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lord of his castle and his towers, his forests and fields, his fair\r\npatrimony and noble name, his mind would have rejected, as a sort of\r\nimpossibility, the idea of elevating to his rank the daughter of a\r\nmechanic; but, when degraded from his nobility, and plunged into poverty\r\nand difficulties, he was ashamed to feel himself not unwilling, that\r\nthis poor girl, in the blindness of her affection, should abandon\r\nall the better prospects of her own settled condition, to embrace the\r\nprecarious and doubtful course which he himself was condemned to. The\r\ngenerosity of Nigel's mind recoiled from the selfishness of the plan of\r\nhappiness which he projected; and he made a strong effort to expel from\r\nhis thoughts for the rest of the evening this fascinating female, or, at\r\nleast, not to permit them to dwell upon the perilous circumstance, that\r\nshe was at present the only creature living who seemed to consider him\r\nas an object of kindness. He could not, however, succeed in banishing her from his slumbers, when,\r\nafter having spent a weary day, he betook himself to a perturbed couch. The form of Margaret mingled with the wild mass of dreams which his late\r\nadventures had suggested; and even when, copying the lively narrative of\r\nSir Mungo, fancy presented to him the blood bubbling and hissing on\r\nthe heated iron, Margaret stood behind him like a spirit of light, to\r\nbreathe healing on the wound."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At length nature was exhausted by these\r\nfantastic creations, and Nigel slept, and slept soundly, until awakened\r\nin the morning by the sound of a well-known voice, which had often\r\nbroken his slumbers about the same hour. CHAPTER XXXI\r\n\r\n\r\n  Many, come up, sir, with your gentle blood! Here's a red stream beneath this coarse blue doublet,\r\n  That warms the heart as kindly as if drawn\r\n  From the far source of old Assyrian kings. Who first made mankind subject to their sway. _Old Play_. The sounds to which we alluded in our last, were no other than the\r\ngrumbling tones of Richie Moniplies's voice. This worthy, like some other persons who rank high in their own opinion,\r\nwas very apt, when he could have no other auditor, to hold conversation\r\nwith one who was sure to be a willing listener--I mean with himself. He\r\nwas now brushing and arranging Lord Glenvarloch's clothes, with as\r\nmuch composure and quiet assiduity as if he had never been out of\r\nhis service, and grumbling betwixt whiles to the following\r\npurpose:--“Hump--ay, time cloak and jerkin were through my hands--I\r\nquestion if horsehair has been passed over them since they and I last\r\nparted. The embroidery finely frayed too--and the gold buttons of the\r\ncloak--By my conscience, and as I am an honest man, there is a round\r\ndozen of them gane!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "This comes of Alsatian frolics--God keep us with\r\nhis grace, and not give us over to our own devices!--I see no sword--but\r\nthat will be in respect of present circumstances.”\r\n\r\nNigel for some time could not help believing that he was still in a\r\ndream, so improbable did it seem that his domestic, whom he supposed to\r\nbe in Scotland, should have found him out, and obtained access to him,\r\nin his present circumstances. Looking through the curtains, however,\r\nhe became well assured of the fact, when he beheld the stiff and bony\r\nlength of Richie, with a visage charged with nearly double its ordinary\r\ndegree of importance, employed sedulously in brushing his master's\r\ncloak, and refreshing himself with whistling or humming, from interval\r\nto interval, some snatch of an old melancholy Scottish ballad-tune."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Although sufficiently convinced of the identity of the party, Lord\r\nGlenvarloch could not help expressing his surprise in the superfluous\r\nquestion--“In the name of Heaven, Richie, is this you?”\r\n\r\n“And wha else suld it be, my lord?” answered Richie; “I dreamna that\r\nyour lordship's levee in this place is like to be attended by ony that\r\nare not bounded thereto by duty.”\r\n\r\n“I am rather surprised,” answered Nigel, “that it should be attended by\r\nany one at all--especially by you, Richie; for you know that we parted,\r\nand I thought you had reached Scotland long since.”\r\n\r\n“I crave your lordship's pardon, but we have not parted yet, nor are\r\nsoon likely so to do; for there gang twa folk's votes to the unmaking\r\nof a bargain, as to the making of ane. Though it was your lordship's\r\npleasure so to conduct yourself that we were like to have parted, yet\r\nit was not, on reflection, my will to be gone."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To be plain, if your\r\nlordship does not ken when you have a good servant, I ken when I have a\r\nkind master; and to say truth, you will be easier served now than ever,\r\nfor there is not much chance of your getting out of bounds.”\r\n\r\n“I am indeed bound over to good behaviour,” said Lord Glenvarloch, with\r\na smile; “but I hope you will not take advantage of my situation to be\r\ntoo severe on my follies, Richie?”\r\n\r\n“God forbid, my lord--God forbid!” replied Richie, with an expression\r\nbetwixt a conceited consciousness of superior wisdom and real\r\nfeeling--“especially in consideration of your lordship's having a due\r\nsense of them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I did indeed remonstrate, as was my humble duty, but\r\nI scorn to cast that up to your lordship now--Na, na, I am myself an\r\nerring creature--very conscious of some small weaknesses--there is no\r\nperfection in man.”\r\n\r\n“But, Richie,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “although I am much obliged to you\r\nfor your proffered service, it can be of little use to me here, and may\r\nbe of prejudice to yourself.”\r\n\r\n“Your lordship shall pardon me again,” said Richie, whom the relative\r\nsituation of the parties had invested with ten times his ordinary\r\ndogmatism; “but as I will manage the matter, your lordship shall be\r\ngreatly benefited by my service, and I myself no whit prejudiced.”\r\n\r\n“I see not how that can be, my friend,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “since\r\neven as to your pecuniary affairs--”\r\n\r\n“Touching my pecuniars, my lord,” replied Richie, “I am indifferently\r\nweel provided; and, as it chances, my living here will be no burden to\r\nyour lordship, or distress to myself. Only I crave permission to annex\r\ncertain conditions to my servitude with your lordship.”\r\n\r\n“Annex what you will,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “for you are pretty sure\r\nto take your own way, whether you make any conditions or not."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Since you\r\nwill not leave me, which were, I think, your wisest course, you must,\r\nand I suppose will, serve me only on such terms as you like yourself.”\r\n\r\n“All that I ask, my lord,” said Richie, gravely, and with a tone of\r\ngreat moderation, “is to have the uninterrupted command of my own\r\nmotions, for certain important purposes which I have now in hand, always\r\ngiving your lordship the solace of my company and attendance, at such\r\ntimes as may be at once convenient for me, and necessary for your\r\nservice.”\r\n\r\n“Of which, I suppose, you constitute yourself sole judge,” replied\r\nNigel, smiling."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Unquestionably, my lord,” answered Richie, gravely; “for your lordship can only know what yourself want; whereas I, who see both sides of the picture, ken both what is the best for your affairs, and what is the most needful for my own.” “Richie, my good friend,” said Nigel, “I fear this arrangement, which places the master much under the disposal of the servant, would scarce suit us if we were both at large; but a prisoner as I am, I may be as well at your disposal as I am at that of so many other persons; and so you may come and go as you list, for I suppose you will not take my advice, to return to your own country, and leave me to my fate.” “The deil be in my feet if I do,” said Moniplies,--“I am not the lad to leave your lordship in foul weather, when I followed you and fed upon you through the whole summer day, And besides, there may be brave days behind, for a' that has come and gane yet; for “It's hame, and it's hame, and it's hame we fain would be, Though the cloud is in the lift, and the wind is on the lea; For the sun through the mirk blinks blithe on mine ee, Says,--'I'll shine on ye yet in our ain country!” Having sung this stanza in the manner of a ballad-singer, whose voice has been cracked by matching his windpipe against the bugle of the"}
{"question": "", "answer": "north blast, Richie Moniplies aided Lord Glenvarloch to rise, attended his toilet with every possible mark of the most solemn and deferential respect, then waited upon him at breakfast, and finally withdrew, pleading that he had business of importance, which would detain him for some hours."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Although Lord Glenvarloch necessarily expected to be occasionally\r\nannoyed by the self-conceit and dogmatism of Richie Moniplies's\r\ncharacter, yet he could not but feel the greatest pleasure from the firm\r\nand devoted attachment which this faithful follower had displayed in\r\nthe present instance, and indeed promised himself an alleviation of the\r\nennui of his imprisonment, in having the advantage of his services. It\r\nwas, therefore, with pleasure that he learned from the warder, that\r\nhis servant's attendance would be allowed at all times when the general\r\nrules of the fortress permitted the entrance of strangers. In the meanwhile, the magnanimous Richie Moniplies had already reached\r\nTower Wharf. Here, after looking with contempt on several scullers by\r\nwhom he was plied, and whose services he rejected with a wave of his\r\nhand, he called with dignity, “First oars!” and stirred into activity\r\nseveral lounging Tritons of the higher order, who had not, on his\r\nfirst appearance, thought it worth while to accost him with proffers of\r\nservice. He now took possession of a wherry, folded his arms within his\r\nample cloak, and sitting down in the stern with an air of importance,\r\ncommanded them to row to Whitehall Stairs. Having reached the Palace\r\nin safety, he demanded to see Master Linklater, the under-clerk of his\r\nMajesty's kitchen. The reply was, that he was not to be spoken withal,\r\nbeing then employed in cooking a mess of cock-a-leekie for the king's\r\nown mouth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Tell him,” said Moniplies, “that it is a dear countryman of his, who\r\nseeks to converse with him on matter of high import.”\r\n\r\n“A dear countryman?” said Linklater, when this pressing message was\r\ndelivered to him. “Well, let him come in and be d--d, that I should say\r\nsae! This now is some red-headed, long-legged, gillie-white-foot\r\nfrae the West Port, that, hearing of my promotion, is come up to be\r\na turn-broche, or deputy scullion, through my interest. It is a great\r\nhinderance to any man who would rise in the world, to have such friends\r\nto hang by his skirts, in hope of being towed up along with him.--Ha! Richie Moniplies, man, is it thou? And what has brought ye here? If they\r\nshould ken thee for the loon that scared the horse the other day!--”\r\n\r\n“No more o' that, neighbour,” said Richie,--“I am just here on the auld\r\nerrand--I maun speak with the king.”\r\n\r\n“The king?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Ye are red wud,” said Linklater; then shouted to his\r\nassistant in the kitchen, “Look to the broches, ye knaves--_pisces\r\npurga_--_Salsamenta fac macerentur pulchre_--I will make you understand\r\nLatin, ye knaves, as becomes the scullions of King James.” Then in a\r\ncautious tone, to Richie's private ear, he continued, “Know ye not how\r\nill your master came off the other day?--I can tell you that job made\r\nsome folk shake for their office.”\r\n\r\n“Weel, but, Laurie, ye maun befriend me this time, and get this wee\r\nbit sifflication slipped into his Majesty's ain most gracious hand."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I\r\npromise you the contents will be most grateful to him.”\r\n\r\n“Richie,” answered Linklater, “you have certainly sworn to say your\r\nprayers in the porter's lodge, with your back bare; and twa grooms, with\r\ndog-whips, to cry amen to you.”\r\n\r\n“Na, na, Laurie, lad,” said Richie, “I ken better what belangs to\r\nsifflications than I did yon day; and ye will say that yoursell, if ye\r\nwill but get that bit note to the king's hand.”\r\n\r\n“I will have neither hand nor foot in the matter,” said the cautious\r\nClerk of the Kitchen; “but there is his Majesty's mess of cock-a-leekie\r\njust going to be served to him in his closet--I cannot prevent you from\r\nputting the letter between the gilt bowl and the platter; his sacred\r\nMajesty will see it when he lifts the bowl, for he aye drinks out the\r\nbroth.”\r\n\r\n“Enough said,” replied Richie, and deposited the paper accordingly, just\r\nbefore a page entered to carry away the mess to his Majesty. “Aweel, aweel, neighbour,” said Laurence, when the mess was taken\r\naway, “if ye have done ony thing to bring yoursell to the withy, or the\r\nscourging post, it is your ain wilful deed.”\r\n\r\n“I will blame no other for it,” said Richie; and with that undismayed\r\npertinacity of conceit, which made a fundamental part of his character,\r\nhe abode the issue, which was not long of arriving."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In a few minutes Maxwell himself arrived in the apartment, and demanded\r\nhastily who had placed a writing on the king's trencher, Linklater\r\ndenied all knowledge of it; but Richie Moniplies, stepping boldly forth,\r\npronounced the emphatical confession, “I am the man.”\r\n\r\n“Follow me, then,” said Maxwell, after regarding him with a look of\r\ngreat curiosity. They went up a private staircase,--even that private staircase, the\r\nprivilege of which at Court is accounted a nearer road to power than the\r\n_grandes entrees_ themselves. Arriving in what Richie described as an\r\n“ill redd-up” ante-room, the usher made a sign to him to stop, while he\r\nwent into the king's closet. Their conference was short, and as Maxwell\r\nopened the door to retire, Richie heard the conclusion of it. “Ye are sure he is not dangerous?--I was caught once.--Bide within call,\r\nbut not nearer the door than within three geometrical cubits. If I speak\r\nloud, start to me like a falcon--If I speak loun, keep your lang lugs\r\nout of ear-shot--and now let him come in.”\r\n\r\nRichie passed forward at Maxwell's mute signal, and in a moment found\r\nhimself in the presence of the king. Most men of Richie's birth and\r\nbreeding, and many others, would have been abashed at finding themselves\r\nalone with their Sovereign."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Richie Moniplies had an opinion of\r\nhimself too high to be controlled by any such ideas; and having made his\r\nstiff reverence, he arose once more into his perpendicular height, and\r\nstood before James as stiff as a hedge-stake. “Have ye gotten them, man? have ye gotten them?” said the king, in\r\na fluttered state, betwixt hope and eagerness, and some touch of\r\nsuspicious fear. “Gie me them--gie me them--before ye speak a word, I\r\ncharge you, on your allegiance.”\r\n\r\nRichie took a box from his bosom, and, stooping on one knee, presented\r\nit to his Majesty, who hastily opened it, and having ascertained that\r\nit contained a certain carcanet of rubies, with which the reader was\r\nformerly made acquainted, he could not resist falling into a sort of\r\nrapture, kissing the gems, as if they had been capable of feeling,\r\nand repeating again and again with childish delight, “_Onyx cum prole,\r\nsilexque_---_Onyx cum prole!_ Ah, my bright and bonny sparklers, my\r\nheart loups light to see you again.” He then turned to Richie, upon\r\nwhose stoical countenance his Majesty's demeanour had excited something\r\nlike a grim smile, which James interrupted his rejoicing to reprehend,\r\nsaying, “Take heed, sir, you are not to laugh at us--we are your\r\nanointed Sovereign.”\r\n\r\n“God forbid that I should laugh!” said Richie, composing his countenance\r\ninto its natural rigidity."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I did but smile, to bring my visage into\r\ncoincidence and conformity with your Majesty's physiognomy.”\r\n\r\n“Ye speak as a dutiful subject, and an honest man,” said the king; “but\r\nwhat deil's your name, man?”\r\n\r\n“Even Richie Moniplies, the son of auld Mungo Moniplies, at the West\r\nPort of Edinburgh, who had the honour to supply your Majesty's mother's\r\nroyal table, as weel as your Majesty's, with flesh and other vivers,\r\nwhen time was.”\r\n\r\n“Aha!” said the king, laughing,--for he possessed, as a useful attribute\r\nof his situation, a tenacious memory, which recollected every one with\r\nwhom he was brought into casual contact,--“Ye are the self-same traitor\r\nwho had weelnigh coupit us endlang on the causey of our ain courtyard? but we stuck by our mare. _Equam memento rebus in arduis servare_. Weel,\r\nbe not dismayed, Richie; for, as many men have turned traitors, it\r\nis but fair that a traitor, now and then, suld prove to be, contra\r\nexpectanda, a true man. How cam ye by our jewels, man?--cam ye on the\r\npart of George Heriot?”\r\n\r\n“In no sort,” said Richie."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“May it please your Majesty, I come as\r\nHarry Wynd fought, utterly for my own hand, and on no man's errand; as,\r\nindeed, I call no one master, save Him that made me, your most\r\ngracious Majesty who governs me, and the noble Nigel Olifaunt, Lord of\r\nGlenvarloch, who maintained me as lang as he could maintain himself,\r\npoor nobleman!”\r\n\r\n“Glenvarlochides again!” exclaimed the king; “by my honour, he lies in\r\nambush for us at every corner!--Maxwell knocks at the door. It is George\r\nHeriot come to tell us he cannot find these jewels.--Get thee behind\r\nthe arras, Richie--stand close, man--sneeze not--cough not--breathe\r\nnot!--Jingling Geordie is so damnably ready with his gold-ends of\r\nwisdom, and sae accursedly backward with his gold-ends of siller, that,\r\nby our royal saul, we are glad to get a hair in his neck.”\r\n\r\nRichie got behind the arras, in obedience to the commands of the\r\ngood-natured king, while the Monarch, who never allowed his dignity to\r\nstand in the way of a frolic, having adjusted, with his own hand, the\r\ntapestry, so as to complete the ambush, commanded Maxwell to tell him\r\nwhat was the matter without. Maxwell's reply was so low as to be lost by\r\nRichie Moniplies, the peculiarity of whose situation by no means abated\r\nhis curiosity and desire to gratify it to the uttermost."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Let Geordie Heriot come in,” said the king; and, as Richie could\r\nobserve through a slit in the tapestry, the honest citizen, if not\r\nactually agitated, was at least discomposed. The king, whose talent for\r\nwit, or humour, was precisely of a kind to be gratified by such a scene\r\nas ensued, received his homage with coldness, and began to talk to him\r\nwith an air of serious dignity, very different from the usual indecorous\r\nlevity of his behaviour. “Master Heriot,” he said, “if we aright\r\nremember, we opignorated in your hands certain jewels of the Crown, for\r\na certain sum of money--Did we, or did we not?”\r\n\r\n“My most gracious Sovereign,” said Heriot, “indisputably your Majesty\r\nwas pleased to do so.”\r\n\r\n“The property of which jewels and _cimelia_ remained with us,” continued\r\nthe king, in the same solemn tone, “subject only to your claim of\r\nadvance thereupon; which advance being repaid, gives us right to\r\nrepossession of the thing opignorated, or pledged, or laid in wad. Voetius, Vinnius, Groenwigeneus, Pagenstecherus,--all who have treated\r\n_de Contractu Opignerationis, consentiunt in eundem_,--gree on the same\r\npoint."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The Roman law, the English common law, and the municipal law\r\nof our ain ancient kingdom of Scotland, though they split in mair\r\nparticulars than I could desire, unite as strictly in this as the three\r\nstrands of a twisted rope.”\r\n\r\n“May it please your Majesty,” replied Heriot, “it requires not so many\r\nlearned authorities to prove to any honest man, that his interest in a\r\npledge is determined when the money lent is restored.”\r\n\r\n“Weel, sir, I proffer restoration of the sum lent, and I demand to be\r\nrepossessed of the jewels pledged with you. I gave ye a hint, brief\r\nwhile since, that this would be essential to my service, for, as\r\napproaching events are like to call us into public, it would seem\r\nstrange if we did not appear with those ornaments, which are heirlooms\r\nof the Crown, and the absence whereof is like to place us in contempt\r\nand suspicion with our liege subjects.”\r\n\r\nMaster George Heriot seemed much moved by this address of his Sovereign,\r\nand replied with emotion, “I call Heaven to witness, that I am totally\r\nharmless in this matter, and that I would willingly lose the sum\r\nadvanced, so that I could restore those jewels, the absence of which\r\nyour Majesty so justly laments."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had the jewels remained with me, the\r\naccount of them would be easily rendered; but your Majesty will do me\r\nthe justice to remember, that, by your express order, I transferred them\r\nto another person, who advanced a large sum, just about the time of my\r\ndeparture for Paris. The money was pressingly wanted, and no other means\r\nto come by it occurred to me. I told your Majesty, when I brought the\r\nneedful supply, that the man from whom the monies were obtained, was\r\nof no good repute; and your most princely answer was, smelling to the\r\ngold--_Non olet_, it smells not of the means that have gotten it.”\r\n\r\n“Weel, man,” said the king, “but what needs a' this din? If ye gave my\r\njewels in pledge to such a one, suld ye not, as a liege subject, have\r\ntaken care that the redemption was in our power?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And are we to suffer\r\nthe loss of our _cimelia_ by your neglect, besides being exposed to the\r\nscorn and censure of our lieges, and of the foreign ambassadors?”\r\n\r\n“My lord and liege king,” said Heriot, “God knows, if my bearing blame\r\nor shame in this matter would keep it from your Majesty, it were my duty\r\nto endure both, as a servant grateful for many benefits; but when\r\nyour Majesty considers the violent death of the man himself, the\r\ndisappearance of his daughter, and of his wealth, I trust you will\r\nremember that I warned your Majesty, in humble duty, of the possibility\r\nof such casualties, and prayed you not to urge me to deal with him on\r\nyour behalf.”\r\n\r\n“But you brought me nae better means,” said the king--“Geordie, ye\r\nbrought me nae better means. I was like a deserted man; what could I do\r\nbut grip to the first siller that offered, as a drowning man grasps to\r\nthe willow-wand that comes readiest?--And now, man, what for have ye not\r\nbrought back the jewels?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "they are surely above ground, if ye wad make\r\nstrict search.”\r\n\r\n“All strict search has been made, may it please your Majesty,” replied\r\nthe citizen; “hue and cry has been sent out everywhere, and it has been\r\nfound impossible to recover them.”\r\n\r\n“Difficult, ye mean, Geordie, not impossible,” replied the king; “for\r\nthat whilk is impossible, is either naturally so, _exempli gratia_, to\r\nmake two into three; or morally so, as to make what is truth falsehood;\r\nbut what is only difficult may come to pass, with assistance of wisdom\r\nand patience; as, for example, Jingling Geordie, look here!” And he\r\ndisplayed the recovered treasure to the eyes of the astonished jeweller,\r\nexclaiming, with great triumph, “What say ye to that, Jingler?--By my\r\nsceptre and crown, the man stares as if he took his native prince for a\r\nwarlock!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "us that are the very _malleus maleficarum_, the contunding\r\nand contriturating hammer of all witches, sorcerers, magicians, and the\r\nlike; he thinks we are taking a touch of the black art outsells!--But\r\ngang thy way, honest Geordie; thou art a good plain man, but nane of the\r\nseven sages of Greece; gang thy way, and mind the soothfast word which\r\nyou spoke, small time syne, that there is one in this land that comes\r\nnear to Solomon, King of Israel, in all his gifts, except in his love to\r\nstrange women, forby the daughter of Pharaoh.”\r\n\r\nIf Heriot was surprised at seeing the jewels so unexpectedly produced\r\nat the moment the king was upbraiding him for the loss of them, this\r\nallusion to the reflection which had escaped him while conversing with\r\nLord Glenvarloch, altogether completed his astonishment; and the king\r\nwas so delighted with the superiority which it gave him at the moment,\r\nthat he rubbed his hands, chuckled, and finally, his sense of dignity\r\ngiving way to the full feeling of triumph, he threw himself into his\r\neasy-chair, and laughed with unconstrained violence till he lost his\r\nbreath, and the tears ran plentifully down his cheeks as he strove\r\nto recover it. Meanwhile, the royal cachinnation was echoed out by a\r\ndiscordant and portentous laugh from behind the arras, like that of one\r\nwho, little accustomed to give way to such emotions, feels himself\r\nat some particular impulse unable either to control or to modify his\r\nobstreperous mirth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Heriot turned his head with new surprise towards the\r\nplace, from which sounds so unfitting the presence of a monarch seemed\r\nto burst with such emphatic clamour. The king, too, somewhat sensible of the indecorum, rose up, wiped his\r\neyes, and calling,--“Todlowrie, come out o' your den,” he produced from\r\nbehind the arras the length of Richie Moniplies, still laughing with as\r\nunrestrained mirth as ever did gossip at a country christening. “Whisht,\r\nman, whisht, man,” said the king; “ye needna nicher that gait, like a\r\ncusser at a caup o' corn, e'en though it was a pleasing jest, and our\r\nain framing. And yet to see Jingling Geordie, that bauds himself so\r\nmuch the wiser than other folk--to see him, ha! ha! ha!--in the vein of\r\nEuclio apud Plautum, distressing himself to recover what was lying at\r\nhis elbow--'Peril, interii, occidi--quo curram? quo non curram?--Tene,\r\ntene--quem? quis? nescio--nihil video.”\r\n\r\n“Ah! Geordie, your een are sharp enough to look after gowd and silver,\r\ngems, rubies, and the like of that, and yet ye kenna how to come by them\r\nwhen they are lost.--Ay, ay--look at them, man--look at them--they are\r\na' right and tight, sound and round, not a doublet crept in amongst\r\nthem.”\r\n\r\nGeorge Heriot, when his first surprise was over, was too old a courtier\r\nto interrupt the king's imaginary triumph, although he darted a look\r\nof some displeasure at honest Richie, who still continued on what is\r\nusually termed the broad grin."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He quietly examined the stones, and\r\nfinding them all perfect, he honestly and sincerely congratulated his\r\nMajesty on the recovery of a treasure which could not have been lost\r\nwithout some dishonour to the crown; and asked to whom he himself was to\r\npay the sums for which they had been pledged, observing, that he had the\r\nmoney by him in readiness. “Ye are in a deevil of a hurry, when there is paying in the case,\r\nGeordie,” said the king.--“What's a' the haste, man? The jewels were\r\nrestored by an honest, kindly countryman of ours. There he stands, and\r\nwha kens if he wants the money on the nail, or if he might not be as\r\nweel pleased wi' a bit rescript on our treasury some six months hence? Ye ken that our Exchequer is even at a low ebb just now, and ye cry pay,\r\npay, pay, as if we had all the mines of Ophir.”\r\n\r\n“Please your Majesty,” said Heriot, “if this man has the real right to\r\nthese monies, it is doubtless at his will to grant forbearance, if he\r\nwill. But when I remember the guise in which I first saw him, with a\r\ntattered cloak and a broken head, I can hardly conceive it.--Are not you\r\nRichie Moniplies, with the king's favour?”\r\n\r\n“Even sae, Master Heriot--of the ancient and honourable house of Castle\r\nCollop, near to the West Port of Edinburgh,” answered Richie. “Why, please your Majesty, he is a poor serving-man,” said Heriot."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“This\r\nmoney can never be honestly at his disposal.”\r\n\r\n“What for no?” said the king. “Wad ye have naebody spraickle up the brae\r\nbut yoursell, Geordie? Your ain cloak was thin enough when ye cam here,\r\nthough ye have lined it gay and weel. And for serving-men, there has\r\nmony a red-shank cam over the Tweed wi' his master's wallet on his\r\nshoulders, that now rustles it wi' his six followers behind him. There\r\nstands the man himsell; speer at him, Geordie.”\r\n\r\n“His may not be the best authority in the case,” answered the cautious\r\ncitizen. “Tut, tut, man,” said the king, “ye are over scrupulous. The knave\r\ndeer-stealers have an apt phrase, _Non est inquirendum unde venit_\r\nVENISON. He that brings the gudes hath surely a right to dispose of\r\nthe gear.--Hark ye, friend, speak the truth and shame the deil. Have\r\nye plenary powers to dispose on the redemption-money as to delay of\r\npayments, or the like, ay or no?”\r\n\r\n“Full power, an it like your gracious Majesty,” answered Richie\r\nMoniplies; “and I am maist willing to subscrive to whatsoever may in ony\r\nwise accommodate your Majesty anent the redemption-money, trusting your\r\nMajesty's grace will be kind to me in one sma' favour.”\r\n\r\n“Ey, man,” said the king, “come ye to me there?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I thought ye wad e'en\r\nbe like the rest of them.--One would think our subjects' lives and goods\r\nwere all our ain, and holden of us at our free will; but when we stand\r\nin need of ony matter of siller from them, which chances more frequently\r\nthan we would it did, deil a boddle is to be had, save on the auld terms\r\nof giff-gaff. It is just niffer for niffer.--Aweel, neighbour, what\r\nis it that ye want--some monopoly, I reckon? Or it may be a grant\r\nof kirk-lands and teinds, or a knighthood, or the like?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Ye maun be\r\nreasonable, unless ye propose to advance more money for our present\r\noccasions.”\r\n\r\n“My liege,” answered Richie Moniplies, “the owner of these monies places\r\nthem at your Majesty's command, free of all pledge or usage as long as\r\nit is your royal pleasure, providing your Majesty will condescend to\r\nshow some favour to the noble Lord Glenvarloch, presently prisoner in\r\nyour royal Tower of London.”\r\n\r\n“How, man--how,--man--how, man!” exclaimed the king, reddening and\r\nstammering, but with emotions more noble than those by which he was\r\nsometimes agitated--“What is that you dare to say to us?--Sell our\r\njustice!--sell our mercy!--and we a crowned king, sworn to do justice\r\nto our subjects in the gate, and responsible for our stewardship to\r\nHim that is over all kings?”--Here he reverently looked up, touched his\r\nbonnet, and continued, with some sharpness,--“We dare not traffic in\r\nsuch commodities, sir; and, but that ye are a poor ignorant creature,\r\nthat have done us this day some not unpleasant service, we wad have a\r\nred iron driven through your tongue, _in terrorem_ of others.--Awa with\r\nhim, Geordie,--pay him, plack and bawbee, out of our monies in your\r\nhands, and let them care that come ahint.”\r\n\r\nRichie, who had counted with the utmost certainty upon the success\r\nof this master-stroke of policy, was like an architect whose whole\r\nscaffolding at once gives way under him. He caught, however, at what\r\nhe thought might break his fall."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Not only the sum for which the jewels\r\nwere pledged,” he said, “but the double of it, if required, should be\r\nplaced at his Majesty's command, and even without hope or condition of\r\nrepayment, if only--”\r\n\r\nBut the king did not allow him to complete the sentence, crying out with\r\ngreater vehemence than before, as if he dreaded the stability of his own\r\ngood resolutions,--“Awa wi' him--swith awa wi' him! It is time he\r\nwere gane, if he doubles his bode that gate. And, for your life, letna\r\nSteenie, or ony of them, hear a word from his mouth; for wha kens what\r\ntrouble that might bring me into! _Ne inducas in tentationem_--_Vade\r\nretro, Sathanas!--Amen_.”\r\n\r\nIn obedience to the royal mandate, George Heriot hurried the abashed\r\npetitioner out of the presence and out of the Palace; and, when they\r\nwere in the Palace-yard, the citizen, remembering with some resentment\r\nthe airs of equality which Richie had assumed towards him in the\r\ncommencement of the scene which had just taken place, could not forbear\r\nto retaliate, by congratulating him with an ironical smile on his favour\r\nat Court, and his improved grace in presenting a supplication."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Never fash your beard about that, Master George Heriot,” said Richie,\r\ntotally undismayed; “but tell me when and where I am to sifflicate\r\nyou for eight hundred pounds sterling, for which these jewels stood\r\nengaged?”\r\n\r\n“The instant that you bring with you the real owner of the money,”\r\n replied Heriot; “whom it is important that I should see on more accounts\r\nthan one.”\r\n\r\n“Then will I back to his Majesty,” said Richie Moniplies, stoutly, “and\r\nget either the money or the pledge back again. I am fully commissionate\r\nto act in that matter.”\r\n\r\n“It may be so, Richie,” said the citizen, “and perchance it may _not_\r\nbe so neither, for your tales are not all gospel; and, therefore, be\r\nassured I will see that it _is_ so, ere I pay you that large sum of\r\nmoney. I shall give you an acknowledgment for it, and I will keep it\r\nprestable at a moment's warning. But, my good Richard Moniplies, of\r\nCastle Collop, near the West Port of Edinburgh, in the meantime I am\r\nbound to return to his Majesty on matters of weight.” So speaking, and\r\nmounting the stair to re-enter the Palace, he added, by way of summing\r\nup the whole,--“George Heriot is over old a cock to be caught with\r\nchaff.”\r\n\r\nRichie stood petrified when he beheld him re-enter the Palace, and found\r\nhimself, as he supposed, left in the lurch.--“Now, plague on ye,” he\r\nmuttered, “for a cunning auld skinflint!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "that, because ye are an honest\r\nman yoursell, forsooth, must needs deal with all the world as if they\r\nwere knaves. But deil be in me if ye beat me yet!--Gude guide us! yonder comes Laurie Linklater next, and he will be on me about the\r\nsifflication.--I winna stand him, by Saint Andrew!”\r\n\r\nSo saying, and changing the haughty stride with which he had that\r\nmorning entered the precincts of the Palace, into a skulking shamble, he\r\nretreated for his wherry, which was in attendance, with speed which, to\r\nuse the approved phrase on such occasions, greatly resembled a flight. CHAPTER XXXII\r\n\r\n\r\n_Benedict_. This looks not like a nuptial. _Much Ado About Nothing._\r\n\r\nMaster George Heriot had no sooner returned to the king's apartment,\r\nthan James inquired of Maxwell if the Earl of Huntinglen was in\r\nattendance, and, receiving an answer in the affirmative, desired that he\r\nshould be admitted. The old Scottish Lord having made his reverence\r\nin the usual manner, the king extended his hand to be kissed, and then\r\nbegan to address him in a tone of great sympathy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“We told your lordship in our secret epistle of this morning, written\r\nwith our ain hand, in testimony we have neither pretermitted nor\r\nforgotten your faithful service, that we had that to communicate to you\r\nthat would require both patience and fortitude to endure, and therefore\r\nexhorted you to peruse some of the most pithy passages of Seneca, and of\r\nBoethius _de Consolatione_, that the back may be, as we say, fitted for\r\nthe burden--This we commend to you from our ain experience. 'Non ignara mail, miseris succurrere disco,'\r\n\r\nsayeth Dido, and I might say in my own person, _non ignarus_; but\r\nto change the gender would affect the prosody, whereof our southern\r\nsubjects are tenacious. So, my Lord of Huntinglen, I trust you have\r\nacted by our advice, and studied patience before ye need it--_venienti\r\noccurrite morbo_--mix the medicament when the disease is coming on.”\r\n\r\n“May it please your Majesty,” answered Lord Huntinglen, “I am more of an\r\nold soldier than a scholar--and if my own rough nature will not bear\r\nme out in any calamity, I hope I shall have grace to try a text of\r\nScripture to boot.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, man, are you there with your bears?” said the king; “The Bible,\r\nman,” (touching his cap,) “is indeed _principium et fons_--but it is\r\npity your lordship cannot peruse it in the original."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For although we did\r\nourselves promote that work of translation,--since ye may read, at the\r\nbeginning of every Bible, that when some palpable clouds of darkness\r\nwere thought like to have overshadowed the land, after the setting of\r\nthat bright occidental star, Queen Elizabeth; yet our appearance, like\r\nthat of the sun in his strength, instantly dispelled these surmised\r\nmists,--I say, that although, as therein mentioned, we countenanced\r\nthe preaching of the gospel, and especially the translation of the\r\nScriptures out of the original sacred tongues; yet nevertheless, we\r\nourselves confess to have found a comfort in consulting them in the\r\noriginal Hebrew, whilk we do not perceive even in the Latin version of\r\nthe Septuagint, much less in the English traduction.”\r\n\r\n“Please your Majesty,” said Lord Huntinglen, “if your Majesty delays\r\ncommunicating the bad news with which your honoured letter threatens me,\r\nuntil I am capable to read Hebrew like your Majesty, I fear I shall\r\ndie in ignorance of the misfortune which hath befallen, or is about to\r\nbefall, my house.”\r\n\r\n“You will learn it but too soon, my lord,” replied the king."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I grieve\r\nto say it, but your son Dalgarno, whom I thought a very saint, as he was\r\nso much with Steenie and Baby Charles, hath turned out a very villain.”\r\n\r\n“Villain!” repeated Lord Huntinglen; and though he instantly checked\r\nhimself, and added, “but it is your Majesty speaks the word,” the effect\r\nof his first tone made the king step back as if he had received a blow. He also recovered himself again, and said in the pettish way which\r\nusually indicated his displeasure--“Yes, my lord, it was we that said\r\nit--_non surdo canis_--we are not deaf--we pray you not to raise your\r\nvoice in speech with us--there is the bonny memorial--read, and judge\r\nfor yourself.”\r\n\r\nThe king then thrust into the old nobleman's hand a paper, containing\r\nthe story of the Lady Hermione, with the evidence by which it was\r\nsupported, detailed so briefly and clearly, that the infamy of Lord\r\nDalgarno, the lover by whom she had been so shamefully deceived, seemed\r\nundeniable. But a father yields not up so easily the cause of his son. “May it please your Majesty,” he said, “why was this tale not sooner\r\ntold? This woman hath been here for years--wherefore was the claim on my\r\nson not made the instant she touched English ground?”\r\n\r\n“Tell him how that came about, Geordie,” said the king, dressing Heriot. “I grieve to distress my Lord Huntinglen,” said Heriot; “but I must speak\r\nthe truth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For a long time the Lady Hermione could not brook the idea\r\nof making her situation public; and when her mind became changed in\r\nthat particular, it was necessary to recover the evidence of the false\r\nmarriage, and letters and papers connected with it, which, when she\r\ncame to Paris, and just before I saw her, she had deposited with a\r\ncorrespondent of her father in that city. He became afterwards bankrupt,\r\nand in consequence of that misfortune the lady's papers passed into\r\nother hands, and it was only a few days since I traced and recovered\r\nthem. Without these documents of evidence, it would have been imprudent\r\nfor her to have preferred her complaint, favoured as Lord Dalgarno is by\r\npowerful friends.”\r\n\r\n“Ye are saucy to say sae,” said the king; “I ken what ye mean weel\r\neneugh--ye think Steenie wad hae putten the weight of his foot into\r\nthe scales of justice, and garr'd them whomle the bucket--ye forget,\r\nGeordie, wha it is whose hand uphaulds them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And ye do poor Steenie the\r\nmair wrang, for he confessed it ance before us and our privy council,\r\nthat Dalgarno would have put the quean aff on him, the puir simple\r\nbairn, making him trow that she was a light-o'-love; in whilk mind he\r\nremained assured even when he parted from her, albeit Steenie might hae\r\nweel thought ane of thae cattle wadna hae resisted the like of him.”\r\n\r\n“The Lady Hermione,” said George Heriot, “has always done the utmost\r\njustice to the conduct of the duke, who, although strongly possessed\r\nwith prejudice against her character, yet scorned to avail himself\r\nof her distress, and on the contrary supplied her with the means of\r\nextricating herself from her difficulties.”\r\n\r\n“It was e'en like himsell--blessings on his bonny face!” said the king;\r\n“and I believed this lady's tale the mair readily, my Lord Huntinglen,\r\nthat she spake nae ill of Steenie--and to make a lang tale short, my\r\nlord, it is the opinion of our council and ourself, as weel as of Baby\r\nCharles and Steenie, that your son maun amend his wrong by wedding this\r\nlady, or undergo such disgrace and discountenance as we can bestow.”\r\n\r\nThe person to whom he spoke was incapable of answering him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He stood\r\nbefore the king motionless, and glaring with eyes of which even the lids\r\nseemed immovable, as if suddenly converted into an ancient statue of the\r\ntimes of chivalry, so instantly had his hard features and strong limbs\r\nbeen arrested into rigidity by the blow he had received--And in a second\r\nafterwards, like the same statue when the lightning breaks upon it,\r\nhe sunk at once to the ground with a heavy groan. The king was in the\r\nutmost alarm, called upon Heriot and Maxwell for help, and, presence\r\nof mind not being his _forte_, ran to and fro in his cabinet,\r\nexclaiming--“My ancient and beloved servant--who saved our anointed\r\nself! _vae atque dolor!_ My Lord of Huntinglen, look up--look up, man,\r\nand your son may marry the Queen of Sheba if he will.”\r\n\r\nBy this time Maxwell and Heriot had raised the old nobleman, and placed\r\nhim on a chair; while the king, observing that he began to recover\r\nhimself, continued his consolations more methodically. “Haud up your head--haud up your head, and listen to your ain kind\r\nnative Prince."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If there is shame, man, it comesna empty-handed--there\r\nis siller to gild it--a gude tocher, and no that bad a pedigree;--if she\r\nhas been a loon, it was your son made her sae, and he can make her an\r\nhonest woman again.”\r\n\r\nThese suggestions, however reasonable in the common case, gave no\r\ncomfort to Lord Huntinglen, if indeed he fully comprehended them; but\r\nthe blubbering of his good-natured old master, which began to accompany\r\nand interrupt his royal speech, produced more rapid effect. The large\r\ntear gushed reluctantly from his eye, as he kissed the withered hands,\r\nwhich the king, weeping with less dignity and restraint, abandoned to\r\nhim, first alternately and then both together, until the feelings of the\r\nman getting entirely the better of the Sovereign's sense of dignity, he\r\ngrasped and shook Lord Huntinglen's hands with the sympathy of an equal\r\nand a familiar friend. “_Compone lachrymas_,” said the Monarch; “be patient, man, be patient;\r\nthe council, and Baby Charles, and Steenie, may a' gang to the\r\ndeevil--he shall not marry her since it moves you so deeply.”\r\n\r\n“He _shall_ marry her, by God!” answered the earl, drawing himself\r\nup, dashing the tear from his eyes, and endeavouring to recover his\r\ncomposure."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I pray your Majesty's pardon, but he shall marry her, with\r\nher dishonour for her dowry, were she the veriest courtezan in all\r\nSpain--If he gave his word, he shall make his word good, were it to\r\nthe meanest creature that haunts the streets--he shall do it, or my own\r\ndagger shall take the life that I gave him. If he could stoop to use so\r\nbase a fraud, though to deceive infamy, let him wed infamy.”\r\n\r\n“No, no!” the Monarch continued to insinuate, “things are not so bad as\r\nthat--Steenie himself never thought of her being a streetwalker, even\r\nwhen he thought the worst of her.”\r\n\r\n“If it can at all console my Lord of Huntinglen,” said the citizen, “I\r\ncan assure him of this lady's good birth, and most fair and unspotted\r\nfame.”\r\n\r\n“I am sorry for it,” said Lord Huntinglen--then interrupting himself, he\r\nsaid--“Heaven forgive me for being ungrateful for such comfort!--but I\r\nam well-nigh sorry she should be as you represent her, so much better\r\nthan the villain deserves. To be condemned to wed beauty and innocence\r\nand honest birth--”\r\n\r\n“Ay, and wealth, my lord--wealth,” insinuated the king, “is a better\r\nsentence than his perfidy has deserved.”\r\n\r\n“It is long,” said the embittered father, “since I saw he was selfish\r\nand hardhearted; but to be a perjured liar--I never dreaded that such a\r\nblot would have fallen on my race!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I will never look on him again.”\r\n\r\n“Hoot ay, my lord, hoot ay,” said the king; “ye maun tak him to task\r\nroundly. I grant you should speak more in the vein of Demea than Mitio,\r\n_vi nempe et via pervulgata patrum_; but as for not seeing him again,\r\nand he your only son, that is altogether out of reason. I tell ye, man,\r\n(but I would not for a boddle that Baby Charles heard me,) that he might\r\ngie the glaiks to half the lasses of Lonnun, ere I could find in my\r\nheart speak such harsh words as you have said of this deil of a Dalgarno\r\nof yours.”\r\n\r\n“May it please your Majesty to permit me to retire,” said Lord\r\nHuntinglen, “and dispose of the case according to your own royal sense\r\nof justice, for I desire no favour for him.”\r\n\r\n“Aweel, my lord, so be it; and if your lordship can think,” added the\r\nMonarch, “of any thing in our power which might comfort you--”\r\n\r\n“Your Majesty's gracious sympathy,” said Lord Huntinglen, “has already\r\ncomforted me as far as earth can; the rest must be from the King of\r\nkings.”\r\n\r\n“To Him I commend you, my auld and faithful servant,” said James with\r\nemotion, as the earl withdrew from his presence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The king remained fixed\r\nin thought for some time, and then said to Heriot, “Jingling Geordie,\r\nye ken all the privy doings of our Court, and have dune so these thirty\r\nyears, though, like a wise man, ye hear, and see, and say nothing. Now, there is a thing I fain wad ken, in the way of philosophical\r\ninquiry--Did you ever hear of the umquhile Lady Huntinglen, the departed\r\nCountess of this noble earl, ganging a wee bit gleed in her walk through\r\nthe world; I mean in the way of slipping a foot, casting a leglin-girth,\r\nor the like, ye understand me?”\r\n\r\n[Footnote: A leglin-girth is the lowest hoop upon a _leglin_, or\r\nmilk-pail. Allan Ramsay applies the phrase in the same metaphorical\r\nsense. “Or bairns can read, they first maun spell, I learn'd this frae my\r\nmammy, And cast a leglin-girth mysell,\r\n Lang ere I married Tammy.”\r\n                               _Christ's Kirk On The Green_.] “On my word as an honest man,” said George Heriot, somewhat surprised\r\nat the question, “I never heard her wronged by the slightest breath\r\nof suspicion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was a worthy lady, very circumspect in her walk, and\r\nlived in great concord with her husband, save that the good Countess was\r\nsomething of a puritan, and kept more company with ministers than was\r\naltogether agreeable to Lord Huntinglen, who is, as your Majesty well\r\nknows, a man of the old rough world, that will drink and swear.”\r\n\r\n“O Geordie!” exclaimed the king, “these are auld-warld frailties, of\r\nwhilk we dare not pronounce even ourselves absolutely free. But the\r\nwarld grows worse from day to day, Geordie. The juveniles of this age\r\nmay weel say with the poet--\r\n\r\n     'Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit Nos nequiores--'\r\n\r\nThis Dalgarno does not drink so much, or swear so much, as his father;\r\nbut he wenches, Geordie, and he breaks his word and oath baith. As\r\nto what you say of the leddy, and the ministers, we are a' fallible\r\ncreatures, Geordie, priests and kings, as weel as others; and wha kens\r\nbut what that may account for the difference between this Dalgarno and\r\nhis father? The earl is the vera soul of honour, and cares nae mair for\r\nwarld's gear than a noble hound for the quest of a foulmart; but as\r\nfor his son, he was like to brazen us a' out--ourselves, Steenie, Baby\r\nCharles, and our council--till he heard of the tocher, and then, by my\r\nkingly crown, he lap like a cock at a grossart!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "These are discrepancies\r\nbetwixt parent and son not to be accounted for naturally, according to\r\nBaptista Porta, Michael Scott _de secretis_, and others.--Ah, Jingling\r\nGeordie, if your clouting the caldron, and jingling on pots, pans, and\r\nveshels of all manner of metal, hadna jingled a' your grammar out of\r\nyour head, I could have touched on that matter to you at mair length.”\r\n\r\nHeriot was too plain-spoken to express much concern for the loss of his\r\ngrammar learning on this occasion; but after modestly hinting that he\r\nhad seen many men who could not fill their father's bonnet, though no\r\none had been suspected of wearing their father's nightcap, he inquired\r\n“whether Lord Dalgarno had consented to do the Lady Hermione justice.”\r\n\r\n“Troth, man, I have small doubt that he will,” quoth the king; “I gave\r\nhim the schedule of her worldly substance, which you delivered to us in\r\nthe council, and we allowed him half-an-hour to chew the cud upon that. It is rare reading for bringing him to reason. I left Baby Charles and\r\nSteenie laying his duty before him; and if he can resist doing what\r\n_they_ desire him--why, I wish he would teach _me_ the gate of it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "O\r\nGeordie, Jingling Geordie, it was grand to hear Baby Charles laying down\r\nthe guilt of dissimulation, and Steenie lecturing on the turpitude of\r\nincontinence!”\r\n\r\n“I am afraid,” said George Heriot, more hastily than prudently, “I might\r\nhave thought of the old proverb of Satan reproving sin.”\r\n\r\n“Deil hae our saul, neighbour,” said the king, reddening, “but ye are\r\nnot blate! I gie ye license to speak freely, and, by our saul, ye do not\r\nlet the privilege become lost _non utendo_--it will suffer no negative\r\nprescription in your hands. Is it fit, think ye, that Baby Charles\r\nshould let his thoughts be publicly seen?--No--no--princes' thoughts are\r\n_arcana imperii_--_Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare_. Every liege\r\nsubject is bound to speak the whole truth to the king, but there is\r\nnae reciprocity of obligation--and for Steenie having been whiles a\r\ndike-louper at a time, is it for you, who are his goldsmith, and to\r\nwhom, I doubt, he awes an uncomatable sum, to cast that up to him?”\r\n\r\nHeriot did not feel himself called on to play the part of Zeno and\r\nsacrifice himself for upholding the cause of moral truth; he did not\r\ndesert it, however, by disavowing his words, but simply expressed\r\nsorrow for having offended his Majesty, with which the placable king was\r\nsufficiently satisfied. “And now, Geordie, man,” quoth he, “we will to this culprit, and hear\r\nwhat he has to say for himself, for I will see the job cleared this\r\nblessed day."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Ye maun come wi' me, for your evidence may be wanted.”\r\n\r\nThe king led the way, accordingly, into a larger apartment, where the\r\nPrince, the Duke of Buckingham, and one or two privy counsellors were\r\nseated at a table, before which stood Lord Dalgarno, in an attitude of\r\nas much elegant ease and indifference as could be expressed, considering\r\nthe stiff dress and manners of the times. All rose and bowed reverently, while the king, to use a north country\r\nword, expressive of his mode of locomotion, _toddled_ to his chair or\r\nthrone, making a sign to Heriot to stand behind him. “We hope,” said his Majesty, “that Lord Dalgarno stands prepared to do\r\njustice to this unfortunate lady, and to his own character and honour?”\r\n\r\n“May I humbly inquire the penalty,” said Lord Dalgarno, “in case\r\nI should unhappily find compliance with your Majesty's demands\r\nimpossible?”\r\n\r\n“Banishment frae our Court, my lord,” said the king; “frae our Court and\r\nour countenance.”\r\n\r\n“Unhappy exile that I may be!” said Lord Dalgarno, in a tone of subdued\r\nirony--“I will at least carry your Majesty's picture with me, for I\r\nshall never see such another king.”\r\n\r\n“And banishment, my lord,” said the Prince, sternly, “from these our\r\ndominions.”\r\n\r\n“That must be by form of law, please your Royal Highness,” said\r\nDalgarno, with an affectation of deep respect; “and I have not heard\r\nthat there is a statute, compelling us, under such penalty, to marry\r\nevery woman we may play the fool with."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Perhaps his Grace of Buckingham\r\ncan tell me?”\r\n\r\n“You are a villain, Dalgarno,” said the haughty and vehement favourite. “Fie, my lord, fie!--to a prisoner, and in presence of your royal and\r\npaternal gossip!” said Lord Dalgarno. “But I will cut this deliberation\r\nshort. I have looked over this schedule of the goods and effects of\r\nErminia Pauletti, daughter of the late noble--yes, he is called the\r\nnoble, or I read wrong, Giovanni Pauletti, of the Houee of Sansovino,\r\nin Genoa, and of the no less noble Lady Maud Olifaunt, of the House of\r\nGlenvarloch--Well, I declare that I was pre-contracted in Spain to this\r\nnoble lady, and there has passed betwixt us some certain _proelibatio\r\nmatrimonii_; and now, what more does this grave assembly require of me?”\r\n\r\n“That you should repair the gross and infamous wrong you have done the\r\nlady, by marrying her within this hour,” said the Prince. “O, may it please your Royal Highness,” answered Dalgarno, “I have a\r\ntrifling relationship with an old Earl, who calls himself my father, who\r\nmay claim some vote in the matter. Alas! every son is not blessed with\r\nan obedient parent!” He hazarded a slight glance towards the throne, to\r\ngive meaning to his last words. “We have spoken ourselves with Lord Huntinglen,” said the king, “and are\r\nauthorised to consent in his name.”\r\n\r\n“I could never have expected this intervention of a _proxaneta_, which\r\nthe vulgar translate blackfoot, of such eminent dignity,” said Dalgarno,\r\nscarce concealing a sneer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“And my father hath consented? He was wont\r\nto say, ere we left Scotland, that the blood of Huntinglen and of\r\nGlenvarloch would not mingle, were they poured into the same basin. Perhaps he has a mind to try the experiment?”\r\n\r\n“My lord,” said James, “we will not be longer trifled with--Will you\r\ninstantly, and _sine mora_, take this lady to your wife, in our chapel?”\r\n\r\n“_Statim atque instanter_,” answered Lord Dalgarno; “for I perceive\r\nby doing so, I shall obtain power to render great services to the\r\ncommonwealth--I shall have acquired wealth to supply the wants of\r\nyour Majesty, and a fair wife to be at the command of his Grace of\r\nBuckingham.”\r\n\r\nThe Duke rose, passed to the end of the table where Lord Dalgarno was\r\nstanding, and whispered in his ear, “You have placed a fair sister at my\r\ncommand ere now.”\r\n\r\nThis taunt cut deep through Lord Dalgarno's assumed composure. He\r\nstarted as if an adder had stung him, but instantly composed himself,\r\nand, fixing on the Duke's still smiling countenance an eye which spoke\r\nunutterable hatred, he pointed the forefinger of his left hand to the\r\nhilt of his sword, but in a manner which could scarce be observed by any\r\none save Buckingham."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The Duke gave him another smile of bitter scorn,\r\nand returned to his seat, in obedience to the commands of the king, who\r\ncontinued calling out, “Sit down, Steenie, sit down, I command ye--we\r\nwill hae nae harnsbreaking here.”\r\n\r\n“Your Majesty needs not fear my patience,” said Lord Dalgarno; “and\r\nthat I may keep it the better, I will not utter another word in this\r\npresence, save those enjoined to me in that happy portion of the\r\nPrayer-Book, which begins with _Dearly Beloved_, and ends with\r\n_amazement_.”\r\n\r\n“You are a hardened villain, Dalgarno,” said the king; “and were I the\r\nlass, by my father's saul, I would rather brook the stain of having been\r\nyour concubine, than run the risk of becoming your wife. But she shall\r\nbe under our special protection.--Come, my lords, we will ourselves see\r\nthis blithesome bridal.” He gave the signal by rising, and moved towards\r\nthe door, followed by the train. Lord Dalgarno attended, speaking to\r\nnone, and spoken to by no one, yet seeming as easy and unembarrassed in\r\nhis gait and manner as if in reality a happy bridegroom. They reached the Chapel by a private entrance, which communicated from\r\nthe royal apartment. The Bishop of Winchester, in his pontifical dress,\r\nstood beside the altar; on the other side, supported by Monna Paula, the\r\ncolourless, faded, half-lifeless form of the Lady Hermione, or Erminia\r\nPauletti."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lord Dalgarno bowed profoundly to her, and the Prince,\r\nobserving the horror with which she regarded him, walked up, and said\r\nto her, with much dignity,--“Madam, ere you put yourself under the\r\nauthority of this man, let me inform you, he hath in the fullest degree\r\nvindicated your honour, so far as concerns your former intercourse. It\r\nis for you to consider whether you will put your fortune and happiness\r\ninto the hands of one, who has shown himself unworthy of all trust.”\r\n\r\nThe lady, with much difficulty, found words to make reply. “I owe to\r\nhis Majesty's goodness,” she said, “the care of providing me some\r\nreservation out of my own fortune, for my decent sustenance. The rest\r\ncannot be better disposed than in buying back the fair fame of which I\r\nam deprived, and the liberty of ending my life in peace and seclusion.”\r\n\r\n“The contract has been drawn up,” said the king, “under our own eye,\r\nspecially discharging the _potestas maritalis_, and agreeing they shall\r\nlive separate. So buckle them, my Lord Bishop, as fast as you can, that\r\nthey may sunder again the sooner.”\r\n\r\nThe Bishop accordingly opened his book and commenced the marriage\r\nceremony, under circumstances so novel and so inauspicious. The\r\nresponses of the bride were only expressed by inclinations of the\r\nhead and body; while those of the bridegroom were spoken boldly and\r\ndistinctly, with a tone resembling levity, if not scorn."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When it was\r\nconcluded, Lord Dalgarno advanced as if to salute the bride, but seeing\r\nthat she drew back in fear and abhorrence, he contented himself with\r\nmaking her a low bow. He then drew up his form to its height, and\r\nstretched himself as if examining the power of his limbs, but elegantly,\r\nand without any forcible change of attitude. “I could caper yet,”\r\n he said “though I am in fetters--but they are of gold, and lightly\r\nworn.--Well, I see all eyes look cold on me, and it is time I should\r\nwithdraw. The sun shines elsewhere than in England! But first I must ask\r\nhow this fair Lady Dalgarno is to be bestowed. Methinks it is but decent\r\nI should know. Is she to be sent to the harem of my Lord Duke? Or is\r\nthis worthy citizen, as before--”\r\n\r\n“Hold thy base ribald tongue!” said his father, Lord Huntinglen, who had\r\nkept in the background during the ceremony, and now stepping suddenly\r\nforward, caught the lady by the arm, and confronted her unworthy\r\nhusband.--“The Lady Dalgarno,” he continued, “shall remain as a widow in\r\nmy house. A widow I esteem her, as much as if the grave had closed over\r\nher dishonoured husband.”\r\n\r\nLord Dalgarno exhibited momentary symptoms of extreme confusion, and\r\nsaid, in a submissive tone, “If you, my lord, can wish me dead, I\r\ncannot, though your heir, return the compliment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Few of the first-born\r\nof Israel,” he added, recovering himself from the single touch of\r\nemotion he had displayed, “can say so much with truth. But I will\r\nconvince you ere I go, that I am a true descendant of a house famed for\r\nits memory of injuries.”\r\n\r\n“I marvel your Majesty will listen to him longer,” said Prince Charles. “Methinks we have heard enough of his daring insolence.”\r\n\r\nBut James, who took the interest of a true gossip in such a scene as was\r\nnow passing, could not bear to cut the controversy short, but imposed\r\nsilence on his son, with “Whisht, Baby Charles--there is a good bairn,\r\nwhisht!--I want to hear what the frontless loon can say.”\r\n\r\n“Only, sir,” said Dalgarno, “that but for one single line in this\r\nschedule, all else that it contains could not have bribed me to take\r\nthat woman's hand into mine.”\r\n\r\n“That line maun have been the SUMMA TOTALIS,” said the king. “Not so, sire,” replied Dalgarno. “The sum total might indeed have been\r\nan object for consideration even to a Scottish king, at no very distant\r\nperiod; but it would have had little charms for me, save that I see\r\nhere an entry which gives me the power of vengeance over the family of\r\nGlenvarloch; and learn from it that yonder pale bride, when she put the\r\nwedding-torch into my hand, gave me the power of burning her mother's\r\nhouse to ashes!”\r\n\r\n“How is that?” said the king."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“What is he speaking about, Jingling\r\nGeordie?”\r\n\r\n“This friendly citizen, my liege,” said Lord Dalgarno, “hath expended a\r\nsum belonging to my lady, and now, I thank heaven, to me, in acquiring\r\na certain mortgage, or wanset, over the estate of Glenvarloch, which, if\r\nit be not redeemed before to-morrow at noon, will put me in possession\r\nof the fair demesnes of those who once called themselves our house's\r\nrivals.”\r\n\r\n“Can this be true?” said the king. “It is even but too true, please your Majesty,” answered the citizen. “The Lady Hermione having advanced the money for the original creditor,\r\nI was obliged, in honour and honesty, to take the rights to her; and\r\ndoubtless, they pass to her husband.”\r\n\r\n“But the warrant, man,” said the king--“the warrant on our\r\nExchequer--Couldna that supply the lad wi' the means of redemption?”\r\n\r\n“Unhappily, my liege, he has lost it, or disposed of it--It is not to be\r\nfound. He is the most unlucky youth!”\r\n\r\n“This is a proper spot of work!” said the king, beginning to amble\r\nabout and play with the points of his doublet and hose, in expression of\r\ndismay."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“We cannot aid him without paying our debts twice over, and we\r\nhave, in the present state of our Exchequer, scarce the means of paying\r\nthem once.”\r\n\r\n“You have told me news,” said Lord Dalgarno, “but I will take no\r\nadvantage.”\r\n\r\n“Do not,” said his father, “be a bold villain, since thou must be one,\r\nand seek revenge with arms, and not with the usurer's weapons.”\r\n\r\n“Pardon me, my lord,” said Lord Dalgarno. “Pen and ink are now my\r\nsurest means of vengeance; and more land is won by the lawyer with the\r\nram-skin, than by the Andrea Ferrara with his sheepshead handle. But,\r\nas I said before, I will take no advantages. I will await in town\r\nto-morrow, near Covent Garden; if any one will pay the redemption-money\r\nto my scrivener, with whom the deeds lie, the better for Lord\r\nGlenvarloch; if not, I will go forward on the next day, and travel with\r\nall dispatch to the north, to take possession.”\r\n\r\n“Take a father's malison with you, unhappy wretch!” said Lord\r\nHuntinglen. “And a king's, who is _pater patriae_,” said James. “I trust to bear both lightly,” said Lord Dalgarno; and bowing around\r\nhim, he withdrew; while all present, oppressed, and, as it were,\r\noverawed, by his determined effrontery, found they could draw breath\r\nmore freely, when he at length relieved them of his society."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Lord\r\nHuntinglen, applying himself to comfort his new daughter-in-law,\r\nwithdrew with her also; and the king, with his privy-council, whom he\r\nhad not dismissed, again returned to his council-chamber, though the\r\nhour was unusually late. Heriot's attendance was still commanded, but\r\nfor what reason was not explained to him. CHAPTER XXXIII\r\n\r\n---I'll play the eavesdropper. _Richard III., Act V., Scene 3_. James had no sooner resumed his seat at the council-board than he began\r\nto hitch in his chair, cough, use his handkerchief, and make other\r\nintimations that he meditated a long speech. The council composed\r\nthemselves to the beseeming degree of attention. Charles, as strict\r\nin his notions of decorum, as his father was indifferent to it, fixed\r\nhimself in an attitude of rigid and respectful attention, while the\r\nhaughty favourite, conscious of his power over both father and\r\nson, stretched himself more easily on his seat, and, in assuming an\r\nappearance of listening, seemed to pay a debt to ceremonial rather than\r\nto duty."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I doubt not, my lords,” said the Monarch, “that some of you may be\r\nthinking the hour of refection is past, and that it is time to ask with\r\nthe slave in the comedy--_Quid de symbolo?_--Nevertheless, to do justice\r\nand exercise judgment is our meat and drink; and now we are to pray your\r\nwisdom to consider the case of this unhappy youth, Lord Glenvarloch, and\r\nsee whether, consistently with our honour, any thing can be done in his\r\nfavour.”\r\n\r\n“I am surprised at your Majesty's wisdom making the inquiry,” said the\r\nDuke; “it is plain this Dalgarno hath proved one of the most insolent\r\nvillains on earth, and it must therefore be clear, that if Lord\r\nGlenvarloch had run him through the body, there would but have been\r\nout of the world a knave who had lived in it too long. I think Lord\r\nGlenvarloch hath had much wrong; and I regret that, by the persuasions\r\nof this false fellow, I have myself had some hand in it.”\r\n\r\n“Ye speak like a child, Steenie--I mean my Lord of Buckingham,” answered\r\nthe king, “and as one that does not understand the logic of the schools;\r\nfor an action may be inconsequential or even meritorious, _quoad\r\nhominem_, that is, as touching him upon _whom_ it is acted; and yet most\r\ncriminal, _quoad locum_, or considering the place _wherein_ it is done;\r\nas a man may lawfully dance Chrighty Beardie or any other dance in a\r\ntavern, but not _inter parietes ecclesiae_."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So that, though it may have\r\nbeen a good deed to have sticked Lord Dalgarno, being such as he has\r\nshown himself, anywhere else, yet it fell under the plain statute, when\r\nviolence was offered within the verge of the Court. For, let me tell\r\nyou, my lords, the statute against striking would be of no small use in\r\nour Court, if it could be eluded by justifying the person stricken to be\r\na knave. It is much to be lamented that I ken nae Court in Christendom\r\nwhere knaves are not to be found; and if men are to break the peace\r\nunder pretence of beating them, why, it will rain Jeddart staves\r\n[Footnote: The old-fashioned weapon called the Jeddart staff was a\r\nspecies of battle-axe. Of a very great tempest, it is said, in the south\r\nof Scotland, that it rains Jeddart staffs, as in England the common\r\npeople talk of its raining cats and dogs.] in our very ante-chamber.”\r\n\r\n“What your Majesty says,” replied Prince Charles, “is marked with your\r\nusual wisdom--the precincts of palaces must be sacred as well as\r\nthe persons of kings, which are respected even in the most barbarous\r\nnations, as being one step only beneath their divinities."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But your\r\nMajesty's will can control the severity of this and every other law,\r\nand it is in your power, on consideration of his case, to grant the rash\r\nyoung man a free pardon.”\r\n\r\n“_Rem acu tetigisti, Carole, mi puerule,_” answered the king; “and know,\r\nmy lords, that we have, by a shrewd device and gift of our own, already\r\nsounded the very depth of this Lord Glenvarloch's disposition. I trow\r\nthere be among you some that remember my handling in the curious case\r\nof my Lady Lake, and how I trimmed them about the story of hearkening\r\nbehind the arras. Now this put me to cogitation, and I remembered me\r\nof having read that Dionysius, King of Syracuse, whom historians call\r\nTyrannos, which signifieth not in the Greek tongue, as in ours, a\r\ntruculent usurper, but a royal king who governs, it may be, something\r\nmore strictly than we and other lawful monarchs, whom the ancients\r\ntermed Basileis--Now this Dionysius of Syracuse caused cunning workmen\r\nto build for himself a _lugg_--D'ye ken what that is, my Lord Bishop?”\r\n\r\n“A cathedral, I presume to guess,” answered the Bishop. “What the deil, man--I crave your lordship's pardon for swearing--but\r\nit was no cathedral--only a lurking-place called the king's _lugg_,\r\nor _ear_, where he could sit undescried, and hear the converse of his\r\nprisoners."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now, sirs, in imitation of this Dionysius, whom I took for\r\nmy pattern, the rather that he was a great linguist and grammarian, and\r\ntaught a school with good applause after his abdication, (either he or\r\nhis successor of the same name, it matters not whilk)--I have caused\r\nthem to make a _lugg_ up at the state-prison of the Tower yonder, more\r\nlike a pulpit than a cathedral, my Lord Bishop--and communicating with\r\nthe arras behind the Lieutenant's chamber, where we may sit and\r\nprivily hear the discourse of such prisoners as are pent up there for\r\nstate-offences, and so creep into the very secrets of our enemies.”\r\n\r\nThe Prince cast a glance towards the Duke, expressive of great vexation\r\nand disgust. Buckingham shrugged his shoulders, but the motion was so\r\nslight as to be almost imperceptible. “Weel, my lords, ye ken the fray at the hunting this morning--I\r\nshall not get out of the trembling exies until I have a sound night's\r\nsleep--just after that, they bring ye in a pretty page that had been\r\nfound in the Park. We were warned against examining him ourselves by the\r\nanxious care of those around us; nevertheless, holding our life ever at\r\nthe service of these kingdoms, we commanded all to avoid the room,\r\nthe rather that we suspected this boy to be a girl."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What think ye, my\r\nlords?--few of you would have thought I had a hawk's eye for sic gear;\r\nbut we thank God, that though we are old, we know so much of such toys\r\nas may beseem a man of decent gravity. Weel, my lords, we questioned\r\nthis maiden in male attire ourselves, and I profess it was a very pretty\r\ninterrogatory, and well followed. For, though she at first professed\r\nthat she assumed this disguise in order to countenance the woman who\r\nshould present us with the Lady Hermione's petition, for whom she\r\nprofessed entire affection; yet when we, suspecting _anguis in herba_,\r\ndid put her to the very question, she was compelled to own a virtuous\r\nattachment for Glenvarlochides, in such a pretty passion of shame and\r\nfear, that we had much ado to keep our own eyes from keeping company\r\nwith hers in weeping. Also, she laid before us the false practices of\r\nthis Dalgarno towards Glenvarlochides, inveigling him into houses of ill\r\nresort, and giving him evil counsel under pretext of sincere friendship,\r\nwhereby the inexperienced lad was led to do what was prejudicial to\r\nhimself, and offensive to us. But, however prettily she told her tale,\r\nwe determined not altogether to trust to her narration, but rather to\r\ntry the experiment whilk we had devised for such occasions."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And having\r\nourselves speedily passed from Greenwich to the Tower, we constituted\r\nourselves eavesdropper, as it is called, to observe what should pass\r\nbetween Glenvarlochides and his page, whom we caused to be admitted to\r\nhis apartment, well judging that if they were of counsel together to\r\ndeceive us, it could not be but something of it would spunk out--And\r\nwhat think ye we saw, my lords?--Naething for you to sniggle and laugh\r\nat, Steenie--for I question if you could have played the temperate and\r\nChristian-like part of this poor lad Glenvarloch. He might be a Father\r\nof the Church in comparison of you, man.--And then, to try his patience\r\nyet farther, we loosed on him a courtier and a citizen, that is Sir\r\nMungo Malagrowther and our servant George Heriot here, wha dang the poor\r\nlad about, and didna greatly spare our royal selves.--You mind, Geordie,\r\nwhat you said about the wives and concubines? but I forgie ye, man--nae\r\nneed of kneeling, I forgie ye--the readier, that it regards a certain\r\nparticular, whilk, as it added not much to Solomon's credit, the lack\r\nof it cannot be said to impinge on ours."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Aweel, my lords, for all\r\ntemptation of sore distress and evil ensample, this poor lad never\r\nloosed his tongue on us to say one unbecoming word--which inclines us\r\nthe rather, acting always by your wise advice, to treat this affair\r\nof the Park as a thing done in the heat of blood, and under strong\r\nprovocation, and therefore to confer our free pardon on Lord\r\nGlenvarloch.”\r\n\r\n“I am happy your gracious Majesty,” said the Duke of Buckingham, “has\r\narrived at that conclusion, though I could never have guessed at the\r\nroad by which you attained it.”\r\n\r\n“I trust,” said Prince Charles, “that it is not a path which your\r\nMajesty will think it consistent with your high dignity to tread\r\nfrequently.”\r\n\r\n“Never while I live again, Baby Charles, that I give you my royal word\r\non. They say that hearkeners hear ill tales of themselves--by my saul,\r\nmy very ears are tingling wi' that auld sorrow Sir Mungo's sarcasms. He\r\ncalled us close-fisted, Steenie--I am sure you can contradict that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But\r\nit is mere envy in the auld mutilated sinner, because he himself has\r\nneither a noble to hold in his loof, nor fingers to close on it if he\r\nhad.” Here the king lost recollection of Sir Mungo's irreverence\r\nin chuckling over his own wit, and only farther alluded to it by\r\nsaying--“We must give the old maunderer _bos in linguam_--something to\r\nstop his mouth, or he will rail at us from Dan to Beersheba.--And now,\r\nmy lords, let our warrant of mercy to Lord Glenvarloch be presently\r\nexpedited, and he put to his freedom; and as his estate is likely to go\r\nso sleaveless a gate, we will consider what means of favour we can\r\nshow him.--My lords, I wish you an appetite to an early supper--for our\r\nlabours have approached that term.--Baby Charles and Steenie, you will\r\nremain till our couchee.--My Lord Bishop, you will be pleased to stay to\r\nbless our meat.--Geordie Heriot, a word with you apart.”\r\n\r\nHis Majesty then drew the citizen into a corner, while the counsellors,\r\nthose excepted who had been commanded to remain, made their\r\nobeisance, and withdrew."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Geordie,” said the king, “my good and trusty\r\nservant”--Here he busied his fingers much with the points and ribbons of\r\nhis dress,--“Ye see that we have granted, from our own natural sense of\r\nright and justice, that which yon long-backed fallow, Moniplies I think\r\nthey ca' him, proffered to purchase from us with a mighty bribe; whilk\r\nwe refused, as being a crowned king, who wad neither sell our justice\r\nnor our mercy for pecuniar consideration. Now, what think ye should be\r\nthe upshot of this?”\r\n\r\n“My Lord Glenvarloch's freedom, and his restoration to your Majesty's\r\nfavour,” said Heriot. “I ken that,” said the king, peevishly. “Ye are very dull to-day. I\r\nmean, what do you think this fallow Moniplies should think about the\r\nmatter?”\r\n\r\n“Surely that your Majesty is a most good and gracious sovereign,”\r\n answered Heriot. “We had need to be gude and gracious baith,” said the king, still more\r\npettishly, “that have idiots about us that cannot understand what we\r\nmint at, unless we speak it out in braid Lowlands. See this chield\r\nMoniplies, sir, and tell him what we have done for Lord Glenvarloch,\r\nin whom he takes such part, out of our own gracious motion, though we\r\nrefused to do it on ony proffer of private advantage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now, you may put\r\nit till him, as if of your own mind, whether it will be a gracious or a\r\ndutiful part in him, to press us for present payment of the two or three\r\nhundred miserable pounds for whilk we were obliged to opignorate our\r\njewels? Indeed, mony men may think ye wad do the part of a good citizen,\r\nif you took it on yourself to refuse him payment, seeing he hath\r\nhad what he professed to esteem full satisfaction, and considering,\r\nmoreover, that it is evident he hath no pressing need of the money,\r\nwhereof we have much necessity.”\r\n\r\nGeorge Heriot sighed internally. “O my Master,” thought he--“my dear\r\nMaster, is it then fated you are never to indulge any kingly or noble\r\nsentiment, without its being sullied by some afterthought of interested\r\nselfishness!”\r\n\r\nThe king troubled himself not about what he thought, but taking him by\r\nthe collar, said,--“Ye ken my meaning now, Jingler--awa wi' ye. You\r\nare a wise man--manage it your ain gate--but forget not our present\r\nstraits.” The citizen made his obeisance, and withdrew. “And now, bairns,” said the king, “what do you look upon each other\r\nfor--and what have you got to ask of your dear dad and gossip?”\r\n\r\n“Only,” said the Prince, “that it would please your Majesty to command\r\nthe lurking-place at the prison to be presently built up--the groans of\r\na captive should not be brought in evidence against him.”\r\n\r\n“What! build up my lugg, Baby Charles?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "And yet, better deaf than hear\r\nill tales of oneself. So let them build it up, hard and fast, without\r\ndelay, the rather that my back is sair with sitting in it for a whole\r\nhour.--And now let us see what the cooks have been doing for us, bonny\r\nbairns.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XXXIV\r\n\r\n\r\n  To this brave man the knight repairs\r\n  For counsel in his law affairs;\r\n  And found him mounted in his pew. With books and money placed for show,\r\n  Like nest-eggs to make clients lay,\r\n  And for his false opinion pay. _Hudibras._\r\n\r\nOur readers may recollect a certain smooth-tongued, lank-haired,\r\nbuckram-suited, Scottish scrivener, who, in the earlier part of this\r\nhistory, appeared in the character of a protege of George Heriot. It is\r\nto his house we are about to remove, but times have changed with him. The petty booth hath become a chamber of importance--the buckram suit\r\nis changed into black velvet; and although the wearer retains his\r\npuritanical humility and politeness to clients of consequence, he can\r\nnow look others broad in the face, and treat them with a full allowance\r\nof superior opulence, and the insolence arising from it. It was but\r\na short period that had achieved these alterations, nor was the party\r\nhimself as yet entirely accustomed to them, but the change was becoming\r\nless embarrassing to him with every day's practice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Among other\r\nacquisitions of wealth, you may see one of Davy Ramsay's best timepieces\r\non the table, and his eye is frequently observing its revolutions, while\r\na boy, whom he employs as a scribe, is occasionally sent out to compare\r\nits progress with the clock of Saint Dunstan. The scrivener himself seemed considerably agitated. He took from a\r\nstrong-box a bundle of parchments, and read passages of them with great\r\nattention; then began to soliloquize--“There is no outlet which law can\r\nsuggest--no back-door of evasion--none--if the lands of Glenvarloch\r\nare not redeemed before it rings noon, Lord Dalgarno has them a cheap\r\npennyworth. Strange, that he should have been at last able to set his\r\npatron at defiance, and achieve for himself the fair estate, with the\r\nprospect of which he so long flattered the powerful Buckingham.--Might\r\nnot Andrew Skurliewhitter nick him as neatly? He hath been my\r\npatron--true--not more than Buckingham was his; and he can be so no\r\nmore, for he departs presently for Scotland. I am glad of it--I hate\r\nhim, and I fear him. He knows too many of my secrets--I know too many\r\nof his. But, no--no--no--I need never attempt it, there are no means of\r\nover-reaching him.--Well, Willie, what o'clock?”\r\n\r\n“Ele'en hours just chappit, sir.”\r\n\r\n“Go to your desk without, child,” said the scrivener. “What to do\r\nnext--I shall lose the old Earl's fair business, and, what is worse, his\r\nson's foul practice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Old Heriot looks too close into business to permit\r\nme more than the paltry and ordinary dues. The Whitefriars business was\r\nprofitable, but it has become unsafe ever since--pah!--what brought that\r\nin my head just now? I can hardly hold my pen--if men should see me\r\nin this way!--Willie,” (calling aloud to the boy,) “a cup of distilled\r\nwaters--Soh!--now I could face the devil.”\r\n\r\nHe spoke the last words aloud, and close by the door of the apartment,\r\nwhich was suddenly opened by Richie Moniplies, followed by two\r\ngentlemen, and attended by two porters bearing money-bags. “If ye can\r\nface the devil, Maister Skurliewhitter,” said Richie, “ye will be the\r\nless likely to turn your back on a sack or twa o' siller, which I have\r\nta'en the freedom to bring you. Sathanas and Mammon are near akin.” The\r\nporters, at the same time, ranged their load on the floor. “I--I,”--stammered the surprised scrivener--“I cannot guess what you\r\nmean, sir.”\r\n\r\n“Only that I have brought you the redemption-money on the part of\r\nLord Glenvarloch, in discharge of a certain mortgage over his family\r\ninheritance. And here, in good time, comes Master Reginald Lowestoffe,\r\nand another honourable gentleman of the Temple, to be witnesses to the\r\ntransaction.”\r\n\r\n“I--I incline to think,” said the scrivener, “that the term is expired.”\r\n\r\n“You will pardon us, Master Scrivener,” said Lowestoffe."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“You will not\r\nbaffle us--it wants three-quarters of noon by every clock in the city.”\r\n\r\n“I must have time, gentlemen,” said Andrew, “to examine the gold by tale\r\nand weight.”\r\n\r\n“Do so at your leisure, Master Scrivener,” replied Lowestoffe again. “We have already seen the contents of each sack told and weighed, and we\r\nhave put our seals on them. There they stand in a row, twenty in number,\r\neach containing three hundred yellow-hammers--we are witnesses to the\r\nlawful tender.”\r\n\r\n“Gentlemen,” said the scrivener, “this security now belongs to a\r\nmighty lord. I pray you, abate your haste, and let me send for Lord\r\nDalgarno,--or rather I will run for him myself.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, he took up his hat; but Lowestoffe called out,--“Friend\r\nMoniplies, keep the door fast, an thou be'st a man! he seeks but to put\r\noff the time.--In plain terms, Andrew, you may send for the devil, if\r\nyou will, who is the mightiest lord of my acquaintance, but from hence\r\nyou stir not till you have answered our proposition, by rejecting or\r\naccepting the redemption-money fairly tendered--there it lies--take it,\r\nor leave it, as you will. I have skill enough to know that the law is\r\nmightier than any lord in Britain--I have learned so much at the Temple,\r\nif I have learned nothing else."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And see that you trifle not with it,\r\nlest it make your long ears an inch shorter, Master Skurliewhitter.”\r\n\r\n“Nay, gentlemen, if you threaten me,” said the scrivener, “I cannot\r\nresist compulsion.”\r\n\r\n“No threats--no threats at all, my little Andrew,” said Lowestoffe; “a\r\nlittle friendly advice only--forget not, honest Andrew, I have seen you\r\nin Alsatia.”\r\n\r\nWithout answering a single word, the scrivener sat down, and drew in\r\nproper form a full receipt for the money proffered. “I take it on your report, Master Lowestoffe,” he said; “I hope you\r\nwill remember I have insisted neither upon weight nor tale--I have been\r\ncivil--if there is deficiency I shall come to loss.”\r\n\r\n“Fillip his nose with a gold-piece, Richie,” quoth the Templar. “Take up\r\nthe papers, and now wend we merrily to dine thou wot'st where.”\r\n\r\n“If I might choose,” said Richie, “it should not be at yonder roguish\r\nordinary; but as it is your pleasure, gentlemen, the treat shall be\r\ngiven wheresoever you will have it.”\r\n\r\n“At the ordinary,” said the one Templar. “At Beaujeu's,” said the other; “it is the only house in London for neat\r\nwines, nimble drawers, choice dishes, and--”\r\n\r\n“And high charges,” quoth Richie Moniplies."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“But, as I said before,\r\ngentlemen, ye have a right to command me in this thing, having so\r\nfrankly rendered me your service in this small matter of business,\r\nwithout other stipulation than that of a slight banquet.”\r\n\r\nThe latter part of this discourse passed in the street, where,\r\nimmediately afterwards, they met Lord Dalgarno. He appeared in haste,\r\ntouched his hat slightly to Master Lowestoffe, who returned his\r\nreverence with the same negligence, and walked slowly on with his\r\ncompanion, while Lord Dalgarno stopped Richie Moniplies with a\r\ncommanding sign, which the instinct of education compelled Moniplies,\r\nthough indignant, to obey. “Whom do you now follow, sirrah?” demanded the noble. “Whomsoever goeth before me, my lord,” answered Moniplies. “No sauciness, you knave--I desire to know if you still serve Nigel\r\nOlifaunt?” said Dalgarno. “I am friend to the noble Lord Glenvarloch,” answered Moniplies, with\r\ndignity. “True,” replied Lord Dalgarno, “that noble lord has sunk to seek friends\r\namong lackeys--Nevertheless,--hark thee hither,--nevertheless, if he\r\nbe of the same mind as when we last met, thou mayst show him, that, on\r\nto-morrow, at four afternoon, I shall pass northward by Enfield Chase--I\r\nwill be slenderly attended, as I design to send my train through Barnet. It is my purpose to ride an easy pace through the forest, and to linger\r\na while by Camlet Moat--he knows the place; and, if he be aught but an\r\nAlsatian bully, will think it fitter for some purposes than the Park."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He\r\nis, I understand, at liberty, or shortly to be so. If he fail me at\r\nthe place nominated, he must seek me in Scotland, where he will find me\r\npossessed of his father's estate and lands.”\r\n\r\n“Humph!” muttered Richie; “there go twa words to that bargain.”\r\n\r\nHe even meditated a joke on the means which he was conscious he\r\npossessed of baffling Lord Dalgarno's expectations; but there was\r\nsomething of keen and dangerous excitement in the eyes of the young\r\nnobleman, which prompted his discretion for once to rule his vit, and he\r\nonly answered--\r\n\r\n“God grant your lordship may well brook your new conquest--when you\r\nget it. I shall do your errand to my lord--whilk is to say,” he added\r\ninternally, “he shall never hear a word of it from Richie. I am not the\r\nlad to put him in such hazard.”\r\n\r\nLord Dalgarno looked at him sharply for a moment, as if to penetrate\r\nthe meaning of the dry ironical tone, which, in spite of Richie's awe,\r\nmingled with his answer, and then waved his hand, in signal he should\r\npass on. He himself walked slowly till the trio were out of sight, then\r\nturned back with hasty steps to the door of the scrivener, which he had\r\npassed in his progress, knocked, and was admitted. Lord Dalgarno found the man of law with the money-bags still\r\nstanding before him; and it escaped not his penetrating glance, that\r\nSkurliewhitter was disconcerted and alarmed at his approach."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“How now, man,” he said; “what! hast thou not a word of oily compliment\r\nto me on my happy marriage?--not a word of most philosophical\r\nconsolation on my disgrace at Court?--Or has my mien, as a wittol and\r\ndiscarded favourite, the properties of the Gorgon's head, the _turbatae\r\nPalladis arma_, as Majesty might say?”\r\n\r\n“My lord, I am glad--my lord, I am sorry,”--answered the trembling\r\nscrivener, who, aware of the vivacity of Lord Dalgarno's temper, dreaded\r\nthe consequence of the communication he had to make to him. “Glad and sorry!” answered Lord Dalgarno. “That is blowing hot and cold,\r\nwith a witness. Hark ye, you picture of petty-larceny personified--if\r\nyou are sorry I am a cuckold, remember I am only mine own, you\r\nknave--there is too little blood in her cheeks to have sent her astray\r\nelsewhere. Well, I will bear mine antler'd honours as I may--gold\r\nshall gild them; and for my disgrace, revenge shall sweeten it. Ay,\r\nrevenge--and there strikes the happy hour!”\r\n\r\nThe hour of noon was accordingly heard to peal from Saint Dunstan's. “Well banged, brave hammers!” said Lord Dalgarno, in triumph.--“The\r\nestate and lands of Glenvarloch are crushed beneath these clanging\r\nblows. If my steel to-morrow prove but as true as your iron maces\r\nto-day, the poor landless lord will little miss what your peal hath\r\ncut him out from.--The papers--the papers, thou varlet! I am to-morrow\r\nNorthward, ho! At four, afternoon, I am bound to be at Camlet Moat,\r\nin the Enfield Chase."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To-night most of my retinue set forward. The\r\npapers!--Come, dispatch.”\r\n\r\n“My lord, the--the papers of the Glenvarloch mortgage--I--I have them\r\nnot.”\r\n\r\n“Have them not!” echoed Lord Dalgarno,--“Hast thou sent them to my\r\nlodgings, thou varlet? Did I not say I was coming hither?--What mean you\r\nby pointing to that money? What villainy have you done for it? It is too\r\nlarge to be come honestly by.”\r\n\r\n“Your lordship knows best,” answered the scrivener, in great\r\nperturbation. “The gold is your own. It is--it is--”\r\n\r\n“Not the redemption-money of the Glenvarloch estate!” said Dalgarno. “Dare not say it is, or I will, upon the spot, divorce your pettifogging\r\nsoul from your carrion carcass!” So saying, he seized the scrivener\r\nby the collar, and shook him so vehemently, that he tore it from the\r\ncassock. “My lord, I must call for help,” said the trembling caitiff, who felt\r\nat that moment all the bitterness of the mortal agony--“It was the law's\r\nact, not mine. What could I do?”\r\n\r\n“Dost ask?--why, thou snivelling dribblet of damnation, were all thy\r\noaths, tricks, and lies spent? or do you hold yourself too good to utter\r\nthem in my service? Thou shouldst have lied, cozened, out-sworn truth\r\nitself, rather than stood betwixt me and my revenge! But mark me,” he\r\ncontinued; “I know more of your pranks than would hang thee. A line from\r\nme to the Attorney-General, and thou art sped.”\r\n\r\n“What would you have me to do, my lord?” said the scrivener."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“All that\r\nart and law can accomplish, I will try.”\r\n\r\n“Ah, are you converted? do so, or pity of your life!” said the lord;\r\n“and remember I never fail my word.--Then keep that accursed gold,”\r\n he continued. “Or, stay, I will not trust you--send me this gold home\r\npresently to my lodging. I will still forward to Scotland, and it shall\r\ngo hard but that I hold out Glenvarloch Castle against the owner, by\r\nmeans of the ammunition he has himself furnished. Thou art ready to\r\nserve me?” The scrivener professed the most implicit obedience. “Then remember, the hour was past ere payment was tendered--and see thou\r\nhast witnesses of trusty memory to prove that point.”\r\n\r\n“Tush, my lord, I will do more,” said Andrew, reviving--“I will prove\r\nthat Lord Glenvarloch's friends threatened, swaggered, and drew swords\r\non me.--Did your lordship think I was ungrateful enough to have suffered\r\nthem to prejudice your lordship, save that they had bare swords at my\r\nthroat?”\r\n\r\n“Enough said,” replied Dalgarno; “you are perfect--mind that you\r\ncontinue so, as you would avoid my fury. I leave my page below--get\r\nporters, and let them follow me instantly with the gold.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, Lord Dalgarno left the scrivener's habitation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Skurliewhitter, having dispatched his boy to get porters of trust for\r\ntransporting the money, remained alone and in dismay, meditating by\r\nwhat means he could shake himself free of the vindictive and ferocious\r\nnobleman, who possessed at once a dangerous knowledge of his character,\r\nand the power of exposing him, where exposure would be ruin. He\r\nhad indeed acquiesced in the plan, rapidly sketched, for obtaining\r\npossession of the ransomed estate, but his experience foresaw that this\r\nwould be impossible; while, on the other hand, he could not anticipate\r\nthe various consequences of Lord Dalgarno's resentment, without fears,\r\nfrom which his sordid soul recoiled. To be in the power, and subject\r\nboth to the humours and the extortions of a spendthrift young lord, just\r\nwhen his industry had shaped out the means of fortune,--it was the most\r\ncruel trick which fate could have played the incipient usurer. While the scrivener was in this fit of anxious anticipation, one knocked\r\nat the door of the apartment; and, being desired to enter, appeared in\r\nthe coarse riding-cloak of uncut Wiltshire cloth, fastened by a broad\r\nleather belt and brass buckle, which was then generally worn by graziers\r\nand countrymen."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Skurliewhitter, believing he saw in his visitor a\r\ncountry client who might prove profitable, had opened his mouth to\r\nrequest him to be seated, when the stranger, throwing back his frieze\r\nhood which he had drawn over his face, showed the scrivener features\r\nwell imprinted in his recollection, but which he never saw without a\r\ndisposition to swoon. “Is it you?” he said, faintly, as the stranger replaced the hood which\r\nconcealed his features. “Who else should it be?” said his visitor. “Thou son of parchment, got betwixt the inkhorn And the stuff'd\r\nprocess-bag--that mayest call The pen thy father, and the ink thy mother,\r\n\r\n The wax thy brother, and the sand thy sister\r\n And the good pillory thy cousin allied--\r\n Rise, and do reverence unto me, thy better!”\r\n\r\n“Not yet down to the country,” said the scrivener, “after every warning? Do not think your grazier's cloak will bear you out, captain--no, nor\r\nyour scraps of stage-plays.”\r\n\r\n“Why, what would you have me to do?” said the captain--“Would you have\r\nme starve? If I am to fly, you must eke my wings with a few feathers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You can spare them, I think.”\r\n\r\n“You had means already--you have had ten pieces--What is become of\r\nthem?”\r\n\r\n“Gone,” answered Captain Colepepper--“Gone, no matter where--I had a\r\nmind to bite, and I was bitten, that's all--I think my hand shook at the\r\nthought of t'other night's work, for I trowled the doctors like a very\r\nbaby.”\r\n\r\n“And you have lost all, then?--Well, take this and be gone,” said the\r\nscrivener. “What, two poor smelts! Marry, plague of your bounty!--But remember, you\r\nare as deep in as I.”\r\n\r\n“Not so, by Heaven!” answered the scrivener; “I only thought of easing\r\nthe old man of some papers and a trifle of his gold, and you took his\r\nlife.”\r\n\r\n“Were he living,” answered Colepepper, “he would rather have lost\r\nit than his money.--But that is not the question, Master\r\nSkurliewhitter--you undid the private bolts of the window when you\r\nvisited him about some affairs on the day ere he died--so satisfy\r\nyourself, that, if I am taken, I will not swing alone. Pity Jack\r\nHempsfield is dead, it spoils the old catch,\r\n\r\n     'And three merry men, and three merry men,\r\n      And three merry men are we,\r\n      As ever did sing three parts in a string,\r\n      All under the triple tree. '”\r\n\r\n“For God's sake, speak lower,” said the scrivener; “is this a place or\r\ntime to make your midnight catches heard?--But how much will serve your\r\nturn?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I tell you I am but ill provided.”\r\n\r\n“You tell me a lie, then,” said the bully--“a most palpable and gross\r\nlie.--How much, d'ye say, will serve my turn? Why, one of these bags\r\nwill do for the present.”\r\n\r\n“I swear to you that these bags of money are not at my disposal.”\r\n\r\n“Not honestly, perhaps,” said the captain, “but that makes little\r\ndifference betwixt us.”\r\n\r\n“I swear to you,” continued the scrivener “they are in no way at my\r\ndisposal--they have been delivered to me by tale--I am to pay them over\r\nto Lord Dalgarno, whose boy waits for them, and I could not skelder one\r\npiece out of them, without risk of hue and cry.”\r\n\r\n“Can you not put off the delivery?” said the bravo, his huge hand still\r\nfumbling with one of the bags, as if his fingers longed to close on it. “Impossible,” said the scrivener, “he sets forward to Scotland\r\nto-morrow.”\r\n\r\n“Ay!” said the bully, after a moment's thought--“Travels he the north\r\nroad with such a charge?”\r\n\r\n“He is well accompanied,” added the scrivener; “but yet--”\r\n\r\n“But yet--but what?” said the bravo. “Nay, I meant nothing,” said the scrivener. “Thou didst--thou hadst the wind of some good thing,” replied\r\nColepepper; “I saw thee pause like a setting dog."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Thou wilt say as\r\nlittle, and make as sure a sign, as a well-bred spaniel.”\r\n\r\n“All I meant to say, captain, was, that his servants go by Barnet, and\r\nhe himself, with his page, pass through Enfield Chase; and he spoke to\r\nme yesterday of riding a soft pace.”\r\n\r\n“Aha!--Comest thou to me there, my boy?”\r\n\r\n“And of resting”--continued the scrivener,--“resting a space at Camlet\r\nMoat.”\r\n\r\n“Why, this is better than cock-fighting!” said the captain. “I see not how it can advantage you, captain,” said the scrivener. “But,\r\nhowever, they cannot ride fast, for his page rides the sumpter-horse,\r\nwhich carries all that weight,” pointing to the money on the table. “Lord Dalgarno looks sharp to the world's gear.”\r\n\r\n“That horse will be obliged to those who may ease him of his burden,”\r\n said the bravo; “and egad, he may be met with.--He hath still that\r\npage--that same Lutin--that goblin? Well, the boy hath set game for\r\nme ere now. I will be revenged, too, for I owe him a grudge for an old\r\nscore at the ordinary. Let me see--Black Feltham, and Dick Shakebag--we\r\nshall want a fourth--I love to make sure, and the booty will stand\r\nparting, besides what I can bucket them out of. Well, scrivener, lend\r\nme two pieces.--Bravely done--nobly imparted! Give ye good-den.” And\r\nwrapping his disguise closer around him, away he went. When he had left the room, the scrivener wrung his hands, and exclaimed,\r\n“More blood--more blood!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I thought to have had done with it, but this\r\ntime there was no fault with me--none--and then I shall have all the\r\nadvantage. If this ruffian falls, there is truce with his tugs at my\r\npurse-strings; and if Lord Dalgarno dies--as is most likely, for though\r\nas much afraid of cold steel as a debtor of a dun, this fellow is\r\na deadly shot from behind a bush,--then am I in a thousand ways\r\nsafe--safe--safe.”\r\n\r\nWe willingly drop the curtain over him and his reflections. CHAPTER XXXV\r\n\r\n\r\n  We are not worst at once--the course of evil\r\n  Begins so slowly, and from such slight source,\r\n  An infant's hand might stem its breach with clay;\r\n  But let the stream get deeper, and philosophy--\r\n  Ay, and religion too--shall strive in vain\r\n  To turn the headlong torrent. _Old Play._\r\n\r\nThe Templars had been regaled by our friend Richie Moniplies in a\r\nprivate chamber at Beaujeu's, where he might be considered as good\r\ncompany; for he had exchanged his serving-man's cloak and jerkin for\r\na grave yet handsome suit of clothes, in the fashion of the times, but\r\nsuch as might have befitted an older man than himself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had positively\r\ndeclined presenting himself at the ordinary, a point to which his\r\ncompanions were very desirous to have brought him, for it will be\r\neasily believed that such wags as Lowestoffe and his companion were not\r\nindisposed to a little merriment at the expense of the raw and pedantic\r\nScotsman; besides the chance of easing him of a few pieces, of which\r\nhe appeared to have acquired considerable command. But not even a\r\nsuccession of measures of sparkling sack, in which the little brilliant\r\natoms circulated like motes in the sun's rays, had the least effect\r\non Richie's sense of decorum. He retained the gravity of a judge, even\r\nwhile he drank like a fish, partly from his own natural inclination to\r\ngood liquor, partly in the way of good fellowship towards his guests. When the wine began to make some innovation on their heads, Master\r\nLowestoffe, tired, perhaps, of the humours of Richie, who began to\r\nbecome yet more stoically contradictory and dogmatical than even in the\r\nearlier part of the entertainment, proposed to his friend to break up\r\ntheir debauch and join the gamesters."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The drawer was called accordingly, and Richie discharged the reckoning\r\nof the party, with a generous remuneration to the attendants, which was\r\nreceived with cap and knee, and many assurances of--“Kindly welcome,\r\ngentlemen.”\r\n\r\n“I grieve we should part so soon, gentlemen,” said Richie to his\r\ncompanions,--“and I would you had cracked another quart ere you went, or\r\nstayed to take some slight matter of supper, and a glass of Rhenish. I\r\nthank you, however, for having graced my poor collation thus far; and\r\nI commend you to fortune, in your own courses, for the ordinary neither\r\nwas, is, nor shall be, an element of mine.”\r\n\r\n“Fare thee well, then,” said Lowestoffe, “most sapient and sententious\r\nMaster Moniplies."}
{"question": "", "answer": "May you soon have another mortgage to redeem, and may\r\nI be there to witness it; and may you play the good fellow, as heartily\r\nas you have done this day.”\r\n\r\n“Nay, gentlemen, it is merely of your grace to say so--but, if you\r\nwould but hear me speak a few words of admonition respecting this wicked\r\nordinary--”\r\n\r\n“Reserve the lesson, most honourable Richie,” said Lowestoffe, “until\r\nI have lost all my money,” showing, at the same time, a purse\r\nindifferently well provided, “and then the lecture is likely to have\r\nsome weight.”\r\n\r\n“And keep my share of it, Richie,” said the other Templar, showing an\r\nalmost empty purse, in his turn, “till this be full again, and then I\r\nwill promise to hear you with some patience.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay, gallants,” said Richie, “the full and the empty gang a' ae\r\ngate, and that is a grey one--but the time will come.”\r\n\r\n“Nay, it is come already,” said Lowestoffe; “they have set out the\r\nhazard table. Since you will peremptorily not go with us, why, farewell,\r\nRichie.”\r\n\r\n“And farewell, gentlemen,” said Richie, and left the house, into which\r\nthey had returned."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Moniplies was not many steps from the door, when a person, whom, lost\r\nin his reflections on gaming, ordinaries, and the manners of the age,\r\nhe had not observed, and who had been as negligent on his part, ran\r\nfull against him; and, when Richie desired to know whether he meant “ony\r\nincivility,” replied by a curse on Scotland, and all that belonged to\r\nit. A less round reflection on his country would, at any time, have\r\nprovoked Richie, but more especially when he had a double quart of\r\nCanary and better in his pate. He was about to give a very rough answer,\r\nand to second his word by action, when a closer view of his antagonist\r\nchanged his purpose. “You are the vera lad in the warld,” said Richie, “whom I most wished to\r\nmeet.”\r\n\r\n“And you,” answered the stranger, “or any of your beggarly countrymen,\r\nare the last sight I should ever wish to see. You Scots are ever fair\r\nand false, and an honest man cannot thrive within eyeshot of you.”\r\n\r\n“As to our poverty, friend,” replied Richie, “that is as Heaven pleases;\r\nbut touching our falset, I'll prove to you that a Scotsman bears as leal\r\nand true a heart to his friend as ever beat in English doublet.”\r\n\r\n“I care not whether he does or not,” said the gallant. “Let me go--why\r\nkeep you hold of my cloak?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Let me go, or I will thrust you into the\r\nkennel.”\r\n\r\n“I believe I could forgie ye, for you did me a good turn once, in\r\nplucking me out of it,” said the Scot. “Beshrew my fingers, then, if they did so,” replied the stranger. “I\r\nwould your whole country lay there, along with you; and Heaven's curse\r\nblight the hand that helped to raise them!--Why do you stop my way?” he\r\nadded, fiercely. “Because it is a bad one, Master Jenkin,” said Richie. “Nay, never start\r\nabout it, man--you see you are known. Alack-a-day! that an honest man's\r\nson should live to start at hearing himself called by his own name!”\r\n Jenkin struck his brow violently with his clenched fist. “Come, come,” said Richie, “this passion availeth nothing. Tell me what\r\ngate go you?”\r\n\r\n“To the devil!” answered Jin Vin. “That is a black gate, if you speak according to the letter,” answered\r\nRichie; “but if metaphorically, there are worse places in this great\r\ncity than the Devil Tavern; and I care not if I go thither with you, and\r\nbestow a pottle of burnt sack on you--it will correct the crudities of\r\nmy stomach, and form a gentle preparative for the leg of a cold pullet.”\r\n\r\n“I pray you, in good fashion, to let me go,” said Jenkin."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“You may mean\r\nme kindly, and I wish you to have no wrong at my hand; but I am in the\r\nhumour to be dangerous to myself, or any one.”\r\n\r\n“I will abide the risk,” said the Scot, “if you will but come with me;\r\nand here is a place convenient, a howff nearer than the Devil, whilk\r\nis but an ill-omened drouthy name for a tavern. This other of the Saint\r\nAndrew is a quiet place, where I have ta'en my whetter now and\r\nthen, when I lodged in the neighbourhood of the Temple with Lord\r\nGlenvarloch.--What the deil's the matter wi' the man, garr'd him gie sic\r\na spang as that, and almaist brought himself and me on the causeway?”\r\n\r\n“Do not name that false Scot's name to me,” said Jin Vin, “if you would\r\nnot have me go mad!--I was happy before I saw him--he has been the cause\r\nof all the ill that has befallen me--he has made a knave and a madman of\r\nme!”\r\n\r\n“If you are a knave,” said Richie, “you have met an officer--if you are\r\ndaft, you have met a keeper; but a gentle officer and a kind keeper. Look you, my gude friend, there has been twenty things said about this\r\nsame lord, in which there is no more truth than in the leasings of\r\nMahound."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The warst they can say of him is, that he is not always so\r\namenable to good advice as I would pray him, you, and every young man to\r\nbe. Come wi' me--just come ye wi' me; and, if a little spell of siller\r\nand a great deal of excellent counsel can relieve your occasions, all\r\nI can say is, you have had the luck to meet one capable of giving you\r\nboth, and maist willing to bestow them.”\r\n\r\nThe pertinacity of the Scot prevailed over the sullenness of Vincent,\r\nwho was indeed in a state of agitation and incapacity to think for\r\nhimself, which led him to yield the more readily to the suggestions of\r\nanother. He suffered himself to be dragged into the small tavern which\r\nRichie recommended, and where they soon found themselves seated in a\r\nsnug niche, with a reeking pottle of burnt sack, and a paper of sugar\r\nbetwixt them. Pipes and tobacco were also provided, but were only used\r\nby Richie, who had adopted the custom of late, as adding considerably to\r\nthe gravity and importance of his manner, and affording, as it were,\r\na bland and pleasant accompaniment to the words of wisdom which flowed\r\nfrom his tongue. After they had filled their glasses and drank them in\r\nsilence, Richie repeated the question, whither his guest was going when\r\nthey met so fortunately. “I told you,” said Jenkin, “I was going to destruction--I mean to the\r\ngaming-house."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am resolved to hazard these two or three pieces, to get\r\nas much as will pay for a passage with Captain Sharker, whose ship lies\r\nat Gravesend, bound for America--and so Eastward, ho!--I met one devil\r\nin the way already, who would have tempted me from my purpose, but I\r\nspurned him from me--you may be another for what I know.--What degree\r\nof damnation do you propose for me,” he added wildly, “and what is the\r\nprice of it?”\r\n\r\n“I would have you to know,” answered Richie, “that I deal in no such\r\ncommodities, whether as buyer or seller. But if you will tell me\r\nhonestly the cause of your distress, I will do what is in my power to\r\nhelp you out of it,--not being, however, prodigal of promises, until\r\nI know the case; as a learned physician only gives advice when he has\r\nobserved the diagnostics.”\r\n\r\n“No one has any thing to do with my affairs,” said the poor lad; and\r\nfolding his arms on the table, he laid his head upon them, with the\r\nsullen dejection of the overburdened lama, when it throws itself down to\r\ndie in desperation. Richard Moniplies, like most folk who have a good opinion of themselves,\r\nwas fond of the task of consolation, which at once displayed his\r\nsuperiority, (for the consoler is necessarily, for the time at least,\r\nsuperior to the afflicted person,) and indulged his love of talking."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He inflicted on the poor penitenta harangue of pitiless length, stuffed\r\nfull of the usual topics of the mutability of human affairs--the eminent\r\nadvantages of patience under affliction--the folly of grieving for what\r\nhath no remedy--the necessity of taking more care for the future, and\r\nsome gentle rebukes on account of the past, which acid he threw in to\r\nassist in subduing the patient's obstinacy, as Hannibal used vinegar in\r\ncutting his way through rocks. It was not in human nature to endure this\r\nflood of commonplace eloquence in silence; and Jin Vin, whether desirous\r\nof stopping the flow of words--crammed thus into his ear, “against the\r\nstomach of his sense,” or whether confiding in Richie's protestations\r\nof friendship, which the wretched, says Fielding, are ever so ready to\r\nbelieve, or whether merely to give his sorrows vent in words, raised his\r\nhead, and turning his red and swollen eyes to Richie--\r\n\r\n“Cocksbones, man, only hold thy tongue, and thou shall know all about\r\nit,--and then all I ask of thee is to shake hands and part.--This\r\nMargaret Ramsay,--you have seen her, man?”\r\n\r\n“Once,” said Richie, “once, at Master George Heriot's in Lombard\r\nStreet--I was in the room when they dined.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, you helped to shift their trenchers, I remember,” said Jin Vin."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Well, that same pretty girl--and I will uphold her the prettiest\r\nbetwixt Paul's and the Bar--she is to be wedded to your Lord\r\nGlenvarloch, with a pestilence on him!”\r\n\r\n“That is impossible,” said Richie; “it is raving nonsense, man--they\r\nmake April gouks of you cockneys every month in the year--The Lord\r\nGlenvarloch marry the daughter of a Lonnon mechanic!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I would as soon\r\nbelieve the great Prester John would marry the daughter of a Jew\r\npackman.”\r\n\r\n“Hark ye, brother,” said Jin Vin, “I will allow no one to speak\r\ndisregardfully of the city, for all I am in trouble.”\r\n\r\n“I crave your pardon, man--I meant no offence,” said Richie; “but as to\r\nthe marriage, it is a thing simply impossible.”\r\n\r\n“It is a thing that will take place, though, for the Duke and the\r\nPrince, and all of them, have a finger in it; and especially the old\r\nfool of a king, that makes her out to be some great woman in her own\r\ncountry, as all the Scots pretend to be, you know.”\r\n\r\n“Master Vincent, but that you are under affliction,” said the consoler,\r\noffended on his part, “I would hear no national reflections.”\r\n\r\nThe afflicted youth apologised in his turns, but asserted, “it was true\r\nthat the king said Peg-a-Ramsay was some far-off sort of noblewoman; and\r\nthat he had taken a great interest in the match, and had run about like\r\nan old gander, cackling about Peggie ever since he had seen her in hose\r\nand doublet--and no wonder,” added poor Vin, with a deep sigh."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“This may be all true,” said Richie, “though it sounds strange in my\r\nears; but, man, you should not speak evil of dignities---Curse not the\r\nking, Jenkin; not even in thy bed-chamber--stone walls have ears--no one\r\nhas a right to know better than I.”\r\n\r\n“I do not curse the foolish old man,” said Jenkin; “but I would have\r\nthem carry things a peg lower.--If they were to see on a plain field\r\nthirty thousand such pikes as I have seen in the artillery gardens,\r\nit would not be their long-haired courtiers would help them, I trow.”\r\n [Footnote: Clarendon remarks, that the importance of the military\r\nexercise of the citizens was severely felt by the cavaliers during the\r\ncivil war, notwithstanding the ridicule that had been showered upon it\r\nby the dramatic poets of the day. Nothing less than habitual practice\r\ncould, at the battle of Newbury and elsewhere, have enabled the\r\nLondoners to keep their ranks as pikemen, in spite of the repeated\r\ncharge of the fiery Prince Rupert and his gallant cavaliers.] “Hout tout, man,” said Richie, “mind where the Stewarts come frae, and\r\nnever think they would want spears or claymores either; but leaving sic\r\nmatters, whilk are perilous to speak on, I say once more, what is your\r\nconcern in all this matter?”\r\n\r\n“What is it?” said Jenkin; “why, have I not fixed on Peg-a-Ramsay to be\r\nmy true love, from the day I came to her old father's shop?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "and have I\r\nnot carried her pattens and her chopines for three years, and borne her\r\nprayer-book to church, and brushed the cushion for her to kneel down\r\nupon, and did she ever say me nay?”\r\n\r\n“I see no cause she had,” said Richie, “if the like of such small\r\nservices were all that ye proffered. Ah, man! there are few--very few,\r\neither of fools or of wise men, ken how to guide a woman.”\r\n\r\n“Why, did I not serve her at the risk of my freedom, and very nigh at\r\nthe risk of my neck? Did she not--no, it was not her neither, but that\r\naccursed beldam whom she caused to work upon me--persuade me like a fool\r\nto turn myself into a waterman to help my lord, and a plague to him,\r\ndown to Scotland?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "and instead of going peaceably down to the ship at\r\nGravesend, did not he rant and bully, and show his pistols, and make\r\nme land him at Greenwich, where he played some swaggering pranks, that\r\nhelped both him and me into the Tower?”\r\n\r\n“Aha!” said Richie, throwing more than his usual wisdom into his looks,\r\n“so you were the green-jacketed waterman that rowed Lord Glenvarloch\r\ndown the river?”\r\n\r\n“The more fool I, that did not souse him in the Thames,” said Jenkin;\r\n“and I was the lad who would not confess one word of who and what I\r\nwas, though they threatened to make me hug the Duke of Exeter's\r\ndaughter.” [Footnote: A particular species of rack, used at the Tower of\r\nLondon, was so called.] “Wha is she, man?” said Richie; “she must be an ill-fashioned piece, if\r\nyou're so much afraid of her, and she come of such high kin.”\r\n\r\n“I mean the rack--the rack, man,” said Jenkin. “Where were you bred\r\nthat never heard of the Duke of Exeter's daughter? But all the dukes and\r\nduchesses in England could have got nothing out of me--so the truth came\r\nout some other way, and I was set free.--Home I ran, thinking myself\r\none of the cleverest and happiest fellows in the ward. And she--she--she\r\nwanted to pay me with _money_ for all my true service!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "and she spoke so\r\nsweetly and so coldly at the same time, I wished myself in the deepest\r\ndungeon of the Tower--I wish they had racked me to death before I heard\r\nthis Scottishman was to chouse me out of my sweetheart!”\r\n\r\n“But are ye sure ye have lost her?” said Richie; “it sounds strange\r\nin my ears that my Lord Glenvarloch should marry the daughter of a\r\ndealer,--though there are uncouth marriages made in London, I'll allow\r\nthat.”\r\n\r\n“Why, I tell you this lord was no sooner clear of the Tower, than he and\r\nMaster George Heriot comes to make proposals for her, with the king's\r\nassent, and what not; and fine fair-day prospects of Court favour for\r\nthis lord, for he hath not an acre of land.”\r\n\r\n“Well, and what said the auld watch-maker?” said Richie; “was he not, as\r\nmight weel beseem him, ready to loop out of his skin-case for very joy?”\r\n\r\n“He multiplied six figures progressively, and reported the product--then\r\ngave his consent.”\r\n\r\n“And what did you do?”\r\n\r\n“I rushed into the streets,” said the poor lad, “with a burning heart\r\nand a blood-shot eye--and where did I first find myself, but with that\r\nbeldam, Mother Suddlechop--and what did she propose to me, but to take\r\nthe road?”\r\n\r\n“Take the road, man? in what sense?” said Richie."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Even as a clerk to Saint Nicholas--as a highwayman, like Poins and\r\nPeto, and the good fellows in the play--and who think you was to be my\r\ncaptain?--for she had the whole out ere I could speak to her--I fancy\r\nshe took silence for consent, and thought me damned too unutterably\r\nto have one thought left that savoured of redemption--who was to be my\r\ncaptain, but the knave that you saw me cudgel at the ordinary when you\r\nwaited on Lord Glenvarloch, a cowardly, sharking, thievish bully about\r\ntown here, whom they call Colepepper.”\r\n\r\n“Colepepper--umph--I know somewhat of that smaik,” said Richie; “ken ye\r\nby ony chance where he may be heard of, Master Jenkin?--ye wad do me a\r\nsincere service to tell me.”\r\n\r\n“Why, he lives something obscurely,” answered the apprentice, “on\r\naccount of suspicion of some villainy--I believe that horrid murder in\r\nWhitefriars, or some such matter. But I might have heard all about him\r\nfrom Dame Suddlechop, for she spoke of my meeting him at Enfield Chase,\r\nwith some other good fellows, to do a robbery on one that goes northward\r\nwith a store of treasure.”\r\n\r\n“And you did not agree to this fine project?” said Moniplies. “I cursed her for a hag, and came away about my business,” answered\r\nJenkin. “Ay, and what said she to that, man? That would startle her,” said\r\nRichie. “Not a whit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She laughed, and said she was in jest,” answered Jenkin;\r\n“but I know the she-devil's jest from her earnest too well to be taken\r\nin that way. But she knows I would never betray her.' “Betray her! No,” replied Richie; “but are ye in any shape bound to this\r\nbirkie Peppercull, or Colepepper, or whatever they call him, that ye\r\nsuld let him do a robbery on the honest gentleman that is travelling to\r\nthe north, and may be a kindly Scot, for what we know?”\r\n\r\n“Ay--going home with a load of English money,” said Jenkin. “But be he\r\nwho he will, they may rob the whole world an they list, for I am robbed\r\nand ruined.”\r\n\r\nRichie filled his friend's cup up to the brim, and insisted that he\r\nshould drink what he called “clean caup out.” “This love,” he said,\r\n“is but a bairnly matter for a brisk young fellow like yourself, Master\r\nJenkin. And if ye must needs have a whimsy, though I think it would be\r\nsafer to venture on a staid womanly body, why, here be as bonny lasses\r\nin London as this Peg-a-Ramsay. You need not sigh sae deeply, for it is\r\nvery true--there is as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now\r\nwherefore should you, who are as brisk and trig a young fellow of your\r\ninches as the sun needs to shine on--wherefore need you sit moping this\r\nway, and not try some bold way to better your fortune?”\r\n\r\n“I tell you, Master Moniplies,” said Jenkin, “I am as poor as any\r\nScot among you--I have broke my indenture, and I think of running my\r\ncountry.”\r\n\r\n“A-well-a-day!” said Richie; “but that maunna be, man--I ken weel, by\r\nsad experience, that poortith takes away pith, and the man sits full\r\nstill that has a rent in his breeks. [Footnote: This elegant speech was\r\nmade by the Earl of Douglas, called Tineman after being wounded and made\r\nprisoner at the battle of Shrewsbury, where\r\n\r\n     “His well labouring sword\r\n     Had three times slain the semblance of the king,”]\r\n\r\nBut courage, man; you have served me heretofore, and I will serve you\r\nnow. If you will but bring me to speech of this same captain, it will be\r\nthe best day's work you ever did.”\r\n\r\n“I guess where you are, Master Richard--you would save your countryman's\r\nlong purse,” said Jenkin. “I cannot see how that should advantage me,\r\nbut I reck not if I should bear a hand. I hate that braggart, that\r\nbloody-minded, cowardly bully."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If you can get me mounted I care not if I\r\nshow you where the dame told me I should meet him--but you must stand\r\nto the risk, for though he is a coward himself, I know he will have more\r\nthan one stout fellow with him.”\r\n\r\n“We'll have a warrant, man,” said Richie, “and the hue and cry, to\r\nboot.”\r\n\r\n“We will have no such thing,” said Jenkin, “if I am to go with you. I\r\nam not the lad to betray any one to the harmanbeck. You must do it by\r\nmanhood if I am to go with you. I am sworn to cutter's law, and will\r\nsell no man's blood.”\r\n\r\n“Aweel,” said Richie, “a wilful man must have his way; ye must think\r\nthat I was born and bred where cracked crowns were plentier than whole\r\nones. Besides, I have two noble friends here, Master Lowestoffe of the\r\nTemple, and his cousin Master Ringwood, that will blithely be of so\r\ngallant a party.”\r\n\r\n“Lowestoffe and Ringwood!” said Jenkin; “they are both brave\r\ngallants--they will be sure company. Know you where they are to be\r\nfound?”\r\n\r\n“Ay, marry do I,” replied Richie. “They are fast at the cards and dice,\r\ntill the sma' hours, I warrant them.”\r\n\r\n“They are gentlemen of trust and honour,” said Jenkin, “and, if they\r\nadvise it, I will try the adventure. Go, try if you can bring them\r\nhither, since you have so much to say with, them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We must not be seen\r\nabroad together.--I know not how it is, Master Moniplies,” continued he,\r\nas his countenance brightened up, and while, in his turn, he filled the\r\ncups, “but I feel my heart something lighter since I have thought of\r\nthis matter.”\r\n\r\n“Thus it is to have counsellors, Master Jenkin,” said Richie; “and truly\r\nI hope to hear you say that your heart is as light as a lavrock's, and\r\nthat before you are many days aulder. Never smile and shake your head,\r\nbut mind what I tell you--and bide here in the meanwhile, till I go to\r\nseek these gallants. I warrant you, cart-ropes would not hold them back\r\nfrom such a ploy as I shall propose to them.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XXXVI\r\n\r\n\r\n  The thieves have bound the true men--\r\n  Now, could thou and I rob the thieves, and go\r\n   merrily to London. _Henry IV., Part I._\r\n\r\nThe sun was high upon the glades of Enfield Chase, and the deer, with\r\nwhich it then abounded, were seen sporting in picturesque groups among\r\nthe ancient oaks of the forest, when a cavalier and a lady, on foot,\r\nalthough in riding apparel, sauntered slowly up one of the long alleys\r\nwhich were cut through the park for the convenience of the hunters. Their only attendant was a page, who, riding a Spanish jennet, which\r\nseemed to bear a heavy cloak-bag, followed them at a respectful\r\ndistance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The female, attired in all the fantastic finery of the period,\r\nwith more than the usual quantity of bugles, flounces, and trimmings,\r\nand holding her fan of ostrich feathers in one hand, and her riding-mask\r\nof black velvet in the other, seemed anxious, by all the little coquetry\r\npractised on such occasions, to secure the notice of her companion,\r\nwho sometimes heard her prattle without seeming to attend to it, and\r\nat other times interrupted his train of graver reflections, to reply to\r\nher. “Nay, but, my lord--my lord, you walk so fast, you will leave me behind\r\nyou.--Nay, I will have hold of your arm, but how to manage with my mask\r\nand my fan? Why would you not let me bring my waiting-gentlewoman to\r\nfollow us, and hold my things? But see, I will put my fan in my girdle,\r\nsoh!--and now that I have a hand to hold you with, you shall not run\r\naway from me.”\r\n\r\n“Come on, then,” answered the gallant, “and let us walk apace, since you\r\nwould not be persuaded to stay with your gentlewoman, as you call her,\r\nand with the rest of the baggage.--You may perhaps see _that_, though,\r\nyou will not like to see.”\r\n\r\nShe took hold of his arm accordingly; but as he continued to walk at the\r\nsame pace, she shortly let go her hold, exclaiming that he had hurt her\r\nhand."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The cavalier stopped, and looked at the pretty hand and arm which\r\nshe showed him, with exclamations against his cruelty. “I dare say,” she\r\nsaid, baring her wrist and a part of her arm, “it is all black and blue\r\nto the very elbow.”\r\n\r\n“I dare say you are a silly little fool,” said the cavalier, carelessly\r\nkissing the aggrieved arm; “it is only a pretty incarnate which sets off\r\nthe blue veins.”\r\n\r\n“Nay, my lord, now it is you are silly,” answered the dame; “but I am\r\nglad I can make you speak and laugh on any terms this morning. I am\r\nsure, if I did insist on following you into the forest, it was all\r\nfor the sake of diverting you. I am better company than your page, I\r\ntrow.--And now, tell me, these pretty things with horns, be they not\r\ndeer?”\r\n\r\n“Even such they be, Nelly,” answered her neglectful attendant. “And what can the great folk do with so many of them, forsooth?”\r\n\r\n“They send them to the city, Nell, where wise men make venison pasties\r\nof their flesh, and wear their horns for trophies,” answered Lord\r\nDalgarno, whom our reader has already recognised. “Nay, now you laugh at me, my lord,” answered his companion; “but I know\r\nall about venison, whatever you may think."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I always tasted it once a\r\nyear when we dined with Mr. Deputy,” she continued, sadly, as a sense\r\nof her degradation stole across a mind bewildered with vanity and\r\nfolly, “though he would not speak to me now, if we met together in the\r\nnarrowest lane in the Ward!”\r\n\r\n“I warrant he would not,” said Lord Dalgarno, “because thou, Nell,\r\nwouldst dash him with a single look; for I trust thou hast more spirit\r\nthan to throw away words on such a fellow as he?”\r\n\r\n“Who, I!” said Dame Nelly. “Nay, I scorn the proud princox too much for\r\nthat. Do you know, he made all the folk in the Ward stand cap in hand to\r\nhim, my poor old John Christie and all?” Here her recollection began to\r\noverflow at her eyes. “A plague on your whimpering,” said Dalgarno, somewhat harshly,--“Nay,\r\nnever look pale for the matter, Nell. I am not angry with you, you\r\nsimple fool. But what would you have me think, when you are eternally\r\nlooking back upon your dungeon yonder by the river, which smelt of pitch\r\nand old cheese worse than a Welshman does of onions, and all this when I\r\nam taking you down to a castle as fine as is in Fairy Land!”\r\n\r\n“Shall we be there to-night, my lord?” said Nelly, drying her tears."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“To-night, Nelly?--no, nor this night fortnight.”\r\n\r\n“Now, the Lord be with us, and keep us!--But shall we not go by sea,\r\nmy lord?--I thought everybody came from Scotland by sea. I am sure Lord\r\nGlenvarloch and Richie Moniplies came up by sea.”\r\n\r\n“There is a wide difference between coming up and going down, Nelly,”\r\n answered Lord Dalgarno. “And so there is, for certain,” said his simple companion. “But yet I\r\nthink I heard people speaking of going down to Scotland by sea, as well\r\nas coming up. Are you well avised of the way?--Do you think it possible\r\nwe can go by land, my sweet lord?”\r\n\r\n“It is but trying, my sweet lady,” said Lord Dalgarno. “Men say England\r\nand Scotland are in the same island, so one would hope there may be some\r\nroad betwixt them by land.”\r\n\r\n“I shall never be able to ride so far,” said the lady. “We will have your saddle stuffed softer,” said the lord. “I tell you\r\nthat you shall mew your city slough, and change from the caterpillar of\r\na paltry lane into the butterfly of a prince's garden."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You shall have as\r\nmany tires as there are hours in the day--as many handmaidens as\r\nthere are days in the week--as many menials as there are weeks in the\r\nyear--and you shall ride a hunting and hawking with a lord, instead of\r\nwaiting upon an old ship-chandler, who could do nothing but hawk and\r\nspit.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, but will you make me your lady?” said Dame Nelly. “Ay, surely--what else?” replied the lord--“My lady-love.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, but I mean your lady-wife,” said Nelly. “Truly, Nell, in that I cannot promise to oblige you. A lady-wife,”\r\n continued Dalgarno, “is a very different thing from a lady-love.”\r\n\r\n“I heard from Mrs. Suddlechop, whom you lodged me with since I left poor\r\nold John Christie, that Lord Glenvarloch is to marry David Ramsay the\r\nclockmaker's daughter?”\r\n\r\n“There is much betwixt the cup and the lip, Nelly. I wear something\r\nabout me may break the bans of that hopeful alliance, before the day is\r\nmuch older,” answered Lord Dalgarno. “Well, but my father was as good a man as old Davy Ramsay, and as well\r\nto pass in the world, my lord; and, therefore, why should you not marry\r\nme? You have done me harm enough, I trow--wherefore should you not do me\r\nthis justice?”\r\n\r\n“For two good reasons, Nelly. Fate put a husband on you, and the king\r\npassed a wife upon me,” answered Lord Dalgarno."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Ay, my lord,” said Nelly, “but they remain in England, and we go to\r\nScotland.”\r\n\r\n“Thy argument is better than thou art aware of,” said Lord Dalgarno. “I\r\nhave heard Scottish lawyers say the matrimonial tie may be unclasped\r\nin our happy country by the gentle hand of the ordinary course of law,\r\nwhereas in England it can only be burst by an act of Parliament. Well,\r\nNelly, we will look into that matter; and whether we get married again\r\nor no, we will at least do our best to get unmarried.”\r\n\r\n“Shall we indeed, my honey-sweet lord? and then I will think less about\r\nJohn Christie, for he will marry again, I warrant you, for he is well to\r\npass; and I would be glad to think he had somebody to take care of him,\r\nas I used to do, poor loving old man! He was a kind man, though he was\r\na score of years older than I; and I hope and pray he will never let a\r\nyoung lord cross his honest threshold again!”\r\n\r\nHere the dame was once more much inclined to give way to a passion of\r\ntears; but Lord Dalgarno conjured down the emotion, by saying with some\r\nasperity--“I am weary of these April passions, my pretty mistress, and\r\nI think you will do well to preserve your tears for some more pressing\r\noccasion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Who knows what turn of fortune may in a few minutes call for\r\nmore of them than you can render?”\r\n\r\n“Goodness, my lord! what mean you by such expressions? John Christie\r\n(the kind heart!) used to keep no secrets from me, and I hope your\r\nlordship will not hide your counsel from me?”\r\n\r\n“Sit down beside me on this bank,” said the nobleman; “I am bound to\r\nremain here for a short space, and if you can be but silent, I should\r\nlike to spend a part of it in considering how far I can, on the present\r\noccasion, follow the respectable example which you recommend to me.”\r\n\r\nThe place at which he stopped was at that time little more than a mound,\r\npartly surrounded by a ditch, from which it derived the name of Camlet\r\nMoat. A few hewn stones there were, which had escaped the fate of many\r\nothers that had been used in building different lodges in the forest for\r\nthe royal keepers. These vestiges, just sufficient to show that “herein\r\nformer times the hand of man had been,” marked the ruins of the abode of\r\na once illustrious but long-forgotten family, the Mandevilles, Earls\r\nof Essex, to whom Enfield Chase and the extensive domains adjacent had\r\nbelonged in elder days."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A wild woodland prospect led the eye at various\r\npoints through broad and seemingly interminable alleys, which, meeting\r\nat this point as at a common centre, diverged from each other as they\r\nreceded, and had, therefore, been selected by Lord Dalgarno as\r\nthe rendezvous for the combat, which, through the medium of Richie\r\nMoniplies, he had offered to his injured friend, Lord Glenvarloch. “He will surely come?” he said to himself; “cowardice was not wont to\r\nbe his fault--at least he was bold enough in the Park.--Perhaps yonder\r\nchurl may not have carried my message? But no--he is a sturdy knave--one\r\nof those would prize their master's honour above their life.--Look to\r\nthe palfrey, Lutin, and see thou let him not loose, and cast thy falcon\r\nglance down every avenue to mark if any one comes.--Buckingham has\r\nundergone my challenge, but the proud minion pleads the king's paltry\r\ncommands for refusing to answer me. If I can baffle this Glenvarloch, or\r\nslay him--If I can spoil him of his honour or his life, I shall go down\r\nto Scotland with credit sufficient to gild over past mischances."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I know\r\nmy dear countrymen--they never quarrel with any one who brings them\r\nhome either gold or martial glory, much more if he has both gold and\r\nlaurels.”\r\n\r\nAs he thus reflected, and called to mind the disgrace which he had\r\nsuffered, as well as the causes he imagined for hating Lord Glenvarloch,\r\nhis countenance altered under the influence of his contending emotions,\r\nto the terror of Nelly, who, sitting unnoticed at his feet, and looking\r\nanxiously in his face, beheld the cheek kindle, the mouth become\r\ncompressed, the eye dilated, and the whole countenance express the\r\ndesperate and deadly resolution of one who awaits an instant and\r\ndecisive encounter with a mortal enemy. The loneliness of the place, the\r\nscenery so different from that to which alone she had been accustomed,\r\nthe dark and sombre air which crept so suddenly over the countenance\r\nof her seducer, his command imposing silence upon her, and the apparent\r\nstrangeness of his conduct in idling away so much time without any\r\nobvious cause, when a journey of such length lay before them, brought\r\nstrange thoughts into her weak brain. She had read of women, seduced\r\nfrom their matrimonial duties by sorcerers allied to the hellish powers,\r\nnay, by the Father of Evil himself, who, after conveying his victim\r\ninto some desert remote from human kind, exchanged the pleasing shape in\r\nwhich he gained her affections, for all his natural horrors."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She chased\r\nthis wild idea away as it crowded itself upon her weak and bewildered\r\nimagination; yet she might have lived to see it realised allegorically,\r\nif not literally, but for the accident which presently followed. The page, whose eyes were remarkably acute, at length called out to\r\nhis master, pointing with his finger at the same time down one of the\r\nalleys, that horsemen were advancing in that direction. Lord Dalgarno\r\nstarted up, and shading his eyes with his hand, gazed eagerly down the\r\nalley; when, at the same instant, he received a shot, which, grazing his\r\nhand, passed right through his brain, and laid him a lifeless corpse\r\nat the feet, or rather across the lap, of the unfortunate victim of\r\nhis profligacy. The countenance, whose varied expression she had been\r\nwatching for the last five minutes, was convulsed for an instant, and\r\nthen stiffened into rigidity for ever. Three ruffians rushed from the\r\nbrake from which the shot had been fired, ere the smoke was dispersed. One, with many imprecations seized on the page; another on the female,\r\nupon whose cries he strove by the most violent threats to impose\r\nsilence; whilst the third began to undo the burden from the page's\r\nhorse. But an instant rescue prevented their availing themselves of the\r\nadvantage they had obtained."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It may easily be supposed that Richie Moniplies, having secured the\r\nassistance of the two Templars, ready enough to join in any thing\r\nwhich promised a fray, with Jin Vin to act as their guide, had set off,\r\ngallantly mounted and well armed, under the belief that they would reach\r\nCamlet Moat before the robbers, and apprehend them in the fact. They\r\nhad not calculated that, according to the custom of robbers in other\r\ncountries, but contrary to that of the English highwayman of those\r\ndays, they meant to ensure robbery by previous murder. An accident also\r\nhappened to delay them a little while on the road. In riding through\r\none of the glades of the forest, they found a man dismounted and sitting\r\nunder a tree, groaning with such bitterness of spirit, that Lowestoffe\r\ncould not forbear asking if he was hurt. In answer, he said he was\r\nan unhappy man in pursuit of his wife, who had been carried off by a\r\nvillain; and as he raised his countenance, the eyes of Richie, to his\r\ngreat astonishment, encountered the visage of John Christie."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“For the Almighty's sake, help me, Master Moniplies!” he said; “I have\r\nlearned my wife is but a short mile before, with that black villain Lord\r\nDalgarno.”\r\n\r\n“Have him forward by all means,” said Lowestoffe; “a second Orpheus\r\nseeking his Eurydice!--Have him forward--we will save Lord Dalgarno's\r\npurse, and ease him of his mistress--Have him with us, were it but for\r\nthe variety of the adventure. I owe his lordship a grudge for rooking\r\nme. We have ten minutes good.”\r\n\r\nBut it is dangerous to calculate closely in matters of life and death. In all probability the minute or two which was lost in mounting John\r\nChristie behind one of their party, might have saved Lord Dalgarno\r\nfrom his fate. Thus his criminal amour became the indirect cause of\r\nhis losing his life; and thus “our pleasant vices are made the whips to\r\nscourge us.”\r\n\r\nThe riders arrived on the field at full gallop the moment after the shot\r\nwas fired; and Richie, who had his own reasons for attaching himself to\r\nColepepper, who was bustling to untie the portmanteau from the page's\r\nsaddle, pushed against him with such violence as to overthrow him, his\r\nown horse at the same time stumbling and dismounting his rider, who was\r\nnone of the first equestrians."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The undaunted Richie immediately arose,\r\nhowever, and grappled with the ruffian with such good-will, that, though\r\na strong fellow, and though a coward now rendered desperate, Moniplies\r\ngot him under, wrenched a long knife from his hand, dealt him a\r\ndesperate stab with his own weapon, and leaped on his feet; and, as the\r\nwounded man struggled to follow his example, he struck him upon the head\r\nwith the butt-end of a musketoon, which last blow proved fatal. “Bravo, Richie!” cried Lowestoffe, who had himself engaged\r\nat sword-point with one of the ruffians, and soon put him to\r\nflight,--“Bravo! why, man, there lies Sin, struck down like an ox, and\r\nIniquity's throat cut like a calf.”\r\n\r\n“I know not why you should upbraid me with my upbringing, Master\r\nLowestoffe,” answered Richie, with great composure; “but I can tell you,\r\nthe shambles is not a bad place for training one to this work.”\r\n\r\nThe other Templar now shouted loudly to them,--“If ye be men, come\r\nhither--here lies Lord Dalgarno, murdered!”\r\n\r\nLowestoffe and Richie ran to the spot, and the page took the\r\nopportunity, finding himself now neglected on all hands, to ride off\r\nin a different direction; and neither he, nor the considerable sum with\r\nwhich his horse was burdened, were ever heard of from that moment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The third ruffian had not waited the attack of the Templar and Jin Vin,\r\nthe latter of whom had put down old Christie from behind him that he\r\nmight ride the lighter; and the whole five now stood gazing with horror\r\non the bloody corpse of the young nobleman, and the wild sorrow of the\r\nfemale, who tore her hair and shrieked in the most disconsolate manner,\r\nuntil her agony was at once checked, or rather received a new direction,\r\nby the sudden and unexpected appearance of her husband, who, fixing on\r\nher a cold and severe look, said, in a tone suited to his manner--“Ay,\r\nwoman! thou takest on sadly for the loss of thy paramour.”--Then,\r\nlooking on the bloody corpse of him from whom he had received so deep an\r\ninjury, he repeated the solemn words of Scripture,--“'Vengeance is mine,\r\nsaith the Lord, and I will repay it.' --I, whom thou hast injured, will\r\nbe first to render thee the decent offices due to the dead.”\r\n\r\nSo saying, he covered the dead body with his cloak, and then looking on\r\nit for a moment, seemed to reflect on what he had next to perform."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As\r\nthe eye of the injured man slowly passed from the body of the seducer\r\nto the partner and victim of his crime, who had sunk down to his feet,\r\nwhich she clasped without venturing to look up, his features, naturally\r\ncoarse and saturnine, assumed a dignity of expression which overawed\r\nthe young Templars, and repulsed the officious forwardness of Richie\r\nMoniplies, who was at first eager to have thrust in his advice and\r\nopinion. “Kneel not to me, woman,” he said, “but kneel to the God\r\nthou hast offended, more than thou couldst offend such another worm as\r\nthyself. How often have I told thee, when thou wert at the gayest and\r\nthe lightest, that pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit\r\nbefore a fall? Vanity brought folly, and folly brought sin, and sin hath\r\nbrought death, his original companion. Thou must needs leave duty, and\r\ndecency, and domestic love, to revel it gaily with the wild and with the\r\nwicked; and there thou liest like a crushed worm, writhing beside the\r\nlifeless body of thy paramour. Thou hast done me much wrong--dishonoured\r\nme among friends--driven credit from my house, and peace from my\r\nfireside--But thou wert my first and only love, and I will not see\r\nthee an utter castaway, if it lies with me to prevent it.--Gentlemen,\r\nI render ye such thanks as a broken-hearted man can give.--Richard,\r\ncommend me to your honourable master."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I added gall to the bitterness of\r\nhis affliction, but I was deluded.--Rise up, woman, and follow me.”\r\n\r\nHe raised her up by the arm, while, with streaming eyes, and bitter\r\nsobs, she endeavoured to express her penitence. She kept her hands\r\nspread over her face, yet suffered him to lead her away; and it was only\r\nas they turned around a brake which concealed the scene they had left,\r\nthat she turned back, and casting one wild and hurried glance towards\r\nthe corpse of Dalgarno, uttered a shriek, and clinging to her husband's\r\narm, exclaimed wildly,--“Save me--save me! They have murdered him!”\r\n\r\nLowestoffe was much moved by what he had witnessed; but he was ashamed,\r\nas a town-gallant, of his own unfashionable emotion, and did a force\r\nto his feelings when he exclaimed,--“Ay, let them go--the kind-hearted,\r\nbelieving, forgiving husband--the liberal, accommodating spouse. O what\r\na generous creature is your true London husband!--Horns hath he, but,\r\ntame as a fatted ox, he goreth not. I should like to see her when\r\nshe hath exchanged her mask and riding-beaver for her peaked hat\r\nand muffler. We will visit them at Paul's Wharf, coz--it will be a\r\nconvenient acquaintance.”\r\n\r\n“You had better think of catching the gipsy thief, Lutin,” said Richie\r\nMoniplies; “for, by my faith, he is off with his master's baggage and\r\nthe siller.”\r\n\r\nA keeper, with his assistants, and several other persons, had now come\r\nto the spot, and made hue and cry after Lutin, but in vain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To their\r\ncustody the Templars surrendered the dead bodies, and after going\r\nthrough some formal investigation, they returned, with Richard and\r\nVincent, to London, where they received great applause for their\r\ngallantry.--Vincent's errors were easily expiated, in consideration\r\nof his having been the means of breaking up this band of villains;\r\nand there is some reason to think, that what would have diminished\r\nthe credit of the action in other instances, rather added to it in\r\nthe actual circumstances, namely, that they came too late to save Lord\r\nDalgarno. George Heriot, who suspected how matters stood with Vincent, requested\r\nand obtained permission from his master to send the poor young fellow on\r\nan important piece of business to Paris. We are unable to trace his\r\nfate farther, but believe it was prosperous, and that he entered into\r\nan advantageous partnership with his fellow-apprentice, upon old\r\nDavy Ramsay retiring from business, in consequence of his daughter's\r\nmarriage. That eminent antiquary, Dr. Dryasdust, is possessed of an\r\nantique watch, with a silver dial-plate, the mainspring being a piece\r\nof catgut instead of a chain, which bears the names of Vincent and\r\nTunstall, Memory-Monitors."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Master Lowestoffe failed not to vindicate his character as a man of\r\ngaiety, by inquiring after John Christie and Dame Nelly; but greatly to\r\nhis surprise, (indeed to his loss, for he had wagered ten pieces that he\r\nwould domesticate himself in the family,) he found the good-will, as\r\nit was called, of the shop, was sold, the stock auctioned, and the late\r\nproprietor and his wife gone, no one knew whither. The prevailing belief\r\nwas, that they had emigrated to one of the new settlements in America. Lady Dalgarno received the news of her unworthy husband's death with a\r\nvariety of emotions, among which, horror that he should have been cut\r\noff in the middle career of his profligacy, was the most prominent. The incident greatly deepened her melancholy, and injured her health,\r\nalready shaken by previous circumstances. Repossessed of her own\r\nfortune by her husband's death, she was anxious to do justice to Lord\r\nGlenvarloch, by treating for the recovery of the mortgage. But the scrivener, having taken fright at the late events, had left the\r\ncity and absconded, so that it was impossible to discover into whose\r\nhands the papers had now passed. Richard Moniplies was silent, for his\r\nown reasons; the Templars, who had witnessed the transaction, kept\r\nthe secret at his request, and it was universally believed that the\r\nscrivener had carried off the writings along with him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We may here\r\nobserve, that fears similar to those of Skurliewhitter freed London for\r\never from the presence of Dame Suddlechop, who ended her career in the\r\n_Rasp-haus_, (viz. Bridewell,) of Amsterdam. The stout old Lord Huntinglen, with a haughty carriage and unmoistened\r\neye, accompanied the funeral procession of his only son to its last\r\nabode; and perhaps the single tear which fell at length upon the coffin,\r\nwas given less to the fate of the individual, than to the extinction of\r\nthe last male of his ancient race. CHAPTER XXXVII\r\n\r\n\r\n_Jacques_. There is, suie, another flood toward, and these couples are\r\ncoming to the ark!--Here comes a pair of very strange beasts.--_As You\r\nLike It_. The fashion of such narratives as the present, changes like other\r\nearthly things. Time was that the tale-teller was obliged to wind up\r\nhis story by a circumstantial description of the wedding, bedding, and\r\nthrowing the stocking, as the grand catastrophe to which, through so\r\nmany circumstances of doubt and difficulty, he had at length happily\r\nconducted his hero and heroine. Not a circumstance was then omitted,\r\nfrom the manly ardour of the bridegroom, and the modest blushes of the\r\nbride, to the parson's new surplice, and the silk tabinet mantua of\r\nthe bridesmaid."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But such descriptions are now discarded, for the same\r\nreason, I suppose, that public marriages are no longer fashionable, and\r\nthat, instead of calling together their friends to a feast and a dance,\r\nthe happy couple elope in a solitary post-chaise, as secretly as if they\r\nmeant to go to Gretna-Green, or to do worse. I am not ungrateful for a\r\nchange which saves an author the trouble of attempting in vain to give\r\na new colour to the commonplace description of such matters; but,\r\nnotwithstanding, I find myself forced upon it in the present instance,\r\nas circumstances sometimes compel a stranger to make use of an old road\r\nwhich has been for some time shut up. The experienced reader may have\r\nalready remarked, that the last chapter was employed in sweeping out\r\nof the way all the unnecessary and less interesting characters, that I\r\nmight clear the floor for a blithe bridal. In truth, it would be unpardonable to pass over slightly what so\r\ndeeply interested our principal personage, King James. That learned and\r\ngood-humoured monarch made no great figure in the politics of Europe;\r\nbut then, to make amends, he was prodigiously busy, when he could find a\r\nfair opportunity of intermeddling with the private affairs of his loving\r\nsubjects, and the approaching marriage of Lord Glenvarloch was matter\r\nof great interest to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had been much struck (that is, for him,\r\nwho was not very accessible to such emotions) with the beauty and\r\nembarrassment of the pretty Peg-a-Ramsay, as he called her, when he\r\nfirst saw her, and he glorified himself greatly on the acuteness which\r\nhe had displayed in detecting her disguise, and in carrying through the\r\nwhole inquiry which took place in consequence of it. He laboured for several weeks, while the courtship was in progress, with\r\nhis own royal eyes, so as wellnigh to wear out, he declared, a pair\r\nof her father's best barnacles, in searching through old books and\r\ndocuments, for the purpose of establishing the bride's pretensions to\r\na noble, though remote descent, and thereby remove the only objection\r\nwhich envy might conceive against the match. In his own opinion, at\r\nleast, he was eminently successful; for, when Sir Mungo Malagrowther one\r\nday, in the presence-chamber, took upon him to grieve bitterly for the\r\nbride's lack of pedigree, the monarch cut him short with, “Ye may save\r\nyour grief for your ain next occasions, Sir Mungo; for, by our royal\r\nsaul, we will uphauld her father, Davy Ramsay, to be a gentleman of nine\r\ndescents, whase great gudesire came of the auld martial stock of the\r\nHouse of Dalwolsey, than whom better men never did, and better never\r\nwill, draw sword for king and country."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Heard ye never of Sir William\r\nRamsay of Dalwolsey, man, of whom John Fordoun saith,--'He was\r\n_bellicosissimus, nobilissimus?_'--His castle stands to witness for\r\nitsell, not three miles from Dalkeith, man, and within a mile of\r\nBannockrig. Davy Ramsay came of that auld and honoured stock, and I\r\ntrust he hath not derogated from his ancestors by his present craft. They all wrought wi' steel, man; only the auld knights drilled holes wi'\r\ntheir swords in their enemies' corslets, and he saws nicks in his brass\r\nwheels. And I hope it is as honourable to give eyes to the blind as\r\nto slash them out of the head of those that see, and to show us how to\r\nvalue our time as it passes, as to fling it away in drinking, brawling,\r\nspear-splintering, and such-like unchristian doings. And you maun\r\nunderstand, that Davy Ramsay is no mechanic, but follows a liberal art,\r\nwhich approacheth almost to the act of creating a living being,\r\nseeing it may be said of a watch, as Claudius saith of the sphere of\r\nArchimedes, the Syracusan--\r\n\r\n“Inclusus variis famulatur spiritus astris, Et vivum certis motibus\r\nurget opus. '”\r\n\r\n“Your Majesty had best give auld Davy a coat-of-arms, as well as a\r\npedigree,” said Sir Mungo."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“It's done, or ye bade, Sir Mungo,” said the king; “and I trust we, who\r\nare the fountain of all earthly honour, are free to spirit a few drops\r\nof it on one so near our person, without offence to the Knight of Castle\r\nGirnigo. We have already spoken with the learned men of the Herald's\r\nCollege, and we propose to grant him an augmented coat-of-arms, being\r\nhis paternal coat, charged with the crown-wheel of a watch in chief, for\r\na difference; and we purpose to add Time and Eternity, for supporters,\r\nas soon as the Garter King-at-Arms shall be able to devise how Eternity\r\nis to be represented.”\r\n\r\n“I would make him twice as muckle as Time,” [Footnote: Chaucer says,\r\nthere is nothing new but what it has been old. The reader has here the\r\noriginal of an anecdote which has since been fathered on a Scottish\r\nChief of our own time.] said Archie Armstrong, the Court fool, who\r\nchanced to be present when the king stated this dilemma. “Peace, man--ye\r\nshall be whippet,” said the king, in return for this hint; “and you, my\r\nliege subjects of England, may weel take a hint from what we have said,\r\nand not be in such a hurry to laugh at our Scottish pedigrees, though\r\nthey be somewhat long derived, and difficult to be deduced."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Ye see that\r\na man of right gentle blood may, for a season, lay by his gentry, and\r\nyet ken whare to find it, when he has occasion for it. It would be as\r\nunseemly for a packman, or pedlar, as ye call a travelling merchant,\r\nwhilk is a trade to which our native subjects of Scotland are specially\r\naddicted, to be blazing his genealogy in the faces of those to whom he\r\nsells a bawbee's worth of ribbon, as it would be to him to have a\r\nbeaver on his head, and a rapier by his side, when the pack was on his\r\nshoulders. Na, na--he hings his sword on the cleek, lays his beaver on\r\nthe shelf, puts his pedigree into his pocket, and gangs as doucely and\r\ncannily about his peddling craft as if his blood was nae better than\r\nditch-water; but let our pedlar be transformed, as I have kend it happen\r\nmair than ance, into a bein thriving merchant, then ye shall have a\r\ntransformation, my lords. 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--'\r\n\r\nOut he pulls his pedigree, on he buckles his sword, gives his beaver a\r\nbrush, and cocks it in the face of all creation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We mention these things\r\nat the mair length, because we would have you all to know, that it is\r\nnot without due consideration of the circumstances of all parties, that\r\nwe design, in a small and private way, to honour with our own royal\r\npresence the marriage of Lord Glenvarloch with Margaret Ramsay, daughter\r\nand heiress of David Ramsay, our horologer, and a cadet only thrice\r\nremoved from the ancient house of Dalwolsey. We are grieved we cannot\r\nhave the presence of the noble Chief of that House at the ceremony; but\r\nwhere there is honour to be won abroad the Lord Dalwolsey is seldom\r\nto be found at home. _Sic fuit, est, et erit_.-Jingling Geordie, as ye\r\nstand to the cost of the marriage feast, we look for good cheer.”\r\n\r\nHeriot bowed, as in duty bound. In fact, the king, who was a great\r\npolitician about trifles, had manoeuvred greatly on this occasion,\r\nand had contrived to get the Prince and Buckingham dispatched on an\r\nexpedition to Newmarket, in order that he might find an opportunity in\r\ntheir absence of indulging himself in his own gossiping, _coshering_\r\nhabits, which were distasteful to Charles, whose temper inclined to\r\nformality, and with which even the favourite, of late, had not thought\r\nit worth while to seem to sympathise."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When the levee was dismissed, Sir\r\nMungo Malagrowther seized upon the worthy citizen in the court-yard\r\nof the Palace, and detained him, in spite of all his efforts, for the\r\npurpose of subjecting him to the following scrutiny:--\r\n\r\n“This is a sair job on you, Master George--the king must have had little\r\nconsideration--this will cost you a bonny penny, this wedding dinner?”\r\n\r\n“It will not break me, Sir Mungo,” answered Heriot; “the king hath a\r\nright to see the table which his bounty hath supplied for years, well\r\ncovered for a single day.”\r\n\r\n“Vera true, vera true--we'll have a' to pay, I doubt, less or mair--a\r\nsort of penny-wedding it will prove, where all men contribute to the\r\nyoung folk's maintenance, that they may not have just four bare legs in\r\na bed together. What do you propose to give, Master George?--we begin\r\nwith the city when money is in question.” [Footnote: The penny-wedding\r\nof the Scots, now disused even among the lowest ranks, was a peculiar\r\nspecies of merry-making, at which, if the wedded pair were popular, the\r\nguests who convened, contributed considerable sums under pretence of\r\npaying for the bridal festivity, but in reality to set the married folk\r\nafloat in the world.] “Only a trifle, Sir Mungo--I give my god-daughter the marriage ring;\r\nit is a curious jewel--I bought it in Italy; it belonged to Cosmo\r\nde Medici."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The bride will not need my help--she has an estate which\r\nbelonged to her maternal grandfather.”\r\n\r\n“The auld soap-boiler,” said Sir Mungo; “it will need some of his suds\r\nto scour the blot out of the Glenvarloch shield--I have heard that\r\nestate was no great things.”\r\n\r\n“It is as good as some posts at Court, Sir Mungo, which are coveted by\r\npersons of high quality,” replied George Heriot. “Court favour, said ye? Court favour, Master Heriot?” replied Sir Mungo,\r\nchoosing then to use his malady of misapprehension; “Moonshine in\r\nwater, poor thing, if that is all she is to be tochered with--I am truly\r\nsolicitous about them.”\r\n\r\n“I will let you into a secret,” said the citizen, “which will relieve\r\nyour tender anxiety. The dowager Lady Dalgarno gives a competent fortune\r\nto the bride, and settles the rest of her estate upon her nephew the\r\nbridegroom.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, say ye sae?” said Sir Mungo, “just to show her regard to her\r\nhusband that is in the tomb--lucky that her nephew did not send him\r\nthere; it was a strange story that death of poor Lord Dalgarno--some\r\nfolk think the poor gentleman had much wrong. Little good comes of\r\nmarrying the daughter of the house you are at feud with; indeed, it was\r\nless poor Dalgarno's fault, than theirs that forced the match on him;\r\nbut I am glad the young folk are to have something to live on, come how\r\nit like, whether by charity or inheritance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But if the Lady Dalgarno\r\nwere to sell all she has, even to her very wylie-coat, she canna gie\r\nthem back the fair Castle of Glenvarloch--that is lost and gane--lost\r\nand gane.”\r\n\r\n“It is but too true,” said George Heriot; “we cannot discover what has\r\nbecome of the villain Andrew Skurliewhitter, or what Lord Dalgarno has\r\ndone with the mortgage.”\r\n\r\n“Assigned it away to some one, that his wife might not get it after he\r\nwas gane; it would have disturbed him in his grave, to think Glenvarloch\r\nshould get that land back again,” said Sir Mungo; “depend on it, he will\r\nhave ta'en sure measures to keep that noble lordship out of her grips or\r\nher nevoy's either.”\r\n\r\n“Indeed it is but too probable, Sir Mungo,” said Master Heriot; “but\r\nas I am obliged to go and look after many things in consequence of this\r\nceremony, I must leave you to comfort yourself with the reflection.”\r\n\r\n“The bride-day, you say, is to be on the thirtieth of the instant\r\nmonth?” said Sir Mungo, holloing after the citizen; “I will be with you\r\nin the hour of cause.”\r\n\r\n“The king invites the guests,” said George Heriot, without turning back. “The base-born, ill-bred mechanic!” soliloquised Sir Mungo, “if it were\r\nnot the odd score of pounds he lent me last week, I would teach him how\r\nto bear himself to a man of quality!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I will be at the bridal banquet\r\nin spite of him.”\r\n\r\nSir Mungo contrived to get invited, or commanded, to attend on the\r\nbridal accordingly, at which there were but few persons present; for\r\nJames, on such occasions, preferred a snug privacy, which gave him\r\nliberty to lay aside the encumbrance, as he felt it to be, of his regal\r\ndignity. The company was very small, and indeed there were at least two\r\npersons absent whose presence might have been expected. The first of\r\nthese was the Lady Dalgarno, the state of whose health, as well as the\r\nrecent death of her husband, precluded her attendance on the ceremony. The other absentee was Richie Moniplies, whose conduct for some time\r\npast had been extremely mysterious. Regulating his attendance on Lord\r\nGlenvarloch entirely according to his own will and pleasure, he had,\r\never since the rencounter in Enfield Chase, appeared regularly at his\r\nbedside in the morning, to assist him to dress, and at his wardrobe in\r\nthe evening. The rest of the day he disposed of at his own pleasure,\r\nwithout control from his lord, who had now a complete establishment of\r\nattendants. Yet he was somewhat curious to know how the fellow disposed\r\nof so much of his time; but on this subject Richie showed no desire to\r\nbe communicative."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the morning of the bridal-day, Richie was particularly attentive in\r\ndoing all a valet-de-chambre could, so as to set off to advantage the\r\nvery handsome figure of his master; and when he had arranged his dress\r\nto the utmost exactness, and put to his long curled locks what he called\r\n“the finishing touch of the redding-kaim,” he gravely kneeled down,\r\nkissed his hand, and bade him farewell, saying that he humbly craved\r\nleave to discharge himself of his lordship's service."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Why, what humour is this?” said Lord Glenvarloch; “if you mean to\r\ndischarge yourself of my service, Richie, I suppose you intend to enter\r\nmy wife's?”\r\n\r\n“I wish her good ladyship that shall soon be, and your good lordship,\r\nthe blessings of as good a servant as myself, in heaven's good time,”\r\n said Richie; “but fate hath so ordained it, that I can henceforth only\r\nbe your servant in the way of friendly courtesy.”\r\n\r\n“Well, Richie,” said the young lord, “if you are tired of service, we\r\nwill seek some better provision for you; but you will wait on me to the\r\nchurch, and partake of the bridal dinner?”\r\n\r\n“Under favour, my lord,” answered Richie; “I must remind you of our\r\ncovenant, having presently some pressing business of mine own, whilk\r\nwill detain me during the ceremony; but I will not fail to prie Master\r\nGeorge's good cheer, in respect he has made very costly fare, whilk it\r\nwould be unthankful not to partake of.”\r\n\r\n“Do as you list,” answered Lord Glenvarloch; and having bestowed a\r\npassing thought on the whimsical and pragmatical disposition of his\r\nfollower, he dismissed the subject for others better suited to the day."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The reader must fancy the scattered flowers which strewed the path\r\nof the happy couple to church--the loud music which accompanied the\r\nprocession--the marriage service performed by a bishop--the king, who\r\nmet them at Saint Paul's, giving away the bride,--to the great relief\r\nof her father, who had thus time, during the ceremony, to calculate the\r\njust quotient to be laid on the pinion of report in a timepiece which he\r\nwas then putting together. When the ceremony was finished, the company were transported in the\r\nroyal carriages to George Heriot's, where a splendid collation was\r\nprovided for the marriage-guests in the Foljambe apartments. The king\r\nno sooner found himself in this snug retreat, than, casting from him\r\nhis sword and belt with such haste as if they burnt his fingers, and\r\nflinging his plumed hat on the table, as who should say, Lie there,\r\nauthority! he swallowed a hearty cup of wine to the happiness of the\r\nmarried couple, and began to amble about the room, mumping, laughing,\r\nand cracking jests, neither the wittiest nor the most delicate, but\r\naccompanied and applauded by shouts of his own mirth, in order to\r\nencourage that of the company. Whilst his Majesty was in the midst of\r\nthis gay humour, and a call to the banquet was anxiously expected,\r\na servant whispered Master Heriot forth of the apartment. When he\r\nre-entered, he walked up to the king, and, in his turn whispered\r\nsomething, at which James started."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“He is not wanting his siller?” said the king, shortly and sharply. “By no means, my liege,” answered Heriot. “It is a subject he states\r\nhimself as quite indifferent about, so long as it can pleasure your\r\nMajesty.”\r\n\r\n“Body of us, man!” said the king, “it is the speech of a true man and a\r\nloving subject, and we will grace him accordingly--what though he be\r\nbut a carle--a twopenny cat may look at a king. Swith, man!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "have\r\nhim--_pundite fores_.--Moniplies?--They should have called the chield\r\nMonypennies, though I sall warrant you English think we have not such a\r\nname in Scotland.”\r\n\r\n“It is an ancient and honourable stock, the Monypennies,” said Sir Mungo\r\nMalagrowther; “the only loss is, there are sae few of the name.”\r\n\r\n“The family seems to increase among your countrymen, Sir Mungo,” said\r\nMaster Lowestoffe, whom Lord Glenvarloch had invited to be present,\r\n“since his Majesty's happy accession brought so many of you here.”\r\n\r\n“Right, sir--right,” said Sir Mungo, nodding and looking at George\r\nHeriot; “there have some of ourselves been the better of that great\r\nblessing to the English nation.”\r\n\r\nAs he spoke, the door flew open, and in entered, to the astonishment\r\nof Lord Glenvarloch, his late serving-man Richie Moniplies, now\r\nsumptuously, nay, gorgeously, attired in a superb brocaded suit, and\r\nleading in his hand the tall, thin, withered, somewhat distorted form\r\nof Martha Trapbois, arrayed in a complete dress of black velvet,\r\nwhich suited so strangely with the pallid and severe melancholy of her\r\ncountenance, that the king himself exclaimed, in some perturbation,\r\n“What the deil has the fallow brought us here? Body of our regal selves! it is a corpse that has run off with the mort-cloth!”\r\n\r\n“May I sifflicate your Majesty to be gracious unto her?” said Richie;\r\n“being that she is, in respect of this morning's wark, my ain wedded\r\nwife, Mrs. Martha Moniplies by name.”\r\n\r\n“Saul of our body, man!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "but she looks wondrous grim,” answered King\r\nJames. “Art thou sure she has not been in her time maid of honour to\r\nQueen Mary, our kinswoman, of redhot memory?”\r\n\r\n“I am sure, an it like your Majesty, that she has brought me fifty\r\nthousand pounds of good siller, and better; and that has enabled me to\r\npleasure your Majesty, and other folk.”\r\n\r\n“Ye need have said naething about that, man,” said the king; “we ken our\r\nobligations in that sma' matter, and we are glad this rudas spouse of\r\nthine hath bestowed her treasure on ane wha kens to put it to the profit\r\nof his king and country.--But how the deil did ye come by her, man?”\r\n\r\n“In the auld Scottish fashion, my liege. She is the captive of my bow\r\nand my spear,” answered Moniplies. “There was a convention that she\r\nshould wed me when I avenged her father's death--so I slew, and took\r\npossession.”\r\n\r\n“It is the daughter of Old Trapbois, who has been missed so long,” said\r\nLowestoffe.--“Where the devil could you mew her up so closely, friend\r\nRichie?”\r\n\r\n“Master Richard, if it be your will,” answered Richie; “or Master\r\nRichard Moniplies, if you like it better."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For mewing of her up, I found\r\nher a shelter, in all honour and safety, under the roof of an honest\r\ncountryman of my own--and for secrecy, it was a point of prudence, when\r\nwantons like you were abroad, Master Lowestoffe.”\r\n\r\nThere was a laugh at Richie's magnanimous reply, on the part of every\r\none but his bride, who made to him a signal of impatience, and said,\r\nwith her usual brevity and sternness,--“Peace--peace, I pray you, peace. Let us do that which we came for.” So saying, she took out a bundle of\r\nparchments, and delivering them to Lord Glenvarloch, she said aloud,--“I\r\ntake this royal presence, and all here, to witness, that I restore the\r\nransomed lordship of Glenvarloch to the right owner, as free as ever it\r\nwas held by any of his ancestors.”\r\n\r\n“I witnessed the redemption of the mortgage,” said Lowestoffe; “but I\r\nlittle dreamt by whom it had been redeemed.”\r\n\r\n“No need ye should,” said Richie; “there would have been small wisdom in\r\ncrying roast-meat.”\r\n\r\n“Peace,” said his bride, “once more.--This paper,” she continued,\r\ndelivering another to Lord Glenvarloch, “is also your property--take it,\r\nbut spare me the question how it came into my custody.”\r\n\r\nThe king had bustled forward beside Lord Glenvarloch, and fixing an\r\neager eye on the writing, exclaimed--“Body of ourselves, it is our royal\r\nsign-manual for the money which was so long out of sight!--How came you\r\nby it, Mistress Bride?”\r\n\r\n“It is a secret,” said Martha, dryly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“A secret which my tongue shall never utter,” said Richie,\r\nresolutely,--“unless the king commands me on my allegiance.”\r\n\r\n“I do--I do command you,” said James, trembling and stammering with the\r\nimpatient curiosity of a gossip; while Sir Mungo, with more malicious\r\nanxiety to get at the bottom of the mystery, stooped his long thin form\r\nforward like a bent fishing-rod, raised his thin grey locks from his\r\near, and curved his hand behind it to collect every vibration of the\r\nexpected intelligence. Martha in the meantime frowned most ominously on\r\nRichie, who went on undauntedly to inform the king, “that his deceased\r\nfather-in-law, a good careful man in the main, had a' touch of worldly\r\nwisdom about him, that at times marred the uprightness of his walk;\r\nhe liked to dabble among his neighbour's gear, and some of it would at\r\ntimes stick to his fingers in the handling.”\r\n\r\n“For shame, man, for shame!” said Martha; “since the infamy of the\r\ndeed must be told, be it at least briefly.--Yes, my lord,” she added,\r\naddressing Glenvarloch, “the piece of gold was not the sole bait which\r\nbrought the miserable old man to your chamber that dreadful night--his\r\nobject, and he accomplished it, was to purloin this paper. The wretched\r\nscrivener was with him that morning, and, I doubt not, urged the doting\r\nold man to this villainy, to offer another bar to the ransom of your\r\nestate."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If there was a yet more powerful agent at the bottom of this\r\nconspiracy, God forgive it to him at this moment, for he is now where\r\nthe crime must be answered!”\r\n\r\n“Amen!” said Lord Glenvarloch, and it was echoed by all present. “For my father,” continued she, with her stern features twitched by an\r\ninvoluntary and convulsive movement, “his guilt and folly cost him his\r\nlife; and my belief is constant, that the wretch, who counselled him\r\nthat morning to purloin the paper, left open the window for the entrance\r\nof the murderers.”\r\n\r\nEvery body was silent for an instant; the king was first to speak,\r\ncommanding search instantly to be made for the guilty scrivener. “_I, lictor,_” he concluded, “_colliga manus--caput obnubito-infelici\r\nsuspendite arbori_.”\r\n\r\nLowestoffe answered with due respect, that the scrivener had absconded\r\nat the time of Lord Dalgarno's murder, and had not been heard of since. “Let him be sought for,” said the king. “And now let us change the\r\ndiscourse--these stories make one's very blood grew, and are altogether\r\nunfit for bridal festivity."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Hymen, O Hymenee!” added he, snapping his\r\nfingers, “Lord Glenvarloch, what say you to Mistress Moniplies, this\r\nbonny bride, that has brought you back your father's estate on your\r\nbridal day?”\r\n\r\n“Let him say nothing, my liege,” said Martha; “that will best suit his\r\nfeelings and mine.”\r\n\r\n“There is redemption-money, at the least, to be repaid,” said Lord\r\nGlenvarloch; “in that I cannot remain debtor.”\r\n\r\n“We will speak of it hereafter,” said Martha; “_my_ debtor _you_ cannot\r\nbe.” And she shut her mouth as if determined to say nothing more on the\r\nsubject."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sir Mungo, however, resolved not to part with the topic, and availing\r\nhimself of the freedom of the moment, said to Richie--“A queer story\r\nthat of your father-in-law, honest man; methinks your bride thanked you\r\nlittle for ripping it up.”\r\n\r\n“I make it a rule, Sir Mungo,” replied Richie, “always to speak any evil\r\nI know about my family myself, having observed, that if I do not, it is\r\nsure to be told by ither folks.”\r\n\r\n“But, Richie,” said Sir Mungo, “it seems to me that this bride of yours\r\nis like to be master and mair in the conjugal state.”\r\n\r\n“If she abides by words, Sir Mungo,” answered Richie, “I thank heaven I\r\ncan be as deaf as any one; and if she comes to dunts, I have twa hands\r\nto paik her with.”\r\n\r\n“Weel said, Richie, again,” said the king; “you have gotten it on baith\r\nhaffits, Sir Mungo.--Troth, Mistress Bride, for a fule, your gudeman has\r\na pretty turn of wit.”\r\n\r\n“There are fools, sire,” replied she, “who have wit, and fools who\r\nhave courage--aye, and fools who have learning, and are great fools\r\nnotwithstanding.--I chose this man because he was my protector when\r\nI was desolate, and neither for his wit nor his wisdom. He is truly\r\nhonest, and has a heart and hand that make amends for some folly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Since\r\nI was condemned to seek a protector through the world, which is to me a\r\nwilderness, I may thank God that I have come by no worse.”\r\n\r\n“And that is sae sensibly said,” replied the king, “that, by my saul,\r\nI'll try whether I canna make him better. Kneel down, Richie--somebody\r\nlend me a rapier--yours, Mr. Langstaff, (that's a brave name for a\r\nlawyer,)--ye need not flash it out that gate, Templar fashion, as if ye\r\nwere about to pink a bailiff!”\r\n\r\nHe took the drawn sword, and with averted eyes, for it was a sight he\r\nloved not to look on, endeavoured to lay it on Richie's shoulder, but\r\nnearly stuck it into his eye. Richie, starting back, attempted to rise,\r\nbut was held down by Lowestoffe, while Sir Mungo, guiding the royal\r\nweapon, the honour-bestowing blow was given and received: “_Surge,\r\ncarnifex_--Rise up, Sir Richard Moniplies, of Castle-Collop!--And, my\r\nlords and lieges, let us all to our dinner, for the cock-a-leekie is\r\ncooling.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nNOTES\r\n\r\n\r\nNote I. p. l4.--DAVID RAMSAY\r\n\r\nDavid Ramsay, watchmaker and horologer to James I., was a real person,\r\nthough the author has taken the liberty of pressing him into the service\r\nof fiction. Although his profession led him to cultivate the exact\r\nsciences, like many at this period he mingled them with pursuits which\r\nwere mystical and fantastic."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The truth was, that the boundaries between\r\ntruth and falsehood in mathematics, astronomy, and similar pursuits,\r\nwere not exactly known, and there existed a sort of _terra incognita_\r\nbetween them, in which the wisest men bewildered themselves. David\r\nRamsay risked his money on the success of the vaticinations which his\r\nresearches led him to form, since he sold clocks and watches under\r\ncondition, that their value should not become payable till King James\r\nwas crowned in the Pope's chair at Rome. Such wagers were common in that\r\nday, as may be seen by looking at Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour. David Ramsay was also an actor in another singular scene, in which the\r\nnotorious astrologer Lilly was a performer, and had no small expectation\r\non the occasion, since he brought with him a half-quartern sack to put\r\nthe treasure in. “David Ramsay, his Majesty's clock-maker, had been informed that there\r\nwas a great quantity of treasure buried in the cloister of Westminster\r\nAbbey. He acquaints Dean Withnam therewith, who was also then Bishop\r\nof Lincoln. The Dean gave him liberty to search after it, with this\r\nproviso, that if any was discovered, his church should have a share of\r\nit. Davy Ramsay finds out one John Scott, who pretended the use of the\r\nMosaical rods, to assist him herein. [Footnote: The same now called,\r\nI believe, the Divining Rod, and applied to the discovery of water\r\nnot obvious to the eye.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I was desired to join with him, unto which\r\nI consented. One winter's night, Davy Ramsay, with several gentlemen,\r\nmyself, and Scott, entered the cloisters. We played the hazel rods round\r\nabout the cloisters. Upon the west end of the cloisters the rods turned\r\none over another, an argument that the treasure was there. The labourers\r\ndigged at least six feet deep, and then we met with a coffin; but which,\r\nin regard it was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much\r\nrepented. “From the cloisters we went into the abbey church, where, upon a\r\nsudden, (there being no wind when we began,) so fierce and so high, so\r\nblustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west\r\nend of the church would have fallen upon us. Our rods would not move at\r\nall; the candles and torches, also, but one were extinguished, or burned\r\nvery dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not\r\nwhat to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the\r\ndemons; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned\r\nunto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night. I could never\r\nsince be induced to join with any such like actions."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“The true miscarriage of the business was by reason of so many people\r\nbeing present at the operation; for there was about thirty, some\r\nlaughing, others deriding us; so that, if we had not dismissed the\r\ndemons, I believe most part of the abbey church would have been blown\r\ndown. Secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and\r\nknowledge of what they are doing, are best for the work.”--LILLY'S _Life\r\nand Times_, p. 46. David Ramsay had a son called William Ramsay, who appears to have\r\npossessed all his father's credulity. He became an astrologer, and in\r\n1651-2 published “_Vox Stellarum_, an Introduction to the Judgment of\r\nEclipses and the Annual Revolutions of the World.” The edition of 1652\r\nis inscribed, to his father."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It would appear, as indeed it might be\r\nargued from his mode of disposing of his goods, that the old horologer\r\nhad omitted to make hay while the sun shone; for his son, in his\r\ndedication, has this exception to the paternal virtues, “It's true your\r\ncarelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a\r\nstormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to\r\nvalue you according to what you are by nature and in yourself, for such\r\nlook not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none\r\nbut for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue.” From these\r\nexpressions, it is to be apprehended that while old David Ramsay, a\r\nfollower of the Stewarts, sunk under the Parliamentary government, his\r\nson, William, had advanced from being a dupe to astrology to the dignity\r\nof being himself a cheat. Note II. p. 27.-GEORGE HERIOT\r\n\r\nThis excellent person was but little known by his actions when alive,\r\nbut we may well use, in this particular, the striking phrase of\r\nScripture, “that being dead he yet speaketh.” We have already mentioned,\r\nin the Introduction, the splendid charity of which he was the founder;\r\nthe few notices of his personal history are slight and meagre. George Heriot was born at Trabroun, in the parish of Gladsmuir; he was\r\nthe eldest son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, descended from a family of\r\nsome consequence in East Lothian."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His father enjoyed the confidence of\r\nhis fellow-citizens, and was their representative in Parliament. He\r\nwas, besides, one of the deputies sent by the inhabitants of the city to\r\npropitiate the King, when he had left Edinburgh abruptly, after the riot\r\nof 17th December, 1596. George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a\r\ngoldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a\r\nmoney-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his\r\nconsort, Anne of Denmark. He married, for his first wife, a maiden of\r\nhis own rank, named Christian Marjoribanks, daughter of a respectable\r\nburgess. This was in 1586. He was afterwards named jeweller to the\r\nQueen, whose account to him for a space of ten years amounted to nearly\r\nL40,000. George Heriot, having lost his wife, connected himself with\r\nthe distinguished house of Rosebery, by marrying a daughter of James\r\nPrimrose, Clerk to the Privy Council. Of this lady he was deprived by\r\nher dying in child-birth in 1612, before attaining her twenty-first\r\nyear. After a life spent in honourable and successful industry, George\r\nHeriot died in London, to which city he had followed his royal master,\r\non the 12th February, 1624, at the age of sixty-one years."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His picture,\r\n(copied by Scougal from a lost original,) in which he is represented in\r\nthe prime of life, is thus described: “His fair hair, which overshades\r\nthe thoughtful brow and calm calculating eye, with the cast of humour\r\non the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine\r\nScottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move\r\nsteadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution\r\nto ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it.”--_Historical and\r\nDescriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder,\r\nby Messrs James and John Johnstone._ Edinburgh, 1827. I may add, as every thing concerning George Heriot is interesting,\r\nthat his second wife, Alison Primrose, was interred in Saint Gregory's\r\nChurch, from the register of which parish the Rev. Mr. Barham, Rector,\r\nhas, in the kindest manner, sent me the following extract:--“Mrs. Alison, the wife of Mr. George Heriot, gentleman, 20th April, 1612.”\r\n Saint Gregory's, before the Great Fire of London which consumed the\r\nCathedral, formed one of the towers of old Saint Paul's, and occupied\r\nthe space of ground now filled by Queen Anne's statue."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the south\r\naisle of the choir Mrs. Heriot reposed under a handsome monument,\r\nbearing the following inscription:--\r\n\r\n_“Sanctissimae et charissimae conjugi ALISONAE HERIOT, Jacobi Primrosii,\r\nRegia Majestatis in Sanctiori Concilio Regni Scotia Amanuensis,\r\nfiliae, fernina omnibus turn animi turn corporis dotibus, ac pio cultu\r\ninstructissimae, maestissimus ipsius maritus GEORGIUS HERIOT, ARMIGER,\r\nRegis, Reginae, Principum Henrici et Caroli Gemmarius, bene merenti, non\r\nsine lachrymis, hoc Monumentum pie posuit. “Obiit Mensis Aprilis die 16, anno salutis 1612, aetatis 20, in\r\nipso flore juventae, et mihi, parentibus, et amicis tristissimum sui\r\ndesiderium reliquit. Hic Alicia Primrosa\r\n Jacet crudo abruta fato,\r\n Intempestivas\r\n Ut rosa pressa manus. Nondum bisdenos\r\n Annorum impleverat orbes,\r\n Pulchra, pudica,\r\n Patris delicium atque viri:\r\n Quum gravida, heu! Nunquam\r\n Mater, decessit, et inde\r\n Cura dolorq: Patri,\r\n Cura dolorq: viro. Non sublata tamen\r\n Tantum translata recessit;\r\n Nunc Rosa prima Poli\r\n Quae fuit antea soli.”_\r\n\r\nThe loss of a young, beautiful, and amiable partner, at a period so\r\ninteresting, was the probable reason of her husband devoting his fortune\r\nto a charitable institution. The epitaph occurs in Strype's edition of\r\n_Stewe's Survey of London_, Book iii., page 228. Note III. p."}
{"question": "", "answer": "39.--PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE SCOTS COMING TO ENGLAND\r\n\r\nThe English agreed in nothing more unanimously than in censuring James\r\non account of the beggarly rabble which not only attended the King at\r\nhis coming first out of Scotland, “but,” says Osborne, “which, through\r\nhis whole reign, like a fluent spring, were found still crossing the\r\nTweed.” Yet it is certain, from the number of proclamations published\r\nby the Privy Council in Scotland, and bearing marks of the King's\r\nown diction, that he was sensible of the whole inconveniences and\r\nunpopularity attending the importunate crowd of disrespectable suitors,\r\nand as desirous to get rid of them as his Southern subjects could be."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But it was in vain that his Majesty argued with his Scottish subjects on\r\nthe disrespect they were bringing on their native country and sovereign,\r\nby causing the English to suppose there were no well-nurtured or\r\nindependent gentry in Scotland, they who presented themselves being, in\r\nthe opinion and conceit of all beholders, “but idle rascals, and poor\r\nmiserable bodies.” It was even in vain that the vessels which brought\r\nup this unwelcome cargo of petitioners were threatened with fine and\r\nconfiscation; the undaunted suitors continued to press forward, and, as\r\none of the proclamations says, many of them under pretence of requiring\r\npayment of “auld debts due to them by the King,” which, it is observed\r\nwith great _naivete_, “is, of all kinds of importunity, most unpleasing\r\nto his Majesty.” The expressions in the text are selected from these\r\ncurious proclamations. NOTE IV. p. 59.--KING JAMES\r\n\r\nThe dress of this monarch, together with his personal appearance, is\r\nthus described by a contemporary:--\r\n\r\n“He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through [i.e. by means of]\r\nhis clothes than in his body, yet fat enough. His legs were very weak,\r\nhaving had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather\r\nbefore he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age. That weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk\r\nwas even circular; his hands are in that walk ever fiddling about----[a\r\npart of dress now laid aside]."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He would make a great deal too bold with\r\nGod in his passion, both with cursing and swearing, and a strain higher\r\nverging on blasphemy; but would, in his better temper, say, he hoped God\r\nwould not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they\r\nproceeded from passion. He had need of great assistance, rather than\r\nhope, that would daily make thus bold with God.”--DALZELL'S _Sketches of\r\nScottish History _, p. 86. NOTE V. p. 78.--SIR MUNGO MALAGROWTHER\r\n\r\nIt will perhaps be recognised by some of my countrymen, that the caustic\r\nScottish knight, as described in the preceding chapter, borrowed some of\r\nhis attributes from a most worthy and respectable baronet, who was to be\r\nmet with in Edinburgh society about twenty-five or thirty years ago. It\r\nis not by any means to be inferred, that the living person resembled the\r\nimaginary one in the course of life ascribed to him, or in his personal\r\nattributes. But his fortune was little adequate to his rank and the\r\nantiquity of his family; and, to avenge himself of this disparity, the\r\nworthy baronet lost no opportunity of making the more avowed sons of\r\nfortune feel the edge of his satire. This he had the art of disguising\r\nunder the personal infirmity of deafness, and usually introduced his\r\nmost severe things by an affected mistake of what was said around\r\nhim."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For example, at a public meeting of a certain county, this worthy\r\ngentleman had chosen to display a laced coat, of such a pattern as had\r\nnot been seen in society for the better part of a century. The young men\r\nwho were present amused themselves with rallying him on his taste,\r\nwhen he suddenly singled out one of the party:--“Auld d'ye think my\r\ncoat--auld-fashioned?--indeed it canna be new; but it was the wark of a\r\nbraw tailor, and that was your grandfather, who was at the head of the\r\ntrade in Edinburgh about the beginning of last century.” Upon another\r\noccasion, when this type of Sir Mungo Malagrowther happened to hear a\r\nnobleman, the high chief of one of those Border clans who were accused\r\nof paying very little attention in ancient times to the distinctions\r\nof _Meum_ and _Tuum,_ addressing a gentleman of the same name, as\r\nif conjecturing there should be some relationship between them, he\r\nvolunteered to ascertain the nature of the connexion by saying, that\r\nthe “chief's ancestors had _stolen_ the cows, and the other gentleman's\r\nancestors had _killed_ them,”--fame ascribing the origin of the latter\r\nfamily to a butcher."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It may be well imagined, that among a people that\r\nhave been always punctilious about genealogy, such a person, who had a\r\ngeneral acquaintance with all the flaws and specks in the shields of the\r\nproud, the pretending, and the nouveaux riches, must have had the same\r\nscope for amusement as a monkey in a china shop. Note VI. p. 98.--MRS. ANNE TURNER\r\n\r\nMrs. Anne Turner was a dame somewhat of the occupation of Mrs.\r\nSuddlechop in the text; that is, half milliner half procuress, and\r\nsecret agent in all manner of proceedings. She was a trafficker in the\r\npoisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, for which so many subordinate agents\r\nlost their lives, while, to the great scandal of justice, the Earl of\r\nSomerset and his Countess were suffered to escape, upon a threat of\r\nSomerset to make public some secret which nearly affected his master,\r\nKing James. Mrs. Turner introduced into England a French custom of using\r\nyellow starch in getting up bands and cuffs, and, by Lord Coke's orders,\r\nshe appeared in that fashion at the place of execution. She was the\r\nwidow of a physician, and had been eminently beautiful, as appears from\r\nthe description of her in the poem called Overbury's Vision. There was\r\nproduced in court a parcel of dolls or puppets belonging to this lady,\r\nsome naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions\r\nupon."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these\r\nfigures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, “heard a\r\ncrack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion,\r\namong the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as\r\nif the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship\r\nshowed to such as were not his own scholars.” Compare this curious\r\npassage in the History of King James for the First Fourteen Years, 1651,\r\nwith the Aulicus Coquinarius of Dr. Heylin. Both works are published in\r\nthe Secret History of King James. Note VII. p. 110.--LORD HUNTINGLEN\r\n\r\nThe credit of having rescued James I. from the dagger of Alexander\r\nRuthven, is here fictitiously ascribed to an imaginary Lord Huntinglen. In reality, as may be read in every history, his preserver was John\r\nRamsay, afterwards created Earl of Holderness, who stabbed the younger\r\nRuthven with his dagger while he was struggling with the King. Sir\r\nAnthony Weldon informs us, that, upon the annual return of the day, the\r\nKing's deliverance was commemorated by an anniversary feast. The time\r\nwas the fifth of August, “upon which,” proceeds the satirical historian,\r\n“Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the\r\nprincipal guest, and so did the King grant him any boon he would ask\r\nthat day."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his\r\nsuit as unprofitable, as the action for which he asked it for was\r\nunserviceable to the King.”\r\n\r\nNote VIII. p. 115.--BUCKINGHAM\r\n\r\nBuckingham, who had a frankness in his high and irascible ambition,\r\nwas always ready to bid defiance to those by whom he was thwarted or\r\nopposed. He aspired to be created Prince of Tipperary in Ireland, and\r\nLord High Constable of England. Coventry, then Lord Keeper, opposed what\r\nseemed such an unreasonable extent of power as was annexed to the office\r\nof Constable. On this opposition, according to Sir Anthony Weldon,\r\n“the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper,\r\nCoventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false;\r\n'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and\r\nwill, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that\r\nI held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by\r\nrendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and\r\nfury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it long;' and surely,\r\nhad not Felton prevented him, he had made good his word.”--WELDON'S\r\n_Court of King James and Charles._\r\n\r\n Note IX. p. 134.--PAGES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY\r\n\r\nAbout this time the ancient customs arising from the long prevalence of\r\nchivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the\r\ninstitution."}
{"question": "", "answer": "None was more remarkable than the change which took place\r\nin the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial\r\noriginally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be\r\ntrained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal\r\nhomes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed\r\nin the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where\r\nthey served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry\r\nand courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great\r\nstrictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant\r\naccomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next\r\ngradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of\r\nknighthood were frequently made knights. But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many instances,\r\na mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of his address and\r\nappearance, was expected to make up in show for the absence of a whole\r\nband of retainers with swords and bucklers. We have Sir John's authority\r\nwhen he cashiers part of his train. “Falstaff will learn the humour of the age,\r\n    French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page.”\r\n\r\nJonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son\r\nfor a page, that he would, with his own hands hang him, sooner\r\n\r\n  “Than damn him to this desperate course of life. _LOVEL._ Call you that desperate, which, by a line\r\n   Of institution, from our ancestors\r\n   Hath been derived down to us, and received\r\n   In a succession, for the noblest way\r\n   Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms,\r\n   Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise,\r\n   And all the blazon of a gentleman? Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence,\r\n   To move his body gracefully, to speak\r\n   The language pure, or to turn his mind\r\n   Or manners more to the harmony of nature,\r\n   Than in these nurseries of nobility? _HOST._ Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble,\r\n   And only virtue made it, not the market,\r\n   That titles were not vended at the drum\r\n   And common outcry; goodness gave the greatness,\r\n   And greatness worship; every house became\r\n   An academy, and those parts\r\n   We see departed in the practice now\r\n   Quite from the institution. _LOVEL._ Why do you say so,\r\n   Or think so enviously? do they not still\r\n   Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace,\r\n   To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence? The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring\r\n   In armour; to be active for the wars;\r\n   To study figures, numbers and proportions,\r\n   May yield them great in counsels and the art;\r\n   To make their English sweet upon their tongue?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "As reverend Chaucer says. _HOST._ Sir, you mistake;\r\n   To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it,\r\n   And carry messages to Madam Cressid;\r\n   Instead of backing the brave steed o'mornings. To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap\r\n   O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house;\r\n   For exercise of arms a bale of dice,\r\n   And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat\r\n   And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak\r\n   From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets\r\n   Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel\r\n   Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons\r\n   From off my lady's gown: These are the arts,\r\n   Or seven liberal deadly sciences,\r\n   Of pagery, or rather paganism,\r\n   As the tides run; to which, if he apply him,\r\n   He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn,\r\n   A year the earlier come to read a lecture\r\n   Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's\r\n   And so go forth a laureate in hemp-circle.”\r\n                             The New Inn, Act I. Note X. p. 135.--LORD HENRY HOWARD\r\n\r\nLord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and\r\npossessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a\r\nbook called, _A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies._\r\nHe gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed\r\nhis battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom\r\nhe accounted _infesti regibus,_ as he expresses it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the last years\r\nof the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted\r\nwith great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the\r\nScottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was\r\ncreated Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De\r\nBeaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard, was one of the\r\ngreatest flatterers and calumniators that ever lived. Note XI. p. 136.--SKIRMISHES IN THE PUBLIC STREETS\r\n\r\nEdinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in\r\nEurope, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such\r\nincidents as the following: “The 24 of November (1567), at two\r\nafternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High\r\nGate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody\r\nskirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol.”\r\n These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of\r\n_The Scowrers,_ an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:--“I knew\r\nthe Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they were\r\nbrave fellows indeed!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "In these days, a man could not go from the Rose\r\nGarden to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear\r\nSir Willie.” But it appears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish\r\ncapital, arose out of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were\r\nin London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young\r\ndebauchees. Note XII. p. 144.--FRENCH COOKERY\r\n\r\nThe exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed\r\nby some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also\r\ndistinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was\r\ndisplayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome\r\nrecords that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very\r\ncircumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and\r\nopinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears\r\nthat his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a\r\nmule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick,\r\nand served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that\r\nit passed with Brusquet for venison. Note XIII. p. 145.--CUCKOO'S NEST\r\n\r\nThe quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the\r\ncitizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem called The Counter\r\nScuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had at the time very considerable\r\nvogue."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst\r\nthemselves “which calling was of most repute,” and a lawyer put in his\r\nclaim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence\r\nwith much arrogance. “'Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he,\r\n    'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee\r\n            'Tis pity;\r\n    For such as you esteem us least,\r\n    Who ever have been ready prest\r\n    To guard you and your cuckoo's nest,\r\n            The City'”\r\n\r\nThe offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant\r\ncitizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis. “'Of London city I am free,\r\n    And there I first my wife did see,\r\n    And for that very cause,' said he,\r\n            'I love it. And he that calls it cuckoo's nest,\r\n    Except he say he speaks in jest,\r\n    He is a villain and a beast,--\r\n            'I'll prove it! For though I am a man of trade,\r\n    And free of London city made,\r\n    Yet can I use gun, bill, and blade,\r\n            In battle. And citizens, if need require,\r\n    Themselves can force the foe retire,\r\n    Whatever this low country squire\r\n             May prattle. '”\r\n\r\nThe dispute terminates in the scuffle, which is the subject of the poem. The whole may be found in the second edition of Dryden's _Miscellany,_\r\n12mo, vol. iii. 1716. Note XIV. p."}
{"question": "", "answer": "150.--BURBAGE\r\n\r\nBurbage, whom Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original\r\nrepresentative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost\r\nidentified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells\r\nus that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ale and history. “Hear him, See you yon wood? there Richard lay\r\n   With his whole army; look the other way,\r\n   And lo, where Richmond, in a field of gorse,\r\n   Encamp'd himself in might and all his force. Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell\r\n   The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell;\r\n   Besides, what of his knowledge he could say,\r\n   He had authentic notice from the play,\r\n   Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts\r\n   And policies not incident to hosts;\r\n   But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing,\r\n   Where he mistook a player for a king,\r\n   For when he would have said, that Richard died,\r\n   And call'd, a horse! a horse! he Burbage cried.”\r\n\r\n            RICHARD CORBET'S _Poems, Edition 1815,_ p. 193. Note XV. p. 323.--MHIC-ALLASTAR-MORE\r\n\r\nThis is the Highland patronymic of the late gallant Chief of Glengarry. The allusion in the text is to an unnecessary alarm taken by some lady,\r\nat the ceremonial of the coronation of George IV., at the sight of\r\nthe pistols which the Chief wore as a part of his Highland dress. The\r\ncircumstance produced some confusion, which was talked of at the time."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All who knew Glengarry (and the author knew him well) were aware that\r\nhis principles were of devoted loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Note XVI. p. 323.--KING JAMES'S HUNTING BOTTLE\r\n\r\nRoger Coke, in his Detection of the Court and State of England, London,\r\n1697, p.70, observes of James I., “The king was excessively addicted to\r\nhunting, and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong\r\nGreek wines, and thought he would compound his hunting with these wines;\r\nand to that purpose, he was attended by a special officer, who was, as\r\nmuch as he could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in hunting\r\nwhen he called for it. I have heard my father say, that, hunting with\r\nthe King, after the King had drank of the wine, he also drank of it; and\r\nthough he was young, and of a healthful disposition, it so deranged\r\nhis head that it spoiled his pleasure and disordered him for three days\r\nafter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other\r\ncause, the King became so lazy and so unwieldy, that he was trussed on\r\nhorseback, and as he was set, so would he ride, without stirring himself\r\nin the saddle; nay, when his hat was set upon his head he would not take\r\nthe trouble to alter it, but it sate as it was put on.”\r\n\r\nThe trussing, for which the demipique saddle of the day afforded\r\nparticular facility, is alluded to in the text; and the author, among\r\nother nickcnacks of antiquity, possesses a leathern flask, like those\r\ncarried by sportsmen, which is labelled, “King James's Hunting Bottle,”\r\n with what authenticity is uncertain. Coke seems to have exaggerated the\r\nKing's taste for the bottle. Welldon says James was not intemperate in\r\nhis drinking; “However, in his old age, Buckingham's jovial suppers,\r\nwhen he had any turn to do with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which\r\nhe would the next day remember, and repent with tears. It is true he\r\ndrank very often, which was rather out of a custom than any delight; and\r\nhis drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, high\r\ncountry wine, tent wine, and Scottish ale, that had he not had a very\r\nstrong brain, he might have been daily overtaken, though he seldom\r\ndrank at any one time above four spoonfuls, many times not above one or\r\ntwo.”--_Secret History of King James,_ vol. ii., p. 3. Edin. 1811. Note XVII. p."}
{"question": "", "answer": "325.--SCENE IN GREENWICH PARK\r\n\r\nI cannot here omit mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in\r\nexistence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the\r\nforegoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity\r\nis in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence\r\nof the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following\r\ndescription attached to it in a well-drawn-up catalogue:\r\n\r\n                             “FREDERIGO ZUCCHERO\r\n    _“Scene as represented in the Fortunes of Nigel, by Frederigo\r\nZucchero, the King's painter._\r\n\r\n“This extraordinary picture, which, independent of its pictorial merit,\r\nhas been esteemed a great literary curiosity, represents most faithfully\r\nthe meeting, in Greenwich Park, between King James and Nigel Oliphaunt,\r\nas described in the Fortunes of Nigel, showing that the author must\r\nhave taken the anecdote from authenticated facts. In the centre of the\r\npicture sits King James on horseback, very erect and stiffly. Between\r\nthe King and Prince Charles, who is on the left of the picture, the Duke\r\nof Buckingham is represented riding a black horse, and pointing eagerly\r\ntowards the culprit, Nigel Olifaunt, who is standing on the right side\r\nof the picture. He grasps with his right hand a gun, or crossbow, and\r\nlooks angrily towards the King, who seems somewhat confused and alarmed. Behind Nigel, his servant is restraining two dogs which are barking\r\nfiercely."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of\r\nthe Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth\r\nare clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt\r\nfamily, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their\r\nlivery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence\r\nof dress to the King or the Prince. The only difference that is marked\r\nbetween him and royalty is, that his head is uncovered. The King and the\r\nPrince wear their hats. In Letitia Aikin's Memoirs of the Reign of\r\nKing James, will be found a letter from Sir Thomas Howard to Lord\r\nL. Harrington, in which he recommends the latter to come to court,\r\nmentioning that his Majesty has spoken favourably of him. He then\r\nproceeds to give him some advice, by which he is likely to find favour\r\nin the King's eyes. He tells him to wear a bushy ruff, well starched;\r\nand after various other directions as to his dress, he concludes, 'but\r\nabove all things fail not to praise the roan jennet whereon the King\r\ndoth daily ride.' In this picture King James is represented on the\r\nidentical roan jennet. In the background of the picture are seen two\r\nor three suspicious-looking figures, as if watching the success of some\r\nplot."}
{"question": "", "answer": "These may have been put in by the painter, to flatter the King,\r\nby making it be supposed that he had actually escaped, or successfully\r\ncombated, some serious plot. The King is attended by a numerous band of\r\ncourtiers and attendants, all of whom seem moving forward to arrest\r\nthe defaulter. The painting of this picture is extremely good, but\r\nthe drawing is very Gothic, and there is no attempt at the keeping of\r\nperspective. The picture is very dark and obscure, which considerably\r\nadds to the interest of the scene.”\r\n\r\nNote XVIII. p. 325.--KING JAMES'S TIMIDITY\r\n\r\nThe fears of James for his personal safety were often excited without\r\nserious grounds. On one occasion, having been induced to visit a\r\ncoal-pit on the coast of Fife, he was conducted a little way under the\r\nsea, and brought to daylight again on a small island, or what was such\r\nat full tide, down which a shaft had been sunk. James, who conceived his\r\nlife or liberty aimed at, when he found himself on an islet surrounded\r\nby the sea, instead of admiring, as his cicerone hoped, the unexpected\r\nchange of scene, cried TREASON with all his might, and could not be\r\npacified till he was rowed ashore. At Lockmaben he took an equally\r\ncauseless alarm from a still slighter circumstance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Some vendisses,\r\na fish peculiar to the Loch, were presented to the royal table as a\r\ndelicacy; but the King, who was not familiar with their appearance,\r\nconcluded they were poisoned, and broke up the banquet “with most\r\nadmired disorder.”\r\n\r\nNote XIX. p. 328.--TRAITOR'S GATE\r\n\r\nTraitor's Gate, which opens from the Tower of London to the Thames, was,\r\nas its name implies, that by which persons accused of state offences\r\nwere conveyed to their prison. When the tide is making, and the ancient\r\ngate is beheld from within the buildings, it used to be a most striking\r\npart of the old fortress; but it is now much injured in appearance,\r\nbeing half built up with masonry to support a steam-engine, or something\r\nof that sort. Note XX. p. 361.--PUNISHMENT OF STUBBS BY MUTILATION\r\n\r\nThis execution, which so captivated the imagination of Sir Mungo\r\nMalagrowther, was really a striking one. The criminal, a furious and\r\nbigoted Puritan, had published a book in very violent terms against the\r\nmatch of Elizabeth with the Duke of Alencon, which he termed an union of\r\na daughter of God with a son of antichrist. Queen Elizabeth was greatly\r\nincensed at the freedom assumed in this work, and caused the author\r\nStubbs, with Page the publisher, and one Singleton the printer, to\r\nbe tried on an act passed by Philip and Mary against the writers and\r\ndispersers of seditious publications."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They were convicted, and although\r\nthere was an opinion strongly entertained by the lawyers, that the\r\nact was only temporary, and expired with Queen Mary, Stubbs and Page\r\nreceived sentence to have their right hands struck off. They accordingly\r\nsuffered the punishment, the wrist being divided by a cleaver driven\r\nthrough the joint by force of a mallet. The printer was pardoned. “I\r\nremember,” says the historian Camden, “being then present, that Stubbs,\r\nwhen his right hand was cut off, plucked off his hat with the left, and\r\nsaid, with a loud voice, 'God save the Queen!' The multitude standing\r\nabout was deeply silent, either out of horror of this new and unwonted\r\nkind of punishment, or out of commiseration towards the man, as being of\r\nan honest and unblamable repute, or else out of hatred to the marriage,\r\nwhich most men presaged would be the overthrow of religion.”--CAMDBN'S\r\n_Annals for the Year_ 1581. Note XXI. p. 375.--RlCHIE MONIPLIES BEHIND THE ARRAS\r\n\r\nThe practical jest of Richie Moniplies going behind the arras to get an\r\nopportunity of teasing Heriot, was a pleasantry such as James might be\r\nsupposed to approve of. It was customary for those who knew his humour\r\nto contrive jests of this kind for his amusement. The celebrated Archie\r\nArmstrong, and another jester called Drummond, mounted on other people's\r\nbacks, used to charge each other like knights in the tilt-yard, to the\r\nmonarch's great amusement."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The following is an instance of the same\r\nkind, taken from Webster upon Witchcraft. The author is speaking of the\r\nfaculty called ventriloquism. But to make this more plain and certain, we shall add a story of a\r\nnotable impostor, or ventriloquist, from the testimony of Mr. Ady, which\r\nwe have had confirmed from the mouth of some courtiers, that both saw\r\nand knew him, and is this:--It hath been (saith he) credibly reported,\r\nthat there was a man in the court of King James his days, that could act\r\nthis imposture so lively, that he could call the King by name, and cause\r\nthe King to look round about him, wondering who it was that called him,\r\nwhereas he that called him stood before him in his presence, with his\r\nface towards him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But after this imposture was known, the King, in his\r\nmerriment, would sometimes take occasionally this impostor to make sport\r\nupon some of his courtiers, as, for instance:--\r\n\r\n“There was a knight belonging to the court, whom the King caused to come\r\nbefore him in his private room, (where no man was but the King, and this\r\nknight and the impostor,) and feigned some occasion of serious discourse\r\nwith the knight; but when the King began to speak and the knight bending\r\nhis attention to the King, suddenly there came a voice as out of another\r\nroom, calling the knight by name, 'Sir John, Sir John; come away,\r\nSir John;' at which the knight began to frown that any man should be\r\nunmannerly as to molest the King and him; and still listening to the\r\nKing's discourse, the voice came again, 'Sir John, Sir John; come away\r\nand drink off your sack.' At that Sir John began to swell with anger,\r\nand looked into the next room to see who it was that dared to call him\r\nso importunately, and could not find out who it was, and having chid\r\nwith whomsoever he found, he returned again to the King. The King had no\r\nsooner begun to speak as formerly, but the voice came again, 'Sir John,\r\ncome away, your sack stayeth for you.'"}
{"question": "", "answer": "At that Sir John began to stamp\r\nwith madness, and looked out and returned several times to the King, but\r\ncould not be quiet in his discourse with the King, because of the voice\r\nthat so often troubled him, till the king had sported enough.”--WEBSTER\r\n_on Witchcraft_, p. 124. Note XXII. p. 393.--LADY LAKE. Whether out of a meddling propensity common to all who have a gossiping\r\ndisposition, or from the love of justice, which ought to make part of a\r\nprince's character, James was very fond of enquiring personally into the\r\ncauses _celebres_ which occurred during his reign. In the imposture of\r\nthe Boy of Bilson, who pretended to be possessed, and of one Richard\r\nHaydock, a poor scholar, who pretended to preach during his sleep, the\r\nKing, to use the historian Wilson's expression, took delight in\r\nsounding with the line of his understanding, the depths of these brutish\r\nimpositions, and in doing so, showed the acuteness with which he was\r\nendowed by Nature. Lady Lake's story consisted in a clamorous complaint\r\nagainst the Countess of Exeter, whom she accused of a purpose to put to\r\ndeath Lady Lake herself, and her daughter, Lady Ross, the wife of the\r\nCountess's own son-in-law, Lord Ross; and a forged letter was produced,\r\nin which Lady Exeter was made to acknowledge such a purpose."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The account\r\ngiven of the occasion of obtaining this letter, was, that it had been\r\nwritten by the Countess at Wimbledon, in presence of Lady Lake and her\r\ndaughter, Lady Ross, being designed to procure their forgiveness for her\r\nmischievous intention. The King remained still unsatisfied, the writing,\r\nin his opinion, bearing some marks of forgery. Lady Lake and her\r\ndaughter then alleged, that, besides their own attestation, and that of\r\na confidential domestic, named Diego, in whose presence Lady Exeter had\r\nwritten the confession, their story might also be supported by the oath\r\nof their waiting-maid, who had been placed behind the hangings at the\r\ntime the letter was written, and heard the Countess of Exeter read over\r\nthe confession after she had signed it. Determined to be at the bottom\r\nof this accusation, James, while hunting one day near Wimbledon, the\r\nscene of the alleged confession, suddenly left his sport, and,\r\ngalloping hastily to Wimbledon, in order to examine personally the\r\nroom, discovered, from the size of the apartment, that the alleged\r\nconversation could not have taken place in the manner sworn to; and that\r\nthe tapestry of the chamber, which had remained in the same state for\r\nthirty years, was too short by two feet, and, therefore, could not have\r\nconcealed any one behind it. This matter was accounted an exclusive\r\ndiscovery of the King by his own spirit of shrewd investigation. The\r\nparties were punished in the Star Chamber by fine and imprisonment. _A,' all."}
{"question": "", "answer": "BELDAM, ugly old woman. ABYE, suffer for. BELIVE, by-and-by, presently. ACCIDENS, grammar. BENEVOLENCES, taxes illegally\r\n   AIGRE, sour, ill-natured. exacted by the Kings of\r\n   AIN GATE, own way. England. A' LEEVING, all living. BIDE, keep, remain. AMBLE, a peculiar gait of a       BIELDY BIT, sheltered spot. horse, in which both legs on    BIGGING, building. one side are moved forward      BILBOE, sword, rapier. at the same time. BILLIES, brothers. ANCE, once. BIRKIE, lively young fellow. ANENT, concerning. BLACK-JACK, leathern drinking-\r\n   ANGEL, an ancient English gold      cup. coin, worth about 10s., and     BLADES, dashing fellows, rakes. bearing the figure of an angel. BLATE, modest, bashful. ARRAS, tapestry. BLETHERING, foolish, silly. AUGHT, owe. BLITHE, BLYTHE, glad. AULD, old. BLUE-COATS, lackeys. AULD REEKIE, Edinburgh, in        BODDLE, a copper coin, value\r\n     allusion to its smoke. the sixth part of an English\r\n   AVISEMENT, counsel. penny. AW, all. BODE, bid, offer. AWMOUS, alms, a gift. BOOKIE, book. BRAE, hill, hill-side. BANGED,\r\n                                           sprang, bounded. BRAVE PIECE, fine thing. BARNACLES, spectacles. BRAW, fine, handsome. BARNS-BREAKING, idle frolics. BREAKING, kneading. BAWBEE, halfpenny. BREEKS, breeches, trousers. BAXTER, baker. BROCHES, kitchen spits. BEAR-BANNOCKS, barley cakes. BROSE, pottage of mean and\r\n   BECKING, curtseying. water. BECKS, nods. BROWNIE, domestic goblin. BEECHEN BICKERS, dishes of        BUCKET, cheat. beechwood. BUNEMOST, uppermost. BURROWS-TOWN, borough-town. BUSS, kiss. CALF-WARD, place where calves are kept in the field. CALLAN, CALLANT, lad. CANNILY, cautiously, skilfully. CANNY, quiet. CANTLE, crown of the head. CARCANET, necklace. CARLE, fellow. CARLE-HEMPIE, the strongest stalk of hemp. CARNIFEX, executioner. CAUFF, chaff. CAULDRIFE, chilly. CA'T, call it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "CAUP, cup. CAUSEY, pavement. CERTIE, faith, in truth. CHALMER, chamber. CHANGE-HOUSE, roadside inn where horses are changed on a journey. CHALK, slash. CHAPPIT, struck. CHEEK-BY-JOWL, CHEEK-BY-CHOWL, side by side. CHEERY, dagger. CHENZIE-MAIL, chain-mail. CHIELD, fellow. CHOPINES, high shoes or clogs. CHUCKS, chuck-stones, as played by children. CHUFFS, clowns, simpletons. CLAITHING, clothing. CLAPPED LOOFS, crossed palms. CLATTER-TRAPS, rattle-traps. CLAUGHT, snatched. CLAVERING, idle talking. CLEEK, hook. CLEW, clue. CLOOT, hoof. CLOUR, blow. CLOUTING, mending. COCK-A-LEEKIE, COCK-A-LEEKY, leek soup in which a cock has been\r\n   boiled. COIF, linen covering for the head. COMPLOTS, plots, intrigues. COMPT, list, account, particulars. COMPTING-ROOM, counting-house. COSHERING, being familiar and intimate. COUP, barter. COUP THE CRANS, go to wreck and ruin. COUPIT, tumbled. CRAIG, rock; also neck. CRAP, creep. CRAW'D SAE CROUSE, crowed so proudly. CULLY, one easily deceived, a dupe. CURN, grain. CUSSER, stallion. CUTTY-QUEAN, a loose woman. DAFT, silly, mad. DAIKERING, jogging or toiling along. DANG, driven, knocked. DEIL, devil. DEUTEROSCOPY, a meaning beyond the original sense. DIDNA, did not. DIKE-LOUPER, a debauchee. DIRDUM, uproar, tumult. DIRKED, stabbed with a dirk. DONNERIT, stupefied. DOOMS, very, absolutely. DOUCE, quiet, respectable, sober. DOVER, neither asleep nor awake. DOWCOT, dove-cote. DRAB, illicit sexual intercourse. DRAFF, drains given to cows; also the wash given to pigs. DRAFF-POKE, bag of grains. DREDGING-BOX, a box with holes for sprinkling flour in cookery. DROUTHY, thirsty. DUD, rag. DUKE OF EXETER'S DAUGHTER, a species of rack in the Tower of London. DULE-WEEDS, mourning. DUMMALAFONG, a common prey to all comers. DUNTS, blows. EARD, earth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "EEN, eyes. ELRITCH, hideous. ENOW, just now. ENSAMPLE, example. EVITED, avoided. EXIES, hysterics. FALCHION, a short broadsword with a slightly curved point. FALSET, falsehood. FAUSE, false. FASH, trouble. FASHIOUS, troublesome, annoying. FENCE-LOUPER, rakish fellow. FEBRIFUGE, a medicine to subdue a fever. FIDUCIARY, trustee. FLATCAPS, citizens, civilians. FLEECHING, flattering. FOOD FOR FAGGOTS, martyrs for their religious opinions. FOOT-CLOTH, horse-cloth reaching almost to the ground. FOUARTS, house-leeks. FOULWART, pole-cat. FRAE, from. FRESCO, half-naked. FULE, fool. FULHAM, loaded dice. GAGE, pledge, trust. GANG A' AE GATE, go all one way. GAR, make, force. GARR'D, made, compelled. GATE, way, road; also kind of. GEAR, property. GIFF-GAFF, give and take, tit for tat. GIE THE GLAIKS, to befool, deceive. GILLIE-WHITE-FOOT, running footman. GILLRAVAGER, plunderer. GIRNED, grinned. GLAIKS, deception. GLEED, awry, all wrong. GOUD-COUK, fool. GRAFFS, graves. GRAMERCY, great thanks. GRANDAM, old woman, grandmother. GRAT, cried. GREEN GEESE, parrots. GREET, cry. GREW, shudder. GRIPS, handshakings, greetings. GROSART, GROSSART, goose-berry. GULL, one easily befooled,\r\n   GULLEY, large knife. GUTTERBLOOD, one meanly bred. GYNOCRACY, petticoat government. HAET, thing. HAFFITS, sides of the head. HAFT, handle. HAIRBOURED, resided, sojourned. HAMESUCKEN, assaulting a man on his own premises. HANKED, coiled. HARLE, drag, trail. HARMAN BECK, constable. HEART-SCALD, disgust. HEAD-TIRE, head-dress. HECK AND MANGER, in comfortable quarters. HEUGHS, glens. HIRDIE-GIRDIE, topsy-turvy. HIRPLING, limping, walking lame. HIRSEL, flock. HORSE-GRAITH, harness. HOUGHS, hollows. HOWFF, rendezvous, place of resort. ILK ANE, each one. ILL, bad. ILL REDD-UP, very untidy. ILL-WILLY, ill-natured. INGINE, ingenuity. INGOTS, masses of unwrought metal. INGRATE, an ungrateful person."}
{"question": "", "answer": "IRON CARLES, iron figures of men. JAW, wave. JEDDART-STAFF, a species of battle-axe peculiar to Jedburgh. JENNET, a small Spanish horse. JINGLE, dance. JOUP, dip, stoop down. KEMPING, strife. KENNING, knowledge. KIMMER, gossip, neighbour. KIRK, church. KITTLE, ticklish, difficult, precarious. KYTHED, seemed, appeared. LAIGH, low. LAIR, learning. LAMB'S-WOOL, a beverage made of the pulp of roasted apples. LANDLOUPER, adventurer, runagate. LANG SYNE, long ago. LATTEN, plated iron or brass. LAVROCK, lark. LEASING-MAKING, uttering treasonable language. LEASINGS, falsehoods, treason. LEGLIN-GIRTH, the lowest hoop on a leglin, or milk-pail. LICK, a beating. LIEFEST, most beloved. LIFT, steal. LIGHT O' LOVE, mistress, wanton woman. LINKBOYS, juvenile torch-bearers. LIST, like. LITHER, soft. LOOF, palm of the hand. LOON, LOUN, rascal. LOUPING, leaping. LUG, LUGG, ear. LUVE, love. MAIR THAN ANCE, more than once. MARLE, wonder, marvel. MAGGOT, whim, fancy. MELL, intermeddle. MENSEFUL, modest, mannerly. MERK, a Scottish coin, value 13s 4d. MESS-BOOK, mass-book, Catholic prayer-book. MICKLE, MUCKLE, much, great, large. MINT, attempt. MIRK, dark. MISLEARD, unmannerly. MORT-CLOTH, shroud. MOTION, puppet-show. MUCKLE v. MICKLE. MUFFLED, disguised. MUSKETOON, a species of musket. MY GERTIE, my goodness! gracious! NEB, nose, point. NEEDSNA, need not. NICHER, snigger. NICKS, notches. NIFFER, exchange. NOBLE, a gold coin, value 6s. 8d. sterling. NOWTE, black cattle. NUNCHION, luncheon, food taken between meals. OR, before. OTHER GATE, other kind of. OWER SICKER, too careful. PAIK, fight, chastise. PANGED, crammed. PAPISTRIE, Popery. PEASE-BOGLE, scarecrow among the pease growing. PENNY-WEDDING, a wedding where all who attend contribute a trifle\r\n   towards the\r\n   expenses of the merrymaking."}
{"question": "", "answer": "PICKTHANK, a parasitical informer. PIG, earthen pot, vessel, or pitcher. PINK, stab, pierce holes into. PLACK, a copper coin, value the third part of an English\r\n   penny. PLOY, trick. POCK-END, empty pocket or purse. POCK-PUDDING, bag pudding. POORTITH, poverty. PORK-GRISKINS, sucking-pigs; also broiled loin of pork. POUCH, pocket. PRIE, taste. PULLET, a young hen. QUEAN, wench, young woman. RAMPALLIONS, low women. RAVE, tore. RAXING, stretching. REDDING-KAME, hair-comb. REDD-UP, tidy, put in order. RED WUD, stark mad. REIRD, shouting. REMEID, resource, remedy. ROOPIT, croupy, hoarse. ROSE-NOBLE, a gold coin, value 6s. 8d., impressed with a rose. ROUT, ROWT, to roar or bellow. RUDAS, wild, forward, bold. SAAM, same. SACK, sherry or canary wine, warmed and spiced. SACKLESS, innocent. SCAT, tribute, tax. SCAUDING, scalding. SCAUR, scare, frighten. SCLATE-STANE, slate-stone. SCRIVENER, one who draws up contracts. SHABBLE, cutlass,\r\n   SHOON, shoes. SHOUTHER, shoulder. SHULE, shovel. SIB, related. SIBYL, prophetess. SICKER, careful. SICLIKE, just so. SILLER, money, silver. SIRRAH, sir! SKEIGH, skittish. SKELDER, plunder, snatch. SLEEVELESS, thriftless. SMAIK, mean, paltry fellow. SNAP-HAUNCHES, firelocks. SPANG, spring. SPEER, ask. SPEERINGS, information, inquiries. SPRAIKLE, to get on with difficulty. SPUNK, slip. SPUNKIES, will-o'-the-wisps. STEEKING, closing. STEEKIT, shut. STONERN, stone. STOT, a bullock between two and three years old. STRAND-SCOURING, gutter-raking. STURDIED, afflicted with the sturdy, a sheep disease. STYPIC, astringent, something to arrest haemorrhage. SUCCORY-WATER, sugar water. SUNDOWN, sunset. SUNER, sooner. SUMPTER HORSE, pack-horse. SWITH, begone! be off! SYNE, ago. TAIT, lock. TANE, the one. TAWSE, leather strap used for chastisement. TEINDS, tithes. THROUGH-STANES, gravestones. TIKE v. TYKE."}
{"question": "", "answer": "TINT, lost. TITHER, the other. TOCHER, dowry. TOOM, empty. TOUR, see. TOUT, blast on the horn. TOYS, goods. TREEN, wooden. TROTH, truth. TROW, believe, guess. TRYSTE, appointment. TURN-BROCHE, turn-spit. TYKE, TIKE, dog, cur. TWA, two. TWIRING, coquetting, making eyes at. UMQUHILE, late, deceased. VIVERS, victuals. WAD, pledge. WADNA, would not. WADSET, mortgage. WANION, misfortune. WARE, spend. WARLOCKS, wizards. WASTRIFE, waste, extravagance. WAUR, worse. WEEL KEND, well known. WHA, who. WHEEN, few, a number of. WHIGMALEERY, trinkets, nicknacks. WHILK, which. WHINGER, cutlass, long knife. WHINYARD, sword. WHOMBLE, upset. WIMPLED, wrapped up. WINNA, will not. WITHY, gallows rope. WOO', wool. WYLIE-COAT, under-petticoat. WYND, street, alley. WYTE, blame. YESTREEN, last night. End of Project Gutenberg's The Fortunes of Nigel, by Sir Walter Scott\r\n\r\n*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL ***\r\n\r\n***** This file should be named 5950-0.txt or 5950-0.zip *****\r\nThis and all associated files of various formats will be found in:\r\n        http://www.gutenberg.org/5/9/5/5950/\r\n\r\nProduced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the\r\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team\r\n\r\n\r\nUpdated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions\r\nwill be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no\r\none owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation\r\n(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without\r\npermission and without paying copyright royalties."}
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{"question": "", "answer": "The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dick Sands, the Boy Captain\r\n    \r\nThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and\r\nmost other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions\r\nwhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms\r\nof the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online\r\nat www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,\r\nyou will have to check the laws of the country where you are located\r\nbefore using this eBook. Title: Dick Sands, the Boy Captain\r\n\r\nAuthor: Jules Verne\r\n\r\nTranslator: Ellen E. Frewer\r\n\r\nRelease date: October 1, 2005 [eBook #9150]\r\n                Most recently updated: October 8, 2023\r\n\r\nLanguage: English\r\n\r\nCredits: Produced by Distributed Proofreaders\r\n        \r\n        Linked Table of Contents produced by David Widger\r\n\r\n\r\n*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DICK SANDS, THE BOY CAPTAIN ***\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nDick Sands the Boy Captain by Jules Verne\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n[Redactor's Note: _Dick Sands the Boy Captain_ (Number V018 in the T&M\r\nnumerical listing of Verne's works) is a translation of _Un capitaine\r\nde quinze ans_ (1878) by Ellen E. Frewer who also translated other\r\nVerne works. The current translation was published by Sampson & Low in\r\nEngland (1878) and Scribners in New York (1879) and was republished\r\nmany times and included in Volume 8 of the Parke edition of _The Works\r\nof Jules Verne_ (1911)."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There is another translation published by\r\nGeorge Munro (1878) in New York with the title _Dick Sand A Captain at\r\nFifteen_. This work has an almost mechanical repetiveness in the continuing\r\ndescription of the day after day trials of sailing at sea. Thus the\r\nillustrations, of which there were 94 in the french edition, are all\r\nthe more important in keeping up the reader's interest. The titles of\r\nthe illustrations are given here as a prelude to a future fully\r\nillustrated edition.] *****\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nDICK SANDS\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nTHE BOY CAPTAIN. BY\r\n\r\nJULES VERNE. TRANSLATED BY\r\n\r\nELLEN E. FREWER\r\n\r\n\r\nILLUSTRATED\r\n\r\n\r\n1879\r\n\r\n\r\n*****\r\n\r\n\r\nCONTENTS. PART THE FIRST\r\n\r\n  I. THE \"PILGRIM\"\r\n  II. THE APPRENTICE\r\n  III. A RESCUE\r\n  IV. THE SURVIVORS OF THE \"WALDECK\"\r\n  V.  DINGO'S SAGACITY\r\n  VI. A WHALE IN SIGHT\r\n  VII. PREPARATIONS FOR AN ATTACK\r\n  VIII. A CATASTROPHE\r\n  IX. DICK'S PROMOTION\r\n  X. THE NEW CREW\r\n  XI. ROUGH WEATHER\r\n  XII. LAND AT LAST\r\n  XIV. ASHORE\r\n  XV. A STRANGER\r\n  XVI. THROUGH THE FOREST\r\n  XVII. MISGIVINGS\r\n  XVIII. A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY\r\n\r\n\r\n  PART THE SECOND\r\n\r\n  I. THE DARK CONTINENT\r\n  II. ACCOMPLICES\r\n  III. ON THE MARCH AGAIN\r\n  IV. ROUGH TRAVELLING\r\n  V.  WHITE ANTS\r\n  VI. A DIVING-BELL\r\n  VII. A SLAVE CARAVAN\r\n  VIII. NOTES BY THE WAY\r\n  IX. KAZONDÉ\r\n  X.  MARKET-DAY\r\n  XI. A BOWL OF PUNCH\r\n  XII. ROYAL OBSEQUIES\r\n  XIII. IN CAPTIVITY\r\n  XIV. A RAY OF HOPE\r\n  XV. AN EXCITING CHASE\r\n  XVI. A MAGICIAN\r\n  XVII. DRIFTING DOWN THE STREAM\r\n  XVIII. AN ANXIOUS VOYAGE\r\n  XIX. AN ATTACK\r\n  XX."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A HAPPY REUNION\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n*****\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\r\n\r\n\r\n  Number    Title\r\n\r\n  I-01-a    Cousin Benedict\r\n\r\n  I-01-b    Captain Hull advanced to meet Mrs. Weldon and her party\r\n\r\n  I-02-a    Negoro\r\n\r\n  I-02-b    Dick and Little Jack\r\n\r\n  I-03-a    Negoro had approached without being noticed by any one\r\n\r\n  I-03-b    The dog began to swim slowly and with manifest weakness\r\n            towards the boat\r\n\r\n  I-04-a    Mrs. Weldon assisted by Nan and the ever active Dick Sands,\r\n            was doing everything in her power to restore consciousness\r\n            to the poor sufferers\r\n\r\n  I-04-b    The good-natured negroes were ever ready to lend a helping\r\n            hand\r\n\r\n  I-05-a    \"There you are, then, Master Jack!\" I-05-b    Jack cried out in the greatest excitement that Dingo knew\r\n            how to read\r\n\r\n  I-05-c    Negoro, with a threatening gesture that seemed half\r\n            involuntary, withdrew immediately to his accustomed quarters\r\n\r\n  I-06-a    \"This Dingo is nothing out of the way\"\r\n\r\n  I-06-b    Occasionally Dick Sands would take a pistol, and now and\r\n            then a rifle\r\n\r\n  I-06-c    \"What a big fellow!\" I-07-a    The captain's voice came from the retreating boat\r\n\r\n  I-07-b    \"I must get you to keep your eye upon that man\"\r\n\r\n  I-08-a    The whale seemed utterly unconscious of the attack that was\r\n            threatening it\r\n\r\n  I-08-b    The boat was well-nigh full of water, and in imminent danger\r\n            of being capsized\r\n\r\n  I-08-c    There is no hope\r\n\r\n  I-09-a    \"Oh, we shall soon be on shore!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "I-09-b    \"Oh yes, Jack; you shall keep the wind in order\"\r\n\r\n  I-10-a    All three of them fell flat upon the deck\r\n\r\n  I-10-b    Jack evidenced his satisfaction by giving his huge friend a\r\n            hearty shake of the hand\r\n\r\n  I-10-c    A light shadow glided stealthily along the deck\r\n\r\n  I-11-a    For half an hour Negoro stood motionless\r\n\r\n  I-12-a    Under bare poles\r\n\r\n  I-12-b    Quick as lightning, Dick Sands drew a revolver from his pocket\r\n\r\n  I-12-c    \"There! look there!\" I-13-a    \"You have acquitted yourself like a man\"\r\n\r\n  I-13-b    They both examined the outspread chart\r\n\r\n  I-13-c    The sea was furious, and dashed vehemently upon the crags\r\n            on either hand\r\n\r\n  I-14-a    Surveying the shore with the air of a man who was trying to\r\n            recall some past experience\r\n\r\n  I-14-b    Not without emotion could Mrs. Weldon, or indeed any of\r\n            them, behold the unfortunate ship\r\n\r\n  I-14-c    The entomologist was seen making his way down the face of\r\n            the cliff at the imminent lisk of breaking his neck\r\n\r\n  I-15-a    \"Good morning, my young friend\"\r\n\r\n  I-15-b    \"He is my little son\"\r\n\r\n  I-15-c    They came to a tree to which a horse was tethered\r\n\r\n  I-16-a    The way across the forest could scarcely be called a path\r\n\r\n  I-16-b    Occasionally the soil became marshy\r\n\r\n  I-16-c    A halt for the night\r\n\r\n  I-16-d    Hercules himself was the first to keep watch\r\n\r\n  I-17-a    \"Don't fire!\" I-17-b    A herd of gazelles dashed past him like a glowing cloud\r\n\r\n  I-17-c    A halt was made for the night beneath a grove of lofty trees\r\n\r\n  I-18-a    \"Look here!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "here are hands, men's hands\"\r\n\r\n  I-18-b    The man was gone, and his horse with him!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "II-02-a They were seated at the foot of an enormous banyan-tree II-02-b Both men, starting to their feet, looked anxiously around them II-02-c Dingo disappeared again amongst the bushes II-03-a \"You must keep this a secret\" II-03-b \"Harris has left us\" II-03-c The march was continued with as much rapidity as was consistent with caution II-04-a It was a scene only too common in Central Africa II-04-b Another brilliant flash brought the camp once again into relief II-04-c One after another, the whole party made their way inside II-05-a Cousin Benedict's curiosity was awakened II-05-b The naturalist now fairly mounted on a favourite hobby II-05-c \"My poor boy, I know everything\" II-06-a They set to work to ascertain what progress the water was making II-06-b All fired simultaneously at the nearest boat II-06-c The giant clave their skulls with the butt end of his gun II-07-a The start was made II-08-a If ever the havildar strolled a few yards away, Bat took the opportunity of murmuring a few words of encouragement to his poor old father II-08-b The caravan had been attacked on the flank by a dozen or more crocodiles II-08-c The creature that had sprung to my feet was Dingo II-08-d More slaves sick, and abandoned to take their chance II-09-a Adjoining the commercial quarter was the royal residence II-09-b With a yell and a curse, the American fell dead at his feet II-10-a Accompanied by Coïmbra, Alvez himself was one of the first arrivals II-11-a The potentate"}
{"question": "", "answer": "beneath whose sway the country trembled for a hundred miles round II-11-b Alvez advanced and presented the king with some fresh tobacco II-11-c The king had taken fire internally II-12-a \"Your life is in my hands!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "II-12-b    All his energies were restored\r\n\r\n  II-13-a    Friendless and hopeless He contented himself with the\r\n             permission to go where he pleased within the limits of the\r\n             palisade\r\n\r\n  II-13-b    \"I suppose Weldon will not mind coming to fetch you?\" II-14-a    Dr. Livingstone\r\n\r\n  II-14-b    With none to guide him except a few natives\r\n\r\n  II-14-c    \"You are Dr. Livingstone, I presume?\" II-15-a    The insufferable heat had driven all the residents within\r\n             the depôt indoors\r\n\r\n  II-15-b    Before long the old black speck was again flitting just\r\n             above his head\r\n\r\n  II-15-c    For that day at least Cousin Benedict had lost his chance\r\n             of being the happiest of entomologists\r\n\r\n  II-16-a    The entire crowd joined in\r\n\r\n  II-16-b    \"Here they are, captain! both of them!!\" II-17-a    Hercules could leave the boat without much fear of detection\r\n\r\n  II-17-b    It was caused by a troop of a hundred or more elephants\r\n\r\n  II-18-a    He stood face to face with his foe\r\n\r\n  II-18-b    Instantly five or six negroes scrambled down the piles\r\n\r\n  II-19-a    Upon the smooth wood were two great letters in dingy red\r\n\r\n  II-19-b    The dog was griping the man by the throat\r\n\r\n  II-19-c    The bullet shattered the rudder-scull into fragments\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n*****\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER I. THE \"PILGRIM.\" On the 2nd of February, 1873, the \"Pilgrim,\" a tight little craft of\r\n400 tons burden, lay in lat. 43° 57', S. and long."}
{"question": "", "answer": "165° 19', W. She was\r\na schooner, the property of James W. Weldon, a wealthy Californian\r\nship-owner who had fitted her out at San Francisco, expressly for the\r\nwhale-fisheries in the southern seas. James Weldon was accustomed every season to send his whalers both to\r\nthe Arctic regions beyond Behring Straits, and to the Antarctic Ocean\r\nbelow Tasmania and Cape Horn; and the \"Pilgrim,\" although one of the\r\nsmallest, was one of the best-going vessels of its class; her\r\nsailing-powers were splendid, and her rigging was so adroitly adapted\r\nthat with a very small crew she might venture without risk within sight\r\nof the impenetrable ice-fields of the southern hemisphere: under\r\nskilful guidance she could dauntlessly thread her way amongst the\r\ndrifting ice-bergs that, lessened though they were by perpetual shocks\r\nand undermined by warm currents, made their way northwards as far as\r\nthe parallel of New Zealand or the Cape of Good Hope, to a latitude\r\ncorresponding to which in the northern hemisphere they are never seen,\r\nhaving already melted away in the depths of the Atlantic and Pacific\r\nOceans. For several years the command of the \"Pilgrim\" had been entrusted to\r\nCaptain Hull, an experienced seaman, and one of the most dexterous\r\nharpooners in Weldon's service. The crew consisted of five sailors and\r\nan apprentice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This number, of course, was quite insufficient for the\r\nprocess of whale-fishing, which requires a large contingent both for\r\nmanning the whale-boats and for cutting up the whales after they are\r\ncaptured; but Weldon, following the example of other owners, found it\r\nmore economical to embark at San Francisco only just enough men to work\r\nthe ship to New Zealand, where, from the promiscuous gathering of\r\nseamen of well-nigh every nationality, and of needy emigrants, the\r\ncaptain had no difficulty in engaging as many whalemen as he wanted for\r\nthe season. This method of hiring men who could be at once discharged\r\nwhen their services were no longer required had proved altogether to be\r\nthe most profitable and convenient. The \"Pilgrim\" had now just completed her annual voyage to the Antarctic\r\ncircle. It was not, however, with her proper quota of oil-barrels full\r\nto the brim, nor yet with an ample cargo of cut and uncut whalebone,\r\nthat she was thus far on her way back. The time, indeed, for a good\r\nhaul was past; the repeated and vigourous attacks upon the cetaceans\r\nhad made them very scarce; the whale known as \"the Right whale,\" the\r\n\"Nord-kapper\" of the northern fisheries, the \"Sulpher-boltone\" of the\r\nsouthern, was hardly ever to be seen; and latterly the whalers had had\r\nno alternative but to direct their efforts against the Finback or\r\nJubarte, a gigantic mammal, encounter with which is always attended\r\nwith considerable danger."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So scanty this year had been the supply of whales that Captain Hull had\r\nresolved next year to push his way into far more southern latitudes;\r\neven, if necessary, to advance to the regions known as Clarie and\r\nAdélie Lands, of which the discovery, though claimed by the American\r\nnavigator Wilkes, belongs by right to the illustrious Frenchman Dumont\r\nd'Urville, the commander of the \"Astrolabe\" and the \"Zélee.\" The season had been exceptionally unfortunate for the \"Pilgrim.\" At the\r\nbeginning of January, almost in the height of the southern summer, long\r\nbefore the ordinary time for the whalers' return, Captain Hull had been\r\nobliged to abandon his fishing-quarters. His hired contingent, all men\r\nof more than doubtful character, had given signs of such\r\ninsubordination as threatened to end in mutiny; and he had become aware\r\nthat he must part company with them on the earliest possible\r\nopportunity. Accordingly, without delay, the bow of the \"Pilgrim\" was\r\ndirected to the northwest, towards New Zealand, which was sighted on\r\nthe 15th of January, and on reaching Waitemata, the port of Auckland,\r\nin the Hauraki Gulf, on the east coast of North Island, the whole of\r\nthe gang was peremptorily discharged. The ship's crew were more than dissatisfied. They were angry. Never\r\nbefore had they returned with so meagre a haul. They ought to have had\r\nat least two hundred barrels more."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The captain himself experienced all\r\nthe mortification of an ardent sportsman who for the first time in his\r\nlife brings home a half-empty bag; and there was a general spirit of\r\nanimosity against the rascals whose rebellion had so entirely marred\r\nthe success of the expedition. Captain Hull did everything in his power to repair the disappointment;\r\nhe made every effort to engage a fresh gang; but it was too late; every\r\navailable seaman had long since been carried off to the fisheries. Finding therefore that all hope of making good the deficiency in his\r\ncargo must be resigned, he was on the point of leaving Auckland, alone\r\nwith his crew, when he was met by a request with which he felt himself\r\nbound to comply. It had chanced that James Weldon, on one of those journeys which were\r\nnecessitated by the nature of his business, had brought with him his\r\nwife, his son Jack, a child of five years of age, and a relation of the\r\nfamily who was generally known by the name of Cousin Benedict. Weldon\r\nhad of course intended that his family should accompany him on his\r\nreturn home to San Francisco; but little Jack was taken so seriously\r\nill, that his father, whose affairs demanded his immediate return, was\r\nobliged to leave him behind at Auckland with his wife and Cousin\r\nBenedict."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Three months had passed away, little Jack was convalescent, and Mrs.\r\nWeldon, weary of her long separation from her husband, was anxious to\r\nget home as soon as possible. Her readiest way of reaching San\r\nFrancisco was to cross to Australia, and thence to take a passage in\r\none of the vessels of the \"Golden Age\" Company, which run between\r\nMelbourne and the Isthmus of Panama: on arriving in Panama she would\r\nhave to wait the departure of the next American steamer of the line\r\nwhich maintains a regular communication between the Isthmus and\r\nCalifornia. This route, however, involved many stoppages and changes,\r\nsuch as are always disagreeable and inconvenient for women and\r\nchildren, and Mrs. Weldon was hesitating whether she should encounter\r\nthe journey, when she heard that her husband's vessel, the \"Pilgrim,\"\r\nhad arrived at Auckland. Hastening to Captain Hull, she begged him to\r\ntake her with her little boy, Cousin Benedict, and Nan, an old negress\r\nwho had been her attendant from her childhood, on board the \"Pilgrim,\"\r\nand to convey them to San Francisco direct. \"Was it not over hazardous,\" asked the captain, \"to venture upon a\r\nvoyage of between 5000 and 6000 miles in so small a sailing-vessel?\" But Mrs. Weldon urged her request, and Captain Hull, confident in the\r\nsea-going qualities of his craft, and anticipating at this season\r\nnothing but fair weather on either side of the equator, gave his\r\nconsent."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In order to provide as far as possible for the comfort of the lady\r\nduring a voyage that must occupy from forty to fifty days, the captain\r\nplaced his own cabin at her entire disposal. Everything promised well for a prosperous voyage. The only hindrance\r\nthat could be foreseen arose from the circumstance that the \"Pilgrim\"\r\nwould have to put in at Valparaiso for the purpose of unlading; but\r\nthat business once accomplished, she would continue her way along the\r\nAmerican coast with the assistance of the land breezes, which\r\nordinarily make the proximity of those shores such agreeable quarters\r\nfor sailing. Mrs. Weldon herself had accompanied her husband in so many voyages,\r\nthat she was quite inured to all the makeshifts of a seafaring life,\r\nand was conscious of no misgiving in embarking upon a vessel of such\r\nsmall tonnage. She was a brave, high-spirited woman of about thirty\r\nyears of age, in the enjoyment of excellent health, and for her the sea\r\nhad no terrors. Aware that Captain Hull was an experienced man, in whom\r\nher husband had the utmost confidence, and knowing that his ship was a\r\nsubstantial craft, registered as one of the best of the American\r\nwhalers, so far from entertaining any mistrust as to her safety, she\r\nonly rejoiced in the opportuneness of the chance which seemed to offer\r\nher a direct and unbroken route to her destination. Cousin Benedict, as a matter of course, was to accompany her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was\r\nabout fifty; but in spite of his mature age it would have been\r\nconsidered the height of imprudence to allow him to travel anywhere\r\nalone. Spare, lanky, with a bony frame, with an enormous cranium, and a\r\nprofusion of hair, he was one of those amiable, inoffensive _savants_\r\nwho, having once taken to gold spectacles, appear to have arrived at a\r\nsettled standard of age, and, however long they live afterwards, seem\r\nnever to be older than they have ever been. Claiming a sort of kindredship with all the world, he was universally\r\nknown, far beyond the pale of his own connexions, by the name of\r\n\"Cousin Benedict.\" In the ordinary concerns of life nothing would ever\r\nhave rendered him capable of shifting for himself; of his meals he\r\nwould never think until they were placed before him; he had the\r\nappearance of being utterly insensible to heat or cold; he vegetated\r\nrather than lived, and might not inaptly be compared to a tree which,\r\nthough healthy enough at its core, produces scant foliage and no fruit. His long arms and legs were in the way of himself and everybody else;\r\nyet no one could possibly treat him with unkindness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As M. Prudhomme\r\nwould say, \"if only he had been endowed with capability,\" he would have\r\nrendered a service to any one in the world; but helplessness was his\r\ndominant characteristic; helplessness was ingrained into his very\r\nnature; yet this very helplessness made him an object of kind\r\nconsideration rather than of contempt, and Mrs. Weldon looked upon him\r\nas a kind of elder brother to her little Jack. It must not be supposed, however, that Cousin Benedict was either idle\r\nor unoccupied. On the contrary, his whole time was devoted to one\r\nabsorbing passion for natural history. Not that he had any large claim\r\nto be regarded properly as a natural historian; he had made no\r\nexcursions over the whole four districts of zoology, botany,\r\nmineralogy, and geology, into which the realms of natural history are\r\ncommonly divided; indeed, he had no pretensions at all to be either a\r\nbotanist, a mineralogist, or a geologist; his studies only sufficed to\r\nmake him a zoologist, and that in a very limited sense. No Cuvier was\r\nhe; he did not aspire to decompose animal life by analysis, and to\r\nrecompose it by synthesis; his enthusiasm had not made him at all\r\ndeeply versed in vertebrata, mollusca, or radiata; in fact, the\r\nvertebrata--animals, birds, reptiles, fishes--had had no place in his\r\nresearches; the mollusca--from the cephalopoda to the bryozia--had had\r\nno attractions for him; nor had he consumed the midnight oil in\r\ninvestigating the radiata, the echmodermata, acalephæ, polypi, entozoa,\r\nor infusoria."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No; Cousin Benedict's interest began and ended with the articulata; and\r\nit must be owned at once that his studies were very far from embracing\r\nall the range of the six classes into which \"articulata\" are\r\nsubdivided; viz, the insecta, the mynapoda, the arachnida, the\r\ncrustacea, the cinhopoda, and the anelides; and he was utterly unable\r\nin scientific language to distinguish a worm from a leech, an earwig\r\nfrom a sea-acorn, a spider from a scorpion, a shrimp from a\r\nfrog-hopper, or a galley-worm from a centipede. To confess the plain truth, Cousin Benedict was an amateur\r\nentomologist, and nothing more. Entomology, it may be asserted, is a wide science; it embraces the\r\nwhole division of the articulata; but our friend was an entomologist\r\nonly in the limited sense of the popular acceptation of the word; that\r\nis to say, he was an observer and collector of insects, meaning by\r\n\"insects\" those articulata which have bodies consisting of a number of\r\nconcentric movable rings, forming three distinct segments, each with a\r\npair of legs, and which are scientifically designated as hexapods. [Illustration: Cousin Benedict]\r\n\r\nTo this extent was Cousin Benedict an entomologist; and when it is\r\nremembered that the class of insecta of which he had grown up to be the\r\nenthusiastic student comprises no less than ten[1] orders, and that of\r\nthese ten the coleoptera and diptera alone include 30,000 and 60,000\r\nspecies respectively, it must be confessed that he had an ample field\r\nfor his most persevering exertions."}
{"question": "", "answer": "[Footnote 1: These ten orders are (1) the orthoptera, _e.g._\r\ngrasshoppers and crickets; (2) the neuroptera, _e.g._ dragon-flies; (3)\r\nthe hymenoptera, _e.g._ bees, wasps, and ants; (4) the lepidoptera,\r\n_e.g._ butterflies and moths; (5) the hemiptera, _e.g._ cicadas and\r\nfleas; (6) the coleoptera, _e.g._ cockchafers and glow-worms; (7) the\r\ndiptera, _e.g._ gnats and flies; (8) the rhipiptera, _e.g._ the\r\nstylops; (9) the parasites, _e.g._ the acarus; and (10) the thysanura,\r\n_e.g._ the lepisma and podura.] Every available hour did he spend in the pursuit of his favourite\r\nscience: hexapods ruled his thoughts by day and his dreams by night. The number of pins that he carried thick on the collar and sleeves of\r\nhis coat, down the front of his waistcoat, and on the crown of his hat,\r\ndefied computation; they were kept in readiness for the capture of\r\nspecimens that might come in his way, and on his return from a ramble\r\nin the country he might be seen literally encased with a covering of\r\ninsects, transfixed adroitly by scientific rule. This ruling passion of his had been the inducement that had urged him\r\nto accompany Mr. and Mrs. Weldon to New Zealand. It had appeared to him\r\nthat it was likely to be a promising district, and now having been\r\nsuccessful in adding some rare specimens to his collection, he was\r\nanxious to get back again to San Francisco, and to assign them their\r\nproper places in his extensive cabinet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Besides, it never occurred to Mrs. Weldon to start without him. To\r\nleave him to shift for himself would be sheer cruelty. As a matter of\r\ncourse whenever Mrs. Weldon went on board the \"Pilgrim,\" Cousin\r\nBenedict would go too. Not that in any emergency assistance of any kind could be expected from\r\nhim; on the contrary, in the case of difficulty he would be an\r\nadditional burden; but there was every reason to expect a fair passage\r\nand no cause of misgiving of any kind, so the propriety of leaving the\r\namiable entomologist behind was never suggested. Anxious that she should be no impediment in the way of the due\r\ndeparture of the \"Pilgrim\" from Waitemata, Mrs. Weldon made her\r\npreparations with the utmost haste, discharged the servants which she\r\nhad temporarily engaged at Auckland, and accompanied by little Jack and\r\nthe old negress, and followed mechanically by Cousin Benedict, embarked\r\non the 22nd of January on board the schooner. The amateur, however, kept his eye very scrupulously upon his own\r\nspecial box. Amongst his collection of insects were some very\r\nremarkable examples of new staphylins, a species of carnivorous\r\ncoleoptera with eyes placed above their head; it was a kind supposed to\r\nbe peculiar to New Caledonia. Another rarity which had been brought\r\nunder his notice was a venomous spider, known among the Maoris as a\r\n\"katipo;\" its bite was asserted to be very often fatal."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As a spider,\r\nhowever, belongs to the order of the arachnida, and is not properly an\r\n\"insect,\" Benedict declined to take any interest in it. Enough for him\r\nthat he had secured a novelty in his own section of research; the\r\n\"Staphylin Neo-Zelandus\" was not only the gem of his collection, but\r\nits pecuniary value baffled ordinary estimate; he insured his box at a\r\nfabulous sum, deeming it to be worth far more than all the cargo of oil\r\nand whalebone in the \"Pilgrim's\" hold. Captain Hull advanced to meet Mrs. Weldon and her party as they stepped\r\non deck. \"It must be understood, Mrs. Weldon,\" he said, courteously raising his\r\nhat, \"that you take this passage entirely on your own responsibility.\" \"Certainly, Captain Hull,\" she answered; \"but why do you ask?\" \"Simply because I have received no orders from Mr. Weldon,\" replied the\r\ncaptain. [Illustration: Captain Hull advanced to meet Mrs. Weldon and her party.] \"But my wish exonerates you,\" said Mrs. Weldon. \"Besides,\" added Captain Hull, \"I am unable to provide you with the\r\naccommodation and the comfort that you would have upon a passenger\r\nsteamer.\" \"You know well enough, captain,\" remonstrated the lady \"that my husband\r\nwould not hesitate for a moment to trust his wife and child on board\r\nthe 'Pilgrim.'\" \"Trust, madam! No! no more than I should myself. I repeat that the\r\n'Pilgrim' cannot afford you the comfort to which you are accustomed.\" Mrs. Weldon smiled."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, I am not one of your grumbling travellers. I shall have no\r\ncomplaints to make either of small cramped cabins, or of rough and\r\nmeagre food.\" She took her son by the hand, and passing on, begged that they might\r\nstart forthwith. Orders accordingly were given; sails were trimmed; and after taking the\r\nshortest course across the gulf, the \"Pilgrim\" turned her head towards\r\nAmerica. Three days later strong easterly breezes compelled the schooner to tack\r\nto larboard in order to get to windward. The consequence was that by\r\nthe 2nd of February the captain found himself in such a latitude that\r\nhe might almost be suspected of intending to round Cape Horn rather\r\nthan of having a design to coast the western shores of the New\r\nContinent. Still, the sea did not become rough. There was a slight delay, but, on\r\nthe whole, navigation was perfectly easy. CHAPTER II. THE APPRENTICE. There was no poop upon the \"Pilgrim's\" deck, so that Mrs. Weldon had no\r\nalternative than to acquiesce in the captain's proposal that she should\r\noccupy his own modest cabin. Accordingly, here she was installed with Jack and old Nan; and here she\r\ntook all her meals, in company with the captain and Cousin Benedict."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For Cousin Benedict tolerably comfortable sleeping accommodation had\r\nbeen contrived close at hand, while Captain Hull himself retired to the\r\ncrew's quarter, occupying the cabin which properly belonged to the\r\nchief mate, but as already indicated, the services of a second officer\r\nwere quite dispensed with. All the crew were civil and attentive to the wife of their employer, a\r\nmaster to whom they were faithfully attached. They were all natives of\r\nthe coast of California, brave and experienced seamen, and united by\r\ntastes and habits in a common bond of sympathy. Few as they were in\r\nnumber, their work was never shirked, not simply from the sense of\r\nduty, but because they were directly interested in the profits of their\r\nundertaking; the success of their labours always told to their own\r\nadvantage. The present expedition was the fourth that they had taken\r\ntogether; and, as it turned out to be the first in which they had\r\nfailed to meet with success, it may be imagined that they were full of\r\nresentment against the mutinous whalemen who had been the cause of so\r\nserious a diminution of their ordinary gains. [Illustration: Negoro.] The only one on board who was not an American was a man who had been\r\ntemporarily engaged as cook. His name was Negoro; he was a Portuguese\r\nby birth, but spoke English with perfect fluency."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The previous cook had\r\ndeserted the ship at Auckland, and when Negoro, who was out of\r\nemployment, applied for the place, Captain Hull, only too glad to avoid\r\ndetention, engaged him at once without inquiry into his antecedents. There was not the slightest fault to be found with the way in which the\r\ncook performed his duties, but there was something in his manner, or\r\nperhaps, rather in the expression of his countenance, which excited the\r\nCaptain's misgivings, and made him regret that he had not taken more\r\npains to investigate the character of one with whom he was now brought\r\ninto such close contact. Negoro looked about forty years of age. Although he had the appearance\r\nof being slightly built, he was muscular; he was of middle height, and\r\nseemed to have a robust constitution; his hair was dark, his complexion\r\nsomewhat swarthy. His manner was taciturn, and although, from\r\noccasional remarks that he dropped, it was evident that he had received\r\nsome education, he was very reserved on the subjects both of his family\r\nand of his past life. No one knew where he had come from, and he\r\nadmitted no one to his confidence as to where he was going, except that\r\nhe made no secret of his intention to land at Valparaiso."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His freedom\r\nfrom sea-sickness demonstrated that this could hardly be his first\r\nvoyage, but on the other hand his complete ignorance of seamen's\r\nphraseology made it certain that he had never been accustomed to his\r\npresent occupation. He kept himself aloof as much as possible from the\r\nrest of the crew, during the day rarely leaving the great cast-iron\r\nstove, which was out of proportion to the measurement of the cramped\r\nlittle kitchen; and at night, as soon as the fire was extinguished,\r\ntook the earliest opportunity of retiring to his berth and going to\r\nsleep. It has been already stated that the crew of the \"Pilgrim\" consisted of\r\nfive seamen and an apprentice. This apprentice was Dick Sands. Dick was fifteen years old; he was a foundling, his unknown parents\r\nhaving abandoned him at his birth, and he had been brought up in a\r\npublic charitable institution. He had been called Dick, after the\r\nbenevolent passer-by who had discovered him when he was but an infant a\r\nfew hours old, and he had received the surname of Sands as a memorial\r\nof the spot where he had been exposed, Sandy Hook, a point at the mouth\r\nof the Hudson, where it forms an entrance to the harbour of New York. As Dick was so young it was most likely he would yet grow a little\r\ntaller, but it did not seem probable that he would ever exceed middle\r\nheight, he looked too stoutly and strongly built to grow much."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His\r\ncomplexion was dark, but his beaming blue eyes attested, with scarcely\r\nroom for doubt, his Anglo-Saxon origin, and his countenance betokened\r\nenergy and intelligence. The profession that he had adopted seemed to\r\nhave equipped him betimes for fighting the battle of life. Misquoted often as Virgil's are the words\r\n\r\n  \"Audaces fortuna juvat!\" but the true reading is\r\n\r\n  \"Audentes fortuna juvat!\" and, slight as the difference may seem, it is very significant. It is\r\nupon the confident rather than the rash, the daring rather than the\r\nbold, that Fortune sheds her smiles; the bold man often acts without\r\nthinking, whilst the daring always thinks before he acts. And Dick Sands was truly courageous; he was one of the daring. At\r\nfifteen years old, an age at which few boys have laid aside the\r\nfrivolities of childhood, he had acquired the stability of a man, and\r\nthe most casual observer could scarcely fail to be attracted by his\r\nbright, yet thoughtful countenance. At an early period of his life he\r\nhad realized all the difficulties of his position, and had made a\r\nresolution, from which nothing tempted him to flinch, that he would\r\ncarve out for himself an honourable and independent career. Lithe and\r\nagile in his movements, he was an adept in every kind of athletic\r\nexercise; and so marvellous was his success in everything he undertook,\r\nthat he might almost be supposed to be one of those gifted mortals who\r\nhave two right hands and two left feet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Until he was four years old the little orphan had found a home in one\r\nof those institutions in America where forsaken children are sure of an\r\nasylum, and he was subsequently sent to an industrial school supported\r\nby charitable aid, where he learnt reading, writing, and arithmetic. From the days of infancy he had never deviated from the expression of\r\nhis wish to be a sailor, and accordingly, as soon as he was eight, he\r\nwas placed as cabin-boy on board one of the ships that navigate the\r\nSouthern Seas. The officers all took a peculiar interest in him, and he\r\nreceived, in consequence, a thoroughly good grounding in the duties and\r\ndiscipline of a seaman's life. There was no room to doubt that he must\r\nultimately rise to eminence in his profession, for when a child from\r\nthe very first has been trained in the knowledge that he must gain his\r\nbread by the sweat of his brow, it is comparatively rare that he lacks\r\nthe will to do so. Whilst he was still acting as cabin-boy on one of those\r\ntrading-vessels, Dick attracted the notice of Captain Hull, who took a\r\nfancy to the lad and introduced him to his employer. Mr. Weldon at once\r\ntook a lively interest in Dick's welfare, and had his education\r\ncontinued in San Francisco, taking care that he was instructed in the\r\ndoctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, to which his own family\r\nbelonged."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Throughout his studies Dick Sands' favourite subjects were always those\r\nwhich had a reference to his future profession; he mastered the details\r\nof the geography of the world; he applied himself diligently to such\r\nbranches of mathematics as were necessary for the science of\r\nnavigation; whilst for recreation in his hours of leisure, he would\r\ngreedily devour every book of adventure in travel that came in his way. Nor did he omit duly to combine the practical with the theoretical; and\r\nwhen he was bound apprentice on board the \"Pilgrim,\" a vessel not only\r\nbelonging to his benefactor, but under the command of his kind friend\r\nCaptain Hull, he congratulated himself most heartily, and felt that the\r\nexperience he should gain in the southern whale-fisheries could hardly\r\nfail to be of service to him in after-life. A first-rate sailor ought\r\nto be a first-rate fisherman too. It was a matter of the greatest pleasure to Dick Sands when he heard to\r\nhis surprise that Mrs. Weldon was about to become a passenger on board\r\nthe \"Pilgrim.\" His devotion to the family of his benefactor was large\r\nand genuine. For several years Mrs. Weldon had acted towards him little\r\nshort of a mother's part, and for Jack, although he never forgot the\r\ndifference in their position, he entertained well-nigh a brother's\r\naffection."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His friends had the satisfaction of being assured that they\r\nhad sown the seeds of kindness on a generous soil, for there was no\r\nroom to doubt that the heart of the orphan boy was overflowing with\r\nsincere gratitude. Should the occasion arise, ought he not, he asked,\r\nto be ready to sacrifice everything in behalf of those to whom he was\r\nindebted not only for his start in life, but for the knowledge of all\r\nthat was right and holy? Confiding in the good principles of her protégé, Mrs. Weldon had no\r\nhesitation in entrusting her little son to his especial charge. During\r\nthe frequent periods of leisure, when the sea was fair, and the sails\r\nrequired no shifting, the apprentice was never weary of amusing Jack by\r\nmaking him familiar with the practice of a sailor's craft; he made him\r\nscramble up the shrouds, perch upon the yards, and slip down the\r\nback-stays; and the mother had no alarm; her assurance of Dick Sands'\r\nability and watchfulness to protect her boy was so complete that she\r\ncould only rejoice in an occupation for him that seemed more than\r\nanything to restore the colour he had lost in his recent illness. Time passed on without incident; and had it not been for the constant\r\nprevalence of an adverse wind, neither passengers nor crew could have\r\nfound the least cause of complaint."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The pertinacity, however, with\r\nwhich the wind kept to the east could not do otherwise than make\r\nCaptain Hull somewhat concerned; it absolutely prevented him from\r\ngetting his ship into her proper course, and he could not altogether\r\nsuppress his misgiving that the calms near the Tropic of Capricorn, and\r\nthe equatorial current driving him on westwards, would entail a delay\r\nthat might be serious. [Illustration: Dick and little Jack.] It was principally on Mrs. Weldon's account that the Captain began to\r\nfeel uneasiness, and he made up his mind that if he could hail a vessel\r\nproceeding to America he should advise his passengers to embark on her;\r\nunfortunately, however, he felt that they were still in a latitude far\r\ntoo much to the south to make it likely that they should sight a\r\nsteamer going to Panama; and at that date, communication between\r\nAustralia and the New World was much less frequent than it has since\r\nbecome. Still, nothing occurred to interrupt the general monotony of the voyage\r\nuntil the 2nd of February, the date at which our narrative commences. It was about nine o'clock in the morning of that day that Dick and\r\nlittle Jack had perched themselves together on the top-mast-yards. The\r\nweather was very clear, and they could see the horizon right round\r\nexcept the section behind them, hidden by the brigantine-sail on the\r\nmain-mast."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Below them, the bowsprit seemed to lie along the water with\r\nits stay-sails attached like three unequal wings; from the lads' feet\r\nto the deck was the smooth surface of the fore-mast; and above their\r\nheads nothing but the small top-sail and the top-mast. The schooner was\r\nrunning on the larboard tack as close to the wind as possible. Dick Sand was pointing out to Jack how well the ship was ballasted, and\r\nwas trying to explain how it was impossible for her to capsize, however\r\nmuch she heeled to starboard, when suddenly the little fellow cried\r\nout,--\r\n\r\n\"I can see something in the water!\" \"Where? what?\" exclaimed Dick, clambering to his feet upon the yard. \"There!\" said the child, directing attention to the portion of the\r\nsea-surface that was visible between the stay-sails. Dick fixed his gaze intently for a moment, and then shouted out\r\nlustily,--\r\n\r\n\"Look out in front, to starboard! There is something afloat. To\r\nwindward, look out!\" CHAPTER III. A RESCUE. At the sound of Dick's voice all the crew, in a moment, were upon the\r\nalert. The men who were not on watch rushed to the deck, and Captain\r\nHull hurried from his cabin to the bows. Mrs. Weldon, Nan, and even\r\nCousin Benedict leaned over the starboard taffrails, eager to get a\r\nglimpse of what had thus suddenly attracted the attention of the young\r\napprentice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "With his usual indifference, Negoro did not leave his\r\ncabin, and was the only person on board who did not share the general\r\nexcitement. Speculations were soon rife as to what could be the nature of the\r\nfloating object which could be discerned about three miles ahead. Suggestions of various character were freely made. One of the sailors\r\ndeclared that it looked to him only like an abandoned raft, but Mrs.\r\nWeldon observed quickly that if it were a raft it might be carrying\r\nsome unfortunate shipwrecked men who must be rescued if possible. Cousin Benedict asserted that it was nothing more nor less than a huge\r\nsea-monster; but the captain soon arrived at the conviction that it was\r\nthe hull of a vessel that had heeled over on to its side, an opinion\r\nwith which Dick thoroughly coincided, and went so far as to say that he\r\nbelieved he could make out the copper keel glittering in the sun. \"Luff, Bolton, luff!\" shouted Captain Hull to the helmsman; \"we will at\r\nany rate lose no time in getting alongside.\" \"Ay, ay, sir,\" answered the helmsman, and the \"Pilgrim\" in an instant\r\nwas steered according to orders. In spite, however, of the convictions of the captain and Dick, Cousin\r\nBenedict would not be moved from his opinion that the object of their\r\ncuriosity was some huge cetacean. \"It is certainly dead, then,\" remarked Mrs. Weldon; \"it is perfectly\r\nmotionless.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, that's because it is asleep,\" said Benedict, who, although he\r\nwould have willingly given up all the whales in the ocean for one rare\r\nspecimen of an insect, yet could not surrender his own belief. \"Easy, Bolton, easy!\" shouted the captain when they were getting nearer\r\nthe floating mass; \"don't let us be running foul of the thing; no good\r\ncould come from knocking a hole in our side; keep out from it a good\r\ncable's length.\" \"Ay, ay, sir,\" replied the helmsman, in his usual cheery way; and by an\r\neasy turn of the helm the \"Pilgrim's\" course was slightly modified so\r\nas to avoid all fear of collision. The excitement of the sailors by this time had become more intense. Ever since the distance had been less than a mile all doubt had\r\nvanished, and it was certain that what was attracting their attention\r\nwas the hull of a capsized ship. They knew well enough the established\r\nrule that a third of all salvage is the right of the finders, and they\r\nwere filled with the hope that the hull they were nearing might contain\r\nan undamaged cargo, and be \"a good haul,\" to compensate them for their\r\nill-success in the last season. A quarter of an hour later and the \"Pilgrim\" was within half a mile of\r\nthe deserted vessel, facing her starboard side."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Water-logged to her\r\nbulwarks, she had heeled over so completely that it would have been\r\nnext to impossible to stand upon her deck. Of her masts nothing was to\r\nbe seen; a few ends of cordage were all that remained of her shrouds,\r\nand the try-sail chains were hanging all broken. On the starboard flank\r\nwas an enormous hole. \"Something or other has run foul of her,\" said Dick. \"No doubt of that,\" replied the captain; \"the only wonder is that she\r\ndid not sink immediately.\" \"Oh, how I hope the poor crew have been saved!\" exclaimed Mrs Weldon. \"Most probably,\" replied the captain, \"they would all have taken to the\r\nboats. It is as likely as not that the ship which did the mischief\r\nwould continue its course quite unconcerned.\" \"Surely, you cannot mean,\" cried Mrs Weldon, \"that any one could be\r\ncapable of such inhumanity?\" \"Only too probable,\" answered Captain Hull, \"unfortunately, such\r\ninstances are very far from rare.\" He scanned the drifting ship carefully and continued,--\r\n\r\n\"No, I cannot see any sign of boats here, I should guess that the crew\r\nhave made an attempt to get to land, at such a distance as this,\r\nhowever, from America or from the islands of the Pacific I should be\r\nafraid that it must be hopeless.\" \"Is it not possible,\" asked Mrs Weldon, \"that some poor creature may\r\nstill survive on board, who can tell what has happened?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Hardly likely, madam; otherwise there would have been some sort of a\r\nsignal in sight. But it is a matter about which we will make sure.\" The captain waved his hand a little in the direction in which he wished\r\nto go, and said quietly,--\r\n\r\n\"Luff, Bolton, luff a bit!\" The \"Pilgrim\" by this time was not much more than three cables' lengths\r\nfrom the ship, there was still no token of her being otherwise than\r\nutterly deserted, when Dick Sands suddenly exclaimed,--\r\n\r\n\"Hark! if I am not much mistaken, that is a dog barking!\" Every one listened attentively; it was no fancy on Dick's part, sure\r\nenough a stifled barking could be heard, as if some unfortunate dog had\r\nbeen imprisoned beneath the hatchways; but as the deck was not yet\r\nvisible, it was impossible at present to determine the precise truth. Mrs Weldon pleaded,--\r\n\r\n\"If it is only a dog, captain, let it be saved.\" \"Oh, yes, yes, mamma, the dog must be saved!\" cried little Jack; \"I\r\nwill go and get a bit of sugar ready for it.\" [Illustration: Negoro had approached without being noticed by any one]\r\n\r\n\"A bit of sugar, my child, will not be much for a starved dog.\" \"Then it shall have my soup, and I will do without,\" said the boy, and\r\nhe kept shouting, \"Good dog! good dog!\" until he persuaded himself that\r\nhe heard the animal responding to his call."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The vessels were now scarcely three hundred feet apart; the barking was\r\nmore and more distinct, and presently a great dog was seen clinging to\r\nthe starboard netting. It barked more desperately than ever. \"Howick,\" said Captain Hull, calling to the boatswain, \"heave to, and\r\nlower the small boat.\" The sails were soon trimmed so as to bring the schooner to a standstill\r\nwithin half a cable's length of the disabled craft, the boat was\r\nlowered, and the captain and Dick, with a couple of sailors, went on\r\nboard. The dog kept up a continual yelping; it made the most vigourous\r\nefforts to retain its hold upon the netting, but perpetually slipped\r\nbackwards and fell off again upon the inclining deck. It was soon\r\nmanifest, however, that all the noise the creature was making was not\r\ndirected exclusively towards those who were coming to its rescue, and\r\nMrs. Weldon could not divest herself of the impression that there must\r\nbe some survivors still on board. All at once the animal changed its\r\ngestures. Instead of the crouching attitude and supplicating whine with\r\nwhich it seemed to be imploring the compassion of those who were\r\nnearing it, it suddenly appeared to become bursting with violence and\r\nfurious with rage. \"What ails the brute?\" exclaimed Captain Hull."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But already the boat was on the farther side of the wrecked ship, and\r\nthe captain was not in a position to see that Negoro the cook had just\r\ncome on to the schooner's deck, or that it was obvious that it was\r\nagainst him that the dog had broken out in such obstreperous fury. Negoro had approached without being noticed by any one; he made his way\r\nto the forecastle, whence, without a word or look of surprise, he gazed\r\na moment at the dog, knitted his brow, and, silent and unobserved as he\r\nhad come, retired to his kitchen. As the boat had rounded the stern of the drifting hull, it had been\r\nobserved that the one word \"Waldeck\" was painted on the aft-board, but\r\nthat there was no intimation of the port to which the ship belonged. To\r\nCaptain Hull's experienced eye, however, certain details of\r\nconstruction gave a decided confirmation to the probability suggested\r\nby her name that she was of American build. Of what had once been a fine brig of 500 tons burden this hopeless\r\nwreck was now all that remained."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The large hole near the bows indicated\r\nthe place where the disastrous shock had occurred, but as, in the\r\nheeling over, this aperture had been carried some five or six feet\r\nabove the water, the vessel had escaped the immediate foundering which\r\nmust otherwise have ensued; but still it wanted only the rising of a\r\nheavy swell to submerge the ship at any time in a few minutes. It did not take many more strokes to bring the boat close to the\r\nlarboard bulwark, which was half out of the water, and Captain Hull\r\nobtained a view of the whole length of the deck. It was clear from end\r\nto end. Both masts had been snapped off within two feet of their\r\nsockets, and had been swept away with shrouds, stays, and rigging. Not\r\na single spar was to be seen floating anywhere within sight of the\r\nwreck, a circumstance from which it was to be inferred that several\r\ndays at least had elapsed since the catastrophe. Meantime the dog, sliding down from the taffrail, got to the centre\r\nhatchway, which was open. Here it continued to bark, alternately\r\ndirecting its eyes above deck and below. \"Look at that dog!\" said Dick; \"I begin to think there must be somebody\r\non board.\" \"If so,\" answered the captain, \"he must have died of hunger; the water\r\nof course has flooded the store-room.\" \"No,\" said Dick; \"that dog wouldn't look like that if there were nobody\r\nthere alive.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "[Illustration: The dog began to swim slowly and with manifest weakness\r\ntowards the boat.] Taking the boat as close as was prudent to the wreck, the captain and\r\nDick called and whistled repeatedly to the dog, which after a while let\r\nitself slip into the sea, and began to swim slowly and with manifest\r\nweakness towards the boat. As soon as it was lifted in, the animal,\r\ninstead of devouring the piece of bread that was offered him, made its\r\nway to a bucket containing a few drops of fresh water, and began\r\neagerly to lap them up. \"The poor wretch is dying of thirst!\" said Dick. It soon appeared that the dog was very far from being engrossed with\r\nits own interests. The boat was being pushed back a few yards in order\r\nto allow the captain to ascertain the most convenient place to get\r\nalongside the \"Waldeck,\" when the creature seized Dick by the jacket,\r\nand set up a howl that was almost human in its piteousness. It was\r\nevidently in a state of alarm that the boat was not going to return to\r\nthe wreck. The dog's meaning could not be misunderstood. The boat was\r\naccordingly brought against the larboard side of the vessel, and while\r\nthe two sailors lashed her securely to the \"Waldeck's\" cat-head,\r\nCaptain Hull and Dick, with the dog persistently accompanying them,\r\nclambered, after some difficulty, to the open hatchway between the\r\nstumps of the masts, and made their way into the hold."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was half full\r\nof water, but perfectly destitute of cargo, its sole contents being the\r\nballast sand which had slipped to larboard, and now served to keep the\r\nvessel on her side. One glance was sufficient to convince the captain that there was no\r\nsalvage to be effected. \"There is nothing here; nobody here,\" he said. \"So I see,\" said the apprentice, who had made his way to the extreme\r\nfore-part of the hold. \"Then we have only to go up again,\" remarked the captain. They ascended the ladder, but no sooner did they reappear upon the deck\r\nthan the dog, barking irrepressibly, began trying manifestly to drag\r\nthem towards the stern. Yielding to what might be called the importunities of the dog, they\r\nfollowed him to the poop, and there, by the dim glimmer admitted by the\r\nsky-light, Captain Hull made out the forms of five bodies, motionless\r\nand apparently lifeless, stretched upon the floor. One after another, Dick hastily examined them all, and emphatically\r\ndeclared it to be his opinion, that not one or them had actually ceased\r\nto breathe; whereupon the captain did not lose a minute in summoning\r\nthe two sailors to his aid, and although it was far from an easy task,\r\nhe succeeded in getting the five unconscious men, who were all negroes,\r\nconveyed safely to the boat. The dog followed, apparently satisfied."}
{"question": "", "answer": "With all possible speed the boat made its way back again to the\r\n\"Pilgrim,\" a girt-line was lowered from the mainyard, and the\r\nunfortunate men were raised to the deck. \"Poor things!\" said Mrs. Weldon, as she looked compassionately on the\r\nmotionless forms. \"But they are not dead,\" cried Dick eagerly; \"they are not dead; we\r\nshall save them all yet!\" \"What's the matter with them?\" asked Cousin Benedict, looking at them\r\nwith utter bewilderment. \"We shall hear all about them soon, I dare say,\" said the captain,\r\nsmiling; \"but first we will give them a few drops of rum in some water.\" Cousin Benedict smiled in return. \"Negoro!\" shouted the captain. At the sound of the name, the dog, who had hitherto been quite passive,\r\ngrowled fiercely, showed his teeth, and exhibited every sign of rage. The cook did not answer. \"Negoro!\" again the captain shouted, and the dog became yet more angry. At this second summons Negoro slowly left his kitchen, but no sooner\r\nhad he shown his face upon the deck than the animal made a rush at him,\r\nand would unquestionably have seized him by the throat if the man had\r\nnot knocked him back with a poker which he had brought with him in his\r\nhand. The infuriated beast was secured by the sailors, and prevented from\r\ninflicting any serious injury. \"Do you know this dog?\" asked the captain. \"Know him? Not I! I have never set eyes on the brute in my life.\" \"Strange!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "muttered Dick to himself; \"there is some mystery here. We\r\nshall see.\" CHAPTER IV. THE SURVIVORS OF THE \"WALDECK.\" In spite of the watchfulness of the French and English cruisers, there\r\nis no doubt that the slave-trade is still extensively carried on in all\r\nparts of equatorial Africa, and that year after year vessels loaded\r\nwith slaves leave the coasts of Angola and Mozambique to transport\r\ntheir living freight to many quarters even of the civilized world. Of this Captain Hull was well aware, and although he was now in a\r\nlatitude which was comparatively little traversed by such slavers, he\r\ncould not help almost involuntarily conjecturing that the negroes they\r\nhad just found must be part of a slave-cargo which was on its way to\r\nsome colony of the Pacific; if this were so, he would at least have the\r\nsatisfaction of announcing to them that they had regained their freedom\r\nfrom the moment that they came on board the \"Pilgrim.\" Whilst these thoughts were passing through his mind, Mrs. Weldon,\r\nassisted by Nan and the ever active Dick Sands, was doing everything in\r\nher power to restore consciousness to the poor sufferers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The judicious\r\nadministration of fresh water and a limited quantity of food soon had\r\nthe effect of making them revive; and when they were restored to their\r\nsenses it was found that the eldest of them, a man of about sixty years\r\nof age, who immediately regained his powers of speech, was able to\r\nreply in good English to all the questions that were put to him. In\r\nanswer to Captain Hull's inquiry whether they were not slaves, the old\r\nnegro proudly stated that he and his companions were all free American\r\ncitizens, belonging to the state of Pennsylvania. [Illustration: Mrs. Weldon, assisted by Nan and the ever active Dick\r\nSands, was doing everything in her power to restore consciousness to\r\nthe poor sufferers.] \"Then, let me assure you, my friend,\" said the captain, \"you have by no\r\nmeans compromised your liberty in having been brought on board the\r\nAmerican schooner 'Pilgrim.'\" Not merely, as it seemed, on account of his age and experience, but\r\nrather because of a certain superiority and greater energy of\r\ncharacter, this old man was tacitly recognized as the spokesman of his\r\nparty; he freely communicated all the information that Captain Hull\r\nrequired to hear, and by degrees he related all the details of his\r\nadventures."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He said that his name was Tom, and that when he was only six years of\r\nage he had been sold as a slave, and brought from his home in Africa to\r\nthe United States; but by the act of emancipation he had long since\r\nrecovered his freedom. His companions, who were all much younger than\r\nhimself, their ages ranging from twenty-five to thirty, were all\r\nfree-born, their parents having been emancipated before their birth, so\r\nthat no white man had ever exercised upon them the rights of ownership. One of them was his own son; his name was Bat (an abbreviation of\r\nBartholomew); and there were three others, named Austin, Actæon, and\r\nHercules. All four of them were specimens of that stalwart race that\r\ncommands so high a price in the African market, and in spite of the\r\nemaciation induced by their recent sufferings, their muscular,\r\nwell-knit frames betokened a strong and healthy constitution. Their\r\nmanner bore the impress of that solid education which is given in the\r\nNorth American schools, and their speech had lost all trace of the\r\n\"nigger-tongue,\" a dialect without articles or inflexions, which since\r\nthe anti-slavery war has almost died out in the United States. Three years ago, old Tom stated, the five men had been engaged by an\r\nEnglishman who had large property in South Australia, to work upon his\r\nestates near Melbourne."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Here they had realized a considerable profit,\r\nand upon the completion of their engagement they determined to return\r\nwith their savings to America. Accordingly, on the 5th of January,\r\nafter paying their passage in the ordinary way, they embarked at\r\nMelbourne on board the \"Waldeck.\" Everything went on well for seventeen\r\ndays, until, on the night of the 22nd, which was very dark, they were\r\nrun into by a great steamer. They were all asleep in their berths, but,\r\nroused by the shock of the collision, which was extremely severe, they\r\nhurriedly made their way on to the deck. The scene was terrible; both\r\nmasts were gone, and the brig, although the water had not absolutely\r\nflooded her hold so as to make her sink, had completely heeled over on\r\nher side. Captain and crew had entirely disappeared, some probably\r\nhaving been dashed into the sea, others perhaps having saved themselves\r\nby clinging to the rigging of the ship which had fouled them, and which\r\ncould be distinguished through the darkness rapidly receding in the\r\ndistance. For a while they were paralyzed, but they soon awoke to the\r\nconviction that they were left alone upon a half-capsized and disabled\r\nhull, twelve hundred miles from the nearest land. Mrs. Weldon was loud\r\nin her expression of indignation that any captain should have the\r\nbarbarity to abandon an unfortunate vessel with which his own\r\ncarelessness had brought him into collision."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It would be bad enough,\r\nshe said for a driver on a public road, when it might be presumed that\r\nhelp would be forthcoming, to pass on unconcerned after causing an\r\naccident to another vehicle; but how much more shameful to desert the\r\ninjured on the open sea, where the victims of his incompetence could\r\nhave no chance of obtaining succour! Captain Hull could only repeat\r\nwhat he had said before, that incredibly atrocious as it might seem,\r\nsuch inhumanity was far from rare. On resuming his story, Tom said that he and his companions soon found\r\nthat they had no means left for getting away from the capsized brig;\r\nboth the boats had been crushed in the collision, so that they had no\r\nalternative except to await the appearance of a passing vessel, whilst\r\nthe wreck was drifting hopelessly along under the action of the\r\ncurrents. This accounted for the fact of their being found so far south\r\nof their proper course. For the next ten days the negroes had subsisted upon a few scraps of\r\nfood that they found in the stern cabin; but as the store room was\r\nentirely under water, they were quite unable to obtain a drop of\r\nanything to drink, and the freshwater tanks that had been lashed to the\r\ndeck had been stove in at the time of the catastrophe."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Tortured with\r\nthirst, the poor men had suffered agonies, and having on the previous\r\nnight entirely lost consciousness, they must soon have died if the\r\n\"Pilgrim's\" timely arrival had not effected their rescue. All the outlines of Tom's narrative were fully confirmed by the other\r\nnegroes; Captain Hull could see no reason to doubt it; indeed, the\r\nfacts seemed to speak for themselves. One other survivor of the wreck, if he had been gifted with the power\r\nof speech, would doubtless have corroborated the testimony. This was\r\nthe dog who seemed to have such an unaccountable dislike to Negoro. Dingo, as the dog was named, belonged to the fine breed of mastiffs\r\npeculiar to New Holland. It was not, however, from Australia, but from\r\nthe coast of West Africa, near the mouth of the Congo, that the animal\r\nhad come. He had been picked up there, two years previously, by the\r\ncaptain of the \"Waldeck,\" who had found him wandering about and more\r\nthan half starved. The initials S. V. engraved upon his collar were the\r\nonly tokens that the dog had a past history of his own. After he had\r\nbeen taken on board the \"Waldeck,\" he remained quite unsociable,\r\napparently ever pining for some lost master, whom he had failed to find\r\nin the desert land where he had been met with. Larger than the dogs of the Pyrenees, Dingo was a magnificent example\r\nof his kind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Standing on his hind legs, with his head thrown back, he\r\nwas as tall as a man. His agility and strength would have made him a\r\nsure match for a panther, and he would not have flinched at facing a\r\nbear. His fine shaggy coat was a dark tawny colour, shading off\r\nsomewhat lighter round the muzzle, and his long bushy tail was as\r\nstrong as a lion's. If he were made angry, no doubt he might become a\r\nmost formidable foe, so that it was no wonder that Negoro did not feel\r\naltogether gratified at his reception. But Dingo, though unsociable, was not savage. Old Tom said that, on\r\nboard the \"Waldeck,\" he had noticed that the animal seemed to have a\r\nparticular dislike to negroes; not that he actually attempted to do\r\nthem any harm, only he uniformly avoided them, giving an impression\r\nthat he must have been systematically ill-treated by the natives of\r\nthat part of Africa in which he had been found. During the ten days\r\nthat had elapsed since the collision, Dingo had kept resolutely aloof\r\nfrom Tom and his companions; they could not tell what he had been\r\nfeeding on; they only knew that, like themselves, he had suffered an\r\nexcruciating thirst. Such had been the experience of the survivors of the \"Waldeck.\" Their\r\nsituation had been most critical."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Even if they survived the pangs of\r\nwant of food, the slightest gale or the most inconsiderable swell might\r\nat any moment have sunk the water-logged ship, and had it not been that\r\ncalms and contrary winds had contributed to the opportune arrival of\r\nthe \"Pilgrim,\" an inevitable fate was before them; their corpses must\r\nlie at the bottom of the sea. Captain Hull's act of humanity, however, would not be complete unless\r\nhe succeeded in restoring the shipwrecked men to their homes. This he\r\npromised to do. After completing the unlading at Valparaiso, the\r\n\"Pilgrim\" would make direct for California, where, as Mrs. Weldon\r\nassured them, they would be most hospitably received by her husband,\r\nand provided with the necessary means for returning to Pennsylvania. The five men, who, as the consequence of the shipwreck, had lost all\r\nthe savings of their last three years of toil, were profoundly grateful\r\nto their kind-hearted benefactors; nor, poor negroes as they were, did\r\nthey utterly resign the hope that at some future time they might have\r\nit in their power to repay the debt which they owed their deliverers. [Illustration: The good natured negroes were ever ready to lend a\r\nhelping hand.] CHAPTER V.\r\n\r\nDINGO'S SAGACITY. Meantime the \"Pilgrim\" pursued her course, keeping as much as possible\r\nto the east, and before evening closed in the hull of the \"Waldeck\" was\r\nout of sight."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Captain Hull still continued to feel uneasy about the constant\r\nprevalence of calms; not that for himself he cared much about the delay\r\nof a week or two in a voyage from New Zealand to Valparaiso, but he was\r\ndisappointed at the prolonged inconvenience it caused to his lady\r\npassenger. Mrs. Weldon, however, submitted to the detention very\r\nphilosophically, and did not utter a word of complaint. The captain's next care was to improvise sleeping accommodation for Tom\r\nand his four associates. No room for them could possibly be found in\r\nthe crew's quarters, so that their berths had to be arranged under the\r\nforecastle; and as long as the weather continued fine, there was no\r\nreason why the negroes, accustomed as they were to a somewhat rough\r\nlife, should not find themselves sufficiently comfortable. After this incident of the discovery of the wreck, life on board the\r\n\"Pilgrim\" relapsed into its ordinary routine. With the wind invariably\r\nin the same direction, the sails required very little shifting; but\r\nwhenever it happened, as occasionally it would, that there was any\r\ntacking to be done, the good-natured negroes were ever ready to lend a\r\nhelping hand; and the rigging would creak again under the weight of\r\nHercules, a great strapping fellow, six feet high, who seemed almost to\r\nrequire ropes of extra strength made for his special use."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Hercules became at once a great favourite with little Jack; and when\r\nthe giant lifted him like a doll in his stalwart arms, the child fairly\r\nshrieked with delight. \"Higher! higher! very high!\" Jack would say sometimes. \"There you are, then, Master Jack,\" Hercules would reply as he raised\r\nhim aloft. \"Am I heavy?\" asked the child,\r\n\r\n\"As heavy as a feather.\" \"Then lift me higher still,\" cried Jack; \"as high as ever you can\r\nreach.\" And Hercules, with the child's two feet supported on his huge palm,\r\nwould walk about the deck with him like an acrobat, Jack all the time\r\nendeavouring, with vain efforts, to make him \"feel his weight.\" Besides Dick Sands and Hercules, Jack admitted a third friend to his\r\ncompanionship. This was Dingo. The dog, unsociable as he had been on\r\nboard the \"Waldeck,\" seemed to have found society more congenial to his\r\ntastes, and being one of those animals that are fond of children, he\r\nallowed Jack to do with him almost anything he pleased. The child,\r\nhowever, never thought of hurting the dog in any way, and it was\r\ndoubtful which of the two had the greater enjoyment of their mutual\r\nsport. Jack found a live dog infinitely more entertaining than his old\r\ntoy upon its four wheels, and his great delight was to mount upon\r\nDingo's back, when the animal would gallop off with him like a\r\nrace-horse with his jockey."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It must be owned that one result of this\r\nintimacy was a serious diminution of the supply of sugar in the\r\nstore-room. Dingo was the delight of all the crew excepting Negoro, who\r\ncautiously avoided coming in contact with an animal who showed such\r\nunmistakable symptoms of hostility. The new companions that Jack had thus found did not in the least make\r\nhim forget his old friend Dick Sands, who devoted all his leisure time\r\nto him as assiduously as ever. Mrs. Weldon regarded their intimacy with\r\nthe greatest satisfaction, and one day made a remark to that effect in\r\nthe presence of Captain Hull. [Illustration: \"There you are, then, Master Jack!\"] \"You are right, madam,\" said the captain cordially; \"Dick is a capital\r\nfellow, and will be sure to be a first-rate sailor. He has an instinct\r\nwhich is little short of a genius; it supplies all deficiencies of\r\ntheory. Considering how short an experience and how little instruction\r\nhe has had, it is quite wonderful how much he knows about a ship.\" \"Certainly for his age,\" assented Mrs. Weldon, \"he is singularly\r\nadvanced. I can safely say that I have never had a fault to find with\r\nhim. I believe that it is my husband's intention, after this voyage, to\r\nlet him have systematic training in navigation, so that he may be able\r\nultimately to become a captain.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I have no misgivings, madam,\" replied the captain; \"there is every\r\nreason to expect that he will be an honour to the service.\" \"Poor orphan!\" said the lady; \"he has been trained in a hard school.\" \"Its lessons have not been lost upon him,\" rejoined Captain Hull; \"they\r\nhave taught him the prime lesson that he has his own way to make in the\r\nworld.\" The eyes of the two speakers turned as it were unwittingly in the\r\ndirection where Dick Sands happened to be standing. He was at the helm. \"Look at him now!\" said the captain; \"see how steadily he keeps his eye\r\nupon the fore; nothing distracts him from his duty; he is as much to be\r\ndepended on as the most experienced helmsman. It was a capital thing\r\nfor him that he began his training as a cabin-boy. Nothing like it. Begin at the beginning. It is the best of training for the merchant\r\nservice.\" \"But surely,\" interposed Mrs. Weldon, \"you would not deny that in the\r\nnavy there have been many good officers who have never had the training\r\nof which you are speaking?\" \"True, madam; but yet even some of the best of them have begun at the\r\nlowest step of the ladder. For instance, Lord Nelson.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Just at this instant Cousin Benedict emerged from the stern-cabin, and\r\ncompletely absorbed, according to his wont, in his own pursuit, began\r\nto wander up and down the deck, peering into the interstices of the\r\nnetwork, rummaging under the seats, and drawing his long fingers along\r\nthe cracks in the floor where the tar had crumbled away. \"Well, Benedict, how are you getting on?\" asked Mrs Weldon. \"I? Oh, well enough, thank you,\" he replied dreamily; \"but I wish we\r\nwere on shore.\" \"What were you looking for under that bench?\" said Captain Hull. \"Insects, of course,\" answered Benedict; \"I am always looking for\r\ninsects.\" \"But don't you know, Benedict,\" said Mrs. Weldon, \"that Captain Hull is\r\nfar too particular to allow any vermin on the deck of his vessel?\" Captain Hull smiled and said,--\r\n\r\n\"Mrs Weldon is very complimentary; but I am really inclined to hope\r\nthat your investigations in the cabins of the 'Pilgrim' will not be\r\nattended with much success.\" Cousin Benedict shrugged his shoulders in a manner that indicated that\r\nhe was aware that the cabins could furnish nothing attractive in the\r\nway of insects. \"However,\" continued the captain, \"I dare say down in the hold you\r\ncould find some cockroaches; but cockroaches, I presume, would be of\r\nlittle or no interest to you.\" \"No interest?\" cried Benedict, at once warmed into enthusiasm; \"why,\r\nare they not the very orthoptera that roused the imprecations of Virgil\r\nand Horace?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Are they not closely allied to the _Periplaneta orientalis_\r\nand the American Kakerlac, which inhabit--\"\r\n\r\n\"I should rather say infest,\" interrupted the captain. \"Easy enough to see, sir,\" replied Benedict, stopping short with\r\namazement, \"that you are not an entomologist!\" \"I fear I must plead guilty to your accusation,\" said the captain\r\ngood-humouredly. \"You must not expect every one to be such an enthusiast in your\r\nfavourite study as yourself.\" Mrs. Weldon interposed; \"but are you not\r\nsatisfied with the result of your explorations in New Zealand?\" \"Yes, yes,\" answered Benedict, with a sort of hesitating reluctance; \"I\r\nmust not say I was dissatisfied; I was really very delighted to secure\r\nthat new staphylin which hitherto had never been seen elsewhere than in\r\nNew California; but still, you know, an entomologist is always craving\r\nfor fresh additions to his collection.\" While he was speaking, Dingo, leaving little Jack, who was romping with\r\nhim, came and jumped on Benedict, and began to fawn on him. \"Get away, you brute!\" he exclaimed, thrusting the dog aside. \"Poor Dingo! good dog!\" cried Jack, running up and taking the animal's\r\nhuge head between his tiny hands. \"Your interest in cockroaches, Mr. Benedict,\" observed the captain,\r\n\"does not seem to extend to dogs.\" \"It isn't that I dislike dogs at all,\" answered Benedict; \"but this\r\ncreature has disappointed me.\" \"How do you mean? You could hardly want to catalogue him with the\r\ndiptera or hymenoptera?\" asked Mrs Weldon laughingly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, not at all,\" replied Benedict, with the most unmoved gravity. \"But\r\nI understood that he had been found on the West Coast of Africa, and I\r\nhoped that perhaps he might have brought over some African hemiptera in\r\nhis coat; but I have searched his coat well, over and over again,\r\nwithout finding a single specimen. The dog has disappointed me,\" he\r\nrepeated mournfully. \"I can only hope,\" said the captain, \"that if you had found anything,\r\nyou were going to kill it instantly.\" Benedict looked with mute astonishment into the captain's face. In a\r\nmoment or two afterwards, he said,--\r\n\r\n\"I suppose, sir, you acknowledge that Sir John Franklin was an eminent\r\nmember of your profession?\" \"Certainly; why?\" \"Because Sir John would never take away the life of the most\r\ninsignificant insect; it is related of him that when he had once been\r\nincessantly tormented all day by a mosquito, at last he found it on the\r\nback of his hand and blew it off, saying, 'Fly away, little creature,\r\nthe world is large enough for both you and me!'\" \"That little anecdote of yours, Mr. Benedict,\" said the captain,\r\nsmiling, \"is a good deal older than Sir John Franklin. It is told, in\r\nnearly the same words, about Uncle Toby, in Sterne's 'Tristram Shandy';\r\nonly there it was not a mosquito, it was a common fly.\" \"And was Uncle Toby an entomologist?\" asked Benedict; \"did he ever\r\nreally live?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No,\" said the captain, \"he was only a character in a novel.\" Cousin Benedict gave a look of utter contempt, and Captain Hull and Mrs\r\nWeldon could not resist laughing. Such is only one instance of the way in which Cousin Benedict\r\ninvariably brought it about that all conversation with him ultimately\r\nturned upon his favourite pursuit, and all along, throughout the\r\nmonotonous hours of smooth sailing, while the \"Pilgrim\" was making her\r\nlittle headway to the east, he showed his own devotion to his pet\r\nscience, by seeking to enlist new disciples. First of all, he tried his\r\npowers of persuasion upon Dick Sands, but soon finding that the young\r\napprentice had no taste for entomological mysteries, he gave him up and\r\nturned his attention to the negroes. Nor was he much more successful\r\nwith them; one after another, Tom, Bat, Actæon, and Austin had all\r\nwithdrawn themselves from his instructions, and the class at last was\r\nreduced to the single person of Hercules; but in him the enthusiastic\r\nnaturalist thought he had discovered a latent talent which could\r\ndistinguish between a parasite and a thysanura."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Hercules accordingly submitted to pass a considerable portion of his\r\nleisure in the observation of every variety of coleoptera; he was\r\nencouraged to study the extensive collection of stag-beetles,\r\ntiger-beetles and lady-birds; and although at times the enthusiast\r\ntrembled to see some of his most delicate and fragile specimens in the\r\nhuge grasp of his pupil, he soon learned that the man's gentle docility\r\nwas a sufficient guarantee against his clumsiness. While the science of entomology was thus occupying its two votaries,\r\nMrs. Weldon was giving her own best attention to the education of\r\nMaster Jack. Reading and writing she undertook to teach herself, while\r\nshe entrusted the instruction in arithmetic to the care of Dick Sands. Under the conviction that a child of five years will make a much more\r\nrapid progress if something like amusement be combined with his\r\nlessons, Mrs. Weldon would not teach her boy to spell by the use of an\r\nordinary school primer, but used a set of cubes, on the sides of which\r\nthe various letters were painted in red. After first making a word and\r\nshowing it to Jack, she set him to put it together without her help,\r\nand it was astonishing how quickly the child advanced, and how many\r\nhours he would spend in this way, both in the cabin and on deck."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There\r\nwere more than fifty cubes, which, besides the alphabet, included all\r\nthe digits; so that they were of service for Dick Sands' lessons as\r\nwell as for her own. She was more than satisfied with her device. On the morning of the 9th an incident occurred which could not fail to\r\nbe observed as somewhat remarkable. Jack was half lying, half sitting\r\non the deck, amusing himself with his letters, and had just finished\r\nputting together a word with which he intended to puzzle old Tom, who,\r\nwith his hand sheltering his eyes, was pretending not to see the\r\ndifficulty which was being labouriously prepared to bewilder him; all\r\nat once, Dingo, who had been gambolling round the child, made a sudden\r\npause, lifted his right paw, and wagged his tail convulsively. Then\r\ndarting down upon a capital S, he seized it in his mouth, and carried\r\nit some paces away. \"Oh, Dingo, Dingo! you mustn't eat my letters!\" shouted the child. But the dog had already dropped the block of wood, and coming back\r\nagain, picked up another, which he laid quietly by the side of the\r\nfirst. This time it was a capital V. Jack uttered an exclamation of\r\nastonishment which brought to his side not only his mother, but the\r\ncaptain and Dick, who were both on deck. In answer to their inquiry as\r\nto what had occurred, Jack cried out in the greatest excitement that\r\nDingo knew how to read."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At any rate he was sure that he knew his\r\nletters. Dick Sands smiled and stooped to take back the letters. Dingo snarled\r\nand showed his teeth, but the apprentice was not frightened; he carried\r\nhis point, and replaced the two blocks among the rest. Dingo in an\r\ninstant pounced upon them again, and having drawn them to his side,\r\nlaid a paw upon each of them, as if to signify his intention of\r\nretaining them in his possession. Of the other letters of the alphabet\r\nhe took no notice at all. \"It is very strange,\" said Mrs. Weldon; \"he has picked out S V again.\" \"S V!\" repeated the captain thoughtfully; \"are not those the letters\r\nthat form the initials on his collar?\" And turning to the old negro, he continued,--\r\n\r\n\"Tom didn't you say that this dog did not always belong to the captain\r\nof the 'Waldeck'?\" \"To the best of my belief,\" replied Tom, \"the captain had only had him\r\nabout two years. I often heard him tell how he found him at the mouth\r\nof the Congo.\" \"Do you suppose that he never knew where the animal came from, or to\r\nwhom he had previously belonged?\" asked Captain Hull. \"Never,\" answered Tom, shaking his head; \"a lost dog is worse to\r\nidentify than a lost child; you see, he can't make himself understood\r\nany way.\" The captain made no answer, but stood musing; Mrs. Weldon interrupted\r\nhim."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"These letters, captain, seem to be recalling something to your\r\nrecollection. \"I can hardly go so far as to say that, Mrs. Weldon,\" he replied; \"but\r\nI cannot help associating them with the fate of a brave explorer.\" \"Whom do you mean? said the lady. \"In 1871, just two years ago,\" the captain continued, \"a French\r\ntraveller, under the auspices of the Geographical Society of Paris, set\r\nout for the purpose of crossing Africa from west to east. His\r\nstarting-point was the mouth of the Congo, and his exit was designed to\r\nbe as near as possible to Cape Deldago, at the mouth of the River\r\nRovouma, of which he was to ascertain the true course. The name of this\r\nman was Samuel Vernon, and I confess it strikes me as somewhat a\r\nstrange coincidence that the letters engraved on Dingo's collar should\r\nbe Vernon's initials.\" [Illustration: Jack cried out in the greatest excitement that Dingo\r\nknew how to read]\r\n\r\n\"Is nothing known about this traveller?\" asked Mrs. Weldon. \"Nothing was ever heard of him after his first departure."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It appears\r\nquite certain that he failed to reach the east coast, and it can only\r\nbe conjectured either that he died upon his way, or that he was made\r\nprisoner by the natives; and if so, and this dog ever belonged to him,\r\nthe animal might have made his way back to the sea-coast, where, just\r\nabout the time that would be likely, the captain of the 'Waldeck'\r\npicked him up.\" \"But you have no reason to suppose, Captain Hull, that Vernon ever\r\nowned a dog of this description?\" \"I own I never heard of it,\" said the captain; \"but still the\r\nimpression fixes itself on my mind that the dog must have been his; how\r\nhe came to know one letter from another, it is not for me to pretend to\r\nsay. Look at him now, madam! he seems not only to be reading the\r\nletters for himself, but to be inviting us to come and read them with\r\nhim.\" Whilst Mrs. Weldon was watching the dog with much amusement, Dick\r\nSands, who had listened to the previous conversation, took the\r\nopportunity of asking the captain whether the traveller Vernon had\r\nstarted on his expedition quite alone. \"That is really more than I can tell you, my boy,\" answered Captain\r\nHull; \"but I should almost take it for granted that he would have a\r\nconsiderable retinue of natives.\" The captain spoke without being aware that Negoro had meanwhile quietly\r\nstolen on deck."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At first his presence was quite unnoticed, and no one\r\nobserved the peculiar glance with which he looked at the two letters\r\nover which Dingo still persisted in keeping guard. The dog, however, no\r\nsooner caught sight of the cook than he began to bristle with rage,\r\nwhereupon Negoro, with a threatening gesture which seemed half\r\ninvoluntary, withdrew immediately to his accustomed quarters. The incident did not escape the captain's observation. \"No doubt,\" he said, \"there is some mystery here;\" and he was pondering\r\nthe matter over in his mind when Dick Sands spoke. \"Don't you think it very singular, sir, that this dog should have such\r\na knowledge of the alphabet?\" Jack here put in his word. \"My mamma has told me about a dog whose name was Munito, who could read\r\nas well as a schoolmaster, and could play dominoes.\" Mrs. Weldon smiled. \"I am afraid, my child, that that dog was not quite so learned as you\r\nimagine. I don't suppose he knew one letter from another; but his\r\nmaster, who was a clever American, having found out that the animal had\r\na very keen sense of hearing, taught him some curious tricks.\" \"What sort of tricks?\" asked Dick, who was almost as much interested as\r\nlittle Jack."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"When he had to perform in public,\" continued Mrs. Weldon, \"a lot of\r\nletters like yours, Jack, were spread out upon a table, and Munito\r\nwould put together any word that the company should propose, either\r\naloud or in a whisper, to his master. The creature would walk about\r\nuntil he stopped at the very letter which was wanted. The secret of it\r\nall was that the dog's owner gave him a signal when he was to stop by\r\nrattling a little tooth-pick in his pocket, making a slight noise that\r\nonly the dog's ears were acute enough to perceive.\" Dick was highly amused, and said,--\r\n\r\n\"But that was a dog who could do nothing wonderful without his master.\" \"Just so,\" answered Mrs. Weldon; \"and it surprises me very much to see\r\nDingo picking out these letters without a master to direct him.\" [Illustration: Negoro, with a threatening gesture that seemed half\r\ninvoluntary, withdrew immediately to his accustomed quarters.] \"The more one thinks of it, the more strange it is,\" said Captain Hull;\r\n\"but, after all, Dingo's sagacity is not greater than that of the dog\r\nwhich rang the convent bell in order to get at the dish that was\r\nreserved for passing beggars; nor than that of the dog who had to turn\r\na spit every other day, and never could be induced to work when it was\r\nnot his proper day."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dingo evidently has no acquaintance with any other\r\nletters except the two S V; and some circumstance which we can never\r\nguess has made him familiar with them.\" \"What a pity he cannot talk!\" exclaimed the apprentice; \"we should know\r\nwhy it is that he always shows his teeth at Negoro.\" \"And tremendous teeth they are!\" observed the captain, as Dingo at that\r\nmoment opened his mouth, and made a display of his formidable fangs. CHAPTER VI. A WHALE IN SIGHT. It was only what might be expected that the dog's singular exhibition\r\nof sagacity should repeatedly form a subject of conversation between\r\nMrs. Weldon, the captain, and Dick. The young apprentice in particular\r\nbegan to entertain a lurking feeling of distrust towards Negoro,\r\nalthough it must be owned that the man's conduct in general afforded no\r\ntangible grounds for suspicion. Nor as it only among the stern passengers that Dingo's remarkable feat\r\nwas discussed; amongst the crew in the bow the dog not only soon gained\r\nthe reputation of being able to read, but was almost credited with\r\nbeing able to write too, as well as any sailor among them; indeed the\r\nchief wonder was that he did not speak. \"Perhaps he can,\" suggested Bolton, the helmsman, \"and likely enough\r\nsome fine day we shall have him coming to ask about our bearings, and\r\nto inquire which way the wind lies.\" \"Ah! why not?\" assented another sailor; \"parrots talk, and magpies\r\ntalk; why shouldn't a dog?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "For my part, I should guess it must be\r\neasier to speak with a mouth than with a beak.\" \"Of course it is,\" said Howick, the boatswain; \"only a quadruped has\r\nnever yet been known to do it.\" Perhaps, however, the worthy fellow would have been amazed to hear that\r\na certain Danish _savant_ once possesed a dog that could actually\r\npronounce quite distinctly nearly twenty different words, demonstrating\r\nthat the construction of the glottis, the aperture at the top of the\r\nwindpipe, was adapted for the emission of regular sounds: of course the\r\nanimal attached no meaning to the words it uttered any more than a\r\nparrot or a jay can comprehend their own chatterings. [Illustration: \"This Dingo is nothing out of the way.\"] Thus, unconsciously, Dingo had become the hero of the hour. On several\r\nseparate occasions Captain Hull repeated the experiment of spreading\r\nout the blocks before him, but invariably with the same result; the dog\r\nnever failed, without the slightest hesitation, to pick out the two\r\nletters, leaving all the rest of the alphabet quite unnoticed. Cousin Benedict alone, somewhat ostentatiously, professed to take no\r\ninterest in the circumstance. \"You cannot suppose,\" he said to Captain Hull, after various\r\nrepetitions of the trick, \"that dogs are to be reckoned the only\r\nanimals endowed with intelligence Rats, you know, will always leave a\r\nsinking ship, and beavers invariably raise their dams before the\r\napproach of a flood."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Did not the horses of Nicomedes, Scanderberg and\r\nOppian die of grief for the loss of their masters? Have there not been\r\ninstances of donkeys with wonderful memories? Birds, too, have been\r\ntrained to do the most remarkable things; they have been taught to\r\nwrite word after word at their master's dictation; there are cockatoos\r\nwho can count the people in a room as accurately as a mathematician;\r\nand haven't you heard of the old Cardinal's parrot that he would not\r\npart with for a hundred gold crowns because it could repeat the\r\nApostles' creed from beginning to end without a blunder? And insects,\"\r\nhe continued, warming into enthusiasm, \"how marvellously they vindicate\r\nthe axiom--\r\n\r\n  'In minimis maximus Deus!' Are not the structures of ants the very models for the architects of a\r\ncity? Has the diving-bell of the aquatic argyroneta ever been surpassed\r\nby the invention of the most skilful student of mechanical art? And\r\ncannot fleas go through a drill and fire a gun as well as the most\r\naccomplished artilleryman? This Dingo is nothing out of the way. I\r\nsuppose he belongs to some unclassed species of mastiff. Perhaps one\r\nday or other he may come to be identified as the 'canis alphabeticus'\r\nof New Zealand.\" The worthy entomologist delivered this and various similar harangues;\r\nbut Dingo, nevertheless, retained his high place in the general\r\nestimation, and by the occupants of the forecastle was regarded as\r\nlittle short of a phenomenon."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The feeling, otherwise universal, was not\r\nin any degree shared by Negoro, and it is not improbable that the man\r\nwould have been tempted to some foul play with the dog if the open\r\nsympathies of the crew had not kept him in check. More than ever he\r\nstudiously avoided coming in contact in any way with the animal, and\r\nDick Sands in his own mind was quite convinced that since the incident\r\nof the letters, the cook's hatred of the dog had become still more\r\nintense. After continual alternations with long and wearisome calms the\r\nnorth-east wind perceptibly moderated, and on the both, Captain Hull\r\nreally began to hope that such a change would ensue as to allow the\r\nschooner to run straight before the wind. Nineteen days had elapsed\r\nsince the \"Pilgrim\" had left Auckland, a period not so long but that\r\nwith a favourable breeze it might be made up at last. Some days however\r\nwere yet to elapse before the wind veered round to the anticipated\r\nquarter. It has been already stated that this portion of the Pacific is almost\r\nalways deserted. It is out of the line of the American and Australian\r\nsteam-packets, and except a whaler had been brought into it by some\r\nsuch exceptional circumstances as the \"Pilgrim,\" it was quite unusual\r\nto see one in this latitude. But, however void of traffic was the surface of the sea, to none but an\r\nunintelligent mind could it appear monotonous or barren of interest."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The poetry of the ocean breathes forth in its minute and almost\r\nimperceptible changes. A marine plant, a tuft of seaweed lightly\r\nfurrowing the water, a drifting spar with its unknown history, may\r\nafford unlimited scope--for the imagination; every little drop passing,\r\nin its process of evaporation, backwards and forwards from sea to sky,\r\nmight perchance reveal its own special secret; and happy are those\r\nminds which are capable of a due appreciation of the mysteries of air\r\nand ocean. [Illustration: Occasionally Dick Sands would take a pistol, and now and\r\nthen a rifle.] Above the surface as well as below, the restless flood is ever teaming\r\nwith animal life; and the passengers on board the \"Pilgrim\" derived no\r\nlittle amusement from watching great flocks of birds migrating\r\nnorthwards to escape the rigour of the polar winter, and ever and again\r\ndescending in rapid flight to secure some tiny fish. Occasionally Dick\r\nSands would take a pistol, and now and then a rifle, and, thanks to Mr.\r\nWeldon's former instructions, would bring down various specimens of the\r\nfeathered tribe."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sometimes white petrels would congregate in considerable numbers near\r\nthe schooner; and sometimes petrels of another species, with brown\r\nborders on their wings, would come in sight; now there would be flocks\r\nof damiers skimming the water; and now groups of penguins, whose clumsy\r\ngait appears so ludicrous on shore; but, as Captain Hull pointed out,\r\nwhen their stumpy wings were employed as fins, they were a match for\r\nthe most rapid of fish, so that sailors have often mistaken them for\r\nbonitos. High over head, huge albatrosses, their outspread wings measuring ten\r\nfeet from tip to tip, would soar aloft, thence to swoop down towards\r\nthe deep, into which they plunged their beaks in search of food. Such\r\nincidents and scenes as these were infinite in their variety, and it\r\nwas accordingly only for minds that were obtuse to the charms of nature\r\nthat the voyage could be monotonous. On the day the wind shifted, Mrs. Weldon was walking up and down on the\r\n\"Pilgrim's\" stern, when her attention was attracted by what seemed to\r\nher a strange phenomenon. All of a sudden, far as the eye could reach,\r\nthe sea had assumed a reddish hue, as if it were tinged with blood. Both Dick and Jack were standing close behind her, and she cried,--\r\n\r\n\"Look, Dick, look! the sea is all red. Is it a sea-weed that is making\r\nthe water so strange a colour?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No,\" answered Dick, \"it is not a weed; it is what the sailors call\r\nwhales' food; it is formed, I believe, of innumerable myriads of minute\r\ncrustacea.\" \"Crustacea they may be,\" replied Mrs. Weldon, \"but they must be so\r\nsmall that they are mere insects. Cousin Benedict no doubt will like to\r\nsee them.\" She called aloud,--\r\n\r\n\"Benedict! Benedict! come here! we have a sight here to interest you.\" The amateur naturalist slowly emerged from his cabin followed by\r\nCaptain Hull. \"Ah! yes, I see!\" said the captain; \"whales' food; just the opportunity\r\nfor you, Mr. Benedict; a chance not to be thrown away for studying one\r\nof the most curious of the crustacea.\" \"Nonsense!\" ejaculated Benedict contemptuously; \"utter nonsense!\" \"Why? what do you mean, Mr. Benedict?\" retorted the captain; \"surely\r\nyou, as an entomologist, must know that I am right in my conviction\r\nthat these crustacea belong to one of the six classes of the\r\narticulata.\" The disdain of Cousin Benedict was expressed by a repeated sneer. \"Are you not aware, sir, that my researches as an entomologist are\r\nconfined entirely to the hexapoda?\" Captain Hull, unable to repress a smile, only answered\r\ngood-humouredly,--\r\n\r\n\"I see, sir, your tastes do not lie in the same direction as those of\r\nthe whale.\" And turning to Mrs. Weldon, he continued,--\r\n\r\n\"To whalemen, madam, this is a sight that speaks for itself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is a\r\ntoken that we ought to lose no time in getting out our lines and\r\nlooking to the state of our harpoons. There is game not far away.\" Jack gave vent to his astonishment. \"Do you mean that great creatures like whales feed on such tiny things\r\nas these?\" \"Yes, my boy,\" said the captain; \"and I daresay they are as nice to\r\nthem as semolina and ground rice are to you. \"When a whale gets into the middle of them he has nothing to do but to\r\nopen his jaws, and, in a minute, hundreds of thousands of these minute\r\ncreatures are inside the fringe or whalebone around his palate, and he\r\nis sure of a good mouthful.\" \"So you see, Jack,\" said Dick, \"the whale gets his shrimps without the\r\ntrouble of shelling them.\" \"And when he has just closed his snappers is the very time to give him\r\na good taste of the harpoon,\" added Captain Hull. The words had hardly escaped the captain's lips when a shout from one\r\nof the sailors announced,--\r\n\r\n\"A whale to larboard!\" \"There's the whale!\" repeated the captain. All his professional\r\ninstincts were aroused in an instant, and he hurried to the bow,\r\nfollowed in eager curiosity by all the stern passengers. Even Cousin Benedict loitered up in the rear, constrained, in spite of\r\nhimself, to take a share in the general interest. There was no doubt about the matter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Four miles or so to windward an\r\nunusual commotion in the water betokened to experienced eyes the\r\npresence of a whale; but the distance was too great to permit a\r\nreasonable conjecture to be formed as to which species of those\r\nmammifers the creature belonged. Three distinct species are familiarly known. First there is the Right\r\nwhale, which is ordinarily sought for in the northern fisheries. The\r\naverage length of this cetacean is sixty feet, though it has been known\r\nto attain the length of eighty feet. It has no dorsal fin, and beneath\r\nits skin is a thick layer of blubber. One of these monsters alone will\r\nyield as much as a hundred barrels of oil. Then there is the Hump-back, a typical representative of the species\r\n\"balænoptera,\" a definition which may at first sight appear to possess\r\nan interest for an entomologist, but which really refers to two white\r\ndorsal fins, each half as wide as the body, resembling a pair of wings,\r\nand in their formation similar to those of the flying-fish. It must be\r\nowned, however, that a flying whale would decidedly be a _rara avis_. Lastly, there is the Jubarte, commonly known as the Finback. It is\r\nprovided with a dorsal fin, and in length not unfrequently is a match\r\nfor the gigantic Right whale."}
{"question": "", "answer": "While it was impossible to decide to which of the three species the\r\nwhale in the distance really belonged, the general impression inclined\r\nto the belief that it was a jubarte. With longing eyes Captain Hull and his crew gazed at the object of\r\ngeneral attraction. Just as irresistibly as it is said a clockmaker is\r\ndrawn on to examine the mechanism of every clock which chance may throw\r\nin his way, so is a whaleman ever anxious to plunge his harpoon into\r\nany whale that he can get within his reach. The larger the game the\r\nmore keen the excitement; and no elephant-hunter's eagerness ever\r\nsurpasses the zest of the whale-fisher when once started in pursuit of\r\nthe prey. To the crew the sight of the whale was the opening of an unexpected\r\nopportunity, and no wonder they were fired with the burning hope that\r\neven now they might do something to supply the deficiency of their\r\nmeagre haul throughout the season. Far away as the creature still was, the captain's practised eye soon\r\nenabled him to detect various indications that satisfied him as to its\r\ntrue species. Amongst other things that arrested his attention, he\r\nobserved a column of water and vapour ejected from the nostrils. \"It\r\nisn't a right whale,\" he said; \"if so, its spout would be smaller and\r\nit would rise higher in the air. And I do not think it is a hump-back. I cannot hear the hump-back's roar."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick, tell me, what do you think\r\nabout it?\" With a critical eye Dick Sands looked long and steadily at the spout. \"It blows out water, sir,\" said the apprentice, \"water, as well as\r\nvapour. I should think it is a finback. But it must be a rare large\r\none.\" \"Seventy feet, at least!\" rejoined the captain, flushing with his\r\nenthusiasm. \"What a big fellow!\" said Jack, catching the excitement of his elders. [Illustration: \"What a big fellow!\"] \"Ah, Jack, my boy,\" chuckled the captain, \"the whale little thinks who\r\nare watching him enjoy his breakfast!\" \"Yes,\" said the boatswain; \"a dozen such gentlemen as that would\r\nfreight a craft twice the size of ours; but this one, if only we can\r\nget him, will go a good way towards filling our empty barrels.\" \"Rather rough work, you know,\" said Dick, \"to attack a finback!\" \"You are right, Dick,\" answered the captain; \"the boat has yet to be\r\nbuilt which is strong enough to resist the flap of a jubarte's tail.\" \"But the profit is worth the risk, captain, isn't it?\" \"You are right again, Dick,\" replied Captain Hull, and as he spoke, he\r\nclambered on to the bowsprit in order that he might get a better view\r\nof the whale. The crew were as eager as their captain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mounted on the fore-shrouds,\r\nthey scanned the movements of their coveted prey in the distance,\r\nfreely descanting upon the profit to be made out of a good finback and\r\ndeclaring that it would be a thousand pities if this chance of filling\r\nthe casks below should be permitted to be lost. Captain Hull was perplexed. He bit his nails and knitted his brow. \"Mamma!\" cried little Jack, \"I should so much like to see a whale\r\nclose,--quite close, you know.\" \"And so you shall, my boy,\" replied the captain, who was standing by,\r\nand had come to the resolve that if his men would back him, he would\r\nmake an attempt to capture the prize. He turned to his crew,--\r\n\r\n\"My men! what do you think? shall we make the venture? Remember, we are\r\nall alone; we have no whalemen to help us; we must rely upon ourselves;\r\nI have thrown a harpoon before now; I can throw a harpoon again; what\r\ndo you say?\" The crew responded with a ringing cheer,--\r\n\r\n\"Ay, ay, sir! Ay, ay!\" CHAPTER VII. PREPARATIONS FOR AN ATTACK. Great was the excitement that now prevailed, and the question of an\r\nattempt to capture the sea-monster became the ruling theme of\r\nconversation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Weldon expressed considerable doubt as to the\r\nprudence of venturing upon so great a risk with such a limited number\r\nof hands, but when Captain Hull assured her that he had more than once\r\nsuccessfully attacked a whale with a single boat, and that for his part\r\nhe had no fear of failure, she made no further remonstrance, and\r\nappeared quite satisfied. Having formed his resolve, the captain lost no time in setting about\r\nhis preliminary arrangements. He could not really conceal from his own\r\nmind that the pursuit of a finback was always a matter of some peril,\r\nand he was anxious, accordingly, to make every possible provision which\r\nforethought could devise against all emergencies. Besides her long-boat, which was kept between the two masts, the\r\n\"Pilgrim\" had three whale-boats, two of them slung to the starboard and\r\nlarboard davits, and the third at the stern, outside the taffrail. During the fishing season, when the crew was reinforced by a hired\r\ncomplement of New Zealand whalemen, all three of these boats would be\r\nbrought at once into requisition, but at present the whole crew of the\r\n\"Pilgrim\" was barely sufficient to man one of the three boats."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Tom and\r\nhis friends were ready to volunteer their assistance, but any offers of\r\nservice from them were necessarily declined; the manipulation of a\r\nwhale-boat can only be entrusted to those who are experienced in the\r\nwork, as a false turn of the tiller or a premature stroke of the oar\r\nmay in a moment compromise the safety of the whole party. Thus\r\ncompelled to take all his trained sailors with him on his venturous\r\nexpedition, the captain had no alternative than to leave his apprentice\r\nin charge of the schooner during his absence. Dick's choice would have\r\nbeen very much in favour of taking a share in the whale-hunt, but he\r\nhad the good sense to know that the developed strength of a man would\r\nbe of far greater service in the boat, and accordingly without a murmur\r\nhe resigned himself to remain behind. Of the five sailors who were to man the boat, there were four to take\r\nthe oars, whilst Howick the boatswain was to manage the oar at the\r\nstern, which on these occasions generally replaces an ordinary rudder\r\nas being quicker in action in the event of any of the side oars being\r\ndisabled."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The post of harpooner was of course assigned to Captain Hull,\r\nto whose lot it would consequently fall first to hurl his weapon at the\r\nwhale, then to manage the unwinding of the line to which the harpoon\r\nwas attached, and finally to kill the creature by lance-wounds when it\r\nshould emerge again from below the sea. A method sometimes employed for commencing an attack is to place a sort\r\nof small cannon on the bows or deck of the boat and to discharge from\r\nit either a harpoon or some explosive bullets, which make frightful\r\nlacerations on the body of the victim; but the \"Pilgrim\" was not\r\nprovided with apparatus of this description; not only are all the\r\ncontrivances of this kind very costly and difficult to manage, but the\r\nfishermen generally are averse to innovations, and prefer the\r\nold-fashioned harpoons. It was with these alone that Captain Hull was\r\nnow about to encounter the finback that was lying some four miles\r\ndistant from his ship. The weather promised as favourably as could be for the enterprise. The\r\nsea was calm, and the wind moreover was still moderating, so that there\r\nwas no likelihood of the schooner drifting away during the captain's\r\nabsence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When the starboard whale-boat had been lowered, and the four sailors\r\nhad entered it, Howick passed a couple of harpoons down to them, and\r\nsome lances which had been carefully sharpened; to these were added\r\nfive coils of stout and supple rope, each 600 feet long, for a whale\r\nwhen struck often dives so deeply that even these lengths of line\r\nknotted together are found to be insufficient. After these implements\r\nof attack had been properly stowed in the bows, the crew had only to\r\nawait the pleasure of their captain. The \"Pilgrim,\" before the sailors left her, had been made to heave to,\r\nand the yards were braced so as to secure her remaining as stationary\r\nas possible. As the time drew near for the captain to quit her, he gave\r\na searching look all round to satisfy himself that everything was in\r\norder; he saw that the halyards were properly tightened, and the sails\r\ntrimmed as they should be, and then calling the young apprentice to his\r\nside, he said,--\r\n\r\n\"Now, Dick, I am going to leave you for a few hours: while I am away, I\r\nhope that it will not be necessary for you to make any movement\r\nwhatever. However, you must be on the watch. It is not very likely, but\r\nit is possible that this finback may carry us out to some distance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If\r\nso, you will have to follow; and in that case, I am sure you may rely\r\nupon Tom and his friends for assistance.\" One and all, the negroes assured the captain of their willingness to\r\nobey Dick's instructions, the sturdy Hercules rolling up his capacious\r\nshirt-sleeves as if to show that he was ready for immediate action. The captain went on,--\r\n\r\n\"The weather is beautifully fine, Dick, and I see no prospect of the\r\nwind freshening; but come what may, I have one direction to give you\r\nwhich I strictly enforce. You must not leave the ship. If I want you to\r\nfollow us, I will hoist a flag on the boat-hook.\" \"You may trust me, sir,\" answered Dick; \"and I will keep a good\r\nlook-out.\" \"All right, my lad; keep a cool head and a good heart. You are second\r\ncaptain now, you know. I never heard of any one of your age being\r\nplaced in such a post; be a credit to your position!\" Dick blushed, and the bright flush that rose to his cheeks spoke more\r\nthan words. \"The lad may be trusted,\" murmured the captain to himself; \"he is as\r\nmodest as he is courageous. Yes; he may be trusted.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "It cannot be denied that the captain was not wholly without compunction\r\nat the step he was taking; he was aware of the danger to which he was\r\nexposing himself, but he beguiled himself with the persuasion that it\r\nwas only for a few hours; and his fisherman's instinct was very keen. It was not only for himself; the desire upon the part of the crew was\r\nalmost irresistibly strong that every opportunity ought to be employed\r\nfor making the cargo of the schooner equal to her owner's expectations. And so he finally prepared to start. \"I wish you all success!\" said Mrs. Weldon. \"Many thanks!\" he replied. Little Jack put in his word,--\r\n\r\n\"And you will try and catch the whale without hurting him much?\" \"All right, young gentleman,\" answered the captain; \"he shall hardly\r\nfeel the tip of our fingers!\" \"Sometimes,\" said Cousin Benedict, as if he had been pondering the\r\nexpedition in relation to his pet science, \"sometimes there are strange\r\ninsects clinging to the backs of these great mammifers; do you think\r\nyou are likely to procure me any specimens?\" \"You shall soon have the opportunity of investigating for yourself,\"\r\nwas the captain's reply. \"And you, Tom; we shall be looking to you for help in cutting up our\r\nprize, when we get it alongside,\" continued he. \"We shall be quite ready, sir,\" said the negro."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"One thing more, Dick,\" added the captain; \"you may as well be getting\r\nup the empty barrels out of the hold; they will be all ready.\" \"It shall be done, sir,\" answered Dick promptly. If everything went well it was the intention that the whale after it\r\nhad been killed should be towed to the side of the schooner, where it\r\nwould be firmly lashed. Then the sailors with their feet in spiked\r\nshoes would get upon its back and proceed to cut the blubber, from head\r\nto tail, in long strips, which would first be divided into lumps about\r\na foot and a half square, the lumps being subsequently chopped into\r\nsmaller portions capable of being stored away in casks. The ordinary\r\nrule would be for a ship, as soon as the flaying was complete, to make\r\nits way to land where the blubber could be at once boiled down, an\r\noperation by which it is reduced by about a third of its weight, and by\r\nwhich it yields all its oil, the only portion of it which is of any\r\nvalue. Under present circumstances, however, Captain Hull would not\r\nthink of melting down the blubber until his arrival at Valparaiso, and\r\nas he was sanguine that the wind would soon set in a favourable\r\ndirection, he calculated that he should reach that port in less than\r\nthree weeks, a period during which his cargo would not be deteriorated."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The latest movement with regard to the \"Pilgrim\" had been to bring her\r\nsomewhat nearer the spot where the spouts of vapour indicated the\r\npresence of the coveted prize. The creature continued to swim about in\r\nthe reddened waters, opening and shutting its huge jaws like an\r\nautomaton, and absorbing at every mouthful whole myriads of animalcula. No one entertained a fear that it would try to make an escape; it was\r\nthe unanimous verdict that it was \"a fighting whale,\" and one that\r\nwould resist all attacks to the very end. As Captain Hull descended the rope-ladder and took his place in the\r\nfront of the boat, Mrs. Weldon and all on board renewed their good\r\nwishes. Dingo stood with his fore paws upon the taffrail, and appeared as much\r\nas any to be bidding the adventurous party farewell. When the boat pushed off, those who were left on board the \"Pilgrim\"\r\nmade their way slowly to the bows, from which the most extensive view\r\nwas to be gained. The captain's voice came from the retreating boat,--\r\n\r\n\"A sharp look-out, Dick; a sharp look-out; one eye on us, one on the\r\nship!\" [Illustration: The Captain's voice came from the retreating boat. _Page\r\n72_]\r\n\r\n[Illustration: \"I must get you to keep your eye upon that man\" _Page\r\n73._]\r\n\r\n\"Ay, ay, sir,\" replied the apprentice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "By his gestures the captain showed that he was under some emotion; he\r\ncalled out again, but the boat had made such headway that it was too\r\nfar off for any words to be heard. Dingo broke out into a piteous howl. The dog was still standing erect, his eye upon the boat in the\r\ndistance. To the sailors, ever superstitious, the howling was not\r\nreassuring. Even Mrs. Weldon was startled. \"Why, Dingo, Dingo,\" she exclaimed, \"this isn't the way to encourage\r\nyour friends. Come here, sir; you must behave better than that!\" Sinking down on all fours the animal walked slowly up to Mrs. Weldon,\r\nand began to lick her hand. \"Ah!\" muttered old Tom, shaking his head solemnly, \"he doesn't wag his\r\ntail at all. A bad omen.\" All at once the dog gave a savage growl. As she turned her head, Mrs Weldon caught sight of Negoro making his\r\nway to the forecastle, probably actuated by the general spirit of\r\ncuriosity to follow the maneuvers of the whale-boat. He stopped and\r\nseized a handspike as soon as he saw the ferocious attitude of the dog. The lady was quite unable to pacify the animal, which seemed about to\r\nfly upon the throat of the cook, but Dick Sands called out loudly,--\r\n\r\n\"Down, Dingo, down!\" The dog obeyed; but it seemed to be with extreme reluctance that he\r\nreturned to Dick's side; he continued to growl, as if still remembering\r\nhis rage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Negoro had turned very pale, and having put down the\r\nhandspike, made his way cautiously back to his own quarters. \"Hercules,\" said Dick, \"I must get you to keep your eye upon that man.\" \"Yes, I will,\" he answered, significantly clenching his fists. Dick took his station at the helm, whence he kept an earnest watch upon\r\nthe whale-boat, which under the vigourous plying of the seamen's oars\r\nhad become little more than a speck upon the water. CHAPTER VIII. A CATASTROPHE. Experienced whaleman as he was, Captain Hull knew the difficulty of the\r\ntask he had undertaken, he was alive to the importance of making his\r\napproach to the whale from the leeward, so that there should be no\r\nsound to apprize the creature of the proximity of the boat. He had\r\nperfect confidence in his boatswain, and felt sure that he would take\r\nthe proper course to insure a favourable result to the enterprise. \"We mustn't show ourselves too soon, Howick,\" he said. \"Certainly not,\" replied Howick, \"I am going to skirt the edge of the\r\ndiscoloured water, and I shall take good care to get well to leeward.\" \"All right,\" the captain answered, and turning to the crew said, \"now,\r\nmy lads, as quietly as you can.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Muffling the sound of their oars by placing straw in the rowlocks, and\r\navoiding the least unnecessary noise, the men skilfully propelled the\r\nboat along the outline of the water tinged by the crustacea, so that\r\nwhile the starboard oars still dipped in the green and limpid sea, the\r\nlarboard were in the deep-dyed waves, and seemed as though they were\r\ndripping with blood. \"Wine on this side, water on that,\" said one of the sailors jocosely. \"But neither of them fit to drink,\" rejoined the captain sharply, \"so\r\njust hold your tongue!\" Under Howick's guidance the boat now glided stealthily on to the greasy\r\nsurface of the reddened waters, where she appeared to float as on a\r\npool of oil. The whale seemed utterly unconscious of the attack that\r\nwas threatening it, and allowed the boat to come nearer without\r\nexhibiting any sign of alarm. [Illustration: The whale seemed utterly unconscious of the attack that\r\nwas threatening it]\r\n\r\nThe wide circuit which the captain had thought it advisable to take had\r\nthe effect of considerably increasing the distance between his boat and\r\nthe \"Pilgrim,\" whilst the strange rapidity with which objects at sea\r\nbecome diminished in apparent magnitude, as if viewed through the wrong\r\nend of a telescope, made the ship look farther away than she actually\r\nwas."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Another half-hour elapsed, and at the end of it the captain found\r\nhimself so exactly to leeward that the huge body of the whale was\r\nprecisely intermediate between his boat and the \"Pilgrim.\" A closer\r\napproach must now be made; every precaution must be used; but the time\r\nhad come to get sufficiently near for the harpoon to be discharged. \"Slowly, my men,\" said the captain, in a low voice; \"slowly and softly!\" Howick muttered something that implied that the whale had ceased\r\nblowing so hard, and that it was aware of their approach; the captain,\r\nupon this, enjoined the most perfect silence, but urged his crew\r\nonwards, until, in five or six minutes, they were within a cable's\r\nlength of the finback. Erect at the stern the boatswain stood, and\r\nmanoeuvred to get the boat as close as possible to the whale's left\r\nflank, while he made it an object of special care to keep beyond the\r\nreach of its formidable tail, one stroke of which could involve them\r\nall in instantaneous disaster. The manipulation of the boat thus left to the boatswain, the captain\r\nmade ready for the arduous effort that was before him. At the extreme\r\nbow, harpoon in hand, with his legs somewhat astride so as to insure\r\nhis equilibrium, he stood prepared to plunge his weapon into the mass\r\nthat rose above the surface of the sea."}
{"question": "", "answer": "By his side, coiled in a pail,\r\nand with one end firmly attached to the harpoon, was the first of the\r\nfive lines which if the whale should dive to a considerable depth,\r\nwould have to be joined end to end, one after another. \"Are you ready, my lads?\" said he, hardly above a whisper. \"Ay, ay, sir,\" replied Howick, speaking as gently as his master, and\r\ngiving a firmer grip to the rudder-oar that he held in his hands. \"Then, alongside at once,\" was the captain's order, which was promptly\r\nobeyed, so that in a few minutes the boat was only about ten feet from\r\nthe body of the whale. The animal did not move. Was it asleep? In that\r\ncase there was hope that the very first stroke might be fatal. But it\r\nwas hardly likely. Captain Hull felt only too sure that there was some\r\ndifferent cause to be assigned for its remaining so still and\r\nstationary; and the rapid glances of the boatswain showed that he\r\nentertained the same suspicion. But it was no time for speculation; the\r\nmoment for action had arrived, and no attempt was made on either hand\r\nto exchange ideas upon the subject. Captain Hull seized his weapon tightly by the shaft, and having poised\r\nit several times in the air, in order to make more sure of his aim, he\r\ngathered all his strength and hurled it against the side of the finback. \"Backwater!\" he shouted."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The sailors pushed back with all their might, and the boat in an\r\ninstant was beyond the range of the creature's tail. And now the immoveableness of the animal was at once accounted for. \"See; there's a youngster!\" exclaimed Howick. And he was not mistaken. Startled by the blow of the harpoon the\r\nmonster had heeled over on to its side, and the movement revealed a\r\nyoung whale which the mother had been disturbed in the act of suckling. It was a discovery which made Captain Hull aware that the capture of\r\nthe whale would be attended with double difficulty; he knew; that she\r\nwould defend \"her little one\" (if such a term can be applied to a\r\ncreature that was at least twenty feet long) with the most determined\r\nfury; yet having made what he considered a successful commencement of\r\nthe attack, he would not be daunted, nor deterred from his endeavour to\r\nsecure so fine a prize. The whale did not, as sometimes happens, make a precipitate dash upon\r\nthe boat, a proceeding which necessitates the instant cutting of the\r\nharpoon-line, and an immediate retreat, but it took the far more usual\r\ncourse of diving downwards almost perpendicularly. It was followed by\r\nits calf; very soon, however, after rising once again to the surface\r\nwith a sudden bound, it began swimming along under water with great\r\nrapidity."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Before its first plunge Captain Hull and Howick had sufficient\r\nopportunity to observe that it was an unusually large balaenoptera,\r\nmeasuring at least eighty feet from head to tail, its colour being of a\r\nyellowish-brown, dappled with numerous spots of a darker shade. The pursuit, or what may be more aptly termed \"the towing,\" of the\r\nwhale had now fairly commenced. The sailors had shipped their oars, and\r\nthe whale-boat darted like an arrow along the surface of the waves. In\r\nspite of the oscillation, which was very violent, Howick succeeded in\r\nmaintaining equilibrium, and did not need the repeated injunctions with\r\nwhich the agitated captain urged his boatswain to be upon his guard. But fast as the boat flew along, she could not keep pace with the\r\nwhale, and so rapidly did the line run out that except proper care had\r\nbeen taken to keep the bucket in which it was coiled filled with water,\r\nthe friction against the edge of the boat would inevitably have caused\r\nit to take fire. The whale gave no indication of moderating its speed,\r\nso that the first line was soon exhausted, and the second had to be\r\nattached to its end, only to be run out with like rapidity."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In a few\r\nminutes more it was necessary to join on the third line; it was evident\r\nthat the whale had not been hit in a vital part, and so far from rising\r\nto the surface, the oblique direction of the rope indicated that the\r\ncreature was seeking yet greater depths. \"Confound it!\" exclaimed the captain; \"it seems as if the brute is\r\ngoing to run out all our line.\" \"Yes; and see what a distance the animal is dragging us away from the\r\n'Pilgrim,'\" answered Howick. \"Sooner or later, however,\" said Captain Hull, \"the thing must come to\r\nthe surface; she is not a fish, you know.\" \"She is saving her breath for the sake of her speed,\" said one of the\r\nsailors with a grin. But grin as he might, both he and his companions began to look serious\r\nwhen the fourth line had to be added to the third, and more serious\r\nstill when the fifth was added to the fourth. The captain even began to\r\nmutter imprecations upon the refractory brute that was putting their\r\npatience to so severe a test. The last line was nearly all uncoiled, and the general consternation\r\nwas growing very great, when there was observed to be a slight\r\nslackening in the tension. \"Thank Heaven!\" cried the captain; \"the beast has tired herself out at\r\nlast.\" Casting his eye towards the \"Pilgrim,\" he saw at a glance that she\r\ncould not be less than five miles to leeward."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was a long distance,\r\nbut when, according to his arrangement, he had hoisted the flag on the\r\nboat-hook which was to be the signal for the ship to approach, he had\r\nthe satisfaction of seeing that Dick Sands and the negroes at once\r\nbegan bracing the yards to get as near as possible to the wind. The\r\nbreeze, however, blew only in short, unsteady puffs, and it was only\r\ntoo evident that the \"Pilgrim\" would have considerable difficulty in\r\nworking her way to the whale-boat, even if she succeeded at last. Meantime, just as had been expected, the whale had risen to the surface\r\nof the water, the harpoon still fixed firmly in her side. She remained\r\nmotionless, apparently waiting for her calf, which she had far\r\nout-distanced in her mad career. Captain Hull ordered his men to pull\r\ntowards her as rapidly as they could, and on getting close up, two of\r\nthe sailors, following the captain's example, shipped their oars and\r\ntook up the long lances with which the whale was now to be attacked. Howick held himself in readiness to sheer off quickly in the event of\r\nthe finback making a turn towards the boat. \"Now, my lads!\" shouted the captain. \"Look out! take a good aim! no\r\nfalse shots! Are you ready, Howick?\" \"Quite ready, captain,\" answered the boatswain, adding, \"but it\r\nperplexes me altogether to see the brute so quiet all of a sudden.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It looks suspicious,\" said the captain; \"but never mind; go on! straight ahead!\" Captain Hull was becoming more excited every moment. During the time the boat was approaching, the whale had only turned\r\nround a little in the water without changing its position. It was\r\nevidently still looking for its calf, which was not to be seen by its\r\nside. All of a sudden it gave a jerk with its tail which carried it\r\nsome few yards away. The men were all excited. Was the beast going to escape again? Was the\r\nfatiguing pursuit all to come over a second time? Must not the chase be\r\nabandoned? Would not the prize have to be given up? But no: the whale was not starting on another flight; it had merely\r\nturned so as to face the boat, and now rapidly beating the water with\r\nits enormous fins, it commenced a frantic dash forwards. \"Look out, Howick, she's coming!\" shouted Captain Hull. The skilful boatswain was all on the alert; the boat swerved, as if by\r\ninstinct, so as to avoid the blow, and as the whale passed furiously\r\nby, she received three tremendous thrusts from the lances of the\r\ncaptain and the two men, who all endeavoured to strike at some vital\r\npart. There was a sudden pause. The whale spouted up two gigantic\r\ncolumns of blood and water, lashed its tail, and, with bounds and\r\nplunges that were terrible to behold, renewed its angry attack upon the\r\nboat."}
{"question": "", "answer": "None but the most determined of whalemen could fail to lose their head\r\nunder such an assault. Calm and collected, however, the crew remained. Once again did Howick adroitly sheer aside, and once again did the\r\nthree lances do their deadly work upon the huge carcase as it rolled\r\nimpetuously past; but this time, so great was the wave that was caused\r\nby the infuriated animal, that the boat was well-nigh full of water,\r\nand in imminent danger of being capsized. \"Bale away, men!\" cried the captain. Putting down their oars, the other sailors set to work baling with all\r\ntheir might. Captain Hull cut the harpoon-line, now no longer required,\r\nbecause the whale, maddened with pain and grief for the loss of its\r\noffspring, would certainly make no further attempt to escape, but would\r\nfight desperately to the very end. The finback was obviously bent on a third onslaught upon the boat,\r\nwhich, being in spite of all the men's exertions still more than half\r\nfull of water, no longer answered readily to the rudder-oar. No one thought of flight. The swiftest boat could be overtaken in a\r\nvery few bounds. There was no alternative but to face the encounter. It\r\nwas not long in coming. Their previous good fortune failed them. The\r\nwhale in passing caught the boat with such a violent blow from its\r\ndorsal fin, that the men lost their footing and the lances missed their\r\nmark. \"Where's Howick?\" screamed the captain in alarm."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Here I am, captain; all right!\" replied the boatswain, who had\r\nscrambled to his feet only to find that the oar with which he had been\r\nsteering was snapped in half. \"The rudder's smashed,\" he said. \"Take another, Howick; quick!\" cried the captain. But scarcely had he time to replace the broken oar, when a bubbling was\r\nheard a few yards away from the boat, and the young whale made its\r\nappearance on the surface of the sea. Catching sight of it instantly,\r\nthe mother made a fresh dash in its direction, the maternal instincts\r\nwere aroused, and the contest must become more deadly than ever. Captain Hull looked towards the \"Pilgrim,\" and waved his signal\r\nfrantically above his head. It was, however, with no hope of succour;\r\nhe was only too well aware that no human efforts could effectually\r\nhasten the arrival of the ship. Dick Sands indeed had at once obeyed\r\nthe first summons: already the wind was filling the sails, but in\r\ndefault of steam power her progress at best could not be otherwise than\r\nslow. Not only did Dick feel convinced that it would be a useless waste\r\nof time to lower a boat and come off with the negroes to the rescue,\r\nbut he remembered the strict orders he had received on no account to\r\nquit the ship."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Captain Hull, however, could perceive that the\r\napprentice had had the aft-boat lowered, and was towing it along, so\r\nthat it should be in readiness for a refuge as soon as they should get\r\nwithin reach. [Illustration: The boat was well nigh full of water, and in imminent\r\ndanger of being capsized]\r\n\r\nBut the whale, close at hand, demanded attention that could ill be\r\nspared for the yet distant ship. Covering her young one with her body,\r\nshe was manifestly designing another charge full upon the boat. \"On your guard, Howick! sheer off!\" bellowed the captain. But the order was useless. The fresh oar that the boatswain had taken\r\nto replace the broken one was considerably shorter, and consequently it\r\nfailed in lever-power. There was, in fact, no helm for the boat to\r\nanswer. The sailors saw the failure, and convinced that all was lost\r\nuttered one long, despairing cry that might have been heard on board\r\nthe \"Pilgrim.\" Another moment, and from beneath there came a tremendous\r\nblow from the monster's tail that sent the boat flying in the air. In\r\nfragments it fell back again into a sea that was lashed into fury by\r\nthe angry flapping of the finback's fins. Was it not possible for the unfortunate men, bleeding and wounded as\r\nthey were, still to save themselves by clinging to some floating spar? Captain Hull is indeed seen endeavouring to hoist the boatswain on to a\r\ndrifting plank. But all in vain. There is no hope."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The whale, writhing\r\nin the convulsions of death, returns yet once again to the attack; the\r\nwaters around the struggling sailors seethe and foam. A brief turmoil\r\nfollows as if there were the bursting of some vast waterspout. In a quarter of an hour afterwards, Dick Sands, with the negroes,\r\nreaches the scene of the catastrophe. All is still and desolate. Every\r\nliving object has vanished. Nothing is visible except a few fragments\r\nof the whale-boat floating on the blood-stained water. [Illustration: There is no hope.] CHAPTER IX. DICK'S PROMOTION. The first feeling experienced by those on board the \"Pilgrim,\" after\r\nwitnessing the terrible disaster was one of grief and horror at the\r\nfearful death that had befallen the victims. Captain Hull and his men\r\nhad been swept away before their very eyes, and they had been powerless\r\nto assist. Not one was saved; the schooner had reached the spot too\r\nlate to offer the least resistance to the attacks of the formidable\r\nsea-monster. When Dick and the negroes returned to the ship after their hopeless\r\nsearch, with only the corroboration of their sad foreboding that\r\ncaptain and crew had disappeared for ever, Mrs. Weldon sank upon her\r\nknees; little Jack knelt beside her crying bitterly; and Dick, old Nan,\r\nand all the negroes stood reverently around her whilst with great\r\ndevoutness the lady offered up the prayer of commendation for the souls\r\nof the departing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All sympathized heartily with her supplications, nor\r\nwas there any diminution of their fervour when she proceeded to implore\r\nthat the survivors might have strength and courage for their own hour\r\nof need. The situation was indeed very grave. Here was the \"Pilgrim\" in the\r\nmiddle of the Pacific, hundreds of miles away from the nearest land,\r\nwithout captain, without crew, at the mercy of the wind and waves. It\r\nwas a strange fatality that had brought the whale across their path; it\r\nwas a fatality stranger still that had induced her captain, a man of no\r\nordinary prudence, to risk even his life for the sake of making good a\r\ndeficient cargo. It was an event almost unknown in the annals of\r\nwhale-fishing that not a single man in the whale-boat should escape\r\nalive; nevertheless, it was all too true; and now, of all those left on\r\nboard, Dick Sands, the apprentice-boy of fifteen years of age, was the\r\nsole individual who had the slightest knowledge of the management of a\r\nship; the negroes, brave and willing as they were, were perfectly\r\nignorant of seamen's duties; and, to crown all, here was a lady with\r\nher child on board, for whose safety the commander of the vessel would\r\nbe held responsible. Such were the facts which presented themselves to the mind of Dick as,\r\nwith folded arms, he stood gazing gloomily at the spot where Captain\r\nHull, his esteemed benefactor, had sunk to rise no more."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The lad raised\r\nhis eyes sadly; he scanned the horizon with the vain hope that he might\r\nperchance descry some passing vessel to which he could confide Mrs.\r\nWeldon and her son; for himself, his mind was made up; he had already\r\nresolved that nothing should induce him to quit the \"Pilgrim\" until he\r\nhad exhausted every energy in trying to carry her into port. The ocean was all deserted. Since the disappearance of the whale\r\nnothing had broken the monotonous surface either of sea or sky. The\r\napprentice, short as his experience was, knew enough to be aware that\r\nhe was far out of the common track alike of merchantmen or whalers; he\r\nwould not buoy himself up with false expectations; he would look his\r\nsituation full and fairly in the face; he would do his best, and trust\r\nhopefully in guidance from the Power above. Thus absorbed in his meditations he did not observe that he was not\r\nalone. Negoro, who had gone below immediately after the catastrophe,\r\nhad again come back upon deck. What this mysterious character had felt\r\nupon witnessing the awful calamity it would be impossible to say. Although with his eye he had keenly taken in every detail of the\r\nmelancholy spectacle, every muscle of, his face had remained unmoved;\r\nnot a gesture, not a word betrayed the least emotion. Even if he had\r\nheard, he had taken no part, nor evinced the faintest interest in Mrs.\r\nWeldon's outpouring of prayer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had made his way to the stern, where Dick Sands was pondering over\r\nthe responsibilities of his own position, and stood looking towards the\r\napprentice without interrupting his reverie. Catching sight of him, Dick roused himself in an instant, and said,--\r\n\r\n\"You want to speak to me?\" \"I must speak either to the captain or the boatswain,\" answered the man. \"Negoro,\" said Dick sharply, \"you know as well as I do, that they are\r\nboth drowned.\" \"Then where am I to get my orders from?\" asked the fellow insolently. \"From me,\" promptly rejoined the apprentice. \"From you! from a boy of fifteen?\" \"Yes, from me,\" repeated Dick, in a firm and resolute voice, looking at\r\nthe man until he recoiled under his gaze. \"From _me_.\" Mrs. Weldon had heard what passed. \"I wish every one on board to understand,\" she interposed, \"that Dick\r\nSands is captain now. Orders must be taken from him, and they must be\r\nobeyed.\" Negoro frowned, bit his lip, sneered, and having muttered something\r\nthat was unintelligible, made his way back to his cabin. Meantime, the schooner under the freshening breeze had been carried\r\nbeyond the shoal of the crustaceans."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick cast his eye first at the\r\nsails, then along the deck, and seemed to become more and more alive to\r\nthe weight of the obligation that had fallen upon him; but his heart\r\ndid not fail him; he was conscious that the hopes of the passengers\r\ncentred in himself, and he was determined to let them see that he would\r\ndo his best not to disappoint them. Although he was satisfied of his capability, with the help of the\r\nnegroes, to manipulate the sails, he was conscious of a defect of the\r\nscientific knowledge which was requisite for properly controlling the\r\nship's course. He felt the want of a few more years' experience. If\r\nonly he had had longer practice he would, he thought, have been as able\r\nas Captain Hull himself, to use the sextant, to take the altitude of\r\nthe stars, to read the time from his chronometer; sun, moon, and\r\nplanets, should have been his guides; from the firmament, as from a\r\ndial-plate, he would have gathered the teachings of his true position;\r\nbut all this was beyond him as yet; his knowledge went no further than\r\nthe use of the log and compass, and by these alone he must be content\r\nto make his reckonings. But he kept up his courage, and did not permit\r\nhimself for one moment to despair of ultimate success. Mrs. Weldon needed little penetration to recognize the thoughts which\r\nwere passing in the mind of the resolute youth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I see you have come to your decision, Dick,\" she said. \"The command of\r\nthe ship is in your hands; no fear but that you will do your duty; and\r\nTom, and the rest of them, no doubt, will render you every assistance\r\nin their power.\" \"Yes, Mrs. Weldon,\" rejoined Dick brightly; \"and before long I shall\r\nhope to make them good seamen. If only the weather lasts fair,\r\neverything will go on well enough; and if the weather turns out bad, we\r\nmust not despond; we will get safe ashore.\" He paused a moment and added reverently,--\r\n\r\n\"God helping us.\" Mrs. Weldon proceeded to inquire whether he had any means of\r\nascertaining the \"Pilgrim's\" present position. He replied that the\r\nship's chart would at once settle that. Captain Hull had kept the\r\nreckoning accurately right up to the preceding day. \"And what do you propose to do next?\" she asked. \"Of course you\r\nunderstand that in our present circumstances we are not in the least\r\nbound to go to Valparaiso if there is a nearer port which we could\r\nreach.\" \"Certainly not,\" replied Dick; \"and therefore it is my intention to\r\nsail due east, as by following that course we are sure to come upon\r\nsome part of the American coast.\" [Illustration: \"Oh, we shall soon be on shore!\"] \"Do your best, Dick, to let us get ashore somewhere.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Never fear, madam,\" he answered; \"as we get nearer land we shall be\r\nalmost sure to fall in with a cruiser which will put us into the right\r\ntrack. If the wind does but remain in the north-west, and allow us to\r\ncarry plenty of sail, we shall get on famously.\" He spoke with the cheery confidence of a good sailor who knows the good\r\nship beneath his feet. He had moved off a few steps to go and take the\r\nhelm, when Mrs. Weldon, calling him back, reminded him that he had not\r\nyet ascertained the true position of the schooner. Dick confessed that\r\nit ought to be done at once, and going to the captain's cabin brought\r\nout the chart upon which the ill-fated commander had marked the\r\nbearings the evening before. According to this dead-reckoning they were\r\nin lat. 43° 35', S., and long. 164° 13', W.; and as the schooner had\r\nmade next to no progress during the last twenty-four eventful hours,\r\nthe entry might fairly be accepted as representing approximately their\r\npresent position. To the lady's inexperienced eye, as she bent over the outspread chart,\r\nit seemed that the land, as represented by the brown patch which\r\ndepicted the continent of South America extending like a barrier\r\nbetween two oceans from Cape Horn to Columbia, was, after all, not so\r\nvery far distant; the wide space of the Pacific was not so broad but\r\nthat it would be quickly traversed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, we shall soon be on shore!\" she said. But Dick knew better. He had acquaintance enough with the scale upon\r\nwhich the chart was constructed to be aware that the \"Pilgrim\" herself\r\nwould have been a speck like a microscopic infusoria on the vast\r\nsurface of that sea, and that hundreds and hundreds of weary miles\r\nseparated her from the coast. No time was to be lost. Contrary winds had ceased to blow; a fresh\r\nnorth-westerly breeze had sprung up, and the _cirri_, or curl-cloud:\r\noverhead indicated that for some time at least the direction of the\r\nwind would be unchanged. Dick appealed to the negroes, and tried to make them appreciate the\r\ndifficulty of the task that had fallen to his lot. Tom answered, in\r\nbehalf of himself and all the rest, that they were not only willing,\r\nbut anxious, to do all they could to assist him, saying that if their\r\nknowledge was small, yet their arms were strong, and added that they\r\nshould certainly be obedient to every order he gave. \"My friends,\" said Dick, addressing them in reply; \"I shall make it a\r\npoint of myself taking the helm as much as possible. But you know I\r\nmust have my proper rest sometimes. No one can live without sleep. Now,\r\nTom, I intend you to stand by me for the remainder of the day. I will\r\ntry and make you understand how to steer by the aid of the compass. It\r\nis not difficult."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You will soon learn. I shall have to leave you when I\r\ngo to my hammock for an hour or two.\" \"Is there nothing,\" said little Jack, \"that I can learn to do?\" \"Oh yes, Jack; you shall keep the wind in order,\" answered Dick,\r\nsmiling. \"That I will!\" cried the child, clapping his hands, while the mother\r\ndrew him to her side. \"And now, my men,\" was Dick's first order to his crew, \"we must brace\r\nin the yards to sail fair. I will show you how.\" \"All right, Captain Sands; we are at your service,\" said old Tom\r\ngravely. [Illustration: \"Oh yes, Jack; you shall keep the wind in order.\"] CHAPTER X. THE NEW CREW. Dick Sands, captain of the \"Pilgrim,\" would not lose a moment in\r\ngetting his ship under sail. His prime object was to land his\r\npassengers safely at Valparaiso or some other American port, and to\r\naccomplish his purpose it was in the first place necessary that he\r\nshould ascertain the schooner's rate of speed and the direction that\r\nshe was taking. This information was to be obtained readily enough by\r\nmeans of the log and compass, and the result of each day's observations\r\nwould be entered regularly on the chart."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The log on board was a patent log, with a dial-plate and screw, by\r\nmeans of which the distance that is travelled can be measured\r\naccurately for any definite time; it was an instrument so simple that\r\nthe negroes were very soon taught its use. The slight error in the\r\nreckoning caused by the action of the currents could only be rectified\r\nby astronomical observations, which, as already has been stated, were\r\nbeyond Dick's attainments to make. The idea more than once crossed Dick's mind whether he would not take\r\nthe \"Pilgrim\" back again to New Zealand; the distance was considerably\r\nless than it was to America, and had the wind remained in the quarter\r\nwhence it had been blowing so long, it is more than likely he would\r\nhave determined to retrace his course. But as the wind had now veered\r\nto the north-west, and there was every probability that it was settled\r\nfor a time, he came to the conclusion that he had better take advantage\r\nof it and persevere in making his way towards the east. Accordingly he\r\nlost no time in putting his ship before the wind. On a schooner the fore-mast usually carries four square sails; on the\r\nlower mast a fore-sail; on the top-mast a top-sail; on the top-gallant\r\na top-gallant-sail and a royal. The main-mast carries only a main-sail\r\nand a top-sail."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Between the masts upon the fore-stays can be hoisted a\r\ntriple tier of triangular sails; while the bowsprit with its jib-boom\r\nwill carry the three jibs. The jibs, the main-sail, the main-top-sail and the staysails are all\r\nmanaged with comparative ease, because they can be hoisted from the\r\ndeck without the necessity of ascending the mast to let fly the\r\nrobbins, by which they are fastened to the yards. With the sails on the\r\nfore-mast it is altogether a more difficult business. In order either\r\nto unfurl them, to take them in, or to reef them, it is necessary for a\r\nman to clamber up by the shrouds, either to the fore-top, or to the\r\ntop-gallant cross-trees, and thence mounting by loose ropes, extended\r\nbelow the yards, to hold on by one hand whilst he does his work with\r\nthe other. The operation requires alike the head and arm of an\r\nexperienced mariner; and when a fresh breeze has been blowing, it is a\r\ncasualty far from uncommon that a sailor, confused by the flapping of\r\nthe canvas and the pitching of the vessel, should be blown overboard in\r\nthe act. For the unpractised negroes the danger would necessarily be\r\nvery great. However, the wind at present was very moderate, and the\r\nship ploughed her way over the waves without any violent oscillations."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At the time when Dick Sands, in obedience to the signal he received\r\nfrom Captain Hull, proceeded to make his way to the scene of the\r\ndisaster, the \"Pilgrim,\" as she lay to, was carrying only her jibs,\r\nmain-sail, fore-sail, and fore-top-sail. In order, therefore, to put\r\nher as near as possible to the wind, it had been merely necessary to\r\ncounter-brace the fore-sail yard, a manoeuvre in which the negroes had\r\nrendered all the assistance that was necessary. It was requisite now to\r\ndo something more. To enable him to get straight before the wind Dick\r\nwanted to increase his sail, and was desirous of hoisting the\r\ntop-gallant, the royal, the main-top-sail, and the stay-sails. He was himself standing at the wheel. \"Now, my men,\" he shouted to the negroes; \"I want your help. Do exactly\r\nas I tell you. Bear away, Tom!\" Tom looked puzzled. \"Bear away! unfasten that rope, I mean. And, Bat, come along; do the\r\nsame as Tom.\" The men did what they were bidden. \"That's right!\" continued Dick, and calling to Hercules, said,--\r\n\r\n\"Now, Hercules; a good strong pull!\" To give such a direction to Hercules was somewhat imprudent; the\r\nrigging creaked again under his giant strength. \"Gently, gently, my good fellow!\" said Dick, laughing; \"you will have\r\nthe mast down.\" \"I declare I hardly touched the rope,\" answered Hercules. \"Well, next time, you must only pretend to touch it,\" said Dick; and,\r\ncontinuing his orders, shouted, \"Now slacken! let fly! make fast!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "now\r\nbrace in the yards! all right! that's capital!\" The yards were loosened, the foresails turned slowly round, and,\r\ncatching the breeze, gave a slight impetus to the ship. Dick's next\r\norders were for the jib-sheets to be set free, and then he called the\r\nmen to the stern. \"Now,\" said he; \"we must look to the main-mast; but take care,\r\nHercules, not to have it down.\" \"I will be as careful as possible, Mr. Dick,\" submissively replied\r\nHercules, as though he were afraid to commit himself to any rash\r\npromise. The manoeuvre was simple enough. The main-sheet was gradually\r\nslackened, the great sail took the wind and added its powerful action\r\nto that of the fore-sails. The main-top-sail was next brought to bear;\r\nit was only clewed up, so that there was nothing to do except to pull\r\nthe halyards, haul it aboard the tack, and unfurl it. But in pulling at\r\nthe halyards the muscular energy of Hercules, which was supplemented by\r\nthat of Actæon, not to forget little Jack, who had volunteered his\r\nassistance, proved to be overpowering, and the rope snapped in two. All\r\nthree of them, of course, fell flat upon the deck; but fortunately\r\nneither of them was hurt, and Jack laughed heartily at his tumble as an\r\nexcellent joke. \"Up with you!\" cried Captain Dick; \"there's no harm done; splice the\r\nrope, and haul away more gently next time.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "It took but a few minutes to execute the order, and the \"Pilgrim\" was\r\nsoon sailing away rapidly with her head to the east. \"Well done, my friends!\" said Dick, who had not left his post at the\r\nhelm; \"you will be first-rate sailors before the end of the voyage.\" \"We shall do our best, I promise you, Captain Sands,\" replied Tom,\r\nmaking it a point to give the young commander his proper title. Mrs. Weldon also congratulated the new crew upon the success of their\r\nfirst attempt. \"I believe it was Master Jack who broke that rope,\" said Hercules, with\r\na sly twinkle in his eye; \"he is very strong, I can tell you.\" Jack looked as though he thoroughly appreciated the compliment, and\r\nevidenced his satisfaction by giving his huge friend a hearty shake of\r\nthe hand. There were still several sails that were not yet set. Running well\r\nbefore the wind as the \"Pilgrim\" was, Dick nevertheless felt that the\r\ngallant, royal, and stay-sails, if brought into service, would\r\nmaterially assist her progress, and he determined not to dispense with\r\ntheir help. The stay-sails could be hoisted from below, but to bring\r\nthe gallant and royal into play demanded more experience than any of\r\nhis crew had had. Knowing that he could not entrust the task to them,\r\nand yet resolved not to be baulked of his wish to set them, he\r\nundertook the task himself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He first put Tom to the helm, showing him\r\nhow to keep the schooner's head in the right direction, and having\r\nplaced the other four at the royal and top-gallant halyards, proceeded\r\nto mount the foremast. [Illustration: All three of them fell flat upon the deck.] To clamber up the foreshrouds and the top-shrouds on to the cross-trees\r\nwas mere child's play to the active apprentice. In a few minutes he had\r\nunfurled the top-gallant-sail, mounted to the royal-yard, unfurled the\r\nroyal, again reached the cross-trees, and having caught hold of one of\r\nthe starboard backstays, had descended to the deck; there he gave the\r\nnecessary directions, and the two sails were made fast, and both yards\r\nbraced. Nor did this content him. The stay-sails were set between the masts,\r\nand thus the \"Pilgrim\" was running along, crowded to the full, with all\r\nher canvas. The only additional sails which Dick could possibly have\r\nemployed would have been some studding-sails to larboard, but as the\r\nsetting of these was a matter of some difficulty, and they were not\r\nalways readily struck in the case of a sudden squall, he contented\r\nhimself without them. Again he took his place at the helm. The breeze was manifestly\r\nfreshening, and the \"Pilgrim,\" almost imperceptibly heeling to\r\nstarboard, glided rapidly along the surface of the water, leaving\r\nbehind her a wake, smooth and clean, that bore plain witness to the\r\ntrue adjustment of her water-line."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"This is good progress, Mrs. Weldon,\" he said; \"may Heaven grant the\r\nwind and weather may continue thus favourable!\" The lady, in silence, shook the boy's hand; and then, worn-out with the\r\nexcitement of the past hours, went to her cabin, where she lay down and\r\nfell into a troubled doze. The new crew remained on watch. They were stationed on the forecastle,\r\nin readiness to make any alteration which the sails might require, but\r\nthe wind was so steady and unshifting that no need arose for their\r\nservices. And Cousin Benedict? all this time, where was he? and what had he been\r\ndoing? He was sitting in his cabin; he had a magnifying-glass in his hand and\r\nwas studying an articulata of the order orthoptera, an insect of the\r\nBlattidae family; its characteristics are a roundish body, rather long\r\nwings, flat elytra, and a head hidden by the prothorax. He had been on\r\ndeck at the time of the calamity; the ill-fated captain with the crew\r\nhad been drowned before his very eyes; but he said nothing; not that he\r\nwas unmoved; to think that he was not struck with horror would be to\r\nlibel his kind and pitying nature."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His sympathy was aroused, especially\r\nfor his cousin; he pressed her hand warmly as if he would assure her of\r\nhis truest commiseration; but he said nothing; he hurried off towards\r\nhis cabin; and who shall deny that it was to devise some wonderfully\r\nenergetic measures that he would take in consequence of this melancholy\r\nevent? Passing the kitchen, however, he caught sight of Negoro in the act of\r\ncrushing a blatta, an American species of cockroach. He broke out into\r\na storm of invective, and in tones of indignation demanded the\r\nsurrender of the insect, which Negoro made with cool contempt. In a\r\nmoment Captain Hull and his partners in death were all forgotten; the\r\nenthusiast had secured a prize with which he hastened to his own little\r\ncompartment, where he was soon absorbed in proving to his own\r\nsatisfaction, in opposition to the opinion of other entomologists, that\r\nthe blattae of the phoraspous species, which are remarkable for their\r\ncolours, differ in their habits from blattae of the ordinary sort. For the remainder of the day perfect order reigned on board the\r\n\"Pilgrim.\" Though they were unable to shake off the sickening feeling\r\nof horror roused by the frightful disaster, and felt that they had\r\nsustained a startling shock, all the passengers seemed mechanically to\r\nfall into their usual routine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick Sands, though avowedly at the\r\nwheel, seemed to be everywhere, with an eye for every thing, and his\r\namateur crew obeyed him readily, and with the promptness of a willing\r\nactivity. Negoro made no further overt attempt to question the young captain's\r\nauthority, but remained shut up in his kitchen. Dick made no secret of\r\nhis determination to place the cook in close confinement if he\r\nexhibited any future sign of insubordination. Hercules was ready to\r\ncarry him off bodily to the hold, and old Nan was equally ready to take\r\nhis place in the cooking department. Probably Negoro was aware of all\r\nthis; at any rate he did not seem disposed to give any further cause of\r\noffence at present. [Illustration: Jack evidenced his satisfaction by giving his huge\r\nfriend a hearty shake of the hand.] As the day advanced the wind continued to freshen; but no shifting of\r\nthe sails seemed necessary. The \"Pilgrim\" was running well. There was\r\nno need to diminish her spread of canvas. Masts as solid and rigging as\r\nstrong as hers could stand a far heavier breeze."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As a general rule, it is deemed prudent in case of a squall to shorten\r\nsail at night, and especially to take in gallants and royal; but the\r\nweather prospects now were all so promising and satisfactory that Dick\r\npersuaded himself he was under no necessity to take this precaution; he\r\nrather felt himself bound to take the strongest measures he could to\r\nexpedite his reaching less unfrequented waters. He made up his mind,\r\nhowever, not to leave the deck at all that night. The young captain made every effort to get an approximate reckoning of\r\nthe schooner's progress. He heaved the log every half-hour and duly\r\nregistered the result of each successive examination. There were two\r\ncompasses on board; one in the binnacle, close under the eye of the\r\nhelmsman, the other, an inverted compass, being attached to the rafters\r\nof the captain's cabin, so that without leaving his berth he could see\r\nwhether the man in charge of the wheel was holding a proper course. Every vessel that is duly furnished for a lengthened voyage has always\r\nnot only two compasses but two chronometers, one to correct the other. The \"Pilgrim\" was not deficient in this respect, and Dick Sands made a\r\nstrong point of admonishing his crew that they should take especial\r\ncare of the compasses, which under their present circumstances were of\r\nsuch supreme importance. A misfortune, however, was in store for them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the night of the 12th,\r\nwhile Dick was on watch, the compass in the cabin became detached from\r\nits fastening and fell on the floor. The accident was not discovered\r\nuntil the following morning. Whether the metal ferule that had attached\r\nthe instrument to the rafters had become rusty, or whether it had been\r\nworn away by additional friction it seemed impossible to settle. All\r\nthat could be said was that the compass was broken beyond repair. Dick\r\nwas extremely grieved at the loss; but he did not consider that any one\r\nwas to be blamed for the mishap, and could only resolve for the future\r\nto take extra care of the compass in the binnacle. With the exception of this _contretemps_, everything appeared to go on\r\nsatisfactorily on board. Mrs. Weldon, reassured by Dick's confidence,\r\nhad regained much of her wonted calmness, and was besides ever\r\nsupported by a sincere religious spirit. She and Dick had many a long\r\nconversation together. The ingenuous lad was always ready to take the\r\nkind and intelligent lady into his counsel, and day by day would point\r\nout to her on the chart the registers he made as the result of his dead\r\nreckoning; he would then try and satisfy her that under the prevailing\r\nwind there could be no doubt they must arrive at the coast of South\r\nAmerica: moreover, he said that, unless he was much mistaken, they\r\nshould sight the land at no great distance from Valparaiso."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Weldon had, in truth, no reason to question the correctness of\r\nDick's representations; she owned that provided the wind remained in\r\nthe same favourable quarter, there was every prospect of their reaching\r\nland in safety; nevertheless at times she could not resist the\r\nmisgiving that would arise when she contemplated what might be the\r\nresult of a change of wind or a breaking of the weather. With the light-heartedness that belonged to his age, Jack soon fell\r\nback into his accustomed pursuits, and was to be seen merrily running\r\nover the deck or romping with Dingo. At times, it is true, he missed\r\nthe companionship of Dick; but his mother made him comprehend that now\r\nthat Dick, was captain, his time was too much occupied to allow him;\r\nany leisure for play, and the child quite understood that he must not\r\ninterrupt his old friend in his new duties. [Illustration: A light shadow glided stealthily along the deck.] The negroes performed their work with intelligence, and seemed to make\r\nrapid progress in the art of seamanship. Tom had been unanimously\r\nappointed boatswain, and took one watch with Bat and Austin, the\r\nalternate watch being discharged by Dick himself with Hercules and\r\nActæon. One of them steered so that the other two were free to watch at\r\nthe bows."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As a general rule Dick Sands managed to remain at the wheel\r\nall night; five or six hours' sleep in the daytime sufficed for him,\r\nand during the time when he was lying down he entrusted the wheel to\r\nTom or Bat, who under his instructions had become very fair helmsmen. Although in these unfrequented waters there was little chance of\r\nrunning foul of any other vessel, Dick invariably took the precaution\r\nof lighting his signals, carrying a green light to starboard and a red\r\nlight to port. His exertions, however, were a great strain upon him,\r\nand sometimes during the night his fatigue would induce a heavy\r\ndrowsiness, and he steered, as it were, by instinct more than by\r\nattention. On the night of the 13th, he was so utterly worn-out that he was\r\nobliged to ask Tom to relieve him at the helm whilst he went down for a\r\nfew hours' rest. Actæon and Hercules remained on watch on the\r\nforecastle. The night was very dark; the sky was covered with heavy clouds that had\r\nformed in the chill evening air, and the sails on the top-masts were\r\nlost in the obscurity. At the stern, the lamps on either side of the\r\nbinnacle cast a faint reflection on the metal mountings of the wheel,\r\nleaving the deck generally in complete darkness. Towards three o'clock in the morning Tom was getting so heavy with\r\nsleepiness that he was almost unconscious."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His eye, long fixed steadily\r\non the compass, lost its power of vision, and he fell into a doze from\r\nwhich it would require more than a slight disturbance to arouse him. Meantime a light shadow glided stealthily along the deck. Creeping\r\ngradually up to the binnacle, Negoro put down something heavy that he\r\nhad brought in his hand. He stole a keen and rapid glance at the dial\r\nof the compass, and made his way back, unseen and unheard as he had\r\ncome. Almost immediately afterwards, Tom awakened from his slumber. His eye\r\nfell instinctively on the compass, and he saw in a moment that the ship\r\nwas out of her proper course. By a turn of the helm he brought her head\r\nto what he supposed to be the east. But he was mistaken. During his\r\nbrief interval of unconsciousness a piece of iron had been deposited\r\nbeneath the magnetic needle, which by this means had been diverted\r\nthirty degrees to the right, and, instead of pointing due north,\r\ninclined far towards north-east. Consequently it came to pass that the \"Pilgrim,\" supposed by her young\r\ncommander to be making good headway due east, was in reality, under the\r\nbrisk north-west breeze, speeding along towards the south-east. CHAPTER XI. ROUGH WEATHER. During the ensuing week nothing particular occurred on board. The\r\nbreeze still freshened, and the \"Pilgrim\" made on the average 160 miles\r\nevery twenty-four hours."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The speed was as great as could be expected\r\nfrom a craft of her size. Dick grew more and more sanguine in his anticipations that it could not\r\nbe long before the schooner would cross the track of the mail-packets\r\nplying between the eastern and western hemispheres. He had made up his\r\nmind to hail the first passing vessel, and either to transfer his\r\npassengers, or what perhaps would be better still, to borrow a few\r\nsailors, and, it might be, an officer to work the \"Pilgrim\" to shore. He could not help, however, a growing sense of astonishment, when day\r\nafter day passed, and yet there was no ship to be signalled. He kept\r\nthe most vigourous look-out, but all to no purpose. Three voyages\r\nbefore had he made to the whale-fisheries, and his experience made him\r\nsure that he ought now to be sighting some English or American vessel\r\non its way between the Equator and Cape Horn. Very different, however, was the true position of the \"Pilgrim\" from\r\nwhat Dick supposed; not only had the ship been carried far out of her\r\ndirect course by currents, the force of which there were no means of\r\nestimating, but from the moment when the compass had been tampered with\r\nby Negoro, the steering itself had put the vessel all astray."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Unconscious of both these elements of disturbance, Dick Sands was\r\nconvinced that they were proceeding steadily eastwards, and was\r\nperpetually encouraging Mrs. Weldon and himself by the assurance that\r\nthey must very soon arrive within view of the American coast; again and\r\nagain asserting that his sole concern was for his passengers, and that\r\nfor his own safety he had no anxiety. \"But think, Dick,\" said the lady, \"what a position you would have been\r\nin, if you had not had your passengers. You would have been alone with\r\nthat terrible Negoro; you would have been rather alarmed then.\" \"I should have taken good care to put it out of Negoro's power to do me\r\nany mischief, and then I should have worked the ship by myself,\"\r\nanswered the lad stoutly. His very pluck gave Mrs. Weldon renewed confidence. She was a woman\r\nwith wonderful powers of endurance, and it was only when she thought of\r\nher little son that she had any feeling of despair; yet even this she\r\nendeavoured to conceal, and Dick's undaunted courage helped her. Although the youth of the apprentice did not allow him to pretend to\r\nany advanced scientific knowledge, he had the proverbial \"weather-eye\"\r\nof the sailor."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was not only very keen in noticing any change in the\r\naspect of the sky, but he had learnt from Captain Hull, who was a\r\nclever meteorologist, to draw correct conclusions from the indications\r\nof the barometer; the captain, indeed, having taken the trouble to make\r\nhim learn by heart the general rules which are laid down in\r\nVorepierre's _Dictionnaire Illustré_. There are seven of these rules:--\r\n\r\n1. If after a long period of fine weather the barometer falls suddenly\r\nand continuously, although the mercury may be descending for two or\r\nthree days before there is an apparent change in the atmosphere, there\r\nwill ultimately be rain; and the longer has been the time between the\r\nfirst depression and the commencement of the rain, the longer the rain\r\nmay be expected to last. 2. _Vice versâ_, if after a long period of wet weather the barometer\r\nbegins to rise slowly and steadily, fine weather will ensue; and the\r\nlonger the time between the first rising of the mercury and the\r\ncommencement of the fine weather, the longer the fine weather may be\r\nexpected to last. 3. If immediately after the fall or rise of the mercury a change of\r\nweather ensues, the change will be of no long continuance. [1]\r\n\r\n4. A gradual rise for two or three days during rain forecasts fine\r\nweather; but if there be a fall immediately on the arrival of the fine\r\nweather, it will not be for long. This rule holds also conversely."}
{"question": "", "answer": "5. In spring and autumn a sudden fall indicates rain; in the summer, if\r\nvery hot, it foretells a storm. In the winter, after a period of steady\r\nfrost, a fall prognosticates a change of wind with rain and hail;\r\nwhilst a rise announces the approach of snow. 6. Rapid oscillations of the mercury either way are not to be\r\ninterpreted as indicating either wet or dry weather of any duration;\r\ncontinuance of either fair or foul weather is forecast only by a\r\nprolonged and steady rise or fall beforehand. 7. At the end of autumn, after a period of wind and rain, a rise may be\r\nexpected to be followed by north wind and frost. Not merely had Dick got these rules by rote, but he had tested them by\r\nhis own observations, and had become singularly trustworthy in his\r\nforecasts of the weather. He made a point of consulting the barometer\r\nseveral times every day, and although to all appearances the sky\r\nindicated that the fine weather was settled, it did not escape his\r\nobservation that on the 20th the mercury showed a tendency to fall. Dick knew that rain, if it came, would be accompanied by wind; an\r\nopinion in which he was very soon confirmed by the breeze freshening,\r\ntill the air was displaced at the rate of nearly sixty feet a second,\r\nor more[1] than forty miles an hour; and he recognized the necessity of\r\nat once shortening sail."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had already used the precaution to take in\r\nthe royal, the main-top-sail, and the flying jib, but he now at once\r\nresolved likewise to take in the top-gallant, and to have a couple of\r\nreefs in the foretop-sail. [Footnote 1: This and several of the other rules are concisely\r\nconcentrated in the couplet--\r\n\r\n  Long foretold, long last;\r\n  Short notice, soon past.] To an inexperienced crew, the last operation was far from easy; but\r\nthere was no symptom of shrinking from it. Followed by Bat and Austin,\r\nDick mounted the rigging of the foremast, and with little trouble got\r\nto the top-gallant. Had the weather been less unpromising he would have\r\nbeen inclined to leave the two yards as they were, but anticipating the\r\nultimate necessity of being obliged to lower the mast, he unrigged\r\nthem, and let them down to the deck; he knew well enough that in the\r\nevent of the gale rising as he expected, the lowering of the mast as\r\nwell as the shortening of sail would contribute to diminish the strain\r\nand stress upon the vessel. It was the work of two hours to get this preliminary operation over. There still remained the task of taking in the reefs in the top-sail. The \"Pilgrim\" in one respect differed from most modern vessels. She did\r\nnot carry a double foretop, which would very much have diminished the\r\ndifficulty attending the reefing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was consequently necessary to\r\nproceed as before; to mount the rigging, by main force to haul in the\r\nflapping canvas, and to make the fastening secure. But critical and\r\ndangerous as the task was, it was successfully accomplished, and the\r\nthree young men, having descended safely to the deck, had the\r\nsatisfaction of seeing the schooner run easily before the wind, which\r\nhad further increased till it was blowing a stiff gale. For three days the gale continued brisk and hard, yet without any\r\nvariation in its direction. But all along the barometer was falling;\r\nthe mercury sank to 28° without symptom of recovery. The sky was\r\nbecoming overcast; clouds, thick and lowering, obscured the sun, and it\r\nwas difficult to make out where it rose or where it set. Dick did his\r\nbest to keep up his courage, but he could not disguise from himself\r\nthat there was cause for uneasiness. He took no more rest than was\r\nabsolutely necessary, and what repose he allowed himself he always took\r\non deck; he maintained a calm exterior, but he was really tortured with\r\nanxiety. [Illustration: For half an hour Negoro stood motionless.] Although the violence of the wind seemed to lull awhile, Dick did not\r\nsuffer himself to be betrayed into any false security; he knew only too\r\nwell what to expect, and after a brief interval of comparative quiet,\r\nthe gale returned and the waves began to run very high."}
{"question": "", "answer": "About four o'clock one afternoon, Negoro (a most unusual thing for him)\r\nemerged from his kitchen, and skulked to the fore. Dingo was fast\r\nasleep, and did not make his ordinary growl by way of greeting to his\r\nenemy. For half an hour Negoro stood motionless, apparently surveying\r\nthe horizon. The heavy waves rolled past; they were higher than the\r\ncondition of the wind warranted; their magnitude witnessed to a storm\r\npassing in the west, and there was every reason to suspect that the\r\n\"Pilgrim\" might be caught by its violence. Negoro looked long at the water; he then raised his eyes and scanned\r\nthe sky. Above and below he might have read threatening signs. The\r\nupper stratum of cloud was travelling far more rapidly than that\r\nbeneath, an indication that ere long the masses of vapour would\r\ndescend, and, coming in contact with the inferior current, would change\r\nthe gale into a tempest, which probably would increase to a hurricane. It might be from ignorance or it might be from indifference, but there\r\nwas no indication of alarm on the face of Negoro; on the other hand\r\nthere might be seen a sort of smile curling on his lip."}
{"question": "", "answer": "After thus\r\ngazing above him and around him, he clambered on to the bowsprit, and\r\nmade his way by degrees to the very gammonings; again he rested and\r\nlooked about him as if to explore the horizon; after a while he\r\nclambered back on deck, and soon stealthily retreated to his own\r\nquarters. No doubt there was much to cause concern in the general aspect of the\r\nweather; but there was one point on which they never failed to\r\ncongratulate each other;--that the direction of the wind had never\r\nchanged, and consequently must be carrying them in the desired course. Unless a storm should overtake them, they could continue their present\r\nnavigation without peril, and with every prospect of finding a port\r\nupon the shore where they might put in. Such were their mutual and\r\nacknowledged hopes; but Dick secretly felt the misgiving lest, without\r\na pilot, he might in his ignorance fail to find a harbour of refuge. Nevertheless, he would not suffer himself to meet trouble half-way, and\r\nkept up his spirits under the conviction that if difficulties came he\r\nshould be strengthened to grapple with them or make his escape. Time passed on, and the 9th of March arrived without material change in\r\nthe condition of the atmosphere. The sky remained heavily burdened, and\r\nthe wind, which occasionally had abated for a few hours, had always\r\nreturned with at least its former violence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The occasional rising of\r\nthe mercury never encouraged Dick to anticipate a permanent improvement\r\nin the weather, and he discerned only too plainly that brighter times\r\nat present were not to be looked for. A startling alarm had more than once been caused by the sudden breaking\r\nof storms in which thunderbolts had seemed to fall within a few cables'\r\nlengths of the schooner. On these occasions the torrents of rain had\r\nbeen so heavy that the ship had appeared to be in the very midst of a\r\nwhirlpool of vapour, and it was impossible to see a yard ahead. The \"Pilgrim\" pitched and rolled frightfully. Fortunately Mrs. Weldon\r\ncould bear the motion without much personal inconvenience, and\r\nconsequently was able to devote her attention to her little boy, who\r\nwas a miserable sufferer. Cousin Benedict was as undisturbed as the\r\ncockroaches he was investigating; he hardly noticed the increasing\r\nmadness of either wind or wave, but went on with his studies as calmly\r\nas if he were in his own comfortable museum at San Francisco. Moreover,\r\nit was fortunate that the negroes did not suffer to any great degree\r\nfrom sea-sickness, and consequently were able to assist their captain\r\nin his arduous task, Dick was far too experienced a sailor himself to\r\nbe inconvenienced by any oscillations of the vessel, however violent."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The \"Pilgrim\" still made good headway, and Dick, although he was aware\r\nthat ultimately it would probably be necessary again to shorten sail,\r\nwas anxious to postpone making any alteration before he was absolutely\r\nobliged. Surely, he reasoned with himself, the land could not now be\r\nfar away; he had calculated his speed; he had kept a diligent reckoning\r\non the chart; surely, the shore must be almost in sight. He would not\r\ntrust his crew to keep watch; he was aware how easily their\r\ninexperienced eyes would be misled, and how they might mistake a\r\ndistant cloud-bank for the land they coveted to see; he kept watch for\r\nhimself; his own gaze was ever fixed upon the horizon; and in the\r\neagerness of his expectation he would repeatedly mount to the\r\ncross-trees to get a wider range of vision. But land was not to be seen. Next day as Dick was standing at the bow, alternately considering the\r\ncanvas which his ship carried and the aspect presented by the sky, Mrs.\r\nWeldon approached him without his noticing her. She caught some\r\nmuttered expressions of bewilderment that fell from his lips, and asked\r\nhim whether he could see anything. He lowered the telescope which he had been holding in his hand, and\r\nanswered,--\r\n\r\n\"No, Mrs. Weldon, I cannot see anything; and it is this Hiat perplexes\r\nme so sorely. I cannot understand why we have not already come in sight\r\nof land."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is nearly a month since we lost our poor dear captain. There has been no delay in our progress; no stoppage in our rate of\r\nspeed. I cannot make it out.\" \"How far were we from land when we lost the captain?\" \"I am sure I am not far out in saying that we were scarcely more than\r\n4500 miles from the shores of America.\" \"And at what rate have we been sailing?\" \"Not much less than nine score knots a day.\" \"How long, then, do you reckon, Dick, we ought to be in arriving at the\r\ncoast?\" \"Under six-and-twenty days,\" replied Dick. He paused before he spoke again, then added,--\r\n\r\n\"But what mystifies me even more than our failing to sight the land is\r\nthis: we have not come across a single vessel; and yet vessels without\r\nnumber are always traversing these seas.\" \"But do you not think,\" inquired Mrs. Weldon, \"that you have made some\r\nerror in your reckoning? Is your speed really what you have supposed?\" \"Impossible, madam,\" replied Dick, with an air of dignity, \"impossible\r\nthat I should have fallen into error. The log has been consulted,\r\nwithout fail, every half-hour. I am about to have it lowered now, and I\r\nwill undertake to show you that we are at this present moment making\r\nten miles an hour, which would give considerably over 200 miles a day.\" He then called out to Tom,--\r\n\r\n\"Tom, lower the log!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "The old man was quite accustomed to the duty. The log was fastened to\r\nthe line and thrown overboard. It ran out regularly for about\r\nfive-and-twenty fathoms, when all at once the line slackened in Tom's\r\nhand. \"It is broken!\" cried Tom; \"the cord is broken!\" \"Broken?\" exclaimed Dick: \"good heavens! we have lost the log!\" It was too true. The log was gone. Tom drew in the rope. Dick took it up and examined it. It had not\r\nbroken at its point of union with the log; it had given way in the\r\nmiddle, at a place where the strands in some unaccountable way had worn\r\nstrangely thin. Dick's agony of mind, in spite of his effort to be calm, was intensely\r\ngreat. A suspicion of foul play involuntarily occurred to him. He knew\r\nthat the rope had been of first-rate make; he knew that it had been\r\nquite sound when used before; but he could prove nothing; he could only\r\nmourn over the loss which committed him to the sole remaining compass\r\nas his only guide. That compass, too, although he knew it not, was misleading him entirely! Mrs. Weldon sighed as she witnessed the grief which the loss manifestly\r\ncaused poor Dick, but in purest sympathy she said nothing, and retired\r\nthoughtfully to her cabin. It was no longer possible to reckon the rate of progress, but there was\r\nno doubt that the \"Pilgrim\" continued to maintain at least her previous\r\nspeed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Before another four-and-twenty hours had passed the barometer had\r\nfallen still lower, and the wind was threatening to rise to a velocity\r\nof sixty miles. Resolved to be on the safe side, Dick determined not\r\nonly to strike the top-gallant and the main-top-mast, but to take in\r\nall the lower sails. Indeed, he began to be aware that no time was to\r\nbe lost. The operation would not be done in a moment, and the storm was\r\napproaching. Dick made Tom take the helm; he ascended the shrouds with\r\nBat, Austin, and Actæon, making Hercules stay on deck to slacken the\r\nhalyards as required. By dint of arduous exertion, and at no little risk of being thrown\r\noverboard by the rolling of the ship, they succeeded in lowering the\r\ntwo masts; the fore-top-sail was then reefed, and the fore-sail\r\nentirely struck, so that the only canvas that the schooner carried was\r\nthe reefed fore-top and the one stay. These, however, made her run with\r\na terrific speed. Early on the morning of the 12th, Dick noted with alarm that the\r\nbarometer had not ceased to fall, and now registered only 27.9°. The\r\ntempest had continued to increase, till it was unsafe for the ship to\r\ncarry any canvas at all."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The order was given for the top-sail to be\r\ntaken in, but it was too late; a violent gust carried the sail\r\ncompletely away, and Austin, who had made his way to the fore-top-yard,\r\nwas struck by the flying sheet; and although he was not seriously hurt,\r\nhe was obliged at once to return to deck. Dick Sands became more uneasy than ever; he was tortured by\r\napprehensions of reefs outlying the shore, to which he imagined he must\r\nnow be close; but he could discern no rocks to justify his fears, and\r\nreturned to take his place at the helm. The next moment Negoro appeared on deck; he pointed mysteriously to the\r\nfar-off horizon, as though he discerned some object, as a mountain,\r\nthere; and looking round with a malevolent smile, immediately left the\r\ndeck, and went back to his cabin. [Illustration: Under bare poles]\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XII. HOPE REVIVED. The wind had now increased to a hurricane; it had veered to the\r\nsouth-west, and had attained a velocity little short of ninety miles an\r\nhour. On land, the most substantial of erections could with difficulty\r\nhave withstood its violence, and a vessel anchored in a roadstead must\r\nhave been torn from its moorings and cast ashore."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The memorable storm\r\nthat had devastated the Island of Guadaloupe on the 25th of July, 1825,\r\nwhen heavy cannon were lifted from their carriages, could scarcely have\r\nbeen more furious, and it was only her mobility before the blast and\r\nthe solidity of her structure that gave the \"Pilgrim\" a hope of\r\nsurviving the tempest. A few minutes after the topsail had been lost, the small jib was\r\ncarried away. Dick Sands contemplated the possibility of throwing out a\r\nstorm-jib, made of extra strong canvas, as a means of bringing the ship\r\na little more under his control, but abandoned the idea as useless. It\r\nwas, therefore, under bare poles that the \"Pilgrim\" was driven along;\r\nbut in spite of the lack of canvas, the hull, masts, and rigging, gave\r\nsufficient purchase to the wind, and the progress of the schooner was\r\nprodigiously rapid; sometimes, indeed, she seemed to be literally\r\nlifted from the water, and scudded on, scarcely skimming its surface. The rolling was fearful. Enormous waves followed in quick succession,\r\nand as they travelled faster than the ship, there was the perpetual\r\nrisk of one of them catching her astern. Without sail, there were no\r\nmeans of escaping that peril by increase of speed; the adroit\r\nmanagement of the helm was the only chance of avoiding the hazardous\r\nshocks, and even this repeatedly failed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To prevent his being washed overboard Dick lashed himself to his place\r\nat the wheel by a rope round his waist, and made Tom and Bat keep close\r\nat hand, ready to give him assistance, in case of emergency. Hercules\r\nand Actæon, clinging to the bitt, kept watch at the bow. Mrs. Weldon\r\nand her party, at Dick's special request, remained inside the stern\r\ncabin, although the lady, for her own part, would much rather have\r\nstayed on deck; she had, however, yielded to the representation that\r\nshe would thus be exposing herself to unnecessary danger. The hatchways were hermetically closed, and it was to be hoped that\r\nthey would withstand the heavy sea that was dashing over them; only let\r\none of them give way to the pressure, and the vessel must inevitably\r\nfill and founder. It was a matter of congratulation that the stowage\r\nhad been done very carefully, so that notwithstanding all the lurchings\r\nof the ship, the cargo did not shift in the least. The heroic young commander had still further curtailed his periods of\r\nrest, and it was only at the urgent entreaty of Mrs. Weldon, who feared\r\nthat he would exhaust himself by his vigilance, that he was induced to\r\nlie down for a few hours' sleep on the night of the 13th. After Tom and Bat had been left alone at the wheel they were, somewhat\r\nto their surprise, joined by Negoro, who very rarely came aft."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He\r\nseemed inclined to enter into conversation, but found little\r\nencouragement to talk on the part either of Tom or his son. All at once\r\na violent roll of the ship threw him off his feet, and he would have\r\ngone overboard if he had not been saved by falling against the binnacle. Old Tom was in a frantic state of alarm lest the compass should be\r\nbroken. He uttered a cry of consternation so loud that it roused Dick\r\nfrom the light slumber into which he had fallen in the cabin, and he\r\nrushed to the deck. By the time he had reached the stern, Negoro had\r\nnot only regained his feet, but had managed successfully to conceal the\r\nbit of iron which he had again extracted from beneath the binnacle\r\nwhere he had himself laid it. Now that the wind had shifted to the\r\nsouth-west, it suited his machinations that the magnetic needle should\r\nindicate its true direction. [Illustration: Quick as lightning, Dick Sands drew a revolver from his\r\npocket.] \"How now?\" asked Dick eagerly; \"what is the meaning of all this noise?\" Tom explained how the cook had fallen against the binnacle, and how he\r\nhad been terrified lest the compass should be injured."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick's heart\r\nsank at the thought of losing his sole remaining compass, and his\r\nanxiety betrayed itself in his countenance as he knelt down to examine\r\nits condition; but he breathed freely as he ascertained that the\r\ninstrument had sustained no damage; by the dim light he saw the needle\r\nresting on its two concentric circles, and felt his fears at once\r\nrelieved; of course, he was quite unconscious of the fact that the\r\nremoval of the bit of iron had made the magnet change its pointing. The\r\nincident, however, excited his misgiving; although he felt that Negoro\r\ncould not be held responsible for an accidental fall, the very presence\r\nof the man in such a place at such a time perplexed him. \"And what brings you here, this hour of the night?\" he asked. \"That's not your business,\" retorted Negoro insolently. \"It is my business,\" replied Dick resolutely; \"and I mean to have an\r\nanswer; what brought you here?\" Negoro answered sullenly that he knew of no rule to prevent his going\r\nwhere he liked and when he liked. \"No rule!\" cried Dick; \"then I make the rule now. From this time\r\nforward, I make the rule that you shall never come astern. Do you\r\nunderstand?\" Roused from his accustomed doggedness, the man seemed to make a\r\nthreatening movement. Quick as lightning, Dick Sands drew a revolver\r\nfrom his pocket. \"Negoro, one act, one word of insubordination, and I blow out your\r\nbrains!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Negoro had no time to reply; before he could speak he was bowed down\r\ntowards the deck by an irresistible weight. Hercules had grasped him by\r\nthe shoulder. \"Shall I put him overboard, captain? he will make a meal for the\r\nfishes; they are not very particular what they eat,\" said the negro,\r\nwith a grin of contempt. \"Not yet,\" quietly answered Dick. The giant removed his hand, and Negoro stood upright again, and began\r\nto retreat to his own quarters, muttering, however, as he passed\r\nHercules,--\r\n\r\n\"You cursed nigger! You shall pay for this!\" The discovery was now made that the wind apparently had taken a sudden\r\nshift of no less than forty-five degrees; but what occasioned Dick the\r\ngreatest perplexity was that there was nothing in the condition of the\r\nsea to correspond with the alteration in the current of the air;\r\ninstead of being directly astern, wind and waves were now beating on\r\nthe larboard. Progress in this way must necessarily be full of danger,\r\nand Dick was obliged to bring his ship up at least four points before\r\nhe got her straight before the tempest. The young captain felt that he must be more than ever on the alert; he\r\ncould not shake off the suspicion that Negoro had been concerned in the\r\nloss of the first compass, and had some further designs upon the\r\nsecond."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Still he was utterly at a loss to imagine what possible motive\r\nthe man could have for so criminal an act of malevolence, as there was\r\nno plausible reason to be assigned why he should not be as anxious as\r\nall the rest to reach the coast of America. The suspicion continued,\r\nhowever, to haunt him, and when he mentioned it to Mrs. Weldon he found\r\nthat a similar feeling of distrust had agitated her, although she, like\r\nhimself, was altogether unable to allege a likely motive why the cook\r\nshould contemplate so strange an act of mischief. It was determined\r\nthat a strict surveillance should be kept upon all the fellow's\r\nmovements. Negoro, however, manifested no inclination to disobey the captain's\r\nperemptory order; he kept strictly to his own part of the ship; but as\r\nDingo was now regularly quartered on the stern, there was a tolerably\r\nsure guarantee that the cook would not be found wandering much in that\r\ndirection. A week passed, and still the tempest showed no signs of abating; the\r\nbarometer continued to fall, and not once did a period of calmer\r\nweather afford an opportunity of carrying sail. The \"Pilgrim\" still\r\nmade her way northeast. Her speed could not be less than two hundred\r\nmiles in twenty-four hours. But no land appeared. Vast as was the range\r\nof the American continent, extending for 120 degrees between the\r\nAtlantic and the Pacific, it was nowhere to be discerned. Was he\r\ndreaming? was he mad?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick would perpetually ask himself: had he been\r\nsailing in a wrong direction? had he failed to steer aright? But no: he was convinced there was no error in his steering. Although\r\nhe could not actually see it for the mist, he knew that day after day\r\nthe sun rose before him, and that it set behind him. Yet he was\r\nconstrained in bewilderment to ask, what had become of those shores of\r\nAmerica upon which, when they came in sight, there was only too great a\r\nfear the ship should be dashed? what had become of them? where were\r\nthey? whither had this incessant hurricane driven them? why did not the\r\nexpected coast appear? To all these bewildering inquiries Dick could find no answer except to\r\nimagine that his compass had misled him. Yet he was powerless to put\r\nhis own misgivings to the test; he deplored more than ever the\r\ndestruction of the duplicate instrument which would have checked his\r\nregisters. He studied his chart; but all in vain; the position in which\r\nhe found himself as the result of Negoro's treachery, seemed to baffle\r\nhim the more, the more he tried to solve the mystery. The days were passing on in this chronic state of anxiety, when one\r\nmorning about eight o'clock, Hercules, who was on watch at the fore,\r\nsuddenly shouted,--\r\n\r\n\"Land!\" Dick Sands had little reliance upon the negro's inexperienced eye, but\r\nhurried forward to the bow. \"Where's the land?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "he cried; his voice being scarcely audible above\r\nthe howling of the tempest. \"There! look there!\" said Hercules, nodding his head and pointing over\r\nthe larboard side, to the north-east. Dick could see nothing. Mrs. Weldon had heard the shout. Unable to restrain her interest, she\r\nhad left her cabin and was at Dick's side. He uttered an expression of\r\nsurprise at seeing her, but could not hear anything she said, as her\r\nvoice was unable to rise above the roaring of the elements; she stood,\r\nher whole being as it were concentrated in the power of vision, and\r\nscanned the horizon in the direction indicated by Hercules. But all to\r\nno purpose. Suddenly, however, after a while, Dick raised his hand. \"Yes!\" he said; \"yes; sure enough, yonder is land.\" He clung with excitement to the netting; and Mrs Weldon, supported by\r\nHercules, strained her eyes yet more vehemently to get a glimpse of a\r\nshore which she had begun to despair of ever reaching. Beyond a doubt an elevated peak was there. It must be about ten miles\r\nto leeward. A break in the clouds soon left it more distinct. Some\r\npromontory it must be upon the American coast. Without sails, of\r\ncourse, the \"Pilgrim\" had no chance of bearing down direct upon it; but\r\nat least there was every reason to believe that she would soon reach\r\nsome other portion of the shore; perhaps before noon, certainly in a\r\nfew hours, they must be close to land."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The pitching of the ship made it impossible for Mrs. Weldon to keep\r\nsafe footing on the deck; accordingly, at a sign from Dick, Hercules\r\nled her back again to her cabin. Dick did not remain long at the bow, but went thoughtfully back to the\r\nwheel. He had, indeed, a tremendous responsibility before him. Here was the\r\nland, the land for which they had longed so eagerly; and now that their\r\nanticipations were on the point of being realized, what was there, with\r\na hurricane driving them on towards it, to prevent that land being\r\ntheir destruction? What measures could he take to prevent the schooner\r\nbeing dashed to pieces against it? [Illustration: \"There! look there!\"] At the very moment when the promontory was just abreast of them, Negoro\r\nappeared on deck; he nodded to the peak familiarly, as he might have\r\nsaluted a familiar friend, and retired as stealthily as he had come. Two hours later, and the promontory was lying to the larboard wake. Dick Sands had never relaxed his watchfulness, but he had failed to\r\ndiscover any further indications of a coast-line. His perplexity could\r\nonly increase; the horizon was clear; the Andes ought to be distinct;\r\nthey would be conspicuous twenty miles or more away."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick took up his\r\ntelescope again and again; he scrutinized the eastern horizon with\r\nminutest care; but there was nothing to be seen; and as the afternoon\r\nwaned away the last glimpse had been taken of the promontory that had\r\nawakened their expectation; it had vanished utterly from their gaze; no\r\nindication of shore could be seen from the \"Pilgrim's\" deck. Dick Sands uttered a sigh of mingled amazement and relief. He went into\r\nMrs. Weldon's cabin, where she was standing with her party. \"It was only an island!\" he said; \"only an island!\" \"How? why? what island? what do you mean?\" cried Mrs. Weldon\r\nincredulously; \"what island can it be?\" \"The chart perhaps will tell us,\" replied Dick; and hurrying off to his\r\nown cabin, he immediately returned with the chart in his hands. After studying it attentively for a few minutes, he said,--\r\n\r\n\"There, Mrs. Weldon; the land we have just passed, I should suppose\r\nmust be that little speck in the midst of the Pacific. It must be\r\nEaster Island. At least, there seems to be no other land which possibly\r\nit could be.\" \"And do you say,\" inquired Mrs. Weldon, \"that we have left it quite\r\nbehind us?\" \"Yes, entirely; almost to windward.\" Mrs. Weldon commenced a searching scrutiny of the map that was\r\noutspread before her. \"How far is this,\" she said, after bending a considerable time over the\r\nchart; \"how far is this from the coast of America?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Thirty-five degrees,\" answered Dick; \"somewhere about 2500 miles.\" \"What ever do you mean?\" rejoined the lady astonished; \"if the\r\n'Pilgrim' is still 2500 miles from shore, she has positively made no\r\nprogress at all. Impossible!\" In thoughtful perplexity, Dick passed his hand across his brow. He did\r\nnot know what to say. After an interval of silence, he said,--\r\n\r\n\"I have no account to give for the strange delay. It is inexplicable to\r\nmyself, except upon that one hypothesis, which I cannot resist, that\r\nthe readings of the compass, somehow or other, have been wrong.\" He relapsed into silence. Then, brightening up, he added,--\r\n\r\n\"But, thank God! at least we have now the satisfaction of knowing where\r\nwe really are; we are no longer lost upon the wide Pacific; if only\r\nthis hurricane will cease, long as the distance seems, we are on our\r\nproper course to the shores of America.\" The tone of confidence with which the youthful captain spoke had the\r\neffect of inspiring new hope into all who heard him; their spirits\r\nrose, and to their sanguine mood it seemed as if they were approaching\r\nto the end of all their troubles, and had hardly more to do than to\r\nawait the turning of a tide to bring them into a glad proximity to port. Easter Island, of which the true name is Vai-Hoo, was discovered by\r\nDavid in 1686 and visited by Cook and Lapérouse. It lies in lat. 27°\r\nS., and long."}
{"question": "", "answer": "112 E.; consequently, it was evident that during the\r\nraging of the hurricane the schooner had been driven northwards no less\r\nthan fifteen degrees. Far away, however, as she was from shore, the\r\nwind could hardly fail within ten days to carry her within sight of\r\nland; and then, if the storm had worn itself out, (as probably it\r\nwould,) the \"Pilgrim\" would again hoist sail, and make her way into\r\nsome port with safety. Anyhow, the discovery of his true position\r\nrestored a spirit of confidence to Dick Sands, and he anticipated the\r\ntime when he should no longer be drifting helplessly before the storm. To say the truth, the \"Pilgrim\" had suffered very little from the\r\nprolonged fury of the weather. The damage she had sustained was limited\r\nto the loss of the topsail and the small jib, which could be easily\r\nreplaced. The caulking of the seams remained thoroughly sound, and no\r\ndrop of water had found its way into the hold. The pumps, too, were\r\nperfectly free. Dick Sands did not fear for the stability of his ship;\r\nhis only anxiety was lest the weather should not moderate in time. Only\r\nlet the wind subside, and the schooner once more would be under his\r\ncontrol; but he never forgot that the ordering of the winds and waves\r\nwere in the hands of the Great Disposer of all. CHAPTER XIII. LAND AT LAST."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was not long before Dick's sanguine expectations were partially\r\nrealized, for on the very next day, which was the 27th, the barometer\r\nbegan to rise, not rapidly, but steadily, indicating that its elevation\r\nwould probably continue. The sea remained exceedingly rough, but the\r\nviolence of the wind, which had veered slightly towards the west, had\r\nperceptibly diminished. The tempest had passed its greatest fury, and\r\nwas beginning to wear itself out. Not a sail, however, could yet be hoisted; the smallest show of canvas\r\nwould have been carried away in an instant; nevertheless Dick hoped\r\nthat before another twenty-four hours were over, the \"Pilgrim\" might be\r\nable to carry a storm-jib. In the course of the night the wind moderated still more and the\r\npitching of the ship had so far diminished that the passengers began to\r\nreappear on deck. Mrs. Weldon was the first to leave her enforced\r\nimprisonment. She was anxious to speak to Dick, whom she might have\r\nexpected to find looking pale and wan after his almost superhuman\r\nexertions and loss of sleep. But she was mistaken; however much the lad\r\nmight suffer from the strain in after-years, at present he exhibited no\r\nsymptoms of failing energy. \"Well, Captain Dick, how are you?\" she said, as she advanced towards\r\nhim holding out her hand. Dick smiled. \"You call me captain, Mrs. Weldon,\" he answered, \"but you do not seem\r\ndisposed to submit implicitly to captain's orders."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Did I not direct you\r\nto keep to your cabin?\" [Illustration: \"You have acquitted yourself like a man.\"] \"You did,\" replied the lady; \"but observing how much the storm had\r\nabated, I could not resist the temptation to disobey you.\" \"Yes, madam, the weather is far more promising; the barometer has not\r\nfallen since yesterday morning, and I really trust the worst is over\r\nnow.\" \"Thank Heaven!\" she replied, and after a few moments' silence, she\r\nadded.--\r\n\r\n\"But now, Dick, you must really take some rest; you may perhaps not\r\nknow how much you require it; but it is absolutely necessary.\" \"Rest!\" the boy repeated; \"rest! I want no rest. I have only done my\r\nduty, and it will be time enough for me to concern myself about my own\r\nrest, when I have seen my passengers in a place of safety.\" \"You have acquitted yourself like a man,\" said Mrs. Weldon; \"and you\r\nmay be assured that my husband, like myself, will never forget the\r\nservices you have rendered me. I shall urge upon him the request which\r\nI am sure he will not refuse, that you shall have your studies\r\ncompleted, so that you may be made a captain for the firm.\" Tears of gratitude rose to Dick's eyes. He deprecated the praise that\r\nwas lavished upon him, but rejoiced in the prospect that seemed opening\r\nupon his future."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Weldon assured him that he was dear as a son to\r\nher, and pressed a gentle kiss upon his forehead. The lad felt that he\r\nwas animated, if need be, to yet greater hardships in behalf of his\r\nbenefactors, and resolved to prove himself even more worthy of their\r\nconfidence. By the 29th, the wind had so far moderated that Dick thought he might\r\nincrease the \"Pilgrim's\" speed by hoisting the foresail and topsail. \"Now, my men, I have some work for you to-day,\" he said to the negroes\r\nwhen he came on deck at daybreak. \"All right, captain,\" answered Hercules, \"we are growing rusty for want\r\nof something to do.\" \"Why didn't you blow with your big mouth?\" said little Jack; \"you could\r\nhave beaten the wind all to nothing.\" Dick laughed, and said, \"Not a bad idea, Jack; if ever we get becalmed,\r\nwe must get Hercules to blow into the sails.\" \"I shall be most happy,\" retorted the giant, and he inflated his huge\r\nchecks till he was the very impersonation of Boreas himself. \"But now to work!\" cried Dick; \"we have lost our topsail, and we must\r\ncontrive to hoist another. Not an easy matter, I can tell you.\" \"I dare say we shall manage it,\" replied Actæon. \"We must do our best,\" said Tom. \"Can't I help?\" inquired Jack. \"Of course you can,\" answered Dick; \"run along to the wheel, and assist\r\nBat.\" Jack strutted off, proud enough of his commission."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Under Dick's directions, the negroes commenced their somewhat difficult\r\ntask. The new topsail, rolled up, had first of all to be hoisted, and\r\nthen to be made fast to the yard; but so adroitly did the crew carry\r\nout their orders, that in less than an hour the sail was properly set\r\nand flying with a couple of reefs. The foresail and second jib, which\r\nhad been taken down before the tempest, were hoisted again, and before\r\nten o'clock the \"Pilgrim\" was running along under the three sails which\r\nDick considered were as much as it was prudent to carry. Even at her\r\npresent speed, the schooner, he reckoned, would be within sight of the\r\nAmerican shore in about ten days. It was an immense relief to him to\r\nfind that she was no longer at the mercy of the waves, and when he saw\r\nthe sails properly set he returned in good spirits to his post at the\r\nhelm, not forgetting to thank the temporary helmsman for his services,\r\nnor omitting his acknowledgment to Master Jack, who received the\r\ncompliment with becoming gravity. Although the clouds continued to travel all the next day with great\r\nrapidity they were very much broken, and alternately the \"Pilgrim\" was\r\nbathed in sunlight and enveloped in vapours, which rolled on towards\r\nthe east."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As the weather cleared, the hatchways were opened in order to\r\nventilate the ship, and the outer air was allowed again to penetrate\r\nnot only the hold, but the cabin and crew's quarters The wet sails were\r\nhung out to dry, the deck was washed down, for Dick Sands was anxious\r\nnot to bring his ship into port without having \"finished her toilet,\"\r\nand he found that his crew could very well spare a few hours daily to\r\nget her into proper trim. [Illustration: They both examined the outspread chart.] Notwithstanding the loss of the log, Dick had sufficient experience to\r\nbe able to make an approximate estimate of the schooner's progress, and\r\nafter having pointed out to Mrs. Weldon what he imagined was the\r\n\"Pilgrim's\" true position, he told her that it was his firm impression\r\nthat land would be sighted in little more than a week. \"And upon what part of South America do you reckon we are likely to\r\nfind ourselves?\" she asked. \"That is more than I dare venture to promise,\" replied Dick; \"but I\r\nshould think somewhere hereabouts.\" He was pointing on the chart to the long shore-line of Chili and Peru. They both examined the outspread chart with still closer attention. \"Here, you see,\" resumed Dick, \"here is the island we have just left;\r\nwe left it in the west; the wind has not shifted; we must expect to\r\ncome in sight of land, pretty nearly due east of it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The coast has\r\nplenty of harbours. From any one of them you will be able easily to get\r\nto San Francisco. You know, I dare say, that the Pacific Navigation\r\nCompany's steamers touch at all the principal ports. From any of them\r\nyou will be sure to get direct passage to California.\" \"But do you mean,\" asked Mrs. Weldon, \"that you are not going yourself\r\nto take the schooner to San Francisco?\" \"Not direct,\" replied the young captain; \"I want to see you safe on\r\nshore and satisfactorily on your homeward way. When that is done, I\r\nshall hope to get competent officers to take the ship to Valparaiso,\r\nwhere she will discharge her cargo, as Captain Hull intended; and\r\nafterwards I shall work our way back to San Francisco.\" \"Ah, well; we will see all about that in due time.\" Mrs. Weldon said,\r\nsmiling; and, after a short pause, added, \"At one time, Dick, you\r\nseemed to have rather a dread of the shore.\" \"Quite true,\" answered Dick; \"but now I am in hopes we may fall in with\r\nsome passing vessel; we want to have a confirmation as to our true\r\nposition. I cannot tell you how surprised I am that we have not come\r\nacross a single vessel. But when we near the land we shall be able to\r\nget a pilot.\" \"But what will happen if we fail to get a pilot?\" was Mrs. Weldon's\r\ninquiry."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was anxious to learn how far the lad was prepared to meet\r\nany emergency. With unhesitating promptness Dick replied,--\r\n\r\n\"Why, then, unless the weather takes the control of the ship out of my\r\nhands, I must patiently follow the coast until I come to a harbour of\r\nrefuge. But if the wind should freshen, I should have to adopt other\r\nmeasures.\" \"What then, Dick, what then?\" persisted Mrs. Weldon. The boy's brow knitted itself together in resolution, and he said\r\ndeliberately,--\r\n\r\n\"I should run the ship aground.\" Mrs. Weldon started. \"However,\" Dick continued, \"there is no reason to apprehend this. The\r\nweather has mended and is likely to mend. And why should we fear about\r\nfinding a pilot? Let us hope all will be well.\" Mrs. Weldon at least had satisfied herself on one point. She had\r\nascertained that although Dick did not anticipate disaster, yet he was\r\nprepared in the case of emergency to resort to measures from which any\r\nbut the most experienced seaman would shrink. But although Dick's equanimity had been successful in allaying any\r\nmisgivings on Mrs. Weldon's part, it must be owned that the condition\r\nof the atmosphere caused him very serious uneasiness. The wind remained uncomfortably high, and the barometer gave very\r\nominous indications that it would ere long freshen still more."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick\r\ndreaded that the time was about to return in which once again he must\r\nreduce his vessel to a state of bare poles; but so intense was his\r\naversion to having his ship so wrested as it were from his own\r\nmanagement, that he determined to carry the topsail till it was all but\r\ncarried away by the force of the blast. Concerned, moreover, for the\r\nsafety of his masts, the loss of which he acknowledged must be fatal,\r\nhe had the shrouds well overhauled and the backstays considerably\r\ntightened. More than once another contingency occurred to his mind, and gave him\r\nsome anxiety. He could not overlook the possibility of the wind\r\nchanging all round. What should he do in such a case? He would of\r\ncourse endeavour by all means to get the schooner on by incessant\r\ntacking; but was there not the certainty of a most hazardous delay? and\r\nworse than this, was there not a likelihood of the \"Pilgrim\" being once\r\nagain driven far out to sea? Happily these forebodings were not realized. The wind, after chopping\r\nabout for several days, at one time blowing from the north, and at\r\nanother from the south, finally settled down into a stiffish gale from\r\nthe west, which did nothing worse than severely strain the masts. In this weary but hopeful endurance time passed on. The 5th of April\r\nhad arrived."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was more than two months since the \"Pilgrim\" had\r\nquitted New Zealand; it was true that during the first three weeks of\r\nher voyage she had been impeded by protracted calms and contrary winds;\r\nbut since that time her speed had been rapid, the very tempests had\r\ndriven her forwards with unwonted velocity; she had never failed to\r\nhave her bow towards the land, and yet land seemed as remote as ever;\r\nthe coast line was retreating as they approached it. What could be the\r\nsolution of the mystery? From the cross-trees one or other of the negroes was kept incessantly\r\non the watch. Dick Sands himself, telescope in hand, would repeatedly\r\nascend in the hope of beholding some lofty peak of the Andes emerging\r\nfrom the mists that hung over the horizon. But all in vain. False alarms were given more than once. Sometimes Tom, sometimes\r\nHercules, or one of the others would be sure that a distant speck they\r\nhad descried was assuredly a mountain ridge; but the vapours were\r\ncontinually gathering in such fantastic forms that their unexperienced\r\neyes were soon deceived, and they seldom had to wait long before their\r\nfond delusion was all dispelled. At last, the expected longing was fulfilled. At eight o'clock one\r\nmorning the mists seemed broken up with unusual rapidity, and the\r\nhorizon was singularly clear. Dick had hardly gone aloft when his voice\r\nrung out,--\r\n\r\n\"Land! Land ahead!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "As if summoned by a spell, every one was on deck in an instant: Mrs.\r\nWeldon, sanguine of a speedy end to the general anxiety; little Jack,\r\ngratified at a new object of curiosity; Cousin Benedict, already\r\nscenting a new field for entomological investigation; old Nan; and the\r\nnegroes, eager to set foot upon American soil; all, with the exception\r\nof Negoro, all were on deck; but the cook did not stir from his\r\nsolitude, or betray any sympathy with the general excitement. Whatever hesitation there might be at first soon passed away; one after\r\nanother soon distinguished the shore they were approaching, and in half\r\nan hour there was no room for the most sceptical to doubt that Dick was\r\nright. There was land not far ahead. A few miles to the east there was a long low-lying coast; the chain of\r\nthe Andes ought to be visible; but it was obscured, of course, by the\r\nintervening clouds. The \"Pilgrim\" bore down rapidly towards the land, and in a short time\r\nits configuration could be plainly made out. Towards the north-east the\r\ncoast terminated in a headland of moderate height sheltering a kind of\r\nroadstead; on the south-east it stretched out in a long and narrow\r\ntongue. The Andes were still wanting to the scene; they must be\r\nsomewhere in the background; but at present, strange to say, there was\r\nonly a succession of low cliffs with some trees standing out against\r\nthe sky."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No human habitation, no harbour, not even an indication of a\r\nriver-mouth, could anywhere be seen. The wind remained brisk, and the schooner was driving directly towards\r\nthe land, with sails shortened as seemed desirable; but Dick realized\r\nto himself the fact that he was utterly incapable of altering her\r\ncourse. With eager eyes he scrutinized his situation. Straight ahead\r\nwas a reef over which the waves were curling, and around which the surf\r\nmust be tremendous. It could hardly be more than a mile away. The wind\r\nseemed brisker than before. After gazing awhile, Dick seemed to have come to a sudden resolution. He went quickly aft and took the helm. He had seen a little cove, and\r\nhad made up his mind that he would try and make his way into it. He did\r\nnot speak a word; he knew the difficulty of the task he had undertaken;\r\nhe was aware from the white foam, that there was shallow water on\r\neither hand; but he kept the secret of the peril to himself, and sought\r\nno counsel in coming to his fixed resolve. Dingo had been trotting up and down the deck. All at once he bounded to\r\nthe fore, and broke out into a piteous howl. It roused Dick from his\r\nanxious cogitations. Was it possible that the animal recognized the\r\ncoast? It almost seemed as if it brought back some painful associations."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The howling of the dog had manifestly attracted Negoro's attention; the\r\nman emerged from his cabin, and, regardless of the dog, stood close to\r\nthe netting; but although he gazed at the surf, it did not seem to\r\noccasion him any alarm. Mrs. Weldon, who was watching him, fancied she\r\nsaw a flush rise to his face, which involuntarily suggested the thought\r\nto her mind that Negoro had seen the place before. Either she had no time or no wish to express what had struck her, for\r\nshe did not mention it to Dick, who, at that moment, left the helm, and\r\ncame and stood beside her. Dick looked as if he were taking a lingering farewell of the cove past\r\nwhich they were being carried beyond his power to help. In a few moments he turned round to Mrs. Weldon, and said quietly,--\r\n\r\n\"Mrs. Weldon, I am disappointed. I hoped to get the schooner into\r\nyonder cove; but there is no chance now; if nothing is done, in half an\r\nhour she will be upon that reef. I have but one alternative left. I\r\nmust run her aground. It will be utter destruction to the ship, but\r\nthere is no choice. Your safety is the first and paramount\r\nconsideration.\" \"Do you mean that there is no other course to be taken, Dick?\" \"None whatever,\" said Dick decidedly. \"It must be as you will,\" she said. Forthwith ensued the agitating preparations for stranding."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Weldon,\r\nJack, Cousin Benedict, and Nan were provided with life belts, while\r\nDick and the negroes made themselves ready for being dashed into the\r\nwaves. Every precaution that the emergency admitted was duly taken. Mrs. Weldon was entrusted to the special charge of Hercules; Dick made\r\nhimself responsible for doing all he could for little Jack; Cousin\r\nBenedict, who was tolerably calm, was handed over to Bat and Austin;\r\nwhile Actæon promised to look after Nan. Negoro's nonchalance implied\r\nthat he was quite capable of shifting for himself. Dick had the forethought also to order about a dozen barrels of their\r\ncargo to be brought in front, so that when the \"Pilgrim\" struck, the\r\noil escaping and floating on the waves would temporarily lull their\r\nfury, and make smoother water for the passage of the ship. After satisfying himself that there was no other measure to be taken to\r\nameliorate the peril, Dick Sands returned to the helm. The schooner was\r\nall but upon the reef, and only a few cables' length from the shore;\r\nher starboard quarter indeed was already bathed in the seething foam,\r\nand any instant the keel might be expected to grate upon the\r\nunder-lying rock. Presently a change of colour in the water was\r\nobserved; it revealed a passage between the rocks. Dick gave the wheel\r\na turn; he saw the chance of getting aground nearer to the shore than\r\nhe had dared to hope, and he made the most of it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He steered the\r\nschooner right into the narrow channel; the sea was furious, and dashed\r\nvehemently upon the crags on either hand. [Illustration: The sea was furious, and dashed vehemently upon the\r\ncrags on either hand]\r\n\r\n\"Now, my lads!\" he cried to his crew, \"now's your time; out with your\r\noil! let it run!\" Ready for the order, the negroes poured out the oil, and the raging\r\nwaters were stilled as if by magic. A few moments more and perchance\r\nthey would rage more vehemently than ever. But for the instant they\r\nwere lulled. The \"Pilgrim,\" meanwhile, had glided onwards, and made dead for the\r\nadjacent shore. There was a sudden shock. Caught by an enormous wave\r\nthe schooner had been hurled aground; her masts had fallen, fortunately\r\nwithout injury to any one on board. But the vessel had parted\r\namidships, and was foundering; the water was rushing irresistibly into\r\nthe hold. The shore, however, was not half a cable's length away; there was a\r\nlow, dark ridge of rocks that was united to the beach; it afforded\r\nample means of rescue, and in less than ten minutes the \"Pilgrim's\"\r\ncaptain, crew, and passengers were all landed, with their lives, at the\r\nfoot of the overhanging cliff. CHAPTER XIV. ASHORE. Thus, after a voyage of seventy-four days, the \"Pilgrim\" had stranded."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Weldon and her fellow-voyagers joined in thanksgiving to the kind\r\nProvidence that had brought them ashore, not upon one of the solitary\r\nislands of Polynesia, but upon a solid continent, from almost any part\r\nof which there would be no difficulty in getting home. The ship was totally lost. She was lying in the surf a hopeless wreck,\r\nand few must be the hours that would elapse before she would be broken\r\nup in scattered fragments; it was impossible to save her. Notwithstanding that Dick Sands bewailed the loss of a valuable ship\r\nand her cargo to the owner, he had the satisfaction of knowing that he\r\nhad been instrumental in saving what was far more precious, the lives\r\nof the owner's wife and son. It was impossible to do more than hazard a conjecture as to the part of\r\nthe South American coast on which the \"Pilgrim\" had been cast. Dick\r\nimagined that it must be somewhere on the coast of Peru; after sighting\r\nEaster Island, he knew that the united action of the equatorial current\r\nand the brisk wind must have had the effect of driving the schooner far\r\nnorthward, and he formed his conclusion accordingly. Be the true\r\nposition, however, what it might, it was all important that it should\r\nbe accurately ascertained as soon as possible. If it were really in\r\nPeru, he would not be long in finding his way to one of the numerous\r\nports and villages that lie along the coast."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the shore here was quite a desert. A narrow strip of beach, strewn\r\nwith boulders, was enclosed by a cliff of no great height, in which, at\r\nirregular intervals, deep funnels appeared as chasms in the rock. Here\r\nand there a gentle slope led to the top. About a quarter of a mile to the north was the mouth of a little river\r\nwhich had not been visible from the sea. Its banks were overhung by a\r\nnumber of \"rhizophora,\" a species of mangrove entirely distinct from\r\nthat indigenous to India. It was soon ascertained that the summit of\r\nthe cliff was clothed by a dense forest, extending far away in\r\nundulations of verdure to the mountains in the background. Had Cousin\r\nBenedict been a botanist, he could not have failed to find a new and\r\ninteresting field for his researches; there were lofty baobabs (to\r\nwhich an extraordinary longevity has often been erroneously ascribed),\r\nwith bark resembling Egyptian syenite; there were white pines,\r\ntamarinds, pepper-plants of peculiar species, and numerous other plants\r\nunfamiliar to the eye of a native of the North; but, strange to say,\r\nthere was not a single specimen of the extensive family of palms, of\r\nwhich more than a thousand varieties are scattered in profusion in so\r\nmany quarters of the globe."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Above the shore hovered a large number of screeching birds, mostly of\r\nthe swallow tribe, their black plumage shot with steelly blue, and\r\nshading off to a light brown at the top of the head. Now and then a few\r\npartridges of a greyish colour rose on wing, their necks entirely bare\r\nof feathers: the fearless manner in which the various birds all allowed\r\nthemselves to be approached made Mrs. Weldon and Dick both wonder if\r\nthe shores upon which they had been thrown were not so deserted that\r\nthe sound of fire-arms was not known. On the edge of the reefs some pelicans (of the species known as\r\n_pelicanus minor_) were busily filling their pouches with tiny fish,\r\nand some gulls coming in from the open sea began to circle round the\r\nwreck: with these exceptions not a living creature appeared in sight. Benedict, no doubt, could have discovered many entomological novelties\r\namongst the foliage, but these could give no more information than the\r\nbirds as to the name of their habitat. Neither north, nor south, nor\r\ntowards the forest, was there trace of rising smoke, or any footprint\r\nor other sign to indicate the presence of a human being. Dick's surprise was very great. He knew that the proximity of a native\r\nwould have made Dingo bark aloud; but the dog gave no warning; he was\r\nrunning backwards and forwards, his tail lowered and his nose close to\r\nthe ground; now and again he uttered a deep growl."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Look at Dingo!\" said Mrs. Weldon; \"how strange he is! he seems to be\r\ntrying to discover a lost scent.\" After watching the dog for a time, she spoke again:--\r\n\r\n\"Look, too, at Negoro! he and the dog seem to be on the same purpose!\" \"As to Negoro,\" said Dick, \"I cannot concern myself with him now; he\r\nmust do as he pleases; I have no further control over him; his service\r\nexpires with the loss of the ship.\" Negoro was in fact walking to and fro, surveying the shore with the air\r\nof a man who was trying to recall some past experience to his\r\nrecollection. His dogged taciturnity was too well known for any one to\r\nthink of questioning him; every one was accustomed to let him go his\r\nown way, and when Dick noticed that he had gone towards the little\r\nriver, and had disappeared behind the cliff, he thought no more about\r\nhim. Dingo likewise had quite forgotten his enemy, and desisted from\r\nhis growling. The first necessity for the shipwrecked party was to find a temporary\r\nshelter where they might take some refreshment. There was no lack of\r\nprovisions; independently of the resources of the land, the ebbing tide\r\nhad left upon the rocks the great bulk of the \"Pilgrim's\" stores, and\r\nthe negroes had already collected several kegs of biscuit, and a number\r\nof cases of preserved meat, besides a variety of other supplies."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All\r\nthat they rescued they carefully piled up above high-water mark. As\r\nnothing appeared to be injured by the sea-water, the victualling of the\r\nparty all seemed to be satisfactorily secure for the interval which\r\nmust elapse (and they all believed it would not be long,) before they\r\nreached one of the villages which they presumed were close at hand. Dick, moreover, took the precaution of sending Hercules to get a small\r\nsupply of fresh water from the river hard by, and the good-natured\r\nfellow returned carrying a whole barrel-full on his shoulder. [Illustration: Surveying the shore with the air of a man who was trying\r\nto recall some past experience]\r\n\r\nPlenty of fuel was lying about, and whenever they wanted to light a\r\nfire they were sure of having an abundance of dead wood and the roots\r\nof the old mangroves. Old Tom, an inveterate smoker, always carried a\r\ntinder box in his pocket; this had been too tightly fastened to be\r\naffected by the moisture, and could always produce a spark upon\r\noccasion. Still they must have a shelter. Without some rest it was impossible to\r\nstart upon a tour of exploration; accordingly, all interests were\r\ndirected towards ascertaining where the necessary repose could be\r\nobtained. The honour of discovering where the desired retreat could be found fell\r\nto the lot of little Jack."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Trotting about at the foot of the cliff, he\r\ncame upon one of those grottoes which are constantly being found\r\nhollowed out in the rock by the vehement action of the waves in times\r\nof tempest. \"Here, look here!\" cried the child; \"here's a place!\" \"Well done, Jack!\" answered his mother; \"your lucky discovery is just\r\nwhat we wanted. If we were going to stay here any time we should have\r\nto do the same as the Swiss Family Robinson, and name the spot after\r\nyou!\" It was hardly more than twelve or fourteen feet square, and yet the\r\ngrotto seemed to Jack to be a gigantic cavern. But narrow as its limits\r\nwere, it was capacious enough to receive the entire party. It was a\r\ngreat satisfaction to Mrs. Weldon to observe that it was perfectly dry,\r\nand as the moon was just about her first quarter there was no\r\nlikelihood of a tide rising to the foot of the cliff. At any rate, it\r\nwas resolved that they might take up their quarters there for a few\r\nhours. Shortly after one o'clock the whole party were seated upon a carpet of\r\nseaweed round a repast consisting of preserved meat, biscuit, and water\r\nflavoured with a few drops of rum, of which Bat had saved a quart\r\nbottle from the wreck. Even Negoro had returned and joined the group;\r\nprobably he had not cared to venture alone along the bank of the stream\r\ninto the forest."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He sat listening, as it seemed indifferently, to the\r\nvarious plans for the future that were being discussed, and did not\r\nopen his mouth either by way of remonstrance or suggestion. Dingo was not forgotten, and had his share of food duly given him\r\noutside the grotto, where he was keeping guard. When the meal was ended, Mrs. Weldon, passing her arms round Jack, who\r\nwas lounging half asleep with excitement and fatigue at her side, was\r\nthe first to speak. \"My dear Dick,\" she said, \"in the name of us all, let me thank you for\r\nthe services you have rendered us in our tedious time of difficulty. As\r\nyou have been our captain at sea, let me beg you to be our guide upon\r\nland. We shall have perfect confidence in your judgment, and await your\r\ninstructions as to what our next proceedings shall be.\" All eyes were turned upon Dick. Even Negoro appeared to be roused to\r\ncuriosity, as if eager to know what he had to say. Dick did not speak for some moments. He was manifestly pondering what\r\nstep he should advise. After a while he said,--\r\n\r\n\"My own impression, Mrs. Weldon, is that we have been cast ashore upon\r\none of the least-frequented parts of the coast of Peru, and that we are\r\nnear the borders of the Pampas. In that case I should conclude that we\r\nare at a considerable distance from any village."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now, I should\r\nrecommend that we stay here altogether for the coming night. To-morrow\r\nmorning, two of us can start off on an exploring expedition. I\r\nentertain but little doubt that natives will be met with within ten or\r\na dozen miles.\" Mrs. Weldon looked doubtful. Plainly she thought unfavourably of the\r\nproject of separating the party. She reflected for a considerable time,\r\nand then asked,--\r\n\r\n\"And who is to undertake the task of exploring?\" Prompt was Dick's answer:--\r\n\r\n\"Tom and I.\" \"And leave us here?\" suggested the lady. \"Yes; to take care of you, there will be Hercules, Bat, Actæon and\r\nAustin. Negoro, too, I presume, means to remain here,\" said Dick,\r\nglancing towards the cook. \"Perhaps,\" replied Negoro, sparing as ever of his words. \"We shall take Dingo,\" added Dick; \"likely enough he may be useful.\" At the sound of his name the dog had entered the grotto. A short bark\r\nseemed to testify his approval of Dick's proposal. Mrs. Weldon was silent. She looked sad and thoughtful. It was hard to\r\nreconcile herself to the division of the party. She was aware that the\r\nseparation would not be for long, but she could not suppress a certain\r\nfeeling of nervousness. Was it not possible that some natives,\r\nattracted by the wreck, would assault them in hopes of plunder? Every argument he could think of, Dick brought forward to reassure the\r\nlady."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He told her that the Indians were perfectly harmless, and\r\nentirely different to the savage tribes of Africa and Polynesia; there\r\nwas no reason to apprehend any mischief, even if they should chance to\r\nencounter them, which was itself extremely unlikely. No doubt the\r\nseparation would have its inconveniences, but they would be\r\ninsignificant compared with the difficulty of traversing the country\r\n_en masse_. Tom and he would have far greater freedom if they went\r\nalone, and could make their investigations much more thoroughly. Finally he promised that if within two days they failed to discover\r\nhuman habitation, they would return to the grotto forthwith. \"I confess, however,\" he added, \"that I have little expectation of\r\nbeing able to ascertain our true position, until I have penetrated some\r\ndistance into the country.\" There was nothing in Dick's representations but what commanded Mrs.\r\nWeldon's assent as reasonable. It was simply her own nervousness, she\r\nacknowledged, that made her hesitate; but it was only with extreme\r\nreluctance that she finally yielded to the proposition. \"And what, Mr. Benedict, is your opinion of my proposal?\" said Dick,\r\nturning to the entomologist. \"I?\" answered Cousin Benedict, looking somewhat bewildered, \"Oh, I am\r\nagreeable to anything. I dare say I shall find some specimens. I think\r\nI will go and look at once.\" \"Take my advice, and don't go far away,\" replied Dick. \"All right; I shall take care of myself.\" \"And don't be bringing back a lot of mosquitoes,\" said old Tom\r\nmischievously."}
{"question": "", "answer": "With his box under his arm, the naturalist left the grotto. Negoro followed almost immediately. He did not take the same direction\r\nas Benedict up the cliff, but for the second time bent his steps\r\ntowards the river, and proceeded along its bank till he was out of\r\nsight. It was not long before Jack's exertions told upon him, and he fell into\r\na sound sleep. Mrs. Weldon having gently laid him on Nan's lap,\r\nwandered out and made her way to the water's edge. She was soon joined\r\nby Dick and the negroes, who wanted to see whether it was possible to\r\nget to the \"Pilgrim,\" and secure any articles that might be serviceable\r\nfor future use. The reef on which the schooner had stranded was now\r\nquite dry, and the carcase of the vessel which had been partially\r\ncovered at high water was lying in the midst of _debris_ of the most\r\npromiscuous character. The wide difference between high and low-water\r\nmark caused Dick Sands no little surprise. He knew that the tides on\r\nthe shores of the Pacific were very inconsiderable; in his own mind,\r\nhowever, he came to the conclusion that the phenomenon was to be\r\nexplained by the unusually high wind that had been blowing on the coast. Not without emotion could Mrs. Weldon, or indeed any of them, behold\r\nthe unfortunate ship upon which they had spent so many eventful days,\r\nlying dismasted on her side. But there was little time for sentiment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If they wished to visit the hull before it finally went to pieces there\r\nmust be no delay. Hoisting themselves by some loose rigging that was hanging from the\r\ndeck, Dick and several of the negroes contrived to make their way into\r\nthe interior of the hull. Dick left his men to gather together all they\r\ncould in the way of food and drink from the store-room, and himself\r\nwent straight to the stern cabin, into which the water had not\r\npenetrated. Here he found four excellent Purday's Remington rifles and\r\na hundred cartridges; with these he determined to arm his party, in\r\ncase they should be attacked by Indians. He also chose six of the\r\nstrongest of the cutlasses that are used for slicing up dead whales;\r\nand did not forget the little toy gun which was Jack's special\r\nproperty. Unexpectedly he found a pocket-compass, which he was only too\r\nglad to appropriate. What a boon it would have been had he discovered\r\nit earlier! The ship's charts in the fore-cabin were too much injured\r\nby water to be of any further service. Nearly everything was either\r\nlost or spoiled, but the misfortune was not felt very acutely because\r\nthere was ample provision for a few days, and it seemed useless to\r\nburden themselves with more than was necessary."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick hardly needed Mrs.\r\nWeldon's advice to secure all the money that might be on board, but\r\nafter the most diligent search he failed to discover more than five\r\nhundred dollars. This was a subject of perplexity. Mrs. Weldon herself\r\nhad had a considerably larger sum than this, and Captain Hull was known\r\nalways to keep a good reserve in hand. There was but one way to solve\r\nthe mystery. Some one had been beforehand to the wreck. It could not be\r\nany of the negroes, as not one of them had for a moment left the\r\ngrotto. Suspicion naturally fell upon Negoro, who had been out alone\r\nupon the shore. Morose and cold-blooded as the man was, Dick hardly\r\nknew why he should suspect him of the crime of theft; nevertheless, he\r\ndetermined to cross-examine him, and, if need be, to have him searched,\r\nas soon as he came back. [Illustration: Not without emotion could Mrs. Weldon, or indeed any of\r\nthem, behold the unfortunate ship.] The day wore onwards to its close. The sun was approaching the vernal\r\nequinox, and sank almost perpendicularly on to the horizon. Twilight\r\nwas very short, and the rapidity with which darkness came on confirmed\r\nDick in his belief that they had got ashore at some spot lying between\r\nthe tropic of Capricorn and the equator. They all assembled in the grotto again for the purpose of getting some\r\nsleep. \"Another rough night coming on!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "said Tom, pointing to the heavy clouds\r\nthat hung over the horizon. \"No doubt, Tom!\" answered Dick, \"and I think we may congratulate\r\nourselves on being safe out of our poor ship.\" As the night could not be otherwise than very dark, it was arranged\r\nthat the negroes should take their turns in keeping guard at the\r\nentrance of the grotto. Dingo also would be upon the alert. Benedict had not yet returned. Hercules shouted his name with the full\r\nstrength of his capacious lungs, and shortly afterwards the\r\nentomologist was seen making his way down the face of the cliff at the\r\nimminent risk of breaking his neck. He was in a great rage. He had not\r\nfound a single insect worth having, scorpions, scolopendra, and other\r\nmyriapoda were in the forest in abundance; but not one of these of\r\ncourse could be allowed a place in his collection. \"Have I come six thousand miles for this?\" he cried: \"have I endured\r\nstorm and shipwreck only to be cast where not a hexapod is to be seen? The country is detestable! I shall not stay in it another hour!\" Ever gentle to his eccentricities, Mrs. Weldon soothed him as she would\r\na child, she told him that he had better take some rest now, and most\r\nlikely he would have better luck to-morrow. Cousin Benedict had hardly been pacified when Tom remarked that Negoro\r\ntoo had not returned. \"Never mind!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "said Bat, \"his room is as good as his company.\" \"I cannot say that I altogether think so. The man is no favourite of\r\nmine, but I like him better under my own eye,\" said Mrs. Weldon. \"Perhaps he has his own reasons for keeping away,\" said Dick, and\r\ntaking Mrs. Weldon aside, he communicated to her his suspicions of the\r\nfellow's dishonesty. He found that she coincided with him in her view of Negoro's conduct;\r\nbut she did not agree with him in his proposal to have him searched at\r\nonce. If he returned, she should be convinced that he had deposited the\r\nmoney in some secret spot; and as there would be no proof of his guilt,\r\nit would be better to leave him, at least for a time, uninterrogated. [Illustration: The entomologist was seen making his way down the face\r\nof the cliff at the imminent risk of breaking his neck.] Dick was convinced by her representations, and promised to act upon her\r\nadvice. Before they resigned themselves to sleep, they had repeatedly summoned\r\nNegoro back, but he either could not or would not hear. Mrs. Weldon and\r\nDick scarcely knew what to think; unless he had lost his way; it was\r\nunaccountable why he should be wandering about alone on a dark night in\r\na strange country. Presently Dingo was heard barking furiously. He had left the opening of\r\nthe grotto, and was evidently down at the water's edge."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Imagining that\r\nNegoro must be coming, Dick sent three of the negroes in the direction\r\nof the river to meet him; but when they reached the bank not a soul\r\ncould be seen, and as Dingo was quiet again, they made their way back\r\nto the grotto. Excepting the man left on watch, they now all lay down, hoping to get\r\nsome repose. Mrs. Weldon, however, could not sleep. The land for which\r\nshe had sighed so ardently had been reached, but it had failed to give\r\neither the security or the comfort which she had anticipated! CHAPTER XV. A STRANGER. At daybreak, next morning, Austin, who happened to be on guard, heard\r\nDingo bark, and noticed that he started up and ran towards the river. Arousing the inmates of the grotto, he announced to them that some one\r\nwas coming. \"It isn't Negoro,\" said Tom; \"Dingo would bark louder than that if\r\nNegoro were to be seen.\" \"Who, then, can it be?\" asked Mrs. Weldon, with an inquiring glance\r\ntowards Dick. \"We must wait and see, madam,\" replied Dick quietly. Bidding Bat, Austin, and Hercules follow his example, Dick Sands took\r\nup a cutlass and a rifle, into the breach of which he slipped a\r\ncartridge. Thus armed, the four young men made their way towards the\r\nriver bank. Tom and Actæon were left with Mrs. Weldon at the entrance\r\nof the grotto. The sun was just rising."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Its rays, intercepted by the lofty range of\r\nmountains in the east, did not fall directly on the cliff; but the sea\r\nto its western horizon was sparkling in the sunbeams as the party\r\nmarched along the shore. Dingo was motionless as a setter, but did not\r\ncease barking. It soon proved not to be his old enemy who was\r\ndisturbing him. A man, who was not Negoro, appeared round the angle of\r\nthe cliff, and advancing cautiously along the bank of the stream,\r\nseemed by his gestures to be endeavouring to pacify the dog, with which\r\nan encounter would certainly have been by no means desirable. \"That's not Negoro!\" said Hercules. [Illustration: \"Good morning, my young friend.\"] \"No loss for any of us,\" muttered Bat. \"You are right,\" replied Dick; \"perhaps he is a native; let us hope he\r\nmay be able to tell us our whereabouts, and save us the trouble of\r\nexploring.\" With their rifles on their shoulders, they advanced steadily towards\r\nthe new arrival. The stranger, on becoming aware of their approach,\r\nmanifested great surprise; he was apparently puzzled as to how they had\r\nreached the shore, for the \"Pilgrim\" had been entirely broken up during\r\nthe night, and the spars that were floating about had probably been too\r\nfew and too scattered to attract his attention."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His first attitude\r\nseemed to betray something of fear; and raising to his shoulder a gun\r\nthat had been slung to his belt, he began to retrace his steps; but\r\nconciliatory gestures on the part of Dick quickly reassured him, and\r\nafter a moment's hesitation, he continued to advance. He was a man of about forty years of age, strongly built, with a keen,\r\nbright eye, grizzly hair and beard, and a complexion tanned as with\r\nconstant exposure to the forest air. He wore a broad-brimmed hat, a\r\nkind of leather jerkin, or tunic, and long boots reaching nearly to his\r\nknees. To his high heels was fastened a pair of wide-rowelled spurs,\r\nwhich clanked as he moved. Dick Sands in an instant saw that he was not looking upon one of the\r\nroving Indians of the pampas, but upon one of those adventurers, often\r\nof very doubtful character, who are not unfrequently to be met with in\r\nthe remotest quarters of the earth. Clearly this was neither an Indian\r\nnor a Spaniard. His erect, not to say rigid deportment, and the reddish\r\nhue with which his hair and beard were streaked, betokened him to be of\r\nAnglo-Saxon origin, a conjecture which was at once confirmed when upon\r\nDick's wishing him \"good morning,\" he replied in unmistakable English,\r\nwith hardly a trace of foreign accent,--\r\n\r\n\"Good morning, my young friend.\" He stepped forward, and having shaken hands with Dick, nodded to all\r\nhis companions. \"Are you English?\" he asked."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No; we are Americans,\" replied Dick. \"North or South?\" inquired the man. \"North,\" Dick answered. The information seemed to afford the stranger no little satisfaction,\r\nand he again wrung Dick's hand with all the enthusiasm of a\r\nfellow-countryman. \"And may I ask what brings you here?\" he continued. Before, however, Dick had time to reply, the stranger had courteously\r\nraised his hat, and, looking round, Dick saw that his bow was intended\r\nfor Mrs. Weldon, who had just reached the river-bank. She proceeded to\r\ntell him the particulars of how they had been shipwrecked, and how the\r\nvessel had gone to pieces on the reefs. A look of pity crossed the man's face as he listened, and he cast his\r\neye, as it might be involuntarily, upon the sea, in order to discern\r\nsome vestige of the stranded ship. \"Ah! there is nothing to be seen of our poor schooner!\" said Dick\r\nmournfully; \"the last of her was broken up in the storm last night.\" \"And now,\" interposed Mrs. Weldon, \"can you tell us where we are?\" \"Where?\" exclaimed the man, with every indication of surprise at her\r\nquestion; \"why, on the coast of South America, of course!\" \"But on what part? are we near Peru?\" Dick inquired eagerly. \"No, my lad, no; you are more to the south; you are on the coast of\r\nBolivia; close to the borders of Chili.\" \"A good distance, I suppose, from Lima?\" asked Dick. \"From Lima?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "yes, a long way; Lima is far to the north.\" \"And what is the name of that promontory?\" Dick said, pointing to the\r\nadjacent headland. \"That, I confess, is more than I am able to tell you,\" replied the\r\nstranger; \"for although I have travelled a great deal in the interior\r\nof the country, I have never before visited this part of the coast.\" Dick pondered in thoughtful silence over the information he had thus\r\nreceived. He had no reason to doubt its accuracy; according to his own\r\nreckoning he would have expected to come ashore somewhere between the\r\nlatitudes of 27° and 30°; and by this stranger's showing he had made\r\nthe latitude 25°; the discrepancy was not very great; it was not more\r\nthan might be accounted for by the action of the currents, which he\r\nknew he had been unable to estimate; moreover, the deserted character\r\nof the whole shore inclined him to believe more easily that he was in\r\nLower Bolivia. Whilst this conversation was going on, Mrs. Weldon, whose suspicions\r\nhad been excited by Negoro's disappearance, had been scrutinizing the\r\nstranger with the utmost attention; but she could detect nothing either\r\nin his manner or in his words to give her any cause to doubt his good\r\nfaith. \"Pardon me,\" she said presently; \"but you do not seem to me to be a\r\nnative of Peru?\" \"No; like yourself, I am an American, Mrs. ----;\" he paused, as if\r\nwaiting to be told her name."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The lady smiled, and gave her name; he thanked her, and continued,--\r\n\r\n\"My name is Harris. I was born in South Carolina; but it is now twenty\r\nyears since I left my home for the pampas of Bolivia; imagine,\r\ntherefore, how much pleasure it gives me to come across some countrymen\r\nof my own.\" \"Do you live in this part of the province, Mr. Harris?\" Mrs. Weldon\r\nasked. \"No, indeed; far away; I live down to the south, close to the borders\r\nof Chili. At present I am taking a journey north-eastwards to Atacama.\" \"Atacama!\" exclaimed Dick; \"are we anywhere near the desert of Atacama?\" \"Yes, my young friend,\" rejoined Harris, \"you are just on the edge of\r\nit. It extends far beyond those mountains which you see on the horizon,\r\nand is one of the most curious and least explored parts of the\r\ncontinent.\" \"And are you travelling through it alone?\" Mrs. Weldon inquired. \"Yes, quite alone; and it is not the first time I have performed the\r\njourney. One of my brothers owns a large farm, the hacienda of San\r\nFelice, about 200 miles from here, and I have occasion now and then to\r\npay him business visits.\" [Illustration: \"He is my little son.\"]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "After a moment's hesitation, as if he were weighing a sudden thought,\r\nhe continued,--\r\n\r\n\"I am on my way there now, and if you will accompany me I can promise\r\nyou a hearty welcome, and my brother will be most happy to do his best\r\nto provide you with means of conveyance to San Francisco.\" Mrs. Weldon had hardly begun to express her thanks for the proposal\r\nwhen he said abruptly,--\r\n\r\n\"Are these negroes your slaves?\" \"Slaves! sir,\" replied Mrs. Weldon, drawing herself up proudly; \"we\r\nhave no slaves in the United States. The south has now long followed\r\nthe example of the north. Slavery is abolished.\" \"I beg your pardon, madam. I had forgotten that the war of 1862 had\r\nsolved that question. But seeing these fellows with you, I thought\r\nperhaps they might be in your service,\" he added, with a slight tone of\r\nirony. \"We are very proud to be of any service to Mrs. Weldon,\" Tom interposed\r\nwith dignity, \"but we are no man's property. It is true I was sold for\r\na slave when I was six years old; but I have long since had my freedom;\r\nand so has my son. Bat here, and all his friends, were born of free\r\nparents.\" \"Ah! well then, I have to congratulate you,\" replied Harris, in a\r\nmanner that jarred very sensibly upon Mrs. Weldon's feelings; but she\r\nsaid nothing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Harris added,--\r\n\r\n\"I can assure you that you are as safe here in Bolivia as you would be\r\nin New England.\" He had not finished speaking, when Jack, followed by Nan, came out of\r\nthe grotto. The child was rubbing his eyes, having only just awakened\r\nfrom his night's sleep. Catching sight of his mother, he darted towards\r\nher. \"What a charming little boy!\" exclaimed Harris. \"He is my little son,\" said Mrs. Weldon, kissing the child by way of\r\nmorning greeting. \"Ah, madam, I am sure you must have suffered doubly on his account. Will the little man let me kiss him too?\" But there was something in the stranger's appearance that did not take\r\nJack's fancy, and he shrank back timidly to his mother's side. \"You must excuse him, sir; he is very shy.\" \"Never mind,\" said Harris; \"we shall be better acquainted by-and-by. When we get to my brother's, he shall have a nice little pony to ride.\" But not even this tempting offer seemed to have any effect in coaxing\r\nJack into a more genial mood. He kept fast hold of his mother's hand,\r\nand she, somewhat vexed at his behaviour, and anxious that no offence\r\nshould be given to a man who appeared so friendly in his intentions,\r\nhastened to turn the conversation to another topic. Meantime Dick Sands had been considering Harris's proposal."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Upon the\r\nwhole, the plan of making their way to the hacienda of San Felice\r\nseemed to commend itself to his judgment; but he could not conceal from\r\nhimself that a journey of 200 miles across plains and forests, without\r\nany means of transport, would be extremely fatiguing. On expressing his\r\ndoubts on this point, he was met with the reply,--\r\n\r\n\"Oh, that can be managed well enough, young man; just round the corner\r\nof the cliff there I have a horse, which is quite at the disposal of\r\nthe lady and her son; and by easy stages of ten miles or so a day, it\r\nwill do the rest of us no harm to travel on foot. Besides,\" he added,\r\n\"when I spoke of the journey being 200 miles, I was thinking of\r\nfollowing, as I usually do, the course of the river; but by taking a\r\nshort cut across the forest, we may reduce the distance by nearly\r\neighty miles.\" Mrs. Weldon was about to say how grateful she was, but Harris\r\nanticipated her. \"Not a word, madam, I beg you. You cannot thank me better than by\r\naccepting my offer. I confess I have never crossed this forest, but I\r\nam so much accustomed to the pampas that I have little fear of losing\r\nmy way. The only difficulty is in the matter of provisions, as I have\r\nonly supplied myself with enough to carry me on to San Felice.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"As to provisions,\" replied Mrs. Weldon, \"we have enough and to spare;\r\nand we shall be more than willing to share everything with you.\" \"That is well,\" answered Harris; \"then there can be no reason why we\r\nshould not start at once.\" He was turning away with the intention of fetching his horse, when Dick\r\nSands detained him. True to his seaman's instincts, the young sailor\r\nfelt that he should be much more at his ease on the sea-shore than\r\ntraversing the heart of an unknown forest. \"Pardon me, Mr. Harris,\" he began, \"but instead of taking so long a\r\njourney across the desert of Atacama, would it not be far better for us\r\nto follow the coast either northwards or southwards, until we reach the\r\nnearest seaport?\" A frown passed over Harris's countenance. \"I know very little about the coast,\" he answered; \"but I know enough\r\nto assure you that there is no town to the north within 300 or 400\r\nmiles.\" \"Then why should we not go south?\" persisted Dick. \"You would then have to travel to Chili, which is almost as far; and,\r\nunder your circumstances, I should not advise you to skirt the pampas\r\nof the Argentine Republic. For my own part, I could not accompany you.\" \"But do not the vessels which ply between Chili and Peru come within\r\nsight of this coast?\" interposed Mrs. Weldon."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No, madam; they keep out so far to sea that there would not be the\r\nfaintest chance of your hailing one.\" \"You seem to have another question to ask Mr. Harris,\" Mrs. Weldon\r\ncontinued, addressing Dick, who still looked rather doubtful. Dick replied that he was about to inquire at what port he would be\r\nlikely to find a ship to convey their party to San Francisco. \"That I really cannot tell you, my young friend,\" rejoined Harris; \"I\r\ncan only repeat my promise that we will furnish you with the means of\r\nconveyance from San Felice to Atacama, where no doubt you will obtain\r\nall the information you require.\" \"I hope you will not think that Dick is insensible to your kindness,\r\nMr. Harris,\" said Mrs. Weldon, apologetically. \"On the contrary,\" promptly observed Dick; \"I fully appreciate it; I\r\nonly wish we had been cast ashore upon a spot where we should have had\r\nno need to intrude upon his generosity.\" \"I assure you, madam, it gives me unbounded pleasure to serve you in\r\nany way,\" said Harris; \"it is, as I have told you, not often that I\r\ncome in contact with any of my own countrymen.\" \"Then we accept your offer as frankly as it is made,\" replied the lady,\r\nadding; \"but I cannot consent to deprive you of your horse. I am a very\r\ngood walker.\" \"So am I,\" said Harris, with a bow, \"and consequently I intend you and\r\nyour little son to ride."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am used to long tramps through the pampas. Besides, it is not at all unlikely that we shall come across some of\r\nthe workpeople belonging to the hacienda; if so, they will be able to\r\ngive us a mount.\" Convinced that it would only be thwarting Mrs. Weldon's wishes to throw\r\nany further impediment in the way, Dick Sands suppressed his desire to\r\nraise fresh obstacles, and simply asked how soon they ought to start. \"This very day, at once,\" said Harris quickly. \"So soon?\" asked Dick. \"Yes. The rainy season begins in April, and the sooner we are at San\r\nFelice the better. The way through the forest is the safest as well as\r\nthe shortest, for we shall be less likely to meet any of the nomad\r\nIndians, who are notorious robbers.\" Without making any direct reply, Dick proceeded to instruct the negroes\r\nto choose such of the provisions as were most easy of transport, and to\r\nmake them up into packages, that every one might carry a due share. Hercules with his usual good nature professed himself willing to carry\r\nthe entire load; a proposal, however, to which Dick would not listen\r\nfor a moment. \"You are a fine fellow, Hercules\" said Harris, scrutinizing the giant\r\nwith the eye of a connoisseur; \"you would be worth something in the\r\nAfrican market.\" \"Those who want me now must catch me first,\" retorted Hercules, with a\r\ngrin."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The services of all hands were enlisted, and in a comparatively short\r\ntime sufficient food was packed up to supply the party for about ten\r\ndays' march. \"You must allow us to show you what hospitality is in our power,\" said\r\nMrs. Weldon, addressing her new acquaintance; \"our breakfast will be\r\nready in a quarter of an hour, and we shall be happy if you will join\r\nus.\" \"It will give me much pleasure,\" answered Harris, gaily; \"I will employ\r\nthe interval in fetching my horse, who has breakfasted already.\" \"I will accompany you,\" said Dick. \"By all means, my young friend; come with me, and I will show you the\r\nlower part of the river.\" While they were gone, Hercules was sent in search of Cousin Benedict,\r\nwho was wandering on the top of the cliff in quest of some wonderful\r\ninsect, which, of course, was not to be found. Without asking his\r\npermission, Hercules unceremoniously brought him back to Mrs. Weldon,\r\nwho explained how they were about to start upon a ten days' march into\r\nthe interior of the country. The entomologist was quite satisfied with\r\nthe arrangement, and declared himself ready for a march across the\r\nentire continent, as long as he was free to be adding to his collection\r\non the way. Thus assured of her cousin's acquiescence in her plans; Mrs. Weldon\r\nproceeded to prepare such a substantial meal as she hoped would\r\ninvigorate them all for the approaching journey."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Harris and Dick Sands, meantime, had turned the corner of the cliff,\r\nand walked about 300 paces along the shore until they came to a tree to\r\nwhich a horse was tethered. The creature neighed as it recognized its\r\nmaster. It was a strong-built animal, of a kind that Dick had not seen\r\nbefore, although its long neck and crupper, short loins, flat shoulders\r\nand arched forehead indicated that it was of Arabian breed. [Illustration: They came to a tree to which a horse was tethered.] \"Plenty of strength here,\" Harris said, as after unfastening the horse,\r\nhe took it by the bridle and began to lead it along the shore. Dick made no reply; he was casting a hasty glance at the forest which\r\nenclosed them on either hand; it was an unattractive sight, but he\r\nobserved nothing to give him any particular ground for uneasiness. Turning round, he said abruptly,--\r\n\r\n\"Did you meet a Portuguese last night, named Negoro?\" \"Negoro? who is Negoro?\" asked Harris, in a tone of surprise. \"He was our ship's cook; but he has disappeared.\" \"Drowned, probably,\" said Harris indifferently. \"No, he was not drowned; he was with us during the evening, but left\r\nafterwards; I thought perhaps you might have met him along the\r\nriver-side, as you came that way.\" \"No,\" said Harris, \"I saw no one; if your cook ventured alone into the\r\nforest, most likely he has lost his way; it is possible we may pick him\r\nup upon our road.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "When they arrived at the grotto, they found breakfast duly prepared. Like the supper of the previous evening it consisted mainly of corned\r\nbeef and biscuit. Harris did ample justice to the repast. \"There is no fear of our starving as we go,\" he observed to Mrs.\r\nWeldon; \"but I can hardly say so much for the unfortunate Portuguese,\r\nyour cook, of whom my young friend here has been speaking.\" \"Ah! has Dick been telling you about Negoro?\" Mrs. Weldon said. Dick explained that he had been inquiring whether Mr. Harris had\r\nhappened to meet him in the direction he had come. \"I saw nothing of him,\" Harris repeated; \"and as he has deserted you,\r\nyou need not give yourselves any concern about him.\" And apparently\r\nglad to turn the subject, he said, \"Now, madam, I am at your service;\r\nshall we start at once?\" It was agreed that there was no cause for delay. Each one took up the\r\npackage that had been assigned him. Mrs. Weldon, with Hercules' help,\r\nmounted the horse, and Jack, with his miniature gun slung across his\r\nshoulder, was placed astride in front of her. Without a thought of\r\nacknowledging the kindness of the good-natured stranger in providing\r\nhim so enjoyable a ride, the heedless little fellow declared himself\r\nquite capable of guiding the \"gentleman's horse,\" and when to indulge\r\nhim the bridle was put into his hand, he looked as proud as though he\r\nhad been appointed leader of the whole caravan."}
{"question": "", "answer": "CHAPTER XVI. THROUGH THE FOREST. Although there was no obvious cause for apprehension, it cannot be\r\ndenied that it was with a certain degree of foreboding that Dick Sands\r\nfirst entered that dense forest, through which for the next ten days\r\nthey were all to wend their toilsome way. Mrs. Weldon, on the contrary, was full of confidence and hope. A woman\r\nand a mother, she might have been expected to be conscious of anxiety\r\nat the peril to which she might be exposing herself and her child; and\r\ndoubtless she would have been sensible of alarm if her mind had not\r\nbeen fully satisfied upon two points; first, that the portion of the\r\npampas they were about to traverse was little infested either by\r\nnatives or by dangerous beasts; and secondly, that she was under the\r\nprotection of a guide so trustworthy as she believed Harris to be. The entrance to the forest was hardly more than three hundred paces up\r\nthe river. An order of march had been arranged which was to be observed\r\nas closely as possible throughout the journey. At the head of the troop\r\nwere Harris and Dick Sands, one armed with his long gun, the other with\r\nhis Remington; next came Bat and Austin, each carrying a gun and a\r\ncutlass, then Mrs. Weldon and Jack, on horseback, closely followed by\r\nTom and old Nan, while Actæon with the fourth Remington, and Hercules\r\nwith a huge hatchet in his waist-belt, brought up the rear."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dingo had\r\nno especial place in the procession, but wandered to and fro at his\r\npleasure. Ever since he had been cast ashore Dick had noticed a\r\nremarkable change in the dog's behaviour; the animal was in a constant\r\nstate of agitation, always apparently on the search for some lost\r\nscent, and repeatedly giving vent to a low growl, which seemed to\r\nproceed from grief rather than from rage. As for Cousin Benedict, his movements were permitted to be nearly as\r\nerratic as Dingo's; nothing but a leading-string could possibly have\r\nkept him in the ranks. With his tin box under his arm, and his\r\nbutterfly net in his hand, and his huge magnifying-glass suspended from\r\nhis neck, he would be sometimes far ahead, sometimes a long way behind,\r\nand at the risk of being attacked by some venomous snake, would make\r\nfrantic dashes into the tall grass whenever he espied some attractive\r\northoptera or other insect which he thought might be honoured by a\r\nplace in his collection. In one hour after starting Mrs. Weldon had called to him a dozen times\r\nwithout the slightest effect. At last she told him seriously that if he\r\nwould not give up chasing the insects at a distance, she should be\r\nobliged to take possession of his tin box. \"Take away my box!\" he cried, with as much horror as if she had\r\nthreatened to tear out his vitals. \"Yes, your box and your net too!\" \"My box and my net!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "but surely not my spectacles!\" almost shrieked the\r\nexcited entomologist. \"Yes, and your spectacles as well!\" added Mrs. Weldon mercilessly; \"I\r\nam glad you have reminded me of another means of reducing you to\r\nobedience!\" The triple penalty of which he was thus warned had the effect of\r\nkeeping him from wandering away for the best part of the next hour, but\r\nhe was soon once more missing from the ranks; he was manifestly\r\nincorrigible; the deprivation of box, net, and spectacles would, it was\r\nacknowledged, be utterly without avail to prevent him from rambling. Accordingly it was thought better to let him have his own way,\r\nespecially as Hercules volunteered to keep his eye upon him, and to\r\nendeavour to guard the worthy naturalist as carefully as he would\r\nhimself protect some precious specimen of a lepidoptera. Further\r\nanxiety on his account was thus put to rest. [Illustration: The way across the forest could scarcely be called a\r\npath.] In spite of Harris's confident assertion that they were little likely\r\nto be molested by any of the nomad Indians, the whole company rejoiced\r\nin feeling that they were well armed, and they resolved to keep in a\r\ncompact body."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The way across the forest could scarcely be called a\r\npath; it was, in fact, little more than the track of animals, and\r\nprogress along it was necessarily very slow; indeed it seemed\r\nimpossible, at the rate they started, to accomplish more than five or\r\nsix miles in the course of twelve hours. The weather was beautifully fine; the sun ascended nearly to the\r\nzenith, and its rays, descending almost perpendicularly, caused a\r\ndegree of heat which, as Harris pointed out, would have been\r\nunendurable upon the open plain, but was here pleasantly tempered by\r\nthe shelter of the foliage. Most of the trees were quite strange to them. To an experienced eye\r\nthey were such as were remarkable more for their character then for\r\ntheir size. Here, on one side, was the bauhinia, or mountain ebony;\r\nthere, on the other, the molompi or pterocarpus, its trunk exuding\r\nlarge quantities of resin, and of which the strong light wood makes\r\nexcellent oars or paddles; further on were fustics heavily charged with\r\ncolouring matter, and guaiacums, twelve feet in diameter, surpassing\r\nthe ordinary kind in magnitude, yet far inferior in quality. Dick Sands kept perpetually asking Harris to tell him the names of all\r\nthese trees and plants. \"Have you never been on the coast of South America before?\" replied\r\nHarris, without giving the explicit information that was sought. \"Never,\" said Dick; \"never before. Nor do I recollect ever having seen\r\nany one who has.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But surely you have explored the coasts of Columbia or Patagonia,\"\r\nHarris continued. Dick avowed that he had never had the chance. \"But has Mrs. Weldon never visited these parts? Our countrymen, I know,\r\nare great travellers.\" \"No,\" answered Mrs. Weldon; \"my husband's business called him\r\noccasionally to New Zealand, but I have accompanied him nowhere else. With this part of Lower Bolivia we are totally unacquainted.\" \"Then, madam, I can only assure you that you will see a most remarkable\r\ncountry, in every way a very striking contrast to the regions of Peru,\r\nBrazil, and the Argentine republic. Its animal and vegetable products\r\nwould fill a naturalist with unbounded wonder. May I not declare it a\r\nlucky chance that has brought you here?\" \"Do not say chance, Mr. Harris, if you please.\" \"Well, then, madam; providence, if you prefer it,\" said Harris, with\r\nthe air of a man incapable of recognizing the distinction. After finding that there was no one amongst them who was acquainted in\r\nany way with the country through which they were travelling, Harris\r\nseemed to exhibit an evident pleasure in pointing out and describing by\r\nname the various wonders of the forest. Had Cousin Benedict's\r\nattainments included a knowledge of botany he would have found himself\r\nin a fine field for researches, and might perchance have discovered\r\nnovelties to which his own name could be appended in the catalogues of\r\nscience."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But he was no botanist; in fact, as a rule, he held all\r\nblossoms in aversion, on the ground that they entrapped insects into\r\ntheir corollæ, and poisoned them sometimes with venomous juices. New\r\nand rare insects, however, seemed hereabouts to be wanting. Occasionally the soil became marshy, and they all had to wend their way\r\nover a perfect network of tiny rivulets that were affluents of the\r\nriver from which they had started. Sometimes these rivulets were so\r\nwide that they could not be passed without a long search for some spot\r\nwhere they could be forded; their banks were all very damp, and in many\r\nplaces abounded with a kind of reed, which Harris called by its proper\r\nname of papyrus. As soon as the marshy district had been passed, the forest resumed its\r\noriginal aspect, the footway becoming narrow as ever. Harris pointed\r\nout some very fine ebony-trees, larger than the common sort, and\r\nyielding a wood darker and more durable than what is ordinarily seen in\r\nthe market. There were also more mango-trees than might have been\r\nexpected at this distance from the sea; a beautiful white lichen\r\nenveloped their trunks like a fur; but in spite of their luxuriant\r\nfoliage and delicious fruit, Harris said that there was not a native\r\nwho would venture to propagate the species, as the superstition of the\r\ncountry is that \"whoever plants a mango, dies!\" [Illustration: Occasionally the soil became marshy.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "At noon a halt was made for the purpose of rest and refreshment. During\r\nthe afternoon they arrived at some gently rising ground, not the first\r\nslopes of hills, but an insulated plateau which appeared to unite\r\nmountains and plains. Notwithstanding that the trees were far less\r\ncrowded and more inclined to grow in detached groups, the numbers of\r\nherbaceous plants with which the soil was covered rendered progress no\r\nless difficult than it was before. The general aspect of the scene was\r\nnot unlike an East Indian jungle. Less luxuriant indeed than in the\r\nlower valley of the river, the vegetation was far more abundant than\r\nthat of the temperate zones either of the Old or New continents. Indigo\r\ngrew in great profusion, and, according to Harris's representation, was\r\nthe most encroaching plant in the whole country; no sooner, he said,\r\nwas a field left untilled, than it was overrun by this parasite, which\r\nsprang up with the rank growth of thistles or nettles. One tree which might have been expected to be common in this part of\r\nthe continent seemed entirely wanting. This was the caoutchouc. Of the\r\nvarious trees from which India-rubber is procured, such as the Ficus\r\nprinoides, the Castilioa elastica, the Cecropia peltata, the Callophora\r\nutilis, the Cameraria latifolia, and especially the Siphonia elastica,\r\nall of which abound in the provinces of South America, not a single\r\nspecimen was to be seen."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick had promised to show Jack an\r\nIndia-rubber-tree, and the child, who had conjured up visions of\r\nsqueaking dolls, balls, and other toys growing upon its branches, was\r\nloud and constant in his expressions of disappointment. \"Never mind, my little man,\" said Harris; \"have patience, and you shall\r\nsee hundreds of India-rubber-trees when you get to the hacienda.\" \"And will they be nice and elastic?\" asked Jack, whose ideas upon the\r\nsubject were of the vaguest order. \"Oh, yes, they will stretch as long as you like,\" Harris answered,\r\nlaughing. \"But here is something to amuse you,\" he added, and as he\r\nspoke, he gathered a fruit that looked as tempting as a peach. \"You are quite sure that it is safe to give it him?\" said Mrs. Weldon\r\nanxiously. \"To satisfy you, madam, I will eat one first myself.\" The example he set was soon followed by all the rest. The fruit was a\r\nmango; that which had been so opportunely discovered was of the sort\r\nthat ripens in March or April; there is a later kind which ripens in\r\nSeptember. With his mouth full of juice, Jack pronounced that it was\r\nvery nice, but did not seem to be altogether diverted from his sense of\r\ndisappointment at not coming to an India-rubber-tree. Evidently the\r\nlittle man thought himself rather injured. \"And Dick promised me some humming-birds too!\" he murmured."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Plenty of humming-birds for you, when you get to the farm; lots of\r\nthem where my brother lives,\" said Harris. And to say the truth, there was nothing extravagant in the way the\r\nchild's anticipations had been raised, for in Bolivia humming-birds are\r\nfound in great abundance. The Indians, who weave their plumage into all\r\nkinds of artistic designs, have bestowed the most poetical epithets\r\nupon these gems of the feathered race. They call them \"rays of the\r\nsun,\" and \"tresses of the day-star;\" at one time they will describe\r\nthem as \"king of flowers,\" at another as \"blossoms of heaven kissing\r\nblossoms of earth,\" or as \"the jewel that reflects the sunbeam.\" In\r\nfact their imagination seems to have shaped a suitable distinction for\r\nalmost every one of the 150 known species of this dazzling little\r\nbeauty. But however numerous humming-birds might be expected to be in the\r\nBolivian forest, they proved scarce enough at present, and Jack had to\r\ncontent himself with Harris's representations that they did not like\r\nsolitude, but would be found plentifully at San Felice, where they\r\nwould be heard all day long humming like a spinning-wheel. Already Jack\r\nsaid he longed to be there, a wish that was so unanimously echoed by\r\nall the rest, that they resolved that no stoppage should be allowed\r\nbeyond what was absolutely indispensable. After a time the forest began to alter its aspect. The trees were even\r\nless crowded, opening now and then into wide glades."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The soil, cropping\r\nup above its carpet of verdure, exhibited veins of rose granite and\r\nsyenite, like plates of lapis lazuli; on some of the higher ground, the\r\nfleshy tubers of the sarsaparilla plant, growing in a hopeless\r\nentanglement, made progress a matter of still greater difficulty than\r\nin the narrow tracks of the dense forest. At sunset the travellers found that they had accomplished about eight\r\nmiles from their starting-point. They could not prognosticate what\r\nhardships might be in store for them on future days, but it was certain\r\nthat the experiences of the first day had been neither eventful nor\r\nvery fatiguing. It was now unanimously agreed that they should make a\r\nhalt for the night, and as little was to be apprehended from the\r\nattacks either of man or beast, it was considered unnecessary to form\r\nanything like a regular encampment. One man on guard, to be relieved\r\nevery few hours, was presumed to be sufficient. Admirable shelter was\r\noffered by an enormous mango, the spreading foliage of which formed a\r\nkind of natural verandah, sweeping the ground so thoroughly that any\r\none who chose could find sleeping-quarters in its very branches. Simultaneously with the halting of the party there was heard a\r\ndeafening tumult in the upper boughs. The mango was the roosting place\r\nof a colony of grey parrots, a noisy, quarrelsome, and rapacious race,\r\nof whose true characteristics the specimens seen in confinement in\r\nEurope give no true conception."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Their screeching and chattering were\r\nsuch a nuisance that Dick Sands wanted to fire a shot into the middle\r\nof them, but Harris seriously dissuaded him, urging that the report of\r\nfirearms would only serve to reveal their own presence, whilst their\r\ngreatest safety lay in perfect silence. Supper was prepared. There was little need of cooking. The meal, as\r\nbefore, consisted of preserved meat and biscuit. Fresh water, which\r\nthey flavoured with a few drops of rum, was obtained from an adjacent\r\nstream which trickled through the grass. By way of dessert they had an\r\nabundance of ripe mangoes, and the only drawback to their general\r\nenjoyment was the discordant outcry which the parrots kept up, as it\r\nwere in protest against the invasion of what they held to be their own\r\nrightful domain. It was nearly dark when supper was ended. The evening shade crept\r\nslowly upwards to the tops of the trees, which soon stood out in sharp\r\nrelief against the lighter background of the sky, while the stars, one\r\nby one, began to peep. The wind dropped, and ceased to murmur through\r\nthe foliage; to the general relief, the parrots desisted from their\r\nclatter; and as Nature hushed herself to rest, she seemed to be\r\ninviting all her children to follow her example. \"Had we not better light a good large fire?\" asked Dick."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"By no means,\" said Harris; \"the nights are not cold, and under this\r\nwide-spreading mango the ground is not likely to be damp. Besides, as I\r\nhave told you before, our best security consists in our taking care to\r\nattract no attention whatever from without.\" Mrs. Weldon interposed,--\r\n\r\n\"It may be true enough that we have nothing to dread from the Indians,\r\nbut is it certain that there are no dangerous quadrupeds against which\r\nwe are bound to be upon our guard?\" Harris answered,--\r\n\r\n\"I can positively assure you, madam, that there are no animals here but\r\nsuch as would be infinitely more afraid of you than you would be of\r\nthem.\" \"Are there any woods without wild beasts?\" asked Jack. \"All woods are not alike, my boy,\" replied Harris; \"this wood is a\r\ngreat park. As the Indians say, 'Es como el Pariso;' it is like\r\nParadise.\" Jack persisted,--\r\n\r\n\"There must be snakes, and lions, and tigers.\" \"Ask your mamma, my boy,\" said Harris, \"whether she ever heard of lions\r\nand tigers in America?\" Mrs. Weldon was endeavouring to put her little boy at his ease on this\r\npoint, when Cousin Benedict interposed, saying that although there were\r\nno lions or tigers, there were plenty of jaguars and panthers in the\r\nNew World. \"And won't they kill us?\" demanded Jack eagerly, his apprehensions once\r\nmore aroused. \"Kill you?\" laughed Harris; \"why, your friend Hercules here could\r\nstrangle them, two at a time, one in each hand!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But, please, don't let the panthers come near me!\" pleaded Jack,\r\nevidently alarmed. \"No, no, Master Jack, they shall not come near you. I will give them a\r\ngood grip first,\" and the giant displayed his two rows of huge white\r\nteeth. Dick Sands proposed that it should be the four younger negroes who\r\nshould be assigned the task of keeping watch during the night, in\r\nattendance upon himself; but Actæon insisted so strongly upon the\r\nnecessity of Dick's having his full share of rest, that the others were\r\nsoon brought to the same conviction, and Dick was obliged to yield. Jack valiantly announced his intention of taking one watch, but his\r\nsleepy eyelids made it only too plain that he did not know the extent\r\nof his own fatigue. \"I am sure there are wolves here,\" he said. \"Only such wolves as Dingo would swallow at a mouthful,\" said Harris. \"But I am sure there are wolves,\" he insisted, repeating the word\r\n\"wolves\" again and again, until he tumbled off to sleep against the\r\nside of old Nan. Mrs. Weldon gave her little son a silent kiss; it was\r\nher loving \"good night.\" Cousin Benedict was missing. Some little time before, he had slipped\r\naway in search of \"cocuyos,\" or fire-flies, which he had heard were\r\ncommon in South America."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Those singular insects emit a bright bluish light from two spots on the\r\nside of the thorax, and their colours are so brilliant that they are\r\nused as ornaments for ladies' headdresses. Hoping to secure some\r\nspecimens for his box, Benedict would have wandered to an unlimited\r\ndistance; but Hercules, faithful to his undertaking, soon discovered\r\nhim, and heedless of the naturalist's protestations and vociferations,\r\npromptly escorted him back to the general rendezvous. Hercules himself was the first to keep watch, but with this exception,\r\nthe whole party, in another hour, were wrapped in peaceful slumber. [Illustration: Hercules himself was the first to keep watch.] CHAPTER XVII\r\n\r\nMISGIVINGS. Most travellers who have passed a night in a South American forest have\r\nbeen roused from their slumbers by a _matinée musicale_ more fantastic\r\nthan melodious, performed by monkeys, as their ordinary greeting of the\r\ndawn. The yelling, chattering, screeching, howling, all unite to form a\r\nchorus almost unearthly in its hideousness. Amongst the various specimens of the numerous family of the quadrumana\r\nought to be recognized the little marikina; the sagouin, with its\r\nparti-coloured face; the grey mora, the skin of which is used by the\r\nIndians for covering their gun-locks; the sapajou, with its singular\r\ntuft over the forehead, and, most remarkable of all, the guariba\r\n(_Simia Beelzebul_) with its prehensile tail and diabolical countenance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At the first streak of daylight the senior member, as choragus, will\r\nstart the key-note in a sonorous barytone, the younger monkeys join in\r\ntenor and alto, and the concert begins. But this morning there was no\r\nconcert at all. There was nothing of the wonted serenade to break the\r\nsilence of the forest. The shrill notes resulting from the rapid\r\nvibration of the hyoid bones of the throat were not to be heard. Indians would have been disappointed and perplexed; they are very fond\r\nof the flesh of the guariba when smoked and dried, and they would\r\ncertainly have missed the chant of the monkey \"paternosters;\" but Dick\r\nSands and his companions were unfamiliar with any of these things, and\r\naccordingly the singular quietude was to them a matter of no surprise. They all awoke much refreshed by their night's rest, which there had\r\nbeen nothing to disturb. Jack was by no means the latest in opening his\r\neyes, and his first words were addressed to Hercules, asking him\r\nwhether he had caught a wolf with his teeth. Hercules had to\r\nacknowledge that he had tasted nothing all night, and declared himself\r\nquite ready for breakfast. The whole party were unanimous in this\r\nrespect, and after a brief morning prayer, breakfast was expeditiously\r\nserved by old Nan."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The meal was but a repetition of the last evening's\r\nsupper, but with their appetites sharpened by the fresh forest air, and\r\nanxious to fortify themselves for a good day's march, they did not fail\r\nto do ample justice to their simple fare. Even Cousin Benedict, for\r\nonce in his life at least, partook of his food as if it were not\r\nutterly a matter of indifference to him; but he grumbled very much at\r\nthe restraint to which he considered himself subjected; he could not\r\nsee the good of coming to such a country as this, if he were to be\r\nobliged to walk about with his hands in his pockets; and he protested\r\nthat if Hercules did not leave him alone and permit him to catch\r\nfire-flies, there would be a bone to pick between them. Hercules did\r\nnot look very much alarmed at the threat. Mrs. Weldon, however, took\r\nhim aside, and telling him that she did not wish to deprive the\r\nenthusiast entirely of his favourite occupation, instructed him to\r\nallow her cousin as much liberty as possible, provided he did not lose\r\nsight of him. The morning meal was over, and it was only seven o'clock when the\r\ntravellers were once more on their way towards the east, preserving the\r\nsame marching-order as on the day before. The path was still through luxuriant forest. The vegetable kingdom\r\nreigned supreme."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As the plateau was immediately adjacent to tropical\r\nlatitudes, the sun's rays during the summer months descended\r\nperpendicularly upon the virgin soil, and the vast amount of heat thus\r\nobtained combined with the abundant moisture retained in the subsoil,\r\ncaused vegetation to assume a character which was truly magnificent. Dick Sands could not overcome a certain sense of mystification. Here\r\nthey were, as Harris told them, in the region of the pampas, a word\r\nwhich he knew in the Quichna dialect signifies \"a plain;\" but he had\r\nalways read that these plains were characterized by a deficiency alike\r\nof water, of trees, and rocks; he had always understood that during the\r\nrainy season, thistles spring up in great abundance and grow until they\r\nform thickets that are well-nigh impenetrable; he had imagined that the\r\nfew dwarf trees and prickly shrubs that exist during the summer only\r\nstamp the general scene with an aspect of yet more thorough bareness\r\nand desolation. But how different was everything to all this! The\r\nforest never ceased to stretch away interminably to the horizon. There\r\nwere no tokens of the rough nakedness that he had expected. Dick seemed\r\nto be driven to the conclusion that Harris was right in describing this\r\nplateau of Atacama, which he had for his part most firmly believed to\r\nbe a vast desert between the Andes and the Pacific, as a region that\r\nwas quite exceptional in its natural features."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was not in Dick's character to keep his reflections to himself. In\r\nthe course of the morning he expressed his extreme surprise at finding\r\nthe pampas answer so little to his preconceived ideas. \"Have I not understood correctly,\" he said, \"that the pampas is similar\r\nto the North American savannahs, only less marshy?\" Harris replied that such was indeed a correct description of the pampas\r\nof Rio Colorado, and the Ilanos of Venezuela and the Orinoco. \"But,\" he continued, \"I own I am as much astonished as yourself at the\r\ncharacter of this region; I have never crossed the plateau before, and\r\nI must confess it is altogether different to what you find beyond the\r\nAndes towards the Atlantic.\" \"You don't mean that we are going to cross the Andes?\" said Dick, in\r\nsudden alarm. Harris smiled. \"No, no, indeed. With our limited means of transport such an\r\nundertaking would have been rash in the extreme. We had better have\r\nkept to the coast for ever rather than incur such a risk. Our\r\ndestination, San Felice, is on this side of the range, and in order to\r\nreach it, we shall not have to leave the plateau, of which the greatest\r\nelevation is but little over 1500 feet.\" \"And you say,\" Dick persisted, \"that you have really no fear of losing\r\nyour way in a forest such as this, a forest into which you have never\r\nset foot before?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No fear whatever,\" Harris answered; \"so accustomed am I to travelling\r\nof this kind, that I can steer my way by a thousand signs revealing\r\nthemselves in the growth of the trees, and in the composition of the\r\nsoil, which would never present themselves to your notice. I assure you\r\nthat I anticipate no difficulties.\" This conversation was not heard by any of the rest of the party. Harris\r\nseemed to speak as frankly as he did fearlessly, and Dick felt that\r\nthere might be, after all, no just grounds for any of his own\r\nmisgivings. Five days passed by, and the 12th of April arrived without any special\r\nincident. Nine miles had been the average distance accomplished in a\r\nday; regular periods of rest had been taken, and, except that Jack's\r\nspirits had somewhat flagged, the fatigue did not seem to have\r\ninterfered with the general good health of the travellers. First disappointed of his India-rubber-tree, and then of his humming\r\nbirds, Jack had inquired about the beautiful parrots which he had been\r\nled to expect he should see in this wonderful forest. Where were the\r\nbright green macaws? where were the gaudy aras with their bare white\r\ncheeks and pointed tails, which seem never to light upon the ground? and where, too, were all the brilliant parroquets, with their feathered\r\nfaces, and indeed the whole variety of those forest chatterers of which\r\nthe Indians affirm that they speak the language of nations long extinct?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is true that there was no lack of the common grey parrots with\r\ncrimson tails, but these were no novelty; Jack had seen plenty of them\r\nbefore, for owing to their reputation of being the most clever in\r\nmimickry of the Psittacidæ, they have been domesticated everywhere in\r\nboth the Old and New worlds. [Illustration: \"Don't Fire!\"] But Jack's dissatisfaction was nothing compared to Cousin Benedict's. In spite of being allowed to wander away from the rank, he had failed\r\nto discover a single insect which was worth the pursuit; not even a\r\nfire-fly danced at night; nature seemed to be mocking him, and his\r\nill-humour increased accordingly. In this way the journey was continued for four days longer, and on the\r\n16th it was estimated that they must have travelled between eighty and\r\nninety miles north-eastwards from the coast. Harris positively asserted\r\nthat they could not be much more than twenty miles from San Felice, and\r\nthat by pushing forwards they might expect in eight-and-forty hours to\r\nfind themselves lodged in comfortable quarters. But although they had thus succeeded in traversing this vast\r\ntable-land, they had not seen one human inhabitant. Dick was more than\r\never perplexed, and it was a subject of bitter regret to him that they\r\nhad not stranded upon some more frequented part of the shore, near some\r\nvillage or plantation where Mrs. Weldon might long since have found a\r\nsuitable refuge."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Deserted, however, as the country apparently was by man, it had\r\nlatterly shown itself much more abundantly tenanted by animals. Many a\r\ntime a long, plaintive cry was heard, which Harris attributed to the\r\ntardigrades or sloths often found in wooded districts, and known by the\r\nname of \"ais;\" and in the middle of the dinner-halt on this day, a loud\r\nhissing suddenly broke upon the air which made Mrs. Weldon start to her\r\nfeet in alarm. \"A serpent!\" cried Dick, catching up his loaded gun. The negroes, following Dick's example, were in a moment on the alert. \"Don't fire!\" cried Harris. There was indeed nothing improbable in the supposition that a \"sucuru,\"\r\na species of boa, sometimes measuring forty feet in length, had just\r\nmoved itself in the long grass at their side, but Harris affirmed that\r\nthe \"sucuru\" never hisses, and declared that the noise had really come\r\nfrom animals of an entirely inoffensive character. \"What animals?\" asked Dick, always eager for information, which it must\r\nbe granted Harris seemed always equally anxious to give. \"Antelopes,\" replied Harris; \"but, hush! not a sound, or you will\r\nfrighten them away.\" \"Antelopes!\" cried Dick; \"I must see them; I must get close to them.\" \"More easily said than done,\" answered Harris, shaking his head; but\r\nDick was not to be diverted from his purpose, and, gun in hand, crept\r\ninto the grass."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had not advanced many yards before a herd of about a\r\ndozen gazelles, graceful in body, with short, pointed horns, dashed\r\npast him like a glowing cloud, and disappeared in the underwood without\r\ngiving him time to take a shot. \"I told you beforehand what you would have to expect,\" said Harris, as\r\nDick, with a considerable sense of disappointment, returned to the\r\nparty. Impossible, however, as it had been fairly to scrutinize the antelopes,\r\nsuch was hardly the case with another herd of animals, the\r\nidentification of which led to a somewhat singular discussion between\r\nHarris and the rest. About four o'clock on the afternoon of the same day, the travellers\r\nwere halting for a few moments near an opening in the forest, when\r\nthree or four large animals emerged from a thicket about a hundred\r\npaces ahead, and scampered off at full speed. In spite of what Harris\r\nhad urged, Dick put his gun to his shoulder, and was on the very point\r\nof firing, when Harris knocked the rifle quickly aside. \"They were giraffes!\" shouted Dick. The announcement awakened the curiosity of Jack, who quickly scrambled\r\nto his feet upon the saddle on which he was lounging. \"My dear Dick,\" said Mrs. Weldon, \"there are no giraffes in America!\" [Illustration: A herd of gazelles dashed past him like a glowing cloud.] \"Certainly not,\" cried Harris; \"they were not giraffes, they were\r\nostriches which you saw!\" \"Ostriches with four legs! that will never do!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "what do you say. Mrs. Weldon?\" Mrs. Weldon replied that she had certainly taken the animals for\r\nquadrupeds, and all the negroes were under the same impression. Laughing heartily, Harris said it was far from an uncommon thing for an\r\ninexperienced eye to mistake a large ostrich for a small giraffe; the\r\nshape of both was so similar, that it often quite escaped observation\r\nas to whether the long necks terminated in a beak or a muzzle; besides,\r\nwhat need of discussion could there be when the fact was established\r\nthat giraffes are unknown in the New World? The reasoning was plausible\r\nenough, and Mrs Weldon and the negroes were soon convinced. But Dick\r\nwas far from satisfied. \"I did not know that there was an American ostrich!\" he again objected. \"Oh, yes,\" replied Harris promptly, \"there is a species called the\r\nnandu, which is very well known here; we shall probably see some more\r\nof them.\" The statement was correct; the nandu is common in the plains of South\r\nAmerica, and is distinguished from the African ostrich by having three\r\ntoes, all furnished with claws. It is a fine bird, sometimes exceeding\r\nsix feet in height; it has a short beak, and its wings are furnished\r\nwith blue-grey plumes. Harris appeared well acquainted with the bird,\r\nand proceeded to give a very precise account of its habits."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In\r\nconcluding his remarks, he again pressed upon Dick his most urgent\r\nrequest that he should abstain from firing upon any animal whatever. It\r\nwas of the utmost consequence. Dick made no reply. He was silent and thoughtful. Grave doubts had\r\narisen in his mind, and he could neither explain nor dispel them. When the march was resumed on the following day, Harris asserted his\r\nconviction that another four-and-twenty hours would bring them to the\r\nhacienda. \"And there, madam,\" he said, addressing Mrs. Weldon, \"we can offer you\r\nevery essential comfort, though you may not find the luxuries of your\r\nown home in San Francisco.\" Mrs. Weldon repeated her expression of gratitude for the proffered\r\nhospitality, owning that she should now be exceedingly glad to reach\r\nthe farm, as she was anxious about her little son, who appeared to be\r\nthreatened with the symptoms of incipient fever. Harris could not deny that although the climate was usually very\r\nhealthy, it nevertheless did occasionally produce a kind of\r\nintermittent fever during March and April. \"But nature has provided the proper remedy,\" said Dick; and perceiving\r\nthat Harris did not comprehend his meaning, he continued, \"Are we not\r\nin the region of the quinquinas, the bark of which is notoriously the\r\nmedicine with which attacks of fever are usually treated? for my part,\r\nI am amazed that we have not seen numbers of them already.\" \"Ah!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "yes, yes; I know what you mean,\" answered Harris, after a moment's\r\nhesitation; \"they are trees, however, not always easy to find; they\r\nrarely grow in groups, and in spite of their large leaves and fragrant\r\nred blossom, the Indians themselves often have a difficulty in\r\nrecognizing them; the feature that distinguishes them most is their\r\nevergreen foliage.\" At Mrs. Weldon's request, Harris promised to point out the tree if he\r\nshould see one, but added that when she reached the hacienda, she would\r\nbe able to obtain some sulphate of quinine, which was much more\r\nefficacious than the unprepared bark. [1]\r\n\r\n\r\n[Footnote 1: This bark was formerly, reduced to powder, known as\r\n\"Pulvis Jesuiticus,\" because in the year 1649 the Jesuits in Rome\r\nimported a large quantity of it from their missionaries in South\r\nAmerica.] The day passed without further incident. No rain had fallen at present,\r\nthough the warm mist that rose from the soil betokened an approaching\r\nchange of weather; the rainy season was certainly not far distant, but\r\nto travellers who indulged the expectation of being in a few hours in a\r\nplace of shelter, this was not a matter of great concern. [Illustration: A halt was made for the night beneath a grove of lofty\r\ntrees.] Evening came, and a halt was made for the night beneath a grove of\r\nlofty trees."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If Harris had not miscalculated, they could hardly be more\r\nthan about six miles from their destination; so confirmed, however, was\r\nDick Sands in his strange suspicions, that nothing could induce him to\r\nrelax any of the usual precautions, and he particularly insisted upon\r\nthe negroes, turn by turn, keeping up the accustomed watch. Worn out by fatigue, the little party were glad to lie down, but they\r\nhad scarcely dropped off to sleep when they were aroused by a sharp cry. \"Who's that? who's there? what's the matter?\" exclaimed Dick, the first\r\nto rise to his feet. \"It is I,\" answered Benedict's voice; \"I am bitten. Something has\r\nbitten me.\" \"A snake!\" exclaimed Mrs. Weldon in alarm. \"No, no, cousin, better than that! it was not a snake; I believe it was\r\nan orthoptera; I have it all right,\" he shouted triumphantly. \"Then kill it quickly, sir; and let us go to sleep again in peace,\"\r\nsaid Harris. \"Kill it! not for the world! I must have a light, and look at it!\" Dick Sands indulged him, for reasons of his own, in getting a light. The entomologist carefully opened his hand and displayed an insect\r\nsomewhat smaller than a bee, of a dull colour, streaked with yellow on\r\nthe under portion of the body. He looked radiant with delight. \"A diptera!\" he exclaimed, half beside himself with joy, \"a most famous\r\ndiptera!\" \"Is it venomous?\" asked Mrs. Weldon."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Not at all to men; it only hurts elephants and buffaloes.\" \"But tell us its name! what is it?\" cried Dick impetuously. The naturalist began to speak in a slow, oracular tone. \"This insect is here a prodigy; it is an insect totally unknown in this\r\ncountry,--in America.\" \"Tell us its name!\" roared Dick. \"It is a tzetzy, sir, a true tzetzy.\" Dick's heart sank like a stone. He was speechless. He did not, dared\r\nnot, ask more. Only too well he knew where the tzetzy could alone be\r\nfound. He did not close his eyes again that night. CHAPTER XVIII. A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY. The morning of the 18th dawned, the day on which, according to Harris's\r\nprediction, the travellers were to be safely housed at San Felice. Mrs.\r\nWeldon was really much relieved at the prospect, for she was aware that\r\nher strength must prove inadequate to the strain of a more protracted\r\njourney. The condition of her little boy, who was alternately flushed\r\nwith fever, and pale with exhaustion, had begun to cause her great\r\nanxiety, and unwilling to resign the care of the child even to Nan his\r\nfaithful nurse, she insisted upon carrying him in her own arms. Twelve\r\ndays and nights, passed in the open air, had done much to try her\r\npowers of endurance, and the charge of a sick child in addition would\r\nsoon break down her strength entirely. Dick Sands, Nan, and the negroes had all borne the march very fairly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Their stock of provisions, though of course considerably diminished,\r\nwas still far from small. As for Harris, he had shown himself\r\npre-eminently adapted for forest-life, and capable of bearing any\r\namount of fatigue. Yet, strange to say, as he approached the end of the\r\njourney, his manner underwent a remarkable change; instead of\r\nconversing in his ordinary frank and easy way, he became silent and\r\npreoccupied, as if engrossed in his own thoughts. Perhaps he had an\r\ninstinctive consciousness that \"his young friend,\" as he was in the\r\nhabit of addressing Dick, was entertaining hard suspicions about him. The march was resumed. The trees once again ceased to be crowded in\r\nimpenetrable masses, but stood in clusters at considerable distances\r\napart. Now, Dick tried to argue with himself, they must be coming to\r\nthe true pampas, or the man must be designedly misleading them; and yet\r\nwhat motive could he have? Although during the earlier part of the day there occurred nothing that\r\ncould be said absolutely to justify Dick's increasing uneasiness, two\r\ncircumstances transpired which did not escape his observation, and\r\nwhich, he felt, might be significant. The first of these was a sudden\r\nchange in Dingo's behaviour."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The dog, throughout the march, had\r\nuniformly run along with his nose upon the ground, smelling the grass\r\nand shrubs, and occasionally uttering a sad low whine; but to-day he\r\nseemed all agitation; he scampered about with bristling coat, with his\r\nhead erect, and ever and again burst into one of those furious fits of\r\nbarking, with which he had formerly been accustomed to greet Negoro's\r\nappearance upon the deck of the \"Pilgrim.\" The idea that flitted across Dick's mind was shared by Tom. \"Look, Mr. Dick, look at Dingo; he is at his old ways again,\" said he;\r\n\"it is just as if Negoro....\"\r\n\r\n\"Hush!\" said Dick to the old man, who continued in a lower voice,--\r\n\r\n\"It is just as if Negoro had followed us; do you think it is likely?\" \"It might perhaps be to his advantage to follow us, if he doesn't know\r\nthe country; but if he does know the country, why then....\"\r\n\r\nDick did not finish his sentence, but whistled to Dingo. The dog\r\nreluctantly obeyed the call. As soon as the dog was at his side, Dick patted him, repeating,--\r\n\r\n\"Good dog! good Dingo! where's Negoro?\" The sound of Negoro's name had its usual effect; it seemed to irritate\r\nthe animal exceedingly, and he barked furiously, and apparently wanted\r\nto dash into the thicket. Harris had been an interested spectator of the scene, and now\r\napproached with a peculiar expression on his countenance, and inquired\r\nwhat they were saying to Dingo."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Oh, nothing much,\" replied Tom; \"we were only asking him for news of a\r\nlost acquaintance.\" \"Ah, I suppose you mean that Portuguese cook of yours.\" \"Yes,\" answered Tom; \"we fancied from Dingo's behaviour, that Negoro\r\nmust be somewhere close at hand.\" \"Why don't you send and search the underwood? perhaps the poor wretch\r\nis in distress.\" \"No need of that, Mr. Harris; Negoro, I have no doubt, is quite capable\r\nof taking care of himself.\" \"Well, just as you please, my young friend,\" said Harris, with an air\r\nof indifference. Dick turned away; he continued his endeavours to pacify Dingo, and the\r\nconversation dropped. The other thing that had arrested Dick's attention was the behaviour of\r\nthe horse. If they had been as near the hacienda as Harris described,\r\nwould not the animal have pricked up its ears, sniffed the air, and\r\nwith dilated nostril, exhibited some sign of satisfaction, as being\r\nupon familiar ground? But nothing of the kind was to be observed; the horse plodded along as\r\nunconcernedly as if a stable were as far away as ever. Even Mrs. Weldon was not so engrossed with her child, but what she was\r\nfain to express her wonder at the deserted aspect of the country. No\r\ntrace of a farm-labourer was anywhere to be seen!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She cast her eye at\r\nHarris, who was in his usual place in front, and observing how he was\r\nlooking first to the left, and then to the right, with the air of a man\r\nwho was uncertain of his path, she asked herself whether it was\r\npossible their guide might have lost his way. She dared not entertain\r\nthe idea, and averted her eyes, that she might not be harassed by his\r\nmovements. After crossing an open plain about a mile in width, the travellers once\r\nagain entered the forest, which resumed something of the same denseness\r\nthat had characterized it farther to the west. In the course of the\r\nafternoon, they came to a spot which was marked very distinctly by the\r\nvestiges of some enormous animals, which must have passed quite\r\nrecently. As Dick looked carefully about him, he observed that the\r\nbranches were all torn off or broken to a considerable height, and that\r\nthe foot-tracks in the trampled grass were much too large to be those\r\neither of jaguars or panthers. Even if it were possible that the prints\r\non the ground had been made by ais or other taidigrades, this would\r\nfail to account in the least for the trees being broken to such a\r\nheight. Elephants alone were capable of working such destruction in the\r\nunderwood, but elephants were unknown in America."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick was puzzled, but\r\ncontrolled himself so that he would not apply to Harris for any\r\nenlightenment; his intuition made him aware that a man who had once\r\ntried to make him believe that giraffes were ostriches, would not\r\nhesitate a second time to impose upon his credulity. More than ever was Dick becoming convinced that Harris was a traitor,\r\nand he was secretly prompted to tax him with his treachery. Still he\r\nwas obliged to own that he could not assign any motive for the man\r\nacting in such a manner with the survivors of the \"Pilgrim,\" and\r\nconsequently hesitated before he actually condemned him for conduct so\r\nbase and heartless. What could be done? he repeatedly asked himself. On\r\nboard ship the boy captain might perchance have been able to devise\r\nsome plan for the safety of those so strangely committed to his charge,\r\nbut here on an unknown shore, he could only suffer from the burden of\r\nthis responsibility the more, because he was so utterly powerless to\r\nact. He made up his mind on one point. He determined not to alarm the poor\r\nanxious mother a moment before he was actually compelled."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was his\r\ncarrying out this determination that explained why on subsequently\r\narriving at a considerable stream, where he saw some huge heads,\r\nswollen muzzles, long tusks and unwieldy bodies rising from amidst the\r\nrank wet grass, he uttered no word and gave no gesture of surprise; but\r\nonly too well he knew, at a glance, that he must be looking at a herd\r\nof hippopotamuses. [Illustration: \"Look here! here are hands, men's hands.\"] It was a weary march that day; a general feeling of depression spread\r\ninvoluntarily from one to another; hardly conscious to herself of her\r\nweariness, Mrs. Weldon was exhibiting manifest symptoms of lassitude;\r\nand it was only Dick's moral energy and sense of duty that kept him\r\nfrom succumbing to the prevailing dejection. About four o'clock, Tom noticed something lying in the grass, and\r\nstooping down he picked up a kind of knife; it was of peculiar shape,\r\nbeing very wide and flat in the blade, while its handle, which was of\r\nivory, was ornamented with a good deal of clumsy carving. He carried it\r\nat once to Dick, who, when he had scrutinized it, held it up to Harris,\r\nwith the remark,--\r\n\r\n\"There must be natives not far off.\" \"Quite right, my young friend; the hacienda must be a very few miles\r\naway,--but yet, but yet....\"\r\n\r\nHe hesitated. \"You don't mean that you are not sure of your way,\" said Dick sharply."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Not exactly that,\" replied Harris; \"yet in taking this short cut\r\nacross the forest, I am inclined to think I am a mile or so out of the\r\nway. Perhaps I had better walk on a little way, and look about me.\" \"No; you do not leave us here,\" cried Dick firmly. \"Not against your will; but remember, I do not undertake to guide you\r\nin the dark.\" \"We must spare you the necessity for that. I can answer for it that\r\nMrs. Weldon will raise no objection to spending another night in the\r\nopen air. We can start off to-morrow morning as early as we like, and\r\nif the distance be only what you represent, a few hours will easily\r\naccomplish it.\" \"As you please,\" answered Harris with cold civility. Just then, Dingo again burst out into a vehement fit of barking, and it\r\nrequired no small amount of coaxing on Dick's part to make him cease\r\nfrom his noise. It was decided that the halt should be made at once. Mrs. Weldon, as it\r\nhad been anticipated, urged nothing against it, being preoccupied by\r\nher immediate attentions to Jack, who was lying in her arms, suffering\r\nfrom a decided attack of fever. The shelter of a large thicket had just\r\nbeen selected by Dick as a suitable resting-place for the night, when\r\nTom, who was assisting in the necessary preparations, suddenly gave a\r\ncry of horror. \"What is it, Tom?\" asked Dick very calmly. \"Look!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "look at these trees! they are spattered with blood! and look\r\nhere! here are hands, men's hands, cut off and lying on the ground!\" \"What?\" cried Dick, and in an instant was at his side. His presence of mind did not fail him; he whispered,--\r\n\r\n\"Hush! Tom! hush! not a word!\" But it was with a shudder that ran through his veins that he witnessed\r\nfor himself the mutilated fragments of several human bodies, and saw,\r\nlying beside them, some broken forks, and some bits of iron chain. The sight of the gory remains made Dingo bark ferociously, and Dick,\r\nwho was most anxious that Mrs. Weldon's attention should not be called\r\nto the discovery, had the greatest difficulty in driving him back; but\r\nfortunately the lady's mind was so engrossed with her patient, that she\r\ndid not observe the commotion. Harris stood aloof; there was no one to\r\nnotice the change that passed over his countenance, but the expression\r\nwas almost diabolical in its malignity. Poor old Tom himself seemed perfectly spell-bound. With his hands\r\nclenched, his eyes dilated, and his breast heaving with emotion, he\r\nkept repeating without anything like coherence, the words,--\r\n\r\n\"Forks! chains! forks! ... long ago ... remember ... too well ... chains!\" \"For Mrs. Weldon's sake, Tom, hold your tongue!\" Dick implored him. Tom, however, was full with some remembrance of the past; he continued\r\nto repeat,--\r\n\r\n\"Long ago ... forks ... chains!\" until Dick led him out of hearing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A fresh halting-place was chosen a short distance further on, and\r\nsupper was prepared. But the meal was left almost untasted; not so much\r\nthat hunger had been overcome by fatigue, but because the indefinable\r\nfeeling of uneasiness, that had taken possession of them all, had\r\nentirely destroyed all appetite. [Illustration: The man was gone, and his horse with him.] Gradually the night became very dark. The sky was covered with heavy\r\nstorm-clouds, and on the western horizon flashes of summer lightning\r\nnow and then glimmered through the trees. The air was perfectly still;\r\nnot a leaf stirred, and the atmosphere seemed so charged with\r\nelectricity as to be incapable of transmitting sound of any kind. Dick, himself, with Austin and Bat in attendance, remained on guard,\r\nall of them eagerly straining both eye and ear to catch any light or\r\nsound that might disturb the silence and obscurity. Old Tom, with his\r\nhead sunk upon his breast, sat motionless, as in a trance; he was\r\ngloomily revolving the awakened memories of the past. Mrs. Weldon was\r\nengaged with her sick child. Scarcely one of the party was really\r\nasleep, except indeed it might be Cousin Benedict, whose reasoning\r\nfaculties were not of an order to carry him forwards into any future\r\ncontingencies. Midnight was still an hour in advance, when the dull air seemed filled\r\nwith a deep and prolonged roar, mingled with a peculiar kind of\r\nvibration. Tom started to his feet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A fresh recollection of his early days had\r\nstruck him. \"A lion! a lion!\" he shouted. In vain Dick tried to repress him; but he repeated,--\r\n\r\n\"A lion! a lion!\" Dick Sands seized his cutlass, and, unable any longer to control his\r\nwrath, he rushed to the spot where he had left Harris lying. The man was gone, and his horse with him! All the suspicions that had been so long pent up within Dick's mind now\r\nshaped themselves into actual reality. A flood of light had broken in\r\nupon him. Now he was convinced, only too certainly, that it was not the\r\ncoast of America at all upon which the schooner had been cast ashore! it was not Easter Island that had been sighted far away in the west! the compass had completely deceived him; he was satisfied now that the\r\nstrong currents had carried them quite round Cape Horn, and that they\r\nhad really entered the Atlantic. No wonder that quinquinas, caoutchouc,\r\nand other South American products, had failed to be seen. This was\r\nneither the Bolivian pampas nor the plateau of Atacama. They were\r\ngiraffes, not ostriches, that had vanished down the glade; they were\r\nelephants that had trodden down the underwood; they were hippopotamuses\r\nthat were lurking by the river; it was indeed the dreaded tzetsy that\r\nCousin Benedict had so triumphantly discovered; and, last of all, it\r\nwas a lion's roar that had disturbed the silence of the forest."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That\r\nchain, that knife, those forks, were unquestionably the instruments of\r\nslave-dealers; and what could those mutilated hands be, except the\r\nrelics of their ill-fated victims? Harris and Negoro must be in a conspiracy! It was with terrible anguish that Dick gnashed his teeth and muttered,--\r\n\r\n\"Yes, it is too true; we are in Africa! in equatorial Africa! in the\r\nland of slavery! in the very haunt of slave-drivers!\" END OF FIRST PART. *****\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nPART THE SECOND. [Illustration: WEST COAST OF CENTRAL AFRICA.] CHAPTER I. THE DARK CONTINENT. The \"slave-trade\" is an expression that ought never to have found its\r\nway into any human language. After being long practised at a large\r\nprofit by such European nations as had possessions beyond the seas,\r\nthis abominable traffic has now for many years been ostensibly\r\nforbidden; yet even in the enlightenment of this nineteenth century, it\r\nis still largely carried on, especially in Central Africa, inasmuch as\r\nthere are several states, professedly Christian, whose signatures have\r\nnever been affixed to the deed of abolition. Incredible as it should seem, this barter of human beings still exists,\r\nand for the due comprehension of the second part of Dick Sands' story\r\nit must be borne in mind, that for the purpose of supplying certain\r\ncolonies with slaves, there continue to be prosecuted such barbarous\r\n\"man-hunts\" as threaten almost to lay waste an entire continent with\r\nblood, fire, and pillage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The nefarious traffic as far as regards negroes does not appear to have\r\narisen until the fifteenth century. The following are said to be the\r\ncircumstances under which it had its origin. After being banished from\r\nSpain, the Mussulmans crossed the straits of Gibraltar and took refuge\r\nupon the shores of Africa, but the Portuguese who then occupied that\r\nportion of the coast persecuted the fugitives with the utmost severity,\r\nand having captured them in large numbers, sent them as prisoners into\r\nPortugal. They were thus the first nucleus of any African slaves that\r\nentered Western Europe since the commencement of the Christian era. The\r\nmajority, however, of these Mussulmans were members of wealthy\r\nfamilies, who were prepared to pay almost any amount of money for their\r\nrelease; but no ransom was exorbitant enough to tempt the Portuguese to\r\nsurrender them; more precious than gold were the strong arms that\r\nshould work the resources of their young and rising colonies. Thus\r\nbaulked in their purpose of effecting a direct ransom of their captured\r\nrelatives, the Mussulman families next submitted a proposition for\r\nexchanging them for a larger number of African negroes, whom it would\r\nbe quite easy to procure. The Portuguese, to whom the proposal was in\r\nevery way advantageous, eagerly accepted the offer; and in this way the\r\nslave-trade was originated in Europe."}
{"question": "", "answer": "By the end of the sixteenth century this odious traffic had become\r\npermanently established; in principle it contained nothing repugnant to\r\nthe semi-barbarous thought and customs then existing; all the great\r\nstates recognized it as the most effectual means of colonizing the\r\nislands of the New World, especially as slaves of negro blood, well\r\nacclimatized to tropical heat, were able to survive where white men\r\nmust have perished by thousands. The transport of slaves to the\r\nAmerican colonies was consequently regularly effected by vessels\r\nspecially built for that purpose, and large dépôts for this branch of\r\ncommerce were established at various points of the African coast. The\r\n\"goods\" cost comparatively little in production, and the profits were\r\nenormous. Yet, after all, however indispensable it might be to complete the\r\nfoundation of the trans-atlantic colonies, there was nothing to justify\r\nthis shameful barter of human flesh and blood, and the voice of\r\nphilanthropy began to be heard in protestation, calling upon all\r\nEuropean governments, in the name of mercy and common humanity, to\r\ndecree the abolition of the trade at once. In 1751, the Quakers put themselves at the head of the abolitionist\r\nmovement in North America, that very land where, a hundred years later,\r\nthe war of secession burst forth, in which the question of slavery bore\r\nthe most conspicuous part. Several of the Northern States, Virginia,\r\nConnecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania prohibited the trade,\r\nliberating the slaves, in spite of the cost, who had been imported into\r\ntheir territories."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The campaign, thus commenced, was not limited to a few provinces of the\r\nNew World; on this side of the Atlantic, too, the partisans of slavery\r\nwere subject to a vigourous attack. England and France led the van, and\r\nenergetically beat up recruits to serve the righteous cause. \"Let us\r\nlose our colonies rather than sacrifice our principles,\" was the\r\nmagnanimous watchword that resounded throughout Europe, and\r\nnotwithstanding the vast political and commercial interests involved in\r\nthe question, it did not go forth in vain. A living impulse had been\r\ncommunicated to the liberation-movement. In 1807, England formally\r\nprohibited the slave-trade in her colonies; France following her\r\nexample in 1814. The two great nations then entered upon a treaty on\r\nthe subject, which was confirmed by Napoleon during the Hundred Days. Hitherto, however, the declaration was purely theoretical. Slave-ships\r\ncontinued to ply their illicit trade, discharging their living cargo at\r\nmany a colonial port. It was evident that more resolute and practical\r\nmeasures must be taken to impress the enormity. Accordingly the United\r\nStates in 1820, and Great Britain in 1824, declared the slave-trade to\r\nbe an act of piracy and its perpetrators to be punishable with death."}
{"question": "", "answer": "France soon gave in her adherence to the new treaty, but the Southern\r\nStates of America, and the Spanish and Portuguese, not having signed\r\nthe act of abolition, continued the importation of slaves at a great\r\nprofit, and this in defiance of the recognized reciprocal right of\r\nvisitation to verify the flags of suspected ships. But although the slave-trade by these measures was in a considerable\r\nmeasure reduced, it continued to exist; new slaves were not allowed,\r\nbut the old ones did not recover their liberty. England was now the\r\nfirst to set a noble example. On the 14th of May, 1833, an Act of\r\nParliament, by a munificent vote of millions of pounds, emancipated all\r\nthe negroes in the British Colonies, and in August, 1838, 670,000\r\nslaves were declared free men. Ten years later, in 1848, the French\r\nRepublic liberated the slaves in her colonies to the number of 260,000,\r\nand in 1859 the war which broke out between the Federals and\r\nConfederates in the United States finished the work of emancipation by\r\nextending it to the whole of North America. Thus, three great powers have accomplished their task of humanity, and\r\nat the present time the slave-trade is carried on only for the\r\nadvantage of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, or to supply the\r\nrequirements of the Turkish or Arab populations of the East. Brazil,\r\nalthough she has not emancipated her former slaves, does not receive\r\nany new, and all negro children are pronounced free-born."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In contrast, however, to all this, it is not to be concealed that, in\r\nthe interior of Africa, as the result of wars between chieftains waged\r\nfor the sole object of making captives, entire tribes are often reduced\r\nto slavery, and are carried off in caravans in two opposite directions,\r\nsome westwards to the Portuguese colony of Angola, others eastwards to\r\nMozambique. Of these miserable creatures, of whom a very small\r\nproportion ever reach their destination, some are despatched to Cuba or\r\nMadagascar, others to the Arab or Turkish provinces of Asia, to Mecca\r\nor Muscat. The French and English cruisers have practically very little\r\npower to control the iniquitous proceedings, because the extent of\r\ncoast to be watched is so large that a strict and adequate surveillance\r\ncannot be maintained. The extent of the odious export is very\r\nconsiderable; no less than 24,000 slaves annually reach the coast, a\r\nnumber that hardly represents a tenth part of those who are massacred\r\nor otherwise perish by a deplorable end. After the frightful\r\nbutcheries, the fields lie devastated, the smouldering villages are\r\nvoid of inhabitants, the rivers reek with bleeding corpses, and wild\r\nbeasts take undisputed possession of the soil."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Livingstone, upon\r\nreturning to a district, immediately after one of these ruthless raids,\r\nsaid that he could never have recognized it for the same that he had\r\nvisited only a few months previously; and all other travellers, Grant,\r\nSpeke, Burton, Cameron, Stanley, describe the wooded plateau of Central\r\nAfrica as the principal theatre of the barbarous warfare between chief\r\nand chief. In the region of the great lakes, throughout the vast\r\ndistrict which feeds the market of Zanzibar, in Bornu and Fezzan,\r\nfurther south on the banks of the Nyassa and Zambesi, further west in\r\nthe districts of the Upper Zaire, just traversed by the intrepid\r\nStanley, everywhere there is the recurrence of the same scenes of ruin,\r\nslaughter, and devastation. Ever and again the question seems to be\r\nforced upon the mind whether slavery is not to end in the entire\r\nannihilation of the negro race, so that, like the Australian tribes of\r\nSouth Holland, it will become extinct. Who can doubt that the day must\r\ndawn which will herald the closing of the markets in the Spanish and\r\nPortuguese colonies, a day when civilized nations shall no longer\r\ntolerate the perpetration of this barbarous wrong? It is hardly too much to say that another year ought to witness the\r\nemancipation of every slave in the possession of Christian states."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It\r\nseems only too likely that for years to come the Mussulman nations will\r\ncontinue to depopulate the continent of Africa; to them is due the\r\nchief emigration of the natives, who, torn from their provinces, are\r\nsent to the eastern coast in numbers that exceed 40,000 annually. Long\r\nbefore the Egyptian expedition the natives of Sennaar were sold to the\r\nnatives of Darfur and _vice versa_; and even Napoleon Buonaparte\r\npurchased a considerable number of negroes, whom he organized into\r\nregiments after the fashion of the mamelukes. Altogether it may be\r\naffirmed, that although four-fifths of the present century have passed\r\naway, slave-traffic in Africa has been increased rather than diminished. The truth is that Islamism really nurtures the slave-trade. In\r\nMussulman provinces, the black slave has taken the place of the white\r\nslave of former times; dealers of the most questionable character bear\r\ntheir part in the execrable business, bringing a supplementary\r\npopulation to races which, unregenerated by their own labour, would\r\notherwise diminish and ultimately disappear. As in the time of Buonaparte, these slaves often become soldiers; on\r\nthe Upper Niger, for instance, they still form half the army of certain\r\nchieftains, under circumstances in which their lot is hardly, if at\r\nall, inferior to that of free men."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Elsewhere, where the slave is not a\r\nsoldier, he counts merely as current coin; and in Bornu and even in\r\nEgypt, we are told by William Lejean, an eye-witness, that officers and\r\nother functionaries have received their pay in this form. Such, then, appears to be the present actual condition of the\r\nslave-trade; and it is stern justice that compels the additional\r\nstatement that there are representatives of certain great European\r\npowers who still favour the unholy traffic with an indulgent\r\nconnivance, and whilst cruisers are watching the coasts of the Atlantic\r\nand of the Indian Ocean, kidnapping goes on regularly in the interior,\r\ncaravans pass along under the very eyes of certain officials, and\r\nmassacres are perpetrated in which frequently ten negroes are\r\nsacrificed in the capture of a single slave. It was the knowledge, more or less complete, of all this, that wrung\r\nfrom Dick Sands his bitter and heart-rending cry:--\r\n\r\n\"We are in Africa! in the very haunt of slave-drivers!\" Too true it was that he found himself and his companions in a land\r\nfraught with such frightful peril. He could only tremble when he\r\nwondered on what part of the fatal continent the \"Pilgrim\" had\r\nstranded. Evidently it was at some point of the west coast, and he had\r\nevery reason to fear that it was on the shores of Angola, the\r\nrendezvous for all the caravans that journey in that portion of Africa."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His conjecture was correct; he really was in the very country that a\r\nfew years later and with gigantic effort was to be traversed by Cameron\r\nin the south and Stanley in the north. Of the vast territory, with its\r\nthree provinces, Congo, Angola, and Benguela, little was then known\r\nexcept the coast. It extends from the Zaire on the north to the Nourse\r\non the south, and its chief towns are the ports of Benguela and of St.\r\nPaul de Loanda, the capital of the colony, which is a dependency of the\r\nkingdom of Portugal. The interior of the country had been almost\r\nentirely unexplored. Very few were the travellers who had cared to\r\nventure far inland, for an unhealthy climate, a hot, damp soil\r\nconducive to fever, a permanent warfare between the native tribes, some\r\nof which are cannibals, and the ill-feeling of the slave-dealers\r\nagainst any stranger who might endeavour to discover the secrets of\r\ntheir infamous craft, all combine to render the region one of the most\r\nhazardous in the whole of Equatorial Africa. It was in 1816 that Tuckey ascended the Congo as far as the Yellala\r\nFalls, a distance not exceeding 203 miles; but the journey was too\r\nshort to give an accurate idea of the interior of the country, and\r\nmoreover cost the lives of nearly all the officers and scientific men\r\nconnected with the expedition."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Thirty-seven years afterwards, Dr. Livingstone had advanced from the\r\nCape of Good Hope to the Upper Zambesi; thence, with a fearlessness\r\nhitherto unrivalled, he crossed the Coango, an affluent of the Congo,\r\nand after having traversed the continent from the extreme south to the\r\neast he reached St. Paul de Loanda on the 31st of May, 1854, the first\r\nexplorer of the unknown portions of the great Portuguese colony. Eighteen years elapsed, and two other bold travellers crossed the\r\nentire continent from east to west, and after encountering unparalleled\r\ndifficulties, emerged, the one to the south, the other to the north of\r\nAngola. The first of these was Verney Lovett Cameron, a lieutenant in the\r\nBritish navy. In 1872, when serious doubts were entertained as to the\r\nsafety of the expedition sent out under Stanley to the relief of\r\nLivingstone in the great lake district, Lieutenant Cameron volunteered\r\nto go out in search of the noble missionary explorer. His offer was\r\naccepted, and accompanied by Dr. Dillon, Lieutenant Cecil Murphy, and\r\nRobert Moffat, a nephew of Livingstone, he started from Zanzibar. Having passed through Ugogo, he met Livingstone's corpse, which was\r\nbeing borne to the eastern coast by his faithful followers. Unshaken in\r\nhis resolve to make his way right across the continent, Cameron still\r\npushed onwards to the west. He passed through Unyanyembe and Uganda,\r\nand reached Kawele, where he secured all Livingstone's papers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "After\r\nexploring Lake Tanganyika he crossed the mountains of Bambarre, and\r\nfinding himself unable to descend the course of the Lualaba, he\r\ntraversed the provinces devastated and depopulated by war and the\r\nslave-trade, Kilemba, Urua, the sources of the Lomami, Ulanda, and\r\nLovalé, and having crossed the Coanza, he sighted the Atlantic and\r\nreached the port of St. Philip de Benguela, after a journey that had\r\noccupied three years and five months. Cameron's two companions, Dr.\r\nDillon and Robert Moffat, both succumbed to the hardships of the\r\nexpedition. The intrepid Englishman was soon to be followed into the field by an\r\nAmerican, Mr. Henry Moreland Stanley. It is universally known how the\r\nundaunted correspondent of the _New York Herald_, having been\r\ndespatched in search of Livingstone, found the veteran missionary at\r\nUjiji, on the borders of Lake Tanganyika, on the 31st of October, 1871. But what he had undertaken in the course of humanity Stanley longed to\r\ncontinue in the interests of science, his prime object being to make a\r\nthorough investigation of the Lualaba, of which, in his first\r\nexpedition, he had only been able to get a partial and imperfect\r\nsurvey. Accordingly, whilst Cameron was still deep in the provinces of\r\nCentral Africa, Stanley started from Bagamoyo in November, 1874. Twenty-one months later he quitted Ujiji, which had been decimated by\r\nsmall-pox, and in seventy-four days accomplished the passage of the\r\nlake and reached Nyangwe, a great slave-market previously visited both\r\nby Livingstone and Cameron."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was also present at some of the horrible\r\nrazzias, perpetrated by the officers of the Sultan of Zanzibar in the\r\ndistricts of the Marunzu and Manyuema. In order to be in a position to descend the Lualaba to its very mouth,\r\nStanley engaged at Nyangwe 140 porters and nineteen boats. Difficulties\r\narose from the very outset, and not only had he to contend with the\r\ncannibals of Ugusu, but, in order to avoid many unnavigable cataracts,\r\nhe had to convey his boats many miles by land. Near the equator, just\r\nat the point where the Lualaba turns north-north-west, Stanley's little\r\nconvoy was attacked by a fleet of boats, manned by several hundred\r\nnatives, whom, however, he succeeded in putting to flight. Nothing\r\ndaunted, the resolute American pushed on to lat. 20° N. and\r\nascertained, beyond room for doubt, that the Lualaba was really the\r\nUpper Zaire or Congo, and that, by following its course, he should come\r\ndirectly to the sea. Beset with many perils was the way. Stanley was in almost daily\r\ncollision with the various tribes upon the river-banks; on the 3rd of\r\nJune, 1877, he lost one of his companions, Frank Pocock, at the passage\r\nof the cataracts of Massassa, and on the 18th of July he was himself\r\ncarried in his boat into the Mbelo Falls, and escaped by little short\r\nof a miracle."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the 6th of August the daring adventurer arrived at the village of Ni\r\nSanda, only four days from the sea; two days later he received a supply\r\nof provisions that had been sent by two Emboma merchants to Banza\r\nM'buko, the little coast-town where, after a journey of two years and\r\nnine months, fraught with every kind of hardship and privation, he\r\ncompleted his transit of the mighty continent. His toil told, at least\r\ntemporarily, upon his years, but he had the grand satisfaction of\r\nknowing that he had traced the whole course of the Lualaba, and had\r\nascertained, beyond reach of question, that as the Nile is the great\r\nartery of the north, and the Zambesi of the east, so Africa possesses\r\nin the west a third great river, which in a course of no less than 2900\r\nmiles, under the names of the Lualaba, Zaire, and Congo, unites the\r\nlake district with the Atlantic Ocean. In 1873, however, the date at which the \"Pilgrim\" foundered upon the\r\ncoast, very little was known of the province of Angola, except that it\r\nwas the scene of the western slave-trade, of which the markets of Bihé,\r\nCassanga, and Kazunde were the chief centres. This was the country in\r\nwhich Dick Sands now found himself, a hundred miles from shore, in\r\ncharge of a lady exhausted with fatigue and anxiety, a half-dying\r\nchild, and a band of negroes who would be a most tempting bait to the\r\nslave-driver."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His last illusion was completely dispelled. He had no longer the\r\nfaintest hope that he was in America, that land where little was to be\r\ndreaded from either native, wild beast, or climate; he could no more\r\ncherish the fond impression that he might be in the pleasant region\r\nbetween the Cordilleras and the coast, where villages are numerous and\r\nmissions afford hospitable shelter to every traveller. Far, far away\r\nwere those provinces of Bolivia and Peru, to which (unless a criminal\r\nhand had interposed) the \"Pilgrim\" would certainly have sped her way. No: too truly this was the terrible province of Angola; and worse than\r\nall, not the district near the coast, under the surveillance of the\r\nPortuguese authorities, but the interior of the country, traversed only\r\nby slave caravans, driven under the lash of the havildars. Limited, in one sense, was the knowledge that Dick Sands possessed of\r\nthis land of horrors; but he had read the accounts that had been given\r\nby the missionaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by the\r\nPortuguese traders who frequented the route from St. Paul de Loanda, by\r\nSan Salvador to the Zaire, as well as by Dr. Livingstone in his travels\r\nin 1853, and consequently he knew enough to awaken immediate and\r\ncomplete despair in any spirit less indomitable than his own. Anyhow, his position was truly appalling. [Illustration: They were seated at the foot of an enormous banyan-tree.] CHAPTER II. ACCOMPLICES."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the day following that on which Dick Sands and his party had made\r\ntheir last halt in the forest, two men met by appointment at a spot\r\nabout three miles distant. The two men were Harris and Negoro, the one lately landed from New\r\nZealand, the other pursuing his wonted occupation of slave-dealer in\r\nthe province of Angola. They were seated at the foot of an enormous\r\nbanyan-tree, on the banks of a rushing torrent that streamed between\r\ntall borders of papyrus. After the conversation had turned awhile upon the events of the last\r\nfew hours, Negoro said abruptly,--\r\n\r\n\"Couldn't you manage to get that young fifteen-year-old any farther\r\ninto the interior?\" \"No, indeed; it was a hard matter enough to bring him thus far; for the\r\nlast few days his suspicions have been wide awake.\" \"But just another hundred miles, you know,\" continued Negoro, \"would\r\nhave finished the business off well, and those black fellows would have\r\nbeen ours to a dead certainty.\" \"Don't I tell you, my dear fellow, that it was more than time for me to\r\ngive them the slip?\" replied Harris, shrugging his shoulders. \"Only too\r\nwell I knew that our young friend was longing to put a shot into my\r\nbody, and that was a sugar-plum I might not be able to digest.\" The Portuguese gave a grunt of assent, and Harris went on,--\r\n\r\n\"For several days I succeeded well enough."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I managed to palm off the\r\ncountry as the forest of Atacama, which you may recollect I once\r\nvisited; but when the youngster began to ask for gutta-percha and\r\nhumming-birds, and his mother wanted quinquina-trees, and when that old\r\nfool of a cousin was bent on finding cocuyos, I was rather nonplussed. One day I had to swear that giraffes were ostriches, but the young\r\ncaptain did not seem to swallow the dose at all easily. Then we saw\r\ntraces of elephants and hippopotamuses, which of course are as often\r\nseen in America as an honest man in a Benguela penitentiary; then that\r\nold nigger Tom discovered a lot of forks and chains left by some\r\nrunaway slaves at the foot of a tree; but when, last of all, a lion\r\nroared,--and the noise, you know, is rather louder than the mewing of a\r\ncat,--I thought it was time to take my horse and decamp.\" Negoro repeated his expression of regret that the whole party had not\r\nbeen carried another hundred miles into the province. \"It really cannot be helped,\" rejoined the American; \"I have done the\r\nbest I could; and I think, mate,\" he added confidentially, \"that you\r\nhave done wisely in following the caravan at a good distance; that dog\r\nof theirs evidently owes you a grudge, and might prove an ugly\r\ncustomer.\" \"I shall put a bullet into that beast's head before long,\" growled\r\nNegoro."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Take care you don't get one through your own first,\" laughed Harris;\r\n\"that young Sands, I warn you, is a first-rate shot, and between\r\nourselves, is rather a fine fellow of his kind.\" \"Fine fellow, indeed!\" sneered Negoro; \"whatever he is, he is a young\r\nupstart, and I have a long score to wipe off against him;\" and, as he\r\nspoke, an expression of the utmost malignity passed over his\r\ncountenance. Harris smiled. \"Well, mate,\" he said; \"your travels have not improved your temper, I\r\nsee. But come now, tell me what you have been doing all this time. When\r\nI found you just after the wreck, at the mouth of the Longa, you had\r\nonly time to ask me to get this party, somehow or other, up into the\r\ncountry. But it is just upon two years since you left Cassange with\r\nthat caravan of slaves for our old master Alvez. What have you been\r\ndoing since? The last I heard of you was that you had run foul of an\r\nEnglish cruiser, and that you were condemned to be hanged.\" \"So I was very nearly,\" muttered Negoro. \"Ah, well, that will come sooner or later,\" rejoined the American with\r\nphilosophic indifference; \"men of our trade can't expect to die quietly\r\nin our beds, you know. But were you caught by the English?\" \"No, by the Portuguese.\" \"Before you had got rid of your cargo?\" Negoro hesitated a moment before replying."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"No,\" he said, presently, and added, \"The Portuguese have changed their\r\ngame: for a long time they carried on the trade themselves, but now\r\nthey have got wonderfully particular; so I was caught, and condemned to\r\nend my days in the penitentiary at St. Paul de Loanda.\" \"Confound it!\" exclaimed Harris, \"a hundred times better be hanged!\" \"I'm not so sure of that,\" the Portuguese replied, \"for when I had been\r\nat the galleys about a fortnight I managed to escape, and got into the\r\nhold of an English steamer bound for New Zealand. I wedged myself in\r\nbetween a cask of water and a case of preserved meat, and so managed to\r\nexist for a month. It was close quarters, I can tell you, but I\r\npreferred to travel incognito rather than run the risk of being handed\r\nover again to the authorities at Loanda.\" \"Well done!\" exclaimed the American, \"and so you had a free passage to\r\nthe land of the Maoris. But you didn't come back in the same fashion?\" \"No; I always had a hankering to be here again at my old trade; but for\r\na year and a half....\"\r\n\r\nHe stopped abruptly, and grasped Harris by the arm. \"Hush,\" he whispered, \"didn't you hear a rustling in that clump of\r\npapyrus?\" In a moment Harris had caught up his loaded gun; and both men, starting\r\nto their feet, looked anxiously around them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"It was nothing,\" said Harris presently; \"the stream is swollen by the\r\nstorm, that is all; your two years' travelling has made you forget the\r\nsounds of the forest, mate. Sit down again, and go on with your story. When I know the past, I shall be better able to talk about the future.\" They reseated themselves, and Negoro went on,--\r\n\r\n\"For a whole year and a half I vegetated at Auckland. I left the hold\r\nof the steamer without a dollar in my pocket, and had to turn my hand\r\nto every trade imaginable in order to get a living.\" \"Poor fellow! I daresay you even tried the trade of being an honest\r\nman,\" put in the American. \"Just so,\" said Negoro, \"and in course of time the 'Pilgrim,' the\r\nvessel by which I came here, put in at Auckland. While she was waiting\r\nto take Mrs. Weldon and her party on board, I applied to the captain\r\nfor a post, for I was once mate on board a slaver, and know something\r\nof seamanship. The 'Pilgrim's' crew was complete, but fortunately the\r\nship's cook had just deserted; I offered to supply his place; in\r\ndefault of better my services were accepted, and in a few days we were\r\nout of sight of New Zealand.\" \"I have heard something about the voyage from young Sands,\" said\r\nHarris, \"but even now I can't understand how you reached here.\" \"Neither does he,\" said Negoro, with a malicious grin."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I will tell you\r\nnow, and you may repeat the story to your young friend if you like.\" \"Well, go on,\" said Harris. \"When we started,\" continued Negoro, \"it was my intention to sail only\r\nas far as Chili: that would have brought me nearly half way to Angola;\r\nbut three weeks after leaving Auckland, Captain Hull and all his crew\r\nwere lost in chasing a whale, and I and the apprentice were the only\r\nseamen left on board.\" \"Then why in the name of peace didn't you take command of the ship?\" exclaimed Harris. [Illustration: Both men, starting to their feet, looked anxiously\r\naround them.] \"Because there were five strong niggers who didn't trust me; so, on\r\nsecond thoughts, I determined to keep my old post as cook.\" \"Then do you mean to say that it was mere accident that brought you to\r\nthe coast of Africa?\" \"Not a bit of it; the only accident,--and a very lucky one it was--was\r\nmeeting you on the very spot where we stranded. But it was my doing\r\nthat we got so far. Young Sands understood nothing more of navigation\r\nthan the use of the log and compass. Well, one fine day, you\r\nunderstand, the log remained at the bottom of the sea, and one night\r\nthe compass was tampered with, so that the 'Pilgrim,' scudding along\r\nbefore a tempest, was carried altogether out of her course."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You may\r\nimagine the young captain was puzzled at the length of the voyage; it\r\nwould have bewildered a more experienced head than his. Before he was\r\naware of it, we had rounded Cape Horn; I recognized it through the\r\nmist. Then at once I put the compass to rights again, and the 'Pilgrim'\r\nwas carried north-eastwards by a tremendous hurricane to the very place\r\nI wanted. The island Dick Sands took for Easter Island was really\r\nTristan d'Acunha.\" \"Good!\" said Harris; \"I think I understand now how our friends have\r\nbeen persuaded to take Angola for Bolivia. But they are undeceived now,\r\nyou know,\" he added. \"I know all about that,\" replied the Portuguese. \"Then what do you intend to do?\" said Harris. \"You will see,\" answered Negoro significantly; \"but first of all tell\r\nme something about our employer, old Alvez; how is he?\" \"Oh, the old rascal is well enough, and will be delighted to see you\r\nagain,\" replied Harris. \"Is he at the market at Bihé?\" \"No, he has been at his place at Kazonndé for a year or more.\" \"And how does business go on?\" \"Badly enough, on this coast,\" said Harris; \"plenty of slaves are\r\nwaiting to be shipped to the Spanish colonies, but the difficulty is\r\nhow to get them embarked."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The Portuguese authorities on the one hand,\r\nand the English cruisers on the other, almost put a stop to exportation\r\naltogether; down to the south, near Mossamedes, is the only part where\r\nit can be attempted with any chance of success. To pass a caravan\r\nthrough Benguela or Loande is an utter impossibility; neither the\r\ngovernors nor the chefés[1] will listen to a word of reason. Old Alvez\r\nis therefore thinking of going in the other direction towards Nyangwe\r\nand Lake Tanganyika; he can there exchange his goods for slaves and\r\nivory, and is sure to do a good business with Upper Egypt and the coast\r\nof Mozambique, which supplies Madagascar. But I tell you, Negoro,\" he\r\nadded gravely, \"I believe the time is coming when the slave-trade will\r\ncome to an end altogether. The English missionaries are advancing into\r\nthe interior. That fellow Livingstone, confound him! has finished his\r\ntour of the lakes, and is now working his way towards Angola; then\r\nthere is another man named Cameron who is talking about crossing the\r\ncontinent from east to west, and it is feared that Stanley the American\r\nwill do the same. All this exploration, you know, is ruinous to our\r\nbusiness, and it is to our interest that not one of these travellers\r\nshould be allowed to return to tell tales of us in Europe.\" [Footnote 1: Subordinate Portuguese governors at secondary stations.] Harris spoke like a merchant embarrassed by a temporary commercial\r\ncrisis."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The atrocious scenes to which the slave-dealers are accustomed\r\nseems to render them impervious to all sense of justice or humanity,\r\nand they learn to regard their living merchandize with as small concern\r\nas though they were dealing with chests of tea or hogsheads of sugar. But Harris was right when he asserted that civilization must follow the\r\nwake of the intrepid pioneers of African discovery. Livingstone first,\r\nand after him, Grant, Speke, Burton, Cameron, Stanley, are the heroes\r\nwhose names will ever be linked with the first dawnings of a brighter\r\nage upon the dark wilds of Equatorial Africa. Having ascertained that his accomplice had returned unscrupulous and\r\ndaring as ever, and fully prepared to pursue his former calling as an\r\nagent of old Alvez the slave dealer, Harris inquired what he proposed\r\ndoing with the survivors of the \"Pilgrim\" now that they were in his\r\nhands. \"Divide them into two lots,\" answered Negoro, without a moment's\r\nhesitation, \"one for the market, the other....\"\r\n\r\nHe did not finish his sentence, but the expression of his countenance\r\nwas an index to the malignity of his purpose. \"Which shall you sell?\" asked the American. \"The niggers, of course. The old one is not worth much, but the other\r\nfour ought to fetch a good price at Kazonndé.\" \"Yes, you are right,\" said Harris; \"American-born slaves, with plenty\r\nof work in them, are rare articles, and very different to the miserable\r\nwretches we get up the country."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But you never told me,\" he added,\r\nsuddenly changing the subject, \"whether you found any money on board\r\nthe 'Pilgrim'!\" \"Oh, I rescued a few hundred dollars from the wreck, that was all,\"\r\nsaid the Portuguese carelessly; \"but I am expecting....\" he stopped\r\nshort. \"What are you expecting?\" inquired Harris eagerly. \"Oh, nothing, nothing,\" said Negoro, apparently annoyed that he had\r\nsaid so much, and immediately began talking of the means of securing\r\nthe living prey which he had been taking so many pains to entrap. Harris informed him that on the Coanza, about ten miles distant, there\r\nwas at the present time encamped a slave caravan, under the control of\r\nan Arab named Ibn Hamish; plenty of native soldiers were there on\r\nguard, and if Dick Sands and his people could only be induced to travel\r\nin that direction, their capture would be a matter of very little\r\ndifficulty. He said that of course Dick Sands' first thought would\r\nnaturally be how to get back to the coast; it was not likely that he\r\nwould venture a second time through the forest, but would in all\r\nprobability try to make his way to the nearest river, and descend its\r\ncourse on a raft to the sea. The nearest river was undoubtedly the\r\nCoanza, so that he and Negoro might feel quite sure of meeting \"their\r\nfriends\" upon its banks."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If you really think so,\" said Negoro, \"there is not much time to be\r\nlost; whatever young Sands determines to do, he will do at once: he\r\nnever lets the grass grow under his feet.\" \"Let us start, then, this very moment, mate,\" was Harris's reply. Both rose to their feet, when they were startled by the same rustling\r\nin the papyrus which had previously aroused Negoro's fears. Presently a\r\nlow growl was heard, and a large dog, showing his teeth, emerged from\r\nthe bushes, evidently prepared for an attack. \"It's Dingo!\" exclaimed Harris. \"Confound the brute! he shall not escape me this time,\" said Negoro. He caught up Harris's gun, and raising it to his shoulder, he fired\r\njust as the dog was in the act of springing at his throat. A long whine\r\nof pain followed the report, and Dingo disappeared again amongst the\r\nbushes that fringed the stream. Negoro was instantly upon his track,\r\nbut could discover nothing beyond a few blood-stains upon the stalks of\r\nthe papyrus, and a long crimson trail upon the pebbles on the bank. \"I think I have done for the beast now,\" was Negoro's remark as he\r\nreturned from his fruitless search. Harris, who had been a silent spectator of the whole scene, now asked\r\ncoolly,--\r\n\r\n\"What makes that animal have such an inveterate dislike to you?\" \"Oh, there is an old score to settle between us,\" replied the\r\nPortuguese. \"What about?\" inquired the American."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Negoro made no reply, and finding him evidently disinclined to be\r\ncommunicative on the subject, Harris did not press the matter any\r\nfurther. A few moments later the two men were descending the stream, and making\r\ntheir way through the forest towards the Coanza. [Illustration: Dingo disappeared again amongst the bushes]\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER III. ON THE MARCH AGAIN. \"Africa! Africa!\" was the terrible word that echoed and re-echoed in\r\nthe mind of Dick Sands. As he pondered over the events of the preceding\r\nweeks he could now understand why, notwithstanding the rapid progress\r\nof the ship, the land seemed ever to be receding, and why the voyage\r\nhad been prolonged to twice its anticipated length. It remained,\r\nhowever, a mystery inexplicable as before, how and when they had\r\nrounded Cape Horn and passed into another ocean. Suddenly the idea\r\nflashed upon him that the compass must have been tampered with; and he\r\nremembered the fall of the first compass; he recalled the night when he\r\nhad been roused by Tom's cry of alarm that Negoro had fallen against\r\nthe binnacle. As he recollected these circumstances he became more and\r\nmore convinced that it was Negoro who was the mainspring of all the\r\nmischief; that it was he who had contrived the loss of the \"Pilgrim,\"\r\nand compromised the safety of all on board. What had been the career, what could be the motives of a man who was\r\ncapable of such vile machinations?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But shrouded in mystery as were the events of the past, the present\r\noffered a prospect equally obscure. Beyond the fact that he was in Africa and a hundred miles from the\r\ncoast, Dick knew absolutely nothing. He could only conjecture that he\r\nwas in the fatal province of Angola, and assured as he was that Harris\r\nhad acted the traitor, he was led to the conclusion that he and Negoro\r\nhad been playing into each other's hands. The result of the collision,\r\nhe feared, might be very disastrous to the survivors of the \"Pilgrim.\" Yet, in what manner would the odious stratagem be accomplished? Dick\r\ncould well understand that the negroes would be sold for slaves; he\r\ncould only too easily imagine that upon himself Negoro would wreak the\r\nvengeance he had so obviously been contemplating; but for Mrs. Weldon\r\nand the other helpless members of the party what fate could be in store? The situation was terrible, but yet Dick did not flinch; he had been\r\nappointed captain, and captain he would remain; Mrs. Weldon and her\r\nlittle son had been committed to his charge, and he was resolved to\r\ncarry out his trust faithfully to the end. For several hours he remained wrapped in thought, pondering over the\r\npresent and the future, weighing the evil chances against the good,\r\nonly to be convinced that the evil much preponderated. At length he\r\nrose, firm, resolute, calm. The first glimmer of dawn was breaking upon\r\nthe forest."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All the rest of the party, except Tom, were fast asleep. Dick Sands crept softly up to the old negro, and whispered:--\r\n\r\n\"Tom, you know now where we are!\" \"Yes, yes, Mr. Dick, only too well I know it. We are in Africa!\" The old man sighed mournfully. \"Tom,\" said Dick, in the same low voice, \"you must keep this a secret;\r\nyou must not say a word to let Mrs. Weldon or any of the others know.\" The old man murmured his assent, and Dick continued:--\r\n\r\n\"It will be quite enough for them to learn that we have been betrayed\r\nby Harris, and that we must consequently practise extra care and\r\nwatchfulness; they will merely think we are taking precautions against\r\nbeing surprised by nomad Indians. I trust to your good sense, Tom, to\r\nassist me in this.\" \"You may depend upon me, Mr. Dick; and I can promise you that we will\r\nall do our best to prove our courage, and to show our devotion to your\r\nservice.\" [Illustration: \"You must keep this a secret\"]\r\n\r\nThus assured of Tom's co-operation, Dick proceeded to deliberate upon\r\nhis future line of action."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had every reason to believe that the\r\ntreacherous American, startled by the traces of the slaves and the\r\nunexpected roaring of the lion, had taken flight before he had\r\nconducted his victims to the spot where they were to be attacked, and\r\nthat consequently some hours might elapse before he would be joined by\r\nNegoro, who (to judge from Dingo's strange behaviour) had undoubtedly\r\nfor the last few days been somewhere on their track. Here was a delay that might be turned to good account, and no time was\r\nto be lost in taking advantage of it to commence their return journey\r\nto the coast. If, as Dick had every reason to suppose, he was in\r\nAngola, he hoped to find, either north or south, some Portuguese\r\nsettlement whence he could obtain the means of transporting his party\r\nto their several homes. But how was this return journey to be accomplished? It would be\r\ndifficult, not to say imprudent, to retrace their footsteps through the\r\nforest; it would merely bring them to their starting-point, and would,\r\nmoreover, afford an easy track for Negoro or his accomplices to follow. The safest and most secret means of reaching the coast would assuredly\r\nbe by descending the course of some river."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This would have to be\r\neffected by constructing a strong raft, from which the little party,\r\nwell armed, might defend themselves alike from attacks either of the\r\nnatives or of wild beasts, and which would likewise afford a\r\ncomfortable means of transport for Mrs. Weldon and her little boy, who\r\nwere now deprived of the use of Harris's horse. The negroes, it is\r\ntrue, would be only too pleased to carry the lady on a litter of\r\nbranches, but this would be to occupy the services of two out of five,\r\nand under the circumstances it was manifestly advisable that all hands\r\nshould be free to act on the defensive. Another great inducement\r\ntowards the plan was that Dick Sands felt himself much more at home in\r\ntravelling by water than by land, and was longing to be once again upon\r\nwhat to him was, as it were, his native element. He little dreamt that\r\nhe was devising for himself the very plan that Harris, in his\r\nspeculations, had laid down for him! The most urgent matter was now to find such a stream as would suit\r\ntheir purpose. Dick had several reasons for feeling sure that one\r\nexisted in the neighbourhood."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He knew that the little river, which fell\r\ninto the Atlantic near the spot where the \"Pilgrim\" stranded, could not\r\nextend very far either to the north or east, because the horizon was\r\nbounded in both directions by the chain of mountains which he had taken\r\nfor the Cordilleras. If the stream did not rise in those hills it must\r\nincline to the south, so that in either case Dick was convinced he\r\ncould not be long in discovering it or one of its affluents. Another\r\nsign, which he recognized as hopeful, was that during the last few\r\nmiles of the march the soil had become moist and level, whilst here and\r\nthere the appearance of tiny rivulets indicated that an aqueous network\r\nexisted in the subsoil. On the previous day, too, the caravan had\r\nskirted a rushing torrent, of which the waters were tinged with oxide\r\nof iron from its sloping banks. Dick's scheme was to make his way back as far as this stream, which\r\nthough not navigable itself would in all probability empty itself into\r\nsome affluent of greater importance. The idea, which he imparted to\r\nTom, met with the old negro's entire approval. As the day dawned the sleepers, one by one, awoke. Mrs. Weldon laid\r\nlittle Jack in Nan's arms. The child was still dozing; the fever had\r\nabated, but he looked painfully white and exhausted after the attack. \"Dick,\" said Mrs. Weldon, after looking round her, \"where is Mr.\r\nHarris? I cannot see him.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Harris has left us,\" answered Dick very quietly. \"Do you mean that he has gone on ahead?\" \"No, madam, I mean that he has left us, and gone away entirely: he is\r\nin league with Negoro.\" \"In league with Negoro!\" cried Mrs. Weldon, \"Ah, I have had a fancy\r\nlately that there has been something wrong: but why? what can be their\r\nmotive?\" \"Indeed I am unable to tell you,\" replied Dick; \"I only know that we\r\nhave no alternative but to return to the coast immediately if we would\r\nescape the two rascals.\" [Illustration: \"Harris has left us\"]\r\n\r\n\"I only wish I could catch them,\" said Hercules, who had overheard the\r\nconversation; \"I would soon knock their heads together;\" and he shook\r\nhis two fists in giving emphasis to his words. \"But what will become of my boy?\" cried Mrs. Weldon, in tones of\r\ndespondency; \"I have been so sanguine in procuring him the comforts of\r\nSan Felice.\" \"Master Jack will be all right enough, madam, when we get into a more\r\nhealthy situation near the coast,\" said Tom. \"But is there no farm anywhere near? no village? no shelter?\" she\r\npleaded. \"None whatever, madam; I can only repeat that it is absolutely\r\nnecessary that we make the best of our way back to the sea-shore.\" \"Are you quite sure, Dick, that Mr. Harris has deceived us?\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dirk felt that he should be glad to avoid any discussion on the\r\nsubject, but with a warning glance at Tom, he proceeded to say that on\r\nthe previous night he and Tom had discovered the American's treachery,\r\nand that if he had not instantly taken to his horse and fled he would\r\nhave answered for his guilt with his life. Without, however, dwelling\r\nfor a moment more than he could avoid upon the past, he hurried on to\r\ndetail the means by which he now proposed to reach the sea, concluding\r\nby the assertion that he hoped a very few miles' march would bring them\r\nto a stream on which they might be able to embark. Mrs. Weldon, thoroughly ignoring her own weakness, professed her\r\nreadiness not only to walk, but to carry Jack too. Bat and Austin at\r\nonce volunteered to carry her in a litter; of this the lady would not\r\nhear, and bravely repeated her intention of travelling on foot,\r\nannouncing her willingness to start without further delay. Dick Sands\r\nwas only too glad to assent to her wish. \"Let me take Master Jack,\" said Hercules; \"I shall be out of my element\r\nif I have nothing to carry.\" The giant, without waiting for a reply, took the child from Nan's arms\r\nso gently that he did not even rouse him from his slumber."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The weapons were next carefully examined, and the provisions, having\r\nbeen repacked into one parcel, were consigned to the charge of Actæon,\r\nwho undertook to carry them on his back. Cousin Benedict, whose wiry limbs seemed capable of bearing any amount\r\nof fatigue, was quite ready to start. It was doubtful whether he had\r\nnoticed Harris's disappearance; he was suffering from a loss which to\r\nhim was of far greater importance. He had mislaid his spectacles and\r\nmagnifying-glass. It had happened that Bat had picked them up in the\r\nlong grass, close to the spot where the amateur naturalist had been\r\nlying, but acting on a hint from Dick Sands, he said nothing about\r\nthem; in this way the entomologist, who, without his glasses could\r\nscarcely see a yard beyond his face, might be expected to be kept\r\nwithout trouble in the limits of the ranks, and having been placed\r\nbetween Actæon and Austin with strict injunctions not to leave their\r\nside, he followed them as submissively as a blind man in\r\nleading-strings. The start was made. But scarcely had the little troop advanced fifty\r\nyards upon their way, when Tom suddenly cried out,--\r\n\r\n\"Where's Dingo?\" With all the force of his tremendous lungs, Hercules gave a series of\r\nreverberating shouts:--\r\n\r\n\"Dingo! Dingo! Dingo!\" Not a bark could be distinguished in reply\r\n\r\n\"Dingo! Dingo! Dingo!\" again echoed in the air. But all was silence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick was intensely annoyed at the non-appearance of the dog; his\r\npresence would have been an additional safeguard in the event of any\r\nsudden surprise. \"Perhaps he has followed Harris,\" suggested Tom. \"Far more likely he is on the track of Negoro,\" rejoined Dick. \"Then Negoro, to a dead certainty,\" said Hercules, \"will put a bullet\r\ninto his head.\" \"It is to be hoped,\" replied Bat, \"that Dingo will strangle him first.\" Dick Sands, disguising his vexation, said,\r\n\r\n\"At any rate, we have no time to wait for the animal now: if he is\r\nalive, he will not fail to find us out. Move on, my lads! move on!\" The weather was very hot; ever since daybreak heavy clouds had been\r\ngathering upon the horizon, and it seemed hardly likely that the day\r\nwould pass without a storm. Fortunately the woods were sufficiently\r\nlight to ensure a certain amount of freshness to the surface of the\r\nsoil. Here and there were large patches of tall, rank grass enclosed by\r\nclumps of forest trees. In some places, fossilized trunks, lying on the\r\nground, betokened the existence of one of the coal districts that are\r\ncommon upon the continent of Africa. Along the glades the carpet of\r\nverdure was relieved by crimson stems and a variety of flowers;\r\nginger-blossoms, blue and yellow, pale lobelias, and red orchids\r\nfertilized by the numerous insects that incessantly hovered about them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The trees did not grow in impenetrable masses of one species, but\r\nexhibited themselves in infinite variety. There was also a species of\r\npalm producing an oil locally much valued; there were cotton-plants\r\ngrowing in bushes eight or ten feet high, the cotton attached in long\r\nshreds to the ligneous stalks; and there were copals from which,\r\npierced by the proboscis of certain insects, exudes an odorous resin\r\nthat flows on to the ground and is collected by the natives. Then there\r\nwere citrons and wild pomegranates and a score of other arborescent\r\nplants, all testifying to the fertility of this plateau of Central\r\nAfrica. In many places, too, the air was fragrant with the odour of\r\nvanilla, though it was not possible to discover the shrub from which\r\nthe perfume emanated. In spite of it being the dry season, so that the soil had only been\r\nmoistened by occasional storms, all trees and plants were flourishing\r\nin great luxuriance. It was the time of year for fever, but, according\r\nto Dr. Livingstone's observation, the disorder may generally be cured\r\nby quitting the locality where it has been contracted. Dick expressed\r\nhis hope that, in little Jack's case, the words of the great traveller\r\nwould be verified, and in encouragement of this sanguine view, pointed\r\nout to Mrs. Weldon that although it was past the time for the\r\nperiodical return of the fever, the child was still slumbering quietly\r\nin Hercules' arms."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The march was continued with as much rapidity as was consistent with\r\ncaution. Occasionally, where the bushes and brushwood had been broken\r\ndown by the recent passage of men or beasts, progress was comparatively\r\neasy; but much more frequently, greatly to Dick's annoyance, obstacles\r\nof various sorts impeded their advance. Climbing plants grew in such\r\ninextricable confusion that they could only be compared to a ship's\r\nrigging involved in hopeless entanglement; there were creepers\r\nresembling curved scimitars, thickly covered with sharp thorns; there\r\nwere likewise strange growths, like vegetable serpents, fifty or sixty\r\nfeet long, which seemed to have a cruel faculty for torturing every\r\npassenger with their prickly spines. Axe in hand, the negroes had\r\nrepeatedly to cut their road through these bewildering obstructions\r\nthat clothed the trees from their summit to their base. Animal life was no less remarkable in its way than the vegetation. Birds in great variety flitted about in the ample foliage, secure from\r\nany stray shot from the little band, whose chief object it was to\r\npreserve its incognito. Guinea-fowls were seen in considerable numbers,\r\nfrancolins in several varieties, and a few specimens of the bird to\r\nwhich the Americans, in imitation of their note, have given the name of\r\n\"whip-poor-will.\" If Dick had not had too much evidence in other ways\r\nto the contrary, he might almost have imagined himself in a province of\r\nthe New World. Hitherto they had been unmolested by any dangerous wild beasts."}
{"question": "", "answer": "During\r\nthe present stage of their march a herd of giraffes, startled by their\r\nunexpected approach, rushed fleetly past; this time, however, without\r\nbeing represented as ostriches. Occasionally a dense cloud of dust on\r\nthe edge of the prairie, accompanied by a sound like the roll of\r\nheavily-laden chariots, betokened the flight of a herd of buffaloes;\r\nbut with these exceptions no animal of any magnitude appeared in view. [Illustration: The march was continued with as much rapidity as was\r\nconsistent with caution.] For about two miles Dick followed the course of the rivulet, in the\r\nhope that it would emerge into a more important stream, which would\r\nconvey them without much difficulty or danger direct to the sea. Towards noon about three miles had been accomplished, and a halt was\r\nmade for rest. Neither Negoro nor Harris had been seen, nor had Dingo\r\nreappeared. The encampment for the midday refreshment was made under\r\nthe shelter of a clump of bamboos, which effectually concealed them\r\nall. Few words were spoken during the meal. Mrs. Weldon could eat\r\nnothing; she had again taken her little boy into her arms, and seemed\r\nwholly absorbed in watching him. Again and again Dick begged her to\r\ntake some nourishment, urging upon her the necessity of keeping up her\r\nstrength. \"We shall not be long in finding a good current to carry us to the\r\ncoast,\" said the lad brightly. Mrs. Weldon raised her eyes to his animated features."}
{"question": "", "answer": "With so sanguine\r\nand resolute a leader, with such devoted servants as the five negroes\r\nin attendance, she felt that she ought not utterly to despair. Was she\r\nnot, after all, on friendly soil? what great harm could Harris\r\nperpetrate against her or her belongings? She would hope still, hope\r\nfor the best. Rejoiced as he was to see something of its former brightness return to\r\nher countenance, Dick nevertheless had scarcely courage steadily to\r\nreturn her searching gaze. Had she known the whole truth, he knew that\r\nher heart must fail her utterly. CHAPTER IV. ROUGH TRAVELLING. Just at this moment Jack woke up and put his arms round his mother's\r\nneck. His eyes were brighter, and there was manifestly no return of\r\nfever. \"You are better, darling!\" said Mrs. Weldon, pressing him tenderly to\r\nher. \"Yes, mamma, I am better; but I am very thirsty.\" Some cold water was soon procured, which the child drank eagerly, and\r\nthen began to look about him. His first inquiry was for his old\r\nfriends, Dick and Hercules, both of whom approached at his summons and\r\ngreeted him affectionately. \"Where is the horse?\" was the next question. \"Gone away, Master Jack; I am your horse now,\" said Hercules. \"But you have no bridle for me to hold,\" said Jack, looking rather\r\ndisappointed. \"You may put a bit in my mouth if you like, master Jack,\" replied\r\nHercules, extending his jaws, \"and then you may pull as hard as you\r\nplease.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"O, I shall not pull very hard,\" said Jack; \"but haven't we nearly come\r\nto Mr. Harris's farm?\" Mrs. Weldon assured the child that they should soon be where they\r\nwanted to be, and Dick, finding that the conversation was approaching\r\ndangerous ground, proposed that the journey should be now resumed. Mrs.\r\nWeldon assented; the encampment was forthwith broken up and the march\r\ncontinued as before. [Illustration: It was a scene only too common in Central Africa]\r\n\r\nIn order not to lose sight of the watercourse, it was necessary to cut\r\na way right through the underwood: progress was consequently very slow;\r\nand a little over a mile was all that was accomplished in about three\r\nhours. Footpaths had evidently once existed, but they had all become\r\nwhat the natives term \"dead,\" that is, they had become entirely\r\novergrown with brushwood and brambles. The negroes worked away with a\r\nwill; Hercules, in particular, who temporarily resigned his charge to\r\nNan, wielded his axe with marvellous effect, all the time giving vent\r\nto stentorian groans and grunts, and succeeded in opening the woods\r\nbefore him as if they were being consumed by a devouring fire. Fortunately this heavy labour was not of very long duration. After about a mile, an opening of moderate width, converging towards\r\nthe stream and following its bank, was discovered in the underwood. It\r\nwas a passage formed by elephants, which apparently by hundreds must be\r\nin the habit of traversing this part of the forest."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The spongy soil,\r\nsoaked by the downpour of the rainy season, was everywhere indented\r\nwith the enormous impressions of their feet. But it soon became evident that elephants were not the only living\r\ncreatures that had used this track. Human bones gnawed by beasts of\r\nprey, whole human skeletons, still wearing the iron fetters of slavery,\r\neverywhere strewed the ground. It was a scene only too common in\r\nCentral Africa, where like cattle driven to the slaughter, poor\r\nmiserable men are dragged in caravans for hundreds of weary miles, to\r\nperish on the road in countless numbers beneath the trader's lash, to\r\nsuccumb to the mingled horrors of fatigue, privation, and disease, or,\r\nif provisions fail, to be butchered, without pity or remorse, by sword\r\nand gun. That slave-caravans had passed that way was too obvious to permit a\r\ndoubt. For at least a mile, at almost every step Dick came in contact\r\nwith the scattered bones; while ever and again huge goat suckers,\r\ndisturbed by the approach of the travellers, rose with flapping wings,\r\nand circled round their heads. The youth's heart sank with secret dismay lest Mrs. Weldon should\r\ndivine the meaning of this ghastly scene, and appeal to him for\r\nexplanation, but fortunately she had again insisted on carrying her\r\nlittle patient, and although the child was fast asleep, he absorbed her\r\nwhole attention. Nan was by her side, almost equally engrossed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Old Tom\r\nalone was fully alive to the significance of his surroundings, and with\r\ndowncast eyes he mournfully pursued his march. Full of amazement, the\r\nother negroes looked right and left upon what might appear to them as\r\nthe upheaval of some vast cemetery, but they uttered no word of inquiry\r\nor surprise. Meantime the bed of the stream had increased both in breadth and depth,\r\nand the rivulet had in a degree lost its character of a rushing\r\ntorrent. This was a change which Dick Sands observed hopefully,\r\ninterpreting it as an indication that it might itself become navigable,\r\nor would empty itself into some more important tributary of the\r\nAtlantic. His resolve was fixed: he would follow its course at all\r\nhazards. As soon, therefore, as he found that the elephant's track was\r\nquitting the water's edge, he made up his mind to abandon it, and had\r\nno hesitation in again resorting to the use of the axe. Once more,\r\nthen, commenced the labour of cutting a way through the entanglement of\r\nbushes and creepers that were thick upon the soil. It was no longer\r\nforest through which they were wending their arduous path; trees were\r\ncomparatively rare; only tall clumps of bamboos rose above the grass,\r\nso high, however, that even Hercules could not see above them, and the\r\npassage of the little troop could only have been discovered by the\r\nrustling in the stalks. In the course of the afternoon, the soil became soft and marshy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was\r\nevident that the travellers were crossing plains that in a long rainy\r\nseason must be inundated. The ground was carpeted with luxuriant mosses\r\nand graceful ferns, and the continual appearance of brown hematite\r\nwherever there was a rise in the soil, betokened the existence of a\r\nrich vein of metal beneath. Remembering what he had read in Dr. Livingstone's account of these\r\ntreacherous swamps, Dick bade his companions take their footing warily. He himself led the way. Tom expressed his surprise that the ground\r\nshould be so soaked when there had been no rain for some time. \"I think we shall have a storm soon,\" said Bat,\r\n\r\n\"All the more reason, then,\" replied Dick, \"why we should get away from\r\nthese marshes as quickly as possible. Carry Jack again, Hercules; and\r\nyou, Bat and Austin, keep close to Mrs. Weldon, so as to be able to\r\nassist her if she wants your help. But take care, take care, Mr. Benedict!\" he cried out in sudden alarm; \"what are you doing, sir?\" \"I'm slipping in,\" was poor Benedict's helpless reply. He had trodden\r\nupon a kind of quagmire and, as though a trap had been opened beneath\r\nhis feet, was fast disappearing into the slough. Assistance was\r\nimmediately rendered, and the unfortunate naturalist was dragged out,\r\ncovered with mud almost to his waist, but thoroughly satisfied because\r\nhis precious box of specimens had suffered no injury."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Actæon undertook\r\nfor the future to keep close to his side, and endeavour to avoid a\r\nrepetition of the mishap. The accident could not be said to be altogether free from unpleasant\r\nconsequences. Air-bubbles in great numbers had risen to the surface of\r\nthe mire from which Benedict had been extricated, and as they burst\r\nthey disseminated an odious stench that was well-nigh intolerable. The\r\npassage of these pestilential districts is not unfrequently very\r\ndangerous, and Livingstone, who on several occasions waded through them\r\nin mud that reached to his breast, compares them to great sponges\r\ncomposed of black porous earth, in which every footstep causes streams\r\nof moisture to ooze out. For well nigh half a mile they had now to wend their cautious way\r\nacross this spongy soil. Mrs. Weldon, ankle-deep in the soft mud, was\r\nat last compelled to come to a stand-still; and Hercules, Bat, and\r\nAustin, all resolved that she should be spared further discomfort, and\r\ninsisted upon weaving some bamboos into a litter, upon which, after\r\nmuch reluctance to become such a burden, she was induced, with Jack\r\nbeside her, to take her place. After the delay thus caused, the procession again started on its\r\nperilous route."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick Sands continued to walk at the head, in order to\r\ntest the stability of the footing; Action followed, holding Cousin\r\nBenedict firmly by the arm; Tom took charge of old Nan, who without his\r\nsupport would certainly have fallen into the quagmire; and the three\r\nother negroes carried the litter in the rear. It was a matter of the\r\ngreatest difficulty to find a path that was sufficiently firm; the\r\nmethod they adopted was to pick their way as much as possible on the\r\nlong rank grass that on the margin of the swamps was tolerably tough;\r\nbut in spite of the greatest precaution, there was not one of them who\r\nescaped occasionally sinking up to his knees in slush. At about five o'clock they were relieved by finding themselves on\r\nground of a more clayey character; it was still soft and porous below,\r\nbut its surface was hard enough to give a secure foothold. There were\r\nwatery pores that percolated the subsoil, and these gave evident\r\nwitness to the proximity of a river-district. The heat would have been intolerably oppressive if it had not been\r\ntempered by some heavy storm-clouds which obstructed the direct\r\ninfluence of the sun's rays. Lightning was observed to be playing\r\nfaintly about the sky, and there was now and again the low growl of\r\ndistant thunder. The indications of a gathering storm were too manifest\r\nto be disregarded, and Dick could not help being very uneasy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had\r\nheard of the extreme violence of African storms, and knew that torrents\r\nof rain, hurricanes that no tree could resist, and thunderbolt after\r\nthunderbolt were the usual accompaniment of these tempests. And here in\r\nthis lowland desert, which too surely would be completely inundated,\r\nthere would not be a tree to which they could resort for shelter, while\r\nit would likewise be utterly vain to hope to obtain a refuge by\r\nexcavation, as water would be found only two feet below the surface. [Illustration: Another brilliant flash brought the camp once again into\r\nrelief.] After scrutinizing the landscape, however, he noticed some low\r\nelevations on the north that seemed to form the boundary of the marshy\r\nplain. A few trees were scattered along their summits; if his party\r\ncould get no other shelter here, he hoped they would be able to find\r\nthemselves free from any danger caused by the rising flood. \"Push on, friends, push on!\" he cried; \"three miles more, and we shall\r\nbe out of this treacherous lowland.\" His words served to inspire a fresh confidence, and in spite of all the\r\nprevious fatigue, every energy was brought into play with renewed\r\nvigour. Hercules, in particular, seemed ready to carry the whole party,\r\nif it had been in his power. The storm was not long in beginning. The rising ground was still two\r\nmiles away."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Although the sun was above the horizon, the darkness was\r\nalmost complete; the overhanging volumes of vapour sank lower and lower\r\ntowards the earth, but happily the full force of the deluge which must\r\nultimately come did not descend as yet. Lightning, red and blue,\r\nflashed on every side and appeared to cover the ground with a network\r\nof flame. Ever and again the little knot of travellers were in peril of being\r\nstruck by the thunderbolts which, on that treeless plain, had no other\r\nobject of attraction. Poor little Jack, who had been awakened by the\r\nperpetual crashes, buried his face in terror in Hercules' breast,\r\nanxious, however, not to distress his mother by any outward exhibition\r\nof alarm. The good-natured negro endeavoured to pacify him by promises\r\nthat the lightning should not touch him, and the child, ever confident\r\nin the protection of his huge friend, lost something of his nervousness. But it could not be long before the clouds would burst and discharge\r\nthe threatened down-pour. \"What are we to do, Tom?\" asked Dick, drawing up close to the negro's\r\nside. \"We must make a rush for it; push on with all the speed we can.\" \"But where?\" cried Dick. \"Straight on,\" was the prompt reply; \"if the rain catches us here on\r\nthe plain we shall all be drowned.\" \"But where are we to go?\" repeated Dick, in despair; \"if only there\r\nwere a hut! But look, look there!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "A vivid flash of lightning had lit up the country, and Dick declared\r\nthat he could see a camp which could hardly be more than a quarter of a\r\nmile ahead. The negro looked doubtful. \"I saw it too,\" he assented: \"but if it be a camp at all it would be a\r\ncamp of natives; and to fall into that would involve us in a worse fate\r\nthan the rain.\" Another brilliant flash brought the camp once again into relief; it\r\nappeared to be made up of about a hundred conical tents, arranged very\r\nsymmetrically, each of them being from twelve to fifteen feet in\r\nheight. It had the appearance, from a distance, of being deserted; if\r\nit were really so, it would afford just the shelter that was needed;\r\notherwise, at all hazards, it must be most carefully avoided. \"I will go in advance,\" said Dick, after a moment's reflection, \"and\r\nreconnoitre it.\" \"Let one of us, at least, go with you,\" replied Tom. \"No, stay where you are; I shall be much less likely to be discovered\r\nif I go alone.\" Without another word, he darted off, and was soon lost in the sombre\r\ndarkness that was only broken by the frequent lightning. Large drops of rain were now beginning to fall. Tom and Dick had been walking some little distance in advance of the\r\nrest of the party, who consequently had not overheard their\r\nconversation. A halt being made, Mrs. Weldon inquired what was the\r\nmatter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Tom explained that a camp or village had been noticed a little\r\nway in front, and that the captain had gone forward to investigate it. Mrs. Weldon asked no further questions, but quietly waited the result. It was only a few minutes before Dick returned. \"You may come on,\" he cried. \"Is the camp deserted?\" asked Tom. \"It is not a camp at all; it is a lot of ant-hills!\" \"Ant-hills!\" echoed Benedict, suddenly aroused into a state of\r\nexcitement. [Illustration: One after another, the whole party made their way inside]\r\n\r\n\"No doubt of it, Mr. Benedict.\" replied Dick; \"they are ant-hills\r\ntwelve feet high at least: and I hope we shall be able to get into\r\nthem.\" \"Twelve feet!\" the naturalist repeated; \"they must be those of the\r\ntermites, the white ants; there is no other insect that could make\r\nthem. Wonderful architects are the termites.\" \"Termites, or whatever they are, they will have to turn out for us,\"\r\nsaid Dick. \"But they will eat us up!\" objected Benedict. \"I can't help that,\" retorted Dick; \"go we must, and go at once.\" \"But stop a moment,\" continued the provoking naturalist; \"stop, and\r\ntell me: I can't be wrong: I always thought that white ants could never\r\nbe found elsewhere than in Africa.\" \"Come along, sir, I say; come along, quick!\" shouted Dick, terrified\r\nlest Mrs. Weldon should have overheard him. They hurried on."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A wind had risen; large spattering drops were now\r\nbeginning to fall more heavily on the ground and in a few minutes it\r\nwould be impossible to stand against the advancing tempest. The nearest\r\nof the accumulation of ant-hills was reached in time, and however\r\ndangerous their occupants might be, it was decided either to expel\r\nthem, or to share their quarters. Each cone was formed of a kind of\r\nreddish clay, and had a single opening at its base. Hercules took his\r\nhatchet, and quickly enlarged the aperture till it would admit his own\r\nhuge body. Not an ant made its appearance. Cousin Benedict expressed\r\nhis extreme surprise. But the structure unquestionably was empty, and\r\none after another the whole party made their way inside. The rain by this time was descending in terrific torrents, strong\r\nenough to extinguish, one would think, the most violent explosions of\r\nthe electric fluid. But the travellers were secure in their shelter,\r\nand had nothing to fear for the present; their tenement was of greater\r\nstability than a tent or a native hut. It was one of those marvellous\r\nstructures erected by little insects, which to Cameron appeared even\r\nmore wonderful than the upraising of the Egyptian pyramids by human\r\nhands. To use his own comparison, it might be likened to the\r\nconstruction of a Mount Everest, the loftiest of the Himalayan peaks,\r\nby the united labour of a nation. CHAPTER V.\r\n\r\nWHITE ANTS."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The storm had now burst in full fury, and fortunate it was that a\r\nrefuge had been found. The rain did not fall in separate drops as in\r\ntemperate zones, but descended like the waters of a cataract, in one\r\nsolid and compact mass, in a way that could only suggest the outpour of\r\nsome vast aerial basin containing the waters of an entire ocean. Contrary, too, to the storms of higher latitudes, of which the duration\r\nseems ordinarily to be in inverse ratio to their violence, these\r\nAfrican tempests, whatever their magnitude, often last for whole days,\r\nfurrowing the soil into deep ravines, changing plains to lakes and\r\nbrooks to torrents, and causing rivers to overflow and cover vast\r\ndistricts with their inundations. It is hard to understand whence such\r\nvolumes of vapour and electric fluid can accumulate. The earth, upon\r\nthese occasions, might almost seem to be carried back to the remote\r\nperiod which has been called \"the diluvian age.\" Happily, the walls of the ant-hill were very thick; no beaver-hut\r\nformed of pounded earth could be more perfectly water-tight, and a\r\ntorrent might have passed over it without a particle of moisture making\r\nits way through its substance. As soon as the party had taken possession of the tenement, a lantern\r\nwas lighted, and they proceeded to examine the interior. The cone,\r\nwhich was about twelve feet high inside, was eleven feet wide at the\r\nbase, gradually narrowing to a sugar-loaf top."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The walls and partitions\r\nbetween the tiers of cells were nowhere less than a foot thick\r\nthroughout. These wonderful erections, the result of the combined labour of\r\ninnumerable insects, are by no means uncommon in the heart of Africa. Smeathman, a Dutch traveller of the last century, has recorded how he\r\nand four companions all at one time occupied the summit of one of them\r\nin Loundé. Livingstone noticed some made of red clay, of which the\r\nheight varied from fifteen to twenty feet; and in Nyangwé, Cameron\r\nseveral times mistook one of these colonies for a native camp pitched\r\nupon the plain. He described some of these strange edifices as being\r\nflanked with small spires, giving them the appearance of a\r\ncathedral-dome. The reddish clay of which the ant-hill was composed could leave no\r\ndoubt upon the mind of a naturalist that it had been formed by the\r\nspecies known as \"termes bellicosus;\" had it been made of grey or black\r\nalluvial soil, it might have been attributed to the \"termes mordax\" or\r\n\"termes atrox,\" formidable names that must awaken anything but pleasure\r\nin the minds of all but enthusiast entomologists. In the centre was an open space, surrounded by roomy compartments,\r\nranged one upon another, like the berths of a ship's cabin, and lined\r\nwith the millions of cells that had been occupied by the ants."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This\r\ncentral space was inadequate to hold the whole party that had now made\r\ntheir hurried resort to it, but as each of the compartments was\r\nsufficiently capacious to admit one person to occupy it in a sitting\r\nposture, Mrs. Weldon, Jack, Nan, and Cousin Benedict were exalted to\r\nthe upper tier, Austin, Bat, and Actæon occupied the next story, whilst\r\nTom and Hercules, and Dick Sands himself remained below. Dick soon found that the soil beneath his feet was beginning to get\r\ndamp, and insisted upon having some of the dry clay spread over it from\r\nthe base of the cone. \"It is a long time,\" he said, \"since we have slept with a roof over our\r\nheads; and I am anxious to make our refuge as secure as possible. It\r\nmay be that we shall have to stay here for a whole day or more; on the\r\nfirst opportunity I shall go and explore; it may turn out that we are\r\nnear the stream we are seeking; and perhaps we shall have to build a\r\nraft before we start again.\" [Illustration: Cousin Benedict's curiosity was awakened.] Under his direction, therefore, Hercules took his hatchet, and\r\nproceeded to break down the lowest range of cells and to spread the\r\ndry, brittle clay of which they were composed a good foot thick over\r\nthe damp floor, taking care not in any way to block up the aperture by\r\nwhich the fresh air penetrated into the interior."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was indeed fortunate that the termites had abandoned their home; had\r\nit swarmed with its multitudes of voracious Neuroptera, the ant-hill\r\nwould have been utterly untenable for human beings. Cousin Benedict's\r\ncuriosity was awakened, and he was intensely interested in the question\r\nof the evacuation, so that he proceeded at once to investigate, if he\r\ncould, whether the emigration had been recent or otherwise. He took the\r\nlantern, and as the result of his scrutiny he soon discovered in a\r\nrecess what he described as the termites' \"storehouse,\" or the place\r\nwhere the indefatigable insects keep their provisions. It was a large\r\ncavity, not far from the royal cell, which, together with the cells for\r\nthe reception of the young larvae, had been destroyed by Hercules in\r\nthe course of his flooring operations. Out of this receptacle Benedict\r\ndrew a considerable quantity of gum and vegetable juices, all in a\r\nstate so liquid as to demonstrate that they had been deposited there\r\nquite recently. \"They have only just gone,\" he exclaimed, with an air of authority, as\r\nif he imagined that some one was about to challenge his assertion. \"We are not going to dispute your word, Mr. Benedict,\" said Dick; \"here\r\nwe are; we have taken their place, and shall be quite content for them\r\nto keep out of the way, without caring when they went, or where they\r\nhave gone.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"But we must care,\" retorted Benedict testily; \"why they have gone\r\nconcerns us a good deal; these juices make it evident, from the liquid\r\nstate in which we find them, that the ants were here this morning, they\r\nhave not only gone, but they have carried off their young larvae with\r\nthem; they have been sagacious enough to take warning of some impending\r\ndanger.\" \"Perhaps they heard that we were coming,\" said Hercules, laughing. A look of withering scorn was the only answer that the entomologist\r\ndeigned to give. \"Yes, I say,\" repeated Hercules, \"perhaps they heard that we were\r\ncoming.\" \"Pshaw!\" said Benedict contemptuously; \"do you imagine they would be\r\nafraid of you? they would reduce your carcase to a skeleton in no time,\r\nif they found it across their path.\" \"No doubt, if I were dead,\" replied Hercules, \"they could pick my bones\r\npretty clean; but while I had the use of my limbs I think I could crush\r\nthem by thousands.\" \"Thousands!\" ejaculated Benedict, with increasing warmth; \"you think\r\nyou could demolish thousands; but what if they were hundreds of\r\nthousands, millions, hundreds of millions? Alive as much as dead, I\r\ntell you, they wouldn't be long in consuming every morsel of you.\" During this brisk little discussion Dick Sands had been pondering over\r\nwhat Benedict had said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was no doubt that the amateur naturalist\r\nwas well acquainted with the habits of white ants, and if, as he\r\naffirmed, the insects had instinctively quitted their abode on account\r\nof some approaching danger, Dick asked himself whether it was safe or\r\nprudent for his party to remain. But the fury of the storm was still so\r\ngreat that all possibility of removing from the shelter seemed\r\nprecluded for the present, and, without inquiring farther into the\r\nmystery, he merely said,\r\n\r\n\"Although the ants, Mr. Benedict, have left us their provisions, we\r\nmust not forget that we have brought our own. We will have our supper\r\nnow, and to-morrow, when the storm is over, we will see what is to be\r\ndone.\" Fatigue had not taken away the appetite of the energetic travellers,\r\nand they gladly set about the preparation of their meal. The\r\nprovisions, of which they had enough for another two days, had not been\r\ninjured by the rain. For some minutes the crunching of hard biscuit was\r\nthe only sound to be heard; Hercules, in particular, seemed to pound\r\naway with his huge jaws as with a pair of millstones. [Illustration: The naturalist now fairly mounted on a favourite hobby.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Weldon was the only one of the party who ate little; and that\r\nlittle was only taken at Dick's earnest solicitation; he could not help\r\nnoticing, with much concern, that although Jack seemed to be\r\nsatisfactorily recovering, and, without sign of fever, was sleeping\r\ncalmly enough on a bed made up of clothes spread out in one of the\r\ncells, yet his mother had lost much of her courage, and seemed\r\npreoccupied and depressed. Cousin Benedict did due honour to the simple evening repast; not on\r\naccount of its quantity or quality, but because it gave him an\r\nopportunity of holding forth upon the subject of termites. He was much\r\nvexed that he had been unable to discover a single specimen in the\r\ndeserted anthill with which he might illustrate his lecture, but\r\nnotwithstanding this deficiency he continued to talk, heedless whether\r\nany one was listening. \"They are wonderful insects,\" he said; \"they belong to the order of the\r\nNeuroptera, which have the antennae longer than the head; their\r\nmandibles are well-developed, and the inferior pair of wings is\r\ngenerally as large as the superior. There are five families of them;\r\nthe Panorpide, the Myrmellonide, the Hemerobiide, the Termitine, and\r\nthe Perlide. I need hardly say that what we are now occupying is a\r\ndwelling of the Termitine.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "At this point Dick became all attention; he was anxious to ascertain\r\nwhether this discovery of white ants had aroused any suspicion in\r\nBenedict's mind that they must be on African soil. The naturalist, now\r\nfairly mounted on a favourite hobby, went on with his discourse. \"I am sorry not to have a specimen to show you, but these Termitine\r\nhave four joints in the tarsi, and strong horny mandibles. The family\r\nincludes, as genera, the Mantispa, the Raphidia, and the Termes, the\r\nlast commonly known as white ants, amongst which are 'Termes fatalis,\r\nTermes lucifugans, Termes mordax,' and several others more or less\r\nrare.\" \"And which of them built this ant-hill?\" inquired Dick. \"The bellicosi!\" replied Benedict, pronouncing the name with as much\r\npride as if he were eulogizing the Macedonians or some warlike nation\r\nof antiquity. \"Bellicosi,\" he continued, \"are to be found of every\r\nsize. There is as much difference between the largest and the smallest\r\nof them as there is between Hercules and a dwarf; the workers are about\r\none-fifth of an inch long; the soldiers, or fighting-ants, are half an\r\ninch; whilst the males and females measure four fifths of an inch. There is another curious species, called 'sirafoos,' which are about\r\nhalf an inch long, and have pincers instead of mandibles, and heads\r\nlarger than their bodies, like sharks. In fact, if sharks and sirafoos\r\nwere placed in competition, I should be inclined to back the sharks.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"And where are these sirafoos most generally to be found?\" said Dick\r\ncautiously. \"In Africa, in the southern and central provinces. Africa may truly be\r\ntermed the land of ants. Livingstone, in the notes brought home by\r\nStanley, describes a battle which he was fortunate enough to witness\r\nbetween an army of black ants and an army of red. The black ants, or\r\ndrivers, which are what the natives call sirafoos, got the best of it;\r\nand the red ants, or 'tchoongoos,' after a very resolute defence, were\r\nobliged to retire defeated, carrying their eggs and young ones with\r\nthem. Livingstone avows that he never saw the warlike instinct so\r\nstrongly developed as in these sirafoos; the stoutest man, the largest\r\nanimal, a lion or an elephant, quails before the grip of their\r\nmandibles: no obstacle impedes their progress; no tree is too lofty for\r\nthem to scale, and they contrive to cross wide streams by forming their\r\nown bodies into a kind of suspension bridge. Equally amazing are their\r\nnumbers; Du Chaillu, another African traveller, relates how it took\r\nmore than twelve hours for a column of ants to file pass him, without a\r\nmoment's pause in their march. These numbers, however cease to be so\r\nsurprising when it is explained that their fecundity is such that a\r\nsingle female of the termites bellicosi has been estimated to produce\r\nas many as sixty thousand eggs a day."}
{"question": "", "answer": "These Neuroptera furnish the\r\nnatives with a favourite food, grilled ants being considered a great\r\ndelicacy.\" \"Have you ever tasted them?\" asked Hercules, with a grin. \"Never,\" answered the naturalist; \"but I am in hopes I shall have a\r\nchance of doing so very soon.\" \"Surely you don't imagine yourself in Africa!\" said Tom suddenly. \"Africa! no; why should I?\" replied Benedict; \"but, as I have already\r\nseen a tzetsy in America, I do not despair of having the satisfaction\r\nof discovering white ants there too. You do not know the sensation I\r\nshall make in Europe when I publish my folio volume and its\r\nillustrations.\" It was evident that no inkling of the truth had yet entered poor\r\nBenedict's brain, and it seemed likely that it would require\r\ndemonstration far more striking than any natural phenomena to undeceive\r\nthe minds of such of the party as were not already in possession of the\r\nfatal secret. Although it was nine o'clock, Cousin Benedict went on talking\r\nincessantly, regardless of the fact that one by one his audience were\r\nfalling to sleep in their separate cells. Dick Sands did not sleep, but\r\nneither did he interrupt the entomologist by farther questions;\r\nHercules kept up his attention longer than the rest, but at length he\r\ntoo succumbed to weariness, and his eyes and ears were closed to all\r\nexternal sights and sounds."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But endurance has limits, and at last Cousin Benedict, having worn\r\nhimself out, clambered up to the topmost cell of the cone, which he had\r\nchosen for his dormitory, and fell into a peaceful slumber. The lantern had been already extinguished. All was darkness and silence\r\nwithin, whilst the storm without still raged with a violence that gave\r\nno sign of abatement. Dick Sands himself was the only one of the party who was not partaking\r\nin the repose that was so indispensable to them all; but he could not\r\nsleep; his every thought was absorbed in the responsibility that rested\r\non him to rescue those under his charge from the dangers that\r\nthreatened them. Again and again he recalled every incident that had\r\noccurred since the loss of Captain Hull and his crew; he remembered the\r\noccasion when he had stood with his pistol pointed at Negoro's head;\r\nwhy, oh why, had his hand faltered then? why had he not at that moment\r\nhurled the miserable wretch overboard, and thus relieved himself and\r\nhis partners in trouble from the catastrophe that had since befallen\r\nthem? Peril was still staring them in the face, and his sole drop of\r\nconsolation in the bitter cup of despondency was that Mrs. Weldon was\r\nstill ignorant of their real situation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At that moment, just in the fever of his agony, he felt a light breath\r\nupon his forehead; a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a gentle\r\nvoice murmured in his ear,--\r\n\r\n\"My poor boy, I know everything. God will help us! His will be done!\" [Illustration: \"My poor boy, I know everything.\"] CHAPTER VI. A DIVING-BELL. This sudden revelation that Mrs. Weldon was acquainted with the true\r\nstate of things left Dick speechless. Even had he been capable of\r\nreplying, she gave him no opportunity, but immediately retired to the\r\nside of her son. The various incidents of the march had all gradually\r\nenlightened her, and perhaps the exclamation of Cousin Benedict on the\r\npreceding evening had crowned them all; anyhow the brave lady now knew\r\nthe worst. Dick felt, however, that she did not despair; neither would\r\nhe. He lay and longed for the dawn, when he hoped to explore the situation\r\nbetter, and perchance to find the watercourse which he was convinced\r\ncould not be far distant. Moreover, he was extremely anxious to be out\r\nof the reach of the natives whom, it was only too likely, Negoro and\r\nHarris might be putting on their track. But as yet no glimmer of daylight penetrated the aperture of the cone,\r\nwhilst the heavy rumblings, deadened as they were by the thickness of\r\nthe walls, made it certain that the storm was still raging with\r\nundiminished fury."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Attentively Dick listened, and he could distinctly\r\nhear the rain beating around the base of the ant-hill; the heavy drops\r\nsplashed again as they fell, in a way altogether different to what they\r\nwould upon solid ground, so that he felt sure that the adjacent land\r\nwas by this time completely flooded. He was getting very drowsy when it\r\nsuddenly occurred to him that it was not unlikely the aperture was\r\ngetting blocked up with damp clay; in that case he knew that the breath\r\nof the inmates would quickly vitiate the internal atmosphere. He crept\r\nalong the ground and had the satisfaction of finding that the clay\r\nembankment was still perfectly dry; the orifice was quite unobstructed,\r\nallowing not only a free passage to the air, but admitting the glare of\r\nthe occasional flashes of lightning, which the descending volumes of\r\nwater did not seem to stay. Having thus far satisfied himself that all was well, and that there was\r\nno immediate danger, Dick thought that he might now resign himself to\r\nsleep as well as the rest: he took the precaution, however, of\r\nstretching himself upon the embankment within easy reach of the\r\nopening, and with his head supported against the wall, after a while\r\ndozed off. How long his light slumber had lasted he could not say, when he was\r\naroused by a sensation of cold."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He started up, and to his horror\r\ndiscovered that the water had entered the ant-hill and was rising\r\nrapidly; it could not be long, he saw, before it reached the cells\r\nwhich were occupied by Hercules and Tom. He woke them at once, and told\r\nthem what he had observed. The lantern was soon lighted, and they set\r\nto work to ascertain what progress the water was making It rose for\r\nabout five feet, when it was found to remain stationary. \"What is the matter, Dick?\" inquired Mrs. Weldon, disturbed by the\r\nmovements of the men. \"Nothing very alarming,\" answered Dick promptly; \"only some water has\r\nfound its way into the lower part of the place; it will not reach your\r\nupper cells; probably some river has overflowed its boundaries.\" \"The very river, perhaps,\" suggested Hercules assuringly, \"that is to\r\ncarry us to the coast.\" Mrs. Weldon made no reply. Cousin Benedict was still sleeping as soundly as if he were himself a\r\nwhite ant; the negroes were peering down on to the sheet of water which\r\nreflected back the rays of the lantern, ready to carry out any orders\r\ngiven by Dick, who was quietly gauging the inundation, and removing the\r\nprovisions and fire-arms out of its reach. [Illustration: They set to work to ascertain what progress the water\r\nwas making.] \"Did the water get in at the opening, Mr. Dick?\" asked Tom."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Yes, Tom, and consequently we are coming to the end of our stock of\r\nfresh air,\" was Dick's reply. \"But why should we not make another opening above the water level?\" Tom\r\ninquired. \"A thing to be thought about,\" said Dick; \"but we have to remember that\r\nif we have five feet of water here inside, there is probably a depth of\r\nsix or seven outside. In rising here the flood has compressed the air,\r\nand made it an obstacle to further progress, but if we allow the air to\r\nescape, we may perhaps only be letting the water rise too high for our\r\nsafety. We are just as if we were in a diving-bell.\" \"Then what is to be done?\" asked the old negro. \"No doubt,\" replied Dick, \"we must proceed very cautiously. An\r\ninconsiderate step will jeopardize our lives.\" Dick Sands was quite\r\ncorrect in comparing the cone to an immersed diving-bell. In that\r\nmechanical contrivance, however, the air can always be renewed by means\r\nof pumps, so that it can be occupied without inconvenience beyond what\r\nis entailed by a somewhat confined atmosphere; but here the interior\r\nspace had already been reduced by a third part through the encroachment\r\nof the water, and there was no method of communicating with the outer\r\nair except by opening a new aperture, an operation in which there was\r\nmanifest danger."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick did not entertain the slightest apprehension that the ant-hill\r\nwould be carried away bodily by the inundation; he knew that it would\r\nadhere to its base as firmly as a beaver-hut; what he really dreaded\r\nwas that the storm would last so long that the flood would rise high\r\nabove the plain, perhaps submerging the ant-hill entirely, so that\r\nultimately all air would be expelled by the persistent pressure. The more he pondered the more he felt himself driven to the conviction\r\nthat the inundation would be wide and deep. It could not be, he felt\r\nsure, entirely owing to the downpour from the clouds that the rapid\r\nflood was rising; there must have been the sudden overflowing of some\r\nstream to cause such a deluge over the low-lying plain. It could not be\r\nproved that the ant hill was not already under water, so that escape\r\nmight be no longer possible, even from its highest point. With all Dick's courage, it was yet evident that he was very uneasy; he\r\ndid not know what to do, and asked himself again and again whether\r\npatient waiting or decisive action would be his more prudent course. It was now about three o'clock in the morning. All within the ant-hill\r\nwere silent and motionless, listening to the incessant turmoil which\r\ntold that the strife of the elements had not yet ceased. Presently, old Tom pointed out that the height of the water was\r\ngradually increasing, but only by very slow ascent."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick could only say\r\nthat if the flood continued to rise, however slowly, it must inevitably\r\ndrive out the air. As if struck by a sudden thought, Bat called out,--\r\n\r\n\"Let me try and get outside. Perhaps I might dive and get through the\r\nopening.\" \"I think I had better make that experiment myself,\" answered Dick. \"That you never shall,\" interposed Tom peremptorily; \"you must let Bat\r\ngo. It may not be possible to get back, and your presence is\r\nindispensable here. Think, sir, think of Mrs. Weldon, and Master Jack,\"\r\nhe added in a lower tone. \"Well, well,\" Dick assented, \"if it must be so, Bat shall go.\" And turning to Bat, he continued,\r\n\r\n\"Do not try to come back again; we will try, if we can, to follow you\r\nthe same way; but if the top of the cone is still above water, knock\r\nhard on it with your hatchet, and we shall take it as a signal that we\r\nmay break our way out. Do you understand?\" \"All right!\" he said, \"all right, sir.\" And after wringing his father's hand, he drew a long breath, and\r\nplunged into the water that filled the lower section of the ant-hill. It was an exploit that required considerable agility; the diver would\r\nhave to find the orifice, make his way through it, and, without loss of\r\na moment, let himself rise to the surface outside."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Full half a minute\r\nelapsed, and Dick was making sure that the negro had been successful in\r\nhis effort, when his black head emerged from the water. There was a\r\ngeneral exclamation of surprise. \"It is blocked up,\" gasped Bat, as soon as he had recovered breath\r\nenough to speak. \"Blocked up?\" cried Tom. \"Yes,\" Bat affirmed; \"I have felt all round the wall very carefully\r\nwith my hand, and I am sure there is no hole left; I suppose the water\r\nhas dissolved the clay.\" \"If you cannot find a hole,\" exclaimed Hercules, \"I can very soon make\r\none;\" and he was just about to plunge his hatchet into the side of the\r\nant-hill, when Dick prevented him. \"Stop, stop! you must not be in such a hurry!\" He reflected for a few moments, and went on,--\r\n\r\n\"We must be cautious; an impetuous step may be destruction; perhaps the\r\nwater is over the top; if it is allowed to enter, then at once is an\r\nend of all.\" \"But whatever we do,\" urged Tom, \"must be done at once; there is no\r\ntime to lose.\" He was right; the water had risen till it was quite six feet deep; none\r\nbut Mrs. Weldon, Jack, Nan, and Cousin Benedict, who were lodged in the\r\nupper cells, were fairly above its surface. Dick now came to his determination."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At about a foot above the\r\nwater-level, that is, about seven feet from the ground, he resolved to\r\nbore a hole through the clay. If he should find himself in\r\ncommunication with the open air, he would have the proof he desired\r\nthat the top of the cone was still uncovered; if, on the other hand, he\r\nshould ascertain that he had pierced the wall below the surface of the\r\nexternal water, he would be prepared to plug up the hole\r\ninstantaneously, and repeat the experiment higher up. It was true that\r\nthe inundation might have risen even fifteen feet above the plain; in\r\nthat case the worst had come, and there was no alternative but that\r\nthey must all die of asphyxia. Carefully considering the chances of his undertaking, Dick calmly and\r\nsteadily set about his task. The best instrument that suggested itself\r\nfor his purpose was the ramrod of a gun, which, having a sort of\r\ncorkscrew at the end for extracting the wadding, would serve as an\r\nauger. The hole would be very small, but yet large enough for the\r\nrequisite test. Hercules showed him all the light he could by holding\r\nup the lantern. There were several candles left, so that they were not\r\nin fear of being altogether in darkness. The operation hardly took a minute; the ramrod passed through the clay\r\nwithout difficulty; a muffled sound was distinguished as of air-bubbles\r\nrushing through a column of water."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As the air escaped, the water in the\r\ncone rose perceptibly. The hole had been pierced too low. A handful of\r\nclay was immediately forced into the orifice, which was thus\r\neffectually plugged; and Dick turned round quietly, and said,--\r\n\r\n\"We must try again.\" The water had again become stationary, but its last rise had diminished\r\nthe amount of breathing space by more than eight inches. The supply of\r\noxygen was beginning to fail, respiration was becoming difficult, and\r\nthe flame of the candle burned red and dim. About a foot higher than the first hole, Dick now set about boring a\r\nsecond. The experiment might again prove a failure, and the water rise\r\nyet higher in the cone; but the risk must be run. Just as the auger was being inserted, a loud exclamation of delight was\r\nheard proceeding from Cousin Benedict's cell. Dick paused, and Hercules\r\nturned the lantern towards the excited naturalist, who seemed beaming\r\nwith satisfaction. \"Yes, yes; I see it all well enough,\" he cried; \"I know now why the\r\ntermites left their home; they were wide-awake; they were more clever\r\nthan we are; they knew that the storm was coming!\" Finding that this was all the worthy entomologist had to communicate,\r\nDick, without comment, turned back again to his operation. Again the\r\ngurgling noise! again the water's upward rush! For the second time he\r\nhad failed to effect an aperture to the outer air! [Illustration: All fired simultaneously at the nearest boat.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "The situation was to the last degree alarming. The water had all but\r\nreached Mrs. Weldon, and she was obliged to take her boy into her arms. Every one felt nearly stifled. A loud singing was heard in the ears,\r\nand the lantern showed barely any light at all. A few minutes more and\r\nthe air would be incapable of supporting life. One chance alone\r\nremained. They must bore another hole at the very summit of the cone. Not that they were unaware of the imminent danger of this measure, for\r\nif the ant-hill were really submerged the water from below would\r\nimmediately expel the remaining air and death must be instantaneous. A\r\nfew brief words from Dick explained the emergency of the crisis. Mrs.\r\nWeldon recognized the necessity,--\r\n\r\n\"Yes, Dick, do it; there is nothing else to be done.\" While she was speaking the light flickered out, and they were in total\r\ndarkness. Mounted on the shoulders of Hercules, who was crouching in one of the\r\nside-cells, his head only just above water, Dick proceeded to force the\r\nramrod into the clay, which at the vertex of the ant-hill was\r\nconsiderably harder and thicker than elsewhere. A strange mingling of hope and fear thrilled through Dick Sands as he\r\napplied his hand to make the opening which was to admit life and air,\r\nor the flood of death!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "The silence of the general expectation was broken by the noise of a\r\nsharp hissing; the water rose for eight inches, but all at once it\r\nceased to rise; it had found its level. No need this time to close the\r\norifice; the top of the ant-hill was higher than the top of the flood;\r\nand for the present, at least, they could all rejoice that their lives\r\nwere spared! A general cheer, led by the stentorian voice of Hercules, involuntarily\r\nbroke from the party; cutlasses were brought into action, and the clay\r\ncrumbled away beneath the vigorous assault that was made upon it. The\r\nwelcome air was admitted through the new-made aperture, bringing with\r\nit the first rays of the rising sun. The summit of the ant-hill once\r\nremoved, it would be quite easy to clamber to the top, whence it was\r\nhoped they would soon get away to some high ground out of reach of the\r\nflood. Dick was the first to mount the summit; but a cry of dismay burst from\r\nhis lips! A sound only too well known to travellers in Africa broke upon his ear;\r\nthat sound was the whizzing of arrows. Hardly a hundred yards away was a large encampment; whilst, in the\r\nwater, quite close to the ant-hill where he stood, he saw some long\r\nboats full of natives. From one of these had come the volley of arrows\r\nwhich had greeted his appearance above the opening of the cone."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To tell his people what had happened was the work of a moment. He\r\nseized his gun, and made Hercules, Bat, and Actæon take theirs, and all\r\nfired simultaneously at the nearest boat. Several of the natives were\r\nseen to fall; but shouts of defiance were raised, and shots were fired\r\nin return. Resistance was manifestly useless. What could they do against a hundred\r\nnatives? they were assailed on every hand. In accordance with what\r\nseemed a preconcerted plan, they were carried off from the ant-hill\r\nwith brutal violence, in two parties, without the chance of a farewell\r\nword or sign. Dick Sands saw that Mrs. Weldon, Jack, and Cousin Benedict were placed\r\non board one boat, and were conveyed towards the camp, whilst he\r\nhimself, with the five negroes and old Nan, was forced into another,\r\nand taken in a different direction. Twenty natives formed a body-guard\r\naround them, and five boats followed in their rear. Useless though it were, Dick and the negroes made one desperate attempt\r\nto maintain their freedom; they wounded several of their antagonists,\r\nand would doubtless have paid their lives as a penalty for their\r\ndaring, if there had not been special orders given that they should be\r\ntaken alive. The passage of the flood was soon accomplished. The boat had barely\r\ntouched the shore, when Hercules with a tremendous bound sprang on to\r\nthe land. Instantly two natives rushed upon him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The giant clave their\r\nskulls with the butt end of his gun, and made off. Followed though he\r\nwas by a storm of bullets, he escaped in safety, and disappeared\r\nbeneath the cover of the woods. [Illustration: The giant clave their skulls with the butt end of his\r\ngun.] Dick Sands and the others were guarded to the shore, and fettered like\r\nslaves. CHAPTER VII. A SLAVE CARAVAN. The storm of the previous night, by swelling the tributaries of the\r\nCoanza, had caused the main river to overflow its banks. The inundation\r\nhad entirely changed the aspect of the country, transforming the plain\r\ninto a lake, where the peaks of a number of ant-hills were the sole\r\nobjects that emerged above the watery expanse. The Coanza, which is one of the principal rivers of Angola, falls into\r\nthe Atlantic about a hundred miles from the spot at which the \"Pilgrim\"\r\nwas stranded. The stream, which a few years later was crossed by\r\nCameron on his way to Benguela, seems destined to become the chief\r\nhighway of traffic between Angola and the interior; steamers already\r\nply upon its lower waters, and probably ten years will not elapse\r\nbefore they perform regular service along its entire course."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick Sands had been quite right in searching northwards for the\r\nnavigable stream he had been so anxious to find; the rivulet he had\r\nbeen following fell into the Coanza scarce a mile away, and had it not\r\nbeen for this unexpected attack he and his friends might reasonably\r\nhave hoped to descend the river upon a raft, until they reached one of\r\nthe Portuguese forts where steam vessels put in. But their fate was\r\nordered otherwise. The camp which Dick had descried from the ant-hill was pitched upon an\r\neminence crowned by an enormous sycamore-fig, one of those giant trees\r\noccasionally found in Central Africa, of which the spreading foliage\r\nwill shelter some five hundred men. Some of the non-fruit-bearing kind\r\nof banyan-trees formed the background of the landscape. Beneath the shelter of the sycamore, the caravan which had been\r\nreferred to in the conversation between Negoro and Harris had just made\r\na halt. Torn from their villages by the agents of the slave-dealer\r\nAlvez, the large troop of natives was on its way to the market of\r\nKazonndé, thence to be sent as occasion required either to the west\r\ncoast, or to Nyangwé, in the great lake district, to be dispersed into\r\nUpper Egypt or Zanzibar. Immediately on reaching the camp, the four negroes and old Nan were\r\nplaced under precisely the same treatment as the rest of the captives."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In spite of a desperate resistance, they were deprived of their\r\nweapons, and fastened two and two, one behind another, by means of a\r\npole about six feet long, forked at each end, and attached to their\r\nnecks by an iron bolt. Their arms were left free, that they might carry\r\nany burdens, and in order to prevent an attempt to escape a heavy chain\r\nwas passed round their waists. It was thus in single file, unable to\r\nturn either right or left, they would have to march hundreds of miles,\r\ngoaded along their toilsome road by the havildar's whip. The lot of\r\nHercules seemed preferable, exposed though undoubtedly he would be in\r\nhis flight to hunger, and to the attacks of wild beasts, and to all the\r\nperils of that dreary country. But solitude, with its worst privations,\r\nwas a thing to be envied in comparison to being in the hands of those\r\npitiless drivers, who did not speak a word of the language of their\r\nvictims, but communicated with them only by threatening gestures or by\r\nactual violence. As a white man, Dick was not attached to any other captive. The drivers\r\nwere probably afraid to subject him to the same treatment as the\r\nnegroes, and he was left unfettered, but placed under the strict\r\nsurveillance of a havildar."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At first he felt considerable surprise at\r\nnot seeing Harris or Negoro in the camp, as he could not entertain a\r\ndoubt that it was at their instigation the attack had been made upon\r\ntheir retreat; but when he came to reflect that Mrs. Weldon, Jack, and\r\nCousin Benedict had not been allowed to come with them, but had been\r\ncarried off in some other direction, he began to think it probable that\r\nthe two rascals had some scheme to carry out with regard to them\r\nelsewhere. The caravan consisted of nearly eight hundred, including about five\r\nhundred slaves of both sexes, two hundred soldiers and freebooters, and\r\na considerable number of havildars and drivers, over whom the agents\r\nacted as superior officers. These agents are usually of Portuguese or Arab extraction; and the\r\ncruelties they inflict upon the miserable captives are almost beyond\r\nconception; they beat them continually, and if any unfortunate slave\r\nsinks from exhaustion, or in any way becomes unfit for the market, he\r\nis forthwith either stabbed or shot. As the result of this brutality it\r\nrarely happens that fifty per cent of the slaves reach their\r\ndestination; some few may contrive to escape, and many are left as\r\nskeletons along the line of route."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Such of the agents as are Portuguese are (as it may well be imagined)\r\nof the very lowest dregs of society, outlaws, escaped criminals, and\r\nmen of the most desperate character; of this stamp were the associates\r\nof Negoro and Harris, now in the employ of José Antonio Alvez, one of\r\nthe most notorious of all the slave-dealers of Central Africa, and of\r\nwhom Commander Cameron has given some curious information. Most frequently the soldiers who escort the captives are natives hired\r\nby the dealers, but they do not possess the entire monopoly of the\r\nforays made for the purpose of securing slaves; the native negro kings\r\nmake war upon each other with this express design, and sell their\r\nvanquished antagonists, men, women, and children, to the traders for\r\ncalico, guns, gunpowder and red beads; or in times of famine, according\r\nto Livingstone, even for a few grains of maize. The escort of old Alvez' caravan was an average specimen of these\r\nAfrican soldiers. It was simply a horde of half-naked banditti,\r\ncarrying old flint-locked muskets, the barrels of which were decorated\r\nwith copper rings. The agents are very often put to their wits' end to\r\nknow how to manage them; their orders are called in question, halts are\r\ncontinually demanded, and in order to avert desertion they are\r\nfrequently obliged to yield to the obstreperous will of their\r\nundisciplined force."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Although the slaves, both male and female, are compelled to carry\r\nburdens whilst on their march, a certain number of porters, called\r\n_pagazis_, is specially engaged to carry the more valuable merchandize,\r\nand principally the ivory. Tusks occasionally weigh as much as 160\r\nlbs., and require two men to carry them to the dépôts, whence they are\r\nsent to the markets of Khartoom, Natal, and Zanzibar. On their arrival\r\nthe _pagazis_ are paid by the dealers according to contract, which is\r\ngenerally either by about twenty yards of the cotton stuff known as\r\n_merikani_, or by a little powder, by a handful or two of cowries, by\r\nsome beads, or if all these be scarce, they are paid by being allotted\r\nsome of the slaves who are otherwise unsalable. Among the five hundred slaves in the caravan, very few were at all\r\nadvanced in years. The explanation of this circumstance was that\r\nwhenever a raid is made, and a village is set on fire, every inhabitant\r\nabove the age of forty is mercilessly massacred or hung upon the\r\nneighbouring trees; only the children and young adults of both sexes\r\nare reserved for the market, and as these constitute only a small\r\nproportion of the vanquished, some idea may be formed of the frightful\r\ndepopulation which these vast districts of Equinoctial Africa are\r\nundergoing. Nothing could be more pitiable than the condition of this miserable\r\nherd."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All alike were destitute of clothing, having nothing on them but\r\na few strips of the stuff known as _mbuza_, made from the bark of\r\ntrees; many of the women were covered with bleeding wounds from the\r\ndrivers' lashes, and had their feet lacerated by the constant friction\r\nof the road, but in addition to other burdens were compelled to carry\r\ntheir own emaciated children; young men, too, there were who had lost\r\ntheir voices from exhaustion, and who, to use Livingstone's expression,\r\nhad been reduced to \"ebony skeletons\" by toiling under the yoke of the\r\nfork, which is far more galling than the galley-chain. It was a sight\r\nthat might have moved the most stony-hearted, but yet there was no\r\nsymptom of compassion on the part of those Arab and Portuguese drivers\r\nwhom Cameron pronounces \"worse than brutes. \"[1]\r\n\r\n\r\n[Footnote 1: Cameron says, \"In order to obtain the fifty women of whom\r\nAlvez is the owner, ten villages, containing altogether a population of\r\nnot less than 1500, were totally destroyed. A few of the inhabitants\r\ncontrived to escape, but the majority either perished in the flames,\r\nwere slain in defending their families, or were killed by hunger or\r\nwild beasts in the jungle.... The crimes which are perpetuated in\r\nAfrica, by men who call themselves Christians, seem incredible to the\r\ninhabitants of civilized countries. It is impossible that the\r\ngovernment at Lisbon can be aware of the atrocities committed by those\r\nwho boast of being subject to her flag.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "_Tour du Monde_. N.B.--Against these assertions of Cameron, loud protestations have been\r\nmade in Portugal.] The guard over the prisoners was so strict that Dick Sands felt it\r\nwould be utterly useless for him to make any attempt to seek for Mrs.\r\nWeldon. She and her son had doubtless been carried off by Negoro, and\r\nhis heart sank when he thought of the dangers to which too probably she\r\nwould be exposed. Again and again he repeated his reproaches on himself\r\nthat he had ever allowed either Negoro or Harris to escape his hands. Neither Mrs. Weldon nor Jack could expect the least assistance from\r\nCousin Benedict; the good man was barely able to consult for himself. All three of them would, he conjectured, be conveyed to some remote\r\ndistrict of Angola; the poor mother, like some miserable slave, would\r\ninsist upon carrying her own sick son until her strength failed her,\r\nand, exhausted by her endurances, she sank down helpless on the way. A prisoner, and powerless to help! the very thought was itself a\r\ntorture to poor Dick. Even Dingo was gone! It would have been a\r\nsatisfaction to have had the dog to send off upon the track of the lost\r\nones. One only hope remained. Hercules still was free. All that human\r\nstrength could attempt in Mrs. Weldon's behalf, Hercules would not fail\r\nto try."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Perhaps, too, under cover of the night, it was not altogether\r\nimprobable that the stalwart negro would mingle with the crowd of\r\nnegroes (amongst whom his dark skin would enable him to pass\r\nunnoticed), and make his way to Dick himself; then might not the two\r\ntogether elude the vigilance of the watch? might they not follow after\r\nand overtake Mrs. Weldon in the forest? would they not perchance be\r\nable either by stealth or by force to liberate her, and once free they\r\nwould effect an escape to the river, and finally accomplish the\r\nundertaking in which they had been so lamentably frustrated. Such were\r\nthe sanguine visions in which Dick permitted himself to indulge; his\r\ntemperament overcame all tendency to despair, and kept him alive to the\r\nfaintest chance of deliverance. The next thing of importance was to ascertain the destination of the\r\ncaravan. It was a matter of the most serious moment whether the convoy\r\nof slaves were going to be carried to one of the dépôts of Angola, or\r\nwhether they were to be sent hundreds of miles into the interior to\r\nNyangwe, in the heart of the great lake district that Livingstone was\r\nthen exploring. To reach the latter spot would occupy some months, and\r\nto return thence to the coast, even if they should be fortunate enough\r\nto regain their liberty, would be a work of insuperable difficulty. He was not long left in suspense."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Although he could not understand the\r\nhalf-African, half-Arab dialect that was used by the leaders of the\r\ncaravan, he noticed that the word Kazonndé occurred very frequently,\r\nand knowing it as the name of an important market in the province, he\r\nnaturally concluded that it was there the slaves were to be disposed\r\nof; whether for the advantage of the king of the district, or of one of\r\nthe rich traders, he had no means of telling. Unless his geographical\r\nknowledge was at fault, he was aware that Kazonndé must be about 400\r\nmiles from S. Paul de Loanda, and consequently that it could hardly be\r\nmore than 250 miles from the part of the Coanza where they were now\r\nencamped. Under favourable circumstances it was a journey that could\r\nnot be accomplished in less than twelve or fourteen days, but allowing\r\nfor the retarded progress of a caravan already exhausted by a\r\nlengthened march, Dick was convinced that they could not reach the\r\nplace for at least three weeks. He was most anxious to communicate to his companions in adversity his\r\nimpression that they were not to be carried into the heart of the\r\ncountry, and began to cogitate whether some plan could not be devised\r\nfor exchanging a few words with them. Forked together, as it has been said, two and two, the four negroes\r\nwere at the right-hand extremity of the camp; Bat attached to his\r\nfather, Austin to Actæon."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A havildar, with twelve soldiers, formed\r\ntheir guard. Dick, at first, was about fifty yards away from the group,\r\nbut being left free to move about, contrived gradually to diminish the\r\ndistance between himself and them. Tom seemed to apprehend his\r\nintention, and whispered a word to his companions that they should be\r\non the look-out. Without moving they were all on their guard in a\r\nmoment. Dick, careful to conceal his design, strolled backward with a\r\nfeigned indifference, and succeeded in getting so near that he might\r\nhave called out and informed Tom that they were going to Kazonndé. But\r\nhe was desirous of accomplishing more than this; he wanted to get an\r\nopportunity of having some conversation as to their future plans, and\r\nhe ventured to approach still nearer. His heart beat high as he\r\nbelieved he was on the point of attaining his object, when all at once\r\nthe havildar, becoming aware of his design, rushed upon him like a\r\nmadman, summoned some soldiers, and with considerable violence sent him\r\nback to the front. Tom and the others were quickly removed to another\r\npart of the encampment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Exasperated by the rough attack that was made upon him, Dick had seized\r\nthe havildar's gun and broken it, almost wrenching it from his hands,\r\nwhen several soldiers simultaneously assailed him, and would have\r\nstruck him down and killed him upon the spot, had not one of the\r\nchiefs, an Arab of huge stature and ferocious countenance, interfered\r\nto stop them. This Arab was the Ibn Hamish of whom Harris had spoken to Negoro. He\r\nsaid a few words which Dick could not understand, and the soldiers,\r\nwith manifest reluctance, relaxed their hold and retired. It was\r\nevident that although Dick was not to be permitted to hold any\r\ncommunication with the rest of his party, orders had been given that\r\nhis life was to be protected. [Illustration: The start was made.] It was now nine o'clock, and the beating of drums and the blowing of\r\ncoodoo[1] horns gave the signal that the morning march was to be\r\ncontinued. Instantly chiefs, soldiers, porters, and slaves were upon\r\ntheir feet, and arranged themselves in their various groups with a\r\nhavildar bearing a bright-coloured banner at their head. [Footnote: Coodoo, a ruminant common in Africa.] The order was given; the start was made. A strange song was heard\r\nrising in the air. It was a song, not of the victors, but of the\r\nvanquished."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The slaves were chanting an imprecation on their\r\noppressors; and the burden of the chorus was that captured, tortured,\r\nslain--after death they would return and avenge their wrongs upon their\r\nmurderers! CHAPTER VIII. NOTES BY THE WAY. The storm of the preceding evening had now passed away, but the sky was\r\nstill cloudy and the weather far from settled. It was the 19th of\r\nApril, the time of the _masika_, or second period of the rainy season,\r\nso that for the next two or three weeks the nights might be expected to\r\nbe wet. On leaving the banks of the Coanza the caravan proceeded due east. Soldiers marched at the head and in the rear, as well as upon the\r\nflanks of the troop; any escape of the prisoners, therefore, even if\r\nthey had not been loaded with their fetters, would have been utterly\r\nimpossible. They were all driven along without any attempt at order,\r\nthe havildars using their whips unsparingly upon them whenever they\r\nshowed signs of flagging. Some poor mothers could be seen carrying two\r\ninfants, one on each arm, whilst others led by the hand naked children,\r\nwhose feet were sorely cut by the rough ground over which they had trod."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Ibn Hamish, the Arab who had interfered between Dick and the havildar,\r\nacted as commander to the caravan, and was here, there, and everywhere;\r\nnot moved in the least by the sufferings of the captives, but obliged\r\nto be attentive to the importunities of the soldiers and porters, who\r\nwere perpetually clamouring for extra rations, or demanding an\r\nimmediate halt. Loud were the discussions that arose, and the uproar\r\nbecame positively deafening when the quarrelsome voices rose above the\r\nshrieks of the slaves, many of whom found themselves treading upon soil\r\nalready stained by the blood of the ranks in front. [Illustration: If ever the havildar strolled a few yards away, Bat took\r\nthe opportunity of murmuring a few words of encouragement to this poor\r\nold father.] No chance again opened for Dick to get any communication with his\r\nfriends, who had been sent to the van of the procession. Urged on by\r\nthe whip they continued to march in single file, their heads in the\r\nheavy forks. If ever the havildar strolled a few yards away, Bat took\r\nthe opportunity of murmuring a few words of encouragement to his poor\r\nold father, while he tried to pick out the easiest path for him, and to\r\nrelax the pace to suit his enfeebled limbs. Large tears rolled down old\r\nTom's cheeks when he found that his son's efforts only resulted in\r\nbringing down upon his back some sharp cuts of the havildar's whip."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Actæon and Austin, subject to hardly less brutality, followed a few\r\nsteps behind, but all four could not help feeling envious at the luck\r\nof Hercules, who might have dangers to encounter, but at least had his\r\nliberty. Immediately upon their capture, Tom had revealed to his companions the\r\nfact that they were in Africa, and informing them how they had been\r\nbetrayed by Harris, made them understand that they had no mercy to\r\nexpect. Old Nan had been placed amongst a group of women in the central ranks. She was chained to a young mother with two children, the one at the\r\nbreast, the other only three years old, and scarcely able to walk. Moved by compassion, Nan took the little one into her own arms, thus\r\nnot only saving it from fatigue, but from the blows it would very\r\nlikely have received for lagging behind. The mother shed tears of\r\ngratitude, but the weight was almost too much for Nan's strength, and\r\nshe felt as if she must break down under her self-imposed burden. She\r\nthought fondly of little Jack, and imagining him borne along in the\r\narms of his weary mother, could not help asking herself whether she\r\nshould ever see him or her kind mistress again. Far in the rear, Dick could not see the head of the caravan except\r\noccasionally, when the ground was rather on the rise."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The voices of the\r\nagents and drivers, harsh and excited as they were, scarcely roused him\r\nfrom his melancholy reflections. His thoughts were not of himself nor\r\nof his own sufferings; his whole attention was absorbed in looking for\r\nsome traces of Mrs. Weldon's progress; if she, too, was being taken to\r\nKazonndé, her route must also lie this way. But he could discover no\r\ntrace of her having been conducted by this line of march, and could\r\nonly hope that she was being spared the cruelties which he was himself\r\nwitnessing. The forest extended for about twenty miles to the east of the Coanza,\r\nbut whether it was that the trees had been destroyed by the ravages of\r\ninsects, or broken down before they had made their growth by being\r\ntrampled on by elephants, they were growing much less thickly than in\r\nthe immediate vicinity of the river. There were numbers of\r\ncotton-trees, seven or eight feet high, from which are manufactured the\r\nblack-and-white striped stuffs that are worn in the interior of the\r\nprovince; but, upon the whole, progress was not much impeded either by\r\nshrubs or underwood. Occasionally the caravan plunged into jungles of\r\nreeds like bamboos, their stalks an inch in diameter, so tall that only\r\nan elephant or giraffe could have reared above them, and through which\r\nnone excepting such as had a very intimate knowledge of the country\r\ncould possibly have made their way."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Starting every morning at daybreak they marched till noon, when an\r\nhour's halt was made. Packets of manioc were then unfastened, and doled\r\nout in sparing quantities among the slaves; sometimes, when the\r\nsoldiers had plundered some village, a little goat's flesh or some\r\nsweet potatoes were added to the meal; but generally the fatigue,\r\naggravated by inadequate rest, took away the appetite, and when\r\nmeal-time arrived many of the slaves could hardly eat at all. During\r\nthe first eight days' march from the Coanza no less than twenty\r\nunfortunate wretches had fallen upon the road, and had been left\r\nbehind, a prey to the lions, panthers, and leopards that prowled in the\r\nwake. As Dick heard their roars in the stillness of the night, he\r\ntrembled as he thought of Hercules. Nevertheless, had the opportunity\r\noffered itself, he would not for a moment have hesitated in making his\r\nown escape to the wilderness. [Illustration: The caravan had been attacked on the flank by a dozen or\r\nmore crocodiles.] The two hundred and fifty miles between the river and Kazonndé were\r\naccomplished in what the traders call marches of ten miles each,\r\nincluding the halts at night and midday. The journey cannot be better\r\ndescribed than by a few rough notes that Dick Sands made upon his way. _April 25th_.--Saw a village surrounded with bamboo palisading, eight\r\nor nine feet high. Fields round planted with maize, beans, and sorghum. Two negroes captured, fifteen killed, rest took to flight."}
{"question": "", "answer": "_26th_.--Crossed a torrent 150 yards wide. Bridge formed of trunks of\r\ntrees and creepers. Piles nearly gave way; two women fastened to a\r\nfork; one of them, carrying a baby, fell into the water. Water quickly\r\ntinged with blood; crocodiles seen under bridge; risk of stepping into\r\ntheir very jaws. _28th_.--Crossed a forest of bauhinias; great trees, the iron-wood of\r\nthe Portuguese. Heavy rain; ground sodden; marching difficult. Caught\r\nsight of Nan in the middle of caravan; she was toiling along with a\r\nblack child in her arms; the woman with her limping, and blood\r\ntrickling from her shoulder. _29th_.--Camp at night under a huge baobab, with white flowers and\r\nlight green leaves. Lions and leopards roaring all night. A soldier\r\nfired at a panther. What has become of Hercules? _30th_.--Rainy season said to be over till November. First touch of\r\nAfrican winter. Dew very heavy. Plains all flooded. Easterly winds:\r\ndifficulty of respiration; susceptibility to fever. No trace of Mrs.\r\nWeldon; cannot tell whether she is ahead. Fear Jack may have a return\r\nof fever. _May 5th_.--Forced to march several stages across flooded plains, water\r\nup to the waist; many leeches sticking to the skin. Lotus and papyrus\r\nupon higher ground. Great heavy leaves, like cabbages, beneath the\r\nwater, make many stumble as they walk. Saw large numbers of little\r\nfish, silurus-species; these are caught by the natives, and sold to the\r\ncaravans. _7th_.--Plain still inundated. Last night, no halting-place to be\r\nfound. Marched on through the darkness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Great misery. Except for Mrs.\r\nWeldon, life not worth having; for her sake must hold out. Loud cries\r\nheard. Saw, by the lightning, soldiers breaking large boughs from the\r\nresinous trees that emerged from the water. The caravan had been\r\nattacked on the flank by a dozen or more crocodiles; women and children\r\nseized and carried off to what Livingstone calls their \"pasture-lands,\"\r\nthe holes where they deposit their prey until it is decomposed. Myself\r\ngrazed by the scales of one of them. A slave close beside me torn out\r\nof the fork, which was snapped in half. How the poor fellow's cry of\r\nagony rings in my ear! This morning, twenty missing. Tom and the\r\nothers, thank God! are still alive. They are on in front. Once Bat made\r\na sharp turn, and Tom caught sight of me. Nothing to be seen of Nan;\r\nwas she, poor creature, one of those that the crocodiles had got? _8th_.--After twenty-four hours in the water we have crossed the plain. We have halted on a hill. The sun helps to dry us. Nothing to eat\r\nexcept a little manioc and a few handfuls of maize. Only muddy water to\r\ndrink. Impossible for Mrs. Weldon to survive these hardships; I hope\r\nfrom my heart that she has been taken some other way. Small-pox has\r\nbroken out in the caravan; those that have it are to be left behind. _9th_.--Started at dawn."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No stragglers allowed; sick and weary must be\r\nkept together by havildars' whip; the losses were considerable. Living\r\nskeletons all round. Rejoiced once more to catch sight of Nan. She was\r\nnot carrying the child any longer; she was alone; the chain was round\r\nher waist, but she had the loose end thrown over her shoulder. I got\r\nclose to her; suppose I am altered, as she did not know me. After I had\r\ncalled her by name several times she stared at me, and at last said,\r\n\"Ah, Mr. Dick, is it you? you will not see me here much longer.\" Her\r\ncadaverous look pained my very soul, but I tried to speak hopefully. Poor Nan shook her head. \"I shall never see my dear mistress again; no,\r\nnor master Jack; I shall soon die.\" Anxious to help her, I would gladly\r\nhave carried the end of the chain which she had been obliged to bear\r\nbecause her fellow-prisoner was dead. A rough hand was soon upon my\r\nshoulder; a cruel lash had made Nan retreat to the general crowd,\r\nwhilst, at the bidding of an Arab chief, I was hustled back to the very\r\nhindmost rank of the procession. I overheard the word Negoro, in a way\r\nthat convinced me that it is under the direction of the Portuguese that\r\nI am subject to this hard indignity. [Illustration: [**no caption, or it is cut off]]\r\n\r\n_11th_.--Last night encamped under some large trees on the skirts of a\r\nforest."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Several escaped prisoners recaptured; their punishment\r\nbarbarously cruel. Loud roaring of lions and hyenas heard at nightfall,\r\nalso snorting of hippopotamuses; probably some lake or water-course not\r\nfar off. Tired, but could not sleep; heard a rustling in the grass;\r\nfelt sure that something was going to attack me; what could I do? I had\r\nno gun. For Mrs. Weldon's sake, must, if possible, preserve my life. The night was dark; no moon; two eyes gleamed upon me; I was about to\r\nutter a cry of alarm; fortunately, I suppressed it; the creature that\r\nhad sprung to my feet was Dingo! The dog licked my hands all over,\r\npersisting in rubbing his neck against them, evidently to make me feel\r\nthere; found a reed fastened to the well-known collar upon which the\r\ninitials S.V. had so often awakened our curiosity; breaking open the\r\nreed, I took a note from inside; it was too dark for me to see to read\r\nit. I tried, by caressing Dingo, to detain him; but the dog appeared to\r\nknow that his mission with me was at an end; he licked my hands\r\naffectionately, made a sudden bound, and disappeared in the long grass\r\nas mysteriously as he had come. The howling of the wild beasts\r\nincreased. How I dreaded that the faithful creature would become their\r\nprey! No more sleep this night for me. It seemed that daylight would\r\nnever dawn; at length it broke with the suddenness that marks a\r\ntropical morn."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I was able cautiously to read my note; the handwriting,\r\nI knew at a glance, was that of Hercules; there were but a few lines in\r\npencil:--\r\n\r\n\"Mrs. Weldon and Jack carried away in a kitanda. \"Harris and Negoro both with them. Mr. Benedict too. Only a few marches\r\nahead, but cannot be communicated with at present. Found Dingo wounded\r\nby a gun-shot. Dear Mr. Dick, do not despair; keep up your courage. I\r\nmay help you yet. \"Your ever true and faithful\r\n\r\n\"HERCULES.\" As far as it went, this intelligence was satisfactory. A kitanda, I\r\nknow, is a kind of litter made of dry grass, protected by a curtain,\r\nand carried on the shoulders of two men by a long bamboo. What a relief\r\nto know that Mrs. Weldon and Jack have been spared the miseries of this\r\ndreadful march! May I not indulge the hope of seeing them at Kazonndé? _12th_.--The prisoners getting more and more weary and worn out. Blood-stains on the way still more conspicuous. Many poor wretches are\r\na mass of wounds. One poor woman for two days has carried her dead\r\nchild, from which she refuses to be parted. _16th_.--Small-pox raging; the road strewn with corpses. Still ten days\r\nbefore we reach Kazonndé. Just passed a tree from which slaves who had\r\ndied from hunger were hanging by the neck. _18th_.--Must not give in, but I am almost exhausted. Rains have\r\nceased."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We are to make what the dealers call _trikesa_, extra marches\r\nin the after-part of the day. Road very steep; runs through _nyassi_,\r\ntall grass of which the stalks scratch my face, and the seeds get under\r\nmy tattered clothes and make my skin smart painfully. My boots\r\nfortunately are thick, and have not worn out. More slaves sick and\r\nabandoned to take their chance. Provisions running very short; soldiers\r\nand pagazis must be satisfied, otherwise they desert; consequently the\r\nslaves are all but starved. \"They can eat each other,\" say the agents. A young slave, apparently in good health, dropped down dead. It made me\r\nthink of Livingstone's description of how free-born men, reduced to\r\nslavery, will suddenly press their hand on their side, and die of a\r\nbroken heart. [Illustration: More slaves sick, and abandoned to take their chance.] _24th_.--Twenty captives, incapable any longer of keeping pace with the\r\nrest, put to death by the havildars, the Arab chief offering no\r\nopposition. Poor old Nan one of the victims of this horrible butchery. My foot struck her corpse as I passed, but I was not permitted to give\r\nher a decent burial. Poor old Nan! the first of the survivors of the\r\n\"Pilgrim\" to go to her long rest! Poor old Nan! Every night I watch for Dingo; but he never comes. Has Hercules nothing\r\nmore to communicate? or has any mishap befallen him?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "If he is alive he\r\nwill do what mortal strength can do to aid us. CHAPTER IX. KAZONNDÉ. By the 26th of May, when the caravan reached Kazonndé the number of the\r\nslaves had diminished by more than half, so numerous had been the\r\ncasualties along the road. But the dealers were quite prepared to make\r\na market of their loss; the demand for slaves was very great, and the\r\nprice must be raised accordingly. Angola at that time was the scene of a large negro-traffic, and as the\r\ncaravans principally wended their way towards the interior, the\r\nPortuguese authorities at Loanda and Benguela had practically no power\r\nto prevent it. The barracks on the shore were crowded to overflowing\r\nwith prisoners, the few slave-ships that managed to elude the cruisers\r\nbeing quite inadequate to embark the whole number for the Spanish\r\ncolonies to America. Kazonndé, the point whence the caravans diverge to the various parts of\r\nthe lake district, is situated three miles from the mouth of the\r\nCoanza, and is one of the most important _lakonis_, or markets of the\r\nprovince. The open marketplace where the slaves are exposed for sale is\r\ncalled the _chitoka_."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All the larger towns of Central Africa are divided into two distinct\r\nparts; one occupied by the Arab, Portuguese, or native merchants, and\r\ncontaining their slave-barracks; the other being the residence of the\r\nnegro king, often a fierce drunken potentate, whose rule is a reign of\r\nterror, and who lives by subsidies allowed him by the traders. The commercial quarter of Kazonndé now belonged to José Antonio Alvez. It was his largest dépôt, although he had another at Bihé, and a third\r\nat Cassangé, where Cameron subsequently met him. It consisted of one\r\nlong street, on each side of which were groups of flat-roofed houses\r\ncalled _tembés_, built of rough earth, and provided with square yards\r\nfor cattle. The end of it opened into the _chitoka_, which was\r\nsurrounded by the barracks. Above the houses some fine banyan-trees\r\nwaved their branches, surmounted here and there by the crests of\r\ngraceful palms. There was at least a score of birds of prey that\r\nhovered about the streets, and came down to perform the office of\r\npublic scavengers. At no great distance flowed the Loohi, a river not\r\nyet explored, but which is supposed to be an affluent or sub-affluent\r\nof the Congo. [Illustration: Adjoining the commercial quarter was the royal\r\nresidence.] Adjoining the commercial quarter was the royal residence, nothing more\r\nnor less than a collection of dirty huts, extending over an area of\r\nnearly a square mile."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Some of these huts were unenclosed; others were surrounded by a\r\npalisade of reeds, or by a hedge of bushy figs. In an enclosure within a papyrus fence were about thirty huts\r\nappropriated to the king's slaves, another group for his wives, and in\r\nthe middle, almost hidden by a plantation of manioc, a _tembé_ larger\r\nand loftier than the rest, the abode of the monarch himself. He had sorely declined from the dignity and importance of his\r\npredecessors, and his army, which by the early Portuguese traders had\r\nbeen estimated at 20,000, now numbered less than 4000 men; no longer\r\ncould he afford, as in the good old time, to order a sacrifice of\r\ntwenty-five or thirty slaves at one offering. His name was Moené Loonga. Little over fifty, he was prematurely aged\r\nby drink and debauchery, and scarcely better than a maniac. His\r\nsubjects, officers, and ministers, were all liable to be mutilated at\r\nhis pleasure, and noses and ears, feet and hands, were cut off\r\nunsparingly whenever his caprice so willed it. His death would have\r\nbeen a cause of regret to no one, with the exception, perhaps, of\r\nAlvez, who was on very good terms with him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Alvez, moreover, feared\r\nthat in the event of the present king's death, the succession of his\r\nchief wife, Queen Moena, might be disputed, and that his dominions\r\nwould be invaded by a younger and more active neighbour, one of the\r\nkings of Ukusu, who had already seized upon some villages dependent on\r\nthe government of Kazonndé, and who was in alliance with a rival trader\r\nnamed Tipo-Tipo, a man of pure Arab extraction, from whom Cameron\r\nafterwards received a visit at Nyangwé. To all intents and purposes Alvez was the real sovereign of the\r\ndistrict, having fostered the vices of the brutalized king till he had\r\nhim completely in his power. He was a man considerably advanced in\r\nyears; he was not (as his name might imply) a white man, but had merely\r\nassumed his Portuguese title for purposes of business; his true name\r\nwas Kendélé, and he was a pure negro by birth, being a native of Dondo\r\non the Coanza. He had commenced life as a slave-dealer's agent, and was\r\nnow on his way towards becoming a first-class trader; that is to say,\r\nhe was a consummate rascal under the guise of an honest man. He it was\r\nwhom Cameron met at the end of 1874 at Kilemba, the capital of Urua, of\r\nwhich Kasongo is chief, and with whose caravan he travelled to Bihé, a\r\ndistance of seven hundred miles. It was midday when the caravan entered Kazonndé."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The journey from the\r\nCoanza had lasted thirty-eight days, more than five weeks of misery as\r\ngreat as was within human power to endure. Amidst the noise of drums\r\nand coodoo-horns the slaves were conducted to the marketplace. The\r\nsoldiers of the caravan discharged their guns into the air, and old\r\nAlvez' resident retinue responded with a similar salute. The bandits,\r\nthan which the soldiers were nothing better, were delighted to meet\r\nagain, and would celebrate their return by a season of riot and excess. The slaves, reduced to a total of about two hundred and fifty, were\r\nmany of them almost dead from exhaustion; the forks were removed from\r\ntheir necks, though the chains were still retained, and the whole of\r\nthem were driven into barracks that were unfit even for cattle, to\r\nawait (in company with 1200 to 1500 other captives already there) the\r\ngreat market which would be held two days hence. The _pagazis_, after delivering their loads of ivory, would only stay\r\nto receive their payment of a few yards of calico or other stuff, and\r\nwould then depart at once to join some other caravan. On being relieved from the forks which they had carried for so many\r\nweary days, Tom and his companions heartily wrung each other's hands,\r\nbut they could not venture to utter one word of mutual encouragement."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The three younger men, more full of life and vigour, had resisted the\r\neffects of the fatigue, but poor old Tom was nearly exhausted, and had\r\nthe march been protracted for a few more days he must have shared Nan's\r\nfate and been left behind, a prey to the wild beasts. Upon their arrival all four were packed into a narrow cell, where some\r\nfood was provided, and the door was immediately locked upon them. The _chitoka_ was now almost deserted, and Dick Sands was left there\r\nunder the special charge of a havildar: he lost no opportunity of\r\npeering into every hut in the hope of catching a glimpse of Mrs.\r\nWeldon, who, if Hercules had not misinformed him, had come on hither\r\njust in front. But he was very much perplexed. He could well understand that Mrs.\r\nWeldon, if still a prisoner, would be kept out of sight, but why Negoro\r\nand Harris did not appear to triumph over him in his humiliation was\r\nquite a mystery to him. It was likely enough that the presence of\r\neither one or the other of them would be the signal for himself to be\r\nexposed to fresh indignity, or even to torture, but Dick would have\r\nwelcomed the sight of them at Kazonndé, were it only as an indication\r\nthat Mrs. Weldon and Jack were there also. It disappointed him, too, that Dingo did not come back."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Ever since the\r\ndog had brought him the first note, he had kept an answer written ready\r\nto send to Hercules, imploring him to look after Mrs. Weldon, and to\r\nkeep him informed of everything. He began to fear that the faithful\r\ncreature must be dead, perhaps perished in some attempt to reach\r\nhimself; it was, however, quite possible that Hercules had taken the\r\ndog in some other direction, hoping to gain somedépôt in the interior. But so thoroughly had Dick persuaded himself that Mrs. Weldon had\r\npreceded him to Kazonndé that his disappointment became more and more\r\nkeen when he failed to discover her. For a while he seemed to yield to\r\ndespair, and sat down sorrowful and sick at heart. Suddenly a chorus of voices and trumpets broke upon his ear; he was\r\nstartled into taking a new interest in what was going on. \"Alvez! Alvez!\" was the cry again and again repeated by the crowd. Here, then, was the great man himself about to appear. Was it not\r\nlikely that Harris or Negoro might be with him? Dick stood erect and resolute, his eye vivid with expectation; he felt\r\nall eagerness to stand face to face with his betrayers; boy as he was,\r\nhe was equal to cope with them both. The _kitanda_, which came in sight at the end of the street, was\r\nnothing more than a kind of hammock covered by a faded and ragged\r\ncurtain. An old negro stepped out of it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His attendants greeted him\r\nwith noisy acclamations. This, then, was the great trader, José Antonio Alvez. Immediately following him was his friend Coïmbra, son of the chief\r\nCoïmbra of Bihé, and, according to Cameron, the greatest blackguard in\r\nthe province. This sworn ally of Alvez, this organizer of his\r\nslave-raids, this commander, worthy of his own horde of bandits, was\r\nutterly loathsome in his appearance, his flesh was filthily dirty, his\r\neyes were bloodshot, his skin yellow, and his long hair all\r\ndishevelled. He had no other attire than a tattered shirt, a tunic made\r\nof grass, and a battered straw hat, under which his countenance\r\nappeared like that of some old hag. Alvez himself, whose clothes were like those of an old Turk the day\r\nafter a carnival, was one degree more respectable in appearance than\r\nhis satellite, not that his looks spoke much for the very highest class\r\nof African slave-dealers. To Dick's great disappointment, neither\r\nHarris nor Negoro was among his retinue. Both Alvez and Coïmbra shook hands with Ibn Hamish, the leader of the\r\ncaravan, and congratulated him on the success of the expedition."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Alvez\r\nmade a grimace on being told that half the slaves had died on the way,\r\nbut on the whole he seemed satisfied; he could meet the demand that at\r\npresent existed, and would lose no time in bartering the new arrival\r\nfor ivory or _hannas_, copper in the shape of a St. Andrew's cross, the\r\nform in which the metal is exported in Central Africa. After complimenting the havildars upon the way in which they had done\r\ntheir work, the trader gave orders that the porters should be paid and\r\ndismissed. The conversations were carried on in a mixture of Portuguese\r\nand native idioms, in which the African element abounded so largely\r\nthat a native of Lisbon would have been at a loss to understand them. Dick, of course, could not comprehend what was said, and it was only\r\nwhen he saw a havildar go towards the cell in which Tom and the others\r\nwere confined, that he realized that the talk was about himself and his\r\nparty. When the negroes were brought out, Dick came close up, being anxious to\r\nlearn as much as he could of what was in contemplation. The old\r\ntrader's eyes seemed to brighten as he glanced upon the three strapping\r\nyoung men who, he knew, would soon be restored to their full strength\r\nby rest and proper food."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They at least would get a good price; as for\r\npoor old Tom, he was manifestly so broken down by infirmity and age,\r\nthat he would have no value in the market. In a few words of broken English, which Alvez had picked up from some\r\nof his agents, he ironically gave them all a welcome. \"Glad to see you!\" he said, with a diabolical grin. Tom knew what he meant, and drew himself up proudly. \"We are free men!\" he protested, \"free citizens of the United States!\" \"Yes, yes!\" replied Alvez, grinning, \"you are Americans; very glad to\r\nsee you!\" \"Very glad to see you!\" echoed Coïmbra, and walking up to Austin he\r\nfelt his chest and shoulders, and then proceeded to open his mouth in\r\norder to examine his teeth. A blow from Austin's powerful fist sent the satellite staggering\r\nbackwards. Some soldiers made a dash and seized the young negro, evidently ready\r\nto make him pay dearly for his temerity; but Alvez was by no means\r\nwilling to have any injury done to his newly-acquired property, and\r\ncalled them off. He hardly attempted to conceal his amusement at\r\nCoïmbra's discomfiture, although the blow had cost him one of his front\r\nteeth. After he had recovered somewhat from the shock, Coïmbra stood scowling\r\nat Austin, as if mentally vowing vengeance on some future occasion. Dick Sands was now himself brought forward in the custody of a\r\nhavildar."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was clear that Alvez had been told all about him, for\r\nafter scanning him for a moment, he stammered out in his broken\r\nEnglish,--\r\n\r\n\"Ah! ah! the little Yankee!\" \"Yes,\" replied Dick; \"I see you know who I am. What are you going to do\r\nwith me and my friends?\" \"Yankee! little Yankee!\" repeated the trader, who either did not or\r\nwould not comprehend the meaning of Dick's question. Dick turned to Coïmbra and made the same inquiry of him; in spite of\r\nhis degraded features, now still farther disfigured by being swollen\r\nfrom the blow, it was easy to recognize that he was not of native\r\norigin. He refused to answer a word, and only stared again with the\r\nvicious glare of malevolence. Meanwhile, Alvez had begun to talk to Ibn Hamish. Dick felt sure that\r\nthey intended to separate him from the negroes, and accordingly took\r\nthe opportunity of whispering a few words to them. \"My friends, I have heard from Hercules. Dingo brought me a note from\r\nhim, tied round his neck. He says Harris and Negoro have carried off\r\nMrs. Weldon, Jack, and Mr. Benedict. He did not know where. Have\r\npatience, and we will find them yet.\" [Illustration: With a yell and a curse, the American fell dead at his\r\nfeet.] \"And where's Nan?\" muttered Tom, in a low voice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Dead,\" replied Dick, and was about to add more, when a hand was laid\r\nupon his shoulder, and a voice that he knew too well exclaimed,--\r\n\r\n\"Well, my young friend, how are you? I am glad to see you again.\" He turned round quickly. Harris stood before him. \"Where is Mrs. Weldon?\" asked Dick impetuously. \"Ah, poor thing!\" answered Harris, with an air of deep commiseration. \"What! is she dead?\" Dick almost shrieked; \"where is her child?\" \"Poor little fellow!\" said Harris, in the same mournful tone. These insinuations, that those in whose welfare he was so deeply\r\ninterested had succumbed to the hardships of the journey, awoke in\r\nDick's mind a sudden and irresistible desire for vengeance. Darting\r\nforwards he seized the cutlass that Harris wore in his belt, and\r\nplunged it into his heart. With a yell and a curse, the American fell dead at his feet. CHAPTER X.\r\n\r\nMARKET-DAY. So sudden was Dick's action that it had been impossible to parry his\r\nblow. Several of the natives rushed on him, and in all likelihood would\r\nhave struck him down upon the spot had not Negoro arrived at that very\r\nmoment. At a sign from him the natives drew back, and proceeded to\r\nraise and carry away Harris's corpse."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Alvez and Coïmbra were urgent in their demand that Dick should\r\nforthwith be punished by death, but Negoro whispered to them that they\r\nwould assuredly be the gainers by delay, and they accordingly contented\r\nthemselves with ordering the youth to be placed under strict\r\nsupervision. This was the first time that Dick had set eyes upon Negoro since he had\r\nleft the coast; nevertheless, so heartbroken was he at the intelligence\r\nhe had just received, that he did not deign to address a word to the\r\nman whom he knew to be the real author of all his misery. He cared not\r\nnow what became of him. Loaded with chains, he was placed in the dungeon where Alvez was\r\naccustomed to confine slaves who had been condemned to death for mutiny\r\nor violence. That he had no communication with the outer world gave him\r\nno concern; he had avenged the death of those for whose safety he had\r\nfelt himself responsible, and could now calmly await the fate which he\r\ncould not doubt was in store for him; he did not dare to suppose that\r\nhe had been temporarily spared otherwise than that he might suffer the\r\ncruellest tortures that native ingenuity could devise. That the\r\n\"Pilgrim's\" cook now held in his power the boy captain he so thoroughly\r\nhated was warrant enough that the sternest possible measure of\r\nvengeance would be exacted. [Illustration: Accompanied by Coïmbra, Alvez himself was one of the\r\nfirst arrivals.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Two days later, the great market, the _lakoni_, commenced. Although\r\nmany of the principal traders were there from the interior, it was by\r\nno means exclusively a slave-mart; a considerable proportion of the\r\nnatives from the neighbouring provinces assembled to dispose of the\r\nvarious products of the country. Quite early the great _chitoka_ of Kazonndé was all alive with a\r\nbustling concourse of little under five thousand people, including the\r\nslaves of old Alvez, amongst whom were Tom and his three partners in\r\nadversity--an item by no means inconsiderable in the dealer's stock. Accompanied by Coïmbra, Alvez himself was one of the first arrivals. He\r\nwas going to sell his slaves in lots to be conveyed in caravans into\r\nthe interior. The dealers for the most part consisted of half-breeds\r\nfrom Ujiji, the principal market on Lake Tanganyika, whilst some of a\r\nsuperior class were manifestly Arabs. The natives that were assembled were of both sexes, and of every\r\nvariety of age, the women in particular displaying an aptitude in\r\nmaking bargains that is shared by their sisters elsewhere of a lighter\r\nhue; and it may be said that no market of the most civilized region\r\ncould be characterized by greater excitement or animation, for amongst\r\nthe savages of Africa the customer makes his offer in equally noisy\r\nterms as the vendor."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The _lakoni_ was always considered a kind of fète-day; consequently the\r\nnatives of both sexes, though their clothing was scanty in extent, made\r\na point of appearing in a most lavish display of ornaments. Their\r\nhead-gear was most remarkable. The men had their hair arranged in every\r\nvariety of eccentric device; some had it divided into four parts,\r\nrolled over cushions and fastened into a chignon, or mounted in front\r\ninto a bunch of tails adorned with red feathers; others plastered it\r\nthickly with a mixture of red mud and oil similar to that used for\r\ngreasing machinery, and formed it into cones or lumps, into which they\r\ninserted a medley of iron pins and ivory skewers; whilst the greatest\r\ndandies had a glass bead threaded upon every single hair, the whole\r\nbeing fastened together by a tattooing-knife driven through the\r\nglittering mass. As a general rule, the women preferred dressing their hair in little\r\ntufts about the size of a cherry, arranging it into the shape of a cap,\r\nwith corkscrew ringlets on each side of the face. Some wore it simply\r\nhanging down their backs, others in French fashion, with a fringe\r\nacross the forehead; but every _coiffure_, without exception, was\r\ndaubed and caked either with the mixture of mud and grease, or with a\r\nbright red extract of sandal-wood called _nkola_."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But it was not only on their heads that they made this extraordinary\r\ndisplay of ornaments; the lobes of their ears were loaded till they\r\nreached their shoulders with a profusion of wooden pegs, open-work\r\ncopper rings, grains of maize, or little gourds, which served the\r\npurpose of snuff-boxes; their necks, arms, wrists, legs, and ankles\r\nwere a perfect mass of brass and copper rings, or sometimes were\r\ncovered with a lot of bright buttons. Rows of red beads, called\r\n_sames-sames_, or _talakas_, seemed also very popular. As they had no\r\npockets, they attached their knives, pipes and other articles to\r\nvarious parts of their body; so that altogether, in their holiday\r\nattire, the rich men of the district might not inappropriately be\r\ncompared to walking shrines. With their teeth they had all played the strangest of vagaries; the\r\nupper and lower incisors had generally been extracted, and the others\r\nhad been filed to points or carved into hooks, like the fangs of a\r\nrattle-snake. Their fingernails were allowed to grow to such an\r\nimmoderate length as to render the hands well-nigh useless, and their\r\nswarthy skins were tattooed with figures of trees, birds, crescents and\r\ndiscs, or, not unfrequently, with those zigzag lines which Livingstone\r\nthinks he recognizes as resembling those observed in ancient Egyptian\r\ndrawings. The tattooing is effected by means of a blue substance\r\ninserted into incisions previously made in the skin."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Every child is\r\ntattooed in precisely the same pattern as his father before him, and\r\nthus it may always be ascertained to what family he belongs. Instead of\r\ncarrying his armorial bearings upon his plate or upon the panels of his\r\ncarriage, the African magnate wears them emblazoned on his own bosom! The garments that were usually worn were simply aprons of\r\nantelope-skins descending to the knees, but occasionally a short\r\npetticoat might be seen made of woven grass and dyed with bright\r\ncolours. The ladies not unfrequently wore girdles of beads attached to\r\ngreen skirts embroidered with silk and ornamented with bits of glass or\r\ncowries, or sometimes the skirts were made of the grass cloth called\r\n_lambda_, which, in blue, yellow, or black, is so much valued by the\r\npeople of Zanzibar. Garments of these pretensions, however, always indicated that the\r\nwearers belonged to the upper classes; the lower orders, such as the\r\nsmaller dealers, as well as the slaves, had hardly any clothes at all. The women commonly acted as porters, and arrived at the market with\r\nhuge baskets on their backs, which they secured by means of straps\r\npassed across the forehead. Having deposited their loads upon the\r\nchitoka, they turned out their goods, and then seated themselves inside\r\nthe empty baskets. As the result of the extreme fertility of the country all the articles\r\noffered for sale were of a first-rate quality."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There were large stores\r\nof rice, which had been grown at a profit a hundred times as great as\r\nthe cost, and maize which, producing three crops in eight months,\r\nyielded a profit as large again as the rice. There were also sesame,\r\nUrua pepper stronger than Cayenne, manioc, nutmegs, salt, and palm-oil. In the market, too, were hundreds of goats, pigs and sheep, evidently\r\nof a Tartar breed, with hair instead of wool; and there was a good\r\nsupply of fish and poultry. Besides all these there was an attractive\r\ndisplay of bright-coloured pottery, the designs of which were very\r\nsymmetrical. In shrill, squeaky voices, children were crying several varieties of\r\nnative drinks; banana-wine, _pombé_, which, whatever it was, seemed to\r\nbe in great demand; _malofoo_, a kind of beer compounded of bananas,\r\nand mead, a mixture of honey and water, fermented with malt. But the most prominent feature in the whole market was the traffic in\r\nstuffs and ivory. The pieces could be counted by thousands of the\r\nunbleached _mcrikani_ from Salem in Massachusetts, of the blue cotton,\r\n_kaniki_, thirty-four inches wide, and of the checked _sohari_, blue\r\nand black with its scarlet border. More expensive than these were lots\r\nof silk _diulis_, with red, green, or yellow grounds, which are sold in\r\nlengths of three yards, at prices varying from seven dollars to eighty,\r\nwhen they are interwoven with gold."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The ivory had come from well-nigh every part of Central Africa, and was\r\ndestined for Khartoom, Zanzibar, and Natal, many of the merchants\r\ndealing in this commodity exclusively. How vast a number of elephants must be slaughtered to supply this ivory\r\nmay be imagined when it is remembered that over 200 tons, that is,\r\n1,125,000 lbs., are exported annually to Europe. Of this, much the\r\nlarger share goes to England, where the Sheffield cutlery consumes\r\nabout 382,500 lbs. From the West Coast of Africa alone the produce is\r\nnearly 140 tons. The average weight of a pair of tusks is 28 lbs., and the ordinary\r\nvalue of these in 1874 would be about 60_l_. ; but here in Kazonndé were\r\nsome weighing no less than 165 lbs., of that soft, translucent quality\r\nwhich retains its whiteness far better than the ivory from other\r\nsources. As already mentioned, slaves are not unfrequently used as current money\r\namongst the African traders, but the natives themselves usually pay for\r\ntheir goods with Venetian glass beads, of which the chalk-white are\r\ncalled _catchokolos_, the black _bubulus_, and the red\r\n_sikunderetches_. Strung in ten rows, or _khetés_, these beads are\r\ntwisted twice round the neck, forming what is called a _foondo_, which\r\nis always reckoned of considerable value. The usual measure by which they are sold is the _frasilah_, containing\r\na weight of about 70 lbs. Livingstone, Cameron and Stanley always took\r\ncare to be well provided with this kind of currency."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In default of\r\nbeads, the picé, a Zanzibar coin worth something more than a farthing,\r\nand _vioon-gooas,_ shells peculiar to the East Coast, are recognized as\r\na medium of exchange in the market. Amongst the cannibal tribes a\r\ncertain value is attached to human teeth, and at the lakoni some\r\nnatives might be seen wearing strings of teeth, the owners of which\r\nthey had probably, at some previous time, devoured. This species of\r\ncurrency, however, was falling rapidly into disuse. Towards the middle of the day the excitement of the market reached its\r\nhighest pitch, and the uproar became perfectly deafening. The voices of\r\nthe eager sellers mingled with those of indignant and overcharged\r\ncustomers; fights were numerous, and as there was an utter absence of\r\nany kind of police, no effort was made to restore peace or order\r\namongst the unruly crowd. It was just noon when Alvez gave orders that the slaves he wished to\r\ndispose of should be placed on view. Thereupon nearly two thousand\r\nunfortunates were brought forward, many of whom had been confined in\r\nthe dealer's barracks for several months."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Most of the stock, however,\r\nhad been so carefully attended to that they were in good condition, and\r\nit was only the last batch that looked as if they would be improved by\r\nanother month's rest; but as the demand upon the East Coast was now\r\nvery large, Alvez hoped to get a good price for all, and determined to\r\npart with even the last arrivals for whatever sum he could obtain. Amongst these latter, whom the havildars drove like a herd of cattle\r\ninto the middle of the chitoka, were Tom and his three friends. They\r\nwere closely chained, and rage and shame were depicted in their\r\ncountenances. Bat passed a quick and scrutinizing gaze around him, and said to the\r\nothers,--\r\n\r\n\"I do not see Mr. Dick.\" Tom answered mournfully,--\r\n\r\n\"Mr. Dick will be killed, if he is not dead already. Our only hope is\r\nthat we may now all be bought in one lot; it will be a consolation to\r\nus if we can be all together.\" Tears rose to Bat's eyes as he thought of how his poor old father was\r\nlikely to be sold, and carried away to wear out his days as a common\r\nslave. The sale now commenced. The agents of Alvez proceeded to divide the\r\nslaves, men, women and children, into lots, treating them in no respect\r\nbetter than beasts in a cattle-market."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Tom and the others were paraded\r\nabout from customer to customer, an agent accompanying them to proclaim\r\nthe price demanded. Strong, intelligent-looking Americans, quite\r\ndifferent to the miserable creatures brought from the banks of the\r\nZambesi and Lualaba, they at once attracted the observation of the Arab\r\nand half-breed dealers. Just as though they were examining a horse, the\r\nbuyers felt their limbs, turned them round and round, looked at their\r\nteeth, and finally tested their paces by throwing a stick to a distance\r\nand making them run to fetch it. All the slaves were subjected to similar humiliations; and ail alike,\r\nexcept the very young children, seemed deeply sensible of their\r\ndegradation. The cruelty exhibited towards them was very vile. Coïmbra,\r\nwho was half drunk, treated them with the utmost brutality; not that\r\nthey had any reason to expect any gentler dealings at the hands of the\r\nnew masters who might purchase them for ivory or any other commodity. Children were torn away from their parents, husbands from their wives,\r\nbrothers from sisters, and without even the indulgence of a parting\r\nword, were separated never to meet again. The scenes that occur at such markets as this at Kazonndé are too\r\nheartrending to be described in detail. It is one of the peculiar requirements of the slave-trade that the two\r\nsexes should have an entirely different destination. In fact, the\r\ndealers who purchase men never purchase women."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The women, who are\r\nrequired to supply the Mussulman harems, are sent principally to Arab\r\ndistricts to be exchanged for ivory; whilst the men, who are to be put\r\nto hard labour, are despatched to the coast, East and West, whence they\r\nare exported to the Spanish colonies, or to the markets of Muscat or\r\nMadagascar. To Tom and his friends the prospect of being transported to a slave\r\ncolony was far better than that of being retained in some Central\r\nAfrican province, where they could have no chance of regaining their\r\nliberty; and the moment, to them, was accordingly one of great suspense. Altogether, things turned out for them better than they dared\r\nanticipate. They had at least the satisfaction of finding that as yet\r\nthey were not to be separated. Alvez, of course, had taken good care to\r\nconceal the origin of this exceptional lot, and their own ignorance of\r\nthe language thoroughly prevented them from communicating it; but the\r\nanxiety to secure so valuable a property rendered the competition for\r\nit very keen; the bidding rose higher and higher, until at length the\r\nfour men were knocked down to a rich Arab dealer, who purposed in the\r\ncourse of a few days to take them to Lake Tanganyika, and thence to one\r\nof the deptôs of Zanzibar."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This journey, it is true, would be for 1500 miles across the most\r\nunhealthy parts of Central Africa, through districts harassed by\r\ninternal wars; and it seemed improbable that Tom could survive the\r\nhardships he must meet; like poor old Nan, he would succumb to fatigue;\r\nbut the brave fellows did not suffer themselves to fear the future,\r\nthey were only too happy to be still together; and the chain that bound\r\nthem one to another was felt to be easier and lighter to bear. Their new master knew that it was for his own interest that his\r\npurchase should be well taken care of; he looked to make a substantial\r\nprofit at Zanzibar, and sent them off at once to his own private\r\nbarracks; consequently they saw no more of what transpired at Kazonndé. CHAPTER XI. A BOWL OF PUNCH. The afternoon was passing away, and it was now past four o'clock, when\r\nthe sound of drums, cymbals, and a variety of native instruments was\r\nheard at the end of the main thoroughfare. The market was still going\r\non with the same animation as before; half a day's screeching and\r\nfighting seemed neither to have wearied the voices nor broken the limbs\r\nof the demoniacal traffickers; there was a considerable number of\r\nslaves still to be disposed of, and the dealers were haggling over the\r\nremaining lots with an excitement of which a sudden panic on the London\r\nStock Exchange could give a very inadequate conception."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the discordant concert which suddenly broke upon the ear was the\r\nsignal for business to be at once suspended. The crowd might cease its\r\nuproar, and recover its breath. The King of Kazonndé, Moené Loonga, was\r\nabout to honour the _lakoni_ with a visit. Attended by a large retinue of wives, officers, soldiers, and slaves,\r\nthe monarch was conveyed to the middle of the market-place in an old\r\npalanquin, from which he was obliged to have five or six people to help\r\nhim to descend. Alvez and the other traders advanced to meet him with\r\nthe most exaggerated gestures of reverence, all of which he received as\r\nhis rightful homage. He was a man of fifty years of age, but might easily have passed for\r\neighty. He looked like an old, decrepit monkey. On his head was a kind\r\nof tiara, adorned with leopards' claws dyed red, and tufts of\r\ngreyish-white hair; this was the usual crown of the sovereigns of\r\nKazonndé. From his waist hung two skirts of coodoo-hide, stiff as\r\nblacksmiths' aprons, and embroidered with pearls. The tattooings on his\r\nbreast were so numerous that his pedigree, which they declared, might\r\nseem to reach back to time immemorial."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His wrists and arms were encased\r\nin copper bracelets, thickly encrusted with beads; he wore a pair of\r\ntop-boots, a present from Alvez some twenty years ago; in his left hand\r\nhe carried a great stick surmounted by a silver knob; in his right a\r\nfly-flapper with a handle studded with pearls; over his head was\r\ncarried an old umbrella with as many patches as a Harlequin's coat,\r\nwhilst from his neck hung Cousin Benedict's magnifying-glass, and on\r\nhis nose were the spectacles which had been stolen from Bat's pocket. [Illustration: The potentate beneath whose sway the country trembled\r\nfor a hundred miles round]\r\n\r\nSuch was the appearance of the potentate beneath whose sway the country\r\ntrembled for a hundred miles round. By virtue of his sovereignty Moené Loonga claimed to be of celestial\r\norigin; and any subject who should have the audacity to raise a\r\nquestion on this point would have been despatched forthwith to another\r\nworld. All his actions, his eating and drinking, were supposed to be\r\nperformed by divine impulse. He certainly drank like no other mortal;\r\nhis officers and ministers, confirmed tipplers as they were, appeared\r\nsober men in comparison with himself, and he seemed never to be doing\r\nanything but imbibing strong pombé, and over-proof spirit with which\r\nAlvez kept him liberally supplied. In his harem Moené Loonga had wives of all ages from forty to fourteen,\r\nmost of whom accompanied him on his visit to the _lakoni_."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Moena, the\r\nchief wife, who was called the queen, was the eldest of them all, and,\r\nlike the rest, was of royal blood. She was a vixenish-looking woman,\r\nvery gaily attired; she wore a kind of bright tartan over a skirt of\r\nwoven grass, embroidered with pearls; round her throat was a profusion\r\nof necklaces, and her hair was mounted up in tiers that toppled high\r\nabove her head, making her resemble some hideous monster. The younger\r\nwives, all of them sisters or cousins of the king, were less\r\nelaborately dressed. They walked behind her, ready at the slightest\r\nsign to perform the most menial services. Did his Majesty wish to sit\r\ndown, two of them would immediately stoop to the ground and form a seat\r\nwith their bodies, whilst others would have to lie down and support his\r\nfeet upon their backs: a throne and footstool of living ebony. Amidst the staggering, half-tipsy crowd of ministers, officers, and\r\nmagicians that composed Moené Loonga's suite, there was hardly a man to\r\nbe seen who had not lost either an eye, an ear, or hand, or nose. Death\r\nand mutilation were the only two punishments practised in Kazonndé, and\r\nthe slightest offence involved the instant amputation of some member of\r\nthe body. The loss of the ear was considered the severest penalty, as\r\nit prevented the possibility of wearing earrings!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "The governors of districts, or _kilolos_, whether hereditary or\r\nappointed for four years, were distinguished by red waistcoats and\r\nzebra-skin caps; in their hands they brandished long rattans, coated at\r\none extremity with a varnish of magic drugs. The weapons carried by the soldiers consisted of wooden bows adorned\r\nwith fringes and provided with a spare bowstring, knives filed into the\r\nshape of serpents' tongues, long, broad lances, and shields of palm\r\nwood, ornamented with arabesques. In the matter of uniform, the royal\r\narmy had no demands to make upon the royal treasury. Amongst the attendants of the king there was a considerable number of\r\nsorcerers and musicians. The sorcerers, or _mganga_, were practically\r\nthe physicians of the court, the savages having the most implicit faith\r\nin divinations and incantations of every kind, and employing fetishes,\r\nclay or wooden figures, representing sometimes ordinary human beings\r\nand sometimes fantastic animals. Like the rest of the retinue, these\r\nmagicians were, for the most part, more or less mutilated, an\r\nindication that some of their prescriptions on behalf of the king had\r\nfailed of success. The musicians were of both sexes, some performing on shrill rattles,\r\nsome on huge drums, whilst others played on instruments called\r\n_marimbas_, a kind of dulcimer made of two rows of different-sized\r\ngourds fastened in a frame, and struck by sticks with india-rubber\r\nballs at the end. To any but native ears the music was perfectly\r\ndeafening. [Illustration: Alvez advanced and presented the king with some fresh\r\ntobacco.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Several flags and banners were carried in the procession, and amongst\r\nthese was mixed up a number of long pikes, upon which were stuck the\r\nskulls of the various chiefs that Moené Loonga had conquered in battle. As the king as helped out of his palanquin, the acclamations rose\r\nhigher and higher from every quarter of the market place The soldiers\r\nattached to the caravans fired off their old guns, though the reports\r\nwere almost too feeble to be heard above the noisy vociferations of the\r\ncrowd; and the havildars rubbed their black noses with cinnabar powder,\r\nwhich they carried in bags, and prostrated themselves. Alvez advanced\r\nand presented the king with some fresh tobacco, \"the appeasing herb,\"\r\nas it is called in the native dialect; and certainly Moené Loonga\r\nseemed to require some appeasing, as, for some unknown reason, he was\r\nin a thoroughly bad temper. Coïmbra, Ibn Hamish and the dealers all came forward to pay their court\r\nto the monarch, the Arabs greeting him with the cry of _marhaba_, or\r\nwelcome; others clapped their hands and bowed to the very ground; while\r\nsome even smeared themselves with mud, in token of their most servile\r\nsubjection. But Moené Loonga scarcely took notice of any of them; he went\r\nstaggering along, rolling like a ship upon a stormy sea, and made his\r\nway past the crowds of slaves, each of whom, no less than their\r\nmasters, trembled lest he should think fit to claim them for his own."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Negoro, who kept close at Alvez' side, did not fail to render his\r\nhomage along with the rest. Alvez and the king were carrying on a\r\nconversation in the native language, if that could be called a\r\nconversation in which Moené Loonga merely jerked out a few\r\nmonosyllables from his inflamed and swollen lips. He was asking Alvez\r\nto replenish his stock of brandy. \"We are proud to welcome your majesty at the market of Kazonndé,\" Alvez\r\nwas saying. \"Get me brandy,\" was all the drunken king's reply. \"Will it please your majesty to take part in the business of the\r\n_lakoni_?\" Alvez tried to ask. \"Drink!\" blurted out the king impatiently. Alvez continued,--\r\n\r\n\"My friend Negoro here is anxious to greet your majesty after his long\r\nabsence.\" \"Drink!\" roared the monarch again. \"Will the king take pombé or mead?\" asked Alvez, at last obliged to\r\ntake notice of the demand. \"Brandy! give me fire-water!\" yelled the king, in a fury. \"For every\r\ndrop you shall have ...\"\r\n\r\n\"A drop of a white man's blood!\" suggested Negoro, glancing at Alvez. \"Yes, yes; kill a white man,\" assented Moené Loonga, his ferocious\r\ninstincts all aroused by the proposition. \"There is a white man here,\" said Alvez, \"who has killed my agent. He\r\nmust be punished for his act.\" \"Send him to King Masongo!\" cried the king; \"Masongo and the Assuas\r\nwill cut him up and eat him alive.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Only too true it is that cannibalism is still openly practised in\r\ncertain provinces of Central Africa. Livingstone records that the\r\nManyuemas not only eat men killed in war, but even buy slaves for that\r\npurpose; it is said to be the avowal of these Manyuemas that \"human\r\nflesh is slightly salt, and requires no seasoning.\" Cameron relates how\r\nin the dominions of Moené Booga dead bodies were soaked for a few days\r\nin running water as a preparation for their being devoured; and Stanley\r\nfound traces of a widely-spread cannibalism amongst the inhabitants of\r\nUkusu. But however horrible might be the manner of death proposed by Moené\r\nLoonga, it did not at all suit Negoro's purpose to let Dick Sands out\r\nof his clutches. \"The white man is here,\" he said to the king; \"it is here he has\r\ncommitted his offence, and here he should be punished.\" \"If you will,\" replied Moené Loonga; \"only I must have fire-water; a\r\ndrop of fire-water for every drop of the white man's blood.\" \"Yes, you shall have the fire-water,\" assented Alvez, \"and what is\r\nmore, you shall have it all alight. We will give your majesty a bowl of\r\nblazing punch.\" The thought had struck Alvez, and he was himself delighted with the\r\nidea, that he would set the spirit in flames."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Moené Loonga had\r\ncomplained that the \"fire-water\" did not justify its name as it ought,\r\nand Alvez hoped that perhaps, administered in this new form, it might\r\nrevivify the deadened membranes of the palate of the king. Moené Loonga did not conceal his satisfaction. Wives and courtiers\r\nalike were full of anticipation. They had all drunk brandy, but they\r\nhad not drunk brandy alight. And not only was their thirst for alcohol\r\nto be satisfied; their thirst for blood was likewise to be indulged;\r\nand when it is remembered how, even amongst the civilized, drunkenness\r\nreduces a man below the level of a brute, it may be imagined to what\r\nbarbarous cruelties Dick Sands was likely to be exposed. The idea of\r\ntorturing a white man was not altogether repugnant to the coloured\r\nblood of either Alvez or Coïmbra, while with Negoro the spirit of\r\nvengeance had completely overpowered all feeling of compunction. Night, without any intervening twilight, was soon drawing on, and the\r\ncontemplated display could hardly fail to be effective. The programme\r\nfor the evening consisted of two parts; first, the blazing punch-bowl;\r\nthen the torture, culminating in an execution. The destined victim was still closely confined in his dark and dreary\r\ndungeon; all the slaves, whether sold or not, had been driven back to\r\nthe barracks, and the chitoka was cleared of every one except the\r\nslave-dealers, the havildars, and the soldiers, who hoped, by favour of\r\nthe king, to have a share of the flaming punch."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Alvez did not long delay the proceedings. He ordered a huge caldron,\r\ncapable of containing more than twenty gallons, to be placed in the\r\ncentre of the market-place. Into this were emptied several casks of\r\nhighly-rectified spirit, of a very inferior quality, to which was added\r\na supply of cinnamon and other spices, no ingredient being omitted\r\nwhich was likely to give a pungency to suit the savage palate. The whole royal retinue formed a circle round the king. Fascinated by\r\nthe sight of the spirit, Moené Loonga came reeling up to the edge of\r\nthe punch-bowl, and seemed ready to plunge himself head foremost into\r\nit. Alvez held him back, at the same time placing a lucifer in his hand. \"Set it alight!\" cried the slave-dealer, grinning slily as he spoke. The king applied the match to the surface of the spirit. The effect was\r\ninstantaneous. High above the edge of the bowl the blue flame rose and\r\ncurled. To give intensity to the process Alvez had added a sprinkling\r\nof salt to the mixture, and this caused the fire to cast upon the faces\r\nof all around that lurid glare which is generally associated with\r\napparitions of ghosts and phantoms. Half intoxicated already, the\r\nnegroes yelled and gesticulated; and joining hands, they performed a\r\nfiendish dance around their monarch."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Alvez stood and stirred the spirit\r\nwith an enormous metal ladle, attached to a pole, and as the flames\r\nrose yet higher and higher they seemed to throw a more and more\r\nunearthly glamour over the ape-like forms that circled in their wild\r\ncareer. Moené Loonga, in his eagerness, soon seized the ladle from the\r\nslave-dealer's hands, plunged it deep into the bowl, and bringing it up\r\nagain full of the blazing punch, raised it to his lips. A horrible shriek brought the dancers to a sudden standstill. By a kind\r\nof spontaneous combustion, the king had taken fire internally; though\r\nit was a fire that emitted little heat, it was none the less intense\r\nand consuming. In an instant one of the ministers in attendance ran to\r\nthe king's assistance, but he, almost as much alcoholized as his\r\nmaster, caught fire as well, and soon both monarch and minister lay\r\nwrithing on the ground in unutterable agony. Not a soul was able to\r\nlend a helping hand. Alvez and Negoro were at a loss what to do; the\r\ncourtiers dared not expose themselves to so terrible a fate; the women\r\nhad all fled in alarm, and Coïmbra, awakened to the conviction of the\r\ninflammability of his own condition, had rapidly decamped. [Illustration: The king had taken fire internally.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "To say the truth, it was impossible to do anything; water would have\r\nproved unavailing to quench the pale blue flame that hovered over the\r\nprostrate forms, every tissue of which was so thoroughly impregnated\r\nwith spirit, that combustion, though outwardly extinguished, would\r\ncontinue its work internally. In a few minutes life was extinct, but the bodies continued long\r\nafterwards to burn; until, upon the spot where they had fallen, a few\r\nlight ashes, some fragments of the spinal column, some fingers and some\r\ntoes, covered with a thin layer of stinking soot, were all that\r\nremained of the King of Kazonndé and his ill fated minister. CHAPTER XII. ROYAL OBSEQUIES. On the following morning the town of Kazonndé presented an aspect of\r\nunwonted desolation. Awe-struck at the event of the previous evening,\r\nthe natives had all shut themselves up in their huts. That a monarch\r\nwho was to be assumed as of divine origin should perish with one of his\r\nministers by so horrible a death was a thing wholly unparalleled in\r\ntheir experience. Some of the elder part of the community remembered\r\nhaving taken part in certain cannibal preparations, and were aware that\r\nthe cremation of a human body is no easy matter, yet here was a case in\r\nwhich two men had been all but utterly consumed without any extraneous\r\napplication. Here was a mystery that baffled all their comprehension."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Old Alvez had also retired to the seclusion of his own residence;\r\nhaving been warned by Negoro that he would probably be held responsible\r\nfor the occurrence, he deemed it prudent to keep in retirement. Meanwhile Negoro industriously circulated the report that the king's\r\ndeath had been brought about by supernatural means reserved by the\r\ngreat Manitoo solely for his elect, and that it was sacred fire that\r\nhad proceeded from his body. The superstitious natives readily received\r\nthis version of the affair, and at once proceeded to honour Moené\r\nLoonga with funeral rites worthy of one thus conspicuously elevated to\r\nthe rank of the gods. The ceremony (which entailed an expenditure of\r\nhuman blood incredible except that it is authenticated by Cameron and\r\nother African travellers) was just the opportunity that Negoro required\r\nfor carrying out his designs against Dick, whom he intended to take a\r\nprominent part in it. The natural successor to the king was the queen Moena. By inaugurating\r\nthe funeral without delay and thus assuming the semblance of authority,\r\nshe forestalled the king of Ukusu or any other rival who might venture\r\nto dispute her sovereignty; and moreover, by taking the reins of\r\ngovernment into her hands she avoided the fate reserved for the other\r\nwives who, had they been allowed to live, might prove somewhat\r\ntroublesome to the shrew."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Accordingly, with the sound of coodoo horns\r\nand marimbas, she caused a proclamation to be made in the various\r\nquarters of the town, that the obsequies of the deceased monarch would\r\nbe celebrated on the next evening with all due solemnity. The announcement met with no opposition either from the officials about\r\nthe court or from the public at large. Alvez and the traders generally\r\nwere quite satisfied with Moena's assumption of the supremacy, knowing\r\nthat by a few presents and a little flattery they could make her\r\nsufficiently considerate for their own interests. Preparations began at once. At the end of the chief thoroughfare flowed\r\na deep and rapid brook, an affluent of the Coango, in the dry bed of\r\nwhich the royal grave was to be formed. Natives were immediately set to\r\nwork to construct a dam by means of which the water should be diverted,\r\nuntil the burial was over, into a temporary channel across the plain;\r\nthe last act in the ceremonial being to undam the stream and allow it\r\nto resume its proper course. Negoro had formed the resolution that Dick Sands should be one of the\r\nvictims to be sacrificed upon the king's tomb."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Thoroughly aware as he\r\nwas that the indignation which had caused the death of Harris extended\r\nin at least an equal degree to himself, the cowardly rascal would not\r\nhave ventured to approach Dick under similar circumstances at the risk\r\nof meeting a similar fate; but knowing him to be a prisoner bound hand\r\nand foot, from whom there could be nothing to fear, he resolved to go\r\nto him in his dungeon-*\r\n\r\nNot only did he delight in torturing his victims, but he derived an\r\nespecial gratification from witnessing the torture. About the middle of the day, accordingly, he made his way to the cell\r\nwhere Dick was detained under the strict watch of a havildar. There,\r\nbound with fetters that penetrated his very flesh, lay the poor boy;\r\nfor the last four and twenty hours he had not been allowed a morsel of\r\nfood, and would gladly have faced the most painful death as a welcome\r\nrelief to his miseries. But at the sight of Negoro all his energy revived; instinctively he\r\nmade an effort to burst his bonds, and to get a hold upon his\r\npersecutor; but the strength of a giant would have been utterly\r\nunavailing for such a design. Dick felt that the struggle he had to\r\nmake was of another kind, and forcing himself to an apparent composure,\r\nhe determined to look Negoro straight in the face, but to vouchsafe no\r\nreply to anything he might say."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"I felt bound,\" Negoro began, \"to come and pay my respects to my young\r\ncaptain, and to tell him how sorry I am that he has not the same\r\nauthority here that he had on board the 'Pilgrim.'\" Finding that Dick returned no answer, he continued,--\r\n\r\n\"You remember your old cook, captain: I have come to know what you\r\nwould like to order for your breakfast.\" Here he paused to give a brutal kick at Dick's foot, and went on,--\r\n\r\n\"I have also another question to ask you, captain; can you tell me how\r\nit was that you landed here in Angola instead of upon the coast of\r\nAmerica?\" The way in which the question was put more than ever confirmed Dick's\r\nimpression that the \"Pilgrim's\" course had been altered by Negoro, but\r\nhe persevered in maintaining a contemptuous silence. \"It was a lucky thing for you, captain,\" resumed the vindictive\r\nPortuguese, \"that you had a good seaman on board, otherwise the ship\r\nwould have run aground on some reef in the tempest, instead of coming\r\nashore here in a friendly port.\" [Illustration: \"Your life is in my hands!\"] Whilst he was speaking, Negoro had gradually drawn nearer to the\r\nprisoner, until their faces were almost in contact. Exasperated by\r\nDick's calmness, his countenance assumed an expression of the utmost\r\nferocity, and at last he burst forth in a paroxysm of rage. \"It is my turn now! I am master now! I am captain here!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "You are in my\r\npower now! Your life is in my hands!\" \"Take it, then,\" said Dick quietly; \"death has no terrors for me, and\r\nyour wickedness will soon be avenged.\" \"Avenged!\" roared Negoro; \"do you suppose there is a single soul to\r\ncare about you? Avenged! who will concern himself with what befalls\r\nyou? except Alvez and me, there is no one with a shadow of authority\r\nhere; if you think you are going to get any help from old Tom or any of\r\nthose niggers, let me tell you that they are every one of them sold and\r\nhave been sent off to Zanzibar.\" \"Hercules is free,\" said Dick. \"Hercules!\" sneered Negoro; \"he has been food for lions and panthers\r\nlong ago, I am only sorry that I did not get the chance of disposing of\r\nhim myself.\" \"And there is Dingo,\" calmly persisted Dick; \"sure as fate, he will\r\nfind you out some day.\" \"Dingo is dead!\" retorted Negoro with malicious glee: \"I shot the brute\r\nmyself, and I should be glad if every survivor of the 'Pilgrim' had\r\nshared his fate.\" \"But remember,\" said Dick, \"you have to follow them all yourself;\" and\r\nhe fixed a sharp gaze upon his persecutor's eye."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The Portuguese villain was stung to the quick; he made a dash towards\r\nthe youth, and would have strangled him upon the spot, but remembering\r\nthat any such sudden action would be to liberate him from the torture\r\nhe was determined he should undergo, he controlled his rage, and after\r\ngiving strict orders to the havildar, who had been a passive spectator\r\nof the scene, to keep a careful watch upon his charge, he left the\r\ndungeon. So far from depressing Dick's spirits, the interview had altogether a\r\ncontrary effect; his feelings had undergone a reaction, so that all his\r\nenergies were restored. Possibly Negoro in his sudden assault had\r\nunintentionally loosened his fetters, for he certainly seemed to have\r\ngreater play for his limbs, and fancied that by a slight effort he\r\nmight succeed in disengaging his arms. Even that amount of freedom,\r\nhowever, he knew could be of no real avail to him; he was a\r\nclosely-guarded prisoner, without hope of succour from without; and now\r\nhe had no other wish than cheerfully to meet the death that should\r\nunite him to the friends who had gone before. The hours passed on. The gleams of daylight that penetrated the\r\nthatched roof of the prison gradually faded into darkness; the few\r\nsounds on the chitoka, a great contrast to the hubbub of the day,\r\nbecame hushed into silence, and night fell upon the town of Kazonndé."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick Sands slept soundly for about a couple of hours, and woke up\r\nconsiderably refreshed. One of his arms, which was somewhat less\r\nswollen than the other, he was able to withdraw from its bonds; it was\r\nat any rate a relief to stretch it at his pleasure. The havildar, grasping the neck of a brandy-bottle which he had just\r\ndrained, had sunk into a heavy slumber, and Dick Sands was\r\ncontemplating the possibility of getting posssession of his gaoler's\r\nweapons when his attention was arrested by a scratching at the bottom\r\nof the door. By the help of his liberated arm he contrived to crawl\r\nnoiselessly to the threshold, where the scratching increased in\r\nviolence. For a moment he was in doubt whether the noise proceeded from\r\nthe movements of a man or an animal. He gave a glance at the havildar,\r\nwho was sound asleep, and placing his lips against the door murmured\r\n\"Hercules!\" A low whining was the sole reply. \"It must be Dingo,\" muttered Dick to himself; \"Negoro may have told me\r\na lie; perhaps, after all, the dog is not dead.\" As though in answer to his thoughts, a dog's paw was pushed below the\r\ndoor."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick seized it eagerly; he had no doubt it was Dingo's; but if\r\nthe dog brought a message, it was sure to be tied to his neck, and\r\nthere seemed to be no means of getting at it, except the hole\r\nunderneath could be made large enough to admit the animal's head. Dick\r\ndetermined to try and scrape away the soil at the threshold, and\r\ncommenced digging with his nails. But he had scarcely set himself to\r\nhis task when loud barkings, other than Dingo's, were heard in the\r\ndistance. The faithful creature had been scented out by the native\r\ndogs, and instinct dictated an immediate flight. Alarm had evidently\r\nbeen taken, as several gun-shots were fired; the havildar half roused\r\nhimself from his slumber, and Dick was fain to roll himself once more\r\ninto his corner, there to await the dawn of the day which was intended\r\nto be his last. [Illustration: All his energies were restored.] Throughout that day, the grave-digging was carried on with unremitted\r\nactivity. A large number of the natives, under the superintendence of\r\nthe queen's prime minister, were set to work, and according to the\r\ndecree of Moena, who seemed resolved to continue the rigorous sway of\r\nher departed husband, were bound, under penalty of mutilation, to\r\naccomplish their task within the proscribed time."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As soon as the stream had been diverted into its temporary channel,\r\nthere was hollowed out in the dry river bed a pit, fifty feet long, ten\r\nfeet wide, and ten feet deep. This, towards the close of the day, was\r\nlined throughout with living women, selected from Moené Loonga's\r\nslaves; in ordinary cases it would have been their fate to be buried\r\nalive beside their master; but in recognition of his miraculous death\r\nit was ordained that they should be drowned beside his remains. [1]\r\n\r\n\r\n[Footnote 1: The horrible hecatombs that commemorate the death of any\r\npowerful chief in Central Africa defy all description. Cameron relates\r\nthat more than a hundred victims were sacrificed at the obsequies of\r\nthe father of the King of Kassongo.] Generally, the royal corpse is arrayed in its richest vestments before\r\nbeing consigned to the tomb, but in this case, when the remains\r\nconsisted only of a few charred bones, another plan was adopted. An\r\nimage of the king, perhaps rather flattering to the original, was made\r\nof wicker-work; inside this were placed the fragments of bones and\r\nskin, and the effigy itself was then arrayed in the robes of state,\r\nwhich, as already mentioned, were not of a very costly description. Cousin Benedict's spectacles were not forgotten, but were firmly\r\naffixed to the countenance of the image. The masquerade had its\r\nludicrous as well as its terrible side."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When the evening arrived, a long procession was seen wending its way to\r\nthe place of interment; the uproar was perfectly deafening; shouts,\r\nyells, the boisterous incantations of the musicians, the clang of\r\nmusical instruments, and the reports of many old muskets, mingled in\r\nwild confusion. The ceremony was to take place by torch-light, and the whole population\r\nof Kazonndé, native and otherwise, was bound to be present. Alvez,\r\nCoïmbra, Negoro, the Arab dealers and their havildars all helped to\r\nswell the numbers, the queen having given express orders that no one\r\nwho had been at the lakoni should leave the town, and it was not deemed\r\nprudent to disobey her commands. The remains of the king were carried in a palanquin in the rear of the\r\ncortége, surrounded by the wives of the second class, some of whom were\r\ndoomed to follow their master beyond the tomb. Queen Moena, in state\r\narray, marched behind the catafalque. Night was well advanced when the entire procession reached the banks of\r\nthe brook, but the resin-torches, waved on high by their bearers, shed\r\na ruddy glare upon the teeming crowd. The grave, with its lining of\r\nliving women, bound to its side by chains, was plainly visible; fifty\r\nslaves, some resigned and mute, others uttering loud and piteous cries,\r\nwere there awaiting the moment when the rushing torrent should be\r\nopened upon them. The wives who were destined to perish had been selected by the queen\r\nherself and were all in holiday-attire."}
{"question": "", "answer": "One of the victims, who bore\r\nthe title of second wife, was forced down upon her hands and knees in\r\nthe grave, in order to form a resting-place for the effigy, as she had\r\nbeen accustomed to do for the living sovereign; the third wife had to\r\nsustain the image in an upright position, and the fourth lay down at\r\nits feet to make a footstool. In front of the effigy, at the end of the grave, a huge stake, painted\r\nred, was planted firmly in the earth. Bound to this stake, his body\r\nhalf naked, exhibiting marks of the tortures which by Negoro's orders\r\nhe had already undergone, friendless and hopeless, was Dick Sands! [Illustration: Friendless and hopeless.] The time, however, for opening the flood-gate had not yet arrived. First of all, at a sign from the queen, the fourth wife, forming the\r\nroyal footstool had her throat cut by an executioner, her blood\r\nstreaming into the grave. This barbarous deed was the commencement of a\r\nmost frightful butchery. One after another, fifty slaves fell beneath\r\nthe slaughterous knife, until the river-bed was a very cataract of\r\nblood. For half an hour the shrieks of the victims mingled with the\r\nimprecations of their murderers, without evoking one single expression\r\nof horror or sympathy from the gazing crowd around. At a second signal from the queen, the barrier, which retained the\r\nwater above, was opened."}
{"question": "", "answer": "By a refinement of cruelty the torrent was not\r\nadmitted suddenly to the grave, but allowed to trickle gradually in. The first to be drowned were the slaves that carpeted the bottom of the\r\ntrench, their frightful struggles bearing witness to the slow death\r\nthat was overpowering them. Dick was immersed to his knees, but he\r\ncould be seen making what might seem one last frantic effort to burst\r\nhis bonds. Steadily rose the water; the stream resumed its proper course; the last\r\nhead disappeared beneath its surface, and soon there remained nothing\r\nto indicate that in the depth below there was a tomb where a hundred\r\nvictims had been sacrificed to the memory of the King of Kazonndé. Painful as they are to describe, it is impossible to ignore the reality\r\nof such scenes. CHAPTER XIII. IN CAPTIVITY. So far from Mrs. Weldon and Jack having succumbed to the hardships to\r\nwhich they had been exposed, they were both alive, and together with\r\nCousin Benedict were now in Kazonndé. After the assault upon the\r\nant-hill they had all three been conveyed beyond the encampment to a\r\nspot where a rude palanquin was in readiness for Mrs. Weldon and her\r\nson. The journey hence to Kazonndé was consequently accomplished\r\nwithout much difficulty; Cousin Benedict, who performed it on foot, was\r\nallowed to entomologize as much as he pleased upon the road, so that to\r\nhim the distance was a matter of no concern."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The party reached their\r\ndestination a week sooner than Ibn Hamish's caravan, and the prisoners\r\nwere lodged in Alvez' quarters. Jack was much better. After leaving the marshy districts he had no\r\nreturn of fever, and as a certain amount of indulgence had been allowed\r\nthem on their journey, both he and his mother, as far as their health\r\nwas concerned, might be said to be in a satisfactory condition. Of the rest of her former companions Mrs. Weldon could hear nothing. She had herself been a witness of the escape of Hercules, but of course\r\nknew nothing further of his fate; as for Dick Sands, she entertained a\r\nsanguine hope that his white skin would protect him from any severe\r\ntreatment; but for Nan and the other poor negroes, here upon African\r\nsoil, she feared the very worst. Being entirely shut off from communication with the outer world, she\r\nwas quite unaware of the arrival of the caravan; even if she had heard\r\nthe noisy commotion of the market she would not have known what it\r\nmeant, and she was in ignorance alike of the death of Harris, of the\r\nsale of Tom and his companions, of the dreadful end of the king, and of\r\nthe royal obsequies in which poor Dick had been assigned so melancholy\r\na share."}
{"question": "", "answer": "During the journey from the Coanza to Kazonndé, Harris and\r\nNegoro had held no conversation with her, and since her arrival she had\r\nnot been allowed to pass the inclosure of the establishment, so that,\r\nas far as she knew, she was quite alone, and being in Negoro's power,\r\nwas in a position from which it seemed only too likely nothing but\r\ndeath could release her. From Cousin Benedict, it is needless to repeat, she could expect no\r\nassistance; his own personal pursuits engrossed him, and he had no care\r\nnor leisure to bestow upon external circumstances. His first feeling,\r\non being made to understand that he was not in America, was one of deep\r\ndisappointment that the wonderful things he had seen were no\r\ndiscoveries at all; they were simply African insects common on African\r\nsoil. This vexation, however, soon passed away, and he began to believe\r\nthat \"the land of the Pharaohs\" might possess as much entomological\r\nwealth as \"the land of the Incas.\" \"Ah,\" he would exclaim to Mrs. Weldon, heedless that she gave him\r\nlittle or no attention, \"this is the country of the manticoræ, and\r\nwonderful coleoptera they are, with their long hairy legs, their sharp\r\nelytra and their big mandibles; the most remarkable of them all is the\r\ntuberous manticora. And isn't this, too, the land of the golden-tipped\r\ncalosomi? and of the prickly-legged goliaths of Guinea and Gabon?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Here,\r\ntoo, we ought to find the spotted anthidia, which lay their eggs in\r\nempty snail-shells; and the sacred atenchus, which the old Egyptians\r\nused to venerate as divine.\" \"Yes, yes;\" he would say at another time, \"this is the proper habitat\r\nof those death's-head sphinxes which are now so common everywhere; and\r\nthis is the place for those 'Idias Bigoti,' so formidable to the\r\nnatives of Senegal. There must be wonderful discoveries to be made here\r\nif only those good people will let me.\" The \"good people\" referred to were Negoro and Harris, who had restored\r\nhim much of the liberty of which Dick Sands had found it necessary to\r\ndeprive him. With freedom to roam and in possession of his tin box,\r\nBenedict would have been amongst the most contented of men, had it not\r\nbeen for the loss of his spectacles and magnifying-glass, now buried\r\nwith the King of Kazonndé. Reduced to the necessity of poking every\r\ninsect almost into his eyes before he could discover its\r\ncharacteristics, he would have sacrificed much to recover or replace\r\nhis glasses, but as such articles were not to be procured at any price,\r\nhe contented himself with the permission to go where he pleased within\r\nthe limits of the palisade."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His keepers knew him well enough to be\r\nsatisfied that he would make no attempt to escape, and as the enclosure\r\nwas nearly a mile in circumference, containing many shrubs and trees\r\nand huts with thatched roofs, besides being intersected by a running\r\nstream, it afforded him a very fair scope for his researches, and who\r\nshould say that he would not discover some novel specimen to which, in\r\nthe records of entomological science, his own name might be assigned? If thus the domain of Antonio Alvez was sufficient to satisfy Benedict,\r\nto little Jack it might well seem immense. But though allowed to ramble\r\nover the whole place as he liked, the child rarely cared to leave his\r\nmother; he would be continually inquiring about his father, whom he had\r\nnow so long been expecting to see: he would ask why Nan and Hercules\r\nand Dingo had gone away and left him; and perpetually he would be\r\nexpressing his wonder where Dick could be, and wishing he would come\r\nback again. Mrs. Weldon could only hide her tears and answer him by\r\ncaresses. Nothing, however, transpired to give the least intimation that any of\r\nthe prisoners were to be treated otherwise than they had been upon the\r\njourney from the Coanza."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Excepting such as were retained for old Alvez'\r\npersonal service, all the slaves had been sold, and the storehouses\r\nwere now full of stuffs and ivory, the stuffs destined to be sent into\r\nthe central provinces and the ivory to be exported. The establishment\r\nwas thus no longer crowded as it had been, and Mrs. Weldon and Jack\r\nwere lodged in a different hut to Cousin Benedict. All three, however,\r\ntook their meals together and were allowed a sufficient diet of mutton\r\nor goats'-flesh, vegetables, manioc, sorghum and native fruits. With\r\nthe traders' servants they held no communication, but Halima, a young\r\nslave who had been told off to attend to Mrs. Weldon, evinced for her\r\nnew mistress an attachment which, though rough, was evidently sincere. [Illustration: He contented himself with the permission to go where he\r\npleased within the limits of the palisade.] Old Alvez, who occupied the principal house in thedépôt, was rarely\r\nseen; whilst the non-appearance of either Harris or Negoro caused Mrs.\r\nWeldon much surprise and perplexity. In the midst of all her troubles,\r\ntoo, she was haunted by the thought of the anxiety her husband must be\r\nsuffering on her account. Unaware of her having embarked on board the\r\n\"Pilgrim,\" at first he would have wondered at steamer after steamer\r\narriving at San Francisco without her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "After a while the \"Pilgrim\"\r\nwould have been registered amongst the number of missing ships; and it\r\nwas certain the intelligence would be forwarded to him by his\r\ncorrespondents, that the vessel had sailed from Auckland with his wife\r\nand child on board. What was he to imagine? he might refuse to believe\r\nthat they had perished at sea, but he would never dream of their having\r\nbeen carried to Africa, and would certainly institute a search in no\r\nother direction than on the coast of America, or amongst the isles of\r\nthe Pacific. She had not the faintest hope of her whereabouts being\r\ndiscovered, and involuntarily her thoughts turned to the possibility of\r\nmaking an escape. She might well feel her heart sink within her at the\r\nbare idea; even if she should succeed in eluding the vigilance of the\r\nwatch, there were two hundred miles of dense forest to be traversed\r\nbefore the coast could be reached; nevertheless, it revealed itself to\r\nher as her last chance, and failing all else, she resolved to hazard it. But, first of all, she determined, if it were possible, to discover the\r\nultimate design of Negoro. She was not kept long in suspense. On the\r\n6th of June, just a week after the royal funeral, the Portuguese\r\nentered the depót, in which he had not set foot since his return, and\r\nmade his way straight to the hut in which he knew he should find the\r\nprisoner."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Benedict was out insect-hunting; Jack, under Halima's charge,\r\nwas being taken for a walk. Mrs. Weldon was alone. Negoro pushed open the door, and said abruptly,--\r\n\r\n\"Mrs. Weldon, I have come to tell you, that Tom and his lot have been\r\nsold for the Ujiji market; Nan died on her way here; and Dick Sands is\r\ndead too.\" Mrs. Weldon uttered a cry of horror. \"Yes, Mrs. Weldon,\" he continued; \"he has got what he deserved; he shot\r\nHarris, and has been executed for the murder. And here you are alone! mark this! alone and in my power!\" What Negoro said was true; Tom, Bat, Actæon, and Austin had all been\r\nsent off that morning on their way to Ujiji. Mrs. Weldon groaned bitterly. Negoro went on. \"If I chose, I could still further avenge upon you the ill-treatment I\r\ngot on board that ship; but it does not suit my purpose to kill you. You and that boy of yours, and that idiot of a fly-catcher, all have a\r\ncertain value in the market. I mean to sell you.\" \"You dare not!\" said Mrs. Weldon firmly; \"you know you are making an\r\nidle threat; who do you suppose would purchase people of white blood?\" \"I know a customer who will give me the price I mean to ask,\" replied\r\nNegoro with a brutal grin. She bent down her head; only too well she knew that such things were\r\npossible in this horrid land. \"Tell me who he is!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "she said; \"tell the name of the man who ...\"\r\n\r\n\"James Weldon,\" he answered slowly. \"My husband!\" she cried; \"what do you mean?\" \"I mean what I say. I mean to make your husband buy you back at my\r\nprice; and if he likes to pay for them, he shall have his son and his\r\ncousin too.\" [Illustration: \"I suppose Weldon will not mind coming to fetch you?\"] \"And when, and how, may I ask, do you propose to manage this?\" replied\r\nMrs. Weldon, forcing herself to be calm. \"Here, and soon too. I suppose Weldon will not mind coming to fetch\r\nyou.\" \"He would not hesitate to come; but how could he know we are here?\" \"I will go to him. I have money that will take me to San Francisco.\" \"What you stole from the 'Pilgrim'?\" said Mrs. Weldon. \"Just so,\" replied Negoro; \"and I have plenty more I suppose when\r\nWeldon hears that you are a prisoner in Central Africa, he will not\r\nthink much of a hundred thousand dollars.\" \"But how is he to know the truth of your statement?\" \"I shall take him a letter from you. You shall represent me as your\r\nfaithful servant, just escaped from the hands of savages.\" \"A letter such as that I will never write; never,\" said Mrs. Weldon\r\ndecisively. \"What? what? you refuse?\" \"I refuse.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had all the natural cravings of a woman and a wife, but so\r\nthoroughly was she aware of the treachery of the man she had to deal\r\nwith, that she dreaded lest, as soon as he had touched the ransom, he\r\nwould dispose of her husband altogether. There was a short silence. \"You will write that letter,\" said Negoro. \"Never!\" repeated Mrs. Weldon. \"Remember your child!\" Mrs. Weldon's heart beat violently, but she did not answer a word. \"I will give you a week to think over this,\" hissed out Negoro. Mrs. Weldon was still silent. \"A week! I will come again in a week; you will do as I wish, or it will\r\nbe the worse for you.\" He gnashed his teeth, turned on his heel, and left the hut. CHAPTER XIV. A RAY OF HOPE. Mrs. Weldon's first feeling on being left alone was a sense of relief\r\nat having a week's respite. She had no trust in Negoro's honesty, but\r\nshe knew well enough that their \"marketable value\" would secure them\r\nfrom any personal danger, and she had time to consider whether some\r\ncompromise might be effected by which her husband might be spared the\r\nnecessity of coming to Kazonndé."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Upon the receipt of a letter from\r\nherself, he would not hesitate for a moment in undertaking the journey,\r\nbut she entertained no little fear that after all perhaps her own\r\ndeparture might not be permitted; the slightest caprice on the part of\r\nQueen Moena would detain her as a captive, whilst as to Negoro, if once\r\nhe should get the ransom he wanted, he would take no further pains in\r\nthe matter. Accordingly, she resolved to make the proposition that she should be\r\nconveyed to some point upon the coast, where the bargain could be\r\nconcluded without Mr. Weldon's coming up the country. She had to weigh all the consequences that would follow any refusal on\r\nher part to fall in with Negoro's demands. Of course, he would spend\r\nthe interval in preparing for his start to America, and when he should\r\ncome back and find her still hesitating, was it not likely that he\r\nwould find scope for his revenge in suggesting that she must be\r\nseparated from her child. The very thought sent a pang through her heart, and she clasped her\r\nlittle boy tenderly to her side. \"What makes you so sad, mamma?\" asked Jack. \"I was thinking of your father, my child,\" she answered; \"would you not\r\nlike to see him?\" \"Yes, yes; is he coming here?\" \"No, my boy, he must not come here.\" \"Then let us take Dick, and Tom, and Hercules, and go to him.\" Mrs. Weldon tried to conceal her tears."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Have you heard from papa?\" \"No.\" \"Then why do you not write to him?\" \"Write to him?\" repeated his mother, \"that is the very thing I was\r\nthinking about.\" The child little knew the agitation that was troubling her mind. Meanwhile Mrs. Weldon had another inducement which she hardly ventured\r\nto own to herself for postponing her final decision. Was it absolutely\r\nimpossible that her liberation should be effected by some different\r\nmeans altogether? A few days previously she had overheard a conversation outside her hut,\r\nand over this she had found herself continually pondering. Alvez and one of the Ujiji dealers, discussing the future prospects of\r\ntheir business, mutually agreed in denouncing the efforts that were\r\nbeing made for the suppression of the slave-traffic, not only by the\r\ncruisers on the coast, but by the intrusion of travellers and\r\nmissionaries into the interior. Alvez averred that all these troublesome visitors ought to be\r\nexterminated forthwith. \"But kill one, and another crops up,\" replied the dealer. \"Yes, their exaggerated reports bring up a swarm of them,\" said Alvez. It seemed a subject of bitter complaint that the markets of Nyangwé,\r\nZanzibar, and the lake-district had been invaded by Speke and Grant and\r\nothers, and although they congratulated each other that the western\r\nprovinces had not yet been much persecuted, they confessed that now\r\nthat the travelling epidemic had begun to rage, there was no telling\r\nhow soon a lot of European and American busy-bodies might be among\r\nthem."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Thedépôts at Cassange and Bihe had both been visited, and\r\nalthough Kazonndé had hitherto been left quiet, there were rumours\r\nenough that the continent was to be tramped over from east to west. [1]\r\n\r\n\r\n[Footnote: This extraordinary feat was, it is universally known,\r\nsubsequently accomplished by Cameron.] \"And it may be,\" continued Alvez, \"that that missionary fellow,\r\nLivingstone, is already on his way to us; if he comes there can be but\r\none result; there must be freedom for all the slaves in Kazonndé.\" \"Freedom for the slaves in Kazonndé!\" These were the words which in\r\nconnexion with Dr. Livingstone's name had arrested Mrs. Weldon's\r\nattention, and who can wonder that she pondered them over and over\r\nagain, and ventured to associate them with her own prospects? Here was a ray of hope! The mere mention of Livingstone's name in association with this story\r\nseems to demand a brief survey of his career. Born on the 19th of March, 1813, David Livingstone was the second of\r\nsix children of a tradesman in the village of Blantyre, in Lanarkshire. After two years' training in medicine and theology, he was sent out by\r\nthe London Missionary Society, and landed at the Cape of Good Hope in\r\n1840, with the intention of joining Moffat in South Africa. After\r\nexploring the country of the Bechuanas, he returned to Kuruman, and,\r\nhaving married Moffat's daughter, proceeded in 1843 to found a mission\r\nin the Mabotsa valley."}
{"question": "", "answer": "After four years he removed to Kolobeng in the Bechuana district, 225\r\nmiles north of Kuruman, whence, in 1849, starting off with his wife,\r\nthree children, and two friends, Mr. Oswell and Mr. Murray, he\r\ndiscovered Lake Ngami, and returned by descending the course of the\r\nZouga. The opposition of the natives had prevented his proceeding beyond Lake\r\nNgami at his first visit, and he made a second with no better success. In a third attempt, however, he wended his way northwards with his\r\nfamily and Mr. Oswell along the Chobé, an affluent of the Zambesi, and\r\nafter a difficult journey at length reached the district of the\r\nMakalolos, of whom the chief, named Sebituané, joined him at Linyanté. The Zambesi itself was discovered at the end of June, 1851, and the\r\ndoctor returned to the Cape for the purpose of sending his family to\r\nEngland. [Illustration: Dr. Livingstone. _Page_ 408.] His next project was to cross the continent obliquely from south to\r\nwest, but in this expedition he had resolved that he would risk no life\r\nbut his own. Accompanied, therefore, by only a few natives, he started\r\nin the following June, and skirting the Kalahari desert entered\r\nLitoubarouba on the last day of the year; here he found the Bechuana\r\ndistrict much ravaged by the Boers, the original Dutch colonists, who\r\nhad formed the population of the Cape before it came into the\r\npossession of the English."}
{"question": "", "answer": "After a fortnight's stay, he proceeded into\r\nthe heart of the district of the Bamangonatos, and travelled\r\ncontinuously until the 23rd of May, when he arrived at Linyanté, and\r\nwas received with much honour by Sekeletoo, who had recently become\r\nsovereign of the Makalolos. A severe attack of fever detained the\r\ntraveller here for a period, but he made good use of the enforced rest\r\nby studying the manners of the country, and became for the first time\r\nsensible of its terrible sufferings in consequence of the slave-trade. Descending the course of the Chobé to the Zambesi, he next entered\r\nNaniele, and after visiting Katonga and Libonta, advanced to the point\r\nof confluence of the Leeba with the Zambesi, where he determined upon\r\nascending the former as far as the Portuguese possessions in the west;\r\nit was an undertaking, however, that required considerable preparation,\r\nso that it was necessary for him to return to Linyanté. On the 11th of November he again started. He was accompanied by\r\ntwenty-seven Makalolos, and ascended the Leeba till, in the territory\r\nof the Balonda, he reached a spot where it received the waters of its\r\ntributary the Makondo. It was the first time a white man had ever penetrated so far."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Proceeding on their way, they arrived at the residence of Shinté, the\r\nmost powerful of the chieftains of the Balonda, by whom they were well\r\nreceived, and having met with equal kindness from Kateema, a ruler on\r\nthe other side of the Leeba, they encamped, on the 20th of February,\r\n1853, on the banks of Lake Dilolo. Here it was that the real difficulty commenced; the arduous travelling,\r\nthe attacks of the natives, and their exorbitant demands, the\r\nconspiracies of his own attendants and their desertions, would soon\r\nhave caused any one of less energy to abandon his enterprise; but David\r\nLivingstone was not a man to be daunted; resolutely he persevered, and\r\non the 4th of April reached the banks of the Coango, the stream that\r\nforms the frontier of the Portuguese possessions, and joins the Zaire\r\non the north. Six days later he passed through Cassangé. Here it was that Alvez had\r\nseen him. On the 31st of May he arrived at St. Paul de Loanda, having\r\ntraversed the continent in about two years. It was not long, however, before he was off again. Following the banks\r\nof the Coanza, the river which was to bring such trying experiences to\r\nDick Sands and his party, he reached the Lombé, and having met numbers\r\nof slave-caravans on his way, again passed through Cassange, crossed\r\nthe Coango, and reached the Zambesi at Kewawa."}
{"question": "", "answer": "By the 8th of the\r\nfollowing June he was again at Lake Dilolo, and descending the river,\r\nhe re-entered Linyanté. Here he stayed till the 3rd of November, when\r\nhe commenced his second great journey, which was to carry him\r\ncompletely across Africa from west to east. After visiting the famed Victoria Falls, the intrepid explorer quitted\r\nthe Zambesi, and took a north-easterly route. The transit of the\r\nterritory of the Batokas, a people brutalized by the inhalation of\r\nhemp; a visit to Semalemboni the powerful chief of the district; the\r\npassage of the Kafoni; a visit to king Mbourouma; an inspection of the\r\nruins of Zumbo, an old Portuguese town; a meeting with the chief\r\nMpendé, at that time at war with the Portuguese, these were the\r\nprincipal events of this journey, and on the 22nd of April, Livingstone\r\nleft Teté, and having descended the river as far as its delta, reached\r\nQuilimané, just four years after his last departure from the Cape. On\r\nthe 12th of July he embarked for the Mauritius, and on the 22nd of\r\nDecember, 1856, he landed in England after an absence of sixteen years. [Illustration: With none to guide him except a few natives.]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Loaded with honours by the Geographical Societies of London and Paris,\r\nbrilliantly entertained by all ranks, it would have been no matter of\r\nsurprise if he had surrendered himself to a well-earned repose; but no\r\nthought of permanent rest occurred to him, and on the 1st of March,\r\n1858, accompanied by his brother Charles, Captain Bedingfield, Dr.\r\nKirk, Dr. Miller, Mr. Thornton, and Mr. Baines, he started again, with\r\nthe intention of exploring the basin of the Zambesi, and arrived in due\r\ntime at the coast of Mozambique. The party ascended the great river by the Kongone mouth; they were on\r\nboard a small steamer named the \"Ma-Robert,\" and reached Teté on the\r\n8th of September. During the following year they investigated the lower course of the\r\nZambesi, and its left affluent the Shiré, and having visited Lake\r\nShirwa, they explored the territory of the Manganjas, and discovered\r\nLake Nyassa. In August, 1860, they returned to the Victoria Falls. Early in the following year, Bishop Mackenzie and his missionary staff\r\narrived at the mouth of the Zambesi. In March an exploration of the Rovouma was made on board the \"Pioneer,\"\r\nthe exploring party returning afterwards to Lake Nyassa, where they\r\nremained a considerable time."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The 30th of January, 1862, was signalized\r\nby the arrival of Mrs. Livingstone, and by the addition of another\r\nsteamer, the \"Lady Nyassa;\" but the happiness of reunion was very\r\ntransient; it was but a short time before the enthusiastic Bishop\r\nMackenzie succumbed to the unhealthiness of the climate, and on the\r\n27th of April Mrs. Livingstone expired in her husband's arms. A second investigation of the Rovouma soon followed and at the end of\r\nNovember the doctor returned to the Zambesi, and reascended the Shire. In the spring of 1803 he lost his companion Mr. Thornton, and as his\r\nbrother and Dr. Kirk were both much debilitated, he insisted upon their\r\nreturn to Europe, while he himself returned for the third time to Lake\r\nNyassa, and completed the hydrographical survey which already he had\r\nbegun. A few months later found him once more at the mouth of the Zambesi;\r\nthence he crossed over to Zanzibar, and after five years' absence\r\narrived in London, where he published his work, \"The exploration of the\r\nZambesi and its affluents.\" Still unwearied and insatiable in his longings, he was back again in\r\nZanzibar at the commencement of 1866, ready to begin his fourth\r\njourney, this time attended only by a few sepoys and negroes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Witnessing on his way some horrible scenes which were perpetrated as\r\nthe result of the prosecution of the slave-trade, he proceeded to\r\nMokalaosé on the shores of Lake Nyassa, where nearly all his attendants\r\ndeserted him, and returned to Zanzibar with the report that he was dead. Dr. Livingstone meanwhile was not only alive, but undaunted in his\r\ndetermination to visit the country between the two lakes Nyassa and\r\nTanganyika. With none to guide him except a few natives, he crossed the\r\nLoangona, and in the following April discovered Lake Liemmba. Here he\r\nlay for a whole month hovering between life and death, but rallying a\r\nlittle he pushed on to the north shore of Lake Moero. Taking up his\r\nquarters at Cazembé for six weeks, he made two separate explorations of\r\nthe lake, and then started farther northwards, intending to reach\r\nUjiji, an important town upon Lake Tanganyika; overtaken, however, by\r\nfloods, and again abandoned by his servants, he was obliged to retrace\r\nhis steps. Six weeks afterwards he had made his way southwards to the\r\ngreat lake Bangweolo, whence once more he started towards Tanganyika. This last effort was most trying, and the doctor had grown so weak that\r\nhe was obliged to be carried, but he reached Ujiji, where he was\r\ngratified by finding some supplies that had been thoughtfully forwarded\r\nto him by the Oriental Society at Calcutta. [Illustration: \"You are Dr. Livingstone, I presume?\"]"}
{"question": "", "answer": "His great aim now was to ascend the lake, and reach the sources of the\r\nNile. On the 21st of September he was at Bambarré, in the country of\r\nthe cannibal Manyuema, upon the Lualaba, the river afterwards\r\nascertained by Stanley to be the Upper Zaire or Congo. At Mamobela the\r\ndoctor was ill for twenty-four days, tended only by three followers who\r\ncontinued faithful; but in July he made a vigorous effort, and although\r\nhe was reduced to a skeleton, made his way back to Ujiji. During this long time no tidings of Livingstone reached Europe, and\r\nmany were the misgivings lest the rumours of his death were only too\r\ntrue. He was himself, too, almost despairing as to receiving any help. But help was closer at hand than he thought. On the 3rd of November,\r\nonly eleven days after his return to Ujiji, some gun shots were heard\r\nwithin half a mile of the lake. The doctor went out to ascertain whence\r\nthey proceeded, and had not gone far before a white man stood before\r\nhim. \"You are Dr. Livingstone, I presume,\" said the stranger, raising his\r\ncap. \"Yes, sir, I am Dr. Livingstone, and am happy to see you,\" answered the\r\ndoctor, smiling kindly. The two shook each other warmly by the hand. The new arrival was Henry Stanley, the correspondent of the _New York\r\nHerald_, who had been sent out by Mr. Bennett, the editor, in search of\r\nthe great African explorer."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On receiving his orders in October, 1870,\r\nwithout a day's unnecessary delay he had embarked at Bombay for\r\nZanzibar, and, after a journey involving considerable peril, had\r\narrived safely at Ujiji. Very soon the two travellers found themselves on the best of terms, and\r\nset out together on an excursion to the north of Tanganyika. They\r\nproceeded as far as Cape Magala, and decided that the chief outlet of\r\nthe lake must be an affluent of the Lualaba, a conclusion that was\r\nsubsequently confirmed by Cameron. Towards the end of the year Stanley began to prepare to return. Livingstone accompanied him as far as Kwihara, and on the 3rd of the\r\nfollowing March they parted. \"You have done for me what few men would venture to do; I am truly\r\ngrateful,\" said Livingstone. Stanley could scarcely repress his tears as he expressed his hope that\r\nthe doctor might be spared to return to his friends safe and well. \"Good-bye!\" said Stanley, choked with emotion. \"Good-bye!\" answered the veteran feebly. Thus they parted, and in July, 1872, Stanley landed at Marseilles. Again David Livingstone resumed his researches in the interior. After remaining five months at Kwihara he gathered together a retinue\r\nconsisting of his faithful followers Suzi, Chumah, Amoda, and Jacob\r\nWainwright, and fifty-six men sent to him by Stanley, and lost no time\r\nin proceeding towards the south of Tanganyika. In the course of the\r\nensuing month the caravan encountered some frightful storms, but\r\nsucceeded in reaching Moura."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There had previously been an extreme\r\ndrought, which was now followed by the rainy season, which entailed the\r\nloss of many of the beasts of burden, in consequence of the bites of\r\nthe tzetsy. On the 24th of January they were at Chitounkwé, and in April, after\r\nrounding the east of Lake Bangweolo, they made their way towards the\r\nvillage of Chitambo. At this point it was that Livingstone had parted\r\ncompany with certain slave-dealers, who had carried the information to\r\nold Alvez that the missionary traveller would very likely proceed by\r\nway of Loanda to Kazonndé. But on the 13th of June, the very day before Negoro reckoned on\r\nobtaining from Mrs. Weldon the letter which should be the means of\r\nsecuring him a hundred thousand dollars, tidings were circulated in the\r\ndistrict that on the 1st of May Dr. Livingstone had breathed his last. The report proved perfectly true. On the 29th of April the caravan had\r\nreached the village of Chitambo, the doctor so unwell that he was\r\ncarried on a litter. The following night he was in great pain, and\r\nafter repeatedly murmuring in a low voice, \"Oh dear, oh dear!\" he fell\r\ninto a kind of stupor. A short time afterwards he called up Suzi, and\r\nhaving asked for some medicine, told his attendant that he should not\r\nrequire anything more. \"You can go now.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "About four o'clock next morning, when an anxious visit was made to his\r\nroom, the doctor was found kneeling by the bed-side, his head in his\r\nhands, in the attitude of prayer. Suzi touched him, but his forehead\r\nwas icy with the coldness of death. He had died in the night. His body was carried by those who loved him, and in spite of many\r\nobstacles was brought to Zanzibar, whence, nine months after his death,\r\nit was conveyed to England. On the 12th of April, 1874, it was interred\r\nin Westminster Abbey, counted worthy to be deposited amongst those whom\r\nthe country most delights to honour. CHAPTER XV. AN EXCITING CHASE. To say the truth, it was the very vaguest of hopes to which Mrs. Weldon\r\nhad been clinging, yet it was not without some thrill of disappointment\r\nthat she heard from the lips of old Alvez himself that Dr. Livingstone\r\nhad died at a little village on Lake Bangweolo. There had appeared to\r\nbe a sort of a link binding her to the civilized world, but it was now\r\nabruptly snapped, and nothing remained for her but to make what terms\r\nshe could with the base and heartless Negoro. On the 14th, the day appointed for the interview, he made his\r\nappearance at the hut, firmly resolved to make no abatement in the\r\nterms that he had proposed, Mrs. Weldon, on her part, being equally\r\ndetermined not to yield to the demand."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"There is only one condition,\" she avowed, \"upon which I will\r\nacquiesce. My husband shall not be required to come up the country\r\nhere.\" Negoro hesitated; at length he said that he would agree to her husband\r\nbeing taken by ship to Mossamedes, a small port in the south of Angola,\r\nmuch frequented by slavers, whither also, at a date hereafter to be\r\nfixed, Alvez should send herself with Jack and Benedict; the\r\nstipulation was confirmed that the ransom should be 100,000 dollars,\r\nand it was further made part of the contract that Negoro should be\r\nallowed to depart as an honest man. Mrs. Weldon felt she had gained an important point in thus sparing her\r\nhusband the necessity of a journey to Kazonndé, and had no\r\napprehensions about herself on her way to Mossamedes, knowing that it\r\nwas to the interest of Alvez and Negoro alike to attend carefully to\r\nher wants. Upon the terms of the covenant being thus arranged, Mrs. Weldon wrote\r\nsuch a letter to her husband as she knew would bring him with all speed\r\nto Mossamedes, but she left it entirely to Negoro to represent himself\r\nin whatever light he chose. Once in possession of the document, Negoro\r\nlost no time in starting on his errand."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The very next morning, taking\r\nwith him about twenty negroes, he set off towards the north, alleging\r\nto Alvez as his motive for taking that direction, that he was not only\r\ngoing to embark somewhere at the mouth of the Congo, but that he was\r\nanxious to keep as far as possible from the prison-houses of the\r\nPortuguese, with which already he had been involuntarily only too\r\nfamiliar. After his departure, Mrs. Weldon resolved to make the best of her\r\nperiod of imprisonment, aware that it could hardly be less than four\r\nmonths before he would return. She had no desire to go beyond the\r\nprecincts assigned her, even had the privilege been allowed her; but\r\nwarned by Negoro that Hercules was still free, and might at any time\r\nattempt a rescue, Alvez had no thought of permitting her any\r\nunnecessary liberty. Her life therefore soon resumed its previous\r\nmonotony. The daily routine went on within the enclosure pretty much as in other\r\nparts of the town, the women all being employed in various labours for\r\nthe benefit of their husbands and masters."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The rice was pounded with\r\nwooden pestles; the maize was peeled and winnowed, previously to\r\nextracting the granulous substance for the drink which they call\r\n_mtyellé_; the sorghum had to be gathered in, the season of its\r\nripening being marked by festive observances; there was a fragrant oil\r\nto be expressed from a kind of olive named the _mpafoo_; the cotton had\r\nto be spun on spindles, which were hardly less than a foot and a half\r\nin length; there was the bark of trees to be woven into textures for\r\nwearing; the manioc had to be dug up, and the cassava procured from its\r\nroots; and besides all this, there was the preparation of the soil for\r\nits future plantings, the usual productions of the country being the\r\n_moritsané_ beans, growing in pods fifteen inches long upon stems\r\ntwenty feet high, the _arachides_, from which they procure a\r\nserviceable oil, the _chilobé_ pea, the blossoms of which are used to\r\ngive a flavour to the insipid sorghum, cucumbers, of which the seeds\r\nare roasted as chestnuts, as well as the common crops of coffee, sugar,\r\nonions, guavas, and sesame. To the women's lot, too, falls the manipulation of all the fermented\r\ndrinks, the _malafoo_, made from bananas, the _pombé_, and various\r\nother liquors."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nor should the care of all the domestic animals be\r\nforgotten; the cows that will not allow themselves to be milked unless\r\nthey can see their calf, or a stuffed representative of it; the\r\nshort-horned heifers that not unfrequently have a hump; the goats that,\r\nlike slaves, form part of the currency of the country; the pigs, the\r\nsheep, and the poultry. The men, meanwhile, smoke their hemp or tobacco, hunt buffaloes or\r\nelephants, or are hired by the dealers to join in the slave-raids; the\r\nharvest of slaves, in fact, being a thing of as regular and periodic\r\nrecurrence as the ingathering of the maize. In her daily strolls, Mrs. Weldon would occasionally pause to watch the\r\nwomen, but they only responded to her notice by a long stare or by a\r\nhideous grimace; a kind of natural instinct made them hate a white\r\nskin, and they had no spark of commiseration for the stranger who had\r\nbeen brought among them; Halima, however, was a marked exception, she\r\ngrew more and more devoted to her mistress, and by degrees, the two\r\nbecame able to exchange many sentences in the native dialect. Jack generally accompanied his mother."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Naturally enough he longed to\r\nget outside the enclosure, but still he found considerable amusement in\r\nwatching the birds that built in a huge baobab that grew within; there\r\nwere maraboos making their nests with twigs; there were\r\nscarlet-throated _souimangas_ with nests like weaver-birds; widow birds\r\nthat helped themselves liberally to the thatch of the huts; _calaos_\r\nwith their tuneful song; grey parrots, with bright red tails, called\r\n_roufs_ by the Manyuema, who apply the same name to their reigning\r\nchiefs; and insect-eating _drongos_, like grey linnets with large red\r\nbeaks. Hundreds of butterflies flitted about, especially in the\r\nneighbourhood of the brooks; but these were more to the taste of Cousin\r\nBenedict than of little Jack; over and over again the child expressed\r\nhis regret that he could not see over the walls, and more than ever he\r\nseemed to miss his friend Dick, who had taught him to climb a mast, and\r\nwho he was sure would have fine fun with him in the branches of the\r\ntrees, which were growing sometimes to the height of a hundred feet. [Illustration: The insufferable heat had driven all the residents\r\nwithin the depót indoors.] So long as the supply of insects did not fail, Benedict would have been\r\ncontented to stay on without a murmur in his present quarters."}
{"question": "", "answer": "True,\r\nwithout his glasses he worked at a disadvantage; but he had had the\r\ngood fortune to discover a minute bee that forms its cells in the holes\r\nof worm-eaten wood, and a \"sphex\" that practises the craft of the\r\ncuckoo, and deposits its eggs in an abode not prepared by itself. Mosquitos abounded in swarms, and the worthy naturalist was so covered\r\nby their stings as to be hardly recognizable; but when Mrs. Weldon\r\nremonstrated with him for exposing himself so unnecessarily, he merely\r\nscratched the irritated places on his skin, and said--\r\n\r\n\"It is their instinct, you know; it is their instinct.\" On the 17th of June an adventure happened to him which was attended\r\nwith unexpected consequences. It was about eleven o'clock in the\r\nmorning. The insufferable heat had driven all the residents within the\r\ndépôt indoors, and not a native was to be seen in the streets of\r\nKazonndé. Mrs. Weldon was dozing; Jack was fast asleep. Benedict\r\nhimself, sorely against his will, for he heard the hum of many an\r\ninsect in the sunshine, had been driven to the seclusion of his cabin,\r\nand was falling into an involuntary siesta. Suddenly a buzz was heard, an insect's wing vibrating some fifteen\r\nthousand beats a second! \"A hexapod!\" cried Benedict, sitting up. Short-sighted though he was, his hearing was acute, and his perception\r\nmade him thoroughly convinced that he was in proximity to some giant\r\nspecimen of its kind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Without moving from his seat he did his utmost to\r\nascertain what it was; he was determined not to flinch from the\r\nsharpest of stings if only he could get the chance of capturing it. Presently he made out a large black speck flitting about in the few\r\nrays of daylight that were allowed to penetrate the hut. With bated\r\nbreath he waited in eager expectation. The insect, after long hovering\r\nabove him, finally settled on his head. A smile of satisfaction played\r\nabout his lips as he felt it crawling lightly through his hair. Equally\r\nfearful of missing or injuring it, he restrained his first impulse to\r\ngrasp it in his hand. \"I will wait a minute,\" he thought; \"perhaps it may creep down my nose;\r\nby squinting a little perhaps I shall be able to see it.\" For some moments hope alternated with fear. There sat Benedict with\r\nwhat he persuaded himself was some new African hexapod perched upon his\r\nhead, and agitated by doubts as to the direction in which it would\r\nmove. Instead of travelling in the way he reckoned along his nose,\r\nmight it not crawl behind his ears or down his neck, or, worse than\r\nall, resume its flight in the air? Fortune seemed inclined to favour him. After threading the entanglement\r\nof the naturalist's hair the insect was felt to be descending his\r\nforehead."}
{"question": "", "answer": "With a fortitude not unworthy of the Spartan who suffered his\r\nbreast to be gnawed by a fox, nor of the Roman hero who plunged his\r\nhand into the red-hot coals, Benedict endured the tickling of the six\r\nsmall feet, and made not a motion that might frighten the creature into\r\ntaking wing. After making repeated circuits of his forehead, it passed\r\njust between his eyebrows; there was a moment of deep suspense lest it\r\nshould once more go upwards; but it soon began to move again; neither\r\nto the right nor to the left did it turn, but kept straight on over the\r\nfurrows made by the constant rubbing of the spectacles, right along the\r\narch of the cartilage till it reached the extreme tip of the nose. Like\r\na couple of movable lenses, Benedict's two eyes steadily turned\r\nthemselves inwards till they were directed to the proper point. [Illustration: Before long the old black speck was again flitting just\r\nabove his head. _Page_ 432.] \"Good!\" he whispered to himself. He was exulting at the discovery that what he had been waiting for so\r\npatiently was a rare specimen of the tribe of the Cicindelidæ, peculiar\r\nto the districts of Southern Africa. \"A tuberous manticora!\" he exclaimed. The insect began to move again, and as it crawled down to the entrance\r\nof the nostrils the tickling sensation became too much for endurance,\r\nand Benedict sneezed. He made a sudden clutch, but of course he only\r\ncaught his own nose."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His vexation was very great, but he did not lose\r\nhis composure; he knew that the manticora rarely flies very high, and\r\nthat more frequently than not it simply crawls. Accordingly he groped\r\nabout a long time on his hands and knees, and at last he found it\r\nbasking in a ray of sunshine within a foot of him. His resolution was\r\nsoon taken. He would not run the risk of crushing it by trying to catch\r\nit, but would make his observations on it as it crawled; and so with\r\nhis nose close to the ground, like a dog upon the scent, he followed it\r\non all fours, admiring it and examining it as it moved. Regardless of\r\nthe heat he not only left the doorway of his hut, but continued\r\ncreeping along till he reached the enclosing palisade. At the foot of the fence the manticora, according to the habits of its\r\nkind, began to seek a subterranean retreat, and coming to the opening\r\nof a mole-track entered it at once. Benedict quite thought he had now\r\nlost sight of his prize altogether, but his surprise was very great\r\nwhen he found that the aperture was at least two feet wide, and that it\r\nled into a gallery which would admit his whole body. His momentary\r\nfeeling of astonishment, however, gave way to his eagerness to follow\r\nup the hexapod, and he continued burrowing like a ferret."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Without knowing it, he actually passed under the palisading, and was\r\nnow beyond it;--the mole-track, in fact, was a communication that had\r\nbeen made between the interior and exterior of the enclosure. Benedict\r\nhad obtained his freedom, but so far from caring in the least for his\r\nliberty he continued totally absorbed in the pursuit upon which he had\r\nstarted. He watched with unflagging vigilance, and it was only when the\r\nhexapod expanded its wings as if for flight that he prepared to\r\nimprison it in the hollow of his hand. All at once, however, he was taken by surprise; a whizz and a whirr and\r\nthe prize was gone! Disappointed rather than despairing, Benedict raised himself up, and\r\nlooked about him. Before long the old black speck was again flitting\r\njust above his head. There was every reason to hope that it would\r\nultimately settle once more upon the ground, but on this side of the\r\npalisade there was a large forest a little way to the north, and if the\r\nmanticora were to get into its mass of foliage all hope of keeping it\r\nin view would be lost, and there would be an end of the proud\r\nexpectation of storing it in the tin box, to be preserved among the\r\nrest of the entomological wonders. After a while the insect descended to the earth; it did not rest at\r\nall, nor crawl as it had done previously, but made its advance by a\r\nseries of rapid hops."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This made the chase for the near-sighted\r\nnaturalist a matter of great difficulty; he put his face as close to\r\nthe ground as possible, and kept starting off and stopping and starting\r\noff again with his arms extended like a swimming frog, continually\r\nmaking frantic clutches to find as continually that his grasp had been\r\neluded. After running till he was out of breath, and scratching his hands\r\nagainst the brushwood and the foliage till they bled, he had the\r\nmortification of feeling the insect dash past his ear with what might\r\nbe a defiant buzz, and finding that it was out of sight for ever. \"Ungrateful hexapod!\" he cried in dismay, \"I intended to honour you\r\nwith the best place in my collection.\" [Illustration: For that day at least Cousin Benedict had lost his\r\nchance of being the happiest of entomologists. _Page 435._]\r\n\r\nHe knew not what to do, and could not reconcile himself to the loss; he\r\nreproached himself for not having secured the manticora at the first;\r\nhe gazed at the forest till he persuaded himself he could see the\r\ncoveted insect in the distance, and, seized with a frantic impulse,\r\nexclaimed,--\r\n\r\n\"I will have you yet!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "He did not even yet realize the fact that he had gained his liberty,\r\nbut heedless of everything except his own burning disappointment, and\r\nat the risk of being attacked by natives or beset by wild beasts, he\r\nwas just on the very point of dashing into the heart of the wood when\r\nsuddenly a giant form confronted him, as suddenly a giant hand seized\r\nhim by the nape of his neck, and, lifting him up, carried him off with\r\napparently as little exertion as he could himself have carried off his\r\nhexapod! For that day at least Cousin Benedict had lost his chance of being the\r\nhappiest of entomologists. CHAPTER XVI. A MAGICIAN. On finding that Cousin Benedict did not return to his quarters at the\r\nproper hour, Mrs. Weldon began to feel uneasy. She could not imagine\r\nwhat had become of him; his tin box with its contents were safe in his\r\nhut, and even if a chance of escape had been offered him, she knew that\r\nnothing would have induced him voluntarily to abandon his treasures. She enlisted the services of Halima, and spent the remainder of the day\r\nin searching for him, until at last she felt herself driven to the\r\nconviction that he must have been confined by the orders of Alvez\r\nhimself; for what reason she could not divine, as Benedict had\r\nundoubtedly been included in the number of prisoners to be delivered to\r\nMr. Weldon for the stipulated ransom."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the rage of the trader when he heard of the escape of the captive\r\nwas an ample proof that he had had no hand in his disappearance. A\r\nrigorous search was instituted in every direction, which resulted in\r\nthe discovery of the mole-track. Here beyond a question was the passage\r\nthrough which the fly-catcher had found his way. \"Idiot! fool! rascal!\" muttered Alvez, full of rage at the prospect of\r\nlosing a portion of the redemption-money; \"if ever I get hold of him,\r\nhe shall pay dearly for this freak.\" The opening was at once blocked up, the woods were scoured all round\r\nfor a considerable distance, but no trace of Benedict was to be found. Mrs. Weldon was bitterly grieved and much overcome, but she had no\r\nalternative except to resign herself as best she could to the loss of\r\nher unfortunate relation; there was a tinge of bitterness in her\r\nanxiety, for she could not help being irritated at the recklessness\r\nwith which he had withdrawn himself from the reach of her protection. Meanwhile the weather for the time of year underwent a very unusual\r\nchange. Although the rainy season is ordinarily reckoned to terminate\r\nabout the end of April, the sky had suddenly become overcast in the\r\nmiddle of June, rain had recommenced falling, and the downpour had been\r\nso heavy and continuous that all the ground was thoroughly sodden."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To\r\nMrs. Weldon personally this incessant rainfall brought no other\r\ninconvenience beyond depriving her of her daily exercise, but to the\r\nnatives in general it was a very serious calamity. The ripening crops in the low-lying districts were completely flooded,\r\nand the inhabitants feared that they would be reduced to the greatest\r\nextremities; all agricultural pursuits had come to a standstill, and\r\nneither the queen nor her ministers could devise any expedient to avert\r\nor mitigate the misfortune. They resolved at last to have recourse to\r\nthe magicians, not those who are called in request to heal diseases or\r\nto procure good luck, but to the _mganga_, sorcerers of a superior\r\norder, who are credited with the faculty of invoking or dispelling rain. But it was all to no purpose. It was in vain that the _mganga_\r\nmonotoned their incantations, flourished their rattles, jingled their\r\nbells, and exhibited their amulets; it was equally without avail that\r\nthey rolled up their balls of dirt and spat in the faces of all the\r\ncourtiers: the pitiless rain continued to descend, and the malign\r\ninfluences that were ruling the clouds refused to be propitiated. The prospect seemed to become more and more hopeless, when the report\r\nwas brought to Moena that there was a most wonderful _mganga_ resident\r\nin the north of Angola. He had never been seen in this part of the\r\ncountry, but fame declared him to be a magician of the very highest\r\norder."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Application, without delay, should be made to him; he surely\r\nwould be able to stay the rain. Early in the morning of the 25th a great tinkling of bells announced\r\nthe magician's arrival at Kazonndé. The natives poured out to meet him\r\non his way to the _chitoka_, their minds being already predisposed in\r\nhis favour by a moderation of the downpour, and by sundry indications\r\nof a coming change of wind. The ordinary practice of the professors of the magical art is to\r\nperambulate the villages in parties of three or four, accompanied by a\r\nconsiderable number of acolytes and assistants. In this case the\r\n_mganga_ came entirely alone. He was a pure negro of most imposing\r\nstature, more than six feet high, and broad in proportion. All over his\r\nchest was a fantastic pattern traced in pipe-clay, the lower portion of\r\nhis body being covered with a flowing skirt of woven grass, so long\r\nthat it made a train. Round his neck hung a string of birds' skulls,\r\nupon his head he wore a leathern helmet ornamented with pearls and\r\nplumes, and about his waist was a copper girdle, to which was attached\r\nbells that tinkled like the harness of a Spanish mule."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The only\r\ninstrument indicating his art was a basket he carried made of a\r\ncalabash containing shells, amulets, little wooden idols and other\r\nfetishes, together with what was more important than all, a large\r\nnumber of those balls of dung, without which no African ceremony of\r\ndivination could ever be complete. One peculiarity was soon discovered by the crowd; the _mganga_ was\r\ndumb, and could utter only one low, guttural sound, which was quite\r\nunintelligible; this was a circumstance, however, that seemed only to\r\naugment their faith in his powers. With a stately strut that brought all his tinkling paraphernalia into\r\nfull play, the magician proceeded to make the circuit of the\r\nmarket-place. The natives followed in a troop behind, endeavouring,\r\nlike monkeys, to imitate his every movement. He turned into the main\r\nthoroughfare, and began to make his way direct to the royal residence,\r\nwhence, as soon as the queen heard of his approach, she advanced to\r\nmeet him. On seeing her, the _mganga_ bowed to the very dust; then,\r\nrearing himself to his full height, he pointed aloft, and by the\r\nsignificance of his animated gestures indicated that, although the\r\nfleeting clouds were now going to the west, they would soon return\r\neastwards with a rotatory motion irresistibly strong. [Illustration: The entire crowd joined in. _Page_ 441.] All at once, to the surprise of the beholders, he stooped and took the\r\nhand of the mighty sovereign of Kazonndé."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The courtiers hurried forward to check the unprecedented breach of\r\netiquette, but the foremost was driven back with so staggering a blow\r\nthat the others deemed it prudent to retire. The queen herself appeared not to take the least offence at the\r\nfamiliarity; she bestowed a hideous grimace, which was meant for a\r\nsmile, upon her illustrious visitor, who, still keeping his hold upon\r\nher hand, started off walking at a rapid pace, the crowd following in\r\nthe rear. He directed his steps towards the residence of Alvez, and\r\nfinding the door closed, applied his strong shoulder to it with such\r\neffect, that it fell bodily to the ground, and the passive sovereign\r\nstood within the limits of the enclosure. The trader was about to\r\nsummon his slaves and soldiers to repel the unceremonious invasion of\r\nhis premises, but on beholding the queen all stepped back with\r\nrespectful reverence. Before Alvez had time to ask the sovereign to what cause he was\r\nindebted for the honour of her visit, the magician had cleared a wide\r\nspace around him, and had once again commenced his performances. Brandishing his arms wildly he pointed to the clouds as though he were\r\narresting them in their course; he inflated his huge cheeks and blew\r\nwith all his strength, as if resolved to disperse the heavy masses, and\r\nthen stretching himself to his full height, he appeared to clutch them\r\nin his giant grasp."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Deeply impressed, the superstitious Moena was half beside herself with\r\nexcitement; she uttered loud cries and involuntarily began herself to\r\nimitate every one of the _mganga's_ gestures. The entire crowd joined\r\nin, and very soon the low guttural note of the sorcerer was lost,\r\ntotally drowned in the turmoil of howls, shrieks, and discordant songs. To the chagrin, however, both of the queen and her subjects, there was\r\nnot the slightest intimation that the clouds above were going to permit\r\na rift by which the rays of the tropical sun could find a passage. On\r\nthe contrary, the tokens of improvement in the weather, which had been\r\nobserved in the early morning, had all disappeared, the atmosphere was\r\ndarker than ever, and heavy storm-drops began to patter down. A reaction was beginning to take place in the enthusiasm of the crowd. After all, then, it would seem that this famous _mganga_ from whom so\r\nmuch had been expected, had no power above the rest. Disappointment\r\nevery moment grew more keen, and soon there was a positive display of\r\nirritation. The natives pressed around him with closed fists and\r\nthreatening gestures. A frown gathered on Moena's face, and her lips\r\nopened with muttered words clear enough to make the magician understand\r\nthat his ears were in jeopardy. His position was evidently becoming\r\ncritical. An unexpected incident suddenly altered the aspect of affairs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The _mganga_ was quite tall enough to see over the heads of the crowd,\r\nand all at once pausing in the midst of his incantations, he pointed to\r\na distant corner of the enclosure. All eyes were instantly turned in\r\nthat direction. Mrs. Weldon and Jack had just come out of their hut,\r\nand catching sight of them, the _mganga_ stood with his left hand\r\npointing towards them and his right upstretched towards the heavens. Intuitively the multitude comprehended his meaning. Here was the\r\nexplanation of the mystery. It was this white woman with her child that\r\nhad been the cause of all their misery, it was owing to them that the\r\nclouds had poured down this desolating rain. With yells of execration\r\nthe whole mob made a dash towards the unfortunate lady who, pale with\r\nfright and rigid as a statue, stood clasping her boy to her side. The\r\n_mganga_, however, anticipated them. Having pushed his way through the\r\ninfuriated throng, he seized the child and held him high in the air, as\r\nthough about to hurl him to the ground, a peace-offering to the\r\noffended gods. [Illustration: \"Here they are, captain! both of them!!\"] Mrs. Weldon gave a piercing shriek, and fell senseless to the earth. Lifting her up, and making a sign to the queen that all would now be\r\nright, the _mganga_ retreated carrying both mother and child through\r\nthe crowd, who retreated before him and made an open passage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Alvez now felt that it was time to interfere. Already one of his\r\nprisoners had eluded his vigilance, and was he now to see two more\r\ncarried off before his eyes? was he to lose the whole of the expected\r\nransom? no, rather would he see Kazonndé destroyed by a deluge, than\r\nresign his chance of securing so good a prize. Darting forwards he\r\nattempted to obstruct the magician's progress; but public opinion was\r\nagainst him; at a sign from the queen, he was seized by the guards, and\r\nhe was aware well enough of what would be the immediate consequence of\r\nresistance. He deemed it prudent to desist from his obstruction, but in\r\nhis heart he bitterly cursed the stupid credulity of the natives for\r\nsupposing that the blood of the white woman or the child could avail to\r\nput an end to the disasters they were suffering. Making the natives understand that they were not to follow him, the\r\nmagician carried off his burden as easily as a lion would carry a\r\ncouple of kids. The lady was still unconscious, and Jack was all but\r\nparalyzed with fright. Once free of the enclosure the _mganga_ crossed\r\nthe town, entered the forest, and after a march of three miles, during\r\nwhich he did not slacken his pace for a moment, reached the bank of a\r\nriver which was flowing towards the north."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Here in the cavity of a rock, concealed by drooping foliage, a canoe\r\nwas moored, covered with a kind of thatched roof; on this the magician\r\ndeposited his burden, and sending the light craft into mid-stream with\r\na vigorous kick, exclaimed in a cheery voice,--\r\n\r\n\"Here they are, captain! both of them! Mrs. Weldon and Master Jack,\r\nboth! We will be off now! I hope those idiots of Kazonndé will have\r\nplenty more rain yet! Off we go!\" CHAPTER XVII. DRIFTING DOWN THE STREAM. \"Off we go!\" It was the voice of Hercules addressing Dick Sands, who,\r\nfrightfully debilitated by recent sufferings, was leaning against\r\nCousin Benedict for support. Dingo was lying at his feet. Mrs. Weldon gradually recovered her consciousness. Looking around her\r\nin amazement she caught sight of Dick. \"Dick, is it you?\" she muttered feebly. The lad with some difficulty arose, and took her hand in his, while\r\nJack overwhelmed him with kisses. \"And who would have thought it was you, Hercules, that carried us\r\naway?\" said the child; \"I did not know you a bit; you were so\r\ndreadfully ugly.\" \"I was a sort of a devil, you know, Master Jack,\" Hercules answered;\r\n\"and the devil is not particularly handsome;\" and he began rubbing his\r\nchest vigorously to get rid of the white pattern with which he had\r\nadorned it. Mrs. Weldon held out her hand to him with a grateful smile."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Yes, Mrs. Weldon, he has saved you, and although he does not own it,\r\nhe has saved me too,\" said Dick. \"Saved!\" repeated Hercules, \"you must not talk about safety, for you\r\nare not saved yet.\" And pointing to Benedict, he continued,--\r\n\r\n\"That's where your thanks are due; unless he had come and informed me\r\nall about you and where you were, I should have known nothing, and\r\nshould have been powerless to aid you.\" It was now five days since he had fallen in with the entomologist as he\r\nwas chasing the manticora, and unceremoniously had carried him off. As the canoe drifted rapidly along the stream, Hercules briefly related\r\nhis adventures since his escape from the encampment on the Coanza. He\r\ndescribed how he had followed the kitanda which was conveying Mrs.\r\nWeldon; how in the course of his march he had found Dingo badly\r\nwounded; how he and the dog together had reached the neighbourhood of\r\nKazonndé, and how he had contrived to send a note to Dick, intending to\r\ninform him of Mrs. Weldon's destination. Then he went on to say that\r\nsince his unexpected _rencontre_ with Cousin Benedict he had watched\r\nvery closely for a chance to get into the guardeddépôt, but until now\r\nhad entirely failed. A celebrated _mganga_ had been passing on his way\r\nthrough the forest, and he had resolved upon impersonating him as a\r\nmeans of gaining the admittance he wanted."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His strength made the\r\nundertaking sufficiently easy; and having stripped the magician of his\r\nparaphernalia, and bound him securely to a tree, he painted his own\r\nbody with a pattern like that which he observed on his victim's chest,\r\nand having attired himself with the magical garments was quite equipped\r\nto impose upon the credulous natives. The result of his stratagem they\r\nhad all that day witnessed. He had hardly finished his account of himself when Mrs. Weldon, smiling\r\nat his success, turned to Dick. \"And how, all this time, my dear boy, has it fared with you?\" she asked. Dick said,--\r\n\r\n\"I remember very little to tell you. I recollect being fastened to a\r\nstake in the river-bed and the water rising and rising till it was\r\nabove my head. My last thoughts were about yourself and Jack. Then\r\neverything became a blank, and I knew nothing more until I found myself\r\namongst the papyrus on the river-bank, with Hercules tending me like a\r\nnurse.\" \"You see I am the right sort of _mganga_\" interposed Hercules; \"I am a\r\ndoctor as well as a conjurer.\" \"But tell me, Hercules, how did you save him?\" \"Oh, it was not a difficult matter by any means,\" answered Hercules\r\nmodestly; \"it was dark, you know, so that at the proper moment it was\r\nquite possible to wade in amongst the poor wretches at the bottom of\r\nthe trench, and to wrench the stake from its socket. Anybody could have\r\ndone it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Cousin Benedict could have done it. Dingo, too, might have\r\ndone it. Perhaps, after all, it was Dingo that did it.\" \"No, no, Hercules, that won't do,\" cried Jack; \"besides, look, Dingo is\r\nshaking his head; he is telling you he didn't do it.\" \"Dingo must not tell tales, Master Jack,\" said Hercules, laughing. But, nevertheless, although the brave fellow's modesty prompted him to\r\nconceal it, it was clear that he had accomplished a daring feat, of\r\nwhich few would have ventured to incur the risk. Inquiry was next made after Tom, Bat, Actæon, and Austin. His\r\ncountenance fell, and large tears gathered in his eyes as Hercules told\r\nhow he had seen them pass through the forest in a slave-caravan. They\r\nwere gone; he feared they were gone for ever. Mrs. Weldon tried to console him with the hope that they might still be\r\nspared to meet again some day; but he shook his head mournfully. She\r\nthen communicated to Dick the terms of the compact that had been\r\nentered into for her own release, and observed that under the\r\ncircumstances it might really have been more prudent for her to remain\r\nin Kazonndé. \"Then I have made a mistake; I have been an idiot, in bringing you\r\naway,\" said Hercules, ever ready to depreciate his own actions. \"No,\" said Dick; \"you have made no mistake; you could not have done\r\nbetter; those rascals, ten chances to one, will only get Mr. Weldon\r\ninto some trap."}
{"question": "", "answer": "We must get to Mossamedes before Negoro arrives; once\r\nthere, we shall find that the Portuguese authorities will lend us their\r\nprotection, and when old Alvez arrives to claim his 100,000 dollars--\"\r\n\r\n\"He shall receive a good thrashing for his pains,\" said Hercules,\r\nfinishing Dick's sentence, and chuckling heartily at the prospect. It was agreed on all hands that it was most important that Negoro's\r\narrival at Mossamedes should be forestalled. The plan which Dick had so\r\nlong contemplated of reaching the coast by descending some river seemed\r\nnow in a fair way of being accomplished, and from the northerly\r\ndirection in which they were proceeding it was quite probable that they\r\nwould ultimately reach the Zaire, and in that case not actually arrive\r\nat S. Paul de Loanda; but that would be immaterial, as they would be\r\nsure of finding help anywhere in the colonies of Lower Guinea. On finding himself on the river-bank, Dick's first thought had been to\r\nembark upon one of the floating islands that are continually to be seen\r\nupon the surface of the African streams, but it happened that Hercules\r\nduring one of his rambles found a native boat that had run adrift. It\r\nwas just the discovery that suited their need."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was one of the long,\r\nnarrow canoes, thirty feet in length by three or four in breadth, that\r\nwith a large number of paddles can be driven with immense velocity, but\r\nby the aid of a single scull can be safely guided down the current of a\r\nstream. Dick was somewhat afraid that, to elude observation, it would be\r\nnecessary to proceed only by night, but as the loss of twelve hours out\r\nof the twenty-four would double the length of the voyage, he devised\r\nthe plan of covering the canoe with a roof of long grass, supported by\r\na horizontal pole from stem to stern, and this not only afforded a\r\nshelter from the sun, but so effectually concealed the craft,\r\nrudder-scull and all, that the very birds mistook it for one of the\r\nnatural islets, and red-beaked gulls, black _arringhas_ and grey and\r\nwhite kingfishers would frequently alight upon it in search of food. Though comparatively free from fatigue, the voyage must necessarily be\r\nlong, and by no means free from danger, and the daily supply of\r\nprovisions was not easy to procure. If fishing failed, Dick had the one\r\ngun which Hercules had carried away with him from the ant-hill, and as\r\nhe was by no means a bad shot, he hoped to find plenty of game, either\r\nalong the banks or by firing through a loophole in the thatch."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The rate of the current, as far as he could tell, was about two miles\r\nan hour, enough to carry them about fifty miles a day; it was a speed,\r\nhowever, that made it necessary for them to keep a sharp look-out for\r\nany rocks or submerged trunks of trees, as well as to be on their guard\r\nagainst rapids and cataracts. Dick's strength and spirits all revived at the delight of having Mrs.\r\nWeldon and Jack restored to him, and he assumed his post at the bow of\r\nthe canoe, directing Hercules how to use the scull at the stern. A\r\nlitter of soft grass was made for Mrs. Weldon, who spent most of her\r\ntime lying thoughtfully in the shade. Cousin Benedict was very\r\ntaciturn; he had not recovered the loss of the manticora, and frowned\r\never and again at Hercules, as if he had not yet forgiven him for\r\nstopping him in the chase. Jack, who had been told that he must not be\r\nnoisy, amused himself by playing with Dingo. The first two days passed without any special incident. The stock of\r\nprovisions was quite enough for that time, so that there was no need to\r\ndisembark, and Dick merely lay to for a few hours in the night to take\r\na little necessary repose. The stream nowhere exceeded 150 feet in breadth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The floating islands\r\nmoved at the same pace as the canoe, and except from some unforeseen\r\ncircumstance, there could be no apprehension of a collision. The banks\r\nwere destitute of human inhabitants, but were richly clothed with wild\r\nplants, of which the blossoms were of the most gorgeous colours; the\r\nasclepiae, the gladiolus, the clematis, lilies, aloes, umbelliferae,\r\narborescent ferns and fragrant shrubs, combining on either hand to make\r\na border of surpassing beauty. Here and there the forest extended to\r\nthe very shore, and copal-trees, acacias with their stiff foliage,\r\nbauhinias clothed with lichen, fig-trees with their masses of pendant\r\nroots, and other trees of splendid growth rose to the height of a\r\nhundred feet, forming a shade which the rays of the sun utterly failed\r\nto penetrate. [Illustration: Hercules could leave the boat without much fear of\r\ndetection.] Occasionally a wreath of creepers would form an arch from shore to\r\nshore, and on the 27th, to Jack's great delight, a group of monkeys was\r\nseen crossing one of these natural bridges, holding on most carefully\r\nby their tails, lest the aerial pathway should snap beneath their\r\nweight."}
{"question": "", "answer": "These monkeys, belonging to a smaller kind of chimpanzee, which\r\nare known in Central Africa by the name of _sokos_, were hideous\r\ncreatures with low foreheads, bright yellow faces, and long, upright\r\nears; they herd in troops of about ten, bark like dogs, and are much\r\ndreaded by the natives on account of their alleged propensity to carry\r\noff young children; there is no telling what predatory designs they\r\nmight have formed against Master Jack if they had spied him out, but\r\nDick's artifice effectually screened him from their observation. Twenty miles further on the canoe came to a sudden standstill. \"What's the matter now, captain?\" cried Hercules from the stern. \"We have drifted on to a grass barrier, and there is no hope for it, we\r\nshall have to cut our way through,\" answered Dick. \"All right, I dare say we shall manage it,\" promptly replied Hercules,\r\nleaving his rudder to come in front. The obstruction was formed by the interlacing of masses of the tough,\r\nglossy grass known by the name of _tikatika_, which, when compressed,\r\naffords a surface so compact and resisting that travellers have been\r\nknown by means of it to cross rivers dry-footed. Splendid specimens of\r\nlotus plants had taken root amongst the vegetation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As it was nearly dark, Hercules could leave the boat without much fear\r\nof detection, and so effectually did he wield his hatchet that, in two\r\nhours after the stoppage, the barrier was hewn asunder, and the light\r\ncraft resumed the channel. It must be owned that it was with a sense of reluctance that Benedict\r\nfelt the boat was again beginning to move forward; the whole voyage\r\nappeared to him to be perfectly uninteresting and unnecessary; not a\r\nsingle insect had he observed since he left Kazonndé, and his most\r\nardent wish was that he could return there and regain possession of his\r\ninvaluable tin box. But an unlooked for gratification was in store for\r\nhim. Hercules, who had been his pupil long enough to have an eye for the\r\nkind of creature Benedict was ever trying to secure, on coming back\r\nfrom his exertions on the grass-barrier, brought a horrible-looking\r\nanimal, and submitted it to the sullen entomologist. \"Is this of any use to you?\" The amateur lifted it up carefully, and having almost poked it into his\r\nnear-sighted eyes, uttered a cry of delight,--\r\n\r\n\"Bravo, Hercules! you are making amends for your past mischief; it is\r\nsplendid! it is unique!\" \"Is it really very curious?\" said Mrs. Weldon."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"Yes, indeed,\" answered the enraptured naturalist; \"it is really\r\nunique; it belongs to neither of the ten orders; it can be classed\r\nneither with the coleoptera, neuroptera, nor to the hymenoptera: if it\r\nhad eight legs I should know how to classify it; I should place it\r\namongst the second section of the arachnida; but it is a hexapod, a\r\ngenuine hexapod; a spider with six legs; a grand discovery; it must be\r\nentered on the catalogue as 'Hexapodes Benedictus.'\" Once again\r\nmounted on his hobby, the worthy enthusiast continued to discourse with\r\nan unwonted vivacity to his indulgent ii* not over attentive audience. Meanwhile the canoe was steadily threading its way over the dark\r\nwaters, the silence of the night broken only by the rattle of the\r\nscales of some crocodiles, or by the snorting of hippopotamuses in the\r\nneighbourhood. Once the travellers were startled by a loud noise, such\r\nas might proceed from some ponderous machinery in motion: it was caused\r\nby a troop of a hundred or more elephants that, after feasting through\r\nthe day on the roots of the forest, had come to quench their thirst at\r\nthe river-side. [Illustration: It was caused by a troop of a hundred or more elephants.] But no danger was to be apprehended; lighted by the pale moon that rose\r\nover the tall trees, the canoe throughout the night pursued in safety\r\nits solitary voyage. CHAPTER XVIII. AN ANXIOUS VOYAGE."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Thus the canoe drifted on for a week, the forests that for many miles\r\nhad skirted the river ultimately giving place to extensive jungles that\r\nstretched far away to the horizon. Destitute, fortunately for the\r\ntravellers, of human inhabitants, the district abounded in a large\r\nvariety of animal life; zebras, elands, caamas, sported on the bank,\r\ndisappearing at night-fall before howling leopards and roaring lions. It was Dick's general custom, as he lay to for a while in the\r\nafternoon, to go ashore in search of food, and as the manioc, maize,\r\nand sorghum that were to be found were of a wild growth and\r\nconsequently not fit for consumption, he was obliged to run the risk of\r\nusing his gun. On the 4th of July he succeeded by a single shot in\r\nkilling _pokoo_, a kind of antelope about five feet long, with\r\nannulated horns, a tawny skin dappled with bright spots, and a white\r\nbelly. The venison proved excellent, and was roasted over a fire\r\nprocured by the primitive method, practised, it is said, even by\r\ngorillas, of rubbing two sticks together. In spite of these halts, and the time taken for the night's rest, the\r\ndistance accomplished by the 8th could not be estimated at less than a\r\nhundred miles. The river, augmented by only a few insignificant\r\ntributaries, had not materially increased in volume; its direction,\r\nhowever, had slightly changed more to the north-west."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It afforded a\r\nvery fair supply of fish, which were caught by lines made of the long\r\nstems of creepers furnished with thorns instead of fish-hooks, a\r\nconsiderable proportion being the delicate _sandjtkas_, which when\r\ndried may be transported to any climate; besides these there were the\r\nblack _usakas_, the wide-headed _monndés_, and occasionally the little\r\n_dagalas_, resembling Thames whitebait. [Illustration: He stood face to face with his foe.] Next day, Dick met with an adventure that put all his courage and\r\ncomposure to the test. He had noticed the horns of a caama projecting\r\nabove the brushwood, and went ashore alone with the intention of\r\nsecuring it. He succeeded in getting tolerably close to it and fired,\r\nbut he was terribly startled when a formidable creature bounded along\r\nsome thirty paces ahead, and took possession of the prey he had just\r\nwounded. It was a majestic lion, at least five feet in height, of the kind\r\ncalled _káramoo_, in distinction to the maneless species known as the\r\n_Nyassi-lion_. Before Dick had time to reload, the huge brute had\r\ncaught sight of him, and without relaxing its hold upon the writhing\r\nantelope beneath its claws, glared upon him fiercely."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick's presence\r\nof mind did not forsake him; flight he knew was not to be thought of;\r\nhis only chance he felt intuitively would be by keeping perfectly\r\nstill; and aware that the beast would be unlikely to give up a\r\nstruggling prey for another that was motionless, he stood face to face\r\nwith his foe, not venturing to move an eyelid. In a few minutes the\r\nlion's patience seemed to be exhausted; with a grand stateliness, it\r\npicked up the caama as easily as a dog would lift a hare, turned round,\r\nand lashing the bushes with its tail, disappeared in the jungle. It took Dick some little time to recover himself sufficiently to return\r\nto the canoe. On arriving, he said nothing of the peril to which he had\r\nbeen exposed, but heartily congratulated himself that they had means of\r\ntransport without making their way through jungles and forests. As they advanced, they repeatedly came across evidences that the\r\ncountry had not been always, as now it was, utterly devoid of\r\npopulation; more than once, they observed traces which betokened the\r\nformer existence of villages; either some ruined palisades or the\r\n_débris_ of some thatched huts, or some solitary sacred tree within an\r\nenclosure would indicate that the death of a chief had, according to\r\ncustom, made a native tribe migrate to new quarters."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If natives were still dwelling in the district, as was just probable,\r\nthey must have been living underground, only emerging at night like\r\nbeasts of prey, from which they were only a grade removed. Dick Sands had every reason to feel convinced that cannibalism had been\r\npractised in the neighbourhood, Three times, as he was wandering in the\r\nforest, he had come upon piles of ashes and half-charred human bones,\r\nthe remnants, no doubt, of a ghastly meal, and although he mentioned\r\nnothing of what he had seen to Mrs. Weldon, he made up his mind to go\r\nashore as seldom as possible, and as often as he found it absolutely\r\nnecessary to go, he gave Hercules strict directions to push off into\r\nmid-stream at the very first intimation of danger. A new cause of anxiety arose on the following evening, and made it\r\nnecessary for them to take the most guarded measures of precaution. The\r\nriver-bed had widened out into a kind of lagoon, and on the right side\r\nof this, built upon piles in the water, not only was there a collection\r\nof about thirty huts, but the fires gleaming under the thatch, made it\r\nevident that they were all inhabited. Unfortunately the only channel of\r\nthe stream flowed close under the huts, the river elsewhere being so\r\nobstructed with rocks that navigation of any kind was impossible."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nothing was more probable than that the natives would have set their\r\nnets all across the piles, and if so, the canoe would be sure to be\r\nobstructed, and an alarm must inevitably be raised. Every caution\r\nseemed to be unavailing, because the canoe must follow the stream;\r\nhowever, in the lowest of whispers Dick ordered Hercules to keep clear\r\nas much as he could of the worm-eaten timber. The night was not very\r\ndark, which was equally an advantage and a disadvantage, as while it\r\npermitted those on board to steer as they wanted, it did not prevent\r\nthem from being seen. The situation became more and more critical. About a hundred feet\r\nahead, the channel was very contracted; two natives, gesticulating\r\nviolently, were seen squatting on the pilework; a few moments more and\r\ntheir voices could be heard; it was obvious that they had seen the\r\nfloating mass; apprehending that it was going to destroy their nets,\r\nthey yelled aloud and shouted for assistance; instantly five or six\r\nnegroes scrambled down the piles, and perched themselves upon the\r\ncross-beams. On board the canoe the profoundest silence was maintained. Dick only\r\nsignalled his directions to Hercules, without uttering a word, while\r\nJack performed his part by holding Dingo's mouth tightly closed, to\r\nstop the low growlings which the faithful watch-dog seemed resolved to\r\nmake; but fortunately every sound was overpowered by the rushing of the\r\nstream and the clamour of the negroes, as they hurriedly drew in their\r\nnets."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If they should raise them in time, all might be well, but if, on\r\nthe other hand, the canoe should get entangled, the consequences could\r\nhardly fail to be disastrous. The current in its narrow channel was so\r\nstrong that Dick was powerless either to modify his course or to\r\nslacken it. Half a minute more, and the canoe was right under the woodwork, but the\r\nefforts of the natives had already elevated the nets so that the\r\nanticipated danger was happily escaped; but it chanced that in making\r\nits way through the obstacle, a large piece of the grass-thatch got\r\ndetached. One of the negroes raised a sudden shout of alarm, and it\r\nseemed only too probable that he had caught a sight of the travellers\r\nbelow and was informing his companions. This apprehension, too, was\r\nonly momentary; the current had changed almost to a rapid, and carried\r\nthe canoe along with such velocity that the lacustrine village was\r\nquickly out of sight. \"Steer to the left!\" cried Dick, finding that the riverbed had again\r\nbecome clear. A stiff pull at the tiller made the craft fly in that direction. Dick went to the stern, and scanned the moonlit waters. All was\r\nperfectly still, no canoe was in pursuit; perhaps the natives had not\r\none to use; but certain it was that when daylight dawned no vestige of\r\nan inhabitant was to be seen."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nevertheless Dick thought it prudent for\r\na while to steer close under the shelter of the left-hand shore. [Illustration: Instantly five or six negroes scrambled down the piles.] By the end of the next four days the aspect of the country had\r\nundergone a remarkable change, the jungle having given place to a\r\ndesert as dreary as the Kalahari itself. The river appeared\r\ninterminable, and it became a matter of serious consideration how to\r\nget a sufficiency of food. Fish was scarce, or at least hard to catch,\r\nand the arid soil provided no means of sustenance for antelopes, so\r\nthat nothing was to be gained from the chase. Carnivorous animals also\r\nhad quite disappeared, and the silence of the night was broken, not by\r\nthe roar of wild beasts, but by the croaking of frogs in a discordant\r\nchorus, which Cameron has compared to the clanking of hammers and the\r\ngrating of files in a ship-builder's yard. Far away both to the east and west the outlines of hills could be\r\nfaintly discerned, but the shores on either hand were perfectly flat\r\nand devoid of trees. Euphorbias, it is true, grew in considerable\r\nnumbers, but as they were only of the oil-producing species, and not\r\nthe kind from which cassava or manioc is procured, they were useless in\r\nan alimentary point of view."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick was becoming more and more perplexed, when Hercules happened to\r\nmention that the natives often eat young fern-fronds and the pith of\r\nthe papyrus, and that before now he had himself been reduced to the\r\nnecessity of subsisting on nothing better. \"We must try them,\" said Dick. Both ferns and papyrus abounded on the banks, and a meal was prepared,\r\nthe sweet soft pith of the papyrus being found very palatable. Jack in\r\nparticular appeared to enjoy it extremely, but it was not in any way a\r\nsatisfying diet. Thanks to Cousin Benedict, a fresh variety in the matter of food was\r\nfound on the following day. Since the discovery of the \"Hexapodes\r\nBenedictus\" he had recovered his spirits, and, having fastened his\r\nprize safely inside his hat, he wandered about, as often as he had a\r\nchance, in his favourite pursuit of insect-hunting. As he was rummaging\r\nin the long grass, he put up a bird which flew but a very short\r\ndistance. Benedict recognized it by its peculiar note, and, seeing Dick\r\ntake his gun to aim at it, exclaimed,--\r\n\r\n\"Don't fire, don't fire! that bird will be worth nothing for food among\r\nfive of us.\" \"It will be dinner enough for Jack,\" said Dick, who, finding that the\r\nbird did not seem in a hurry to make its escape, delayed his shot for a\r\nmoment, without intending to be diverted from his purpose of securing\r\nit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"You mustn't fire,\" insisted Benedict, \"it is an indicator; it will\r\nshow you where there are lots of honey.\" Aware that a few pounds of honey would really be of more value than a\r\nlittle bird, Dick lowered his gun, and in company with the entomologist\r\nset off to follow the indicator, which seemed, by alternately flying\r\nand stopping, to be inviting them to come on, and they had but a little\r\nway to go before they observed several swarms of bees buzzing around\r\nsome old stems hidden amongst the euphorbias. Notwithstanding\r\nBenedict's remonstrances against depriving the bees of the fruits of\r\ntheir industry, Dick instantly set to work, and without remorse\r\nsuffocated them by burning dry grass underneath. Having secured a good\r\namount of honey, he left the comb to the indicator as its share of the\r\nbooty, and went back with his companion to the canoe. The honey was acceptable, but it did not do much to alleviate the\r\ncravings of hunger. Next day it happened that they had just stopped for their accustomed\r\nrest, when they observed that an enormous swarm of grasshoppers had\r\nsettled at the mouth of a creek close by. Two or three deep they\r\ncovered the soil, myriads and myriads of them adhering to every shrub. \"The natives eat those grasshoppers,\" said Benedict, \"and like them\r\ntoo.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "The remark produced an instant effect; all hands were busied in\r\ncollecting them, and a large supply was quickly gathered: the canoe\r\nmight have been filled ten times over. Grilled over a slow fire, they were found to be very palatable eating,\r\nand, spite of his qualms of conscience, Benedict himself made a hearty\r\nmeal. But although the gnawings of absolute hunger were thus assuaged, all\r\nthe travellers began to long most anxiously for the voyage to come to\r\nan end. The mode of transit indeed might be less exhausting to the\r\nbodily powers than a land march would have been, but the excessive heat\r\nby day, the damp mists at night, and the incessant attacks of\r\nmosquitoes, all combined to render the passage extremely trying. There\r\nwas no telling how long it would last, and Dick was equally uncertain\r\nwhether it might end in a few days, or be protracted for a month. The\r\ndirection which the stream was taking was itself a subject of\r\nperplexity. A fresh surprise was now in store. As Jack, a few mornings afterwards, was standing at the bow peering\r\nthrough an aperture in the grass canopy above him, he suddenly turned\r\nround and cried,--\r\n\r\n\"The sea! the sea!\" Dick started forwards, and looked eagerly in the same direction."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A large expanse of water was visible in the horizon, but after having\r\nsurveyed it for a moment or two, he said,--\r\n\r\n\"No, Jack, it is not the sea, it is a great river; it is running west,\r\nand I suppose this river runs into it. Perhaps it is the Zaire.\" \"Let us hope it is,\" said Mrs. Weldon earnestly. Most cordially did Dick Sands re-echo her words, being well aware that\r\nat the mouth of that river were Portuguese villages, where a refuge\r\nmight assuredly be found. For several succeeding days the canoe, still concealed by its covering,\r\nfloated on the silvery surface of this new-found stream. On either side\r\nthe banks became less arid, and there seemed everything to encourage\r\nthe few survivors of the \"Pilgrim\" to believe that they would soon see\r\nthe last of the perils and toils of their journey. They were too sanguine. Towards three o'clock on the morning of the\r\n18th, Dick, who was at his usual post at the bow, fancied he heard a\r\ndull rumbling towards the west. Mrs. Weldon, Jack, and Benedict were\r\nall asleep. Calling Hercules to him, he asked him whether he could not\r\nhear a strange noise. The night was perfectly calm, and not a breath of\r\nair was stirring. The negro listened attentively, and suddenly, his\r\neyes sparkling with delight, exclaimed,--\r\n\r\n\"Yes, captain, I hear the sea!\" Dick shook his head and answered,--\r\n\r\n\"It is not the sea, Hercules.\" \"Not the sea!\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "cried the negro, \"then what can it be?\" \"We must wait till daybreak,\" replied Dick, \"and meanwhile we shall\r\nhave to keep a sharp look-out.\" Hercules returned to his place, but only to continue listening with\r\never-increasing curiosity. The rumbling perceptibly increased till it\r\nbecame a continued roar. With scarcely any intervening twilight night passed into day. Just in\r\nfront, scarcely more than half a mile ahead, a great mist was hanging\r\nover the river; it was not an ordinary fog, and when the sun rose, the\r\nlight of the dawn caused a brilliant rainbow to arch itself from shore\r\nto shore. In a voice so loud that it awoke Mrs. Weldon, Dick gave his order to\r\nHercules to steer for the bank:--\r\n\r\n\"Quick, quick, Hercules! ashore! ashore! there are cataracts close\r\nahead!\" And so it was. Within little more than a quarter of a mile the bed of\r\nthe river sank abruptly some hundred feet, and the foaming waters\r\nrushed down in a magnificent fall with irresistible velocity. A few\r\nminutes more and the canoe must have been swallowed in the deep abyss. CHAPTER XIX. AN ATTACK. The canoe inclined to the west readily enough; the fall in the\r\nriver-bed was so sudden that the current remained quite unaffected by\r\nthe cataract at a distance of three hundred yards. On the bank were woods so dense that sunlight could not penetrate the\r\nshade."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dick was conscious of a sad misgiving when he looked at the\r\ncharacter of the territory through which they must necessarily pass. It\r\ndid not seem practicable by any means to convey the canoe below the\r\nfalls. As they neared the shore, Dingo became intensely agitated. At first\r\nDick suspected that a wild beast or a native might be lurking in the\r\npapyrus, but it soon became obvious that the dog was excited by grief\r\nrather than by rage. \"Dingo is crying,\" said Jack; \"poor Dingo!\" and the child laid his arms\r\nover the creature's neck. The dog, however, was too impatient to be caressed; bounding away, he\r\nsprang into the water, swam across the twenty feet that intervened\r\nbetween the shore, and disappeared in the grass. In a few moments the boat had glided on to a carpet of confervas and\r\nother aquatic plants, starting a few kingfishers and some snow-white\r\nherons. Hercules moored it to the stump of a tree, and the travellers\r\nwent ashore. There was no pathway through the forest, only the trampled moss showed\r\nthat the place had been recently visited either by animals or men. [Illustration: Upon the smooth wood were two great letters in dingy\r\nred.] Dick took his gun and Hercules his hatchet, and they set out to search\r\nfor Dingo."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They had not far to go before they saw him with his nose\r\nclose to the ground, manifestly following a scent; the animal raised\r\nhis head for a moment, as if beckoning them to follow, and kept on till\r\nhe reached an old sycamore-stump. Having called out to the rest of the\r\nparty to join them, Dick made his way farther into the wood till he got\r\nup to Dingo, who was whining piteously at the entrance of a dilapidated\r\nhut. The rest were not long in following, and they all entered the hut\r\ntogether. The floor was strewn with bones whitened by exposure. \"Some one has died here,\" said Mrs. Weldon. \"Perhaps,\" added Dick, as if struck by a sudden thought, \"it was\r\nDingo's old master. Look at him! he is pointing with his paw.\" The portion of the sycamore-trunk which formed the farther side of the\r\nhut had been stripped of its bark, and upon the smooth wood were two\r\ngreat letters in dingy red almost effaced by time, but yet plain enough\r\nto be distinguished. \"S. V.,\" cried Dick, as he looked where the dog's paw rested; \"the same\r\ninitials that Dingo has upon his collar. There can be no mistake. S. V.\"\r\n\r\nA small copper box, green with verdigris, caught his eye, and he picked\r\nit up. It was open, but contained a scrap of discoloured paper."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The\r\nwriting upon this consisted of a few sentences, of which only detached\r\nwords could be made out, but they revealed the sad truth only too\r\nplainly. \"Robbed by Negoro--murdered--Dingo--help--Negoro guide--120 miles from\r\ncoast--December 3rd, 1871--write no more. \"S. VERNON.\" Here was the clue to a melancholy story. Samuel Vernon, under the\r\nguidance of Negoro, and taking with him his dog Dingo, had set out on\r\nan exploration of a district of Central Africa; he had taken a\r\nconsiderable quantity of money to procure the necessary supplies on the\r\nway, and this had excited the cupidity of his guide, who seized the\r\nopportunity, whilst they were encamping on the banks of the Congo, to\r\nassassinate his employer, and get possession of his property. Negoro,\r\nhowever, had not escaped; he had fallen into the hands of the\r\nPortuguese, by whom he was recognized as an agent of the slave-dealer\r\nAlvez, and condemned to spend the rest of his days in prison. He\r\ncontrived after a while to make his escape, and, as has been already\r\nmentioned, found his way to New Zealand, whence he had returned by\r\nsecuring an engagement on board the \"Pilgrim.\""}
{"question": "", "answer": "Between the time when he\r\nwas attacked by Negoro and the moment of his death, Vernon had managed\r\nto write the few brief lines of which the fragments still survived, and\r\nto deposit the document in the box from which the money had been\r\nstolen, and by a last effort had traced out his initials in blood upon\r\nthe naked wood which formed the wall of the hut. For many days Dingo\r\nwatched beside his master, and throughout that time his eyes were\r\nresting so perpetually upon the two crimson letters in front of him,\r\nthat mere instinct seemed to fasten them indelibly on his memory. Quitting his watch one day, perhaps to pacify his hunger, the dog\r\nwandered to the coast, where he was picked up by the captain of the\r\n\"Waldeck,\" afterwards to be transferred to the very ship on which his\r\nowner's murderer had been engaged as cook. All throughout this time poor Vernon's bones had been bleaching in the\r\nAfrican forest, and the first resolution of Dick and Mrs. Weldon was to\r\ngive the residue of his remains some semblance of a decent burial. They\r\nwere just proceeding to their task when Dingo gave a furious growl, and\r\ndashed out of the hut; another moment, and a terrible shriek made it\r\nevident that he was in conflict with some dread antagonist."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Hercules was quickly in pursuit, and the whole party followed in time\r\nto witness the giant hurl himself upon a man with whom already Dingo\r\nwas in mortal combat. [Illustration: The dog was griping the man by the throat]\r\n\r\nThe dog was griping the man by the throat, the man was lifting his\r\ncutlass high above the head of the dog. That man was Negoro. The rascal, on getting his letter at Kazonndé,\r\ninstead of embarking at once for America, had left his native escort\r\nfor a while, and returned to the scene of his crime to secure the\r\ntreasure which he had left buried at a little distance in a spot that\r\nhe had marked. At this very moment he was in the act of digging up the\r\ngold he had concealed; some glistening coins scattered here and there\r\nbetrayed his purpose; but in the midst of his labours he had been\r\nstartled by the dashing forward of a dog; another instant, and the dog\r\nhad fixed itself upon his throat, whilst he, in an agony of\r\ndesperation, had drawn his cutlass and plunged it deep into the\r\ncreature's side. Hercules came up at the very climax of the death-struggle. \"You villain! you accursed villain! I have you now!\" he cried, about to\r\nseize hold of his victim. But vengeance was already accomplished. Negoro gave no sign of life;\r\ndeath had overtaken him on the very scene of his guilt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dingo, too, had\r\nreceived a mortal wound; he dragged himself back to the hut, lay down\r\nbeside the remains of his master, and expired. The sad task of burying Vernon's bones, and laying his faithful dog\r\nbeside them having been accomplished, the whole party was obliged to\r\nturn their thoughts to their own safety. Although Negoro was dead, it\r\nas very likely that the natives that he had taken with him were at no\r\ngreat distance, and would come to search for him. A hurried conference was held as to what steps had best be taken. The\r\nfew words traceable on the paper made them aware that they were on the\r\nbanks of the Congo, and that they were still 120 miles from the coast. The fall just ahead was probably the cataract of Memo, but whatever it\r\nwas, no doubt it effectually barred their farther progress by water. There seemed no alternative but that they should make their way by one\r\nbank or the other a mile or two below the waterfall, and there\r\nconstruct a raft on which once again they could drift down the stream. The question that pressed for immediate settlement was which bank it\r\nshould be. Here, on the left bank, would be the greater risk of\r\nencountering the negro escort of Negoro, while as to the farther shore\r\nthey could not tell what obstacles it might present."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Altogether Mrs. Weldon advocated trying the other side, but Dick\r\ninsisted upon crossing first by himself to ascertain whether an advance\r\nby that route were really practicable. \"The river is only about 100 yards wide,\" he urged; \"I can soon get\r\nacross. I shall leave Hercules to look after you all.\" Mrs. Weldon demurred for a while, but Dick seemed resolute, and as he\r\npromised to take his gun and not to attempt to land if he saw the least\r\nsymptom of danger, she at last consented, but with so much reluctance\r\nthat even after he had entered the canoe she said,--\r\n\r\n\"I think, Dick, it would be really better for us all to go together.\" \"No, Mrs. Weldon, indeed, no; I am sure it is best for me to go alone;\r\nI shall be back in an hour.\" \"If it must be so, it must,\" said the lady. \"Keep a sharp look-out, Hercules!\" cried the youth cheerily, as he\r\npushed off from the land. The strength of the current was by no means violent, but quite enough\r\nto make the direction of Dick's course somewhat oblique. The roar of\r\nthe cataract reverberated in his ears, and the spray, wafted by the\r\nwesterly wind, brushed lightly past his face, and he shuddered as he\r\nfelt how near they must have been to destruction if he had relaxed his\r\nwatch throughout the night."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It took him hardly a quarter of an hour to reach the opposite bank, and\r\nhe was just preparing to land when there arose a tremendous shout from\r\nabout a dozen natives, who, rushing forward, began to tear away the\r\ncanopy of grass with which the canoe was covered. Dick's horror was great. It would have been greater still if he had\r\nknown that they were cannibals. They were the natives settled at the\r\nlacustrine village higher up the river. When the piece of thatch had\r\nbeen knocked off in passing the piles a glimpse had been caught of the\r\npassengers below, and aware that the cataract ahead must ultimately\r\nbring them to a standstill, the eager barbarians had followed them\r\npersistently day by day for the last eight days. Now they thought they had secured their prize, but loud was their yell\r\nof disappointment when on stripping off the thatch they found only one\r\nperson, and that a mere boy, standing beneath it. Dick stood as calmly as he could at the bow, and pointed his gun\r\ntowards the savages, who were sufficiently acquainted with the nature\r\nof fire-arms to make them afraid to attack him. Mrs. Weldon with the others, in their eagerness to watch Dick's\r\nmovements, had remained standing upon the shore of the river, and at\r\nthis instant were caught sight of by one of the natives, who pointed\r\nthem out to his companions."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A sudden impulse seized the whole of them,\r\nand they sprang into the canoe; there seemed to be a practised hand\r\namongst them, which caught hold of the rudder-oar, and the little craft\r\nwas quickly on its way back. Although he gave up all as now well-nigh lost, Dick neither moved nor\r\nspoke. He had one lingering hope yet left. Was it not possible even now\r\nthat by sacrificing his own life he could save the lives of those that\r\nwere entrusted to him? When the canoe had come near enough to the shore for his voice to be\r\nheard, he shouted with all his might,--\r\n\r\n\"Fly, Mrs. Weldon; fly, all of you; fly for your lives!\" But neither Mrs. Weldon nor Hercules stirred; they seemed rooted to the\r\nground. \"Fly, fly, fly!\" he continued shouting. But though he knew they must hear him, yet he saw them make no effort\r\nto escape. He understood their meaning; of what avail was flight when\r\nthe savages would be upon their track in a few minutes after? A sudden thought crossed his mind. He raised his gun and fired at the\r\nman who was steering; the bullet shattered the rudder-scull into\r\nfragments. The cannibals uttered a yell of terror. Deprived of guidance, the canoe\r\nwas at the mercy of the current, and, borne along with increasing\r\nspeed, was soon within a hundred feet of the cataract."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The anxious watchers on the bank instantly discerned Dick's purpose,\r\nand understood that in order to save them he had formed the resolution\r\nof precipitating himself with the savages into the seething waters. Nothing could avail to arrest the swift descent. Mrs Weldon in an agony\r\nof despair waved her hands in a last sad farewell, Jack and Benedict\r\nseemed paralyzed, whilst Hercules involuntarily extended his great\r\nstrong arm that was powerless to aid. Suddenly the natives, impelled by a last frantic effort to reach the\r\nshore, plunged into the water, but then movement capsized the boat. Face to face with death, Dick lost nothing of his indomitable presence\r\nof mind. Might not that light canoe, floating bottom upwards, be made\r\nthe means for yet another grasp at life? The danger that threatened him\r\nwas twofold, there was the risk of suffocation as well as the peril of\r\nbeing drowned; could not the inverted canoe be used for a kind of float\r\nat once to keep his head above water and to serve as a screen from the\r\nrushing air? He had some faint recollection of how it had been proved\r\npossible under some such conditions to descend in safety the falls of\r\nNiagara. Quick as lightning he seized hold of the cross-bench of the canoe, and\r\nwith his head out of water beneath the upturned keel, he was dashed\r\ndown the furious and well-nigh perpendicular fall."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The craft sank deep into the abyss, but rose quickly again to the\r\nsurface. Here was Dick's chance, he was a good swimmer, and his life\r\ndepended now upon his strength of arm. It was a hard struggle, but he succeeded. In a quarter of an hour he\r\nhad landed on the left hand bank, where he was greeted with the joyful\r\ncongratulations of his friends, who had hurried to the foot of the fall\r\nto assure themselves of his fate. [Illustration: The bullet shattered the rudder scull into fragments]\r\n\r\nThe cannibals had all disappeared in the surging waters. Unprotected in\r\ntheir fall, they had doubtless ceased to breathe before reaching the\r\nlowest depths of the cataract where their lifeless bodies would soon be\r\ndashed to pieces against the sharp rocks that were scattered along the\r\nlower course of the stream. CHAPTER XX. A HAPPY REUNION. Two days after Dick's marvellous deliverance the party had the good\r\nfortune to fall in with a caravan of honest Portuguese ivory-traders on\r\ntheir way to Emboma, at the mouth of the Congo. They rendered the\r\nfugitives every assistance, and thus enabled them to reach the coast\r\nwithout further discomfort. This meeting with the caravan was a most fortunate occurrence, as any\r\nproject of launching a raft upon the Zaire would have been quite\r\nimpracticable, the river between the Ntemo and Yellala Falls being a\r\ncontinuous series of cataracts."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Stanley counted as many as sixty-two,\r\nand it was hereabouts that that brave traveller sustained the last of\r\nthirty-one conflicts with the natives, escaping almost by a miracle\r\nfrom the Mbelo cataract. Before the middle of August the party arrived at Emboma, where they\r\nwere hospitably received by M. Motta Viega and Mr. Harrison. A steamer\r\nwas just on the point of starting for the Isthmus of Panama; in this\r\nthey took their passage, and in due time set foot once more upon\r\nAmerican soil. Forthwith a message was despatched to Mr. Weldon, apprising him of the\r\nreturn of the wife and child over whose loss he had mourned so long On\r\nthe 25th the railroad deposited the travellers at San Francisco, the\r\nonly thing to mar their happiness being the recollection that Tom and\r\nhis partners were not with them to share their joy. Mr. Weldon had every reason to congratulate himself that Negoro had\r\nfailed to reach him. No doubt he would have been ready to sacrifice the\r\nbulk of his fortune, and without a moment's hesitation would have set\r\nout for the coast of Africa, but who could question that he would there\r\nhave been exposed to the vilest treachery? He felt that to Dick Sands\r\nand to Hercules he owed a debt of gratitude that it would be impossible\r\nto repay; Dick assumed more than ever the place of an adopted son,\r\nwhilst the brave negro was regarded as a true and faithful friend."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Cousin Benedict, it must be owned, failed to share for long the general\r\njoy. After giving Mr. Weldon a hasty shake of the hand, he hurried off\r\nto his private room, and resumed his studies almost as if they had\r\nnever been interrupted. He set himself vigorously to work with the\r\ndesign of producing an elaborate treatise upon the \"Hexapodes\r\nBenedictus\" hitherto unknown to entomological research. Here in his\r\nprivate chamber spectacles and magnifying-glass were ready for his use,\r\nand he was now able for the first time with the aid of proper\r\nappliances to examine the unique production of Central Africa. A shriek of horror and disappointment escaped his lips. The Hexapodes\r\nBenedictus was not a hexapod at all. It was a common spider. Hercules,\r\nin catching it, had unfortunately broken off its two front legs, and\r\nBenedict, almost blind as he was, had failed to detect the accident. His chagrin was most pitiable, the wonderful discovery that was to have\r\nexalted his name high in the annals of science belonged simply to the\r\ncommon order of the arachnidæ The blow to his aspirations was very\r\nheavy; it brought on a fit of illness from which it took him some time\r\nto recover. For the next three years Dick was entrusted with the education of\r\nlittle Jack during the intervals he could spare from the prosecution of\r\nhis own studies, into which he threw himself with an energy quickened\r\nby a kind of remorse."}
{"question": "", "answer": "\"If only I had known what a seaman ought to know when I was left to\r\nmyself on board the 'Pilgrim,'\" he would continually say, \"what misery\r\nand suffering we might have been spared!\" So diligently did he apply himself to the technical branches of his\r\nprofession that at the age of eighteen he received a special\r\ncertificate of honour, and was at once raised to the rank of a captain\r\nin Mr. Weldon's firm. Thus by his industry and good conduct did the poor foundling of Sandy\r\nHook rise to a post of distinction. In spite of his youth, he commanded\r\nuniversal respect; his native modesty and straightforwardness never\r\nfailed him, and for his own part, he seemed to be unconscious of those\r\nfine traits in his character which had impelled him to deeds that made\r\nhim little short of a hero. His leisure moments, however, were often troubled by one source of\r\nsadness; he could never forget the four negroes for whose misfortunes\r\nhe held himself by his own inexperience to be in a way responsible. Mrs. Weldon thoroughly shared his regret, and would have made many\r\nsacrifices to discover what had become of them. This anxiety was at\r\nlength relieved. Owing to the large correspondence of Mr. Weldon in almost every quarter\r\nof the world, it was discovered that the whole of them had been sold in\r\none lot, and that they were now in Madagascar."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Without listening for a\r\nmoment to Dick's proposal to apply all his savings to effect their\r\nliberation, Mr. Weldon set his own agents to negotiate for their\r\nfreedom, and on the 15th of November, 1877, Tom, Bat, Actæon, and\r\nAustin awaited their welcome at the merchant's door. It is needless to\r\nsay how warm were the greetings they received. Out of all the survivors of the \"Pilgrim\" that had been cast upon the\r\nfatal coast of Africa, old Nan alone was wanting to complete the\r\nnumber. Considering what they had all undergone, and the perils to\r\nwhich they had been exposed, it seemed little short of a miracle that\r\nshe and poor Dingo should be the only victims. High was the festivity that night in the house of the Californian\r\nmerchant, and the toast, proposed at Mrs. Weldon's request, that was\r\nreceived with the loudest acclamation was\r\n\r\n\"DICK SANDS, THE BOY CAPTAIN!\" THE END. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DICK SANDS, THE BOY CAPTAIN ***\r\n\r\n\r\n    \r\n\r\nUpdated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will\r\nbe renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright\r\nlaw means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,\r\nso the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United\r\nStates without permission and without paying copyright\r\nroyalties."}
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{"question": "", "answer": "The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Woodlanders\r\n    \r\nThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and\r\nmost other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions\r\nwhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms\r\nof the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online\r\nat www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,\r\nyou will have to check the laws of the country where you are located\r\nbefore using this eBook. Title: The Woodlanders\r\n\r\nAuthor: Thomas Hardy\r\n\r\nRelease date: April 1, 1996 [eBook #482]\r\n                Most recently updated: February 4, 2021\r\n\r\nLanguage: English\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOODLANDERS ***\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Woodlanders\r\n\r\nby Thomas Hardy\r\n\r\n\r\nContents\r\n\r\n CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V.\r\n CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XIV. CHAPTER XV. CHAPTER XVI. CHAPTER XVII. CHAPTER XVIII. CHAPTER XIX. CHAPTER XX. CHAPTER XXI. CHAPTER XXII. CHAPTER XXIII. CHAPTER XXIV. CHAPTER XXV. CHAPTER XXVI. CHAPTER XXVII. CHAPTER XXVIII. CHAPTER XXIX. CHAPTER XXX. CHAPTER XXXI. CHAPTER XXXII. CHAPTER XXXIII. CHAPTER XXXIV. CHAPTER XXXV. CHAPTER XXXVI. CHAPTER XXXVII. CHAPTER XXXVIII. CHAPTER XXXIX. CHAPTER XL. CHAPTER XLI. CHAPTER XLII. CHAPTER XLIII. CHAPTER XLIV. CHAPTER XLV. CHAPTER XLVI. CHAPTER XLVII. CHAPTER XLVIII. CHAPTER I."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The rambler who, for old association or other reasons, should trace the\r\nforsaken coach-road running almost in a meridional line from Bristol to\r\nthe south shore of England, would find himself during the latter half\r\nof his journey in the vicinity of some extensive woodlands,\r\ninterspersed with apple-orchards. Here the trees, timber or\r\nfruit-bearing, as the case may be, make the wayside hedges ragged by\r\ntheir drip and shade, stretching over the road with easeful\r\nhorizontality, as if they found the unsubstantial air an adequate\r\nsupport for their limbs. At one place, where a hill is crossed, the\r\nlargest of the woods shows itself bisected by the high-way, as the head\r\nof thick hair is bisected by the white line of its parting. The spot is\r\nlonely. The physiognomy of a deserted highway expresses solitude to a degree\r\nthat is not reached by mere dales or downs, and bespeaks a tomb-like\r\nstillness more emphatic than that of glades and pools. The contrast of\r\nwhat is with what might be probably accounts for this. To step, for\r\ninstance, at the place under notice, from the hedge of the plantation\r\ninto the adjoining pale thoroughfare, and pause amid its emptiness for\r\na moment, was to exchange by the act of a single stride the simple\r\nabsence of human companionship for an incubus of the forlorn. At this spot, on the lowering evening of a by-gone winter’s day, there\r\nstood a man who had entered upon the scene much in the aforesaid\r\nmanner."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Alighting into the road from a stile hard by, he, though by no\r\nmeans a “chosen vessel” for impressions, was temporarily influenced by\r\nsome such feeling of being suddenly more alone than before he had\r\nemerged upon the highway. It could be seen by a glance at his rather finical style of dress that\r\nhe did not belong to the country proper; and from his air, after a\r\nwhile, that though there might be a sombre beauty in the scenery, music\r\nin the breeze, and a wan procession of coaching ghosts in the sentiment\r\nof this old turnpike-road, he was mainly puzzled about the way. The\r\ndead men’s work that had been expended in climbing that hill, the\r\nblistered soles that had trodden it, and the tears that had wetted it,\r\nwere not his concern; for fate had given him no time for any but\r\npractical things. He looked north and south, and mechanically prodded the ground with his\r\nwalking-stick. A closer glance at his face corroborated the testimony\r\nof his clothes. It was self-complacent, yet there was small apparent\r\nground for such complacence. Nothing irradiated it; to the eye of the\r\nmagician in character, if not to the ordinary observer, the expression\r\nenthroned there was absolute submission to and belief in a little\r\nassortment of forms and habitudes. At first not a soul appeared who could enlighten him as he desired, or\r\nseemed likely to appear that night."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But presently a slight noise of\r\nlaboring wheels and the steady dig of a horse’s shoe-tips became\r\naudible; and there loomed in the notch of the hill and plantation that\r\nthe road formed here at the summit a carrier’s van drawn by a single\r\nhorse. When it got nearer, he said, with some relief to himself, “’Tis\r\nMrs. Dollery’s—this will help me.”\r\n\r\nThe vehicle was half full of passengers, mostly women. He held up his\r\nstick at its approach, and the woman who was driving drew rein. “I’ve been trying to find a short way to Little Hintock this last\r\nhalf-hour, Mrs. Dollery,” he said. “But though I’ve been to Great\r\nHintock and Hintock House half a dozen times I am at fault about the\r\nsmall village. You can help me, I dare say?”\r\n\r\nShe assured him that she could—that as she went to Great Hintock her\r\nvan passed near it—that it was only up the lane that branched out of\r\nthe lane into which she was about to turn—just ahead. “Though,”\r\ncontinued Mrs. Dollery, “’tis such a little small place that, as a town\r\ngentleman, you’d need have a candle and lantern to find it if ye don’t\r\nknow where ’tis. Bedad! I wouldn’t live there if they’d pay me to. Now\r\nat Great Hintock you do see the world a bit.”\r\n\r\nHe mounted and sat beside her, with his feet outside, where they were\r\never and anon brushed over by the horse’s tail."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This van, driven and owned by Mrs. Dollery, was rather a movable\r\nattachment of the roadway than an extraneous object, to those who knew\r\nit well. The old horse, whose hair was of the roughness and color of\r\nheather, whose leg-joints, shoulders, and hoofs were distorted by\r\nharness and drudgery from colthood—though if all had their rights, he\r\nought, symmetrical in outline, to have been picking the herbage of some\r\nEastern plain instead of tugging here—had trodden this road almost\r\ndaily for twenty years. Even his subjection was not made congruous\r\nthroughout, for the harness being too short, his tail was not drawn\r\nthrough the crupper, so that the breeching slipped awkwardly to one\r\nside. He knew every subtle incline of the seven or eight miles of\r\nground between Hintock and Sherton Abbas—the market-town to which he\r\njourneyed—as accurately as any surveyor could have learned it by a\r\nDumpy level. The vehicle had a square black tilt which nodded with the motion of the\r\nwheels, and at a point in it over the driver’s head was a hook to which\r\nthe reins were hitched at times, when they formed a catenary curve from\r\nthe horse’s shoulders. Somewhere about the axles was a loose chain,\r\nwhose only known purpose was to clink as it went."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Dollery, having\r\nto hop up and down many times in the service of her passengers, wore,\r\nespecially in windy weather, short leggings under her gown for\r\nmodesty’s sake, and instead of a bonnet a felt hat tied down with a\r\nhandkerchief, to guard against an earache to which she was frequently\r\nsubject. In the rear of the van was a glass window, which she cleaned\r\nwith her pocket-handkerchief every market-day before starting. Looking\r\nat the van from the back, the spectator could thus see through its\r\ninterior a square piece of the same sky and landscape that he saw\r\nwithout, but intruded on by the profiles of the seated passengers, who,\r\nas they rumbled onward, their lips moving and heads nodding in animated\r\nprivate converse, remained in happy unconsciousness that their\r\nmannerisms and facial peculiarities were sharply defined to the public\r\neye. This hour of coming home from market was the happy one, if not the\r\nhappiest, of the week for them. Snugly ensconced under the tilt, they\r\ncould forget the sorrows of the world without, and survey life and\r\nrecapitulate the incidents of the day with placid smiles. The passengers in the back part formed a group to themselves, and while\r\nthe new-comer spoke to the proprietress, they indulged in a\r\nconfidential chat about him as about other people, which the noise of\r\nthe van rendered inaudible to himself and Mrs. Dollery, sitting\r\nforward."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“’Tis Barber Percombe—he that’s got the waxen woman in his window at\r\nthe top of Abbey Street,” said one. “What business can bring him from\r\nhis shop out here at this time and not a journeyman hair-cutter, but a\r\nmaster-barber that’s left off his pole because ’tis not genteel!”\r\n\r\nThey listened to his conversation, but Mr. Percombe, though he had\r\nnodded and spoken genially, seemed indisposed to gratify the curiosity\r\nwhich he had aroused; and the unrestrained flow of ideas which had\r\nanimated the inside of the van before his arrival was checked\r\nthenceforward. Thus they rode on till they turned into a half-invisible little lane,\r\nwhence, as it reached the verge of an eminence, could be discerned in\r\nthe dusk, about half a mile to the right, gardens and orchards sunk in\r\na concave, and, as it were, snipped out of the woodland. From this\r\nself-contained place rose in stealthy silence tall stems of smoke,\r\nwhich the eye of imagination could trace downward to their root on\r\nquiet hearth-stones festooned overhead with hams and flitches."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was\r\none of those sequestered spots outside the gates of the world where may\r\nusually be found more meditation than action, and more passivity than\r\nmeditation; where reasoning proceeds on narrow premises, and results in\r\ninferences wildly imaginative; yet where, from time to time, no less\r\nthan in other places, dramas of a grandeur and unity truly Sophoclean\r\nare enacted in the real, by virtue of the concentrated passions and\r\nclosely knit interdependence of the lives therein. This place was the Little Hintock of the master-barber’s search. The\r\ncoming night gradually obscured the smoke of the chimneys, but the\r\nposition of the sequestered little world could still be distinguished\r\nby a few faint lights, winking more or less ineffectually through the\r\nleafless boughs, and the undiscerned songsters they bore, in the form\r\nof balls of feathers, at roost among them. Out of the lane followed by the van branched a yet smaller lane, at the\r\ncorner of which the barber alighted, Mrs. Dollery’s van going on to the\r\nlarger village, whose superiority to the despised smaller one as an\r\nexemplar of the world’s movements was not particularly apparent in its\r\nmeans of approach."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“A very clever and learned young doctor, who, they say, is in league\r\nwith the devil, lives in the place you be going to—not because there’s\r\nanybody for’n to cure there, but because ’tis the middle of his\r\ndistrict.”\r\n\r\nThe observation was flung at the barber by one of the women at parting,\r\nas a last attempt to get at his errand that way. But he made no reply, and without further pause the pedestrian plunged\r\ntowards the umbrageous nook, and paced cautiously over the dead leaves\r\nwhich nearly buried the road or street of the hamlet. As very few\r\npeople except themselves passed this way after dark, a majority of the\r\ndenizens of Little Hintock deemed window-curtains unnecessary; and on\r\nthis account Mr. Percombe made it his business to stop opposite the\r\ncasements of each cottage that he came to, with a demeanor which showed\r\nthat he was endeavoring to conjecture, from the persons and things he\r\nobserved within, the whereabouts of somebody or other who resided here. Only the smaller dwellings interested him; one or two houses, whose\r\nsize, antiquity, and rambling appurtenances signified that\r\nnotwithstanding their remoteness they must formerly have been, if they\r\nwere not still, inhabited by people of a certain social standing, being\r\nneglected by him entirely."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Smells of pomace, and the hiss of fermenting\r\ncider, which reached him from the back quarters of other tenements,\r\nrevealed the recent occupation of some of the inhabitants, and joined\r\nwith the scent of decay from the perishing leaves underfoot. Half a dozen dwellings were passed without result. The next, which\r\nstood opposite a tall tree, was in an exceptional state of radiance,\r\nthe flickering brightness from the inside shining up the chimney and\r\nmaking a luminous mist of the emerging smoke. The interior, as seen\r\nthrough the window, caused him to draw up with a terminative air and\r\nwatch. The house was rather large for a cottage, and the door, which\r\nopened immediately into the living-room, stood ajar, so that a ribbon\r\nof light fell through the opening into the dark atmosphere without. Every now and then a moth, decrepit from the late season, would flit\r\nfor a moment across the out-coming rays and disappear again into the\r\nnight. CHAPTER II. In the room from which this cheerful blaze proceeded, he beheld a girl\r\nseated on a willow chair, and busily occupied by the light of the fire,\r\nwhich was ample and of wood. With a bill-hook in one hand and a leather\r\nglove, much too large for her, on the other, she was making spars, such\r\nas are used by thatchers, with great rapidity. She wore a leather apron\r\nfor this purpose, which was also much too large for her figure."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On her\r\nleft hand lay a bundle of the straight, smooth sticks called\r\nspar-gads—the raw material of her manufacture; on her right, a heap of\r\nchips and ends—the refuse—with which the fire was maintained; in front,\r\na pile of the finished articles. To produce them she took up each gad,\r\nlooked critically at it from end to end, cut it to length, split it\r\ninto four, and sharpened each of the quarters with dexterous blows,\r\nwhich brought it to a triangular point precisely resembling that of a\r\nbayonet. Beside her, in case she might require more light, a brass candlestick\r\nstood on a little round table, curiously formed of an old coffin-stool,\r\nwith a deal top nailed on, the white surface of the latter contrasting\r\noddly with the black carved oak of the substructure. The social\r\nposition of the household in the past was almost as definitively shown\r\nby the presence of this article as that of an esquire or nobleman by\r\nhis old helmets or shields. It had been customary for every well-to-do\r\nvillager, whose tenure was by copy of court-roll, or in any way more\r\npermanent than that of the mere cotter, to keep a pair of these stools\r\nfor the use of his own dead; but for the last generation or two a\r\nfeeling of cui bono had led to the discontinuance of the custom, and\r\nthe stools were frequently made use of in the manner described."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The young woman laid down the bill-hook for a moment and examined the\r\npalm of her right hand, which, unlike the other, was ungloved, and\r\nshowed little hardness or roughness about it. The palm was red and\r\nblistering, as if this present occupation were not frequent enough with\r\nher to subdue it to what it worked in. As with so many right hands born\r\nto manual labor, there was nothing in its fundamental shape to bear out\r\nthe physiological conventionalism that gradations of birth, gentle or\r\nmean, show themselves primarily in the form of this member. Nothing but\r\na cast of the die of destiny had decided that the girl should handle\r\nthe tool; and the fingers which clasped the heavy ash haft might have\r\nskilfully guided the pencil or swept the string, had they only been set\r\nto do it in good time. Her face had the usual fulness of expression which is developed by a\r\nlife of solitude. Where the eyes of a multitude beat like waves upon a\r\ncountenance they seem to wear away its individuality; but in the still\r\nwater of privacy every tentacle of feeling and sentiment shoots out in\r\nvisible luxuriance, to be interpreted as readily as a child’s look by\r\nan intruder. In years she was no more than nineteen or twenty, but the\r\nnecessity of taking thought at a too early period of life had forced\r\nthe provisional curves of her childhood’s face to a premature finality."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Thus she had but little pretension to beauty, save in one prominent\r\nparticular—her hair. Its abundance made it almost unmanageable; its\r\ncolor was, roughly speaking, and as seen here by firelight, brown, but\r\ncareful notice, or an observation by day, would have revealed that its\r\ntrue shade was a rare and beautiful approximation to chestnut. On this one bright gift of Time to the particular victim of his now\r\nbefore us the new-comer’s eyes were fixed; meanwhile the fingers of his\r\nright hand mechanically played over something sticking up from his\r\nwaistcoat-pocket—the bows of a pair of scissors, whose polish made them\r\nfeebly responsive to the light within. In her present beholder’s mind\r\nthe scene formed by the girlish spar-maker composed itself into a\r\npost-Raffaelite picture of extremest quality, wherein the girl’s hair\r\nalone, as the focus of observation, was depicted with intensity and\r\ndistinctness, and her face, shoulders, hands, and figure in general,\r\nbeing a blurred mass of unimportant detail lost in haze and obscurity. He hesitated no longer, but tapped at the door and entered. The young\r\nwoman turned at the crunch of his boots on the sanded floor, and\r\nexclaiming, “Oh, Mr. Percombe, how you frightened me!” quite lost her\r\ncolor for a moment. He replied, “You should shut your door—then you’d hear folk open it.”\r\n\r\n“I can’t,” she said; “the chimney smokes so. Mr. Percombe, you look as\r\nunnatural out of your shop as a canary in a thorn-hedge."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Surely you\r\nhave not come out here on my account—for—”\r\n\r\n“Yes—to have your answer about this.” He touched her head with his\r\ncane, and she winced. “Do you agree?” he continued. “It is necessary\r\nthat I should know at once, as the lady is soon going away, and it\r\ntakes time to make up.”\r\n\r\n“Don’t press me—it worries me. I was in hopes you had thought no more\r\nof it. I can _not_ part with it—so there!”\r\n\r\n“Now, look here, Marty,” said the barber, sitting down on the\r\ncoffin-stool table. “How much do you get for making these spars?”\r\n\r\n“Hush—father’s up-stairs awake, and he don’t know that I am doing his\r\nwork.”\r\n\r\n“Well, now tell me,” said the man, more softly. “How much do you get?”\r\n\r\n“Eighteenpence a thousand,” she said, reluctantly. “Who are you making them for?”\r\n\r\n“Mr. Melbury, the timber-dealer, just below here.”\r\n\r\n“And how many can you make in a day?”\r\n\r\n“In a day and half the night, three bundles—that’s a thousand and a\r\nhalf.”\r\n\r\n“Two and threepence.” The barber paused. “Well, look here,” he\r\ncontinued, with the remains of a calculation in his tone, which\r\ncalculation had been the reduction to figures of the probable monetary\r\nmagnetism necessary to overpower the resistant force of her present\r\npurse and the woman’s love of comeliness, “here’s a sovereign—a gold\r\nsovereign, almost new.” He held it out between his finger and thumb."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“That’s as much as you’d earn in a week and a half at that rough man’s\r\nwork, and it’s yours for just letting me snip off what you’ve got too\r\nmuch of.”\r\n\r\nThe girl’s bosom moved a very little. “Why can’t the lady send to some\r\nother girl who don’t value her hair—not to me?” she exclaimed. “Why, simpleton, because yours is the exact shade of her own, and ’tis\r\na shade you can’t match by dyeing. But you are not going to refuse me\r\nnow I’ve come all the way from Sherton o’ purpose?”\r\n\r\n“I say I won’t sell it—to you or anybody.”\r\n\r\n“Now listen,” and he drew up a little closer beside her. “The lady is\r\nvery rich, and won’t be particular to a few shillings; so I will\r\nadvance to this on my own responsibility—I’ll make the one sovereign\r\ntwo, rather than go back empty-handed.”\r\n\r\n“No, no, no!” she cried, beginning to be much agitated. “You are\r\na-tempting me, Mr. Percombe. You go on like the Devil to Dr. Faustus in\r\nthe penny book. But I don’t want your money, and won’t agree. Why did\r\nyou come? I said when you got me into your shop and urged me so much,\r\nthat I didn’t mean to sell my hair!” The speaker was hot and stern. “Marty, now hearken. The lady that wants it wants it badly. And,\r\nbetween you and me, you’d better let her have it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "’Twill be bad for you\r\nif you don’t.”\r\n\r\n“Bad for me? Who is she, then?”\r\n\r\nThe barber held his tongue, and the girl repeated the question. “I am not at liberty to tell you. And as she is going abroad soon it\r\nmakes no difference who she is at all.”\r\n\r\n“She wants it to go abroad wi’?”\r\n\r\nPercombe assented by a nod. The girl regarded him reflectively. “Barber\r\nPercombe,” she said, “I know who ’tis. ’Tis she at the House—Mrs. Charmond!”\r\n\r\n“That’s my secret. However, if you agree to let me have it, I’ll tell\r\nyou in confidence.”\r\n\r\n“I’ll certainly not let you have it unless you tell me the truth. It is\r\nMrs. Charmond.”\r\n\r\nThe barber dropped his voice. “Well—it is. You sat in front of her in\r\nchurch the other day, and she noticed how exactly your hair matched her\r\nown. Ever since then she’s been hankering for it, and at last decided\r\nto get it. As she won’t wear it till she goes off abroad, she knows\r\nnobody will recognize the change. I’m commissioned to get it for her,\r\nand then it is to be made up. I shouldn’t have vamped all these miles\r\nfor any less important employer. Now, mind—’tis as much as my business\r\nwith her is worth if it should be known that I’ve let out her name; but\r\nhonor between us two, Marty, and you’ll say nothing that would injure\r\nme?”\r\n\r\n“I don’t wish to tell upon her,” said Marty, coolly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“But my hair is my\r\nown, and I’m going to keep it.”\r\n\r\n“Now, that’s not fair, after what I’ve told you,” said the nettled\r\nbarber. “You see, Marty, as you are in the same parish, and in one of\r\nher cottages, and your father is ill, and wouldn’t like to turn out, it\r\nwould be as well to oblige her. I say that as a friend. But I won’t\r\npress you to make up your mind to-night. You’ll be coming to market\r\nto-morrow, I dare say, and you can call then. If you think it over\r\nyou’ll be inclined to bring what I want, I know.”\r\n\r\n“I’ve nothing more to say,” she answered. Her companion saw from her manner that it was useless to urge her\r\nfurther by speech. “As you are a trusty young woman,” he said, “I’ll\r\nput these sovereigns up here for ornament, that you may see how\r\nhandsome they are. Bring the hair to-morrow, or return the sovereigns.”\r\nHe stuck them edgewise into the frame of a small mantle looking-glass. “I hope you’ll bring it, for your sake and mine. I should have thought\r\nshe could have suited herself elsewhere; but as it’s her fancy it must\r\nbe indulged if possible. If you cut it off yourself, mind how you do it\r\nso as to keep all the locks one way.” He showed her how this was to be\r\ndone. “But I sha’nt,” she replied, with laconic indifference."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I value my\r\nlooks too much to spoil ’em. She wants my hair to get another lover\r\nwith; though if stories are true she’s broke the heart of many a noble\r\ngentleman already.”\r\n\r\n“Lord, it’s wonderful how you guess things, Marty,” said the barber. “I’ve had it from them that know that there certainly is some foreign\r\ngentleman in her eye. However, mind what I ask.”\r\n\r\n“She’s not going to get him through me.”\r\n\r\nPercombe had retired as far as the door; he came back, planted his cane\r\non the coffin-stool, and looked her in the face. “Marty South,” he\r\nsaid, with deliberate emphasis, “_you’ve got a lover yourself_, and\r\nthat’s why you won’t let it go!”\r\n\r\nShe reddened so intensely as to pass the mild blush that suffices to\r\nheighten beauty; she put the yellow leather glove on one hand, took up\r\nthe hook with the other, and sat down doggedly to her work without\r\nturning her face to him again. He regarded her head for a moment, went\r\nto the door, and with one look back at her, departed on his way\r\nhomeward. Marty pursued her occupation for a few minutes, then suddenly laying\r\ndown the bill-hook, she jumped up and went to the back of the room,\r\nwhere she opened a door which disclosed a staircase so whitely scrubbed\r\nthat the grain of the wood was wellnigh sodden away by such cleansing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At the top she gently approached a bedroom, and without entering, said,\r\n“Father, do you want anything?”\r\n\r\nA weak voice inside answered in the negative; adding, “I should be all\r\nright by to-morrow if it were not for the tree!”\r\n\r\n“The tree again—always the tree! Oh, father, don’t worry so about that. You know it can do you no harm.”\r\n\r\n“Who have ye had talking to ye down-stairs?”\r\n\r\n“A Sherton man called—nothing to trouble about,” she said, soothingly. “Father,” she went on, “can Mrs. Charmond turn us out of our house if\r\nshe’s minded to?”\r\n\r\n“Turn us out? No. Nobody can turn us out till my poor soul is turned\r\nout of my body. ’Tis life-hold, like Ambrose Winterborne’s. But when my\r\nlife drops ’twill be hers—not till then.” His words on this subject so\r\nfar had been rational and firm enough. But now he lapsed into his\r\nmoaning strain: “And the tree will do it—that tree will soon be the\r\ndeath of me.”\r\n\r\n“Nonsense, you know better. How can it be?” She refrained from further\r\nspeech, and descended to the ground-floor again. “Thank Heaven, then,” she said to herself, “what belongs to me I keep.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER III. The lights in the village went out, house after house, till there only\r\nremained two in the darkness. One of these came from a residence on the\r\nhill-side, of which there is nothing to say at present; the other shone\r\nfrom the window of Marty South."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Precisely the same outward effect was\r\nproduced here, however, by her rising when the clock struck ten and\r\nhanging up a thick cloth curtain. The door it was necessary to keep\r\najar in hers, as in most cottages, because of the smoke; but she\r\nobviated the effect of the ribbon of light through the chink by hanging\r\na cloth over that also. She was one of those people who, if they have\r\nto work harder than their neighbors, prefer to keep the necessity a\r\nsecret as far as possible; and but for the slight sounds of\r\nwood-splintering which came from within, no wayfarer would have\r\nperceived that here the cottager did not sleep as elsewhere. Eleven, twelve, one o’clock struck; the heap of spars grew higher, and\r\nthe pile of chips and ends more bulky. Even the light on the hill had\r\nnow been extinguished; but still she worked on. When the temperature of\r\nthe night without had fallen so low as to make her chilly, she opened a\r\nlarge blue umbrella to ward off the draught from the door. The two\r\nsovereigns confronted her from the looking-glass in such a manner as to\r\nsuggest a pair of jaundiced eyes on the watch for an opportunity. Whenever she sighed for weariness she lifted her gaze towards them, but\r\nwithdrew it quickly, stroking her tresses with her fingers for a\r\nmoment, as if to assure herself that they were still secure."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When the\r\nclock struck three she arose and tied up the spars she had last made in\r\na bundle resembling those that lay against the wall. She wrapped round her a long red woollen cravat and opened the door. The night in all its fulness met her flatly on the threshold, like the\r\nvery brink of an absolute void, or the antemundane Ginnung-Gap believed\r\nin by her Teuton forefathers. For her eyes were fresh from the blaze,\r\nand here there was no street-lamp or lantern to form a kindly\r\ntransition between the inner glare and the outer dark. A lingering wind\r\nbrought to her ear the creaking sound of two over-crowded branches in\r\nthe neighboring wood which were rubbing each other into wounds, and\r\nother vocalized sorrows of the trees, together with the screech of\r\nowls, and the fluttering tumble of some awkward wood-pigeon\r\nill-balanced on its roosting-bough. But the pupils of her young eyes soon expanded, and she could see well\r\nenough for her purpose. Taking a bundle of spars under each arm, and\r\nguided by the serrated line of tree-tops against the sky, she went some\r\nhundred yards or more down the lane till she reached a long open shed,\r\ncarpeted around with the dead leaves that lay about everywhere. Night,\r\nthat strange personality, which within walls brings ominous\r\nintrospectiveness and self-distrust, but under the open sky banishes\r\nsuch subjective anxieties as too trivial for thought, inspired Marty\r\nSouth with a less perturbed and brisker manner now."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She laid the spars\r\non the ground within the shed and returned for more, going to and fro\r\ntill her whole manufactured stock were deposited here. This erection was the wagon-house of the chief man of business\r\nhereabout, Mr. George Melbury, the timber, bark, and copse-ware\r\nmerchant for whom Marty’s father did work of this sort by the piece. It\r\nformed one of the many rambling out-houses which surrounded his\r\ndwelling, an equally irregular block of building, whose immense\r\nchimneys could just be discerned even now. The four huge wagons under\r\nthe shed were built on those ancient lines whose proportions have been\r\nousted by modern patterns, their shapes bulging and curving at the base\r\nand ends like Trafalgar line-of-battle ships, with which venerable\r\nhulks, indeed, these vehicles evidenced a constructed spirit curiously\r\nin harmony. One was laden with sheep-cribs, another with hurdles,\r\nanother with ash poles, and the fourth, at the foot of which she had\r\nplaced her thatching-spars was half full of similar bundles. She was pausing a moment with that easeful sense of accomplishment\r\nwhich follows work done that has been a hard struggle in the doing,\r\nwhen she heard a woman’s voice on the other side of the hedge say,\r\nanxiously, “George!” In a moment the name was repeated, with “Do come\r\nindoors!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "What are you doing there?”\r\n\r\nThe cart-house adjoined the garden, and before Marty had moved she saw\r\nenter the latter from the timber-merchant’s back door an elderly woman\r\nsheltering a candle with her hand, the light from which cast a moving\r\nthorn-pattern of shade on Marty’s face. Its rays soon fell upon a man\r\nwhose clothes were roughly thrown on, standing in advance of the\r\nspeaker. He was a thin, slightly stooping figure, with a small nervous\r\nmouth and a face cleanly shaven; and he walked along the path with his\r\neyes bent on the ground. In the pair Marty South recognized her\r\nemployer Melbury and his wife. She was the second Mrs. Melbury, the\r\nfirst having died shortly after the birth of the timber-merchant’s only\r\nchild. “’Tis no use to stay in bed,” he said, as soon as she came up to where\r\nhe was pacing restlessly about. “I can’t sleep—I keep thinking of\r\nthings, and worrying about the girl, till I’m quite in a fever of\r\nanxiety.” He went on to say that he could not think why “she (Marty\r\nknew he was speaking of his daughter) did not answer his letter. She\r\nmust be ill—she must, certainly,” he said. “No, no. ’Tis all right, George,” said his wife; and she assured him\r\nthat such things always did appear so gloomy in the night-time, if\r\npeople allowed their minds to run on them; that when morning came it\r\nwas seen that such fears were nothing but shadows."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Grace is as well as\r\nyou or I,” she declared. But he persisted that she did not see all—that she did not see as much\r\nas he. His daughter’s not writing was only one part of his worry. On\r\naccount of her he was anxious concerning money affairs, which he would\r\nnever alarm his mind about otherwise. The reason he gave was that, as\r\nshe had nobody to depend upon for a provision but himself, he wished\r\nher, when he was gone, to be securely out of risk of poverty. To this Mrs. Melbury replied that Grace would be sure to marry well,\r\nand that hence a hundred pounds more or less from him would not make\r\nmuch difference. Her husband said that that was what she, Mrs. Melbury, naturally\r\nthought; but there she was wrong, and in that lay the source of his\r\ntrouble. “I have a plan in my head about her,” he said; “and according\r\nto my plan she won’t marry a rich man.”\r\n\r\n“A plan for her not to marry well?” said his wife, surprised. “Well, in one sense it is that,” replied Melbury. “It is a plan for her\r\nto marry a particular person, and as he has not so much money as she\r\nmight expect, it might be called as you call it. I may not be able to\r\ncarry it out; and even if I do, it may not be a good thing for her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I\r\nwant her to marry Giles Winterborne.”\r\n\r\nHis companion repeated the name. “Well, it is all right,” she said,\r\npresently. “He adores the very ground she walks on; only he’s close,\r\nand won’t show it much.”\r\n\r\nMarty South appeared startled, and could not tear herself away. Yes, the timber-merchant asserted, he knew that well enough. Winterborne had been interested in his daughter for years; that was\r\nwhat had led him into the notion of their union. And he knew that she\r\nused to have no objection to him. But it was not any difficulty about\r\nthat which embarrassed him. It was that, since he had educated her so\r\nwell, and so long, and so far above the level of daughters thereabout,\r\nit was _wasting her_ to give her to a man of no higher standing than\r\nthe young man in question. “That’s what I have been thinking,” said Mrs. Melbury. “Well, then, Lucy, now you’ve hit it,” answered the timber-merchant,\r\nwith feeling. “There lies my trouble. I vowed to let her marry him, and\r\nto make her as valuable as I could to him by schooling her as many\r\nyears and as thoroughly as possible. I mean to keep my vow. I made it\r\nbecause I did his father a terrible wrong; and it was a weight on my\r\nconscience ever since that time till this scheme of making amends\r\noccurred to me through seeing that Giles liked her.”\r\n\r\n“Wronged his father?” asked Mrs. Melbury."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Yes, grievously wronged him,” said her husband. “Well, don’t think of it to-night,” she urged. “Come indoors.”\r\n\r\n“No, no, the air cools my head. I shall not stay long.” He was silent a\r\nwhile; then he told her, as nearly as Marty could gather, that his\r\nfirst wife, his daughter Grace’s mother, was first the sweetheart of\r\nWinterborne’s father, who loved her tenderly, till he, the speaker, won\r\nher away from him by a trick, because he wanted to marry her himself. He sadly went on to say that the other man’s happiness was ruined by\r\nit; that though he married Winterborne’s mother, it was but a\r\nhalf-hearted business with him. Melbury added that he was afterwards\r\nvery miserable at what he had done; but that as time went on, and the\r\nchildren grew up, and seemed to be attached to each other, he\r\ndetermined to do all he could to right the wrong by letting his\r\ndaughter marry the lad; not only that, but to give her the best\r\neducation he could afford, so as to make the gift as valuable a one as\r\nit lay in his power to bestow. “I still mean to do it,” said Melbury. “Then do,” said she. “But all these things trouble me,” said he; “for I feel I am\r\nsacrificing her for my own sin; and I think of her, and often come down\r\nhere and look at this.”\r\n\r\n“Look at what?” asked his wife."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He took the candle from her hand, held it to the ground, and removed a\r\ntile which lay in the garden-path. “’Tis the track of her shoe that she\r\nmade when she ran down here the day before she went away all those\r\nmonths ago. I covered it up when she was gone; and when I come here and\r\nlook at it, I ask myself again, why should she be sacrificed to a poor\r\nman?”\r\n\r\n“It is not altogether a sacrifice,” said the woman. “He is in love with\r\nher, and he’s honest and upright. If she encourages him, what can you\r\nwish for more?”\r\n\r\n“I wish for nothing definite. But there’s a lot of things possible for\r\nher. Why, Mrs. Charmond is wanting some refined young lady, I hear, to\r\ngo abroad with her—as companion or something of the kind. She’d jump at\r\nGrace.”\r\n\r\n“That’s all uncertain. Better stick to what’s sure.”\r\n\r\n“True, true,” said Melbury; “and I hope it will be for the best. Yes,\r\nlet me get ’em married up as soon as I can, so as to have it over and\r\ndone with.” He continued looking at the imprint, while he added,\r\n“Suppose she should be dying, and never make a track on this path any\r\nmore?”\r\n\r\n“She’ll write soon, depend upon’t. Come, ’tis wrong to stay here and\r\nbrood so.”\r\n\r\nHe admitted it, but said he could not help it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Whether she write or\r\nno, I shall fetch her in a few days.” And thus speaking, he covered the\r\ntrack, and preceded his wife indoors. Melbury, perhaps, was an unlucky man in having within him the sentiment\r\nwhich could indulge in this foolish fondness about the imprint of a\r\ndaughter’s footstep. Nature does not carry on her government with a\r\nview to such feelings, and when advancing years render the open hearts\r\nof those who possess them less dexterous than formerly in shutting\r\nagainst the blast, they must suffer “buffeting at will by rain and\r\nstorm” no less than Little Celandines. But her own existence, and not Mr. Melbury’s, was the centre of Marty’s\r\nconsciousness, and it was in relation to this that the matter struck\r\nher as she slowly withdrew. “That, then, is the secret of it all,” she said. “And Giles Winterborne\r\nis not for me, and the less I think of him the better.”\r\n\r\nShe returned to her cottage. The sovereigns were staring at her from\r\nthe looking-glass as she had left them. With a preoccupied countenance,\r\nand with tears in her eyes, she got a pair of scissors, and began\r\nmercilessly cutting off the long locks of her hair, arranging and tying\r\nthem with their points all one way, as the barber had directed. Upon\r\nthe pale scrubbed deal of the coffin-stool table they stretched like\r\nwaving and ropy weeds over the washed gravel-bed of a clear stream."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She would not turn again to the little looking-glass, out of humanity\r\nto herself, knowing what a deflowered visage would look back at her,\r\nand almost break her heart; she dreaded it as much as did her own\r\nancestral goddess Sif the reflection in the pool after the rape of her\r\nlocks by Loke the malicious. She steadily stuck to business, wrapped\r\nthe hair in a parcel, and sealed it up, after which she raked out the\r\nfire and went to bed, having first set up an alarum made of a candle\r\nand piece of thread, with a stone attached. But such a reminder was unnecessary to-night. Having tossed till about\r\nfive o’clock, Marty heard the sparrows walking down their long holes in\r\nthe thatch above her sloping ceiling to their orifice at the eaves;\r\nwhereupon she also arose, and descended to the ground-floor again. It was still dark, but she began moving about the house in those\r\nautomatic initiatory acts and touches which represent among housewives\r\nthe installation of another day. While thus engaged she heard the\r\nrumbling of Mr. Melbury’s wagons, and knew that there, too, the day’s\r\ntoil had begun. An armful of gads thrown on the still hot embers caused them to blaze\r\nup cheerfully and bring her diminished head-gear into sudden prominence\r\nas a shadow. At this a step approached the door. “Are folk astir here yet?” inquired a voice she knew well."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Yes, Mr. Winterborne,” said Marty, throwing on a tilt bonnet, which\r\ncompletely hid the recent ravages of the scissors. “Come in!”\r\n\r\nThe door was flung back, and there stepped in upon the mat a man not\r\nparticularly young for a lover, nor particularly mature for a person of\r\naffairs. There was reserve in his glance, and restraint upon his mouth. He carried a horn lantern which hung upon a swivel, and wheeling as it\r\ndangled marked grotesque shapes upon the shadier part of the walls. He said that he had looked in on his way down, to tell her that they\r\ndid not expect her father to make up his contract if he was not well. Mr. Melbury would give him another week, and they would go their\r\njourney with a short load that day. “They are done,” said Marty, “and lying in the cart-house.”\r\n\r\n“Done!” he repeated. “Your father has not been too ill to work after\r\nall, then?”\r\n\r\nShe made some evasive reply. “I’ll show you where they be, if you are\r\ngoing down,” she added. They went out and walked together, the pattern of the air-holes in the\r\ntop of the lantern being thrown upon the mist overhead, where they\r\nappeared of giant size, as if reaching the tent-shaped sky. They had no\r\nremarks to make to each other, and they uttered none."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Hardly anything\r\ncould be more isolated or more self-contained than the lives of these\r\ntwo walking here in the lonely antelucan hour, when gray shades,\r\nmaterial and mental, are so very gray. And yet, looked at in a certain\r\nway, their lonely courses formed no detached design at all, but were\r\npart of the pattern in the great web of human doings then weaving in\r\nboth hemispheres, from the White Sea to Cape Horn. The shed was reached, and she pointed out the spars. Winterborne\r\nregarded them silently, then looked at her. “Now, Marty, I believe—” he said, and shook his head. “What?”\r\n\r\n“That you’ve done the work yourself.”\r\n\r\n“Don’t you tell anybody, will you, Mr. Winterborne?” she pleaded, by\r\nway of answer. “Because I am afraid Mr. Melbury may refuse my work if\r\nhe knows it is mine.”\r\n\r\n“But how could you learn to do it? ’Tis a trade.”\r\n\r\n“Trade!” said she. “I’d be bound to learn it in two hours.”\r\n\r\n“Oh no, you wouldn’t, Mrs. Marty.” Winterborne held down his lantern,\r\nand examined the cleanly split hazels as they lay. “Marty,” he said,\r\nwith dry admiration, “your father with his forty years of practice\r\nnever made a spar better than that. They are too good for the thatching\r\nof houses—they are good enough for the furniture. But I won’t tell."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Let\r\nme look at your hands—your poor hands!”\r\n\r\nHe had a kindly manner of a quietly severe tone; and when she seemed\r\nreluctant to show her hands, he took hold of one and examined it as if\r\nit were his own. Her fingers were blistered. “They’ll get harder in time,” she said. “For if father continues ill, I\r\nshall have to go on wi’ it. Now I’ll help put ’em up in wagon.”\r\n\r\nWinterborne without speaking set down his lantern, lifted her as she\r\nwas about to stoop over the bundles, placed her behind him, and began\r\nthrowing up the bundles himself. “Rather than you should do it I will,”\r\nhe said. “But the men will be here directly. Why, Marty!—whatever has\r\nhappened to your head? Lord, it has shrunk to nothing—it looks an apple\r\nupon a gate-post!”\r\n\r\nHer heart swelled, and she could not speak. At length she managed to\r\ngroan, looking on the ground, “I’ve made myself ugly—and hateful—that’s\r\nwhat I’ve done!”\r\n\r\n“No, no,” he answered. “You’ve only cut your hair—I see now.”\r\n\r\n“Then why must you needs say that about apples and gate-posts?”\r\n\r\n“Let me see.”\r\n\r\n“No, no!” She ran off into the gloom of the sluggish dawn. He did not\r\nattempt to follow her. When she reached her father’s door she stood on\r\nthe step and looked back."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mr. Melbury’s men had arrived, and were\r\nloading up the spars, and their lanterns appeared from the distance at\r\nwhich she stood to have wan circles round them, like eyes weary with\r\nwatching. She observed them for a few seconds as they set about\r\nharnessing the horses, and then went indoors. CHAPTER IV. There was now a distinct manifestation of morning in the air, and\r\npresently the bleared white visage of a sunless winter day emerged like\r\na dead-born child. The villagers everywhere had already bestirred\r\nthemselves, rising at this time of the year at the far less dreary hour\r\nof absolute darkness. It had been above an hour earlier, before a\r\nsingle bird had untucked his head, that twenty lights were struck in as\r\nmany bedrooms, twenty pairs of shutters opened, and twenty pairs of\r\neyes stretched to the sky to forecast the weather for the day. Owls that had been catching mice in the out-houses, rabbits that had\r\nbeen eating the wintergreens in the gardens, and stoats that had been\r\nsucking the blood of the rabbits, discerning that their human neighbors\r\nwere on the move, discreetly withdrew from publicity, and were seen and\r\nheard no more that day. The daylight revealed the whole of Mr. Melbury’s homestead, of which\r\nthe wagon-sheds had been an outlying erection. It formed three sides of\r\nan open quadrangle, and consisted of all sorts of buildings, the\r\nlargest and central one being the dwelling itself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The fourth side of\r\nthe quadrangle was the public road. It was a dwelling-house of respectable, roomy, almost dignified aspect;\r\nwhich, taken with the fact that there were the remains of other such\r\nbuildings thereabout, indicated that Little Hintock had at some time or\r\nother been of greater importance than now, as its old name of Hintock\r\nSt. Osmond also testified. The house was of no marked antiquity, yet of\r\nwell-advanced age; older than a stale novelty, but no canonized\r\nantique; faded, not hoary; looking at you from the still distinct\r\nmiddle-distance of the early Georgian time, and awakening on that\r\naccount the instincts of reminiscence more decidedly than the remoter\r\nand far grander memorials which have to speak from the misty reaches of\r\nmediaevalism. The faces, dress, passions, gratitudes, and revenues of\r\nthe great-great-grandfathers and grandmothers who had been the first to\r\ngaze from those rectangular windows, and had stood under that\r\nkey-stoned doorway, could be divined and measured by homely standards\r\nof to-day. It was a house in whose reverberations queer old personal\r\ntales were yet audible if properly listened for; and not, as with those\r\nof the castle and cloister, silent beyond the possibility of echo. The garden-front remained much as it had always been, and there was a\r\nporch and entrance that way."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the principal house-door opened on the\r\nsquare yard or quadrangle towards the road, formerly a regular carriage\r\nentrance, though the middle of the area was now made use of for\r\nstacking timber, fagots, bundles, and other products of the wood. It\r\nwas divided from the lane by a lichen-coated wall, in which hung a pair\r\nof gates, flanked by piers out of the perpendicular, with a round white\r\nball on the top of each. The building on the left of the enclosure was a long-backed erection,\r\nnow used for spar-making, sawing, crib-framing, and copse-ware\r\nmanufacture in general. Opposite were the wagon-sheds where Marty had\r\ndeposited her spars. Here Winterborne had remained after the girl’s abrupt departure, to see\r\nthat the wagon-loads were properly made up. Winterborne was connected\r\nwith the Melbury family in various ways. In addition to the sentimental\r\nrelationship which arose from his father having been the first Mrs.\r\nMelbury’s lover, Winterborne’s aunt had married and emigrated with the\r\nbrother of the timber-merchant many years before—an alliance that was\r\nsufficient to place Winterborne, though the poorer, on a footing of\r\nsocial intimacy with the Melburys. As in most villages so secluded as\r\nthis, intermarriages were of Hapsburgian frequency among the\r\ninhabitants, and there were hardly two houses in Little Hintock\r\nunrelated by some matrimonial tie or other."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For this reason a curious kind of partnership existed between Melbury\r\nand the younger man—a partnership based upon an unwritten code, by\r\nwhich each acted in the way he thought fair towards the other, on a\r\ngive-and-take principle. Melbury, with his timber and copse-ware\r\nbusiness, found that the weight of his labor came in winter and spring. Winterborne was in the apple and cider trade, and his requirements in\r\ncartage and other work came in the autumn of each year. Hence horses,\r\nwagons, and in some degree men, were handed over to him when the apples\r\nbegan to fall; he, in return, lending his assistance to Melbury in the\r\nbusiest wood-cutting season, as now. Before he had left the shed a boy came from the house to ask him to\r\nremain till Mr. Melbury had seen him. Winterborne thereupon crossed\r\nover to the spar-house where two or three men were already at work, two\r\nof them being travelling spar-makers from White-hart Lane, who, when\r\nthis kind of work began, made their appearance regularly, and when it\r\nwas over disappeared in silence till the season came again. Firewood was the one thing abundant in Little Hintock; and a blaze of\r\ngad-cuds made the outhouse gay with its light, which vied with that of\r\nthe day as yet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the hollow shades of the roof could be seen dangling\r\netiolated arms of ivy which had crept through the joints of the tiles\r\nand were groping in vain for some support, their leaves being dwarfed\r\nand sickly for want of sunlight; others were pushing in with such force\r\nat the eaves as to lift from their supports the shelves that were fixed\r\nthere. Besides the itinerant journey-workers there were also present John\r\nUpjohn, engaged in the hollow-turnery trade, who lived hard by; old\r\nTimothy Tangs and young Timothy Tangs, top and bottom sawyers, at work\r\nin Mr. Melbury’s pit outside; Farmer Bawtree, who kept the cider-house,\r\nand Robert Creedle, an old man who worked for Winterborne, and stood\r\nwarming his hands; these latter being enticed in by the ruddy blaze,\r\nthough they had no particular business there. None of them call for any\r\nremark except, perhaps, Creedle. To have completely described him it\r\nwould have been necessary to write a military memoir, for he wore under\r\nhis smock-frock a cast-off soldier’s jacket that had seen hot service,\r\nits collar showing just above the flap of the frock; also a hunting\r\nmemoir, to include the top-boots that he had picked up by chance; also\r\nchronicles of voyaging and shipwreck, for his pocket-knife had been\r\ngiven him by a weather-beaten sailor. But Creedle carried about with\r\nhim on his uneventful rounds these silent testimonies of war, sport,\r\nand adventure, and thought nothing of their associations or their\r\nstories."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Copse-work, as it was called, being an occupation which the secondary\r\nintelligence of the hands and arms could carry on without requiring the\r\nsovereign attention of the head, the minds of its professors wandered\r\nconsiderably from the objects before them; hence the tales, chronicles,\r\nand ramifications of family history which were recounted here were of a\r\nvery exhaustive kind, and sometimes so interminable as to defy\r\ndescription. Winterborne, seeing that Melbury had not arrived, stepped back again\r\noutside the door; and the conversation interrupted by his momentary\r\npresence flowed anew, reaching his ears as an accompaniment to the\r\nregular dripping of the fog from the plantation boughs around. The topic at present handled was a highly popular and frequent one—the\r\npersonal character of Mrs. Charmond, the owner of the surrounding woods\r\nand groves. “My brother-in-law told me, and I have no reason to doubt it,” said\r\nCreedle, “that she’d sit down to her dinner with a frock hardly higher\r\nthan her elbows."}
{"question": "", "answer": "‘Oh, you wicked woman!’ he said to himself when he\r\nfirst see her, ‘you go to your church, and sit, and kneel, as if your\r\nknee-jints were greased with very saint’s anointment, and tell off your\r\nHear-us-good-Lords like a business man counting money; and yet you can\r\neat your victuals such a figure as that!’ Whether she’s a reformed\r\ncharacter by this time I can’t say; but I don’t care who the man is,\r\nthat’s how she went on when my brother-in-law lived there.”\r\n\r\n“Did she do it in her husband’s time?”\r\n\r\n“That I don’t know—hardly, I should think, considering his temper. Ah!”\r\nHere Creedle threw grieved remembrance into physical form by slowly\r\nresigning his head to obliquity and letting his eyes water. “That man! ‘Not if the angels of heaven come down, Creedle,’ he said, ‘shall you\r\ndo another day’s work for me!’ Yes—he’d say anything—anything; and\r\nwould as soon take a winged creature’s name in vain as yours or mine! Well, now I must get these spars home-along, and to-morrow, thank God,\r\nI must see about using ’em.”\r\n\r\nAn old woman now entered upon the scene. She was Mr. Melbury’s servant,\r\nand passed a great part of her time in crossing the yard between the\r\nhouse-door and the spar-shed, whither she had come now for fuel."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She\r\nhad two facial aspects—one, of a soft and flexible kind, she used\r\nindoors when assisting about the parlor or upstairs; the other, with\r\nstiff lines and corners, when she was bustling among the men in the\r\nspar-house or out-of-doors. “Ah, Grammer Oliver,” said John Upjohn, “it do do my heart good to see\r\na old woman like you so dapper and stirring, when I bear in mind that\r\nafter fifty one year counts as two did afore! But your smoke didn’t\r\nrise this morning till twenty minutes past seven by my beater; and\r\nthat’s late, Grammer Oliver.”\r\n\r\n“If you was a full-sized man, John, people might take notice of your\r\nscornful meanings. But your growing up was such a scrimped and scanty\r\nbusiness that really a woman couldn’t feel hurt if you were to spit\r\nfire and brimstone itself at her. Here,” she added, holding out a\r\nspar-gad to one of the workmen, from which dangled a long\r\nblack-pudding—“here’s something for thy breakfast, and if you want tea\r\nyou must fetch it from in-doors.”\r\n\r\n“Mr. Melbury is late this morning,” said the bottom-sawyer. “Yes. ’Twas a dark dawn,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Even when I opened the\r\ndoor, so late as I was, you couldn’t have told poor men from gentlemen,\r\nor John from a reasonable-sized object. And I don’t think maister’s\r\nslept at all well to-night."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He’s anxious about his daughter; and I know\r\nwhat that is, for I’ve cried bucketfuls for my own.”\r\n\r\nWhen the old woman had gone Creedle said,\r\n\r\n“He’ll fret his gizzard green if he don’t soon hear from that maid of\r\nhis. Well, learning is better than houses and lands. But to keep a maid\r\nat school till she is taller out of pattens than her mother was in\r\n’em—’tis tempting Providence.”\r\n\r\n“It seems no time ago that she was a little playward girl,” said young\r\nTimothy Tangs. “I can mind her mother,” said the hollow-turner. “Always a teuny,\r\ndelicate piece; her touch upon your hand was as soft and cool as wind. She was inoculated for the small-pox and had it beautifully fine, just\r\nabout the time that I was out of my apprenticeship—ay, and a long\r\napprenticeship ’twas. I served that master of mine six years and three\r\nhundred and fourteen days.”\r\n\r\nThe hollow-turner pronounced the days with emphasis, as if, considering\r\ntheir number, they were a rather more remarkable fact than the years. “Mr. Winterborne’s father walked with her at one time,” said old\r\nTimothy Tangs. “But Mr. Melbury won her. She was a child of a woman,\r\nand would cry like rain if so be he huffed her. Whenever she and her\r\nhusband came to a puddle in their walks together he’d take her up like\r\na half-penny doll and put her over without dirting her a speck."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And if\r\nhe keeps the daughter so long at boarding-school, he’ll make her as\r\nnesh as her mother was. But here he comes.”\r\n\r\nJust before this moment Winterborne had seen Melbury crossing the court\r\nfrom his door. He was carrying an open letter in his hand, and came\r\nstraight to Winterborne. His gloom of the preceding night had quite\r\ngone. “I’d no sooner made up my mind, Giles, to go and see why Grace didn’t\r\ncome or write than I get a letter from her—‘Clifton: Wednesday. My dear\r\nfather,’ says she, ‘I’m coming home to-morrow’ (that’s to-day), ‘but I\r\ndidn’t think it worth while to write long beforehand.’ The little\r\nrascal, and didn’t she! Now, Giles, as you are going to Sherton market\r\nto-day with your apple-trees, why not join me and Grace there, and\r\nwe’ll drive home all together?”\r\n\r\nHe made the proposal with cheerful energy; he was hardly the same man\r\nas the man of the small dark hours. Ever it happens that even among the\r\nmoodiest the tendency to be cheered is stronger than the tendency to be\r\ncast down; and a soul’s specific gravity stands permanently less than\r\nthat of the sea of troubles into which it is thrown. Winterborne, though not demonstrative, replied to this suggestion with\r\nsomething like alacrity. There was not much doubt that Marty’s grounds\r\nfor cutting off her hair were substantial enough, if Ambrose’s eyes had\r\nbeen a reason for keeping it on."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As for the timber-merchant, it was\r\nplain that his invitation had been given solely in pursuance of his\r\nscheme for uniting the pair. He had made up his mind to the course as a\r\nduty, and was strenuously bent upon following it out. Accompanied by Winterborne, he now turned towards the door of the\r\nspar-house, when his footsteps were heard by the men as aforesaid. “Well, John, and Lot,” he said, nodding as he entered. “A rimy\r\nmorning.”\r\n\r\n“’Tis, sir!” said Creedle, energetically; for, not having as yet been\r\nable to summon force sufficient to go away and begin work, he felt the\r\nnecessity of throwing some into his speech. “I don’t care who the man\r\nis, ’tis the rimiest morning we’ve had this fall.”\r\n\r\n“I heard you wondering why I’ve kept my daughter so long at\r\nboarding-school,” resumed Mr. Melbury, looking up from the letter which\r\nhe was reading anew by the fire, and turning to them with the\r\nsuddenness that was a trait in him. “Hey?” he asked, with affected\r\nshrewdness. “But you did, you know. Well, now, though it is my own\r\nbusiness more than anybody else’s, I’ll tell ye."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When I was a boy,\r\nanother boy—the pa’son’s son—along with a lot of others, asked me ‘Who\r\ndragged Whom round the walls of What?’ and I said, ‘Sam Barrett, who\r\ndragged his wife in a chair round the tower corner when she went to be\r\nchurched.’ They laughed at me with such torrents of scorn that I went\r\nhome ashamed, and couldn’t sleep for shame; and I cried that night till\r\nmy pillow was wet: till at last I thought to myself there and\r\nthen—‘They may laugh at me for my ignorance, but that was father’s\r\nfault, and none o’ my making, and I must bear it. But they shall never\r\nlaugh at my children, if I have any: I’ll starve first!’ Thank God,\r\nI’ve been able to keep her at school without sacrifice; and her\r\nscholarship is such that she stayed on as governess for a time. Let ’em\r\nlaugh now if they can: Mrs. Charmond herself is not better informed\r\nthan my girl Grace.”\r\n\r\nThere was something between high indifference and humble emotion in his\r\ndelivery, which made it difficult for them to reply. Winterborne’s\r\ninterest was of a kind which did not show itself in words; listening,\r\nhe stood by the fire, mechanically stirring the embers with a spar-gad. “You’ll be, then, ready, Giles?” Melbury continued, awaking from a\r\nreverie."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Well, what was the latest news at Shottsford yesterday, Mr.\r\nBawtree?”\r\n\r\n“Well, Shottsford is Shottsford still—you can’t victual your carcass\r\nthere unless you’ve got money; and you can’t buy a cup of genuine\r\nthere, whether or no....But as the saying is, ‘Go abroad and you’ll\r\nhear news of home.’ It seems that our new neighbor, this young Dr.\r\nWhat’s-his-name, is a strange, deep, perusing gentleman; and there’s\r\ngood reason for supposing he has sold his soul to the wicked one.”\r\n\r\n“’Od name it all,” murmured the timber-merchant, unimpressed by the\r\nnews, but reminded of other things by the subject of it; “I’ve got to\r\nmeet a gentleman this very morning? and yet I’ve planned to go to\r\nSherton Abbas for the maid.”\r\n\r\n“I won’t praise the doctor’s wisdom till I hear what sort of bargain\r\nhe’s made,” said the top-sawyer. “’Tis only an old woman’s tale,” said Bawtree. “But it seems that he\r\nwanted certain books on some mysterious science or black-art, and in\r\norder that the people hereabout should not know anything about his dark\r\nreadings, he ordered ’em direct from London, and not from the Sherton\r\nbook-seller. The parcel was delivered by mistake at the pa’son’s, and\r\nhe wasn’t at home; so his wife opened it, and went into hysterics when\r\nshe read ’em, thinking her husband had turned heathen, and ’twould be\r\nthe ruin of the children."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But when he came he said he knew no more\r\nabout ’em than she; and found they were this Mr. Fitzpier’s property. So he wrote ‘Beware!’ outside, and sent ’em on by the sexton.”\r\n\r\n“He must be a curious young man,” mused the hollow-turner. “He must,” said Timothy Tangs. “Nonsense,” said Mr. Melbury, authoritatively, “he’s only a gentleman\r\nfond of science and philosophy and poetry, and, in fact, every kind of\r\nknowledge; and being lonely here, he passes his time in making such\r\nmatters his hobby.”\r\n\r\n“Well,” said old Timothy, “’tis a strange thing about doctors that the\r\nworse they be the better they be. I mean that if you hear anything of\r\nthis sort about ’em, ten to one they can cure ye as nobody else can.”\r\n\r\n“True,” said Bawtree, emphatically. “And for my part I shall take my\r\ncustom from old Jones and go to this one directly I’ve anything the\r\nmatter with me. That last medicine old Jones gave me had no taste in it\r\nat all.”\r\n\r\nMr. Melbury, as became a well-informed man, did not listen to these\r\nrecitals, being moreover preoccupied with the business appointment\r\nwhich had come into his head. He walked up and down, looking on the\r\nfloor—his usual custom when undecided."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That stiffness about the arm,\r\nhip, and knee-joint which was apparent when he walked was the net\r\nproduct of the divers sprains and over-exertions that had been required\r\nof him in handling trees and timber when a young man, for he was of the\r\nsort called self-made, and had worked hard. He knew the origin of every\r\none of these cramps: that in his left shoulder had come of carrying a\r\npollard, unassisted, from Tutcombe Bottom home; that in one leg was\r\ncaused by the crash of an elm against it when they were felling; that\r\nin the other was from lifting a bole. On many a morrow after wearying\r\nhimself by these prodigious muscular efforts, he had risen from his bed\r\nfresh as usual; his lassitude had departed, apparently forever; and\r\nconfident in the recuperative power of his youth, he had repeated the\r\nstrains anew. But treacherous Time had been only hiding ill results\r\nwhen they could be guarded against, for greater accumulation when they\r\ncould not. In his declining years the store had been unfolded in the\r\nform of rheumatisms, pricks, and spasms, in every one of which Melbury\r\nrecognized some act which, had its consequence been contemporaneously\r\nmade known, he would wisely have abstained from repeating. On a summons by Grammer Oliver to breakfast, he left the shed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Reaching\r\nthe kitchen, where the family breakfasted in winter to save\r\nhouse-labor, he sat down by the fire, and looked a long time at the\r\npair of dancing shadows cast by each fire-iron and dog-knob on the\r\nwhitewashed chimney-corner—a yellow one from the window, and a blue one\r\nfrom the fire. “I don’t quite know what to do to-day,” he said to his wife at last. “I’ve recollected that I promised to meet Mrs. Charmond’s steward in\r\nRound Wood at twelve o’clock, and yet I want to go for Grace.”\r\n\r\n“Why not let Giles fetch her by himself? ’Twill bring ’em together all\r\nthe quicker.”\r\n\r\n“I could do that—but I should like to go myself. I always have gone,\r\nwithout fail, every time hitherto. It has been a great pleasure to\r\ndrive into Sherton, and wait and see her arrive; and perhaps she’ll be\r\ndisappointed if I stay away.”\r\n\r\n“You may be disappointed, but I don’t think she will, if you send\r\nGiles,” said Mrs. Melbury, dryly. “Very well—I’ll send him.”\r\n\r\nMelbury was often persuaded by the quietude of his wife’s words when\r\nstrenuous argument would have had no effect. This second Mrs. Melbury\r\nwas a placid woman, who had been nurse to his child Grace before her\r\nmother’s death."}
{"question": "", "answer": "After that melancholy event little Grace had clung to\r\nthe nurse with much affection; and ultimately Melbury, in dread lest\r\nthe only woman who cared for the girl should be induced to leave her,\r\npersuaded the mild Lucy to marry him. The arrangement—for it was little\r\nmore—had worked satisfactorily enough; Grace had thriven, and Melbury\r\nhad not repented. He returned to the spar-house and found Giles near at hand, to whom he\r\nexplained the change of plan. “As she won’t arrive till five o’clock,\r\nyou can get your business very well over in time to receive her,” said\r\nMelbury. “The green gig will do for her; you’ll spin along quicker with\r\nthat, and won’t be late upon the road. Her boxes can be called for by\r\none of the wagons.”\r\n\r\nWinterborne, knowing nothing of the timber-merchant’s restitutory aims,\r\nquietly thought all this to be a kindly chance. Wishing even more than\r\nher father to despatch his apple-tree business in the market before\r\nGrace’s arrival, he prepared to start at once. Melbury was careful that the turnout should be seemly. The gig-wheels,\r\nfor instance, were not always washed during winter-time before a\r\njourney, the muddy roads rendering that labor useless; but they were\r\nwashed to-day. The harness was blacked, and when the rather elderly\r\nwhite horse had been put in, and Winterborne was in his seat ready to\r\nstart, Mr. Melbury stepped out with a blacking-brush, and with his own\r\nhands touched over the yellow hoofs of the animal."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“You see, Giles,” he said, as he blacked, “coming from a fashionable\r\nschool, she might feel shocked at the homeliness of home; and ’tis\r\nthese little things that catch a dainty woman’s eye if they are\r\nneglected. We, living here alone, don’t notice how the whitey-brown\r\ncreeps out of the earth over us; but she, fresh from a city—why, she’ll\r\nnotice everything!”\r\n\r\n“That she will,” said Giles. “And scorn us if we don’t mind.”\r\n\r\n“Not scorn us.”\r\n\r\n“No, no, no—that’s only words. She’s too good a girl to do that. But\r\nwhen we consider what she knows, and what she has seen since she last\r\nsaw us, ’tis as well to meet her views as nearly as possible. Why, ’tis\r\na year since she was in this old place, owing to her going abroad in\r\nthe summer, which I agreed to, thinking it best for her; and naturally\r\nwe shall look small, just at first—I only say just at first.”\r\n\r\nMr. Melbury’s tone evinced a certain exultation in the very sense of\r\nthat inferiority he affected to deplore; for this advanced and refined\r\nbeing, was she not his own all the time? Not so Giles; he felt\r\ndoubtful—perhaps a trifle cynical—for that strand was wound into him\r\nwith the rest. He looked at his clothes with misgiving, then with\r\nindifference. It was his custom during the planting season to carry a specimen\r\napple-tree to market with him as an advertisement of what he dealt in."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This had been tied across the gig; and as it would be left behind in\r\nthe town, it would cause no inconvenience to Miss Grace Melbury coming\r\nhome. He drove away, the twigs nodding with each step of the horse; and\r\nMelbury went in-doors. Before the gig had passed out of sight, Mr.\r\nMelbury reappeared and shouted after—\r\n\r\n“Here, Giles,” he said, breathlessly following with some wraps, “it may\r\nbe very chilly to-night, and she may want something extra about her. And, Giles,” he added, when the young man, having taken the articles,\r\nput the horse in motion once more, “tell her that I should have come\r\nmyself, but I had particular business with Mrs. Charmond’s agent, which\r\nprevented me. Don’t forget.”\r\n\r\nHe watched Winterborne out of sight, saying, with a jerk—a shape into\r\nwhich emotion with him often resolved itself—“There, now, I hope the\r\ntwo will bring it to a point and have done with it! ’Tis a pity to let\r\nsuch a girl throw herself away upon him—a thousand pities!...And yet\r\n’tis my duty for his father’s sake.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER V.\r\n\r\n\r\nWinterborne sped on his way to Sherton Abbas without elation and\r\nwithout discomposure. Had he regarded his inner self spectacularly, as\r\nlovers are now daily more wont to do, he might have felt pride in the\r\ndiscernment of a somewhat rare power in him—that of keeping not only\r\njudgment but emotion suspended in difficult cases. But he noted it not."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Neither did he observe what was also the fact, that though he cherished\r\na true and warm feeling towards Grace Melbury, he was not altogether\r\nher fool just now. It must be remembered that he had not seen her for a\r\nyear. Arrived at the entrance to a long flat lane, which had taken the spirit\r\nout of many a pedestrian in times when, with the majority, to travel\r\nmeant to walk, he saw before him the trim figure of a young woman in\r\npattens, journeying with that steadfast concentration which means\r\npurpose and not pleasure. He was soon near enough to see that she was\r\nMarty South. Click, click, click went the pattens; and she did not turn\r\nher head. She had, however, become aware before this that the driver of the\r\napproaching gig was Giles. She had shrunk from being overtaken by him\r\nthus; but as it was inevitable, she had braced herself up for his\r\ninspection by closing her lips so as to make her mouth quite\r\nunemotional, and by throwing an additional firmness into her tread. “Why do you wear pattens, Marty? The turnpike is clean enough, although\r\nthe lanes are muddy.”\r\n\r\n“They save my boots.”\r\n\r\n“But twelve miles in pattens—’twill twist your feet off. Come, get up\r\nand ride with me.”\r\n\r\nShe hesitated, removed her pattens, knocked the gravel out of them\r\nagainst the wheel, and mounted in front of the nodding specimen\r\napple-tree."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had so arranged her bonnet with a full border and\r\ntrimmings that her lack of long hair did not much injure her\r\nappearance; though Giles, of course, saw that it was gone, and may have\r\nguessed her motive in parting with it, such sales, though infrequent,\r\nbeing not unheard of in that locality. But nature’s adornment was still hard by—in fact, within two feet of\r\nhim, though he did not know it. In Marty’s basket was a brown paper\r\npacket, and in the packet the chestnut locks, which, by reason of the\r\nbarber’s request for secrecy, she had not ventured to intrust to other\r\nhands. Giles asked, with some hesitation, how her father was getting on. He was better, she said; he would be able to work in a day or two; he\r\nwould be quite well but for his craze about the tree falling on him. “You know why I don’t ask for him so often as I might, I suppose?” said\r\nWinterborne. “Or don’t you know?”\r\n\r\n“I think I do.”\r\n\r\n“Because of the houses?”\r\n\r\nShe nodded. “Yes. I am afraid it may seem that my anxiety is about those houses,\r\nwhich I should lose by his death, more than about him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Marty, I do feel\r\nanxious about the houses, since half my income depends upon them; but I\r\ndo likewise care for him; and it almost seems wrong that houses should\r\nbe leased for lives, so as to lead to such mixed feelings.”\r\n\r\n“After father’s death they will be Mrs. Charmond’s?”\r\n\r\n“They’ll be hers.”\r\n\r\n“They are going to keep company with my hair,” she thought. Thus talking, they reached the town. By no pressure would she ride up\r\nthe street with him. “That’s the right of another woman,” she said,\r\nwith playful malice, as she put on her pattens. “I wonder what you are\r\nthinking of! Thank you for the lift in that handsome gig. Good-by.”\r\n\r\nHe blushed a little, shook his head at her, and drove on ahead into the\r\nstreets—the churches, the abbey, and other buildings on this clear\r\nbright morning having the liny distinctness of architectural drawings,\r\nas if the original dream and vision of the conceiving master-mason,\r\nsome mediaeval Vilars or other unknown to fame, were for a few minutes\r\nflashed down through the centuries to an unappreciative age. Giles saw\r\ntheir eloquent look on this day of transparency, but could not construe\r\nit. He turned into the inn-yard. Marty, following the same track, marched promptly to the\r\nhair-dresser’s, Mr. Percombe’s. Percombe was the chief of his trade in\r\nSherton Abbas."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had the patronage of such county offshoots as had\r\nbeen obliged to seek the shelter of small houses in that ancient town,\r\nof the local clergy, and so on, for some of whom he had made wigs,\r\nwhile others among them had compensated for neglecting him in their\r\nlifetime by patronizing him when they were dead, and letting him shave\r\ntheir corpses. On the strength of all this he had taken down his pole,\r\nand called himself “Perruquier to the aristocracy.”\r\n\r\nNevertheless, this sort of support did not quite fill his children’s\r\nmouths, and they had to be filled. So, behind his house there was a\r\nlittle yard, reached by a passage from the back street, and in that\r\nyard was a pole, and under the pole a shop of quite another description\r\nthan the ornamental one in the front street. Here on Saturday nights\r\nfrom seven till ten he took an almost innumerable succession of\r\ntwopences from the farm laborers who flocked thither in crowds from the\r\ncountry. And thus he lived. Marty, of course, went to the front shop, and handed her packet to him\r\nsilently. “Thank you,” said the barber, quite joyfully. “I hardly\r\nexpected it after what you said last night.”\r\n\r\nShe turned aside, while a tear welled up and stood in each eye at this\r\nreminder. “Nothing of what I told you,” he whispered, there being others in the\r\nshop."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“But I can trust you, I see.”\r\n\r\nShe had now reached the end of this distressing business, and went\r\nlistlessly along the street to attend to other errands. These occupied\r\nher till four o’clock, at which time she recrossed the market-place. It\r\nwas impossible to avoid rediscovering Winterborne every time she passed\r\nthat way, for standing, as he always did at this season of the year,\r\nwith his specimen apple-tree in the midst, the boughs rose above the\r\nheads of the crowd, and brought a delightful suggestion of orchards\r\namong the crowded buildings there. When her eye fell upon him for the\r\nlast time he was standing somewhat apart, holding the tree like an\r\nensign, and looking on the ground instead of pushing his produce as he\r\nought to have been doing. He was, in fact, not a very successful seller\r\neither of his trees or of his cider, his habit of speaking his mind,\r\nwhen he spoke at all, militating against this branch of his business. While she regarded him he suddenly lifted his eyes in a direction away\r\nfrom Marty, his face simultaneously kindling with recognition and\r\nsurprise. She followed his gaze, and saw walking across to him a\r\nflexible young creature in whom she perceived the features of her she\r\nhad known as Miss Grace Melbury, but now looking glorified and refined\r\nabove her former level."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Winterborne, being fixed to the spot by his\r\napple-tree, could not advance to meet her; he held out his spare hand\r\nwith his hat in it, and with some embarrassment beheld her coming on\r\ntiptoe through the mud to the middle of the square where he stood. Miss Melbury’s arrival so early was, as Marty could see, unexpected by\r\nGiles, which accounted for his not being ready to receive her. Indeed,\r\nher father had named five o’clock as her probable time, for which\r\nreason that hour had been looming out all the day in his forward\r\nperspective, like an important edifice on a plain. Now here she was\r\ncome, he knew not how, and his arranged welcome stultified. His face became gloomy at her necessity for stepping into the road, and\r\nmore still at the little look of embarrassment which appeared on hers\r\nat having to perform the meeting with him under an apple-tree ten feet\r\nhigh in the middle of the market-place. Having had occasion to take off\r\nthe new gloves she had bought to come home in, she held out to him a\r\nhand graduating from pink at the tips of the fingers to white at the\r\npalm; and the reception formed a scene, with the tree over their heads,\r\nwhich was not by any means an ordinary one in Sherton Abbas streets. Nevertheless, the greeting on her looks and lips was of a restrained\r\ntype, which perhaps was not unnatural."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For true it was that Giles\r\nWinterborne, well-attired and well-mannered as he was for a yeoman,\r\nlooked rough beside her. It had sometimes dimly occurred to him, in his\r\nruminating silence at Little Hintock, that external phenomena—such as\r\nthe lowness or height or color of a hat, the fold of a coat, the make\r\nof a boot, or the chance attitude or occupation of a limb at the\r\ninstant of view—may have a great influence upon feminine opinion of a\r\nman’s worth—so frequently founded on non-essentials; but a certain\r\ncausticity of mental tone towards himself and the world in general had\r\nprevented to-day, as always, any enthusiastic action on the strength of\r\nthat reflection; and her momentary instinct of reserve at first sight\r\nof him was the penalty he paid for his laxness. He gave away the tree to a by-stander, as soon as he could find one who\r\nwould accept the cumbersome gift, and the twain moved on towards the\r\ninn at which he had put up. Marty made as if to step forward for the\r\npleasure of being recognized by Miss Melbury; but abruptly checking\r\nherself, she glided behind a carrier’s van, saying, dryly, “No; I baint\r\nwanted there,” and critically regarded Winterborne’s companion. It would have been very difficult to describe Grace Melbury with\r\nprecision, either now or at any time. Nay, from the highest point of\r\nview, to precisely describe a human being, the focus of a universe—how\r\nimpossible!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But, apart from transcendentalism, there never probably\r\nlived a person who was in herself more completely a _reductio ad\r\nabsurdum_ of attempts to appraise a woman, even externally, by items of\r\nface and figure. Speaking generally, it may be said that she was\r\nsometimes beautiful, at other times not beautiful, according to the\r\nstate of her health and spirits. In simple corporeal presentment she was of a fair and clear complexion,\r\nrather pale than pink, slim in build and elastic in movement. Her look\r\nexpressed a tendency to wait for others’ thoughts before uttering her\r\nown; possibly also to wait for others’ deeds before her own doing. In\r\nher small, delicate mouth, which had perhaps hardly settled down to its\r\nmatured curves, there was a gentleness that might hinder sufficient\r\nself-assertion for her own good. She had well-formed eyebrows which,\r\nhad her portrait been painted, would probably have been done in Prout’s\r\nor Vandyke brown. There was nothing remarkable in her dress just now, beyond a natural\r\nfitness and a style that was recent for the streets of Sherton. But,\r\nindeed, had it been the reverse, and quite striking, it would have\r\nmeant just as little."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For there can be hardly anything less connected\r\nwith a woman’s personality than drapery which she has neither designed,\r\nmanufactured, cut, sewed, or even seen, except by a glance of approval\r\nwhen told that such and such a shape and color must be had because it\r\nhas been decided by others as imperative at that particular time. What people, therefore, saw of her in a cursory view was very little;\r\nin truth, mainly something that was not she. The woman herself was a\r\nshadowy, conjectural creature who had little to do with the outlines\r\npresented to Sherton eyes; a shape in the gloom, whose true description\r\ncould only be approximated by putting together a movement now and a\r\nglance then, in that patient and long-continued attentiveness which\r\nnothing but watchful loving-kindness ever troubles to give. There was a little delay in their setting out from the town, and Marty\r\nSouth took advantage of it to hasten forward, with the view of escaping\r\nthem on the way, lest they should feel compelled to spoil their\r\n_tête-à-tête_ by asking her to ride. She walked fast, and one-third of\r\nthe journey was done, and the evening rapidly darkening, before she\r\nperceived any sign of them behind her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then, while ascending a hill,\r\nshe dimly saw their vehicle drawing near the lowest part of the\r\nincline, their heads slightly bent towards each other; drawn together,\r\nno doubt, by their souls, as the heads of a pair of horses well in hand\r\nare drawn in by the rein. She walked still faster. But between these and herself there was a carriage, apparently a\r\nbrougham, coming in the same direction, with lighted lamps. When it\r\novertook her—which was not soon, on account of her pace—the scene was\r\nmuch darker, and the lights glared in her eyes sufficiently to hide the\r\ndetails of the equipage. It occurred to Marty that she might take hold behind this carriage and\r\nso keep along with it, to save herself the mortification of being\r\novertaken and picked up for pity’s sake by the coming pair. Accordingly, as the carriage drew abreast of her in climbing the long\r\nascent, she walked close to the wheels, the rays of the nearest lamp\r\npenetrating her very pores. She had only just dropped behind when the\r\ncarriage stopped, and to her surprise the coachman asked her, over his\r\nshoulder, if she would ride. What made the question more surprising was\r\nthat it came in obedience to an order from the interior of the vehicle. Marty gladly assented, for she was weary, very weary, after working all\r\nnight and keeping afoot all day. She mounted beside the coachman,\r\nwondering why this good-fortune had happened to her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was rather a\r\ngreat man in aspect, and she did not like to inquire of him for some\r\ntime. At last she said, “Who has been so kind as to ask me to ride?”\r\n\r\n“Mrs. Charmond,” replied her statuesque companion. Marty was stirred at the name, so closely connected with her last\r\nnight’s experiences. “Is this her carriage?” she whispered. “Yes; she’s inside.”\r\n\r\nMarty reflected, and perceived that Mrs. Charmond must have recognized\r\nher plodding up the hill under the blaze of the lamp; recognized,\r\nprobably, her stubbly poll (since she had kept away her face), and\r\nthought that those stubbles were the result of her own desire. Marty South was not so very far wrong. Inside the carriage a pair of\r\nbright eyes looked from a ripely handsome face, and though behind those\r\nbright eyes was a mind of unfathomed mysteries, beneath them there beat\r\na heart capable of quick extempore warmth—a heart which could, indeed,\r\nbe passionately and imprudently warm on certain occasions. At present,\r\nafter recognizing the girl, she had acted on a mere impulse, possibly\r\nfeeling gratified at the denuded appearance which signified the success\r\nof her agent in obtaining what she had required. “’Tis wonderful that she should ask ye,” observed the magisterial\r\ncoachman, presently."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I have never known her do it before, for as a\r\nrule she takes no interest in the village folk at all.”\r\n\r\nMarty said no more, but occasionally turned her head to see if she\r\ncould get a glimpse of the Olympian creature who as the coachman had\r\ntruly observed, hardly ever descended from her clouds into the Tempe of\r\nthe parishioners. But she could discern nothing of the lady. She also\r\nlooked for Miss Melbury and Winterborne. The nose of their horse\r\nsometimes came quite near the back of Mrs. Charmond’s carriage. But\r\nthey never attempted to pass it till the latter conveyance turned\r\ntowards the park gate, when they sped by. Here the carriage drew up\r\nthat the gate might be opened, and in the momentary silence Marty heard\r\na gentle oral sound, soft as a breeze. “What’s that?” she whispered. “Mis’ess yawning.”\r\n\r\n“Why should she yawn?”\r\n\r\n“Oh, because she’s been used to such wonderfully good life, and finds\r\nit dull here. She’ll soon be off again on account of it.”\r\n\r\n“So rich and so powerful, and yet to yawn!” the girl murmured. “Then\r\nthings don’t fay with she any more than with we!”\r\n\r\nMarty now alighted; the lamp again shone upon her, and as the carriage\r\nrolled on, a soft voice said to her from the interior, “Good-night.”\r\n\r\n“Good-night, ma’am,” said Marty."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But she had not been able to see the\r\nwoman who began so greatly to interest her—the second person of her own\r\nsex who had operated strongly on her mind that day. CHAPTER VI. Meanwhile, Winterborne and Grace Melbury had also undergone their\r\nlittle experiences of the same homeward journey. As he drove off with her out of the town the glances of people fell\r\nupon them, the younger thinking that Mr. Winterborne was in a pleasant\r\nplace, and wondering in what relation he stood towards her. Winterborne\r\nhimself was unconscious of this. Occupied solely with the idea of\r\nhaving her in charge, he did not notice much with outward eye, neither\r\nobserving how she was dressed, nor the effect of the picture they\r\ntogether composed in the landscape. Their conversation was in briefest phrase for some time, Grace being\r\nsomewhat disconcerted, through not having understood till they were\r\nabout to start that Giles was to be her sole conductor in place of her\r\nfather. When they were in the open country he spoke. “Don’t Brownley’s farm-buildings look strange to you, now they have\r\nbeen moved bodily from the hollow where the old ones stood to the top\r\nof the hill?”\r\n\r\nShe admitted that they did, though she should not have seen any\r\ndifference in them if he had not pointed it out."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“They had a good crop of bitter-sweets; they couldn’t grind them all”\r\n(nodding towards an orchard where some heaps of apples had been left\r\nlying ever since the ingathering). She said “Yes,” but looking at another orchard. “Why, you are looking at John-apple-trees! You know bitter-sweets—you\r\nused to well enough!”\r\n\r\n“I am afraid I have forgotten, and it is getting too dark to\r\ndistinguish.”\r\n\r\nWinterborne did not continue. It seemed as if the knowledge and\r\ninterest which had formerly moved Grace’s mind had quite died away from\r\nher. He wondered whether the special attributes of his image in the\r\npast had evaporated like these other things. However that might be, the fact at present was merely this, that where\r\nhe was seeing John-apples and farm-buildings she was beholding a far\r\nremoter scene—a scene no less innocent and simple, indeed, but much\r\ncontrasting—a broad lawn in the fashionable suburb of a fast city, the\r\nevergreen leaves shining in the evening sun, amid which bounding girls,\r\ngracefully clad in artistic arrangements of blue, brown, red, black,\r\nand white, were playing at games, with laughter and chat, in all the\r\npride of life, the notes of piano and harp trembling in the air from\r\nthe open windows adjoining. Moreover, they were girls—and this was a\r\nfact which Grace Melbury’s delicate femininity could not lose sight\r\nof—whose parents Giles would have addressed with a deferential Sir or\r\nMadam."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Beside this visioned scene the homely farmsteads did not quite\r\nhold their own from her present twenty-year point of survey. For all\r\nhis woodland sequestration, Giles knew the primitive simplicity of the\r\nsubject he had started, and now sounded a deeper note. “’Twas very odd what we said to each other years ago; I often think of\r\nit. I mean our saying that if we still liked each other when you were\r\ntwenty and I twenty-five, we’d—”\r\n\r\n“It was child’s tattle.”\r\n\r\n“H’m!” said Giles, suddenly. “I mean we were young,” said she, more considerately. That gruff manner\r\nof his in making inquiries reminded her that he was unaltered in much. “Yes....I beg your pardon, Miss Melbury; your father _sent_ me to meet\r\nyou to-day.”\r\n\r\n“I know it, and I am glad of it.”\r\n\r\nHe seemed satisfied with her tone and went on: “At that time you were\r\nsitting beside me at the back of your father’s covered car, when we\r\nwere coming home from gypsying, all the party being squeezed in\r\ntogether as tight as sheep in an auction-pen. It got darker and darker,\r\nand I said—I forget the exact words—but I put my arm round your waist\r\nand there you let it stay till your father, sitting in front suddenly\r\nstopped telling his story to Farmer Bollen, to light his pipe."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The\r\nflash shone into the car, and showed us all up distinctly; my arm flew\r\nfrom your waist like lightning; yet not so quickly but that some of ’em\r\nhad seen, and laughed at us. Yet your father, to our amazement, instead\r\nof being angry, was mild as milk, and seemed quite pleased. Have you\r\nforgot all that, or haven’t you?”\r\n\r\nShe owned that she remembered it very well, now that he mentioned the\r\ncircumstances. “But, goodness! I must have been in short frocks,” she\r\nsaid. “Come now, Miss Melbury, that won’t do! Short frocks, indeed! You know\r\nbetter, as well as I.”\r\n\r\nGrace thereupon declared that she would not argue with an old friend\r\nshe valued so highly as she valued him, saying the words with the easy\r\nelusiveness that will be polite at all costs. It might possibly be\r\ntrue, she added, that she was getting on in girlhood when that event\r\ntook place; but if it were so, then she was virtually no less than an\r\nold woman now, so far did the time seem removed from her present. “Do\r\nyou ever look at things philosophically instead of personally?” she\r\nasked. “I can’t say that I do,” answered Giles, his eyes lingering far ahead\r\nupon a dark spot, which proved to be a brougham. “I think you may, sometimes, with advantage,” said she."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Look at\r\nyourself as a pitcher drifting on the stream with other pitchers, and\r\nconsider what contrivances are most desirable for avoiding cracks in\r\ngeneral, and not only for saving your poor one. Shall I tell you all\r\nabout Bath or Cheltenham, or places on the Continent that I visited\r\nlast summer?”\r\n\r\n“With all my heart.”\r\n\r\nShe then described places and persons in such terms as might have been\r\nused for that purpose by any woman to any man within the four seas, so\r\nentirely absent from that description was everything specially\r\nappertaining to her own existence. When she had done she said, gayly,\r\n“Now do you tell me in return what has happened in Hintock since I have\r\nbeen away.”\r\n\r\n“Anything to keep the conversation away from her and me,” said Giles\r\nwithin him. It was true cultivation had so far advanced in the soil of Miss\r\nMelbury’s mind as to lead her to talk by rote of anything save of that\r\nshe knew well, and had the greatest interest in developing—that is to\r\nsay, herself. He had not proceeded far with his somewhat bald narration when they\r\ndrew near the carriage that had been preceding them for some time. Miss\r\nMelbury inquired if he knew whose carriage it was. Winterborne, although he had seen it, had not taken it into account. On\r\nexamination, he said it was Mrs. Charmond’s."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Grace watched the vehicle and its easy roll, and seemed to feel more\r\nnearly akin to it than to the one she was in. “Pooh! We can polish off the mileage as well as they, come to that,”\r\nsaid Winterborne, reading her mind; and rising to emulation at what it\r\nbespoke, he whipped on the horse. This it was which had brought the\r\nnose of Mr. Melbury’s old gray close to the back of Mrs. Charmond’s\r\nmuch-eclipsing vehicle. “There’s Marty South sitting up with the coachman,” said he, discerning\r\nher by her dress. “Ah, poor Marty! I must ask her to come to see me this very evening. How does she happen to be riding there?”\r\n\r\n“I don’t know. It is very singular.”\r\n\r\nThus these people with converging destinies went along the road\r\ntogether, till Winterborne, leaving the track of the carriage, turned\r\ninto Little Hintock, where almost the first house was the\r\ntimber-merchant’s. Pencils of dancing light streamed out of the windows\r\nsufficiently to show the white laurestinus flowers, and glance over the\r\npolished leaves of laurel. The interior of the rooms could be seen\r\ndistinctly, warmed up by the fire-flames, which in the parlor were\r\nreflected from the glass of the pictures and bookcase, and in the\r\nkitchen from the utensils and ware. “Let us look at the dear place for a moment before we call them,” she\r\nsaid."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the kitchen dinner was preparing; for though Melbury dined at one\r\no’clock at other times, to-day the meal had been kept back for Grace. A\r\nrickety old spit was in motion, its end being fixed in the fire-dog,\r\nand the whole kept going by means of a cord conveyed over pulleys along\r\nthe ceiling to a large stone suspended in a corner of the room. Old\r\nGrammer Oliver came and wound it up with a rattle like that of a mill. In the parlor a large shade of Mrs. Melbury’s head fell on the wall and\r\nceiling; but before the girl had regarded this room many moments their\r\npresence was discovered, and her father and stepmother came out to\r\nwelcome her. The character of the Melbury family was of that kind which evinces some\r\nshyness in showing strong emotion among each other: a trait frequent in\r\nrural households, and one which stands in curiously inverse relation to\r\nmost of the peculiarities distinguishing villagers from the people of\r\ntowns. Thus hiding their warmer feelings under commonplace talk all\r\nround, Grace’s reception produced no extraordinary demonstrations. But\r\nthat more was felt than was enacted appeared from the fact that her\r\nfather, in taking her in-doors, quite forgot the presence of Giles\r\nwithout, as did also Grace herself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He said nothing, but took the gig\r\nround to the yard and called out from the spar-house the man who\r\nparticularly attended to these matters when there was no conversation\r\nto draw him off among the copse-workers inside. Winterborne then\r\nreturned to the door with the intention of entering the house. The family had gone into the parlor, and were still absorbed in\r\nthemselves. The fire was, as before, the only light, and it irradiated\r\nGrace’s face and hands so as to make them look wondrously smooth and\r\nfair beside those of the two elders; shining also through the loose\r\nhair about her temples as sunlight through a brake. Her father was\r\nsurveying her in a dazed conjecture, so much had she developed and\r\nprogressed in manner and stature since he last had set eyes on her. Observing these things, Winterborne remained dubious by the door,\r\nmechanically tracing with his fingers certain time-worn letters carved\r\nin the jambs—initials of by-gone generations of householders who had\r\nlived and died there. No, he declared to himself, he would not enter and join the family;\r\nthey had forgotten him, and it was enough for to-day that he had\r\nbrought her home. Still, he was a little surprised that her father’s\r\neagerness to send him for Grace should have resulted in such an\r\nanticlimax as this."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He walked softly away into the lane towards his own house, looking back\r\nwhen he reached the turning, from which he could get a last glimpse of\r\nthe timber-merchant’s roof. He hazarded guesses as to what Grace was\r\nsaying just at that moment, and murmured, with some self-derision,\r\n“nothing about me!” He looked also in the other direction, and saw\r\nagainst the sky the thatched hip and solitary chimney of Marty’s\r\ncottage, and thought of her too, struggling bravely along under that\r\nhumble shelter, among her spar-gads and pots and skimmers. At the timber-merchant’s, in the mean time, the conversation flowed;\r\nand, as Giles Winterborne had rightly enough deemed, on subjects in\r\nwhich he had no share. Among the excluding matters there was, for one,\r\nthe effect upon Mr. Melbury of the womanly mien and manners of his\r\ndaughter, which took him so much unawares that, though it did not make\r\nhim absolutely forget the existence of her conductor homeward, thrust\r\nGiles’s image back into quite the obscurest cellarage of his brain. Another was his interview with Mrs. Charmond’s agent that morning, at\r\nwhich the lady herself had been present for a few minutes. Melbury had\r\npurchased some standing timber from her a long time before, and now\r\nthat the date had come for felling it he was left to pursue almost his\r\nown course."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This was what the household were actually talking of during\r\nGiles’s cogitation without; and Melbury’s satisfaction with the clear\r\natmosphere that had arisen between himself and the deity of the groves\r\nwhich enclosed his residence was the cause of a counterbalancing\r\nmistiness on the side towards Winterborne. “So thoroughly does she trust me,” said Melbury, “that I might fell,\r\ntop, or lop, on my own judgment, any stick o’ timber whatever in her\r\nwood, and fix the price o’t, and settle the matter. But, name it all! I\r\nwouldn’t do such a thing. However, it may be useful to have this good\r\nunderstanding with her....I wish she took more interest in the place,\r\nand stayed here all the year round.”\r\n\r\n“I am afraid ’tis not her regard for you, but her dislike of Hintock,\r\nthat makes her so easy about the trees,” said Mrs. Melbury. When dinner was over, Grace took a candle and began to ramble\r\npleasurably through the rooms of her old home, from which she had\r\nlatterly become wellnigh an alien. Each nook and each object revived a\r\nmemory, and simultaneously modified it. The chambers seemed lower than\r\nthey had appeared on any previous occasion of her return, the surfaces\r\nof both walls and ceilings standing in such relations to the eye that\r\nit could not avoid taking microscopic note of their irregularities and\r\nold fashion. Her own bedroom wore at once a look more familiar than\r\nwhen she had left it, and yet a face estranged."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The world of little\r\nthings therein gazed at her in helpless stationariness, as though they\r\nhad tried and been unable to make any progress without her presence. Over the place where her candle had been accustomed to stand, when she\r\nhad used to read in bed till the midnight hour, there was still the\r\nbrown spot of smoke. She did not know that her father had taken\r\nespecial care to keep it from being cleaned off. Having concluded her perambulation of this now uselessly commodious\r\nedifice, Grace began to feel that she had come a long journey since the\r\nmorning; and when her father had been up himself, as well as his wife,\r\nto see that her room was comfortable and the fire burning, she prepared\r\nto retire for the night. No sooner, however, was she in bed than her\r\nmomentary sleepiness took itself off, and she wished she had stayed up\r\nlonger. She amused herself by listening to the old familiar noises that\r\nshe could hear to be still going on down-stairs, and by looking towards\r\nthe window as she lay. The blind had been drawn up, as she used to have\r\nit when a girl, and she could just discern the dim tree-tops against\r\nthe sky on the neighboring hill. Beneath this meeting-line of light and\r\nshade nothing was visible save one solitary point of light, which\r\nblinked as the tree-twigs waved to and fro before its beams."}
{"question": "", "answer": "From its\r\nposition it seemed to radiate from the window of a house on the\r\nhill-side. The house had been empty when she was last at home, and she\r\nwondered who inhabited the place now. Her conjectures, however, were not intently carried on, and she was\r\nwatching the light quite idly, when it gradually changed color, and at\r\nlength shone blue as sapphire. Thus it remained several minutes, and\r\nthen it passed through violet to red. Her curiosity was so widely awakened by the phenomenon that she sat up\r\nin bed, and stared steadily at the shine. An appearance of this sort,\r\nsufficient to excite attention anywhere, was no less than a marvel in\r\nHintock, as Grace had known the hamlet. Almost every diurnal and\r\nnocturnal effect in that woodland place had hitherto been the direct\r\nresult of the regular terrestrial roll which produced the season’s\r\nchanges; but here was something dissociated from these normal\r\nsequences, and foreign to local habit and knowledge. It was about this moment that Grace heard the household below preparing\r\nto retire, the most emphatic noise in the proceeding being that of her\r\nfather bolting the doors. Then the stairs creaked, and her father and\r\nmother passed her chamber. The last to come was Grammer Oliver. Grace slid out of bed, ran across the room, and lifting the latch,\r\nsaid, “I am not asleep, Grammer. Come in and talk to me.”\r\n\r\nBefore the old woman had entered, Grace was again under the bedclothes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Grammer set down her candlestick, and seated herself on the edge of\r\nMiss Melbury’s coverlet. “I want you to tell me what light that is I see on the hill-side,” said\r\nGrace. Mrs. Oliver looked across. “Oh, that,” she said, “is from the doctor’s. He’s often doing things of that sort. Perhaps you don’t know that we’ve\r\na doctor living here now—Mr. Fitzpiers by name?”\r\n\r\nGrace admitted that she had not heard of him. “Well, then, miss, he’s come here to get up a practice. I know him very\r\nwell, through going there to help ’em scrub sometimes, which your\r\nfather said I might do, if I wanted to, in my spare time. Being a\r\nbachelor-man, he’ve only a lad in the house. Oh yes, I know him very\r\nwell. Sometimes he’ll talk to me as if I were his own mother.”\r\n\r\n“Indeed.”\r\n\r\n“Yes. ‘Grammer,’ he said one day, when I asked him why he came here\r\nwhere there’s hardly anybody living, ‘I’ll tell you why I came here. I\r\ntook a map, and I marked on it where Dr. Jones’s practice ends to the\r\nnorth of this district, and where Mr. Taylor’s ends on the south, and\r\nlittle Jimmy Green’s on the east, and somebody else’s to the west."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then\r\nI took a pair of compasses, and found the exact middle of the country\r\nthat was left between these bounds, and that middle was Little Hintock;\r\nso here I am....’ But, Lord, there: poor young man!”\r\n\r\n“Why?”\r\n\r\n“He said, ‘Grammer Oliver, I’ve been here three months, and although\r\nthere are a good many people in the Hintocks and the villages round,\r\nand a scattered practice is often a very good one, I don’t seem to get\r\nmany patients. And there’s no society at all; and I’m pretty near\r\nmelancholy mad,’ he said, with a great yawn. ‘I should be quite if it\r\nwere not for my books, and my lab—laboratory, and what not. Grammer, I\r\nwas made for higher things.’ And then he’d yawn and yawn again.”\r\n\r\n“Was he really made for higher things, do you think? I mean, is he\r\nclever?”\r\n\r\n“Well, no. How can he be clever? He may be able to jine up a broken man\r\nor woman after a fashion, and put his finger upon an ache if you tell\r\nhim nearly where ’tis; but these young men—they should live to my time\r\nof life, and then they’d see how clever they were at five-and-twenty! And yet he’s a projick, a real projick, and says the oddest of rozums. ‘Ah, Grammer,’ he said, at another time, ‘let me tell you that\r\nEverything is Nothing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There’s only Me and not Me in the whole world.’\r\nAnd he told me that no man’s hands could help what they did, any more\r\nthan the hands of a clock....Yes, he’s a man of strange meditations,\r\nand his eyes seem to see as far as the north star.”\r\n\r\n“He will soon go away, no doubt.”\r\n\r\n“I don’t think so.” Grace did not say “Why?” and Grammer hesitated. At\r\nlast she went on: “Don’t tell your father or mother, miss, if I let you\r\nknow a secret.”\r\n\r\nGrace gave the required promise. “Well, he talks of buying me; so he won’t go away just yet.”\r\n\r\n“Buying you!—how?”\r\n\r\n“Not my soul—my body, when I’m dead. One day when I was there cleaning,\r\nhe said, ‘Grammer, you’ve a large brain—a very large organ of brain,’\r\nhe said. ‘A woman’s is usually four ounces less than a man’s; but yours\r\nis man’s size.’ Well, then—hee, hee!—after he’d flattered me a bit like\r\nthat, he said he’d give me ten pounds to have me as a natomy after my\r\ndeath. Well, knowing I’d no chick nor chiel left, and nobody with any\r\ninterest in me, I thought, faith, if I can be of any use to my\r\nfellow-creatures after I’m gone they are welcome to my services; so I\r\nsaid I’d think it over, and would most likely agree and take the ten\r\npounds. Now this is a secret, miss, between us two."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The money would be\r\nvery useful to me; and I see no harm in it.”\r\n\r\n“Of course there’s no harm. But oh, Grammer, how can you think to do\r\nit? I wish you hadn’t told me.”\r\n\r\n“I wish I hadn’t—if you don’t like to know it, miss. But you needn’t\r\nmind. Lord—hee, hee!—I shall keep him waiting many a year yet, bless\r\nye!”\r\n\r\n“I hope you will, I am sure.”\r\n\r\nThe girl thereupon fell into such deep reflection that conversation\r\nlanguished, and Grammer Oliver, taking her candle, wished Miss Melbury\r\ngood-night. The latter’s eyes rested on the distant glimmer, around\r\nwhich she allowed her reasoning fancy to play in vague eddies that\r\nshaped the doings of the philosopher behind that light on the lines of\r\nintelligence just received. It was strange to her to come back from the\r\nworld to Little Hintock and find in one of its nooks, like a tropical\r\nplant in a hedgerow, a nucleus of advanced ideas and practices which\r\nhad nothing in common with the life around. Chemical experiments,\r\nanatomical projects, and metaphysical conceptions had found a strange\r\nhome here. Thus she remained thinking, the imagined pursuits of the man behind the\r\nlight intermingling with conjectural sketches of his personality, till\r\nher eyes fell together with their own heaviness, and she slept. CHAPTER VII. Kaleidoscopic dreams of a weird alchemist-surgeon, Grammer Oliver’s\r\nskeleton, and the face of Giles Winterborne, brought Grace Melbury to\r\nthe morning of the next day. It was fine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A north wind was blowing—that\r\nnot unacceptable compromise between the atmospheric cutlery of the\r\neastern blast and the spongy gales of the west quarter. She looked from\r\nher window in the direction of the light of the previous evening, and\r\ncould just discern through the trees the shape of the surgeon’s house. Somehow, in the broad, practical daylight, that unknown and lonely\r\ngentleman seemed to be shorn of much of the interest which had invested\r\nhis personality and pursuits in the hours of darkness, and as Grace’s\r\ndressing proceeded he faded from her mind. Meanwhile, Winterborne, though half assured of her father’s favor, was\r\nrendered a little restless by Miss Melbury’s behavior. Despite his dry\r\nself-control, he could not help looking continually from his own door\r\ntowards the timber-merchant’s, in the probability of somebody’s\r\nemergence therefrom. His attention was at length justified by the\r\nappearance of two figures, that of Mr. Melbury himself, and Grace\r\nbeside him. They stepped out in a direction towards the densest quarter\r\nof the wood, and Winterborne walked contemplatively behind them, till\r\nall three were soon under the trees. Although the time of bare boughs had now set in, there were sheltered\r\nhollows amid the Hintock plantations and copses in which a more tardy\r\nleave-taking than on windy summits was the rule with the foliage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This\r\ncaused here and there an apparent mixture of the seasons; so that in\r\nsome of the dells that they passed by holly-berries in full red were\r\nfound growing beside oak and hazel whose leaves were as yet not far\r\nremoved from green, and brambles whose verdure was rich and deep as in\r\nthe month of August. To Grace these well-known peculiarities were as an\r\nold painting restored. Now could be beheld that change from the handsome to the curious which\r\nthe features of a wood undergo at the ingress of the winter months. Angles were taking the place of curves, and reticulations of surfaces—a\r\nchange constituting a sudden lapse from the ornate to the primitive on\r\nNature’s canvas, and comparable to a retrogressive step from the art of\r\nan advanced school of painting to that of the Pacific Islander. Winterborne followed, and kept his eye upon the two figures as they\r\nthreaded their way through these sylvan phenomena. Mr. Melbury’s long\r\nlegs, and gaiters drawn in to the bone at the ankles, his slight stoop,\r\nhis habit of getting lost in thought and arousing himself with an\r\nexclamation of “Hah!” accompanied with an upward jerk of the head,\r\ncomposed a personage recognizable by his neighbors as far as he could\r\nbe seen. It seemed as if the squirrels and birds knew him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "One of the\r\nformer would occasionally run from the path to hide behind the arm of\r\nsome tree, which the little animal carefully edged round _pari passu_\r\nwith Melbury and his daughters movement onward, assuming a mock manner,\r\nas though he were saying, “Ho, ho; you are only a timber-merchant, and\r\ncarry no gun!”\r\n\r\nThey went noiselessly over mats of starry moss, rustled through\r\ninterspersed tracts of leaves, skirted trunks with spreading roots,\r\nwhose mossed rinds made them like hands wearing green gloves; elbowed\r\nold elms and ashes with great forks, in which stood pools of water that\r\noverflowed on rainy days, and ran down their stems in green cascades. On older trees still than these, huge lobes of fungi grew like lungs. Here, as everywhere, the Unfulfilled Intention, which makes life what\r\nit is, was as obvious as it could be among the depraved crowds of a\r\ncity slum. The leaf was deformed, the curve was crippled, the taper was\r\ninterrupted; the lichen eat the vigor of the stalk, and the ivy slowly\r\nstrangled to death the promising sapling. They dived amid beeches under which nothing grew, the younger boughs\r\nstill retaining their hectic leaves, that rustled in the breeze with a\r\nsound almost metallic, like the sheet-iron foliage of the fabled\r\nJarnvid wood."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Some flecks of white in Grace’s drapery had enabled Giles\r\nto keep her and her father in view till this time; but now he lost\r\nsight of them, and was obliged to follow by ear—no difficult matter,\r\nfor on the line of their course every wood-pigeon rose from its perch\r\nwith a continued clash, dashing its wings against the branches with\r\nwellnigh force enough to break every quill. By taking the track of this\r\nnoise he soon came to a stile. Was it worth while to go farther? He examined the doughy soil at the\r\nfoot of the stile, and saw among the large sole-and-heel tracks an\r\nimpression of a slighter kind from a boot that was obviously not local,\r\nfor Winterborne knew all the cobblers’ patterns in that district,\r\nbecause they were very few to know. The mud-picture was enough to make\r\nhim swing himself over and proceed. The character of the woodland now changed. The bases of the smaller\r\ntrees were nibbled bare by rabbits, and at divers points heaps of\r\nfresh-made chips, and the newly-cut stool of a tree, stared white\r\nthrough the undergrowth. There had been a large fall of timber this\r\nyear, which explained the meaning of some sounds that soon reached him. A voice was shouting intermittently in a sort of human bark, which\r\nreminded Giles that there was a sale of trees and fagots that very day. Melbury would naturally be present."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Thereupon Winterborne remembered\r\nthat he himself wanted a few fagots, and entered upon the scene. A large group of buyers stood round the auctioneer, or followed him\r\nwhen, between his pauses, he wandered on from one lot of plantation\r\nproduce to another, like some philosopher of the Peripatetic school\r\ndelivering his lectures in the shady groves of the Lyceum. His\r\ncompanions were timber-dealers, yeomen, farmers, villagers, and others;\r\nmostly woodland men, who on that account could afford to be curious in\r\ntheir walking-sticks, which consequently exhibited various\r\nmonstrosities of vegetation, the chief being cork-screw shapes in black\r\nand white thorn, brought to that pattern by the slow torture of an\r\nencircling woodbine during their growth, as the Chinese have been said\r\nto mould human beings into grotesque toys by continued compression in\r\ninfancy. Two women, wearing men’s jackets on their gowns, conducted in\r\nthe rear of the halting procession a pony-cart containing a tapped\r\nbarrel of beer, from which they drew and replenished horns that were\r\nhanded round, with bread-and-cheese from a basket."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The auctioneer adjusted himself to circumstances by using his\r\nwalking-stick as a hammer, and knocked down the lot on any convenient\r\nobject that took his fancy, such as the crown of a little boy’s head,\r\nor the shoulders of a by-stander who had no business there except to\r\ntaste the brew; a proceeding which would have been deemed humorous but\r\nfor the air of stern rigidity which that auctioneer’s face preserved,\r\ntending to show that the eccentricity was a result of that absence of\r\nmind which is engendered by the press of affairs, and no freak of fancy\r\nat all. Mr. Melbury stood slightly apart from the rest of the Peripatetics, and\r\nGrace beside him, clinging closely to his arm, her modern attire\r\nlooking almost odd where everything else was old-fashioned, and\r\nthrowing over the familiar garniture of the trees a homeliness that\r\nseemed to demand improvement by the addition of a few contemporary\r\nnovelties also. Grace seemed to regard the selling with the interest\r\nwhich attaches to memories revived after an interval of obliviousness. Winterborne went and stood close to them; the timber-merchant spoke,\r\nand continued his buying; Grace merely smiled. To justify his presence\r\nthere Winterborne began bidding for timber and fagots that he did not\r\nwant, pursuing the occupation in an abstracted mood, in which the\r\nauctioneer’s voice seemed to become one of the natural sounds of the\r\nwoodland."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A few flakes of snow descended, at the sight of which a\r\nrobin, alarmed at these signs of imminent winter, and seeing that no\r\noffence was meant by the human invasion, came and perched on the tip of\r\nthe fagots that were being sold, and looked into the auctioneer’s face,\r\nwhile waiting for some chance crumb from the bread-basket. Standing a\r\nlittle behind Grace, Winterborne observed how one flake would sail\r\ndownward and settle on a curl of her hair, and how another would choose\r\nher shoulder, and another the edge of her bonnet, which took up so much\r\nof his attention that his biddings proceeded incoherently; and when the\r\nauctioneer said, every now and then, with a nod towards him, “Yours,\r\nMr. Winterborne,” he had no idea whether he had bought fagots, poles,\r\nor logwood. He regretted, with some causticity of humor, that her father should\r\nshow such inequalities of temperament as to keep Grace tightly on his\r\narm to-day, when he had quite lately seemed anxious to recognize their\r\nbetrothal as a fact. And thus musing, and joining in no conversation\r\nwith other buyers except when directly addressed, he followed the\r\nassemblage hither and thither till the end of the auction, when Giles\r\nfor the first time realized what his purchases had been."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Hundreds of\r\nfagots, and divers lots of timber, had been set down to him, when all\r\nhe had required had been a few bundles of spray for his odd man Robert\r\nCreedle’s use in baking and lighting fires. Business being over, he turned to speak to the timber merchant. But\r\nMelbury’s manner was short and distant; and Grace, too, looked vexed\r\nand reproachful. Winterborne then discovered that he had been\r\nunwittingly bidding against her father, and picking up his favorite\r\nlots in spite of him. With a very few words they left the spot and\r\npursued their way homeward. Giles was extremely sorry at what he had done, and remained standing\r\nunder the trees, all the other men having strayed silently away. He saw\r\nMelbury and his daughter pass down a glade without looking back. While\r\nthey moved slowly through it a lady appeared on horseback in the middle\r\ndistance, the line of her progress converging upon that of Melbury’s. They met, Melbury took off his hat, and she reined in her horse. A\r\nconversation was evidently in progress between Grace and her father and\r\nthis equestrian, in whom he was almost sure that he recognized Mrs.\r\nCharmond, less by her outline than by the livery of the groom who had\r\nhalted some yards off. The interlocutors did not part till after a prolonged pause, during\r\nwhich much seemed to be said. When Melbury and Grace resumed their walk\r\nit was with something of a lighter tread than before."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Winterborne then pursued his own course homeward. He was unwilling to\r\nlet coldness grow up between himself and the Melburys for any trivial\r\nreason, and in the evening he went to their house. On drawing near the\r\ngate his attention was attracted by the sight of one of the bedrooms\r\nblinking into a state of illumination. In it stood Grace lighting\r\nseveral candles, her right hand elevating the taper, her left hand on\r\nher bosom, her face thoughtfully fixed on each wick as it kindled, as\r\nif she saw in every flame’s growth the rise of a life to maturity. He\r\nwondered what such unusual brilliancy could mean to-night. On getting\r\nin-doors he found her father and step-mother in a state of suppressed\r\nexcitement, which at first he could not comprehend. “I am sorry about my biddings to-day,” said Giles. “I don’t know what I\r\nwas doing. I have come to say that any of the lots you may require are\r\nyours.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, never mind—never mind,” replied the timber-merchant, with a slight\r\nwave of his hand, “I have so much else to think of that I nearly had\r\nforgot it. Just now, too, there are matters of a different kind from\r\ntrade to attend to, so don’t let it concern ye.”\r\n\r\nAs the timber-merchant spoke, as it were, down to him from a higher\r\nmoral plane than his own, Giles turned to Mrs. Melbury. “Grace is going to the House to-morrow,” she said, quietly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“She is\r\nlooking out her things now. I dare say she is wanting me this minute to\r\nassist her.” Thereupon Mrs. Melbury left the room. Nothing is more remarkable than the independent personality of the\r\ntongue now and then. Mr. Melbury knew that his words had been a sort of\r\nboast. He decried boasting, particularly to Giles; yet whenever the\r\nsubject was Grace, his judgment resigned the ministry of speech in\r\nspite of him. Winterborne felt surprise, pleasure, and also a little apprehension at\r\nthe news. He repeated Mrs. Melbury’s words. “Yes,” said paternal pride, not sorry to have dragged out of him what\r\nhe could not in any circumstances have kept in. “Coming home from the\r\nwoods this afternoon we met Mrs. Charmond out for a ride. She spoke to\r\nme on a little matter of business, and then got acquainted with Grace. ’Twas wonderful how she took to Grace in a few minutes; that\r\nfreemasonry of education made ’em close at once. Naturally enough she\r\nwas amazed that such an article—ha, ha!—could come out of my house. At\r\nlast it led on to Mis’ess Grace being asked to the House. So she’s busy\r\nhunting up her frills and furbelows to go in.” As Giles remained in\r\nthought without responding, Melbury continued: “But I’ll call her\r\ndown-stairs.”\r\n\r\n“No, no; don’t do that, since she’s busy,” said Winterborne."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Melbury, feeling from the young man’s manner that his own talk had been\r\ntoo much at Giles and too little to him, repented at once. His face\r\nchanged, and he said, in lower tones, with an effort, “She’s yours,\r\nGiles, as far as I am concerned.”\r\n\r\n“Thanks—my best thanks....But I think, since it is all right between us\r\nabout the biddings, that I’ll not interrupt her now. I’ll step\r\nhomeward, and call another time.”\r\n\r\nOn leaving the house he looked up at the bedroom again. Grace,\r\nsurrounded by a sufficient number of candles to answer all purposes of\r\nself-criticism, was standing before a cheval-glass that her father had\r\nlately bought expressly for her use; she was bonneted, cloaked, and\r\ngloved, and glanced over her shoulder into the mirror, estimating her\r\naspect. Her face was lit with the natural elation of a young girl\r\nhoping to inaugurate on the morrow an intimate acquaintance with a new,\r\ninteresting, and powerful friend. CHAPTER VIII. The inspiriting appointment which had led Grace Melbury to indulge in a\r\nsix-candle illumination for the arrangement of her attire, carried her\r\nover the ground the next morning with a springy tread. Her sense of\r\nbeing properly appreciated on her own native soil seemed to brighten\r\nthe atmosphere and herbage around her, as the glowworm’s lamp\r\nirradiates the grass. Thus she moved along, a vessel of emotion going\r\nto empty itself on she knew not what."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Twenty minutes’ walking through copses, over a stile, and along an\r\nupland lawn brought her to the verge of a deep glen, at the bottom of\r\nwhich Hintock House appeared immediately beneath her eye. To describe\r\nit as standing in a hollow would not express the situation of the\r\nmanor-house; it stood in a hole, notwithstanding that the hole was full\r\nof beauty. From the spot which Grace had reached a stone could easily\r\nhave been thrown over or into, the birds’-nested chimneys of the\r\nmansion. Its walls were surmounted by a battlemented parapet; but the\r\ngray lead roofs were quite visible behind it, with their gutters, laps,\r\nrolls, and skylights, together with incised letterings and\r\nshoe-patterns cut by idlers thereon. The front of the house exhibited an ordinary manorial presentation of\r\nElizabethan windows, mullioned and hooded, worked in rich snuff-colored\r\nfreestone from local quarries. The ashlar of the walls, where not\r\novergrown with ivy and other creepers, was coated with lichen of every\r\nshade, intensifying its luxuriance with its nearness to the ground,\r\ntill, below the plinth, it merged in moss. Above the house to the back was a dense plantation, the roots of whose\r\ntrees were above the level of the chimneys. The corresponding high\r\nground on which Grace stood was richly grassed, with only an old tree\r\nhere and there. A few sheep lay about, which, as they ruminated, looked\r\nquietly into the bedroom windows."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The situation of the house,\r\nprejudicial to humanity, was a stimulus to vegetation, on which account\r\nan endless shearing of the heavy-armed ivy was necessary, and a\r\ncontinual lopping of trees and shrubs. It was an edifice built in times\r\nwhen human constitutions were damp-proof, when shelter from the\r\nboisterous was all that men thought of in choosing a dwelling-place,\r\nthe insidious being beneath their notice; and its hollow site was an\r\nocular reminder, by its unfitness for modern lives, of the fragility to\r\nwhich these have declined. The highest architectural cunning could have\r\ndone nothing to make Hintock House dry and salubrious; and ruthless\r\nignorance could have done little to make it unpicturesque. It was\r\nvegetable nature’s own home; a spot to inspire the painter and poet of\r\nstill life—if they did not suffer too much from the relaxing\r\natmosphere—and to draw groans from the gregariously disposed. Grace\r\ndescended the green escarpment by a zigzag path into the drive, which\r\nswept round beneath the slope. The exterior of the house had been\r\nfamiliar to her from her childhood, but she had never been inside, and\r\nthe approach to knowing an old thing in a new way was a lively\r\nexperience. It was with a little flutter that she was shown in; but she\r\nrecollected that Mrs. Charmond would probably be alone."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Up to a few\r\ndays before this time that lady had been accompanied in her comings,\r\nstayings, and goings by a relative believed to be her aunt; latterly,\r\nhowever, these two ladies had separated, owing, it was supposed, to a\r\nquarrel, and Mrs. Charmond had been left desolate. Being presumably a\r\nwoman who did not care for solitude, this deprivation might possibly\r\naccount for her sudden interest in Grace. Mrs. Charmond was at the end of a gallery opening from the hall when\r\nMiss Melbury was announced, and saw her through the glass doors between\r\nthem. She came forward with a smile on her face, and told the young\r\ngirl it was good of her to come. “Ah! you have noticed those,” she said, seeing that Grace’s eyes were\r\nattracted by some curious objects against the walls. “They are\r\nman-traps. My husband was a connoisseur in man-traps and spring-guns\r\nand such articles, collecting them from all his neighbors. He knew the\r\nhistories of all these—which gin had broken a man’s leg, which gun had\r\nkilled a man. That one, I remember his saying, had been set by a\r\ngame-keeper in the track of a notorious poacher; but the keeper,\r\nforgetting what he had done, went that way himself, received the charge\r\nin the lower part of his body, and died of the wound."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I don’t like them\r\nhere, but I’ve never yet given directions for them to be taken away.”\r\nShe added, playfully, “Man-traps are of rather ominous significance\r\nwhere a person of our sex lives, are they not?”\r\n\r\nGrace was bound to smile; but that side of womanliness was one which\r\nher inexperience had no great zest in contemplating. “They are interesting, no doubt, as relics of a barbarous time happily\r\npast,” she said, looking thoughtfully at the varied designs of these\r\ninstruments of torture—some with semi-circular jaws, some with\r\nrectangular; most of them with long, sharp teeth, but a few with none,\r\nso that their jaws looked like the blank gums of old age. “Well, we must not take them too seriously,” said Mrs. Charmond, with\r\nan indolent turn of her head, and they moved on inward. When she had\r\nshown her visitor different articles in cabinets that she deemed likely\r\nto interest her, some tapestries, wood-carvings, ivories, miniatures,\r\nand so on—always with a mien of listlessness which might either have\r\nbeen constitutional, or partly owing to the situation of the place—they\r\nsat down to an early cup of tea. “Will you pour it out, please? Do,” she said, leaning back in her\r\nchair, and placing her hand above her forehead, while her almond\r\neyes—those long eyes so common to the angelic legions of early Italian\r\nart—became longer, and her voice more languishing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She showed that\r\noblique-mannered softness which is perhaps most frequent in women of\r\ndarker complexion and more lymphatic temperament than Mrs. Charmond’s\r\nwas; who lingeringly smile their meanings to men rather than speak\r\nthem, who inveigle rather than prompt, and take advantage of currents\r\nrather than steer. “I am the most inactive woman when I am here,” she said. “I think\r\nsometimes I was born to live and do nothing, nothing, nothing but float\r\nabout, as we fancy we do sometimes in dreams. But that cannot be really\r\nmy destiny, and I must struggle against such fancies.”\r\n\r\n“I am so sorry you do not enjoy exertion—it is quite sad! I wish I\r\ncould tend you and make you very happy.”\r\n\r\nThere was something so sympathetic, so appreciative, in the sound of\r\nGrace’s voice, that it impelled people to play havoc with their\r\ncustomary reservations in talking to her. “It is tender and kind of you\r\nto feel that,” said Mrs. Charmond. “Perhaps I have given you the notion\r\nthat my languor is more than it really is. But this place oppresses me,\r\nand I have a plan of going abroad a good deal. I used to go with a\r\nrelative, but that arrangement has dropped through.” Regarding Grace\r\nwith a final glance of criticism, she seemed to make up her mind to\r\nconsider the young girl satisfactory, and continued: “Now I am often\r\nimpelled to record my impressions of times and places."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have often\r\nthought of writing a ‘New _Sentimental Journey_.’ But I cannot find\r\nenergy enough to do it alone. When I am at different places in the\r\nsouth of Europe I feel a crowd of ideas and fancies thronging upon me\r\ncontinually, but to unfold writing-materials, take up a cold steel pen,\r\nand put these impressions down systematically on cold, smooth\r\npaper—that I cannot do. So I have thought that if I always could have\r\nsomebody at my elbow with whom I am in sympathy, I might dictate any\r\nideas that come into my head. And directly I had made your acquaintance\r\nthe other day it struck me that you would suit me so well. Would you\r\nlike to undertake it? You might read to me, too, if desirable. Will you\r\nthink it over, and ask your parents if they are willing?”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes,” said Grace. “I am almost sure they would be very glad.”\r\n\r\n“You are so accomplished, I hear; I should be quite honored by such\r\nintellectual company.”\r\n\r\nGrace, modestly blushing, deprecated any such idea. “Do you keep up your lucubrations at Little Hintock?”\r\n\r\n“Oh no. Lucubrations are not unknown at Little Hintock; but they are\r\nnot carried on by me.”\r\n\r\n“What—another student in that retreat?”\r\n\r\n“There is a surgeon lately come, and I have heard that he reads a great\r\ndeal—I see his light sometimes through the trees late at night.”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes—a doctor—I believe I was told of him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is a strange place for\r\nhim to settle in.”\r\n\r\n“It is a convenient centre for a practice, they say. But he does not\r\nconfine his studies to medicine, it seems. He investigates theology and\r\nmetaphysics and all sorts of subjects.”\r\n\r\n“What is his name?”\r\n\r\n“Fitzpiers. He represents a very old family, I believe, the Fitzpierses\r\nof Buckbury-Fitzpiers—not a great many miles from here.”\r\n\r\n“I am not sufficiently local to know the history of the family. I was\r\nnever in the county till my husband brought me here.” Mrs. Charmond did\r\nnot care to pursue this line of investigation. Whatever mysterious\r\nmerit might attach to family antiquity, it was one which, though she\r\nherself could claim it, her adaptable, wandering _weltbürgerliche_\r\nnature had grown tired of caring about—a peculiarity that made her a\r\ncontrast to her neighbors. “It is of rather more importance to know\r\nwhat the man is himself than what his family is,” she said, “if he is\r\ngoing to practise upon us as a surgeon. Have you seen him?”\r\n\r\nGrace had not. “I think he is not a very old man,” she added. “Has he a wife?”\r\n\r\n“I am not aware that he has.”\r\n\r\n“Well, I hope he will be useful here. I must get to know him when I\r\ncome back. It will be very convenient to have a medical man—if he is\r\nclever—in one’s own parish. I get dreadfully nervous sometimes, living\r\nin such an outlandish place; and Sherton is so far to send to."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No doubt\r\nyou feel Hintock to be a great change after watering-place life.”\r\n\r\n“I do. But it is home. It has its advantages and its disadvantages.”\r\nGrace was thinking less of the solitude than of the attendant\r\ncircumstances. They chatted on for some time, Grace being set quite at her ease by her\r\nentertainer. Mrs. Charmond was far too well-practised a woman not to\r\nknow that to show a marked patronage to a sensitive young girl who\r\nwould probably be very quick to discern it, was to demolish her dignity\r\nrather than to establish it in that young girl’s eyes. So, being\r\nviolently possessed with her idea of making use of this gentle\r\nacquaintance, ready and waiting at her own door, she took great pains\r\nto win her confidence at starting. Just before Grace’s departure the two chanced to pause before a mirror\r\nwhich reflected their faces in immediate juxtaposition, so as to bring\r\ninto prominence their resemblances and their contrasts. Both looked\r\nattractive as glassed back by the faithful reflector; but Grace’s\r\ncountenance had the effect of making Mrs. Charmond appear more than her\r\nfull age. There are complexions which set off each other to great\r\nadvantage, and there are those which antagonize, the one killing or\r\ndamaging its neighbor unmercifully. This was unhappily the case here. Mrs. Charmond fell into a meditation, and replied abstractedly to a\r\ncursory remark of her companion’s."}
{"question": "", "answer": "However, she parted from her young\r\nfriend in the kindliest tones, promising to send and let her know as\r\nsoon as her mind was made up on the arrangement she had suggested. When Grace had ascended nearly to the top of the adjoining slope she\r\nlooked back, and saw that Mrs. Charmond still stood at the door,\r\nmeditatively regarding her. Often during the previous night, after his call on the Melburys,\r\nWinterborne’s thoughts ran upon Grace’s announced visit to Hintock\r\nHouse. Why could he not have proposed to walk with her part of the way? Something told him that she might not, on such an occasion, care for\r\nhis company. He was still more of that opinion when, standing in his garden next\r\nday, he saw her go past on the journey with such a pretty pride in the\r\nevent. He wondered if her father’s ambition, which had purchased for\r\nher the means of intellectual light and culture far beyond those of any\r\nother native of the village, would conduce to the flight of her future\r\ninterests above and away from the local life which was once to her the\r\nmovement of the world. Nevertheless, he had her father’s permission to win her if he could;\r\nand to this end it became desirable to bring matters soon to a crisis,\r\nif he ever hoped to do so."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If she should think herself too good for\r\nhim, he could let her go and make the best of his loss; but until he\r\nhad really tested her he could not say that she despised his suit. The\r\nquestion was how to quicken events towards an issue. He thought and thought, and at last decided that as good a way as any\r\nwould be to give a Christmas party, and ask Grace and her parents to\r\ncome as chief guests. These ruminations were occupying him when there became audible a slight\r\nknocking at his front door. He descended the path and looked out, and\r\nbeheld Marty South, dressed for out-door work. “Why didn’t you come, Mr. Winterborne?” she said. “I’ve been waiting\r\nthere hours and hours, and at last I thought I must try to find you.”\r\n\r\n“Bless my soul, I’d quite forgot,” said Giles. What he had forgotten was that there was a thousand young fir-trees to\r\nbe planted in a neighboring spot which had been cleared by the\r\nwood-cutters, and that he had arranged to plant them with his own\r\nhands. He had a marvellous power of making trees grow. Although he\r\nwould seem to shovel in the earth quite carelessly, there was a sort of\r\nsympathy between himself and the fir, oak, or beech that he was\r\noperating on, so that the roots took hold of the soil in a few days."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When, on the other hand, any of the journeymen planted, although they\r\nseemed to go through an identically similar process, one quarter of the\r\ntrees would die away during the ensuing August. Hence Winterborne found delight in the work even when, as at present,\r\nhe contracted to do it on portions of the woodland in which he had no\r\npersonal interest. Marty, who turned her hand to anything, was usually\r\nthe one who performed the part of keeping the trees in a perpendicular\r\nposition while he threw in the mould. He accompanied her towards the spot, being stimulated yet further to\r\nproceed with the work by the knowledge that the ground was close to the\r\nway-side along which Grace must pass on her return from Hintock House. “You’ve a cold in the head, Marty,” he said, as they walked. “That\r\ncomes of cutting off your hair.”\r\n\r\n“I suppose it do. Yes; I’ve three headaches going on in my head at the\r\nsame time.”\r\n\r\n“Three headaches!”\r\n\r\n“Yes, a rheumatic headache in my poll, a sick headache over my eyes,\r\nand a misery headache in the middle of my brain. However, I came out,\r\nfor I thought you might be waiting and grumbling like anything if I was\r\nnot there.”\r\n\r\nThe holes were already dug, and they set to work."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Winterborne’s fingers\r\nwere endowed with a gentle conjuror’s touch in spreading the roots of\r\neach little tree, resulting in a sort of caress, under which the\r\ndelicate fibres all laid themselves out in their proper directions for\r\ngrowth. He put most of these roots towards the south-west; for, he\r\nsaid, in forty years’ time, when some great gale is blowing from that\r\nquarter, the trees will require the strongest holdfast on that side to\r\nstand against it and not fall. “How they sigh directly we put ’em upright, though while they are lying\r\ndown they don’t sigh at all,” said Marty. “Do they?” said Giles. “I’ve never noticed it.”\r\n\r\nShe erected one of the young pines into its hole, and held up her\r\nfinger; the soft musical breathing instantly set in, which was not to\r\ncease night or day till the grown tree should be felled—probably long\r\nafter the two planters should be felled themselves. “It seems to me,” the girl continued, “as if they sigh because they are\r\nvery sorry to begin life in earnest—just as we be.”\r\n\r\n“Just as we be?” He looked critically at her. “You ought not to feel\r\nlike that, Marty.”\r\n\r\nHer only reply was turning to take up the next tree; and they planted\r\non through a great part of the day, almost without another word. Winterborne’s mind ran on his contemplated evening-party, his\r\nabstraction being such that he hardly was conscious of Marty’s presence\r\nbeside him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "From the nature of their employment, in which he handled\r\nthe spade and she merely held the tree, it followed that he got good\r\nexercise and she got none. But she was an heroic girl, and though her\r\nout-stretched hand was chill as a stone, and her cheeks blue, and her\r\ncold worse than ever, she would not complain while he was disposed to\r\ncontinue work. But when he paused she said, “Mr. Winterborne, can I run\r\ndown the lane and back to warm my feet?”\r\n\r\n“Why, yes, of course,” he said, awakening anew to her existence. “Though I was just thinking what a mild day it is for the season. Now I\r\nwarrant that cold of yours is twice as bad as it was. You had no\r\nbusiness to chop that hair off, Marty; it serves you almost right. Look\r\nhere, cut off home at once.”\r\n\r\n“A run down the lane will be quite enough.”\r\n\r\n“No, it won’t. You ought not to have come out to-day at all.”\r\n\r\n“But I should like to finish the—”\r\n\r\n“Marty, I tell you to go home,” said he, peremptorily. “I can manage to\r\nkeep the rest of them upright with a stick or something.”\r\n\r\nShe went away without saying any more. When she had gone down the\r\norchard a little distance she looked back. Giles suddenly went after\r\nher. “Marty, it was for your good that I was rough, you know."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But warm\r\nyourself in your own way, I don’t care.”\r\n\r\nWhen she had run off he fancied he discerned a woman’s dress through\r\nthe holly-bushes which divided the coppice from the road. It was Grace\r\nat last, on her way back from the interview with Mrs. Charmond. He\r\nthrew down the tree he was planting, and was about to break through the\r\nbelt of holly when he suddenly became aware of the presence of another\r\nman, who was looking over the hedge on the opposite side of the way\r\nupon the figure of the unconscious Grace. He appeared as a handsome and\r\ngentlemanly personage of six or eight and twenty, and was quizzing her\r\nthrough an eye-glass. Seeing that Winterborne was noticing him, he let\r\nhis glass drop with a click upon the rail which protected the hedge,\r\nand walked away in the opposite direction. Giles knew in a moment that\r\nthis must be Mr. Fitzpiers. When he was gone, Winterborne pushed\r\nthrough the hollies, and emerged close beside the interesting object of\r\ntheir contemplation. CHAPTER IX. “I heard the bushes move long before I saw you,” she began. “I said\r\nfirst, ‘it is some terrible beast;’ next, ‘it is a poacher;’ next, ‘it\r\nis a friend!’”\r\n\r\nHe regarded her with a slight smile, weighing, not her speech, but the\r\nquestion whether he should tell her that she had been watched. He\r\ndecided in the negative. “You have been to the house?” he said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“But I need not ask.” The fact\r\nwas that there shone upon Miss Melbury’s face a species of exaltation,\r\nwhich saw no environing details nor his own occupation; nothing more\r\nthan his bare presence. “Why need you not ask?”\r\n\r\n“Your face is like the face of Moses when he came down from the Mount.”\r\n\r\nShe reddened a little and said, “How can you be so profane, Giles\r\nWinterborne?”\r\n\r\n“How can you think so much of that class of people? Well, I beg pardon;\r\nI didn’t mean to speak so freely. How do you like her house and her?”\r\n\r\n“Exceedingly. I had not been inside the walls since I was a child, when\r\nit used to be let to strangers, before Mrs. Charmond’s late husband\r\nbought the property. She is SO nice!” And Grace fell into such an\r\nabstracted gaze at the imaginary image of Mrs. Charmond and her\r\nniceness that it almost conjured up a vision of that lady in mid-air\r\nbefore them. “She has only been here a month or two, it seems, and cannot stay much\r\nlonger, because she finds it so lonely and damp in winter. She is going\r\nabroad. Only think, she would like me to go with her.”\r\n\r\nGiles’s features stiffened a little at the news. “Indeed; what for? But\r\nI won’t keep you standing here. Hoi, Robert!” he cried to a swaying\r\ncollection of clothes in the distance, which was the figure of Creedle\r\nhis man."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Go on filling in there till I come back.”\r\n\r\n“I’m a-coming, sir; I’m a-coming.”\r\n\r\n“Well, the reason is this,” continued she, as they went on\r\ntogether—“Mrs. Charmond has a delightful side to her character—a desire\r\nto record her impressions of travel, like Alexandre Dumas, and Méry,\r\nand Sterne, and others. But she cannot find energy enough to do it\r\nherself.” And Grace proceeded to explain Mrs. Charmond’s proposal at\r\nlarge. “My notion is that Méry’s style will suit her best, because he\r\nwrites in that soft, emotional, luxurious way she has,” Grace said,\r\nmusingly. “Indeed!” said Winterborne, with mock awe. “Suppose you talk over my\r\nhead a little longer, Miss Grace Melbury?”\r\n\r\n“Oh, I didn’t mean it!” she said, repentantly, looking into his eyes. “And as for myself, I hate French books. And I love dear old Hintock,\r\n_and the people in it_, fifty times better than all the Continent. But\r\nthe scheme; I think it an enchanting notion, don’t you, Giles?”\r\n\r\n“It is well enough in one sense, but it will take you away,” said he,\r\nmollified. “Only for a short time. We should return in May.”\r\n\r\n“Well, Miss Melbury, it is a question for your father.”\r\n\r\nWinterborne walked with her nearly to her house."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had awaited her\r\ncoming, mainly with the view of mentioning to her his proposal to have\r\na Christmas party; but homely Christmas gatherings in the venerable and\r\njovial Hintock style seemed so primitive and uncouth beside the lofty\r\nmatters of her converse and thought that he refrained. As soon as she was gone he turned back towards the scene of his\r\nplanting, and could not help saying to himself as he walked, that this\r\nengagement of his was a very unpromising business. Her outing to-day\r\nhad not improved it. A woman who could go to Hintock House and be\r\nfriendly with its mistress, enter into the views of its mistress, talk\r\nlike her, and dress not much unlike her, why, she would hardly be\r\ncontented with him, a yeoman, now immersed in tree-planting, even\r\nthough he planted them well. “And yet she’s a true-hearted girl,” he\r\nsaid, thinking of her words about Hintock. “I must bring matters to a\r\npoint, and there’s an end of it.”\r\n\r\nWhen he reached the plantation he found that Marty had come back, and\r\ndismissing Creedle, he went on planting silently with the girl as\r\nbefore."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Suppose, Marty,” he said, after a while, looking at her extended arm,\r\nupon which old scratches from briers showed themselves purple in the\r\ncold wind—“suppose you know a person, and want to bring that person to\r\na good understanding with you, do you think a Christmas party of some\r\nsort is a warming-up thing, and likely to be useful in hastening on the\r\nmatter?”\r\n\r\n“Is there to be dancing?”\r\n\r\n“There might be, certainly.”\r\n\r\n“Will He dance with She?”\r\n\r\n“Well, yes.”\r\n\r\n“Then it might bring things to a head, one way or the other; I won’t be\r\nthe one to say which.”\r\n\r\n“It shall be done,” said Winterborne, not to her, though he spoke the\r\nwords quite loudly. And as the day was nearly ended, he added, “Here,\r\nMarty, I’ll send up a man to plant the rest to-morrow. I’ve other\r\nthings to think of just now.”\r\n\r\nShe did not inquire what other things, for she had seen him walking\r\nwith Grace Melbury. She looked towards the western sky, which was now\r\naglow like some vast foundery wherein new worlds were being cast. Across it the bare bough of a tree stretched horizontally, revealing\r\nevery twig against the red, and showing in dark profile every beck and\r\nmovement of three pheasants that were settling themselves down on it in\r\na row to roost."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“It will be fine to-morrow,” said Marty, observing them with the\r\nvermilion light of the sun in the pupils of her eyes, “for they are\r\na-croupied down nearly at the end of the bough. If it were going to be\r\nstormy they’d squeeze close to the trunk. The weather is almost all\r\nthey have to think of, isn’t it, Mr. Winterborne? and so they must be\r\nlighter-hearted than we.”\r\n\r\n“I dare say they are,” said Winterborne. Before taking a single step in the preparations, Winterborne, with no\r\ngreat hopes, went across that evening to the timber-merchant’s to\r\nascertain if Grace and her parents would honor him with their presence. Having first to set his nightly gins in the garden, to catch the\r\nrabbits that ate his winter-greens, his call was delayed till just\r\nafter the rising of the moon, whose rays reached the Hintock houses but\r\nfitfully as yet, on account of the trees. Melbury was crossing his yard\r\non his way to call on some one at the larger village, but he readily\r\nturned and walked up and down the path with the young man. Giles, in his self-deprecatory sense of living on a much smaller scale\r\nthan the Melburys did, would not for the world imply that his\r\ninvitation was to a gathering of any importance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So he put it in the\r\nmild form of “Can you come in for an hour, when you have done business,\r\nthe day after to-morrow; and Mrs. and Miss Melbury, if they have\r\nnothing more pressing to do?”\r\n\r\nMelbury would give no answer at once. “No, I can’t tell you to-day,” he\r\nsaid. “I must talk it over with the women. As far as I am concerned, my\r\ndear Giles, you know I’ll come with pleasure. But how do I know what\r\nGrace’s notions may be? You see, she has been away among cultivated\r\nfolks a good while; and now this acquaintance with Mrs. Charmond—Well,\r\nI’ll ask her. I can say no more.”\r\n\r\nWhen Winterborne was gone the timber-merchant went on his way. He knew\r\nvery well that Grace, whatever her own feelings, would either go or not\r\ngo, according as he suggested; and his instinct was, for the moment, to\r\nsuggest the negative. His errand took him past the church, and the way\r\nto his destination was either across the church-yard or along-side it,\r\nthe distances being the same. For some reason or other he chose the\r\nformer way. The moon was faintly lighting up the gravestones, and the path, and the\r\nfront of the building. Suddenly Mr. Melbury paused, turned ill upon the\r\ngrass, and approached a particular headstone, where he read, “In memory\r\nof John Winterborne,” with the subjoined date and age. It was the grave\r\nof Giles’s father."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The timber-merchant laid his hand upon the stone, and was humanized. “Jack, my wronged friend!” he said. “I’ll be faithful to my plan of\r\nmaking amends to ’ee.”\r\n\r\nWhen he reached home that evening, he said to Grace and Mrs. Melbury,\r\nwho were working at a little table by the fire,\r\n\r\n“Giles wants us to go down and spend an hour with him the day after\r\nto-morrow; and I’m thinking, that as ’tis Giles who asks us, we’ll go.”\r\n\r\nThey assented without demur, and accordingly the timber-merchant sent\r\nGiles the next morning an answer in the affirmative. Winterborne, in his modesty, or indifference, had mentioned no\r\nparticular hour in his invitation; and accordingly Mr. Melbury and his\r\nfamily, expecting no other guests, chose their own time, which chanced\r\nto be rather early in the afternoon, by reason of the somewhat quicker\r\ndespatch than usual of the timber-merchant’s business that day. To show\r\ntheir sense of the unimportance of the occasion, they walked quite\r\nslowly to the house, as if they were merely out for a ramble, and going\r\nto nothing special at all; or at most intending to pay a casual call\r\nand take a cup of tea. At this hour stir and bustle pervaded the interior of Winterborne’s\r\ndomicile from cellar to apple-loft. He had planned an elaborate high\r\ntea for six o’clock or thereabouts, and a good roaring supper to come\r\non about eleven."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Being a bachelor of rather retiring habits, the whole\r\nof the preparations devolved upon himself and his trusty man and\r\nfamiliar, Robert Creedle, who did everything that required doing, from\r\nmaking Giles’s bed to catching moles in his field. He was a survival\r\nfrom the days when Giles’s father held the homestead, and Giles was a\r\nplaying boy. These two, with a certain dilatoriousness which appertained to both,\r\nwere now in the heat of preparation in the bake-house, expecting nobody\r\nbefore six o’clock. Winterborne was standing before the brick oven in\r\nhis shirt-sleeves, tossing in thorn sprays, and stirring about the\r\nblazing mass with a long-handled, three-pronged Beelzebub kind of fork,\r\nthe heat shining out upon his streaming face and making his eyes like\r\nfurnaces, the thorns crackling and sputtering; while Creedle, having\r\nranged the pastry dishes in a row on the table till the oven should be\r\nready, was pressing out the crust of a final apple-pie with a\r\nrolling-pin. A great pot boiled on the fire, and through the open door\r\nof the back kitchen a boy was seen seated on the fender, emptying the\r\nsnuffers and scouring the candlesticks, a row of the latter standing\r\nupside down on the hob to melt out the grease."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Looking up from the rolling-pin, Creedle saw passing the window first\r\nthe timber-merchant, in his second-best suit, Mrs. Melbury in her best\r\nsilk, and Grace in the fashionable attire which, in part brought home\r\nwith her from the Continent, she had worn on her visit to Mrs.\r\nCharmond’s. The eyes of the three had been attracted to the proceedings\r\nwithin by the fierce illumination which the oven threw out upon the\r\noperators and their utensils. “Lord, Lord! if they baint come a’ready!” said Creedle. “No—hey?” said Giles, looking round aghast; while the boy in the\r\nbackground waved a reeking candlestick in his delight. As there was no\r\nhelp for it, Winterborne went to meet them in the door-way. “My dear Giles, I see we have made a mistake in the time,” said the\r\ntimber-merchant’s wife, her face lengthening with concern. “Oh, it is not much difference. I hope you’ll come in.”\r\n\r\n“But this means a regular randyvoo!” said Mr. Melbury, accusingly,\r\nglancing round and pointing towards the bake-house with his stick. “Well, yes,” said Giles. “And—not Great Hintock band, and dancing, surely?”\r\n\r\n“I told three of ’em they might drop in if they’d nothing else to do,”\r\nGiles mildly admitted. “Now, why the name didn’t ye tell us ’twas going to be a serious kind\r\nof thing before? How should I know what folk mean if they don’t say?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now, shall we come in, or shall we go home and come back along in a\r\ncouple of hours?”\r\n\r\n“I hope you’ll stay, if you’ll be so good as not to mind, now you are\r\nhere. I shall have it all right and tidy in a very little time. I ought\r\nnot to have been so backward.” Giles spoke quite anxiously for one of\r\nhis undemonstrative temperament; for he feared that if the Melburys\r\nonce were back in their own house they would not be disposed to turn\r\nout again. “’Tis we ought not to have been so forward; that’s what ’tis,” said Mr.\r\nMelbury, testily. “Don’t keep us here in the sitting-room; lead on to\r\nthe bakehouse, man. Now we are here we’ll help ye get ready for the\r\nrest. Here, mis’ess, take off your things, and help him out in his\r\nbaking, or he won’t get done to-night. I’ll finish heating the oven,\r\nand set you free to go and skiver up them ducks.” His eye had passed\r\nwith pitiless directness of criticism into yet remote recesses of\r\nWinterborne’s awkwardly built premises, where the aforesaid birds were\r\nhanging. “And I’ll help finish the tarts,” said Grace, cheerfully. “I don’t know about that,” said her father. “’Tisn’t quite so much in\r\nyour line as it is in your mother-law’s and mine.”\r\n\r\n“Of course I couldn’t let you, Grace!” said Giles, with some distress."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I’ll do it, of course,” said Mrs. Melbury, taking off her silk train,\r\nhanging it up to a nail, carefully rolling back her sleeves, pinning\r\nthem to her shoulders, and stripping Giles of his apron for her own\r\nuse. So Grace pottered idly about, while her father and his wife helped on\r\nthe preparations. A kindly pity of his household management, which\r\nWinterborne saw in her eyes whenever he caught them, depressed him much\r\nmore than her contempt would have done. Creedle met Giles at the pump after a while, when each of the others\r\nwas absorbed in the difficulties of a _cuisine_ based on utensils,\r\ncupboards, and provisions that were strange to them. He groaned to the\r\nyoung man in a whisper, “This is a bruckle het, maister, I’m much\r\nafeared! Who’d ha’ thought they’d ha’ come so soon?”\r\n\r\nThe bitter placidity of Winterborne’s look adumbrated the misgivings he\r\ndid not care to express. “Have you got the celery ready?” he asked,\r\nquickly. “Now that’s a thing I never could mind; no, not if you’d paid me in\r\nsilver and gold. And I don’t care who the man is, I says that a stick\r\nof celery that isn’t scrubbed with the scrubbing-brush is not clean.”\r\n\r\n“_Very_ well, very well! I’ll attend to it. You go and get ’em\r\ncomfortable in-doors.”\r\n\r\nHe hastened to the garden, and soon returned, tossing the stalks to\r\nCreedle, who was still in a tragic mood."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“If ye’d ha’ married, d’ye\r\nsee, maister,” he said, “this caddle couldn’t have happened to us.”\r\n\r\nEverything being at last under way, the oven set, and all done that\r\ncould insure the supper turning up ready at some time or other, Giles\r\nand his friends entered the parlor, where the Melburys again dropped\r\ninto position as guests, though the room was not nearly so warm and\r\ncheerful as the blazing bakehouse. Others now arrived, among them\r\nFarmer Bawtree and the hollow-turner, and tea went off very well. Grace’s disposition to make the best of everything, and to wink at\r\ndeficiencies in Winterborne’s menage, was so uniform and persistent\r\nthat he suspected her of seeing even more deficiencies than he was\r\naware of. That suppressed sympathy which had showed in her face ever\r\nsince her arrival told him as much too plainly. “This muddling style of house-keeping is what you’ve not lately been\r\nused to, I suppose?” he said, when they were a little apart. “No; but I like it; it reminds me so pleasantly that everything here in\r\ndear old Hintock is just as it used to be. The oil is—not quite nice;\r\nbut everything else is.”\r\n\r\n“The oil?”\r\n\r\n“On the chairs, I mean; because it gets on one’s dress."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Still, mine is\r\nnot a new one.”\r\n\r\nGiles found that Creedle, in his zeal to make things look bright, had\r\nsmeared the chairs with some greasy kind of furniture-polish, and\r\nrefrained from rubbing it dry in order not to diminish the mirror-like\r\neffect that the mixture produced as laid on. Giles apologized and\r\ncalled Creedle; but he felt that the Fates were against him. CHAPTER X.\r\n\r\n\r\nSupper-time came, and with it the hot-baked meats from the oven, laid\r\non a snowy cloth fresh from the press, and reticulated with folds, as\r\nin Flemish “Last Suppers.” Creedle and the boy fetched and carried with\r\namazing alacrity, the latter, to mollify his superior and make things\r\npleasant, expressing his admiration of Creedle’s cleverness when they\r\nwere alone. “I s’pose the time when you learned all these knowing things, Mr.\r\nCreedle, was when you was in the militia?”\r\n\r\n“Well, yes. I seed the world at that time somewhat, certainly, and many\r\nways of strange dashing life. Not but that Giles has worked hard in\r\nhelping me to bring things to such perfection to-day. ‘Giles,’ says I,\r\nthough he’s maister. Not that I should call’n maister by rights, for\r\nhis father growed up side by side with me, as if one mother had twinned\r\nus and been our nourishing.”\r\n\r\n“I s’pose your memory can reach a long way back into history, Mr.\r\nCreedle?”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes. Ancient days, when there was battles and famines and\r\nhang-fairs and other pomps, seem to me as yesterday."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Ah, many’s the\r\npatriarch I’ve seed come and go in this parish! There, he’s calling for\r\nmore plates. Lord, why can’t ’em turn their plates bottom upward for\r\npudding, as they used to do in former days?”\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, in the adjoining room Giles was presiding in a\r\nhalf-unconscious state. He could not get over the initial failures in\r\nhis scheme for advancing his suit, and hence he did not know that he\r\nwas eating mouthfuls of bread and nothing else, and continually\r\nsnuffing the two candles next him till he had reduced them to mere\r\nglimmers drowned in their own grease. Creedle now appeared with a\r\nspecially prepared dish, which he served by elevating the little\r\nthree-legged pot that contained it, and tilting the contents into a\r\ndish, exclaiming, simultaneously, “Draw back, gentlemen and ladies,\r\nplease!”\r\n\r\nA splash followed. Grace gave a quick, involuntary nod and blink, and\r\nput her handkerchief to her face. “Good heavens! what did you do that for, Creedle?” said Giles, sternly,\r\nand jumping up. “’Tis how I do it when they baint here, maister,” mildly expostulated\r\nCreedle, in an aside audible to all the company. “Well, yes—but—” replied Giles. He went over to Grace, and hoped none\r\nof it had gone into her eye. “Oh no,” she said. “Only a sprinkle on my face. It was nothing.”\r\n\r\n“Kiss it and make it well,” gallantly observed Mr. Bawtree. Miss Melbury blushed. The timber-merchant said, quickly, “Oh, it is nothing!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She must bear\r\nthese little mishaps.” But there could be discerned in his face\r\nsomething which said “I ought to have foreseen this.”\r\n\r\nGiles himself, since the untoward beginning of the feast, had not quite\r\nliked to see Grace present. He wished he had not asked such people as\r\nBawtree and the hollow-turner. He had done it, in dearth of other\r\nfriends, that the room might not appear empty. In his mind’s eye,\r\nbefore the event, they had been the mere background or padding of the\r\nscene, but somehow in reality they were the most prominent personages\r\nthere. After supper they played cards, Bawtree and the hollow-turner\r\nmonopolizing the new packs for an interminable game, in which a lump of\r\nchalk was incessantly used—a game those two always played wherever they\r\nwere, taking a solitary candle and going to a private table in a corner\r\nwith the mien of persons bent on weighty matters. The rest of the\r\ncompany on this account were obliged to put up with old packs for their\r\nround game, that had been lying by in a drawer ever since the time that\r\nGiles’s grandmother was alive. Each card had a great stain in the\r\nmiddle of its back, produced by the touch of generations of damp and\r\nexcited thumbs now fleshless in the grave; and the kings and queens\r\nwore a decayed expression of feature, as if they were rather an\r\nimpecunious dethroned race of monarchs hiding in obscure slums than\r\nreal regal characters."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Every now and then the comparatively few remarks\r\nof the players at the round game were harshly intruded on by the\r\nmeasured jingle of Farmer Bawtree and the hollow-turner from the back\r\nof the room:\r\n\r\n“And I′ will hold′ a wa′-ger with you′\r\nThat all′ these marks′ are thirt′-y two!”\r\n\r\n\r\naccompanied by rapping strokes with the chalk on the table; then an\r\nexclamation, an argument, a dealing of the cards; then the commencement\r\nof the rhymes anew. The timber-merchant showed his feelings by talking with a satisfied\r\nsense of weight in his words, and by praising the party in a\r\npatronizing tone, when Winterborne expressed his fear that he and his\r\nwere not enjoying themselves. “Oh yes, yes; pretty much. What handsome glasses those are! I didn’t\r\nknow you had such glasses in the house. Now, Lucy” (to his wife), “you\r\nought to get some like them for ourselves.” And when they had abandoned\r\ncards, and Winterborne was talking to Melbury by the fire, it was the\r\ntimber-merchant who stood with his back to the mantle in a proprietary\r\nattitude, from which post of vantage he critically regarded Giles’s\r\nperson, rather as a superficies than as a solid with ideas and feelings\r\ninside it, saying, “What a splendid coat that one is you have on,\r\nGiles! I can’t get such coats. You dress better than I.”\r\n\r\nAfter supper there was a dance, the bandsmen from Great Hintock having\r\narrived some time before."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Grace had been away from home so long that\r\nshe had forgotten the old figures, and hence did not join in the\r\nmovement. Then Giles felt that all was over. As for her, she was\r\nthinking, as she watched the gyrations, of a very different measure\r\nthat she had been accustomed to tread with a bevy of sylph-like\r\ncreatures in muslin, in the music-room of a large house, most of whom\r\nwere now moving in scenes widely removed from this, both as regarded\r\nplace and character. A woman she did not know came and offered to tell her fortune with the\r\nabandoned cards. Grace assented to the proposal, and the woman told her\r\ntale unskilfully, for want of practice, as she declared. Mr. Melbury was standing by, and exclaimed, contemptuously, “Tell her\r\nfortune, indeed! Her fortune has been told by men of science—what do\r\nyou call ’em? Phrenologists. You can’t teach her anything new. She’s\r\nbeen too far among the wise ones to be astonished at anything she can\r\nhear among us folks in Hintock.”\r\n\r\nAt last the time came for breaking up, Melbury and his family being the\r\nearliest to leave, the two card-players still pursuing their game\r\ndoggedly in the corner, where they had completely covered Giles’s\r\nmahogany table with chalk scratches. The three walked home, the\r\ndistance being short and the night clear."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Well, Giles is a very good fellow,” said Mr. Melbury, as they struck\r\ndown the lane under boughs which formed a black filigree in which the\r\nstars seemed set. “Certainly he is,” said Grace, quickly, and in such a tone as to show\r\nthat he stood no lower, if no higher, in her regard than he had stood\r\nbefore. When they were opposite an opening through which, by day, the doctor’s\r\nhouse could be seen, they observed a light in one of his rooms,\r\nalthough it was now about two o’clock. “The doctor is not abed yet,” said Mrs. Melbury. “Hard study, no doubt,” said her husband. “One would think that, as he seems to have nothing to do about here by\r\nday, he could at least afford to go to bed early at night. ’Tis\r\nastonishing how little we see of him.”\r\n\r\nMelbury’s mind seemed to turn with much relief to the contemplation of\r\nMr. Fitzpiers after the scenes of the evening. “It is natural enough,”\r\nhe replied. “What can a man of that sort find to interest him in\r\nHintock? I don’t expect he’ll stay here long.”\r\n\r\nHis mind reverted to Giles’s party, and when they were nearly home he\r\nspoke again, his daughter being a few steps in advance: “It is hardly\r\nthe line of life for a girl like Grace, after what she’s been\r\naccustomed to."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I didn’t foresee that in sending her to boarding-school\r\nand letting her travel, and what not, to make her a good bargain for\r\nGiles, I should be really spoiling her for him. Ah, ’tis a thousand\r\npities! But he ought to have her—he ought!”\r\n\r\nAt this moment the two exclusive, chalk-mark men, having at last really\r\nfinished their play, could be heard coming along in the rear,\r\nvociferously singing a song to march-time, and keeping vigorous step to\r\nthe same in far-reaching strides—\r\n\r\n“She may go, oh! She may go, oh! She may go to the d—— for me!”\r\n\r\n\r\nThe timber-merchant turned indignantly to Mrs. Melbury. “That’s the\r\nsort of society we’ve been asked to meet,” he said. “For us old folk it\r\ndidn’t matter; but for Grace—Giles should have known better!”\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, in the empty house from which the guests had just cleared\r\nout, the subject of their discourse was walking from room to room\r\nsurveying the general displacement of furniture with no ecstatic\r\nfeeling; rather the reverse, indeed. At last he entered the bakehouse,\r\nand found there Robert Creedle sitting over the embers, also lost in\r\ncontemplation. Winterborne sat down beside him. “Well, Robert, you must be tired. You’d better get on to bed.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay, Giles—what do I call ye? Maister, I would say."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But ’tis well\r\nto think the day _is_ done, when ’tis done.”\r\n\r\nWinterborne had abstractedly taken the poker, and with a wrinkled\r\nforehead was ploughing abroad the wood-embers on the broad hearth, till\r\nit was like a vast scorching Sahara, with red-hot bowlders lying about\r\neverywhere. “Do you think it went off well, Creedle?” he asked. “The victuals did; that I know. And the drink did; that I steadfastly\r\nbelieve, from the holler sound of the barrels. Good, honest drink\r\n’twere, the headiest mead I ever brewed; and the best wine that berries\r\ncould rise to; and the briskest Horner-and-Cleeves cider ever wrung\r\ndown, leaving out the spice and sperrits I put into it, while that\r\negg-flip would ha’ passed through muslin, so little curdled ’twere. ’Twas good enough to make any king’s heart merry—ay, to make his whole\r\ncarcass smile. Still, I don’t deny I’m afeared some things didn’t go\r\nwell with He and his.” Creedle nodded in a direction which signified\r\nwhere the Melburys lived. “I’m afraid, too, that it was a failure there!”\r\n\r\n“If so, ’twere doomed to be so."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Not but what that snail might as well\r\nhave come upon anybody else’s plate as hers.”\r\n\r\n“What snail?”\r\n\r\n“Well, maister, there was a little one upon the edge of her plate when\r\nI brought it out; and so it must have been in her few leaves of\r\nwintergreen.”\r\n\r\n“How the deuce did a snail get there?”\r\n\r\n“That I don’t know no more than the dead; but there my gentleman was.”\r\n\r\n“But, Robert, of all places, that was where he shouldn’t have been!”\r\n\r\n“Well, ’twas his native home, come to that; and where else could we\r\nexpect him to be? I don’t care who the man is, snails and caterpillars\r\nalways will lurk in close to the stump of cabbages in that tantalizing\r\nway.”\r\n\r\n“He wasn’t alive, I suppose?” said Giles, with a shudder on Grace’s\r\naccount. “Oh no. He was well boiled. I warrant him well boiled. God forbid that\r\na _live_ snail should be seed on any plate of victuals that’s served by\r\nRobert Creedle....But Lord, there; I don’t mind ’em myself—them small\r\nones, for they were born on cabbage, and they’ve lived on cabbage, so\r\nthey must be made of cabbage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But she, the close-mouthed little lady,\r\nshe didn’t say a word about it; though ’twould have made good small\r\nconversation as to the nater of such creatures; especially as wit ran\r\nshort among us sometimes.”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes—’tis all over!” murmured Giles to himself, shaking his head\r\nover the glooming plain of embers, and lining his forehead more than\r\never. “Do you know, Robert,” he said, “that she’s been accustomed to\r\nservants and everything superfine these many years? How, then, could\r\nshe stand our ways?”\r\n\r\n“Well, all I can say is, then, that she ought to hob-and-nob elsewhere. They shouldn’t have schooled her so monstrous high, or else bachelor\r\nmen shouldn’t give randys, or if they do give ’em, only to their own\r\nrace.”\r\n\r\n“Perhaps that’s true,” said Winterborne, rising and yawning a sigh. CHAPTER XI. “’Tis a pity—a thousand pities!” her father kept saying next morning at\r\nbreakfast, Grace being still in her bedroom. But how could he, with any self-respect, obstruct Winterborne’s suit at\r\nthis stage, and nullify a scheme he had labored to promote—was, indeed,\r\nmechanically promoting at this moment? A crisis was approaching, mainly\r\nas a result of his contrivances, and it would have to be met."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But here was the fact, which could not be disguised: since seeing what\r\nan immense change her last twelve months of absence had produced in his\r\ndaughter, after the heavy sum per annum that he had been spending for\r\nseveral years upon her education, he was reluctant to let her marry\r\nGiles Winterborne, indefinitely occupied as woodsman, cider-merchant,\r\napple-farmer, and what not, even were she willing to marry him herself. “She will be his wife if you don’t upset her notion that she’s bound to\r\naccept him as an understood thing,” said Mrs. Melbury. “Bless ye,\r\nshe’ll soon shake down here in Hintock, and be content with Giles’s way\r\nof living, which he’ll improve with what money she’ll have from you. ’Tis the strangeness after her genteel life that makes her feel\r\nuncomfortable at first. Why, when _I_ saw Hintock the first time I\r\nthought I never could like it. But things gradually get familiar, and\r\nstone floors seem not so very cold and hard, and the hooting of the\r\nowls not so very dreadful, and loneliness not so very lonely, after a\r\nwhile.”\r\n\r\n“Yes, I believe ye. That’s just it. I _know_ Grace will gradually sink\r\ndown to our level again, and catch our manners and way of speaking, and\r\nfeel a drowsy content in being Giles’s wife."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I can’t bear the\r\nthought of dragging down to that old level as promising a piece of\r\nmaidenhood as ever lived—fit to ornament a palace wi’—that I’ve taken\r\nso much trouble to lift up. Fancy her white hands getting redder every\r\nday, and her tongue losing its pretty up-country curl in talking, and\r\nher bounding walk becoming the regular Hintock shail and wamble!”\r\n\r\n“She may shail, but she’ll never wamble,” replied his wife, decisively. When Grace came down-stairs he complained of her lying in bed so late;\r\nnot so much moved by a particular objection to that form of indulgence\r\nas discomposed by these other reflections. The corners of her pretty mouth dropped a little down. “You used to\r\ncomplain with justice when I was a girl,” she said. “But I am a woman\r\nnow, and can judge for myself....But it is not that; it is something\r\nelse!” Instead of sitting down she went outside the door. He was sorry. The petulance that relatives show towards each other is\r\nin truth directed against that intangible Causality which has shaped\r\nthe situation no less for the offenders than the offended, but is too\r\nelusive to be discerned and cornered by poor humanity in irritated\r\nmood. Melbury followed her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had rambled on to the paddock, where\r\nthe white frost lay, and where starlings in flocks of twenties and\r\nthirties were walking about, watched by a comfortable family of\r\nsparrows perched in a line along the string-course of the chimney,\r\npreening themselves in the rays of the sun. “Come in to breakfast, my girl,” he said. “And as to Giles, use your\r\nown mind. Whatever pleases you will please me.”\r\n\r\n“I am promised to him, father; and I cannot help thinking that in honor\r\nI ought to marry him, whenever I do marry.”\r\n\r\nHe had a strong suspicion that somewhere in the bottom of her heart\r\nthere pulsed an old simple indigenous feeling favorable to Giles,\r\nthough it had become overlaid with implanted tastes. But he would not\r\ndistinctly express his views on the promise. “Very well,” he said. “But\r\nI hope I sha’n’t lose you yet. Come in to breakfast. What did you think\r\nof the inside of Hintock House the other day?”\r\n\r\n“I liked it much.”\r\n\r\n“Different from friend Winterborne’s?”\r\n\r\nShe said nothing; but he who knew her was aware that she meant by her\r\nsilence to reproach him with drawing cruel comparisons. “Mrs. Charmond has asked you to come again—when, did you say?”\r\n\r\n“She thought Tuesday, but would send the day before to let me know if\r\nit suited her.” And with this subject upon their lips they entered to\r\nbreakfast. Tuesday came, but no message from Mrs. Charmond. Nor was there any on\r\nWednesday."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In brief, a fortnight slipped by without a sign, and it\r\nlooked suspiciously as if Mrs. Charmond were not going further in the\r\ndirection of “taking up” Grace at present. Her father reasoned thereon. Immediately after his daughter’s two\r\nindubitable successes with Mrs. Charmond—the interview in the wood and\r\na visit to the House—she had attended Winterborne’s party. No doubt the\r\nout-and-out joviality of that gathering had made it a topic in the\r\nneighborhood, and that every one present as guests had been widely\r\nspoken of—Grace, with her exceptional qualities, above all. What, then,\r\nso natural as that Mrs. Charmond should have heard the village news,\r\nand become quite disappointed in her expectations of Grace at finding\r\nshe kept such company? Full of this _post hoc_ argument, Mr. Melbury overlooked the infinite\r\nthrong of other possible reasons and unreasons for a woman changing her\r\nmind. For instance, while knowing that his Grace was attractive, he\r\nquite forgot that Mrs. Charmond had also great pretensions to beauty. In his simple estimate, an attractive woman attracted all around. So it was settled in his mind that her sudden mingling with the\r\nvillagers at the unlucky Winterborne’s was the cause of her most\r\ngrievous loss, as he deemed it, in the direction of Hintock House. “’Tis a thousand pities!” he would repeat to himself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I am ruining her\r\nfor conscience’ sake!”\r\n\r\nIt was one morning later on, while these things were agitating his\r\nmind, that, curiously enough, something darkened the window just as\r\nthey finished breakfast. Looking up, they saw Giles in person mounted\r\non horseback, and straining his neck forward, as he had been doing for\r\nsome time, to catch their attention through the window. Grace had been\r\nthe first to see him, and involuntarily exclaimed, “There he is—and a\r\nnew horse!”\r\n\r\nOn their faces as they regarded Giles were written their suspended\r\nthoughts and compound feelings concerning him, could he have read them\r\nthrough those old panes. But he saw nothing: his features just now\r\nwere, for a wonder, lit up with a red smile at some other idea. So they\r\nrose from breakfast and went to the door, Grace with an anxious,\r\nwistful manner, her father in a reverie, Mrs. Melbury placid and\r\ninquiring. “We have come out to look at your horse,” she said. It could be seen that he was pleased at their attention, and explained\r\nthat he had ridden a mile or two to try the animal’s paces. “I bought\r\nher,” he added, with warmth so severely repressed as to seem\r\nindifference, “because she has been used to carry a lady.”\r\n\r\nStill Mr. Melbury did not brighten. Mrs. Melbury said, “And is she\r\nquiet?”\r\n\r\nWinterborne assured her that there was no doubt of it. “I took care of\r\nthat."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She’s five-and-twenty, and very clever for her age.”\r\n\r\n“Well, get off and come in,” said Melbury, brusquely; and Giles\r\ndismounted accordingly. This event was the concrete result of Winterborne’s thoughts during the\r\npast week or two. The want of success with his evening party he had\r\naccepted in as philosophic a mood as he was capable of; but there had\r\nbeen enthusiasm enough left in him one day at Sherton Abbas market to\r\npurchase this old mare, which had belonged to a neighboring parson with\r\nseveral daughters, and was offered him to carry either a gentleman or a\r\nlady, and to do odd jobs of carting and agriculture at a pinch. This\r\nobliging quadruped seemed to furnish Giles with a means of reinstating\r\nhimself in Melbury’s good opinion as a man of considerateness by\r\nthrowing out future possibilities to Grace. The latter looked at him with intensified interest this morning, in the\r\nmood which is altogether peculiar to woman’s nature, and which, when\r\nreduced into plain words, seems as impossible as the penetrability of\r\nmatter—that of entertaining a tender pity for the object of her own\r\nunnecessary coldness. The imperturbable poise which marked Winterborne\r\nin general was enlivened now by a freshness and animation that set a\r\nbrightness in his eye and on his cheek."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Melbury asked him to have\r\nsome breakfast, and he pleasurably replied that he would join them,\r\nwith his usual lack of tactical observation, not perceiving that they\r\nhad all finished the meal, that the hour was inconveniently late, and\r\nthat the note piped by the kettle denoted it to be nearly empty; so\r\nthat fresh water had to be brought in, trouble taken to make it boil,\r\nand a general renovation of the table carried out. Neither did he know,\r\nso full was he of his tender ulterior object in buying that horse, how\r\nmany cups of tea he was gulping down one after another, nor how the\r\nmorning was slipping, nor how he was keeping the family from dispersing\r\nabout their duties. Then he told throughout the humorous story of the horse’s purchase,\r\nlooking particularly grim at some fixed object in the room, a way he\r\nalways looked when he narrated anything that amused him. While he was\r\nstill thinking of the scene he had described, Grace rose and said, “I\r\nhave to go and help my mother now, Mr. Winterborne.”\r\n\r\n“H’m!” he ejaculated, turning his eyes suddenly upon her. She repeated her words with a slight blush of awkwardness; whereupon\r\nGiles, becoming suddenly conscious, too conscious, jumped up, saying,\r\n“To be sure, to be sure!” wished them quickly good-morning, and bolted\r\nout of the house. Nevertheless he had, upon the whole, strengthened his position, with\r\nher at least."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Time, too, was on his side, for (as her father saw with\r\nsome regret) already the homeliness of Hintock life was fast becoming\r\neffaced from her observation as a singularity; just as the first\r\nstrangeness of a face from which we have for years been separated\r\ninsensibly passes off with renewed intercourse, and tones itself down\r\ninto simple identity with the lineaments of the past. Thus Mr. Melbury went out of the house still unreconciled to the\r\nsacrifice of the gem he had been at such pains in mounting. He fain\r\ncould hope, in the secret nether chamber of his mind, that something\r\nwould happen, before the balance of her feeling had quite turned in\r\nWinterborne’s favor, to relieve his conscience and preserve her on her\r\nelevated plane. He could not forget that Mrs. Charmond had apparently abandoned all\r\ninterest in his daughter as suddenly as she had conceived it, and was\r\nas firmly convinced as ever that the comradeship which Grace had shown\r\nwith Giles and his crew by attending his party had been the cause. Matters lingered on thus. And then, as a hoop by gentle knocks on this\r\nside and on that is made to travel in specific directions, the little\r\ntouches of circumstance in the life of this young girl shaped the\r\ncurves of her career. CHAPTER XII. It was a day of rather bright weather for the season."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Miss Melbury went\r\nout for a morning walk, and her ever-regardful father, having an hour’s\r\nleisure, offered to walk with her. The breeze was fresh and quite\r\nsteady, filtering itself through the denuded mass of twigs without\r\nswaying them, but making the point of each ivy-leaf on the trunks\r\nscratch its underlying neighbor restlessly. Grace’s lips sucked in this\r\nnative air of hers like milk. They soon reached a place where the wood\r\nran down into a corner, and went outside it towards comparatively open\r\nground. Having looked round about, they were intending to re-enter the\r\ncopse when a fox quietly emerged with a dragging brush, trotted past\r\nthem tamely as a domestic cat, and disappeared amid some dead fern. They walked on, her father merely observing, after watching the animal,\r\n“They are hunting somewhere near.”\r\n\r\nFarther up they saw in the mid-distance the hounds running hither and\r\nthither, as if there were little or no scent that day. Soon divers\r\nmembers of the hunt appeared on the scene, and it was evident from\r\ntheir movements that the chase had been stultified by general\r\npuzzle-headedness as to the whereabouts of the intended victim. In a\r\nminute a farmer rode up to the two pedestrians, panting with acteonic\r\nexcitement, and Grace being a few steps in advance, he addressed her,\r\nasking if she had seen the fox. “Yes,” said she."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“We saw him some time ago—just out there.”\r\n\r\n“Did you cry Halloo?”\r\n\r\n“We said nothing.”\r\n\r\n“Then why the d—— didn’t you, or get the old buffer to do it for you?”\r\nsaid the man, as he cantered away. She looked rather disconcerted at this reply, and observing her\r\nfather’s face, saw that it was quite red. “He ought not to have spoken to ye like that!” said the old man, in the\r\ntone of one whose heart was bruised, though it was not by the epithet\r\napplied to himself. “And he wouldn’t if he had been a gentleman. ’Twas\r\nnot the language to use to a woman of any niceness. You, so well read\r\nand cultivated—how could he expect ye to know what tom-boy field-folk\r\nare in the habit of doing? If so be you had just come from trimming\r\nswedes or mangolds—joking with the rough work-folk and all that—I could\r\nhave stood it. But hasn’t it cost me near a hundred a year to lift you\r\nout of all that, so as to show an example to the neighborhood of what a\r\nwoman can be? Grace, shall I tell you the secret of it? ’Twas because I\r\nwas in your company. If a black-coated squire or pa’son had been\r\nwalking with you instead of me he wouldn’t have spoken so.”\r\n\r\n“No, no, father; there’s nothing in you rough or ill-mannered!”\r\n\r\n“I tell you it is that!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I’ve noticed, and I’ve noticed it many times,\r\nthat a woman takes her color from the man she’s walking with. The woman\r\nwho looks an unquestionable lady when she’s with a polished-up fellow,\r\nlooks a mere tawdry imitation article when she’s hobbing and nobbing\r\nwith a homely blade. You sha’n’t be treated like that for long, or at\r\nleast your children sha’n’t. You shall have somebody to walk with you\r\nwho looks more of a dandy than I—please God you shall!”\r\n\r\n“But, my dear father,” she said, much distressed, “I don’t mind at all. I don’t wish for more honor than I already have!”\r\n\r\n“A perplexing and ticklish possession is a daughter,” according to\r\nMenander or some old Greek poet, and to nobody was one ever more so\r\nthan to Melbury, by reason of her very dearness to him. As for Grace,\r\nshe began to feel troubled; she did not perhaps wish there and then to\r\nunambitiously devote her life to Giles Winterborne, but she was\r\nconscious of more and more uneasiness at the possibility of being the\r\nsocial hope of the family. “You would like to have more honor, if it pleases me?” asked her\r\nfather, in continuation of the subject. Despite her feeling she assented to this. His reasoning had not been\r\nwithout its weight upon her. “Grace,” he said, just before they had reached the house, “if it costs\r\nme my life you shall marry well!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "To-day has shown me that whatever a\r\nyoung woman’s niceness, she stands for nothing alone. You shall marry\r\nwell.”\r\n\r\nHe breathed heavily, and his breathing was caught up by the breeze,\r\nwhich seemed to sigh a soft remonstrance. She looked calmly at him. “And how about Mr. Winterborne?” she asked. “I mention it, father, not as a matter of sentiment, but as a question\r\nof keeping faith.”\r\n\r\nThe timber-merchant’s eyes fell for a moment. “I don’t know—I don’t\r\nknow,” he said. “’Tis a trying strait. Well, well; there’s no hurry. We’ll wait and see how he gets on.”\r\n\r\nThat evening he called her into his room, a snug little apartment\r\nbehind the large parlor. It had at one time been part of the bakehouse,\r\nwith the ordinary oval brick oven in the wall; but Mr. Melbury, in\r\nturning it into an office, had built into the cavity an iron safe,\r\nwhich he used for holding his private papers. The door of the safe was\r\nnow open, and his keys were hanging from it. “Sit down, Grace, and keep me company,” he said. “You may amuse\r\nyourself by looking over these.” He threw out a heap of papers before\r\nher. “What are they?” she asked. “Securities of various sorts.” He unfolded them one by one. “Papers\r\nworth so much money each. Now here’s a lot of turnpike bonds for one\r\nthing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Would you think that each of these pieces of paper is worth two\r\nhundred pounds?”\r\n\r\n“No, indeed, if you didn’t say so.”\r\n\r\n“’Tis so, then. Now here are papers of another sort. They are for\r\ndifferent sums in the three-per-cents. Now these are Port Breedy Harbor\r\nbonds. We have a great stake in that harbor, you know, because I send\r\noff timber there. Open the rest at your pleasure. They’ll interest ye.”\r\n\r\n“Yes, I will, some day,” said she, rising. “Nonsense, open them now. You ought to learn a little of such matters. A young lady of education should not be ignorant of money affairs\r\naltogether. Suppose you should be left a widow some day, with your\r\nhusband’s title-deeds and investments thrown upon your hands—”\r\n\r\n“Don’t say that, father—title-deeds; it sounds so vain!”\r\n\r\n“It does not. Come to that, I have title-deeds myself. There, that\r\npiece of parchment represents houses in Sherton Abbas.”\r\n\r\n“Yes, but—” She hesitated, looked at the fire, and went on in a low\r\nvoice: “If what has been arranged about me should come to anything, my\r\nsphere will be quite a middling one.”\r\n\r\n“Your sphere ought not to be middling,” he exclaimed, not in passion,\r\nbut in earnest conviction."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“You said you never felt more at home, more\r\nin your element, anywhere than you did that afternoon with Mrs.\r\nCharmond, when she showed you her house and all her knick-knacks, and\r\nmade you stay to tea so nicely in her drawing-room—surely you did!”\r\n\r\n“Yes, I did say so,” admitted Grace. “Was it true?”\r\n\r\n“Yes, I felt so at the time. The feeling is less strong now, perhaps.”\r\n\r\n“Ah! Now, though you don’t see it, your feeling at the time was the\r\nright one, because your mind and body were just in full and fresh\r\ncultivation, so that going there with her was like meeting like. Since\r\nthen you’ve been biding with us, and have fallen back a little, and so\r\nyou don’t feel your place so strongly. Now, do as I tell ye, and look\r\nover these papers and see what you’ll be worth some day. For they’ll\r\nall be yours, you know; who have I got to leave ’em to but you? Perhaps\r\nwhen your education is backed up by what these papers represent, and\r\nthat backed up by another such a set and their owner, men such as that\r\nfellow was this morning may think you a little more than a buffer’s\r\ngirl.”\r\n\r\nSo she did as commanded, and opened each of the folded representatives\r\nof hard cash that her father put before her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To sow in her heart\r\ncravings for social position was obviously his strong desire, though in\r\ndirect antagonism to a better feeling which had hitherto prevailed with\r\nhim, and had, indeed, only succumbed that morning during the ramble. She wished that she was not his worldly hope; the responsibility of\r\nsuch a position was too great. She had made it for herself mainly by\r\nher appearance and attractive behavior to him since her return. “If I\r\nhad only come home in a shabby dress, and tried to speak roughly, this\r\nmight not have happened,” she thought. She deplored less the fact than\r\nthe sad possibilities that might lie hidden therein. Her father then insisted upon her looking over his checkbook and\r\nreading the counterfoils. This, also, she obediently did, and at last\r\ncame to two or three which had been drawn to defray some of the late\r\nexpenses of her clothes, board, and education. “I, too, cost a good deal, like the horses and wagons and corn,” she\r\nsaid, looking up sorrily. “I didn’t want you to look at those; I merely meant to give you an idea\r\nof my investment transactions. But if you do cost as much as they,\r\nnever mind. You’ll yield a better return.”\r\n\r\n“Don’t think of me like that!” she begged. “A mere chattel.”\r\n\r\n“A what? Oh, a dictionary word. Well, as that’s in your line I don’t\r\nforbid it, even if it tells against me,” he said, good-humoredly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And\r\nhe looked her proudly up and down. A few minutes later Grammer Oliver came to tell them that supper was\r\nready, and in giving the information she added, incidentally, “So we\r\nshall soon lose the mistress of Hintock House for some time, I hear,\r\nMaister Melbury. Yes, she’s going off to foreign parts to-morrow, for\r\nthe rest of the winter months; and be-chok’d if I don’t wish I could do\r\nthe same, for my wynd-pipe is furred like a flue.”\r\n\r\nWhen the old woman had left the room, Melbury turned to his daughter\r\nand said, “So, Grace, you’ve lost your new friend, and your chance of\r\nkeeping her company and writing her travels is quite gone from ye!”\r\n\r\nGrace said nothing. “Now,” he went on, emphatically, “’tis Winterborne’s affair has done\r\nthis. Oh yes, ’tis. So let me say one word. Promise me that you will\r\nnot meet him again without my knowledge.”\r\n\r\n“I never do meet him, father, either without your knowledge or with\r\nit.”\r\n\r\n“So much the better. I don’t like the look of this at all. And I say it\r\nnot out of harshness to him, poor fellow, but out of tenderness to you. For how could a woman, brought up delicately as you have been, bear the\r\nroughness of a life with him?”\r\n\r\nShe sighed; it was a sigh of sympathy with Giles, complicated by a\r\nsense of the intractability of circumstances."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At that same hour, and almost at that same minute, there was a\r\nconversation about Winterborne in progress in the village street,\r\nopposite Mr. Melbury’s gates, where Timothy Tangs the elder and Robert\r\nCreedle had accidentally met. The sawyer was asking Creedle if he had heard what was all over the\r\nparish, the skin of his face being drawn two ways on the matter—towards\r\nbrightness in respect of it as news, and towards concern in respect of\r\nit as circumstance. “Why, that poor little lonesome thing, Marty South, is likely to lose\r\nher father. He was almost well, but is much worse again. A man all skin\r\nand grief he ever were, and if he leave Little Hintock for a better\r\nland, won’t it make some difference to your Maister Winterborne,\r\nneighbor Creedle?”\r\n\r\n“Can I be a prophet in Israel?” said Creedle. “Won’t it! I was only\r\nshaping of such a thing yesterday in my poor, long-seeing way, and all\r\nthe work of the house upon my one shoulders! You know what it means? It\r\nis upon John South’s life that all Mr. Winterborne’s houses hang. If so\r\nbe South die, and so make his decease, thereupon the law is that the\r\nhouses fall without the least chance of absolution into HER hands at\r\nthe House. I told him so; but the words of the faithful be only as\r\nwind!”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XIII. The news was true."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The life—the one fragile life—that had been used as\r\na measuring-tape of time by law, was in danger of being frayed away. It\r\nwas the last of a group of lives which had served this purpose, at the\r\nend of whose breathings the small homestead occupied by South himself,\r\nthe larger one of Giles Winterborne, and half a dozen others that had\r\nbeen in the possession of various Hintock village families for the\r\nprevious hundred years, and were now Winterborne’s, would fall in and\r\nbecome part of the encompassing estate. Yet a short two months earlier Marty’s father, aged fifty-five years,\r\nthough something of a fidgety, anxious being, would have been looked on\r\nas a man whose existence was so far removed from hazardous as any in\r\nthe parish, and as bidding fair to be prolonged for another quarter of\r\na century. Winterborne walked up and down his garden next day thinking of the\r\ncontingency. The sense that the paths he was pacing, the cabbage-plots,\r\nthe apple-trees, his dwelling, cider-cellar, wring-house, stables, and\r\nweathercock, were all slipping away over his head and beneath his feet,\r\nas if they were painted on a magic-lantern slide, was curious. In spite\r\nof John South’s late indisposition he had not anticipated danger. To\r\ninquire concerning his health had been to show less sympathy than to\r\nremain silent, considering the material interest he possessed in the\r\nwoodman’s life, and he had, accordingly, made a point of avoiding\r\nMarty’s house."}
{"question": "", "answer": "While he was here in the garden somebody came to fetch him. It was\r\nMarty herself, and she showed her distress by her unconsciousness of a\r\ncropped poll. “Father is still so much troubled in his mind about that tree,” she\r\nsaid. “You know the tree I mean, Mr. Winterborne? the tall one in front\r\nof the house, that he thinks will blow down and kill us. Can you come\r\nand see if you can persuade him out of his notion? I can do nothing.”\r\n\r\nHe accompanied her to the cottage, and she conducted him upstairs. John\r\nSouth was pillowed up in a chair between the bed and the window exactly\r\nopposite the latter, towards which his face was turned. “Ah, neighbor Winterborne,” he said. “I wouldn’t have minded if my life\r\nhad only been my own to lose; I don’t vallie it in much of itself, and\r\ncan let it go if ’tis required of me. But to think what ’tis worth to\r\nyou, a young man rising in life, that do trouble me! It seems a trick\r\nof dishonesty towards ye to go off at fifty-five! I could bear up, I\r\nknow I could, if it were not for the tree—yes, the tree, ’tis that’s\r\nkilling me. There he stands, threatening my life every minute that the\r\nwind do blow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He’ll come down upon us and squat us dead; and what will\r\nye do when the life on your property is taken away?”\r\n\r\n“Never you mind me—that’s of no consequence,” said Giles. “Think of\r\nyourself alone.”\r\n\r\nHe looked out of the window in the direction of the woodman’s gaze. The\r\ntree was a tall elm, familiar to him from childhood, which stood at a\r\ndistance of two-thirds its own height from the front of South’s\r\ndwelling. Whenever the wind blew, as it did now, the tree rocked,\r\nnaturally enough; and the sight of its motion and sound of its sighs\r\nhad gradually bred the terrifying illusion in the woodman’s mind that\r\nit would descend and kill him. Thus he would sit all day, in spite of\r\npersuasion, watching its every sway, and listening to the melancholy\r\nGregorian melodies which the air wrung out of it. This fear it\r\napparently was, rather than any organic disease which was eating away\r\nthe health of John South. As the tree waved, South waved his head, making it his flugel-man with\r\nabject obedience. “Ah, when it was quite a small tree,” he said, “and I\r\nwas a little boy, I thought one day of chopping it off with my hook to\r\nmake a clothes-line prop with. But I put off doing it, and then I again\r\nthought that I would; but I forgot it, and didn’t."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And at last it got\r\ntoo big, and now ’tis my enemy, and will be the death o’ me. Little did\r\nI think, when I let that sapling stay, that a time would come when it\r\nwould torment me, and dash me into my grave.”\r\n\r\n“No, no,” said Winterborne and Marty, soothingly. But they thought it\r\npossible that it might hasten him into his grave, though in another way\r\nthan by falling. “I tell you what,” added Winterborne, “I’ll climb up this afternoon and\r\nshroud off the lower boughs, and then it won’t be so heavy, and the\r\nwind won’t affect it so.”\r\n\r\n“She won’t allow it—a strange woman come from nobody knows where—she\r\nwon’t have it done.”\r\n\r\n“You mean Mrs. Charmond? Oh, she doesn’t know there’s such a tree on\r\nher estate. Besides, shrouding is not felling, and I’ll risk that\r\nmuch.”\r\n\r\nHe went out, and when afternoon came he returned, took a billhook from\r\nthe woodman’s shed, and with a ladder climbed into the lower part of\r\nthe tree, where he began lopping off—“shrouding,” as they called it at\r\nHintock—the lowest boughs. Each of these quivered under his attack,\r\nbent, cracked, and fell into the hedge. Having cut away the lowest\r\ntier, he stepped off the ladder, climbed a few steps higher, and\r\nattacked those at the next level."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Thus he ascended with the progress of\r\nhis work far above the top of the ladder, cutting away his perches as\r\nhe went, and leaving nothing but a bare stem below him. The work was troublesome, for the tree was large. The afternoon wore\r\non, turning dark and misty about four o’clock. From time to time Giles\r\ncast his eyes across towards the bedroom window of South, where, by the\r\nflickering fire in the chamber, he could see the old man watching him,\r\nsitting motionless with a hand upon each arm of the chair. Beside him\r\nsat Marty, also straining her eyes towards the skyey field of his\r\noperations. A curious question suddenly occurred to Winterborne, and he stopped his\r\nchopping. He was operating on another person’s property to prolong the\r\nyears of a lease by whose termination that person would considerably\r\nbenefit. In that aspect of the case he doubted if he ought to go on. On\r\nthe other hand he was working to save a man’s life, and this seemed to\r\nempower him to adopt arbitrary measures. The wind had died down to a calm, and while he was weighing the\r\ncircumstances he saw coming along the road through the increasing mist\r\na figure which, indistinct as it was, he knew well. It was Grace\r\nMelbury, on her way out from the house, probably for a short evening\r\nwalk before dark."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He arranged himself for a greeting from her, since\r\nshe could hardly avoid passing immediately beneath the tree. But Grace, though she looked up and saw him, was just at that time too\r\nfull of the words of her father to give him any encouragement. The\r\nyears-long regard that she had had for him was not kindled by her\r\nreturn into a flame of sufficient brilliancy to make her rebellious. Thinking that she might not see him, he cried, “Miss Melbury, here I\r\nam.”\r\n\r\nShe looked up again. She was near enough to see the expression of his\r\nface, and the nails in his soles, silver-bright with constant walking. But she did not reply; and dropping her glance again, went on. Winterborne’s face grew strange; he mused, and proceeded automatically\r\nwith his work. Grace meanwhile had not gone far. She had reached a\r\ngate, whereon she had leaned sadly, and whispered to herself, “What\r\nshall I do?”\r\n\r\nA sudden fog came on, and she curtailed her walk, passing under the\r\ntree again on her return. Again he addressed her. “Grace,” he said,\r\nwhen she was close to the trunk, “speak to me.” She shook her head\r\nwithout stopping, and went on to a little distance, where she stood\r\nobserving him from behind the hedge. Her coldness had been kindly meant. If it was to be done, she had said\r\nto herself, it should be begun at once."}
{"question": "", "answer": "While she stood out of\r\nobservation Giles seemed to recognize her meaning; with a sudden start\r\nhe worked on, climbing higher, and cutting himself off more and more\r\nfrom all intercourse with the sublunary world. At last he had worked\r\nhimself so high up the elm, and the mist had so thickened, that he\r\ncould only just be discerned as a dark-gray spot on the light-gray sky:\r\nhe would have been altogether out of notice but for the stroke of his\r\nbillhook and the flight of a bough downward, and its crash upon the\r\nhedge at intervals. It was not to be done thus, after all: plainness and candor were best. She went back a third time; he did not see her now, and she lingeringly\r\ngazed up at his unconscious figure, loath to put an end to any kind of\r\nhope that might live on in him still. “Giles— Mr. Winterborne,” she\r\nsaid. He was so high amid the fog that he did not hear. “Mr. Winterborne!”\r\nshe cried again, and this time he stopped, looked down, and replied. “My silence just now was not accident,” she said, in an unequal voice. “My father says it is best not to think too much of that—engagement, or\r\nunderstanding between us, that you know of. I, too, think that upon the\r\nwhole he is right."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But we are friends, you know, Giles, and almost\r\nrelations.”\r\n\r\n“Very well,” he answered, as if without surprise, in a voice which\r\nbarely reached down the tree. “I have nothing to say in objection—I\r\ncannot say anything till I’ve thought a while.”\r\n\r\nShe added, with emotion in her tone, “For myself, I would have married\r\nyou—some day—I think. But I give way, for I see it would be unwise.”\r\n\r\nHe made no reply, but sat back upon a bough, placed his elbow in a\r\nfork, and rested his head upon his hand. Thus he remained till the fog\r\nand the night had completely enclosed him from her view. Grace heaved a divided sigh, with a tense pause between, and moved\r\nonward, her heart feeling uncomfortably big and heavy, and her eyes\r\nwet. Had Giles, instead of remaining still, immediately come down from\r\nthe tree to her, would she have continued in that filial acquiescent\r\nframe of mind which she had announced to him as final? If it be true,\r\nas women themselves have declared, that one of their sex is never so\r\nmuch inclined to throw in her lot with a man for good and all as five\r\nminutes after she has told him such a thing cannot be, the\r\nprobabilities are that something might have been done by the appearance\r\nof Winterborne on the ground beside Grace. But he continued motionless\r\nand silent in that gloomy Niflheim or fog-land which involved him, and\r\nshe proceeded on her way."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The spot seemed now to be quite deserted. The light from South’s window\r\nmade rays on the fog, but did not reach the tree. A quarter of an hour\r\npassed, and all was blackness overhead. Giles had not yet come down. Then the tree seemed to shiver, then to heave a sigh; a movement was\r\naudible, and Winterborne dropped almost noiselessly to the ground. He\r\nhad thought the matter out, and having returned the ladder and billhook\r\nto their places, pursued his way homeward. He would not allow this\r\nincident to affect his outer conduct any more than the danger to his\r\nleaseholds had done, and went to bed as usual. Two simultaneous\r\ntroubles do not always make a double trouble; and thus it came to pass\r\nthat Giles’s practical anxiety about his houses, which would have been\r\nenough to keep him awake half the night at any other time, was\r\ndisplaced and not reinforced by his sentimental trouble about Grace\r\nMelbury. This severance was in truth more like a burial of her than a\r\nrupture with her; but he did not realize so much at present; even when\r\nhe arose in the morning he felt quite moody and stern: as yet the\r\nsecond note in the gamut of such emotions, a tender regret for his\r\nloss, had not made itself heard. A load of oak timber was to be sent away that morning to a builder\r\nwhose works were in a town many miles off."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The proud trunks were taken\r\nup from the silent spot which had known them through the buddings and\r\nsheddings of their growth for the foregoing hundred years; chained down\r\nlike slaves to a heavy timber carriage with enormous red wheels, and\r\nfour of the most powerful of Melbury’s horses were harnessed in front\r\nto draw them. The horses wore their bells that day. There were sixteen to the team,\r\ncarried on a frame above each animal’s shoulders, and tuned to scale,\r\nso as to form two octaves, running from the highest note on the right\r\nor off-side of the leader to the lowest on the left or near-side of the\r\nshaft-horse. Melbury was among the last to retain horse-bells in that\r\nneighborhood; for, living at Little Hintock, where the lanes yet\r\nremained as narrow as before the days of turnpike roads, these\r\nsound-signals were still as useful to him and his neighbors as they had\r\never been in former times. Much backing was saved in the course of a\r\nyear by the warning notes they cast ahead; moreover, the tones of all\r\nthe teams in the district being known to the carters of each, they\r\ncould tell a long way off on a dark night whether they were about to\r\nencounter friends or strangers. The fog of the previous evening still lingered so heavily over the\r\nwoods that the morning could not penetrate the trees till long after\r\nits time."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The load being a ponderous one, the lane crooked, and the air\r\nso thick, Winterborne set out, as he often did, to accompany the team\r\nas far as the corner, where it would turn into a wider road. So they rumbled on, shaking the foundations of the roadside cottages by\r\nthe weight of their progress, the sixteen bells chiming harmoniously\r\nover all, till they had risen out of the valley and were descending\r\ntowards the more open route, the sparks rising from their creaking skid\r\nand nearly setting fire to the dead leaves alongside. Then occurred one of the very incidents against which the bells were an\r\nendeavor to guard. Suddenly there beamed into their eyes, quite close\r\nto them, the two lamps of a carriage, shorn of rays by the fog. Its\r\napproach had been quite unheard, by reason of their own noise. The\r\ncarriage was a covered one, while behind it could be discerned another\r\nvehicle laden with luggage. Winterborne went to the head of the team, and heard the coachman\r\ntelling the carter that he must turn back. The carter declared that\r\nthis was impossible. “You can turn if you unhitch your string-horses,” said the coachman. “It is much easier for you to turn than for us,” said Winterborne. “We’ve five tons of timber on these wheels if we’ve an ounce.”\r\n\r\n“But I’ve another carriage with luggage at my back.”\r\n\r\nWinterborne admitted the strength of the argument."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“But even with\r\nthat,” he said, “you can back better than we. And you ought to, for you\r\ncould hear our bells half a mile off.”\r\n\r\n“And you could see our lights.”\r\n\r\n“We couldn’t, because of the fog.”\r\n\r\n“Well, our time’s precious,” said the coachman, haughtily. “You are\r\nonly going to some trumpery little village or other in the\r\nneighborhood, while we are going straight to Italy.”\r\n\r\n“Driving all the way, I suppose,” said Winterborne, sarcastically. The argument continued in these terms till a voice from the interior of\r\nthe carriage inquired what was the matter. It was a lady’s. She was briefly informed of the timber people’s obstinacy; and then\r\nGiles could hear her telling the footman to direct the timber people to\r\nturn their horses’ heads. The message was brought, and Winterborne sent the bearer back to say\r\nthat he begged the lady’s pardon, but that he could not do as she\r\nrequested; that though he would not assert it to be impossible, it was\r\nimpossible by comparison with the slight difficulty to her party to\r\nback their light carriages. As fate would have it, the incident with\r\nGrace Melbury on the previous day made Giles less gentle than he might\r\notherwise have shown himself, his confidence in the sex being rudely\r\nshaken. In fine, nothing could move him, and the carriages were compelled to\r\nback till they reached one of the sidings or turnouts constructed in\r\nthe bank for the purpose."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then the team came on ponderously, and the\r\nclanging of its sixteen bells as it passed the discomfited carriages,\r\ntilted up against the bank, lent a particularly triumphant tone to the\r\nteam’s progress—a tone which, in point of fact, did not at all attach\r\nto its conductor’s feelings. Giles walked behind the timber, and just as he had got past the yet\r\nstationary carriages he heard a soft voice say, “Who is that rude man? Not Melbury?” The sex of the speaker was so prominent in the voice that\r\nWinterborne felt a pang of regret. “No, ma’am. A younger man, in a smaller way of business in Little\r\nHintock. Winterborne is his name.”\r\n\r\nThus they parted company. “Why, Mr. Winterborne,” said the wagoner,\r\nwhen they were out of hearing, “that was She—Mrs. Charmond! Who’d ha’\r\nthought it? What in the world can a woman that does nothing be\r\ncock-watching out here at this time o’ day for? Oh, going to Italy—yes\r\nto be sure, I heard she was going abroad, she can’t endure the winter\r\nhere.”\r\n\r\nWinterborne was vexed at the incident; the more so that he knew Mr.\r\nMelbury, in his adoration of Hintock House, would be the first to blame\r\nhim if it became known. But saying no more, he accompanied the load to\r\nthe end of the lane, and then turned back with an intention to call at\r\nSouth’s to learn the result of the experiment of the preceding evening."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It chanced that a few minutes before this time Grace Melbury, who now\r\nrose soon enough to breakfast with her father, in spite of the\r\nunwontedness of the hour, had been commissioned by him to make the same\r\ninquiry at South’s. Marty had been standing at the door when Miss\r\nMelbury arrived. Almost before the latter had spoken, Mrs. Charmond’s\r\ncarriages, released from the obstruction up the lane, came bowling\r\nalong, and the two girls turned to regard the spectacle. Mrs. Charmond did not see them, but there was sufficient light for them\r\nto discern her outline between the carriage windows. A noticeable\r\nfeature in her _tournure_ was a magnificent mass of braided locks. “How well she looks this morning!” said Grace, forgetting Mrs.\r\nCharmond’s slight in her generous admiration. “Her hair so becomes her\r\nworn that way. I have never seen any more beautiful!”\r\n\r\n“Nor have I, miss,” said Marty, dryly, unconsciously stroking her\r\ncrown. Grace watched the carriages with lingering regret till they were out of\r\nsight. She then learned of Marty that South was no better. Before she\r\nhad come away Winterborne approached the house, but seeing that one of\r\nthe two girls standing on the door-step was Grace, he suddenly turned\r\nback again and sought the shelter of his own home till she should have\r\ngone away. CHAPTER XIV."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The encounter with the carriages having sprung upon Winterborne’s mind\r\nthe image of Mrs. Charmond, his thoughts by a natural channel went from\r\nher to the fact that several cottages and other houses in the two\r\nHintocks, now his own, would fall into her possession in the event of\r\nSouth’s death. He marvelled what people could have been thinking about\r\nin the past to invent such precarious tenures as these; still more,\r\nwhat could have induced his ancestors at Hintock, and other village\r\npeople, to exchange their old copyholds for life-leases. But having\r\nnaturally succeeded to these properties through his father, he had done\r\nhis best to keep them in order, though he was much struck with his\r\nfather’s negligence in not insuring South’s life. After breakfast, still musing on the circumstances, he went upstairs,\r\nturned over his bed, and drew out a flat canvas bag which lay between\r\nthe mattress and the sacking. In this he kept his leases, which had\r\nremained there unopened ever since his father’s death. It was the usual\r\nhiding-place among rural lifeholders for such documents. Winterborne\r\nsat down on the bed and looked them over. They were ordinary leases for\r\nthree lives, which a member of the South family, some fifty years\r\nbefore this time, had accepted of the lord of the manor in lieu of\r\ncertain copyholds and other rights, in consideration of having the\r\ndilapidated houses rebuilt by said lord."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They had come into his\r\nfather’s possession chiefly through his mother, who was a South. Pinned to the parchment of one of the indentures was a letter, which\r\nWinterborne had never seen before. It bore a remote date, the\r\nhandwriting being that of some solicitor or agent, and the signature\r\nthe landholder’s. It was to the effect that at any time before the last\r\nof the stated lives should drop, Mr. Giles Winterborne, senior, or his\r\nrepresentative, should have the privilege of adding his own and his\r\nson’s life to the life remaining on payment of a merely nominal sum;\r\nthe concession being in consequence of the elder Winterborne’s consent\r\nto demolish one of the houses and relinquish its site, which stood at\r\nan awkward corner of the lane and impeded the way. The house had been pulled down years before. Why Giles’s father had not\r\ntaken advantage of his privilege to insert his own and his son’s lives\r\nit was impossible to say. The likelihood was that death alone had\r\nhindered him in the execution of his project, as it surely was, the\r\nelder Winterborne having been a man who took much pleasure in dealing\r\nwith house property in his small way. Since one of the Souths still survived, there was not much doubt that\r\nGiles could do what his father had left undone, as far as his own life\r\nwas concerned. This possibility cheered him much, for by those houses\r\nhung many things."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Melbury’s doubt of the young man’s fitness to be the\r\nhusband of Grace had been based not a little on the precariousness of\r\nhis holdings in Little and Great Hintock. He resolved to attend to the\r\nbusiness at once, the fine for renewal being a sum that he could easily\r\nmuster. His scheme, however, could not be carried out in a day; and\r\nmeanwhile he would run up to South’s, as he had intended to do, to\r\nlearn the result of the experiment with the tree. Marty met him at the door. “Well, Marty,” he said; and was surprised to\r\nread in her face that the case was not so hopeful as he had imagined. “I am sorry for your labor,” she said. “It is all lost. He says the\r\ntree seems taller than ever.”\r\n\r\nWinterborne looked round at it. Taller the tree certainly did seem, the\r\ngauntness of its now naked stem being more marked than before. “It quite terrified him when he first saw what you had done to it this\r\nmorning,” she added. “He declares it will come down upon us and cleave\r\nus, like ‘the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.’”\r\n\r\n“Well; can I do anything else?” asked he. “The doctor says the tree ought to be cut down.”\r\n\r\n“Oh—you’ve had the doctor?”\r\n\r\n“I didn’t send for him. Mrs. Charmond, before she left, heard that\r\nfather was ill, and told him to attend him at her expense.”\r\n\r\n“That was very good of her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And he says it ought to be cut down. We\r\nmustn’t cut it down without her knowledge, I suppose.”\r\n\r\nHe went up-stairs. There the old man sat, staring at the now gaunt tree\r\nas if his gaze were frozen on to its trunk. Unluckily the tree waved\r\nafresh by this time, a wind having sprung up and blown the fog away,\r\nand his eyes turned with its wavings. They heard footsteps—a man’s, but of a lighter type than usual. “There\r\nis Doctor Fitzpiers again,” she said, and descended. Presently his\r\ntread was heard on the naked stairs. Mr. Fitzpiers entered the sick-chamber just as a doctor is more or less\r\nwont to do on such occasions, and pre-eminently when the room is that\r\nof a humble cottager, looking round towards the patient with that\r\npreoccupied gaze which so plainly reveals that he has wellnigh\r\nforgotten all about the case and the whole circumstances since he\r\ndismissed them from his mind at his last exit from the same apartment. He nodded to Winterborne, with whom he was already a little acquainted,\r\nrecalled the case to his thoughts, and went leisurely on to where South\r\nsat. Fitzpiers was, on the whole, a finely formed, handsome man. His eyes\r\nwere dark and impressive, and beamed with the light either of energy or\r\nof susceptivity—it was difficult to say which; it might have been a\r\nlittle of both."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That quick, glittering, practical eye, sharp for the\r\nsurface of things and for nothing beneath it, he had not. But whether\r\nhis apparent depth of vision was real, or only an artistic accident of\r\nhis corporeal moulding, nothing but his deeds could reveal. His face was rather soft than stern, charming than grand, pale than\r\nflushed; his nose—if a sketch of his features be _de rigueur_ for a\r\nperson of his pretensions—was artistically beautiful enough to have\r\nbeen worth doing in marble by any sculptor not over-busy, and was hence\r\ndevoid of those knotty irregularities which often mean power; while the\r\ndouble-cyma or classical curve of his mouth was not without a looseness\r\nin its close. Nevertheless, either from his readily appreciative mien,\r\nor his reflective manner, or the instinct towards profound things which\r\nwas said to possess him, his presence bespoke the philosopher rather\r\nthan the dandy or macaroni—an effect which was helped by the absence of\r\ntrinkets or other trivialities from his attire, though this was more\r\nfinished and up to date than is usually the case among rural\r\npractitioners. Strict people of the highly respectable class, knowing a little about\r\nhim by report, might have said that he seemed likely to err rather in\r\nthe possession of too many ideas than too few; to be a dreamy ’ist of\r\nsome sort, or too deeply steeped in some false kind of ’ism."}
{"question": "", "answer": "However\r\nthis may be, it will be seen that he was undoubtedly a somewhat rare\r\nkind of gentleman and doctor to have descended, as from the clouds,\r\nupon Little Hintock. “This is an extraordinary case,” he said at last to Winterborne, after\r\nexamining South by conversation, look, and touch, and learning that the\r\ncraze about the elm was stronger than ever. “Come down-stairs, and I’ll\r\ntell you what I think.”\r\n\r\nThey accordingly descended, and the doctor continued, “The tree must be\r\ncut down, or I won’t answer for his life.”\r\n\r\n“’Tis Mrs. Charmond’s tree, and I suppose we must get permission?” said\r\nGiles. “If so, as she is gone away, I must speak to her agent.”\r\n\r\n“Oh—never mind whose tree it is—what’s a tree beside a life! Cut it\r\ndown. I have not the honor of knowing Mrs. Charmond as yet, but I am\r\ndisposed to risk that much with her.”\r\n\r\n“’Tis timber,” rejoined Giles, more scrupulous than he would have been\r\nhad not his own interests stood so closely involved. “They’ll never\r\nfell a stick about here without it being marked first, either by her or\r\nthe agent.”\r\n\r\n“Then we’ll inaugurate a new era forthwith. How long has he complained\r\nof the tree?” asked the doctor of Marty. “Weeks and weeks, sir. The shape of it seems to haunt him like an evil\r\nspirit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He says that it is exactly his own age, that it has got human\r\nsense, and sprouted up when he was born on purpose to rule him, and\r\nkeep him as its slave. Others have been like it afore in Hintock.”\r\n\r\nThey could hear South’s voice up-stairs “Oh, he’s rocking this way; he\r\nmust come! And then my poor life, that’s worth houses upon houses, will\r\nbe squashed out o’ me. Oh! oh!”\r\n\r\n“That’s how he goes on,” she added. “And he’ll never look anywhere else\r\nbut out of the window, and scarcely have the curtains drawn.”\r\n\r\n“Down with it, then, and hang Mrs. Charmond,” said Mr. Fitzpiers. “The\r\nbest plan will be to wait till the evening, when it is dark, or early\r\nin the morning before he is awake, so that he doesn’t see it fall, for\r\nthat would terrify him worse than ever. Keep the blind down till I\r\ncome, and then I’ll assure him, and show him that his trouble is over.”\r\n\r\nThe doctor then departed, and they waited till the evening. When it was\r\ndusk, and the curtains drawn, Winterborne directed a couple of woodmen\r\nto bring a crosscut-saw, and the tall, threatening tree was soon nearly\r\noff at its base. He would not fell it completely then, on account of\r\nthe possible crash, but next morning, before South was awake, they went\r\nand lowered it cautiously, in a direction away from the cottage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was\r\na business difficult to do quite silently; but it was done at last, and\r\nthe elm of the same birth-year as the woodman’s lay stretched upon the\r\nground. The weakest idler that passed could now set foot on marks\r\nformerly made in the upper forks by the shoes of adventurous climbers\r\nonly; once inaccessible nests could be examined microscopically; and on\r\nswaying extremities where birds alone had perched, the by-standers sat\r\ndown. As soon as it was broad daylight the doctor came, and Winterborne\r\nentered the house with him. Marty said that her father was wrapped up\r\nand ready, as usual, to be put into his chair. They ascended the\r\nstairs, and soon seated him. He began at once to complain of the tree,\r\nand the danger to his life and Winterborne’s house-property in\r\nconsequence. The doctor signalled to Giles, who went and drew back the printed\r\ncotton curtains. “’Tis gone, see,” said Mr. Fitzpiers. As soon as the old man saw the vacant patch of sky in place of the\r\nbranched column so familiar to his gaze, he sprang up, speechless, his\r\neyes rose from their hollows till the whites showed all round; he fell\r\nback, and a bluish whiteness overspread him. Greatly alarmed, they put him on the bed. As soon as he came a little\r\nout of his fit, he gasped, “Oh, it is gone!—where?—where?”\r\n\r\nHis whole system seemed paralyzed by amazement."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They were\r\nthunder-struck at the result of the experiment, and did all they could. Nothing seemed to avail. Giles and Fitzpiers went and came, but\r\nuselessly. He lingered through the day, and died that evening as the\r\nsun went down. “D—d if my remedy hasn’t killed him!” murmured the doctor. CHAPTER XV. When Melbury heard what had happened he seemed much moved, and walked\r\nthoughtfully about the premises. On South’s own account he was\r\ngenuinely sorry; and on Winterborne’s he was the more grieved in that\r\nthis catastrophe had so closely followed the somewhat harsh dismissal\r\nof Giles as the betrothed of his daughter. He was quite angry with circumstances for so heedlessly inflicting on\r\nGiles a second trouble when the needful one inflicted by himself was\r\nall that the proper order of events demanded. “I told Giles’s father\r\nwhen he came into those houses not to spend too much money on lifehold\r\nproperty held neither for his own life nor his son’s,” he exclaimed. “But he wouldn’t listen to me. And now Giles has to suffer for it.”\r\n\r\n“Poor Giles!” murmured Grace. “Now, Grace, between us two, it is very, very remarkable. It is almost\r\nas if I had foreseen this; and I am thankful for your escape, though I\r\nam sincerely sorry for Giles. Had we not dismissed him already, we\r\ncould hardly have found it in our hearts to dismiss him now. So I say,\r\nbe thankful."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I’ll do all I can for him as a friend; but as a pretender\r\nto the position of my son-in law, that can never be thought of more.”\r\n\r\nAnd yet at that very moment the impracticability to which poor\r\nWinterborne’s suit had been reduced was touching Grace’s heart to a\r\nwarmer sentiment on his behalf than she had felt for years concerning\r\nhim. He, meanwhile, was sitting down alone in the old familiar house which\r\nhad ceased to be his, taking a calm if somewhat dismal survey of\r\naffairs. The pendulum of the clock bumped every now and then against\r\none side of the case in which it swung, as the muffled drum to his\r\nworldly march. Looking out of the window he could perceive that a\r\nparalysis had come over Creedle’s occupation of manuring the garden,\r\nowing, obviously, to a conviction that they might not be living there\r\nlong enough to profit by next season’s crop. He looked at the leases again and the letter attached. There was no\r\ndoubt that he had lost his houses by an accident which might easily\r\nhave been circumvented if he had known the true conditions of his\r\nholding. The time for performance had now lapsed in strict law; but\r\nmight not the intention be considered by the landholder when she became\r\naware of the circumstances, and his moral right to retain the holdings\r\nfor the term of his life be conceded?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "His heart sank within him when he perceived that despite all the legal\r\nreciprocities and safeguards prepared and written, the upshot of the\r\nmatter amounted to this, that it depended upon the mere caprice—good or\r\nill—of the woman he had met the day before in such an unfortunate way,\r\nwhether he was to possess his houses for life or no. While he was sitting and thinking a step came to the door, and Melbury\r\nappeared, looking very sorry for his position. Winterborne welcomed him\r\nby a word and a look, and went on with his examination of the\r\nparchments. His visitor sat down. “Giles,” he said, “this is very awkward, and I am sorry for it. What\r\nare you going to do?”\r\n\r\nGiles informed him of the real state of affairs, and how barely he had\r\nmissed availing himself of his chance of renewal. “What a misfortune! Why was this neglected? Well, the best thing you\r\ncan do is to write and tell her all about it, and throw yourself upon\r\nher generosity.”\r\n\r\n“I would rather not,” murmured Giles. “But you must,” said Melbury. In short, he argued so cogently that Giles allowed himself to be\r\npersuaded, and the letter to Mrs. Charmond was written and sent to\r\nHintock House, whence, as he knew, it would at once be forwarded to\r\nher."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Melbury feeling that he had done so good an action in coming as almost\r\nto extenuate his previous arbitrary conduct to nothing, went home; and\r\nGiles was left alone to the suspense of waiting for a reply from the\r\ndivinity who shaped the ends of the Hintock population. By this time\r\nall the villagers knew of the circumstances, and being wellnigh like\r\none family, a keen interest was the result all round. Everybody thought of Giles; nobody thought of Marty. Had any of them\r\nlooked in upon her during those moonlight nights which preceded the\r\nburial of her father, they would have seen the girl absolutely alone in\r\nthe house with the dead man. Her own chamber being nearest the stairs,\r\nthe coffin had been placed there for convenience; and at a certain hour\r\nof the night, when the moon arrived opposite the window, its beams\r\nstreamed across the still profile of South, sublimed by the august\r\npresence of death, and onward a few feet farther upon the face of his\r\ndaughter, lying in her little bed in the stillness of a repose almost\r\nas dignified as that of her companion—the repose of a guileless soul\r\nthat had nothing more left on earth to lose, except a life which she\r\ndid not overvalue. South was buried, and a week passed, and Winterborne watched for a\r\nreply from Mrs. Charmond."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Melbury was very sanguine as to its tenor;\r\nbut Winterborne had not told him of the encounter with her carriage,\r\nwhen, if ever he had heard an affronted tone on a woman’s lips, he had\r\nheard it on hers. The postman’s time for passing was just after Melbury’s men had\r\nassembled in the spar-house; and Winterborne, who when not busy on his\r\nown account would lend assistance there, used to go out into the lane\r\nevery morning and meet the post-man at the end of one of the green\r\nrides through the hazel copse, in the straight stretch of which his\r\nladen figure could be seen a long way off. Grace also was very anxious;\r\nmore anxious than her father; more, perhaps, than Winterborne himself. This anxiety led her into the spar-house on some pretext or other\r\nalmost every morning while they were awaiting the reply. Fitzpiers too, though he did not personally appear, was much\r\ninterested, and not altogether easy in his mind; for he had been\r\ninformed by an authority of what he had himself conjectured, that if\r\nthe tree had been allowed to stand, the old man would have gone on\r\ncomplaining, but might have lived for twenty years. Eleven times had Winterborne gone to that corner of the ride, and\r\nlooked up its long straight slope through the wet grays of winter dawn. But though the postman’s bowed figure loomed in view pretty regularly,\r\nhe brought nothing for Giles."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On the twelfth day the man of missives,\r\nwhile yet in the extreme distance, held up his hand, and Winterborne\r\nsaw a letter in it. He took it into the spar-house before he broke the\r\nseal, and those who were there gathered round him while he read, Grace\r\nlooking in at the door. The letter was not from Mrs. Charmond herself, but her agent at\r\nSherton. Winterborne glanced it over and looked up. “It’s all over,” he said. “Ah!” said they altogether. “Her lawyer is instructed to say that Mrs. Charmond sees no reason for\r\ndisturbing the natural course of things, particularly as she\r\ncontemplates pulling the houses down,” he said, quietly. “Only think of that!” said several. Winterborne had turned away, and said vehemently to himself, “Then let\r\nher pull ’em down, and be d—d to her!”\r\n\r\nCreedle looked at him with a face of seven sorrows, saying, “Ah, ’twas\r\nthat sperrit that lost ’em for ye, maister!”\r\n\r\nWinterborne subdued his feelings, and from that hour, whatever they\r\nwere, kept them entirely to himself. There could be no doubt that, up\r\nto this last moment, he had nourished a feeble hope of regaining Grace\r\nin the event of this negotiation turning out a success."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Not being aware\r\nof the fact that her father could have settled upon her a fortune\r\nsufficient to enable both to live in comfort, he deemed it now an\r\nabsurdity to dream any longer of such a vanity as making her his wife,\r\nand sank into silence forthwith. Yet whatever the value of taciturnity to a man among strangers, it is\r\napt to express more than talkativeness when he dwells among friends. The countryman who is obliged to judge the time of day from changes in\r\nexternal nature sees a thousand successive tints and traits in the\r\nlandscape which are never discerned by him who hears the regular chime\r\nof a clock, because they are never in request. In like manner do we use\r\nour eyes on our taciturn comrade. The infinitesimal movement of muscle,\r\ncurve, hair, and wrinkle, which when accompanied by a voice goes\r\nunregarded, is watched and translated in the lack of it, till virtually\r\nthe whole surrounding circle of familiars is charged with the reserved\r\none’s moods and meanings. This was the condition of affairs between Winterborne and his neighbors\r\nafter his stroke of ill-luck. He held his tongue; and they observed\r\nhim, and knew that he was discomposed. Mr. Melbury, in his compunction, thought more of the matter than any\r\none else, except his daughter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Had Winterborne been going on in the old\r\nfashion, Grace’s father could have alluded to his disapproval of the\r\nalliance every day with the greatest frankness; but to speak any\r\nfurther on the subject he could not find it in his heart to do now. He\r\nhoped that Giles would of his own accord make some final announcement\r\nthat he entirely withdrew his pretensions to Grace, and so get the\r\nthing past and done with. For though Giles had in a measure acquiesced\r\nin the wish of her family, he could make matters unpleasant if he chose\r\nto work upon Grace; and hence, when Melbury saw the young man\r\napproaching along the road one day, he kept friendliness and frigidity\r\nexactly balanced in his eye till he could see whether Giles’s manner\r\nwas presumptive or not. His manner was that of a man who abandoned all claims. “I am glad to\r\nmeet ye, Mr. Melbury,” he said, in a low voice, whose quality he\r\nendeavored to make as practical as possible. “I am afraid I shall not\r\nbe able to keep that mare I bought, and as I don’t care to sell her, I\r\nshould like—if you don’t object—to give her to Miss Melbury. The horse\r\nis very quiet, and would be quite safe for her.”\r\n\r\nMr. Melbury was rather affected at this. “You sha’n’t hurt your pocket\r\nlike that on our account, Giles."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Grace shall have the horse, but I’ll\r\npay you what you gave for her, and any expense you may have been put to\r\nfor her keep.”\r\n\r\nHe would not hear of any other terms, and thus it was arranged. They\r\nwere now opposite Melbury’s house, and the timber-merchant pressed\r\nWinterborne to enter, Grace being out of the way. “Pull round the settle, Giles,” said the timber-merchant, as soon as\r\nthey were within. “I should like to have a serious talk with you.”\r\n\r\nThereupon he put the case to Winterborne frankly, and in quite a\r\nfriendly way. He declared that he did not like to be hard on a man when\r\nhe was in difficulty; but he really did not see how Winterborne could\r\nmarry his daughter now, without even a house to take her to. Giles quite acquiesced in the awkwardness of his situation. But from a\r\nmomentary feeling that he would like to know Grace’s mind from her own\r\nlips, he did not speak out positively there and then. He accordingly\r\ndeparted somewhat abruptly, and went home to consider whether he would\r\nseek to bring about a meeting with her. In the evening, while he sat quietly pondering, he fancied that he\r\nheard a scraping on the wall outside his house. The boughs of a monthly\r\nrose which grew there made such a noise sometimes, but as no wind was\r\nstirring he knew that it could not be the rose-tree. He took up the\r\ncandle and went out."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nobody was near. As he turned, the light flickered\r\non the whitewashed rough case of the front, and he saw words written\r\nthereon in charcoal, which he read as follows:\r\n\r\n“O Giles, you’ve lost your dwelling-place,\r\nAnd therefore, Giles, you’ll lose your Grace.”\r\n\r\n\r\nGiles went in-doors. He had his suspicions as to the scrawler of those\r\nlines, but he could not be sure. What suddenly filled his heart far\r\nmore than curiosity about their authorship was a terrible belief that\r\nthey were turning out to be true, try to see Grace as he might. They\r\ndecided the question for him. He sat down and wrote a formal note to\r\nMelbury, in which he briefly stated that he was placed in such a\r\nposition as to make him share to the full Melbury’s view of his own and\r\nhis daughter’s promise, made some years before; to wish that it should\r\nbe considered as cancelled, and they themselves quite released from any\r\nobligation on account of it. Having fastened up this their plenary absolution, he determined to get\r\nit out of his hands and have done with it; to which end he went off to\r\nMelbury’s at once. It was now so late that the family had all retired;\r\nhe crept up to the house, thrust the note under the door, and stole\r\naway as silently as he had come. Melbury himself was the first to rise the next morning, and when he had\r\nread the letter his relief was great."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Very honorable of Giles, very\r\nhonorable,” he kept saying to himself. “I shall not forget him. Now to\r\nkeep her up to her own true level.”\r\n\r\nIt happened that Grace went out for an early ramble that morning,\r\npassing through the door and gate while her father was in the\r\nspar-house. To go in her customary direction she could not avoid\r\npassing Winterborne’s house. The morning sun was shining flat upon its\r\nwhite surface, and the words, which still remained, were immediately\r\nvisible to her. She read them. Her face flushed to crimson. She could\r\nsee Giles and Creedle talking together at the back; the charred\r\nspar-gad with which the lines had been written lay on the ground\r\nbeneath the wall. Feeling pretty sure that Winterborne would observe\r\nher action, she quickly went up to the wall, rubbed out “lose” and\r\ninserted “keep” in its stead. Then she made the best of her way home\r\nwithout looking behind her. Giles could draw an inference now if he\r\nchose. There could not be the least doubt that gentle Grace was warming to\r\nmore sympathy with, and interest in, Giles Winterborne than ever she\r\nhad done while he was her promised lover; that since his misfortune\r\nthose social shortcomings of his, which contrasted so awkwardly with\r\nher later experiences of life, had become obscured by the generous\r\nrevival of an old romantic attachment to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Though mentally trained\r\nand tilled into foreignness of view, as compared with her youthful\r\ntime, Grace was not an ambitious girl, and might, if left to herself,\r\nhave declined Winterborne without much discontent or unhappiness. Her\r\nfeelings just now were so far from latent that the writing on the wall\r\nhad thus quickened her to an unusual rashness. Having returned from her walk she sat at breakfast silently. When her\r\nstep-mother had left the room she said to her father, “I have made up\r\nmy mind that I should like my engagement to Giles to continue, for the\r\npresent at any rate, till I can see further what I ought to do.”\r\n\r\nMelbury looked much surprised. “Nonsense,” he said, sharply. “You don’t know what you are talking\r\nabout. Look here.”\r\n\r\nHe handed across to her the letter received from Giles. She read it, and said no more. Could he have seen her write on the\r\nwall? She did not know. Fate, it seemed, would have it this way, and\r\nthere was nothing to do but to acquiesce. It was a few hours after this that Winterborne, who, curiously enough,\r\nhad _not_ perceived Grace writing, was clearing away the tree from the\r\nfront of South’s late dwelling. He saw Marty standing in her door-way,\r\na slim figure in meagre black, almost without womanly contours as yet. He went up to her and said, “Marty, why did you write that on my wall\r\nlast night?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "It _was_ you, you know.”\r\n\r\n“Because it was the truth. I didn’t mean to let it stay, Mr.\r\nWinterborne; but when I was going to rub it out you came, and I was\r\nobliged to run off.”\r\n\r\n“Having prophesied one thing, why did you alter it to another? Your\r\npredictions can’t be worth much.”\r\n\r\n“I have not altered it.”\r\n\r\n“But you have.”\r\n\r\n“No.”\r\n\r\n“It is altered. Go and see.”\r\n\r\nShe went, and read that, in spite of losing his dwelling-place, he\r\nwould _keep_ his Grace. Marty came back surprised. “Well, I never,” she said. “Who can have made such nonsense of it?”\r\n\r\n“Who, indeed?” said he. “I have rubbed it all out, as the point of it is quite gone.”\r\n\r\n“You’d no business to rub it out. I didn’t tell you to. I meant to let\r\nit stay a little longer.”\r\n\r\n“Some idle boy did it, no doubt,” she murmured. As this seemed very probable, and the actual perpetrator was\r\nunsuspected, Winterborne said no more, and dismissed the matter from\r\nhis mind. From this day of his life onward for a considerable time, Winterborne,\r\nthough not absolutely out of his house as yet, retired into the\r\nbackground of human life and action thereabout—a feat not particularly\r\ndifficult of performance anywhere when the doer has the assistance of a\r\nlost prestige. Grace, thinking that Winterborne saw her write, made no\r\nfurther sign, and the frail bark of fidelity that she had thus timidly\r\nlaunched was stranded and lost. CHAPTER XVI."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Dr. Fitzpiers lived on the slope of the hill, in a house of much less\r\npretension, both as to architecture and as to magnitude, than the\r\ntimber-merchant’s. The latter had, without doubt, been once the\r\nmanorial residence appertaining to the snug and modest domain of Little\r\nHintock, of which the boundaries were now lost by its absorption with\r\nothers of its kind into the adjoining estate of Mrs. Charmond. Though\r\nthe Melburys themselves were unaware of the fact, there was every\r\nreason to believe—at least so the parson said—that the owners of that\r\nlittle manor had been Melbury’s own ancestors, the family name\r\noccurring in numerous documents relating to transfers of land about the\r\ntime of the civil wars. Mr. Fitzpiers’s dwelling, on the contrary, was small, cottage-like, and\r\ncomparatively modern. It had been occupied, and was in part occupied\r\nstill, by a retired farmer and his wife, who, on the surgeon’s arrival\r\nin quest of a home, had accommodated him by receding from their front\r\nrooms into the kitchen quarter, whence they administered to his wants,\r\nand emerged at regular intervals to receive from him a not unwelcome\r\naddition to their income. The cottage and its garden were so regular in their arrangement that\r\nthey might have been laid out by a Dutch designer of the time of\r\nWilliam and Mary."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In a low, dense hedge, cut to wedge-shape, was a door\r\nover which the hedge formed an arch, and from the inside of the door a\r\nstraight path, bordered with clipped box, ran up the slope of the\r\ngarden to the porch, which was exactly in the middle of the house\r\nfront, with two windows on each side. Right and left of the path were\r\nfirst a bed of gooseberry bushes; next of currant; next of raspberry;\r\nnext of strawberry; next of old-fashioned flowers; at the corners\r\nopposite the porch being spheres of box resembling a pair of school\r\nglobes. Over the roof of the house could be seen the orchard, on yet\r\nhigher ground, and behind the orchard the forest-trees, reaching up to\r\nthe crest of the hill. Opposite the garden door and visible from the parlor window was a\r\nswing-gate leading into a field, across which there ran a footpath. The\r\nswing-gate had just been repainted, and on one fine afternoon, before\r\nthe paint was dry, and while gnats were still dying thereon, the\r\nsurgeon was standing in his sitting-room abstractedly looking out at\r\nthe different pedestrians who passed and repassed along that route. Being of a philosophical stamp, he perceived that the character of each\r\nof these travellers exhibited itself in a somewhat amusing manner by\r\nhis or her method of handling the gate. As regarded the men, there was not much variety: they gave the gate a\r\nkick and passed through. The women were more contrasting."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To them the\r\nsticky wood-work was a barricade, a disgust, a menace, a treachery, as\r\nthe case might be. The first that he noticed was a bouncing woman with her skirts tucked\r\nup and her hair uncombed. She grasped the gate without looking, giving\r\nit a supplementary push with her shoulder, when the white imprint drew\r\nfrom her an exclamation in language not too refined. She went to the\r\ngreen bank, sat down and rubbed herself in the grass, cursing the\r\nwhile. “Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the doctor. The next was a girl, with her hair cropped short, in whom the surgeon\r\nrecognized the daughter of his late patient, the woodman South. Moreover, a black bonnet that she wore by way of mourning unpleasantly\r\nreminded him that he had ordered the felling of a tree which had caused\r\nher parent’s death and Winterborne’s losses. She walked and thought,\r\nand not recklessly; but her preoccupation led her to grasp\r\nunsuspectingly the bar of the gate, and touch it with her arm. Fitzpiers felt sorry that she should have soiled that new black frock,\r\npoor as it was, for it was probably her only one. She looked at her\r\nhand and arm, seemed but little surprised, wiped off the disfigurement\r\nwith an almost unmoved face, and as if without abandoning her original\r\nthoughts. Thus she went on her way. Then there came over the green quite a different sort of personage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She\r\nwalked as delicately as if she had been bred in town, and as firmly as\r\nif she had been bred in the country; she seemed one who dimly knew her\r\nappearance to be attractive, but who retained some of the charm of\r\nbeing ignorant of that fact by forgetting it in a general pensiveness. She approached the gate. To let such a creature touch it even with a\r\ntip of her glove was to Fitzpiers almost like letting her proceed to\r\ntragical self-destruction. He jumped up and looked for his hat, but was\r\nunable to find the right one; glancing again out of the window he saw\r\nthat he was too late. Having come up, she stopped, looked at the gate,\r\npicked up a little stick, and using it as a bayonet, pushed open the\r\nobstacle without touching it at all. He steadily watched her till she had passed out of sight, recognizing\r\nher as the very young lady whom he had seen once before and been unable\r\nto identify. Whose could that emotional face be? All the others he had\r\nseen in Hintock as yet oppressed him with their crude rusticity; the\r\ncontrast offered by this suggested that she hailed from elsewhere."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Precisely these thoughts had occurred to him at the first time of\r\nseeing her; but he now went a little further with them, and considered\r\nthat as there had been no carriage seen or heard lately in that spot\r\nshe could not have come a very long distance. She must be somebody\r\nstaying at Hintock House? Possibly Mrs. Charmond, of whom he had heard\r\nso much—at any rate an inmate, and this probability was sufficient to\r\nset a mild radiance in the surgeon’s somewhat dull sky. Fitzpiers sat down to the book he had been perusing. It happened to be\r\nthat of a German metaphysician, for the doctor was not a practical man,\r\nexcept by fits, and much preferred the ideal world to the real, and the\r\ndiscovery of principles to their application. The young lady remained\r\nin his thoughts. He might have followed her; but he was not\r\nconstitutionally active, and preferred a conjectural pursuit. However,\r\nwhen he went out for a ramble just before dusk he insensibly took the\r\ndirection of Hintock House, which was the way that Grace had been\r\nwalking, it having happened that her mind had run on Mrs. Charmond that\r\nday, and she had walked to the brow of a hill whence the house could be\r\nseen, returning by another route. Fitzpiers in his turn reached the edge of the glen, overlooking the\r\nmanor-house. The shutters were shut, and only one chimney smoked."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The\r\nmere aspect of the place was enough to inform him that Mrs. Charmond\r\nhad gone away and that nobody else was staying there. Fitzpiers felt a\r\nvague disappointment that the young lady was not Mrs. Charmond, of whom\r\nhe had heard so much; and without pausing longer to gaze at a carcass\r\nfrom which the spirit had flown, he bent his steps homeward. Later in the evening Fitzpiers was summoned to visit a cottage patient\r\nabout two miles distant. Like the majority of young practitioners in\r\nhis position he was far from having assumed the dignity of being driven\r\nhis rounds by a servant in a brougham that flashed the sunlight like a\r\nmirror; his way of getting about was by means of a gig which he drove\r\nhimself, hitching the rein of the horse to the gate post, shutter hook,\r\nor garden paling of the domicile under visitation, or giving pennies to\r\nlittle boys to hold the animal during his stay—pennies which were well\r\nearned when the cases to be attended were of a certain cheerful kind\r\nthat wore out the patience of the little boys. On this account of travelling alone, the night journeys which Fitzpiers\r\nhad frequently to take were dismal enough, a serious apparent\r\nperversity in nature ruling that whenever there was to be a birth in a\r\nparticularly inaccessible and lonely place, that event should occur in\r\nthe night. The surgeon, having been of late years a town man, hated the\r\nsolitary midnight woodland."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was not altogether skilful with the\r\nreins, and it often occurred to his mind that if in some remote depths\r\nof the trees an accident were to happen, the fact of his being alone\r\nmight be the death of him. Hence he made a practice of picking up any\r\ncountryman or lad whom he chanced to pass by, and under the disguise of\r\ntreating him to a nice drive, obtained his companionship on the\r\njourney, and his convenient assistance in opening gates. The doctor had started on his way out of the village on the night in\r\nquestion when the light of his lamps fell upon the musing form of\r\nWinterborne, walking leisurely along, as if he had no object in life. Winterborne was a better class of companion than the doctor usually\r\ncould get, and he at once pulled up and asked him if he would like a\r\ndrive through the wood that fine night. Giles seemed rather surprised at the doctor’s friendliness, but said\r\nthat he had no objection, and accordingly mounted beside Mr. Fitzpiers. They drove along under the black boughs which formed a network upon the\r\nstars, all the trees of a species alike in one respect, and no two of\r\nthem alike in another."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Looking up as they passed under a horizontal\r\nbough they sometimes saw objects like large tadpoles lodged\r\ndiametrically across it, which Giles explained to be pheasants there at\r\nroost; and they sometimes heard the report of a gun, which reminded him\r\nthat others knew what those tadpole shapes represented as well as he. Presently the doctor said what he had been going to say for some time:\r\n\r\n“Is there a young lady staying in this neighborhood—a very attractive\r\ngirl—with a little white boa round her neck, and white fur round her\r\ngloves?”\r\n\r\nWinterborne of course knew in a moment that Grace, whom he had caught\r\nthe doctor peering at, was represented by these accessories. With a\r\nwary grimness, partly in his character, partly induced by the\r\ncircumstances, he evaded an answer by saying, “I saw a young lady\r\ntalking to Mrs. Charmond the other day; perhaps it was she.”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers concluded from this that Winterborne had not seen him looking\r\nover the hedge. “It might have been,” he said. “She is quite a\r\ngentlewoman—the one I mean. She cannot be a permanent resident in\r\nHintock or I should have seen her before. Nor does she look like one.”\r\n\r\n“She is not staying at Hintock House?”\r\n\r\n“No; it is closed.”\r\n\r\n“Then perhaps she is staying at one of the cottages, or farmhouses?”\r\n\r\n“Oh no—you mistake."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was a different sort of girl altogether.” As\r\nGiles was nobody, Fitzpiers treated him accordingly, and apostrophized\r\nthe night in continuation:\r\n\r\n“She moved upon this earth a shape of brightness,\r\nA power, that from its objects scarcely drew\r\nOne impulse of her being—in her lightness\r\nMost like some radiant cloud of morning dew,\r\nWhich wanders through the waste air’s pathless blue,\r\nTo nourish some far desert: she did seem\r\nBeside me, gathering beauty as she grew,\r\nLike the bright shade of some immortal dream\r\nWhich walks, when tempests sleep, the wave of life’s dark stream.”\r\n\r\n\r\nThe consummate charm of the lines seemed to Winterborne, though he\r\ndivined that they were a quotation, to be somehow the result of his\r\nlost love’s charms upon Fitzpiers. “You seem to be mightily in love with her, sir,” he said, with a\r\nsensation of heart-sickness, and more than ever resolved not to mention\r\nGrace by name. “Oh no—I am not that, Winterborne; people living insulated, as I do by\r\nthe solitude of this place, get charged with emotive fluid like a\r\nLeyden-jar with electric, for want of some conductor at hand to\r\ndisperse it. Human love is a subjective thing—the essence itself of\r\nman, as that great thinker Spinoza the philosopher says—_ipsa hominis\r\nessentia_—it is joy accompanied by an idea which we project against any\r\nsuitable object in the line of our vision, just as the rainbow iris is\r\nprojected against an oak, ash, or elm tree indifferently."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So that if\r\nany other young lady had appeared instead of the one who did appear, I\r\nshould have felt just the same interest in her, and have quoted\r\nprecisely the same lines from Shelley about her, as about this one I\r\nsaw. Such miserable creatures of circumstance are we all!”\r\n\r\n“Well, it is what we call being in love down in these parts, whether or\r\nno,” said Winterborne. “You are right enough if you admit that I am in love with something in\r\nmy own head, and no thing in itself outside it at all.”\r\n\r\n“Is it part of a country doctor’s duties to learn that view of things,\r\nmay I ask, sir?” said Winterborne, adopting the Socratic εἰρωνεία with\r\nsuch well-assumed simplicity that Fitzpiers answered, readily,\r\n\r\n“Oh no. The real truth is, Winterborne, that medical practice in places\r\nlike this is a very rule-of-thumb matter; a bottle of bitter stuff for\r\nthis and that old woman—the bitterer the better—compounded from a few\r\nsimple stereotyped prescriptions; occasional attendance at births,\r\nwhere mere presence is almost sufficient, so healthy and strong are the\r\npeople; and a lance for an abscess now and then."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Investigation and\r\nexperiment cannot be carried on without more appliances than one has\r\nhere—though I have attempted it a little.”\r\n\r\nGiles did not enter into this view of the case; what he had been struck\r\nwith was the curious parallelism between Mr. Fitzpiers’s manner and\r\nGrace’s, as shown by the fact of both of them straying into a subject\r\nof discourse so engrossing to themselves that it made them forget it\r\nwas foreign to him. Nothing further passed between himself and the doctor in relation to\r\nGrace till they were on their way back. They had stopped at a way-side\r\ninn for a glass of brandy and cider hot, and when they were again in\r\nmotion, Fitzpiers, possibly a little warmed by the liquor, resumed the\r\nsubject by saying, “I should like very much to know who that young lady\r\nwas.”\r\n\r\n“What difference can it make, if she’s only the tree your rainbow falls\r\non?”\r\n\r\n“Ha! ha! True.”\r\n\r\n“You have no wife, sir?”\r\n\r\n“I have no wife, and no idea of one. I hope to do better things than\r\nmarry and settle in Hintock. Not but that it is well for a medical man\r\nto be married, and sometimes, begad, ’twould be pleasant enough in this\r\nplace, with the wind roaring round the house, and the rain and the\r\nboughs beating against it. I hear that you lost your life-holds by the\r\ndeath of South?”\r\n\r\n“I did."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I lost in more ways than one.”\r\n\r\nThey had reached the top of Hintock Lane or Street, if it could be\r\ncalled such where three-quarters of the road-side consisted of copse\r\nand orchard. One of the first houses to be passed was Melbury’s. A\r\nlight was shining from a bedroom window facing lengthwise of the lane. Winterborne glanced at it, and saw what was coming. He had withheld an\r\nanswer to the doctor’s inquiry to hinder his knowledge of Grace; but,\r\nas he thought to himself, “who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who\r\nhath bound the waters in a garment?” he could not hinder what was\r\ndoomed to arrive, and might just as well have been outspoken. As they\r\ncame up to the house, Grace’s figure was distinctly visible, drawing\r\nthe two white curtains together which were used here instead of blinds. “Why, there she is!” said Fitzpiers. “How does she come there?”\r\n\r\n“In the most natural way in the world. It is her home. Mr. Melbury is\r\nher father.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, indeed—indeed—indeed! How comes he to have a daughter of that\r\nstamp?”\r\n\r\nWinterborne laughed coldly. “Won’t money do anything,” he said, “if\r\nyou’ve promising material to work upon? Why shouldn’t a Hintock girl,\r\ntaken early from home, and put under proper instruction, become as\r\nfinished as any other young lady, if she’s got brains and good looks to\r\nbegin with?”\r\n\r\n“No reason at all why she shouldn’t,” murmured the surgeon, with\r\nreflective disappointment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Only I didn’t anticipate quite that kind of\r\norigin for her.”\r\n\r\n“And you think an inch or two less of her now.” There was a little\r\ntremor in Winterborne’s voice as he spoke. “Well,” said the doctor, with recovered warmth, “I am not so sure that\r\nI think less of her. At first it was a sort of blow; but, dammy! I’ll\r\nstick up for her. She’s charming, every inch of her!”\r\n\r\n“So she is,” said Winterborne, “but not to me.”\r\n\r\nFrom this ambiguous expression of the reticent woodlander’s, Dr.\r\nFitzpiers inferred that Giles disliked Miss Melbury because of some\r\nhaughtiness in her bearing towards him, and had, on that account,\r\nwithheld her name. The supposition did not tend to diminish his\r\nadmiration for her. CHAPTER XVII. Grace’s exhibition of herself, in the act of pulling-to the\r\nwindow-curtains, had been the result of an unfortunate incident in the\r\nhouse that day—nothing less than the illness of Grammer Oliver, a woman\r\nwho had never till now lain down for such a reason in her life. Like\r\nothers to whom unbroken years of health has made the idea of keeping\r\ntheir bed almost as repugnant as death itself, she had continued on\r\nfoot till she literally fell on the floor; and though she had, as yet,\r\nbeen scarcely a day off duty, she had sickened into quite a different\r\npersonage from the independent Grammer of the yard and spar-house. Ill\r\nas she was, on one point she was firm."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On no account would she see a\r\ndoctor; in other words, Fitzpiers. The room in which Grace had been discerned was not her own, but the old\r\nwoman’s. On the girl’s way to bed she had received a message from\r\nGrammer, to the effect that she would much like to speak to her that\r\nnight. Grace entered, and set the candle on a low chair beside the bed, so\r\nthat the profile of Grammer as she lay cast itself in a keen shadow\r\nupon the whitened wall, her large head being still further magnified by\r\nan enormous turban, which was, really, her petticoat wound in a wreath\r\nround her temples. Grace put the room a little in order, and\r\napproaching the sick woman, said, “I am come, Grammer, as you wish. Do\r\nlet us send for the doctor before it gets later.”\r\n\r\n“I will not have him,” said Grammer Oliver, decisively. “Then somebody to sit up with you.”\r\n\r\n“Can’t abear it! No; I wanted to see you, Miss Grace, because ’ch have\r\nsomething on my mind. Dear Miss Grace, _I took that money of the\r\ndoctor, after all!_”\r\n\r\n“What money?”\r\n\r\n“The ten pounds.”\r\n\r\nGrace did not quite understand. “The ten pounds he offered me for my head, because I’ve a large brain. I signed a paper when I took the money, not feeling concerned about it\r\nat all. I have not liked to tell ye that it was really settled with\r\nhim, because you showed such horror at the notion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Well, having thought\r\nit over more at length, I wish I hadn’t done it; and it weighs upon my\r\nmind. John South’s death of fear about the tree makes me think that I\r\nshall die of this....’Ch have been going to ask him again to let me\r\noff, but I hadn’t the face.”\r\n\r\n“Why?”\r\n\r\n“I’ve spent some of the money—more’n two pounds o’t. It do wherrit me\r\nterribly; and I shall die o’ the thought of that paper I signed with my\r\nholy cross, as South died of his trouble.”\r\n\r\n“If you ask him to burn the paper he will, I’m sure, and think no more\r\nof it.”\r\n\r\n“‘Ch have done it once already, miss. But he laughed cruel like. ‘Yours\r\nis such a fine brain, Grammer,’ ’er said, ‘that science couldn’t afford\r\nto lose you. Besides, you’ve taken my money.’...Don’t let your father\r\nknow of this, please, on no account whatever!”\r\n\r\n“No, no. I will let you have the money to return to him.”\r\n\r\nGrammer rolled her head negatively upon the pillow. “Even if I should\r\nbe well enough to take it to him, he won’t like it. Though why he\r\nshould so particular want to look into the works of a poor old woman’s\r\nhead-piece like mine when there’s so many other folks about, I don’t\r\nknow. I know how he’ll answer me: ‘A lonely person like you, Grammer,’\r\ner woll say."}
{"question": "", "answer": "‘What difference is it to you what becomes of ye when the\r\nbreath’s out of your body?’ Oh, it do trouble me! If you only knew how\r\nhe do chevy me round the chimmer in my dreams, you’d pity me. How I\r\ncould do it I can’t think! But ’ch was always so rackless!...If I only\r\nhad anybody to plead for me!”\r\n\r\n“Mrs. Melbury would, I am sure.”\r\n\r\n“Ay; but he wouldn’t hearken to she! It wants a younger face than hers\r\nto work upon such as he.”\r\n\r\nGrace started with comprehension. “You don’t think he would do it for\r\nme?” she said. “Oh, wouldn’t he!”\r\n\r\n“I couldn’t go to him, Grammer, on any account. I don’t know him at\r\nall.”\r\n\r\n“Ah, if I were a young lady,” said the artful Grammer, “and could save\r\na poor old woman’s skellington from a heathen doctor instead of a\r\nChristian grave, I would do it, and be glad to. But nobody will do\r\nanything for a poor old familiar friend but push her out of the way.”\r\n\r\n“You are very ungrateful, Grammer, to say that. But you are ill, I\r\nknow, and that’s why you speak so. Now believe me, you are not going to\r\ndie yet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Remember you told me yourself that you meant to keep him\r\nwaiting many a year.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, one can joke when one is well, even in old age; but in sickness\r\none’s gayety falters to grief; and that which seemed small looks large;\r\nand the grim far-off seems near.”\r\n\r\nGrace’s eyes had tears in them. “I don’t like to go to him on such an\r\nerrand, Grammer,” she said, brokenly. “But I will, to ease your mind.”\r\n\r\nIt was with extreme reluctance that Grace cloaked herself next morning\r\nfor the undertaking. She was all the more indisposed to the journey by\r\nreason of Grammer’s allusion to the effect of a pretty face upon Dr.\r\nFitzpiers; and hence she most illogically did that which, had the\r\ndoctor never seen her, would have operated to stultify the sole motive\r\nof her journey; that is to say, she put on a woollen veil, which hid\r\nall her face except an occasional spark of her eyes. Her own wish that nothing should be known of this strange and grewsome\r\nproceeding, no less than Grammer Oliver’s own desire, led Grace to take\r\nevery precaution against being discovered. She went out by the garden\r\ndoor as the safest way, all the household having occupations at the\r\nother side. The morning looked forbidding enough when she stealthily\r\nopened it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The battle between frost and thaw was continuing in mid-air:\r\nthe trees dripped on the garden-plots, where no vegetables would grow\r\nfor the dripping, though they were planted year after year with that\r\ncurious mechanical regularity of country people in the face of\r\nhopelessness; the moss which covered the once broad gravel terrace was\r\nswamped; and Grace stood irresolute. Then she thought of poor Grammer,\r\nand her dreams of the doctor running after her, scalpel in hand, and\r\nthe possibility of a case so curiously similar to South’s ending in the\r\nsame way; thereupon she stepped out into the drizzle. The nature of her errand, and Grammer Oliver’s account of the compact\r\nshe had made, lent a fascinating horror to Grace’s conception of\r\nFitzpiers. She knew that he was a young man; but her single object in\r\nseeking an interview with him put all considerations of his age and\r\nsocial aspect from her mind. Standing as she stood, in Grammer Oliver’s\r\nshoes, he was simply a remorseless Jove of the sciences, who would not\r\nhave mercy, and would have sacrifice; a man whom, save for this, she\r\nwould have preferred to avoid knowing. But since, in such a small\r\nvillage, it was improbable that any long time could pass without their\r\nmeeting, there was not much to deplore in her having to meet him now. But, as need hardly be said, Miss Melbury’s view of the doctor as a\r\nmerciless, unwavering, irresistible scientist was not quite in\r\naccordance with fact."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The real Dr. Fitzpiers was a man of too many\r\nhobbies to show likelihood of rising to any great eminence in the\r\nprofession he had chosen, or even to acquire any wide practice in the\r\nrural district he had marked out as his field of survey for the\r\npresent. In the course of a year his mind was accustomed to pass in a\r\ngrand solar sweep through all the zodiacal signs of the intellectual\r\nheaven. Sometimes it was in the Ram, sometimes in the Bull; one month\r\nhe would be immersed in alchemy, another in poesy; one month in the\r\nTwins of astrology and astronomy; then in the Crab of German literature\r\nand metaphysics. In justice to him it must be stated that he took such\r\nstudies as were immediately related to his own profession in turn with\r\nthe rest, and it had been in a month of anatomical ardor without the\r\npossibility of a subject that he had proposed to Grammer Oliver the\r\nterms she had mentioned to her mistress. As may be inferred from the tone of his conversation with Winterborne,\r\nhe had lately plunged into abstract philosophy with much zest; perhaps\r\nhis keenly appreciative, modern, unpractical mind found this a realm\r\nmore to his taste than any other."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Though his aims were desultory,\r\nFitzpiers’s mental constitution was not without its admirable side; a\r\nkeen inquirer he honestly was, even if the midnight rays of his lamp,\r\nvisible so far through the trees of Hintock, lighted rank literatures\r\nof emotion and passion as often as, or oftener than, the books and\r\n_matériel_ of science. But whether he meditated the Muses or the philosophers, the loneliness\r\nof Hintock life was beginning to tell upon his impressionable nature. Winter in a solitary house in the country, without society, is\r\ntolerable, nay, even enjoyable and delightful, given certain\r\nconditions, but these are not the conditions which attach to the life\r\nof a professional man who drops down into such a place by mere\r\naccident. They were present to the lives of Winterborne, Melbury, and\r\nGrace; but not to the doctor’s. They are old association—an almost\r\nexhaustive biographical or historical acquaintance with every object,\r\nanimate and inanimate, within the observer’s horizon. He must know all\r\nabout those invisible ones of the days gone by, whose feet have\r\ntraversed the fields which look so gray from his windows; recall whose\r\ncreaking plough has turned those sods from time to time; whose hands\r\nplanted the trees that form a crest to the opposite hill; whose horses\r\nand hounds have torn through that underwood; what birds affect that\r\nparticular brake; what domestic dramas of love, jealousy, revenge, or\r\ndisappointment have been enacted in the cottages, the mansion, the\r\nstreet, or on the green."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The spot may have beauty, grandeur, salubrity,\r\nconvenience; but if it lack memories it will ultimately pall upon him\r\nwho settles there without opportunity of intercourse with his kind. In such circumstances, maybe, an old man dreams of an ideal friend,\r\ntill he throws himself into the arms of any impostor who chooses to\r\nwear that title on his face. A young man may dream of an ideal friend\r\nlikewise, but some humor of the blood will probably lead him to think\r\nrather of an ideal mistress, and at length the rustle of a woman’s\r\ndress, the sound of her voice, or the transit of her form across the\r\nfield of his vision, will enkindle his soul with a flame that blinds\r\nhis eyes. The discovery of the attractive Grace’s name and family would have been\r\nenough in other circumstances to lead the doctor, if not to put her\r\npersonality out of his head, to change the character of his interest in\r\nher. Instead of treasuring her image as a rarity, he would at most have\r\nplayed with it as a toy. He was that kind of a man. But situated here\r\nhe could not go so far as amative cruelty. He dismissed all reverential\r\nthought about her, but he could not help taking her seriously. He went on to imagine the impossible."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So far, indeed, did he go in this\r\nfutile direction that, as others are wont to do, he constructed\r\ndialogues and scenes in which Grace had turned out to be the mistress\r\nof Hintock Manor-house, the mysterious Mrs. Charmond, particularly\r\nready and willing to be wooed by himself and nobody else. “Well, she\r\nisn’t that,” he said, finally. “But she’s a very sweet, nice,\r\nexceptional girl.”\r\n\r\nThe next morning he breakfasted alone, as usual. It was snowing with a\r\nfine-flaked desultoriness just sufficient to make the woodland gray,\r\nwithout ever achieving whiteness. There was not a single letter for\r\nFitzpiers, only a medical circular and a weekly newspaper. To sit before a large fire on such mornings, and read, and gradually\r\nacquire energy till the evening came, and then, with lamp alight, and\r\nfeeling full of vigor, to pursue some engrossing subject or other till\r\nthe small hours, had hitherto been his practice. But to-day he could\r\nnot settle into his chair. That self-contained position he had lately\r\noccupied, in which the only attention demanded was the concentration of\r\nthe inner eye, all outer regard being quite gratuitous, seemed to have\r\nbeen taken by insidious stratagem, and for the first time he had an\r\ninterest outside the house. He walked from one window to another, and\r\nbecame aware that the most irksome of solitudes is not the solitude of\r\nremoteness, but that which is just outside desirable company."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The breakfast hour went by heavily enough, and the next followed, in\r\nthe same half-snowy, half-rainy style, the weather now being the\r\ninevitable relapse which sooner or later succeeds a time too radiant\r\nfor the season, such as they had enjoyed in the late midwinter at\r\nHintock. To people at home there these changeful tricks had their\r\ninterests; the strange mistakes that some of the more sanguine trees\r\nhad made in budding before their month, to be incontinently glued up by\r\nfrozen thawings now; the similar sanguine errors of impulsive birds in\r\nframing nests that were now swamped by snow-water, and other such\r\nincidents, prevented any sense of wearisomeness in the minds of the\r\nnatives. But these were features of a world not familiar to Fitzpiers,\r\nand the inner visions to which he had almost exclusively attended\r\nhaving suddenly failed in their power to absorb him, he felt\r\nunutterably dreary. He wondered how long Miss Melbury was going to stay in Hintock. The\r\nseason was unpropitious for accidental encounters with her\r\nout-of-doors, and except by accident he saw not how they were to become\r\nacquainted. One thing was clear—any acquaintance with her could only,\r\nwith a due regard to his future, be casual, at most of the nature of a\r\nflirtation; for he had high aims, and they would some day lead him into\r\nother spheres than this."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Thus desultorily thinking he flung himself down upon the couch, which,\r\nas in many draughty old country houses, was constructed with a hood,\r\nbeing in fact a legitimate development from the settle. He tried to\r\nread as he reclined, but having sat up till three o’clock that morning,\r\nthe book slipped from his hand and he fell asleep. CHAPTER XVIII. It was at this time that Grace approached the house. Her knock, always\r\nsoft in virtue of her nature, was softer to-day by reason of her\r\nstrange errand. However, it was heard by the farmer’s wife who kept the\r\nhouse, and Grace was admitted. Opening the door of the doctor’s room\r\nthe housewife glanced in, and imagining Fitzpiers absent, asked Miss\r\nMelbury to enter and wait a few minutes while she should go and find\r\nhim, believing him to be somewhere on the premises. Grace acquiesced,\r\nwent in, and sat down close to the door. As soon as the door was shut upon her she looked round the room, and\r\nstarted at perceiving a handsome man snugly ensconced in the couch,\r\nlike the recumbent figure within some canopied mural tomb of the\r\nfifteenth century, except that his hands were by no means clasped in\r\nprayer. She had no doubt that this was the doctor. Awaken him herself\r\nshe could not, and her immediate impulse was to go and pull the broad\r\nribbon with a brass rosette which hung at one side of the fireplace."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But expecting the landlady to re-enter in a moment she abandoned this\r\nintention, and stood gazing in great embarrassment at the reclining\r\nphilosopher. The windows of Fitzpiers’s soul being at present shuttered, he probably\r\nappeared less impressive than in his hours of animation; but the light\r\nabstracted from his material presence by sleep was more than\r\ncounterbalanced by the mysterious influence of that state, in a\r\nstranger, upon the consciousness of a beholder so sensitive. So far as\r\nshe could criticise at all, she became aware that she had encountered a\r\nspecimen of creation altogether unusual in that locality. The occasions\r\non which Grace had observed men of this stamp were when she had been\r\nfar removed away from Hintock, and even then such examples as had met\r\nher eye were at a distance, and mainly of coarser fibre than the one\r\nwho now confronted her. She nervously wondered why the woman had not discovered her mistake and\r\nreturned, and went again towards the bell-pull. Approaching the chimney\r\nher back was to Fitzpiers, but she could see him in the glass. An\r\nindescribable thrill passed through her as she perceived that the eyes\r\nof the reflected image were open, gazing wonderingly at her, and under\r\nthe curious unexpectedness of the sight she became as if spellbound,\r\nalmost powerless to turn her head and regard the original. However, by\r\nan effort she did turn, when there he lay asleep the same as before."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her startled perplexity as to what he could be meaning was sufficient\r\nto lead her to precipitately abandon her errand. She crossed quickly to\r\nthe door, opened and closed it noiselessly, and went out of the house\r\nunobserved. By the time that she had gone down the path and through the\r\ngarden door into the lane she had recovered her equanimity. Here,\r\nscreened by the hedge, she stood and considered a while. Drip, drip, drip, fell the rain upon her umbrella and around; she had\r\ncome out on such a morning because of the seriousness of the matter in\r\nhand; yet now she had allowed her mission to be stultified by a\r\nmomentary tremulousness concerning an incident which perhaps had meant\r\nnothing after all. In the mean time her departure from the room, stealthy as it had been,\r\nhad roused Fitzpiers, and he sat up. In the reflection from the mirror\r\nwhich Grace had beheld there was no mystery; he had opened his eyes for\r\na few moments, but had immediately relapsed into unconsciousness, if,\r\nindeed, he had ever been positively awake. That somebody had just left\r\nthe room he was certain, and that the lovely form which seemed to have\r\nvisited him in a dream was no less than the real presentation of the\r\nperson departed he could hardly doubt."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Looking out of the window a few minutes later, down the box-edged\r\ngravel-path which led to the bottom, he saw the garden door gently\r\nopen, and through it enter the young girl of his thoughts, Grace having\r\njust at this juncture determined to return and attempt the interview a\r\nsecond time. That he saw her coming instead of going made him ask\r\nhimself if his first impression of her were not a dream indeed. She\r\ncame hesitatingly along, carrying her umbrella so low over her head\r\nthat he could hardly see her face. When she reached the point where the\r\nraspberry bushes ended and the strawberry bed began, she made a little\r\npause. Fitzpiers feared that she might not be coming to him even now, and\r\nhastily quitting the room, he ran down the path to meet her. The nature\r\nof her errand he could not divine, but he was prepared to give her any\r\namount of encouragement. “I beg pardon, Miss Melbury,” he said. “I saw you from the window, and\r\nfancied you might imagine that I was not at home—if it is I you were\r\ncoming for.”\r\n\r\n“I was coming to speak one word to you, nothing more,” she replied. “And I can say it here.”\r\n\r\n“No, no. Please do come in. Well, then, if you will not come into the\r\nhouse, come as far as the porch.”\r\n\r\nThus pressed she went on to the porch, and they stood together inside\r\nit, Fitzpiers closing her umbrella for her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I have merely a request or petition to make,” she said. “My father’s\r\nservant is ill—a woman you know—and her illness is serious.”\r\n\r\n“I am sorry to hear it. You wish me to come and see her at once?”\r\n\r\n“No; I particularly wish you not to come.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, indeed.”\r\n\r\n“Yes; and she wishes the same. It would make her seriously worse if you\r\nwere to come. It would almost kill her....My errand is of a peculiar\r\nand awkward nature. It is concerning a subject which weighs on her\r\nmind—that unfortunate arrangement she made with you, that you might\r\nhave her body—after death.”\r\n\r\n“Oh! Grammer Oliver, the old woman with the fine head. Seriously ill,\r\nis she!”\r\n\r\n“And _so_ disturbed by her rash compact! I have brought the money\r\nback—will you please return to her the agreement she signed?” Grace\r\nheld out to him a couple of five-pound notes which she had kept ready\r\ntucked in her glove. Without replying or considering the notes, Fitzpiers allowed his\r\nthoughts to follow his eyes, and dwell upon Grace’s personality, and\r\nthe sudden close relation in which he stood to her. The porch was\r\nnarrow; the rain increased. It ran off the porch and dripped on the\r\ncreepers, and from the creepers upon the edge of Grace’s cloak and\r\nskirts. “The rain is wetting your dress; please do come in,” he said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“It\r\nreally makes my heart ache to let you stay here.”\r\n\r\nImmediately inside the front door was the door of his sitting-room; he\r\nflung it open, and stood in a coaxing attitude. Try how she would,\r\nGrace could not resist the supplicatory mandate written in the face and\r\nmanner of this man, and distressful resignation sat on her as she\r\nglided past him into the room—brushing his coat with her elbow by\r\nreason of the narrowness. He followed her, shut the door—which she somehow had hoped he would\r\nleave open—and placing a chair for her, sat down. The concern which\r\nGrace felt at the development of these commonplace incidents was, of\r\ncourse, mainly owing to the strange effect upon her nerves of that view\r\nof him in the mirror gazing at her with open eyes when she had thought\r\nhim sleeping, which made her fancy that his slumber might have been a\r\nfeint based on inexplicable reasons. She again proffered the notes; he awoke from looking at her as at a\r\npiece of live statuary, and listened deferentially as she said, “Will\r\nyou then reconsider, and cancel the bond which poor Grammer Oliver so\r\nfoolishly gave?”\r\n\r\n“I’ll cancel it without reconsideration. Though you will allow me to\r\nhave my own opinion about her foolishness. Grammer is a very wise\r\nwoman, and she was as wise in that as in other things. You think there\r\nwas something very fiendish in the compact, do you not, Miss Melbury?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But remember that the most eminent of our surgeons in past times have\r\nentered into such agreements.”\r\n\r\n“Not fiendish—strange.”\r\n\r\n“Yes, that may be, since strangeness is not in the nature of a thing,\r\nbut in its relation to something extrinsic—in this case an unessential\r\nobserver.”\r\n\r\nHe went to his desk, and searching a while found a paper, which be\r\nunfolded and brought to her. A thick cross appeared in ink at the\r\nbottom—evidently from the hand of Grammer. Grace put the paper in her\r\npocket with a look of much relief. As Fitzpiers did not take up the money (half of which had come from\r\nGrace’s own purse), she pushed it a little nearer to him. “No, no. I\r\nshall not take it from the old woman,” he said. “It is more strange\r\nthan the fact of a surgeon arranging to obtain a subject for dissection\r\nthat our acquaintance should be formed out of it.”\r\n\r\n“I am afraid you think me uncivil in showing my dislike to the notion. But I did not mean to be.”\r\n\r\n“Oh no, no.” He looked at her, as he had done before, with puzzled\r\ninterest. “I cannot think, I cannot think,” he murmured. “Something\r\nbewilders me greatly.” He still reflected and hesitated. “Last night I\r\nsat up very late,” he at last went on, “and on that account I fell into\r\na little nap on that couch about half an hour ago."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And during my few\r\nminutes of unconsciousness I dreamed—what do you think?—that you stood\r\nin the room.”\r\n\r\nShould she tell? She merely blushed. “You may imagine,” Fitzpiers continued, now persuaded that it had,\r\nindeed, been a dream, “that I should not have dreamed of you without\r\nconsiderable thinking about you first.”\r\n\r\nHe could not be acting; of that she felt assured. “I fancied in my vision that you stood there,” he said, pointing to\r\nwhere she had paused. “I did not see you directly, but reflected in the\r\nglass. I thought, what a lovely creature! The design is for once\r\ncarried out. Nature has at last recovered her lost union with the Idea! My thoughts ran in that direction because I had been reading the work\r\nof a transcendental philosopher last night; and I dare say it was the\r\ndose of Idealism that I received from it that made me scarcely able to\r\ndistinguish between reality and fancy. I almost wept when I awoke, and\r\nfound that you had appeared to me in Time, but not in Space, alas!”\r\n\r\nAt moments there was something theatrical in the delivery of\r\nFitzpiers’s effusion; yet it would have been inexact to say that it was\r\nintrinsically theatrical. It often happens that in situations of\r\nunrestraint, where there is no thought of the eye of criticism, real\r\nfeeling glides into a mode of manifestation not easily distinguishable\r\nfrom rodomontade."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A veneer of affectation overlies a bulk of truth,\r\nwith the evil consequence, if perceived, that the substance is\r\nestimated by the superficies, and the whole rejected. Grace, however, was no specialist in men’s manners, and she admired the\r\nsentiment without thinking of the form. And she was embarrassed:\r\n“lovely creature” made explanation awkward to her gentle modesty. “But can it be,” said he, suddenly, “that you really were here?”\r\n\r\n“I have to confess that I have been in the room once before,” faltered\r\nshe. “The woman showed me in, and went away to fetch you; but as she\r\ndid not return, I left.”\r\n\r\n“And you saw me asleep,” he murmured, with the faintest show of\r\nhumiliation. “Yes—_if_ you were asleep, and did not deceive me.”\r\n\r\n“Why do you say if?”\r\n\r\n“I saw your eyes open in the glass, but as they were closed when I\r\nlooked round upon you, I thought you were perhaps deceiving me. “Never,” said Fitzpiers, fervently—“never could I deceive you.”\r\n\r\nForeknowledge to the distance of a year or so in either of them might\r\nhave spoiled the effect of that pretty speech. Never deceive her! But\r\nthey knew nothing, and the phrase had its day. Grace began now to be anxious to terminate the interview, but the\r\ncompelling power of Fitzpiers’s atmosphere still held her there. She\r\nwas like an inexperienced actress who, having at last taken up her\r\nposition on the boards, and spoken her speeches, does not know how to\r\nmove off."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The thought of Grammer occurred to her. “I’ll go at once and\r\ntell poor Grammer of your generosity,” she said. “It will relieve her\r\nat once.”\r\n\r\n“Grammer’s a nervous disease, too—how singular!” he answered,\r\naccompanying her to the door. “One moment; look at this—it is something\r\nwhich may interest you.”\r\n\r\nHe had thrown open the door on the other side of the passage, and she\r\nsaw a microscope on the table of the confronting room. “Look into it,\r\nplease; you’ll be interested,” he repeated. She applied her eye, and saw the usual circle of light patterned all\r\nover with a cellular tissue of some indescribable sort. “What do you\r\nthink that is?” said Fitzpiers. She did not know. “That’s a fragment of old John South’s brain, which I am\r\ninvestigating.”\r\n\r\nShe started back, not with aversion, but with wonder as to how it\r\nshould have got there. Fitzpiers laughed. “Here am I,” he said, “endeavoring to carry on simultaneously the study\r\nof physiology and transcendental philosophy, the material world and the\r\nideal, so as to discover if possible a point of contrast between them;\r\nand your finer sense is quite offended!”\r\n\r\n“Oh no, Mr. Fitzpiers,” said Grace, earnestly. “It is not so at all. I\r\nknow from seeing your light at night how deeply you meditate and work."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Instead of condemning you for your studies, I admire you very much!”\r\n\r\nHer face, upturned from the microscope, was so sweet, sincere, and\r\nself-forgetful in its aspect that the susceptible Fitzpiers more than\r\nwished to annihilate the lineal yard which separated it from his own. Whether anything of the kind showed in his eyes or not, Grace remained\r\nno longer at the microscope, but quickly went her way into the rain. CHAPTER XIX. Instead of resuming his investigation of South’s brain, which perhaps\r\nwas not so interesting under the microscope as might have been expected\r\nfrom the importance of that organ in life, Fitzpiers reclined and\r\nruminated on the interview. Grace’s curious susceptibility to his\r\npresence, though it was as if the currents of her life were disturbed\r\nrather than attracted by him, added a special interest to her general\r\ncharm. Fitzpiers was in a distinct degree scientific, being ready and\r\nzealous to interrogate all physical manifestations, but primarily he\r\nwas an idealist. He believed that behind the imperfect lay the perfect;\r\nthat rare things were to be discovered amid a bulk of commonplace; that\r\nresults in a new and untried case might be different from those in\r\nother cases where the conditions had been precisely similar."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Regarding\r\nhis own personality as one of unbounded possibilities, because it was\r\nhis own—notwithstanding that the factors of his life had worked out a\r\nsorry product for thousands—he saw nothing but what was regular in his\r\ndiscovery at Hintock of an altogether exceptional being of the other\r\nsex, who for nobody else would have had any existence. One habit of Fitzpiers’s—commoner in dreamers of more advanced age than\r\nin men of his years—was that of talking to himself. He paced round his\r\nroom with a selective tread upon the more prominent blooms of the\r\ncarpet, and murmured, “This phenomenal girl will be the light of my\r\nlife while I am at Hintock; and the special beauty of the situation is\r\nthat our attitude and relations to each other will be purely spiritual. Socially we can never be intimate. Anything like matrimonial intentions\r\ntowards her, charming as she is, would be absurd. They would spoil the\r\nethereal character of my regard. And, indeed, I have other aims on the\r\npractical side of my life.”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers bestowed a regulation thought on the advantageous marriage he\r\nwas bound to make with a woman of family as good as his own, and of\r\npurse much longer. But as an object of contemplation for the present,\r\nas objective spirit rather than corporeal presence, Grace Melbury would\r\nserve to keep his soul alive, and to relieve the monotony of his days."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His first notion—acquired from the mere sight of her without\r\nconverse—that of an idle and vulgar flirtation with a timber-merchant’s\r\npretty daughter, grated painfully upon him now that he had found what\r\nGrace intrinsically was. Personal intercourse with such as she could\r\ntake no lower form than intellectual communion, and mutual explorations\r\nof the world of thought. Since he could not call at her father’s,\r\nhaving no practical views, cursory encounters in the lane, in the wood,\r\ncoming and going to and from church, or in passing her dwelling, were\r\nwhat the acquaintance would have to feed on. Such anticipated glimpses of her now and then realized themselves in\r\nthe event. Rencounters of not more than a minute’s duration, frequently\r\nrepeated, will build up mutual interest, even an intimacy, in a lonely\r\nplace. Theirs grew as imperceptibly as the tree-twigs budded. There\r\nnever was a particular moment at which it could be said they became\r\nfriends; yet a delicate understanding now existed between two who in\r\nthe winter had been strangers. Spring weather came on rather suddenly, the unsealing of buds that had\r\nlong been swollen accomplishing itself in the space of one warm night. The rush of sap in the veins of the trees could almost be heard. The\r\nflowers of late April took up a position unseen, and looked as if they\r\nhad been blooming a long while, though there had been no trace of them\r\nthe day before yesterday; birds began not to mind getting wet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In-door\r\npeople said they had heard the nightingale, to which out-door people\r\nreplied contemptuously that they had heard him a fortnight before. The young doctor’s practice being scarcely so large as a London\r\nsurgeon’s, he frequently walked in the wood. Indeed such practice as he\r\nhad he did not follow up with the assiduity that would have been\r\nnecessary for developing it to exceptional proportions. One day, book\r\nin hand, he walked in a part of the wood where the trees were mainly\r\noaks. It was a calm afternoon, and there was everywhere around that\r\nsign of great undertakings on the part of vegetable nature which is apt\r\nto fill reflective human beings who are not undertaking much themselves\r\nwith a sudden uneasiness at the contrast. He heard in the distance a\r\ncurious sound, something like the quack of a duck, which, though it was\r\ncommon enough here about this time, was not common to him. Looking through the trees Fitzpiers soon perceived the origin of the\r\nnoise. The barking season had just commenced, and what he had heard was\r\nthe tear of the ripping tool as it ploughed its way along the sticky\r\nparting between the trunk and the rind. Melbury did a large business in\r\nbark, and as he was Grace’s father, and possibly might be found on the\r\nspot, Fitzpiers was attracted to the scene even more than he might have\r\nbeen by its intrinsic interest."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When he got nearer he recognized among\r\nthe workmen the two Timothys, and Robert Creedle, who probably had been\r\n“lent” by Winterborne; Marty South also assisted. Each tree doomed to this flaying process was first attacked by Creedle. With a small billhook he carefully freed the collar of the tree from\r\ntwigs and patches of moss which incrusted it to a height of a foot or\r\ntwo above the ground, an operation comparable to the “little toilet” of\r\nthe executioner’s victim. After this it was barked in its erect\r\nposition to a point as high as a man could reach. If a fine product of\r\nvegetable nature could ever be said to look ridiculous it was the case\r\nnow, when the oak stood naked-legged, and as if ashamed, till the\r\naxe-man came and cut a ring round it, and the two Timothys finished the\r\nwork with the crosscut-saw. As soon as it had fallen the barkers attacked it like locusts, and in a\r\nshort time not a particle of rind was left on the trunk and larger\r\nlimbs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Marty South was an adept at peeling the upper parts, and there\r\nshe stood encaged amid the mass of twigs and buds like a great bird,\r\nrunning her tool into the smallest branches, beyond the farthest points\r\nto which the skill and patience of the men enabled them to\r\nproceed—branches which, in their lifetime, had swayed high above the\r\nbulk of the wood, and caught the latest and earliest rays of the sun\r\nand moon while the lower part of the forest was still in darkness. “You seem to have a better instrument than they, Marty,” said\r\nFitzpiers. “No, sir,” she said, holding up the tool—a horse’s leg-bone fitted into\r\na handle and filed to an edge—“’tis only that they’ve less patience\r\nwith the twigs, because their time is worth more than mine.”\r\n\r\nA little shed had been constructed on the spot, of thatched hurdles and\r\nboughs, and in front of it was a fire, over which a kettle sung. Fitzpiers sat down inside the shelter, and went on with his reading,\r\nexcept when he looked up to observe the scene and the actors. The\r\nthought that he might settle here and become welded in with this sylvan\r\nlife by marrying Grace Melbury crossed his mind for a moment. Why\r\nshould he go farther into the world than where he was?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "The secret of\r\nquiet happiness lay in limiting the ideas and aspirations; these men’s\r\nthoughts were conterminous with the margin of the Hintock woodlands,\r\nand why should not his be likewise limited—a small practice among the\r\npeople around him being the bound of his desires? Presently Marty South discontinued her operations upon the quivering\r\nboughs, came out from the reclining oak, and prepared tea. When it was\r\nready the men were called; and Fitzpiers being in a mood to join, sat\r\ndown with them. The latent reason of his lingering here so long revealed itself when\r\nthe faint creaking of the joints of a vehicle became audible, and one\r\nof the men said, “Here’s he.” Turning their heads they saw Melbury’s\r\ngig approaching, the wheels muffled by the yielding moss. The timber-merchant was on foot leading the horse, looking back at\r\nevery few steps to caution his daughter, who kept her seat, where and\r\nhow to duck her head so as to avoid the overhanging branches. They\r\nstopped at the spot where the bark-ripping had been temporarily\r\nsuspended; Melbury cursorily examined the heaps of bark, and drawing\r\nnear to where the workmen were sitting down, accepted their shouted\r\ninvitation to have a dish of tea, for which purpose he hitched the\r\nhorse to a bough. Grace declined to take any of their beverage, and\r\nremained in her place in the vehicle, looking dreamily at the sunlight\r\nthat came in thin threads through the hollies with which the oaks were\r\ninterspersed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When Melbury stepped up close to the shelter, he for the first time\r\nperceived that the doctor was present, and warmly appreciated\r\nFitzpiers’s invitation to sit down on the log beside him. “Bless my heart, who would have thought of finding you here,” he said,\r\nobviously much pleased at the circumstance. “I wonder now if my\r\ndaughter knows you are so nigh at hand. I don’t expect she do.”\r\n\r\nHe looked out towards the gig wherein Grace sat, her face still turned\r\nin the opposite direction. “She doesn’t see us. Well, never mind: let\r\nher be.”\r\n\r\nGrace was indeed quite unconscious of Fitzpiers’s propinquity. She was\r\nthinking of something which had little connection with the scene before\r\nher—thinking of her friend, lost as soon as found, Mrs. Charmond; of\r\nher capricious conduct, and of the contrasting scenes she was possibly\r\nenjoying at that very moment in other climes, to which Grace herself\r\nhad hoped to be introduced by her friend’s means. She wondered if this\r\npatronizing lady would return to Hintock during the summer, and whether\r\nthe acquaintance which had been nipped on the last occasion of her\r\nresidence there would develop on the next. Melbury told ancient timber-stories as he sat, relating them directly\r\nto Fitzpiers, and obliquely to the men, who had heard them often\r\nbefore."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Marty, who poured out tea, was just saying, “I think I’ll take\r\nout a cup to Miss Grace,” when they heard a clashing of the\r\ngig-harness, and turning round Melbury saw that the horse had become\r\nrestless, and was jerking about the vehicle in a way which alarmed its\r\noccupant, though she refrained from screaming. Melbury jumped up\r\nimmediately, but not more quickly than Fitzpiers; and while her father\r\nran to the horse’s head and speedily began to control him, Fitzpiers\r\nwas alongside the gig assisting Grace to descend. Her surprise at his\r\nappearance was so great that, far from making a calm and independent\r\ndescent, she was very nearly lifted down in his arms. He relinquished\r\nher when she touched ground, and hoped she was not frightened. “Oh no, not much,” she managed to say. “There was no danger—unless he\r\nhad run under the trees where the boughs are low enough to hit my\r\nhead.”\r\n\r\n“Which was by no means an impossibility, and justifies any amount of\r\nalarm.”\r\n\r\nHe referred to what he thought he saw written in her face, and she\r\ncould not tell him that this had little to do with the horse, but much\r\nwith himself. His contiguity had, in fact, the same effect upon her as\r\non those former occasions when he had come closer to her than\r\nusual—that of producing in her an unaccountable tendency to\r\ntearfulness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Melbury soon put the horse to rights, and seeing that\r\nGrace was safe, turned again to the work-people. His daughter’s nervous\r\ndistress had passed off in a few moments, and she said quite gayly to\r\nFitzpiers as she walked with him towards the group, “There’s destiny in\r\nit, you see. I was doomed to join in your picnic, although I did not\r\nintend to do so.”\r\n\r\nMarty prepared her a comfortable place, and she sat down in the circle,\r\nand listened to Fitzpiers while he drew from her father and the\r\nbark-rippers sundry narratives of their fathers’, their grandfathers’,\r\nand their own adventures in these woods; of the mysterious sights they\r\nhad seen—only to be accounted for by supernatural agency; of white\r\nwitches and black witches; and the standard story of the spirits of the\r\ntwo brothers who had fought and fallen, and had haunted Hintock House\r\ntill they were exorcised by the priest, and compelled to retreat to a\r\nswamp in this very wood, whence they were returning to their old\r\nquarters at the rate of a cock’s stride every New-year’s Day, old\r\nstyle; hence the local saying, “On New-year’s tide, a cock’s stride.”\r\n\r\nIt was a pleasant time. The smoke from the little fire of peeled sticks\r\nrose between the sitters and the sunlight, and behind its blue veil\r\nstretched the naked arms of the prostrate trees."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The smell of the\r\nuncovered sap mingled with the smell of the burning wood, and the\r\nsticky inner surface of the scattered bark glistened as it revealed its\r\npale madder hues to the eye. Melbury was so highly satisfied at having\r\nFitzpiers as a sort of guest that he would have sat on for any length\r\nof time, but Grace, on whom Fitzpiers’s eyes only too frequently\r\nalighted, seemed to think it incumbent upon her to make a show of\r\ngoing; and her father thereupon accompanied her to the vehicle. As the doctor had helped her out of it he appeared to think that he had\r\nexcellent reasons for helping her in, and performed the attention\r\nlingeringly enough. “What were you almost in tears about just now?” he asked, softly. “I don’t know,” she said: and the words were strictly true. Melbury mounted on the other side, and they drove on out of the grove,\r\ntheir wheels silently crushing delicate-patterned mosses, hyacinths,\r\nprimroses, lords-and-ladies, and other strange and ordinary plants, and\r\ncracking up little sticks that lay across the track. Their way homeward\r\nran along the crest of a lofty hill, whence on the right they beheld a\r\nwide valley, differing both in feature and atmosphere from that of the\r\nHintock precincts. It was the cider country, which met the woodland\r\ndistrict on the axis of this hill. Over the vale the air was blue as\r\nsapphire—such a blue as outside that apple-valley was never seen."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Under\r\nthe blue the orchards were in a blaze of bloom, some of the richly\r\nflowered trees running almost up to where they drove along. Over a gate\r\nwhich opened down the incline a man leaned on his arms, regarding this\r\nfair promise so intently that he did not observe their passing. “That was Giles,” said Melbury, when they had gone by. “Was it? Poor Giles,” said she. “All that blooth means heavy autumn work for him and his hands. If no\r\nblight happens before the setting the apple yield will be such as we\r\nhave not had for years.”\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, in the wood they had come from, the men had sat on so long\r\nthat they were indisposed to begin work again that evening; they were\r\npaid by the ton, and their time for labor was as they chose. They\r\nplaced the last gatherings of bark in rows for the curers, which led\r\nthem farther and farther away from the shed; and thus they gradually\r\nwithdrew as the sun went down. Fitzpiers lingered yet. He had opened his book again, though he could\r\nhardly see a word in it, and sat before the dying fire, scarcely\r\nknowing of the men’s departure. He dreamed and mused till his\r\nconsciousness seemed to occupy the whole space of the woodland around,\r\nso little was there of jarring sight or sound to hinder perfect unity\r\nwith the sentiment of the place."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The idea returned upon him of\r\nsacrificing all practical aims to live in calm contentment here, and\r\ninstead of going on elaborating new conceptions with infinite pains, to\r\naccept quiet domesticity according to oldest and homeliest notions. These reflections detained him till the wood was embrowned with the\r\ncoming night, and the shy little bird of this dusky time had begun to\r\npour out all the intensity of his eloquence from a bush not very far\r\noff. Fitzpiers’s eyes commanded as much of the ground in front as was open. Entering upon this he saw a figure, whose direction of movement was\r\ntowards the spot where he sat. The surgeon was quite shrouded from\r\nobservation by the recessed shadow of the hut, and there was no reason\r\nwhy he should move till the stranger had passed by. The shape resolved\r\nitself into a woman’s; she was looking on the ground, and walking\r\nslowly as if searching for something that had been lost, her course\r\nbeing precisely that of Mr. Melbury’s gig. Fitzpiers by a sort of\r\ndivination jumped to the idea that the figure was Grace’s; her nearer\r\napproach made the guess a certainty. Yes, she was looking for something; and she came round by the prostrate\r\ntrees that would have been invisible but for the white nakedness which\r\nenabled her to avoid them easily."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Thus she approached the heap of\r\nashes, and acting upon what was suggested by a still shining ember or\r\ntwo, she took a stick and stirred the heap, which thereupon burst into\r\na flame. On looking around by the light thus obtained she for the first\r\ntime saw the illumined face of Fitzpiers, precisely in the spot where\r\nshe had left him. Grace gave a start and a scream: the place had been associated with him\r\nin her thoughts, but she had not expected to find him there still. Fitzpiers lost not a moment in rising and going to her side. “I frightened you dreadfully, I know,” he said. “I ought to have\r\nspoken; but I did not at first expect it to be you. I have been sitting\r\nhere ever since.”\r\n\r\nHe was actually supporting her with his arm, as though under the\r\nimpression that she was quite overcome, and in danger of falling. As\r\nsoon as she could collect her ideas she gently withdrew from his grasp,\r\nand explained what she had returned for: in getting up or down from the\r\ngig, or when sitting by the hut fire, she had dropped her purse. “Now we will find it,” said Fitzpiers. He threw an armful of last year’s leaves on to the fire, which made the\r\nflame leap higher, and the encompassing shades to weave themselves into\r\na denser contrast, turning eve into night in a moment."}
{"question": "", "answer": "By this radiance\r\nthey groped about on their hands and knees, till Fitzpiers rested on\r\nhis elbow, and looked at Grace. “We must always meet in odd\r\ncircumstances,” he said; “and this is one of the oddest. I wonder if it\r\nmeans anything?”\r\n\r\n“Oh no, I am sure it doesn’t,” said Grace in haste, quickly assuming an\r\nerect posture. “Pray don’t say it any more.”\r\n\r\n“I hope there was not much money in the purse,” said Fitzpiers, rising\r\nto his feet more slowly, and brushing the leaves from his trousers. “Scarcely any. I cared most about the purse itself, because it was\r\ngiven me. Indeed, money is of little more use at Hintock than on\r\nCrusoe’s island; there’s hardly any way of spending it.”\r\n\r\nThey had given up the search when Fitzpiers discerned something by his\r\nfoot. “Here it is,” he said, “so that your father, mother, friend, or\r\n_admirer_ will not have his or her feelings hurt by a sense of your\r\nnegligence after all.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, he knows nothing of what I do now.”\r\n\r\n“The admirer?” said Fitzpiers, slyly. “I don’t know if you would call him that,” said Grace, with simplicity. “The admirer is a superficial, conditional creature, and this person is\r\nquite different.”\r\n\r\n“He has all the cardinal virtues.”\r\n\r\n“Perhaps—though I don’t know them precisely.”\r\n\r\n“You unconsciously practise them, Miss Melbury, which is better."}
{"question": "", "answer": "According to Schleiermacher they are Self-control, Perseverance,\r\nWisdom, and Love; and his is the best list that I know.”\r\n\r\n“I am afraid poor—” She was going to say that she feared\r\nWinterborne—the giver of the purse years before—had not much\r\nperseverance, though he had all the other three; but she determined to\r\ngo no further in this direction, and was silent. These half-revelations made a perceptible difference in Fitzpiers. His\r\nsense of personal superiority wasted away, and Grace assumed in his\r\neyes the true aspect of a mistress in her lover’s regard. “Miss Melbury,” he said, suddenly, “I divine that this virtuous man you\r\nmention has been refused by you?”\r\n\r\nShe could do no otherwise than admit it. “I do not inquire without good reason. God forbid that I should kneel\r\nin another’s place at any shrine unfairly. But, my dear Miss Melbury,\r\nnow that he is gone, may I draw near?”\r\n\r\n“I—I can’t say anything about that!” she cried, quickly. “Because when\r\na man has been refused you feel pity for him, and like him more than\r\nyou did before.”\r\n\r\nThis increasing complication added still more value to Grace in the\r\nsurgeon’s eyes: it rendered her adorable. “But cannot you say?” he\r\npleaded, distractedly. “I’d rather not—I think I must go home at once.”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes,” said Fitzpiers. But as he did not move she felt it awkward to\r\nwalk straight away from him; and so they stood silently together."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A\r\ndiversion was created by the accident of two birds, that had either\r\nbeen roosting above their heads or nesting there, tumbling one over the\r\nother into the hot ashes at their feet, apparently engrossed in a\r\ndesperate quarrel that prevented the use of their wings. They speedily\r\nparted, however, and flew up, and were seen no more. “That’s the end of what is called love!” said some one. The speaker was neither Grace nor Fitzpiers, but Marty South, who\r\napproached with her face turned up to the sky in her endeavor to trace\r\nthe birds. Suddenly perceiving Grace, she exclaimed, “Oh, Miss Melbury! I have been following they pigeons, and didn’t see you. And here’s Mr.\r\nWinterborne!” she continued, shyly, as she looked towards Fitzpiers,\r\nwho stood in the background. “Marty,” Grace interrupted. “I want you to walk home with me—will you? Come along.” And without lingering longer she took hold of Marty’s arm\r\nand led her away. They went between the spectral arms of the peeled trees as they lay,\r\nand onward among the growing trees, by a path where there were no oaks,\r\nand no barking, and no Fitzpiers—nothing but copse-wood, between which\r\nthe primroses could be discerned in pale bunches. “I didn’t know Mr.\r\nWinterborne was there,” said Marty, breaking the silence when they had\r\nnearly reached Grace’s door. “Nor was he,” said Grace. “But, Miss Melbury, I saw him.”\r\n\r\n“No,” said Grace. “It was somebody else. Giles Winterborne is nothing\r\nto me.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XX."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The leaves over Hintock grew denser in their substance, and the\r\nwoodland seemed to change from an open filigree to a solid opaque body\r\nof infinitely larger shape and importance. The boughs cast green\r\nshades, which hurt the complexion of the girls who walked there; and a\r\nfringe of them which overhung Mr. Melbury’s garden dripped on his\r\nseed-plots when it rained, pitting their surface all over as with\r\npock-marks, till Melbury declared that gardens in such a place were no\r\ngood at all. The two trees that had creaked all the winter left off\r\ncreaking, the whir of the night-jar, however, forming a very\r\nsatisfactory continuation of uncanny music from that quarter. Except at\r\nmid-day the sun was not seen complete by the Hintock people, but rather\r\nin the form of numerous little stars staring through the leaves. Such an appearance it had on Midsummer Eve of this year, and as the\r\nhour grew later, and nine o’clock drew on, the irradiation of the\r\ndaytime became broken up by weird shadows and ghostly nooks of\r\nindistinctness. Imagination could trace upon the trunks and boughs\r\nstrange faces and figures shaped by the dying lights; the surfaces of\r\nthe holly-leaves would here and there shine like peeping eyes, while\r\nsuch fragments of the sky as were visible between the trunks assumed\r\nthe aspect of sheeted forms and cloven tongues. This was before the\r\nmoonrise."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Later on, when that planet was getting command of the upper\r\nheaven, and consequently shining with an unbroken face into such open\r\nglades as there were in the neighborhood of the hamlet, it became\r\napparent that the margin of the wood which approached the\r\ntimber-merchant’s premises was not to be left to the customary\r\nstillness of that reposeful time. Fitzpiers having heard a voice or voices, was looking over his garden\r\ngate—where he now looked more frequently than into his books—fancying\r\nthat Grace might be abroad with some friends. He was now irretrievably\r\ncommitted in heart to Grace Melbury, though he was by no means sure\r\nthat she was so far committed to him. That the Idea had for once\r\ncompletely fulfilled itself in the objective substance—which he had\r\nhitherto deemed an impossibility—he was enchanted enough to fancy must\r\nbe the case at last. It was not Grace who had passed, however, but\r\nseveral of the ordinary village girls in a group—some steadily walking,\r\nsome in a mood of wild gayety. He quietly asked his landlady, who was\r\nalso in the garden, what these girls were intending, and she informed\r\nhim that it being Old Midsummer Eve, they were about to attempt some\r\nspell or enchantment which would afford them a glimpse of their future\r\npartners for life. She declared it to be an ungodly performance, and\r\none which she for her part would never countenance; saying which, she\r\nentered her house and retired to bed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The young man lit a cigar and followed the bevy of maidens slowly up\r\nthe road. They had turned into the wood at an opening between Melbury’s\r\nand Marty South’s; but Fitzpiers could easily track them by their\r\nvoices, low as they endeavored to keep their tones. In the mean time other inhabitants of Little Hintock had become aware\r\nof the nocturnal experiment about to be tried, and were also sauntering\r\nstealthily after the frisky maidens. Miss Melbury had been informed by\r\nMarty South during the day of the proposed peep into futurity, and,\r\nbeing only a girl like the rest, she was sufficiently interested to\r\nwish to see the issue. The moon was so bright and the night so calm\r\nthat she had no difficulty in persuading Mrs. Melbury to accompany her;\r\nand thus, joined by Marty, these went onward in the same direction. Passing Winterborne’s house, they heard a noise of hammering. Marty\r\nexplained it. This was the last night on which his paternal roof would\r\nshelter him, the days of grace since it fell into hand having expired;\r\nand Giles was taking down his cupboards and bedsteads with a view to an\r\nearly exit next morning. His encounter with Mrs. Charmond had cost him\r\ndearly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When they had proceeded a little farther Marty was joined by Grammer\r\nOliver (who was as young as the youngest in such matters), and Grace\r\nand Mrs. Melbury went on by themselves till they had arrived at the\r\nspot chosen by the village daughters, whose primary intention of\r\nkeeping their expedition a secret had been quite defeated. Grace and\r\nher step-mother paused by a holly-tree; and at a little distance stood\r\nFitzpiers under the shade of a young oak, intently observing Grace, who\r\nwas in the full rays of the moon. He watched her without speaking, and unperceived by any but Marty and\r\nGrammer, who had drawn up on the dark side of the same holly which\r\nsheltered Mrs. and Miss Melbury on its bright side. The two former\r\nconversed in low tones. “If they two come up in Wood next Midsummer Night they’ll come as one,”\r\nsaid Grammer, signifying Fitzpiers and Grace. “Instead of my\r\nskellington he’ll carry home her living carcass before long. But though\r\nshe’s a lady in herself, and worthy of any such as he, it do seem to me\r\nthat he ought to marry somebody more of the sort of Mrs. Charmond, and\r\nthat Miss Grace should make the best of Winterborne.”\r\n\r\nMarty returned no comment; and at that minute the girls, some of whom\r\nwere from Great Hintock, were seen advancing to work the incantation,\r\nit being now about midnight."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Directly we see anything we’ll run home as fast as we can,” said one,\r\nwhose courage had begun to fail her. To this the rest assented, not\r\nknowing that a dozen neighbors lurked in the bushes around. “I wish we had not thought of trying this,” said another, “but had\r\ncontented ourselves with the hole-digging to-morrow at twelve, and\r\nhearing our husbands’ trades. It is too much like having dealings with\r\nthe Evil One to try to raise their forms.”\r\n\r\nHowever, they had gone too far to recede, and slowly began to march\r\nforward in a skirmishing line through the trees towards the deeper\r\nrecesses of the wood. As far as the listeners could gather, the\r\nparticular form of black-art to be practised on this occasion was one\r\nconnected with the sowing of hemp-seed, a handful of which was carried\r\nby each girl. At the moment of their advance they looked back, and\r\ndiscerned the figure of Miss Melbury, who, alone of all the observers,\r\nstood in the full face of the moonlight, deeply engrossed in the\r\nproceedings. By contrast with her life of late years they made her feel\r\nas if she had receded a couple of centuries in the world’s history. She\r\nwas rendered doubly conspicuous by her light dress, and after a few\r\nwhispered words, one of the girls—a bouncing maiden, plighted to young\r\nTimothy Tangs—asked her if she would join in."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Grace, with some\r\nexcitement, said that she would, and moved on a little in the rear of\r\nthe rest. Soon the listeners could hear nothing of their proceedings beyond the\r\nfaintest occasional rustle of leaves. Grammer whispered again to Marty:\r\n“Why didn’t ye go and try your luck with the rest of the maids?”\r\n\r\n“I don’t believe in it,” said Marty, shortly. “Why, half the parish is here—the silly hussies should have kept it\r\nquiet. I see Mr. Winterborne through the leaves, just come up with\r\nRobert Creedle. Marty, we ought to act the part o’ Providence\r\nsometimes. Do go and tell him that if he stands just behind the bush at\r\nthe bottom of the slope, Miss Grace must pass down it when she comes\r\nback, and she will most likely rush into his arms; for as soon as the\r\nclock strikes, they’ll bundle back home—along like hares. I’ve seen\r\nsuch larries before.”\r\n\r\n“Do you think I’d better?” said Marty, reluctantly. “Oh yes, he’ll bless ye for it.”\r\n\r\n“I don’t want that kind of blessing.” But after a moment’s thought she\r\nwent and delivered the information; and Grammer had the satisfaction of\r\nseeing Giles walk slowly to the bend in the leafy defile along which\r\nGrace would have to return. Meanwhile Mrs. Melbury, deserted by Grace, had perceived Fitzpiers and\r\nWinterborne, and also the move of the latter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "An improvement on\r\nGrammer’s idea entered the mind of Mrs. Melbury, for she had lately\r\ndiscerned what her husband had not—that Grace was rapidly fascinating\r\nthe surgeon. She therefore drew near to Fitzpiers. “You should be where Mr. Winterborne is standing,” she said to him,\r\nsignificantly. “She will run down through that opening much faster than\r\nshe went up it, if she is like the rest of the girls.”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers did not require to be told twice. He went across to\r\nWinterborne and stood beside him. Each knew the probable purpose of the\r\nother in standing there, and neither spoke, Fitzpiers scorning to look\r\nupon Winterborne as a rival, and Winterborne adhering to the off-hand\r\nmanner of indifference which had grown upon him since his dismissal. Neither Grammer nor Marty South had seen the surgeon’s manoeuvre, and,\r\nstill to help Winterborne, as she supposed, the old woman suggested to\r\nthe wood-girl that she should walk forward at the heels of Grace, and\r\n“tole” her down the required way if she showed a tendency to run in\r\nanother direction. Poor Marty, always doomed to sacrifice desire to\r\nobligation, walked forward accordingly, and waited as a beacon, still\r\nand silent, for the retreat of Grace and her giddy companions, now\r\nquite out of hearing. The first sound to break the silence was the distant note of Great\r\nHintock clock striking the significant hour."}
{"question": "", "answer": "About a minute later that\r\nquarter of the wood to which the girls had wandered resounded with the\r\nflapping of disturbed birds; then two or three hares and rabbits\r\nbounded down the glade from the same direction, and after these the\r\nrustling and crackling of leaves and dead twigs denoted the hurried\r\napproach of the adventurers, whose fluttering gowns soon became\r\nvisible. Miss Melbury, having gone forward quite in the rear of the\r\nrest, was one of the first to return, and the excitement being\r\ncontagious, she ran laughing towards Marty, who still stood as a\r\nhand-post to guide her; then, passing on, she flew round the fatal bush\r\nwhere the undergrowth narrowed to a gorge. Marty arrived at her heels\r\njust in time to see the result. Fitzpiers had quickly stepped forward\r\nin front of Winterborne, who, disdaining to shift his position, had\r\nturned on his heel, and then the surgeon did what he would not have\r\nthought of doing but for Mrs. Melbury’s encouragement and the sentiment\r\nof an eve which effaced conventionality. Stretching out his arms as the\r\nwhite figure burst upon him, he captured her in a moment, as if she had\r\nbeen a bird. “Oh!” cried Grace, in her fright. “You are in my arms, dearest,” said Fitzpiers, “and I am going to claim\r\nyou, and keep you there all our two lives!”\r\n\r\nShe rested on him like one utterly mastered, and it was several seconds\r\nbefore she recovered from this helplessness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Subdued screams and\r\nstruggles, audible from neighboring brakes, revealed that there had\r\nbeen other lurkers thereabout for a similar purpose. Grace, unlike most\r\nof these companions of hers, instead of gasping and writhing, said in a\r\ntrembling voice, “Mr. Fitzpiers, will you let me go?”\r\n\r\n“Certainly,” he said, laughing; “as soon as you have recovered.”\r\n\r\nShe waited another few moments, then quietly and firmly pushed him\r\naside, and glided on her path, the moon whitening her hot blush away. But it had been enough—new relations between them had begun. The case of the other girls was different, as has been said. They\r\nwrestled and tittered, only escaping after a desperate struggle. Fitzpiers could hear these enactments still going on after Grace had\r\nleft him, and he remained on the spot where he had caught her,\r\nWinterborne having gone away. On a sudden another girl came bounding\r\ndown the same descent that had been followed by Grace—a fine-framed\r\nyoung woman with naked arms. Seeing Fitzpiers standing there, she said,\r\nwith playful effrontery, “May’st kiss me if ‘canst catch me, Tim!”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers recognized her as Suke Damson, a hoydenish damsel of the\r\nhamlet, who was plainly mistaking him for her lover. He was impulsively\r\ndisposed to profit by her error, and as soon as she began racing away\r\nhe started in pursuit."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On she went under the boughs, now in light, now in shade, looking over\r\nher shoulder at him every few moments and kissing her hand; but so\r\ncunningly dodging about among the trees and moon-shades that she never\r\nallowed him to get dangerously near her. Thus they ran and doubled,\r\nFitzpiers warming with the chase, till the sound of their companions\r\nhad quite died away. He began to lose hope of ever overtaking her, when\r\nall at once, by way of encouragement, she turned to a fence in which\r\nthere was a stile and leaped over it. Outside the scene was a changed\r\none—a meadow, where the half-made hay lay about in heaps, in the\r\nuninterrupted shine of the now high moon. Fitzpiers saw in a moment that, having taken to open ground, she had\r\nplaced herself at his mercy, and he promptly vaulted over after her. She flitted a little way down the mead, when all at once her light form\r\ndisappeared as if it had sunk into the earth. She had buried herself in\r\none of the hay-cocks. Fitzpiers, now thoroughly excited, was not going to let her escape him\r\nthus. He approached, and set about turning over the heaps one by one."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As soon as he paused, tantalized and puzzled, he was directed anew by\r\nan imitative kiss which came from her hiding-place, and by snatches of\r\na local ballad in the smallest voice she could assume:\r\n\r\n“O come in from the foggy, foggy dew.”\r\n\r\n\r\nIn a minute or two he uncovered her. “Oh, ’tis not Tim!” said she, burying her face. Fitzpiers, however, disregarded her resistance by reason of its\r\nmildness, stooped and imprinted the purposed kiss, then sunk down on\r\nthe next hay-cock, panting with his race. “Whom do you mean by Tim?” he asked, presently. “My young man, Tim Tangs,” said she. “Now, honor bright, did you really think it was he?”\r\n\r\n“I did at first.”\r\n\r\n“But you didn’t at last?”\r\n\r\n“I didn’t at last.”\r\n\r\n“Do you much mind that it was not?”\r\n\r\n“No,” she answered, slyly. Fitzpiers did not pursue his questioning. In the moonlight Suke looked\r\nvery beautiful, the scratches and blemishes incidental to her out-door\r\noccupation being invisible under these pale rays. While they remain\r\nsilent the coarse whir of the eternal night-jar burst sarcastically\r\nfrom the top of a tree at the nearest corner of the wood. Besides this\r\nnot a sound of any kind reached their ears, the time of nightingales\r\nbeing now past, and Hintock lying at a distance of two miles at least. In the opposite direction the hay-field stretched away into remoteness\r\ntill it was lost to the eye in a soft mist. CHAPTER XXI."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When the general stampede occurred Winterborne had also been looking\r\non, and encountering one of the girls, had asked her what caused them\r\nall to fly. She said with solemn breathlessness that they had seen something very\r\ndifferent from what they had hoped to see, and that she for one would\r\nnever attempt such unholy ceremonies again. “We saw Satan pursuing us\r\nwith his hour-glass. It was terrible!”\r\n\r\nThis account being a little incoherent, Giles went forward towards the\r\nspot from which the girls had retreated. After listening there a few\r\nminutes he heard slow footsteps rustling over the leaves, and looking\r\nthrough a tangled screen of honeysuckle which hung from a bough, he saw\r\nin the open space beyond a short stout man in evening-dress, carrying\r\non one arm a light overcoat and also his hat, so awkwardly arranged as\r\npossibly to have suggested the “hour-glass” to his timid observers—if\r\nthis were the person whom the girls had seen. With the other hand he\r\nsilently gesticulated and the moonlight falling upon his bare brow\r\nshowed him to have dark hair and a high forehead of the shape seen\r\noftener in old prints and paintings than in real life. His curious and\r\naltogether alien aspect, his strange gestures, like those of one who is\r\nrehearsing a scene to himself, and the unusual place and hour, were\r\nsufficient to account for any trepidation among the Hintock daughters\r\nat encountering him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He paused, and looked round, as if he had forgotten where he was; not\r\nobserving Giles, who was of the color of his environment. The latter\r\nadvanced into the light. The gentleman held up his hand and came\r\ntowards Giles, the two meeting half-way. “I have lost my way,” said the stranger. “Perhaps you can put me in the\r\npath again.” He wiped his forehead with the air of one suffering under\r\nan agitation more than that of simple fatigue. “The turnpike-road is over there,” said Giles\r\n\r\n“I don’t want the turnpike-road,” said the gentleman, impatiently. “I\r\ncame from that. I want Hintock House. Is there not a path to it across\r\nhere?”\r\n\r\n“Well, yes, a sort of path. But it is hard to find from this point. I’ll show you the way, sir, with great pleasure.”\r\n\r\n“Thanks, my good friend. The truth is that I decided to walk across the\r\ncountry after dinner from the hotel at Sherton, where I am staying for\r\na day or two. But I did not know it was so far.”\r\n\r\n“It is about a mile to the house from here.”\r\n\r\nThey walked on together. As there was no path, Giles occasionally\r\nstepped in front and bent aside the underboughs of the trees to give\r\nhis companion a passage, saying every now and then when the twigs, on\r\nbeing released, flew back like whips, “Mind your eyes, sir.” To which\r\nthe stranger replied, “Yes, yes,” in a preoccupied tone."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So they went on, the leaf-shadows running in their usual quick\r\nsuccession over the forms of the pedestrians, till the stranger said,\r\n\r\n“Is it far?”\r\n\r\n“Not much farther,” said Winterborne. “The plantation runs up into a\r\ncorner here, close behind the house.” He added with hesitation, “You\r\nknow, I suppose, sir, that Mrs. Charmond is not at home?”\r\n\r\n“You mistake,” said the other, quickly. “Mrs. Charmond has been away\r\nfor some time, but she’s at home now.”\r\n\r\nGiles did not contradict him, though he felt sure that the gentleman\r\nwas wrong. “You are a native of this place?” the stranger said. “Yes.”\r\n\r\n“Well, you are happy in having a home. It is what I don’t possess.”\r\n\r\n“You come from far, seemingly?”\r\n\r\n“I come now from the south of Europe.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, indeed, sir. You are an Italian, or Spanish, or French gentleman,\r\nperhaps?”\r\n\r\n“I am not either.”\r\n\r\nGiles did not fill the pause which ensued, and the gentleman, who\r\nseemed of an emotional nature, unable to resist friendship, at length\r\nanswered the question. “I am an Italianized American, a South Carolinian by birth,” he said. “I left my native country on the failure of the Southern cause, and\r\nhave never returned to it since.”\r\n\r\nHe spoke no more about himself, and they came to the verge of the wood. Here, striding over the fence out upon the upland sward, they could at\r\nonce see the chimneys of the house in the gorge immediately beneath\r\ntheir position, silent, still, and pale."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Can you tell me the time?” the gentleman asked. “My watch has\r\nstopped.”\r\n\r\n“It is between twelve and one,” said Giles. His companion expressed his astonishment. “I thought it between nine\r\nand ten at latest! Dear me—dear me!”\r\n\r\nHe now begged Giles to return, and offered him a gold coin, which\r\nlooked like a sovereign, for the assistance rendered. Giles declined to\r\naccept anything, to the surprise of the stranger, who, on putting the\r\nmoney back into his pocket, said, awkwardly, “I offered it because I\r\nwant you to utter no word about this meeting with me. Will you\r\npromise?”\r\n\r\nWinterborne promised readily. He thereupon stood still while the other\r\nascended the slope. At the bottom he looked back dubiously. Giles would\r\nno longer remain when he was so evidently desired to leave, and\r\nreturned through the boughs to Hintock. He suspected that this man, who seemed so distressed and melancholy,\r\nmight be that lover and persistent wooer of Mrs. Charmond whom he had\r\nheard so frequently spoken of, and whom it was said she had treated\r\ncavalierly. But he received no confirmation of his suspicion beyond a\r\nreport which reached him a few days later that a gentleman had called\r\nup the servants who were taking care of Hintock House at an hour past\r\nmidnight; and on learning that Mrs. Charmond, though returned from\r\nabroad, was as yet in London, he had sworn bitterly, and gone away\r\nwithout leaving a card or any trace of himself."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The girls who related the story added that he sighed three times before\r\nhe swore, but this part of the narrative was not corroborated. Anyhow,\r\nsuch a gentleman had driven away from the hotel at Sherton next day in\r\na carriage hired at that inn. CHAPTER XXII. The sunny, leafy week which followed the tender doings of Midsummer Eve\r\nbrought a visitor to Fitzpiers’s door; a voice that he knew sounded in\r\nthe passage. Mr. Melbury had called. At first he had a particular\r\nobjection to enter the parlor, because his boots were dusty, but as the\r\nsurgeon insisted he waived the point and came in. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, hardly at Fitzpiers\r\nhimself, he put his hat under his chair, and with a preoccupied gaze at\r\nthe floor, he said, “I’ve called to ask you, doctor, quite privately, a\r\nquestion that troubles me. I’ve a daughter, Grace, an only daughter, as\r\nyou may have heard. Well, she’s been out in the dew—on Midsummer Eve in\r\nparticular she went out in thin slippers to watch some vagary of the\r\nHintock maids—and she’s got a cough, a distinct hemming and hacking,\r\nthat makes me uneasy. Now, I have decided to send her away to some\r\nseaside place for a change—”\r\n\r\n“Send her away!” Fitzpiers’s countenance had fallen. “Yes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And the question is, where would you advise me to send her?”\r\n\r\nThe timber-merchant had happened to call at a moment when Fitzpiers was\r\nat the spring-tide of a sentiment that Grace was a necessity of his\r\nexistence. The sudden pressure of her form upon his breast as she came\r\nheadlong round the bush had never ceased to linger with him, ever since\r\nhe adopted the manoeuvre for which the hour and the moonlight and the\r\noccasion had been the only excuse. Now she was to be sent away. Ambition? it could be postponed. Family? culture and reciprocity of\r\ntastes had taken the place of family nowadays. He allowed himself to be\r\ncarried forward on the wave of his desire. “How strange, how very strange it is,” he said, “that you should have\r\ncome to me about her just now. I have been thinking every day of coming\r\nto you on the very same errand.”\r\n\r\n“Ah!—you have noticed, too, that her health——”\r\n\r\n“I have noticed nothing the matter with her health, because there is\r\nnothing. But, Mr. Melbury, I have seen your daughter several times by\r\naccident. I have admired her infinitely, and I was coming to ask you if\r\nI may become better acquainted with her—pay my addresses to her?”\r\n\r\nMelbury was looking down as he listened, and did not see the air of\r\nhalf-misgiving at his own rashness that spread over Fitzpiers’s face as\r\nhe made this declaration."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“You have—got to know her?” said Melbury, a spell of dead silence\r\nhaving preceded his utterance, during which his emotion rose with\r\nalmost visible effect. “Yes,” said Fitzpiers. “And you wish to become better acquainted with her? You mean with a\r\nview to marriage—of course that is what you mean?”\r\n\r\n“Yes,” said the young man. “I mean, get acquainted with her, with a\r\nview to being her accepted lover; and if we suited each other, what\r\nwould naturally follow.”\r\n\r\nThe timber-merchant was much surprised, and fairly agitated; his hand\r\ntrembled as he laid by his walking-stick. “This takes me unawares,”\r\nsaid he, his voice wellnigh breaking down. “I don’t mean that there is\r\nanything unexpected in a gentleman being attracted by her; but it did\r\nnot occur to me that it would be you. I always said,” continued he,\r\nwith a lump in his throat, “that my Grace would make a mark at her own\r\nlevel some day. That was why I educated her. I said to myself, ‘I’ll do\r\nit, cost what it may;’ though her mother-law was pretty frightened at\r\nmy paying out so much money year after year. I knew it would tell in\r\nthe end. ‘Where you’ve not good material to work on, such doings would\r\nbe waste and vanity,’ I said. ‘But where you have that material it is\r\nsure to be worth while.’”\r\n\r\n“I am glad you don’t object,” said Fitzpiers, almost wishing that Grace\r\nhad not been quite so cheap for him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“If she is willing I don’t object, certainly. Indeed,” added the honest\r\nman, “it would be deceit if I were to pretend to feel anything else\r\nthan highly honored personally; and it is a great credit to her to have\r\ndrawn to her a man of such good professional station and venerable old\r\nfamily. That huntsman-fellow little thought how wrong he was about her! Take her and welcome, sir.”\r\n\r\n“I’ll endeavor to ascertain her mind.”\r\n\r\n“Yes, yes. But she will be agreeable, I should think. She ought to be.”\r\n\r\n“I hope she may. Well, now you’ll expect to see me frequently.”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes. But, name it all—about her cough, and her going away. I had\r\nquite forgot that that was what I came about.”\r\n\r\n“I assure you,” said the surgeon, “that her cough can only be the\r\nresult of a slight cold, and it is not necessary to banish her to any\r\nseaside place at all.”\r\n\r\nMelbury looked unconvinced, doubting whether he ought to take\r\nFitzpiers’s professional opinion in circumstances which naturally led\r\nhim to wish to keep her there. The doctor saw this, and honestly\r\ndreading to lose sight of her, he said, eagerly, “Between ourselves, if\r\nI am successful with her I will take her away myself for a month or\r\ntwo, as soon as we are married, which I hope will be before the chilly\r\nweather comes on. This will be so very much better than letting her go\r\nnow.”\r\n\r\nThe proposal pleased Melbury much."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There could be hardly any danger in\r\npostponing any desirable change of air as long as the warm weather\r\nlasted, and for such a reason. Suddenly recollecting himself, he said,\r\n“Your time must be precious, doctor. I’ll get home-along. I am much\r\nobliged to ye. As you will see her often, you’ll discover for yourself\r\nif anything serious is the matter.”\r\n\r\n“I can assure you it is nothing,” said Fitzpiers, who had seen Grace\r\nmuch oftener already than her father knew of. When he was gone Fitzpiers paused, silent, registering his sensations,\r\nlike a man who has made a plunge for a pearl into a medium of which he\r\nknows not the density or temperature. But he had done it, and Grace was\r\nthe sweetest girl alive. As for the departed visitor, his own last words lingered in Melbury’s\r\nears as he walked homeward; he felt that what he had said in the\r\nemotion of the moment was very stupid, ungenteel, and unsuited to a\r\ndialogue with an educated gentleman, the smallness of whose practice\r\nwas more than compensated by the former greatness of his family. He had\r\nuttered thoughts before they were weighed, and almost before they were\r\nshaped. They had expressed in a certain sense his feeling at\r\nFitzpiers’s news, but yet they were not right."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Looking on the ground,\r\nand planting his stick at each tread as if it were a flag-staff, he\r\nreached his own precincts, where, as he passed through the court, he\r\nautomatically stopped to look at the men working in the shed and\r\naround. One of them asked him a question about wagon-spokes. “Hey?” said Melbury, looking hard at him. The man repeated the words. Melbury stood; then turning suddenly away without answering, he went up\r\nthe court and entered the house. As time was no object with the\r\njourneymen, except as a thing to get past, they leisurely surveyed the\r\ndoor through which he had disappeared. “What maggot has the gaffer got in his head now?” said Tangs the elder. “Sommit to do with that chiel of his! When you’ve got a maid of yer\r\nown, John Upjohn, that costs ye what she costs him, that will take the\r\nsqueak out of your Sunday shoes, John! But you’ll never be tall enough\r\nto accomplish such as she; and ’tis a lucky thing for ye, John, as\r\nthings be. Well, he ought to have a dozen—that would bring him to\r\nreason. I see ’em walking together last Sunday, and when they came to a\r\npuddle he lifted her over like a halfpenny doll. He ought to have a\r\ndozen; he’d let ’em walk through puddles for themselves then.”\r\n\r\nMeanwhile Melbury had entered the house with the look of a man who sees\r\na vision before him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His wife was in the room. Without taking off his\r\nhat he sat down at random. “Luce—we’ve done it!” he said. “Yes—the thing is as I expected. The\r\nspell, that I foresaw might be worked, has worked. She’s done it, and\r\ndone it well. Where is she—Grace, I mean?”\r\n\r\n“Up in her room—what has happened!”\r\n\r\nMr. Melbury explained the circumstances as coherently as he could. “I\r\ntold you so,” he said. “A maid like her couldn’t stay hid long, even in\r\na place like this. But where is Grace? Let’s have her down. Here—Gra-a-ace!”\r\n\r\nShe appeared after a reasonable interval, for she was sufficiently\r\nspoiled by this father of hers not to put herself in a hurry, however\r\nimpatient his tones. “What is it, father?” said she, with a smile. “Why, you scamp, what’s this you’ve been doing? Not home here more than\r\nsix months, yet, instead of confining yourself to your father’s rank,\r\nmaking havoc in the educated classes.”\r\n\r\nThough accustomed to show herself instantly appreciative of her\r\nfather’s meanings, Grace was fairly unable to look anyhow but at a loss\r\nnow. “No, no—of course you don’t know what I mean, or you pretend you don’t;\r\nthough, for my part, I believe women can see these things through a\r\ndouble hedge. But I suppose I must tell ye. Why, you’ve flung your\r\ngrapnel over the doctor, and he’s coming courting forthwith.”\r\n\r\n“Only think of that, my dear! Don’t you feel it a triumph?” said Mrs.\r\nMelbury. “Coming courting!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I’ve done nothing to make him,” Grace exclaimed. “’Twasn’t necessary that you should, ’Tis voluntary that rules in these\r\nthings....Well, he has behaved very honorably, and asked my consent. You’ll know what to do when he gets here, I dare say. I needn’t tell\r\nyou to make it all smooth for him.”\r\n\r\n“You mean, to lead him on to marry me?”\r\n\r\n“I do. Haven’t I educated you for it?”\r\n\r\nGrace looked out of the window and at the fireplace with no animation\r\nin her face. “Why is it settled off-hand in this way?” said she,\r\ncoquettishly. “You’ll wait till you hear what I think of him, I\r\nsuppose?”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes, of course. But you see what a good thing it will be.”\r\n\r\nShe weighed the statement without speaking. “You will be restored to the society you’ve been taken away from,”\r\ncontinued her father; “for I don’t suppose he’ll stay here long.”\r\n\r\nShe admitted the advantage; but it was plain that though Fitzpiers\r\nexercised a certain fascination over her when he was present, or even\r\nmore, an almost psychic influence, and though his impulsive act in the\r\nwood had stirred her feelings indescribably, she had never regarded him\r\nin the light of a destined husband. “I don’t know what to answer,” she\r\nsaid. “I have learned that he is very clever.”\r\n\r\n“He’s all right, and he’s coming here to see you.”\r\n\r\nA premonition that she could not resist him if he came strangely moved\r\nher."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Of course, father, you remember that it is only lately that\r\nGiles—”\r\n\r\n“You know that you can’t think of him. He has given up all claim to\r\nyou.”\r\n\r\nShe could not explain the subtleties of her feeling as he could state\r\nhis opinion, even though she had skill in speech, and her father had\r\nnone. That Fitzpiers acted upon her like a dram, exciting her, throwing\r\nher into a novel atmosphere which biassed her doings until the\r\ninfluence was over, when she felt something of the nature of regret for\r\nthe mood she had experienced—still more if she reflected on the silent,\r\nalmost sarcastic, criticism apparent in Winterborne’s air towards\r\nher—could not be told to this worthy couple in words. It so happened that on this very day Fitzpiers was called away from\r\nHintock by an engagement to attend some medical meetings, and his\r\nvisits, therefore, did not begin at once. A note, however, arrived from\r\nhim addressed to Grace, deploring his enforced absence. As a material\r\nobject this note was pretty and superfine, a note of a sort that she\r\nhad been unaccustomed to see since her return to Hintock, except when a\r\nschool friend wrote to her—a rare instance, for the girls were\r\nrespecters of persons, and many cooled down towards the timber-dealer’s\r\ndaughter when she was out of sight. Thus the receipt of it pleased her,\r\nand she afterwards walked about with a reflective air."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the evening her father, who knew that the note had come, said, “Why\r\nbe ye not sitting down to answer your letter? That’s what young folks\r\ndid in my time.”\r\n\r\nShe replied that it did not require an answer. “Oh, you know best,” he said. Nevertheless, he went about his business\r\ndoubting if she were right in not replying; possibly she might be so\r\nmismanaging matters as to risk the loss of an alliance which would\r\nbring her much happiness. Melbury’s respect for Fitzpiers was based less on his professional\r\nposition, which was not much, than on the standing of his family in the\r\ncounty in by-gone days. That implicit faith in members of\r\nlong-established families, as such, irrespective of their personal\r\ncondition or character, which is still found among old-fashioned people\r\nin the rural districts reached its full intensity in Melbury. His\r\ndaughter’s suitor was descended from a family he had heard of in his\r\ngrandfather’s time as being once great, a family which had conferred\r\nits name upon a neighboring village; how, then, could anything be amiss\r\nin this betrothal? “I must keep her up to this,” he said to his wife. “She sees it is for\r\nher happiness; but still she’s young, and may want a little prompting\r\nfrom an older tongue.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XXIII. With this in view he took her out for a walk, a custom of his when he\r\nwished to say anything specially impressive."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Their way was over the top\r\nof that lofty ridge dividing their woodland from the cider district,\r\nwhence they had in the spring beheld the miles of apple-trees in bloom. All was now deep green. The spot recalled to Grace’s mind the last\r\noccasion of her presence there, and she said, “The promise of an\r\nenormous apple-crop is fulfilling itself, is it not? I suppose Giles is\r\ngetting his mills and presses ready.”\r\n\r\nThis was just what her father had not come there to talk about. Without\r\nreplying he raised his arm, and moved his finger till he fixed it at a\r\npoint. “There,” he said, “you see that plantation reaching over the\r\nhill like a great slug, and just behind the hill a particularly green\r\nsheltered bottom? That’s where Mr. Fitzpiers’s family were lords of the\r\nmanor for I don’t know how many hundred years, and there stands the\r\nvillage of Buckbury Fitzpiers. A wonderful property ’twas—wonderful!”\r\n\r\n“But they are not lords of the manor there now.”\r\n\r\n“Why, no. But good and great things die as well as little and foolish. The only ones representing the family now, I believe, are our doctor\r\nand a maiden lady living I don’t know where. You can’t help being\r\nhappy, Grace, in allying yourself with such a romantical family. You’ll\r\nfeel as if you’ve stepped into history.”\r\n\r\n“We’ve been at Hintock as long as they’ve been at Buckbury; is it not\r\nso?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "You say our name occurs in old deeds continually.”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes—as yeomen, copyholders, and such like. But think how much\r\nbetter this will be for ’ee. You’ll be living a high intellectual life,\r\nsuch as has now become natural to you; and though the doctor’s practice\r\nis small here, he’ll no doubt go to a dashing town when he’s got his\r\nhand in, and keep a stylish carriage, and you’ll be brought to know a\r\ngood many ladies of excellent society. If you should ever meet me then,\r\nGrace, you can drive past me, looking the other way. I shouldn’t expect\r\nyou to speak to me, or wish such a thing, unless it happened to be in\r\nsome lonely, private place where ’twouldn’t lower ye at all. Don’t\r\nthink such men as neighbor Giles your equal. He and I shall be good\r\nfriends enough, but he’s not for the like of you. He’s lived our rough\r\nand homely life here, and his wife’s life must be rough and homely\r\nlikewise.”\r\n\r\nSo much pressure could not but produce some displacement. As Grace was\r\nleft very much to herself, she took advantage of one fine day before\r\nFitzpiers’s return to drive into the aforesaid vale where stood the\r\nvillage of Buckbury Fitzpiers. Leaving her father’s man at the inn with\r\nthe horse and gig, she rambled onward to the ruins of a castle, which\r\nstood in a field hard by."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had no doubt that it represented the\r\nancient stronghold of the Fitzpiers family. The remains were few, and consisted mostly of remnants of the lower\r\nvaulting, supported on low stout columns surmounted by the _crochet_\r\ncapital of the period. The two or three arches of these vaults that\r\nwere still in position were utilized by the adjoining farmer as shelter\r\nfor his calves, the floor being spread with straw, amid which the young\r\ncreatures rustled, cooling their thirsty tongues by licking the quaint\r\nNorman carving, which glistened with the moisture. It was a degradation\r\nof even such a rude form of art as this to be treatad so grossly, she\r\nthought, and for the first time the family of Fitzpiers assumed in her\r\nimagination the hues of a melancholy romanticism. It was soon time to drive home, and she traversed the distance with a\r\npreoccupied mind. The idea of so modern a man in science and aesthetics\r\nas the young surgeon springing out of relics so ancient was a kind of\r\nnovelty she had never before experienced. The combination lent him a\r\nsocial and intellectual interest which she dreaded, so much weight did\r\nit add to the strange influence he exercised upon her whenever he came\r\nnear her. In an excitement which was not love, not ambition, rather a fearful\r\nconsciousness of hazard in the air, she awaited his return. Meanwhile her father was awaiting him also."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In his house there was an\r\nold work on medicine, published towards the end of the last century,\r\nand to put himself in harmony with events Melbury spread this work on\r\nhis knees when he had done his day’s business, and read about Galen,\r\nHippocrates, and Herophilus—of the dogmatic, the empiric, the\r\nhermetical, and other sects of practitioners that have arisen in\r\nhistory; and thence proceeded to the classification of maladies and the\r\nrules for their treatment, as laid down in this valuable book with\r\nabsolute precision. Melbury regretted that the treatise was so old,\r\nfearing that he might in consequence be unable to hold as complete a\r\nconversation as he could wish with Mr. Fitzpiers, primed, no doubt,\r\nwith more recent discoveries. The day of Fitzpiers’s return arrived, and he sent to say that he would\r\ncall immediately. In the little time that was afforded for putting the\r\nhouse in order the sweeping of Melbury’s parlor was as the sweeping of\r\nthe parlor at the Interpreter’s which wellnigh choked the Pilgrim. At\r\nthe end of it Mrs. Melbury sat down, folded her hands and lips, and\r\nwaited. Her husband restlessly walked in and out from the timber-yard,\r\nstared at the interior of the room, jerked out “ay, ay,” and retreated\r\nagain. Between four and five Fitzpiers arrived, hitching his horse to\r\nthe hook outside the door. As soon as he had walked in and perceived that Grace was not in the\r\nroom, he seemed to have a misgiving."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nothing less than her actual\r\npresence could long keep him to the level of this impassioned\r\nenterprise, and that lacking he appeared as one who wished to retrace\r\nhis steps. He mechanically talked at what he considered a woodland matron’s level\r\nof thought till a rustling was heard on the stairs, and Grace came in. Fitzpiers was for once as agitated as she. Over and above the genuine\r\nemotion which she raised in his heart there hung the sense that he was\r\ncasting a die by impulse which he might not have thrown by judgment. Mr. Melbury was not in the room. Having to attend to matters in the\r\nyard, he had delayed putting on his afternoon coat and waistcoat till\r\nthe doctor’s appearance, when, not wishing to be backward in receiving\r\nhim, he entered the parlor hastily buttoning up those garments. Grace’s\r\nfastidiousness was a little distressed that Fitzpiers should see by\r\nthis action the strain his visit was putting upon her father; and to\r\nmake matters worse for her just then, old Grammer seemed to have a\r\npassion for incessantly pumping in the back kitchen, leaving the doors\r\nopen so that the banging and splashing were distinct above the parlor\r\nconversation. Whenever the chat over the tea sank into pleasant desultoriness Mr.\r\nMelbury broke in with speeches of labored precision on very remote\r\ntopics, as if he feared to let Fitzpiers’s mind dwell critically on the\r\nsubject nearest the hearts of all."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In truth a constrained manner was\r\nnatural enough in Melbury just now, for the greatest interest of his\r\nlife was reaching its crisis. Could the real have been beheld instead\r\nof the corporeal merely, the corner of the room in which he sat would\r\nhave been filled with a form typical of anxious suspense, large-eyed,\r\ntight-lipped, awaiting the issue. That paternal hopes and fears so\r\nintense should be bound up in the person of one child so peculiarly\r\ncircumstanced, and not have dispersed themselves over the larger field\r\nof a whole family, involved dangerous risks to future happiness. Fitzpiers did not stay more than an hour, but that time had apparently\r\nadvanced his sentiments towards Grace, once and for all, from a vaguely\r\nliquescent to an organic shape. She would not have accompanied him to\r\nthe door in response to his whispered “Come!” if her mother had not\r\nsaid in a matter-of-fact way, “Of course, Grace; go to the door with\r\nMr. Fitzpiers.” Accordingly Grace went, both her parents remaining in\r\nthe room. When the young pair were in the great brick-floored hall the\r\nlover took the girl’s hand in his, drew it under his arm, and thus led\r\nher on to the door, where he stealthily kissed her. She broke from him trembling, blushed and turned aside, hardly knowing\r\nhow things had advanced to this. Fitzpiers drove off, kissing his hand\r\nto her, and waving it to Melbury who was visible through the window."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her father returned the surgeon’s action with a great flourish of his\r\nown hand and a satisfied smile. The intoxication that Fitzpiers had, as usual, produced in Grace’s\r\nbrain during the visit passed off somewhat with his withdrawal. She\r\nfelt like a woman who did not know what she had been doing for the\r\nprevious hour, but supposed with trepidation that the afternoon’s\r\nproceedings, though vague, had amounted to an engagement between\r\nherself and the handsome, coercive, irresistible Fitzpiers. This visit was a type of many which followed it during the long summer\r\ndays of that year. Grace was borne along upon a stream of reasonings,\r\narguments, and persuasions, supplemented, it must be added, by\r\ninclinations of her own at times. No woman is without aspirations,\r\nwhich may be innocent enough within certain limits; and Grace had been\r\nso trained socially, and educated intellectually, as to see clearly\r\nenough a pleasure in the position of wife to such a man as Fitzpiers. His material standing of itself, either present or future, had little\r\nin it to give her ambition, but the possibilities of a refined and\r\ncultivated inner life, of subtle psychological intercourse, had their\r\ncharm. It was this rather than any vulgar idea of marrying well which\r\ncaused her to float with the current, and to yield to the immense\r\ninfluence which Fitzpiers exercised over her whenever she shared his\r\nsociety."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Any observer would shrewdly have prophesied that whether or not she\r\nloved him as yet in the ordinary sense, she was pretty sure to do so in\r\ntime. One evening just before dusk they had taken a rather long walk\r\ntogether, and for a short cut homeward passed through the shrubberies\r\nof Hintock House—still deserted, and still blankly confronting with its\r\nsightless shuttered windows the surrounding foliage and slopes. Grace\r\nwas tired, and they approached the wall, and sat together on one of the\r\nstone sills—still warm with the sun that had been pouring its rays upon\r\nthem all the afternoon. “This place would just do for us, would it not, dearest,” said her\r\nbetrothed, as they sat, turning and looking idly at the old facade. “Oh yes,” said Grace, plainly showing that no such fancy had ever\r\ncrossed her mind. “She is away from home still,” Grace added in a\r\nminute, rather sadly, for she could not forget that she had somehow\r\nlost the valuable friendship of the lady of this bower. “Who is?—oh, you mean Mrs. Charmond. Do you know, dear, that at one\r\ntime I thought you lived here.”\r\n\r\n“Indeed!” said Grace. “How was that?”\r\n\r\nHe explained, as far as he could do so without mentioning his\r\ndisappointment at finding it was otherwise; and then went on: “Well,\r\nnever mind that. Now I want to ask you something. There is one detail\r\nof our wedding which I am sure you will leave to me."}
{"question": "", "answer": "My inclination is\r\nnot to be married at the horrid little church here, with all the yokels\r\nstaring round at us, and a droning parson reading.”\r\n\r\n“Where, then, can it be? At a church in town?”\r\n\r\n“No. Not at a church at all. At a registry office. It is a quieter,\r\nsnugger, and more convenient place in every way.”\r\n\r\n“Oh,” said she, with real distress. “How can I be married except at\r\nchurch, and with all my dear friends round me?”\r\n\r\n“Yeoman Winterborne among them.”\r\n\r\n“Yes—why not? You know there was nothing serious between him and me.”\r\n\r\n“You see, dear, a noisy bell-ringing marriage at church has this\r\nobjection in our case: it would be a thing of report a long way round. Now I would gently, as gently as possible, indicate to you how\r\ninadvisable such publicity would be if we leave Hintock, and I purchase\r\nthe practice that I contemplate purchasing at Budmouth—hardly more than\r\ntwenty miles off. Forgive my saying that it will be far better if\r\nnobody there knows where you come from, nor anything about your\r\nparents. Your beauty and knowledge and manners will carry you anywhere\r\nif you are not hampered by such retrospective criticism.”\r\n\r\n“But could it not be a quiet ceremony, even at church?” she pleaded. “I don’t see the necessity of going there!” he said, a trifle\r\nimpatiently. “Marriage is a civil contract, and the shorter and simpler\r\nit is made the better."}
{"question": "", "answer": "People don’t go to church when they take a\r\nhouse, or even when they make a will.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, Edgar—I don’t like to hear you speak like that.”\r\n\r\n“Well, well—I didn’t mean to. But I have mentioned as much to your\r\nfather, who has made no objection; and why should you?”\r\n\r\nShe gave way, deeming the point one on which she ought to allow\r\nsentiment to give way to policy—if there were indeed policy in his\r\nplan. But she was indefinably depressed as they walked homeward. CHAPTER XXIV. He left her at the door of her father’s house. As he receded, and was\r\nclasped out of sight by the filmy shades, he impressed Grace as a man\r\nwho hardly appertained to her existence at all. Cleverer, greater than\r\nherself, one outside her mental orbit, as she considered him, he seemed\r\nto be her ruler rather than her equal, protector, and dear familiar\r\nfriend. The disappointment she had experienced at his wish, the shock given to\r\nher girlish sensibilities by his irreverent views of marriage, together\r\nwith the sure and near approach of the day fixed for committing her\r\nfuture to his keeping, made her so restless that she could scarcely\r\nsleep at all that night. She rose when the sparrows began to walk out\r\nof the roof-holes, sat on the floor of her room in the dim light, and\r\nby-and-by peeped out behind the window-curtains."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was even now day\r\nout-of-doors, though the tones of morning were feeble and wan, and it\r\nwas long before the sun would be perceptible in this overshadowed vale. Not a sound came from any of the out-houses as yet. The tree-trunks,\r\nthe road, the out-buildings, the garden, every object wore that aspect\r\nof mesmeric fixity which the suspensive quietude of daybreak lends to\r\nsuch scenes. Outside her window helpless immobility seemed to be\r\ncombined with intense consciousness; a meditative inertness possessed\r\nall things, oppressively contrasting with her own active emotions. Beyond the road were some cottage roofs and orchards; over these roofs\r\nand over the apple-trees behind, high up the slope, and backed by the\r\nplantation on the crest, was the house yet occupied by her future\r\nhusband, the rough-cast front showing whitely through its creepers. The\r\nwindow-shutters were closed, the bedroom curtains closely drawn, and\r\nnot the thinnest coil of smoke rose from the rugged chimneys. Something broke the stillness. The front door of the house she was\r\ngazing at opened softly, and there came out into the porch a female\r\nfigure, wrapped in a large shawl, beneath which was visible the white\r\nskirt of a long loose garment. A gray arm, stretching from within the\r\nporch, adjusted the shawl over the woman’s shoulders; it was withdrawn\r\nand disappeared, the door closing behind her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The woman went quickly down the box-edged path between the raspberries\r\nand currants, and as she walked her well-developed form and gait\r\nbetrayed her individuality. It was Suke Damson, the affianced one of\r\nsimple young Tim Tangs. At the bottom of the garden she entered the\r\nshelter of the tall hedge, and only the top of her head could be seen\r\nhastening in the direction of her own dwelling. Grace had recognized, or thought she recognized, in the gray arm\r\nstretching from the porch, the sleeve of a dressing-gown which Mr.\r\nFitzpiers had been wearing on her own memorable visit to him. Her face\r\nfired red. She had just before thought of dressing herself and taking a\r\nlonely walk under the trees, so coolly green this early morning; but\r\nshe now sat down on her bed and fell into reverie. It seemed as if\r\nhardly any time had passed when she heard the household moving briskly\r\nabout, and breakfast preparing down-stairs; though, on rousing herself\r\nto robe and descend, she found that the sun was throwing his rays\r\ncompletely over the tree-tops, a progress of natural phenomena denoting\r\nthat at least three hours had elapsed since she last looked out of the\r\nwindow. When attired she searched about the house for her father; she found him\r\nat last in the garden, stooping to examine the potatoes for signs of\r\ndisease. Hearing her rustle, he stood up and stretched his back and\r\narms, saying, “Morning t’ye, Gracie. I congratulate ye."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It is only a\r\nmonth to-day to the time!”\r\n\r\nShe did not answer, but, without lifting her dress, waded between the\r\ndewy rows of tall potato-green into the middle of the plot where he\r\nwas. “I have been thinking very much about my position this morning—ever\r\nsince it was light,” she began, excitedly, and trembling so that she\r\ncould hardly stand. “And I feel it is a false one. I wish not to marry\r\nMr. Fitzpiers. I wish not to marry anybody; but I’ll marry Giles\r\nWinterborne if you say I must as an alternative.”\r\n\r\nHer father’s face settled into rigidity, he turned pale, and came\r\ndeliberately out of the plot before he answered her. She had never seen\r\nhim look so incensed before. “Now, hearken to me,” he said. “There’s a time for a woman to alter her\r\nmind; and there’s a time when she can no longer alter it, if she has\r\nany right eye to her parents’ honor and the seemliness of things. That\r\ntime has come. I won’t say to ye, you _shall_ marry him. But I will say\r\nthat if you refuse, I shall forever be ashamed and a-weary of ye as a\r\ndaughter, and shall look upon you as the hope of my life no more. What\r\ndo you know about life and what it can bring forth, and how you ought\r\nto act to lead up to best ends?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Oh, you are an ungrateful maid, Grace;\r\nyou’ve seen that fellow Giles, and he has got over ye; that’s where the\r\nsecret lies, I’ll warrant me!”\r\n\r\n“No, father, no! It is not Giles—it is something I cannot tell you of—”\r\n\r\n“Well, make fools of us all; make us laughing-stocks; break it off;\r\nhave your own way.”\r\n\r\n“But who knows of the engagement as yet? how can breaking it disgrace\r\nyou?”\r\n\r\nMelbury then by degrees admitted that he had mentioned the engagement\r\nto this acquaintance and to that, till she perceived that in his\r\nrestlessness and pride he had published it everywhere. She went\r\ndismally away to a bower of laurel at the top of the garden. Her father\r\nfollowed her. “It is that Giles Winterborne!” he said, with an upbraiding gaze at\r\nher. “No, it is not; though for that matter you encouraged him once,” she\r\nsaid, troubled to the verge of despair. “It is not Giles, it is Mr.\r\nFitzpiers.”\r\n\r\n“You’ve had a tiff—a lovers’ tiff—that’s all, I suppose!”\r\n\r\n“It is some woman—”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay; you are jealous. The old story. Don’t tell me. Now do you bide\r\nhere. I’ll send Fitzpiers to you. I saw him smoking in front of his\r\nhouse but a minute by-gone.”\r\n\r\nHe went off hastily out of the garden-gate and down the lane. But she\r\nwould not stay where she was; and edging through a slit in the\r\ngarden-fence, walked away into the wood."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Just about here the trees were\r\nlarge and wide apart, and there was no undergrowth, so that she could\r\nbe seen to some distance; a sylph-like, greenish-white creature, as\r\ntoned by the sunlight and leafage. She heard a foot-fall crushing dead\r\nleaves behind her, and found herself reconnoitered by Fitzpiers\r\nhimself, approaching gay and fresh as the morning around them. His remote gaze at her had been one of mild interest rather than of\r\nrapture. But she looked so lovely in the green world about her, her\r\npink cheeks, her simple light dress, and the delicate flexibility of\r\nher movement acquired such rarity from their wild-wood setting, that\r\nhis eyes kindled as he drew near. “My darling, what is it? Your father says you are in the pouts, and\r\njealous, and I don’t know what. Ha! ha! ha! as if there were any rival\r\nto you, except vegetable nature, in this home of recluses! We know\r\nbetter.”\r\n\r\n“Jealous; oh no, it is not so,” said she, gravely. “That’s a mistake of\r\nhis and yours, sir. I spoke to him so closely about the question of\r\nmarriage with you that he did not apprehend my state of mind.”\r\n\r\n“But there’s something wrong—eh?” he asked, eying her narrowly, and\r\nbending to kiss her. She shrank away, and his purposed kiss miscarried. “What is it?” he said, more seriously for this little defeat. She made no answer beyond, “Mr."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Fitzpiers, I have had no breakfast, I\r\nmust go in.”\r\n\r\n“Come,” he insisted, fixing his eyes upon her. “Tell me at once, I\r\nsay.”\r\n\r\nIt was the greater strength against the smaller; but she was mastered\r\nless by his manner than by her own sense of the unfairness of silence. “I looked out of the window,” she said, with hesitation. “I’ll tell you\r\nby-and-by. I must go in-doors. I have had no breakfast.”\r\n\r\nBy a sort of divination his conjecture went straight to the fact. “Nor\r\nI,” said he, lightly. “Indeed, I rose late to-day. I have had a broken\r\nnight, or rather morning. A girl of the village—I don’t know her\r\nname—came and rang at my bell as soon as it was light—between four and\r\nfive, I should think it was—perfectly maddened with an aching tooth. As\r\nno-body heard her ring, she threw some gravel at my window, till at\r\nlast I heard her and slipped on my dressing-gown and went down. The\r\npoor thing begged me with tears in her eyes to take out her tormentor,\r\nif I dragged her head off. Down she sat and out it came—a lovely molar,\r\nnot a speck upon it; and off she went with it in her handkerchief, much\r\ncontented, though it would have done good work for her for fifty years\r\nto come.”\r\n\r\nIt was all so plausible—so completely explained."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Knowing nothing of the\r\nincident in the wood on old Midsummer-eve, Grace felt that her\r\nsuspicions were unworthy and absurd, and with the readiness of an\r\nhonest heart she jumped at the opportunity of honoring his word. At the\r\nmoment of her mental liberation the bushes about the garden had moved,\r\nand her father emerged into the shady glade. “Well, I hope it is made\r\nup?” he said, cheerily. “Oh yes,” said Fitzpiers, with his eyes fixed on Grace, whose eyes were\r\nshyly bent downward. “Now,” said her father, “tell me, the pair of ye, that you still mean\r\nto take one another for good and all; and on the strength o’t you shall\r\nhave another couple of hundred paid down. I swear it by the name.”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers took her hand. “We declare it, do we not, my dear Grace?”\r\nsaid he. Relieved of her doubt, somewhat overawed, and ever anxious to please,\r\nshe was disposed to settle the matter; yet, womanlike, she would not\r\nrelinquish her opportunity of asking a concession of some sort. “If our\r\nwedding can be at church, I say yes,” she answered, in a measured\r\nvoice. “If not, I say no.”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers was generous in his turn. “It shall be so,” he rejoined,\r\ngracefully."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“To holy church we’ll go, and much good may it do us.”\r\n\r\nThey returned through the bushes indoors, Grace walking, full of\r\nthought between the other two, somewhat comforted, both by Fitzpiers’s\r\ningenious explanation and by the sense that she was not to be deprived\r\nof a religious ceremony. “So let it be,” she said to herself. “Pray God\r\nit is for the best.”\r\n\r\nFrom this hour there was no serious attempt at recalcitration on her\r\npart. Fitzpiers kept himself continually near her, dominating any\r\nrebellious impulse, and shaping her will into passive concurrence with\r\nall his desires. Apart from his lover-like anxiety to possess her, the\r\nfew golden hundreds of the timber-dealer, ready to hand, formed a warm\r\nbackground to Grace’s lovely face, and went some way to remove his\r\nuneasiness at the prospect of endangering his professional and social\r\nchances by an alliance with the family of a simple countryman. The interim closed up its perspective surely and silently. Whenever\r\nGrace had any doubts of her position, the sense of contracting time was\r\nlike a shortening chamber: at other moments she was comparatively\r\nblithe."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Day after day waxed and waned; the one or two woodmen who\r\nsawed, shaped, spokeshaved on her father’s premises at this inactive\r\nseason of the year, regularly came and unlocked the doors in the\r\nmorning, locked them in the evening, supped, leaned over their\r\ngarden-gates for a whiff of evening air, and to catch any last and\r\nfarthest throb of news from the outer world, which entered and expired\r\nat Little Hintock like the exhausted swell of a wave in some innermost\r\ncavern of some innermost creek of an embayed sea; yet no news\r\ninterfered with the nuptial purpose at their neighbor’s house. The\r\nsappy green twig-tips of the season’s growth would not, she thought, be\r\nappreciably woodier on the day she became a wife, so near was the time;\r\nthe tints of the foliage would hardly have changed. Everything was so\r\nmuch as usual that no itinerant stranger would have supposed a woman’s\r\nfate to be hanging in the balance at that summer’s decline. But there were preparations, imaginable readily enough by those who had\r\nspecial knowledge."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the remote and fashionable town of Sandbourne\r\nsomething was growing up under the hands of several persons who had\r\nnever seen Grace Melbury, never would see her, or care anything about\r\nher at all, though their creation had such interesting relation to her\r\nlife that it would enclose her very heart at a moment when that heart\r\nwould beat, if not with more emotional ardor, at least with more\r\nemotional turbulence than at any previous time. Why did Mrs. Dollery’s van, instead of passing along at the end of the\r\nsmaller village to Great Hintock direct, turn one Saturday night into\r\nLittle Hintock Lane, and never pull up till it reached Mr. Melbury’s\r\ngates? The gilding shine of evening fell upon a large, flat box not\r\nless than a yard square, and safely tied with cord, as it was handed\r\nout from under the tilt with a great deal of care. But it was not heavy\r\nfor its size; Mrs. Dollery herself carried it into the house. Tim\r\nTangs, the hollow-turner, Bawtree, Suke Damson, and others, looked\r\nknowing, and made remarks to each other as they watched its entrance. Melbury stood at the door of the timber-shed in the attitude of a man\r\nto whom such an arrival was a trifling domestic detail with which he\r\ndid not condescend to be concerned."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Yet he well divined the contents of\r\nthat box, and was in truth all the while in a pleasant exaltation at\r\nthe proof that thus far, at any rate, no disappointment had supervened. While Mrs. Dollery remained—which was rather long, from her sense of\r\nthe importance of her errand—he went into the out-house; but as soon as\r\nshe had had her say, been paid, and had rumbled away, he entered the\r\ndwelling, to find there what he knew he should find—his wife and\r\ndaughter in a flutter of excitement over the wedding-gown, just arrived\r\nfrom the leading dress-maker of Sandbourne watering-place aforesaid. During these weeks Giles Winterborne was nowhere to be seen or heard\r\nof. At the close of his tenure in Hintock he had sold some of his\r\nfurniture, packed up the rest—a few pieces endeared by associations, or\r\nnecessary to his occupation—in the house of a friendly neighbor, and\r\ngone away. People said that a certain laxity had crept into his life;\r\nthat he had never gone near a church latterly, and had been sometimes\r\nseen on Sundays with unblacked boots, lying on his elbow under a tree,\r\nwith a cynical gaze at surrounding objects. He was likely to return to\r\nHintock when the cider-making season came round, his apparatus being\r\nstored there, and travel with his mill and press from village to\r\nvillage. The narrow interval that stood before the day diminished yet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was\r\nin Grace’s mind sometimes a certain anticipative satisfaction, the\r\nsatisfaction of feeling that she would be the heroine of an hour;\r\nmoreover, she was proud, as a cultivated woman, to be the wife of a\r\ncultivated man. It was an opportunity denied very frequently to young\r\nwomen in her position, nowadays not a few; those in whom parental\r\ndiscovery of the value of education has implanted tastes which parental\r\ncircles fail to gratify. But what an attenuation was this cold pride of\r\nthe dream of her youth, in which she had pictured herself walking in\r\nstate towards the altar, flushed by the purple light and bloom of her\r\nown passion, without a single misgiving as to the sealing of the bond,\r\nand fervently receiving as her due\r\n\r\n“The homage of a thousand hearts; the fond, deep love of one.”\r\n\r\n\r\nEverything had been clear then, in imagination; now something was\r\nundefined. She had little carking anxieties; a curious fatefulness\r\nseemed to rule her, and she experienced a mournful want of some one to\r\nconfide in. The day loomed so big and nigh that her prophetic ear could, in fancy,\r\ncatch the noise of it, hear the murmur of the villagers as she came out\r\nof church, imagine the jangle of the three thin-toned Hintock bells. The dialogues seemed to grow louder, and the ding-ding-dong of those\r\nthree crazed bells more persistent. She awoke: the morning had come. Five hours later she was the wife of Fitzpiers. CHAPTER XXV."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The chief hotel at Sherton-Abbas was an old stone-fronted inn with a\r\nyawning arch, under which vehicles were driven by stooping coachmen to\r\nback premises of wonderful commodiousness. The windows to the street\r\nwere mullioned into narrow lights, and only commanded a view of the\r\nopposite houses; hence, perhaps, it arose that the best and most\r\nluxurious private sitting-room that the inn could afford over-looked\r\nthe nether parts of the establishment, where beyond the yard were to be\r\nseen gardens and orchards, now bossed, nay incrusted, with scarlet and\r\ngold fruit, stretching to infinite distance under a luminous lavender\r\nmist. The time was early autumn,\r\n\r\n“When the fair apples, red as evening sky,\r\nDo bend the tree unto the fruitful ground,\r\nWhen juicy pears, and berries of black dye,\r\nDo dance in air, and call the eyes around.”\r\n\r\n\r\nThe landscape confronting the window might, indeed, have been part of\r\nthe identical stretch of country which the youthful Chatterton had in\r\nhis mind. In this room sat she who had been the maiden Grace Melbury till the\r\nfinger of fate touched her and turned her to a wife. It was two months\r\nafter the wedding, and she was alone. Fitzpiers had walked out to see\r\nthe abbey by the light of sunset, but she had been too fatigued to\r\naccompany him. They had reached the last stage of a long eight-weeks’\r\ntour, and were going on to Hintock that night."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the yard, between Grace and the orchards, there progressed a scene\r\nnatural to the locality at this time of the year. An apple-mill and\r\npress had been erected on the spot, to which some men were bringing\r\nfruit from divers points in mawn-baskets, while others were grinding\r\nthem, and others wringing down the pomace, whose sweet juice gushed\r\nforth into tubs and pails. The superintendent of these proceedings, to\r\nwhom the others spoke as master, was a young yeoman of prepossessing\r\nmanner and aspect, whose form she recognized in a moment. He had hung\r\nhis coat to a nail of the out-house wall, and wore his shirt-sleeves\r\nrolled up beyond his elbows, to keep them unstained while he rammed the\r\npomace into the bags of horse-hair. Fragments of apple-rind had\r\nalighted upon the brim of his hat—probably from the bursting of a\r\nbag—while brown pips of the same fruit were sticking among the down\r\nupon his fine, round arms. She realized in a moment how he had come there. Down in the heart of\r\nthe apple country nearly every farmer kept up a cider-making apparatus\r\nand wring-house for his own use, building up the pomace in great straw\r\n“cheeses,” as they were called; but here, on the margin of Pomona’s\r\nplain, was a debatable land neither orchard nor sylvan exclusively,\r\nwhere the apple produce was hardly sufficient to warrant each\r\nproprietor in keeping a mill of his own. This was the field of the\r\ntravelling cider-maker."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His press and mill were fixed to wheels instead\r\nof being set up in a cider-house; and with a couple of horses, buckets,\r\ntubs, strainers, and an assistant or two, he wandered from place to\r\nplace, deriving very satisfactory returns for his trouble in such a\r\nprolific season as the present. The back parts of the town were just now abounding with\r\napple-gatherings. They stood in the yards in carts, baskets, and loose\r\nheaps; and the blue, stagnant air of autumn which hung over everything\r\nwas heavy with a sweet cidery smell. Cakes of pomace lay against the\r\nwalls in the yellow sun, where they were drying to be used as fuel. Yet\r\nit was not the great make of the year as yet; before the standard crop\r\ncame in there accumulated, in abundant times like this, a large\r\nsuperfluity of early apples, and windfalls from the trees of later\r\nharvest, which would not keep long. Thus, in the baskets, and quivering\r\nin the hopper of the mill, she saw specimens of mixed dates, including\r\nthe mellow countenances of streaked-jacks, codlins, costards,\r\nstubbards, ratheripes, and other well-known friends of her ravenous\r\nyouth. Grace watched the head-man with interest. The slightest sigh escaped\r\nher. Perhaps she thought of the day—not so far distant—when that friend\r\nof her childhood had met her by her father’s arrangement in this same\r\ntown, warm with hope, though diffident, and trusting in a promise\r\nrather implied than given."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Or she might have thought of days earlier\r\nyet—days of childhood—when her mouth was somewhat more ready to receive\r\na kiss from his than was his to bestow one. However, all that was over. She had felt superior to him then, and she felt superior to him now. She wondered why he never looked towards her open window. She did not\r\nknow that in the slight commotion caused by their arrival at the inn\r\nthat afternoon Winterborne had caught sight of her through the archway,\r\nhad turned red, and was continuing his work with more concentrated\r\nattention on the very account of his discovery. Robert Creedle, too,\r\nwho travelled with Giles, had been incidentally informed by the hostler\r\nthat Dr. Fitzpiers and his young wife were in the hotel, after which\r\nnews Creedle kept shaking his head and saying to himself, “Ah!” very\r\naudibly, between his thrusts at the screw of the cider-press. “Why the deuce do you sigh like that, Robert?” asked Winterborne, at\r\nlast. “Ah, maister—’tis my thoughts—’tis my thoughts!...Yes, ye’ve lost a\r\nhundred load o’ timber well seasoned; ye’ve lost five hundred pound in\r\ngood money; ye’ve lost the stone-windered house that’s big enough to\r\nhold a dozen families; ye’ve lost your share of half a dozen good\r\nwagons and their horses—all lost!—through your letting slip she that\r\nwas once yer own!”\r\n\r\n“Good God, Creedle, you’ll drive me mad!” said Giles, sternly. “Don’t\r\nspeak of that any more!”\r\n\r\nThus the subject had ended in the yard."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Meanwhile, the passive cause of\r\nall this loss still regarded the scene. She was beautifully dressed;\r\nshe was seated in the most comfortable room that the inn afforded; her\r\nlong journey had been full of variety, and almost luxuriously\r\nperformed—for Fitzpiers did not study economy where pleasure was in\r\nquestion. Hence it perhaps arose that Giles and all his belongings\r\nseemed sorry and common to her for the moment—moving in a plane so far\r\nremoved from her own of late that she could scarcely believe she had\r\never found congruity therein. “No—I could never have married him!” she\r\nsaid, gently shaking her head. “Dear father was right. It would have\r\nbeen too coarse a life for me.” And she looked at the rings of sapphire\r\nand opal upon her white and slender fingers that had been gifts from\r\nFitzpiers. Seeing that Giles still kept his back turned, and with a little of the\r\nabove-described pride of life—easily to be understood, and possibly\r\nexcused, in a young, inexperienced woman who thought she had married\r\nwell—she said at last, with a smile on her lips, “Mr. Winterborne!”\r\n\r\nHe appeared to take no heed, and she said a second time, “Mr. Winterborne!”\r\n\r\nEven now he seemed not to hear, though a person close enough to him to\r\nsee the expression of his face might have doubted it; and she said a\r\nthird time, with a timid loudness, “Mr. Winterborne!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "What, have you\r\nforgotten my voice?” She remained with her lips parted in a welcoming\r\nsmile. He turned without surprise, and came deliberately towards the window. “Why do you call me?” he said, with a sternness that took her\r\ncompletely unawares, his face being now pale. “Is it not enough that\r\nyou see me here moiling and muddling for my daily bread while you are\r\nsitting there in your success, that you can’t refrain from opening old\r\nwounds by calling out my name?”\r\n\r\nShe flushed, and was struck dumb for some moments; but she forgave his\r\nunreasoning anger, knowing so well in what it had its root. “I am sorry\r\nI offended you by speaking,” she replied, meekly. “Believe me, I did\r\nnot intend to do that. I could hardly sit here so near you without a\r\nword of recognition.”\r\n\r\nWinterborne’s heart had swollen big, and his eyes grown moist by this\r\ntime, so much had the gentle answer of that familiar voice moved him. He assured her hurriedly, and without looking at her, that he was not\r\nangry. He then managed to ask her, in a clumsy, constrained way, if she\r\nhad had a pleasant journey, and seen many interesting sights. She spoke\r\nof a few places that she had visited, and so the time passed till he\r\nwithdrew to take his place at one of the levers which pulled round the\r\nscrew. Forgotten her voice! Indeed, he had not forgotten her voice, as his\r\nbitterness showed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But though in the heat of the moment he had\r\nreproached her keenly, his second mood was a far more tender one—that\r\nwhich could regard her renunciation of such as he as her glory and her\r\nprivilege, his own fidelity notwithstanding. He could have declared\r\nwith a contemporary poet—\r\n\r\n                    “If I forget,\r\nThe salt creek may forget the ocean;\r\n                    If I forget\r\nThe heart whence flows my heart’s bright motion,\r\nMay I sink meanlier than the worst\r\nAbandoned, outcast, crushed, accurst,\r\n                    If I forget. “Though you forget,\r\nNo word of mine shall mar your pleasure;\r\n                    Though you forget,\r\nYou filled my barren life with treasure,\r\nYou may withdraw the gift you gave;\r\nYou still are queen, I still am slave,\r\n                    Though you forget.”\r\n\r\n\r\nShe had tears in her eyes at the thought that she could not remind him\r\nof what he ought to have remembered; that not herself but the pressure\r\nof events had dissipated the dreams of their early youth. Grace was\r\nthus unexpectedly worsted in her encounter with her old friend. She had\r\nopened the window with a faint sense of triumph, but he had turned it\r\ninto sadness; she did not quite comprehend the reason why. In truth it\r\nwas because she was not cruel enough in her cruelty. If you have to use\r\nthe knife, use it, say the great surgeons; and for her own peace Grace\r\nshould have contemned Winterborne thoroughly or not at all."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As it was,\r\non closing the window an indescribable, some might have said dangerous,\r\npity quavered in her bosom for him. Presently her husband entered the room, and told her what a wonderful\r\nsunset there was to be seen. “I have not noticed it. But I have seen somebody out there that we\r\nknow,” she replied, looking into the court. Fitzpiers followed the direction of her eyes, and said he did not\r\nrecognize anybody. “Why, Mr. Winterborne—there he is, cider-making. He combines that with\r\nhis other business, you know.”\r\n\r\n“Oh—that fellow,” said Fitzpiers, his curiosity becoming extinct. She, reproachfully: “What, call Mr. Winterborne a fellow, Edgar? It is\r\ntrue I was just saying to myself that I never could have married him;\r\nbut I have much regard for him, and always shall.”\r\n\r\n“Well, do by all means, my dear one. I dare say I am inhuman, and\r\nsupercilious, and contemptibly proud of my poor old ramshackle family;\r\nbut I do honestly confess to you that I feel as if I belonged to a\r\ndifferent species from the people who are working in that yard.”\r\n\r\n“And from me too, then. For my blood is no better than theirs.”\r\n\r\nHe looked at her with a droll sort of awakening. It was, indeed, a\r\nstartling anomaly that this woman of the tribe without should be\r\nstanding there beside him as his wife, if his sentiments were as he had\r\nsaid."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In their travels together she had ranged so unerringly at his\r\nlevel in ideas, tastes, and habits that he had almost forgotten how his\r\nheart had played havoc with his principles in taking her to him. “Ah YOU—you are refined and educated into something quite different,”\r\nhe said, self-assuringly. “I don’t quite like to think that,” she murmured with soft regret. “And\r\nI think you underestimate Giles Winterborne. Remember, I was brought up\r\nwith him till I was sent away to school, so I cannot be radically\r\ndifferent. At any rate, I don’t feel so. That is, no doubt, my fault,\r\nand a great blemish in me. But I hope you will put up with it, Edgar.”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers said that he would endeavor to do so; and as it was now\r\ngetting on for dusk, they prepared to perform the last stage of their\r\njourney, so as to arrive at Hintock before it grew very late. In less than half an hour they started, the cider-makers in the yard\r\nhaving ceased their labors and gone away, so that the only sounds\r\naudible there now were the trickling of the juice from the tightly\r\nscrewed press, and the buzz of a single wasp, which had drunk itself so\r\ntipsy that it was unconscious of nightfall. Grace was very cheerful at\r\nthe thought of being soon in her sylvan home, but Fitzpiers sat beside\r\nher almost silent."}
{"question": "", "answer": "An indescribable oppressiveness had overtaken him\r\nwith the near approach of the journey’s end and the realities of life\r\nthat lay there. “You don’t say a word, Edgar,” she observed. “Aren’t you glad to get\r\nback? I am.”\r\n\r\n“You have friends here. I have none.”\r\n\r\n“But my friends are yours.”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes—in that sense.”\r\n\r\nThe conversation languished, and they drew near the end of Hintock\r\nLane. It had been decided that they should, at least for a time, take\r\nup their abode in her father’s roomy house, one wing of which was quite\r\nat their service, being almost disused by the Melburys. Workmen had\r\nbeen painting, papering, and whitewashing this set of rooms in the\r\nwedded pair’s absence; and so scrupulous had been the timber-dealer\r\nthat there should occur no hitch or disappointment on their arrival,\r\nthat not the smallest detail remained undone. To make it all complete a\r\nground-floor room had been fitted up as a surgery, with an independent\r\nouter door, to which Fitzpiers’s brass plate was screwed—for mere\r\nornament, such a sign being quite superfluous where everybody knew the\r\nlatitude and longitude of his neighbors for miles round. Melbury and his wife welcomed the twain with affection, and all the\r\nhouse with deference. They went up to explore their rooms, that opened\r\nfrom a passage on the left hand of the staircase, the entrance to which\r\ncould be shut off on the landing by a door that Melbury had hung for\r\nthe purpose."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A friendly fire was burning in the grate, although it was\r\nnot cold. Fitzpiers said it was too soon for any sort of meal, they\r\nonly having dined shortly before leaving Sherton-Abbas. He would walk\r\nacross to his old lodging, to learn how his locum tenens had got on in\r\nhis absence. In leaving Melbury’s door he looked back at the house. There was\r\neconomy in living under that roof, and economy was desirable, but in\r\nsome way he was dissatisfied with the arrangement; it immersed him so\r\ndeeply in son-in-lawship to Melbury. He went on to his former\r\nresidence. His deputy was out, and Fitzpiers fell into conversation\r\nwith his former landlady. “Well, Mrs. Cox, what’s the best news?” he asked of her, with cheery\r\nweariness. She was a little soured at losing by his marriage so profitable a\r\ntenant as the surgeon had proved to be during his residence under her\r\nroof; and the more so in there being hardly the remotest chance of her\r\ngetting such another settler in the Hintock solitudes. “’Tis what I\r\ndon’t wish to repeat, sir; least of all to you,” she mumbled. “Never mind me, Mrs. Cox; go ahead.”\r\n\r\n“It is what people say about your hasty marrying, Dr. Fitzpiers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Whereas they won’t believe you know such clever doctrines in physic as\r\nthey once supposed of ye, seeing as you could marry into Mr. Melbury’s\r\nfamily, which is only Hintock-born, such as me.”\r\n\r\n“They are kindly welcome to their opinion,” said Fitzpiers, not\r\nallowing himself to recognize that he winced. “Anything else?”\r\n\r\n“Yes; _she’s_ come home at last.”\r\n\r\n“Who’s she?”\r\n\r\n“Mrs. Charmond.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, indeed!” said Fitzpiers, with but slight interest. “I’ve never\r\nseen her.”\r\n\r\n“She has seen you, sir, whether or no.”\r\n\r\n“Never.”\r\n\r\n“Yes; she saw you in some hotel or street for a minute or two while you\r\nwere away travelling, and accidentally heard your name; and when she\r\nmade some remark about you, Miss Ellis—that’s her maid—told her you was\r\non your wedding-tower with Mr. Melbury’s daughter; and she said, ‘He\r\nought to have done better than that. I fear he has spoiled his\r\nchances,’ she says.”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers did not talk much longer to this cheering housewife, and\r\nwalked home with no very brisk step. He entered the door quietly, and\r\nwent straight up-stairs to the drawing-room extemporized for their use\r\nby Melbury in his and his bride’s absence, expecting to find her there\r\nas he had left her. The fire was burning still, but there were no\r\nlights. He looked into the next apartment, fitted up as a little\r\ndining-room, but no supper was laid."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He went to the top of the stairs,\r\nand heard a chorus of voices in the timber-merchant’s parlor below,\r\nGrace’s being occasionally intermingled. Descending, and looking into the room from the door-way, he found quite\r\na large gathering of neighbors and other acquaintances, praising and\r\ncongratulating Mrs. Fitzpiers on her return, among them being the\r\ndairyman, Farmer Bawtree, and the master-blacksmith from Great Hintock;\r\nalso the cooper, the hollow-turner, the exciseman, and some others,\r\nwith their wives, who lived hard by. Grace, girl that she was, had\r\nquite forgotten her new dignity and her husband’s; she was in the midst\r\nof them, blushing, and receiving their compliments with all the\r\npleasure of old-comradeship. Fitzpiers experienced a profound distaste for the situation. Melbury\r\nwas nowhere in the room, but Melbury’s wife, perceiving the doctor,\r\ncame to him. “We thought, Grace and I,” she said, “that as they have\r\ncalled, hearing you were come, we could do no less than ask them to\r\nsupper; and then Grace proposed that we should all sup together, as it\r\nis the first night of your return.”\r\n\r\nBy this time Grace had come round to him. “Is it not good of them to\r\nwelcome me so warmly?” she exclaimed, with tears of friendship in her\r\neyes. “After so much good feeling I could not think of our shutting\r\nourselves up away from them in our own dining-room.”\r\n\r\n“Certainly not—certainly not,” said Fitzpiers; and he entered the room\r\nwith the heroic smile of a martyr."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As soon as they sat down to table Melbury came in, and seemed to see at\r\nonce that Fitzpiers would much rather have received no such\r\ndemonstrative reception. He thereupon privately chid his wife for her\r\nforwardness in the matter. Mrs. Melbury declared that it was as much\r\nGrace’s doing as hers, after which there was no more to be said by that\r\nyoung woman’s tender father. By this time Fitzpiers was making the best\r\nof his position among the wide-elbowed and genial company who sat\r\neating and drinking and laughing and joking around him; and getting\r\nwarmed himself by the good cheer, was obliged to admit that, after all,\r\nthe supper was not the least enjoyable he had ever known. At times, however, the words about his having spoiled his\r\nopportunities, repeated to him as those of Mrs. Charmond, haunted him\r\nlike a handwriting on the wall. Then his manner would become suddenly\r\nabstracted. At one moment he would mentally put an indignant query why\r\nMrs. Charmond or any other woman should make it her business to have\r\nopinions about his opportunities; at another he thought that he could\r\nhardly be angry with her for taking an interest in the doctor of her\r\nown parish. Then he would drink a glass of grog and so get rid of the\r\nmisgiving."}
{"question": "", "answer": "These hitches and quaffings were soon perceived by Grace as\r\nwell as by her father; and hence both of them were much relieved when\r\nthe first of the guests to discover that the hour was growing late rose\r\nand declared that he must think of moving homeward. At the words\r\nMelbury rose as alertly as if lifted by a spring, and in ten minutes\r\nthey were gone. “Now, Grace,” said her husband as soon as he found himself alone with\r\nher in their private apartments, “we’ve had a very pleasant evening,\r\nand everybody has been very kind. But we must come to an understanding\r\nabout our way of living here. If we continue in these rooms there must\r\nbe no mixing in with your people below. I can’t stand it, and that’s\r\nthe truth.”\r\n\r\nShe had been sadly surprised at the suddenness of his distaste for\r\nthose old-fashioned woodland forms of life which in his courtship he\r\nhad professed to regard with so much interest. But she assented in a\r\nmoment. “We must be simply your father’s tenants,” he continued, “and our\r\ngoings and comings must be as independent as if we lived elsewhere.”\r\n\r\n“Certainly, Edgar—I quite see that it must be so.”\r\n\r\n“But you joined in with all those people in my absence, without knowing\r\nwhether I should approve or disapprove."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When I came I couldn’t help\r\nmyself at all.”\r\n\r\nShe, sighing: “Yes—I see I ought to have waited; though they came\r\nunexpectedly, and I thought I had acted for the best.”\r\n\r\nThus the discussion ended, and the next day Fitzpiers went on his old\r\nrounds as usual. But it was easy for so super-subtle an eye as his to\r\ndiscern, or to think he discerned, that he was no longer regarded as an\r\nextrinsic, unfathomed gentleman of limitless potentiality, scientific\r\nand social; but as Mr. Melbury’s compeer, and therefore in a degree\r\nonly one of themselves. The Hintock woodlandlers held with all the\r\nstrength of inherited conviction to the aristocratic principle, and as\r\nsoon as they had discovered that Fitzpiers was one of the old Buckbury\r\nFitzpierses they had accorded to him for nothing a touching of\r\nhat-brims, promptness of service, and deference of approach, which\r\nMelbury had to do without, though he paid for it over and over. But\r\nnow, having proved a traitor to his own cause by this marriage,\r\nFitzpiers was believed in no more as a superior hedged by his own\r\ndivinity; while as doctor he began to be rated no higher than old\r\nJones, whom they had so long despised. His few patients seemed in his two months’ absence to have dwindled\r\nconsiderably in number, and no sooner had he returned than there came\r\nto him from the Board of Guardians a complaint that a pauper had been\r\nneglected by his substitute."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In a fit of pride Fitzpiers resigned his\r\nappointment as one of the surgeons to the union, which had been the\r\nnucleus of his practice here. At the end of a fortnight he came in-doors one evening to Grace more\r\nbriskly than usual. “They have written to me again about that practice\r\nin Budmouth that I once negotiated for,” he said to her. “The premium\r\nasked is eight hundred pounds, and I think that between your father and\r\nmyself it ought to be raised. Then we can get away from this place\r\nforever.”\r\n\r\nThe question had been mooted between them before, and she was not\r\nunprepared to consider it. They had not proceeded far with the\r\ndiscussion when a knock came to the door, and in a minute Grammer ran\r\nup to say that a message had arrived from Hintock House requesting Dr.\r\nFitzpiers to attend there at once. Mrs. Charmond had met with a slight\r\naccident through the overturning of her carriage. “This is something, anyhow,” said Fitzpiers, rising with an interest\r\nwhich he could not have defined. “I have had a presentiment that this\r\nmysterious woman and I were to be better acquainted.”\r\n\r\nThe latter words were murmured to himself alone. “Good-night,” said Grace, as soon as he was ready. “I shall be asleep,\r\nprobably, when you return.”\r\n\r\n“Good-night,” he replied, inattentively, and went down-stairs. It was\r\nthe first time since their marriage that he had left her without a\r\nkiss. CHAPTER XXVI."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Winterborne’s house had been pulled down. On this account his face had\r\nbeen seen but fitfully in Hintock; and he would probably have\r\ndisappeared from the place altogether but for his slight business\r\nconnection with Melbury, on whose premises Giles kept his cider-making\r\napparatus, now that he had no place of his own to stow it in. Coming\r\nhere one evening on his way to a hut beyond the wood where he now\r\nslept, he noticed that the familiar brown-thatched pinion of his\r\npaternal roof had vanished from its site, and that the walls were\r\nlevelled. In present circumstances he had a feeling for the spot that\r\nmight have been called morbid, and when he had supped in the hut\r\naforesaid he made use of the spare hour before bedtime to return to\r\nLittle Hintock in the twilight and ramble over the patch of ground on\r\nwhich he had first seen the day. He repeated this evening visit on several like occasions. Even in the\r\ngloom he could trace where the different rooms had stood; could mark\r\nthe shape of the kitchen chimney-corner, in which he had roasted apples\r\nand potatoes in his boyhood, cast his bullets, and burned his initials\r\non articles that did and did not belong to him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The apple-trees still\r\nremained to show where the garden had been, the oldest of them even now\r\nretaining the crippled slant to north-east given them by the great\r\nNovember gale of 1824, which carried a brig bodily over the Chesil\r\nBank. They were at present bent to still greater obliquity by the\r\nheaviness of their produce. Apples bobbed against his head, and in the\r\ngrass beneath he crunched scores of them as he walked. There was nobody\r\nto gather them now. It was on the evening under notice that, half sitting, half leaning\r\nagainst one of these inclined trunks, Winterborne had become lost in\r\nhis thoughts, as usual, till one little star after another had taken up\r\na position in the piece of sky which now confronted him where his walls\r\nand chimneys had formerly raised their outlines. The house had jutted\r\nawkwardly into the road, and the opening caused by its absence was very\r\ndistinct. In the silence the trot of horses and the spin of carriage-wheels\r\nbecame audible; and the vehicle soon shaped itself against the blank\r\nsky, bearing down upon him with the bend in the lane which here\r\noccurred, and of which the house had been the cause. He could discern\r\nthe figure of a woman high up on the driving-seat of a phaeton, a groom\r\nbeing just visible behind. Presently there was a slight scrape, then a\r\nscream."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Winterborne went across to the spot, and found the phaeton half\r\noverturned, its driver sitting on the heap of rubbish which had once\r\nbeen his dwelling, and the man seizing the horses’ heads. The equipage\r\nwas Mrs. Charmond’s, and the unseated charioteer that lady herself. To his inquiry if she were hurt she made some incoherent reply to the\r\neffect that she did not know. The damage in other respects was little\r\nor none: the phaeton was righted, Mrs. Charmond placed in it, and the\r\nreins given to the servant. It appeared that she had been deceived by\r\nthe removal of the house, imagining the gap caused by the demolition to\r\nbe the opening of the road, so that she turned in upon the ruins\r\ninstead of at the bend a few yards farther on. “Drive home—drive home!” cried the lady, impatiently; and they started\r\non their way. They had not, however, gone many paces when, the air\r\nbeing still, Winterborne heard her say “Stop; tell that man to call the\r\ndoctor—Mr. Fitzpiers—and send him on to the House. I find I am hurt\r\nmore seriously than I thought.”\r\n\r\nWinterborne took the message from the groom and proceeded to the\r\ndoctor’s at once. Having delivered it, he stepped back into the\r\ndarkness, and waited till he had seen Fitzpiers leave the door. He\r\nstood for a few minutes looking at the window which by its light\r\nrevealed the room where Grace was sitting, and went away under the\r\ngloomy trees."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Fitzpiers duly arrived at Hintock House, whose doors he now saw open\r\nfor the first time. Contrary to his expectation there was visible no\r\nsign of that confusion or alarm which a serious accident to the\r\nmistress of the abode would have occasioned. He was shown into a room\r\nat the top of the staircase, cosily and femininely draped, where, by\r\nthe light of the shaded lamp, he saw a woman of full round figure\r\nreclining upon a couch in such a position as not to disturb a pile of\r\nmagnificent hair on the crown of her head. A deep purple dressing-gown\r\nformed an admirable foil to the peculiarly rich brown of her\r\nhair-plaits; her left arm, which was naked nearly up to the shoulder,\r\nwas thrown upward, and between the fingers of her right hand she held a\r\ncigarette, while she idly breathed from her plump lips a thin stream of\r\nsmoke towards the ceiling. The doctor’s first feeling was a sense of his exaggerated prevision in\r\nhaving brought appliances for a serious case; the next, something more\r\ncurious. While the scene and the moment were new to him and\r\nunanticipated, the sentiment and essence of the moment were\r\nindescribably familiar. What could be the cause of it? Probably a\r\ndream. Mrs. Charmond did not move more than to raise her eyes to him, and he\r\ncame and stood by her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She glanced up at his face across her brows and\r\nforehead, and then he observed a blush creep slowly over her decidedly\r\nhandsome cheeks. Her eyes, which had lingered upon him with an\r\ninquiring, conscious expression, were hastily withdrawn, and she\r\nmechanically applied the cigarette again to her lips. For a moment he forgot his errand, till suddenly arousing himself he\r\naddressed her, formally condoled with her, and made the usual\r\nprofessional inquiries about what had happened to her, and where she\r\nwas hurt. “That’s what I want you to tell me,” she murmured, in tones of\r\nindefinable reserve. “I quite believe in you, for I know you are very\r\naccomplished, because you study so hard.”\r\n\r\n“I’ll do my best to justify your good opinion,” said the young man,\r\nbowing. “And none the less that I am happy to find the accident has not\r\nbeen serious.”\r\n\r\n“I am very much shaken,” she said. “Oh yes,” he replied; and completed his examination, which convinced\r\nhim that there was really nothing the matter with her, and more than\r\never puzzled him as to why he had been fetched, since she did not\r\nappear to be a timid woman. “You must rest a while, and I’ll send\r\nsomething,” he said. “Oh, I forgot,” she returned. “Look here.” And she showed him a little\r\nscrape on her arm—the full round arm that was exposed. “Put some\r\ncourt-plaster on that, please.”\r\n\r\nHe obeyed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“And now,” she said, “before you go I want to put a question\r\nto you. Sit round there in front of me, on that low chair, and bring\r\nthe candles, or one, to the little table. Do you smoke? Yes? That’s\r\nright—I am learning. Take one of these; and here’s a light.” She threw\r\na matchbox across. Fitzpiers caught it, and having lit up, regarded her from his new\r\nposition, which, with the shifting of the candles, for the first time\r\nafforded him a full view of her face. “How many years have passed since\r\nfirst we met!” she resumed, in a voice which she mainly endeavored to\r\nmaintain at its former pitch of composure, and eying him with daring\r\nbashfulness. “_We_ met, do you say?”\r\n\r\nShe nodded. “I saw you recently at an hotel in London, when you were\r\npassing through, I suppose, with your bride, and I recognized you as\r\none I had met in my girlhood. Do you remember, when you were studying\r\nat Heidelberg, an English family that was staying there, who used to\r\nwalk—”\r\n\r\n“And the young lady who wore a long tail of rare-colored hair—ah, I see\r\nit before my eyes!—who lost her gloves on the Great Terrace—who was\r\ngoing back in the dusk to find them—to whom I said, ‘I’ll go for them,’\r\nand you said, ‘Oh, they are not worth coming all the way up again for.’\r\nI _do_ remember, and how very long we stayed talking there!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I went next\r\nmorning while the dew was on the grass: there they lay—the little\r\nfingers sticking out damp and thin. I see them now! I picked them up,\r\nand then—”\r\n\r\n“Well?”\r\n\r\n“I kissed them,” he rejoined, rather shamefacedly. “But you had hardly ever seen me except in the dusk?”\r\n\r\n“Never mind. I was young then, and I kissed them. I wondered how I\r\ncould make the most of my _trouvaille_, and decided that I would call\r\nat your hotel with them that afternoon. It rained, and I waited till\r\nnext day. I called, and you were gone.”\r\n\r\n“Yes,” answered she, with dry melancholy. “My mother, knowing my\r\ndisposition, said she had no wish for such a chit as me to go falling\r\nin love with an impecunious student, and spirited me away to Baden. As\r\nit is all over and past I’ll tell you one thing: I should have sent you\r\na line passing warm had I known your name. That name I never knew till\r\nmy maid said, as you passed up the hotel stairs a month ago, ‘There’s\r\nDr. Fitzpiers.’”\r\n\r\n“Good Heaven!” said Fitzpiers, musingly. “How the time comes back to\r\nme! The evening, the morning, the dew, the spot. When I found that you\r\nreally were gone it was as if a cold iron had been passed down my back."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I went up to where you had stood when I last saw you—I flung myself on\r\nthe grass, and—being not much more than a boy—my eyes were literally\r\nblinded with tears. Nameless, unknown to me as you were, I couldn’t\r\nforget your voice.”\r\n\r\n“For how long?”\r\n\r\n“Oh—ever so long. Days and days.”\r\n\r\n“Days and days! _Only_ days and days? Oh, the heart of a man! Days and\r\ndays!”\r\n\r\n“But, my dear madam, I had not known you more than a day or two. It was\r\nnot a full-blown love—it was the merest bud—red, fresh, vivid, but\r\nsmall. It was a colossal passion in posse, a giant in embryo. It never\r\nmatured.”\r\n\r\n“So much the better, perhaps.”\r\n\r\n“Perhaps. But see how powerless is the human will against\r\npredestination. We were prevented meeting; we have met. One feature of\r\nthe case remains the same amid many changes. You are still rich, and I\r\nam still poor. Better than that, you have (judging by your last remark)\r\noutgrown the foolish, impulsive passions of your early girl-hood. I\r\nhave not outgrown mine.”\r\n\r\n“I beg your pardon,” said she, with vibrations of strong feeling in her\r\nwords. “I have been placed in a position which hinders such\r\noutgrowings. Besides, I don’t believe that the genuine subjects of\r\nemotion do outgrow them; I believe that the older such people get the\r\nworse they are."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Possibly at ninety or a hundred they may feel they are\r\ncured; but a mere threescore and ten won’t do it—at least for me.”\r\n\r\nHe gazed at her in undisguised admiration. Here was a soul of souls! “Mrs. Charmond, you speak truly,” he exclaimed. “But you speak sadly as\r\nwell. Why is that?”\r\n\r\n“I always am sad when I come here,” she said, dropping to a low tone\r\nwith a sense of having been too demonstrative. “Then may I inquire why you came?”\r\n\r\n“A man brought me. Women are always carried about like corks upon the\r\nwaves of masculine desires....I hope I have not alarmed you; but\r\nHintock has the curious effect of bottling up the emotions till one can\r\nno longer hold them; I am often obliged to fly away and discharge my\r\nsentiments somewhere, or I should die outright.”\r\n\r\n“There is very good society in the county for those who have the\r\nprivilege of entering it.”\r\n\r\n“Perhaps so. But the misery of remote country life is that your\r\nneighbors have no toleration for difference of opinion and habit. My\r\nneighbors think I am an atheist, except those who think I am a Roman\r\nCatholic; and when I speak disrespectfully of the weather or the crops\r\nthey think I am a blasphemer.”\r\n\r\nShe broke into a low musical laugh at the idea. “You don’t wish me to stay any longer?” he inquired, when he found that\r\nshe remained musing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“No—I think not.”\r\n\r\n“Then tell me that I am to be gone.”\r\n\r\n“Why? Cannot you go without?”\r\n\r\n“I may consult my own feelings only, if left to myself.”\r\n\r\n“Well, if you do, what then? Do you suppose you’ll be in my way?”\r\n\r\n“I feared it might be so.”\r\n\r\n“Then fear no more. But good-night. Come to-morrow and see if I am\r\ngoing on right. This renewal of acquaintance touches me. I have already\r\na friendship for you.”\r\n\r\n“If it depends upon myself it shall last forever.”\r\n\r\n“My best hopes that it may. Good-by.”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers went down the stairs absolutely unable to decide whether she\r\nhad sent for him in the natural alarm which might have followed her\r\nmishap, or with the single view of making herself known to him as she\r\nhad done, for which the capsize had afforded excellent opportunity. Outside the house he mused over the spot under the light of the stars. It seemed very strange that he should have come there more than once\r\nwhen its inhabitant was absent, and observed the house with a nameless\r\ninterest; that he should have assumed off-hand before he knew Grace\r\nthat it was here she lived; that, in short, at sundry times and seasons\r\nthe individuality of Hintock House should have forced itself upon him\r\nas appertaining to some existence with which he was concerned."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The intersection of his temporal orbit with Mrs. Charmond’s for a day\r\nor two in the past had created a sentimental interest in her at the\r\ntime, but it had been so evanescent that in the ordinary onward roll of\r\naffairs he would scarce ever have recalled it again. To find her here,\r\nhowever, in these somewhat romantic circumstances, magnified that\r\nby-gone and transitory tenderness to indescribable proportions. On entering Little Hintock he found himself regarding it in a new\r\nway—from the Hintock House point of view rather than from his own and\r\nthe Melburys’. The household had all gone to bed, and as he went\r\nup-stairs he heard the snore of the timber-merchant from his quarter of\r\nthe building, and turned into the passage communicating with his own\r\nrooms in a strange access of sadness. A light was burning for him in\r\nthe chamber; but Grace, though in bed, was not asleep. In a moment her\r\nsympathetic voice came from behind the curtains. “Edgar, is she very seriously hurt?”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers had so entirely lost sight of Mrs. Charmond as a patient that\r\nhe was not on the instant ready with a reply. “Oh no,” he said. “There are no bones broken, but she is shaken."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am\r\ngoing again to-morrow.”\r\n\r\nAnother inquiry or two, and Grace said,\r\n\r\n“Did she ask for me?”\r\n\r\n“Well—I think she did—I don’t quite remember; but I am under the\r\nimpression that she spoke of you.”\r\n\r\n“Cannot you recollect at all what she said?”\r\n\r\n“I cannot, just this minute.”\r\n\r\n“At any rate she did not talk much about me?” said Grace with\r\ndisappointment. “Oh no.”\r\n\r\n“But you did, perhaps,” she added, innocently fishing for a compliment. “Oh yes—you may depend upon that!” replied he, warmly, though scarcely\r\nthinking of what he was saying, so vividly was there present to his\r\nmind the personality of Mrs. Charmond. CHAPTER XXVII. The doctor’s professional visit to Hintock House was promptly repeated\r\nthe next day and the next. He always found Mrs. Charmond reclining on a\r\nsofa, and behaving generally as became a patient who was in no great\r\nhurry to lose that title. On each occasion he looked gravely at the\r\nlittle scratch on her arm, as if it had been a serious wound. He had also, to his further satisfaction, found a slight scar on her\r\ntemple, and it was very convenient to put a piece of black plaster on\r\nthis conspicuous part of her person in preference to gold-beater’s\r\nskin, so that it might catch the eyes of the servants, and make his\r\npresence appear decidedly necessary, in case there should be any doubt\r\nof the fact. “Oh—you hurt me!” she exclaimed one day."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was peeling off the bit of plaster on her arm, under which the\r\nscrape had turned the color of an unripe blackberry previous to\r\nvanishing altogether. “Wait a moment, then—I’ll damp it,” said\r\nFitzpiers. He put his lips to the place and kept them there till the\r\nplaster came off easily. “It was at your request I put it on,” said he. “I know it,” she replied. “Is that blue vein still in my temple that\r\nused to show there? The scar must be just upon it. If the cut had been\r\na little deeper it would have spilt my hot blood indeed!” Fitzpiers\r\nexamined so closely that his breath touched her tenderly, at which\r\ntheir eyes rose to an encounter—hers showing themselves as deep and\r\nmysterious as interstellar space. She turned her face away suddenly. “Ah! none of that! none of that—I cannot coquet with you!” she cried. “Don’t suppose I consent to for one moment. Our poor, brief, youthful\r\nhour of love-making was too long ago to bear continuing now. It is as\r\nwell that we should understand each other on that point before we go\r\nfurther.”\r\n\r\n“Coquet! Nor I with you. As it was when I found the historic gloves, so\r\nit is now. I might have been and may be foolish; but I am no trifler."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I\r\nnaturally cannot forget that little space in which I flitted across the\r\nfield of your vision in those days of the past, and the recollection\r\nopens up all sorts of imaginings.”\r\n\r\n“Suppose my mother had not taken me away?” she murmured, her dreamy\r\neyes resting on the swaying tip of a distant tree. “I should have seen you again.”\r\n\r\n“And then?”\r\n\r\n“Then the fire would have burned higher and higher. What would have\r\nimmediately followed I know not; but sorrow and sickness of heart at\r\nlast.”\r\n\r\n“Why?”\r\n\r\n“Well—that’s the end of all love, according to Nature’s law. I can give\r\nno other reason.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, don’t speak like that,” she exclaimed. “Since we are only\r\npicturing the possibilities of that time, don’t, for pity’s sake, spoil\r\nthe picture.” Her voice sank almost to a whisper as she added, with an\r\nincipient pout upon her full lips, “Let me think at least that if you\r\nhad really loved me at all seriously, you would have loved me for ever\r\nand ever!”\r\n\r\n“You are right—think it with all your heart,” said he. “It is a\r\npleasant thought, and costs nothing.”\r\n\r\nShe weighed that remark in silence a while. “Did you ever hear anything\r\nof me from then till now?” she inquired. “Not a word.”\r\n\r\n“So much the better. I had to fight the battle of life as well as you. I may tell you about it some day."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But don’t ever ask me to do it, and\r\nparticularly do not press me to tell you now.”\r\n\r\nThus the two or three days that they had spent in tender acquaintance\r\non the romantic slopes above the Neckar were stretched out in\r\nretrospect to the length and importance of years; made to form a canvas\r\nfor infinite fancies, idle dreams, luxurious melancholies, and sweet,\r\nalluring assertions which could neither be proved nor disproved. Grace\r\nwas never mentioned between them, but a rumor of his proposed domestic\r\nchanges somehow reached her ears. “Doctor, you are going away,” she exclaimed, confronting him with\r\naccusatory reproach in her large dark eyes no less than in her rich\r\ncooing voice. “Oh yes, you are,” she went on, springing to her feet\r\nwith an air which might almost have been called passionate. “It is no\r\nuse denying it. You have bought a practice at Budmouth. I don’t blame\r\nyou. Nobody can live at Hintock—least of all a professional man who\r\nwants to keep abreast of recent discovery. And there is nobody here to\r\ninduce such a one to stay for other reasons. That’s right, that’s\r\nright—go away!”\r\n\r\n“But no, I have not actually bought the practice as yet, though I am\r\nindeed in treaty for it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And, my dear friend, if I continue to feel\r\nabout the business as I feel at this moment—perhaps I may conclude\r\nnever to go at all.”\r\n\r\n“But you hate Hintock, and everybody and everything in it that you\r\ndon’t mean to take away with you?”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers contradicted this idea in his most vibratory tones, and she\r\nlapsed into the frivolous archness under which she hid passions of no\r\nmean strength—strange, smouldering, erratic passions, kept down like a\r\nstifled conflagration, but bursting out now here, now there—the only\r\ncertain element in their direction being its unexpectedness. If one\r\nword could have expressed her it would have been Inconsequence. She was\r\na woman of perversities, delighting in frequent contrasts. She liked\r\nmystery, in her life, in her love, in her history. To be fair to her,\r\nthere was nothing in the latter which she had any great reason to be\r\nashamed of, and many things of which she might have been proud; but it\r\nhad never been fathomed by the honest minds of Hintock, and she rarely\r\nvolunteered her experiences. As for her capricious nature, the people\r\non her estates grew accustomed to it, and with that marvellous subtlety\r\nof contrivance in steering round odd tempers, that is found in sons of\r\nthe soil and dependants generally, they managed to get along under her\r\ngovernment rather better than they would have done beneath a more\r\nequable rule."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Now, with regard to the doctor’s notion of leaving Hintock, he had\r\nadvanced further towards completing the purchase of the Budmouth\r\nsurgeon’s good-will than he had admitted to Mrs. Charmond. The whole\r\nmatter hung upon what he might do in the ensuing twenty-four hours. The\r\nevening after leaving her he went out into the lane, and walked and\r\npondered between the high hedges, now greenish-white with wild\r\nclematis—here called “old-man’s beard,” from its aspect later in the\r\nyear. The letter of acceptance was to be written that night, after which his\r\ndeparture from Hintock would be irrevocable. But could he go away,\r\nremembering what had just passed? The trees, the hills, the leaves, the\r\ngrass—each had been endowed and quickened with a subtle charm since he\r\nhad discovered the person and history, and, above all, mood of their\r\nowner. There was every temporal reason for leaving; it would be\r\nentering again into a world which he had only quitted in a passion for\r\nisolation, induced by a fit of Achillean moodiness after an imagined\r\nslight. His wife herself saw the awkwardness of their position here,\r\nand cheerfully welcomed the purposed change, towards which every step\r\nhad been taken but the last. But could he find it in his heart—as he\r\nfound it clearly enough in his conscience—to go away? He drew a troubled breath, and went in-doors. Here he rapidly penned a\r\nletter, wherein he withdrew once for all from the treaty for the\r\nBudmouth practice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As the postman had already left Little Hintock for\r\nthat night, he sent one of Melbury’s men to intercept a mail-cart on\r\nanother turnpike-road, and so got the letter off. The man returned, met Fitzpiers in the lane, and told him the thing was\r\ndone. Fitzpiers went back to his house musing. Why had he carried out\r\nthis impulse—taken such wild trouble to effect a probable injury to his\r\nown and his young wife’s prospects? His motive was fantastic, glowing,\r\nshapeless as the fiery scenery about the western sky. Mrs. Charmond\r\ncould overtly be nothing more to him than a patient now, and to his\r\nwife, at the outside, a patron. In the unattached bachelor days of his\r\nfirst sojourning here how highly proper an emotional reason for\r\nlingering on would have appeared to troublesome dubiousness. Matrimonial ambition is such an honorable thing. “My father has told me that you have sent off one of the men with a\r\nlate letter to Budmouth,” cried Grace, coming out vivaciously to meet\r\nhim under the declining light of the sky, wherein hung, solitary, the\r\nfolding star. “I said at once that you had finally agreed to pay the\r\npremium they ask, and that the tedious question had been settled. When\r\ndo we go, Edgar?”\r\n\r\n“I have altered my mind,” said he. “They want too much—seven hundred\r\nand fifty is too large a sum—and in short, I have declined to go\r\nfurther. We must wait for another opportunity."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I fear I am not a good\r\nbusiness-man.” He spoke the last words with a momentary faltering at\r\nthe great foolishness of his act; for, as he looked in her fair and\r\nhonorable face, his heart reproached him for what he had done. Her manner that evening showed her disappointment. Personally she liked\r\nthe home of her childhood much, and she was not ambitious. But her\r\nhusband had seemed so dissatisfied with the circumstances hereabout\r\nsince their marriage that she had sincerely hoped to go for his sake. It was two or three days before he visited Mrs. Charmond again. The\r\nmorning had been windy, and little showers had sowed themselves like\r\ngrain against the walls and window-panes of the Hintock cottages. He\r\nwent on foot across the wilder recesses of the park, where slimy\r\nstreams of green moisture, exuding from decayed holes caused by old\r\namputations, ran down the bark of the oaks and elms, the rind below\r\nbeing coated with a lichenous wash as green as emerald. They were\r\nstout-trunked trees, that never rocked their stems in the fiercest\r\ngale, responding to it entirely by crooking their limbs. Wrinkled like\r\nan old crone’s face, and antlered with dead branches that rose above\r\nthe foliage of their summits, they were nevertheless still green—though\r\nyellow had invaded the leaves of other trees."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She was in a little boudoir or writing-room on the first floor, and\r\nFitzpiers was much surprised to find that the window-curtains were\r\nclosed and a red-shaded lamp and candles burning, though out-of-doors\r\nit was broad daylight. Moreover, a large fire was burning in the grate,\r\nthough it was not cold. “What does it all mean?” he asked. She sat in an easy-chair, her face being turned away. “Oh,” she\r\nmurmured, “it is because the world is so dreary outside. Sorrow and\r\nbitterness in the sky, and floods of agonized tears beating against the\r\npanes. I lay awake last night, and I could hear the scrape of snails\r\ncreeping up the window-glass; it was so sad! My eyes were so heavy this\r\nmorning that I could have wept my life away. I cannot bear you to see\r\nmy face; I keep it away from you purposely. Oh! why were we given\r\nhungry hearts and wild desires if we have to live in a world like this? Why should Death only lend what Life is compelled to borrow—rest? Answer that, Dr. Fitzpiers.”\r\n\r\n“You must eat of a second tree of knowledge before _you_ can do it,\r\nFelice Charmond.”\r\n\r\n“Then, when my emotions have exhausted themselves, I become full of\r\nfears, till I think I shall die for very fear. The terrible\r\ninsistencies of society—how severe they are, and cold and\r\ninexorable—ghastly towards those who are made of wax and not of stone."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Oh, I am afraid of them; a stab for this error, and a stab for\r\nthat—correctives and regulations framed that society may tend to\r\nperfection—an end which I don’t care for in the least. Yet for this,\r\nall I do care for has to be stunted and starved.”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers had seated himself near her. “What sets you in this mournful\r\nmood?” he asked, gently. (In reality he knew that it was the result of\r\na loss of tone from staying in-doors so much, but he did not say so.) “My reflections. Doctor, you must not come here any more. They begin to\r\nthink it a farce already. I say you must come no more. There—don’t be\r\nangry with me;” and she jumped up, pressed his hand, and looked\r\nanxiously at him. “It is necessary. It is best for both you and me.”\r\n\r\n“But,” said Fitzpiers, gloomily, “what have we done?”\r\n\r\n“Done—we have done nothing. Perhaps we have thought the more. However,\r\nit is all vexation. I am going away to Middleton Abbey, near\r\nShottsford, where a relative of my late husband lives, who is confined\r\nto her bed. The engagement was made in London, and I can’t get out of\r\nit. Perhaps it is for the best that I go there till all this is past. When are you going to enter on your new practice, and leave Hintock\r\nbehind forever, with your pretty wife on your arm?”\r\n\r\n“I have refused the opportunity."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I love this place too well to depart.”\r\n\r\n“You _have?_” she said, regarding him with wild uncertainty. “Why do\r\nyou ruin yourself in that way? Great Heaven, what have I done!”\r\n\r\n“Nothing. Besides, you are going away.”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes; but only to Middleton Abbey for a month or two. Yet perhaps I\r\nshall gain strength there—particularly strength of mind—I require it. And when I come back I shall be a new woman; and you can come and see\r\nme safely then, and bring your wife with you, and we’ll be friends—she\r\nand I. Oh, how this shutting up of one’s self does lead to indulgence\r\nin idle sentiments. I shall not wish you to give your attendance to me\r\nafter to-day. But I am glad that you are not going away—if your\r\nremaining does not injure your prospects at all.”\r\n\r\nAs soon as he had left the room the mild friendliness she had preserved\r\nin her tone at parting, the playful sadness with which she had\r\nconversed with him, equally departed from her. She became as heavy as\r\nlead—just as she had been before he arrived. Her whole being seemed to\r\ndissolve in a sad powerlessness to do anything, and the sense of it\r\nmade her lips tremulous and her closed eyes wet. His footsteps again\r\nstartled her, and she turned round. “I returned for a moment to tell you that the evening is going to be\r\nfine."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The sun is shining; so do open your curtains and put out those\r\nlights. Shall I do it for you?”\r\n\r\n“Please—if you don’t mind.”\r\n\r\nHe drew back the window-curtains, whereupon the red glow of the lamp\r\nand the two candle-flames became almost invisible with the flood of\r\nlate autumn sunlight that poured in. “Shall I come round to you?” he\r\nasked, her back being towards him. “No,” she replied. “Why not?”\r\n\r\n“Because I am crying, and I don’t want to see you.”\r\n\r\nHe stood a moment irresolute, and regretted that he had killed the\r\nrosy, passionate lamplight by opening the curtains and letting in\r\ngarish day. “Then I am going,” he said. “Very well,” she answered, stretching one hand round to him, and\r\npatting her eyes with a handkerchief held in the other. “Shall I write a line to you at—”\r\n\r\n“No, no.” A gentle reasonableness came into her tone as she added, “It\r\nmust not be, you know. It won’t do.”\r\n\r\n“Very well. Good-by.” The next moment he was gone. In the evening, with listless adroitness, she encouraged the maid who\r\ndressed her for dinner to speak of Dr. Fitzpiers’s marriage. “Mrs. Fitzpiers was once supposed to favor Mr. Winterborne,” said the\r\nyoung woman. “And why didn’t she marry him?” said Mrs. Charmond. “Because, you see, ma’am, he lost his houses.”\r\n\r\n“Lost his houses?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "How came he to do that?”\r\n\r\n“The houses were held on lives, and the lives dropped, and your agent\r\nwouldn’t renew them, though it is said that Mr. Winterborne had a very\r\ngood claim. That’s as I’ve heard it, ma’am, and it was through it that\r\nthe match was broke off.”\r\n\r\nBeing just then distracted by a dozen emotions, Mrs. Charmond sunk into\r\na mood of dismal self-reproach. “In refusing that poor man his\r\nreasonable request,” she said to herself, “I foredoomed my rejuvenated\r\ngirlhood’s romance. Who would have thought such a business matter could\r\nhave nettled my own heart like this? Now for a winter of regrets and\r\nagonies and useless wishes, till I forget him in the spring. Oh! I am\r\nglad I am going away.”\r\n\r\nShe left her chamber and went down to dine with a sigh. On the stairs\r\nshe stood opposite the large window for a moment, and looked out upon\r\nthe lawn. It was not yet quite dark. Half-way up the steep green slope\r\nconfronting her stood old Timothy Tangs, who was shortening his way\r\nhomeward by clambering here where there was no road, and in opposition\r\nto express orders that no path was to be made there. Tangs had\r\nmomentarily stopped to take a pinch of snuff; but observing Mrs.\r\nCharmond gazing at him, he hastened to get over the top out of hail."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His precipitancy made him miss his footing, and he rolled like a barrel\r\nto the bottom, his snuffbox rolling in front of him. Her indefinite, idle, impossible passion for Fitzpiers; her\r\nconstitutional cloud of misery; the sorrowful drops that still hung\r\nupon her eyelashes, all made way for the incursive mood started by the\r\nspectacle. She burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, her very gloom\r\nof the previous hour seeming to render it the more uncontrollable. It\r\nhad not died out of her when she reached the dining-room; and even\r\nhere, before the servants, her shoulders suddenly shook as the scene\r\nreturned upon her; and the tears of her hilarity mingled with the\r\nremnants of those engendered by her grief. She resolved to be sad no more. She drank two glasses of champagne, and\r\na little more still after those, and amused herself in the evening with\r\nsinging little amatory songs. “I must do something for that poor man Winterborne, however,” she said. CHAPTER XXVIII. A week had passed, and Mrs. Charmond had left Hintock House. Middleton\r\nAbbey, the place of her sojourn, was about twenty miles distant by\r\nroad, eighteen by bridle-paths and footways. Grace observed, for the first time, that her husband was restless, that\r\nat moments he even was disposed to avoid her. The scrupulous civility\r\nof mere acquaintanceship crept into his manner; yet, when sitting at\r\nmeals, he seemed hardly to hear her remarks."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her little doings\r\ninterested him no longer, while towards her father his bearing was not\r\nfar from supercilious. It was plain that his mind was entirely outside\r\nher life, whereabouts outside it she could not tell; in some region of\r\nscience, possibly, or of psychological literature. But her hope that he\r\nwas again immersing himself in those lucubrations which before her\r\nmarriage had made his light a landmark in Hintock, was founded simply\r\non the slender fact that he often sat up late. One evening she discovered him leaning over a gate on Rub-Down Hill,\r\nthe gate at which Winterborne had once been standing, and which opened\r\non the brink of a steep, slanting down directly into Blackmoor Vale, or\r\nthe Vale of the White Hart, extending beneath the eye at this point to\r\na distance of many miles. His attention was fixed on the landscape far\r\naway, and Grace’s approach was so noiseless that he did not hear her. When she came close she could see his lips moving unconsciously, as to\r\nsome impassioned visionary theme. She spoke, and Fitzpiers started. “What are you looking at?” she asked. “Oh! I was contemplating our old place of Buckbury, in my idle way,” he\r\nsaid. It had seemed to her that he was looking much to the right of that\r\ncradle and tomb of his ancestral dignity; but she made no further\r\nobservation, and taking his arm walked home beside him almost in\r\nsilence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She did not know that Middleton Abbey lay in the direction of\r\nhis gaze. “Are you going to have out Darling this afternoon?” she\r\nasked, presently. Darling being the light-gray mare which Winterborne\r\nhad bought for Grace, and which Fitzpiers now constantly used, the\r\nanimal having turned out a wonderful bargain, in combining a perfect\r\ndocility with an almost human intelligence; moreover, she was not too\r\nyoung. Fitzpiers was unfamiliar with horses, and he valued these\r\nqualities. “Yes,” he replied, “but not to drive. I am riding her. I practise\r\ncrossing a horse as often as I can now, for I find that I can take much\r\nshorter cuts on horseback.”\r\n\r\nHe had, in fact, taken these riding exercises for about a week, only\r\nsince Mrs. Charmond’s absence, his universal practice hitherto having\r\nbeen to drive. Some few days later, Fitzpiers started on the back of this horse to see\r\na patient in the aforesaid Vale. It was about five o’clock in the\r\nevening when he went away, and at bedtime he had not reached home. There was nothing very singular in this, though she was not aware that\r\nhe had any patient more than five or six miles distant in that\r\ndirection. The clock had struck one before Fitzpiers entered the house,\r\nand he came to his room softly, as if anxious not to disturb her. The next morning she was stirring considerably earlier than he."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the yard there was a conversation going on about the mare; the man\r\nwho attended to the horses, Darling included, insisted that the latter\r\nwas “hag-rid;” for when he had arrived at the stable that morning she\r\nwas in such a state as no horse could be in by honest riding. It was\r\ntrue that the doctor had stabled her himself when he got home, so that\r\nshe was not looked after as she would have been if he had groomed and\r\nfed her; but that did not account for the appearance she presented, if\r\nMr. Fitzpiers’s journey had been only where he had stated. The\r\nphenomenal exhaustion of Darling, as thus related, was sufficient to\r\ndevelop a whole series of tales about riding witches and demons, the\r\nnarration of which occupied a considerable time. Grace returned in-doors. In passing through the outer room she picked\r\nup her husband’s overcoat which he had carelessly flung down across a\r\nchair. A turnpike ticket fell out of the breast-pocket, and she saw\r\nthat it had been issued at Middleton Gate. He had therefore visited\r\nMiddleton the previous night, a distance of at least five-and-thirty\r\nmiles on horseback, there and back. During the day she made some inquiries, and learned for the first time\r\nthat Mrs. Charmond was staying at Middleton Abbey. She could not resist\r\nan inference—strange as that inference was. A few days later he prepared to start again, at the same time and in\r\nthe same direction."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She knew that the state of the cottager who lived\r\nthat way was a mere pretext; she was quite sure he was going to Mrs.\r\nCharmond. Grace was amazed at the mildness of the passion which the\r\nsuspicion engendered in her. She was but little excited, and her\r\njealousy was languid even to death. It told tales of the nature of her\r\naffection for him. In truth, her antenuptial regard for Fitzpiers had\r\nbeen rather of the quality of awe towards a superior being than of\r\ntender solicitude for a lover. It had been based upon mystery and\r\nstrangeness—the mystery of his past, of his knowledge, of his\r\nprofessional skill, of his beliefs. When this structure of ideals was\r\ndemolished by the intimacy of common life, and she found him as merely\r\nhuman as the Hintock people themselves, a new foundation was in demand\r\nfor an enduring and stanch affection—a sympathetic interdependence,\r\nwherein mutual weaknesses were made the grounds of a defensive\r\nalliance. Fitzpiers had furnished none of that single-minded confidence\r\nand truth out of which alone such a second union could spring; hence it\r\nwas with a controllable emotion that she now watched the mare brought\r\nround. “I’ll walk with you to the hill if you are not in a great hurry,” she\r\nsaid, rather loath, after all, to let him go. “Do; there’s plenty of time,” replied her husband. Accordingly he led\r\nalong the horse, and walked beside her, impatient enough nevertheless."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Thus they proceeded to the turnpike road, and ascended Rub-Down Hill to\r\nthe gate he had been leaning over when she surprised him ten days\r\nbefore. This was the end of her excursion. Fitzpiers bade her adieu\r\nwith affection, even with tenderness, and she observed that he looked\r\nweary-eyed. “Why do you go to-night?” she said. “You have been called up two nights\r\nin succession already.”\r\n\r\n“I must go,” he answered, almost gloomily. “Don’t wait up for me.” With\r\nthese words he mounted his horse, passed through the gate which Grace\r\nheld open for him, and ambled down the steep bridle-track to the\r\nvalley. She closed the gate and watched his descent, and then his journey\r\nonward. His way was east, the evening sun which stood behind her back\r\nbeaming full upon him as soon as he got out from the shade of the hill. Notwithstanding this untoward proceeding she was determined to be loyal\r\nif he proved true; and the determination to love one’s best will carry\r\na heart a long way towards making that best an ever-growing thing. The\r\nconspicuous coat of the active though blanching mare made horse and\r\nrider easy objects for the vision. Though Darling had been chosen with\r\nsuch pains by Winterborne for Grace, she had never ridden the sleek\r\ncreature; but her husband had found the animal exceedingly convenient,\r\nparticularly now that he had taken to the saddle, plenty of staying\r\npower being left in Darling yet."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Fitzpiers, like others of his\r\ncharacter, while despising Melbury and his station, did not at all\r\ndisdain to spend Melbury’s money, or appropriate to his own use the\r\nhorse which belonged to Melbury’s daughter. And so the infatuated young surgeon went along through the gorgeous\r\nautumn landscape of White Hart Vale, surrounded by orchards lustrous\r\nwith the reds of apple-crops, berries, and foliage, the whole\r\nintensified by the gilding of the declining sun. The earth this year\r\nhad been prodigally bountiful, and now was the supreme moment of her\r\nbounty. In the poorest spots the hedges were bowed with haws and\r\nblackberries; acorns cracked underfoot, and the burst husks of\r\nchestnuts lay exposing their auburn contents as if arranged by anxious\r\nsellers in a fruit-market. In all this proud show some kernels were\r\nunsound as her own situation, and she wondered if there were one world\r\nin the universe where the fruit had no worm, and marriage no sorrow. Herr Tannhäuser still moved on, his plodding steed rendering him\r\ndistinctly visible yet. Could she have heard Fitzpiers’s voice at that\r\nmoment she would have found him murmuring—\r\n\r\n“...Towards the loadstar of my one desire\r\nI flitted, even as a dizzy moth in the owlet light.”\r\n\r\n\r\nBut he was a silent spectacle to her now."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Soon he rose out of the\r\nvalley, and skirted a high plateau of the chalk formation on his right,\r\nwhich rested abruptly upon the fruity district of loamy clay, the\r\ncharacter and herbage of the two formations being so distinct that the\r\ncalcareous upland appeared but as a deposit of a few years’ antiquity\r\nupon the level vale. He kept along the edge of this high, unenclosed\r\ncountry, and the sky behind him being deep violet, she could still see\r\nwhite Darling in relief upon it—a mere speck now—a Wouvermans\r\neccentricity reduced to microscopic dimensions. Upon this high ground\r\nhe gradually disappeared. Thus she had beheld the pet animal purchased for her own use, in pure\r\nlove of her, by one who had always been true, impressed to convey her\r\nhusband away from her to the side of a new-found idol. While she was\r\nmusing on the vicissitudes of horses and wives, she discerned shapes\r\nmoving up the valley towards her, quite near at hand, though till now\r\nhidden by the hedges. Surely they were Giles Winterborne, with his two\r\nhorses and cider-apparatus, conducted by Robert Creedle. Up, upward\r\nthey crept, a stray beam of the sun alighting every now and then like a\r\nstar on the blades of the pomace-shovels, which had been converted to\r\nsteel mirrors by the action of the malic acid. She opened the gate when\r\nhe came close, and the panting horses rested as they achieved the\r\nascent."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“How do you do, Giles?” said she, under a sudden impulse to be familiar\r\nwith him. He replied with much more reserve. “You are going for a walk, Mrs.\r\nFitzpiers?” he added. “It is pleasant just now.”\r\n\r\n“No, I am returning,” said she. The vehicles passed through, the gate slammed, and Winterborne walked\r\nby her side in the rear of the apple-mill. He looked and smelt like Autumn’s very brother, his face being sunburnt\r\nto wheat-color, his eyes blue as corn-flowers, his boots and leggings\r\ndyed with fruit-stains, his hands clammy with the sweet juice of\r\napples, his hat sprinkled with pips, and everywhere about him that\r\natmosphere of cider which at its first return each season has such an\r\nindescribable fascination for those who have been born and bred among\r\nthe orchards. Her heart rose from its late sadness like a released\r\nspring; her senses revelled in the sudden lapse back to nature\r\nunadorned. The consciousness of having to be genteel because of her\r\nhusband’s profession, the veneer of artificiality which she had\r\nacquired at the fashionable schools, were thrown off, and she became\r\nthe crude, country girl of her latent, earliest instincts. Nature was bountiful, she thought. No sooner had she been starved off\r\nby Edgar Fitzpiers than another being, impersonating bare and undiluted\r\nmanliness, had arisen out of the earth, ready to hand."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This was an\r\nexcursion of the imagination which she did not encourage, and she said\r\nsuddenly, to disguise the confused regard which had followed her\r\nthoughts, “Did you meet my husband?”\r\n\r\nWinterborne, with some hesitation, “Yes.”\r\n\r\n“Where did you meet him?”\r\n\r\n“At Calfhay Cross. I come from Middleton Abbey; I have been making\r\nthere for the last week.”\r\n\r\n“Haven’t they a mill of their own?”\r\n\r\n“Yes, but it’s out of repair.”\r\n\r\n“I think—I heard that Mrs. Charmond had gone there to stay?”\r\n\r\n“Yes. I have seen her at the windows once or twice.”\r\n\r\nGrace waited an interval before she went on: “Did Mr. Fitzpiers take\r\nthe way to Middleton?”\r\n\r\n“Yes...I met him on Darling.” As she did not reply, he added, with a\r\ngentler inflection, “You know why the mare was called that?”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes—of course,” she answered, quickly. They had risen so far over the crest of the hill that the whole west\r\nsky was revealed. Between the broken clouds they could see far into the\r\nrecesses of heaven, the eye journeying on under a species of golden\r\narcades, and past fiery obstructions, fancied cairns, logan-stones,\r\nstalactites and stalagmite of topaz. Deeper than this their gaze passed\r\nthin flakes of incandescence, till it plunged into a bottomless medium\r\nof soft green fire. Her abandonment to the luscious time after her sense of ill-usage, her\r\nrevolt for the nonce against social law, her passionate desire for\r\nprimitive life, may have showed in her face."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Winterborne was looking at\r\nher, his eyes lingering on a flower that she wore in her bosom. Almost\r\nwith the abstraction of a somnambulist he stretched out his hand and\r\ngently caressed the flower. She drew back. “What are you doing, Giles Winterborne!” she exclaimed,\r\nwith a look of severe surprise. The evident absence of all\r\npremeditation from the act, however, speedily led her to think that it\r\nwas not necessary to stand upon her dignity here and now. “You must\r\nbear in mind, Giles,” she said, kindly, “that we are not as we were;\r\nand some people might have said that what you did was taking a\r\nliberty.”\r\n\r\nIt was more than she need have told him; his action of forgetfulness\r\nhad made him so angry with himself that he flushed through his tan. “I\r\ndon’t know what I am coming to!” he exclaimed, savagely. “Ah—I was not\r\nonce like this!” Tears of vexation were in his eyes. “No, now—it was nothing. I was too reproachful.”\r\n\r\n“It would not have occurred to me if I had not seen something like it\r\ndone elsewhere—at Middleton lately,” he said, thoughtfully, after a\r\nwhile. “By whom?”\r\n\r\n“Don’t ask it.”\r\n\r\nShe scanned him narrowly. “I know quite well enough,” she returned,\r\nindifferently. “It was by my husband, and the woman was Mrs. Charmond. Association of ideas reminded you when you saw me....Giles—tell me all\r\nyou know about that—please do, Giles! But no—I won’t hear it. Let the\r\nsubject cease."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And as you are my friend, say nothing to my father.”\r\n\r\nThey reached a place where their ways divided. Winterborne continued\r\nalong the highway which kept outside the copse, and Grace opened a gate\r\nthat entered it. CHAPTER XXIX. She walked up the soft grassy ride, screened on either hand by\r\nnut-bushes, just now heavy with clusters of twos and threes and fours. A little way on, the track she pursued was crossed by a similar one at\r\nright angles. Here Grace stopped; some few yards up the transverse ride\r\nthe buxom Suke Damson was visible—her gown tucked up high through her\r\npocket-hole, and no bonnet on her head—in the act of pulling down\r\nboughs from which she was gathering and eating nuts with great\r\nrapidity, her lover Tim Tangs standing near her engaged in the same\r\npleasant meal. Crack, crack went Suke’s jaws every second or two. By an automatic\r\nchain of thought Grace’s mind reverted to the tooth-drawing scene\r\ndescribed by her husband; and for the first time she wondered if that\r\nnarrative were really true, Susan’s jaws being so obviously sound and\r\nstrong. Grace turned up towards the nut-gatherers, and conquered her\r\nreluctance to speak to the girl who was a little in advance of Tim. “Good-evening, Susan,” she said. “Good-evening, Miss Melbury” (crack). “Mrs. Fitzpiers.”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes, ma’am—Mrs. Fitzpiers,” said Suke, with a peculiar smile. Grace, not to be daunted, continued: “Take care of your teeth, Suke."}
{"question": "", "answer": "That accounts for the toothache.”\r\n\r\n“I don’t know what an ache is, either in tooth, ear, or head, thank the\r\nLord” (crack). “Nor the loss of one, either?”\r\n\r\n“See for yourself, ma’am.” She parted her red lips, and exhibited the\r\nwhole double row, full up and unimpaired. “You have never had one drawn?”\r\n\r\n“Never.”\r\n\r\n“So much the better for your stomach,” said Mrs. Fitzpiers, in an\r\naltered voice. And turning away quickly, she went on. As her husband’s character thus shaped itself under the touch of time,\r\nGrace was almost startled to find how little she suffered from that\r\njealous excitement which is conventionally attributed to all wives in\r\nsuch circumstances. But though possessed by none of that feline\r\nwildness which it was her moral duty to experience, she did not fail to\r\nknow that she had made a frightful mistake in her marriage. Acquiescence in her father’s wishes had been degradation to herself. People are not given premonitions for nothing; she should have obeyed\r\nher impulse on that early morning, and steadfastly refused her hand. Oh, that plausible tale which her then betrothed had told her about\r\nSuke—the dramatic account of her entreaties to him to draw the aching\r\nenemy, and the fine artistic touch he had given to the story by\r\nexplaining that it was a lovely molar without a flaw! She traced the remainder of the woodland track dazed by the\r\ncomplications of her position."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If his protestations to her before their\r\nmarriage could be believed, her husband had felt affection of some sort\r\nfor herself and this woman simultaneously; and was now again spreading\r\nthe same emotion over Mrs. Charmond and herself conjointly, his manner\r\nbeing still kind and fond at times. But surely, rather than that, he\r\nmust have played the hypocrite towards her in each case with elaborate\r\ncompleteness; and the thought of this sickened her, for it involved the\r\nconjecture that if he had not loved her, his only motive for making her\r\nhis wife must have been her little fortune. Yet here Grace made a\r\nmistake, for the love of men like Fitzpiers is unquestionably of such\r\nquality as to bear division and transference. He had indeed, once\r\ndeclared, though not to her, that on one occasion he had noticed\r\nhimself to be possessed by five distinct infatuations at the same time. Therein it differed from the highest affection as the lower orders of\r\nthe animal world differ from advanced organisms, partition causing, not\r\ndeath, but a multiplied existence. He had loved her sincerely, and had\r\nby no means ceased to love her now. But such double and treble\r\nbarrelled hearts were naturally beyond her conception. Of poor Suke Damson, Grace thought no more. She had had her day. “If he does not love me I will not love him!” said Grace, proudly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And\r\nthough these were mere words, it was a somewhat formidable thing for\r\nFitzpiers that her heart was approximating to a state in which it might\r\nbe possible to carry them out. That very absence of hot jealousy which\r\nmade his courses so easy, and on which, indeed, he congratulated\r\nhimself, meant, unknown to either wife or husband, more mischief than\r\nthe inconvenient watchfulness of a jaundiced eye. Her sleep that night was nervous. The wing allotted to her and her\r\nhusband had never seemed so lonely. At last she got up, put on her\r\ndressing-gown, and went down-stairs. Her father, who slept lightly,\r\nheard her descend, and came to the stair-head. “Is that you, Grace? What’s the matter?” he said. “Nothing more than that I am restless. Edgar is detained by a case at\r\nOwlscombe in White Hart Vale.”\r\n\r\n“But how’s that? I saw the woman’s husband at Great Hintock just afore\r\nbedtime; and she was going on well, and the doctor gone then.”\r\n\r\n“Then he’s detained somewhere else,” said Grace. “Never mind me; he\r\nwill soon be home. I expect him about one.”\r\n\r\nShe went back to her room, and dozed and woke several times. One\r\no’clock had been the hour of his return on the last occasion; but it\r\npassed now by a long way, and Fitzpiers did not come. Just before dawn\r\nshe heard the men stirring in the yard; and the flashes of their\r\nlanterns spread every now and then through her window-blind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She\r\nremembered that her father had told her not to be disturbed if she\r\nnoticed them, as they would be rising early to send off four loads of\r\nhurdles to a distant sheep-fair. Peeping out, she saw them bustling\r\nabout, the hollow-turner among the rest; he was loading his\r\nwares—wooden-bowls, dishes, spigots, spoons, cheese-vats, funnels, and\r\nso on—upon one of her father’s wagons, who carried them to the fair for\r\nhim every year out of neighborly kindness. The scene and the occasion would have enlivened her but that her\r\nhusband was still absent; though it was now five o’clock. She could\r\nhardly suppose him, whatever his infatuation, to have prolonged to a\r\nlater hour than ten an ostensibly professional call on Mrs. Charmond at\r\nMiddleton; and he could have ridden home in two hours and a half. What,\r\nthen, had become of him? That he had been out the greater part of the\r\ntwo preceding nights added to her uneasiness. She dressed herself, descended, and went out, the weird twilight of\r\nadvancing day chilling the rays from the lanterns, and making the men’s\r\nfaces wan. As soon as Melbury saw her he came round, showing his alarm. “Edgar is not come,” she said. “And I have reason to know that he’s not\r\nattending anybody. He has had no rest for two nights before this. I was\r\ngoing to the top of the hill to look for him.”\r\n\r\n“I’ll come with you,” said Melbury."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She begged him not to hinder himself; but he insisted, for he saw a\r\npeculiar and rigid gloom in her face over and above her uneasiness, and\r\ndid not like the look of it. Telling the men he would be with them\r\nagain soon, he walked beside her into the turnpike-road, and partly up\r\nthe hill whence she had watched Fitzpiers the night before across the\r\nGreat White Hart or Blackmoor Valley. They halted beneath a half-dead\r\noak, hollow, and disfigured with white tumors, its roots spreading out\r\nlike accipitrine claws grasping the ground. A chilly wind circled round\r\nthem, upon whose currents the seeds of a neighboring lime-tree,\r\nsupported parachute-wise by the wing attached, flew out of the boughs\r\ndownward like fledglings from their nest. The vale was wrapped in a dim\r\natmosphere of unnaturalness, and the east was like a livid curtain\r\nedged with pink. There was no sign nor sound of Fitzpiers. “It is no use standing here,” said her father. “He may come home fifty\r\nways...why, look here!—here be Darling’s tracks—turned homeward and\r\nnearly blown dry and hard! He must have come in hours ago without your\r\nseeing him.”\r\n\r\n“He has not done that,” said she. They went back hastily. On entering their own gates they perceived that\r\nthe men had left the wagons, and were standing round the door of the\r\nstable which had been appropriated to the doctor’s use. “Is there\r\nanything the matter?” cried Grace. “Oh no, ma’am."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All’s well that ends well,” said old Timothy Tangs. “I’ve heard of such things before—among workfolk, though not among your\r\ngentle people—that’s true.”\r\n\r\nThey entered the stable, and saw the pale shape of Darling standing in\r\nthe middle of her stall, with Fitzpiers on her back, sound asleep. Darling was munching hay as well as she could with the bit in her\r\nmonth, and the reins, which had fallen from Fitzpiers’s hand, hung upon\r\nher neck. Grace went and touched his hand; shook it before she could arouse him. He moved, started, opened his eyes, and exclaimed, “Ah, Felice!...Oh,\r\nit’s Grace. I could not see in the gloom. What—am I in the saddle?”\r\n\r\n“Yes,” said she. “How do you come here?”\r\n\r\nHe collected his thoughts, and in a few minutes stammered, “I was\r\nriding along homeward through the vale, very, very sleepy, having been\r\nup so much of late. When I came opposite Holywell spring the mare\r\nturned her head that way, as if she wanted to drink. I let her go in,\r\nand she drank; I thought she would never finish. While she was\r\ndrinking, the clock of Owlscombe Church struck twelve. I distinctly\r\nremember counting the strokes. From that moment I positively recollect\r\nnothing till I saw you here by my side.”\r\n\r\n“The name! If it had been any other horse he’d have had a broken neck!”\r\nmurmured Melbury. “’Tis wonderful, sure, how a quiet hoss will bring a man home at such\r\ntimes!” said John Upjohn."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“And what’s more wonderful than keeping your\r\nseat in a deep, slumbering sleep? I’ve knowed men drowze off walking\r\nhome from randies where the mead and other liquors have gone round\r\nwell, and keep walking for more than a mile on end without waking. Well, doctor, I don’t care who the man is, ’tis a mercy you wasn’t a\r\ndrownded, or a splintered, or a hanged up to a tree like Absalom—also a\r\nhandsome gentleman like yerself, as the prophets say.”\r\n\r\n“True,” murmured old Timothy. “From the soul of his foot to the crown\r\nof his head there was no blemish in him.”\r\n\r\n“Or leastwise you might ha’ been a-wownded into tatters a’most, and no\r\ndoctor to jine your few limbs together within seven mile!”\r\n\r\nWhile this grim address was proceeding, Fitzpiers had dismounted, and\r\ntaking Grace’s arm walked stiffly in-doors with her. Melbury stood\r\nstaring at the horse, which, in addition to being very weary, was\r\nspattered with mud. There was no mud to speak of about the Hintocks\r\njust now—only in the clammy hollows of the vale beyond Owlscombe, the\r\nstiff soil of which retained moisture for weeks after the uplands were\r\ndry. While they were rubbing down the mare, Melbury’s mind coupled with\r\nthe foreign quality of the mud the name he had heard unconsciously\r\nmuttered by the surgeon when Grace took his hand—“Felice.” Who was\r\nFelice? Why, Mrs. Charmond; and she, as he knew, was staying at\r\nMiddleton."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Melbury had indeed pounced upon the image that filled Fitzpiers’s\r\nhalf-awakened soul—wherein there had been a picture of a recent\r\ninterview on a lawn with a capriciously passionate woman who had begged\r\nhim not to come again in tones whose vibration incited him to disobey. “What are you doing here? Why do you pursue me? Another belongs to you. If they were to see you they would seize you as a thief!” And she had\r\nturbulently admitted to his wringing questions that her visit to\r\nMiddleton had been undertaken less because of the invalid relative than\r\nin shamefaced fear of her own weakness if she remained near his home. A\r\ntriumph then it was to Fitzpiers, poor and hampered as he had become,\r\nto recognize his real conquest of this beauty, delayed so many years. His was the selfish passion of Congreve’s Millamont, to whom love’s\r\nsupreme delight lay in “that heart which others bleed for, bleed for\r\nme.”\r\n\r\nWhen the horse had been attended to Melbury stood uneasily here and\r\nthere about his premises; he was rudely disturbed in the comfortable\r\nviews which had lately possessed him on his domestic concerns. It is\r\ntrue that he had for some days discerned that Grace more and more\r\nsought his company, preferred supervising his kitchen and bakehouse\r\nwith her step-mother to occupying herself with the lighter details of\r\nher own apartments."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She seemed no longer able to find in her own hearth\r\nan adequate focus for her life, and hence, like a weak queen-bee after\r\nleading off to an independent home, had hovered again into the parent\r\nhive. But he had not construed these and other incidents of the kind\r\ntill now. Something was wrong in the dove-cot. A ghastly sense that he alone\r\nwould be responsible for whatever unhappiness should be brought upon\r\nher for whom he almost solely lived, whom to retain under his roof he\r\nhad faced the numerous inconveniences involved in giving up the best\r\npart of his house to Fitzpiers. There was no room for doubt that, had\r\nhe allowed events to take their natural course, she would have accepted\r\nWinterborne, and realized his old dream of restitution to that young\r\nman’s family. That Fitzpiers could allow himself to look on any other creature for a\r\nmoment than Grace filled Melbury with grief and astonishment. In the\r\npure and simple life he had led it had scarcely occurred to him that\r\nafter marriage a man might be faithless. That he could sweep to the\r\nheights of Mrs. Charmond’s position, lift the veil of Isis, so to\r\nspeak, would have amazed Melbury by its audacity if he had not\r\nsuspected encouragement from that quarter. What could he and his simple\r\nGrace do to countervail the passions of such as those two sophisticated\r\nbeings—versed in the world’s ways, armed with every apparatus for\r\nvictory?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "In such an encounter the homely timber-dealer felt as inferior\r\nas a bow-and-arrow savage before the precise weapons of modern warfare. Grace came out of the house as the morning drew on. The village was\r\nsilent, most of the folk having gone to the fair. Fitzpiers had retired\r\nto bed, and was sleeping off his fatigue. She went to the stable and\r\nlooked at poor Darling: in all probability Giles Winterborne, by\r\nobtaining for her a horse of such intelligence and docility, had been\r\nthe means of saving her husband’s life. She paused over the strange\r\nthought; and then there appeared her father behind her. She saw that he\r\nknew things were not as they ought to be, from the troubled dulness of\r\nhis eye, and from his face, different points of which had independent\r\nmotions, twitchings, and tremblings, unknown to himself, and\r\ninvoluntary. “He was detained, I suppose, last night?” said Melbury. “Oh yes; a bad case in the vale,” she replied, calmly. “Nevertheless, he should have stayed at home.”\r\n\r\n“But he couldn’t, father.”\r\n\r\nHer father turned away. He could hardly bear to see his whilom truthful\r\ngirl brought to the humiliation of having to talk like that. That night carking care sat beside Melbury’s pillow, and his stiff\r\nlimbs tossed at its presence. “I can’t lie here any longer,” he\r\nmuttered. Striking a light, he wandered about the room. “What have I\r\ndone—what have I done for her?” he said to his wife, who had anxiously\r\nawakened."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I had long planned that she should marry the son of the man\r\nI wanted to make amends to; do ye mind how I told you all about it,\r\nLucy, the night before she came home? Ah! but I was not content with\r\ndoing right, I wanted to do more!”\r\n\r\n“Don’t raft yourself without good need, George,” she replied. “I won’t\r\nquite believe that things are so much amiss. I won’t believe that Mrs.\r\nCharmond has encouraged him. Even supposing she has encouraged a great\r\nmany, she can have no motive to do it now. What so likely as that she\r\nis not yet quite well, and doesn’t care to let another doctor come near\r\nher?”\r\n\r\nHe did not heed. “Grace used to be so busy every day, with fixing a\r\ncurtain here and driving a tin-tack there; but she cares for no\r\nemployment now!”\r\n\r\n“Do you know anything of Mrs. Charmond’s past history? Perhaps that\r\nwould throw some light upon things. Before she came here as the wife of\r\nold Charmond four or five years ago, not a soul seems to have heard\r\naught of her. Why not make inquiries? And then do ye wait and see more;\r\nthere’ll be plenty of opportunity. Time enough to cry when you know\r\n’tis a crying matter; and ’tis bad to meet troubles half-way.”\r\n\r\nThere was some good-sense in the notion of seeing further. Melbury\r\nresolved to inquire and wait, hoping still, but oppressed\r\nbetween-whiles with much fear. CHAPTER XXX."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Examine Grace as her father might, she would admit nothing. For the\r\npresent, therefore, he simply watched. The suspicion that his darling child was being slighted wrought almost\r\na miraculous change in Melbury’s nature. No man so furtive for the time\r\nas the ingenuous countryman who finds that his ingenuousness has been\r\nabused. Melbury’s heretofore confidential candor towards his\r\ngentlemanly son-in-law was displaced by a feline stealth that did\r\ninjury to his every action, thought, and mood. He knew that a woman\r\nonce given to a man for life took, as a rule, her lot as it came and\r\nmade the best of it, without external interference; but for the first\r\ntime he asked himself why this so generally should be so. Moreover,\r\nthis case was not, he argued, like ordinary cases. Leaving out the\r\nquestion of Grace being anything but an ordinary woman, her peculiar\r\nsituation, as it were in mid-air between two planes of society,\r\ntogether with the loneliness of Hintock, made a husband’s neglect a far\r\nmore tragical matter to her than it would be to one who had a large\r\ncircle of friends to fall back upon. Wisely or unwisely, and whatever\r\nother fathers did, he resolved to fight his daughter’s battle still. Mrs. Charmond had returned. But Hintock House scarcely gave forth signs\r\nof life, so quietly had she reentered it. He went to church at Great\r\nHintock one afternoon as usual, there being no service at the smaller\r\nvillage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A few minutes before his departure, he had casually heard\r\nFitzpiers, who was no church-goer, tell his wife that he was going to\r\nwalk in the wood. Melbury entered the building and sat down in his pew;\r\nthe parson came in, then Mrs. Charmond, then Mr. Fitzpiers. The service proceeded, and the jealous father was quite sure that a\r\nmutual consciousness was uninterruptedly maintained between those two;\r\nhe fancied that more than once their eyes met. At the end, Fitzpiers so\r\ntimed his movement into the aisle that it exactly coincided with Felice\r\nCharmond’s from the opposite side, and they walked out with their\r\ngarments in contact, the surgeon being just that two or three inches in\r\nher rear which made it convenient for his eyes to rest upon her cheek. The cheek warmed up to a richer tone. This was a worse feature in the flirtation than he had expected. If she\r\nhad been playing with him in an idle freak the game might soon have\r\nwearied her; but the smallest germ of passion—and women of the world do\r\nnot change color for nothing—was a threatening development. The mere\r\npresence of Fitzpiers in the building, after his statement, was\r\nwellnigh conclusive as far as he was concerned; but Melbury resolved\r\nyet to watch. He had to wait long. Autumn drew shiveringly to its end."}
{"question": "", "answer": "One day\r\nsomething seemed to be gone from the gardens; the tenderer leaves of\r\nvegetables had shrunk under the first smart frost, and hung like faded\r\nlinen rags; then the forest leaves, which had been descending at\r\nleisure, descended in haste and in multitudes, and all the golden\r\ncolors that had hung overhead were now crowded together in a degraded\r\nmass underfoot, where the fallen myriads got redder and hornier, and\r\ncurled themselves up to rot. The only suspicious features in Mrs.\r\nCharmond’s existence at this season were two: the first, that she lived\r\nwith no companion or relative about her, which, considering her age and\r\nattractions, was somewhat unusual conduct for a young widow in a lonely\r\ncountry-house; the other, that she did not, as in previous years, start\r\nfrom Hintock to winter abroad. In Fitzpiers, the only change from his\r\nlast autumn’s habits lay in his abandonment of night study—his lamp\r\nnever shone from his new dwelling as from his old. If the suspected ones met, it was by such adroit contrivances that even\r\nMelbury’s vigilance could not encounter them together. A simple call at\r\nher house by the doctor had nothing irregular about it, and that he had\r\npaid two or three such calls was certain. What had passed at those\r\ninterviews was known only to the parties themselves; but that Felice\r\nCharmond was under some one’s influence Melbury soon had opportunity of\r\nperceiving. Winter had come on."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Owls began to be noisy in the mornings and\r\nevenings, and flocks of wood-pigeons made themselves prominent again. One day in February, about six months after the marriage of Fitzpiers,\r\nMelbury was returning from Great Hintock on foot through the lane, when\r\nhe saw before him the surgeon also walking. Melbury would have\r\novertaken him, but at that moment Fitzpiers turned in through a gate to\r\none of the rambling drives among the trees at this side of the wood,\r\nwhich led to nowhere in particular, and the beauty of whose serpentine\r\ncurves was the only justification of their existence. Felice almost\r\nsimultaneously trotted down the lane towards the timber-dealer, in a\r\nlittle basket-carriage which she sometimes drove about the estate,\r\nunaccompanied by a servant. She turned in at the same place without\r\nhaving seen either Melbury or apparently Fitzpiers. Melbury was soon at\r\nthe spot, despite his aches and his sixty years. Mrs. Charmond had come\r\nup with the doctor, who was standing immediately behind the carriage. She had turned to him, her arm being thrown carelessly over the back of\r\nthe seat. They looked in each other’s faces without uttering a word, an\r\narch yet gloomy smile wreathing her lips. Fitzpiers clasped her hanging\r\nhand, and, while she still remained in the same listless attitude,\r\nlooking volumes into his eyes, he stealthily unbuttoned her glove, and\r\nstripped her hand of it by rolling back the gauntlet over the fingers,\r\nso that it came off inside out."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He then raised her hand to his month,\r\nshe still reclining passively, watching him as she might have watched a\r\nfly upon her dress. At last she said, “Well, sir, what excuse for this\r\ndisobedience?”\r\n\r\n“I make none.”\r\n\r\n“Then go your way, and let me go mine.” She snatched away her hand,\r\ntouched the pony with the whip, and left him standing there, holding\r\nthe reversed glove. Melbury’s first impulse was to reveal his presence to Fitzpiers, and\r\nupbraid him bitterly. But a moment’s thought was sufficient to show him\r\nthe futility of any such simple proceeding. There was not, after all,\r\nso much in what he had witnessed as in what that scene might be the\r\nsurface and froth of—probably a state of mind on which censure operates\r\nas an aggravation rather than as a cure. Moreover, he said to himself\r\nthat the point of attack should be the woman, if either. He therefore\r\nkept out of sight, and musing sadly, even tearfully—for he was meek as\r\na child in matters concerning his daughter—continued his way towards\r\nHintock. The insight which is bred of deep sympathy was never more finely\r\nexemplified than in this instance. Through her guarded manner, her\r\ndignified speech, her placid countenance, he discerned the interior of\r\nGrace’s life only too truly, hidden as were its incidents from every\r\nouter eye. These incidents had become painful enough. Fitzpiers had latterly\r\ndeveloped an irritable discontent which vented itself in monologues\r\nwhen Grace was present to hear them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The early morning of this day had\r\nbeen dull, after a night of wind, and on looking out of the window\r\nFitzpiers had observed some of Melbury’s men dragging away a large limb\r\nwhich had been snapped off a beech-tree. Everything was cold and\r\ncolorless. “My good Heaven!” he said, as he stood in his dressing-gown. “This is\r\nlife!” He did not know whether Grace was awake or not, and he would not\r\nturn his head to ascertain. “Ah, fool,” he went on to himself, “to clip\r\nyour own wings when you were free to soar!...But I could not rest till\r\nI had done it. Why do I never recognize an opportunity till I have\r\nmissed it, nor the good or ill of a step till it is irrevocable!...I\r\nfell in love....Love, indeed!—\r\n\r\n“‘Love’s but the frailty of the mind\r\nWhen ’tis not with ambition joined;\r\nA sickly flame which if not fed, expires,\r\nAnd feeding, wastes in self-consuming fires!’\r\n\r\n\r\nAh, old author of ‘The Way of the World,’ you knew—you knew!” Grace\r\nmoved. He thought she had heard some part of his soliloquy. He was\r\nsorry—though he had not taken any precaution to prevent her. He expected a scene at breakfast, but she only exhibited an extreme\r\nreserve. It was enough, however, to make him repent that he should have\r\ndone anything to produce discomfort; for he attributed her manner\r\nentirely to what he had said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But Grace’s manner had not its cause\r\neither in his sayings or in his doings. She had not heard a single word\r\nof his regrets. Something even nearer home than her husband’s blighted\r\nprospects—if blighted they were—was the origin of her mood, a mood that\r\nwas the mere continuation of what her father had noticed when he would\r\nhave preferred a passionate jealousy in her, as the more natural. She had made a discovery—one which to a girl of honest nature was\r\nalmost appalling. She had looked into her heart, and found that her\r\nearly interest in Giles Winterborne had become revitalized into\r\nluxuriant growth by her widening perceptions of what was great and\r\nlittle in life. His homeliness no longer offended her acquired tastes;\r\nhis comparative want of so-called culture did not now jar on her\r\nintellect; his country dress even pleased her eye; his exterior\r\nroughness fascinated her. Having discovered by marriage how much that\r\nwas humanly not great could co-exist with attainments of an exceptional\r\norder, there was a revulsion in her sentiments from all that she had\r\nformerly clung to in this kind: honesty, goodness, manliness,\r\ntenderness, devotion, for her only existed in their purity now in the\r\nbreasts of unvarnished men; and here was one who had manifested them\r\ntowards her from his youth up."}
{"question": "", "answer": "There was, further, that never-ceasing pity in her soul for Giles as a\r\nman whom she had wronged—a man who had been unfortunate in his worldly\r\ntransactions; while, not without a touch of sublimity, he had, like\r\nHoratio, borne himself throughout his scathing\r\n\r\n“As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing.”\r\n\r\n\r\nIt was these perceptions, and no subtle catching of her husband’s\r\nmurmurs, that had bred the abstraction visible in her. When her father approached the house after witnessing the interview\r\nbetween Fitzpiers and Mrs. Charmond, Grace was looking out of her\r\nsitting-room window, as if she had nothing to do, or think of, or care\r\nfor. He stood still. “Ah, Grace,” he said, regarding her fixedly. “Yes, father,” she murmured. “Waiting for your dear husband?” he inquired, speaking with the sarcasm\r\nof pitiful affection. “Oh no—not especially. He has a great many patients to see this\r\nafternoon.”\r\n\r\nMelbury came quite close. “Grace, what’s the use of talking like that,\r\nwhen you know—Here, come down and walk with me out in the garden,\r\nchild.”\r\n\r\nHe unfastened the door in the ivy-laced wall, and waited. This apparent\r\nindifference alarmed him. He would far rather that she had rushed in\r\nall the fire of jealousy to Hintock House, regardless of\r\nconventionality, confronted and attacked Felice Charmond _unguibus et\r\nrostro_, and accused her even in exaggerated shape of stealing away her\r\nhusband. Such a storm might have cleared the air. She emerged in a minute or two, and they went inside together."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“You\r\nknow as well as I do,” he resumed, “that there is something threatening\r\nmischief to your life; and yet you pretend you do not. Do you suppose I\r\ndon’t see the trouble in your face every day? I am very sure that this\r\nquietude is wrong conduct in you. You should look more into matters.”\r\n\r\n“I am quiet because my sadness is not of a nature to stir me to\r\naction.”\r\n\r\nMelbury wanted to ask her a dozen questions—did she not feel jealous? was she not indignant? but a natural delicacy restrained him. “You are\r\nvery tame and let-alone, I am bound to say,” he remarked, pointedly. “I am what I feel, father,” she repeated. He glanced at her, and there returned upon his mind the scene of her\r\noffering to wed Winterborne instead of Fitzpiers in the last days\r\nbefore her marriage; and he asked himself if it could be the fact that\r\nshe loved Winterborne, now that she had lost him, more than she had\r\never done when she was comparatively free to choose him. “What would you have me do?” she asked, in a low voice. He recalled his mind from the retrospective pain to the practical\r\nmatter before them. “I would have you go to Mrs. Charmond,” he said. “Go to Mrs. Charmond—what for?” said she."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Well—if I must speak plain, dear Grace—to ask her, appeal to her in\r\nthe name of your common womanhood, and your many like sentiments on\r\nthings, not to make unhappiness between you and your husband. It lies\r\nwith her entirely to do one or the other—that I can see.”\r\n\r\nGrace’s face had heated at her father’s words, and the very rustle of\r\nher skirts upon the box-edging bespoke hauteur. “I shall not think of\r\ngoing to her, father—of course I could not!” she answered. “Why—don’t ’ee want to be happier than you be at present?” said\r\nMelbury, more moved on her account than she was herself. “I don’t wish to be more humiliated. If I have anything to bear I can\r\nbear it in silence.”\r\n\r\n“But, my dear maid, you are too young—you don’t know what the present\r\nstate of things may lead to. Just see the harm done a’ready! Your\r\nhusband would have gone away to Budmouth to a bigger practice if it had\r\nnot been for this. Although it has gone such a little way, it is\r\npoisoning your future even now. Mrs. Charmond is thoughtlessly bad, not\r\nbad by calculation; and just a word to her now might save ’ee a peck of\r\nwoes.”\r\n\r\n“Ah, I loved her once,” said Grace, with a broken articulation, “and\r\nshe would not care for me then! Now I no longer love her. Let her do\r\nher worst: I don’t care.”\r\n\r\n“You ought to care."}
{"question": "", "answer": "You have got into a very good position to start\r\nwith. You have been well educated, well tended, and you have become the\r\nwife of a professional man of unusually good family. Surely you ought\r\nto make the best of your position.”\r\n\r\n“I don’t see that I ought. I wish I had never got into it. I wish you\r\nhad never, never thought of educating me. I wish I worked in the woods\r\nlike Marty South. I hate genteel life, and I want to be no better than\r\nshe.”\r\n\r\n“Why?” said her amazed father. “Because cultivation has only brought me inconveniences and troubles. I\r\nsay again, I wish you had never sent me to those fashionable schools\r\nyou set your mind on. It all arose out of that, father. If I had stayed\r\nat home I should have married—” She closed up her mouth suddenly and\r\nwas silent; and he saw that she was not far from crying. Melbury was much grieved. “What, and would you like to have grown up as\r\nwe be here in Hintock—knowing no more, and with no more chance of\r\nseeing good life than we have here?”\r\n\r\n“Yes. I have never got any happiness outside Hintock that I know of,\r\nand I have suffered many a heartache at being sent away. Oh, the misery\r\nof those January days when I had got back to school, and left you all\r\nhere in the wood so happy. I used to wonder why I had to bear it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And I\r\nwas always a little despised by the other girls at school, because they\r\nknew where I came from, and that my parents were not in so good a\r\nstation as theirs.”\r\n\r\nHer poor father was much hurt at what he thought her ingratitude and\r\nintractability. He had admitted to himself bitterly enough that he\r\nshould have let young hearts have their way, or rather should have\r\nhelped on her affection for Winterborne, and given her to him according\r\nto his original plan; but he was not prepared for her deprecation of\r\nthose attainments whose completion had been a labor of years, and a\r\nsevere tax upon his purse. “Very well,” he said, with much heaviness of spirit. “If you don’t like\r\nto go to her I don’t wish to force you.”\r\n\r\nAnd so the question remained for him still: how should he remedy this\r\nperilous state of things? For days he sat in a moody attitude over the\r\nfire, a pitcher of cider standing on the hearth beside him, and his\r\ndrinking-horn inverted upon the top of it. He spent a week and more\r\nthus composing a letter to the chief offender, which he would every now\r\nand then attempt to complete, and suddenly crumple up in his hand. CHAPTER XXXI."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As February merged in March, and lighter evenings broke the gloom of\r\nthe woodmen’s homeward journey, the Hintocks Great and Little began to\r\nhave ears for a rumor of the events out of which had grown the\r\ntimber-dealer’s troubles. It took the form of a wide sprinkling of\r\nconjecture, wherein no man knew the exact truth. Tantalizing phenomena,\r\nat once showing and concealing the real relationship of the persons\r\nconcerned, caused a diffusion of excited surprise. Honest people as the\r\nwoodlanders were, it was hardly to be expected that they could remain\r\nimmersed in the study of their trees and gardens amid such\r\ncircumstances, or sit with their backs turned like the good burghers of\r\nCoventry at the passage of the beautiful lady. Rumor, for a wonder, exaggerated little. There were, in fact, in this\r\ncase as in thousands, the well-worn incidents, old as the hills, which,\r\nwith individual variations, made a mourner of Ariadne, a by-word of\r\nVashti, and a corpse of the Countess Amy. There were rencounters\r\naccidental and contrived, stealthy correspondence, sudden misgivings on\r\none side, sudden self-reproaches on the other. The inner state of the\r\ntwain was one as of confused noise that would not allow the accents of\r\ncalmer reason to be heard. Determinations to go in this direction, and\r\nheadlong plunges in that; dignified safeguards, undignified collapses;\r\nnot a single rash step by deliberate intention, and all against\r\njudgment. It was all that Melbury had expected and feared."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was more, for he\r\nhad overlooked the publicity that would be likely to result, as it now\r\nhad done. What should he do—appeal to Mrs. Charmond himself, since\r\nGrace would not? He bethought himself of Winterborne, and resolved to\r\nconsult him, feeling the strong need of some friend of his own sex to\r\nwhom he might unburden his mind. He had entirely lost faith in his own judgment. That judgment on which\r\nhe had relied for so many years seemed recently, like a false companion\r\nunmasked, to have disclosed unexpected depths of hypocrisy and\r\nspeciousness where all had seemed solidity. He felt almost afraid to\r\nform a conjecture on the weather, or the time, or the fruit-promise, so\r\ngreat was his self-abasement. It was a rimy evening when he set out to look for Giles. The woods\r\nseemed to be in a cold sweat; beads of perspiration hung from every\r\nbare twig; the sky had no color, and the trees rose before him as\r\nhaggard, gray phantoms, whose days of substantiality were passed. Melbury seldom saw Winterborne now, but he believed him to be occupying\r\na lonely hut just beyond the boundary of Mrs. Charmond’s estate, though\r\nstill within the circuit of the woodland. The timber-merchant’s thin\r\nlegs stalked on through the pale, damp scenery, his eyes on the dead\r\nleaves of last year; while every now and then a hasty “Ay?” escaped his\r\nlips in reply to some bitter proposition."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His notice was attracted by a thin blue haze of smoke, behind which\r\narose sounds of voices and chopping: bending his steps that way, he saw\r\nWinterborne just in front of him. It just now happened that Giles,\r\nafter being for a long time apathetic and unemployed, had become one of\r\nthe busiest men in the neighborhood. It is often thus; fallen friends,\r\nlost sight of, we expect to find starving; we discover them going on\r\nfairly well. Without any solicitation, or desire for profit on his\r\npart, he had been asked to execute during that winter a very large\r\norder for hurdles and other copse-ware, for which purpose he had been\r\nobliged to buy several acres of brushwood standing. He was now engaged\r\nin the cutting and manufacture of the same, proceeding with the work\r\ndaily like an automaton. The hazel-tree did not belie its name to-day. The whole of the\r\ncopse-wood where the mist had cleared returned purest tints of that\r\nhue, amid which Winterborne himself was in the act of making a hurdle,\r\nthe stakes being driven firmly into the ground in a row, over which he\r\nbent and wove the twigs. Beside him was a square, compact pile like the\r\naltar of Cain, formed of hurdles already finished, which bristled on\r\nall sides with the sharp points of their stakes. At a little distance\r\nthe men in his employ were assisting him to carry out his contract."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Rows of copse-wood lay on the ground as it had fallen under the axe;\r\nand a shelter had been constructed near at hand, in front of which\r\nburned the fire whose smoke had attracted him. The air was so dank that\r\nthe smoke hung heavy, and crept away amid the bushes without rising\r\nfrom the ground. After wistfully regarding Winterborne a while, Melbury drew nearer, and\r\nbriefly inquired of Giles how he came to be so busily engaged, with an\r\nundertone of slight surprise that Winterborne could seem so thriving\r\nafter being deprived of Grace. Melbury was not without emotion at the\r\nmeeting; for Grace’s affairs had divided them, and ended their intimacy\r\nof old times. Winterborne explained just as briefly, without raising his eyes from\r\nhis occupation of chopping a bough that he held in front of him. “’Twill be up in April before you get it all cleared,” said Melbury. “Yes, there or thereabouts,” said Winterborne, a chop of the billhook\r\njerking the last word into two pieces. There was another interval; Melbury still looked on, a chip from\r\nWinterborne’s hook occasionally flying against the waistcoat and legs\r\nof his visitor, who took no heed. “Ah, Giles—you should have been my partner. You should have been my\r\nson-in-law,” the old man said at last."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“It would have been far better\r\nfor her and for me.”\r\n\r\nWinterborne saw that something had gone wrong with his former friend,\r\nand throwing down the switch he was about to interweave, he responded\r\nonly too readily to the mood of the timber-dealer. “Is she ill?” he\r\nsaid, hurriedly. “No, no.” Melbury stood without speaking for some minutes, and then, as\r\nthough he could not bring himself to proceed, turned to go away. Winterborne told one of his men to pack up the tools for the night and\r\nwalked after Melbury. “Heaven forbid that I should seem too inquisitive, sir,” he said,\r\n“especially since we don’t stand as we used to stand to one another;\r\nbut I hope it is well with them all over your way?”\r\n\r\n“No,” said Melbury—“no.” He stopped, and struck the smooth trunk of a\r\nyoung ash-tree with the flat of his hand. “I would that his ear had\r\nbeen where that rind is!” he exclaimed; “I should have treated him to\r\nlittle compared wi what he deserves.”\r\n\r\n“Now,” said Winterborne, “don’t be in a hurry to go home. I’ve put some\r\ncider down to warm in my shelter here, and we’ll sit and drink it and\r\ntalk this over.”\r\n\r\nMelbury turned unresistingly as Giles took his arm, and they went back\r\nto where the fire was, and sat down under the screen, the other woodmen\r\nhaving gone. He drew out the cider-mug from the ashes and they drank\r\ntogether."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Giles, you ought to have had her, as I said just now,” repeated\r\nMelbury. “I’ll tell you why for the first time.”\r\n\r\nHe thereupon told Winterborne, as with great relief, the story of how\r\nhe won away Giles’s father’s chosen one—by nothing worse than a lover’s\r\ncajoleries, it is true, but by means which, except in love, would\r\ncertainly have been pronounced cruel and unfair. He explained how he\r\nhad always intended to make reparation to Winterborne the father by\r\ngiving Grace to Winterborne the son, till the devil tempted him in the\r\nperson of Fitzpiers, and he broke his virtuous vow. “How highly I thought of that man, to be sure! Who’d have supposed he’d\r\nhave been so weak and wrong-headed as this! You ought to have had her,\r\nGiles, and there’s an end on’t.”\r\n\r\nWinterborne knew how to preserve his calm under this unconsciously\r\ncruel tearing of a healing wound to which Melbury’s concentration on\r\nthe more vital subject had blinded him. The young man endeavored to\r\nmake the best of the case for Grace’s sake. “She would hardly have been happy with me,” he said, in the dry,\r\nunimpassioned voice under which he hid his feelings. “I was not well\r\nenough educated: too rough, in short. I couldn’t have surrounded her\r\nwith the refinements she looked for, anyhow, at all.”\r\n\r\n“Nonsense—you are quite wrong there,” said the unwise old man,\r\ndoggedly. “She told me only this day that she hates refinements and\r\nsuch like."}
{"question": "", "answer": "All that my trouble and money bought for her in that way is\r\nthrown away upon her quite. She’d fain be like Marty South—think o’\r\nthat! That’s the top of her ambition! Perhaps she’s right. Giles, she\r\nloved you—under the rind; and, what’s more, she loves ye still—worse\r\nluck for the poor maid!”\r\n\r\nIf Melbury only had known what fires he was recklessly stirring up he\r\nmight have held his peace. Winterborne was silent a long time. The\r\ndarkness had closed in round them, and the monotonous drip of the fog\r\nfrom the branches quickened as it turned to fine rain. “Oh, she never cared much for me,” Giles managed to say, as he stirred\r\nthe embers with a brand. “She did, and does, I tell ye,” said the other, obstinately. “However,\r\nall that’s vain talking now. What I come to ask you about is a more\r\npractical matter—how to make the best of things as they are. I am\r\nthinking of a desperate step—of calling on the woman Charmond. I am\r\ngoing to appeal to her, since Grace will not. ’Tis she who holds the\r\nbalance in her hands—not he. While she’s got the will to lead him\r\nastray he will follow—poor, unpractical, lofty-notioned dreamer—and how\r\nlong she’ll do it depends upon her whim."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Did ye ever hear anything\r\nabout her character before she came to Hintock?”\r\n\r\n“She’s been a bit of a charmer in her time, I believe,” replied Giles,\r\nwith the same level quietude, as he regarded the red coals. “One who\r\nhas smiled where she has not loved and loved where she has not married. Before Mr. Charmond made her his wife she was a play-actress.”\r\n\r\n“Hey? But how close you have kept all this, Giles! What besides?”\r\n\r\n“Mr. Charmond was a rich man, engaged in the iron trade in the north,\r\ntwenty or thirty years older than she. He married her and retired, and\r\ncame down here and bought this property, as they do nowadays.”\r\n\r\n“Yes, yes—I know all about that; but the other I did not know. I fear\r\nit bodes no good. For how can I go and appeal to the forbearance of a\r\nwoman in this matter who has made cross-loves and crooked entanglements\r\nher trade for years? I thank ye, Giles, for finding it out; but it\r\nmakes my plan the harder that she should have belonged to that unstable\r\ntribe.”\r\n\r\nAnother pause ensued, and they looked gloomily at the smoke that beat\r\nabout the hurdles which sheltered them, through whose weavings a large\r\ndrop of rain fell at intervals and spat smartly into the fire. Mrs.\r\nCharmond had been no friend to Winterborne, but he was manly, and it\r\nwas not in his heart to let her be condemned without a trial."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“She is said to be generous,” he answered. “You might not appeal to her\r\nin vain.”\r\n\r\n“It shall be done,” said Melbury, rising. “For good or for evil, to\r\nMrs. Charmond I’ll go.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XXXII. At nine o’clock the next morning Melbury dressed himself up in shining\r\nbroadcloth, creased with folding and smelling of camphor, and started\r\nfor Hintock House. He was the more impelled to go at once by the\r\nabsence of his son-in-law in London for a few days, to attend, really\r\nor ostensibly, some professional meetings. He said nothing of his\r\ndestination either to his wife or to Grace, fearing that they might\r\nentreat him to abandon so risky a project, and went out unobserved. He\r\nhad chosen his time with a view, as he supposed, of conveniently\r\ncatching Mrs. Charmond when she had just finished her breakfast, before\r\nany other business people should be about, if any came. Plodding\r\nthoughtfully onward, he crossed a glade lying between Little Hintock\r\nWoods and the plantation which abutted on the park; and the spot being\r\nopen, he was discerned there by Winterborne from the copse on the next\r\nhill, where he and his men were working. Knowing his mission, the\r\nyounger man hastened down from the copse and managed to intercept the\r\ntimber-merchant. “I have been thinking of this, sir,” he said, “and I am of opinion that\r\nit would be best to put off your visit for the present.”\r\n\r\nBut Melbury would not even stop to hear him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His mind was made up, the\r\nappeal was to be made; and Winterborne stood and watched him sadly till\r\nhe entered the second plantation and disappeared. Melbury rang at the tradesmen’s door of the manor-house, and was at\r\nonce informed that the lady was not yet visible, as indeed he might\r\nhave guessed had he been anybody but the man he was. Melbury said he\r\nwould wait, whereupon the young man informed him in a neighborly way\r\nthat, between themselves, she was in bed and asleep. “Never mind,” said Melbury, retreating into the court, “I’ll stand\r\nabout here.” Charged so fully with his mission, he shrank from contact\r\nwith anybody. But he walked about the paved court till he was tired, and still nobody\r\ncame to him. At last he entered the house and sat down in a small\r\nwaiting-room, from which he got glimpses of the kitchen corridor, and\r\nof the white-capped maids flitting jauntily hither and thither. They\r\nhad heard of his arrival, but had not seen him enter, and, imagining\r\nhim still in the court, discussed freely the possible reason of his\r\ncalling. They marvelled at his temerity; for though most of the tongues\r\nwhich had been let loose attributed the chief blame-worthiness to\r\nFitzpiers, these of her household preferred to regard their mistress as\r\nthe deeper sinner. Melbury sat with his hands resting on the familiar knobbed thorn\r\nwalking-stick, whose growing he had seen before he enjoyed its use."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The\r\nscene to him was not the material environment of his person, but a\r\ntragic vision that travelled with him like an envelope. Through this\r\nvision the incidents of the moment but gleamed confusedly here and\r\nthere, as an outer landscape through the high-colored scenes of a\r\nstained window. He waited thus an hour, an hour and a half, two hours. He began to look pale and ill, whereupon the butler, who came in, asked\r\nhim to have a glass of wine. Melbury roused himself and said, “No, no. Is she almost ready?”\r\n\r\n“She is just finishing breakfast,” said the butler. “She will soon see\r\nyou now. I am just going up to tell her you are here.”\r\n\r\n“What! haven’t you told her before?” said Melbury. “Oh no,” said the other. “You see you came so very early.”\r\n\r\nAt last the bell rang: Mrs. Charmond could see him. She was not in her\r\nprivate sitting-room when he reached it, but in a minute he heard her\r\ncoming from the front staircase, and she entered where he stood. At this time of the morning Mrs. Charmond looked her full age and more. She might almost have been taken for the typical _femme de trente ans_,\r\nthough she was really not more than seven or eight and twenty. There\r\nbeing no fire in the room, she came in with a shawl thrown loosely\r\nround her shoulders, and obviously without the least suspicion that\r\nMelbury had called upon any other errand than timber."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Felice was,\r\nindeed, the only woman in the parish who had not heard the rumor of her\r\nown weaknesses; she was at this moment living in a fool’s paradise in\r\nrespect of that rumor, though not in respect of the weaknesses\r\nthemselves, which, if the truth be told, caused her grave misgivings. “Do sit down, Mr. Melbury. You have felled all the trees that were to\r\nbe purchased by you this season, except the oaks, I believe.”\r\n\r\n“Yes,” said Melbury. “How very nice! It must be so charming to work in the woods just now!”\r\n\r\nShe was too careless to affect an interest in an extraneous person’s\r\naffairs so consummately as to deceive in the manner of the perfect\r\nsocial machine. Hence her words “very nice,” “so charming,” were\r\nuttered with a perfunctoriness that made them sound absurdly unreal. “Yes, yes,” said Melbury, in a reverie. He did not take a chair, and\r\nshe also remained standing. Resting upon his stick, he began: “Mrs. Charmond, I have called upon a more serious matter—at least to me—than\r\ntree-throwing. And whatever mistakes I make in my manner of speaking\r\nupon it to you, madam, do me the justice to set ’em down to my want of\r\npractice, and not to my want of care.”\r\n\r\nMrs. Charmond looked ill at ease."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She might have begun to guess his\r\nmeaning; but apart from that, she had such dread of contact with\r\nanything painful, harsh, or even earnest, that his preliminaries alone\r\nwere enough to distress her. “Yes, what is it?” she said. “I am an old man,” said Melbury, “whom, somewhat late in life, God\r\nthought fit to bless with one child, and she a daughter. Her mother was\r\na very dear wife to me, but she was taken away from us when the child\r\nwas young, and the child became precious as the apple of my eye to me,\r\nfor she was all I had left to love. For her sake entirely I married as\r\nsecond wife a homespun woman who had been kind as a mother to her. In\r\ndue time the question of her education came on, and I said, ‘I will\r\neducate the maid well, if I live upon bread to do it.’ Of her possible\r\nmarriage I could not bear to think, for it seemed like a death that she\r\nshould cleave to another man, and grow to think his house her home\r\nrather than mine. But I saw it was the law of nature that this should\r\nbe, and that it was for the maid’s happiness that she should have a\r\nhome when I was gone; and I made up my mind without a murmur to help it\r\non for her sake."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In my youth I had wronged my dead friend, and to make\r\namends I determined to give her, my most precious possession, to my\r\nfriend’s son, seeing that they liked each other well. Things came about\r\nwhich made me doubt if it would be for my daughter’s happiness to do\r\nthis, inasmuch as the young man was poor, and she was delicately\r\nreared. Another man came and paid court to her—one her equal in\r\nbreeding and accomplishments; in every way it seemed to me that he only\r\ncould give her the home which her training had made a necessity almost. I urged her on, and she married him. But, ma’am, a fatal mistake was at\r\nthe root of my reckoning. I found that this well-born gentleman I had\r\ncalculated on so surely was not stanch of heart, and that therein lay a\r\ndanger of great sorrow for my daughter. Madam, he saw you, and you know\r\nthe rest....I have come to make no demands—to utter no threats; I have\r\ncome simply as a father in great grief about this only child, and I\r\nbeseech you to deal kindly with my daughter, and to do nothing which\r\ncan turn her husband’s heart away from her forever. Forbid him your\r\npresence, ma’am, and speak to him on his duty as one with your power\r\nover him well can do, and I am hopeful that the rent between them may\r\nbe patched up."}
{"question": "", "answer": "For it is not as if you would lose by so doing; your\r\ncourse is far higher than the courses of a simple professional man, and\r\nthe gratitude you would win from me and mine by your kindness is more\r\nthan I can say.”\r\n\r\nMrs. Charmond had first rushed into a mood of indignation on\r\ncomprehending Melbury’s story; hot and cold by turns, she had murmured,\r\n“Leave me, leave me!” But as he seemed to take no notice of this, his\r\nwords began to influence her, and when he ceased speaking she said,\r\nwith hurried, hot breath, “What has led you to think this of me? Who\r\nsays I have won your daughter’s husband away from her? Some monstrous\r\ncalumnies are afloat—of which I have known nothing until now!”\r\n\r\nMelbury started, and looked at her simply. “But surely, ma’am, you know\r\nthe truth better than I?”\r\n\r\nHer features became a little pinched, and the touches of powder on her\r\nhandsome face for the first time showed themselves as an extrinsic\r\nfilm. “Will you leave me to myself?” she said, with a faintness which\r\nsuggested a guilty conscience. “This is so utterly unexpected—you\r\nobtain admission to my presence by misrepresentation—”\r\n\r\n“As God’s in heaven, ma’am, that’s not true. I made no pretence; and I\r\nthought in reason you would know why I had come. This gossip—”\r\n\r\n“I have heard nothing of it. Tell me of it, I say.”\r\n\r\n“Tell you, ma’am—not I. What the gossip is, no matter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "What really is,\r\nyou know. Set facts right, and the scandal will right of itself. But\r\npardon me—I speak roughly; and I came to speak gently, to coax you, beg\r\nyou to be my daughter’s friend. She loved you once, ma’am; you began by\r\nliking her. Then you dropped her without a reason, and it hurt her warm\r\nheart more than I can tell ye. But you were within your right as the\r\nsuperior, no doubt. But if you would consider her position now—surely,\r\nsurely, you would do her no harm!”\r\n\r\n“Certainly I would do her no harm—I—” Melbury’s eye met hers. It was\r\ncurious, but the allusion to Grace’s former love for her seemed to\r\ntouch her more than all Melbury’s other arguments. “Oh, Melbury,” she\r\nburst out, “you have made me so unhappy! How could you come to me like\r\nthis! It is too dreadful! Now go away—go, go!”\r\n\r\n“I will,” he said, in a husky tone. As soon as he was out of the room she went to a corner and there sat\r\nand writhed under an emotion in which hurt pride and vexation mingled\r\nwith better sentiments. Mrs. Charmond’s mobile spirit was subject to these fierce periods of\r\nstress and storm. She had never so clearly perceived till now that her\r\nsoul was being slowly invaded by a delirium which had brought about all\r\nthis; that she was losing judgment and dignity under it, becoming an\r\nanimated impulse only, a passion incarnate."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A fascination had led her\r\non; it was as if she had been seized by a hand of velvet; and this was\r\nwhere she found herself—overshadowed with sudden night, as if a tornado\r\nhad passed by. While she sat, or rather crouched, unhinged by the interview,\r\nlunch-time came, and then the early afternoon, almost without her\r\nconsciousness. Then “a strange gentleman who says it is not necessary\r\nto give his name,” was suddenly announced. “I cannot see him, whoever he may be. I am not at home to anybody.”\r\n\r\nShe heard no more of her visitor; and shortly after, in an attempt to\r\nrecover some mental serenity by violent physical exercise, she put on\r\nher hat and cloak and went out-of-doors, taking a path which led her up\r\nthe slopes to the nearest spur of the wood. She disliked the woods, but\r\nthey had the advantage of being a place in which she could walk\r\ncomparatively unobserved. CHAPTER XXXIII. There was agitation to-day in the lives of all whom these matters\r\nconcerned. It was not till the Hintock dinner-time—one o’clock—that\r\nGrace discovered her father’s absence from the house after a departure\r\nin the morning under somewhat unusual conditions. By a little reasoning\r\nand inquiry she was able to come to a conclusion on his destination,\r\nand to divine his errand. Her husband was absent, and her father did not return. He had, in\r\ntruth, gone on to Sherton after the interview, but this Grace did not\r\nknow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In an indefinite dread that something serious would arise out of\r\nMelbury’s visit by reason of the inequalities of temper and nervous\r\nirritation to which he was subject, something possibly that would bring\r\nher much more misery than accompanied her present negative state of\r\nmind, she left the house about three o’clock, and took a loitering walk\r\nin the woodland track by which she imagined he would come home. This\r\ntrack under the bare trees and over the cracking sticks, screened and\r\nroofed in from the outer world of wind and cloud by a net-work of\r\nboughs, led her slowly on till in time she had left the larger trees\r\nbehind her and swept round into the coppice where Winterborne and his\r\nmen were clearing the undergrowth. Had Giles’s attention been concentrated on his hurdles he would not\r\nhave seen her; but ever since Melbury’s passage across the opposite\r\nglade in the morning he had been as uneasy and unsettled as Grace\r\nherself; and her advent now was the one appearance which, since her\r\nfather’s avowal, could arrest him more than Melbury’s return with his\r\ntidings. Fearing that something might be the matter, he hastened up to\r\nher. She had not seen her old lover for a long time, and, too conscious of\r\nthe late pranks of her heart, she could not behold him calmly. “I am\r\nonly looking for my father,” she said, in an unnecessarily apologetic\r\nintonation. “I was looking for him too,” said Giles."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I think he may perhaps have\r\ngone on farther.”\r\n\r\n“Then you knew he was going to the House, Giles?” she said, turning her\r\nlarge tender eyes anxiously upon him. “Did he tell you what for?”\r\n\r\nWinterborne glanced doubtingly at her, and then softly hinted that her\r\nfather had visited him the evening before, and that their old\r\nfriendship was quite restored, on which she guessed the rest. “Oh, I am glad, indeed, that you two are friends again!” she cried. And\r\nthen they stood facing each other, fearing each other, troubling each\r\nother’s souls. Grace experienced acute misery at the sight of these\r\nwood-cutting scenes, because she had estranged herself from them,\r\ncraving, even to its defects and inconveniences, that homely sylvan\r\nlife of her father which in the best probable succession of events\r\nwould shortly be denied her. At a little distance, on the edge of the clearing, Marty South was\r\nshaping spar-gads to take home for manufacture during the evenings. While Winterborne and Mrs. Fitzpiers stood looking at her in their\r\nmutual embarrassment at each other’s presence, they beheld approaching\r\nthe girl a lady in a dark fur mantle and a black hat, having a white\r\nveil tied picturesquely round it. She spoke to Marty, who turned and\r\ncourtesied, and the lady fell into conversation with her. It was Mrs.\r\nCharmond."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On leaving her house, Mrs. Charmond had walked on and onward under the\r\nfret and fever of her mind with more vigor than she was accustomed to\r\nshow in her normal moods—a fever which the solace of a cigarette did\r\nnot entirely allay. Reaching the coppice, she listlessly observed Marty\r\nat work, threw away her cigarette, and came near. Chop, chop, chop,\r\nwent Marty’s little billhook with never more assiduity, till Mrs.\r\nCharmond spoke. “Who is that young lady I see talking to the woodman yonder?” she\r\nasked. “Mrs. Fitzpiers, ma’am,” said Marty. “Oh,” said Mrs. Charmond, with something like a start; for she had not\r\nrecognized Grace at that distance. “And the man she is talking to?”\r\n\r\n“That’s Mr. Winterborne.”\r\n\r\nA redness stole into Marty’s face as she mentioned Giles’s name, which\r\nMrs. Charmond did not fail to notice informed her of the state of the\r\ngirl’s heart. “Are you engaged to him?” she asked, softly. “No, ma’am,” said Marty. “_She_ was once; and I think—”\r\n\r\nBut Marty could not possibly explain the complications of her thoughts\r\non this matter—which were nothing less than one of extraordinary\r\nacuteness for a girl so young and inexperienced—namely, that she saw\r\ndanger to two hearts naturally honest in Grace being thrown back into\r\nWinterborne’s society by the neglect of her husband."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Charmond,\r\nhowever, with the almost supersensory means to knowledge which women\r\nhave on such occasions, quite understood what Marty had intended to\r\nconvey, and the picture thus exhibited to her of lives drifting away,\r\ninvolving the wreck of poor Marty’s hopes, prompted her to more\r\ngenerous resolves than all Melbury’s remonstrances had been able to\r\nstimulate. Full of the new feeling, she bade the girl good-afternoon, and went on\r\nover the stumps of hazel to where Grace and Winterborne were standing. They saw her approach, and Winterborne said, “She is coming to you; it\r\nis a good omen. She dislikes me, so I’ll go away.” He accordingly\r\nretreated to where he had been working before Grace came, and Grace’s\r\nformidable rival approached her, each woman taking the other’s measure\r\nas she came near. “Dear—Mrs. Fitzpiers,” said Felice Charmond, with some inward turmoil\r\nwhich stopped her speech. “I have not seen you for a long time.”\r\n\r\nShe held out her hand tentatively, while Grace stood like a wild animal\r\non first confronting a mirror or other puzzling product of\r\ncivilization. Was it really Mrs. Charmond speaking to her thus? If it\r\nwas, she could no longer form any guess as to what it signified. “I want to talk with you,” said Mrs. Charmond, imploringly, for the\r\ngaze of the young woman had chilled her through."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Can you walk on with\r\nme till we are quite alone?”\r\n\r\nSick with distaste, Grace nevertheless complied, as by clockwork and\r\nthey moved evenly side by side into the deeper recesses of the woods. They went farther, much farther than Mrs. Charmond had meant to go; but\r\nshe could not begin her conversation, and in default of it kept\r\nwalking. “I have seen your father,” she at length resumed. “And—I am much\r\ntroubled by what he told me.”\r\n\r\n“What did he tell you? I have not been admitted to his confidence on\r\nanything he may have said to you.”\r\n\r\n“Nevertheless, why should I repeat to you what you can easily divine?”\r\n\r\n“True—true,” returned Grace, mournfully. “Why should you repeat what we\r\nboth know to be in our minds already?”\r\n\r\n“Mrs. Fitzpiers, your husband—” The moment that the speaker’s tongue\r\ntouched the dangerous subject a vivid look of self-consciousness\r\nflashed over her, in which her heart revealed, as by a lightning gleam,\r\nwhat filled it to overflowing. So transitory was the expression that\r\nnone but a sensitive woman, and she in Grace’s position, would have had\r\nthe power to catch its meaning. Upon her the phase was not lost. “Then you _do_ love him!” she exclaimed, in a tone of much surprise."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“What do you mean, my young friend?”\r\n\r\n“Why,” cried Grace, “I thought till now that you had only been cruelly\r\nflirting with my husband, to amuse your idle moments—a rich lady with a\r\npoor professional gentleman whom in her heart she despised not much\r\nless than her who belongs to him. But I guess from your manner that you\r\nlove him desperately, and I don’t hate you as I did before.”\r\n\r\n“Yes, indeed,” continued Mrs. Fitzpiers, with a trembling tongue,\r\n“since it is not playing in your case at all, but _real_. Oh, I do pity\r\nyou, more than I despise you, for _you_ will s-s-suffer most!”\r\n\r\nMrs. Charmond was now as much agitated as Grace. “I ought not to allow\r\nmyself to argue with you,” she exclaimed. “I demean myself by doing it. But I liked you once, and for the sake of that time I try to tell you\r\nhow mistaken you are!” Much of her confusion resulted from her wonder\r\nand alarm at finding herself in a sense dominated mentally and\r\nemotionally by this simple school-girl. “I do not love him,” she went\r\non, with desperate untruth. “It was a kindness—my making somewhat more\r\nof him than one usually does of one’s doctor. I was lonely; I\r\ntalked—well, I trifled with him. I am very sorry if such child’s\r\nplaying out of pure friendship has been a serious matter to you. Who\r\ncould have expected it?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But the world is so simple here.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, that’s affectation,” said Grace, shaking her head. “It is no\r\nuse—you _love_ him. I can see in your face that in this matter of my\r\nhusband you have not let your acts belie your feelings. During these\r\nlast four or six months you have been terribly indiscreet; but you have\r\nnot been insincere, and that almost disarms me.”\r\n\r\n“I _have_ been insincere—if you will have the word—I mean I _have_\r\ncoquetted, and do _not_ love him!”\r\n\r\nBut Grace clung to her position like a limpet. “You may have trifled\r\nwith others, but him you love as you never loved another man.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, well—I won’t argue,” said Mrs. Charmond, laughing faintly. “And\r\nyou come to reproach me for it, child.”\r\n\r\n“No,” said Grace, magnanimously. “You may go on loving him if you\r\nlike—I don’t mind at all. You’ll find it, let me tell you, a bitterer\r\nbusiness for yourself than for me in the end. He’ll get tired of you\r\nsoon, as tired as can be—you don’t know him so well as I—and then you\r\nmay wish you had never seen him!”\r\n\r\nMrs. Charmond had grown quite pale and weak under this prophecy. It was\r\nextraordinary that Grace, whom almost every one would have\r\ncharacterized as a gentle girl, should be of stronger fibre than her\r\ninterlocutor. “You exaggerate—cruel, silly young woman,” she\r\nreiterated, writhing with little agonies. “It is nothing but playful\r\nfriendship—nothing! It will be proved by my future conduct."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I shall at\r\nonce refuse to see him more—since it will make no difference to my\r\nheart, and much to my name.”\r\n\r\n“I question if you will refuse to see him again,” said Grace, dryly, as\r\nwith eyes askance she bent a sapling down. “But I am not incensed\r\nagainst you as you are against me,” she added, abandoning the tree to\r\nits natural perpendicular. “Before I came I had been despising you for\r\nwanton cruelty; now I only pity you for misplaced affection. When Edgar\r\nhas gone out of the house in hope of seeing you, at seasonable hours\r\nand unseasonable; when I have found him riding miles and miles across\r\nthe country at midnight, and risking his life, and getting covered with\r\nmud, to get a glimpse of you, I have called him a foolish man—the\r\nplaything of a finished coquette. I thought that what was getting to be\r\na tragedy to me was a comedy to you. But now I see that tragedy lies on\r\nYOUR side of the situation no less than on mine, and more; that if I\r\nhave felt trouble at my position, you have felt anguish at yours; that\r\nif I have had disappointments, you have had despairs. Heaven may\r\nfortify _me_—God help _you!_”\r\n\r\n“I cannot attempt to reply to your raving eloquence,” returned the\r\nother, struggling to restore a dignity which had completely collapsed. “My acts will be my proofs."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the world which you have seen nothing\r\nof, friendships between men and women are not unknown, and it would\r\nhave been better both for you and your father if you had each judged me\r\nmore respectfully, and left me alone. As it is I wish never to see or\r\nspeak to you, madam, any more.”\r\n\r\nGrace bowed, and Mrs. Charmond turned away. The two went apart in\r\ndirectly opposite courses, and were soon hidden from each other by\r\ntheir umbrageous surroundings and by the shadows of eve. In the excitement of their long argument they had walked onward and\r\nzigzagged about without regarding direction or distance. All sound of\r\nthe woodcutters had long since faded into remoteness, and even had not\r\nthe interval been too great for hearing them they would have been\r\nsilent and homeward bound at this twilight hour. But Grace went on her\r\ncourse without any misgiving, though there was much underwood here,\r\nwith only the narrowest passages for walking, across which brambles\r\nhung. She had not, however, traversed this the wildest part of the wood\r\nsince her childhood, and the transformation of outlines had been great;\r\nold trees which once were landmarks had been felled or blown down, and\r\nthe bushes which then had been small and scrubby were now large and\r\noverhanging. She soon found that her ideas as to direction were\r\nvague—that she had indeed no ideas as to direction at all."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If the\r\nevening had not been growing so dark, and the wind had not put on its\r\nnight moan so distinctly, Grace would not have minded; but she was\r\nrather frightened now, and began to strike across hither and thither in\r\nrandom courses. Denser grew the darkness, more developed the wind-voices, and still no\r\nrecognizable spot or outlet of any kind appeared, nor any sound of the\r\nHintocks floated near, though she had wandered probably between one and\r\ntwo hours, and began to be weary. She was vexed at her foolishness,\r\nsince the ground she had covered, if in a straight line, must\r\ninevitably have taken her out of the wood to some remote village or\r\nother; but she had wasted her forces in countermarches; and now, in\r\nmuch alarm, wondered if she would have to pass the night here. She\r\nstood still to meditate, and fancied that between the soughing of the\r\nwind she heard shuffling footsteps on the leaves heavier than those of\r\nrabbits or hares. Though fearing at first to meet anybody on the chance\r\nof his being a friend, she decided that the fellow night-rambler, even\r\nif a poacher, would not injure her, and that he might possibly be some\r\none sent to search for her. She accordingly shouted a rather timid\r\n“Hoi!”\r\n\r\nThe cry was immediately returned by the other person; and Grace running\r\nat once in the direction whence it came beheld an indistinct figure\r\nhastening up to her as rapidly."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They were almost in each other’s arms\r\nwhen she recognized in her vis-a-vis the outline and white veil of her\r\nwhom she had parted from an hour and a half before—Mrs. Charmond. “I have lost my way, I have lost my way,” cried that lady. “Oh—is it\r\nindeed you? I am so glad to meet you or anybody. I have been wandering\r\nup and down ever since we parted, and am nearly dead with terror and\r\nmisery and fatigue!”\r\n\r\n“So am I,” said Grace. “What _shall_ we, _shall_ we do?”\r\n\r\n“You won’t go away from me?” asked her companion, anxiously. “No, indeed. Are you very tired?”\r\n\r\n“I can scarcely move, and I am scratched dreadfully about the ankles.”\r\n\r\nGrace reflected. “Perhaps, as it is dry under foot, the best thing for\r\nus to do would be to sit down for half an hour, and then start again\r\nwhen we have thoroughly rested. By walking straight we must come to a\r\ntrack leading somewhere before the morning.”\r\n\r\nThey found a clump of bushy hollies which afforded a shelter from the\r\nwind, and sat down under it, some tufts of dead fern, crisp and dry,\r\nthat remained from the previous season forming a sort of nest for them. But it was cold, nevertheless, on this March night, particularly for\r\nGrace, who with the sanguine prematureness of youth in matters of\r\ndress, had considered it spring-time, and hence was not so warmly clad\r\nas Mrs. Charmond, who still wore her winter fur."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But after sitting a\r\nwhile the latter lady shivered no less than Grace as the warmth\r\nimparted by her hasty walking began to go off, and they felt the cold\r\nair drawing through the holly leaves which scratched their backs and\r\nshoulders. Moreover, they could hear some drops of rain falling on the\r\ntrees, though none reached the nook in which they had ensconced\r\nthemselves. “If we were to cling close together,” said Mrs. Charmond, “we should\r\nkeep each other warm. But,” she added, in an uneven voice, “I suppose\r\nyou won’t come near me for the world!”\r\n\r\n“Why not?”\r\n\r\n“Because—well, you know.”\r\n\r\n“Yes. I will—I don’t hate you at all.”\r\n\r\nThey consequently crept up to one another, and being in the dark,\r\nlonely and weary, did what neither had dreamed of doing beforehand,\r\nclasped each other closely, Mrs. Charmond’s furs consoling Grace’s cold\r\nface, and each one’s body as she breathed alternately heaving against\r\nthat of her companion. When a few minutes had been spent thus, Mrs. Charmond said, “I am so\r\nwretched!” in a heavy, emotional whisper. “You are frightened,” said Grace, kindly. “But there is nothing to\r\nfear; I know these woods well.”\r\n\r\n“I am not at all frightened at the wood, but I am at other things.”\r\n\r\nMrs. Charmond embraced Grace more and more tightly, and the younger\r\nwoman could feel her neighbor’s breathings grow deeper and more\r\nspasmodic, as though uncontrollable feelings were germinating."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“After I had left you,” she went on, “I regretted something I had said. I have to make a confession—I must make it!” she whispered, brokenly,\r\nthe instinct to indulge in warmth of sentiment which had led this woman\r\nof passions to respond to Fitzpiers in the first place leading her now\r\nto find luxurious comfort in opening her heart to his wife. “I said to\r\nyou I could give him up without pain or deprivation—that he had only\r\nbeen my pastime. That was untrue—it was said to deceive you. I could\r\nnot do it without much pain; and, what is more dreadful, I _cannot_\r\ngive him up—even if I would—of myself alone.”\r\n\r\n“Why? Because you love him, you mean.”\r\n\r\nFelice Charmond denoted assent by a movement. “I knew I was right!” said Grace, exaltedly. “But that should not deter\r\nyou,” she presently added, in a moral tone. “Oh, do struggle against\r\nit, and you will conquer!”\r\n\r\n“You are so simple, so simple!” cried Felice. “You think, because you\r\nguessed my assumed indifference to him to be a sham, that you know the\r\nextremes that people are capable of going to! But a good deal more may\r\nhave been going on than you have fathomed with all your insight. I\r\n_cannot_ give him up until he chooses to give up me.”\r\n\r\n“But surely you are the superior in station and in every way, and the\r\ncut must come from you.”\r\n\r\n“Tchut! Must I tell verbatim, you simple child?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Oh, I suppose I must! I\r\nshall eat away my heart if I do not let out all, after meeting you like\r\nthis and finding how guileless you are.” She thereupon whispered a few\r\nwords in the girl’s ear, and burst into a violent fit of sobbing. Grace started roughly away from the shelter of the fur, and sprang to\r\nher feet. “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed, thunderstruck at a revelation transcending\r\nher utmost suspicion. “Can it be—can it be!”\r\n\r\nShe turned as if to hasten away. But Felice Charmond’s sobs came to her\r\near: deep darkness circled her about, the funereal trees rocked and\r\nchanted their diriges and placebos around her, and she did not know\r\nwhich way to go. After a moment of energy she felt mild again, and\r\nturned to the motionless woman at her feet. “Are you rested?” she asked, in what seemed something like her own\r\nvoice grown ten years older. Without an answer Mrs. Charmond slowly rose. “You mean to betray me!” she said from the bitterest depths of her\r\nsoul. “Oh fool, fool I!”\r\n\r\n“No,” said Grace, shortly. “I mean no such thing. But let us be quick\r\nnow. We have a serious undertaking before us. Think of nothing but\r\ngoing straight on.”\r\n\r\nThey walked on in profound silence, pulling back boughs now growing\r\nwet, and treading down woodbine, but still keeping a pretty straight\r\ncourse."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Grace began to be thoroughly worn out, and her companion too,\r\nwhen, on a sudden, they broke into the deserted highway at the hill-top\r\non which the Sherton man had waited for Mrs. Dollery’s van. Grace\r\nrecognized the spot as soon as she looked around her. “How we have got here I cannot tell,” she said, with cold civility. “We\r\nhave made a complete circuit of Little Hintock. The hazel copse is\r\nquite on the other side. Now we have only to follow the road.”\r\n\r\nThey dragged themselves onward, turned into the lane, passed the track\r\nto Little Hintock, and so reached the park. “Here I turn back,” said Grace, in the same passionless voice. “You are\r\nquite near home.”\r\n\r\nMrs. Charmond stood inert, seeming appalled by her late admission. “I have told you something in a moment of irresistible desire to\r\nunburden my soul which all but a fool would have kept silent as the\r\ngrave,” she said. “I cannot help it now. Is it to be a secret—or do you\r\nmean war?”\r\n\r\n“A secret, certainly,” said Grace, mournfully. “How can you expect war\r\nfrom such a helpless, wretched being as I!”\r\n\r\n“And I’ll do my best not to see him. I am his slave; but I’ll try.”\r\n\r\nGrace was naturally kind; but she could not help using a small dagger\r\nnow. “Pray don’t distress yourself,” she said, with exquisitely fine scorn."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“You may keep him—for me.” Had she been wounded instead of mortified\r\nshe could not have used the words; but Fitzpiers’s hold upon her heart\r\nwas slight. They parted thus and there, and Grace went moodily homeward. Passing\r\nMarty’s cottage she observed through the window that the girl was\r\nwriting instead of chopping as usual, and wondered what her\r\ncorrespondence could be. Directly afterwards she met people in search\r\nof her, and reached the house to find all in serious alarm. She soon\r\nexplained that she had lost her way, and her general depression was\r\nattributed to exhaustion on that account. Could she have known what Marty was writing she would have been\r\nsurprised. The rumor which agitated the other folk of Hintock had reached the\r\nyoung girl, and she was penning a letter to Fitzpiers, to tell him that\r\nMrs. Charmond wore her hair. It was poor Marty’s only card, and she\r\nplayed it, knowing nothing of fashion, and thinking her revelation a\r\nfatal one for a lover. CHAPTER XXXIV. It was at the beginning of April, a few days after the meeting between\r\nGrace and Mrs. Charmond in the wood, that Fitzpiers, just returned from\r\nLondon, was travelling from Sherton-Abbas to Hintock in a hired\r\ncarriage. In his eye there was a doubtful light, and the lines of his\r\nrefined face showed a vague disquietude. He appeared now like one of\r\nthose who impress the beholder as having suffered wrong in being born."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His position was in truth gloomy, and to his appreciative mind it\r\nseemed even gloomier than it was. His practice had been slowly\r\ndwindling of late, and now threatened to die out altogether, the\r\nirrepressible old Dr. Jones capturing patients up to Fitzpiers’s very\r\ndoor. Fitzpiers knew only too well the latest and greatest cause of his\r\nunpopularity; and yet, so illogical is man, the second branch of his\r\nsadness grew out of a remedial measure proposed for the first—a letter\r\nfrom Felice Charmond imploring him not to see her again. To bring about\r\ntheir severance still more effectually, she added, she had decided\r\nduring his absence upon almost immediate departure for the Continent. The time was that dull interval in a woodlander’s life which coincides\r\nwith great activity in the life of the woodland itself—a period\r\nfollowing the close of the winter tree-cutting, and preceding the\r\nbarking season, when the saps are just beginning to heave with the\r\nforce of hydraulic lifts inside all the trunks of the forest. Winterborne’s contract was completed, and the plantations were\r\ndeserted. It was dusk; there were no leaves as yet; the nightingales\r\nwould not begin to sing for a fortnight; and “the Mother of the Months”\r\nwas in her most attenuated phase—starved and bent to a mere bowed\r\nskeleton, which glided along behind the bare twigs in Fitzpiers’s\r\ncompany. When he reached home he went straight up to his wife’s sitting-room. He\r\nfound it deserted, and without a fire."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He had mentioned no day for his\r\nreturn; nevertheless, he wondered why she was not there waiting to\r\nreceive him. On descending to the other wing of the house and inquiring\r\nof Mrs. Melbury, he learned with much surprise that Grace had gone on a\r\nvisit to an acquaintance at Shottsford-Forum three days earlier; that\r\ntidings had on this morning reached her father of her being very unwell\r\nthere, in consequence of which he had ridden over to see her. Fitzpiers went up-stairs again, and the little drawing-room, now\r\nlighted by a solitary candle, was not rendered more cheerful by the\r\nentrance of Grammer Oliver with an apronful of wood, which she threw on\r\nthe hearth while she raked out the grate and rattled about the\r\nfire-irons, with a view to making things comfortable. Fitzpiers\r\nconsidered that Grace ought to have let him know her plans more\r\naccurately before leaving home in a freak like this. He went\r\ndesultorily to the window, the blind of which had not been pulled down,\r\nand looked out at the thin, fast-sinking moon, and at the tall stalk of\r\nsmoke rising from the top of Suke Damson’s chimney, signifying that the\r\nyoung woman had just lit her fire to prepare supper. He became conscious of a discussion in progress on the opposite side of\r\nthe court."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Somebody had looked over the wall to talk to the sawyers,\r\nand was telling them in a loud voice news in which the name of Mrs.\r\nCharmond soon arrested his ears. “Grammer, don’t make so much noise with that grate,” said the surgeon;\r\nat which Grammer reared herself upon her knees and held the fuel\r\nsuspended in her hand, while Fitzpiers half opened the casement. “She is off to foreign lands again at last—hev made up her mind quite\r\nsudden-like—and it is thoughted she’ll leave in a day or two. She’s\r\nbeen all as if her mind were low for some days past—with a sort of\r\nsorrow in her face, as if she reproached her own soul. She’s the wrong\r\nsort of woman for Hintock—hardly knowing a beech from a woak—that I\r\nown. But I don’t care who the man is, she’s been a very kind friend to\r\nme. “Well, the day after to-morrow is the Sabbath day, and without charity\r\nwe are but tinkling simples; but this I do say, that her going will be\r\na blessed thing for a certain married couple who remain.”\r\n\r\nThe fire was lighted, and Fitzpiers sat down in front of it, restless\r\nas the last leaf upon a tree. “A sort of sorrow in her face, as if she\r\nreproached her own soul.” Poor Felice."}
{"question": "", "answer": "How Felice’s frame must be\r\npulsing under the conditions of which he had just heard the caricature;\r\nhow her fair temples must ache; what a mood of wretchedness she must be\r\nin! But for the mixing up of his name with hers, and her determination\r\nto sunder their too close acquaintance on that account, she would\r\nprobably have sent for him professionally. She was now sitting alone,\r\nsuffering, perhaps wishing that she had not forbidden him to come\r\nagain. Unable to remain in this lonely room any longer, or to wait for the\r\nmeal which was in course of preparation, he made himself ready for\r\nriding, descended to the yard, stood by the stable-door while Darling\r\nwas being saddled, and rode off down the lane. He would have preferred\r\nwalking, but was weary with his day’s travel. As he approached the door of Marty South’s cottage, which it was\r\nnecessary to pass on his way, she came from the porch as if she had\r\nbeen awaiting him, and met him in the middle of the road, holding up a\r\nletter. Fitzpiers took it without stopping, and asked over his shoulder\r\nfrom whom it came. Marty hesitated. “From me,” she said, shyly, though with noticeable\r\nfirmness. This letter contained, in fact, Marty’s declaration that she was the\r\noriginal owner of Mrs. Charmond’s supplementary locks, and enclosed a\r\nsample from the native stock, which had grown considerably by this\r\ntime."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was her long contemplated apple of discord, and much her hand\r\ntrembled as she handed the document up to him. But it was impossible on account of the gloom for Fitzpiers to read it\r\nthen, while he had the curiosity to do so, and he put it in his pocket. His imagination having already centred itself on Hintock House, in his\r\npocket the letter remained unopened and forgotten, all the while that\r\nMarty was hopefully picturing its excellent weaning effect upon him. He was not long in reaching the precincts of the Manor House. He drew\r\nrein under a group of dark oaks commanding a view of the front, and\r\nreflected a while. His entry would not be altogether unnatural in the\r\ncircumstances of her possible indisposition; but upon the whole he\r\nthought it best to avoid riding up to the door. By silently approaching\r\nhe could retreat unobserved in the event of her not being alone. Thereupon he dismounted, hitched Darling to a stray bough hanging a\r\nlittle below the general browsing line of the trees, and proceeded to\r\nthe door on foot. In the mean time Melbury had returned from Shottsford-Forum. The great\r\ncourt or quadrangle of the timber-merchant’s house, divided from the\r\nshady lane by an ivy-covered wall, was entered by two white gates, one\r\nstanding near each extremity of the wall."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It so happened that at the\r\nmoment when Fitzpiers was riding out at the lower gate on his way to\r\nthe Manor House, Melbury was approaching the upper gate to enter it. Fitzpiers being in front of Melbury was seen by the latter, but the\r\nsurgeon, never turning his head, did not observe his father-in-law,\r\nambling slowly and silently along under the trees, though his horse too\r\nwas a gray one. “How is Grace?” said his wife, as soon as he entered. Melbury looked gloomy. “She is not at all well,” he said. “I don’t like\r\nthe looks of her at all. I couldn’t bear the notion of her biding away\r\nin a strange place any longer, and I begged her to let me get her home. At last she agreed to it, but not till after much persuading. I was\r\nthen sorry that I rode over instead of driving; but I have hired a nice\r\ncomfortable carriage—the easiest-going I could get—and she’ll be here\r\nin a couple of hours or less. I rode on ahead to tell you to get her\r\nroom ready; but I see her husband has come back.”\r\n\r\n“Yes,” said Mrs. Melbury. She expressed her concern that her husband\r\nhad hired a carriage all the way from Shottsford. “What it will cost!”\r\nshe said. “I don’t care what it costs!” he exclaimed, testily. “I was determined\r\nto get her home. Why she went away I can’t think!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She acts in a way\r\nthat is not at all likely to mend matters as far as I can see.” (Grace\r\nhad not told her father of her interview with Mrs. Charmond, and the\r\ndisclosure that had been whispered in her startled ear.) “Since Edgar\r\nis come,” he continued, “he might have waited in till I got home, to\r\nask me how she was, if only for a compliment. I saw him go out; where\r\nis he gone?”\r\n\r\nMrs. Melbury did not know positively; but she told her husband that\r\nthere was not much doubt about the place of his first visit after an\r\nabsence. She had, in fact, seen Fitzpiers take the direction of the\r\nManor House. Melbury said no more. It was exasperating to him that just at this\r\nmoment, when there was every reason for Fitzpiers to stay indoors, or\r\nat any rate to ride along the Shottsford road to meet his ailing wife,\r\nhe should be doing despite to her by going elsewhere. The old man went\r\nout-of-doors again; and his horse being hardly unsaddled as yet, he\r\ntold Upjohn to retighten the girths, when he again mounted, and rode\r\noff at the heels of the surgeon. By the time that Melbury reached the park, he was prepared to go any\r\nlengths in combating this rank and reckless errantry of his daughter’s\r\nhusband."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He would fetch home Edgar Fitzpiers to-night by some means,\r\nrough or fair: in his view there could come of his interference nothing\r\nworse than what existed at present. And yet to every bad there is a\r\nworse. He had entered by the bridle-gate which admitted to the park on this\r\nside, and cantered over the soft turf almost in the tracks of\r\nFitzpiers’s horse, till he reached the clump of trees under which his\r\nprecursor had halted. The whitish object that was indistinctly visible\r\nhere in the gloom of the boughs he found to be Darling, as left by\r\nFitzpiers. “D—n him! why did he not ride up to the house in an honest way?” said\r\nMelbury. He profited by Fitzpiers’s example; dismounting, he tied his horse\r\nunder an adjoining tree, and went on to the house on foot, as the other\r\nhad done. He was no longer disposed to stick at trifles in his\r\ninvestigation, and did not hesitate to gently open the front door\r\nwithout ringing. The large square hall, with its oak floor, staircase, and wainscot, was\r\nlighted by a dim lamp hanging from a beam. Not a soul was visible. He\r\nwent into the corridor and listened at a door which he knew to be that\r\nof the drawing-room; there was no sound, and on turning the handle he\r\nfound the room empty."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A fire burning low in the grate was the sole\r\nlight of the apartment; its beams flashed mockingly on the somewhat\r\nshowy Versaillese furniture and gilding here, in style as unlike that\r\nof the structural parts of the building as it was possible to be, and\r\nprobably introduced by Felice to counteract the fine old-English gloom\r\nof the place. Disappointed in his hope of confronting his son-in-law\r\nhere, he went on to the dining-room; this was without light or fire,\r\nand pervaded by a cold atmosphere, which signified that she had not\r\ndined there that day. By this time Melbury’s mood had a little mollified. Everything here was\r\nso pacific, so unaggressive in its repose, that he was no longer\r\nincited to provoke a collision with Fitzpiers or with anybody. The\r\ncomparative stateliness of the apartments influenced him to an emotion,\r\nrather than to a belief, that where all was outwardly so good and\r\nproper there could not be quite that delinquency within which he had\r\nsuspected. It occurred to him, too, that even if his suspicion were\r\njustified, his abrupt, if not unwarrantable, entry into the house might\r\nend in confounding its inhabitant at the expense of his daughter’s\r\ndignity and his own. Any ill result would be pretty sure to hit Grace\r\nhardest in the long-run. He would, after all, adopt the more rational\r\ncourse, and plead with Fitzpiers privately, as he had pleaded with Mrs.\r\nCharmond. He accordingly retreated as silently as he had come."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Passing the door\r\nof the drawing-room anew, he fancied that he heard a noise within which\r\nwas not the crackling of the fire. Melbury gently reopened the door to\r\na distance of a few inches, and saw at the opposite window two figures\r\nin the act of stepping out—a man and a woman—in whom he recognized the\r\nlady of the house and his son-in-law. In a moment they had disappeared\r\namid the gloom of the lawn. He returned into the hall, and let himself out by the carriage-entrance\r\ndoor, coming round to the lawn front in time to see the two figures\r\nparting at the railing which divided the precincts of the house from\r\nthe open park. Mrs. Charmond turned to hasten back immediately that\r\nFitzpiers had left her side, and he was speedily absorbed into the\r\nduskiness of the trees. Melbury waited till Mrs. Charmond had re-entered the drawing-room, and\r\nthen followed after Fitzpiers, thinking that he would allow the latter\r\nto mount and ride ahead a little way before overtaking him and giving\r\nhim a piece of his mind. His son-in-law might possibly see the second\r\nhorse near his own; but that would do him no harm, and might prepare\r\nhim for what he was to expect. The event, however, was different from the plan."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On plunging into the\r\nthick shade of the clump of oaks, he could not perceive his horse\r\nBlossom anywhere; but feeling his way carefully along, he by-and-by\r\ndiscerned Fitzpiers’s mare Darling still standing as before under the\r\nadjoining tree. For a moment Melbury thought that his own horse, being\r\nyoung and strong, had broken away from her fastening; but on listening\r\nintently he could hear her ambling comfortably along a little way\r\nahead, and a creaking of the saddle which showed that she had a rider. Walking on as far as the small gate in the corner of the park, he met a\r\nlaborer, who, in reply to Melbury’s inquiry if he had seen any person\r\non a gray horse, said that he had only met Dr. Fitzpiers. It was just what Melbury had begun to suspect: Fitzpiers had mounted\r\nthe mare which did not belong to him in mistake for his own—an\r\noversight easily explicable, in a man ever unwitting in horse-flesh, by\r\nthe darkness of the spot and the near similarity of the animals in\r\nappearance, though Melbury’s was readily enough seen to be the grayer\r\nhorse by day. He hastened back, and did what seemed best in the\r\ncircumstances—got upon old Darling, and rode rapidly after Fitzpiers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Melbury had just entered the wood, and was winding along the cart-way\r\nwhich led through it, channelled deep in the leaf-mould with large ruts\r\nthat were formed by the timber-wagons in fetching the spoil of the\r\nplantations, when all at once he descried in front, at a point where\r\nthe road took a turning round a large chestnut-tree, the form of his\r\nown horse Blossom, at which Melbury quickened Darling’s pace, thinking\r\nto come up with Fitzpiers. Nearer view revealed that the horse had no rider. At Melbury’s approach\r\nit galloped friskily away under the trees in a homeward direction. Thinking something was wrong, the timber-merchant dismounted as soon as\r\nhe reached the chestnut, and after feeling about for a minute or two\r\ndiscovered Fitzpiers lying on the ground. “Here—help!” cried the latter as soon as he felt Melbury’s touch; “I\r\nhave been thrown off, but there’s not much harm done, I think.”\r\n\r\nSince Melbury could not now very well read the younger man the lecture\r\nhe had intended, and as friendliness would be hypocrisy, his instinct\r\nwas to speak not a single word to his son-in-law. He raised Fitzpiers\r\ninto a sitting posture, and found that he was a little stunned and\r\nstupefied, but, as he had said, not otherwise hurt. How this fall had\r\ncome about was readily conjecturable: Fitzpiers, imagining there was\r\nonly old Darling under him, had been taken unawares by the younger\r\nhorse’s sprightliness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Melbury was a traveller of the old-fashioned sort; having just come\r\nfrom Shottsford-Forum, he still had in his pocket the pilgrim’s flask\r\nof rum which he always carried on journeys exceeding a dozen miles,\r\nthough he seldom drank much of it. He poured it down the surgeon’s\r\nthroat, with such effect that he quickly revived. Melbury got him on\r\nhis legs; but the question was what to do with him. He could not walk\r\nmore than a few steps, and the other horse had gone away. With great exertion Melbury contrived to get him astride Darling,\r\nmounting himself behind, and holding Fitzpiers round his waist with one\r\narm. Darling being broad, straight-backed, and high in the withers, was\r\nwell able to carry double, at any rate as far as Hintock, and at a\r\ngentle pace. CHAPTER XXXV. The mare paced along with firm and cautious tread through the copse\r\nwhere Winterborne had worked, and into the heavier soil where the oaks\r\ngrew; past Great Willy, the largest oak in the wood, and thence towards\r\nNellcombe Bottom, intensely dark now with overgrowth, and popularly\r\nsupposed to be haunted by the spirits of the fratricides exorcised from\r\nHintock House. By this time Fitzpiers was quite recovered as to physical strength."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But\r\nhe had eaten nothing since making a hasty breakfast in London that\r\nmorning, his anxiety about Felice having hurried him away from home\r\nbefore dining; as a consequence, the old rum administered by his\r\nfather-in-law flew to the young man’s head and loosened his tongue,\r\nwithout his ever having recognized who it was that had lent him a\r\nkindly hand. He began to speak in desultory sentences, Melbury still\r\nsupporting him. “I’ve come all the way from London to-day,” said Fitzpiers. “Ah, that’s\r\nthe place to meet your equals. I live at Hintock—worse, at Little\r\nHintock—and I am quite lost there. There’s not a man within ten miles\r\nof Hintock who can comprehend me. I tell you, Farmer What’s-your-name,\r\nthat I’m a man of education. I know several languages; the poets and I\r\nare familiar friends; I used to read more in metaphysics than anybody\r\nwithin fifty miles; and since I gave that up there’s nobody can match\r\nme in the whole county of Wessex as a scientist. Yet I an doomed to\r\nlive with tradespeople in a miserable little hole like Hintock!”\r\n\r\n“Indeed!” muttered Melbury. Fitzpiers, increasingly energized by the alcohol, here reared himself\r\nup suddenly from the bowed posture he had hitherto held, thrusting his\r\nshoulders so violently against Melbury’s breast as to make it difficult\r\nfor the old man to keep a hold on the reins."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“People don’t appreciate\r\nme here!” the surgeon exclaimed; lowering his voice, he added, softly\r\nand slowly, “except one—except one!...A passionate soul, as warm as she\r\nis clever, as beautiful as she is warm, and as rich as she is\r\nbeautiful. I say, old fellow, those claws of yours clutch me rather\r\ntight—rather like the eagle’s, you know, that ate out the liver of\r\nPro—Pre—the man on Mount Caucasus. People don’t appreciate me, I say,\r\nexcept _her!_ Ah, gods, I am an unlucky man! She would have been mine,\r\nshe would have taken my name; but unfortunately it cannot be so. I\r\nstooped to mate beneath me, and now I rue it.”\r\n\r\nThe position was becoming a very trying one for Melbury, corporeally\r\nand mentally. He was obliged to steady Fitzpiers with his left arm, and\r\nhe began to hate the contact. He hardly knew what to do. It was useless\r\nto remonstrate with Fitzpiers, in his intellectual confusion from the\r\nrum and from the fall. He remained silent, his hold upon his companion,\r\nhowever, being stern rather than compassionate. “You hurt me a little, farmer—though I am much obliged to you for your\r\nkindness. People don’t appreciate me, I say. Between ourselves, I am\r\nlosing my practice here; and why? Because I see matchless attraction\r\nwhere matchless attraction is, both in person and position. I mention\r\nno names, so nobody will be the wiser. But I have lost her, in a\r\nlegitimate sense, that is."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If I were a free man now, things have come\r\nto such a pass that she could not refuse me; while with her fortune\r\n(which I don’t covet for itself) I should have a chance of satisfying\r\nan honorable ambition—a chance I have never had yet, and now never,\r\nnever shall have, probably!”\r\n\r\nMelbury, his heart throbbing against the other’s backbone, and his\r\nbrain on fire with indignation, ventured to mutter huskily, “Why?”\r\n\r\nThe horse ambled on some steps before Fitzpiers replied, “Because I am\r\ntied and bound to another by law, as tightly as I am to you by your\r\narm—not that I complain of your arm—I thank you for helping me. Well,\r\nwhere are we? Not nearly home yet?...Home, say I. It _is_ a home! When\r\nI might have been at the other house over there.” In a stupefied way he\r\nflung his hand in the direction of the park. “I was just two months too\r\nearly in committing myself. Had I only seen the other first—”\r\n\r\nHere the old man’s arm gave Fitzpiers a convulsive shake. “What are you\r\ndoing?” continued the latter. “Keep still, please, or put me down. I\r\nwas saying that I lost her by a mere little two months! There is no\r\nchance for me now in this world, and it makes me reckless—reckless! Unless, indeed, anything should happen to the other one."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She is amiable\r\nenough; but if anything should happen to her—and I hear she is\r\nill—well, if it _should_, I should be free—and my fame, my happiness,\r\nwould be insured.”\r\n\r\nThese were the last words that Fitzpiers uttered in his seat in front\r\nof the timber-merchant. Unable longer to master himself, Melbury, the\r\nskin of his face compressed, whipped away his spare arm from\r\nFitzpiers’s waist, and seized him by the collar. “You heartless villain—after all that we have done for ye!” he cried,\r\nwith a quivering lip. “And the money of hers that you’ve had, and the\r\nroof we’ve provided to shelter ye! It is to me, George Melbury, that\r\nyou dare to talk like that!” The exclamation was accompanied by a\r\npowerful swing from the shoulder, which flung the young man head-long\r\ninto the road, Fitzpiers fell with a heavy thud upon the stumps of some\r\nundergrowth which had been cut during the winter preceding. Darling\r\ncontinued her walk for a few paces farther and stopped. “God forgive me!” Melbury murmured, repenting of what he had done. “He\r\ntried me too sorely; and now perhaps I’ve murdered him!”\r\n\r\nHe turned round in the saddle and looked towards the spot on which\r\nFitzpiers had fallen. To his great surprise he beheld the surgeon rise\r\nto his feet with a bound, as if unhurt, and walk away rapidly under the\r\ntrees. Melbury listened till the rustle of Fitzpiers’s footsteps died away."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“It might have been a crime, but for the mercy of Providence in\r\nproviding leaves for his fall,” he said to himself. And then his mind\r\nreverted to the words of Fitzpiers, and his indignation so mounted\r\nwithin him that he almost wished the fall had put an end to the young\r\nman there and then. He had not ridden far when he discerned his own gray mare standing\r\nunder some bushes. Leaving Darling for a moment, Melbury went forward\r\nand easily caught the younger animal, now disheartened at its freak. He\r\nthen made the pair of them fast to a tree, and turning back, endeavored\r\nto find some trace of Fitzpiers, feeling pitifully that, after all, he\r\nhad gone further than he intended with the offender. But though he threaded the wood hither and thither, his toes ploughing\r\nlayer after layer of the little horny scrolls that had once been\r\nleaves, he could not find him. He stood still listening and looking\r\nround. The breeze was oozing through the network of boughs as through a\r\nstrainer; the trunks and larger branches stood against the light of the\r\nsky in the forms of writhing men, gigantic candelabra, pikes, halberds,\r\nlances, and whatever besides the fancy chose to make of them. Giving up\r\nthe search, Melbury came back to the horses, and walked slowly\r\nhomeward, leading one in each hand."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It happened that on this self-same evening a boy had been returning\r\nfrom Great to Little Hintock about the time of Fitzpiers’s and\r\nMelbury’s passage home along that route. A horse-collar that had been\r\nleft at the harness-mender’s to be repaired was required for use at\r\nfive o’clock next morning, and in consequence the boy had to fetch it\r\novernight. He put his head through the collar, and accompanied his walk\r\nby whistling the one tune he knew, as an antidote to fear. The boy suddenly became aware of a horse trotting rather friskily along\r\nthe track behind him, and not knowing whether to expect friend or foe,\r\nprudence suggested that he should cease his whistling and retreat among\r\nthe trees till the horse and his rider had gone by; a course to which\r\nhe was still more inclined when he found how noiselessly they\r\napproached, and saw that the horse looked pale, and remembered what he\r\nhad read about Death in the Revelation. He therefore deposited the\r\ncollar by a tree, and hid himself behind it. The horseman came on, and\r\nthe youth, whose eyes were as keen as telescopes, to his great relief\r\nrecognized the doctor. As Melbury surmised, Fitzpiers had in the darkness taken Blossom for\r\nDarling, and he had not discovered his mistake when he came up opposite\r\nthe boy, though he was somewhat surprised at the liveliness of his\r\nusually placid mare."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The only other pair of eyes on the spot whose\r\nvision was keen as the young carter’s were those of the horse; and,\r\nwith that strongly conservative objection to the unusual which animals\r\nshow, Blossom, on eying the collar under the tree—quite invisible to\r\nFitzpiers—exercised none of the patience of the older horse, but shied\r\nsufficiently to unseat so second-rate an equestrian as the surgeon. He fell, and did not move, lying as Melbury afterwards found him. The\r\nboy ran away, salving his conscience for the desertion by thinking how\r\nvigorously he would spread the alarm of the accident when he got to\r\nHintock—which he uncompromisingly did, incrusting the skeleton event\r\nwith a load of dramatic horrors. Grace had returned, and the fly hired on her account, though not by her\r\nhusband, at the Crown Hotel, Shottsford-Forum, had been paid for and\r\ndismissed. The long drive had somewhat revived her, her illness being a\r\nfeverish intermittent nervousness which had more to do with mind than\r\nbody, and she walked about her sitting-room in something of a hopeful\r\nmood. Mrs. Melbury had told her as soon as she arrived that her husband\r\nhad returned from London. He had gone out, she said, to see a patient,\r\nas she supposed, and he must soon be back, since he had had no dinner\r\nor tea. Grace would not allow her mind to harbor any suspicion of his\r\nwhereabouts, and her step-mother said nothing of Mrs. Charmond’s\r\nrumored sorrows and plans of departure."}
{"question": "", "answer": "So the young wife sat by the fire, waiting silently. She had left\r\nHintock in a turmoil of feeling after the revelation of Mrs. Charmond,\r\nand had intended not to be at home when her husband returned. But she\r\nhad thought the matter over, and had allowed her father’s influence to\r\nprevail and bring her back; and now somewhat regretted that Edgar’s\r\narrival had preceded hers. By-and-by Mrs. Melbury came up-stairs with a slight air of flurry and\r\nabruptness. “I have something to tell—some bad news,” she said. “But you must not\r\nbe alarmed, as it is not so bad as it might have been. Edgar has been\r\nthrown off his horse. We don’t think he is hurt much. It happened in\r\nthe wood the other side of Nellcombe Bottom, where ’tis said the ghosts\r\nof the brothers walk.”\r\n\r\nShe went on to give a few of the particulars, but none of the invented\r\nhorrors that had been communicated by the boy. “I thought it better to\r\ntell you at once,” she added, “in case he should not be very well able\r\nto walk home, and somebody should bring him.”\r\n\r\nMrs. Melbury really thought matters much worse than she represented,\r\nand Grace knew that she thought so. She sat down dazed for a few\r\nminutes, returning a negative to her step-mother’s inquiry if she could\r\ndo anything for her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“But please go into the bedroom,” Grace said, on\r\nsecond thoughts, “and see if all is ready there—in case it is serious.”\r\nMrs. Melbury thereupon called Grammer, and they did as directed,\r\nsupplying the room with everything they could think of for the\r\naccommodation of an injured man. Nobody was left in the lower part of the house. Not many minutes passed\r\nwhen Grace heard a knock at the door—a single knock, not loud enough to\r\nreach the ears of those in the bedroom. She went to the top of the\r\nstairs and said, faintly, “Come up,” knowing that the door stood, as\r\nusual in such houses, wide open. Retreating into the gloom of the broad landing she saw rise up the\r\nstairs a woman whom at first she did not recognize, till her voice\r\nrevealed her to be Suke Damson, in great fright and sorrow. A streak of\r\nlight from the partially closed door of Grace’s room fell upon her face\r\nas she came forward, and it was drawn and pale. “Oh, Miss Melbury—I would say Mrs. Fitzpiers,” she said, wringing her\r\nhands. “This terrible news. Is he dead? Is he hurted very bad? Tell me;\r\nI couldn’t help coming; please forgive me, Miss Melbury—Mrs. Fitzpiers\r\nI would say!”\r\n\r\nGrace sank down on the oak chest which stood on the landing, and put\r\nher hands to her now flushed face and head. Could she order Suke Damson\r\ndown-stairs and out of the house?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her husband might be brought in at\r\nany moment, and what would happen? But could she order this genuinely\r\ngrieved woman away? There was a dead silence of half a minute or so, till Suke said, “Why\r\ndon’t ye speak? Is he here? Is he dead? If so, why can’t I see\r\nhim—would it be so very wrong?”\r\n\r\nBefore Grace had answered somebody else came to the door below—a\r\nfoot-fall light as a roe’s. There was a hurried tapping upon the panel,\r\nas if with the impatient tips of fingers whose owner thought not\r\nwhether a knocker were there or no. Without a pause, and possibly\r\nguided by the stray beam of light on the landing, the newcomer ascended\r\nthe staircase as the first had done. Grace was sufficiently visible,\r\nand the lady, for a lady it was, came to her side. “I could make nobody hear down-stairs,” said Felice Charmond, with lips\r\nwhose dryness could almost be heard, and panting, as she stood like one\r\nready to sink on the floor with distress. “What is—the matter—tell me\r\nthe worst! Can he live?” She looked at Grace imploringly, without\r\nperceiving poor Suke, who, dismayed at such a presence, had shrunk away\r\ninto the shade. Mrs. Charmond’s little feet were covered with mud; she was quite\r\nunconscious of her appearance now. “I have heard such a dreadful\r\nreport,” she went on; “I came to ascertain the truth of it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Is\r\nhe—killed?”\r\n\r\n“She won’t tell us—he’s dying—he’s in that room!” burst out Suke,\r\nregardless of consequences, as she heard the distant movements of Mrs.\r\nMelbury and Grammer in the bedroom at the end of the passage. “Where?” said Mrs. Charmond; and on Suke pointing out the direction,\r\nshe made as if to go thither. Grace barred the way. “He is not there,” she said. “I have not seen him\r\nany more than you. I have heard a report only—not so bad as you think. It must have been exaggerated to you.”\r\n\r\n“Please do not conceal anything—let me know all!” said Felice,\r\ndoubtingly. “You shall know all I know—you have a perfect right to know—who can\r\nhave a better than either of you?” said Grace, with a delicate sting\r\nwhich was lost upon Felice Charmond now. “I repeat, I have only heard a\r\nless alarming account than you have heard; how much it means, and how\r\nlittle, I cannot say. I pray God that it means not much—in common\r\nhumanity. You probably pray the same—_for other reasons_.”\r\n\r\nShe regarded them both there in the dim light a while. They stood dumb in their trouble, not stinging back at her; not heeding\r\nher mood. A tenderness spread over Grace like a dew. It was well, very\r\nwell, conventionally, to address either one of them in the wife’s\r\nregulation terms of virtuous sarcasm, as woman, creature, or thing, for\r\nlosing their hearts to her husband."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But life, what was it, and who was\r\nshe? She had, like the singer of the psalm of Asaph, been plagued and\r\nchastened all the day long; but could she, by retributive words, in\r\norder to please herself—the individual—“offend against the generation,”\r\nas he would not? “He is dying, perhaps,” blubbered Suke Damson, putting her apron to her\r\neyes. In their gestures and faces there were anxieties, affection, agony of\r\nheart, all for a man who had wronged them—had never really behaved\r\ntowards either of them anyhow but selfishly. Neither one but would have\r\nwellnigh sacrificed half her life to him, even now. The tears which his\r\npossibly critical situation could not bring to her eyes surged over at\r\nthe contemplation of these fellow-women. She turned to the balustrade,\r\nbent herself upon it, and wept. Thereupon Felice began to cry also, without using her handkerchief, and\r\nletting the tears run down silently. While these three poor women stood\r\ntogether thus, pitying another though most to be pitied themselves, the\r\npacing of a horse or horses became audible in the court, and in a\r\nmoment Melbury’s voice was heard calling to his stableman. Grace at\r\nonce started up, ran down the stairs and out into the quadrangle as her\r\nfather crossed it towards the door. “Father, what is the matter with\r\nhim?” she cried. “Who—Edgar?” said Melbury, abruptly. “Matter? Nothing. What, my dear,\r\nand have you got home safe? Why, you are better already!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But you ought\r\nnot to be out in the air like this.”\r\n\r\n“But he has been thrown off his horse!”\r\n\r\n“I know; I know. I saw it. He got up again, and walked off as well as\r\never. A fall on the leaves didn’t hurt a spry fellow like him. He did\r\nnot come this way,” he added, significantly. “I suppose he went to look\r\nfor his horse. I tried to find him, but could not. But after seeing him\r\ngo away under the trees I found the horse, and have led it home for\r\nsafety. So he must walk. Now, don’t you stay out here in this night\r\nair.”\r\n\r\nShe returned to the house with her father. When she had again ascended\r\nto the landing and to her own rooms beyond it was a great relief to her\r\nto find that both Petticoat the First and Petticoat the Second of her\r\n_Bien-aimé_ had silently disappeared. They had, in all probability,\r\nheard the words of her father, and departed with their anxieties\r\nrelieved. Presently her parents came up to Grace, and busied themselves to see\r\nthat she was comfortable. Perceiving soon that she would prefer to be\r\nleft alone they went away. Grace waited on. The clock raised its voice now and then, but her\r\nhusband did not return. At her father’s usual hour for retiring he\r\nagain came in to see her. “Do not stay up,” she said, as soon as he\r\nentered. “I am not at all tired."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I will sit up for him.”\r\n\r\n“I think it will be useless, Grace,” said Melbury, slowly. “Why?”\r\n\r\n“I have had a bitter quarrel with him; and on that account I hardly\r\nthink he will return to-night.”\r\n\r\n“A quarrel? Was that after the fall seen by the boy?”\r\n\r\nMelbury nodded an affirmative, without taking his eyes off the candle. “Yes; it was as we were coming home together,” he said. Something had been swelling up in Grace while her father was speaking. “How could you want to quarrel with him?” she cried, suddenly. “Why\r\ncould you not let him come home quietly if he were inclined to? He is\r\nmy husband; and now you have married me to him surely you need not\r\nprovoke him unnecessarily. First you induce me to accept him, and then\r\nyou do things that divide us more than we should naturally be divided!”\r\n\r\n“How can you speak so unjustly to me, Grace?” said Melbury, with\r\nindignant sorrow. “_I_ divide you from your husband, indeed! You little\r\nthink—”\r\n\r\nHe was inclined to say more—to tell her the whole story of the\r\nencounter, and that the provocation he had received had lain entirely\r\nin hearing her despised. But it would have greatly distressed her, and\r\nhe forbore. “You had better lie down. You are tired,” he said,\r\nsoothingly. “Good-night.”\r\n\r\nThe household went to bed, and a silence fell upon the dwelling, broken\r\nonly by the occasional skirr of a halter in Melbury’s stables."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Despite\r\nher father’s advice Grace still waited up. But nobody came. It was a critical time in Grace’s emotional life that night. She\r\nthought of her husband a good deal, and for the nonce forgot\r\nWinterborne. “How these unhappy women must have admired Edgar!” she said to herself. “How attractive he must be to everybody; and, indeed, he is\r\nattractive.” The possibility is that, piqued by rivalry, these ideas\r\nmight have been transformed into their corresponding emotions by a show\r\nof the least reciprocity in Fitzpiers. There was, in truth, a love-bird\r\nyearning to fly from her heart; and it wanted a lodging badly. But no husband came. The fact was that Melbury had been much mistaken\r\nabout the condition of Fitzpiers. People do not fall headlong on stumps\r\nof underwood with impunity. Had the old man been able to watch\r\nFitzpiers narrowly enough, he would have observed that on rising and\r\nwalking into the thicket he dropped blood as he went; that he had not\r\nproceeded fifty yards before he showed signs of being dizzy, and,\r\nraising his hands to his head, reeled and fell down. CHAPTER XXXVI. Grace was not the only one who watched and meditated in Hintock that\r\nnight. Felice Charmond was in no mood to retire to rest at a customary\r\nhour; and over her drawing-room fire at the Manor House she sat as\r\nmotionless and in as deep a reverie as Grace in her little apartment at\r\nthe homestead."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Having caught ear of Melbury’s intelligence while she stood on the\r\nlanding at his house, and been eased of much of her mental distress,\r\nher sense of personal decorum returned upon her with a rush. She\r\ndescended the stairs and left the door like a ghost, keeping close to\r\nthe walls of the building till she got round to the gate of the\r\nquadrangle, through which she noiselessly passed almost before Grace\r\nand her father had finished their discourse. Suke Damson had thought it\r\nwell to imitate her superior in this respect, and, descending the back\r\nstairs as Felice descended the front, went out at the side door and\r\nhome to her cottage. Once outside Melbury’s gates Mrs. Charmond ran with all her speed to\r\nthe Manor House, without stopping or turning her head, and splitting\r\nher thin boots in her haste. She entered her own dwelling, as she had\r\nemerged from it, by the drawing-room window. In other circumstances she\r\nwould have felt some timidity at undertaking such an unpremeditated\r\nexcursion alone; but her anxiety for another had cast out her fear for\r\nherself. Everything in her drawing-room was just as she had left it—the candles\r\nstill burning, the casement closed, and the shutters gently pulled to,\r\nso as to hide the state of the window from the cursory glance of a\r\nservant entering the apartment. She had been gone about three-quarters\r\nof an hour by the clock, and nobody seemed to have discovered her\r\nabsence."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Tired in body but tense in mind, she sat down, palpitating,\r\nround-eyed, bewildered at what she had done. She had been betrayed by affrighted love into a visit which, now that\r\nthe emotion instigating it had calmed down under her belief that\r\nFitzpiers was in no danger, was the saddest surprise to her. This was\r\nhow she had set about doing her best to escape her passionate bondage\r\nto him! Somehow, in declaring to Grace and to herself the unseemliness\r\nof her infatuation, she had grown a convert to its irresistibility. If\r\nHeaven would only give her strength; but Heaven never did! One thing\r\nwas indispensable; she must go away from Hintock if she meant to\r\nwithstand further temptation. The struggle was too wearying, too\r\nhopeless, while she remained. It was but a continual capitulation of\r\nconscience to what she dared not name. By degrees, as she sat, Felice’s mind—helped perhaps by the anticlimax\r\nof learning that her lover was unharmed after all her fright about\r\nhim—grew wondrously strong in wise resolve. For the moment she was in a\r\nmood, in the words of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, “to run mad with\r\ndiscretion;” and was so persuaded that discretion lay in departure that\r\nshe wished to set about going that very minute. Jumping up from her\r\nseat, she began to gather together some small personal knick-knacks\r\nscattered about the room, to feel that preparations were really in\r\ntrain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "While moving here and there she fancied that she heard a slight noise\r\nout-of-doors, and stood still. Surely it was a tapping at the window. A\r\nthought entered her mind, and burned her cheek. He had come to that\r\nwindow before; yet was it possible that he should dare to do so now! All the servants were in bed, and in the ordinary course of affairs she\r\nwould have retired also. Then she remembered that on stepping in by the\r\ncasement and closing it, she had not fastened the window-shutter, so\r\nthat a streak of light from the interior of the room might have\r\nrevealed her vigil to an observer on the lawn. How all things conspired\r\nagainst her keeping faith with Grace! The tapping recommenced, light as from the bill of a little bird; her\r\nillegitimate hope overcame her vow; she went and pulled back the\r\nshutter, determining, however, to shake her head at him and keep the\r\ncasement securely closed. What she saw outside might have struck terror into a heart stouter than\r\na helpless woman’s at midnight. In the centre of the lowest pane of the\r\nwindow, close to the glass, was a human face, which she barely\r\nrecognized as the face of Fitzpiers. It was surrounded with the\r\ndarkness of the night without, corpse-like in its pallor, and covered\r\nwith blood. As disclosed in the square area of the pane it met her\r\nfrightened eyes like a replica of the Sudarium of St. Veronica."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He moved his lips, and looked at her imploringly. Her rapid mind pieced\r\ntogether in an instant a possible concatenation of events which might\r\nhave led to this tragical issue. She unlatched the casement with a\r\nterrified hand, and bending down to where he was crouching, pressed her\r\nface to his with passionate solicitude. She assisted him into the room\r\nwithout a word, to do which it was almost necessary to lift him bodily. Quickly closing the window and fastening the shutters, she bent over\r\nhim breathlessly. “Are you hurt much—much?” she cried, faintly. “Oh, oh, how is this!”\r\n\r\n“Rather much—but don’t be frightened,” he answered in a difficult\r\nwhisper, and turning himself to obtain an easier position if possible. “A little water, please.”\r\n\r\nShe ran across into the dining-room, and brought a bottle and glass,\r\nfrom which he eagerly drank. He could then speak much better, and with\r\nher help got upon the nearest couch. “Are you dying, Edgar?” she said. “Do speak to me!”\r\n\r\n“I am half dead,” said Fitzpiers. “But perhaps I shall get over\r\nit....It is chiefly loss of blood.”\r\n\r\n“But I thought your fall did not hurt you,” said she. “Who did this?”\r\n\r\n“Felice—my father-in-law!...I have crawled to you more than a mile on\r\nmy hands and knees—God, I thought I should never have got here!...I\r\nhave come to you—be-cause you are the only friend—I have in the world\r\nnow....I can never go back to Hintock—never—to the roof of the\r\nMelburys!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Not poppy nor mandragora will ever medicine this bitter\r\nfeud!...If I were only well again—”\r\n\r\n“Let me bind your head, now that you have rested.”\r\n\r\n“Yes—but wait a moment—it has stopped bleeding, fortunately, or I\r\nshould be a dead man before now. While in the wood I managed to make a\r\ntourniquet of some half-pence and my handkerchief, as well as I could\r\nin the dark....But listen, dear Felice! Can you hide me till I am well? Whatever comes, I can be seen in Hintock no more. My practice is nearly\r\ngone, you know—and after this I would not care to recover it if I\r\ncould.”\r\n\r\nBy this time Felice’s tears began to blind her. Where were now her\r\ndiscreet plans for sundering their lives forever? To administer to him\r\nin his pain, and trouble, and poverty, was her single thought. The\r\nfirst step was to hide him, and she asked herself where. A place\r\noccurred to her mind. She got him some wine from the dining-room, which strengthened him\r\nmuch. Then she managed to remove his boots, and, as he could now keep\r\nhimself upright by leaning upon her on one side and a walking-stick on\r\nthe other, they went thus in slow march out of the room and up the\r\nstairs. At the top she took him along a gallery, pausing whenever he\r\nrequired rest, and thence up a smaller staircase to the least used part\r\nof the house, where she unlocked a door."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Within was a lumber-room,\r\ncontaining abandoned furniture of all descriptions, built up in piles\r\nwhich obscured the light of the windows, and formed between them nooks\r\nand lairs in which a person would not be discerned even should an eye\r\ngaze in at the door. The articles were mainly those that had belonged\r\nto the previous owner of the house, and had been bought in by the late\r\nMr. Charmond at the auction; but changing fashion, and the tastes of a\r\nyoung wife, had caused them to be relegated to this dungeon. Here Fitzpiers sat on the floor against the wall till she had hauled\r\nout materials for a bed, which she spread on the floor in one of the\r\naforesaid nooks. She obtained water and a basin, and washed the dried\r\nblood from his face and hands; and when he was comfortably reclining,\r\nfetched food from the larder. While he ate her eyes lingered anxiously\r\non his face, following its every movement with such loving-kindness as\r\nonly a fond woman can show. He was now in better condition, and discussed his position with her. “What I fancy I said to Melbury must have been enough to enrage any\r\nman, if uttered in cold blood, and with knowledge of his presence. But\r\nI did not know him, and I was stupefied by what he had given me, so\r\nthat I hardly was aware of what I said."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Well—the veil of that temple is\r\nrent in twain!...As I am not going to be seen again in Hintock, my\r\nfirst efforts must be directed to allay any alarm that may be felt at\r\nmy absence, before I am able to get clear away. Nobody must suspect\r\nthat I have been hurt, or there will be a country talk about me. Felice, I must at once concoct a letter to check all search for me. I\r\nthink if you can bring me a pen and paper I may be able to do it now. I\r\ncould rest better if it were done. Poor thing! how I tire her with\r\nrunning up and down!”\r\n\r\nShe fetched writing materials, and held up the blotting-book as a\r\nsupport to his hand, while he penned a brief note to his nominal wife. “The animosity shown towards me by your father,” he wrote, in this\r\ncoldest of marital epistles, “is such that I cannot return again to a\r\nroof which is his, even though it shelters you. A parting is\r\nunavoidable, as you are sure to be on his side in this division. I am\r\nstarting on a journey which will take me a long way from Hintock, and\r\nyou must not expect to see me there again for some time.”\r\n\r\nHe then gave her a few directions bearing upon his professional\r\nengagements and other practical matters, concluding without a hint of\r\nhis destination, or a notion of when she would see him again."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He\r\noffered to read the note to Felice before he closed it up, but she\r\nwould not hear or see it; that side of his obligations distressed her\r\nbeyond endurance. She turned away from Fitzpiers, and sobbed bitterly. “If you can get this posted at a place some miles away,” he whispered,\r\nexhausted by the effort of writing—“at Shottsford or Port-Bredy, or\r\nstill better, Budmouth—it will divert all suspicion from this house as\r\nthe place of my refuge.”\r\n\r\n“I will drive to one or other of the places myself—anything to keep it\r\nunknown,” she murmured, her voice weighted with vague foreboding, now\r\nthat the excitement of helping him had passed away. Fitzpiers told her that there was yet one thing more to be done. “In\r\ncreeping over the fence on to the lawn,” he said, “I made the rail\r\nbloody, and it shows rather much on the white paint—I could see it in\r\nthe dark. At all hazards it should be washed off. Could you do that\r\nalso, Felice?”\r\n\r\nWhat will not women do on such devoted occasions? weary as she was she\r\nwent all the way down the rambling staircases to the ground-floor, then\r\nto search for a lantern, which she lighted and hid under her cloak;\r\nthen for a wet sponge, and next went forth into the night."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The white\r\nrailing stared out in the darkness at her approach, and a ray from the\r\nenshrouded lantern fell upon the blood—just where he had told her it\r\nwould be found. She shuddered. It was almost too much to bear in one\r\nday—but with a shaking hand she sponged the rail clean, and returned to\r\nthe house. The time occupied by these several proceedings was not much less than\r\ntwo hours. When all was done, and she had smoothed his extemporized\r\nbed, and placed everything within his reach that she could think of,\r\nshe took her leave of him, and locked him in. CHAPTER XXXVII. When her husband’s letter reached Grace’s hands, bearing upon it the\r\npostmark of a distant town, it never once crossed her mind that\r\nFitzpiers was within a mile of her still. She felt relieved that he did\r\nnot write more bitterly of the quarrel with her father, whatever its\r\nnature might have been; but the general frigidity of his communication\r\nquenched in her the incipient spark that events had kindled so shortly\r\nbefore. From this centre of information it was made known in Hintock that the\r\ndoctor had gone away, and as none but the Melbury household was aware\r\nthat he did not return on the night of his accident, no excitement\r\nmanifested itself in the village. Thus the early days of May passed by."}
{"question": "", "answer": "None but the nocturnal birds and\r\nanimals observed that late one evening, towards the middle of the\r\nmonth, a closely wrapped figure, with a crutch under one arm and a\r\nstick in his hand, crept out from Hintock House across the lawn to the\r\nshelter of the trees, taking thence a slow and laborious walk to the\r\nnearest point of the turnpike-road. The mysterious personage was so\r\ndisguised that his own wife would hardly have known him. Felice\r\nCharmond was a practised hand at make-ups, as well she might be; and\r\nshe had done her utmost in padding and painting Fitzpiers with the old\r\nmaterials of her art in the recesses of the lumber-room. In the highway he was met by a covered carriage, which conveyed him to\r\nSherton-Abbas, whence he proceeded to the nearest port on the south\r\ncoast, and immediately crossed the Channel. But it was known to everybody that three days after this time Mrs.\r\nCharmond executed her long-deferred plan of setting out for a long term\r\nof travel and residence on the Continent. She went off one morning as\r\nunostentatiously as could be, and took no maid with her, having, she\r\nsaid, engaged one to meet her at a point farther on in her route. After\r\nthat, Hintock House, so frequently deserted, was again to be let. Spring had not merged in summer when a clinching rumor, founded on the\r\nbest of evidence, reached the parish and neighborhood."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Mrs. Charmond\r\nand Fitzpiers had been seen together in Baden, in relations which set\r\nat rest the question that had agitated the little community ever since\r\nthe winter. Melbury had entered the Valley of Humiliation even farther than Grace. His spirit seemed broken. But once a week he mechanically went to market as usual, and here, as\r\nhe was passing by the conduit one day, his mental condition expressed\r\nlargely by his gait, he heard his name spoken by a voice formerly\r\nfamiliar. He turned and saw a certain Fred Beaucock—once a promising\r\nlawyer’s clerk and local dandy, who had been called the cleverest\r\nfellow in Sherton, without whose brains the firm of solicitors\r\nemploying him would be nowhere. But later on Beaucock had fallen into\r\nthe mire. He was invited out a good deal, sang songs at agricultural\r\nmeetings and burgesses’ dinners; in sum, victualled himself with\r\nspirits more frequently than was good for the clever brains or body\r\neither."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He lost his situation, and after an absence spent in trying his\r\npowers elsewhere, came back to his native town, where, at the time of\r\nthe foregoing events in Hintock, he gave legal advice for astonishingly\r\nsmall fees—mostly carrying on his profession on public-house settles,\r\nin whose recesses he might often have been overheard making\r\ncountry-people’s wills for half a crown; calling with a learned voice\r\nfor pen-and-ink and a halfpenny sheet of paper, on which he drew up the\r\ntestament while resting it in a little space wiped with his hand on the\r\ntable amid the liquid circles formed by the cups and glasses. An idea\r\nimplanted early in life is difficult to uproot, and many elderly\r\ntradespeople still clung to the notion that Fred Beaucock knew a great\r\ndeal of law. It was he who had called Melbury by name. “You look very down, Mr.\r\nMelbury—very, if I may say as much,” he observed, when the\r\ntimber-merchant turned. “But I know—I know. A very sad case—very. I was\r\nbred to the law, as you know, and am professionally no stranger to such\r\nmatters. Well, Mrs. Fitzpiers has her remedy.”\r\n\r\n“How—what—a remedy?” said Melbury. “Under the new law, sir. A new court was established last year, and\r\nunder the new statute, twenty and twenty-one Vic., cap. eighty-five,\r\nunmarrying is as easy as marrying. No more Acts of Parliament\r\nnecessary; no longer one law for the rich and another for the poor."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But\r\ncome inside—I was just going to have a nibleykin of rum hot—I’ll\r\nexplain it all to you.”\r\n\r\nThe intelligence amazed Melbury, who saw little of newspapers. And\r\nthough he was a severely correct man in his habits, and had no taste\r\nfor entering a tavern with Fred Beaucock—nay, would have been quite\r\nuninfluenced by such a character on any other matter in the world—such\r\nfascination lay in the idea of delivering his poor girl from bondage,\r\nthat it deprived him of the critical faculty. He could not resist the\r\nex-lawyer’s clerk, and entered the inn. Here they sat down to the rum, which Melbury paid for as a matter of\r\ncourse, Beaucock leaning back in the settle with a legal gravity which\r\nwould hardly allow him to be conscious of the spirits before him,\r\nthough they nevertheless disappeared with mysterious quickness. How much of the exaggerated information on the then new divorce laws\r\nwhich Beaucock imparted to his listener was the result of ignorance,\r\nand how much of dupery, was never ascertained. But he related such a\r\nplausible story of the ease with which Grace could become a free woman\r\nthat her father was irradiated with the project; and though he scarcely\r\nwetted his lips, Melbury never knew how he came out of the inn, or when\r\nor where he mounted his gig to pursue his way homeward."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But home he\r\nfound himself, his brain having all the way seemed to ring sonorously\r\nas a gong in the intensity of its stir. Before he had seen Grace, he\r\nwas accidentally met by Winterborne, who found his face shining as if\r\nhe had, like the Law-giver, conversed with an angel. He relinquished his horse, and took Winterborne by the arm to a heap of\r\nrendlewood—as barked oak was here called—which lay under a\r\nprivet-hedge. “Giles,” he said, when they had sat down upon the logs, “there’s a new\r\nlaw in the land! Grace can be free quite easily. I only knew it by the\r\nmerest accident. I might not have found it out for the next ten years. She can get rid of him—d’ye hear?—get rid of him. Think of that, my\r\nfriend Giles!”\r\n\r\nHe related what he had learned of the new legal remedy. A subdued\r\ntremulousness about the mouth was all the response that Winterborne\r\nmade; and Melbury added, “My boy, you shall have her yet—if you want\r\nher.” His feelings had gathered volume as he said this, and the\r\narticulate sound of the old idea drowned his sight in mist. “Are you sure—about this new law?” asked Winterborne, so disquieted by\r\na gigantic exultation which loomed alternately with fearful doubt that\r\nhe evaded the full acceptance of Melbury’s last statement."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Melbury said that he had no manner of doubt, for since his talk with\r\nBeaucock it had come into his mind that he had seen some time ago in\r\nthe weekly paper an allusion to such a legal change; but, having no\r\ninterest in those desperate remedies at the moment, he had passed it\r\nover. “But I’m not going to let the matter rest doubtful for a single\r\nday,” he continued. “I am going to London. Beaucock will go with me,\r\nand we shall get the best advice as soon as we possibly can. Beaucock\r\nis a thorough lawyer—nothing the matter with him but a fiery palate. I\r\nknew him as the stay and refuge of Sherton in knots of law at one\r\ntime.”\r\n\r\nWinterborne’s replies were of the vaguest. The new possibility was\r\nalmost unthinkable by him at the moment. He was what was called at\r\nHintock “a solid-going fellow;” he maintained his abeyant mood, not\r\nfrom want of reciprocity, but from a taciturn hesitancy, taught by life\r\nas he knew it. “But,” continued the timber-merchant, a temporary crease or two of\r\nanxiety supplementing those already established in his forehead by time\r\nand care, “Grace is not at all well. Nothing constitutional, you know;\r\nbut she has been in a low, nervous state ever since that night of\r\nfright."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I don’t doubt but that she will be all right soon....I wonder\r\nhow she is this evening?” He rose with the words, as if he had too long\r\nforgotten her personality in the excitement of her previsioned career. They had sat till the evening was beginning to dye the garden brown,\r\nand now went towards Melbury’s house, Giles a few steps in the rear of\r\nhis old friend, who was stimulated by the enthusiasm of the moment to\r\noutstep the ordinary walking of Winterborne. He felt shy of entering\r\nGrace’s presence as her reconstituted lover—which was how her father’s\r\nmanner would be sure to present him—before definite information as to\r\nher future state was forthcoming; it seemed too nearly like the act of\r\nthose who rush in where angels fear to tread. A chill to counterbalance all the glowing promise of the day was prompt\r\nenough in coming. No sooner had he followed the timber-merchant in at\r\nthe door than he heard Grammer inform him that Mrs. Fitzpiers was still\r\nmore unwell than she had been in the morning. Old Dr. Jones being in\r\nthe neighborhood they had called him in, and he had instantly directed\r\nthem to get her to bed. They were not, however, to consider her illness\r\nserious—a feverish, nervous attack the result of recent events, was\r\nwhat she was suffering from, and she would doubtless be well in a few\r\ndays. Winterborne, therefore, did not remain, and his hope of seeing her that\r\nevening was disappointed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Even this aggravation of her morning\r\ncondition did not greatly depress Melbury. He knew, he said, that his\r\ndaughter’s constitution was sound enough. It was only these domestic\r\ntroubles that were pulling her down. Once free she would be blooming\r\nagain. Melbury diagnosed rightly, as parents usually do. He set out for London the next morning, Jones having paid another visit\r\nand assured him that he might leave home without uneasiness, especially\r\non an errand of that sort, which would the sooner put an end to her\r\nsuspense. The timber-merchant had been away only a day or two when it was told in\r\nHintock that Mr. Fitzpiers’s hat had been found in the wood. Later on\r\nin the afternoon the hat was brought to Melbury, and, by a piece of\r\nill-fortune, into Grace’s presence. It had doubtless lain in the wood\r\never since his fall from the horse, but it looked so clean and\r\nuninjured—the summer weather and leafy shelter having much favored its\r\npreservation—that Grace could not believe it had remained so long\r\nconcealed. A very little of fact was enough to set her fevered fancy at\r\nwork at this juncture; she thought him still in the neighborhood; she\r\nfeared his sudden appearance; and her nervous malady developed\r\nconsequences so grave that Dr. Jones began to look serious, and the\r\nhousehold was alarmed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was the beginning of June, and the cuckoo at this time of the summer\r\nscarcely ceased his cry for more than two or three hours during the\r\nnight. The bird’s note, so familiar to her ears from infancy, was now\r\nabsolute torture to the poor girl. On the Friday following the\r\nWednesday of Melbury’s departure, and the day after the discovery of\r\nFitzpiers’s hat, the cuckoo began at two o’clock in the morning with a\r\nsudden cry from one of Melbury’s apple-trees, not three yards from the\r\nwindow of Grace’s room. “Oh, he is coming!” she cried, and in her terror sprang clean from the\r\nbed out upon the floor. These starts and frights continued till noon; and when the doctor had\r\narrived and had seen her, and had talked with Mrs. Melbury, he sat down\r\nand meditated. That ever-present terror it was indispensable to remove\r\nfrom her mind at all hazards; and he thought how this might be done. Without saying a word to anybody in the house, or to the disquieted\r\nWinterborne waiting in the lane below, Dr. Jones went home and wrote to\r\nMr. Melbury at the London address he had obtained from his wife. The\r\ngist of his communication was that Mrs. Fitzpiers should be assured as\r\nsoon as possible that steps were being taken to sever the bond which\r\nwas becoming a torture to her; that she would soon be free, and was\r\neven then virtually so."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“If you can say it _at once_ it may be the\r\nmeans of averting much harm,” he said. “Write to herself; not to me.”\r\n\r\nOn Saturday he drove over to Hintock, and assured her with mysterious\r\npacifications that in a day or two she might expect to receive some\r\nassuring news. So it turned out. When Sunday morning came there was a\r\nletter for Grace from her father. It arrived at seven o’clock, the\r\nusual time at which the toddling postman passed by Hintock; at eight\r\nGrace awoke, having slept an hour or two for a wonder, and Mrs. Melbury\r\nbrought up the letter. “Can you open it yourself?” said she. “Oh yes, yes!” said Grace, with feeble impatience. She tore the\r\nenvelope, unfolded the sheet, and read; when a creeping blush tinctured\r\nher white neck and cheek. Her father had exercised a bold discretion. He informed her that she\r\nneed have no further concern about Fitzpiers’s return; that she would\r\nshortly be a free woman; and therefore, if she should desire to wed her\r\nold lover—which he trusted was the case, since it was his own deep\r\nwish—she would be in a position to do so. In this Melbury had not\r\nwritten beyond his belief. But he very much stretched the facts in\r\nadding that the legal formalities for dissolving her union were\r\npractically settled."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The truth was that on the arrival of the doctor’s\r\nletter poor Melbury had been much agitated, and could with difficulty\r\nbe prevented by Beaucock from returning to her bedside. What was the\r\nuse of his rushing back to Hintock? Beaucock had asked him. The only\r\nthing that could do her any good was a breaking of the bond. Though he\r\nhad not as yet had an interview with the eminent solicitor they were\r\nabout to consult, he was on the point of seeing him; and the case was\r\nclear enough. Thus the simple Melbury, urged by his parental alarm at\r\nher danger by the representations of his companion, and by the doctor’s\r\nletter, had yielded, and sat down to tell her roundly that she was\r\nvirtually free. “And you’d better write also to the gentleman,” suggested Beaucock,\r\nwho, scenting notoriety and the germ of a large practice in the case,\r\nwished to commit Melbury to it irretrievably; to effect which he knew\r\nthat nothing would be so potent as awakening the passion of Grace for\r\nWinterborne, so that her father might not have the heart to withdraw\r\nfrom his attempt to make her love legitimate when he discovered that\r\nthere were difficulties in the way. The nervous, impatient Melbury was much pleased with the idea of\r\n“starting them at once,” as he called it. To put his long-delayed\r\nreparative scheme in train had become a passion with him now."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He added\r\nto the letter addressed to his daughter a passage hinting that she\r\nought to begin to encourage Winterborne, lest she should lose him\r\naltogether; and he wrote to Giles that the path was virtually open for\r\nhim at last. Life was short, he declared; there were slips betwixt the\r\ncup and the lip; her interest in him should be reawakened at once, that\r\nall might be ready when the good time came for uniting them. CHAPTER XXXVIII. At these warm words Winterborne was not less dazed than he was moved in\r\nheart. The novelty of the avowal rendered what it carried with it\r\ninapprehensible by him in its entirety. Only a few short months ago completely estranged from this\r\nfamily—beholding Grace going to and fro in the distance, clothed with\r\nthe alienating radiance of obvious superiority, the wife of the then\r\npopular and fashionable Fitzpiers, hopelessly outside his social\r\nboundary down to so recent a time that flowers then folded were hardly\r\nfaded yet—he was now asked by that jealously guarding father of hers to\r\ntake courage—to get himself ready for the day when he should be able to\r\nclaim her. The old times came back to him in dim procession. How he had been\r\nsnubbed; how Melbury had despised his Christmas party; how that sweet,\r\ncoy Grace herself had looked down upon him and his household\r\narrangements, and poor Creedle’s contrivances! Well, he could not believe it."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Surely the adamantine barrier of\r\nmarriage with another could not be pierced like this! It did violence\r\nto custom. Yet a new law might do anything. But was it at all within\r\nthe bounds of probability that a woman who, over and above her own\r\nattainments, had been accustomed to those of a cultivated professional\r\nman, could ever be the wife of such as he? Since the date of his rejection he had almost grown to see the\r\nreasonableness of that treatment. He had said to himself again and\r\nagain that her father was right; that the poor ceorl, Giles\r\nWinterborne, would never have been able to make such a dainty girl\r\nhappy. Yet, now that she had stood in a position farther removed from\r\nhis own than at first, he was asked to prepare to woo her. He was full\r\nof doubt. Nevertheless, it was not in him to show backwardness. To act so\r\npromptly as Melbury desired him to act seemed, indeed, scarcely wise,\r\nbecause of the uncertainty of events. Giles knew nothing of legal\r\nprocedure, but he did know that for him to step up to Grace as a lover\r\nbefore the bond which bound her was actually dissolved was simply an\r\nextravagant dream of her father’s overstrained mind. He pitied Melbury\r\nfor his almost childish enthusiasm, and saw that the aging man must\r\nhave suffered acutely to be weakened to this unreasoning desire."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Winterborne was far too magnanimous to harbor any cynical conjecture\r\nthat the timber-merchant, in his intense affection for Grace, was\r\ncourting him now because that young lady, when disunited, would be left\r\nin an anomalous position, to escape which a bad husband was better than\r\nnone. He felt quite sure that his old friend was simply on tenterhooks\r\nof anxiety to repair the almost irreparable error of dividing two whom\r\nNature had striven to join together in earlier days, and that in his\r\nardor to do this he was oblivious of formalities. The cautious\r\nsupervision of his past years had overleaped itself at last. Hence,\r\nWinterborne perceived that, in this new beginning, the necessary care\r\nnot to compromise Grace by too early advances must be exercised by\r\nhimself. Perhaps Winterborne was not quite so ardent as heretofore. There is no\r\nsuch thing as a stationary love: men are either loving more or loving\r\nless. But Giles himself recognized no decline in his sense of her\r\ndearness. If the flame did indeed burn lower now than when he had\r\nfetched her from Sherton at her last return from school, the marvel was\r\nsmall. He had been laboring ever since his rejection and her marriage\r\nto reduce his former passion to a docile friendship, out of pure regard\r\nto its expediency; and their separation may have helped him to a\r\npartial success. A week and more passed, and there was no further news of Melbury."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But\r\nthe effect of the intelligence he had already transmitted upon the\r\nelastic-nerved daughter of the woods had been much what the old surgeon\r\nJones had surmised. It had soothed her perturbed spirit better than all\r\nthe opiates in the pharmacopoeia. She had slept unbrokenly a whole\r\nnight and a day. The “new law” was to her a mysterious, beneficent,\r\ngodlike entity, lately descended upon earth, that would make her as she\r\nonce had been without trouble or annoyance. Her position fretted her,\r\nits abstract features rousing an aversion which was even greater than\r\nher aversion to the personality of him who had caused it. It was\r\nmortifying, productive of slights, undignified. Him she could forget;\r\nher circumstances she had always with her. She saw nothing of Winterborne during the days of her recovery; and\r\nperhaps on that account her fancy wove about him a more romantic tissue\r\nthan it could have done if he had stood before her with all the specks\r\nand flaws inseparable from corporeity. He rose upon her memory as the\r\nfruit-god and the wood-god in alternation; sometimes leafy, and smeared\r\nwith green lichen, as she had seen him among the sappy boughs of the\r\nplantations; sometimes cider-stained, and with apple-pips in the hair\r\nof his arms, as she had met him on his return from cider-making in\r\nWhite Hart Vale, with his vats and presses beside him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In her secret\r\nheart she almost approximated to her father’s enthusiasm in wishing to\r\nshow Giles once for all how she still regarded him. The question\r\nwhether the future would indeed bring them together for life was a\r\nstanding wonder with her. She knew that it could not with any propriety\r\ndo so just yet. But reverently believing in her father’s sound judgment\r\nand knowledge, as good girls are wont to do, she remembered what he had\r\nwritten about her giving a hint to Winterborne lest there should be\r\nrisk in delay, and her feelings were not averse to such a step, so far\r\nas it could be done without danger at this early stage of the\r\nproceedings. From being a frail phantom of her former equable self she returned in\r\nbounds to a condition of passable philosophy. She bloomed again in the\r\nface in the course of a few days, and was well enough to go about as\r\nusual. One day Mrs. Melbury proposed that for a change she should be\r\ndriven in the gig to Sherton market, whither Melbury’s man was going on\r\nother errands. Grace had no business whatever in Sherton; but it\r\ncrossed her mind that Winterborne would probably be there, and this\r\nmade the thought of such a drive interesting. On the way she saw nothing of him; but when the horse was walking\r\nslowly through the obstructions of Sheep Street, she discerned the\r\nyoung man on the pavement."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She thought of that time when he had been\r\nstanding under his apple-tree on her return from school, and of the\r\ntender opportunity then missed through her fastidiousness. Her heart\r\nrose in her throat. She abjured all such fastidiousness now. Nor did\r\nshe forget the last occasion on which she had beheld him in that town,\r\nmaking cider in the court-yard of the Earl of Wessex Hotel, while she\r\nwas figuring as a fine lady in the balcony above. Grace directed the man to set her down there in the midst, and\r\nimmediately went up to her lover. Giles had not before observed her,\r\nand his eyes now suppressedly looked his pleasure, without the\r\nembarrassment that had formerly marked him at such meetings. When a few words had been spoken, she said, archly, “I have nothing to\r\ndo. Perhaps you are deeply engaged?”\r\n\r\n“I? Not a bit. My business now at the best of times is small, I am\r\nsorry to say.”\r\n\r\n“Well, then, I am going into the Abbey. Come along with me.”\r\n\r\nThe proposition had suggested itself as a quick escape from publicity,\r\nfor many eyes were regarding her. She had hoped that sufficient time\r\nhad elapsed for the extinction of curiosity; but it was quite\r\notherwise. The people looked at her with tender interest as the\r\ndeserted girl-wife—without obtrusiveness, and without vulgarity; but\r\nshe was ill prepared for scrutiny in any shape. They walked about the Abbey aisles, and presently sat down."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Not a soul\r\nwas in the building save themselves. She regarded a stained window,\r\nwith her head sideways, and tentatively asked him if he remembered the\r\nlast time they were in that town alone. He remembered it perfectly, and remarked, “You were a proud miss then,\r\nand as dainty as you were high. Perhaps you are now?”\r\n\r\nGrace slowly shook her head. “Affliction has taken all that out of me,”\r\nshe answered, impressively. “Perhaps I am too far the other way now.”\r\nAs there was something lurking in this that she could not explain, she\r\nadded, so quickly as not to allow him time to think of it, “Has my\r\nfather written to you at all?”\r\n\r\n“Yes,” said Winterborne. She glanced ponderingly up at him. “Not about me?”\r\n\r\n“Yes.”\r\n\r\nHis mouth was lined with charactery which told her that he had been\r\nbidden to take the hint as to the future which she had been bidden to\r\ngive. The unexpected discovery sent a scarlet pulsation through Grace\r\nfor the moment. However, it was only Giles who stood there, of whom she\r\nhad no fear; and her self-possession returned. “He said I was to sound you with a view to—what you will understand, if\r\nyou care to,” continued Winterborne, in a low voice. Having been put on\r\nthis track by herself, he was not disposed to abandon it in a hurry."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They had been children together, and there was between them that\r\nfamiliarity as to personal affairs which only such acquaintanceship can\r\ngive. “You know, Giles,” she answered, speaking in a very practical\r\ntone, “that that is all very well; but I am in a very anomalous\r\nposition at present, and I cannot say anything to the point about such\r\nthings as those.”\r\n\r\n“No?” he said, with a stray air as regarded the subject. He was looking\r\nat her with a curious consciousness of discovery. He had not been\r\nimagining that their renewed intercourse would show her to him thus. For the first time he realized an unexpectedness in her, which, after\r\nall, should not have been unexpected. She before him was not the girl\r\nGrace Melbury whom he used to know. Of course, he might easily have\r\nprefigured as much; but it had never occurred to him. She was a woman\r\nwho had been married; she had moved on; and without having lost her\r\ngirlish modesty, she had lost her girlish shyness. The inevitable\r\nchange, though known to him, had not been heeded; and it struck him\r\ninto a momentary fixity. The truth was that he had never come into\r\nclose comradeship with her since her engagement to Fitzpiers, with the\r\nbrief exception of the evening encounter on Rubdown Hill, when she met\r\nhim with his cider apparatus; and that interview had been of too\r\ncursory a kind for insight. Winterborne had advanced, too. He could criticise her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Times had been\r\nwhen to criticise a single trait in Grace Melbury would have lain as\r\nfar beyond his powers as to criticise a deity. This thing was sure: it\r\nwas a new woman in many ways whom he had come out to see; a creature of\r\nmore ideas, more dignity, and, above all, more assurance, than the\r\noriginal Grace had been capable of. He could not at first decide\r\nwhether he were pleased or displeased at this. But upon the whole the\r\nnovelty attracted him. She was so sweet and sensitive that she feared his silence betokened\r\nsomething in his brain of the nature of an enemy to her. “What are you\r\nthinking of that makes those lines come in your forehead?” she asked. “I did not mean to offend you by speaking of the time being premature\r\nas yet.”\r\n\r\nTouched by the genuine loving-kindness which had lain at the foundation\r\nof these words, and much moved, Winterborne turned his face aside, as\r\nhe took her by the hand. He was grieved that he had criticised her. “You are very good, dear Grace,” he said, in a low voice. “You are\r\nbetter, much better, than you used to be.”\r\n\r\n“How?”\r\n\r\nHe could not very well tell her how, and said, with an evasive smile,\r\n“You are prettier;” which was not what he really had meant."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He then\r\nremained still holding her right hand in his own right, so that they\r\nfaced in opposite ways; and as he did not let go, she ventured upon a\r\ntender remonstrance. “I think we have gone as far as we ought to go at present—and far\r\nenough to satisfy my poor father that we are the same as ever. You see,\r\nGiles, my case is not settled yet, and if—Oh, suppose I _never_ get\r\nfree!—there should be any hitch or informality!”\r\n\r\nShe drew a catching breath, and turned pale. The dialogue had been\r\naffectionate comedy up to this point. The gloomy atmosphere of the\r\npast, and the still gloomy horizon of the present, had been for the\r\ninterval forgotten. Now the whole environment came back, the due\r\nbalance of shade among the light was restored. “It is sure to be all right, I trust?” she resumed, in uneasy accents. “What did my father say the solicitor had told him?”\r\n\r\n“Oh—that all is sure enough. The case is so clear—nothing could be\r\nclearer. But the legal part is not yet quite done and finished, as is\r\nnatural.”\r\n\r\n“Oh no—of course not,” she said, sunk in meek thought. “But father said\r\nit was _almost_—did he not?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Do you know anything about the new law that\r\nmakes these things so easy?”\r\n\r\n“Nothing—except the general fact that it enables ill-assorted husbands\r\nand wives to part in a way they could not formerly do without an Act of\r\nParliament.”\r\n\r\n“Have you to sign a paper, or swear anything? Is it something like\r\nthat?”\r\n\r\n“Yes, I believe so.”\r\n\r\n“How long has it been introduced?”\r\n\r\n“About six months or a year, the lawyer said, I think.”\r\n\r\nTo hear these two poor Arcadian innocents talk of imperial law would\r\nhave made a humane person weep who should have known what a dangerous\r\nstructure they were building up on their supposed knowledge. They\r\nremained in thought, like children in the presence of the\r\nincomprehensible. “Giles,” she said, at last, “it makes me quite weary when I think how\r\nserious my situation is, or has been. Shall we not go out from here\r\nnow, as it may seem rather fast of me—our being so long together, I\r\nmean—if anybody were to see us? I am almost sure,” she added,\r\nuncertainly, “that I ought not to let you hold my hand yet, knowing\r\nthat the documents—or whatever it may be—have not been signed; so that\r\nI—am still as married as ever—or almost. My dear father has forgotten\r\nhimself. Not that I feel morally bound to any one else, after what has\r\ntaken place—no woman of spirit could—now, too, that several months have\r\npassed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I wish to keep the proprieties as well as I can.”\r\n\r\n“Yes, yes. Still, your father reminds us that life is short. I myself\r\nfeel that it is; that is why I wished to understand you in this that we\r\nhave begun. At times, dear Grace, since receiving your father’s letter,\r\nI am as uneasy and fearful as a child at what he said. If one of us\r\nwere to die before the formal signing and sealing that is to release\r\nyou have been done—if we should drop out of the world and never have\r\nmade the most of this little, short, but real opportunity, I should\r\nthink to myself as I sunk down dying, ‘Would to my God that I had\r\nspoken out my whole heart—given her one poor little kiss when I had the\r\nchance to give it! But I never did, although she had promised to be\r\nmine some day; and now I never can.’ That’s what I should think.”\r\n\r\nShe had begun by watching the words from his lips with a mournful\r\nregard, as though their passage were visible; but as he went on she\r\ndropped her glance. “Yes,” she said, “I have thought that, too. And,\r\nbecause I have thought it, I by no means meant, in speaking of the\r\nproprieties, to be reserved and cold to you who loved me so long ago,\r\nor to hurt your heart as I used to do at that thoughtless time. Oh, not\r\nat all, indeed!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "But—ought I to allow you?—oh, it is too quick—surely!”\r\nHer eyes filled with tears of bewildered, alarmed emotion. Winterborne was too straightforward to influence her further against\r\nher better judgment. “Yes—I suppose it is,” he said, repentantly. “I’ll\r\nwait till all is settled. What did your father say in that last\r\nletter?”\r\n\r\nHe meant about his progress with the petition; but she, mistaking him,\r\nfrankly spoke of the personal part. “He said—what I have implied. Should I tell more plainly?”\r\n\r\n“Oh no—don’t, if it is a secret.”\r\n\r\n“Not at all. I will tell every word, straight out, Giles, if you wish. He said I was to encourage you. There. But I cannot obey him further\r\nto-day. Come, let us go now.” She gently slid her hand from his, and\r\nwent in front of him out of the Abbey. “I was thinking of getting some dinner,” said Winterborne, changing to\r\nthe prosaic, as they walked. “And you, too, must require something. Do\r\nlet me take you to a place I know.”\r\n\r\nGrace was almost without a friend in the world outside her father’s\r\nhouse; her life with Fitzpiers had brought her no society; had\r\nsometimes, indeed, brought her deeper solitude and inconsideration than\r\nany she had ever known before. Hence it was a treat to her to find\r\nherself again the object of thoughtful care. But she questioned if to\r\ngo publicly to dine with Giles Winterborne were not a proposal, due\r\nrather to his unsophistication than to his discretion."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She said gently\r\nthat she would much prefer his ordering her lunch at some place and\r\nthen coming to tell her it was ready, while she remained in the Abbey\r\nporch. Giles saw her secret reasoning, thought how hopelessly blind to\r\npropriety he was beside her, and went to do as she wished. He was not absent more than ten minutes, and found Grace where he had\r\nleft her. “It will be quite ready by the time you get there,” he said,\r\nand told her the name of the inn at which the meal had been ordered,\r\nwhich was one that she had never heard of. “I’ll find it by inquiry,” said Grace, setting out. “And shall I see you again?”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes—come to me there. It will not be like going together. I shall\r\nwant you to find my father’s man and the gig for me.”\r\n\r\nHe waited on some ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, till he thought\r\nher lunch ended, and that he might fairly take advantage of her\r\ninvitation to start her on her way home. He went straight to The Three\r\nTuns—a little tavern in a side street, scrupulously clean, but humble\r\nand inexpensive. On his way he had an occasional misgiving as to\r\nwhether the place had been elegant enough for her; and as soon as he\r\nentered it, and saw her ensconced there, he perceived that he had\r\nblundered."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Grace was seated in the only dining-room that the simple old hostelry\r\ncould boast of, which was also a general parlor on market-days; a long,\r\nlow apartment, with a sanded floor herring-boned with a broom; a wide,\r\nred-curtained window to the street, and another to the garden. Grace\r\nhad retreated to the end of the room looking out upon the latter, the\r\nfront part being full of a mixed company which had dropped in since he\r\nwas there. She was in a mood of the greatest depression. On arriving, and seeing\r\nwhat the tavern was like, she had been taken by surprise; but having\r\ngone too far to retreat, she had heroically entered and sat down on the\r\nwell-scrubbed settle, opposite the narrow table with its knives and\r\nsteel forks, tin pepper-boxes, blue salt-cellars, and posters\r\nadvertising the sale of bullocks against the wall. The last time that\r\nshe had taken any meal in a public place it had been with Fitzpiers at\r\nthe grand new Earl of Wessex Hotel in that town, after a two months’\r\nroaming and sojourning at the gigantic hotels of the Continent. How\r\ncould she have expected any other kind of accommodation in present\r\ncircumstances than such as Giles had provided? And yet how unprepared\r\nshe was for this change! The tastes that she had acquired from\r\nFitzpiers had been imbibed so subtly that she hardly knew she possessed\r\nthem till confronted by this contrast."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The elegant Fitzpiers, in fact,\r\nat that very moment owed a long bill at the above-mentioned hotel for\r\nthe luxurious style in which he used to put her up there whenever they\r\ndrove to Sherton. But such is social sentiment, that she had been quite\r\ncomfortable under those debt-impending conditions, while she felt\r\nhumiliated by her present situation, which Winterborne had paid for\r\nhonestly on the nail. He had noticed in a moment that she shrunk from her position, and all\r\nhis pleasure was gone. It was the same susceptibility over again which\r\nhad spoiled his Christmas party long ago. But he did not know that this recrudescence was only the casual result\r\nof Grace’s apprenticeship to what she was determined to learn in spite\r\nof it—a consequence of one of those sudden surprises which confront\r\neverybody bent upon turning over a new leaf. She had finished her\r\nlunch, which he saw had been a very mincing performance; and he brought\r\nher out of the house as soon as he could. “Now,” he said, with great sad eyes, “you have not finished at all\r\nwell, I know. Come round to the Earl of Wessex. I’ll order a tea there. I did not remember that what was good enough for me was not good enough\r\nfor you.”\r\n\r\nHer face faded into an aspect of deep distress when she saw what had\r\nhappened. “Oh no, Giles,” she said, with extreme pathos; “certainly\r\nnot. Why do you—say that when you know better?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "You _ever_ will\r\nmisunderstand me.”\r\n\r\n“Indeed, that’s not so, Mrs. Fitzpiers. Can you deny that you felt out\r\nof place at The Three Tuns?”\r\n\r\n“I don’t know. Well, since you make me speak, I do not deny it.”\r\n\r\n“And yet I have felt at home there these twenty years. Your husband\r\nused always to take you to the Earl of Wessex, did he not?”\r\n\r\n“Yes,” she reluctantly admitted. How could she explain in the street of\r\na market-town that it was her superficial and transitory taste which\r\nhad been offended, and not her nature or her affection? Fortunately, or\r\nunfortunately, at that moment they saw Melbury’s man driving vacantly\r\nalong the street in search of her, the hour having passed at which he\r\nhad been told to take her up. Winterborne hailed him, and she was\r\npowerless then to prolong the discourse. She entered the vehicle sadly,\r\nand the horse trotted away. CHAPTER XXXIX. All night did Winterborne think over that unsatisfactory ending of a\r\npleasant time, forgetting the pleasant time itself. He feared anew that\r\nthey could never be happy together, even should she be free to choose\r\nhim. She was accomplished; he was unrefined. It was the original\r\ndifficulty, which he was too sensitive to recklessly ignore, as some\r\nmen would have done in his place. He was one of those silent, unobtrusive beings who want little from\r\nothers in the way of favor or condescension, and perhaps on that very\r\naccount scrutinize those others’ behavior too closely."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was not\r\nversatile, but one in whom a hope or belief which had once had its\r\nrise, meridian, and decline seldom again exactly recurred, as in the\r\nbreasts of more sanguine mortals. He had once worshipped her, laid out\r\nhis life to suit her, wooed her, and lost her. Though it was with\r\nalmost the same zest, it was with not quite the same hope, that he had\r\nbegun to tread the old tracks again, and allowed himself to be so\r\ncharmed with her that day. Move another step towards her he would not. He would even repulse\r\nher—as a tribute to conscience. It would be sheer sin to let her\r\nprepare a pitfall for her happiness not much smaller than the first by\r\ninveigling her into a union with such as he. Her poor father was now\r\nblind to these subtleties, which he had formerly beheld as in noontide\r\nlight. It was his own duty to declare them—for her dear sake. Grace, too, had a very uncomfortable night, and her solicitous\r\nembarrassment was not lessened the next morning when another letter\r\nfrom her father was put into her hands. Its tenor was an intenser\r\nstrain of the one that had preceded it. After stating how extremely\r\nglad he was to hear that she was better, and able to get out-of-doors,\r\nhe went on:\r\n\r\n“This is a wearisome business, the solicitor we have come to see being\r\nout of town. I do not know when I shall get home."}
{"question": "", "answer": "My great anxiety in\r\nthis delay is still lest you should lose Giles Winterborne. I cannot\r\nrest at night for thinking that while our business is hanging fire he\r\nmay become estranged, or go away from the neighborhood. I have set my\r\nheart upon seeing him your husband, if you ever have another. Do, then,\r\nGrace, give him some temporary encouragement, even though it is\r\nover-early. For when I consider the past I do think God will forgive me\r\nand you for being a little forward. I have another reason for this, my\r\ndear. I feel myself going rapidly downhill, and late affairs have still\r\nfurther helped me that way. And until this thing is done I cannot rest\r\nin peace.”\r\n\r\n\r\nHe added a postscript:\r\n\r\n“I have just heard that the solicitor is to be seen to-morrow. Possibly, therefore, I shall return in the evening after you get this.”\r\n\r\n\r\nThe paternal longing ran on all fours with her own desire; and yet in\r\nforwarding it yesterday she had been on the brink of giving offence. While craving to be a country girl again just as her father requested;\r\nto put off the old Eve, the fastidious miss—or rather madam—completely,\r\nher first attempt had been beaten by the unexpected vitality of that\r\nfastidiousness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Her father on returning and seeing the trifling\r\ncoolness of Giles would be sure to say that the same perversity which\r\nhad led her to make difficulties about marrying Fitzpiers was now\r\nprompting her to blow hot and cold with poor Winterborne. If the latter had been the most subtle hand at touching the stops of\r\nher delicate soul instead of one who had just bound himself to let her\r\ndrift away from him again (if she would) on the wind of her estranging\r\neducation, he could not have acted more seductively than he did that\r\nday. He chanced to be superintending some temporary work in a field\r\nopposite her windows. She could not discover what he was doing, but she\r\nread his mood keenly and truly: she could see in his coming and going\r\nan air of determined abandonment of the whole landscape that lay in her\r\ndirection. Oh, how she longed to make it up with him! Her father coming in the\r\nevening—which meant, she supposed, that all formalities would be in\r\ntrain, her marriage virtually annulled, and she be free to be won\r\nagain—how could she look him in the face if he should see them\r\nestranged thus? It was a fair green evening in June. She was seated in the garden, in\r\nthe rustic chair which stood under the laurel-bushes—made of peeled\r\noak-branches that came to Melbury’s premises as refuse after\r\nbarking-time."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The mass of full-juiced leafage on the heights around her\r\nwas just swayed into faint gestures by a nearly spent wind which, even\r\nin its enfeebled state, did not reach her shelter. All day she had\r\nexpected Giles to call—to inquire how she had got home, or something or\r\nother; but he had not come. And he still tantalized her by going\r\nathwart and across that orchard opposite. She could see him as she sat. A slight diversion was presently created by Creedle bringing him a\r\nletter. She knew from this that Creedle had just come from Sherton, and\r\nhad called as usual at the post-office for anything that had arrived by\r\nthe afternoon post, of which there was no delivery at Hintock. She\r\npondered on what the letter might contain—particularly whether it were\r\na second refresher for Winterborne from her father, like her own of the\r\nmorning. But it appeared to have no bearing upon herself whatever. Giles read\r\nits contents; and almost immediately turned away to a gap in the hedge\r\nof the orchard—if that could be called a hedge which, owing to the\r\ndrippings of the trees, was little more than a bank with a bush upon it\r\nhere and there. He entered the plantation, and was no doubt going that\r\nway homeward to the mysterious hut he occupied on the other side of the\r\nwoodland."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The sad sands were running swiftly through Time’s glass; she had often\r\nfelt it in these latter days; and, like Giles, she felt it doubly now\r\nafter the solemn and pathetic reminder in her father’s communication. Her freshness would pass, the long-suffering devotion of Giles might\r\nsuddenly end—might end that very hour. Men were so strange. The thought\r\ntook away from her all her former reticence, and made her action bold. She started from her seat. If the little breach, quarrel, or whatever\r\nit might be called, of yesterday, was to be healed up it must be done\r\nby her on the instant. She crossed into the orchard, and clambered\r\nthrough the gap after Giles, just as he was diminishing to a faun-like\r\nfigure under the green canopy and over the brown floor. Grace had been wrong—very far wrong—in assuming that the letter had no\r\nreference to herself because Giles had turned away into the wood after\r\nits perusal. It was, sad to say, because the missive had so much\r\nreference to herself that he had thus turned away. He feared that his\r\ngrieved discomfiture might be observed. The letter was from Beaucock,\r\nwritten a few hours later than Melbury’s to his daughter. It announced\r\nfailure. Giles had once done that thriftless man a good turn, and now was the\r\nmoment when Beaucock had chosen to remember it in his own way."}
{"question": "", "answer": "During\r\nhis absence in town with Melbury, the lawyer’s clerk had naturally\r\nheard a great deal of the timber-merchant’s family scheme of justice to\r\nGiles, and his communication was to inform Winterborne at the earliest\r\npossible moment that their attempt had failed, in order that the young\r\nman should not place himself in a false position towards Grace in the\r\nbelief of its coming success. The news was, in sum, that Fitzpiers’s\r\nconduct had not been sufficiently cruel to Grace to enable her to snap\r\nthe bond. She was apparently doomed to be his wife till the end of the\r\nchapter. Winterborne quite forgot his superficial differences with the poor girl\r\nunder the warm rush of deep and distracting love for her which the\r\nalmost tragical information engendered. To renounce her forever—that was then the end of it for him, after all. There was no longer any question about suitability, or room for tiffs\r\non petty tastes. The curtain had fallen again between them. She could\r\nnot be his. The cruelty of their late revived hope was now terrible. How could they all have been so simple as to suppose this thing could\r\nbe done? It was at this moment that, hearing some one coming behind him, he\r\nturned and saw her hastening on between the thickets. He perceived in\r\nan instant that she did not know the blighting news. “Giles, why didn’t you come across to me?” she asked, with arch\r\nreproach."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Didn’t you see me sitting there ever so long?”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes,” he said, in unprepared, extemporized tones, for her\r\nunexpected presence caught him without the slightest plan of behavior\r\nin the conjuncture. His manner made her think that she had been too\r\nchiding in her speech; and a mild scarlet wave passed over her as she\r\nresolved to soften it. “I have had another letter from my father,” she hastened to continue. “He thinks he may come home this evening. And—in view of his hopes—it\r\nwill grieve him if there is any little difference between us, Giles.”\r\n\r\n“There is none,” he said, sadly regarding her from the face downward as\r\nhe pondered how to lay the cruel truth bare. “Still—I fear you have not quite forgiven me about my being\r\nuncomfortable at the inn.”\r\n\r\n“I have, Grace, I’m sure.”\r\n\r\n“But you speak in quite an unhappy way,” she returned, coming up close\r\nto him with the most winning of the many pretty airs that appertained\r\nto her. “Don’t you think you will ever be happy, Giles?”\r\n\r\nHe did not reply for some instants. “When the sun shines on the north\r\nfront of Sherton Abbey—that’s when my happiness will come to me!” said\r\nhe, staring as it were into the earth. “But—then that means that there is something more than my offending you\r\nin not liking The Three Tuns."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If it is because I—did not like to let\r\nyou kiss me in the Abbey—well, you know, Giles, that it was not on\r\naccount of my cold feelings, but because I did certainly, just then,\r\nthink it was rather premature, in spite of my poor father. That was the\r\ntrue reason—the sole one. But I do not want to be hard—God knows I do\r\nnot,” she said, her voice fluctuating. “And perhaps—as I am on the\r\nverge of freedom—I am not right, after all, in thinking there is any\r\nharm in your kissing me.”\r\n\r\n“Oh God!” said Winterborne within himself. His head was turned askance\r\nas he still resolutely regarded the ground. For the last several\r\nminutes he had seen this great temptation approaching him in regular\r\nsiege; and now it had come. The wrong, the social sin, of now taking\r\nadvantage of the offer of her lips had a magnitude, in the eyes of one\r\nwhose life had been so primitive, so ruled by purest household laws, as\r\nGiles’s, which can hardly be explained. “Did you say anything?” she asked, timidly. “Oh no—only that—”\r\n\r\n“You mean that it must _be already_ settled, since my father is coming\r\nhome?” she said, gladly. Winterborne, though fighting valiantly against himself all this\r\nwhile—though he would have protected Grace’s good repute as the apple\r\nof his eye—was a man; and, as Desdemona said, men are not gods."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In face\r\nof the agonizing seductiveness shown by her, in her unenlightened\r\nschool-girl simplicity about the laws and ordinances, he betrayed a\r\nman’s weakness. Since it was so—since it had come to this, that Grace,\r\ndeeming herself free to do it, was virtually asking him to demonstrate\r\nthat he loved her—since he could demonstrate it only too truly—since\r\nlife was short and love was strong—he gave way to the temptation,\r\nnotwithstanding that he perfectly well knew her to be wedded\r\nirrevocably to Fitzpiers. Indeed, he cared for nothing past or future,\r\nsimply accepting the present and what it brought, desiring once in his\r\nlife to clasp in his arms her he had watched over and loved so long. She started back suddenly from his embrace, influenced by a sort of\r\ninspiration. “Oh, I suppose,” she stammered, “that I am really\r\nfree?—that this is right? Is there _really_ a new law? Father cannot\r\nhave been too sanguine in saying—”\r\n\r\nHe did not answer, and a moment afterwards Grace burst into tears in\r\nspite of herself. “Oh, why does not my father come home and explain,”\r\nshe sobbed, “and let me know clearly what I am? It is too trying, this,\r\nto ask me to—and then to leave me so long in so vague a state that I do\r\nnot know what to do, and perhaps do wrong!”\r\n\r\nWinterborne felt like a very Cain, over and above his previous sorrow."}
{"question": "", "answer": "How he had sinned against her in not telling her what he knew. He\r\nturned aside; the feeling of his cruelty mounted higher and higher. How\r\ncould he have dreamed of kissing her? He could hardly refrain from\r\ntears. Surely nothing more pitiable had ever been known than the\r\ncondition of this poor young thing, now as heretofore the victim of her\r\nfather’s well-meant but blundering policy. Even in the hour of Melbury’s greatest assurance Winterborne had\r\nharbored a suspicion that no law, new or old, could undo Grace’s\r\nmarriage without her appearance in public; though he was not\r\nsufficiently sure of what might have been enacted to destroy by his own\r\nwords her pleasing idea that a mere dash of the pen, on her father’s\r\ntestimony, was going to be sufficient. But he had never suspected the\r\nsad fact that the position was irremediable. Poor Grace, perhaps feeling that she had indulged in too much fluster\r\nfor a mere kiss, calmed herself at finding how grave he was. “I am glad we are friends again anyhow,” she said, smiling through her\r\ntears. “Giles, if you had only shown half the boldness before I married\r\nthat you show now, you would have carried me off for your own first\r\ninstead of second."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If we do marry, I hope you will never think badly of\r\nme for encouraging you a little, but my father is _so_ impatient, you\r\nknow, as his years and infirmities increase, that he will wish to see\r\nus a little advanced when he comes. That is my only excuse.”\r\n\r\nTo Winterborne all this was sadder than it was sweet. How could she so\r\ntrust her father’s conjectures? He did not know how to tell her the\r\ntruth and shame himself. And yet he felt that it must be done. “We may\r\nhave been wrong,” he began, almost fearfully, “in supposing that it can\r\nall be carried out while we stay here at Hintock. I am not sure but\r\nthat people may have to appear in a public court even under the new\r\nAct; and if there should be any difficulty, and we cannot marry after\r\nall—”\r\n\r\nHer cheeks became slowly bloodless. “Oh, Giles,” she said, grasping his\r\narm, “you have heard something! What—cannot my father conclude it there\r\nand now? Surely he has done it? Oh, Giles, Giles, don’t deceive me. What terrible position am I in?”\r\n\r\nHe could not tell her, try as he would. The sense of her implicit trust\r\nin his honor absolutely disabled him. “I cannot inform you,” he\r\nmurmured, his voice as husky as that of the leaves underfoot. “Your\r\nfather will soon be here. Then we shall know."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I will take you home.”\r\n\r\nInexpressibly dear as she was to him, he offered her his arm with the\r\nmost reserved air, as he added, correctingly, “I will take you, at any\r\nrate, into the drive.”\r\n\r\nThus they walked on together. Grace vibrating between happiness and\r\nmisgiving. It was only a few minutes’ walk to where the drive ran, and\r\nthey had hardly descended into it when they heard a voice behind them\r\ncry, “Take out that arm!”\r\n\r\nFor a moment they did not heed, and the voice repeated, more loudly and\r\nhoarsely,\r\n\r\n“Take out that arm!”\r\n\r\nIt was Melbury’s. He had returned sooner than they expected, and now\r\ncame up to them. Grace’s hand had been withdrawn like lightning on her\r\nhearing the second command. “I don’t blame you—I don’t blame you,” he\r\nsaid, in the weary cadence of one broken down with scourgings. “But you\r\ntwo must walk together no more—I have been surprised—I have been\r\ncruelly deceived—Giles, don’t say anything to me; but go away!”\r\n\r\nHe was evidently not aware that Winterborne had known the truth before\r\nhe brought it; and Giles would not stay to discuss it with him then. When the young man had gone Melbury took his daughter in-doors to the\r\nroom he used as his office. There he sat down, and bent over the slope\r\nof the bureau, her bewildered gaze fixed upon him. When Melbury had recovered a little he said, “You are now, as ever,\r\nFitzpiers’s wife. I was deluded."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He has not done you _enough_ harm. You\r\nare still subject to his beck and call.”\r\n\r\n“Then let it be, and never mind, father,” she said, with dignified\r\nsorrow. “I can bear it. It is your trouble that grieves me most.” She\r\nstooped over him, and put her arm round his neck, which distressed\r\nMelbury still more. “I don’t mind at all what comes to me,” Grace\r\ncontinued; “whose wife I am, or whose I am not. I do love Giles; I\r\ncannot help that; and I have gone further with him than I should have\r\ndone if I had known exactly how things were. But I do not reproach\r\nyou.”\r\n\r\n“Then Giles did not tell you?” said Melbury. “No,” said she. “He could not have known it. His behavior to me proved\r\nthat he did not know.”\r\n\r\nHer father said nothing more, and Grace went away to the solitude of\r\nher chamber. Her heavy disquietude had many shapes; and for a time she put aside the\r\ndominant fact to think of her too free conduct towards Giles. His\r\nlove-making had been brief as it was sweet; but would he on reflection\r\ncontemn her for forwardness? How could she have been so simple as to\r\nsuppose she was in a position to behave as she had done! Thus she\r\nmentally blamed her ignorance; and yet in the centre of her heart she\r\nblessed it a little for what it had momentarily brought her. CHAPTER XL."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Life among the people involved in these events seemed to be suppressed\r\nand hide-bound for a while. Grace seldom showed herself outside the\r\nhouse, never outside the garden; for she feared she might encounter\r\nGiles Winterborne; and that she could not bear. This pensive intramural existence of the self-constituted nun appeared\r\nlikely to continue for an indefinite time. She had learned that there\r\nwas one possibility in which her formerly imagined position might\r\nbecome real, and only one; that her husband’s absence should continue\r\nlong enough to amount to positive desertion. But she never allowed her\r\nmind to dwell much upon the thought; still less did she deliberately\r\nhope for such a result. Her regard for Winterborne had been rarefied by\r\nthe shock which followed its avowal into an ethereal emotion that had\r\nlittle to do with living and doing. As for Giles, he was lying—or rather sitting—ill at his hut. A feverish\r\nindisposition which had been hanging about him for some time, the\r\nresult of a chill caught the previous winter, seemed to acquire\r\nvirulence with the prostration of his hopes. But not a soul knew of his\r\nlanguor, and he did not think the case serious enough to send for a\r\nmedical man. After a few days he was better again, and crept about his\r\nhome in a great coat, attending to his simple wants as usual with his\r\nown hands. So matters stood when the limpid inertion of Grace’s\r\npool-like existence was disturbed as by a geyser."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She received a letter\r\nfrom Fitzpiers. Such a terrible letter it was in its import, though couched in the\r\ngentlest language. In his absence Grace had grown to regard him with\r\ntoleration, and her relation to him with equanimity, till she had\r\nalmost forgotten how trying his presence would be. He wrote briefly and\r\nunaffectedly; he made no excuses, but informed her that he was living\r\nquite alone, and had been led to think that they ought to be together,\r\nif she would make up her mind to forgive him. He therefore purported to\r\ncross the Channel to Budmouth by the steamer on a day he named, which\r\nshe found to be three days after the time of her present reading. He said that he could not come to Hintock for obvious reasons, which\r\nher father would understand even better than herself. As the only\r\nalternative she was to be on the quay to meet the steamer when it\r\narrived from the opposite coast, probably about half an hour before\r\nmidnight, bringing with her any luggage she might require; join him\r\nthere, and pass with him into the twin vessel, which left immediately\r\nthe other entered the harbor; returning thus with him to his\r\ncontinental dwelling-place, which he did not name. He had no intention\r\nof showing himself on land at all."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The troubled Grace took the letter to her father, who now continued for\r\nlong hours by the fireless summer chimney-corner, as if he thought it\r\nwere winter, the pitcher of cider standing beside him, mostly untasted,\r\nand coated with a film of dust. After reading it he looked up. “You sha’n’t go,” said he. “I had felt I would not,” she answered. “But I did not know what you\r\nwould say.”\r\n\r\n“If he comes and lives in England, not too near here and in a\r\nrespectable way, and wants you to come to him, I am not sure that I’ll\r\noppose him in wishing it,” muttered Melbury. “I’d stint myself to keep\r\nyou both in a genteel and seemly style. But go abroad you never shall\r\nwith my consent.”\r\n\r\nThere the question rested that day. Grace was unable to reply to her\r\nhusband in the absence of an address, and the morrow came, and the next\r\nday, and the evening on which he had requested her to meet him. Throughout the whole of it she remained within the four walls of her\r\nroom. The sense of her harassment, carking doubt of what might be impending,\r\nhung like a cowl of blackness over the Melbury household. They spoke\r\nalmost in whispers, and wondered what Fitzpiers would do next."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was\r\nthe hope of every one that, finding she did not arrive, he would return\r\nagain to France; and as for Grace, she was willing to write to him on\r\nthe most kindly terms if he would only keep away. The night passed, Grace lying tense and wide awake, and her relatives,\r\nin great part, likewise. When they met the next morning they were pale\r\nand anxious, though neither speaking of the subject which occupied all\r\ntheir thoughts. The day passed as quietly as the previous ones, and she\r\nbegan to think that in the rank caprice of his moods he had abandoned\r\nthe idea of getting her to join him as quickly as it was formed. All on\r\na sudden, some person who had just come from Sherton entered the house\r\nwith the news that Mr. Fitzpiers was on his way home to Hintock. He had\r\nbeen seen hiring a carriage at the Earl of Wessex Hotel. Her father and Grace were both present when the intelligence was\r\nannounced. “Now,” said Melbury, “we must make the best of what has been a very bad\r\nmatter. The man is repenting; the partner of his shame, I hear, is gone\r\naway from him to Switzerland, so that chapter of his life is probably\r\nover. If he chooses to make a home for ye I think you should not say\r\nhim nay, Grace."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Certainly he cannot very well live at Hintock without a\r\nblow to his pride; but if he can bear that, and likes Hintock best,\r\nwhy, there’s the empty wing of the house as it was before.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, father!” said Grace, turning white with dismay. “Why not?” said he, a little of his former doggedness returning. He\r\nwas, in truth, disposed to somewhat more leniency towards her husband\r\njust now than he had shown formerly, from a conviction that he had\r\ntreated him over-roughly in his anger. “Surely it is the most\r\nrespectable thing to do?” he continued. “I don’t like this state that\r\nyou are in—neither married nor single. It hurts me, and it hurts you,\r\nand it will always be remembered against us in Hintock. There has never\r\nbeen any scandal like it in the family before.”\r\n\r\n“He will be here in less than an hour,” murmured Grace. The twilight of\r\nthe room prevented her father seeing the despondent misery of her face. The one intolerable condition, the condition she had deprecated above\r\nall others, was that of Fitzpiers’s reinstatement there. “Oh, I won’t,\r\nI won’t see him,” she said, sinking down. She was almost hysterical. “Try if you cannot,” he returned, moodily. “Oh yes, I will, I will,” she went on, inconsequently. “I’ll try;” and\r\njumping up suddenly, she left the room."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the darkness of the apartment to which she flew nothing could have\r\nbeen seen during the next half-hour; but from a corner a quick\r\nbreathing was audible from this impressible creature, who combined\r\nmodern nerves with primitive emotions, and was doomed by such\r\ncoexistence to be numbered among the distressed, and to take her\r\nscourgings to their exquisite extremity. The window was open. On this quiet, late summer evening, whatever sound\r\narose in so secluded a district—the chirp of a bird, a call from a\r\nvoice, the turning of a wheel—extended over bush and tree to unwonted\r\ndistances. Very few sounds did arise. But as Grace invisibly breathed\r\nin the brown glooms of the chamber, the small remote noise of light\r\nwheels came in to her, accompanied by the trot of a horse on the\r\nturnpike-road. There seemed to be a sudden hitch or pause in the\r\nprogress of the vehicle, which was what first drew her attention to it. She knew the point whence the sound proceeded—the hill-top over which\r\ntravellers passed on their way hitherward from Sherton Abbas—the place\r\nat which she had emerged from the wood with Mrs. Charmond. Grace slid\r\nalong the floor, and bent her head over the window-sill, listening with\r\nopen lips. The carriage had stopped, and she heard a man use\r\nexclamatory words. Then another said, “What the devil is the matter\r\nwith the horse?” She recognized the voice as her husband’s."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The accident, such as it had been, was soon remedied, and the carriage\r\ncould be heard descending the hill on the Hintock side, soon to turn\r\ninto the lane leading out of the highway, and then into the “drong”\r\nwhich led out of the lane to the house where she was. A spasm passed through Grace. The Daphnean instinct, exceptionally\r\nstrong in her as a girl, had been revived by her widowed seclusion; and\r\nit was not lessened by her affronted sentiments towards the comer, and\r\nher regard for another man. She opened some little ivory tablets that\r\nlay on the dressing-table, scribbled in pencil on one of them, “I am\r\ngone to visit one of my school-friends,” gathered a few toilet\r\nnecessaries into a hand-bag, and not three minutes after that voice had\r\nbeen heard, her slim form, hastily wrapped up from observation, might\r\nhave been seen passing out of the back door of Melbury’s house. Thence\r\nshe skimmed up the garden-path, through the gap in the hedge, and into\r\nthe mossy cart-track under the trees which led into the depth of the\r\nwoods. The leaves overhead were now in their latter green—so opaque, that it\r\nwas darker at some of the densest spots than in winter-time, scarce a\r\ncrevice existing by which a ray could get down to the ground. But in\r\nopen places she could see well enough."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Summer was ending: in the\r\ndaytime singing insects hung in every sunbeam; vegetation was heavy\r\nnightly with globes of dew; and after showers creeping damps and\r\ntwilight chills came up from the hollows. The plantations were always\r\nweird at this hour of eve—more spectral far than in the leafless\r\nseason, when there were fewer masses and more minute lineality. The\r\nsmooth surfaces of glossy plants came out like weak, lidless eyes;\r\nthere were strange faces and figures from expiring lights that had\r\nsomehow wandered into the canopied obscurity; while now and then low\r\npeeps of the sky between the trunks were like sheeted shapes, and on\r\nthe tips of boughs sat faint cloven tongues. But Grace’s fear just now was not imaginative or spiritual, and she\r\nheeded these impressions but little. She went on as silently as she\r\ncould, avoiding the hollows wherein leaves had accumulated, and\r\nstepping upon soundless moss and grass-tufts. She paused breathlessly\r\nonce or twice, and fancied that she could hear, above the beat of her\r\nstrumming pulse, the vehicle containing Fitzpiers turning in at the\r\ngate of her father’s premises. She hastened on again. The Hintock woods owned by Mrs. Charmond were presently left behind,\r\nand those into which she next plunged were divided from the latter by a\r\nbank, from whose top the hedge had long ago perished—starved for want\r\nof sun."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was with some caution that Grace now walked, though she was\r\nquite free from any of the commonplace timidities of her ordinary\r\npilgrimages to such spots. She feared no lurking harms, but that her\r\neffort would be all in vain, and her return to the house rendered\r\nimperative. She had walked between three and four miles when that prescriptive\r\ncomfort and relief to wanderers in woods—a distant light—broke at last\r\nupon her searching eyes. It was so very small as to be almost sinister\r\nto a stranger, but to her it was what she sought. She pushed forward,\r\nand the dim outline of a dwelling was disclosed. The house was a square cot of one story only, sloping up on all sides\r\nto a chimney in the midst. It had formerly been the home of a\r\ncharcoal-burner, in times when that fuel was still used in the county\r\nhouses. Its only appurtenance was a paled enclosure, there being no\r\ngarden, the shade of the trees preventing the growth of vegetables. She\r\nadvanced to the window whence the rays of light proceeded, and the\r\nshutters being as yet unclosed, she could survey the whole interior\r\nthrough the panes. The room within was kitchen, parlor, and scullery all in one; the\r\nnatural sandstone floor was worn into hills and dales by long treading,\r\nso that none of the furniture stood level, and the table slanted like a\r\ndesk."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A fire burned on the hearth, in front of which revolved the\r\nskinned carcass of a rabbit, suspended by a string from a nail. Leaning\r\nwith one arm on the mantle-shelf stood Winterborne, his eyes on the\r\nroasting animal, his face so rapt that speculation could build nothing\r\non it concerning his thoughts, more than that they were not with the\r\nscene before him. She thought his features had changed a little since\r\nshe saw them last. The fire-light did not enable her to perceive that\r\nthey were positively haggard. Grace’s throat emitted a gasp of relief at finding the result so nearly\r\nas she had hoped. She went to the door and tapped lightly. He seemed to be accustomed to the noises of woodpeckers, squirrels, and\r\nsuch small creatures, for he took no notice of her tiny signal, and she\r\nknocked again. This time he came and opened the door. When the light of\r\nthe room fell upon her face he started, and, hardly knowing what he\r\ndid, crossed the threshold to her, placing his hands upon her two arms,\r\nwhile surprise, joy, alarm, sadness, chased through him by turns. With\r\nGrace it was the same: even in this stress there was the fond fact that\r\nthey had met again. Thus they stood,\r\n\r\n“Long tears upon their faces, waxen white\r\nWith extreme sad delight.”\r\n\r\n\r\nHe broke the silence by saying in a whisper, “Come in.”\r\n\r\n“No, no, Giles!” she answered, hurriedly, stepping yet farther back\r\nfrom the door."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I am passing by—and I have called on you—I won’t enter. Will you help me? I am afraid. I want to get by a roundabout way to\r\nSherton, and so to Exbury. I have a school-fellow there—but I cannot\r\nget to Sherton alone. Oh, if you will only accompany me a little way! Don’t condemn me, Giles, and be offended! I was obliged to come to you\r\nbecause—I have no other help here. Three months ago you were my lover;\r\nnow you are only my friend. The law has stepped in, and forbidden what\r\nwe thought of. It must not be. But we can act honestly, and yet you can\r\nbe my friend for one little hour? I have no other—”\r\n\r\nShe could get no further. Covering her eyes with one hand, by an effort\r\nof repression she wept a silent trickle, without a sigh or sob. Winterborne took her other hand. “What has happened?” he said. “He has come.”\r\n\r\nThere was a stillness as of death, till Winterborne asked, “You mean\r\nthis, Grace—that I am to help you to get away?”\r\n\r\n“Yes,” said she. “Appearance is no matter, when the reality is right."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I\r\nhave said to myself I can trust you.”\r\n\r\nGiles knew from this that she did not suspect his treachery—if it could\r\nbe called such—earlier in the summer, when they met for the last time\r\nas lovers; and in the intensity of his contrition for that tender\r\nwrong, he determined to deserve her faith now at least, and so wipe out\r\nthat reproach from his conscience. “I’ll come at once,” he said. “I’ll\r\nlight a lantern.”\r\n\r\nHe unhooked a dark-lantern from a nail under the eaves and she did not\r\nnotice how his hand shook with the slight strain, or dream that in\r\nmaking this offer he was taxing a convalescence which could ill afford\r\nsuch self-sacrifice. The lantern was lit, and they started. CHAPTER XLI. The first hundred yards of their course lay under motionless trees,\r\nwhose upper foliage began to hiss with falling drops of rain. By the\r\ntime that they emerged upon a glade it rained heavily. “This is awkward,” said Grace, with an effort to hide her concern. Winterborne stopped. “Grace,” he said, preserving a strictly business\r\nmanner which belied him, “you cannot go to Sherton to-night.”\r\n\r\n“But I must!”\r\n\r\n“Why? It is nine miles from here. It is almost an impossibility in this\r\nrain.”\r\n\r\n“True—_why?_” she replied, mournfully, at the end of a silence. “What\r\nis reputation to me?”\r\n\r\n“Now hearken,” said Giles. “You won’t—go back to your—”\r\n\r\n“No, no, no! Don’t make me!” she cried, piteously."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Then let us turn.” They slowly retraced their steps, and again stood\r\nbefore his door. “Now, this house from this moment is yours, and not\r\nmine,” he said, deliberately. “I have a place near by where I can stay\r\nvery well.”\r\n\r\nHer face had drooped. “Oh!” she murmured, as she saw the dilemma. “What\r\nhave I done!”\r\n\r\nThere was a smell of something burning within, and he looked through\r\nthe window. The rabbit that he had been cooking to coax a weak appetite\r\nwas beginning to char. “Please go in and attend to it,” he said. “Do\r\nwhat you like. Now I leave. You will find everything about the hut that\r\nis necessary.”\r\n\r\n“But, Giles—your supper,” she exclaimed. “An out-house would do for\r\nme—anything—till to-morrow at day-break!”\r\n\r\nHe signified a negative. “I tell you to go in—you may catch agues out\r\nhere in your delicate state. You can give me my supper through the\r\nwindow, if you feel well enough. I’ll wait a while.”\r\n\r\nHe gently urged her to pass the door-way, and was relieved when he saw\r\nher within the room sitting down. Without so much as crossing the\r\nthreshold himself, he closed the door upon her, and turned the key in\r\nthe lock. Tapping at the window, he signified that she should open the\r\ncasement, and when she had done this he handed in the key to her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“You are locked in,” he said; “and your own mistress.”\r\n\r\nEven in her trouble she could not refrain from a faint smile at his\r\nscrupulousness, as she took the door-key. “Do you feel better?” he went on. “If so, and you wish to give me some\r\nof your supper, please do. If not, it is of no importance. I can get\r\nsome elsewhere.”\r\n\r\nThe grateful sense of his kindness stirred her to action, though she\r\nonly knew half what that kindness really was. At the end of some ten\r\nminutes she again came to the window, pushed it open, and said in a\r\nwhisper, “Giles!” He at once emerged from the shade, and saw that she\r\nwas preparing to hand him his share of the meal upon a plate. “I don’t like to treat you so hardly,” she murmured, with deep regret\r\nin her words as she heard the rain pattering on the leaves. “But—I\r\nsuppose it is best to arrange like this?”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes,” he said, quickly. “I feel that I could never have reached Sherton.”\r\n\r\n“It was impossible.”\r\n\r\n“Are you sure you have a snug place out there?” (With renewed\r\nmisgiving.) “Quite. Have you found everything you want? I am afraid it is rather\r\nrough accommodation.”\r\n\r\n“Can I notice defects?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have long passed that stage, and you know it,\r\nGiles, or you ought to.”\r\n\r\nHis eyes sadly contemplated her face as its pale responsiveness\r\nmodulated through a crowd of expressions that showed only too clearly\r\nto what a pitch she was strung. If ever Winterborne’s heart fretted his\r\nbosom it was at this sight of a perfectly defenceless creature\r\nconditioned by such circumstances. He forgot his own agony in the\r\nsatisfaction of having at least found her a shelter. He took his plate\r\nand cup from her hands, saying, “Now I’ll push the shutter to, and you\r\nwill find an iron pin on the inside, which you must fix into the bolt. Do not stir in the morning till I come and call you.”\r\n\r\nShe expressed an alarmed hope that he would not go very far away. “Oh no—I shall be quite within hail,” said Winterborne. She bolted the window as directed, and he retreated. His snug place\r\nproved to be a wretched little shelter of the roughest kind, formed of\r\nfour hurdles thatched with brake-fern. Underneath were dry sticks, hay,\r\nand other litter of the sort, upon which he sat down; and there in the\r\ndark tried to eat his meal. But his appetite was quite gone. He pushed\r\nthe plate aside, and shook up the hay and sacks, so as to form a rude\r\ncouch, on which he flung himself down to sleep, for it was getting\r\nlate."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But sleep he could not, for many reasons, of which not the least was\r\nthought of his charge. He sat up, and looked towards the cot through\r\nthe damp obscurity. With all its external features the same as usual,\r\nhe could scarcely believe that it contained the dear friend—he would\r\nnot use a warmer name—who had come to him so unexpectedly, and, he\r\ncould not help admitting, so rashly. He had not ventured to ask her any particulars; but the position was\r\npretty clear without them. Though social law had negatived forever\r\ntheir opening paradise of the previous June, it was not without stoical\r\npride that he accepted the present trying conjuncture. There was one\r\nman on earth in whom she believed absolutely, and he was that man. That\r\nthis crisis could end in nothing but sorrow was a view for a moment\r\neffaced by this triumphant thought of her trust in him; and the purity\r\nof the affection with which he responded to that trust rendered him\r\nmore than proof against any frailty that besieged him in relation to\r\nher. The rain, which had never ceased, now drew his attention by beginning\r\nto drop through the meagre screen that covered him. He rose to attempt\r\nsome remedy for this discomfort, but the trembling of his knees and the\r\nthrobbing of his pulse told him that in his weakness he was unable to\r\nfence against the storm, and he lay down to bear it as best he might."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He was angry with himself for his feebleness—he who had been so strong. It was imperative that she should know nothing of his present state,\r\nand to do that she must not see his face by daylight, for its color\r\nwould inevitably betray him. The next morning, accordingly, when it was hardly light, he rose and\r\ndragged his stiff limbs about the precincts, preparing for her\r\neverything she could require for getting breakfast within. On the bench\r\noutside the window-sill he placed water, wood, and other necessaries,\r\nwriting with a piece of chalk beside them, “It is best that I should\r\nnot see you. Put my breakfast on the bench.”\r\n\r\nAt seven o’clock he tapped at her window, as he had promised,\r\nretreating at once, that she might not catch sight of him. But from his\r\nshelter under the boughs he could see her very well, when, in response\r\nto his signal, she opened the window and the light fell upon her face. The languid largeness of her eyes showed that her sleep had been little\r\nmore than his own, and the pinkness of their lids, that her waking\r\nhours had not been free from tears. She read the writing, seemed, he thought, disappointed, but took up the\r\nmaterials he had provided, evidently thinking him some way off. Giles\r\nwaited on, assured that a girl who, in spite of her culture, knew what\r\ncountry life was, would find no difficulty in the simple preparation of\r\ntheir food."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Within the cot it was all very much as he conjectured, though Grace had\r\nslept much longer than he. After the loneliness of the night, she would\r\nhave been glad to see him; but appreciating his feeling when she read\r\nthe writing, she made no attempt to recall him. She found abundance of\r\nprovisions laid in, his plan being to replenish his buttery weekly, and\r\nthis being the day after the victualling van had called from Sherton. When the meal was ready, she put what he required outside, as she had\r\ndone with the supper; and, notwithstanding her longing to see him,\r\nwithdrew from the window promptly, and left him to himself. It had been a leaden dawn, and the rain now steadily renewed its fall. As she heard no more of Winterborne, she concluded that he had gone\r\naway to his daily work, and forgotten that he had promised to accompany\r\nher to Sherton; an erroneous conclusion, for he remained all day, by\r\nforce of his condition, within fifty yards of where she was. The\r\nmorning wore on; and in her doubt when to start, and how to travel, she\r\nlingered yet, keeping the door carefully bolted, lest an intruder\r\nshould discover her. Locked in this place, she was comparatively safe,\r\nat any rate, and doubted if she would be safe elsewhere. The humid gloom of an ordinary wet day was doubled by the shade and\r\ndrip of the leafage. Autumn, this year, was coming in with rains."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Gazing, in her enforced idleness, from the one window of the\r\nliving-room, she could see various small members of the animal\r\ncommunity that lived unmolested there—creatures of hair, fluff, and\r\nscale, the toothed kind and the billed kind; underground creatures,\r\njointed and ringed—circumambulating the hut, under the impression that,\r\nGiles having gone away, nobody was there; and eying it inquisitively\r\nwith a view to winter-quarters. Watching these neighbors, who knew\r\nneither law nor sin, distracted her a little from her trouble; and she\r\nmanaged to while away some portion of the afternoon by putting Giles’s\r\nhome in order and making little improvements which she deemed that he\r\nwould value when she was gone. Once or twice she fancied that she heard a faint noise amid the trees,\r\nresembling a cough; but as it never came any nearer she concluded that\r\nit was a squirrel or a bird. At last the daylight lessened, and she made up a larger fire for the\r\nevenings were chilly. As soon as it was too dark—which was\r\ncomparatively early—to discern the human countenance in this place of\r\nshadows, there came to the window to her great delight, a tapping which\r\nshe knew from its method to be Giles’s. She opened the casement instantly, and put out her hand to him, though\r\nshe could only just perceive his outline. He clasped her fingers, and\r\nshe noticed the heat of his palm and its shakiness."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“He has been walking fast, in order to get here quickly,” she thought. How could she know that he had just crawled out from the straw of the\r\nshelter hard by; and that the heat of his hand was feverishness? “My dear, good Giles!” she burst out, impulsively. “Anybody would have done it for you,” replied Winterborne, with as much\r\nmatter-of-fact as he could summon. “About my getting to Exbury?” she said. “I have been thinking,” responded Giles, with tender deference, “that\r\nyou had better stay where you are for the present, if you wish not to\r\nbe caught. I need not tell you that the place is yours as long as you\r\nlike; and perhaps in a day or two, finding you absent, he will go away. At any rate, in two or three days I could do anything to assist—such as\r\nmake inquiries, or go a great way towards Sherton-Abbas with you; for\r\nthe cider season will soon be coming on, and I want to run down to the\r\nVale to see how the crops are, and I shall go by the Sherton road. But\r\nfor a day or two I am busy here.” He was hoping that by the time\r\nmentioned he would be strong enough to engage himself actively on her\r\nbehalf. “I hope you do not feel over-much melancholy in being a\r\nprisoner?”\r\n\r\nShe declared that she did not mind it; but she sighed."}
{"question": "", "answer": "From long acquaintance they could read each other’s heart-symptoms like\r\nbooks of large type. “I fear you are sorry you came,” said Giles, “and\r\nthat you think I should have advised you more firmly than I did not to\r\nstay.”\r\n\r\n“Oh no, dear, dear friend,” answered Grace, with a heaving bosom. “Don’t think that that is what I regret. What I regret is my enforced\r\ntreatment of you—dislodging you, excluding you from your own house. Why\r\nshould I not speak out? You know what I feel for you—what I have felt\r\nfor no other living man, what I shall never feel for a man again! But\r\nas I have vowed myself to somebody else than you, and cannot be\r\nreleased, I must behave as I do behave, and keep that vow. I am not\r\nbound to him by any divine law, after what he has done; but I have\r\npromised, and I will pay.”\r\n\r\nThe rest of the evening was passed in his handing her such things as\r\nshe would require the next day, and casual remarks thereupon, an\r\noccupation which diverted her mind to some degree from pathetic views\r\nof her attitude towards him, and of her life in general. The only\r\ninfringement—if infringement it could be called—of his predetermined\r\nbearing towards her was an involuntary pressing of her hand to his lips\r\nwhen she put it through the casement to bid him good-night. He knew she\r\nwas weeping, though he could not see her tears."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She again entreated his forgiveness for so selfishly appropriating the\r\ncottage. But it would only be for a day or two more, she thought, since\r\ngo she must. He replied, yearningly, “I—I don’t like you to go away.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, Giles,” said she, “I know—I know! But—I am a woman, and you are a\r\nman. I cannot speak more plainly. ‘Whatsoever things are pure,\r\nwhatsoever things are of good report’—you know what is in my mind,\r\nbecause you know me so well.”\r\n\r\n“Yes, Grace, yes. I do not at all mean that the question between us has\r\nnot been settled by the fact of your marriage turning out hopelessly\r\nunalterable. I merely meant—well, a feeling no more.”\r\n\r\n“In a week, at the outside, I should be discovered if I stayed here:\r\nand I think that by law he could compel me to return to him.”\r\n\r\n“Yes; perhaps you are right. Go when you wish, dear Grace.”\r\n\r\nHis last words that evening were a hopeful remark that all might be\r\nwell with her yet; that Mr. Fitzpiers would not intrude upon her life,\r\nif he found that his presence cost her so much pain. Then the window\r\nwas closed, the shutters folded, and the rustle of his footsteps died\r\naway. No sooner had she retired to rest that night than the wind began to\r\nrise, and, after a few prefatory blasts, to be accompanied by rain."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The\r\nwind grew more violent, and as the storm went on, it was difficult to\r\nbelieve that no opaque body, but only an invisible colorless thing, was\r\ntrampling and climbing over the roof, making branches creak, springing\r\nout of the trees upon the chimney, popping its head into the flue, and\r\nshrieking and blaspheming at every corner of the walls. As in the old\r\nstory, the assailant was a spectre which could be felt but not seen. She had never before been so struck with the devilry of a gusty night\r\nin a wood, because she had never been so entirely alone in spirit as\r\nshe was now. She seemed almost to be apart from herself—a vacuous\r\nduplicate only. The recent self of physical animation and clear\r\nintentions was not there. Sometimes a bough from an adjoining tree was swayed so low as to smite\r\nthe roof in the manner of a gigantic hand smiting the mouth of an\r\nadversary, to be followed by a trickle of rain, as blood from the\r\nwound. To all this weather Giles must be more or less exposed; how\r\nmuch, she did not know. At last Grace could hardly endure the idea of such a hardship in\r\nrelation to him. Whatever he was suffering, it was she who had caused\r\nit; he vacated his house on account of her. She was not worth such\r\nself-sacrifice; she should not have accepted it of him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "And then, as\r\nher anxiety increased with increasing thought, there returned upon her\r\nmind some incidents of her late intercourse with him, which she had\r\nheeded but little at the time. The look of his face—what had there been\r\nabout his face which seemed different from its appearance as of yore? Was it not thinner, less rich in hue, less like that of ripe autumn’s\r\nbrother to whom she had formerly compared him? And his voice; she had\r\ndistinctly noticed a change in tone. And his gait; surely it had been\r\nfeebler, stiffer, more like the gait of a weary man. That slight\r\noccasional noise she had heard in the day, and attributed to squirrels,\r\nit might have been his cough after all. Thus conviction took root in her perturbed mind that Winterborne was\r\nill, or had been so, and that he had carefully concealed his condition\r\nfrom her that she might have no scruples about accepting a hospitality\r\nwhich by the nature of the case expelled her entertainer. “My own, own, true l——, my dear kind friend!” she cried to herself. “Oh, it shall not be—it shall not be!”\r\n\r\nShe hastily wrapped herself up, and obtained a light, with which she\r\nentered the adjoining room, the cot possessing only one floor. Setting\r\ndown the candle on the table here, she went to the door with the key in\r\nher hand, and placed it in the lock."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Before turning it she paused, her\r\nfingers still clutching it; and pressing her other hand to her\r\nforehead, she fell into agitating thought. A tattoo on the window, caused by the tree-droppings blowing against\r\nit, brought her indecision to a close. She turned the key and opened\r\nthe door. The darkness was intense, seeming to touch her pupils like a substance. She only now became aware how heavy the rainfall had been and was; the\r\ndripping of the eaves splashed like a fountain. She stood listening\r\nwith parted lips, and holding the door in one hand, till her eyes,\r\ngrowing accustomed to the obscurity, discerned the wild brandishing of\r\ntheir boughs by the adjoining trees. At last she cried loudly with an\r\neffort, “Giles! you may come in!”\r\n\r\nThere was no immediate answer to her cry, and overpowered by her own\r\ntemerity, Grace retreated quickly, shut the door, and stood looking on\r\nthe floor. But it was not for long. She again lifted the latch, and\r\nwith far more determination than at first. “Giles, Giles!” she cried, with the full strength of her voice, and\r\nwithout any of the shamefacedness that had characterized her first cry. “Oh, come in—come in! Where are you? I have been wicked. I have thought\r\ntoo much of myself! Do you hear? I don’t want to keep you out any\r\nlonger. I cannot bear that you should suffer so. Gi-i-iles!”\r\n\r\nA reply! It was a reply!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Through the darkness and wind a voice reached\r\nher, floating upon the weather as though a part of it. “Here I am—all right. Don’t trouble about me.”\r\n\r\n“Don’t you want to come in? Are you not wet? _Come to me! I don’t mind\r\nwhat they say, or what they think any more._”\r\n\r\n“I am all right,” he repeated. “It is not necessary for me to come. Good-night! good-night!”\r\n\r\nGrace sighed, turned and shut the door slowly. Could she have been\r\nmistaken about his health? Perhaps, after all, she had perceived a\r\nchange in him because she had not seen him for so long. Time sometimes\r\ndid his ageing work in jerks, as she knew. Well, she had done all she\r\ncould. He would not come in. She retired to rest again. CHAPTER XLII. The next morning Grace was at the window early. She felt determined to\r\nsee him somehow that day, and prepared his breakfast eagerly. Eight\r\no’clock struck, and she had remembered that he had not come to arouse\r\nher by a knocking, as usual, her own anxiety having caused her to stir. The breakfast was set in its place without. But he did not arrive to\r\ntake it; and she waited on. Nine o’clock arrived, and the breakfast was\r\ncold; and still there was no Giles."}
{"question": "", "answer": "A thrush, that had been repeating\r\nitself a good deal on an opposite bush for some time, came and took a\r\nmorsel from the plate and bolted it, waited, looked around, and took\r\nanother. At ten o’clock she drew in the tray, and sat down to her own\r\nsolitary meal. He must have been called away on business early, the\r\nrain having cleared off. Yet she would have liked to assure herself, by thoroughly exploring the\r\nprecincts of the hut, that he was nowhere in its vicinity; but as the\r\nday was comparatively fine, the dread lest some stray passenger or\r\nwoodman should encounter her in such a reconnoitre paralyzed her wish. The solitude was further accentuated to-day by the stopping of the\r\nclock for want of winding, and the fall into the chimney-corner of\r\nflakes of soot loosened by the rains. At noon she heard a slight\r\nrustling outside the window, and found that it was caused by an eft\r\nwhich had crept out of the leaves to bask in the last sun-rays that\r\nwould be worth having till the following May. She continually peeped out through the lattice, but could see little. In front lay the brown leaves of last year, and upon them some\r\nyellowish-green ones of this season that had been prematurely blown\r\ndown by the gale."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Above stretched an old beech, with vast armpits, and\r\ngreat pocket-holes in its sides where branches had been amputated in\r\npast times; a black slug was trying to climb it. Dead boughs were\r\nscattered about like ichthyosauri in a museum, and beyond them were\r\nperishing woodbine stems resembling old ropes. From the other window all she could see were more trees, jacketed with\r\nlichen and stockinged with moss. At their roots were stemless yellow\r\nfungi like lemons and apricots, and tall fungi with more stem than\r\nstool. Next were more trees close together, wrestling for existence,\r\ntheir branches disfigured with wounds resulting from their mutual\r\nrubbings and blows. It was the struggle between these neighbors that\r\nshe had heard in the night. Beneath them were the rotting stumps of\r\nthose of the group that had been vanquished long ago, rising from their\r\nmossy setting like decayed teeth from green gums. Farther on were other\r\ntufts of moss in islands divided by the shed leaves—variety upon\r\nvariety, dark green and pale green; moss-like little fir-trees, like\r\nplush, like malachite stars, like nothing on earth except moss. The strain upon Grace’s mind in various ways was so great on this the\r\nmost desolate day she had passed there that she felt it would be\r\nwell-nigh impossible to spend another in such circumstances."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The\r\nevening came at last; the sun, when its chin was on the earth, found an\r\nopening through which to pierce the shade, and stretched irradiated\r\ngauzes across the damp atmosphere, making the wet trunks shine, and\r\nthrowing splotches of such ruddiness on the leaves beneath the beech\r\nthat they were turned to gory hues. When night at last arrived, and\r\nwith it the time for his return, she was nearly broken down with\r\nsuspense. The simple evening meal, partly tea, partly supper, which Grace had\r\nprepared, stood waiting upon the hearth; and yet Giles did not come. It\r\nwas now nearly twenty-four hours since she had seen him. As the room\r\ngrew darker, and only the firelight broke against the gloom of the\r\nwalls, she was convinced that it would be beyond her staying power to\r\npass the night without hearing from him or from somebody. Yet eight\r\no’clock drew on, and his form at the window did not appear. The meal remained untasted. Suddenly rising from before the hearth of\r\nsmouldering embers, where she had been crouching with her hands clasped\r\nover her knees, she crossed the room, unlocked the door, and listened. Every breath of wind had ceased with the decline of day, but the rain\r\nhad resumed the steady dripping of the night before. Grace might have\r\nstood there five minutes when she fancied she heard that old sound, a\r\ncough, at no great distance; and it was presently repeated."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If it were\r\nWinterborne’s, he must be near her; why, then, had he not visited her? A horrid misgiving that he could not visit her took possession of\r\nGrace, and she looked up anxiously for the lantern, which was hanging\r\nabove her head. To light it and go in the direction of the sound would\r\nbe the obvious way to solve the dread problem; but the conditions made\r\nher hesitate, and in a moment a cold sweat pervaded her at further\r\nsounds from the same quarter. They were low mutterings; at first like persons in conversation, but\r\ngradually resolving themselves into varieties of one voice. It was an\r\nendless monologue, like that we sometimes hear from inanimate nature in\r\ndeep secret places where water flows, or where ivy leaves flap against\r\nstones; but by degrees she was convinced that the voice was\r\nWinterborne’s. Yet who could be his listener, so mute and patient; for\r\nthough he argued so rapidly and persistently, nobody replied. A dreadful enlightenment spread through the mind of Grace. “Oh,” she\r\ncried, in her anguish, as she hastily prepared herself to go out, “how\r\nselfishly correct I am always—too, too correct! Cruel propriety is\r\nkilling the dearest heart that ever woman clasped to her own.”\r\n\r\nWhile speaking thus to herself she had lit the lantern, and hastening\r\nout without further thought, took the direction whence the mutterings\r\nhad proceeded."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The course was marked by a little path, which ended at a\r\ndistance of about forty yards in a small erection of hurdles, not much\r\nlarger than a shock of corn, such as were frequent in the woods and\r\ncopses when the cutting season was going on. It was too slight even to\r\nbe called a hovel, and was not high enough to stand upright in;\r\nappearing, in short, to be erected for the temporary shelter of fuel. The side towards Grace was open, and turning the light upon the\r\ninterior, she beheld what her prescient fear had pictured in snatches\r\nall the way thither. Upon the straw within, Winterborne lay in his clothes, just as she had\r\nseen him during the whole of her stay here, except that his hat was\r\noff, and his hair matted and wild. Both his clothes and the straw were saturated with rain. His arms were\r\nflung over his head; his face was flushed to an unnatural crimson. His\r\neyes had a burning brightness, and though they met her own, she\r\nperceived that he did not recognize her. “Oh, my Giles,” she cried, “what have I done to you!”\r\n\r\nBut she stopped no longer even to reproach herself. She saw that the\r\nfirst thing to be thought of was to get him indoors. How Grace performed that labor she never could have exactly explained."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But by dint of clasping her arms round him, rearing him into a sitting\r\nposture, and straining her strength to the uttermost, she put him on\r\none of the hurdles that was loose alongside, and taking the end of it\r\nin both her hands, dragged him along the path to the entrance of the\r\nhut, and, after a pause for breath, in at the door-way. It was somewhat singular that Giles in his semi-conscious state\r\nacquiesced unresistingly in all that she did. But he never for a moment\r\nrecognized her—continuing his rapid conversation to himself, and\r\nseeming to look upon her as some angel, or other supernatural creature\r\nof the visionary world in which he was mentally living. The undertaking\r\noccupied her more than ten minutes; but by that time, to her great\r\nthankfulness, he was in the inner room, lying on the bed, his damp\r\nouter clothing removed. Then the unhappy Grace regarded him by the light of the candle. There\r\nwas something in his look which agonized her, in the rush of his\r\nthoughts, accelerating their speed from minute to minute. He seemed to\r\nbe passing through the universe of ideas like a comet—erratic,\r\ninapprehensible, untraceable. Grace’s distraction was almost as great as his. In a few moments she\r\nfirmly believed he was dying. Unable to withstand her impulse, she\r\nknelt down beside him, kissed his hands and his face and his hair,\r\nexclaiming, in a low voice, “How could I?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "How could I?”\r\n\r\nHer timid morality had, indeed, underrated his chivalry till now,\r\nthough she knew him so well. The purity of his nature, his freedom from\r\nthe grosser passions, his scrupulous delicacy, had never been fully\r\nunderstood by Grace till this strange self-sacrifice in lonely\r\njuxtaposition to her own person was revealed. The perception of it\r\nadded something that was little short of reverence to the deep\r\naffection for him of a woman who, herself, had more of Artemis than of\r\nAphrodite in her constitution. All that a tender nurse could do, Grace did; and the power to express\r\nher solicitude in action, unconscious though the sufferer was, brought\r\nher mournful satisfaction. She bathed his hot head, wiped his\r\nperspiring hands, moistened his lips, cooled his fiery eyelids, sponged\r\nhis heated skin, and administered whatever she could find in the house\r\nthat the imagination could conceive as likely to be in any way\r\nalleviating. That she might have been the cause, or partially the\r\ncause, of all this, interfused misery with her sorrow. Six months before this date a scene, almost similar in its mechanical\r\nparts, had been enacted at Hintock House. It was between a pair of\r\npersons most intimately connected in their lives with these. Outwardly\r\nlike as it had been, it was yet infinite in spiritual difference,\r\nthough a woman’s devotion had been common to both. Grace rose from her attitude of affection, and, bracing her energies,\r\nsaw that something practical must immediately be done."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Much as she\r\nwould have liked, in the emotion of the moment, to keep him entirely to\r\nherself, medical assistance was necessary while there remained a\r\npossibility of preserving him alive. Such assistance was fatal to her\r\nown concealment; but even had the chance of benefiting him been less\r\nthan it was, she would have run the hazard for his sake. The question\r\nwas, where should she get a medical man, competent and near? There was one such man, and only one, within accessible distance; a man\r\nwho, if it were possible to save Winterborne’s life, had the brain most\r\nlikely to do it. If human pressure could bring him, that man ought to\r\nbe brought to the sick Giles’s side. The attempt should be made. Yet she dreaded to leave her patient, and the minutes raced past, and\r\nyet she postponed her departure. At last, when it was after eleven\r\no’clock, Winterborne fell into a fitful sleep, and it seemed to afford\r\nher an opportunity. She hastily made him as comfortable as she could, put on her things,\r\ncut a new candle from the bunch hanging in the cupboard, and having set\r\nit up, and placed it so that the light did not fall upon his eyes, she\r\nclosed the door and started. The spirit of Winterborne seemed to keep her company and banish all\r\nsense of darkness from her mind."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The rains had imparted a\r\nphosphorescence to the pieces of touchwood and rotting leaves that lay\r\nabout her path, which, as scattered by her feet, spread abroad like\r\nspilt milk. She would not run the hazard of losing her way by plunging\r\ninto any short, unfrequented track through the denser parts of the\r\nwoodland, but followed a more open course, which eventually brought her\r\nto the highway. Once here, she ran along with great speed, animated by\r\na devoted purpose which had much about it that was stoical; and it was\r\nwith scarcely any faltering of spirit that, after an hour’s progress,\r\nshe passed over Rubdown Hill, and onward towards that same Hintock, and\r\nthat same house, out of which she had fled a few days before in\r\nirresistible alarm. But that had happened which, above all other things\r\nof chance and change, could make her deliberately frustrate her plan of\r\nflight and sink all regard of personal consequences. One speciality of Fitzpiers’s was respected by Grace as much as\r\never—his professional skill. In this she was right. Had his persistence\r\nequalled his insight, instead of being the spasmodic and fitful thing\r\nit was, fame and fortune need never have remained a wish with him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His\r\nfreedom from conventional errors and crusted prejudices had, indeed,\r\nbeen such as to retard rather than accelerate his advance in Hintock\r\nand its neighborhood, where people could not believe that nature\r\nherself effected cures, and that the doctor’s business was only to\r\nsmooth the way. It was past midnight when Grace arrived opposite her father’s house,\r\nnow again temporarily occupied by her husband, unless he had already\r\ngone away. Ever since her emergence from the denser plantations about\r\nWinterborne’s residence a pervasive lightness had hung in the damp\r\nautumn sky, in spite of the vault of cloud, signifying that a moon of\r\nsome age was shining above its arch. The two white gates were distinct,\r\nand the white balls on the pillars, and the puddles and damp ruts left\r\nby the recent rain, had a cold, corpse-eyed luminousness. She entered\r\nby the lower gate, and crossed the quadrangle to the wing wherein the\r\napartments that had been hers since her marriage were situate, till she\r\nstood under a window which, if her husband were in the house, gave\r\nlight to his bedchamber. She faltered, and paused with her hand on her heart, in spite of\r\nherself. Could she call to her presence the very cause of all her\r\nforegoing troubles? Alas!—old Jones was seven miles off; Giles was\r\npossibly dying—what else could she do?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was in a perspiration, wrought even more by consciousness than by\r\nexercise, that she picked up some gravel, threw it at the panes, and\r\nwaited to see the result. The night-bell which had been fixed when\r\nFitzpiers first took up his residence there still remained; but as it\r\nhad fallen into disuse with the collapse of his practice, and his\r\nelopement, she did not venture to pull it now. Whoever slept in the room had heard her signal, slight as it was. In\r\nhalf a minute the window was opened, and a voice said “Yes?”\r\ninquiringly. Grace recognized her husband in the speaker at once. Her\r\neffort was now to disguise her own accents. “Doctor,” she said, in as unusual a tone as she could command, “a man\r\nis dangerously ill in One-chimney Hut, out towards Delborough, and you\r\nmust go to him at once—in all mercy!”\r\n\r\n“I will, readily.”\r\n\r\nThe alacrity, surprise, and pleasure expressed in his reply amazed her\r\nfor a moment. But, in truth, they denoted the sudden relief of a man\r\nwho, having got back in a mood of contrition, from erratic abandonment\r\nto fearful joys, found the soothing routine of professional practice\r\nunexpectedly opening anew to him. The highest desire of his soul just\r\nnow was for a respectable life of painstaking. If this, his first\r\nsummons since his return, had been to attend upon a cat or dog, he\r\nwould scarcely have refused it in the circumstances."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Do you know the way?” she asked. “Yes,” said he. “One-chimney Hut,” she repeated. “And—immediately!”\r\n\r\n“Yes, yes,” said Fitzpiers. Grace remained no longer. She passed out of the white gate without\r\nslamming it, and hastened on her way back. Her husband, then, had\r\nre-entered her father’s house. How he had been able to effect a\r\nreconciliation with the old man, what were the terms of the treaty\r\nbetween them, she could not so much as conjecture. Some sort of truce\r\nmust have been entered into, that was all she could say. But close as\r\nthe question lay to her own life, there was a more urgent one which\r\nbanished it; and she traced her steps quickly along the meandering\r\ntrack-ways. Meanwhile, Fitzpiers was preparing to leave the house. The state of his\r\nmind, over and above his professional zeal, was peculiar. At Grace’s\r\nfirst remark he had not recognized or suspected her presence; but as\r\nshe went on, he was awakened to the great resemblance of the speaker’s\r\nvoice to his wife’s. He had taken in such good faith the statement of\r\nthe household on his arrival, that she had gone on a visit for a time\r\nbecause she could not at once bring her mind to be reconciled to him,\r\nthat he could not quite actually believe this comer to be she."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was\r\none of the features of Fitzpiers’s repentant humor at this date that,\r\non receiving the explanation of her absence, he had made no attempt to\r\noutrage her feelings by following her; though nobody had informed him\r\nhow very shortly her departure had preceded his entry, and of all that\r\nmight have been inferred from her precipitancy. Melbury, after much alarm and consideration, had decided not to follow\r\nher either. He sympathized with her flight, much as he deplored it;\r\nmoreover, the tragic color of the antecedent events that he had been a\r\ngreat means of creating checked his instinct to interfere. He prayed\r\nand trusted that she had got into no danger on her way (as he supposed)\r\nto Sherton, and thence to Exbury, if that were the place she had gone\r\nto, forbearing all inquiry which the strangeness of her departure would\r\nhave made natural. A few months before this time a performance by Grace\r\nof one-tenth the magnitude of this would have aroused him to unwonted\r\ninvestigation. It was in the same spirit that he had tacitly assented to Fitzpiers’s\r\ndomicilation there. The two men had not met face to face, but Mrs.\r\nMelbury had proposed herself as an intermediary, who made the surgeon’s\r\nre-entrance comparatively easy to him. Everything was provisional, and\r\nnobody asked questions."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Fitzpiers had come in the performance of a plan\r\nof penitence, which had originated in circumstances hereafter to be\r\nexplained; his self-humiliation to the very bass-string was deliberate;\r\nand as soon as a call reached him from the bedside of a dying man his\r\ndesire was to set to work and do as much good as he could with the\r\nleast possible fuss or show. He therefore refrained from calling up a\r\nstableman to get ready any horse or gig, and set out for One-chimney\r\nHut on foot, as Grace had done. CHAPTER XLIII. She re-entered the hut, flung off her bonnet and cloak, and approached\r\nthe sufferer. He had begun anew those terrible mutterings, and his\r\nhands were cold. As soon as she saw him there returned to her that\r\nagony of mind which the stimulus of her journey had thrown off for a\r\ntime. Could he really be dying? She bathed him, kissed him, forgot all things\r\nbut the fact that lying there before her was he who had loved her more\r\nthan the mere lover would have loved; had martyred himself for her\r\ncomfort, cared more for her self-respect than she had thought of\r\ncaring. This mood continued till she heard quick, smart footsteps\r\nwithout; she knew whose footsteps they were. Grace sat on the inside of the bed against the wall, holding Giles’s\r\nhand, so that when her husband entered the patient lay between herself\r\nand him. He stood transfixed at first, noticing Grace only."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Slowly he\r\ndropped his glance and discerned who the prostrate man was. Strangely\r\nenough, though Grace’s distaste for her husband’s company had amounted\r\nalmost to dread, and culminated in actual flight, at this moment her\r\nlast and least feeling was personal. Sensitive femininity was eclipsed\r\nby self-effacing purpose, and that it was a husband who stood there was\r\nforgotten. The first look that possessed her face was relief;\r\nsatisfaction at the presence of the physician obliterated thought of\r\nthe man, which only returned in the form of a sub-consciousness that\r\ndid not interfere with her words. “Is he dying—is there any hope?” she cried. “Grace!” said Fitzpiers, in an indescribable whisper—more than\r\ninvocating, if not quite deprecatory. He was arrested by the spectacle, not so much in its intrinsic\r\ncharacter—though that was striking enough to a man who called himself\r\nthe husband of the sufferer’s friend and nurse—but in its character as\r\nthe counterpart of one that had its hour many months before, in which\r\nhe had figured as the patient, and the woman had been Felice Charmond. “Is he in great danger—can you save him?” she cried again. Fitzpiers aroused himself, came a little nearer, and examined\r\nWinterborne as he stood. His inspection was concluded in a mere glance. Before he spoke he looked at her contemplatively as to the effect of\r\nhis coming words. “He is dying,” he said, with dry precision. “What?” said she. “Nothing can be done, by me or any other man."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It will soon be all over. The extremities are dead already.” His eyes still remained fixed on\r\nher; the conclusion to which he had come seeming to end his interest,\r\nprofessional and otherwise, in Winterborne forever. “But it cannot be! He was well three days ago.”\r\n\r\n“Not well, I suspect. This seems like a secondary attack, which has\r\nfollowed some previous illness—possibly typhoid—it may have been months\r\nago, or recently.”\r\n\r\n“Ah—he was not well—you are right. He was ill—he was ill when I came.”\r\n\r\nThere was nothing more to do or say. She crouched down at the side of\r\nthe bed, and Fitzpiers took a seat. Thus they remained in silence, and\r\nlong as it lasted she never turned her eyes, or apparently her\r\nthoughts, at all to her husband. He occasionally murmured, with\r\nautomatic authority, some slight directions for alleviating the pain of\r\nthe dying man, which she mechanically obeyed, bending over him during\r\nthe intervals in silent tears. Winterborne never recovered consciousness of what was passing; and that\r\nhe was going became soon perceptible also to her. In less than an hour\r\nthe delirium ceased; then there was an interval of somnolent\r\npainlessness and soft breathing, at the end of which Winterborne passed\r\nquietly away. Then Fitzpiers broke the silence. “Have you lived here long?” said he. Grace was wild with sorrow—with all that had befallen her—with the\r\ncruelties that had attacked her—with life—with Heaven. She answered at\r\nrandom. “Yes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "By what right do you ask?”\r\n\r\n“Don’t think I claim any right,” said Fitzpiers, sadly. “It is for you\r\nto do and say what you choose. I admit, quite as much as you feel, that\r\nI am a vagabond—a brute—not worthy to possess the smallest fragment of\r\nyou. But here I am, and I have happened to take sufficient interest in\r\nyou to make that inquiry.”\r\n\r\n“He is everything to me!” said Grace, hardly heeding her husband, and\r\nlaying her hand reverently on the dead man’s eyelids, where she kept it\r\na long time, pressing down their lashes with gentle touches, as if she\r\nwere stroking a little bird. He watched her a while, and then glanced round the chamber where his\r\neyes fell upon a few dressing necessaries that she had brought. “Grace—if I may call you so,” he said, “I have been already humiliated\r\nalmost to the depths. I have come back since you refused to join me\r\nelsewhere—I have entered your father’s house, and borne all that that\r\ncost me without flinching, because I have felt that I deserved\r\nhumiliation. But is there a yet greater humiliation in store for me? You say you have been living here—that he is everything to you. Am I to\r\ndraw from that the obvious, the extremest inference?”\r\n\r\nTriumph at any price is sweet to men and women—especially the latter."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was her first and last opportunity of repaying him for the cruel\r\ncontumely which she had borne at his hands so docilely. “Yes,” she answered; and there was that in her subtly compounded nature\r\nwhich made her feel a thrill of pride as she did so. Yet the moment after she had so mightily belied her character she half\r\nrepented. Her husband had turned as white as the wall behind him. It\r\nseemed as if all that remained to him of life and spirit had been\r\nabstracted at a stroke. Yet he did not move, and in his efforts at\r\nself-control closed his mouth together as a vice. His determination was\r\nfairly successful, though she saw how very much greater than she had\r\nexpected her triumph had been. Presently he looked across at\r\nWinterborne. “Would it startle you to hear,” he said, as if he hardly had breath to\r\nutter the words, “that she who was to me what he was to you is dead\r\nalso?”\r\n\r\n“Dead—_she_ dead?” exclaimed Grace. “Yes. Felice Charmond is where this young man is.”\r\n\r\n“Never!” said Grace, vehemently. He went on without heeding the insinuation: “And I came back to try to\r\nmake it up with you—but—”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers rose, and moved across the room to go away, looking downward\r\nwith the droop of a man whose hope was turned to apathy, if not\r\ndespair. In going round the door his eye fell upon her once more."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She\r\nwas still bending over the body of Winterborne, her face close to the\r\nyoung man’s. “Have you been kissing him during his illness?” asked her husband. “Yes.”\r\n\r\n“Since his fevered state set in?”\r\n\r\n“Yes.”\r\n\r\n“On his lips?”\r\n\r\n“Yes.”\r\n\r\n“Then you will do well to take a few drops of this in water as soon as\r\npossible.” He drew a small phial from his pocket and returned to offer\r\nit to her. Grace shook her head. “If you don’t do as I tell you you may soon be like him.”\r\n\r\n“I don’t care. I wish to die.”\r\n\r\n“I’ll put it here,” said Fitzpiers, placing the bottle on a ledge\r\nbeside him. “The sin of not having warned you will not be upon my head\r\nat any rate, among my other sins. I am now going, and I will send\r\nsomebody to you. Your father does not know that you are here, so I\r\nsuppose I shall be bound to tell him?”\r\n\r\n“Certainly.”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers left the cot, and the stroke of his feet was soon immersed in\r\nthe silence that pervaded the spot. Grace remained kneeling and\r\nweeping, she hardly knew how long, and then she sat up, covered poor\r\nGiles’s features, and went towards the door where her husband had\r\nstood."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No sign of any other comer greeted her ear, the only perceptible\r\nsounds being the tiny cracklings of the dead leaves, which, like a\r\nfeather-bed, had not yet done rising to their normal level where\r\nindented by the pressure of her husband’s receding footsteps. It\r\nreminded her that she had been struck with the change in his aspect;\r\nthe extremely intellectual look that had always been in his face was\r\nwrought to a finer phase by thinness, and a care-worn dignity had been\r\nsuperadded. She returned to Winterborne’s side, and during her\r\nmeditations another tread drew near the door, entered the outer room,\r\nand halted at the entrance of the chamber where Grace was. “What—Marty!” said Grace. “Yes. I have heard,” said Marty, whose demeanor had lost all its\r\ngirlishness under the stroke that seemed almost literally to have\r\nbruised her. “He died for me!” murmured Grace, heavily. Marty did not fully comprehend; and she answered, “He belongs to\r\nneither of us now, and your beauty is no more powerful with him than my\r\nplainness. I have come to help you, ma’am. He never cared for me, and\r\nhe cared much for you; but he cares for us both alike now.”\r\n\r\n“Oh don’t, don’t, Marty!”\r\n\r\nMarty said no more, but knelt over Winterborne from the other side. “Did you meet my hus—Mr. Fitzpiers?”\r\n\r\n“No!”\r\n\r\n“Then what brought you here?”\r\n\r\n“I come this way sometimes."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I have got to go to the farther side of the\r\nwood this time of the year, and am obliged to get there before four\r\no’clock in the morning, to begin heating the oven for the early baking. I have passed by here often at this time.”\r\n\r\nGrace looked at her quickly. “Then did you know I was here?”\r\n\r\n“Yes, ma’am.”\r\n\r\n“Did you tell anybody?”\r\n\r\n“No. I knew you lived in the hut, that he had gied it up to ye, and\r\nlodged out himself.”\r\n\r\n“Did you know where he lodged?”\r\n\r\n“No. That I couldn’t find out. Was it at Delborough?”\r\n\r\n“No. It was not there, Marty. Would it had been! It would have\r\nsaved—saved—” To check her tears she turned, and seeing a book on the\r\nwindow-bench, took it up. “Look, Marty, this is a Psalter. He was not\r\nan outwardly religious man, but he was pure and perfect in his heart. Shall we read a psalm over him?”\r\n\r\n“Oh yes—we will—with all my heart!”\r\n\r\nGrace opened the thin brown book, which poor Giles had kept at hand\r\nmainly for the convenience of whetting his pen-knife upon its leather\r\ncovers. She began to read in that rich, devotional voice peculiar to\r\nwomen only on such occasions. When it was over, Marty said, “I should\r\nlike to pray for his soul.”\r\n\r\n“So should I,” said her companion. “But we must not.”\r\n\r\n“Why?"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Nobody would know.”\r\n\r\nGrace could not resist the argument, influenced as she was by the sense\r\nof making amends for having neglected him in the body; and their tender\r\nvoices united and filled the narrow room with supplicatory murmurs that\r\na Calvinist might have envied. They had hardly ended when now and more\r\nnumerous foot-falls were audible, also persons in conversation, one of\r\nwhom Grace recognized as her father. She rose, and went to the outer apartment, in which there was only such\r\nlight as beamed from the inner one. Melbury and Mrs. Melbury were\r\nstanding there. “I don’t reproach you, Grace,” said her father, with an estranged\r\nmanner, and in a voice not at all like his old voice. “What has come\r\nupon you and us is beyond reproach, beyond weeping, and beyond wailing. Perhaps I drove you to it. But I am hurt; I am scourged; I am\r\nastonished. In the face of this there is nothing to be said.”\r\n\r\nWithout replying, Grace turned and glided back to the inner chamber. “Marty,” she said, quickly, “I cannot look my father in the face until\r\nhe knows the true circumstances of my life here. Go and tell him—what\r\nyou have told me—what you saw—that he gave up his house to me.”\r\n\r\nShe sat down, her face buried in her hands, and Marty went, and after a\r\nshort absence returned. Then Grace rose, and going out asked her father\r\nif he had met her husband. “Yes,” said Melbury."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“And you know all that has happened?”\r\n\r\n“I do. Forgive me, Grace, for suspecting ye of worse than rashness—I\r\nought to know ye better. Are you coming with me to what was once your\r\nhome?”\r\n\r\n“No. I stay here with HIM. Take no account of me any more.”\r\n\r\nThe unwonted, perplexing, agitating relations in which she had stood to\r\nWinterborne quite lately—brought about by Melbury’s own\r\ncontrivance—could not fail to soften the natural anger of a parent at\r\nher more recent doings. “My daughter, things are bad,” he rejoined. “But why do you persevere to make ’em worse? What good can you do to\r\nGiles by staying here with him? Mind, I ask no questions. I don’t\r\ninquire why you decided to come here, or anything as to what your\r\ncourse would have been if he had not died, though I know there’s no\r\ndeliberate harm in ye. As for me, I have lost all claim upon you, and I\r\nmake no complaint. But I do say that by coming back with me now you\r\nwill show no less kindness to him, and escape any sound of shame. “But I don’t wish to escape it.”\r\n\r\n“If you don’t on your own account, cannot you wish to on mine and hers? Nobody except our household knows that you have left home."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then why\r\nshould you, by a piece of perverseness, bring down my gray hairs with\r\nsorrow to the grave?”\r\n\r\n“If it were not for my husband—” she began, moved by his words. “But\r\nhow can I meet him there? How can any woman who is not a mere man’s\r\ncreature join him after what has taken place?”\r\n\r\n“He would go away again rather than keep you out of my house.”\r\n\r\n“How do you know that, father?”\r\n\r\n“We met him on our way here, and he told us so,” said Mrs. Melbury. “He\r\nhad said something like it before. He seems very much upset\r\naltogether.”\r\n\r\n“He declared to her when he came to our house that he would wait for\r\ntime and devotion to bring about his forgiveness,” said her husband. “That was it, wasn’t it, Lucy?”\r\n\r\n“Yes. That he would not intrude upon you, Grace, till you gave him\r\nabsolute permission,” Mrs. Melbury added. This antecedent considerateness in Fitzpiers was as welcome to Grace as\r\nit was unexpected; and though she did not desire his presence, she was\r\nsorry that by her retaliatory fiction she had given him a different\r\nreason for avoiding her. She made no further objections to accompanying\r\nher parents, taking them into the inner room to give Winterborne a last\r\nlook, and gathering up the two or three things that belonged to her. While she was doing this the two women came who had been called by\r\nMelbury, and at their heels poor Creedle."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Forgive me, but I can’t rule my mourning nohow as a man should, Mr.\r\nMelbury,” he said. “I ha’n’t seen him since Thursday se’night, and have\r\nwondered for days and days where he’s been keeping. There was I\r\nexpecting him to come and tell me to wash out the cider-barrels against\r\nthe making, and here was he— Well, I’ve knowed him from table-high; I\r\nknowed his father—used to bide about upon two sticks in the sun afore\r\nhe died!—and now I’ve seen the end of the family, which we can ill\r\nafford to lose, wi’ such a scanty lot of good folk in Hintock as we’ve\r\ngot. And now Robert Creedle will be nailed up in parish boards ’a\r\nb’lieve; and noboby will glutch down a sigh for he!”\r\n\r\nThey started for home, Marty and Creedle remaining behind. For a time\r\nGrace and her father walked side by side without speaking. It was just\r\nin the blue of the dawn, and the chilling tone of the sky was reflected\r\nin her cold, wet face. The whole wood seemed to be a house of death,\r\npervaded by loss to its uttermost length and breadth."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Winterborne was\r\ngone, and the copses seemed to show the want of him; those young trees,\r\nso many of which he had planted, and of which he had spoken so truly\r\nwhen he said that he should fall before they fell, were at that very\r\nmoment sending out their roots in the direction that he had given them\r\nwith his subtle hand. “One thing made it tolerable to us that your husband should come back\r\nto the house,” said Melbury at last—“the death of Mrs. Charmond.”\r\n\r\n“Ah, yes,” said Grace, arousing slightly to the recollection, “he told\r\nme so.”\r\n\r\n“Did he tell you how she died? It was no such death as Giles’s. She was\r\nshot—by a disappointed lover. It occurred in Germany. The unfortunate\r\nman shot himself afterwards. He was that South Carolina gentleman of\r\nvery passionate nature who used to haunt this place to force her to an\r\ninterview, and followed her about everywhere. So ends the brilliant\r\nFelice Charmond—once a good friend to me—but no friend to you.”\r\n\r\n“I can forgive her,” said Grace, absently. “Did Edgar tell you of\r\nthis?”\r\n\r\n“No; but he put a London newspaper, giving an account of it, on the\r\nhall table, folded in such a way that we should see it. It will be in\r\nthe Sherton paper this week, no doubt. To make the event more solemn\r\nstill to him, he had just before had sharp words with her, and left\r\nher."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He told Lucy this, as nothing about him appears in the newspaper. And the cause of the quarrel was, of all people, she we’ve left behind\r\nus.”\r\n\r\n“Do you mean Marty?” Grace spoke the words but perfunctorily. For,\r\npertinent and pointed as Melbury’s story was, she had no heart for it\r\nnow. “Yes. Marty South.” Melbury persisted in his narrative, to divert her\r\nfrom her present grief, if possible. “Before he went away she wrote him\r\na letter, which he kept in his, pocket a long while before reading. He\r\nchanced to pull it out in Mrs. Charmond’s, presence, and read it out\r\nloud. It contained something which teased her very much, and that led\r\nto the rupture. She was following him to make it up when she met with\r\nher terrible death.”\r\n\r\nMelbury did not know enough to give the gist of the incident, which was\r\nthat Marty South’s letter had been concerning a certain personal\r\nadornment common to herself and Mrs. Charmond. Her bullet reached its\r\nbillet at last. The scene between Fitzpiers and Felice had been sharp,\r\nas only a scene can be which arises out of the mortification of one\r\nwoman by another in the presence of a lover."}
{"question": "", "answer": "True, Marty had not\r\neffected it by word of mouth; the charge about the locks of hair was\r\nmade simply by Fitzpiers reading her letter to him aloud to Felice in\r\nthe playfully ironical tones of one who had become a little weary of\r\nhis situation, and was finding his friend, in the phrase of George\r\nHerbert, a “flat delight.” He had stroked those false tresses with his\r\nhand many a time without knowing them to be transplanted, and it was\r\nimpossible when the discovery was so abruptly made to avoid being\r\nfinely satirical, despite her generous disposition. That was how it had begun, and tragedy had been its end. On his abrupt\r\ndeparture she had followed him to the station but the train was gone;\r\nand in travelling to Baden in search of him she had met his rival,\r\nwhose reproaches led to an altercation, and the death of both. Of that\r\nprecipitate scene of passion and crime Fitzpiers had known nothing till\r\nhe saw an account of it in the papers, where, fortunately for himself,\r\nno mention was made of his prior acquaintance with the unhappy lady;\r\nnor was there any allusion to him in the subsequent inquiry, the double\r\ndeath being attributed to some gambling losses, though, in point of\r\nfact, neither one of them had visited the tables."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Melbury and his daughter drew near their house, having seen but one\r\nliving thing on their way, a squirrel, which did not run up its tree,\r\nbut, dropping the sweet chestnut which it carried, cried\r\nchut-chut-chut, and stamped with its hind legs on the ground. When the\r\nroofs and chimneys of the homestead began to emerge from the screen of\r\nboughs, Grace started, and checked herself in her abstracted advance. “You clearly understand,” she said to her step-mother some of her old\r\nmisgiving returning, “that I am coming back only on condition of his\r\nleaving as he promised? Will you let him know this, that there may be\r\nno mistake?”\r\n\r\nMrs. Melbury, who had some long private talks with Fitzpiers, assured\r\nGrace that she need have no doubts on that point, and that he would\r\nprobably be gone by the evening. Grace then entered with them into\r\nMelbury’s wing of the house, and sat down listlessly in the parlor,\r\nwhile her step-mother went to Fitzpiers. The prompt obedience to her wishes which the surgeon showed did honor\r\nto him, if anything could. Before Mrs. Melbury had returned to the room\r\nGrace, who was sitting on the parlor window-bench, saw her husband go\r\nfrom the door under the increasing light of morning, with a bag in his\r\nhand. While passing through the gate he turned his head."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The firelight\r\nof the room she sat in threw her figure into dark relief against the\r\nwindow as she looked through the panes, and he must have seen her\r\ndistinctly. In a moment he went on, the gate fell to, and he\r\ndisappeared. At the hut she had declared that another had displaced\r\nhim; and now she had banished him. CHAPTER XLIV. Fitzpiers had hardly been gone an hour when Grace began to sicken. The\r\nnext day she kept her room. Old Jones was called in; he murmured some\r\nstatements in which the words “feverish symptoms” occurred. Grace heard\r\nthem, and guessed the means by which she had brought this visitation\r\nupon herself. One day, while she still lay there with her head throbbing, wondering\r\nif she were really going to join him who had gone before, Grammer\r\nOliver came to her bedside. “I don’t know whe’r this is meant for you\r\nto take, ma’am,” she said, “but I have found it on the table. It was\r\nleft by Marty, I think, when she came this morning.”\r\n\r\nGrace turned her hot eyes upon what Grammer held up. It was the phial\r\nleft at the hut by her husband when he had begged her to take some\r\ndrops of its contents if she wished to preserve herself from falling a\r\nvictim to the malady which had pulled down Winterborne. She examined it\r\nas well as she could."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The liquid was of an opaline hue, and bore a\r\nlabel with an inscription in Italian. He had probably got it in his\r\nwanderings abroad. She knew but little Italian, but could understand\r\nthat the cordial was a febrifuge of some sort. Her father, her mother,\r\nand all the household were anxious for her recovery, and she resolved\r\nto obey her husband’s directions. Whatever the risk, if any, she was\r\nprepared to run it. A glass of water was brought, and the drops dropped\r\nin. The effect, though not miraculous, was remarkable. In less than an hour\r\nshe felt calmer, cooler, better able to reflect—less inclined to fret\r\nand chafe and wear herself away. She took a few drops more. From that\r\ntime the fever retreated, and went out like a damped conflagration. “How clever he is!” she said, regretfully. “Why could he not have had\r\nmore principle, so as to turn his great talents to good account? Perhaps he has saved my useless life. But he doesn’t know it, and\r\ndoesn’t care whether he has saved it or not; and on that account will\r\nnever be told by me! Probably he only gave it to me in the arrogance of\r\nhis skill, to show the greatness of his resources beside mine, as\r\nElijah drew down fire from heaven.”\r\n\r\nAs soon as she had quite recovered from this foiled attack upon her\r\nlife, Grace went to Marty South’s cottage."}
{"question": "", "answer": "The current of her being had\r\nagain set towards the lost Giles Winterborne. “Marty,” she said, “we both loved him. We will go to his grave\r\ntogether.”\r\n\r\nGreat Hintock church stood at the upper part of the village, and could\r\nbe reached without passing through the street. In the dusk of the late\r\nSeptember day they went thither by secret ways, walking mostly in\r\nsilence side by side, each busied with her own thoughts. Grace had a\r\ntrouble exceeding Marty’s—that haunting sense of having put out the\r\nlight of his life by her own hasty doings. She had tried to persuade\r\nherself that he might have died of his illness, even if she had not\r\ntaken possession of his house. Sometimes she succeeded in her attempt;\r\nsometimes she did not. They stood by the grave together, and though the sun had gone down,\r\nthey could see over the woodland for miles, and down to the vale in\r\nwhich he had been accustomed to descend every year, with his portable\r\nmill and press, to make cider about this time. Perhaps Grace’s first grief, the discovery that if he had lived he\r\ncould never have claimed her, had some power in softening this, the\r\nsecond. On Marty’s part there was the same consideration; never would\r\nshe have been his. As no anticipation of gratified affection had been\r\nin existence while he was with them, there was none to be disappointed\r\nnow that he had gone."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Grace was abased when, by degrees, she found that she had never\r\nunderstood Giles as Marty had done. Marty South alone, of all the women\r\nin Hintock and the world, had approximated to Winterborne’s level of\r\nintelligent intercourse with nature. In that respect she had formed the\r\ncomplement to him in the other sex, had lived as his counterpart, had\r\nsubjoined her thought to his as a corollary. The casual glimpses which the ordinary population bestowed upon that\r\nwondrous world of sap and leaves called the Hintock woods had been with\r\nthese two, Giles and Marty, a clear gaze. They had been possessed of\r\nits finer mysteries as of commonplace knowledge; had been able to read\r\nits hieroglyphs as ordinary writing; to them the sights and sounds of\r\nnight, winter, wind, storm, amid those dense boughs, which had to Grace\r\na touch of the uncanny, and even the supernatural, were simple\r\noccurrences whose origin, continuance, and laws they foreknew. They had\r\nplanted together, and together they had felled; together they had, with\r\nthe run of the years, mentally collected those remoter signs and\r\nsymbols which, seen in few, were of runic obscurity, but all together\r\nmade an alphabet. From the light lashing of the twigs upon their faces,\r\nwhen brushing through them in the dark, they could pronounce upon the\r\nspecies of the tree whence they stretched; from the quality of the\r\nwind’s murmur through a bough they could in like manner name its sort\r\nafar off."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They knew by a glance at a trunk if its heart were sound, or\r\ntainted with incipient decay, and by the state of its upper twigs, the\r\nstratum that had been reached by its roots. The artifices of the\r\nseasons were seen by them from the conjuror’s own point of view, and\r\nnot from that of the spectator’s. “He ought to have married _you_, Marty, and nobody else in the world!”\r\nsaid Grace, with conviction, after thinking somewhat in the above\r\nstrain. Marty shook her head. “In all our out-door days and years together,\r\nma’am,” she replied, “the one thing he never spoke of to me was love;\r\nnor I to him.”\r\n\r\n“Yet you and he could speak in a tongue that nobody else knew—not even\r\nmy father, though he came nearest knowing—the tongue of the trees and\r\nfruits and flowers themselves.”\r\n\r\nShe could indulge in mournful fancies like this to Marty; but the hard\r\ncore to her grief—which Marty’s had not—remained. Had she been sure\r\nthat Giles’s death resulted entirely from his exposure, it would have\r\ndriven her well-nigh to insanity; but there was always that bare\r\npossibility that his exposure had only precipitated what was\r\ninevitable. She longed to believe that it had not done even this. There was only one man whose opinion on the circumstances she would be\r\nat all disposed to trust. Her husband was that man."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Yet to ask him it\r\nwould be necessary to detail the true conditions in which she and\r\nWinterborne had lived during these three or four critical days that\r\nfollowed her flight; and in withdrawing her original defiant\r\nannouncement on that point, there seemed a weakness she did not care to\r\nshow. She never doubted that Fitzpiers would believe her if she made a\r\nclean confession of the actual situation; but to volunteer the\r\ncorrection would seem like signalling for a truce, and that, in her\r\npresent frame of mind, was what she did not feel the need of. It will probably not appear a surprising statement, after what has been\r\nalready declared of Fitzpiers, that the man whom Grace’s fidelity could\r\nnot keep faithful was stung into passionate throbs of interest\r\nconcerning her by her avowal of the contrary. He declared to himself that he had never known her dangerously full\r\ncompass if she were capable of such a reprisal; and, melancholy as it\r\nmay be to admit the fact, his own humiliation and regret engendered a\r\nsmouldering admiration of her. He passed a month or two of great misery at Exbury, the place to which\r\nhe had retired—quite as much misery indeed as Grace, could she have\r\nknown of it, would have been inclined to inflict upon any living\r\ncreature, how much soever he might have wronged her. Then a sudden hope\r\ndawned upon him; he wondered if her affirmation were true."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He asked\r\nhimself whether it were not the act of a woman whose natural purity and\r\ninnocence had blinded her to the contingencies of such an announcement. His wide experience of the sex had taught him that, in many cases,\r\nwomen who ventured on hazardous matters did so because they lacked an\r\nimagination sensuous enough to feel their full force. In this light\r\nGrace’s bold avowal might merely have denoted the desperation of one\r\nwho was a child to the realities of obliquity. Fitzpiers’s mental sufferings and suspense led him at last to take a\r\nmelancholy journey to the neighborhood of Little Hintock; and here he\r\nhovered for hours around the scene of the purest emotional experiences\r\nthat he had ever known in his life. He walked about the woods that\r\nsurrounded Melbury’s house, keeping out of sight like a criminal. It\r\nwas a fine evening, and on his way homeward he passed near Marty\r\nSouth’s cottage. As usual she had lighted her candle without closing\r\nher shutters; he saw her within as he had seen her many times before. She was polishing tools, and though he had not wished to show himself,\r\nhe could not resist speaking in to her through the half-open door. “What are you doing that for, Marty?”\r\n\r\n“Because I want to clean them."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They are not mine.” He could see,\r\nindeed, that they were not hers, for one was a spade, large and heavy,\r\nand another was a bill-hook which she could only have used with both\r\nhands. The spade, though not a new one, had been so completely\r\nburnished that it was bright as silver. Fitzpiers somehow divined that they were Giles Winterborne’s, and he\r\nput the question to her. She replied in the affirmative. “I am going to keep ’em,” she said,\r\n“but I can’t get his apple-mill and press. I wish could; it is going to\r\nbe sold, they say.”\r\n\r\n“Then I will buy it for you,” said Fitzpiers. “That will be making you\r\na return for a kindness you did me.” His glance fell upon the girl’s\r\nrare-colored hair, which had grown again. “Oh, Marty, those locks of\r\nyours—and that letter! But it was a kindness to send it, nevertheless,”\r\nhe added, musingly. After this there was confidence between them—such confidence as there\r\nhad never been before. Marty was shy, indeed, of speaking about the\r\nletter, and her motives in writing it; but she thanked him warmly for\r\nhis promise of the cider-press. She would travel with it in the autumn\r\nseason, as he had done, she said. She would be quite strong enough,\r\nwith old Creedle as an assistant. “Ah! there was one nearer to him than you,” said Fitzpiers, referring\r\nto Winterborne."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“One who lived where he lived, and was with him when he\r\ndied.”\r\n\r\nThen Marty, suspecting that he did not know the true circumstances,\r\nfrom the fact that Mrs. Fitzpiers and himself were living apart, told\r\nhim of Giles’s generosity to Grace in giving up his house to her at the\r\nrisk, and possibly the sacrifice, of his own life. When the surgeon\r\nheard it he almost envied Giles his chivalrous character. He expressed\r\na wish to Marty that his visit to her should be kept secret, and went\r\nhome thoughtful, feeling that in more that one sense his journey to\r\nHintock had not been in vain. He would have given much to win Grace’s forgiveness then. But whatever\r\nhe dared hope for in that kind from the future, there was nothing to be\r\ndone yet, while Giles Winterborne’s memory was green. To wait was\r\nimperative. A little time might melt her frozen thoughts, and lead her\r\nto look on him with toleration, if not with love. CHAPTER XLV. Weeks and months of mourning for Winterborne had been passed by Grace\r\nin the soothing monotony of the memorial act to which she and Marty had\r\ndevoted themselves. Twice a week the pair went in the dusk to Great\r\nHintock, and, like the two mourners in _Cymbeline_, sweetened his sad\r\ngrave with their flowers and their tears."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Sometimes Grace thought that\r\nit was a pity neither one of them had been his wife for a little while,\r\nand given the world a copy of him who was so valuable in their eyes. Nothing ever had brought home to her with such force as this death how\r\nlittle acquirements and culture weigh beside sterling personal\r\ncharacter. While her simple sorrow for his loss took a softer edge with\r\nthe lapse of the autumn and winter seasons, her self-reproach at having\r\nhad a possible hand in causing it knew little abatement. Little occurred at Hintock during these months of the fall and decay of\r\nthe leaf. Discussion of the almost contemporaneous death of Mrs.\r\nCharmond abroad had waxed and waned. Fitzpiers had had a marvellous\r\nescape from being dragged into the inquiry which followed it, through\r\nthe accident of their having parted just before under the influence of\r\nMarty South’s letter—the tiny instrument of a cause deep in nature. Her body was not brought home. It seemed to accord well with the fitful\r\nfever of that impassioned woman’s life that she should not have found a\r\nnative grave. She had enjoyed but a life-interest in the estate, which,\r\nafter her death, passed to a relative of her husband’s—one who knew not\r\nFelice, one whose purpose seemed to be to blot out every vestige of\r\nher."}
{"question": "", "answer": "On a certain day in February—the cheerful day of St. Valentine, in\r\nfact—a letter reached Mrs. Fitzpiers, which had been mentally promised\r\nher for that particular day a long time before. It announced that Fitzpiers was living at some midland town, where he\r\nhad obtained a temporary practice as assistant to some local medical\r\nman, whose curative principles were all wrong, though he dared not set\r\nthem right. He had thought fit to communicate with her on that day of\r\ntender traditions to inquire if, in the event of his obtaining a\r\nsubstantial practice that he had in view elsewhere, she could forget\r\nthe past and bring herself to join him. There the practical part ended; he then went on—\r\n\r\n“My last year of experience has added ten years to my age, dear Grace\r\nand dearest wife that ever erring man undervalued. You may be\r\nabsolutely indifferent to what I say, but let me say it: I have never\r\nloved any woman alive or dead as I love, respect, and honor you at this\r\npresent moment. What you told me in the pride and haughtiness of your\r\nheart I never believed [this, by the way, was not strictly true]; but\r\neven if I had believed it, it could never have estranged me from you."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Is there any use in telling you—no, there is not—that I dream of your\r\nripe lips more frequently than I say my prayers; that the old familiar\r\nrustle of your dress often returns upon my mind till it distracts me? If you could condescend even only to see me again you would be\r\nbreathing life into a corpse. My pure, pure Grace, modest as a\r\nturtledove, how came I ever to possess you? For the sake of being\r\npresent in your mind on this lovers’ day, I think I would almost rather\r\nhave you hate me a little than not think of me at all. You may call my\r\nfancies whimsical; but remember, sweet, lost one, that ‘nature is one\r\nin love, and where ’tis fine it sends some instance of itself.’ I will\r\nnot intrude upon you further now. Make me a little bit happy by sending\r\nback one line to say that you will consent, at any rate, to a short\r\ninterview. I will meet you and leave you as a mere acquaintance, if you\r\nwill only afford me this slight means of making a few explanations, and\r\nof putting my position before you. Believe me, in spite of all you may\r\ndo or feel,\r\n\r\n\r\nYour lover always (once your husband),\r\n\r\n“E.F.”\r\n\r\n\r\nIt was, oddly enough, the first occasion, or nearly the first on which\r\nGrace had ever received a love-letter from him, his courtship having\r\ntaken place under conditions which rendered letter-writing unnecessary."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Its perusal, therefore, had a certain novelty for her. She thought\r\nthat, upon the whole, he wrote love-letters very well. But the chief\r\nrational interest of the letter to the reflective Grace lay in the\r\nchance that such a meeting as he proposed would afford her of setting\r\nher doubts at rest, one way or the other, on her actual share in\r\nWinterborne’s death. The relief of consulting a skilled mind, the one\r\nprofessional man who had seen Giles at that time, would be immense. As\r\nfor that statement that she had uttered in her disdainful grief, which\r\nat the time she had regarded as her triumph, she was quite prepared to\r\nadmit to him that his belief was the true one; for in wronging herself\r\nas she did when she made it, she had done what to her was a far more\r\nserious thing, wronged Winterborne’s memory. Without consulting her father, or any one in the house or out of it,\r\nGrace replied to the letter. She agreed to meet Fitzpiers on two\r\nconditions, of which the first was that the place of meeting should be\r\nthe top of Rubdown Hill, the second that he would not object to Marty\r\nSouth accompanying her. Whatever part, much or little, there may have been in Fitzpiers’s\r\nso-called valentine to his wife, he felt a delight as of the bursting\r\nof spring when her brief reply came."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It was one of the few pleasures\r\nthat he had experienced of late years at all resembling those of his\r\nearly youth. He promptly replied that he accepted the conditions, and\r\nnamed the day and hour at which he would be on the spot she mentioned. A few minutes before three on the appointed day found him climbing the\r\nwell-known hill, which had been the axis of so many critical movements\r\nin their lives during his residence at Hintock. The sight of each homely and well-remembered object swelled the regret\r\nthat seldom left him now. Whatever paths might lie open to his future,\r\nthe soothing shades of Hintock were forbidden him forever as a\r\npermanent dwelling-place. He longed for the society of Grace. But to lay offerings on her\r\nslighted altar was his first aim, and until her propitiation was\r\ncomplete he would constrain her in no way to return to him. The least\r\nreparation that he could make, in a case where he would gladly have\r\nmade much, would be to let her feel herself absolutely free to choose\r\nbetween living with him and without him. Moreover, a subtlist in emotions, he cultivated as under glasses\r\nstrange and mournful pleasures that he would not willingly let die just\r\nat present. To show any forwardness in suggesting a _modus vivendi_ to\r\nGrace would be to put an end to these exotics."}
{"question": "", "answer": "To be the vassal of her\r\nsweet will for a time, he demanded no more, and found solace in the\r\ncontemplation of the soft miseries she caused him. Approaching the hill-top with a mind strung to these notions, Fitzpiers\r\ndiscerned a gay procession of people coming over the crest, and was not\r\nlong in perceiving it to be a wedding-party. Though the wind was keen the women were in light attire, and the\r\nflowered waistcoats of the men had a pleasing vividness of pattern. Each of the gentler ones clung to the arm of her partner so tightly as\r\nto have with him one step, rise, swing, gait, almost one centre of\r\ngravity. In the buxom bride Fitzpiers recognized no other than Suke\r\nDamson, who in her light gown looked a giantess; the small husband\r\nbeside her he saw to be Tim Tangs. Fitzpiers could not escape, for they had seen him; though of all the\r\nbeauties of the world whom he did not wish to meet Suke was the chief. But he put the best face on the matter that he could and came on, the\r\napproaching company evidently discussing him and his separation from\r\nMrs. Fitzpiers. As the couples closed upon him he expressed his\r\ncongratulations. “We be just walking round the parishes to show ourselves a bit,” said\r\nTim. “First we het across to Delborough, then athwart to here, and from\r\nhere we go to Rubdown and Millshot, and then round by the cross-roads\r\nhome."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Home says I, but it won’t be that long! We be off next month.”\r\n\r\n“Indeed. Where to?”\r\n\r\nTim informed him that they were going to New Zealand. Not but that he\r\nwould have been contented with Hintock, but his wife was ambitious and\r\nwanted to leave, so he had given way. “Then good-by,” said Fitzpiers; “I may not see you again.” He shook\r\nhands with Tim and turned to the bride. “Good-by, Suke,” he said,\r\ntaking her hand also. “I wish you and your husband prosperity in the\r\ncountry you have chosen.” With this he left them, and hastened on to\r\nhis appointment. The wedding-party re-formed and resumed march likewise. But in\r\nrestoring his arm to Suke, Tim noticed that her full and blooming\r\ncountenance had undergone a change. “Holloa! me dear—what’s the\r\nmatter?” said Tim. “Nothing to speak o’,” said she. But to give the lie to her assertion\r\nshe was seized with lachrymose twitches, that soon produced a dribbling\r\nface. “How—what the devil’s this about!” exclaimed the bridegroom. “She’s a little wee bit overcome, poor dear!” said the first\r\nbridesmaid, unfolding her handkerchief and wiping Suke’s eyes. “I never did like parting from people!” said Suke, as soon as she could\r\nspeak. “Why him in particular?”\r\n\r\n“Well—he’s such a clever doctor, that ’tis a thousand pities we sha’n’t\r\nsee him any more!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "There’ll be no such clever doctor as he in New\r\nZealand, if I should require one; and the thought o’t got the better of\r\nmy feelings!”\r\n\r\nThey walked on, but Tim’s face had grown rigid and pale, for he\r\nrecalled slight circumstances, disregarded at the time of their\r\noccurrence. The former boisterous laughter of the wedding-party at the\r\ngroomsman’s jokes was heard ringing through the woods no more. By this time Fitzpiers had advanced on his way to the top of the hill,\r\nwhere he saw two figures emerging from the bank on the right hand. These were the expected ones, Grace and Marty South, who had evidently\r\ncome there by a short and secret path through the wood. Grace was\r\nmuffled up in her winter dress, and he thought that she had never\r\nlooked so seductive as at this moment, in the noontide bright but\r\nheatless sun, and the keen wind, and the purplish-gray masses of\r\nbrushwood around. Fitzpiers continued to regard the nearing picture, till at length their\r\nglances met for a moment, when she demurely sent off hers at a tangent\r\nand gave him the benefit of her three-quarter face, while with\r\ncourteous completeness of conduct he lifted his hat in a large arc. Marty dropped behind; and when Fitzpiers held out his hand, Grace\r\ntouched it with her fingers."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I have agreed to be here mostly because I wanted to ask you something\r\nimportant,” said Mrs. Fitzpiers, her intonation modulating in a\r\ndirection that she had not quite wished it to take. “I am most attentive,” said her husband. “Shall we take to the wood for\r\nprivacy?”\r\n\r\nGrace demurred, and Fitzpiers gave in, and they kept the public road. At any rate she would take his arm? This also was gravely negatived,\r\nthe refusal being audible to Marty. “Why not?” he inquired. “Oh, Mr. Fitzpiers—how can you ask?”\r\n\r\n“Right, right,” said he, his effusiveness shrivelled up. As they walked on she returned to her inquiry. “It is about a matter\r\nthat may perhaps be unpleasant to you. But I think I need not consider\r\nthat too carefully.”\r\n\r\n“Not at all,” said Fitzpiers, heroically. She then took him back to the time of poor Winterborne’s death, and\r\nrelated the precise circumstances amid which his fatal illness had come\r\nupon him, particularizing the dampness of the shelter to which he had\r\nbetaken himself, his concealment from her of the hardships that he was\r\nundergoing, all that he had put up with, all that he had done for her\r\nin his scrupulous considerateness. The retrospect brought her to tears\r\nas she asked him if he thought that the sin of having driven him to his\r\ndeath was upon her."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Fitzpiers could hardly help showing his satisfaction at what her\r\nnarrative indirectly revealed, the actual harmlessness of an escapade\r\nwith her lover, which had at first, by her own showing, looked so\r\ngrave, and he did not care to inquire whether that harmlessness had\r\nbeen the result of aim or of accident. With regard to her question, he\r\ndeclared that in his judgment no human being could answer it. He\r\nthought that upon the whole the balance of probabilities turned in her\r\nfavor. Winterborne’s apparent strength, during the last months of his\r\nlife, must have been delusive. It had often occurred that after a first\r\nattack of that insidious disease a person’s apparent recovery was a\r\nphysiological mendacity. The relief which came to Grace lay almost as much in sharing her\r\nknowledge of the particulars with an intelligent mind as in the\r\nassurances Fitzpiers gave her. “Well, then, to put this case before\r\nyou, and obtain your professional opinion, was chiefly why I consented\r\nto come here to-day,” said she, when he had reached the aforesaid\r\nconclusion. “For no other reason at all?” he asked, ruefully."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“It was nearly the whole.”\r\n\r\nThey stood and looked over a gate at twenty or thirty starlings feeding\r\nin the grass, and he started the talk again by saying, in a low voice,\r\n“And yet I love you more than ever I loved you in my life.”\r\n\r\nGrace did not move her eyes from the birds, and folded her delicate\r\nlips as if to keep them in subjection. “It is a different kind of love altogether,” said he. “Less passionate;\r\nmore profound. It has nothing to do with the material conditions of the\r\nobject at all; much to do with her character and goodness, as revealed\r\nby closer observation. ‘Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge\r\nwith dearer love.’”\r\n\r\n“That’s out of _Measure for Measure_,” said she, slyly. “Oh yes—I meant it as a citation,” blandly replied Fitzpiers. “Well,\r\nthen, why not give me a very little bit of your heart again?”\r\n\r\nThe crash of a felled tree in the remote depths of the wood recalled\r\nthe past at that moment, and all the homely faithfulness of\r\nWinterborne. “Don’t ask it! My heart is in the grave with Giles,” she\r\nreplied, stanchly. “Mine is with you—in no less deep a grave, I fear, according to that.”\r\n\r\n“I am very sorry; but it cannot be helped.”\r\n\r\n“How can you be sorry for me, when you wilfully keep open the grave?”\r\n\r\n“Oh no—that’s not so,” returned Grace, quickly, and moved to go away\r\nfrom him."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“But, dearest Grace,” said he, “you have condescended to come; and I\r\nthought from it that perhaps when I had passed through a long state of\r\nprobation you would be generous. But if there can be no hope of our\r\ngetting completely reconciled, treat me gently—wretch though I am.”\r\n\r\n“I did not say you were a wretch, nor have I ever said so.”\r\n\r\n“But you have such a contemptuous way of looking at me that I fear you\r\nthink so.”\r\n\r\nGrace’s heart struggled between the wish not to be harsh and the fear\r\nthat she might mislead him. “I cannot look contemptuous unless I feel\r\ncontempt,” she said, evasively. “And all I feel is lovelessness.”\r\n\r\n“I have been very bad, I know,” he returned. “But unless you can really\r\nlove me again, Grace, I would rather go away from you forever. I don’t\r\nwant you to receive me again for duty’s sake, or anything of that sort. If I had not cared more for your affection and forgiveness than my own\r\npersonal comfort, I should never have come back here. I could have\r\nobtained a practice at a distance, and have lived my own life without\r\ncoldness or reproach."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But I have chosen to return to the one spot on\r\nearth where my name is tarnished—to enter the house of a man from whom\r\nI have had worse treatment than from any other man alive—all for you!”\r\n\r\nThis was undeniably true, and it had its weight with Grace, who began\r\nto look as if she thought she had been shockingly severe. “Before you go,” he continued, “I want to know your pleasure about\r\nme—what you wish me to do, or not to do.”\r\n\r\n“You are independent of me, and it seems a mockery to ask that. Far be\r\nit from me to advise. But I will think it over. I rather need advice\r\nmyself than stand in a position to give it.”\r\n\r\n“_You_ don’t need advice, wisest, dearest woman that ever lived. If you\r\ndid—”\r\n\r\n“Would you give it to me?”\r\n\r\n“Would you act upon what I gave?”\r\n\r\n“That’s not a fair inquiry,” said she, smiling despite her gravity. “I\r\ndon’t mind hearing it—what you do really think the most correct and\r\nproper course for me.”\r\n\r\n“It is so easy for me to say, and yet I dare not, for it would be\r\nprovoking you to remonstrances.”\r\n\r\nKnowing, of course, what the advice would be, she did not press him\r\nfurther, and was about to beckon Marty forward and leave him, when he\r\ninterrupted her with, “Oh, one moment, dear Grace—you will meet me\r\nagain?”\r\n\r\nShe eventually agreed to see him that day fortnight."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Fitzpiers\r\nexpostulated at the interval, but the half-alarmed earnestness with\r\nwhich she entreated him not to come sooner made him say hastily that he\r\nsubmitted to her will—that he would regard her as a friend only,\r\nanxious for his reform and well-being, till such time as she might\r\nallow him to exceed that privilege. All this was to assure her; it was only too clear that he had not won\r\nher confidence yet. It amazed Fitzpiers, and overthrew all his\r\ndeductions from previous experience, to find that this girl, though she\r\nhad been married to him, could yet be so coy. Notwithstanding a certain\r\nfascination that it carried with it, his reflections were sombre as he\r\nwent homeward; he saw how deep had been his offence to produce so great\r\na wariness in a gentle and once unsuspicious soul. He was himself too fastidious to care to coerce her. To be an object of\r\nmisgiving or dislike to a woman who shared his home was what he could\r\nnot endure the thought of. Life as it stood was more tolerable. When he was gone, Marty joined Mrs. Fitzpiers. She would fain have\r\nconsulted Marty on the question of Platonic relations with her former\r\nhusband, as she preferred to regard him. But Marty showed no great\r\ninterest in their affairs, so Grace said nothing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They came onward, and\r\nsaw Melbury standing at the scene of the felling which had been audible\r\nto them, when, telling Marty that she wished her meeting with Mr.\r\nFitzpiers to be kept private, she left the girl to join her father. At\r\nany rate, she would consult him on the expediency of occasionally\r\nseeing her husband. Her father was cheerful, and walked by her side as he had done in\r\nearlier days. “I was thinking of you when you came up,” he said. “I\r\nhave considered that what has happened is for the best. Since your\r\nhusband is gone away, and seems not to wish to trouble you, why, let\r\nhim go, and drop out of your life. Many women are worse off. You can\r\nlive here comfortably enough, and he can emigrate, or do what he likes\r\nfor his good. I wouldn’t mind sending him the further sum of money he\r\nmight naturally expect to come to him, so that you may not be bothered\r\nwith him any more. He could hardly have gone on living here without\r\nspeaking to me, or meeting me; and that would have been very unpleasant\r\non both sides.”\r\n\r\nThese remarks checked her intention. There was a sense of weakness in\r\nfollowing them by saying that she had just met her husband by\r\nappointment. “Then you would advise me not to communicate with him?”\r\nshe observed. “I shall never advise ye again. You are your own mistress—do as you\r\nlike."}
{"question": "", "answer": "But my opinion is that if you don’t live with him, you had better\r\nlive without him, and not go shilly-shallying and playing bopeep. You\r\nsent him away; and now he’s gone. Very well; trouble him no more.”\r\n\r\nGrace felt a guiltiness—she hardly knew why—and made no confession. CHAPTER XLVI. The woods were uninteresting, and Grace stayed in-doors a great deal. She became quite a student, reading more than she had done since her\r\nmarriage But her seclusion was always broken for the periodical visit\r\nto Winterborne’s grave with Marty, which was kept up with pious\r\nstrictness, for the purpose of putting snow-drops, primroses, and other\r\nvernal flowers thereon as they came. One afternoon at sunset she was standing just outside her father’s\r\ngarden, which, like the rest of the Hintock enclosures, abutted into\r\nthe wood. A slight foot-path led along here, forming a secret way to\r\neither of the houses by getting through its boundary hedge. Grace was\r\njust about to adopt this mode of entry when a figure approached along\r\nthe path, and held up his hand to detain her. It was her husband. “I am delighted,” he said, coming up out of breath; and there seemed no\r\nreason to doubt his words. “I saw you some way off—I was afraid you\r\nwould go in before I could reach you.”\r\n\r\n“It is a week before the time,” said she, reproachfully."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I said a\r\nfortnight from the last meeting.”\r\n\r\n“My dear, you don’t suppose I could wait a fortnight without trying to\r\nget a glimpse of you, even though you had declined to meet me! Would it\r\nmake you angry to know that I have been along this path at dusk three\r\nor four times since our last meeting? Well, how are you?”\r\n\r\nShe did not refuse her hand, but when he showed a wish to retain it a\r\nmoment longer than mere formality required, she made it smaller, so\r\nthat it slipped away from him, with again that same alarmed look which\r\nalways followed his attempts in this direction. He saw that she was not\r\nyet out of the elusive mood; not yet to be treated presumingly; and he\r\nwas correspondingly careful to tranquillize her. His assertion had seemed to impress her somewhat. “I had no idea you\r\ncame so often,” she said. “How far do you come from?”\r\n\r\n“From Exbury. I always walk from Sherton-Abbas, for if I hire, people\r\nwill know that I come; and my success with you so far has not been\r\ngreat enough to justify such overtness. Now, my dear one—as I _must_\r\ncall you—I put it to you: will you see me a little oftener as the\r\nspring advances?”\r\n\r\nGrace lapsed into unwonted sedateness, and avoiding the question, said,\r\n“I wish you would concentrate on your profession, and give up those\r\nstrange studies that used to distract you so much."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I am sure you would\r\nget on.”\r\n\r\n“It is the very thing I am doing. I was going to ask you to burn—or, at\r\nleast, get rid of—all my philosophical literature. It is in the\r\nbookcases in your rooms. The fact is, I never cared much for abstruse\r\nstudies.”\r\n\r\n“I am so glad to hear you say that. And those other books—those piles\r\nof old plays—what good are they to a medical man?”\r\n\r\n“None whatever!” he replied, cheerfully. “Sell them at Sherton for what\r\nthey will fetch.”\r\n\r\n“And those dreadful old French romances, with their horrid spellings of\r\n‘filz’ and ‘ung’ and ‘ilz’ and ‘mary’ and ‘ma foy?’”\r\n\r\n“You haven’t been reading them, Grace?”\r\n\r\n“Oh no—I just looked into them, that was all.”\r\n\r\n“Make a bonfire of ’em directly you get home. I meant to do it myself. I can’t think what possessed me ever to collect them. I have only a few\r\nprofessional hand-books now, and am quite a practical man. I am in\r\nhopes of having some good news to tell you soon, and then do you think\r\nyou could—come to me again?”\r\n\r\n“I would rather you did not press me on that just now,” she replied,\r\nwith some feeling. “You have said you mean to lead a new, useful,\r\neffectual life; but I should like to see you put it in practice for a\r\nlittle while before you address that query to me. Besides—I could not\r\nlive with you.”\r\n\r\n“Why not?”\r\n\r\nGrace was silent a few instants."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I go with Marty to Giles’s grave. We\r\nswore we would show him that devotion. And I mean to keep it up.”\r\n\r\n“Well, I wouldn’t mind that at all. I have no right to expect anything\r\nelse, and I will not wish you to keep away. I liked the man as well as\r\nany I ever knew. In short, I would accompany you a part of the way to\r\nthe place, and smoke a cigar on the stile while I waited till you came\r\nback.”\r\n\r\n“Then you haven’t given up smoking?”\r\n\r\n“Well—ahem—no. I have thought of doing so, but—”\r\n\r\nHis extreme complacence had rather disconcerted Grace, and the question\r\nabout smoking had been to effect a diversion. Presently she said,\r\nfirmly, and with a moisture in her eye that he could not see, as her\r\nmind returned to poor Giles’s “frustrate ghost,” “I don’t like you—to\r\nspeak lightly on that subject, if you did speak lightly. To be frank\r\nwith you—quite frank—I think of him as my betrothed lover still. I\r\ncannot help it. So that it would be wrong for me to join you.”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers was now uneasy. “You say your betrothed lover still,” he\r\nrejoined. “When, then, were you betrothed to him, or engaged, as we\r\ncommon people say?”\r\n\r\n“When you were away.”\r\n\r\n“How could that be?”\r\n\r\nGrace would have avoided this; but her natural candor led her on."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“It\r\nwas when I was under the impression that my marriage with you was about\r\nto be annulled, and that he could then marry me. So I encouraged him to\r\nlove me.”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers winced visibly; and yet, upon the whole, she was right in\r\ntelling it. Indeed, his perception that she was right in her absolute\r\nsincerity kept up his affectionate admiration for her under the pain of\r\nthe rebuff. Time had been when the avowal that Grace had deliberately\r\ntaken steps to replace him would have brought him no sorrow. But she so\r\nfar dominated him now that he could not bear to hear her words,\r\nalthough the object of her high regard was no more. “It is rough upon me—that!” he said, bitterly. “Oh, Grace—I did not\r\nknow you—tried to get rid of me! I suppose it is of no use, but I ask,\r\ncannot you hope to—find a little love in your heart for me again?”\r\n\r\n“If I could I would oblige you; but I fear I cannot!” she replied, with\r\nillogical ruefulness. “And I don’t see why you should mind my having\r\nhad one lover besides yourself in my life, when you have had so many.”\r\n\r\n“But I can tell you honestly that I love you better than all of them\r\nput together, and that’s what you will not tell me!”\r\n\r\n“I am sorry; but I fear I cannot,” she said, sighing again."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I wonder if you ever will?” He looked musingly into her indistinct\r\nface, as if he would read the future there. “Now have pity, and tell\r\nme: will you try?”\r\n\r\n“To love you again?”\r\n\r\n“Yes; if you can.”\r\n\r\n“I don’t know how to reply,” she answered, her embarrassment proving\r\nher truth. “Will you promise to leave me quite free as to seeing you or\r\nnot seeing you?”\r\n\r\n“Certainly. Have I given any ground for you to doubt my first promise\r\nin that respect?”\r\n\r\nShe was obliged to admit that he had not. “Then I think that you might get your heart out of that grave,” said\r\nhe, with playful sadness. “It has been there a long time.”\r\n\r\nShe faintly shook her head, but said, “I’ll try to think of you more—if\r\nI can.”\r\n\r\nWith this Fitzpiers was compelled to be satisfied, and he asked her\r\nwhen she would meet him again. “As we arranged—in a fortnight.”\r\n\r\n“If it must be a fortnight it must!”\r\n\r\n“This time at least. I’ll consider by the day I see you again if I can\r\nshorten the interval.”\r\n\r\n“Well, be that as it may, I shall come at least twice a week to look at\r\nyour window.”\r\n\r\n“You must do as you like about that. Good-night.”\r\n\r\n“Say ‘husband.’”\r\n\r\nShe seemed almost inclined to give him the word; but exclaiming, “No,\r\nno; I cannot,” slipped through the garden-hedge and disappeared."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Fitzpiers did not exaggerate when he told her that he should haunt the\r\nprecincts of the dwelling. But his persistence in this course did not\r\nresult in his seeing her much oftener than at the fortnightly interval\r\nwhich she had herself marked out as proper. At these times, however,\r\nshe punctually appeared, and as the spring wore on the meetings were\r\nkept up, though their character changed but little with the increase in\r\ntheir number. The small garden of the cottage occupied by the Tangs family—father,\r\nson, and now son’s wife—aligned with the larger one of the\r\ntimber-dealer at its upper end; and when young Tim, after leaving work\r\nat Melbury’s, stood at dusk in the little bower at the corner of his\r\nenclosure to smoke a pipe, he frequently observed the surgeon pass\r\nalong the outside track before-mentioned. Fitzpiers always walked\r\nloiteringly, pensively, looking with a sharp eye into the gardens one\r\nafter another as he proceeded; for Fitzpiers did not wish to leave the\r\nnow absorbing spot too quickly, after travelling so far to reach it;\r\nhoping always for a glimpse of her whom he passionately desired to take\r\nto his arms anew. Now Tim began to be struck with these loitering progresses along the\r\ngarden boundaries in the gloaming, and wondered what they boded."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It\r\nwas, naturally, quite out of his power to divine the singular,\r\nsentimental revival in Fitzpiers’s heart; the fineness of tissue which\r\ncould take a deep, emotional—almost also an artistic—pleasure in being\r\nthe yearning _innamorato_ of a woman he once had deserted, would have\r\nseemed an absurdity to the young sawyer. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpiers were\r\nseparated; therefore the question of affection as between them was\r\nsettled. But his Suke had, since that meeting on their marriage-day,\r\nrepentantly admitted, to the urgency of his questioning, a good deal\r\nconcerning her past levities. Putting all things together, he could\r\nhardly avoid connecting Fitzpiers’s mysterious visits to this spot with\r\nSuke’s residence under his roof. But he made himself fairly easy: the\r\nvessel in which they were about to emigrate sailed that month; and then\r\nSuke would be out of Fitzpiers’s way forever. The interval at last expired, and the eve of their departure arrived. They were pausing in the room of the cottage allotted to them by Tim’s\r\nfather, after a busy day of preparation, which left them weary. In a\r\ncorner stood their boxes, crammed and corded, their large case for the\r\nhold having already been sent away. The firelight shone upon Suke’s\r\nfine face and form as she stood looking into it, and upon the face of\r\nTim seated in a corner, and upon the walls of his father’s house, which\r\nhe was beholding that night almost for the last time. Tim Tangs was not happy."}
{"question": "", "answer": "This scheme of emigration was dividing him\r\nfrom his father—for old Tangs would on no account leave Hintock—and had\r\nit not been for Suke’s reputation and his own dignity, Tim would at the\r\nlast moment have abandoned the project. As he sat in the back part of\r\nthe room he regarded her moodily, and the fire and the boxes. One thing\r\nhe had particularly noticed this evening—she was very restless; fitful\r\nin her actions, unable to remain seated, and in a marked degree\r\ndepressed. “Sorry that you be going, after all, Suke?” he said. She sighed involuntarily. “I don’t know but that I be,” she answered. “’Tis natural, isn’t it, when one is going away?”\r\n\r\n“But you wasn’t born here as I was.”\r\n\r\n“No.”\r\n\r\n“There’s folk left behind that you’d fain have with ’ee, I reckon?”\r\n\r\n“Why do you think that?”\r\n\r\n“I’ve seen things and I’ve heard things; and, Suke, I say ’twill be a\r\ngood move for me to get ’ee away. I don’t mind his leavings abroad, but\r\nI do mind ’em at home.”\r\n\r\nSuke’s face was not changed from its aspect of listless indifference by\r\nthe words. She answered nothing; and shortly after he went out for his\r\ncustomary pipe of tobacco at the top of the garden. The restlessness of Suke had indeed owed its presence to the gentleman\r\nof Tim’s suspicions, but in a different—and it must be added in justice\r\nto her—more innocent sense than he supposed, judging from former\r\ndoings."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She had accidentally discovered that Fitzpiers was in the habit\r\nof coming secretly once or twice a week to Hintock, and knew that this\r\nevening was a favorite one of the seven for his journey. As she was\r\ngoing next day to leave the country, Suke thought there could be no\r\ngreat harm in giving way to a little sentimentality by obtaining a\r\nglimpse of him quite unknown to himself or to anybody, and thus taking\r\na silent last farewell. Aware that Fitzpiers’s time for passing was at\r\nhand she thus betrayed her feeling. No sooner, therefore, had Tim left\r\nthe room than she let herself noiselessly out of the house, and\r\nhastened to the corner of the garden, whence she could witness the\r\nsurgeon’s transit across the scene—if he had not already gone by. Her light cotton dress was visible to Tim lounging in the arbor of the\r\nopposite corner, though he was hidden from her. He saw her stealthily\r\nclimb into the hedge, and so ensconce herself there that nobody could\r\nhave the least doubt her purpose was to watch unseen for a passer-by. He went across to the spot and stood behind her. Suke started, having\r\nin her blundering way forgotten that he might be near. She at once\r\ndescended from the hedge. “So he’s coming to-night,” said Tim, laconically. “And we be always\r\nanxious to see our dears.”\r\n\r\n“He _is_ coming to-night,” she replied, with defiance."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“And we _be_\r\nanxious for our dears.”\r\n\r\n“Then will you step in-doors, where your dear will soon jine ’ee? We’ve\r\nto mouster by half-past three to-morrow, and if we don’t get to bed by\r\neight at latest our faces will be as long as clock-cases all day.”\r\n\r\nShe hesitated for a minute, but ultimately obeyed, going slowly down\r\nthe garden to the house, where he heard the door-latch click behind\r\nher. Tim was incensed beyond measure. His marriage had so far been a total\r\nfailure, a source of bitter regret; and the only course for improving\r\nhis case, that of leaving the country, was a sorry, and possibly might\r\nnot be a very effectual one. Do what he would, his domestic sky was\r\nlikely to be overcast to the end of the day. Thus he brooded, and his\r\nresentment gathered force. He craved a means of striking one blow back\r\nat the cause of his cheerless plight, while he was still on the scene\r\nof his discomfiture. For some minutes no method suggested itself, and\r\nthen he had an idea. Coming to a sudden resolution, he hastened along the garden, and\r\nentered the one attached to the next cottage, which had formerly been\r\nthe dwelling of a game-keeper. Tim descended the path to the back of\r\nthe house, where only an old woman lived at present, and reaching the\r\nwall he stopped."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Owing to the slope of the ground the roof-eaves of the\r\nlinhay were here within touch, and he thrust his arm up under them,\r\nfeeling about in the space on the top of the wall-plate. “Ah, I thought my memory didn’t deceive me!” he lipped silently. With some exertion he drew down a cobwebbed object curiously framed in\r\niron, which clanked as he moved it. It was about three feet in length\r\nand half as wide. Tim contemplated it as well as he could in the dying\r\nlight of day, and raked off the cobwebs with his hand. “That will spoil his pretty shins for’n, I reckon!” he said. It was a man-trap. CHAPTER XLVII. Were the inventors of automatic machines to be ranged according to the\r\nexcellence of their devices for producing sound artistic torture, the\r\ncreator of the man-trap would occupy a very respectable if not a very\r\nhigh place. It should rather, however, be said, the inventor of the particular form\r\nof man-trap of which this found in the keeper’s out-house was a\r\nspecimen. For there were other shapes and other sizes, instruments\r\nwhich, if placed in a row beside one of the type disinterred by Tim,\r\nwould have worn the subordinate aspect of the bears, wild boars, or\r\nwolves in a travelling menagerie, as compared with the leading lion or\r\ntiger."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In short, though many varieties had been in use during those\r\ncenturies which we are accustomed to look back upon as the true and\r\nonly period of merry England—in the rural districts more especially—and\r\nonward down to the third decade of the nineteenth century, this model\r\nhad borne the palm, and had been most usually followed when the\r\norchards and estates required new ones. There had been the toothless variety used by the softer-hearted\r\nlandlords—quite contemptible in their clemency. The jaws of these\r\nresembled the jaws of an old woman to whom time has left nothing but\r\ngums. There were also the intermediate or half-toothed sorts, probably\r\ndevised by the middle-natured squires, or those under the influence of\r\ntheir wives: two inches of mercy, two inches of cruelty, two inches of\r\nmere nip, two inches of probe, and so on, through the whole extent of\r\nthe jaws. There were also, as a class apart, the bruisers, which did\r\nnot lacerate the flesh, but only crushed the bone. The sight of one of these gins when set produced a vivid impression\r\nthat it was endowed with life. It exhibited the combined aspects of a\r\nshark, a crocodile, and a scorpion. Each tooth was in the form of a\r\ntapering spine, two and a quarter inches long, which, when the jaws\r\nwere closed, stood in alternation from this side and from that."}
{"question": "", "answer": "When\r\nthey were open, the two halves formed a complete circle between two and\r\nthree feet in diameter, the plate or treading-place in the midst being\r\nabout a foot square, while from beneath extended in opposite directions\r\nthe soul of the apparatus, the pair of springs, each one being of a\r\nstiffness to render necessary a lever or the whole weight of the body\r\nwhen forcing it down. There were men at this time still living at Hintock who remembered when\r\nthe gin and others like it were in use. Tim Tangs’s great-uncle had\r\nendured a night of six hours in this very trap, which lamed him for\r\nlife. Once a keeper of Hintock woods set it on the track of a poacher,\r\nand afterwards, coming back that way, forgetful of what he had done,\r\nwalked into it himself. The wound brought on lockjaw, of which he died. This event occurred during the thirties, and by the year 1840 the use\r\nof such implements was well-nigh discontinued in the neighborhood. But\r\nbeing made entirely of iron, they by no means disappeared, and in\r\nalmost every village one could be found in some nook or corner as\r\nreadily as this was found by Tim."}
{"question": "", "answer": "It had, indeed, been a fearful\r\namusement of Tim and other Hintock lads—especially those who had a dim\r\nsense of becoming renowned poachers when they reached their prime—to\r\ndrag out this trap from its hiding, set it, and throw it with billets\r\nof wood, which were penetrated by the teeth to the depth of near an\r\ninch. As soon as he had examined the trap, and found that the hinges and\r\nsprings were still perfect, he shouldered it without more ado, and\r\nreturned with his burden to his own garden, passing on through the\r\nhedge to the path immediately outside the boundary. Here, by the help\r\nof a stout stake, he set the trap, and laid it carefully behind a bush\r\nwhile he went forward to reconnoitre. As has been stated, nobody passed\r\nthis way for days together sometimes; but there was just a possibility\r\nthat some other pedestrian than the one in request might arrive, and it\r\nbehooved Tim to be careful as to the identity of his victim. Going about a hundred yards along the rising ground to the right, he\r\nreached a ridge whereon a large and thick holly grew. Beyond this for\r\nsome distance the wood was more open, and the course which Fitzpiers\r\nmust pursue to reach the point, if he came to-night, was visible a long\r\nway forward. For some time there was no sign of him or of anybody."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Then there shaped\r\nitself a spot out of the dim mid-distance, between the masses of\r\nbrushwood on either hand. And it enlarged, and Tim could hear the\r\nbrushing of feet over the tufts of sour-grass. The airy gait revealed\r\nFitzpiers even before his exact outline could be seen. Tim Tangs turned about, and ran down the opposite side of the hill,\r\ntill he was again at the head of his own garden. It was the work of a\r\nfew moments to drag out the man-trap, very gently—that the plate might\r\nnot be disturbed sufficiently to throw it—to a space between a pair of\r\nyoung oaks which, rooted in contiguity, grew apart upward, forming a\r\nV-shaped opening between; and, being backed up by bushes, left this as\r\nthe only course for a foot-passenger. In it he laid the trap with the\r\nsame gentleness of handling, locked the chain round one of the trees,\r\nand finally slid back the guard which was placed to keep the gin from\r\naccidentally catching the arms of him who set it, or, to use the local\r\nand better word, “toiled” it. Having completed these arrangements, Tim sprang through the adjoining\r\nhedge of his father’s garden, ran down the path, and softly entered the\r\nhouse. Obedient to his order, Suke had gone to bed; and as soon as he had\r\nbolted the door, Tim unlaced and kicked off his boots at the foot of\r\nthe stairs, and retired likewise, without lighting a candle."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His object\r\nseemed to be to undress as soon as possible. Before, however, he had\r\ncompleted the operation, a long cry resounded without—penetrating, but\r\nindescribable. “What’s that?” said Suke, starting up in bed. “Sounds as if somebody had caught a hare in his gin.”\r\n\r\n“Oh no,” said she. “It was not a hare, ’twas louder. Hark!”\r\n\r\n“Do ’ee get to sleep,” said Tim. “How be you going to wake at half-past\r\nthree else?”\r\n\r\nShe lay down and was silent. Tim stealthily opened the window and\r\nlistened. Above the low harmonies produced by the instrumentation of\r\nthe various species of trees around the premises he could hear the\r\ntwitching of a chain from the spot whereon he had set the man-trap. But\r\nfurther human sound there was none. Tim was puzzled. In the haste of his project he had not calculated upon\r\na cry; but if one, why not more? He soon ceased to essay an answer, for\r\nHintock was dead to him already. In half a dozen hours he would be out\r\nof its precincts for life, on his way to the antipodes. He closed the\r\nwindow and lay down. The hour which had brought these movements of Tim to birth had been\r\noperating actively elsewhere. Awaiting in her father’s house the minute\r\nof her appointment with her husband, Grace Fitzpiers deliberated on\r\nmany things."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Should she inform her father before going out that the\r\nestrangement of herself and Edgar was not so complete as he had\r\nimagined, and deemed desirable for her happiness? If she did so she\r\nmust in some measure become the apologist of her husband, and she was\r\nnot prepared to go so far. As for him, he kept her in a mood of considerate gravity. He certainly\r\nhad changed. He had at his worst times always been gentle in his manner\r\ntowards her. Could it be that she might make of him a true and worthy\r\nhusband yet? She had married him; there was no getting over that; and\r\nought she any longer to keep him at a distance? His suave deference to\r\nher lightest whim on the question of his comings and goings, when as\r\nher lawful husband he might show a little independence, was a trait in\r\nhis character as unexpected as it was engaging. If she had been his\r\nempress, and he her thrall, he could not have exhibited a more\r\nsensitive care to avoid intruding upon her against her will. Impelled by a remembrance she took down a prayer-book and turned to the\r\nmarriage-service. Reading it slowly through, she became quite appalled\r\nat her recent off-handedness, when she rediscovered what awfully solemn\r\npromises she had made him at those chancel steps not so very long ago."}
{"question": "", "answer": "She became lost in long ponderings on how far a person’s conscience\r\nmight be bound by vows made without at the time a full recognition of\r\ntheir force. That particular sentence, beginning “Whom God hath joined\r\ntogether,” was a staggerer for a gentlewoman of strong devotional\r\nsentiment. She wondered whether God really did join them together. Before she had done deliberating the time of her engagement drew near,\r\nand she went out of the house almost at the moment that Tim Tangs\r\nretired to his own. The position of things at that critical juncture was briefly as\r\nfollows. Two hundred yards to the right of the upper end of Tangs’s garden\r\nFitzpiers was still advancing, having now nearly reached the summit of\r\nthe wood-clothed ridge, the path being the actual one which further on\r\npassed between the two young oaks. Thus far it was according to Tim’s\r\nconjecture. But about two hundred yards to the left, or rather less,\r\nwas arising a condition which he had not divined, the emergence of\r\nGrace as aforesaid from the upper corner of her father’s garden, with\r\nthe view of meeting Tim’s intended victim. Midway between husband and\r\nwife was the diabolical trap, silent, open, ready. Fitzpiers’s walk that night had been cheerful, for he was convinced\r\nthat the slow and gentle method he had adopted was promising success. The very restraint that he was obliged to exercise upon himself, so as\r\nnot to kill the delicate bud of returning confidence, fed his flame."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He\r\nwalked so much more rapidly than Grace that, if they continued\r\nadvancing as they had begun, he would reach the trap a good half-minute\r\nbefore she could reach the same spot. But here a new circumstance came in; to escape the unpleasantness of\r\nbeing watched or listened to by lurkers—naturally curious by reason of\r\ntheir strained relations—they had arranged that their meeting for\r\nto-night should be at the holm-tree on the ridge above named. So soon,\r\naccordingly, as Fitzpiers reached the tree he stood still to await her. He had not paused under the prickly foliage more than two minutes when\r\nhe thought he heard a scream from the other side of the ridge. Fitzpiers wondered what it could mean; but such wind as there was just\r\nnow blew in an adverse direction, and his mood was light. He set down\r\nthe origin of the sound to one of the superstitious freaks or\r\nfrolicsome scrimmages between sweethearts that still survived in\r\nHintock from old-English times; and waited on where he stood till ten\r\nminutes had passed. Feeling then a little uneasy, his mind reverted to\r\nthe scream; and he went forward over the summit and down the embowered\r\nincline, till he reached the pair of sister oaks with the narrow\r\nopening between them. Fitzpiers stumbled and all but fell."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Stretching down his hand to\r\nascertain the obstruction, it came in contact with a confused mass of\r\nsilken drapery and iron-work that conveyed absolutely no explanatory\r\nidea to his mind at all. It was but the work of a moment to strike a\r\nmatch; and then he saw a sight which congealed his blood. The man-trap was thrown; and between its jaws was part of a woman’s\r\nclothing—a patterned silk skirt—gripped with such violence that the\r\niron teeth had passed through it, skewering its tissue in a score of\r\nplaces. He immediately recognized the skirt as that of one of his\r\nwife’s gowns—the gown that she had worn when she met him on the very\r\nlast occasion. Fitzpiers had often studied the effect of these instruments when\r\nexamining the collection at Hintock House, and the conception instantly\r\nflashed through him that Grace had been caught, taken out mangled by\r\nsome chance passer, and carried home, some of her clothes being left\r\nbehind in the difficulty of getting her free. The shock of this\r\nconviction, striking into the very current of high hope, was so great\r\nthat he cried out like one in corporal agony, and in his misery bowed\r\nhimself down to the ground. Of all the degrees and qualities of punishment that Fitzpiers had\r\nundergone since his sins against Grace first began, not any even\r\napproximated in intensity to this. “Oh, my own—my darling!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "Oh, cruel Heaven—it is too much, this!” he\r\ncried, writhing and rocking himself over the sorry accessories of her\r\nhe deplored. The voice of his distress was sufficiently loud to be audible to any\r\none who might have been there to hear it; and one there was. Right and\r\nleft of the narrow pass between the oaks were dense bushes; and now\r\nfrom behind these a female figure glided, whose appearance even in the\r\ngloom was, though graceful in outline, noticeably strange. She was in white up to the waist, and figured above. She was, in short,\r\nGrace, his wife, lacking the portion of her dress which the gin\r\nretained. “Don’t be grieved about me—don’t, dear Edgar!” she exclaimed, rushing\r\nup and bending over him. “I am not hurt a bit! I was coming on to find\r\nyou after I had released myself, but I heard footsteps; and I hid away,\r\nbecause I was without some of my clothing, and I did not know who the\r\nperson might be.”\r\n\r\nFitzpiers had sprung to his feet, and his next act was no less\r\nunpremeditated by him than it was irresistible by her, and would have\r\nbeen so by any woman not of Amazonian strength. He clasped his arms\r\ncompletely round, pressed her to his breast, and kissed her\r\npassionately. “You are not dead!—you are not hurt! Thank God—thank God!” he said,\r\nalmost sobbing in his delight and relief from the horror of his\r\napprehension."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Grace, my wife, my love, how is this—what has happened?”\r\n\r\n“I was coming on to you,” she said as distinctly as she could in the\r\nhalf-smothered state of her face against his. “I was trying to be as\r\npunctual as possible, and as I had started a minute late I ran along\r\nthe path very swiftly—fortunately for myself. Just when I had passed\r\nbetween these trees I felt something clutch at my dress from behind\r\nwith a noise, and the next moment I was pulled backward by it, and fell\r\nto the ground. I screamed with terror, thinking it was a man lying down\r\nthere to murder me, but the next moment I discovered it was iron, and\r\nthat my clothes were caught in a trap. I pulled this way and that, but\r\nthe thing would not let go, drag it as I would, and I did not know what\r\nto do. I did not want to alarm my father or anybody, as I wished nobody\r\nto know of these meetings with you; so I could think of no other plan\r\nthan slipping off my skirt, meaning to run on and tell you what a\r\nstrange accident had happened to me. But when I had just freed myself\r\nby leaving the dress behind, I heard steps, and not being sure it was\r\nyou, I did not like to be seen in such a pickle, so I hid away.”\r\n\r\n“It was only your speed that saved you!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "One or both of your legs would\r\nhave been broken if you had come at ordinary walking pace.”\r\n\r\n“Or yours, if you had got here first,” said she, beginning to realize\r\nthe whole ghastliness of the possibility. “Oh, Edgar, there has been an\r\nEye watching over us to-night, and we should be thankful indeed!”\r\n\r\nHe continued to press his face to hers. “You are mine—mine again now.”\r\n\r\nShe gently owned that she supposed she was. “I heard what you said when\r\nyou thought I was injured,” she went on, shyly, “and I know that a man\r\nwho could suffer as you were suffering must have a tender regard for\r\nme. But how does this awful thing come here?”\r\n\r\n“I suppose it has something to do with poachers.” Fitzpiers was still\r\nso shaken by the sense of her danger that he was obliged to sit awhile,\r\nand it was not until Grace said, “If I could only get my skirt out\r\nnobody would know anything about it,” that he bestirred himself. By their united efforts, each standing on one of the springs of the\r\ntrap, they pressed them down sufficiently to insert across the jaws a\r\nbillet which they dragged from a faggot near at hand; and it was then\r\npossible to extract the silk mouthful from the monster’s bite, creased\r\nand pierced with many holes, but not torn."}
{"question": "", "answer": "Fitzpiers assisted her to\r\nput it on again; and when her customary contours were thus restored\r\nthey walked on together, Grace taking his arm, till he effected an\r\nimprovement by clasping it round her waist. The ice having been broken in this unexpected manner, she made no\r\nfurther attempt at reserve. “I would ask you to come into the house,”\r\nshe said, “but my meetings with you have been kept secret from my\r\nfather, and I should like to prepare him.”\r\n\r\n“Never mind, dearest. I could not very well have accepted the\r\ninvitation. I shall never live here again—as much for your sake as for\r\nmine. I have news to tell you on this very point, but my alarm had put\r\nit out of my head. I have bought a practice, or rather a partnership,\r\nin the Midlands, and I must go there in a week to take up permanent\r\nresidence. My poor old great-aunt died about eight months ago, and left\r\nme enough to do this. I have taken a little furnished house for a time,\r\ntill we can get one of our own.”\r\n\r\nHe described the place, and the surroundings, and the view from the\r\nwindows, and Grace became much interested. “But why are you not there\r\nnow?” she said. “Because I cannot tear myself away from here till I have your promise. Now, darling, you will accompany me there—will you not? To-night has\r\nsettled that.”\r\n\r\nGrace’s tremblings had gone off, and she did not say nay."}
{"question": "", "answer": "They went on\r\ntogether. The adventure, and the emotions consequent upon the reunion which that\r\nevent had forced on, combined to render Grace oblivious of the\r\ndirection of their desultory ramble, till she noticed they were in an\r\nencircled glade in the densest part of the wood, whereon the moon, that\r\nhad imperceptibly added its rays to the scene, shone almost vertically. It was an exceptionally soft, balmy evening for the time of year, which\r\nwas just that transient period in the May month when beech-trees have\r\nsuddenly unfolded large limp young leaves of the softness of\r\nbutterflies’ wings. Boughs bearing such leaves hung low around, and\r\ncompletely enclosed them, so that it was as if they were in a great\r\ngreen vase, which had moss for its bottom and leaf sides. The clouds having been packed in the west that evening so as to retain\r\nthe departing glare a long while, the hour had seemed much earlier than\r\nit was. But suddenly the question of time occurred to her. “I must go back,” she said; and without further delay they set their\r\nfaces towards Hintock. As they walked he examined his watch by the aid\r\nof the now strong moonlight. “By the gods, I think I have lost my train!” said Fitzpiers. “Dear me—whereabouts are we?” said she. “Two miles in the direction of Sherton.”\r\n\r\n“Then do you hasten on, Edgar. I am not in the least afraid."}
{"question": "", "answer": "I\r\nrecognize now the part of the wood we are in and I can find my way back\r\nquite easily. I’ll tell my father that we have made it up. I wish I had\r\nnot kept our meetings so private, for it may vex him a little to know I\r\nhave been seeing you. He is getting old and irritable, that was why I\r\ndid not. Good-by.”\r\n\r\n“But, as I must stay at the Earl of Wessex to-night, for I cannot\r\npossibly catch the train, I think it would be safer for you to let me\r\ntake care of you.”\r\n\r\n“But what will my father think has become of me? He does not know in\r\nthe least where I am—he thinks I only went into the garden for a few\r\nminutes.”\r\n\r\n“He will surely guess—somebody has seen me for certain. I’ll go all the\r\nway back with you to-morrow.”\r\n\r\n“But that newly done-up place—the Earl of Wessex!”\r\n\r\n“If you are so very particular about the publicity I will stay at the\r\nThree Tuns.”\r\n\r\n“Oh no—it is not that I am particular—but I haven’t a brush or comb or\r\nanything!”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XLVIII. All the evening Melbury had been coming to his door, saying, “I wonder\r\nwhere in the world that girl is! Never in all my born days did I know\r\nher bide out like this!"}
{"question": "", "answer": "She surely said she was going into the garden\r\nto get some parsley.”\r\n\r\nMelbury searched the garden, the parsley-bed, and the orchard, but\r\ncould find no trace of her, and then he made inquiries at the cottages\r\nof such of his workmen as had not gone to bed, avoiding Tangs’s because\r\nhe knew the young people were to rise early to leave. In these\r\ninquiries one of the men’s wives somewhat incautiously let out the fact\r\nthat she had heard a scream in the wood, though from which direction\r\nshe could not say. This set Melbury’s fears on end. He told the men to light lanterns, and\r\nheaded by himself they started, Creedle following at the last moment\r\nwith quite a burden of grapnels and ropes, which he could not be\r\npersuaded to leave behind, and the company being joined by the\r\nhollow-turner and the man who kept the cider-house as they went along. They explored the precincts of the village, and in a short time lighted\r\nupon the man-trap. Its discovery simply added an item of fact without\r\nhelping their conjectures; but Melbury’s indefinite alarm was greatly\r\nincreased when, holding a candle to the ground, he saw in the teeth of\r\nthe instrument some frayings from Grace’s clothing."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No intelligence of\r\nany kind was gained till they met a woodman of Delborough, who said\r\nthat he had seen a lady answering to the description her father gave of\r\nGrace, walking through the wood on a gentleman’s arm in the direction\r\nof Sherton. “Was he clutching her tight?” said Melbury. “Well—rather,” said the man. “Did she walk lame?”\r\n\r\n“Well, ’tis true her head hung over towards him a bit.”\r\n\r\nCreedle groaned tragically. Melbury, not suspecting the presence of Fitzpiers, coupled this account\r\nwith the man-trap and the scream; he could not understand what it all\r\nmeant; but the sinister event of the trap made him follow on. Accordingly, they bore away towards the town, shouting as they went,\r\nand in due course emerged upon the highway. Nearing Sherton-Abbas, the previous information was confirmed by other\r\nstrollers, though the gentleman’s supporting arm had disappeared from\r\nthese later accounts. At last they were so near Sherton that Melbury\r\ninformed his faithful followers that he did not wish to drag them\r\nfarther at so late an hour, since he could go on alone and inquire if\r\nthe woman who had been seen were really Grace. But they would not leave\r\nhim alone in his anxiety, and trudged onward till the lamplight from\r\nthe town began to illuminate their fronts."}
{"question": "", "answer": "At the entrance to the High\r\nStreet they got fresh scent of the pursued, but coupled with the new\r\ncondition that the lady in the costume described had been going up the\r\nstreet alone. “Faith!—I believe she’s mesmerized, or walking in her sleep,” said\r\nMelbury. However, the identity of this woman with Grace was by no means certain;\r\nbut they plodded along the street. Percombe, the hair-dresser, who had\r\ndespoiled Marty of her tresses, was standing at his door, and they duly\r\nput inquiries to him. “Ah—how’s Little Hintock folk by now?” he said, before replying. “Never\r\nhave I been over there since one winter night some three year ago—and\r\nthen I lost myself finding it. How can ye live in such a one-eyed\r\nplace? Great Hintock is bad enough—hut Little Hintock—the bats and owls\r\nwould drive me melancholy-mad! It took two days to raise my sperrits to\r\ntheir true pitch again after that night I went there. Mr. Melbury, sir,\r\nas a man’s that put by money, why not retire and live here, and see\r\nsomething of the world?”\r\n\r\nThe responses at last given by him to their queries guided them to the\r\nbuilding that offered the best accommodation in Sherton—having been\r\nenlarged contemporaneously with the construction of the railway—namely,\r\nthe Earl of Wessex Hotel. Leaving the others without, Melbury made prompt inquiry here. His alarm\r\nwas lessened, though his perplexity was increased, when he received a\r\nbrief reply that such a lady was in the house."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“Do you know if it is my daughter?” asked Melbury. The waiter did not. “Do you know the lady’s name?”\r\n\r\nOf this, too, the household was ignorant, the hotel having been taken\r\nby brand-new people from a distance. They knew the gentleman very well\r\nby sight, and had not thought it necessary to ask him to enter his\r\nname. “Oh, the gentleman appears again now,” said Melbury to himself. “Well,\r\nI want to see the lady,” he declared. A message was taken up, and after some delay the shape of Grace\r\nappeared descending round the bend of the stair-case, looking as if she\r\nlived there, but in other respects rather guilty and frightened. “Why—what the name—” began her father. “I thought you went out to get\r\nparsley!”\r\n\r\n“Oh, yes—I did—but it is all right,” said Grace, in a flurried whisper. “I am not alone here. I am here with Edgar. It is entirely owing to an\r\naccident, father.”\r\n\r\n“Edgar! An accident! How does he come here? I thought he was two\r\nhundred mile off.”\r\n\r\n“Yes, so he is—I mean he has got a beautiful practice two hundred miles\r\noff; he has bought it with his own money, some that came to him. But he\r\ntravelled here, and I was nearly caught in a man-trap, and that’s how\r\nit is I am here. We were just thinking of sending a messenger to let\r\nyou know.”\r\n\r\nMelbury did not seem to be particularly enlightened by this\r\nexplanation."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“You were caught in a man-trap?”\r\n\r\n“Yes; my dress was. That’s how it arose. Edgar is up-stairs in his own\r\nsitting-room,” she went on. “He would not mind seeing you, I am sure.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, faith, I don’t want to see him! I have seen him too often a’ready. I’ll see him another time, perhaps, if ’tis to oblige ’ee.”\r\n\r\n“He came to see me; he wanted to consult me about this large\r\npartnership I speak of, as it is very promising.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, I am glad to hear it,” said Melbury, dryly. A pause ensued, during which the inquiring faces and whity-brown\r\nclothes of Melbury’s companions appeared in the door-way. “Then bain’t you coming home with us?” he asked. “I—I think not,” said Grace, blushing. “H’m—very well—you are your own mistress,” he returned, in tones which\r\nseemed to assert otherwise. “Good-night;” and Melbury retreated towards\r\nthe door. “Don’t be angry, father,” she said, following him a few steps. “I have\r\ndone it for the best.”\r\n\r\n“I am not angry, though it is true I have been a little misled in this. However, good-night. I must get home along.”\r\n\r\nHe left the hotel, not without relief, for to be under the eyes of\r\nstrangers while he conversed with his lost child had embarrassed him\r\nmuch."}
{"question": "", "answer": "His search-party, too, had looked awkward there, having rushed to\r\nthe task of investigation—some in their shirt sleeves, others in their\r\nleather aprons, and all much stained—just as they had come from their\r\nwork of barking, and not in their Sherton marketing attire; while\r\nCreedle, with his ropes and grapnels and air of impending tragedy, had\r\nadded melancholy to gawkiness. “Now, neighbors,” said Melbury, on joining them, “as it is getting\r\nlate, we’ll leg it home again as fast as we can. I ought to tell you\r\nthat there has been some mistake—some arrangement entered into between\r\nMr. and Mrs. Fitzpiers which I didn’t quite understand—an important\r\npractice in the Midland counties has come to him, which made it\r\nnecessary for her to join him to-night—so she says. That’s all it\r\nwas—and I’m sorry I dragged you out.”\r\n\r\n“Well,” said the hollow-turner, “here be we six mile from home, and\r\nnight-time, and not a hoss or four-footed creeping thing to our name. I\r\nsay, we’ll have a mossel and a drop o’ summat to strengthen our nerves\r\nafore we vamp all the way back again? My throat’s as dry as a kex. What\r\nd’ye say so’s?”\r\n\r\nThey all concurred in the need for this course, and proceeded to the\r\nantique and lampless back street, in which the red curtain of the Three\r\nTuns was the only radiant object."}
{"question": "", "answer": "As soon as they had stumbled down\r\ninto the room Melbury ordered them to be served, when they made\r\nthemselves comfortable by the long table, and stretched out their legs\r\nupon the herring-boned sand of the floor. Melbury himself, restless as\r\nusual, walked to the door while he waited for them, and looked up and\r\ndown the street. “I’d gie her a good shaking if she were my maid; pretending to go out\r\nin the garden, and leading folk a twelve-mile traipse that have got to\r\nget up at five o’clock to morrow,” said a bark-ripper; who, not working\r\nregularly for Melbury, could afford to indulge in strong opinions. “I don’t speak so warm as that,” said the hollow-turner, “but if ’tis\r\nright for couples to make a country talk about their separating, and\r\nexcite the neighbors, and then make fools of ’em like this, why, I\r\nhaven’t stood upon one leg for five-and-twenty year.”\r\n\r\nAll his listeners knew that when he alluded to his foot-lathe in these\r\nenigmatic terms, the speaker meant to be impressive; and Creedle chimed\r\nin with, “Ah, young women do wax wanton in these days! Why couldn’t she\r\nha’ bode with her father, and been faithful?” Poor Creedle was thinking\r\nof his old employer. “But this deceiving of folks is nothing unusual in matrimony,” said\r\nFarmer Bawtree."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I knowed a man and wife—faith, I don’t mind owning, as\r\nthere’s no strangers here, that the pair were my own relations—they’d\r\nbe at it that hot one hour that you’d hear the poker and the tongs and\r\nthe bellows and the warming-pan flee across the house with the\r\nmovements of their vengeance; and the next hour you’d hear ’em singing\r\n‘The Spotted Cow’ together as peaceable as two holy twins; yes—and very\r\ngood voices they had, and would strike in like professional\r\nballet-singers to one another’s support in the high notes.”\r\n\r\n“And I knowed a woman, and the husband o’ her went away for\r\nfour-and-twenty year,” said the bark-ripper. “And one night he came\r\nhome when she was sitting by the fire, and thereupon he sat down\r\nhimself on the other side of the chimney-corner. ‘Well,’ says she,\r\n‘have ye got any news?’ ‘Don’t know as I have,’ says he; ‘have you?’\r\n‘No,’ says she, ‘except that my daughter by my second husband was\r\nmarried last month, which was a year after I was made a widow by him.’\r\n‘Oh! Anything else?’ he says. ‘No,’ says she. And there they sat, one\r\non each side of that chimney-corner, and were found by their neighbors\r\nsound asleep in their chairs, not having known what to talk about at\r\nall.”\r\n\r\n“Well, I don’t care who the man is,” said Creedle, “they required a\r\ngood deal to talk about, and that’s true. It won’t be the same with\r\nthese.”\r\n\r\n“No."}
{"question": "", "answer": "He is such a projick, you see. And she is a wonderful scholar\r\ntoo!”\r\n\r\n“What women do know nowadays!” observed the hollow-turner. “You can’t\r\ndeceive ’em as you could in my time.”\r\n\r\n“What they knowed then was not small,” said John Upjohn. “Always a good\r\ndeal more than the men! Why, when I went courting my wife that is now,\r\nthe skilfulness that she would show in keeping me on her pretty side as\r\nshe walked was beyond all belief. Perhaps you’ve noticed that she’s got\r\na pretty side to her face as well as a plain one?”\r\n\r\n“I can’t say I’ve noticed it particular much,” said the hollow-turner,\r\nblandly. “Well,” continued Upjohn, not disconcerted, “she has. All women under\r\nthe sun be prettier one side than t’other. And, as I was saying, the\r\npains she would take to make me walk on the pretty side were unending! I warrant that whether we were going with the sun or against the sun,\r\nuphill or downhill, in wind or in lewth, that wart of hers was always\r\ntowards the hedge, and that dimple towards me. There was I, too simple\r\nto see her wheelings and turnings; and she so artful, though two years\r\nyounger, that she could lead me with a cotton thread, like a blind ram;\r\nfor that was in the third climate of our courtship."}
{"question": "", "answer": "No; I don’t think\r\nthe women have got cleverer, for they was never otherwise.”\r\n\r\n“How many climates may there be in courtship, Mr. Upjohn?” inquired a\r\nyouth—the same who had assisted at Winterborne’s Christmas party. “Five—from the coolest to the hottest—leastwise there was five in\r\nmine.”\r\n\r\n“Can ye give us the chronicle of ’em, Mr. Upjohn?”\r\n\r\n“Yes—I could. I could certainly. But ’tis quite unnecessary. They’ll\r\ncome to ye by nater, young man, too soon for your good.”\r\n\r\n“At present Mrs. Fitzpiers can lead the doctor as your mis’ess could\r\nlead you,” the hollow-turner remarked. “She’s got him quite tame. But\r\nhow long ’twill last I can’t say. I happened to be setting a wire on\r\nthe top of my garden one night when he met her on the other side of the\r\nhedge; and the way she queened it, and fenced, and kept that poor\r\nfeller at a distance, was enough to freeze yer blood. I should never\r\nhave supposed it of such a girl.”\r\n\r\nMelbury now returned to the room, and the men having declared\r\nthemselves refreshed, they all started on the homeward journey, which\r\nwas by no means cheerless under the rays of the high moon. Having to\r\nwalk the whole distance they came by a foot-path rather shorter than\r\nthe highway, though difficult except to those who knew the country\r\nwell. This brought them by way of Great Hintock; and passing the\r\nchurch-yard they observed, as they talked, a motionless figure standing\r\nby the gate."}
{"question": "", "answer": "“I think it was Marty South,” said the hollow-turner, parenthetically. “I think ’twas; ’a was always a lonely maid,” said Upjohn. And they\r\npassed on homeward, and thought of the matter no more. It was Marty, as they had supposed. That evening had been the\r\nparticular one of the week upon which Grace and herself had been\r\naccustomed to privately deposit flowers on Giles’s grave, and this was\r\nthe first occasion since his death, eight months earlier, on which\r\nGrace had failed to keep her appointment. Marty had waited in the road\r\njust outside Little Hintock, where her fellow-pilgrim had been wont to\r\njoin her, till she was weary; and at last, thinking that Grace had\r\nmissed her and gone on alone, she followed the way to Great Hintock,\r\nbut saw no Grace in front of her. It got later, and Marty continued her\r\nwalk till she reached the church-yard gate; but still no Grace. Yet her\r\nsense of comradeship would not allow her to go on to the grave alone,\r\nand still thinking the delay had been unavoidable, she stood there with\r\nher little basket of flowers in her clasped hands, and her feet chilled\r\nby the damp ground, till more than two hours had passed. She then heard the footsteps of Melbury’s men, who presently passed on\r\ntheir return from the search."}
{"question": "", "answer": "In the silence of the night Marty could\r\nnot help hearing fragments of their conversation, from which she\r\nacquired a general idea of what had occurred, and where Mrs. Fitzpiers\r\nthen was. Immediately they had dropped down the hill she entered the church-yard,\r\ngoing to a secluded corner behind the bushes, where rose the unadorned\r\nstone that marked the last bed of Giles Winterborne. As this solitary\r\nand silent girl stood there in the moonlight, a straight slim figure,\r\nclothed in a plaitless gown, the contours of womanhood so undeveloped\r\nas to be scarcely perceptible, the marks of poverty and toil effaced by\r\nthe misty hour, she touched sublimity at points, and looked almost like\r\na being who had rejected with indifference the attribute of sex for the\r\nloftier quality of abstract humanism. She stooped down and cleared away\r\nthe withered flowers that Grace and herself had laid there the previous\r\nweek, and put her fresh ones in their place. “Now, my own, own love,” she whispered, “you are mine, and on’y mine;\r\nfor she has forgot ’ee at last, although for her you died. But\r\nI—whenever I get up I’ll think of ’ee, and whenever I lie down I’ll\r\nthink of ’ee. Whenever I plant the young larches I’ll think that none\r\ncan plant as you planted; and whenever I split a gad, and whenever I\r\nturn the cider-wring, I’ll say none could do it like you."}
{"question": "", "answer": "If ever I\r\nforget your name, let me forget home and Heaven!—But no, no, my love, I\r\nnever can forget ’ee; for you was a _good_ man, and did good things!”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOODLANDERS ***\r\n\r\n\r\n    \r\n\r\nUpdated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will\r\nbe renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright\r\nlaw means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,\r\nso the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United\r\nStates without permission and without paying copyright\r\nroyalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part\r\nof this license, apply to copying and distributing Project\r\nGutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™\r\nconcept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,\r\nand may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following\r\nthe terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use\r\nof the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for\r\ncopies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very\r\neasy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation\r\nof derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project\r\nGutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may\r\ndo practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected\r\nby U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark\r\nlicense, especially commercial redistribution."}
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