Certain pictures here present themselves in the shape of a medallion.
In the centre is the portrait of a beautiful girl-woman, as tall to many a man with an eye for beauty as Rosalind was to Orlando; with limbs perfectly moulded; with white and shapely hands; with flaxen wavy hair and blue eyes tempered by a shade of silver grey; with teeth that are almost transparent in their pearliness, and in whose fair face youth's roses are blooming. This is the Duchess of Rosemary Lane, in the springtime of her life.
Around the portrait of this girl-woman are certain others, associated with her by sympathetic links, not all of which are in active play or in harmony with her being.
The picture of one in whose cheeks, although she is but little over twenty years of age, no roses are blooming. Her cheeks are sallow, and wanting in flesh, her limbs are thin and ungraceful, her long black hair has not a wave in it, her hands are large and coarse from too much work. But her eyes are beautiful, and have in them the almost pathetic light which is frequently seen in the eyes of a faithful dog. This is Sally, grown to womanhood.
The picture of a working man, with large features, overhanging forehead, and great grey eyes, all out of harmony with one another. His hands are hard and horny, his chin is unshaven, and his hair is almost white. This is Seth Dumbrick, going down the hill of life.
The picture of a woman, working in an attic in a poor neighbourhood, within a mile of Rosemary Lane. Her fingers are long and supple, streaks of silver are in her hair, and she has "quite a genteel figure," according to the dictum of her neighbours, who are led to that opinion by the circumstance of the woman being thin and graceful. She is cunning with the needle, as the saying is, but not so cunning as to be able by its aid to butter her bread at every meal; therefore, very often she eats it dry. She is not contented; she is not resigned; but she does not openly repine. She is merely passive. The fire and enthusiasm of life are not dead within her soul, but by the exercise of a hidden force, she keeps all traces of it from the eye of man; she has dreams, but no human being shares them with her, or knows of them. She speaks in a calm even tone, and her voice is low and sweet, but if it expresses feeling or passion, the expression springs from a quality belonging to itself, and not from the revealed emotions of the speaker. She works hard from morning till night in a dull, listless fashion, performing her task conscientiously, and receiving at the end of the week, without thanks or murmurs, the pitiful payment for so many thousands of yards of stitches from the hands of a man who lives in a great house in Lancaster Gate and keeps a score of servants, and a dozen horses in his town stables. This man is a contractor, and he fattens on misery. He will undertake to clothe twenty thousand men in a month, and patient, weak-eyed women who can scarcely get shoes to their feet are working for him, upon starvation wages, through the weary watches of the night. From their poverty and misery comes the wherewithal to pay for his wine and his horses and his fine linen. He was not born to riches; in his earlier years he experienced severe hardships, and frequently had to live on a crust. Those times are gone, never to return, and, strange to say, he has, in his present high state, no feeling of compassion for his once comrades who are suffering as he suffered, and who cannot escape from their bondage. Then he was glad to eat his bread and meat, when he could get it, with the help of a pocket-knife and his fingers; now he can dine off gold plate if he chooses. There is a well-known saying that there is a tide in the affairs of man, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. It is a popular fallacy. Such a tide, with such a golden prize in its flood, comes to not one man in a thousand, but it came to the contractor for whom this woman works, and he took it at its flood. He worked his way from small contracts to large, from large to larger. Having been ground down himself when he was a young man, his sole aim in the execution of his contracts was to grind others down, so that his margin of profit would be broader. It was the truest political economy. Buy in the cheapest market. And if you can by any means in your power,--by any system of grinding-down, by any exercise of terrorism over helpless people who, being unable without your aid to obtain half a loaf in payment for their labour, snatch at the quarter of a loaf you hold out to them (being from necessity compelled to keep some life in their bodies)--if you can by any of these means cheapen still further the cheapest market, do so. Success will attend you, and the world, worshipping success, will look on and approve. An article is only worth what it will fetch in the market, and labour is worth no more than it receives. Such, for instance, as the labour of this needlewoman, who works for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, and cannot get butter for her bread. Meantime, while she, the type of a class, labours and starves, the contractor, out of her weary stitches, shall die worth a plum, and a costly tombstone shall record his virtues. He pays regularly, to be sure, but you must not defraud him of a stitch. He gives the women constant employment, for in addition to being a Government contractor, he is a large exporter of ready-made clothing. She has worked for him for twelve years. Presenting herself one morning in answer to an advertisement for needlewomen, in company with a hundred other females who had labour to sell and no bread to eat, he happened to pass through the office when her turn came to be called. Although she had been one of the earliest arrivals among the crowd of anxious applicants, she was the last of them all. Not having the strength to push her way to the front, she had been hustled to the rear, and bore the unfair treatment without a murmur. It was the way of the world. The weakest to the wall.
"Name?" said the clerk.
"Mrs. Lenoir."
The contractor paused at the desk by the side of his clerk, and looked at the applicant in a careless way, perhaps attracted to her because her voice was softer than he was accustomed to hear from his workpeople.
"French?" inquired the clerk.
"Yes, it is a French name."
"Yourself, I mean," said the clerk testily. "Are you French?"
"I am an English lady."
"Eh?" cried the contractor, in a harsh tone.
"I beg your pardon. I am an English woman."
"O," said the contractor, somewhat mollified.
"Married?" pursued the clerk, glancing at Mrs. Lenoir's left hand.
"My husband--" pausing, and gazing around uneasily.
"Your husband--" prompted the clerk.
"Is dead."
"Children?"
A quivering of the lips, which grew suddenly white. This, however, was not apparent to the clerk, for Mrs. Lenoir wore a veil, and did not raise it.
"Children?" repeated the clerk.
"I have none."
"References?"
She paused before she replied, and then slowly said:
"I was not aware that references were necessary."
To the clerk's surprise the contractor took up the burden of the inquiry.
"We are very particular," he said, with a frown, "about the character of the persons we employ, and references, therefore,arenecessary."
"I did not know," said Mrs. Lenoir, in so low a tone that the words scarcely reached their ears; and turned to depart.
"Stop a moment," said the contractor; "what did you come here for?"
"For work," with a motion of the hands, deprecating the question as unnecessary.
"You want it?"
"Else I should not be here."
It by no means displeased the contractor that this woman, suing to him for work, should unconsciously have adopted in her last reply an air of haughtiness.
"You want work badly, I infer?"
"I want it badly."
"You have applied elsewhere?"
"I have."
"Unsuccessfully?"
"Unsuccessfully."
"From what cause?"
"I do not know."
"You have no other means of support?"
"None."
"If you are unsuccessful in this application, what will you do?"
Mrs. Lenoir did not reply to this question. Had the contractor known what was in the woman's mind, he would have been startled out of his propriety. She had been in London for nearly six months, and although she had been indefatigable in her endeavours, had not succeeded in obtaining a day's work. All her resources were exhausted, and she saw nothing but starvation before her. She was wearied and sick with trying, and she pined for rest or work. She must obtain either the one or the other. A vague fear oppressed her that if she were unsuccessful in this application she would be compelled, when the night came, to walk to the river, and gaze upon the restful waters. Then the end would come; she felt that she had not strength to resist it.
The contractor resumed his questioning; it was a kind of angling he seemed to enjoy.
"Have you no friends?"
"No."
"Relatives?"
"No."
"Money?"
"No."
"You are alone in the world?"
"I am alone in the world."
"Then if I employ you, I should be your only friend?"
"I suppose so."
"As a rule," proceeded the contractor, "we do not employ ladies in this establishment, which gives employment to----how many persons do I give employment to, Mr. Williams?" addressing the clerk.
"There are eleven hundred and seventy-two names upon the books, sir."
The hard taskmaster nodded his head with exceeding satisfaction.
"I provide bread for eleven hundred and seventy-two persons, and by to-morrow this number will be increased by two hundred. I have given employment to over two thousand persons at one time, I believe, Mr. Williams?"
"You have, sir."
"And shall do so again, I have no doubt, before long. To repeat, I do not employ ladies in this establishment. Common girls and women are good enough for me--and bad enough. For there is absolutely no gratitude to be found among the poorer classes, absolutely no gratitude; not a particle."
This was said with so distinct an assertion of never having belonged to the working classes, and of their small capacity for good and their large capacity for evil, that it would have been remarkable were it not common. There is no greater autocrat than the democrat when he rises to power. There is no stronger despiser of the poor than the poor man when he rises to wealth.
"I shall be grateful if you will give me employment," said Mrs. Lenoir.
"You agree with me in what I say?"
"Certainly, sir."
It was a sure truth that her mind was a blank as to the value of his words, and that she said she agreed with him from a kind of instinct that by doing so her interest would be better served.
"And you are a lady," he said pompously.
"I ask your pardon," she said, faltering, "the word slipped from me."
"What you may have been has nothing to do with what you are. You are not a lady now, you know."
"I know, sir."
"Lenoir is not an English name, and that is why Mr. Williams asked if you were French. I keep a strict record of the antecedents of all persons I employ, so far as I am able to obtain them. It is my system, and that is the reason," he said, graciously explaining, "of so many questions being asked. I have a gift in my power to bestow--employment--and only the deserving should receive it. I have been deceived frequently, but it is not the fault of the system that the poorer classes are given to falsehood. The record has proved valuable, in instances--valuable to the police, who, through my books, which are always open to them, have traced persons who were wanted for crimes, and who have imposed upon me by obtaining employment at this establishment. The last remarkable case was that of a woman who was wanted for child-murder. Correct me if I am wrong, Mr. Williams."
"You are stating the exact facts, sir."
"I went to the trial. The wretched woman, who was sentenced to death, had nothing to say in her defence, absolutely nothing, except that she had been betrayed and deserted, and that she had committed the act in a fit of distraction. Betrayed and deserted!" he exclaimed harshly, adding still another stone to the many he had flung during the days of his prosperity at all classes of unfortunates. "My judgment teaches me that it is the woman who betrays the man, not the man who betrays the woman. This woman was traced through her handwriting in my books, for all who work for me are expected to sign their names. You have been well educated, doubtless."
Mrs. Lenoir gave a silent assent, and the contractor waved his hand with a motion, which expressed, "I will not reproach you because you have been well educated, and have come down in the world." As he waved his hand, he was struck by the circumstance that while he was airing his views to Mrs. Lenoir, she had kept her veil down, and he said stiffly.
"It is usual for persons applying for employment to come unveiled."
Mrs. Lenoir raised her veil, and disclosed a face inexpressibly sad, and which in years gone by had been surpassingly beautiful. Deathly pale as she was--but this may have been produced by a recent emotion--traces of rare beauty still remained, and signs of refinement and delicacy were clearly depicted upon the face revealed to the two men in the dingy office. Even Mr. Williams, who had worked at a desk for forty years, and was not given to sentiment, was ready to admit that this was an interesting experience.
"Without husband, children, friends or money," said the contractor, betraying in his slightly altered tone some newly-born feeling of deference for the applicant. "I will give you employment. Mr. Williams, I will take the responsibility of this case upon myself. Mrs. Lenoir can sign the book."
He watched the tremulous signing of the name, Louise Lenoir, and noted the whiteness of the hand that wrote it, with undisguised curiosity, and then Mrs. Lenoir, receiving her order for so many yards of material, took her departure. From that day it became in some way an understanding that whatever changes were made from time to time in the number of workpeople on the establishment, Mrs. Lenoir's services were always to be retained. For twelve years had she been employed by the firm, and had been found faithful and attentive to her duties, the performance of which provided her with the barest subsistence. The contractor, during those years, never omitted to address a few words to her if he happened to see her in Mr. Williams's dingy office. Once she was sick, and unable to work, and this coming to his ears, he sent her provisions and a small sum of money. What sympathetic chord in his nature Mrs. Lenoir had touched was a mystery which he did not, perhaps could not, reveal. It may have pleased him that she, a lady, as he was satisfied in his mind she was, should be dependent upon him for subsistence. He made use of her occasionally at his dinner-parties at Lancaster Gate--for this once common man entertained the magnates of the land--when some phase of social politics was being discussed, referring to the circumstance that among his workpeople was a lady who earned probably twelve shillings a week, and whose beauty and education would in her earlier days have fitted her for a duke's establishment.
She sits now in her poorly furnished attic, stitching steadily through the hours. It is not contractor's work upon which her fingers are busy. She is finishing a girl's dress, and appears to take more than ordinary interest in her work. It is twelve o'clock at night before the last stitches are put in. She sets aside her needle and thread and spreading the dress upon her bed, gazes upon it in silence for many minutes, standing with her thin white fingers interlaced before her. Once or twice she pats it softly as though it contained a living form, and once she kneels by the bed, and buries her face in the soft folds of the dress, kissing it, and shedding quiet tears upon it. Presently she rises with a sigh, and folding the dress over her arm, steps softly downstairs. The house is still and quiet, not a soul but herself is stirring. She pauses at a door on the second landing, and listens, hearing no sound.
"May I come in?" she whispers.
There is no reply, and she turns the handle of the door.
"Oh, who is there?" cries a frightened voice in the dark.
"It is only I, Lizzie," replies Mrs. Lenoir; "I have finished your dress."
The female leaps from the bed with an exclamation of delight, and quickly lights a candle. Then it is seen that the room is but slightly better furnished than that of Mrs. Lenoir, and that its female occupant is young and fair.
"I left my door unlocked," says the girl, "because you said the dress would be finished some time to-night. I thought you would bring it in. How good of you, Mrs. Lenoir!"
A graceful figure has Lizzie, and bright and full of joy are the eyes which gaze upon the dress. It is a silver-grey barege, soft and pretty, with ribbons and bits of lace and everything else about it that art and fancy can devise to render it attractive. Early to-morrow morning Lizzie starts for an excursion into the country--an excursion lasting from morning to night--and as Some One who is constantly in Lizzie's thoughts is to be there, she has a very particular desire to appear to the best advantage.
"How good of you, Mrs. Lenoir," she repeats; "may I try it on?"
"Yes, Lizzie, if you are not too sleepy."
Lizzie laughs blithely. Too sleepy for such a task! The idea! At her age, and with such love in her heart for Some One who is at this very moment thinking of her!
Mrs. Lenoir assists her with the dress, and pulls it out here, and smoothes it there, while Lizzie, with innocent vanity, surveys herself in the glass. The delighted girl throws her arm round Mrs. Lenoir's neck, and kisses her rapturously.
"No one in the world can make a dress like you, Mrs. Lenoir!"
A singular contrast are these two females, who by their ages might be mother and daughter; but there is really no kinship between them. The girl so glowing, so full of happiness the woman so sombre, so fraught with sadness. The girl, all sparkle and animation; the woman with not a smile upon her face.
"It fits you perfectly, Lizzie."
"It's the loveliest, loveliest dress that ever was seen! How can I thank you?"
If passion found a place in Mrs. Lenoir's breast, it found none in her face.
"I want no thanks, Lizzie; it was a pleasure to me to make the dress for you. Let me sit by your bedside a little--in the dark. Take off the dress; I am glad you like it--there, that will do. Now jump into bed. You have to get up early in the morning."
She arranges the dress over the back of a chair, and blowing out the light, sits by the bed in darkness.
"I don't think I shall sleep any more to-night, Mrs. Lenoir."
"Yes, you will, Lizzie. Sleep comes to the young and happy."
"You speak so sadly--but it is your way."
"Yes, Lizzie, it is my way."
"You don't sleep well yourself, Mrs. Lenoir."
"Not always."
"It must be dreadful not to be able to sleep. One has such happy dreams. Do not you?"
"I dream but seldom, Lizzie; and when I do, I wake up with the prayer that I had died in my sleep. When I was as young as you, I used to have happy dreams, but they never came true."
"I wish I could do something to make you feel less sorrowful," says Lizzie, overflowing with pity and gratitude.
"You can do nothing, Lizzie. When you are married----"
"O, Mrs. Lenoir!"
"As I hope you will be soon, I will make you a prettier dress than this."
"It's not possible--nothingcouldbe prettier."
"Charles--your lover, Lizzie--is not much older than you."
"Oh, yes, he is; ever so much! I am nearly nineteen; he is twenty-three."
"He truly loves you, Lizzie?"
"Truly, truly. I think no one ever loved as much. Am I not a fortunate girl! When I am working--you don't mind my rattling on?"
"Say what is in your heart, Lizzie."
"When I am at work, I whisper to myself, 'Charlie! Charlie!' and I talk to him just as though he was next to me. And Charlie tells me he does the same by me--so that we're always together. The moon is shining through the window, Mrs. Lenoir. Is it a watery moon? Go and see if it is sure to be fine to morrow."
Mrs. Lenoir goes to the window and draws the curtain aside. A shudder passes over her as she sees how bright and clear and beautiful the night is.
"Is it a fine night, Mrs. Lenoir?"
"Clear and bright, Lizzie. There is no sign of rain. To-morrow will be a lovely day."
"I am so happy!"
Mrs. Lenoir resumes her seat by the bedside.
"Do not take any notice of me, Lizzie. I will sit here quite quietly, and when you are asleep, I will go to my room."
So long a silence follows--or it seems so long to the happy girl--that she falls into a doze, to be but partially aroused by Mrs. Lenoir's voice, calling very softly:
"Lizzie!"
"Yes, Charlie!" Thus betraying herself.
"It is not Charlie; it is I, Mrs. Lenoir."
"Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Lenoir. What a foolish girl you must think me--and how ungrateful!"
"Not at all, Lizzie; it is I who am inconsiderate in keeping you awake. I will say goodnight."
"No, no," cries Lizzie, understanding instinctively the woman's need for sympathy, "don't go, or I shall think you are angry. You were going to speak to me."
The girl raises her arm, and draws Mrs. Lenoir's head to her pillow. "Remember, I have no mother." She presses her lips to Mrs. Lenoir's face, which is wet with tears. "Mrs. Lenoir, you have been crying."
"It is nothing, Lizzie; I often cry when I am alone."
"But you are not alone now; I am with you, and I love you."
"It is kind of you to say so; you are in the mood to love, and to believe all things fair and good."
"And do not you believe so, Mrs. Lenoir?"
"Once I did. There was a time----" What reminiscence was in the speaker's mind remained there unexpressed. "Lizzie, you lost your mother when you were a child."
"Yes."
"How old were you when she died?"
"Not quite five years."
"And you remember her?"
"Yes."
"With love?"
"Oh, yes."
"If," says Mrs. Lenoir, with almost painful hesitation, "she had died, or you had lost her earlier, do you think you would have forgotten her?"
"Oh, no, Mrs. Lenoir; I should have always remembered her, have always loved her."
"She was kind to you Lizzie."
"She loved me more than all the world."
"You mean," says Mrs. Lenoir, with fierce eagerness, "she loved as a mother loves, as a woman loves--as only a woman loves!"
"Mrs. Lenoir," asks Lizzie slowly, "do not men love as faithfully as women?"
"Ask your own heart. You love Charlie and he loves you. Which do you suppose is the stronger love, the most constant, the most likely to endure?"
"I do not know," replies Lizzie, her sadder tone denoting that Mrs. Lenoir's sadness is contagious. "I do not want to think that Charlie's love is not as strong as mine, and yet--and yet--I do not believe he can love me as much as I love him."
"It need not distress you, Lizzie, to think so; it is in the nature of things. It is impossible for a man to love with the whole soul as a woman loves--often, alas! unhappily for her."
"And often, too, happily for her," remonstrates Lizzie, with sudden and tender cheerfulness. "A moment ago I felt inclined to regret the thought you put into my mind--that a woman's love is naturally stronger than a man's; but when I think of it, as I am thinking now, I would not have it altered if I could. It is far better for us that it should be so. If I loved Charlie less, I should be less happy; and it makes me glad to think that I can give him more love than he can give me."
"God forbid," says Mrs. Lenoir, "that I should endeavour to shake your faith in Charlie. I was speaking out of the experience of a woman with whose sad history I am acquainted. I am tired, Lizzie. Good night. A happy day to-morrow!"
But Lizzie's fond arms cling to Mrs. Lenoir's neck; she is loth to let her go without obtaining from her a mark of affection which has been withheld.
"Mrs. Lenoir, I have kissed you twenty times."
"Well, Lizzie."
"And will kiss you twenty times more--there, and there, there! O, Mrs. Lenoir, will you not give me one kiss?--you have not kissed me once."
Mrs. Lenoir gently extricates herself from Lizzie's affectionate embrace.
"I made a vow years ago, Lizzie, never to press my lips to human face until I met with one that my eyes may never behold. Good night."
Still another picture. This one on the sea, to give variety to the group.
A fresh breeze is blowing, the white sails are full, and a noble vessel--theBlue Jacket, a famous clipper--is ploughing her way through the snow-crested waves. Holding on to the bulwarks, a lad, scarcely eighteen years of age, is gazing now into the billowy depths into which they are descending, now to the curling heights up and over which the ship is sailing. A rapture of delight dwells in his great spiritual eyes, and a flush rises to his pale and pensive face, as he gazes on the wonders of the deep. His heart is pulsing with worship of the beautiful, and with his inner sight he sees what is hidden from many. The breeze brings to him musical and thrilling whispers; the laughing, joyous waters teem with images of spiritual loveliness.
By his side, gazing also into the water's depths, and holding on to a rope with a stronger and more careless grip, stands a man whose years exceed two score. A handsome, strongly-built man, with a mole on his right temple which adds to rather than detracts from his beauty. That he is of a commoner order than the lad by whose side he stands is clearly apparent; yet he is one in whom the majority of women would instinctively take a deeper interest because of his riper development and the larger power expressed in him. His features are wanting in the refinement and delicacy which characterise his young companion, but they have boldness and fulness which, allied with good proportion, possess a special and individual attraction of their own.
The young gentleman's name is Arthur Temple; the name of his valet is Ned Chester; and the ship is ploughing her way to England's shores.
What the lad sees in the restless, laughing waters is created by his poetical nature. What the man sees is the issue of an actual experience in the past. In the lad's dreams there is no thread of connection: images of beauty appear and disappear; slowly form themselves, and fade as slowly away; and are not repeated. In the man's, one face is always present, and always visible to his fancy; the face of a beautiful child, whose eyes rival heaven's brightest blue, whose cheeks are blooming with roses, whose head is covered with clusters of golden curls.
A word of retrospect is necessary.
The lad is the only child, by his wife, Lady Temple, of Mr. Temple, a name famous in the superior Law Courts of England, a gentleman of wealth, distinction, and high position in the land. From his birth, Arthur Temple has been the object of the most anxious and devoted care of his parents--the devotion mainly springing from the mother's breast, the anxiety from the father's. Not that the father was wanting in love. On the contrary. As much love as it was in his nature to bestow, he bestowed upon his son. But it was not like the mother's love, purely unselfish; it was alloyed with personal ambition, and was consequently of a coarser grain. From a delicate babe, Arthur Temple grew into a delicate boy--so delicate that his life often hung upon a thread, as ordinary people express it, and he was not sent to a public school for his education. The best private tutors were obtained for him, and the lad showed an eager desire to acquire what they were engaged to teach. But his mental vigour ran ahead of his physical power, and the physicians ordered that his studies should be discontinued. "His brain is too wakeful," they said, "his nerves too sensitive. The difficulty will be not to make him study, but to keep him from it." So it turned out. Free from the trammels of enforced study, and left to follow his own inclination, the lad flew to the books most congenial to his nature, and learnt from them what he most desired to learn. The intellectual power apparent in the lad delighted his father as much as his lack of physical strength distressed him. Mr. Temple's ambition was various. Wealth he loved for the sake of the luxury and ease it conferred; power he coveted, and coveted the more as he rose, for its own sake, and because it placed him above his fellows, and gave him control over them; but beyond all, his chief ambition was to found a family, which should be famous in the land. To the accomplishment of this end two things were necessary: the first, that he himself should become famous, and should amass much wealth; the second, that his son--his only child--should marry, and have children. In the first, he was successful. It is not necessary to inquire by what means--whether by superior talent, by tact, by industry, or by force of patronage--he rose to power, and passed men in the race who at least were equal with himself. The fact is sufficient; he rose above them, and it was acknowledged that the highest prize in his profession might one day be his.
This is an envious world. As worshippers of the successful and powerful are everywhere to be found, so are detractors, and men who by innuendoes throw dirt at those who occupy the best seats. But whatever might be said to his detraction by the envious few, he was quoted in public as a man of rare virtues and integrity. The public prints never neglected an opportunity to point a moral by means of his example. They never tired of quoting his stainless life, his probity, his righteous conduct as an administrator of justice, and holding him forth as a practical illustration of the highest qualities of human nature. It cannot be denied that he, by his conduct, contributed to this result. There was manifest in him a distinct assertion to the possession of spotless honour and blamelessness; so pure a man was he that he had no pity for human failings; that "earthly power doth then show likest God's when mercy seasons justice," found no assenting response within his breast. Woe to the fallen wretches who appeared before him for judgment; he gave them their deservings, with no compassionate regard of the tangled, dirt-stained roads they had been compelled to travel. His stern manner said, "Look upon me. Have I fallen? Why, then, have you?" And in his addresses to criminals when passing sentence, he frequently embodied this in words--whereupon the world would rejoice that the law had such an interpreter, justice such a champion. All other things, therefore, being smooth before him, the full accomplishment of his dearest ambition hung upon the health of his only child, and he experienced the keenest anxiety in the circumstance that as the lad grew in years, he failed in strength. At the age of sixteen, Arthur Temple was a pale, dreamy stripling, full of fine fancies, and sensitive to a fault. The physicians spoke gravely of his condition.
"There is but one chance of his attaining manhood," they said; "a complete change must be effected in his life. He must travel. Not on the Continent, or in cities where money can purchase the indulgences of existence. A long sea-voyage in a sailing vessel, to the other end of the world. A sojourn there of twelve or eighteen months. Then home again, with blood thickened, and bones well set."
"But if he should die!" exclaimed the anxious mother, distracted at the thought of parting with her darling.
"He may," replied the physicians; "but there, at all events, he has a chance of living. Keep him at home, and you condemn him to certain death."
After this there was, of course, nothing to be said, and preparations were made for the lad's temporary exile. Arthur received the news with joy. It was the realisation of a cherished dream. He felt like a knight-errant going out in search of romantic adventures. The glad anticipation made his step lighter, his manner cheerier.
"He is better already," said the physicians.
The difficulty was to find a companion for him. His father's professional duties would not permit of his leaving England; his mother's health was too delicate. The need was supplied by the younger member of a family of rank and distinction, who, with his family, was going out to settle in the new land across the seas. Into their care Arthur Temple was given. Before he left England, his father conversed privately and seriously with the lad, and in some part made a disclosure of his views of the future. Arthur listened with respect and attention; he had a sincere regard for his father, although between their natures existed an undefinable barrier which prevented the perfect merging of their sympathies.
"You are my one only hope," said Mr. Temple to his son; "but for you, all the honours I have gained would be valueless in my eyes. Get strong, for your mother's sake and mine, and come home to take your proper position in society--a position which I have made for you, and which you will worthily sustain. You have yet to choose your career--it will be politics, I hope; it opens out the widest field to a young man of wealth and talent. Before I die, I may see my boy in office."
Arthur shook his head. He had his dreams of the path in which he would choose to walk; the pen should be the weapon by means of which he would carve his way to fame. He expressed his hope, with a boy's timidity and bashfulness, to his father, who was too wise to fan the fire by a show of opposition.'
"All that is in the future," he said; "your first care is to get strong."
This conference between father and son was one of solemnity to the lad; he was going on a long voyage, and he and his father might never meet again; there was a thought in his mind to which he was impelled to give utterance.
"Be sure of one thing, sir," he said, gazing steadily with his truthful eyes into his father's face, "whatever occurs, in whatever groove my life may run, I shall never do anything to disgrace the name of Temple."
"My dear lad!" murmured his father.
"Whatever career I adopt," said the lad, with a heightened colour, "I solemnly promise always and for ever to set right and justice before me, and to be guided by their light."
His right hand was slightly raised as he spoke, and he looked upwards, as though he were registering a vow. The words were the outcome of his truthful nature, and were a fit utterance at such a time and under such circumstances.
"If I believed," continued the lad, "that it were possible I should ever commit an act which would reflect shame upon the name we bear, I should pray to die to-night. I should not be happy if I went away without giving you this assurance. Believe me, sir, I will be worthy of the trust you repose in me."
Mr. Temple received this assurance with averted head. He was accustomed to boyish outbursts from his son, but this last bore with it, in its more earnest tones, a deeper signification than usual.
"You afford me great pleasure, Arthur," he said slowly; "I am sure I shall not be disappointed in you. Yet you must not forget that, in the practical issues of life, sentiment must occasionally be set aside."
The lad pondered for a few moments, saying then:
"I do not quite understand you, sir."
Mr. Temple briefly explained his meaning.
"Merely, my son, that the circumstances of life frequently call for the exercise of wisdom, and that we must look carefully to the results of our actions."
Arthur Temple was always ready for an argument.
"I do not know how I should act if wisdom and sentiment clashed. I have heard you say I am given to sentiment."
"Yes, Arthur; but you are young."
"I hope never to alter, sir. What I intended fully to say was this: that if a matter were before me in which wisdom and sentiment clashed, I do not know how I should act. But I do know how I should act in a matter where wisdom and justice pulled different ways. I may not always be wise; I should despise myself if I suspected that I should not always be just. Had I to choose between a wise and a just man, I know whose hand I should take. Why, sir, it enters into my love for you"--his arm here stole around his father's shoulder--"that I know you to be a just man, incapable of a base or mean action! I will follow in your footsteps; the example you have set me shall not be thrown away."
The conversation was then continued in another strain, and shortly afterwards Arthur Temple bade his parents farewell, and started for the New World. From the moment the lad placed his foot upon the vessel which conveyed him from his native land, it seemed as though he were animated by a new life. The lassitude and languor which had weighed upon him were blown away by the fresh breezes that swept across the seas; his pulses beat more briskly, his blood flowed through his veins with fuller force. The pale, sickly lad whose feeble health had but yesterday caused his parents so much anxiety, became drunk with animal spirits, and was the life and soul of the ship. He had his quiet hours, when he would sit in happy silent communion with the spirit of beauty which touched every natural effect in air and sea with heavenly colour, which whispered to him in the silence of the night, when the stars shone peacefully on the waters, and in the storm, when fierce winds lashed the seas to fury. There was exhibited in him that combination of forces which is the special attribute of some highly-strung sensitive natures: a wild riot of animal spirits which compelled him to become the noisiest and foremost in every noisy crew, and a calm, spiritual repose which demanded perfect peacefulness of body and soul. In the New World, he passed a happy time. His name and his father's position and reputation in the home-land were sufficient to ensure him a welcome in every circle, and the rare qualities he displayed endeared him to all with whom he came into association. Wherever he travelled he heard his father spoken of with honour and respect, as a just man and a just judge; and this oft-repeated experience caused him intense pleasure. He grew prouder than ever of his father's good name, and stronger than ever in his resolve to emulate him. It was during this temporary absence from home that he met and engaged Ned Chester for his valet.
Ned's career in the Australias had been one of adventure, and it had made him a jack of all trades and master of none. He had been by turns a stone-breaker, an auctioneer, a splitter of wood, a storekeeper, a shepherd, many times a gold-digger, a newspaper runner, and Heaven knows what besides. Had he been ordinarily industrious, he would most certainly have verified his mother's prediction that he would one day achieve sudden fortune--saying nothing of honour; but his love of indolence was incurable. His slips 'twixt cup and lip were numerous. Having in a tipsy fit purchased a piece of land for a song at a government land sale, he found himself, by reason of his disinclination for work, compelled to dispose of it, and he sold it--a day too soon. Twenty-four hours after it passed from his hands, rich deposits of gold were discovered in its vicinity, and the allotment was worth thousands of pounds. He sunk a shaft on a gold-lead, and having obtained fifty ounces of gold, "went on the spree" till every shilling was spent. When he returned to his shaft he found it in possession of a party of miners, each of whom was making ten ounces a day out of it. He had by the mining laws forfeited all claim to it by his desertion. This run of misfortune, as he termed it, followed him all through his career, and he failed to see that he was in any way accountable for it. Truth compels the further admission that he made the acquaintance of the interior of some colonial prisons, and that in the entire record of his experiences there was little that redounded to his credit. Strange, however, to state that in the midst of the lawlessness that prevails in all new communities, tempting to excess those whose passions are difficult to control, Ned Chester's besetting sin of intemperance which threatened to cut short his life in the Old Country lessened instead of gained in strength. And almost as strange is the fact that, with some indefinite idea that he would one day be called upon to play a gentleman's part in life, he endeavoured to fit himself, by reading and in manners, for this shadowy framework; with so much success as to cause him occasionally to be sneered at by his equals as a "stuck-up swell," a species of abuse which afforded him infinite satisfaction. Undoubtedly, the tenderness with which he held in remembrance the beautiful child-Duchess of Rosemary Lane was the leading incentive to this partial reformation. Her face and pretty figure were constantly before him, and constituted the tenderest episode in his past life--the only tender one indeed, for any love he may have felt for his devoted mother was so alloyed with rank selfishness as to be utterly valueless. As the years rolled on, thoughts travelled apace, and with them he saw the child-Duchess growing to womanhood--to beautiful womanhood. Then began to creep upon him a thirst to see her, and to be with her--a thirst which increased in intensity the more he dwelt upon his wish. The circumstance that kept them apart was to his sense monstrous. She was his--by what right, or if by any, mattered not; she was his, and he was hers; they belonged to each other. But by this time fortune seemed to have entirely deserted him, and he had settled into a from-hand-to-mouth vagabond condition of life which was destructive of every chance of crossing the seas with a shilling in his pocket. At this point of his career chance brought him into communication with Arthur Temple. He had taken service, under an assumed name, as a shepherd, an occupation which gave full scope to his indolent habits, and he was lying on the hills on a summer day, while through an adjacent forest of iron and silver bark trees, Arthur Temple was cantering, in high spirits. The subtle invisible links which draw lives into fatal connection with one another are too strange and mysterious for human comprehension. Between these two men, unconscious of each other's existence, stretched the link which was to bind them in one mesh thousands of miles across the seas, wherefrom other links were stretching to draw them homewards. Ned Chester, lying on the hill, in gloomy abstraction hitched from his pocket a common tin whistle, and began to play his sorrows through the keys. This one accomplishment had never deserted him; the cheap and common instrument became in his hands a divine medium for sweetest melody. The music reached the ears of Arthur Temple as he rode through the silent woods, and he reined in his horse, and listened. He was alone, making his way to the home station of the rich squatter who employed Ned Chester, and the music stirred his poetic mind. He wove from it romantic fancies; it peopled the woods with beautiful images; it made the stillness eloquent. He rode on to meet it, prepared for any surprise, in the shape of delicate nymph or sprite, and came upon a shabbily-dressed man, with a fortnight's beard on him, playing with dirty coarse fingers upon the keys of a common tin whistle. Ned Chester ceased, and gazed at the newcomer. He saw that he was a gentleman, and he ground his teeth with envy; but he gave no expression to the sentiment. Arthur Temple opened the ball.
"Itisyou who were playing?"
"Yes."
"On that?" eyeing the tin whistle with intense interest.
"Yes; on this."
"Will you play again for me?"
"I don't mind."
Ned placed the whistle to his lips, and played a simple Scotch air, improvising on the theme with rare skill; his organ of love of approbation was very large.
"Beautiful!" said Arthur Temple. "You have been taught in a good school."
In the slight laugh with which Ned Chester met this assertion was conveyed a suddenly-born reproach against society for having overlooked such superlative talent as he possessed.
"I was taught in no school." Adding proudly, "What I know, I picked up myself."
Arthur Temple corrected himself, "In the school of nature."
"May be."
"What are you?"
"A shepherd--at present."
"You have not been always a shepherd."
"Oh, no;" with an assumption of having seen considerably better times and of moving in a much better position.
"What makes you a shepherd, then?"
"A man must live."
"I beg your pardon," said Arthur, with a sensitive flush. "Are you in Mr. Fitzherbert's employment?"
Mr. Fitzherbert was the name of the squatter for whose home station he was bound, with letters of introduction.
"Yes," replied Ned Chester.
"I have come on a visit to him. Can you direct me to his place?"
"Over the hill yonder you will see a wagon track. It will take you straight to the house."
"Thank you." Arthur, about to depart, suddenly bethought himself. The musician was poor--was a shepherd from necessity. He took his purse from his pocket; a bank-note fluttered in his fingers. He held it towards Ned. Under ordinary circumstances Ned would have had no hesitation in accepting the gratuity, but as his eyes met the earnest eyes of Arthur Temple, a happy inspiration inspired him to refuse it; it was unaccountable, but it happened so. Ned turned his head from the temptation.
"I beg your pardon," said Arthur Temple, his face flushing again; "I had no intention of hurting your feelings. Good day."
"Good day."
Arthur Temple rode slowly off, with many a backward glance at the recumbent form of the musical shepherd--glances of which Ned Chester was perfectly cognisant, but of which he took no apparent notice. Before he was out of earshot, Arthur heard the tin whistle at work once more.
"A genius," thought he, "and a gentleman by instinct. I am sorry I offered him money."
The impression made upon him by the incident was powerful and durable, and he inwardly resolved to see the man again. This resolve being carried out, Ned Chester was not slow in turning to his own advantage the interest exhibited in him by Arthur Temple. His superior cunning enabled him very soon to obtain the particulars of the personal history of the young gentleman who he determined should become his patron. His patron Arthur Temple certainly did become; he engaged the vagabond man of the world as his valet at a liberal salary, and congratulated himself upon securing as his companion a person whose discovery and undoubted genius formed one of the most romantic episodes of his travels. It was fortunate for Ned that during his association with Arthur Temple in the colonies he met with no friend or acquaintance who might have exposed him to his young master. Nothing in his conduct betrayed him; he behaved in the most exemplary manner, and grew day by day in the goodwill of Arthur. He took pride in his personal appearance, and seizing with avidity the advantages such a connection opened out to him, dressed carefully and well, drank little, and was, to all outward appearance, a most respectable character. He became saving in his habits, also, and at the end of the nine months, which brought the visit of Arthur Temple to the colonies to an end, he was in possession of a sum of money larger than his salary; Ned had not fought with the world for nothing, and his experience was a key which fitted many locks. Arthur Temple was recalled home somewhat earlier than he anticipated.
"If you are well," his father wrote, "and if your health is sufficiently established to come home, do so at once, my dear lad. Your mother and myself long for your society. I never cease to think of you, and I want the world to see and appreciate you as I do, though it can never love you as you are loved by your father,
"Frederick Temple."
Arthur made immediate preparations for his departure; his nature was grateful and loving, and his duty also was here concerned. The news of the home journey troubled Ned Chester; according to the terms of his engagement, connection between him and Arthur ceased when the latter quitted Australia. Ned had saved sufficient money to pay for his passage home, but he would arrive there comparatively penniless, and in no position to obtain a livelihood. His efforts, therefore, were now directed to obtaining a permanent appointment with Arthur; and to his surprise, after much man[oe]uvring, he found that he could have succeeded much more easily by a straight than by a crooked method.
"Certainly," said Arthur; "I shall be glad not to part with you; but I thought you would have no wish to leave Australia."
"It has been my endeavour," said Ned, "for years past, but I have not had the means; and it has been my misfortune until now never to have met with a friend."
"My father," said Arthur, "will scarcely be prepared for my bringing home a valet, but he will not object to anything I do. Have you any family in England?"
"No, sir."
He endeavoured to impart a plaintive tone to this negative, to show how utterly hapless a being he was; but he failed; the joy of returning to England and of meeting the Duchess lighted up his features.
"But there is some one at home," said Arthur, with a smile, "whom you will be pleased to see."
Then Ned, with guarded enthusiasm, poured out his soul into the sympathetic ears of Arthur Temple, and spoke, but not by name, of the Duchess of Rosemary Lane, as one whom he had loved for years, and to see whom would complete the happiness of his life. He extolled her beauty, too, with sufficient fervour to carry conviction with it. He knew that these utterances made his position more secure, and imparted to his service a sentiment which was far from disagreeable to Arthur Temple.
This retrospect brings us to the ship, theBlue Jacket, sailing for England, with Arthur and Ned aboard. Arthur enjoys every hour of the voyage. All is fair before him. With youth, with good health, with a pure mind stirred by noble desires, with a father awaiting him holding a high and honourable position in the land, the book of the lad's life, the first pages only of which are opened, is filled with glowing pictures, and he looks forward with calm delight to his arrival home. Ned is less calm. The ship never goes fast enough, the days are longer than they ought to be; he burns with impatience to present himself to the idol of his dreams. Hour by hour the links that bind these men, so strangely brought into association, to other lives in the old land are drawn closer and closer. At length the good ship arrives in port. Arthur is pressed to his father's breast.
"Thank God!" says the father, "that you are home and in good health."
And he holds Arthur's hand with such warmth as he might have felt in his young days for the woman he loved.
Ned Chester looks around, draws a free full breath, and murmurs:
"At last!"