Part 3

“I was foolish to be so hot about a trifle,” said Arthur, resuming his self-command. “I’m very sorry to disappoint your friend; but I really can’t spare a single volume,--besides,” he said, with a faint laugh, “they are all about metallurgy and mining.”

“I told her so,” said Winnington, “and she has a great curiosity to see them.”

“You did!” again exclaimed Arthur, flushing with wrath. “You have behaved like a fool or a villain,--one or both, I care not which. You should have known, without my telling, that these books are sacred. If the girl knows German let her read old Gotsched’s plays. She shall not see a page of any book of mine.”

Winnington continued silent under this outbreak; he was partly overcome with surprise; but grief was uppermost.

“I’ve known you for two years, I think, Hayning,” he said; “from the first time we met I admired and liked you. I acknowledge your superiority in everything; your energy, your talent, your acquirements. I felt a pleasure in measuring your height, and was proud to be your friend. I know you despise me, for I am a weak, impulsive, womanly-natured fellow;--but I did not know you disliked me. I shall leave you to-morrow, and we shall never meet again.” He was going out of the room.

“I did not mean what I said,” said Arthur, in a subdued voice. “I don’t despise you. I don’t dislike you. I beg your pardon,--will you forgive me, Winnington?”

“Ay, if you killed me!” sobbed Winnington, taking hold of Arthur’s scarcely extended hand. “I know I am very foolish; but I love Ellen Warleigh, and would give her all I have in the world.”

“That’s not much,” said Arthur, still moodily brooding over the incident; “and never will be, if you wear your heart so perpetually on your sleeve.”

“You forget that I don’t need to have any riches of my own,” said Winnington, gaily. “I am to be physician to the Prince and Princess in Aladdin’s palace, and shall sit always on your right hand when you entertain the nobility. So, shake hands, and good night.”

“But Ellen is not to have my books,” said Arthur, sitting down to the table, and spreading a volume before him. “I wouldn’t lend you for an hour,” he said, when he was alone, cherishing the book, “no, not to Lucy Mainfield herself.”

CHAPTER II.

August and September passed away, and October had now begun. Arthur avoided the Warleighs as much as he could; Winnington was constantly at their house. The friends grew estranged. But, with the younger, the estrangement made no difference in the feeling of affection he always had entertained for Arthur. He was hurt, however, by the change he perceived in his manner. He was hurt at his manifest avoidance of the society of the squire and his daughter. He was hurt, also, at the total silence Arthur now maintained on the subject of his cousin Lucy. He saw her letters left unopened, sometimes for a whole day, upon the table instead of being greedily torn open the moment the straggling and uncertain post had achieved their delivery at the door. He was hurt at some other things besides, too minute to be recorded; too minute perhaps to be put into language even by himself, but all perceptible to the sensitive heart of friendship such as his. With no visible improvement in Arthur’s fortune or prospects, it was evident that his ideas were constantly on the rise. A strange sort of contempt of poverty mingled with his aspirations after wealth. An amount of income which, at one time, would have satisfied his desires, was looked on with disdain, and the possessors of it almost with hatred. The last words Winnington had heard him speak about Lucy were, that marriage was impossible under a thousand a-year. And where was that sum to come from? The extent of Lucy’s expectations was fifty,--his own, a hundred--and yet he sneered at the Warleighs as if they had been paupers; although in that cheap country, and at that cheap time, a revenue of three hundred pounds enabled them to live in comfort, almost in luxury.

Winnington took no thought of to-morrow, but loved Ellen Warleigh, with no consideration of whether she was rich or poor. It is probable that Ellen had no more calculating disposition than Winnington; for it is certain her sentiments towards him were not regulated by the extent of his worldly wealth,--perhaps she did not even know what her sentiments towards him were--but she thought him delightful, and wandered over the solitary heaths with him, in search of specimens. They very often found none, in the course of their four hours’ ramble, and yet came home as contented as if they had discovered an Emperor of Morocco on every bush. Baulked in their natural history studies by the perverse absence of moth and butterfly, they began,--by way of having something to do--to take up the science of botany. The searches they made for heath of a particular kind! The joy that filled them when they came on a group of wild flowers, and gathered them into a little basket they carried with them, and took them back to the manor, and astonished Mr. Warleigh with the sound of their Latin names! What new dignity the commonest things took under that sonorous nomenclature! How respectable a nettle grew when called an urtica, and how suggestive of happiness and Gretna Green when a flower could be declared to be cryptogamic.

“See what a curious root this piece of broom has,” said Winnington, one night, on his return from the Manor, and laid his specimen on the table.

Arthur hardly looked up from his book, and made some short reply.

“It took Ellen and me ten minutes, with all our force, to pull it up by the roots. We had no knife, or I should merely have cut off the stalk; but see, now that the light falls on it, what curious shining earth it grows in; with odd little stones twisted up between the fibres! Did you ever see anything like it?” Arthur had fixed his eyes on the shrub during this speech--He stretched forth his hand and touched the soil still clinging to the roots--he put a small portion to his lips--his face grew deadly pale.

“Where did you get this?” he said.

“Down near the waterfall--not a hundred yards from this.”

“On whose land?--on the glebe?” said Arthur, speaking with parched mouth, and still gazing on the broom.

“Does Warleigh know of this?” he went on, “or the clergyman? Winnington! no one must be to told, tell Ellen to be silent; but she is not aware perhaps. Does she suspect?”

“What? what is there to suspect, my dear Arthur? Don’t you think you work too much,” he added, looking compassionately on the dilated eye and pale cheek of his companion. “You must give up your studies for a day or two. Come with us on an exploring expedition to the Outer fell to-morrow; Mr. Warleigh is going.”

“And give him the fruits of all my reading,” Arthur muttered angrily, “of all I learned at the Hartz; tell him how to proceed, and leave myself a beggar. No!” he said, “I will never see him. As to this miserable little weed,” he continued, tearing the broom to pieces, and casting the fragments contemptuously into the fire; “it is nothing; you are mad to have given up your butterflies to betake yourself to such a ridiculous pursuit as this. Don’t go there any more--there!” (here he stamped on it with his foot) “How damp it is! the fire has little power.”

“You never take any interest, Arthur, in anything I do. I don’t know, I’m sure, how I’ve offended you. As to the broom, I know it’s a poor common thing, but I thought the way its roots were loaded rather odd. Ellen will perhaps be disappointed, for we intended to plant it in her garden, and I only asked her to let me show it to you, it struck me as being so very curious. Come, give up your books and learning for a day. We must leave this for Oxford in a week, and I wish you to know more of the Warleighs before we go.”

“I am not going back to Oxford,” said Arthur, “I shall take my name off the books.”

Winnington was astonished. He was also displeased. “We promised to visit my aunt,” he said, “on our way back to college--Lucy will be grieved and disappointed.”

“I will send a letter by you--I shall explain it all--I owe her a letter already.”

“Have you not answered that letter yet? it came a month ago,” said Winnington. “Oh! if Ellen Warleigh would write a note to me, and let me write to her, how I would wait for her letters! how I would answer them from morn to night.”

“She would find you a rather troublesome correspondent,” said Arthur, watching the disappearance of the last particle of the broom as it leaped merrily in sparkles up the chimney. “Lucy knows that I am better employed than telling her ten times over, that I love her better than anything else-- and that I long for wealth principally that it may enable me to call her mine. I shall have it soon. Tell her to be sure of that. I shall be of age in three days, then the wretched driblet my guardian now has charge of comes into my hands; I will multiply it a thousand-fold--and then--”

“The palace will be built,” said Winnington, who could not keep anger long, “and the place at your right hand will be got ready for the resident physician--who in the meantime recommends you to go quietly to bed, for you have overstrung your mind with work, and your health, dear Arthur, is not at all secure.”

For a moment, a touch of the old kindness came to Arthur’s heart. He shook Winnington’s hand. “Thank you, thank you,” he said, “I will do as you advise. Your voice is very like Lucy’s, and so are your eyes--good night, dear Winnington.” And Winnington left the room, so did Arthur, but not for bed. A short time before this, a package had arrived from Hawsleigh, and had been placed away in a dark closet under the stairs. He looked for a moment out into the night. The moon was in a cloud, and the wind was howling with a desolate sound over the bare moor. He took down the package, and from it extracted a spade and a pickaxe; and, gently opening the front door, went out. He walked quickly till he came to the waterfall; he looked carefully round and saw a clump of broom. The ground from the rectory to this place formed a gentle declivity; where the river flowed there were high banks, for the stream had not yet been swelled by the rains, and he first descended into the bed, and examined the denuded cliffs. He then hurried towards the broom, and began to dig. He dug and struck with the pickaxe, and shovelled up the soil--weighing, smelling, tasting it, as he descended foot by foot. He dug to the depth of a yard; he jumped into the hole and pursued his work--breathless, hot, untiring. The moon for a moment came out from the clouds that obscured her. He availed himself of her light and held up a particle of soil and stone; it glittered for an instant in the moonbeam. With an almost audible cry he threw it to the bottom of the excavation, and was scrambling out when he heard a voice. It was the drunken shoemaker returning from some distant merrymaking. He lay down at the bottom of the hole, watching for the approaching footsteps. At a little distance from the waterfall the singer changed his path, and diverged towards the village. The song died off in the distance.

“That danger’s past,” said Arthur, “both for him and me. I would have killed him if he had come nearer. Back, back,” he continued, while he filled up the hole he had made, carefully shovelling in the soil--“No eye shall detect that you have been moved.” He replaced the straggling turf where it had been disturbed; stampt it down with his feet, and beat it smooth with his spade. And then went home.

“Hallo! who’s there?” cried Winnington, hearing the door open and shut. “Is that you, Arthur?”

“Yes; are you not asleep yet?”

“I’ve been asleep for hours. How late you are. Weren’t you out of the house just now?”

“I felt hot, and went out for a minute to see the moon.”

“Hot?” said Winnington. “I wish I had another blanket--good night.” Arthur passed on to his own room.

“If he had opened his door,” he said, “and seen my dirty clothes, these yellow stains on my knees, these dabbled hands, what could I have done?” He saw himself in the glass as he said this; there was something in the expression of his face that alarmed him. He drew back.

“He is very like Lucy,” he muttered to himself, “and I’m glad he didn’t get out of bed.”

Meantime Winnington had a dream. He was on board a beautiful boat on the Isis. It seemed to move by its own force, as if it were a silver swan; and the ripple as it went on took the form of music, and he thought it was an old tune that he had listened to in his youth. He sat beside Ellen Warleigh, with his hand locked in hers, and they watched the beautiful scenery through which the boat was gliding--past the pretty Cherwell, past the level meadows, past the Newnham woods,--and still the melody went on. Then they were in a country he did not know; there were tents of gaudy colours on the shore; and wild-eyed men in turbans and loose tunics looked out upon them. One came on board; he was a tall dark Emir, with golden-sheathed scimitar, which clanked as he stept on the seat. Winnington stood up and asked what the stranger wanted: the chief answered in Arabic, but Winnington understood him perfectly. He said he had come to put him to death for having dared to look upon his bride. He laid his grasp on him as he spoke, and tore him from Ellen’s side. In the struggle Winnington fell over, and found himself many feet in front of the fairy boat. The Arab sat down beside Ellen, and put his arm round her waist, and then he suddenly took the shape of Arthur Hayning. The boat seemed to flutter its wings, and come faster on. Winnington tried to swim to one side, but could not. On came the boat, its glittering bows flashed before his eyes--they touched him--pressed him down; he felt the keel pass over his head; and down, down, still downward he went, and, on looking up, saw nothing but the boat above him; all was dark where he was, for the keel seemed constantly between him and the surface, and yet he heard the old tune still going on. It was a tune his cousin Lucy used to play; but at last, in his descent through the darkened water, he got out of hearing, and all was silent. The music had died away--and suddenly he heard a scream, and saw Ellen struggling in the water. He made a dart towards her with arms stretched out--and overturned the candle he had left on the table at the side of his bed.

SORROW AND MY HEART.

To the field where I was lying Once Sorrow came a-flying, And bade me bring my heart to mould at her goodwill. Shudd’ring, I turn’d aside; “Avaunt! O fiend!” I cried, “My heart is dear to me, and none shall work it ill!”

“But if thou must!” said she. “Nay,” said I, “let it be! ’Tis yet so young and tender, and so slight of make, Ungentle touch would crush it, Hard word for aye would hush it!” She smiled, and said, “Hearts sooner turn to stone than break!”

“Yet stay awhile!” I pray’d; And, frowning, she obey’d; While I to cast about my sentence to evade.

Then came she near again, And hover’d o’er the plain Where I sat listening to my darling’s long love-story. “Art ready now?” she cried: “O, no! no!” I replied, “My heart is now in all its fullest prime and glory!”

A third time came she near: “Now!” said she, “now prepare! For I must have thy heart to mould at my good pleasure!” “Here, take it!” I replied, And pluck’d it from my side (For I in sooth was half a-weary of my treasure).

“But what is this?” says she, And flung it back to me; “A stone! O traitor! thou shalt rue this jesting turn!” She wing’d her flight away, And I to shriek and pray For that dear angel, who would never more return.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH STAFF OFFICERS.

Louis de Bonfils is a captain in the corps of état-major, or the staff corps of France. I have known him for several years, and always found him an honourable upright soldier; in every sense of the word, a gentleman. According to our insular ideas of decorum, the captain is, perhaps, rather too much given to swaggering about with his hands in the far-down pockets of his red trousers, and is slightly addicted to swearing when ladies are not by. An English cavalry captain might think Louis awfully slow, because he does not know or care anything about racing, is proud of, and wears, his uniform at all times and on all occasions, and has but one suit of plain clothes to his name. Moreover, since he commenced his career in the army, the captain has thought of, and worked for, nothing but his profession, and has, consequently, succeeded in making himself what the state pays him to be--a useful active wheel in the great mass of French military machinery. Not but that my friend has his failings and shortcomings like other men; but he knows full well that unless he keeps pace with--and, to do so, he must strive to outrun--his comrades on the staff in the race for professional pre-eminence, he will be cast aside as a useless encumbrance on the army list of France. Besides his rank of captain in the staff corps, Louis de Bonfils is attached to the depôt général de la guerre at Paris; where he is assisting, together with several others of his own rank and regiment, in completing a magnificent series of military maps of France, on a larger scale than any that have yet been published. The captain lately returned from the Crimea, where he was attached as aide-de-camp to the staff of a general of division; but, being sent to Paris in charge of some valuable topographical papers relating to Russia--which he had compiled when in camp by order of his superiors--the minister of war attached him, for the present, to the aforesaid depôt de la guerre.

I met Captain de Bonfils the other day in Paris, and asked him to tell me what were the qualifications required for a staff officer in his service, and how he had been fortunate enough to obtain employment in so distinguished a corps. This request he complied with at once; assuring me that the career of one officer in the corps d’état-major may be taken as an exact sample of all, and that the same qualifications are required from every one who aspires to the honour of holding a commission in that regiment.

To apply the term regiment to the French staff is perhaps not quite appropriate, as the corps consists entirely of officers. Belonging to this body are thirty colonels, thirty lieutenant-colonels, one hundred chefs d’escadron (who would be termed majors in the English service), three hundred captains, and one hundred lieutenants. No one can join the regiment unless he passes through the special school instituted in eighteen hundred and eighteen for that purpose, and now called L’École Impériale d’Application d’État-Major. This my friend, Captain Louis de Bonfils, of course, did. There are sixty pupils in the establishment, one-half of whom leave it every year; thus creating thirty annual vacancies. Of these thirty, three are selected from the École Polytechnique; the remaining twenty-seven places in the staff-school are filled by competition from amongst fifty-seven candidates, thirty of whom must be sub-lieutenants who have been at least one year in the service, and must be under twenty-five years of age; and twenty-seven from the pupils of the military school of St. Cyr. Captain de Bonfils was one of the latter class. He had already spent his regulated time of three years at St. Cyr; and having passed the required examination for a commission in the line, might have joined a regiment without delay. Being one of the twenty-seven pupils at the head of the list amongst the hundred who had passed in his term, he entered his name as a candidate for admittance into the École d’État-Major, and, as he was successful, joined that institution. Here he remained two years, going through the regular course of instruction in military science; and--although, like the rest of the pupils, he held the rank of a commissioned officer--under almost as strict military and collegiate discipline as any school-boy. Winter and summer, the young men in this college rise at six o’clock, and, with the exception of an hour for breakfast, half-an-hour for recreation in the middle of the day, and the same in the afternoon, work at one or other branch of their studies until five in the afternoon; at which hour they dine, and are then at liberty to go where they like, until ten in the evening. When they want to be out of college later, leave must be asked and obtained from the governor of the establishment. During the two years they remain at the staff-school, their time is divided regularly every day, each hour bringing its allotted task. The course of studies includes all the higher branches of mathematics, topography, geography, and fortification, together with statistics, military history, the English, German, and Italian languages, drawing, and the theory of military manœuvres--artillery, cavalry, and infantry--on a grand scale, and separate as well as combined. One hour every day is devoted to lessons in equitation in the riding-school; and every pupil is provided with an excellent charger at the cost of the state. The young men have each their own room, which is large enough to form, with comfort, a sleeping apartment and a study. They breakfast and dine together in the refectory, the former meal being served at nine, and the latter at five o’clock.