'What?' he cried.  'Have you been out alone?  How did you
manage?'

But Macfarlane silenced him roughly, bidding him turn to
business.  When they had got the body upstairs and laid it on
the table, Macfarlane made at first as if he were going away.
Then he paused and seemed to hesitate; and then, 'You had
better look at the face,' said he, in tones of some
constraint.  'You had better,' he repeated, as Fettes only
stared at him in wonder.

'But where, and how, and when did you come by it?' cried the
other.

'Look at the face,' was the only answer.

Fettes was staggered; strange doubts assailed him.  He looked
from the young doctor to the body, and then back again.  At
last, with a start, he did as he was bidden.  He had almost
expected the sight that met his eyes, and yet the shock was
cruel.  To see, fixed in the rigidity of death and naked on
that coarse layer of sackcloth, the man whom he had left well
clad and full of meat and sin upon the threshold of a tavern,
awoke, even in the thoughtless Fettes, some of the terrors of
the conscience.  It was a CRAS TIBI which re-echoed in his
soul, that two whom he had known should have come to lie upon
these icy tables.  Yet these were only secondary thoughts.
His first concern regarded Wolfe.  Unprepared for a challenge
so momentous, he knew not how to look his comrade in the
face.  He durst not meet his eye, and he had neither words
nor voice at his command.

It was Macfarlane himself who made the first advance.  He
came up quietly behind and laid his hand gently but firmly on
the other's shoulder.

'Richardson,' said he, 'may have the head.'

Now Richardson was a student who had long been anxious for
that portion of the human subject to dissect.  There was no
answer, and the murderer resumed: 'Talking of business, you
must pay me; your accounts, you see, must tally.'

Fettes found a voice, the ghost of his own: 'Pay you!' he
cried.  'Pay you for that?'

'Why, yes, of course you must.  By all means and on every
possible account, you must,' returned the other.  'I dare not
give it for nothing, you dare not take it for nothing; it
would compromise us both.  This is another case like Jane
Galbraith's.  The more things are wrong the more we must act
as if all were right.  Where does old K- keep his money?'

'There,' answered Fettes hoarsely, pointing to a cupboard in
the corner.

'Give me the key, then,' said the other, calmly, holding out
his hand.

There was an instant's hesitation, and the die was cast.
Macfarlane could not suppress a nervous twitch, the
infinitesimal mark of an immense relief, as he felt the key
between his fingers.  He opened the cupboard, brought out pen
and ink and a paper-book that stood in one compartment, and
separated from the funds in a drawer a sum suitable to the
occasion.

'Now, look here,' he said, 'there is the payment made - first
proof of your good faith: first step to your security.  You
have now to clinch it by a second.  Enter the payment in your
book, and then you for your part may defy the devil.'

The next few seconds were for Fettes an agony of thought; but
in balancing his terrors it was the most immediate that
triumphed.  Any future difficulty seemed almost welcome if he
could avoid a present quarrel with Macfarlane.  He set down
the candle which he had been carrying all this time, and with
a steady hand entered the date, the nature, and the amount of
the transaction.

'And now,' said Macfarlane, 'it's only fair that you should
pocket the lucre.  I've had my share already.  By the bye,
when a man of the world falls into a bit of luck, has a few
shillings extra in his pocket - I'm ashamed to speak of it,
but there's a rule of conduct in the case.  No treating, no
purchase of expensive class-books, no squaring of old debts;
borrow, don't lend.'

'Macfarlane,' began Fettes, still somewhat hoarsely, 'I have
put my neck in a halter to oblige you.'

'To oblige me?' cried Wolfe.  'Oh, come!  You did, as near as
I can see the matter, what you downright had to do in self-
defence.  Suppose I got into trouble, where would you be?
This second little matter flows clearly from the first.  Mr.
Gray is the continuation of Miss Galbraith.  You can't begin
and then stop.  If you begin, you must keep on beginning;
that's the truth.  No rest for the wicked.'

A horrible sense of blackness and the treachery of fate
seized hold upon the soul of the unhappy student.

'My God!' he cried, 'but what have I done? and when did I
begin?  To be made a class assistant - in the name of reason,
where's the harm in that?  Service wanted the position;
Service might have got it.  Would HE have been where I am
now?'

'My dear fellow,' said Macfarlane, 'what a boy you are!  What
harm HAS come to you?  What harm CAN come to you if you hold
your tongue?  Why, man, do you know what this life is?  There
are two squads of us - the lions and the lambs.  If you're a
lamb, you'll come to lie upon these tables like Gray or Jane
Galbraith; if you're a lion, you'll live and drive a horse
like me, like K-, like all the world with any wit or courage.
You're staggered at the first.  But look at K-!  My dear
fellow, you're clever, you have pluck.  I like you, and K-
likes you.  You were born to lead the hunt; and I tell you,
on my honour and my experience of life, three days from now
you'll laugh at all these scarecrows like a High School boy
at a farce.'

And with that Macfarlane took his departure and drove off up
the wynd in his gig to get under cover before daylight.
Fettes was thus left alone with his regrets.  He saw the
miserable peril in which he stood involved.  He saw, with
inexpressible dismay, that there was no limit to his
weakness, and that, from concession to concession, he had
fallen from the arbiter of Macfarlane's destiny to his paid
and helpless accomplice.  He would have given the world to
have been a little braver at the time, but it did not occur
to him that he might still be brave.  The secret of Jane
Galbraith and the cursed entry in the day-book closed his
mouth.

Hours passed; the class began to arrive; the members of the
unhappy Gray were dealt out to one and to another, and
received without remark.  Richardson was made happy with the
head; and before the hour of freedom rang Fettes trembled
with exultation to perceive how far they had already gone
toward safety.

For two days he continued to watch, with increasing joy, the
dreadful process of disguise.

On the third day Macfarlane made his appearance.  He had been
ill, he said; but he made up for lost time by the energy with
which he directed the students.  To Richardson in particular
he extended the most valuable assistance and advice, and that
student, encouraged by the praise of the demonstrator, burned
high with ambitious hopes, and saw the medal already in his
grasp.

Before the week was out Macfarlane's prophecy had been
fulfilled.  Fettes had outlived his terrors and had forgotten
his baseness.  He began to plume himself upon his courage,
and had so arranged the story in his mind that he could look
back on these events with an unhealthy pride.  Of his
accomplice he saw but little.  They met, of course, in the
business of the class; they received their orders together
from Mr. K-.  At times they had a word or two in private, and
Macfarlane was from first to last particularly kind and
jovial.  But it was plain that he avoided any reference to
their common secret; and even when Fettes whispered to him
that he had cast in his lot with the lions and foresworn the
lambs, he only signed to him smilingly to hold his peace.

At length an occasion arose which threw the pair once more
into a closer union.  Mr. K- was again short of subjects;
pupils were eager, and it was a part of this teacher's
pretensions to be always well supplied.  At the same time
there came the news of a burial in the rustic graveyard of
Glencorse.  Time has little changed the place in question.
It stood then, as now, upon a cross road, out of call of
human habitations, and buried fathom deep in the foliage of
six cedar trees.  The cries of the sheep upon the
neighbouring hills, the streamlets upon either hand, one
loudly singing among pebbles, the other dripping furtively
from pond to pond, the stir of the wind in mountainous old
flowering chestnuts, and once in seven days the voice of the
bell and the old tunes of the precentor, were the only sounds
that disturbed the silence around the rural church.  The
Resurrection Man - to use a byname of the period - was not to
be deterred by any of the sanctities of customary piety.  It
was part of his trade to despise and desecrate the scrolls
and trumpets of old tombs, the paths worn by the feet of
worshippers and mourners, and the offerings and the
inscriptions of bereaved affection.  To rustic
neighbourhoods, where love is more than commonly tenacious,
and where some bonds of blood or fellowship unite the entire
society of a parish, the body-snatcher, far from being
repelled by natural respect, was attracted by the ease and
safety of the task.  To bodies that had been laid in earth,
in joyful expectation of a far different awakening, there
came that hasty, lamp-lit, terror-haunted resurrection of the
spade and mattock.  The coffin was forced, the cerements
torn, and the melancholy relics, clad in sackcloth, after
being rattled for hours on moonless byways, were at length
exposed to uttermost indignities before a class of gaping
boys.

Somewhat as two vultures may swoop upon a dying lamb, Fettes
and Macfarlane were to be let loose upon a grave in that
green and quiet resting-place.  The wife of a farmer, a woman
who had lived for sixty years, and been known for nothing but
good butter and a godly conversation, was to be rooted from
her grave at midnight and carried, dead and naked, to that
far-away city that she had always honoured with her Sunday's
best; the place beside her family was to be empty till the
crack of doom; her innocent and almost venerable members to
be exposed to that last curiosity of the anatomist.

Late one afternoon the pair set forth, well wrapped in cloaks
and furnished with a formidable bottle.  It rained without
remission - a cold, dense, lashing rain.  Now and again there
blew a puff of wind, but these sheets of falling water kept
it down.  Bottle and all, it was a sad and silent drive as
far as Penicuik, where they were to spend the evening.  They
stopped once, to hide their implements in a thick bush not
far from the churchyard, and once again at the Fisher's
Tryst, to have a toast before the kitchen fire and vary their
nips of whisky with a glass of ale.  When they reached their
journey's end the gig was housed, the horse was fed and
comforted, and the two young doctors in a private room sat
down to the best dinner and the best wine the house afforded.
The lights, the fire, the beating rain upon the window, the
cold, incongruous work that lay before them, added zest to
their enjoyment of the meal.  With every glass their
cordiality increased.  Soon Macfarlane handed a little pile
of gold to his companion.

'A compliment,' he said.  'Between friends these little d-d
accommodations ought to fly like pipe-lights.'

Fettes pocketed the money, and applauded the sentiment to the
echo.  'You are a philosopher,' he cried.  'I was an ass till
I knew you.  You and K- between you, by the Lord Harry! but
you'll make a man of me.'

'Of course we shall,' applauded Macfarlane.  'A man?  I tell
you, it required a man to back me up the other morning.
There are some big, brawling, forty-year-old cowards who
would have turned sick at the look of the d-d thing; but not
you - you kept your head.  I watched you.'

'Well, and why not?' Fettes thus vaunted himself.  'It was no
affair of mine.  There was nothing to gain on the one side
but disturbance, and on the other I could count on your
gratitude, don't you see?'  And he slapped his pocket till
the gold pieces rang.

Macfarlane somehow felt a certain touch of alarm at these
unpleasant words.  He may have regretted that he had taught
his young companion so successfully, but he had no time to
interfere, for the other noisily continued in this boastful
strain:-

'The great thing is not to be afraid.  Now, between you and
me, I don't want to hang - that's practical; but for all
cant, Macfarlane, I was born with a contempt.  Hell, God,
Devil, right, wrong, sin, crime, and all the old gallery of
curiosities - they may frighten boys, but men of the world,
like you and me, despise them.  Here's to the memory of
Gray!'

It was by this time growing somewhat late.  The gig,
according to order, was brought round to the door with both
lamps brightly shining, and the young men had to pay their
bill and take the road.  They announced that they were bound
for Peebles, and drove in that direction till they were clear
of the last houses of the town; then, extinguishing the
lamps, returned upon their course, and followed a by-road
toward Glencorse.  There was no sound but that of their own
passage, and the incessant, strident pouring of the rain.  It
was pitch dark; here and there a white gate or a white stone
in the wall guided them for a short space across the night;
but for the most part it was at a foot pace, and almost
groping, that they picked their way through that resonant
blackness to their solemn and isolated destination.  In the
sunken woods that traverse the neighbourhood of the burying-
ground the last glimmer failed them, and it became necessary
to kindle a match and re-illumine one of the lanterns of the
gig.  Thus, under the dripping trees, and environed by huge
and moving shadows, they reached the scene of their
unhallowed labours.

They were both experienced in such affairs, and powerful with
the spade; and they had scarce been twenty minutes at their
task before they were rewarded by a dull rattle on the coffin
lid.  At the same moment Macfarlane, having hurt his hand
upon a stone, flung it carelessly above his head.  The grave,
in which they now stood almost to the shoulders, was close to
the edge of the plateau of the graveyard; and the gig lamp
had been propped, the better to illuminate their labours,
against a tree, and on the immediate verge of the steep bank
descending to the stream.  Chance had taken a sure aim with
the stone.  Then came a clang of broken glass; night fell
upon them; sounds alternately dull and ringing announced the
bounding of the lantern down the bank, and its occasional
collision with the trees.  A stone or two, which it had
dislodged in its descent, rattled behind it into the
profundities of the glen; and then silence, like night,
resumed its sway; and they might bend their hearing to its
utmost pitch, but naught was to be heard except the rain, now
marching to the wind, now steadily falling over miles of open
country.

They were so nearly at an end of their abhorred task that
they judged it wisest to complete it in the dark.  The coffin
was exhumed and broken open; the body inserted in the
dripping sack and carried between them to the gig; one
mounted to keep it in its place, and the other, taking the
horse by the mouth, groped along by wall and bush until they
reached the wider road by the Fisher's Tryst.  Here was a
faint, diffused radiancy, which they hailed like daylight; by
that they pushed the horse to a good pace and began to rattle
along merrily in the direction of the town.

They had both been wetted to the skin during their
operations, and now, as the gig jumped among the deep ruts,
the thing that stood propped between them fell now upon one
and now upon the other.  At every repetition of the horrid
contact each instinctively repelled it with the greater
haste; and the process, natural although it was, began to
tell upon the nerves of the companions.  Macfarlane made some
ill-favoured jest about the farmer's wife, but it came
hollowly from his lips, and was allowed to drop in silence.
Still their unnatural burden bumped from side to side; and
now the head would be laid, as if in confidence, upon their
shoulders, and now the drenching sack-cloth would flap icily
about their faces.  A creeping chill began to possess the
soul of Fettes.  He peered at the bundle, and it seemed
somehow larger than at first.  All over the country-side, and
from every degree of distance, the farm dogs accompanied
their passage with tragic ululations; and it grew and grew
upon his mind that some unnatural miracle had been
accomplished, that some nameless change had befallen the dead
body, and that it was in fear of their unholy burden that the
dogs were howling.

'For God's sake,' said he, making a great effort to arrive at
speech, 'for God's sake, let's have a light!'

Seemingly Macfarlane was affected in the same direction; for,
though he made no reply, he stopped the horse, passed the
reins to his companion, got down, and proceeded to kindle the
remaining lamp.  They had by that time got no farther than
the cross-road down to Auchenclinny.  The rain still poured
as though the deluge were returning, and it was no easy
matter to make a light in such a world of wet and darkness.
When at last the flickering blue flame had been transferred
to the wick and began to expand and clarify, and shed a wide
circle of misty brightness round the gig, it became possible
for the two young men to see each other and the thing they
had along with them.  The rain had moulded the rough sacking
to the outlines of the body underneath; the head was distinct
from the trunk, the shoulders plainly modelled; something at
once spectral and human riveted their eyes upon the ghastly
comrade of their drive.

For some time Macfarlane stood motionless, holding up the
lamp.  A nameless dread was swathed, like a wet sheet, about
the body, and tightened the white skin upon the face of
Fettes; a fear that was meaningless, a horror of what could
not be, kept mounting to his brain.  Another beat of the
watch, and he had spoken.  But his comrade forestalled him.

'That is not a woman,' said Macfarlane, in a hushed voice.

'It was a woman when we put her in,' whispered Fettes.

'Hold that lamp,' said the other.  'I must see her face.'

And as Fettes took the lamp his companion untied the
fastenings of the sack and drew down the cover from the head.
The light fell very clear upon the dark, well-moulded
features and smooth-shaven cheeks of a too familiar
countenance, often beheld in dreams of both of these young
men.  A wild yell rang up into the night; each leaped from
his own side into the roadway: the lamp fell, broke, and was
extinguished; and the horse, terrified by this unusual
commotion, bounded and went off toward Edinburgh at a gallop,
bearing along with it, sole occupant of the gig, the body of
the dead and long-dissected Gray.



THE STORY OF A LIE



CHAPTER I - INTRODUCES THE ADMIRAL



WHEN Dick Naseby was in Paris he made some odd acquaintances;
for he was one of those who have ears to hear, and can use
their eyes no less than their intelligence.  He made as many
thoughts as Stuart Mill; but his philosophy concerned flesh
and blood, and was experimental as to its method.  He was a
type-hunter among mankind.  He despised small game and
insignificant personalities, whether in the shape of dukes or
bagmen, letting them go by like sea-weed; but show him a
refined or powerful face, let him hear a plangent or a
penetrating voice, fish for him with a living look in some
one's eye, a passionate gesture, a meaning and ambiguous
smile, and his mind was instantaneously awakened.  'There was
a man, there was a woman,' he seemed to say, and he stood up
to the task of comprehension with the delight of an artist in
his art.

And indeed, rightly considered, this interest of his was an
artistic interest.  There is no science in the personal study
of human nature.  All comprehension is creation; the woman I
love is somewhat of my handiwork; and the great lover, like
the great painter, is he that can so embellish his subject as
to make her more than human, whilst yet by a cunning art he
has so based his apotheosis on the nature of the case that
the woman can go on being a true woman, and give her
character free play, and show littleness, or cherish spite,
or be greedy of common pleasures, and he continue to worship
without a thought of incongruity.  To love a character is
only the heroic way of understanding it.  When we love, by
some noble method of our own or some nobility of mien or
nature in the other, we apprehend the loved one by what is
noblest in ourselves.  When we are merely studying an
eccentricity, the method of our study is but a series of
allowances.  To begin to understand is to begin to
sympathise; for comprehension comes only when we have stated
another's faults and virtues in terms of our own.  Hence the
proverbial toleration of artists for their own evil
creations.  Hence, too, it came about that Dick Naseby, a
high-minded creature, and as scrupulous and brave a gentleman
as you would want to meet, held in a sort of affection the
various human creeping things whom he had met and studied.

One of these was Mr. Peter Van Tromp, an English-speaking,
two-legged animal of the international genus, and by
profession of general and more than equivocal utility.  Years
before he had been a painter of some standing in a colony,
and portraits signed 'Van Tromp' had celebrated the greatness
of colonial governors and judges.  In those days he had been
married, and driven his wife and infant daughter in a pony
trap.  What were the steps of his declension?  No one exactly
knew.  Here he was at least, and had been any time these past
ten years, a sort of dismal parasite upon the foreigner in
Paris.

It would be hazardous to specify his exact industry.
Coarsely followed, it would have merited a name grown
somewhat unfamiliar to our ears.  Followed as he followed it,
with a skilful reticence, in a kind of social chiaroscuro, it
was still possible for the polite to call him a professional
painter.  His lair was in the Grand Hotel and the gaudiest
cafes.  There he might be seen jotting off a sketch with an
air of some inspiration; and he was always affable, and one
of the easiest of men to fall in talk withal.  A conversation
usually ripened into a peculiar sort of intimacy, and it was
extraordinary how many little services Van Tromp contrived to
render in the course of six-and-thirty hours.  He occupied a
position between a friend and a courier, which made him worse
than embarrassing to repay.  But those whom he obliged could
always buy one of his villainous little pictures, or, where
the favours had been prolonged and more than usually
delicate, might order and pay for a large canvas, with
perfect certainty that they would hear no more of the
transaction.

Among resident artists he enjoyed celebrity of a non-
professional sort.  He had spent more money - no less than
three individual fortunes, it was whispered - than any of his
associates could ever hope to gain.  Apart from his colonial
career, he had been to Greece in a brigantine with four brass
carronades; he had travelled Europe in a chaise and four,
drawing bridle at the palace-doors of German princes; queens
of song and dance had followed him like sheep and paid his
tailor's bills.  And to behold him now, seeking small loans
with plaintive condescension, sponging for breakfast on an
art-student of nineteen, a fallen Don Juan who had neglected
to die at the propitious hour, had a colour of romance for
young imaginations.  His name and his bright past, seen
through the prism of whispered gossip, had gained him the
nickname of THE ADMIRAL.

Dick found him one day at the receipt of custom, rapidly
painting a pair of hens and a cock in a little water-colour
sketching box, and now and then glancing at the ceiling like
a man who should seek inspiration from the muse.  Dick
thought it remarkable that a painter should choose to work
over an absinthe in a public cafe, and looked the man over.
The aged rakishness of his appearance was set off by a
youthful costume; he had disreputable grey hair and a
disreputable sore, red nose; but the coat and the gesture,
the outworks of the man, were still designed for show.  Dick
came up to his table and inquired if he might look at what
the gentleman was doing.  No one was so delighted as the
Admiral.

'A bit of a thing,' said he.  'I just dash them off like
that.  I - I dash them off,' he added with a gesture.

'Quite so,' said Dick, who was appalled by the feebleness of
the production.

'Understand me,' continued Van Tromp; 'I am a man of the
world.  And yet - once an artist always an artist.  All of a
sudden a thought takes me in the street; I become its prey:
it's like a pretty woman; no use to struggle; I must - dash
it off.'

'I see,' said Dick.

'Yes,' pursued the painter; 'it all comes easily, easily to
me; it is not my business; it's a pleasure.  Life is my
business - life - this great city, Paris - Paris after dark -
its lights, its gardens, its odd corners.  Aha!' he cried,
'to be young again!  The heart is young, but the heels are
leaden.  A poor, mean business, to grow old!  Nothing remains
but the COUP D'OEIL, the contemplative man's enjoyment, Mr. -
,' and he paused for the name.

'Naseby,' returned Dick.

The other treated him at once to an exciting beverage, and
expatiated on the pleasure of meeting a compatriot in a
foreign land; to hear him, you would have thought they had
encountered in Central Africa.  Dick had never found any one
take a fancy to him so readily, nor show it in an easier or
less offensive manner.  He seemed tickled with him as an
elderly fellow about town might be tickled by a pleasant and
witty lad; he indicated that he was no precision, but in his
wildest times had never been such a blade as he thought Dick.
Dick protested, but in vain.  This manner of carrying an
intimacy at the bayonet's point was Van Tromp's stock-in-
trade.  With an older man he insinuated himself; with youth
he imposed himself, and in the same breath imposed an ideal
on his victim, who saw that he must work up to it or lose the
esteem of this old and vicious patron.  And what young man
can bear to lose a character for vice?

At last, as it grew towards dinner-time, 'Do you know Paris?'
asked Van Tromp.

'Not so well as you, I am convinced,' said Dick.

'And so am I,' returned Van Tromp gaily.  'Paris!  My young
friend - you will allow me? - when you know Paris as I do,
you will have seen Strange Things.  I say no more; all I say
is, Strange Things.  We are men of the world, you and I, and
in Paris, in the heart of civilised existence.  This is an
opportunity, Mr. Naseby.  Let us dine.  Let me show you where
to dine.'

Dick consented.  On the way to dinner the Admiral showed him
where to buy gloves, and made him buy them; where to buy
cigars, and made him buy a vast store, some of which he
obligingly accepted.  At the restaurant he showed him what to
order, with surprising consequences in the bill.  What he
made that night by his percentages it would be hard to
estimate.  And all the while Dick smilingly consented,
understanding well that he was being done, but taking his
losses in the pursuit of character as a hunter sacrifices his
dogs.  As for the Strange Things, the reader will be relieved
to hear that they were no stranger than might have been
expected, and he may find things quite as strange without the
expense of a Van Tromp for guide.  Yet he was a guide of no
mean order, who made up for the poverty of what he had to
show by a copious, imaginative commentary.

'And such,' said he, with a hiccup, 'such is Paris.'

'Pooh!' said Dick, who was tired of the performance.

The Admiral hung an ear, and looked up sidelong with a
glimmer of suspicion.

'Good night,' said Dick; 'I'm tired.'

'So English!' cried Van Tromp, clutching him by the hand.
'So English!  So BLASE!  Such a charming companion!  Let me
see you home.'

'Look here,' returned Dick, 'I have said good night, and now
I'm going.  You're an amusing old boy: I like you, in a
sense; but here's an end of it for to-night.  Not another
cigar, not another grog, not another percentage out of me.'

'I beg your pardon!' cried the Admiral with dignity.

'Tut, man!' said Dick; 'you're not offended; you're a man of
the world, I thought.  I've been studying you, and it's over.
Have I not paid for the lesson?  AU REVOIR.'

Van Tromp laughed gaily, shook hands up to the elbows, hoped
cordially they would meet again and that often, but looked
after Dick as he departed with a tremor of indignation.
After that they two not unfrequently fell in each other's
way, and Dick would often treat the old boy to breakfast on a
moderate scale and in a restaurant of his own selection.
Often, too, he would lend Van Tromp the matter of a pound, in
view of that gentleman's contemplated departure for
Australia; there would be a scene of farewell almost touching
in character, and a week or a month later they would meet on
the same boulevard without surprise or embarrassment.  And in
the meantime Dick learned more about his acquaintance on all
sides: heard of his yacht, his chaise and four, his brief
season of celebrity amid a more confiding population, his
daughter, of whom he loved to whimper in his cups, his
sponging, parasitical, nameless way of life; and with each
new detail something that was not merely interest nor yet
altogether affection grew up in his mind towards this
disreputable stepson of the arts.  Ere he left Paris Van
Tromp was one of those whom he entertained to a farewell
supper; and the old gentleman made the speech of the evening,
and then fell below the table, weeping, smiling, paralysed.



CHAPTER II - A LETTER TO THE PAPERS



OLD Mr. Naseby had the sturdy, untutored nature of the upper
middle class.  The universe seemed plain to him.  'The
thing's right,' he would say, or 'the thing's wrong'; and
there was an end of it.  There was a contained, prophetic
energy in his utterances, even on the slightest affairs; he
SAW the damned thing; if you did not, it must be from
perversity of will; and this sent the blood to his head.
Apart from this, which made him an exacting companion, he was
one of the most upright, hot-tempered, hot-headed old
gentlemen in England.  Florid, with white hair, the face of
an old Jupiter, and the figure of an old fox-hunter, he
enlivened the vale of Thyme from end to end on his big,
cantering chestnut.

He had a hearty respect for Dick as a lad of parts.  Dick had
a respect for his father as the best of men, tempered by the
politic revolt of a youth who has to see to his own
independence.  Whenever the pair argued, they came to an open
rupture; and arguments were frequent, for they were both
positive, and both loved the work of the intelligence.  It
was a treat to hear Mr. Naseby defending the Church of
England in a volley of oaths, or supporting ascetic morals
with an enthusiasm not entirely innocent of port wine.  Dick
used to wax indignant, and none the less so because, as his
father was a skilful disputant, he found himself not seldom
in the wrong.  On these occasions, he would redouble in
energy, and declare that black was white, and blue yellow,
with much conviction and heat of manner; but in the morning
such a licence of debate weighed upon him like a crime, and
he would seek out his father, where he walked before
breakfast on a terrace overlooking all the vale of Thyme.

'I have to apologise, sir, for last night - ' he would begin.

'Of course you have,' the old gentleman would cut in
cheerfully.  'You spoke like a fool.  Say no more about it.'

'You do not understand me, sir.  I refer to a particular
point.  I confess there is much force in your argument from
the doctrine of possibilities.'

'Of course there is,' returned his father.  'Come down and
look at the stables.  Only,' he would add, 'bear this in
mind, and do remember that a man of my age and experience
knows more about what he is saying than a raw boy.'

He would utter the word 'boy' even more offensively than the
average of fathers, and the light way in which he accepted
these apologies cut Richard to the heart.  The latter drew
slighting comparisons, and remembered that he was the only
one who ever apologised.  This gave him a high station in his
own esteem, and thus contributed indirectly to his better
behaviour; for he was scrupulous as well as high-spirited,
and prided himself on nothing more than on a just submission.

So things went on until the famous occasion when Mr. Naseby,
becoming engrossed in securing the election of a sound party
candidate to Parliament, wrote a flaming letter to the
papers.  The letter had about every demerit of party letters
in general; it was expressed with the energy of a believer;
it was personal; it was a little more than half unfair, and
about a quarter untrue.  The old man did not mean to say what
was untrue, you may be sure; but he had rashly picked up
gossip, as his prejudice suggested, and now rashly launched
it on the public with the sanction of his name.

'The Liberal candidate,' he concluded, 'is thus a public
turncoat.  Is that the sort of man we want?  He has been
given the lie, and has swallowed the insult.  Is that the
sort of man we want?  I answer No!  With all the force of my
conviction, I answer, NO!'

And then he signed and dated the letter with an amateur's
pride, and looked to be famous by the morrow.

Dick, who had heard nothing of the matter, was up first on
that inauspicious day, and took the journal to an arbour in
the garden.  He found his father's manifesto in one column;
and in another a leading article.  'No one that we are aware
of,' ran the article, 'had consulted Mr. Naseby on the
subject, but if he had been appealed to by the whole body of
electors, his letter would be none the less ungenerous and
unjust to Mr. Dalton.  We do not choose to give the lie to
Mr. Naseby, for we are too well aware of the consequences;
but we shall venture instead to print the facts of both cases
referred to by this red-hot partisan in another portion of
our issue.  Mr. Naseby is of course a large proprietor in our
neighbourhood; but fidelity to facts, decent feeling, and
English grammar, are all of them qualities more important
than the possession of land.  Mr. - is doubtless a great man;
in his large gardens and that half-mile of greenhouses, where
he has probably ripened his intellect and temper, he may say
what he will to his hired vassals, but (as the Scotch say) -


here
He mauna think to domineer.


'Liberalism,' continued the anonymous journalist, 'is of too
free and sound a growth,' etc.

Richard Naseby read the whole thing from beginning to end;
and a crushing shame fell upon his spirit.  His father had
played the fool; he had gone out noisily to war, and come
back with confusion.  The moment that his trumpets sounded,
he had been disgracefully unhorsed.  There was no question as
to the facts; they were one and all against the Squire.
Richard would have given his ears to have suppressed the
issue; but as that could not be done, he had his horse
saddled, and furnishing himself with a convenient staff, rode
off at once to Thymebury.

The editor was at breakfast in a large, sad apartment.  The
absence of furniture, the extreme meanness of the meal, and
the haggard, bright-eyed, consumptive look of the culprit,
unmanned our hero; but he clung to his stick, and was stout
and warlike.

'You wrote the article in this morning's paper?' he demanded.

'You are young Mr. Naseby?  I PUBLISHED it,' replied the
editor, rising.

'My father is an old man,' said Richard; and then with an
outburst, 'And a damned sight finer fellow than either you or
Dalton!'  He stopped and swallowed; he was determined that
all should go with regularity.  'I have but one question to
put to you, sir,' he resumed.  'Granted that my father was
misinformed, would it not have been more decent to withhold
the letter and communicate with him in private?'

'Believe me,' returned the editor, 'that alternative was not
open to me.  Mr. Naseby told me in a note that he had sent
his letter to three other journals, and in fact threatened me
with what he called exposure if I kept it back from mine.  I
am really concerned at what has happened; I sympathise and
approve of your emotion, young gentleman; but the attack on
Mr. Dalton was gross, very gross, and I had no choice but to
offer him my columns to reply.  Party has its duties, sir,'
added the scribe, kindling, as one who should propose a
sentiment; 'and the attack was gross.'

Richard stood for half a minute digesting the answer; and
then the god of fair play came upper-most in his heart, and
murmuring 'Good morning,' he made his escape into the street.

His horse was not hurried on the way home, and he was late
for breakfast.  The Squire was standing with his back to the
fire in a state bordering on apoplexy, his fingers violently
knitted under his coat tails.  As Richard came in, he opened
and shut his mouth like a cod-fish, and his eyes protruded.

'Have you seen that, sir?' he cried, nodding towards the
paper.

'Yes, sir,' said Richard.

'Oh, you've read it, have you?'

'Yes, I have read it,' replied Richard, looking at his foot.

'Well,' demanded the old gentleman, 'and what have you to say
to it, sir?'

'You seem to have been misinformed,' said Dick.

'Well?  What then?  Is your mind so sterile, sir?  Have you
not a word of comment? no proposal?'

'I fear, sir, you must apologise to Mr. Dalton.  It would be
more handsome, indeed it would be only just, and a free
acknowledgment would go far - '  Richard paused, no language
appearing delicate enough to suit the case.

'That is a suggestion which should have come from me, sir,'
roared the father.  'It is out of place upon your lips.  It
is not the thought of a loyal son.  Why, sir, if my father
had been plunged in such deplorable circumstances, I should
have thrashed the editor of that vile sheet within an inch of
his life.  I should have thrashed the man, sir.  It would
have been the action of an ass; but it would have shown that
I had the blood and the natural affections of a man.  Son?
You are no son, no son of mine, sir!'

'Sir!' said Dick.

'I'll tell you what you are, sir,' pursued the Squire.
'You're a Benthamite.  I disown you.  Your mother would have
died for shame; there was no modern cant about your mother;
she thought - she said to me, sir - I'm glad she's in her
grave, Dick Naseby.  Misinformed!  Misinformed, sir?  Have
you no loyalty, no spring, no natural affections?  Are you
clockwork, hey?  Away!  This is no place for you.  Away!'
(waving his hands in the air).  'Go away!  Leave me!'

At this moment Dick beat a retreat in a disarray of nerves, a
whistling and clamour of his own arteries, and in short in
such a final bodily disorder as made him alike incapable of
speech or hearing.  And in the midst of all this turmoil, a
sense of unpardonable injustice remained graven in his
memory.




CHAPTER III - IN THE ADMIRAL'S NAME



THERE was no return to the subject.  Dick and his father were
henceforth on terms of coldness.  The upright old gentleman
grew more upright when he met his son, buckrammed with
immortal anger; he asked after Dick's health, and discussed
the weather and the crops with an appalling courtesy; his
pronunciation was POINT-DE-VICE, his voice was distant,
distinct, and sometimes almost trembling with suppressed
indignation.

As for Dick, it seemed to him as if his life had come
abruptly to an end.  He came out of his theories and
clevernesses; his premature man-of-the-worldness, on which he
had prided himself on his travels, 'shrank like a thing
ashamed' before this real sorrow.  Pride, wounded honour,
pity and respect tussled together daily in his heart; and now
he was within an ace of throwing himself upon his father's
mercy, and now of slipping forth at night and coming back no
more to Naseby House.  He suffered from the sight of his
father, nay, even from the neighbourhood of this familiar
valley, where every corner had its legend, and he was
besieged with memories of childhood.  If he fled into a new
land, and among none but strangers, he might escape his
destiny, who knew? and begin again light-heartedly.  From
that chief peak of the hills, that now and then, like an
uplifted finger, shone in an arrow of sunlight through the
broken clouds, the shepherd in clear weather might perceive
the shining of the sea.  There, he thought, was hope.  But
his heart failed him when he saw the Squire; and he remained.
His fate was not that of the voyager by sea and land; he was
to travel in the spirit, and begin his journey sooner than he
supposed.

For it chanced one day that his walk led him into a portion
of the uplands which was almost unknown to him.  Scrambling
through some rough woods, he came out upon a moorland
reaching towards the hills.  A few lofty Scotch firs grew
hard by upon a knoll; a clear fountain near the foot of the
knoll sent up a miniature streamlet which meandered in the
heather.  A shower had just skimmed by, but now the sun shone
brightly, and the air smelt of the pines and the grass.  On a
stone under the trees sat a young lady sketching.  We have
learned to think of women in a sort of symbolic
transfiguration, based on clothes; and one of the readiest
ways in which we conceive our mistress is as a composite
thing, principally petticoats.  But humanity has triumphed
over clothes; the look, the touch of a dress has become
alive; and the woman who stitched herself into these material
integuments has now permeated right through and gone out to
the tip of her skirt.  It was only a black dress that caught
Dick Naseby's eye; but it took possession of his mind, and
all other thoughts departed.  He drew near, and the girl
turned round.  Her face startled him; it was a face he
wanted; and he took it in at once like breathing air.

'I beg your pardon,' he said, taking off his hat, 'you are
sketching.'

'Oh!' she exclaimed, 'for my own amusement.  I despise the
thing.'

'Ten to one, you do yourself injustice,' returned Dick.
'Besides, it's a freemasonry.  I sketch myself, and you know
what that implies.'

'No.  What?' she asked.

'Two things,' he answered.  'First, that I am no very
difficult critic; and second, that I have a right to see your
picture.'

She covered the block with both her hands.  'Oh no,' she
said; 'I am ashamed.'

'Indeed, I might give you a hint,' said Dick.  'Although no
artist myself, I have known many; in Paris I had many for
friends, and used to prowl among studios.'

'In Paris?' she cried, with a leap of light into her eyes.
'Did you ever meet Mr. Van Tromp?'

'I?  Yes.  Why, you're not the Admiral's daughter, are you?'

'The Admiral?  Do they call him that?' she cried.  'Oh, how
nice, how nice of them!  It is the younger men who call him
so, is it not?'

'Yes,' said Dick, somewhat heavily.

'You can understand now,' she said, with an unspeakable
accent of contented noble-minded pride, 'why it is I do not
choose to show my sketch.  Van Tromp's daughter!  The
Admiral's daughter!  I delight in that name.  The Admiral!
And so you know my father?'

'Well,' said Dick, 'I met him often; we were even intimate.
He may have mentioned my name - Naseby.'

'He writes so little.  He is so busy, so devoted to his art!
I have had a half wish,' she added laughing, 'that my father
was a plainer man, whom I could help - to whom I could be a
credit; but only sometimes, you know, and with only half my
heart.  For a great painter!  You have seen his works?'

'I have seen some of them,' returned Dick; 'they - they are
very nice.'

She laughed aloud.  'Nice?' she repeated.  'I see you don't
care much for art.'

'Not much,' he admitted; 'but I know that many people are
glad to buy Mr. Van Tromp's pictures.'

'Call him the Admiral!' she cried.  'It sounds kindly and
familiar; and I like to think that he is appreciated and
looked up to by young painters.  He has not always been
appreciated; he had a cruel life for many years; and when I
think' -  there were tears in her eyes - 'when I think of
that, I feel incline to be a fool,' she broke off.  'And now
I shall go home.  You have filled me full of happiness; for
think, Mr. Naseby, I have not seen my father since I was six
years old; and yet he is in my thoughts all day!  You must
come and call on me; my aunt will be delighted, I am sure;
and then you will tell me all - all about my father, will you
not?'

Dick helped her to get her sketching traps together; and when
all was ready, she gave Dick her hand and a frank return of
pressure.

'You are my father's friend,' she said; 'we shall be great
friends too.  You must come and see me soon.'

Then she was gone down the hillside at a run; and Dick stood
by himself in a state of some bewilderment and even distress.
There were elements of laughter in the business; but the
black dress, and the face that belonged to it, and the hand
that he had held in his, inclined him to a serious view.
What was he, under the circumstances, called upon to do?
Perhaps to avoid the girl?  Well, he would think about that.
Perhaps to break the truth to her?  Why, ten to one, such was
her infatuation, he would fail.  Perhaps to keep up the
illusion, to colour the raw facts; to help her to false
ideas, while yet not plainly stating falsehoods?  Well, he
would see about that; he would also see about avoiding the
girl.  He saw about this last so well, that the next
afternoon beheld him on his way to visit her.

In the meantime the girl had gone straight home, light as a
bird, tremulous with joy, to the little cottage where she
lived alone with a maiden aunt; and to that lady, a grim,
sixty years old Scotchwoman, with a nodding head,
communicated news of her encounter and invitation.

'A friend of his?' cried the aunt.  'What like is he?  What
did ye say was his name?'

She was dead silent, and stared at the old woman darkling.
Then very slowly, 'I said he was my father's friend; I have
invited him to my house, and come he shall,' she said; and
with that she walked off to her room, where she sat staring
at the wall all the evening.  Miss M'Glashan, for that was
the aunt's name, read a large bible in the kitchen with some
of the joys of martyrdom.

It was perhaps half-past three when Dick presented himself,
rather scrupulously dressed, before the cottage door; he
knocked, and a voice bade him enter.  The kitchen, which
opened directly off the garden, was somewhat darkened by
foliage; but he could see her as she approached from the far
end to meet him.  This second sight of her surprised him.
Her strong black brows spoke of temper easily aroused and
hard to quiet; her mouth was small, nervous and weak; there
was something dangerous and sulky underlying, in her nature,
much that was honest, compassionate, and even noble.

'My father's name,' she said, 'has made you very welcome.'

And she gave him her hand, with a sort of curtsy.  It was a
pretty greeting, although somewhat mannered; and Dick felt
himself among the gods.  She led him through the kitchen to a
parlour, and presented him to Miss M'Glashan.

'Esther,' said the aunt, 'see and make Mr. Naseby his tea.'

And as soon as the girl was gone upon this hospitable intent,
the old woman crossed the room and came quite near to Dick as
if in menace.

'Ye know that man?' she asked in an imperious whisper.

'Mr. Van Tromp?' said Dick.  'Yes, I know him.'

'Well, and what brings ye here?' she said.  'I couldn't save
the mother - her that's dead - but the bairn!'  She had a
note in her voice that filled poor Dick with consternation.
'Man,' she went on, 'what is it now?  Is it money?'

'My dear lady,' said Dick, 'I think you misinterpret my
position.  I am young Mr. Naseby of Naseby House.  My
acquaintance with Mr. Van Tromp is really very slender; I am
only afraid that Miss Van Tromp has exaggerated our intimacy
in her own imagination.  I know positively nothing of his
private affairs, and do not care to know.  I met him casually
in Paris - that is all.'

Miss M'Glashan drew along breath.  'In Paris?' she said.
'Well, and what do you think of him? - what do ye think of
him?' she repeated, with a different scansion, as Richard,
who had not much taste for such a question, kept her waiting
for an answer.

'I found him a very agreeable companion,' he said.

'Ay,' said she, 'did ye!  And how does he win his bread?'

'I fancy,' he gasped, 'that Mr. Van Tromp has many generous
friends.'

'I'll warrant!' she sneered; and before Dick could find more
to say, she was gone from the room.

Esther returned with the tea-things, and sat down.

'Now,' she said cosily, 'tell me all about my father.'

'He' - stammered Dick, 'he is a very agreeable companion.'

'I shall begin to think it is more than you are, Mr. Naseby,'
she said, with a laugh.  'I am his daughter, you forget.
Begin at the beginning, and tell me all you have seen of him,
all he said and all you answered.  You must have met
somewhere; begin with that.'

So with that he began: how he had found the Admiral painting
in a cafe; how his art so possessed him that he could not
wait till he got home to - well, to dash off his idea; how
(this in reply to a question) his idea consisted of a cock
crowing and two hens eating corn; how he was fond of cocks
and hens; how this did not lead him to neglect more ambitious
forms of art; how he had a picture in his studio of a Greek
subject which was said to be remarkable from several points
of view; how no one had seen it nor knew the precise site of
the studio in which it was being vigorously though secretly
confected; how (in answer to a suggestion) this shyness was
common to the Admiral, Michelangelo, and others; how they
(Dick and Van Tromp) had struck up an acquaintance at once,
and dined together that same night; how he (the Admiral) had
once given money to a beggar; how he spoke with effusion of
his little daughter; how he had once borrowed money to send
her a doll - a trait worthy of Newton, she being then in her
nineteenth year at least; how, if the doll never arrived
(which it appeared it never did), the trait was only more
characteristic of the highest order of creative intellect;
how he was - no, not beautiful - striking, yes, Dick would go
so far, decidedly striking in appearance; how his boots were
made to lace and his coat was black, not cut-away, a frock;
and so on, and so on by the yard.  It was astonishing how few
lies were necessary.  After all, people exaggerated the
difficulty of life.  A little steering, just a touch of the
rudder now and then, and with a willing listener there is no
limit to the domain of equivocal speech.  Sometimes Miss
M'Glashan made a freezing sojourn in the parlour; and then
the task seemed unaccountably more difficult; but to Esther,
who was all eyes and ears, her face alight with interest, his
stream of language flowed without break or stumble, and his
mind was ever fertile in ingenious evasions and -