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A LIFE'S ATONEMENT

A NOVEL

BY

DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY

author of 'Joseph's coat' etc.

IN THREE VOLUMES —VOL. III.

SECOND EDITION

'Sanson

CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY

1881

// rights reserved

S/0 J

MM

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A Life's Atonement.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORY.

The cruel road seems lovable, though the feet bleed and are weary.

^HHERE are many places in London where the struggle of poverty for its daily bread is visible to the eye of the most care- less wayfarer. But there are not many places where the simile of a fight for life is so pal- pably true as it is at the gates of some of the London Docks, twice a-day. At almost any of the docks, you may see this strange conflict at early morning, or at the close of the time set apart for the mid-day meal. Round the closed gates are gathered some scores of men

VOL. III. A

2 A Life's Atonement.

in rough working-dress, who lounge about with their hands in their pockets, kicking the pebbles on the highway in a listless fashion ; or leaning in listless fashion against the gate or the walls ; or standing listlessly, with humped shoulders, on the kerb-stone, spitting at a mark on the road. They are for the most part sturdy fellows, with a general aspect of uneasy massiveness ; an aspect strengthened by the cut and weight of their loose clothing. Suddenly the incurious traveller who observes these things is startled by a yell in which many voices mingle, and the lounging crowd is thrown into a state of mad activity. Every- body converges to one point, and there is a fight to get there. At that point a head and shoulders appear above the high dock- wall, and a hand showers down a little snow-storm of limp tickets. The snow-storm lasts for a second or two only, and every man in the crowd fights for a flake of it, for dear life. Like other flakes, it will melt in his hand, though somewhat more slowly than the common, since it will at least last until meat and drink are found. The scrambling fight goes on until the last ticket is rescued from the dust or mud. The winners in the fight range

History. 3

themselves outside the dock-gates ; the losers subsiding suddenly from their heat of passion, lounge again as listlessly as ever ; and the two who have torn a ticket between them toss up for it, or bargain for it, or fight for it, as chance or their nature may deter- mine. The small gate within the large one being opened, the winners go in, and are al- lowed to work ; and the losers hang about outside on the chance of being wanted in the course of the morning or afternoon. And by this conflict, twice renewed daily, men earn the right to earn their bread in the capital city of the world's most prosperous empire.

Two days' rest had restored Frank to some- thing of his old strength, and had left him penniless. For a shilling and a halfpenny, husbanded never so carefully, will not find food for any length of time in London. On the morning of the third day he arose, and wandered into the street before the faintest light of dawn had touched the sky. With re- turning strength came appetite ; and before he had gone far he pulled from his coat-pocket the heel of a loaf saved from last night's meal, and munched it as he went. His mind had not lost the power to grasp, but he had lost

4 A Lifes Atonement.

the will ; and all mental outlines were dim and clouded to him. Hardship in itself is not so pitiable a thing. It is the feeling in a man's mind that he suffers hardship which crushes and kills. The young athletes of the Thames every year challenge discomfort with joyful hearts, and flourish in it, and go back to the routine of business or professional strife, made strong by it. But, if they faced the same dis- comforts— light as they are, when compared to those of poverty — with spirits already broken by the insupportable burden of fruit- less hope, the very things that bring health might carry death with them. As for Frank, he had borne the chief agony of his remorse, and a dull rest which had no sense of rest in it had taken the place of pain. It was rather that the passion of his grief had wept itself to sleep, than that Peace had as yet even touched him with one feather of her healing wings. But if he had not the jocundity of spirit which makes hardship pleasureable, he had at least a careless contempt for it, which made it a thing of no moment to him. He was in the wilderness, with no land of promise in sight, even for the soul's eyes ; but he had no long- ings after the flesh-pots of lost Egypt. He

History. 5

scarcely went back to his old life, in thought, at this time ; and whatever chancre went on within him, whatever process of gathering strength, whatever growth in duty, was uncon- scious. Creeds shift and change, and the light fades here and flashes there in broken gleams on nebulous faiths and hopes which are not steadfast. But in their midst stands one rock solid and fast-rooted, and he who sets his foot thereon is blest even though he be not happy. The name of that rock is Duty, and who walks the harsh and difficult way which lies along it, gathers no clogging load from quagmire, dies no soul's death by the miasma of that murky world which swelters down below it. We slip, we fall, we bemire ourselves, we choke in the deadly fog ; but to the sincere soul the hand of guidance comes, and the weak feet find a standing-place again, and the cruel road seems lovable, though the feet bleed and are weary.

It was a dim sense of Duty which left death by starvation in its budget of obvious chances, yet threw suicide out of it. But it was something ; and the light broadened above the head and about the feet of this forlornest soul, and lo ! the firm eternal rock

6 A Lifes Atonement,

was there beneath him, and the way was clear.

Frank walked, vacuous and unobservant, as the day grew. The twilight was chill and faint, and the wind swept in shivering gusts along the line of street lamps and the little pools of water in the road. He had travelled altogether out of his knowledge of London, taking- no note of the unaccustomed streets. There were few signs of life in them, and the steps of here and there a solitary workman sounded with a strange and melancholy dis- tinctness. But at length the road he took brought him to a high brick wall, into the colour of which the smoke of myriads of chimneys had entered — a desolate, bleak, black wall which stretched as far as he could see along the lonely road. Rounding the corner of this wall, he saw before him a small mob of men, who lounged with lazy shoul- ders at the roadside, or propped themselves against the wall, or talked in uninterested knots with each other. Whilst he noticed them in that vague way which had now become habitual with him, he was startled into interest by a simultaneous shout from half the unoccupied assembly ; and almost before he

History. 7

had time to ask himself what this might mean, the men before him were tied in one great knot of struggling legs arid arms. He walked on faster than before, and reached the place just as the crowd dissolved of its own accord, and melted back to its own elements. Though he did not yet know the reason of the struggle, he could single out at a glance those who had won and those who had not won. The former were full of alacrity, and moved with a definite step, like men who had got what they wanted and knew what to do with it. The others fell back into the old lounge, or moved irresolutely from side to side of the road, and were evi- dently undecided as to whether they should go or stay. Whilst Frank stood still to see what would come of it all, a heavy hand came down upon his shoulder, and a hoarse voice with a chuckle in it cried, ' Hillo ! shipmet. Want a day's turn at work ? Eh ? '

Frank nodded.

' You look as if you did/ said the man with Jthe hoarse voice. He was a red-faced, bright-eyed fellow, past middle age, and had a grizzled beard of a fortnight's growth. He stood something over six feet high, and his shoulders were broad and square. He had on

8 A Lifes Atonement.

a sou'-wester, and big sea-boots very much the worse for wear ; and his great arms and chest showed their swelling muscles through a tight- fitting grey jersey. ' I've picked up two tickets,' he said, ' and you're welcome to one of 'em.' Two or three of the unsuccessful loungers stood staring hungrily at Frank's new acquaintance ; but when they saw him hand over the little ticket, they drew back with disappointed looks, and joined the scattered throng in the road.

Frank had no notion as to the nature of the work or the character of the pay ; but he ranged himself beside the man who had be- friended him, and when the little gate opened, followed his companion through it. They were employed in ordinary dock-labour, and were kept at it until noon, when they were paid and dismissed. Frank had no fear of labour ; but he was unused to it, and was not altogether grieved when he failed to secure a ticket in the afternoon's scramble. The pay was poor, but it was better than nothing ; and Frank was on the ground early next morning. As fortune had it, the shower fell about him as he stood a little apart from the rest, and he secured two tickets. Looking round he saw

History. g

that the man who had helped him the day before was going away ; and bethinking him of that good turn, ran after the burly figure.

' One good turn deserves another/ said Frank. ' I have two tickets.'

'You're the right sort,' said the Dockman with an oath, to make the statement more emphatic. ' Half these dogs ud kick your heart out as lief as look at you, even if you saved 'em from starving a day before.'

All that morning he worked alongside Frank and lightened labour for him ; but by mid- day the unaccustomed muscles were tired and stiff again, and Frank was glad to betake him to Bolter's Rents before nightfall. He walked on calmly enough, until he reached the boundaries of his old haunts, and there his heart began to beat with the fear of re- cognition. He bent his head and slouched along, determined to give as little chance to any scrutiny as possible ; and as he walked, he thought how necessary it would be to get lodgings out of the way of his friends, if he meant to live in London. I do not know if I have yet made this clear, that Frank Fair- holt's sole dread was that a further sorrow might fall on those whom he had so much

io A Lifes Atonement.

wronged already. If it had been possible to surrender himself to justice and to suffer the penalty of his misdeeds without their know- ledge, he would even have rejoiced so to quiet his conscience. Therefore he dreaded detection, not for his sake, but for theirs. It is not easy to see how any wretchedness could have added one pang to his sorrows. Walking along, bent on nothing so much as escaping without notice, and feeling that now and again the eyes of passers-by were upon him, and knowing what a blot on the spring sunlight he must look, as he crept through the streets, he heard his own name mentioned by a familiar voice. Those genial young people the Messrs. Brooks and Bonder were at his elbow, and were talking of him. His heart almost stood still ; but he bent his head yet lower, and they passed him by un- noticed.

' Poor Fairholt ! ' one said. ' What has be- come of him, I wonder ? '

'I think he went to the bad about Tasker's business, and bolted somewhere,' said the other.

' Hastings has been spending money like water, trying to find him.'

History. 1 1

With that they went on out of hearing, and a new dread arose in the listener's mind. It gave him an impulse, and he began to make an effort to see and understand. He reached his lodging, and sat down alone to think. What were the chances of detection, and what would come of it ? It was clear that Frank Fairholt and the crime of Spaniard's Lane were not associated, or Hast- ings would not be hunting for him, and Brooks and Bonder would have had some inkling of it. If it were true that his friends were seeking him — and that he could not doubt — they were striving to restore him to his old place in the world. From the life- long hypocrisy and horror involved in such a restoration, he shrank back appalled ; and rising from his seat, he paced to and fro along the crazy floor, turning over in his mind the chances of escape. ' Here in Lon- don,' he thought — ' I am safer than I could be elsewhere.' Who could look for him, he thought, contrasting what he was with what he had been, in such a den as this ? What better hope of escape could he find from that inexorable love, which was harder to bear than any severity of punishment, with which

1 2 A Lifes Atonement,

he now felt sure some of his old friends would pursue him ? Remembering how Maud's uncle loved her, it came into his mind that Hast- ings had received from him the money he was said to be so lavishly spending, and he trembled as he thought how far Maud's love might follow him. The image of her ten- derness, the thought of the heart-breaking sorrow and anxiety he knew she bore, the place he dwelt in, the clothes he wore, the life he lived, the black secret that lay hidden in his own soul, love, remorse, self-loathing, the hideous prospect of his life — all these were in his mind, and tore him with unutterable anguish. How sweet seemed the quiet of the grave ! How the chill voice the river's waters uttered as they lapped against their oozy banks called to him! No, no, no! Not that! He cast out his hands in resolute refusal of that drear enticement, as the voiceless words shaped themselves within him. Then a thought came to strengthen his resolve. ' If I were hunt- ing,' he said within himself, ' for anyone I cared for, who had vanished out of life as I have, I should look for suicides. What if that dread is in their minds, and they should find their search rewarded

History. 1 3

there /' And the Water-Siren beckoned no more.

He kept his place till dark, and then stole out for food. In the darkness before dawn he set out for the scene of his chance labours ; and failing, hung about till noon ; and failing again, lounged there still until night came on, and under the shelter of its gloom stole home. It was a hard life ; but it held body and soul together, if by a most uncertain tie ; and since nothing else opened, he stuck to it. As he became inured to the labour, his daily fatigue decreased ; but that was scarcely a thing to be thankful for. His broad-built acquaintance, who answered to the impro- bable name of Gorridge, stuck to him with great faithfulness ; and the two entered into a sort of unspoken compact to supply each other's failing in the fight for tickets, when- ever occasion offered. Frank bethought him often that he might avoid the familiar parts of the town, and the risk of detection which attended his travels through them ; but the solitude he generally secured at Bolter's Rents made the place more easily endurable than any other. As time went on, his clothes by small additions here and there began to as-

14 A Lifes Atonement.

sume a heavy long-shore look ; and his hair and beard were rapidly whitening, whether with suffering, or from purely physical causes. After a month or two, a change came over his life, and the coarse employment he had fallen upon became secured to him. The man whose business it was to distribute the tickets took a fancy to this grey, quiet, inoffensive Dockman, who was always to be depended on, who never squab- bled, never drank, never shirked his work, and who now began to go about his business with an air of sense and aptitude which the rougher and stronger had no chance to reach to. So whenever Frank was thrown out in the scrim- mage, which was not very often, since the dis- tributor meant to help him, it came to pass that another man was wanted, and he was called in. His needs were so few that eigh teen- pence a-day supplied them ; and the residue of his poor earnings anybody in want was welcome to. This was the sacrifice to which he set himself — to live among these people, and do his duty as one of them, and to help such of them as stood in need. It came about that after a while the rough fellows got to know him, and seeing how his money was

History. 1 5

mainly spent, forebore to envy the favouritism shown by the ganger ; and some of the set whom he had helped in times of especial hard- ship, would have belaboured any who dared to offer him an insult. It got about some- how— for he never spoke a word concerning it — that he had a special dislike to the vile blasphemies which seasoned their com- mon talk ; and though they were as coarse and hard a set as might be found in London, they were contented after a time to let their conversation go without that gruesome flavour.

In his old life, Frank had been remarkable for the sweet clearness and manly delicacy of his speech. The accent of an English gentle- man is not a thing to be acquired by a dock labourer, and it is not easily mistakable. He had never given a thought to the rare beauty of his own speech. He was unconscious of that gift of nature and breeding, and so made no attempt to hide it. It went with his blame- less conduct, and his unfailing industry, and his open-handed generosity, to make him noticeable in that rough crowd, and they con- ferred upon him the name of ' The Duke,' half in genuine admiration, and half in satire.

1 6 A Life's Atonement.

When it happened, as it sometimes did, that Frank found himself addressed by any of those in authority, his speech surprised them ; and there were legends about him among the clerks, one of which was that he had been worth half- a million, and had lost it, every penny, on three successive Derbies. Had he known these things, they would have re-awakened the fears that slumbered in him, and he would have left the place and returned no more ; but he knew nothing except that the inward burden was no lighter, whilst the outside burden seemed too light to think of.

Under these conditions, his bodily health returned, and his native dexterity made him more than a match at his work for those who were vastly stronger. Meantime, there came even to his ears the news of a great war. The recruiting sergeant became a common figure at the dock-gates at mid-day, and Frank had longings to be out in the Crimea, where, haply, Fate might be good to him and give the only thing it had to give — an unknown grave. But his grey beard made the recruiting sergeant laugh at his proposal to enlist, and he went back quietly to his work again. The sergeant might well be excused, for the grey beard and

History. 1 7

wrinkled face doubled the applicant's apparent age, and Frank passed commonly amongst those who knew him for a man of fifty, or five- and-forty at the least. Sundays were the days on which his inward burden seemed heaviest, for he dared not leave the house to wander in the streets, safe as he might have been, and the hours were leaden-footed. But one day he picked up a scrap of pencil in the docks, and absently put it in his pocket. Finding it there next Sunday, he began to sketch upon the dingy whitewash of the wall, and growing interested in the task, wore the pencil down to a stump, sharpening it roughly with an old table-knife, the back of which was keener than the edge. He was a born artist, and the passion awaking again within him, he took to saving all manner of scraps of paper, and bearing them home with him. There on Sundays he would sketch all day, for Penk- ridge was generally absent, and at night would burn his work carefully, lest any of it should by any chance get abroad and betray him. Many faces of old friends, many scenes in which he had been happy, his busy pencil traced as he sat alone ; and many a time his eyes were too full of tears to see the lines he had drawn.

VOL. III. B

1 8 A Life s Atonement.

The habit took such a hold upon him anew, as abandoned habits will when re- assumed, that he caught himself sometimes in lonely corners at the docks in disengaged moments sketching on the walls, on fragments of board, on anything, with any bit of char- coal or chalk that came to his fingers. There was a certain English official there, who for some occult reason had an ambition to pass for a Yankee, and always spoke through his nose, in transparently unsuccessful imitation of the American twang. This man's face was in Frank's mind, and somehow went from his mind into his fingers, which conveyed it through the medium of a piece of chalk to the top of a tea-chest. It was an absolute likeness ; and when the man came that way and saw it, he stared in amaze.

' Come yer,' said he to a passing clerk from the Customs. ' What do you think o' that?1

The clerk laughed, and said it was an amazing likeness.

' Now,' said the depicted one, in nasal fol- lowing of the typical down-Easter of the British stage, ' who could 'a done that thar ? Ain't it like ? Why, dern me, if I didn't think I'd

History, 1 9

took a white outline and got spread out on that old tea-chest. Petrified fact. I did.'

The official did little else that day but march up to the tea-chest with newly-caught friends and acquaintances, to whom he displayed the outline with the same unvarying formula. No man with whom the official had the slightest acquaintance went through the yard free of that joke, until in the course of the evening the tea-chest was removed. Frank was at work in the neighbourhood, and overheard it half-a-dozen times ; but it carried no merri ment to him, though every one to whom it was offered was complaisant enough to smile at it. It awoke anew his dread of discovery, and he thought, ' I must do no more sketch- ing here. It would surely be too strange a thing to find an artist in a place like mine, to pass without some comment or suspicion.' He kept watch upon his fingers after this ; and in Bolter's Rents he still burned his Sunday's work with rigid care. The in- habitants of that doleful region saw but little of him, and for a long time his evident de- sire for solitude was humoured to the full. He learned from Penkridge occasional news of the doings of the place, which otherwise

20 A Lifes Atonement.

would not have reached him. He relieved that broken creature's necessities at times ; and once or twice bestowed some charity upon the neediest, where all were needy. Very often his companion talked to him for an hour together on his return from the docks ; and Frank sitting stock-still, heard scarce a word, but murmured mechanically Ay and Yes and No.

One evening he sat thus ; and Penkridge's talk gurgled on unnoticed till the current of Frank's thought suddenly ran silent, and his companion's voice went on to this effect : * Which she's a regular angel, if you'll be- lieve me, sir. It isn't what she gives, though I do assure you as that's quite considerable ; but it's how she gives it. Many's the 'elping 'and she's lent me sence I've been brought so low ; and many's the 'elping 'and as 'er 'usband lent my poor dear pardner.'

' Ay,' said Frank, not caring whose praises were thus spoken ; and turning to the dingy window, he looked out upon the night, where for once the moonlight laid a sanctifying hand upon the squalors of Bolter's Rents. For the pure light of the moon seems only to rest on beauty, and makes ugliness lovely when it

History. 2 \

beholds it ; as the light of a kindly spirit lays a kindly glow on the hard world, or as love beautifies that which it loves. And for a while the laden heart rested itself upon beauty, and Frank's thoughts roamed sadly, but with- out anguish, into the autumn fields. He came back from his reverie in time to hear a creak- ing on the stair — perhaps that awoke him — and a second later, the jarring door was pushed back on its one creaking hinge. But for the moonlight, the room was dark ; and as the door was in shadow, Frank could not make out even the outline of the new-comer. The new-comer looking towards the light, saw a bent figure with a long beard which looked white in the moon-beams. Frank stood to listen, and his profile was thrown out clearly against the light. There was silence for a second, and Penkridge cried, 'Who's there ? '

1 Have you a candle, Penkridge ? ' a female voice asked in tones of great sweetness. The owner of the voice looked at the profile from where she stood, and could have borne to look longer, such a picture the clear-cut face and sweeping silver beard and the bent shoul- ders made. But Frank moved away from

22 A Life's Atonement.

the window, and when Penkridge struck a light, had thrown himself upon his rough bed in a shadowed corner, and was shrouded from observation there. With a side-glance thrown towards him swiftly, the new-comer sat down upon a tea-chest placed for her by Penkridge, who was imprecating blessings upon her with a whining fluency.

1 I have been to see Mrs. Closky/ she said when she could get a word in ; and Frank's eyes, as he regarded her from his shadowed corner, confirmed his ears, and told him that she was a lady. ' I am pleased to hear such an account of you as she gave me. But why don't you give up drinking altogether, my poor fellow ? I think that if I knew you had signed the pledge, and would keep it, I could take you out of this place, and put you into a situation where you could live in greater comfort. Will you try ? '

Mr. Penkridge, who had that evening taken much more than was good for him, and who bade fair to go on taking more than was good for him daily to the end of the chapter, shed maudlin tears at this appeal. Which, he said, he would do anything to oblige such an evingly lady ; but the lady, perceiving his condition,

History, 23

forebore to press him. ■ Is this/ she asked Penkridge, ' your companion ? '

1 Yes, ma'am,' replied Penkridge, sobbing audibly. ' That's the gentleman which I spoke of, ma'am. And a real good sort he is, ma'am. Oh yes, ma'am, that he is indeed.'

The visitor turned round, and looked to where Frank lay upon the heap of shavings in the corner. ' I know,' she said, ' that you have been helping me already ; and I want you, if you can, to help me more.'

' In what have I helped you already ? ' asked Frank, speaking unwillingly from the darkness.

1 I should have said rather that we had worked together without knowing it.'

'How?' said Frank, helping to keep the talk going, but much against his inclination.

' There are many in Bolter's Rents who are very poor and comfortless. I have been trying to help them a little, but I am almost helpless. I do not know them ; and those who are really poorest will not let me know them ; though the undeserving come to me with all sorts of terrible stories. Now, you who know them, might — '

' I do not know them,' Frank made answer.

' I have tried to meet you before now,' the

24 A Life's Atonement.

visitor continued, ' and finding that you were never at home in the daytime, I came down to-night on purpose to see you. Will you help me ?'

1 I am as poor as most of those about me/ he answered, and his tone showed more clearly than he intended how little he desired to speak at all.

The visitor persevered. * You give me the best of all reasons for believing that you will help me. There is no generosity in giving away that which you do not want.'

1 I want one thing only, madam,' Frank answered, ' and that I cannot give away.'

1 What is that ? ' the visitor asked quickly.

1 My solitude/ he said in answer, and with that he turned his face to the wall.

1 I shall try again,' said the visitor, rising to go.

1 A second trial can have but one result,' he answered, raising his head, but not turning it. * It will drive me from the only home I have, and wretched as it is,. I have no wish to leave it/

' Then/ said the visitor, as she moved towards the door, ' I will trust to time/

CHAPTER II.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

My delirium reached its height in the summer season.

* | "HE first sign of manly down had appeared upon my chin, and since the Crimean War — closed a few years before with great glory if little profit — had left behind it the fashion of beards, I shaved assiduously, to promote the growth of that appanage to man- hood. I have above my mantel-piece a por- trait of myself taken at that time ; and though I know it on good testimony to be accurate, there is in it a flat contradiction of my own remembrances. At eighteen I felt myself quite aged, and I used to look not without pride on incipient wrinkles. In the smooth face which looks upon me from the wall, I find nothing of that stern manhood on which I prided myself. I am not an old man yet,

26 A Life's Atonement.

but I am too old to wish for age ; though at eighteen I should have been glad to have pitchforked myself into the forties, had such a feat been possible. I wrote a prodigious deal of verse, much of which I remember at this day with an odd mixture of shame and affection. Most of it was addressed to Polly, or in some way concerned her, and she was still my deity.

The time came when I should leave school. I think I feel the emotions proper to that hour more keenly in the remembrance than I did in reality. What a gap it made in life, had I but had the eyes to see it ! How many with whom I had spent eight years or part of these in life's journey, faded out of life there and then, and now refuse to be sum- moned even as the thinnest shadows ! It was not of the break in life I left behind, but of the opening to the world which lay before me, that I thought, as the train whirled me home- wards. I was not so distinguished in the school as Gascoigne or Gregory had been be- fore me in their last days ; but I had done fairly well, and Uncle Ben was amply satis- fied. It was not easily possible for Uncle Ben to be balder than he had been in my first

A utobiography. 2 7

knowledge of him ; but he was greyer than of old, and his face was more deeply lined. He was always genial and good-tempered, and I have known few happier men. His ambitions were satisfied, even to the gradual formation of a relationship with the county magnates ; though he confessed to me privately that he didn't want them for himself, but only for the good of the house ; and that if it had not been for his sons and Maud and me, he would rather they had continued to stay away.

'But I'll tell you what it is, Johnny/ said the old man, with a twinkle in his eye. ' It's the golden bait as draws all them pretty fishes here. Don't you think now as I overvalue money. Theer's a lot o' things in the world as money can't buy, and they're mostly the things as are best worth havin'. But these nobs is a poverty-struck lot, and the poor Major's drove nearly off his head with invita- tions. Theer ain't a lord in the county as wouldn't jump at him for a son-in-law. But then you see I'm a weight to 'em. Theer's no more polish on me than theer is on so much oak-bark. I begun too late, Johnny ; and it ain't no use tryin' to train a tree when it's got stout and stiff — is it ! Eh ? ' Therewith

28 A Life's Atonement.

Uncle Ben would laugh and poke me in the ribs, and felicitate himself upon the polish which belonged to the Major and to Mr. Horace St. John, the major's brother, and to Maud and me.

The time which came between the last of my school-days and the beginning of my career at college went smoothly, and held only one thing worth chronicling. At that time, a cer- tain police case was reported daily and at length in the London newspapers. An expert in handwriting gave the chief evidence in this case, and there were doubts expressed by some visitor at the breakfast-table as to the value of such testimony as the expert had to offer. The visitor, I remember, was an army man, an old campaigning comrade of the Major's, and he pooh-poohed the whole business.

Uncle Ben broke in calmly. 'Well, I don't know as you can call ^ it a science, but it's a knack. I've had to deal with more than one forgery in my time, sir, and I know a hand- writing I've once seen. I don't care how good the disguise is ; I can tell it. You may think you've drawn my signature stroke for stroke, and you may practise till you're black in the face if you like, but I'll pick my own out of

A utobiography. 2 9

a hundred ; or yours, sir, if the cleverest forger as ever cheated the gallows spent a lifetime in copying it. — No, no, sir ! Don't tell me/ said Uncle Ben, who was in some heat by this time. ' There's them as knows what time o' day it is about handwritings.'

' The guv'nah's quite right,' said Major Hartley, ' I've known him do it.'

1 Don't you think there's a possibility of being mistaken ? ' asked the Major's friend.

' Not for a man as has the knack,' Uncle Ben protested stoutly. ■ I ain't sticking up for the experts, mind you. They may be duffers and impostors. But the thing is to be done, and is done ; and there's scores o' men about in business as wouldn't pass the forgery of a name as was known to 'em if they just so much as cast their eye on it'

4 M'm ! ' said the Major's friend, not yet con- vinced.

' Well,' said Uncle Ben, ' you get any clever feller to forge anybody's name on me, and see if I don't spot him.' There was a general laugh at this, and the subject dropped. It fell from my mind, until circumstances brought it back again, in a singularly unpleasant manner.

3<D A Lifes Atonement.

Uncle Ben accompanied me to Oxford and put up at the Mitre until he had seen me fairly settled. I took the rooms of a man who had left his furniture and pictures to be sold at a valuation ; but all these, at Uncle Ben's in- stigation, were cleared out, and he furnished me anew. I think he disapproved of the art decorations, which were probably a little too erotic for a quiet taste. When everything was arranged, he came up to the rooms and looked over them with much enjoyment ; and finally we sat down together, and he gave me a great deal of advice, drawn from his knowledge of the world. ' I don't think,' he said, ' as you're the sort of feller, Johnny, to be stuck up because you've got a rich uncle ; but if you don't think of that, there's them as will. Do you remember that feller Tasker coming to my place, three or four years ago ? ' — I nodded. — ' Do you remember what I told you then about bills ? ' — I nodded again. — ' Don't you disappoint me now,' he said with a show of feeling, which was rare in him. ' I shan't make you any reg'lar allowance, Johnny ; but I shall trust you. Every body '11 know afore you've been here a week as you're the nevey of old Hartley the great millionaire,' — he

Autobiography. 31

grinned a little at that, — 'and they'll be on to you with offers of unlimited trust and credit. Now, I don't ask you to live stingy ; but I ask you to be honest. Don't buy anything you can do without ; but at the same time live like a gentleman. If you've got a head on your shoulders, you won't want to buy wine here. I'll send that to you from my own cellars, and you needn't spare it. Write to the butler when you want any. Don't bother me with that ; but send me all your bills of whatever sort, and I'll pay 'em. I know what it is when a warm-hearted young chap makes friends, and one of 'em comes to him and says, " I'm in a bit of a hobble, I am. Just put your name on to a bit o' paper for me, will you ? " Now this is my last serious word. If you get into a mess yourself, send me word. If you want money — no matter if you're ashamed of what you've come to want it for — send to me. If any one of your friends ever asks you to back his name, you tell him it's more than your income's worth to risk it. For that's the one thing I won't forgive ; and now I've told you. If ever you put your name to a bill while I'm alive, I'll disown you. No, no, Johnny. I don't want to

32 A Lifes Atonement.

threaten you, my lad, and I don't mistrust you ; but you must promise me.'

I gave the promise, and would have thanked him for all his countless kindnesses ; but he stopped me. He gave me a cheque for such an amount that I should have been wasteful indeed had I exceeded it. ' Make it last as long as you can in reason, Johnny,' he said ; and then, with a hearty shake of the hand and a slap on the shoulder, he went down-stairs, blowing his nose so violently that the hollow staircase echoed to the sound.

It is not within my scheme to relate the story of my college life. I fell amongst a wholesome set ; and though I spent more time on the river and in the cricket-ground than I passed above my books, I contrived — con- siderably to my own surprise — to scratch through for a degree. Uncle Ben was greatly pleased at this, and prophesied that I should make a great man — seeming to regard the achievement of a B.A. degree as a thing till then unheard of. But it is not the life I led in Oxford which comes back to me most strongly when I recall that time. Mr. Fair- holt comes within the range of mental vision, for one. I do not think I read him too

Autobiography. 33

unkindly when I believe that he found a wide difference between the John Campbell who was cast a friendless orphan on his hands and the John Campbell who was acknowledged by his own rich neighbour. I do not think I read him too unkindly if I say that the money question made the whole difference. But when once Uncle Ben had, by sending me to college, made his responsibility for my future complete, Mr. Fairholt made me a welcome guest at Island Hall. In spite of the enormous edifice Uncle Ben had built, I am fain to confess that Island Hall remained ' The Hall ' to the country-people, as it had been time out of mind before Uncle Ben was heard of. Nor will I deny that, apart from its one attraction for me, I liked it better than I liked the barbaric splendours of my uncle's palace. To me at that time it was a Bower for Beauty — nothing more or less. I was welcome there at all times ; but I took an insane delight in wandering outside it, and making surreptitious sketches of it, as though to go near it or to sketch it had been a thing forbidden. I used to rise at unearthly hours to ramble there ; and I used to sketch her window with the Virginia creeper and the climbing roses about it until I vol. in. c

34 A Lifes Atonement. .

could have almost drawn them with closed eyes, until closed eyes can summon them now at least and see them as clearly as if their fresh reality were before me. And the dreams I had ! I would go into Parliament, and be- come Prime Minister, though that went with- out saying if I once got there. Or I would go into the army, and distinguish myself in some tremendous campaign. Or I would go for authorship — in the poetic line — and write an epic, and be crowned with bays. But what- ever I promised myself — and up to two-and- twenty one lives in the land of promises, if not in the Land of Promise — I never ventured to hope for a happy termination of the pangs of love. Nobody ever wrote more love-lorn verses. Nobody was ever more involved in a more hopeless passion. I used to go about in the moodiest fashion and watch the sunsets and the sunrises alone, and improvise verse, and declaim it in the silent lanes, to the great astonishment of the yokels, and my own shamefaced embarrassment when discovered. I confided my hopeless love to Gascoigne, who had a curacy hard by ; and he used to smoke his pipe and listen to me with great forbearance. I confided it to Gregory, who

Antob iog raphy. 3 5

accepted my belief in my own probable early death with marked composure, and undertook to provide an epitaph. Hawkins of Exeter and Bills of Wadham knew of my helpless and hopeless slavery. I think that in a gloomy way I was rather proud of it. In all the castles I ever built upon this cloud-foundation, there hung no picture of a happy union. I was going to be great, and then I was going to die ; and Polly was to know how splendid a treasure she had cast aside. Yet I cannot remember that she treated me with anything but kindness, and I know she must have had a difficult task at times.

My delirium reached its height in the summer season which followed the close of my time at college. Polly had a paid com- panion, and Miss Hurd and I were great in friendship. I suppose Miss Hurd was thirty if she were a day ; but we were kindred spirits, spite of this disparity of years. She had a fine deep melancholy-sounding contralto, and she used to sing, in what I took to be a patent allusion to my own case, —

' Let us talk of love no more While the bat is flying ; Fitter friendship's solemn lore When the day is dying.'

36 A Lifes Atonement.

Other ditties bearing on her own condition she sang, as though the lower octaves of an organ were concealed within her. She could not sing the old songs, and the like. Except for a general and uncultivated fondness for the art, I was not in any manner musical ; but I used to shake my head at this, and murmur inly that / could not sing the old songs either — a question as to which there existed no shadow of a doubt. I supposed that Miss Hurd was aware of my passion, until one evening when I came across the fields on horseback and found Polly absent. Miss Hurd sat at the piano and played ' The Heart Bowed Down/ and I, sitting at the window, sighed as I thought of my own.

1 You are not well, Mr. Campbell,' said Miss Hurd.

There was a dusky light in the room, and the window was open, and the quiet scents and gently stealing sounds of the country mingled with it soothingly. I rose and crossed to the piano, and said with much solemnity that I was well enough — ' In body/ I added with a sigh.

' Thou canst not minister/ said Miss Hurd in her lowest contralto tones, 'to a mind diseased/

A utobiography. 3 7

' No,' I answered, sighing again, and carried on the quotation, though when I reached the ' yesterday/ I thought it a little inappropriate.

'What is it, Mr. Campbell?' said Miss Hurd. ' Confide in me.'

I seized Miss Hurd's passive hand as it lay upon the keys of the pianoforte, and I told her in sepulchral tones that my heart was breaking. I believe I quite believed it.

' With what ? ' asked Miss Hurd. But I returned no answer. She pressed my hand, and murmured again, ' With what, Mr. Camp- bell ? Confide in me.'

' With love ! ' I answered, not unconscious of a comic side to the whole episode, the mere hint of which in my own mind made me perhaps a trifle more morose and tragic than before.

' For whom ? ' said Miss Hurd with my hand in both of hers. I laid my melancholy head upon the cold smooth polish of the top of the piano, and murmured my divinity's name. Miss Hurd dropped my hand, and sat still in the dusk of the room and made no sign. How she left the room, I know not. Nor do I know how / left it ; but when I came to myself, I was in the fields

38 A Lifes Atonement.

again in the moonlight, putting Bob at a fence. I screeched with demoniac laughter. Miss Hurd ! In love with Miss Hurd ! Could she have dreamed of it ? Could Polly have thought it? Horror! And I laughed bitterly to myself as I said that this was Fate's last and cruellest burden, and I would endure no more.

I resolved that I would go over next day, and compel Polly to turn spiritual dentist ; but when morning came, the thought of Miss Hurd daunted me ; and I hung about the stables in a weak irresolute way, until to my self-worrying mind, the very stable-helpers could read my vacillation and its cause ; and I rode away in self-defence. Miss Hurd daunted me, as I have said ; but though she held me back from the house with the memory of last night's episode, she could not keep me, nor could I keep myself, away from its neighbourhood. And there, as those serio-comic Fates who rule the destinies of lovers would have it, I found Polly alone in the fresh green lanes, with a frond of fern in her little gauntleted hand, and a wreath of young oak-leaves twined about her hat. I dismounted, and walked by her side, in a

Autobiography, 39

foolish compound mood of ecstasy and misery. Prompted by those serio-comic Destinies, I must needs drift in mystic and bewildering speech about last evening's episode with Miss Hurd. I tried at first to assume a tone of banter, which failed me miserably. Had Polly, so I asked her, ever deigned in her own mind to associate me with the matri- monial condition ? Had she ever contem- plated the possibility or probability of my being some day married ? She regarded me gravely and frankly, but without a suspicion of humour or confusion. No, she said ; she had never thought of me in that connec- tion.

1 But,' she added, standing still to speak, and shading her eyes with the fern, held lightly in both hands, and making the sweet- est picture with beautiful unconsciousness, ' you are getting to be a man, Jack. And I suppose/ with her eyes opening just a thought wider at the fancy, ' that I'm get- ting to be a woman. One is a woman at eighteen, I think. Do you know ' — she spoke as though this were altogether a discovery — 1 I think that a girl is more a woman at eighteen, than a boy is a man at twenty.'

4-0 A Lifes Atonement.

In my bewildered compound mood, this hurt my feelings. It seemed to widen the space between us, and to make despair more despairing. Canon Kingsley's charming novel of Two Years Ago was new just then ; and I asked Polly, who had read it recently, if she remembered a passage in which it is declared — apropos of a Mr. Creed, who car- ried a warlike message to Tom Thurnall — that if a man is ever to be a man he will be one at twenty.

1 Oh yes,' said Polly, holding to her colours ; ' but I think a woman is more a woman at eighteen.'

But, I persisted, with an aching feeling that my head was growing empty — had she ever thought that I was in love ? With — with — anybody ?

' No,' she answered, facing round again, with the fern still lightly balanced in both hands above her eyes. I felt that I had a hangdog guilty look, and beneath her glance I could feel that unpleasant aspect deepen. A little light of humour in her eyes ripened into a full smile of friendly mirth. ' O Jack,' she said, ' is this a confession ? ' Before I could answer or think of answering, her

A utobiography. 4 1

sudden question had so staggered and bewil- dered me, she dropped the fern, and clapped her hands together. 'It is Miss Hurd!' she said with a gravity as sudden as the gesture ; and with the swift vivacity which was a part of her, and is still, she passed her arm through mine, and in a tone of cosy confidential friend- ship, she said, ' Tell me all about it.'

4 O Polly/ I cried, not thinking how answer- able I was for the situation, ' how could you think such a thing of me ? '

■ I don't know,' said Polly, with a little shrug. ' Miss Hurd is very nice, I'm sure.'

' I daresay,' I answered with Byronic bitter- ness of soul.

' I beg your pardon, I am sure,' said Polly, moving her arm a little to-and-fro in mine, as if to decide upon the most comfortable position there. ' And now/ she said, giving my arm a little hug, as if to emphasize her own satisfaction in the approaching confidence, * tell me all about it.'

I said, 'Never mind,' darkly; and Polly said coaxingly, ' Yes ; now do tell me all about it.'

I responded still darkly that she would know some day ; and at that she was a little

42 A Lifes Atonement.

offended, and withdrew her arm. The empty aching of my head left me incapable of doing or saying anything to retrieve myself ; but it left me the power to make myself feel still more hangdog and more desperate. Per- haps, I said, she did not care to know. It could make no difference to her.

' How can you say so ? ' she demanded with a little flash of her old childish petulance. Then with stately gravity, * You are a stupid boy. You are undecided and self-contradic- tory, and ' — with a complete change of face and voice, she took my arm again — ' I am sure that you are not happy ; and if I can help you, you must let me do it.'

I was quite melted at this, and told her that I felt I was a villain ; but I added that it had been my fate all my lifetime to appear before her in an unfavourable aspect.

1 That is all vanity,' she said, with calm decisiveness. ' You have always been a little too self-conscious. Fight against it/

'No,' I said, desperately, * I have been awkward and constrained before you all my life/

' Before me ? * she asked in a voice which told me she was wounded.

Autobiography. 43

' Yes,' I answered ; ' and before you only. Ever since I saw you first, when Aunt Bertha took me to the nursery, and introduced me to you as your cousin.'

I had thought she would know my meaning ; but her tone convinced me that she was still ignorant of it. She answered only, * You are very unkind and cross to-day/

1 Unkind to myself/ I responded fatuously ; 1 but not so unkind as I deserve/

* You are incomprehensible/ she answered in a tone of pique ; and we walked on in silence until we came to the gate of the drive, when she asked me smilingly if I would ' Come in and be good/ Baffled in my purpose, and being altogether wretched and forlorn, I shook my head, and gave her my hand in silence.

* Bring your CEdipus with you/ said Polly lightly, ' if you come again in so Sphinx-like a humour/

' I will send him by the penny-post/ I answered, conscious of a lucid interval and a resolve.

1 He shall be welcome/ said Polly with a laugh ; and then with a nod and a bright 1 Good-day ' she passed out of sight behind the curve of the trees.

44 A Lifes Atonement,

I mounted Bob again, and in the tumult of my feelings, took him helter-skelter over the fields homeward. Arrived, I sought the soli- tude of my chamber, and sat down to abuse myself for being so egregious an ass. I had said nothing I meant to say, and had said many things I had no right to say. I remem- bered my share in the whole conversation, and blushed over its inconsequence, its testiness, its want of purpose. I caught sight of my own face in the glass, and shook my head at myself savagely, announcing with perfect seriousness that if I could only get outside myself, I would kick myself from there to Land's End for an impracticable, disgraceful, unworthy idiot ! I tried to write a letter to Polly, and made thirty or forty beginnings, and threw them all aside. So far as they went, I believe they all breathed unalterable devotion and a desire to die. I began one, I can remember, with, ' What am I, O pure and beautiful, that I should dare — ; ' ' Dear Polly ' sounded too familiar ; and ' Dearest Miss Fairholt ' — apart from the distant coldness of the form — seemed to suggest that there were several Misses Fairholt — three at least. Why then, I thought, should I use any introductory phrase at all ? Why not plunge

Autobiography. 45

in medias res, like ' some epic poets ? ' Whilst I sat thus bewildered, a message came from Uncle Ben, who desired to see me ; and having crammed the blotted and crumpled pile of unfinished notes into an escritoire and locked them there, I obeyed the summons.

Uncle Ben was strolling in the gardens, smoking a big porcelain German pipe. ' Have you got any notions, young un, about your future ? ' was the question with which he met me. I had within five minutes expressed the ideas I had upon that point in writing ; but feeling that Uncle Ben would scarcely care to know that I meditated an early death, and was quite indifferent as to what came before it, I contented myself by asking if he had thought about anything for me.

1 I've thought about 'em all/ said Uncle Ben. ' Theer's the church, and theer's law, and theer's physic, and theer's th' army and navy. One, two, three, four, five. Then theer's art, and theer's litterychewer. I take it for granted as you ain't got a special call to jieither of them two.' — I believed I had to each of them, but I kept silence. — * Well then, about the church ? ' he questioned, turning round upon me with a finger on a thumb in

46 A Lifes Atonement.

act to tell off the five. — I shook my head, having very serious and decided ideas on that matter. — ' Very well. About the law ? How should you like to be a barrister ? ' — I had but a mean idea of the legal profession, and I said so. — ' Very well,' said my uncle, going on to the middle finger. ■ Then theer's physic. Now, th' army and navy is only professions to them that's got a lot o' money, and don't want a profession. To anybody else they're slavery. How about physic ? '

I thought I saw that ' physic ' was what Uncle Ben most favoured, and I said ' Yes ' tentatively.

' It's a honourable profession,' said my uncle, 'and it's a useful un. Now, what do you say to physic ? '

I told him I thought I would say ' Yes ' to physic ; and he asked me then what I should say to Dr. Brand.

' A really first-rate man, Johnny,' said Uncle Ben. ' Last time I was in town, I asked him if in a few years' time he'd be prepared to admit a smart feller into his place to look around him ; and we had a bit of a talk about it ; and he's willing to take you under his wing, my lad ; and make a friend of you, and

A utob iography. 4 7

make a man of you. You'll see if you like it ; and if you don't, you needn't stick to it. It's a great favour, mind you ; but he'll look after you when you get up there, and you must cultivate him.'

It seemed all very easily settled ; and Uncle Ben, who was always for striking whilst the iron was hot, advised me to go at once to London and spend a week there — see Dr. Brand — walk through the hospitals, get a first general idea of things, and decide as soon as I could see my way to a decision.

' Look here,' said Uncle Ben, clapping me jovially on the shoulder, 'we'll go up to- morrer, and have a look round together. Eh, Johnny ? '

That was settled at once. I made a fire of the blotted and crumpled fragments of notes, and sent a brief letter to Polly. Uncle Ben's proposal had cleared my wits a little, I suppose ; for I wrote without overwhelming embarrassment that QEdipus and I were going up to town with Mr. Hartley, that we all three hoped to be improved by the trip, and that it was probable that the journey would result in my adoption of a profession. And having despatched this letter, I lay for

48 A Lifes Atonement.

a long time awake, a little excited by the prospect of life in London, and a good deal less disposed to an early death on desert shores. When I fell asleep, I dreamed that I was appointed Physician in Ordinary to the Queen, and that I was Sir John Campbell.

CHAPTER III.

HISTORY.

He could not guess that the lost friend had been so near to him.

^VR. BRAND was driving down Piccadilly, or rather was being carried along that thoroughfare, one blazing, glaring, dusty sum- mer afternoon. He sat rounding his shoulders, with his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, looking straight before him and seeing nothing. The open carriage in which he rode and the pair of bays which drew it, were among the best of their kind ; for Dr. Brand was prospering greatly, and had a taste in equipages and horse-flesh, which he could afford to gratify. The turn-out was remarkably unprofessional, as might be expected in the case of a man so little conventional in all things. The doctor was so deeply absorbed

VOL. III. D

5<D A Lifes Atonement.

in the endeavour to solve the matter in his mind, that he did not notice a figure on horseback which came between him and the sunlight. The figure was that of a soldierly- looking bronzed young fellow who had lost an arm. The light-brown beard, with some- thing of a reddish tinge in it, and the close military cut of the hair, together with a certain set solidity of figure which had not of old be- longed to him, might have made it necessary even for an old friend to look twice before he recognised Arthur Hastings. There was the same calm look of lazy and impudent humour in his eyes, though his bronzed skin made them seem curiously light in colour ; and though his ancient jauntiness of carriage was subdued, it showed itself a little still. He rode on alongside, until the doctor became aware of the figure between him and the sunlight, and gave it a cursory glance of no- recognition.

' Why,' said a voice, ' should ^Esculapius drive like Jehu, son of Nimshi ? '

The doctor turning, rose in his carriage and held out a hand of cordial welcome.

Hastings shook his head, and nodded in the direction of his empty sleeve. ' Can't/ he said.

Histoiy. 5 1

* If I loosed the beggar/ — indicating his horse by another nod, — ' he'd bolt. How d'ye do ? '

The doctor called to the coachman to bring the horses to a walk ; and Hastings having subdued his horse's inclination to get into the carriage, went soberly alongside.

' When did you get back ? ' asked the doctor.

' Day before yesterday,' said Hastings. ' Was just coming round when I saw you.'

■ I never heard of that, said the doctor bluntly, nodding at the empty sleeve. ' When did you get it ? '

' I got it,' said Hastings, ' if you mean the limb, very early in life indeed, and parted with it about three days after the last racket at the Malakoff.'

1 Never heard of it,' said the doctor ; ' though I heard you did your duty there, sir.'

' Thank you,' said Hastings, simply and sin- cerely. Early in their knowledge of each other, the elder man had given a little lecture to the other, in which he had developed his own ideas of duty with almost brutal plainness.

' Where do you come from now ? ' the doctor asked.

' From roaming to and fro in the earth, and going up and down in it.'

ITY OF ILLINOIS

52 A Lifes Atonement.

* Doing something better, I hope,' said the doctor, ' than quote Satan by the way ? '

' Better at times, I think. — Are you busy ?'

1 1 am always busy. Nobody has a right to be anything else.'

' Some men are born idle,' said Hastings ; * some achieve idleness ; and some have idle- ness thrust upon them.'

' Will you dine with me to-night ? ' asked the doctor. ' Eight o'clock. Don't dress. I never dress for dinner. Absurd habit. Won't encourage it at my table. Will you come ? '

' On wings swift as meditation or the thoughts of love/ responded Hastings ; and the doctor, waving his hand, cried ' Good-bye ' and ' Drive on ' in a breath, and was gone in a cloud of dust of his own raising. With a parting nod, the young man turned back and rode up the blazing street, passing a dusky Smyrniote, who in the uniform of an English groom had followed him at orthodox distance, and now resumed his place, and came on soberly in true oriental indifference to the glances levelled at him by the curious. When Hastings reached the doctor's house, a little before the appointed time, the Smyrniote accompanied him still, and took up his stand

History. 53

in the hall outside the dining-room door, where he startled Mrs. Brand more than a little, as she passed him on her way upstairs from an inspection of the kitchen. She made no re- mark about him, however ; but the doctor coming in a moment later with Major Hartley in his train, had no scruple of delicacy.

' Where did you pick up the nigger ? ' he asked.

1 1 picked up the nigger,' Hastings returned — 'to copy your own ungraceful locution — on the tented field.'

' Why do you carry him about in England ? ' asked the doctor ungraciously.

'Well, you see,' said Hastings, with a little flush upon his face, which nobody remarked, ' he took to carrying me about at first.'

' Now, that's not fayah, Hastings/ said Major Hartley, twirling his big moustaches with both hands. — ' That's quaite unfayah, Mrs. Brand, I ashaw yaw.' The longer the Major lived, the more he drawled, and the wilder grew his dandified distortions of his native tongue. The doctor and his wife looked at Hastings, who blushed palpably, and had nerve enough to utter no more than ' Pooh ! ' The con- fusion of so fluent a person was too remark-

54 A Lifes Atonement.

able to go unnoticed, and both looked inquir- ingly at the Major. 'What an extwordinary fellah you are, Hastings, to be shaw!' said the Major. — ' Now you'd really think, Mrs. Brand, that a fellah would be proud of a thing like that.'

1 Of a thing like what ? ' asked Mrs. Brand.

' Don't be an ass, Hartley,' said Hastings in a low, rapid tone, which was not intended for anybody but the Major, but was heard clearly by all three. The Major laughed pleasantly, with a look of mischief ; and Hastings walked to the window with an abrupt and angry step.

' I insist on relating the incident,' said the Major ; ' but in consideration of yaw feelings, I'll be brief. Hastings fetched the niggah out of a regulah storm of fiah one day, when the poor beggah was wounded by a fragment of a shell. Three months latah the nigger re- taliated, and fetched Hastings out of a storm of fiah, when he was lying quite helpless with a broken arm. And since then, they've been inseparables ; and bay Jove ! Mrs. Brand, I think they ought to be. Don't you, madam, now, don't you ? '

The doctor strode across the room, and brought his hand down heavily on Hastings' shoulder with a loud cry of 'Bravo!' 'And

History, 5 5

said the doctor, facing round with an air of serio-comedy, ' I'll knock the next man down, or woman either, who dares to say a word about it.'

An hour had passed, and dinner was nearly over before Hastings had recovered his equani- mity ; and for the first time in any man's know- ledge of him, he was depressed at a scene which should have been festive. When the doctor found him gradually recovering from the effects of the Major's exposure, he renewed his inquiries as to the movements Hastings had made since the close of the war.

1 I come last,' he answered, ' from Basuto Land. I went from Hong-kong to Ceylon, and found a man with a steam-yacht who wanted to go to the Cape of Good Hope, and could get nobody to chum with him. So we cast in our lot together ; but I found him can- tankerously inclined, and left him at the Cape, and rambled about alone.

' What took you to Hong-kong ? ' asked the doctor.

' Well,' said Hastings,' ' I had some notions about going into the House at that time ; and since a man must have a crotchet there of one sort or another, I thought the opium-

56 A Lifes Atonement.

trade would serve for mine, and went out there to look at it.'

' What made you change you mind ? '

' I don't think I did change my mind,' he answered with a flippancy which was more a thing of habit than of feeling. ' I think my mind changed me. Anyhow, I came to the belief that there were things better worth doing than going into the House.'

' Ah ! ' said the doctor. ' What are they ? '

1 I'll tell you one of them some of these days,' said Hastings calmly.

'By the way,' asked Dr. Brand, 'do you remember Bolter's Rents ? '

' Bolter ? Bolter ? ' said Hastings question- ingly. ' I had a horse of that name once, and he deserved it.' Then with perfect ir- relevance, he quoted, ' For the blood-boltered Banquo smiles on me.'

' Bolter's Rents,' said the doctor, ' is a haunt of thieves, and worse — a haunt of cadgers, tramps, crossing-sweepers, the riff-raff of the London streets ; a tumble-down fever-den ; a brick-and-mortar ulcer.

' Ah ! yes,' said Hastings ; ' I remember. A place off Oxford Street. Mrs. Brand was interested in some people there.'

History. 5 7

' It's in the market,' said the doctor.

c If I knew the owner,' said Hastings, with an approach to a smile, ' I might recommend him to somebody who would draw up a de- scription of the place, and help him to sell it to some advantage.'

' I want to help him to sell it,' said the doctor. ' But can we talk about that matter at another time.'

The talk drifted into other channels ; and a little later than ten o'clock the Major took his leave, pleading an engagement at the Opera, which he had so far deserted for the pleasure of meeting Hastings.

' Now,' said the doctor, settling himself easily in a deep arm-chair, ' light another cigar, fill your glass, and settle down to talk. I want you to do justice to yourself. You have heart and brains, and you mustn't waste them. Have you found a purpose yet ? '

I Two or three,' said Hastings.

I I want to give you another,' said the doctor, ' if your hands are not too full. That place I spoke of — Bolter's Rents — is one of the disgraces of London. If it got into the hands of a good man, it might be made a credit to any city. If it gets into the hands

58 A Lifes Atonement.

of an ordinary speculator, it will be pulled down, and its inhabitants will go all adrift into other places of its kind. If it came into the possession of a man who considered those poor wretches, it might be gradually rebuilt, and altogether purified, physically and morally. The poverty might live there still under cleanly conditions, and the scoundrelism be hunted out of it, or taught to behave itself; and the thing — though it could not yield an extraordinary profit — could be made to pay. I shan't apologise for suggesting this to you ; for I believe it's just the sort of thing you want/

' Don't you think the better course would be to pull the place down at once and build anew ? ' asked Hastings.

' No,' said the doctor. ' There are a hun- dred people there who are half-civilised already, who would be scattered to the four winds in that way. If the place could be mended gra- dually, we could keep them together, and they would help under better circumstances to leaven the mass about them.'

1 1 will look into the matter,' said Hastings, 1 and let you know what I think of it. Where is the place ? '

History. 59

The doctor described it. An entry between two shops, numbered so-and-so, led to a court. There was no mistaking it. The name of the agent who had the sale of the property was noted ; and shortly before midnight, Hastings took his leave with the faithful Smyrniote be- hind him. The doctor's proposal went exactly with his own desires ; and if the truth had been known, I am inclined to believe that it was chiefly with the idea of saving money for some such coup as this that Hastings had spent so much of his time in travel. Wish- ing to see the place at once, he turned into Oxford Street, and walked leisurely towards Bolter's Rents. The moon rode in a sky which was almost cloudless, and the street gleamed before him like a river. He reached the entrance to the court, and looked down its black perspective to the one dull lamp which twinkled at the bottom. ' Gel bourda, Ali,' said he to his servant ; and the man came, and followed him closely down the fetid way, where nameless odours reminded him of the popular bath of his native land. They marched once or twice round the court- yard, Hastings looking up at the disreputable buildings, and the man following him in

60 A Life's Atonement.

wonder. A door near at hand grated on the gritty floor of one of the ground-rooms, and a bearded man came out into the court with a basin, which he emptied upon the broken pavement. He looked up at Hastings and his servant and passed by, leaving the door through which he had passed still open. The light of a candle shone through the doorway ; and Hastings glancing in, saw a man tossing miserably on the quarried floor, upon a couch of straw and sacking. He had heard the murmur of a voice on passing the door in his first slow journey round the court, and knew it now for this sick man's moaning. Beckoning Ali to follow, he entered the room and looked about him ; and it is not too much to say that he shook and sickened with pity and loathing. The man who lay upon the floor was muttering rapidly to himself in German, and tossing a weary head from side to side. Since we saw Hastings last, he had seen much of the world, and had looked on many of its worst troubles. But he had never dreamed of anything like the horror of this place being possible in England. I can only tell you of its desolation — not of its filth, for to set that down would be to make myself

History. 6 1

unreadable. The man himself, with his vast beard of matted black swaying to and fro across his half-naked chest, and his wild hair nearly a foot long straggling down to meet it, was terrible to look at. His eyes and his teeth gleamed as he rocked his head from side to side, and he moaned ever and always of trifles probably forgotten until fever brought a stimulant to memory before quenching it. Hastings, who spoke German better than most Englishmen, addressed the man in his own tongue, asking if he could be of use to him ; but he received no answer, and stood sorrowfully helpless for the minute, until the man he had first seen returned with the basin balanced carefully in both hands. The new- comer called out in German in some cheering phrase as he entered, and did not at firsc observe the two intruders. He started a little when he saw them, but said nothing, and kneeling down, busied himself by ad- ministering to his patient the contents of the basin.

' Has this man been long in this condition ? ' Hastings asked in English.

The man still tended the other, and returned no answer, but started again visibly at the

52 A Life's Atonement,

sound of the voice. Hastings put his question into German.

'Yes/ the nurse answered in the same tongue, with his voice muffled in his grey beard and his head bent above his patient.

' Is he a friend of yours ? '

'No.'

' Do you live here ? '

The man pointed upwards to the roof, but gave no other answer. Hastings stood silent for a moment, and then asked, ' Has the man no other nurse ? '

'No,' was the answer, still muffled by the beard.

' Can you not remove him to an hospital ? '

' He will go to-morrow,' the man responded, assiduously bending over his patient.

Hastings' accustomed ear caught the sound of an accent foreign to the language in which the man spoke. ' You are not a German,' he said. * What are you ? '

No answer was returned ; and Hastings, thinking that the fellow's nationality was no business of his if he chose to conceal it, stood for a little while and watched the feeding of the patient. By-and-by he asked what the sick man was suffering from.

History. 63

' Fever/ said the nurse briefly.

* Is the disease contagious ? ' ' Yes.'

' Are you not afraid of catching it ? '

'No.'

1 How long have you tended the man ? '

' To-night only.'

' Has any one else attended him ? '

'No.'

'If I give you a little money, will you expend it on him, and send him comfortably to the hospital ? '

' I have given notice, and he will be sent for to-morrow.'

' Then you do not want money ? '

'No.'

* How do you live ? ' ' I work/

'At what?' — No answer. — 'Is there much sickness here ? Are you often employed in this way ? '

' Sometimes/

1 Who summoned you here to take care of this man ? Who told you he was ill ? '

< Nobody.'

Hastings crossed over to the patient, who lay quieter now ; and the nurse walked away

6\ A Lifes Atonement.

and looked out through the open door. Ali stood by, and marvelled, but said nothing. He had implicit confidence in his master, and believed that all he did was right. * What is there in that face I know ? ' his master was thinking to himself as he bent above the fever-stricken wretch on the floor. 'Is it a fancy ? Have I seen the face in the street ? Whose is it ? ' He could find no answer in his thoughts, though he called scores of faces to remembrance. ' I have seen this man somewhere before,' he said aloud. ' Do you know who he is?' He received no answer ; and turning round, he saw that the nurse had disappeared. After standing irreso- lute for a moment, he left the place and walked back into Oxford Street, where he went on until he saw the red lamp of a surgeon, whom he summoned. The medical man did not care to enter Bolter's Rents at that time of night without a policeman, and indeed flatly refused to do so ; but an officer was soon found, and he, happy in the douceur Hastings gave, led the way with an air of protection.

' I cannot help thinking,' said Hastings to the surgeon, as the latter knelt down to feel

History. 65

the patient's wrist, ' that I have seen the man before somewhere.'

The patient was murmuring still in German ; but when Hastings spoke thus, he paused and seemed to listen. When he began again, he spake in nasal English, and Hastings fan- cied he heard his own name amidst the murmurings. Stooping lower, he heard dis- tinctly. It was of no use, the man was saying ; he really couldn't do it. Money was very tight jhoost now.

1 Tasker ? ' cried the listener suddenly, in a voice of amazement. The sick man made a motion to rise, but fell back again. For a moment, at the cry, his eyes took an aspect of intelligence ; but the unearthly brightness of fever returned, and Tasker — for it was he — went back to his German murmurings.

' This man was a money-lender in the City six or seven years ago,' said Hastings, in answer to the look of astonishment and inquiry with which the surgeon regarded him. ' I had dealings with him in my nonage. He was almost scoundrel enough to deserve even this ; but I was amazed to find him here. Where is the man who was tending him ? '

The bearded man was just outside the door,

VOL. III. E

66 A Lifes Atonement.

and had heard the talk and the cry of re- cognition. Hastings stepping to the door, called after him as he drew off in the shadow of the great overhanging wall. The policeman who was posturing at the door with a set of knuckles at his ribs in the region of his waist- belt, inquired if his honour wanted that man. Hastings, scarcely knowing why, said ' Yes ; ' and the policeman went after him and brought him back. He came submissively with down- cast looks.

' Why do you want me ? ' he asked in German. ' Let me go. I trouble nobody.'

' Take that,' said Hastings with a sudden impulse, slipping a sovereign into the hand which waved towards him in appeal. ' Good- night'

With bent head he drew back into the shadow, and the deeper shade of the doorway seemed to absorb him as he entered it.

' Curious characrter that, sir,' said the officer, stiffly posturing like a model for a comic sculptor. ' Quite the gentleman to speak to. Name of Jones. Had a quarter of a millying o' money, and lost it all on three Derbies. Calls him the Dook round about here and at the Docks where he works.'

History. 6 7

'Indeed!' said Hastings, beginning to won- der whether all the residents of Bolter's Rents were broken men of substance. ' Have you known him long ? '

' Hever since he come to grief, sir. I was at the H east-end of the town for several 'ears, and knowed him at the Docks, Quiet, hinnerffensive feller, sir, as ever lived.'

Why was it, Hastings asked himself, as he walked to his hotel, with Ali in his place behind him, that the image of a dead friend who fell before Sebastopol should be so closely with him ? An echo of Frank Fairholt's voice was in his ear ; in his mind's eye he saw the friendly, candid eyes and the handsome wilful face, and in his heart he repented of the evil of his youth, and his spirit was sorely troubled.

1 It was my fault mainly,' he confessed, ' that poor Frank went wrong at all. But time is merciful ; and most of the griefs his loss created have been healed. And he is at rest, poor Frank, at least.' He saw the little round of palisades which marked the spot behind the trenches where the dead soldier lay, and the black knolls here and there which covered his old comrades. He could not guess — how

68 A Lifes Atonement.

should he ? — that the lost friend had been so near to him. How could he dream that Frank Fairholt was kneeling lonely in that dark fever-den, praying God for patience that he might bear his burden to the end !

CHAPTER IV.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

1 Tell me what ycu believe against me, and I will clear myself?

WENT up to town next day with Uncle Ben, according to arrangement. I found Dr. Brand a trifle brusque and dictatorial, I thought ; but learning that years must elapse before he would undertake to do more than take a friendly interest in me, I thought I should manage to get along with him very nicely. In the great school of medicine and surgery in which I presently found myself a pupil, Dr. Brand was regarded with profound respect. One of the first things pointed out to me in the hospital museum was a dissec- tion of the human arm, in which every nerve and vein and artery and muscle was displayed in most delicate and exquisite network. That

jo A Lifes Atonement,

was Dr. Brand's doing ; and it was looked on as something next to a miracle of dexterity and art. I saw him in the operating theatre, where he stood almost unrivalled. At first, his perfect calm, the insouciance with which he went to the most terrible performances, shocked and disgusted me, and I thought him a monster of no-feeling. But in a week or two, I began to be better able to under- stand and value his quiet mastery ; and in a month he was my special hero.

It has been a problem to many, how it comes about that the orderly and gentlemanly men who make up the rank-and-file of medi- cine and surgery in these islands are evolved from the disorderly and rowdy youth who make up the staple of our medical-student supply. I confess myself the more unable to solve this problem because I have been intimate with the embryonic and with the complete surgeon, and have known and noted the marvellous space which severs them. In Oxford, I had known reading sets, and boat- ing sets, and drinking and gambling sets, and sets of all sorts. But though I found men here given over to the same variety of pur- suits, they went about them for the most

Autobiography. 71

part in so different a manner, and were them- selves of so different an order, that I seemed to be thrown into quite an unfamiliar life among them. I had been so accustomed to the control of money, that town -life offered me no new temptations to extravagance. Of all the keen things Balzac has written, there is none keener than that passage in which he declares of an extravagant woman that she was reckless in the profligacy of her waste because she had known a time when a sou's worth of fried potatoes would have been a luxury to her. But it never occurred to me to do less than spend what Uncle Ben al- lowed me, and I found my society sought by some for whom I had little affection. How it fared with Uncle Ben's sons, my cousins, I can only conjecture ; but I know that my relationship to the great millionaire was con- verted into one of the miseries of my life, by the adulation it secured me, and the prominence it occasionally gave me. Mr. Wickamby, senior demonstrator, was marvel- lously fond of me, and undertook to intro- duce me to scientific society in London. I went to an assemblage of ladies and gentle- men in his company at one time, and was

72 A Lifes Atonement.

finding an innocent interest in the display of divers new inventions, when a whisper from Wickamby — ' The nephew of Hartley — Hartley Hall, you know — the great mil- lionaire'— came in upon my quiet, and my night was spoiled. There was a gilt paste- board erection of cubic form at one end of the room, which was supposed to represent the exact amount of gold in circulation in the British Islands ; and whilst I regarded this, and thought how small a sum of money it represented per head for the population, Mr. Wickamby came up and laughed, and said in the voice of a public lecturer, that my uncle, Mr. Hartley of Hartley Hall, could show a considerable slice of that if he desired to — eh ? Ha ! ha ! The baleful whisper followed me into remote corners, 1 Nephew of Hartley. Great millionaire, Hartley. Quite a self-made man.'

There was a doctor of divinity there who was most ponderously polite to me, and who took the keenest interest in my uncle and my welfare. He delivered a little oration to me on the dangers and advantages of wealth ; and whenever anybody passed the corner in which he had me penned, he would inter-

Autobiography. J 3

rupt the current of his speech to summon the passer-by, and would ask to be per- mitted to introduce Mr. Campbell, ' nephew of Mr. Hartley, the distinguished millionaire.' The coarse greed with which I found myself surrounded, not for money, but for leave to talk about it, would have been matter for laughter, if I had not been the centre of it. As it was, however, it became unbearable, and I withdrew myself stealthily.

I had rooms in Clement's Inn, light airy chambers, looking out upon upon a square of green, bordered by fine trees. The rooms look now upon the New Law Courts, which have been so long a-building, and the grass is still there before them, and the trees yet flourish. I was mightily proud of those chambers at the first, and was perhaps as happy in them as I have ever been elsewhere. ' What more felicitie,' asks the poet, ' can fall to creature ? Than to enjoye delighte with libertie ? ' Mr. Wickamby, the senior demonstrator, would sometimes visit me of an afternoon and take a glass of Burgundy and a cigar. He was a man who smiled, a comfortable man, with a saponaceous manner. He had little set forms of speech for all manner of circumstances

74 A Lifes Atonement.

and contingencies, which he used by rote, as though they were formulae out of the Phar- macopoeia. One of these was that it really seemed absurd to say it, but if ever at any moment I found myself in want of funds, I was to apply to him, and consider him my banker. It was so easy, he would add, to run out of coin in town. At first, it crossed me that this was the prelude to a request for a loan ; but Mr. Wickamby never tried my regard in that way ; and he used to utter his formula so heartily, that I grew posi- tively grateful to him for his benevolence.

But there were pleasanter visitors than Mr. Wickamby at my chambers in Clement's Inn, and amongst the pleasantest were Gascoigne and yEsop. Gascoigne's clerical duties held him hard and fast in the country all the year, with the exception of one fortnight, which he spent with me. I met him at the railway station, and brought him home in great glee, and enthroned him in an arm-chair.

I What prospects ? ' I asked him. ' When are you going to be a bishop ? '

I I don't know/ he answered laughingly. But he added more gravely, and as I thought with a touch of regretfulness, ' I ought to

A utobiography. 7 5

have stayed on at college, Jack, and taken a fellowship. But I should never have had the living which is to be mine unless I had put my neck into the yoke of this curacy. The patron insists on having a working man, and I am working. One of the ameliora- tions,' he said, laughing again, ' is that they don't consider cricket wicked in our part of the world.'

I said somewhat hotly at this, that the ser- vants of the Church were surrounded by foolish restrictions, and that none seemed more absurd to me than the denial of harm- less outdoor sports. I could see a reason, perhaps, against hunting ; but there were a dozen other things which I enumerated in which, as I believed, there lay harm neither for a clergyman nor for his flock.

' You are wrong, Jack,' said Gascoigne seri- ously. ' But the drawback in the Church of England is that the influence secured is not commensurate with the sacrifice ordained. The true sacerdotal power is not wielded by any man in our Church, even though he may make all the concessions which should secure it. The power of the Church at large is great; but the openings to indi-

J 6 A Life's Atonement.

vidual ambition are few. There is an open avenue to fame and power in the Church of Rome ; and though you may not think it, there is a way as broad and certain among the great schismatic sects — Congregational and Wesleyan. Amongst us, the individual withers, and the Church is more and more. Spurgeon is more of a personality than even the Archbishop of Canterbury.'

' Then/ I asked, ' you are not satisfied ? '

' " Which of us," ' he quoted, ' " is satisfied in this world ? Which of us has his desire ? "

' But,' I urged, ' there is surely some joy in fighting a good cause, even as one of the rank- and-file ? '

1 Ay,' said Gascoigne ; ' surely. But there would be more joy perhaps in leading the combatants.'

' In what direction ?' I asked him.

He laughed, and threw his hands abroad with a careless gesture. ' Perhaps one might see,' he answered, ' a little farther on horse- back.'

I loved him so sincerely and admired him so much, that this seeming flippancy grieved me, and I let the subject go. './Esop will be here directly,' I told him. ' I have asked

A utobiography. 7 7

him especially to come this evening; but I have not told him that you will be here. I kept that for a surprise.'

There was a little constraint upon me as I said this ; for I did not wish it to appear that I dissented seriously from any mood of his. Lest he should observe this, I arose as I spoke, and seizing one of his portman- teaus, dragged it into his bedroom. It was a little surprising that he returned no answer for a minute. But he called out after that pause, as he followed with the other port- manteau, ' ^Esop coming ! Jolly ! ' And then in a changed tone he said suddenly, ' How very unfortunate.'

I turned round and faced him as he sat upon the bed, and asked him what was un- fortunate.

'At what time did you ask ^Esop to be here ? ' he queried.

' Eight o'clock,' I answered.

'What a pity,' he said in an eager bustling way. ' I have an appointment I ought to have kept at once on coming into town.' He laid his hands on my shoulders, and put me away from him laughing. ' The pleasure of seeing you, Old Jack, sent it out of my

7 8 A Lifes Atonement.

head ; but I must keep it. I am a quarter of an hour late already/ he went on, looking at his watch. ' Let me write a line to Gre- gory, lest he should think I ran away from him.'

I gave him pen, ink, and paper, and he scrawled a hasty note. ' Read that,' he said, as he threw it in an open envelope towards me. ' I shall be back in an hour and a half at latest' He seized his hat, and was hurry- ing from the room, when I called after him.

1 How about dinner ? '

' Ah ! dinner ! ' he said, turning with a hand upon the door. ' Put it off till nine. Is that possible ? Or dine without me to-night. Never mind, Old Jack. Better luck next time.' With that he went out ; and I heard him leaping downstairs, two steps at a time.

He had not gone long when Gregory came in. Gascoigne's sudden departure had left me a little dull, and I was all the more re- joiced to see /ELsop. He and I chatted in- differently for a minute or two, until he said, ' You sent for me particularly. Anything up ? ' I handed him Gascoigne's letter, thinking how pleasant it would by-and-by for all three of us to be together in my rooms. It was

A tct o biography. 79

growing dusk ; and he took it to the window to read it. He seemed a long time getting through it, I thought, especially since Gas- coigne had spent so little time in writing it. I asked at last if he did not find it legible. ' Yes,' he answered ; ' legible enough. But it's very unlucky. I can't wait for him.'

' Can't wait for him ? ' I asked piteously. ' You take it very quietly, the two of you, spoiling my night in this way/

' Ah, well,' said JEsop, with an air of philo- sophy ; ' life's full of disappointments, and we must school ourselves to bear 'em.'

1 Well, you'll come to-morrow, won't you ? And we'll spend the day together.'

'Well, I'm not sure about to-morrow,' said T^Esop, with an air of some constraint ; ' but I'll write and tell you about it. Meantime, give the traveller drink ; and I'll take a cigar. I've only half-an-hour to spare.'

Nothing remained but to make the best of it. I should have Gascoigne back directly, and a pleasant fortnight lay before me. Yet the rose-coloured bloom seemed somehow to be rubbed off that near future, and I felt quite chilled and unhappy. Gregory smoked his cigar almost in silence ; and I went out with

80 A Lifes Atonement,

him and saw him into a cab ; and thereafter went back to my chambers in a disconsolate and gloomy mood, and awaited Gascoigne.

When he returned he heard of Gregory's departure with so singular an absence of con- cern in manner, though he said fluently enough what a pity it was to miss ^Esop, that I asked him outright if he did not care to meet him. He blushed a little, and said that all our youth- ful friendships could scarcely be expected to last as firmly as that between us two. He was so embarrassed whilst he said this, be- neath the lightness of manner he assumed, that before I had well thought it, I called out, ' You don't care for Gregory. Did you leave me to avoid him ? '

He turned quite red in his distress. 'Jack,' he said appealingly, ' who has put such a notion into your head ? Has Gregory hinted anything of the kind ? '

'No,' I cried ; ' nothing. It was only a fancy of mine. But I thought — you were both so calm about missing each other — that you had quarrelled, and did not wish me to know it. You were not very much with each other at Uncle Ben's place when you were down last, and I have never seen you since, except apart.'

A utob iography. 8 1

I thought he seemed relieved, though I could not conjecture why. He made no an- swer except to ask me if I had read his note to Gregory. When I said ' No,' he took it from the table where Gregory had left it, and handed it to me. It began, ' My dear ^Esop/ and ended with, ' Yours always ; ' and there was no hint of anything but friendship in the few hearty lines which expressed his regret for keeping Gregory waiting.

There was no news from Gregory for four days ; and I was so wounded at this, that it altogether dashed the triumph and pleasure of having Gascoigne to myself in my own London chambers ; a matter which had seemed too pleasant to be real in the contemplation of it. On the morning of the fifth day, a letter came bearing the Paris post-mark, and expressing ^Esop's regrets at his enforced absence. This cleared the cloud ; for it ex- plained that unexpected private business had sent him abroad. 'Assure Gascoigne of my best wishes,' said the letter at its close. ' There is no need to tell either of you how happy the reunion you planned would have made me, had it been possible for me to share in it.' So that there was no fear of any breach

VOL. III. f

82 A Lifes Atonement.

between them, I cared less for the absence of one of them.

Gregory did not return to town until Gas- coigne had gone back to his curacy. I told him of the fears I had entertained about the possible decadence of their friendship ; and he listened to all I had to say with a solemnity very unusual with him. He spoke in answer with a sort of rough tenderness. ' You nurse illusions, young un. Heave 'em overboard ; but be sure you don't let your generous im- pulses go with 'em.'

He spoke so seriously, that I concluded he had a meaning ; though why the loss of any generous impulse should be involved in my ceasing to believe that he and Gascoigne had quarrelled, I could not divine. A sudden sound of footsteps on the staircase and a determined hammering at my outer door pre- vented the continuation of our talk ; and my visitors being admitted, made instant demands for drink, and stated that they had come with a proposal. They were amiable young people, with strong social leanings, and were supposed by their parents to be reading for the Bar. The proposal was that a convivial society should be formed, meeting in rotation at the

Autobiography. 83

chambers of the men who belonged to it ; and Gregory being voted to the chair, an initial committee meeting was held. Bills of Wad- ham had come prepared with a suggestion that the society should be known as ' The Associated Order of Rum-Pum-Pahs and Royal Brotherhood of Rollicking Rams ; ' and this imposing title being by acclamation adopted, the rules and regulations of the society were straightway framed. Jeans, late of Exeter, and now of the Middle Temple, barrister-at-law, called to that high profession the week before last, was already glorious in the possession of the services of a clerk, to whom the task of engrossing the rules of the new society was entrusted. We went for all this genial nonsense with a certain solemnity which became it well, and discussed laws and by-laws with a business-like gravity which left upon me a sense of having been hard at work. The first meeting took place at my chambers, and was attended by the consumption of much liquid refreshment and a great number of cigars. On this occasion I was formally in- stalled as Royal Ram ; and Gregory was created Deputy Royal Ram. A vast num- ber of other offices were created, one of the

84 A Lifes Atonement.

chief objects of the society being to include none who did not hold office within its ranks.

Thereafter, regular weekly meetings were held at the chambers of the various members ; and the society lived a flourishing and on the whole a very jovial and harmless life, which gave delight and hurt not. It reached an untimeous finish in the rooms in which it first came into being. The hour of mid- night approached, and we were singing a chorus :

' From Wimbledon to Wombledon is seventeen miles ;

From Wombledon to Wimbledon is seventeen miles ; From Wimbledon to Wombledon — From Wombledon to Wimbledon —

From Wimbledon to Wombledon is seventeen miles.'

I had thought, in the pauses of this topogra- phical record, that I could hear a knocking at the door ; and any doubt I might have had upon the point was set at rest when the end of the chorus came. Blows were dealt upon the door in a perfect shower, apparently by a heavy stick ; and one of my companions answering this noisy summons, reported the advent of ' an elderly Bloke in sportive raiment.' This an- nouncement being made in a voice which must have been audible without, I went to greet my visitor, whoever he might be, with some

A utobiography. S 5

reasonable dread that he might consider him- self insulted. To my surprise, the visitor was no other than my Uncle Ben ; and before his eye caught mine, I could see both trouble and anger on his face.

' Come in, uncle,' I said, but with some awkwardness. ' I have a few friends here. I have told you about the Club in my letters, and it meets here to-night.'

He pushed by me without answer, and standing in the centre of the room, surveyed the assembly for a moment. Then nodding to Gregory, he removed his hat, and sat down in the chair I had occupied. ' Don't let me dis- turb your amusements,' he said gruffly ; but his angry countenance perturbed the young fellows, and they sat in silence, or talked to one another in subdued tones and formal phrases. In a little space one rose to go. Another followed him ; and in less than a quarter of an hour after Uncle Ben's arrival, the room was cleared. I had made an awk- ward presentation of my uncle to the assembly, and had tried to enter into talk with him ; but ♦his manner, so different from anything I had hitherto observed in him, froze all geniality, and his answers were all a gloomy ' Yes ' or

86 A Lifes Atonement.

' No/ When at last the guests were all gone, he drank a tumbler of Burgundy, and rising, took his stand upon the hearthrug.

' What is the matter, uncle ? ' I asked, after a moment's pause, in which he had looked at me as if about to speak. ' Is any one ill at home ? Is Maud — '

1 1 suppose,' he said, regarding me with a look of mingled grief and rage which, while it staggered, baffled me to understand — ' I sup- pose you don't know of nothing as has took place, do you ? '

* No,' I stammered — ' unless it were the — ' ' The what ? ' he asked me, with an almost fierce anxiety.

' The meeting here to-night, and the noise we were making when you came.'

He held his hat in his hand, and to my intense surprise, he dashed it, at this answer, on the floor, and broke into an execration. I regarded him with both amazement and fear ; for the mood in which I saw him was so foreign to his nature, that I could only think him mad. Quite apart from the fact that he always drank with moderation, I could tell that he was sober now. He glared at me for full a minute with his face inflamed by rage ; but he

A utobiography. 8 7

fought hard for self-control, and at last secured it.

' Anybody to look at you,' he said, * ud think as you was wonder-struck/

' I am indeed/ I answered. ' Pray, tell me what has happened.'

1 Oh ! ' he said, shaking his head at me with an expression of bitter sorrow, ' you de- ceiver ! Oh ! you deceiver ! '

' Uncle/ I cried, ' in what have I ever de- ceived you ? What have I done ? '

' You shall have a chance,' he said with a broken voice, whilst tears made their way to his eyes. ' I'll give you a opportunity. Make a clean breast of it, an' I'll overlook it.'

His appeal cut me to the quick ; for I could read such a pathetic earnestness in his broken speech and his rugged homely face as I had never seen or heard elsewhere. But I had no answer. I was half giddy with surprise, and my mind was filled with quick -darting conjectures. All my guesses left me bewil- dered ; for though I had a boyish fault and folly here and there set down in the books of conscience, I could think of nothing I had ever done or contemplated which seemed worthy of a tithe's tithe of his emotion.

&8 A Lifes Atonement.

' You shall have a chance,' he said. ' Tell me you done it. Tell me what you done it for. Promise me, on your sacred oath, as you'll never do it again, and this once I'll overlook it. Don't send your Uncle Ben off broken-hearted. Make a clean breast, an' I'll forgive you.' The tears were coursing down his face, and he spoke with a broken voice.

I think the love and sorrow which I felt for him steadied me. I answered then. ' Uncle, whatever suspicion you may harbour against me, I am innocent of having done one thing or thought one thought against your peace of mind. Tell me what you believe against me, and I will clear myself.'

' You're hardened,' he answered with re- turning anger ; but my sister's blood's in you, and though your father was a rogue before you, I can't get over it. ' I can't believe,' he went on, softening again, 'as Bella's child's gone quite to the bad so young. Look here, Johnny. I took you for your mother's sake ; an' I kep' you, an' I had you bred up like a gentleman, an' I did my best to make a man of you. If I seem to be stern with you, it's for your good. I can't overlook it, not without a full confession ; an' even then, it'll

Atitobiography. 89

take 'ears an' 'ears to overgrow it. But you clean your breast, an' I'll forgive you.'

'You quite bewilder me,' I answered ear- nestly. 'I know of nothing — I have done nothing, which could cause you such grief. Believe me, uncle, I would sooner die than even seem ungrateful.' In the eagerness of my protestation I approached him and laid a hand upon his arm ; and he looked at me fixedly, whilst I could see sorrow again giving way to rage. Perhaps this alteration in his mood worked some change in mine ; for I added with more firmness than I had been able hitherto to show, that I had a right to hear his accusation, and that it was impos- sible that I could clear myself until I knew of what I was suspected.

' Oh, you innocent, persecuted, wrong-sus- pected creature/ he cried with a bitter sneer. ' You haven't done nothin' mean, have you ? You haven't done nothin' low, an' base, an' blackguardly, an' criminal, have you now ? Law bless us' no ; he wouldn't.'

' I have not,' I cried, with mounting anger at the obstinacy of his accusation, and his refusal to put it before me plainly. ' And whoever charges such a thing against me, lies.'

90 A Lifes Atonement.

' What ? ' he said again. ' You've made your mind up to brave it out, an' swear black's white ? '

1 Neither your past tenderness to me/ I answered, ' nor your relationship, nor your age, gives you a right to speak so. If you have any charge to bring, speak it out. If you will give me no chance to clear myself, I will not listen to your accusations.' Those were the last words I spoke to him ; for he broke out with a wild exclamation, and struck me across the face so heavily that I fell and lay unconscious for a time. When I awoke, dizzily and painfully, there was already a grey light peering through the windows, and I was alone. The interview with Uncle Ben seemed at first like a miserable dream ; but as it cleared itself to my memory, nothing but wounded pride withheld my tears.

I

CHAPTER V.

HISTORY. * He had no change in her remembrance?

A N English novelist of great genius says, in taking leave of the chief female figure of his story : — ' Such women are not the spice of fiction, but they are the salt of real life.' That phrase expresses so exactly what I feel and desire to say of Maud, that I should probably have used it originally, if Charles Reade had not forestalled me. Did it ever occur to you to think that the especial charm and beauty of some women is — that they have suffered ? The esteem and liking with which you regard them, even in your days of strangerhood, and before the usages of friendship have endeared them, is instinc- tive. The chivalry of the manly heart is awakened at the thought of such unmerited

92 A Lifts Atonement.

trouble as the faces of many good women unconsciously tell of. There is a look almost angelic in such faces ; the gentle eyes that would fain smile kindly on all things, have been made familiar with tears ; yet they still smile, a little wistfully maybe, but ten- derly— the very twilight of a smile — no garish brilliance that blinds and dazzles, but a sad and gentle light, which soothes the soul as an autumn evening sky will, and disposes the heart to a quiet and reverent peace.

If old Time, whom we figure with scythe and hour-glass, had but a real personality, how should we sing his praises, how tell our thanks to him ? Good old Father Time, who dost bear us in fatherly arms away from sorrows, away from all sorrows in a while, if we will but have a little patience !

Maud in these days dwelt in peace. I have no skill to tell how the peace came down, and settled round about her like strong sunshine, until at last she would scarcely for her own sake have recalled her sorrow. Had that harrowing mystery which had first belonged to her lover's fate still seemed to hang over it, things might have gone otherwise with her, and peace might at least have been

History. 93

delayed. But she had learned that he was dead, and that his unknown griefs were over; and it came to pass that poor Frank's best hopes were justified, and she found rest. She did not forget him, and will not, though she should live to be old, cease to remember her first lover with infinite sad sweetness of remembrance and tender pity. The cares which a good woman can lay upon herself for the cares of other people soothed and gladdened her, and she moved among the poor like a ministering angel. Poor rural folk are not so susceptible to gratitude as it might be wished they should be ; but she took root in the shallow hearts of her old women, who grumbled to her over their rheumatics and their old men and the hard- ness of the parish, ' which ud only give 'em a loaf a week, an' times that hard.' These crabbed old creatures used to talk of her to each other, and though they knew little enough of her trouble, would say ' Poor dear ! ' when they mentioned her, by a sort of pitying instinct, which perhaps her eyes inspired.

Will Fairholt, though touched always by that casuist fear which he had long since expressed to Hastings, found the definite news

94 A Lifes Atonement.

of his brother's death a relief to him. It was a great grief; for, as we have seen, he had a sincere love for Frank ; but he felt, when the first wound of loss was healed, happier and more at ease than he had done for many and many a week before the news reached him. I have not time to tell the whole story of his healing ; but as even in a river on its hurrying way to the sea you may find a quiet back-water here and there, where foam of haste and voice of ripple are not, so my story, which serves a less important use than any river, may pause awhile, and we may suffer ourselves to fall into that calm bay in which the lives of these two, after much tempestuous tossing to and fro, have found shelter.

1 My life has been but a poor business, Maud,' said Will one day as he walked by her side in the gardens at Hartley Hall. Before them was the gate at which she and Frank had stood together years ago when they parted as pledged lovers. The day was warm and bright and drowsy, and the shadows were growing long towards the east. ' My life has been but a poor business. For I have spent years out of the world idly, which

History. 95

should have been spent within it busily. I have never dared to name the purpose which has kept me here, and I have been living in a fool's paradise for years.'

1 How ?' she said, looking up at him frankly and openly, with questioning eyes.

1 I had no right,' he said, ' to trap you into such a question. And I did not mean it.' She understood him then, and almost knew everything he had yet to say. Do you remember when you , first came here, and poor Frank and I first saw you ?'

' I remember well,' she answered softly. ' I can remember,' he went on, ' no hour since then in which you have not been the centre of my life. Did you ever guess that ? '

' I knew it/ she said softly ; ' and I was very sorry.'

1 You know it now,' he continued, bending over her. ' Are you still sorry ?' She gave no answer, but hung her head a little. ' I have loved you nearly all my life. Maud, can you give me a little hope ? '

' I am very sorry,' she began, and his heart failed within him ; but her voice went on tremulously, ' that you have — ' And there she paused again.

96 A Lifes Atonement.

1 That I have spoken ? ' he asked.

1 That you have suffered so,' she answered more boldly, lifting her head and meeting his eyes with hers. As she faced him thus, a tender blush stole over the delicate pallor of her countenance, and it was not easy to endure the ardent question of his eyes.

He stretched out his hands and took both of hers unresisting. ' I have thought,' he said, 1 1 have hoped that our partnership in a com- mon grief might bring us nearer to each other ; though if I know my heart, I schooled myself to see your happiness, and to live apart from you without repining.'

' Will,' she said, as if entreating him, ' I knew it all — I knew it all.'

' But I have waited,' he went on, ' hoping against hope that time might heal your grief, and make a standing-place for me beside you. I have waited long, Maud, long, long ! But have I waited long enough ?'

Her eyes faltered downward whilst he spoke ; but she raised them again and looked him bravely in the face, though they were dim with tears. He saw then that no further speech was needed, and folded her to his heart.

History. 9 7

They were middle-aged people, and the passionate raptures and delights of young love were out of reach. But as I have known the delirious happiness of youth breed a sort of heart-vertigo, so I have seen courtship in a man of forty and a woman of four-and- thirty full of very solid happiness. As for Maud, it was not the young love, but it was enough for happiness ; for she pitied and esteemed her lover, and had had the most constant and tender friendship for him for many years. And there was this singular factor in the case, as a matter of distinct feel- ing, although as a thing of course one con- scious thought would have ousted it — that whereas she had passed the first bloom of her womanhood, Frank was still and for ever and always a bright, handsome, wilful lad. He had no change in her remembrance. She grew towards middle age ; but his figure was no sturdier, his open brow took no cor- roding wrinkles, his voice had the ring of jolly youth in it. The deep maternal in- stinct in the heart of an old maid awoke, and she claimed this perennial youth for her child, not her lover. How should he be her lover, the bright, dandified, clever young fellow, who

VOL. III. G

gS A Lifes Atonement.

had grown no older this sixteen years ; whilst grief had wasted her bloom, and time had re- conciled her! Infinitely sad and sweet and tender were these memories, like a mother's remembrances of her child. For, ah ! the dead who die young are always young, until we, who cherish their memory, follow them.

Will was quietly contented. There was no great excitement in his joy. As we near forty, most of us are disposed to take the delights of life soberly. Your 'wild and wanton colts, fetching mad bounds, neighing and bellow- ing/ are pleasant to look at, typifying youth and high spirits ; but the trained steed who finds himself fetlock-deep in sweet grass, has a placid rest and ease in the sense that his burden is away, which are perhaps as satis- factory to him as the more demonstrative joys of colthood used to be. Will had borne his burden manfully, waited his time with patience, and accepted his happiness with a glad solemnity of thanksgiving.

Neither she nor he felt any wish to talk just then. They strolled slowly on to the gate together, and looked out over the park, where the peaceful sunlight lay among the trees, and the distance shimmered a little, as

History. 99

if the air were alive between and breathed gently in the heat. Then they turned and strolled back in happy silence to the house, and parted there ; and Will strayed down to the arbour behind the rhododendron walk, where Mr. Hartley mostly loved to take his ease. The old man was asleep, with a yellow bandana handkerchief over his head ; and his hands were peacefully folded over his waistcoat, which was a little more bulkily projected than it had used to be. Will sat down and lit a cigar, and waited till the old boy should awake. He had pleasant thoughts for his companions, and was in no hurry ; but a sound of yawning made itself heard from under the yellow bandana ; one hand went lazily up and removed the silken screen ; and Benjamin Hartley observing his companion, nodded at him idly and good-humouredly, closed his eyes for a few more seconds, yawned again, reopened his eyes, smoothed his legs with his hands, and said finally in a voice of lazy comfort, 'Well, Mr. William, how goes it ? '

' It goes very well indeed,' said Will, smil- ing ; ' and only needs your hand to push it into smooth water.'

ioo A Lifes Atonement.

'Eh?' said Mr. Hartley, sitting up with a bewildered face.

'Maud and I, Mr. Hartley— ' Will began in explanation.

'Ah!' said Mr. Hartley with an apprecia- tive grin.

' Have made up our minds that we care for each other. But there is a Wicked Uncle in the case, as there has been in the stories of many young people' [Mr. Hartley's smile, appreciative of the situation, grew wider] — ' and it is necessary to soothe him, and obtain his sanction.'

' He's a hard old beast that there uncle, Mr. William,' said Mr. Hartley with a joyful wink. ' But if you was to go at him together, I think you'd manage him.'

1 I think we should,' Will answered. ' But I want to pave the way by which we must approach him.'

' You come along of me,' said the Wicked Uncle ; and Will throwing away his cigar, walked with him to the house, where the old man went in search of Maud ; and having found her brought her on his arm. ' Mr. William,' he said, not without dignity, ' I've known you, good man and true English

History. 101

gentleman, for twenty year. I never knowed a thing about you as could make you un- worthy of my girl ; and as I find her willin', I give her to you with all my heart. And she knows what I think about her — don't you, my dear ? ' With that he kissed her heartily, and then put her hand in Will's ; and posing with high glee with both hands aloft, said, ' Bless you, my children V in a manner so jovially pompous and absurd, that even Maud laughed. Mr. Hartley for his part shouted with a somewhat suspicious hilarity. ' Bless your heart, my dear,' he said to Maud, 'do you know as I've took to novel-reading in my old age, and plays, and them sort o' things ? I know all the proper sentimental dodges now. — Stop to dinner, Mr. William ? — No ? All right — as you like. I'm a-going back to the arbour, I am, to finish the nap as you two young uns broke into with your love-making.' The good old heathen rolled back to his arbour a little sadly, and sat there a long time lonely, until Will had taken leave of Maud and came out to join him.

' You will be lonely when I am gone,' she said, after an affectionate talk.

102 A Lifes Atonement,

* No,' the old man answered stoutly ; ' I sha'n't be nothing of the sort. An' you'll come and live here, half the year at least. That I do expect.' He stroked her hair, as he had used to do when she was a child, and patted her cheek.

1 You are a good, unselfish uncle,' she answered fondly.

He stroked her hair still, and answered, ' If I was one of them book-writing fellers, my dear, I'd write a tale.'

1 Yes,' said she ; ' and what would it be, uncle ? '

1 It 'ud be about two different people ; an' I'd make one of 'em a grinding, selfish black- guard, don't you see ; and I'd make th' other a man as 'd act fair even if he lost by it. An' I should show folks as the man as allays tried to be happy was miserable ; an' I should show 'em as the man as acted fair an' generous was happy in the long-run, even when he lost. Supposing I'd ha' said, " No ; stop with me," you'd ha stopped — wouldn't you ? '

' Yes,' she answered ; ' I should have stayed.'

1 Now, look there ! ' he said. ' What a con- science I should ha' carried ! You'd ha' seen me a-going about like a regular Misery. I

History. 103

know you'd ha' stayed, my dear. I know you would. An' I should ha brought my own grey hairs down with sorrow to the grave. Not as there's many of 'em/ said the good old fellow, polishing his baldness with his handkerchief, 'nor hasn't been this many a 'ear. No, no, no, my dear,' he went on, answering his own thoughts. ' It's old age's happiness to see them as they love happy. I'm a very happy man, my darlin' — a very happy man. Every- thin' 's prospered with me wonderful. I've got a lot to be thankful for, an' happy over. Theer's the Major — he's a credit to me ; ain't he now ? Theer's 'Orace — he's a credit to me. Feller of his college, an' as stately a gentle- man as ever was. Makes me half afraid to look at him ; but he's a good son, Maud, an' never caused me a day's trouble in his life. Then theer's Johnny. He's a good lad, my dear ; ain't he now ? No harm in him. A quiet, upright, honourable lad. Then theer's you, a-going to be happy. Why, bless my soul,' said Mr. Hartley, with a melancholy effort to be genial, ' wheer is there a happier man than me ?' With that he kissed her ; and she felt his tears warm upon her face. But she knew that there was no more bitter-

104 A Life's Atonement.

ness in them than in her own ; and when he had unaffectedly dried his eyes with his yellow handkerchief and kissed her once more, they rose together, and walked towards the house in a tranquil and tender peace, which I feel it no sin to envy.

It had been Will Fairholt's intention to lay his purpose before his father at once ; but the old gentleman was in so irritable and testy a mood that he deemed it wise to postpone his revelation till the morrow. So, on a sunny morning, when Mr. Fairholt was strolling slowly and with difficulty up and down his favourite walk in the shrubbery, Will joined him, and began, ' I think it my duty, sir, to ask your consent in a matter of great importance.'

' What is that ?'

' I hope shortly to be married, and — '

' You ought to have married long ago,' Mr. Fairholt said testily. 'It's a hard thing for a man to feel that he is the last but one of his house, in the male line. Who is it ? Is it that girl of Hartley's ? '

' It is Mr. Hartley's niece,' said Will simply. He was used to his father's manner, and made large allowances for him, thinking how much he had suffered.

History. 105

1 1 thought so,' the old man answered, re- senting an injury as usual. 'You will please yourself, of course. The estate's entailed, and goes to you ; and I have neither part nor lot, nor influence either, for that matter, in the whole affair.'

' I have never crossed you knowingly, father,' Will said gently.

'No,' said Mr. Fairholt captiously; 'you've been a good son to me, Will, a good son. And I've no fault to find with the girl. A girl she's not any longer ; but you're not a boy any longer, and I have no fault to find. Her uncle is vulgar — vulgar to his finger-ends ; but she has a well-bred look and manner. I don't care to approach the fellow again ; but I suppose I shall have to see him now. That sort of man is vulgar in soul, Will, that self-made, money- grubbing sort of man. I have met people of no family — when I was younger, and mixed with the world — whose manners had no trace of polish, and who were yet not intolerable. That fellow Hartley is a bear. The man's heart is wrong, and the vileness of his manner is a natural consequence. His son is a par- venu ; that — that army fellow, quite a bad imitation of a gentleman. I don't know much

io6 A Lifes Atonement.

about the girl ; but people speak well of her. Young Borroleigh, Chesterwood's son, wanted to marry her, I remember, nearly a dozen years ago. Money, I suppose ; though he ought to have enough of it. Chesterwood has been stingy enough these thirty years. I'm told that poor Frank was attached to her. Yes, yes ; you have my consent, if you want it. Let me be alone a little while now. I am tired of talking.' And he fell to wondering, as he paced feebly up and down the shrubbery walk in the morning sunshine, how much the millionaire would give his niece. ' I'll see him about it,' he said — ' I'll see him about it. Will's quite a fool in money matters — quite a fool. Gad, he shall gild the pill, any- way ! ' And he laughed a little at that com- fortable reflection.

It was perhaps not a remarkable thing that at the same moment Benjamin Hartley should have been thinking in the same strain — with a reverse of persons. ' I shall have to gild the pill,' he said to himself, ' an' gild it pretty thick too, into the bargain, to get old Fairholt to swaller it without makin' a wry face. Well, well ; it'll only be a flea-bite out o' the Major's share an' 'Orace's. I suppose I could buy the

History. 107

proud old rascal up, an' scarcely know I'd done it.' So that it seemed fairly probable that Mr. Fairholt's desire to have the pill gilded would not be difficult of fulfilment.

It was decided that the marriage should not be long delayed ; and the negotiations between family pride and Mammon were conducted without hitch or hindrance. But a week or two before the time originally appointed for the wedding, Fate dealt Benjamin Hartley a terrible blow. There came into his hands a cheque bearing the endorsement of his sister's son, John Campbell, and a forged copy of his own signature, so close that he himself was almost deceived by it. ' Pay John Campbell, Esq., or Order, Two Hundred Pounds/ His mingled grief and rage almost drove him mad. He had treated the boy with fatherly tender- ness and generosity ; and the inexplicable base- ness and ingratitude of this return bade fair to break his heart. He went heart-brokenly to his solicitors and conferred with the leading partner, to whom he told the story.

1 What do you propose to do ? ' asked the lawyer. * Shall you prosecute ? '

Mr. Hartley glared at him with indignation ; almost with contempt. ' No ! ' he said ; ' I

108 A Lifes Atonement.

sha'n't prosecute ; and I sha'n't plunge the miserable young scoundrel into crime. I want you to send for him, and to tell him what I know ; for though I tried last night, I couldn't bring myself to frame the words and say 'em to him. Tell him that you've got my instruc- tions to invest five thousand pounds for him. That'll go to buy a practice when he's got a diploma, and meantime it can bear interest at five per cent., and he can live on the in- terest. It ain't what I meant to do by him ; but it's more than he deserves.'

1 Much more,' said the lawyer. ' If I might advise — '

1 You needn't/ said Mr. Hartley, with a sort of weary anger. ' If he's got any debts, pay 'em. Tell him if he writes to me I shall send his letters back unopened. Tell him I've done with him, beyond this, for good and all. Here,' he added suddenly, drawing the forged cheque from his pocket-book; 'show him that/ He threw it on the table, whence it fell to the floor. The lawyer stooped and picked it up ; and the millionaire said drearily, ' Don't say nothing about me, except as these is my instructions. But I wouldn't ha had it done by him, Bilton, not if I'd lost every penny I'm worth. Good-

History. 109

bye, Bilton. You've got my will. Make the ne'ssary alterations in it ; and send somebody down with it for me to sign. And be quick about it ; for I don't think, Bilton, as I shall last much longer.'

1 For many a year, I hope,' said the lawyer ; but Benjamin Hartley, shaking his head sadly went away with his hopes all dashed. He carried a heavy heart into the country ; and was for a long time so ailing that Maud's marriage was deferred ; and where everything had lately been so happy, all was turned to

gloom.

CHAPTER VI.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

4 Are you willing to submit to that arbitrament?

T T may be allowed to go without saying that the day after Uncle Ben's last visit to me was very miserable, and that I was in a state of the cruellest perplexity. I could neither eat nor sleep, and I locked myself in my chambers, and spent the time alone. The only thing I could definitely resolve upon was to write to Maud, beseeching her, for pity's sake, to discover the ground of my uncle's mysterious accusations, and to allow me a chance of clearing myself. I wrote a lengthy letter, and posted it in the darkness of the night ; and feeling a little relieved, went back to my chambers, where I tried in vain to sleep. In the morning, when my laundress was laying the cloth for breakfast, and I was hiding in

Autobiography. 1 1 1

the bedroom, to conceal from her the bruise upon my face which resulted from the blow I had received, I heard a step upon the stairs, and a minute later a pert voice asked for me. I had not given the laundress instructions to deny me, anticipating no visitor at that early hour, and she announced that I was in.

* A gentleman to see you, sir,' she said a moment later, tapping at my door.

( Who is it ? ' I asked.

1 From Bilton, Bilton, and Hart, sir/ said the pert voice, and a young man, with a crimson tie, and a general burlesque of fashion in air and dress, came into my bedroom with his hat in his hand. ' I am the bearer of a letter, sir,' he said with an airy flourish, ' from our principal. I trust it is not of overwhelming importance, but I was instructed to deliver it last night.'

I took the letter and read it. It said briefly that the writer, my uncles solicitor, was in- structed by him to seek an interview with me, and that it was desirable that it should take place as soon as possible. Trusting that some explanation would be given of the scene which had so painfully bewildered me, I asked the young man in the crimson tie at what hour

ii2 A Lifes Atonement.

it would probably be convenient for Mr. Bilton to see me. He replied that the principal was always at the office 4 from ten in the morning up to any hour at night, as it might happen,' and being told to say that I would follow him at once, he gradually abstracted himself from the contemplation of his figure in the looking- glass which fronted the central door of a large wardrobe, and went his way. After a visit to a chemist in the Strand, who had especial skill in the disguising of facial damages, I took a cab to Holborn, and, forgetting to discharge the man, went into the office of my uncle's lawyers, and was shown at once into the room of the senior partner, whom I had seen once before in my uncle's company. I offered to shake hands with him, but he nodded towards a seat, and asked me to take it. I sat down, and prepared as calmly as I could to listen.

' Mr. Hartley was here yesterday,' he began. 1 He tells me that you deny all knowledge of the case against you, and since he feels the disgrace of it too deeply to enter into any conversation with you concerning it, he has deputed me to — in short to lay the proof of your guilt before you.'

I have often heard and read that an innocent

Autobiography, 1 1 3

man charged with crime is supported by the consciousness of his own rectitude. I believe that to be rather more foolish than most generalisations ; and I know that when the lawyer spoke in so calm and assured a fashion, I was almost beaten into the belief that I had committed some awful crime, though I had quite forgotten what it was.

1 Do you know that signature ? ' he asked, holding a piece of paper across the table.

' Yes,' I answered, as calmly as I could. 1 It is mine.'

1 Is that yours also ? ' he questioned, turn- ing the paper round and showing the heavy autograph of Benjamin Hartley. I looked inquiry at the lawyer ; and he, returning my gaze fixedly, tapped the paper three or four times with his finger. * Is that your handwriting, young gentleman ? ' he asked again.

' No,' I answered, confused and irritated by a question so seriously put and so palpably absurd. ' That is my uncle's writing.'

'Ah!' he said, 'will you tell me when Mr. Hartley gave you this cheque for two hun- dred pounds ? '

I began to see the form the accusation was VOL. 111. h

H4 A Life s Atonement,

about to take. At least I think it was then that I began to see it ; but I was quite con- founded and amazed. ' Tell me the date,' I asked at last ; remembering that I had in my pocket a memorandum of all my receipts from Uncle Ben within the last three or four years. He gave me the date, and I looked along my list. There was no such date there, and there was no sum of two hundred pounds set down. There were two of two hundred and fifty, and several of a hundred. I passed the pocket-book, with my finger on the open page, across to the lawyer.

' Ah ! ' he said again shortly ; ( you didn't enter this.'

' I never received it,' I made answer.

1 I am sure you didn't,' he responded. ' The fact, is, sir, that you forged this cheque.'

For just a second, my one impulse was to knock Mr. Bilton down. That passed, and I was conscious of nothing except a giddy rage against the supposition that such a be- lief, however substantiated, could be held con- cerning me, and a sort of rebellious loathing of it. I knew that the lawyer was talking, but I had no conception as to what he said ;

Autobiography. 1 1 5

and it was after a silence that I asked with a throbbing heart to be allowed to look at the cheque once more. ' You had better be sure,' he said, with a sort of scornful bitter- ness, ' that it is the one you forged.'

That stung me, and I answered hotly, ' You are insolent, Mr. Bilton. When next you have a business of this kind in hand, be sure before you speak so.' He shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows, and made a little motion with his hands. His gesture and expression gave me leave, more scornfully than words would have done, to take what tone I pleased. I dared scarcely trust my eyes upon him in the anger to which this stirred me, and I took up the cheque and feigned to examine it anew.

1 Mr. Hartley,' he said then, in a quiet, measured way, ' instructs me to tell you that he will hold no further communication with you ; but that since he does not desire to drive you into further crime, he will make an allowance of two hundred and fifty pounds a-year to you whilst your studies continue, and that this will be — '

' Do you think,' I cried passionately, ' that if my uncle believes this of me,' and I struck

ti6 A Lifes Atonement.

the cheque as it lay upon the table, ' that I will take another penny from him ? '

1 This/ he went on quietly in the same formal tone, reaching out for the cheque as he spoke and smoothing it out on the desk before him, ' will be the interest of a lump sum which will be devoted at the close of your career as a student to the purchase of a professional practice. If you have any debts, you will instruct your tradesmen to send in their bills to me. I shall examine them closely, and shall pay them. Beyond this, you have nothing to expect from Mr. Hartley ; and had he taken my advice, he would have left you to your own resources, even if he had not pro- ceeded against you.'

1 I am obliged to you,' I answered, as suddenly hard and cold as if boiling lava had been changed to ice. If that simile should seem extravagant, let it pass. It seems true enough, in my recollection. ' Will you kindly write to Mr. Hartley, and tell him that so long as he retains this shameful suspicion of me, I shall not trouble him ? Will you say that I decline to receive a farthing from his hands ? Say, if you please, that it shall be the one aim of my life to repay him the money he

Autobiogiraphy . 117

has expended upon me. Tell him that this charge, so made, without inquiry, without appeal to me, without effort to trace the criminal who has made use of his name and mine, wipes out all gratitude, affection, and regard, and that we are no more to each other now than creditor and debtor. We shall hold those relations not an hour longer than I can help/

1 You brave it out,' he said, as I turned to go.

' Do you consider/ I asked him, ' that you are giving me fair-play ? Are you acting honourably in this matter, or like a gentleman ? I claim to be held innocent until my guilt is proved. I tell you, sir, that my name has been forged as well as my uncle's. I will protect myself in this matter, and I can see no other course than to put the whole affair into the hands of the police. If, in the meantime, I am suspected, I cannot help it.'

I could see even as I turned to go that a change came over his face, and that he looked less scornful and less confident. ' Stop ! ' he said. ' Are you willing to submit to that arbitrament ? '

I answered ' Yes ; ' and in obedience to his gesture, resumed my seat.

1 1 8 A Lifes Atonement,

He wrote a note, rang the bell, and des- patched a clerk with the missive, giving him instructions to wait for an answer, and to re- turn if possible with the man.

' You have sent for a police officer ? ' I asked him.

' I have sent,' he answered, ' for a private detective.'

I waited for more than an hour. A clock upon the mantel-piece had that irritating im- portunity in its voice which belongs to all timepieces when one is silent and waiting. Mr. Bilton sorted papers, wrote letters, made notes on the edges of documents. I watched him stonily, and listened to the ticking of the clock. Sometimes everything was so quiet that I could hear the scratching of a clerk's quill in the next room, or the rustle of a foolscap sheet as it was turned. At length the private dectective came — a little man dressed in black, and looking something like an under- taker. He bowed to us both, and took his seat with his hat suspended by the rim between his knees.

1 This young gentleman,' said Mr. Bilton, pointing the feather of a quill towards me, ' is the nephew of Mr. Hartley the millionaire.' —

Autobiography. 119

The detective nodded. — ' His uncle, Mr. Hartley, has received this cheque from his bankers, and proclaims the signature a forgery. It is made payable, you see, to John Campbell, Esq. This' — indicating me again- — 'is John Campbell, Esq. The cheque, observe, is indorsed " John Campbell," and it has been cashed at the bank. Mr. Hartley believes that Mr. Campbell has forged his signature. Mr. Campbell protests that some other person has forged both Mr. Hartley's signature and his. Now, you will undertake to keep this gentleman in sight ; but if he can give you any clue, you must bring it to me, and we will act upon it. You will make what you can of the case, for Mr. Campbell or against him. In either result, you will look to me for payment. You had better take the cheque ; and you can report to me as soon as you have formed your opinion.'

' I am, then,' I said, rising, ■ to consider myself under surveillance ? '

* Until,' he answered, 'your innocence is established, or you are arrested upon this charge.'

' You will act upon your own authority, if I am arrested ? ' I asked.

120 A Life s Atonement,

' I shall be able to justify my proceedings in the proper quarter, I have no doubt.' He said no more ; and I left him there. The detective came with me down-stairs and walked beside me in the street. The cabman I had left waiting outside hailed me, and I asked the detective to accompany me home. The jour- ney was made in absolute silence ; and when my rooms were reached, and the laundress, who was still pottering helplessly about them, had been dismissed, I sat down to an examina- tion of the case, with all the detective's experience to help me.

1 Do you know anything about handwritings ?' I asked him. Well, he made answer, that depended. Did he think he could detect a forgery — a clever forgery — if he had the real handwriting and the false before him ? Yes, he said : he'd bet all he was worth, he could. I laid before him several examples of my own signature, and asked . him to compare them with the endorsment of the cheque. He did so, and ended by pronouncing them to be identical. I looked at them for myself, and could perceive no difference. I had letters of my uncle's, and produced them. We laid the signatures of those letters side by side with the

A utobiography, 121

forgery of my uncle's name ; and though the imitation was painstaking and wonderfully accurate, we both thought we could detect a difference between the real and the false.

1 I'm not a professional expert,' said the detective, who was unpleasantly familiar and free in manner : ' but I've studied this business, and I'll lay my life I'm right. That's a for- gery,' pointing to the signature ; ' and that ' — turning the cheque over to look again at the endorsement — ' is the real handwriting.'

This was depressing ; and I seemed so hedged round by the perplexity and misery of the whole business, that I knew not what to do or say. I begged him at last to take a pro- fessional expert's opinion ; and he promised that he would do so ; though I could see only too clearly that he was persuaded of my guilt, and believed that I was playing a stubborn game in pretence of ignorance.

' Perhaps,' he said, ' you won't mind obliging me by coming to see a man I know, at once ? '

I told him I should be glad to go with him to do anything. But I discovered later on that his only purpose was not to lose sight of me ; for after having taken me to a house, which I afterwards discovered to be his own, and

122 A Lifes Atonement.

having kept me waiting there in an office hung round with photographs of people, he feigned to make further inquiries, and to discover that there was no chance of seeing the expert that day. He had knocked at his own door when we arrived at it, and had inquired for this fictitious expert so innocently and naturally, and the man who answered the door had fallen into his plot so smoothly, that I had no sus- picion until afterwards of the trick he had played me ; though I was not long in discover- ing the fact that a very seedy man, who nour- ished a perennial sore throat in four or five yards of dirty red comforter, had been set to watch me.

I was sitting miserably in my chambers two or three days later, when Gregory came in, and was surprised to see me looking so ill and dejected. I had much ado not to burst out in tears whilst I told the story ; but I succeeded in telling it ; and he, assuring me of his un- changed and unchangeable faith in me, cheered me a good deal. After some declamation against the wretchedness of this suspicion, which his sympathy encouraged me to make, I flagged again, until ^Esop startled me by slapping the table with his hand. I looked up,

A utobiography. 123

and he said cheerfully, ' Young un, attend to me.' — I signified attention ; and he continued, business-like, ' You tell me you can't find any difference between this forged signature and your own ? '

1 None,' I said.

' And your uncle and his lawyer, who are both observant men, can't find any ? ' — I shook my head. — ' And the detective can't find any ? ' — I shook my head again. — ' Suppose then that there isn't any ? Suppose you have been trapped into writing your name upon that cheque ? Is there a chance of that ? '

No ; I saw none. But at his command, I went with him in search of the detective, whom we found at home in the room hung with photo- graphs, where he was smoking a cigarette with his feet upon the table. He touched with his forefinger the peaked cap he wore, and his whole demeanour was marked by an appearance of a sense that he was master of the situation. This became so apparent when Gregory had asked and the detective had an- swered some half-dozen questions, that ^Esop came down upon him with grave satire.

' You are requested definitely to understand, Mr. Latazzi,' said ^Esop, 'that you are wanted

124 A Life s Atonement.

to inquire into this case. Your preconceived opinion as to its merits is not the thing paid for, or desired. We wish you to bend your intellect to the facts. When you have done that, you can form as many theories as you like.' '

\ Very good,' said the detective, who was a man of imperturbable phlegm. ' Come to the facts.'

' The first fact is that you have the cheque in your possession. Oblige me by allowing me to look at it,'

' Mr. Latazzi took his feet from the table, and strolled to a safe, which he unlocked and flung open with a flourish. He produced the cheque, and resumed his old position and his cigarette, after relocking the safe. Gregory having regarded the document closely, asked the detective how many handwritings there were upon it. Mr. Latazzi answered — two. How did he divide them ? ^Esop demanded.

'The "John Campbell, Esq.," the "two hundred pounds," the date and the figures, are written by one hand ; and the signature and the indorsement by another.'

' You are sure that the signature and the in- dorsement are by one hand ? '

A utobiography. 125

' Mr Campbell wrote them both/ the de- tective answered quietly. I could not say that the manner of this speech was insolent, but it was not unnatural that I was angered by it.

Gregory waved me back when I would have advanced. ' Does your uncle commonly write his cheques on plain paper, Jack ? '

' I never saw a cheque of his so written,' I responded.

1 Your uncle is a business man, isn't he ? For instance, he looks over his bank-book pretty regularly, and checks his cash account, and all that sort of thing, and looks over the paid cheques returned to him by his bankers.'

'He is the most methodical man I ever knew.'

1 He was dead certain to find this forgery out, I suppose ? '

1 I cannot think,' I answered, ' that there could have been a possibility of its escaping him.'

■ How much has he spent on you during the last year ? '

I gave twelve hundred pounds as an approxi- mate estimate.

' You believe, Mr. Latazzi,' said yEsop, ' that

126 A Lifes Atonement.

my friend would choose a common scrap of paper like this on which to forge a cheque, when he knew that Mr. Hartley never used a plain cheque ? You believe further that one who could forge as cleverly as this ' — laying his finger on the imitation of my uncle's massive signature — ' would be so lazy and so blind as not to take the trouble to forge an- other name at the back of it, but would stick his own there, and run his neck into a noose by doing it ? Are those your theories ? '

' If you come to me to ask my help and advice,' said the detective, ' it might be as well, sir, to come to me civilly. If you know more than I do about the matter, you can manage it yourself.'

' Then we will manage it ourselves,' said Gregory ; and we left the office, Mr. Latazzi with great calm puffing at his cigarette behind us to the door. ' Who are the experts in handwriting, Jack ? British or foreign, metro- politan or provincial; let us have the beggars up to judgment. That pig-headed villain is no detective. No man who theorises has a right to call himself a detective. Come along Jack, to the great house of English police intelligence opposite Whitehall. Let us con-

Autobiography. 127

suit the great Defective Force, miscalled de- tective. We'll ask one question : Who are the experts ? and then we'll ask another : Where do they live ? And then, sir, we will have done with the Defective Force for the time being. — Detective ! ' said yEsop, savagely. 1 That fellow call himself a detective ! The man's ugly vanity has stared him in the face all his life, huge as a pyramid, and he hasn't detected that! Talking thus, half in real heat of anger, and half, as I surmised, for my awaking, he strode on towards the nearest cab-stand. We spent the greater part of that day in driving about London in search of the three men who at that time were known to fame and the police authorities as experts in handwriting. With a great deal of difficulty we got them to undertake to meet together at Mr. Bilton's office on the following day ; and late in the evening we oui selves drove thither just in time to find the senior partner leaving. I had scarce told ^Esop who the lawyer was, when my friend went impetuously at him, and explained with great ardour but close-cut brevity the course he had taken, and begged to be allowed to summon Mr. Latazzi to pro- duce the cheque. Mr. Bilton, who had taken

128 A Life s Atonement.

us into the clerk's office to hear Gregory's statement, promised to send for the detective ; let us out again, and bade us a grave goodnight.

Gregory dined with me, and my spirits rose almost to fever-heat ; but at his departure the flame of hope flickered, and almost went out. It rose again next morning when he came ; and I went down to Holborn with him in a pitiable flutter of nervous excite- ment, bearing with me a bundle of manu- scripts of my own, and several letters of my uncle's. The experts met ; and ^Esop and I awaited their decision in the par- lour of an hotel near at hand. After the expiration of a dreary time — the three hours seemed like three weeks to me — the clerk who had borne Mr. Bilton's letter came to summon us ; and I remember dis- tinctly how I thought that he must hear the pulses beating riotously in my head as he walked behind us.

1 Your friend has done something for you, Mr. Campbell,' said the lawyer. ' Two of the experts are of opinion that the forgery of Mr. Hartley's signature is not yours.'

'Will you write to that effect to Mr. Hart- ley ? ' I asked in great agitation.

Autobiography. 129

1 One of the experts gives his word against you,' said Mr. Bilton, who was simply busi- ness-like, and had no more emotion in the matter than if it had been the most trivial in the world. ' But we have set Latazzi upon a new track. If you are innocent, you will be cleared.'

' But,' I urged, ' it is cruel alike to my uncle and^ myself to withhold the result of this examination from him. The balance of evi- dence is on my side, and I have a right to ask that he should know it.'

'Your uncle, Mr. Campbell,' returned the lawyer, 'would not resign his opinion for all the experts in the world. We must have more than this to move him. And he is a most valued friend of mine, sir, and I will not agitate him by a hope which even yet might prove fallacious. I do not say it will, I say it might. Do you know how much we know about this matter ? We know that the paper upon which the cheque was written came from your chambers ; and we have even been so fortunate as to secure, through Mr. Gregory, its fellow half-sheet from your waste- paper basket. We know through the same source that the indorsement is written in the

VOL. III. 1

130 • A Life s Atonement.

ink you habitually use, as it is certainly your signature, and that the writing on the other side is in a different fluid. We shall make inquiries at the bank ; and we shall discover who presented the cheque, and where he went. In short, sir, we know much already which tends to clear you ; and I believe we shall shortly know something which will crimi- nate somebody else. But you cannot yet be regarded as free from suspicion, and I should recommend patience.'

I went back to my chambers in very low spirits, and there endeavoured to exercise patience to such effect that in three days I lay in a raging fever.

CHAPTER VII.

HISTORY.

Lived like an anchorite, and worked like an apostle.

/^HANGES fell upon Bolter's Rents, and it ^"^ was known to the people of that dismal region that the proprietary of the court had changed hands. There are grades of respect- ability. There were people even in Bolter's Rents who formed a sort of local gentry by contrast with their surroundings. To these, and to all with a remnant of decency, the alterations insituted by the new proprietor were matter for almost unmixed congratulation. But there lurked in that foul den, known to the police, scores of old criminals and young ones, burglars, pickpockets, shop-lifters, utterers of base coin — a terrible tribe. These marau- ders were all of too low a class in their own profession to be able to hold their own in it,

132 A Life's Atonement.

and some of their time was spent in the per- formance of casual honest work. Amongst the more prosperous scoundrels who lived in better lodgings, they were known contemptu- ously as ' ale-and-porterers,' a term used by the British thief to signify people who are occasionally forced by pressure of poverty into honesty's ways. The true professional crimi- nal despises that sort of person, just as an honest mechanic does, and for the same reason — namely, that the person lives in a constant base desertion of principle. The only differ- ence is — though it may be confessed to be considerable — that the mechanic's principle is industry, and the scoundrel's laziness. Now and again, an aristocrat amongst the 'smashers' or the ' cracksmen ' hid himself in Bolter's Rents, and was unearthed by the vigilance of the police ; but the predatory creatures who regularly dwelt there were amongst the mean- est even of their own mean kind. To them the proceedings of the new proprietor did not seem an unmixed good. A sort of informal official, whom the police were always ready to support, dwelt in the place after its first puri- fication by whitewash ; and all who lived dis- orderly, were by him despatched to seek a

History. 133

residence elsewhere. The leaning walls were straightened by huge hulks of timber — the broken floors and windows and roofs were all repaired, and every room was scoured at settled times. For this, some dozen charwomen who lived in the court and had hitherto starved were engaged, and by it they made a plentiful living. Some of the indwellers fiercely resented the advent of soap and water and whitewash ; and one hunchbacked hermit of a crossing- sweeper, who had been born forty years before in the room he lived in, and had never seen it scoured in all his life, repelled the intruding charwoman with his besom, and threatened to be the death of anybody who laid a scrubbing- brush upon the time-consecrated filth of his apartment. Him the informal official grimly 'chucked out' until such time as the ancient solitary reign of dirty chaos should be mo- lested. The hunchback bore it better after- wards, though he took an Englishman's pri- vilege, and grumbled, declaring that since these new ways came in, Bolter's Rents was no place for a decent man to live in. The new proprietor, who was a gentleman with one arm, interviewed this original, and was so charmed with him, that he gave him half-a-

134 A Life s Atonement,

crown, though he refused to adopt his principles with regard to sanitation.

The new proprietor indeed was in and out of the place all day at first ; and was so ex- cessively liberal with his money, that Bolter's Rents rose at him almost to an infant, and begged of him and lied to him with such persistent fluency that he avoided the place afterwards, until the official he had appointed had grubbed out the most poisonous of the human weeds, and little but honest poverty dwelt within the walls of those tumble-down old buildings. Hastings was very tender at first about throwing the thieves adrift. ' Poor beggars ! ' he said, talking the matter over with the doctor. ' What can they do but prey upon society ? If I take your advice, a score of them will be homeless to-morrow. I do not care to be followed by the curses even of such a little drab of a shop-lifter as that we saw this morning. Why not let them stay ? '

' As I am an honest man,' proclaimed the doctor, ' you sicken me. Whoso gives know- ing shelter to a criminal, gives countenance to crime, and stands responsible for it in the sight of God and man. If there were no thieves' shelters, there would be no thieves.'

History. 135

' A good round sentence, doctor/ said Hast- ings, laughing ; ' but a shaky aphorism.'

' When a man speaks earnestly,' said the doctor, ' he speaks broadly. And the Flip- pancies— of whom there are too many — take truths broadly stated, put a strained meaning on them, and lightly set them down as lies.'

1 I am none of your Flippancies,' responded Hastings. ' I am a Social Reformer, and the proprietor of Bolter's Rents — wherefore let the wise and gentle pity me. Doctor, I pity a scoundrel more than an honest man who is in trouble.'

1 Do you ? ' said the doctor.

' I do. Because he is a scoundrel. Think, doctor, what a terrible thing it is to be a scoundrel by nature. How would you like to be a shop-lifter ? I tell you, sir, the doom of these base thieves is tragic'

1 You are right,' said the doctor. ' Let us go out and form a Thieves' Phalanstery, where pickpockets shall eat turtle and drink Bur- gundy, and all shall go attired in purple and fine linen, and every man shall have full right to rob his neighbour.'

1 When a man speaks earnestly, doctor,' Hastings answered, with a quiet twinkle in his

136 A Lifes Atonement.

eyes, ' he speaks broadly. And the Flip- pancies— of whom there are too many — take truths broadly stated, and — '

1 Go to Bath ! ' cried the doctor, laughing.

1 No/ said Hastings, — ' to extremes.' — The doctor laughed again ; and Hastings added, ' You are right ; but I have some right on my side too. It is a pitiful business ; and I am very sorry for the poor wretches, and could almost find it in my heart to bribe them into honesty, rather than try to whip them there.'

1 Bribes make no man true ! ' said the doctor.

' Nor stripes either,' added Hastings.

1 They teach at least that first stern and necessary lesson, Hastings, that the way of transgressors is hard.'

• Ay ! ' said Hastings, with more feeling than he commonly displayed ; ' their way is hard. Poor transgressors ! '

These talks did good to each of them, and advanced the scheme they both had at heart ; and though the doctor often laughed at the owner of Bolter's Rents, and often with him, the wildest theories the young gentleman broached had always a kernel of good sense and feeling. And the doctor in his turn,

History. 137

whilst Hastings softened his sterner creed somewhat, bullied the younger man out of most of his extravagances ; until between them, with the doctor's wife to lend a helping hand, Bolter's Rents was transformed to an abode of honest and cleanly poverty.

And Hastings had no more effective co- adjutor in all this than his old friend Frank Fairholt, whom he thought he had buried years ago in the Crimea. If one good deed, as Portia sweetly said, shines in this naughty world, as wide as the light which burned at home to welcome her, Frank's blameless life shone like a beacon in the Cimmerian dark- ness of Bolter's Rents. Had one blackguard dared to insult the quiet, shrinking, broken, ever-helpful man, another blackguard would have been there to knock his fellow-scoundrel down. Though amongst them, not of them, he helped the poverty-stricken, nursed the sick, did a thousand menial gentle offices, was tireless for good, lived like an anchorite, and worked like an apostle. Deep in the ruffian hearts of this abominable crew, his tender and persistent gentleness was cherished in the one honest spot which generations of vice had bequeathed to them. His pitiful

138 A Life s Atonement.

charity fell, like heaven's light and rain, upon the just and the unjust. He lost two days' work at one time in nursing a desperado through an attack of delirium tremens ; and it is a fact that the man, who was the terror of the court, got somehow to love his bene- factor— as a bulldog loves his master, with a regard which shows itself chiefly by tearing the master's enemies.

It chanced one night that the statuesque policeman whom we saw with Hastings a little while ago, stood posturing with lumpish grace at the entrance to Bolter's Rents, gazing with a placid grandeur of demeanour down Oxford Street. A woman stood a little way within the entrance with her hands beneath a tattered apron. Frank came up in the twilight, and the policeman and the woman each had to make way for him. The officer recognised him, and in his curiosity at find- ing him so far afield from his labours, his dignity relaxed, and he said, ' Hillo, my good woming ! ' in a lordly condescending tone, and beckoned the woman with a Berlin-gloved forefinger. ' Do you know the party which just went down ? ' the Peeler queried when the woman came to him.

History. 139

c Yes, sir,' said the woman. ' Leastways, he lives here, as I believe ; but I don't know no harm agen him.'

1 Has he lived here long ? ' the Peeler asked.

' I've on'y been here three 'ears myself, sir, the woman answered humbly ; ' but he was here when I come.'

' Egstrornary ! ' said the officer in reverie. * He works more than three mile off at the Docks. They calls him " The Duke" and " Your Grace/' down there.'

' I'm told he's quite the gentleman, sir,' the woman responded, tremulously grateful for the official's urbanity.

' They say,' said the policeman, who found his beat dull, and was glad to unbend — as a prince, suffering from ennui, might care for once in a way to converse with a ploughman — ' they say as he was wuth 'alf-a-millying o' money at one time, an' lost it on the Derby. What's the name he goes by ? '

' Jones, I believe, sir, said the woman re- spectfully.

' Ah ! ' said the official, scraping his chin with his thumb and finger — an act in which the stipendiary magistrate of his own court

140 A Lifes Atonement.

looked unusually magisterial — ' same party, I make no doubt. Good-night/ The officer swung with majestic even tread along the pavement ; and the woman looked after him admiringly, recalling the time when her Joe was just such a fine figure of a man.

And in this wise the fact and the fable about Frank had followed him to Bolter's Rents. All minds, cultivated or vulgar, have a liking for romance ; and Frank became after this an em- bodiment of mystery to many of the people who surrounded him ; and some of the women were persuaded that the title by which he was known had once of right belonged to him. Altogether, he was the one remarkable figure in the place ; and Hastings heard much of him, and was interested in him. Frank in his turn heard of the new proprietor with a terror and a longing which struggled against each other. Had he lived beyond the ex- tremest span of human years, it is not probable that his horror of his own crime would have perceptibly fallen from that level flood of shame and loathing which had washed his heart ever since his return to London. The storm whose violence had driven those terrible waters over him had died away, and they

History. 141

were calm now ; but he was drowned in a living death below them. Yet since he had been so long undiscovered, and had grown so changed, his fears had learnt to sleep ; until on the night when he was nursing his old enemy, the friend who had thrown him into his enemy's hands appeared beside him. Then they started up, wide - eyed and quivering. They grew so morbid, that he was afraid even to run away, lest the act should awake suspicion. The danger as it seemed to grow nearer, fascinated him, as some snakes fasci- nate birds, until it seemed almost to drag him into Hastings' way. He had wearied Mrs. Brand's determined efforts to approach him ; for he had never, since the only occasion on which I have shown them together, so much as answered her a word, though she had approached him often. A score of people whom he had known knew Dr. Brand, and his unreasoning fears kept him at this dis- tance from her, sorely against his will. His obstinate silence puzzled her the more, that she heard continually of his goodness.

' He would only answer me in German,' Hastings said, when, with the doctor's wife, he stumbled upon this subject of common interest.

142 A Life's Atonement.

' In German?' asked Mrs. Brand. 'He speaks English beautifully. I don't mean that he speaks English beautifully as a foreigner might, but that he speaks it like an English gentleman. The people call him " The Duke," and are full of stories of his generosity and tenderness. Some of the women have cried to me in talking about him and his kindness.'

' I confess to a share of curiosity in this mystery,' said the doctor from his arm-chair, for it was evening, and his day's work was over. ' I don't place much reliance on that sort of legend ; but the people in the Rents are all ready to swear that he had a great fortune and lost it by gambling. If the man is a gentleman, I can understand his reticence. If I were brought down to such a position, I should not be inclined to accept the patronage of any lady or gentleman, however kindly disposed it might be.'

'Nor I either,' said Hastings. ' But if we could get him into co-operation with us, he might help us, and might do himself a great deal of service too. You must allow me to try him, Mrs. Brand.'

' Pray do,' cried the little lady. ' But be

History. 143

careful not to go too far. He has spoken to me once only, and then he told me, in a weary sort of way, which I can't at all de- scribe or imitate, that he had but one thing- left in the world, and that was his solitude, and that if I persisted in speaking to him, he should be driven to leave the place.'

' He hasn't left ? ' said the doctor briefly.

* No/ said Mrs. Brand ; ' but he has never spoken to me since.'

1 I must try him,' said Hastings ; and learn- ing, by inquiry at the Rents, when the object of his search was generally to be found at home, he sought him on the following Sun- day afternoon. The faithful Ali followed his master up the winding stair ; but at a signal from his hand, remained without the room. Hastings rapped ; and the voice which cried 1 Come in,' made his foot pause at the threshold. The voice awoke no memory, though it might well have awakened many ; but it brought a strange mood to Hastings — a mood which most people have known at one time or another. The time, the darkened stair, the light within the room, the tawny face beside him in the shadow, his errand there, the voice — all seemed familiar to him. He

144 A Lifes Atonement.

seemed to know what would meet him within, and what would be said and done, as though this were a re-acting of the doings of a former life, and he remembered just this fragment of it. He entered with this mood upon him.

There sat before him on a rough bench near the window a man who looked past middle age, and yet prematurely old ; by which I mean that you would have said he looked seventy, but could not be more than five-and- fifty. His long hair, which curled inwards at the ends, was silver white ; but the beard which flowed from throat and cheek and chin had still a few jet black hairs in it, and the heavy moustache which drooped above his lips was scarcely grey. The arched black eye- brows marked the face in a singular way, and the pathetic eyes held a most memorable sor- row. All this Hastings had time to notice as he stepped from the shadow into the light. He could not fail to see the look of terror which took the place of sadness in the man's eyes as he advanced, nor could he fail to be surprised at the sudden drooping of the head and the silence, undisturbed except by his laboured breathing, with which the man en- countered him.

History. 145

1 Forgive me,' said Hastings, advancing a little further, ' for intruding on you. I am afraid I startled you.' He paused for an answer, but none came. 'Won't you ask me to sit down ? ' he said a minute later. The lodger, with his chin still crushing his beard against his breast, spoke not a word, but waved his hand towards an unoccupied bench at the far end of the room. Hastings drew the rough seat towards the light, and for a time said nothing, not well knowing what to say. He felt that the silence which confronted him was not sullen, and he was disposed to be patient with the unreasonable fear which made the man shrink away. ' I must ask you not to think that I am intruding/ he said at length, a little disconcerted by the other's passivity. ' The fact is, I bought this place some time ago, and ever since I have been trying to make it decent. You have been working at that task longer than I have, and I want for one thing to thank you for it. You have done good work here — manly work. You've been very kind to these poor beggars, and I am personally obliged to you.'

The lodger's irresponsive silence built a wall about him. He did not move, and only

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146 A Life's Atonement.

his breathing, which was agitated and uneven showed that he was alive. Hastings sat dis- comfited, regarding him keenly all the time, and almost gave up his attack already. But as he looked at the shrinking figure and the bent head, a pang of sympathy and pity shot through his heart, and he discerned a tragedy. The vague tales which were afloat about the man indicated a surprising folly ; but Hastings was one who had a great deal of sympathy with a certain sort of fool. So far as the stories told of his strange tenant might be true, the follies therein set down were so like the mad- ness of his own youth, that he could not be pitiless with them ; and the man's charity to the poor in his own poverty, and his unosten- tatious and continual patient tending of the sick, seemed to bespeak a very fine and lov- able nature. Under the pressure of this new feeling, Hastings spoke again.

' You have done much for the cause I have at heart. Let me do something for you.' — A motion of the listener's hand waved him back from that theme in such a fashion as to bring a blush to his face. — ' No,' he said, hurried into saying more than he had meant to say in the eagerness of his explanation ; ' I am not in-

History. 147

suiting you by offering charity. I want a quid pro quo. I want to offer you an engage- ment, which will suit you better than your work at the docks, and be more congenial to you. I want you to act as my almoner amongst the poor here, if you will. I want you to distribute relief among them, and to live with them, as you are doing now. I must find somebody to do the work, and I shall get nobody who knows the people and their wants as you do. They know better than tell lies to you, for you know all about them.'

Frank sat before him motionless and speech- less. ' Does he know ? ' he thought ; ' and will he not appear to know? Is this his way of trying to lift me from wretchedness ? He knew Tasker. He himself is changed, and I knew him. Does he know me ? Has he discovered all ?' Had he dared, how he could have cast himself before his friend ! But there is no space in material nature, though fancy reach from limit to limit of the starry hosts, which can do more than image the gulf which seemed to him to stretch between them.

1 Every man,' said Hastings, resolving not to be beaten by this silence, 'has his rights, and one of yours is to order me out of your

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place if you want me gone. So long as you rent this room, it belongs of course to you, and not to me. You want quiet ; you hate to be intruded upon. Well, you shall have your way. I'll tell you what you shall do, if you like. You shall have a messenger to go be- tween you and Mrs. Brand, and none of us will trouble you. I'll get some furniture sent in here, and make you a little more comfort- able ; and you shall just go about among the people and see to them, and do what you can for them. If any of them cannot possibly pay their rent, your statement shall be a sufficient acquittance of their liability ; and if any de- serving person is in want of food or medicine, or fire or clothes, you shall get what is wanted at my charges ; but you must be down like a hammer on idleness and pretence. You shall set all your expenses down ; and Mrs. Brand will see that the money has been properly expended. That will be only fair to you, of course, and will be quite proper and business- like into the bargain. Now, what do you say ? '

He said nothing. He listened to the tones of his old friend ; and though the flippancy which had marked them once had vanished

History. 149

altogether, he knew that he could have sworn to the voice with absolute certainty, and he would not trust his own even with a word, lest it should betray him. He was not sure of the truth, but he was almost sure, and Hope came hand in hand with belief to persuade him that he was not recognised.

' If you do not care to give me an answer now,' Hastings went on with a gentle patience which surprised his listener, ' you can send me word when you like. Or I will call for your decision this day week. That shall be the arrangement. If you do not send to me before Sunday next, I will come here for your answer. Good afternoon/

Still no answer came ; and with a repetition of his farewell, Hastings left the garret ; and the faithful AH came out of his dusky corner and followed him down-stairs into the street, and home. Frank was greatly shaken by the interview. Whilst Hastings spoke, his own struggling griefs and longings took him by the throat so strongly, that the force by which he held his peace and made no sign exhausted him, and he sat trembling with hysteric tears after his friend's departure. He thought of the proposal Hastings had made, and his own

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way seemed clear to him. Whatever declared itself as duty, that must he do, and no other, until it should be done and life should be over. The way was open to him ; and before the end of the week came he spoke to- Penk- ridge.

' Go to the landlord, and tell him from me that I will undertake the work he offers. Tell him I shall have time enough to see to it all when my work at the docks is over. Tell him also that I only undertake it on this con- dition— that I am left alone. If any attempt is made to intrude upon my quiet, I will go away.'

Penkridge, who had little enough good left in him, had at least some sentiment of grati- tude, and Frank had done so much for him, that he was his willing servant. He delivered the message ; and Hastings sent back word that his strange tenant's wishes should be respected. There grew up in Bolters Rents a power for good which worked amazingly. The almoner of the rich man's bounty had a heart and hand for it, and his charities were done charitably. Many forlorn hearts heard their first word of human comfort from Frank's *ips, and the gladness he brought to others was

History, 151

reflected back upon himself. And although his burden was one which must needs be borne until the restful breast of Mother Earth closed over it and him, he grew slowly to a strength which was equal to his day, and Peace dwelt with him, mournful-eyed.

CHAPTER VIII.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

The preacher poured forth an impetuous torrent of self-accusation.

1 npO be well in chambers,' Thackeray writes in that novel of his which has always been my favourite, ' is melancholy and lonely and selfish enough ; but to be ill in chambers — to pass nights of pain and watchfulness — to long for the morning and the laundress — to serve yourself your own medicine by your own watch — to have no other companion for long hours but your own sickening fancies and fevered thoughts : no kind hand to give you drink if you are thirsty, or to smooth the hot pillow that crumples under you — this indeed is a fate so dismal and tragic, that we shall not enlarge upon its horrors, and shall only heartily pity those bachelors

A utobiography. 153

in the Temple who brave it every day.' All this I suffered ; and I made myself worse by the rebellion in which I raged against my Uncle Ben's suspicion. I learned afterwards that three days after my seizure, Gregory, who had paid several visits to my rooms, and had succeeded in making no one hear his summons at the door, way- laid the laundress in his anxiety about me ; and finding the state I was in, rushed boldly after Dr. Brand, and told him not only the fact of my illness, but the reason of it. The good doctor attended me, and sent a prac- tised nurse, who superseded the laundress ; and having discovered her in a state of in- toxication, with a bottle of my brandy on the table before her, took upon herself to discharge that faithless functionary, who re- venged herself by pitying statements to the other men whose chambers she attended, as to the sorrow she felt at seeing such a nice young gentleman take to drink so early. The doctor's medicine and the nurse's tending brought me round ; and for some days after the fever had left me, I lay quite tranquil and at rest ; but my after-recovery was made slow by the misery of mind which I endured.

154 A Lifes Atonement.

I came out of my sick-room aged and altered. The Holborn lawyer had no comfort for me when I called upon him, though his manner was distinctly sympathetic and gentle. He offered to pay me at any time the first por- tion of the allowance my uncle had proposed to make me ; but I refused it sullenly, and told him that until Mr. Hartley had with- drawn his accusation, I would hold no deal- ings with him, and would never more accept a farthing at his hands.

1 How do you propose to live ? ' Mr. Bilton asked me. ' You have no profession as yet/

' I do not know,' I answered, with a bitter and resentful sense of the injustice which had been done me. ' No man with a pair of hands need starve.' He shook his head at that with a pitying smile, which, in the sore- ness of my heart, I received almost as if it had been a blow.

' When you change your mind/ he an- swered, ' you can come to me.'

1 My mind will not change on that matter,' I responded. ' Let me know if you learn any- thing from the police.'

He promised me that ; and I left him, and went back to my rooms, to survey the pro-

A utobiography. 155

spect which spread itself before me. It looked very barren ; and I was groaning in spirit over it, and was lashing myself into a great state of rage against Uncle Ben, as the author of my misery, when Gregory came in.

1 Jack,' he said, with a friendly hand upon my shoulder, ' what do you propose to do ? '

' I don't know,' I answered fretfully. ' I think I shall sell off the things, send the pro- ceeds to Bilton, for my uncle, and enlist.' — He kept his hand upon my shoulder whilst I spoke, and gave me a little pull at the last word, which indicated a decided negative. — ' What else can I do ? ' I asked him gloomily.

'It is quite clear,' said Gregory, ' that you can't receive any more money from your uncle until this cloud between you disap- pears.'

' I will never take another penny from him,' I cried hotly. ' And if any chance present itself, I will pay back every penny he has spent upon me, though I have to pay it to his grandchildren.'

1 You can't do that on a shilling a day, you duffer,' said Gregory, with his hand still upon my shoulder. ' Do you know what I do for a living ? '

156 A Lifes Atonement.

' I didn't know/ I answered, ' that you did anything. I thought your father made you an allowance.'

' My father's money,' he said gravely, 'has been sunk in mines, and swallowed in the Gulf of Mexico, and strewn broadcast over the tracts of Patagonia, and invested in the great vineyard speculation in Smith's Sound, and dissipated generally on hopeful experi- ments which bade fair to yield a rich profit — to the promoters. I suppose the promoters have profited by them ; but his children have been keeping him this past two years, and he hasn't one financial feather left to fly with, I don't blame him,' said Gregory, making a curious grimace. ' He meant well. He never cared for money, or understood it ; but he thought it would be nice to leave us all mil- lionaires, and in the attempt to do it he ruined himself. That's all. Now, how do you think I live ? '

1 How do you live ? '

1 By teaching my grandmother the art and mystery of egg-sucking,' he answered. ' I am a public instructor. I have this morning completed an article on " Sugar " for the new Encyclopaedia. I did one on " Soap " last

A idobiography . 1 5 7

week. I am the author of that instructive volume The World's Workshops. I write for reviews, magazines, newspapers. A farce of mine will be played next week at the Olym- pic. You must come and see it. I am writ- ing a novel for a firm in Manchester, who will publish it simultaneously in thirteen provincial weekly journals. " The pen is mightier than the sword," as the Dandy of Literature most truly saith. You can only earn a bob a day with the sabre. I make six hundred a year with the quill, and hope to make more in time. All is fish that comes to my net. I shall be in Parliament next session — not as a member, but as a salaried censor of the House, a leader-writer to a daily journal. I have been at this work now for four years, and I am doing well at it. Now this brings me to my question again. You must earn a living somehow, and you must do it like a gentleman. Why not try my plan ? '

I flushed at the suggestion. Of all the fairy palaces I had built in fancy for myself to live in — and they had been many in my hopeful days — none had seemed so well worth living for as that in which Hope en-

158 A Life s Atonement,

shrined certain literary works of mine, as yet unwritten.

' But who would pay for any work that I could do ? ' I asked. ' I am untried. I — I — think — '

1 Oh, yes,' cried Gregory, ' you think ! I know you think. Put your thoughts on paper. Look here, Jack, I can give you a chance. This is a secret, mind you, and it must be kept/ I nodded ' Of course ; ' and he went on : ' Lord Chesterwood is aiming at a place in the ministry, and he is establishing a daily journal. Stone will be editor. He leaves the Daily Mail on purpose to rule over us. I am parliamentary leader-writer. You shall be " Our Special Commissioner," if you will, and you shall hit on a theme at once and write a series of articles. Let me give you a hint. Suppose you take the London Slums, which have been " done " again and again, and will be "done" again and again, so long as they and newspaper writers live side by side. Attempt no fine writing. Be as accurate, as uncompromising as a photograph. Make your sentences short and curt, and let each sentence petrify a fact. Keep your eyes open, and set down everything you see.

A zU o biography. 159

Don't be afraid of being commonplace or vulgar, but be rigidly and strictly true. Use no too-powerful adjectives. There is nothing simpler than the style I mean, and nothing that takes better with the public, which is made up of matter-of-fact people for the most part, and doesn't care for high-falutin'. '

I asked with some misgiving if Gregory had influence enough to secure this work for me.

' Yes,' he answered ; ' if you only do these first things decently. Set about them at once. We shall be ready to begin in a month, and you must start with us. I have named you to Stone already — promising, brilliant young fellow, did well at college, nephew of Hartley, the great millionaire, anxious to join literary guild, win his spurs, that sort of thing.'

' Why did you speak of my uncle ? ' I asked gloomily.

1 He is your uncle, isn't he ?' said Gregory. ■ Very well ; I said he was/

' He must know,' I said, ' that my uncle and I are parted, and that I have no hopes from him. I will not sail under false colours.'

1 You Quixotic young idiot,' said Gregory, with rough amity ; ' don't talk Rot. What's Hecuba to him — meaning your estimable uncle

160 A Life s Atonement.

— or he to Hecuba ? You set to work on your articles. Think of a title, crisp, allitera- tive if possible, and accurately descriptive. Let me see the first, and I'll tell you if it'll do. You'll find me a cruel critic ; so take care.'

I had at that time thirty pounds in hand, and half of that had to go in payment of a quarter's rental for my chambers ; but I looked forward with new hope now, and under ^Esop's directions, I went to work at once, to make this small sum a little larger. The following night saw me in Whitechapel, in company with an inspector and a sergeant of police ; and in a week I was fully acquainted with the locale of the slums, and knew something of their characteristics. Every night when I came home, I wrote the story of the even- ing's adventures in complete detail ; and every morning after, I trimmed and polished with zealous care. Then I gave a week to the complete rewriting of the series, and began to regard it as a masterpiece of literary effort. My note to Gregory, in which I announced that they were ready for inspection, was written modestly enough ; but I felt within myself that the articles would stagger him more than

Autobiography. 1 6 1

a little. When he came to read them, I had arrived at the belief that they were filled with perhaps the vilest trash which had ever been put upon paper ; and when he took them away with the simple statement that he thought they would do, I felt immensely relieved. By-and- by there came to me by post a bundle of damp strips of paper in which the articles appeared in type*; and though I knew them by heart already, I read them through and through with an ever-increasing pride and joy, and resolved that they would take the town by storm. At last the paper appeared ; and on the placard of contents I with my own eyes beheld in the public streets the printed title of my series. The Strand waltzed with me. I paid a penny for a copy of the new journal, and wondered if the boy who served me knew that there was an article of mine in it, and what he would think if he did know it. I opened and folded back the paper, and read the article anew as I walked to my cham- bers. If all the hurrying crowds that went between Charing Cross and Clements Danes had formed in rows to see me pass, and had cheered me as if I had been a royal proces- sion on a gala-day, I could not have felt

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1 62 A Lifes Atonement.

prouder. Every placard on the walls from which the words my pen had written looked upon me, was a tribute to me ; and when at last a long file of sandwichmen came along the street, each bearing at back and front an invitation to the general public to purchase the new journal and to read my articles, spe- cially mentioned in large type, I was almost beside myself, and was glad to walk into the quiet of the inn, lest my emotion should be observed. The upshot of the business was that I received a cheque for the series, and that I was engaged at a settled weekly salary as a descriptive writer on the new daily jour- nal. The salary I received opened no visions of El Dorado to my gaze ; but it was enough to live on quietly. I dropped out of my place in the hospital ; and nobody there, ex- cept Dr. Brand, knew why. But the crowd of friends who had sought the society of the acknowledged nephew of the great millionaire, dropped off when the great millionaire's sup- ply had ceased to gild me ; and I knew on whose help and friendship I could rely.

In all the devious ways in which my life has been guided, I can but recognise a Master Hand. I have been moved inexorably here

A utobiography. 1 6 3

and there, against my will, apart from my will. The plan of my life has no more been mine than the words written by my pen this moment are dictated by it. And now in the halting-place of life at which I tell this story, I can see the plan which my unwilling move- ments here and there have traced, and I know that I was guided to a settled end.

My articles did not take the town by storm ; but they attracted at least the notice of the editor, who made up his mind from them that the low life of London was my especial track. He kept me on it. He found for me series after series, until at last he set me upon the great religious revival, which at that time was agitating the lower classes of London ; and I followed the course of this strange tide into such curves and hollows of the human shore as I could reach. On a certain night, when the rain was falling dismally, I crossed the river afoot, and walked towards a great wooden tabernacle in which the chief services of the revival were held. It was Sunday, and the streets were blank. I remember the look of the flickering gaslights in the dusk — the grimy perspective of the mean houses as they stretched out towards the dark in dreary

164 A Lifes Atonement.

monotony of ugliness — the sullen pools of rain in the breaches of the pavement — the chill discomfort of the fretful wind. When I reached the place, I was a little surprised to find that the service had begun ; but a glance at the bills upon the wooden walls showed me that I had mistaken the announced time by half-an-hour. It mattered little ; and I entered finding even standing-room with difficulty. A man upon the platform was frenzying himself in prayer, and the vast crowd followed his appeals with cries and groans. When the prayer was over, another man gave out a hymn, and eight thousand voices rolled it to the roof. I have heard nothing like that rough singing elsewhere. The hymn over, a third man offered prayer; and then, with first a rustle and a curious swaying in the crowd, and then a dead silence, the congregation settled itself to hear the sermon. A tall figure, clad in black, came forward to the platform's edge. The light was dim, and there was a positive cloud of steam from the damp clothes of the crowd ; but I seemed to know the poise of that golden head, and the slow imperious motion of the arm by which the preacher commanded silence.

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And with the first tones of his voice, I knew him. It was Gascoigne. At first, I was so amazed to see him there that I could scarcely find a thought for what he said ; but remem- bering that more than one clergyman of the Church of England had given countenance to this movement, though none, so far as I knew, had spoken from the platform, I com- posed myself to listen. If such a sermon as he preached had been written, few men of taste could have approved it. Had it been delivered in a church and to a cultivated audience, its force would have been