The Fourth Generation

“You must give me just such a speech.”

“I will—I will. Fred, you shall start with a name that will make you welcome at every City Company’s dinner. It will help you hugely over your enormous transactions for the Firm. Rely on me. Because, you see, when a man has once delivered himself of a good speech, he is asked to speak again: he must keep it up; so he sends to me again. Look here”—he laid his hands upon a little pile of letters—“here are yesterday’s and to-day’s letters.” He took them up and played with them as with a pack of cards. “This man wants a reply for the Army. This is a return for Literature. This is a reply for the House of Commons. The Ladies, the American Republic, Science, the Colonies—see?”

“And the pay?”

“The pay, Fred, corresponds to the privilege conferred. I make orators. They are grateful. As for yourself, now——”

“Really!” The Agent smiled and rubbed his hands. “This is indeed gratifying. Because, Fred—of course you are as secret as death—I may tell you that this request of yours completes the toast-list for the evening. The speeches will be all—all my own—all provided by the Agent. But the plums, my brother, the real plums, shall be stuffed in yours. I will make it the speech of the evening. Mr. Barlow—Barlow—Barlow of New South Wales.”

Fred rose. “Well,” he said, “I leave you to my speech. Come and dine with me to-night at the Hôtel Métropole—half-past seven. We might have a look round afterwards.”

They had that dinner together. It was quite the dinner of a rich man. It was also the dinner of one who loved to look upon the winecup.

After dinner Fred looked at his watch. “Half-past nine. I say, Chris, about this time we used to sally forth. You remember?”

“I believe I do remember. I am now so respectable that I cannot allow myself to remember.”

“There was the Holborn Casino and the Argyll for a little dance: the Judge and Jury, Evans’s, and the Coalhole for supper and a sing-song: Caldwell’s to take a shop-girl for a quiet dance: Cremorne——”

“What do the boys do now?”

“How should I know? They amuse themselves somehow. But it’s no concern of mine, or of yours. You are no longer a boy, Fred.”

“Hang it! What am I to do with myself in the evenings? I suppose I can go and look on if I can’t cut in any more?”

“No; you mustn’t even look on. Leave the boys to themselves. Join a club and sit by yourself in the smoking-room all the evening. That’s the amusement for you.”

“I suppose I can go to the theatre—if that’s all?”

“Oh yes! You must put on your evening clothes and go to the stalls. We used to go to the pit, you know. There are music-halls and variety shows of sorts—you might go there if you like. But, you know, you’ve got a character to maintain. Think of your position.”

“Hang my position, man! Get up and take me somewhere. Let us laugh and look on at something.”

“My dear Fred, consider. I am a respectable barrister with a grown-up son. Could I be seen in such a place? The head of the firm of Barlow and Co., allow me to point out, would not improve his chances in the City if he were seen in certain places.”

“Nobody knows me.”

“Then we’ll go and have tobacco in the smoking-room. One is apt to forget, Chris, the responsibilities of success.”

Mrs. Christopher Campaigne was at home. The rooms were filled with people—chiefly young people, friends of her son and daughter. Most of them were endowed with those literary and artistic leanings which made them severe critics, even if they had not yet produced immortal works of their own. The chief attraction of the evening, however, was the newly-returned Australian, said to be a millionaire, who took up a large space in the room, being tall and broad; he also took up a large space in the conversation: he talked loud and laughed loud. He presented successfully the appearance he desired, namely, that of a highly prosperous gentleman, accustomed to the deference due to millions.

Leonard came late.

“I am glad to see you here,” said his hostess. “Frederick, you can hardly remember your other nephew, son of Algernon.”

“Nor can I remember you.” He tried to dismiss from his mind a certain ugly word. “But you are welcome home once more. This time, I hope, to stay.”

“I think not. Affairs—affairs are sometimes peremptory, particularly large affairs. The City may insist upon my staying a few weeks, or the City may allow me to go back. I am wholly in the hands of the City.”

If you come to think of it, a man must be rich indeed to be in the hands of the City.

The people gazed upon the speaker with increased interest, and even awe. They were not in the hands of the City.

“I confess,” he went on, “that I should like to remain. Society, when one returns to it after many years, is pleasing. Some people say that it is hollow. Perhaps. The frocks vary”—he looked round critically—“they are not the same as they were five-and-twenty years ago; but the effect remains the same. And the effect is everything. We must not look behind the scenes. The rough old colonist”—yet no one in the room was better groomed—“looks on from the outside and finds it all delightful.”

“Can things unreal ever be delightful?” murmured a lady in the circle with a sigh.

“At all events,” Leonard continued, “you will not leave us for a time.”

“I am in the House.”

“As your father was—and your grandfather. It is a great career.”

“It may be a great career.”

“True—true. There must be many failures—many failures. Where and when are you most likely to be found?”

Leonard told him.

“Give me a note of it before we go to-night. I dare say I can get round some time.”

The ugly word once more unpleasantly returned to Leonard’s mind.

Mr. Frederick Campaigne proceeded with his interrupted discourse, which proved the necessity of the existence of the poor in order to make the condition of the rich possible and enviable. He took the millionaire’s point of view, and dwelt not only on the holiness of wealth, but also on the duties of the poor towards their superiors.

In the inner drawing-room he found his two cousins, Algernon and Philippa. The former, a young man of three-or four-and-twenty, was possessed of a tall figure, but rather too small a head. He smiled a good deal, and talked with an easy confidence common to his circle of friends. It was a handsome face, but it did not suggest possibilities of work.

Leonard asked him how he was getting on.

“Always the same,” he replied, with a laugh. “The study of the dramatic art presents endless difficulties. That is why we are loaded up with plays.”

“Then it remains for you to show the world what a play should be.”

“That is my mission. I shall continue my studies for a year or so more; and then—you shall see. My method is to study the art on the stage itself, not in books. I go to men and women on the stage. I sit in various parts of the stalls and watch and learn. Presently I shall sit down to write.”

“Well, I look forward to the result.”

“Look here, Leonard”—he dropped his voice. “I hear that you go to see the old man sometimes. He is nearly ninety-five. He can’t last much longer. Of course the estate is yours. But how about the accumulations.”

“I know nothing about the accumulations.”

Leonard left him. In the doorway stood his cousin Philippa.

“You have just been talking to Algernon,” she said. “You see, he is always stretching out his hands in the direction of dramatic art.”

“So I observe,” he replied dryly. “Some day, perhaps, he will grasp it. At present, as you say, he is only stretching out arms in that direction. And you?”

“I have but one dream—always one dream,” she replied, oppressed with endeavour.

“I hope it will come true, then. By the way, Philippa, I have just found a whole family of new cousins.”

“New cousins? Who are they?”

“And a great aunt. I have seen one of the cousins; and I am going to-morrow to see the great-aunt and perhaps the other cousin.”

“Your uncle Fred may have children. Have you asked him if he is married?”

“No; he has promised to tell all his adventures. He is a bachelor. Is it not interesting to get another uncle, and a bachelor, and rolling in money? Algernon has already——” She stopped, remembering a warning. “But who are these cousins?”

“Prepare for a shock to the family pride.”

“Why, we have no poor relations, have we? I thought——”

“Listen, my cousin. Your grandfather’s sister Lucy married one Isaac Galley about the year 1847. It was not a good marriage for her. The husband became a bankrupt, and as by this time her father had fallen into his present condition or profession of a silent hermit, there was no help from him. Then they fell into poverty. Her son became a small clerk in the City, her grandson is a solicitor in the Commercial Road—not, I imagine, in the nobler or higher walks of that profession—and her grand-daughter is a teacher in a Board School.”

“Indeed!” The girl listened coldly; her eyes wandered round the room filled with well-dressed people. “A teacher in a Board School! And our cousin! A Board School teacher! How interesting! Shall we tell all these people about our new cousins?”

“I dare say. At the same time, we have always thought our family a good deal above the general run. And it’s rather a blow, Leonard, don’t you think?”

“It is, Philippa. But, after all, it remains a good old family. One second cousin cannot destroy our record. You may still be proud of it.”

He left the girl, and went in search of his uncle, whom he found, as he expected, in his study apart from the throng.

“Always over your papers,” he said. “May I interrupt for a moment?”

The barrister shuffled his papers hurriedly into a drawer.

“Always busy,” he said. “We lawyers work harder than any other folk, I believe, especially those with a confidential practice like my own, which makes no noise and is never heard of.”

“But not the less valuable, eh?”

The barrister smiled.

“We make both ends meet,” he said meekly—“both ends meet. Yes, yes, both ends meet.”

“I went to see the old man the other day,” Leonard went on, taking a chair. “I thought you would like to know. He remains perfectly well, and there is no change in any respect. What I want to ask you is this. It may be necessary before long to get the question decided. Is he in a condition to make a will?”

“My opinion,” he said gravely, and as one weighing the case judicially—in imagination he had assumed the wig and gown—“my opinion,” he repeated, “would be, at first and on the statement of the case, that he is unfit and has been unfit for the last seventy years, to make a will. He is undoubtedly on some points so eccentric as to appear of unsound mind. He does nothing; he allows house and gardens and furniture and pictures to fall into decay; he never speaks; he has no occupation. This points, I say, to a mind unhinged by the shock of seventy years ago.”

“A shock of which I only heard the other day.”

“Yes—I know. My sister-in-law—your mother and your grandfather—thought to screen you from what they thought family misfortune by never telling you the truth—that is to say, the whole truth. I have followed the same rule with my children.”

“Family misfortune! I hardly know even now what to understand by it.”

“Well, they are superstitious. Your father died young, your grandfather died young; like you, they were young men of promise. Your great-grandfather at the age of six-and-twenty or thereabouts was afflicted, as you know.”

“And they think——”

“Oh, but this is absurd.”

“Very likely—very likely. Meantime, as to the power of making a will, we must remember that during all these years the old man has never done anything foolish. I have seen the solicitors. They tell me that from father to son, having acted for him all these years, they have found him perfectly clear-headed about money matters. I could not ask them what he has done with all his money, nor what he intends to do with it. But there is the fact—the evidence of the solicitors as to the clearness of his intellect. My opinion, therefore, is that he will do something astonishing, unexpected, and disgusting with his money, and that it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to set aside his will.”

“Oh, that is your opinion, is it? The reason why I ask is that I have just discovered a family of hitherto unknown cousins. Do you know the name of Galley?”

“No. It is not a name, I should say, of the highest nobility.”

“Quite, quite; as a place of residence—deplorable from that point of view.”

“He has a sister, it appears, who is a Board School teacher.”

“A Board School teacher? It is at least respectable. But who are these precious cousins of ours?”

“They are the grandchildren of an aunt of yours—Lucy by name.”

“Lucy! Yes. I have heard of her; I thought she was dead long ago.”

“She married a man named Galley. They seem to have gone down in the world.”

“More family misfortune.” The lawyer shuddered. “I am not superstitious,” he said, “but really—more misfortunes.”

“Oh, misfortunes! Nonsense! There are always in every family some who go down—some who go up—some who stay there. You yourself have been borne steadily upwards to name and fortune.”

“I have,” said the lawyer, with half a groan. “Oh yes—yes—I have.”

“And my uncle Fred, you see, comes home—all his wild oats sowed—with a great fortune.”

“Truly.” The lawyer’s face lengthened. “A great fortune. He told you so, didn’t he? Yes; we have both been most fortunate and happy, both Fred and I. Go on, Leonard. About these cousins——”

“Do they want anything? Help? Recognition?”

“Nothing, so far as I know. Not even recognition.”

“That is well. I don’t mind how many poor relations we’ve got, provided they don’t ask for money, or for recognition. If you give them money, they will infallibly decline to work, and live upon you. If you call upon them and give them recognition, they will infallibly disgrace you.”

“The solicitor asked for nothing. This cousin of ours has been building hopes upon what he calls accumulations. He evidently thinks that the old man is not in a condition to make a will, and that all that is left of personal property will be divided in two equal shares, one moiety among your father’s heirs on our side, while the other will go to the old lady his grandmother on the other side.”

“That is, I am afraid, quite true. But there may have been a Will before he fell into—eccentricity. It is a great pity, Leonard, that these people have turned up—a great misfortune—because we may have to share with them. Still, there must be enormous accumulations. My mother did not tell us anything about possible cousins; yet they do exist, and they are very serious and important possibilities. These people will probably interfere with us to a very serious extent. And now Fred has turned up, and he will want his share, too. Another misfortune.”

“He fell into a fever. I was only two years old at the time.”

Leonard said nothing about the suicide. Clearly, not himself only, but his uncles also, had been kept in the dark about the true cause of that unexpected demise.

He departed, closing the door softly, so as not to shake up and confuse the delicate tissues of a brain always occupied in arriving at an opinion.

As soon as he was gone the barrister drew out his papers once more, and resumed the speech for which he had prepared half a dozen most excellent stories. In such a case the British public does not ask for all the stories to be new.

Leonard rejoined the company upstairs.

His uncle Fred walked part of the way home with him.

“I hadn’t expected,” he said, “to find the old man still living. Of course, it cannot go on much longer. Have you thought about what may happen—when the end comes?”

“Not much, I confess.”

“One must. I take it that he does not spend the fiftieth part of his income. I have heard as a boy that the estate was worth £7,000 a year.”

“Very likely, unless there has been depression.”

“His descendants, I suppose.”

“You, my brother Christopher, and myself. Two millions to divide between us. A very pretty fortune—very pretty indeed. Good-night, my boy—good-night.”

He walked away cheerfully and with elastic step.

Mr. Galley’s house was on the north side, conveniently near to a certain police-court, in which he practised daily, sometimes coming home with as much as three or four half-crowns in his pocket, sometimes with less—for competition among the professional solicitors in the police-courts is keen, and even fierce. Five shillings is a common fee for the defence of a prisoner, and rumour whispers that even this humble sum has to be shared secretly with a certain functionary who must be nameless.

A brass plate was on the door: “Mr. Samuel Galley-Campaigne, Solicitor.” It was a narrow three-storied house, quite respectable, and as depressing as the road in which it stood.

Leonard knocked doubtfully. After a few moments’ delay the door was opened by a boy who had a pen stuck behind his ear.

“Oh, you want Mrs. Galley!” he said. “There you are—back-parlour!” and ran up the stairs again, leaving the visitor on the doormat.

The table was laid for tea; the kettle was on the old-fashioned hob—pity that the hospitable hob has gone!—and the kettle was singing; the buttered toast and the muffins were before the fire, within the high old-fashioned fender; the tea-things and the cake and the bread-and-butter were on the table, and the ladies were in their Sunday “things,” waiting for him. It was with some relief that Leonard observed the absence of Mr. Samuel.

The eldest of the three ladies welcomed him.

“My grand-nephew Leonard,” she said, giving him her hand, “I am very glad—very glad indeed to make your acquaintance. This”—she introduced the lady of middle life—“is my daughter-in-law, the widow—alas!—of my only son. And this”—indicating the girl—“is my grand-daughter.”

The second lady, who wore a widow’s cap and a great quantity of black crape, evidently belonged to another class. Some people talk of a lower middle class. The distinction, I know, is invidious. Why do we say the lower middle class? We do not say the lower upper class. However, this lady belonged to the great and numerous class which has to get through life on slender means, and has to consider, before all things, the purchasing power of sixpence. This terrible necessity, in its worst form, takes all the joy and happiness out of life. When every day brings its own anxieties about this sixpence, there is left no room for the graces, for culture, for art, for poetry, for anything that is lovely and delightful. It makes life the continual endurance of fear, as dreadful as continued pain of body. Even when the terror of the morrow has vanished, or is partly removed by an increase of prosperity, the scars and the memory remain, and the habits of mind and of body.

The third, the girl, who was Mary Anne, the Board School teacher, in some respects resembled her mother, being short and somewhat insignificant of aspect. But when she spoke she disclosed capacity. It is not to girls without capacity and resolution that places in Board Schools are offered.

“Let me look at you, Leonard.” The old lady still held his hand. “Ah! what a joy it is to see once more one of my own people! You are very tall, Leonard, like the rest of us: you have the Campaigne face: and you are proud. Oh yes!—you are full of pride—like my father and my brothers. It is fifty years—fifty years and more—since I have seen any of my own people. We have suffered—we have suffered.” She sighed heavily. She released his hand. “Sit down, my dear,” she said gently, “sit down, and for once take a meal with us. Mary Anne, give your cousin some cake—it is my own making—unless he will begin with bread-and-butter.”

The tea was conducted with some ceremony; indeed, it was an occasion: hospitalities were not often proffered in this establishment. Leonard was good enough to take some cake and two cups of tea. The old lady talked while the other two ministered.

At last the banquet was considered finished. Mary Anne herself carried out the tea-things, Mrs. Galley the younger followed, and Leonard was left alone with the old lady, as had been arranged. She wanted to talk with him about the family.

“Look,” she said, pointing to a framed photograph on the wall, “that is the portrait of my husband at thirty. Not quite at his best—but—still handsome, don’t you think? As a young man he was considered very handsome indeed. His good looks, unfortunately, like his good fortune and his good temper—poor man!—went off early. But he had heavy trials, partly redeemed by the magnitude of his failure.”

Leonard reflected that comeliness may go with very different forms of expression. In this case the expression was of a very inferior City kind. There also appeared to be a stamp or brand upon it already at thirty, as of strong drinks.

The face of the young man, apparently about twenty years of age, was handsome, but weak and irresolute, and without character.

“He had no pride in himself and no ambition, my poor boy! I could never understand why. No push and no ambition. That is why he remained only a clerk in the City all his life. If he had had any pride he would have risen.”

“I must tell you,” said Leonard, “that I have been kept, no doubt wisely, in ignorance of my own family history. It was only yesterday that I heard from your son that there have been troubles and misfortunes in our records.”

“Am I born to misfortune? More than other people?”

It was in a kind of dream that Leonard spoke. His brain reeled; the room went round and round: he caught the arms of a chair. And for a moment he heard nothing except the voice of Constance, who warned him that Nature makes no one wholly happy: that he had been too fortunate: that something would fall upon him to redress the balance: that family scandals, poor relations, disgraces and shames, were the lot of all mankind, and if he would be human, if he would understand humanity, he must learn, like the rest of the world, by experience and by suffering. Was she, then, a Prophetess? For, behold! a few days only had passed, and these things had fallen upon him. But as yet he did not know the full extent of what had happened and what was going to happen.

He recovered. The fit had lasted but a moment; but thought and memory are swifter than time.

The old lady was talking on. “To think that you’ve lived all these years and no one ever told you! What did they mean by keeping you in the dark? And I’ve always thought of you as sitting melancholy, waiting for the Stroke whenever it should fall.”

“No—no!” The old lady shook her head, and laid her hand on his. “Dear boy, you are still under the curse. The Stroke will fall. Perhaps it will be laid in mercy. On me it fell with wrath. That is our distinction. That’s what it is to be a Campaigne. The misfortunes, however, don’t go on for ever. They will leave off after your generation. It will be when I am dead and gone; but I should like, I confess, to see happiness coming back once more to the family.”

“Your grandson spoke of a murder and of a suicide among other things.”

“Other things, indeed! Why, there was my husband’s bankruptcy. There was your uncle Fred, my nephew, and what he did, and why he was bundled out of the country. I thought your mother would have fallen ill with the shame of it. And there was my poor father, too; and there was the trial. Did they not tell you about the trial?”

“What trial?”

“The great trial for the murder. It’s a most curious case. I believe the man who was tried really did it, because no one else was seen about the place. But he got off. My father was very good about it. He gave the man Counsel, who got him off. I’ve got all the evidence in the case—cut out of newspapers and pasted in a book. I will lend it to you, if you like.”

“It is interesting. But don’t you call these things enough misfortunes for a single family?”

“Quite enough, but not enough to make us born to misfortune.”

“Oh, Leonard! If you had seen what I have seen, and suffered what I have suffered! I’ve been the most unfortunate of all. My brothers gone; poor dear Langley by his own hand; Christopher, dear lad, drowned; my father a wreck. Like him, I live on. I live on, and wait for more trouble.” She shook her head, and the tears came into her eyes.

Leonard took her hand and pressed it. There was nothing to be said.

“Tell me more,” she said, “about yourself.”

He told her, briefly, his position and his ambitions.

“You have done well,” she said, “so far—but take care. There is the Family Luck. It may pass you over, but I don’t know. I doubt. I fear. There are so many kinds of misfortune. I keep thinking of them all.” She folded her hands, resigned. “Let trouble come to me,” she said, “not to you or the younger ones. To me. That is what I pray daily. I am too old to mind much. Trouble to me means pain and suffering. Rather that than more trouble to you young people. Leonard, I remember now that your grandmother spoke in one of her letters of keeping the children from the knowledge of all this trouble. Yes, I remember.”

She went on talking; she told the whole of the family history. She narrated every misfortune at length.

“Leonard,” the old woman was going on, “for fifty years I have been considering and thinking. It means some great crime. The misfortunes began with my father; his life has been wrecked and ruined in punishment for someone else’s crime. His was the first generation; mine was the second. All our lives have been wrecked in punishment for that crime. His was the first generation, I say”—she repeated the words as if to drive them home—“mine was the second; all our lives have been wrecked in punishment for that crime. Then came the third—your father died early, and his brother ran away because he was a forger. Oh! to think of a Campaigne doing such a thing! That was the third generation. You are the fourth—and the curse will be removed. Unto the third and fourth—but not the fifth.”

She shook her head.

“It is very well to talk. Wait till the blows begin. If we could find out the crime—but we never can. If we could atone—but we cannot. We are so powerless—oh, my God! so powerless, and yet so innocent!”

She rose. Her face was buried in her handkerchief. I think it consoled her to cry over the recollection of her sorrows almost as much as to tell them to her grand-nephew.

“I pray daily—day and night—that the hand of wrath may be stayed. Sitting here, I think all day long. I have forgotten how to read, I think——”

Leonard glanced at the walls. There were a few books.

Leonard interrupted a monologue which seemed likely to go on without end. Besides, he had now grasped the situation.

“I will come again,” he said, “if I may.”

“Oh, if you may! If you only knew what a joy, what a happiness, it is only to look into your face! It is my brother’s face—my father’s face—oh, come again—come again.”

“I will come again, then, and soon. Meantime, remember that I am your nephew—or grand-nephew, which is the same thing. If in any way I can bring some increase to your comforts——”

“No, no, my dear boy. Not that way,” she cried hastily. “I have been poor, but never—in that way. My father, who ought to help me, has done nothing, and if he will not, nobody shall. I would, if I could, have my rights; no woman of our family, except me, but was an heiress. And, besides—he”—she pointed to the front of the house, where was the office of her grandson—“he will take it all himself.”

“Well, then, but if——”

“If I must, I will. Don’t give him money. He is better without it. He will speculate in houses and lose it all. Don’t, Leonard.”

“I will not—unless for your sake.”

He pressed her hand again. “Have faith, dear lady. We cannot be crushed in revenge for any crime by any other person. Do not think of past sorrows. Do not tremble at imaginary dangers. The future is in the hands of Justice, not of Revenge.”

They were brave words, but in his heart there lurked, say, the possibilities of apprehension.

LEONARD met Constance a few days later at the club, and they dined at the same table. As for the decision and the rejection, they were ignored by tacit consent. The situation remained apparently unaltered. In reality, everything was changed.

“You look thoughtful,” she said presently, after twice making an observation which failed to catch his attention. “And you are absent-minded.”

“I beg your pardon, yes. That is, I do feel thoughtful. You would, perhaps, if you found your family suddenly enlarged in all directions.”

“Have you received unknown cousins from America?”

“I have received a great-aunt, a lesser aunt, and two second cousins. They are not from America. They are, on the contrary, from the far East End of this town—even from Ratcliffe or Shadwell, or perhaps Stepney.”

“The great aunt is charming,” he continued; “the lesser aunt is not so charming; the second cousins are—are—well, the man is a solicitor who seems to practice chiefly in a police-court, defending those who are drunk and disorderly, with all who are pickpockets, hooligans, and common frauds.”

“A variegated life, I should say, and full of surprises and unexpectedness.”

“He is something like my family—tall, with sharp features—more perhaps of the vulture than the eagle in him. But one may be mistaken. His sister is like her mother, short and round and plump, and—not to disguise the truth—common-looking. But I should say that she was capable. She is a Board School teacher. You were saying the other day, Constance, that it was a pity that I had never been hampered by poor relations.”

“I consider that you are really a spoiled child of fortune. I reminded you that you have your position already made; you have your distinguished University career; you are getting on in the House; you have no family scandals or misfortunes, or poor relations, or anything.”

“Well, this loss is now supplied by the accession of poor relations and—other things. Your mention of things omitted reminded Fortune, I suppose. So she hastened to turn on a supply of everything. I am now quite like the rest of the world.”

“Do the poor relations want money?”

“I believe we all have poor relations,” said Constance. “Mine, however, do not trouble me much.”

“There has been a Family enlargement in another direction. A certain uncle of mine, who formerly enacted with much credit the old tragedy of the Prodigal Son, has come back from Australia.”

“Has he been living on the same diet as the Prodigal?”

“Shucks and bean-pods! He hardly looks as if that had been his diet. He is well dressed, big, and important. He repeats constantly, and is most anxious for everybody to know, that he is prosperous. I doubt, somehow——”

Leonard paused; the expression of doubt is not always wise.

“The return of a middle-aged Prodigal is interesting and unusual. I fear I must not congratulate you altogether on this unexpected enlargement.”

“Yet you said I ought to have poor relations. However, there is more behind. What was it you said about disgraces? Well, they’ve come too.”

“Of course not; it is the merest coincidence. At the same time, like all coincidences, it is astonishing just after your remarks, which did really make me very uncomfortable. But I’ve stepped into quite a remarkable family history, full of surprising events, and all of them disasters.”

“But you had already a remarkable family history.”

“So I thought—a long history and a creditable history, ending with the ancient recluse of whom I have told you. We are rather proud of this old, old man—this singular being who has been a recluse for seventy years. I have always known about him. One of the very earliest things I was told was the miraculous existence of this eccentric ancestor. They told me so much, I suppose, because I am, as a matter of fact, heir to the estate whenever that happens to fall in. But I was never told—I suppose because it is a horrible story—why the old man became a recluse. That I only learned yesterday from this ancient aunt, who is the only daughter of the still more ancient recluse.”

“Why was it? That is, don’t let me ask about your private affairs.”

“It does seem very strange. I myself had an ancestor murdered somewhere—father of one of my grandmothers. But your case is different.”

“The aged aunt told me the story. She had a theory about some great crime having been committed. She suggests that the parent of the recluse must have been a great unknown, unsuspected criminal—a kind of Gilles de Retz. There have been misfortunes scattered about—she related a whole string of calamities—all, she thinks, in consequence of some crime committed by this worthy, as mild a Christian, I believe, as ever followed the hounds or drank a bottle of port.”

“She is thinking, of course, of the visitation upon the third and fourth generation. To which of them do you belong?”

“Of course, if there is no crime there can be no consequences. Have the misfortunes been very marked?”

“Yes, very marked and unmistakable misfortunes. They cannot be got over or denied or explained away. Misfortunes, Dooms—what you please.”

“What does your recluse say about them?”

“He says nothing; he never speaks. Constance, will you ride over with me and see the man and the place? It is only five-and-twenty miles or so. The roads are dry; the spring is upon us. Come to-morrow. There is a pretty village, an old church, an eighteenth-century house falling into ruins, great gardens all run to bramble and thistle, and a park, besides the recluse himself.”

“The recluse might not like my visit.”

“He will not notice it. Besides, he sleeps all the afternoon. And when he is awake he sees nobody. His eyes go straight through one like a Röntgen ray. I believe he sees the bones and nothing else.”

On a fine clear day in early spring, two cyclists rode through this country. They were Leonard and his friend Constance. They went by train as far as Uxbridge, and then they took the road.

At first it was enough to breathe the pure air of the spring; to fly along the quiet road, while the rooks cawed in the trees, and over the fields the larks sang. Then they drew nearer and began to talk.

“Is this what you brought me out to see?” asked Constance. “I am well content if this is all. What a lovely place it is! And what a lovely air! It is fragrant; the sun brings out the fragrance from the very fields as well as the woods.”

“This is the quietest and the most beautiful of all the roads near London. But I am going to show you more. Not all to-day. We must come again. I will show you Milton’s cottage and Penn’s burial-ground, John Hampden’s church and tomb, and the old manor-house of Chenies and Latimer. To-day I am only going to show you our old family house.”

“We will come when the catkins have given place to the leaves and the hedge-rose is in blossom.”

“That pleases me well.”

They went on in silence for a while.

Leonard took up the parable again about his family.

“We have been in the same place,” he said, “for an immense time. We have never produced a great man or a distinguished man. If you consider it, there are not really enough distinguished men to go round the families. We have twice recently made a bid for a distinguished man. My own father and my grandfather were both promising politicians, but they were both cut off in early manhood.”

“Both? What a strange thing!”

“Yes. Part of what the ancient aunt calls the family luck. We have had, in fact, an amazing quantity of bad luck. Listen. It is like the history of a House driven and scourged by the hand of Fate.”

She listened while he went through the terrible list.

“Why,” she said, “your list of disaster does really suggest the terrible words ‘unto the third and fourth generation.’ I don’t wonder at your aunt looking about for a criminal. What could your forefathers have done to bring about such a succession of misfortunes?”

“What have my forefathers done? Nothing. Of that I am quite certain. They have always been most respectable squires, good fox-hunters, with a touch of scholarship. They have done nothing. Our misfortunes are all pure bad luck, and nothing else. Those words, however, do force themselves on one. I am not superstitious, yet since that venerable dame—— However, this morning I argued with myself. I said, ‘It would be such a terrible injustice that innocent children should suffer from their fathers’ misdeeds, that it cannot be so.’ ”

“I don’t know,” said Constance. “I am not so sure.”

“You, too, among the superstitious? I also, however, was brought up with that theory——”

“I suppose you went to church?”

“Yes, we went to church. And now I remember that my mother, for the reason which I have only just learned, believed that we were ourselves expiating the sins of our forefathers. It is very easy for me to go back to the language and ideas of my childhood, so much so that this morning I made a little search after a certain passage which I had well-nigh forgotten.”

“What was that?”

“No. I have never read that Prophet, and I have never considered the subject.”

“It is a very fine passage. Ezekiel is one of the finest writers possible. He ought to be read more and studied more.”

“Tell me the sense of the passage.”

“I can give you the very words. Listen.” He stood up and took off his hat, and declaimed the words with much force:

“ ‘What mean ye that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not use this proverb any more. Behold, all souls are Mine: as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is Mine. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. But if a man be just, he shall surely live.”

“These are very noble words, Constance;” indeed, Leonard spoke them with much solemnity. “The verbal interpretation of the Prophets no longer occupies our minds. Still, they are very noble words. I have never believed myself to be superstitious or to believe in heredity of misfortune; still, after learning for the first time the long string of disasters that have fallen upon my people, I became possessed with a kind of terror, as if the Hand of Fate was pressing upon us all.”

“What consequences—from father to son?”

“Why, you have only to look around you. We live in conditions made for us by our forefathers. My people behaved well and prospered: they saved money and bought lands: they lived, in the old phrase, God-fearing lives. Therefore I am sound in mind and body, and I am tolerably wealthy.”

“Oh! that, of course. But I was not thinking of consequences like these.”

“You must think of them. A man loses his fortune and position. Down go children and grandchildren. The edifice of generations may have to be built up again from the very foundations. Is it nothing to inherit a name which has been smirched? If a man commits a bad action, are not his children disgraced with him?”

“Of course; but only by that act. They are not persecuted by the hand of Fate.”

“Who can trace the consequences of a single act? Who can follow it up in all the lines of consequence?”

“Yes; but the third and fourth generation....”

“Who can say when those consequences will cease?”

“A man may be kept down by poverty and shut out from the world by his father’s shame. Yet he may still be just. It is the distinction that the Prophet would draw. What misfortune has fallen upon your House which affects the soul of a man? Death? Poverty? The wrong-doing of certain members?”

Leonard shook his head. “Yes, I understand what you mean. I confess that I had been shaken by the revelations of that old lady. They seemed to explain so much.”

“Perhaps they explained the whole—yet not as she meant them to explain.”

“It was natural.”

“So that these words came to me like a direct message from the old Hebrew Prophet. Our ancestors went for consolation and instruction to those pages. They held that every doubt and every difficulty were met and solved by these writers. Perhaps we shall go back to the ancient faith. And yet——” He looked round; it was a new world that he saw, with new ideas. “Not in my time,” he said. “We are a scientific age. When the reign of Science is ended, we may begin again the reign of Faith.” He spoke as one in doubt and uncertainty.

“Receive the words, Leonard, as a direct message.”

“At least, I interpreted the words into an order to look at events from another point of view. And I have taken all the misfortunes in turn. They have nothing whatever to do with heredity. Your illustration about a man losing his money, and so bringing poverty upon his children, does not apply. My great-grandfather has his head turned by a great trouble. His son commits suicide. Why? Nobody knows. The young sailor is drowned. Why? Because he is a sailor. The daughter marries beneath her station. Why? Because she was motherless and fatherless and neglected. My own father died young. Why? Because fever carried him off.”

“Let me forget it, by all means. At present, I confess, the question is always with me.”

“It explains something in your manner yesterday and to-day. You are always serious, but now you are absent-minded. You have begun to think too much about these troubles.”

He smiled. “I am serious, I suppose, from the way in which I was brought up. We lived in Cornwall, right in the country, close to the seashore, with no houses near us, until I went to school. It was a very quiet household: my grandmother and my mother were both in widows’ weeds. There was very little talking, and no laughing or mirth of any kind, within the house, and always, as I now understand, the memory of that misfortune and the dread of new misfortunes were upon these unhappy ladies. They did not tell me anything, but I felt the sadness of the house. I suppose it made me a quiet boy—without much inclination to the light heart that possessed most of my fellows.”

“I am glad you have told me,” she replied. “These things explain a good deal in you. For now I understand you better.”

They mounted their cycles, and resumed the journey in silence for some miles.

“Look!” he cried. “There is our old place.”

“You see only the back of the house,” said Leonard. “The gardens are all in the front: but everything is grown over; nothing has been done to the place for seventy years. I wonder it has stood so long.” They turned off the road into the drive. “The old man, when the double shock fell upon him, dropped into a state of apathy from which he has never rallied. We must go round by the servant’s entrance. The front doors are never opened.”

The great hall with the marble floor made echoes rolling and rumbling about the house above as they walked across it. There were arms on the walls and armour, but all rusted and decaying in the damp air. There were two or three pictures on the walls, but the colour had peeled off and the pictures had become ghosts and groups of ghosts in black frames.

Constance came in stepping noiselessly, as in a place where silence was sacred. She spoke in whispers; the silence fell upon her soul; it filled her with strange terrors and apprehensions. She looked around her.

“You come here often, Leonard?”

“No. I have opened the door once, and only once. Then I was seized with a strange sense of—I know not what; it made me ashamed. But it seemed as if the room was full of ghosts.”