![Crying for the Light; Or, Fifty Years Ago. Vol. 3 [of 3] cover](/books/content/36810/OEBPS/3771752932553494746_36810-cover.png)
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A COUNTRYMAN IN TOWN.
‘What has brought you to town?’ asked Wentworth one morning, as they were sitting in Clifford’s Inn, to a visitor who had just put in an appearance. His garb denoted his profession. He was the Presbyterian minister who had acted as Wentworth’s friend at the time of the election.
‘Well, I’ve come on rather important business. There is an old woman in the workhouse who maintains that the deceased Baronet has left a son who is heir to the title and estate. And thus I came up to London; but I have been run off my legs. I give you my word of honour, you won’t catch me in a hurry in London again.’
‘How is that?’ asked Wentworth.
‘Well, the fact is, London is the last place in the world for anyone to visit. It is too big, too crowded, too noisy, too fatiguing, and at every step you are surrounded with danger. The omnibus and the cab ever threaten one with annihilation, and the pickpocket is always on the watch. The bicycle is a terror by night, as is the irrepressible youngster who converts every quiet corner into a skating-rink. As to the air you breathe, it is full of microbes; your daily bread is white with alum. A wise man will also avoid its milk and cream and water. Yet all of us have to go to London more or less, and there are people who can live nowhere else. Human nature can easily assimilate itself to the conditions which surround it. Fortunately, there is a good deal of indiarubber in all of us. Of this the Londoner avails himself, and thinks himself the finest, smartest, cleverest fellow in the world, though he sees Brother Jonathan shutting him out of his markets, and opens his doors to foreign paupers, whom not a Government under heaven save his own would tolerate for a moment.’
‘Well, you’re right there. But what is your particular grievance?’
‘Grievances, you may say. They are like the hairs on my head; which, by-the-bye, are not so numerous as they were once.’
‘So I see,’ said Wentworth with a smile.
‘To make the most of a short visit to London,’ continued the speaker, ‘you must arrange your plans, and I did mine. My first object was to find out a gentleman who had written to me. Before leaving home, I had written to say that I would call on him on the Tuesday at his chambers in Pall Mall. When in due time I got there, I found he had gone to Scotland for ten days, but that his son had opened my letter and had waited for me till twelve o’clock, when he had started for an estate which his father was laying out with a view to building operations. Accordingly, I resolved to follow him, and then my troubles began. I started on an omnibus for Euston station; arrived there, I partook of luncheon, having twenty minutes to wait. “How do the trains run to Bushey?” I asked of an official. “There is one at twenty minutes to two, and another at the quarter,” was the reply; and I learned on the same reliable authority that the quarter to two train got there first. Accordingly, I waited for it, and when the guard came round to inspect the tickets, he confirmed what the official in the hall had said; adding that I was to change at Harrow. It was thus with a light heart I started, and left the train at Harrow, feeling sure that in a few minutes I should be landed at my destination. Alas, the train had gone, and I had to wait, sad and solitary, for an hour. At Bushey, a woman on whom I called informed me that her husband and the gentleman of whom I was in search had gone to the Board School. It is needless to add that they had done nothing of the kind. In the dust and under a blazing sun, I made my way to an estate which was being cut up into building ground. No Mr. T.—the man I sought—was to be seen; but it was the land I sought. “Was there any more of it?” “No,” said a workman, “that was all.” I felt he was wrong, that there must be more; but I tramped over the ground and made my way back to the station, to wait another dreary half-hour. In time, passengers for London began to assemble on the platform. Two of them passed me. One of them, I suppose, remembered me, as he spoke to his companion, a much younger man, who came up to tell me he was the one I sought. “Had I seen the estate?” “Yes.” “What did I think of the view opposite the hall?” I explained I had never been there. The workman it appeared, had led me wrong, and as it was essential that I should see it, it was agreed that I must have a fly and view the ground. I did so; and got back to town about eight, feeling that unnecessarily I had lost the greater part of the day.
‘The next day I rose betimes to carry out my well-arranged plans. I slept in the City, that I might better carry them out. In the first place I made my way to see a gentleman in Fenchurch Street. He was out. Then I made my way to a great manager’s office in Bishopsgate Street; he had not arrived. Then I made my way to the great doctor in Manchester Square. I have a liver; it had gone wrong, and I knew, such is my experience of the doctor, that he would set it right in the twinkling of an eye. Alas! the doctor had gone out, and that meant running up there again the next day, and that meant my not being able to hear Henry Melvill’s Golden Lecture; a thing on which, in the country, I had set my heart. However, I had a little consolation in reserve. An editor in Paternoster Row owed me a small sum of money. All the years I had known him I had never found him absent from his post. I would call on him, and he would give me a cheque. I did call, and he had gone down to Bournemouth for a week. Close by was another friend, the chairman of a well-known literary club that dine together every Friday evening. I had never dined with them, though repeatedly invited. I would be in town on Friday, and I would spend the evening dining with the club. It is rather dull work sitting in the smoking-room of a hotel of a night. Accordingly, I called on my friend to inform him of my intention to accept his proffered hospitality, and you can imagine my disappointment when the doorkeeper at my friend’s place of business informed me that he was at Folkestone. In my disappointment, I wrote to an old friend living on the Brighton Parade, that I would run down the next day in time for dinner, and pass the night under his hospitable roof. There was much we had to say to each other, as he was a retired Colonial, with whom I wished to talk over Colonial affairs. As soon as the train had arrived at London-super-Mare, I made my way joyfully to his house, feeling sure of a hearty welcome. All the blinds were suspiciously drawn down. After ringing the bell twice an aged housekeeper came to the door; the family had gone to town for the season. I turned away to a hotel, where the accommodation was moderate; but fortunately the charge was the same. On the Friday, back to town with an empty purse, I made my way to an office where I knew I could get the needful. Alas! the gentleman I wanted to see was out. For the first time in his life, I believe, Mr. W. was away—gone to the Handel Festival.’
‘Well, you seem to have been rather unfortunate.’
‘And oh, the terrors of that night! I could not get a wink of sleep. The room was so sultry and confined. I opened the window, and then the noise of cabs at all hours kept me awake. Then I got nervous, and wondered what I should do in case of a fire; and sleep that night was out of the question; in fact, I’ve been wonderfully seedy all the time I have been in town. But I have more to say if you care to listen.’
‘Pray proceed,’ said Wentworth. ‘I am all attention.’
‘Let me record two other experiences. I have a friend who keeps a boarding-house in a certain square not a hundred miles from Holborn. He had often asked me to stay a night with him; he could help me with materials for an article I wanted to write; I would spend my last night there. Of course, I found him out, and the house so full that any bed there was out of the question. One little incident in the course of my troubles is rather amusing and characteristic. A West-End swell lately forced himself on my acquaintance. His talk is all of lords and ladies and people in high life, in whom I take no interest whatever. I even am sick of the woeful tittle-tattle of the newspapers, and never read it. But I met my fine gentleman accidentally. He was delighted to see me, inquired most politely after the welfare of my family, hoped I would manage to run up to a certain fashionable exhibition—the most pleasant lounge in town of a summer evening—and then bade me good-morning as coolly as if he had never gone out of his way to beg me to make his house my home the next time I was in London. And this is London life, and a fair illustration of how a countryman gets on when there, and of the utter impossibility of accomplishing anything there in a reasonable time. It is wiser—better far—to stay at home and get your business done by writing. Londoners love writing. There is a difficulty I have with a limited liability company in a matter of five shillings, and we are as far from getting it settled as ever, though we have been corresponding on it for half a year. But London, with its worrying days and sleepless nights, is to be avoided by any who regards his health or temper or pocket. I have quite made up my mind that I will never visit London again—at any rate, not till the next time. And there is another thing that disgusted me. I was at a public dinner last night, and had to sit for three hours listening to awful speeches.’
‘Well, they are generally tedious,’ said Wentworth. ‘I have had to attend a good many at one time or other.’
‘Yes, but there was such a waste of time; all sorts of irrelative toasts obviously introduced merely for the purpose of affording mediocre aldermen and M.P.’s a chance of airing their vocabulary. But worst of all,’ said the minister, ‘was the awful amount of guzzling and feeding. Everyone seemed only intent on getting as many of the good things on his plate as he could. And as to the champagne, the gentlemen, as they called themselves, seemed as if they had never tasted any before, and as if they would never have the chance again. Many of them were quite drunk, and the whole affair soon resolved itself into a drunken orgy. I was quite disgusted with my species. No one who would wish to think well of humanity ought to attend a public dinner. The wine being provided, they seemed as if they could not have enough of it. It was positively sickening.’
‘And yet Thomas Walker advocates the public dinner. Indeed, he goes so far as to say that to ensure good parochial government, good dinners should be provided for the authorities. The aim should be, he tells us, to procure the best services at the cheapest rate, and in the most efficient way, and there is no system so cheap or efficient as that of the table. The Athenians, in their most glorious days, rewarded their citizens who had deserved well of the State by maintaining them at the public expense in Prytaneum or Council Hall. The table also is a mode of payment for services to be performed which goes further than any other, and will command greater punctuality, greater attention, and greater regularity. When properly regulated it is the bond of union and harmony, the school for the improvement of manners and civilization, the place where information is elicited and corrected better than anywhere else; and I believe, after all,’ said Wentworth, ‘old Walker was right.’
‘And pray who was Walker?’
‘Thomas Walker was the author of “The Original,” a book highly popular with our forefathers and well worthy to be read by their sons. Walker was a police magistrate in London. “The Original” appeared in twenty-nine parts. Since then it has been republished in a volume. The first number appeared in May, 1835. He was ill when he commenced it, and died before it was completed. Almost his last essay in it was on “The Art of attaining High Health.” It is curious to reflect that it was written by a man at whose door death was already knocking. He died suddenly in Brussels, the early age of fifty-two. By all means, I repeat, read Walker.’
‘So I will. I am quite aware there are two sides to every question.’
‘According to Walker, City feasting has many advantages. He is of opinion that it creates a good deal of public spirit; as long as men are emboldened by good cheer, they are in no danger of becoming slaves. The City Halls, with their feasts, their music, their associations, are, he says, so many temples of liberty; and I believe that after all Walker was right I speak from experience; and yet there are evils connected with the system.’
‘Evils!’ exclaimed indignantly his ascetic friend, ‘I believe there are. And last night I saw what I never saw before, and never wish to see again: men dressed in evening costume—respectable people, apparently—all eating and drinking to excess. I hope they all got home, but they could scarcely find their way after dinner to the room where tea and coffee were served up; utterly unable to take a part in any rational conversation.’
‘Ah, again let me quote Walker!’ exclaimed Wentworth. ‘“Anybody can dine, but few know how to dine so as to ensure the greatest quantity of health and enjoyment.” I am coming to believe that aristology, or the art of dining, has yet to be discovered. When ladies are admitted to these banquets there will, at any rate, be less of that eating and drinking to excess which so disgusted you last night.’
‘Well, the sooner that good time comes the better,’ said Wentworth’s friend; ‘but we have female feasts in Sloville which do a great deal of harm.’
‘You amaze me,’ said Wentworth. ‘What do you call the feast?’
‘The Dorcas. It is a society made up of ladies who belonged to the congregation, and who worked at useful articles to be distributed among the poor, the ladies paying half a crown each to buy the material, and putting threepence into the plate handed round at each meeting, to be devoted to the same purpose. On the night when my wife attended, there was an unusually large attendance. The grocer’s wife believed in a good cup of tea, and butter which was not margarine, and in other dainties which her guests were not slow to appreciate. To her credit be it said that at no other house had the members such a really good tea. On these occasions a good deal of talk took place.
‘Said one, “Where is that Jane Brown?”
‘“Oh,” said another, “she said she could not leave her mother.”
‘“A pretty excuse,” said another. “I’ll be bound to say that if there was any entertainment going on she could manage to leave her mother for that.”
‘“Ah!” said another old lady, with a shake of her head, “girls are not what they used to be. I don’t know what we are coming to.”
‘“Oh, you may well say that,” said the deacon’s wife. “We are living in sad times. It quite grieved me to hear our minister say on Sunday that people believed in Christ. They never did, and they never will. The world will always hate Christ, because of its wickedness. It is only the elect that can be saved. The world, or rather the carnal heart, is always at emnity with God.”
‘“Yes, dear,” repeated the old lady, “you are right there; the wicked won’t come to Christ. It is not to be expected as they should.”
‘Then another interrupted with the remark: “That girl Smith is never seen in the chapel now.”
‘“Oh no! she takes herself off to Church. She says her mother has been very poor and bad, and no one came near her but the Rector and his wife, who were very kind.”
‘“Ah, there it is again,” said the old lady; “the loaves and fishes.”
‘“For my part, I think we’re well rid of such people. We don’t want ’em, and the Church is quite welcome to ’em. There’s that man Brown, who fell off the ladder when he was at work. The Rector called on him, and sent him a bottle of wine and some cold meat, and he has never been to meetin’ since. And now I hear he has sent his children to the Church Sunday-school.”
‘“Well, what can you expect?” replied the old lady. “It is my opinion that that man Brown never had the root of the matter in him at all, and yet I can remember when he used to come to meetin’ regular. It is very shocking when people behave like that. The men in the town are getting worse and worse. They tell me there is a lot of low Sunday papers from London come into the town, and the men read ’em all day long.”
‘“Yes,” said a gushing girl who was present, and who could keep silence no longer, “that’s quite true. When I go round with the tracts they refuse to take them in; and such nice tracts too, it quite breaks my heart. And then there is our new supply; he takes the men’s part. He took up one of my tracts the other day and asked me if I really thought working men could stand such reading. I asked him if he read the tracts, and he said no; he thought he could employ his time much better.”
‘“And yet,” said the old lady, “our dear old minister used to say one tract may save a soul; but lor’, the young men they send us from the colleges, as they call them, think very little of saving souls.”
‘“I fear that’s too true,” said the deacon’s wife. “People don’t preach the Gospel as they used to.”
‘And that is true,’ said the Presbyterian parson to Wentworth. ‘They say I am a Unitarian; but the orthodox certainly are much nearer to me than they were. It did them good to hear damnation dealt out to others who did not think as they did. God the Father, Christ the Elder Brother, were little in their thoughts. It was God the Angry Judge, it was Christ saying, “Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting torment,” of whom it did them good to hear. They quite relished the torments—the endless torments of the lost. Not to dwell on them in a sermon was not to preach the Gospel. Hard, stern, unforgiving were these ladies of the Dorcas. It is to be hoped that their charities at Christmas-time to the poor of the meeting, in the shape of flannel and other garments, did good. Charity covers a multitude of sins, and if they talked scandal, why, do not others do the same? A sister with more brains than the rest, and of equal piety, does now and then make a sensible remark. But at any rate, my wife said she would never go to one of their meetings again.’
‘I have heard of it,’ said Wentworth; ‘but I have never attended one.’
‘Be thankful you have not.’
‘Why, I thought, in my ignorance, they were gatherings of benevolent ladies, to work for benevolent ends!’
‘Ah, that is what they pretend to be, but things are not what they seem. Believe me, Mr. Wentworth, that the Dorcas as it is conducted in country towns is a mockery, a delusion and a snare.’
Wentworth shook his head and groaned.
‘Yes, that is so; my wife went to one, as I have said. It was her first attendance and her last. The professed object was work for the poor, the real one scandal. The women talked of all the other women in the town; how this one went on when her husband was away; how forward was one young miss, and how sly another; how mean was this man, how extravagant that. There was a good deal more talking than working, and the over-righteous were the worst of all, and the most uncharitable. Never was there a more unpleasant display of feminine littleness. But, bless me, I am gossiping myself, when I came here on a very pressing occasion. And now, after this preliminary remark, let us proceed to business. It is one which you can help most materially.’
‘Pray proceed,’ again remarked Wentworth.
‘It is one that requires a good deal of thinking about.’
‘So much the better. I always love to have a nut to crack.’
‘We have an old woman in Sloville Workhouse who says there is an heir to the Strahan estates.’
‘I know it,’ said Wentworth.
‘Well, this old woman has told her story all over the town, and everyone believes it.’
‘But why did she not tell her story before?’
‘Well, her explanation is that the other woman got her to conceal it, with the view of making money, but their difficulty was how to tell a story which would not incriminate themselves. Once or twice she sent an anonymous letter to the late Baronet, but he took no notice of it; and then she tried to speak to him, but he would not let her; and she was terribly afraid of him, as she says he was such a hard, arbitrary, imperious sort of man.’
‘Well, we all know he was that,’ said the other. ‘He certainly was not a man to stick at anything where his passions, or his prejudices, or his interests were concerned. But where is the woman now?’
‘In the workhouse. She says she had quite lost sight of the other one, till she found her in a London hospital, where she went to see her. But the poor thing was too far gone to be of any good, and now she says they have both been made fools of, and they had better have let the child alone, so far as making any money out of the transaction.’
‘Was the new Baronet told of it?’
‘He was. I wrote to him on the subject.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘Virtually that it was like my impudence, and that he hoped he should never hear from me again.’
‘Well, that was not encouraging.’
‘Then I wrote again.’
‘And so did I,’ said Wentworth, ‘and this was the reply.’
Wentworth read as follows:
‘“In reply to yours of the 19th inst., I have only to say that I consider your letter founded on complete misapprehension of the facts of the case. The deceased Baronet had no heir but myself, and any attempt to set up a claim on behalf of another will be firmly resisted. Trusting that this is an end of the matter, and that I shall be troubled with no further communications on the subject,
‘“I am, yours truly,
‘“Hugh Robert Strahan.”
‘Now hear the wife. She adds a P.S. as follows:
‘“I have been informed that you are a writer for the newspapers. Let me hope that you are not one of the Sadducees against whom our Lord warned His disciples. Please read carefully the General Epistle of Jude. If I had the means I should like to see it hung up in all our newspaper offices. Possibly you have met with some of my little tracts. I am not proud of my literary talents. All boasting is unbecoming, and the true humble Christian feels that he is an unprofitable servant after all; but I am constrained to add that with the Lord’s blessing they have been made useful in bringing many who were in darkness and sitting in the valley of the shadow of death into His own marvellous light. Be assured that at the throne of grace this morning I particularly remembered the case of your poor protégé, who is much to be pitied. Oh, it grieves me to the heart to see how much we all make of wealth and rank! What is gold but dust and ashes? What are titles but less than the small dust of the balance in the eyes of the Lord?”
‘Well, did Sir Watkin ever hear the story?’
‘I don’t know. The woman told me she left a note for him at the lodge, of which, however, he took no notice.’
‘I should think not.’
‘And once, she says, she tried to stop him; but he was angry and threatened her, and the police took her off. It was at the time of our last show, when Sir Watkin had, as you can remember, a grand party at the Hall. I never saw him in better spirits. It seemed as if he was going to marry a young lady with what he always wanted particularly—a lot of money.’
‘That’s the case, I fear, with most of us.’
‘Yes,’ said the other. ‘In this respect we are most of us on an equality. But I must say this for Sir Watkin, that he would not make money, as some people make it nowadays, by feathering his nest at the expense of the public. It is to his credit that he lent his name to no doubtful speculation, though he was often asked to do so. He never was a company promoter.’
‘Well, but about this woman’s story?’
‘I tell you as she told it me.’
‘I know it all,’ said Wentworth, ‘and have known it long. The Colonel, who claims the entailed estate, is in London. Let us go and see him;’ and away they went to hunt him up at a swell military club of which he was a member.
The new heir was barely civil. When he heard what they had to say, he replied:
‘I am sure the family are much obliged to you; but look here, Mr. Wentworth, I am not a lawyer, but I am, I trust, a humble Christian. My wife and I have made this subject a matter of prayer. I have taken it in my closet to the Lord. My conscience approves of the course I take. I am in the path of duty. I have the interests of my family to think of. I don’t talk to you as a man of the world. There was a time, I own, when I did belong to that class, but then I knew no better. But I ask you, as a Christian man, how can I act otherwise?’
‘Why, you might come and hear what the poor woman has got to say for herself,’ said the Presbyterian parson. ‘You might follow the clue she might give you. You might save yourself from what seems to me the commission of a cruel wrong. You might act fairly to a lad who I believe has a better title to the estate than you have. In short, you might do to others as you would have others do to you.’
‘You can quote Scripture, then.’
‘Yes, I can; but it seems to be of little use.’
‘You are right, sir. We are told the devil can quote Scripture. To the carnal heart the Scripture is a sealed book. It is only as the Spirit opens the eyes of the believer that he can read aught.’
‘I thought, on the contrary,’ said Wentworth, ‘Scripture was so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, could not err therein. But I did not come to discuss such questions. I have to ask you, sir, to pause before you take possession of the estate.’
‘Well, sir,’ said the new heir, ‘you have come and you have asked me.’
‘Yes, and you will pause?’
‘Not for an instant. Why should I? By these distressing visitations of Providence, I have come into the possession of property and a title. It is the Lord’s doing and it is marvellous in my eyes. I never sought this nor expected this.’
Wentworth looked at the speaker. There seemed no particular reason why the Lord should have interfered in this matter on his behalf, he thought; but then Wentworth was not of the elect, and knew little as to what the Lord was about.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE COLONEL.
Society was startled in the autumn of the year to which these events relate by the announcement that Colonel, otherwise Sir Robert Strahan had been shot in a duel on the Belgian frontier. The world wondered why he had to fight a duel. He had the reputation of being an austere and strait-laced man, a great stickler for the proprieties, a strict observer of conventional forms, regular in his attendances on Church ordinances, and very ready to judge harshly of the failings of others. In all the land there was none so proud and priggish, and his wife rejoiced greatly at the work of her hands in transforming a man of the world into a Christian of the regulation pattern.
There were, it is true, many of his fellow-officers and former companions who wondered at rather than admired the change, who questioned its genuineness, and believed, in heart, the Colonel was still the same as when, in his younger days, he played somewhat notoriously the part of a man about town; but then the world is always uncharitable, and its men and women are of a sceptical turn of mind, and ready to doubt people who affect to be superior to their neighbours; and now their hour of triumph had arrived.
This saintly Colonel was no better than other people. In Brussels, unknown to his wife, he had gambled heavily and incurred great losses. In the public dining-hall of the ancient Spartans there was a notice to the effect that no one was to repeat outside the conversation that took place within. In the club of which the Colonel was a member a similar law of honour prevailed, and as the place was outwardly respectable, and was situated in the most respectable quartier, and as its members were men who moved in the first circles on the Continent, it was assumed, of course, that nothing took place but what was respectable. And it was presumed that if its members kept late hours the fact was due to the interesting conversations of the men on the political and other stirring questions of the times. In reality the place was a gambling den of the worst description, where the losers were far greater in numbers than the winners; and amongst the former was our pious Colonel, who had immense faith in his own play, as in everything else that he did, and whose occasional gains, only by confirming his own good opinion of himself, helped him further into the mire.
Then all at once it became known that the worthy Colonel had other children than his legitimate ones. In certain quarters he passed under a feigned name—as Captain Smith—and children learned to know him under that alias. It was a pleasant retreat for the good man when the old Adam was rather strong and seemed ready to crush the renewed man; and thus he led, as many do, a double life.
Most men have their weak moments, their time of temptation, and too often they succumb, but then the falling off is only for a time. But in the Colonel’s case it had unfortunately grown into a settled habit.
My lady little dreamt of what was passing. She had other things to think of than her husband or his doings. She was active—perhaps, rather too active—in her sphere, in good works. The bluest Evangelical blood was in her veins, and when in London no one was a more frequent visitor to the country houses of pious bankers and brewers than herself. In them she was a diamond of the purest water, shining with every Christian grace and virtue. She had addressed drawing-room meetings, she had aided in many a crusade against Popery and Ritualism and other evil things. If any Liberal and devoted clergyman was to be persecuted for trying to elevate the people by Christian ideas not in accordance with her own, she was the first to raise the cry of heresy, to rouse up sleepy bishops, to raise the cry of ‘Treason in the sanctuary!’ to alarm the warders at the gate, to flood the land with cheap tracts and pious newspapers. At Exeter Hall, during the May meetings, there was no more ardent attendant; and her life in Brussels was much the same, though on a smaller scale.
Once, at Louvain, I saw a statue in the cathedral to the memory of Dr. Stapleton. I could not make out who Dr. Stapleton was, or why he was thus honoured. Baedeker and Murray knew him not. Accidentally one day turning over the pages of Froude—certainly one of the most graceful of historians—I discovered that Dr. Stapleton, living at Louvain, was the means of communication, in the ‘spacious times of Queen Elizabeth,’ between the Pope on the one side and the Roman Catholics in England on the other. At Brussels her ladyship acted in a similar way, though on a smaller scale. It was she who kept alive the communication between the Belgian and the English Evangelicals, and helped to circulate among the former the goody-goody literature in which the latter greatly rejoiced. Her activity in the matter was intense. She was always writing to England for supplies—which were sent her without any cost to herself—and in her continental drawing-room, and at her receptions, sleek divines and elect ladies were not few, ever ready to bewail the degeneracy of the times, the growth of Popery and Republicanism and Atheism.
Perhaps it was they who frightened the Colonel away. At any rate it is manifest that he would have been a better husband had she been a better wife. When the news came of his brother’s death it is needless to say that the Colonel was quite ready for a change of life and scene. Indeed, Belgium was getting too hot for him. The lady who passed as Mrs. Smith had discovered the real name and status of her protector. One of the boys—the result of this domestic arrangement—had gone to a Protestant meeting, and there on the platform, and as one of the speakers, was Captain Smith—announced to the meeting as Colonel Strahan. It was not long before his mother learned the news, nor was it long before she turned that news, as far as her pecuniary resources were concerned, to uncommonly good account.
The little domestic arrangement which had been so pleasant at first was now very much the reverse. To shake off the woman was now impossible, and her silence could only be secured at an extravagant price. She had threatened to follow him to Sloville, and it required all his ingenuity to keep the matter a secret.
Already he had made up his mind to stand for the county division; already his name had been ostentatiously paraded as president or vice-president of certain famous religious societies, whose headquarters were London. Already, under the auspices of my lady, the Hall had become the headquarters of the Low Church party.
It was hinted to the Baronet that if he could win the county at the election he might possibly be made a peer. And now this Belgian woman had found him out and rendered his life insupportable. What was he to do? He could not for the life of him tell. There was no one to advise, no one to whom he could tell his trouble. The spirit of a man can sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear? One thing he did do, which he had better not have done—he went over to Brussels again to see what could be done. He had better have kept away.
And there was another matter, too, which gave him trouble. The reputation of the Bank was in danger. At the death of his brother unpleasant rumours respecting its stability had been put in circulation. The late Baronet had, as it was well known, an unpleasant habit of making ducks and drakes of his money. It was the hope of the new one that by his own reputation in pious circles he should be able to live down the evil rumours, and to revive the credit of the Bank. In this way his wife had done him good service, and thus he had secured continued confidence in some quarters and large advances in others. But there were people in the money market who had their suspicions as to the investments of the Bank and the way in which it was managed. More than one capitalist had withdrawn his deposit, and the working partners were growing anxious. Indeed, on the morning of his departure for Brussels they had an interview with Sir Robert on the rather shaky position of affairs. They had lost money on the London Stock Exchange. Some of the mining speculations in which they were engaged had proved disastrous. A great contractor whom they had financed had come to grief. It was true that their London agents had come to their rescue, not that they were over-confident as to the Bank’s affairs, but that they feared the panic its suspension would create. But it was believed that the temporary embarrassment might be tided over. Trade was reviving, and already some of their worst investments were taking a hopeful turn. Hope told a flattering tale, and at any rate there was no occasion for despair. Much was expected from the reputation of the new head of the firm in religious circles; much from a more careful conduct of its officers; much from the improved condition of the money market. Still the Baronet was not happy, and it was with anything but a light heart that he set out for the Belgian capital. His wife offered to accompany him, but he declined the offer. In reality she had no wish to go, or she would have gone, you may be sure of that.
Thus it was in no amiable mood the Baronet once more found himself in his old quarters, in the gay and pleasant city which the clever diplomacy of Lord Palmerston helped to raise to the dignity of a European capital and the seat of a monarchy, which if not ancient is at any rate very respectable. His first object was to keep Mrs. Smith quiet, which, at a considerable cost, he succeeded in doing. Then he dined at the club, drank heavily, played high, lost his money and his temper, and became so insulting to one of the barons with whom he played, that when he got back to the hotel he found there a challenge awaiting him to fight a duel. This was rather more than he had bargained for, but he could not help himself. As an officer—though a retired one—he felt that he could not refuse. A hot-headed Irishman acted as his second, and was so charmed with the idea of the éclat of having to do with a duel, though only in the capacity of a second, that instead of doing all that he could to put it off, he did all that was in his power to promote it. Accordingly it was arranged that the aggrieved parties should meet in an obscure village on the French frontier, where they would be sure to be unobserved. The Belgian baron’s aim was deadly, and Sir Robert Strahan was no more. Short, very short had been his reign, and now it was all over. Speedily was the news telegraphed to the Hall, where everyone was shocked at the unexpected catastrophe. Her ladyship grieved deeply, the girls were in despair. It was hard, just as Providence was opening up a way for their good, and they had conquered the difficulties of a continental exile—it was hard to have all the bitterness of the hated past revived. In due time the body was brought back, and there was another stately funeral and another nine days’ wonder. At first everyone attributed the Baronet’s death to an accident. Such was the version which it seemed wise for many reasons—family, religious, and commercial—to circulate. But in time the real truth leaked out, first in private letters and then in the society journals; and there came a run on the Bank, which the partners were not prepared to meet, and which they could not have met had they been prepared. And there was no alternative but to put up the shutters and to close the doors.
Deep and dire was the consternation spread all over Sloville when it was known that the Bank doors were shut. Sloville was a rising place. Some spirited individual or other was always introducing new industries or putting up new buildings. Speculation was rife; and the leading tradesmen had all large accounts at the Bank, as well as the leading hotel-keepers. All the farmers of the district, as their fathers before them, banked in an establishment so ancient, so well-connected, so renowned.
‘They ha’ got £500 of my money,’ said an angry agriculturist, as he banged away, and banged in vain, at the doors, on which a notice was posted to the effect ‘that in consequence of a temporary difficulty the Bank had suspended business for a few days.’
‘They might ha’ given a fellar a hint,’ exclaimed another aggravated individual.
Every minute the crowd increased. Of widows who had put into the Bank their little all—many of them in tears—and of many who had overdrawn their accounts and trembled at what the result might be to themselves, never had there been got together a more excited crowd. Would the Bank open its doors again? Was it possible that they were actually shut? If the Bank were bankrupt, what would be the dividend to be paid? It was the one great topic of discourse at the market, or in the streets, or in the shops and hotels; indeed wherever man met man, even at church doors.
The Church was hit rather hard, for the money had been nearly raised for the erection of a new church, and all the money subscribed for the purpose had been placed in the Bank. The funds of all the working men’s societies had also been placed there, and they were gone—all the hard-earned savings of a life, all the wise provision of the small tradesman or the thrifty operative against a rainy day. Everywhere was grief and disappointment and despair. It was a sorry sight to see the manager, whom everyone in the town regarded as a friend. Never was man more popular or trusted. He always wore a smile upon his face; that smile was gone—vanished as the last rose of summer. He shut himself up, and was to be seen in the streets no more. He had no conception of what was to happen till there came to him a telegram, as he was sitting down to breakfast with his smiling wife and ruddy, fat-cheeked little ones, that he was not to open the Bank doors. And they were never opened again, with the result that many other doors were closed as well, that millowners had to stop, that their workmen had to be discharged, that for many a poor widow had to resort to the workhouse, and that when matters came to be inquired into closely, it was found that the family at the Hall had been the main cause of the calamity which had suddenly overwhelmed the town and neighbourhood.
Bitter were the denunciations made against them. It was unpleasant. The widow and her daughters wisely fled. They had not been to blame; they were utterly ignorant of the matter—had nothing to do with it in any way, but the public of Sloville regarded them as the worst of robbers, nevertheless. Her ladyship felt that her influence was gone, and she and the young ladies moved to a more congenial neighbourhood, where her ladyship’s Christian graces flourished more than ever, and where she was deemed by the select few who gathered at her ladyship’s dreary parties as one who had been deeply tried in the furnace of affliction, and who had come out of it as refined gold. It was held, however, as a matter of regret, that on her ladyship’s daughters the painful visitation of Providence produced no such hallowed and sanctifying effect. To make matters worse, one of them betook herself to a convent, where, as she told her friends—some of whom, however, rather doubted her statement—she found a peace and happiness she had never known before.
In due time there was a sale at the Hall, at which all the townspeople attended, glad to run up and down from one room to another, to tread the antique stairs, the stately corridors, and to seat themselves on seats and on sofas, some of which were as old as the days of Queen Anne. Jews from Wardour Street came down in shoals, to pick up articles of bijoutry and virtu, to get hold of the old-fashioned ancestors in enormous waistcoats and knee-breeches and full-bottomed wigs, to do duty elsewhere. Filthy hands dogs’-eared the choice books in the library, while snobs bought the deceased Baronet’s carefully-selected stock of wine at absurdly extravagant rates. Everything went to the hammer—carriages and horses, and all the outdoor effects, all the farming and agricultural stock. The sale lasted a week, and brought so many people from far and near as to give quite a stimulus, and to give to the place somewhat of its former gaiety. Shopkeepers and hotel-keepers once more began to smile, and thus, in time, the effect of the sad disaster seemed to pass away.
The only thing to be regretted was that the old Hall was doomed. No gentleman would buy it, as it was too near to the town, and no townsman was rich enough to buy such a place to live in. Further, as the Hall was in a tumble-down state, and required a good deal of repair of an expensive character, it was pulled down, and the material distributed all over the county. In time a manufactory occupied the site of the old Hall, and long rows of dull red cottages grew up where once there were velvet lawns, and gravel walks, and beds of roses.
And thus there vanished for ever from the face of the earth another of
‘The stately homes of England—
How beautiful they stand
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
Through all the pleasant land.’
It is not always that the stately home is the scene of domestic felicity. It is not true that it is unknown in the humble workman’s home. It is to be believed that, as the workman’s home is elevated, it will be redolent not merely of manly virtues—the ability to fight the battle of life and win—but of the graces which at one time the upper ten seemed to consider as their exclusive privilege; and thus, if the cottager waxes strong, we need not deplore that the stately home with all its high-born associations has passed away.
At Sloville there passed away not only the stately home, but the family that lorded it long. Thus time changes and we change with it. Thus old things pass away and all things become new. Thus we may look for a new heaven and earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness—a righteousness inconsistent with a civilization that pampered the rich and depressed the poor, that desolated the cottage to add to the splendour of the hall. It is of the many, not of the few, that we have to think in these democratic days.
And the young heir, what became of him? He was little disappointed when it was hinted to him that he was heir to a bankrupt estate and a dishonoured name. He was young, active, healthy, stout-hearted, perfectly willing to fight the battle of life to the best of his ability. He was fond of his profession, had been successful in it, and was in no hurry to relinquish it. He had seen a little of aristocratic life at a distance, and he was not enamoured of it; it seemed to him unnatural and mischievous. They had many lads from our public schools and men from our universities on board ship, and it seemed to him that they were extravagant, thoughtless, fond of pleasure, frivolous, and useless, and brought up in an altogether wrong way. If they did nothing else he held that they smoked and drank and ate more than was good for them, that they wasted a good deal of time in gambling and dissipation, in reading French novels, in the music-hall and the theatre. He did not believe that society was in a good state when the few were born rich and the many poor. All healthy life seemed to him to be founded on hard work; the curse had been changed into a blessing, and man was only happy and kept out of mischief as he lived by the sweat of his brow. A lazy life had no charm for him, even though he lived in a fine mansion, had servants to wait on him, was clad in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. A gentleman in the conventional sense of the term he could never, and would never, be; that, at any rate, was clear.
‘Well, my boy,’ said the actress, as they met in Liverpool, where they had both come on purpose, ‘what do you think? Would you like to be a gentleman, and lead such a life as your father?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I like hard work. I am comfortable as I am. I am fond of the sea, and if I live to be a captain my utmost ambition will be fulfilled. I have seen a good many gentlemen, on board ship and when I have been to the theatre, and they seem to be a poor, helpless lot, as if they did not know what to do with themselves, with their eyeglasses and their high collars.’
‘But they don’t all wear high collars and eye-glasses.’
‘No, but most of them do.’
‘Think of what you give up—the society of high life—your position in the county.’
‘I have, and I don’t care about it. Swells don’t suit me, and I shan’t suit them. I don’t want to be a landlord where the farmers cannot afford to pay any rent. I don’t want to be bothered with a lot of servants who will be most respectful in my presence, and who will laugh at me behind my back. I don’t want to be stuck up as a mark for needy adventurers and fawning parasites. I cannot believe that society in England will last long in its present position; that the wealth of the country shall be in the hands of the few, who toil not, neither do they spin, and that the men who make that wealth, without whom it could not exist, shall be stowed away in unhealthy cities to live, and breed, and die in such bitterness of poverty as can be found nowhere else. Does not James the Apostle tell the rich man to go to and howl? and I believe that end is near; that is, as soon as the working man has his political rights—a boon that now cannot be long delayed. No, property of the kind you speak of has no charms for me; rather give me
‘“A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep.”
It is thus I can carry out the mission of the age, to break down the barriers created by the prejudices and ignorance of nations, to make men realize by means of international commerce that we are members one of another, and that God has made of one blood “all nations that dwell on the face of the earth.”’
‘Why, my dear boy,’ said the actress, ‘you are quite a Radical, and a philosopher as well. Where did you get your ideas from? From the newspapers?’
‘Not a bit.’
‘Where from then?’
‘From the Book of Books—the Bible. I have loved to think of such things in the watches of the night as I have been alone on deck.’
‘Well, you have thought to some purpose,’ said the actress. ‘Wentworth will be delighted. I am sure you will fall in with our plan.’
‘What is that?’
‘I’ll tell you as soon as I have seen Wentworth.’
‘You’ll hear from me soon,’ said the actress, as she seated herself in the train, and glided along the iron road till London was reached in safety and in good time. Nor were Wentworth and his wife sorry at his decision. They infinitely preferred him as he was, and thus the matter was allowed to drop, to the infinite regret of a sharp firm of City lawyers, who were quite ready to do battle for the lad’s right, with a chance of making money out of the case somehow before they had done with it. The family lawyers were quite content to let things remain as they were. They had lost money by the family, and had no more wish to trouble themselves about their concerns. There was no chance of anyone coming forward to claim the family honours, and the name of Strahan was dropped out of the book of the baronetage of England for ever.
CHAPTER XXX.
ROSE RETIRES FROM THE STAGE.
‘I think,’ said Rose to her husband that night, ‘I shall give up the stage. I have been without an engagement long; I have refused everything of the kind.’
‘Yet, darling, you are not growing old.’
‘No, it is not that.’
‘But what?’
‘That I care less and less for the artificial atmosphere of the stage. We lead such a conventional life and breathe such a conventional air; there is so much of insincerity. “Suppose any given theatre,” writes Mr. Thomas Archer in one of his clever essays, “suppose any given theatre suddenly turned into a Palace of Truth, and all the members of the company forced to state their true opinion of each other’s performances, the Palace of Truth would be a pandemonium.” And then there are other considerations.’
‘For instance?’
‘Well, to begin with, the atmosphere of self-consciousness in which the actor lives and moves and has his being. Mr. Henry James tells us the artist performs great feats in a dream; we must not wake him up lest he should lose his balance. The actor, alas! has always to be wide awake—to think of the applause to be won. I am sure too much of that sort of life cannot be good for anyone.’
‘And I have long been expecting you to say as much.’
‘But you are not sorry, are you?’
‘On the contrary; it is the very thing I have been looking for all along. It is nice to feel when the public applaud an actress that she is your own; but how much nicer to feel as I do now,’ said Wentworth, with a loving caress, ‘that she is all my own! You were happy on the stage; you will be ten times happier off it.’
‘Ah, that I know well enough.’
‘I fancy you little people of the mimic world are rather inclined to overrate your importance. By the side of it the editorial “we” is modesty itself. You actors and actresses are not such great folk after all. Admired one day, forgotten the next! As I think of all the men and women I have known upon the stage, who were lions of their day, for whom the public went into fits of madness, and then see how completely they are forgotten, it has always seemed to me that to illustrate the vanity of life and the nothingness of human applause I should point to the stage.’
One morning there came the manager of the theatre.
‘No, I shall never go back to the stage,’ replied the actress.
‘Why not, my dear?’ said the manager, a gentleman of showy manners, and suspected of being rather over-sweet.
‘Because I don’t like the life behind the scenes.’
‘I am surprised to hear that. If you knew how young ladies of really good position bother me to give them a trial!’
‘Ah, they are ignorant.’
‘Yes,’ said the manager; ‘remember the old lines:
‘“Where ignorance is bliss,
’Tis folly to be wise.’”
‘Folly or not,’ replied Rose, ‘my eyes have been opened by experience. Once I was ignorant as they, and thought how delightful the life behind the scenes must be; but now I know better. I only wish I could have a quiet chat with some of those stage-struck girls, and warn them before it is too late. The life is only possible for the children of parents who are on the stage. It is the atmosphere in which they have been brought up. But as to other girls, the stage is the last thing they should think of if I had my way.’
‘But what do you object to?’
‘Why, to everything: the language one is obliged to hear; the dresses, which are often actually indecent; the way in which one is persecuted by men supposed to be gentlemen—the free-and-easy way in which they attempt familiarities is decidedly unpleasant. No, I have been behind the scenes; I have no more illusions on that score. I have done with the whole affair. I am off the boards, and I have no wish to reappear on them again.’
‘No money will tempt you?’ said the manager.
‘None,’ was the reply.
‘You will be exposed to no inconvenience, you know.’
‘That is true; but I should have to give my sanction to much that I disapprove of. You must reform what goes on behind the scenes.’
‘Oh, that is impossible.’
‘That’s what I fear.’
‘Well, as you’ve made up your mind, it is no use, I fear, discussing the subject any longer.’
She did not want money, she did not care for applause; she had plenty of excitement in real life. She wanted time to think, and read, and feel. Behind the footlights every night, what time has actor or actress to realize the great ends of life as something real, and not a show with its pretended tragedy or farce?
‘In fact,’ said the lady, ‘I wish to live and not to act.’
‘And then return to the stage when you are getting old,’ said the manager in dismay. ‘Well, the public are indulgent, I admit. A favourite is a favourite, whether old or young. There are old men and women now on the stage who ought to have retired years ago. They cannot act decently; with all their making up they are scarcely presentable. Their memory and their power are gone, or something very like it, still the public applaud. They do not understand what failures the poor creatures have become, and they praise them as liberally as when they were in their prime and could act. One cannot much wonder that under the circumstances the veteran actor lags superfluous on the stage.’
‘But are they not afraid of the newspaper critics?’
Here the manager laughed.
‘Excuse me—that is too ridiculous. Who cares for theatrical criticism? Of course, we managers are civil to the critics, who give themselves amusing airs, and have a high opinion of their own abilities, and we get an advertisement gratuitously, which, of course, is an advantage. But a theatrical critic always swims with the stream—applauds what the public applaud, and blames what they blame. The public don’t care a rap for the theatrical critic. I often wonder newspaper editors take the trouble to print what they write. That no one reads it, except on a wet Sunday, they know as well as I. But you will come back to us soon?’ said the manager, with his most beseeching air.
‘No, I think not,’ said the lady. ‘The life is too exciting to be healthy, either for the heart or the head. It is all very well for a little while, but not for long. I have been happy on the stage, but I believe I shall be equally happy off. Let the younger ones have a chance. Every dog has his day.’
And the manager departed, thinking that the lady had made a great mistake, that perhaps she only needed a little more pressing. At any rate, he said, as he bowed himself out:
‘Madame, you shall hear from me again.’
‘It is no use,’ was her reply.
‘I am glad you have come to such an opinion. I also have obtained my freedom,’ said Wentworth. ‘My work at the newspaper office is done. It has been rather unpleasant of late. The proprietors depend on the Liberal Government; the Liberal Government fancy that to me it is due that a Tory was returned for Sloville. It was hinted to me that I was too independent—too negligent as to the interests of the party; that I was not severe enough on the sins of the opposition; that, in short, I was not enough of a party hack. Our manager is a keen party man; indeed, he expects one of these days to be knighted. And now I am free, and so are you, and we can set about a work I have long had in contemplation. You and I have often talked of Southey’s and Coleridge’s pantisocracy—I believe the time has come for some such an enterprise. It is true they never carried it out, it is true that when Robert Owen tried to do something of the kind it failed; but that is no reason why we should fail.’
‘Of course not,’ said Rose. ‘Yes, let us emigrate. Let us leave Sodom and Gomorrah to their fate. The sooner we are off the better.’
‘Let us have old Buxton down to talk over the matter,’ said Wentworth, making a signal by applying the poker to the ceiling.
In a moment or two he was in the room, a big burly man, with a big head and a big beard—given to the immoderate use of tobacco; averse to wearing new clothes, and not overfond of soap and water; rather inclined to be lazy; ready to say with Lord Melbourne, when reforming action was proposed: ‘Why can’t you leave it alone?’ Such men have their uses in a land where fussy people—as much with a view to their own personal gratification as to the welfare of the public—are always putting themselves forward; attempting to wash the blackamoor white, to have the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots.
‘What’s up now?’ said he as he shuffled in. ‘You look uncommonly grave.’
‘Listen to me,’ said Wentworth. ‘You have read my article in this morning’s paper?’
‘Not a line.’
‘Read it then.’
Buxton shrugged his shoulders and sat down.
Wentworth continued:
‘Listen to my ideas, which I have published in the paper.’
‘By all means.’
‘If in the multitude of counsellors there is safety, the England of to-day has little to fear, in spite of the undeniable facts that she is losing her trade and commerce, that her national debt seems impossible of payment, that her expenditure increases as her income declines, and that the unemployed and pauper class threaten, like the lean kine Joseph saw in his dream, to swallow up all the rest. As long as I can remember I have heard statesmen, and clergymen of all denominations, and politicians of all creeds, say something must be done; and they are still saying it in the most hopeless of tones, and with air the most dejected. We have not had our French Revolution yet. At the worst, the hungry mobs have contented themselves with an occasional raid on an unfortunate butcher or baker, or on some imprudent jeweller, whose attractive windows have proved too strong a temptation for the horny-handed. In the meanwhile, people of a hopeful turn of mind tell us—and truly—that the working classes were never better off, better paid, or better fed. But still, somehow or other, it is apparent that outside of the hopeless pauperism which the idiotic legislation of our fathers has called into existence—outside the depraved, whom drink and dishonesty have removed from the ranks of labour, to swell the bitter cry which ever ascends from city slums, where all foul things congregate, and where decent life is impossible—there are hundreds, nay, thousands, who are ready to work, but for whom, though to seek it they rise early and sit up late, no work is to be had. Is there any hope for such? Are they to be uncared for till they have lost all heart, and sink down to the pit of misery and despair, never more, till death comes to them as a friend, to rise again? Is it not time that we think of them? In Ireland, a hundred patriots would have rent the air with the story of their wrongs. In England, we take small note of them. Yet they are our flesh and blood, with honest hearts and hands. A scheme has been devised for their benefit. That it is worth a trial, few who can examine it can doubt.
‘The idea of this new remedy is that, now when agricultural land is to be had for next to nothing, farms should be bought on which home colonies may be planted, and labour provided sufficient for self-support.
‘The fact is,’ said Wentworth, ‘we have rather a grand scheme in view. A gentleman is ready to purchase land in America or Canada or one of the Colonies; to plant it with poor people who can find no work at home, nor are likely to do so, if they stop here all their lives. And he wants me to go out as manager; I am quite ready to do so. And Rose is anxious for the experiment to be tried—indeed, far more so than myself.’
‘That is a matter of course—novelty has always charms for woman.’
‘And woman,’ said Rose, ‘is always ready to lend a helping hand to any philanthropic scheme.’
‘Well, it requires a good deal of thinking about.’
‘And we have thought about it long,’ said Wentworth; ‘and the more we think about it the better we like it. But we want you to accompany us.’
‘In what capacity?’
‘As medical man.’
‘And you think I would turn my back on London, and give up my easy life, to undertake all this responsibility?’
‘Well, I don’t see why you should not,’ said Wentworth. ‘You are not doing much good here, you know.’
‘And why should I, when everyone is fussing about doing good and in the meantime doing a great deal of mischief, interfering with the working of the unalterable laws of the universe, washing blackamoors white, trying to make empty sacks stand upright?’
‘Yes, but we are going to do nothing of the kind. We are only finding homes and work for men and women who can find in the old country neither the one nor the other—to save them from sinking into hopeless pauperism, to help them to live happy and healthful lives. What have you to say against our scheme?’
‘Really, now I think about it, I can’t say anything against it, supposing that you have a proper site for the experiment, that you take proper people, and that you have sufficient capital to make a fair start.’
‘Oh, as to that, everything has been provided for. Each colonist will have a bit of ground, which he will pay for in time by his labour. We intend working on the old lines, not to be led away by communistic ideas. Each man will do the best he can for himself, and in so doing will be best for all. What do you think, Buxton, of the scheme?’
‘Why, like all her ladyship’s ideas, it is excellent.’
‘Pretty flatterer!’ said Rose.
‘He wants to cut me out,’ said Wentworth. ‘He was always envious of my superior abilities.’
‘As he had every reason to be,’ said Rose.
‘Come, that’s too bad,’ said Buxton, turning to Rose, ‘after the way in which I buttered you up just now. Two to one ain’t fair. But to return to business.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said Wentworth.
‘If I had a family—which, thank Heaven, I have not—I would not stop in England a day. If I had a lad to plant out in the world as you have, I’d send him off to America or the Colonies to-morrow.’
‘Because?’
‘Because it’s all up in old England in the first place; and in the second place, because if it were not so, the New World offers better opportunities for a young fellow than the old. May I dwell upon these topics?’
‘Certainly, by all means.’
‘Well, I have met a good many Americans lately, and they have put new ideas into my head—’
‘Not before they were wanted!’ said Wentworth.
‘Speak for yourself, sir, if you please,’ said Buxton, with an assumed offended air.
‘Oh, I beg pardon! Pray proceed.’