The Interpreter: A Tale of the War

Cover

"'My heart sank within me.'" (Page [172].) Frontispiece

The Interpreter

A Tale of the War

By

G. J. Whyte-Melville

Author of "Digby Grand," "General Bounce," etc.

Illustrated by Lucy E. Kemp-Welch

New York
Longmans, Green & Co.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

1. [The Old Desk]
2. [The Deserter]
3. ["Par Nobile"]
4. [Father and Son]
5. [The Zingynies]
6. [School]
7. [Play]
8. [The Truants]
9. [Ropsley]
10. [Beverley Manor]
11. [Dulce Domum]
12. [Alton Grange]
13. ["Lethalis Arundo"]
14. [The Picture]
15. [Beverley Mere]
16. [Princess Vocqsal]
17. [The Common Lot]
18. [Omar Pasha]
19. ["'Skender Bey"]
20. [The Beloochee]
21. [Zuleika]
22. [Valerie]
23. [Forewarned]
24. ["Arcades Ambo"]
25. ["Dark and Dreary"]
26. ["Surveillance"]
27. [Ghosts of the Past]
28. [La Dame aux Camellias]
29. ["A Merry Masque"]
30. [The Golden Horn]
31. [The Seraskerât]
32. [A Turk's Harem]
33. [My Patient]
34. ["Messirie's"]
35. ["The Wolf and the Lamb"]
36. ["The Front"]
37. ["A Quiet Night"]
38. [The Grotto]
39. [The Redan]
40. [The War-Minister at Home]
41. [Wheels within Wheels]
42. ["Too Late"]
43. ["The Skeleton"]
44. [The Gipsy's Dream]
45. [Retribution]
46. [Væ Victis!]
47. [The Return of Spring]

THE INTERPRETER

A TALE OF THE WAR

CHAPTER I

THE OLD DESK

Not one of my keys will fit it: the old desk has been laid aside for years, and is covered with dust and rust. We do not make such strong boxes nowadays, for brass hinges and secret drawers have given place to flimsy morocco and russian leather; so we clap a Bramah lock, that Bramah himself cannot pick, on a black bag that the veriest bungler can rip open in five seconds with a penknife, and entrust our notes, bank and otherwise, our valuables, and our secrets, to this faithless repository with a confidence that deserves to be respected. But in the days when George the Third was king, our substantial ancestors rejoiced in more substantial workmanship: so the old desk that I cannot succeed in unlocking, is of shining rosewood, clamped with brass, and I shall spoil it sadly with the mallet and the chisel.

What a medley it holds! Thank Heaven I am no speculative philosopher, or I might moralise for hours over its contents. First, out flies a withered leaf of geranium. It must have been dearly prized once, or it would never have been here; maybe it represented the hopes, the wealth, the all-in-all of two aching hearts: and they are dust and ashes now. To think that the flower should have outlasted them! the symbol less perishable than the faith! Then I come to a piece of much-begrimed and yellow paper, carefully folded, and indorsed with a date,--a receipt for an embrocation warranted specific in all cases of bruises, sprains, or lumbago; next a gold pencil-case, with a head of Socrates for a seal; lastly, much of that substance which is generated in all waste places, and which the vulgar call "flue." How it comes there puzzles equally the naturalist and the philosopher; but you shall find it in empty corners, empty drawers, empty pockets, nay, we believe in its existence in the empty heads of our fellow-creatures.

In my thirst for acquisition, regardless of dusty fingers, I press the inner sides of the desk in hopes of discovering secret springs and hoarded repositories: so have poor men ere now found thousand-pound notes hid away in chinks and crannies, and straightway, giddy with the possession of boundless wealth, have gone to the Devil at a pace such as none but the beggar on horseback can command; so have old wills been fished out, and frauds discovered, and rightful heirs re-established, and society in general disgusted, and all concerned made discontented and uncomfortable--so shall I, perhaps--but the springs work, a false lid flies open, and I do discover a packet of letters, written on thin foreign paper, in the free straggling characters I remember so well. They are addressed to Sir H. Beverley, and the hand that penned them has been cold for years. So will yours and mine be some day, perhaps ere the flowers are out again; O beate Sexti! will you drink a glass less claret on that account? Buxom Mrs. Lalage, shall the dressmaker therefore put unbecoming trimmings in your bonnet? The "shining hours" are few, and soon past; make the best of them, each in your own way, only try and choose the right way:--

For the day will soon be over, and the minutes are of gold,

And the wicket shuts at sundown, and the shepherd leaves the fold.

LETTER I

"Those were merry days, my dear Hal, when we used to hear the 'chimes at midnight' with poor Brummell and Sir Benjamin;[#] very jolly times they were, and I often think, if health and pockets could have stood it, I should like to be going the pace amongst you all still. And yet how few of us are left. They have dropped off one by one, as they did the night we dyed the white rose red at the old place; and you, and I, and stanch old 'Ben,' were the only three left that could walk straight. Do you remember the corner of King-street, and 'Ben' stripped 'to the buff,' as he called it himself, 'going-in' right royally at the tall fellow with the red head? I never saw such right-and-lefters, I never thought he had so much 'fight' in him; and you don't remember, Hal, but I do, how 'the lass with the long locks' bent over you when you were floored, like Andromache over a debauched Hector, and stanched the claret that was flowing freely from your nostrils, and gave you gin in a smelling-bottle, which you sucked down as though it were mother's milk, like a young reprobate as you were; nor do you remember, nor do I very clearly, how we all got back to 'The Cottage,' and finished with burnt curagoa, and a dance on the table by daylight. And now you and I are about the only two left, and I am as near ruined as a gentleman can be; and you must have lost your pen-feathers, Hal, I should think, though you were a goose that always could pick a living off a common, be it never so bare. Well, we have had our fun; and after all, I for one have been far happier since than I ever was in those roystering days; but of this I cannot bear to speak."

[#] The dandy's nickname for the Prince Regent.

"Nor am I so much to be pitied now. I have got my colours and my sketch-book, after all; and there never was such a country as this for a man who has half an eye in his head. On these magnificent plains the lights and shades are glorious. Glorious, Hal, with a little red jagged in here and there towards sunset, and the ghostly maize waving and whispering, and the feathery acacias trembling in the lightest air, the russet tinge of the one and the fawn-coloured stems of the other melting so softly into the neutral tints of the sandy soil. I could paint a picture here that should be perfectly true to Nature--nay, more natural than the old dame herself--and never use but two colours to do it all! I am not going to tell you what they are: and this reminds me of my boy, and of a want in his organisation that is a sad distress to me. The child has not a notion of colour. I was painting out of doors yesterday, and he was standing by--bless him! he never leaves me for an instant--and I tried to explain to him some of the simplest rudiments of the godlike art. 'Vere,' said I, 'do you see those red tints on the tops of the far acacias, and the golden tinge along the back of that brown ox in the foreground?' 'Yes, papa!' was the child's answer, with a bewildered look. 'How should you paint them, my boy?' 'Well, papa, I should paint the acacias green, because they are green, and'--here he thought he had made a decided hit--'I should put the red into the ox, for he is almost more red than brown.' Dear child! he has not a glimmering of colour; but composition, that's his forte; and drawing, drawing, you know, which is the highest form of the art. His drawing is extraordinary--careless, but great breadth and freedom; and I am certain he could compose a wonderful picture, from his singular sensibility to beauty. Young as he is, I have seen the tears stand in his eyes when contemplating a fine view, or a really exquisite 'bit,' such as one sees in this climate every day. His raptures at his first glimpse of the Danube I shall never forget; and if I can only instil into him the principles of colour, you will see Vere will become the first painter of the age. The boy learns languages readily enough. He has picked up a good deal of Hungarian from his nurse. Such a woman, Hal! magnificent! Such colouring: deep brown tones, and masses of the richest grey hair, with superb, solemn, sunken eyes, and a throat and forehead tanned and wrinkled into the very ideal of a Canidia, or a Witch of Endor, or any fine old sorceress, 'all of the olden time.' I have done her in chalks, and in sepia, and in oils. I adore her in the former. She is, I fancy, a good, careful woman, and much attached to Vere, who promises to be an excellent linguist; but of this I cannot see the advantage. There is but one pursuit, in my opinion, for an intellectual being who is not obliged to labour in the fields for his daily bread, and that is Art. I have wooed the heavenly maid all my life. To me she has been sparing of her favours; and yet a single smile from her has gilded my path for many a long and weary day. She has beckoned me on and on till I feel I could follow her to the end of the world; she shielded me in the dark hour; she has brightened my lot ever since; she led me to nature, her grand reflection--for you know my theory, that art is reality, and nature but the embodiment of art; she has made me independent of the frowns of that other jade, Fortune, and taught me the most difficult lesson of all--to be content. What is wealth? You and I have seen it lavished with both hands, and its possessor weary, satiate, languid, and disgusted. What is rank? a mark for envy, an idol but for fools. Fame? a few orders on a tight uniform; a craving for more and more; even when we know the tastelessness of the food, to be still hungry for applause. Love? a sting of joy and a heartache for ever. Are they not all vanity of vanities? But your artist is your true creator. He can embody the noblest aspirations of his mind, and give them a reality and a name. You, Hal, who are the most practical, unimaginative, business-like fellow that ever hedged a bet or drove a bargain, have had such dreams betwixt sleeping and waking as have given you a taste of heaven, and taught you the existence of a fairy-land of which, to such as you, is only granted a far-away and occasional glimpse. What would you give to be able to embody such blissful visions and call them up at will? Let me have a camel's-hair brush, a few dabs of clay, and, behold! I am the magician before whose wand these dreams shall reappear tangibly, substantially, enduringly: alas! for mortal shortcomings, sometimes a little out of drawing, sometimes a little hard and cold; but still, Hal, I can make my own world, such as it is, and people it for myself; nor do I envy any man on earth, except, perhaps, a sculptor. To have perfected and wrought out in the imperishable marble the ideal of one's whole life, to walk round it, and smoke one's cigar and say, 'This will last as long as St. Paul's Cathedral or the National Debt, and this is mine, I made it'--must be a sensation of delight that even we poor painters, with our works comparatively of a day, can hardly imagine; but then, what we lose in durability we gain in reproduction: and so once more I repeat, let who will be statesman, warrior, stock-jobber, or voluptuary, but give me the pallet and the easel, the délire d'un peintre, the line of beauty and the brush!

"Can you wonder that I should wish my boy to tread the same path? Had I but begun at his age, and worked as I should have worked, what might I have been now? Could I but make amends to him by leading him up the path to real fame, and see Vere the regenerator of modern art, I should die happy.

"And now, Hal, I must ask you of your own pursuits and your own successes. I do not often see an English paper; but these are a fine sporting people, with a dash of our English tastes and love of horseflesh; and in a small pothouse where we put up last week, in the very heart of the Banat, I found a print of Flying Childers, and a Bell's Life of the month before last. In this I read that your Marigold colt was first favourite for the Derby, and I can only say that I hope he will win, as fervently as I should have done some years back, when he would have carried a large portion of my money, or at least of my credit, on his back. I have also gathered that your shorthorns won the prize at the great cattle-show. 'Who drives fat oxen must himself be fat.' I trust, therefore, that you are flourishing and thriving; also, that Constance, the most stately little lady I ever beheld at two years old, still queens it at the Manor-house. I will write again shortly, but must leave off now, as my boy is calling me to go out. He grows more like his poor mother every day, especially about the eyes.--Adieu, Hal; ever yours,

"PHILIP EGERTON."

LETTER II

"The longer I linger here the more I become wedded to the land in which, after all, I have known the few hours of real happiness I ever spent. Yes, Hal, with all its guilt, with all its anxieties, with everything and everybody battling against me--that was my golden year, such as I shall never see again. She was so generous, so gentle, and so true; she sacrificed all so willingly for me, and never looked back. Such courage, such patience, and oh! such beauty; and to lose her after one short year. Well, it is my punishment, and I bear it; but if it had to be done again I would do it. Surely I was not so much to blame. Had she but lived I would have made her such amends. And after all she is mine--mine in her lonely grave under the acacias, and I shall meet her again. If the universe holds her I shall meet her again. Wearily the years have dragged on since I lost her, but every birthday is a milestone nearer home; and in the meantime I have Vere and my art. And we wander about this wild country, and scamper across its boundless plains, and I paint and smoke, and try to be happy.

"We arrived here last night, and I need scarcely tell you that Edeldorf is as English as any place out of England can be, and my old friend but little altered during the last twenty years. You remember De Rohan at Melton and Newmarket, at Rome and at Paris. Wherever he lived he was quite the Englishman, and always rode a thoroughbred horse. It would indeed be ungrateful on your part to forget him. Need I remind you of the dinner at the old Club, and the procession afterwards, with some fourteen wax candles, to inspect The Switcher in your stables, at the risk of burning down the greater part of the town, and converting some of the best horses in England into an exceedingly tough grill. I can see the Count's face of drunken gravity now, as he felt carefully down the horse's forelegs, undeterred by the respectful stare of your groom, or the undisguised astonishment of the animal itself. 'Vat is his name?' was the only question he asked of the polite Mr. Topthorn. 'The Switcher, my lord,' was the reply. 'Ver' nice name,' said the Count, and bought him forthwith at a price that you yourself can best appreciate; but from that day to this he never could pronounce the animal's appellation; and although he rode 'The Svishare' both in England and here, and has got prints and pictures of him all over the house, 'The Svishare' he will continue to be till the end of time.

"All this Anglo-mania, however, is not much appreciated in high places; and I can see enough without looking much below the surface to satisfy me that the Count is eyed jealously by the authorities, and that if ever they catch him tripping they will not spare his fortunes or his person. I fear there will be a row before long, and I would not trust the wild blood of my friends here if once they get the upper hand. Only yesterday an incident occurred that gave me a pretty correct idea of the state of feeling in this country, and the disaffection of the peasant to his imperial rulers. Vere and I were travelling along in our usual manner, occupying the front seat of a most dilapidated carriage, which I purchased at Bucharest for twenty ducats, with the nurse and the baggage behind. We had stopped for me to sketch an animated group, in the shape of a drove of wild horses being drafted and chosen by their respective owners, and Vere was clapping his hands and shouting with delight at the hurry-skurry of the scene (by the way, there was a white horse that I caught in a beautiful attitude, who comes out admirably and lights up the whole sketch), when an officer and a couple of Austrian dragoons rode into the midst of the busy horse-tamers, and very rudely proceeded to subject them to certain inquiries, which seemed to meet with sulky and evasive answers enough. After a time the Austrian officer, a handsome boy of twenty, stroking an incipient moustache, ordered the oldest man of the party to be pinioned; and placing him between his two soldiers, began to interrogate him in a most offensive and supercilious manner. The old man, who was what we should call in England a better sort of yeoman farmer, of course immediately affected utter ignorance of German; and as the young Austrian was no great proficient in Hungarian, I was compelled most unwillingly to interpret between them, Vere looking on meanwhile with his mouth wide open, in a state of intense bewilderment. The following is a specimen of the conversation:--

"Austrian Sub-Lieutenant, in German--'Thou hast been hiding deserters; and so shalt thou be imprisoned, and fined, and suffer punishment.' I have to modify these threats into Hungarian.--'Brother, this noble officer seeks a deserter. Knowest thou of such an one?'

"Old Man--'My father, I know nothing.'

"Austrian Officer, with many expletives, modified as before by your humble servant--'You shall be punished with the utmost rigour if you do not give him up.'

"Old Man, again--'My father, I know nothing.'

"Officer, losing all patience, and gesticulating wildly with his sword--'Slave, brute, dog, tell me this instant which way he took, or I will have you hanged to that nearest tree, your family shall be imprisoned, and your village burnt to the ground.'

"Old Man, as before--'My father, I know nothing.'

"The case was getting hopeless; but the young officer had now thoroughly lost his temper, and ordered his men to tie the peasant up, and flog him soundly with a stirrup-leather. Here I thought it high time to interpose; I saw the wild Hungarian blood beginning to boil in the veins of some dozen dark scowling fellows, who had been occupied tending the horses. Eyes were flashing at the Austrians, and hands clutching under the sheepskin where the long knife lies. Fortunately the officer was a gentleman and an admirer of the English. With much difficulty I persuaded him to abandon his cruel intention, and to ride on in prosecution of his search; but it was when his back was turned that the tide of indignation against himself and his country swelled to the highest. The peasants' faces actually became convulsed with rage, their voices shook with fury, and threats and maledictions were poured on their masters enough to make one's very blood run cold. If ever they do get the upper hand, woe to the oppressor! There is nothing on earth so fearful as a Jacquerie. God forbid this fair land should ever see one.

"We journeyed on in a different direction from the dragoons, but we caught occasional glimpses of their white coats as they gleamed through the acacias that skirted the road; and I was just thinking how well I could put them in with a dab or two of chalk against a thunder-storm, or a dark wood in the midst of summer, when the bright sun makes the foliage almost black, and debating in my own mind whether the officer would not have made a better sketch if his horse had been a light grey, when my postilion pulled up with a jerk that nearly chucked Vere out of the carriage, and, pointing to something in the road, assured 'my Excellency' that the horse was dying, and the rider, in all probability, lying killed under his beast. Sure enough, an over-ridden horse was prostrate in the middle of the road, and a young man vainly endeavouring to raise him by the bridle, and calling him by all the terms of endearment and abuse in the Hungarian vocabulary, without the slightest effect. Seeing our carriage, he addressed me in German, and with a gentlemanlike voice and manner begged to know in what direction I was travelling. 'I hope to get to Edeldorf to-night,' was my answer. He started at the name. 'Edeldorf!' said he; 'I, too, am bound for Edeldorf; can you favour me with a seat in your carriage?' Of course I immediately complied; and Vere and I soon had the stranger between us, journeying amicably on towards my old friend's chateau. You know my failing, Hal, so I need not tell you how it was that I immediately began to study my new acquaintance's physiognomy, somewhat, I thought, to his discomfiture, for at first he turned his head away, but after a while seemed to think better of it, and entered into conversation with much frankness and vivacity. The sun was getting low, and I think I could have sketched him very satisfactorily in that warm, soft light. His head was essentially that of a soldier; the brow deficient in ideality, but with the bold outlines which betoken penetration and forethought. Constructiveness fully developed, combativeness moderate, but firmness very strongly marked; the eye deep set, and, though small, remarkably brilliant; the jaw that of a strong, bold man, while the lines about the mouth showed great energy of character and decision. From the general conformation of his head I should have placed forethought as the distinguishing quality of his character, and I should have painted the rich brown tones of his complexion on a system of my own, which such a portrait would be admirably calculated to bring out. However, I could not well ask him to sit to me upon so short an acquaintance; so, while he and Vere chatted on--for they soon became great friends, and my new acquaintance seemed charmed to find a child speaking German so fluently--I began to speculate on the trade and character of this mysterious addition to our party. 'Hair cut short, moustache close clipped,' thought I, 'perfect German accent, and the broad Viennese dialect of the aristocracy, all this looks like a soldier; but the rough frieze coat, and huge shapeless riding boots could never belong to an officer of that neatest of armies--"the Imperial and Kingly." Then his muscular figure, and light active gait, which I remarked as he sprang into the carriage, would argue him one who was in the habit of practising feats of strength and agility. There is no mistaking the effects of the gymnasium. Stay, I have it, he is a fencing-master; that accounts for the military appearance, the quick glance, the somewhat worn look of the countenance, and he is going to Edeldorf, to teach De Rohan's boy the polite art of self-defence. So much the better. I, too, love dearly a turn with the foils, so I can have a glorious "set-to" with him to-morrow or the next day; and then, when we are more intimate, I can paint him. I think I shall do him in oils. I wish he would turn his head the least thing further this way.' I had got as far as this when my new friend did indeed turn his head round, and looking me full in the face, thus addressed me:--'Sir, you are an Englishman, and an honourable man. I have no right to deceive you. You incur great danger by being seen with me. I have no right to implicate you; set me down, and let me walk.' Vere looked more astonished than ever. I begged him to explain himself. 'I tell you,' said he, 'that I am a thief and a deserter. My name is posted at every barrack-gate in the empire. I am liable to be hanged, if taken. Are you not afraid of me now?' 'No,' exclaimed Vere, his colour heightening and his eyes glistening (oh! so like her). 'Papa and I will take care of you; don't be afraid.' My boy had anticipated what I was going to say; but I assured him that as I had taken him into my carriage I considered him as my guest, and come what would I never could think of abandoning him till we reached our destination. 'Of course,' I added, 'you are then free to come and go as you please. If you have done anything disgraceful, we need never know each other again. I do not wish to hear of it. You are to me only a belated traveller; permit me to add, a gentleman, to whom I am delighted to be of service. Will you smoke? Let me offer you a cigar.' The blood rushed to his face as he declined the proffered courtesy; for an instant he looked half offended, and then, seizing my hand, he exclaimed, 'If you knew all, you would pity me--nay, more, you would approve of what I have done.' He turned suddenly to Vere, and rather startled him by abruptly exclaiming, 'Boy, do you love your father? is he all the world to you?' 'Yes,' said Vere, colouring up again, 'of course I love papa, and Nurse "Nettich" too.' That worthy woman was fast asleep in the rumble. 'Well,' said the stranger, more composedly, 'I love my father, too; he is all I have in the world, and for his sake I would do the same thing again. I will tell you all about it, and you shall judge between me and my crime.' But my new friend's story I must defer, my dear Hal, to another letter. So for the present, Vive valeque."

CHAPTER II

THE DESERTER

Dim and strange are the recollections that steal over me while I read these time-worn letters of one who, with all his faults, was the kindest, fondest, and best of enthusiasts. It seems like a dream; I cannot fancy that I am the child alluded to. It seems as though all this must have happened to some one else, and that I stood by and watched. Yet have I a vague and shadowy remembrance of the warm autumnal evening; the road soft and thick with dust; the creaking, monotonous motion of the carriage, and my waking up from an occasional nap, and finding myself propped by the strong arm of a stranger, and nestling my head upon his broad shoulder, whilst my father's kind face and eager eyes were turned towards my new acquaintance with the earnest comprehensive look I remember so well. My father always seemed to take in at a glance, not only the object that attracted his attention, but all its accessories, possible as well as actual. I believe he never left off painting in his mind. I remember nothing very distinctly; and no wonder, for my little brain must have been a strange chaos of shifting scenes and unexpected events, foreign manners and home ideas, to say nothing of a general confusion of tongues; for I could prattle French, German, and Hungarian, with a smattering of Turkish, not to mention my own native language; and I used them all indiscriminately. But my father's letters bring back much that I had otherwise forgotten, and whilst I read the story of the renegade, I can almost fancy I am leaning against his upright soldierlike form, and listening to the clear decided tones in which he told his tale.

LETTER III

"'I am a soldier, sir,' said my new acquaintance, whilst I leant back in the carriage smoking my cigar, and, more meo, Hal, made the most of my 'study.' 'I am an Austrian soldier--at least I was a week ago--I would not give much for my chance if ever I come into the clutches of the "Double Eagle" again. Shall I tell you why I entered the Imperial army? All my life I have thought it best to be on the winning side. If I had been born an Englishman, oh, what happiness! I would have asked no better lot than to wander about with my dog and my gun, and be free. But a Croat, no, there is no liberty in Croatia. We must have masters, forsooth! territorial dues and seignorial rights; and we must bow and cringe and be trampled on by our own nobility. But these, too, have their masters, and I have seen the lord of many thousand acres tremble before a captain of dragoons. So I determined that if a military despotism was to be the order of the day, why I, too, would make a part of the great engine, perhaps some time I might come to wield it all. My father was appointed steward to a great lord in Hungary--perhaps, had he remained, I might never have left home, for I am his only child, and we two are alone in the world; besides, is not a son's first duty to obey his father?--but I could not bear to exchange the free open air, and my horse, and my gun, and my dogs (I had the best greyhounds in Croatia), for a leathern stool and an inkstand, and I said, "Father, I too will become an Austrian, and so some day shall I be a great man, perhaps a colonel, and then will I return once a year to see you, and comfort you in your old age." So I was sworn to obey the Emperor, and soon I learnt my exercise, and saw that to rise even in the Austrian army was not difficult for one who could see clearly before him, and could count that two and two make four, and never five.

"'Very few men are soldiers at heart, and those who love the profession and would fain shine, can only see one way to success, and that must be the old-established track that has always been followed. If I wanted to move across that stream and had no boats, what should I do? I would try if it be too deep to wade. But the regulation says, soldiers shall not wade if the water be over a certain depth. So for six inches of water I must be defeated. That should not be my way; if it came no higher than their chins my men should cross; and if we could keep our muskets dry, where would be the harm? Well, I soon rose to be a corporal and a sergeant; and whilst I practised fencing and riding and gymnastics, I learnt besides something of gunnery and fortification, and the art of supplying an army with food. At last I was made lieutenant and paymaster of the regiment, for I could always calculate readily, and never shrank from trouble or feared responsibility. So I had good pay and good comrades, and was getting on. Meanwhile my poor father was distressing himself about my profession, and imagining all sorts of misfortunes that would happen to me if I remained a soldier. In his letters to me he always hinted at the possibility of some great success--at his hopes of, before long, placing me in an independent position; that I should leave the army to come and live with him, and we would farm an estate of our own, and never be parted any more. Poor old man! what do you think he built on? why, these foolish lotteries. Ticket after ticket did he purchase, and ticket after ticket came up a blank. At last, in his infatuation, he raised a sum of money--enough to obtain him all the numbers he had set his heart upon--for he mixed calculation with his gambling, which is certain ruin--and for this purpose he embezzled two thousand florins of his employer's property, and wasted it as he had done the rest. In his despair he wrote to me. What could I do? two thousand florins were in the pay-chest. I have it here in this leathern bag. I have saved my father; he is steward at Edeldorf. I shall see him to-night; after that I must fly the country. I will go to England, the land of the free. I am ruined, degraded, and my life is not worth twelve hours' purchase; but I do not regret it. Look at your boy, sir, and tell me if I am not right.' He is a fine fellow this, Hal, depend upon it; and though my own feelings as a gentleman were a little shocked at a man talking thus coolly of robbery in anything but the legitimate way on the turf, I could scarcely remonstrate with him now the thing was done; so I shook him by the hand, and promised him at any rate a safe convoy to Edeldorf, which we were now rapidly approaching. You like a fine place, Hal; you always did. I remember when you used to vow that if ever Fortune smiled upon you--and faith, it is not for want of wooing that you have missed the goddess's favours--how you would build and castellate and improve Beverley Manor, till, in my opinion as an artist and a man of associations, you would spoil it completely; but I think even your fastidious taste would be delighted with Edeldorf. The sun was just down as we drove into the park, and returned the salute of the smart Hussar mounting guard at the lodge; and the winding road, and smooth sward dotted with thorns, and those eternal acacias, reminded one of a gentleman's place in Old England, till we rounded the corner of a beautifully-dressed flower-garden, and came in view of the castle itself, with all its angles and turrets and embrasures, and mullioned windows, and picturesque ins-and-outs; the whole standing boldly out in a chiaro-oscuro against the evening sky, fast beginning to soften into twilight. Old De Rohan was on the steps to welcome me, his figure upright and noble as ever; his countenance as pleasing; but the beard and moustache that you and I remember so dark and glossy, now as white as snow; yet he is a very handsome fellow still. In mail or plate, leaning his arm on his helmet, with his beard flowing over a steel cuirass inlaid with gold, he would make a capital seneschal, or marshal of a tournament, or other elderly dignitary of the middle ages; but I should like best to paint him in dark velvet, with a skull-cap, as Lord Soulis, or some other noble votary of the magic art; and to bring him out in a dusky room, with one ray of vivid light from a lamp just over his temples, and gleaming off that fine, bold, shining forehead, from which the hair is now completely worn away."

There are no more of the old dusty letters. Why these should have been tied up and preserved for so many years is more than I can tell. They have, however, reminded me of much in my youth that I had well-nigh forgotten. I must try back on my vague memories for the commencement of my narrative.

CHAPTER III

"PAR NOBILE"

"You shall play with my toys, and break them if you like, for my papa loves the English, and you are my English friend," said a handsome blue-eyed child to his little companion, as they sauntered hand-in-hand through the spacious entrance-hall at Edeldorf. The boy was evidently bent on patronising his friend. The friend was somewhat abashed and bewildered, and grateful to be taken notice of.

"What is your name?--may I call you by your Christian name?" said the lesser child, timidly, and rather nestling to his protector, for such had the bigger boy constituted himself.

"My name is Victor," was the proud reply, "and you may call me Victor, because I love you; but the servants must call me Count, because my papa is a count; and I am not an Austrian count, but a Hungarian. Come and see my sword." So the two children were soon busy in an examination of that very beautiful, but not very destructive plaything.

They were indeed a strange contrast. Victor de Rohan, son and heir to one of the noblest and wealthiest of Hungary's aristocracy, looked all over the high-bred child he was. Free and bold, his large, frank blue eyes, and wide brow, shaded with clustering curls of golden brown, betokened a gallant, thoughtless spirit, and a kind, warm heart; whilst the delicate nostril and handsomely-curved mouth of the well-born child betrayed, perhaps, a little too much pride for one so young, and argued a disposition not too patient of contradiction or restraint. His little companion was as unlike him as possible, and indeed most people would have taken Victor for the English boy, and Vere for the foreign one. The latter was heavy, awkward, and ungainly in his movements, timid and hesitating in his manner, with a sallow complexion, and dark, deep-set eyes, that seemed always looking into a world beyond. He was a strange child, totally without the light-heartedness of his age, timid, shy, and awkward, but capable of strong attachments, and willing to endure anything for the sake of those he loved. Then he had quaint fancies, and curious modes of expressing them, which made other children laugh at him, when the boy would retire into himself, deeply wounded and unhappy, but too proud to show it. As he looks now at Victor's sword, with which the latter is vapouring about the hall, destroying imaginary enemies, Vere asks--

"What becomes of the people that are killed, Victor?"

"We ride over their bodies," says Victor, who has just delivered a finishing thrust at his phantom foe.

"Yes, but what becomes of them?" pursues the child, now answering himself. "I think they come to me in my dreams; for sometimes, do you know, I dream of men in armour charging on white horses, and they come by with a wind that wakes me; and when I ask 'Nettich' who they are, she says they are the fairies; but I don't think they are fairies, because you know fairies are quite small, and have wings. No, I think they must be the people that are killed."

"Very likely," replies Victor, who has not considered the subject in this light, and whose dreams are mostly of ponies and plum-cake--"very likely; but come to papa, and he will give us some grapes." So off they go, arm-in-arm, to the great banqueting-hall; and Vere postpones his dream-theories to some future occasion, for there is a charm about grapes that speaks at once to a child's heart.

So the two boys make their entrance into the banqueting-hall, where De Rohan sits in state, surrounded by his guests. On his right is placed Philip Egerton, whose dark eye gleams with pleasure as he looks upon his son. Who but a father would take delight in such a plain, unattractive child? Vere glides quietly to his side, shrinking from the strange faces and gorgeous uniforms around; but Victor walks boldly up to the old Count, and demands his daily glass of Tokay, not as a favour, but a right.

"I drink to Hungary!" says the child, looking full into the face of his next neighbour, a prince allied to the Imperial family, and a General of Austrian cavalry. "Monsieur le Prince, your good health! Come, clink your glass with me."

"Your boy is a true De Rohan," says the good-natured Austrian, as he accepts the urchin's challenge, and their goblets ring against each other. "Will you be a soldier, my lad, and wear the white uniform?"

"I will be a soldier," answers the child, "but not an Austrian soldier like you: Austrian soldiers are not so brave as Hungarians."

"Well said, my little patriot," replies the amused General. "So you do not think our people are good for much? Why, with that sword of yours, I should be very sorry to face you with my whole division. What a Light Dragoon the rogue will make, De Rohan! see, he has plundered the grapes already." And the jolly prince sat back in his chair, and poured himself out another glass of "Imperial Tokay."

"Hush, Victor!" said his father, laughing, in spite of himself, at his child's forwardness. "Look at your little English friend; he stands quiet there, and says nothing. I shall make an Englishman of my boy, Egerton; he shall go to an English school, and learn to ride and box, and to be a man. I love England and the English. Egerton, your good health! I wish my boy to be like yours. Sapperment! he is quiet, but I will answer for it he fears neither man nor devil."

My father's face lighted up with pleasure as he pressed me to his side. Kind father! I believe he thought his ugly, timid, shrinking child was the admiration of all.

"I think the boy has courage," he said, "but for that I give him little credit. All men are naturally brave; it is but education that makes us reflect; hence we learn to fear consequences, and so become cowards."

"Pardon, mon cher," observed the Austrian General, with a laugh. "Now, my opinion is that all men are naturally cowards, and that we alone deserve credit who overcome that propensity, and so distinguish ourselves for what we choose to call bravery, but which we ought rather to term self-command. What say you, De Rohan? You have been in action, and 'on the ground,' too, more than once. Were you not cursedly afraid?"

De Rohan smiled good-humouredly, and filled his glass.

"Shall I tell you my opinion of courage?" said he, holding up the sparkling fluid to the light. "I think of courage what our Hungarian Hussars think of a breast-plate. 'Of what use,' say they, 'is cuirass and back-piece and all that weight of defensive armour? Give us a pint of wine in our stomachs, and we are breastplate all over.' Come, Wallenstein, put your breastplate on--it is very light, and fits very easily."

The General filled again, but returned to the charge.

"You remind me," said he, "of a conversation I overheard when I was a lieutenant in the first regiment of Uhlans. We were drawn up on the crest of a hill opposite a battery in position not half-a-mile from us. If they had retired us two hundred yards, we should have been under cover; but we never got the order, and there we stood. Whish! the round-shot came over our heads and under our feet, and into our ranks, and we lost two men and five horses before we knew where we were. The soldiers grumbled sadly, and a few seemed inclined to turn rein and go to the rear. Mind you, it is not fair to ask cavalry to sit still and be pounded for amusement; but the officers being cowards by education, Mr. Egerton, did their duty well, and kept the men together. I was watching my troop anxiously enough, and I heard one man say to his comrade, 'Look at Johann, Fritz! what a bold one he is; he thinks nothing of the fire; see, he tickles the horse of his front-rank man even now, to make him kick.'"

"Exactly my argument," interrupted my father; "he was an uneducated man, consequently saw nothing to be afraid of. Bravery, after all, is only insensibility to danger."

"Fritz did not think so," replied Wallenstein. "Hear his answer--'Johann is a blockhead,' he replied, 'he has never been under fire before, and does not know his danger; but you and I, old comrade, we deserve to be made corporals; for we sit quiet here on our horses, though we are most cursedly afraid.'"

The guests all laughed; and the discussion would have terminated, but that De Rohan, who had drunk more wine than was his custom, and who was very proud of his boy, could not refrain from once more turning the conversation to Victor's merits, and to that personal courage by which, however much he might affect to make light of it in society, he set such store.

"Well, Wallenstein," said he; "you hold that Nature makes us cowards; if so, my boy here ought to show something of the white feather. Come hither, Victor. Are you afraid of being in the dark?"

"No, papa!" answered Victor, boldly; but added, after a moment's consideration, "except in the Ghost's Gallery. I don't go through the Ghost's Gallery after six o'clock."

This naïve confession excited much amusement amongst the guests; but De Rohan's confidence in his boy's courage was not to be so shaken.

"What shall I give you," said he, "to go and fetch me the old Breviary that lies on the table at the far end of the Ghost's Gallery?"

Victor looked at me, and I at him. My breath came quicker and quicker. The child coloured painfully, but did not answer. I felt his terrors myself. I looked upon the proposed expedition as a soldier might on a forlorn hope; but something within kept stirring me to speak; it was a mingled feeling of emulation, pity, and friendship, tinged with that inexplicable charm that coming danger has always possessed for me--a charm that the constitutionally brave are incapable of feeling. I mastered my shyness with an effort, and, shaking all over, said to the master of the house, in a thick, low voice--

"If you please, Monsieur le Comte, if Victor goes, I will go too."

"Well said, little man!" "Bravo, boy!" "Vere, you're a trump!" in plain English from my father; and "In Heaven's name, give the lads a breastplate apiece, in the shape of a glass of Tokay!" from the jolly General, were the acclamations that greeted my resolution; and for one delicious moment I felt like a little hero. Victor, too, caught the enthusiasm; and, ashamed of showing less courage than his playfellow, expressed his readiness to accompany me,--first stipulating, however, with praise-worthy caution, that he should take his sword for our joint preservation; and also that two large bunches of grapes should be placed at our disposal on our safe return, "if," as Victor touchingly remarked, "we ever came back at all!" My father opened the door for us with a low bow, and it closed upon a burst of laughter, which to us, bound, as we fancied, on an expedition of unparalleled danger, sounded to the last degree unfeeling.

Hand-in-hand we two children walked through the ante-room, and across the hall; nor was it until we reached the first landing on the wide, gloomy oak staircase, that we paused to consider our future plans, and to scan the desperate nature of our enterprise. There were but two more flights of steps, a green-baize door to go through, a few yards of passage to traverse, and then, Victor assured me, in trembling accents, we should be in the Ghost's Gallery. My heart beat painfully, and my informant began to cry.

We laid our plans, however, with considerable caution, and made a solemn compact of alliance, offensive and defensive, that no power, natural or supernatural, was to shake. We were on no account whatsoever to leave go of each other's hands. Thus linked, and Victor having his sword drawn,--for the furtherance of which warlike attitude I was to keep carefully on his left,--we resolved to advance, if possible, talking the whole way up to the fatal table whereon lay the Breviary, and then snatching it up hastily, to return backwards, so as to present our front to the foe till we reached the green-baize door, at which point sauve qui peut was to be the order; and we were to rush back into the dining-room as fast as our legs could carry us. But in the event of our progress being interrupted by the ghost (who appeared, as Victor informed me, in the shape of a huge black dog with green eyes,--a description at which my blood ran cold,--and which he added had been seen once by his governess and twice by an old drunken Hussar who waited on him, and answered to the name of "Hans"), we were to lie down on our faces, so as to hide our eyes from the ghostly vision, and scream till we alarmed the house; but on no account, we repeated in the most binding and solemn manner--on no account were we to let go of each other's hands. This compact made and provided, we advanced towards the gallery, Victor feeling the edge and point of his weapon with an appearance of confidence that my own beating heart told me must be put on for the occasion, and would vanish at the first appearance of danger.

And now the green door is passed and we are in the gallery; a faint light through the stained windows only serves to show its extent and general gloom, whilst its corners and abutments are black as a wolfs mouth. Not a servant in the castle would willingly traverse this gallery after dark, and we two children feel that we are at last alone, and cut off from all hopes of assistance or rescue. But the Breviary lies on the table at the far end, and, dreading the very sound of our own footsteps, we steal quietly on. All at once Victor stops short.

"What is that?" says he, in trembling accents.

The question alone takes away my breath, and I feel the drops break out on my lips and forehead. We stop simultaneously and listen. Encouraged by the silence, we creep on, and for an instant I experience that vague tumultuous feeling of excitement which is almost akin to pleasure. But hark!--a heavy breath!!--a groan!!! My hair stands on end, and Victor's hand clasps mine like a vice. I dare scarce turn my head towards the sound,--it comes from that far corner. There it is! A dark object in the deepest gloom of that recess seems crouching for a spring. "The ghost!--the ghost!!" I exclaim, losing all power of self-command in an agony of fear. "The dog!--the dog!!" shrieks Victor; and away we scour hard as our legs can carry us, forgetful of our solemn agreements and high resolves, forgetful of all but that safety lies before, and terror of the ghastliest description behind; away we scour, Victor leaving his sword where he dropped it at the first alarm, through the green door, down the oak staircase, across the hall, nor stop till we reach the banqueting-room, with its reassuring faces and its lights, cheering beyond measure by contrast with the gloom from which we have escaped.

What shouts of laughter met us as we approached the table. "Well, Victor, where's the Breviary?" said the Count. "What! my boy, was Nature too strong for you in the dark, with nobody looking on?" asked the General. "See! he has lost his sword," laughed another. "And the little Englander,--he, too, was panic-struck," remarked the fourth. I shrank from them all and took refuge at my father's side. "Vere, I am ashamed of you," was all he said; but the words sank deep into my heart, and I bowed my head with a feeling of burning shame, that I had disgraced myself in my father's eyes for ever. We were sent to bed, and I shared Victor's nursery, under the joint charge of Nettich and his own attendant; but, do what I would, I could not sleep. There was a stain upon my character in the eyes of the one I loved best on earth, and I could not bear it. Though so quiet and undemonstrative, I was a child of strong attachments. I perfectly idolised my father, and now he was ashamed of me;--the words seemed to burn in my little heart. I tossed and tumbled and fretted myself into a fever, aggravated by the sounding snores of Nettich and the other nurse, who slept as only nurses can.

At last I could bear it no longer. I sat up in bed and peered stealthily round. All were hushed in sleep. I determined to do or die. Yes, I would go to the gallery; I would fetch the Breviary and lay it on my father's table before he awoke. If I succeeded, I should recover his good opinion; if I encountered the phantom dog, why, he could but kill me, after all. I would wake Victor, and we would go together;--or, no,--I would take the whole peril, and have all the glory of the exploit, myself. I thought it over every way. At last my mind was made up; my naked feet were on the floor; I stole from the nursery; I threaded the dark passages; I reached the gallery; a dim light was shining at the far end, and I could hear earnest voices conversing in a low, guarded tone. Half-frightened and altogether confused, I stopped and listened.

CHAPTER IV

FATHER AND SON

The Count's old steward has seen all go to rest in the castle; the lords have left the banqueting-room, and the servants, who have been making merry in the hall, are long ere this sound asleep. It is the steward's custom to see all safe before he lights his lamp and retires to rest; but to-night he shades it carefully with a wrinkled hand that trembles strangely, and his white face peers into the darkness, as though he were about some deed of shame. He steals into the Ghost's Gallery, and creeps silently to the farther end. There is a dark object muffled in a cloak in the gloomiest corner, and the light from the steward's lamp reveals a fine young man, sleeping with that thorough abandonment which is only observable in those who are completely outwearied and overdone. It is some minutes ere the old man can wake him.

"My boy!" says he; "my boy, it is time for us to part. Hard, hard is it to be robbed of my son--robbed----" and the old man checks himself as though the word recalled some painful associations.

"Ay, father," was the reply, "you know our old Croatian proverb, 'He who steals is but a borrower.' Nevertheless, I do not wish the Austrians to 'borrow' me, in case I should never be returned; and it is unmannerly for the lieutenant to occupy the same quarters as the general. I must be off before dawn; but surely it cannot be midnight yet."

"In less than an hour the day will break, my son. I have concealed you here because not a servant of the household dare set foot in the Ghost's Gallery till daylight, and you are safe; but twenty-four more hours must see you on the Danube, and you must come here no more. Oh, my boy! my boy!--lost to save me!--dishonoured that I might not be disgraced!--my boy! my boy!"--and the old man burst into a passion of weeping that seemed to convulse his very frame with agony.

The son had more energy and self-command; his voice did not even shake as he soothed and quieted the old man with a protecting fondness like that of a parent for a child. "My father," said he, "there is no dishonour where there is no guilt. My first duty is to you, and were it to do again, I would do it. What? it was but a momentary qualm and a snatch at the box; and now you are safe. Father, I shall come back some day, and offer you a home. Fear not for me. I have it here in my breast, the stuff of which men make fortunes. I can rely upon myself. I can obey orders; and, father, when others are bewildered and confused, I can command. I feel it; I know it. Let me but get clear of the 'Eagle's' talons, and fear not for me, dear father, I shall see you again, and we will be prosperous and happy yet. But, how to get away?--have you thought of a plan? Can I get a good horse here? Does the Count know I am in trouble, and will he help me? Tell me all, father, and I shall see my own way, I will answer for it."

"My gallant boy!" said the steward, despite of himself moved to admiration by the self-reliant bearing of his son; "there is but one chance; for the Count could not but hand you over to Wallenstein if he knew you were in the castle, and then it would be a pleasant jest, and the nearest tree. The General is a jovial comrade and a good-humoured acquaintance; but, as a matter of duty, he would hang his own son and go to dinner afterwards with an appetite none the worse. No, no. 'Trust to an Austrian's mercy and confess yourself!' I have a better plan than that. The Zingynies are in the village; they held their merrymaking here yesterday. I saw their Queen last night after you arrived. I have arranged it all with her. A gipsy's dress, a dyed skin, and the middle of the troop; not an Austrian soldier in Hungary that will detect you then. Banishment is better than death. Oh, my boy! my boy!" and once more the old man gave way and wept.

"Forward, then, father!" said the young man, whom I now recognised as my travelling acquaintance; "there is no time to lose now. How can we get out of the castle without alarming the household? I leave all to you now; it will be my turn some day." And as he spoke he rose from the steps on which he had been lying when his recumbent form had so alarmed Victor and myself, and accompanied his father down a winding staircase that seemed let into the massive wall of the old building. My curiosity was fearfully excited. I would have given all my playthings to follow them. I crept stealthily on, naked feet and all; but I was not close enough behind, and the door shut quietly with a spring just as my hand was upon it, leaving me alone in the Ghost's Gallery. I was not the least frightened now. I forgot all about ghosts and Breviaries, and stole back to my nursery and my bed, my little head completely filled with a medley of stewards and soldiers and gipsies, and Austrian generals and military executions, and phantom dogs and secret staircases, and all the most unlikely incidents that crowd together in that busy organ--a child's brain.

CHAPTER V

THE ZINGYNIES

The morning sun smiles upon a motley troop journeying towards the Danube. Two or three lithe, supple urchins, bounding and dancing along with half-naked bodies, and bright black eyes shining through knotted elf-locks, form the advanced guard. Half-a-dozen donkeys seem to carry the whole property of the tribe. The main body consists of sinewy, active-looking men, and strikingly handsome girls, all walking with the free, graceful air and elastic gait peculiar to those whose lives are passed entirely in active exercise, under no roof but that of heaven. Dark-browed women in the very meridian of beauty bring up the rear, dragging or carrying a race of swarthy progeny, all alike distinguished for the sparkling eyes and raven hair, which, with a cunning nothing can overreach, and a nature nothing can tame, seem to be the peculiar inheritance of the gipsy. Their costume is striking, not to say grotesque. Some of the girls, and all the matrons, bind their brows with various coloured handkerchiefs, which form a very picturesque and not unbecoming head-gear; whilst in a few instances coins even of gold are strung amongst the jetty locks of the Zingynie beauties. The men are not so particular in their attire. One sinewy fellow wears only a goatskin shirt and a string of beads round his neck, but the generality are clad in the coarse cloth of the country, much tattered, and bearing evident symptoms of weather and wear. The little mischievous urchins who are clinging round their mothers' necks, or dragging back from their mothers' hands, and holding on to their mothers' skirts, are almost naked. Small heads and hands and feet, all the marks of what we are accustomed to term high birth, are hereditary among the gipsies; and we doubt if the Queen of the South herself was a more queenly-looking personage than the dame now marching in the midst of the throng, and conversing earnestly with her companion, a resolute-looking man scarce entering upon the prime of life, with a gipsy complexion, but a bearing in which it is not difficult to recognise the soldier. He is talking to his protectress--for such she is--with a military frankness and vivacity, which even to that royal personage, accustomed though she be to exact all the respect due to her rank, appear by no means displeasing. The lady is verging on the autumn of her charms (their summer must have been scorching indeed!) and though a masculine beauty, is a beauty nevertheless. Black-browed is she, and deep-coloured, with eyes of fire, and locks of jet, even now untinged with grey. Straight and regular are her features, and the wide mouth, with its strong, even dazzling teeth, betokens an energy and force of will which would do credit to the other sex. She has the face of a woman that would dare much, labour much, everything but love much. She ought to be a queen, and she is one, none the less despotic for ruling over a tribe of gipsies instead of a civilised community.

"None dispute my word here," says she, "and my word is pledged to bring you to the Danube. Let me see a soldier of them all lay a hand upon you, and you shall see the gipsy brood show their teeth. A long knife is no bad weapon at close quarters. When you have got to the top of the wheel you will remember me!"

The soldier laughed, and lightly replied, "Yours are the sort of eyes one does not easily forget, mother. I wish I were a prince of the blood in your nation. As I am situated now I can only be dazzled by so much beauty, and go my ways."

The woman checked him sternly, almost savagely, though a few minutes before she had been listening, half amused, to his gay and not very respectful conversation.

"Hush!" she said, "trifler. Once more I say, when the wheel has turned, remember me. Give me your hand; I can read it plainer so."

"What, mother?" laughed out her companion. "Every gipsy can tell fortunes; mine has been told many a time, but it never came true."

She was studying the lines on his palm with earnest attention. She raised her dark eyes angrily to his face.

"Blind! blind!" she answered, in a low, eager tone. "The best of you cannot see a yard upon your way. Look at that white road, winding and winding many a mile before us upon the plain. Because it is flat and soft and smooth as far as we can see, will there be no hills on our journey, no rocks to cut our feet--no thorns to tear our limbs? Can you see the Danube rolling on far, far before us? Can you see the river you will have to cross some day, or can you tell me where it leads? I have the map of our journey here in my brain; I have the map of your career here on your hand. Once more I say, when the chiefs are in council, and the hosts are melting like snow before the sun, and the earth quakes, and the heavens are filled with thunder, and the shower that falls scorches and crushes and blasts--remember me! I follow the line of wealth: Man of gold! spoil on; here a horse, there a diamond; hundreds to uphold the right, thousands to spare the wrong; both hands full, and broad lands near a city of palaces, and a king's favour, and a nation of slaves beneath thy foot. I follow the line of pleasure: Costly amber; rich embroidery; dark eyes melting for the Croat; glances unveiled for the shaven head, many and loving and beautiful; a garland of roses, all for one--rose by rose plucked and withered and thrown away; one tender bud remaining; cherish it till it blows, and wear it till it dies. I follow the line of blood: it leads towards the rising sun--charging squadrons with lances in rest, and a wild shout in a strange tongue; and the dead wrapped in grey, with charm and amulet that were powerless to save; and hosts of many nations gathered by the sea--pestilence, famine, despair, and victory. Rising on the whirlwind, chief among chiefs, the honoured of leaders, the counsellor of princes--remember me! But ha! the line is crossed. Beware! trust not the sons of the adopted land; when the lily is on thy breast, beware of the dusky shadow on the wall; beware and remember me!"

The gipsy stopped, and clung to him exhausted. For a few paces she was unable to support herself; the prophetic mood past, there was a reaction, and all her powers seemed to fail her at once; but her companion walked on in silence. The eagerness of the Pythoness had impressed even his strong, practical nature, and he seemed himself to look into futurity as he muttered, "If man can win it, I will."

The gipsies travelled but slowly; and although the sun was already high, they had not yet placed many miles between the fugitive and the castle. This, however, was of no great importance. His disguise was so complete, that few would have recognised in the tattered, swarthy vagrant, the smart, soldier-like traveller who had arrived the previous evening at Edeldorf. From the conversation I had overheard in the Ghost's Gallery, I was alone in the secret, which, strange to say, I forbore to confide even to my friend Victor. But I could not forget the steward and his son; it was my first glimpse into the romance of real life, and I could not help feeling a painful interest in his fortunes, and an eager desire to see him at least safe off with his motley company. I was rejoiced, therefore, at Victor's early proposal, made the very instant we had swallowed our breakfasts, that we should take a ride; and notwithstanding my misgivings about a strange pony, for I was always timid on horseback, I willingly accepted his offer of a mount, and jumped into the saddle almost as readily as my little companion, a true Hungarian, with whom,

Like Mad Tom, the chiefest care

Was horse to ride and weapon wear.

Of course, Victor had a complete establishment of ponies belonging to himself; and equally of course, he had detailed to me at great length their several merits and peculiarities, with an authentic biography of his favourite--a stiff little chestnut, rejoicing in the name of "Gold-kind," which, signifying as it does "the golden-child," or darling, he seemed to think an exceedingly happy allusion to the chestnut skin and endearing qualities of his treasure.

Fortunately, my pony was very quiet; and although, when mounted, my playfellow went off at score, we were soon some miles from Edeldorf, without any event occurring to upset my own equilibrium or the sobriety of my steed. Equally fortunately, we took the road by which the gipsies had travelled. Ere long, we overtook the cavalcade as it wound slowly along the plain. Heads were bared to Victor, and blessings called down upon the family of De Rohan; for the old Count was at all times a friend to the friendless, and a refuge to the poor.

"Good luck to you, young Count! shall I tell your fortune?" said one.

"Little, honourable cavalier, give me your hand, and cross it with a 'zwantziger,'" said another.

"Be silent, children, and let me speak to the young De Rohan," said the gipsy queen; and she laid her hand upon his bridle, and fairly brought Gold-kind to a halt.

Victor looked half afraid, although he began to laugh.

"Let me go," said he, tugging vigorously at his reins; "papa desired me not to have my fortune told."

"Not by a common Zingynie," urged the queen, archly; "but I am the mother of all these. My pretty boy, I was at your christening, and have held you in my arms many a time. Let me tell your happy fortune."

Victor began to relent. "If Vere will have his told first, I will," said he, turning half bashfully, half eagerly to me.

I proffered my hand readily to the gipsy, and crossed it with one of the two pieces of silver which constituted the whole of my worldly wealth. The gipsy laughed, and began to prophesy in German. There are some events a child never forgets; and I remember every word she said as well as if it had been spoken yesterday.

"Over the sea, and again over the sea; thou shalt know grief and hardship and losses, and the dove shall be driven from its nest. And the dove's heart shall become like the eagle's, that flies alone, and fleshes her beak in the slain. Beat on, though the poor wings be bruised by the tempest, and the breast be sore, and the heart sink; beat on against the wind, and seek no shelter till thou find thy resting-place at last. The time will come--only beat on."

The woman laughed as she spoke; but there was a kindly tone in her voice and a pitying look in her bright eyes that went straight to my heart. Many a time since, in life, when the storm has indeed been boisterous and the wings so weary, have I thought of those words of encouragement, "The time will come--beat on."

It was now Victor's turn, and he crossed his palm with a golden ducat ere he presented it to the sibyl. This was of itself sufficient to insure him a magnificent future; and as the queen perused the lines on his soft little hand, with its pink fingers, she indulged in anticipations of magnificence proportioned to the handsome donation of the child.

"Thou shalt be a 'De Rohan,' my darling, and I can promise thee no brighter lot,--broad acres, and blessings from the poor, and horses, and wealth, and honours. And the sword shall spare thee, and the battle turn aside to let thee pass. And thou shalt wed a fair bride with dark eyes and a queenly brow; but beware of St. Hubert's Day. Birth and burial, birth and burial--beware of St. Hubert's Day."

"But I want to be a soldier," exclaimed Victor, who seemed much disappointed at the future which was prognosticated for him; "the De Rohans were always soldiers. Mother, can't you make out I shall be a soldier?" still holding the little hand open.

"Farewell, my children," was the only answer vouchsafed by the prophetess. "I can only read, I cannot write: farewell." And setting the troop in order, she motioned to them to continue their march without further delay.

I took advantage of the movement to press near my acquaintance of the day before, whom I had not failed to recognise in his gipsy garb. Poor fellow, my childish heart bled for him, and, in a happy moment, I bethought me of my remaining bit of silver. I stooped from my pony and kissed his forehead, while I squeezed the coin into his hand without a word. The tears came into the deserter's eyes. "God bless you, little man! I shall never forget you," was all he said; but I observed that he bit the coin with his large, strong teeth till it was nearly double, and then placed it carefully in his bosom. We turned our ponies, and were soon out of sight; but I never breathed a syllable to Victor about the fugitive, or the steward, or the Ghost's Gallery, for two whole days. Human nature could keep the secret no longer.

CHAPTER VI

SCHOOL

In one of the pleasantest valleys of sweet Somersetshire stands a large red-brick house that bears unmistakably impressed on its exterior the title "School." You would not take it for a "hall," or an hospital, or an almshouse, or anything in the world but an institution for the rising generation, in which the ways of the wide world are so successfully imitated that, in the qualities of foresight, cunning, duplicity, and general selfishness, the boy may indeed be said to be "father to the man." The house stands on a slope towards the south, with a trim lawn and carefully-kept gravel drive, leading to a front door, of which the steps are always clean and the handles always bright. How a ring at that door-bell used to bring all our hearts into our mouths. Forty boys were we, sitting grudgingly over our lessons on the bright summer forenoons, and not one of us but thought that ring might possibly announce a "something" for him from "home." Home! what was there in the word, that it should call up such visions of happiness, that it should create such a longing, sickening desire to have the wings of a dove and flee away, that it should make the present such a blank and comfortless reality? Why do we persist in sending our children so early to school? A little boy, with all his affections developing themselves, loving and playful and happy, not ashamed to be fond of his sisters, and thinking mamma all that is beautiful and graceful and good, is to be torn from that home which is to him an earthly Paradise, and transferred to a place of which we had better not ask the urchin his own private opinion. We appeal to every mother--and it is a mother who is best capable of judging for a child--whether her darling returns to her improved in her eyes after his first half-year at school. She looks in vain for the pliant, affectionate disposition that a word from her used to be capable, of moulding at will, and finds instead a stubborn self-sufficient spirit that has been called forth by harsh treatment and intercourse with the mimic world of boys; more selfish and more conventional, because less characteristic than that of men. He is impatient of her tenderness now, nay, half ashamed to return it. Already he aspires to be a man, in his own eyes, and thinks it manly to make light of those affections and endearments by which he once set such store. The mother is no longer all in all in his heart, her empire is divided and weakened, soon it will be swept away, and she sighs for the white-frock days when her child was fondly and entirely her own. Now, I cannot help thinking the longer these days last the better. Anxious parent, what do you wish your boy to become? A successful man in after life?--then rear him tenderly and carefully at first. You would not bit a colt at two years old; be not less patient with your own flesh and blood. Nature is the best guide, you may depend. Leave him to the women till his strength is established and his courage high, and when the metal has assumed shape and consistency, to the forge with it as soon as you will. Hardship, buffetings, adversity, all these are good for the youth, but, for Heaven's sake, spare the child.

Forty boys are droning away at their tasks on a bright sunshiny morning in June, and I am sitting at an old oak desk, begrimed and splashed with the inkshed of many generations, and hacked by the knives of idler after idler for the last fifty years. I have yet to learn by heart some two score lines from the Æneid. How I hate Virgil whilst I bend over those dog's-eared leaves and that uncomfortable desk. How I envy the white butterfly of which I have just got a glimpse as he soars away into the blue sky--for no terrestrial objects are visible from our schoolroom window to distract our attention and interfere with our labours. I have already accompanied him in fancy over the lawn, and the garden, and the high white-thorn fence into the meadow beyond,--how well I know the deep glades of that copse for which he is making; how I wish I was on my back in its shadow now. Never mind, to-day is a half-holiday, and this afternoon I will spend somehow in a dear delicious ramble through the fairy-land of "out of bounds." The rap of our master's cane against his desk--a gentlemanlike method of awakening attention and asserting authority--startles me from my day-dream. "March," for we drop the Mr. prefixed, in speaking of our pedagogue, "March is a bit of a Tartar, and I tremble for the result."

"Egerton to come up."

Egerton goes up accordingly, with many misgivings, and embarks, like a desperate man, on the loathed infandum Regina jubes.

The result may be gathered from March's observations as he returns me the book.

"Not a line correct, sir; stand down, sir; the finest passage of the poet shamefully mangled and defaced; it is a perfect disgrace to Everdon. Remain in till five, sir; and repeat the whole lesson to Mr. Manners."

"Please, sir, I tried to learn it, sir; indeed I did, sir."

"Don't tell me, sir; tried to learn it, indeed. If it had been French or German, or--or any of these useless branches of learning, you would have had it by heart fast enough; but Latin, sir, Latin is the foundation of a gentleman's education; Latin you were sent here to acquire, and Latin, sir" (with an astounding rap on the desk), "you shall learn, or I'll know the reason why."

I may remark that March, though an excellent scholar, professed utter contempt for all but the dead languages.

I determined to make one more effort to save my half-holiday.

"Please, sir, if I might look over it once more, I could say it when the second class goes down; please, sir, won't you give me another chance?"

March was not, in schoolboy parlance, "half a bad fellow," and he did give me another chance, and I came up to him once more at the conclusion of school, having repeated the whole forty lines to myself without missing a word; but, alas! when I stood again on the step which led up to the dreaded desk, and gave away the book into those uncompromising hands, and heard that stern voice with its "Now, sir, begin," my intellects forsook me altogether, and while the floor seemed to rock under me, I made such blunders and confusion of the chief's oration to the love-sick queen, as drove March to the extremity of that very short tether which he was pleased to call his "patience," and drew upon myself the dreaded condemnation I had fought so hard to escape.

"Remain in, sir, till perfect, and repeat to Mr. Manners, without a mistake--Mr. Manners, you will be kind enough to see, without a mistake! Boys!" (with another rap of the cane) "school's up." March locks his desk with a bang, and retires. Mr. Manners puts on his hat. Forty boys burst instantaneously into tumultuous uproar, forty pairs of feet scuffle along the dusty boards, forty voices break into song and jest and glee, forty spirits are emancipated from the prison-house into freedom and air and sunshine--forty, all save one.

So again I turn to the infandum Eegina Jubes, and sit me down and cry.

I had gone late to school, but I was a backward child in everything save my proficiency in modern languages. I had never known a mother, and the little education I had acquired was picked up in a desultory manner here and there during my travels with my father, and afterwards in a gloomy old library at Alton Grange, his own place in the same county as Mr. March's school. My father had remained abroad till his affairs made it imperative that he should return to England, and for some years we lived in seclusion at Alton, with an establishment that even my boyish penetration could discover was reduced to the narrowest possible limits. I think this was the idlest period of my life. I did no lessons, unless my father's endeavour to teach me painting, an art that I showed year after year less inclination to master, could be called so. I had but few ideas, yet they were very dear ones. I adored my father; on him I lavished all the love that would have been a mother's right; and having no other relations--none in the world that I cared for, or that cared for me, even nurse Nettich having remained in Hungary--my father was all-in-all. I used to wait at his door of a morning to hear him wake, and go away quite satisfied without letting him know. I used to watch him for miles when he rode out, and walk any distance to meet him on his way home. To please him I would even mount a quiet pony that he had bought on purpose for me, and dissemble my terrors because I saw they annoyed my kind father. I was a very shy, timid, and awkward boy, shrinking from strangers with a fear that was positively painful, and liking nothing so well as a huge arm-chair in the gloomy oak wainscoted library, where I would sit by the hour reading old poetry, old plays, old novels, and wandering about till I lost myself in a world of my own creating, full of beauty and romance, and all that ideal life which we must perforce call nonsense, but which, were it reality, would make this earth a heaven. Such was a bad course of training for a boy whose disposition was naturally too dreamy and imaginative, too deficient in energy and practical good sense. Had it gone on I must have become a madman; what is it but madness to live in a world of our own? I shall never forget the break-up of my dreams, the beginning, to me, of hard practical life.

I was coiled up in my favourite attitude, buried in the depths of a huge arm-chair in the library, and devouring with all my senses and all my soul the pages of the Morte d'Arthur, that most voluminous and least instructive of romances, but one for which, to my shame be it said, I confess to this day a sneaking kindness. I was gazing on Queen Guenever, as I pictured her to myself, in scarlet and ermine and pearls, with raven hair plaited over her queenly brow, and soft violet eyes, looking kindly down on mailed Sir Launcelot at her feet. I was holding Arthur's helmet in the forest, as the frank, handsome, stalwart monarch bent over a sparkling rill and cooled his sunburnt cheek, and laved his chestnut beard, whilst the sunbeams flickered through the green leaves and played upon his gleaming corslet and his armour of proof. I was feasting at Camelot with the Knights of the Round Table, jesting with Sir Dinadam, discussing grave subjects of high import with Sir Gawain, or breaking a lance in knightly courtesy with Sir Tristram and Sir Bore; in short, I was a child at a spectacle, but the spectacle came and went, and grew more and more gorgeous at will. In the midst of my dreams in walked my father, and sat down opposite the old arm-chair.

"Vere," said he, "you must go to school."

The announcement took away my breath: I had never, in my wildest moments, contemplated such a calamity.

"To school, papa; and when?" I mustered up courage to ask, clinging like a convict to the hope of a reprieve.

"The first of the month, my boy," answered my father, rather bullying himself into firmness, for I fancy he hated the separation as much as I did; "Mr. March writes me that his scholars will reunite on the first of next month, and he has a vacancy for you. We must make a man of you, Vere; and young De Rohan, your Hungarian friend, is going there too. You will have lots of playfellows, and get on very well, I have no doubt; and Everdon is not so far from here, and--and--you will be very comfortable, I trust; but I am loth to part with you, my dear, and that's the truth."

I felt as if I could have endured martyrdom when my father made this acknowledgment. I could do anything if I was only coaxed and pitied a little; and when I saw he was so unhappy at the idea of our separation, I resolved that no word or look of mine should add to his discomfort, although I felt my heart breaking at the thoughts of bidding him good-bye and leaving the Grange, with its quiet regularity and peaceful associations, for the noise and bustle and discipline of a large school. Queen Guenever and Sir Launcelot faded hopelessly from my mental vision, and in their places rose up stern forms of harsh taskmasters and satirical playfellows, early hours, regular discipline, Latin and Greek, and, worst of all, a continual bustle and a life in a crowd.

There were two peculiarities in my boyish character which, more than any others, unfitted me for battling with the world. I had a morbid dread of ridicule, which made me painfully shy of strangers. I have on many an occasion stood with my hand on the lock of a door, dreading to enter the room in which I heard strange voices, and then, plunging in with a desperate effort, have retired again as abruptly, covered with confusion, and so nervous as to create in the minds of the astonished guests a very natural doubt as to my mental sanity. The other peculiarity was an intense love of solitude. I was quite happy with my father, but if I could not enjoy his society, I preferred my own to that of any other mortal. I would take long walks by myself--I would sit for hours and read by myself--I had a bedroom of my own, into which I hated even a servant to set foot--and perhaps the one thing I dreaded more than all besides in my future life was, that I should never, never, be alone.

How I prized the last few days I spent at home; how I gazed on all the well-known objects as if I should never see them again; how the very chairs and tables seemed to bid me good-bye like old familiar friends. I had none of the lively anticipations which most boys cherish of the manliness and independence arising from a school-life; no long vista of cricket and football, and fame in their own little world, with increasing strength and stature, to end in a tailed coat, and even whiskers! No, I hated the idea of the whole thing. I expected to be miserable at Everdon, and, I freely confess, was not disappointed.

CHAPTER VII

PLAY

Dinner was over, and play-time begun for all but me, and again I turned to the infandum Regina jubes, and sat me down to cry.

A kind hand, grimed with ink, was laid on my shoulder, a pair of soft blue eyes looked into my face, and Victor de Rohan, my former playfellow, my present fast friend and declared "chum," sat down on the form beside me, and endeavoured to console me in distress.

"I'll help you, Egerton," said the warm-hearted lad; "say it to me; March is a beast, but Manners is a good fellow; Manners will hear you now, and we shall have our half-holiday after all."

"I can't, I can't," was my desponding reply. "Manners won't hear me, I know, till I am perfect, and I never can learn this stupid sing-song story. How I hate Queen Dido--how I hate Virgil. You should read about Guenever, Victor, and King Arthur! I'll tell you about them this afternoon;" and the tears came again into my eyes as I remembered there was no afternoon for me.

"Try once more," said Victor; "I'll get Manners to hear you; leave it to me; I know how to do it. I'll ask Ropsley." And Victor was off into the playground ere I was aware, in search of this valuable auxiliary.

Now, Ropsley was the mainspring round which turned the whole of our little world at Everdon. If an excuse for a holiday could be found, Ropsley was entreated to ask the desired favour of March. If a quarrel had to be adjusted, either in the usual course of ordeal by battle, or the less decisive method of arbitration, Ropsley was always invited to see fair play. He was the king of our little community. It was whispered that he could spar better than Manners, and construe better than March: he was certainly a more perfect linguist--as indeed I could vouch for from my own knowledge--than Schwartz, who came twice a week to teach us a rich German-French. We saw his boots were made by Hoby, and we felt his coats could only be the work of Stulz, for in those days Poole was not, and we were perfectly willing to believe that he wore a scarlet hunting-coat in the Christmas holidays, and had visiting cards of his own. In person he was tall and slim, with a pale complexion, and waving, soft brown hair: without being handsome, he was distinguished-looking; and even as a boy, I have seen strangers turn round and ask who he was; but the peculiar feature of his countenance was his light grey eye, veiled with long black eyelashes. It never seemed to kindle or to waver or to wink; it was always the same, hard, penetrating, and unmoved; it never smiled, though the rest of his features would laugh heartily enough, and it certainly never wept. Even in boyhood it was the eye of a cool, calculating, wary man. He knew the secrets of every boy in the school, but no one ever dreamt of cross-questioning Ropsley. We believed he only stayed at Everdon as a favour to March, who was immensely proud of his pupil's gentlemanlike manners and appearance, as well as of his scholarly proficiency, although no one ever saw him study, and we always expected Ropsley was "going to leave this half." We should not have been the least surprised to hear he had been sent for by the Sovereign, and created a peer of the realm on the spot; with all our various opinions, we were unanimous in one creed--that nothing was impossible for Ropsley, and he need only try, to succeed. For myself, I was dreadfully afraid of this luminary, and looked up to him with feelings of veneration which amounted to positive awe.

Not so Victor; the young Hungarian feared, I believe, nothing on earth, and respected but little. He was the only boy in the school who, despite the difference of age, would talk with Ropsley upon equal terms; and if anything could have added to the admiration with which we regarded the latter, it would have been the accurate knowledge he displayed of De Rohan's family, their history, their place in Hungary, all their belongings, as if he himself had been familiar with Edeldorf from boyhood. But so it was with everything; Ropsley knew all about people in general better than they did themselves.

Victor rushed back triumphantly into the schoolroom, where I still sat desponding at my desk, and Ropsley followed him.

"What's the matter, Vere?" he asked, in a patronising tone, and calling me by my Christian name, which I esteemed a great compliment. "What's the matter?" he repeated; "forty lines of Virgil to say; come, that's not much."

"But I can't learn it," I urged. "You must think me very stupid; and if it was French, or German, or English, I should not mind twice the quantity, but I cannot learn Latin, and it's no use trying."

The older boy sneered; it seemed so easy to him with his powerful mind to get forty lines of hexameters by heart. I believe he could have repeated the whole Æneid without book from beginning to end.

"Do you want to go out to-day, Vere?" said he.

I clasped my hands in supplication, as I replied, "Oh! I would give anything, anything, to get away from this horrid schoolroom, and 'shirk out' with Victor and Bold."

The latter, be it observed, was a dog in whose society I took great delight, and whom I kept in the village, at an outlay of one shilling per week, much to the detriment of my personal fortune.

"Very well," said the great man; "come with me to Manners, and bring your book with you."

So I followed my deliverer into the playground, with the infandum Regina still weighing heavily on my soul.

Manners, the usher, was playing cricket with some dozen of the bigger boys, and was in the act of "going for a sixer." His coat and waistcoat were off, and his shirt-sleeves tucked up, disclosing his manly arms bared to the elbow; and Manners was in his glory, for, notwithstanding the beard upon his chin, our usher was as very a boy at heart as the youngest urchin in the lower class. A dandy, too, was Manners, and a wight of an imaginative turn of mind, which chiefly developed itself in the harmless form of bright visions for the future, teeming with romantic adventures, of which he was himself to be the hero. His past he seldom dwelt upon. His aspirations were military--his ideas extravagant. He was great on the Peninsula and Lord Anglesey at Waterloo; and had patent boxes in his high-heeled boots that only required the addition of heavy clanking spurs to complete the illusion that Mr. Manners ought to be a cavalry officer. Of his riding he spoke largely; but his proficiency in this exercise we had no means of ascertaining. There were two things, however, on which Manners prided himself, and which were a source of intense amusement to the urchins by whom he was surrounded:--these were, his personal strength, and his whiskers; the former quality was encouraged to develop itself by earnest application to all manly sports and exercises; the latter ornaments were cultivated and enriched with every description of "nutrifier," "regenerator," and "unguent" known to the hairdresser or the advertiser. Alas! without effect proportioned to the perseverance displayed; two small patches of fluff under the jaw-bones, that showed to greatest advantage by candlelight, being the only evidence of so much painstaking and cultivation thrown away. Of his muscular prowess, however, it behoved us to speak with reverence. Was it not on record in the annals of the school that when the "King of Naples," our dissipated pieman, endeavoured to justify by force an act of dishonesty by which he had done Timmins minor out of half-a-crown, Manners stripped at once to his shirt-sleeves, and "went in" at the Monarch with all the vigour and activity of some three-and-twenty summers against three-score? The Monarch, a truculent old ruffian, with a red neckcloth, half-boots, and one eye, fought gallantly for a few rounds, and was rather getting the best of it, when, somewhat unaccountably, he gave in, leaving the usher master of the field. Ropsley, who gave his friend a knee, secundum artem, and urged him, with frequent injunctions, to "fight high," attributed this easy victory to the forbearance of their antagonist, who had an eye to future trade and mercantile profits; but Manners, whose account of the battle I have heard more than once, always scouted this view of the transaction.

"He went down, sir, as if he was shot," he would say, doubling his arm, and showing the muscles standing out in bold relief. "Few men have the biceps so well developed as mine, and he went down as if he was shot. If I had hit him as hard as I could, sir, I must have killed him!"

Our usher was a good-natured fellow, notwithstanding.

"I'll hear you in ten minutes, Egerton," said he, "when I have had my innings;" and forthwith he stretched himself into attitude, and prepared to strike.

"Better give me your bat," remarked Ropsley, who was too lazy to play cricket in a regular manner. Of course, Manners consented; nobody ever refused Ropsley anything; and in ten minutes' time I had repeated the infandum Regina, and Ropsley had added some dozen masterly hits to the usher's score. Ropsley always liked another man's "innings" better than his own.

Now the regulations at Everdon, as they were excessively strict, and based upon the principle that Apollo should always keep the bow at the utmost degree of tension, so were they eluded upon every available opportunity, and set at nought and laughed at by the youngest urchins in the school. We had an ample playground for our minor sports, and a meadow beyond, in which we were permitted to follow the exhilarating pastime of cricket, the share of the younger boys in that exciting amusement being limited to a pursuit of the ball round the field, and a prompt return of the same to their seniors, doubtless a necessary ingredient in this noble game, but one which is not calculated to excite enthusiastic pleasure in the youthful mind. From the playground and its adjacent meadow it was a capital offence to absent oneself. All the rest of Somersetshire was "out of bounds"; and to be caught "out of bounds" was a crime for which corporal punishment was the invariable reward. At the same time, the offence was, so to speak, "winked at." No inquiries were made as to how we spent half-holidays between one o'clock and seven; and many a glorious ramble we used to have during those precious six hours in all the ecstasy of "freedom,"--a word understood by none better than the schoolboy. A certain deference was, however, exacted to the regulations of the establishment; by a sort of tacit compact, it seemed to be understood that our code was so far Spartan as to make, not the crime, but the being "found out," a punishable offence, and boys were always supposed to take their chance. If seen in the act of escaping, or afterwards met by any of the masters in the surrounding country, we were liable to be flogged; and to do March justice, we always were flogged, and pretty soundly, too. Under these circumstances, some little care and circumspection had to be observed in starting for our rambles. Certain steps had been made in the playground wall, where it was hidden from the house by the stem of a fine old elm, and by dropping quietly down into an orchard beyond--an orchard, be it observed, of which the fruit was always plucked before it reached maturity--and then stealing along the back of a thick, high hedge, we could get fairly away out of sight of the school windows, and so make our escape.

Now, on the afternoon in question we had planned an expedition in which Victor, and I, and my dog Bold had determined to be principal performers. Of the latter personage in the trio I must remark, that no party of pleasure on which we embarked was ever supposed to be perfect without his society. His original possessor was the "King of Naples," whom I have already mentioned, and who, I conclude, stole him, as he appeared one day tied to that personage by an old cotton handkerchief, and looking as wobegone and unhappy as a retriever puppy of some three months old, torn from his mamma and his brothers and sisters, and the comfortable kennel in which he was brought up, and transferred to the tender mercies of a drunken, poaching, dog-stealing ruffian, was likely to feel in so false a position. The "King" brought him into our playground on one of his tart-selling visits, as a specimen of the rarest breed of retrievers known in the West of England. The puppy seemed so thoroughly miserable, and looked up at me so piteously, that I forthwith asked his price, and after a deal of haggling, and a consultation between De Rohan and myself, I determined to become his purchaser, at the munificent sum of one sovereign, of which ten shillings (my all) were to be paid on the spot, and the other ten to remain, so to speak, on mortgage upon the animal, with the further understanding that he should be kept at the residence of the "King of Naples," who, in consideration of the regular payment of one shilling per week, bound himself to feed the same and complete his education in all the canine branches of plunging, diving, fetching and carrying, on a system of his own, which he briefly described as "fust-rate."

With a deal of prompting from Manners, I got through my forty lines; and he shut the book with a good-natured smile as Ropsley threw down the bat he had been wielding so skilfully, and put on his coat.

"Come and lunch with me at 'The Club,'" said he to Manners, whom he led completely by the nose; "I'll give you Dutch cheese, and sherry and soda-water, and a cigar. Hie! Vere, you ungrateful little ruffian, where are you off to? I want you."

I was making my escape as rapidly as possible at the mention of "The Club," a word which we younger boys held in utter fear and detestation, as being associated in our minds with much perilous enterprise and gratuitous suffering. The Club consisted of an old bent tree in a retired corner of the playground, on the trunk of which Ropsley had caused a comfortable seat to be fashioned for his own delectation; and here, in company with Manners and two or three senior boys, it was his custom to sit smoking and drinking curious compounds, of which the ingredients, being contraband, had to be fetched by us, at the risk of corporal punishment, from the village of Everdon, an honest half-mile journey at the least.

Ropsley tendered a large cigar to Manners, lit one himself, settled his long limbs comfortably on the seat, and gave me his orders.

"One Dutch cheese, three pottles of strawberries--now attend, confound you!--two bottles of old sherry from 'The Greyhound,'--mind, the OLD sherry; half-a-dozen of soda-water, and a couple of pork-pies. Put the whole into a basket; they'll give you one at the bar, if you say it's for me, and tell them to put it down to my account. Put a clean napkin over the basket, and if you dirty the napkin or break the bottles, I'll break your head! Now be off! Manners, I'll take your two to one he does it without a mistake, and is back here under the five-and-twenty minutes."

I did not dare disobey, but I was horribly disgusted at having to employ any portion of my half-holiday in so uncongenial a manner. I rushed back into the schoolroom for my cap, and held a hurried consultation with Victor as to our future proceedings.

"He only got you off because he wanted you to 'shirk out' for him," exclaimed my indignant chum; "it's a shame, that it is. Don't go for him, Vere; let's get out quietly, and be off to Beverley. It's the last chance, so old 'Nap' says" (this was an abbreviation for the "King of Naples," who was in truth a great authority both with Victor and myself); "and it's such a beautiful afternoon."

"But what a licking I shall get from Ropsley," I interposed, with considerable misgivings; "he's sure to say I'm an ungrateful little beast. I don't like to be called ungrateful, Victor, and I don't like to be called a little beast."

"Oh, never mind the names, and a licking is soon over," replied Victor, who learned little from his Horace save the carpe diem philosophy, and who looked upon the licking with considerably more resignation than did the probable recipient. "We shall just have time to do it, if we start now. Come on, old fellow; be plucky for once, and come on."

I was not proof against the temptation. The project was a long-planned one, and I could not bear the thoughts of giving it up now. Many a time in our rambles had we surmounted the hill that looked down upon Beverley Manor, and viewed it from afar as a sort of unknown fairyland. What a golden time one's boyhood was! A day at Beverley was our dream of all that was most exciting in adventure, most voluptuous in delight; and now "Nap" had promised to accompany us to this earthly Paradise, and show us what he was pleased to term its "hins-an'-houts." Not all the cheeses of Holland should prevent my having one day's liberty and enjoyment. I weighed well the price: the certain licking, and the sarcastic abuse which I feared even more; and I think I held my half-holiday all the dearer for having to purchase it at such a cost.

We were across the playground like lapwings. Ropsley, who was deep in his cigar and a copy of Bell's Life, which forbidden paper he caused Manners to take in for him surreptitiously, never dreamed that his behests could be treated with contempt, and hardly turned his head to look at us. We surmounted the wall with an agility born of repeated practice; we stole along the adjacent orchard, under covert of the well-known friendly hedge, and only breathed freely when we found ourselves completely out of sight of the house, and swinging along the Everdon lane at a schoolboy's jog, which, like the Highlander's, is equivalent to any other person's gallop. No pair of carriage horses can step together like two schoolboy "chums" who are in the constant habit of being late in company. Little boys as we were, Victor and I could do our five miles in the hour without much difficulty, keeping step like clockwork, and talking the whole time.

In five minutes we were at the wicket of a small tumble-down building, with dilapidated windows and a ruinous thatched roof, which was in fact the dwelling of no less a personage than the "King of Naples," but was seldom alluded to by that worthy in more definite terms than "the old place," or "my shop"; and this only when in a particularly confidential mood--its existence being usually indicated by a jerk of the head towards his blind side, which was supposed to infer proper caution, and a decorous respect for the sanctity of private life. It was indeed one of those edifices of which the word "tenement" seems alone to convey an adequate description. The garden produce consisted of a ragged shirt and a darned pair of worsted stockings, whilst a venerable buck rabbit looked solemnly out from a hutch on one side of the doorway, and a pair of red-eyed ferrets shed their fragrance from a rough deal box on the other. "Nap" himself was not to be seen on a visitor's first entrance into his habitation, but generally appeared after a mysterious delay, from certain back settlements, of which one never discovered the exact "whereabout." A grimy old woman, with her skirts pinned up, was invariably washing the staircase when we called, and it was only in obedience to her summons that "Nap" himself could be brought forward. This dame possessed a superstitious interest in the eyes of us boys, on account of the mysterious relationship in which she stood to "Nap." He always addressed her as "mother"--but no boy at Everdon had yet ascertained whether this was a generic term significant of age and sex, an appellation of endearment to a spouse, or a tribute of filial reverence from a son.

"Come, 'Nap,' look alive," halloed Victor, as we rushed up the narrow path that led from the wicket to the door, in breathless haste not to lose the precious moments of our half-holiday. "Now, mother, where is he?" added the lively young truant. "Time's up; 'Nap'--'Nap'!"--and the walls echoed to Victor's rich, laughing voice, and half-foreign accent. As usual, after an interval of a few minutes, "Nap" himself appeared at the back door of the cottage, with a pair of greased half-boots in one hand, and a ferret, that nestled confidingly against his cheek, in the other.

"Sarvice, young gen'elmen," said "Nap," wiping his mouth with the back of his hand--"Sarvice, my lord; sarvice, Muster Egerton," repeated he, on recognising his two stanchest patrons. "Here, Bold! Bold!--you do know your master, sure*lie*," as Bold came rollicking forth from the back-yard in which he lived, and testified his delight by many ungainly gambols and puppy-like freedoms, which were responded to as warmly by his delighted owner. My scale of affections at this period of life was easily defined. I loved three objects in the world--viz., my father, Victor, and Bold. I verily believe I cared for nothing on earth but those three; and certainly my dog came in for his share of regard. Bold, although in all the awkwardness of puppyhood, was already beginning to show symptoms of that sagacity which afterwards developed itself into something very few degrees inferior to reason, if indeed it partook not of that faculty which we men are anxious to assume as solely our own. He would already obey the slightest sign--would come to heel at a whisper from his owner or instructor--would drag up huge stones out of ten feet of water, with ludicrous energy and perseverance; and stand waiting for further orders with his head on one side, and an expression of comic intelligence on his handsome countenance that was delightfully ridiculous. He promised to be of great size and strength; and even at this period, when he put his forepaws on my shoulders and licked my face, he was considerably the larger animal of the two. Such familiarities, however, were much discouraged by "Nap."

"If so be as you would keep a 'dawg,' real sporting and dawg-like, master," that philosopher would observe, "let un know his distance; I strikes 'em whenever I can reach 'em. Fondlin' of 'em only spiles 'em--same as women."

CHAPTER VIII

THE TRUANTS

So the day to which we had looked forward with such delight had arrived at last. Our spirits rose as we got further and further from Everdon, and we never stopped to take breath or to look back till we found ourselves surmounting the last hill above Beverley Manor. By this time we had far outstripped our friend "Nap"--that worthy deeming it inconsistent with all his maxims ever to hurry himself. "Slow and sure, young gentlemen," he observed soon after we started--"slow and sure wins the day. Do'ee go on ahead, and wait for I top of Buttercup Close. I gits on better arter a drop o' drink this hot weather. Never fear, squire, I'll not fail ye! Bold! Bold! you go on with your master." So "Nap" turned into the "Cat and Fiddle," and we pursued our journey alone, not very sorry to be rid of our companion for the present; as, notwithstanding our great admiration for his many resources, his knowledge of animal life, his skilful method with rats, and general manliness of character, we could not but be conscious of our own inferiority in these branches of science, and of a certain want of community in ideas between two young gentlemen receiving a polite education at Everdon, and a rat-catching, dog-stealing poacher of the worst class.

"It's as hot as Hungary," said Victor, seating himself on a stile, and taking off his cap to fan his handsome, heated face. "Oh, Vere, I wish I was back in the Fatherland! Do you remember the great wood at Edeldorf, and the boar we saw close to the ponies? And oh, Vere, how I should like to be upon Gold-kind once again!"

"Yes, Victor, I remember it all," I answered, as I flung myself down among the buttercups, and turned my cheek to the cool air that came up the valley--a breeze that blew from the distant hills to the southward, and swept across many a mile of beauty ere it sighed amongst the woods of Beverley, and rippled the wide surface of the mere; "I shall never forget Edeldorf, nor my first friend, Victor. But what made you think of Hungary just now?"

"Why, your beautiful country," answered Victor, pointing to the luxuriant scene below us--a scene that could exist in England only--of rich meadows, and leafy copses, and green slopes laughing in the sunlight, dotted with huge old standard trees, and the deep shades of Beverley, with the white garden-wall standing out from amongst yew hedges, and rare pines, and exotic evergreens; while the grey turrets of the Manor House peeped and peered here and there through the giant elms that stirred and flickered in the summer breeze. The mere was glittering at our feet, and the distant uplands melting away into the golden haze of summer. Child as I was, I could have cried, without knowing why, as I sat there on the grass, drinking in beauty at every pore. What is it that gives to all beauty, animate or inanimate, a tinge of melancholy?--the greater the beauty, the deeper the tinge. Is it an instinct of mortality? the "bright must fade" of the poet? a shadowy regret for Dives, who, no more than Lazarus, can secure enjoyment for a day? or is it a vague yearning for something more perfect still?--a longing of the soul for the unattainable, which, more than all the philosophy in the universe, argues the necessity of a future state. I could not analyse my feelings. I did not then believe that others experienced the same sensations as myself. I only knew that, like Parson Hugh, I had "great dispositions to cry."

"I wish I were a man, Vere," remarked Victor, as he pulled out his knife, and began to carve a huge V on the top bar of the stile. "I should like to be grown up now, and you too, Vere; what a life we would lead! Let me see, I should have six horses for myself, and three--no, four for you; and a pack of hounds, like Mr. Barker's, that we saw last half, coming home from hunting; and two rifles, both double-barrelled. Do you know, I hit the bull's-eye with papa's rifle, when Prince Vocqsal was at Edeldorf, and he said I was the best shot in Hungary for my age. Look at that crow, Vere, perching on the branch of the old hawthorn--I could put a bullet into him from here. Oh! I wish I had papa's rifle!"

"But should you not like to be King of Hungary, Victor?" said I, for I admired my "chum" so ardently, that I believed him fit for any position, however exalted. "Should you not like to be king, and ride about upon a white horse, with a scarlet tunic and pelisse, and ostrich feathers in your hat, bowing right and left to the ladies at the windows, with a Hungarian body-guard clattering behind you, and the people shouting and flinging up their caps in the street?" I saw it all in my mind's eye, and fancied my friend the hero of the procession. Victor hesitated, and shook his head.

"I think I had rather be a General of Division, like Wallenstein, and command ten thousand cavalry; or better still, Vere, ride and shoot as well as Prince Vocqsal, and go up into the mountains after deer, and kill bears and wolves and wild boars, and do what I like. Wouldn't I just pack up my books, and snap my fingers at March, and leave Everdon to-morrow, if I could take you with me. But you, Vere, if you could have your own way, what would you be?"

I was not long answering, for there was scarcely a day that I did not consider the subject; but my aspirations for myself were so humble, that I hesitated a little lest Victor should laugh at me, before I replied.

"Oh, I will do whatever my father wishes, Victor; and I hope he will sometimes let me go to you; but if I could do exactly what I liked, if a fairy was at this moment to come out of that bluebell and offer me my choice, I should ask to be a doctor, Victor, and to live somewhere on this hill."

"Sappramento!" exclaimed Victor, swearing, in his astonishment, his father's favourite oath--"a doctor, Vere! and why?"

"Well," I answered, modestly, "I am not like you, Victor; I wish I were. Oh, you cannot tell how I wish I were you! To be high-born and rich, and heir to a great family, and to have everybody making up to one and admiring one--that is what I should call happiness. But I can never have the chance of that. I am shy and stupid and awkward, and--and, Victor"--I got it out at last, blushing painfully--"I know that I am ugly--so ugly! It is foolish to care about it, for, after all, it is not my fault; but I cannot help wishing for beauty. It is so painful to be remarked and laughed at, and I know people laugh at me. Why, I heard Ropsley say to Manners, only yesterday, after I had been fagging for him at cricket, 'Why, what an ugly little beggar it is!' and Manners said, 'Yes,' and 'he thought it must be a great misfortune.' And Ropsley laughed so, I felt he must be laughing at me, as if I could help it! Oh, Victor, you cannot think how I long to be loved; that is why I should like to be a doctor. I would live up here in a small cottage, from which I could always see this beautiful view; and I would study hard to be very clever--not at Greek and Latin, like March, but at something I could take an interest in; and I would have a quiet pony, not a rantipole like your favourite Gold-kind; and I would visit the poor people for miles round, and never grudge time nor pains for any one in affliction or distress. I would make them fond of me, and it would be such happiness to go out on a day like this, and see a kind smile for one on everybody's face, good or bad. Nobody loves me now, Victor, except papa and you and Bold; and papa, I fear, only because he is my papa. I heard him say one day, long ago, to my nurse (you remember nurse Nettich?), 'Never mind what the boy is like--he is my own.' I fear he does not care for me for myself. You like me, Victor, because you are used to me, and because I like you so much; but that is not exactly the sort of liking I mean; and as for Bold--here, Bold! Bold! Why, what has become of the dog? He must have gone back to look for 'Nap.'"

Sure enough Bold was nowhere visible, having made his escape during our conversation; but in his place the worthy "King of Naples" was to be seen toiling up the hill, more than three parts drunk, and with a humorous twinkle in his solitary eye which betokened mischief.

"Now, young gents," observed the poacher, settling himself upon the stile, and producing from the capacious pockets of his greasy velveteen jacket an assortment of snares, night-lines, and other suspicious-looking articles; "now, young gents, I promised to show you a bit of sport comin' here to Beverley, and a bit of sport we'll have. Fust and foremost, I've agot to lift a line or two as I set yesterday in the mere; then we'll just take a turn round the pheasantry, for you young gentlemen to see the fowls, you know; Sir 'Arry, he bain't a comin' back till next week, and Muster Barrells, the keeper, he's off into Norfolk, arter pinters, and such like. You keep the dog well at heel, squire. Why, whatever has become o' Bold?"

Alas, Bold himself was heard to answer the question. Self-hunting in an adjoining covert, his deep-toned voice was loudly awakening the echoes, and scaring the game all over the Manor, to his own unspeakable delight and our intense dismay. Forgetful of all the precepts of his puppyhood, he scampered hither and thither; now in headlong chase of a hare; now dashing aside after a rabbit, putting up pheasants at every stride, and congratulating himself on his emancipation and his prowess in notes that could not fail to indicate his pursuits to keepers, watchers, all the establishment of Beverley Manor, to say nothing of the inhabitants of that and the adjoining parishes.

Off we started in pursuit, bounding down the hill at our best pace. Old "Nap" making run in his own peculiar gait, which was none of the most graceful. Victor laughing and shouting with delight; and I frightened out of my wits at the temporary loss of my favourite, and the probable consequences of his disobedience.

Long before we could reach the scene of Bold's misdoings, we had been observed by two men who were fishing in the mere, and who now gave chase--the one keeping along the valley, so as to cut us off in our descent; the other, a long-legged fellow, striding right up the hill at once, in case we should turn tail and beat a retreat. "Nap" suddenly disappeared--I have reason to believe he ensconced himself in a deep ditch, and there remained until the danger had passed away. Victor and I were still descending the hill, calling frantically to Bold. The keeper who had taken the lower line of pursuit was gaining rapidly upon us. I now saw that he carried a gun under his arm. My dog flashed out of a small belt of young trees in hot pursuit of a hare--tongue out, head down, and tail lowered, in full enjoyment of the chase. At the instant he appeared the man in front of me stopped dead short. Quick as lightning he lifted his long shining barrel. I saw the flash; and ere I heard the report my dog tumbled heels over head, and lay upon the sunny sward, as I believed in the agony of that moment, stone dead. I strained every nerve to reach him, for I could hear the rattle of a ramrod, as the keeper reloaded,--and I determined to cover Bold with my body, and, if necessary, to die with him. I was several paces ahead of Victor; whom I now heard calling me by name, but I could think of nothing, attend to nothing, but the prostrate animal in front. What a joy it Was when I reached him to find he was not actually killed. His fore-leg was frightfully mangled by the charge; but as I fell breathless by the side of my darling Bold, he licked my face, and I knew there was a chance for him still.

A rough grasp was laid on toy shoulder, and a hoarse voice roused me:

"Come, young man; I thought I'd drop on to you at last. Now you'll just come with me to Sir 'Arry, and we'll see what he has to say to this here."

And on looking up I found myself in the hands of a strong, square-built fellow, with a velveteen jacket, and a double-barrelled gun under his arm, being no less a person than Sir Harry Beverley's head keeper, and the identical individual that had been watching us from the mere, and had made so successful a shot at Bold.

"Come, leave the dog," he added; giving me another shake, and scrutinising my apparel, which was evidently not precisely of the description he had expected; "leave the dog--it's no great odds about him; and as for you, young gentleman, if you be a young gentleman, you had ought to be ashamed of yourself. It's not want as drove you to this trade. Come, none of that; you go quietly along of me; it's best for you, I tell you."

I was struggling to free myself from his hold, for I could not bear to leave my dog. A thousand horrible anticipations filled my head. Trial, transportation, I knew not what, for I had a vague terror of the law, and had heard enough of its rigours in regard to the offence of poaching, to fill me with indescribable alarm; yet, through it all, I was more concerned for Bold than myself. My favourite was dying, I believed, and I could not leave him.

I looked up in the face of my captor. He was a rough, hairy fellow; but there was an expression of kindliness in his homely features which encouraged me to entreat for mercy.

"Oh, sir," I pleaded, "let me only take my dog; he's not so very heavy; I'll carry him myself. Bold, my darling Bold! He is my own dog, and I'd rather you'd kill me too than force me to leave him here."

The man was evidently mollified, and a good deal puzzled into the bargain. I saw my advantage, and pressed it vigorously.

"I'll go to prison willingly,--I'll go anywhere you tell me,--only do try and cure Bold. Papa will pay you anything if you'll only cure Bold. Victor! Victor!" I added, seeing my chum now coming up, likewise in custody, "help me to get this gentleman to save Bold."

Victor looked flushed, and fiercer than I ever remembered to have seen that pretty boyish face. His collar was torn and his dress disordered. He had evidently struggled manfully with his captor, and the latter wiped his heated brow with an expression of mingled amusement and astonishment, that showed he was clearly at his wit's end what to make of his prize.

"Blowed if I know what to say o' this here, Mr. Barrells," said he to his brother functionary. "This little chap's even gamer nor t'other one. Run! I never see such a one-er to run. If it hadn't been for the big hedge at the corner of the cow-pasture, I'd never a cotched 'un in a month o' Sundays; and when I went to lay hold, the young warmint out with his knife and offered to whip it into me. He's a rare boy this; I could scarce grip him for laughing; but the lad's got a sperret, bless'd if he ain't. I cut my own knuckles gettin' of it out of his hands." And he showed Victor's knife to his comrade as he spoke.

Mr. Barrells was a man of reflection, as keepers generally are. He examined the knife carefully, and spoke in an undertone to his friend.

"Do you see this here?" he remarked, pointing to the coronet which was inlaid in the steel; "and do you see that there?" he added, with a glance at Victor's gold watch-chain, of Parisian fabric. "Put this here and that there together, Bill, which it convinces me as these here little chaps is not them as we was a lookin' for. Your cove looks a gentleman all over; I knows the breed, Bill, and there's no mistake about the real thing; and my precious boy here, he wouldn't leave the dawg, not if it was ever so, though he's a very little 'un; he's a gentleman too; but that don't make no odds, Bill: gentlemen hadn't ought to be up to such-like tricks, nor haven't half the excuse of poor folks; and, gentlemen or no gentlemen, they goes before Sir 'Arry, dog and all, as sure as my name's Barrells!"

Victor and I looked at each other in hopeless despair; there was, then, nothing for it but to undergo the extreme penalty of the law. With hanging heads and blushing cheeks we walked between our captors; Bill, who seemed a good-natured fellow enough, carrying the unfortunate Bold on his shoulders. We thought our shame had reached its climax, but we were doomed to suffer even more degradation in this our first visit to Beverley Manor.

As we threaded the gravel path of a beautiful shrubbery leading to the back offices of the Manor House, we met a young girl taking her afternoon's walk with her governess, whose curiosity seemed vividly excited by our extraordinary procession. To this day I can remember Constance Beverley as she stood before me then, the first time I ever saw her. She was scarcely more than a child, but her large serious dark eyes, her noble and somewhat sad expression of countenance, gave her an interest which mere childish beauty could never have possessed. There are some faces that we can discern even at such a distance as renders the features totally indistinct, as if the expression of countenance reached us by some magnetic process independent of vision, and such a face was that of Constance Beverley. I have often heard her beauty disputed. I have even known her called plain, though that was generally by critics of her own sex, but I never heard any one deny that she was uncommon-looking, and always certain to attract attention, even where she failed in winning admiration. Victor blushed scarlet, and I felt as if I must sink into the earth when this young lady walked up to the keeper, and asked him "what he was going to do with those people, and why he was taking them to papa?"

Miss Constance was evidently a favourite with Mr. Barrells, for he stopped and doffed his hat with much respect whilst he explained to her the circumstance of our pursuit and capture. So long as he alluded only to our poaching offences, I thought the little lady looked on us with eyes of kindly commiseration; but when he hinted his suspicions of our social position, I observed that she immediately assumed an air of marked coldness, and transferred her pity to Bold.

"So you see, Miss, I does my duty by Sir 'Arry without respect to rich or poor," was Mr. Barrells' conclusion to a long-winded oration addressed partly to the young lady, partly to her governess, and partly to ourselves, the shame-faced culprits; "and therefore it is as I brings these young gentlemen up to the justice-room, if so be, as I said before, they be young gentlemen; and so, Miss Constance, the law must take its course."

"But you'll take care of the poor dog, Barrells; promise me you'll take care of the poor dog," was the young lady's last entreaty as she walked on with her governess; and a turn in the shrubbery hid her from our sight.

"What a half-holiday this has been!" whispered I to my comrade in distress, as we neared the house that had so long been an object of such curiosity.

"Yes," replied Victor, "but it's not over yet."

Sir Harry was at the farm; we must wait for his return. Meantime we were shown into the servants' hall; a large stone chamber devoid of furniture, that reminded me of our schoolroom at Everdon--much as we hated the latter, what would we have given to be there now! Cold meat and ale were offered us; but, as may well be imagined, we had no appetite to partake of them, although in that respect our captors set us a noble example; remaining, however, on either side of us as turnkeys watch those who are ordered for execution. The servants of the household came one after another to stare at the unfortunate culprits, and made audible remarks on our dress and general appearance. Victor's beauty won him much favour from the female part of the establishment; and a housemaid with a wonderfully smart cap brought him a cup of tea, which he somewhat rudely declined. There was considerable discussion as to our real position in society carried on without the slightest regard to our presence. The under-butler, whose last place was in London, and whose professional anxiety about his spoons may have somewhat prejudiced him, gave it as his opinion that we belonged to what he called "the swell mob"; but Mr. Barrells, who did not seem to understand the term, "pooh-poohed" this suggestion with so much dignity as at once to extinguish that official, who incontinently retired to his pantry and his native obscurity. The women, who generally lean to the most improbable version of a story, were inclined to believe that we were sailors, and of foreign extraction; but the most degrading theory of all, and one that I am bound to confess met with a large majority of supporters, was to the effect that we were run-away 'prentices from Fleetsbury, and would be put in the stocks on our return to that market town. We had agreed not to give our names except as a last resource, my friend clinging, as I thought somewhat hopelessly, to the idea that Sir Harry would let us off with a reprimand, and we might get back to Everdon without March finding it out. So the great clock ticked loudly in the hall, and there we sat in mute endurance. As Victor had before remarked, "it was not over yet."

CHAPTER IX

ROPSLEY

Ropsley smoked his cigar on the trunk of the old tree, and Manners drank in worldly wisdom from the lips of his junior, whom, however, he esteemed as the very guide-book of all sporting and fashionable life. It was the ambition of our usher to become a thorough man of the world; and, had he been born to a fortune and a title, there was no reason why he should not have formed a very fair average young nobleman. His tastes were frivolous enough, his egotism sufficiently developed, his manner formed on what he conceived the best model. All this was only absurd, I presume, because he was an usher; had he been a marquis, he would have shown forth as a "very charming person." His admiration of Ropsley was genuine, the latter's contempt for his adorer equally sincere, but better concealed. They sit puffing away at their cigars, watching the smoke wreathing up into the summer sky, and Manners coaxes his whiskers and looks admiringly at his friend. Ropsley's cigar is finished, and he dashes it down somewhat impatiently.

"What can have become of that little wretch?" says he, with a yawn and a stretch of his long, well-shaped limbs; "he's probably made some stupid mistake, and I shall have to lick him after all. Manners, what have you done with the old dog-whip we used to keep for the lower boys?"

"Safe in my desk," replies Manners, who, being a good-natured fellow, likes to keep that instrument of torture locked up; "but Egerton's a good little fellow; you mustn't be too hard upon him this time."

"I never could see the difference between a good fellow and a bad one," replies Ropsley. "If I want a thing done I choose the most likely person to do it; and if he fails it's his fault and not mine, and he must suffer for it. I've no prejudices, my good friend, and no feelings--they're only different words for the same thing; and, depend upon it, people get on much better without them. But come: let's walk down to the village, and look after him. I'll go and ask March if he wants anything 'down the road.'"

Luckily for me, my chastiser had not proceeded half a mile upon his way, ere he met the "King of Naples" in person, hot and breathless, flustered with drink and running, and more incoherent than usual in his conversation and demeanour. He approached Ropsley, who was the most magnificent of his patrons, with hat in hand, and somewhat the air of a dog that knows he has done wrong.

"What's up now, you old reprobate?" said the latter, in his most supercilious manner--a manner, I may observe, he adopted to all whom he could influence without conciliating, and which made the conciliation doubly winning to the favoured few--"What's up now? Drunk again, I suppose, as usual?"

"Not drunk, squire--not drunk, as I'm a livin' man," replied the poacher, sawing the air in deprecation with a villainously dirty hand; "hagitated, perhaps, and over-anxious about the young gentlemen--Oh! them lads, them lads!" and he leered at his patron as much as to hint that he had a precious story to tell, if it was only made worth his while.

"Come, no nonsense!" said Ropsley, sternly; "out with it. What's the matter? You've got De Rohan and Egerton into some scrape; I see it in your ugly old face. Tell me all about it this instant, or it will be worse for you."

"Doan't hurry a man so, squire; pray ye, now, doan't. I be only out o' breath, and the lads they be safe enough by this time; but I wanted for you to speak up for me to the master, squire. I bain't a morsel to blame. I went a-purpose to see as the young gents didn't get into no mischief; I did, indeed. I be an old man now, and it's a long walk for me at my years," whined the old rascal, who was over at the Manor three nights a week when he thought the keepers were out of the way. "And the dog, he was most to blame, arter all; but the keepers they've got the young gents safe, enough,--and that's all about it." So saying, he stood bolt upright, like a man who has fired his last shot, and is ready to abide the worst. Truth to tell, the "King of Naples" was horribly afraid of Ropsley.

The latter thought for a moment, put his hand in his pocket, and gave the poacher half-a-crown. "You hold your tongue," said he, "or you'll get into worse trouble than any of them. Now go home, and don't let me hear of your stirring out for twenty-four hours. Be off! Do you hear?"

Old "Nap" obeyed, and hobbled off to his cottage, there to spend the term of his enforced residence in his favourite occupation of drinking, whilst Ropsley walked rapidly on to the village, and directed his steps to that well-known inn, "The Greyhound," of which every boy at Everdon School was more or less a patron.

In ten minutes' time there was much ringing of bells and general confusion pervading that establishment; the curly-headed waiter (why do all waiters have curly hair?) rushed to and fro with a glass-cloth in his hand; the barmaid drooped her long ringlets over her own window-sill, within which she was to be seen at all hours of the day and night, like a pretty picture in its frame; the lame ostler stumped about with an activity foreign to his usual methodical nature, and a chaise and pair was ordered to be got ready immediately for Beverley Manor.

Richard the Third is said to have been born with all his double teeth sharp set, and in good masticatory order. It is my firm belief that Ropsley was also ushered into the world with his wisdom teeth in a state of maturity. He had, indeed, an old head upon young shoulders; and yet this lad was brought up and educated by his mother until he was sent to school. Perhaps he was launched into the world too early; perhaps his recollections of home were not vivid enough to soften his character or awaken his feelings. When I first knew him he had been an orphan for years; but I am bound to say that the only being of whom he spoke with reverence was his mother. I never heard him mention her name but twice, and each time a soft light stole over his countenance and altered the whole expression of his features, till I could hardly believe it was the same person. From home, when a very little boy, he was sent to Eton; and after a long process of hardening in that mimic world, was transferred to Everdon, more as a private pupil than a scholar. Here it was that I first knew him; and great as was my boyish admiration for the haughty, aristocratic youth just verging upon manhood, it is no wonder that I watched and studied his character with an intensity born of my own ardent disposition, the enthusiasm of which was all the stronger for having been so repressed and concealed in my strange and solitary childhood. Most children are hero-worshippers, and my hero for the time was Ropsley.

He was, I think, the only instance I can recollect of a mere boy proposing to himself a certain aim and end in life, and going steadily forward to its attainment without pause or deviation. I often think now, what is there that a man with ordinary faculties might not attain, would he but propose to himself at fourteen that position which he would wish to reach at forty? Show me the hill that six-and-twenty years of perseverance would fail to climb. But no; the boy never thinks of it at all--or if he does, he believes the man of forty to be verging on his grave, and too old to enjoy any of the pleasures of existence, should he have the means of indulging them. He will not think so when he has reached that venerable period; though, after all, age is a relative term, and too often totally irrespective of years. Many a heart is ruined and worn out long ere the form be bent or the head grown grey. But the boy thinks there is time enough; the youth grudges all that interferes with his pleasures; and the man only finds the value of energy and perseverance when it is too late to avail himself of them. Oh! opportunity!--opportunity!--phantom goddess of success, that not one in a million has decision to seize and make his own:--if hell be paved with good intentions, it might be roofed with lost opportunities.

Ropsley, however, was no morbid whiner over that which is irretrievable. He never lost a chance by his own carelessness; and if he failed, as all must often fail, he never looked back. Aide-toi, et Dieu t'aidera, is a motto that comprises in five words the noblest code of philosophy; the first part of the sentence Ropsley had certainly adopted for his guidance, and to do him justice, he never was remiss in any sense of the word in helping himself.

Poor, though of good family, his object was to attain a high position in the social world, power, wealth, and influence, especially the latter, but each and all as a means towards self-aggrandisement. The motive might not be amiable or noble, but it was better than none at all, and he followed it out most energetically. For this object he spared no pains, he feared no self-denial, he grudged no sacrifice. He was a scholar, and he meant to make the most of his scholarship, just as he made the most of his cricket-playing, his riding, his skill in all sports and exercises. He knew that his physical good looks and capabilities would be of service to him hereafter, and he cultivated them just as he stored and cultivated that intellect which he valued not for itself, but as a means to an end.

"If I had fifty thousand a year," I once heard him say to Manners, "I should take no trouble about anything. Depend upon it, the real thing to live for is enjoyment. But if I had only forty-five thousand I should work like a slave--it would not quite give me the position I require."

Such was Ropsley at this earliest period of our acquaintance.

"Drive to Beverley Manor," said he, as he made himself thoroughly comfortable amongst the cushions, let down all the windows, and settled himself to the perusal of the last daily paper.

Any other boy in the school would have gone in a gig.

CHAPTER X

BEVERLEY MANOR

Why does a country gentleman invariably select the worst room in the house for his own private apartment, in which he transacts what he is pleased to call his "business," and spends the greater part of his time? At Beverley Manor there were plenty of rooms, cheerful, airy, and well-proportioned, in which it would have been a pleasure to live, but none of these were chosen by Sir Harry for his own; disregarding the charms of the saloon, the drawing-room, the morning-room, the billiard-room, and the hall itself, which, with a huge fire-place and a thick carpet, was by no means the least comfortable part of the house,--he had retired to a small, ill-contrived, queer-shaped apartment, dark, dusty, and uncomfortable, of which the only recommendation was that it communicated directly with a back-staircase and offices, and did not require in its own untidiness any apology on the part of muddy visitors, who had not thought of wiping their boots and shoes as they came up. A large glass gun-case, filled with double-barrels, occupied one side of the room, flanked by book-shelves, loaded with such useful but not entertaining works as the Racing Calendar, White's Farriery, and Hawker's Instructions to Young Sportsmen. In one corner was a whip-stand, hung round with many an instrument of torture. The knotted dog-whip that reduced Ponto to reason in the golden stubbles; the long-thonged hunting-whip, that brought to mind at once the deep, fragrant woodland in November, with its scarlet coats flitting down the distant ride; and the straight, punishing "cut-and-thrust," that told of Derby and St. Leger, Ditch-In, Middle-Mile, and all the struggles of Epsom and Newmarket. In another was an instrument for measuring land, and a roll of plans by which acres were to be calculated and a system of thorough draining established, with a view to golden profits.

"Draining!" remarked Sir Harry, in his younger days, to an assemblage of country gentlemen, who stood aghast at the temerity of his proposition, "I am no advocate for draining:"--voices were raised, and hands uplifted in pious horror and deprecation--"all I can say is, gentlemen, that I have drained my property till I cannot get a farthing from it" was Sir Harry's conclusive reasoning, which must have satisfied Mr. Mechi himself.

A coloured engraving of the well-known Beverley shorthorn "Dandy" hung on one side of the fire-place, and on the other, a print of "Flying Childers," as he appeared when going at the rate of a mile in a minute, apparently ridden by a highwayman in huge jack-boots and a flowing periwig. In the centre of the room was fixed a large leather-covered writing-table, and at this table sat Sir Harry himself, prepared to administer justice and punish all offenders. He was a tall, thin man, somewhat bent, and bald, with a hooked nose, and a bright, searching eye, evidently a thorough man of the world in thought, opinion, and feeling; the artificial will become second nature if long enough persisted in, and Sir Harry had served no short apprenticeship to the trade of fashion. His dress was peculiarly neat and gentleman-like, not the least what is now termed "slang," and yet with a something in it that marked the horseman. He was busy writing when we were ushered into the awful presence, and Victor and I had time to steal a look at each other, and to exchange a reassuring pressure of the hand. The young Hungarian raised his head frank and fearless as usual; I felt that I should like to sink into the ground, but yet was determined to stand by my friend.

Mr. Barrells commenced a long oration, in which he was rapidly losing himself, when his master, whose attention was evidently occupied elsewhere, suddenly looked up, and cut him short with the pertinent inquiry--

"What's all this about, Barrells? and why are these lads here?"

"We are gentlemen, and not poachers;" and "Indeed, sir, it was Bold that got away!" exclaimed Victor and I simultaneously.

At this instant a card was brought in by the butler, and placed in Sir Harry's hand; he looked at it for a moment, and then said--

"Immediate! very well, show the gentleman in."

I thought I knew the step that came along the passage, but never was failing courage more grateful for assistance than was mine to recognise in Sir Harry's visitor the familiar person of my schoolfellow, Ropsley; I cared not a farthing for the promised licking now.

"I have to apologise for disturbing you, Sir Harry," said he, standing as composed and collected as if he were in our schoolroom at Everdon;--even in the anxiety of the moment I remember thinking, "What would I give to possess 'manner' such as his;"--"I have to apologise for my rudeness" (Sir Harry bowed, and said, "Not at all;" I wondered what he meant by that), "but I am sure you will excuse me when I tell you that I am a pupil of Mr. March's at Everdon" (Sir Harry looked at the tall, well-dressed figure before him, and seemed surprised), "and these two young friends of mine belong to the same establishment. I heard quite accidentally, only an hour ago, of the scrape they had got into, and I immediately hurried over here to assure you that they can have had no evil intentions in trespassing on your property, and to apologise for their thoughtlessness, partly out of respect to you, Sir Harry, and partly, I am bound to say, for the credit of the school. I am quite sure that neither Egerton nor De Rohan----"

Sir Harry started. "Egerton! De Rohan!" he exclaimed; "not the son of my old friend Philip Egerton, not young Count de Rohan?--really, Mr.----" (he looked at the card he held in his hand), "really, Mr. Ropsley, I am very much obliged to you for rectifying this extraordinary mistake;" but even whilst he was speaking, I had run round the table to where he sat, and seizing his hand--I remember how cold it felt between my own little hot, trembling ones--exclaimed--

"Oh! do you know my papa? then I am sure you will not punish us; only let us off this time, and give me back Bold, and we will promise never to come here again."

The Baronet was not a demonstrative person, nor had he much patience with those who were; he pushed me from him, I thought rather coldly, and addressed himself once more to Ropsley.

"Why, these boys are sons of two of the oldest friends I have in the world. I would not have had such a thing happen for a thousand pounds. I must apologise to you, young gentlemen, for the rudeness of my servants--Good heavens! ou were kept waiting in the hall: why on earth did you not give your names? Your father and I were at college together, Egerton; and as for you, Monsieur le Comte, had I known you were at Everdon, I would have made a point of going over to call upon you myself; but I have only just returned to the country, and that must be my excuse."

Victor bowed gracefully: notwithstanding his torn jacket and disordered collar, he looked "the young Count" all over, and so I am sure thought Sir Harry. Ropsley was perfectly gentlemanlike, but Victor was naturally high bred.

"Barrells, where are you going, Barrells?" resumed his master, for that discreet person, seeing the turn things were taking, was quietly leaving the room; "you always were the greatest fool that ever stood upon two legs: now let this be a warning to you--every vagabond in the county helps himself to my game whenever he pleases, and you never lay a finger on one of them; at last you insult and abuse two young gentlemen that any one but a born idiot could see were gentlemen, and bring them in here for poachers--poachers! as if you didn't know a poacher when you see one. Don't stand gaping there, you fool, but be off, and the other blockhead too. Hie! here; let the dog be attended to, and one of the watchers must lead him back to Everdon when he's well again. Now see to that, and never make such a stupid mistake again."

"May I go and see Bold, sir?" said I, summoning up courage as my late captors quitted the room.

"Quite right, my little man," replied the Baronet, "so you shall, this evening; but in the meantime, I hope you'll all stay and dine with me. I'll write to your master--what's his name?--and send you back in the carriage at night; what say you, Mr. Ropsley? I can give you a capital bottle of claret."

So here were we, who one short hour before had been making up our minds to endure with fortitude the worst that could happen,--who had expected to be driven with ignominy from Beverley, and handed over to condign punishment on our return to school, if indeed we were fortunate enough to escape committal and imprisonment in the County Gaol,--now installed as honoured guests in the very mansion which we had so long looked upon as a terra incognita of fairyland, free to visit the "hins-and-houts" of Beverley, with no thanks to the "King of Naples" for his assistance, and, in short, raised at one step from the abyss of schoolboy despair to the height of schoolboy gratification. Victor's delight was even greater than mine as we were shown into a pretty little dressing-room overlooking the garden, to wash our hands before dinner. He said it reminded him of home, and made him feel "like a gentleman" once more.

What a dinner that was to which we sat down in the stately old dining-room, served upon massive plate by a butler and two footmen, whose magnificence made me feel quite shy in my comparative insignificance. Ropsley of course seemed as much at home as if he was in the habit of dining there every day, and Victor munched away with an appetite that seemed to afford our good-natured host immense gratification. Soup and fish, entrées of every description, hashed venison, iced champagne--how grateful after our hot pursuit in the summer sun--and all the minor luxuries of silver forks, clean napkins, finger-glasses, etc., were indeed a contrast to the plain roast mutton and potatoes, the two-pronged fork, and washy table-beer of our Everdon bill-of-fare. What I liked, though, better than all the eatables and drinkables, was a picture opposite which I sat, and which riveted my attention so much as to attract the observation of Sir Harry himself.

"Ha! Egerton," said he, "you are your father all over, I see. Just like him, wild about painting. Now I'll bet my life you're finding fault with the colouring of that picture. The last time he was here he vowed, if I would let him, he would paint it all over again; and yet it's one of the best pictures in England at this moment. What do you think of it, my boy? Could you paint as good a one?"

"No, sir," I replied modestly, and rather annoyed at my reverie being interrupted; "my father tries to teach me, but--but I cannot learn to paint."

Sir Harry turned away, and Ropsley whispered something about "very odd"--"poor little fellow." The dessert had just been put on the table, and Victor was busy with his strawberries and cream. There must be some truth in magnetism, there must be something in the doctrine of attraction and repulsion: why do we like some people as we dislike others, without any shadow of a reason? Homoeopathists tell us that the nausea which contracts our features at the smell of a drug, is a provision of Nature to guard us against poison. Can it be that these antipathies are implanted in our being to warn us of those who shall hereafter prove our enemies? it is not a charitable theory nor a Christian-like, and yet in my experience of life I have found many instances in which it has borne a strange semblance of truth.

"Men feel by instinct swift as light

The presence of the foe,

Whom God has marked in after years

To strike the mortal blow.

The other, though his brand be sheathed,

At banquet or in hall,

Hath a forebodement of the time

When one or both must fall."

So sings "the minstrel" in his poem of Bothwell, but Bothwell was not written at the time of which I speak, and the only poetry I had ever heard to justify my antipathies was the homely quatrain of Dr. Fell. Still I felt somehow from that moment I hated Ropsley; it was absurd, it was ungrateful, it was ungentlemanlike, but it was undeniable.

So I buried myself in the contemplation of the picture, which possessed for me a strange fascination. The subject was Queen Dido transfixed on her funeral pyre, the very infandum regina to whose history I owed so many school-room sorrows. I began to think I should never hate Virgil again. The whole treatment of the picture was to the last degree unnatural, and the colouring, even to my inexperienced eye, faulty and overdone. Yet that face of mute sorrow and resignation spoke at once to the heart; the Queen lay gazing on the distant galleys which were bearing away her love, and curling their beaks and curvetting, so to speak, up-hill on a green sea, in a manner that must have made the task of Palinurus no easy one when he undertook to steer the same. Her limbs were disposed stiffly, but not ungracefully, on the fatal couch, and her white bosom was pierced by the deadly blade. Yet on her sweet, sad countenance the artist had depicted with wonderful skill the triumph of mental over bodily anguish; and though the features retained all woman's softness and woman's beauty, you read the breaking heart beneath. I could have looked at that picture for hours, I was lost in it even then, but the door opened, and whilst Ropsley got up with a flourish and his most respectful bow, in walked the young lady whom we had met under far different circumstances some three hours before in the shrubbery, and quietly took her place by the side of her papa.

As I looked from Queen Dido to Miss Constance I quite started; there was the very face as if it had walked out of the canvas. Younger, certainly, and with a more childish expression about the mouth, but the same queenly brow, the same sad, serious eyes, the same delicate features and oval shape; the fascination was gone from the picture now, and yet as I looked at the child--for child she was then--I experienced once more the old well-known pang of self-humiliation which so often poisoned my happiness; I felt so dull and awkward amongst these bright faces and polished manners, so ungainly and out of place where others were gay and at their ease. How I envied Victor's self-possession as he addressed the young lady with his pleasant, foreign accent, and a certain assurance that an English boy never acquires till he is verging on manhood. How willingly would I have exchanged places with any one of the party. How I longed to cast the outward slough of timidity and constraint, to appear as I felt myself in reality, an equal in mind and station and feelings to the rest. For the first time in my life, as I sat a mere child at that dinner-table, came the thrilling, maddening feeling to my heart--

"Oh! that something would happen, something dreadful, something unheard of, that should strip from each of us all extraneous and artificial advantages, that should give us all a fair start on equal terms--something that should try our courage or our fortitude, and enable me to prove myself what I really am."

It was the first spark of ambition that ever entered my boyish breast, but when once kindled, such sparks are never completely extinguished. Fortunate is it that opportunities are wanting to fan them into a flame, or we should ere long have the world in a blaze.

Miss Constance took very little notice of us beyond a cold allusion to the well-being of my dog, and it was not till Sir Harry bade her take charge of Victor and myself, and lead us out through the garden to visit our wounded favourite, that we had any conversation with this reserved young lady. Sir Harry rang for another bottle of claret, and composed himself for a good chat upon racing matters with Ropsley, who was as much at home with everything connected with the turf as if he spent his whole time at Newmarket. Ropsley had even then a peculiar knack of being "all things to all men," and pleaded guilty besides to a very strong penchant for horse-racing. This latter taste raised him considerably in Sir Harry's estimation, who, like the rest of mankind, took great pleasure in beckoning the young along that path of pleasure which had nearly led to his own ruin. Well, we are all children to the last; was there one whit more wisdom in the conversation of the Baronet and his guest as to the relative merits of certain three-year-olds and the weight they could carry, than in the simple questions and answers of us three children, walking soberly along the soft garden sward in the blushing sunset? At first we were very decorous: no brocaded courtier of Queen Anne, leading his partner out to dance a minuet, could have been more polite and respectful than Victor; no dame of high degree, in hoop and stomacher, more stately and reserved than Miss Constance. I said little, but watched the pair with a strange, uncomfortable fascination. Ere long, however, the ice began to thaw, questions as to Christian names, and ages, and respective birthdays, brought on increased confidence and more familiar conversation. Constance showed us her doves, and was delighted to find that we too understood thoroughly the management of these soft-eyed favourites; the visit to Bold was another strong link in our dawning friendship; the little girl was so gentle and so pitiful, so caressing to the poor dog, and so sympathising with its master, that I could not but respond to her kindness, and overcame my timidity sufficiently to thank her warmly for the interest she took in poor Bold. By the time we had all enjoyed in turn the delights of a certain swing, and played a game at battledore and shuttlecock in the echoing hall, we were becoming fast friends, and had succeeded in interesting our new acquaintance extremely in all the details of schoolboy life, and our own sufferings at Everdon. I remarked, however, that Constance took far less notice of me than of Victor; with him she seemed frank and merry and at her ease; with me, on the contrary, she retained much of her early reserve, and I could not help fancying, rather avoided my conversation than otherwise. Well, I was used to being thrown in the background, and it was pleasure enough for me to watch that grave, earnest countenance, and speculate on the superhuman beauty of Queen Dido, to which it bore so strange a resemblance.

It was getting too dark to continue our game. We had already lost the shuttlecock three times, and it was now hopelessly perched on the frame of an old picture in the hall; when the dining-room door opened, and Sir Harry came out, still conversing earnestly with his guest on the one engrossing topic.

"I am much obliged to you for the hint," said the Baronet. "It never struck me before; and if your information is really to be depended on, I shall certainly back him. Strange that I should not have heard of the trial."

"My man dare not deceive me, I assure you," answered Ropsley, his quiet, distinct tones contrasting with Sir Harry's, who was a little flushed and voluble after his claret. "He used to do odd jobs for me when I was in the sixth form at Eton, and I met him unexpectedly enough the other day in the High-street at Bath. He is a mason by trade, and is employed repairing Beckford's tower; by the way, he had heard of Vathek--I am not sure that he hasn't read it, so the fellow has some brains about him. Well, I knew he hadn't been hanging about Ascot all his life for nothing, so I described the colt to him, and bade him keep his eyes open when perched in mid-air these bright mornings, with such a command of Lansdowne. Why, he knew the horse as well as I did, and yesterday sent me a full account of the trial. I destroyed it immediately, of course, but I have it all here" (pointing to his forehead, where, indeed, Ropsley carried a curious miscellany of information). "He beat the mare at least fifty yards, and she was nearly that distance ahead of 'Slap-Jack,' so you may depend upon it he is a real flyer. I have backed him to win a large stake, at least, for a boy like me," added Ropsley, modestly; "and I do not mean to hedge a farthing of it."

Sir Harry was delighted; he had found a "young one," as he called it, after his own heart; he declared he would not wish him "good-bye"; he must come over again and see the yearlings; he must accompany him to the Bath races. If he was to leave Everdon at the end of the half-year, he must come and shoot in September; nay, they would go to Doncaster together; in short, Sir Harry was fascinated, and put us all into the carriage, which he had ordered expressly to take us back to Everdon, with many expressions of hospitality and good-will.

Bold was lifted on to the box, from whence he looked down with his tongue hanging out in a state of ludicrous helplessness and dismay. Miss Constance bade us a quiet "good-night" in tones so sweet that they rang in my ears half the way home, and so we drove off in state from the front door, as though we had not that very afternoon been brought in as culprits at the back.

Ropsley was unusually silent during the whole journey. He had established his footing at Beverley Manor, perhaps he was thinking how "to make the most of it."

CHAPTER XI

DULCE DOMUM

I must skip a few years; long years they were then to me; as I look back upon them now, they seem to have fleeted away like a dream. Victor and I are still at Everdon, but we are now the two senior boys in the school. De Rohan has grown into one of the handsomest youths you will often see. His blue eye is as clear and merry as ever, but the chestnut curls have turned dark and glossy, and the light, agile form is rapidly developing itself into a strong, symmetrical young man. He is still frank, gay, and unsophisticated; quick enough at his studies, but utterly without perseverance, and longing ardently for the time when he shall be free to embark upon a course of pleasure and dissipation. I am much altered too. With increasing growth and the assumption of the toga virilis, or that manly garment which schoolboys abruptly denominate "tails," I have acquired a certain degree of outward equanimity and self-command, but still suffer much from inward misgivings as to my own appearance and personal advantages. Hopelessly I consult the glass in our joint bed-room--the same glass that daily reflects Victor's handsome face and graceful figure--and am forced unwillingly to confess that it presents to me the image of a swarthy, coarse-featured lad, with sunken eyes and scowling eyebrows, sallow in complexion, with a wide, low forehead overhung by a profusion of bushy black hair; this unprepossessing countenance surmounting a short square figure, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and possessed of great physical strength. Yes, I was proud of my strength. I shall never forget the day when first I discovered that nature had gifted me with one personal advantage, that I, of all others, was disposed most to appreciate. A lever had been left in the playground, by which the workmen, who were repairing the wall, intended to lift the stem of the well-known tree which had formerly constituted what we called "The Club." We boys had come out of school whilst the men were gone to dinner. Manners, the muscular, was delighted with such an opportunity of displaying his prowess; how foolish he looked when he found himself incapable of moving the huge inert mass--he said it was impossible; two boys attempted it, then three, still the great trunk remained motionless. I asked leave to try, amidst the jeers of all, for I was usually so quiet and undemonstrative that no one believed Egerton had, in schoolboy parlance, either "pith or pluck" in him. I laid my weight to it and heaved "with a will"; the great block of timber vibrated, moved, and rolled along the sward. What a triumph it was, and how I prided myself on it. I, too, had my ideal of what I should like to be, although I would not have confessed it to a soul. I wished to be like some preux chevalier of the olden time; my childish longing to be loved had merged into an ardent desire to be admired; I would have been brave and courteous and chivalrous and strong. Yes, in all the characters of the olden time that I so loved to study, strength was described as one of the first attributes of a hero. Sir Tristram, Sir Launcelot, Sir Bevis, were all "strong," and my heart leapt to think that if the opportunity ever arrived, my personal strength might give me a chance of distinguishing myself, when the beautiful and the gallant were helpless and overcome. But there was another qualification of which in my secret soul I had hideous misgivings,--I doubted my own courage: I knew I was nervous and timid in the common every-day pursuits of a schoolboy's life; I could not venture on a strange horse without feeling my heart in my mouth; I did not dare stop a ball that was bowled swiftly in to my wicket, nor fire a gun without shutting both eyes before I ventured to pull the trigger. What if I should be a coward after all? A coward! the thoughts of it almost drove me mad; and yet how could I tell but that I was branded with that hideous curse? I longed, yet dreaded, to know the worst.

In my studies I was unusually backward for a boy of my age. Virgil, thanks to the picture of Dido, never to be forgotten, I had completely mastered; but mathematics, arithmetic--all that are termed the exact sciences--I appeared totally incapable of learning. Languages I picked up with extraordinary facility, and this alone redeemed me from the character of an irreclaimable dunce.

"You can learn, sir, if you will," was March's constant remark, after I had arrived at the exalted position of a senior boy, to whom flogging and such coercive measures were inappropriate, and for whom "out of bounds" was not. "You can learn, or else why do I see you poring over Arabic and Sanscrit during play-hours, when you had much better be at cricket? You must have brains somewhere, but to save my life I can't find them. You can speak half-a-dozen languages, as I am informed, nearly as well as I can speak Latin, and yet if I set you to do a 'Rule of Three' sum, you make more blunders than the lowest little dunce in the school! Egerton, I can't make you out."

It was breaking-up day at Everdon. Victor and I walked with our arms over each other's shoulders, up and down, up and down, in the old playground, and as we paced those well-worn flags, of which we knew every stone, my heart sank within me to think it was for the last, last time. What is there that we are not sorry to do for the last time? I had hated school as much as any schoolboy could; I had looked forward to my emancipation as the captive looks forward to the opening of his prison-door; and now the time was come, and I felt grieved and out of spirits to think that I should see the old place no more.

"You must write to me constantly, Vere," said Victor, with an affectionate hug, as we took our hundredth turn. "We must never forget each other, however far apart, and next winter you must come again to Edeldorf; I shall be there when the shooting begins. Oh, Vere, you will be very dull at home."

"No," I replied; "I like Alton Grange, and I like a quiet life. I am not of your way of thinking, Victor; you are never happy except in a bustle; I wish I were more like you;" and I sighed as I thought of the contrast between us.

I do not know what brought it to my mind, but I thought of Constance Beverley, and the first time we saw her when we were all children together at Beverley Manor. Since then our acquaintance had indeed progressed but little; we scarcely ever met except on certain Sundays, when we took advantage of our liberty as senior boys to go to church at Fleetsbury, where from the gallery we could see right into the Beverley pew, and mark the change time had wrought on our former playfellow. After service, at the door we might perhaps exchange a stiff greeting and a few words before she and her governess got into the carriage; and this transcendent pleasure we were content to purchase with a broiling walk of some five miles on a dusty high-road, and a patient endurance of the longest sermon from the worthy rector of Fleetsbury, an excellent man, skilled in casuistry, and gifted with extraordinary powers of discourse. Victor, I think, took these expeditions in his own good-natured way, and seemed to care but little whether he went or not. One hot Sunday, I recollect he suggested that we should dispense with afternoon church altogether, and go to bathe instead, a proposal I scouted with the utmost indignation, for I looked forward to our meetings with a passionate longing for which I could not account even to myself, and which I never for an instant dreamed of attributing to the charms of Miss Beverley. I know not now what tempted me to ask the question, but I felt myself becoming bright scarlet as I inquired of my school-fellow whether he had not other friends in Somersetshire besides myself whom he would regret leaving. His reply ought to have set my mind at ease, if I was disturbed at the suspicion of his entertaining any penchant for Miss Beverley, for he answered at once in his own off-hand way--"None whatever that I care a sixpence about, not even that prim little girl and her governess, whom you drag me five miles every Sunday to see. No, Vere, if I could take you with me, I should sing for joy the whole way from here to London. As it is, I shall not break my heart: I am so glad to get away from this dull, dreadful place."

Then he did not care for Miss Beverley, after all. Well, and what difference could that possibly make to me? Certainly, I was likely to see her pretty constantly in the next year or two, as our respective abodes would be but a short distance apart; but what of that? There could be nothing in common between the high-born, haughty young lady, and her awkward, repulsive neighbour. Yet I was glad, too, that Victor did not care for her. All my old affection for him came back with a gush, and I wrung his hand, and cried like a fool to think we were so soon to be parted, perhaps for years. The other boys were singing Dulce domum in the schoolroom, hands joined, dancing round and round, and stamping wildly with the chorus, like so many Bacchanals; they had no regrets, no misgivings; they were not going to leave for good. Even Manners looked forward to his temporary release with bright anticipations of amusement. He was to spend the vacation with a clerical cousin in Devonshire, the cousin of whom we all knew so much by report, and who, indeed, to judge by his relative's account, must have been an individual of extraordinary talents and attainments. The usher approached us with an expression of mingled pleasure and pain on his good-looking, vacant countenance. He had nearly finished packing his things, and was now knocking the dust out of those old green slippers I remembered when first I came to Everdon. He was a good-hearted fellow, and was sorry to lose his two old friends.