It was under the reign of Alexis, the second Romanoff and father of Peter the Great, that there appeared in Russia the most extraordinary robber the world ever saw. He claimed not to be a Czar or the son of a Czar; the Demetrius mask was out of date,and one real and another pretended son of Otrepief and Marina had been executed by order of Alexis. The new adventurer was a common Cossack from the Don, who went by his own name of Stenka Razin, and to whom M. Blanc attributes, perhaps with a little exaggeration, the ambition, courage, and ferocity of a Tamerlane. In those days the Russian territory was by no means free from robbers, who pillaged caravans of merchandise, but generally respected the property of the Czar and the principal nobles, lest they should make themselves powerful enemies. Razin's first act was to throw down the glove to his sovereign. He seized a convoy belonging to the court, and hung some gentlemen who endeavoured to defend it. The fame of his intrepidity and success brought him many followers, and soon he was at the head of an army. "He embarked on the Caspian Sea, and cruised along its shores, frequently landing and seizing immense booty. At the mouth of the Yaik he was met by an officer of the Czar's, sent by the voevóda of Astracan to offer him and his companions a free pardon on condition of their discontinuing their robberies. Razin replied that he was no robber, but a conqueror; that he made war, and suffered none to fail in respect towards him. And to prove his words, he hung the officer, and drowned the men of his escort. A numerous body of Strelitz was then sent against him. Razin beat the Strelitz, seized the town of Yatskoi, massacred the garrison and the inhabitants, and passed the winter there unmolested. In the spring he marched into Persia." There he accumulated immense booty, but was at last expelled by a general rising of the population. On his return to Russia he was soon surrounded by troops; but even then, such was the terror of his name, the Russian general granted him a capitulation, by which he and his men were permitted to retire to their native provinces, taking their plunder with them; and their security was guaranteed so long as they abstained from aggression. This scandalous convention was ratified by Alexis, but was not long adhered to by the bandit with whom the Czar thus meanly condescended to treat as an equal. Stenka's next campaign was even more successful than the previous one. Bodies of troops deserted to him, and several towns fell into his power; amongst others, that of Astracan, where frightful scenes of violence and murder were enacted—Razin himself parading the streets, intoxicated with brandy, and stabbing all he met. He was marching upon Moscow, with the avowed intention of dethroning the Czar, when he sustained a reverse, and, after fighting like a lion, was made prisoner, and sent in fetters to the city he had expected to enter in triumph. Taken before Alexis, he replied boldly and haughtily to the Czar's reproaches and threats. The only anxiety he showed was to know what manner of death he was to suffer. He had heard that, in the previous year, an obscure robber and assassin, who pillaged convents and churches, had been cut into pieces of half a finger's breadth, beginning at the toes. This barbarous punishment, of which several instances are cited in M. Blanc's book, was known as the "torture of the ten thousand pieces." "But," exclaimed Stenka Razin, with a sort of terror, so horrible did this death appear to him, "I am no robber of monks! I have commanded armies. I have made peace with the Czar, therefore I had a right to make war upon him. Is there not a man amongst you brave enough to split my head with a hatchet?" The Strelitz guards, to whom these words were addressed, refused the friendly office, and Razin heard himself condemned to be quartered alive. He seemed resigned, as if he considered this death an endurable medium between the decapitation he had implored of his judges and the barbarous mincing he had been led to expect. But his energy forsook him on the scaffold, and the man who had so often confronted and inflicted death, received it in a swooning state.
The characters of few sovereigns admit of being judged more variously than that of Peter I. of Russia, surnamed the Great. According to the point of view whence we contemplate him, we behold the hero or the savage; the wise legislator or the lawless tyrant; the patient pursuer of scienceor the dissolute and heartless debauchee. In the long chapter given to his romantic and eventful reign, M. Blanc shows him little favour. In a work treating of conspiracies and executions, the characters of the sovereigns introduced are naturally not exhibited under their most amiable aspect, especially when those sovereigns are Russian czars and czarinas, to whom lenity has generally been less familiar than severity, and pardon than punishment. The pen of Voltaire has done much for the reputation of Peter the Great, who to us has always appeared an overrated personage. Historians have vaunted his exploits and good deeds, till his crimes and barbarities have been lost sight of in the glitter of panegyric. The monarch who could debase himself to the level of an executioner, beheading his rebel subjects with his own hand, and feasting his eyes with the spectacle of death when he himself was weary of slaying; who could condemn his wife, repudiated without cause, to the frightful torture of the knout, and sign the order, which it is more than suspected he himself executed, for the death of his own son—may have been great as a warrior and a legislator, but must ever be execrated as a man. Peter was certainly an extraordinary compound of vices and virtues. His domestic life will not bear even the most superficial investigation, and M. Blanc has ripped it up unmercifully. The great reformer—we might almost say the founder—of the mighty empire of Russia, the conqueror of Charles of Sweden, was a drunkard and gross sensualist, a bad father, a cruel and unfaithful husband. Indeed some of his acts seem inexplicable otherwise than by that ferocious insanity manifest in more than one of his descendants. Even his rare impulses of mercy were apt to come too late to save the victim. As illustrating one of them, an incident, nearly the last event of Peter's life, is given by M. Blanc, in more minute detail than we ever before met with it. Peter's whole life was a romance; but this is assuredly one of its most romantic episodes. A short time before his death, according to M. Blanc, although other writers fix the date some years earlier, Peter was violently smitten by the charms of a young girl named Ivanowa. Although tenderly attached, and about to be married to an officer of the regiment of Schouvaloff, she dared not oppose the Czar's wishes, but became his mistress. Peter, who took her repugnance for timidity, fancied himself beloved, and passed much of his time in her society, in a charming cottage in which he had installed her at one of the extremities of St Petersburg. He had enriched her family, who were ignorant, however, of her retreat. Her betrothed, whose name was Demetrius Daniloff, was in despair at her disappearance, and made unceasing efforts to discover her, but all in vain, until Ivanowa, having made a confidant of a Livonian slave, had him conducted to her presence. The lovers' meetings were then frequent, so much so, that Peter received intelligence of them. "His anger was terrible; he roared like a tiger.
'Betrayed! betrayed everywhere and always!' cried he, striding wildly about the room, and striking his brow with his clenched fist. 'Oh! revenge! revenge!'
Before the close of day he left the palace, alone, wrapped in a coarse cloak, his feet in nailed shoes whose patches attested their long services, his head covered with a fox-skin cap which came down over his eyebrows and half concealed his eyes. He soon reached Ivanowa's house, where the lovers deemed themselves perfectly secure, for the Czar had spread a report of his departure for Moscow. Moreover, the faithful Livonian slave kept watch in the antechamber, to give an alarm at the least noise. Peter knew all this, and had taken his measures accordingly. Opening an outer door with a key of his own, he bounded into the anteroom, upset the slave, and, with a kick of his powerful foot, burst the door that separated him from the lovers. All this occurred with the speed of lightning. Daniloff and Ivanowa had scarce time to rise from their seats, before the Czar stood over them with his drawn sword in his hand. Ivanowa uttered a cry of terror, fell on her knees, and fainted. Prompt as the Czar, Daniloff bared his sabre and threw himself betweenhis mistress and Peter. The latter lowered his weapon.
'No,' he said, 'the revenge were too brief.'
He opened a window and criedhourra! At the signal, a hundred soldiers crowded into the house. Mastering his fury, the Czar ordered the young officer to be taken to prison, there to receive one hundred blows of thebattoguesor sticks. Ivanowa was also confined until the senate should decide on her fate. The next day Daniloff received his terrible punishment. Before half of it had been inflicted, his back, from, the loins to the shoulders, was one hideous wound," &c. &c. We omit the revolting details. "Nevertheless the executioners continued to strike, and the hundred blows were counted, without a complaint from the sufferer. The unfortunate Daniloff had not even fainted; he got up alone,5when untied, and asked to have his wounds carefully dressed.
'I have need to live a short time longer,' he added."
Meanwhile Ivanowa was brought before the senate, and accused of high treason and of trying to discover state secrets—a charge of Peter's invention. The supple senate, created by the Czar, condemned her to receive twenty-two blows of the knout in the presence of her accomplice Daniloff, already punished by the emperor's order. On the day appointed for the execution, Peter stood upon the balcony of his winter palace. Several battalions of infantry marched past, escorting the unfortunate Demetrius, who, in spite of the frightful sufferings he still endured, walked with a steady step, and with a firm and even joyful countenance. Surrounded by another escort, was seen the young and lovely Ivanowa, half dead with terror, supported on one side by a priest and on the other by a soldier, and letting her beautiful head fall from one shoulder to the other, according to the impulse given it by her painful progress. Even Peter's heart melted at the sight. Re-entering his apartment, he put on the ribbon of the order of St Andrew, threw a cloak over his shoulders, left the palace, sprang into a boat, and reached the opposite side of the river at the same time as the mournful procession which had crossed the bridge. Making his way through the crowd, he dropped his cloak, took Ivanowa in his arms, and imprinted a kiss upon her brow. A murmur arose amongst the people, and suddenly cries of "pardon" were heard.
The knights of St Andrew then enjoyed the singular privilege that a kiss given by them to a condemned person, deprived the executioner of his victim. This privilege has endured even to our day, but not without some modification.
Daniloff had recognised Peter. He approached the Czar, whose every movement he had anxiously watched, stripped off his coat, and rent the bloody shirt that covered his shoulders.
"'The man who could suffer thus,' he said, 'knows how to die. Czar, thy repentance comes too late! Ivanowa, I go to wait for thee!' And drawing a concealed poniard, he stabbed himself twice. His death was instantaneous. Peter hurried back to his palace, and the stupified, crowd slowly dispersed. Ivanowa died shortly afterwards in the convent to which she had been permitted to retire."
If we are frequently shocked, in the course of M. Blanc's third volume, by the tyrannical and brutal cruelty of the Russian sovereigns, we are also repeatedly disgusted by the servility and patient meanness of those who suffered from it. We behold Muscovite nobles of high rank and descent, cringing under the wanton torments inflicted on them by their oppressor, and submitting to degradations to which death, one would imagine, were, to any free-spirited man, fifty times preferable. As an example, we will cite the conduct of a Prince Galitzin, who, after long exile in Germany, where he had become a convert to the Romish church, solicited and obtained permissionto return to his country. This was in 1740, under the reign of the dissolute and cruel Czarina Anne. The paramours and flatterers who composed the court of that licentious princess, urged her to inflict on the new-made papist the same punishment that had been suffered by a noble named Vonitzin, who had turned Jew, and had been burned alive, or rather roasted at a slow fire. Anne refused, but promised the courtiers they should not be deprived of their sport.
"The same day, Galitzin, although upwards of forty years old, was ordered to take his place amongst the pages: a few days later he received a notification that the empress, contented with his services, had been pleased to raise him to the dignity of her third buffoon. 'The custom of buffoons,' says an historian, 'was then in full force in Russia; the empress had six,three of whom were of very high birth, and when they did not lend themselves with a good grace to the tomfooleries required of them by her or her favourites, she had them punished with thebattogues.' The empress appeared well satisfied with the manner in which the prince fulfilled his new duties; and, as he was a widower, she declared she would find him a wife, that so valuable a subject might not die without posterity. They selected, for the poor wretch's bride, the most hideous and disgusting creature that could be found in the lowest ranks of the populace. Anne herself arranged the ceremonial of the wedding. It was in the depth of one of the severest winters of the century; and, at great expense, the empress had a palace built of ice. Not only was the building entirely constructed of that material, but all the furniture, including the nuptial bed, was also of ice. In front of the palace were ice cannons, mounted on ice carriages.
Anne and all her court conducted the newly-married pair to this palace, their destined habitation. The guests were in sledges drawn by dogs and reindeer; the husband and wife, enclosed in a cage, were carried on an elephant. When the procession arrived near the palace, the ice cannons were fired, and not one of them burst, so intense was the cold. Several of them were even loaded with bullets, which pierced thick planks at a considerable distance. When everybody had entered the singular edifice, the ball began. It probably did not last long. On its conclusion, Anne insisted on the bride and bridegroom being put to bed in her presence: they were undressed, with the exception of their under garments, and were compelled to lie down upon the bed of ice, without covering of any kind. Then the company went away, and sentinels were placed at the door of the nuptial chamber, to prevent the couple from leaving it before the next day! But when the next day came, they had to be carried out; the poor creatures were in a deplorable state, and survived their torture but a few days."
This patient submission to a long series of indignities on the part of a man of Galitzin's rank and blood is incomprehensible, and pity for his cruel death is mingled with contempt for the elderly prince who could tamely play the page, and caper in the garb of a court jester. But the Russian noble of that day—and even of a later period—united the soul of a slave with the heart of a tyrant. To the feeble a relentless tiger, before the despot or the despot's favourite he grovelled like a spiritless cur. The memoirs of the eighteenth century abound in examples of his base servility. We cite one, out of many which we find recorded in an interestingLife of Catherine II. of Russia, published at Paris in 1797. Plato Zouboff, one of Catherine's favourite lovers, had a little monkey, a restless, troublesome beast, which everybody detested, but which everybody caressed, by way of paying court to its master. Amongst the host of ministers, military men, and ambassadors, who sedulously attended the levees of the powerful favourite, was a general officer, remarkable for the perfection and care with which his hair was dressed. One day the monkey climbed upon his head, and, after completely destroying the symmetry of his hyacinthine locks, deliberately defiled them. The officer dared not show the slightest discontent. There are not wanting, however,in the history of the eighteenth century, instances of heroism and courage to contrast with the far more numerous ones of vileness afforded by the aristocracy of Russia. The dignity and fortitude of Menzikoff—that pastrycook's boy who became a great minister—during his terrible exile in Siberia, are an oft-told tale. Prince Dolgorouki, the same to whom Anne owed her crown, and whom she requited by a barbarous death, beheld his son, brother, and nephew broken on the wheel. When his turn came, and the executioners were arranging him suitably upon the instrument of torture: "Do as you please with me," he said, "and without fear of loading your consciences, for it is not in human power to increase my sufferings." And he died without uttering a complaint. But perhaps the most extraordinary instance of coolness and self command, at the moment of a violent and cruel death, to be found in the annals of executions, is that of Pugatscheff, who, however, was no nobleman, but a Cossack of humble birth, who deserted from the Russian army after the siege and capture of Bender by General Panim, and fled to Poland, where he was concealed for a time by hermits of the Greek church. "Conversing one day with his protectors," says a French writer already referred to, "he told them, that once, during his service in General Panim's army, a Russian officer said to him, after staring him very hard in the face, 'If the emperor Peter III., my master, were not dead, I should think I now stood before him.' The hermits paid little attention to this tale; but some time afterwards one of their number, who had not yet met Pugatscheff, exclaimed, on beholding him, 'Is not that the emperor, Peter III.?' The monks then induced him to attempt an imposture they had planned." M. Blanc's account differs from this, inasmuch as it asserts the resemblance to the defunct Czar to have been very slight. Whatever the degree of likeness, Pugatscheff declared himself the husband of Catherine II. (murdered some time previously, by Prince Bariatinski and by Alexis Orloff, the brother of Catherine's lover), and thousands credited his pretensions. The Cossacks of the river Yaik (afterwards changed to the Ural by Catherine, who desired to obliterate the memory of this revolt) were just then in exceedingly bad humour. After patiently submitting to a great deal of oppression and ill usage, they had received orders to cut off their beards. This they would not do. They had relinquished, grumbling but passive, many a fair acre of pasturage; they had furnished men for a new regiment of hussars; but they rebelled outright when ordered to use a razor. The Livonian general, Traubenberg, repaired to Yaitsk with a strong staff of barbers, and began shaving the refractory Cossacks on the public market-place. The patients rose in arms, massacred general, barbers, and aide-de-camps; recognised Pugatscheff as Peter III., and swore to replace him on his throne, and to die in his defence. The adventurer was near being as successful as the monk Otrepief. Catherine herself was very uneasy, although she published contemptuous proclamations, and jested, in her letters to Voltaire, on the Marquis of Pugatscheff, as she called him. It was rather a serious subject to joke about. The impostor defeated Russian armies, and slew their generals; took towns, whose governors he impaled; burned upwards of two hundred and fifty villages; destroyed the commerce of Siberia; stopped the working of the Orenberg mines; and poured out the blood of thirty thousand Russian subjects. At last he was taken. On his trial he showed great firmness; and, although unable to read or write, he answered the questions of the tribunal with wonderful ability and intelligence. He was condemned to death. According to the sentence, his hands were to be cut off first, then his feet, then his head, and finally the trunk was to be quartered. When brought upon the scaffold, and whilst the imperial ukase enumerating his crimes was read, he undressed quickly and in silence; but when they began to read the sentence, he dexterously prevented the executioner from attending to it, by asking him all manner of questions—whether his axe was in good order, whether the block was not of a less size than prescribed by law, and whether he, the executioner, had not, by chance, drank more brandy thanusual, which might make his hand unsteady.
"The sentence read, the magistrate and his assistant left the scaffold.
'Now, then,' said Pugatscheff to the executioner, 'let us have no mistakes; the prescribed order must be strictly observed. So you will first cut off my head——'
'The head first!' cried the executioner.
'So runs the sentence. Have a care! I have friends who would make you dearly expiate an error to my prejudice.'
It was too late to call back the magistrate; and the executioner, who doubted, at last said to himself that the important affair, after all, was the death of the criminal, and that there was little difference whether it took place rather sooner or rather later. He grasped his axe; Pugatscheff laid his head on the block, and the next moment it rebounded upon the scaffold. The feet and hands were cut off after death; the culprit escaping torture by his great presence of mind."
It has been asserted that an order from the empress thus humanised the cruel sentence; but this is exceedingly improbable, for she was bitter against Pugatscheff, who, ignorant Cossack as he was, had made the modern Semiramis tremble on her throne; besides, it is matter of history that, after his execution, the headsman had his tongue cut out, and was sent to Siberia. Catherine, who had affected to laugh at Pugatscheff during his life, was so ungenerous as to calumniate him after death. "This brigand," she said, in one of her letters quoted by M. Blanc, "showed himself so pusillanimous in his prison, that it was necessary to prepare him with caution to hear his sentence read, lest he should die of fear." It is quite certain, M. Blanc observes, that to his dying hour Pugatscheff inspired more fear than he felt.
The misfortunes of the unhappy young Princess Tarrakanoff supply M. Blanc with materials for the most interesting chapter in this volume of his work. The Empress Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, and predecessor of Peter III.—whose marriage with the Princess of Anhalt Zerbest, afterwards Catherine the Great, was brought about by her—had had three children by her secret marriage with Alexis Razumoffski. The youngest of these was a daughter, who was brought up in Russia under the name of the Princess Tarrakanoff. When Catherine trampled the rights of Poland under foot, the Polish prince, Charles Radzivil, carried off the young princess, and took her to Italy, thinking to set her up at some future day as a pretender to the Russian throne. Informed of this, Catherine confiscated his estates; and in order to live, he was compelled to sell the diamonds and other valuables he had taken with him to Italy. These resources exhausted, Radzivil set out for Poland to seek others, leaving the young princess, then in her sixteenth year, at Rome, under the care of a sort of governess or duenna. On reaching his native country he was offered the restoration of his property if he would bring back his ward to Russia. He refused; but he was so base as to promise that he would take no further trouble about her, and leave her to her fate. Catherine pardoned him, and forthwith put Alexis Orloff on the scent. He was a keen bloodhound, she well knew, capable of any villany that might serve his ambition. Gold unlimited was placed at his disposal, and promise of high reward if he discovered the retreat of the princess, and lured her within Catherine's reach. Orloff set out for Italy; and on arriving there he took into his employ a Neapolitan named Ribas, a sort of spy, styling himself a naval officer, who pledged himself to find out the princess, but stipulated for rank in the Russian navy as his reward. M. Blanc asserts that he demanded to be made admiral at once; and that Orloff, afraid, notwithstanding the extensive powers given him, to bestow so high a grade, or compelled by the suspicions of Ribas to produce the commission itself, wrote to Catherine, who at once sent the required document. Whether this be exact or not, more than one historian mentions that Ribas subsequently commanded in the Black Sea as a Russian vice-admiral. When certain of his reward, Ribas, who then had spent two months in researches, revealed the retreat of the unfortunateprincess. With some abridgment we will follow M. Blanc, whose narrative agrees, in all the main points, with the most authentic versions of this touching and romantic history.
The princess was at Rome. Abandoned by Radzivil, she was reduced to the greatest penury, existing only by the aid of a woman who had been her servant, and who now served other masters. Alexis Orloff visited her in her miserable abode, and spoke at first in the tone of a devoted slave addressing his sovereign; he told her she was the legitimate empress of Russia; that the entire population of that great empire anxiously longed for her accession; that if Catherine still occupied the throne, it was only because nobody knew where she (the princess) was hidden; and that her appearance amongst her faithful subjects, would be a signal for the instant downfall of the usurper. Notwithstanding her youth, the princess mistrusted these dazzling assurances; she was even alarmed by them, and held herself upon her guard. Then Orloff, one of the handsomest men of his time, joined the seductions of love to those of ambition; he feigned a violent passion for the young girl, and swore that his life depended on his obtaining her heart and hand. The poor isolated girl fell unresistingly into the infamous snare spread for her inexperience: she believed and loved him. The infamous Orloff persuaded her that their marriage must be strictly private, lest Catherine should hear of it and take precautions. In the night he brought to her house a party of mercenaries, some wearing the costumes of priests of the Greek church, others magnificently attired to act as witnesses. The mockery of a marriage enacted, the princess willingly accompanied Alexis Orloff, whom she believed her husband, to Leghorn, where entertainments of all sorts were given to her. The Russian squadron, at anchor off the port, was commanded by the English Admiral Greig. This officer, either the dupe or the accomplice of Orloff, invited the princess to visit the vessels that were soon to be commanded in her name. She accepted, and embarked after a banquet, amidst the acclamations of an immense crowd: the cannon thundered, the sky was bright, every circumstance conspired to give her visit the appearance of a brilliant festival. From her flag-bedecked galley she was hoisted in a splendid arm-chair on board the admiral's vessel, where she was received with the honours due to a crowned head. Until then Orloff had never left her side for an instant. Suddenly the scene changed. Orloff disappeared: in place of the gay and smiling officers who an instant previously had obsequiously bowed before her, the unfortunate victim saw herself surrounded by men of sinister aspect, one of whom announced to her that she was prisoner by order of the Empress Catherine, and that soon she would be brought to trial for the treason she had attempted. The princess thought herself in a dream. With loud cries she summoned her husband to her aid; her guardians laughed in her face, and told her she had had a lover, but no husband, and that her marriage was a farce. Her despair at these terrible revelations amounted to frenzy; she burst into sobs and reproaches, and at last swooned away. They took advantage of her insensibility to put fetters on her feet and hands, and lower her into the hold. A few hours later the squadron sailed for Russia. Notwithstanding her helplessness and entreaties, the poor girl was kept in irons until her arrival at St Petersburg, when she was taken before the empress, who wished to see and question her.
Catherine was old; the Princess Tarrakanoff was but sixteen, and of surpassing beauty; the disparity destroyed her last chance of mercy. But as there was in reality no charge against her, and as her trial might have made too much noise, Catherine, after a long and secret interview with her unfortunate prisoner, gave orders she should be kept in the most rigorous captivity. She was confined in one of the dungeons of a prison near the Neva.
Five years elapsed. The victim of the heartless Catherine, and of the villain Orloff, awaited death as the only relief she could expect; but youth, and a good constitution, struggled energetically against torture and privations. One night, reclining on the straw that served her as a bed, she prayed to God to terminateher sufferings by taking her to himself, when her attention was attracted by a low rumbling noise like the roll of distant thunder. She listened. The noise redoubled: it became an incessant roar, which each moment augmented in power. The poor captive desired death, and yet she felt terror; she called aloud, and implored not to be left alone. A jailer came at her cries; she asked the cause of the noise she heard.
"'Tis nothing," replied the stupid slave; "the Neva overflowing."
"But cannot the water reach us here?"
"It is here already."
At that moment the flood, making its way under the door, poured into the dungeon, and in an instant captive and jailer were over the ankles in water.
"For heaven's sake, let us leave this!" cried the young princess.
"Not without orders; and I have received none."
"But we shall be drowned!"
"That is pretty certain. But without special orders I am not to let you leave this dungeon, under pain of death. In case of unforeseen danger I am to remain with you, and to kill you should rescue be attempted."
"Good God! the water rises. I cannot sustain myself."
The Neva, overflowing its banks, floated enormous blocks of ice, upsetting everything in its passage, and inundating the adjacent country. The water now plashed furiously against the prison doors: the sentinels had been carried away by the torrent, and the other soldiers on guard had taken refuge on the upper floors. Lifted off her feet by the icy flood which still rose higher, the unfortunate captive fell and disappeared; the jailer, who had water to his breast, hung his lamp against the wall, and tried to succour his prisoner; but when he succeeded in raising her up, she was dead! The possibility anticipated by his employers was realised; there had been stress of circumstances, and the princess being dead, he was at liberty to leave the dungeon. Bearing the corpse in his arms, he succeeded in reaching the upper part of the prison.
If we may offer a hint to authors, it is our opinion that this tragical anecdote will be a godsend to some romance-writer of costive invention, and on the outlook for a plot. Very little ingenuity will suffice to spread over the prescribed quantity of foolscap the incidents we have packed into a page. They will dilute very handsomely into three volumes. As to characters, the novelist's work is done to his hand. Here we have the Empress Catherine, vindictive and dissolute, persecuting that "fair girl" the Princess Tarrakanoff, with the assistance of Orloff, the smooth villain, and of the sullen ruffian Ribas. The latter will work up into a sort of Italian Varney, and may be dispersed to the elements by an intentional accident, on board the ship blown up by Orloff's order, for the enlightenment of the painter Hackert. With the exception of the dungeon-scene, we have given but a meagre outline of M. Blanc's narrative; and there are a number of minor characters that may be advantageously brought in and expanded. "This event," says M. Blanc, referring to the kidnapping of the Princess, "caused a strong sensation at Leghorn. Prince Leopold, Grand-duke of Tuscany, complained bitterly of it, and would have had Alexis Orloff arrested; but this vile assassin of Peter III. maintained that he had only executed the orders of his sovereign, who would well know how to justify him. He was supported, in this circumstance, by the English consul, who was his accomplice; and the Grand-duke, seeing he was not likely to be the strongest, suffered the matter to drop." "Some Englishmen," another French writer asserts, "had been so base as to participate in Alexis Orloff's plot; but others were far from approving it. They even blushed to serve under him, and sent in their resignations. Admiral Elphinstone was one of these. Greig was promoted in his place." An Italian prince, indignant, but timid; a foreign consul, sold to Russian interests; a British sailor, spurning the service of a tyrant. We need say no more; for we are quite sure that before they get thus far, the corps of historical novelists will be handling their goose-quills.
You object to being called a Puseyite, or a Tractarian; and as I believe you never read any of the Tracts, nor were lucky enough to comprehend any of Dr Pusey's writings, you are right to decline the names. But it is easy to perceive, even from your outward man, that some great change has taken place upon you. It is not for nothing that you wear so very tight a neckcloth, and so very low-collared a coat; your buttons also are peculiarly placed, and there is a solemnity in your manner of refusing an invitation to pot-luck on a Friday which it is edifying to behold. But all this surely must have a name. You were intended by your father to be a clergyman of the Church of England—that worthy gentleman toasted church and king, till a female reign and premonitory symptoms of apoplexy reduced him to silence and water-gruel; but he is as true a defender of the faith, in his easy gown and slippers, as ever, and looks with still increasing surprise at the appearance of his eldest son, as often as occasional help in your curacy enables you to run home. But don't fancy, for a moment, that I attribute these frequent visits to your regard for the fifth commandment alone: no, dear Charles; for though I grant you are an excellent son and praiseworthy brother, I consider you shine with still greater lustre in the character of a neighbour, especially to the family at Hellebore Park. Gradually I have seen a change almost equal to your own in the seven fair daughters of that house; and it is very evident that, with this change, in some way or other, you are very intimately connected. The five daughters of our neighbour in the Lodge are also very different from what they were; and only Miss Lathpins—who is fifty years old, and believes good works to be such filthy rags that she would be quite ashamed if she were seen putting half-a-crown into the plate, or sending coal and flannel to the poor, and therefore never does it—continues the even tenor of her way, and sighs for a gospel ministry to tell her how few will achieve the kingdom of heaven. Every other house in the parish feels the effects of your visits. We must have a new almanac if you come among us much more; for the very days of the week are no longer to be recognised. Tuesday, instead of being the lineal descendant of Monday, is now known as the heir presumptive of Wednesday, and does duty as the eve of something else. The wife of our physician invited us to dinner on the Feast of St Ollapod, which, after great inquiry, we found meant Monday the 22d. The months will not long escape—the weeks are already doomed—and, in a few years, our parish registers will be as difficult reading as the inscriptions of Nemroud. Have you taken this result of your crusade against the High and Dry into your consideration? Is it right to leave a worthy man like our rector—who conducted his little ecclesiastical boat with great comfort to himself and others, keeping a careful middle channel between the shoals of Dissent and the mudbanks of contented Orthodoxy—to struggle in his old age against rocks which you and your female allies have rolled into the water; with fast-days rearing their sharp points where there used to be such safe navigation, and saint's days and festivals so blocking up the passage that he can't set his skiff near enough the shore, to enable him to visit his parishioners when they are sick or hungry? You would pin the poor old fellow for ever into his pulpit or reading-desk, and he never would have time to go to the extremity of his parish, which, you remember, is five miles from the church; and, at the Doctor's rate of riding, occupies him a good part of the day.
But perhaps you don't know whatoccurs as soon as your stay is over, and we see the skirts of your departing surtout disappear over Hitherstone Hill. Immediately the whole coterie (which, in this instance, is an undiluted petticoatery) assembles for consultation. Pretty young girls, who would have been engaged ten years ago in the arrangements of a pic-nic, now lay their graceful and busy heads together, to effect an alteration in the height of the pews. My dear Charles, young ladies are by nature carpenters; they know all about hinges, and pannellings, and glue, by a sort of intuition: and it is clear to me that, before you return to us again, the backs of the seats will be lowered at least a foot, and I shall have the pleasure of seeing the whole extent of Tom Holiday's back, and the undulations of the three Miss Holiday's figures during the whole of the lessons. The rector can't hold out long—as indeed who could, against such petitioners? And, after all, it is only so much wood; an his wife, who has retained her shape with very little aid from padding, has no objection to stand up during the psalms, nor any inclination to put her light under a bushel at any time; and some of the younger people, who have not attained the stature of the Venus de Medici, complain that the present elevation of the backs, if it doesn't make dints in their bonnets, at all events cuts them off in the very middle; and my opposition, I am sorry to say, ever since I fell asleep at your sermon on the holiness of celibacy, is attributed to interested motives, and therefore you may fairly expect to find our pews reduced to the height and appearance of a row of rabbit-hutches, when you come back. This point they seem to consider already gained, and now they have advanced their parallels against the Doctor on another side of his defences.
The Doctor, even in his youth, can never have run much risk of being mistaken for Apollo—his nose was probably never of a Grecian pattern, as that ingenious people would certainly have rounded the point with a little more skill, and have placed the nostrils more out of sight. I have heard his front teeth were far from symmetrical, and reminded old Major M'Turk of the charge of Mahratta irregular horse, by which that heroic gentleman lost his eye; but as he has got quit of those spirited, though straggling defenders, and supplied their place with a straight-dressed militia of enamel or bone, which do duty remarkably well, in spite of the bright yellow uniform they have lately assumed, I conclude that he has been a gainer by the exchange. And, on the whole, I have no doubt, if there are some handsomer fellows in the Guards, and at the universities, there are several much uglier people to be seen in this very parish. It can't, therefore, be for the express purpose of escaping the sight of his face that they have begun their operations to force him to turn his back on them during the prayers. But this they are thoroughly resolved on achieving. They have already once placed the Bible surreptitiously on the side of the reading desk, towards the people, leaving the Prayer-Book on the side towards the south; and as the Doctor, in the surprise of the moment, began with his face in that direction, his elocution was wasted on the blank wall of the chancel and the empty pulpit; and we had the pleasure of an uninterrupted view of his profile, and a side-hearing also of his words, which gave us as complete a silhouette of the prayers as of the rector. When we come to the enjoyment of his full-face reversed, and can leisurely contemplate his occiput, and the nape of his neck—in which, I am sorry to see, number one so powerfully developed—we shall have the farther advantage of not having our own meditations interrupted by hearing a syllable he says. He resists, indeed, at present; and even told a deputation of ladies that he would consult common sense on the occasion, and read so that the poor folks under the west gallery could join in every petition. Miss Araminta—your Araminta, Charles—lifted her beautiful eyes to the Doctor in surprise, and asked "if he really prayedtoJohn Simpkins and Peter Bolt, for surely he could prayforthem, andwiththem better, with his face to the altar;" and the Doctor said something about "girls minding their own business, and leaving him to his,"which would have led to very unpleasant consequences, if the rest of the ambassadors had not interfered, and smoothed the raven down of the Doctor's temper by some judicious declarations of respect for his office, and contempt for some unfortunate evangelical brethren in the neighbourhood; till at last the old man took Araminta by the hand, and told her, with great truth, that she was one of the nicest girls in the world, and that he would ride fifty miles at a moment's warning, to save her an instant's discomfort. So they retired for that time, hinting that they were rather surprised thattheirrector should have used the same argument which had been employed by the Rev. Ebenezer Snuffle, the low church vicar of the adjoining village. A telling blow this, Charles, as you are well aware; for I verily believe the Doctor would soften towards the Koran, if his neighbour made an attack on Mahommed; so I wait the issue without much uncertainty as to what it will be. For all this, I can't help holding you, in a great measure, responsible; for there is no shutting one's eyes to the fact, that a decided step in advance is taken after every one of your runs into our parish. Your father, and Major M'Turk, and I, sink lower and lower in the estimation of your followers every day. Instead of the nice little parties we used to have, where the girls, most of whom we remember as infants, used to sing "Lizzie Lindsay" for the amusement of the old ones, or play magic music, or games at forfeits, to please themselves, they now huddle up in a corner—if, perchance, no eve or fast prevents them from coming out to tea—and hold deep consultations on the state and prospects of the Church. And yet there is something so innocent and pretty in the way they manage their plots, and such a charming feeling of triumph fills their hearts, when they have achieved a victory over the habits and customs of the village, that I hardly wonder they never pause in their career, or give ear to the warnings of stupid old people like the trio I have named. In the mean time, they certainly have it all their own way,—in the injunctions they have laid on the poor people, to turn round at some parts of the service, stand up at others, and join in the most wonderful responses, in a set key, which they call entoning; and they have tormented the band so much with practising anthems, that half the population have turned dissenters in self-defence; and while the front seats are filled with satin bonnets and India shawls, and the rustle of silks is like the flight of a thousand doves when the altitude needs to be changed, there isn't a poor person to be seen in the church except John Simpkins and Peter Bolt, and they, I am sorry to say, are far from being the same quiet humble paupers they used to be; for our feminine apostles have been telling them of the honour and dignity of the poor, till there is no bearing their pride and self-conceit. Sometimes, out of respect to the Doctor, and a reverence for the old church, the grocer, the carpenter, and a few of the shopkeepers, still make their appearance in the afternoon, but they are like children the first time they go to Astley's, and stare with wonder at all the changes they see; and even our rector himself has become so confused, that he doesn't feel altogether sure that he hasn't turned a dissenter, for the mode, if not of conducting, at least of joining in the service, is something quite different from what he has been used to.
Now dissent, as you know, has been the bugbear of the Doctor through life. The very name carries with it something inexpressibly dreadful, and among the most terrifying to him of all the forms of dissent was that of Rome. But lately, a vast number of bright eyes have been lifted to the ceiling, and a great many beautiful lips opened, and a great many sweet voices raised in opposition to any hostile allusion to the objects of his abhorrence. "The church of Fenelon," says one in a reverential tone, "can surely not be altogether apostate." "The church of the two Gregories, the church of A'Beckett and Dunstan, of St Senanus, St Januarius, and the Seven Champions of Christendom, can never have fallen away from the faith," exclaims Miss Tinderella Swainlove in a very contemptuous tone, when the Doctor contrasts the great and ambitious names of Romewith the humility required in a Christian pastor. "In short, Dr Smiler, we wish to know," she said not a week ago, when she had gone up to the parsonage to practise a Gregorian chant on Christina Smiler's concertina—"we wish to know, Doctor Smiler, whether religion consists in bare plaster walls and a cassock?" "Certainly not, my dear Tinderella, but you will observe"—
"Oh, we only want an answer to that question," said the young lady, interrupting; "for, allow me to tell you, we feel our devotion greatly excited by the noble solemnity of a service decently conducted with albe and chasuble, in a building fitted for its high destination by the richest combination of architecture and the arts."
Tinderella is nineteen years of age, and as decided in her manner as a field-marshal. "May I ask, my dear, who the 'we' are in whose name you speak?" inquired the rector.
"Not Mr Ruggles the grocer, nor Chipper the carpenter, but all who are qualified by their fortune, and position in life, to judge on the subject," was Tinderella's spirited rejoinder.
"Really," said the Doctor, "you young ladies are very much changed from what you were. Two years ago, I used to have great difficulty in keeping you from balls and archeries, and had frequent occasion to lecture you for inattention in church. What, in the name of wonder, has come over you all?"
"Do you find fault with us for having given up frivolities, and turned reverent and attentive during the service?" inquired his questioner with a sneer.
"Far from it, my dear,—very far from it; but I should like very much to know what is the cause of the change. I trust, my dear Tinderella, it isn't connected with the marriage of Lieutenant Polker, with whom I remember you danced every night last winter."
"Lieutenant Polker," replied Tinderella, "has married a dissenter, or a person of low church principles, and that is as bad, and he has nothing whatever to do with our duty to the Holy Catholic Church I assure you, sir."
"Then it must be that silly, ignorant coxcomb, Charles Fustian, my own godson, my favourite from his youth—an excellent fellow, but a conceited ass—I wish he had never gone into the diocese of Vexer."
This is the tender way in which you are spoken of, my dear Charles; and I feel sure you will appreciate the compliment paid to you by the Doctor, losing his temper, but retaining his affection.
There was a blush on Tinderella's cheek as she entered into a defence of "the Reverend Charles Fustian, a priest of our church;" and she almost curtsied in reverence for your name and office; and I advise Araminta to keep watch over her friend's proceedings, for I don't think Tinderella is so deeply attached to the doctrine of celibacy as she pretends. And I take this opportunity also, my dear Charles, to tell you that I shall keep watch over YOU; and if I find you casting your smiles at Tinderella, and holding her by the hand, and recommending her to enter into the privileges of confession, in the summer-house in her father's garden—and holding forth all the time on the blessings of a conventual life and penance, and hair shirts and a cat-o'-nine-tails—I shall be greatly inclined to recur to the discipline that used to improve your manners greatly when you were a little boy, and use the scourge with more effect than when you apply it to your shoulders with your own hand.
The Doctor has just been here, and as I know you will be rejoiced to hear the news he gave me, I will transmit it to you at once.
"Buddle," he said to me, "you have perhaps seen how vainly I have tried to resist the parish, at least the young ladies of the parish; for I am sorry to say, that, with the exception of yourself and two or three others of the seniors, the parish has left me to fight the battle alone."
"My dear Smiler," I replied, "what can we do? Surely, if we lie quiet on our oars, the fancy for that sort of thing will go off."
"Not at all; as they get older it will get worse. There is some hope for them when they are very young, but in a few years there is no chance of escaping a universal passing over to the Pope; and between ourselves,"—andhere the Doctor looked at the door, as if he wished to bolt it with a twist of his eye—"I am in great anxiety of mind lest they carry me with them. Yes, my good Buddle, it would not surprise me if I awoke some morning and found myself a monk."
"How? Haven't you signed the articles and repeated the creed, and the oath of abjuration, and all that?"
"That is no defence. Those girls go to work so scientifically, carrying one object first, and then another; and they are so good, and active, and amiable, and so useful in the parish, and so clever, and defer so respectfully to my judgment in all things, that I find there is not an alteration which has taken place in the parish that I did not at first oppose, and end in a very short time by ordering on my own authority. Yes, my dear friend, I feel that, if not supported by some person of stout uncompromising church principles, I shall probably find myself eating fish on Fridays, and administering castigation to myself in my old age, and listening to young ladies' confessions, and flogging Araminta or Tinderella in atonement for their tasting a mutton-chop on a fast-day."
"It would do them both a great deal of good."
"No doubt of it, my dear Buddle; and if they were five or six years younger, such things would soon be put out of their heads." And here he clenched his hand on his riding switch, and looked like the picture of Doctor Busby. "But, as it is, I think I have stolen a march on them. Look at that."
So saying, he pointed to an advertisement in theRecordnewspaper, which stated that "a curate was wanted for a country parish; he must be under thirty, an eloquent preacher and reader; and, finally, that no Tractarian need apply."
"And he's coming, sir; the Reverend Algernon Sidney Mount Huxtable; a man of good family, tolerable fortune, and highly orthodox principles, is coming! I expect him next week, and as he is only eight-and-twenty, and unmarried, I think he will be an excellent assistant in repelling these attacks on our admirable Establishment."
So, with this piece of information, my dear Charles, I conclude, as I am anxious to go through the houses in the village, and see the effect of the announcement on the charming little army which Major M'Turk irreverently calls St Ursula's dragoons.
On Monday last, our new curate came; a most gentlemanly-mannered good-looking young man, with very dark eyes and very white teeth; and I was pleased to observe, when I dined with him the first day at the parsonage, that he did not consider these advantages as merely ornamental, but made excellent use of both. He did yeoman's service upon the fish and mutton, and cast glances on Miss Christina Smiler that made her at once give up the opposition she had made to her father's proposal of keeping a curate, and proved, to his entire satisfaction, that it was the best arrangement in the world. A pleasant good-humoured companion, a man of the world, and an unflinching son and servant of the Church, gaining the rector's confidence by an attack on Popery, and winning the ladies' affection by a spirited tirade on the vulgarity of dissent.
"The fact is," said the Doctor, after the ladies had withdrawn, and we had filled our glasses with the first bumper of port,—"the fact is, my dear Mount Huxtable, that our parish is in a very curious condition. We are all devoted members of the Church, and yet we are very suspicious of each other. The inhabitants, especially the young lady part of them, have taken such an interest lately in the affairs of the parish, and are so unanimous in enforcing their own wishes, both on me and the churchwardens—not to mention my stanch and kind friends Major M'Turk and Mr Buddle—that we feel as if the revolutionary spirit had extended to this village, and the regular authorities had been deposed by a Committee of Public Safety."
"Do theyenforcetheir wishes?" inquired the new curate, with a frown, and laying great emphasis on the word enforce.
"Well," replied the Rector, a little puzzled, "that's rather a strong word. Do you think we can call it enforce, Major M'Turk?"
"They say they'll do it, and it's done," was the reply of the military commander.
"And you, Buddle?"
"No; you can't call it enforce," said I; "for they are the meekest, sweetest, and most submissive people I ever met with."
"That's right; I'm glad to hear it," said Mount Huxtable. "And do they really succeed in all the efforts they make?"
"Not a doubt of it," said the Rector, looking rather confused. "The church is entirely different from what it was a year ago; even the service, by some means or other, has got into quite a different order; I find myself walking about in my surplice, and standing up at doxologies, and sometimes attempting to sing the Jubilate after the second lesson, though I never had a voice, and it does not seem to be set to any particular tune. And, in confidence between ourselves, I think they could make me of any religion they chose."
"They're the fittest missionaries for the Mahommedan faith," said Major M'Turk; "such Houris may always count on me for a convert."
The Curate sank into silence.
"You're not afraid of such antagonists, Mount Huxtable?" inquired the Rector.
"I don't think they are at all to be feared as antagonists," he replied, with a smile, as if assured of the victory.
And when we looked at his handsome face, and the glow of true orthodox determination that brightened in his eyes, we were all of the same opinion.
"But we won't let them see the battery we have prepared against them," continued the jubilant Rector, "till we are in a position to take the field. I have applied to the bishop for a license for you for two years, so that, whatever complaints they make against your proceedings, nothing can get you removed from the parish; the whole onus of the fight will be thrown on your shoulders; and all I can say to them, when they come to me with their grievances, will be, my dear Araminta, my dear Sophronia, my charming little Anastasia, Mr Mount Huxtable is in the entire charge of the parish, and from his decision there is no appeal."
The happiest man in England that night was the Reverend Doctor Smiler of Great Yawnham, for he had now the assurance of preserving the orthodoxy of his parish, without the pain of quarrelling with his parishioners.
"Good night, good night," he said, as M'Turk and I walked away, while Mount Huxtable got into his phaeton and whisked his greys very showily down the avenue, "I think that ewe-necked donkey, Charles Fustian, won't be quite so popular with the Blazers at Hellebore Park, in spite of Araminta's admiration of his long back and white neckcloth."
"Mount Huxtable will cut him out in every house in the parish," replied Major M'Turk; and I said,
"I know Charles very well, and like him immensely; he won't yield without a struggle, and, in fact, I have no doubt he will proceed to excommunication."
Pardon us all, my dear Charles, for the free-and-easy way we speak of you. I don't believe three old fellows in England are fonder of you than we; and no wonder—for haven't we all known you from your cradle, and traced you through all your career since you were hopelessly the booby of the dame's school, till you were twice plucked at Oxford, and proved how absurdly the dons of that university behaved, by obtaining your degree from Dublin by a special favour. Would a learned body have treated a very decided fool with special favour? No; and therefore I think Dr Smiler and M'Turk are sometimes a great deal too strong in their language; but you must forgive them, for it proceeds from the fulness of their hearts.
The license arrived next day, and a mighty tea-drinking was held last night at the parsonage, to enable the Doctor to present his curate to the parish. The Blazers came in from Hellebore Park, Araminta looking beautiful in a plain nun-like whitegown, with a cross and rosary of jet falling tastefully over her breast. The Swainloves came from the Lodge, the spirited Tinderella labouring under two prodigious folios of Gregorian chants. Sophronia and her grandmamma came up from the vale; and, in short, the whole rank and beauty of the village assembled. The manly dignity of that charming district was represented by myself and Major M'Turk; your father, who came down in his wheel-chair; Dr Pulser and his son Arthur, who has lately settled down here, with a brass plate on the surgery door, announcing that he is attorney-at-law. Arthur, you remember, has a beautiful voice, and he entones the responses like a nightingale.
We were all assembled before the guest of the evening arrived. For the thousandth time we admired the garden and lawn, and heard how the Doctor had altered the house, and levelled the grounds, and thrown out bow-windows, and made the whole thing the perfect bijou it is. The fuschias were in full bloom, the grass nicely mown, and the windows being open, we could sally forth on to the terrace walk, and admire the pleasure-grounds as we chose. But nobody moved. Christina Smiler sat at the piano, but did not play; she kept her eyes constantly fixed on the door,—as indeed did several of the other young ladies; and when at last wheels were heard rapidly approaching, and a loud knock resounded through the house, the amount of blushing was immense; the bloom of so many cheeks would have recalled to an original-minded poet a bed of roses, and old M'Turk kicked my shins unobserved, and whispered, "We shall get quit of the female parliament very soon: this is the Cromwell of the petticoats."
As he felt that he made his appearance, on this occasion, in his professional character, Mr Mount Huxtable was arrayed in strictly clerical costume. Your own tie, my dear Charles, could not have been more accurately starched, nor your coat more episcopally cut. There was the apostolic succession clearly defined on the buttons; and, between ourselves, we were enchanted with the fine taste that showed that a man might be a good stout high churchman without being altogether an adherent of the Patristics. His introduction was excellently got over, and the charming warmth with which he shook hands with the young people, after doing his salutation to us of the preterite generation, showed that his attention was not confined to the study of the fathers, but had a pretty considerable leaning to the daughters also.
"So much the better, my boy," said M'Turk, "he'll have them all back to the good old ways in a trice; we shall have picnics again on Fridays, and little dances every day in the week." Tea was soon finished, and Tinderella Swainlove, without being asked by anybody, as far as I could see, walked majestically to the piano, and laying open a huge book, gave voice with the greatest impetuosity to a Latin song, which she afterwards (turning round on the music-stool, and looking up in Mr Mount Huxtable's face) explained to be a hymn to the Virgin. But the gentleman did not observe that the explanation was addressed to him, and continued his conversation with Christina Smiler. In a few minutes he accompanied her out of the window into the garden, and the other young ladies caught occasional glimpses of the pair as they crossed the open spaces between the shrubs. The Doctor rubbed his hands with delight, and Mrs Smiler could scarcely conceal her gratification. But these feelings were not entertained by the Swainloves. Tinderella looked rather disappointed to her mother; and that lady addressed Major M'Turk in rather a bitter tone of voice, and said it was a pity the curate was so awkward, and asked how long he had been lame.
"He is by no means lame," replied the Major; "you'll learn that before long, by the dance he'll show you."
"Does he dance?" inquired Mrs Swainlove, anxiously. "As you're at the piano, my dear Tinderella, will you play us that charming polka you used to play last year?"
A polka!—it was the first that had been demanded for a long time; and, in the surprise and gratification of the moment, the Major took her affectionately by the hand. Tinderella played as required; and great was the effectof her notes: first one fair lady, and then another, found the room too hot; and before many minutes elapsed, we, who sat near the window, saw the whole assembly, except the performer on the piano, grouped round the new curate, who seemed giving them lectures on botany, for he held some flowers in his hand, and was evidently very communicative to them all. Mrs Swainlove, seeing her stratagem of no avail, told Tinderella to stop, and the conversation was entirely limited to the men who stayed behind. Young Pulser, the attorney, had joined the party in the garden, and the senior ladies, with the discomfited musician, soon also retired.
"He'll do," said the Major confidentially—"he's the very man for our money; and all things considered—not forgetting my friend Christina among the rest—you never did a wiser thing in your life, my dear Smiler."
"He seems a sure hand among the girls," said your father, "and I haven't had a chance of a minute's talk with him. I wanted to speak to him about my son Charles."
"He'll give you good advice about breaking in that stiff-necked young gentleman," said the Rector, "and we must contrive to get them acquainted."
"Bless ye," said your father, "they're very well acquainted already. He lived in Charles's parish in the diocese of Vexer, and was a great favourite, I'm told, of the bishop."
"Nonsense, my dear fellow," said the Doctor, taken a little aback, "he can't possibly be a favourite of such a firebrand—it must be some one else; and, besides, he never told me he was a friend of your son."
"You can ask him," replied your father, "for I'm quite sure I've often heard Charles talk of his friend Mount Huxtable."
A dead silence fell upon us all. Strange, we thought, that he should never have alluded to his acquaintance with you. Can he be ashamed of the way you have been going on? Is he afraid of being suspected of the same ludicrous feastings and fastings that have given you such a reputation here?
"Pray, my dear Mount Huxtable," said Dr Smiler, when the new curate, accompanied by the young ladies—like the proud-walking, long-necked leader of a tribe of beautiful snow-white geese—entered the room, "have you ever met our excellent friend, Charles Fustian?"
"Fustian—Fustian?" replied the Curate, trying to recollect. "There are so many of that name in the Church, I surely ought to have met with one of them."
The Doctor nodded his head, quite satisfied, to your father.
"You see, you see," he said, with a chuckle.
"I see nothing of the sort," said your progenitor; "for though Fustian is common enough in the Church, I'm sure Mount Huxtable isn't."
"That's true," said the Doctor. "Pray, how do you account for Charles Fustian happening to know YOU?"
"Ah, my dear sir," answered Mount Huxtable, with a smile to the ladies, "there is an old byword, which says more people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows."
A great laugh rewarded this sally, and the Doctor's triumph over his neighbours was complete.
"I told you what it would come to," he said; "no true orthodox churchman can have any acquaintance with such a semi-papist as poor Charles."
The conversation now went on in the usual channel—that is to say, we talked a little politics, which was very uninteresting, for we all agreed; and the young ones attacked the Curate on music and painting, and church architecture, on all which subjects he managed to give them great satisfaction, for he was an excellent musician, a tolerable artist, and might have passed anywhere for a professional builder. I suppose they were as much astonished as pleased to find that a man might be an opponent of the Tracts, and yet be as deep in church matters as themselves. Encouraged by this, they must have pushed their advances rather far for a first meeting; for, after an animated conversation in the bow-window, Araminta and two or three other young ladies came to the Doctor's chair.
"Only think, dear Doctor Smiler," she said, "how unkind Mr Mount Huxtable is. Next Thursday, ourpractising day in the church, is the Feast of holy St Ingulpus of Doncaster, and he won't give us leave to ornament the altar with flowers."
"And who in the world is St Ingulpus of Doncaster?" said the Doctor.
"A holy man, I don't in the least deny," said Mount Huxtable, kindly taking the answer on himself. "His acts and writings attest his virtues and power; but I merely mentioned to the young ladies, as the easiest way of settling the affair, that St Ingulpus, though most justly canonised by the holy father in the thirteenth century, was not elevated to the degree of worship or veneration by the succeeding councils."
"And you answered them very well, sir," said the Doctor. "And as to St Ingulpus of Doncaster, I never heard of him, and believe him to have been an impostor, like the holy father, as you ironically call him, who pretended to canonise him."
"Oh, papa!" said Christina, addressing her father, but looking all the time at the Curate, "Mr Mount Huxtable himself confesses he was a holy man."
"What?—doyoujoin in such follies? Go to bed, or learn to behave less like a child. Mr Mount Huxtable accommodates his language to the weakness of his auditors; but in reality he has as great a contempt for this Ingulpus, or any other popish swindler, as I have."
The Doctor was now so secure of support from his curate, that he felt bold enough to get into a passion. If he had fired a pistol at his guests, he could scarcely have created a greater sensation. The effect on Christina was such that she clung for support to Mount Huxtable, and rested her head on his shoulder.
"Mr Mount Huxtable," continued the Rector, "has forbidden you to disfigure my church with flowers. Mr Mount Huxtable has the entire charge of this parish, and from his decision there is no appeal."
This knock-down blow he had kept for the last; and it had all the effect he expected. They were silent for a long time. "That has settled them, I think," he whispered to me; "they know me to be such a good-natured old fool, and so fond of them all, that in time they might have turned me round their thumbs; but Mount Huxtable is a different man. At the same time, I must'nt have the darlings too harshly used. I daresay I was a little too bitter in the way I spoke: I can't bear to see any of them unhappy,—something must be done to amuse them."
If the Doctor had done them all some serious injury, he could not have been more anxious to atone for it. He spoke to each of them, patted them on the head, told them they were good girls, and that he loved them all like his own children; and even went so far as to say that, if the matter was entirely in his hands, he didn't know but that he might have allowed them to make what wreaths and posies they liked on Thursday. "And as to your friend Ingulpus," he concluded, "I hope and trust he was a good man according to his lights, and probably had no intention to deceive. So, my dear Mount Huxtable, as your uncompromising Protestantism is the cause of disappointment to my young flock, I must punish you by insisting on your immediately singing them a song."
"The young ladies, sir, shall find I am not so uncompromising a Protestant as they fear, for you see I don't even protest against the justice of your sentence;" and with this he took his seat at the piano. "The song I shall attempt is not a very new one," he said, "for it was written in the year a thousand and forty by a monk of Cluny. The Benedictines, you will remember, have at all times been devoted to music." So saying, he threw his hand over the keys, and after a prelude, sang in a fine manly voice—