The doctor was standing in the middle of the room; in his hand a
large, round-bellied, crystal flask, some three parts full of a
bright amber-coloured liquid; on his face a rapture of gratitude
and joy unspeakable.  As he saw me he raised the flask at arm's
length.  'Victory!' he cried.  'Victory, Asenath!'  And then--
whether the flask escaped his trembling fingers, or whether the
explosion were spontaneous, I cannot tell--enough that we were
thrown, I against the door-post, the doctor into the corner of the
room; enough that we were shaken to the soul by the same explosion
that must have startled you upon the street; and that, in the brief
space of an indistinguishable instant, there remained nothing of
the labours of the doctor's lifetime but a few shards of broken
crystal and those voluminous and ill-smelling vapours that pursued
me in my flight.



THE SQUIRE OF DAMES (Concluded)



What with the lady's animated manner and dramatic conduct of her
voice, Challoner had thrilled to every incident with genuine
emotion.  His fancy, which was not perhaps of a very lively
character, applauded both the matter and the style; but the more
judicial functions of his mind refused assent.  It was an excellent
story; and it might be true, but he believed it was not.  Miss
Fonblanque was a lady, and it was doubtless possible for a lady to
wander from the truth; but how was a gentleman to tell her so?  His
spirits for some time had been sinking, but they now fell to zero;
and long after her voice had died away he still sat with a troubled
and averted countenance, and could find no form of words to thank
her for her narrative.  His mind, indeed, was empty of everything
beyond a dull longing for escape.  From this pause, which grew the
more embarrassing with every second, he was roused by the sudden
laughter of the lady.  His vanity was alarmed; he turned and faced
her; their eyes met; and he caught from hers a spark of such frank
merriment as put him instantly at ease.

'You certainly,' he said, 'appear to bear your calamities with
excellent spirit.'

'Do I not?' she cried, and fell once more into delicious laughter.
But from this access she more speedily recovered.  'This is all
very well,' said she, nodding at him gravely, 'but I am still in a
most distressing situation, from which, if you deny me your help, I
shall find it difficult indeed to free myself.'

At this mention of help Challoner fell back to his original gloom.

'My sympathies are much engaged with you,' he said, 'and I should
be delighted, I am sure.  But our position is most unusual; and
circumstances over which I have, I can assure you, no control,
deprive me of the power--the pleasure--Unless, indeed,' he added,
somewhat brightening at the thought, 'I were to recommend you to
the care of the police?'

She laid her hand upon his arm and looked hard into his eyes; and
he saw with wonder that, for the first time since the moment of
their meeting, every trace of colour had faded from her cheek.

'Do so,' she said, 'and--weigh my words well--you kill me as
certainly as with a knife.'

'God bless me!' exclaimed Challoner.

'Oh,' she cried, 'I can see you disbelieve my story and make light
of the perils that surround me; but who are you to judge?  My
family share my apprehensions; they help me in secret; and you saw
yourself by what an emissary, and in what a place, they have chosen
to supply me with the funds for my escape.  I admit that you are
brave and clever and have impressed me most favourably; but how are
you to prefer your opinion before that of my uncle, an ex-minister
of state, a man with the ear of the Queen, and of a long political
experience?  If I am mad, is he?  And you must allow me, besides, a
special claim upon your help.  Strange as you may think my story,
you know that much of it is true; and if you who heard the
explosion and saw the Mormon at Victoria, refuse to credit and
assist me, to whom am I to turn?'

'He gave you money then?' asked Challoner, who had been dwelling
singly on that fact.

'I begin to interest you,' she cried.  'But, frankly, you are
condemned to help me.  If the service I had to ask of you were
serious, were suspicious, were even unusual, I should say no more.
But what is it?  To take a pleasure trip (for which, if you will
suffer me, I propose to pay) and to carry from one lady to another
a sum of money!  What can be more simple?'

'Is the sum,' asked Challoner, 'considerable?'

She produced a packet from her bosom; and observing that she had
not yet found time to make the count, tore open the cover and
spread upon her knees a considerable number of Bank of England
notes.  It took some time to make the reckoning, for the notes were
of every degree of value; but at last, and counting a few loose
sovereigns, she made out the sum to be a little under 710 pounds
sterling.  The sight of so much money worked an immediate
revolution in the mind of Challoner.

'And you propose, madam,' he cried, 'to intrust that money to a
perfect stranger?'

'Ah!' said she, with a charming smile, 'but I no longer regard you
as a stranger.'

'Madam,' said Challoner, 'I perceive I must make you a confession.
Although of a very good family--through my mother, indeed, a lineal
descendant of the patriot Bruce--I dare not conceal from you that
my affairs are deeply, very deeply involved.  I am in debt; my
pockets are practically empty; and, in short, I am fallen to that
state when a considerable sum of money would prove to many men an
irresistible temptation.'

'Do you not see,' returned the young lady, 'that by these words you
have removed my last hesitation?  Take them.'  And she thrust the
notes into the young man's hand.

He sat so long, holding them, like a baby at the font, that Miss
Fonblanque once more bubbled into laughter.

'Pray,' she said, 'hesitate no further; put them in your pocket;
and to relieve our position of any shadow of embarrassment, tell me
by what name I am to address my knight-errant, for I find myself
reduced to the awkwardness of the pronoun.'

Had borrowing been in question, the wisdom of our ancestors had
come lightly to the young man's aid; but upon what pretext could he
refuse so generous a trust?  Upon none he saw, that was not
unpardonably wounding; and the bright eyes and the high spirits of
his companion had already made a breach in the rampart of
Challoner's caution.  The whole thing, he reasoned, might be a mere
mystification, which it were the height of solemn folly to resent.
On the other hand, the explosion, the interview at the public-
house, and the very money in his hands, seemed to prove beyond
denial the existence of some serious danger; and if that were so,
could he desert her?  There was a choice of risks:  the risk of
behaving with extraordinary incivility and unhandsomeness to a
lady, and the risk of going on a fool's errand.  The story seemed
false; but then the money was undeniable.  The whole circumstances
were questionable and obscure; but the lady was charming, and had
the speech and manners of society.  While he still hung in the
wind, a recollection returned upon his mind with some of the
dignity of prophecy.  Had he not promised Somerset to break with
the traditions of the commonplace, and to accept the first
adventure offered?  Well, here was the adventure.

He thrust the money into his pocket.

'My name is Challoner,' said he.

'Mr. Challoner,' she replied, 'you have come very generously to my
aid when all was against me.  Though I am myself a very humble
person, my family commands great interest; and I do not think you
will repent this handsome action.'

Challoner flushed with pleasure.

'I imagine that, perhaps, a consulship,' she added, her eyes
dwelling on him with a judicial admiration, 'a consulship in some
great town or capital--or else--But we waste time; let us set about
the work of my delivery.'

She took his arm with a frank confidence that went to his heart;
and once more laying by all serious thoughts, she entertained him,
as they crossed the park, with her agreeable gaiety of mind.  Near
the Marble Arch they found a hansom, which rapidly conveyed them to
the terminus at Euston Square; and here, in the hotel, they sat
down to an excellent breakfast.  The young lady's first step was to
call for writing materials and write, upon one corner of the table,
a hasty note; still, as she did so, glancing with smiles at her
companion.  'Here,' said she, 'here is the letter which will
introduce you to my cousin.'  She began to fold the paper.  'My
cousin, although I have never seen her, has the character of a very
charming woman and a recognised beauty; of that I know nothing, but
at least she has been very kind to me; so has my lord her father;
so have you--kinder than all--kinder than I can bear to think of.'
She said this with unusual emotion; and, at the same time, sealed
the envelope.  'Ah!' she cried, 'I have shut my letter!  It is not
quite courteous; and yet, as between friends, it is perhaps better
so.  I introduce you, after all, into a family secret; and though
you and I are already old comrades, you are still unknown to my
uncle.  You go then to this address, Richard Street, Glasgow; go,
please, as soon as you arrive; and give this letter with your own
hands into those of Miss Fonblanque, for that is the name by which
she is to pass.  When we next meet, you will tell me what you think
of her,' she added, with a touch of the provocative.

'Ah,' said Challoner, almost tenderly, 'she can be nothing to me.'

'You do not know,' replied the young lady, with a sigh.  'By-the-
bye, I had forgotten--it is very childish, and I am almost ashamed
to mention it--but when you see Miss Fonblanque, you will have to
make yourself a little ridiculous; and I am sure the part in no way
suits you.  We had agreed upon a watchword.  You will have to
address an earl's daughter in these words:  "NIGGER, NIGGER, NEVER
DIE;" but reassure yourself,' she added, laughing, 'for the fair
patrician will at once finish the quotation.  Come now, say your
lesson.'

'"Nigger, nigger, never die,"' repeated Challoner, with undisguised
reluctance.

Miss Fonblanque went into fits of laughter.  'Excellent,' said she,
'it will be the most humorous scene.'  And she laughed again.

'And what will be the counterword?' asked Challoner stiffly.

'I will not tell you till the last moment,' said she; 'for I
perceive you are growing too imperious.'

Breakfast over, she accompanied the young man to the platform,
bought him the Graphic, the Athenaeum, and a paper-cutter, and
stood on the step conversing till the whistle sounded.  Then she
put her head into the carriage.  'BLACK FACE AND SHINING EYE!' she
whispered, and instantly leaped down upon the platform, with a
thrill of gay and musical laughter.  As the train steamed out of
the great arch of glass, the sound of that laughter still rang in
the young man's ears.

Challoner's position was too unusual to be long welcome to his
mind.  He found himself projected the whole length of England, on a
mission beset with obscure and ridiculous circumstances, and yet,
by the trust he had accepted, irrevocably bound to persevere.  How
easy it appeared, in the retrospect, to have refused the whole
proposal, returned the money, and gone forth again upon his own
affairs, a free and happy man!  And it was now impossible:  the
enchantress who had held him with her eye had now disappeared,
taking his honour in pledge; and as she had failed to leave him an
address, he was denied even the inglorious safety of retreat.  To
use the paper-knife, or even to read the periodicals with which she
had presented him, was to renew the bitterness of his remorse; and
as he was alone in the compartment, he passed the day staring at
the landscape in impotent repentance, and long before he was landed
on the platform of St. Enoch's, had fallen to the lowest and
coldest zones of self-contempt.

As he was hungry, and elegant in his habits, he would have
preferred to dine and to remove the stains of travel; but the words
of the young lady, and his own impatient eagerness, would suffer no
delay.  In the late, luminous, and lamp-starred dusk of the summer
evening, he accordingly set forward with brisk steps.

The street to which he was directed had first seen the day in the
character of a row of small suburban villas on a hillside; but the
extension of the city had long since, and on every hand, surrounded
it with miles of streets.  From the top of the hill a range of very
tall buildings, densely inhabited by the poorest classes of the
population and variegated by drying-poles from every second window,
overplumbed the villas and their little gardens like a sea-board
cliff.  But still, under the grime of years of city smoke, these
antiquated cottages, with their venetian blinds and rural
porticoes, retained a somewhat melancholy savour of the past.

The street when Challoner entered it was perfectly deserted.  From
hard by, indeed, the sound of a thousand footfalls filled the ear;
but in Richard Street itself there was neither light nor sound of
human habitation.  The appearance of the neighbourhood weighed
heavily on the mind of the young man; once more, as in the streets
of London, he was impressed with the sense of city deserts; and as
he approached the number indicated, and somewhat falteringly rang
the bell, his heart sank within him.

The bell was ancient, like the house; it had a thin and garrulous
note; and it was some time before it ceased to sound from the rear
quarters of the building.  Following upon this an inner door was
stealthily opened, and careful and catlike steps drew near along
the hall.  Challoner, supposing he was to be instantly admitted,
produced his letter, and, as well as he was able, prepared a
smiling face.  To his indescribable surprise, however, the
footsteps ceased, and then, after a pause and with the like
stealthiness, withdrew once more, and died away in the interior of
the house.  A second time the young man rang violently at the bell;
a second time, to his keen hearkening, a certain bustle of discreet
footing moved upon the hollow boards of the old villa; and again
the fainthearted garrison only drew near to retreat.  The cup of
the visitor's endurance was now full to overflowing; and,
committing the whole family of Fonblanque to every mood and shade
of condemnation, he turned upon his heel and redescended the steps.
Perhaps the mover in the house was watching from a window, and
plucked up courage at the sight of this desistance; or perhaps,
where he lurked trembling in the back parts of the villa, reason in
its own right had conquered his alarms.  Challoner, at least, had
scarce set foot upon the pavement when he was arrested by the sound
of the withdrawal of an inner bolt; one followed another, rattling
in their sockets; the key turned harshly in the lock; the door
opened; and there appeared upon the threshold a man of a very
stalwart figure in his shirt sleeves.  He was a person neither of
great manly beauty nor of a refined exterior; he was not the man,
in ordinary moods, to attract the eyes of the observer; but as he
now stood in the doorway, he was marked so legibly with the extreme
passion of terror that Challoner stood wonder-struck.  For a
fraction of a minute they gazed upon each other in silence; and
then the man of the house, with ashen lips and gasping voice,
inquired the business of his visitor.  Challoner replied, in tones
from which he strove to banish his surprise, that he was the bearer
of a letter to a certain Miss Fonblanque.  At this name, as at a
talisman, the man fell back and impatiently invited him to enter;
and no sooner had the adventurer crossed the threshold, than the
door was closed behind him and his retreat cut off.

It was already long past eight at night; and though the late
twilight of the north still lingered in the streets, in the passage
it was already groping dark.  The man led Challoner directly to a
parlour looking on the garden to the back.  Here he had apparently
been supping; for by the light of a tallow dip the table was seen
to be covered with a napkin, and set out with a quart of bottled
ale and the heel of a Gouda cheese.  The room, on the other hand,
was furnished with faded solidity, and the walls were lined with
scholarly and costly volumes in glazed cases.  The house must have
been taken furnished; for it had no congruity with this man of the
shirt sleeves and the mean supper.  As for the earl's daughter, the
earl and the visionary consulships in foreign cities, they had long
ago begun to fade in Challoner's imagination.  Like Doctor Grierson
and the Mormon angels, they were plainly woven of the stuff of
dreams.  Not an illusion remained to the knight-errant; not a hope
was left him, but to be speedily relieved from this disreputable
business.

The man had continued to regard his visitor with undisguised
anxiety, and began once more to press him for his errand.

'I am here,' said Challoner, 'simply to do a service between two
ladies; and I must ask you, without further delay, to summon Miss
Fonblanque, into whose hands alone I am authorised to deliver the
letter that I bear.'

A growing wonder began to mingle on the man's face with the lines
of solicitude.  'I am Miss Fonblanque,' he said; and then,
perceiving the effect of this communication, 'Good God!' he cried,
'what are you staring at?  I tell you, I am Miss Fonblanque.'

Seeing the speaker wore a chin-beard of considerable length, and
the remainder of his face was blue with shaving, Challoner could
only suppose himself the subject of a jest.  He was no longer under
the spell of the young lady's presence; and with men, and above all
with his inferiors, he was capable of some display of spirit.

'Sir,' said he, pretty roundly, 'I have put myself to great
inconvenience for persons of whom I know too little, and I begin to
be weary of the business.  Either you shall immediately summon Miss
Fonblanque, or I leave this house and put myself under the
direction of the police.'

'This is horrible!' exclaimed the man.  'I declare before Heaven I
am the person meant, but how shall I convince you?  It must have
been Clara, I perceive, that sent you on this errand--a madwoman,
who jests with the most deadly interests; and here we are
incapable, perhaps, of an agreement, and Heaven knows what may
depend on our delay!'

He spoke with a really startling earnestness; and at the same time
there flashed upon the mind of Challoner the ridiculous jingle
which was to serve as password.  'This may, perhaps, assist you,'
he said, and then, with some embarrassment, '"Nigger, nigger, never
die."'

A light of relief broke upon the troubled countenance of the man
with the chin-beard.  '"Black face and shining eye"--give me the
letter,' he panted, in one gasp.

'Well,' said Challoner, though still with some reluctance, 'I
suppose I must regard you as the proper recipient; and though I may
justly complain of the spirit in which I have been treated, I am
only too glad to be done with all responsibility.  Here it is,' and
he produced the envelope.

The man leaped upon it like a beast, and with hands that trembled
in a manner painful to behold, tore it open and unfolded the
letter.  As he read, terror seemed to mount upon him to the pitch
of nightmare.  He struck one hand upon his brow, while with the
other, as if unconsciously, he crumpled the paper to a ball.  'My
gracious powers!' he cried; and then, dashing to the window, which
stood open on the garden, he clapped forth his head and shoulders,
and whistled long and shrill.  Challoner fell back into a corner,
and resolutely grasping his staff, prepared for the most desperate
events; but the thoughts of the man with the chin-beard were far
removed from violence.  Turning again into the room, and once more
beholding his visitor, whom he appeared to have forgotten, he
fairly danced with trepidation.  'Impossible!' he cried.  'Oh,
quite impossible!  O Lord, I have lost my head.'  And then, once
more striking his hand upon his brow, 'The money!' he exclaimed.
'Give me the money.'

'My good friend,' replied Challoner, 'this is a very painful
exhibition; and until I see you reasonably master of yourself, I
decline to proceed with any business.'

'You are quite right,' said the man.  'I am of a very nervous
habit; a long course of the dumb ague has undermined my
constitution.  But I know you have money; it may be still the
saving of me; and oh, dear young gentleman, in pity's name be
expeditious!'  Challoner, sincerely uneasy as he was, could scarce
refrain from laughter; but he was himself in a hurry to be gone,
and without more delay produced the money.  'You will find the sum,
I trust, correct,' he observed 'and let me ask you to give me a
receipt.'

But the man heeded him not.  He seized the money, and disregarding
the sovereigns that rolled loose upon the floor, thrust the bundle
of notes into his pocket.

'A receipt,' repeated Challoner, with some asperity.  'I insist on
a receipt.'

'Receipt?' repeated the man, a little wildly.  'A receipt?
Immediately!  Await me here.'

Challoner, in reply, begged the gentleman to lose no unnecessary
time, as he was himself desirous of catching a particular train.

'Ah, by God, and so am I!' exclaimed the man with the chin-beard;
and with that he was gone out of the room, and had rattled
upstairs, four at a time, to the upper story of the villa.

'This is certainly a most amazing business,' thought Challoner;
'certainly a most disquieting affair; and I cannot conceal from
myself that I have become mixed up with either lunatics or
malefactors.  I may truly thank my stars that I am so nearly and so
creditably done with it.'  Thus thinking, and perhaps remembering
the episode of the whistle, he turned to the open window.  The
garden was still faintly clear; he could distinguish the stairs and
terraces with which the small domain had been adorned by former
owners, and the blackened bushes and dead trees that had once
afforded shelter to the country birds; beyond these he saw the
strong retaining wall, some thirty feet in height, which enclosed
the garden to the back; and again above that, the pile of dingy
buildings rearing its frontage high into the night.  A peculiar
object lying stretched upon the lawn for some time baffled his
eyesight; but at length he had made it out to be a long ladder, or
series of ladders bound into one; and he was still wondering of
what service so great an instrument could be in such a scant
enclosure, when he was recalled to himself by the noise of some one
running violently down the stairs.  This was followed by the
sudden, clamorous banging of the house door; and that again, by
rapid and retreating footsteps in the street.

Challoner sprang into the passage.  He ran from room to room,
upstairs and downstairs; and in that old dingy and worm-eaten
house, he found himself alone.  Only in one apartment, looking to
the front, were there any traces of the late inhabitant:  a bed
that had been recently slept in and not made, a chest of drawers
disordered by a hasty search, and on the floor a roll of crumpled
paper.  This he picked up.  The light in this upper story looking
to the front was considerably brighter than in the parlour; and he
was able to make out that the paper bore the mark of the hotel at
Euston, and even, by peering closely, to decipher the following
lines in a very elegant and careful female hand:


'DEAR M'GUIRE,--It is certain your retreat is known.  We have just
had another failure, clockwork thirty hours too soon, with the
usual humiliating result.  Zero is quite disheartened.  We are all
scattered, and I could find no one but the SOLEMN ASS who brings
you this and the money.  I would love to see your meeting.--Ever
yours,

SHINING EYE.'


Challoner was stricken to the heart.  He perceived by what
facility, by what unmanly fear of ridicule, he had been brought
down to be the gull of this intriguer; and his wrath flowed forth
in almost equal measure against himself, against the woman, and
against Somerset, whose idle counsels had impelled him to embark on
that adventure.  At the same time a great and troubled curiosity,
and a certain chill of fear, possessed his spirit.  The conduct of
the man with the chin-beard, the terms of the letter, and the
explosion of the early morning, fitted together like parts in some
obscure and mischievous imbroglio.  Evil was certainly afoot; evil,
secrecy, terror, and falsehood were the conditions and the passions
of the people among whom he had begun to move, like a blind puppet;
and he who began as a puppet, his experience told him, was often
doomed to perish as a victim.

From the stupor of deep thought into which he had glided with the
letter in his hand, he was awakened by the clatter of the bell.  He
glanced from the window; and, conceive his horror and surprise when
he beheld, clustered on the steps, in the front garden and on the
pavement of the street, a formidable posse of police!  He started
to the full possession of his powers and courage.  Escape, and
escape at any cost, was the one idea that possessed him.  Swiftly
and silently he redescended the creaking stairs; he was already in
the passage when a second and more imperious summons from the door
awoke the echoes of the empty house; nor had the bell ceased to
jangle before he had bestridden the window-sill of the parlour and
was lowering himself into the garden.  His coat was hooked upon the
iron flower-basket; for a moment he hung dependent heels and head
below; and then, with the noise of rending cloth, and followed by
several pots, he dropped upon the sod.  Once more the bell was
rung, and now with furious and repeated peals.  The desperate
Challoner turned his eyes on every side.  They fell upon the
ladder, and he ran to it, and with strenuous but unavailing effort
sought to raise it from the ground.  Suddenly the weight, which was
thus resisting his whole strength, began to lighten in his hands;
the ladder, like a thing of life, reared its bulk from off the sod;
and Challoner, leaping back with a cry of almost superstitious
terror, beheld the whole structure mount, foot by foot, against the
face of the retaining wall.  At the same time, two heads were dimly
visible above the parapet, and he was hailed by a guarded whistle.
Something in its modulation recalled, like an echo, the whistle of
the man with the chin-beard,

Had he chanced upon a means of escape prepared beforehand by those
very miscreants whose messenger and gull he had become?  Was this,
indeed, a means of safety, or but the starting-point of further
complication and disaster?  He paused not to reflect.  Scarce was
the ladder reared to its full length than he had sprung already on
the rounds; hand over hand, swift as an ape, he scaled the
tottering stairway.  Strong arms received, embraced, and helped
him; he was lifted and set once more upon the earth; and with the
spasm of his alarm yet unsubsided, found himself in the company of
two rough-looking men, in the paved back yard of one of the tall
houses that crowned the summit of the hill.  Meanwhile, from below,
the note of the bell had been succeeded by the sound of vigorous
and redoubling blows.

'Are you all out?' asked one of his companions; and, as soon as he
had babbled an answer in the affirmative, the rope was cut from the
top round, and the ladder thrust roughly back into the garden,
where it fell and broke with clattering reverberations.  Its fall
was hailed with many broken cries; for the whole of Richard Street
was now in high emotion, the people crowding to the windows or
clambering on the garden walls.  The same man who had already
addressed Challoner seized him by the arm; whisked him through the
basement of the house and across the street upon the other side;
and before the unfortunate adventurer had time to realise his
situation, a door was opened, and he was thrust into a low and dark
compartment.

'Bedad,' observed his guide, 'there was no time to lose.  Is
M'Guire gone, or was it you that whistled?

'M'Guire is gone,' said Challoner.

The guide now struck a light.  'Ah,' said he, 'this will never do.
You dare not go upon the streets in such a figure.  Wait quietly
here and I will bring you something decent.'

With that the man was gone, and Challoner, his attention thus
rudely awakened, began ruefully to consider the havoc that had been
worked in his attire.  His hat was gone; his trousers were cruelly
ripped; and the best part of one tail of his very elegant frockcoat
had been left hanging from the iron crockets of the window.  He had
scarce had time to measure these disasters when his host re-entered
the apartment and proceeded, without a word, to envelop the refined
and urbane Challoner in a long ulster of the cheapest material, and
of a pattern so gross and vulgar that his spirit sickened at the
sight.  This calumnious disguise was crowned and completed by a
soft felt hat of the Tyrolese design, and several sizes too small.
At another moment Challoner would simply have refused to issue
forth upon the world thus travestied; but the desire to escape from
Glasgow was now too strongly and too exclusively impressed upon his
mind.  With one haggard glance at the spotted tails of his new
coat, he inquired what was to pay for this accoutrement.  The man
assured him that the whole expense was easily met from funds in his
possession, and begged him, instead of wasting time, to make his
best speed out of the neighbourhood.

The young man was not loath to take the hint.  True to his usual
courtesy, he thanked the speaker and complimented him upon his
taste in greatcoats; and leaving the man somewhat abashed by these
remarks and the manner of their delivery, he hurried forth into the
lamplit city.  The last train was gone ere, after many deviations,
he had reached the terminus.  Attired as he was he dared not
present himself at any reputable inn; and he felt keenly that the
unassuming dignity of his demeanour would serve to attract
attention, perhaps mirth and possibly suspicion, in any humbler
hostelry.  He was thus condemned to pass the solemn and uneventful
hours of a whole night in pacing the streets of Glasgow;
supperless; a figure of fun for all beholders; waiting the dawn,
with hope indeed, but with unconquerable shrinkings; and above all
things, filled with a profound sense of the folly and weakness of
his conduct.  It may be conceived with what curses he assailed the
memory of the fair narrator of Hyde Park; her parting laughter rang
in his ears all night with damning mockery and iteration; and when
he could spare a thought from this chief artificer of his
confusion, it was to expend his wrath on Somerset and the career of
the amateur detective.  With the coming of day, he found in a shy
milk-shop the means to appease his hunger.  There were still many
hours to wait before the departure of the South express; these he
passed wandering with indescribable fatigue in the obscurer by-
streets of the city; and at length slipped quietly into the station
and took his place in the darkest corner of a third-class carriage.
Here, all day long, he jolted on the bare boards, distressed by
heat and continually reawakened from uneasy slumbers.  By the half
return ticket in his purse, he was entitled to make the journey on
the easy cushions and with the ample space of the first-class; but
alas! in his absurd attire, he durst not, for decency, commingle
with his equals; and this small annoyance, coming last in such a
series of disasters, cut him to the heart.

That night, when, in his Putney lodging, he reviewed the expense,
anxiety, and weariness of his adventure; when he beheld the ruins
of his last good trousers and his last presentable coat; and above
all, when his eye by any chance alighted on the Tyrolese hat or the
degrading ulster, his heart would overflow with bitterness, and it
was only by a serious call on his philosophy that he maintained the
dignity of his demeanour.



SOMERSET'S ADVENTURE:  THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION



Mr. Paul Somerset was a young gentleman of a lively and fiery
imagination, with very small capacity for action.  He was one who
lived exclusively in dreams and in the future:  the creature of his
own theories, and an actor in his own romances.  From the cigar
divan he proceeded to parade the streets, still heated with the
fire of his eloquence, and scouting upon every side for the offer
of some fortunate adventure.  In the continual stream of passers-
by, on the sealed fronts of houses, on the posters that covered the
hoardings, and in every lineament and throb of the great city, he
saw a mysterious and hopeful hieroglyph.  But although the elements
of adventure were streaming by him as thick as drops of water in
the Thames, it was in vain that, now with a beseeching, now with
something of a braggadocio air, he courted and provoked the notice
of the passengers; in vain that, putting fortune to the touch, he
even thrust himself into the way and came into direct collision
with those of the more promising demeanour.  Persons brimful of
secrets, persons pining for affection, persons perishing for lack
of help or counsel, he was sure he could perceive on every side;
but by some contrariety of fortune, each passed upon his way
without remarking the young gentleman, and went farther (surely to
fare worse!) in quest of the confidant, the friend, or the adviser.
To thousands he must have turned an appealing countenance, and yet
not one regarded him.

A light dinner, eaten to the accompaniment of his impetuous
aspirations, broke in upon the series of his attempts on fortune;
and when he returned to the task, the lamps were already lighted,
and the nocturnal crowd was dense upon the pavement.  Before a
certain restaurant, whose name will readily occur to any student of
our Babylon, people were already packed so closely that passage had
grown difficult; and Somerset, standing in the kennel, watched,
with a hope that was beginning to grow somewhat weary, the faces
and the manners of the crowd.  Suddenly he was startled by a gentle
touch upon the shoulder, and facing about, he was aware of a very
plain and elegant brougham, drawn by a pair of powerful horses, and
driven by a man in sober livery.  There were no arms upon the
panel; the window was open, but the interior was obscure; the
driver yawned behind his palm; and the young man was already
beginning to suppose himself the dupe of his own fancy, when a
hand, no larger than a child's and smoothly gloved in white,
appeared in a corner of the window and privily beckoned him to
approach.  He did so, and looked in.  The carriage was occupied by
a single small and very dainty figure, swathed head and shoulders
in impenetrable folds of white lace; and a voice, speaking low and
silvery, addressed him in these words -

'Open the door and get in.'

'It must be,' thought the young man with an almost unbearable
thrill, 'it must be that duchess at last!'  Yet, although the
moment was one to which he had long looked forward, it was with a
certain share of alarm that he opened the door, and, mounting into
the brougham, took his seat beside the lady of the lace.  Whether
or no she had touched a spring, or given some other signal, the
young man had hardly closed the door before the carriage, with
considerable swiftness, and with a very luxurious and easy movement
on its springs, turned and began to drive towards the west.

Somerset, as I have written, was not unprepared; it had long been
his particular pleasure to rehearse his conduct in the most
unlikely situations; and this, among others, of the patrician
ravisher, was one he had familiarly studied.  Strange as it may
seem, however, he could find no apposite remark; and as the lady,
on her side, vouchsafed no further sign, they continued to drive in
silence through the streets.  Except for alternate flashes from the
passing lamps, the carriage was plunged in obscurity; and beyond
the fact that the fittings were luxurious, and that the lady was
singularly small and slender in person, and, all but one gloved
hand, still swathed in her costly veil, the young man could
decipher no detail of an inspiring nature.  The suspense began to
grow unbearable.  Twice he cleared his throat, and twice the whole
resources of the language failed him.  In similar scenes, when he
had forecast them on the theatre of fancy, his presence of mind had
always been complete, his eloquence remarkable; and at this
disparity between the rehearsal and the performance, he began to be
seized with a panic of apprehension.  Here, on the very threshold
of adventure, suppose him ignominiously to fail; suppose that after
ten, twenty, or sixty seconds of still uninterrupted silence, the
lady should touch the check-string and re-deposit him, weighed and
found wanting, on the common street!  Thousands of persons of no
mind at all, he reasoned, would be found more equal to the part;
could, that very instant, by some decisive step, prove the lady's
choice to have been well inspired, and put a stop to this
intolerable silence.

His eye, at this point, lighted on the hand.  It was better to fall
by desperate councils than to continue as he was; and with one
tremulous swoop he pounced on the gloved fingers and drew them to
himself.  One overt step, it had appeared to him, would dissolve
the spell of his embarrassment; in act, he found it otherwise:  he
found himself no less incapable of speech or further progress; and
with the lady's hand in his, sat helpless.  But worse was in store.
A peculiar quivering began to agitate the form of his companion;
the hand that lay unresistingly in Somerset's trembled as with
ague; and presently there broke forth, in the shadow of the
carriage, the bubbling and musical sound of laughter, resisted but
triumphant.  The young man dropped his prize; had it been possible,
he would have bounded from the carriage.  The lady, meanwhile,
lying back upon the cushions, passed on from trill to trill of the
most heartfelt, high-pitched, clear and fairy-sounding merriment.

'You must not be offended,' she said at last, catching an
opportunity between two paroxysms.  'If you have been mistaken in
the warmth of your attentions, the fault is solely mine; it does
not flow from your presumption, but from my eccentric manner of
recruiting friends; and, believe me, I am the last person in the
world to think the worse of a young man for showing spirit.  As for
to-night, it is my intention to entertain you to a little supper;
and if I shall continue to be as much pleased with your manners as
I was taken with your face, I may perhaps end by making you an
advantageous offer.'

Somerset sought in vain to find some form of answer, but his
discomfiture had been too recent and complete.

'Come,' returned the lady, 'we must have no display of temper; that
is for me the one disqualifying fault; and as I perceive we are
drawing near our destination, I shall ask you to descend and offer
me your arm.'

Indeed, at that very moment the carriage drew up before a stately
and severe mansion in a spacious square; and Somerset, who was
possessed of an excellent temper, with the best grace in the world
assisted the lady to alight.  The door was opened by an old woman
of a grim appearance, who ushered the pair into a dining-room
somewhat dimly lighted, but already laid for supper, and occupied
by a prodigious company of large and valuable cats.  Here, as soon
as they were alone, the lady divested herself of the lace in which
she was enfolded; and Somerset was relieved to find, that although
still bearing the traces of great beauty, and still distinguished
by the fire and colour of her eye, her hair was of a silvery
whiteness and her face lined with years.

'And now, mon preux,' said the old lady, nodding at him with a
quaint gaiety, 'you perceive that I am no longer in my first youth.
You will soon find that I am all the better company for that.'

As she spoke, the maid re-entered the apartment with a light but
tasteful supper.  They sat down, accordingly, to table, the cats
with savage pantomime surrounding the old lady's chair; and what
with the excellence of the meal and the gaiety of his entertainer,
Somerset was soon completely at his ease.  When they had well eaten
and drunk, the old lady leaned back in her chair, and taking a cat
upon her lap, subjected her guest to a prolonged but evidently
mirthful scrutiny.

'I fear, madam,' said Somerset, 'that my manners have not risen to
the height of your preconceived opinion.'

'My dear young man,' she replied, 'you were never more mistaken in
your life.  I find you charming, and you may very well have lighted
on a fairy godmother.  I am not one of those who are given to
change their opinions, and short of substantial demerit, those who
have once gained my favour continue to enjoy it; but I have a
singular swiftness of decision, read my fellow men and women with a
glance, and have acted throughout life on first impressions.
Yours, as I tell you, has been favourable; and if, as I suppose,
you are a young fellow of somewhat idle habits, I think it not
improbable that we may strike a bargain.'

'Ah, madam,' returned Somerset, 'you have divined my situation.  I
am a man of birth, parts, and breeding; excellent company, or at
least so I find myself; but by a peculiar iniquity of fate,
destitute alike of trade or money.  I was, indeed, this evening
upon the quest of an adventure, resolved to close with any offer of
interest, emolument, or pleasure; and your summons, which I profess
I am still at some loss to understand, jumped naturally with the
inclination of my mind.  Call it, if you will, impudence; I am
here, at least, prepared for any proposition you can find it in
your heart to make, and resolutely determined to accept.'

'You express yourself very well,' replied the old lady, 'and are
certainly a droll and curious young man.  I should not care to
affirm that you were sane, for I have never found any one entirely
so besides myself; but at least the nature of your madness
entertains me, and I will reward you with some description of my
character and life.'

Thereupon the old lady, still fondling the cat upon her lap,
proceeded to narrate the following particulars.



NARRATIVE OF THE SPIRITED OLD LADY



I was the eldest daughter of the Reverend Bernard Fanshawe, who
held a valuable living in the diocese of Bath and Wells.  Our
family, a very large one, was noted for a sprightly and incisive
wit, and came of a good old stock where beauty was an heirloom.  In
Christian grace of character we were unhappily deficient.  From my
earliest years I saw and deplored the defects of those relatives
whose age and position should have enabled them to conquer my
esteem; and while I was yet a child, my father married a second
wife, in whom (strange to say) the Fanshawe failings were
exaggerated to a monstrous and almost laughable degree.  Whatever
may be said against me, it cannot be denied I was a pattern
daughter; but it was in vain that, with the most touching patience,
I submitted to my stepmother's demands; and from the hour she
entered my father's house, I may say that I met with nothing but
injustice and ingratitude.

I stood not alone, however, in the sweetness of my disposition; for
one other of the family besides myself was free from any violence
of character.  Before I had reached the age of sixteen, this
cousin, John by name, had conceived for me a sincere but silent
passion; and although the poor lad was too timid to hint at the
nature of his feelings, I had soon divined and begun to share them.
For some days I pondered on the odd situation created for me by the
bashfulness of my admirer; and at length, perceiving that he began,
in his distress, rather to avoid than seek my company, I determined
to take the matter into my own hands.  Finding him alone in a
retired part of the rectory garden, I told him that I had divined
his amiable secret, that I knew with what disfavour our union was
sure to be regarded; and that, under the circumstances, I was
prepared to flee with him at once.  Poor John was literally
paralysed with joy; such was the force of his emotions, that he
could find no words in which to thank me; and that I, seeing him
thus helpless, was obliged to arrange, myself, the details of our
flight, and of the stolen marriage which was immediately to crown
it.  John had been at that time projecting a visit to the
metropolis.  In this I bade him persevere, and promised on the
following day to join him at the Tavistock Hotel.

True, on my side, to every detail of our arrangement, I arose, on
the day in question, before the servants, packed a few necessaries
in a bag, took with me the little money I possessed, and bade
farewell for ever to the rectory.  I walked with good spirits to a
town some thirty miles from home, and was set down the next morning
in this great city of London.  As I walked from the coach-office to
the hotel, I could not help exulting in the pleasant change that
had befallen me; beholding, meanwhile, with innocent delight, the
traffic of the streets, and depicting, in all the colours of fancy,
the reception that awaited me from John.  But alas! when I inquired
for Mr. Fanshawe, the porter assured me there was no such gentleman
among the guests.  By what channel our secret had leaked out, or
what pressure had been brought to bear on the too facile John, I
could never fathom.  Enough that my family had triumphed; that I
found myself alone in London, tender in years, smarting under the
most sensible mortification, and by every sentiment of pride and
self-respect debarred for ever from my father's house.

I rose under the blow, and found lodgings in the neighbourhood of
Euston Road, where, for the first time in my life, I tasted the
joys of independence.  Three days afterwards, an advertisement in
the Times directed me to the office of a solicitor whom I knew to
be in my father's confidence.  There I was given the promise of a
very moderate allowance, and a distinct intimation that I must
never look to be received at home.  I could not but resent so cruel
a desertion, and I told the lawyer it was a meeting I desired as
little as themselves.  He smiled at my courageous spirit, paid me
the first quarter of my income, and gave me the remainder of my
personal effects, which had been sent to me, under his care, in a
couple of rather ponderous boxes.  With these I returned in triumph
to my lodgings, more content with my position than I should have
thought possible a week before, and fully determined to make the
best of the future.

All went well for several months; and, indeed, it was my own fault
alone that ended this pleasant and secluded episode of life.  I
have, I must confess, the fatal trick of spoiling my inferiors.  My
landlady, to whom I had as usual been overkind, impertinently
called me in fault for some particular too small to mention; and I,
annoyed that I had allowed her the freedom upon which she thus
presumed, ordered her to leave my presence.  She stood a moment
dumb, and then, recalling her self-possession, 'Your bill,' said
she, 'shall be ready this evening, and to-morrow, madam, you shall
leave my house.  See,' she added, 'that you are able to pay what
you owe me; for if I do not receive the uttermost farthing, no box
of yours shall pass my threshold.'

I was confounded at her audacity, but as a whole quarter's income
was due to me, not otherwise affected by the threat.  That
afternoon, as I left the solicitor's door, carrying in one hand,
and done up in a paper parcel, the whole amount of my fortune,
there befell me one of those decisive incidents that sometimes
shape a life.  The lawyer's office was situate in a street that
opened at the upper end upon the Strand, and was closed at the
lower, at the time of which I speak, by a row of iron railings
looking on the Thames.  Down this street, then, I beheld my
stepmother advancing to meet me, and doubtless bound to the very
house I had just left.  She was attended by a maid whose face was
new to me, but her own was too clearly printed on my memory; and
the sight of it, even from a distance, filled me with generous
indignation.  Flight was impossible.  There was nothing left but to
retreat against the railing, and with my back turned to the street,
pretend to be admiring the barges on the river or the chimneys of
transpontine London.

I was still so standing, and had not yet fully mastered the
turbulence of my emotions, when a voice at my elbow addressed me
with a trivial question.  It was the maid whom my stepmother, with
characteristic hardness, had left to await her on the street, while
she transacted her business with the family solicitor.  The girl
did not know who I was; the opportunity too golden to be lost; and
I was soon hearing the latest news of my father's rectory and
parish.  It did not surprise me to find that she detested her
employers; and yet the terms in which she spoke of them were hard
to bear, hard to let pass unchallenged.  I heard them, however,
without dissent, for my self-command is wonderful; and we might
have parted as we met, had she not proceeded, in an evil hour, to
criticise the rector's missing daughter, and with the most shocking
perversions, to narrate the story of her flight.  My nature is so
essentially generous that I can never pause to reason.  I flung up
my hand sharply, by way, as well as I remember, of indignant
protest; and, in the act, the packet slipped from my fingers,
glanced between the railings, and fell and sunk in the river.  I
stood a moment petrified, and then, struck by the drollery of the
incident, gave way to peals of laughter.  I was still laughing when
my stepmother reappeared, and the maid, who doubtless considered me
insane, ran off to join her; nor had I yet recovered my gravity
when I presented myself before the lawyer to solicit a fresh
advance.  His answer made me serious enough, for it was a flat
refusal; and it was not until I had besought him even with tears,
that he consented to lend me ten pounds from his own pocket.  'I am
a poor man,' said he, 'and you must look for nothing farther at my
hands.'