Three chapters to one group of people is almost more than it is fair to allow; and yet the fact of there being three in the group, as well as a strong predilection on my own part for chronological progression, must excuse my remaining attached to Henry Hayley and his fair companions, at least till that day had reached its close. Now the period of a day's close may be differently estimated, according as a man is astronomical, Judaical, ecclesiastical, or chronological. Some will have it that sunset closes the day; some say midnight is the day's end--which, of course, is a contradiction in terms; some one hour, some another; but as men have never been agreed upon the subject since the beginning of the world, and I am decidedly fond of paradoxes, I prefer midnight, and therefore declare that, when I say "the close of the day," I mean neither more nor less than twelve o'clock at night.
With a light and joyful step Henry Hayley took his way through the park where he had so often played in infancy and boyhood, towards one of the two lodges, selecting that one, the gates of which opened upon the road, near a little village, at which he had left the post-chaise that brought him from London. The moon, just risen and not far from the full, showed him many an old familiar sight; and the happiness of his own heart harmonized so well with the pleasant memories of the past that he almost fancied himself a boy again, and all the terrible realities of the last ten years nothing but a painful dream. There was one thing, indeed, which might have proved to him that it was not so--that there was a wide interval between the past and the present, and that was the sensation of passion. Yes, there was now passion in his bosom--passion which had not been there before--passion which even at the dawn of morning he had not felt.
Let not the reader marvel. There are certainly such things occasionally as love at first sight, but with him it was very different. If the eye which runs over these lines saw the sun rise as often as mine does--I see him open the curtains of the night, I believe, more frequently than any man in England, more frequently even than the matutinal labourer of the fields--if any reader, I say, saw the sun rise as often as I do, he would understand the whole process of Henry's love in a moment. Not that it had anything to do with sunrise, or with sunset, or with the rising, southing, and setting of the moon; but there is a certain comfortable arrangement which every early riser practises, or should practise, in the winter, and which perfectly explains Henry Hayley's case. You direct the housemaid to take a bundle of dry sticks--called in some places a fagot, in other parts of the country a bavin: in London men use square bits of deal--and, laying them artistically, with sufficient spaces between them to allow the air to pass, to place over them a mass or quantity of paper: such a manuscript as this would do very well, but a newspaper is better, for a thousand to one it contains more inflammable materials. Over all you superinduce a thin and pervious stratum of bituminous coal; and then in the morning, when you rise, you put a candle (lighted) to the paper, and the whole mass is in a blaze in a moment. Now, in Henry Hayley's case, Fate had been the housemaid; the friendships and affections of youth, piled one above the other, had been the wood nicely laid. The paper might perhaps be represented by all the longing, eager memories and fancies of and regarding the fair companion of his youth during the last long ten years; a warm, earnest, ardent heart was the inflammable coal at the top; and the sudden sight, and tender interest, and kindly affection of Maria were the light which kindled the flame in a moment.
He had, in short, met her that night, loving her very much; and he left her, loving her as much as it is possible for man to love.
He went through the park, then, with the spirit of the past and the present on either hand, leading him through paths of fairy flowers to scenes of imaginary happiness. Ah! that quarter of an hour was well worth the ten years of suffering.
He could hardly make up his mind to pass the gates; but there was no use in lingering, and he sped on. Such a frugal dinner as he wanted was easily obtained at the little public-house--for it did not deserve the name of an inn; and when it was over, he still sat for a time and thought of Maria--not of Lady Anne--till his watch, which he had laid on the table, showed him that it was time to depart for his next visit. Then, indeed, he turned his mind to her whom he was so soon to see; but still Henry Hayley was a gentleman--not in manners alone, but in heart and mind--and a gentleman never misunderstands a woman.
There was not one thought in his bosom which could have pained or offended Lady Anne, if she had seen them all.
"She is a dear, kind, good girl," he said to himself as he walked on, "and still so like what she was as a child. Happy state!--happy character!--which changes not with the hard world's experience--which has no need to change. Mistress of herself, her actions, and her fortune--armed in honesty of purpose and purity of heart--why should she bend the finest feelings and the noblest principles to the cold rules of the world?"
The lodge-gate was soon reached; the grounds were soon passed through; and when he stood under the portico and stretched out his hand to the bell, the village clock, clear and musical, struck nine.
"I am to the moment," he thought, "and I am glad of it. I would not repay such regard with the slightest appearance of neglect."
The servant who opened the door showed no wonder at the sight of a young and very handsome stranger asking to see Lady Anne at that hour of the night. All her servants had given up wondering at Lady Arnie long ago. Giving his name as Colonel Middleton, Henry was at once led to the drawing-room where she was sitting; and as soon as he had entered, the door was closed. She at once rose from the book she had been reading, and advanced to meet him with both her hands stretched out. He took them affectionately, and to his surprise she raised her face to his and kissed his check.
"There, Henry!" she said--"now that I have astonished you enough, I will try and be reasonable; and, first, that you may not think me anything but very mad, I will tell you something--but first sit down by me here. Well, I was going to say I have made up my mind that you are to marry Maria Monkton--I am quite sure of it. There were tears upon her cheek when I came in, and love enough in your eyes to show me the whole. Then, again, as I have told Charles Marston, if he asks me some day when I am in a good humour, I may marry him--it is all arranged. And now you think me odder, stranger, wilder than ever; and I believe it is so, for the very great joy of seeing you again, when every one but myself believed you dead, has carried me quite away."
"And did you not, then, believe me dead, Lady Anne?" asked Henry.
"Do not call me that odious name!" she answered, and then added, "Only half. I doubted, and so did my poor father till his last hour. Little reason had we to doubt, it is true; but still, you know, Henry, doubt is a very clinging plant. Look here!" she continued, raising a light from the table, and leading the way through chairs and sofas, and various sorts of furniture, to the other side of the large room: "look here! Do you know whose picture this is?"
"Mine," answered Henry, with a smile; "what could tempt you to buy it?"
"I did not buy it," she said: "it was given to me, and I have always hoped--faintly, fearfully, but still hoped to see that face again--the face of the brother of my girlhood. I one time thought of giving it to Maria, for I knew it would be a comfort and a consolation to her, but I had not the heart; and now, of course, you will have another painted for her, which will please her better, as it will be more like the present. That will do well for me: it is the Henry, of my remembrance."
It must be owned that Henry Hayley was puzzled. He had seen and observed many women acting in many circumstances; but he had never yet seen sisterly affection so warmly, so plainly, displayed towards any one not actually akin to her who felt it. Yet, let there be no mistake: he did not misunderstand Lady Anne Mellent for an instant. He did not suppose that she was moved towards him by any feelings but those which she acknowledged; but he thought, and thought with a sigh, that those feelings might be misunderstood by others; for the world rarely, if ever, as he well knew, understands perfect sincerity of character.
He saw, however, that his love for Maria was not to be concealed from her, and therefore that there was no use in attempting to hide it, and he answered--
"You must not suppose, dear lady, that all my hopes and wishes are so near attainment as to justify me in even dreaming of painted pictures. There is much to be thought of, much to be considered first. You must be aware that I am even now in a very dangerous situation; and, although I need not tell you I am innocent of all that was ever laid to my charge--though I think I can prove my innocence, and am resolved to attempt it--yet there is peril even in the attempt."
Lady Anne smiled gaily. "I do indeed know you are innocent," she said, "and my dear father knew you were innocent. He told me so himself, upon the bed of death," she added, a grave shade spreading over her fair face. "He saw Mr. Hayley for some hours, as soon as he had recovered from a terrible accident he met with, and from his lips he heard and knew the whole. But now, Henry, sit down and tell me all your history; for, satisfied that you are here, living and well, I have hitherto asked you no questions. But still there must be a strange tale to be told; for even Mr. Hayley himself was fully convinced of your death till his own last hour. After you have done, I have something to give you which my father left you, if ever you should appear again. He gave me other directions also, which I ought to have acted upon before; but which--whether fortunately or not, I cannot say--I have not acted upon, in my thoughtless levity, as yet. They were to make public what I knew of your innocence, and of the circumstances which cast suspicion upon you, as soon as Mr. Hayley was dead. But I have been absent from England, roaming about, and since my return I forgot it all."
"I am glad you have not as yet said anything upon the subject," replied Henry, thoughtfully. "Your unsupported testimony of what your kind and excellent father believed would do little legally to establish my innocence; and I should wish to make every preparation before I discover myself. At present I am so far safe. Although I now see that those who knew me well may recognise me more easily than I had imagined, no one can prove my identity with Henry Hayley, while I can establish, by proofs which cannot be controverted, that I am Frank Middleton, the son of an English gentleman and a Spanish lady. Step by step, from infancy to manhood, I can show my identity with that person, without, by one word from my own mouth, violating truth in the slightest degree. The Spanish consul-general, now in London, would at any time swear that I am the son of Mrs. Middleton, having seen me many times at the house of her uncle, recognised as her son by all the family. This character I shall certainly keep up for some time, till I have carefully sought for and arranged all the evidence that is yet to be found regarding that transaction which condemned me to ten years of exile and disgrace. Nay, listen; for depend upon it such things are not so easily proved, to the satisfaction of a court of law, as kind and inexperienced hearts, like yours and dear Maria's, are willing to believe. Nevertheless, I do think my innocence can be established; for, in corroboration of a paper which my father gave me, acknowledging the act as his, and exculpating me, some of the innkeepers at whose houses I staid, while seeking your father in Northumberland and in Wales, must still be living, and can show that I was not, as has been asserted, flying from justice with the money obtained by forgery, but eagerly following a nobleman of unimpeached honour, upon business of importance. I think it will not be difficult, in short, to prove every step of my course, so as to bear out fact after fact of the plain and simple tale I have to tell. I must also seek and find my poor aunt as soon as possible; not only for affection's sake, but because I feel almost certain that sooner or later my father must have told her the truth. I will therefore beseech you, dear Lady Anne, to keep my secret with the utmost care for some weeks to come, and not to betray any recognition of me as Henry Hayley, by a word, a look, or a sign."
"That I will promise, and faithfully perform, Henry," replied Lady Anne, with a smile; "but still we have much to talk of--and first, tell me all your history, and then I will tell mine in return."
The same tale was told by Henry to his present auditor as had been told to Maria Monkton, though not exactly in the same words. Though somewhat drier in the details, and though more a relation of mere facts than of facts and feelings mingled, as it had been to Maria, yet it took long in telling, and before it was concluded the sound of a carriage driving up hurried him to the end.
"That is Mrs. Brice, my old governess, who lives with me still," said Lady Anne. "Henry, there is much more to be said. You must come to me to-morrow evening, in London; I will contrive to get rid of her there. Here, perhaps, I could not manage it without paining the good creature, and awakening her attention too closely to yourself. Come and dine with metête-à-têteat seven, and tell Maria not to be jealous."
Henry promised, and the next moment Mrs. Brice entered the room.
After an introduction to that lady by Lady Anne, delivered in an easy, commonplace tone, the visiter took his leave, and in half-an-hour after was on his way back to London.
It was about eleven o'clock in the day. The London thunder had not begun. There might be a few carts creeping about the streets, but they crept lazily and almost silently; the rattle of a hackney-coach might be heard here and there, but still it was but a temporary rattle; and the comparative stillness of the whole town gave a dreamy sort of quietude to the air, which was pleasant and full of repose. It harmonized well with the character of the day, too, for it was quite a summer morning.
The sun was streaming into Lady Fleetwood's drawing-room, sending oblique rays over the corner of the houses of a neighbouring street, and the motes were dancing drowsily in the long pencils of light. A droning fly, which had somehow or other got into a long-necked, deep blue carnation-glass, and could not get out again, was buzzing as if it had nearly tired itself to sleep; and the waving of the plants at the open windows, stirred by a light air, had a slumberous sound with it.
"Really, this is very pleasant!" thought Lady Fleetwood, as she sat, after breakfast, enjoying the delicious sensation of life which a fine summer day gives; "it is all so calm and tranquil that one could almost go to sleep."
Strange, strange life!--that one of thy best blessings should be to lose the consciousness of thine existence!
She soon found, however, that to go to sleep was not for her. Hardly had the thought passed through her brain when a sharp double knock at the door dispelled the stillness, and the next moment Charles Marston, the incarnation of mobility, entered.
"Well, my dear aunt," he said, "I have determined upon my course for the day; laid out everything in the most methodical and scientific manner; and having just half-an-hour to spare, came to bestow it upon you."
"You should really go and see your uncle, my dear Charles," replied Lady Fleetwood. "It would have been much better to have given it to him instead of to me; for he may well be offended if he hears you have been here twice without going near him."
"You are wrong, dearest of aunts!--you are wrong," answered Charles: "you always are sweetly wrong, you know, most excellent of women. I sent half-an-hour ago, to ask if he was at home; for, although one may have to swallow a bitter pill now and then, there is no reason why one should needlessly walk a mile and a half to take it. But he was out; and so, when I go hence, I shall diligently pursue him to his dingy hole in the city, where pray heaven there may be plenty of business stirring to cut our conference short! I am now only waiting for Winkworth, who is going to the city too."
"I cannot think, Charles, why you should feel such a distaste to your uncle's conversation," said Lady Fleetwood, meditating upon the problem; "everybody admits he is a clever man."
"Undoubtedly, my dear aunt," replied Charles; "but I will tell you why I am not very fond of his conversation. It is because that same conversation of his transforms everything into arithmetic. Now, I never had an arithmetical head in my life: I know that two and two make four, but it has not been the study of my life to discover how many blue beans make five. I cannot calculate friendships by the rules of profit and loss, nor look on love upon the principles of tare and tret, nor subject every feeling of the heart to the computations of the interest-table, nor measure poetry by the square foot, nor extract the cube root of an acquaintance's purse, in order to estimate how intimate I should become with him, nor regulate my own thoughts and wishes by quadratic equations, nor always keep my own conduct and purposes within an exact parallelogram. The sages of Laputa must have been great bores, my dear aunt; but they were nothing, depend upon it, to the men of the present day, who subject not only their understandings, but their very emotions, to the stiffest rules of calculation. Besides, the sight of poor Miss Hayley has not altogether taught me to like my uncle better--nor has what you said about him, ità proposto her."
Lady Fleetwood looked scared, and in a moment her mind ran back to all that had passed during the preceding evening, to ascertain if she could possibly by any blunder have said aught to produce mischief between uncle and nephew.
"Why, my dear Charles," she exclaimed, "I am very sure that I never uttered one word to make you believe that your uncle is at all aware of the poor thing's condition. He would be the first, I am sure----"
"I never said you did, my dear aunt," he replied, interrupting her; "but you told me he had been angry because you went to see them in their distress at Highgate. I have a strong notion he did not behave well to poor Hayley. I remember something of an unsettled account."
"Oh! but poor uncle always said, that as soon as Mr. Hayley produced certain papers he would go into that," exclaimed Lady Fleetwood. "I remember quite well that Hayley always declared there was a large sum due to him--fifteen or twenty thousand pounds; and he declared once that he would put it into chancery or some law court; but he lost heart, poor man, after the sad business of Henry's death; and, though he talked a great deal, he never did anything. But now I recollect--that was what made your uncle so angry, Charles. He said Hayley had defamed him; and you know your uncle is always reckoned a highly honourable man, though a little too fond of money, perhaps."
"Rich men are always honourable men," replied Charles, in a graver tone than was customary with him, "and poor and unfortunate men are great rascals--in the world's opinion, my dear aunt. In this good country of ours, wealth does find ways, if not to corrupt justice, at least to fix the balance and the sword immoveable. Law is too expensive a luxury for poor men to treat themselves to much of it; and many an honest cause is lost for fear of the inseparable punishment, in this land, of seeking right by law--I mean expense, if not ruin. I remember hearing a clerk give a message to Hayley, exactly to the purport you mention: that Mr. Scriven had no time to write, but that he would go into the account whenever Mr. Hayley was prepared to produce the papers. Do you know what Hayley replied, my dear aunt? He was then in a shabby black coat, and his face looked as if he had been drinking, I must confess; but he spoke distinctly and bitterly. 'Be so good as to ask Mr. Scriven,' he said, 'how I am to do that, when all those papers were left here, and I have never been able to get them out of this house?'--and with a fierce imprecation upon my uncle's head, he walked away without waiting for an answer. I was witness to the whole, and a sad scene it was?"
"Oh, dear! that is very terrible!" said Lady Fleetwood; "but do you think it could be true, Charles?"
"I really do not know, my dear aunt," answered her nephew; "but I have a sort of feeling that the Hayleys have suffered by our family; and consequently, as I am quite sure this poor thing whom I saw upon Frimley Common is one of them, I have resolved to go down again this very day and see what can be done for her. Winkworth will go with me, and as he is one upon whose advice I can fully rely, I shall consult him in regard to all I do for her."--"But, dear me, then you will not see Maria to-day!" said Lady Fleetwood: "she will be here by two o'clock."
"Oh, yes, I shall," answered Charles; "we do not set out till three, and I shall be back from the city by two."
Lady Fleetwood's arrangements were all deranged. She had planned a pleasant little dinner-party for Charles, Mr. Winkworth, and Maria, at which she proposed to engage Mr. Winkworth in conversation with herself, while Charles and Maria would be thrown upon each other's hands entirely; and she did not in the least doubt--being a fine politician in her way--that what between Maria's natural charms, a sudden meeting after a long absence, and a great many other advantages of the same kind, love and matrimony would as naturally rise up as the flame of a spirit-lamp when a match is applied to it. We must remark that Lady Fleetwood never doubted for a moment that any of her plans would succeed; nor did the experience of more than twenty years, during which period every one that she had ever formed had broken to pieces, convince her that there was always, somehow or another, some element wanting in her calculations which ensured their failure. She laid defeat upon the back of accident--one of the three or four broad-shouldered accessories to human infirmities which bear all the sins and misadventures of the world--the scapegoats of conscience and self-reproach. Accident, ill-luck, the devil, and adverse circumstances, are the favourite deputies to whom we transfer the burden of our faults in the present day, since Zeus and his Olympian household are no longer chargeable, as in the days of Homer.
Perverse mankind! whose wills, created free,Charge all their woes on absolute decree;All to the dooming gods their guilt translate,And follies are miscalled the crimes of Fate.
Perverse mankind! whose wills, created free,Charge all their woes on absolute decree;All to the dooming gods their guilt translate,And follies are miscalled the crimes of Fate.
Accident was Lady Fleetwood's pack-horse; and she thought it a most unfortunate accident indeed that Charles had arranged to go with Mr. Winkworth into the country that evening, rather than stay and fall in love with his cousin upon her plan.
While she was thinking, however, of how she could induce him to give up his journey for the day, and balancing with nice casuistry whether she ought or ought not to try, kindly feeling for poor Miss Hayley pulling her one way, and a natural hankering for her own schemes tugging her the other, the knocker was again heard doing its function; and her servant, a moment after, announced that Mr. Winkworth was below, waiting for Mr. Marston.
"Oh! ask him up, by all means," said Lady Fleetwood; "I shall be delighted to see him."
"I asked him, my lady," replied the man: "but he said he had no time at the present moment."
Lady Fleetwood would have pressed the point; but Charles represented that, if they did not set out for the city at once, he should not be back in time to see his cousin, and ran down-stairs without delay.
Under any ordinary circumstances, the solitary meditations of a lady on the sear side of fifty can be of no great interest to the general reader. There is something in youth--in its freshness, its vigour, its excitability, its world of emotions--which renders the young mind, as well as the young frame, in its bloom and perfection, a pleasant object of contemplation; but with age, alas! it is seldom so. I will, therefore, only say that good Lady Fleetwood sat and thought, for full five minutes, of how unfortunate it was that Charles should have spoiled her evening plan for his benefit; and having no other scheme for making people happy in her own way ready-made at the moment, she might have gone on for five, or even ten minutes more, had she not been interrupted by a visit from her brother.
"Well, that is the most unfortunate thing in the world!" exclaimed the poor lady, as soon as she saw Mr. Scriven's face. "Charles has just this moment gone into the city to call upon you."
"Humph!" said Mr. Scriven; "I wonder he did not call upon me last night."
"I dare say he was tired, poor fellow," replied Lady Fleetwood, who had almost always an excuse ready for everybody; "but he sent, the first thing this morning, to see if you were at home."
"It would have been better to have come himself," rejoined Mr. Scriven, drily; "then he might have discovered that I was not ten doors off, and would return directly. Now, I suppose, he will call at the counting-house, and, finding I have not arrived, walk away again. I must see him to-day, Margaret: I have some important matters to tell him. If he comes back, then, keep him to dinner, and I will come in and join you."
"I cannot do that," answered Lady Fleetwood; "for he has just told me that he is going down to Frimley Common at three o'clock."
"What for?" asked Mr. Scriven with a look of surprise.
Lady Fleetwood hesitated, and her brother's face assumed a stern look.
"Is he going to fight a duel?" asked Mr. Scriven.
And his poor sister, in a fright lest she should produce a wrong impression, poured forth the whole story of Miss Hayley, and Charles Marston's intentions, and Mr. Winkworth's kindness in going with him. Moreover, one part of the tale requiring, in her estimation, explanation by another, she went on to give sundry portions of her conversation with her nephew, to account for his determination to take care of poor Miss Hayley, which she well knew, in its bald state, Mr. Scriven would think very absurd, romantic, and extravagant; and she added various hints with regard to what she and Charles judged he, Mr. Scriven, ought to do for the poor lady; adding that some people thought the Hayleys had not been altogether well treated.
There was a sort of consciousness in her heart all the time that she was blundering, which only made her flounder more and more amongst the shallows into which she had plunged; and the deep, imperturbable silence with which her brother sat and listened to a long story--a thing he was rarely inclined to do--only added to her embarrassment.
When she had done, he asked no questions, but only raised his eyes to the timepiece; and with a last convulsion to get right again, or at least to cast the weight from her own shoulders, she added--
"Well, Henry--I do not understand all these matters, as you well know."
"Perfectly well," rejoined Mr. Scriven.
"And so," she continued, "you had better talk with Charles about them yourself."
"I will," said Mr. Scriven.
"He will be back from the city before two," added Lady Fleetwood, "and he sets out for Frimley at three."
"Ha!" said Mr. Scriven. "And now, Margaret, I will go; for I do not see anything further that can be gained by staying here."
Now, Lady Fleetwood would have given a great deal to have unloosed his taciturn tongue and discovered what he was going to do next; but Mr. Scriven was not inclined that it should be so, and took his departure.
He had a brown cabriolet at the door--that was an age of cabriolets; and when he had got into the vehicle, he first turned his horse's head, as if he would have driven, as usual, to his house of business in the city; but by the time he had got to the other side of the square he had altered his mind, and sweeping round with a whirl, he directed his course back to his private residence.
It was very strange that he should do so, for Mr. Scriven was the most methodical of men. He arranged in the morning all that he intended to do during the day, and on all ordinary occasions he did it. But there was something stranger still; for, notwithstanding his having told Lady Fleetwood that he must and would see his nephew Charles that day, he took a very good way of preventing himself from so doing.
He first looked into a posting-hook, then ordered one of his servants to go to the counting-house and say that he should not be there till the next morning, and then directed another servant to order a pair of post-horses.
As soon as they arrived he went out of town.
With his arm linked in that of Charles Marston, Mr. Winkworth, such as I have described him, walked on towards the city; and much did he seem to marvel at all he saw by the way. It was not, indeed, that he was unacquainted with London; but cities as well as people change their dress, only with this difference, that they very often grow smarter as they grow older. The new garb of his old friend, however, was apparently not at all to Mr. Winkworth's taste. He commented on all he saw with splenetic causticity, declaring that the good old brick houses of Swallow Street, with their plain brown faces, were infinitely preferable to the lath-and-plaster edifices of Regent Street and Waterloo Place, which he pronounced an insult to architecture, and a hodge-podge of every sort of enormity. Then, again, the macadamised streets excited his indignation: they had not yet been paved with wood, or heaven knows what he would have said of them; but as they were, he declared that their sole object must be to wet the feet and splash the apparel of the lieges of the land.
"My dear sir," he said, "this is true modern reform and improvement. It is a good specimen of the customs and legislation of the age. Everything that the wisdom of ten or twelve centuries, and the experience of whole races of men, have devised and pronounced good, is swept away, knocked down, chopped up, simply for the sake of change, and to show that we are wiser than our ancestors. In my young days, these good streets of London were paved with large, firm, solid lumps of granite; you could step across from stone to stone quietly, easily, and drily. They wanted little or no repair, except when some villanous water company chose to pick up the stones in order either to carry a pipe to, or cut it off from, some of the adjacent houses."
"If you ever come to drive a cab or a curricle through the streets, Winkworth," said Charles Marston, "you will find it much more pleasant to roll over Mr. Macadam than over those same jolting blocks of granite you talk of."
"Heaven forbid that I ever should commit such a mad action!" replied the old gentleman, still striding on with his long legs and his somewhat rounded body and shoulders, not at all unlike a hen-turkey in the moulting season; "but that which strikes me as the most curious part of the whole process is, that you people of the present day think you are advancing all the time, and call your operations progress, when, in fact, like the crab, you are going backwards. Here you have very nearly reduced the streets of London to the same state in which they were left by King Lud, whose name very appropriately rhymes to mud."
"I suppose all things do go in a circle," answered Charles Marston, "like that wheel which you see turning round; yet the wheel in turning round rolls the carriage forward; and so, I suppose, the gyrations of society help on the great machine."
"As bad an illustration as ever was given!" exclaimed Mr. Winkworth--"one which would break down at the first turn. Good heaven! what a quantity of plate-glass!"
"You must admit that that is, at all events, a great improvement," rejoined the younger gentleman, "compared with the small dingy panes, which even I can recollect. You can have nothing to say against the plate-glass, I think."
"A whole volume!" said Mr. Winkworth. "In the first place, the shops and houses must be as hot as cucumber-beds. This window lets the whole sun in."
"You forget you are not in India, in Arabia, or on the shores of the Red Sea," replied his companion; "but what more?"
"In the next place," continued Mr. Winkworth, "every stone-throwing urchin, discontented snob, or butcher's boy with a tray on his shoulder, has two or three hundred pounds at his mercy. A chimney-pot falling, a flower-pot overturning, or almost any other accident you please, can pick your pocket of much more than it may be convenient to lose, in the shape of glass. Then look at that jeweller's shop. Think what a temptation it must be to a poor rogue to pop his hand through and seize all those diamonds and pearls. Upon my life! it is worth the risk of transportation. Then, again, as a matter of calculation, my dear lad--I don't know what is the price of plate-glass now, but I am very sure that three or four thousand pounds would not buy the shop-front of that mercer. Who pays for it, sir?--who pays for it? Why, you, and I, and everybody who wants a silk handkerchief, a dozen of gloves, or a pair of silk stockings. Now, what I want is a silk handkerchief, not plate-glass; and I do not see why I should be obliged to contribute my quota to enable Harry Thompson, or John Jenkins, or any one else, to cover his wares with a plate of stuff only fit for a looking-glass, as dear as gold and as frail as a dancing girl."
Charles Marston laughed outright. "That last part of your speech, my dear Winkworth," he said, "is worthy of my uncle Scriven."
"Then he must be a wiser man than you seem to think him," rejoined Mr. Winkworth, with a smile.
"I never said he was not wise," replied Charles Marston. "Oh, no! he is a very wise man in his generation. Neither do I think he would carry the matter as far as you do, nor object to any one but himself buying as much plate-glass as he pleases, perfectly certain that if he, Mr. Scriven, is obliged to pay something additional in his bill on account of that commodity, he will find means to make the possessor pay him back with interest, if they have any further dealings together."
"Loving nephew!" said Mr. Winkworth, drily; "pray, are you as affectionately fond of all your other relations?"
"Nay, that is hardly fair," replied Charles Marston: "you know quite well, Winkworth, how dearly I love my good aunt Fleetwood, and my noble, generous-hearted father. But I will tell you one thing: that it is the contrast between his conduct, feelings, and thoughts, and those of my good calculating uncle, which makes the society of the latter so very unpleasant to me."
"It is all prejudice, I dare say," answered Mr. Winkworth, in a morose tone. "You love your father, doubtless, because it is customary. Piety, piety, you know, Marston--it would never do, not to love one's father; and then you hate your uncle because he has got the whip-hand of you."
"You are very much mistaken," replied Charles Marston sharply: "my uncle has not the whip-hand of me in any way. Thanks to my father's generosity and confidence, I am as independent of him as of that chimney-sweeper."
"Humph!" said the old man, "but what has your uncle done?"
"Why, nothing, perhaps, that the world would blame," answered Charles, "but nothing that I ever heard of that any man of heart and mind would praise. In that very business of the poor Hayleys, which I was telling you about last night, he persecuted Henry in the most relentless manner. The bankers who lost the money, and were the real parties interested, did not show half the eagerness after the poor fellow's blood."
"That might proceed, in your uncle, from a natural love of justice," said Mr. Winkworth.
"Pooh!" exclaimed Charles Marston, with an impatient look.
"Did he pay the bankers the money?" demanded his companion.
"Not one penny," rejoined Charles. "But let us get into some sort of vehicle, or we shall never arrive at the city;" and calling one of the street conveyances, they proceeded on their way.
As the reader is already aware, Charles Marston did not find his uncle at his counting-house; and having nothing further to detain him in a place which he abhorred, he drove back again at once to his aunt's house, leaving Mr. Winkworth to finish his business in the great centre of the world's commerce, and rejoin him as soon as it was possible.
Charles Marston found Lady Fleetwood's drawing-room already well tenanted. His cousin Maria had arrived earlier than she had been expected; not ten minutes after her appearance, Lady Anne Mellent had presented herself; and she was followed closely by Colonel Middleton.
A crowd of gratulations and welcomes poured warmly upon Charles.
It is at such first meetings after long absence that, to the eyes of the observant and experienced in human character, the deeply-concealed feelings of the heart peep out in little traits.
Had the eyes of Lady Fleetwood been of any great use to her, she would have seen the ruin and destruction of one of her favourite schemes upon the cheek of Maria Monkton, and in the eyes of Lady Anne Mellent.
The former was nearest to the door by which Charles entered. She received him with every appearance of affection, returned his embrace warmly, and expressed, with no lack of tenderness, the pleasure she felt at seeing him again; but not the slightest change of colour in the cheek betrayed any deeper emotion: no quivering of the lip, no trembling of the frame, showed the agitation inseparable from love.
Not so Lady Anne Mellent: she sat still as stone while Charles was welcomed by his cousin; but a ray of joyful light, bright, and pure, and radiant, poured forth from her eyes, while her cheek became very pale, and her lips parted with a sigh that would not be suppressed.
She was evidently a great deal agitated; but, with a degree of command over herself, which circumstances rendered more habitual with her than people generally believed, she overcame the emotion in a moment; and by the time the greeting of Maria was over, she was quite prepared to resume the gay and sparkling levity with which she often covered deeper feelings.
"Do not come near me, Charles Marston," she said, as the young traveller approached; "I am determined not to speak to you. I cast you off--I abandon you! If I were a rich grandfather, I would cut you off with a shilling;" but at the same time she held out her hand to him, and it trembled as he took it. "Did you not promise to write to me continually," she asked, "and to tell me all your adventures? for I was quite sure you would get into all sorts of scrapes, and be delightfully near losing your life a hundred times. And now tell me, sir, have you written me a single word for six months?"
"I wrote you two long letters--the last not three months ago," replied Charles Marston; "and you never condescended to answer either."
"Because I never received them," replied Lady Anne; "but you will lay it all upon postmasters, of course."
"You shall see the record and the dates in my journal, little infidel!" said Charles Marston in a low tone, and then added aloud, "but I did even more than all this. I was impudent enough to write to your merry old guardian, Sir Thomas Wickham, to ask him for your address."
"And what did he say? what did he say?" exclaimed Lady Anne, laughing: "something very funny, I am sure."
"He told me that he was not an astronomer," replied Charles Marston, "and could not at all calculate the transit of Venus; adding, in less figurative language, that he could not tell where you might happen to be, as he had never known for two hours consecutively in his life; but that, if he might venture a supposition, your ladyship was probably looking for me somewhere in Palestine or Crim Tartary."
"My ladyship was doing nothing of the kind," answered Lady Anne. "But there is Colonel Middleton, exceedingly anxious to say civil things to you, while I should say nothing but what is uncivil--at least, till you have done penance; so go and speak to him."
The greeting between the two friends was very warm, and while it took place, Lady Anne's eyes were fixed upon Charles Marston's countenance with a keen and scrutinizing glance.
As the secrets of all hearts are, of course, in the bosom of him who writes their history, I may very well aver that Lady Anne was anxious to discover whether Charles Marston was really as unconscious of the identity of Colonel Middleton and Henry Hayley as he appeared to be; but there was nothing in any part of his demeanour which could induce her to suppose that he entertained even a suspicion of the truth.
"These men are strange beings!" she said to herself as she gazed. "Here are two girls who discover a fact at once, and an old woman who becomes very much puzzled, and very doubtful, evidently--for beloved aunt Fleetwood is clearly on thorns at this very moment with doubt and curiosity; and yet, quick, too rapid Charles Marston jumps over the truth, and lights a hundred yards beyond. Upon my life, I think women are creatures of instinct more than anything else!--although I do not know that it is a compliment to their understanding to suppose they share a gift peculiarly characteristic of beasts."
The welcome was succeeded by general conversation; and, general conversation being the most tedious thing upon the face of the earth to all but the persons engaged in it, and very often to them likewise, there can be no necessity for repeating it here.
Though the sweetest tempered woman in the world, Lady Fleetwood was in a mood for fretting herself; and, to say the truth, circumstances wonderfully assisted her. In the first place, she was evidently one too many. The party divided itself, naturally, into a quadrille without her; but it divided itself not according to her taste.
Had Charles Marston attached himself to the side of his cousin, and his friend Colonel Middleton devoted all his attention to Lady Anne, she would have borne the awkward fact of her own superfluity with the utmost meekness and patience; but, very perversely, they chose to do quite the reverse of all this. Charles, in the window, carried on with Lady Anne Mellent what seemed to his good aunt a regular flirtation, while Maria was left entirely to the attentions of Colonel Middleton.
Still, as the reader may suppose, no four persons could have been more perfectly contented with their position than these four, could Lady Fleetwood have been contented to let them alone, and not tried to arrange matters better; but she first joined in the conversation of one party, and then interrupted that of another, taking care to choose the exact moment when something of importance was to be said, or some word of affection to be spoken, which was most willing to hide itself from listening ears.
At length, however, Mr. Winkworth was announced, and the arrival of a stranger put out all the former combinations. Advancing into the room, with one hand behind his back and his hat in the other, he made a formal sliding bow all round, till his eye rested upon Charles Marston at the end of the line, and the latter advanced to introduce him to the rest.
Though gay, frank, and bluff, as we have seen, where he was intimate, Mr. Winkworth was clearly very formal and ceremonial amongst strangers; but yet there was a certain degree of old-fashioned courteousness in his manner which perfectly suited the notions of Lady Fleetwood. The very scrape of his left foot upon the carpet, as he made his exceedingly decided bow, and the little expletives with which he seasoned his replies, savoured of that dignified stateliness which, even within her own memory, was the distinctive quality of the old court.
"You have been a long time in India, I think, Mr. Winkworth," she said, looking rather too curiously at his sallow complexion.
"Madam, I fear it is written on my countenance," he replied, with another low bow; "but I have, as you say, been a good deal in India; and I learn from your nephew that my old friend Marston is your brother-in-law."
Lady Fleetwood was delighted to hear that Mr. Winkworth was an old friend of her sister Maria's husband; and she soon engaged her visiter in giving her a full statement of all he knew concerning Mr. Marston in India, which was certainly well calculated to be gratifying to her ears. It proved also a seasonable diversion in favour of the lovers in the other part of the room; for it occupied all the excellent lady's attention, and prevented her from attempting to make them comfortable.
The announcement that Charles Marston's carriage was at the door, about ten minutes after his companion's first appearance, put an end to the explanations he was giving to Lady Anne; and the two gentlemen departed upon their charitable expedition, leaving Henry still by Maria's side.
One gentleman amongst three ladies is but small provision; but Colonel Middleton seemed in no degree inclined to depart, and for a minute or two Lady Anne was kind enough to make a diversion in his favour, by going over and occupying the attention of Lady Fleetwood. How Maria and he took advantage of this movement, it is not for me to say. Certain it is they talked in a very low voice for some minutes, till Lady Anne suddenly rose as if to depart, and then Maria took a liberty with her aunt's house, which she would have done without the slightest hesitation where no deep feelings were concerned, but which now, from some cause or another, called the colour somewhat warmly into her cheek; saying aloud--
"Will you not dine with us to-day, Colonel Middleton? My aunt, I am sure, will be very happy to see you."
Before Henry could answer, or the little sort of agitated consideration ofprosandconswhich seized upon Lady Fleetwood could resolve itself into anything like form and shape, Lady Anne held up her finger, exclaiming--
"Remember, you are engaged to me, sir, for to-night at least. To-morrow I will give you up to Lady Fleetwood with all my heart."
Maria certainly did think her young friend very strange, and perhaps felt a little mortified. It was but a transitory emotion, however, but it was sufficiently strong to cause Henry's answer to escape her; and the next moment, while he had turned to Lady Fleetwood, to answer with thanks the invitation, which she cordially seconded the moment it was declined, Lady Anne, crossing the room, laid her hand upon Maria's arm, saying in a whisper--
"Trust me, dear girl! trust me! I am neither a flirt nor a coquette, whatever you may think."
"Indeed, I think you neither, Anne, though perhaps a little strange," Maria Monkton replied; and with a gay laugh and a nod of her head Lady Anne Mellent ran out of the room, leaving Henry with Maria and Lady Fleetwood.
There we also must leave him, dear reader, for the time, to follow Charles down to Frimley; and though the journey was not a very long one and the stages were short and easy, even in those days--merely from London to Hounslow, from Hounslow to Egham, from Egham to Bagshot, and from Bagshot to Frimley, passing by the "Golden Farmer" and stopping at the "White Hart"--I should undoubtedly abridge the way by stepping over the whole country, after the fashion of the pair of compasses with which one measures distances on a map, were it not for one peculiarity which must be pointed out. The old road to Southampton and a great many other places, for some distance beyond Frimley, runs only through two counties, and those metropolitan counties, too: first Middlesex, and then Surrey; and yet, perhaps, were you to look for any thirty miles throughout all England which comprise more waste land than any other thirty miles, you would have to pitch upon these in the immediate vicinity of the capital. Only take the names I have given above, and add the word heath or common to them, and you have at least fifteen miles of waste out of the thirty.
Hounslow Heath, Egham Heath, Bagshot Heath, Frimley Common--over all these they rolled as fast as two good horses and a gay postilion could manage to make them; and about half-past six o'clock they reached the spot where they had seen poor Rebecca Hayley two nights before.
The carriage was stopped, and out they got, as near the hovel as possible; and then, wandering down the little path by the side of the swampy stream smothered with moss, they made their way to the door. It was closed, but not locked; and Charles Marston, without the ceremony of knocking, lifted the latch and went in. There was but one tenant in the place, and that was the boy Jim; but the poor fellow's face and manner no more displayed that calm, good-humoured, patient, steadfast opposition to adversity and sorrow which they had so lately shown. He sat by the fireless hearth and wept.
"Why, what is the matter, my lad?" asked Charles, "and where is your old friend Bessy?"
"They have taken her away," replied the boy, "and I am left here alone."
"Taken her away? taken her away?" said Mr. Winkworth, following his young friend. "Who took her away? If your story, Charles, be quite correct, I do not see who can have any right to take her away. Who was it took her away, Jim?"
"Oh! he had right enough, I dare say," answered the boy: "at least, he seemed to have, for he ordered about him quite free, and the people did just what he liked; and when I asked him what was to become of me, he said, 'Whatever might happen. He had nothing to do with that.' He would have been more civil, I think, if he had had no right."
"I can't tell that," replied Mr. Winkworth, who was occasionally given to moralise, as the reader may have perceived: "wrong is often a very uncivil thing; but what was he like? Was he an old man or a young one?"
"Younger than you are, a good bit," replied the boy; "but older than he is, a good bit;" and he pointed to Charles Marston.
Further questions elicited that the person who had carried away poor Miss Hayley was a gentleman between forty and fifty years of age, tall and thin, with grey hair but no whiskers. He had come down in a carriage, the boy said, having a servant with him, and together they had put poor Bessy into the vehicle, whether she would or not.
"She seemed to know him, however," he added, "and called him by his name, and was very much afraid of him. She cried and sobbed very much, too."
In answer to another question, the lad stated that he had forgotten the name which his poor old friend had given to the gentleman.
"The description is uncommonly like my uncle Scriven," said Charles Marston.
"That's it! that's it!" cried the boy, eagerly. "That is what she called him--I remember now."
"I'll swear that my dearly-beloved aunt Fleetwood has been at the bottom of this," said Charles, "with her excellent intentions. I'll answer for it she has told my uncle all about our having found the poor old lady here, and tried to persuade him to do something for her. Thus he has learnt all about it, and for some reason of his own has come and carried her away. But I will have this affair investigated to the bottom."
"Quite right, my dear boy--if you do not run your head against sundry stone walls in so doing," replied Mr. Winkworth; "but you should always remember, Charles Marston, that you have got brains, and that stone walls have none, so that it is not a fair fight between you and them. However, now let us think of the boy."
"Oh, I will take him into my service," replied the younger man, "and put him under my fellow, to teach him----"
"All manner of wickedness," said Mr. Winkworth, "and therefore you shall do no such thing. I will take him into mine, where there's no blackguard with long whiskers to corrupt him. I'll drill him into all the precise notions of an old bachelor's service, and when he's fit for that, he's fit for anything. Would you like to come and live with me, my good boy, and be my servant?" and the old gentleman's yellow countenance lighted up with a benevolent smile, which made it look quite handsome.
"I should like it very much," said the boy, eagerly: "and then, perhaps, I can sometimes see Bessy."
"I dare say you can, though I know not why you call her Bessy," answered Mr. Winkworth: "at all events, I will not prevent you. Good heaven, my dear Charles! how much happier, and brighter, and better a world it would be, if we all continued to love our Bessies through life as this poor boy seems to love his! There--do not stare so. I mean by Bessies, the best friends of our youth--not, perhaps, the mere corporeal flesh-and-blood friends, but the pure, ingenuous, open-hearted candour of early years, which would be a better friend to man, if he did but cling to it with affection through life, than all the worldly friends we gain in passing through existence--shrewdness, caution, prudence, selfishness, wit, or even wisdom. But it is no use in trying to indoctrinate you, I see: you only laugh at all my most beautiful illustrations, and think me the most foolish old man in the world."
"Not I, indeed, my dear sir," replied Charles Marston. "I should only like some day to put your sarcasms when your spleen is moved, and your fine sentiments when your enthusiasm is excited, side by side, in double columns as they print books, and see how they would look when compared."
"They would mutually balance each other, and so come to nothing," said the old gentleman. "But now, my good boy, Jim--what is your name besides Jim?"
"Brown," replied the boy.
"I thought so," exclaimed Mr. Winkworth; "I could have sworn it! Jim always precedes Brown, and Brown always follows Jim--it is a natural collocation. How strange it is, Charles Marston, that particular names have such strange affinities for each other, so that they appear to unite by the mere attraction of cohesion! How extraordinary that this boy's godfathers and godmothers, without any preconcerted consideration of the subject, were driven by a sort of inevitable necessity to call him Jim! They had, indeed, but one alternative, and that was Tom. However, Tom is less dignified, being frequently attached to cat. And now, Jim Brown, to proceed to business: you shall either have your choice of getting into the dickey of that carriage, and coming up with me to town to be fed, lodged, receive twenty pounds a-year, and wait upon an old gentleman with a yellow face, or you shall stay here for a day or two longer, to put your little affairs in order, and follow me up to town for the same purposes."
The boy had listened with profound attention to Mr. Winkworth's comments on his name, though with a slight expression of wonder on his face, but not of stupid wonder. To his proposal he gave not less attention, and then thought for a moment before he answered. Poor boy! he had been early taught to think; for circumstance is a hard master, and often teaches severe lessons to youth, only fitted for age.
"I think I would rather stay for a day," he replied at length; "for there are some things of my poor mother's which I should like to pack up and not have wasted."
"Well, then, there is a guinea for you to pay your journey up on the top of the coach," said Mr. Winkworth; "and now, have you got such a thing as a pen, that I may write down my address in London?"
"Here's poor Bessy's pen," said the boy, "which she used to teach me to write with."
While with the well-worn stump, a drop of ink in a little phial, and a scrap of somewhat dirty paper, Mr. Winkworth wrote down his address in London, Charles Marston gazed out of the cottage-door upon the heath, over which the purple shades of evening were falling fast.
"Who are all those people passing across the common?" asked Charles Marston, turning to the boy: "is there any great work going on here?"
"Oh, no, sir," replied Jim: "those are people, I dare say, from the great meeting to petition for a reform in parliament, which was to be held farther up on the common to-day. The men were coming down all the morning, and a bad set they were, too; for they walked straight through William Small's garden, trampled down all his beds, and gathered all the flowers. He said they were nothing but a set of thieves and pickpockets from London, and they have done him damage for twenty pounds or more."
"Ha! Charles, that's bad," said Mr. Winkworth, rising, and folding up the paper on which he had written the address: "we had better get away before the shades of night are upon us. I hope your Whiskerandos has got the pistols with him."
"I dare say he has," replied Charles Marston; and after a few words more exchanged with the boy, they left the cottage and got into their carriage again. Mr. Winkworth, however, seemed to have thought better of his plan of operations, especially when they got into the midst of a noisy and somewhat turbulent crowd, one worthy member of which amused himself by throwing a stone at the head of the servant.
"After all," said the old gentleman, "I think it will be better to stop and dine, and let these admirable reformers disperse."
Charles Marston was very willing to do anything that he liked; for, to say the truth, his mind was very busy, and wanted to be busy; and, as the reader is well aware, when such is the case the spiritual part cares very little what the corporeal is about, provided there be no interruption to its own operations. They consequently drove to the inn where they had already stopped on their way to town, ordered dinner, and, according to the usual process, waited for it and ate it--not exactly in silence; for, notwithstanding all that philosophers can say, either mind or body will often carry on two operations at once, and Charles talked of indifferent subjects while his mind was occupied with one particular theme: that is to say, he talked mechanically; for conversation is much more the effect of mere machinery than we think. Now, internally he was occupied in considering what could be the motives of his uncle in the act he had just performed; and he mingled therewith sundry doubts, hesitations, and inquiries, with which it is needless to trouble the reader. In a word, Thought, mounted upon Imagination, went galloping away hither and thither, while the mechanical part of mind remained at home, taking care of the house.
In the mean time there was a good deal of noise and bustle in the inn, which on their first visit had seemed as quiet a little place as any at which hungry travellers ever ate new-killed chickens or tough beefsteaks; and the landlord thought fit to inform his respected guests, in an apologetic tone, that there were several of the orators of the great meeting just dispersed--the spirit-shakers of that day--then dining in the house, and several of their admirers waiting in the yard to cheer them as they went home. Now, it is very natural for orators to be noisy--first, because the unruly member is their spoilt child, and next, because--at least I never yet saw, met with, or heard of one of them with whom such was not the case--they never consider any others than themselves.
Mr. Winkworth and Charles Marston, then, were not the least surprised at the inn being noisy under such circumstances; and the only effect was, that they hurried their dinner in order to get out of it as soon as possible. Whenever the meal was concluded, the horses were put to, the lamps lighted, for it was now quite dark; crack went the whip, round went the wheels, and off went the carriage. Through the little town they drove quietly and easily enough, and for some distance beyond it; but at length awful Bagshot Heath spread around them. True, it might have been any other place on the earth for aught they knew. The night was cloudy; the stars were all in bed and fast asleep; the moon would have nothing to do with Bagshot Heath that night; and neither Charles nor his companion had the least idea that they were in the midst of a place notorious for robbery some ten years before, when a loud voice cried "Stop!" and the carriage was brought to a sudden halt. It is probable that some of the gentlemen who, anxious for an extension of the franchise, had attended the meeting in the morning, seeing a carriage indicative of wealth in the court-yard of the inn, had thought that they might make their day's expedition serve two purposes, and tend first to the expansion of their rights and liberties, and secondly to a more equal distribution of property. At all events, some persons, animated by the latter object, appealed to the travellers, pistol in hand, to convey a portion of their superfluity to their more needy fellow-countrymen. The servant at the back of the carriage, however, produced a pair of tubes very similar to those in the hands of the applicants, and without much ceremony fired.
The shot was instantly returned, but with what effect Charles Marston did not wait to see; for, seated on the right hand side of the carriage, which was opposite to that where the attack was made, he put forth his hand, the window on that side being down, opened the door, jumped out, and applied a thick stick which he had with him to the head of a gentleman who was holding the horses.
The head was a hard one, and probably not unaccustomed to such calls to forbearance; but the blow was sufficiently well directed and forcibly applied to stretch him for one moment flat upon his back. The next instant he was upon his feet again; but, not willing to take a second dose of the same rude medicine, and totally forgetful of his hat, which, to say truth, was not worthy of great solicitude, he ran off across the heath as fast as he could go. Now, running is the most infectious of all diseases; and the two other gentlemen who were with him were seized almost simultaneously with the same malady.
Charles Marston did not think fit to pursue the fugitives, but merely inquired of the servant, who had by this time descended from his leathern box, whether the shot the fellows had fired had hit him.
"No, sir," replied the man, in his peculiar affected tone; "the gentlemen's line of fire was not well directed. It merely damaged the crystal of the carriage, I think."
And Charles Marston, calling him a puppy in his own mind, went round to the other side, got in, and ordered the postboy to drive on.
For a moment or two Mr. Winkworth was completely silent; but at length he remarked, in a low, quiet tone--
"Well, I do think, Master Charles Marston, that I am a very unfortunate man, and that my left shoulder is a very unfortunate shoulder, both being subject to suffer by encounters with highwaymen, whether Syrian or English, Mahommedan or Christian."
"Why, my dear sir--you don't mean to say you are wounded?" exclaimed Charles Marston.
"I do indeed," replied Mr. Winkworth, "and within one inch of the spot where I was wounded before. Luckily, it is lower down, and on the outside, so it is only in the flesh, I fancy; but I am not obliged to them, nevertheless. I was just stooping a little, forward to see what was going on, when the ball came crashing through the glass and into my shoulder."
Charles Marston was now, as may well be supposed, under a good deal of anxiety for his friend; but Mr. Winkworth would not consent to stop at the next inn longer than was necessary to ascertain that the bleeding was not great. Charles insisted upon putting on another pair of horses to the carriage to accelerate their progress, and in about two two hours and a half they reached the door of their hotel. There a surgeon was immediately sent for; and after what seemed to Charles a very long delay, the man of healing entered the room.