The clock was striking twelve, the moon was bright and high, but a thin mist had come back upon the earth, and lay lightly over all the slopes, and the lower parts of the ground in the neighbourhood of Oxford, when a train, which might have scared the peasant or schoolboy had he beheld it, so like was it to what imagination has pictured a train of ghosts, took its way down a small turret staircase at the castle of Oxford. That train consisted of three ladies and two men, and all, with the exception of one, who wore a monk's gray gown, were covered from head to foot in white. When they had descended to the bottom of the stairs, the empress turned to the monk, demanding, "Through the vaults, say you? How came you to discover the way?"
"I discovered it," replied the monk, "when I was mere boy, and studied sciences under a clerk of this place." The empress looked down as if apprehensive and doubtful, but still followed on; and, leading the way, the monk opened the door which led into some vaults below the castle, and thence down another narrow flight of steps, which made the way seem to Matilda as if they were descending into a well. "Lord Brian," she said, in a low voice to her other male attendant, "if you find that he deceives us, cleave him down with your battle-axe."
"Fear not, lady," replied the gentleman to whom she spoke; "I know him, although he does not know me, and you may trust to him in all faith."
Again they proceeded in silence; and at the bottom of the steps they found another door, which led them into a long vaulted passage. At first it was cased with masonry, and a pavement was beneath their feet; but at the end of twenty or thirty yards the masonry ceased, and the torch carried by Lord Brian Fitzwalter showed that they were passing under the arch of a sort of rude cave, occasionally supported by brickwork, but not sufficiently so to prevent large masses of the earth and stones from falling down and obstructing the way. At the end of near two hundred yards more the monk turned towards the baron, saying, "Here you must put out the light, but lead her majesty gently forward, for the road is rough and dangerous." Lord Brian obeyed at once, and extinguished the torch against the wall of the vault, if wall it could indeed be called. He then led on the empress by the hand, while the monk went before, directing them upon their way; and presently after the faint blue light of the moonbeams were seen glimmering at some distance before them.
"Now be silent as death," said the monk; "for, when we issue forth from this place, we are within a hundred yards of the tent of William of Ipres. When we are among the bushes at the mouth, stop, and let me go on first. You will see exactly the course that I take, and, if I am not seen in this gray gown, you, covered entirely in white, may well escape."
A few steps more brought the whole party to a spot where a number of dry hawthorn bushes had gathered themselves into a hollow in the ground, completely concealing the mouth of the cavern or vault by which they had issued forth from the Castle of Oxford. That hollow had been part of some ancient Saxon, or, perhaps, Roman camp; and it extended some way in the form of a narrow ravine. The depth, indeed, except where the hawthorn bushes were, was very little; but it still afforded some shelter from the eyes of any of the enemy's soldiers who might have been near; nor was some shelter unnecessary; for at that moment the empress and her attendants had already passed the outer guards of Stephen's army, and were, in fact, half way through his camp.
Gliding through the hawthorns, the monk advanced calmly on his way; and, too impatient to wait long, the empress, with the hand of Eva St. Clair clasped in hers, followed the distance of some twenty or thirty paces. After a few minutes of ascent the whole scene around burst upon them, and fearful it must have been to persons in their situation. The camp of Stephen was before and around them; not indeed close, for that was a spot of open ground which served as a sort of division between the quarters of the different leaders, and the space of about two hundred yards lay between tent and tent. That space, indeed, was usually well watched by sentinels; but the night was intensely cold, the wind was high, and the men gladly got behind the shelter of the tents, or warmed themselves by the blazing watch-fires. On the right, as the empress and her party then stood, was a large pavilion, with torches burning before it, while a light could be seen through the canvass walls, and the voice of merriment and revelry made itself heard upon the calm ear of night. Between that tent and those on the left the monk took his straightforward course, and the rest followed with silent but beating hearts. There was no one opposed them, however; they passed that tent, and another, and another; they crossed over some slight defences which had been cast up in the rear of the army, and they saw before them a long row of osiers, forming a sort of hedge, and looking black amid the white of the wintry scene around them. Towards these the monk bent his steps, but paused when he reached them; and the rest of the party found him waiting for them at the angle of a little lane.
"We are safe, lady, we are safe," said Lord Brian Fitzwalter; "This lane leads down to the Thames; it is firmly frozen over, and you can pass across direct to Wallingford."
"We are safe; thank God, we are safe," cried Eva; but at that moment there was a blast of a trumpet behind them, and galloping horse were seen coming down with furious speed.
"Look to the lady, Brian," cried the monk, in a voice of command; "lead them quick across the stream; once on the other side, you are safe, for the horses dare not follow you. Give me your battle-axe; on my life I will detain these horsemen here till you are safe; they cannot pass me here; fly, lady, fly, for they are coming fast;" and, snatching the battle-axe from Lord Brian's hand, he cast himself into the middle of the road.
Matilda would have spoken, but all voices cried, "Fly, lady, fly;" and she was hurried onward, while the horsemen came down like lightning There was one considerably ahead of the rest, the captain of the guard for the night; and, seeing himself opposed in the middle of the lane, he couched his lance at the monk, and spurred eagerly upon him. One stroke of the battle-axe, however, parried the lance and shivered it to atoms; and, rushing on the monk caught the rein of the horse, and prepared to dash the rider from his seat. But the captain of the guard, an experienced soldier, wheeled his horse with his heel to keep himself from the foe while he drew his heavy sword, and with a thrust which it was difficult for an axe to parry, he lunged straight at the breast of his opponent. At the same time that he did so, he shouted his old accustomed battle-cry, "A Lacy! A Lacy! Reginald to the rescue! A Lacy! A Lacy!"
The axe dropped from the monk's hand; the thrust of old Reginald de Lacy was true and strong; his adversary fell, dying the snow with his gore; and the baron, spurring his horse on over the body, led his followers fiercely forward in pursuit of Matilda. When he reached the bank of the Thames, however, he could see nothing but some moving objects on the other side; and, eager in the cause he had undertaken, he urged his horse vehemently upon the ice. The animal felt it shake beneath him, trembled, resisted, fell. The whole mass gave way, and man and horse, with their heavy armour, were plunged to the bottom of the stream. It was in vain that the followers of old Reginald de Lacy endeavoured to extricate him from the water before life was extinct. Near two hours elapsed before they could recover his body, and then they bore it by another path to his tent. They spent the rest of the night in lamenting their lord; and it was not till the morning that one of them thought to tell a priest, whom Stephen had sent to offer prayers for the soul of De Lacy, that a few minutes before his death, old Reginald with the red hand had killed some one like a monk, who had attempted to stop his progress.
The priest took others with him, and instantly set out for the place they described; but there they found a sight that made even the hearts of men accustomed to seek voluntarily every scene of human suffering, ache for the fate that was now past recall. There, indeed, lay the fair and powerful form of one in the earliest years of manhood, with the gray gown of a monk, indeed, cast over his shoulders, but beneath it the rich garments of a Norman noble, dyed with the flood of gore which had streamed from the death-wound in his breast. There, indeed, lay Richard de Lacy, slain by the hand of his own father; but he was not alone in death; for, cast upon his bosom, with her rich brown hair all dishevelled and unbound--with her garments, too, drenched in the blood that flowed from the heart of him she loved, lay the still, cold, but yet beautiful form of Eva de St. Clair. None could tell how she died; whether the intense cold of the night had aided, or whether grief had been alone enough to extinguish the warm spark of life within her bosom. All that was ever learned was the fact that, when the empress reached the bank of the river, Eva was not with her; and the fierceness of the pursuit compelled the rest of the party to go on without seeking the unhappy daughter of St. Clair.
There is a little town on the coast of England, which at the present day is not exactly a seaport, though in former times, when the chivalrous race of Plantagenet held sway within these realms, it was not only reckoned as such, but sent its ships to the fleet under the command of a Mohun, a Grey, a De Lisle, or a Clinton. There is as little connexion, however, between the former state of the town and the present, as there is between those days and the time at which the events which I am about to relate took place. All that remains of its former splendour, indeed, is the ruin of an old castle, picturesquely perched on the extremity of a little slope, which, like the ambitious aspirations of youth that have no result, runs out, promontory fashion, into the sea, towering up as it goes, till, cut short in its career, it ends in a chalky cliff of no very great height.
Upon the brow of that cliff is the castle we have mentioned, standing like the scull and cross-bones upon a nun's table, a memento of the transitory nature of all things, though the eyes once familiar with it seldom draw any moral from that memorial of the dead.
Along the slope of the hill, towards the west, is built the little modern town, or, rather, the village, a congregation of small white houses looking over the ever-changing sea. Manifold are the gardens. Though Flora loves not to be fanned with the wings of Zephyr when his pen-feathers are dipped in brine, yet we are obliged to confess that the flowers there grown are sweet and beautiful; the shrubs, though rather diminutive in size, green and luxuriant.
There are one or two pretty houses in the place, the best being the rectory, which stands near the church, and which, though large, is not very convenient. The neatest, the most commodious, is one which, situated just below the castle, takes in part of the ancient vallum as a portion of the garden, and is built in the purest style of cottage architecture, as if to contrast the more strongly in its trim and flourishing youngness with the old walls which, in the pride of decayed nobility, tower up above it, raising battlement and watch-tower high in air, as if turning up the nose at the little upstart at their feet.
In this house dwelt a personage by no means uncommon in England, and combining in his own nature a great many of the faults and good qualities of our national character. But we must give a sketch of his history, which, though as brief as possible, will explain his character without any long details. The son of a well-doing man in the neighbouring county town, he had early been put apprentice to a large dealer in various commodities; gradually made his way in the world; entered into partnership with his old master; rendered the business doubly flourishing by care, activity, and exactness; increased in wealth and honour; married, at forty-five, the daughter of a poor clergyman--the only thing he ever did in his life without the cash-book in his hand; and was duly presented with one fair daughter, whom he loved passing well.
Through life he was the most exact of men, prompt, punctual, authoritative: and, having really considerable talents in a particular line, very good taste in many things, an easy and increasing fortune, and a very comfortable notion of his own value, he became one of the most important men of the town, gave law to the common council, and tone to a considerable class in society. He was a little dogmatic, somewhat pompous, and loved not contradiction; and his wife, who was as meek as a lamb, took care that he should experience none in his own dwelling. But, with all these little faults, he had contrived to make himself loved as well as respected. For though, in putting two and two together, he was as accurate as our great mathematician's calculating machine, yet, in reality and in truth, there was not a more liberal man upon the face of the earth. If anybody applied to him for pecuniary assistance, he would sit down, and, gathering together all the facts, calculate, with the most clear-headed precision, whether a loan would be really useful to the person who asked it. If that were made clear, he had no hesitation whatever; and, even if it were not made clear, and there was something like an even chance that his assistance might be serviceable or might not, he only hesitated for a minute and a half; and the good spirit unloosed the purse-strings ere the bad spirit could get them into a run knot.
As, however, he was upon extremely good terms with a lady who is one of the pleasantest companions that we can have in life, and whose name is Dame Fortune, those instances in which the chances were equally balanced generally turned out as he could have wished, and he both served his friend and regained his money, with the proper addition of interest, both in bank-notes and friendship.
He never met with but one great misfortune in his life up to the time of our commencing his history; but that misfortune drove him from the county town, and caused him to settle underneath the old castle by the seaside. He lost neither his wife nor his daughter, his health, his spirits, nor his fortune. No! it was an addition, not a loss, that cut him to the heart.
One of the members of the common council, it seems, had a brother who was a silversmith in London, and who, having made a comfortable competence, wisely retired from trade, came down to the town of which he was a native and a freeman, and was soon admitted into the municipal body. Now, whether he had frequented a debating society or the reporters' gallery of St. Stephen's, whether he had studied under Cobbett or Hunt, Burdett or Hume, or any of those gentlemen--we do not mean either to be personal or political--any of those gentlemen, we say, famed for opposition, it would seem as if, from the moment he came down, he had determined to overthrow the supremacy of our worthy friend, and to worry him as though he had been a bishop, a baited bull, or a prime-minister. Moreover, he was oratorical; he would speak you a speech by the hour, in which he would confound all that the straightforward good sense of our friend had made clear; he would pour upon the simplest point a torrent of fine words, not always pronounced with the utmost purity; he would render the most pellucid position opaque by the turbid stream of eloquence, and would add a few words of Latin, with very little reverence for the terminations of the nouns or the tenses of the verbs, but still with sufficient volubility to astound and overawe the ignorant ears around him.
Our friend was resolved not to die without a struggle; and, at the close of any of these triumphant orations, he would rise, feeling morally convinced--seeing, knowing, believing--that all his adversary said was idle, absurd, and stupid, but yet labouring under a consciousness of his own incapability to disentangle the subject which had been twisted up into a Gordian knot, or even to find out the thin, feeble, and insignificant thread of his foe's argumentation amid the crystals of sugar candy with which his eloquence had invested it. He would rise, as we have said, and gasp, and struggle, and sit down again, impotent of reply.
There was no help for it; he felt himself worsted; and, after the agony of a couple of months, he retreated from a field which he no longer could maintain. He resigned his post in the town council; made the necessary arrangements with his partner in business to give up his active share, and retired, a man well to do, to spend the rest of his days in peace at the little coast-town, about ten miles from his former dwelling, the localities of which we have already described. There, then, he settled with his wife and only daughter; there he embellished, improved, did good, and enjoyed his doings, and passed his time in that busy and important usefulness which was so well suited to his disposition.
But we forgot all this time to make the reader acquainted with his name. It was one which, though not uncommon, was in some degree remarkable, being neither more nor less than John Deer. Now he certainly was not so lightfooted as a roe, nor so timid as a stag, nor possessed of any of the distinctive qualities of the cervine creation. He was much too consequential a person also for any one--not even excepting his own wife--to venture to play upon his name, and turn John Deer into Dear John: so that the name of Deer could come to no harm in his hands. But, alack and well-a-day! he had, as we have before said, one fair daughter, whom he loved passing well; and she was beautiful as a rose, gentle as a dove, timid as a young fawn, and her name was Ann; so that it very naturally happened that when anybody spoke of her as Annie Deer, there was an expression about the lips and a meaning in the eyes which gave the lastein her name very much the effect of ana; and Annie Deer from her father's and her mother's lips--and one other pair besides--was Annie dear whenever she was mentioned.
Now it was natural for her father to call her so, and very natural for her mother to call her so, and still more natural than all for one other person in the village to call her so also; but who that person was remains to be shown. We will not keep the reader a moment in suspense. Suspense is wrong, unjust, wicked: persons who have been condemned by a competent jury, and judged by a competent judge, are the only ones to whom suspense should be applied; and very seldom, if ever, even then. The person who pronounced the name of Annie Deer with such a tone shall be disclosed to the reader immediately.
There was a poor widow in the village, who had seen better days, but whose whole remaining fortune was a hundred and fifty pounds per annum, and more than one half of that was on annuity. Yet out of this sum she had contrived both to live with great respectability, and to give her son, whom she loved far better than herself, an education equal to the station in which his father had moved. When Mr. Deer and his family had first come to live at the little town of Saltham, as we shall call the place, William Stanhope was absent with his ship, for he had by this time become a mate in an East Indiaman, and Mr. and Mrs. Deer did everything they could to be kind and civil to Mrs. Stanhope, and make her time pass cheerfully till her son's return.
When at length he did come back, they welcomed him as an old friend, pouring upon him all those civilities and festivities with which we greet the long-absent and long-expected. He was a very handsome young man; brave, gay, and happy in his disposition; gentlemanly and well educated, but, withal, touched with the frank straightforwardness of a sailor; but the quality which, joined with others, pleased Mr. Deer the most, was a prudent and economical calculation of expenses, which taught him what was just to others and what was just to himself. Mr. Deer liked him very much; and, though Annie Deer was at that time only fourteen, and no great chance existed of her falling in love with anybody, yet Mr. Deer, being famed for foresight, resolved that he would examine young Stanhope's character thoroughly, and watch him well.
That year William Stanhope had brought home no great wealth, having scarcely any capital to trade upon; but he brought some very pretty presents for his mother, which showed him to be a very kind and dutiful young man. The next year, having increased his capital, his gains were increased; and, besides bringing home more money, he brought home not only presents for his mother, but presents for Annie Deer, which he gave straightforwardly to her father, expressing his gratitude for all the kindness which had been shown to his mother during his absence.
Mr. Deer took the presents, and inquired, with looks of much personal interest, into the speculations of the young sailor and their success. William Stanhope was frank and candid; and though the sum that he had made was not very brilliant, yet, compared with his means of making it, it promised so well, that Mr. Doer began to calculate, and found that liberal assistance might without risk enable young Stanhope to advance his fortune rapidly, and he made the offer at once. It was embraced with thanks, and the next voyage ensured to William Stanhope competence as a single man.
He had a higher ambition, however. He was now competent to take the command of a ship. He was respected and esteemed by all who knew him; and a favourable offer was made to him, but the sum of ready money required was very large; and, though he mentioned the offer to his mother, with all its advantages, and all the difficulties that interposed, he spoke of it to no one else. His mother went that evening to drink tea with the family under the castle, but William Stanhope remained at home musing, alleging that he had letters of business to write; and the next morning, instead of taking his way to the house of Mr. Deer, as was his common practice, he wandered along solitary upon the sands round the bay, seeming to count every pebble that studded the shore. He had not gone very far, however, before a friendly hand was laid upon his arm, and Mr. Deer, joining him in his walk, entered at once upon business. He told him that Mrs. Stanhope had related to them the evening before the offer which had been made concerning the command of a ship, and then went on to ask his young friend why he had not applied to him, John Deer, for the money.
"I did not know, my dear sir," replied the youth, "that you would be willing to lend so large a sum."
"Not willing to everybody," replied Mr. Deer, "but quite willing to you, who in all your transactions are as correct as my cash-book."
Still William Stanhope paused; and then, after letting two sailors, who were loitering along the shore, pass them by, he turned directly towards his companion, and, raising his head, he said, "There is another reason, Mr. Deer, why I have not asked you: I am in love with your daughter Annie, and, if I get on in the world, I am determined to seek her hand. I did not wish to mention this at present, because I have but little to offer her, except in hopes and expectations, and I could not think of asking you to lend me so large a sum of money without telling you what were my feelings towards your daughter."
"Sir, you are an honest man," replied Mr. Deer, "and keep, I see, both sides of the account clear. But I will strike a balance with you, and begin a new account. Thus, then, we stand, William: I will lend you ten thousand pounds to buy your ship, and, when you think you have made enough to afford a wife, I will give you the ten thousand pounds as my daughter's fortune, and be glad to receive you as my son-in-law."
"This is beginning a new account, indeed, my dear sir, for it leaves me your debtor in every way."
"Pay it off in kindness to my child," replied Mr. Deer; and the matter was thus finally settled with the father. As to the daughter, William Stanhope sat with her for an hour and a half before dinner; and at a little party which was given that night at the clergyman's house, everybody declared that the beautiful eyes of Annie Deer looked like two stars.
The two months that followed were filled up with that thrilling joy in which present pleasure is mingled with and heightened by the expectation of something not exactly sorrowful, nor painful, nor melancholy, but perhaps we should call it sad. Thus Annie Deer enjoyed, to the full, the society of him she loved, though the expectation of his departure, upon his first voyage as captain of a China vessel, sometimes brought a cloud over the bright sky of their happiness. Time, that rapid old postillion, who goes jogging on in the saddle faster and faster every day, without at all minding the six thousand years that have elapsed since first he began to beat the road--Time, we say, whipped his horses into the full gallop, and carried William Stanhope and Annie Deer with wonderful rapidity to the point of parting. Annie Deer cried very bitterly; and, as they were among the first tears she had ever shed in her life, they were, of course, the more painful. William Stanhope would not suffer himself to weep, but he felt little less than she did. They parted, however. He took the command of his vessel; and, shortly afterward, she, within one hour, saw in the newspaper, and read in his own handwriting, that the Honourable Company's ship the Earl Spencer, Captain Stanhope, commander, had cleared out and dropped down the river.
It was the month of March, and the weather somewhat boisterous; and Mr. Deer, when he heard the wind whistle and roar down the chimney, thanked God that some man had been struck with the very provident idea of ensuring vessels risking themselves upon that treacherous ocean. Annie Deer's mind ran in the same way, but it went no farther than wishing that there was really some meaning in the name by which Life Assurance Societies designate themselves. But she felt too bitterly, poor girl, that there is no ensuring that fragile thing, human life, especially when trusted to the mercy of the winds and waves. Her daily walk was upon the edge of the little promontory looking over the vast, melancholy sea: and at length, a few days after the ship had dropped down the river, she beheld a gallant vessel coming on with a furious and not very favourable gale; and, watching it with deep interest, saw it take refuge in their little bay, and come to anchor to let pass the storm. About four in the afternoon, the wind lulled, but shifted more to the southwest, so that no ship was likely to get out of the Channel. About half past four, as she was looking out of the drawing-room windows of her father's house, she saw something like a boat tossed up from time to time by the bounding waves, which the tempest had left behind it. In half an hour after, she was pressed in the arms of William Stanhope, and two or three hours more of pure happiness were added to the few which they had known through life. At ten o'clock he took his departure; but, at that hour, the moon, though she was shining was red and dim, announcing that the presence of the commander might soon be wanted on board his vessel.
Annie Deer retired to her chamber immediately afterward. She retired not to repose, however, but, on the contrary, to pay for the happiness which she had that night experienced by many a tear. She prayed, too, and prayed fervently, not without hope in the efficacy of prayer, but with that trembling timidity, that doubt of our own worthiness, under the weight of which the footsteps of the apostle, though miraculously upheld, sunk through the surface of the yielding waters. All remained calm; and, towards eleven o'clock, she remarked the clouds passing over the moon, taking a different direction from that which they had done in the morning: and she thought, with mixed hope and apprehension, that, ere the morning, perhaps, he whom she loved might be far away upon that voyage, which was destined either to give them comfort and independence, or to separate them for ever. She lay down to rest; but, towards twelve o'clock, the wind began to rise, increased in violence every moment, and swelled at length into a hurricane. The casements rattled; the wainscot shook and creaked; the house itself seemed shaken. Loudly roaring round and round, the spirit of the storm appeared clamouring at the gates for admittance. It could be heard as it whistled through the branches of the trees. It could be distinguished as it rushed and raved amid the ruins of the castle up above. It could be felt as it swept, with sighing and a melancholy sound, over the level sands of the bay, interrupted only by the sudden plunge of the waves, as they poured headlong upon the resounding shore. Annie Deer rose from her bed, and listened, and wept, and prayed through the livelong night.
But what boots it to tell a long and a sad story, when a very few words will serve our purpose! With the morning light Annie Deer gazed from her window, but the ship was gone, and the storm continued; and, as she looked, without making any particular effort to hear, the sound of a few distant guns caught her ear, and made her heart sink low. The tempest lasted the whole day. During the night it decreased, and the next morning there were found on various points of the coast the spars and timbers of a gallant vessel, on some of which were painted "The Earl Spencer!" The gentlemen of Lloyd's announced the loss of an outward-bound Chinaman. The owners of the Earl Spencer cursed the luck which had lost them a good voyage, and applied to the underwriters. The underwriters cursed their luck still more furiously, but paid the money. Mr. Deer thanked God that he had ensured to the full amount of his loan, and Annie Deer sat down, with widowed heart, to pass the rest of her life with very little interest in the things thereof. Her mother marked the varying colour of her cheek, the langour of her look, and the frequent tearfulness of her eye; and, kissing her tenderly, let fall a drop on the pale forehead of her only child. Annie Deer met with sympathy from one kindred being in her melancholy path, and it was all she hoped for, all she asked in life.
Such was the first part of the story of Annie Deer. Now all stories, into whatsoever imaginary divisions they may be separated by the brains of the teller, have at least two parts; there is no getting rid of the beginning and the end. Having told the former, we must now turn to the latter, which is destined to be shorter still. Mr. Deer went to London, and was indemnified by the underwriters for the money he had advanced; and he returned to his dwelling, looking really sad for the loss of poor William Stanhope. He called upon the childless widow, and tried to comfort her; but she was not to be comforted. He spoke some soothing words to Annie, but Annie only wept the more; and Mr. Deer himself had a kind of perception that they had all suffered a loss which money could never repair. As the house was dull, and the village was dull, and everything about the place looked more or less gloomy since the loss of the Earl Spencer and poor William Stanhope, Mr. Deer betook himself one day, merely for the sake of relaxation, to the county town, purposing, as the pleasantest and most habitual way of amusing his thoughts, to look into all the accounts and proceedings of the very respectable firm in which the greater part of his fortune was still embarked. His partner was out, however, when he arrived; and Mr. Deer, strolling out into the town, was met by Mr. Pocock, the silversmith, and Mr. Pocock's retired brother John, the common councilman and orator.
Now Mr. Deer and Mr. John Pocock were severally sixty-three years of age and upward, and the enmities of sixty-three years are pertinacious things. Mr. Deer, therefore, would willingly have avoided Mr. John Pocock; but that gentleman, on the contrary, put his arm through his, talked to him very civilly, and, leading the conversation to the affairs of Mr. Deer's house, gave him a hint, with perfect kindness of intent and manner, that his partner might be getting on too fast. Mr. Deer was agitated, alarmed, and irritated; and, if he had done what his heart bade him, he would have told his companion to mind his own business, and to meddle with nobody else's affairs, for that he, John Deer, was rich enough to buy out him, John Pocock, and all his relations. He refrained, however, and answered as civilly as the nature of the case would allow; but returned to his partner's house, and instantly set to work to investigate the matter thoroughly.
Sad and alarming was the result of his inquiries. He found that, during the five or six years of his absence, his partner, although he had contrived to make a fair show in their half-yearly accounts, had, in fact, addicted himself to banking, farming, and such vices. Immense sums were risked at that moment in hazardous speculations, and Mr. Deer saw himself inextricably implicated in transactions which he would not have meddled with for the world of his own free-will.
The matter went on as simply as it is possible to conceive. His partner, seeing that Mr. Deer was now convinced that he had trusted once too far, grew angry, resisted the interference which might have saved him, hurried recklessly on in the wrong course, and, ere four months were out, the house of Deer and Co. were bankrupts to the amount of more than a hundred thousand pounds. By the wise and strenuous efforts which Mr. Deer had made during those unhappy four months to retrieve the affairs of his firm, they were enabled to pay very nearly twenty shillings in the pound. But the beautiful house under the castle was advertised for sale; the rich furniture and plate were disposed of by auction; and Mr. Deer retired to a small cottage next to that of the widow Stanhope.
Amid all this distress, no one was so kind as Mr. John Pocock, Though at his period of life much locomotion was not agreeable, he drove over two or three times a week to console, advise, and expostulate with Mr. Deer, whose mind had fallen into a painful state of despair, and who in body had sunk at once into an old man. He wished Mr. Deer to rouse his spirits, and to resume business at once upon his own account, and he offered most liberally to advance him any sum of money for that purpose; but Mr. Deer felt, and Mr. John Pocock was soon convinced, that such a course was impracticable. The bankrupt's health gave way more and more each day. He became fretful and impatient. A very small pittance, which belonged to his wife, supported him and his family in penury for some months, but he saw it drawing to a close with agony of heart. Pity pained him, consolation seemed an insult; and he would gaze upon his daughter by the hour together, as she sat painting little screens, working little purses, or busying herself in any of those employments which she fancied and hoped might prove the means of supporting her father and mother in their old age. At length the money came to an end, and on that very night Mr. Deer was struck with palsy, which fixed him to the marble seat of impotent age all the rest of his days.
Annie Deer then found how little could be procured by those means to which she had trusted for support. Mrs. Deer bore all patiently, and she and her daughter consulted and deliberated long with Mr. John Pocock as to what they could do in the terrible strait to which they were reduced. His kindness was unfailing. He looked at the afflicted wife, he looked at the beautiful but destitute girl till the tears rose in his eyes; and, insisting upon their taking a small sum as a loan till he could devise some plan for their future life, he left them, promising to return on the following day, and declaring that he would not come back without some feasible scheme for their support. It was night on the promised day before he made his appearance; but then he came in his own chariot, and then there was a briskness in his look and a smartness in his whole aspect, which led Mrs. Deer and her daughter to believe that his meditations on their behalf had not been without result. His hair was nicely powdered and adjusted to a line, his pigtail was tied up with a new piece of riband, and his best blue coat and white waistcoat shone without a speck. Mr. Deer was somewhat better, and sitting in a chair by the fire. Poor Mrs. Stanhope had come in to cheer them as far as her sad heart would allow; and the sight of Mr. John Pocock with a gayer air, blew up the last spark of hope that lingered in their hearts. Mr. Pocock looked at Mrs. Stanhope as if he could have wished her away; but he was full of what he had to say, and would not delay it.
"My dear Mr. Deer," he said, advancing into their little circle, "and you, Mrs. Deer, andyou, my dear young lady, must give me your attention more than all. Misfortunes may happen to every one, and very sharp misfortunes have happened to you. Now I see but one way on earth of remedying them, and making us all again happy and comfortable. I am an old man, Miss Annie, sixty-four years of age in April, which will be next month; but, if you will accept the hand of an honest man, who loves you dearly and respects you much, he will do all he can to make you and yours happy. His fortune is of his own making, and he may well do with it what he likes; he will be not only proud to have you for his wife, but proud to have a wife who will devote herself to make herparentsas well as herhusbandcomfortable."
Annie Deer had turned as pale as death; Mrs. Deer threw her arms around her child's neck and wept bitterly; her father said not a word, but, like the parent in the most beautiful song we possess, he looked in her face till her heart was like to break. Her eyes did not overflow, but they turned towards Mrs. Stanhope, and her lips muttered, "Oh, William, William! Sir," she continued, turning to Mr. Pocock, "I have loved, deeply loved another, and I love his memory still, and ever must love it."
"I will not be jealous of that, my dear young lady," he replied; "your love for the dead will never interfere with your duty towards the living. Nor do I expect you to love me otherwise than as a young woman may love an old man who is kind to her. Believe me, Miss Annie," he continued, taking her hand, "I am not a selfish man; and I do not make this proposal altogether for my own gratification."
"I know it is not, I know it is not," replied Annie Deer, and she wept.
"Oh, Annie," cried Mrs. Stanhope, "do not let the thoughts of our lost William prevent you from doing your duty towards your parents in such a terrible situation as this!"
The tears streamed from Mr. Deer's eyes, and he cried in a feeble voice, "Annie! Annie, my child, do not make yourself miserable for me!" That tone and that look were worth all the persuasions in the world; and the fatal consent hung upon the lips of Annie Deer, when the door behind her opened, and Mrs. Stanhope, who sat with her face towards it, started from her seat, and with one loud scream fell senseless on the floor. Annie turned to see what was the matter, and she, too, would have fallen, had she not been caught in the arms and held to the heart of William Stanhope.
"Good God! what is the cause of all this?" he exclaimed: "everybody seems frightened at me; the servants run away; my mother faints! Have you not received my letter?"
The scene of confusion that ensued, explanations, histories, inquiries, replies, fresh mistakes, and fresheclaircissements, though they were all comprised in the space of about an hour, would occupy a great many hours in the detail. At the end of that time, there were only two things which wanted explanation; the first of which was, what had become of two letters, one of which William Stanhope had sent from St. Helena on his way to India, telling that he had been shipwrecked; that when his vessel went down he had been saved in the last boat, and had been picked up by an outward-bound Indiaman; that he had preserved the bills in which all his little capital was invested; and that he intended to employ them in India, in the hope of recovering, in some degree, the terrible loss he had sustained. The second letter had been written from London three days before his reappearance; and went to inform Mr. Deer that the loss of his vessel had proved, as far as he was concerned, the most fortunate chance that could have befallen him; that he had arrived in India at a happy moment; had made one of those successful speculations which were then not uncommon, and which the good name he had acquired while a mate in the service had now enabled him to extend far more than his own limited capital would have permitted; that, contented with one happy chance and a moderate fortune, he had returned to England, and was coming down to claim the hand of his fair bride, a far richer man than his most sanguine hopes had ever led him to anticipate. The loss of the first of these letters William himself easily accounted for, by acknowledging that he had intrusted it to a private hand; and every one who has had anything to do with private hands must be well aware that they are in general furnished with very slippery fingers. The loss of the second was justly accounted for by a surmise of Mr. John Pocock's, who suggested that, as postmasters--whether legally or not we do not know--take upon themselves the infamous task of handing over the letters of bankrupts, public and private alike, to the assignees; exposing to the cold eyes of mercantile inquisitors all the secrets of domestic life; the anguish of the child's heart for the parent's misfortune; the agony of the parent for the downfall of his child; the sweet communings and consolings of kindred affection; the counsel and the comfort, the care and the apprehension--as this evil and iniquitous practice, we say, is or was tolerated in the land, Mr. Pocock suggested that the letter of William Stanhope had very likely been sent to the assignees. And so it was. The letter had been so sent. The assignees were absent. And thus, for three long days, the letter was withheld from the only eye that should have seen it.
All that remained was the explanation between Mr. Pocock and William Stanhope, and that might have been very well omitted if the former gentleman had pleased; for William had remarked nothing farther than that he was a good-looking old gentleman, and seemed to take a great interest in Mr. Deer's affairs. But Mr. Pocock, who had at first felt a little uneasy at the reappearance of the young sailor, had soon made up his mind, like a sensible man as he really was, to make the best of what he could not avoid, and rejoice in the renewed happiness of others, though it brought a little disappointment to himself. He was resolved, however, to extract the satisfaction of a speech from the matter, and therefore, as soon as everything else was settled, he got upon his legs, and proceeded: "Captain Stanhope," he said, "you have come just in time to prevent the completion of what, perhaps, might have been a very bad bargain on all parts. The fact is, that I saw no earthly way of arranging the affairs of our good friend Mr. Deer but by marrying his daughter. I had just made a bargain with her not to oppose her thinking of you with regret when we all believed you dead; and, God knows, I shall as little oppose her thinking of you with affection now that we see you are living. As you deprive me of the title of a husband, Captain Stanhope, I shall only demand that you grant me the name of a friend; and, though I am a tolerably spruce old gentleman," he added, twitching his pigtail, "Yet, as you have not found me a dangerous rival, you will doubtless not fear me as a dangerous acquaintance."
Captain Stanhope shook him by the hand, and willingly ratified the treaty he proposed. The days of Mr. Deer passed happily thenceforward to their close, and his daughter became the wife of Captain William Stanhope. Restored to affluence and comfort, she was the same gentle, unassuming, affectionate being she had ever been; and--though the good people of the little town where she continued to live called her, with great reverence, Mrs. Captain Stanhope--to her husband and her family she never changed her name, but remainedAnnie dearto the last day of her life.
Footnote 1: It was, in fact, exorbitant; for we find that the Duke of Montpensier, himself holding the government of all these provinces, only gave a hundred crowns to each captain for raising a company of foot, and three hundred crowns only to the Maître de Camp of eight or ten companies thus raised.