part I

think the hussy deserves censure since she has made every young woman ridiculous."

With this commentary Miss Morton left her friend, and Phyllida, wondering all the while if she knew the whole affair, was more than ever firmly determined to elope to-morrow afternoon with her Amor.

_Chapter the Twenty-fifth_

QUARTS OF BURGUNDY

The old ballroom of the famous Daish's Rooms looked mighty cheerful on the evening of my Lady Bunbutter's rout and Mr. Francis Vernon's farewell entertainment.

The circular mahogany table with finely carved claw legs shone like the fine old piece of Spanish wood it was, that is to say, wherever it could secure a clear space for shining, being almost entirely clouded over by innumerable dishes of gruit and nuts, plates, silver knives and silver forks, two large horns of snuff and half-dozen pairs of branched candlesticks, while in the very centre surrounded by lesser fruits stood a magnificent pineapple.

Round the table stood a dozen or more solid Windsor wheelback chairs that were warranted to stand firm, though the fattest gentleman that ever sat down to dessert tipped perpetually back on them to the utmost limit of his balance. A magnificent fire blazed and roared in the hearth, and round the walls were hung prints of racehorses, cock-fights, steeplechases, prize bullocks, and fat sheep, with bills of sale beneath them and announcements of forthcoming diversions for the young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ and the more wealthy agriculturalists of the neighbourhood.

It was ten o'clock of a wet windy night and the chairmen were growing quarrelsome as they stamped up and down in the street below.

Mr. Jeremy Daish had been rather unwilling for Mr. Vernon to give his party on a night when he himself would be unable to superintend the commissariat owing to his services being required for my Lady Bunbutter's rout close at hand. However, he had left the strictest injunctions with John the senior waiter to carry off at once all empty bottles in order to the protection of the Curtain Wells watch, which was wont to suffer considerably in their persons on such an hilarious occasion as a party in the old ballroom of Daish's Rooms.

The host stood with his back to the fire complacently surveying the preparations. Vernon's extraction was somewhat ambiguous, and his father may or may not have been the fine gentleman that his mother swore he was. So, as he stood regarding the well-covered table and the tall armchair at the head of it where he would presently take his seat, a distinct feeling of elation seized him at the prospect of being in a position to pass the decanter round a circle of such undeniable breeding. He went over their names--names famous on many a battlefield and many a hunting field. They belonged to a world of broad acres and park gates and double lodges and Corinthian hunting-boxes. They were revered at home by many peasants and wore the mantle of life with an air of easy proprietorship. They possessed something like the dignified stability of the Church of England. They were a force, an institution, a product of insular civilization. In fact, they were English Gentlemen, and Mr. Vernon contemplated their existence with great self-satisfaction. He, too, was an English Gentleman, he reassured himself. It was the consciousness of being one which gave him that pleasant sense of superiority to the rest of the world when he found himself in the congenial company of his peers.

Yet poor Mr. Vernon (I am rather sorry for poor Mr. Vernon) could not conceal from his shrewd self that he had no business to be at all unduly elated at the prospect of entertaining young Tom Chalkley of the Foot, Lieutenant Blewforth of the _Lively_, Mr. Harry Golightly of Campbell's Grey Dragoons, Mr. Anthony Clare, little Peter Wingfield, Jack Winnington, the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe, my Lord Squall, Lord Augustus Wind and Mr. Charles Lovely.

It was Mr. Vernon's note of invitation to the last which had caused him to d---- Vernon's hazel eyes, in the taproom of the _World turned Upside Down_. Presently came a sound of laughter and careless talk as the young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ came swaggering in. Was it merely a sense of eccentricity that made the host fancy he detected a note of condescension in their loud and jovial greeting to himself? Probably.

The early guests talked, as early guests always will, with half an eye on the clock and the other half on the table.

"Squall is late," said Vernon.

"Squall coming?" inquired Blewforth.

"L-l-ook out for squalls," stammered little Peter Wingfield.

"Squall's an ass," said Mr. Golightly.

"So is his brother," said Chalkley.

"Always was," said Clare.

"Wind is coming too," said Vernon. "Augustus, that is, and Harthe-Brusshe."

The young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ looked peevish; it was tactless of that fellow Vernon to keep them waiting for three such asses as these.

"They are late," said Blewforth very emphatically.

"I'm expecting Lovely, too," said Vernon almost humbly. Somehow or other he felt the slightest inclination to apologize, exactly what for he did not know.

"Charles is always late. He's a d----d careless fellow," said Mr. Golightly, and one felt the final judgment upon Charles had been passed.

"Charles is not jigging with old Butterbun, is he?" asked little Peter Wingfield.

"Oh! the d----l! not he," said Blewforth. "He's found a red-cheeked hussy with whom he's carrying on an intrigue."

"Eh, what! Never?" exclaimed a chorus.

"What's his charmer's name?" said Chalkley.

"Burgundy," replied Blewforth with a great guffaw that made all the glasses and goblets and decanters on the big oak dresser ring an echo.

"I never thought Charles cared much for wine or women," said Golightly.

"Nor he don't," Blewforth put in. "Nor he don't. That's what beats me. But I tell you I saw Charles Lovely sitting in the taproom of the _World Turned Upside Down_. Nobody goes there unless he wishes to be drunk by nightfall. Eh, boys? So depend on't when Charles does arrive, he'll arrive drunk. But why? That's the riddle."

"Perhaps the fair Courteen has slighted him," said Chalkley. "Serve him right. He had no business to take himself so seriously. 'Tis very fashionable to be a poet, but egad! 'tis devilish low to behave like one."

"Is that Miss Phyllida Courteen?" said Vernon, trying to speak as though he had read her name in the list of visitors published every week by the proprietors of the _Curtain Wells Chronicle and Pump Room Intelligencer_.

"Aye! d'ye know her? Blooming seventeen with a short upper lip, blue eyes and hair the colour of that chestnut gelding, What's His Name sold 'tother day."

"Very poor animal," said Golightly.

"Not at all. I disagree with you."

"Very poor animal indeed," said Golightly.

"It fetched a very pretty price."

"Oh," said Mr. Golightly and the argument was over.

"Does she carry a white swansdown muff?" asked Vernon.

"Who?"

"Miss Courteen."

"Eh? Oh! I don't know," and since Mr. Chalkley's tone of voice implied a lack of further interest on the subject, the subject was dropped.

"My belief is," said Lieutenant Blewforth loudly, and moving as he spoke in the direction of the fireplace. "Egad, Vernon would you take it unkind if I rang for a tankard of ale? I'm as dry as a gunner in action. My belief is," he went on spreading his coat-tails to the genial warmth, "my belief is----"

"Gadslife! B-B-lewforth," interrupted Peter Wingfield, "pray get on with the recitation of your c-creed."

"Don't get excited, little man," said Blewforth. "My belief is Charles wrote that book."

"What book?" said Chalkley, whose acquaintance with the literature of the day was remarkably small.

"Curtain Polls."

"Never heard of it," said Mr. Chalkley.

"Rubbish!" said Clare, entering suddenly into the conversation. "Rubbish!" and yet Mr. Anthony Clare was one of the two people in the room who knew for certain that Charles was, indeed, the author of that satirical trifle.

"It has caused a terrible amount of talk," Blewforth went on. "My old aunt Seaworthy to whom I paid my annual visit yesterday tells me that all the world is very much hurt at being treated with such freedom."

"I d-don't see why Charles should take to drink because he's wrote a book." This was from Peter Wingfield.

"Ripple may have been annoyed. He's confoundedly touchy about a little matter like that and Charles thinks Ripple is a demigod."

The Earl of Squall, Lord Augustus Wind and the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe came into the room at that moment, and Mr. Vernon, who had been feeling a little outside the intimacy of the company, made haste to propose that, everybody save Charles being present, the wine should be brought in.

Everybody agreed that nothing fitted in more exactly with their wishes than Mr. Vernon's timely suggestion and everybody selected his chair with that preciseness which stamps the beginning of an entertainment. Everybody sat down and the nuts were circulated.

Presently John entered with twelve quart-bottles of Burgundy on a huge tray. All of them had been gently warmed before a slow fire, and all of them were wiped clean of the cobwebs and dust of the several years spent in the ample cellars of the _Blue Boar_.

Vernon had prepared a short oration for the entrance of the liquor and while John reverently stationed a bottle at everybody's right hand, he made haste to deliver it. Perhaps his utterance was a shade too reminiscent of one of the many prologues spoken by his mother at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but that did not matter since nobody in the room was old enough to remember that lady's inimitable delivery of Mr. Dryden's rhymed Alexandrines.

"The life of Burgundy," said Mr. Vernon, "is very like the life of a butterfly. At first the grape or caterpillar-grub, feeding upon the richness of the soil, then the cocoon or bottle stage when it languishes for many years in darkness below the earth until--until it emerges glowing with a thousand varied tints of crimson--and, like a butterfly, wings its airy way into the brain of mankind."

The company, with the exception of my Lord Squall who was sometimes taken in the old family coach of the Winds to hear his father speak in the House of Lords, were not accustomed to lengthy speeches and looked at each other bashfully.

Lieutenant Blewforth with nautical tact saved the situation by drinking Mr. Vernon's health in a very large and brimming pint bumper which he emptied in two sonorous gulps.

As everybody else proceeded to follow this good example, everybody was soon very cheerful, and the advent of the second dozen of bottles was mightily applauded.

However, the master mind was still absent and the drinking, though steady, had not yet enlivened the company to uproarious spirits.

"Where's Charles?" bellowed Blewforth munching a devilled biscuit. "Where's that fellow Charles. Demme! He'll never catch us up at this rate and we shall have him sober as a post-captain when we are beginning to amuse ourselves."

"What, you rogue," cried our hero entering just as the Lieutenant bellowed his inquiry. "I wager five guineas, I am two bottles ahead of any gentleman present." In order to clinch the bet he flung his purse in the direction of the table. The gauntlet snuffed in its course two of the candles and fell with a plump into a piping bowl of punch splashing Tom Chalkley as high as his stock and imparting to His Majesty's uniform an odour of hot squeezed lemons that lasted for quite a couple of weeks.

"Charles! Charles!" bellowed the burly Lieutenant, "Huzza for Charles!"

The latter lurched into the vacant chair next to his friend Tony without a word to the host. However, nobody observed this breach of good manners, because everybody was anxiously leaning over to fill every glass in reach of the newcomer as a preliminary to drinking his very good health a score of times, without a heeltap to any one of them.

"Z--ds! Charles. Where have you been?" said Chalkley.

"Drinking old Burgundy with a rogue of a bagman who looked like Ranelagh Garden en Fete, for his face was illuminated with every hue of crimson lamp and I stake my wig his nose was as large and round as the Rotunda."

With the arrival of Charles, everybody woke up and there were calls for a song. The gallant Lieutenant was the first to respond with my Lord Dorset's _To you fair ladies now at Land_.

Let me remind you of that fine old ballad:

_To you fair ladies now at Land We men at Sea indite; But first would have you understand How hard it is to write_.

"Not at all," cried Charles.

_The Muses now, and Neptune too, We must implore to write to you;_

"and chorus, gentlemen, please,"

_With a Fa, la, la, la, la, la The Muses now, and Neptune too, We must implore to write to you_.

and so on to the last

_With a Fa, la, la, la, la Let us hear of no Inconstancy We have too much of that at Sea_.

And a proper noise everybody made with the _Fa la-la-la-la_ accentuating every _Fa_ with a bottle and every _La_ with one of Mr. Jeremy Daish's handsome silver spoons.

The song being a very lengthy one allowed everybody plenty of time to drink another quart of Burgundy before its rousing conclusion, and if the company cheered loudly at the beginning, by heavens, they cheered so loudly at the end that the noise was heard above the fiddlers in the new ballroom of Daish's famous Rooms and put everybody out of step in the last Cotillon notwithstanding the heroick efforts of the disreputable, but nimble-footed Captain Mann.

Then Charles gave a new ballad (new that is in the reign of Queen Anne) sung first at Messieurs Brook and Hellier's Club at the Temple Tavern in Fleet Street, but slightly altered by him to suit present company,

_Since I'm in the Chair and every one here Appears in gay humour and easy; Say, why should not I, a new Ballad try, Bright Brethren o' the Bottle to please ye. This wine is my theme, this is all on's Esteem, For Jeremy Daish cannot wrong us; Let them get Wealth who keeps us in health. By bringing neat liquor among us_.

(with chorus of last two lines repeated).

_Each Vintner of late, has got an Estate By brewing and Sophistication With cyder and sloes, they've made a d----d dose, Has poisoned one half of the nation_.

and so on until

_Now God Bless the King, Peers, Parliament Men, And keep 'em like us in true concord; And grant that all those, who dare be his foes, At Tyburn may swing in a strong cord; We'll Loyalists be, and bravely agree With lives and estates to defend her--him So then we'll not care come Peace or come War For Lewis, the Pope, or Pretender._

"Ah!" said Mr. Antony Clare whose father had been a Jacobite, "you've spoilt more than the rhyme by the last word."

This treasonable remark was the signal for more noise than ever because all the young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ who held His Majesty King George's commission felt bound to uphold the honour of the Royal Navy and the British Army by flinging a large number of Spanish nuts at the head of the disloyal Clare who retorted by emptying a whole ram's horn of snuff over Mr. Golightly so that for a while nothing was to be heard but vollies of gigantick sneezes. Exhaustion reigned for a moment, but presently the sound of hustling and bustling in the street outside roused everybody to fresh vigour of mischief.

My Lady Bunbutter's rout was over, and those of the Exquisite Mob who had been invited were standing on tiptoe on the steps of Daish's Rooms peering into the darkness and blinking in the glare of waving flambeaux. The chairmen were so busy quarrelling over their positions that they paid no attention to their fares and everything was in a very great state of confusion indeed; nor was the clamour abated by Mr. Lovely cleverly hitting the long red ear of the nearest chairmen with a Barcelona nut because the injured chairman instantly floored a linkboy who was standing by his side and the linkboy's torch severely burnt the legs of Lord Cinderton's tall footman in his ash-grey livery and the tall footman with a yell of dismay punched a flat-footed waiter on the nose and the flat-footed waiter butted an inoffensive fop in the middle of his sprigged silk waistcoat and the inoffensive fop struck out with his tasselled cane left and right with such force that presently everybody in the street below was fighting with his next door neighbour to the entire delight of the young gentlemen from the _Blue Boar_. Their next diversion was to empty the dregs of the Burgundy bottles upon the heads of the crowd, whereupon all the ladies of Curtain Wells screamed very loud to see such a number of bloody polls and faces.

Then Charles snatched off little Peter Wingfield's tie-wig and, having set fire to it, began to drop tufts of burning hair out of the window, which tufts made an immense smell and blew round and round in the gusty March air in a very alarming manner.

Little Peter Wingfield, having lost his own wig and being too little to snatch Lovely's wig, mounted one of the stout Windsor wheelback chairs and, taking down the print of a famous cock-fight extracted the hook from the wall and laid an embargo on the black silk ties of three of his friends in order to fish from the window for another wig. He succeeded in catching the Marquis of Hurricane's to the intense delight of his undutiful sons the Earl of Squall and Lord Augustus Wind. Of course after such a successful display of angling, everybody else had to try his hand with the picture hook and two more wigs were captured but proved so frowsy that they were burnt immediately. However, Mr. Chalkley caught the hem of Lady Jane Vane's petticoat just as she was stepping into her chair and would without doubt have injured that virgin's modest reputation for ever, had the garment been made of more durable stuff; as it was, the hook would not hold and nothing was disclosed beyond what is allowed by any wet day.

Then Mr. Daish came hurrying in and begged their honours to desist because the watch was coming, and what Mr. Ripple would say when he heard of the riot he did not dare surmize.

Poor Mr. Daish bowed and scraped and was so full of excuses that all the young gentlemen felt quite sorry for him and put ham seat foremost into the biggest bowl of punch in order to drown his troubles, whereupon Mr. Daish grew quite cholerick and vowed he would never let one of 'em enter his inn again and made such ado that the culprits all protested he was more noisy than anybody else, and offered to fetch in the watch and have him arrested in his own bowl of punch.

But presently they lifted him out and subscribed ten guineas by sending round Mr. Golightly's hat; and poor Mr. Daish was more full of excuses than ever and hoped that anything he had said that could by the most spirited gentleman be considered derogatory would be forgiven and ascribed to the dismay caused by the hot punch scalding his hinder parts and goading him beyond the bounds of polite remonstrance.

Everybody vowed that withered little Daish was a prince of good fellows and begged him to buy himself a new pair of cinnamon cloth breeches as soon as possible, while Thomas Chalkley of the Foot created much amusement by shouting that he was holding Dunquerque against the French. In order to hold Dunquerque against the French, it was very necessary that Mr. Chalkley should fling out of the window nineteen quart-bottles of Burgundy in quick succession, whereupon Lieutenant Blewforth of the _Lively_ not to be outdone vowed Portobello must be taken and proceeded to take it by climbing with amazing dexterity on to the mantelpiece armed only with a long Churchwarden's pipe. Yet notwithstanding all the efforts of Ensign Chalkley to hold Dunquerque against the French, notwithstanding that he was valiantly assisted by Cornet Golightly of the Grey Dragoons, who led a desperate cavalry charge round the whole room mounted upon one of the stout Windsor chairs, Dunquerque capitulated. In other words the dignified Curtain Wells watch marched upstairs with their lanterns and their staves and, standing in a knot by the doorway, demanded the reason for such a riotous breach of the King's peace, not to mention Mr. Ripple's and the Mayor's. But the young gentlemen were all so merry and the watch was so cold that it consented to taste the punch and presently left Dunquerque in the hands of the Allies and marched off warmer in mind and body to a quieter quarter of the ancient borough of Curtain Wells. I am sorry to add that, in passing the door of the Great House, they so far forgot their standing orders as to cry with enormous fervour the hour and the weather exactly underneath Mr. Ripple's window.

With the departure of the watch, peace fell upon the company for a while; a dice box was produced and some packs of cards, but play lasted a very short time and was voted too confoundedly dull for so joyful an evening. So more songs were sung, and it was exceedingly pleasant to hear these young gentlemen shouting the refrains and hammering Encores upon the polished mahogany table. It was exceedingly pleasant to see the wigs on their knees and the long clay pipes keeping time to the tune; but perhaps the pleasantest sight of all was the two sleepy waiters who leaned against the jambs of the door and, with kindly grins on their tired faces, tapped their flat feet to the more alluring measures.

The night was wearing away when somebody called 'Vernon for a song!'

The latter, to tell the truth, had felt out of his element, except during the brief interval of play, but on being called upon to occupy the centre of the room, he cheered up and announced his very great pleasure in acceding to the gentlemen's request.

I wonder if you are at all sorry for Mr. Vernon.

He was very lonely sitting in his high armchair at the head of the table. I wonder if you will forgive him for singing this song, which you will find in Mr. D'Urfey's _Pills to Purge Melancholy_.

_In the merry month of May, On a morn by break of day, Forth I walked the wood so wide, When as May was in her Pride Here I spy'd all alone, all alone, Phyllida and Coridon._

_Much ado there was God wot, He did love, but she could not, He said his love was to woo, He said none was false to you; He said he had lov'd her long, He said love should take no wrong._

_Coridon would have kissed her then, She said Maids must kiss no men Till they kiss for good and all; Then she bade the shepherds call All the Gods to witness truth, Ne'er was loved so fair a youth._

_Then with many a pretty oath, As Yea and Nay and Faith and Troth, Such as silly shepherds use, When they would not love abuse; Love which had been long deluded Was with kisses sweet concluded._

_And Phyllida with garlands gay Was crowned the Lady May._

The words were poor, as you will allow, and the tune a mere tinkle, but it had the effect of rousing our hero from the half-sleep into which he had fallen.

"Sing that song again, will you."

"G---- forbid," whispered little Peter Wingfield.

"Nay, sir," said Mr. Vernon, "'Tis too long to sing over again, but I'll toast the heroine if that will please your zest."

"No, sir," said Charles, "it will not please me at all."

The rest of the company began to wake up to the fact that something was happening.

"I should have thought," Vernon replied, "that Mr. Lovely would have cordially welcomed such a toast, for we all know his partiality to the name."

"Gentlemen," said our hero. Did I not promise you some pretty heroicks a score of pages back? "Gentlemen, I have a tale to tell you."

Charles looked very stiff and very fierce as, clapping on his wig, he began:

"A short while ago I perpetrated an indiscretion in mistaking Mr. Francis Vernon for a gentleman, for which I beg the pardon of everybody present. Mr. Vernon for some reason best known to himself saw fit to bribe my bookseller to insert in a volume I have just published twelve scurrilous lines reflecting upon the character of a young lady whom I--whom I----"

"Admire," suggested our villain.

"No, sir, respect."

"Sir, your virtue should make us all blush," sneered Vernon, cold and contemptuous.

"D---- n you and your blushes; blush deeper, then," shouted Charles, slinging the contents of a wineglass into Mr. Vernon's pallid face.

There was silence for a moment until the honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe proclaimed----

"The affair should be settled at once."

And this was the only remark that the Honourable gentleman uttered in the whole of the evening.

"With all my heart," cried Charles. "Tony, you'll act for me?"

Mr. Vernon had delicately wiped his face with a handkerchief of Mechlin lace. A single drop of the wine lingered above his left cheekbone. There, it was not unbecoming.

"I shall be proud to walk with Mr. Lovely in a month's time," said our villain, "but for the present my honour is pledged to a lady."

"Sure, you borrow on mighty small security, sir," said Charles.

The lingering drop of wine that stained Mr. Vernon's cheek seemed to expand for a brief moment.

"I have named my day," was all he answered.

"Mr. Vernon is within his rights, Charles," said Mr. Golightly, "and moreover the weather will be finer next month and we can make up a jovial party."

"'Tis hardly fair to poor Daish to fight in his rooms," said Blewforth. "Ripple would put his shutters up at once."

"H---- take you all," cried Charles, in an access of fury, as he sprang to strike Vernon.

The latter stepped back and with a well-aimed blow sent Charles flying backwards over two chairs.

"'Slife, Charles," said Mr. Golightly very stiffly. "Your conduct is d----d irregular, Sir."

"Most improper," said Mr. Chalkley.

"Devilish unrestrained," said little Peter Wingfield.

"Charles was two bottles ahead of us, gentlemen," said Blewforth who held a broad mind in a broad body.

Our hero was still lying where Vernon had sent him among cards and broken glass.

"D---- n you all," cried Clare. "Charles is worth the rest of you puppies in red and blue coats put together, and by G----, Mr. Vernon, he shall kill you for that blow."

Everybody was so surprized to hear Mr. Anthony Clare, cool and placid Tony Clare, break out like this that a wave of embarrassment swept over the room. One by one they hurried from the scene of such an irregular quarrel.

It was very entertaining to see them march out so stiff and straight, with nutshells crackling underneath their feet.

_Chapter the Twenty-sixth_

AND THE DREGS OF THE SAME

Mr. Anthony Clare stayed behind to help our hero home to bed. His effort to achieve sobriety had completely exhausted such faculties as remained after so many quarts of Burgundy, and he babbled to his companion foolish threats and impotent defiance in such an incoherent voice that I doubt his enemy, had he been present, would scarcely have been able to discover common sense in any one of his remarks. Charles woke up in the morning full of bile, dressed himself in a splenetick fury and ate a breakfast, conspicuous for its peppery flavours, with petulance and aversion. Then he crammed his gold-laced Kevenhuller hat on his head and went out to interview Mr. Horace Ripple.

In crossing the courtyard of the inn he passed Mr. Chalkley, and for a moment debated seriously the wisdom of challenging him out of hand. This he was the more inclined to do because he fancied the gallant Ensign was regarding him with some disfavour. However, the latter gave him a 'good morning,' and excused his want of geniality on the score of a liver teased out of endurance by hard and violent exercise.

So Charles forgave him his supposed breach of good manners and decided to hear from Tony a full account of the evening's events.

Clare presently overtook him under the archway, and, on being informed of our hero's destination, tried to dissuade him from the projected visit to the Beau.

"Z----ds! I tell you that blackguard shall be turned out of the Wells with ignominy." So much Charles vowed.

"But 'tis no business of yours, Charles," argued his friend.

"No business of mine? Eh! is that so? Then, by heaven! I'll make it my business."

"Ripple does not believe in settling disputes of this nature by the personal encounter."

"Then, by heaven!" said Charles, "that being the case there is the greater necessity for expelling him from the company of gentlemen."

"That is all very well," expostulated Clare, "but you are neither the young woman's brother nor, as I believe, her lover. What right have you to interfere?"

"I tell you, Tony," said Charles, "that Ripple has already pondered the advisableness of interfering with Mr. Francis Amor-Vernon and, indeed, begged me to disclose his pseudonym, but I would not."

"You owed him money, in fact?" said Clare, gently tapping the kerb of the pavement with his cane.

"Yes, I owed the dog money."

"And now he is paid?"

"Thanks to your generosity he is paid."

"Charles," said Mr. Clare, laying his hand affectionately on that indignant gentleman's right shoulder, "oblige me, who was able and glad to oblige you, by not proceeding further in this affair."

"'Tis monstrous ill-bred in you to remind me of an obligation under which I laid myself with the most profound disinclination." Charles was growing angry.

"Nay, you know that is not my meaning, but, consider Charles, this confounded, pasquinading pamphlet book has placed you in such an ill light that the world will be very loth to believe any good of you."

"Ripple is wiser than the raree-show over which he presides."

"Ay! but depend on't, he has already been informed of last night's affair and will be prejudiced against you on account of your quarrelsome overtures."

"'Sdeath! Tony, pray desist from further argument; you do not convince me and will soon rouse my choler."

"As you will," said Tony, and, leaving the company of his friend, betook himself to the solitude of green fields. In the pleasures of country sights and sounds he found some consolation for the undeserved reproaches of a gentleman whom he had gratified at considerable expense to himself.

Charles continued in the direction of the Great House. Being arrived on the topmost doorstep he rang the bell with complete assurance and knocked thrice with the heavy brass knocker.

He was admitted to an audience and walked upstairs to the tall white drawing-room without trepidation or bashfulness. Mr. Ripple had favoured him with so many compliments lately, had begged his advice on so many trifles of publick importance, had in fact adopted him so completely into intimate conversation, that Charles may be pardoned for supposing that, notwithstanding his unceremonious conduct of the night before last, notwithstanding his notoriety as the author of a book of satirical poems, he would still be received with that inimitable and charming condescension which the Great little Man reserved for few indeed.

He found the Beau seated among the roses of his wide-winged armchair sipping what looked uncommonly like a cordial physick. He did not rise to Mr. Lovely's entrance, did not even turn his head, but merely said in a tone, indifferent, lifeless and chill,

"To what may I ascribe the honour of this visit, sir?"

Conceive the shocked feelings of Madam Semele when he, whom she had hitherto regarded with the familiarity born of many amorous meetings, assumed at her own request the attributes of divinity. She died, if you can recall the sad event.

Charles experienced a particle of that dismay when the Great little Man for whom he had hitherto felt an almost playful affection suddenly appeared to him with the attributes of majesty--remoteness, scorn, and inaccessibleness. The pattern upon the Aubusson rug swam before his eyes in changes of tint and form as frequent as a child's Kaleidoscope, and he found himself in humble obeisance. The Beau twirled the fluted stem of the green Venetian glass that contained his physick and waited for Mr. Lovely to explain his business.

"Well, sir," he said at last.

The abashed favourite stammered his reasons for the visit.

"Pooh, pooh," said the Beau. "Pooh, pooh! a likely story. Your brain, sir, addled by the ridiculous rhymes it has already born with obvious labour, refuses to hatch further monstrous fancies, and is content to send into the world an abortion. The night before last, Mr. Lovely, you waited upon me at an hour both indiscreet and inconvenient. I was ready to overlook this horrid breach of decorum and was indeed willing to receive your apologies on the following day. You found, however, a more engaging diversion in cracking bottles with a bagman. For this I do not blame you--and, indeed, think you will do well to cultivate a manner of company for which you seem to me singularly adapted. Pray understand, however, that, in finding your level, you have had to make a very considerable descent. The rider who has been thrown into a ditch is unable to cry 'View! Holloa!' to the master of the hunt. In other words, Mr. Lovely, you have put yourself in a position where your estimate of polite intrigue is incredible and impertinent. I am very well able to look after the morals of the Beau Monde without the assistance of the kitchen or the tap-room."

"Mr. Ripple," said our hero, "you insult me."

"Unfortunately, sir, I recognize no responsibleness in that direction. I have always claimed the right to speak my mind. If you find my strictures intolerable, the door affords you an easy remedy."

"Mr. Ripple," Charles replied, "I think you are making a fool of yourself."

The Great little Man clutched the arms of his wide-winged chair and gasped. It was certainly twenty years since any one had dared to address him with such a want of reverence.

"You wrap yourself in paint and sattin," continued Charles. "You strut about as if you were indeed the king of a puppet show. But don't forget, Mr. Ripple, that when the puppets perform, when they make miniature love and die small deaths, the publick regards them, not the wire-puller above. The world, your world, will forget you, Mr. Ripple, when it still remembers the inconsiderable passions of your dolls."

"It does not matter, sir," the Beau interrupted in a voice tremulous with well-bred anger. "It does not matter what the world thinks of me, so long as my puppets comport themselves with taste and discretion."

"You fool," shouted Charles, "the wires are twisted."

It is improbable that any one had ever shouted in this tall white room before, and the lustres shivered at the unwonted sound, while a diminutive Dresden shepherdess, fragile as a sea-shell, lost her head, which rolled into the grate with a tinkle of dismay.

"Leave my house," said the Beau.

"Ay! and you dislike to be told that your show will presently appear ludicrous."

"Leave my house."

"Good G----! Ripple. I know I have been to blame; I know my story seems to you absurd; but, by Heaven! I swear those cursed lines were never writ by me, and since Vernon wrote them, why, z----ds, man! Can't you see his intention?"

"Leave my house."

"Very well, sir, your obedient servant."

With a very grand bow, Mr. Lovely took his leave of the Great little Man.

When he was gone, the Beau stooped to pick up the head of the diminutive Dresden shepherdess.

"Tut-tut, I doubt the join will be plainly visible," he murmured to himself.

_Chapter the Twenty-seventh_

TIME FOR REFLECTION

Mr. Lovely left the Great House enraged with the owner, with Society and, to say truth, with his own heroick self.

I do not think he was very wildly in love with Miss Courteen, but I do believe he was sincerely vexed with himself for letting her fall into Vernon's power. For a moment he seriously pondered the wisdom of warning her mother of the lengths to which the affair had gone, but upon reflection shrank from a step which would savour, in the eyes of the world, of ill-bred intrusion. After all, the girl was nothing to him, and her reputation--plague on her reputation! I trust you observe the unheroick aftermath of heroick Burgundy. Such bathos of indifference would have sounded strange in the days preceding this forenoon.

Just then my lady Bunbutter went by in her capacious chair and Charles prepared to make an elaborate bow, but her ladyship merely stared at him in cold disdain, and he was forced to buckle his shoe to save his countenance.

"So everybody knows," said Charles to himself, "Well! I shall always regard Curtain Wells with affection and remember it with regret."

He walked down the Colonnade where Miss Morton lived and, as he passed the house, thought with half a smile of Valentine Day. It seemed a century ago--that merry morning. Soon he was in the fields, where the hedges were splashed with the silver of blackthorn in profuse bloom.

He crossed a winding path, begun and ended with a notched and scrabbled kissing-gate, and, passing through a small plantation where the daffodils grew tall, went up a rounded hillside along whose clear-cut horizon great fleecy clouds moved solemnly. He stopped for a moment to glance back at Curtain Wells with the March sun spangling the rain-wet roofs before he dipped with a sigh into one of those serene valleys that are only found in England--valleys whose slopes are often darkened by the long shadows of sheep and cattle, whose hollows are bright with moist grass and in summer fragrant with spearmint and creamy meadowsweet.

He took the devious course of a narrow stream and knew the grave delights of rural meditation; yet somehow the image of Phyllida danced before him all the time and whenever he paused, the wind far away over the hillside had a melancholy and foreboding sound.

He met an elderly gentleman--a parson by the colour of his cloth--who was poking some decayed herbage with a long cane. The elderly gentleman looked up as Charles went by, gave him a 'very good morning,' and said he believed he had seen an adder enter the herbage.

"Indeed," said Charles, who thought the information given demanded an attitude of respectful surprize.

"But nothing amazes me after that wonderful February. When I tell you that half an hour ago I saw an Orange Tip butterfly, you will understand that nothing amazes me."

Charles left the Elderly Gentleman still investigating the decayed herbage reputed to contain an adder, and found himself envying a mind that could invest a day with such easy fame. He had seen an Orange Tip butterfly. Had he met grey-eyed Athene, or beheld the roses and doves of Cytherea, the day would scarcely have held a more splendid memory.

He envied the Elderly Gentleman. To be sure, with a Stoick complacency, he had announced that nothing strange in the natural order could startle him after that wonderful February, but his tone of triumphant excitement foretold an entry in his diary that very night, perhaps was the prelude to a paragraph in the _Gentleman's Magazine_.

He began to imagine the Elderly Gentleman sipping his Port before the Rectory fire, on his knees an open Concordance whose pages were illuminated by dancing butterflies, precocious heralds of the scented spring. He heard the dignified butler told of his reverend master's lucky discovery, heard him asked to hand down the calf-bound diary of such and such a faded year, heard the Elderly Gentleman's chuckle when he found, as he suspected, that the date in his own experience was unprecedented and finally heard him order a bottle of the Port in bin twelve, the first-fruits of the Assiento Agreement.

Charles fell to comparing himself to the Elderly Gentleman, greatly to his own disadvantage.

Certainly the image of Phyllida danced before him in the water meadows, eluded him at every turn and twist of the little stream, and beckoned him along this secluded valley; but his own heart did not beat with the proper amount of answering fervour.

Six weeks ago when he saw her first, all swansdown and blushes, he had been duly elated. She had occupied much of his meditations ever since, but he had no sensation of triumph, no delight in the great fact of her existence. Perhaps that was because she belonged to the world. The butterfly had belonged, as a phenomenon, to the Elderly Gentleman alone. To the rest of mankind it was a legend. The discovery would be recorded in print, but the discovery itself would flutter in secret pale wings powdered with vivid gold, and this March morning would remain a permanent fact in that Elderly Gentleman's heart. He would suffer no disillusion. If others saw that butterfly, why, then, he would enjoy the discussion of it, whether in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ beneath a learned pseudonym or over two or three glasses of Port, with details long drawn out to protract the delicious memory.

The ink is faded on the pages of those calf-bound diaries, the Latin epitaph on the Elderly Gentleman's tombstone is now nearly illegible, but since he went down to Elysium alert and heedful of the changing seasons, I believe that his spirit still listens on summer eves to the blackbirds in his beloved orchard and observes with interest and curiosity each separate harebell that blossoms above his mortal remains.

Charles went on his way with much the same thoughts about the Elderly Gentleman as I have set down for my own, and continued to envy his gift of youth.

Presently he met Margery of Baverstock Farm.

Let me remind you, she was the wench to whom Mr. Anthony Clare had paid light court back in the winter. Charles reproved him for his behaviour and apparently his friend had given up his addresses, for the milkmaid looked happy and blooming and seemed not at all displeased to giggle over a hazel wand at Mr. Charles Lovely.

"Good morning, Margery."

"Oh, good morning, zur," said Margery.

"No longer with Farmer Hogbin?"

"I be with Farmer Hogbin's brother Jahn to High Corner Farm."

"And happy?"

"Oh, 'ess, proud and happy."

"Seen Mr. Clare lately?"

Margery blushed expansively.

"Oh! naw! I an't seen him since Baverstock Barn. I be courting."

"Eh, indeed," said Charles, "and who is the shepherd?"

"Wully Pearce."

"And you'll be married soon?"

"Come barley harvest--'ess."

"I will dance at your wedding, Margery."

"We shaant have daancing, because Wully says it leads to what oughtn't to happen."

Charles made a wry face.

"Going to wed a Puritan, eh?"

"Nay," said the buxom maid. "He's carter to Farmer Jahn Hogbin."

"Then, surely, he will let you have a merry junketing at the bride-ale."

"Naw, indeed an' he wawnt, because his sister Molly when they were thrawing the stocking last year fell on her back, and Wully's fam'ly is a proud and proper fam'ly and Wully says we mun be married wi' no such nonsense."

This long proclamation of propriety made Margery quite breathless, so Charles, with a bow and the present of a crown, passed on his way. Margery's case gave him more food for meditation. There was a buxom hale wench with the bloom of a peach, throwing away her ample charms upon a puritanical clod whose only ambition seemed to be the preservation of a mealy-mouthed decorum. Pshaw! such prime beauty deserved a better fate. Such a wedding as hers should have made old wives' fireside gossip for a score of years and the tale of it quickened the hearts of every lover and his lass that listened beneath the golden summer moon. Had he the control of the ceremony, by Heaven! they should have danced the dawn in, and every man and every maid should have gone to sleep with a face as pale as the morning sky. It was ridiculous that young Cupid should be breeched for the bidding of a lubberly half-baked ploughboy.

And yet, to be honest with himself, was not he behaving in much the same way as the despised Wully Pearce? Was not his chief objection to Vernon based on the latter's reputation as a man of intrigue? It was Phyllida's attraction to Vernon that made him indignant. Had she chosen to bestow herself on a middle-aged squire with acres and a gaunt square hall and a pack of hounds, would he have been at all seriously disconcerted by the prospect? And Vernon could have no honest love for her, because if a man means to wed a young woman, he does not stigmatize her behaviour in scurrilous verses, even to secure an advantage over a supposed rival. Or does he--when he is not quite a gentleman?

Then occurred to him the story he had heard many years ago of a thin unhappy-looking woman who had spoken kindly to him at some crowded Al Fresco entertainment where he and his father and mother had gone one fine July afternoon. He had asked about her as they drove home to the lodgings, and he remembered his mother's warning finger, while his father laughed over Lord B---- and Mrs. D----.

At the end of the tale his mother, a gentle Christian soul, had said it served the baggage right, and bade him never talk to people to whom he had not been presented by his parents. No doubt the circumstances of the two cases were totally different, but he connected them vaguely in his mind.

Moreover, without any doubt, Phyllida had caught his fancy. She disturbed his view. Yet there was nothing that singled her out from a dozen handsome young women with whom he had danced, whose existence save as a bevy he no longer recognized. Still, whatever he thought about the affair, his opinion would never again be invited and, disinherited by Beau Ripple, he must consider his own position with an eye to the future.

He was bracing himself preparatory to this great mental effort, when he perceived round the next bend of the stream Mr. Anthony Clare, pensively leaning against the rugged stem of a pollard willow-tree.

"Tony," said Charles, "Ripple has dismissed me."

"I know," said his friend, "your writ of banishment, signed, sealed and delivered, is pasted on the window of every coffee-house and occupies a large and distinguished space in the vestibule of the Assembly Rooms. What do you propose to do?"

"I might hire myself out to the amiable Hogbin as carter."

"Pshaw," said Tony, "be serious."

"Or I might take to the road."

"Nonsense, man."

"Nay! I vow such a career has many advantages for a poor man, since he may live and, what is more, die at the public charge."

"You are not in earnest, Charles?" said Mr. Clare, laying an anxious hand upon his friend's wrist.

"And why not, i' faith?"

"What would you gain by such an impulse of folly?"

"My livelihood and, as I said, very possibly my funeral expenses."

"Such flippancy is ill-timed," said Mr. Clare, who was a serious young man and spent much of his leisure with the theory of estate-management.

"Nay! I am not treating the matter as a jest, but truly considering the benefit of adopting such a novel method of existence in these hard times."

"Novel!" said Clare, with a scoffing laugh. "Novel! why, every ne'er-do-weel blackguard for the past hundred years has tried this novel method of existence and every one of them has come at last to the same windy death."

"Oh, as to the last scene," interrupted Charles, "indeed I vow 'tis the best in the play, for it never fails to please the populace, and sure in this dull world a man should try to give a little amusement; I hold that the author of a diverting comedy and the thief who makes a brave exit are the truest benefactors of humanity."

"All this is very pretty fooling, but leads nowhere," said Clare, who had a proposal to make and was vexed by Charles' levity.

"But ponder, Tony, the Gothick atmosphere of such an escapade. Imagine the moated grange, the haunted lane, the shadowy coppice, the phantastick oaths and gestures, the pursuit by moonlight, the clatter of hoofs, the jingle of spurs--all this appeals to an aspect of my character too long subdued by the bonds of convention and the trammels of polite society."

"But, you fool, you would be taken at once. You have no cant of the road and, as a Dilettante, would certainly be regarded with odious suspicion by every regular highway-man between Berwick and Dover. Oddslife, I'll not argue with you further, for I do not believe you mean a word of what you say, and, harkee, I have a plan that will suit either of us better than your cut-throat Braggadocio."

As a matter of fact, Charles had once or twice thought quite seriously of taking to the road. After all, it was in accordance with every precedent of outlawry. As soon as a man was banished from Society, he should compensate himself for the discomfort he incurred. Tony, however, now came forward with a project which, while it preserved much of the charm of highway robbery, held none of its dangers or difficulties. He suggested that since neither he nor Charles had very many ties to attach them fast to Curtain Wells, they should spend a year in making the Grand Tour of the British Islands.

Charles objected on the score of money.

"I have three hundred guineas," said Clare. "That will equip us with all that we require as travellers, and I am sure the world will entertain us for our pleasant appearance and company."

"In fact we are to become beggars--in velvet gowns," Charles commented.

"Adventurers, knights at arms, what you will," added Clare.

Charles was enraptured with the idea, so deeply enraptured that he saw no absurdity in grave Mr. Anthony Clare setting out upon such a career of folly. In fact, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for his friend to spend three hundred guineas on a whim. He himself would have spent treble that sum (had he possessed it) in order to the exploitation of such a witty, ingenious and romantick method of wasting time.

"We must equip ourselves for the parts we are about to play. There must be no shilly-shally, and above all no one must think us anything but eccentrick men of fashion, itinerant beaux, fops on pilgrimage, wandering wits."

"The last phrase is unfortunate," said Clare. Charles laughed hugely.

By this time Phyllida had faded like a summer joy, Vernon was forgotten, nothing mattered except this new and exceedingly entertaining project.

"What is the first thing to be done?" inquired Clare.

"Egad, what should always precede any undertaking of importance--a visit to the tailor."

The two young men beneath a sky growing rapidly overcast, walked quickly through the lush meadows towards Curtain Wells, discussing as they went the merits of rival tailors with infinite vivacity.

Meanwhile in the Crescent, our heroine was engaged upon much the same problem. Possibly the reason that so many timid young women have been brave enough to plunge into an elopement, is the obfuscation of the real issue, the vital stakes, by the need of deciding what they shall leave behind to console their abandoned virtue.

So it was, at any rate, with Phyllida. She was deterred from soft regrets by the desperate necessity of making up her mind between the charms of a muslin frock overlaid with pink rosebuds and a muslin frock sprigged with the palest blue forget-me-nots.

There were a thousand sentiments that might well have restrained her from the wild step she was taking, but everything was forgotten for a trifle; and when finally she slipped out of the door, the only living creature for whom she indulged herself in the luxury of a protracted farewell, was Thomasina the tabby cat, and that was considerably interrupted by the attenuated miaouws of a large family lately arrived. Even Ponto the spaniel had sidled off to a favourite heap of rubbish. Pray do not suppose I am sneering at Phyllida. Heaven forbid that you or I should sneer at a young woman, however impetuous, however foolish. Still, I cannot help observing that the heroism of most heroick actions is to be sought for in the obscure preliminaries to a grand event. Phyllida had known the agony of making up her mind through many a firelit, sleepless night. When the moment arrived for carrying out her resolve, she spent most of the forenoon reading the advertizement of a fashionable mantua-maker. As to her devices for getting rid of her mother and Betty and the landlady and Thomas and Miss Sukey Morton, who called to inquire whether Mrs. Featherbrain's new novel was called _The Affectionate Aunt_ or _The Disconsolate Uncle_,--why, they were as old as the first writer of tales and I will not weary you with their repetition. And why should I delay you with the narrative of the attempt to open her mother's jewel-case with a bodkin and a silver paper-knife? Like most toilet receptacles, it was very easily broken.

She hurried down the Crescent with a small parcel of cloaths wrapped up in brown paper and tied with a green ribbon. If you are anxious to know what was inside, I will refer you to Miss Howe, Mr. Richardson's Miss Howe, to whom Miss Clarissa Harlowe confided a parcel of much the same dimensions and contents.

She did not forget her swansdown muff nor her swansdown tippet, and altogether she looked just the same as she looked a good many pages ago and was flushed to just the same frail hue of carmine.

Ding-dong went St. Simon's husky clock, ding-dong, ding-dong.

Pitter-pat went Phyllida's heart and pitter-pitter-pitter-pitter-pat went Phyllida's heart when, exactly opposite the toy-shop, she saw a post chariot and four bay horses and two postillions staring very intently at the sky.

It struck Phyllida how clever it was of her dear Amor to chuse such a time and such a place; for all the world was engaged in directing the start of the Invincible Stage Coach that ploughed once a week between Curtain Wells and London.

Tootle-a-tootle-a-tootle went the long brass horn of the guard and plump-plump went two large parcels into his basket and crack-crack went the coachman's long whip, and 'Now then Miss, jump in,' said one of the post-boys, still staring intently at the March sky, and before Phyllida knew where she was, she found herself sitting on a rather damp cushion with a peacock-blue riding hood lined with swansdown on the seat beside her, but no sign of Mr. Francis Amor.

In dismay she put her head out of the window and cried to the nearest postillion.

"Mr. Harmor's followin' on 'orseback," he said, with a thumping thwack on the ribs of his mount and a vicious prod with his rusty spurs.

Phyllida drew back with tears of disappointment starting to her wide blue eyes; but before she could make up her mind to stop the chariot and never elope again, she caught the glance of Thomas in open-mouthed amazement. Instinctively, she pulled the musty curtains close, and, lifting the leather flap at her back, could not help laughing aloud to see dignified Thomas mopping his brow with his right hand and waving his tall cane with the left; and just as the chariot tore round the corner of the street, she saw that Thomas had knocked off Lord Cinderton's grey beaver hat. The Love Chase had begun.

_Chapter the Twenty-eighth_

THE LOVE CHASE

John Gilpin never rode so fast through Edmonton as, on that memorable afternoon in March, Major Constantine Tarry pounded over the cobbles of Curtain High Street. His scarlet uniform was very bright against the huge iron-grey steed on whose broad back he nodded with hat pressed down as far as his fierce prickly eyebrows, with pigtail bobbing to the motion and with sword whose martial clangour recalled every famous battle in the history of the world. He was conversing with the widow when Thomas burst upon them with the news of Phyllida's elopement.

"Gone, gone!" wailed the footman. "Oh Tyre! Oh Sidon! Hittites on horseback and two Amorites in a chariot!"

"What the d----l do you mean, sir?" snapped the Major, "who is gone?"

"Miss Phyllida," groaned Thomas.

"Gone," breathed the widow, and the odour of diffused Sanspareil permeated the room.

"Gone where?" shouted the Major.

"To the desert beyond Jordan," answered the footman.

"With what viper in sheep's clothing?" gasped Mrs. Courteen.

"Which way, which way, sirrah?" interrupted practical Major Tarry.

"Lunnon," ejaculated Thomas, fainting into the arms of a chair.

This was why the inhabitants of the Wells saw a veteran of the Low Countries shaken up like a cherry in a basket. The sedate glories of the town were never more nicely displayed than on this famous occasion. From each bow-windowed shop came forth a bland shopkeeper and half a dozen inquisitive customers.

The little Miss Pettitoes trilled in bird-like accents: 'What an adventure!' and returned to a counter spangled with their gay little purchases, for the Miss Pettitoes were twin sisters and to-morrow was their birthday.

"What an adventure!" they trilled to each other over a dish of Hyson and 'What an adventure!' they trilled as they kissed each other 'good-night' and went each to their bed chambers, identical save for the ribbons of their fascinating little spinster night-caps.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted the boys, as they pushed the maids into the puddles the better to follow so surprizing a cavalier.

"Rot me!" said Mr. Golightly of the Grey Dragoons, as he lifted his tortoise-shell rimmed monocle to his supercilious left eye, and 'Rot you!' he ejaculated, as an enthusiastick trio of youth sheltered between his remarkably tight-breeched legs.

"Shall we make such an impressive entrance, d'ye think?" asked Mr. Lovely, as he and Mr. Clare came out of Mr. Canticle's shop, followed by Mr. Canticle himself and Mr. Canticle's apprentice loaded with a huge brown-paper parcel.

"Good day, Canticle," said Charles.

"Good day, Mr. Lovely, good day, sir, and depend on't, grey will be the modish colour for gentlemen of quality; and I beg you not to be uneasy about the light-blue lining. That, sir, I venture to predict, will supply the exact touch of genteel eccentricity that consorts so amiably with the friendly madness of the season. I envy you, gentlemen, I envy you; and I beg to wish you many a pleasant adventure. The cut of that riding-coat, Mr. Lovely, will enthral the most fastidious glance, and as for your breeches, Mr. Clare, I should perhaps be considered boastful if I said that they impart a tone, sir, a very distinguished tone to the landskip. Good day, gentlemen."

The two young gentlemen laughed over Mr. Canticle's prophecies, and excused his loquacity because he had been a limner till the vogue for foreign painters compelled him to apply his art in another direction.

It was certainly a stroke of irony that the offer of a sartorial uncle should make him, a very tolerable exponent of nudity, take up the occupation of devizing cloaths.

By this time, Major Tarry's coat-tails were flapping to hedge-row winds, and his astonishing course was less universally regarded; although, even in open country, the clamorous transit caused much confusion to itinerant carters, while a pair of blackbirds forsook their hardly built nest and retired in voluble dismay to the densest coppice between Baverstock Regis and Curtain Wells.

Mr. Jeremy Daish met our hero with a very lugubrious expression, as he strolled into the coffee-room.

"What has your honour been doing to enrage Mr. Ripple? Oh, Mr. Lovely, read this."

Charles took the proffered note, and half-smiling, half-sighing, perused his decree of banishment.

THE GREAT HOUSE.

CURTAIN WELLS, PRIDIE KAL. AP.

MR. DAISH,--_The uncomfortable events of Wednesday evening compel me to announce that I cannot contemplate with equanimity the protracted Sojourn of Mr. Lovely at your hitherto peaceful House. I have no desire to inflict upon you the invidious course of summary Ejection, but at the same time I am bound to invite a trifle less cordiality in your Reception of all young gentlemen unperturbed by the Gout. The town of Curtain Wells exists for the supply of hygiastick Waters; and, since red wine is a notorious antidote to chalybeate, my civick brother the Mayor begs me to point out that we cannot lend our patronage to a house which studiously encourages the circulation of this antipathetick Beverage. In expectation, Mr. Daish, that you will presently reconstruct at once your list of wines and your list of visitors,_

_I am, Mr. Daish, your obliged_

HORACE RIPPLE.

"Console yourself, Daish," said our hero, as he handed back the Beau's exquisitely written epistle, "Mr. Clare and I propose to make a long excursion into the country this very afternoon. Have the goodness to order our horses to be in the yard at six o'clock."

"Certainly, your honour, but I hope that nothing I may have said or done or hinted--or--or--or--" poor Mr. Daish stumbled over the awkwardness of the interview, and was more like a Cremona violin than ever, a violin whose strings were snapping one by one.

"Console yourself, Daish," said our hero with an incredibly magnanimous air, "you are not to blame. You must know, Daish, that for a long time past I have had a curiosity to survey this small green earth, unhampered by anything more serious than the impulse of the moment. To-night, Daish, when you retire to rest, when you gather the curtains of your serene bed, when you hark to the clock in the passage striking the moderate and orderly hour of ten o'clock, when you reflect with a sigh of proprietary contentment that you have offended no one in the course of an innkeeper's promiscuous day, when, in a word, your respectable head sinks into your respectable pillow, dally for a moment in the imagination of Charles Lovely and Anthony Clare mocking society, laughing at convention, seated in the parlour of some remote inn and dozing gratefully before a pile of logs.

"Think of us, Daish, in the cool dusks and azure silences of April, at the top of some gentle hill whence we can regard with exhilaration the prospect of a good dinner, a crimson glass, and genial intercourse with travellers. Behold us in your mind's eye, walking our horses down through the twilight, as one by one in cottage lattices the candles twinkle and, high above, the stars betray the night with silver spears. For my part, already I can hear the evening gossip of housewives, and the babble of children in small gardens, and clear against the green West, I can see the many lovers of a little town moving with slow steps along their customary path.

"Thus, my excellent Daish, each solemn nightfall will discover for us a new world, and, when the sun rises on the merry unknown streets of our pilgrimage, we shall think to ourselves what a vast number of jolly people exist in this remarkably jolly world. Oddslife--"Mr. Lovely broke off--"what a surprizing alliance."

As he looked out of the window, we had better look out of the window too, and I think you will be quite disposed to agree with Charles when I show you that vivid yellow chaise drawn by two fiery chestnut horses, and driven by that extraordinarily diminutive coachman, for inside are seated Beau Ripple and the Widow Courteen, and neither you nor I nor anybody else ever saw both so nearly disconcerted.

"Now what the deuce can be the meaning of that?" continued Mr. Lovely.

"Of what you were saying?" inquired Mr. Daish in a deprecating voice.

"The horses! the horses!" was all that Mr. Lovely saw fit to reply.

Major Tarry's earlier progress might well have been the meteor which heralds a cataclysm, for cataclysm this later apparition certainly was. I vow the noise of conversation it caused far exceeded anything of the sort that was ever known.

The Beau found the publicity of such an exit unendurable to his polite soul. That his sacred chaise, which had once bowled along at a high but decorous speed in order to meet the H--r A---- t of Great Britain, should achieve such a vulgar notoriety nearly upset the sit of his waistcoat.

His contemporaries felt the Great little Man's humiliation.

Yet compassion did not prevent them from forming numberless conjectures as to the cause of this strange affair. Some said 'Debt!'; others boldly affirmed an intrigue; but as usual nobody guessed the true reason, which was that beneath a gorgeous exterior lurked the gentlest, kindliest heart.

When the Widow, with a very noisy tale of seduction, poured forth her tears upon his cushions, Mr. Ripple instantly reproached himself and nobody else with the disaster, immediately decided he must atone for his negligence by immediately ringing his flowered bell-pull and commanding Magog, who immediately appeared, to run immediately to the stables and command the immediate harnessing of the royal horses to the royal chaise and the immediate buttoning of his diminutive coachman's slender gaiters.

It was with a shudder, if a much polished shudder, that he handed Mrs. Courteen to a place amid the fawn and ivory of the interior of his chaise. With a barely repressed shudder, too, he observed the dabbled rouge of her cheeks, and the open mouths of the cits, and the bobbing of heads at windows, and a horrid bank of black clouds in the extreme South-west that seemed to betoken a night full of rain, and last but perhaps worst of all, the lean sign-post 'To London,' a prologue to G---- knows what unendurable discomfort.

"We have an adventure to hand," said Charles to Clare, as they strolled across the yard of the _Blue Boar_. "We'll follow Ripple!"

"Ripple?"

"Ay! Which way did Mr. Ripple's chaise go?" demanded Charles of a knot of idlers.

"Lunnon Road," they replied unanimously.

"We must get ready at once," declared Charles.

* * * * *

"How pleasant 'twould be," thought Phyllida, "if I were not alone."

Even alone, it was very pleasant to bowl along a level road at an equable rate of speed. It was very pleasant to try on the peacock-blue riding hood that so became her. It was very pleasant to see the cheerful faces of the many wayfarers encountered by the chariot. The backs of the postillions glowed with scarlet, and a gay contrast they made to the flaming gorse of a wild open stretch of country. Every cottage that nestled back from the road with clipped yews to guard the gate seemed to Phyllida a desirable place to live and love in for ever. It was pleasant to watch the lambs in the meadows, and exciting indeed to count the still sparse primroses starring the hedgerows. It was pleasant to watch the children stand on the topmost rung of a five-barred gate and cheer as they rattled past. Very pleasant it was, though the sight brought a slight lump in her throat, as she thought how often she had done the same thing with Dick Combleton the Squire's youngest son.

Up-hill with many a groan and grunt, and down-hill with a clatter and a dash, and along the level with a ring and a jingle went the post-chariot in the afternoon sunlight. Past farm-house and farm-yard, past villages and churches, and inns with waving signs, past ponds and geese, past many a tired woman trudging home from market and many a jovial carter; past sign-posts and cross-roads and milestones; past smithies with roaring fires and monstrous bellows, past lowing cows and crowing cocks, past journeymen tinkers and journeymen barbers, past a great dancing bear which, had Phyllida but known it, danced not a whit more foolishly for bumpkins than rose-pink Phyllida herself for the malicious eyes of the world of fashion.

After a long climb up a heavy hill, whence a very fair champagne spread before her, the great black and purple cloud caught the westering sun, and suffused the whole landskip with a queer metallick sheen. It made the rooks that swayed in the bare branches of a windy clump of elms take on a strange green lustre over their plumage, and cast a stillness over the world. That view remained with Phyllida all her life, as a pause wherein she had contemplated existence for the briefest moment. Years afterwards, an old woman, sitting in a dim ingle-nook, would see that fair champagne in the clouds of smoke that curled ceaselessly up the wide chimney, and, above the scent of burning logs, would be wafted the perfume of the white March violets that blossomed at the foot of those swaying elms where the rooks cawed and the dead leaves raced round and round.

"Stop, you blackguards," cried a rasping voice above the noise of fast approaching hoofs.

"Crack! crack!" went Dickie Maggs' big pistol.

"'Ighwayman, Miss," he added cheerfully, as the sound of something soft falling was heard, followed by horse-hoofs in mad retreat down the long heavy hill.

In a moment, the chariot was rocking in a wild gallop down the opposite decline.

Raindrops began to fall, deliberately at first, but soon fast enough, while the earth was slowly blotted out by storm and rain and twilight.

On the summit of the hill, Major Constantine Tarry lay face downwards, having paid the extreme penalty of interference with other people's business. Poor Tarry, he was a bore and a braggart, and had not the slightest intention of being killed, yet I for one regret the manner of his death, up there on the top of that wind-swept hill. And for all he told you such very long stories when he asked you to dine with him at Oudenarde Grange and Malplaquet Lodge and Ramilies House, he gave you some capital Port, and Sherry nearly as dry as his own anecdotes. Moreover, he really fought in that bloody fight of Fontenoy, and that was a very great honour and should make us forgive a very great deal.

A flash of lightning illuminated the dead body of the veteran lying face downwards in the mud of an English high-road, and a distant volley of thunder accorded military honours to his somewhat grotesque death.

_Chapter the Twenty-ninth_

THE BASKET OF ROSES

Some four-and-twenty miles from Curtain Wells on the Great West Road is a tangle of briers among whose blossoms an old damask rose is sometimes visible. If the curious traveller should pause and examine this fragrant wilderness, he will plainly perceive the remains of an ancient garden, and if he be of an imaginative character of mind will readily recall the legend of the Sleeping Beauty in her mouldering palace; for some enchantment still enthralls the spot, so that he who bravely dares the thorns is well rewarded with pensive dreams and, as he lingers a while gathering the flowers or watching their petals flutter to the green shadows beneath, will haply see elusive Beauty hurry past.

Here at the date of this tale stood the _Basket of Roses_ Inn, a mile or so away from a small village. When coaches ceased to run, the house began to lose its custom and, as stone is scarce hereabouts, was presently pulled down in order to provide the Parson with a peculiarly bleak Parochial Hall.

However, this melancholy fate was still distant, and old Simon Tabrum had a fine custom from the coaches and private travellers who delighted to spend a night in so sweet a lodging.

The _Basket of Roses_ was the fairest, dearest inn down all that billowy London road. The counter, sheathed in a case of pewter, the glasses all in a row, the sleek barrels and the irregular lines of home-brewed cordials, charmed the casual visitor to a more intimate acquaintance. Behind the tap was the Travellers' Room, and what a room it was--with great open fireplaces and spits and bubbling kettles and blackened ingles. Long-buried ancestors of the village had carved their rude initials over each high-backed bench and battered the bottoms of the great tankards into unexpected dents by many rollicking choruses in the merry dead past. The walls of this room knew the pedigree of every bullock and the legend of every ghost for many miles round. Here was the cleanest floor, the clearest fire in England.

Old Tabrum the landlord was the very man for the house--the very man to bring out all that was most worthy in his guests. He always produced good wine and a piping hot supper, never asked for his money till his guests were satisfied and always wore an apron as white as the foam of his cool deep ale.

He was eighty years old now, with a bloom on his cheeks like an autumn pippin and two limpid blue eyes that looked straight into yours and, if you had any reverence at all, made the tears well involuntarily at the sight of such gentle beauty.

Once he was a famous Basso Profundo, but now his voice was high and thin, and seemed already fraught with faint aerial music. The ancient man was a great gardener as properly became a landlord whose sign was a swinging posy. What a garden there was at the back of this glorious inn. The bowling-green surrounded by four grey walls was the finest ever known, and as for the borders, deep borders twelve feet wide, they were full of every sweet flower. There were Columbines and Canterbury Bells and blue Bells of Coventry and Lilies and Candy Goldilocks with Penny flowers or White Sattin and Fair Maids of France and Fair Maids of Kent and London Pride.

There was Herb of Grace and Rosemary and Lavender to pluck and crush between your fingers, while some one rolled the jack across the level green of the ground. In Spring there were Tulips and Jacynths, Dames' Violets and Primroses, Cowslips of Jerusalem, Daffodils and Pansies, Lupins like spires in the dusk, and Ladies' Smocks in the shadowed corners. As for Summer, why the very heart of high June and hot July dwelt in that fragrant enclosure. Sweet Johns and Sweet Williams with Dragon flowers and crimson Peaseblossom and tumbling Peonies, Blue Moonwort and the Melancholy Gentlemen, Larksheels, Marigolds, Hearts, Hollyhocks and Candy Tufts. There was Venus' Looking Glass and Flower of Bristol and Apple of Love and Blue Helmets and Herb Paris and Campion and Love in a Mist and Ladies' Laces and Sweet Sultans or Turkey Cornflowers, Gillyflower Carnations (Ruffling Rob of Westminster amongst them) with Dittany and Sops in Wine and Floramor, Widow Wail and Bergamot, True Thyme and Gilded Thyme, Good Night at Noon and Flower de Luce, Golden Mouse-ear, Princes' Feathers, Pinks, and deep-red Damask Roses.

It was a very wonderful garden indeed.

And because the old man loved flowers, tending them in the early twilight with water and releasing them from many a small weed which he was fain to destroy, but in the end always replanted in a small clearing on the shady side of his farthest meadow, because he loved flowers, the old man, whose first wife died years and years ago on a long past primrose-tide, married in the hale winter of his life a comfortable wench whom he could trust as he trusted his flowers to be true to their seasons. This second wife, more like a daughter than a wife, he delighted to surprize with fragrant rolls of gaily sprigged cloths; and never a summer morning broke but he was abroad in the dewy grass to gather her such a posy of freshness and beauty as can only be taken in the earliest hours of the morning. Mrs. Tabrum, for all she was so young and rosy, had a great feeling for the importance of her position as mistress of a famous hostelry and ordered about little Polly Patch, newly arrived from Mrs. Margery Severe's select charity school, with a great air of ladyship. Little Polly Patch was a very important young woman too; for the _Basket of Roses_ was not a large galleried inn full of grooms and hostlers and waiters and chambermaids, but a house of quite another character, where you were never bewildered by superfluous service but always received with a quiet dignity. Therefore you paid a great deal of respectful attention to little Polly Patch who had a great deal to do with your night's rest and your morning's breakfast. I think Mr. Vernon was a very wise man to choose a domestick fairyland so apt to soothe the sweet alarms of his Phyllida.

Here they would sup while the horses were being changed, and hence they would set out in the darkness, preserving, as they galloped along, a sense of peace and quiet beauty that should be to her the fortunate prelude of a happy adventure.

Vernon had sent word to the house of their arrival, hinted at the fatigues of a gay bridal, and let it be supposed they desired no intrusion.

To the ancient man such a confidence was enough to set his old brain agog with the gallant scenes of his youth. He chuckled over every tankard of ale he drew, told every one of his daffodils the merry secret and piped away at long forgotten melodies until his wife in despair sat him down in the ingle, put a broken fiddle in his hand and bade him play his fancies to sleep. The storm that rose at sunset shrieked about the inn, and the hollow groaning in the mazes of the huge chimney consorted in fitting harmonies with the old man's eerie tunes.

"March is going out wi' thunder and tempest like a roaring lion," he muttered, as a sudden gust of hail was blown against the lattice which pattered and rattled as if a crowd of elfin drummers were beating a wild tattoo without.

"Aye, 'tis a main ugly night," said Mrs. Dorothy Tabrum, who was laying the shining silver about the snowy tablecloth.

"So 'tis, my peony, so 'tis! A main ugly night for daffodils and young brides. Is her chamber ready?" he went on.

"Aye! Aye!"

"Wi' rosy curtains drawn close?"

Mrs. Tabrum nodded.

"Wi' candlelight and the cracking of logs and green bayleaves in the presses?"

"Why, do'ee think I'm gone daft to forget suchlike?"

"And a vase of daffodils by her mirrour?" the ancient one persisted.

Polly Patch came in at that moment.

"All be ready, mistress," she said in a slow voice, solemnly nodding her enormous mobcap while she spoke.

"Now Polly," said Mrs. Tabrum, "lend a hand wi' this table and lets put 'un a thought nearer to the fire. Ugh! how it blows!" A vivid flash of lightning illuminated the room, and on the heels of a terrifick roar of thunder there was a cry of 'House! House!'

"Hurry, hurry, my daisies, and make who comes there welcome. Jacob! Jacob!" cried the old landlord as, much excited, he rose from his seat in the ingle and quavered towards the taproom.

"You are sure the candles are lighted, Polly?"

"Sarten, mistress."

"And the logs burning brightly?"

"'Ess mistress."

"And the curtains pinned together?"

"'Ess mistress."

"Then stand by the door, curtsey when you're spoken to, and don't put your thumb in the soup."

"No, mistress."

"Is Mary Maria watching the fowls?"

"Wi' both her eyes, mistress."

"Hark!"

"I'm harking away, mistress."

And while the mistress and the maid harked vigilantly the ancient landlord ushered Miss Phyllida Courteen into the Travellers' Room of the _Basket of Roses_ Inn.

As he entered, old Tabrum looked very much like a sexton leading a shy maid to the altar. She, flustered, expectant, murmured soft thanks into the farthest recesses of her swansdown muff, stumbled frequently to the voluble distress of her guide, and seemed afraid to look round the well-ordered comfortable room after so many miles of wind and driving rain.

"Dear soul! And where's the bridegroom?" exclaimed Mrs. Tabrum, as she led Phyllida to a high-backed chair right before the heart of the blazing fire.

Phyllida blushed as she explained Mr. Amor was travelling on horseback.

"Indeed, I expected to find him here," she stammered, "Oh! I hope nothing has happened to him."

"Now, don't 'ee fret thyself, sweet marjoram," said the ancient one, humming round her like a bee. "A'most anything might have happened to him on such a dreadful night."

"Don't 'ee hark to the ancient dodderer," interrupted the dodderer's wife.

"Killed by a falling tree, withered to a cinder by bloody lightning."

"You alarm me," exclaimed Phyllida, jumping up.

"Hold thy ancient foolish tongue," commanded Mrs. Tabrum peremptorily, "and go see that Mary Maria keeps the fowls turning a while yet."

"Very well, my gillyflower, very well," piped senility, "but don't 'ee take on, my little blue love-in-a-mist, happen 'tis no more than a broken leg has overtook your husband."

"Polly," said Mrs. Tabrum, who saw that Phyllida was on the verge of tears, "take thy ancient master away. Hark," she finished, with an impressive forefinger.

"What are us to hark to, pretty pink?"

"Ef I doant hear a great tom-cat a-scratching in the tulips, my name be'ant Dorothy Ann Tabrum."

As at this moment the tempest outside was howling with unsurpassed fury, it is extremely doubtful whether the buxom lady spoke the truth, but her husband was alert at once and hastily snatching down a blunderbuss labelled 'Loaded on Tuesday sennight' Simon Tabrum moved stealthily from the room.

"You must pardon my ancient old husband for his flowery manner of speech. 'Tis not disrespect he do mean, but love and charity wi' his neighbour, having as it were been sown a power of years ago and being now apt to let his withered branches fall on the heads of all manner of folk."

As this long sentence was evidently considered a full and proper explanation of the dodderer's inconvenient habit of prophecy, Phyllida smiled very charmingly and said she quite understood.

"And now let us gossip of thy wedding," said Mrs. Tabrum in a cosy tone of voice, "or would 'ee rather go to thy chamber, pretty miss?"

"Oh! indeed I will stay here, thank you. Mr. Amor might come at any moment."

"Polly! Polly Patch!"

"'Ess, mistress."

"What for are 'ee standing there, lolloping thy great cap, dollop. Be off, great clockface, be off, pundle, to Mary Maria, and tell her to keep the fowls a-turning and a-turning."

Polly Patch curtseyed solemnly and retreated slowly, murmuring to herself, "and not to put my thumbs in the soup."

"Do you think he will be a very long time?" asked Phyllida, turning suddenly to the landlady and looking indescribably wistful.

"What I can't make out, my lamb, is how he came to leave 'ee on such a night. That's what I can't make out at all. Now at my bride-ale, for all I was wedding a man old enough to be my ancestor, why it was bride-ale, I do warrant. My aged husband being a publican and a sinner, there was a mort of merry-making, I tell 'ee, and 'twas only when Tabrum slipped on the floor and cracked the back of his faded head as we finished, and me forced to use the holland smock as I won at Ascensiontide smock-racing. Oh! his head was so raw as an egg, and running faster than ever I run for the smock."

"How dreadful," murmured Phyllida, not quite sure whether the narrative should offend her maiden sensibility or not.

"But he was out wi' the hens next morning," the talkative lady continued, "out wi' the hens and scratching away in the garden as hard as any of 'em. But, I tell 'ee, I did souse his head wi' vinegar when I got 'un indoors. The house smelt like a jar of pickle for a week o' Sundays after. But there! Tabrum he gets ascited. Don't matter whether 'tis his own or another's wedding, he's all the while jumping around like a Shrovetide pancake. And talk--well, 'tis babble, babble, and all of men and maids as was under yews twenty green years ago. I tell 'ee, we all laffed when he began telling 'ow he kissed my grandmother coming out of Evening Prayer one frosty night. 'The moon was on her back,' he says, 'ay, and ecod! so was she!' Pretty times, pretty times!"

What farther free confessions would have rippled from Mrs. Tabrum's cherry-ripe lips, it would ill become a modest writer or reader to speculate. They were cut short by the lurching entrance of Charlie and Dicky Maggs, the two postillions.

It would have been hard to find a more ill-favoured pair of ruffians in a day's posting. Both of them had dismounted very regularly at every house of call on the road and arrived at the _Basket of Roses_ with a considerable cargo of bad spirits. The prospect of a long wait, while the horses were changed and their fares supped, encouraged them to farther excesses, and a lucky summons to the drawer to reach down a special cordial gave them an opportunity to finish off the greater part of a bottle of Plymouth Gin.

Fortified by this, annoyed to find that Vernon had not arrived, and half afraid they would lose their wages, they had come in to extract from Miss Courteen as much money as they could, being willing and anxious to drink away every minute of the wait.

"Ve're vet, Miss," said Charles.

"And it vouldn't be amiss if ve could 'ave a little piece of gold as 'ud varm us wiv its shining," said Dicky.

"Mr. Amor will settle your charges," said Phyllida.

"And be off, you ruffians," exclaimed Mrs. Tabrum, enraged by this impudent invasion of the Travellers' Room.

"Shut your mouth, mother Appleface," hiccoughed Charlie.

"And fork out somefink on account, Miss," oozed from his brother.

The latter began to move with uncertain steps after Phyllida, who shrank towards the shelter of the inglenook.

"Jacob! Jacob! Simon Tabrum! Polly Patch! Mary Maria!" screamed the landlady, snatching at the only article of offence in reach, which happened to be a pair of bellows. With these she puffed away furiously, to the enormous delight of the drunken postillions, who continued to advance and indeed probably found the air of the bellows very grateful to their heated brains.

It is unlikely that anything more serious than a volley of oaths would have occurred, if a tall elderly gentleman in a chestnut-brown frogged riding-coat had not come in at that moment; but as he did come in, no doubt the room was the sweeter for the interruption.

"Oh, your honour," said Mrs. Tabrum, "will 'ee please turn out these drunken rogues, seeing as all the house is away at their business and no one near by."

The elderly gentleman clenched his riding-stick a trifle more firmly and directed his steel-grey eyes--equally potent weapons--towards the abashed brothers. They did not wait to be addressed, but hurried as quickly as the fumes of liquor allowed them, to the more congenial atmosphere of the taproom. It is comforting to reflect, while they twisted their way out, that Charlie and Dicky Maggs were hanged at Tyburn for a peculiarly atrocious robbery and brutal assault upon a blind rat-tamer, who, with many clinging rats and mice and a scarlet-frilled dog, was a familiar figure in the villages round London. It is not perhaps so comforting to reflect upon the poor old man lying insensible in a puddle, with his tame rats and mice wandering aimlessly in and out of his innumerable pockets and his scarlet-frilled dog with three broken ribs moaning in the middle of a quickset bush. Egad! I vow the Tyburn horse never responded so readily to Jack Ketch's whip and never a pair of rogues went so ashen grey at the tide of a mob's execrations in all the livid chronicles of quick and evil ends.

The elderly gentleman in the chestnut Surtout turned from the exit of Charlie and Dickie Maggs to survey the subject of their insolence. It would have puzzled an onlooker to say precisely what effect was produced on the elderly gentleman's countenance by this deliberate inspection of Miss Phyllida Courteen, now melting in tears of apprehension and only barely restrained from hystericks by Mrs. Tabrum's plump hands in extensive motion.

When the iron-grey clouds of a chill December afternoon dissolve for a moment in the scud of a high gale and shed a ray of pallid sunlight on a spent blossom, we are almost glad to see the thin azure thus displayed as quickly veiled, and welcome the sullen twilight that succeeds. The elderly gentleman's countenance took on for a brief moment a strange light, but the frosted smile betrayed so much grim sorrow behind that it was quite a relief to see his face resume a normal frigidity as he muttered a regret and inquired into the chances of a good night's lodging.

_Chapter the Thirtieth_

SIR GEORGE REPINGTON

"It is now eight o'clock," said the elderly gentleman, "if this young lady has no objection, I will eat a light supper in this apartment; and if you, ma'am, have no objection, I will retire to my bedchamber immediately after the meal. I do not require a heavy supper," he added as Mrs. Tabrum's jolly face began to pucker with the impatience of a good housewife to enumerate the plentiful dainties of a well-stocked larder.

The latter perceiving that Phyllida was recovered of her alarm, and anxious to prove to the elderly gentleman that his appetite was in the wrong by producing a flock of savoury dishes as speedily as possible, hereupon curtseyed, and was soon audible in shrill pursuit of little Polly Patch.

The Travellers' Room of the _Basket of Roses_ was plunged into rosy quiet. The Dutch clock swung a languid pendulum to and fro with gentle tick; the fire whispered and crackled faintly; the lattices occasionally shook before a more unruly blast; a mouse stood up in a dark corner and squeaked; the huge oak dresser occasionally tapped; two unknown birds, screened till morning by chintz foliage, sometimes stirred on their perches; the elderly gentleman sometimes rapped his mother-o'-pearl snuff-box; Phyllida sometimes smoothed her forget-me-not flowered skirts; and away in the taproom was a tinkle and murmur of taproom sounds muffled by several intervening doors. Yet, however fair the surroundings, it is impossible for two people, unacquainted, to maintain a graceful silence for long. The elderly gentleman began to tap his snuff-box more frequently, while Phyllida would smooth her skirts more persistently and from time to time cast a sidelong glance in the direction of the elderly gentleman. The latter felt the undercurrent of strong emotion so keenly that he was worried by this steady inaction into a curiosity quite alien to his character, and plunged into a conversation consisting principally of a large number of direct questions on his side and a small number of indirect replies on the part of Phyllida. At last, after a tiresome quarter of an hour in which the only solid piece of information given and offered was the fact that he was going to, she departing from the salubrious town of Curtain Wells, the elderly gentleman produced from the upper left-hand pocket of his waistcoat an oval case of worn Morocco leather. Phyllida observed that he rapped this in just the same decided way as he rapped his snuff-box and felt a certain incongruity in his manner, as he took from it the miniature of a young girl and offered the portrait for her inspection, asking whether she detected a likeness.

The girl, depicted with the meticulous art of the worker on a small scale, recalled at once the features of Mr. Charles Lovely. Phyllida hesitated for a moment before assigning the likeness to such a man.

"You observe, Madam, the resemblance to yourself?" said the elderly gentleman.

"To myself?" replied Miss Courteen taken aback.

"For what other reason should I show it to you?"

"To say truth, sir, it reminds me more of a gentleman----"

"Eh! what's that," he interrupted. "Not young Charles Lovely?"

"Indeed, sir--'twas he occurred to my mind."

"You know him?"

"I have stepped a minuet with him," replied Phyllida, now more than ever on her guard against the steel-grey eyes of the elderly gentleman.

"This was my sister, his mother."

If you had asked the stranger what prompted him to confide so suddenly in Miss Courteen, I doubt he would have been unable to tell you. If his clerks could have seen Sir George Repington, head of the great banking house of Repington, at this moment they would have been indescribably shocked to hear him announce this piece of personal information. The clerks in busy Throgmorton Street firmly believed that the great Sir George Repington lived a desolate and severe life surrounded by calculating machines of enormous complication; they would have gasped to imagine his bleak financial solitudes disturbed by a young woman in an inn-parlour. The chief cashier, indeed, might have emitted one of his dry hacking little laughs; but then the chief cashier had grown old in the service of the Repingtons and, having known Sir George as a young man, enjoyed a privileged cynicism. Moreover, the chief cashier when he was junior clerk had carried half a score sealed notes to Thistlegrove Cottage--a diminutive paradise five or six miles along the Hounslow Road. There, amid the chirping of many linnets, young Master Repington would swear eternal fidelity while the sun-dyed sleepy air coloured his dear one's lips as deep as rubies and enchanted with gold her soft brown hair. No doubt the present scene of this small history would have awakened a delightful memory from the dusty recesses of the chief cashier's brain, for all that the end of Thistlegrove Cottage was a businesslike affair on a level with many other successful monetary transactions of the great house of Repington and Son.

Phyllida was somewhat embarrassed by the sudden announcement of his relationship to that dreadful Mr. Lovely, who had lampooned the whole of the fashionable world. She wondered if the elderly gentleman was aware of his nephew's late indiscretion, whether she ought to break the news of his odium, and finally with a maid's inconsequence fell to wishing she had never eloped since the step had involved her in so awkward an adventure.

Sir George, noticing her embarrassment, introduced himself,

"My name is Repington, ma'am--Sir George Repington." As he said this he received the miniature from Phyllida, and having, as it were, fondled the oval for a second, replaced it in the upper left-hand pocket of his waistcoat.

The introduction put Phyllida deeper than ever into a quandary. She felt the genteel movement to be a low curtsey coupled with the graceful revelation of her name, but this was just the act she could not bring herself to perform. What a vast number of polite difficulties attached themselves to an elopement, and how she wished with all her heart she had never been so foolish as to brave them unaccompanied.

"The resemblance is certainly very remarkable," said Sir George Repington.

Phyllida clutched this conversational straw.

"I doubt, sir, 'twould ill become me to allow the compliment."

The stilted reply did not seem to offend the elderly gentleman, for he bowed very gallantly and tapped the lid of his snuff-box with an air.

"And my nephew, ma'am, what does Curtain Wells think of my nephew?"

Luckily for Phyllida who was racking her brains to devize a polite method of informing Sir George Repington that his nephew had offended the whole world, that is to say the whole world known to the residents and visitors of Curtain Wells, Mrs. Tabrum came back to say that a pair of fowls were on their way.

"A morsel of cheese is all that I require, thank'ee," said Sir George to this information. "A morsel of cheese, well-aired sheets and----"

"A bit off the breast," murmured Mrs. Tabrum coaxingly.

"Well-aired sheets and----"

"A grilled drumstick," insinuated the landlady.

"Well-aired sheets and----"

"The liver wing."

Sir George Repington capitulated and sat down to supper with Phyllida opposite and a great bowl of daffadillies between them.

Nobody ever found out what exactly was the elderly gentleman's unspoken requirement.

Sir George was enjoying himself--a very unusual occupation for that grim and solid man of business.

Phyllida, on the contrary, was becoming more deeply embarrassed every moment. She could not help picturing to herself the awkwardness of greeting her dear Amor in the presence of such a man. Moreover, she could not understand why the latter preserved such a lack of curiosity. She, a heroine to herself, was unable to appreciate the point of view that took her and her adventure for granted. She almost resented Sir George's acceptation of her as part of the furniture of a wayside inn.

As a matter of fact, the banker was abroad to enjoy himself, and the discovery of a maid sitting solitary in the firelight of an inn parlour only struck him as whimsical in so far as she resembled his dead sister. Having, after a lapse of many grey years, put on once more the mantle of youth, he was very ready to welcome a face that consorted so perfectly with his mood.

But as supper went on, and the elderly gentleman inquired no farther into the well-being of Mr. Charles Lovely, while Mr. Amor did not arrive, and the drunken postillions remained in the tap-room, and the Dutch clock ticked on quite unperturbed by the raging of the storm without, Phyllida began to regain her equanimity, and even to converse so trippingly with the elderly gentleman that elopements and Gretna Green marriages floated away while she chattered of her dearest Morton, betrayed the latter's partiality for young Mr. Chalkley, compared her boldness with the more modest behaviour of a certain Miss Jenny West, who was the third daughter of a parson who lived four--no five miles from where they lived in Hampshire, jumped from the tale of Miss West to the tale of Miss West's brother who scandalized the country by stepping eight consecutive gavottes with his cousin from Hertfordshire; and ultimately confided to Sir George her profound contempt for Mr. Moon and her immense distrust of Major Tarry. Yet, at the very moment when she was telling Sir George of a ludicrous chase of the Major's wig one windy March morning in the preceding year the furious gale was blowing his sodden pigtail to and fro without a curse from the little soldier in whom stern death had begotten a divine and everlasting indifference to the minor amenities of polite appearance. Sir George Repington was near to the capture of his fled youth that fire-lit evening. He was back in the old South Gallery at Repington Hall sitting in the wide window seat at the West End, and opposite to him with flushed exquisite face sat his sister Joan, rippling joyfully through the fair meadows of life like a glittering brook. The musick of Phyllida's conversation revived for the elderly gentleman many a crimson dusk. He thought with a sigh of the South Gallery now, with its hollow echoes, its dust and long line of contemptuous ancestors, and of himself as, with severe tread, he ran the batteries of many immutable eyes.

Old Tabrum would quaver in from time to time to survey the comfort of his guests, regaling them with some particularly choice floral anecdote. His wife too would peep to inquire whether the roasted fowls fulfilled her expectations, and once little Polly Patch put her cap round the door and asked if his honour would like the warming-pan left in his bed or merely whisked three or four times over his already well-aired sheets.

* * * * *

Phyllida made a careless remark about her mother, and Sir George Repington hoped that Mrs. Courteen (Phyllida had some time ago divulged her name) would not be alarmed by the strife of the elements. Phyllida made a very careless reply to this, by reassuring Sir George about her mother, who, as she pointed out, would be not at all likely to observe the wildness of the night in her anxiety to secure her hand against the prying glances of my lady Bunbutter.

"Is that Sir Moffyn Bunbutter's lady?" said Sir George.

"Yes, indeed, sir."

"Sure to be, sure to be," Sir George commented. "Who'd have thought of seeing poor old Sir Moffyn's lady here of all places?"

"But she's not here, sir. She is at Curtain Wells."

"But your mother?"

Phyllida saw her mistake, but, being unused to falsehoods, made no attempt to extricate herself from the situation provoked by her own carelessness. As a happy compromise, she blushed and made queer little excavations in the salt-cellar.

"You've no brother and your father is dead?" went on Sir George, fixing the abashed young woman with his sharp eyes. "Then you are alone in this inn?"

The statement, put so baldly, sounded very dreadful to Miss Courteen. Moreover, she had an uneasy idea that the elderly gentleman was beginning to feel himself compromised by her company, so she made patterns in the salt-cellar more fantastick than ever, blushed till the shells of her ears seemed veritably to crack in the furnace of outraged sensibility, and looked very guilty.

"Alone?" the elderly gentleman repeated.

Phyllida's whispered 'yes' was only just audible above the languid ticking of the Dutch clock.

The antique landlord broke the tension by putting his head round the door and demanding from Sir George whether he preferred to sleep in the Dorick Summerhouse with a view of the surrounding country, or in the Green Vista with a more comfortable bed, if not so wide a view. Antiquity was followed by his wife, who hustled him fairly into the candlelight and explained that all their bedchambers were named to suit the flowery eccentricity of her husband.

"Thus we have the Parterre," said old Simon in support of his wife's explanation, "the Pleached Alley (though that is more truly a passage). The Sun Dial (a warm attick), the Quincunx, the Bosquet, the Arbour, the Green Gallery, the Cascade (or stairway) and for my dear hollyhock and myself, the Columbary."

"God bless you, sirrah," said Sir George rather testily, "I'm no Dutch garden-maker that I should fret about such vagaries of taste. Oons! plant me where you will, I wager I shall not open till daybreak."

This quip pleased the old landlord enormously, and he retired upon a chuckle prolonged sufficiently to convey him to the farthest ends of the house, whither he was followed by his anxious wife.

Left alone once more, Phyllida and Sir George looked at each other over the remains of that genial supper.

Neither broke the silence for a while. The elderly gentleman was the first to speak.

"Don't you think it is somewhat unwise to travel alone, especially as your postillions do not seem a very trusty pair?"

"I am not really alone," said Phyllida, "I'm--I'm--expecting--a--a--companion."

Sir George Repington raised his eyebrows and seemed about to make a severe comment upon this halting explanation, but, leaning his elbow on the table and his cheek on his hand, he changed his mind and in cold deliberate accents, so cold and so deliberate that you would have sworn a weight of emotion was sunk beneath them, began a tale. Since this tale must either be told by me or by Sir George himself, inasmuch as it concerns one or two of our characters, I will let the original author give it to you in his own words, nay I will give the story the distinction of a chapter to itself.

_Chapter the Thirty-first_

A TALE WITH AN INTERRUPTED MORAL

Sir George Repington filled up his glass (he was drinking Port wine), motioned Phyllida to a seat on the right, sat himself down opposite, and, to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning and wind and rain, proceeded to entertain her with some vastly interesting details of his domestick history.

"I have already shown you the portrait of my sister Joan, and you will remember that I remarked upon the resemblance between you and her--I did not think at the time that such a coincidence would fulfil itself even more completely.

"We were left orphans soon after I reached my twenty-fifth birthday, and I will admit that I experienced a keen sensation of pride in the responsibleness of a great financial house and a very attractive young woman. Pray, remember I was still young. We lived when we were in London at a pleasant house in Soho Square, on the side nearest to the Oxford Road, but spent much of our leisure at Repington Hall, a fine old family mansion in the county of Surrey, near enough to the town to make our visits there very frequent."

Sir George sighed at the pleasant memories as he sipped his glass of Port wine.

"We spent many golden days at Repington Hall and our friends, carefully selected, as all young people's friends are, found the long June evenings on the great sloping lawn not less pleasant than we did. Egad! I can see them all now and hear over the long silences that invariably punctuate such intimate conversation the lowing of the cows in the home farm and the deer crunching the sweet long grass beneath the broad oak-trees. And in Spring what a choir of nightingales sang in the gnarled whitethorn trees by the sunk fence, and in late summer what myriads of grasshoppers chirruped in the twilight. Yes, yes, I can see them all--young Harbottle Ramsey--he's my Lord Sodor and Man now--succeeded his uncle who was executed after the rising in '45--well--well, Harbottle was always a staunch Whig, and by gad, so were all of us in those evenings at Repington. Then there was Burnet, Cinderton's eldest son--he is Cinderton now--Burnet was always monstrous careful about his cloaths and always carried a small Persian rug to sit upon. I remember we used to call it the hearthrug--Harthe-Brusshe is the family name--and now they tell me he's a positive martyr to the lumbago. Yes, yes, Ramsey and Burnet and Belladine, I wonder what's become of Belladine--he was a famous fop--poor Belladine, poor Belladine--he never recovered from the blow. And then there was Roger Quain.

"He was my best friend, and the happiest day of my life was that on which he was betrothed to my sister Joan. I tell you no such rousing toast was given at Repington since the news of the Boyne victory was brought in to my father. She and Roger were betrothed in July and should have been wed in April."

The old man--for, with the progress of his tale, such the elderly gentleman seemed to become--took a longer sip at his glass of Port as if to brace himself for the climax of the narrative.

"They should have been wed in April. But that winter was a busy one in Throgmorton Street, and my sister Joan, having caught a chill, was ordered to remain in the country--her only companion, a foolish cousin of my mother's. I was not at home more than twice all the winter. I never knew of that blackguard's visits till March. He used to come every day--every day until I forbade him the house--a white cockade papist crammed with disloyalty--always bragging of some outlandish petty rebellion on the top of some d----d Scottish mountain or other. He filled her head with his Jacobite twaddle--a fool who, earning his livelihood by dice and cards, was willing enough to upset all law and order for the sake of the plunder which he and his fellows might very well have acquired at the expense of better and honester and more loyal men.

"He wound himself round her heart with his false French oaths and cursed lovemaking.

"I sent for Roger; he came down with Belladine--I shall always believe that Belladine loved her too--and I told Roger he must keep an eye on his treasure, or 'twould be stolen from him. The wedding was fixed; the guests were invited; and one fine morning I went down to the orchard to see how the apples were setting (there had been a shrewd Easterly wind for some days)--and--and--I found him dead--Roger Quain--my dearest, oldest friend--Roger Quain dead. Gadslife! young Madam, if you had seen, as I saw, the fallen apple-blossoms reddened by his blood, I do not think you would be making a runaway match; and she, my beloved sister, eloped with his murderer--with Valentine Lovely, Esq., Jacobite, Papist, rake, spendthrift, drunkard, gamester, and prodigal!"

Sir George Repington rose from his seat and in the passion of remembrance broke with his grip the thin stem of his wineglass, so that the spilt liquid as it trickled over the hearth stones and stained the ashes conjured up the old scene all too vividly and horribly for poor Phyllida.

"But why did Belladine let her go with that blackguard--that is what I never knew--that is what I would like to ask Belladine--what can have happened to Belladine?" the old man muttered to himself, "and why do I tell you this?" he went on, "why--because----"

But unfortunately the moral of this story was never properly related, though 'tis easy enough to guess the import, for at that moment in came the long-awaited Mr. Francis Vernon, splashed from head to foot in mud and wearing a deep cut over his left temple. After all, Major Constantine Tarry did succeed in delaying the elopement if only for an hour or two because Mr. Vernon's mare had shied at the dead body and flung her rider over the hedge in her unwillingness to pass so damp and gloomy an obstacle. If the veteran's ghost was able to spare a moment from his enthralling conversations with Alexander the Great and other notable captains in Elysium, I make no doubt at the sight he gave vent to an attenuated cackle of pleasure.

Nothing sets a woman off to such disadvantage as the need to introduce a pair of men whom instinctively she knows to be hostile to each other. They never make the slightest attempt to help her out of the awkward position, and, indeed, add to it by such haughty behaviour, such ruffling of crests and bristling of limbs that under the circumstances the most polished gentlemen become uncouth savages or dogs eager to squabble over a debated bone.

In this instance Mr. Vernon stared Sir George Repington up and down, while the latter, who was not accustomed to such freedom of regard, took snuff very aggressively and looked as if he would like to give the intruder a moment's notice, as indeed he would. Phyllida tried to stem the tide of embarrassment by remarking in a hushed voice that Sir George had been kindly entertaining her in the absence of Mr. Amor.

"Has he?" was the latter's frigid response.

"And oh, Amor," she went on, "those odious postillions pushed their way to the room and wanted money and Sir George kindly came to the rescue and bade them begone."

"Did he?" was all that Vernon would vouchsafe in thanks to this timely assistance.

Phyllida, abashed by her lover's bad manners, seemed inclined to apologize for them with tears. And now Sir George did what most Englishmen would have done under the circumstances--he walked out of the room in a very stately way. No doubt the banker thought the strength of feeling which had led him to reveal his life's tragedy would kindle an equal emotion in the heart of Miss Courteen and that when he returned he would find the raffish intruder gone.

This was in fact the precise result of his withdrawal. When he returned, Mr. Vernon was gone. But neither was Miss Phyllida Courteen anywhere in sight.

_Chapter the Thirty-second_

THE HORRID ADVENTURES OF BEAU RIPPLE AND MRS. COURTEEN

We will, if you please, take for granted the persuasions used by Mr. Vernon to induce Phyllida to continue upon her headlong course. He rode beside her on this second stage of her adventure, and I shall have something to say of that drive together through the darkness of wind and rain. We will take for granted Sir George Repington's indignation, expressed with many a z----ds and many a pinch of snuff, and since there are a number of fine folk abroad on this most atrocious evening, it is only just that we should pay them the compliment of relating their horrid adventures.

You have not forgotten, I hope, the sensation created in Curtain Wells by the sight of Beau Ripple and Mrs. Courteen ensconced in the former's vivid yellow postchaise, driven by the former's diminutive groom Pridgeon. You made one of a host of conjectures, or rather you would have done had you not been in the heart of the secret, thanks to the honest, straightforward way in which I have treated you throughout this story.

They went off with 'Tally-ho' and 'Whoo-whoop, gone away!' They rattled over the cobbles and clattered over the kidney stones and jolted prodigiously over a kerb that protruded too far into the road. They bumped over a log of wood dropped by old Mother Hubbard in her frantick endeavours to gain the protection of the pavement, they ground the face of little Miss Muffet's favourite wax doll to minutest grains of powder. They experienced a second's muffled progress as with two wheels they rolled over little Tommy Trout's Easter coat and with the others made a broad smear over little Sammy Green's satchel and cracked his new Horn

## Book into a thousand splinters.

As for Mr. Ripple, every time he rose to a wayside obstacle and fell with a genteel plump into Mrs. Courteen's wide lap, he had a sensation of the acutest disgust; with disgust, too, he viewed his cushions of fawn silk and ivory sattin bedabbled with the widow's copious tears--these cushions made salt with a mortal widow's grief that were never intended to be spoiled with anything less ethereal than the glittering milk of the Queen of Heaven.

Extreme dizziness overtook the Great little Man when, in accents hoarse with hysterical sorrow, the wretched woman by his side begged the loan of his handkerchief. Then, indeed, he nearly called to Pridgeon to check their mad course, turn the horses' heads stablewards, brooding for a sensuous second upon the delights of a warm meditative bath, made sweeter with Citron Essence.

Poor Mr. Ripple! As the mile-stones fled past and the chilly March twilight crept over the dusky fallows and peered above the black hedgerows, he thought with unutterable pangs of the cheerful and comfortable town of Curtain Wells. His china shepherds and shepherdesses called to him over the bleak country, and in the distance like elfin bells he heard the reproachful tinkle of his elegant lustres.

At the turnpike Mr. Ripple asked the keeper whether a post-chariot had lately come under his jurisdiction.

"Dick who?" inquired the janitor.

"Have you seen a post-chariot?" said Mr. Ripple, petulantly.

"No, I ain't. Have you seen two bullocks as 'ave lost, stolen and strayed theyselves hereabouts--the red 'un with a----"

"Drive on," said Mr. Ripple.

"That's gentry," commented the gatekeeper as, spitting on the bust of King George which reposed in the palm of his dirty hand, he retired to brood over a well-thumbed pamphlet that set forth with convincing ribaldry, the imminent danger of another Popish plot.

"Drive on," said Mr. Ripple, "we shall have a heavy shower presently."

They were bowling down a broad village street with a merry jingle of harness and rhythmical clatter of hoofs, while the cracking of little Pridgeon's whip, nearly as big as himself, made many inquisitive bodies huddle in the low doorways of the cottages to survey the gallant equipage.

"Reg'lar delooge, your honour," said Pridgeon, turning round on the box.

Mrs. Courteen was already so wet with the tears of outraged motherhood that the addition of rain could scarcely have affected her comfort. Nevertheless she shuddered so expansively that she squeezed her companion closer than ever to the side of the chaise.

"Shall we put up at the _Green Dragon_?--very comfortable Inn, the _Green Dragon_."

"No, no, Pridgeon, drive on. If it rains, it rains."

Such a platitude from Beau Ripple can only have been provoked by the intensest despair. A ploughboy's epigram would not have seemed more out of place. The Nine Muses were certainly waked from their harmonious lethargy, and a small boy, playing _Sally in our Alley_ on a Jew's harp, twanged a discordant echo of their shocked sensibility. A platitude from Beau Ripple! The very chaise collapsed in ignominy. Bump--bang--whooooo! The gay vehicle was on its side and the front off-wheel was whirling madly down the broad slope of the street, to the enormous delight of the boy with the Jew's harp and the immense consternation of a flock of geese in whose company it made a noisy entrance into the village pond.

Pridgeon turned once more on the Jimmy and, having pulled up the horses and gazed at the Tableau, remarked:

"Blow me tight if I didn't think the wheel'd do that afore we started. Blow me right and tight!"

By this time, all the village stood in a circle and supplied an exhaustive commenting upon the sad event.

"She's putt her futt through her petticutt," whooped grandmother.

"So her 'ave and toored 'un proper."

"Blarm 'un if the old buoy's knee ain't streaked like somebody's baad baacon."

"So it be, buoy, so it be," came the delighted rejoinder.

"Look, see the seat of his breeches!" cried a shapely hussy.

"I never saw such a power o' mud, why 'e's like a brown paaper plaster behind. Poor soul!"

"Horse ain't hurt?" asked a sharp-featured, bow-legged individual with professional anxiety.

Four or five hobbledehoys had assisted the Beau to his feet and volunteered to show him the way to the _Green Dragon_. As that hostelry stood exactly opposite the scene of the disaster, the offer savoured of something more than mere friendliness.

Mrs. Courteen was whirling round and round, like a kitten after her tail, trying to ascertain the precise amount of damage close to her train; a good-natured booby stuck his foot on the skirt to steady it for her inspection, and in doing so made the rent more irreparable.

"Better go to the _Green Dragon_, your honour," said Pridgeon, as spruce as when he started.

"Better go to h----, you dunderhead," said the Beau, very white with well-bred passion and the shock of the catastrophe. No fragile vase of Dresden or of azure Sevres, no figure of opalescent Worcester, no violet-flowered teapot of Lowestoft that ever fell from a proud cabinet through the careless sweep of a chambermaid's broom, was to be so deeply commiserated as Mr. Horace Ripple. These painted monuments of care betray their inherent beauty even in the dainty particles that proclaim their wreckage, but a fop with muddied breeches--why, in the very first chapter of this story we trembled to behold the circumference of the least dignified part of the Beau's anatomy protruding from beneath a bedstead; and on that occasion, it was gay with the flowers of a silk dressing-gown.

I do not think that the Great little Man ever recovered from this outrage to his personal attire, for to the very end of his modish days, he would wear a coat cut an inch or two lower than was readily allowed by the least conservative tailor in his employment.

As for Mrs. Courteen, who followed meekly in the wake of her wounded escort, she could not refrain from wishing that the Major and the Justice were at hand to console her with jealous attentions and rival sympathies, and when the first round drop of the swift-approaching storm hit her plump on the nose and washed away in its downward course the last vestige of powder from her face, she regretted also the tributary fingers of Betty.

In the hall of the _Green Dragon_ their reception was almost servile. Great Cobblebury, for all its pompous name, was too near to Curtain Wells to attract the attention of many travellers, and the _Green Dragon_ depended for custom almost entirely on the thirstiness of the surrounding population. Guests, therefore, received very excellent service for their money. The host, one George Upex, had watched the advance of the chaise with sleek arms beneath a protuberant apron and thumbs that twiddled sleepily; but the smash aroused his hospitable instincts, and by the time Mr. Ripple and Mrs. Courteen had reached the doorway of the inn, he was back from the kitchen, where he had hastily ordered the immediate insertion into the capacious oven of several dishes, and was ready to usher the stranded travellers into the parlour.

"And what will your good lady take?" he inquired, with his rubicund face cocked at what he considered a very appetizing angle.

"She is not my good lady, sirrah," rapped out the Beau.

"Not at all, your honour--beg pardon," said Mr. Upex, putting up a gigantick hand to an equally gigantick mouth as if he would force the latter feature to eat the indiscreet question it had so grossly emitted.

"How long will it take to mend the damage to my chaise?" demanded Mr. Ripple.

The landlord made a rough calculation in his mind.

"About an hour to cook the--to mend the--er--chaise," he replied.

"Have you a bed?" asked the Beau.

The landlord beamed. They were going to spend the night under his roof, and mentally he saw himself on the next day obscuring the sunlight of the parlour with a very long bill.

"A bed, your honour? Yes, indeed! Oh! yes." Mr. Upex paused. "A bed?"

"Yes! a bed--a b-e-d--bed."

"For one night?"

"One night--no! now, sirrah, now." Mr. Ripple stamped his little foot, probably to shake off the mud of the humiliating accident.

"Now?" Mr. Upex looked surprized, that is to say the mouth of Mr. Upex remained fixed in a cavernous gape.

"Why not now?" exclaimed the peremptory Beau. "Ain't your beds aired, landlord? Ain't they made yet?"

"Oh, certainly, your honour."

"Then show me upstairs at once. I shall lie down until the wheel of my chaise is mended. And shew this lady another room, and send two or three chambermaids to attend to her."

Mr. Upex looked much relieved.

It was not such a shameless affair as he had been led by wanton ambiguity of phrase to believe.

"What about the duck?"

"What duck? What duck?" asked Mr. Ripple fretfully.

"The duck your honour ordered--that is, was about to order when I interrupted your honour."

"Send up three slices of the breast on a small tray to my chamber, and don't put any stuffing on the plate, the odour of sage upsets my appetite."

"Indeed?" said Mr. Upex, quite frankly interested by such a nasal idiosyncrasy.

"Yes, and send out a woman of taste and discretion to purchase a nightcap."

"I wouldn't say, your honour, as how one of the maids wouldn't oblige your--er--the good lady."

"For myself, landlord, for myself."

"I beg your honour's pardon."

Mr. Upex hurried off to execute his guest's requirement and presently returned to escort them to their rooms.

"When my man comes in," said the Beau, "send him up to me with the nightcap."

Pridgeon had rescued the wheel from the pond and, having successfully directed two bumpkins to trundle it to the blacksmith, arrived at the inn with an admiring retinue of idlers, whom he regaled with quarts of bitter beer. The woman of taste entrusted with the purchase of the nightcap (she was the scullerymaid) returned with the vestment neatly wrapped in paper, and, meeting her master on the stairs, was told to hand it to the diminutive groom, who chucked her under the chin with the parcel and took his bow-legged way upstairs to Mr. Ripple's temporary apartment.

Outside he rapped smartly on the door, which was cautiously opened sufficiently wide to allow the urbane countenance of the Beau to peer round the corner.

"Is that you, Pridgeon?"

"Me, y'r honour, with a present from Great Cobblebury."

The Beau took the nightcap, and in its place handed muddied smallcloaths, smeared coat, and wrinkled waistcoat.

"Have these cloaths thoroughly brushed."

"Yes, y'r honour."

"And bring me three slices of breast in an hour's time."

"Yes, y'r honour."

"And don't get drunk to celebrate your carelessness."

"No, y'r honour."

"Poor clod," murmured the Beau to his polite self, as he closed the door of his chamber and double locked it against intrusion.

I think it would certainly be indiscreet to spy upon Mr. Ripple's retirement. How did he spend his time in bed? The whisper of book-leaves tempts me to suppose that he read several of the bitterest odes, very possibly a whole satire of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, that poet so fierce but withal so urbane. Meanwhile Mrs. Courteen, surrounded by three maids, respectively known as Susan, Joan, and Elizabeth, held forth upon her misfortunes to a sympathetick audience.

She stood in the middle of her chamber, a massive figure pouring forth ludicrous complaint. It was as if a stork should seek to emulate a nightingale.

Susan knelt on the floor and industriously stitched away at the ragged train; Joan knelt with innumerable pins stuck between her pearly teeth and judiciously fastened several gaps in her attire, while Elizabeth, who was being courted by Johnny, the _Green Dragon's_ sibilant hostler, rubbed away at the mud with as near an imitation of the sounds produced by her lover's stringy throat as the softness of her own would allow.

"I have been greatly distressed," said the widow, "grossly deceived, intolerably put about for, though Mr. Ripple has the character of a block of marble, it don't become a woman to be seen alone with a man anywhere, especially in a yellow chaise which attracts everybody's attention. I vow I heard that odious young Miss Kitcat laugh from her balcony as we flew past--yes, flew--and such bumping! I dare swear I'm bruised from head to foot, and my skin shows the smallest mark. I remember when I was a young woman, I stepped a minuet with young Mr. Heavibois of Heavibois Hall, and I declare he might have been taking the grossest liberties all through the evening, for the way my wrist was marked. Lud! it was as purple as my grandmother's silk coverlet that was given to her by a young lieutenant in the Navy, and was thought to belong to the wife of the Cham of Tartary, though I dare say he bought it in Cheapside for ten shillings, being a young gentleman on whose word nobody could rely, that is the worst of men, young women, you cannot trust 'em. And now my own daughter has run away with a London spark, and I, her own mother, must give up half a score routs and my Lady Pickadilly's drum--the most fashionable affair of the kind that will ever be known in Curtain Wells, for my Lady Pickadilly is newly come from town with her second son the Hon. John Hyde, as quiet a young gentleman as ever said Bo! to a goose, and here we are nearly into April, and if my daughter drowns herself from London Bridge, why then I shall be wearing black at the Fetes Champetres and a pretty figure I shall be truly! though, indeed, if one had the courage to wear a white velvet vizard, I might very well pass for an Allegory of Moonlight--and yet that would never do, for to be sure that malicious creature Mrs. Dudding, whose Conversazione last month was the completest failure ever known, would make one of her odious epigrams about poor Mr. Moon, the best natured of gentlemen and the very personification of the milk of human kindness. To be sure, his ankles are very big, but indeed I vow if one were to regard all the defects in humanity, very few of us would be able to hold up our heads. Mr. Ripple himself is the smallest man in the Wells, but nobody esteems him the less for that. To be sure, I think he was very ill-advised,--though for that matter he was never known to take anybody's advice but his own--very ill-advised, I say, not to speak more severely to my daughter. I was always so careful of her modesty that I never allowed her to sit in the Maze with an odious little nudity in stone always hovering about, till I declare they should have planted ivy to climb up his shameless legs. I'm sure nothing could be more Biblical than such vegetable apparel. Cupid they call him: Stupid I call it." Mrs. Courteen here paused to take a longer breath and Susan exclaimed:

"La! ma'am, what to do wi' your petticoat I doan't know. It comes peaping through your gown like Tom o' Coventry in the Christmas mumming."

"Pin it, child, pin it," said the widow.

"La! ma'am, we ha' used nigh forty pins already, and thee'll be like a hedgehog soon."

"No matter, child, no matter how I appear. I must do my duty as a mother, but I vow I blush when I think that near everybody takes us for man and wife. To be sure, I don't mind, and always say that if the world wishes to talk, the world will talk; and there once was a time when I was talked about from one corner of the county to the other. And now this improper affair of my daughter's will set every idle tongue wagging again. My own maid Betty, who was privy to the whole unhappy intrigue, was truly frightened when she found how far ignorance and wilfulness had taken her. 'What will they say at Courteen Grange, ma'am, and what will Mr. Rumble the carrier say, and Mrs. Rumble and the old widow who keeps the shop and poor old Jonas the gardener and all the good folk of the shire?' 'Ah,' said I, 'what indeed?' Ugh! child, you're running pins into my--into my legs!"

"Dear life, ma'am," said Susan the culprit, apparently not much abashed by the accusation, "'tis difficult to find a bit of leg to run a pin into, for, O my soul and body, you're shining like a starlight night, wi' pins all over 'ee."

So the rehabilitation of Mrs. Courteen went on with diffuse anecdotes on the side of the widow, with similes from deft-fingered Susan, with much displaying of pearly teeth from Joan, and with a gentle cooing from Elizabeth, who was betrothed to the hostler of the _Green Dragon_ Inn.

Outside it was raining faster than ever, and the wind was beginning to moan under the eaves and away in the remote corners of the house. A flash of lightning and a terrifick burst of thunder that followed immediately upon its heels undid half an hour's steady pinning, owing to the violent tremours with which it afflicted poor Mrs. Courteen.

It made Mr. Ripple break a Caesura and, worse, it made him try to mend it with a false quantity. Altogether the prospect was extremely uninviting, and the succulent odour of roast duck was certainly no temptation to precipitate his departure. However, the duck came to an end, and the morsels of it which began to freeze upon his plate made him so impatient of farther delay that when Pridgeon knocked at the door and informed him the chaise was once more fit for the roads, he called for his bill and, as I believe, (such a sweet change had Horace and roast duck wrought in his mind) hummed a popular jig while he buttoned up his breeches. Soon he was tapping delicately at the door of Mrs. Courteen's chamber, saying:

"Come, ma'am, I hope you're rested. Our horses are waiting--'tis a most atrocious night--but never mind, ma'am, never mind, we shall sleep the sounder," he had almost said "for having done our duty," but not even the stress of an untoward adventure could condemn his spirit to a second platitude that stormy night, and he altered the unfinished sentence to "for not having to endure Mrs. Dudding's epigrams. Foregad, ma'am," he went on, "she churns the sour cream of her intellect and produces, after infinite toil, a very rancid wit."

Then the Great little Man pattered downstairs, condescended to felicitate Mr. Upex upon his timely meal, inquired the name of his cook, said she was a good woman and would go far, listened to Farmer Gruby's opinion that this rain would do a power o' good to the land, condoled with him upon a bovine loss which he was still lamenting, bade Pridgeon stand another quart of ale each to the good fellows who had assisted to talk about the accident, raised his monocle to a bill of sale affixed to the wall, inquired into the state of the roads before them, evoked an atmosphere of respectful adoration by presenting the landlord with a card inscribed 'Horace Ripple, The Great House,' and finally won the perpetual devotion of Mr. George Upex by writing in his neatest hand at the top right corner of the engraved card 'Recommended by.' The landlord vowed he would have the precious voucher of identity framed and hung up in the parlour underneath a painting on glass of his gracious Majesty K---- G----, and in close proximity to a likeness of Lord Breda's prize bullock Jupiter, which several drunken loyalists had been known to salute in mistake for the K----.

Mrs. Courteen sailed downstairs, followed by Susan, Joan and Elizabeth, all of whom were kept busy picking up pins, which they stuck between their teeth, to the great disappointment of Mr. Pridgeon, who would have very much liked to snatch a kiss from each Hebe in turn, and, seeing that the hostler was standing outside in the rain, I dare swear that but for the pins he would have been successful in his amorous project. Off went the chaise into the gathering gloom, spattering the onlookers with mud, and almost drowning with its clatter the hearty cheers of the inhabitants of Great Cobblebury.

And now the Beau, whose urbanity had been restored by Horace and roast duck, entertained Mrs. Courteen with delightful tales of fashionable society. The most violent jolt no longer availed to upset the balance of his sentences. The widow was deeply impressed by Mr. Ripple's charming behaviour and, though she could not appreciate his anecdotes at their value, was put into a very pleasant disposition of mind by a half-fledged fancy that the Great little Man was slowly succumbing to her ample fascination. As for little Pridgeon, his diminutive inside was so replete with cordials and old Jamaica rum that he was quite impervious to the weather and he sang a large number of country ballads in a very engaging Alto voice.

Suddenly, as they were driving over a wild stretch of commonland, dotted with huge clumps of gorse and a number of stunted and wind-bent thorn-trees, the chaise stopped with a jerk, spoiling the climax of one of the Beau's best stories, describing how he had compelled the Duchess of Hereford to apologize to a flower girl.

"What's the matter?" he cried out.

"Nothing," said Pridgeon, "but we're just underneath the gallows with a very notorious reskel swingin' over our heads--reg'lar old scarecrow he is--can't you hear the chains, y'r honour? He's bobbin' about in the wind like a cork in a puddle."

"Drive on, rogue," commanded Mr. Ripple sternly.

"It 'ud be a pity not to see 'im. Blue Jenkins vas his name--I'll hold up one of the lamps and you can take a good look at 'im. There was hundreds used to walk 'ere of a Sunday afternoon when he was just turned off, ecod, y'r honour ought to take a look at him."

"Will you drive on, sirrah!"

Suddenly Mrs. Courteen uttered a loud scream; and very uncanny it sounded in the tempest.

"What in the name of--what's the matter?" exclaimed Mr. Ripple.

"I hear horses," said Mrs. Courteen, and screamed again.

Pridgeon cocked up his ears.

"She's right," he shouted. "There's a couple of 'em coming up behind us!"

"Good G----! Highwaymen!" said Mrs. Courteen, clinging to Mr. Ripple. The latter did not lose his presence of mind.

"Drive on, you puppy! I'll see to the priming of my pistols." With these words the Courageous little Man dived between the widow's agitated legs and groped for the elegant walnut case of his exquisitely chased pistols.

"'Tain't no good," shouted Pridgeon, as he lashed the horse to a gallop. "'Tis only a mile afore we reaches Long Hill and they'll catch us walkin' there."

"I warn you, madam," said Mr. Ripple calmly, while the postchaise rattled through the storm, "I warn you that I shall certainly shoot once, if not twice."

But Mrs. Courteen had fainted away and only half a dozen pins released from their responsibleness whispered a faint and ineffective answer.

_Chapter the Thirty-third_

THE HIGHWAYMEN

The rumour of Phyllida's elopement took definite shape just as the candles were being lighted for the nuts and wine. It lent quite a flavour even to the inferior Port that disgraced most of the dinner-tables at Curtain Wells. And if a flavour was lent to moderately bad wine, what a truly celestial aroma was given off by the fragrant pots of tea in the parlours. Curtain Wells was always famous for the finest blends, and I venture to think that the sad affair of Miss Courteen inspired every hostess to a perfection of art unequalled before or since. Never were the gentlemen so quick to follow the ladies from the spent dinner. Moreover, the absence of Beau Ripple permitted a recklessness of conjecture, a venom of Innuendo that would have made the rumour famous, even had it proved devoid of the slightest foundation.

Many inclined to the theory that Mr. Ripple had arranged the prologue to suit himself, and vowed they had seen fervent stares exchanged between him and Mrs. Courteen. One inventive young gentleman started a report that Mr. Vernon was the Pretender; but this was contradicted by old Lady Loch Lomond who, having been one of the ladies-in-waiting at St. Germain's and watched the young prince in his bath, was positive that Mr. Vernon did not resemble him at all. The young gentleman's ingenious suggestion lent a momentary glamour to the heroine of the affair, but with the destruction of his story by Lady Loch Lomond, publick attention was again concentrated upon Beau Ripple. An extravagant explanation of his roundabout method of courtship was found in a whispered legend that in early youth he had married one of the daughters of the Grand Turk and escaping from the turbaned alliance four months afterwards through the friendly offices of a fig merchant from Smyrna who smuggled him out of the Bosphorous and landed him at Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire, had spent the rest of his enforced celibacy in dread of vengeful scimitars.

Then somebody remembered the codicil to Squire Courteen's will, and the story of young Mr. Standish who left the neighbourhood in such a hurry. One of the abetters of this last tale mentioned that Mr. Ripple was badly in need of money, and finally everybody agreed that here at last was the true explanation of the yellow chaise. The Beau was trying to make up his losses by wedding Mrs. Courteen secretly so that the lawyers should not lay violent hands upon her inheritance. This was such a satisfactory and circumstantial account that everybody sat down to Quadrille without their play being the more distracted than usual. Meanwhile the author of the latest explanation went from house to house to burble the news in the company of his two witnesses. The three of them were received everywhere with acclamation as soon as it transpired they were the bearers of the authoritative account; and though they were all of them bores of the finest calibre, they enjoyed a considerable popularity which compensated for all the slights and snubs they had received in the past at the hands of rank and fashion. Having discovered their talents, they all three existed for ever afterwards on the sources of false information and published books of memoirs and thought themselves great men and, in fact, are to this very day consulted by social historians.

Meanwhile another rumour was flying furiously round all the shops that Mr. Lovely was on the verge of making a hurried departure from Curtain Wells. Mr. Ripple owed nothing to the tradesmen; consequently his yellow chaise caused no consternation in commercial hearts, but Mr Charles Lovely owed large amounts. Every shopkeeper in the High Street vowed he would know the true facts of this reported flight. Under the great archway of the _Blue Boar_, they pattered--all of them dressed in snuff-coloured suits and all of them with suspiciously long envelopes protruding from their left-hand pockets. There was Mr. Crumpett the Confectioner and Mr. Frieze the Tailor and another tailor called Charges and a third called Trimmings. There was Mr. Cuffe the hosier, and Mr. Trinket of one toyshop and Mr. Leonard of another, and Mr. Wheeler the coach-builder; there was fat Mrs. Leafy of one flower-shop and little Miss Bunch of the other flower-shop, and old Mrs. Tabby of the ribband shop, there was Mr. Filigree the Goldsmith, and Mr. Tree the bootmaker, and Mr. Buckle the saddler, and young Washball the barber's senior apprentice. In fact, the only creditors absent were Mr. Daish who was at that very moment listening to a plausible demonstration of Mr. Lovely's prospects, and the ex-limner Mr. Canticle who would have scorned to associate himself with such a snuff-coloured rabble and had, moreover, been paid something on account more lately than the rest.

"What the deuce is this seditious gathering?" exclaimed Lieutenant Blewforth to little Peter Wingfield as they swung round the corner and plunged into the voluble assemblage. Suddenly there was a noise of a window being thrown up, and a stillness fell upon the dingy throng as they beheld the debonair countenance of our hero.

"Speak up, Charles," bellowed the Lieutenant, "I support your candidature. D---- e," he muttered to Wingfield, "d----e, if I knew Charles was a Parliament man."

"L-listen," said Mr. Wingfield, standing on tip-toe and craning his little neck to hear Charles' views on the political situation.

"Gentlemen," Mr. Lovely began, with a hand gracefully buried in the opening of his embroidered waistcoat, "Gentlemen, I am sensibly flattered by this deputation."

A simultaneous grunt acclaimed this remark.

"I say, I am sensibly flattered. It is always a pleasure to--to----"

"Charles'll never be elected, if he talks to 'em so slow," commented Mr. Blewforth with a shake of his burly head.

"I say, I am sensibly flattered."

"That's all very fine, Mr. Lovely, but what about my bill?" shouted Mr. Filigree who being better able to stand a loss was bolder than his companions.

"Ay--yes--to be sure, your money," Charles started off again. "Well, gentlemen, I say, gentlemen, money is a very wonderful thing. It is the panacea or cure of all earthly ills, like sleep in the play it knits up the ravelled sleeve of care. Money! to be sure!"

"He's trying to make 'em swallow the new taxes," said Blewforth sagely.

At that moment somebody twitched Mr. Lovely's coat from behind, and he retired from the open window; the angry snuff-coloured crowd looked at each other, conferred for a moment, then pattered quickly back by the way they had come. From the tangle of their murmured confabulations, two ominous words floated back to the Lieutenant and little Peter Wingfield--'Sheriff's Officers!'

It was Clare's announcement of the arrival of Betty in the best parlour of the _Blue Boar_ that had distracted Charles' attention from his creditors. He found her trembling from head to foot and playing with the buttons of her scarlet cloak.

"My young mistress, your honour, my pretty lamb has gone."

"Miss Courteen?"

"Little Miss Phyllida."

"With Vernon."

"No, wi' Amor."

"How long ago?"

"Nigh three hours or more. The Bow and the Widow have galloped after 'em, but what I do say is, 'tis no work to set an old couple to catch a young couple: oh! your honour, if ever in this sweet Springtime you loved my dear one, will 'ee follow her now and bring her back to me?"

The news of Phyllida's elopement so crudely announced staggered him, notwithstanding his anticipation of such an event.

Hitherto his love for the maid had been a pleasant fancy, an impulse to day-dreams but nothing more material.

That very morning as he wandered in the water-meadows, he had been so full of the outside effect of his attitude there had been no room for the personal desire. He had tried to convince himself he was sincerely anxious for Phyllida's future happiness; but the true position he should have taken up was a determination to possess her for himself whatever the cost. She was young and fair, rose-flushed and adorable, and 'twas a pity to waste so much freshness on Vernon dulled by pleasure and--not quite well-bred.

Now a sense of personal loss stung him into action. Besides, he and Tony had vowed to transform life into a gay adventure. Here already was a quest worthy of their highest hopes.

"I will certainly go," said Charles.

"Ah! you have a true heart."

"Have I, Betty, have I?"

"'Twas on merry Valentine morn, you saw my pretty one."

"So 'twas."

"When thrushes and blackbirds do maate."

"So they say."

"Take it for a sign, will 'ee?"

"I will."

"And say when you come to her and have sent that wagabone packing off to his Lunnon, say the linnets are piping away down in Hampshire, will 'ee?"

"I will."

"Say that us'll soon be harking for the cuckoo in the greenwood, and look see, give her this; 'tis a little white daisy I picked. Bid her look 'tes none the less beautiful because the edge of her petals are gone red wi' the cold March wind. 'Tes a daeisy, the same as before--a little white daeisy."

Hastily putting the frail flower in Mr. Lovely's hand, the maid ran to the door. There she stayed a moment.

"And say, will 'ee, that I'm coming to kiss her and hug her and comfort her as soon as the Wells waggon can bring me."

"That's a good maid--a loyal maid," said Charles to himself when Betty was gone, and, as he looked at the tender blossom somewhat shrivelled by captivity, a fallen tear trembled like a dew-diamond on the golden heart of the gathered flower.

And now the problem of escaping his duns vexed Mr. Lovely more acutely than before. Daish had been pacified by generous Clare with L50 on account. The horses were saddled and ready; and by the greatest good fortune when Charles looked out into the inn-yard, there was not a snuff-coloured soul in sight.

Blewforth came in with the news of Sheriff's officers, and Clare appeared in the gallery all buttoned up for the journey: "Where shall I tell Daish to send our baggage by the Wells' stage waggon? there's a good inn called _The Basket of Roses_ about twenty five miles away, dy'e know it?"

"No," said Charles, "is it on the London Road?"

"Yes, on the London Road."

"Then 'twill suit me very well. Shall we set out at once, Tony?"

"No time to lose," shouted Blewforth.

Daish came shuffling in to say the horses were growing impatient of the cold.

Off went our romantick adventurers: up they got on their horses: down tinkled a couple of new silver crowns on the cobbles.

"Thank 'ee, yer honours!" shouted Jimmy Trickett the hostler; and the third detachment of the Love Chase set out amid the thunderous farewells of Lieutenant Blewforth of the _Lively_, as jolly a sound to put heart into a pair of handsome young gentlemen on a gallant quest as they were likely to hear throughout their wanderings.

They were gone when the snuff-coloured crowd pattered back with a Sheriff's officer in tow, and Mr. Jeremy Daish was a person of sufficient importance to be able to despise their snuff-coloured threats. After all he had fifty pounds on account and there wasn't a brewer amongst them.

As they cantered along the same road which we have already followed three times, Charles told his friend of Betty's request and Tony was as urgent as he to do all in his power to thwart Mr. Vernon. Honest Anthony Clare was very proud of the handsome rider by his side. I do not think he would have allowed that any one was quite the equal of Mr. Charles Lovely in accomplishment or bearing. He could not avoid a feeling of self-congratulation when he saw the maids among the daffodils of narrow cottage gardens run to lean over their green gates and watch their course away down the road. What a fine fellow he was in his full trimmed grey riding-coat and brown buckskin breeches. How well the azure waistcoat became him; how eagerly his blue eyes danced to the rhythm of their horses. How far ahead down the billowy road he gazed, as if to conjure up the vision of the galloping chariot that held his hope of happiness.

And when they, too, rode into the storm, muffled in their full cloaks of black Bavarian cloth, what a romantick figure Charles made as he spurred his iron-grey steed to farther exertions.

There was musick in the south-west wind of that tempestuous twilight. It sighed through the bare hedgerows and whistled round the broad brims of their beaver hats. There was musick in the clap of horses' hoofs on the wet road. There was musick in the big horse-pistols tapping against the saddle-bows.

They were passing a great barn where a host of yokels were thrashing a stack that had lain too long, and a rare sight these were, knee-deep in the amber corn whence the rats fled ceaselessly.

"Shall we catch them, Tony?" asked Charles.

"I think we shall."

"But in time?" Charles dug his spurs in deep to cover the blush that was flaming over his cheeks.

"And will she turn back? Oh! Tony, Tony, she must, she shall, turn back."

In Great Cobblebury they stopped to give their horses a feed, and heard of the accident of the yellow chaise.

"Z----ds, these clumsy vehicles travel fast enough," muttered Charles.

When they started again, the darkness clung round them like a pall. The blown branch of a tree brushed against Lovely's elbow in a narrow part of the road and he shuddered, as though an unseen hand were warning him to pause.

"'Tis a plaguey rough night," he shouted over the wind, clapping his hat tighter and leaning close to his grey's warm slim neck.

They were crossing Dry Tree Common where Blue Jenkins was swinging in a shameful cradle, and Clare shouted he could see the lights of a chaise in front.

"That's Ripple for a hundred," cried Charles spurring on his horse, "gadslife, what a speed they are making. Hurry, Tony, hurry."

A dazzling flash of lightning seared the sky long enough to illuminate the ghastly figure on the gallows. Clare's chestnut mare shied violently and threw her rider head foremost into a large clump of gorse. It was a matter of some difficulty to catch the frightened animal, but Charles by mere determination succeeded in doing so, for all the night was now black before the rising of the moon. By this mishap, Clare was in much the same state of prickles as the Widow, without the help of deft-fingered Susan.

"What the plague made you do that?" said Charles fretfully. They had lost five valuable minutes through the behaviour of the mare. Tony laughed with great good humour.

When they reached the foot of Long Hill, they could see the lights of the chaise once again. It was finding the heavy pull very difficult. The rain was pouring down the ditches on either side with a gurgling sound, heard all the more clearly, because in the shelter of the slope the wind was quiet. Just before the summit, the carriage stopped and a bullet sang between Clare and Lovely who were now a bare twenty yards behind. Mr. Ripple believed in the advantage of an offensive campaign.

"Stop! stop!" shouted Charles, "we are not highwaymen."

The Beau recognized the voice, and in accents wherein could be detected the faintest note of relief said:

"Charles--Mr. Lovely! and why, may I inquire, are you abroad on such an unpleasant night?"

"Why, sir," called out Charles, "what have you been about? There's a dead man lying in the road."

"Good G----!" said Mr. Ripple, "a dead man?"

"Bring a lamp," called Clare.

Pridgeon descended from the box and, having tied the horses to a withered fir-tree, snatched one of the lamps from its socket.

As he came along, Charles observed by the wavering light primroses in flower.

"Surely, surely," said the Beau, "I cannot have killed this man."

"N! No!" cried Clare who was kneeling beside the body. "He has been dead some time. Z----ds! 'Tis the little Major."

"The little Major?" echoed Ripple sharply. "So 'tis! So 'tis!"

"All alone in the storm," said Charles in a low voice.

"It may have been highwaymen," said Ripple.

"So it may, so it may," Clare agreed.

"And it may have been Vernon," said Charles, "d--n him."

"Charles," said the Beau, "I owe you an apology. I have been obstinate. This should never have been allowed to happen."

Charles grasped his hand in the darkness.

After all, Mr. Ripple was not in his kingdom and they were all levelled by the presence of Death.

"We cannot leave the body here," said Tony.

"It must travel in the chaise," said Charles.

"What about Mrs. Courteen?" questioned Mr. Ripple.

"She is in a swoon."

"You are sure he is quite dead?" asked Charles and wondered at the futility of the remark.

Nobody troubled to reply.

"Perhaps it would be better to send a waggon," said Clare. "We are not many miles from Roseland-in-the-Vale."

"Somebody has cut off his epaulettes," said Charles.

"Then it may have been footpads," said the Beau. "No wayfarer would rob the dead."

"It is a very dark night," said Clare simply.

"He fought at Fontenoy. Let us lift him out of the mud," said Mr. Ripple, vaguely recalling long stories which the dead soldier had poured into his ears.

"He gave his life for her. We must certainly lift him out of the mud," said Charles.

"A dead body is dangerous to horses," said Clare, "I will take his head."

Just then the widow screamed again.

"Say nothing of this to Mrs. Courteen," said Mr. Ripple to the diminutive coachman.

"I knew something 'd 'appen," replied the latter. "I knew something 'd 'appen when I see'd as how somebody had stuck a bunch of primmerroses in Blue Jenkins's toes."

_Chapter the Thirty-fourth_

OLD ACQUAINTANCE

Charles said he would ride on to the _Basket of Roses_ and bid the landlord prepare a supper against the arrival of the rest. Clare stayed behind to protect the Beau from the hysterical excitement of Mrs. Courteen, who would not be pacified by anything less formidable than an armed escort. She had made up her mind that highwaymen were abroad, refused to allow the chaise to drive fast lest they might gallop unaware into a thieves' ambush, and alarmed herself with so many imaginary bogies that she almost succeeded in making Mr. Ripple fire point blank at Mr. Anthony Clare's shadow looming huge in the hedgerow.

Charles reached the _Basket of Roses_ not long after the departure of the lovers, and on hearing the news immediately spurred his grey horse to pursuit. For a couple of miles he plunged along a road that was almost a swamp, fired to greater exertions each minute by the sight of the ruts made by the chariot in front. Suddenly his horse began to go lame; the road grew worse; the ruts proved to be those of a country waggon. He was riding in the wrong direction, so he turned his grey round and walked her back to the inn. While he was inquiring into the possibility of securing a fresh mount, a voice from the parlour called out to know if any person was inquiring into the whereabouts of a young woman.

"She supped alone with the old gentleman," whispered Mrs. Tabrum.

Charles was not proof against a natural curiosity, and decided to wait at the inn till the arrival of the others. He ascertained that Vernon had changed horses so it was evident that he intended to post as fast as possible Eastward. His own horse must be tended if they were to proceed that night. There was no other in the stables, and as he was sure of catching the chariot before morning, he felt there would be no harm in learning why Phyllida had supped at a wayside inn, alone with an elderly gentleman. What was Vernon about meanwhile? Why had he not accompanied her? Charles ordered supper and stepped into the Travellers' Room.

"You were asking about a certain young woman," said Sir George, fixing him with deep set eyes of cold steel.

"I was indeed, sir," answered Mr. Lovely pulling forward an armchair into the blaze and stretching his damp legs towards the genial warmth.

"My name is Repington," said the old gentleman.

"Eh! What?"

"Sir George Repington."

Charles stared at him.

"And mine, sir, is Lovely, Charles Lovely."

"My nephew--humph--'tis your existence which has attracted me so many miles West."

"I did not think you knew of my existence," said Charles half sneering.

"You never condescended to inform your uncle of your movements."

"Sir," said the nephew, a smile of bitter recollection twisting the corners of his mouth. "I did not flatter myself that any attention on my side was welcome."

"What! you remember our only interview?"

"I was eight years old, sir."

"Is that a date in youth's short calendar that breeds a specially sensitive disposition of mind?"

"You turned me out of your house."

"On the contrary, nephew, you chose to go back to your father."

"Why wasn't he admitted, too?"

"Because," replied the uncle, "on a former occasion I was unfortunately compelled to invite your father to leave my house."

"By what right?"

Sir George raised his eyebrows.

"Truly, nephew, I think you are indiscreet for a young man of such fashion."

"I have the right to know," Charles burst out. "In all that I can remember of my childhood, you stood like a shadow in the corner of the room, you were the nightmare that haunted my pillow. You used to write sometimes--oh! I can remember your letters in their fat pursy envelopes. I can smell the sealing wax, black sealing wax, now. My father would go out with an oath and my mother would sit by a window with your letter in her lap, weeping, weeping."

"Did she weep, boy?"

"Ah! that pleases you, eh?"

"No, no, I was thinking what a laugh she had once--what a laugh. I expect I was hard--I was--Charles, nephew, give me your hand--I----"

The old man faltered in his speech and, as if the room were dark, groped for our hero's hand; the latter drew back.

"No! thank 'ee, Uncle, once is enough."

The old man did not heed the insult.

"Perhaps I understand your feelings, boy, I've read your poems."

Charles was touched for a moment, but hardened himself as he thought of that wide staircase down which, clutching the balustrade with both hands, he had stumbled alone. A child does not easily forgive a slight, and Charles still regarded his uncle with the eyes of a child.

"Did she speak of me before she died?" murmured the old man with a wistful eagerness.

"She may have spoken," said Mr. Lovely, "the fever was high."

"Or laugh--before she died? Nephew! to-night a young woman came to this inn alone. She smiled like my sister, she laughed like my--like your mother and like your mother she went away with the wrong man."

"What do you mean?" cried Charles too much startled by the sudden violence of his uncle's speech to resent the criticism of his father.

"And you have ridden in pursuit? Then you are her lover--eh? She's played you false as Joan played Roger false, and you are riding after her, and you will shoot him and marry her, and bring her to Repington Hall. 'Fore Heaven, I would give all my fortune to hear that laughter ripple along the lonely corridors of Repington Hall. They used to sit in the sunny window seat; and he would lean over the sill to pluck the roses that blew beneath. I cut the tree down when he was killed, and in the orchard where Lovely murdered him I planted cypresses."

"Murdered him?" cried Charles impressed against his will by the old man's passion.

"Aye, murdered him. Roger was no swordsman, he was a gentle kindly creature who loved old books and old friends, that's why I cannot understand Belladine, why did Belladine let him fight, and what became of--Good G----!" said the old man, "he's come back." Charles looked up and, seeing only Beau Ripple standing in the doorway, concluded that his uncle was gone mad.

"A pinch of snuff, George?" said Mr. Ripple.

"Thank'e, William," said Sir George. "This is my nephew, William--young Charles Lovely."

"We are already very good friends," said the Beau.

The exchange of courtesies effected by the Beau with that unfailing tact which characterized his least actions shed a new serenity over the situation and, though Charles was completely puzzled by a surprizing junction of personalities, he, too, with a profound instinct for the correct attitude, bore a part in what was apparently nothing more out of the way than a conversational episode in a social evening; yet three twigs in a whirlpool do not jostle one another much more roughly than the same three twigs in a puddle.

"How's the gout, George? You threatened at one time to become an easy prey to our physical Alectro."

"Better, William, thankee, far better. I found that hard work kept it off; or else I grew to drink less Port. I've dined solitary for a round number of years now."

"Your uncle looks well, Charles. Egad, I believe after all gold is better than iron for a man's health whatever the apothecaries tell us. Where is Clare?--a good fellow that friend of yours, Charles. I like Mr. Clare."

Tony came in from the stables at that moment and was presented to Sir George Repington.

He had often heard Charles rail against his uncle, but, perceiving no strain in the relation between them, entered yhe gathering with an easy grace, and gave a very humorous account of their departure from the Wells.

"Tut, tut," exclaimed Mr. Ripple, for Ripple he must remain, since as Ripple he achieved immortality.

"Tut, tut, I cannot have these riotous assemblies. This comes of leaving Curtain Wells. By the way, where is Mrs. Courteen?"

"She has an audience, sir," said Clare, "and is, therefore, as happy as can be expected under the circumstances."

"Who is Mrs. Courteen?" This from Sir George.

"A lady in whose company I have set out upon a very restless adventure. Cupid, George, has been shooting his arrows of late, without much regard to our mortal comfort. I believe the young rogue was unduly elated by the success of his Valentines."

"Sure, you aren't abroad on a love-affair, too, William?"

"Not of my own, George, but I have an onus in the matter. Some one has stolen a porcelain shepherdess from my booth in Vanity Fair."

"That would be the young woman with whom I supped to-night in this inn. Her name was Courteen."

"What! then we all have an interest in this matter, and can discuss the proper conduct of it over the very excellent supper whose arrival I anticipate without apprehension. This is a capital house, George."

"The landlord is an oddity," said Clare, "called me tulip and onion in a breath, and begged to be allowed to brush the mud off my boots which he said was a famous manure for carnation gillyflowers. I 'faith, the old boy made me feel devilish unclean."

Mrs. Tabrum came in to say the widow would not take supper with the gentlemen. She was much fatigued, and would be glad to retire to bed if Mr. Pipple--or was it Ripple--had no objection.

"None whatsoever," replied the latter in a pensive tone of voice. He was meditating rather sadly upon the circumscription of human fame.

A mere five-and-twenty miles from Curtain Wells, and already there was a doubt as to whether he were Pipple or Ripple.

"The widow don't intend to proceed," said Charles, when Mrs. Tabrum had curtseyed her way out.

"She is a foolish woman," said the Beau.

"But you are not going to leave the daughter to her fate," asked Sir George. "As you----" he stopped.

Charles looked up; Mr. Ripple gravely took a pinch of snuff. "I think," said the former, "that I shall be more likely to catch the chariot. What's o'clock?"

"Half-past ten," said Clare. "Your horse must rest an hour or two yet; I'll ride with you."

"That would be wiser," said Sir George eagerly. "Then nobody will say Charles took an unfair advantage of him. Although--" Again he stopped in a sentence, and again Mr. Ripple took a pinch of snuff.

It was strange how Sir George had identified himself with Phyllida's fortunes. It seemed as if he were staking his hope of a happy old age upon the result of this love chase. The meeting with Phyllida had filled up the rift which time and disappointment had created. He felt that fortune owed him reparation for his sister's loss; and could not help thinking what an appropriate instrument of the Fates had risen up in the person of his nephew. Sir George Repington had become so much accustomed in his large financial experience to the theory of just exchange that he was inclined to put too blind a confidence in the scales, and was too sure that the balance would adjust itself at some time or other. His nephew had not shown himself greatly enraptured by this late reconciliation, and Sir George had been lonely long enough. He was anxious at eventide for company. Death came suddenly like a clock that strikes in the night, and Sir George was afraid of the grey dawn stealing over the tree tops through the gaunt windows of Repington Hall. When the time came for him to face the vast uneasy realms of immortality, he would like to feel that somewhere on this small green earth, some hand would wave a sorrowful, a last farewell. He would cherish these two lovers; the maid would bring him and Charles together in friendship and charity. Everything pointed to a fortunate issue. He no longer brooded resentfully over calamities that were forgotten long ago. Belladine had come back. He and Belladine would sit on the sloping Repington lawns. June was in front of them. Already, like balm upon the old man's wounded heart, there stole the murmurous peace of the longest day. He saw the golden light, and the long shadows of the elms. He heard the caw of homing rooks and the flutter of thrushes in the great Hall shrubberies. In dignity and in rustick ease he would move with measured meditative steps like an English squire to his last account--not account, that savoured too much of Throgmorton Street--to his last bed, his virtues recorded in a Latin eulogy and for a memorial Charles and Phyllida, perhaps a grandson George, certainly four weeping cherubs to guard the four corners of his cenotaph.

Our hero was in that state when a host of conflicting emotions fight for the mastery. So much had happened in this eventful day. Everything and everybody appeared in a new perspective. Beau Ripple, seen by the firelight of the Travellers' Room, was no longer the exquisite despot of a world in miniature, the impersonal porcelain monarch, the rarest and most valuable piece in an universe of Bric-a-brac. He was in some way connected with the tragedy of his uncle's early life. The sovereign marionette of amber and tortoise-shell, of perfumes and pomades, whom Charles had known hitherto, was only an elegant exterior. Underneath the sattin, it seemed, there lived a man--one Belladine, of whose existence Fashion was ignorant. The well-dressed Attitude called Horace Ripple would be revered long after his decease. His epigrams would be quoted. He would represent a period in the frivolous archives of Curtain Wells, but Belladine whose heart had quickened to something more vital than a pretty measure, Belladine who had known tears and laughter, Belladine the Man would be forgotten. Charles pondered with passionate commiseration the myriad heartaches of poor humanity that were once esteemed worthy of exaggeration until a new intrigue caught the publick tongue, and contemplated regretfully the inevitable and gradual insignificance of all scandal. Truly, it was more consoling to regard Beau Ripple, that inexplicable phenomenon, than try to gain the acquaintance of Mr. William Belladine who had once played an important

## part in his uncle's life.

The latter, too, was different. He had only existed in Charles' mind as an aversion of childhood, but Charles no longer objected to sleep in the dark--the habit had come to him unconsciously. After all he owed Sir George Repington no grudge; it would be absurd to cherish an animosity that was based on a jejune domestick patriotism. The time had long gone by when he thought his own father the finest gentleman in the world. Yet was not this power of taking so much for granted, this passive acceptance of change and decline, a surrender of his youth? Was he, in fact, already divesting himself of all passionate reality? Charles experienced the despair of the devout man whose faith deserts him. He wrestled with his doubts and suddenly (it seemed a miracle) beheld on the ingle seat a swansdown muff. Youth returned--a harlequin with the supple wand of illusion. He stood once more in peach-coloured velvet coat, staring up to a balcony over whose railing dimpled the most enchanting face in England.

"This was your mother, boy," said Sir George almost timidly, breaking in upon his dreams.

Very tenderly, Charles took the locket from the old man, and the sight of the fresh young face brought back to his mind queer old nursery rhymes, and his mother's voice and the smell of a pot of musk and the cries of London coming in through an open window. There was a mist over Charles' eyes and a lump in Charles' throat as he shook his uncle's hand.

The latter wondered at himself for having been content to remain so long without the consolation of an acknowledged heir. For all these years, he had worked without an object. Now the great house of Repington and Son should be incorporated with some equally famous house and a delightful leisure was at last imaginable.

It warmed the old man's heart to hear Charles declare the importance of immediate pursuit, to hear him shout for his horse to be saddled, lame or sound, to see Mr. Clare look to the priming of the pistols and when, on the threshold of departure, the old man saw his nephew pick up the swansdown muff and cram it into the deep pocket of his great cloak, he could scarcely forbear a loud huzza, such vigour and determination were plainly visible on his nephew's attractive countenance.

One incident, just before he set out, served to chill our hero's fervour and discount his conviction of success. He was coming back from the stable and, as he passed the staircase that led to the bedchambers, perceived Mrs. Courteen beckoning from the corridor. He stopped to bow; and in a tone where politeness and condolence and hopefulness were pleasantly mingled, as good as promised the speedy restoration of Miss Phyllida Courteen.

"Sir," said the mother, "you are generous indeed to a fallen young woman."

Our hero frowned at this description of his love.

"And equally generous," she continued, "towards the fault."

Charles made a movement, but the widow plaintively ignored the interruption.

"They have told me of your generous resolve, but I would warn you, Mr. Lovely, that interference in these matters is generally disastrous. The child has done wrong--I do not wish to extenuate her crime--for crime it is when you consider her mother's indulgence of every whim. I know nothing of the eligibleness of the gentleman in whose company she has chosen to shock the sensibility of her mother's small and select circle of intimate friends."

Charles began to fidget.

"He may for all I know be a man of fashion, of rank, of fortune. He may, on the other hand, be a play-actor, an attorney's clerk, or a journeyman tinker. In either case it seems unlikely he will make an offer of marriage. Pray do not put such an idea into his head. Marriages forced upon reluctant suitors commonly turn out unhappy for both parties."

The widow must have been immensely in earnest, monstrously eager to secure her ambition, for never before had her speech betrayed such power of coherent expression.

"Let her go on her way," said the mother. "Let her find out for herself the results of rebellion; when the villain deserts her, she may not be quite so unwilling to stone the damsons next August. Let her learn her lesson, Mr. Lovely, and pray do not persuade her to come back. Her reputation is tarnished; and I am not at all inclined to bear the burden of her ill-behaviour, as I should do, Mr. Lovely, as I certainly should do since the world is censorious, and apt to visit the sins of the children upon the heads of the father, as the Bible says."

Charles could scarcely believe that Mrs. Courteen was in earnest.

He knew her for a worldly-minded woman, careless of everything save her own pleasures, but for such depths of callousness he was not prepared.

"Indeed, madam," he said coldly, "my only excuse for obtruding my presence upon Miss Courteen at such a time is my sincere hope that she will honour my solicitous regard with the bestowal of her hand."

"The child must be punished," insisted the mother.

"Indeed, madam, I venture to think we may safely leave that office to the small and select circle of your intimate friends."

"I cannot understand what attracts--" Mrs. Courteen began, then changed to "what makes men so generous."

Mr. Lovely regarded her contemptuously.

"So I should think."

"Cruel Mr. Lovely," moaned the widow, "Cruel to suggest that I am ungenerous. Why, I have never mentioned the pearls which were taken out of my jewel-case."

"They say that Miss Courteen's necklace vastly becomes her mother."

"Do they, indeed, sir?" said the widow with an affected sigh.

Charles made an impatient gesture.

"Do you imagine, madam, that I am going to tire a good-hearted horse for the sake of allowing you to bask in the flattery of your friends? By G----! I tell you that one of 'em is already dead--shot for the sake of that daughter whose ruin you contemplate so tranquilly."

The widow turned pale.

"At any rate," Charles continued; "at any rate, the little Major with all his strut died like a cock of the game."

"The Major dead," half screamed the widow; and even that information, so brutally delivered, provided the thought that now more than ever was it necessary to prevent Phyllida's marriage.

"Aye, dead! He'll be here in the morning when the Wells waggon arrives."

Charles turned away from the widow, thinking how impossible it was to believe that a mother could be so heartless. The desire to cherish Phyllida surged over him in a wave of tenderness; but when presently he and Clare set out from the inn-door, under the tail of the storm-cloud shedding stars in slow retreat across the sky, he felt Despair upon his heels and pondered the infamy of this beautiful world. Poor hero! he was a gamester even in his emotions and, having staked his hope in one wild throw, was fearfully watching the issue. What a maddening melody the cubes made when rattled by the hands of Fate.

Pray remember, before you dismiss the widow to your eternal disdain, that she may have loved young Mr. Standish, that rugged Squire Courteen may have been very brutal in his cups, that such a malicious Codicil might have soured a woman less dependent upon the amenity of life. Finally, pray remember that she was a woman who did not wrinkle easily, and the consequent temptations of a deceitful mirrour. Looking-glasses, like human beings, lie more often than is commonly supposed, but possess an unlucky reputation for truthfulness which seldom hampers humanity.

Left alone with Sir George, Mr. Ripple took advantage of the opportunity to explain to his old friend certain events on which the latter had long brooded in vain.

_Chapter the Thirty-fifth_

THE CUTTING OF A DIAMOND

"And what is your life, William?" asked Sir George Repington, leaning back in his chair and removing his wig.

"My life, George," replied Mr. Ripple, "is a gem carved by a cunning workman to stamp any material sufficiently plastick to record an impression. My life, George, is a conductor of musick. Of itself it produces no sweet sounds, but evokes a fair harmony from many and diverse instruments."

"You had ambitions once."

"I have gratified the most of them."

"Yet your life has not been active."

"No?"

"As for example mine has been."

"I do not know, George, that my contemplative existence has produced less than your phrenzied encounters with mathematical alliances and numerical intrigues. The manipulation of human beings is quite as

## active. We have neither of us done a vast deal."

"I have had a great influence upon the political situation, more than once," said Sir George proudly.

"So have I," said the Beau.

"Indeed?"

"I have tamed the wives of the most of our ministers."

"But you are not a man of intrigue?"

"Heaven forbid!" said the Beau devoutly. "No, no George, my knowledge of Olympian intrigue taught me to be wise. I found that the gods never improved their dignity by amorous descents. To be sure, on one or two occasions, they made an effort to assert their divinity by dramatical effects unworthy of a country conjurer, but I do not believe that they ever recovered from the indiscretion of familiarity with their inferiors. No! no! George, I am not a man of intrigue."

"Then what is your life? How do you pass your time?"

Sir George Repington had lit a churchwarden pipe and accentuated the inquiry by waving the long stem. Mr. Ripple took a pinch of snuff and, settling himself deeper in his chair, began to relate his manner of existence in a clear and modulated tone that agreed well with the comfort of the room. The narrative took its own course and reminded one of the purring of a cat amid the flickering shadows cast by firelight on a gaudy rug.

"I assumed my present name--Horace Ripple--partly out of respect to the poet, partly out of respect to my father's mother. Belladine was too metallick, too lustrous an appellation for a man without any desire to agitate the peace of the world. Besides, there were other reasons why I should forget my patronymick. As Horace Ripple, I rode one fine morning into the town of Curtain Wells, procured a pleasant house in the Eastern Colonnade and waited upon Beau Melon. The latter received me very graciously and was pleased to compliment me upon the trimming of my waistcoat. (I have often contemplated the revival of that auspicious fashion.) I was lucky enough to render the great Beau a trifling service, in the matter of adjusting the discordant claims of two dairymaids who were quarrelling rather loudly over the young Earl of---- well, his name don't matter. Melon had been entrusted with the harvesting of the young nobleman's wild oats. After that I was able to lend him five hundred pounds and half a dozen epigrams, also to put him in the way of a neat translation of a song by the passionate Catullus, whereby he secured the hand of the famous, wealthy, and eccentrick Contessa Dilettante. He married, bequeathed to me his house, his notebooks, and his goodwill, so that in a paltry five years I succeeded to the sovereignty of Curtain Wells. Our season endures from October until June. During that time I am as busy as a monarch should expect to be. I have made many alterations during the years of my rule; for instance, the Assemblies once held every Wednesday are now invariably held every Monday."

"But what the d----l does it matter which day they are held?" interrupted Sir George.

"Of course, it does not matter. Nothing matters. Nevertheless, George, when I announced the change, I tell you my throne, for a moment, tottered. However, I triumphed over the malcontents, and I venture to think it would take a very bold man to suggest they should ever again be held upon Wednesday."

"But, my dear William!" said his friend, "this is nonsense. 'Tis absurd for you to sit there and congratulate yourself as though this were doing something."

"My dear George," said the Beau very blandly. "Did I not read last year in the _Intelligence_ that you were agitating yourself confoundedly in order to secure some great financial advantage by altering the date of the despatch of bullion to Portugal?"

"You did, William, you did," said Sir George, setting his shoulders back at the proud thought of a great victory won.

"And what the d----l does it matter whether the ships sail in February or March?"

"You don't understand--the depression of the markets, the----"

"Precisely so," interrupted Mr. Ripple, "and you, my dear friend, do not understand the depression of Monday and Tuesday in the time before my great reform."

"But mine was an affair of international importance."

"And mine was an affair of domestick and social importance. Gadslife, do you suppose that my subjects care a jot about your schemes, if their own bodies are uncomfortable? Do you realize that many an election depends--yet why should I dispute the question. Nothing matters, but everything is of the very greatest importance."

Sir George was bewildered by the Beau's sophistry and argued no farther. After all, as he told himself, the atmosphere of Throgmorton Street had probably stultified his outlook. He himself only regarded it as a necessary, if purgatorial prologue to the paradise of the life of a man of leisure. Belladine was a man of leisure, and if Aristotle's politicks were not corrupt, must know more than himself about the affairs of the whole world. So Sir George kindled a fresh pipe with a burning coal, and listened to the continuation of Mr. Ripple's placid narrative.

"I perceived," the latter went on, "that pleasure was the most inexorable fact, setting aside birth and death, in the human economy. Before my time, the diversions of Curtain Wells, though conducted on a lavish scale of expense were somewhat haphazard. They did not always fit in with the moods of the pilgrims of AEsculapius. Too much was left to private enterprize. There was not enough organization and, worst of all, there was not enough stress laid upon the ascetick duties, whose fulfilment would lend such a flavour and zest to relaxation. I instituted, therefore, a rigour of exercise and diet, I insisted upon the sacred character of the Pump Room, I glorified the taking of chalybeate by a ritual at once subtle and magnificent. In a word, I founded a new religion and, as the auctioneers have it, made of Curtain Wells a true Temple of Hygeia. Having trained my subjects to make themselves uncomfortable in a modish way, I was soon able to urge the necessity of enjoying themselves on the same principle. To this end I arranged that every month should have its specifick pleasures, which would be welcomed as we welcome each flower that succeeds in its season. I will not fatigue you with too much detail, but I can honestly affirm that when the great Aquatick Gala or Fete Aqueuse comes to a dazzling conclusion, when the showers of bursting crimson, violet, and golden rockets dim the lustre of the Dog Star on the last night of June, the whole of the fashionable world retires to verdant solitudes with a profound admiration for me and a fixed determination to grace the grand opening Assembly on the first night of October."

"Indeed," said Sir George Repington, on whose mind a new prospect was breaking, "and how do you pass your time during the intervening months?"

"I meditate, George, I meditate in a charming rural retreat which I possess in the green heart of Devonshire. There I spend leafy days in pastoral seclusion. I have my plane tree, my jug of old Falernian. I have my spaniel, Lalage, and an impoverished female cousin who performs very engagingly upon the spinet. I sit in the austere musick-chamber with shadowy white walls, empty save for two or three tall black oaken chairs and the curiously painted instrument. I listen to the cool melodies of Couperin and admire his unimpassioned symbols of the Passions where a purple domino is the most violent, the most fervid emotion. I hear above the chirping of the crickets, the faint harmonies of Archangelo Corelli and the fugues of Domenico Scarlatti, whose name is so vivid, but whose musick like the morning is a mist of gold. I sit in a library hung with faded rose brocades and tarnished silver broideries. There I meditate upon the bloody deaths of Emperors and the grey hairs of Helen of Troy. There I move serenely from shelf to shelf and hark to the muffled thunder of volumes clapped together to exclude the odorous dust. I ponder Religion and Urn Burial and pore over the lurid histories of notable comets. At dusk of a fine day, I step out into the dewy garden to watch the colour fade from the flowers and the stars wink in the lucent green of the western sky. Presently I step indoors, light a tall wax candle set in a silver candlestick, go sedately to bed and fall asleep to the perfume of roses and jasmine and the echo of a cadence from the _Anatomy of Melancholy_."

"And that is your life?" said Sir George.

"That is my life."

"William, would it have been your life if things had been different on that April morning? I thought my life was as I would have wished to spend it; I have worshipped dull columns of figures and the dust of counting-houses, but to-night when I saw that child, when I saw that nephew of mine, I feared old age and wished I could somehow have thought less, calculated less, striven less, and loved more."

"George," said Mr. Ripple, tapping the lid of his snuff box with not so brave an air as usual, and, as he spoke, his friend apprehended in a moment's illumination that all this decorated narrative had been evoked to defer an explanation which he had felt all the while was inevitable.

"George," said Mr. Ripple, "if upon that morning in April, I could have made up my mind, I should, I believe, have--and yet I don't know," he broke off, "I doubt I was never intended to be a man of commonplace

## action."

"You did not interfere?"

"I loved her, too."

"You loved her?"

"I saw she cared for him alone, and, when Roger fell, though I had my pistol loaded and levelled, I had no heart to fire. But I was never brave enough to tell you I had let him escape and, having waited too long--oh! well there it is--I waited and could not bear to resume my old life. And indeed, George, I think I have been a happy man. You have conjured up the ghost of Belladine to-night and Belladine was and is and will be miserable to the end of his days, but pray dismiss him, vex not his ghost, and take snuff with Horace Ripple of the Great House, Curtain Wells. We are both too old, George, to do anything now. We must depend on young Charles."

"And if he should fail?"

"We are both old men. We should, therefore, both be able to suffer another disillusion."

"I suppose that is true," said Sir George rather sadly. "William----"

"Horace," corrected Mr. Ripple.

"William," persisted the other, "did I ever mention Thistlegrove Cottage to you?"

"Not that I can remember."

"'Tis a fine night, full of stars," said Mrs. Tabrum, entering the room with a tray full of brightly burning candles, "and what time would your honours like to be waked up in the morning?"

"I will ring my bell," said Mr. Ripple.

"I will ring my bell," said Sir George Repington.

The two old friends took each a candle, and went upstairs to bed. From the corridor casement they looked out.

"What a laugh she had," says Sir George. A gust of wind extinguished his candle, and he shuddered.

"That is the way I shall go out."

"That is the way we shall all go out," said Mr. Ripple.

"And nothing afterwards?"

"Darkness."

"And nothing else?"

"Perhaps a hand in the darkness."

_Chapter the Thirty-sixth_

THE SCARLET DAWN

The post-chariot that held in its musty recesses Miss Phyllida Courteen and Mr. Francis Vernon rattled on its way with all the vigour imparted by four fresh horses and the exhilarating effect of Plymouth Gin upon the post-boys.

A smell of saddlecloths and damp cushions, of leather straps and the dust of oat and hay, clung to the vehicle while over them was wafted the permeating steam of horses' flanks and the pungent odour of hot lamps.

"Phyllida, my Phyllida, at last."

"Why did you let me travel alone? I was frightened."

"My dear," said Vernon, "indeed, I do not know how to explain my neglect, but I wanted to ride out of the darkness and find you alone in the firelight like a maid in an old tale. It must have seemed cowardice to you."

"I was frightened," murmured Phyllida, growing breathless at the recollection of Mr. Charlie and Mr. Dicky Maggs lurching round the table in the Travellers' Room.

"You longed for me?" Vernon moved closer to his love and took her hand.

"Amor," said the girl shuddering, "I think I am frightened now. I think we will go back. I think I have done wrong."

"You think all these foolish thoughts, dear life. I know that to-day will be to you a day of days for ever."

He held her now in his arms, and she with a sigh yielded herself into his keeping. Soft she was and timid, like a bird which has fallen from the nest, and in the gloom he could still see her wide blue eyes and above the jangle of the chariot he could hear her whisper,

"I love you, Amor, I love you."

"My Phyllida."

"Amor, dear, dear Amor."

"'Tis not my name, dear one."

"'Tis the name you told me."

"My name is Vernon."

"To me you will always be Amor. Amor means Love. I asked the Archdeacon and he told me that Amor meant Love."

Vernon was taken outside of himself. As he kissed those lips more soft than the petals of flowers, the other lips he had known seemed cracked and dry. In the darkness, he felt her eyelashes upon his cheek as they drooped to a blush, and a passion of remorse swept over him. He would wed this child at the end of the journey. He would love her for ever. That was certain. Oh, yes, there was no doubt he would love her for ever. He had plucked this flower in a wanton moment, had thought to wear her for a scented month and fling her away. O execrable intent!

"My Phyllida, my Phyllida! Why do you love me?"

"Why do you love me?" Her hand nestled in his.

"I don't know, because--because--oh, because I do love you, because you have driven me mad with your blue eyes and your hair and your lips. My Phyllida, my Phyllida!"

Vernon was no longer conscious of acting. This was no scene set with chairs at appropriate angles. The raffish Mr. Francis Vernon of London, the clever Mr. Francis Vernon who vowed every woman had her price, Mr. Vernon the hero of half a hundred squalid intrigues was dead. Why should he not forget him, taking for his own that fortunate pseudonym which had set him as high as the angels? With a gesture of dismay, he drew from his cuff a greasy King of Hearts and spurned the dishonourable cardboard with his foot.

"Amor!"

"My dear! My lovely one! My heart!"

"Once I climbed up a high hill at home in Hampshire."

He held her more closely.

"I climbed a hill and stared for a long while right into the sun. I was giddy. Amor! Amor! I feel now as I did when I stared for a long while into the sun."

"Phyllida! Phyllida!"

"You'll never not love me, Amor?"

"Never, I swear it."

"I could not bear you not to love me. Once I knew a young woman whose lover forsook her and she used to work woollen flowers all day long with a tambour frame, because she was working woollen flowers when he told her that he loved her, and she never did anything else all the years that we knew her; and, Amor, she is working them now, and oh, I'm afraid when I think of her working those woollen flowers."

Vernon in his new frame of mind could scarcely forbear telling his love of the ills he had intended towards her. He had caught a passion for frankness and would have poured into her ears the whole of his past. He could not endure, to such elation had he been carried, that Phyllida should be ignorant of the worst of him in order that for the future she should know more truly the very best of him. But he was wise and, though Cupid had lent him his own wings, he would not play too many aerial pranks, soar too near the sun, fall and break his neck. It was indeed a form of abnegation that prevented him from showing Phyllida his own bad self. It was bitter to hear her murmur, with a white hand on his sleeve.

"I knew you were true, my true love, all the time, all the time."

Nothing tugs at the heart-strings of a man like a young maid's plighting of her troth. Nothing makes his brain reel like her first kiss freely given.

"Oh, Phyllida, Phyllida! I'm not fit for you."

"Foolish Amor."

"Are you happy, my dearest?"

"Oh, so happy."

"We shall never be parted again."

"Never!"

"I did not know that life was so wonderful."

"I thought it was," she murmured, as she nestled to his heart, "because Spring was always so sweet, and now I need never mind the Winter."

"All the years I did not know you, my Phyllida, were wasted years."

"Amor!"

"Phyllida!"

"How I shall always love you."

"Always?"

"To the end."

"Once," she said with a sigh, "I longed to grow old, and now I would like to be always young."

"Ah! Phyllida, my Phyllida, don't speak of age. I've wasted so much of my life."

He thought with anguish of the dead Summers he had known and wondered with a great dread whether they would come again. If, while he could still feel this splendid passion, they should be grey and dismal, he would never forgive himself for having revelled in the warmth and gaiety of those irrevocable seasons.

"You are not sad?" she asked, jealous of his silence.

"I wish that life were not so short."

Our villain was beginning to examine the foundations of his existence upon this earth, where hitherto he had jogged along, accepting the most outrageous calamity and good luck with placid superficial mind. Meditation upon the brevity of a life, which at any moment a tavern brawl might extinguish, would have seemed to him before this passionate conversation a lunatick method of spending time. Poor villain! he had not enjoyed much leisure for meditation. He was born in a hurry, his mother being under contract to appear as Millamant a long while before she should. He was brought up in a hurry at Alleyn's School to be murdered in a hurry by some Richard III. Moreover, in youth he had assisted at so many tinsel deaths that it was not surprizing he should regard them lightly. Even his mother's death within sound of the orange girls outside Drury Lane struck him as nothing more final than a last appearance.

Now for the first time, there broke upon him the stunning fact of inevitable decay and, being a self-indulgent man, he had for the moment nothing more dignified than petulant despair with which to meet this sudden apprehension of mortality.

"'Tis monstrous," he declared, "a fearful thought that you and I should ever grow old and die. I cannot bear to think of your brown hair growing white. Phyllida, you cannot grow old."

Love had made a woman of Phyllida and already, with gentle touch, she soothed his anguish.

"Dear Amor, I know that if we love each other truly, we shall never grow old to each other."

"Phyllida, I love you," and clasping her lissome body breathless to his, he defied the lightning of the Gods.

And now a new fear assailed him. 'We shan't be followed,' he had contemptuously informed old Mother Mawhood at Blackhart Farm. In sudden dread he leaned out of the window of the chariot, and strained his eyes to pierce the darkness. He could see nothing save the shadows of the postillions against the hedge, hear nothing save the clatter of the horses. The loneliness and gloom affected his spirits and with a shudder he sought again the musty interior of the vehicle. He caught his love to his heart.

"What did you see?" she asked.

"Nothing, but I was afraid, I could not bear to lose you now."

"You saw nothing?"

"Nothing."

"And heard nothing?"

"Nothing. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, Amor, I thought I saw the shadow of a man on horseback."

"Fancy, my sweet, fancy." Then, with a sinking fear, he remembered he had told Mother Mawhood of the pearls. He called to mind the postboys' insolence, the look that passed between Charlie and Dickie when he told them he would ride in the chariot. He sprang in alarm to open the window, but the carriage pulled up with a jerk which flung him back against Phyllida. The glass crashed to the heavy butt of a pistol and, as he stretched out for his own fire-arms, he saw the postboys resting long barrels on the sill and, by the lamp which one of them held, a masked face that with thick brutal voice demanded their money.

"Hand 'em over."

"Hand what over?" said Vernon, in a futile attempt to delay his humiliation.

"The pops first," said one of the Maggs, winking humorously in the direction of Vernon's pistols that in leathern holsters lay harmless on the dusty floor of the chariot.

Now occurred one of those astonishing coincidences that have tempted the speculation of many sages since the beginning. A field-mouse chose that very moment to cross the road. A large white owl spied the diminutive pilgrim and, having tasted no food that stormy night, swooped daringly upon his prey under the heads of the standing horses. Terrified by the soft white apparition, the leaders plunged forward. In a moment the chariot was bumping and jolting at a wild pace down the road, having broken Charlie Maggs' big toe in transit. The blackguard deserved a scar for his carelessness, if for nothing else, and the limp he earned that night was some time afterwards the means of proving his complicity in the affair of the blind mouse-tamer, thereby ridding the world of a very dirty rascal. Mice were fatal to Charlie Maggs. It is satisfactory to know that the adventurous animal avoided the owl, and it is also consoling to learn that the latter never adorned a gamekeeper's pole, but died a natural death in the hollow trunk where it had spent actually all the days of its life.

It was a moment or two before Vernon understood that the danger was averted; then he bent low to reassure Phyllida, who was crouching in the darkest corner of the chariot.

"My dear," he cried, and for all the swaying motion caught her to him with a certain grace. "My dear, there is nothing to be afraid of now."

"Oh! Amor!" she sobbed, abandoning herself to the horror of remembrance, "that face--that black face."

"My sweet, you shall never see it again."

"It will follow us."

"If he should I have something here that will frighten him away fast enough."

Vernon waved a pistol which he had picked up even as he caught hold of Phyllida. But the masked face did not pursue them and, after a mile or so of noisy swaying progress, Vernon began to consider the possibility of stopping the carriage. He leaned out of the window and nearly had his eyes put out by a bramble sucker. A survey from the other side, where the remaining lamp lent a wavering illumination, showed they were travelling at an alarming pace down a deep rocky lane. Vernon noticed that the boulders in places trespassed considerably upon the road with projecting points, and there seemed every likelihood of the chariot being presently wrecked like a rudderless boat. However, runaway horses and drunken men share a large amount of the world's luck between them, and notwithstanding the headlong speed, every boulder in turn was successfully avoided. Farther along, the surface of the road grew worse and, every other second, one of the wheels would grate against the side of a deep rut with a horrid jar. They were going downhill now and Vernon strained his eyes to discover the lie of the country. The pace was harder than ever, and it seemed impossible for four horses to survive the roughness of the road and the steepness of the descent.

Suddenly above the clatter they heard the roar of water: at the same moment the front wheel struck some permanent obstacle: the chariot dipped forward: Phyllida and Vernon were flung in a tangled heap on the floor, while the sudden cessation of movement made the noise of the water sound very portentous in the gloom. Vernon extricated himself from the vehicle on the lighted side and, jumping out, splashed his way through mire and puddles to the horses' heads. The two leaders with that unexpected philosophy which in horses often succeeds the most fervid excitement were cropping the young herbage peacefully, while the wheelers were only slightly more restive through their inability to reach the same sweet pasture. Vernon snatched the solitary lamp from the socket and went to help Phyllida alight. As she stood upon the step and gave him her little hand, he divined with a sense of awe, begotten by the solitude of the surroundings, that she was truly his. He was Adam greeting Eve with the mystery of woman all about her in that primaeval Spring.

The scene of the catastrophe was peculiarly solemn. The chariot had struck a column of stone that rose suddenly out of the ground as if the finger of a Titan had been frozen into perpetuity to mark some early and gigantick travail of his mother Earth. The lamp with feeble yellow light made monstrous shadows of the huge features it sought vainly to illuminate. So far as he could judge they were nearly at the bottom of a deep ravine along which swept a torrent whose magnitude was impossible to estimate, since the roar of the waterfall gave it in the darkness a dreadful importance.

"It must be close on two o'clock," said Vernon, "let's leave this disastrous vehicle. We may find shelter somewhere over this valley."

Phyllida drew the riding hood round her and, taking her lover's arm, silently acquiesced in this proposal.

As they drew near the waterfall, the thunder of it made her shiver. They crossed the torrent by a stone bridge that seemed to have become a natural feature in the landskip.

On the far side by a common impulse they stopped and Vernon leaned down to kiss her face.

"My Phyllida," he murmured; and held the lamp so that he could see the shimmer and gleam of love in her eyes. They stood silent, enraptured, and the hot yellow lamp away down in the depths of this world-forsaken valley became the very torch of Hymen.

With slow steps they climbed the opposite hill, deserting the waters and the rocks, the ferns, the little bridge, for the grey starshine above the gloom. Yet the awe of that solemn ravine, which they had reached after such peril, enthralled them still and I think both felt as if somehow their love had been consecrated by a divine being. It was quite a relief from the strain of reverence when Vernon informed Phyllida that there was no sign of any human habitation.

"What shall we do with the carriage?" asked the latter.

"Don't fret about that."

"And the horses?"

"They must take their chance. I wish I knew the hour."

"You said it must be two o'clock."

"The sun does not rise till half-past five. Three hours and a half. I wonder why we left the chariot. It would be wiser to go back. You will be cold in this open country."

The wind was blowing shrewdly up there in the starlight, and Phyllida would not deny she was cold and tired.

"We had better go back to the chaise. 'Twas warmer in the valley."

Yet both of them felt a strange disinclination to risk the disillusion of return till, suddenly, up there in the wind and starlight, terror caught them, and the noise of water tumbling over rocks gave them a sense of security from this wide place of silence.

"'Tis a monstrous uneasy country," said Vernon, voicing in common speech the sense of woe that oppressed him.

"I feel frightened," Phyllida agreed, "let us go back to the water."

They stopped to listen as people will whose minds have been much wrought upon. There was nothing but the lisp of the wind in the bents of last year's grass and a melo-dious sighing in the boughs of larches. Yet never throughout that adventurous night had Phyllida's heart pattered at such a pace, never had she been so near to shrieking aloud. Without longer delay they turned back in the direction of the coombe, walking with quick steps as if to avoid an invisible pursuit. Half-way down the hill, Vernon stooped to gather a primrose.

"Here's a daisy," he said.

"A daisy," Phyllida cried. "Why, foolish Amor, 'tis a primrose," and whatever fiend or goblin followed in their wake fled in affright at the sound of her rippling laughter.

I think nothing shows more conclusively that Mr. Vernon was in love with Miss Courteen than his indifference to her ridicule.

"Sweetest," he said, "I'm ignorant of the best things like flowers," and forthwith began to tell Phyllida of his life in London, so that when presently they stood again upon the bridge, he was raising his voice in order to describe his first impressions of rustick Marybone, to which he added a very nice account of the view of the Hampstead Hills.

Under the influence of this narrative, the scene lost some of its grandeur. An air of grottoes, of stone embellishments, arbours, and cunning recesses shed itself over the landskip. One heard comparisons with this or that famous haunt of sight-seeing mobs. In fact both Vernon and Phyllida, being English, felt their late raptures were unbecoming, and having excused a lapse into sensibility by the fright they had suffered, proceeded to declare that the chasm, far from being Titanick, would make a mighty fine site for an excursion of pleasure. At least Vernon clothed the opinion in words, Phyllida was too much fatigued to do more than murmur a weary assent.

They found the chariot just as they had left it and the four horses browsing upon the grass. He handed her into the vehicle, made her comfortable with what rugs and cloaks he could collect and left her to rest with the assurance he would remain close at hand. She gave his hand a tired clasp and almost immediately fell fast asleep. Vernon tethered the horses to various stumps in the vicinity, and proceeded to doze and dream away the cold hours before dawn in the shelter of a particularly large and overhanging ledge of rock. The sound of the falling water that deafened him with its roar when first he heard it, now soothed him like a gentle lullaby.

I cannot do justice to the scene: Rembrandt with his powerful and gloomy imagination could have etched it. He would have made the two lovers present themselves to the onlooker in their right proportions to the scenery. You and I are too near to the candlelight of Curtain Wells to believe in the romantick desolation wherein they seemed of no more importance than the ferns that hung down their green tongues to the limpid pools hollowed from jagged rocks. Vernon, huddled in the shelter of the crag, with his hat pressed over his eyes, his knees arched as high as his chin, might well have been a belated herdsman who, having flung himself into this valley to avoid the upland wind, had been bewitched by the magick of running water to dream away the night. The horses in the black shadows and the ruined chariot had an air of Gothick melancholy; the yellow lamp that glimmered fitfully in the heart of the abyss served only to throw into more huge relief the neighbouring rocks, while it lighted the thresholds of gaping caverns that stretched beyond to unimaginable depths of solitude and gloom. The night wore on and over the hill the lovers had found so depressing to their spirits, like a sword in the twilight, lay the first grey streak of dawn. Phyllida and her lover slept while the features of the landskip began to win again their own outlines, while the rocks that were wrapped in the warm velvet of night appeared with a cold sheen. The grey streak widened to a broad lake whose margin was flecked with the faint hues of lavender and mauve. Birds began to twitter and chirp in the trees and bushes that overhung the rocks below, while the winds of dawn fluted in the small withy bed beside the bridge.

Very wan in the morning twilight, Mr. Charles Lovely and Mr. Anthony Clare clattered down the deep lane that led to the valley. Their horses' flanks glistened with the sweat of hard travel and the riders rose hardly to the jerking downhill motion.

Just as the rose-tipped fingers of Aurora plucked the lavender from the skies, Charles and Tony caught sight of the chariot and just as they pulled their horses to a standstill, Mr. Vernon woke up. It is characteristick of the latter's new-found consideration that his first

## action was to warn them with a gesture of Phyllida's presence fast

asleep inside. Charles tapped his holsters in reply and pointed up the opposite slope. Vernon rose to follow his pursuers with a backward glance in the direction of the chariot.

When they were over the bridge and out of Phyllida's hearing Charles reined in his walking horse and inquired if Vernon was willing to give him satisfaction.

"For what?" said the latter with a sneer.

"For insulting my Muse," said Charles, determined if possible not to make Phyllida the subject of the quarrel.

"Your muse?" echoed Vernon, with the faintest intonation of surprise, "but I promised you satisfaction for that a month hence."

Vernon was equally determined that Phyllida should be the direct occasion of the duel, if duel there must be.

The rosy heavens became a sheet of vivid scarlet intersected with the golden bars of the fast rising sun. Up he came in a blaze and dazzle of glory, lustrous and invigorating; still the colour was not quite effaced, and on the three men that scarlet dawn made an invincible impression of disaster and woe. A red sky is a warning to shepherds and sailors, no doubt it was ominous to lovers.

The summit of the hill was reached and involuntarily the three paused in their wrangling to marvel at the extensive landslip suffused with the amber haze of earliest morn. The homesteads in sight seemed untenanted: there was not a single column of curling smoke to mark the presence of humanity.

Where they were standing, the road was bordered on either side by a wide stretch of level sward. On the left was a spinney of larches showing as yet no crimson plumes of Spring, round which numbers of rabbits gambolled in air that sparkled like golden wine. It seemed indeed more like July than April, and only the bare trees told the true tale of the season's youthfulness. Up here on the top of the world the three men drank in the beauty of the universe and, having as it were performed their orisons, turned to arrange the details of a bloody encounter.

"I promised I would meet you where you would in a month's time," repeated Vernon obstinately.

"But I prefer to meet you now," replied Charles.

"I have no one to act for me."

"Mr. Clare will act for both of us."

"That is an irregular proceeding."

"I don't care."

"And Miss Courteen?" Vernon was resolved to drag Charles to the real point at issue. "What is to become of Miss Courteen?"

"In either event, Mr. Clare will be able to escort her back to Curtain Wells."

"D---- n you," said Vernon, roused by his enemy's assumption of guardianship. "And what if she wishes to stay with me?"

"Mr. Lovely has her mother's authority to conduct her home," interposed Clare.

"What you two prim busybodies don't appear to understand is that Miss Courteen prefers to remain with me."

"Miss Courteen is not her own mistress. She is not of age," said Clare.

"And pray how do you propose to make her accompany you?"

"Why, in this way," interrupted Charles, shaking off his friend's arm, "in this way, Mr. Vernon. If you decline to meet me with pistols, by G---- I'll thrash you senseless with my crop."

Vernon's hands twitched for a moment, but he had learned a new restraint, gained a new dignity from the wondrous ride and with scarcely a perceptible quiver in his voice begged to point out to his friend Mr. Lovely that if he shot him, he should not scruple to shoot Mr. Clare were the latter to stand in his way.

"But what if you're shot, Sir?" cried Charles, betraying in his eagerness the true reason for his desire to force an instant encounter, "as by G---- you deserve to be for murdering the poor little Major."

Vernon was perplexed.

"The Major? Is he dead? I had nothing to do with his death." The simplicity of the denial almost convinced his listeners that he was speaking the truth.

"Come, Sirrah, will you meet me? said Charles, lifting his crop.

"Listen, you pair of puppies," said Vernon between his teeth. "I could have put a bullet into either of you at any time during the last five minutes, and by heavens, I don't know why I kept my finger from the trigger. Yes, I do," he shouted. "I've got a chance of happiness and I'm not going to throw it away by having your blood on my head. You're an interfering pair of fools, but I cheated one of you at cards and I played a low game over the book, and by G----, I believe my father was a gentleman. I'll meet you, Mr. Lovely, now."

With these words he flung down on the grass at Charles' feet the two pistols which the skirts of his riding-coat had concealed.

"I'll step fifteen paces," said Mr. Clare, hiding his emotion with a piece of practical utility. And, as he began to measure the ground, away down in the broken chariot, Phyllida woke with a start. She was surprized by the daylight and called to her lover. Only birdsong answered her voice. In sudden dismay, presentiment hanging over her like the aftermath of an evil dream, she jumped from the chariot. Intuition, perhaps the remembrance of last night's fear, made her look towards the summit of the slope. In silhouette against the golden sky, she saw three figures. Breathless with horror she ran in their direction. Up the hill she laboured. It was still cold from the night air and foreboding was heavy upon her heart. Up the hill she struggled, leaving in her path many fluttering pieces of muslin where eager feet had torn the frail flounces. Down the road, she saw them level their weapons. "One, two, three," came in measured tones along the still air of the morning. There were two shots, the scud of frightened rabbits to their burrows, a reeling figure, a cloud across the sun, a mist over life, and she was kneeling in the dewy grass beside Amor.

"Oh, God!" she screamed, "He's dead. Oh! Oh! Oh!"

That anguished cry wounded Lovely deeper than any leaden bullet, for it killed his hopes.

At the touch of his dear one, Vernon opened his dark eyes.

"Here's a bunch of primroses," he murmured, "not daisies. I picked them, Phyllida ... for you ... not daisies ... primroses...."

And so with thoughts of flowers, Mr. Francis Vernon died. Pray let that sentence be his epitaph.

Charles, watching the maid stare into the sun with eyes whose light seemed fled with the swift-flying soul of the dead man, wished passionately--wildly--that he were the quiet body there in the dewy grass.

"What shall we do?" he murmured brokenly to Clare.

"Leave her alone for a while."

"What a mistake it has been."

They walked away with cautious steps and spoke in whispers as if they were afraid.

"What right had I to interfere between lovers?"

"You did it for the best."

"I know, I know, but what a d----d number of silly actions are done for the best."

"To-day is the first of April," said Clare, seeking with a commonplace to relieve the tension of Charles's distracted mind.

"Is it? What an April fool fortune has made of me."

_Chapter the Thirty-seventh_

APRIL FOOLS

The last ejaculation of Chapter XXXVI will serve as an admirable summary of the positions in which a number of our characters found themselves on April the First, in the year whose annals include this small history.

There is a peculiar happiness of choice in making the first day of that treacherous and feminine month coincide with the humiliation of a large number of worthy people. We plunge into April with a prodigious expectation of jollity: we delight in the sound of her name, liquid as the song of a thrush; we strut in the sunshine, fling off our surtouts, recline on banks where the painted adder lurks and the East wind cuts down from the high pastures, and altogether behave in a very foolish fashion. The heavens have taken a deeper blue; so among the cowslips we contemplate their azure until a black squall blows along, stings our rash necks with perilous hailstones and drives us headlong to the shelter of the pale green hedgerows. There on the drifted leaves of dead Octobers, we are scratched by the crimson thorns of briers and, slowly acquiring an extensive rheumatism, wish very sincerely we had never stirred from the hearth where the wise pages of Montaigne or La Rochefoucauld lie dog-eared through our precipitate adventure.

Yet, after all, it is better to be a fool in April than a wise man in November. Pit and boxes hear the ravings of the mad Ophelia with the sense of superiority secured by plush, but the most of them would be better men and women for having gathered that nosegay of columbines and rue.

So drop a tear for Phyllida. She was the heroine of the piece, the gentlest, tenderest maid. Sorrow has laid his grey fingers upon her heart and, though she may grow old and wise and wed a squire with well-tilled acres and spacious hall, to the end of her life a poignant experience, on which you have been the privileged intruder, will modulate her lightest laugh with a deeper harmony.

At the _Basket of Roses_ there were April fools that day.

"Charles made up his mind and did no good," said Mr. Ripple. "I hesitated, and was in no better case. What is one to do?"

Sir George Repington was quite broken up by the affair. Years ago he had built a bower in April which was destroyed in a morning. In old age, Spring fooled him again.

Like the heavy footnote of a tragedy, Mr. Moon, lately arrived by the Wells waggon, employed himself with practical suggestions. Mr. Lovely must retire over the water for a while, the sooner the better. Mrs. Courteen and Miss Phyllida must return to Hampshire. He would make posting arrangements; their baggage must be sent after them. Tarry must be buried in the parish church at home; he could not allow a neighbour to lie in a strange churchyard. For once in his life, Mr. Moon was of real use to a situation and, in the protracted discussions of expedients for hushing the matter up and conveying the principals safely into seclusion, the grief of many hearts was temporarily allayed.

"You must come back with me to Curtain Wells, George," decided Mr. Ripple, "we must not allow the world to invent any more explanations of the affair. I doubt the wildest rumours are flying round. In a month or two, Charles can return if he will; meanwhile you and I, George, will give ourselves the pleasure of paying his debts."

In the dusk of to-morrow's dawn, the vivid yellow chaise of Beau Ripple rattled over the cobbles of Curtain Wells, and drew up before the Great House. A dexterous and hurried toilet was performed with Mr. Mink's assistance and the watchers from the windows, ignorant whether the Great little Man was returned, were immensely gratified to see him emerge from his front door, goblet in hand, and wearing a new buff suit of unparagoned cut with very full trimming round the skirts.

The Exquisite Mob buzzed around the Beau's pedestal with a scarcely contained curiosity. Mr. Oboe, the Physician, was almost more subservient than usual, and not a single person inquired after his neighbour's health or expatiated upon his own. Gog and Magog exposed their ivory teeth in a permanent smile of welcome, and in the kitchen of the Great House, Mrs. Binn, the Beau's intelligent cook, prepared a breakfast of the most savoury character. His ascent to the rostrum produced an expectant silence.

"My lords, ladies and gentlemen," he began, "I owe you a profound apology. You will, of course, understand that in my capacity as Master of the Ceremonies of Curtain Wells, I am under no obligation to any one, but as Horace Ripple, I feel that my conduct in deserting you yesterday morning without any notice of my intention deserves an explanation. When I inform you that a domestick difficulty not entirely unconnected with my censorious office called for hasty adjustment, you will, I am sure, pardon me for not divulging the details of a very unfortunate affair. If I may trespass to such an extent upon your good nature, I should like to make my late adventure the subject of a short admonition. As you are aware, I am not accustomed to mingle with the practical politicks of my matutinal oration any allusion to your moral welfare: I should esteem it highly impertinent on my part, were I to usurp in such a way the prerogative of our friend the Rector. Nevertheless I am inclined to make an exception to my rule this morning, the more so as I feel it my duty to inform you of my impending resignation."

The Beau raised his monocle in order to regard the consternation of the Exquisite Mob.

"That event may not occur yet a while; at any rate I shall remain in my present position during this season. Next October, however, I hope to present you with a younger, I will not say worthier, successor. Naturally I shall still spend the greater part of my time in Curtain Wells, but with the advance of years, I shall wish to be excused from many of your more nocturnal gaieties. That desire I could not gratify were I still to hold the reins of responsibleness. However, this is not an oration of farewell, so I will not longer emphasize the melancholy topick of mutability.

"The advice I would offer you this morning is, next to the duty of a regular course of chalybeate, the most important item in human happiness. My lords, ladies and gentlemen, never meddle with other people's business when it happens to concern the heart or the soul of a human creature. Do not, because you are older or because you have read more widely or because you have travelled across Europe or because you have dined with a Minister, or because you suffer from any of the numerous delusions of superiority, do not be too sure that you are competent to interfere with somebody who has enjoyed none of these accidental advantages. Admonish the erring child, warn the impetuous young woman, chide the libertine, reproach the gamester, set an example of continence to all the world, but abstain from direct interference; and if an unpleasant doom overwhelms the object of your interest, pray do not suppose that you would have been able to avert it. My lords, ladies and gentlemen, you are one and all the genteelest of companions, but so far as my theology has taken me, you are none of you gods or goddesses, except in the hyperbole of poetick dedications.

"You have already heard the announcement of your forthcoming entertainments; let me add to their number with a very cordial invitation to the Great House, next Tuesday week. Finally, let me add that during my tenure of office, I shall hope to make these personal encounters a very frequent delight to your obliged humble servant Horace Ripple. Oh, and pray let me assure you that my absence yesterday morning was in no way due to any desire on my part to celebrate the festival of the First of April. My lords, ladies and gentlemen, your very obedient."

With these words the Great little Man descended from his pedestal, and was presently in affable conversation with a number of men and women of rank and fashion.

You will remember that when, it seems an age ago, we first saw Beau Ripple and the Exquisite Mob, we also met Mr. Vernon and Miss Phyllida Courteen. For my own part, I feel that the Pump Room on this morning lacked vitality for all its glitter and stir of elegant movement. I miss the swansdown muff and the blushing, eager face of Phyllida. I miss those little notes that dropped like feathers from the wings of Love. I miss the ingenuous artifice and sweet stratagems of Phyllida and Betty and for all it would nearly break my heart to see her misery, I would fain be walking behind them away down in some budding Hampshire lane. They are still in a postchaise, however, and the musty odour is wringing her heart with an agony of regret. In what a world of memories will she live the summer through. The cuckoo will call in the green wood and the nightingale thrill the moonshine with her passionate song, but Phyllida will stare into the sun.

In a dip of the billowy downs, the harebells wave from their fragile stems and ladies' slippers glow with red and orange flames. Far below you can see the flashing wings of kestrels and hear the lapwing's desolate cry. The beech trees rustle and in the long dry grass the wind sighs continually. There she will sit hour after hour in the summer heat, until she can forget.

And yet, little heroine of a sad tale, I wonder whether you would not have drooped in London and spent long lonely evenings while the twilight stole in from the murmurous streets of the city. I wonder whether after all you were not happier with a flock of rosy children, a portrait by Mr. Romney, and the most comfortable corner in the great Hall pew. Upon my soul, I am not competent to give an opinion.

Phyllida's mother certainly thought that everything was for the best. In her case optimism brought its reward, and she secured Courteen Grange as a dower house, where she continued for many years to be very spritely company for all the dowagers and many of the old bachelors in the neighbourhood. It is perhaps strange she did not marry Mr. Moon, but to confess the truth, the death of Major Tarry destroyed some of his charm. Without that brisk veteran to stir his ponderous courtship, the Justice became wearisome, possibly with greater opportunity of intimacy, more cautious. No doubt in the course of his legal researches, he came upon the Codicil to Squire Courteen's Will, and his election to the Chairmanship of the Bench rendered him oblivious to anything more trivial than Immortal Renown. If we can judge of his qualities by the epitaph in the South Aisle of the Church, he united in one person the austerity of Solon, the severity of Draco, the wisdom of Solomon, and the domination of Aaron. He never finished his great essay on Peace, but as his mural biographer justly remarked, 'His was now the Peace that passeth all Understanding,' so that presumably the publication of his fragment would have been a superfluous tribute. One particular distinction belongs to Mr. Moon. He was never made an April fool. And if the quiet tea-tables of Newton Candover were temporarily disturbed by the escapade of Miss Phyllida Courteen, why the parson benefited by an increase in his congregation. But even the most impudent curiosity could not long survive Mrs. Courteen's circumambient frankness.

_Chapter the Thirty-eighth_

BEAU LOVELY

Charles was perfectly right when he said Fortune had made an April fool of him. He should have accepted the ill omen of Valentine morning, for it was certainly very unlucky to mock the God of Love with a false pledge of affection. He was never intended for Phyllida. As Betty rightly pointed out, they were too much alike. Pray do not suppose that he was not an utterly miserable man for a long time. He was; but, in compensation for being born a poet, he possessed the latter's faculty for enshrining a reality in a sentiment. Phyllida came in time to stand for the symbol of elusive youth. During his retreat abroad he suddenly discovered that what he suspected was true, he had grown old. His father had enjoyed a perennial inducement to commit foolish actions in the quiet disapproval of his wife. Charles, however, in receipt of a handsome allowance from his uncle found he no longer had the slightest inclination to play. Wine had never attracted him save in moments of high excitement and he was willing to let his love for Phyllida occupy for ever the sacred inmost shrine of his heart.

Clare remained with him as long as he thought Charles needed his company, but word arriving that his cousin had died, he returned to Devonshire, and in the following year you might have read in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ 'Sir Anthony Clare of Clare Court, Devon, to Miss Arabella Hopley with L10,000.'

To the end of his days he always said that if he lived his youth over again, he should not have acted otherwise than he did upon the first of April 17--. But Tony Clare was obstinate in many ways, and, as I believe, never admitted the virtue of even a new manure very willingly. Before Clare left Charles had received a letter from Beau Ripple inviting him to reside once more at Curtain Wells.

"That is impossible," said Tony stiffly.

"I suppose it is."

"You forget that foolish satire."

"I take it that Ripple intends me to succeed him as King of the Wells."

"The publication of _Curtain Polls_ has made that impossible."

"I don't know. It might incline them to respect me."

Charles was very lonely in Paris after Tony had gone, and when war broke out again, he decided to go back to England. Just before he started he received a second epistle from the Beau.

THE GREAT HOUSE,

June 15.

MY DEAR CHARLES,--_Our season will presently evaporate in this atrocious heat, and your Uncle and I intend to visit Repington Hall. He is now somewhat recovered of his Disappointment and very anxious to consult with you as to the advisableness of selling the Property. I agree with him in thinking that you would not enjoy the somewhat gross seclusion of a rustick Squire, so that you will oblige him by returning to England and letting him know your feelings in the Matter._

_I cannot see you can do better than take up your permanent residence in Curtain Wells. I do not wish to urge you into a contemplative Existence too prematurely, but to a man of your temperament the opportunities of observing human Character must make an imperious appeal. These I can offer you together with the pleasant pastime of ruling the fashionable World. You need not fret yourself with any early indiscretions. They will very soon acquire a romantick Interest of their own, and I confidently look forward to your success in the splendid Office I have long wished you to fulfil. You will have the benefit of my Advice which I hope you will not find too obtrusive. Come, what do you say? There is a capital house contiguous to Curtain Garden. I fear I cannot yet resign the Great House. Your Uncle is willing to buy this property for you and eagerly looks forward to your acceptance of his Offer. In this hope he is cordially joined by_

_Your devoted_

HORACE RIPPLE.

Charles hesitated no longer and hurried as quickly as possible to Repington Hall. The canary-coloured footmen received him with extreme deference, and he found the wide polished staircase quite easy to climb. He had been a little afraid of his uncle's sentimental reminiscence, but as it turned out his fears were groundless. Nothing was said about the past and the conversation was almost entirely of a financial character. He spent the remainder of the summer with Sir George Repington at Scarborough, returning early in the autumn to form the establishment of his new residence, Dragon Lodge.

He bought a monocle of such thickness that the human countenance seen through its glass was reduced to the merest pin-point. He procured two Chinese mutes--Heaven knows how or where--but their names were Ho and No. His eccentricities would exhaust another volume of description. He was the famous Beau who appeared on the first of the month in a light-coloured suit that gradually deepened until, on the last day of the month, it always achieved blackness. When asked by somebody the reason of this mode he replied that he was mourning the flight of time: when asked farther why he was not perpetually funereal in his costume he replied that the first day of the month always revived his hopes of immortality. It was observed, however, that in April his dress did not alter and those who rashly inquired the reason for this exception were severely rebuked for their curiosity. His library was one of the finest in England, although it did not contain a single copy of _Curtain Polls_. The Great Dr. Johnson on one occasion complimented him upon the selection of his authors, the decorousness of his bindings, and the rigidity of his ladders.

As Mr. Ripple had prophesied, the indiscretions of his past in course of time acquired a romantick mystery of their own. He was credited in turn with a faithless wife immured in a Gothick dungeon in the North-West of the Island of Sicily, with a prodigiously passionate affair with a German princess in which he was said to have pinked four Royal Dukes, and with innumerable other entanglements quite impossible to recount. All these tales only added to his prestige, while his wealth and amiability gave him a reputation second to none of the Beaux of the past. He wrote a number of verses, but never published another volume, and was probably the original whom Sir Benjamin Backbite copied, though his reasons for not printing were quite different from those of the later fop.

He would sometimes return early from assembly, rout, or ridotto to pay a visit to Mr. Ripple. He would usually find the latter engaged in a game of picket with Sir George Repington; and, after entertaining the two old gentlemen with a witty and satirical account of the evening's entertainment, he would walk slowly back to Dragon Lodge, stare meditatively at the new motto he had adopted, _Fui decorus_, step into a small ivory room that opened out of the massive library and take from a cedar-wood drawer a white swansdown muff.

EXPLICIT

End of Project Gutenberg's The Passionate Elopement, by Compton Mackenzie