Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
https://books.google.com/books?id=GtVAAQAAMAAJ
(University of Minnesota)
THE MAN IN BLACK.
AN
Historical Novel of the Days of Queen Anne.
BY
G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.
AUTHOR OF "LORD MONTAGU'S PAGE," "THE CAVALIER," "ARRAN NEIL," "EVA
ST. CLAIR," "MARY OF BURGUNDY," "PHILIP AUGUSTUS," ETC., ETC.
COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.
Philadelphia:
T. B. PETERSON AND BROTHERS,
306 CHESTNUT STREET.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by
T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, to
and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
THE MAN IN BLACK.
CHAPTER I.
Let me take you into an old-fashioned country house, built by architects of the early reign of James the First. It had all the peculiarities--I might almost say the oddities--of that particular epoch in the building art. Chimneys innumerable had it. Heaven only knows what rooms they ventilated; but their name must have been legion. The windows were not fewer in number, and much more irregular: for the chimneys were gathered together in some sort of symmetrical arrangement, while the windows were scattered all over the various faces of the building, with no apparent arrangement at all. Heaven knows, also, what rooms they lighted, or were intended to light, for they very little served the purpose, being narrow, and obstructed by the stone mullions of the Elizabethan age. Each, too, had its label of stone superincumbent, and projecting from the brick-work, which might leave the period of construction somewhat doubtful--but the gables decided the fact.
They, too, were manifold; for although the house had been built all at once, it seemed, nevertheless, to have been erected in detached masses, and joined together as best the builder could; so that there were no less than six gables, turning north, south, east, and west, with four right angles, and flat walls between them. These gables were surmounted--topped, as it were, by a triangular wall, somewhat higher than the acute roof, and this wall was constructed with a row of steps, coped with freestone, on either side of the ascent, as if the architect had fancied that some man or statue would, one day or another, have to climb up to the top of the pyramid, and take his place upon the crowning stone.
It was a gloomy old edifice: the bricks had become discolored; the livery of age, yellow and gray lichen, was upon it; daws hovered round the chimney tops; rooks passed cawing over it, on the way to their conventicle hard by; no swallow built under the eaves; and the trees, as if repelled by its stern, cold aspect, retreated from it on three sides, leaving it alone on its own flat ground, like a moody man amidst a gay society. On the fourth side, indeed, an avenue--that is to say, two rows of old elms--crept cautiously up to it in a winding and sinuous course, as if afraid of approaching too rapidly; and at the distance of some five or six hundred yards, clumps of old trees, beeches, and ever-green oaks, and things of sombre foliage, dotted the park, only enlivened by here and there a herd of deer.
Now and then, a milk-maid, a country woman going to church or market, a peasant, or at game-keeper, might be seen traversing the dry brown expanse of grass, and but rarely deviating from a beaten path, which led from one stile over the path wall to another. It was all sombre and monotonous: the very spirit of dulness seemed to hang over it; and the clouds themselves--the rapid sportive clouds, free denizens of the sky, and playmates of the wind and sunbeam--appeared to grow dull and tardy, as they passed across the wide space open to the view, and to proceed with awe and gravity, like timid youth in the presence of stern old age.
Enough of the outside of the house. Let me take you into the interior, reader, and into one particular room--not the largest and the finest; but one of the highest. It was a little oblong chamber, with one window, which was ornamented--the only ornament the chamber had--with a decent curtain of red and white checked linen. On the side next the door, and between it and the western wall, was a small bed. A walnut-tree table and two or three chairs were near the window. In one corner stood a washing-stand, not very tidily arranged, in another chest of drawers; and opposite the fire-place, hung from nails driven into the wall, two or three shelves of the same material as the table, each supporting a row of books, which, by the dark black covers, brown edges, and thumbed corners, seemed to have a right to boast of some antiquity and much use.
At the table, as you perceive, there is seated a boy of some fifteen years of age, with pen and ink and paper, and an open book. If you look over his shoulder, you will perceive that the words are Latin. Yet he reads it with ease and facility, and seeks no aid from the dictionary. It is the "Cato Major" of Cicero. Heaven! what a book for a child like that to read! Boyhood studying old age!
But let us turn from the book, and examine the lad himself more closely. See that pale face, with a manlike unnatural gravity upon it. Look at that high broad brow, towering as a monument above the eyes. Remark those eyes themselves, with their deep eager thought; and then the gleam in them--something more than earnestness, and less than wildness--a thirsty sort of expression, as if they drank in that they rested on, and yet were unsated.
The brow rests upon the pale fair hand, as if requiring something to support the heavy weight of thoughts with which the brain is burdened. He marks nothing but the lines of that old book. His whole soul is in the eloquent words. He hears not the door open; he sees not that tall, venerable, but somewhat stiff and gaunt figure, enter and approach him. He reads on, till the old man's Geneva cloak brushes his arm, and his hand is upon his shoulder. Then he starts up--looks around--but says nothing. A faint smile, pleasant yet grave, crosses his finely cut lip; but that is the only welcome, as he raises his eyes to the face that bends over him. Can that boy in years be already aged in heart?
It is clear that the old man--the old clergyman, for so he evidently is--has no very tender nature. Every line of his face forbids the supposition. The expression itself is grave, not to say stern. There is powerful thought about it, but small gentleness. He seems one of those who have been tried and hardened in some one of the many fiery furnaces which the world provides for the test of men of strong minds and strong hearts. There has been much persecution in the land; there have been changes, from the rigid and severe to the light and frivolous--from the light and frivolous to the bitter and cruel. There have been tyrants of all shapes and all characters within the last forty years, and fools, and knaves, and madmen, to cry them on in every course of evil. In all these chances and changes, what fixed and rigid mind could escape the fangs of persecution and wrong? He had known both; but they had changed him little. His was originally an unbending spirit: it grew more tough and stubborn by the habit of resistance; but its original bent was still the same.
Fortune--heaven's will--or his own inclination, had denied him wife or child; and near relation he had none. A friend he had: that boy's father, who had sheltered him in evil times, protected him as far as possible against the rage of enemies, and bestowed upon him the small living which afforded him support. He did his duty therein conscientiously, but with a firm unyielding spirit, adhering to the Calvinistic tenets which he had early received, in spite of the universal falling off of companions and neighbors. He would not have yielded an iota to have saved his head.
With all his hardness, he had one object of affection, to which all that was gentle in his nature was bent. That object wits the boy by whom he now stood, and for whom he had a great--an almost parental regard. Perhaps it was that he thought the lad not very well treated; and, as such had been his own case, there was sympathy in the matter. But besides, he had been intrusted with his education from a very early period, had taken a pleasure in the task, had found his scholar apt, willing, and affectionate, with a sufficient touch of his own character in the boy to make the sympathy strong, and yet sufficient diversity to interest and to excite.
The old man was tenderer toward him than toward any other being upon earth; and he sometimes feared that his early injunctions to study and perseverance were somewhat too strictly followed--even to the detriment of health. He often looked with some anxiety at the increasing paleness of the cheek, at the too vivid gleam of the eye, at the eager nervous quivering of the lip, and said within himself, "This is overdone."
He did not like to check, after he had encouraged--to draw the rein where he had been using the spur. There is something of vanity in us all, and the sternest is not without that share which makes man shrink from the imputation of error, even when made by his own heart. He did not choose to think that the lad had needed no urging forward and yet he would fain have had him relax a little more, and strove at times to make him do so. But the impulse had been given: it had carried the youth over the difficulties and obstacles in the way to knowledge, and now he went on to acquire it, with an eagerness, a thirst, that had something fearful in it. A bent, too, had been given to his mind--nay, to his character, partly by the stern uncompromising character of him to whom his education had been solely intrusted, partly by his own peculiar situation, and partly by the subjects on which his reading had chiefly turned.
The stern old Roman of the early republic; the deeds of heroic virtue--as virtue was understood by the Romans; the sacrifice of all tender affections, all the sensibilities of our nature to the rigid thought of what is right; the remorseless disregard of feelings implanted by God, when opposed to the notion of duties of man's creation, excited his wonder and his admiration, and would have hardened and perverted his heart, had not that heart been naturally full of kindlier affections. As it was, there often existed a struggle--a sort of hypothetical struggle--in his bosom, between the mind and the heart. He asked himself sometimes, if he could sacrifice any of those he knew and loved--his father, his mother, his brother, to the good of his country, to some grave duty; and he felt pained and roused to resistance of his own affections when he perceived what a pang it would cost him.
Yet his home was not a very happy one; the kindlier things of domestic life had not gathered green around him. His father was varying and uneven in temper, especially toward his second son; sometimes stern and gloomy, sometimes irascible almost to a degree of insanity. Generous, brave, and upright, he was; but every one said, that a wound he had received on the head in the wars, had marvelously increased the infirmities of his temper.
The mother, indeed, was full of tenderness and gentleness; and doubtless it was through her veins that the milk of human kindness had found its way into that strange boy's heart. But yet she loved her eldest son best, and unfortunately showed it.
The brother was a wild, rash, reckless young man, some three years older; fond of the other, yet often pleased to irritate--or at least to try, for he seldom succeeded. He was the favorite, however, somewhat spoiled, much indulged; and whatever was done, was done for him. He was the person most considered in the house; his were the parties of pleasure: his the advantages. Even now the family was absent, in order to let him see the capital of his native land, to open his mind to the general world, to show him life on a more extended scale than could be done in the country; and his younger brother was left at home, to pursue his studies in dull solitude.
Yet he did not complain; there was not even a murmur at his heart. He thought it all quite right. His destiny was before him. He was to form his fortune for himself, by his own abilities, his own learning, his own exertions. It was needful he should study, and his greatest ambition for the time was to enter with distinction at the University; his brightest thoughts of pleasure, the comparative freedom and independence of a collegiate life.
Not that he did not find it dull; that gloomy old house, inhabited by none but himself and few servants. Sometimes it seemed to oppress him with a sense of terrible loneliness; sometimes it drove him to think of the strange difference of human destinies, and why it should be that--because it had pleased Heaven one man should be born a little sooner or a little later than another, or in some other place--such a wide interval should be placed between the different degrees of happiness and fortune.
He felt, however, that such speculations were not good; they led him beyond his depth; he involved himself in subtilties more common in those days than in ours; he lost his way; and with passionate eagerness flew to his books, to drive the mists and shadows from his mind. Such had been the case even now: and there he sat, unconscious that a complete and total change was coming over his destiny.
Oh, the dark workshop of Fate! what strange things go on therein, affecting human misery and joy, repairing or breaking shackles for the mind, the means of carrying us forward in a glorious cause, the relentless weights which hurry us down to destruction! While you sit there and read--while I sit here and write, who can say what strange alterations, what combinations in the must discrepant things may be going on around--without our will, without our knowledge--to alter the whole course of our future existence? Doubtless, could man make his own fate, he would mar it; and the impossibility of doing so is good. The freedom of his own actions is sufficient, nay, somewhat too much; and it is well for the world, aye, and for himself--that there is an overruling Providence which so shapes circumstances around him, that he cannot go beyond his limit, flutter as he will.
There is something in that old man's face more than is common with him--a deeper gravity even than ordinary, yet mingled with a tenderness that is rare. There is something like hesitation, too--ay, hesitation even in him who during a stormy life has seldom known what it is to doubt or to deliberate: a man of strict and ready preparation, whose fixed, clear, definite mind was always prompt and competent to act.
"Come, Philip, my son," he said, laying his hand, as I have stated, on the lad's shoulder, "enough of study for to-day. You read too hard. You run before my precepts. The body must have thought as well as the mind; and if you let the whole summer day pass without exercise, you will soon find that under the weight of corporeal sickness the intellect will flag and the spirit droop. I am going for a walk. Come with me; and we will converse of high things by the way."
"Study is my task and my duty, sir." replied the boy; "my father tells me so, you have told me so often, and as for health I fear not. I seem refreshed when I get up from reading, especially such books as this. It is only when I have been out long, riding or walking, that I feel tired."
"A proof that you should ride and walk the more," replied the old man. "Come, put on your hat and cloak. You shall read no more to-day. There are other thoughts before you; you know, Philip," he continued, "that by reading we get but materials, which we must use to build up an edifice in our own minds. If all our thoughts are derived from others gone before us, we are but robbers of the dead, and live upon labors not our own."
"Elder sons," replied the boy, with a laugh, "who take an inheritance for which they toiled not."
"Something worse than that," replied the clergyman, "for we gather what we do not employ rightly--what we have every right to possess, but upon the sole condition of using well. Each man possessed of intellect is bound to make his own mind, not to have it made for him; to adapt it to the times and circumstances in which he lives, squaring it by just rules, and employing the best materials he can find."
"Well, sir, I am ready," replied the youth, after a moment of deep thought; and he and his old preceptor issued forth together down the long staircase, with the slant sunshine pouring through the windows upon the unequal steps, and illuminating the motes in the thick atmosphere we breathe, like fancy brightening the idle floating things which surround us in this world of vanity.
They walked across the park toward the stile. The youth was silent, for the old man's last words seemed to have awakened a train of thought altogether new.
His companion was silent also; for there was something working within him which embarrassed and distressed him. He had something to tell that young man, and he knew not how to tell it. For the first time in his life he perceived, from the difficulty he experienced in deciding upon his course, how little he really knew of his pupil's character. He had dealt much with his mind, and that he comprehended well--its depth, its clearness, its powers; but his heart and disposition he had not scanned so accurately. He had a surmise, indeed, that there were feelings strong and intense within; but he thought that the mind ruled them with habitual sway that nothing could shake. Yet he paused and pondered; and once he stopped, as if about to speak, but went on again and said nothing.
At length, as they approached the park wall, he laid his finger on his temple, muttering to himself, "Yes, the quicker the better. 'Tis well to mingle two passions. Surprise will share with grief--if much grief there be." Then turning to the young man, he said, "Philip, I think you loved your brother Arthur?"
He spoke loudly, and in plain distinct tones; but the lad did not seem to remark the past tense he used. "Certainly, sir," he said, "I love him dearly. What of that?"
"Then you will be very happy to hear," replied the old man, "that he had been singularly fortunate--I mean that he has been removed from earth and all its allurements--the vanities, the sins, the follies of the world in which he seemed destined to move, before he could be corrupted by its evils, or his spirit receive a taint from its vices."
The young man turned and gazed on him with inquiring eyes, as if still he did not comprehend what he meant.
"He was drowned," said the clergyman, "on Saturday last, while sailing with a party of pleasure on the Thames;" and Philip fell at his feet as senseless as if he had shot him.
CHAPTER II.
I must not dwell long upon the youthful scenes of the lad I have just introduced to the reader; but as it is absolutely needful that his peculiar character should be clearly understood, I must suffer it to display itself a little farther before I step from his boyhood to his maturity.
We left Philip Hastings senseless upon the ground, at the feet of his old preceptor, struck down by the sudden intelligence he had received, without warning or preparation.
The old man was immeasurably shocked at what he had done, and he reproached himself bitterly; but he had been a man of action all his life, who never suffered thought, whether pleasant or painful, to impede him. He could think while he acted, and as he was a strong man too, he had no great difficulty in taking the slight, pale youth up in his arms, and carrying him over the park stile, which was close at hand, as the reader may remember. He had made up his mind at once to bear his young charge to a small cottage belonging to a laborer on the other side of the road which ran under the park wall; but on reaching it, he found that the whole family were out walking in the fields, and both doors and windows were closed.
This was a great disappointment to him, although there was a very handsome house, in modern taste, not two hundred yards off. But there were circumstances which made him unwilling to bear the son of Sir John Hastings to the dwelling of his next neighbor. Next neighbors are not always friends; and even the clergyman of the parish may have his likings and dislikings.
Colonel Marshal and Sir John Hastings were political opponents. The latter was of the Calvinistic branch of the Church of England--not absolutely a non-juror, but suspected even of having, a tendency that way. He was sturdy and stiff in his political opinions, too, and had but small consideration for the conscientious views and sincere opinions of others. To say the truth, he was but little inclined to believe that any one who differed from him had conscientious views or sincere opinions at all; and certainly the demeanor, if not the conduct, of the worthy Colonel did not betoken any fixed notion or strong principles. He was a man of the Court--gay, lively, even witty, making a jest of most things, however grave and worthy of reverence. He played high, generally won, was shrewd, complaisant, and particular in his deference to kings and prime ministers. Moreover, he was of the very highest of the High Church party--so high, indeed, that those who belonged to the Low Church party, fancied he must soon topple over into Catholicism.
In truth, I believe, had the heart of the Colonel been very strictly examined, it would have been found very empty of anything like real religion. But then the king was a Roman Catholic, and it was pleasant to be as near him as possible.
It may be asked, why then did not the Colonel go the same length as his Majesty? The answer is very simple. Colonel Marshal was a shrewd observer of the signs of the times. At the card table, after the three first cards were played, he could tell where every other card in the pack was placed. Now in politics he was nearly as discerning; and he perceived that, although King James had a great number of honors in his hand, he did not hold the trumps, and would eventually lose the game. Had it been otherwise, there is no saying what sort of religion he might have adopted. There is no reason to think that Transubstantiation would have stood in the way at all; and as for the Council of Trent, he would have swallowed it like a roll for his breakfast.
For this man, then, Sir John Hastings had both a thorough hatred and a profound contempt, and he extended the same sensations to every member of the family. In the estimation of the worthy old clergyman the Colonel did not stand much higher; but he was more liberal toward the Colonel's family. Lady Annabelle Marshal, his wife, was, when in the country, a very regular attendant at his church. She had been exceedingly beautiful, was still handsome, and she had, moreover, a sweet, saint-like, placid expression, not untouched by melancholy, which was very winning, even in an old man's eyes. She was known, too, to have made a very good wife to a not very good husband; and, to say the truth, Dr. Paulding both pitied and esteemed her. He went but little to the house, indeed, for Colonel Marshal was odious to him; and the Colonel returned the compliment by never going to the church.
Such were the reasons which rendered the thought of carrying young Philip Hastings up to The Court--as Colonel Marshal's house was called--anything but agreeable to the good clergyman. But then, what could he do? He looked in the boy's face. It was like that of a corpse. Not a sign of returning animation showed itself. He had heard of persons dying under such sudden affections of the mind; and so still, so death-like, was the form and countenance before him, as he laid the lad down for a moment on the bench at the cottage door, that his heart misgave him, and a trembling feeling of dread came over his old frame. He hesitated no longer, but after a moment's pause to gain breath, caught young Hastings up in his arms again, and hurried away with him toward Colonel Marshal's house.
I have said that is was a modern mansion; that is to imply, that it was modern in that day. Heaven only knows what has become of it now; but Louis Quatorze, though he had no hand in the building of it, had many of its sins to answer for--and the rest belonged to Mansard. It was the strangest possible contrast to the old-fashioned country seat of Sir John Hastings, who had his joke at it, and at the owner too--for he, too, could jest in a bitter way--and he used to say that he wondered his neighbor had not added his own name to the building, to distinguish it from all other courts; and then it would have been Court Marshal. Many were the windows of the house; many the ornaments; pilasters running up between the casements, with sunken panels, covered over with quaint wreaths of flowers, as if each had an embroidered waistcoat on; and a large flight of steps running down from the great doorway, decorated with Cupids and cornucopias running over with this most indigestible kind of stone-fruit.
The path from the gates up to the house was well graveled, and ran in and out amongst sundry parterres, and basins of water, with the Tritons, &c., of the age, all spouting away as hard as a large reservoir on the top of the neighboring slope could make them. But for serviceable purposes these basins were vain, as the water was never suffered to rise nearly to the brim; and good Dr. Paulding gazed on them without hope, as he passed on toward the broad flight of steps.
There, however, he found something of a more comfortable aspect. The path he had been obliged to take had one convenience to the dwellers in the mansion. Every window in that side of the house commanded a view of it, and the Doctor and his burden were seen by one pair of eyes at least.
Running down the steps without any of the frightful appendages of the day upon her head, but her own bright beautiful hair curling wild like the tendrils of a vine, came a lovely girl of fourteen or fifteen, just past the ugly age, and blushing in the spring of womanhood. There was eagerness and some alarm in her face: for the air and haste of the worthy clergyman, as well as the form he carried in his arms, spoke as plainly as words could have done that some accident had happened; and she called to him, at some distance, to ask what was the matter.
"Matter, child! matter!" cried the clergyman, "I believe I have half killed this poor boy."
"Killed him!" exclaimed the girl, with a look of doubt as well as surprise.
"Ay, Mistress Rachael," replied the old man, "killed him by unkindly and rashly telling him of his brother's death, without preparation."
"You intended it for kind, I am sure," murmured the girl in a sweet low tone, coming down the steps, and gazing on his pale face, while the clergyman carried the lad up the steps.
"There, Miss Marshal, do not stay staring," said Dr. Paulding; "but pray call some of the lackeys, and bid them bring water or hartshorn, or something. Your lady-mother must have some essences to bring folks out of swoons. There is nothing but swooning at Court, I am told--except gaming, and drinking, and profanity."
The girl was already on her way, but she looked back, saying, "My father and mother are both out; but I will soon find help."
When the lad opened his eyes, there was something very near, which seemed to him exceedingly beautiful--rich, warm coloring, like that of a sunny landscape; a pair of liquid, tender eyes, deeply fringed and full of sympathy; and the while some sunny curls of bright brown hair played about his cheek, moved by the hay-field breath of the sweet lips that bent close over him.
"Where am I?" he said. "What is the matter? What has happened? Ah! now I recollect. My brother--my poor brother! Was it a dream?"
"Hush, hush!" said a musical voice. "Talk to him, sir. Talk to him, and make him still."
"It is but too true, my dear Philip," said the old clergyman; "your brother is lost to us. But recollect yourself, my son. It is weak to give way in this manner. I announced your misfortune somewhat suddenly, it is true, trusting that your philosophy was stronger than it is--your Christian fortitude. Remember, all these dispensations are from the hand of the most merciful God. He who gives the sunshine, shall he not bring the clouds? Doubt not that all is merciful; and suffer not the manifestations of His will to find you unprepared or unsubmissive."
"I have been very weak," said the young man, "but it was so sudden! Heaven! how full of health and strength he looked when he went away! He was the picture of life--almost of immortality. I was but as a reed beside him--a weak, feeble reed, beside a sapling oak."
"'One shall be taken, and the other left,'" said the sweet voice of the young girl; and the eyes both of the youth and the old clergyman turned suddenly upon her.
Philip Hastings raised himself upon his arm, and seemed to meditate for a moment or two. His thoughts were confused and indistinct. He knew not well where he was. The impression of what had happened was vague and indefinite. As eyes which have been seared by the lightning, his mind, which had lost the too vivid impression, now perceived everything in mist and confusion.
"I have been very weak," he said, "too weak. It is strange. I thought myself firmer. What is the use of thought and example, if the mind remains thus feeble? But I am better now I will never yield thus again;" and flinging himself off the sofa on which they had laid him, he stood for a moment on his feet, gazing round upon the old clergyman and that beautiful young girl, and two or three servants who had been called to minister to him.
We all know--at least, all who have dealt with the fiery things of life--all who have felt and suffered, and struggled and conquered, and yielded and grieved, and triumphed in the end--we all know how short-lived are the first conquests of mind over body, and how much strength and experience it requires to make the victory complete. To render the soul the despot, the tyranny must be habitual.
Philip Hastings rose, as I have said, and gazed around him. He struggled against the shock which his mere animal nature had received, shattered as it had been by long and intense study, and neglect of all that contributes to corporeal power. But everything grew hazy to his eyes again. He felt his limbs weak and powerless; even his mind feeble, and his thoughts confused. Before he knew what was coming, he sunk fainting on the sofa again, and when he woke from the dull sort of trance into which he had fallen, there were other faces around him; he was stretched quietly in bed in a strange room, a physician and a beautiful lady of mature years were standing by his bedside, and he felt the oppressive lassitude of fever in every nerve and in every limb.
But we must turn to good Doctor Paulding. He went back to his rectory discontented with himself, leaving the lad in the care of Lady Annabelle Marshal and her family. The ordinary--as the man who carried the letters, was frequently called in those days--was to depart in an hour, and he knew that Sir John Hastings expected his only remaining eon in London to attend the body of his brother down to the family burying place. It was impossible that the lad could go, and the old clergyman had to sit down and write an account of what had occurred.
There was nothing upon earth, or beyond the earth, which would have induced him to tell a lie. True, his mind might be subject to such self-deceptions as the mind of all other men. He might be induced to find excuses to his own conscience for anything he did that was wrong--for any mistake or error in judgment; for, willfully, he never did what was wrong; and it was only by the results that he knew it. But yet he was eagerly, painfully upon his guard against himself. He knew the weakness of human nature--he had dealt with it often, and observed it shrewdly, and applied the lesson with bitter severity to his own heart, detecting its shrinking from candor, its hankering after self-defense, its misty prejudices, its turnings and windings to escape conviction; and he dealt with it as hardly as he would have done with a spoiled child.
Calmly and deliberately he sat down to write to Sir John Hastings a full account of what had occurred, taking more blame to himself than was really his due. I have his feet, gazing round upon the old clergyman called it a full account, though it occupied but one page of paper, for the good doctor was anything but profuse of words; and there are some men who can say much in small space. He blamed himself greatly, anticipating reproach; but the thing which he feared the most to communicate was the fact that the lad was left ill at the house of Colonel Marshal, and at the house of a man so very much disliked by Sir John Hastings.
There are some men--men of strong mind and great abilities--who go through life learning some of its lessons, and totally neglecting others--pre-occupied by one branch of the great study, and seeing nothing in the course of scholarship but that. Dr. Paulding had no conception of the change which the loss of their eldest son had wrought in the heart of Sir John and Lady Hastings. The second--the neglected one--had now become not only the eldest, but the only one. His illness, painfully as it affected them, was a blessing to them. It withdrew their thoughts from their late bereavement. It occupied their mind with a new anxiety. It withdrew it from grief and from disappointment. They thought little or nothing of whose house he was at, or whose care he was under; but leaving the body of their dead child to be brought down by slow and solemn procession to the country, they hurried on before, to watch over the one that was left.
Sir John Hastings utterly forgot his ancient feelings toward Colonel Marshal. He was at the house every day, and almost all day long, and Lady Hastings was there day and night.
Wonderful how--when barriers are broken down--we see the objects brought into proximity under a totally different point of view from that in which we beheld them at a distance. There might be some stiffness in the first meeting of Colonel Marshal and Sir John Hastings, but it wore off with exceeding rapidity. The Colonel's kindness and attention to the sick youth were marked. Lady Annabelle devoted herself to him as to one of her own children. Rachael Marshal made herself a mere nurse. Hard hearts could only withstand such things. Philip was now an only child, and the parents were filled with gratitude and affection.
CHAPTER III.
The stone which covered the vault of the Hastings family had been raised, and light and air let into the cold, damp interior. A ray of sunshine, streaming through the church window, found its way across the mouldy velvet of the old coffins as they stood ranged along in solemn order, containing the dust of many ancestors of the present possessors of the manor. There, too, apart from the rest were the coffins of those who had died childless; the small narrow resting-place of childhood, where the guileless infant, the father's and mother's joy and hope, slept its last sleep, leaving tearful eyes and sorrowing hearts behind, with naught to comfort but the blessed thought that by calling such from earth, God peoples heaven with angels; the coffins, too, of those cut off in the early spring of manhood, whom the fell mower had struck down in the flower before the fruit was ripe. Oh, how his scythe levels the blossoming fields of hope! There, too, lay the stern old soldier, whose life had been given up to his country's service, and who would not spare one thought or moment to soften domestic joys; and many another who had lived, perhaps and loved, and passed away without receiving love's reward.
Amongst these, close at the end of the line, stood two tressels, ready for a fresh occupant of the tomb, and the church bell tolled heavily above, while the old sexton looked forth from the door of the church toward the gates of the park, and the heavy clouded sky seemed to menace rain.
"Happy the bride the sun shines upon: happy the corpse the heaven rains upon!" said the old man to himself. But the rain did not come down; and presently, from the spot where he stood, which overlooked the park-wall, he saw come on in slow and solemn procession along the great road to the gates, the funeral train of him who had been lately heir to all the fine property around. The body had been brought from London after the career of youth had been cut short in a moment of giddy pleasure, and father and mother, as was then customary, with a long line of friends, relations, and dependents, now conveyed the remains of him once so dearly loved, to the cold grave.
Only one of all the numerous connections of the family was wanting on this occasion, and that was the brother of the dead; but he lay slowly recovering from the shock he had received, and every one had been told that it was impossible for him to attend. All the rest of the family had hastened to the hall in answer to the summons they had received, for though Sir John Hastings was not much loved, he was much respected and somewhat feared--at least, the deference which was paid to him, no one well knew why, savored somewhat of dread.
It is a strange propensity in many old persons to hang about the grave to which they are rapidly tending, when it is opened for another, and to comment--sometimes even with a bitter pleasantry--upon an event which must soon overtake themselves. As soon as it was known that the funeral procession had set out from the hall door, a number of aged people, principally women, but comprising one or two shriveled men, tottered forth from the cottages, which lay scattered about the church, and made their way into the churchyard, there to hold conference upon the dead and upon the living.
"Ay, ay!" said one old woman, "he has been taken at an early time; but he was a fine lad, and better than most of those hard people."
"Ay, Peggy would praise the devil himself if he were dead," said an old man, leaning on a stick, "though she has never a good word for the living. The boy is taken away from mischief, that is the truth of it. If he had lived to come down here again, he would have broken the heart of my niece's daughter Jane, or made a public shame of her. What business had a gentleman's son like that to be always hanging about a poor cottage girl, following her into the corn-fields, and luring her out in the evenings?"
"Faith! she might have been proud enough of his notice," said an old crone; "and I dare say she was, too, in spite of all your conceit, Matthew. She is not so dainty as you pretend to be; and we may see something come of it yet."
"At all events," said another, "he was better than this white-faced, spiritless boy that is left, who is likely enough to be taken earlier than his brother, for he looks as if breath would blow him away."
"He will live to do something yet, that will make people talk of him;" said a woman older than any of the rest, but taller and straighter; "there is a spirit in him, be it angel or devil, that is not for death so soon."
"Ay! they're making a pomp of it, I warrant," said another old woman, fixing her eyes on the high road under the park wall, upon which the procession now entered. "Marry, there are escutcheons enough, and coats of arms! One would think he was a lord's son, with all this to do! But there is a curse upon the race anyhow; this man was the last of eleven brothers, and I have heard say, his father died a bad death. Now his eldest son must die by drowning--saved the hangman something, perchance--we shall see what comes of the one that is left. 'Tis a curse upon them ever since Worcester fight, when the old man, who is dead and gone, advised to send the poor fellows who were taken, to work as slaves in the colonies."
As she spoke, the funeral procession advanced up the road, and approached that curious sort of gate with a penthouse over it, erected probably to shelter the clergyman of the church while receiving the corpse at the gate of the burial-ground, which was then universally to be found at the entrance to all cemeteries. She broke off abruptly, as if there was something still on her mind which she had not spoken, and ranging themselves on each side of the church-yard path, the old men and women formed a lane down which good Dr. Paulding speedily moved with book in hand. The people assembled, whose numbers had been increased by the arrival of some thirty or forty young and middle-aged, said not a word as the clergymen marched on, but when the body had passed up between them, and the bereaved father followed as chief-mourner, with a fixed, stern, but tearless eye, betokening more intense affliction perhaps, in a man of his character, than if his cheeks had been covered with drops of womanly sorrow, several voices were heard saying aloud. "God bless and comfort you, Sir John."
Strange, marvelously strange it was, that these words should come from tongues, and from those alone, which had been so busily engaged in carping censure and unfeeling sneers but the moment before. It was the old men and women alone who had just been commenting bitterly upon the fate, history, and character of the family, who now uttered the unfelt expressions of sympathy in a beggar-like, whining tone. It was those who really felt compassion who said nothing.
The coffin had been carried into the church, and the solemn rites, the beautiful service of the Church of England, had proceeded some way, when another person was added to the congregation who had not at first been there. All eyes but those of the father of the dead and the lady who sat weeping by his side, turned upon the new-comer, as with a face as pale as death, and a faltering step, he took his place on one of the benches somewhat remote from the rest. There was an expression of feeble lassitude in the young man's countenance, but of strong resolution, which overcame the weakness of the frame. He looked as if each moment he would have fainted, but yet he sat out the whole service of the Church, mingled with the crowd when the body was lowered into the vault, and saw the handful of earth hurled out upon the velvet coffin, as if in mockery of the empty pride of all the pomp and circumstance which attended the burial of the rich and high.
No tear came into his eyes--no sob escaped from his bosom; a slight quivering of the lip alone betrayed that there was strong agitation within. When all was over, and the father still gazing down into the vault, the young lad crept quietly back into a pew, covered his face with his hand, and wept.
The last rite was over. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust were committed. Sir John Hastings drew his wife's arm through his own, and walked with a heavy, steadfast, and unwavering step down the aisle. Everybody drew back respectfully as he passed; for generally, even in the hardest hearts, true sorrow finds reverence. He had descended the steps from the church into the burying ground, and had passed half way along the path toward his carriage, when suddenly the tall upright old woman whom I have mentioned thrust herself into his way, and addressed him with a cold look and somewhat menacing tone--
"Now, Sir John Hastings," she said, "will you do me justice about that bit of land? By your son's grave I ask it. The hand of heaven has smitten you. It may, perhaps, have touched your heart. You know the land is mine. It was taken from my husband by the usurper because he fought for the king to whom he had pledged his faith. It was given to your father because he broke his faith to his king and brought evil days upon his country. Will you give me back the land, I say? Out man! It is but a garden of herbs, but it is mine, and in God's sight I claim it."
"Away out of my path," replied Sir John Hastings angrily. "Is this a time to talk of such things? Get you gone, I say, and choose some better hour. Do you suppose I can listen to you now?"
"You have never listened, and you never will," replied the old woman, and suffering him to pass without further opposition, she remained upon the path behind him muttering to herself what seemed curses bitter and deep, but the words of which were audible only to herself.
The little crowd gathered round her, and listened eagerly to catch the sense of what she said, but the moment after the old sexton laid his hand upon her shoulder and pushed her from the path, saying, "Get along with you, get along with you, Popish Beldam. What business have you here scandalizing the congregation, and brawling at the church door? You should be put in the stocks!"
"I pity you, old worm," replied the old woman, "you will be soon among those you feed upon," and with a hanging head and dejected air she quitted the church-yard.
In the meanwhile Dr. Paulding had remained gazing down into the vault, while the stout young men who had come to assist the sexton withdrew the broad hempen bands by which the coffin had been lowered, from beneath it, arranged it properly upon the tressels in its orderly place among the dead, and then mounted by a ladder into the body of the church, again preparing to replace the stone over the mouth of the vault. He then turned to the church door and looked out, and then quietly approached a pew in the side aisle.
"Philip, this is very wrong," he said; "your father never wished or intended you should be here."
"He did not forbid me," replied the young man. "Why should I only be absent from my brother's funeral?"
"Because you are sick. Because, by coming, you may have risked your life," replied the old clergyman.
"What is life to a duty?" replied the lad. "Have you not taught me, sir, that there is no earthly thing--no interest of this life, no pleasure, no happiness, no hope, that ought not to be sacrificed at once to that which the heart says is right?"
"True--true," replied the old clergyman, almost impatiently; "but in following precept so severely, boy, you should use some discrimination. You have a duty to a living father, which is of more weight than a mere imaginary one to a dead brother. You could do no good to the latter; as the Psalmist wisely said, 'You must go to him, but he can never come back to you.' To your father, on the contrary, you have high duties to perform; to console and cheer him in his present affliction; to comfort and support his declining years. When a real duty presents itself, Philip, to yourself, to your fellow men, to your country, or to your God--I say again, as I have often said, do it in spite of every possible affection. Let it cut through everything, break through every tie, thrust aside every consideration. There, indeed, I would fain see you act the old Roman, whom you are so fond of studying, and be a Cato or a Brutus, if you will. But you must make very sure that you do not make your fancy create unreal duties, and make them of greater importance in your eyes than the true ones. But now I must get you back as speedily as possible, for your mother, ere long, will be up to see you, and your father, and they must not find you absent on this errand."
The lad made no reply, but readily walked back toward the court with Dr. Paulding, though his steps were slow and feeble. He took the old man's arm, too, and leaned heavily upon it; for, to say the truth, he felt already the consequences of the foolish act he had committed; and the first excitement past, lassitude and fever took possession once more of every limb, and his feet would hardly bear him to the gates.
The beautiful girl who had been the first to receive him at that house, met the eyes both of the young man and the old one, the moment they entered the gardens. She looked wild and anxious, and was wandering about with her head uncovered; but as soon as she beheld the youth, she ran toward him, exclaiming, "Oh, Philip, Philip, this is very wrong and cruel of you. I have been looking for you everywhere. You should not have done this. How could you let him, Dr. Paulding?"
"I did not let him, my dear child," replied the old man, "he came of his own will, and would not be let. But take him in with you; send him to bed as speedily as may be; give him a large glass of the fever-water he was taking, and say as little as possible of this rash act to any one."
The girl made the sick boy lean upon her rounded arm, led him away into the house, and tended him like a sister. She kept the secret of his rashness, too, from every one; and there were feelings sprang up in his bosom toward her during the next few hours which were never to be obliterated. She was so beautiful, so tender, so gentle, so full of all womanly graces, that he fancied, with his strong imagination, that no one perfection of body or mind could be wanting; and he continued to think so for many a long year after.
CHAPTER IV.
Enough of boyhood and its faults and follies. I sought but to show the reader, as in a glass, the back of a pageant that has past. Oh, how I sometimes laugh at the fools--the critics--God save the mark! who see no more in the slight sketch I choose to give, than a mere daub of paint across the canvas, when that one touch gives effect to the whole picture. Let them stand back, and view it as a whole; and if they can find aught in it to make them say "Well done," let them look at the frame. That is enough for them; their wits are only fitted to deal with "leather, and prunella."
I have given you, reader--kind and judicious reader--a sketch of the boy, that you may be enabled to judge rightly of the man. Now, take the lad as I have moulded him--bake him well in the fiery furnace of strong passion, remembering still that the form is of hard iron--quench and harden him in the cold waters of opposition, and disappointment, and anxiety--and bring him forth tempered, but too highly tempered for the world he has to live in--not pliable--not elastic; no watch-spring, but like a graver's tool, which must cut into everything opposed to it, or break under the pressure.
Let us start upon our new course some fifteen years after the period at which our tale began, and view Philip Hastings as that which he had now become.
Dr. Paulding had passed from this working day world to another and a better--where we hope the virtues of the heart may be weighed against vices of the head--a mode of dealing rare here below. Sir John Hastings and his wife had gone whither their eldest son had gone before them; and Philip Hastings was no longer the boy. Manhood had set its seal upon his brow only too early; but what a change had come with manhood!--a change not in the substance, but in its mode.
Oh, Time! thy province is not only to destroy! Thou worker-out of human destinies--thou new-fashioner of all things earthly--thou blender of races--thou changer of institutions--thou discoverer--thou concealer--thou builder up--thou dark destroyer; thy waters as they flow have sometimes a petrifying, sometimes a solvent power, hardening the soft, melting the strong, accumulating the sand, undermining the rock! What had been thine effect upon Philip Hastings?
All the thoughts had grown manly as well as the body. The slight youth had been developed into the hardy and powerful man; somewhat inactive--at least so it seemed to common eyes--more thoughtful than brilliant, steady in resolution, though calm in expression, giving way no more to bursts of boyish feeling, somewhat stern, men said somewhat hard, but yet extremely just, and resolute for justice. The poetry of life--I should have said the poetry of young life--the brilliancy of fancy and hope, seemed somewhat dimmed in him--mark, I say seemed, for that which seems too often is not; and he might, perhaps, have learnt to rule and conceal feelings which he could not altogether conquer or resist.
Still there were many traces of his old self visible: the same love of study, the same choice of books and subjects of thought, the same subdued yet strong enthusiasms. The very fact of mingling with the world, which had taught him to repress those enthusiasms, seemed to have concentrated and rendered them more intense.
The course of his studies; the habits of his mind; his fondness for the school of the stoics, it might have been supposed, would rather have disgusted him with the society in which he now habitually mingled, and made him look upon mankind--for it was a very corrupt age--with contempt, if not with horror.
Such, however, was not the case. He had less of the cynic in him than his father--indeed he had nothing of the cynic in him at all. He loved mankind in his own peculiar way. He was a philanthropist of a certain sort; and would willingly have put a considerable portion of his fellow-creatures to death, in order to serve, and elevate, and improve the rest.
His was a remarkable character--not altogether fitted for the times in which he lived; but one which in its wild and rugged strength, commanded much respect and admiration even then. Weak things clung to it, as ivy to an oak or a strong wall: and its power over them was increased by a certain sort of tenderness--a protecting pity, which mingled strangely with his harder and ruder qualities. He seemed to be sorry for everything that was weak, and to seek to console and comfort it, under the curse of feebleness. It seldom offended him--he rather loved it, it rarely came in his way; and his feeling toward it might approach contempt but never rose to anger.
He was capable too of intense and strong affections, though he could not extend them to many objects. All that was vigorous and powerful in him concentrated itself in separate points here and there; and general things were viewed with much indifference.
See him as he walks up and down there before the old house, which I have elsewhere described. He has grown tall and powerful in frame: and yet his gait is somewhat slovenly and negligent, although his step is firm and strong. He is not much more than thirty-one years of age; but he looks forty at the least; and his hair is even thickly sprinkled with gray. His face is pale, with some strong marked lines and indentations in it; yet, on the whole, it is handsome, and the slight habitual frown, thoughtful rather than stern, together with the massive jaw, and the slight drawing down of the corners of the mouth, give it an expression of resolute firmness, that is only contradicted by the frequent variation of the eye, which is sometimes full of deep thought, sometimes of tenderness; and sometimes is flashing with a wild and almost unearthly fire.
But there is a lady hanging on his arm which supports her somewhat feeble steps. She seems recovering from illness; the rose in her cheek is faint and delicate; and an air of languor is in her whole face and form. Yet she is very beautiful, and seems fully ten years younger than her husband, although, in truth, she is of the same age--or perhaps a little older. It is Rachael Marshal, now become Lady Hastings.
Their union did not take place without opposition; all Sir John Hastings' prejudices against the Marshal family revived as soon as his son's attachment to the daughter of the house became apparent. Like most fathers, he saw too late; and then sought to prevent that which had become inevitable. He sent his son to travel in foreign lands; he even laid out a scheme for marrying him to another, younger, and as he thought fairer. He contrived that the young man should fall into the society of the lady he had selected, and he fancied that would be quite sufficient; for he saw in her character, young as she was, traits, much more harmonious, as he fancied, with those of his son, than could be found in the softer, gentler, weaker Rachael Marshal. There was energy, perseverance, resolution, keen and quick perceptions--perhaps a little too much keenness. More, he did not stay to inquire; but, as is usual in matters of the heart, Philip Hastings loved best the converse of himself. The progress of the scheme was interrupted by the illness of Sir John Hastings, which recalled his son from Rome. Philip returned, found his father dead, and married Rachael Marshal.
They had had several children; but only one remained; that gay, light, gossamer girl, like a gleam darting along the path from sunny rays piercing through wind-borne clouds. On she ran with a step of light and careless air, yet every now and then she paused suddenly, gazed earnestly at a flower, plucked it, pored into its very heart with her deep eyes, and, after seeming to labor under thought for a moment, sprang forward again as light as ever.
The eyes of the father followed her with a look of grave, thoughtful, intense affection. The mother's eyes looked up to him, and then glanced onward to the child.
She was between nine and ten years old--not very handsome, for it is not a handsome age. Yet there were indications of future beauty--fine and sparkling eyes, rich, waving, silky hair, long eyelashes, a fine complexion, a light and graceful figure, though deformed by the stiff fashions of the day.
There was a sparkle too in her look--that bright outpouring of the heart upon the face which is one of the most powerful charms of youth and innocence. Ah! how soon gone by! How soon checked by the thousand loads which this heavy laboring world casts upon the buoyancy of youthful spirits--the chilling conventionality--the knowledge, and the fear of wrong--the first taste of sorrow--the anxieties, cares, fears--even the hopes of mature life, are all weights to bear down the pinions of young, lark-like joy. After twenty, does the heart ever rise up from her green sod and fling at Heaven's gate as in childhood? Never--eh, never! The dust of earth is upon the wing of the sky songster, and will never let her mount to her ancient pitch.
That child was a strange combination of her father and her mother. She was destined to be their only one; and it seemed as if nature had taken a pleasure in blending the characters of both in one. Not that they were intimately mingled, but that they seemed like the twins of Laconia, to rise and set by turns.
In her morning walk: in her hours of sportive play; when no subject of deep thought, no matter that affected the heart or the imagination was presented to her, she was light and gay as a butterfly; the child--the happy child was in every look, and word, and movement. But call her for a moment from this bright land of pleasantness--present something to her mind or to her fancy which rouses sympathies, or sets the energetic thoughts at work, and she was grave, meditative, studious, deep beyond her years.
She was a subject of much contemplation, some anxiety, some wonder to her father. The brightness of her perceptions, her eagerness in the pursuit of knowledge, her vigorous resolution even as a child, when convinced that she was right, showed him his own mind reflected in hers. Even her tenderness, her strong affections, he could comprehend; for the same were in his own heart, and though he believed them to be weaknesses, he could well understand their existence in a child and in a woman.
But that which he did not understand--that which made him marvel--was her lightness, her gayety, her wild vivacity--I might almost say, her trifling, when not moved by deep feeling or chained down by thought.
This was beyond him. Yet strange! the same characteristics did not surprise nor shook him in her mother--never had surprised or shocked him; indeed he had rather loved her for those qualities, so unlike his own. Perhaps it was that he thought it strange, his child should, in any mood, be so unlike himself; or perhaps it was the contrast between the two sides of the same character that moved his wonder when he saw it in his child, he might forget that her mother was her parent as well as himself; and that she had an inheritance from each.
In his thoughtful, considering, theoretical way, he determined studiously to seek a remedy for what he considered the defect in his child--to cultivate with all the zeal and perseverance of paternal affection, supported by his own force of character, those qualities which were most like his own--those, in short, which were the least womanly. But nature would not be baffled. You may divert her to a certain degree; but you cannot turn her aside from her course altogether.
He found that he could not--by any means which his heart would let him employ--conquer what he called, the frivolity of the child. Frivolity! Heaven save us! There were times when she showed no frivolity, but on the contrary, a depth and intensity far, far beyond her years. Indeed, the ordinary current of her mind was calm and thoughtful. It was but when a breeze rippled it that it sparkled on the surface. Her father, too, saw that this was so; that the wild gayety was but occasional. But still it surprised and pained him--perhaps the more because it was occasional. It seemed to hie eyes an anomaly in her nature. He would have had her altogether like himself. He could not conceive any one possessing so much of his own character, having room in heart and brain for aught else. It was a subject of constant wonder to him; of speculation, of anxious thought.
He often asked himself if this was the only anomaly in his child--if there were not other traits, yet undiscovered, as discrepant as this light volatility with her general character: and he puzzled himself sorely.
Still he pursued her education upon his own principles; taught her many things which women rarely learned in those days; imbued her mind with thoughts and feelings of his own; and often thought, when a season of peculiar gravity fell upon her, that he made progress in rendering her character all that he could wish it. This impression never lasted long, however; for sooner or later the bird-like spirit within her found the cage door open, and fluttered forth upon some gay excursion, leaving all his dreams vanished and his wishes disappointed.
Nevertheless he loved her with all the strong affection of which his nature was capable; and still he persevered in the course which he thought for her benefit. At times, indeed, he would make efforts to unravel the mystery of her double nature, not perceiving that the only cause of mystery was in himself: that what seemed strange in his daughter depended more upon his own want of power to comprehend her variety than upon anything extraordinary in her. He would endeavor to go along with her in her sportive moods--to let his mind run free beside hers in its gay ramble to find some motive for them which he could understand; to reduce them to a system; to discover the rule by which the problem was to be solved. But he made nothing of it, and wearied conjecture in vain.
Lady Hastings sometimes interposed a little; for in unimportant things she had great influence with her husband. He let her have her own way wherever he thought it not worth while to oppose her; and that was very often. She perfectly comprehended the side of her daughter's character which was all darkness to the father; and strange to say, with greater penetration than his own, she comprehended the other side likewise. She recognized easily the traits in her child which she knew and admired in her husband, but wished them heartily away in her daughter's case, thinking such strength of mind, joined with whatever grace and sweetness, somewhat unfeminine.
Though she was full of prejudices, and where her quickness of perception failed her, altogether unteachable by reason, yet she was naturally too virtuous and good to attempt even to thwart the objects of the father's efforts in the education of his child. I have said that she interfered at times, but it was only to remonstrate against too close study, to obtain frequent and healthful relaxation, and to add all those womanly accomplishments on which she set great value. In this she was not opposed. Music, singing, dancing, and a knowledge of modern languages, were added to other branches of education, and Lady Hastings was so far satisfied.
CHAPTER V.
The Italian singing-master was a peculiar man, and well worthy of a few words in description. He was tall and thin, but well built; and his face had probably once been very handsome, in that Italian style, which, by the exaggeration of age, grows so soon into ugliness. The nose was now large and conspicuous, the eyes bright, black, and twinkling, the mouth good in shape, but with an animal expression about it, the ear very voluminous.
He was somewhat more than fifty years of age, and his hair was speckled with gray; but age was not apparent in wrinkles and furrows, and in gait he was firm and upright.
At first Sir Philip Hastings did not like him at all. He did not like to have him there. It was against the grain he admitted him into the house. He did it, partly because he thought it right to yield in some degree to the wishes of his wife; partly from a grudging deference to the customs of society.
But the Signor was a shrewd and world-taught man, accustomed to overcome prejudices, and to make his way against disadvantages; and he soon established himself well in the opinion of both father and mother. It was done by a peculiar process, which is well worth the consideration of all those who seek _les moyens de parvenir_.
In his general and ordinary intercourse with his fellow-men, he had a happy middle tone,--a grave reticent manner, which never compromised him to anything. A shrewd smile, without an elucidatory remark, served to harmonize him with the gay and vivacious; a serious tranquillity, unaccompanied by any public professions, was enough to make the sober and the decent rank him amongst themselves. Perhaps that class of men--whether pure at heart or not--have always overestimated decency of exterior.
All this was in public however. In private, in a _tÊte-À-tÊte_, Signor Guardini was a very different man. Nay more, in each and every _tÊte-À-tÊte_ he was a different man from what he appeared in the other. Yet, with a marvelous art, he contrived to make both sides of his apparent character harmonize with his public and open appearance. Or rather perhaps I should say that his public demeanor was a middle tint which served to harmonize the opposite extremes of coloring displayed by his character. Nothing could exemplify this more strongly than the different impressions he produced on Sir Philip and Lady Hastings. The lady was soon won to his side. She was predisposed to favor him; and a few light gay sallies, a great deal of conventional talk about the fashionable life of London, and a cheerful bantering tone of persiflage, completely charmed her. Sir Philip was more difficult to win. Nevertheless, in a few short sentences, hardly longer than those which Sterne's mendicant whispered in the ear of the passengers, he succeeded in disarming many prejudices. With him, the Signor was a stoic; he had some tincture of letters, though a singer, and had read sufficient of the history of his own land, to have caught all the salient points of the glorious past.
Perhaps he might even feel a certain interest in the antecedents of his decrepit land--not to influence his conduct, or to plant ambitious or nourish pure and high hopes for its regeneration--but to waken a sort of touchwood enthusiasm, which glowed brightly when fanned by the stronger powers of others. Yet before Sir Philip had had time to communicate to him one spark of his own ardor, he had as I have said made great progress in his esteem. In five minutes' conversation he had established for himself the character of one of a higher and nobler character whose lot had fallen in evil days.
"In other years," thought the English gentleman, "this might have been a great man--the defender unto death of his country's rights--the advocate of all that is ennobling, stern, and grand."
What was the secret of all this? Simply that he, a man almost without character, had keen and well-nigh intuitive perceptions of the characters of others; and that without difficulty his pliable nature and easy principles would accommodate themselves to all.
He made great progress then in the regard of Sir Philip, although their conversations seldom lasted above five minutes. He made greater progress still with the mother. But with the daughter he made none--worse than none.
What was the cause, it may be asked. What did he do or say--how did he demean himself so as to produce in her bosom a feeling of horror and disgust toward him that nothing could remove?
I cannot tell. He was a man of strong passions and no principles: that his after--perhaps his previous--life would evince. There is a touchstone for pure gold in the heart of an innocent and high-minded woman that detects all baser metals: they are discovered in a moment: they cannot stand the test.
Now, whether his heart-cankering corruption, his want of faith, honesty, and truth, made themselves felt, and were pointed out by the index of that fine barometer, without any overt act at all--or whether he gave actual cause of offense, I do not know--none has ever known.
