I do not know how far other men's experiences will corroborate the opinion, but for myself I will say that more than once has it occurred to me to remark that some of the most monotonous periods of my life have been those to which I often look back with the greatest pleasure, and love to think over as amongst the happiest. The time I passed at Linange was one of these. Nothing could be more simple, nothing more uniform than our life there. The unhappy circumstance to which I have already alluded had completely estranged from the family any of those with whom they might have associated. From some, the former rank and condition of the house separated them; from others they were removed by political bias; and to the rest, the event of which I have already spoken was the barrier. Thus, then, was our life passed within the limits of an humble household of four persons. The old Marquis—for such was he still styled by us—was a fine specimen of the class to which he belonged: proud and stately in manner, but courteous almost to humility in his bearing to one beneath his roof. Unbroken by misfortune, he trusted that—although not in his time—the world would yet return to its ancient course, and the good king “have his own again.” His personal calamities sat lightly on him, or, rather, he bore them bravely. If he spoke of his former state and position, it was in regret for those faithful followers he could no longer support,—not for himself, whose wants were few, and whose habits demanded no luxuries. In the calling that he practised for his maintenance, he saw rather an occasion for pride than humiliation. There was but one topic from which he shrunk back; nor could all his courage enable him to approach that. When I first saw him, it was after a severe attack brought on by the dreadful tidings from Paris; and yet his composure seemed to me almost bordering on indifference, and I half revolted against the calm elegance of a good-breeding that seemed above the reach of all feeling. Ursule was a “nun;” and whether the walls around her were those of a cloister or a cottage, her heart was enclosed within the observances of the convent. She rose hours before daybreak, to pass her time in prayer and solitude. She fasted, and toiled, and observed penances, exactly as if beneath the rule of the Superior. She had been singularly handsome, and there was still a character of beauty in her features, to which her devotional life imparted an expression of sublimity such as I have never seen even in a “Raphael.” Suffering and sorrow seemed so blended with hopefulness—present agony so tinctured with a glorious future—that, to me at least, she appeared almost angelic.
As for “Margot,” child as she was, the whole care of the household devolved upon her. The humblestménageis not without its duties, and to these she addressed herself at once. It was on the day after my arrival, and while just meditating a return to Paris, that symptoms of fever first showed themselves, and a severe shivering, followed by intense headache, showed me that I was not to escape the consequences of my unhappy encounter. Ursule, whose experience in hospital life had been considerable, was the first to see the mischief that threatened, and at once persuaded me to submit to treatment. The old Marquis was soon at my bedside, but as quickly did he perceive that the case was beyond his skill. The surgeon of the village was now sent for; he bled me largely, dressed my wounds, administered some cooling drink, and then left me to that terrible interval which precedes mania, and when the enfeebled intellect struggles for mastery against the force of wandering faculties.
In my wild fancies, all the incidents of my early days, the little adventures of boyhood, my mountain ramble, and my life in Paris, came back, and I talked with intense eagerness to those around me of them all. Short intervals of consciousness, like gleams of sunlight in a lowering sky, would break through these, and then I saw beside the bed the kind faces, and heard the gentle accents, of my friends. “Ursule” and, “Margot” scarcely ever left me. In the dark hours of the long night, if a weary sigh escaped me, one of them was sure to be near to ask if I was in pain or if I needed anything. How often have I turned away from these gentle questionings to hide my face within my hands and cry, not in sorrow, but in a thankful outpouring of emotion, that I, the poor unfriended, uncared-for orphan, should be thus watched, and tended, and loved!
It was not till after a lapse of weeks that I was pronounced out of danger, nor even till long after that that I could arise from my bed. Shall I ever forget the strange confusion of ideas that beset me as I first found myself alone one morning in the little garden, scarcely knowing if I was still dreaming, or if all was reality around me! Where was I? how came I there? were questions that I could not follow to a solution. Some resemblance in the scenery with the country around Reichenau assisted the mystification, and from the entanglement of my thoughts no effort could rescue me. As, one by one, memories of the past came up, there came with them the sad reflection of my own lonely, isolated condition in life. The humblest had a home—had those around them to whose love and affection they could lay claim as from blood and kindred—who bore the same name, were supported by the same hopes, cheered by the same joys, and sorrowed for the same sufferings! It was true that no affection a sister could bestow could exceed that I had met with where I was. There was not a kindness of which I had not been the object. Was I, could I, be ungrateful for these? Far from it!—my melancholy lay in the thought that these were the very evidences of my own forlorn lot, and that compassion and pity were the sentiments that prompted them in my behalf.
I knew, besides, that in my long illness I must have proved a grievous burden to those whose own circumstances were straitened to the utmost limit of narrow fortune. I saw about me comforts, even luxuries, that must have cost many a privation to acquire. I felt that, in succoring me, they had imposed upon themselves the weight of many a future want. These were afflicting considerations, nor could all my ingenuity discover one resource against them. I was still too weak to walk; my limbs tottered under me as I went. Perhaps it were better it had been so, since I really believe if I had had strength sufficient for the effort, notwithstanding all the shame that might attach to my ingratitude, I should have fled from the house that moment, never to return! It was in the abandonment of grief arising from these thoughts that “Ursule” discovered me. With what tenderness did she rally my drooping spirits; how gently did she chide my faint-heartedness!
“You must rise above these things, Jasper,” said she to me. “You must learn to see that the small ills of life are difficult to be borne just because they suggest no high purpose.”
And from this she went on to tell me of the noble devotion of the missionary, the splendid enthusiasm that elevated men above every thought of peril, and taught them to court danger and confront suffering. How mean and sordid did she represent every other ambition in comparison with this! How ignoble was the soldier's heroism when placed beside the martyrdom of the priest! With consummate art she displayed before my boyish fancy all that was attractive, all that was picturesque, in the missionary's life. To glowing descriptions of scenery and savage life succeeded touching episodes of deep interest and passages of tenderest emotions, the power of the Church—whether as consoler or comforter, as healing the sick or supporting the weak-hearted—being never forgotten. If she saw that my mind dwelt with pleasure on pictures of splendor, she lingered on scenes of greatness and royal power, when priests associated with monarchs as their guides and counsellors. If, at another moment, the romance seemed to engage my attention, she narrated incidents of the most affecting kind. At these moments it was strange to mark how the cold and almost stern reserve of the cloister seemed lost in the glowing enthusiasm of the devotee. It was not the nun broken down by fasting, wasted by penance, and subdued by prayer, but the almost inspired daughter of the Church, glorying and exulting in its triumph. She gave me books to read,—lives of saints and martyrs, of devoted missionaries and pious fathers. If in some instances the sufferings they endured seemed more than mere humanity could support, the triumphant joy of their victories appeared to partake of a celestial brilliancy. Day by day, hour by hour, did she pursue the theme, till the subject, like a river fed by a thousand rills, overflowed all else in my mind, and left no room for aught but itself.
It was not difficult for her to show that the frightful condition of France at the period—its lawless confiscations, its pillage, and its bloodshed—all dated from the extinction of the Church. The task was an easy one to contrast past peace and happiness with present anarchy and suffering. I reflected long and deeply on the subject. If doubts assailed me, I came to her to solve them; if difficulties embarrassed me, I asked her to explain them. I applied the question to the circumstances of my own position in life, and began to believe that it was exactly the career to suit me. I eagerly inquired, next, how the fitting education might be obtained, and learned that since the destruction of the religious societies of France and the Low Countries, many had emigrated to Spain and Italy, and some to England. Sister “Ursule” was in correspondence with more than one of these, and promised to obtain all the information I sought for; meanwhile, she besought me to devote my whole mind and thoughts to these sacred subjects, withdrawing, so far as I might, all my desires and ambition from the world.
Margot, I am obliged to own, contributed but little to aid my pious purpose; her gay and joyous nature had no sympathy with asceticism and restraint. The poets and dramatists, whose works she read in secret, inspired very different thoughts from the subject of my studies; her childish buoyancy could not endure the weight of that gloom which a life of denial imposes; and whenever we were alone together, she rallied me on my newly assumed seriousness as on a costume which I would soon discover to be insufferable.
I dwell on these things, trifling as they are, because they convey the curious conflict which my mind sustained at this time, and the struggle that went on within me between the tendencies natural to my age, and the impulses that grew out of a sudden enthusiasm. Perhaps I might not care to recall them, if it was not that they remind me of Margot such as I then remember her. I see her before me: her dark eyes, flashing with daring brilliancy, dropped in a half-rebellious submission, her changing color, her fair and open brow, her beautiful mouth, with all its varying expression, her very gait, haughty even in its girlish gayety,—all rise to my mind's eye; and I feel even yet within me the remembrance of that strange distrust and bashfulness with which I endeavored to reply to her witty sallies, and recall her to a seriousness like my own I I was no hypocrite, and yet she half hinted that I was; neither was it a dash of thoughtless enthusiasm that carried me away, though she often said so. It was the very reverse of vanity or self-exaltation,—it was humility that prompted me to devote myself to a career from which others might have been withheld by the ties of home and affection.
“You forget, Margot,” cried I one day, when she bantered me beyond endurance, “that I am already an idle and homeless being, without one on earth to love me!”
“But I love you, Jasper!” said she, seizing my hand and pressing it to her lips; and then, as suddenly dropping it, she became pale as death, and staggered as if falling. I caught her in my arms; but she disengaged herself at once, and, with her hands pressed closely over her face, fled from the spot.
From that day she never jested with me, nor even alluded to my choice of a career. She, I fancied, even avoided being alone with me as she used to be; the playful tricks she had indulged in of hiding my serious books, or substituting for them others of a very different kind, were all abandoned. Her whole manner and bearing were changed, nor could I fail to see that there was no longer between us the cordial frankness that hitherto united us. If this were, in one respect, a source of sorrow to me, in another there was a strange, secret charm in that reserve so full of meaning,—in that shyness so suggestive!
Up to that time I had been in the habit of reading with her some part of every day. My school-learning, such as it was, was yet fresh in my memory, and I was delighted to have a pupil so gifted and intelligent; but from this time forth she never resumed her studies, but pretended a variety of occupations as excuses. I know not, I cannot even speculate, on how this might have ended, when a sudden change of events gave a decisive turn to my destinies.
The bâtonnier who had so kindly undertaken to look after the little remnant of Monsieur Bernois' fortune was no less prompt than he had promised. He made all the arrangements required by law, and corresponded with me on each step of the proceedings. In one of these letters was a postscript containing these words: “Is it true that you have had a serious rencontre with a captain of the Chasseurs-à-Cheval who is still in danger from the wound he received?” Before my reply to this question could have reached him, came the following brief note:—
“My dear Monsieur Carew,—I learned late last night the whole circumstances of the adventure of which I had asked an explanation from you by my letter of Tuesday. The affair is a most unhappy one on every account, but on none more than the fact that your antagonist was Captain Carrier, the brother of the celebrated member of the Constituent of that name. I need scarcely remind you that his friends, numerous and influential as they are, are now your bitterest enemies. They are at this moment busily employed in making searches into your previous life and habits; and should all other sources of accusation fail, will inevitably make your nationality the ground of attack, and perhaps denounce you as a spy of the English Government. The source from which I obtained this information leaves no doubt of its correctness, as you will acknowledge when I add that it enables me to forward to you, by this enclosure, a passport for England, under the name of Bernard. I also transmit a bank order for one thousand francs, which I beg you will use freely, as if your own, and part of a fund, the remainder of which I will take an early opportunity of placing in your hands. The hurried nature of my present communication prevents me adding more than that I am, very faithfully, your friend.”
His initials alone were inscribed at the foot of this most extraordinary epistle. I hastened to show it to the Marquis, who, on learning the name of the writer, pronounced him one of the first men at the French bar.
“The warning of such a man,” said he, “must not be neglected; and although Carrier's faction have fallen, who can answer what to-morrow may bring forth? At all events, your position as an alien is highly perilous, and you must see to your safety at once.”
As for the concluding portion of the letter, he could not assist me to any explanation of it. The nearest approach to elucidation was, that many of the leading lawyers of Paris were frequently selected by their clients as depositaries of property, and that it was just possible such had been the case here.
With this meagre suggestion he left me, and I proceeded, with a heavy heart, to make my preparations for departure.
The diligence passed our door, and the conductor had orders to stop and take me up, as he went by. That supper was a sorrowful meal to all of us. They had come to think of me as one of themselves, and I felt as if I was about to part with the last who would ever befriend me.
There was but little said on any side, and none of us ventured on a word alluding to my departure. At last the old Marquis, laying his hand on my shoulder, said,—
“These are not days in which one can trust to the post, Jasper; but if ever the occasion offer of letting us hear of you by other means, you 'll not neglect it.”
“The Père Tonsurd will manage this for you,” broke in Ursule. “He knows how to communicate, when, and with whom he pleases.”
“But how am I to meet with him?” asked I.
“This is his address, and this letter will introduce you,” said she, giving me a carefully-folded and well-sealed packet. “Make a friend of him, Jasper, and your happiness will be the reward.”
I thought that Margot's lip was upturned at these words, with a faint expression of disdainful meaning; but I may easily have been deceived, for as I looked again, her features were calm and unmoved.
“The Père,” resumed Ursule, “was superintendent of the 'Chaise Dieu,' and removed to be a Professor at Namur. He is a man of high acquirements and sincere piety, but his great characteristic is his humility. With a tenth of the ambition that others possess, he had been a Prince of the Church.”
Margot's eyes were downcast as this was spoken, so that I could not detect how the speech affected her; but again it struck me that her mouth was moved with an expression of scorn.
“There! I hear the horn of the postilion; you have n't a moment to lose!” cried Ursule.
A fond, close embrace with each in turn, and a whispered word from Margot which I tried in vain to catch, and I was gone! I buried my head between my hands in shame, for I was crying bitterly, and never looked up till we were far away from the village, and traversing a wide, open country, with great undulating fields of corn, and few traces of habitation.
“Come, come, be a man,” broke in theconducteur, with a rough good-humor. “You 're not the first who had to leave his home for the conscription, and some have gone backchefs-d' escadron, afterwards.”
I accepted the part he thus erringly assigned me, and let him run on about all the fortunes and chances of a soldier's life.
If his conversation did not divert my thoughts, it at least suffered me to pursue them unmolested; and so I travelled along through the whole of that night and the following day, seldom speaking, or only in half mechanical assent to some remark of my companion.
“They 'll want to see your passport here, citizen,” said he, as we approached the gate of a fortified town; “so get it ready, and don't delay the authorities.”
A few minutes more brought us to the outworks of a fortification, passing through which, we crossed a drawbridge, over a deep moat, and entered a long, dark archway. Here the diligence drew up, and the passengers were ordered to descend. I overheard theconducteursay the word “conscript,” and began to fear that he used it in relation to me, when suddenly the official, opening my passport, called out:
“Which of you is the citizen Bernard?”
I at once remembered that it was the name I had recruited under, and answered, “It is I.”
“Step inside here,” said he, civilly; “I have some directions with respect to you.”
I walked into a small chamber off the public room, when, having carefully closed the door, he said,—
“So you are going over to England, monsieur?”
The last word was accented deeply, and with an emphasis meant to show that he who used it proclaimed himself no partisan of republican principles, but one who held to the ancient habits of the monarchy.
The manners of the time suggested distrust on all sides, and I answered, guardedly, that I had some intention of visiting England.
“You will see them, then,” resumed he, “and even that much is a blessing in itself! How do I envy you! Ah, monsieur, if the name should not escape you, will you try and remember Claude Mirepois? My father was head postilion in the royal stables, and enjoyed his pension to his death; and I was educated by order of the princes, and was to have been in the household too.”
“Are we all right and regular, citizen?” broke in theconducteur, putting in his head.
“All right—quite right, citizen Guichemar,” said the other, in some confusion. “These are ticklish times; I was anxious to see that this youth's pass was regular.”
“Parbleu!a conscript is alwaysen règle,” said the other, laughing, and so hurried me away to the diligence; and once more we rattled along on our journey.
The whole of that night my mind dwelt upon this incident. Amongst the various parties that disputed for preeminence in the country, I had never heard of any professing royalist principles, except the Vendeans; nor had I the slightest suspicion that many concealed monarchists held places of trust under the government of the republic.
At Havre, I discovered that the measures of the police were of the very strictest kind, and that to obtain a permission to embark, it was necessary to have a reference to some citizen of the town, who should stand guarantee for your loyalty and integrity. Now, I had never been there before; I knew none, not even by name; and what was I to do? Great as my difficulty was, I did not suffer it to appear so to the commissary, but calmly said that I 'd return to my hotel, and run my eye over a list of the merchants for one to be my bail.
The packet was to sail that evening with the tide; and as the office of the commissaire closed at four o'clock, there was little time to lose. I wandered on “from street to street; I walked into cafés; I sat down in the most public places, scanning with eagerness every face that passed me, and straining my eyes to try and detect the features of an acquaintance. The pursuit became at length a perfect farce, and I hurried to and fro with a burning brain, and a restless impatience that was almost maddening.
“Parbleu! this is the fourth time you've been in here to-day,” cried a short, thickset man, past the prime of life, and who kept a sort of slop-shop near the quay. “What do you want with me, my lad?”
I was turning to leave the spot without replying, when he closed the half-door of his shop, and placed his back against it.
“Come, my friend, you shall certainly say what has brought you here, ere you get away this time.”
“I am in search of some one,—I am looking for one of my acquaintances,” said I, hurriedly.
“And expected to find him here?” added he, half sneeringly.
“Here—anywhere,” said I, recklessly.
“Just so; I thought as much. Well, my lad, you had better give a more satisfactory account of yourself to the commissary. Come along with me to the police.”
“With all my heart,” cried I.
“Who are you? Whence do you come?” asked he, with somewhat of kindliness in his voice.
“These are questions you have no right to ask me, citizen,” replied I.
“Well, have I not a right to know why you have been four several times in my shop this forenoon, and never bought nor asked for anything?”
“That you shall hear freely and frankly,” said I; “I have a passport made out for England, whither I wish to go. The authorities require that I should have some reference to a citizen of Havre before they allow me to depart. I am a stranger here,—I know of no one, not even by name. The whole of this morning I have spent hurrying hither and thither to find out some one I have seen before, but in vain. All are strangers to me; none know me. In my wanderings, it may be that I have chanced to come here as often as you say,—perhaps I have done so in twenty places; for my head is distracted, and I cannot collect my thoughts. There, then, is the answer to your inquiry.”
“Have you a trade or a handicraft, lad?”
“Not either.”
“Nor any means of support?”
“Quite sufficient for all my wants,” replied I, boldly; and at the same time producing my purse, well stored as it was with five-franc pieces.
“Ah, then, you belong to some of theémigrés?You are going to join your family?” asked he, but in a lower and more cautious voice.
“Don't you think that I have been candid enough already, friend?” said I; “and do you not know sufficient of my affairs, without asking me more?”
“Not if it be for more than mere curiosity,” said he, drawing nearer to me; “not if I ask from a sincere interest in you.”
“But I ought, perhaps, to hear something of him that questions me,” said I, affecting an amount of circumspection that was far from natural to me.
“Then go out upon the quay yonder, and ask who is Pierre Dubos. My character and my name are well known in Havre; you 'll not have to ask often without an answer.”
“Well, then, citizen, tell me what more you wish to learn about me. I 'll tell you whatever you like, if I only know it.”
“Have you dined yet, lad?” asked he, quietly.
“No; I have not had time.”
“Come, then, and partake of mine;” and, without waiting for an answer, he let down the shutter that closed the entrance to his shop, and led me by the arm into a room behind it.
Pierre Dubos, though nearer to sixty than fifty, was only a short time married to a very pretty and young woman who, as he entered the room, was arranging the table for dinner. She received me with much courtesy, scarcely heeding, if she even heard, the explanation her husband gave to account for my presence.
The meal was an excellent one, and passed off with all that easy conviviality that every class of Frenchmen know how to display. Monsieur Dubos seemed somewhat of a character, and rather piqued himself on doing things that others might never have thought of. His marriage appeared to have been one of these; his invitation to myself was another.
“You know, Jeanette,” said he, “we might never have met if it had not been for the ferry being delayed at Honfleur. We made acquaintance on the steps of the pier; and see what has come of it! Now, I have come to know Bernard here by a similar accident. Who knows what may arise out of that?”
Madame smiled benignly in assent to the theory, the happy results of which she seemed to acknowledge.
Coffee came after dinner; and then I began to think how I should take my leave. Ere I could solve the problem to my satisfaction, Dubos said,—
“Shall we all go to the comedy this evening? They play a grand piece, one of Beaumanhui's,—and it will amuse us.”
Madame hailed the proposition with delight; and I really felt sorry as I said,—
“But this will never bring me to England.”
“What need to go there? Why not stay in France? Was it not a pleasanter country and a better climate? At all events, what urgent haste was there? Would not to-morrow serve as well as to-day?”
These and such-like arguments were showered upon me, and not a little aided by many little coquetries of look and gesture.
“One thing is quite certain,” said Dubos: “it is now three,—the bureau closes at four o'clock; and if you know of any one in Havre who will be your sponsor, the sooner you find him the better.”
This speech was uttered with so much gravity that it completely mystified me; nor did the next remark serve greatly to elucidate matters, as his wife said she hoped “I 'd have a pleasant voyage.” After enjoying my astonished and puzzled look for a second or two, they both burst into a roar of laughter.
“Don't you see, Bernard,” said the man, “that you have no other acquaintance in the city than ourselves; and if we have a fancy for your company, and do not care to part with it, the option is with us?”
“But if you really do feel an interest for me, you would befriend me,” said I. “Is not that so?”
“And so I 'm ready to do,” said he, rising. “Say the word, and I 'll go with you this moment to the commissary.”
I arose too. Already the syllables were on my lips, when the sudden thought flashed across me: Whither am I hurrying, and for what? Was I returning to home and family and country? Was I going back to kind and loving friends, whose hearts were yearning for my coming? I paused, and at the same instant the laughing eyes of the young Frenchwoman seemed to read my embarrassment.
“Well,” cried Dubos, “how is it to be?”
“Sit down, Pierre, and take your coffee,” said she, smiling. “Citizen Bernard has not the slightest intention of leaving us. He knows, besides, that you will be just as ready to serve him any other day, and not the less so when you will have been better acquainted.”
“She is right,” said he, pressing me down into my seat again. “Let's have achassein ease, and quick.”
I did not stop to reason the question. If I had, perhaps I should only have seen stronger cause to concur with my kind hosts. The world was a wide and trackless ocean before me, and even the humblest haven was a welcome harbor to me for a day or two.
I stayed accordingly, and went to the theatre with them. The following day was Sunday, and we went over to Honneur, and dined at the “Trois Pigeons;” and Pierre showed me the spot where he first saw his pretty wife, and said,—
“Who knows but some day or other I may be telling of the day and the hour and the way I became acquainted with you?”
As I parted with them each night, some little plan or project was always struck out for the morrow; and so I lingered on from day to day, half listless, and half pleased. At length, as I was proceeding one morning towards the house, I saw a crowd in front of a café all busily engaged in reading a large placard which had just been affixed to the wall. It was an account of the seizure by the English of the very vessel I had intended to have taken my passage in; for, strangely enough, though the countries were at war, a species of half intercourse was kept up between them for some time, and travellers often passed from one shore to the other. This system was now, it seemed, to have an end; and it was curious to remark how bitter were the commentaries the change excited.
Pierre had learned the news by the time I reached his house, and laughingly remarked on the good luck that always attended his inspirations.
“But for me,” said he, “and my wise counsels, you had been a prisoner now, and all your claims to nationality would only have got you hanged for a traitor. From the first moment I saw you, something whispered me that we were destined to know more of each other; and now I perceive that the impression was-well founded.”
“How do you infer that?” asked I, smiling.
“Because my instincts have never betrayed me yet.”
“And what is to be the upshot of our acquaintance, then?”
“Do you ask this seriously, Bernard, or are you only jesting at my presentiments?”
“In all seriousness and in all trustfulness,” replied I.
“You 'll stay here in Havre—join me in my business—make money—be a rich man—and—” he paused.
“Go on; I like the prophecy,” said I, laughing.
“And I was going to say, just as likely to lose it all, some fine morning, as easily as you earned it.”
“But I have not a single requisite for the part you assign me. I am ignorant of every branch of trade and traffic; nor, if I know myself, do I possess one single quality that insures success in them.”
“I'll teach you, Bernard! There are few secrets in my craft. We deal with smugglers,—we buy from them, and sell to them! For the pedler that comes to us in our shop in the 'Rue des Sol,' we care little; for our customers who drop in after nightfall, we have a sincere affection. You have hitherto regarded them in the light of visitors and friends. You little suspected that through them we carried on all our business; and just as little did it ever occur to you that you yourself are already a great favorite with them. Your stories, your remarks, the views you take of life, all your observations, are quite novel and amusing to poor fellows whose whole experience of the world is picked up in stormy nights in the Channel, or still more perilous adventures on shore. Many have already asked me when you would be with me of an evening, that they might come; others have begged they might bring friends along with them; and, in short, they like you; and they are fellows who, when they have fancies, don't grudge the price they pay for them.”
I laughed heartily as I heard this. Assuredly it had never occurred to myself to observe the circumstance, still less to make it a matter of profit or speculation; but, somehow, the coarse flattery of even such admiration was not without a certain charm for my mind.
Still, it was a part I could not have condescended to practise for gain, nor, perhaps, had such been my intention, could I have been equally successful.
Dubos, however, assigned me a duty which made a happy compromise between my self-esteem and my desire for employment. This was to make acquaintance with all of that adventurous race comprised between the buccaneer and the smuggler; to learn their various wants, when they voyaged, and for what, became my province. They were a wild, wasteful, and reckless class, who loved far better to deal with one who should stand to them in the relation of a companion than as a chapman or a dealer.
If I am free to own that my occupation was not very dignified, I am equally able to assert that I never prostituted any influence I obtained in this way to personal objects of profit. On the contrary, I have repeatedly been able to aid, by good counsel and advice, men whose knowledge of adventurous life was far greater than my own; and oftentimes has it occurred to me to obtain for them quadruple the value they had themselves set upon objects they possessed.
I can scarcely account to myself for the extraordinary interest the pursuit engendered,—the characters, the places they frequented, the habits, were all of the strangest, and might reasonably have amused one ardently fond of adventure; but there was, besides all this, a degree of danger in the intercourse that imparted a most intense degree of interest to it.
Many of these men were great criminals. Many of the valuables confided to my keeping were obtained by the most questionable means. They trafficked not alone in articles of contraband, but they dealt in the still more dangerous wares of secret information to governments; some were far less smugglers than spies. All these curious traits became revealed to me in our intercourse; and I learned to see by what low and base agencies are often moved the very greatest and most momentous incidents of the world. It was not alone that many of these men were employed by persons high in station, but they were really often intrusted with functions very disproportionate to their own claim for either character or fitness. At one time it would be a state secret; at another, some dark piece of treacherous vengeance, or some scarcely less dark incident of what fashion calls “gallantry;” while occasionally a figure would cross the scene of a very different order, and men of unquestionable station be met with in the garb and among the haunts of the freebooter.
There was scarcely a leader of the republican party with whom some member of the exiled family had not attempted the arts of seduction. With many of them, it was said, they really succeeded; and others only waited their opportunity to become their partisans. Whether the English Government actually adopted the same policy or not, they assuredly had the credit of doing so; and the sudden accession to wealth and affluence of men who had no visible road to fortune, greatly favored this impression. My friend Pierre Dubos troubled his head very little about these things. So long as his “brandies could be run” upon the shores of England, and his bales of silk find their way to London without encountering a custom-house, he cared nothing for the world of politics and statecraft; and it is not impossible that his well-known indifference to these matters contributed something to the confidence with which they were freely imparted to myself. Whatever the cause, I soon became the trusted depositary of much that was valuable, not alone in actual wealth, but in secret information. Jewels, sums of money, securities to a great amount, papers and documents of consequence, all found their way to my hands; and few went forth upon any expedition of hazard without first committing to my keeping whatever he possessed of worth.
I was now living in privacy and simplicity, it is true, but in the enjoyment of every comfort; but, still, with all the sense of a precarious and even a perilous existence. More than once had I been warned that the authorities entertained suspicion of me; and although the police, even to its highest grades, was in our pay, it was yet possible that they should find it their interest to betray us. It was just at this time that a secret envoy arrived from Paris at Havre, en route for England, and was arrested on entering the town. His papers were all seized, except one small packet which was conveyed by a safe hand to myself, and my advice and counsel requested on the subject of it. The address was simply “W. P.,” and marked, “with the greatest speed.” There was an enclosure that felt like a locket-case or a medallion, inside, and three large seals without.
The envoy, who had contrived to disburden himself of this in the very moment of his arrestation, at once made a signal indicative of its pressing emergency; and his own rank and position seemed to guarantee the fact. One of our luggers was only waiting for the tide to weigh anchor and sail for England; and the sudden resolve struck me to take charge of the letter, and see if I could not discover for whom it was meant. Both Dubos and his wife did all in their power to dissuade me from the project. They spoke of the great peril of the attempt, and its utter fruitlessness besides; but for the former I had not many fears, and as to the latter consideration, I was fortified by a strong and deep-felt conviction that the locket was intended for no less a personage than the head of the English ministry, and that “William Pitt” was designated by the initials of the direction. I own that the conjecture was mainly suggested to me by the constant reference made to his name, and the frequent allusions I had heard made to him by many of the secret emissaries.
If I did not impart this impression to Dubos, it was simply because I knew how little interest the subject would have for him, and that I should frame very different reasons for my journey if I looked for his concurrence. I need not stop to record the discussion that ensued between us. Enough if I say that honest Pierre made me an offer of partnership with him if I consented to forego my journey, from which he steadily predicted that I should return no more. This prophecy had no power to deter me,—nay, I half suspect that it furnished an additional argument for my going.
Having consigned to him, therefore, all the objects of value that had been left with me, and taking nothing but the few papers and letters belonging to myself, I sailed that evening; and, as day was breaking, I saw looming through the distance the tall and chalky cliffs of England. We were a long way to the northward of the part usually frequented by our skipper, and it was not without difficulty that I persuaded him to land me in a small bay, in which a solitary cottage was the only sign of habitation.
By noon I gained the hut of a fisherman, who, though he had seen me put out from a craft that he knew to be French, yet neither expressed any surprise at my appearance, nor thought it a matter for any questioning. The shoal water and the breakers, it is true, could have prevented the spot being selected as a landing-place for troops; but nothing was easier than to use it to disembark either secret emissaries, or even a small body of men. I walked from this to a small town about eight miles inland, whence I started the same night by coach for London. I cannot convey my notion of the sense of freedom I felt at wandering thus at will, unquestioned by any one. Had I but travelled a dozen miles in France, I should have been certain of encountering full as many obstacles. Here none troubled their heads about me; and whence I came, or whither I went, were not asked by any. Some, indeed, stared at my travel-worn dress, and looked with surprise at my knapsack, covered with undressed calf-skin; but none suspected that it was French, nor that he who carried it had landed, but a few hours before, from the land of their dread and abhorrence. In fact, the England and France of those days were like countries widely separated by distance, and the narrow strip of sea between them was accounted as a great ocean. No sooner had I arrived in London than I inquired for the residence of the Prime Minister. It was not a period when the Parliament was sitting. They told me that I should rarely find him in town, but was sure of meeting with him at Hounslow, where he had taken a house for his health, then much broken by the cares and fatigues of office.
It was evening—a fine, mellow autumn evening—as I found myself in front of a large, lonely house, in the midst of a neglected-looking garden, the enclosure of which was a dilapidated wall, broken in many places, and admitting glimpses of the disorder and decay within. I pulled the string of the bell, but it was broken; and while I stood uncertain what course to pursue, I caught sight of a man who was leaning over a little balustrade, and apparently watching some fish in a pond at his feet. He was thin and spare-looking, with somewhat the air of premature age; and though dressed in the very simplest manner, there was the unmistakable mark of a gentleman in his appearance.
He seemed to have observed me, but made no sign of recognition as I came towards him. He even turned his head to look at me, and then resumed his former attitude. I believe that I would willingly have retreated at that moment, if I knew how. I felt that my presence there was like an intrusion, and was already ashamed of it. But it was now too late; for, standing erect, and with his hands behind him, he fixed his eyes steadily on me, and asked me my business there. I replied that I wished to speak with Mr. Pitt.
“Do so, then,” rejoined he; “I am he.”
I hesitated for a second or two how to open my communication; but he waited for me without the slightest show of impatience, till, gaining courage, I told him in a few words by what means I had become possessed of a letter, the contents of which I had surmised might by possibility have been intended for him. Short as was my explanation, it seemed to suffice, for he nodded twice or thrice in assent as I went on, and then, taking the letter from my hand, said,—
“Yes, this is for me.”
So saying, he turned away into an alley of the garden to peruse the letter at his leisure.
I remember as well as though it were but yesterday the strange crowd of sensations that pressed upon my mind as I stood there waiting for his return. Astonishment at finding myself in such a presence was the first of these; the second was a surprise to see with how little of awe or embarrassment I bore myself before one whose haughty bearing was the terror of his contemporaries. I did not know enough of life to be aware that the very fact of my humble station was the levelling influence that operated in my favor, and that if, instead of an unknown emissary, I had been the deputed envoy of a great government, I should have found the minister as coldly haughty as I had heard him described.
While I was yet surmising and reasoning with myself, he came up to me, saying,—
“They have arrested Monsieur Ducoste, you said. Is the affair like to be serious?”
“I believe not, sir; his only paper of consequence was this.”
He opened the letter again, and seemed lost in contemplation of something it contained; at length he said,—
“Have you brought any newspapers or journals with you?”
“None, sir; I came away at a moment's warning.”
“You are an Englishman. How came it that you have been a resident in France?”
For the first time his face assumed an expression of severity as he said this, and I could not but feel that the inquiry was one that touched my personal honor. I replied, therefore, promptly that I had come abroad from causes of a family nature, and that they were matters which could not interest a stranger.
“They do interest me, sir,” was his reply, “and I have a right to know them.”
If my first impulse was to resent what I conceived to be a tyranny, my second was to clear myself from any possibility of an imputation. I believe it was the wiser of the two; at all events, I yielded to it, and, apologizing for the intrusion upon time valuable as his, I narrated, in a few minutes, the leading features of my history.
“A singular story,” said he, as I concluded: “the son of an Irish Opposition leader reduced to this! What proofs have you of the correctness of your account? Have you acquaintances? Letters?”
“Some letters, but not one acquaintance.”
“Let me see some of these. Come here to-morrow, fetch your papers with you, and be here at eleven o'clock.”
“But excuse me, sir,” said I, “if I ask wherefore I should do this? I came here at considerable personal hazard to render you a service. I have been fortunate enough to succeed. I have also made known to you certain circumstances of a purely private nature, and which only can concern myself. You either believe them or you do not.”
“This is precisely the difficulty that I have not solved, young gentleman,” said he, courteously; “you may be speaking in all the strongest conviction of truthfulness, and yet be incorrect. I desire to be satisfied on this head, and I am equally ready to assure you that the inquiry is not prompted by any motive of mere curiosity.”
I remained silent for a minute or two; I tried to weigh the different reasons for and against either course in my mind, but I was too much agitated for the process. He seemed to guess what was passing within me, and said,—
“Don't you perceive, sir, that I am your debtor for a service, and that before I attempt to acquit the obligation I ought to know the rank and station of my creditor? You would not accept of a pecuniary reward?”
“Certainly not, and as little any other.”
“But I might possibly present my thanks in a form to be acceptable,” said he, blandly; “and I wish you would give me the opportunity!”
And with that he bowed deeply, and walked slowly away. I returned to London with a head full of my interview.