The seamy side : a story

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THE SEAMY SIDE.

THE SEAMY SIDE

%. Stot»

BY

WALTER BESANT AND JAMES RICE

AUTHORS OF

THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY,' ' THE MONKS OF THELEMA,' ' READY-MONEY MORTIEOY

'BY CELIA'S AREOUR,' 'THIS SON OF VULCAN,' 'MY LITTLE GIRL," 'THE

CASK OF M& LUCRAFT,' ' WITH HARP AND CROWN,' ETC., ETC.

A NEW EDITION

Hontfou
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY

CONTENTS.

CUAI'TEU PAGE

1. ANTHONY 1IAMP.LIN .... 1

II. THE IIAMIiLIN DINNER ----- 9

III. MISS NETIIEKSOLE -.....- 15

IV. HOW THE PAKTY IiKOKIi UP - 24

V. THE JOURNAL OF A DESERTED WIPE - - - 29

VI. TO HIS RUIN OR HIS DEATH - - - - 40

VII. THE DAY AFTER A7

VIII. HOW THE PARTNERS MADE A PROPOSAL - - 55

IX. HOW STEPHEN DREAMED A DREAM • * - C5

X. WHAT STEPHEN PROPOSED - - - - - 73

XI. THE BIRCH-TREE TAVERN 82

XII. HOW STEPHEN DECLARED HIS INTENTIONS - - 92

XIII. HOW STEPHEN ASKED FOR BARE JUSTICE, AND DID

NOT GET IT 102

XIV. TEE VALLEY OP TEARS - - - - -113

XV. HOW STEPHEN LEFT THE HOUSE - - - 121

XVI. HOW A YOUNG MAN MAY PROSPER - - - 131

XVII. HOW THE BATTLE WAS BEGUN - 139

tVIII. HOW THE COURT WAS HARD TO PERSUADE - 148

XIX. HOW ALISON TOOK IT 154

XX. HOW YOUNG NICK SPENT HIS HALF HOLIDAY - 162
XXI. HOW YOUNG NICK MADE A MOST SURPRISING DIS-
COVERY 175

XXII. HOW ANTHONY HAMBLIN LOOKED - - - 180

fcXIII. HOW ADVERTISING PROVED A DISAPPOINTMENT - 189
XXIV. HOW STEPHEN SENT AN AMBASSADOR - - - 200

-■■" CONTENTS.

CHATTER |,,,,K

XXV. HOW MISS NETIIERSOLE BECAME AN INSTRUMENT - 211
XXVI. HOW ALISON REMEMBERED A MANUSCRIPT - - 219
XXVII. HOW GILBERT READ THE MANUSCRIPT - - 226
XXVIII. HOW GILBERT WENT TO LULWORTH - - - 235
XXIX. HOW MISS NETIIERSOLE SOFTENED HER HEART - 246
XXX. HOW YOUNG NICK KEPT HIS SECRET - - - 256
XXXI. HOW JACK BAKER PROPOSED AN AGREEABLE COM-
PROMISE 266

XXXII. HOW STEPHEN STILL HAD DREAMS ... 275

XXXIII. HOW STEPHEN HEARD THE NEWS - 283

XXXIV. HOW STEPHEN DEFIED THEM ALL ... 291
XXXV. HOW YOUNG NICK FETCHED THE WRITING-
MASTER - 301

XXXVI. HOW YOUNG NICK ACHIEVED GREATNESS - - 310

THE SEAMY SIDE.

CHAPTER J,

ANTHONY IIAMBLIN.

Ir is the afternoon of a day in early January, a day which
recalls what foolish people mean by a good old winter. It is a
day, that is, which has been easily endured and even enjoyed
by polar bears, seals, Arctic foxes, people who skate, people
who are warmly clad, people who are well-fed, and all creatures
whose circulation is brisk. To the great majority of mankind
and animals the day has been one of torture. Men out of work
and low from insufficiency of food, women with babes crying
from cold and hanger, children imperfectly dressed, wish it
were not so cold. To the warm classes the day is a glorious
winding up of that Yule-tide which they have striven to make
glad. There is ice that will bear, there are branches bending
beneath their weight of snow, roads crisp and hard, and,
hanging over the eaves, icicles as long as a regulation sword.
The cold and hungry regard these things with different feelings.
To them the ideal day all the year round is warm, sunshiny,
and favourable for rest, talk, and the promotion of thirst.
Their pulses do not quicken even when King Christmas, who
reigns only over the children of the rich, comes with frost in
both his hands, bursts the pipes, stops out-door work, and puts
an end to wages, beer, and food.

The broad face of Clapham Common is covered with a thin
sheet of frozen snow, through which the bents and coarse
grasses push up their dry stalks, and assert for the first time in
their lives a distinct personality as seen against the white light
of the snow, even although it is already four o'clock, and in the
far-off south-west a lurid disk is sinking behind a fringe of
deepest red. All day long the ponds of the Common have been
covered with skaters ; a bright sun without warmth has been
fihiiiing ; the glass has been sis degrees below freezing-point in

1

2 THE SEAMY SIDE.

the shade, and there has been no wind. As we look around us
a change falls upon the scene ; the light has died out in the
east, and is fading in the west, but it seems to linger over the
snow and becomes unearthly. The straggling furze, ' fledged
with icy feathers,' looks, m the strange glimmer which renders
any wild supposition possible, like some outlying portion of a
great Canadian forest in winter garb ; the frequent ditches and
the fissures which everywhere cover the Common, planted there
by the beneficent hand of Nature for boys to jump over, become
wild ravines and deep canons of the Rocky Mountains, whose
steep cliffs and rugged sides are crowned with snow. On the
Mount Pond a few young fellows are still left, loth to tear
themselves away from a sport far more delightful than waltzing,
and much more rare. But the day is done ; the man who has
been driving a roaring trade with his hot coffee can is packing
up his cart ; the men who have filled their pockets with coppers
in reward for screwing on skates are marching off with their
chairs ; the two rival tradesmen, who deal in roasted chestnuts,
have put out their charcoal-fires, and are comparing notes ; and
the man who has chanted all day, not without profit, the warm-
ing qualities of his ginger- toffee, has covered up his basket, and
is thinking of what the day's returns will run to in the shape
of supper. Soon the last lingering skater will feel a sudden
chill of loneliness, and leave the pond with a feeling, as he
strides away across the crisp and frozen snow, as if the ghosts
of many departed citizens, who in generations past skated round
this little wooded islet on the mimic lake, will come, the moment
he is out of sight, to flourish goblin legs, perform spectral
figures of eight, and rush, with silent mockery of mirth, after
each other's ghostly forms. When the Common is quite de-
serted ; when not a single loiterer is left to clash his skates
together as he hastens homeward, like Cowper's postman,

' Whistling as he goes, light hearted wretch,
Cold, and yet cheerful ;'

then the snow begins again with its soft and noiseless falling.
Presently the wind rises gently, and drives it about into drifts,
and fills up the tiny ravines, and buries the furze.

All round the Common stand the stately houses of sub-
stantial City merchants — such houses as warm men loved to
build early in the century — each standing in its own gardens,
and these not skimped and pinched of space ; no narrow
London slips of ground, but broad and spacious domains,
generous in lawn, flower-bed, and kitchen-garden ; stocked with
good old fruit-trees, which produce apples not to be bought in
Covcnt Garden, pears which would do honour to a Corporation
dinner, peaches and plums and apricots fit for a queen's table,

ANTHONY HAMBLIN. 3

Tliey arc large square houses, mostly built in two stories, -with
attic rooms for servants. They all have ample stabling ; most
of them stand too close to the road for modern ideas— that
was because more was formerly thought of the view across the
Common than of the lawn. It was before the days even of
croquet or archery. Perhaps, too, that close proximity to the
road was designed in kindness to the young ladies of the family ;
for in those old times, so near to us and yet so far away, the
cribbed and cabined girls spent nearly all the tedious and
proper days of prse-nuptial life in the house, and knew the
world chiefly from seeing it through the window, or reading of
it in a novel of sentiment, or observing it from a pew in
church.

Come with me into one of these houses — that of Mr. Anthony
Hamblin, senior partner in the house of ' Anthony Hamblin
and Company,' of Great St. Simon Apostle, City, indigo
merchants. It is the most stately house of all. Before it
stand a noble pair of cedars, sighing for Lebanon in the cold
breeze, and stretching out black branches which seem about to
sweep away the snow from the thin turf below them. The
carriage-way curves behind them to the great porch, with
marble pillars, set in the middle of the house-front. Cross the
broad hall, with its bright fire, its old carved chairs and side-
board, its horns and antlers, and its old-fashioned curios,
brought home many years ago in one of Hamblin and Com-
pany's East Indiamen. On the right is the dining-room ;
behind it is the study : on the left is the drawing-room ; and at
the back of it, where we are going, is Miss Hamblin's own
room.

A heavy curtain hangs across the door, which stands half
open. There are voices within.

Let us lift the curtain softly and look in.

A lady of a certain age is sitting near the fire, a reading-lamp
beside her, a book upon her knees. She wears a widow's cap,
but the lines of sorrow have long since left her face, which is
comely, and lit up by a soft light of comfortable benevolence,
as if, being well off herself, she would wish all the world, with-
out exception, to be in similarly desirable circumstances. She
is a woman who finds pleasure in pleasant things. I am not
here speaking as a fool ; because, though it is hard to realise
the fact, there are many women, in fact a large minority of
women, who are incapable of receiving pleasure from things
pleasant. Mrs. Cridland, or Aunt Flora, as Alison Hamblin
called her, belonged distinctly to the happy majority, who delight
in things delightful ; loving, as far as the length of her tether
went — naturally not very far— good eating and drinking, society,
music, art, the happiness of youug people. The shortness of

1—2

4 THE SEAMY SIDE.

woman's 1 ether deserves a special essay. Imagine the other sex
as catholic, as prodigal, as eager to seize, devour, and enjoy, as
critical in its tastes, as my own. Mrs. Cridland was Anthony
Hamblin's first cousin, and' lived in his house as chaperon, guar-
dian, and best available substitute for a mother to his daughter
and only child.

Upon the hearthrug stand a pair— a man of middle age, and
a girl of nineteen or twenty. She has got her two hands clasped
upon his arm, and is looking up into his face with caressing
affection.

' You skated to-day as well as any of the boys, as you call
them. AVhy, you dear old man, there were not half a dozen of
the boys fit to compare with you !'

'That is what you say, Alison,' he replied, with a laugh.
' All the same, I persist in the statement that I am growing old
and stiff.'

' You will never grow old, and you shall never grow stiff,'
said Alison, patting his cheek with her dainty fingers.

' And you, my love, you are not tired ?' asked her father.
' Why, you began at ten this morning, and you skated till one ;
then you began again at two, and you skated till four. Alison,
I insist upon your being tired.'

She laughed.

' Anyhow, dear, do not dance too much to-night. One thing,
at this party we begin so early that they are all ready to go at
twelve or one.'

' I will own to being a little tiny bit tired, if you will not talk
about getting old and stiff, papa.'

She had thrown off her hat, which lay upon a chair, and ono
of her gloves. She still had on the seal-skin jacket in which
she had been skating all the day. She was above the stature of
most women, a tall and shapely maiden. Her hair was a deep
dark brown ; so dark, that when the light was not upon it, you
would have called it black ; her eyes were a deep dark brown,
like her hair — they were steadfast eyes ; her complexion was
dark ; she was a pronounced brunette, of a type uncommon in
this realm of England. If her look, her attitude, the way in
which she curled her arm about her father's, betrayed a nature
affectionate and confiding, the firm linos of her mouth, the
shape of her chin, a little too square for perfect harmony with
the rest of her face, and the straight line of her dark eyebrows,
showed that she was a girl ■whose will was strong, and with
■whom purpose meant resolution.

Over the mantelshelf himg a portrait, in water-colour, of
a young girl, in all the glorious ripeness of youthful beauty,
whom Alison strangely resembled. It was her grandmother,
the Sehorp

ANTHONY HAM B LIN, 5

The first romance in the ITamblin family, unless the success
of the original Anthony be considered a romance, was that of
Donna Manuela's elopement with Anthony the fifth (the man
on the hearthrug is her elder son, Anthony the sixth) from a
convent near Cadiz. All for love she gave up country, heme,
and mother-tongue. For his dear sake she became a black
heretic, the only thing which ever troubled her after-life. She
is dead now, and her grand-daughter, Alison, has inherited her
face, her eyes, her hair, her strength of will, and her possibili-
ties of passion.

' I believe, Alison,' said Mr. Hamblin, ' that you were sent into
the world to spoil your father. Certainly to grow old is un-
pleasant, and to grow stiff more unpleasant. Well, we shall
have more skating yet. Perhaps the Serpentine will bear to-
morrow. Thank you, child, I will take a cup of tea.'

' Dinner at six to-night, auntie, remember,' cried Alison.
' Dancing to commence punctually at half -past eight. That is
the rule at the Hamblin dinner.'

' As if I should forget, my dear,' said Mrs. Cridland.

' The old-fashioned time for the old-fashioned party,' said Mr.
Hamblin. ' It was my father's time, and my grandfather's ;
although in his day to dine at six was considered presumptuous
in a plain London citizen. For fifty years in this house, and for
a hundred and fifty altogether, the 3rd of January, the birthday
of the founder, has been kept. We shall have a good gathering
to night, Alison.'

' About the same as usual,' replied his daughter. ' Cousin
Augustus Hamblin and his party, William the Silent, the
Colonel and his contingent, the Dean and his wife, Mr.
Alderney Codd of course ' — (here they all three smiled) — 'and
— and Mr. Gilbert Yorke is coming too. You asked him, you
know, papa.'

' It was in a weak moment,' her father replied. ' Of course I
did not expect him to accept. What attractions can he find at
this house ?' (Alinon blushed, and shook her head, as much as
to say, ' Alas, none !') ' Like the impudence of the boy, to come
to the Hamblin dinner without being one of the Hamblin kin.'

Alison laughed. ' And then there is Uncle Stephen,' she
added, with just the least possible change in her voice, which
showed that Uncle Stephen was not so acceptable a guest as the
young fellow she called Gilbert Yorke.

Mr. Hamblin put down his cup.

' Yes,' he said drily, ' Stephen is coming.'

And on his voice as he spoke, and on his eyes, there fell a
strange change of expression, as if something of cheerfulness
bad suddenly been taken away. Not much, but something.

' Have you thought, auntie, about the taking-in ?'

6 rrlE SEAMY SIDE.

' Yes, dear, I have got it all drawn out. Here it is. Mr
Hamblin of course takes in the wife of the second partner.
Augustus Hamblin takes you. The Dean takes me. Mr. Stephen
takes the Colonel's wife.' She went on making up the roll.
Alison observed that, by the arrangement proposed, the young
man named Gilbert Yorke would sit on her left ; and she acqui-
esced with a smile.

As Mrs. Cridland finished reading her list, the curtain before
the door was pulled back noisily, in a masterful fashion, and a
boy appeared.

He was a small boy for his age, which was thirteen ; but he
was a remarkable boy, for he was an Albino. He possessed
perfectly white hair, thick white eyebrows, long white eyelashes,
and a pink complexion, having pink cheeks and pink hands. In
fact, he was pink all over. His eyes were sharp and very bright ;
his head was well shaped, with plenty of forehead. He stood
for a moment in the door, surveying the group with an expres-
sion of mingled mischief, cunning, and self-satisfaction. He
looked as if he were either chuckling over one piece of mischief
or meditating another.

Mrs. Cridland changed in a moment at the sight of her son.
She sat up, and became at once the watchful and careful
mother.

' My dear,' she cried, ' are you only now returned ? Come
and let me look at you.'

She meant : ' Let me see if your clothes are torn to pieces.'

The boy nodded to his parent, and lounged into the room
with his hands in his pockets. But he did not obey the com-
mand to go and be looked at ; obedience was not his strong
point. Nor was respect to persons older and superior to him-
self.

' Well, Nicolas,' said Mr. Hamblin, ' I saw you on the ice this
morning.'

' Your uncle saw you, my dear,' said his mother, as if the
distinction was one to remember with gratitude.

' Cats look at kings/ replied Nicolas the irreverent. ' I saw
you too, uncle ; and I saw you come that awful cropper. Ho,
ho ! Picked yourself up, and thought nobody saw it.'

' You see, Alison,' said Mr. Hamblin, ' I am getting clumsy.
Go on, sweet imp.'

' A man of your weight ought to be careful,' the boy con-
tinued. ' At my time of life, a fall now and again is no such
mighty matter.'

' Why did you not help your uncle up again, Nicolas V asked
Mrs. Cridland.

The boy glanced at his uncle, who was looking at Alison.

ANTHONY HAMBLIN. 7

He therefore thrust his tongue in his cheek, and winked at hia
mother. He really could be a very vulgar boy.

' I was sliding,' be said, ' with a few other men. Casual
acquaintances, not friends. We had an accident. I was at the
head of the line, and there were about twenty-five after me.
I fell down, and they all capsized, turned turtle — heels up, no,-e
down — every man Jack, one after the other, over each other's
legs. Never saw such a mix. A common-keeper, who was in
the lot, got a heavy oner on the boko for his share.'

' Boys,' said Mr. Hamblin, ' who use slang come to the
gallows. Boko is '

' Conk or boko,' said Nicolas the vulgar. ' It's all the s ime.
Took it home in a bag made out of a pocket-handkerchief.'

' I believe he fell down on purpose, so as to bring all the
others down too,' said Alison.

The reputation of the boy was such that this unkind
suggestion was immediately adopted. Moreover, he was known
to cherish animosity towards common-keepers.

' And how much of the half-crown that I gave you this morn-
ing is left V asked his uncle.

' Nothing at all.' He dived into the deepest recesses of his
pockets, and pulled them inside out. They were quite empty,
' I've eaten it all ; and got good value for the money, too.'

' My dear boy,' his mother interposed ; ' a whole half-crown's
worth of things to eat ? You can't have eaten all that !'

' Every penny, mother — parliament, toffee, and gingersuct.'

' Anything shared with friends ?' asked Mr. Hamblin.

' Not a farthing,' replied the boy. ' I'm not like you, Uncle
Anthony, born with a silver spoon in my mouth. A man who
has his own way to make can't begin by going halves with
friends. Of course his friends may go halves with him : that's
quite another thing.'

' A most selfish sentiment,' said Alison.

' Pretty well,' said her father, laughing.

' Nicolas, you ought to beg your uncle's pardon at once,' cried
the boy's mother.

He begged no one's pardon. His eyes twinkled and winked,
and his lips half parted, as if to smile, but changed their mind
and became grave again.

' Let him give me his silver spoon, then,' he said, whilst
Uncle Anthony laughed, and Alison boxed his ears, but in
gentle and maidenly fashion, so that the chastisement only
imparted a pleasant tingling of the nerves, which acted as »
stimulant.

Presently the ladies went away to dress.

' Uncle,' said the boy, ' do you know that I am fourteen next
birthday ?'

8 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' A great age, Nicolas,' — Mr. Hamblin had taken Mrs. CJrid-
land's easy-chair, and was stretching himself comfortably before
the fire — ' a great age. I almost wish I was fourteen again.'

' What I mean,' said Nicolas, ' is — don't you think, uncle, I
may stay with the other men when the ladies go ?'

Mr. Hamblin laughed. Nicolas was privileged to come in
with the dessert, but was expected to retire with the ladies.
This interval, while it gave him opportunity too brief for eating,
afforded none for conversation. Besides, it was below the
dignity of manhood to get up and go away with the inferior
sex just when real conversation was about to begin.

' To-day is the family dinner,' said Mr. Hamblin. ' We will
make an exception for to-day ; but it is not to be a precedent,
remember. If you had not already had your dinner, I would let
you dine with us, provided Alison could find you a place.'

The boy jumped to his feet with joy.

' Already had my dinner !' he cried. ' Why, I've had just
exactly what you had : two helps of minced veal and two of
currant duff. What I call a simple lunch. And you had wine
too. I'll run and tell Alison I'm to dine.'

Then Mr. Hamblin, left alone, sat musing pleasantly.

He is a man of fifty-three or so, who looks no more than
forty. Around his clear and steady eyes there are no crows-
feet, across his ample forehead there are no lines ; his hair, of
a rich dark colour, is yet almost free from any silvering of
time ; his long full beard, of a lighter colour than his hair is, it is
true, streaked with grey ; his handsome face is that of a man
who habitually cherishes kindly thoughts ; nothing more dis-
torts and ages a man than hard and revengeful thoughts ; it
belongs also to one who has lived a healthy, temperate, and
active life. Needless to remind the intelligent reader that by
the time a man is fifty, his daily habits have made an indelible
mark upon his face. Mr. Hamblin's was a face which inspired
trust— a steady face. There was nothing shifty about his eyes
nor selfish about his lips ; a healthy, kindly, cheerful face,
which seemed to all men to be what it really was — the index to
his nature. It is by an instinct which never deceives that we
take a man for what his face, not his word of mouth, proclaims
him. The history of his life is written there in lines which no
limner can reproduce ; the level of his thoughts is indicated as
clearly as the height of a barometer ; his history is read at first
sight, and unless caught and remembered, perhaps never shows
itself again.

Mr. Hamblin's musings were pleasant as he sat with his head
in his hand, looking into the fire. I think they Avere of Alison.
As for himself, life could bring him nu new pleasures. He had
enjoyed all, as a rich raan can ; he had feasted on the choicest.

ANTHONY HAMBLIN. 9

There is, it is true, no time of life when new pleasures may not
be found. Art, travel, study, these are ever fresh. Yet City
men neither cultivate art, nor do they generally travel, nor do
they study. To Anthony Hamblin of the City, the spring of
youth came back when he sat and thought — for Alison. At
twenty every rosy dawn is a goddess who comes laden with
fresh and delightful gifts. At fifty the gifts of morning are
given again to the unselfish, but they are given in trust for the
children. That is the difference ; and it is not one over which
we need to groan and cry.

Presently carriage-wheels were heard. The earliest of the
guests had arrived. Anthony Hamblin started, sprang to his
feet, and ran up the stairs as lightly as a boy, to dress.

' O papa !' cried Alison, coming from her room radiant in
white ; ' you very, very bad man, what have you been about ?
I can only give you a quarter of an hour.'

' I was dreaming by the fire, my dear.' He kissed her as lie
passed. ' I shall take only ten minutes.'

CHAPTEK II.

THE HAMBLIN DINNER.

The Hamblin dinner was served with civic magnificence. No
Company's banquet could have been more splendid, save that it
was much shorter in duration. On this occasion the ancient
silver-gilt plate originally made for the first Anthony Hamblin,
who founded the house, was displayed to gratify the pride, not
to excite the envy, of the cousinhood. ' It is an heirloom,' said
Alderney Codd, with pride, ' in which we all have a part.'
After dinner, Anthony Hamblin rose and invited his cousins to
drink With him, in solemn silence, to the memory of their illus-
trious ancestor, Anthony, the first of the name, twice Lord
Mayor of London. After this, Augustus, the second partner,
proposed 'Success to the house.' No one, it might have been
observed, threw more heart into the toast — which was received,
so to speak, prayerfully — than young Nick, unless, indeed, it
were Alderney Codd. This was at a quarter to eight. The
ladies withdrew after the toasts. At about half-past eight, the
twang of a harp, the scraping of a violin, and the blast of a
cornet proclaimed that the younger cousins had arrived, and
that dancing was about to begin.

The younger men left the table. Young Nick, who had been
Eating continuously for two hours and more, remained 3 with 3

to THE SEAMY SIDE.

plate full of preserved fruit, for more conversation. He listened
and watched. He was divided in his mind whether to grow up
like Uncle Anthony, whose kindly manner illustrated the de-
sirability of wealth ; or to imitate the severity of Mr. Augustus
which showed how wealth was to be guarded with diligence ;
or the taciturnity of Mr. William, commonly known as William
the Silent, which was in its way awful, as it seemed to indicate
power and knowledge in reserve. The example of Dean Ham-
blin, bland, courteous, and genial ; that of the Colonel, brusque,
short, and quick ; that of Stephen, the 'Black' Hamblin, gloomy
and preoccupied ; and that of Alderney Codd, who assumed for
this occasion only, and once a year, the manner and bearing of
a wealthy man, were lost upon young Nick : he only thought
of the partners.

When the gentlemen repaired to the drawing-room, young
Nick brought up the rear with an expression of importance and
pride twinkling in his bright eyes, and shining in his white
locks, which became immediately intolerable to the boys who,
by virtue of their cousinhood, assisted at the family gathering.

'Here's young Nick!' they whispered, nudging each other.
' Don't he look proud, having dinner with the gentlemen ?
Nick, what did you have for dessert ?'

' Conversation,' replied the boy proudly, ignoring any refer-
ence to eating. ' We talked politics. After dinner, when the
ladies are gone, men always talk politics. I had a good deal to
say, myself.'

The weight of his superiority crushed the other boys, whoso
joy was dimmed not entirely by envy, but by the fact that
young Nick — so called to distinguish him— held aloof from them
all the evening, and joined the groups of men, with whom he
stood as if he was taking part in the conversation, or at least
critically listening. He danced once or twice with grown-up
young ladies, to whom his conversation was marked by a peculiar
hauteur natural to a boy who had sat out the dinner, and ' come
in ' with the gentlemen.

' No fun to be got out of young Nick to-night,' whispered one
boy to another.

' No : remember last year, when he tied the string across the
stairs, and the footman tumbled up with a tray of ices.'

' Ah !' replied the other, with teats in his eyes ; ' and when
he hitched the fish-hook into Mr. William's wig, and threw the
line over the door, and then slammed it.'

These reminiscences were gloomy. Supper alone was able to
dispel the sadness of comparison.

The second partner, Mr. Augustus, was a man who would
have been more impressive had his integrity been less strongly
' accentuated,' as they say now, upon his features. As some

THE HAMBLIN DINNER. n

men bear themselves bravely, some modestly, some braggartly,
Mr. Augustus bore himself 'honestly. He was a merchant of a
severe type. For very pride, if not from principle, he was in-
capable of meanness. It was he who conducted the most
responsible part of the business of the firm, in which he had
worked for forty out of his five and- fifty years.

The third partner, Mr. William, whom we have already heard
called William the Silent, was at the head of the finance. H-s
certainly wore a wig, having had the misfortune to go bald
very early in life. There was, however, no pretence about his
peruque : it was impossible to mistake it for real hair. He,
too, was a first-cousin ; he was remarkable for a great gift of
silence. Augustus was married ; sons and daughters were here
to-night. William was a bachelor.

There was one guest who had borne through the dinner a look
of constraint, out of harmony with the pleasant faces of the
rest, and who now stood before the fire looking infinitely bored.
This was Stephen Hamblin — ' Black ' Hamblin, as the romantic
among the younger cousins called him — younger and only brother
of Anthony.

Although eight years younger, he appeared older. That was
partly on account of his dark complexion, in which he resem-
bled his mother, and partly by reason of his life, which had
been, as the French say, stormy. Despite his complexion, he
seemed at first sight strangely like his elder brother. Later on,
one saw so many points of difference that it became wonderful
how two brothers could be so unlike ; for in Stephen's face those
lines were hard which in Anthony's were soft. His eyes were
set too close together, their expression was not pleasant, they
were embedded in crowsfeet innumerable ; the hair had fallen
off the temples ; he wore no beard, but a heavy moustache ; his
nose was long and rather aquiline . He had a gentle manner', which
was perhaps assumed ; he was a lamb who somehow gave one
the impression that a wolf was beneath the skin. Reading his
history in his face, one would say, ' This man must have been
in his youth singularly handsome ; his life has not been one of
noble aims ; he has valued at their utmost the pleasures prof-
fered by the well-known triad ; he is capable, but his ways are
tortuous.'

He comes to this house and meets the cousins once a year only,
on the occasion of the Hamblin dinner ; he greets them all with
cordiality, which is distrusted by the elder members of the
family ; and for the rest of the year he goes his own way
seeing no one of them all, except his brother Anthony.

He calls upon him in the City, and they have a great secret
which they keep almost entirely to themselves. It is none
other than this, that Stephen has long since dissipated, squan-

12 THE SEAMY SIDE.

tiered, and gambled away every farthing of the fortune which
he inherited, and has been for some years living on his brother's
generosity. This dependence, which would be galling to some
thinkers, is quite comfortable for Stephen. Who, indeed,
should maintain him but his brother ? It is a sacred duty ;
Stephen would be the last to stand between any man and a
sacred duty.

If you look closely you will see that his eyes change their
expression when they rest upon Alison. He does not like her.

Standing beside him is another cousin, Mr. Alderney Codd —
a tall thin man about his own age. He is apparelled in a dress-
coat of great age, and he wears linen considerably frayed at tha
wristbands and collar. His face has one salient peculiarity — it is
hopeful ; he looks as if he was looking for something, as indeed
he always is. What he is looking for is a fortune, of which he
dreams and for which he schemes all day long and every day.
Meantime his sole source of income is a lay fellowship at St.
Alphege's, Cambridge, obtained three-and-twenty years ago, and
conferred upon him in obedience to the will of a uiediceval
foundress, who hoped so to advance for ever the cause of learn-
ing. In this case she has provided an annual income for a man
who, but for this provision, might have done something useful
to the world. It is said that the moiety of the fellowship is
retained by a certain firm of lawyers, and distributed annually
among a small band of once confiding persons, who have with
one consent removed their confidence from Mr. Alderney Codd.
He is the only member of the family who retains a kindly re-
gard for that dubious sheep of the flock, Stephen. Perhaps in
some respects their tastes are similar ; certainly the honest
Alderney is happier at the bar or smoking-room of the Birch-
tree Tavern than in a lady's drawing-room ; and the time has
gone by when female beauty, save when exhibited behind that
bar, might have drawn him hy a single hair.

The young people are waltzing ; the young fellow called
Gilbert Yorke, a well-set-up handsome lad of three-and-twenty
— is dancing with Alison. They can both dance ; that is to say,
their waltzing is smooth, cadenced, and regular ; they dance as
if the music made them. Alison's eyes are sparkling with plea-
sure ; Cilbert, it must be owned, wears upon his face the ex-
pression of solemnity thought becoming to the occasion by all
Englishmen who dance, oven by those who dance- well.

' Time was, Stephen/ said Alderney Codd, ' when you and I
liked these vanities.'

1 1 suppose,' grumbled Stephen, ' that we have been as great
fools as these boys in our time.'

' Ehm, PoHiirni'if said Alderney. It was one of his pecu-
liarities to Jug in well worn quotations from the Latin, in order

THE HAM B LIN DINNER. 13

to illustrate his connection with the university. 'I wish that
time would come again.'

' You were ignorant of whisky in those days, Alderney,' re
turned the other.

Alderney was silent, and presently, giving reins to his imagi-
nation, entered into a lively conversation with Mrs. Cridlaud on
the responsibilities of wealth. In this atmosphere of solid and
substantial prosperity he easily fancied himself to have been
also born in the purple, and assumed, in spite of his frayed
wristbands, the burden and sadness belonging to great riches.

Then the waltz came to an end, and the dancers strolled
about in couples. People who had eyes might have concluded,
from many symptoms, that the young fellow they called Gilbert
Yorke — everybody knew him, and everybody called him Gil-
bert — was already well through the first stage of a passion, and
advanced in the second. The first stage begins with admiration,
goes on to jealousy, and ends in despair. The second begins
with resolution, and ends — everybody knows how. It is also
evident that they would make a very pretty pair. Such a pair
as Heaven intended when couples were first invented, a good
many years ago. He says something in a low voice ; she looks
up with a little light in her eyes ; he says something else, and
she blushes. Once, when I was young, I used to watch these
scenes with envy. What was it they said to each other ? What
amorous epigram, what sweet poetic thought, what flower of
speech, was that which brought the blush to the maiden's cheek,
and kindled a light in her eye ? I knew none such ; and it
seemed to me, in those days of youthful ignorance, as if I, like
Robinson Crusoe, was singled out for special misfortune, be-
cause from me these conceits of Cupid and vanities of Venus
were withheld. In truth, they say nothing ! There is no epi-
gram and no conceit ; only a word here and there which betrays
something of the heart, and so, being understood, makes both
happy. Why is not one always young ? Why, since one has to
die — which is a great nuisance — cannot sweet-and-twenty be
prolonged for a hundred years, so that when Azrael stays at our
window in his fatal flight, he may summon rosy youth from a
whole century of pleasant sports, tired, but not satiate ? I
wish some one would write a novel about a world in which
everything was always young. Fancy being always young, hand-
some, and rich ; fancy an endless succession of young and dis-
tractingly beautiful maidens — there would be, it is true, the
drawback of the constant arrival of new fellows, as clever and
■>s brave as ourselves. But the new-comers would naturally be
attracted by the older — I mean the more experienced — of the
iadics j while the advanced jucencs, those who^e years wero ap-

i 4 THE SEAMY SIDE,

pvoaching ninety, would naturally fall victims to tho fresh
young maidens. What a world !

A happy New-year's party ; a collection of youth and joy in
a house where luxury, comfort, and ease seem stable, firmly
rooted, and indestructible. Look at the handsome owner of
this fair mansion. Saw one ever a more encouraging example
of human welfare ? Why, in the very age of gold itself, not a
single shepherd of them all at fifty could look more completely
contented with his lot, more solidly satisfied with the prospect
of many years' bliss and satisfaction than Anthony Hamblin.

Yet fortune is ever fickle. Call no man happy while he lives.
Even now, while we look, we may hear outside the rumble of
the wheels which bear to the house, in a four-wheel cab, a
messenger of woe.

' Come,' said Mr. Hamblin, ' let us have a little music, Some
singing, Alison, for the New Year.'

For one thing it is good to have grown older. In the old
days, if a little singing was proposed, some ambitious weakling,
possessed of a thin baritone, would confidently stand at the
piano, and wrestle with ' Ever of thee,' or ' Good-bye, sweet-
heart ;' or a young lady, who mistook hard breaching for a good
voice, would delight us with an aria from Trovatore, then in its
first sprightly running. We could not treat them to the con-
tursely with which certain critics treat hapless mortals who
endeavour to depict this many-sided world in novels ; that is to
&ay, we could not tell them, as they tell these authors, the plain
unvarnished truth. We could not say, ' Young lady, young sir,
your singing grates upon the ear like the scratching of the finger-
nail on a slate. Go in again, and stay there.' No ; we had to
endure in silence ; and when the performance was happily
concluded, we had to applaud, and grin, and say, ' Thank you,
thank you !'

Now, so rapid has been the progress of art, this weak young
man has almost disappeared. Pa. t-songs and choral societies
have smashed him. He knows that he cannot sing, and there-
fore he humbly takes his place as one among many, as he joins
the audience.

When Mr. Hamblin asked for a little singing he said a few
words to the professionals, who retired for supper, and Alison
sat down at the piano. They asked for five minutes to recover
after the dancing, Gilbert Yorke began to get out books and
music, and those who were to form the audience clustered
together about the fireplace, and immediately became grave of
aspect. Alderney Codd, who had as much ear for music as tho
mock turtle, assumed for his own part a grave and critical air.

Then the singers ranged themselves about the piano — there
were a dozen in all — soprano, alto, tenor, and bass ; the oldest

THE HAMBLIN DINNER. 15

of them was not three-and-twenty ; not one of the girls was so
aged a,s that ; and as they held their music before them, and
the light fell upon their fresh young faces, grave and earnest,
they looked like a row of angels painted by Blako.

Then they began Barnby's glee, ' Sleep, my pretty one, sleep.'

Mr. Hamblin was standing close to the piano, facing the choir.
While they were singing, a card was brought him. Alison
noticed that as he read the name his face became suddenly
pallid, and he dropped the card.

' Show the lady into the study,' he said.

When the glee was finished, Alison picked up the card lying
at her feet. On it was the name of ' Miss Rachel Nethersole,
Olivet Lodge.'

Who was Bachel Nethersole 1 Where was Olivet Lodge 1
She put the card upon the piano, and with a little uneasiness
began to talk about what they should sing next.

CHAPTER III.

MISS NETHERSOLE.

The visitor was a tall bony woman between fifty and sixty.
She was dressed in black, with a thin shawl which seemed to
defy the weather ; she carried over her arm a black wrapper
of some soft stuff. She wore black cloth gloves, and had with
her a small bag.

When the footman invited her to enter the study, she snorted
at him uncomfortably, and looked round her with a sort of con-
tempt or defiance.

The study lights had been lowered ; the man turned them
up. A bright wood fire, with three great logs, was burning on the
hearth, and threw a ruddy light over the dark old furniture.
On either side stood a long and deep easy-chair ; the walls were
lined with books ; heavy curtains hung before the windows ;
there were portfolios of engravings or water-colours on stands ;
a large cigar-box stood on a table near the right-hand chair ;
magazines and papers lay about. It was the study of a man
who, in a desultory and rather dilettante fashion, turned over
many pages, taking interest in many subjects, making himself
master of none, yet able to follow, in some way, progress in all.

The servant invited the strange visitor to take a chair.

' No, I shall not sit down,' she replied, in a hoarse and ill.
hoding voice, ' in this house. I shall stand until Mr. Hamblin
has heard what I have to tell him. He may sit, take his ease

1 6 THE SEAMY SIDE.

in low chairs, and comfort his soul with extravagant wood iircs
at a shilling a log, if he can.'

The man felt that it would be bad manners to attempt any
reply to so extraordinary a statement. He therefore stepped
softly out of the study, and communicated to the below-stairs
department the strange fact that there was an ugly customer
upstairs, and that a shindy — nature and cause of the row un-
known — was presumably imminent.

Had Mr. Hamblin been a notorious evil-liver, as the Prayer-
book hath it, or had he been a hard man or a harsh master,
there would have been no surprise, but rather the rapturous
joy with which one human soul generally regards the discom-
fiture of another. But, for such a man, such a visitor ! It was
wonderful.

' Dressed in rusty black,' said Charles, describing the lady,
' with a shawl over her arm, and a Avhite collar on. As for her
face, it's like a door-scraper.'

Being reminded that the comparison was vague, conveyed no
accurate idea of the lady, and verged on poetry, he tried to
make himself clearer.

' Which I mean that she's got thin lips set close together, and
eyes which would turn your creams sour, cook. As for her
voice— well, I shouldn't wonder if the beer didn't suffer by it.
We must taste it very careful to-night.'

The description was not of the exact kind which unimagina-
tive hearers require. Yet there was the merit of truth in it.
Miss Nethersole was certainly gaunt, elderly, straight, and, as
Charles the footman rightly stated, possessed of thin lips, which
she clasped tightly together, as if afraid that words of benevo-
lent weakness might inadvertently drop out. Her face was
long, thin, and oval ; her eyes were severe, an effect produced
partly by the fact that her thoughts, at the moment, were full
of bitterness, and partly by their steel-grey coldness.
When she was left, alone she trembled and shook.
' Give me strength,' she murmured, in mental prayer. ' It
seems cruel ; and yet, for my dead sister's sake — I am but an
Instrument. The arm of the Lord is stretched forth to punish
the unrighteous. Slow are His judgments, but they are sure.'

Five minutes passed away ; then the door opened, and the
man whom she sought stood before her ; not with the easy,
happy carelessness with which, at peace with all the world, and
fearing nothing, he had been watching the dancers. Now he
wore an anxious, even a frightened, look. He shut the door
closely behind him, and advanced timidly, extending a hand.

' Miss Nethersole,' he said, speaking in a sort of whisper
'what do you want with me, after these twenty years?'
She lef used his hand with, a gesture.

MISS NETHERSOLE. 17

' Anthony Hamblin,' she said, setting her lips hard and firm,
' let me look at you well. Ay ! The world has gone smoothly
with you. No unhappiness, no care, no repentance. " Their
eyes swell out with fatness.'" This with an upturned glance,
as if she was acknowledging the handiwork of Providence.
' You have sat at home among your garnered fruit and corn,
amid your barns, saying unto your soul, " Be merry." With
such as you it is often so permitted by heavenly wisdom. But
only for a time — only for a brief space.'

' Have you come out on this cold winter's night, Miss Nether-
sole, to quote Scripture to me ? At least, I see that the old
fashion of speech survives,'

He spoke lightly, but he watched her face with an apprehen-
sive look.

' I have not come out to waste the words of Holy Writ upon
scoffers, of whom you, I perceive, are still one, as of old. Not
at all.' She opened and closed her thin lips with a snap. ' I
come here, Anthony Hamblin, as the Instrument of vengeance ;
long deferred, but sure.'

' Vengeance, vengeance !' muttered the man impatiently.
' What do you mean by vengeance ?'

' Let me recall the past.'

1 Let, rather, the dead past be forgotten,' he interrupted.
' Do you think it pleases me to revive the memory of the — the
—events connected with our acquaintance ?'

' I presume not. Even the most hardened criminal must
sometimes shudder when he looks back and reckons up, one by
one, the many downward steps in his guilty career.'

' Then,' said Mr. Hamblin, sinking into his easy-chair, ' as
recalling the past is likely to be a long business, you may as
well sit down and have it out in comfort. Pray take that chair
opposite to me. It is late, and it is cold. Can I offer you any-
thing ?'

' I neither sit, nor break bread, in this house of sin,' said
Miss Nethersole solemnly. * I am here for a purpose. That
despatched, 1 go as I came.'

Mr. Hamblin made no reply, but sat nursing his leg. Certainly
he had little of the look of a sinner about him, except that touch
of anxiety which wrinkled his ample forehead. The warm light
of the fire fell upon his healthy and ruddy features, seeming to
soften them still more, and to heighten the expression which
was certainly exactly the opposite of that which we generally
attribute to the habitual criminal. The popular idea of this
monster is, that he wears perpetually a grim look, made up of
despair, determination, and gloom. The actual fact, generalised
by myself from observation of a good many heads seen and
studied about Short's Buildings, Endell Street, is, that he has

2

1 8 THE SEAMY SIDE.

a retreating forehead, which means low intelligence ; tremulous
lips, which means much bad drink ; a twitching cheek, which
means much bad tobacco ; and a general expression of cretinism.

' Twenty years ago,' she began — he sighed — ' there came to a
quiet little town, called Newbury, two brothers.'

' We know exactly what happened twenty years ago, you and
I,' he said. ' Let us pass over the preamble — I will take it as
read — and come to the present. Why are you here ? what do
you threaten ? what do you want of me ? and what does it all
mean ?'

' Two brothers,' she went on relentlessly, as if unwilling to
spare him one detail. ' One of them, some eight years older
than the other, was about thirty-two or three. That one was
you, The other, with whom I am not concerned '

' The Devil !' said Mr. Hamblin, sitting bolt upright and
staring her in the face. It was noticeable that the look of
apprehension changed at these words to bewilderment.

' Not concerned,' she repeated, with an upward glance, as if
she appreciated the interjection in all its sinfulness. ' The
younger brother, I say, named Stephen, a wretched boy who
smoked tobacco and drank beer, was about four-and-twenty.
They were out together for some sort of godless holiday.'

' In the name of Heaven, Miss Nethersole, why godless ? We
were on a fishing tour.'

' They stayed in our town, they said, whatever was the truth,
because there was fishing. Every day they pretended to go
fishing, though I never heard that they caught any fish ; and the
sequel showed that they were fishers of souls, not of trout, and
employed in the service of the Devil, their master.'

Mr. Hamblin uncrossed his legs, and lay back stroking his
beard. He looked less anxious now, and rather amused, as if
the narrative was not likely to concern him personally.

' They made the acquaintance while at Newbury '—she really
was getting slower than ever — ' of two maiden ladies, one of
whom '

' Was yourself, the elder of the two ; the other was yo^r
sister, who was two-and-twenty years of age, pretty, attractive,
and sweet. It is not for me to interrupt you by drawing com-
parisons between her and her sister.'

This was rude, but Mr. Hamblin was getting vexed. She
only bowed, and went on :

' The younger was what the world — regardful only of the
outward seeming — called pretty.' Mr. Hamblin bowed and
waved his hand, as if he had already made that sufficiently
plain. ' She was also, to outward seeming, a consistent Christian
Walker.' Mr. Hamblin smiled. ' She was, in reality, though
her friends knew it not, singularly open to temptation, and

MISS NETHERSOLE.

19

easily led astray by the vanities, riches, and earthly loves of this
sinful world ■'

' Poor child !' sighed Anthony Hamblin ; ' she was indeed.'

Miss Nethersole looked at him in some astonishment, mingled
with regret. Hardness of heart she could face — in fact, she ex-
pected it— with unrepentant scoffs ; but a contrite spirit might
disarm her and rob her of revenge ; she went on doubtfully,
holding herself more upright.

' These two brothers, in some way or other, made the acquaint-
ance of the ladies, and were permitted to call. They came
again ; they came frequently : soon there was not a day when
they did not come to the house. They were received as gentle-
men, not as wild wolves, observe.'

' They were,' said Mr. Hamblin gently. His sympathetic face
had grown sad, and his deep eyes gazed upon his visitor with a
melancholy which had nothing of the scoffing spirit in it.

' In the end,' said Miss ISTethersole, ' one of the brothers fell in
love with the girl.

' Perhaps both, Miss Nethersole ; perhaps both of the men
loved that sweetest of tender and innocent country flowers.'

' Both, if you please,' said Miss Nethersole. ' The elder
sought an interview with me ' — dropping into the first person—
' and stated his case.'

' Clumsily,' said Anthony ; ' so that you believed I was
making love to you. When you found out your mistake, you
took your — ' revenge, he was going to say, but he altered the
word — 'your own course.'

' I replied,' said Miss Nethersole, ' that there could be no mar-
riage of my sister with the worldly, and I requested that our
acquaintance should cease. It did cease. The brothers called
at the house no more. I do not disguise the fact that for several
days there were tears, temper, and reproaches to put up with. I
hope I bore these with a Christian spirit. In a short time they
suddenly ceased, and I trusted that any light affection which
might have been awakened had vanished already. I supposed,
erroneously, that the young men had left the town. They
were, however, still fishing — for souls. A week after my inter-
view with you, both you and your brother left the town on the
same day ; and on that day, my sister, on the pretence of visit-
ing an aunt at Hungerford, left my house. No one knows better
than you at whose invitation she went away, and why she never
came back.'

' I certainly do know,' said Mr. Hamblin gravely. ' And since
we both know the facts, why repeat them ? We cannot undo
the past.'

' She wrote to me,' Miss Nethersole went on stolidly, ' after
her departure. She said that she was happy with her hus-

20 THE SEAMV SIDE.

band. She sent me her address, and begged my forgiveness'
To all her letters I returned but one answer. I told hei
that she might draw upon me on the first of every January
for the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds ; that, I said, was
all that I would do for her. It was, in fact, all that I could
afford to do. I never inquired if her husband was rich or
poor. I never wished to hear about her affairs again. I pro-
mised her my prayers, and I let her go.'

' You were then, as you are now, a cruel and unfeeling woman,'
said Mr. Hamblin sharply.

Miss Nethersole enjoyed the momentary triumph of having
roused her victim to wrath.

' Then I heard no more from her. For eight years, however,
I continued to receive the draft for a hundred and fifty pounds,
and to honour it.'

Mr. Hamblin started in his chair and sat bolt upright.

' For how long ?' he cried.

' For eight years. Ah, you know now why I am here !'

' I know now ?' he repeated, as if incredulous.

' You pretend astonishment ? That is because you have been
found out. Surely I am but an Instrument. The judgments
are slow, but they are very sure.'

Mr. Hamblin sank back in his chair and grasped the arms as
if he wanted physical as well as moral support. ' Eight years !'
he gasped.

' You know what it means. Come, Mr. Hamblin, have the
courage to tell me what that means.'

' It means,' he said, with white lips — 'it means — forgery.'

' Forgery,' she repeated, with manifest enjoyment. ' That is
exactly what it means. I kept all those drafts, never thinking
what might happen. When the ninth first of January came
and brought no draft, I knew that my sister was dead. I had
the blinds down and went into mourning. But last week I
made a discovery. I found out that my sister had been dead
six years before the last of those drafts were sent me.'

Mr. Hamblin was silent.

' I made more than one discovery,' she continued. ' I learned
from a safe and trustworthy source that the man, her husband,
behaved to her with brutal unkindness. It was his systematic
neglect, his cruelty, which hurried her, poor and frail, unfit to
die, into her grave. She left behind her a kind of journal,
which my informant brought to me. I have a copy here for
your own private reading. You will have so little time for read-
ing that I advise you to read it at once— to-night.'

She opened her bag and took from it a roll of paper tied
round with black ribbon.

' This is a document,' she said grimly, ' which will revive

Miss nethersule. h

many memories for you. 'It will perhaps serve,' she added,
' to inspire you with penitential thoughts while you are endur-
ing your punishment.'

'My punishment?' He looked up, as he took the papers,
as if with a mild surprise.

' Your punishment,' she repeated firmly. ' The papers be-
long to the past, the punishment belongs to the future. All
punishment does. The whole unending future to you if you
do not repent, and to the greater part of mankind, will most
certainly be one long wail of despair as you suffer your punish-
ment. But having regard to the immediate future, I have pre-
pared the facts with such care as my poor abilities have enabled
me to bestow upon them. My lawyer, a most able and skilful
lawyer, well acquainted with every point of the criminal law,
has got the papers in his hands, and will — next Monday, not
to-morrow, because I wish you to have two clear days for re-
pentance — apply for a warrant for your arrest on a charge of
forgery. You will be charged with six distinct forgeries, each
for the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds. The forged
drafts will be presented in evidence ; it will be proved that the
signature in each is an imitation of my deceased sister's writing.
It will be proved that her death to°k place two years after her
marriage. Portions of the journal, the evidence of the dead
wife against her husband, will be read, to show that the pri-
soner in the dock— the wretched prisoner in the shameful dock'
— she repeated this very slowly, so as to bring out and enjoy the
full flavour of the words — 'was as cruel as he was unscrupulous.'
She paused, while Mr. Hamblin regarded her with troubled
bewilderment. ' Before taking these steps,' the woman went
on, ' I made inquiries about you. I learned who and what you
are — a rich merchant, respected by your friends, successful in
the world, living an outwardly respectable life, with ties and con-
nections in your home. I gathered from my cautious inquiries
that such a charge against such a man would create the greatest
astonishment. The higher the place, the greater the fall.'
' This is like a horrible dream,' said Mr. Hamblin, pulling

himself together. ' How am I to answer this woman?'

' You need not trouble about an answer to me,' she replied.

; I want no answer. The sight of you, after many years, is

enough for me.'

' A cruel ap.d revengeful woman this,' said Mr. Hamblin, for

the second time.

' I see you — your sin found out and brought home to you —

cowering in despair before me. Is not that answer enough ?

Think of the days, twenty years ago, when, in your insolent

way, you laughed at the woman whom you had lured on to

betray weakness '

23 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Indeed I did not laugh at yon. I was anxious, it is true, to
let you understand clearly that I had never the least intention
of making love to you.'

She shook her head. ' It is too late now,' she said. ' All is
arranged. You have a little time before you in which you may
pass over in mental review the things you have done, the things
you have enjoyed, and the things you are going to endure.
You have a few hours in which to say farewell to your life of
ease and luxury, farewell to honour, farewell to friendship.
Think of what you have before you : years in a convict prison ;
years in convict garb, on convict's fare, doing convict's work.
And when you come out again, not a man in all the world to
take you by the hand and call you friend ! Do you tremble ?'

He certainly did not. His face was pained, but not terrified.
His look was troubled, but not wiib. fear.

' Why should I tremble ?' he asked, smiling. ' You believe
that your case has no flaw.'

' Flaw ?' she cried quickly. ' What flaw can it have ? When
I tell you that I have spent weeks in following it up, step by
step, writing it out, getting my documents in order. Why,
man, to gain more time I have even abstained from the week-
day services in the chapel !'

' Really !' he murmured, smiling. ' Such devotion '

' Miserable man !' She drew herself erect, and shook her
finger with extended arm — an attitude worthy of Rachel.
' Miserable man ! You are trembling on the verge of dishonour
and shame ! A prison's doors are opening to you ! And you
dare to scoff and sneer ! I will have no mercy on you, because
of my sister, whom you wiled away from me ; because of the
cruelty which killed her ; because of the forgery of these drafts
— you and no other ! O hypocrite !'

She did not finish the sentence begun so well. Her wrath
overpowered her.

' Come,' he said ; ' I am wrong to take that tone with you.
You are right to be angry ; you are not right in one or two
other points. There are things — shall I call them extenuating
circumstances ? No, they are facts of which you are ignorant,
which make it most important that this matter should proceed
no further.'

' Tacts, indeed ! What facts other than those I know ? As
if they were not sufficient !'

' They are sufficient in themselves ; but there are other
thii; j *. I will tell you what they are, if '

' If what ?' Because he hesitated.

' If you will destroy those — those forged drafts first. Miss
Nethersole, I implore you to pause before you proceed in a case
which on your side i3 and can be nothing else than pure revenge.

MISS NETHERSOLE. 23

Believe me, it is a revenge which will recoil on your own head
— your own, mind — in a way of which you know and suspect
nothing. Destroy those forgeries, and I will tell you all.'

She stared at him, taken altogether aback by an appeal which
contained a threat. "Was there anything she had overlooked ?
No, there could be nothing. It was a miserable subterfuge to
deceive her and stay further proceedings. She set her lips
firm, and answered nothing.

' It is for others' sake, Miss Nethersole, that I plead. Destroy
those papers. Do not confound human revenge with divine
justice.'

' I am the Instrument,' she repeated, hard and stern. ' I will
pursue this matter to your ruin or your death. I am appointed
to this work.'

' Will nothing move you ?' he asked. ' Will no assurances be
believed ? Miss Nethersole, I swear to you, by all that I hold
most sacred, that if you take this case before a court of law
you will repent, and go in mourning all the days of your life.'

' I have no choice,' she said coldly. ' As the Instrument, I
do not move — I am moved.'

' I give you till to-morrow morning to think about it,' said
the man. ' If I do not hear to-morrow morning that you have
abandoned your purpose, I, too, must take my steps ; and I
venture to promise that you will never recover the surprise of
those steps, and that you will rue the day so long as you live.'

' My purpose is decided,' she said. ' The way before me is
very clear. What may follow after, it is not for me, a blind
mortal, to inquire. I follow up this forgery to your ruin or
your death.'

' To my ruin or my death,' he repeated, rising from his chair.
' So be it. You have, I believe, told me all you came to tell ?'
' I have.'

' In that case, Miss Nethersole, our interview may be con-
cluded.'

' When next I see you, Anthony Hamblin,' she said, drawing
on her glove, and shutting up her black bag with a snap, ' you
will be in the dock as a prisoner. I shall be in the witness-box
giving evidence.'

He shook his head, and laughed. Yes ; the man actually
laughed, to her unbounded indignation and astonishment.

' Your revengeful spirit,' he said, ' will not have that satis-
faction. Allow me to wish you good-night.'

He opened the door. As she stood for a moment in the hall,
adjusting her shawl, the voices of the young singers in the
d/'awing-room broke out fresh and clear :

• Ring out the false, ring in the true S'

24 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Some of those are your children, perhaps,' she said, with a
malignant smile ' The sins of the fathers are visited upon
the children to the third and fourth generation. My sister's
wrong shall be upon you and yours like a scourge of scor-
pions.'

She stepped out, and left him standing at the open doorway.
The cold wind beat furiously upon his bare head, driving the
frozen snow upon his face and great brown beard. He took no
heed for a while. When he shut the door his eyes were swollen
with an unwonted tear.

'Poor Alison!' he sighed. 'Poor child! Must she, then,
learn all ?'

CHAPTER IV.

HOW THE PARTY BROKE UP.

Anthony Hamblin closed the door and sought the study
again ; he stood there before the fire, all the sunshine gone from
his face, and sought to put the situation into words. ' Nothing
like words,' he said to himself, with a wintry smile, ' for present-
ing the real facts, the whole truth.'

On the table lay the journal of the woman, dead twenty years
ago. His hand trembled as he laid it in a drawer and locked it
up, for greater safety.

' Now I must put on a bold front,' he said, ' and face them all,
Stephen among the number, who know nothing and suspect
nothing. How to break the thing to Alison ?— with what words

can I go to her and say, " Your " I cannot do it. And it

must all come out, the shameful story — it must be published in
the papers ; she must learn what all the rest of the world will
learn. Poor Alison ! — poor girl !'

The odd thing was, as Miss Nethersole had observed, connect-
ing the fact naturally with an obdurate and unrepentant heart,
that Anthony Hamblin spoke as if this thing was only to be
regretted because some third person would be affected by it.
Therefore, the good lady went away with an uncomfortablo
feeling ; much as if, being an Instrument of Heaven, she had
made the mistake of sticking the knife into somebody else, not
the victim ordained.

The surprise and disgust of an exposed criminal she had
marked in his countenance. So far that was satisfactory ; but
she could not observe the slightest trace of terror or remorse.
The criminal looked at the crime and its consequences from an
outside point of view, and dared to discuss it with her as if it

HOW THE PARTY BROKE UP. 25

concerned some one else. This unexpected way of receiving het
intelligence was exasperating. It made the Instrument the
more resolved upon carrying out her revenge to the utmost
extent permitted in a truly Christian land. No lamentation at
all — no repentance— no terror. Why, it was as if a murderer on
the way to Tyburn Tree were openly to lament the lot of another
unfortunate going to be hanged beside him for the same crime.

In his study, Anthony Hamblin reflected on a new aspect of
the case. There were others to consider besides Alison ; there
was the respectability of the family. The parent trunk bad
many branches, and there was not one rotten bough among
them. Disgrace and shame would fall upon the name for the
first time, the unhappy man reflected, through the main branch,
the most respected of all, and there was no hope of averting the
blow : the hard and determined face of the woman, triumphant
in the prospect of her revenge, forbade that hope. The blow
would fall, as she promised, on the Monday following.

Here his thoughts were interrupted by a gentle knock at the
door. He started, as if it was the knock of a police constable
already arrived with a warrant for his arrest, and handcuffs.

It was Alison herself ; she had grown anxious about the pro-
tracted absence of her father.

' What is it, papa dear ?' she asked. ' Has anything hap-
pened ? See, you dropped the card of your visitor, and I picked
it up — "Rachel Nethersole, Olivet Lodge." Who is Rachel
Nethersole, papa ? and where is Olivet Lodge ?'

This is one of those critical moments which abound in life,
but of which we take at the time so little heed. Had he taken
the girl in his arms and told her everything — hiding nothing —
the future misery might yet have been spared. But he did not.
It was in the nature of Anthony Hamblin to avoid the infliction
of pain even when it was most necessary and just that pain
should be inflicted. He missed this opportunity.

' Miss Nethersole, Alison, is a lady whom I once knew inti-
mately. I have not seen her for many years. She revived the
memory of a very painful business which happened before ever
you were born. Let us forget it, and go upstairs.'

The young men and maidens were dancing another waltz.
They always do drop into continuous waltzing, these young
people of the present day, unless restrained by the severer sense
of their elders. Mr. Stephen Hamblin, upon whom his brother's
eyes fell with a strange expression, was standing by the fire,
looking into it with a dark and dour gaze, as if to justify his
epithet among the ladies of the Hamblin cousinhood, the
' Black ' Hamblin. Near him stood Mr. Alderney Codd, talking
to one of the partners. His animated face still reflected the

26 THE SEAMY SIDE,

consciousness of wealth. This, to a man of imagination, was
difficult to avoid in a house which breathed of wealth.

' All this is nothing, Augustus,' he was saying airily. ' We
who wish to increase our wealth have but to look round us, and
the opportunities come of themselves. How many good things
have I not chanced upon, for instance ?'

Augustus Hamblin glanced involuntarily at the frayed shirt-
cuffs and ragged collar of the speaker. Did he really mean it ?
But no one was ignorant of Alderney Codd's actual poverty.

' I look round,' he continued, cheerily, ' and watch the market.
I see my opening. It may be a modest ten thousand, worth the
picking- up ; it may be a colossal fortune, which wants nothing
but capital to start it and intelligence to direct it.'

' Ah, yes. Very true, indeed. But you must persuade your
capitalist, Alderney, and you must find your intelligence.'

' The intelligence,' said Alderney, tapping his bosom, ' is here.

The capitalist ' Just then Anthony came back with Alison.

' The capitalist, cousin Augustus ' He gently raised his

voice.

'Another scheme, Alderney?' said Anthony, forcing a smile.
' Let us consider it in the morning.'

And then a constraint fell upon the party. Everybody saw
that Anthony Hamblin, the giver of the feast, was nervous and
agitated. He spoke fast, but he did not talk well. Alison
watched him furtively. The mirth went out of the party, even
down to the boys, who yawned and wished it was supper-time.
The dancing languished ; the laughter was forced ; the singing
lost its freshness. When supper-time came, everybody was
relieved.

Two or three days later Augustus Hamblin, talking over the
event that had just happened, remarked that it seemed that
night as if the shadow of fate was upon his unfortunate cousin.

' I almost begin,' he said, ' to believe in prognostics, second
sight, all that sort of thing. Poor Anthony became melan-
choly in a sudden way that night, and he never rallied. He
forced himself to talk ; he drank a great deal of champagne ;
he made a little speech ; but it was impossible not to feel that
there was something wrong with him. It was the impending
sword, and he saw its shadow before him. At least, that is what
my wife says.'

The hour for separation arrived. The guests were departing.
In the conservatory still lingered a couple alone : the young
man who had been hovering about Alison all the evening, and
Alison herself. He was holding her hand, and his eyes, falling
on the graceful head of the girl, were full of the tenderness of
love newly-awakened.

' Alison I' he whispered ; ' my darling, my own 1'

HOW THE PARTY BROKE UP. 27

She was silent, but she did not withdraw her hand.
' To-morrow,' he went on, ' I shall see your father. He is the
kindest-hearted of men. He will not refuse his consent. Good-
night.'

He pressed his lips upon her forehead hurriedly, and was
gone. The host was in the hall exchanging farewells with his
guests, most of whom were already gone. Gilbert Yorke waited
about until there were only three left — himself, Mr. Alderney
Codd, and Stephen Hamblin.

' I want to see you to-morrow,' said AnthorA/, sharply, to his
brother. Gilbert Yorke noticed how his fingers nervously
plucked at the kid glove he had taken off. ' I want to see you
very particularly.'

' On business ?' asked Stephen, looking at him suspiciously ;
' what business ?'

The only business he could think of between himself and his
brother was that of borrowing money. Did Anthony propose
to lend him more, and without being asked, or was he going to
be mean and say ungenerous things ? That, however, was un-
like Anthony.

' I will call at your chambers to-morrow at three. It is most
important that you should be alone.'

'Very well,' said Stephen, ' you will find me there. Good-
night.' He held out his hand, but his brother turned as if he
had not seen the proffered hand. Gilbert saw the action, and
wondered what was meant. Everybody knew very well that
the only member of the family who kept up friendly relations
with Stephen was his brother.

Stephen buttoned up his coat, drew on his gloves, and stepped
out into the night without a word.

There were then left only Mr. Alderney Codd and Gilbert
Yorke.

' Dear me !' said Alderney, who had been looking among the
coats, ' is Stephen gone ? I depended upon him for a lift.' He
was very thinly clad with an overcoat which would have been
insufficient even for an April night. ' Which is your way, Mr.
Yorke ?'

' I am afraid not yours ; I am going to stay at the hotel over
the Common.'

' Ah ! well, it is a fine night, though cold ; I shall walk.' He
laughed airily. He would have liked to go to the hotel too, but
there were reasons why that could not be. It was unfortunate
that it was only a week since he had borrowed five pounds of
Anthony. 'After all,' he went on, 'a walk in this crisp and
bracing air will do one good.'

Anthony interposed : ' With thin boots, Alderney ? You
must do nothing of the kind. Go over to the hotel with Yorke.

23 THE SEAMY SIDE.

You are both my guests, tell the landlord. And you cannot go
into the cold with that ridiculous thing. Call that an overcoat ?'

' I warm myself inside with good old port,' said Alderney, the
rich but eccentric.

' Anyhow,' said Anthony, ' borrow this.' He took down an
ample and magnificent garment, lined with costly fur. ' You
can send it back to me at the office.'

Alderney put it on, and at once became a rich man. No one
but a rich man could possibly walk in such a coat.

' Take a cigar, Alderney, and a glass of brandy and water
before you go.'

Alderney found both cigars and brandy in the study. He
helped himself to a handful of Anthony's choicest, and a glass
of stiff brandy and water, while Gilbert Yorke stayed to say a
few words to Mr. Hamblin.

The brandy and water despatched — he had already got
through a couple of bottles of champagne with the supper —
Alderney Codd announced himself ready to go.

' An excellent coat,' he said, with warm approbation, while
he buttoned it up. ' I shall get one exactly like it for my own
use ' — it only cost about a hundred and fifty guineas, being
lined with the very best of skins — ' black, too, in case of sudden
mourning.'

Ominous words, he recollected afterwards.

Meanwhile Gilbert Yorke had timidly taken the first step of
the accepted lover.

' May I see you, Mr. Hamblin,' he stammered, ' about — a — a
matter most important to myself ?'

Anthony smiled. Then, as if a painful thought had struck
him, his face suddenly became overcast.

' Come on Sunday,' he said. ' No — no — make it Tuesday, if
you still feel inclined to say what I suppose you wish to say.'

' Your words, sir, give me hope.' The words might be hopeful,
but the face was very far from showing any of the cheerfulness
we associate with the emotion of hope.

' Hope ?' he echoed. ' Yes — have hope. Everybody may have
hope — except myself.'

' What could he mean ?'

The door closed upon the two last guests.

Mr. Hamblin stood irresolutely in the hall.

Then he became aware that young Nick was there too, look-
ing attentively at him from his white lashes and pink eyes.

' You not gone to bed, boy ?' he asked, with a guilty feeling
that this boy, too, must learn the dreadful story.

' No, uncle ; I wished to see you before I went to bed. You're
not well. You've got something wrong somewhere. Confide
in me. Let me advise.'

HOW THE PARTY BROKE UP. 29

'Nonsense, boy,' said Anthony, smiling. ' Go to bed at once.'

' If there is to be no confidence, as between man and man,'
Baid young Nick, grandly, ' there is no more to be said. Re-
member, however, that I offered my advice. It's no fault of
mine if you won't take it.'

Mr. Hamblin retreated to his study. The footman turned
down the lights in the hall, and the house was silent. But
there was one more interruption. It was Alison. She had on
a long white dressing-grown ; her bare feet were thrust into
slippers, worked in some soft woollen stuff ; her long black
hair was hanging over her shoulders: she looked like the dream
of some great painter — a perfect maiden.

' Papa,' she said, throwing her arms round his neck, 'I cannot
sleep, and I have come to tell you '

' What, my dear ? Suppose I guess already.' He drew her
more closely to him, and kissed her forehead.

She burst into tears.

' Why, Alison, why?'

' It is happiness, papa. I am too happy, to have so much
love. Good-night again, dear.'

Ominous tears, she thought afterwards.

CHAPTER V.

TTIE JOURNAL OF A DESERTED WIFE.

Anthony Hamblin was left alone with the manuscript.

He sat down in his easy-chair, and, from force of habit, took
a cigar from a box which contained many kinds of cigars. But
he did not light it. Instead, he took the manuscript in his
hand and held it irresolutely, as if he was afraid of it.

In fact, he was afraid of it. He was about to reopen a chapter
in his life which he fondly hoped, and had hoped for twenty
years, was closed for ever.

There hung over the mantel-shelf the portrait of a lady. It
was the same lady whose effirjies, taken in her younger days, we
have seen in Alison's room, the Senora ; but this portrait figured
her in her later years, when trouble had fallen upon her. The
black eyes, the black hair, was with her still ; but the look of
confidence was gone : and in place of the possibilities of love,
passion, jealousy, tenderness, wrath, in the portrait of hov
younger days, there was seen an expression of sadness, wonder,
and resignation. The deep black eyes of the portrait met those
of her son Anthony : and as he looked into them, their sadness

30 THE SEAM Y SIDE.

grew deeper, their wonder more marked, their resignation mors
troubled.

As the chief of the house of Hamblin sat there, looking in
that face, there passed across his brain, in a few moments, as
happens in great crises of life, the events belonging to many
generations and many years.

There was once a certain Anthony Hamblin who, in the
seventeenth century, when Englishmen first began to trade with
the marvellous East, was sent out to India on board a merchant-
man as supercargo. In this capacity hd made several voyages
and no little money ; when he had made enough money and
plenty of friends he established himself in London as an indigo
merchant. He prospered greatly. His son, Anthony the second,
equally prudent and equally able, prospered also : his grandson,
Anthony the third, prospered. The house grew and increased
continually. The eldest son, Anthony always succeeded as
principal partner ; the junior partners were taken from the
cousins ; the younger sons sought their fortunes elsewhere.
Some of them succeeded, and some failed. Whether in suc-
cess or failure, they were proud of their race. The poorer
branches, especially, regarded the regnant Anthony in the light
of Providence, as much to be approached by prayer and as un-
certain. When their case was decided on its actual merits, they
were wont to curse him altogether.

If Anthony Hamblin thought of the origin, the respectability,
and the position of the house, it was in contrast with this
danger of disgrace which now threatened it. And thus his
thoughts carried him to scenes of his own life. Far back first,
to the time when he was a boy of ten.

A day in summer : a garden — the very garden on which his
study-windows looked: a lady leading by the hand a little child
of two.

' You must never forget, Anthony,' said the lady — his heart
sank, as he recalled the sweet foreign accent and the soft voice
in which his mother spoke — ' You must never forget that little
Stephen is your younger brother. He will look to you for an
example : no one lives for himself alone : as the elder brother
governs himself, so will the younger imitate him.'

The little child, a dark, almost a swarthy child, held up both
his arms, and Anthony carried him, running and singing, round
and round the garden.

Or, ten years later. He was twenty years of age and already
in the house, learning by slow degrees to get a grasp over the
working of a great firm. His father one morning received a
letter addressed to him in the City, which agitated and distressed
him. He sent for Anthony and showed it to him.

' Go, Anthony,' he said. ' Take the boy away : remove hiin

THE JOURNAL OF A DESERTED WIFE. 31

at once to another school. But never let his mother know why
he was taken away.' He remembered how reports followed
each other of his brother's misconduct at the new school. He
was the model bad boy, the awful example. He never learned
anything, never showed himself open to the influences of emu-
lation, admonition, or example. Anthony kept back what he
could from his father, and everything from his mother. The
worst part of the business was that Stephen was unpopular
among the boys themselves. Now boys are always ready to
admire a plucky breaker of rules, so that there must have been
something which did not appear in school reports.

His father died while Stephen was still at school.

Then Anthony remembered another and a more touching
death-bed, when the mother, clinging to him, implored him
with tears never to desert his brother ; always, whatever he
did, to pardon him; always to help him.

' I have known more than you thought, my dear,' she said.
' You hid things from me which others told. He has begun
badly — oh ! very badly. But he is young, O son of mine who
never gave my heart a stab — God bless you ! — he is young, and
may reform.'

Then Anthony remembered the promise, sacred by the
memory of his mother's last tears, which he solemnly pro-
nounced.

There was another scene. It was in the house, in Great St.
Simon Apostle. His partners came to him one morning. They
were grave and embarrassed. One of them, with words of
hesitation, told him a story. The elder brother, left alone,
sent for the younger.

' You must leave the house,' he said. 'After what has been
done, you can look for no employment from my partners. All
that can be done is for you to go away, knowing that silence
will be kept. Take money, and when I see you again, in a
month's time, tell me what you propose to do.'

He was getting nearer to the present.

He remembered then how Stephen, who had become nomi-
nally an indigo broker, received on obtaining his majority his
portion, and how this provision, ample for a younger brother,
vanished in two or three years, so that he presently returned to
his elder brother and to his profession.

And then his thoughts leaped over ten years, and he saw
himself — whom all the world considered a bachelor, and con-
firmed in that happy condition of life — bringing home a girl of
ten, and confessing that the world had been deceived, for lo !
he was a widower, and this was his daughter Alison, whose
mother had died in childbirth. He smiled as he thought of the
mystery with which the cousinhood surrounded the affair, and

32 THE SEAMY SIDE.

talked for days, even nine times nine, about it : how they cama
and petted little Alison, and tried to pump her ; and how
Stephen's face dropped and his dark eyes glowered when he
heard the news, because he was no longer heir.

' That was something like a surprise,' thought Anthony, ' the
mystery of the good boy. Had it been Stephen, no one would
have wondered. But for the good boy of the family ! And
here ' — he opened the manuscript — ' here awaits a greater sur-
prise still. Cousins mine, how will you look on Monday evening,
when the paper reports Rachel Nethersole's application for a
warrant ?'

He spoke bitterly, but there was still a marked absence of
what the good Rachel so much wished to see — terror.

The manuscript was not very bulky, and it was written all in
one hand, a woman's hand of the Italian style. He knew it for
the handwriting of Rachel Nethersole, and groaned as he looked
p.t it.

' To think that she once thought I was in love with her —
with her,' he said, smiling ; ' why, she was always as grim and
as repulsive as she is now, or very nearly ; nobody could fall in
love with such a woman. Poor Rachel ! she is happy : she is
going to have her revenge.'

He lighted the cigar which had been lying on the table, and
sat down to what seemed a philosophic endurance of the re-
venge.

The manuscript was headed with the words ' My Story.'

' It is right,' the paper began, ' that you should know how I
found out the exact date and the circumstances attendant on
the death of my murdered sister — by what providential guidance
I was led to the discovery, and so have been enabled to put
together, piece by piece, the indictment which will be the means
of your punishment upon this earth.'

Mr. Hamblin nodded his head, took the cigar out of his
mouth, and leaned back, considering. Presently he went on
with the reading.

' In October last I was laid up, having been all my life sin-
gularly strong and healthy, with a severe cold, which gradually
took the form of some pulmonary complaint, the nature of
which concerns you not at all.'

' What I dislike about this st}de,' said Anthony to himself,
' is, that it takes such a devil of a lot of words. Why couldn't
she begin by saying that she had a bad cough ?'

' After many visits from my medical adviser, and much fruit-
less expense, I was advised to try a visit to a southern seaside
place, where I was to pass the winter.

' It is not my custom to travel from place to place, especially
when the pulpit privileges are uncertain ; I therefore took

THE JOURNAL OF A DESERTED WIFE. 33

counsel of my pastoral guide, before deciding on the place
where I was to seek bodily health.

' We discussed several places. Brighton, which was proposed
by the doctor, was immediately rejected as too worldly : St.
Leonards and Hastings, Worthing and Southsea, for the same
valid reason, were also rejected : Torquay, which in respect of
climate seemed to offer exceptional advantages, proved unworthy
on closer investigation. It seemed as if I should be unable to
leave my own home without peril to higher considerations than
those of mere health. At last, however, my adviser recom-
mended me to think of Bournemouth. You understand that
the place was not suggested by myself at all. The suggestion
came to me from the outside. This was the first link in the
chain of evidence which proves that I am an Instrument.

' Accordingly, I went to Bournemouth.

' Before going, I wrote to a house agent, to whom I haft-ween
recommended (this is link number two), and received from him
a choice of lodgings, any one of which, he said, would seem to
suit me well. Observe that I took no personal action in the
matter. I was driven to Bournemouth : I was led to this hous$
agent : I was guided to my lodgings.

' Those that I selected were a first floor, front and back, for
myself, and a second floor back for Jane, whom you may, or
may not, remember. It is Jane's privilege to consider herself
working under me as also an Instrument. Why should not
servants be chosen as well as mistresses ? The rooms were kept
by a Mrs. Peglar, a church member in the Baptist Connection,
who, though exorbitant in her charges, appeared to be clean
and respectable.

' Bournemouth is a dull place, especially when one cannot
go outside the door in rainy weather. It rained every day, and
in consequence I was compelled to remain in the house. As I
was never given to the frivolous and vain fashion of reading
novels to pass the time, holding, as I do, the opinion that one's
own responsibilities are quite enough to occupy one's whole
attention without engaging upon those of others, I found the
hours between breakfast and dinner, dinner and tea, tea and
supper, sufficiently long. Jane is never good at conversation,
and besides was now torn from all those scenes which in New-
bury furnished her with subjects of thought and topics of talk ;
because, if she looked out of doors, she knew nobody, not even
the butcher's boy or the milkman, with whom she could exchange
a word of news. I therefore fell back upon Mrs. Peglar and
her experiences.

' These, spiritually, were interesting, as such experiences
usually are. I imparted mine to her, and we communicated to
each other certain tracts, whicn seemed to each to suit the case

3

34 THE SEAMY SIDE.

of the other. I may say that mint, which bore upon the honesty
due by Christians to those of the household, produced no effect
upon the next week's bill, in which the overcharge for coals,
candles, firewood, and such trifles as salt and pepper, was un-
worthy of a Professed Church Member. However, this, to a
man of your spendthrift habits, will appear irrelevant.'

' Dear me !' sighed Anthony, laying down the paper. ' This
is very dreary reading.'

' Having exchanged spiritual experiences, we proceeded to
talk about things temporal. Mrs. Peglar has had trials out of
the common. It is nothing in Bournemouth for lodgers to die,
because most of them go there for that purpose, and when
(speaking as a lodging-house-keeper) you have got a good
invalid in the place, one who pays his way without too many
questions and lasts a long time, you are much better off than
when you get a mere healthy family down for the summer
holidays. " Give me," said Mrs. Peglar, very justly, " give me
a good long consumption." She was good enough, it is true, to
make an exception in favour of persons like myself, which may
have been sincere, as between Church members, or may not.

' We talked a good deal, having nothing better to do, over the
stories of these lodgers. Mrs. Peglar's experience in the last
days and weeks of dying people is very great. Her manner of
describing them is powerful ; if she seems sometimes to lack
sympathy, it must be remembered that, like the doctor, her inte-
rests are concerned in keeping them alive. And I confess to
sympathising with Mrs. Peglar, when she declared to me that
most of the lodgers who died in her rooms did so from sheer
cowardice and want of determination. " I said to them," she
declared to me ; " I told them every day that what they wanted
was to pluck up — to have a good heart ; oysters and a good
heart. None ever died of consumption and decline yet, till they
got tired of fighting." She considers that this lack of courage,
which might be remedied by careful education, has cost her hun-
dreds of pounds already. And she rightly pointed out what a
dreadful loss this makes in the aggregate every year, " when you
come to consider what a many lodging-house-keepers there are
in the different watering-places in England."

Thus tales of her defunct lodgers occupied all our evenings ;
and at night my mind used to run upon the memories of the
poor creatures who had died in the bed in which I lay, so that
at last I was obliged to have a bedroom candle alight all night,
while Jane grew nervous to such a degree — thinking of ghosts
while I thought of souls — that nothing would do but the maid
of all work must sleep with her as a protection.

'Naturally, Mrs. Peglar's experiences began with last year.

THE JOURNAL OF A DESERTED WIFE. 35

and went back, year by year, until we arrived at a period twenty
years ago, and one morning she said to me :

' " And now I have got to tell you about my beautifullest
patient of all — the poor young lady that died in your very bed
one and twenty years ago."

' I had by this time heard so many stories of dying lodgers,
that the announcement did not at the moment awaken any
sympathy. You will perceive, in a moment, how much it inte-
rested me, after a while. She told me — I spare you her own
account, which was lengthy and full of digressions — that exactly
twenty years before last October, as near as she could recollect,
a young lady, looking not more than twenty-two or so, was
brought to her house by a gentleman. The lady, who wore a
wedding-ring, called the gentleman Anthony, or dear Anthony.
He called her Dora, or dear Dora. Their name was Hamblin.
She was very weak, and unable to speak much or sit np. The
gentleman was unremitting in his attentions, watched by her
side all the day, left her only at night, and anticipated all her
wants. Her face was shrunken (Mrs. Peglar said) as if she had
suffered a good deal : and her mind was wandering. She conld
not recollect what had happened the day before, but talked a
good deal about things that had happened long ago. Her talk
was rambling, but it was full of Rachel, Stephen, and Anthony.
Sometimes she would look wildly about the room and cry, " Oh !
where is he ! where is he ! What have I done that he does not
come to me ?" and then the gentleman would take her hand and
soothe her, and say, " Hush, Dora dear, I am here — I am here."
Then she would lay back her poor head on the pillow and go to
sleep.

' Recall the memory of that time, and of your victim, and let
it be upon your conscience as a red-hot iron upon the flesh.

' Mrs. Peglar, seeing that I was interested, went on to tell me
what you know : how there was no chance from the beginning ;
how her head never grew quite right, but kept wandering as if
her husband was away from her, while he — meaning you,
Anthony Hamblin — was by her bedside. For three weeks she
lay on her bed of death ; and one morning, being still in the
same brain-cloud, still wondering why her husband did not come
to her, still hoping to see him once more before she died, if only
to say that she forgave him and prayed God to forgive him, she
suddenly and unexpectedly passed away.

' Mrs. Peglar said that Mr. Hamblin behaved in a most liberal
and generous manner. He gave her everything that the de-
ceased possessed except a ring and a bundle of letters. She
was buried in Bournemouth churchyard, where a marble cross
with her initials and the date of her death, was put up by his
orders to mark her grave.

3-2

36 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' While Mrs. Peglar continued her narrative I said nothing,
except to ask a question or two by way of keeping her to the
point, and preventing her from mixing up one deceased lodger
with another, as one is naturally apt to do who has to look after
a succession of consumptives.

' At this point, however, I interrupted her, and asked what
the deceased lady had left behind her, and if Mrs. Peglar had
any of the things still in her possession. She said that they
were principally clothes, long since worn out ; but that there
■was a small desk in which were a watch and chain, a locket, a
bracelet, and a few other gauds of like nature, with some sort
of a journal, or diary. She had kept the jewellery, she said,
intending to sell it when she might be in want of the money.
The rainy day had never yet arrived, and the things were with
her still. Mark the hand of Providence. The prosperity of
Mrs. Peglar was continued in order that I might bring this sin
home to you.

' I asked her to let me see the things. She went away, and
presently returned with a little writing-desk. Of course I knew
already who the dead woman was, but I preserved my calmness.
I confess, however, that the sight of the writing-desk gave me a
shock. It was one I had presented to Dora years before as a
reward for some school-girl successes ; a little desk in rosewood,
with velvet face when you opened it. As I took it in my hands,
the memory of the past came back to me in a full flood, so that
for a space I could not speak.

' Within the desk were the things of which she had told me.
The watch and chain had also been a present from myself. The
bracelet and locket, I suppose, were from you. There was a
packet of papers tied round with green ribbon. "It is her
journal, poor soul," said Mrs. Peglar. There was, I knew, a little
secret drawer in the desk — there generally is in these things — I
pressed a spring and it came out. Within were two portraits,
one of myself, and the other — not of you, as I expected. I took
that of myself, and showed it to Mrs. Peglar. It was a small
portrait in water-colour, at least five- and- twenty years old, taken
when the cares of this life had not yet hardened my features.
v ~ Of whom does this remind you, Mrs. Peglar ?" I asked, hold-
ing it up. She recognised it immediately, and cried out that it
was the very image of me ; adding expressions of wonder and
astonishment natural to the situation, and clothed in language
common among people in her rank in life. " It is a likeness of
myself, Mrs. Peglar," I said. " That unfortunate young lady
was my sister ; that wretch who hung over her death-bed was
her husband, the man who induced her to leave her happy and
Christian home to become the wife of a worldling." She stared
at me in amazement. Presently she remarked that if I pleased

THE JOURNAL OF A DESERTED WIFE. 37

I was quite welcome to the portraits and to the papers ; but a3
to the jewellery, that was all her own, given to her by the hus-
band of the poor lady. I reassured her on this point. I even
offered to buy the watch and chain, and the desk, leaving her
the things which came from you.

' My own astonishment was so great, that for some time I
did not realise the deception which had been practised upon
me. Nor was it until next day, when I stood in the cemetery
beside her grave, and read the date of her death, that it suddenly
came upon me, like a thunderclap, that I had been robbed, for
six long years, of a hundred and fifty pounds a year.'

Here Anthony Hamblin laid down the paper, and stroked
his beard.

' Ay,' he murmured. ' There is the rub. We might get over
most things, but forgery — forgery is a deuced awkward matter.
You cant get over forgery.'

Then he resumed his reading.

' I think there is nothing more left to tell you,' the manu-
script went on.

' The moment I realised this robbery, I perceived, being at
that moment by the grave of my sister, that I was clearly
pointed out and selected to be the Instrument of wrath. Be-
cause I had in my safe at home every one of those receipts for
a hundred and fifty pounds each, with poor Dora's signature
forged on seven of them. There was a clear road open to me,
a road which led me directly and without trouble to the punish-
ment of evil-doers and the retribution due to myself and the
memory of my sister. Standing beside that grave, I firmly
resolved that nothing, no tears, no repentance, no protestation,
should stay my purpose. It was not revenge that I sought ; it
was the execution of a punishment in which I was to be the
chief Instrument.

' Having read so far, you may now, Anthony Hamblin, read
the journal of your victim. It is a copy of the original, which
is reserved to be read aloud in public, and to be quoted in all
the papers at your trial.'

1 1 wonder,' said Anthony, irrelevantly, ' that she did not
consult the register of deaths. I rather wish, on the whole,
that she had.'

He laid down the manuscript, and fell a-thinking.

After a space, he took it up again, and resumed his reading.
The house — it was two o'clock in the morning — was so quiet
that he could hear the clock in the hall, and its steady ticking
jarred upon his ears. Outside, the wind had risen, and whistled
among the branches in the trees. He looked about him ner-
vously as if the room was haunted.

Then he began to read the second part of the manuscript.

38 THE SEAMY SIDE.

It was a copy, stil2 in the same Italian hand, and a less volumi-
nous document than the first.

It was headed, ' Fragments of a Journal found among my
sister's papers.'

' I wonder,' said Anthony, ' what the poor girl found to write
about, and how I came to leave the papers behind.'

There were no dates at all ; and the journal, such as it was,
ran on in unconnected paragraphs.

' It is very lonely here,' it began ; ' I sit, or walk, or read,
chiefly by myself. The daughter of the lodging-house-keeper,
a girl about my own age, is kind, and sometimes bears me com-
pany. But for her, I think I should go mad.

' My husband wrote to me yesterday. He is still in London,
and says that his affairs keep him there. Why cannot I, too,
go to London, and stay with him ?'

' I have been sitting on the shingle at the bottom of Stair
Hole all the morning. The wind was high, outside the rock,
and the waves came tearing through the vaulted passage between
the cove and the sea as if they were mad to tear down the rock
and to get at me. I was frightened at last, and went back
home, where Eliza was waiting for me. with dinner,
*****

'It is nearly the end of my second year of married life.
"What life ! He never comes now : he has not seen me for six
months : he says nothing about coming any more. Always
business : always some excuse. If it were not for one thing, I
should go mad.

*****

' I have written again, and asked, for the ninth time, why I
cannot go to London and live hidden there, if I must be hidden]
Why should I be hidden % why should my husband be ashamed
of me 1 ? Yet he replies that family reasons prevent him from,
acknowledging his marriage ; that he has to consider his brother
who must not know anything about it, and his mother who has
other views for him. I suppose that the daughter of a dissent-
ing tradesman would not please Mrs. Hamblin for her son's
wife. Yet I think I could overcome even that prejudice if I
had a fair trial. I suppose I must have patience. But why
does he not come down to see me ? It is only four hours from
London. He might come, if he cared for me, if but from
Saturday to Monday.

' But he does not care for me any longer. Each letter is
colder and harder. If I think of it, I seem to remember that
every day, while we were together, saw him become colder and
more indifferent. Did he ever love mo at all ?

THE JOURNAL OF A DESERTED WIFE. 39

' It is now five months since he has seen me, and three weeks
since he has written to me. I have not told him — I do not
dare to tell him — what is going to happen. I dread to think of
what he will say. Already he says he must reduce the allow-
ance of three guineas a week to two, and that I had better
content myself with one room instead of having both a bed-
room and a sitting-room. Was it for this that I gave up my
home, and ran away from Rachel ?

* * # * #

' I have been ill, and have consulted the doctor. He says
that I live too much alone, and that my nerves are giving way.
He has prescribed iron, but says that my husband ought to
come down and see me oftener. I was afraid to tell him that
he has not seen me for six months. I have written to him, and
told him what the doctor says. But I have not told him — what
I have kept a secret. That shall be a surprise for him. If he
is pleased, I shall be happy. If he is angry and discontented, I
have made up my mind what to do — I will go back to Rachel,
and tell her all. She will forgive me, in spite of what she
wrote.

' My husband has written me another letter, colder and more
cruel than any he has ever sent me before. He upbraids me
with bringing him into poverty, says that he cannot any longer
support the expenses of a wife, and tells me that I must huuc
itbout for work of some kind to do. "Work !

' If only he knew what chance there is of my being able to
do any work ! Has he a heart at all — this man, whom once, I
loved 'i Does he remember ? Do men's words and promises
mean nothing at all ? Do they think that women can be taken
up, petted for a week, and then thrown aside ? If I dared, I
would go to Rachel at once. But I do not dare. Let me wait,
if I can, for a few weeks yet — till my story is complete.
*****

' I have been very ill indeed, they tell me. My husband has
written me another cruel and peremptory letter. He can no
longer afford me more than a guinea a week, and I am in debt
already to doctor and to landlady. What shall I do ? What
shall I do ?'

*****

' Anthony has come. It was a thought inspired surely by my
Heavenly Father, which prompted me to ask him to forgive all
— to forget it, if he could, and to come to my help. He has
come. He forgives me everything. Oh, how have I sinned
towards him ! and yet I hardly knew it in my blind infatuation.
He has come — come like an angel from heaven, bringing gifts
of love and f orgivsness with him. I am almost happy. I shall

4o THE SEAMY SIDE.

never want for sympathy and love any more, now that I hav«
Anthony to take care of me.

*****

' I am moved out of the one room in which I had taken
refuge. I am lying on a sofa in the best room of the house.
Anthony is inexpressibly thoughtful and kind to me. There is
nothing for me to do now, but to wait in patience. He reads to
me ; anticipates my smallest wish ; calls for me ; treats me just
as he used to in the dear old days, like a little child whose
moods are of no account except as an amusement. How sweet
it is ! The time slips backwards, and sometimes I think I am
still at Olivet Lodge, playing, in too much happiness, sometimes
with Anthony, and sometimes with Stephen, and waiting for
Rachel to come and scold me for laughing. Poor Rachel ! She
thinks that all laughter must be turned into mourning.'
*****

This was the last, the very last, of the entries.

"When Anthony Hamblin laid down the paper, his tears were
flowing freely. He sat gazing into the decaying embers, while
he cried like a girl.

' Poor Dora !' he said. ' Poor, neglected flower ! It was
right that a time should come for punishment, I confess it.
And yet, for Alison's sake, that punishment should be averted.
Thank Heaven ! I have still time. I have Saturday and Sunday
before me ; a great deal may be done in forty-eight hours.
Rachel, I think your victim will escape you yet !'

CHAPTER VI

TO HIS RUIN OR HIS DEATH.

When, next morning, Anthony Hamblin appeared in the break-
fast-room, his daughter, for the first time in her life, realised
that her father might some day grow old. For he looked already
ten years older.

A single sleepless night, the trouble into which he had fallen,
the memory of that tearful journal, the revival of so sad and
terrible a death-bed, had already stamped his eyes with crows-
feet and drawn a line across his forehead.

' My dear,' cried the girl, ' are you ill ? Is it still the trouble
of last night ?'

' Always the trouble of last night,' he said, kissing her. ' Giva
me a day or two to shake it off, if ever I can.'

TO HIS RUIN OR HIS DEATH. 41

She poured out tea for him, and he made a pretence at break-
fast, but his hand shook, and his appetite failed.

Presently he rose abruptly and went into his study ; here he
sat down and took up the thread of his thought at the point
where dressing and breakfast had interrupted him.

He was to see his brother at three ; before then— or should it
be after ? perhaps better before — he would see his lawyers.
Yes, better before. Then he could go to his brother with that
sense of strength, consolation, or hope, which a talk with a
lawyer always confers upon a man.

Then he thought of that woman with hard face and revengeful
eyes. Was the spirit of wrath in her wholly due to her sister's
wrongs, and not at all to the memory of that unlucky mistake
when she took his pleadings on behalf of Dora for honest wooing
addressed to herself ? Perhaps, he thought, with a smile, there
was something of the spretas injuria formce. He pictured to
himself the application before the magistrates, the charge, the
trial, the excitement among his acquaintances, the consternation
of his friends, and lastly, the sorrow, shame, and agony of
Alison.

' It was for this,' he said, ' that I brought her up in ignorance
and in happiness. Now she must learn all, and who will tell
her, and in what language will it be told ?'

Alison would not leave him long undisturbed. She broke in
upon his study, and tried to lead his thoughts in a happier
direction. She was so happy herself in the conscious possession
of her new secret — shared at present with no other than Gilbert
himself — that her father's disquietude jarred upon her.

' Papa,' she said, standing before him just as, long before, she
used to stand and repeat poetry, with her hands behind her,
and depths of wisdom in her steadfast eyes — ' papa, can you
say begone dull care, for a little half-hour, and let me talk
to you ?'

' Talk, my dear,' said her father ; ' give me your hands — both
of them.' He took one in each of his, in his fond caressing
way. ' Talk to me till dull care flies away of her own accord.
If you cannot drive her away, no one can. Forgive me that I
am so moody. Now tell me, did you have a pleasant party last
night ?'

She shook her head, and turned rosy red.

' I do not want to talk about the party, but about something
else. Papa, did — did Mr. Yorke speak to you last night ?'

Anthony Hamblin remembered.

' He is to speak to me to-morrow, after church — no, on
Tuesday.'

She threw her arms round his neck, and sat upon his knees,
whispering:

42 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' It is — about me, papa.'

He kissed her, and said nothing for a while.

' Gilbert Yorke is so old a friend, my dear, that you know
what I think. Tell me of yourself : Do you think that you
can love him — quite in the right way, I mean — with respect
and admiration?'

' I am sure I can, papa.'

' His people are proud of their family — if they should object
— should anything be discovered '

What did he mean, as he spoke in a disconnected way ? What
were his thoughts?

' Why, dear,' said Alison, laughing, ' our family is as good as
G-ilbert's, I should, think. Are we beginning to be ashamed of
old Anthony Hamblin's first indigo venture ?'

Her father recovered himself.

' Why, no,' he replied. ' It was not of that I was thinking —
not at all. Well, Alison child, you will have your own way, I
hope, though at present I don't see how. But what shall 1 do
without you ? I think I shall give you up this house to your-
selves, and ask for a couple of rooms at the top, where I can
stay and watch you .'

More they talked in this same light fashion, behind which
lay those depths of affection and feeling which we English
people love to keep hidden, happy in knowing that each b>
each they are divined and known, and account is taken. Pass
it over. Remember only that every word spoken by the girl
sank deep into the heart of the father.

This talk lightened for awhile the trouble which lay at the
man's heart. He half forgot the interview which he was to
have with his solicitor at two, his brother at three, and the
magistrates on Monday morning. He was a man who could
easily forget. Those who suffer greatly and quickly, through
the ill deeds of themselves or others, have not uncommonly this
compensating gift of forgetfulness.

The girl grew happier in seeing the cloud roll away from her
father's face. It was, to be sure, a most unaccustomed cloud —
almost the first she had ever seen upon that contented brow.
Not quite the first, because Uncle Stephen had more than once
occasioned an evening of gloom.

Then that unlucky inspiration, which some philosophers call
the Devil, entered into Alison's mind. She should have stayed
with her father ; she should have watched beside him, chased
the spirit of gloom from his mind, enabled him to look things
in the face, and confront the inevitable with oourage. Un-
luckily she thought that exercise would do him good, and ordered
him to go out.

' Take your skates,' she said in ner peremptory way, ' and go

TO HIS RUIN OR HIS DEATH. 43

on to the Mount Pond. I will ccme after you presently, and
we will skate all the morning.'

He obeyed, and left the house with the usual smile on his
lips and in his kindly eyes. Alison watched him as he crossed
the lawn, walking, in spite of his fifty years, with the elasticity
and spring of youth.

' Why,' sighed Alison, ' should there not be a country where
we could send such relations as Uncle Stephen into distant exile,
with plenty to eat and nothing to do ? It should be called
Prodigal Son Land.'

Then her eyes fell upon the manuscript which her father had
left upon the table. On the right-hand corner were written
the words ' Private and Confidential.' She rolled it up, and
took it into her own room, where she locked it up in a drawer.

It was not much that Alison knew of the wickedness of the
world, but that little she had accustomed herself, somehow, to
connect with her Uncle Stephen. The pomps and vanities of
this wicked world, the pride of the eye, and all the rest of it,
were mere phrases of empty sound to this innocent and simple
girl — represented something outside her own world in which
her father had no part or share. As whatever vexation came
to the house seemed caused by her uncle, it was not unnatural
that he should become her ideal of the wicked man who turneth
not away from his wickedness ; and therefore, on this occasion,
she assumed, without right or reason, that Uncle Stephen had
been doing something more than usually wicked.

Outside the house, Anthony Hamblin set off at a brisk walk
to the Mount Pond, where he was to be joined by his daughter.
The Common was covered with snow, and the turf was crisp
and hard. The furze-bushes seemed to be huddling together,
in spite of their prickles, for warmth beneath their white
covering. The sky was clear and bright overhead, but in the
south there was mist and the sun shone like a burnished disk.
The snow rounded off the roughness of the old Common.

Anthony walked on cheerfully, brushing away the snow and
swinging his skates as he went. For the moment he had for-
gotten the dreaded appointment with his brother. He would
spend the morning on the ice, and strengthen his nerves with
exercise. He came to the Mount Pond, crowded with skaters,
and stood there awhile watching. Suddenly his cheerfulness
vanished, and his heart sank within him. He remembered a
day — long ago, thirty years ago — when he had stood, then still
a youth, beside his mother, and watching one boy skating among
the rest, the handsomest of them all. He remembered the
mother's pride ; he remembered how she pressed his arm, and
whispered that she thanked God for both her sons. Then he
could bear the place no longer, but turned away, sad and sorry,

44 THE SEAMY SIDE.

and walked from the pond and the Common, still carrying his

skates.

He forgot that Alison was coming to skate with him ; he
forgot everything except that he had to see his solicitor and
reveal things to him which would cover himself with shame
and that respectable adviser with astonishment. He did not
look about him, but wandered mechanically along roads and
streets.

Presently he remembered that time must be getting on : he
looked at his watch — it was only half -past eleven. Yet in his
thoughts he had lived over again every year of his life since he
left the Common. Half -past eleven — what could he do to pass
the time before two ?

He looked around him : he was at Victoria ; he had walked
all the way from Clapham Common to Victoria without know-
ing it ; he could not even remember by what streets he had
come.

' After all,' he said, ' perhaps I am a fool to distress myself
so much. We shall manage to square it.'

A strange thing to say, considering what it was that was
hanging over his head. Then he pulled himself upright and
walked along with a brighter air. Presently, he found himself
at Hyde Park Corner, and followed in the stream of people
which was pouring into the Park, most of them carrying skates.

' Alison said I was to skate,' he murmured ; ' I will, though on
the Serpentine instead of Clapham Common.'

The Long Water and the Serpentine were crowded. There
were skaters who plunged and struck out, and splashed about
with arms and legs, bending low forward and making little
headway ; there were men who wore the old-fashioned skate
with projecting curve and straight heel, the Dutch skate — these
men, with long stroke and easy roll of the body, swung swiftly
down one side of the water, and returned in the same way up
the other ; there was the skater who could do anything on the
ice that science can teach or skill contrive ; there was the young
fellow who imitated him, but failed to catch his ease and missed
his grace ; there were the girls who were learning, trying not to
fall, and burning to move easily and gracefully ; there was the
girl who really could skate, and looked like enjoying it ; there
were her young sisters taking first lessons, and tumbling about
like little kittens ; there was the rough with his pals, uneasily
conscious that the eyes of many policemen were about ; there
were shoals of schoolboys, and thousands of those men and
women of the lower classes who never seem to have anything
to do, who crowd the parks with equal readiness for a parade.
a drawing-room, a review, the arrival of a distinguished visitor,
or the rare occasion of the ice proving strong enough to l»ear.

TO HIS RUIN- OR HIS DEATH. 45

A. mighty mob it was, but a good-humoured mob. And the
banks were as crowded as the ice. All along the edge were
rows of the men who turned the nimble penny by screwing on
skates, lending chairs, and other useful arts. Then there were
the men of the Royal Humane Society, ready with boats, ladders,
and drags : they had a tent in one place with a fire in it, and
crafty restoratives for those who might have the ill hap to
tumble in. Standing before this tent was a man known to
Anthony. He was neatly and serviceably dressed, in boots up
to his hips, and a beautiful doublet or overcoat of cork.

' Good-morning, sir,' he said, touching his hat. ' Going on,
like the rest of 'em ?'

' I don't know,' said Mr. Hamblin.

' Better have a turn, sir,' said the man ; ' the weather is on
the turn. This is the last day, belike. Give me your heavy
coat ; I will take care of it for you. There's no wind, and
you'll be all the better without it.'

Anthony complied. He took off the heavy overcoat, and gave
it to the man, who laid it over a chair at the door of the tent.

' There, sir, it's quite safe with me. You'll find me here
when you come off.'

Anthony Hamblin left him and strolled down to the water's-
edge. Again another sinking of the heart, another strange fit
of irresolution and fear. He could not go on the ice. He could
do nothing except think.

'Poor Alison !' he said for the fiftieth time. 'That which
she thought would be her happiness will only bring her greater
misery. How shall she escape ? What can I do to save her
from this blow ? Any way, any way,' he repeated drearily.
' Because whatever I do, whether I speak or whether I hold my
tongue, that woman means to go on. She intends revenge.
And her revenge means unhappiness to Alison. How if I were
to write and tell the poor girl all ? But that would only pre-
cipitate things. No ; there is nothing left but to go to Stephen
— he must know — tell him who has called upon me, and for
what ; and trust to forty-eight hours' start — and flight.'

Here his meditations were disturbed. Right in front of him,
in the middle of the Serpentine, where the stream was deepest
and yet the crowd thickest, there was a sudden report, like the
discharge of a cannon, followed by the scattering of the crowd
in all directions ; while everywhere the treacherous ice broke
beneath the flying feet, and plunged them in the cold water
below. Was it possible ? Where the people had been crowded,
skating and running, Anthony gazed upon a great open space,
in which a hundred and fifty people were struggling in the water
among the broken blocks of ice for very life, amid the shrieks
and cries of spectators helpless to do anything.

*6 THE SEAMY SIDE.

In a moment, the Society's men were out upon their ladders,
and ready with their boats, their ropes, and their life-belts.
Dripping forms of men and women were dragged from death,
and hurried across to warm fires and dry towels. The crowd
surged down to the edge of the water with cries and shouts, as
eager to watch the fight for life as if it were a show of gladiators.
Anthony felt his own pulses quicken, and the blood flow swiftly,
as one after the other the victims were rescued. He was rudely
torn from his own troubles, and, for the moment, forgot them.
When it was all over, when it seemed as if the men in the boat
with the drags had nothing more to do, he bethought him of his
coat, and that it was getting cold. He left the shore and went
back to the hut.

His friend, the man with the corks, was gone. Doubtless he
was one of those with the ladders. A policeman was left in
charge. He was talking to a girl of his acquaintance.

' It isn't them as is drowned,' he was saying, ' that the crowd
cares about — they go down quick, and they don't come up no
more. It's them as is saved.'

' How many should you think is drowned ?' asked the girl.

The man shook his head.

' Who can tell ? We shall go on fishing of them up one by
one. In the summer perhaps, if they let the water down, we
shall find a body or two we never suspected. And for the next
month or so, if a young fellow has bolted or a girl has run away,
they will make inquiries here and say he was drowned on the
ice. Lord bless you ! it's a regular godsend to bolters and run-
aways, is an accident like this.'

'Ah!' replied the girl, ruminating over this statement.
' Here's a coat, now,' she said presently, taking up Anthony
Hamblin's overcoat ; 'I suppose that belongs to a skater.'

' Yes, it does. Harris told me he was taking care of it for a
gentleman he knew, who had gone on the ice.'

' I wonder if he's one of them as went in the ice,' said the girl.
' Shall I look to see if he has left a name. No ; you look.'

The policeman put his hand in the pocket and drew out a
pocket-book full of letters.

' Here we are, sure enough. Letters addressed to Anthony
Hamblin — Anthony HamMin — cards — Anthony Hamblin. You
are all right, Mr. Anthony Hamblin, Clapham Common. If
you are drowned, all we have got to do is to carry this coat
home to your family, and it will break the news for us, a deal
better than we can do it for ourselves.'

' Lor !' cried the girl, ' ain't it horrible ? And do you really

think that the coat belongs to a that poor Mr. ITamblin is

actually drowned ? Good gracious 1 Why I couldn't never
touch the coat agaiu.'

TO HIS RUIN OR HIS DEATH. 4;

Silly,' said the guardian of the peace. ' How do I know if
he's drowned or not ? If he is, he will never come and ask for
his f.oat. If he is not, why then he will be round here in a
minute or two with a shilling for Harris for taking care of it
Don't you fill your head with nonsense.'

The man listening to this talk, the real owner of the coat,
was trembling as if with cold. It was not the cold, however,
but the eagerness of his thoughts which agitated him. The
words of the policeman inspired him with a sudden idea.

He saw a way of escape.

He had been praying in a despairing mood for a way — any
way. Here was one suddenly, unexpectedly, offering itself.

He said, in his mind, ' She will pursue me to ruin or to death.
What if I were really dead ? Then nothing- would ever be in-
vestigated ; nothing would ever be found out. Alison would
shed a few tears, it is true, but she would dry them soon ; she
would marry young Yorke. A few years more and Rachel
Nethersole would be dead too, and with her all memory of this
thing. Her revenge would be ended, because death brings an
end to all. The honour of the house would be saved. Alison
would be saved from disgrace. Why, it seems no sacrifice at all,
considering what there is at stake.'

He turned from the Serpentine and walked resolutely straight
across the Park towards the east.

' She said, to my ruin or my death. Very well, then, I am

DEAD.'

CHAPTER VII.

THE DAY AFTER.

When Anthony Hamblin rashly jumped at the conclusion that
by effacing himself he could remove all trouble at one stroke
and enable everybody else to live happy ever after, he calculated
on that one trouble alone. Now the network of human miseries
is so artfully constructed that when you have got rid of the most
pressing and troublesome by some clever coup-de-main, you find
you have only opened the door to other unsuspected causes of
suffering. The earth is like that island seen by Lucian, which was
planted everywhere with knives, swords, daggers, pikes, lances,
and spears, so that the wretched inhabitants constantly spiked,
lacerated, gashed, and ripped open their unlucky skins. Nature
is always ready to stick in the knife in some place where we
least expect it. At any rate, to run away never helps : assume
rather a bold front, and buy a pennyworth of court-plaster.

48 THE SEAMY SIDE.

As every copybook which has room on the text-hand page sayn ;
' Temerity dismays the Foe.'

Yet it seems so easy simply to run away. Fighting is trouble-
some and exciting. It requires physical activity ; it prevents
the solid enjoyment of meals; it interrupts the calm flow of
ideas ; it makes a Christian man angry, inclined to evil thought,
and harsh speech, and desire of revenge. You run away, and
there is no troublesome fight at all. To be sure, you may find
that your self-respect has been left on the field of battle. In
Mr. Hamblin's case that would not matter, because there was
not going to be an Anthony Hamblin any more. There are,
too, so many situations in life when flight would seem desir-
able : when you have become so clogged and bemired with
debts that there is no help but in a complete change
of identity: when you have done something, and it is going
to be found out ; when you have got into a mess of a
domestic kind, and are threatened with a breach-of-promise
case : when you are let out of prison : when your conscience —
this case is very, very rare — smites you for having given your
relations so much trouble, and you resolve that they shall have
heard the last of you, lent their last five-pound note to you,
written the last letter of remonstrance, appeal, and indignation,
and forgiven you for the last, the four hundred and ninetieth
time : when you find that you have been on a wrong tack —
another rare case — and have advocated mischievous and mis-
taken doctrines : when you find that your marriage has proved
a failure and that the poor woman tied to you would be cer-
tainly happier as a widow, and perhaps happier with another man:
when you consider how detestable a father, husband, brother,
son, cousin, and distant relation you have been, and how very
satisfactory it would be to the whole family to put on mourning
for you. ' He is gone, poor fellow ; but one cannot feel other-
wise than relieved. When a man is irreclaimable, he is better —
under the sod.' You would hear this said, being in reality
alive, although hidden away.

It is possible to multiply such cases indefinitely. There aro
indeed many men, of my own personal acquaintance, who may
perhaps take a hint, should they read these pages, and consider
how much better it would be for everybody if they were only
as good as dead. I believe, indeed, that there must be whole
townships, with gay billiard-saloons, churches, and daily papers,
somewhere in the States, in which all the inhabitants are men
who have disappeared. There is somewhere a subterranean
population, so to speak, of buried folk ; they are ghosts in the
ile.sh ; they are cousins, brothers, uncles, nephews, long since
mourned as dead, now gambling and drinking under new names.
Some day I will visit such a place and get their secrets out of

THE DA Y AFTER. 49

the men over Bourbon whisky, under promise of inviolable
secrecy, In England there are no such townships of refuge ;
but Alsatia exists, and has always existed. It used to be some-
where about Blackfriars — it is now, I believe, somewhere east
of Thames Tunnel. The unburied dead — those who have
generously disappeared — when they do not go to America, take
refuge in the vast, unexplored, monotonous East-end. Here
all alike live and die in a grey and sunless obscurity ; here a
man may pass a hundred years forgotten and unsuspected.

Mr. Hamblin never returned to claim his great-coat. The
policeman waited ; as long as she could, the girl waited too,
attracted by the singular fascination of a coat that in all proba-
bility had belonged to a drowned man. Presently, the Humane
Society's officer, Harris, came back, his work of dragging and
rescuing over for the present ; then the girl went away, and the
two men waited. The scared and terrified skaters had all left
the ice.

The afternoon came on ; policemen and officers were still at
their posts ; the banks were crowded with those who came to
gaze on the gap in the ice, the sudden grave of so many ; the
early evening closed in, but Mr. Hamblin appeared not.

When Harris carried back his tent to the office of the Society,
and his day's work was done, he, with the policeman, made
their way to Clapham Common, and delivered up the coat and
told their story.

It was then nearly six o'clock. Reporters had already got
hold of lists, so far as they could be arrived at. One or two
had learned from Harris that the owner of the coat, by which
he kept so steady a watch, was a great City magnate, chief
partner in the well-known firm of ' Anthony Hamblin and Com-
pany ;' and in the later editions of the evening papers it was
rumoured that Mr. Anthony Hamblin was among the missing.
Yet no word of this report went down to the house in Clapham
Common, where Alison, wondering a little why her father had
not kept his appointment on the Mount Pond, sat in quiet
happiness, expecting no evil, and dreaming of Gilbert Yorke.

When the two men came to the house in the evening, they
were like unto Joseph's brethren when they brought with them
their false piece de conviction, inasmuch as they bore a coat,
saving, ' This have we found ; know now whether it be thy
father's coat or no.'

Surely, surely, had her father thought of Alison's grief and
tenor, he would have spared her the cruel blow. Had he
thought of her long watches in the night, of her agony, her
hoy. ing against hope, he might have found some better way.

And yet, he might haye said, ' Suffering is better than shame.

4

5 o THE SEAMY SIDE.

What are the tears of a night, of a week, of a season, compared
to the wound which never heals, the scar which cannot be
hidden, the mantle of disgrace which must be worn like the
canvas suit of a lifelong convict — till death brings an end '?'

When the coat came, they sent messengers and inquiries
everywhere. Mr. Hamblin had not been to the City ; his
partners had not seen him at all that day ; he had kept none of
his appointments.

On Sunday morning, when messages came from all quarters
to ask whether Mr. Hamblin had returned, there were no news
of him ; but Miss Hamblin was like a wild thing, they reported,
for grief and anxiety, and Mrs. Cridland could do nothing to
ease or soothe her.

Tl 3 latest editions of the evening papers added to the first
brief account of the accident lists of the drowned, as accurately
as could be obtained. Among them was the name of Mr.
Anthony Hamblin.

' It is generally feared,' said the Globe, ' that among those
who have met a sudden end in this dreadful disaster is Mr.
Anthony Hamblin, senior partner in the house of Anthony
Hamblin and Co., of Great St. Simon Apostle, City. The un-
fortunate gentleman was last seen and spoken to by an oScer
of the Royal Humane Society — Harris by name — to whom he
was well known as a liberal supporter of the Institution. Mr.
Hamblin expressed his intention of going on the ice for an hour,
and entrusted to the man's care a heavy overcoat. He had
skates with him. This was about half-an-hour before the
breaking of the ice. He did not return for his coat. As yet,
the body has not been identified among those recovered. We
learn by telegram that he had not up to six o'clock returned to
his residence on Clapham Common. Mr. Hamblin, who was
greatly respected in private life, was a widower, and leaves one
daughter.'

Stephen Hamblin had been in his chambers all the afternoon,
waiting for his brother, who did not keep the appointment.
He was anxious to see Anthony for one or two special reasons
of his own, connected with that shortness of cash we have
already alluded to. It was not usual with Anthony to miss an
engagement, nor was it, on the other hand, a common thing
with him to seek one with Stephen. What was it he wanted
to talk about ? There could surely be no unpleasantness about
past and future advances ; that was altogether unlike Anthony.
Some slight anxiety, however, weighed on the mind of the
younger brother. He had a foreshadowing of something dis-
agreeable. So that it was almost with a sense of relief that at
half-past five he gave up the hope of seeing Anthony, and re-
solved to wait for him no longer.

THE DA V AFTER. 5 I

Stephen went to the reading-room of his club. There was
no one in the place whom he knew. All along the streets he
had heard the boys shouting as they brandished their papers :
'Dreadful accident on the Serpentine ! List of the drowned !'

Things like domestic calamities, national misfortunes, or the
affairs of other nations, troubled Stephen very little. He had
not the curiosity to buy an evening paper : at the club he had
not the curiosity to look at one. He sat by the fire with a
French novel in his hand, one of a school which is now un-
happily coming to the front. The author was determined on
being more than realistic ; he would spare the reader nothing ;
he invented details. When Stephen had read and fully realised
all the dreadfulness of a low and small workshop crammed
with work-girls ; when he had read their talk ; when he saw
them before him in all their squalor ; when he was beginning
to think that the other sex had better never have been invented,
the clock struck seven, and he remembered that his luncheon
had been scanty and early. He threw away the novel, which
he never afterwards finished, took an evening paper, and de-
scended to the dining-room. There is one thing about a good
dinner which I do not remember to have seen noticed anywhere
— it demands a fitting successor ; you cannot, without doing a
violence to the best and most gastric impulses of our humanity,
follow up a great and glorious dinner by a common steak.
Stephen, though he did not put his thought into words, felt
this. He ordered a little puree, a red mullet, a cutlet, and a
golden plover. He said he would take a bottle of champagne,
Heidsieck — a bottle, not a pint. And then, while the soup was
being brought, he sat down and began the evening's news.

He threw down the paper with an oath. ' Always my cursed
luck,' he said. ' Just when I wanted him worse than ever.'

Some men have been known to shed tears at hearing of a
brother's sudden death ; some have instinctively considered how
the calamity would affect his widow and children. Stephen
and a certain American boy (he, on learning that his father was
drowned, lamented that his own pocket-knife was gone with
him) are the only two of whom I have ever heard that they
immediately thought of their personal and selfish interests.
Some feeling of regret might have been looked for, some ex-
pression of sorrow for a brother who had done so much for him.
But there was none. He scowled at the paper : he brooded
over the news. It spoiled his dinner ; it took the sparkle out
of the champagne, the flavour out of the plover. When he had
finished, he walked quickly to his chambers in Pall Mall, packed
up some things, and drove to Clapham Common. The partners
were there ; Gilbert Yorke was there ; they were looking in
each other's faces, dismayed. Mrs. Cridland was souse where

4—2

52 THE SEAMY SIDE.

weeping with Alison ; the boy was standing by tlio fire in the
study, ready to run wherever he might be sent, awed and
tearful.

' Stephen,' said Augustus, taking him by the hand, ' I am glad
you are come. This is your proper place in the present dreadful
anxiety.'

' Yes,' he said loudly and defiantly. ' Tell Miss Hamblin,
Charles ' — this to the footman — ' or bettor, Mrs. Cridland, that
I have arrived. Yes, Augustus, this is my place, with my
niece. I shall remain here for her protection.'

No one went to bed in the Hamblin household. Alison walked
up and down all night, starting at the merest sound, rushing to
the door if she thought she heard the sound of wheels. With
her watched Mrs. Cridland and the boy. Stephen sat in the
study. He had no thought of sleep ; his mind was strangely
agitated ; from time to time he took a glass of brandy and
water ; and as the night went on, when the hands of the clock
pointed to those small hours when, if a man bs awake, his con-
science tells him all the real truth about the past, and his
terrors preach most of the possible truth about the future, his
despondency became so extreme that he could not bear to sit
still.

When, at length, the long winter's night was over, and the
slow dawn appeared, Stephen began to take a little comfort.

' He must,' 1 he said, 'have left me something. He would not
give everything to that girl. He could not leave me absolutely
dependent on her whims.'

In the kitchen sat the servants, watching in silence. If one
of the younger maids dropped off, she was awakened by the
others and accused, in whispers, of betraying a hard and un-
feeling nature.

At eight, Harris came and saw Stephen.
_ ' There's eight-and-twenty bodies,' he said, ' waiting identifica-
tion, but not one like Mr. Hamblin.'

' What do you think ?' asked Stephen.

' What is a man to think ?' replied the man. ' It was a cold
day. If Mr. Hamblin did not go down with the rest, why
didn't he come back for the coat ? The body will be recovered,
likely, to-day.'

Uut it was not.

The news was heard by Mr. Alderney Codd at eight o'clock,
as he was sitting among a circle of friends at a certain tavern
near Fleet Street. They were as yet only beginning their
whisky and water, and the night was young. Generally tho
conversation on Saturday nights turned on various projects of
ambitious financing, histories of coujjs which had been made

THE DA Y AFTER. 53

and of others, much grander, which had been missed. It is
always so : the things in which we fail are ever so much
greater than the things in which we succeed. Yet it gives a
feeling of superiority to have missed an event greater than any
that has fallen in the way of your friends.

When Alderney Codd had partly recovered the first shock of
the sad news, he became at once the hero of the evening. He
proceeded to relate, with many digressions and dramatic touches
which seemed to brighten the situation, how, only the very night
before, he had borrowed of his cousin, Anthony Hamblin, that
very coat, fur-lined, wondrous, which now, an object of venera-
tion, hung upon the wall before them for all eyes to see. He
said that he was tempted to retain that coat in memory of the
lender, and as a special mark of his cousin's affection and esteem
for him. He gave free scope to his imagination in discoursing
on the greatness of the Hamblin family, and on his own con-
nection with the cousinhood. And he naturally assumed
additional importance as a possible, nay, a probable, legatee.
It was later — in fact, next morning, when the glow of the
whisky and water had departed — that honest Alderney reflected
with sadness on his own personal loss, not only of a kind friend,
but of a ready lender. And it was with a heart unfeignedly
sad that he walked over to Glapham, and watched awhile with
Stephen.

There was another man, more deeply interested in the event
than either, who read the news with a strange feeling of cold-
ness, as if he were indeed dead. This was Anthony himself.
He had taken a cheap lodging over a small coffee-house in the
Commercial Road, and saw the news in the Sunday morning
paper, while eating the richly-flavoured egg and dubious butter
which they brought him for breakfast. He had already so
changed himself in appearance, by cutting off his beard and
presenting smoothness of chin and cheek to the eyes of man-
kind, that it would have been difficult for his nearest friends to
recognise him. It is a moot question among gentlemen of the
burgling and other professions which require ready disguise,
whether the bearded man who shaves, or the smooth man who
puts on a false beard, has the better chance. I think the feeling
is in favour of the former. As regards Anthony Hamblin, he
added, for greater security, a pair of green spectacles. Instead
of his usual hat he had a billycock, and instead of a frock-coat
he wore a nondescript garment of the pea-jacket kind, only
longer, such as might have been sported by a racing-man or a
publican of broad views. There was not in all Scotland Yard a
single officer able to recognise him without close scrutiny.

He read the paragraph in the paper with great care an<3
attention. Then he laid it down, and began to consider.

54 THE SEAMY SIDE.

After breakfast, he went to the bedroom which was his for
the day, and considered again. Yet there was nothing to con-
sider abont, so far as Alison was concerned, because the coup
was struck. ' What was done,' he said to himself, ' could not be
undone.' Yet, with regard to himself, there was ample ground
for meditation. He had not provided for the step. He had
little money with him, only the three or four pounds which a
man may generally carry in his pocket ; he had drawn no cheque,
and it was now too late. In addition to his little purse, he
possessed, he reflected, his diamond studs, his one ring, his gold
shirt-links, and his watch and chain. The watch alone had
cost him four-and-twenty guineas. But after the proceeds of
all these gauds were spent, what was he to do next ?

Anything, except one thing. He would never return home.

Another person heard the news, but not until Monday, because
that person, who was Rachel Nethersole, never dreamed of the
iniquity of looking at a Sunday paper.

She was deeply disappointed — not so much shocked as dis-
appointed.

' I told him,' she said to the faithful servant who followed her
to the modern Babylon, ' that I was compelled — being an Instru-
ment — to follow him to his death or to his ruin. I little thought
— but the Judgments are swift — that his death was so near. I
imagined ' — she sighed plaintively, as if she meant that she
hoped — ' that it was his ruin which was imminent. We are
purblind mortals ; and yet he warned me, being so near his end,
when men are sometimes granted a vision of the future, that if
I continued to pursue the case I should entail consequences the
nature of which I little dreamed. Such consequences came as
lie little dreamed. What a pity !'

She sniffed violently and with temper. However, at the hour
appointed, she repaired to her lawyer.

' I should like,' she said, to his intense astonishment — ' I
should like the warrant for the apprehension of Anthony
Hamblin to be taken out all the same.'

' Good heavens !' he cried, ' you cannot ask for the arrest of
a dead man !'

' I wish to show the world the real nature of his character.'

This was revenge indeed. But Miss Nethersole had to yield
to her legal adviser's representations. He said that he refused
to make himself and her ridiculous.

_' What you feel, no doubt,' he said blandly, ' to be a con-
scientious measure dictated by pure justice, other people would
call revenge.'

1" am the Instrument— — ' sho began in her stern cold manner.

'Madam,' the lawyer interrupted, 'no doubt — no doubt ; but
death has removed your victim. Heaven has interfered. Your

THE DA Y AFTER. JS

instrumentality is no longer required. As for this claim, it be-
comes a money-matter. Leave it as such with me ; and I will
present it, at proper time and place, to the deceased gentleman's
executors.'

' So that they will know him— as he was— in his real light !'

' Undoubtedly ; they will know all that I tell them — all that
I bave learned from you. If your claim be disputed, we can
then seek a remedy in an action at law.'

' So that then ail the world would know ?'

' All the world,' he echoed. ' In that case, which is not at all
likely to happen, all the world would know.'

Eachel Nethersole went away. She retired to her house at
Newbury, where she resumed the Exercises peculiar to her sect,
and tried to feel satisfied with the result of her instrumentality.

But she was not. She was profoundly dissatisfied ; she had
looked for nothing less than going to the police-courts and
crying : ' Your dead man, whose virtues you extol, was a
common cheat and forger. Here are the proofs. Had it not
been for his death, I should have had him arrested on this
criminal charge.' And now she was told that she could do
nothing— nothing at all ; and the world would go on ascribing
virtues to this citizen cut off so suddenly. Her home, which
for three months had been glorified, so to speak, by the lurid
light of coming revenge, was dull and quiet now that light had
gone out of it : her daily life had lost its excitement, and was
monotonous. The old pleasures pleased no more.

She had been so certain of revenge ; she had with her own
eyes gloated over her enemy as she announced to him the
things which were to befall him ; and now — and now, to think
that he had escaped her clutches by an accident which had never
entered into her calculations. Why, i£ John of Leyden had
hanged himself, or John Huss died suddenly in the night before
the day appointed for torture, the same kind of disappointment
would have been felt by the judges. Nor was there so much
consolation as might be at first supposed, in the thought that
her prey had been cut off in all his sins. Some, no doubt.
She would have preferred to think that he was alive still and
in prison, clad in convict garb, fed on convict fare, doing con-
vict work. A hard, revengeful woman.

56 THE SEAMY SIDE.

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW THE PARTNERS MADE A PROPOSAL.

They began by advertising. That was the only thing to da
They advertised everywhere in newspapers ; outside police-
stations — side by side with the proclamations of a hundred
pounds reward for the discovery of murderers ; on hoardings,
wherever the eye of a passer-by might be caught. For there
was one slender chance. Alison told how her uncle had left her
in the morning distrait, troubled about something. What could
he be troubled about ? Everything had gone well with him ; his
business interests were flourishing ; his investments were sound ;
he had no annoyances, unless it was that caused by his visitor :
he was at peace with the only member of the family who had
ever troubled him.

The partners whispered a word io each other ; their wives
and daughters whispered it to Alison. Sudden madness. Such
a thing was unknown in the Hamblin family, but not unknown
in the history of humanity. Such a thing was possible. It was
almost the only explanation possible, except that of death.
Anthony Hamblin might have been robbed and murdered. That
crime, also, is unhappily not unknown, but rare in London : he
could not have been robbed and shut up. Therefore he was
either dead or insane.

In a story told by one of our best English novelists, a man,
formerly the skipper of a ship, loses his reason, but retains his
sailor instinct, and ships himself before the mast as an able sea-
man. This story came back to Alison's mind, and she dwelt
upon it.

' He left me,' she said to Gilbert Yorke, ' my poor dear left
me trying to look cheerful : but he was not. He was troubled
in his mind. Painful recollections of things long since for-
gotten had been revived in his mind. He could not sleep that
night after our party ; he could not take his breakfast ; he was
uncertain in his manner, and went backward and forward.
Gilbert, I am sure that he is not dead, but living — somewhere,
with his poor brain full of some dreadful hallucination.'

' Jt may be, Alison,' said Gilbert, willing to encourage her.
It may be so, but then you must consider how we have adver-
tised him, how minutely we have described him, and how the
papers have talked about it. Why, I should say that half the
people in this country know that Mr. Anthony Hamblin is miss-

THE PARTNERS MAKE A PROPOSAL. 57

Ing, and what he is like. The partners began by offering a re-
ward of one hundred pounds ; now they have made it a
thousand. Why, what a chance for a man who thinks he re
cognises the missing man in a stranger !'

' Then,' said Alison, ' he must be somewhere among the other
half, the people who have never heard of him. Gilbert, do
not discourage me,' she went on, her deep eyes filling with tears.
' To think that he is not dead, but living ; to dream at night
that his step may be upon the road near the house ; that he is
coming back to us all again — it fills me with comfort and hope :
but to think otherwise would — oh ! I must think that he is
living. When they brought home the coat of Joseph to his
father, Jacob rent his clothes and mourned. Yet Joseph waa
not dead, and presently he was restored to his father and his
brethren. Oh, Gilbert, some day my father will wake up from
his madness, and come back to us all in his right mind.'

This speculation found no favonr with Stephen. His brother
was dead. That was a fact which admitted of no doubt.

Certainly, the silence which followed the advertisements
boded little hope for Alison's theory. There was hardly any
attempt at response. Here and there a letter came, mostly ill-
spelt and ill- written, stating that the writer knew such a man
as was described, namely, with long brown beard, of whom he
knew nothing else. There was that single fact of a beard —
could he be the missing Anthony Hamblin ? And, if so, the
advertisers would bear in mind the claim of the writer to the
reward. But this sort of clue led to nothing. Either, then,
Anthony Hamblin was dead, or he was living, as Alison sug-
gested, among that half of the English people who had not even
heard of his disappearance. Again, a gentleman, who dated
from a public-house in the High Street of Islington, wrote once
offering confidently to produce Mr. Anthony Hamblin, if the
advertisers would first advance ten pounds for preliminary ex-
penses, leaving the rest of the reward open until the restoration
of the missing gentleman. And another worthy wrote, calling
himself the representative and guardian of a boy, whose father
was Anthony Hamblin. This philanthropist, on being inter-
viewed by a clerk from the solicitor's office, first offered to square
the claim for fifty pounds down, and then, being threatened
with conspiracy, abruptly bolted.

At last, Alison consented to put on the garb of mourning.
But it was in deference to the wishes of her cousins. For her-
self, she would have preferred to continue in the belief that the
missing man was not dead but living, and would return some
day and ere long to his daughter's arms.

Stephen, naturally, remained in the house. That course
suited, him perfectly, first, because he was short of ready-money,

58 THE SEAMY SIDE.

and free quarters meant great economy ; secondly, because tha
free quarters were excellent, meaning wine of the very noblest
cms, cigars of the finest brands, and a really splendid cook ;
thirdly, because it gave him an opportunity of producing a
favourable impression on Alison, which might eventually be
useful ; and lastly, for a purpose of his own, which was con-
ceived later on, by whisper of the devil, and which rapidly grew
upon him and became an over-mastering passion.

He was not a lady's man. He was not altogether at his ease
with his cousin Flora Cridland and his niece Alison. He re-
joiced, therefore, when he found that they preferred an early
dinner with the boy, and allowed him to dine alone in the study.
The breakfast hour, again, was early. He would breakfast in
the study. After breakfast he inquired ceremoniously after
the health of his niece, whom he seldom saw. He interfered
with none of the arrangements of the house ; went to town
every day after breakfast, came back most days to dine by him-
self, and, after dinner, either read a French novel or put up his
feet, smoked cigars, drank brandy-an.\-noda, and reflected. The
quarters were so good that he had not the least intention of
turning out.

If he met Alison in the house, he was gravely deferential,
sympathetic, but not obtrusive ; if he met his cousin, Flora
Cridland, he was more sprightly, but kind and thoughtful ; if
he met the boy, he would pat his cheek gently, and ask, with a
sigh of real feeling, how he was getting on with his Latin verses.
He gave no trouble, assumed no air of command, and gained
every kind of credit, solely because he did nothing. And, really,
when one considers how reputations are made, whether by
statesmen, governors of provinces, able editors, or original
dramatists, one is inclined to think that the art of doing nothing
has hitherto been most successfully practised and most grossly
underrated. Had you, dear reader, never done anything except
follow in a groove, you would doubtless have been, ere now,
F.K.S., C.B., C.M.G-., K.C.B., K.C.M.G-., and perhaps Baronet.
"Whereas, in consequence of your perpetual activity, you are
now no better than myself, plain Mister, le Sieur, Esquire by
courtesy, with never a title to your back.

Stephen's courteous and considerate demeanour was due
mainly to a grievous doubt which constantly afflicted and pos-
sessed him. Panurge was not a greater martyr to a doubt than
Stephen Hamblin.

Consider his position. He had been for nearly twenty years
dependent on his brother. Anthony never offered to make
him any allowance. He seemed perfectly to realise that Ste-
phen's pretence at business, financing or broking, was only the
shallowest form ; and there was the understanding botween

THE PARTNERS MAKE A PROPOSAL. 59

them that when Stephen wanted any money he was to write for
it, or call for it, and have it.

Only one man, Mr. Billiter, the family solicitor, knew of
those loans, though the partners suspected them.

Anthony being dead, who was going to have the honour of
maintaining Stephen ?

There was absolutely no form of labour by which he could
earn his daily bread ; there was none by which he meant to
try. He called himself an indigo broker, but he had done that
for twenty years and more. He sometimes dabbled in small
financing schemes with his cousin Alderney Codd, but that
would not do for a permanent prop. And his private account
in the bank was next to nothing.

The great doubt, therefore, was how Anthony had disposed
of his property by testament. And really, considering every-
thing, Stephen seems justified in being anxious.

He might have satisfied himself upon the point by the simple
means of calling at the solicitor's office. There were reasons,
however, why he hesitated. In the first place, there were asso-
ciations of an extremely disagreeable character connected with
the one room in that firm's offices into which he was always
shown. It was the room of the senior partner, Mr. Billiter.
Stephen, although now in his forty-fifth year, 'was afraid of
that old man. It had been Mr. Billiter' s duty to confer with
him in connection with a good many episodes of his career
which he was desirous of forgetting. Now Mr. Billiter, a man
with old-fashioned notions about repentance, had an unpleasant
way of recalling these little matters. Again, Mr. Billiter was
the only man who knew the secret which Stephen and Anthony
kept between themselves — the fact of Stephen's absolute de-
pendence on the elder brother.

At first he thought that he might be dispossessed from his
self-constituted post of guardian, in favour of one of the cousins,
presumably Augustus or William Hamblin, appointed by the
will. But time passed on, and no such intimation was sent to
him. Had, then, Anthony actually appointed him the guardian
of his daughter ? It seemed incredible, considering the history
of the past. And yet he was Anthony's only brother.

And even if he were appointed guardian, there was the anxiety
about the future. What provision, if any, had his brother
made for him ? Surely some ; otherwise he would have literally
to beg his daily bread of his niece. The facts might be pre-
sented, he thought, in graceful, pathetic, and attractive form.
But influences might be brought to bear on the girl, against
which he would be powerless. There were his cousins, the
partners ; they were not friendly. There was that younc
fellow Yorke. alv.-ays about the place, no doubt anxious to hang

60 THE SEAMY SIDE

up his bat in the house, and marry the heiress. Of coursa
Alison's husband would not desire to diminish bis wife's income
by a permanent charge. Yet how could he live under eight
hundred a year, or so ? Why, his dinners cost him three hun-
dred a year, at least. Anthony had never counted what he
bestowed ; or, if he did practise that meanness, had the grace
to hide it. How should he persuade Alison that nothing under
a thousand a year would adequately represent his brother's
affection ? And what if the will contained a provision ridicu-
lously small ?

He wrestled with these doubts for six weeks and more.
During that time the advertising went on ; and they all kept up
some show of pretence that perhaps Anthony would return
unexpectedly, recovered from that hallucination in which
Alison believed so firmly.

One day, however, Stephen received a letter from Mr. Billiter,
the family solicitor, officially and stiffly worded, requesting the
honour of an interview at a stated time.

Mr. Billiter, who perhaps knew more family secrets than any
other man of his profession in London, was not, as we have
said, popular among the prodigal sons with whose career he was
acquainted. He had a great, a profound dislike for scattering,
wasting, idleness, and debauchery of all kinds, being himself a
man of great common sense, holding a just view of the propor-
tion of things, and incapable, at all times in his life, of being
allured by the imaginary pleasures of riot. Having this dislike
to the doings of Comus, he showed it in a certain contemptuous
treatment of those prodigals who came to him to know the
intentions of the family ; and whether he gave them a cheque,
or told them they were to be pitchforked into some unfortunate
colony with a ten-pound note, or announced another act of
forgiveness, he put the facts so plainly that the youth, whether
repentant or not, went away with a sense of humiliation and
shame very disagreeable to a high-toned, whole-souled pro-
digal.

He held Stephen Hamblin in especial dislike, as a prodigal of
five-and-twenty years' standing, which was really extending the
rope beyond all precedent. Stephen was irreclaimable. It was
hard to look on, and see the waste of so much money on so bad
a subject.

He was in appearance a shrivelled-up man, between sixty
and seventy years of age ; a thin, small man, with grey hair,
still strong, and thick, pointed chin, keen bright eyes, and a
sharp nose.

He received Stephen without offering to shake hands with
him, coolly nodding, and going on with the papers before him.
Stephen took a chair by the fire, and waited. Presently the

THE PARTNERS MAKE A PROPOSAL. 61

old man jerked his head sideways, and said, without taking the
trouble to look at his visitor :

' This is a bad business for you, Stephen. What do you pro-
pose to do ?'

There was a twinkle in his eye, caught by Stephen, which
seemed to mean that the worse the business turned out. the
better he would be pleased.

Then he pushed away his papers, leaned back in his wooden
chair, with his elbows on the arms, and looked round.

' That depends upon my brother's testamentary dispositions,'
said Stephen, reading the twinkle in that sense, and tentatively.

' I am coming to that presently. Meantime, you sec, 301
are left without any resources at all. And to work you arc
ashamed.'

Stephen laughed. He was resolved on keeping his temper if
possible.

' Can I dig ?' he asked, ' or shall I beg ?'

' When I recall,' continued this disagreeable old man, ' the
various occasions on which you and I have conversed in this
office '

' Thank you.' Stephen made an impatient gesture. ' I have
not the least wish to be reminded of them again. Great
heavens ! is it impossible for you to forget those old schoolboj'
scrapes ?'

' Quite,' replied Mr. Billiter, ' unless the schoolboy repents
and reforms. Of repentance I have as yet seen no trace. I
fear you have never experienced that salutary discipline.'

' If I had, you would not have heard of it,' said Stephen, his
face growing dark.

' Nay, nay ; I should have had ocular demonstration. We
know the tree by its fruits.'

This was an unpromising beginning. The lawyer, doubtless
for some reason of his own, went on to recall in detail, one after
the other, the whole of his previous interviews with his visitor.
When he had quite finished, Stephen's face wore an expression
of wrath suppressed with difficulty, which would have delighted
his enemies.

' I believe,' he said at last, ' that I have now reminded you of
everything that has previously passed between us. If I have
omitted any important point, it is from no desire to spare your
feelings.'

' That I can believe,' said Stephen, with a ghastly grin.

' But from forgetfulness. I am growing old, and some of the
details may have escaped my memory.'

' So much the better,' said Stephen.

' All this, however.' the old man went on, ' ia a preamble.

6s THE SEAMY SIDE.

I am now coming to the real business of the day. I asked you

to call upon me because '

' I thought,' said Stephen, ' you were going to confine your-
self to the pleasure of reviving the business of the past. That
is a part of our interview which has always afforded you so
much gratification.'

' Not at all, Stephen, not at all. I merely sketched out some
of the past because it is as well that men should know some-
times the light in which others regard their actions. Fortunately
for you, I am the only man in possession of all the facts. Yet
the partners in the house know some of them.'

' Would you mind proceeding straight to the point ?' Stephen
cried, impatiently.

' I am doing so '

Here Mr. Billiter pushed back his chair and rose. A standing
position gives one a certain advantage— stature has nothing to
do with it.

' Do you think, Stephen Hamblin,' he asked, shaking a judicial
forefinger, ' that a man of your antecedents is a fit person to be
the guardian of a young lady ?'

' Do you mean that I shall rob her, or ill-treat her, or beat
her with a stick, or murder her, then ?'

' That is not an answer to my question, which is, are you a
proper person for such a charge ?'

' I really think that I am not called upon to answer that
question.'

' You will see directly why I put it. I only want you to
acknowledge the justice of the proposal I am about to make to
you.'

' Oh ! you are going to make a proposal ? Well, I am ready
to listen.'

' I must remind you that you have no money and no income,
that you were dependent on your brother until his death, that
you have drawn upon him of late years for a very large amount
—many hundreds every year, and that, unless you get some-
thing out of the estate, you will be reduced to the painful
necessity of working or starving. Your cousins in the firm, as
I < 1r ue say you know very well, will certainly do nothing for
>oV

' You have put the case plainly. It is a perfectly correct state-
ment, and the situation has been before my eyes for six weeks.
Now for your proposal.'

' Of course my statement of the facts is perfectly correct.
Remember, then, your position.'

' I want to know, however, what my brother's will directed.'

' 3Iy dear sir, the surviving partners feel so strongly in the
matter, that, had his will named you as giwdian and trustee,

rHE PARTNERS MAKE A PROPOSAL. 63

they would have opposed your appointment in open court as an
unfit person for the trust ; and then those facts "would have
come out which are better hidden.'

' I am much obliged to my cousins,' said Stephen. ' They are,
and always have been, my very dear friends. I am very much
obliged to them.'

' You ought to be, when you learn what they propose.'

' But my brother's will — what does that say ? Why is it not
produced ?'

' Because, my dear sir ' (the lawyer spoke very slowly and dis-
tinctly), ' your brother Anthony, in spite of his great wealth,
could never be persuaded to make a will at all. He always put
it off. There is no will.'

' No will !' Stephen stared in amazement ; ' my brother made
no will ?'

' None. There is, of course, the slender chance that some
other firm of lawyers have drawn it up for him. We have
searched his private safe at the office ; we have searched his
private papers at Clapham— =™'

' After I went there ?'

' The clay after, while you were away. All business docu-
ments and securities were removed by myself, and brought here.
The papers left in his desk and drawers are nothing but old
accounts, diaries, and letters. There is no will.'

' No will ?' Stephen repeated. It was not till afterwards that
he waxed indignant over the want of confidence which caused
the partners to remove the papers.

' No will ; consequently no bequests for anyone. Do you
understand your position ? Miss Hamblin is sole heiress to the
whole property.'

Stephen remained silent. This was, indeed, the very worst
thing that could possibly have hpppened to him.

' You now understand the general situation,' continued the
lawyer, sitting down again, and are prepared no doubt to meet
my proposal in a favourable spirit ?'

' What is your proposal ?'

' It is one which was suggested by Mr. Augustus Hamblin in
the first place, and put into shape by me. It is this. Miss
Hamblin wants about fifteen months before she comes of age.
That is a very short period of guardianship. We are willing, so
as to avoid all suspicion of scandal, that you should be nomi-
nally the guardian, and that letters of administration, if they
are granted at all during the minority, shall be taken out in
your name. We, however, shall relieve you of all your duties.
You will have nothing whatever to do with the management of
tlie estates. You will continue to live at Clapham, if you
please, or until your residence becomes distasteful to Alison,

64 THE SEAM Y SIDE.

and for your trouble, whatever trouble the arrangement may
cause you, we are prepared to offer you the sum of five hun-
dred pounds. If Miss Hamblin consents, as her cousins will
advise her to do, that sum will be continued afterwards for
your lifetime as an annual charge upon the estate, subject to
good behaviour.'

' "What is good behaviour ?' Stephen asked, looking as amiable
as a hyena.

' If you raise money upon it or sell it, as if it were an actual
annuity of your own, or disgrace yourself in any way, the
allowance will be stopped.'

' Have you anything more to say ?' added Stephen, rising.

' Nothing more,' said the lawyer, pleasantly. ' Let me see ;
we have recapitulated the facts, have we not '?'

' Oh yes ; you have raked up all the mud.'

' And I've given you to understand my opinion about your
conduct ?'

' Yes ; you've certainly told me that.'

' And — and — yes, I really think that is all.'

' In that case I can go, I suppose.' Stephen put on bis hat.
' Is it not a very remarkable thing, Mr. Billiter, that at every
interview I have ever had with you, I should desire vehemently
to kill you ?'

' It really is remarkable, Stephen Hamblin,' answered the
lawyer, with a hard smile ; ' it shows how admirable are our
laws that you are deterred from carrying your wish into effect.
By the way, you accept the conditions, I suppose ?'

' Yes, I accept ; of course I accept. If you had offered me
a hundred a year, I must have accepted. I suppose the outside
world will not know. Alison will not know, for the present.'

' I see no reason why anyone should know. Augustus
Hamblin does not talk. And, Stephen,' — just as the door was
closing — ' what a very sad pity it is that you never could run
straight ! When are you going to begin repentance ? Time is
getting on, and the rope will be quite played out some day.'

Stephen slammed the door, and strode away with rage tearing
at his heart.

He walked all the way, because he was in such a rage, to
Clapham Common. By the time he got there, he had walked
himself into a good temper. Why, what did it matter what the
old man said ? Five hundred a year, not so much as he had
always managed to get out of Anthony, but still something ;
still a good round sum for a bachelor, and for a year at least the
run of the fraternal cellar. Not at all bad.

He sent word to Alison that he would like to see her if she
was quite disengaged.

' My dear,' ho said, taking her by the two hands he had never

THE PARTNERS MAKE A PROPOSAL. 65

called her before by any other term of endearment — ' my dear.
I have to-day been with your poor father's lawyer. They have
invited me, with the concurrence of your cousins, and for the
brief space which remains before you attain your majority, to
act as your guardian. I hope you will not object t» me.'

He still held her two hands, gazed sentimentally into her eyes,
and went on before she had time to reply :

' We have not seen so much of each other as we might have
done in the old days. That was entirely my fault. My partial
estrangement from you, and from the rest of the family, was
my fault altogether. But your father and I were never es-
tranged. One heart always. Perhaps I took offence because
certain youthful peccadilloes were too severely visited. Perhaps
I showed offence too readily, and have been forgiven with diffi-
culty. But never mind. Those things are now like old songs.
You have no fear of any more wild oats, Alison ?'

' Not at all, uncle.'

She smiled in his face, as he held her hands. She was too
young to see that the light in his eyes was unreal and the smile
on his lips forced.

' Then that is settled. You will do what you like, go where
yon like, have all you wish to have. That M'ill be my sole care
as your guardian. That is my idea of looking after you for
the next fifteen months or so. When you come of age, you
can turn me into the street, and sit down to enjoy, all the rest
of your life, this wealth of your father. Happy girl ! I wish
I was only twenty. And I wish I was going to have, like you, a
quarter of a million of money !'

This part of his speech, at any rate, was sincere.

CHAPTER IX.

HOW STEPHEN DKEAMED A DREAM.

This good understanding was celebrated after the English
fashion. Stephen dined with the ladies in the evening. Nicolas
was permitted to assist at this little banquet, which was, the
boy observed with pleasure, the first cheerful meal since the
calamity, and he hoped it was the presage of better things. It
was, in reality, only the lifting of the clouds for a brief moment.
Stephen had never shown himself more kindly, more thought-
ful, more sympathetic, than on this occasion. Alison won-
dered how they had all come to overlook these fine qualities of
geniality and tenderness. They accounted fully, she concluded,

66 THE SEA M Y SIDE.

for her father's steady affection for him. By what sad accident
was it that the cousins regarded the Black Hamblin, and had
taught her to regard him, with so much dislike and suspicion ?
What was it in him, what had he done, that her father should
so often have been rendered moody for days together ? Why,
this spendthrift, this prodigal, this man who was the Awful
Example quoted by Aunt Flora to young Nicolas in a solemn
warning, was a delightful companion, full of anecdote, of ready
sympathy, quick to feel, of kind heart, and wide experience.
Occasionally somethingVas said which jarred. That, however,
was due no doubt to his inexperience of the calm, domestic life.

Thinking thus, while Stephen talked, Alison caught the eyes
of young Nick, who blushed immediately with an unwonted
confusion. They were both thinking the same things.

Mrs. Cridland was not so ready to accept the new aspect of
things without suspicion. She naturally reserved her opinions
until they were in the drawing-room.

' Stephen,' she said, when arrived there, ' reminds me of what
he used to be five-and-twenty years ago, when he wanted to
get anything out of his mother. Poor soul ! he would cajole
and caress her, until she gave it him, and then he was away at
once and back to his profligate courses in town. A heartless
and wicked boy !'

' My dear auntie,' Alison expostulated, ' surely we ought to
forget old stories if we can. I suppose my uncle is no longer
what you say he was.'

' I don't know, my dear,' said her aunt, sharply. ' We never
nquired into Stephen's private life after his mother died. He
may be repentant, but I doubt it.'

1 Perhaps,' said Alison, ' every one was hard upon him for the
follies of his youth.'

' I do not know whether they were unduly hard upon him.
He caused them terrible anxiety. However, that is all over.
Let us, as you say, forget it. What a strange thing it is, child,
that you are so like him ! Sometimes, when I see you side by
side, it seems as if you are more like Stephen than your poor
father. You have the Hamblin face, of course — we all have
that ' — it was a theory among the cousins, who perhaps no
more resembled each other than any other set of cousins, that
there was a peculiar Hamblin face, common to all — ' but you
are wonderfully like your grandmother, the Sehora, just as
Stephen is.

At this moment the door flew open, and young Nick appeared,
his hands in his pockets, his cheeks flushed, tears standing in his
eyes.

' What is the matter, my boy ?' cried his mother, ' I thought
you were with your Uncle Stephen.'

HUW STEPHEN DREAMED A DREAM. 67

' He is not my uncle ; I will never call him by that name
again !' cried the boy, bursting into tears. ' He is only a first
cousm once removed.'

< Why '

' First cousin, once removed,' he repeated ; ' let him be pixj-ja
of that, if he likes. Never mind, mother. I'll Je even with
him.' The prospect of retributive justice pleased the boy sa
much that he instantly mopped up his tears, and though he sat
ia a corner with an assumption of resentment, he had really
resumed his cheerfulness.

In fact, Stephen, after the ladies left him, did not observe
that Nicolas remained behind, and was seated beside the fire
with a plate of preserved ginger before him. Stephen, with
his shoulder turned towards the boy, and thinking himself alone,
began to meditate. His meditations led him, presumably, into
irritating grooves, for presently he brought his fist down upon
the table with a loud and emphatic ' D n !'

Young Nick had just finished his preserved ginger, and was
considering what topic would be best to begin upon with this
genial successor of Uncle Anthony, when the ejaculation startled
him.

' Birds in their little nests agree,' said the boy, softly, ' to do
without the wicked D.'

Stephen turned round sharply.

' What the Devil,' he cried, springing to his feet, ' do you
mean by watching me ? Go away ! go to your mother ! get
out, I say !'

The injunction, being enforced by a box on the ear, left no
room for doubt ; and Nicolas, outraged, insulted, and humiliated,
retreated, as we have seen, to a place where he could evolve a
stroke of revenge. But his confidence in Stephen Hamblin was
rudely destroyed, and it never returned.

Stephen, with bland smile, presently appeared, and asked for
a cup of tea. He took no notice of the boy, who turned his
back, and pretended to be absorbed in a book. He was con-
sidering whether cobbler's wax, popguns, powder in tobacco,
apple-pie beds, nettle-beds, watered beds, detonating- powders,
booby-traps, deceptive telegrams, alarming letters, or anony-
mous post-card libels would give him the readiest and most com-
plete revenge, and his enemy the greatest annoj'ance.

His indignation was very great when, his cup of tea finished,
Stephen invited Alison to go with him to the study.

'Like him,' he cried, when the door was shut. 'Old lady,
it's clear that you and me will have to pack up. You think
this house big enough to hold Stephen the First Cousin once
removed — bah !— and you and me, do you ? That's your green-
ness. Mark my words. Bunk it is.'

5-2

63 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Nicolas, dear, pray do not use those vulgar words. At the
same time, if I only knew how far Stephen is sincere.'

The words were wrung out of the poor lady by anxiety on
her own account, and not from the habit of discussing delicate
affairs with her only son. Nicolas, indeed, could not know that
his mother's only income had been that granted her by Anthony
Hamblin for acting as housekeeper, duenna, companion, and
first lady of the establishment for Alison his daughter. And
as yet she did not know, and was still prayerfully considering,
the possible limitations of the new guardian's powers.

' I am going to ask you, Alison,' said Stephen, ' to assist me
in going through some of your father's letters and papers. We
must do it, and it will save me the feeling of— of — prying into
things if you will help me with the letters. Not to-night, you
know. It will take several days to go through them all.'

Alison acceded, and Stephen began opening the drawers and
desks and taking out the papers, to show her the nature of the
task before them.

A man of fifty, if he be of methodical habits, has accumulated
a tolerable pile of papers, of all kinds. A City man's papers
are generally a collection of records connected with money.
Anthony Hamblin was no exception to the rule. He had kept
diaries, journals, bills, and receipts with that thoughtfulness
which belongs especially to rich men. They have already made
their money, they know what it is worth, they are careful not
to lose it, and they are determined to get good value for it if
they can. Men who are still piling up the dollars are much less
careful. The bulk of the papers consisted of such documents.
Besides them, there were bundles of Alison's letters.

' Alison,' said Stephen, softly, ' here are your early letters
tied up. Take them. It would be like prying into your little
secrets to read them.'

She laughed, and then sighed.

' Here are more bills,' she said, ' and here are papers marked
"10 IT." As for my letters, anybody might read them.'

' Of course — of course. At the same time, you may give mo
those I O U's.'

He exchanged a bundle of childish letters for a roll, docketed
and endorsed, which Alison gave him.

He opened the packet with a curious smile.

' Ah !' he said, ' twenty years old.' He rapidly selected those
which bore his own name, and placed them aside. ' These are a
form of receipt. I see your cousin Alderney Codd's name
among them. He was one of those who abused your father's
kindness shamelessly, I think.'

Presently Stephen grew tired of sorting the papers. Ha

HO W STEPHEN DREAMED A DUE AM. 69

leaned back in his chair, sighed, and asked if he might take a
cigar without Alison running away. She explained that her
father had always smoked a cigar in the evening.

Then they drew chairs to the fire — it had been a cold day of
east wind — and sat opposite each other below the portrait of
the Seiiora. And they were both so like her ! Alison thought
her grandmother's eyes were resting sadly on Stephen.

' Did Anthony, your father,' asked Stephen, after a pretty
long silence, ' ever speak to you about his testamentary disposi-
tions ?'

' No, never.'

' He never told you of his intention as regards myself — yon
know that it was always intended that the injury done me under
my father's will should be repaired by Anthony.'

1 1 did not know,' said Alison, ' that there had been any
injury ; ' but I suppose my cousin Augustus knows.'

' There seems to have been no will, so that the carrying out
of your father's wishes ' — Stephen said this carelessly, as if there
could be no doubt what they were — ' will devolve entirely upon
you. Fortunately, I have a note, somewhere, of his proposed
intentions.'

It was an inspiration, and he immediately began to consider
how much he might ask for.

' Of course my father's wishes will be law to me,' Alison said,
with a little break in her voice.

' Naturally,' Stephen replied, with solemnity. ' You know, I
suppose, something of the fortune which you will inherit ?'

' No ; I have never asked.'

' I know '• — Stephen had pondered over it for years — ' the
personalty will be sworn under two hundred and fifty thousand
pounds. The real property consists of the little estate in Sussex,
this house and garden, and a few other houses. Then there are
the pictures, furniture, books, and collections : you are a very

fortunate girl. If I had all the money ' He stopped and

hesitated. ' If I had had it twenty years ago, when Aklerney
Codd and I were young fools together, I dare say it would have
gone on the turf, or in lansquenet, baccarat, and hazard. A
very good thing, Alison, that the fortune went to the steady
one.'

He laughed and tossed his head with so genial and careless a
grace that Alison's heart was entirely won. She put out her
hand timidly, and took his.

' Dear Uncle Stephen,' she said, ' he did not see enough of
you in the old days. We were somehow estranged. You did
not let us know you. Promise me that you will relieve me of
some part of this great load of money.'

' Poor Alison !' Stephen replied, blowing a beautiful hori-

70 THE SEAMY SIDE.

zontal circle of blue smoke into the air, ' you overrate the
spending capacities of your fortune. They are great, but not
inexhaustible. Still I am not above helping you, provided my
demands fall well within your father's exprtssed intentions.'

What could be more honourable than this? and who was to
know that Stephen was at the very moment considering at what
figure he could put those intentions ?

Then he changed the subject.

' I hope,' he said softly, ' that we may find something among
all these papers that will tell us of your mother.'

' My father never spoke of her,' said Alison. ' It seems hard
that I am never to know anything about my own mother and
her relations — not even to know when and how she died.'

' It is hard,' replied Stephen. ' And your father never spoke
of her, not even to you ?'

' Never, except once, when he warned me solemnly that I
must never speak of her.'

' It is very strange !' Stephen sat up and laid aside his cigar.
' Tell me your earliest recollections, Alison. Let us see if some-
thing cannot be made out.'

' I remember,' said the girl, ' the sea, and Brighton, and Mrs.
Duncombe. Nobody ever came to see me except papa. We
knew no one. Mrs. Duncombe did not tell me anything except
that my mother was dead. Then, when I was ten years of age,
papa came and took me away.'

' Why did he hide you so long ?'

' I did not ask him. I was too happy to be with him always.
Yes, he said that he could not get on without me any longer.
That made me happier still.'

' I see,' Stephen answered reflectively. ' Of course it did.
Naturally. But it made you no wiser.'

' I suppose papa had a reason. I have sometimes thought
that he must have married beneath him, and that he did not
wish me to know my mother's relations.'

' Yes ; that is possible.'

He mused in silence for a while, and presently lifted his
head. Somehow his face was changed. The light had gone
out of his eyes ; they were hard ; his voice was harsh and grating ;
his manner was constrained.

' I have kept you too long over business details,' he said,
rising and holding out his hand. ' Good-night, Alison. If I
find any documents that will interest you, I will set them a*ide.
Take your own letters. I shall learn nothing from them, that
is very certain.'

It was the old, harsh, ungracious Stephen Hamblin whom she
had always known. What was the matter with him ?

When Anthony, ten years before, brought home with him

HOW STEPHEN DREAMED A DREAM. 71

unexpectedly, and without preparing anybody's mind for such
an apparition, a little girl whom he introduced as his daughter,
there was no one more surprised than Stephen, or more dis-
gusted. He had regarded himself as the heir to the Hamblin
estates and wealth. He had pleased his selfish spirit in imagin-
ing himself the successor : only one life between himself and
this great fortune. His brother was eight years his senior.
He might drop off any day, though it is not usual for men in
their forties to drop off suddenly. Still it was on the cards,
and Stephen Hamblin was by no means above desiring the death
of any man who stood between himself and the sun. And
then came this girl, this unlooked-for, inopportune girl, with
the ungrateful assurance that Anthony was a widower, and
this was his child. It was not in nature that such a man should
receive in a spirit of meekness such a blow. Stephen hated the
girl. As he grew older, and became, through his own waste-
fulness, entirely dependent on his brother, he hated her more
and more, daily saying to himself that if it had not been for
her he would have been the heir. Yet he might have known
that no insurance company, which could have got at the facts,
would consider his life as so good as his brother's, although
there were eight years between them.

At first he accepted Anthony's statement. The girl was his
child ; his wife was dead : no use asking any more questions.
There was nothing left but to sulk.

Then suspicions awakened in his mind. Who was the girl's
mother ? When had Anthony married her ?

He had encouraged these suspicions, and brooded over them,
until they assumed in his mind almost the shape and distinct
outline of certainty. He was wronged and cheated by his
brother, because, he declared to himself, his brother could never
have been married at all. Such a man could never have had
such a secret. But time passed on, and he forgot his old sus-
picions. At his brother's death they did not at first return.

He belonged, by nature, to the fine old order of murdering
uncles. He could have been a rival Richard the Third ; yet
the softening touch of civilisation prevented him from so dis-
posing of his niece. Then the partners' proposal seemed to
offer some sort of compromise ; and he thought he would
arrange with his niece, on her coming of age, for some solid
grant, ' in accordance with her father's expressed intentions.'
Plenty of time to put them on paper. Plenty of time.

Now, the old dream came back to him. It returned suddenly.
The talk with Alison revived it. He lay back in his easy-chair
when she was gone, and gave the reins to a vigorous imagina-
tion. He saw, in his dream, the girl dispossessed, because her
father was never married : he s&w her taken away by soma

72 THE SEAMY SIDE.

newly-found relations, quite common people who let lodging*,
say, at Ford or Hackney. And he saw himself in actual
possession : a rich man, with the way of life still stretching far
before him.

' Forty-five,' he said, ' is the true time for enjoyment. Hang
it ! we take our fling too early ; if we only knew, we should
reserve ourselves till five-and-thirty at earliest. Why do they
let the young fellows of one-and-twenty fling themselves away,
waste and spend, get rid of their money and their health, before
they know what pleasure means ? One must be forty before
the full flavour comes into the cup of life. I shall enjoy — I
shall commit no excesses, but I shall enjoy.'

' I suppose I shall be senior partner in the house. Well, I
will stay there long enough to sack those respectable Christians,
my cousins. They shall go out into the cold, where they sent
me.'

He helped himself to soda and brandy, and took a fresh cigar.
His imagination still flowed along in a rich and copious stream.
' As for this house, I shall sell it up. What is the good of such
a house to me ? Pictures, bric-a-brac, water-colours, engravings,
plate — I shall get rid of all. I want nothing but my set of
chambers in Pall Mall, with a private hansom and a smart \>oy.
Alderney Codd may come to see me, now and then. None of
the rest. Flora Cridland and her pink and white brat may go
to the devil. And as for Alison, I suppose I shall have to make
her an allowance. Yes. I will certainly make her an allow-
ance.'

He felt so virtuous as he made this resolution that he became
thirsty again, and proceeded no further until he had taken off
the greater portion of a second soda and brandy.

Then he sat down and resumed his dream.

' Yes. Alison shall have an allowance. The world shall not
say that I am stingy and treat her badly. How much % I should
say five hundred a year, paid quarterly, would well meet the
case. Just what they propose to give me.'

He thought a little over this, because it was an important
thing to decide, and drank more brandy and soda.

' These cigars of Anthony's are quite the best I ever smoked,'
ho said. ' I shall not sell them. Nor the wine. Nor the
brandy, by Jove !' He filled another glass of brandy and spda.
' Five hundred a year is too much, altogether too much for a
girl in such a position. I think anybody will say I have done
the thing handsomely if I make it three. Yes, three hundred
a year will be an ample — a generous allowance.'

Then he went on thinking and drinking alternately. The
dream was the most delicious flight of fancy he had ever
essayed.

HOW STEPHEN DREAMED A DREAM. 73

' Three hundred f he murmured sweetly. ' Too much. It
would only tempt adventurers on the look-out for a girl with
money. What she requires is to have her actual wants supplied.
And that,' he said with firmness, ' is what Alison, poor girl !
shall have from me. Her position is certainly not her own
fault. A hundred pounds a year. Two pounds a week ! Why,
it means more than three thousand pounds at three per cent.
Three thousand pounds ! Quite a large slice out of the cake.
A really handsome sum.'

CHAPTER X.

WHAT STEPHEN PROPOSED.

This was the dream of a night. Morning, especially if it bo
cold, rainy, and uncomfortable morning, brings awaking and
reality. Stephen awoke and realised. He remembered the
evening's dream with a shudder which came of shame. He
looked upon leaden clouds, rain-beaten, bare branches, and
plashy lawns, and he was ashamed of his ready enthusiasm.

Morning always found Stephen Hamblin sad. It is the way
with men whose joys belong entirely to the town. In the morn-
ing he was at his worst in looks and in temper. The bald
temples seemed to cover a larger area of skull, the tuft of black
hair which remained in the middle seemed smaller, and his eyes
seemed closer together. Morning, with such men, is the time
for evil deeds.

He breakfasted alone, and then dragged out all the papers
and spread them before him. He would, at least, learn all that
was to be learned, and at once. Absurd to go on dreaming im-
possibilities.

And yet, in one form or the other, the dream had been with
him so long that it was hard to put it aside.

The documents divided themselves into three classes. There
were the letters — Alison had already taken away her own :
there were the papers relating to private accounts, small but
continuous loans to Alderney Codd, himself, and others ; and
there were the diaries and journals year by year. The lawyers
had gone through them before and taken away the more im-
portant papers. But still there was a great pile left.

Stephen had already carelessly turned over the letters. He
now devoted himself to a rigid and thorough reading of every
ecrap of paper.

This took him more thai: one day. At the close of the firs;

74 THE SEAMY SIDE.

day's work he laid down the last read paper with a sigh of satis*
faction, because he had as yet arrived at nothing. The results
he wished to secure were chiefly negative results. There was
not one hint, so far as he had got, of any love business at all.
If there were letters from women, they were letters from people in
distress, asking for money : if there were any reference at all to
marriages, they were those of persons entirely unconnected with
the matter which interested Stephen.

Stephen was, in one sense, disappointed. What he would
have rejoiced to find — evidence of an amourette without a ring — -
he had not found. But, on the other hand, there was no evidence
of any love-passages at all, which was clear gain.

He went up to town, dined at the club, sat late after dinner,
slept at his chambers in Pall Mall, and returned to Clapham on
the following morning.

Here he renewed his researches.

This day he spent among the miscellaneous documents. Here
were his own early I O U's — of late years this unmeaning cere-
mony had been abandoned — for prudence' sake, he tied these
all up together and placed them in his own pocket. Nothing
so hopelessly valueless as one of his own I O U's, and yet, for
many reasons, nothing more desirable to get hold of. There
were several, too, from Alderney Codd, which he also put
together by themselves for future use. Alderney might be
influenced by means of them, he thought, with some shadowy
idea about threatening that most impecunious of men and
fellows.

The same day he began the study of the voluminous diaries.

Anthony Hamblin, brought up under the strict rule of an
old-fashioned merchant, was taught very early to be methodi-
cal. He became, by long practice, methodical in all his ways.
He not only kept carefully, and endorsed all receipts, letters,
and documents, down to the very play-bills, the dinner-bills,
the hotel-bills, the luncheon-bills, but he actually entered in a
big diary, one of the biggest procurable, all the simple daily
occurrences of his life. Thus, the record of the day would
appear as follows :

' April 1, 18—. — Letters : from Stephen, asking for a loan of
£25 — sent the cheque : from the vicar, urging a continuance of
my subscription to the schools — wrote to renew it : from the
Secretary of the Society for Providing Pensions for Aged
Beadles — put the letter in the basket : from the Hospital for
Incurable Cats — sent half a guinea— see disbursements for
month. Promised Alison a box at the opera : into town : saw
Augustus on business matters : lunched at the City Club —
more champagne than is safe in the middle of the day : saw
Alderney Codd. Lent him £10 for a fortnight : took his I U

WHA T STEPHEN PROPOSED. 75

for the amount : did no work in the afternoon : walked all the
way home : strolled on the Common with Alison till dinner-
time : the dean and his daughters to dinner. Study at eleven :
read till twelve.'

This was the harmless chronicle of small things kept by the
great City merchant. It was the journal of a man who was
contented with life, was anxious about nothing, hoped for
nothing strongly, had always found the road smooth, and was
conscious that his lot was an enviable one. In Stephen's eyes
it had one special merit : it accounted for every hour of the
day. All Anthony Hamblin's life was there.

There were six-and-thirty of these volumes. Anthony had
begun the first under the supervision of an exact and methodical
father, when he entered the office at sixteen. What Stephen
looked for and feared to find, would probably occur somewhere
about the sixteenth volume. Yet, taking every precaution,
Stephen began with the earliest and read straight on.

The expression of his face as he toiled through page after
page of these journals, suggested contempt and wonder. With
his dark eyes, almost olive-tint, and once clear-cut features, now
rather swollen, he looked something like Mephistopheles, gone
a little elderly, and showing signs of an indulgent life. Cer-
tainly that hero of the stage could not more unmistakably have
shown his contempt for such a record. Some men wouldhave been
moved to admiration at a life so blameless ; others would have
been moved to love and gratitude, finding their own name con-
stantly mentioned, and always accompanied by a gift ; others
would have felt sympathy with so much paternal affection as
appeared in the later volumes. Stephen, for his part, was un-
consciously engaged in comparing his own life, step by step, as
he went on, with that before him. He rejoiced in the contrast :
on the one side were peace and calm, on the other red-hot
pleasures ; the ' roses and rapture of life ' for himself, and the
insipidity of domestic joy for Anthony. History, to be sure, is
not made by men of Anthony's stamp, because history is entirely
a record of the messes and miseries incurred by people in con-
sequence of their ignorance and the wickedness of their rulers.
One thing of importance : there was no mention at all of any
love-passages, to say nothing of any marriage. Yet Alison must
have had a mother, and there could be no doubt that she was
Anthony's own daughter. The resemblance to his mother was
enough to prove it.

Presently the reader came upon a line which interested him.
' By Jove !' he said, ' I wonder what he says about Newbury ?'
There was a good deal about Newbury but not apparently
what the reader expected.

76 THE SEAMY SIDE.

'I thought he would have written something more about
Dora,' said Stephen.

He now read more carefully, as if he suspected something
might happen about this time. To begin with, it was now only
a year before Alison's birth, yet nothing was said. The entries
were candid and frank ; there was no hint at concealment ;
there seemed nothing to be concealed. The reader turned over
page after page in anxiety which was fast becoming feverish.
The holiday at Newbury seemed terminated, like all the rest,
by return to London ; not a word afterwards about Dora
Nethersole. The autumn and winter were spent at Clapham
and in the City as usual ; in the spring Anthony went for a
month to the south of France, his companion being that most
respectable of the cousins, the dean. He returned in early
summer ; in the autumn he went to Bournemouth. The reader's
face clouded. He read on more anxiously. There was a gap
of four weeks, during which there was no entry. You who
have read Miss Nethersole's manuscript know how the time was
spent. After that interval the journal went on. ' Eeturned to
town, saw Stephen, told him what I thought fit.'

' What he thought fit !' echoed Stephen. ' Then he kept
something back. What could that be V

Then the journal returned to its accustomed grooves, save
that there was an entry which appeared every month, and
seemed mysterious. ' Sent £8 to Mrs. B.' Who was Mrs. B. ?
In the journal, S. stood for Stephen, A. C. for Alderney Codd,
F. for Mrs. Cridland, and so on. But who was Mrs. B. ?

This entry was continued with no further explanation for
three years. Then there appeared the following :

' June 13. — Went to fetch away A. Took her by train to
Brighton. Gave her over to the custody of Mrs. D.'

' A.' must have been Alison.

After that the references made to ' A.' became so frequent as
to leave no doubt. He went to Brighton to see ' A.' She was
growing tall ; she was growing pretty ; she was like his mother.
Not a word said about her own. She had the Hamblin face.
And so on.

There was certainly small chance of finding anything in the
later diaries, but there might be some mention of the deceased
wife's relations. Stephen persevered.

There was none. The book was full of Alison. The man's
affection for his daughter was surprising. To Stephen it seemed
silly.

He laid down the last of the volumes with a sigh of relief.

So. far, in a set of thirty journals and diaries carefully kept
from clay to day, there was only one gap, a modest little four
weeks' interval in which Anthony had been to Bournemouth.

WHAT STEPHEN PROPOSED. 77

•What,' thought Stephen again, ' did he hide when he told me
about his Bournemouth journey ?'

Then he thought of another chance.

He remembered the great family Bible, bound in solid leather,
which contained the whole genealogy of the Hamblins from
the birth of the earliest Anthony.

He knew where to find it, and opened it with a perceptible
beating of the heart.

There were the names of Anthony and himself, the last two
of the elder line. No addition had been made. There was no
entry of Anthony's marriage. The two brothers stood on the
page with space after them to record their respective marriages
and death. But there was no further record. Like the journals,
the Bible was silent.

' Alison,' he said, ' is certainly Anthony's child. For that
matter, no one ever doubted it. For some reason, he wished to
hide the place of her birth and the name of her mother. Why?
Two reasons suggest themselves. One, that he was never
married at all. Unlike Anthony, that. The second, that he
desired to conceal the marriage. Why, again ? Possibly, be-
cause he was ashamed of his wife's people. Unlike Anthony ;
very much unlike Anthony. Or he might have married under
an assumed name ; also unlike Anthony. In which case,' — here
Stephen smiled gratefully and benignantly — ' it might be ab-
solutely impossible to prove the marriage.'

But mostly Stephen inclined to the no-marriage theory. A
secret liaison commended itself to him as the most probable
way of accounting for the whole business. To be sure, one
easily believes what is the best for one's own interest.

' Anthony,' he said, ' would be eager to destroy, as effectually
as possible, every trace of the presumably brief episode. No
doubt he wished that no one should even suspect its existence.
That is the way with your virtuous men. But he could not
efface his own daughter, and did not wish to try. Hence the
shallow artifice of pretending that her mother had died in child-
birth. And that must be the reason, too, of Anthony's disin-
clination to make a will, in which he would have had to declare
the whole truth.'

At this point of the argument Stephen grew red-hot with
indignation. No Roman satirist, no vehement orator of elo-
quent antiquity, could be more wrathful, more fiery with passion,
than himself. His face glowed with virtue. He was the Chris-
tian who did well to be angry.

1 What an impudent, what a shameful attempt,' he cried,
' to defraud the rightful heir ! Was it possible that an elder
brother could be so base ? But he was mistaken,' said Stephen,
rubbing his hands. ' He was mistaken ! He reckoned without

78 THE SEAMY SIDE.

me. He did not count on my suspicions. He thought he
should hoodwink me with all the rest of them. Why, I knew
it all along. He forgot that he had to do with a man of the
world.'

Certainly Stephen knew one side of the world extremely
well : it was the Seamy Side.

After this examination there was no longer any doubt in his
mind ; he was resolved. At the fitting moment, after a little
preparation, he would present himself in the character of sole
heir and claimant of the whole estate. But there must be a
little preparation first.

' As for what my cousins say or think,' he said, ' I care not
one brass farthing. Nor, for that matter, do I care for what
all the world says and thinks. But it is as well to have
general opinion with one.'

It would be well, he thought, to begin, after the manner of
the ancients, the German political press and Russian diplo-
matists, by scattering abroad ambiguous words.

He made no more appearances at the domestic circle as the
benevolent guardian. And he ceased sending polite messages
to Alison.

He began to sow the seeds of distrust in the mind of honest
Alderney Codd, who, but for him, would certainly have never
suspected evil. Of all the many classifications of mankind,
there is none more exhaustive than that which divides humanity
into those who do not and those who do think evil, those who
believe in motives noble and disinterested, and those who
habitually attribute motives low, sordid, and base. Needless to
say that Stephen belonged; in his capacity of man of the world,
to the latter. There are sheep, and there are goats : the man
of the world prefers the goats.

He invited Alderney to dine with him at Clapham, stating
that it would be a bachelor's dinner for themselves. In fact,
dinner was served in the study. Alderney arrived, clad still in
the gorgeous coat with the fur lining. He was punctual to
time — half -past seven — and found Stephen apparently hard at
work behind a great pile of papers on a side-table.

' These are a few,' he said, looking up and greeting his cousin,
just a few of the papers connected with the estate, which I
have to go through.'

' Oh !' said Alderney, with sympathy. ' Poor Anthony will
cut up, I hear, better than was expected even.'

Stephen nodded mysteriously.

' You have heard, perhaps, that I am to take out letters of
administration. There was no will, but of course I am the
nearest friend of this poor bereaved girl.'

Alderney was rather astonished at this expression of sym-

WHAT STEPHEN PROPOSED. 79

pathy and so much grief, after an interval of so many weeks.
Many brothers dry up, so to speak, in a fortnight at latest.
Most brothers cease to use the language of grief after a month.
' Yes ; it is very sad, but Alison won't go on crying for ever,
I suppose ?'

' Don't be brutal, Alderney. Pretend to sympathy if you
can't feel any. You were always inclined to look on things
from so hard a point of view.'

This, again, was astonishing. Alderney sat down meekly,
and began to wish that dinner would come.

' I thought,' he said presently, while Stephen went on making
notes and turning over leaves, ' that the lawyers relieved you of
all the work.'

' My dear fellow !' with gentle surprise. ' Impossible. They
take care of the details, and do the necessary legal work. I
have, however, to master the general situation. The guardians,
executors, and trustees have all the responsibility, nearly all the
work, and none of the profit.' This was ungrateful, considering
the five hundred a year. ' But of course, for the poor child's
sake, one must not flinch from undertaking it.'

Alderney was more surprised than ever. The last time
Stephen spoke to him of Alison he called her a little devil. But
that, to be sure, was late in the evening, when he was lamenting
her existence.

' It is very creditable to you,' said Alderney, warmly. ' You
have the same kind heart as your brother. I feared from what
you said once before that you bore poor Alison a grudge for
ever having been born, which is a thing that no girl should be
blamed for.'

' Alderney,' said Stephen, ' you ought to know better than to
rake up an old thing said in a bad temper. Alison has now
become my especial, my sacred charge.'

Alderney Codd stroked his chin, noticing as he did so that
the frayed condition of his cuffs was really beyond everything
— and began to be more confounded than ever. He wished they
would bring dinner. That Stephen Hamblin should acknow-
ledge any duty, and act upon that recognition ; that he should
acknowledge anything sacred, and square his conduct accord-
ingly was to Alderney like a new revelation ; and yet Stephen
appeared in perfect health. So he only coughed — an involun-
tary expression of incredulity — and said nothing.

' What a task,' said Stephen, ' what a melancholy, yet profit-
able, task it is going through the simple records of a blameless
life like my brother Anthony's. You think with me, Alderney,
that his life was really a blameless one ?'

' Surely,' said Alderney, almost ready by this time to believe
that Stephen must be an awakened and converted vessel, and

So THE SEAMY SIDE.

feeling some natural anxiety on his own personal behalf lest
the complaint might be contagious — ' surely The very best
man who ever lived. Many is the fiver I have borrowed of him.
So far even as a tenner went, indeed, I always regarded Anthony
as a safe draw ; but, as a regular rule, not more than that at a
time, and not more than once a month or so. And it was best
to vary the place, the time, and the emergency. Dear me !
to think that I have borrowed the last fiver from him that I
shall ever get ! Where shall we find another lender so free and
so forgetful ?'

' You can always rely on me, Alderney,' said Stephen, slowly
and sadly, ' for that amount at least.'

' God bless my soul !' cried Alderney, bewildered beyond
power of control by this sudden conversion. ' Has anything
happened to you, Stephen ? You haven't got some internal com-
plaint ?'

Stephen was still sitting at the table, with a three-quarter face
lit by the fire. The room was dark, and his hard features,
suffused by the rosy light, looked gentle and kind. Who, up till
now, had ever heard of Stephen Hamblin lending anyone a single
penny ?

' I have been searching among these papers,' he went on, still
in the same slow, sad way, without noticing Alderney's extraor-
dinary question, ' for some evidence — say, rather, some record —
of my brother's marriage. Alison is nearly twenty years of
age. Here, for instance, is a bundle of papers which refer to a
time before her birth. Plenty of diaries of that date are here
before me. Oddly enough, I find here no mention of any mar-
riage. Yet Anthony was a most methodical man, and one would
think must have made somewhere a careful record of an impor-
tant event such as his marriage. Here again ' — he took up a
thick volume and opened it at random — ' is a diary of that
time. Anything seems set down. "Advanced to Alderney
Codd, £25." And here is even your I U.'

' Really !' cried Alderney, springing to his feet. ' Let me see
that document. My own I O U ! And for five-and-twenty ! I
remember it well. It was twenty years ago. We went to
Paris, you and I, with the money, and we stayed there for a
week. When it was all gone, you had to write to Anthony for
more, to bring us home. I remember — I remember. Now this
is really touching. I borrowed that money twenty years ago.
Think of one's good deeds seeing the light again after so many
years ! It was indeed a casting of bread upon the water. I
never expected to be rewarded in this manner.'

His face flushed, especially his nose, and he spoke as if his
own borrowing had been the good deed thus providentially
brought to light.

WHAT STEPHEN PROPOSED. 8x

Then the dinner was brought up. Alderney, like all thin
men, was blessed with a regular and trustworthy appetite.
There was little conversation during the dinner, which was
good. When it was all over, and nothing more remained but the
wine, the two men turned their chairs to the fire, and fell to
quiet talk over a bottle of 1856, out of Anthony's capacious
cellar.

' I suppose,' said Stephen presently, harking back to the
subject of his brother, ' that you have a very distinct recollec-
tion of poor Anthony's regular habits ?'

' Why, any man would remember so regular a life as his.'

' True, the most methodical of men. It seems to me, Alderney,
as if he knew on any day and at any time what he was then
doing. This is really admirable port. I should like a bin of it.'

' Of course, Anthony moved like the hands of a clock. It is
good wine — Falernian.'

' And yet I cannot remember, nor can I find a trace of, any
week or month during which he could have gone away to be
married. Take another glass, Alderney.'

' Not that it takes a week,' said Alderney, ' to be married in.
You may leave the office and find a church within a stone's
throw, if you like. Gad ! Stephen, the thing is so easy that I
wonder you and I have never been let in for it. Thank you.
The decanter is with you. Full of body, isn't it ?'

' The ceremony is not everything. The nosegay of this wine
is perfect. You have to court your bride, I suppose ; and all
that takes time. And what sort of a wife would that be, con-
tent with a five minutes squeezed here and there out of the
office day ? Alderney, I know every holiday he ever took,
where he went, with whom he went, and what he did. Ah,
what a colour ! For the life of me, I cannot understand when
he was married.'

' It does seem odd,' said Stephen, ' now one begins to think of
it. This is the inner flask. Why can't a man drink a couple
of bottles of this divine liquor without getting drunk ?'

' Then the death of his wife. Did he go about as if nothing
had happened ? How is it there is no word about it in the
diaries ? We can have another bottle up. And the birth of
his daughter ? Why is not that event entered ?'

' It does seem odd.'

' So odd, Alderney, that I am going to investigate it. Do
have some more port. If Anthony had been any other kind of
man, if we were not all sure, quite sure in our own minds, that
his life was always beyond reproach — if we could not all agree
in this, I should say that he had never been married at all.'

As Stephen said these words slowly, he leaned his head upon
his hand, and gazed sadly into the fire.

6

82 THE SEAMY SIDE.

Alderney did not reply at first. He was taking another glass
of port. Wine stimulates the perceptive faculties, but some-
times confuses the powers of speech. Presently he said, rather
thickly :

' Quite — quite impossible. Anthony's the best man in the
world, and there's no better port out of Cambridge.'

Alderney called next day at the offiass in the city. Augustus
Harablin, apparently willing to waste a quarter of an hour
with him, which was not always the case, received him and let
him talk.

Alderney expatiated on the virtuous attitude of the new
guardian.

' Eichard the Third,' said Augustus, ' was equally full of love
for his nephews.'

' Nay, nay,' cried Alderney, reproachfully, ' Stephen is in
earnest. He is a new man.'

' Perhaps,' said Augustus. ' We have, however, cut his nails
pretty short. New man or old, he will do no mischief to the
estate.'

' Well,' Alderney went on, ' it is very odd, but Stephen can
find no trace of Anthony's marriage, which was always, you
know, a very mysterious affair. He must have married some-
body.'

' Yes,' said Augustus confidently, though his brow clouded ;
' of course, somebody. What does it matter ?'

' Stephen says that if Anthony had been a different kind of
man, unless we were all agreed that he was the best of men, we
might be inclined to think that he was never married at all'

The words went home. Augusta felt a sudden pang of fear
and surprise. Stephen would in that case be the sole heir.

' A changed man, is he ?' he asked. ' Upon my word, Alder-
ney, I suspect he is exactly the same man as he always has
been : not changed a bit.'

CHAPTER XL

THE BIRCII-TREE TAVERN.

Among the City clubs is a small and little-known association
which meets informally on every day of the week and all the
year round, between the hours of two and five in the after-
noon.

THE BIRCH-TREE TA VERN. 83

There are no rules in this club : it has no ballot-box : nobody
is ever blackballed, nobody is ever proposed, nobody is ever
elected : there is no subscription — if there were, the club would
instantly dissolve : and it is nameless. It is, however, felt by
the members to be a very real and existing club, a place where
they may be sure of meeting their friends, an institution to
which only those resort who are bound together by the common
ties of like pursuits.

This place of meeting is the Birch-Tree Tavern, which stands
in one of the narrow streets leading southwards out of Corn-
hill. Its situation, therefore, is central, in the very heart of
London. It is a simple house of refreshment, which, like all
the City places, is full of life between one and three, and before
or after those hours is dull and empty. When the hungry
clerks have all disappeared, when the jostling waiters have left
off carrying, taking orders, and bawling, when the boys have
ceased to balance among the mob their piles of plates and dishes,
when the compartments are all empty, a great calm falls upon
the place, broken only by the buzz of conversation of the men
who are always lounging over a London bar : by the occasional
click of the billiard balls, and by the distant murmur from the
room where the members of the club are holding their daily
conference. If you ask for anything at this place after four,
the waiters collect together to gaze upon you in pity ; and if at
half -past five, they receive your orders with contumely or even
eject you with violence.

The Birch-Tree Tavern, the glories of which belong perhaps
to the times when the new and splendid restaurant was un-
known, consists of several houses, or parts of houses. Many
years ago these had behind them little yards, each four feet
broad by twenty long, where rubbish could be shot, where cats
could practise gymnastics, and where the melancholy moss, which
can live without sunshine, dragged on a monotonous existence.
But the walls of the yards are taken down, the space between the
houses roofed over, and the ground thus reclaimed has been
made into a bar and a luncheon-table. If you go upstairs and
turn to thelefthand, first door on the first floor,youwill find your-
self in the room affected by the members of this nameless club.

They arrive between one and two o'clock in the day ; they
find a row of tables on one side of the room, spread with table-
cloths, which are white on Monday ; here they dine. After
dinner they adjourn to a row of tables without table-cloths, on
the other side, near the windows, which are adorned with nothing
but lucifer-matches in their native caskets. Here they join
their friends, and sit talking over fragrant tobacco, and whisky -
and-water, till afternoon deepens into evening — in other words,
until the waiter turns them out.

6-2

84 THE SEAMY STDE.

Where do they go when they leave the Birch-Tree Tavern ?

That is a question to which there is no reply. They used tc
show a man at the Stilton Cheese who sat in that place every
day of his life from four o'clock till seven, except on Sunday,
when he was supposed to lie in bed till six ; he then went to
the Coach and Four, where he remained until nine ; after that,
he repaired to the Albion, where he finished his monotonous
day of perpetual thirst, for during the whole of that time he
drank whisky-and- water gaily.

The members of this club began to drink earlier than this
hero. In all probability, therefore, they left off earlier. It
does not seem in nature, for instance, to drink whisky-and-
water from two till six, and then to finish with another sitting
from six till eleven afterwards. Perhaps they went home and
had tea and read good books ; perhaps they went to bed at
once ; perhaps they sat in solitude and reflected ; perhaps they
sat like mediums waiting for a communication. I do not know,
nor did the members of this club know, because their acquaint-
ance with each other began and ended at the tavern, what they
did in the evening.

Men who pursue secret, tortuous, or mysterious methods of
making money, always meet their fellow-labourers in certain
taverns. One class of ingenious adventurers, which turns its
attentions to the fluctuations of foreign stock, may be seen
whispering together — they all whisper — in a certain underground
place where they keep wonderful sherry at eighteen-pence a
glass ; it is a sherry which unlocks all hearts. Others, who
take an interest in the railways of the foreigner, may be seen
at the Whittington, an agreeable little place, where they put
you into little boxes, four feet square, with walls eight feet
high. Here the guests sit like conspirators and discuss their
secrets ; sometimes you may see one more suspicious than the
rest, peering over the partition-wall to see if the occupiers of
the next place are likely to be listeners. At Binn's again, you
will find in the ordinary compartments, German Jews who can
tell you all about the price of diamonds and the rise of bullion.
They are safe from listeners because they are talking their own
language which is Schmoozum, and no one understands that
except themselves.

The men who used the Birch-Tree Tavern were all of them
engaged perpetually in the formation, the promotion, the float-
ing of new companies. To conceive the idea of a new company ;
to give it such a name as would attract ; to connect it with
popular objects ; to draw up a flaming prospectus, showing
how the profits must be five-and-twenty, and would most likely
be cent, per cent. ; to receive fully paid up shares, in reward
for the idea and the preliminary work ; to realise upon theia

THE BIRCH-TREE TAVERN. 8$

when the shares were at their highest, and before the smash —
this was the golden dream of men who frequented that first-
floor room. They were always occupied with designs — hatching
new ideas, abandoning old. They listened with the utmost
eagerness to each other's ideas. They believed in them more
than in their own, envied their possession, marvelled at their
own bad luck, in not hitting upon them for themselves ; and
they pleased themselves with stories about great strokes of good
fortune.

They are not an unkindly set of men. They do not steal
each other's ideas, or try to anticipate them. Their faces lack
the hawk-like look of professional turf men and gamblers.
They all love to lounge and talk. Their calling makes them
perhaps inclined to be dreamy and imaginative. One would
not claim for them the highest standard of moral excellence,
but certainly when the imagination is allowed fair play, the
habits of the bird of prey are seldom found. Now the rook is
an eminently practical, and not an imaginative, bird.

I am far from asserting that these gentlemen are models of
morality. On the contrary, they have no morality ; such a
thing does not exist in the lower flights of financing, whatever
may be the case with the higher. They are positively without
morals on this side of their character. They consider nothing
about a company, except to inquire how the idea can be so pre-
sented as to attract the general public. Whether it is a snare
and a delusion, whether the formation of such a company is a
dishonest trading on the credulity of the ignorant, whether the
traffic in its shares is not a mere robbery and plunder — these
are things which the small projectors neither inquire into nor
care for, nor would understand.

One of the most regular frequenters of the tavern was Mr
Alderney Codd. Since the age of eight-and-twenty — since the
time, that is, when he made that little arrangement, of which
we have spoken, with his creditors — he has been engaged in the
active, but hitherto unsuccessful, pursuit of other people's
money, by the promotion of risky companies. How he fell into
this profession, by what successive steps this lay fellow of St.
Alphege's became a promoter of companies, it is needless here
to tell. He was in the profession, which is the important thing,
and he was greatly respected in it, partly on account of his
fertile imagination, which perpetually led him to devise new
openings, and partly because he was supposed able to ' influ-
ence ' capital. Next to a capitalist comes the man who can
influence capital. Was he not cousin to the Hamblins of Great
St. Simon Apostle ? Was he not hand-in-hand with Stephen,
the younger brother, who was not in the firm, yet was supposed
to be possessed of great wealth, and was always hanging abou$

86 THE SEAMY SIDE.

in the city ? Was he not, again, a private friend of the suc-
cessful Mr. Bunter Baker, commonly known as Jack Baker ?

It was nothing that Alderney Codd was shabby and poor :
they were all poor, and most of them were shabby. The im-
portant thing was that he could influence capital directly, while
the rest of them had to work crab-fashion towards the attain-
ment of their objects — to crawl up back stairs, to take into
their confidence a go-between, whose commission sopped up
most of their profits. Another thing in Alderney's favour was
that he was undoubtedly a University man, a Fellow of his
college, reputed to be a great scholar — a thing which always
commands respect. Lastly, Alderney had once, some years
before, actually made a great coup. He always told the story
at the tavern whenever any stranger appeared in the circle — it
was a privilege accorded to him ; and the rest were never tired
of hearing the story.

' It was in the early days of trams,' he said, when he had led
the conversation artfully to the right moment for introducing
the story ; ' the early days of trams. Not but what there is a
good deal to be done in trams, even now, by a man who keeps
his eyes open ; and I would recommend anybody here who has
time in his hands, and a little money for preliminary expenses '
(here their jaws fell), ' to consider the subject of trams applied
to our towns. My town was no other than — Valparaiso.'
Alderney Codd at this point would look round with an air of
triumph, as if real genius was shown in the selection of a town
so remote from Cornhill. ' Valparaiso. It is a city which has
a fine trade, and — and— -well, I thought the idea of a tram in
Valparaiso would possibly attract. Had it been Bristol, or
Birmingham, no one would have touched it ; but to lend money
to a foreign enterprise in those good days when people were
credulous — ah, well !' Alderney Codd sighed, ' we may well, like
Horace, praise the past time, because it will never come again.'
Alderney's allusions to the classical authors, like his quotations,
would not always bear inspection. ' I conceived this idea, how-
ever. I have, as our friends know, some little influence over
capital. I drew up the prospectus of that company ; I intro-
duced that company in certain quarters ; I floated that com-
pany ; I received five thousand pounds in fully-paid shares ; the
shares were taken ; they ran up ; I had the happiness to sell
out when they were at seventy per cent, premium, a fortnight
before the company smashed. As for the tram, gentlemen, it
never was made, in consequence of a dispute with the munici-
pality. However, it was not my fault ; and I believe, gentle-
men, I may call that transaction, business — " quocunque modo,
rem," as Horace says.'

Alderney generally stopped here. Had he gone on, he would

THE BIRCH-TREE TA VERN. 87

have to explain that it was Stephen Hamblin who helped its
starting this disastrous company, the name of which still brings
tears of rage and bitterness to the eyes of many a country
clergyman and poor maiden lady ; he would have explained,
further, that it was in consequence of acting further on
Stephen's advice that he subsequently lost the whole. For he
invested it in a new American railway. The prospectus, beau-
tifully emblazoned with arms of the State, mottos, gilded
emblems and effigies of the almighty dollar, set forth that this
line of Eldorado, this railway of Golconda, this iron road of
Ophir, ran through diamond fields, silver mines, gold mines, rich
ranchos boasting of ten thousand cattle ; past meadows smiling
— nay, grinning — with perpetual crops ; through vineyards
whose grapes were better for pressing and fermenting than any
on the Johannisberg or belonging to the Chateau Lafitte ; and
among a population numerous as the ants in an ant-hill, pros-
perous as an Early Engineer, and as rich as Nebuchadnezzar,
Vanderbilt, or Mr. Stewart. It ran, or passed, from one place
not marked in any English map to another not marked on any
English map — from one to another world-centre, both shame-
fully passed over and neglected by Mr. Stanford's young men.
It was elaborately explained that, beside the enormous pas-
senger traffic in this densely-populated country, there would
be expected from the extraordinary wealth of the territory, as
above indicated, a great and rapidly-increasing goods business.
Figures showed that the least which holders of ordinary stock
in this railway could expect would be twenty-five per cent.
The shares of the new railway were placed upon the markets.
Alderney Codd's money was all, by Stephen's advice, invested
in them. He unfortunately let go the golden opportunity,
which Stephen embraced, of selling all he held when the shares
were at their highest, and was involved in the general ruin
when it was discovered that there was no town at all within
hundreds of miles of the place, that there were no people ex-
cept one or two in a log hut, that there would be no passenger
traffic, and no conveyance of goods. Alderney, unfortunately,
like all his friends, believed in other people's companies. He
promoted what he knew to be a bubble, but he accepted all
other bubbles for what they professed to be. And bubbles
always profess to be solid pudding : such is their playful way.

Perhaps Alderney's popularity was duo in great measure to
his personal qualities. He was a good-hearced man ; he never
ascribed evil, or thought evil, though his manner of life would
have been, had Providence allowed him to float many of his
bubble companies, as mischievous, tortuous, and ehady as that
of an Egyptian Viceroy. He took everybody into his confi-
dence, and, with a sublime trust in human nature which nothing

83 THE SEAMY SIDE.

could ever destroy, he imparted profound secrets to the
acquaintance of an hour, who in his turn not unfrequently
revealed mysteries of the most startling and confidential de-
scription to him. Men who talk to strangers at bars have few
secrets, and are very candid. Then Alderney never forgot a
face or a friend ; he had an excellent memory ; he was always
cheerful, even sanguine, and was never mean. To be sure he
was a lavish borrower, a very prodigal in borrowing ; he would
ask for a ten-pound note and take a crown piece ; and he never,
unless when he borrowed among his own set, remembered to
repay.

Perhaps, again, part of his popularity was due to his face.
This was thin and clean shaven. The mouth had an habitual
smile lurking in the corners ; the nose was just touched with
red, which, whes not carried too far, imparts benevolence of
aspect ; and the eyes were kindly, so that young children and
old ladies were encouraged to ask him the way.

Alderney was a philanthropist whom fortune had made an
enemy of mankind ; he perpetually schemed and planned
methods by which his fellow-creatures were to be ruined, being
himself the readiest dupe, the most willing victim, in the world.
Men may despise dupes, but they like the ready believer. It is
delightful to find even among hawks the simplicity of the
pigeon. The quack doctor buys a plenary indulgence of Tetzel,
while he, in his turn, purchases a pill of the quack. The vendor
of beef -fat for butter gets her fortune told by the gipsy ; the
gipsy buys the beef -fat on the word of the immoral young
person who sells it for butter.

About the beginning of every quarter, Alderney Codd
would be absent from his regular haunts ; the circle at the
Birch- Tree would miss him ; it might be rumoured that he had
gone down to Cambridge, where these honest speculators sup-
posed that his society was still greatly in request, by reason of
his being so massive a scholar. The real reason of his absence
was, that he drew his hundred a year quarterly, and lay in bed
half the day for two or three weeks after it. That was Alder-
ney's idea of enjoying life if you were rich — to lie in bed.
While in the first flush and pride of that five-and-twenty pounds,
Alderney got up about one o'clock every day. Naturally there-
fore, he dined late. During this period he ceased to devise
schemes ; his imagination rested ; his busy brain had time to
turn to practical things ; and such renovation in his apparel as
xze money ran to was accomplished during this period. When
it was over, he would cheerfully return to the stand-up dinner,
the half-pint of beer, and the Scotch whisky with pipes and
conversation among his fellows.

Every one of the circle had a history. To be sure that ia

THE BIRCH-TREE TAVERN. 89

sadly true of all mankind. I mean that these men were all out
of the ordinary grooves of life. They were adventurers.
Formerly they would have joined a band of free lances, to fight
and plunder under the flag of a gallant knight of broken for-
tunes ; or they would have gone a-buccaneering, and marooned
many a tall ship, without caring much whether she carried
Spanish colours or no. Or they might have gone skulking
among the woods and shady places of England, where Saver-
nake, Sherwood, or the New Forest, gives on to the high-road,
lying in wait for unarmed travellers, in guise, as the famous
dashing highwayman. Nowadays, for men of some education,
no money, and small principle, there are few careers more
attractive, though few less generally known, than that of small
finance.

There were nine or ten of them at the tavern one afternoon
in March ; they had the room entirely to themselves because it
was Saturday, and the general public had gone away for their
half-holiday. There was, therefore, a sense of freedom and
enlargement : they need not whisper.

They sat round the largest table, that under the middle
window. Outside it was a charming and delicious day in very
early spring, a day when the first promise comes of better
times, when the air is soft and fragrant, and one reckons, like
the one confiding swallow, that the winter is gone.

In this tavern the atmosphere was always the same : no
fragrance of spring ever got there, no sunshine could reach the
room ; if the windows were ever opened, they would let in
nothing but a heavy wave of air equally laden with the fumes
of tobacco, spirits, and roasted meats. The men at the table,
however, cared little for the breath of meadows ; they loved
the City air which always seemed charged with the perfumes of
silver ingots and golden bars.

Among them this afternoon was one whom all regarded with
a feeling which had something of awe in it ; more of awe than
of envy ; because he was one who had succeeded. He was
still a comparatively young man, rather a handsome man of
two or three and thirty, with strong features, which were
rather too coarse, a crop of curly brown hair, a clear complexion,
and bright eyes. He was dressed with more display than quiet
men generally like, but his rings and chains seemed to suit his
confident braggart air. He spoke loudly, asserted himself, and
in all companies pushed himself at once to the front. He was
that Phoenix among City men, the man who has made everything
out of nothing, the successful man. He has a little to do with
this story, and we will presently tell how he rose to greatness.
His friends addressed him familiarly as Jack ; everybody spoke
of him behind his back as Jack Baker ; oa his cards was the

go THE SEAMY SIDE.

name of Mr. J. Bunter Baker. ' Not plain Baker,' he would
say ; ' we are of the Bunter Bakers, formerly of Shropshire.
The arms of the two families are, however, different.'

The other men were sitting over whisky-and-water, with
pipes. Jack Baker, half sitting, half leaning on the top rail of
the back of his chair, was smoking a cigar, ;md had called for a
pint of champagne. It was rumoured among his admirers that
he drank no other wine except champagne.

Alderney Codd, who was still attired in the magnificent fur ■
lined coat, was laying down the law.

' Capitalists tell me,' he was saying, as he was on intimate
terms with a great many capitalists, ' that if you have got a
good thing — you will bear me out, Jack — you can't do better
than bring it out. Nonsense about general depression ; there
is plenty of money in the world that longs to change hands.'

' Quite right,' said Mr. Bunter Baker. ' Plenty of money.'

' And plenty of confidence,' said Alderney. ' Now I've got in
my pocket — here — at this actual table — a thing good enough to
make the fortune of a dozen companies.'

Every project advanced at that table possessed the merit of a
great and certain success — on paper.

He produced a small parcel wrapped in brown paper. All
bent their heads eagerly while he toyed with the string, willing
to prolong the suspense.

There is a certain public-house in Drury Lane where you
will find, on any Sunday evening that you like, an assemblage
of professional conjurors. They go there chiefly to try new
tricks on each other, and they judge from the first exhibition
before their skilled brethren, of the effect which they will
produce on an uncritical public. So with Alderney. He was
about to propound a new scheme to a critical circle, and he
naturally hesitated. Then he turned to Mr. Bunter Baker
before opening the parcel.

' I ask you, Jack, what is the first rule for him who wants
to make money ? Nobody ought to know better than yourself
— come.

' Find out where to make it,' said Jack.

' No, not at all ; make it by means of the millions. Go to the
millions. Never mind the upper ten thousand. Satisfy the
wants of the millions. One of those wants, one of the com-
monest, is appealed to by the contents of this parcel. We seek
to catch the mutabilis aura, the changeable breath, of popular
favour. Tie invention which I hold in my hand is so simple
that the patent cannot be infringed — Jlecti, nonfranf/i ; it will
be as eagerly adopted by those who drink tea, the boon of those,
who, as Horace says, love the Pcrxicos apparatus, or Chinese
tea-tray, as by those who drink toddy ; it will be used as freely

THE BIRCH-TREE TAVERN. 91

ai the bar — I do not here allude to the Inns of Court — as at tha
family breakfast-table.'

' You need not quote your own prospectus,' said Mr. Baker.
' Get to the point, man. Let us into your secret.'

No one was really in a hurry to learn it, for, like true artists,
they were criticising the manner of putting the case.

' There's nothing like a good prospectus,' said a keen and
hungry-eyed man, who was listening attentively.

' And a well-placed advertisement in the Times,' 1 observed a
little man, whose only known belief was in the form of such an
advertisement. When he had one, of his own composition, it
was a red-letter day ; when he had a long one, it seemed like a
fortune made. Once he was so happy as to make the acquaint-
ance of a man who reported for the Times. He lent that man
money in perfect confidence ; and though his advances were
never repaid, his admiration for the paper remained un-
bounded.

' Cheap things for the people,' said another, with a sigh.
' See what a run my sixpenny printing-press had, though I was
dished out of the profits.'

A curious point about these men was that they were always
dished out of the profits whenever anything came off.

' But what is it ?' asked another, taking out a notebook.

He was, among other things, connected with a certain ' prac-
tical ' weekly, and was supposed to give ' publicity ' to the
schemes whenever he was allowed. I fear the circulation of
the paper was greatly exaggerated with the view of catching
advertisers.

' It is,' said Alderney, untying the parcel, ' nothing less than
the substitution of glass for silver spoons. Honest glass ! not
pretended silver : not worthless plate. You drop one : it breaks :
very good. A penny buys another.'

All eyes turned on Mr. Baker. He took one of the glass
spoons : he dropped it : it was broken.

' Very true indeed,' he said. ' It is broken.'

' There are,' Alderney continued, ' seven millions of house-
holds in England ; each household will require an average of
fifty-five spoons : three hundred and eighty-five millions of
spoons ; original demand, three hundred and eighty-five mil-
lions of pence : a million and a half sterling. Not bad that, I
think, for a company newly starting. Nobody can reckon the
breakages — we may estimate them roughly at twelve millions a
year. Think how maids bang spoons about.'

The newspaper correspondent made further notes in his
pocket-book. A great hush of envy fell upon the audience.
One of them seemed in for a good thing. Their eyes turned on
Mr. Baker. He, too, was making a note.

92 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' I have in my pocket,' said another, a man with a face s«
hard and practical-looking that one wondered how he had failed
in making an immense fortune — ' I have in my pocket a little
scheme which seems to promise well.'

Everybody listened. Mr. Baker looked up from his note-
book with curiosity. This emboldened the speaker.

' You all know,' he said, ' that the highways of England are
studded with iron pumps, set up by beneficent governments to
provide for waggon and cart-horses in the old days. I have
made a calculation that there are about a hundred thousand of
them ; they pump no water, and they are no louger wanted. I
propose to buy up these pumps — they can be had for a mere
song — and sell them for scrap iron, eh ? There is money in
that, I think.'

Nobody replied. Mr. Baker, to whom all eyes turned, finished
his champagne and went away, with a nod to Alderney.

' I must say,' said one of them angrily, ' that when we do
get a capitalist here it is a pity to drive him away with a cock
and a bull scheme for rooting up old pumps.'

' None of the dignity of legitimate financing about it.' said
Alderney, grandly ; ' we do not meet here to discuss trade ; we
do not stoop to traffic in scrap iron.'

Then they all proceeded to sit upon the unfortunate practical
man who had driven away the capitalist.

CHAPTER XII.

HOW STEPHEN DECLARED HIS INTENTIONS.

After sowing the seeds of suspicion in the mind of the private
town-crier, Alderney Codd, Stephen remained quiet for a time.
Alderney the talker would unconsciously help him. This,
indeed, happened ; in less than a fortnight the Hamblin enemies
were, with one accord, whispering to each other that no one
knew where and when Anthony had been married, or, as the
elder ladies added, significantly, if at all. But for the moment
none of these whispers reached the ears of Alison.

Meantime Stephen was busy all day among the diaries and
letters. He read and re-read ; he examined them all, not once
or twice, but ten times over, in constant fear of lighting ou
Kome clue which might lead to the reversal of his own opinion.
But he found nothing.

One day, in the middle of March, about a fortnight after his

STEPHEN'S INTENTIONS. S3

dinner with Alderney Codd, he met his cousin Augustus Ham-
blin in the City. Since the appointment of Stephen as guardian
it had been tacitly understood that there was to be a show of
friendliness on both sides. The past was to be forgotten.

' I am glad to meet you,' said Stephen, shaking hands with a
show of great respect for the senior partner of the house. ' Are
you so busy that you cannot give. me a few minutes ?'

1 Surely,' replied Augustus, ' I can give you as many as you
please.'

He noticed, as they walked side by side in the direction of
Great St. Simon Apostle, that Stephen's face looked thoughtful,
and his eyes rested on the ground. In fact, he was mentally
revolving how to state the case most effectively. At present he
only intended to follow up the slight uneasiness produced by
Alderney's artless prattle.

' I have been intending to consult you for some time,' he
began, when they were in the office, ' but things prevented.'

' Yes ; pray sit down ; what is it ? Alison continues quite
well, I hope ?'

' Quite well, poor girl, thank you. I wanted to confer with
you on the subject of my brother's marriage.'

Stephen looked straight in his cousin's face — a disconcerting
thing to do if your friend wishes to dissemble his thoughts.
Augustus changed colour. Alderney, therefore, had, as he ex-
pected, aroused a feeling of uneasiness.

' My brother's marriage,' he repeated. ' Can you tell me
when and where it took place ?'

' I know nothing about it,' said Augustus ; ' no more than
you know yourself. We none of us know anything about it.'

' Do you,' continued Stephen solemnly, as if this was a very
great point, ' do you remember any time, from twenty to five-
and-twenty years ago, when Anthony went away, say on a sus-
picious holiday, or behaved like a man with a secret, or departed
in any way from his usual open way of life ?'

' E" — no ; I cannot say that I do. He had a holiday every
year in the summer or autumn. Sometimes he went away in
the spring. Of course, he must have managed his marriage in
one of those excursions.'

1 Yes ; that is not what I mean. I know the history of all
those holidays. I want to find a time, if possible, when no one
knew where he went. It must have been out of the usual
holiday-time,'

' I remember no such time,' said Augustus, 'But of courso
one did not watch over Anthony's movements. He might have
been married as often as Bluebeard without our suspectip.g a
word of it.'

'No,' said Stephen, shaking his head. All this time he was

94 THE SEAMY SIDE.

observing the greatest solemnity. ' I should have suspected it
You forget the intimacy between us. Anthony had no secrcta
from me, poor fellow ! nor I any from Anthony.' (This was a
sentimental invention which pleased Stephen and did not impose
upon Augustus, who knew that Stephen's life had many secrets.)
' Had Anthony hidden anything from me, his manner would
have led to my suspecting. Again, I have read through his
private journal, and there is nothing, not one word, about any
marriage — no hint about any love affair at all ; nothing is
altered or erased ; he tells his own life hour by hour. This is
very mysterious.'

' Better let the mystery sleep,' said Augustus, quietly. ' No
one will disturb it if you do not.'

' What !' said Stephen, with a show of virtuous indignation,
' when the legitimacy of Alison is at stake ? Do you not per-
ceive how extremely awkward it would be if the judge, when
we come to ask for letters of administration, were to ask a few
simple questions ?'

' The judge is not likely to ask anything of the kind,' said
Augustus.

'But he might,' Stephen persisted. 'He might say that
although the deceased brought up this young lady as his
daughter — a relationship proved, besides, by her great resem-
blance to him and other branches of the family— he left nothing
behind him to prove that she is, in the eyes of the law, his
daughter. What should we say then ?'

' I think we can afford to wait till the difficulty arrives,'
replied Augustus, quietly.

'Nay, there I differ from you. It is not often, cousin
Augustus, that a man like myself can venture to differ from
one of your business experience and clear common-sense ; but
in this case I do differ. None of us question Alison's legitimacy,
but we would like to see it established. Let me, for Alison's
own sake, clear this mystery. Besides,' he smiled winningly,
' I own that I am anxious to know something about this wife of
Anthony's, kept so cunningly in the background.'

' For Alison's sake,' Augustus continued, ' I think you had
better let it alone. You do not know what manner of un-
pleasantness you may rake up.'

' Why,' replied Stephen quickly, ' you would not surely in-
sinuate that Alison '

' I insinuate nothing. All I say is that Anthony had, pro-
bably, very good reasons of his own for saying nothing of his
marriage. He probably married beneath him ; he may have
wished to keep his daughter from her mother's relations ; the
marriage may have been unhappy ; the memory of his wife's
death may have weighed upon him. There are many possible

STEPHEN'S INTENTIONS. 95

reasons. Let us respect your brother's memory by inquiring nc
further into them.'

' If that were all,' Stephen sighed, ' I should agree with yon.
I wish I could agree with you ; but, in the interests of Alison,
I fear I must pursue my researches. Why, what harm if we do
unearth a nest of vulgar relations ? "We can always keep them
away from Alison. I will let you know the result of my re-
searches, Augustus. And now good-bye.'

Augustus waited till the steps of this good guardian were
heard at the foot of the stairs. Then he sought William the
silent, and repeated the conversation.

William shook his head.

' Do you see the cloven foot, William ? What a mistake wc
made in letting the man into the house ! Why did we leave
him the diaries ? Why did we let it be possible to raise the
question ? After all these years, we should have known our
cousin better. What can we do ?'

' Wait,' said William.

' Do you know who would be the heir if

' I know,' said William.

In Alison's own interests. That was the way to look at this
question. Stephen felt that he had now completely cleared the
ground for action. Everybody was awakened to the fact that
Anthony's marriage was still an unsolved mystery. Everybody
would very shortly learn that Stephen the benevolent, in his
ward's interest, was at work upon the problem. No one but
the partners and the family lawyer would be likely to guess
what issues might spring of these researches.

He began by questioning Mrs. Cridland. He invited her into
the study one morning, placed her in a chair, frightened her by
saying that he had some questions of the greatest importance to
ask her, and then, standing over her, pocket-book in hand, with
knitted brows and judicial forefinger, he began his queries.

Mrs. Cridland knew nothing. Anthony, when he brought
Alison home, wanted a lady to take charge of her. Mrs. Dun-
combe, he explained, her previous guardian, was trustworthy,
and thoughtful as regards the little girl's material welfare, but
she lacked refinement. What was very well for a child of three
or four, would no longer be sufficient for a great school-girl.
So Anthony looked round, and chose — a cousin. Mrs. Cridland
was a Hamblin by birth ; her husband was dead ; she had no
money, and was at the moment actually living on an allowance
made her by the most generous of cousins. She was delighted
to accept the post of governess, duenna, and companion to this
girl, with a home for herself and her white-haired boy, and a
reasonable salary.

96 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Ah !' said Stephen at this point. ' Yes, a reasonable salary.
What, may I ask, Flora, did my brother consider reasonable ?
He was not always himself a reasonable lender.'

This was unkind of Stephen.

' We agreed,' replied Mrs. Cridland, with a little flutter of
anxiety, ' that the honorarium should be fixed at three hundred
pounds a year.'

' Three hundred a year !' Stephen lifted his eyes, and
whistled. ' A nd board and lodging, of course. My poor brother
was very, very easily cajoled. Even washing, too, I dare say.'

' If you mean that I cajoled him,' cried the lady, in great
wrath, ' you are quite wrong ! It was he who offered the sum.
Cajoled, indeed !'

' Three hundred a year for ten years means, I should say,
three thousand put by. You must have made a nice little pile
by now, Flora. However — to return. Then Anthony told you
nothing about the girl's mother ?'

' Yes ; he told me that she was long dead, and that he wished
no questions to be asked at all.'

' And did you allude then, or at any other time, to the surprise
felt by all his friends at such a discovery ?'

' Of course at the time I told him how amazed we were to
learn that he whom we regarded as a confirmed bachelor should
actually turn out to be a widower. He said, with a laugh, that
people very often were mistaken, and that now, at any rate, they
would understand why he had not married.'

' He used those words ? He said, " People will understand
now why I have not married ?" Take care, Flora ; your words
may be very important.'

' Good gracious, Stephen, don't frighten me ! Of course he
used those words. I remember them perfectly, though it is
ten years ago.'

Stephen made a careful note of the words, repeating under
his breath, ' why he had not married.' Then he looked as if
he were grappling with a great problem.

' Thank you, Flora,' he said at length, coldly. ' I believe you
have done your best to confess the whole truth in this extremely
difficult matter.'

' What difficult matter ? and what do you mean by " con-
fessing" ?'

' Is it possible, Flora, for a sensible woman like yourself to
be blind to the probability that Anthony was never married at
all?'

'Stephen,' she cried in sudden indignation, 'it is impossi-
ble !'

' It is difficult, Flora, not impossible ; I am endeavouring to
prove that Anthony was married. But as yet I have failed,

STEPHEN'S INTENTIONS. 97

When did he marry ? Where did he marry ? Whom did he
marry ? Find out that if you can, Flora.'

' But then — there is no will either — and Alison would not be
the heiress even.'

' Not of a single penny.'

' And who would have all this money ?'

' I myself, Flora ; now yon see why I am trying to prove the
marriage. It is in Alison's interests, not my own, that I take
all this trouble.'

' You, Stephen, you ?' All her instinctive dislike was roused.
She stared at him in horror and astonishment. ' You ? Then
God help us all.'

' Thank you, Flora,' he returned coldly, playing with a paper-
knife : ' that was kindly and thoughtfully said. I shall re-
member that.'

' Remember it on my account as much as you please, only do
not visit my words on that poor child.'

' I do not intend to do so. Had it not been for the resolute
way in which all my cousins have continued to misunderstand
me, I might have expected some small credit for the pains I
have taken for these months in clearing up this mystery.'

' Oh !' she cried, firing up, like the honest little woman that
she was, ' I understand it all now — why you came here, why
you tried to coax and flatter the poor girl, why you sat all day
searching in papers — you wanted to test your own abominable
suspicions — you wanted to persuade yourself that there are no
proofs of Anthony's marriage — you wanted to rob your niece
and get your brother's fortune into your own hands. And
again I say, God help us all ! But there are your cousins, and
there is Mr. Billiter, to stand by her.'

' Thank you, Flora. To such a speech there is but one reply :
I give you a day's notice to go. You shall be paid your salary
up to date, and you shall leave the house at once.''

Here a sudden difficulty occurred. His account at the bank
was reduced to a few shillings — how was he to pay this salary ?

' I refuse to accept this notice. I will not go, unless I am
told to go by Mr. Billiter, or by Mr. Augustus Hamblin. You
are a bad and a dangerous man, Stephen Hamblin. We have
done right to suspect you. Oh ! my poor Alison !'

' Very well, madam, very well indeed. We shall see. Now
go away, and tell Alison I want to say a few words to her.'

He looked blacker and more dangerous than she had ever
seen him, and he held the paper-knife as if it had been a
dagger.

' Stephen, you are not going to tell Alison what you suspect?
You arc not going to be so cruel as that ?'

' I have a good mind to toll her, if it were only to punish

7

98 THE SEAMY SIDE.

you for your confounded impudence. But you always -were a
chattering magpie. Anthony was quite right when he used to
say that for downright idiotic gabble, Flora Cridland's con-
versation was the best specimen he knew. Go, and send Alison
to me.

Anthony had never said anything of the sort. But it was
the way of this genial and warm-hearted person to set people
against each other by the simple process of repeating what had
not been said.

Mrs. Cridland knew in her heart that Anthony could not
have said words so unkind, but the thing pained and wounded
her all the same, and she retired with trembling hands and lips.
She had reason to tremble at the prospect. To begin with,
she had lost, or would probably lose, her comfortable post and
salary ; she would have to fall back upon her little savings, and
live in poverty and pinching ; and then there was Alison and
the terrible calamity which seemed hanging over her.

It was not Stephen's present intention to tell Alison of his
suspicions. As yet he would only alarm her and make her
anxious.

He received her with the same grave and judicial solemnity
which he had observed towards Mrs. Cridland. He was seated
now, and had before him a bundle of papers which he looked at
from time to time as he spoke. Alison remained standing.

' Pray excuse me, Alison,' he began. ' In my capacity as ad-
ministrator of these estates I have to trouble you from time to
time with matters of business. Tell me, please — I asked you
this once before — all you know about your — your mother.'

' I know nothing.'

' At least her name.'

He began to make notes of her answers. This irritated
Alison.

' Not even her name. Papa once told me — it was the only
occasion on which he seemed to speak harshly — that I was never
to ask him any questions about her.'

He took this down in writing.

' But — the lady with whom you lived before you came here
— Mrs. Duncombe. Did she never speak to you about your
mother ?'

' She knew nothing about her. I was brought to her a year-
old child by papa. That is all she knew.'

' And the trinkets — nothing to connect you with your
mother?'

' Nothing except a little coral necklace, which was found in
a box of baby-clothes which came with me.'

' A coral necklace is nothing,' said Stephen, making a careful
note of it. ' Ayd that was all '('

STEPHEN'S INTENTIONS. 99

' That was all, indeed. Why do you ask ? Is there anything
depending on my mother's name ?'

' There may be, Alison. A great deal may depend upon it.
Be assured that I shall do my best to find out the truth. Of
course I mean in your interests.'

Alison retired, confused and anxious. In the breakfast-room
she found Mrs. Cridland in tears.

' Oh ! what has he said to you, Alison ?' she cried, clasping
her hands together. ' What has the horrid, wicked man been
saying ?'

' Uncle Stephen ?' asked Alison in surprise. ' Why is he horrid
and wicked auntie ? He has said nothing. He only asked me
for the second time what I knew of my poor dear mother, whom
I never saw. To be sure, he wrote down my replies. But then,
as I know nothing about her, thero was not much to be said.
And he had an odd way with him tou. What is the matter ?'

Mrs. Cridland breathed mere freely on Alison's account. Here
was at any rate a respite for her. She did not know, as yet, the
miserable thing that was waiting for her, to be revealed at the
man's good pleasure. So she replied with reference to her own
troubles.

' My dear,' she said, wiping her eyes, ' we are to leave tho
house, Nicolas and I. Stephen has ordered us to go t We are
to leave as soon as the money which is due to me has been paid.
He says I must have cajoled your poor father '

' But what does he mean ? What excuse has he ?'

' None that I know, except that I said a thing which angered
him. And then there is the expense of keeping Nicolas and
me. To be sure, the poor boy has got a large appetite.'

' Wait,' said Alison, ' I will know the reason of this.' She had
no notion of a guardian's duties extending to the dismissal of
her friends and companions.

' Oh, Alison !' Mrs. Cridland sprang forward and caught her
by the arm. ' Don't go near him. He is dangerous. You will
only make matters worse.'

Alison tore herself away.

' Alison, dear Alison, do not, for heaven's sake, do not anger
him !'

But Alison was already in the study.

' Uncle Stephen,' she cried, with an angry spot on either
cheek, ' will you be kind enough to tell me why you have ordered
Aunt Flora out of the house ?'

Stephen was already far advanced in one of his most brilliant
and uncontrollable attacks of evil temper.

' I shall certainly not tell you, Alison,' he replied curtly.
' Not toll me ? But you shall tell me !'
Stephea remarked, while he felt that ho was about to mea-

7—2

ioo THE SEAMY SIDE.

sure swords with an antagonist worthy of himself, that Alison
had never before so strongly reminded him of his mother, espe-
cially at those moments while the Seiiora allowed herself to bo
overcome with wrath. These moments, thanks to her son, were
neither few nor far between.

' I shall tell you, shall I V he replied. ' You order me to tell
yon, do you ? Come, this is rather good. Be assured, young
lady, that I have my reasons that Flora Cridland and her little
devil of a boy shall turn out of this, without any delay, and
that, as to my reasons, they are my own business.'

' No,' replied Alison, ' they are my business. You are my
guardian, I know. But in a twelvemonth you will be guardian
no longer. Let us understand one another, Uncle Stephen.
You have certain powers for a limited time. Bemember, how-
ever, that it is but a very limited time.'

' Oh !' said Stephen, looking dark and angry ; ' you are going
to lecture me on my duties as a guardian, are you ?'

' No, I am not. But I am ready to tell you that if Aunt
Flora leaves this house I shall go with her. I do not under-
stand your duties to extend to depriving me of my companion
and protector.'

' She is an heiress, this girl,' said Stephen. He had left the
chair and his papers, and was standing upon the hearth-rug in
one of his old familiar rages ; one of those with which he
would confront his mother in the old times. His bald temples
were flushed, and his black eyes glittered. ' She thinks she is
an heiress. She is a grande dame. Very good. She tries to
hector me. Very good indeed. She shall learn a lesson.
Listen, Alison. You may threaten anything you like. At one
word from me, at one single word, all this wealth of yours
vanishes. Learn, that if I choose, say, when I choose, you will
step out of this house a penniless beggar.'

' What do you mean ?'

' Remember every one of my words. They mean exactly
what they say. You depend at this moment on my forbearance.
And, by Heaven ! that has come very nearly to the end of the
rope.'

' You think that I am in your power. Is that it ?'

' That is exactly what I think.'

' Then, Uncle Stephen ' — Alison stepped up to him and looked
him full in the face. Like her uncle, she was flushed with
excitement and indignant surprise, but her eyes expanded while
his contracted under their emotions — ' do not think that by
anything you can say, or by any facts of which I know nothing,
that I can be brought into your power. I used to wonder how
two brothers could be so unlike each other as you and my dear
father. Hence forth I shall be more and more thankful for the

STEPHEN'S INTENTIONS 101

want of resemblance. Meantime you will find that I shall nor
want protectors.'

She left him, and shut the door.

' Have I been precipitate ?' Stephen thought, when he had
had time to calm down ; ' perhaps a little. Yet, after all, what
matters ? Sooner or later, the blow must have fallen.'

He rang the bell again.

' Give my compliments to Miss Hamblin,' he said ; ' ask her
if she will favour me with one minute more.'

Alison returned. ' You are going to explain what you said ?'

' I am,' he said ; ' if your abominable temper will allow you
to be calm for five minutes. Listen. Since your father's
death, I have been diligently hunting in your interests for any
record of his marriage. There is none. Do you understand
what that means ?'

'No.'

' If no proof can be found, Anthony had no children '

' No children ? But I am his daughter.'

' He said so. Prove your — your descent, by proving your
father's marriage. The law does not recognise likeness as proof
of descent.'

Still Alison did not comprehend.

' You will find out what all this means in the course of time.
For the moment, the only things you need understand are that
your father was net'-or married : he never had a wife ; he there-
fore never had a 'ifcild, in the eyes of the law. He made no
will ; you cannot, therefore, inherit one penny. The sole heir
to all his property — this house, and all that is in it ' — he swept
round his arm with an air of comprehensive proprietorship — ' is
myself.'

' You.'

' Myself. No other. In your interests I have been doing
what I could to find proof of the marriage. There are none.
Everybody has always suspected this. I have always known it.
In your interests and out of consideration to your own feelings,
I have been silent all this time.'

' In my interests !' she repeated.

She had indeed the spirit of his mother, her quick perceptions
and her fearlessness. With all his assumed exterior calm,
Stephen felt that the girl was stronger than himself, as she
faced him this time with every outward sign of outraged honour,
flashing eyes, flushed cheeks, and panting breast.

' In my interests !' There were scorn and passion in her tones,
beyond the power of an Englishwoman.

Mrs. Cridland, who had stolen timidly after the girl, fearful
that this impious slanderer of his dead mother might insult her,
stood within the door, trembling, yet admiring. Behind her, the

102 THE SEAMY SIDE.

pink-faced boy with the heavy white eyebrows, who had Just
come home from school, gazed with curiosity, wonder, and
delight. Uncle Stephen was catching it. This was better than
pie. Alison — she really was a splendid fellow, he said to him-
self — was letting him have it. ' No one, after all,' thought
young Nick, ' when it comes to real slanging, can pitch in like a
girl in a wax.'

' In my interests !' she pointed her finger at his scowling face
and downcast eyes. ' He pretends that my father was a de-
ceiver of women ; he pretends that my father threw away his
honour, and my mother her virtue : he pretends that I am a
cheat and an impostor : he pretends that everybody has always
suspected it : he pretends that I have no right to the very name
Ibear. This man alone, of all the world, has been base enough
to think such a thing of my father, he alone has dared to say it.
In my interests he searches private papers for a secret which
would not be there, and rejoices not to find it. In my interests
he seeks to prove that he is himself my father's heir.'

She paused a moment.

'Alison!' whispered Mrs. Cridland, 'it is enough. Do not
drive him to desperation.'

' He shall be no guardian of mine,' the girl went on. ' Hence-
forth, he shall be no uncle of mine. Oh ! father — father — '
she burst into sobs and crying, ' my poor dead father ! Is there
no one to call this man a liar, and give you back your honour ?'

Stephen answered never a word.

Mrs. Cridland drew the girl passively away.

But young Nick rushed to the front. His eyes were lit with
the light of enthusiastic partisanship. His white eyebrows
stood out like the fur of a cat in a rage. He brandished his
youthful fists in Stephen's face.

' I will, Alison,' he cried. ' You hear — you. You are a liar
and a coward.' Here he dodged behind a chair. ' Wait till I
get older, Uncle Stephen. You've caught it to-day from Alison,
and you'll remember it. But that's pancakes — mind — to what
you are going to catch when I grow up. Only you wait.
Pancakes, it is, and parliament, and baked potatoes.'

CHAPTER XIII.

HOW STEPHEN ASKED FOR BAKE JUSTICE. AND DID NOT GET IT.

The die was cast, then. Stephen had committed all his for-
tunes to one hazard, the chance of his being right.

STEPHEN ASKS FOR BARE JUSTICE. 103

The great, quiet house — his own, he said to himself — became
almost intolerable to him. The face of the indignant girl, so
like, so reproachfully like his mother, haunted him, and re-
mained with him. Above the mantelshelf, the Sefiora gazed
down upon him with sorrowful eyes of deep black, like Alison's,
which followed him wherever he moved. The girl's very ges-
tures recalled to his mind his mother, her Spanish blood, and her
Spanish ways. It wa3 not pleasant, again, to feel that, some-
where, the two ladies were conversing together, indignant and
humiliated, in wrath, shame and misery: it was not an agreeable
reflection that not only then, but ever afterwards, he would be
regarded as the author of all the sorrow. One may be an im-
penitent spendthrift : one may be the black sheep of the family:
but one never likes to be thought the cause and origin of trouble,
and this Stephen had brought upon his own back. Besides, he
would have been the blackest of villains, indeed, had he been
able altogether to forget Anthony, the generous brother who
had maintained him in luxury for so many years, and whom he
was going to repay in this — this very disagreeable way, so very
disagreeably put by Anthony's daughter. People do not so
much mind the sin of ingratitude, as being reminded of it.

Stephen took nonotice whateverof the boy's impertinence: that
was nothing: he hardly heard it; for the moment he was wholly
overpowered by a sense of his own audacity. His mother, from
her picture ; his brother, from every corner of the room, from
every trifle about it, from every book, from every chair— for all
was full of his memory ; his brother's daughter, with her ges-
tures of surprise, contempt, and loathing ; his cousin, timid and
gentle enough as a rule, with her tearful face of sorrow and
disgust — these, separately and together, reminded Stephen that
he had staked his all upon one event, and prepared him for
opposition and indignation.

He tried to shake off the impression produced by this con-
tempt and wrath. It was useless. An hour before, he had
been a strong man, walking with the firm tread of strength.
Now, he felt small and weak : he walked, or thought he walked,
with bent knees: he seemed to tremble as he stood ; and when
he looked at his mother's portrait, her eyes, which to him had
always been so full of pity and of love, were turned, like those
of Alison, into loathing. One never, you see, estimates quite
justly, beforehand, the consequences of one's actions.

But he had done it. It was too late to go back.

No future words of his could ever destroy those which had
passed between himself and his niece. They could never be re-
called. There could be, he said, no reconciliation for himself
and Alison : there could be nothing between them for the
future but a duel a outrance. On her side would be his cousins i

104 THE SEAMY SIDE

all the family. On his own, the mystery — the impenetrable
mystery — of her birth.

The battle was inevitable : the victory, he tried to persuade
himself, was certain. Yet he hesitated. He wished he had been
more gentle : he wished he had kept his temper : he wished ha
had weighed his words. One thing he could do: ho would leave
the house. There was no necessity for him to continue under
the same roof with his brother's daughter : he could hardly
turn her out: he would leave it himself, at all events for a time,
until the first shock of the row should wear off a little.

His nerves were shaken, and he was glad to find an excuse for
getting out of the place. The issue was so important, the
stake so great, the associations of the house so strong, that he
wanted the solitude of his own chambers. He told the footman
that he should not be back for a day or two, and left the house.
In reality, he ran away "from Alison, whom he feared to meet
again.

Alison, for her part, outraged and stricken down by this cruel
and wholly unexpected blow, took refuge in her own room,
trying to understand it, if she might. She was too wretched for
tears. She threw herself upon the bed and buried her face in
her hands, moaning with agony and shame. Everything was
torn away at once : the dream of a fond and worthy mother,
the belief in a noble and honourable father.

Had Anthony Hamblin foreseen this sorrow ? Had there been
no middle way possible, by which the girl could have been spared
at once the shame of her father's sin, and the agony of her
Liother's dishonour ?

' Grief,' said young Nick, when the clock pointed to half -past
one, which was dinner-time, ' grief, with waxiness, makes a man
hungry. Call down Alison, mother. Dinner will be on the table
in a minute or two. As for the first cousin once removed,
he's gone. I saw him out of the house myself ten minutes ago.'

Mrs. Cridland went to call her niece. She returned after a
few minutes, her eyes heavy with tears. Alison would not come
down at all.

Young Nick shook his head sagaciously.

' Girls,' he said, ' are good at a slanging match. Their tongues
hang free, and their cackle is continuous. Men are nowhere.
Still, men don't shirk their grub because they've had a fight.
None such fools. It's only girls who don't see when it comes to
keeping up the pecker, that the pecker must be kept up by more
than the usual amount of grub, and break down. One short
burst, good enough while it lasts, is the most they can manage.
Then it is all over.'

When dinner was served, he took Alison's place at the head
cf the table and assumed the carving-knife and fork with con-

STEPHEN ASKS FOR BARE JUSTICE. 105

giderable increase of glory. Whatever might 'happen, he had
covered himself with glory &>s the defier of villainy. Besides ;
it is not every day that a boy of fourteen is trusted to carve.

' Boiled rabbit, mother ' — he brandished the carving-knife
with ostentatious dexterity — ' boiled rabbit, smothered in onions,
and a little piece of pickled pig. Ah ! and a very fair notion
of a simple dinner, too ; what we may call a reasonable tuck-in
for a hungry man : not a blow-out, like the Hamblin Dinner ;
but a dinner that a man can do justice to, particularly if there's
no falling off when the pudding comes. Let me give you a
slice off the back. I say, mother ' — there was a twinkle in his
eye as he stuck the carving-knife into the vertebras — ' I say, I
wish the bunny's back was Uncle Stephen's, and my knife was in
it ? Wouldn't I twist it ! And suppose we had him before us
actually smothered in onions !'

He took a more than ample meal, because, as he explained,
he had now hurled defiance at his uncle, and a gentleman's
glove once thrown down had to be fought for ; therefore he
must hasten to grow and get strong. With which object he
must eat much more meat than was heretofore thought prudent,
and a great deal more pudding. He begged his mother to re-
member that for the future.

' Fig pudding, old lady !' he cried, presently, with beaming
eyes, having the dish set well before him. ' Figs made into
pudding are recommended by doctors. They are said to be
comforting after trouble.' He cut a slice for his mother, and
then placed a very large one on his own plate. ' This,' he said,
with a sigh, ' is for Alison, poor girl ! She can't eat any. This,'
he added another massive lump, ' is for myself. I will do the
best I can and eat up her slice for her. She must not be allowed
to lower the system.' His white eye-brows glittered like a
diamond-spray as he rapturously contemplated the double
ration.

As for Stephen, he was driving to town in a cab.
As he had been so hasty, as the thing had been told, as the
cousins would most certainly hear of it immediately, it was far
better, he thought, to go to them himself and tell the story first.
At present, too, lie had accepted the post of guardian, and
thereby put himself in a false position. He ought not to have
taken it ; he ought to have asserted his claim from the begin-
ning, in a modest, but firm, way ; he should have communicated
his suspicions. But then Stephen could never run straight.
Meantime he must go and tell his story, whatever the result.

The result ? Outside the house he began to shake off some
cf the whipped-hound feeling which oppressed him beneath the
triple influence of which I havs spoken. The result ? Wha'-
result could there be ? His brother tad never married. Why

106 THE SEAMY SIDE.

justice was on his side ; he asked for nothing but plain ana
simple justice : let bare justice be done to every man alike.
What could his cousins, what could the world, object to in his
claim for simple justice ?

Yet there was once a man, a younger son, who laid a claim
to a great title and great estate, held by his elder brother, on
much the same grounds as he was about to advance. And
though he had justice on his side, though it was clearly proved
that he was the heir, the world condemned that man for raking
up old scandals, for dishonouring the name of his mother, and
the credit of his father. Stephen thought of that case, but he
hardened his heart. Besides, he said it was done now ; he had
spoken the fatal words, he must go on. To tell Alison, for
instance, that he intended to let her hold the estates by his
gracious favour would never console her for the trouble he had
brought upon her, would never heal the wound he had inflicted,
would never lead her to forgive him who had cast a blot upon
the fair name of her father. And again, it was absurd to sup-
pose that he was going to let her hold the estates when they
were his own.

If no man suddenly becomes the basest of men, it is also true
that no man, brought up as Stephen Hamblin was brought up,
can at any time, after however long a course of selfish pamper-
ing to his own appetites, contemplate an action of the basest
kind without some sort of hesitation. No one would deny that
this man was one eminently untrustworthy. Most of those
who knew him best trusted him least. There was, in the opinion
of his cousins, no wickedness of which he was not capable.
They would not, for instance, have believed that this deed,
perpetrated with such apparent calm deliberation, could have
cost him so much hesitation and self-abasement. When we
plan out a line of action for a knave, we are generally right,
but we forget how much battling with his knavish conscience
it costs him.

In truth, Stephen, by much brooding over the thing, had got
to the level of hallucinations, a very common level with all sorts
of people whom the world condemns.

He thought people would sympathise with him. In imagina-
tion, he took up the attitude of one who calmly, firmly, and
without heat of passion, claims his own, standing out for the
simple, the barest justice.

Alison showed him, with her swift contempt, how the world
would really regard his action, what he would really seem.
With her spear of Ithuriel she changed him from the upright
figure of a wronged and injured man. to a crawling, sneaking
spy, who had crept into the house under false pretences, and
made use of his opportunities to di'v into the secrets of his

STEPHEN ASKS FOR BARE JUSTICE. 107

brother, discover the weak points and nakedness of the land,
and, in his own interests, search into all the secret documents.

This view of the matter was not so pleasant to contemplate,
and Stephen put it behind him as much as possible.

He deposited his bag in his chambers at Pall Mall, took a late
lunch, with a single pint of champagne, at his club, and then
drove into the City. Since the thing had to be done, let it be
done quickly.

He presented himself at his cousin's private office, with an
air which struck Augustus Hamblin as of ill omen. His dark
e,yes were bloodshot and more shifty than usual. They were
ringed with black, the result of midnight potations, not of
villainy, and they seemed more crow's-footed than usual ; his
dress, which was that of a young man of five-and-twenty, seemed
more than usually incongruous ; he held between his lips the
remaining half of a great cigar — men of Stephen Hamblin's
stamp are seldom without a cigar between their lips — and
smoking, especially in the day-time, was always an abomination
to Augustus Hamblin. Lastly, Stephen's cousin noticed that
his cheek was twitching — a sign of nervousness — and that his
hands shook, which might be the effect of villainous intention,
or of late hours, or it might be drink. It must be understood
that Augustus put none of these observations into words. They
remained inarticulated thoughts.

' You here, Stephen ?' he asked, not very cordially. ' Is any-
thing wrong with your ward ?'

' Nothing is wrong with my ward,' replied Stephen. ' It is
not about her, or at least only indirectly, that I have come to
see you.'

' Is it on business ? Then we will ask my partner to be
present. Two heads are better than one, or three better than
two.'

He whistled down a tube, and sent his message.
Augustus Hamblin spoke cheerfully, but he remembered
what Alderney Codd had told him, and he felt uneasy. William
the Silent presently came, and nodded to Stephen. But he,
too, looked meaningly towards his partner. The two sat like
a judicial bench behind the table. Stephen, like a criminal,
stood before them. He laid down the cigar, and looked from
one to the other with a certain embarrassment.

' You will remember,' he said presently, producing a pocket-
book full of papers, but this was only a pretence — ' You will
remember that when I was here last, Augustus, I asked you
what you knew about my brother Anthony's marriage.'
' Certainly.'

' Since then I have been employing myself, in Alison's inte-
rests, in trying to clear up the mystery.'

10S THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Yes, though you might as well have left it alone.'

' I might as well, so far as her interests go, as it seems,' said
Stephen, clearing his throat. His face was pale now, but his
attitude was firm and erect. He was about to fire the fatal shot.

' I might as well, because I have made a remarkable discovery

among Anthony's papers — a most surprising discovery ; a thing
which alters the whole complexion of affairs and puts me in a
most awkward position.'

One of Stephen's least pleasant traits was a certain liability
to inspiration of sudden falsehood, just as some men are apt to
be inspired by sudden bursts of generosity and lofty purpose.
It would have been better for him had he stated the truth, that
he suspected no marriage, and found in the papers no proof of
marriage. But it occurred to him at the moment that he would
strengthen his case if he asserted that he had found proof of no
marriage, a very different thing.

' What is your discovery ?' asked Augustus, with a presenti-
ment of something wrong.

' It is nothing less than the fact — you will be both more sur-
prised than I was — nothing less — I am a man of the world and
take these things as quite common occurrences — than the fact
that my brother Anthony was never married at all.

' Stephen !' cried Augustus, ' can this be true ?'

' Patience,' said William the Silent. ' Let him tell us the
nature of the proof.'

' Oh ! pardon me,' said Stephen. ' The nature of the proof I
hold in my own hands. It is among these papers, and will be
produced if necessary by my own lawyer, at the proper time
and place. Anthony was never married.'

There was silence for a space.

' I leave to you,' said Stephen, ' if you like to undertake it,
the task of proving that there was a marriage. I should advise
you not to try. It will, I assure you, be labour lost.'

Again, neither spoke, and Stephen was obliged to go on.

' The consequences of this discovery,' he said, ' will be very
serious. It makes me the Head of the House. Alison, my
brother's daughter, is entitled to nothing. I shall, of course,
take my brother's position as chief partner in this firm.'

'No !' said William, decidedly.

' Certainly not,' said Augustus. ' Whatever happens, you will
never, I assure you, be a partner in this firm.'

Stephen nodded carelessly. ' We shall see. When it comes
to taking me in or taking the consequences — however, I can
afford to overlook a little natural surprise. Now, before I go
before the Court of Probate, I am anxious to obtain your
approval, your acknowledgment that my course is absolutely
forced upon me. Remember, you invited me to be guardian : in

STEPHEN ASKS FOR BARE JUSTICE. log

that capacity I went into residence at Clapham : in that capi-
city I made inquiries in Alison's interest : still in that capacity
— still in her interest — I searched through the old papers and—
I made this discovery. She has no legal right to more than
the clothes she stands in. All the rest is mine. I am the sole
heir. I ask yon, as business men, what I am to do. I bring
to you, as my cousins and hers, the first intelligence of the
discovery.'

He did not wait for an answer, being, perhaps, afraid that
they might either repeat that question as to the nature of the
discovery, or counsel him to go and burn it.

' What would either of you do ? It is, I know, absurd to ask.
You would advise me at once to ask for bare justice. My just
and legal claim is for the whole estate. This is my inheritance.
"When that claim is granted, I am prepared to consider the
claim of my brother's daughter. What do you say ?'

He looked from one to the other, but received no answer for
the moment.

Then Augustus, in his dry and solemn way, asked :

' Pray, how much does Alison know of this — this alleged dis-
covery ?'

Stephen tried to look unembarrassed, but failed.

' She knows all,' he replied. ' My hand was forced, by some
attempted interference with me. I told her the exact truth ; I
disclosed her true position.'

1 Poor girl !' said Augustus.

' However,' said Stephen, ' pity will not alter facts. I wait for
an expression of your opinion.'

Augustus looked at his partner. William the Silent nodded
his head suggestively, in the direction of the door.

' We refer you,' said Augustus, ' to Mr. Billiter. You may
go and see him. Tell him, if you please, what you have told
us. Our offer made a few weeks ago is, of course, withdrawn.
You can no longer act as Alison's guardian. Henceforth, it will
be better for you to communicate with us, who will assume the
position of the young lady's protectors, through your solicitors.
We express no opinion on what you have done : we do not ven-
ture to give you any advice. Good-morning.'

The cold contemptuous tone of his cousins was almost as in-
tolerable as the indignation of Alison. Stephen left the office
without a word.

When he was gone, the partnera looked at each other and
shook their heads.

' He may be lying,' said Augustus. ' He may be speaking the
truth. What do you think ?'

' Lies !' said William, whose opinion of Stephen was extremely
low : ' lies somewhere 1'

no THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Perhaps in either case we lose nothing by waiting. flould
we have thought Anthony capable of such deception ?'

' Lies !' said William again, stoutly.

Augustus Hamblin, himself a man of the strictest principle,
had known his cousin Anthony from boyhood : had worked be-
side him : knew, as he thought, every action of his life. Yet he
seemed ready, on the bare unsupported statement of Stephen,
to believe that a man whose youth and manhood, open to all
alike, were honourable and honoured, was a profligate, a de-
ceiver of women, a secret libertine. There is no man so good
but that the worst shall be believed of him. The Just man of
Athens would never have been exiled had his countrymen been
able to rake up a scandal against him. For my own part, when
I consider the position, I am amazed that Aristides did not
himself grow weary of provoking his countrymen by the exhi-
bition of a virtue to which nothing short of the nineteenth cen-
tury can show a parallel, and openly go and break half a dozen
at least of the commandments, and so regain a hold upon the
affections of sympathetic humanity.

William Hamblin would doubtless have been equally ready to
believe this thing, but for his suspicion and distrust of Stephen.

The latter, only half satisfied, with his reception by the
cousins, drove straight away to the family lawyer. He would
have it out at once— state his case, throw down the glove, and
defy them to do their worst.

Mr. Billiter thought he was come to sign the agreement,
according to their proposal, by which he was to undertake the
name of guardian, receive an honorarium, and leave the conduct
of affairs entirely in the hands of the partners. But Stephen
pushed it aside.

' You may tear that thing up,' he said rudely. ' The time has
gone by when that sort of thing could be signed. I have come
to tell you that I have made a discovery — whether you knew it
all along or not I do not know ; perhaps you did ; very likely
you did — a discovery of so important a nature that it entirely
alters the position both of myself and of Alison.'

' Indeed !' The old lawyer's tone changed, and his sharp,
bright eyes glittered as he raised them to look at Stephen.
' Indeed ! What is this discovery ? Have you got it in your
pocket ?'

' It is nothing less than the fact that my brother Anthony
was never married at all.'

This was indeed a facer.

' What do you think of that ?' asked Stephen, triumphantly.

' I never allow myself to think of anything until the proofs
l\re before me. Produce your proofs.'

' Not at all,' replied Stephen, tapping his breast, where lay

STEPHEN ASKS FOR BARE JUSTICE. in

his pocket-book — ' not at all. If there was a marriage, produce
your proofs.'

The ferret-like eyes lit up with a sharpness which Stephen
did not like.

' We assume the marriage,' said the lawyer. ' The presump-
tion is in favour of the marriage. You have to disprove it.
Where are your proofs ?'

' As I said before,' Stephen answered, ' I reserve them. You
will find that the law assumes that there was no marriage, and
will call upon you for the proofs.'

' In that case, I give no opinion. This document, then ' — he
took up the agreement — ' is so much waste paper.'

' It is. I refuse to sign it. I am going to claim the whole
estate, as sole heir.'

'A bold game, Stephen. A desperately bold game. Yon
give up the provision we offered you ; you risk all in a single
coup. Your proofs have need to be strong. You will want
them as strong as they can be made.'

Stephen sat down upon the table familiarly — on the awful
table, before which, as a boy, he had so often trembled.

' I begin to wonder,' he said, with as much rudeness as could
be thrown into words and manner, ' whether you have been a
dupe or an accomplice. Anthony had plenty of dupes. He
must have wanted an accomplice.'

'Dear me !' said the lawyer, not in the least ruffled by this
insult. ' Here is a turning of tables. So I am an accomplice,
am I ? Well ?'

' You pretend not to know what I mean. And yet there are
only you and myself in the room.'

' Perhaps it is not prudent to be without witnesses when you
are here ; but still, you see, I risk it.'

' I have been treated,' said Stephen, ' since my brother's death,
with the greatest contumely by yourself and my cousins. You
have offered me the post of guardian, coupled with degrading
conditions. Yet I have held my hand, knowing what I knew.
The time has come when I shall hold it no longer. I am now
prepared to strike.'

' I clearly perceive, Stephen,' the lawyer observed, ' that you
have been meditating all along a stroke worthy of your former
reputation.'

' Your age protects you,' replied Stephen. ' You know that
you can say whatever you please.'

' I have known you all your life, Stephen Hamblin, and I have
never yet known you do a straightforward action. Now tell me,
if you like, what you propose to do.'

' This, at all events, is straightforward. I am going to take
out letters of administration, not for Alison, tut for myself. I

1 1 2 THE SEAMY SIDE.

shall put in an immediate claim on the estate, as the sole heir of
my brother, who left no will, and was never married.'

He tried to look the old lawyer steadily in the face, but his
eyes quailed.

' I see,' said the old man, ' this is your manoeuvre, is it ?
"Well, Stephen, we shall fight you. I don't believe a word of
your discovery. It is bounce and suspicion, and a hope that
because we do not know where Anthony was married, we can-
not find out. Meantime, you must of course live on your own
resources. You will have no help from us.'

' That,' said Stephen, ' I anticipated.'

' You will get nothing from the estate until the case is
decided ; and, of course, we shall only communicate with you
through your solicitors. I have nothing more to say.'

He turned his chair round and took up some papers. Stephen
lingered a moment. His face was dark and lowering.

' I hope that I have made myself sufficiently clear,' he said,
stammering. ' I ask for nothing but justice. I am the heir.
I assert that my brother never married.'

' You are quite clear,' said Mr. Billiter, without looking up ;
' I am perfectly aware of what you mean.'

' I only claim my rights. Do you, a lawyer, dare to call that
dishonourable ?'

' Stephen Hamblin,' replied Mr. Billiter, laying down his
papers and leaning back in his chair, and tapping his knuckles
with his glasses, ' I said just now that I had never known you
do one single good action. But you have done so many bad ones
that I am never surprised at anything you do.'

' As for the bad actions, as you are pleased to call them — it
is absurd, I suppose, to remind you of the exaggerations
made '

' Ta—ta—ta,' said the lawyer. ' We know. Your brother on
whose generosity you lived being dead, you proceed to reward
that generosity by proclaiming to the world the illegitimacy of
his daughter, which you suspect, and hope to be true, but cannot
prove. That is, indeed, the act of a high-toned, whole-souled
gentleman.'

' It is in a lawyer's office,' said Stephen, as if with sorrow, ' I
am upbraided in my intention of claiming what is justly due to me.
So far, however, as Alison is concerned, your own injustice and
the misrepresentations of my cousins will produce no effect. I
shall provide for her : so far as a yearly hundred or two, I am
willing '

'Get out of my office, man!' cried the ferret-faced little
lawyer, pointing to the door. ' You propose to rob your niece
of a quarter of a million, and you offer her a hundred a year !
Go, sir, and remember you have not got the money yot.'

STEPHEN ASKS FOR BARE JUSTICE. 113

Stephen had done it now. He felt rather cold as he walked
away from Bedford Row. It was like parting with power in
reserve. As for the wrath of his cousins and the old lawyer,
that troubled him, after the first unpleasantness, very little.
One thing only seriously annoyed him. Why had he not drawn
the proffered yearly allowance of five hundred pounds before
announcing his intentions ? It was awkward, because Anthony,
his sole source of income, being dead, and his balance at the
bank being reduced to less than fifty pounds, it might become
a difficulty to provide the daily expenses. However, long before
that difficulty presented itself, he should, he thought, have
gained a decision of the Court in his favour.

He went to his club in the evening, and dined there with his
friend Jack Baker, whom we have already met at the Birch-
Tree Tavern.

Stephen was melancholy, and inattentive to the claret.

' You are hipped old man,' said Jack. ' What is the matter ?'

' A discovery I made the other day has rather knocked me
over,' said Stephen. ' A discovery that obliges me to tr.ke
action, in a painful way, with my own people.'

' In your own interests ?'

' Very much, if we look at it only from a money point of
view,' Stephen said, with a sigh. ' It is connected with my
brother's estate, in fact. The estate, you know, is worth, one
way and the other, something like three hundred thousand
pounds.'

' Ah ! He left no will, did he ?'

' None ; and up to the present moment my niece, his daughter,
has been supposed to be the sole heiress. Now, however, we

have discovered that the sole heir is But it will all come

out in the Courts, before very long. No need to talk about it.
This is very fine Leoville ; let us have another bottle.'

' And you are his only brother,' said Jack Baker, thought-
fully. 'Why .' S

If Stephen had searched about all over London for the best
method of spreading a report abroad, he could hardly have hit
upon a better one than that of hinting to his friend Jack Baker
that something was in prospect. Perhaps he knew this.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE VALLEY OF TEAKS.

The pudding was finished and the tablecloth removed before
Alison appeared. She was calm now, but there was a burning

8

H4 THE SEAMY SIDE.

spot in each cheek, and a glow in her dark eyes, from which an
enemy would have augured ill.

She sat down and wrote two letters : one of them was to
Gilbert, the other to Augustus Hamblin. To the latter she
related, as exactly as she could, what had taken place. The
former she simply invited to call and see her as soon as he con-
veniently could.

She sent Nicolas with this note to the Temple, and posted
the former. The boy understood that the letter meant the
beginning of war : and his enthusiasm in the cause was roused.
He acquired, too, a considerable accession of self-importance,
from considering the fact of his own share in the struggle.

He took the omnibus to Blackfriars very soberly, playing no
pranks at all on the way, and turning neither to right nor to
left until he found himself in Gilbert's chambers in Brick Court.
The young barrister was engaged in some devilling, that in-
genious method by which the briefless delude themselves into
the belief that they are getting on. He looked up and nodded
cheerfully.

' How is young Nick ? What seeks he here ?' he asked.

Nicolas shook his head and looked mighty grave.

' What has happened ?'

' Villainies,' replied the boy, in a hollow voice ; ' villainies,
conspiracies, and a kick-up. Here's a note for you. Alison
wants you to come at once. You are not to delay one moment,
she says, not even to part your hair down the middle.' — The
young man's middle parting was always remarkably clear and
well-defined. — '"Tell him," she says, "if he wants anymore
spooning, he'd better step out and get down at once." '

' I must, at least, change my coat. Now, boy ,' emerging
from his bedroom, 'just tell me, in a few words, what ha-
happened.'

' Uncle Stephen — no, I forgot, he is no longer to be an uncle
— first-cousin-once-removed Stephen has been staying with us
for a week or so, as you know. He's been mighty civil to
Alison, I must own. But the artfulness ! It was all to poke
about among the papers. And then he has a row with my
mother, and then with Alison, and then he tells her that she's
no right to the fortune at all, and it's all his. Think of that !
"Oh! yes," he says, "you think it's yours, do you? Much.
I'm the owner, I am. As for you, you are nobody. You m:iy
go. Nicolas Cridland," he went on, " may go too. With the
old lady." '

' Not the heiress ? What does he mean ?'

' Here comes in the villainy. Because, he says, Uncle Anthony
was never married. That's the reason. Well : when Alison
heard him say that— she's got a fine temper of her own, oik'o

THE VALLE Y OF TEA RS. 115

get her back up ; you will discover it some day : so don't say 1
didn't warn you — she went at him with ' — he looked round him
in doubt — ' with the tongs.'

' Nonsense.'

' I backed her up. "When she'd quite finished I let the first-
cousin-once-reraoved have a bit of the rough side of my tongue,
too. I dcn't pretend to be a patch on Alison, because when a
girl — a strong girl, mind you — gets her back up and her tongue
well slung, she can let out in a way to make a man's hair stand
on end. His hair stood up, all that's left of it. He hadn't a
word to say.'

The boy stopped, waiting for applause. None came.

' I say, I suppose you envy me, don't you ? Wish you 'had
been in my place to cowhide him ?'

' Why, you don't mean to say that you '

' I promised, which is the same thing,' said Nicolas proudly.
' Let him wait till I am one-and-twenty. Then he shall feel
how spry a curly one about the legs will make him. But, I
say, you're a private and particular friend of Alison's. I don't
mind taking you in. It's seven years to wait, you see, and then
no telling what may happen. We'll stand in together, if you
like.'

' Thank you,' said Gilbert ; ' and where is he ?'

' Oh, ran away ! Didn't stop to reflect that he's got seven
years to wait. Ran away at once. Alison wouldn't have any
dinner, though there was— never mind. Came down when we'd
finished, quite quiet, but looking dangerous — handy with her
heels, you know — and wrote two letters. One was yours. I
was rather glad to get out of the house myself. No telling
whether she mightn't have rounded on me, as she's done once or
twice before.'

The boy, in answer to Gilbert's questions, stuck to the
substantial basis of his story, although he embellished it by
features which changed with each narration. Alison was not
the heiress, because her father was never married. And this
statement had been made coarsely and even brutally.

Could it be true ? And if so, what was Alison's position ?

Gilbert lost no time in getting down to Clapham, leaving the
boy behind to saunter through the streets and follow at his
leisure.

He found Alison standing at the window of her own room,
impatient and restless. She was transformed. The girl whom
he bad last seen, only a day or two before, soft, shrinking,
gentle, stood before him with lips set firm, defiant pose, and
eyes in which the glow of love and douce jpensee had given place
to a hard and cold light.
He took her hand and wanted to kiss her.

8-2

1 1 6 THE SEA M Y SIDE.

' No, Gilbert,' she said harshly. ' It was not to listen to love-
stories that I sent for you. Perhaps, most likely, all that is
over. You have heard — did the boy tell you ? — what has
happened ?'

' He did tell me. Stephen Hamblin seeks to rob you of your
inheritance/

' And of my name, and of my father's honour, and of my
mother's honour. He will try to rob me of all at once. There
will be nothing left.' Her voice failed her, but it was not to
sob or cry that she broke down. ' Tell me first, Gilbert, if you,
too, were one of those who all along suspected this thing ? My
uncle says that everybody suspected it.'

' It is false, Alison. Nobody, so far as I know, ever suspected
such a thing. I the least of all men.'

' But he said, 1 she repeated, ' he said that everybody always
^aspected.'

' It is false again, Alison — a thousand times false ! Believe
me, no one. ever dreamed of suspecting such a thing.'

She seemed not to hear him.

' So that I have been living for ten years in a fool's paradise,
while people scoffed at me behind my back, and at my mother,
and said hard things about my father. What a life for us both !
and we never knew it.'

' Alison ! Do not believe, do not think such things.'

' But if such things are true — and, whether I think them or
not, they may be true. And one thing seems true, that my
poor father left no will, and, unless I can prove his marriage,
which — he — says never took place, I am a beggar in fortune, as
well as in honour. I have nothing.'

' Yes, Alison ' — he took her hand in his, and held it in the
firm man's grasp which brought her comfort for the moment —
' yes, Alison, you have something left. You have me ; you have
love. You have plenty of others who love you, but not so well.
We shall only have to wait a little longer. You will not be able
to hear your husband called a fortune-hunter. That is what
it means, if it is true — all it ever shall mean to you and to me.'

She shook her head, and the tears ran to her eyes. For some
moments she could not speak. Then she conquered herself,
drew back her hand, dashed the tears away, and became hard
again.

' It means more, Gilbert. It means a great deal more. I am
— illegitimate.'

She did not blush nor wince, but boldly pronounced the
word, as if she would face the thing at once.

' I must be ashamed of my mother ; I must bo ashamed of
my father ; I must never, never think of marriage or of love.
This must be my farewell to you, dea? Gilbert.'

THE VALLEY OF TEARS. 117

He seized her in his arms, and kissed her again and again,
until she broke away from him.

' My darling ! Do you think I should let you go ? "Why,
what is it ? You have lost your name ; all the more reason for
taking another. And as for — for your father, you must try not
to think unkindly '

' Not unkindly,' she said. ' Never unkindly, only sorrowfully,
because I thought him blameless.'

Each time her lover ceased to touch her, she became hard
and defiant again.

' Do not think of it at all in connection with him,' urged
Gilbert. ' Let your thoughts dwell only on the happy past,
which can never be forgotten. Think if he did you a great
wrong, he did all he could to repair it.'

' Yes, yes,' she murmured impatiently. ' It is of — the other —
that I think — the man who has done the mischief to me.
Yesterday I knew nothing. Yesterday I was proud of my
father, and of myself. I had everything that a girl wants,
except him whom I had lost. I had a lover '

' You have still, Alison. I will not be denied that title. I
am your lover, whatever may happen.'

' You are kind, Gilbert,' she said ; ' but you must not love me
any longer. I will not think of love any more. I will not drag
you down. I mean it. I am resolved in this. I will not marry.
I will not endure to feel that your own people would have to
apologise for me, that perhaps my own children would have to
blush for their mother's birth. Spare me that, Gilbert, if you
love me, as I think you do.

' The misfortune has fallen on both of us alike,' she went on,
releasing herself a third time from Gilbert's hands. ' It has
been sweet for me to feel that I was loved, especially since my
father's death. It is dreadful to give you up, Gilbert. But I
am resolved. When my uncle told me, this morning, my first
thought was that I must give you up. Ever since then I have
been thinking about it.'

She drew a ring from her finger — the ring of her engagement.
' Take it back, Gilbert. Our engagement is at an end. I give
you back your vows with this ring. You shall marry no base-
born girl.'

He refused to take the ring.

' I will take back neither vows nor ring, Alison. I am your
lover. I swear that I will never be released unless you marry
another man.'

' I shall marry no one,' she said. ' Go away, Gilbert. You
must see me no more. I forbid you the house, my poor Gil-
bert, as long as I have a house at all. Soon I shall have no
house.'

1 1 8 THE SEAM V SIDE.

' Alison,' cried the young man, ' do not be cruel ! I will not be
sent away. Remember, I am always your lover.'

She shook her head. There was resolution in every line of her
figure, as she stood before him. He saw that remonstrance, en-
treaties, and prayers were useless— f or the moment.

' You must not try to see me any more, Gilbert. Remember
that every time I see you will bring me fresh pain and misery.
I will go away somewhere — I dare say my cousins will not let
me starve — and hide myself and all this shame. I only sent to
you, to tell you that it was all over. Poor boy !' Her hard
eyes softened and became beautiful again, as she laid her hand
upon his sleeve. ' You feel it now, but you will forget. You
will go about in the world and do great work, and so learn to
forget, and then you will find some other girl whom you will
love as much as ever you loved me — and who will have a — a —
story that can be told without shame.'

' Stay !' cried Gilbert, ' stay, Alison. We are going far too
quickly. All is not over yet. Whose word have you beside
your uncle's ?'

1 No one's. He would not dare to say such a thing unless it
were true.'

' He says, Nicolas tells me, that he has proof that there was no
marriage. We shall believe that story when we see the proofs.'

' There must be proofs.'

' Let us first learn what they are. Until we can examine the
proofs for ourselves, I for one, Alison, shall disbelieve the state-
ment. What would the proof be ? Are we to believe that your
father deliberately left a paper among his private documents,
stating that he was never married ? This seems ridiculous.
What other proof has he, or can he have ?

' I believe,' Gilbert continued, ' that the statement is a pure
fabrication. See, Alison, Mr. Stephen Hamblin is, and always
has been, a man of low principle. It is his interest to make out
this charge. He knows that there is no will. He knows, further,
that your father was unwilling, for some reason best known to
himself, to talk about his married life ; and so he calmly frames
this gigantic lie, in hope that it will be believed.'

Alison shook her head.

' Let us not be the first to believe it. Until it is proved — and
it never can be proved — let us — if only you and I remain loyal
— go on believing in the honour of your father. My dear, you
must believe it.'

' You say so, Gilbert, to comfort me.'

'Perhaps, partly to comfort you ; but I believe solemnly that
it is the truth. Surely it is more easy to believe that your
father was always what you know him to be in every relation of
life — a good man — than that he lived perpetually in an atmo-

me. vsii^J-Jcx up i&ARS. no.

sphere of deceit and treachery. Shake off that distrust, Alison.
It is a nightmare born of the base insinuations and suggestions
of that man. Hold up your head and face the world. Let us
say simply: " Anthony Hamblin could not have done this thing."
And even if the law allows him, which I do not think, to lay his
unrighteous hand upon your fortune, go on in your belief and
loyalty to your father.'

' They are brave words, Gilbert,' she said. ' You are a strong
man : you can dare and do. I am only a weak woman. When
things are said, the words are like daggers and pierce my heart.
But you are right. I am fallen indeed if I can cease to believe
in the goodness of my father.'

' And this ring, Alison ?' He held up the engaged ring.

1 No,' she said, ' I am resolved upon that. You and I, Gilbert,
will believe in my father ; you, because you are loyal to the
memory of a man who loved you ; and I, because it will be all
my comfort. But I will not put on that ring again until it has
been proved to all the world that I need not blush with shame
when my mother's name is mentioned.'

Gilbert hesitated for a moment, thinking what to say, what
comfort to bring.

'In that case,' he said at length, with a forced smile, "we
must try to penetrate the mystery and find the truth about
your father's marriage. At least you will let me work for you.'

' I shall be deeply grateful to you,' she replied, holding out
her hand to him. The hard light in her eyes was gone, but the
lip trembled still : ' I shall be grateful, even if you find nothing.
But you must remember one thing, Gilbert — until you have
found out — what we seek — there must be no word of love ; and
if we never find out, there must never be word of love between
us. Do you promise not to break this rule ?'

' It is a very hard promise, Alison. If you knew how I love
you, you would not ask it of me.'

' It is because I do know, and because — oh, Gilbert ! — because
it is as hard for me to ask as for you to promise, and because,
whatever happens, I must try to keep my self-respect. Pro-
mise me.'

He promised, at length, kissing her fingers.

' And now,' he said, ' I shall go to your cousins and offer my
lervices to unravel the mystery. I shall do nothing else until
we have learned the truth,'

' Ob, Gilbert !' She was going to have one devoted friend, at
least. To be sure she had known that he would be her knight.
' But you must not ruin your practice at the Bar for my sake.'

The young member of the Inner Temple laughed sarcastically.

' My practice ?' he asked. ' What does not exist cannot be
very well ruined, my dear child. I have no practice. No doubt

i2o THE SEAMY SIDE.

I shall get some in course of time, if I go on. At present,
solicitors do not know my name, and I am briefless. Do not be
disturbed about my practice.'

Meantime Nicolas had found his way home and discovered his
mother again in tears. This was disagreeable. It was still
more disagreeable, when he inquired the cause, to learn that, if
Alison lost her inheritance, his mother would lose that three
hundred pounds a year which formed, as Nicolas for the first
time learned, her sole income.

' I suppose we shall all three go to the workhouse,' the poor
lady sobbed.

' No, mother,' said Nicolas. ' You and Alison may go there,
if you like, and if you prefer skilly to chops. I shan't. Come,
old lady ' — he rammed his hands into his pockets, and stood with
his legs apart — ' come, cheer up. Workhouse, indeed ! Haven't
you got me ? For the present, I suppose, I must enlist. I can
have stoppages made for you and Alison out of the pay. That
will carry you on till I'm old enough — provided I am not in the
meantime killed in action — to enter the Firm. The least they
can do for me after cheeking Uncle Stephen — and, of course, I
shall horsewhip him when the time comes— is to give me a
desk. Then I can support you both in comfort, with boiled
rabbit and onions and pickled pig every day. That fellow
Yorke, unless I am greatly mistaken in the man, which isn't
usual with me, will want to cry off when he hears that Alison
has got no money. I don't much like that style of man : blue
eyes, curly brown hair, regular features — barber's-block features,
long legs, and broad shoulders. I hope she won't take it toe
much to heart. After all, it will be only waiting for me. I'm
the sort of man to make her really happy. I feel it in me.
Cheer up, old lady.'

He kissed his mother and patted her cheek. I think Mrs.
Cridland was greatly comforted by the thought that her boy
would be so great a stay and prop to her.

Then the boy heard Gilbert's step in the hall, and ran out.

' Done with Alison ?' he asked. ' Come this way.' He led
him into the study, where there stood a rack of choice canes,
walking-sticks, and bamboos, brought to the Head of the House
from foreign parts. It was a really valuable and beautiful col-
lection, which Anthony had been accumulating for many years.

' This way.' He stood before the rack and examined the
contents critically. ' I will find something that will just do for
you, Yorke. See : don't take this Malacca, because it is too
light for serious business : Malaccas are apt to break in the hand.
Here's a Penang Lawyer, which I should like to lend you if I
could trust your temper. 13ut I can't, and you might kill your
maa. This Persuader is from Singapore, but they've loaded it

THE VALLEY OF TEARS. 121

with lead, and we must stick to the legitimate thing. The
Tickler at your left hand is from Shanghai : it has tickled many
a Chinaman into an early grave. But we don't want to give
him anything luxurious. This is a lovely thing from Mauritius,
see : clouded and mounted ; it's trustworthy, too, and heavy ;
but I'm not going to treat such a fellow as that to anything
expensive. He'd boast of it afterwards. Common ware, sir,
and tough, and apt to curl about the legs. That's all he shall
get from me.'

Gilbert looked on in amazement. What did the boy mean ?

' Now here ' — he took down a thin and longish bamboo.
' This is the very thing. Common and cheap, effective, and
tough. You can lay on with this without fear of its breaking.
It's as springy, too, as india-rubber. That thing, sir, judiciously
handled, will raise the most Enormous weals, and hurt like
winkin'. Phew ! Ey — oh !'

' What do you mean ?'

' You've been spooning again.,' said Nicolas, severely, ' and it's
made you go silly. Didn't I promise you should stand in with
me about the cowhiding ? Very well, then. Take and go and
do it.'

' Oh ! nonsense. There's to be no cowhiding.'

1 No cowhiding ?' Young Nick almost shrieked with indig-
nation. ' Why, 1 promised him. You're not going to do it ?'

' Certainly not.'

The boy's face fell. This was bitter disappointment.

' Go away,' he said ; ' I thought better of you. If I had a
girl who'd been treated as Alison has been treated, I'd cowhide
the man first and pepper and salt him next. You'll do as you
please.' He replaced the stick with a sigh. ' Of course, all the
real work, as usual, is laid upon my shoulders.'

CHAPTEE XV.

HOW STEPHEN LEFT THE HOUSE.

Stephen slept at his chambers that night. But in the morning
the strange feeling of nervous terror, under the influence of
which he had left the house at Clapham, had disappeared with
the impression produced by Alison's eyes and words. He began
to consider whether it was prudent to retract from the strong-
hold of constructive possession.

It was matter of simple evidence that he went to the house
on the very day of his brother's death : that might be with the

122 THE SEAMY SIDE.

view of assuming the guardianship, which naturally devolved
upon him, or that of asserting his own claim. He had lived
there for three months, by tacit acknowledgment, he might say,
the master. And yet, on the day when he distinctly laid his
pretensions before the partners, he returned to his own cham-
bers. Perhaps that would look something like distrust of his
own claims.

This knotty point gave him uneasiness. He really did not
wish to return : he was afraid of meeting his niece : he Avas
afraid of those black eyes in the portrait which followed him
round the room with reproachful gaze ; but, on the other hand,
he was bound to show a bold front. He had taken up a posi-
tion from which there was no retreat. He had gone beyond
the truth in asserting that he held written proof that there
never had been any marriage at all ; whereas all that he could
really prove was that he had found no mention of any marriage.
And there was always the terrible doubt in the background
that, after all, there might have been a secret marriage, a mar-
riage under an assumed name which further search might reveal.
If it were discovered, he would be indeed ruined.

It was more than possible : it even seemed probable, now
that it was too late, now that he had incurred the wrath of the
other side and played his trump cards. Why was it that it
seemed so impossible the day before ?

Given a man of absolutely unblemished character, living a
life open for all the world to see ; given the fact of a child
strongly resembling him, and even more strongly resembling
his mother ; add to these the open production and acknowledg-
ment of the girl as his own daughter : these things made up a
very strong case ; so strong, that when Stephen put them
together he felt cold, and began to wish that he had not been
so precipitate.

It became, therefore, the more necessary to maintain the
boldest bearing. He would go back to the house, install himself
there, and let the servants know that he was master. As for
Alison, it was her part, not his, to turn out.

The house, when he admitted himself with a latch-key, was
perfectly silent. The two ladies were in the breakfast-room :
Nicolas was at school : the servants were engaged in the light
and leisurely occupations which they called work. They made
no noise ; if they talked it was in low tones, so as not to disturb
the silence which, for three months, save for the voice and the
steps of Nicolas, had been almost unbroken. He stepped
hurriedly, as if afraid of meeting someone, into the study.
The eyes of his mother's portrait mot his as he. closed the door,
and again the odd feeling of cold, as if the dead wore reproach-
ing him, fell upon him. He threw down his bag ; took a cigar

HOW STEPHEN LEFT THE HOUSE. 123

from the box nearest, lit it, and went out of this silence, which
was sepulchral and oppressive, into the gardens.

The morning was delightful : the lilacs, almonds, peaches,
white-thorn, and laburnum, for it was an early season — were all
blossoming together : the air of the young spring was heavy
with perfume : a blackbird was singing in the garden : all round
him were the delicate leaves of spring, the young foliage, yellow
rather than green : a broad horse-chestnut over the stables was
showing on its branches the great sticky cone, oozing all over
with gum, out of which would shortly spring blossom and leaf :
the dark cedars of Lebanon showed black beyond it. At his
feet were all the spring flowers that he remembered of old — the
London-pride, the pale primrose, the wall-flower, the violet, the
auricula, the polyanthus, the narcissus, and the jonquil.

The memory of those accusing eyes of the portrait followed
Stephen into the garden : the lawns and flower-beds, the lilacs
and laburnums, awakened unexpected associations.

' I have not seen the old garden,' he murmured, ' for twenty
years. It is not changed at all. My mother might be on the
lawn now, as she was one morning — just such a morning— thirty

years ago and more, when I was a boy '

As he spoke, Alison, coming from the vinery, crossed the lawn
on her way to the house. She paused for a moment, and stand-
ing on the springy turf, not seeing her uncle, she looked round
her and breathed the soft sigh of contentment which the early
summer air pours into the heart of maidenhood. She had tied
a handkerchief round her head. Her black eyes were full of
softness, heavy with the sweet influences of the hour : her lips
were parted : her head drooped a little, like a flower too happy
in the sun ; her figure, svelte et gracieuse, seemed soft and
yielding, a very figure of Yenus — how different from the wrath-
ful eyes, the angry voice, the set lips, of yesterday !
Stephen dropped his cigar.

' My God !' he said, ' I thought it was my mother ! How
like her she is !'

He dropped into thought, standing where he was, gazing
through the shrubs upon the vacant lawn, peopled again in
imagination by just such a woman as Alison, only older, by a
child of five or six, himself, and a tall, raw schoolboy, his brother.
' Anthony !' he murmured, with something like a choke in his
throat. He saw again in his imagination the little boy running
backwards and forwards, shouting, laughing, dancing, while the
elder boy played for him and with him, and the lady with her
black mantilla watched them both with soft and loving eyes.

Stephen's own eyes softened as he recalled the pretty scene,
BO old, so long gone by, himself the only survivor.

Now, to what length this softening process might have gone,

124 THE SEAMY SIDE.

had it not been interrupted, I do not know. One can onlj
speculate. It was, in point of fact, stopped, ruined, and hope-
lessly destroyed, all in a moment, and in the very bud and
opening. For just then a stable-boy — this was on the way to
the stables — who was engaged in polishing harness, became
suddenly possessed by the devil. I think, indeed, that he was
the devil himself. He laughed aloud, a strident, mocking laugh,
which seemed to Stephen as if his one newly-conceived germ of
■ — call it a tendency to a readiness to accept the softening
influence of repentance, were the object of the stable-boy's
derision.

Stephen's temper was arbitrary ; his own personal submission
to that temper was abject. He stepped hastily into the stable-
yard, and cursed that young assistant, who, to outward view,
was as meek as Moses, till he trembled and shook in his
shoes.

Then Stephen entered the stables themselves, and began to
examine them. The profitable vision of the lawn bad already
faded from his mind. When the wicked man turneth away
from his wickedness, even in imagination, and for a few brief
moments only, he does not like to be laughed at. He would rather
relapse. Stephen relapsed. He remembered too that he was
there to show himself as the master. He therefore cursed the
groom a second time.

' Two fat coach-horses, and two riding-horses, and a pony,'
said Stephen, standing at the door of the stable, while the
groom trembled outside, ' and four lazy scoundrels to wait on
them ! You, groom fellow, take a month's notice. Tell the
coachman to take a month's notice. Tell the other men to
take a month's notice. I am going to sell off all the horses.
Do you hear ? And this coach, and the pony-carriage. A
hansom cab is good enough for me. Such mad expenditure,'
he added, ' would swamp the income of a Rothschild !'

The groom made no reply, resolving to lay the whole case
immediately before the young lady. Miss Hamblin's riding-
horse, Master Nicolas's pony, and all to be sold off ! And the
coachman, grown old in the Hamblin service, to be dismissed !
And himself to take a month's notice, who hoped to remain, like
the coachman, among the Hamblins all his life ! ' Why,'
thought the boy, watching Stephen's receding figure, ' who's
Mr. Stephen, to come and order people out of the house ?' But
he was alarmed.

Stephen passed through the shrubs, and came into the garden
itself. Alison was sitti ag at the window of her own room,
called the breakfast-room, and saw her uncle. Instantly tho
day became cold to her, and the sunshine paled. She pulled
down the blind, but tho sight of him brought back the horror

HOW STEPHEN LEFT THE HOUSE. 125

of the day before, and her brief joy in the season of spring was
destroyed.

The garden, both broad and long, had a great lawn, set with
flower-beds, immediately behind the house. At the back of the
lawn was a goodly show of glass, with vineries, conservatories,
hot-houses, every kind of luxurious garden-house. And at the
back of the glass-houses lay the kitchen-garden.

Most of the glass-houses were new to Stephen. He began
to reckon up the expense of keeping them up, and resolved on
one more economy. It is curious to observe how jealous the
prodigal son has always shown himself over the reckless ex-
travagance of his brother.

' Who are you ?' he asked a man without a coat, who was
pottering among some plants, set out to enjoy the morning
sun. The man was tall and spare ; he had red hair ; his cheek-
bones were high. They called him Andrew, and he never boasted
any other name.

' Who are you ?' he repeated, because the man only looked
at him, and replied not. In fact, Andrew did not know Stephen
by sight, and was just slowly beginning to make out that the
stranger bore a resemblance to Miss Hamblin. ' Who are you,
and what are you doing here ?'

' I'm head gardener,' replied Andrew, with dignity, ' and
that's what I'm doing.'

' Head gardener ? Why, how many of you are there ?'

' Three !' said Andrew. ' Myself, a man and a boy.'

' Three !' Stephen echoed. ' And four lazy devils for the
stables. What a household ! What reckless profusion !'

Andrew looked stolidly at him.

' I suppose ' — Stephen addressed the chief of this watchful
band of three — ' I suppose you think that this extravagance
will be allowed to continue ?'

' It's accordin' to the young leddy,' said Andrew. ' You and
me, we've just got to do what she says.'

' You and I ? : cried Stephen. ' What the devil do you mean ?'

' Dinna swere,' said Andrew. ' What I mean is that the
young leddy is the maister since poor Mr. Hamblin got drouned.
If ye don't like this extravagance, go and tell her, and leave
me and my wark.'

' I tell you what,' cried Stephen, in a rage, and again obedient
to that hard task-master — his temper ; ' I'll soon show you who's
master here. Go and put on your coat ; you shall have a month's
wages instead of notice.'

' Eh ? eh ?' said Andrew, no way disconcerted. ' I reckon I'll
just wait till the young leddie tells me go.'

' You scoundrel !' cried Stephen, raising his stick, ' I'll break
every bone in your insolent body.'

126 THE SEAMY SIDE.

Andrew quietly allowed the spud in his hand to assume a hori.
zontal position, so that it became at once a spear levelled at vital
parts.

' Aweel,' he said, with a smile of resolution, ' if there's ony
breaking of bones, there's always the spud.'

Stephen turned away. Hitherto, he had not gained much by
assuming the air of the master.

He returned sulkily to the study, where he sat down, angry,
ashamed, and unquiet, to examine and turn over for the tenth
time those diaries of Anthony's life.

The day was not destined to be a propitious one for him. He
had not been more than half an hour at his work, when he be-
came aware of a most intolerable and exasperating noise.

Unfortunately, it was Wednesday.

Any misfortunes which might happen in that household on
that day were always, from a rude instinctive recognition of the
principles of cause and effect, associated with the fact that it
was young Nick's half -holiday.

He was wont on Wednesdays to return home a little before
one o'clock, with idle hands and a mind free from care, and
therefore ready for the reception of temptation ; in fact, anxious
to be tempted.

Let us do the boy justice. On this occasion he thought that
Stephen had left the house, after the awful row, for good, and
was not coming back any more. Otherwise he would have pro-
ceeded with more discretion. Thus, he would not certainly have
whistled so loudly as he ran up the steps which led from the
garden entrance into the hall ; nor would he, on arriving in the
hall, have followed up the rich and creamy notes of his whistling
— he always chose those airs which most madden and drive wild
the adult hearer — by singing the same melody at the top of a
voice which was not by nature musically soft, and was strident
in the upper notes.

Had he known, too, that the great coat hanging in the hall
belonged to his uncle Stephen, and not to the family doctor,
who, he presumed, was at the moment in conversation with his
mother, he would have hesitated before drawing from his pocket
a small case containing needles and thread and sewing up the
lining of the sleeves. This, however, he did, lightly, but with
judgment, about six inches above the cuff, so that the arm on
reaching the obstacle would have acquired a certain amount of
momentum. Nicolas had not yet studied Dynamics, but ho
knew that the greater the force with which a human arm
meets such an impediment in the sleeve, the greater is the shock
to the system. Young Nick, therefore, executing his task with
the sweet smile of anticipated delight, which he proposed to
enjoy from ambush, sewed up the sleeves very low down.

HOW STEPHEN LEFT THE HOUSE. n-j

This done, still in ignorance of his uncle's presence, he begaa
to whistle again, and bethought him of a certain double-shuffla
■which he had seen at the Christmas pantomime, and had prac-
tised without success ever since. The noise caused by a double-
shuffle on canvas is in itself far from soothing to the nerves.
After the dance he proceeded to try a new figure in gymnastics,
which also necessitated a good deal of inharmonious sound. H6
had just inverted himself, and was balancing on his two hands,
trying to acquire complete control over his feet, when the door
of the study opened, and Stephen came out. He had been
goaded almost to madness by the stamping, dancing, and
whistling combined. He had borne it for a quarter of an hour.
"When it became intolerable he rushed out. The boy, thinking
it was one of the footmen, began at once to spar at him with
his feet.

' You little devil !' roared Stephen, enraged at this last insult.
' Get up at once, and I'll break your neck for you.'

Young Nick sprang to his feet, and was instantly collared by
the angry Stephen and dragged into the study. He realised in a
moment the danger of the situation : he was hurried thither
because there was the choice collection of canes to which ho
had himself only the day before introduced Gilbert Yorke.
' How swift,' observes the poet of Olney, ' is a glance of the
mind !' In a moment the boy remembered every cane in the
rack, and wondered whether he should be operated upon by
Penang Lawyer, by Malacca cane, by Singapore Persuader, or
by Chinese Tickler. For the moment he gave himself up for
lost. Yesterday's defiance would also be reckoned in. A caning,
grim and great, was imminent. It was, however, only for a
moment that young Nick abandoned hope. Stephen dragged
him across the room, making swiftly for the sticks. There was
not an instant to be wasted in reflection. Suddenly Stephen
found the boy's legs curled round and mixed up with his own.
He staggered, let go the collar of his prisoner's jacket, and fell
heavily, tripped up by the craft and subtlety of the artful
youth. The next moment there was a mighty crash, as the
heavy tablecloth, with all its books, inkstands, papers, cigar-
cases, and heterogeneous litter which piled it, was dragged down
upon him. When, after a few moments of struggle, he disen-
gaged himself and stood upright among the debris, the boy
was gone. What was worse, he had locked the door. Young
Nick had escaped. It would have been a flying in the face of
Providence had he not seized the happy chance and turned the
key upon his enemy.

This done, the fugitive sat down upon the floor of the canvas,
drumming his heels with delight and waiting the course of
events. He had not long %;j wait. The next moment he

1-8 THE HE A MY SIDE.

heard the scuffling of his victim as he freed himself from the
table-cloth, the angry turning of the door-handle, the discovery
that the door was locked, and the ringing of the bell. Upon
this, young Nick sprang to his feet, and rushed to the stair-
head. He met the footman leisurely mounting the stairs to
answer it.

' You need not disturb yourself, Charles,' he said softly ; ' go
on with your dinner. I know what my uncle wants.'

Charles descended. Young Nick watched him till he had
returned to the kitchen, and then, sliding noiselessly down the
banister, mounted a chair and unshipped the study bell.

' Now he can ring as long as he likes,' said the boy.

After this, he composed his features and went upstairs to his
mother, who was sitting sadly with Alison, both of them far
too dejected to have noticed the small disturbance which had
just taken place. Here he took a book and sat reading sweetly,
in silent calculation as to the time during which his uncle would
remain a prisoner.

Presently there was heard a noise as of one kicking or ham-
mering against a door, with a roaring like unto that of an angry
wild beast. The two ladies did not for some time notice this
disturbance. Young Nick, who did, put up the book before
his face to hide the unbidden smile of satisfaction. It was
Uncle Stephen kicking at the study-door, and swearing at the
top of his voice.

' Dear me !' cried Mrs. Cridland, at length, 'what can be the
mat tor ? Who can be making this terrible noise ?'

' I*; may be the gardener,' said Nicolas, sweetly ; ' I will go
and see.'

It was time that he went, because the footmen, who had now
finished their dinner, were becoming aware of something singular
going on overhead, and in two minutes Stephen might have
been free, and upon him with a cane in his hand. Now, in the
open, in the garden, young Nick felt himself a match for any
man, armed or not. He therefore retreated to the top of the
stairs which led to the garden, there to await events.

At this moment a carriage drove up. Charles, the footman,
arriving in the hall, alarmed by the kicking at the study-door,
and the awful explosion of wrath which threatened vengeance
on the whole house, opened the hall-door first. The visitors
were the two partners of the firm, Augustus Hamblin and
William the Silent, with Mr. Billiter, the family solicitor.
Young Nick, at the top of the stairs, in readiness for flight,
observed the arrival of this group with considerable curiosity.
Something important was in the wind. He connected it with
the row of the day before.

Kick — kick. ' Oper. this door !' roared Stephen, adding a

HOW STEPHEN LEFT THE HOUSE. i2g

volley of oaths strong enough to throw into shudders the im-
mortal gods who heard them. ' Open this door !'

' Really,' said Augustus, ' this is very scandalous language in
a house where there are ladies. What is the meaning of it ?'

The footman tried the handle of the door. It was locked,
but the key was in it. He caught sight of young Nick as ho
turned the key, and at once divined the whole history. lie,
too, had the presence of mind, as Stephen emerged, raging,
cursing, and swearing, to retreat behind the portly form of Mr.
Augustus Hamblin.

For a moment Stephen, who was blind and speechless with
wrath, did not see who were grouped before him, as he stood
and stamped, hurling incoherent oaths at all the world. Young
Nick had dropped down to the lowest step of the stairs, which
just left his eyes half-an-inch above the level of the hall floor.
Thus, from a comparatively safe spot, he enjoyed a complete:
view of the proceedings, which interested him profoundly.

'What does this mean?' asked Augustus. 'Is the man
mad ?'

' What do j r ou want here ?' returned Stephen, foaming at the
mouth. ' This is my house.'

' Not at all,' said Augustus. ' It is not your house until the
Court awards it to you. It is Alison's house. We arc here to
protect her, and to see that you leave the place immediately.'

' Leave the place ? Leave my own house ?' cried Stephen.

' Certainly. It is presumably Alison's until you have suc-
ceeded in acquiring a legal title to it. You must go away, and
that at once. We shall remain here until you do.'

Stephen hesitated. It was a strange thing that a man so
versed in all the ways of the world should have jumped to the
conclusion that all he had to do Avas to step at once into his
brother's place, and stay there.

'Understand, pray,' said Mr. Billiter, 'you have no more
power to occupy this house than you have to receive your
brother's rents and dividends. After the announcement you
made to us all yesterday, we have come to the conclusion that
it is no longer becoming or decent that you should be allowed
to remain here, under the same roof as Miss Hamblin.'

' And if I choose to remain ?'

Black Hamblin looked dark jms midnight. Mr. Billiter
laughed, and rubbed his hands.

' Really,' he said, ' one hardly likes to contemplate such an
emergency. You see, nothing is yours until you prove your
case. Meantime, everything is presumably ours. It makes one
think of physical force. N<> doubt— but it is absurd — no doubt
the footman, gardener, and grooms could, between them, be
able to effect an— ha ! ha !— an ejectment.'

9

130 J HO. HO. AMY SlUt..

' I go,' said Stephen, ' but under protest. I go from here to
my own lawyers. If I am advised that I am entitled to live
here, I shall return.'

Young Nick slowly mounted the stairs. A delicious surprise
awaited him. The coat which he had mistaken for the doctor's
belonged to Stephen. Here was a joyful chance !

Stephen, with a face as full of dignified remonstrance as
could be compassed on so short a notice, and after half-an-hour
of such unrestrained wrath, took down his coat, and began, in a
slow and stagelike way, to put it on. The actic-n in itself is
capable of being filled with ' business ' and effect, as my readers
have often observed upon the stage.

' You will all of you,' said Stephen, taking the coat by the
collar, and adjusting it with the right hand, so as to bring the
left sleeve into position, ' you will all of you regret the tone
which you have been pleased to adopt towards me.' Then he
thrust his hand into the sleeve half-way, and brought the coat
round with a swing to the right. ' I claim, as any man would,
his bare rights. Let justice be done.' Here he thrust his right
arm into the corresponding sleeve. ' I am met with unworthy
and undeserved accusations.' Then he hitched the coat higher
up, and perceived, but without alarm for the moment, that there
was some obstacle in both the sleeves.

The faces of his three opponents watched him with grave
and solemn looks.

It was the grandest spectacle which this world offers— that
of baffled villainy. The virtuous, rejoicing in their virtue, were
for the moment triumphant. Nothing better can ever be in-
vented in fiction than this situation of real life. And to think
that it was completely fooled away by such a paltry trick as
sewing up a coat-sleeve.

Having delivered himself, Stephen wished only to retreat
with dignity. There was only one drawback. He could not
get his arms through the sleeves. The unrelenting three gazed
upon him with cold and severe eyes, while he scowled as fiercely
as any villain in stage-story. But there comes a time when
severity must relax and scowling becomes oppressive. The
more Stephen plunged at his coat-sleeves, the more they re-
sisted.

' Damn the coat !' he cried, losing his patience.

Charles, the footman, came to his assistance.

He it was, instructed by experience, who discovered the
truth.
_ ' I think it's Master Nicolas, sir,' he said ; ' he"s sewed you up
sir. If you have a penknife— '

The two partners smiled : the lawyer smiled : severitj
vanished Stephen swore ; the partners laughed aloud j th(

HO IV STEPHEN LEFT THE HOUSE. 131

dignity of the revengeful bravo disappeared. It was with a
very poor flourish that he finally put on his hat and left the
house.

' You will understand, Charles,' said Augustus, ' that under
no circumstances is Mr. Stephen allowed to enter this house
again, until you hear from us or from Mr. Billiter.'

He led the way into Alison's room.

' You had my letter, Cousin Augustus — you have heard the
dreadful news ?' asked the girl, who was standing at the window,
wondering what all the talk and noise in the hall meant.

' I have heard, my dear. We are here, your cousins, to pro-
tect you. Your uncle Stephen has left the house, and will not
return to it.'

' Oh ! tell me you do not believe it — what he says !'

' We certainly do not,' said Augustus. ' We do not know
what case he has, if any ; but we hold his position to be im-
possible. We believe in your late father, my dear : we are con-
fident that we shall establish your claims to be what he always
led us to believe you, his legal daughter and his heiress.'

Pie kissed her on the forehead, a rare distinction with a man
so grave as Augustus Hamblin.

' I concur,' said Y* Jliam the Silent, and kissed her too.

' And as for me,' said Mr. Billiter, taking her hand, ' you see
in me, my dear young lady, your most faithful and obedient
servant. Never doubt that we shall succeed.'

' And am I and my boy to be turned out ?' asked poor Mrs.
Cridland.

( Certainly not, Flora,' replied Augustus. ' We want you to
continue your kind services to '• — he made a profound bow — ' to
my late cousin's heiress, Anthony's daughter, Alison Hamblin.'

CHAPTER XVL

HOW A YOUNG MAN MAY PROSPER.

Mention has been made of one Jack Baker, capitalist, successf nl
merchant, and private friend of Stephen Hamblin, envied and
admired by the coterie of the Birch-Tree Tavern. In the
capacity of Stephen's adviser and confidant, he has something to
do with this story, which is an excuse for relating the history of
his rise and greatness. Another excuse is that it is a most
instructive history. Marmontel was nowhere more moral. It
is so moral that it has half a dozen morals. And as I have ever
held it a great mistake to put the moral at the end instead of

9-2

132 THE SEAMY SIDE.

the beginning, I append all six morals in this place so that my
readers may see how beautifully this Jack, who killed the
monstrous giant of poverty and servitude, may be moralised to
suit the special difficulties of these latter days.

The first moral is that everything is possible to him who
dares.

The second, that the world at large, and especially the genial
and confiding manager of your bank, is ready to meet you half
way in taking you at your own estimate .

The third, that in this world you only have to help yourself.
Piles of money are lying about ; the man who makes his own
pile is invariably succeeded by a fool who asks for nothing but
a certain originality of audacity in the adventurer who deprives
him of his share.

The fourth, that the proverb ex niliilo nihil fit only applies to
natural philosophy, the properties of matter, and so forth. It
has nothing whatever to do with credit. The man who wants
most gets most. It is the bold pauper who becomes rich, if he
begins early. Further proof of this axiom may be sought in
the chronicles of the City.

The fifth, that smartness still lingers among the English, and
still commands success.

There is a sixth which we reserve for the sequel. It is left
for the readers of the Higher Thought, as Paul Rondelet says,
to find out for themselves.

Jack Baker was at this time about two-and-thirty years of
age, a good dozen years younger than Stephen Hamblin. His
father began and ended as an employe in a great City house.
He was a model clerk ; he possessed all the clerical virtues ; he
was respectful, punctual, obedient, honest, trustworthy ; as he
was never called upon to take any serious responsibility, he was
never troubled with ideas : yet his talk was entirely about
money, and he admired financial coups much as a stage-carpenter
admires a play, being perfectly ignorant how they were designed
and carried through. He brought up his only son — most City
clerks have at least a dozen sons — to regard the City as the only
arena profitable for English youth. The professions, the army,
the navy, the colonies, had no attraction for young Jack Baker :
he was ' to go into the City,' for that he was specially set apart
in infancy ; he had no sympathy for deeds of daring adventure
and heroism : his heart never warmed for self-sacrifice or
patriotism : as a child he turned aside from St. George and the
Dragon, and loved to hear of Dick Whittington. When he
grew older, his favourite reading was of men who have made
their fortunes in the City from small beginnings. And when
he was old enough to understand things better, he recognised
Uie fact that the lord mayor wan a poor creature, stripped of

HOW A YOUNG MAN MAY PROSPER. 133

his civic robes of office, compared with such a man as Mr.
Anthony Hamblin, whose house on Clapham Common he saw
every half -holiday when he played upon that hospitable heath.

When Jack was fifteen, and was a tolerable proficient in arith-
metic, commercial English, and clerkly handwriting, he fulfilled
the purposes of his birth and existence by entering as a junior
clerk, the house of Sandal, Wood and Company, silk-merchants.

For twelve years he remained a clerk in this establishment.
His life during this period resembled that of most other City
clerks, except that he indulged in no wild courses : did not bet,
did not drink, did not scatter and lavish his little income, did
not fall into debt, did not acquire a bad reputation ; on the con-
trary his reputation steadily grew in the house and out of it : he
became known for a shrewd, trustworthy young fellow who could
manage a thing without making himself a fool over it: and he was
unlike many of his fellows in this respect, that he did not marry
when his salary reached the magnificent sum of a hundred and
fifty pounds a year. As regards his manner of living, it was
necessarily simple, yet he managed to secure as much enjoyment
as could well be got out of so limited an income. He did not
waste his money in joining any young men's improvement
society, nor his time in following any line of study, and he
cared nothing at all for lectures, scientific, literary, political, or
musical. His tastes lay in quite a contrary direction. He knew
many barmaids, haunted many billiard-rooms, was frequently
seen at music-halls, and smoked a meerschaum pipe all the even-
ing. This was the kind of life he liked after office-hours. It
did him no harm, because in these places he was on his natural
level, higher than which he never cared to rise ; and because,
being a young man of no imagination, strong common-sense,
and rather a cold temperament, he never exceeded and never
committed any of those follies which cling to a man's reputation,
are not easily shaken off, and sometimes drag him down in the
long-run. Topsy at the Green Dragon, or Polly at Quelch's;, or
Lotty at the Princely, sometimes thought, no doubt, that Jack
Baker was so carried away by admiration as to be ready to make
a serious offer. But the young lady was greatly mistaken, for
Jack was not such a fool. At the same time the society of
Topsy, Polly, or Lotty, always, of course, with the bar between
them, was pleasant to this young man of the City, and supplied
the place of ladies' society. For with ladies Jack was not at
his ease.

Moreover he nourished ambitions, which was another reason
why he should not commit the usual clerkly error of an early
marriage.

His father was old : there was a good sum put by : with that
sum he would perhaps be able to start for himself, if only in

134 THE SEAMY SIDE.

a small way. Meantime he was rising in the firm ; he knew the
country customers ; he knew the travellers and the commission
agents ; he was known to the merchants of Shanghai and their
clerks ; he knew men who could introduce business, and he had
the sense to hold his tongue and keep his own counsel.

When Jack was twenty-seven or so, his father died, leaving
him the sole heir of his little savings. These he found, ail
charges deducted, to amount to the sum of £3,142 6s. 10d.,
which he placed, at first, on deposit-account in the London,
Southwark, and Stepney Joint Stock Bank. He then resigned
his post in Sandal, Wood and Company, and taking a small
office in a court leading out of Eastcheap, started for himself
as a silk-merchant. He passed a very active first year : he ran
about asking for orders like an advertising tout : he hunted up
the country customers whom he had met at Sandal and Woods:
he remembered that an old schoolfellow was a clerk in Shanghai
and wrote to him : he lived with the greatest frugality : and
though he did very little business, he was cheerful, relied on
promises, and hoped for better times.

After a year, he made up his books and found that he had
lost a little by the first twelve months. This was discouraging.

In those days he used to go to the Birch-Tree Tavern for
early dinner, and there made acquaintance with Alderney Codd
and his friends. He greatly admired their ingenuity, and
puzzled himself to discover why it was that with so much talent
there was not a decent hat among them all, nor a shirt- collar
whose edges were not frayed.

They were undoubtedly clever, these ingenious contrivers of
schemes and companies. He used to sit silent among them
listening. Nothing, however, was ever let fall by any of them
which could be of practical benefit to himself in the silk trade.
Unluckily, no one of the whole set had ever turned his attention
to silk.

One afternoon, however, the man who looked like a sailor pro-
pounded sententiously the following proposition. He said :

' Whoever wishes, in this world, to succeed wants only one
thing.' He looked round to see if any were rash enough to dis-
agree with him. ' If it is to be President of a South American
Republic, which is open to any man with cheek enough to bowl
over the man in the chair and sit in it himself, or to become a
great merchant, or to be thought a great financier, it's the same
thing that is wanted, and that is — pluck'

Jack received this theory without criticising it, and went back
to his office.

Among his papers was a three months' acceptance that morn-
ing received from a country draper. He took this to the bank
and asked to have it discounted.

HOW A YOUNG MAN MA Y PROSPER. T35

' You may leave it,' said the manager, dubiously. ' I will
tell you to-morrow. But it can't be done under 4+.'
The bank-rate was 3^.

Jack had still on deposit most of his £3,000. He concluded,
therefore, to let the bill wait.

When he got home he found an answer to his letter to the
old friend at Shanghai. Friend had gone into business as a
broker on his own account. He wrote facetiously, regretting
that Jack was not in a position to back him ; if so, what a game
they could have on, they two together ; he at Shanghai and Jack
in London ! That silk was going up for a certainty, and now
was the time — and so on.

Jack read the letter, put it clown with a sigh, and spent his
usual evening with Lotty and Polly and Topsy, who served
him with his moderate potations, and exchanged with him those
epigrams, those quaint and original conceits, those madrigals in
prose, those quips and merry jests which constitute the charm
and poetry of barmaid conversation. Then he went home and
retired to bed and to sleep. It was not unusual with him to
go to sleep, but in this case it led to important results.

At two o'clock he sat up with a start, and looked about the
room half -frightened. He had been awakened by a dream. He
dreamed that the man who looked like a sailor had come all
the way from the Birch-Tree Tavern to his bedside in order
to repeat to him, with warning finger, ' Whether you want to
be President of Bolivia, or a great and successful merchant,
all you want is— pluck I'

He rubbed his eyes and stared in the darkness. He could
see nothing but the dim outlines of furniture. The man who
looked like a sailor was not there. No one was there ; but the
voice of his dreaming still rang in Jack's ear. He slept no
more. At six he rose, feverish and dazzled. He had bec«a
' alone with his thought ' for four hours ; it was too much for
him. He was not an imaginative young man, and yet perhaps
for that very reason, because he had so seldom contemplated
anything beyond the present, the prospect dazzled him.

At half-past ten, with cheeks a little white, but with assured
and confident bearing, Jack walked boldly through the outer
office of the bank into the manager's room. Yesterday he had
so to speak, sneaked in with his country draper's little bill at
three months.

' I want,' he began, in a clear, ringing voice, very different
from the grovelling hesitation of a man who presents a doubtful
little bill for discount, ' I want a credit of £20,000. I am ship-
ping silk at Shanghai.'

'Sit down, Mr. Baker,' said the manager, blandly. 'Yes—
you are shipping silk. Yes — our terms are 8 per cent.'

136 THE SEAMY SIDE.

That was all. In one moment, without hesitation or ques.
tions, the business was as good as concluded. Jack walked out
of the bank with reddened cheek and brightened eye. He
wanted to get into his own office, and sit down to realise that
his fortune was made or marred by this bold venture.

The nature of the transaction was simple. Jack did not
borrow £20,000 at 8 per cent. Not at all : no money was
exchanged ; he borrowed credit at that rate : he bought and
shipped to England silk to the amount of £20,000 in his own
name ; if silk went up there would be a profit, if silk went
down there would be a loss ; if the former, he would pay the
bank £1,600 and pocket the rest ; if the latter, he would pay
the differences and the £1,600 out of his own capital of £3,000.
It will be seen that the margin for safety in case of a fall was
small.

There was no loss : Jack's correspondent was right : there
was a large profit, for silk went up.

Jack was prudent : he let the profit remain in the bank :
continued to live frugally ; but next time he asked for a credit
of £30,000, which was also granted him.

That operation was again successful.

Another and yet another succeeded. Jack's name became
favourably known. Jack's capital was trebled. His ventures
were larger.

He took larger offices and engaged more clerks. He had
made already a good business of the speculative kind, which
report magnified into a great business of the safe kind.

He next gave up the modest lodgings in Bloomsbury which
had hitherto contented him, took chambers in the West End,
joined a new proprietary club (where he made the acquaintance
of Stephen Hamblin), took to playing whist there, and of course,
because his temperament was cool and his memory good, and
he never forgot a card, always won ; bought a horse and rode
in the Park ; remembered that he had a second name, and wrote
on his card : Mr. J. Bunter Baker. In other matters he lived
exactly as he had always clone, without the least desire for tho
society of ladies, conversing with Polly, Lotty, and Topsy afore-
said, and raising golden visions in the minds of those young
persons ; and even continuing on affable terms with his old
associates, still mostly clerks, and envious beyond measure of a
success which their want of pluck made impossible for them.
At his West-End chambers he gave little dinners, to which he
invited his new friends, Stephen Hamblin, the manager of the
London, Southwark and Stepney Bank, arid others. Tho wino
he gave them was choice ; after dinner, it was not unusual to
have a little lansquenet, baccarat, loo, or perhaps an Ocartu

HOW A YOUNG MAN MA V PROSPER. 137

2>ool. But Jack Baker was too wary to lose his head over
cards, and generally came out of the melee a winner.

To these dinners, it is needless to add, Mr. J. Bunter Baker
did not invite his former friends. It was enough that he should
stand them drinks at the bar : it was, indeed, all they asked.
Tears rose to the eyes of those honest fellows when they thought
of the magnificence to which one of their number had soared.
Like Baker pere, deceased, they were satisfied to contemplate
success from afar, without dreaming that it might be their own
case. But then they never had that vision of the night— they
never heard that voice which said : ' Whether you wish to be
President of a South American Bepublic or a successful mer-
chant, one thing only is wanted — pluck.'

It is, indeed, one of the most remarkable circumstances
attendant on success, that while all the world envies the suc-
cessful man, not one in a hundred considers how he himself
might win that same success by following parallel lines.

As for the Birch-Tree Tavern, Jack Baker, as we have seen,
did not forsake that festive place. Luncheon was to be had
there as well as anywhere else, and perhaps a wrinkle might be
picked up among those inventors of schemes and contrivers of
companies. And it was not unpleasant for a man of Jack
Baker's coarse fibre to be received with deference : a respect
due to the man who has made money was paid him in full
measure, and even ostentatiously ; the newest schemes were
explained, the latest ideas were aired, for his benefit ; the house,
so to speak, played up to the capitalist ; Jack Baker who had
made his own fortune, was ready to make that of everybody
else. When will men understand, that he who wants to make
his fortune must do it by himself ?

Stephen Hamblin did not commit the error common among
vulgar practitioners of his- school. He did not, that is, confide
his case to the hands of a pettifogging solicitor. He took it to
a firm of the utmost respectability, told the whole exact truth,
and only asked that the affair should be pushed on as rapidly
as possible. This done, he felt easier. The fight would come
off ; the sooner the better. Let it come. About the issue he
felt generally, though there were times of doubt, pretty con-
fident.

He dined at his club with Jack Baker. After dinner, in the
pmoking-room, he talked darkly about what was going to
happen. Presently he opened up the matter more fully.

'■ What I mean,' he said, ' what I meant yesterday, is that I
am myself the claimant to the whole of my late brother's pro-
perty.'

138 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Phew !' Jack Baker whistled. ' The whue ? Why it is—
how much — a quarter of a million ?'

' More,' said Stephen. ' We have now found out that he
never married. It is, of course, hard upon the girl.'

' Oh, hang the girl !' Jack replied, with his ready laugh.
' Number one conies first. And, of course, if it isn't her own
she can't have it. When do you come into possession ?'

' That I do not know. My lawyers will ask for letters of
administration. The other side may possibly ask for time, in
order to prove the marriage, or they may choose not to fight.
I cannot tell.'

' Oh— h !' Jack's face fell. ' They may choose to fight.
And suppose they win ?'

Stephen lay back in his chair, crossed his legs, and laughed
gently.

' My dear boy, how can they win, when I hold in my hands
proof — not documentary proof, which would satisfy a court of
law, but moral proof — that my brother never was married at
all?'

' Have you ? Then that's all right, and I congratulate you
with all my heart.'

They shook hands.

' You have not done so badly yourself, Jack.'

' Well, no,' he replied, stroking his chin. ' Not so very bad,
considering my opportunities. But a quarter of a million !
Mon Dew ! as the French say. Who can compare with that ?
What I complain of, however, is having anything to do at all.
Why weren't we all born rich ? Why don't we live in the good
old days when they had slaves, and all they had to do was to
enjoy life ?'

' Perhaps,' Stephen suggested gloomily, ' we might have been
born slaves ourselves.'

' That,' Jack acknowledged, ' would haye been the very
devil.'

' Now, Jack,' said Stephen, leaning forwards, and speaking
seriously, ' I have told you of my prospects. Let me tell you
something more. This is, of course, perfectly confidential.'

The club smoking-room was quite empty at their end of it.

' Go on, old man.'

' Anthony's death came at an awkward time for me. He and
I were in a good big thing together, though his name was not
mentioned, and it's come to grief. My money is locked up here
and there. I have lost a devil of a lot lately ; and, iii fact, I
want to raise money until I get possession.'

' Security ?'

1 First of all, the estate itself. If that won't do, any amount
of bonds and scrip.'

HOW A YOUNG MAN MAY PROSPER. 139

It is almost needless to say that Anthony had never specu-
lated with Stephen in his life, and equally needless to say that
the only ' scrip ' in Stephen's possession consisted of ' pictures,'
chiefly from Honduras, certain South American Republics, and
sundry bogus American Railways, got up by pirates on both
sides of the Atlantic.

'I would rather not go to my banker's,' Stephen went on.
' Can you help me to a private lender — anybody — a friend of
your own would do ?'

Jack nodded, and went on quietly sucking his cigar in silence
for a few minutes. Then he made up his mind, and spoke.

' I don't suppose,' he said, ' that a sensible man like yourself,
and a man of the world like yourself, would go in for a claim
which you weren't pretty sure of carrying through. Nothing
short of certainty would justify you in breaking with your
family, supposing, as you say, they consider the thing as an act
of hostility. I believe, on your own showing, that you are
bound to win. And I don't mind risking something. Still, it is
a risk. You will have to pay for the risk.'

' Certainly.'

' I will lend you a thousand, Hamblin,' he went on slowly,
' on condition of your paying me back two thousand on the day
that you get your brother's estate.'

Stephen laughed.

' Only cent, per cent.,' he said. ' Never mind. I don't want
any one to know how my affairs have been dipped of late. I
accept, Jack. You can make it a couple of hundred in cash, and
eight hundred in a three months' bill. My dear boy,' he added
with feeling, ' when I do come into my brother's money, we will
have such a caper, you and I together, with a friend or two, as
you shall remember all your life. Hang it ! One must be five-
and-forty to enjoy things properly.'

CHAPTER XVII.

HOW THE BATTLE WAS BEGUN.

Alderney Codd, the news of Stephen's claim having reached
him, fell into a doubt and quandary the like of which he had
never before experienced, because he saw that he must take a
side. For quiet people, trimmers, friends of both camps, un-
decided thinkers, uncertain reasoners, and philosophers who
change their views with the wind, it is most grievous to have to
take a side. Suppose, for instance, they were to disestablish the

140 THE SEAMY SIDE.

Church : suppose there was to be a civil war between republicans
and royalists : suppose your paternal uncle, from whom you
had expectations, held one view firmly, while your maternal
aunt, from whom also you had expectations, took the other side
forcibly, what then, reader, would your own feelings be ? Such,
however, was Alderney Codd's position. On the one hand, his
long and early friendship with Stephen ; the memory of a thou-
sand youthful freaks and extravagances ; the habit acquired in
youth, and still maintained, of regarding Stephen as an adviser,
and, in a sense, his superior ; the familiarity of his associations
with him — these were on one side : on the other were his respect
and his loyalty to the Hamblin name, gratitude to the memory
of Anthony, duty to his daughter, and the belief that Stephen's
position was a wrong one.

He was torn with conflicting emotions. If he considered the
thing from a practical point of view, it was difficult to discern
which was the safe side to take. For if Stephen gained the
day, and he should be found in the enemy's camp, what then ?
Or if Alison should be victorious, and he were a partisan of
Stephen, with what face could he greet her again ?

He was finally determined by perfectly disinterested con-
siderations. The sight of Anthony's coat hanging before his
eyes determined him.

He lost no time in acting upon his resolution. First, he
repaired to Clapham, where he sought an interview with Alison
and tendered his allegiance ; this once offered and accepted, he
felt easier and more comfortable in his mind, and sought Stephen
at his chambers.

Poor Alderney ! He had been so many times to those fami-
liar chambers ; he had spent so many evenings in them ; he had
smoked so many pipes, cigars, and cigarettes ; he had imbibed
in them so prodigious a quantity of intoxicating drinks ; he had
been always welcome there. And now he was about to say that
he could never come there any more. Stephen, he knew, was
not, from a high moral point of view, a good man. Quite the
contrary. But then Stephen was always a friend of Alderney 's,
and one forgives a great deal in those whose friendship has
lasted for thirty years or so. Perhaps, too, his own standard
of morality was not of the highest. And Stephen was one of
the Hamblins, to know whom was to gain a certain distinction
at the Birch-Tree. Now, all that fabric of friendship, pride,
and distinction was to be rudely shattered.

' Come in, Alderney,' cried Stephen in his most cheery voice ;
' come in, man. I haven't seen you for a month, have I i Come
in.'

Alderney turned very red.

' The fact is, Stephen,' ho stammered, ' J have come — have

HOW THE BATTLE WAS BEGUN. 14.1

come — in fact, to tell you that I have heard of your claim, and
that I — in fact — I entirely disapprove of it.'
; Do yon, Alderney, and why ?'

' Because Alison is Anthony's daughter ; because out of grati-
tude- '

Stephen's face clouded over.

1 Come, Alderney ; don't be sentimental, and don't be Quixotic.
No one would be such a fool as to let go a quarter of a million
of money — his own, too.'

' But it is not your own : it is Alison's.'

' I say that it is my own. I say that Alison's mother was
never married.'

' You cannot prove it.'

' It is for her, on the other hand, to prove the contrary. If
there was a marriage it can be proved with the greatest cas,c.
But there was none.'

For an instant Alderney wavered.
Stephen saw his look of irresolution.

' I suppose,' he said, ' that you feel you ought to support
Anthony's daughter. Well, the feeling does you credit. Sup-
port her, by all means. But not to the extent of injustice,
Alderney. Don't you see that the estate, since there was no
marriage, is all mine ? Can you blame me for merely taking
what is mine ?'

' Yes,' said Alderney, plucking up his spirits ; ' I blame you
for bringing scandal upon the- family ; what need to rake up the
past ? Even supposing your allegation to be true, which I do
not believe, Avhat good does it do to let all the world know it ?
Why, I hear they offered you five hundred a year for life, solely
for taking charge of Alison for one year. I'd have done that
job, Stephen, for a quarter of the money. Five hundred pounds
a year !'

' A splendid sum, isn't it ?' Stephen sneered. ' A fair equiva-
lent for ten thousand a year. Don't be an ass, Alderney.
Scandal on the family, too ; because one of them is proved
never to have married. Rubbish !'

' Then I will say more, Stephen. I think that respect for
Anthony's memory, if not consideration for his child, ought to
have prevailed upon you to prevent this misery from falling
upon her.'
Alderney folded his arms firmly as he took his stand.
Stephen, as usual, lost his temper.

' Very well,' he said ; ' I've heard what you cairie to say, and
now, if you have nothing more to say, you may go. Of course
yo*3 understand, Alderney, that any little assistance which I
could have offered as the head of the Hamblin family will be
withheld if you choose to ally yourself with my enemies.'

t 4 2 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' I understand,' Alderney replied sadly, thinking of his poor
hundred pounds a year, and wondering how that little income
was to be supplemented for the future. ' Good-bye, Stephen ;
shake hands before I go, old man. I am more sorry than I can
tell you to be obliged to take this line. But Anthony and his
daughter must come first. You will change your mind yet, and
withdraw your claim.'

' I will do nothing of the kind.'

' Then, Stephen, I hope to God that you will be defeated.
That would be better for you than to win, and to feel all the
rest of your life that you were eating the bread of Anthony's
orphan.'

Stephen made an impatient gesture.

' Come, shake hands,'. Alderney repeated, holding out his own.

' No,' said Stephen, turning his back upon him ; ' I only shake
hands with my friends.'

Alderney Codd withdrew. His lifelong friendship with
Stephen was at an end. More than that, he reflected with
bitterness that Stephen held in his hands the whole scheme for
the formation of the Great Glass Spoon Company, by which he
had hoped to make another coup. Well, it could not be helped.
No doubt Stephen would float that company and do well
with it.

For reasons which will presently appaar, Stephen did not
float the company.

Alderney next went into the City, and called at the office in
Great St. Simon Apostle. He could not have arrived at a more
lucky moment, for a great family council, called together in
haste, was just meeting to consider the best course to pursue.
The Dean was there, the Colonel was there, the two partners,
the family lawyer, and Gilbert Yorke. Alderney sent in his
name, and was invited to join the Hamblin parliament.

The proceedings were opened by Augustus, in the private
office of Anthony Hamblin, deceased, in a little speech.

' You all know,' he said, ' that our cousin Anthony left no
will : you all know that he maintained a profound silence on
the subject of his marriage. We have now to tell you, Dean, and
you, Colonel, that Stephen Hamblin, asserting that there was
never any marriage at all, is about to claim the whole estate.
We have asked you together in order to confer on the best
manner of meeting that claim. Mr. Billiter is so good as to give
us the benefit of his legal opinion. Mr. Gilbert Yorke has as
good a right to be present as any of us, for he is engaged to
Alison '

' Pardon me,' said Gilbert, reddening to the roots of his hair.
' Alison will not hear of any engagement, she says, until she can
meet the world without haviag to blush for her mother '

HOW THE BATTLE WAS BEGUN. 143

'That does her credit,' said Augustus, and the Dean ap-
plauded. ' Very well, cousins, we think that an effort may be
made to establish the fact of this marriage ; and of that fact, I
am sure, no one here can entertain the least doubt.'
No one did.

' Mr. Yorke has very kindly offered,' he went on, ' to give up
his whole time for the search, which may possibly be long and

tedious. He abandons his practice at the Bar '

' Pardon me again,' said Gilbert, ' my practice is nothing. I
have no practice. All I give up is the waiting all day long in
chambers for briefs which never come.'

' Well,' said Mr. Billiter, with a twinkle in his ferret-like
eyes, ' well, there's a very pretty fortune depending upon the
success of that search. Don't fire up, young man : lovers never
do think of fortunes. "We all know that ; and Miss Hamblm is
a most beautiful and well-conditioned young lady ; and we give
you credit for entirely disinterested feelings.'

' Allowme,too,' saidAlderney, 'to offermyownhumbleservices.
In the present depressed state of the City, my usual financial
work has almost stopped. I have not engineered a new company
for a twelvemonth.' Everybody smiled ; Alderney's companies
were well known. ' I am comparatively free, and shall be glad to
give whatever services I can to the cause of my benefactor's
daughter. I never knew her mother ; but we may say, 1 am
sure, in the words of the poet, " Matre pulchrd, filia pnlchrior." '
Alderney had touched the right cord. Anthony Hamblin,
the worthy Head of the House, had been, in one way or the
other, a benefactor to everybody in the room. The Dean thought
of days before the Deanery came to him, when his boys would
certainly not have gone to Marlborough but for Anthony ; the
Colonel thought how his two boys, in the Engineers and
Artillery, would certainly never have got to Woolwich had it
not been for Anthony ; the two partners thought of number-
less acts of kindness in the old days when a"ll were young
together ; even the old lawyer owed something to this universal
benefactor, this dispenser of kindliness, this secret doer of good
deeds. A hush fell upon them for a moment. Then the Dean
cleared his throat, which had gone suddenly a little husky

' We must accept your offer with gratitude, Cousin Alderaey.
Yes — yes— our benefactor's daughter must not look in vain to
her cousins for help.'

' I concur,' said William the Silent.

' I have just come from seeing my cousin Stephen,' Alderne^
went on. ' I thought it right, before breaking off the friend .
ship which has always existed between us, to go and make some
sort of appeal to his better nature. I know,' he added, with a
blush, ' that our friendship has been marked by many a youth-

144 THE SEAMY SIDE.

ful folly, which one may repent of, but which one — one — in
fact — always looks back to with some degree of pleasure.' The
Dean looked professionally grave. ' I told him then, that I
would have neither part nor lot with him in this matter.'

'Very good,' said Augustus, approvingly.

' When I considered,' Alderney went on, ' that I actually had
on at that moment the very coat which Anthony lent me, I
could have no other feeling but indignation and astonishment.
And, in addition to the coat,' — he drew out a leather pocket-
book full of papers — ' I had with me, come back to me after
many days, an actual I.O.U. of my own, given by me to Anthony
twenty years ago— twenty — years — ago ' — he repeated this with
great pathos — ' for five-and-twenty pounds.' He handed it to
Augustus with pride. ' Stephen found it among the papers
It is not often that one's good deeds return in such a manner.
Gentlemen, I give you my word that at this moment I only
regret that the document represents so small a sum. I wish it
had been for ten times the amount. However, at the time I
did my best.'

There was a beautiful confusion between self-interest and
the finest kind of generosity which moved all present.

' Very good,' said Augustus. ' Now let us consider the posi-
tion from a common-sense point of view. Here is Mr. Billitor
to correct us if we are led astray by an over-natural prejudice
in favour of poor Anthony. We have this fact against us :
there is not anywhere the slightest mention of marriage or love
affair in Anthony's letters or diaries. Yet the latter are kept
with the greatest care, and in the most minute detail.'

' As there must have been at least love-passages of some
kind,' said the Colonel, ' does not that prove intentional omis-

sion

9>

' I think it may. We need not. therefore, be discouraged at
the outset by this omission. As the Colonel says, there must
have been love-passages, probably letters. These are all pro-
bably destroyed ; concealment was intentional.'

' Men in my profession,' said Mr. Billiter, ' are not likely to
believe blindly in anybody. It is the seamy side which we
generally have placed before us. At the same time, I knew
Anthony Hamblin from his childhood upwards. I seem, like
yourselves, to have known him most intimately — say from hour
to hour. And if I were going to choose a man in whose virtue
and honour I would believe, that man would be Anthony
Hamblin.'

' I concur,' said William the Silent, for the second time.

'Having said so much,' Mr. Billiter went on, ' I come to the
next point. Arc we. ready to carry this investigation through-
out 'i Are we prepared for whatever may turu up ? Of course

HOW THE BATTLE WAS BEGUN. 14s

something will. It is impossible that a child should be born, a
mother die, a man marry, without leaving some trace or other,
which we shall be able to light upon after careful investigation !
Are you prepared, young man ' — he fixed his bright eyes upon
Gilbert, who bore the shock without flinching — ' to face all con-
sequences ?'

'I am !' Gilbert replied. ' The truth cannot be so bad for
Alison to bear as the present uncertainty, when every chance
allusion, every thought, any accident, puts the doubt before her,
and makes a fresh demand upon her faith in her father. Let
us, in Heaven's name, learn the truth.'

' Good !' said the Dean.

' Very well, then,' observed Mr. Billiter, dryly, ' we are all
agreed, we think, that Anthony Hamblin will come well out of
it ; we hope he will. If he does not, we are prepared to sur-
render the high opinion we had formed of his virtue, and accept
the consequences. You, gentlemen,' he turned to the partners,
' you are more deeply concerned than even Alison herself ?'

' We are,' said Augustus. ' But the House would stand even
such a shock as that which you contemplate.' He meant if
Stephen should withdraw his money.

' Then we return to the question,' said Mr. Billiter : ' What
are we to do ?'

Nobody spoke for a time. Then Alderney lifted up his
Voice :

' Advertise !' he said. ' Go on advertising !'

Augustus groaned.

' We advertised everywhere when Anthony was drowned.
One would like to avoid the agony column of the Times if we
could.'

' There is no possible avoidance of publicity,' said Mr. Billiter.
' The Court of Probate will be asked for letters. We shall
have to oppose. We shall have to state why we oppose. The
Court does not sit with closed doors. There will be a great
deal of talk about it before we have done, I fear. Of course, it
is disagreeable to quiet people to be talked of in every news-
paper in the kingdom.'

Alderney was already at work with paper and pencil.

' It is nothing less than horrible,' said Augustus, ' that our
name— the name of Anthony Hamblin — should be mixed up
in such a vulgar difficulty as an uncertain marriage.'

He spoke as if the fierce sunlight of fame should shine upon
every action of a Hamblin and make it known to the people.

' Nothing in the world like an advertisement,' said Alderney,
working away. ' You spend a guinea in the Times, and another
guinea in the Guardian. All the parish clerks in all the parishes
in the country are immediately set to work in hope of getting

10

146 THE SEAMY SIDE.

the reward. You ought to stimulate them by offering a higl
reward. Now, then, will this do ?

' " Two Hundred Pounds Reward !" That is not toe
much, is it ? No ! " Two Hundred Pounds Reward. — Wanted
the Certificate of Marriage of Anthony Hamblin, merchant, o:
Great St. Simon Apostle, City of London, and Clapharr
Common, with some person unknown. It is believed that i\n
marriage took place in or near London, about twenty to twenty
three years ago. The above reward will be paid on receiving
a certified copy of the register." That sounds well,' saic
Alderney. ' Two hundred pounds will make them work. Bir
that is not enough. We must have another advertisement tc
find out Alison's mother. Here it is :

' " Two Hundred Pounds Reward. — Whereas Anthonj
Hamblin, deceased, formerly merchant, Great St. Simor
Apostle, City of London and Clapham Common, is believed
to have contracted marriage some twenty to twenty-two 01
three years ago, with a person unknown ; the above reward is
offered to anyone who will give such information as will leac
to the discovery of the person and the place and date of mar-
riage ; and any persons who are cognisant of the marriage, whe
are connected with the wife of Anthony Hamblin, or who losl
any female relation by flight, elopement, abduction or disappear-
ance about that time, are requested to communicate full par-
ticulars to the undersigned.'

Here followed the name and address of the solicitors.

' There,' said Alderney, with great satisfaction, ' that will
fetch the house — I mean, wake up the church.'

' Very clearly put,' said Mr. Billiter. 'It is a pity that you
were not made a lawyer, Mr. Codd.'

Alderney smiled. This was the sort of tribute to his intellect
that he enjoyed.

' Thank you, Mr. Billiter. But — quid Romas faciam ? Yet,
if ripe scholarship and an intimate acquaintance with Latin
literature could be of any use in that profession — but I fear it
is too late.'

' There was a Mrs. Duncombe,' said Gilbert, 'who took charge
of Alison for six or eight years, should we not get hold of her?'

' Good,' cried the intelligent Alderney, grasping more paper :
' the very thing. Mrs. Duncombe by all means. Another adver-
tisement. Two hundred — no, hang it ! — Five pounds reward will
do for her. Mrs. Duncombe will be easy enough to find. There
is no mystery about her, at any rate. " Five Pounds Reward,
— Wanted, the present address of Mrs. Duncombe, who for
eight years had charge of a little girl at Brighton — initials.
A. H." And now I look upon our case as complete — quitu
complete.'

HOW THE BATTLE IV AS BEGUN. 147

Alderney looked about him as if the work was already done.

' We will advertise, then,' said Augustus. ' Is there no other
wav of working ? Can we not use some private inquiry office ?'

They all had the old-fashioned respect for detectives, think-
ing they could solve any mystery. But Alderney shook his
head. His faith was not so great.

' They can do nothing more than other men,' he said. ' Gil-
bert Yorke and I will be your best detectives. They get up
the facts of a case just as we have done, and then advertise.
That is just exactly what we are doing. And then they sit
down and wait for replies — anyone can do that.'

' And now,' said Gilbert, ' for our own individual work. If
Mr. Billiter will allow me, I will receive all the answers to the
advertisements and report progress whenever any discovery
takes place.'

' And I,' said Alderney, ' will begin at once a private search in
all the London parish registers. When I have gone through
those, I will tackle the suburban churches. After that — but
that is as far as we shall get.'

' All this, Alderney,' said Augustus, ' will require money. You
must not give us your time for nothing — at least, you must let
us pay your expenses.'

Poor Alderney blushed. He really had no employment for
his time at the moment, for no one, up to the present, had shown
any desire to join in the promotion of the Great Glass Spoon
Company. And there were five weeks to Quarter Day, and, to
meet all expenses for those five-and-thirty days, there was no
more than the sum of five-and-thirty shillings, with a silver
watch, a gold chain, a gold medal once won at college for a theo-
logical essay, and two rings. These articles of jewellery spent
the latter part of every Quarter-day in charge of an obliging
person who received them in trust, so to speak. Sometimes
they remained ' in ' for a good six months, during which interval
Alderney only knew the time by looking in bakers' shops, or the
stations of the Underground Railway ; by the pangs of hunger,
and by the diurnal phenomena of nature.

Had it not been such an unfavourable time for him, he
would rather have done the work for nothing. But poor men
cannot do generous and self-sacrificing things. He could not
refuse the proffered money. And when Augustus, at parting,
pressed into his hand a piece of paper which, as a rapid glanco
showed Alderney, was worth exactly fifty pounds, he was
affected almost to tears.

' Your resemblance, Cousin Augustus,' he said, ' to our poor
Cousin Anthony deceased, becomes every day more marked.
t'i sic orarw /'

10—2

148 THE SEAMY SIDE.

CHAPTER XVIIL

nOW THE COURT WAS HARD TO PERSUADE.

The tendency of humanity in this its fallen state to believe
everything that is evil of each other has been often illustrated
by the ingenious tribe of poets and novelists. The Hamblin
cousinhood may, in all future ages, be cited as another and very
remarkable case in point. The thing had only to be asserted in
order to be immediately believed ; and yet it was in direct con-
tradiction to everything the world had previously held and
acknowledged. Stephen said it was so. Stephen had always
been the black sheep : Anthony had always been the respected
chief of the House ; yet Anthony's character was swept away
by one single assertion of Stephen's. Enjoyment of the kind
which is caused by surprise was also felt in the situation.
Here was a striking example of the uncertainty of fortune :
here was a turning of the wheel : here was a sudden sprawling
in the mud of those who had been perched in apparent security
on the highest point. No such reverse of fortune had ever be-
fallen the Hamblin family except, perhaps, in the case of that
member of it who, being on a voyage of adventure in the
Indian Ocean, had his ship scuttled, and was himself made to
walk a most uncomfortable and suicidal plank laid down for
him by pirates of Sumatra. It was something, the cousins felt,
but did not express the feeling in words, something for the
annals of the family, in the interests of morality and philo-
sophy, to show such a beautiful example of the instability of
human greatness as that of Alison Hamblin. The case of
Croesus himself, although he saved himself at the last moment
by an artful conundrum, could not have furnished his cousins,
nephews, nieces, and marriage-connections with a more fertile
topic of daily talk than the situation of Alison, the once fortu-
nate, the beautiful Alison, provided for the family circle.

The female cousins pretended not to believe the story, out of
deference to the partners, who were stout in their repudiation
of Stephen's claim. But they did believe it at heart, and they
whispered to each other words of doubt, pity, and suspicion,
which served as an encouragement in belief. And the more
they opened their eyes, raised their eyebrows, made round O's
of their mouths, shook their heads, wagged their curls, lifted
their shoulders, spread out their hands, and whispered words,
the more they came to regard the story as not only probable,
but certainly true.

THE COURT HARD TO PERSUADE. 149

No one liked Stephen. It was a fashion in the family tc
regard him as their least enviable possession. For his sake, and
by means of his example, all Spaniards were supposed by the
Hamblins to be profligate ; how else to account for his extra-
ordinary divergence from the recognised standards ? All other
Hamblins had done well : there were Hamblins in the Church,
Hamblins in the Army and Navy, Hamblins at the Bar, Ham-
blins in Medicine — it was a part of the family tradition that a
Hamblin should turn out well. And here was one who had
never done any good at all. No Hamblin could contemplate
without emotion the picture of Stephen the prodigal, Stephen
the spendthrift, Stephen who was actually not satisfied with one
fatted calf, but went on working his unrepentant way through
a dozen of those toothsome creatures.

It was, however, instructive to mark the difference which the
new position of things produced. One may not love the Heir
Presumptive, but one must pray for the King. It became a
subject of serious, even prayerful, consideration with the
cousins whether they ought not to call upon Stephen, so long
neglected. One or two did actually leave cards at his chambers
in Pall Mall. Stephen found them and threw them behind the
fire. He was completely indifferent to the action of his rela-
tions. They had long since passed out of his thoughts ; they did
not enter into any part or relation of his life. If he thought of
them at all, it was as forming part of the family which had
treated him with neglect, and whom in return he would humble
if he could.

He lost no time, however, after the final interviews and
explanations with the partners, in putting his case into the
hands of a firm of solicitors, who were known to be able and
active men.

' I want,' he said, after putting the points as clearly as pos-
sible, ' I want the business pushed on with all despatch. You
understand I claim the whole of my brother's estate as his sole
heir.'

' Yes. the case, as you present it, has weak points, Mr. Ham-
blin.'

' You mean that my brother may have married. Best assured,
that he never did. Let them search every register in England.
I know that he never married. I am as certain as that I am
standing here.'

' But — the young lady — she must have had a mother.'

' Account for her mother as you will. My brother never
married.'

Nothing short of the clearest documentary proof could shake
Stephen's belief on this point. So far, he was perfectly and
entirely sincere.

ISO THE SEAMY SIDE.

' There is another point. The Court, when we ask for Letters
of Administration, may refuse to consider your brother's death
as proved. Let us, however, make out the Affidavit.'

They went before the nearest commissioner, when Stephen
took the necessary oath, and filled up the form.
' In the goods of Anthony Hamblin deceased,
' I, Stephen Hamblin, of Sandringham Chambers, Pall Mall,
Oentleman, applying for Letters of Administration of the per-
sonal estate and effects of Anthony Hamblin, late of Great
!?t. Simon Apostle, City of London, and Hooghly House,
( lapham Common, deceased, do hereby make oath that the
s.iid deceased was drowned on the 3rd day of January, one

thousand eight hundred and , in the River Serpentine,

Hyde Park, and that the personal estate and effects of the said
deceased, which he anyway died possessed of, or entitled to, and
for or in respect of which Letters of Administration are to be
granted, exclusive of what the said deceased may have been
possessed of or entitled to as a Trustee for any other person or
persons, and not beneficially including the leasehold estate or
estates for 'years of the said deceased, whether absolute or
determinable on a life or lives, and without deducting anything
oq account of the debts due and owing from the said deceased,
are under the value of three hundred thousand pounds to the
best of my knowledge, information, and belief.'

To which was appended the signatures of claimant and
witnesses.

' This application,' said the lawyer, ' must be lodged on
Thursday. Fortunately we are in time, and on Tuesday week
we shall make our motion in Court. You will give us as many
particulars as possible, Mr. Hamblin. We must make our case
a strong one at the outset.'

It was then Tuesday. There was, therefore, a fortnight to
tvait. Stephen, tolerably ignorant of the English law, thought
>e had only to ask for the Letters of Administration, and then
to step at once into possession. At the worst, he fancied the
Court might possibly grant a short delay of two or three months,
while the other side looked about for proofs of tli6 marriage.
He waited impatiently for a fortnight to pass.

The day came at last. He found himself in the Court.
Counsel for the complainant, in opening the case, said that,
as had been stated in the affidavit, the deceased, Anthony
Hamblin, had met with his death at the late deplorable accident
on the 3rd of January last, when, by the breaking of the ice,
fifty persons had been suddenly drowned. The case presented
the peculiarity that the body was never, and had not up to the
present moment been recovered. The Court might, therefore,
be of opinion that the death was not proved. But the family,

THE COURT HARD TO PERSUADE. 151

In the hope that he had not been drowned, had taken every
possible step, offering very large rewards, and advertising in the
most likely manner to attract the attention of people. Mr. Ham-
blin was a man of strongly-marked individuality, easily recog-
nisable ; it was impossible that he should be still living unknown
and unrecognised. He left his home on the morning of the 3rd
of January : he told his servants that he should be home to
dinner as usual : be was seen on the banks of the Serpentine
half an hour or so before the occurrence of the accident : he
was carrying his skates with him : he spoke to an officer of the
Koyal Humane Society, of which institution he was a liberal
supporter : he announced his intention of going on the ice : he
took off his heavy coat, and gave it to the man to keep for him :
and he went away in the direction of a man who let chairs and
adjusted skates for hire. Half an hour after his conversation
with this officer the ice gave way, and two hundred people were
suddenly submerged, A great many were drowned, and a great
many bodies were subsequently recovered, but Mr. Anthony
Hamblin's body, as already stated, was not found. In the
evening the man carried the coat to his private residence, but he
had not come home. There was no ground for any other sup-
position than that of death. He was a man universally respected
and loved, a man of great wealth, a most successful merchant,
a man of very steady and regular habits, no longer young ; a
man of happy disposition, with no enemies, no anxieties, no
mental troubles ; a man wbo enjoyed life, a man possessed of
strong physique, free from ailments or sickness of any kind.

Stephen Hamblin, his client, the only brother of the deceased,
on hearing the sad news, at once took up the position of guardian
to his brother's child. With regard to this child, there had
always been a mystery about her. Anthony Hamblin, until ten
years before, was believed by all to be a bachelor. He suddenly,
however, at that time, appeared at home with a little girl aged
nine years, whom he introduced simply as his daughter. He
explained that her mother had been dead for many years, and
offered no other explanation on the subject. Nor was any
other asked : and if his cousins had misgivings, these were
easily appeased by consideration of the blameless life always
led by the deceased.

On his death, however, the discovery that there was no will
led to an attempt on the part of Stephen Hamblin to clear up
the mystery connected with Miss Hamblin's birth. This in-
vestigation, commenced at first in the interests of the young
lady, and after consultation with her, led Mr. Stephen Hamblin
to surprising results. He found from the diaries and journals
of the deceased, which, coupled with his own recollections of
his brother's life, accounted fully for almost every hour of the

1 52 THE SEAMY SIDE.

past thirty years, that there could have been no marriage at all
In that case, Stephen Hamblin was sole heir, and Miss Hamblin
had no legal claim to any portion of the estate.

When these facts were fully established in his own mind, and
not before, Stephen Hamblin sought his late brother's partners,
and communicated them in a friendly spirit. He was not re-
ceived, however, with the spirit that he expected. However,
whether the petition was to be opposed or not, his client, in
asking for Letters of Administration, desired it to be clearly
understood that his intention, after acquiring the property to
which he was entitled, was to recognise his brother's child, and
to provide for her with liberality.

The counsel went on to describe the property in general
terms. The real property consisted of a large house and grounds,
known as Hooghly House, standing on Clapham Common, and
a house standing in a small park in Sussex. There was also a
considerable estate in house property, partly in the City of
London, where the Hamblins had been merchants for two hun-
dred years, and partly in the southern suburbs. Mr. Anthony
Hamblin also, as chief partner in the firm, had a very large
stake in the business. The personal property amounted to
about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds in various stocks,
securities, and investments. In addition, there was a valuable
library, a collection of pictures, with furniture, objects of art,
bric-a-brac, and so forth, the results of several generations of
wealth. The whole would probably be sworn under three hun-
dred thousand pounds.

The counsel for the petitioner then summed up his case. The
proofs, which he held sufficient to the mind of any unprejudiced
person, that there never had been any marriage, were found in
the very careful and minute diaries kept by Anthony Hamblin,
in which every detail of expense, occupation, employment and
engagement was scrupulously entered. These not only con-
tained no mention of any marriage, but left no room for any
marriage. Although his death had been announced in every
paper, and, by reason of the accident which caused it, had ob-
tained the widest publicity, no one had as yet stepped forward
to claim relationship with the young lady on her mother's side.
The great Family Bible, in which were entries of the births
and deaths of six generations of Hamblins, which formed, in
fact, a complete genealogical table of the family, contained no
entry of the marriage of Anthony or the birth of his daughter
Alison. This omission was very extraordinary.

There were a few witnesses to call. The first was the man
Harris, whose evidence was simple and straightforward. He
believed Mr. Hamblin was drowned with the rest. He could
not see how anyone could think otherwise. The body had

THE COURT HARD TO PERSUADE. 153

never been found. It might have been among the rest, but he
did not think that likely. There were two or three bodies un-
identified, but their clothes had been kept.

Then the footman, Charles, deposed that his master had told
him in the morning, before he went out, that he should be at
home as usual.

Augustus Hamblin testified to the regular habits and freedom
from care of his late cousin. He, too, expressed his conviction
that Anthony Hamblin had been drowned.

The Court did not want to hear any more evidence on the
subject. The Court would pass on to consider the nature of
the claim set up by Mr. Stephen Hamblin.

Then the counsel for the other side was able to begin.

He said that up to a certain point he was prepared to acknow-
ledge all the statements made by his learned brother. There
was no will to be found ; most likely none had been executed.
There was no mention anywhere of a marriage. There was not
any entry of his own marriage or the birth of his daughter in
the Family Bible. All this was quite true. As regarded the
disinterested action of Mr. Stephen Hamblin, in seeking to
prove himself the heir to so large a property, he was only de-
sirous to state that Mr. Stephen Hamblin had proved his liberal
intentions by offering this young lady, brought up to regard
herself as the heiress of a very large fortune, a hundred pounds
a year. But as regards the silence, he would submit that the
question was altogether begged by his learned brother. There
was one point quite undisputed by all : Miss Hamblin was the
undoubted daughter of Anthony Hamblin. Not only did she
possess certain strongly marked peculiarities common to all
the Hamblins, but she was most curiously and remarkably like
her grandmother, Mr. Hamblin's mother, who had been a
Spanish lady. Very well, then. Here was a daughter, acknow-
ledged as such by all ; here was an intentional and marked
omission of all mention of the child's mother in diaries and
family records. What were they to infer '? Two things were
possible. The one view which his learned brother had adopted,
and one which, he would submit to the Court, was the more
probable because the more honourable. It was this : The late
Mr. Anthony Hamblin had been from boyhood of singular
purity of life. Few men could look back upon a course so
blameless, so free from reproach, as his. It was a life open to
the eyes of all. There was nothing to conceal, nothing to be
ashamed of. Above all, there could be no skeleton in the cup-
board. His friends believed, one and all, implicitly in the purity
and nobility of the life which had been so suddenly and fearfully
taken from their midst. They believed that Anthony Hamblin
was married. They were confident that if investigation were

i «4 THE SEAMY SIDE.

made, proofs would be found. They put forward the daughter,
Alison Hamblin, as the heiress, and they asked that time should
be allowed to enable them to make the research.

The Judge said that this was a case in which he was not
called upon to grant time for the purpose asked : viz., to prove
the marriage. It did appear remarkable, and in some men it
would be suspicious, that no mention had been made at all of
the yoang lady's mother. On the other hand, the supposed
deceased gentleman had evidently borne the highest character.
Why, then, had he thought proper to leave unexplained the
circumstance of his daughter's birth ? Meantime, however, he
was not satisfied with the proof of the death of Anthony Ham-
blin. He should require further proof.

Stephen's counsel asked how long a period would satisfy his
lordship.

The Court replied that he could not tie himself down to any
time ; there had been cases in which men had been missed for
years and had returned ; cases in which men had gone to sea,
run away from debts or imagined annoyance, taken assumed
names. There were many possible reasons for hiding. Xo
man's life was wholly known : no man's sanity could be alto-
gether relied on. He would adjourn the case ; the parties could
come before him at any time should they get additional or con-
clusive evidence. If no more was found, he would hear them
again in a twelvemonth, or perhaps two years. The estate
could be in the meantime administered by Mr. Anthony Hani-
blin's solicitors, the houses and gardens kept up as before, and
a sufficient sum allotted for the young lady. And he would
advise that the most diligent search should be made by both
sides, if they could act in concert, for the discovery of the
name and connections of the missing mother.

CHAPTER XIX.

HOW ALISON TOOK IT.

To gain time is generally the next best thing to gaining tlio
victory. Alison had gained time. Gilbert threw himself into
a hansom, and carried the good news faster than any that was
ever brought into Ghent, to the house on Clapham Common.

' So far,' ho said, ' wo have been successful. Unless anything
new turns up, Letters of Administration will not bo granted for
a year at least. During that time, we shall have made out our
own case. Courage, AHsod V

HOV/ ALISON TOOK IT. 155

This was one of Alison's bad days. She had lost the old
confident bearing, the insolence which sits so well on happy
youth : she -was dejected ; the ready smile was gone ; her lips
were set and her eyes were hard. She was of those who have
a quarrel with fate. It is not unusual : sooi^r or later we all
mistrust the unaccountable rulings of destiny, but it is sad when
the quarrel begins so early in life.

' Thank you, Gilbert,' she said, when he had delivered him-
self of his message and his prophecy of encouragement. ' Thank
you, Gilbert. Tou are all very kind about me. A year to wait,
you say ? Then I shall be of age, and I shall want no more
guardians. Then I shall go to my uncle— no, I will write to
him, because I can never see him again — and say, " If it is only
the mone}- you want, take it, and leave my father's memory in
peace." I suppose he will do that ; anything is better than
this dragging of his dear name before the courts.'

' The application will be reported in the papers,' said Gilbert.
' A few people who know the name will read it : your own
cousins will read it, no one else.'

Gilbert reckoned without the special London correspondent
who got hold of the story and retailed it, with additions of his
own, for the benefit of the country papers. In fact, all England
was interested in the destination of this vast fortune. "Who
would not be interested in the disposal of more than a quarter
of a million of money ? The mere mention of such a sum
stimulates the imagination. What years of careful thought —
what generations of success — what abilities — what prudence —
what swiftness of vision, clearness of brain, sacrifice of present
pleasure, are represented by so gigantic a pile ! The vastness
of the sum bewilders the poor wretch whose only hope is to be
a little ' before ' the world, so that should that calamity, known
as ' anything,' happen, his widow and the children may be
hedged round by the resource of a few hundreds. So that the
writers of the ' London letter,' most of whom belong to the
order of those who save little and spend little when they would
gladly save much and spend more, seized upon the story and
dressed it up. Happy Stephen ! Unhappy Alison ! Those
who had rich relatives reflected with sorrow that there could
never bo any doubt about their marriage ; those who had none
built castles in the air, and speculated on the chance of unex-
pected legacies. Of all dreams which flesh is heir to, that of
unexpected fortune is, I believe, the commonest. It is so much
more pleasant to dream than to work ; it is so much more de-
lightful to look forward to an old age of comfort and ease, than
to one of hard work and collar to the end. I once knew an old
gentleman, industrious, religious, moral to the highest point, an
excellent father, a model husband, whose whole life proclaimed

156 THE SEAMY SIDE.

to the world his acquiescence with the Church Catechism, and
the state of life to which he was born. After Ins death it was
discovered that for thirty years he had annually purchased a
ticket in the Austrian lottery. He had no rich relations ; he
could not expect an accession of fortune from any source what-
ever, yet he dreamed of wealth and bought his ticket every
year.

' You will not be allowed to throw away your fortune,
Alison,' Gilbert went on. ' You owe it to yourself, to your
father, to fight the battle out. But courage ! Long before a
year we shall have managed to get at the truth. Why, do you
think that marriages are not registered, and that registers are
not kept ? If Stephen Hamblin has any reason to wish that
the truth should not be discovered, I have every reason to make
me work at its recovery. My dear,' — he took her unresisting
band — ' every hope of my life is bound up with it. It shall be
found. Consider, Alison, you must have had a mother some-
where. You must have been born somewhere, registered
somewhere, christened somewhere. We know the date of your
birth, that is something.'

' Yes,' said Alison, trying to respond to her lover's eagerness,
' unless Mrs. Duncombe was wrong, I was born twenty years
ago, on the fifth day of June. There are two facts for you. Can
you make anything out of them ?'

' By themselves, very little. But I have thought how to use
them. With the aid of the registers, I can make everything
out of them. Listen, Alison : we shall put our advertisements
in the papers, we invite everybody — clergymen, and parish
clerks, and country doctors — to look for a certain register of birth
on such a day. When I have got that register, it will be time
to consider what next. Perhaps your father married under ail
assumed name. We may, by the help of the register, get hold
of that name. It will lead us to further discoveries. Why,
those two facts, the year and the day, may prove invaluable. I
think we may safely assume that the marriage took place in the
South of England, probably in the neighbourhood of London,
because the diaries show clearly — and Mr. Augustus Hamblin
distinctly recollects, that in the year of your birth, and the two
years before that, your father was never far away from London.
Thus, in the summer of your birth he went to Bournemouth by
himself, and remained there three weeks — very likely on busi-
ness connected with yourself. The year before that he took a
holiday early in the summer with his brother Stephen, and went
fishing. For some weeks he wrote from Newbury. The year
before that, he spent the whole summer with his mother, who
was ill at the time, at Brighton. So you see, as Stephen Ham-
blin very clearly saw, there is no room in the page, so to

HOW ALISON TOOK IT. 157

speak, for Mm to have been married anywhere far away from

London.'

Alison sighed.

' You come to me, Gilbert, and you raise hopes in my mind
which make me for the moment happy. Oh, if I could but
clear my father's name ! It is so dreadful to think that all the
world is jeering and making merry over the accusation brought
by his own brother — my dear father, so good, so kind, so noble !
Why, I should have thought there was not a single creature
of all who knew him in all the world, too low and degraded to
acknowledge his goodness. It made other people good, while he
lived, only to be with him and near him. It made me good, then.'

' You are always good, Alison.'

She shook her head sadly.

' I am always full of regrets, of wicked thoughts, Gilbert. I
used to be good, when you fell in love with me. That was the
reason, I suppose.'

She would have no recognition of an engagement, and yet she
spoke to her lover frankly. There was no doubt, at all events,
in her own mind. Gilbert loved her. If she could, she would
marry him. She trusted and she distrusted with the same en-
tire abandonment. To trust in full, to doubt and distrust in
full, came from her Spanish blood. She was like the SeSora, her
grandmother, in mind as well as in face.

' Do you mean that I fell in love with you because you were
good ?' asked Gilbert, laughing. ' No, it was not. I do not
think that a man asks himself when he falls in love, whether
the girl is very good ; she seems good to her lover ; he believes
in her goodness ; if he did not, he would persuade himself that
he could make her good. I suppose that after marriage hus-
bands like their wives to be good-tempered, at least. Before,
it does not matter so much.'

1 It is wonderful. ' said Alison, ' how men ever fall in love with
girls at all.'

' Do not disparage your sex,' said Gilbert.

' Oh ! we are weak. We can do nothing by ourselves ; we
take our ideas from men ; we look to men for our religion, our
manners, our thoughts. And yet men fall down at a woman's
feet and worship her. As for me, there has been nothing good
in me at all since the day when my uncle told me — what he was
pleased to call the truth. I think there will never any more be
anything good in me at all. I am devoured by evil passions,
and hatreds, and wicked thoughts. I find it difficult, sometimes,'
to believe in my father. Yet, if I cannot believe in him, there'
is nothing. And I think of my uncle with a loathing which
makes me sick.'

' Faith, Alison ! Have faith.'

158 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Ah ! Gilbert, so long as you are here I find it easy to have
faith. I feel strong and hopeful then. Your brave words en-
courage me. When you are gone I begin to doubt again, and if
you are long away I begin to despair.'

' Poor child ! I must come oftener to see you.'

' I do not know whether it is worse to be in the house or to
be out of it. At home my aunt sits and watches me all day
long, asking every half-hour if I feel better ; and it seems as if
I were having an operation performed, and they were watching
curiously to see how I was bearing it. To bo sure, the suspense
is worse than the operation. Even the boy troubles me with
his sympathy, his eagerness to do everything he can think of for
me — he who was formerly so careless and selfish — and his de-
light in assuring me, whenever he can find an opportunity, of
his protection. You see, the very things one used to laugh at
and enjoy are become fresh causes of trouble to me. Poor
Nicolas ! He means so well, too. But that shows how wrong-
kp-aded these things have made me. If I go out, perhaps it is
T.orse, because then I think as I go along that everybody is say-
ing, " There goes Miss Hamblin, as she calls herself, though she
has no real right to bear the name." Or else I hear them whisper
as I pass — this jealousy of mine makes me hear the lowest
whisper — " That is Miss Hamblin, who was once so proud,
and thought herself so rich, and held up her head so high above
all the rest of us. Now she has been found out, and she is
going to be turned into the street, without a penny to call her
own, and not even a name to her back. What a come-down !"
Even in church I am not free, but I think I feel the people's
eyes on me when they ought to be on their books or on the
clergyman in the pulpit. They are saying, " That is Miss
Hamblin ; she was proud enough a year ago ; she is humbled
now, poor girl ! She has no longer got anything to be proud
of." So, everywhere and all day long, I am watched, and
mocked, and scorned.'

Gilbert caught her hand, and kissed the unresisting fingers
a hundred times.

' No, child, no ! There is no scorning of you. The world is
better hearted than you think. There can be nothing but pity
and respect for you.'

' I know, I know,' she replied, with tears in her eyes. ' But if
the evil thoughts are in your own mind you think they are in
other people's, and my mind is full of mockery and scorn.
Everything mocks at me : this garden, the very flowers, the
house, even the furniture. They all have faces, and thev all
laugh and flout at me, because I pretended to be the heiress,
who am nothing at all but a nameless girl. They know me for
an impostor.'

HOW ALISON TOOK IT 159

What could Gilbert say in comfort ? He muttered some
commonplace. You might as well try to persuade a man with a
gaping sword wound that he is not hurt. The girl wandered
restlessly to and fro upon the lawn. It was with her as she told
her lover. She was haunted day and night by two ghosts, who
never left her. One of them was the Shade of her former
happiness, the other was the Shade of her present low estate.
One was the ghost of a maiden, proud, defiant, self-reliant,
looking out upon the future with the confidence of one for
whom Fortune has nothing in store but her choicest gifts. She
was dressed in silks and satins, this young princess ; she rode a
stately horse ; at her feet the young men fell down, with adoring
eyes, and knelt ; as she passed, flowers grew up beside the way ;
only to look at her, she felt as she gazed upon this ghost, warmed
the heart ; the children ran after her, and shouted and laughed ;
the poor came out of their cottages and blessed her. She was
like a benevolent fairy, who is not an old woman at all, but
young and beautiful as the day, and not capricious or uncertain,
but always faithful, loyal, and true. And she was full of the
most tender and precious Christian thoughts, this shadow. It
seemed as if the things against which she prayed, just because
it was her duty as a Christian, and enjoined by the Church — the
evils of hatred, wrath, malice, and so forth — had no more to do
with her than the gross impossibilities of drunkenness and the
like. The contemplation of so much religion, pure and mi-
defiled, in this perfection of a ghost filled Alison's heart with
bitterness.

As for the other Shade, it presented a sad contrast. For this
ghost was that of a mere beggar-girl. She went barefoot, and
was clothed in nothing but old rags and duds, and odds and
ends. She shook her head, and cried, with shame and rage, at
her own misery. Some moaned, and wept, and lamented, be-
cause she had nothing at all of her own. The poorest gipsy girl
had something, but she had nothing. The pitiless, unsym-
pathising children hooted at her as she went ; the poor people
came out of their cottages and jeered her, because she was so
very poor and ragged ; the wayfarers flouted her, because she
was so very lonely and miserable. Every mocking gibe was like
a knife that went straight to her heart. And that was not the
worst of it ; for, this wretched, ragged girl, who was so poor in
worldly goods, was stripped of all religion as well. She was full
of hatred and wrath ; she thought well of none ; she suspected
all ; she was bitter and envious. In her heart there were none
of the sweet blossoms of faith, hope, and charity, which flourish
so well in the congenial soil of the heart of a happy English girl.
Alison looked on this shadow with shuddering and loathing as
she looked on the other with envy and jealousy.

160 THE SEAMY SIDE.

Such as they were, they remained by her side, and never left
her.

' Courage, Alison !' said Gilbert. He had spoken to her half
a dozen times, but she returned no answer, being occupied with
these phantoms. ' Courage, Alison ! Think of brighter things.'

' There are no brighter things,' she cried bitterly. ' There is
nothing but misery and shame. Oh, Gilbert !' breaking into a
passionate gesture, ' why trouble any more about me ? Let me
go away and be forgotten. Let them do what they like with
the money ; if you search any further you may find out some
secret more shameful than any that has been suspected — if that
is possible ; you may find out why my father hid away, and
would tell to no one the story of my birth.'

She broke from him and ran, hiding her face with a gesture
of shame, into the house.

Gilbert remained in the garden. A quarter of an hour later
she returned, the fit of passion over, calm and cold.

' Forgive me,' she said, holding out her hand ; ' I do not often
give way. To-day, the thought of my case being pleaded in
open court, my name being bandied about among all those
people, maddened me. I will try to bear it. But Gilbert, be
wise ; do not waste your precious time upon me. I am content
to let all go, so that there be no further questioning.'

' That is not the faith we want to see in you,' said Gilbert.
' Why, that would be treachery to the very name you want to
see unsullied. Have confidence, dear Alison ! we will carry the
matter through, and we shall not fail to see the name of
Anthony Hamblin pass through the ordeal triumphantly. Only
have faith.'

' I wish I could,' she murmured.

Here they were joined by Alderney Codd. He had come
down by the humbler conveyance — the omnibus. His thin face
was wreathed with smiles.

' You have heard the news, Alison ?' he began. ' Of course
you have — Gilbert has told you. Well, so far, we have every
reason to be satisfied. Time — time : that is what we want.'

' You see, Alison,' said Gilbert, ' we are all agreed. With a
little time we shall, we must succeed.'

' Time to prove things,' Alderney added, ' that is all ; to
prove things which we know already. We know them, I say,
all but the names. God bless my soul ! It is a matter of
faith.'

' Thank you, Cousin Alderney,' said Alison ; ' I am rich in
friends, if in nothing else.'

' Why,' said Alderney, planting himself firmly, ' whenever I
put on that coat which your poor father lent me, and which I
Lave retained out of respect to his memory, I feel a glow of

HOW ALISON TOOK IT. 161

gratitude, more warmiug than a pint of port. Of course I am
ready to work for you. Outside the court ' — he laughed at the
recollection — ' I met Stephen himself, looking his very blackest.
It went to my heart to treat him so — my cousin and my oldest
friend. But I thought of Anthony, and I cut him — dead. Jack
Baker was with him. Ah ! they've got my prospectus of the
Great Glass Spoon Company. After thirty years' friendship,
after so many good times as we have had together, it seemed
hard ; and to lose the Great Glass Spoon Company as well.
But gratitude, Alison, gratitude stood between us. Gratitude
said, " You cannot know any longer the man who is trying to
rob your benefactor's orphan." '

' But,' said Alison, ' can you not even know my uncle Stephen ?
must you break altogether with him ?'

' I must,' said Alderney, gloomily. ' I cannot serve two in-
terests. I cast in my lot, Alison, with yours.'

I think I have omitted to state that Alderney had been
requested by the partners to take the position of guardian, or
vice-guardian. He was, in fact, promoted to that post of dignity,
vice Stephen Hamblin, cashiered, on the strength of which he
gave himself airs of importance in the Birch-Tree Tavern. lie
slept at the house ; in the morning, such was his zeal, he rose
at six, breakfasted early, and set off on his quest among the
London parish registries, both official and ecclesiastical. He
carried a big pocket-book with a pencil in readiness to make
entries, should any bearing on the subject be found. But for
some time nothing at all was discovered in London churches.

He returned to Clapham about half -past six or seven, and
dined with the ladies. He cheered the banquet by anecdotes
of his past experiences, revealed a new world — a series of new
worlds, to Alison, by describing how he had rowed, played
cricket, sung songs at supper, and otherwise distinguished him-
self at Cambridge ; how, with Stephen, he once stayed for six
months in the Quartier Latin of Paris : how he had sojourned,
by himself, among the students of Heidelberg : how he had
lost his little fortune and mortgaged half his little income to
pay oif his creditors, and how he had become a person of great
distinction in the world of finance.

It was all wonderful : the contemplation, at second-hand, of
life under so many new aspects distracted Alison, and turned
her thoughts from her present anxieties. Alderney, too, had a
powerful imagination ; his stories were touched with that light
which is neither of heaven nor of earth, of unreality desirable
and beautiful, which only a man with some touch of genius
knows how to infuse : and he understood how to place himself
aw the central figure in the group.

About one or two things she ^' a uncertain, It was not cleai

11

1 62 THE SEA M V SIDE.

when her cousin could find the time to become the profonnd
scholar which he loved to represent himself ; nor was it quite
apparent to her that the real objects and aims of the Universi-
ties of Cambridge, Heidelberg, and Paris were best arrived at
by such a life as he described as common among the students.
Finally, she could not understand that it was altogether right
to promote the establishment of companies whose only object
seemed to be to enable their founders to sell out when the
shares were high, and then to collapse. But Alclcrney assured
her that she could not comprehend financial morality. It re-
sembled, he said, diplomacy ; everyone knew that if diplomacy
were to be stripped of brag, bounce, lies, and pretence, the
trade of diplomatists would be gone, and we might transact the
affairs of nations by means of guileless girls or conscientious
curates.

As for Nicolas, he utilised the presence of so great a scholar
for his own purposes : he read novels, in fact, while Alderney
Codd wrote his exercises for him.

' Your Latin subjunctive moods,' said the boy, ' are sound ;
but your French past participles are shaky. If you go on living
here till the end of the half, I shall have a shy at the Latin
verse prize. Now then — Exercise forty-three. On the ob-
lique narrative. Here's Balbus again — no getting rid of that
chap anyhow.'

CHAPTER XS.

HOW YOUNG NICK SPENT HIS HALF-HOLIDAY.

On a warm and pleasant morning in May, about a week after
the Hamblin case was heard in Court, the boys of the Clapham
Grammar School came flocking from the class-rooms as the
clock struck twelve. After the nature of boys they ran, jumped,
shouted, and laughed. One among them all neither ran, nor
jumped, nor shouted. He only walked. And he was a boy
with white hair and pink eyes. He dug his hands into his
pockets, wore his hat a little tilted over his forehead, which
conveys the idea of a thoughtful nature, and calmly surveyed
the mob of contemporaries with the eye of a philosopher.

Young Nick, in fact, was not a clubbable boy. He went his
own way. Nobody ever saw him in a cricket-field, nor was he
ever in the ' worry ' of a foot-ball match. If he saw a game of
cricket going on upon Clapham Common, he gave the players
a wide berth ; the Common was broad enough for him and
them. If he saw the foot-ball come bounding over the rough

YOUNG NICK'S HALF-HOLIDAY. 163

surface in his direction, he retired, laterally, so as to avoid the
crowd which came after it. The common gauds which delight
boyhood gave no joy to Nicolas. The silver cups, offered for
competition at athletics, he valued at their weight in silver,
and no more. This was not much, and so he rarely entered
his own name in any trial of skill, strength, or speed. Yet,
after the sports were over, he might have been observed, had
he been watched, going through every one of the events by
himself, one after the other, and making careful comparisons
of his own results with those obtained by the winners. If he
held aloof from his schoolfellows out of hours, in school he was
still more self-contained. Nothing moved him, no spirit of
emulation possessed him ; he never cared to be high in his
form, nor was he depressed if his place was low. He was abso-
lutely unmoved by any of the exhortations, incitements, or
satiric remarks of his masters. He neither took nor pretended
to take the smallest interest in the routine school-work, and ho
valued a prize, as he valued a silver-cup, at exactly the sum it
cost at the bookseller's.

' Greek !' he would say contemptuously. ' What is the use
of Greek in the City ? Who wants Greek in the army ? Greek
is invented for schoolmasters to pretend to be able to read it.
Catch them reading Greek when no one's looking, and for their
own pleasure. Yah ! They can't do it. Latin again. Do the
partners in the great City Houses write Latin verses? Do
they grind out exercises in the subjunctive mood ? Do they
make their clerks say the irregular verbs and the rules of syntax
every morning ? Gammon !'

Euclid was another branch of education for which he enter-
tained the most profound contempt, holding that the City
required no geometry of a young man. But arithmetic, writing,
drawing, French, German, and geography, were subjects which
he plainly saw to have a solid commercial value, and he worked
at them with zeal and vigour ; so much so, indeed, that on more
than one occasion he found himself presented with a prize for
proficiency in these branches.

There were other things, not generally taught in schools, at
which this remarkable youth worked hard, in those hours when
his comrades were running wild about the Common. He had
conceived the very just idea that deportment, manners, ease in
society, and a good tone, were of more use to a young man in
the City than anywhere else. Accordingly, he had begged
Alison to consider him as her pupil, and in these departments
he became voluntarily subject to her as his mistress. He could
be, and frequently was. as we have already seen, as vulgar a
bov as ever walked. Yet the lessona had their effect, and the

11-2

1 64 THE SEAMY SIDE.

boy's slang was only affected, just as other boys' fine manners
are put on for the occasion.

He was a handy boy, too, and practised small arts. He had
a lathe with which he could make all sorts of things ; and he
could carve in wood ; and he could execute fret-work ; and he
could take a watch to pieces, and once nearly succeeded in put-
ting it together again. And he worked steadily at shorthand,
always with a view of becoming more useful in the City. In
short, he intended to present himself, at the age of sixteen or
seventeen, as an accomplished young clerk, ready for any kind
of work — the perfect clerk, whose undoubted destiny is a part-
nership. I believe it was Socrates who first explained how useful
and excellent a thing it is that man should resolve on perfection
in his own line, so that if he be a carpenter he will be the best
possible carpenter, and if a statesman the best possible states-
man, and so forth. It is by such men that success is achieved :
such a carpenter, Socrates pointed out, wins the wreath of car-
pentering, which is made of the shavings.

In addition to these virtues of resolution and industry, young
Nick possessed that of silence ; no one ever suspected him of
serious intentions, except Alison, who watched him, gave him
advice, and to whom he confided in a way his projects and his
scheme for the conduct of life.

This reduction of education to its practical uses was not with-
out effect upon the boys with whom young Nick worked. They
were all boys connected with the City ; they all— except one
every year, who took the annual scholarship and went up to
Oxford or Cambridge, looked to the City as the scene of their
future labours and triumphs : they were all taught at home to
regard ' business ' as the noblest profession, because it brings in
most money : the clever boy who carried off the prizes became
captain of the school, went up to Cambridge and distinguished
himself, was regarded with a sort of pity, because the City
would be closed to him. He might take a good degree : he
might achieve greatness as a preacher or a lawyer or a writer ;
but, poor beggar ! he would never have any money.

So that young Nick's teaching fell upon rich soil, and took
root and flourished. Yet, as always happens, there were none-,
except himself, who advanced beyond the grumbling stage, and
struck out a practical line for himself.

A boy so singular in appearance, so original in his manner of
regarding life and its duties, so self-contained, and with that in-
geniously mischievous leaning to which attention has been
already drawn, was, of course, a noticeable feature in the school.
At prize-giving days it pleased tho boy to overhear other boys
whispering to their sisters, ' That'i young Nick : there ho L>,
with the whits hair.'

YOUNG NICK'S HALF-HOLIDAY. 165

On this particular morning he first looked up into the sky and
observed that the day was bright ; then he felt in his pocket and
found that the eighteenpence which constituted all his wealth
was safe in the corner, in three sixpences. Then he reflected
gravely :

' I did tell the old lady that I might have business at Anthony
Hamblin and Company's. She won't mind if I don't go home for
dinner, and it's only cold roast beef, and eighteenpence will
get me a good deal better dinner than cold roast beef. Then
where am I to get the next eighteenpence % Uncle Anthony,
we all miss you. Eighteenpence — well, I can walk in, and if
the money runs to it, I can get back on a bus.'

For an active boy of thirteen, a walk from Clapham to
London Bridge is not far, and it is full of interest. First the
way lies along a broad and open road, with substantial villas on
either side as old as the great houses in the gardens round the
Common ; there is a nonconformist church with pillars and
pediment almost as magnificent as anything that Athens could
ever show ; there is the Swan, a roadside public-house with its
water-trough in front, and always carts of hay standing about,
thirsty horses drinking, drivers talking and passing round the fre-
quent pewter, stable-boys dawdling about, so that the place pre-
sents somewhat of the rusticity which it boasted fifty years ago
when first it was founded. Presently you pass what was once the
village of Stockwell, where there was a famous, but not at all a
fearful, ghost. Then begin shops, Then another stretch of road
with terraces, but no longer great gardens, and some of the ter-
races, are dingy ; then more shops ; then Kennington Church,
ugly, and yet venerable by reason of its vast churchyard, where
lie the bones of so many thousand citizens. To young Nick, the
church was a sort of half-way house. Besides, there was a
clock in the tower. Beyond the church is the park, as large as
my lady's pocket-handkerchief, ornamented with a lodge which
does infinite credit to its architect — the late Prince Consort.

After the park, the Horns Tavern, regarded by boys from
Clapham as the real frontier-post of Town, and then shops,
more &hops, and yet more shops.

' Why,' asked young Nick, ' don't they knock them all into ona
mighty great shop, and then take turns to keep it, so that they
would have six days' holiday out of the seven, at least ?'

The question was asked some little time ago, but no practical
answer has yet been given, and I think there are still about as
many shops as ever.

Arrived at the Horns, young Nick trudged on with lighter
step. He was about to enter the golden ground — Tom Tidler'a
ground, where one day he, too, would be enabled to stoop and
gather the yellow nuggets. His white hair white eyebrows, and

i65 THE SEAMY SIDE.

pink complexion made the people turn and stare at him. That
he did not mind. It was a kind of tribute to his greatness ;
personal merit, he argued to himself, made him an Albino. Ho
only held his head higher, and walked with more assurance.
The meanness of the shops in Newington Causeway affected him
painfully. Trade ought to be majestic, he thought. Presently
the sight of an immense block of buildings overshadowing the
Tabernacle cheered him. It was consecrated to the cordwain-
ing mystery. ' There is Money,' said young Nick, ' in Boots.'

Presently he came to London Bridge. Here he halted, to
lean over the low parapet, and gaze down the river upon the
forest of masts in the Pool, the steamers threading their way
up and down the tortuous highway of the river, which was by
no means silent, but exasperatingly noisy, with the bells, the
whistles, the steam-escapes of the boats, and the oaths of the long-
shore men, who, all of them three-fourths drunk, were taking
the empty ships down the river, from London Port to Leith.

' They bring their cargoes,' said young Nick, thoughtfully,
' to the Docks. There is indigo, and cochineal, and dates, and
figs, and silk, and tea, and coffee, and corn, and brandy, and
palm-butter, and all sorts, such as ostrich feathers, and
elephants' tusks, and porpoise skins, and bacon, and cheese, and
apples. They come from all the corners of the world. They
unload at the Docks ; and then we, the merchants of London,
begin to make our money out of the cargoes. Aha ! That is
where the fun begins. The niggers toil and moil, growing the
stuff, and weeding it, and picking it, getting horribly licked with
rattan-canes all the while — ho ! ho ! then the sailors stow it
away, and bring it home, going up aloft in all weathers, tumbling
overboard, and getting drowned — ha ! ha ! then the dock-
labourers, at eighteenpence a day — ha ! ha ! ho ! ho ! — put it
ashore in the docks ; and then our turn comes. What a beau-
tiful thing it is to be a British merchant, and in the City of
London ! "We sit at our ease before our desks ; our travellers
go about for us among the retail traders, getting orders ; the
clerks receive them ; we have got just nothing to do, except to
divide the profits. Oh, what a pity, what a thousand pities,
that poor Uncle Anthony got drowned before I was old enough
to go into the House !'

Perhaps some incident in morning school had irritated him,
for he went on :

' Bah ! As if the subjunctive mood would ever help a man to
a partnership ! Balbus feared that it was all up with the army,
did he ? Then what a white-livered, cowardly sneak Balbus
must have been ! I hope he was with the army, and it was all
up with him! But one never knows what became of Balbus,
because he always turns up again, and always pretending to

YOUNG NICK'S HALF-HOLIDAY. 167

smile, and always funking something. Certainly Balbus must
have been a great humbug, and I am quite sure that he got into
such an Almighty Funk at last, that he forgot all about his tenses
and moods, mixed up the subjunctive and the indicative, and used
the imperfect for the present.'

More he would have meditated, but that he looked round and
perceived that he was the object of earnest contemplation on the
part of an old lady, apparently of failing eyesight, because she
held a pair of glasses close to her eyes. She was gazing on his
white hair, and certainly either did not see, or could not under-
stand the jacket. And she thought he was meditating suicide.

' Aged man !' she murmured, in impassioned accents, ' do not,
do not, I entreat you, destroy your life !'

' Lord !' cried young Mck, 'here's a precious game !'

He was in one of those embrasures, retreats, upon London
Bridge, where one can sit breezily and contemplate the passing
crowd, or the argosies of the Port.

' Here's a game !' he cried. Regardless of the small crowd
which gathered round in a moment, he amazed the poor old lady,
who was feeling in her bag for a tract, by executing before her
a pas seul, a reminiscence of a hornpipe, with an agility and
grace surprising in one so old. While she was still staring
aghast, he had finished, and descending from the little semicircle,
he squared his elbows and pushed through the mob which had
gathered round, with a good-humoured ' Now then, can't you let
a man pass ?'

It will be seen that young Nick already understood the true
art of making points. You must be unexpected, brisk, confident,
and brief. Before the old lady had half realised that the snowy
locks belonged to a boy and not an old man at all, and before
the crowd had half understood the full humour of the situation,
which they would take home and gradually evolve, the hero of
it was gone, vanished in the crowd, never more to be seen by
the greater part.

The boy, greatly rejoicing at the discomfiture of the old lady,
proceeded on his walk. He first repaired to the central office at
Great St. Simon Apostle. He knew all the clerks in the place,
and they all knew that his first ambition was to have a desk
among them. His last ambition, Nick kept to himself. He had
purposed, as part of to-day's amusement, dining in company with
some of his friends among the junior clerks. Everybody in the
house, indeed, regarded the boy as one of themselves. For him
it was splendid to sit among the diners at Crosby Hall, to call
grandly for what he chose from the list, to ask for a half -pint
of old and bitter, mixed, boiled beef, ' underdone, Lizzie, and
not too much fat ' with carrots, potatoes, and new bread ; t
have the dinne served up in hot plate? <wch with its tin cover,

i63 THE SEAMY SIDE.

brought in a delightful pile ; to inquire tenderly, just like a
regular clerk, after Lizzie's health and spirits that morning, and
to congratulate the young lady on her looks ; to consider the
question of college-pudding or cheese, and to feci that the day
must be marked by the exhibition of the former ; to ask for the
bill, to dally with the half-pint as if it were a decanter of
sherry, and as if you were not pressed for time, oh dear no, not
at all, and could get back to the office whenever you felt so dis-
posed ; to pay your money, exchanging the compliments of
the season with the young lady (of more severe aspect) who
takes the money at the door ; help yourself to a tooth-pick, and
stroll with dignity down the street in the direction of the work-
shop, quickening gradually as you approached the portals, and
entering briskly and with the appearance of zeal. All this was
a very delightful change after the irresponsible meals at home.
It made young Nick feel as if he were already a clerk in the
office, already had a desk of his own, already had placed his foot
on the lowest rung of the ladder up which he meant to climb
until he stood in the dizziest heights with Augustus the Great
and William the Silent. That, however, was in the far distance.
For the present he envied every one in the Firm, from the office-
boy at five shillings a week, to the senior clerks and managers of
departments.

To-day, to the boy's disappointment, it was already half-past
one when he got to Great St. Simon Apostle, and the young
clerks, his friends, were dispersed, multivious, in quest of food.

So he resolved to dine by himself, and rambled about the office,
from one room to another, trying the stools, and wondering which
were the most comfortable desks. When he had finished a hasty
inspection of the clerks' room, he made his way upstairs. There
were the rooms of the senior clerks and of the partners. ' Mr.
Augustus Hamblin,' on one door : ' Mr. William Hamblin,' on
another door : and alas ! on another the name of Mr. Anthony
Hamblin.

Young Nick sorrowfully turned the handle, and peeped in.
No one was there, and he entered the room, softly closing the
door behind him. Everything was just as Anthony had left it,
except that the safe stood open, with all the papers taken out.
The chair before the table ; the table itself ; an olfice-coat hang-
ing behind the door; the cupboard where the sherry and biscuits
Mere kept, with a box or two of cigars ; the big screen in the
corner ; the grimy windows .; the wax candles ; the great plated
inkstand ; the massive pad of blotting-paper — all reminded the
buy of his uncle.

' Oh ! Uncle Anthony,' he said, for the second time that day,
sitting in the dead man's chair, ' what a pity, what a thousand
pities, that you were drowned before I was old enough to coma

YOUNG NICK'S HALF-HOLIDAY. i6g

into tlie House ! But I will get in somehow ; and, before all ia
done, I will sit in this chair as a partner. See if I don't !'

There was something uncanny about this empty room, full of
associations ; and the boy quickly left it, shutting the door very
softly behind him. He did not dare to visit the partners' rooms,
nor those of the chief clerks ; and, after a little exchange of
facetice with the porters, he left the house, and turned his face
in a south-easterly direction, which led him, by way of Grace-
church Street and Eastcheap, to Tower Hill. He had forgotten
that he was hungry, and was making in the direction of the
place he loved next best to Great St. Simon the Apostle, the
Docks.

Tower Hill always pleased him mightily. There are great
warehouses there, with cranes, waggons, and other signs of
business ; there is the Mint, always engaged in manufacturing
sovereigns for the reward of successful merchants ; there is the
Trinity House, which keeps an ever-watchful eye over the
safety of the mercantile marine. There are, as many people
know, other associations connected with Tower Hill. Young
Nick had read about some of these, or, rather, had learned about
them in history lessons ; but they did not stick, any more than
the Latin subjunctive. He had no leanings towards historical
associations. He was not, like some among us, haunted by the
ghost of the Past. Not at all. He looked at the White Tower,
on which the sun was shining splendidly, as it has shone for
eight hundred years, and murmured, ' What a beautiful place
for the head offices of the House ! and plenty of room all about
for our own warehouses.' But then, he would have gazed upon
the walls of the Holy City itself without emotion.

He went on, turning to the right, and came upon the usual
little crowd of merchant sailors, standing about on the pavement
opposite the Board of Trade Office, waiting to be hired. They
are a curious body of men, these mercantile Jacks. They lack
the independence and careless ease of their brethren of the
Royal Navy. They are not clean like them ; nor do they take
a pride in the smartness of their dress ; nor are they con-
spicuous for the appearance of physical activity. They are not
spry ; they have no joviality ; their cheeks are mostly bloated
with bad liquor ; their eyes are dull ; their gait is heavy ; their
attire is a mixture of sea-going and shore-going togs ; their
hands are in their pockets ; they look ashamed of themselves.
They seem to say, ' Behold us, you who have neglected us, and
left us to be the prey of greedy shipowners and piratical crimps.
See what we are, the descendants of the gallant heroes who
sailed Westward-Ho ! with Raleigh, and Drake, and Hawkins.
Around us are the land-sharks who plunder us, the black-eyed
sirens — most all of them have one black eye at- least — who

170 THE SEAMY SIDE.

destroy us, the office where we sign articles which enslave tis,
Beyond us are the craft which take us to our doom — ill-found,
ill-rigged, the cheating venture of a cheating shipper. On board
them we are fed with rancid pork and weevily biscuit. There
are not enough of us to navigate her even in smooth seas. We
are knocked down by mate or skipper with anything handy, a
rope's end or a marline-spike. On board there is no safety, nor
respite of work, nor any comfortable thing at all. On shore
there is the madness of rioting and drink, which is the only joy
we kaow. We are for ever on the frying-pan or in the fire.
Your navy-men you watch over. For them you have chaplains,
doctors, schools, homes, societies, and pensions. You forbid
their officers to ill-treat them ; you provide them with good and
abundant food ; you train them, educate them, and you find
your ships well. But for us you do nothing ; and we all reel,
blind, and deaf, and careless, and uncared for, into the abyss.'

They did not speak so, however, to young Nick, who regarded
them with enthusiasm.

' Splendid fellows !' he said. ' They don't mind how much
hard work they do. They don't mind how bad the weather is,
nor how cold. They like to feel that they are bringing money — ■
heaps of money — home to the partners of the great City firms,
making them richer every day. I couldn't feel like that, myself.
But then I'm not a sailor.

Then he came to the gates of St. Katharine's Docks.

Cerberus, in shape of three policemen, stands at those gates :
young Nick, whom the three knew perfectly well, and all about
him, always made a point at these gates of going through a
little comedy of intrigue. He pulled a leather book from his
jacket pocket, extracted, standing without the gates, a couple
of documents which were in reality Latin exercises, examined
them with great care, pulled his hat over his eyes, and marched
through the portals with the air of one who has important
business, not to be delayed a moment, in connection with dock
warrants. He assumed, in fact, the character of a junior clerk.
He did not for a moment deceive the policemen, who knew that
he was in some way connected with the family of Hamblin, the
great Indigo merchants, and that he was only here to prowl
round and look about him. It is against the rules to admit any-
one except on business, but this boy was an exception. Besides,
on this occasion, when he came out again, they had their re-
venge.

Once within the Docks, the boy can go where he likes un-
disturbed. There are the great ships in the basin, some un-
loading with the aid of mighty derricks and steam-cranes, and a
great ' yco heave oh !' and a running of chains and a dropping
of ropes and a deft stowing in their places on the wharves of

YO UNG NICK'S HALF-HOLIDA Y. 171

cases, casks, bags, and boxes, while the busy feet trample and
boatswains whistle, and the laden men run backwards and for-
wards as if they were merry-making instead of furnishing an
illustration of the primeval curse. There are the officers who
seem never tired of looking on and checking the delivery of
cargo told out for them as it goes overboard ; there are the piles
of bales under the sheds which seem to grow larger and larger ;
there are rows of the inexhaustible ships which are for ever
pouring out their contents.

Young Nick knows better than to venture near one of the
vessels which are loading or unloading. He stands afar off and
watches these ; well out of the reach of men who, if boys get in
their way, are capable of a cuff which not only hurts, but also
humiliates, as well as of an oath which may even please if it be of
strange and novel construction. Now mates of merchantmen
show great ingenuity in blasphemy.

He walked slowly round the Docks, till he came to a ship
which he knew, a ship which brought home indigo, and was now
waiting to take cargo before going off again, outward bound.
He ran across the plank which served as a bridge to the wharf,
and jumped upon the deck. Nobody was on board except a
quartermaster who knew him, and grinned a salute.

' Hope you're well, Master Nick,' said the man, touching hia
hat.

' Quite well, thank you, Quartermaster,' replied the boy.
Here was dignity ! To be saluted on the hurricane-deck : what
a pity that there was no one by to witness this gratifying mark
of respect ! ' What sort of voyage did you have ?'

' So— so, sir ! Weather terrible bad in the Bay.'

' Ah ! I think I'll overhaul her,' said Nick, with more gran-
deur than he had ever assumed before in his life.

He proceeded, alone and unaided, to overhaul the ship. That
is to say, he examined the cabins, the saloons, and the sleeping-
bunks for'ard ; he inspected the cook's galley, the carpenters
cabin, descended into the engine-room, and peered down into
the impenetrable darkness of the hold.

' She draws seven-and-twenty feet when she's loaded,' said the
boy. 'Twenty-seven feet deep, all full of indigo for Anthony
Hamblin and Company. What a heap of money they must be
making !'

He returns to the deck, and nods encouragingly at the quarter-
master. ' All right below,' he says, as officially as if he were
an Elder Brother of the Trinity House. ' All right below '
Then he shuts one eye, and turns the other up aloft^ to inspect
the rigging and the masts.

'A serviceable craft, Quartermaster. A 1, first class and
well found. '

172 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Ay, ay, sir !' replied the man, without a smile.

Young Nick, -well-pleased with his official inspection of th«
steamer, returned to the wharves, where, for a quarter of an
hour more, he wandered among those sheds which receive dates,
tamarinds, and sugar. If a stray date found its way to his
mouth, he stood in the critical attitude of a taster while he ate
it. When it was gone, he shook his head sadly, as if dates
were no longer what he remembered dates to have been. All
these acres covered with merchandise ; all these ships, perpetu-
ally coming home laden and going out laden ; everything
wanting the hand of the merchant before it can be moved or
sold, or even grown.

' Why,' cried young Nick to his soul, in an accent of fine
rapture, ' why, the very first Anthony Hamblin that ever was,
he who began the business, hadn't a half, nor a quarter, nor a
hundredth part the chance that the juniorest clerk — ' positive,
juvenis, young ; comparative, junior, younger ; superlative,
wanting ' (quoting a favourite passage from the Latin Grrarn-
mar) ; ' juniorest is the word — the juniorest clerk in the House
has nowadays, if he knows how to take it. Fortunately, most
of them are blind and deaf, owing to having had too much
Latin subjunctive, which is enough to make any man a fool.

" Balbus feared that it would be all over " Bah ! Wait

till my turn comes.'

He finishes his tour of inspection through the Docks by
visiting the great house of many stories in which he is most
interested. He always ends with this house, just as a Chinaman,
working his way through a pile of rice, tasteless and uninterest-
ing by itself, ends with the bonne louche, the morsel of ' snook,'
which lies at the top. It is the Indigo House.

The dyes are arranged together, in a sort of order of merit,
if you can make it out. Beyond the indigo shed are sheds in
which are long, oblong, brick-like parcels, brown in colour,
oozing clammy juices and irrepressible moistnesses through the
pores of their wrappers. Close to the indigo house itself one
becomes aware of strange men. They bring to the mind, at
first sight, a reminiscence of St. Alban's Church. That is be-
cause they wear cassocks and a biretta cap. But they are not
Ritualistic clergy, not at all ; nor are they officially affiliated to
guild, brotherhood, or mopus-mock-nionkery of any kind what-
ever. Look again. Your mind, if you be differently constituted
to young Nick, finds itself ravished backwards up the stream
of time. You forget the ecclesiastical man-milliners. You are
far away in sunny Castile ; you are assisting at a grand Func-
tion, blessed by Church and Pope. The purification of doc-
trine is presented to your eyes by the outward and visible
ceremony of burning heretics. The garments and the cap worn

YOUNG NICK 'S HALF-HOLIDA Y. r/3

at the Auto da Fe seem to have descended to the employes of
the indigo storehouses. They are no longer painted over with
devils, it is true. One misses, and regrets the loss of, the devils ;
but they are of the same cut. I believe that when the Inqui-
sition came to a sudden and untimely end, some commercial
adventurer bought up all its stage properties, and sold them to
the Directors of St. Katharine's Docks. If research were pro-
perly endowed, as it should be, I would investigate the history
of those caps and smocks.

The sight of them always filled the heart of the boy with a
sort of painful yearning. He loved them ; and he could not a 3
yet feel, as he would if he entered the House, as if they partly
belonged to himself.

' We import,' he said, with a smack of his lips, as if lie was
detailing a list of things good to cat, ' we import indigo ' (smack) ;
'then myrobolans' (smack), ' and cochineal ' (smack). 'Great
profits in all the departments : but give me indigo.'

The Indigo House is a great fire proof building, with massive
stone staircase. The steps, of course, wore once white ; the
walls were once whitewashed ; both walls and steps are now a
deep permanent blue ; the ceiling is believed to have been ori-
ginally white — that, too, is now a dark and beautiful blue. At
every stage, a door opens upon a vast, low hall, everyone filled,
or gradually filling, with boxes and cases containing indigo, and
everyone provided with an open window, or door, at which the
indefatigable crane delivers its messages in the shape of boxes.
The floor of each is blue, the walls are blue, the ceiling is blue ;
the very desk at which the clerks enter the number of packages
is blue, and they spread a fresh sheet of brown paper over it
every morning, so that the writer may lay his book upon it
without making that blue as well. Where there is a knot in
the wood, either in the floor or in the desks, it stands out,
shining, as if it were a cobble of blue-stone used for washing.

Young Nick climbs steadily and gravely up the stairs, looking
into every room. There are six or seven floors ; each is exactly
like the one below it, except that each one seems bluer than
the one below, probably because the eye itself becomes gradu-
ally incapable of seeing any other colour. The top floor of all
is the sales-room, only used four times a year. Once young
Nick had been privileged to behold it on one of the great days.
Long tables ran from side to side, provided with little paper
trays, each with its wall an inch and a half high, containing
samples. The merchants and buyers went up and down curiously
studying the contents of the trays, comparing them with a
sample they had in a box, and every now and then making an
entry in a catalogue. That was real responsibility, Nick thought,
fci^l.iiig for the timo wheu he, too, might be trusted to purehasa

1 7 4. THE SEA MY SIDE.

for the firm. Outside the sales-room, on that day only, cooks
were frying toothsome chops and succulent steaks for the lun-
cheon of the buyers.

Ah ! happy, grand, glorious, and enviable lot, to be a merchant
of London City and port — and happiest lot of all, to be a mer-
chant in the Indigo trade.

The Docks had no more to show the boy, who descended the
stairs slowly and came out into the sunshine, which for a while
was blue, like the walls of the place he had left. He had seen
the loading and the unloading ; he had overhauled a ship en-
tirely by himself, and on his own responsibility ; he had seen
the smocks and biretta caps again, and had visited once more
those vast walls of the Indigo House which, gloomy and dark
as they were, seemed to him more delightful than the Crystal
Palace, more sunny than Clapham Common.

As he approached the gates, the three merry policemen who
guarded them winked each with his left eye, and ranged them-
selves before the portals.

' Now, sir,' said the first, ' we'll see what you're carrying out,
if you please.'

' Ah !' said the second jocular one, ' a hundredweight or so of
cigars, I dessay.'

' Yes,' said the third mad wag, ' or a hogshead o' brandy, I
shouldn't wonder. Now, sir.'

Young Nick was not frightened : not at all : he was delighted.
This was an adventure which he had not suspected. It would
be grand to tell the boys next day. He feigned terror.

' O Lord !' he cried, 'this is dreadful. You don't think, really,
I've got any cigars, do you, gentlemen ?'

He was so thin, and his trousers and jacket were so tight, that
even a solitary cigarette would have been detected in any of his
pockets.

The policemen scowled : the merry policemen frowned.

' We shall see,' they said.

' And brandy, too ?' asked young Nick. ' Oh ! what would
they do if you found I had brandy ?'

' Fifteen years for brandy,' said the first jester ; ' come, young
fiir, we must search you.'

' This way, young gentleman,' said the second, leading the way
into the lodge.

' What will you take to square it ?' asked the boy, with earnest
eyes under his white eyelashes.

' Square it ?' replied the third policeman ; ' that's bribery and
corruption. Your words must bo took down, young gentleman.

'Must they?' said Nick; 'then there's nothing for it' — he
gathered himself ready for a spring— ' but to — cut it.' Here he
iirted under the arm of the third policeman, and scudded swiftly

YOUNG NICK MAKES A DISCOVERY. 175

down the street, turning to the right for about a hundred yards,
when finding that no one followed, he stopped running, and began
to whistle.

CHAPTER XXI.

HOW YOUXG NICK MADE A MOST SURPRISING DISCOVERY.

Quite sure that no one was following him, the boy recollected
that he was hungry. It was half -past two, a good hour beyond
his regular dinner-time. He resolved on looking about for a
place where he could dine.

He was in a district interesting to many kinds of people — the
clergyman, the policeman, the philanthropist, the total abstinence
man, and the doctor. The street was as much given over to mer-
cantile Jack as any Quartier in a mediasval city was given over
to a special trade. Every other house was devoted to the in-
terests of eating or drinking, or both, outside the office of the
Board of Trade. These houses were all full of the ' splendid
fellows ' whose appearance had afforded young Mck such un-
feigned satisfaction. They had finished their dinner and were
now sitting ' over their wine ;' that is, they were drinking and
smoking. Young Nick could not go into one of these houses,
that was quite certain. Besides, the sailors were not alone : with
them were women who frightened the boy ; it was not so much
that their complexions were purple, red, or ghastly pale, nor that
their eyes rolled horribly like the eyes of a hungry wild beast ;
but they were swearing loudly, drinking copiously, and their
voices were hoarse and rough. To all conditions of men, at any
age, such women are a terror. I believe that even mercantile
Jack regards their companionship as one of the horrible circum-
stances attending his joyless lot.

Young Nick held on, and presently found himself in a long
and narrow street called Cable Street, where the presence of
the sailor was less overwhelming. The street was full of shops,
and of people going up and down buying or pretending to buy.
It is quite a leading street, a sort of Westbourne Grove to the
district. The things offered for sale are calculated, as in all
markets, according to the demand. The butchers' shops contain
chiefly what are known to the trade as ' ornamental blocks,'
with shceps' heads and those less-esteemed portions of the
animal which are not eagerly bought up by a voluptuous
aristocracy. The fishmongers have nothing but herrings in
their various branches, such as bloater;-;. ' soldiers,' and kippered
herrings, with salt-fish and sprats \ there are more than the

176 THE SEAMY SIDE.

ordinary number of pawnbrokers, and there are shops peculiar
to the locality, and suggestive. In one window, for instance,
young Nick observed a centipede hanging in a bottle full of
spirits, the skin of a snake, a gruesome case full of tarantulas
and scorpions, a handful of soiled ostrich feathers, a child's caul
(but this was only advertised), and a collection of bamboo canes.

At the end of Cable Street the boy turned to the left and
found himself in a very respectable and even genteel street. It
was broad and clean : it had no shops, or hardly any: the houses
were small, but the tenants seemed to take pride in their ap-
pearance. Considerable variety was shown in the painting of
the doors, which were red, yellow, or green, according to the
taste of the tenant ; all of the houses had clean white blinds.

In the East End there are hundreds of streets like this : who
the people are, where they find employment, one cannot even
guess. In the window of every tenth house one sees an announce-
ment that dressmaking in all its branches is carried on there :
this is an open confession of poverty. Occasionally, a card pro-
claims the fact that a room is to be let, which is another open
acknowledgment of insufficiency. Yet most of the houses are
rented by responsible people, who are able to pay their rent out
of their incomes.

If, again, it is difficult to imagine how so many hundreds of
thousands do somehow pick up a little income, the brain reels
when one tries to understand what the amusements of these
people can be. They have no theatres, except, perhaps, White-
chapel-house for melodrama ; they have no picture-galleries, no
concert-halls, no parks ; they have not only no means of
acquiring the civilisation of the West End, but they have
absolutely no means of instituting comparisons and so becoming
discontented. I believe that these people, provided they earn
enough for beef and beer, are absolutely contented. In the
summer they run down to Southend by cheap excursions ; they
throng the pleasure-boats to Gravesend. In the winter they
vegetate : go to the daily work, come home in the evening,
smoke a pipe, and go to bed. On Sundays they have the Church
and Chapel, the latter for choice. Except for the organisation
of their chapels, they have no society at all, and know no one
except their own relations. No country town is so dull, and so
devoid of society, distraction, and amusement, as the East End
of London.

There ought to be a prefect of the East End : he should be
one of the royal princes ; he should build a palace among the
people : there should be regiments of soldiers, theatres, picture-
galleries, and schools, to wake them up and make them dismally
discontented about their moan surroundings. 11m: fnvt step in
the elevation of a people is to make them discontented.

YOUNG NICK MAKES A DISCOVERY. 177

Another thing — the East End covers a level which stretches
for miles : it includes all those places which, not being so squalid
as Whitechapel and the neighbourhood of Cable Street, are yet
as destitute of the means of artistic grace. From the East End
of London there has never come any prophet at all, either in art,
in music, in preaching, in acting, in prose, in poetry, or in
science. Prophets cannot come from a level so dead and a
society so dull. Country towns, the fields, the hillside, can show
prophets ; the West End has produced prophets by hundreds :
only the East End has no one. Perhaps if one were to arise, he
would be so little understood, so rudely reminded that he was
out of the grooves of respectability, that he would speedily
cease to prophecy, and presently droop and die, before the
world was able to become aware of him.

Lastly, if one wanted to hide, to go away for a term of years,
or altogether, what better place could be found than a quiet
street south of Whitechapel ? It is not an Alsatia — not at all :
it is a highly respectable place. There are no habitual criminals,
unless you reckon in that class the sailors who are habitually
drunk when they are at home. People would not begin by
suspecting a stranger who could show that he had means of
earning a livelihood : he might live among them for years, with-
out being known or inquired after : none of his West End
friends would ever come near the place ; no one would seek for
him here.

Later on, young Nick would always declare that such thoughts
as these were running through his brain on that day. But I
doubt. Mankind is apt to remember little things which are too
picturesque, and group themselves too easily to be altogether
probable. Nature is generally flat in her composition, and a
clever arrangement is not so common with her as quite in-
artistic grouping. So that I suspect young Nick of romancing
when he narrates the events of this remarkable day.

He was really getting quite wonderfully hungry : he tightened
his waistband, having heard that it affords relief to shipwrecked
mariners, when they have been without food for a month or
two, to do so. He was desperately hungry, and wondering how
much farther he would have to go— it was already close on three
o'clock — when he passed a coffee-house.

The place looked clean : there was a white blind in the
window : before it, three eggs in a plate, a lump of butter, a
piece of streaky bacon, and two mutton-chops uncooked. There
was also suspended before his eyes a tariff of prices. The boy
read it carefully. He had his eighteenpence intact. He could
have a mutton-chop for fivepence, potatoes for one penny, bread
for the same, an egg for twopence, butter for one penny, and
toon,

12

178 THE SEAMY AWE.

He hesitated no longer, but opened the door and walked in.

The place was empty except for one man who was sitting in
the box opposite to that in which young Nick sat down. The
man was reading the paper and was leaning hack in the corner
with the sheet before him, so that Nicolas did not see his face.
He sat down, looked about him, took off his hat, rapped the
table with his stick and called ' Waiter !' as loud as he dared.

The waiter was a girl, neat and quick.

' Bring me, if you please,' said Nicolas, ' as quickly as you can,
a chop— yes '— ticking up the cost mentally — ' and potatoes, and
bread, and an egg to follow, and butter — that makes tenpence,
and a cup of coffee, that will be a shilling.' He remembered
afterwards that it looks shabby to add up the bill for yourself
out loud while you are ordering the meal. However, the great
thing was not to go beyond that eighteenpence. ' And bring
me to-day's paper — the half with the money-market intelligence,
please ; I am anxious to read the money market news.'

The man with the newspaper started when he heard the boy's
voice, and glanced furtively from behind his paper. Then his
fingers, when they held the paper, began to tremble. The paper
brought, Nicolas took a great deai of time and trouble to fold
it, so that it should rest easily against the cruet-stand, and thus
allow itself to be read while he was taking his dinner. He was
not really so oppressed with a craving for intellectual food as to
want to read while he was eating, but he had frequently observed
the clerks in Crosby Hall take dinner and the Daily Telegraph
at the same time, the murders with the meat and the paragraphs
with the pudding, and he thought the eagerness to lose no time
helped to distinguish the complete clerk. So he spread out the
paper with the money-market news outside, and had just got it
fairly in position when the chop came. It was a generous five-
pennyworth, that chop ; it must have been cut from a larger
and nobler specimen of the mutton-providing animal than
ordinary — Nicolas felt grateful to the sheep — a chop with a dno
proportion of fat, not a lump as big as your fist to be cut away,
and then nothing but a bit of lean the size of a pigeon's egg.
He made to himself these observations as he went on. ' The
potatoes might be mealier,' he murmured, 'but when a man's
hungry, what odds does a waxy one make? None at all.' IIq
forgot the money-market news in his hunger, and cleared oil"
the whole of that chop down to the bone without reading a
word. Then he waited two minutes or so for the egg and
coffee, and began to read half aloud, for the benefit of the
stranger opposite to him.

'Hum! Russians down. Don't wonder. Why do they keep up
at all ? Great Westerns up again, and Brighton A's firm — ha !'

He enjoyed this little comedy because he had perceived, with

YOUNG NICK MAKES A DISCOVERY. 179

those sharp eyes of his, that the stranger was interested in him
and, when he was not looking that way, was taking hurried
glances at him from the corner of his paper. Now, the interest
which young Nick everywhere excited as an Albino made him
callous as regards these little attentions, but he was in hopes
that by the wisdom of his remarks he might cause the stranger
to admire his business qualities as much as he did those phy-
sical attributes, of which he felt that it would be wrong to be
too proud.

Then the egg and coffee were brought and despatched. When
the repast was quite finished, young Nick laid down the paper
and called the waiter.

' My bill,' he asked grandly.

It amounted, as he had estimated, to one shilling. He still
had sixpence left. ' Should he walk home, and so leave himself
free to spend that sum in cakes, or should he — which would be
a more sensible course — make his way back to London Bridge,
and then take the omnibus to Clapham ?'

While he turned this difficulty over in his mind, a rustling of
the paper showed him that the other occupant of the coit'ee-
house was watching him again.

This became more interesting. Nicolas had no objection to
be watched if the scrutiny meant admiration. It is not every
boy of fourteen who has white hair, white eyebrows, and a deli-
cately pink complexion. These things are not so common, if
you please ; a boy who owns them must as much expect to be
looked at wherever he shows himself, as a reigning beauty when
she goes to a garden-party. He was pleased to be able to gratify
this laudable curiosity. If he had been asked to do so he would
even have stood upon a chair, so that everybody might see
him.

But this furtive curiosity, this sneaking behind a copy of the
Daily Telegraph, this prying over a corner when he himself was
looking another way, was disquieting. Why couldn't the stranger
lay clown the paper and look at him as one man at another ?
And this modest Paul Pry, whether he had taken his dinner or
not, called for nothing, and yet seemed in no hurry to go away.
Nicolas, for his part, felt that it was high time for him to go,
and yet was loth to go without to some extent solving the mys-
tery of the stranger.

They were quite alone now, because the girl, seeing they had
taken and paid for all they were likely to want, had left the
L'oom and gone away.

The man wore a tall and rather seedy hat, which was visible
above the paper ; his fingers — those of them, at least, which
were visible — were white, not at all the fingers of a working
man ; and his boots were worn down at heel. Presumably ha

12-2

i8o THE SEAMY SIDE.

was some quite poor clerk. But why did he go on in that ridi
culous fashion, holding the paper before him ?

Presently the boy was seized with an inspiration. He gently
took his penknife from his pocket, and opened it noiselessly.
The paper was held, stretched out tight, well up before the mys-
terious reader's face. Young Nick put on his hat, took his
stick in the left hand, and his penknife in the right. He then
carefully measured with his eye the space between himself and
the door, and concluded that being already in the passage be-
tween the tiers of boxes, he had a sufficient start. This decided,
he advanced cautiously to the stranger, and without saying one
word, ripped the paper with his penknife from top to bottom.

' That's the way with these penny papers,' he said coolly.
' They go at the least thing. All made up of old paper and
Esparto grass ! Give me the Ti '

Here the stranger raised his head, and the boy reeled back-
wards, faint and sick.

' Oh, oh, oh ! It's a ghost without a beard ! Oh, oh, oh !
It's— it's — it's— Uncle Anthony !'

CHAPTER XXII.

HOW ANTHONY IIAMELIN LOOKED.

No other than Uncle Anthony !

When the boy, recovering from the first shock, had made up
his mind, by much staring, that it really was his deceased uncle
come to life again, only without his beard, he tried to pull him-
self together, and to assume, with indifferent success, his usual
air of importance.

' This,' he said, with a little stammer and a natural quiver in
the voice, ' is a pretty Go ! A very pretty Go, it is !'

Anthony Hamblin stared blankly at the boy, with reddened
cheeks. No criminal, caught in flagrante delicto, red-handed,
knife in fist, with the spoil under his arm, actually lifting the
swag, ever showed so hangdog a countenance. He said nothing.

' Now, Uncle Anthony,' the boy continued, feeling every
moment firmer as to head and legs, and awakened to the com-
prehension that this was the noblest opportunity that ever camo
to mortal boy, ' considering that a public coffee-house is not the
best place to discuss family secrets, and that I at least am accus-
tomed to more respectable places of appointment, we had better
go to your own house or lodgings, if you have any, and talk
tilings ovr, theo. If you are ready, we will go at once. If

HOW ANTHONY HAMBLIN LOOKED. 1S1

not, I will wait. As for waiting, I don't care how long I wait.
I can send a telegram to relieve the old lady. And as for that,
the ice has melted long ago, and she won't think I've followed
your example. Bah ! You and your ice. Oh, the cunning !
For such an oh-be-joyful occasion as the present I could wait all
night, and go home with my eyes skinned in the morning with
Alison to tell the news to.

Anthony Hamblin moved one foot. Nicolas interpreted the
motion, wrongly and hastily, as indicative of a desire for flight.

' No,' he said firmly, ' you don't. Give up that idea. You've
bolted enough already. You know me, Uncle Anthony, and my
character for determination. If you run, I run too. And if I
run after you there may be— I don't say there will— but there
may be such a crowd, and such a howling, and such a diving
after a middle-aged elderly bolter and a younger man with
white eyebrows, as you never heard before in all your life. Be-
sides, if you were to get away, I've only got to go to the Houso
and tell the partners that you're not drowned at all, but living
at the far-end of Cable Road, which leads to the western ex-
tremity of nowhere. Then they will just come over and catch
you somewhere or other in the very act, as I did. Think of
that. Because you must eat, Uncle Anthony.'

Anthony Hamblin, with pale and shamefaced cheek, sighed,
rose, and led the way. Nicolas followed closely at his heels.

Anthony turned to the left, and walked slowly along the
pavement. Nicolas saw that he looked older. His shoulders
stooped ; his hair had gone greyer ; his beard, as we have seen,
was quite gone. Also, he was very shabby in his dress — his
hat was rusty at the edges ; his boots were down at heel.

Notwithstanding these symptoms of distress, the boy felt
inclined to the most rapturous joy. He was fain to give out-
ward and visible expression to it by a double-shuffle, a wild
contortion of the limbs, a cracking of the fingers, as he followed
his prisoner, so that he looked like some grim old caricature of
the devil, as carved on a cathedral wall, capering behind a vic-
tim. No victim, even under the melancholy circumstances
imagined by medireval freemasons, could have looked more
miserable than Anthony, who walked on with hanging head
and downcast demeanour, as if he were going — anywhere —
where those victims were going. Suddenly the boy stopped
and began feeling his pockets.

' Stop, Uncle Anthony !' he cried. ' Stop, I say. We've got
to turn back.'

' What is it ?'

' My knife— left it at the coffee-house. Now, then, righi
about. You go first. A new knife— three blades— real buck's-
horn.'

:S2 THE SEAMY SIDE.

They observed the same order in returning to the coffee-house,
where the knife was found on the floor ; and, in coming back
again, the boy prepared, by turning up cuifs and squaring hi3
shoulders, for precipitate action, if necessary.

About half-way down Cannon Street Road, which was the
name of this retreat, and next door to a small dissenting chapel,
Anthony Hamblin stopped, and pulled out a latch-key. The
house was, like all its neighbours, small, having four or six
rooms only. The door was painted a rich, a flaunting red. In
the window of the ground-floor was a large card, on which
Nicolas read the following announcement :

Me. A. Hampton,
Teacher of Writing, Arithmetic, and Free-hand Drawing.

Below this legend, and on either side of it, was drawn, with
many an artful flourish and crafty curve, in freehand, and ap-
parently with a quill pen, gigantic quills, whose feathers were
like the branches of a palm for richness and redundancy.
Nicolas recollected, all at once, that his uncle had often, in the
old days, delighted himself with such caligraphic exercises.

Anthony Hamblin, crestfallen and shamefaced, opened the
door, and led the way into the ground-floor front. Arrived
there, he sat down before the window in a hopeless, resigned
sort of way, as if he would do no more, but must, unresisting,
let fate go on.

' Upon my word,' said the boy, looking round, ' upon — my —
word, this is a very pretty sort of lodging for the head of the
House ! Gone a Writing-mastering, too.'

' I am no longer head of the House,' said Anthony humbly ;
' I am a dead man.'

It certainly was not such a room as once sheltered the head
partner in the firm. It was only about twelve feet square. Its
furniture consisted of one arm-chair and two cane-bottomed
chairs, of which one had lost a leg ; there was a table and a
sort of sideboard 'pratique in the wall beside the fireplace ; on
it stood half a dozen books, the whole of Anthony Hamblin'a
library. There was a cupboard en the other side of the fire-
place. Nothing else. No pictures on the wall, no decorations
of any kind, except a couple of woodeii pipes on the mantel-
shelf, and a tobacco-pouch. There were no curtains, but only
a clean white blind.

' This is my one room,' Anthony explained, while the boy
curiously examined every article of the furniture ; ' my only
room. Here I live. My bed is in that cupboard ; at night I
drag it down.'

The boy examined every portion o£ tha furniture minutely
and then turned to his uncle.

HO W ANTHONY HAM B LIN LOOKED. i S3

' You look thin, Uncle Anthony. Your boots are gone at
the heels ; your coat is shabby— the cuffs are frayed ; your hat
is seedy ; and you don't look happy ; and — and '

Here this remarkable boy choked, and seized his uncle by the
hand, and burst into a fit of sobbing and crying.

'Don't, boy!' cried Anthony Hamblin, much more deeply
moved by this passion of grief than he had been by the boy's
bounce and arrogance. ' Don't, Nicolas ; crying will do no good.
Tell me — tell me about Alison.'

Nicolas stopped crying almost as suddenly as he began.

' Every man,' he said presently, by way of apology to himself
for his weakness, and while still mopping up the tears, ' has his
weak point. You find that out, uncle, when you've got an
enemy, and then you can stick pins into him all day long.'

A thought struck him here. He went to the door, locked it,
and put the key in his pocket.

' Now,' he said, ' the door's locked. You can't get out till I
let you, and I don't intend to let you till I know what this little
game means.'

He sat on the table, one leg dangling and the other resting
across it ; an elbow on the leg, and his chin in his hand. He
had taken off his. hat, and with his white eyebrows, the knowing
light in his eyes, and the smile of pride which he naturally felt
in the situation, he looked more like an imp than seemed pos-
sible in living boy.

' Nicolas,' said Anthony, sitting before him like a culprit,
'you have, by accident, discovered a great secret.'

' Under Providence, uncle, as the old lady would say, I have.'

' Is it possible for a boy to keep a secret ?'

' I have lived in his house,' said Nicolas, addressing the furni-
ture, which was very unsympathetic in its scantiness ; ' I have
lived in his house for thirteen years and more, and he doubts
my power of keeping a secret !'

' Boy,' said the man risen from the dead, sternly, ' no fooling !
This is no matter for laughing. Can you and will you keep a
secret ?'

' I can, Uncle Anthony,' replied young Nick, with a sudden
change of manner ; ' I can and. I will.'

There was something reassuring about the boy's manifest
resolution of honestly keeping the secret. He enjoyed it too
much, in fact, to reveal it, at least immediately. Yet Anthony
Hamblin, filled with shame and dismay, looked upon the boy
with suspicion. Was his sacrifice to be worthless after all '?
Did it depend solely on the discretion of a child so volatile ?

' Living at the East End,' said Nicolas, as if desirous to change
the subject, ' is all very well for a man who, like me, takes an
interest in the Docks, in indigo stores, and shipping ; but for

1 84 THE SEAMY SIDE.

you, Uncle Anthony, who never put on a canvas coat, nor wore
a cap to keep off the blue dust in your life, I can't understand
the attraction. All very well if a man wanted to write a novel
of dull life, and came here to see what dulness really means ;
but you don't write novels, and you used to like cheerfulness.
Or if you wanted to find out how poor people lived, and what a
beastly thing it is to be poor ; but you never wanted to know-
that. Silver-spoon babies never do. The taste, I suppose, is
so different from pewter that they don't feel a yearning for
change, nor a curiosity to taste any other kind of metal. And
yet if you don't like the Docks, didn't care for poor people, and
weren't curious about their ways, what was it drove you away
from home ? It wasn't any row, that I know of. You and
Alison hadn't quarrelled, had you ?'

Anthony shook his head dejectedly.

' As for me,' the boy went on, stroking his chin, ' I can't re-
member that I ever said or did anything that could induce you
to run away. I was always kind to you, I believe.'

'Always,' echoed Anthony, without the ghost of a smile.

' Then,' said young Nick, getting down from the table to get
better vantage-ground, standing with his feet well apart, his
hands rammed down into his pockets as far as they would go,
and his shoulders raised — this gave him an expression of won-
derful sagacity, combined with the deepest cynical knowledge
of human nature — ' then, Uncle Anthony, I am sorry to say
that there remains only one supposition. It pains me to say it,
but I must. Why does a rich man, with a comfortable home
and people who are fond of him, suddenly bolt ?— leaving his
coat behind him, too, as if he was Joseph in the pit, to prove
that his goose was already cooked and his bucket kicked. Why,
I say ? Oh, Uncle Anthony, who would have thought it of you ?
Because he's done something — I don't know what — some-
thing ! Somebody must have given you the straight tip in
good time. You thought you had better bolt, so as to avoid
the row.'

Anthony made no reply. Nicolas resumed his seat on the
table.

' If you like to confide in me,' Nicolas went on, ' I'll give you
the best advice in my power. Perhaps it isn't too late.'

Still Anthony was silent ; but he rose from his chair, and
began to walk up and down the room.

' Everything,' said Nicolas, encouragingly, ' can be squared for
money. G-ive me money and the name of the party, and I'll
undertake to square him.'

Anthony laughed. He was at last moved to laugh. The boy's
importance and confidence were too absurd.

• You, boy 1 What could you do ?'

HOW ANTHONY HAMBLIN LOOKED. 185

'Now, here's prejudice again!' lie expostulated. 'Aftei
knowing me intimately for thirteen years, my uncle can't trust
me for a confidential piece of work because I've got a jacket or.
instead of a coat ! I thought better of you, Uncle Anthony.'

Anthony stopped in his walk, and regarded his youthful ad-
viser meditatively.

' Boy,' he said gravely, ' I cannot tell you the reasons of my
disappearance ; that is 'impossible. Nor can I ever reappear
again ; that is equally impossible.'

' Quite impossible ? Oh, Uncle Anthony, surely money will
square it !'

' No ; money cannot do everything.'

' Can't anything be done ?'

'Nothing.'

' Think of Alison, uncle— think how she's cried her eyes out.'

' Poor child ! poor child !'

He turned his face to the window, and there was silence for a
space.

' Think of me !' said Nicolas. ' Think of my ruined prospects
if you don't come back. How do I know that Mr. Augustus
will take me into the House r '

' I think he will,' said Anthony ; ' at any rate I hope he will.
Nothing can be done, Nicolas. You have found me. I shall
go away from here, for fear that some one else may find me. But
you must keep the secret.'

' I will keep it if you promise to let me know always where
to find you. Let me write to you ; and I say, uncle — Lord !
what a game we will have — what a game ! I didn't tell you
how Uncle Stephen is going on.'

' No. What is Stephen doing ?'

Anthony stopped now to listen.

' He — -well, first of all he came to Clapham, and took up his
quarters there ; smoked your cigars in the study, slept in your
bed, and took your place at dinner. Oh, it was beautiful at the
go-off. " My poor Alison ! my dear child ! My dear Flora !"
— that to the old lady, you know ; and to me it was, " Nicolas,
my boy — Nicolas, my son," till we began to think that Black
Stephen hadn't got horns and a tail after all. Wait a bit, though !
All of a sudden his manner changes. First he orders me and
the old lady to pack up and be off out of the house ; then ho
ups and tells Alison that she wasn't your heiress after all, be-
cause yc u never were married.'

' What ?' cried Anthony, with a sudden hot flush on his cheek.

' Steady, steady ! Wait a bit. I thought when it came to
the old lady and me being ordered into the street, that would
fetch you, as nothing ever fetched you before. It shows your
proper feeling, uncle, and I like you the better for it. Let me go

186 THE SEAMY SIDE.

on. Then he goes to the partners, and tells them that he — Uncle
Stephen — was the real heir to everything ; and then he goes
to the Court of Probate, and demands letters to carry on the
estate. " Oh, Jeminy !" says the judge — crafty old man, that !
— " here's artfulness !" — said he'd be blowed if he'd write him
any letter at all — said he didn't believe you were dead, but
only gone away somewhere on a lark, as had happened to his
own brothers more than once — said Alison was to go on enjoy-
ing the estate, and eating as much as ever she possibly could,
till such time as it was proved, first, that you were really dead
and gone, whereas here you still live and kick ; and second, that
Alison was not your heiress, whereas everybody always knew
that she was.'

' Tried to rob Alison of her inheritance !' murmured Anthony,
with livid face. ' The scoundrel !'

' Now you see, uncle,' pursued Nicolas, ' here'we are in a cleft
stick, on the horns of a dilemma, and in a quandary such as
you never thought was coming out of it, I'm sure. What is to
be done ?',

' Tell me more about Alison.'

' Alison's very jolly,' the boy replied — ' eats hearty and sleeps
well. That fellow Gilbert Yorke is always about the place
since Uncle Stephen first showed the horns. He seems to con-
sider that Alison looks pretty in black. I don't. That is to say,
you know, it's a matter of opinion. A dark girl wants the
relief of a bit of colour. However, Alison is a fine girl, dress
her how you like ; and if she'd wait for me, I might think of
her in ten years' time. After all, she'd be gone off a good
deal by the time I was four-and-twenty. Worst of girls, that
is — no last.'

' Then she doesn't fret much. She has forgotten her father.'

' Well, she does — that's the uncomfortable part. You never
know when she won't break out again. Spoiled a really good
pudding yesterday by crying in the middle of a plateful — her
pipes always burst when you least expect it. And then the old
lady chimes in. A man can't enjoy his meals if he's rained on
that way. It's all your fault. If we'd had a regular funeral,
with mourners and hat-bands and that, as we had every right
to expect in a respectable family, we should have got through
our crying, and adone with it once for all. How's a man, I
should like to know, to feel comfortable over his grub, when
first it's Alison, and then it's the old lady, crying in chorus ?
Might as well sit down to dinner, with jour umbrella up, in
a shower-bath. It was a roll-jam-pndding, too !'

' I wish I could trust you,' said Anthony, laying his hands on
the boy's shoulders. ' Will you promise not to betray me ?'

' I promise faithfully, uncle. I will say nothing, on two con-

HOW ANTHONY HAMBLIN LOOKED. 187

ditions, which I'll tell you presently. But are you going to let
Alison be dished out of all her money ?'

' No, I am not. That is the one thing, the only thing, thai
■will force me out of my seclusion. That is the one thing. If
Stephen wins his case, he will find that he has reckoned without
— his dead brother.'

' You will come back again, in that case, and in spite of every-
thing ?'
' I will, in spite of everything.'

Nicolas breathed freely. This was good news, indeed. In
any case Alison was safe. And if Alison was provided for, then
he himself would not be forgotten. The bright eyes beneath
those long white eyebrows twinkled with delight.

'Very well, uncle. Then we understand one another. If
things go wrong you'll turn up at the right moment, frustrate
his politics, make him sing out like bricks, and confound his
knavish tricks. But, I say, why not tell me just now where
you were married ? — just for curiosity, and because we are both
enjoying the same jolly game.'

' No, Nicolas ; I shall not tell you that. I shall tell you no
more ; and now you must go.'

'Well, if you won't let me square the other side, and if you
won't tell me all about your marriage, I suppose I must. Still '
(he got off the table again, and put on his hat slowly), ' I don't
half like it. You have promised to interfere at the last moment,
just when Uncle Stephen thinks he's going to grab it all. That's
satisfactory so far : but how do I know that you won't bolt
yourself the moment you are out of my sight ?'

' If I trust my secret in your keeping,' said Anthony, ' is not
that a sufficient guarantee ?'

' Well, no,' said Nicolas ; ' because the truth is that you didn't
trust it. I found it — I took it ; you couldn't help yourself.'
' Well — well !' said Anthony, impatiently.
'Now, then, for my conditions. I keep your secret, Uncle
Anthony, faithfully, if you promise me two things, They are
— first, don't bolt.'

' I will not, unless I have cause for suspecting you.'
' Second, when you come back to the House — because of course
you will ; Uncle Stephen can't be endured much longer — you
will take me into it. I'm not a fool, Uncle Anthony ' (the boy
became here almost solemn in his earnestness) — ' no Albino ever
was a fool yet, so far as Universal history books (with dates)
can inform the class. I'm always trying to learn things that will
make me fit for a City life. There's nothing in all the world I
would rather have, after a bit, than a partnership in the House.
Not at first, you know ; I am content to work my way right up
from the very bottom, only let me have the chance.'

1 88 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' My dear boy,' said Anthony, his kind eyes softening, and
laying his hands on th« lad's shoulders, ' I shall never be able to
give you the chance, I shall not be there.'

' But promise, uncle.'

' I promise, if I am there.'

' That's quite enough,' said Nicolas, resuming his habitual
manner. ' Some fellows — suspicious fellows — would require a
stamped agreement. Between man and man, I say, if men's
words are worth anything, a verbal agreement is enough.'

' You may come to see me sometimes, if you like,' said Anthony.
' Come on half -holidays, when no one suspects you. Come and
tell me about Alison.'

' I will, uncle,' said the boy ; ' and about the old lady and
myself. Oh, I'll keep you lively ! And you shall tell me how
you like writing-mastering. And remember your promise — fain
larks — no bolting ! Here's your key.'

Nicolas shook hands with head erect, but his hands were a
little shaky, and outside the house he put his knuckles into his
eyes for a moment. Then, because a boy in the street who was
passing by laughed at him, he chucked that boy's hat into a
passing cab, and gave him one to remember him on the left ear.
The necessity of recovering the cap prevented the boy from
retaliating, although he was bigger. After that, Nicolas went
on his way in a serene and even joyous frame of mind.
Presently, thinking over the convivial side of the new discovery,
over all the possibilities of this delightful game of hide-and-seek,
and how it would light up and illumine the summer months, and
how it would eventually glorify and immortalise himself, he
grew more than joyous — he became rapturous. He could no
longer walk, but began to dance. He danced behind and beside
nervous old gentlemen, so that they were fain to stop and beg
him to pass on ; he danced beside grave matrons and elderly
single women as if he were their frisky son ; he mingled in the
ranks of girls' schools, and danced among the girls, as if ho
were a frivolous pupil ; he chanced upon a pale and unhappy
two-by-two belonging to a commercial academy, and danced
among the spiritless boys as if he dared the uslier to box his
ears ; he overtook a heavily-laden and very stout old lady going
home from shopping, and danced all round her, whistling loudly
the while. This figure, if it is executed properly, with the back
presented to the victim's face, and plenty of double-shuffle, is
really expressive, and disconcerts old ladies excessively. It was
a favourite feat, I believe, with the Mohocks and Scourers of
old. This old lady, for her part, was so much put out by it that
she dropped all the things she was carrying — her bag, her basket,
her parcels, her gloves, her shawl, her umbrella, her spectacles,
and her thimble — anything that could possibly tumble from her.

HOW ANTHONY HAMBLIN LOOKED. i8g

These spread as they fell, till the whole pavement was strewn
with the wreck. She is still, I believe, engaged in picking up
her property. But iong before she realised the extent of the
calamity, the boy, whose good spirits prompted him to so great
activity, was out of sight, still dancing and still whistling as he
went.

He arrived at Clapham about half-past five. He was bois-
terous, he was joyful in that house of subdued melancholy.
He boldly suggested champagne instead of tea ; he spoke vaguely
about great things in the way of festivities to come ; he de-
clined altogether to learn his lessons for the next day ; he led
his mother to think that he was going to have something — the
measles, a fit, or perhaps the mumps, which are said sometimes
to begin with an accession of supernatural and unaccountable
hilarity.

When he got Alison quite by herself for a moment, he assumed
a mysterious manner and winked and nodded.

' How are they getting on for you, Alison ?' he asked.

' Nothing has been found yet, I am sorry to say.'

'Well, I am not a man who promises rashly; only, the
moment you think the game is up, you give me the tip straight
away.'

' Give you the tip ?'

' Tip it to me. Then you shall see — hey ! presto ! up goes
Uncle Stephen, horns and tail and all, blown to little smithereens,
and Alison comes home in triumph ! Ring the bells ! beat the
drums ! and hooray for writing-masters all !'

For several days after that the boy maintained, with Alison,
a running fire of obscure allusions to writing-masters. He
talked about the great amount of their gains, their enviable
position in the social scale, their enjoyable work, their content
and happiness. What did he mean ?

CHAPTEE XXIII.

KOW ADVERTISING PROVED A DISAPPOINTMENT

The advertisements were all put into the papers, and the cousins
waited impatiently for the result.

There were no results at all after a week. ' They are search-
ing the registers,' said Gilbert.

They waited another week ; there were no results still.

' Give me time to look through the London registers,' said
Alderney Codd, hopefully.

iqo THE SEAMY SIDE.

Alison shook her head. She was not sanguine of success, even
in her brightest moods, when she continually thought about that
story of the ship's captain, who went off his head and signed
articles as an able seaman.

' He may come back,' she said, foolishly dwelling on this
dream — fortunately, it was not often that she permitted herself
so great a happiness. ' He may come back. Perhaps he will
come back. I shall never give up that hope. What is the good
of trying to discover what he wanted to conceal ? You had
better give it up, Gilbert, and give the other man all the money,
and let me go away somewhere and be forgotten.'

' Give it up !' he cried ; ' why we have only just begun.'

1 It is useless,' she replied despondently; 'you are only making
yourself and me more unhappy than we need be. Give it up,
and me too, and go back to your chambers and your law-work.'

Alison's despondent view was not the only disheartening thing
about the work which Gilbert had set himself to do. It was
impossible to deny the difficulty which presented itself at the
very beginning. Why was all mention of the marriage, if there
was a marriage, suppressed in the diaries ? Even a courtship
takes time. Why was even the courtship concealed and sup-
pressed ? Why did a man who was frank and candid as the
day in everything else, keep a guarded silence in what was pro-
bably his only love affair ? and, silence or not, what opportunity
could be found for love-making ? What room was there in that
busy life, so faithfully recorded in the diaries, for love, court-
ship, and wedlock ?

Many young men live in chambers ; whatever their occupa-
tions during the day, they have at least their evenings free ;
they are not generally supposed to record in diaries the
menus plaisirs of those evenings. Other young men live at
home, but do not always, as their mothers would wish, spend
the evening at home : nor do they always truthfully explain in
the morning where they have been and what they did the night
before : deception, sujiprcssio veri, is practised. Anthony Ham-
biin did not have chambers, nor did he spend his evenings
abroad. Not £.t all : he devoted himself, with the devotion of
a Frenchman, to his mother. He never showed the least incli-
nation to any kind of profligacy, wastefulness, or fastness. He
was that very rare creature, a young man who is ' steady,' and
yet not a prig in morals. Had he been, for instance, a young
man of the present day, he would have made himself an athlete,
and kept himself in constant training. The only athletics in
his day were those games which a late lamented dean once stig-
matised as 'immoral, because athletic,' — whist and cricket
Billiards there was also, but the dean never heard of that game.
Football was for boys; young men sc»rned to run races: no

ADVERTISING. 191

one would have gone a yard out of the way to see the longest
jump, the highest jump, the farthest shy, the fastest run.
Anthony Hamblin, up to tr. e age of three or four and thirty,
went home every evening to dinner, and stayed at home. Ha
was the constant companion, the solace, the prop of his mother.
He was passionate in his love for her. Stephen it was who early
broke away from the domestic coop : Stephen it was who lived
in chambers, paid duty visits, borrowed money, squandered and
scattered. It was Anthony who cheered the last years of his
mother's life, and, for her sake, not because he was a passion-
less young prig, was content to forego his own pleasures — the
ordinary and innocent gaieties of early manhood.

How then could he find time to get married ?

These doubts, when they arose, Gilbert pushed into the back-
ground. Before Alison he was confident, brave, and cheerful.
Everything, he declared, would happen just exactly as they
wished.

As regards the rest of the family, there was division. The
two partners remained staunch. So did the Colonel and the
Dean, and the rest of the male cousins who belonged to the
generation of Anthony. The younger members, accustomed in
these latter days to the contemplation of a laxer code of morals,
generally took the more gloomy view ; one or two openly de-
clared themselves of the Black Hamblin faction. Female
cousins called on Alison, and hinted at compromise, while there
was yet time. If these hints were such as she could take hold
of, Alison astonished those cousins, as she had gratified young
Nick, by the mightiness of her wrath and the free hanging of
her tongue. What they did not see, when they retired, con-
fused and beaten down like the long grass after a thunder-
storm, was the humiliation which fell upon their cousin, and the
bitter tears which these doubts wrung from her when she knew
that they could not see them.

Compromise ! No ; nothing that could show belief in her
uncle's theory ; nothing that should allow the bare possibility of
that theory ; nothing that did not admit to the full her father's
honour, her mother's honour, and all that these involved.

Nothing is more certain than that, if you advertise long
enough, you are sure to get something out of it, I was once
assured by a stranger, whom I afterwards discovered to be con-
nected with the advertising interests, that for twelve thousand
pounds he would undertake to float anything, from a quack
pill or a saline mixture to a daily paper. Thinking over this
assertion, I had a dream, in which I thought I was a millionaire
that my money was all divided into little heaps of twelve thou-
sand pounds each, and that I was devoting the whole of my
vast wealth, by means of giving this philanthropic stranger one

192 THE SEAMY SIDE.

of these heaps at a time, to floating pills, papers, theatres, Raima
draughts, books, mnsic, pictures, and artistic furniture. I woke
up before I reached the last heap, and I do not know how far I
advanced the world.

As for the Hamblin advertisements, the first result of them
was to bring Mrs. Duncombe to light.

She called herself at the office in Bedford Row, and sent up
her name, with a great air of mystery, in a folded piece of
paper, which, she instructed the clerk, was not to be opened,
on any account, by anybody except Mr. Billiter himself.

She was a florid lady, between middle and elderly age, with
a fat, good-natured face, much resembling an overblown cab-
bage-rose. She looked about her with suspicion. A lawyer's
office has something fearsome about it, even to those who ' ought
to know better ;' to a woman of Mrs. Duncombe's social stand-
ing it is simply terrible. The appearance of the sharp-visaged
old gentleman who received her, with his bright eyes and pointed
chin, did not reassure her.

' Oh,' said Mr. Billiter, looking her all over with suspicion,
' you are Mrs. Duncombe, are you ? You are the lady for
whom we advertised, are you ? And you are come for your
reward, I suppose. Very well. Of course we do not pay any-
thing until we are satisfied that there is no imposture. So you
will be good enough to sit down and answer a few questions.'

Mrs. Duncombe obeyed, though she regarded the very chairs
with distrust. Still, she obeyed. Her breath was short too,
and getting up the stairs had tired her.

' I am Mrs. Duncombe,' she said presently, and without wait-
ing for the questions — indeed, the old lawyer had gone on
writing, as if no one was in the office at all, which was hia
pleasant way of giving sinners time for meditation and repent-
ance — ' and I am here in answer to an advertisement which my
nephew read to me. Because I don't read papers myself, as a
general rule, my eyes not being so good as they were, and the
news not up to what it used to be arid one has a right to expect.'
She paused for a moment only. ' There may be, perhaps, two
Mrs. Duncombes in the world. But there can't be two in con-
nection with the sweet flower, which her initials wore A. H.'

' Tell me, if you please,' said Mr. Billiter, ' what those initials
stand for ?'

' Aha !' she replied, with a look of profound caution, which
sat comically upon her jovial and easy face. ' And suppose
you want to find out the dear young lady yourself, and you've
got designs upon her, and you've sent to me to help you do a
mischief to my dear darling ?'

1 Shall we divide the name into syllables then ?' asked Mr.

ADVERTISING. 193

BillitWT. ' Th&* VAX be fair. I will begin. Now, then, A, L—
Al.'

' There you are w\<sh your Al,' responded the lady, pleased
with this ingenious nuiweuvre. ' Al. I, i— there you are with
your Ali.'

' S, 0, N— son,' Mr. Billiter went on gravely.

' And there you are with your Alison,' she added. ' That's
the Christian name right enough, and the only girl I ever met
with such a name out of a printed two-penny book. Now the
surname. H, A, M— Ham ; there you are with your Ham.'

' B,' Mr. Billiter added, emphasizing with his forefinger.

' B,' taking the word out of his mouth ; ' there you are with
your B — Ham-bee,' as if it was a syllable.

' L, I. N — lin ; which completes the name.'

' There you are with your Hamblin— there you are with your
Alison Hamblin. Lord help you, sir, I taught that little dear
to spell myself, though rather rusty after all these years, and a
spelling-bee not to my taste, nor a prize likely at my time of
life. There you are with your Alison Hamblin. To think that
I should ever have spelt her name turn-about with a lawyer !
Well, sir, you haven't told me what you want to do to the dear
child.'

' No harm, Mrs. Duncombe— quite the contrary. We want
to do her as much good as possible. We want to protect her
against a man who is trying to keep her out of her property.'

' Is he now ? The pretty dear ! And a goodish bit of pro-
perty, too, I shouldn't wonder.'

'It is a goodish bit, indeed. Now for our questions, Mrs.
Duncombe.'

' As many as you like, sir ; but not too fast, through the
breath being shorter than it was twenty years ago, when first I
set eyes on that most blessed of little girls.'

' Yes. When did you make the acquaintance of Mr. Anthony
Hamblin ?'

' A fortnight before he brought me the child. I answered
an advertisement for a careful person who would take charge
of a child ; references required. I referred to the parish doctor
— the same who attended my husband in his last illness — and
the vicar, the same who buried him. They spoke to my re-
spectability, and Mr. Hamblin took me on at a truly liberal
salary, being a most generous and open-handed gentleman,
though never, seemingly, knowing the real value of money, and
too liberal to the poor — a thing which does them more harm
than good in the long-run '

' Pray excuse me. Mr. Hamblin engaged you, ou the strength
of those references, to take care of the child ?'

' He did. sir. He placed me in a house furnished with every-

23

194 THE SEAMY SIDE.

thing you could wish, except that the cabinets and the chests
of drawers were new and used to crack of a night, which is
fearsome to a lonely widow woman ; and a fortnight later he
brought me the prettiest child, of a year old or thereabouts,
that ever laughed in a nurse's eyes, or said " Ta," for a piece of
sponge-cake.'

' He brought you the child ? Did you not, then, go for it
yourself ?'

' No ; he brought her. He came by the train.'

'Where did he come from?'

' Surely it was not my place to ask ? He had no servant with
him ; he brought the infant in his own arms.'

' That is odd. Had the child any linen ?'

' Yes, a basketful ; but there was no mark on any of it. And
she had a coral necklace. That was all she had.'

' Pray tell me more.'

' Mr. Hamblin said her name was Alison Hamblin, and that
her mother was dead ; then he went away. In a fortnight he
came again. In a little while he used to make me send a daily
report to his office in London of the child's health and progress ;
and he used to run down from Saturday to Monday when she
got a little older. He had a bedroom in the house — his own
house it was.'

' Ay,' said Mr. Billiter, ' we remember that he used to go
down to Brighton.'

' The little maid grew up much like her father, only dark-
complexioned ; and that fond of him as she couldn't bear to
say good-bye, and was always reckoning up the days to Satur-
day. Well, the time went on, and I was sorry indeed, I can
tell you, when the day came that Mr. Hamblin said he thought
the sea-air had made her a strong child, and that he intended
taking her to live with him in London. So we had to part ;
and it was terrible

The good woman paused, while hot tears ran down the furrows
of her nose.

' It does you credit, Mrs. Duncombe,' said Mr. Billiter, refer-
ring, perhaps, to the present rather than to the past tears.
' Mr. Hamblin, then, took her away. What did he do for you ?'

' He bought me an annuity, sir ,- one hundred pounds a year it
is, and a permanent income for a woman that would otherwise
have been in the workhouse in her old age. Wherefore I say
every day, " God bless him and magnify his name !" '

' Thank you, Mrs. Duncombe. But he is dead — yes, Mr.
Anthony Hamblin was drowned in the Serpentine in that acci-
dent of January last.'

' Dear, dear me !' she sighed ; ' poor dear gentleman ! This
is more trouble. And Mi*s Alison, air?'

ADVERTISING. 195

' She is well. But her succession and title to the estates are
disputed. We want to find, Mrs. Duncombe— we must find out
somehow, when arid where, and to whom, Mr. Hamblin was
married. We were in hopes that you would know something
about it. Can you not tell us where the child came from ? Was
there no mark at all upon her clothes ? Was there no railway-
label on her box ? Think ; even the least hint might be of
use.'

But she shook her head.

' I know nothing, sir— no more than I have told you. A child
was brought to me, and I took care of her for nine years or
thereabouts. Where she came from I know no more than the
baby herself knew.'

' Then, Mrs. Duncombe, I am afraid you are no use to us.
But you shall have the advertised reward for producing your-
self.'

' And the dear young lady, sir — may I see her ?'

' Assuredly ; here is her address.' Mr. Billiter wrote it down
for her. ' Go whenever you please. I think she will like to
gee you again. And — and — Mrs. Duncombe, if you stay in the
house a day or two, you might look round. Perhaps that very
same box may be lying in some attic — there is always a box-room
in these big houses — and you might find the railway-label ; or
■ — or if you can pick up anything, or remember anything, or find
out anything, let me know. Now, good-morning.'

It was, indeed, very little to go upon — a coral necklace.
Gilbert had already ascertained its existence, and that it was
safe, and in Alison's custody ; but no amount of searching could
find the box in which, twenty years before, the child's clothes
were despatched. Mrs. Duncombe, exuberant in her demon-
strations of affection and anxiety to help, herself conducted the
search in the trunk-room, lumber-room, and every garret and
attic where was hidden away the accumulated worthlessness of
half a dozen generations. Many curious things were found, but
no such box as they wanted.

So far, therefore, the advertisements had not proved a success.
Gilbert waited, like the Earl of Chatham, longing to be at 'em ;
or like Charles the Wrestler, wondering if his antagonist would
come on ; or like a knight-errant who wanted nothing so much
as to go out instantly and slay the loathly worm, if that crafty
creature, safe and snug in its cave, would only come forth to do
battle and be killed.

Perhaps the parish clerks had not seen the advertisements.
' All parish clerks,' Gilbert thought, ' do not take in daily papers.'
He hit upon a novel device of a more searching and thorough
character. He sent a circular to every beneficed clergyman in
the country, asking him to make special search. There are

J 3—2

iq6 THE SEAMY SIDE.

about twelve thousand parishes and district churches, The
thing made a capital job for an agency, which charged sixpence
a hundred for addressing the envelopes, and paid the women
who did the work fourpence-halfpenny. This shows what a
good thing it is to have middle-men, and proves the beneficence
of Providence in multiplying them so mightily that they cut
each other's throats, instead — as they would do were their
number less — of waxing strong, devouring the rest of mankind,
getting all the money into their own hands, consuming the
harvests, eating up the butter, bread, oil, honey, wine, fruit,
corn, cattle, and all the fat of the land. Yet, though many
women worked, several days passed before the circulars could
be issued and answers received.

This time the recipients of the circular did answer ; at least
a good many of them sent answers. They were all to the same
effect. Search had been made, and no such marriage had been
discovered. Some sent useless returns, finding the marriage of
a certain Hamblin a hundred years back, and demanding the
reward by return of post. When it did not come, they wrote
again, asking indignantly for the cause of delay, and threatening
legal proceedings. Others, while admitting that their search
had been fruitless, took the opportunity of advocating the
claims of their Restoration Fund ; their Increase of Beneficed
Clergy Stipend Fund ; their Soup Kitchens ; their Pickled
Onions Fund ; their Fund for enabling the Clergy to see their
way out of It ; their Deaconesses' Aprons Fund ; their Sisters'
Cold Shoulder of Mutton Fund ; their Schools ; their Im-
poverished Bishops' Fund ; their Homes ; their Penitentiaries ;
and their Grand National Society for the Pauperisation of the
British People, officered entirely by the Bishops and Clergy of
the Church of England, and embracing the aims and objects of
all the preceding miner societies. No fewer than twenty-five
sent in a bill for time spent in conducting the search. Eight
hundred and thirty-seven curates, answering for their Rectors
and Vicars, hinted at the patronage of the Hamblins (which
consisted of one small living), and their own unappreciated
merits. Three hundred and sixty-five asked for nominations to
City schools for their boys. One hundred and fifty-two asked
for scholarships on the City Companies' Foundations for m>hs
about to go to Oxford or Cambridge. All alike addressed the
advertisers in terms of affectionate intimacy, as if they were all
round grateful, personal friends, who could refuse each other
nothing. And most of them exhibited a proficiency in men-
dacity to be equalled in no other profession.

This was gratifying so far ; and Gilbert, who opened and
read the letters, felt that this universal confidence in the
generosity of a stranger had (.might him to love bis fellow-

AD VER T/S/JVG. 197

creatures mora deeply. At the same time, there was no dis-
cover}*.

He then hit upon a third plan. If he could not find proof of
the marriage, he might get upon the trace of the unknown
mother.

He drew up a crafty advertisement, in which, after a brief
preamble addressed to the relations and friends of missing
people, he stated that at some unknown period, probably about
twenty-one or two years before the date of the advertisement,
a young lady, name unknown, was believed to have contracted
a secret marriage, presumably under an assumed name, with a
certain A. H. ; that she was believed to have died within two
years of the marriage ; that she had left one daughter, whose
initials were also A. H. ; that information which would prove
the marriage was now being sought, and would be very liberally
rewarded.

This masterpiece he inserted in all the papers, and waited for
a reply. There were hundreds of answers.

Observe that Gilbert's advertisement gave certain data — pro-
bably date, marriage, birth of a daughter, death, initials of hus-
band, initials of child ; six in all. Obviously, therefore, the
replies which fell short in any one of these data would certainly
be useless ; or, as one or two of them might have been missed
by unlearned readers, it was reasonable to suppose that some at
least would be considered. But the mind of the middle and
lower class Briton is illogical. He considers one fact at a time.
Therefore when the advertisement appeared, everybody from
whose hearth daughter, sister, aunt or great-aunt had eloped, dis-
appeared, or run away any time during the last fifty years wrote
in reply. It was astonishing, first, to mark how common an in-
cident in family life of a certain rank this misfortune must be ;
secondly, to see how long and with what keenness it is remem-
bered ; and lastly, how ready a large proportion of the bereaved
are to make money out of the calamity, should a way seem
open.

This time, Gilbert's opinion of human nature was lowered and
not raised at all by the correspondence which ensued. For some,
writing as if with a bludgeon in the left hand, ready for transfer
to the right when the pen was dropped, called Heaven to wit-
ness that the villain had been found at last, and demanded com-
pensation — large and liberal compensation. Others, adopting a
more Christian line, thanked Providence that the sinner was
repentant, and asked what sum the advertiser proposed to pay for
loss of services, anxiety, wounded honour, hope deferred, affections
blighted, and lacerated feelings. Others, again, still with an eye
to business, wrote to say that they held in their hands informa-
tion which would prove of the highest value, but could not part

198 THE SEAMY SIDE.

with it without a proper understanding beforehand. One or two
informed the advertiser that the young person named was not
dead at all, but alive, and quite ready to forgive the past in re-
turn for an annuity of proper settlement. Some concurred in
demanding that the daughter should be restored to her mother's
people, of course with liberal compensation and large annual
allowanco for her keep. Every side of human selfishness seemed
laid bare in their correspondence.

Yet there was another side, else it would have been too con-
temptible. Dozens of letters came, written while the eyes were
blurred with tears, and the mind was sick with sadness at the
revival of past unhappiness. These went to the young man's
heart, and brought the tears to his own eyes as he read them.
They came from old ladies, from middle-aged ladies, from women
of all classes. They were written in forlorn hope : they all told
the same monotonous tale, how a girl had wandered from the
fold and never come back again ; how the mother, aged now,
or her sisters, were waiting still in hope that the prodigal daugh-
ter might return. They gave their own particulars, and they
asked if these would suit the story of the girl about whom the
advertisers were inquiring.

'It is a great and bottomless gulf, this London,' thought Gil-
bert. ' Are there, every year, hundreds of girls who listen to
the voice of the tempter ? Are there, yearly, hundreds of homes
saddened irretrievably by the flight of one ? Anthony Hamblin
could not have been such a man. It could not be,' he repeated,
' that Anthony Hamblin was a vulgar and selfish deceiver of
girls. Yet Alison's mother must have had an existence. Sup-
pose they found her relations among the canaille who burned to
make money out of their own shame ! Better, almost, that her
friends should be found among those who still wept for the loss
of their sister. It must be owned that at this period doubts
assailed the young man. He found himself sometimes in the
Slough of Despond, sometimes on the Hill Difficulty, sometimes
in the Castle of Despair. Yet he met Alison with brave eyes,
and words of courage. He would not dishearten her. To
Alison, indeed, it seemed as if the arrival of Mrs. Duncombe
was all that was wanted to prove her own case.

The confidence of the partners in the power of advertising
rapidly diminished. They sent secretly to one Theodore Bragge,
formerly of the Metropolitan Detective Police, and, unknown to
Gilbert, sought his advice.

Mr. Bragge's appearance was disappointing. Nothing of the
sleuth-hound about him at all. No more intelligence in his face
than in that of any ordinary police-constable. ' But a solid face,'
said Augustus Hamblin. Solidity, in fact, was the one virtue

ADVERTISING. 199

Mr. Bragge's face could boast. He was clean-shaven, rathei
red in the nose, and looked like a butler out of place.

When the case was thoroughly put before him — it was curious
that a man of such remarkable acuteness should be so slow in
mastering facts — Mr. Bragge sat down and tapped his nose.
Anybody can execute that simple feat. It is only when Thau-
mast, Panurge, and Theodore Bragge perform it, that one ia
struck by the boundless capabilities of so simple an action.

' This will be, likely, a longish case.'

' But do you think you can unravel it?'

Mr. Bragge smiled superior.

' There is no case, gentlemen,' he said, ' that I would not un-
dertake.' (Which was strictly true.) ' I called this a longish
case, not a difficult one. You have heard, perhaps, of the great
Shottover case ? I was the man who unravelled that, How-
ever, I do not boast.'

He proceeded to point out how expensive a process is detective
work, and then, armed with a cheque on account, went away to
begin his work at once.

He began it by a preliminary meditation, which commenced
in a neighbouring tavern immediately after his interview with
the partners, and lasted till eleven o'clock in the evening. It
was interrupted by a whisky-and-water hot at four, a steak at
five with a pint of stout, six whiskys-and- water between six and
eleven, and an animated conversation during the evening with a
few friends.

An English Secret Service officer tries clumsily to do what the
Continental secret police are supposed, I do not know how truly,
to do cleverly. It sends men to watch, spy, and ask questions.
The men always get found out in their watching at the very be-
ginning of their investigations. They are not good actors ; they
cannot disguise themselves ; they are not generally clever ; they
are not always commonly intelligent. But people believe in the
private inquiry man ; they think that he who owns such an office
must have sources of information at his command not to be got
at by anybody else ; they believe that he can discover a criminal,
unearth a lover, prove a marriage, or find a will, when all the rest
of the world have failed.

Let us, in justice to these gentlemen, acknowledge that they
do nothing to undermine or lessen this belief. Quite the con-
trary : they accept the position assigned to them. They are
professors of Sagacity. In a sense they are Professors of the
Science of Human Nature. This science rests upon two or
three axioms, according to these savants.

1. Everybody is, has been, or will one day be. engr/;ed iD
some crime.

2 oo THE SEAMY SIDE.

2. There is nothing, in reality, but the Seamy Side. The
rest is pretence.

3. Truth is to be sought, not in a well, which would be
foolishness ; but behind and beneath the walls and roofing of
lies which it is necessary to build round her in order to protect
her against the wicked world's shower of gold.

4. Good men are those who only lie in the way of business.

5. Suspect every friend ; look on every stranger as an enemy.

6. The booniest companion is often he whom you should trust
least. Virtue does not necessarily accompany good fellowship.

7. If there is a choice of motives, choose the worst.

8. In any case, never suppose a motive which is not in some
way based upon personal interest.

9. Friendship means common interest ; pals are those who
run in couples ; friendship ceases when a man can work by
himself.

10. It is generally thought better to work in the dark than
in the daytime.

I have gathered these maxims from a hitherto incomplete
work by Theodore Bragge himself. They form the introduc-
tion to his unwritten treatise on the ' Philosophy of Human
Nature.' Meantime, he cheerfully undertook the search. He
wrote on the third day that he had found a clue. On the sixth
day he said they were following up the clue. On the tenth day
he said, darkly, that other paths were opening, and that more
money would be necessary. This was as exciting, if it should
prove as unprofitable, as the search for the Philosopher's Stone.
The partners, rejoicing in their secret, sent more money. ' It
was,' said Augustus, ' trained intelligence against the brute
force of advertising ; and, in the long-run, trained intelligence
must win.'

The man with the solid face received the money, and followed
up his clues. Trained intelligence, acting on the decalogue of
scientific maxims quoted above, quickly jumped at the conclu-
sion that there never had been any marriage at all, which was
not what the partners wanted. ' But we can find, perhaps, the
young lady's mother, She must have had a mother.'

CHAPTEE, XXIV.

HOW STEPHEN SENT AN AMBASSADOR,

One evening, Stephen net Jack Baker, which was not unusual,
at the club. They dined together. Jack's manner was mjs-

STEPHEN SENDS AN AMBASSADOR. 201

terious. He whispered that he had something to communicate
after dinner. He hurried through the meal with a haste quite
unusual with him, and, as soon as possible, led Stephen into a
little room, never used till much later in the evening, called the
Strangers' card-room.

' Sit down, Hamblin.'

' What the deuce is the meaning of all this mystery, Jack?'

' This. They've found something.'

1 What do you mean ?'

Stephen turned pale.

' You know they have been advertising and offering rewards?
Very well, then. Something has come out of it. A clerk of
mine knows a clerk in Hamblin's. The clerks there are tre-
mendously excited about the business. My man is to learn
whatever goes on. He reports to-day that an old woman called
and sent up her name in an envelope, saying she had come in
answer to an advertisement.'

' Pooh !' said Stephen. ' What had she got to tell ? I say
there never was any marriage.'

' I say that possibly there was. How about false names ?
It's always the old women one has got to fear most. One must
trust them ; they know everything ; they make up what they
are not told ; they never die, and they turn up at the wrong
moment, just when they are not wanted, and let it all out.
Hamblin, I wish I hadn't stood in with you.'

' Hang it, man ! you are not afraid of your paltry thousand,
are you ?'

' Well, if you come to that, a thousand is a thousand, and it
takes a mighty long time to make.'

' And you stand to win a thousand.'

' I want to know what this old woman had to tell,' Jack
Baker went on doggedly.

' Man alive ! Let the old woman go to the devil.'

But Stephen's cheek continued pale. He was not easy about
that old woman. Had the men known that she was plain Mrs.
Duncombe, once nurse to Alison, their apprehensions would
have been calmed.

' Look here, old man,' said Jack, * let us smooth matters a
bit. Why not make it a friendly suit ? Hang it ! if I had a
month's start I would prove a marriage somehow, if it was only
a Scotch marriage.'

' Too late, Jack,' said Stephen. ' We have had one row. I
got into a rage, and so did she. She's got a temper like mine —
got it from her grandmother. These things very ofteu pass
over part of a generation. The temper passed over her father.
She reminded me of my mother. Gad ! what blazing rows we
used to have in the old days !'

2oa THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Como, Harablin. I will make a little compromise with you.
Make it up, if you can, with the girl. If things go against you,
you can then get my thousand out of her, with whatever you
want for yourself. Your own affairs may be straighter then,
no doubt.'

' Oh, my own affairs — yes — yes. They are pulling round,
said Stephen, forcing a smile.

' Very well, then. If the thing goes in your favour, you can
let all the world see what a magnanimous creature you've been.
Don't you see ? If the worst happens, you can always reckon
on getting a slice of the cake ; if the best, then it will be all in
your own hands, to do what you please with.'

' I think you are right,' said Stephen, with an effort. ' I am
sure you are right, Jack. I ought never to have quarrelled
with the little spitfire, but she would have it. We always did
hate each other, you know. I wonder if she ever suspected
what I knew. Perhaps she did. Girls are more crafty than
anyone who doesn't know the nature of women would believe
possible.'

He got up and found writing materials.

' I suppose it will be better to write to her than to call upon
her. Yes, certainly better. I used to be able to pitch a very
decent letter in the old days. Let me try my hand again.'

This letter took him some time to write. He wrote it, in
fact, at least three times, and even then he was not satisfied
with it. At last he brought the third draft to his friend, and
submitted it for consideration.

' Listen, Jack,' he said. ' I think this will do as well as a longer
letter. Of course, we shall keep a copy, and send one to the
cousins.

' " My dear Alisox,

' " I have for some time been trying to write to you.
The memory of hard words, and perhaps bitter thoughts, on
one or the other side, has hitherto prevented me. I have no
desire to excuse myself. In fact, I can find no excuse. My
unfortunate temper alone is to blame. To that, and to that
alone, I would ascribe the misfortune that I have beep made to
appear to you in a light of hostility " '

' Don't like that,' said Jack, slowly ; ' say " made me assume,
apparently, an attitude of hostility." '

' Think so ? Yes. Perhaps that will be better.' Stephen
made the correction in pencil. ' " Made me assume an apparent
attitude of hostility. Nothing, really, was farther from my
thoughts, my wish, or my intention. Will you do me the
justice of believing that I, for my own part, am most anxious,
most desirous, to do my utmost to prove the truth, that yon

STEPHEN SENDS AN AMBASSADOR. 203

may rely upon my most sincere co-operation in any serious
effort to ascertain the truth ; and that, in the discovery of any
fact which may convince me, yourself, and our cousins of your
title to the estate, I am ready to withdraw my claim at once.
I beg you to believe that I should refuse to take any advantage
of legal technicalities. At the same time, in justice to my own
birth, to my position, to my brother's position, I ask that the
truth should be fairly and fearlessly investigated. The future
of the Hamblin House must not be open to the questions or the
doubts of any who wish to throw a stone, or cast a slur. I am
aware, very sorrowfully I own it, that the investigation which
I ask — it is all I ask — may possibly prove disastrous to yourself.
At all events, you are a Hamblin. You would not wish to be
rich at the expense of others, whose right you were usurping ?

' " For the moment, I think I had better not attempt to see
you. I send you this letter by the hand of a personal friend,
Mr. Bunter Baker." '

' Hallo !' cried Jack ; ' I say, you don't mean me to take it ?'

' " Who will be able, I trust," ' Stephen read on quickly,
' " to persuade you, as I, with my unhappy impetuosity, am
unable to do, that I am a friend and not an enemy, that I am
most anxious not to be regarded as an enemy. Sooner or later,
this question, which in everybody's mind " '

' I say,' said Jack, ' I suppose it isn't, really ?'

' No,' replied Stephen ; ' I don't suppose anybody outside the
Hamblin lot troubles his head about it. But, you see, it has
been very much in my head, which is the great thing. Where
are we ? — " everybody's mind must have been raised. Was it
not better that it should be raised by myself, in a spirit of
inquiry, without animosity, or would you have preferred that
it should be raised later on, perhaps when your children's
fortunes might be blighted and their pride brought low ?" '

' That's devilish good,' said Jack.

' Yes ; I think I can manage the patter on occasion,' said
Stephen. ' Well — " You will be told, perhaps, that my action
in the case was dictated by a selfish desire to obtain, wrong-
fully, your inheritance. Alison, solemnly, that is not the case.
It is quite the contrary. My first thought was in your interest,
my first action was for your safety. You have to thank your
friends, my cousins, and no others, for the turn that has been
given to the thing. Read this carefully, and if you find any
point or points of objection, do not be satisfied with the counsel
of your present advisers, but have the courage and the con-
fidence to ask explanations of me

' " Your affectionate uncle,

1 " Stephen Hamblin."

204 THE SEAMY SIDE.

And anyhow, it will show it is an act of kindness on my part,
They will think I am not afraid. For that matter,' he added,
with a dash of gasconade, ' I am not the least afraid. Let them
do their level worst.'

' Level worst !' To bid a man do that is to throw the glove
in earnest, and to throw it with the superiority of the better
position. Jack Baker felt it. He was going as ambassador into
the enemy's camp, not with the sneaking consciousness of
defeat, but in the proud position of one who holds an olive-
branch in one hand, and with the other invites the enemy to
do his level worst. He forgot, for the moment, the mysterious
old woman whose visit had disquieted him, and he only saw
himself clothed in the grandeur of a plenipotentiary, dictating
terms to a sulky and plain young woman, easily reduced to
reason, and open, like most of her sex, to the influences of
terror, respect, and awe, which are induced by the voice, and
the presence, and the majesty of a Man !

In fact, Jack Baker, armed with this letter, did pay that
visit the very next day. He went to Clapham Common in his
own private hansom, hoping devoutly that Miss Hamblin might
be sitting at the window when he drove to the door. Of
course his horse was showy, and his tiger small. Of course, too,
he was attired with the greatest magnificence permitted to City
men by a very liberal fashion. No young fellow had more gold
about him ; no one wore better gloves ; no one was more daring
in the matter of neckties ; no one more shiny of hat, neat of
boot, or original in waistcoat. To men of this generation very
few things are permitted in dress compared with what young
men used to be allowed in the good old days when ribbons, lace,
gorgeous doublets, slashed sleeves, pearl-embroidered pour-
point, silk stockings, sword-belt, sash, diamond buckles, and
red-heeled shoes set off to advantage a young fellow who could
boast a reasonably fine figure and shapely leg. Yet the present
fashion allows something for the imagination to work upon ;
and the imagination of Jack Baker, which was not occupied
with thoughts of heroic deed, brave saying, or generous emprise,
naturally found employment in the invention of new braveries.
lie was still, though now past thirty, on that level of civilization
where men take the same view of maidens as the peacock takes
of the peahens, and imagine that, by spreading gorgeous
plumage, and strutting with braggart air, they can awaken the
admiration of the weaker sex.

He expected to be received by a small, timid girl, who might
possibly show temper, but who would begin, at least, by being
enormously afraid of him. This was unfortunate at the outset.
He was unprepared, too, for the magnificence of the house,
which surpassed anything of which he had ever dreamed. The

STEPHEN SENDS AN AMBASSADOR. 205

private houses of rich men and gentlemen were not, as a rule,
thrown open to this successful speculator in silk. A club
drawing-room, was Jack's most exalted idea of a well-furnished
apartment.

He was shown into the study, whither in a few moments
Alison came to him. And then Jack's cheek paled, and his
heart sank, for, instead of the insignificant and spiteful little
animal he had dreamed of, the poor creature whom Stephen
Hamblin generally spoke of as ' that little devil,' there stood
before him a young lady, whose beauty, dignity, and self-posses-
sion overwhelmed him and crushed him.

She bowed and looked again at the card : 'Mr. J. Bunter
Baker.' It is the day of double names. Smith is nothing unless
he is differentiated by a prasnomen other than the Christian
name. Jones belongs to the Porkington Joneses. Jack Baker,
as we have seen already, on arriving at success, remembered that
he, too, had a second name, given him by his godfather, a most
respectable clerk in a wholesale tea-warehouse. Mr. Bunter was
now no more, but his name served to give his godson additional
importance, and in his own eyes, at least, to elevate him in the
Bocial scale.

' " Mr. J. Bunter Baker,"' she repeated.

' I — I am Mr. Bunter Baker,' he replied.

Here he was so unlucky as to drop his hat, which, on recover-
ing, he placed on the table.

' May I ask, Mr. Baker,' she went on, ' what is the meaning of
your visit ?'

' I come,' he replied, ' with a letter to you from Mr. Stephen
Hamblin.'

' My uncle can have nothing to write to me,' said Alison, ' that
I would wish to hear. I cannot receive any communications from
him. Is that all you have to say to me ?'

Jack Baker began to wish he had not consented to act as am-
bassador. But he plucked up courage.

' My friend, Miss Hamblin,' he said, ' who is a gentleman of
extraordinary sensitive nature, as perhaps you know, has been
rendered extremely unhappy by the position in which he finds
himself unavoidably placed towards you.'

'Why!' cried Alison, 'he has deliberately insulted the
memory and character of my father. Unavoidably V

' There were reasons, Miss Hamblin,' Jack went on, trying to
speak grandly, ' why he was bound to go on against his wish.
Had his cousins listened to him at the outset, there would have
been probably no publicity — no litigation.'

' I know nothing of any motives,' said Alison ; ' I judge only
by his actions. My undo is my enemy. I want to have no com-

206 THE SEAMY SIDE.

mnnication of any kind with him. I mistrust him, and I sus-
pect him.'

' At least, you will read his letter ?' Jack produced it, and
tendered it with a winning smile. But Alison was very far from
thinking of his manner of smiling. ' Do not let me go away and
tell my friend, Mr. Stephen Hamblin, that you refused to receivo
a letter from him, even after I told you that it was conciliatory.'

' Conciliatory !' she echoed, ' as if I did not well to be angry.
Well, sir, I will read your letter.'

She took it, and sat down without inviting her visitor to take
a chair, which was rude. Jack, therefore, remained standing.
He felt conscious that he was not looking to advantage. To
stand without your hat in your hands, without the aid even of an
umbrella or walking-stick, before a lady, while she reads a letter,
makes one feel like a schoolboy about to say a lesson which ho
does not know.

' He offers,' says Alison, ' to withdraw his claim, as soon as
anything has been discovered which will convince him that he is
wrong. That is very noble in him, considering that we shall force
him to withdraw as soon as that has been discovered. Why did
he write me this letter, sir ? You say you are his friend. Have
you seen the letter ?'

' I have. I think it is a most friendly letter. Nothing could
be more so, I am sure ; most creditable to the writer.'

' Thank you. Why did he write it ?'

' Pure good feeling,' said Jack. ' He is a man of wonderful
good feeling ; that, when you come to think of it, is his strong
point.'

' Why did he write it ?' asked Alison again, but this time of
herself ; ' what does he expect to get by writing it ?'

' What can he get ?' said the ambassador, craftily. ' He knows
very well that the estate is as good as his own already. He wants
to make friends with you.'

' I am much obliged to him,' replied Alison ; ' I can never be
friends with him. He is, and will always be, my most bitter
enemy. My only hope is that I may never again see him, never
again speak to him.'

' Now that's very hard,' said Jack. ' And what is the good of
standing in your own light ? Why, I look on this letter —
though he didn't say so, mind, and it's entirely between you and
me, and not to go any farther ' — he really, Alison thought, was
a most vulgar young man — ' as the foundation of a friendly
arrangement.'

' I will consent to no friendly arrangement.'

' We will suppose for a moment,' continued Jack, gradually
feeling his way, ' that my friend Mr. Stephen Hamblin is

STEPHEN SENDS AN AMBASSADOR. 207

anxious to put an end to this unnatural contest between two

very near relations.'

' It is very easy for him to put an end to it,' said Alison ; 'he
has only to withdraw his pretensions. He has only to cease in-
sulting my father's memory.'

' Pardon me. That is not at all his intention or his object.
You are a lady, Miss Hamblin, and you do not feel, as men do,
the necessity of securing for every man his right. Prove your
right, and Stephen Hamblin retires. Until you do, he is the
heir-at-law. But ' — he raised his finger, for Alison was going to
burst in with an indignant denial — ' suppose that he was to meet
you half-way. Suppose that he was ready to say, " Let us
arrange this 'dispute. Let your friends agree upon a present
settlement for you. Let me succeed without opposition : I shall
not marry ; you will be my sole heiress." Now, could anything
be more agreeable and comfortable for all parties ?'

Alison rose.

' This is quite idle,' she said grandly ; ' I will make no such
arrangement.'

Jack Baker confessed to himself on the spot, that all his
previously conceived ideas of feminine beauty would have to
be modified. He had never seen anyone at all comparable with
this magnificently beautiful creature on the stage, which, in com-
mon with many young City men, he confidently believed to be
the natural home and harbour of the highest cypes of English
beauty ; nor behind the bar, where those fair ones who cannot
play burlesques delight to display their loveliness for all to
behold who possess the ' price of half a pint.' Nor could any
music-hall in London show such a face, such deep black eyes,
such splendid black hair, such lips, such a warm rosy cheek, such
a figure. It was a new lesson for him ; he felt an unaccustomed
glow about the pericardium ; a yearning all over ; a conscious-
ness of higher things than he had as yet imagined ; a sudden
weariness of Topsy and Lottie, and their drink-dispensing
friends : he choked ; he blushed ; he stammered ; he was
penetrated with the majesty of a beauty far beyond his dreams ;
he was so deeply struck with the shock of this revelation that
he actually forgot himself and his own peacockery. Then ho
suddenly remembered his mission.

' Surely,' he pleaded, with a last effort, ' surely it would be
better to come to an arrangement than to carry on a long and
fruitless opposition. It can't do anybody good : nothing will
come of it, except disappointment. All this time they've been
searching and advertising, and offering rewards — and what's
come 'i Nothing.'

He puts this out as a feeler, but Alison's face showed no
chaugo, so that he was su*; 1 nothing had been found.

2o8 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Not the least discovery, has there now ?'

She did not reply.

'Why, if we could have a little agreement come to, all yotu
troubles would stop at once.'

' No, sir,' said Alison. ' On the contrary, all the trouble
would begin. You cannot understand, I suppose, that my
father's honour is dear to me. My Uncle Stephen cannot under-
stand. Nothing, nothing !' — she stamped with her foot and
looked so resolute that Jack trembled — ■' nothing would ever
persuade me to sacrifice the good name of my father. I will
make no such bargain as you suggest. I would rather, believe
me, sir, I would far rather go out from this house a beggar.'

Her black eyes burned with so fierce a light, and her lips were
set so firm after she said this, that the ambassador felt sin-
gularly small.

' In that case,' he said, ' I have nothing more to say. You
quite understand that this last proposal is my own suggestion,
not Mr. Hamblin's, though I am quite satisfied of his desire to
be on good terms with his niece and to benefit her.'

' That I do not believe,' said Alison. ' Good-morning, sir.'

She looked superb. Jack Baker thought of his own balance
at the bank and his ventures on the high seas, and took heart.

' In any case, Miss Hamblin,' he said, with an ingratiating
smile, ' I am not my principal in this affair, and I hope you will
not consider me as rowing in the same boat .with him. Of
course, I can hardly discuss his conduct with you, as he is my
friend. But I cannot, I am sure, regret it, since it has enabled
me to introduce myself to a young lady who — I must say —

who ' Here he broke down, because she stared at him with

cold and wondering eyes. ' And I hope, Miss Hamblin, that
when we meet in the City — I mean in the streets, and in society,
and at dinners, and so on, that you will let me consider myself
a friend. And if I might be permitted to call again '

' Sir !' The tone of her voice froze him. ' I have already
wished you good-morning. Stay ! you may tell your principal,
as you call him, that I have torn up his letter.'

She did so, in fact. No actress on the stage ever did a little
piece of business more effectively, because it was done so
quietly.

The fragments of the letter lay at his feet.

' Humph !' said Jack, doubtfully. ' Well, we've taken the
precaution to keep a copy. That will be proof of our intentions.
(roofZ-morning, Miss Hamblin ;' he bowed in his very best style.
' I would meet with another failure, willingly, for the pleasure
of seeing you again.'

He smiled his sweetest, while she looked at him in speechless
indiguation. What did the man mean '{ When she had found

STEPHEN SENDS AN AMBASSADOR. 2cg

some words in which to express her sense of his impertinence,
he was gone.

'Now,' murmured Jack the experienced, ' if it was any of the
bar lot, I should understand that standoffishness. I'm up to
their gag, anyhow. They'd like to get the chance of Mr. J
Bunter Baker, wouldn't they ? Just. But with a bit o' muslin
like this Hamblin girl, I suppose it's different. Perhaps I took
her a little aback at first, though she can't really mean that she
don't want to see me again. Gad ! that's too ridiculous. A
girl's a girl, all the world over. And it must be mighty dull
down here, all by herself. I'll find another opportunity and
call again. Give her line for a bit, J. double-B.'

He sought the shelter of his cab, and drove back to town,
seeking solace for his wounded heart in cigars. And in the
evening he met Stephen at the club, and they dined together.
Jack was radiant and boisterous.

' By Jupiter Omnipotent and Christopher Columbus !' he
cried, in an ecstasy. ' You never told me what she is like — that
niece of yours, Hamblin. Kept it for a surprise. She's splen-
did, she is : she's magnificent : she's a goddess, that's what she
is. Hang me if she isn't a goddess ! And you to call that
gorgeous creature a little devil ! Little ? why, she's five feet
eight if she's an inch. And her face, and her figure ! Come,
Hamblin, I can make allowance for the feelings of a man who
has anyone standing between him and such an almighty pile ;
but "little devil" — I say — it really is — ■ Here, waiter 1' this
young man habitually bawled as loudly in a club dining-room
as he had been accustomed to do in City shilling dining-places
years before. ' Waiter, come here. Bring me a bottle of Perrier
Jouet sec — not the Tres sec. It's the least I can do for her, to
drink her health in Perrier Jouet.'

' I suppose uncles are not expected to fall in love with their
nieces,' said Stephen, carelessly. ' I never said that Alison was
ugly or small.'

' You called her a little devil, that's all I know. Well, old
man, here's her jolly good health and a lover, and I shouldn't
mind if it was me, J. double-B., yours truly.'

' Well '—Stephen listened with natural impatience to this
enthusiasm — ' well, how did you get on, and what did she say ?'

' No use, my boy, thinking of anything friendly in that quarter.
But keep your copy of the letter, which may be useful later on.
I did my best for you : I said you were a man of the most
sensitive feelings — ho ! ho ! — and I said that you were most
unhappy about the position you had been obliged to assume —
ha ! ha ! Might just as well have tried the hostile line, because
she's as savage as she is beautiful. She will want a man, not a
thread-paper, for a husband, that girl. J. double-B. would

14

210 THE SEAMY SIDE.

about meet the case, I think. By the way, I found out one
thing ; whoever the old woman was who called at their office,
they haven't made any discovery yet.'

' If she won't be friendly, she needn't,' said Stephen. ' Any-
how, I've done the regular thing, and it will be worse for her in
the long-run. Let her go to '

' No, Hamblin ; don't couple any more the name of such an
angelic creature with that of the devil. I wonder what you
were like before the thatch came off your pretty brows ? She
reminded me of you at once. Here's her health again, and if
there was any better wine in the club, I would drink it in
that.'

' She takes after my mother, the Senora,' said Stephen. ' All
the Hamblins are like each other ; but she has got her grand-
mother's complexion, like me. She can't help being like me,
though she would rather not, I dare say. Let her go, Jack.'

News came, presently, to the cousinhood that Stephen had
written a letter, and had hinted at an arrangement. The family
were divided in opinion. For while some thought that Alison
showed the proper Hamblin spirit in rejecting all overtures
short of absolute submission, others thought that perhaps she
had no right to possess any portion of the Hamblin spirit at all,
until ' things ' were proved ; so that, in fact, the refusal to
make any compromise was a sort of impertinence in her.
Undoubtedly the feeling was growing stronger in the family
that Stephen was very likely right. Gilbert Yorke, however,
agreed with Alison that a compromise was an impossibility.
It was remarkable, considering that she was so resolute never
to marry unless her father's name was cleared, how Alison
comforted and guided herself by the opinion of this young
man.

But his vision of perfect beauty abided with Jack Baker, so
that he began to feel how conversation at bars, admiration of
actresses, talk about ballet people, might all lose their charm,
compared with the society of the one perfect woman he had ever
seen. Perhaps it was as well for Gilbert Yorke's tranquillity
that he could not tell how this rising young City merchant
thought more about Alison than his speculations, more about her
deep dark eyes than about his silks.

THE INSTRUMENT. 211

CHAPTER XXV.

HOW MISS NETHERSOLE BECAME AN INSTRUMENT.

Now while Gilbert and Alderney Codd were floundering in the
dark, groping here and there with uncertain steps and finding
nothing ; "while Mr. Theodore Bragge was ' following up ' one
clue after another, and asking continually for more cheques ;
while Nicolas was hugging to his bosom the new and delightful
secret with which he intended one day to make such a coup as
would make the ears of them who heard of it tingle, and set
the hearts of all boys, wherever the English tongue is spoken,
aflame ; while the partners were doubtful and despondent ;
while the cousins daily became as uncertain over the event as
the English public once were over the identity of a certain
claimant, Miss Nethersole, this time an instrument without
knowing it, voluntarily communicated the very fact which they
were all anxious to find.

We have seen how this lady, her enemy being dead, and her
lawyer stubbornly refusing to ask for the indictment of a dead
man, betook herself to her country villa, and sat down to enjoy
comfortably the settled gloom which may arise in woman's
heart equally from love, disappointment, or the baffling of re-
venge. The forgeries were put away with her plate in a box
which for greater safety she kept screwed to the floor under
her own bed. And for a time she submitted herself to the in,
evitable, and tried to be resigned under the Ruling which had
torn her enemy from her grasp.

You cannot, to be sure, execute any revenge upon a dead
man which shall have the true flavour about it. You may — as
many great monarchs, gourmets in revenge, have done — hang up
the limbs, cut into neat joints, upon gibbets, or stick them on
pikes, or paint them beautifully with tar, and then sling them
up with chains on a gibbet to dangle in the wind ; and yet,
after all, nothing satisfies. You may gaze with pleasure on the
gallows-tree, but there is always the uneasy feeling that the
man himself, who has joined the majority, may be laughing at
you all the while. Miss Nethersole would perhaps have liked,
could she be persuaded that it was a Christian thing, to have
decorated Temple Bar with Anthony Hamblin in bits. I mean
that her bitterness was so savage, so deeply rooted, that she
would have caught at any chance of satisfying the hunger of
her soul She was a woman who, ea this subject, was raging.

14—2

212 THE SEAMY SIDE.

This man had robbed her of her sister, and of her money.
Worse than that, he had robbed her of her heart. She was no
older than he. When he came to Newbury she was still young,
two-and-thirty or so ; he was handsome ; he was gentle in his
manner, courteous and attentive ; she had not had many oppor-
tunities of meeting such a gallant gentleman, this daughter of
a successful Nonconformist tradesman : she mistook his polite-
ness for something more real, and because he was deferent and
courteous, she thought he was in love. She was not hard-
featured in those days, nor hard-minded ; the honey in her
nature still predominated over the vinegar ; and although her
oval face was rather thin, and her chin a little pointed, she was
not yet without womanly charms. It was not absurd for her
to suppose that she might be loved by man — when is it so late
as to be absurd ? She was deceived in the most cruel way, she
said. The man began by making love to her, and then came
and asked for her sister — this chit of eighteen, more than a
dozen years younger than himself. That wrong, though she
did not say so, was harder to forgive than the other two. Money
she might be robbed of ; she might even lose her sister, and yet
in time get over both those losses. But the contempt of her-
self, the quiet way in which the man, when he at length com-
prehended her interpretation of his suit, put it aside courteously,
and yet as if it were absurd — these were things which could
never be forgotten.

Twenty years ago ? Why, the whole scene was as fresh in
her mind as if it had been yesterday. Twenty years ago ? Why
it seemed not a week since ; when the man left her, she locked
the door and gave way to that fit of despairing wrath and
sorrow which had been ever afterwards the great sin of her life
to look back upon, and yet it was not repented.

Seeing, therefore, the manifest impossibility of getting any
pleasantness out of revenge upon a dead man, Miss Nethersole
at first collapsed altogether : nor was it till many weeks after-
wards that a thought came to her which went straight to her
very heart and remained there, growing daily stronger, and
taking every day more definite shape. Why, she thought,
should she lose the money she had paid on the forged receipts 'i
There were six of them. Their dates were twenty, nineteen,
down to fifteen years old. Each one was worth, at compound
interest, more than double the amount it represented. Say
only double. There was a sum of two thousand pounds, at
least, waiting for her. She had only to ask it. That meant
an increase to her income of eighty pounds a year. Surely it
would be a flying in the face of Providence, and a despising
of gifts, were that sum suffered to be lost or thrown into the
capacious coffers of the Hamblins.

THE INSTRUMENT. 213

And then, by going to the office of the firm, by merely claim-
ing it, she would be able to inform the family of the deceased
forger what manner of man the head of the House had been.

' It is a Christian duty,' she said, persuading herself.

Perhaps it was ; but it took her several weeks before she
could resolve on actually carrying the project into execution.
Finally, she arrived at the desired pitch of resolution, and came
up to town by herself, bringing her precious pieces de conviction
with her.

She consulted her solicitor, but more as a matter of form,
because she expected little of a low-spirited caitiff who had re-
fused to ask the magistrates for a warrant because the criminal
was dead. She was right. He behaved in the meanest manner
possible ; there was nothing vigorous about the man. After
all, as she found afterwards, he was only a member of the
Establishment. What could be expected from a hanger on to
that dry branch ?

' The man is dead,' said this creature of compromises. ' You
can have no revenge out of him. You cannot even prove, after
this lapse of time, that the papers are written by him. Even
if the first part, the form of receipt, was written by him, you
cannot prove that the signature is his. To me the signature
looks genuine. The money was paid over the counter. Who
is to say, after fourteen years, who received it ? All the good
you will get, Miss Nethersole, by proceeding in this ungrateful
and thankless business, will be the character of a vindictive
woman.'

' What does that matter,' she replied, ' provided I can show
him to the world as he was ?'

She looked thinner, harder, more determined than ever. The
death of the enemy, the solicitor thought, had only intensified her
desire for revenge.

' Just so,' said the man of law. ' But suppose you only succeed
in showing him to the world as the world has always accepted him,
and in showing yourself as a revengeful person endeavouring by
every means, fair or foul, to compass the disgrace of an honourable
name ?'

She closed her thin lips more tightly together.

' I am vindictive,' she said .; ' I am revengeful, because I wish
to vindicate the memory of my sister '

' By blackening the memory of her husband. Pardon me,
Miss Nethersole ; but I am unable to enter into those curious
Bubtleties, by which you distinguish the duties of a Christian
from that of the avenger of a blood-feud. I cannot act for you
in this matter. I must, I fear, request you to find another
solicitor. I wish you a good-morning.'

Miss Nethersole closed her black bag with a snap and went

214 THE SEAMY SIDE.

away. But she was not vanquished. A woman who has lived
and acted herself for thirty years is not to be moved out of her
course by the disapproval of a solicitor.

What did she want with a solicitor ? She could very well act
alone ; she knew what she had to do, and she could do it, she
thought, better without a lawyer's aid than with one. Acting
alone, too, she could act quickly.

She was staying at the Queen's Hotel, St. Martin's le Grand,
a central place, well removed from the soul-destroying gaieties
of the West, and within access of several faithful chapels. She
returned to the room, sat down for awhile to collect her thoughts,
and presently, after a cup of tea, which brought back her courage
together with her vindictiveness, she made hard her upper lips,
and set out for Great St. Simon Apostle. It was then five o'clock
in the afternoon. The clerks were putting things together ; the
porters and servants were yawning, expectant of the close of
day ; the two partners, Augustus and William, were talking to-
gether in the room of the former, hats on and umbrellas in hand
ready to go, when Miss Nethersole's card was brought in by a
clerk in waiting.

' Miss Rachel Nethersole, OlivetLodge,' read Augustus. 'Do
you know her, Cousin William ?'

The man of few words shook his head.

' Nor I. Ask her, Jennings, what she wants, and whether to-
morrow will do ? Another of the replies to our advertisements,
I suppose, William, or perhaps a messenger from Mr. Bragge.
That man means work, mind you.'

Miss Nethersole sent up word that to-morrow would not do,
and that if the partners refused to hear what she had to say to
them confidentially, she would send up the purport of her mes-
sage by word of mouth, a course which she advised them not to
adopt.

' This is a very curious message,' said Augustus. ' It looks
like threatening us, William. Is she a young woman, Jennings ?'

' Oh dear, sir, no ! Not at all. She looks more than fifty.
A lady dressed in black, with a black bag.'

' Very odd,' said Augustus, 'extremely odd. Perhaps she is
the sister of a young lady who disappeared thirty years ago, a
mother — no — that can hardly be.' Augustus glanced at the card.
' Show her up, Jennings. Perhaps she is only a person connected
with schools, or guilds, or nunneries, or societies of some kind,
in search of donations, which she shall not get.'

' Certainly not,' said William the Silent.

She was not, however, connected with any begging enterprise
whatever, as she quickly showed. She entered the room, looked
round, and glared upon the partners in silence.

THE INSTRUMENT. 215

' Pray, madam,' asked Augustus, * "will you be kind enough to
tell us how we can serve you ?'
' You cannot serve me.'

Then will you be kind enough to tell us what gives us the
pleasure of seeing you here ?'
' It is no pleasure at all, either for you or for me.'
' Really ! Then will you please tell us, at once, who you
are ?'

' I am your late cousin Anthony Hamblin's sister-in-law.'
Both the partners started, and gazed at her with curiosity.
'His sister-in-law? Then you must be— you must be the
sister of his wife ?' cried Augustus, considering rapidly the
meaning of the relationship. ' Permit us, my dear Miss Nether-
sole, to make your acquaintance, to shake hands with you.
This is my partner and cousin, Mr. William Hamblin. Anthony's
sister-in-law. Good heavens ! The very person, or next to the
very person, whom we have been trying to find for so long.
Are you really aware, madam, how much depends on the proof
of this marriage ? Really, this is — this is — this is Providential.
Pray, pray, Miss Nethersole, take a chair — pray sit down and let
us converse ! Most Providential, I am sure !'

She obeyed, and sat down. But her eyes were not encouraging.
They showed no inclination to respond to the friendly advance.,
of her brother's cousins.

' I do not understand compliments. I come to '

' We have been hunting everywhere.' Augustus went on, ' to
find out whom Anthony married, /assure you, Miss Nethersole,
we have spared no trouble. May I ask, did you come in answer

to our advertisements, or did Mr. Bragge '

' Neither, she replied surlily ; ' and a;j for marriage, he married
my sister Dora.'

1 He married her sister Dora ?' echoed Augustus ; 'he married
Miss Dora Nethersole, Cousin William, of — of — of — what town,
madam ?'

' Of Newbury in Wiltshire.'

' Of Newbury in Wiltshire,' he repeated. ' Of course, of
Newbury in Wiltshire — we are getting on famously. Why,
Miss Nethersole, you have been of more use to us in five minutes
than all our advertisements, and circulars, and secret service
people, in four months. Anthony Hamblin was married to Dora,
Miss Dora Nethersole, of Newbury in Wiltshire. Were you
yourself present at the marriage, madam ? But of course you
were. No doubt you were a bridesmaid.'

' Of course I was not. Mr. Hamblin preferred to elope with
my sister. That was his idea of Christian Wedlock. He carried
her away with him. Naturally, I never saw her again,'

'But you know that they were married? You have proof

2i6 THE SEAMY SIDE.

that they were married ? You can tell us where they were mar-
ried ?'

'Sir!' Her voice was more than severe. ' Do I know that they
were married '? Know that they were married? You are speak-
ing of my sister— my sister, sir.'

' That is the reason why I say that you have, no doubt, proof
of the marriage. You know where it took place, for instance.'

' That is not what I came to speak about,' she replied. ' It is
clear to me that your cousin Anthony Hamblin was even more
wicked than I believed him to be. It seems now that he hid
this marriage from you, his partners.' She looked as if this
additional proof of wickedness gratified her beyond measure.

' Pardon me,' said Augustus, ' he did tell us, later on, of his
marriage ; he informed us that your sister, his wife, was dead.
He did not wish to speak of his wife, whose early death, doubt-
less, was too recent a sorrow, and we respected his silence.
There is no wickedness there, so far as I can understand. You,
of course, have no reason to conceal the fact of the marriage.
Where did it take place ?'

' I do not know,' said Miss Nethersole, simply.

' You do not know ?' Both partners stared blankly. ' You
do not know ?'

' I do not !' She pulled the strings of her black bag impa-
tiently. ' They eloped.'

' Oh !' cried Augustus. ' They eloped, did they ? Can you
understand this, William ?'

The taciturn partner shook his head. Anthony Hamblin
elope ! As well expect an archbishop to elope.

' They eloped,' she went on, and my sister wrote next day to
say that she was married. It was not my business to ask where
or when. She had left me, and was no more my sister.'

' Where did she write from ?'

' From a place called Lulworth, in Dorsetshire.'

Augustus Hamblin made a note of the place, and waited for
more information.

' As for the reasons why Anthony Hamblin concealed his
marriage,' Miss Nethersole wenb on, ' I think I can find you, at
least, six. They are here.'

She opened her bag and drew forth a little bundle of papers,
carefully tied up.

From the bundle she extracted half-a-dozen documents, all
written on half sheets of note-paper, and on one side. She
selected one and handed it across the table to Augustus.

' Have the goodness to read that,' she said.

Augustus read :

Received this day, January the first, 18 , of Messrs.

THE INSTRUMENT. 217

Child and Company, the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds
sterling.

'£150 0s. Od.

'Dora Hamblin.'

The signature, in a sloping Italian hand, ran across a receipt
stamp.

' Very well,' said Augustus, returning the paper, ' there is
nothing remarkable about a stamped and signed receipt.'

' Bead the next,' she said.

It was the same as the first, but dated a year later.

She gave him a third, a fourth, and up to an eighth. Augustus
read them all, handed them to his cousin, who also read them,
and gave them back to Miss Nethersole.

'You looked at the dates ?' she asked, with a wintry smile.
The moment of her triumph, such as it was, was about to begin.

' We did.'

' I paid that hundred and fifty pounds to my sister for eight
long years,' she said. ' It was my allowance to her. Her husband
starved her, while he took the allowance.'

' Anthony Hamblin starved his wife ?'

' He neglected her, and starved her. He was a murderer,
because she died of his neglect.'

' Good heavens !' cried Augustus ; ' do you know what you
are saying ?'

' He was more than a murderer ; because while my sister
died less than two years after her marriage, these drafts were
drawn by him, and the signatures forged, for six years later.'

'Let me look at them again,' said Augustus, with troubkd
face.

She handed them across the table, but one by one. 1 , ■■"■?'.
were all in the same handwriting, except the signature. Afu; '
examining them once more, with greater care, Augustus rose
and opened his private safe ; from this he extracted a book, full
of letters and papers pasted in, and carefully indexed. He
turned over the leaves, found what he wanted, and laid it before
his partner, and one of Miss Nethersole's receipts beside it,
without saying a word.

William looked, compared, nodded.

Augustus returned the receipt.

' Thank you, Miss Nethersole,' he said ; ' we are satisfied that
your statement is correct. The papers are forged.'
' Anthony Hamblin was the forger.'

' Pardon me ; that is quite another affair. How are you
going to prove that ?'

' How am I going to prove that V she sat bolt upright and
stared him full in the face. ' Did I not pay the money ?'

2i8 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Doubtless it was paid for you ! but who received it ?

' Who should, except Anthony Hamblin himself ?'

1 But you forget, or perhaps you do not know, that Anthony
Hamblin at that time was in the enjoyment of at least twenty
thousand pounds a year.'

Rachel Nethersole was staggered.

' Twenty thousand pounds a year ? and he refused my sister
more than two pounds a week ! And when I saw him last, and
taxed him with the crime, he did not deny it. I went to Clap-
ham on purpose to see him : it was the day before he was
drowned. I showed him these papers. I informed him that
my purpose was to prosecute him criminally. He did not, he
could not, deny his guilt ; he had not the impudence to deny it,
though he tried to brazen it out.'

' He did not deny it ?'

' No ; on the contrary, he implored me to pause. He said
that consequences, of which I knew nothing, but which I should
regret all my life, would follow if I persevered. I left him un-
repentant, yet troubled. In this awful attitude of convicted
guilt, he was called away the next day.'

' This is the most extraordinary statement I ever heard,' said
Augustus. ' We do not disbelieve you, Miss Nethersole, but
we are convinced that you are mistaken. Anthony Hamblin
could not have acknowledged his guilt.'

' He did not say, in so many words, " I did forge those sig-
natures,' it is true,' said Miss Nethersole ; ' but he acknowledged
that he had done it by implication. What did he mean by
saying that I did not understand the consequences which would
follow ?'

' I do not know,' said Augustus. ' Come, Miss Nethersole,
you have clearly been defrauded of this money. It matters
nothing, now, whether this dead man did the thing or not.
We feel certain that he did not. You will keep your own con-
clusions.'

' Certainly : that the forger was Anthony Hamblin.' She
nodded, and set her thin lips firm.

' As you please. I think my partner agrees with me that we
ought to buy back these receipts.'

' At compound interest,' said the lady.

' At compound interest. We are ready to buy them of you
to prevent a scandal. We cannot allow our late partner and
cousin to be accused or suspected of such a crime. Besides,
there are others to consider. We will buy those papers of you,
Miss Nethersole.'

' Thank you,' she said. ' Of course the money will be useful
to me. It is a large sum to lose. At the same time, if I give

THE INSTRUMENT. 219

up the papers I give up the proofs of that man's abominable
perfidy and wickedness.'

' Not at all,' Augustus replied. ' These papers are not proofs
at all. You would find it as impossible to prove that it was he
who drew the money as that it was he who forged the signa-
tures.'

She was silent, but not convinced. She rose, and put the
papers back into her bag.

'I will not sell them, then,' she said. ' I will keep them.
You would not want to buy them unless it was to screen your
late partner. You are deceiving me ; I shall keep them, and I
shall bide my time.'

' We are not deceiving you, Miss Nethersole. Remember,
however, that our offer is always open. We will buy the papers
whenever you please to sell them.'

' Then I will go,' she said, ' as I came. At least, you know
the truth.'

' One moment,' said Augustus. ' We may wish to correspond
with you. Your address is on this card — Olivet Lodge, New-
bury. That will always find you ? Thank you. It occurs to
me— perhaps a foolish doubt — that while you were not informed
of your sister's place of marriage, you were wrongly informed
of her death.'

' No,' said Miss Nethersole. ' There, at least, I am on firm
ground. Because I have seen her grave. She is buried in
Bournemouth cemetery. At her head is a cross with her initials,
" D. H.,' and the date of her escape from the tyranny and neg-
lect of a seducer, a liar, a forger, and a thief !'

She shook all over with the vehemence of her wrath. Then
she gathered up her bag and her umbrella, laid over her arm the
black shawl which completed her costume, and which she always
carried as if she were a waiter and the shawl a napkin, and
went away without a word of adieu, slamming the door after
her.

' What a woman !' cried Augustus, with a sigh of relief.
' And now, William, what are we to make of it ?'

' No doubt about the handwriting ' said William.

CHAPTER XXVL

HOW ALISON REMEMBERED A MANUSCRIPT.

Rachel Nethersole was gone, and the partners, left alone,
held long and serious counsel. It seemed best, on the whole, to

220 THE SEAMY SIDE.

send for Gilbert Yorke and tell him everything, except one
thing, which the cousins kept to themselves, the secret of the
handwriting. Mr. Theodore Bragge was busy ' following up a
clue ' of his own. In fact, he was at the moment exchanging
ideas on current politics with a friend in a Fleet Street tavern.
Alderney Codd, the most diligent of workers, was hunting down
strange Hamblins, no relations at all, into queer dens and cribs,
where they generally assailed him with demands of backsheesh.
Gilbert Yorke was the most trustworthy agent, and they sent
for him and told him all that they had learned from Miss
Nethersole.

' What we have actually learned,' said Augustus, is the name
of Anthony's wife, the statement made by her of an actual mar-
riage, the place where she lived, and the place and date of her
death. It will be your duty to visit these places, to find out
anything that can be learned further ; and, if possible, to ascer-
tain the place of marriage, whether under a false name or not.
Should you like Alderney Codd to go with you, or instead of
you?'

The young man blushed ingenuously. Should he surrender
to Alderney Codd any portion of the glory and pride of re-
covering Alison's name ?

' There is another thing. Miss Nethersole does not seem to
know that there was any issue of the marriage. You may call
upon her after your investigations, and tell her of the child, of
Alison. You will find her bitter against the memory of Anthony,
and she will show you some receipts. I think that Yorke should
know about the receipts ?' He turned to his partner, who
nodded. ' She gave her sister a sum of a hundred and fifty
pounds a year ; the sister died two years after marriage ; the
money was drawn for eight years.'

' But not by Mr. Hamblin.'

' Certainly not,' Augustus replied with decision, ' certainly not.
The receipts are forgeries, but the forging is not his ; of that
you may, if you please — but use your own judgment in the
matter — assure Miss Nethersole.'

' I may tell Alison ?'

Augustus Hamblin hesitated.

' Use your own judgment there as well,' he said at length ;
' but she is to tell no one, not even Mrs. Cridland.'

This permission granted, Gilbert hastened to Clapham Com-
mon with his news. Here, indeed, was a clue. Let Mr. Theo-
dore Bragge follow up his clues ; let Alderney Codd run down
one Hamblin after another: he had the name of the wife ; he
knew where she was buried. Alison's mother was found.

He found her in the garden among the flowers ; it was a quiet
morning in very early June. The lilacs and laburnums wcra

THE MANUSCRIPT, 2j .

still in full blossom ; the earlier and old-fashioned flowers — thb
wall-flowers, London-pride, polyanthus, columbine — were in
their first pride and glory ; the turf was crisp and fresh. The
garden was quiet, young Nick having not yet returned from
school. Not far off a man was sharpening something on a
wheel, and the monotonous sound made one think of the road-
side and the country. Overhead, larks sang ; in the trees there
was a blackbird, a thrush, and a chiff-chaff, besides all sorts of
other songsters — a <"hole choir of songsters, as Addison would
have called them.

' You here, and so early, Gilbert ?' Alison cried, as her lover
spi'ang across the lawn to greet her.

'Yes, Alison; I have news for you — good news, my dear — ■
the best news — the news you have long wanted to hear.'

' Gilbert !' — she clutched his arm with her two hands ; her
cheek was very pale, but her lips were firm — ' you know what I
want most. Is it — is it that V

' It is, Alison. Courage, dear ; we have but one step to take,
and all will be cleared up. Meantime, we are certain — mind, we
are certain — for ^e have found your mother.'

' My mother,' slr.3 murmured, with a strange smile ; ' what does
not that mean to most girls ? But to me it means more — for it
means my father, too.'

' We know,' said Gilbert, ' that he was married ; we have hip
wife's statement to that effect, the day after they eloped. Yes
— one reason why your father wished to keep the marriage
secret was, I suppose, because it was a runaway marriage ; and
why it was runaway, I cannot tell you. I am going to-day to
visit your mother's grave.'

' My mother's grave,' she repeated, her dark eyes filling with
tears ; ' where is it, Gilbert ? Surely I may go along with
you?'

Why should she not ? But it was at Bournemouth.

' Mrs. Duncombe will come with me,' Alison went on. ' I can
be ready in half an hour. Let me go with you, Gilbert !'

Her preparations took her less than half an hour, and they
had time to talk before they started for the train.

' Are you happier, dear Alison ?' asked Gilbert.

' Yes,' she said ; ' at least, I feel as if I am going to be happier.
My faith has been sorely tried, at times, Gilbert. The sky has
been dark indeed. I have had sometimes to school myself not
to think of him as dishonoured, and yet I have never been able
to think of him as dead. It always seems as if one day — some
day — the old familiar step will be heard in the hall, and I shall
bo in his arms again.'

Her eyes filled again with the tears that were now so readv
to spring.

222 THE SEAMY SIDE.

1 And you know, Alison, what this discovery means to me ?'

' Hush, Gilbert ! I know,' she said, with her sweet grave way.
' I know, but I must not think of those things now. I have to
restore my father's name, to show my cousins, those who would
persuade me to make a compromise, that he was no hypocrite,
skulking behind a fair reputation. That is what I must think
about for the present — that, and the memory of my unknown
mother.'

' She is known now,' said Gilbert. ' Your mother is known ;
you shall stand beside her grave ; you shall see her sister.'

'Who is her sister ?' asked Alison, with sudden interest. A
dead mother whom she could not remember was like some pale
and sorrowful shade of the past, to be contemplated with pity,
but yet without suffering ; but a mother's sister — that was
tangible ; that was something to bring home to her the reality
of a mother. Perhaps, as she was now, so her mother might
have been, in the old time. ' Who is her sister ?' she asked.

' Her name is Miss Rachel Nethersole,' said he. ' What is
the matter, Alison ?'

For the girl started to her feet with a cry.
, ' Rachel Nethersole !' she repeated ; ' Olivet Lodge ? She is
the lady who called the night before — it happened — while we
were all singing. Do you remember, Gilbert ? Ah ! no. You
would not have noticed it. They brought a card to him, which
he dropped when he went out to see her. I picked it up, and
gave to him afterwards. Her visit troubled him. He said she
revived old and painful memories — they must have been those
of his married life and early loss. No wonder he was sad next
morning, and strange in his manner.'

' Only the night before ?' asked Gilbert. ' And she has never
been here since ?'

' Never ; but I remember — oh, Gilbert, how foolish I have
been ! — that when my father went away he left a manuscript on
the table, which she had given him. I took it, and laid it in
my own desk, and I forgot all about it till this moment. Wait !
it may tell us all that we want to know.'

She ran upstairs, and opened her desk, which was full of the
little things accumulated by the girl in her progress through
life : photographs of her friends, mementoes of the places she
had visited, the elementary jewels of her childhood, the silver
crosses and little golden lockets given her by her father. Lying
on the top of all these things there was the manuscript. As
she took it out, her finger caught in a string, and drew out with
the paper a little red coral necklace. It was the one thing which
connected her with babyhood, the one ornament which Mrs.
Duncombe had found upon her neck when Mr. Hamblin brought
her, a child of two years old, to Brighton. The necklace, too,

THE MANUSCRIPT. 22}

was old, and some of the beads were broken. It could not have
been bought for her, a baby. She carried downstairs both
manuscript and coral.

' Here is the manuscript,' she said. 'It is marked " Pyivate,"
but you may read it. And see — here is the one thing -\ hich I
have received from my mother. You may take it, to s'jow my
aunt — Miss Nethersole.'

Gilbert took both, and placed them in his pocket.
' If these are secrets,' he said, ' they shall be safely kept by
me. There can be nothing of which your father has cause to
be ashamed.'

He spoke stoutly, but he had misgivings. What was the
meaning of this sudden melancholy, caused by a simple visit
from his dead wife's sister ? And what were the contents of
the paper headed ' Private and Confidential ' ?

Whatever they were, he put them away for the prese?ji.
They could wait. Meantime he was going to travel with
Alison : to sit beside her for three short hours, to see her for
the first time since the day of disaster bright and animated, to
find great joy for himself, in the fact that it was himself who
had been the messenger of glad tidings. Gilbert was only five-
and-twenty or so, he was in love, and since the fatal fourth of
January there had been no passages of love possible, only pro-
testations on the maiden's part that unless she could bring her
lover an unsullied name, she would never come to him at all.
These protestations did not present love in its most cheerful
and most favourable aspect.

Mrs. Duncombe was good enough to drop off into a comfort-
able and easy sleep in her own corner. She was a lady who
' did ' with a good deal of sleep ; the rumble of the carriage
soothed her ; and there was a young man with her young lady
to take good care of her.

He did ; he took such good care of her that he held her by
the hand the whole way ; he never lost sight of her face for a
moment, and he had so much to say that long before he came to
the end of his confidences the train had left Southampton far
behind, and was running through the green glades of the New
Forest ; past the hoary oaks and stretches of coarse grass where
the ponies find a rude and rough pasture ; past rural stations
planted lonely among the coppice ; past the wild hills and
barren heaths of Eingwood ; past the stately minster of Christ
Church, and gliding softly into the station of Bournemouth.
' It has been such a short journey,' said Gilbert, sighing.
Alice laughed happily. It was delicious to hear her laugh
again ; her spirits had come back to her : away from the old
house, so full of sad associations, so troubled with fears, it was
possible to remember that one was young, that there was still

224 THE SEAMY SIDE.

sunshine in the world, and that one had a lover. Moreover, ths
cloud which had so long hung over her soul had lifted ; her
self-abasement and shame were gone, because she had found, her
mother, even though she found her dead.

She waited at the hotel while G-ilbert went to make search for
the first thing, the grave of Dora Hamblin. Presently he came
back with a grave set face, very different from that with which
he had looked in her eyes all the way from Waterloo Station.

' I have found it, Alison,' he said. ' Come, a surprise awaita
you.'

She walked with him trembling. What was the surprise ?

Of all sea- side cities, watering-places, retreats, hospitals, con-
valescent houses, or bathing-places, Bournemouth is the most
remarkable. There was once a forest of pines. Somebody
made a clearing and built a house just as if he was in Canada.
Then another man made another clearing and built another
house, and so on. The pines stand still between the houses,
along the roads, in the gardens, on the hills, and round the town.
The air is heavy with the breath of the pine. The sea is nothing ;
you are on the sea-shore, but there is no fierce sea-breeze, no
curling line of waves, no dash of foam and spray. The waters
creep lazily along the beach, and on the pier the fragrance of the
pines crushes out the smell of the salt sea.

When the settlements were cleared, and the houses built, and
rows of shops run up, there arose a great unknown genius who
said : ' We have slopes, streams, and woods ; we have a town
planted in a forest by the sea-side ; let us make a garden in our
midst.' And they did so ; a garden of Eden. Hither come,
•when the rest of the world is still battling with the east wind
and frost, hollow-cheeked young men and drooping maidens to
look for the tree of life in that garden, and to breathe those
airs. They do not find that tree, but the air revives them for a
while, and they linger on a little longer, and have time to lie in
the sunshine and see the flowers come again before they die.
This is the city of Youth and Death. Every house amid these
pines is sacred to the memory of some long agony, some bitter
wrench of parting, some ruthless trampling down of hope and
joy. From every house has been poured the gloomy pageant of
death, with mourners who followed the bier of the widow's only
son, the father's cherished daughter.

Then that groat genius who laid out the garden said : ' They
come here to die : let us make death beautiful.' And they did
so. They built a church upon a hill ; they left the pines to
stand as cypresses ; they ran winding walks and planted flower-
ing shrubs ; they put up marble crosses on the graves of the
youthful dead ; they brought flowers of every season, and all
sorts of trees which are sweet and graceful to look upon ; they

THE MANUSCRIPT. 22\

refused to have any rude and vulgar monuments ; they would
have nothing but white marble crosses. Some stand in rows all
together on an open slope, bounded and sheltered by the whis-
pering pines with saffron-coloured cones ; some stand each in
its own little oblong, surrounded by plants and trees, shaded and
guarded for ever. They bear the names of those who lie
beneath ; they are all of young men and girls : one is twenty-
four, one is eighteen, one is twenty. Here and there you find
an old man who has stumbled into the graveyard by accident.
It jars upon the sense of right ; it is a disgrace for him to have
lived till seventy ; he ought not to be here ; he should have been
carried five miles away, to the acre where the venerable pile
of Christ Church guards the heaped-up dust of thirty genera-
tions, and the river runs swiftly below ; but not here, not among
the weeping girls and sad-faced boys. Let them all rise together,
at the end, this army of young martyrs, with never an old man
among them, to find with joyful eyes a fuller life than that from
which they were so soon snatched away.

Thither Gilbert brought Alison. He said nothing, for, in
truth, his own heart was filled with the sadness and beauty of
the place. He led her up the slope to the most retired part of
the churchyard, where the graves, those of twenty years back,
were not so close together, and where each had its generous space
with amplitude of breadth, such as is accorded to abbots and
bishops in cathedrals. Quite at the farthest boundary, where
the pines are the thickest, surrounded, too, by silver beeches,
stripling oaks, and rhododendrons, stood the cross they came to
see ; and behind it were the flowers of summer, tended and
cared for as if the poor young mother had never been forgotten
by her child. There were only the initials ' D. H.,' with the
date of her death and her age.

Alison sank at the foot of the grave, and Gilbert left her
there.

It was a solemn moment, the most solemn m her life. To
kneel beside that grave was in itself ar, act of thanksgiving and
gratitude. For in it lay not only her mother, but the honour of
her father. She thought of him more than of the mother whom
she had never seen. Her tears fell for him, more than for the
young life cut off so early. Was there ever a father so kind, so
thoughtful, so untiring in generous and self denying actions ?
Was there ever one so entirely to be loved by a daughter ? And
for four months she had been bearing about with her the bitter
thought that perhaps this man — this good, religious, and Chris-
tian man— was what she never dared to put to herself in words.

'But that was all over now,' she said. ' No one henceforth
would dare to whisper a word against his sacred memory.'

And then she sat and tried to realise that, like other girls, sha

15

J 26 THE SEAMY SIDE.

could now speak and think of her own mother lying dead at her
feet.

Presently she returned to the hotel, and they passed a quiet,
silent evening, walking on the sea-shore, or the pier, while the
summer sun went down in splendour, and in the opal breadths
of twilight sky they saw the silver curve of the new moon.

It was no time for love. Alison talked in whispers of her
mother ; what she was like ; why her father had kept silence
about her. Gilbert listened. The place was very quiet ; in
June most of the people have left Bournemouth ; they were
alone on the pier ; there was a weight upon both their hearts,
and yet the heart of one, at least, was full of gratitude and joy.
But needs must that he who stays in the City of Death feels the
solemn presence of Azrael.

CHAPTER XXVII.

HOW GILBERT READ THE MANUSCKI1T.

When Alison left him, Gilbert, after the fashion of his gene-
ration, began to soothe his soul with tobacco, on the road which
runs along the cliff down to the beach. So far, all promised
well : here was the grave of the mother, but where was the
proof of her marriage ? Perhaps, after all, his difficulties were
only beginning.

Gilbert was in love. He would have been just as much in
love had Alison been penniless ; but it must be owned that to a
briefless young barrister, fully alive to the advantages possessed
by him who possesses a fortune, the fact of her splendid heri-
tage heightened the charms of the young lady, and gave a last-
ing stability to his passion. And he could not avoid asking
himself what would happen if this fortune were to be with-
drawn ? Married love on three hundred a year (which I fear
represented the whole of Gilbert Yorke's fortune) would be de-
lightful, with Alison for bride, could those superfluities of life
which custom has rendered necessary for most of us be abolished.
For dinner, a beefsteak and a glass of beer ; for breakfast, tea,
stale eggs, cheap butter ; for lunch, a sandwich and a glass of
beer : no society, no driving, no silks and pretty things for tho
wife ; no wine, cigars, new books, pictures, little excursions in
the country, stalls at the theatre, or clubs for the husband. To
live like a wretched City clerk in a rickety box — one of a thou-
sand rickety boxu:-; — somewhere about Brixton or Stockwell,
That might be the life.

GILBERT READS THE MANUSCRIPT 227

Somehow, the spirit of the place depressed him. He tried to
look on things from a more cheerful point of view : he be-
thought him that he was young and strong ; he remembered
that the whole world was open to him to go where he pleased,
and to try his fortune in whatever way should seem possible.
They would go together—he and Alison — hand in hand, and
buy a farm in New Zealand — Canada — somewhere.

The sunny side of things would not last ; depression and
gloom returned ; he went back to the hotel, and gloomily went
to bed.

' I shall have a good night's rest,' he said, laying h's head
upon the pillow, 'and wake up in better spirits to-morrow.'

Nothing is easier than to promise one's self a good night's
rest ; nothing, however, is more uncertain. There is one man,
and only one, who never fails to get it ; he is the man who is
going to be hanged early the next morning. Those unfortu-
nates — the bulk of mankind — who cannot look forward to a
quiet and comfortable execution at break of day, have nothing
for it but to meet their pillows with a nightly sense of doubt.

Generally, Gilbert had no trouble in the matter of sleep ; but
to-night he felt strangely restless and wakeful. The excitement
of the day, the long talk with Alison, the strange feeling that
she was under the same roof with him, kept him awake. And
then he thought of the place itself, so full of sorrowful memo-
ries, and the churchyard so crowded with those whom Death
had called too soon, and ere their prime.

He went through the usual steps or phases of sleeplessness,
trying first one side and then another : anon lying on his back ;
heaping up the pillows, and then tossing them aside. The night
was profoundly silent ; he could not even hear the murmur of
the water as it washed the stones a hundred feet away ; there
was no wind in the air ; there was no footfall in the street
below ; and he grew more wide awake every moment. At last
he sprang up in a rage, and resolved to try the remedy recom-
mended by Franklin the Eminent. Benjamin, as everybody
knows, recommends the sufferers in such cases to get out of
bed, fold back the clothes, smooth the pillow, walk about a little,
and then try the pillow again. Gilbert did so : that is, he got
out of bed, and began to walk up and down the narrow limits
of the room. But it was perfectly dark ; he did not know the
position of the furniture ; and when he had barked his elbows,
broken his shins, scraped his nose, and blackened one eye by
unexpected contact with different pieces of furniture, he finally
drove sweet sleep far away by treading on the business end of a
small tin-tack. The difficulty and pain of extracting the nail
naturally made him more wakeful than ever. He sat upon the
bed, and wondered what he should do next. The second remedy,

1 f. 2

2 :8 THE SEAM Y SIDE.

first recommended by some anonymous philosopher, is to drinl;
a glass of water and lie down again. He found the carafe,
drank half of it, and lay down again. The immediate re-
sult of this internal aspersion was to make him feel as if every
limb were separately hung upon wires, and either would not, or
could not, keep still. When your arms and legs begin to jerk
about independently, and without your own control, it is high
time to sit up and consider what to do next. G-ilbert pacified
his limbs by letting them walk about until they agreed to give
up independent action.

The third remedy is perhaps the best and most certain : it is
to read very carefully, and with great attention, the dullest book
you can find. I keep some of the works of a very eminent
modern writer by my own bedside always with that object, and
it never fails. In this instance it was impossible, because there
were no books in the room.

There remained the fourth and last remedy known to the
acuity. It is to begin counting and go on until you fall
asleep. It is currently believed that no one ever yet got as far
as a thousand. Gilbert reached twelve hundred and thirty- two,
then he stopped in disgust, for it seemed as if he were going to
pass the rest of his life in counting.

So he sat up again and tried to persuade himself that he had
got through a good part of the night.

And then, quite suddenly, there came over him a curious
shivering accompanied by a nervous terror, the like of which he
had never before experienced.

I have observed that if you put the question delicately, so as
not in any way to hurt a man's self-respect, or arouse a suspicion
of ridicule, you will in every case and from every man extort a
consession that at some time or place he has been afraid of
gtiosts. Remark that I do not say ' feel supernatural terrors ' or
any circumlocution of that kind ; I say simply ' afraid of ghosts.'

Bournemouth is naturally chock full of ghosts. Gilbert had
been wandering in the place of tombs ; his thoughts therefore
turned to the subject. He was not a man who generally gave
much heed to the unseen occupants of the air ; but to-night
he felt them, they became importunate, they would not be de-
nied. As he sat on the bed in the dark they fanned his cheek
and played soft airs upon his hands.

He thought against his will of those who had come to the
place, like Dora Hamblin, to die ; he thought of the multitu-
dinous crosses in the cemetery, the graves of young lives cut
off in their first promise and early flower ; he thought of the
great cloud of sorrow which was for ever enveloping this city
of slow Death, like the cloud which d&y and night hangs over
Sheffield.

GILBERT READS THE MANUSCRIPT. 229

More salutary reflections would have followed, because he
was quite in the mood to meditate, ' liko anything,' or, like
Young, Hervey, and Drelincourt, when he was suddenly arrested
by the recollection that there were matches in his pocket, and
that he had not yet looked at the manuscript given him by
Alison.

Going gingerly, for fear of another tin-tack point upwards, he
found the matches and lit his caudle. Every ghost in the room
instantly flew away in disgust. Which shows the value of a
candle. He then looked for the manuscript in his portmanteau,
put the candle on a chair by the bedside, arranged the sheets so
that in case of his going to sleep suddenly — a thing which ho
fully expected to do while reading the paper — the candle would
be unable to fall over and set fire to everything. It was Sydney
Smith, I think, who anticipated me in calling attention to the
malignant behaviour of bedside candles in this respect.

We know the contents of the manuscript. It was that which
Rachel Nethersole had given to Anthony Hamblin.

Gilbert did not go to sleep suddenly and unexpectedly. On
the contrary, he sat up and read the papers through with no
abatement of interest to the very end, but, on the other hand,
with an excitement which increased until he had fairly finished
the last word. Then he laid the papers down on the bed, and,
between his lips, cursed the name and the memory of a man.

Of all men in the world, that Anthony Hamblin should have
been so inconceivable a villain ! That he, whom all alike loved
to honour and reverence, the very model of a blameless man,
should have left in this cruel and heartless manner the poor
young wife : that he should have descended to the meanness —
he, with his practically boundless wealth — of actually cutting
down her miserable weekly allowance — why, it was astounding ;
it was beyond all belief and all precedent.

When one tried to look the matter fairly in the face, the
difficulty was only increased. If a man leads two lives, one for
his household and the world, and the other for himself alone,
there is always some vague rumour concerning him which gets
about, and spreads, as noiselessly as an ivy, around his name.
The wife and daughters do not know ; the sons learn something
of it, and after passionately denying the thing, sorrowfully
accept it ; the outside fringe of cousinhood learn something of
it ; it is impossible for a man to conceal altogether his secret
vices, because there must be some accomplices whose interest in
keeping them secret is not so strong as his own, and whose
shame at their discovery would be, perhaps, just nothing at all,
a thing not worth considering. Gilbert was a man who knew
tl.'e world ; that is, he knew about as much of the seamy side as
a young man of five-and- twenty or so, not of vicious habits.

230 THE SEAMY SIDE.

naturally acquires by conversation and intercourse with his
fellows. This kind of knowledge, in fact, is a part of the
armour in which we have to fight the battle of life. With many
men it does duty for the whole armour of light.

Had Anthony Hamblin been a man secretly addicted to evil
courses, some one would have known it : there would have been
a breath upon that shining mirror ; but there was none. And
yet the man who at fifty was so admirable in all the relations
of life must have been, by plain showing of his own deserted
wife, base and mean, at thirty, beyond all belief ! The wonder
grew more and more. Could one with any sense of continuity
pass back from Anthony Hamblin at fifty, living wholly for the
happiness of his daughter, to Anthony Hamblin at thirty,
leaving his wife to pine away forgotten and despised, coming tc
her bedside only at the last moment, when she called him, in
despair, when she was dying of neglect and cruelty ? In the
case of ordinary sinners one can trace the same man through all
his downward course : if he repents and leads a new life, he is
still visibly and demonstrably the same man ; but it was im-
possible to recognise in the later Anthony Hamblin any resem-
blance to the demon of selfishness who, twenty years before,
had borne the same name. Gilbert remembered one or- two old
stories. There was a certain King of Sicily whose body was
once occupied by an angel for three whole years, during which
all brigands became penitent, the burglar lay down with the
policeman, and the jail-bird with the judge. The real king,
meantime, went in rags, and got kicked because he was poor.
There was another story, too, of a nun who wanted to see the
world, and went out of her convent and carried on anyhow for
nineteen years, until she repented (being no longer beautiful),
and returned (being desperately hard up) to the convent. She
naturally thought that in spite of repentance she would catch
it, but what was her surprise to find that her absence during
all these years had been unknown to the sisters, because an
angel had been doing her work and personating her ? So she
repented in very truth, and was pardoned, and died in sanctity.

But this was just a contrary case. The devil had certainly
occupied the body of Anthony Hamblin for a time. How did
he get in ? By what contract, temptation, or promise, was he
admitted ? How long did he stay ? What other devilry did he
work ? Was there any record of his pranks and villainies ?
How was he finally got rid of ? Alas ! Anthony Hamblin
himself, who alone could reveal this secret, was dead, and the
story of the new demoniac could never, therefore, be given to
the world in its entirety. For this paper, no doubt, contained
but a single episode.

1 It is wonderful,' said Gilbert, looking round. ' Good heavens I

GILBERT READS THE MANUSCRIPT. 231

If one had been asked for the name of the most upright, the
most kind-hearted, the most unselfish man in London, every
one who knew Anthony Hamblin would have named him ; and
see what he was !

' Most to be pitied is Alison. She must never know how her
idol has been shattered. Rachel Nethersole must not tell her.
In comparison with this father of hers, even Black Stephen
shows in rosy colours. Poor Alison ! poor child !'

These were, so to speak, the last words of Anthony himself.

Just then, the candle, which had been flickering in the socket,
suddenly went out. Gilbert rose and pulled up the blind. The
day was already breaking, and there was promise of a bright
and splendid morning ; he opened the window and breathed the
cool air, and then — then— I think — nay, I am sure that be went
to sleep, and had a dream, in spite of what he says himself.
Because, as for what followed, his own account is silly, as you
shall judge for yourselves.

First of all, it was not dark ; a cloudless night in June is
never dark ; then it was not a ghost-like room, but a singularly
prosaic and matter-of-fact kind of room, a modern, square, newly
built hotel bedroom, and yet to the heated imagination of the
young man, it suddenly became full of ghosts.

Some years ago, there was a controversy about ghosts. A
Eapient philosopher thought he demolished all but naked ghosts
—a very, very small minority, I am happy to say — by the
simple axiom that you cannot expect the ghost of a coat, a
gown, a pair of gloves, in fact, not the ghost of any article of
clothing at the time at all. This maxim was thought so pro-
found that men quarrelled as to who was its founder. For my
own part, I denied the proposition. I asked for proof, and I
put a question which has never yet been answered, and I think
it never will. I said, ' Why not ?'

This bedroom of Gilbert's, as if to demolish the sagacious
clcmolisher of ghosts, became suddenly crammed with ghosts of
clothes, furniture, vessels and instruments, men and women.
There was a soft light in the room by which you could see
clearly through everything belonging to the room, and the hotel
had disappeared.

Before the eyes of the -watcher appeared a sofa, on which lay
the figure of a girl, young and beautiful, but hollow-eyed, wasted
and wan of cheek, with eyes too bright and full, and fingers too
fragile. As Gilbert gazed she turned her face towards him.
Tier eyes were red, because she had been weeping. They were
something like the eyes of Alison, but not so dark, and Gilbert
knew the spectre for that of Dora Hamblin.

She was quite alone, deserted, and dying. If one is to die
suddenly and swiftly ; if with a single touch Azrael calls ua

232 THE SEAMY SIDE.

away, it is better to be alone ; when one has to die day by
day, slowly, to envisagcr Death while as yet he is afar off, to
expect him from morning to morning, to dread him in the
night watches, to call faith and fortitude to your help many
weeks before the time, it is well to have some one beside you,
if it is only to smooth the wasted cheek, and to press with a
little sympathy the worn hand.

Quite alone, deserted by her husband, left to the tender
mercies of lodging-house harpies and strangers, reduced to a
pittance, dying. Her husband meanwhile earning by his upright
walk among his fellow-citizens the character of a blameless,
just, and honourable merchant.

' Scoundrel !' thought Gilbert, ' if you were not lying dead at
the bottom of the Serpentine, and if Alison were not your
daughter, it would be my sacred duty to horse-whip you from
Aldgate Pump to Temple Bar.'

And then he saw her eyes light up, and a look of joy return
to her face because Anthony Hamblin was beside her. And the
tears were in his eyes, too.

' Ah, crocodile !' murmured Gilbert.

Everything vanished, and Gilbert, rubbing his eyes, found
that it was broad daylight, and past six in the morning. Ima-
gination had played strange tricks with him. Yet for the rest
of his life he will seem to know poor Dora Hamblin, what she
was like, and will remember her, wasted and dying, alone and
in tears upon the spectral couch.

' Poor Alison !' he thought again. ' What a father to have
had!'

Then he began to think uncomfortably about hereditary pro-
clivities.

' It must have been the Devil,' he said, ' who had temporary
hold of him. And if not, why, she has inherited all his good
qualities and none of his bad ones. Children copy what they
see. Alison — bless her ! —only saw the virtues which her father
easily assumed. She copied them, and is — what he pretended
to be. After all, mock-turtle has its uses. It imposes on some,
and makes us admire the real thing profoundly.'

' What a skeleton for a gentleman's private cupboard !' he
murmured. ' When we all thought the righteous man was gone
into his study, or closet, as the preachers say, to meditate over
his righteousness, by the aid of a choice Havana, and some ex-
cellent old brandy, he must have been occupying himself in
grimly contemplating this picture of the past, his own cruelty,
his desertion, his incredible meanness. I wonder if he repented
and went about secretly in sack-cloth with a hair-shirt ; nothing
but a hair-shirt with innumerable ends sticking into him would
have met his case. And how is one ever to believe in a man

GILBERT READS THE MANUSCRIPT. 233

again ? Have the archbishops skeletons in their cupboards ?
Is there no virtue anywhere ? Is everyone, including myself,
capable of deliberate cruelty, treachery, and villainy, only to
gratify a whim ? In that case, we had better dismiss the clergy,
save all the money we spend on them, pull down the churches,
double the police, and give up expecting any good in any man.
Human life is truly a wonderful thing. Rien n'est sur que Vim-
2>revu : every man is what he does not seem ; all the creatures
which pretend to be sheep are goats ; we eat leg of goat and
call it leg of mutton ; roast quarter of lamb is quarter of wolf ;
if Anthony Hamblin was an unsuspected devil, then Black
Hamblin is no doubt an unregarded angel. I wonder, by the
way, if his Blackness knew about the little establishment at
Lul worth ? I should think not. He could not have known ;
and yet, he knew Dora. Well — the thing is getting mixed.'

He dressed himself and went to the beach, where he bathed
in the sea, and shook off his nervous terrors. But he had passed
through one of those nights of which the memory remains green
in a man's mind all his life.

After breakfast he walked with Alison, who, if she had seen
any ghosts, did not speak of them, to the churchyard. She
walked, this wood-nymph of Clapham Common, with an elasti-
city and strength surprising to the residents of Bournemouth.

On the way they passed a chair, in which sat a young girl
pale and weak. By the delicate bloom upon her hectic cheek,
by the brightness of her eyes, by the weakness with which she
sat, it was evident that the end was not far off. Beside her
walked her brother, a lad of twenty, with narrow chest, stoop-
ing shoulders, and frequent cough. For him, too, would come
a speedy end.

The poor girl looked at Alison as she passed. She sighed
and whispered to her brother :

' See, she is young and beautiful ; and she is well ; and she is
with her lover. Oh, Charlie ! what have we done — you and I ?'

What had they done, indeed ?

Gilbert left Alison at the lych-gate, and went in search of
the registrar's office.

That was easy to find. He gave the date and was shown the
entry. 'Dora Hamblin, of consumption !' Dora Hamblin— and
here his eye fell upon a word which so startled him that he was
fain to grasp the table for support, to rub his eyes, to read
again and again, and to ask himself what was the meaning of
this new surprise.

The revelation of the night which would blacken for ever the
memory of a man whom he had worshipped from boyhood
staggered him, but not so much as this new discovery. Could
it be a false entry ? Had Anthony, being still in the power of

334 THE SEAMY SIDE.

the devil, actually added to his former wickedness by deli-
berately making a lying statement ?

He copied it into his pocket-book with as much care as if he
wished to preserve a facsimile of the writing, which would not
have helped him, because it was the writing of the clerk. And
then, turning over the pages again, and referring back to the
entry, he closed the book and went away.

He avoided the hotel, because he wanted to avoid Alison,
until he could think quietly over this new discovery. He went
away by himself, and sat under the cliff, trying to think what
was best to be done.

At last he resolved upon a course of action. He would say
nothing at present about this extraordinary entry, which pro-
mised to upset and ruin everything. He would keep it a
profound secret.

He returned to the hotel, and read the manuscript again —
twice.

' It is wonderful,' he murmured. ' If it is true it is wonderful.
But I cannot understand. It cannot be true. And yet — and
yet '

He laid down the paper, and sought Alison, who was sitting
beside her mother's grave, thoughtful and quiet, but not un-
happy.

' My dear,' he said, ' I want you, in the presence of your
mother, to renew your engagement to me.'

She rose, and gave him her hand without a word. Above the
grave they kissed each other solemnly.

' Alison,' he went on, ' I claim this of you because there is
now no doubt that your mother was a wedded wife — poor
thing !'

' Why do you say " poor thing," Gilbert ?' she asked.
' Because my mother died young ?'

'Partly,' he replied. ' But partly because her marriage was
not happy. She ran away with your father ; she went with
him to a place called Lulworth, not far from here ; they did not
agree ; they separated.'

' Oh ! how could anyone quarrel with my dear father ?'

' He went back to town ; she remained at Lulworth, where
you were born. She grew weaker ; they thought of bringing
her here for a change ; and here she died. That is most of her
story.'

' My poor mother ! But, Gilbert, was my father with her ?'

' She died, as she wished to die, in the arms of Antony
Hamblin,' Gilbert replied.

In the afternoon Alison and Mrs. Duncombe went back to
town, while Gilbert pursued his way to Lulworth.

HOW UlLBERT WENT To LULWORTH. 235
CIIAPTER XXVIII.

HOW GILBERT WENT TO LUIAVORTH.

Bournemouth is within fifteen miles of Lnl worth. That is
the first reason why it takes longer to get from one of these
important centres to the other, than to either from London.
You may, I believe, if you get up very early in the morning,
manage to travel from Bournemouth to Poole Junction, and
from Poole Junction to Wareham, all in one day. But after
that you have got to find your way from Wareham to Lul worth,
which' is quite another thing, and a long journey of eight miles
by itself, and may require a second day. It is like a pilgrimage
from Bayswater to Highgate. A cab will take you there in
half an hour. The rapid locomotive will whirl you there,
breathless, as they used to say forty years ago, in four hours
and a half, allowing for changes, and for waiting at Willesden
Junction, where the directors feel it their duty to detain all
passengers for at least three quarters of an hour.

Gilbert got over the difficulty of the trains by travelling after
the manner of our grandfathers. He posted, at the expense of
Anthony Hamblin and Company.

He had to do two things. First, to examine the register of
births for that of Alison. Next, to find out, if that were
possible, the people with whom the unhappy mother was left,
and to learn from them what could be learned.

The chance that a lodger should be remembered at a sea-side
place after twenty years, seemed slender. But there was one
fact of which Gilbert did not think.

It was this, which helped him very naturally.

Twenty years ago, Lulworth was as yet unknown. I mean
that no lodgers went there at all : tourists and people who
always leave their homes for change of air, and betake them-
selves somewhere for a month of physical discomfort, bad
dinners, hard beds, narrow rooms, inefficient attendance, robbery,
sea air, dulness, absence of books, friends, society, and amuse-
ments, had never heard of Lulworth.

Even the commercial travellers, who, poor souls, are never
permitted to contemplate the beauties of Nature, save in the
vicinity of shops, did not, and do not now, include Lulworth in
their circuit. There are no shops there at all, and the modest
wants of the little place are supplied by means of some middle-
man of Corfe, Swanage, Wareham or owi the aristocratio
Weymouth.

236 THE SEAMY SIDE

Lulworth, cove and town, which is hardly yet actually die-
covered, being much less known to the average Briton than
Ujiji in Central, Africa, and less visited by the average traveller
than the Falls of the Zambesi, was in those days of Dora's
marriage, an absolutely unknown place. If a man were to go
round searching for a spot in which to bury his head, either
during the brief space of a honeymoon, or for a prolonged
period of financial embarrassment, creditors being incapable of
even suspecting such a retreat, or even for a lifetime — oubliant,
oublie — there was, in those days, no village in all the realm of
England so fit for the purpose. Nobody, in the time when
Dora Hamblin, a blushing and happy bride, was taken there by
her husband, had ever heard of it. Nor can I at all understand
how her husband found it out. The place was originally dis-
covered, however, some years before Dora's honeymoon, by a
stray traveller of inquiring and curious mind, who wandered
eastwards along the shore from "Weymouth, when George the
Third was not only king, but was actually staying in that
tranquil watering-place. This pedestrian, born before his time,
mentioned it to one or two friends, and got the place put upon
the county map. The Ordnance Survey officers afterwards found
it there. And once the Bishop of Winchester heard of it, and
went there, and found a church or two, and a congregation or
two, who had never before beheld a bishop, and thought all
bishops went about in mitre and crosier, and were disappointed
to find a mild old man in apron and lawn sleeves, who said,
' Dear, dear !' when he heard that no one had ever been con-
firmed, and at once confirmed the whole village, Dissenters and
all, without more ado.

People who cannot afford posting, get there chiefly by way of
Swanage. There is a steamer which runs backwards and for-
wards between Lulworth Cove and Swanage Bay. The voyage
is one of those traps for tourists, set by frolicsome persons at
every seaside place. Outside Swanage Bay there is always what
the jocose captain of the Heather Bell calls a ' bit of a bobble.'
The vessel, which is rather smaller than a penny river steam-
boat, rolls, in fact, joyously. The course through the furrows,
over the rolling way which can by no means be called silent,
carries you under the face of perpendicular cliffs, which rise
like a great wall over the sea, with never a break. You round
a cape, at whose feet the waves are tearing and roaring, and
still the wall stretches ahead as far as eye can reach. The
people, mostly lying helpless on the deck, look up with green
and glassy eyes, and contemplate the endless precipice with a
deadly sinking at the heart. Is there any Lulworth at all '?
Has the whole of the past life been a dream ? Is there to be
no future, but this eternal roll in a little boat upon a chopping

HOW GILBERT IVEiVT TO LULWORTH. 25;

Re a ? Suddenly, while they are wondering if anything in the
next world could be worse than this, her head is turned.
Courage. There is the narrowest cleft in the rocks, a mere
doorway just broad enough for the Heather Bdl to steam
through. Get up, good people : shake yourselves : call for
things to eat : we are in smooth water : we are in the little
circular bay cut out of the rocks, which they call Lulworth
Cove : you may land if you like and see Lulworth village.

There is a little beach of sand, with a boat or two : there are
a few houses : there is an inn and a church, and a school.
Beyond the houses, when you have climbed the hill, you may
turn to the left and go down again. You will find two more
little coves side by side, into one of which the waves force their
angry way through a dark and jagged cavern. From the roof
hang great clusters of rough, luxuriant sea-weed ; its sides are
dark with recesses, in which the waters rage madly, and roar
with a kind of unmeaning rage. Hero the pvieuve lurks with
long and hungry arms, wondering if the next man she catches
will know the secret of blinding her eyes with the hood pro-
vided for the purpose by beneficent Nature. The second cove
has a doorway, so to speak, of its own, cut right through the
cliff from top to bottom, a narrow passage across which two
men might shake hands, and where every entering wave does
battle with that which entered before it, at the very portals of
the cove. Within, it is an ever-agitated churn.

That is the whole of Lulworth ; but you may spend a long
summer holiday in the place, and never tire of it, if you get
fine weather ; and if you should tire, there is Dungy Head be-
yond, with Durdle Bay and the Barn Door.

Gilbert proceeded at once to business.

First the register of births.

This was not difficult to find.

The entry in the Bournemouth register of Dora Hamblin'a
death contained one word, as we have seen, which startled the
reader. The word haunted him ; it followed him like that
persistent fly wfiich teased the unhappy despot to madness :
it buzzed in his ears : it refused to leave him. A word which
was so surprising that it seemed to upset everything in the
whole wide word : a word which made a new departure abso-
lutely necessary: a word which made everything unintelligible.

What was more surprising still, the same word was repeated
in the entry of Alison's birth in the parish register. There was
either fraud or else . . . what else ? What was the mean-
ing of it ?

He searched the church register of christenings. The sama
word was repeated.

lie made copies of the two entries in hia pocket-book.

2 3 3 THE SEAMY SIDE.

Then he climbed down the rocks to the wild little coves
mentioned above, and sat there a couple of hours, trying to put
things together.

Then it occurred to him to read again the ' Journal of a De-
serted Wife.'

Presently he thought he saw daylight. A theory, which
seemed the only theory possible, suggested itself to him.

' Poor Alison !' he said, ' who shall tell her the truth ?'

He sat there a- thinking while the time went on, and pre-
sently he felt hungry, and went back to the hotel for dinner.
For the good of the house, and in order to conciliate the land-
lord, whom he intended presently to cross-examine, he ordered
a pint of port after dinner. Being one of the degenerate strain
of British youth, who cannot drink the ardent port of country
inns, he poured the contents of the bottle into a pot of migno-
nette in the window, and after a decent interval, during which
the flowers waggled their heads sadly and then drooped and died,
he sallied forth, and assailed the landlord with a proposal of
pipes and brandy-and- water.

He was a biddable sort of man, the landlord : advanced in
life : gifted with a profound thirst : and ruled by a wife, much
younger than himself, who seldom allowed that thirst to be
quenched as he desired. His heart warmed to the young fellow,
who, after drinking quantities of beer with his dinner, and a
pint of port after it — no one knew better than himself the
amount of brandy in that port — coolly proposed brandy-and-
water as if he had had nothing, Generally after serving a guest
with a little pint of that generous beverage, he had been enabled
to observe symptoms of intoxication, such as cheek flushing,
speech thickening, legs tying themselves into knots, shoulders
lurching, temper quickening, and so forth. This gallant young
gentleman carried his handsome head and curly locks as if he
had not taken a single glass : he did not grumble : he did not
lurch : he did not, like the last guest who drank of that
brew, tell the landlord that his port had poisoned him — not at
all : he said, ' Let us have a pipe and some brandy-and-water.'
O most remarkable young man ! If he could hold out as well
over spirits and water as over spirits and elderberry wine, the
landlord thought he saw his way to a pleasant evening such as
rarely came in his way.

It is, of course, understood that the good wife saw no objec-
tion to her husband making himself as drunk as a hog, provided
he did it at some one else's expense.

/The evening was chilly, and the bar-parlour looked comfort-
able. Gilbert proposed that they should take their pipes beside
the fire. The landlady oifcred no objection, and hovered about,
finxious to take her pari in the conversation.

HOW GILBERT WENT TO LULWORTH. 239

'I suppose,' said Gilbert, when the preliminaries were arranged,
the tumblers filled, and the pipes lit, feeling the way cautiously
— ' I suppose you do not remember much about your visitors
when they are gone ?'

' Well,' replied the landlord, now completely comfortable,
before a full glass of the mixture which was generally denied
him — ' well, we do and we do not. Them as come and go, for
instance, the bed-and-breakfast-and-bring-your-bill lot, and tho
pint-of -beer- with-a-knapsack-gentleman- tramp, we mostly forget
as soon as they go. But we remember some — ay ! we remember
some. I could tell you a story or two now of our visitors, I
des-say, if I was to think a bit.'

' Tell the gentleman about Captain Roscommon,' said his wife.

'Captain Roscommon? Ay! that was a start. One never
heard of a more singular start, so to speak, than that of Captain
Roscommon.'

Gilbert saw that the only way was to work his way to Dora
Hamblin through Captain Roscommon, and forbore from inter-
ruption, save of the sympathetic and interjectional kind.

Then the old man went on :

' Captain Roscommon, the coastguard officer down our way.
A youngish man he was, about five-and-forty years of age, and
first-lieutenant in the Royal Navy too. And as active he was,
as if the whole of the revenue depended on him. Well, there
always was a good deal of smuggling in these parts, though
nothing to what it was in the days of the long war, when old
Dan Gulliver worked the whole of the French coast from Lyme ;
the farmers were in it : the clergy were in it : the magistrates
were in it : the innkeepers were in it. Lord ! sometimes I
think I might have been in it myself. The captain's prede-
cessor, he was a good, easy sort of man, oldish, and tired of
fighting. He was in it, too. Many is the gallons of right good
stuff the old man found in his cellar, and never asked — as why
should he ? — why or where ? But he kept quiet till he died,
and Captain Roscommon came after him.

' My word ! There was mighty little smuggling after he
came. Early and late, day and night, the boat was off the
cliffs, and the men were on the look-out. Two years it lasted.
The farmers and poor landlords, like myself, were most ruined
for want of stuff ; all the old stuff was gone, and no new stuff
coming in : the customers were grumbling : and the whole
country-side was in an unchristian rage. Well, sir, you'd hardly
believe it, but one night, Captain Roscommon, going home over
there by Dungy Head, the evening being fine and a bright moon,
though late in the year and chilly, he met eight men with
blackened faces. They didn't speak ; but though he fought
like ten tomcats, they just chucked him over the cliff.

240 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' In the morning ho was found there, but all of a mash, ana
never spoke again. After he was gone things improved, and we
got more neighbourly and religious-like to each other. For the
next officer was a different kind of man, and the stuff came
over again as of old. And the chuckers-over, they were never
found out.'

' That is a very remarkable story,' said Gilbert. ' Take some
more brandy-and- water after it. And how, if one may criticise
so good a story, did anyone ever know, since the poor man was
senseless when he was found, that there were eight men, and
that their faces were blackened?'

The landlord shook his head solemnly, but there was a twinkle
in his eye.

' It is one of the things,' he replied, ' that no one ever under-
stood. "VVe all knew there were eight men ; likewise that their
faces were blackened. But nobody knew how we knew. The
poor captain was very much regretted, except for his activity.'

' So I should say,' replied Gilbert. ' Now carry your memory
twenty-one years back or so, and tell me if you recollect any-
thing happening then.'

' There was the tiger,' said the landlord's wife, interposing.
' That was twenty years ago. Tell him about the tiger.'

' Ay, ay — about the tiger. That was twenty years ago, sure.'

The old man paused, refilled his pipe, and lit it, stretched out
his legs, drank half a glass of brandy-and-water, and began the
tiger story.

I am sorry that there is insufficient space here to admit of
that story being related at length. It was a very good story,
from a rustic point of view. It told how a tiger belonging to a
travelling menagerie got out of his cage and took shelter in an
empty stable, and how — this was the wonderful thing, and the
real point of the story — it was most fortunate that one John,
known everywhere as a devil of a fellow, one who stood at
nothing, was out of the way, providentially gone to the nearest
market-town on an errand, or else he would have gone for that
tiger. Gilbert listened with a dazed feeling ; there was no end
to the story. He could not make out how the tiger was caught,
if ever he was caught, or how many rustics he killed, supposing
that he did slaughter rustics ; he had a nightmare upon him
while he listened, as if Providence forcibly, and even visibly,
was hauling back John by the back hair, so that he should not
know, until too late, where that tiger was.

'Have some more brandy-and water,' he murmured feebly.

Then he remembered that this story belonged to the year
about which he wished to learn further particulars, and he pulled
himself together.

' Come.' he said, ' I call that a good memory which remembers

HOW GILBERT WENT TO LULWORTH. 241

go far back. I wonder if you can remember anything more
about that year ?'

The landlord hesitated. Then he appealed to his wife.

' Twenty years ago, wife,' he said ; ' what happened twenty
years ago ? Besides the tiger, I mean. Ah, lucky thing it was
that that John '

' There was the tiger, and you've told that ; then there was the
wet summer, you can't have forgotten that !'

' Ah, the wet summer !' The old fellow sat up and seemed as
if he was going to begin another awful story, worse than about
the tiger. ' Surely you're too young to remember about that wet
summer !'

' Yes,' said Gilbert. ' I fear I am. Never mind the wet sum-
mer. Did nobody come to the inn that summer ?'

' I can't say,' replied the old man. ' We weren't then, as one
may say, what we are now. People didn't come over from
Swanage in the Heather Bell nor from Weymouth in the 'bus.
And artists didn't come and paint the cove, nor the caves, nor
the rocks, as they do now. Yet the cove and the caves were there
ail the time.'

' It was the summer when I was married,' the woman struck
in. She had been going backwards and forwards perpetually
with a duster and a glass, and she was now brandishing the same
glass apparently and the same duster which she had been using
for the last two hours. But these glasses and dusters are very
much turned out on the same lines. And Gilbert's brains were
a little addled after the two stories of Captain Roscommon and
the tiger. ' It was the year I was married.' She spoke as if it
was not her own husband but somebody else's, who was sitting
in the arm-chair before her. 'My husband, he was an old man
compared to me.'

' Nay, nay,' said her husband. ' Two score and five is not old.
I were two score and five when I married thee.'

' And I was twenty. Well, wilful gell will have her own way.
While we were courting, if you call that courting when him as
is old enough to be your father wants to be your husband,
there came to this inn a newly-married couple.'

' Ay,' said Gilbert. ' Pray take some more brandy-and-water.'
It seemed to him as if the "only way to the memories of these
people was through diluted spirits.

The woman drank off the contents of her husband's glass.
She was one of that very common class of women who, when
they get to forty or thereabouts, show a rosy face full of good-
nature and kindliness, mixed with an expression which betrays
the love of creature-comforts.

' There isn't much to tell,' she said. ' They came to this inn.
They stayed a week. I was not in the inn at *% time, nor for

16

J42 THE SEAMY SIDE.

a year afterwards. Then they asked for lodgings, and they
came to us. "VVe had the only lodgings in the town.'

' Pray go on,' said Gilbert. ' I think these may be people I
am interested in. Tell me more about them. What was their
name ?'

' They were Mr. and Mrs. Hamblin,' said the woman. ' And
now, sir, if you please, before we go any further — for I see, by
the flushing of your handsome cheek, that it is the party you
want to hear about, and no other — we will understand each
other.'

The women in this part of the country, thought Gilbert, are
cleverer than the men. This woman's husband would have
told everything just as it occurred to his memory, without a
thought of the consequences. His wife, however, had the sense
to see that so many questions were not prompted by idle curiosity
alone, but that this young fellow, with the frank eyes and
honest face, had a reason for his curiosity.

' Hamblin is the name,' said Gilbert. ' I am anxious to find
out all about that young couple. You may have heard that
there is a reward offered for ' — he stopped and checked himself
— ' for certain information connected with them.'

' In that case, sir,' said the woman, ' I shall say no more, until
you tell me what sort of information is wanted ; and if my
husband says anything, he is a greater dolt than I ever took
him for ; and as for the matter of that, it is his bed-time.
And to be sure he's had more than enough drink by this time.'

This resolute female seized her husband by the arm and
dragged him, unresisting, out of the room. Ten minutes or so
later, the interval being just enough to admit of his being
crammed into bed and the clothes dragged over him, she came
down again and seated herself before Gilbert.

' Now, sir,' she said, ' you and me can do business together.
When a young gentleman like yourself comes over to Lulworth
in a post-chay, when he goes to the church to consult registers,
when he calls for a pint of good port and wastes it all in the
mignonette-pot, which he might have thought of other people's
flowers '

' Ah, you saw that, did you ?' said Gilbert, a little ashamed.

' When he tries to get round the landlord with pipes and
brandy, — why, then, I think it is time for a body with a head
upon her shoulders to look about her. Now then, sir, what do
you want ?'

' I want, first, the certificate of marriage of Dora Hamblin
with her husband.'

' Very good.' She sat down and clasped her hands over her
knees. ' And how much may that be worth ? Mind you it
isn't in this parish church nor in the next'

HOW GILBERT WENT TO LULWORTH. 243

' Yesterday morning I would have offered you five hundred
pounds for it. This morning I made a discovery, confirmed by
the register of this parish, which materially alters the value of
the information. Still it is valuable, and I will give you, or
send to you, fifty pounds for the proof of marriage.'

' Fifty pounds ?' cried the woman. ' Why, I can give you the
proof now at once, on the instant minute. Fifty pounds !'
Then her face became suddenly suspicious. ' But how do I
know that you would give it when you'd got the information ?
And how do I know what use you want to make of it ? And
how shall I get the money, so that he ' — she pointed with her
finger to the upper part of the house, to make it clear that it
was her husband she meant — 'how shall I get it so that he shan't
know nothing about it ?'

1 1 will make all clear for you,' said Gilbert. ' You shall have
the money paid you in gold and secretly, to do what you like
with. And as for the use I am going to make of the informa-
tion, that shall be proved to you to be the very best possible.
Come now.'

' Wait till to-morrow,' said the woman. ' I must think it
over.'

In the morning, after breakfast, when the landlord had strolled
away to have a crack with the boatman on the beach, when the
village was quite still, or only pleasantly full of such musical
noises as belong to a village — the droning of a mill-wheel, the
crowing of cocks, the gurgle of the rising tide in the cove, the
roll of the ever- vexed waves in the perforated rocks, the bray
of a donkey, or the grinding of a cart over the road — the land-
lady, in the quiet seclusion of the garden, told Gilbert all she
had to tell.

' She was a sweet young thing, and he was a brute ' — that
was the way in which she began her narrative — ' a brute he
was, though at first butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. They
came here from Newbury, where she had been living with her
sister ; father and mother dead. They had rooms at the inn
here for a week, and then came to us. After two months he
went away, and left her alone, with no one in the wide world
but me to talk to. She told me all about herself.

' Well, she loved him, that was quite certain ; though what
she found to love in a man so cross and suspicious I never
could find out— a nasty brute !

' He went away, as I said ; but he came back a few days
later, and stayed a good long time, the best part of two months
more, being the whole of that time in a temper. A grumpy
brute ! Nothing was good enough for him. If it was the beer
and the wine we got him from the inn here, he called it swill
only fit for pigs : and if it was the baker's bread and fresh

16—2

= M THE SEAMY SIDE,

batter for his breakfast, he snarled and growled at his wife : it
was all her fault that he wasn't in London living off the best.
And she, poor thing, had to bear it all, and did like a lamb.

' She hadn't the spirit to reply. When he growled she said
nothing. When he walked about the room and cursed and
swore, she only cried. When he went out for a walk, I used
to find her, pretty lamb, sitting on the sofy, crying all to her-
self.'

Gilbert thought of his ghosts, at Bournemouth.

' I knew this couldn't last, and it did not. One day he went
away, and I heard him tell her that he should be gone three
months at least, and that it was very important and particular
business. He went away — oh ! be joyful, and we had peace.
The young lady took to me, and we had walks together, and I
sat with her in the evening. And one day she told me some-
thing.

' Well, her husband never came back at all. Mind you, never
at all. And when he wrote he scolded. He began by allow-
ing her three pounds a week, which was little enough for a lady
like poor Mrs. Hamblin : then he made it two pounds : and
lastly he made it one pound, which was no more than she wanted
for her simple food and lodging. And she fretting and crying
all the time for a sight of his face — his ugly, scowling face.'

The woman was silent awhile. It was not only the prospect of
the reward which inspired her to tell everything ; but the indig-
nation of her heart.

' If ever a woman was murdered, she was murdered. If ever
a man deserved hanging for wilful murder, it was the man
Hamblin.'

Gilbert started ; he had almost forgotten of whom they were
speaking.

' You may take a cudgel, and beat out a body's brains at one
blow, and you are less wicked than the man who stabs you a
thousand times, and stabs you every day until your life is slowly
driven out of you. And this I saw done, and could do nothing
to prevent it.

' One thing I did. I persuaded her, as her husband had de-
serted her, to say nothing about the baby. I wanted her to
keep the baby as a surprise. If that wouldn't soften his heart,
nothing would.'

' The baby ?' Gilbert had forgotten Alison for the moment.

' Of course. There was a baby. I suppose,' the woman
added with asperity, ' that there is nothing uncommon about a
baby, though I've got no children myself. Yes ; the baby came,
and a lovely and beautiful child she was, though dark of skin.
She never told her husband the baby was coming. And she did
not tell him the baby was come. And he never asked why she

HOW GILBERT WENT TO LULWORTIL 245

didn't write for three weeks. I think that when she had the
baby, she left off pining for him, and gave up all her love for
the child.

' A pretty picture she made with her little baby. I think I
see her now. We christened the child at the church here, and I
was her godmother, because she said, poor lady, that I was her
only friend. "We called her by a strange, outlandish name, too.
It was her mother's — Alison. What's the matter, sir ?'

' Nothing,' said Gilbert, turning his head. ' Go on.'

' After the baby was born, her strength began to go away
from her, slowly at first, and then quickly. I ought to have
written to tell her husband, but I hated him too much ; and bo-
sides, I thought she might got better.

' She never did. Oh, me ! she got worse and worse. The
doctor said that perhaps a change of air would set her up a
little. Then at last, but it was too late, Mr. Anthony Hamblin
came and took her away. It was arranged that they were to go
to Bournemouth, and when she was settled, to have her baby
with her. But the baby was never sent to her, because as soon
as she got to Bournemouth she lost her head, and then got worse,
and lay down and died.'

There was silence for a space, while the woman wiped her
streaming eyes.

' And the baby ?' asked Gilbert.

' Mr. Anthony came after the death, and took the baby away.
He said she was going to be brought up at Brighton — pretty
dear !'

' Would you like to see her again ?'

' Would I ? Tell me, sir, do you know where she is ?'

' What would you say,' asked Gilbert, ' if I were to bring her
here myself, and show her the place where her mother lived and
found kind friends ?'

' She really is alive and well then, the pretty baby ?'

' Really alive and well ; and the loveliest young lady in all
the world, and the best.'

The woman looked at him sharply, and then laughed.

' It's easy to see that you think so, sir,' she said ; ' and I wish
you joy with all my heart : and I'm sure she'll have a good
partner.'

' And now describe to me what her father was like, if you re-
member him.'

She described as best she could. Gilbert had ceased to wonder
now. But his heart sank as he thought how the story would
have to be told.

' I want but one thing more,' he said, presently. ' I know all
except where they were married.'

Why, I can tell you that as well,' said the woman. ' She told

246 THE SEAMY SIDE.

me herself. It was at Hungerford. They were married by
special license, two days before they ran away. He drove her
over in a dog-cart, married her in the church, and had her back
again to Newbury, while her sister thought she had gone to
spend the morning with her cousin. That was where they were
married.'

CHAPTER XXIX.

HOW MISS NETI1ERS0LE SOFTENED HER I1EAKT.

Gilbert confided his surprising discoveries to his pocket-book,
but made no other confidant. He left Lulworth in the morn-
ing with renewed promises that Alison should speedily visit the
place of her birth, and made his way across country as speedily
as possible to the little town of Hungerford. Here it was not
difficult to find the marriage certificate. The entry, which sur-
prised him no longer, corresponded with those of Bourne-
mouth and Lulworth, and finally completed his chain of evi-
dence. Everything, in fact, was made out at last, and proved
beyond the shadow of a doubt. Dora's marriage ; the birth and
baptism of the child: Dora's death and burial at Bournemouth ;
the removal of the infant by Anthony Hamblin — not a single
point was missing.

Then, how to make the best use of his knowledge ?

First of all, he would go on to Newbury and see Miss Nether-
sole herself. Then, the forged receipts — it would be well if he
could get those into his own hands. He had now the great advan-
tage of a complete knowledge of the case. He knew what to
tell, and what to conceal. He was master of a secret almost as
important as that possessed by young Nick himself ; and, like
him, he was naturally anxious that it should not be fooled
away.

The town of Newbury, which has nothing but its two battles,
now rather dim and faded in men's memories, to connect it with
the history of this realm of England, is only some nine miles
from Hungerford. In that part of the country the towns are
all placed about nine miles from each other — which means that
four miles and a half is as far as the old-fashioned farmer cared
to drive his pack-horses to market. As soon as that distance, as
a maximum, was accomplished, he sat down, unloaded his
animals, spread out his wares for sale, waited for customers,
and so founded a market town. That is the real origin, only
history-books will not own it, of all our market towns. Benefi-
cent Nature, when the town was founded and a church built,

MISS NETHERSOLFS HEART SOFTENS. 247

proceeded to start a river, which should run through the town,
and carry barges up and down. Thus the place was completely
fitted. At Xewbury there is not only a stream, but it contains
fish ; and there is an inn of the old-fashioned kind where the
landlord will take you to the likeliest places, show you trophies
of the rod, tell you stories such as Izaak Walton would have
loved to hear, and pre ride you with a bottle of port to help
your listening. Gilbert fortunately lighted on this inn. Olivet
Lodge, he discovered, stands on the high road to Hungerford,
about a quarter of a mile from the town. It is a small square
house of red brick, standing in its own gardens. These are
extensive for so small a house, but formal and stiff of aspect,
so that the visitor would probably feel a sense of disappoint-
ment if anything about the place were out of order, if there
were visible a single blade of grass on the gravel walk, a single
stray weed in the flower beds, or a presumptuous daisy, to say
nothing of a dandelion, on the lawns. Also, Gilbert would have
been disappointed had the drawing-room, into which he was
skown by a middle-aged servant, who seemed astonished at
seeing a stranger at the door, been otherwise than oppressively
neat and tidy. The room had the close smell which belongs to
a place never used, whose windows are only open two or three
times a week. It was furnished in the ancient manner, with
fancy cane chairs of fragile build, heavy chairs in leather and
gold, a round table, at which were disposed, at regular intervals,
old keepsakes, books of sermons, and little cases of daguerreo-
types. Nothing in the room showed marks of wear, but every-
thing was touched with years faded and out of date : the carpet,
the hearth-rug, the cover of the sofa, the gilt frames of the
pictures, the paper on the wall, the very ornaments of the
mantelshelf had lost their early colours, and seemed to have
mournfully accepted a common neutral tint, a faded hue which,
somehow, as the eye wandered from one thing to the other,
harmonized with the old-fashioned room, though the blurred
combination was no colour at all, but like the mess which a
schoolboy would make upon the palette after he had been
painting engravings with a box of water-colours.

Gilbert had plenty of time to meditate on the flight of time
and the joylessness of faded furniture, because Miss Nethersole
was taking tea, and thought it consistent with her dignity to
continue the meal without hurrying herself. A strange young
man, probably sent on some charitable quest, might surely wait.
He waited, therefore ; when he had finished examining the
room, he transferred his attention to his own boots, which he was
disgusted to find were covered with dust, and, therefore, very
much out of keeping with the prim and clean surroundings.
When the mistress of the house came at last, too, she was so

248 THE SEAMY SIDE.

completely in harmony with her own house, that Gilbert blushed
still more to think of his dusty boots, and hoped she would not
notice them. She was dressed in black ; her features were
worn and pale ; her hair was brushed with a curious neatness ;
she wore a black lace scarf round her neck. Her face had that
inward look upon it which comes to those who sit alone a great
deal and think, not of things worldly and ambitious, but of
themselves and their own folk. People in the country do con-
tinually think of themselves and their own peculiarities and
eccentricities ; their greatness, their importance, and their posi-
tion. In their own eyes, the family which has never produced
a single man of more than ordinary capacity, which has never
once been heard of outside the parochial bounds, becomes in-
vested with a profound and singular interest. All the world
must be acquainted with it ; all the world must wonder at it ;
all the world must be glad to hear the details of its history.
Miss Nethersole by no means belonged to a county family, but it
is not necessary to be well-born to possess family pride. She
thought highly of her name, she shared the weaknesses of those
who were socially above her, and was proud of herself and of
her people, though her father made his money in trade, and her
cousins, still making more, were not ashamed of the counter and
the till.

' You are Mr. Gilbert Yorke ?' she asked ; ' the name carries
no associations with it, that I can remember. May I ask your
business ?'

' Certainly,' said Gilbert. ' I suppose that you have never
heard my name before, and that matters very little. I am here,
however, on business of the highest importance.'

' Will you state that business ?'

She remained standing, and did not offer him a chair.

' It is connected with two visits which you paid in London.
One of them was to Mr. Anthony Hamblin, the day before his

death, when you left with him a written statement this.

I have brought it with me.'

He produced the roll, which Miss Nethersole opened and
looked at.

' " The Journal of a Deserted Wife." Yes ; I left it with
him. You can keep it ; you can read it. You are welcome to
lend it to all his friends and relations. Let all the world read
it ; so that there may not be one who shall not learn what manner
of man this Anthony Hamblin — hypocrite and murderer — was.'

Gilbert received the roll of paper from her, and went on, with
admiration of a hatred so lively, and so unaffected :

' The second visit was one which you made to the office of
Anthony Hamblin and Company in the City. You thero saw

MISS NETHERSOLES HEART SOFTENS. 249

the two partners, Messrs. Augustus and William Hamblin, and
made a statement to them.'

' I did. Have they communicated to you the particulars of
that interview ?'

' I believe so.'

' They told you about the forged receipts ?'

' I know all about the f orged receipts,' said Gilbert.

' Then with that manuscript, and that little story in your
hands, you have ample materials to amuse yourself and jour
brother clerks. I presume you used to respect your master,
Mr. Anthony Hamblin, very much ?'

' I respected him very much,' Gilbert replied, passing over tlio
supposition that he was a City clerk. ' I respect him still :
even after reading this document and hearing about the forged
receipts.'

' In that case,' she returned, with a look of asperity, ' you
would respect Judas Iscariot himself.'

Gilbert laughed.

' Well, sir, you who respect forgers and wife-murderers, what
have your masters sent you to tell me ?'

Gilbert reddened. It is pardonable for a member of the
Inner Temple not altogether to like being taken for a messenger
from a City house.

' It is quite immaterial, of course,' he said meekly, ' and a
mere matter of unimportant detail. But I am not one of the
clerks ; I am a barrister, and am acting in this business merely
as a friend of the family.'

' Very well, sir ; it does not concern me whether you are a
clerk or not. Pray go on. Have you come to offer me the
money of which I was robbed ? I paid for each of those six
pieces of forged writing, one hundred and fifty pounds. I make
four per cent, on my investments, and I have calculated out my
loss at compound interest. It comes to £1,398 10s. 4d. I shall
look to receive that amount from the estate of the deceased
robber and forger.'

' Very well, Miss Nethersole ; I am sure that your claim will
be fully considered when the time comes, and that you will be
satisfied by the conduct of Mr. Anthony Hamblin's executors.
Justice will of course be done.'

' That, alas, is impossible !' said Miss Nethersole, with a heavy
sigh ; ' the only justice that would meet this case would be
fourteen years in Portland Prison. The accident on the ice
prevented that.'

Gilbert made no reply. This persistent harping on the lost
revenge jarred upon him.

' But if you have not brought the money,' she asked, ' what
are you here for ? Is it only to tell me that you have not

250 THE SEAMY SIDE.

brought it? And remember, I have not promised to give up
the papers.'

' 1 am here, first of all, to tell you that I have been to Bourne-
mouth on the part of the family, and verified your statement
as to the grave of Mrs. Hamblin.'

' Did the man think I invented the story of the grave ? This
is mere childishness.'

' By no means. But it was only necessary to proceed step
by step. You forget that when you saw the partners in the
firm you were unable to tell them where the marriage took
place.'

' I suppose,' said Miss Nethersole, ' that it would be easy to
find out. But what is the good of looking for it ? I am the
only person interested, and I am quite content with my sister's
statement that she was married.'

' We had not even that assurance,' said Gilbert. ' Will you
kindly show it to me ?'

' Why should I ?' asked the lady ; ' I have no interest in the
matter. I have failed in getting justice.'

There was, however, one reason why she should yield. Before
her stood a young man of singularly pleasing and attractive ap-
pearance. His eyes were fixed on hers. They were eyes which
had depths of possible pleading in them ; and his voice was low
and musical, a sweet baritone ; the kind of young man whom
young women delight to tease, but whom no middle-aged woman
can resist.

' You would show me your sister's letter ; you would even
give me the letter, if you knew all,' said Gilbert ; ' I assure you
that you have a great deal to learn— how much I cannot tell
you yet.'

The lady opened a desk which stood on a cabinet behind
her, and took out a little bundle of faded and yellow docu-
ments.

' What can there be to learn,' she asked, 'beyond the dread-
ful truth which I know already ? How can I tell that you are
not deceiving me ?'

' I am not, indeed,' said Gilbert ; ' very shortly you will ac-
knowledge that. Help me to make it quite clear by showing
me whatever letters you may possess from your sister after her
marriage.'

Miss Nethersole took a paper from the bundle, and held it in
her hand, looking at it with eyes which seemed as if they only
wanted tears to make them beautiful. Poor wasted woman-
hood of fifty-five ! It must be hard to give up the possession
of beauty and comeliness. Some men are always handsome ;
but only those women who have achieved marriage and mother-
hood, and receive reflected life from children, handsome sons

MISS NETHERSOLE'S HEART SOFTENS. 251

and beautiful daughters. She held the letter in her hand, and
looked at it with lingering and softened eyes.

1 This was the very room,' she murmured, ' in which, one-and»
twenty years ago, the two young men, my sister Dora, and I,
used to sit in the summer evenings, when they came here to
talk, and sing, and tell us of the world of which we knew so
little, and steal away a woman's heart.'

Gilbert said nothing ; he let her go on recalling the past ; he
watched her soften under the influence of memory.

' It was in July. We were all young together. Anthony
Hamblin was about my age, or a little older. Stephen, his
brother, the young man who smoked tobacco, was twenty-four,
Dora was a great deal younger, she was nothing but a mere
child. I never suspected that for such a girl '

She stopped and blushed. Gilbert thought this hard-featured
woman must have been pretty once.

1 Well, I was deceived ; they ran away, Anthony and Dora.
They left me, and two days afterwards I received this letter.
Yes, you may read it.'

Gilbert read. It was as follows, and was dated from Lul-
worth ; a quite simple, girlish, inexperienced letter :

' Dearest Eaciiel,

' I write to tell you that I have taken the irrevocable
step, which you will, I hope, forgive when you understand that
it means happiness to me. Perhaps at first you will disapprove
because I ran away ; I hope, however, you will soon come round,
and receive us with a sisterly affection. We are staying here
together in the most delightful, and most quiet place in the
world. My husband joins with me in asking your forgiveness.
' I remain,

' Always your affectionate sister,

'Doea Hamblin.'

' May I borrow it of you ?' he asked, folding it up again ;
' yon shall have it back.'

Miss Nethersole hesitated.

' Tell me first,' she said, ' what you mean by having things to
tell me.'

' No,' Gilbert replied, ' I cannot tell you yet. May I keep
this letter ?'

' When my sister went away, when I understood that she
was really gone for good,' said Miss Nethersole, ' I came ink
this room and I -put everything just as it was on the clay before
she left me — the books on the table, the chairs in their places,
the curtains half drawn. I said : " This room shall remind me
of Dora ; it shall cry out always against the man who robbed

252 THE SEAMY SIDE.

me of her." I have never used the room since that day. You
are the only man who has been in it for twenty years and more,
and when I have come into the room it has been to recall the
memory of the betrayer of women : Anthony Hamblin.'

' Give me that letter,' Gilbert persisted. ' I tell you again,
that you have much to learn. I have a great surprise for you.'

' What is it, your great surprise ?'

' I cannot tell j^ou yet,' he replied. ' It may be many days
before I tell you ; but give me that letter. I do not want it
to complete my case, but I should like to have it to show one to
whom your sister's memory is very dear.'

She handed him the letter almost meekly. She could not
resist this young man with the soft voice and the pleading eyes.

' Take it,' she sighed. ' How foolish I am to trust any man
after my experience, and you a complete stranger.'

' Tell me,' he said ; ' you have long since forgiven your sister ?'

' Long since ; I prayed for her morning and night at family
devotions. It would have been unchristian not to forgive so
great a sinner. I prayed for her unwittingly, even six years
after her death. I hope the Papistic superstition of praying
for the dead will not be laid to my charge.'

' I am sure,' said Gilbert, wondering at the remarkable reli-
gion of this good lady, ' I am sure it will not. At least, I wish
I had no greater sins upon my soul than praying for the dead.
But as for her husband, can you not forgive him too ?'

'I do not know.' Truth for the moment overcame the cant
of her party. ' I do not know. I hope I can. Only,' she added,
in justification of herself, ' when I learned at Bournemouth the
death of my sister, when I found the journal, when I under-
stood his miserable wickedness, when I discovered the six years'
forgeries, I felt the old resentment rise in my heart, and then I
knew that I was called and chosen — as an Instrument.' She sat
down wearily. ' I expected to be an Instrument for a great and
signal punishment.'

' I see ; but you were, perhaps, mistaken.'

' No, not all. I was permitted to see him, to point out to him
his awful condition, to reason with him as one reasons with
unrepentant sinners, to be faithful to him. It was the last
word, the last chance. Perhaps— it may be — he repented in
the night.'

Gilbert laid the letter in his pocket-book.

' I will tell you something, Miss Nethersole,' he said. ' But
remember, this is not all I have to tell you, later on. I havo
here your sister's register of marriage, I have this letter to you,
and I have the proof of her death. I have— and that is tho
most important thing I can tell you to-day — I have also the
register of the birth of her daughter.'

MISS NETHERSOLE'S HEART SOFTENS. 253

' Of what ?' Miss Nethersole spraHg from her chair. ' Of
wlw.tr

' Of a daughter. Did you not know that your sister had a
daughter ?'

' No, I did not. Dora's child ? Her daughter ? I heard
nothing about any child at Bournemouth.'

' Unfortunately,' said Gilbert, ' your sister became light-
headed when she got there, and died without quite recovering
her mind, so that she never talked about her child. I have
brought with me,' he added, diving into his pocket, ' a little
thing, the only thing, which the child inherited from her mother.'
He produced the coral necklace.

Miss Nethersole took it with trembling fingers. There were,
then, fountains of tears behind those hard eyes.

' It was my sister's,' she said. ' She used to wear it always.
She was so fond of gauds and trinkets, poor child ! I know it
well — oh ! I know it.' The tears came to her eyes, and she was
fain to sob.

' Go on,' she said, almost fiercely. ' Tell me more about the
child — Dora's child.'

' The child was taken away from Lulworth by Anthony
Hamblin '

' The wife -murderer and forger !'

' And brought up first of all at Brighton — afterwards at his
house on Clapham Common. That night when you called upon
him she was there too, with a party of children and cousins,
singing and dancing.'

' I heard them singing,' murmured Miss Nethersole, with
softened voice. ' Her voice, too, I suppose I heard. Tell me,
was there any difference made between her and Anthony Ham-
blin's other children ?'

' What other children ?'

' His children by his second marriage.'

' But he made no second marriage. Anthony Hamblin lived
alone in his house with your niece and his cousin, a lady who
was her governess and companion.'

Miss Nethersole was silent for a few moments, reflecting.
Here was an upsetting of the ideas which had filled her mind
and fed her spirit of revenge for so long a time. She had pic-
tured Anthony Hamblin the husband of a happy and comfort-
able wife, with a distinct leaning in the direction of luxury.
She had thought of him as the father of a large family. She
thought the singers whom she had heard on the night of her
visit were the sons and daughters. In her blind yearning for
revenge she dwelt with complacency on the misery and shame
which would fall upon the children when she struck the father.
Now it all came home to her. If she was, as she began to doubt,

*54 THE SEAMY SIDE.

with a horrible, cold feeling, as if there was no reality left in
the world, and everything was mockery, an Instrument, it was
a weapon for the punishment of the innocent with the guilty, the
poor child who would have called Dora mother, with the man
who was her father.

' What is her name ?' she asked presently, abashed and con-
fused.

' She is named Alison,' said Gilbert ; ' the register of her bap-
tism is in the church atLulworth.'

' Alison, that was my mother's name,' said Miss Nethersole.

She was silent again.

Then Gilbert went on pleading with his deep, earnest eyes,
and his soft, earnest voice :

' You did not know of this, else you would have gone to
Anthony Hamblin in sorrow, not in anger. You would have
appealed to his love for Alison, to the girl's love for him, to all
that was kind and tender in his nature ; you would have suffered
the past to be forgotten ; you would not have written that intro-
duction to this " Journal of a Deserted Wife ;" you would have
asked for an explanation.'

' No explanation,' said Miss Nethersole, quickly, ' was wanted.
There, at least, I was right. The paper explained itself.'

' I am prepared, but not to-day, with quite another explana-
tion,' said Gilbert. ' You would, if you had known what you
know to-day, have paved the way for a reconciliation by means
of Alison. You would have learned by loving your niece, to
forgive her father.'

' I never could ! That is, as a Christian I must, as a woman
of course I could not.' Like many estimable people, Miss Nether-
sole separated Christianity from humanity. ' Why, Mr. Yorke,
you cannot forget, you surely cannot forget the forgeries ?'

' I do not,' he replied ; ' I am coming to them. You would,
out of consideration for your niece, not only have abstained from
acting in the matter ; you would not only have resolved to say
nothing about them to the outside world, but you would have
given him an opportunity for explaining the whole thing.'

' Explaining ! How can you explain a forgery ?'

' There are many ways. I can give you a complete explana-
tion, but not yet. Remember, however, what you have told mo
be said when you went away. That if you persisted in the
course you proposed to take, you would go in sorrow and re-
pentance all the days of youL .,£e. You have not persisted.
But knowing now that you have a niece, that she lived with
Anthony Hamblin and loved him tenderly, can you doubt that
he was right ?'

' But ho was a forger ! a forger ! a forger !'

'Miss Nethersole, he was nut/' Gilbert held out a warning

MISS NETHERSOLE'S HEART SOFTENS. 255

finger. ' He was no forger / I shall not explain now. This is
not the time for explanation ; there are many things to do first.
But I tell you solemnly, on the word of a gentleman, on the word
of a Christian, that Anthony Hamblin was not, could not bo, the
criminal you think him.'

Miss Nethersole shook her head, but not unkindly. Only she
could not understand.

' And pray,' she said, ' who are you that take so keen an
interest in this affair ?'

' I am engaged to Alison,' said Gilbert, simply. ' Miss Nether-
sole,' he took her hand and kissed it, ' I hope before long to call
you my aunt.'

The poor lady was quite broken down by this last touch of
human kindness.

' I have been working,' he said, ' to restore to Alison her own
good name, which has been threatened. I have had to establish
the fact that her mother was married.'

' Why, who could have doubted that?' asked Miss Nethersole.

' It is a long story. However, so far, that is established.
The poor girl will not have to blush for her mother, at least ;
whether she will have to be ashamed of her father depends upon
you, my dear lady.'

' On me ? You mean about those forgeries ?'

' Surely.'

Miss Nethersole hesitated.

'Do you want me to give them up? But you have not ex-
plained.'

' I cannot explain at this moment. Entrust them to me and
they shall be placed in the care of Mr. Augustus Hamblin,
senior partner in the same house. Believe me, Miss Nether-
sole, if you give them to me, you will never repent it,'

Miss Nethersole was fast melting.

' What la she like— my niece V

' She is the best and most beautiful of girls,' replied G-ilbert,
with natural warmth ; ' she is a Rose of Sharon, a Lily of
Jericho.'

'Do not quote Scripture irreverently, young man,' said Miss
Nethersole, with a smile in those eyes of hers which had been
so hard. ' You are, I suppose, in love with her, and you fancy
that she is an angel. No woman is an angel, sir. However,
you shall have the receipts.' She said this with an obvious
effort. ' I will give them to you — for Alison's sake, when I have
made the acquaintance of my niece. Meantime you may take
the photographic copies. And now, sir, God requite you as you
and yours deal with her.'

She choked, and sat down with her handkerchief to her eyes.

'Give me a few days, my dear lady,' said Gilbert ; 'yet a few

256 THE SEAMY SIDE.

days and I will ask you to make her acquaintance, and to heai
the explanation of what at present you do not understand. My
Alison shall thank you. Miss Nethersole, you have this day
exercised the highest of Christian virtues. You have forgiven
and forgotten. The young life, the newly-born love, has drawn
out the old death — the old hatred.'

G-ilbert returned to London that same evening, his task com-
pleted, his work done.

Was it well done ? What would be the end ? What would
Alison think ?

One thing alone remained.

Early next morning he paid a visit to the bank where the re-
ceipts had been exchanged for cash. He had an interview with
one of the managers. There were references to old books, and
examination of certain senior clerks. The sequel appeared to
be satisfactory, for when Gilbert left the bank his face was more
than usually sunny.

Finally, he sought the office of Anthony Hamblin and Co.,
and set forth in detail the whole of his discoveries.

And then there was a discussion long and serious.

CHAPTER XXX.

HOW YOUNG NICK KEPT HIS SECRET.

The consciousness of possessing all to himself so great a secret
gave young Nick a sense of superior importance most enjoyable.
He hugged it to his bosom, took it to bed with him, and dreamed
of it, never let it go out of his thoughts. His mother observed
with some alarm that her son was changed during those days.
He was sobered ; he carried himself responsibly; his white eye
brows were charged with a burden of duty.

The change was certainly for the better, but she looked for
some physical cause to account for his sudden abandonment of
those impish moods which had once kept her in continual alarm.
It might be impending measles ; in fact, the boy was completely
weighed down by his knowledge. The writing-master of Jubilio
Road was too much in his mind. Whenever he saw Alison he
thought of him ; if he went out of the town he reflected that
the Clapham Road, followed due north, leads to London Bridge,
and that from London Bridge to Jubilco Road is but a step ; if
lie came home, he passed the door of his uncle's study, and in-
voluntarily compared the mean lodging at the East End with

HOW YOUNG NICK KEPT HIS SECRET. 257

11) at stately room ; if he heard his mother lamenting the wicked-
ness of Stephen, he chuckled, thinking how that wicked man
would be, and should be, some day brought to shame, and his
wiles defeated ; if he heard Alison whispering despondently
that nothing had been as yet discovered, he rubbed his hands
together, and laughed inwardly, winking both eyes alternately,
as he thought of what ho himself had discovered ; if he con-
templated his own future prospects, his thoughts turned to the
refugee whose return was to mark the commencement of his own
fortunes.

The thing was overwhelming. All day he pondered over it,
now with exultation, now with anxiety. His performances at
school grew every day more lamentable ; the subjunctive mood
ceased to interest him, and he neglected the past participle ;
even the things which would certainly become of real use to
him when he had his desk in Great St. Simon the Apostle, his
arithmetic, his French, his handwriting, became irksome. For
as the weary hours of work crept on, his mind was always away
in that dingy house of Jubilee Road, and his thoughts were
always turning to the Great Secret.

How was it to be disclosed in the most useful and, at the
same time, the most striking manner ? Suppose some one else,
a clerk in the house, for instance, should find out the writing-
master of Jubilee Road.. His uncle, Nicolas reflected with
severity, was extremely thoughtless ; he might even, on a
Saturday half -holiday, stroll as far west as the entrance to the
decks, and there be observed by the policemen at the doors, and
then all his own share in the discovery would be actually fooled
away.

These were difficult and interesting problems, but they were
too much for the young brain. While Nicolas thought them
over, which was all day long, in school and out, the book before
him became a blank page ; the common he wandered over, as
any Robinson Crusoe, was as if it did not exist ; the shouts of
the boys at play, or the hum of the boys at work, fell on deaf
ears. His school performances during this period were in the
monthly report described as disgraceful. He cared nothing
about Caesar's triumphs in Gaul ; he could not be roused to any
interest in any subject whatever ; the ceaseless admonitions of
his masters produced no more effect than the lowing of distant
cattle ; if Cridland was called, Cridland had to be jogged by his
nearest neighbour ; if Cridland was asked a question, his reply
betrayed not only ignorance of the subject, but gross inatten-
tion. The consequences were inevitable.

Must one go on ? At that school they caned, but only in
cases of continued inattention and idleness.

When the patience of the authentic-; wa3 quite exhausted,

17

253 THE SEAMY SIDE.

Cridland received orders to remain after twelve o'clock. Tt
need scarcely be observed that the fact of such a boy as young
Nick, the crafty, the subtle, the hitherto successful invader of
rules, being about to undergo the last extremity of the law,
excited an interest so lively as to be akin to joy. In fact, it was
joy — rapturous joy. When the hour of fate struck, the boys,
instead of rushing off to play as usual, congregated about the
door, listening in silence. Would young Nick take it plucky,
or would young Nick funk ? Would he cry out, or would he be
silent ?

They watched him march, with pale face, but head erect, into
the operating-room ; they listened while, af ler a pause, during
which, as the more experienced knew, the head-master was
delivering himself of the preliminary jaw. At last, the sound
of the Instrument was heard : swish ! swish ! swish ! No other
sound, no cry, no trampling of feet.

' I always run round and round,' said young Featherbrain,
who was caned once a fortnight regularly.

' Nine cuts,' said Lackwit secundus ; ' two more than I got
last time.'

But, throughout, a dignified silence.

Then the door opened, and young Nick came out. His head
was as erect as usual, though his cheek was a little flushed, and
hi3 eyes brighter, perhaps. The boys made a lane. Young
Nick looked neither to the right nor to the left, though a murmur
of sympathetic admiration greeted him as he emerged ; but
taking his hat from the peg, he walked away with pride, capping
the head-master at the gate with a dignified smile, which seemed
to say :

' You have done your duty ; I forgive you. Let us agree in
forgetting the late deplorable scene.'

Then the boys fell to discussing their own experiences, and
the punishment of young Nick served for the rest of the day as
a fillip or stimulus to the activity of the school life.

That night, after dark, any curious passer-by might have
noticed a small, thin figure creep through the iron railings, and
flit rapidly across the gravel to the back of the school. There
was a window at that part of the building which might be
opened from the outside, did one know the secret. Through
that window the thin figure crept.

The next day, which was Wednesday, and & half -holiday, was
a day of rebuke. The masters were late at prayers, and a
general feeling rapidly spread that something was going to
happen. In fact it had been discovered that the gowns had been
"sewn together with such great artfulness that they could not
oe separated without much labour and time. The masters
appeared, therefore, without them. The head-master was ob-

HOW YOUNG KICK KEPT HIS SECRET. 259

served to put less heart than usual into the petition for forgive-
ness. After prayers he announced that an outrage had been
committed on the sacred magisterial robes, and that he would
give the offender until twelve to confess. The eyes of all in-
voluntarily turned to young Nick, who only gazed upwards
thoughtfully, and shook his head with sadness. Worse things
happened : it was immediately afterwards found that the
masters' seats had been plentifully studded with small pieces of
cobbler's wax ; that the ink for all the desks had been powdered
with chalk, that the nibs of all the pens had been cut or broken
off ; that butter, or some such foreign substance, had been rubbed
upon the black-boards ; that mark-books had been shamefully
treated, and the records of impositions mutilated.

Three boys were caned, for minor offences, at twelve ; no con-
fessor appeared at that hour ; the whole school was detained
till one ; the whole school was also deprived of its half-holiday ;
three more were caned at five. Young Nick continued grave
and sad ; he shook his head from time to time ; but in the
afternoon he recovered his spirits, showed a cheerfulness strange
to the rest, and displayed the greatest alacrity in his work. At
five o'clock, when they were dismissed, he laughed. This episode
cheered him for the moment, but he relapsed, and became
mysteriously preoccupied again. His thoughts were not with
his studies : he lost the good opinion of his masters — a con-
sequence of sin, the true awf ulness of which has been revealed
by the author of ' Eric ' — he made his fellows think he was
going silly, because a young Nick who had no more mischief in
him, who never said or did anything worthy of his former
reputation, who had gone quite silent and sluggish, was not the
young Nick whom they had formerly admired. That boy had
gone, vanished into the Ewigkeit. There was left in his place a
quiet lad with white hair and eyebrows, pink face, and downcast
look, who moved among them as speechless as a ghost, who
never listened, who was always dreaming or asleep, who made
no fuss, played no pranks, and took no notice. Quite a stupid
and commonplace boy. Indeed the secret was too much for
him. Had its exclusive possession been much longer prolonged,
I believe the boy would have suffered some kind of brain affec-
tion.

There were moments when the story presented itself to him
in its comic aspect. The reflection that the man for whom so
many tears had been shed, whose death had caused so much
unexpected trouble, was really alive and well, stimulated Nicolas
to dance and sing, to utter dark sayings, to construct enigmas,
and to behave in Puck-like fashion towards Alison. She had
no suspicion of his meaning, but she began to feel every day
that the boy had some secret, aud meant something real. And

17-2

2<5o THE SEAMY SIDE.

what did he mean by his constant allusions to the writing-
master ?

In those days he made a ' Ballad of the Writing-master,' of
which I only venture to quote the first two verses ; would that
all poets were content with publishing only the first two verses 1

' The Writing-master sings upon his way,

Of Gillott, J., soft nib, and pliant quill ;
His Round and Text like twins together play ;
His frolic Small-hand keeps him happy still.
He sings all day about his merry task ;

He dances on the curbstone when he's free ;
Give me his lot, should you the question ask : —
A writing-master's is the life for me.

' He loves his boys — their master they adore ;

He rolls in wealth, his reputation's such:
At five o'clock when he can work no more,

Often the Lord Mayor asks him out, and much.
" There goes the Writing-master !" cry the girls,

" Oh ! great, and grand, and rich, and proud is he.
Let others wed for rings and tilings and pearls :

'Tis, oh ! a writing-master's wife to be." '

There were many more verses hammered out by this young
poet on the same subject ; but I refrain from quoting those
that followed. He sang the whole right through one afternoon
for Alison's pleasure, pretending he did not know she was in
the room. He was, indeed, very crafty in those minor pretences
which deceived no one.

' Will you tell me, you tiresome boy,' asked Alison, worried
by his iteration, ' what you mean by perpetually talking about
writing-masters ?'

' If you chose a profession,' the boy replied, with another
question, ' wouldn't you like that ?'

' Certainly not,' said Alison. ' I would prefer anything,
almost, to such a profession. What do you mean ?'

' Not be a writing-master ? Why, of all the unreasonable
girls ! If you only knew — consider, Alison.'

He began to sing his song again.

The boy would give no fuller explanation.

Another remarkable circumstance. He took to coming home
late for tea on Saturdays, and sometimes did not appear until
supper was the only meal possible. And although he grew
absolutely grasping after pocket-money, he never spent any on
: tuck,' and yet never seemed to have any.

One Sunday — it was the first Sunday after they put up the
tablet to the memory of Anthony Hamblin in the parish church
■— he _ disgraced the family altogether, for at sight of the tablet
1-bis ill-behaved and unfeeling boy began to laugh. That was
■=.t the commencement tf tL.e service ; he laughed again whan

HOW YOUNG NICK KEPT HIS SECRET. 261

they stood up for the Psalms, he choked loudly several times
during the sermon, and he laughed till the tears ran down his
cheeks all the way home across the Common. Alison had never
been so angry with him. Why he laughed the boy would
not, or could not, tell. But he refused to go to church for
the evening service, on the ground that he felt it coming on
again.

The reason why he came homo late on Saturdays, and had no
pocket-money, was, first that he spent that afternoon with his
uncle, and secondly, that he used all his pocket-money in pur-
chasing little presents to cheer his solitude and poverty. And
I declare that although the boy was as selfish as most boys of
fourteen, and although he looked to his uncle's return for the
foundation of his own fortune, he was in this respect entirely
disinterested. He could never think of those shabby boots,
that worn coat, without a choking at the throat, and something
like a tear in his eye, signs of emotion which he was fain to hide
or efface as speedily as might be.

For his own part, Anthony, having quickly learned to trust
the boy, looked forward to his weekly visit as to a break in the
desolate monotony in his new existence. He sat at home and
waited for him, growing anxious if he was late, and when
he arrived there was a formal sort of catechism to be gone
through.

' How is Alison ?' asked her father.

' Chirpy,' said young Nick ; ' takes her meals hearty.'

' Have they made any discovery yet ?'

'Not yet,' replied the boy ; ' and I hope they never will.'

That meant that the search, so far as he could tell, was as
yet unsuccessful : so far, therefore, the chances were in favour
of Stephen. This was just what the boy wanted.

Then they would sit down and talk about other things, the
possibility of return being always in both their minds. The
old relations between them were a great deal changed. The
man and the boy thus thrown together under changed condi-
tions were on the same level, in conversation. Young Nick
never let his uncle forget that his secret gave him authority, so
to speak ; nor could Anthony ever forget that his present work
and position afforded a striking contrast to his former. Indeed,
Anthony's reverses might be compared with those of Hecuba,
Croesus, and other fallen monarchs, some of whom taught in
schools. Louis Philippe and Dionysius, for instance. But
then Louis Philippe went back again. He might, had he chosen,
have taken a high moral line, and pointed out to Nicolas that
the misfortunes of one man should be taken as a warning to
other men. He omitted the opportunity, however, and the
moral lesson was lost.

262 THE SEAMY SIDE.

1 Tell me how you like your work, Uncle Anthony,' said ths
boy with a grin. ' Your work !— ho, ho !'

It was the one disagreeable thing to Anthony about the^e
interviews, that young Nick would persist in alluding to his
occupation.

Anthony grunted.

' Do you find your principal always — ahem ! — what a gentle-
manly principal ought to be ?'

Anthony preserved silence.

' Do you like your boys ? Are they a pleasant lot of fel-
lows with a good tone and above meanness or falsehood ?'

.Anthony shook his head.

' Well, then, tell me what you do.'

' You mean the day's routine ?' He blushed almost like a
boy, this man of fifty and more, while he related the daily
duties of an usher in a commercial academy. ' We begin at
nine : there are two assistants, Mr. Merkin and myself. The
principal takes the senior class, which does Latin. I do the
writing, drawing (which is an extra — for the principal), and
the geography and English. Mr. Merkin, who is young, and
will probably succeed the principal, takes the French and the
book-keeping, the history, the lower Latin, and the mathematics.
There are sixty boys in the school, and they pay six pounds a
year each for their education without extras, which are French,
drawing, and book-keeping — a guinea a year each for those.'

' I see,' said young Nick. ' Boss pockets extras. Go on.'
' We work from nine to twelve, and from two to five. In the
morning there is punishment school from twelve to one, and on
Wednesday afternoons.'

' And what do they pay you for all this ?'

' Seventy-five pounds a year, non-resident. You see, Nicolas,
I have been used to live pretty much as I liked, and I preferred
to be free in the evening. Then I have to look over exercises ;
but at least I can go to bed when I like, and smoke a pipe if I
please.'

This poor dole of independence, this limited portion of
freedom, produced a great wave of pity in the heart of the boy.

' As for the boys,' Anthony continued, with a sigh, ' I must
own that they are wearying. Unfortunately, one cannot expect
the ideas of gentlemen in the — the East End of London. How-
ever, all boys are alike, I dare say. One tries to inspire them
with something like principle and morality '

' Might as well teach an oyster to climb a tree,' said young
Nick, speaking from his own experience of boys ; ' clout 'em
and cult' 'em. Go on, uncle.'

' But it is uphill work. As for the teaching, there are, I think,
some boys who really want to learn.'

HOW YOUNG NICK KEPT HIS SECRET. 263

' They know it pays,' observed Nick the sagacious. ' I'm one
of those boys. Teach me what will pay, and I will learn. Not
past participles — yah !'

' Then there are the punishments. The principal conducts
them personally.'

' Like Cook and Gaze,' said Nicolas, poetically. ' I should
like to conduct Mm personally, and one or two more principals
that I know.'

This dark and unintelligible reflection was probably due to the
still fresh — too fresh — recollection of his own recent sufferings.

' I wish,' continued Anthony sadly, ' that there were more
judgment shown in inflicting the punishments, and perhaps
more dignity in the manner of operation. But one has no right
to talk openly of the conduct of one's employers. You will for-
get, Nicolas, that I mentioned these things. It might do me
serious injury if you talked.'

' All right, uncle,' said Nicolas, grinning. ' I won't mention
it. Keep steaming ahead.'

' There is nothing more to be said. We are having a little
difference just now, the principal and myself, because he wants
me to undertake some of the canings. And I — well, I would
rather not.'

' Naturally,' said Nicolas, wagging his head. ' Uncle Stephen
might be told off to do that. Of course you couldn't.'

Anthony, reminded by mention of his brother's name that he
was not by deliberate choice and training a writing-master, re-
lapsed into silence.

This was the kind of conversation which they held with each
other every Saturday, varied by the latest talk about Clapham,
and the views of Nicolas on things universal.

One day, about a month after the discovery, Anthony con-
fessed to the boy that he had a burning desire to see the old
place again, and his daughter.

' Take me down with you to-night,' he said. ' Place me so
that I can see without being seen, and then bring out Alison so
that I may, if only for the last time, look upon her face.'

' As for its being the last time,' said Nicolas, ' that's gammon,
and you know it. I am going to bring you home in triumph,
while the bells do ring and the drums do beat. As for trotting
her out for you to look at her, that's easy done. As for putting
you where she can't see you, that's not so easy. Let me think!'

He reflected seriously for a few moments.

' To-day,' he said, 'is Saturday. Gilbert Yorke will very likely
turn up to-night, with his pocket-book full of no news. You
must not come to-night, But on Monday he will be off again.
He travels about the country and finds nothing, while Alderisoy
Codd goes round the town and finds nothing. Now, if tl.ey

264 THE SEAMY SIDE.

had only come to Me in the first place, 1 could have shown them
how to go to work. See what I've found You !'

He spoke as if his discovery was entirely due to his superior
intelligence and forethought.

' Well— Monday. Shall I venture to Clapham on Monday

evening

9'

' On Monday evening you be about the place. Let me see —
you mustn't be in the gardens or in the front of the house. It's
awfully dangerous. Buy a false nose and a moustache — put on
the green goggles — tie a red comforter round your throat. Lord !
suppose anybody was to see you ! Why, where would my credit
be ? Be outside the house, in the road, or on the Common in
front, but not far off, as the clock strikes nine. I will do what
I can for you, but I can't promise.'

On the following Monday evening, which was fortunately fine,
Anthony, observing every possible precaution in the way of dis-
guise, walked once more over the old familiar Clapham Common.
He felt terribly guilty and was full of apprehensions. Every
passer-by seemed to scrutinise him with suspicion ; the policeman
turned his lantern upon him ; the men whom he met edged away
from him ; in fact, the effect of the green spectacles, the red
handkerchief, and the slouched hat was theatrically suggestive.
No brigand in a burlesque looked more ostentatiously dis-
guised.

It was nine o'clock as he drew near the old house.

For a moment he felt as if the past four months was all a
delusion and a dream. He was going to walk in as of old. He
would find the study fire lit, his slippers in their old pla-ce, his
box of cigars ready to hand, his book upon the table, and Alison
to talk to him. Involuntarily he drew himself up, stepped out
quickly, and gained the garden-gate. There he was arrested by
the boy, whose white locks gleamed in the twilight.

' Hush !' whispered young Nick, looking about him with
jealousy, though he greatly enjoyed the intrigue ; no one is
about now, but there's precious little safety. William, the
groom, keeps company with Anne, the kitchenmaid ; sometimes
they're in the scullery, and sometimes they're about the stables,
and they may be prowling round, as they were last night, in the
road ; there's no telling. You walk very gently to the other gate,
while I look round again. I'll meet you there.'

The boy made a rapid reconnaissance. While ho examined the
shrubs in the front garden, Anthony stood outside the railings,
and looked upon what had been his own. The front door was
wide open, and the blaze of light looked to the hungry exile like
an invitation to return to home, and love, and Alison.

' Come,' said Nicolas, catching him by the wrist, ' you stand
behind the trunk of the cedar, that's the blackest place- m tho

HOW YOUNG NICK KEPT HIS SECRET. 265

garden. You can see into the drawing-room from there. I'll
bring Alison to the window ; you wait quiet and don't move.
If William and Anne come spooning here to-night, interrupting
things, I'll give them cold pig or something worse, see if I don't.'

The boy left his uncle planted by the tree, and retreated to
the house. Alison was sitting with his mother, reading by the
light of a single small lamp ; there was a small fire on the
hearth, and no other light in the place. Nicolas immediately
mounted on a chair, and lit up all the burners nearest the
window.

' More light,' he said ; ' I want to tackle the subjunctive mood.
It's what the novelists call a dark mood, a moody mood, a melan-
choly mood, that wants all the light we can get.'

Then he opened the shutters, drew back the curtains, and
threw up the window.

'More air,' he said; 'that's for the past participle.' Pre-
sentlv he whispered — it was rather a loud whisper — ' Alison !'

' What is it, Nicolas ?'

She laid down the book and lifted her head.

' Come here.'

' I am too comfortable, thank you. Pray shut the window.
And you cannot want all that glare of light.'

' You would come — I think — if you knew who was outside,
and wanted to see you. But don't come unless you like ; he
won't care really, whether he sees you to-night or not. It's
nothing to him ; oh no !'

' Don't be silly, Nicolas.'

But she smiled and listened.

' G — i — 1. There you are with your Gil.'

Alison sprang from her chair and ran to the window. The
light was full upon her face as she stood there looking out into
the garden, right before the branches of the great dark cedar,
so that a man beneath the tree could almost reach out his hand
and touch her.

' Gilbert is not there,' she said to young Nick, drawing back
disappointed.

' I didn't say he was,' replied the boy, shutting the window
and the shutters ; ' I only said G— i— 1, Gil. That's all. You
made up the rest.'

' You are a mischievous little imp,' she said, ' and you ought
to have your ears boxed.'

She went back to her book. Nicolas turned down some of the
lights and went out of the room. No one ever ventured to in-
terfere with his movements.

He found his uncle Anthony still under the oedar.

' Come,' whispered the boy. ' you mustn't be found here. It
h not only William and Anne, it'a .Robert the gardener, and

266 THE SEAMY SIDE.

Eliza the cook, as well. Lord ! what I've had to loo 1 - aftct
since you ran away ! You ought to have thought of me before
you did it. Now then ; you've seen Alison, and I can't have,
you loitering about here, getting caught, and you had better get
away back to Jubilee Road as fast as you can.'

Anthony touched the boy's cheek with his finger, and said
nothing. By the light of the gas in the hall, Nicolas saw that
his eyes were heavy with tears.

*• She looks more beautiful than ever,' he replied.

'Now you see what you've given up, uncle, and I hope you're
properly sorry,' said Nicolas with severity. ' You've just chucked
away and lost the most scrumptious girl in all Clapham— your
own daughter, too ; the best house in the place, the best cellar
of wine, and my society.'

' Yes, yes,' Anthony replied ; ' I know, I know.'

' There's still a door open. Come back to us. I, for one, will
never say a word to reproach you, or recall the past. Remem-
ber, uncie, there's always a knife and fork ready for you.'

CHAPTER XXXI.

HOW JACK BAKER PROPOSED AN AGREEABLE COMPROMISE.

Alison returned home with greater lightness of heart than she
had felt since her father's death. It was far more to her than
to other girls to have stood beside her mother's grave. She had
received an assurance which would at once stay the hand of her
enemy, and stop the tongues of those who maligned her father's
memory ; her lover was come back to her, and again the ring
of engagement decorated the third finger of her left hand. Her
pride, her self-respect returned to her, and when she ran up the
steps of the old house it was with a step as elastic and a face as
bright as any that had ever rejoiced the face of her father.

' Dear old house,' she cried, ' I shall not have to leave you
after all.'

' Then,' said young Nick, who was there to welcome her, ' I
suppose you have squared it at last with Uncle Stephen. A very
sensible thing too. Mind, I always offered to square it for you,
but you were so uncommonly taken up with that fellow Yorke.
Now, I suppose, he's come round to my opinion, and pretends it
is his own idea. What's the figure ?'

' You are a horrid boy !' Alison would tell hiui no more.

Said Nicolas, bursting into song,

AN AGREEABLE COMPROMISE. 267

'Let others wed for rings and things and pearls,
'Tis oh ! a Writing-master's wife to be — ee — ee — ee ;
A Writing-master's wife— or daughter— or female relation of some kind—
to be.

' You want the 'writing-master, Alison, my dear ? Wait a
little — wait a little ; he's coming.'

But she was not to be allured into asking any questions, even
about the writing-master. She was too happy to be curious.

Her manner excited the boy's liveliest curiosity. At dinner
he listened for information, but none was given. After dinner
he made haste to spread out all his volumes and dictionaries,
and pretended rapt absorption in his studies, hoping that
Alison would be betrayed by his assumed concentration of
thought into dropping some hint of what had happened. But
she did not. She made no mention whatever of her journey
and its results. Only she was happy again, happy as a child, and
Mrs. Cridland waited patiently to hear the cause. She was
told, but not before her son went to bed.

Nicolas was greatly disgusted with this want of confidence ;
and next day, too, a half-holiday, when he might have told the
secret to the writing-master. As it was, he contented himself
with a letter in which he merely wrote these words :

' Something up. They've found it out, but they haven't told
me yet. Keep up pecker.— N. C

The situation — had Mr. Bunter Baker realised what it meant
— was unpromising for him to reopen those negotiations which
had already been entered upon. They had, however, with one
or two other matters, been greatly in his mind for some time.
Stephen Hamblin, growing gloomy over the threatened delay,
and perhaps suspicious about the movements of the other side,
was dogged, and even violent, in his assertions of confidence.

' I tell you,' said Jack, ' they've found out something. She
went into the country the other day mysteriously. What did
she go for ?'

' For change of air, perhaps,' said Stephen. ' What do I care
what she went for ? Man, there's nothing to find out.'

' I don't know.' Jack shook his head sagaciously. - ' I met
Alderney Codd the other day. He said that you were going to
be crumpled up.'

' Alderney Codd be hanged ! Mind, Jack, I know very well
what I am doing. I tell you again that Anthony couldn't have
been married.'

Stephen looked worried, but his manner was defiant. In fact,
the more uncertain of his own position he became, the more
positively he asserted it.

' Ah ! well,' Jack went on, ' there are several ways of " crump-
ling up." If they do not find out the proof of the marriage

■-'68 THE SEAMY SIDE.

they may induce you to retire from the contest ; they may buy
you out ; or they may ' — he hesitated a moment, but delicacy
of feeling was not one of his strong points — ' they may threaten
you out.'

' What the devil do you mean ?' cried Stephen, his face ablaze.
' Threaten out ? Threaten me out ?'

'Don't fly into a rage.' Jack spoke in his usual loud, yet
leisurely fashion. ' I learn a good deal as I go about. For
instance, things are being discussed by the clerks at Hamblins'
just now, and your name seems to be taken pretty free. Of
course I don't know what they say. If I hear I forget. Most
likely they are lies. At the same time, Hamblin ' — he turned
and faced him, looking him straight in the eyes — ' I suppose
there are few men who have hung about town so long as you,
who can't have something raked up.'

' Well ?' asked Stephen, sullenly, ' and what then ?'

' Oh, nothing ; only these things don't look well if you have
got to go into a witness-box, do they ?'

' It depends upon the things,' Stephen replied, restlessly
pacing the room ; ' they may rake what they like, so far as I
am concerned.'

' That's all right then, and you need not fear. By-the-way,
why did you leave the house when you might have stayed in it
and become a partner ?'

Stephen's face became darkei'.

' We had a quarrel,' he said ; ' a family quarrel.'

'Ah, very likely ; only that is not what they say.'

' Confound it, man, let them say what they like ! Tell me if
it is anything outrageous, and I will have them up for libel.'
Stephen looked, however, as if he cared a great deal. ' Of
course,' he said, stopping in his walk, ' I should not like my
whole life trotted out for public inspection. No man would.
Fortunately, however, nobody knows all the shady places except
myself. Who knows yours ?'

' Nobody at all,' said Jack Baker ; 'thank goodness, nobody.
I keep the seamy side in. Now you, old fellow, I am afraid,
have kept your seamy side a good deal exposed to view. You've
gambled, you've gone on the turf, you've been a man about
town, you've been a speculator ; you've dabbled in finance,
you've been mixed up with companies in which the shareholders
don't bless the names of the promoters ; all these things stick
to a fellow. Now I, my dear friend, with the deepest sympathy
f >r your pursuits, have done the same thing, but more quietly;
and I'm ten years younger than you, so that I haven't had the
time to commit so much wickedness as you. My game has
always been to show up as the steady City merchant, respect-
ab'.e and substantial.'

AN AGREEABLE COMPROMISE. 269

'Well, well, what are we talking about ?'

' I have been thinking,' Jack went on in his most business-
like way, ' that my thou, looks devilish like being lost. Excuse
me disbelieving your statement, Hamblin, which seems to me as
if it rested on your own unsupported opinion. I don't see mj
way to getting that thou, back again ; and as for your affairs
getting into a more satisfactory state, I have reason to believe,
my dear boy, that they ceased to be in any state at all a good
while ago. Don't swear, and fly into a rage, because I'm not
going to round on you, and I'm not going to say anvthini.: a bit
nastier than I can help ; but if that money is to be paid back
out of this Hamblin estate, I think I shall have to whistle for
it. Mind I don't precisely know what Aldernoy Codcl means,
but I do know that though he is an ass he is not a liar. If lie
says you are going to be crumpled up, the crumpling will take
place as sure as eggs is eggs. Besides, in any case, the judge
may keep you waiting for seven years. How are you to live
for seven years ?'

' You seem determined to drive me mad between you,' said
Stephen. ' What does it matter what that internal ass, Aldcr-
ney Codd, says or thinks ? That won't hurt. As for neveii
years, of course it is nonsense. Next year we make another
application, win the case, and pocket the money. Marriage ?
That be hanged !'

' I wish I could share your confidence, Hamblin.' Jack's
tone became very serious. ' Now I have been turning this over,
and I am anxious to see a compromise.'

Stephen groaned.

' A compromise, I say. Listen a moment. That niece of
yours is a very pretty girl : she's the finest, prettiest, pluckiest
girl I ever set eyes on, or dreamed of. It's a shame that she
should be kicked out because she can't find her mother ; a
shame, by Gad ! And yet, of course, old man,' he added, with
a touch of the City common-sense, ' one can't blame you. G-o

she must, unless However, wdiat I propose is this. You

shall withdraw your claim altogether ; you shall, in point of
fact, acknowledge her legitimacy ; you shall abandon all right
to the estate. In return, you shall receive half the personal
property — half, you see : that is a hundred and fifty thousand
pounds — good heavens ! what a pile ! — and I '

' Oh ! you are to come in, are you ?'

Stephen sat down in a kind of desperation, and turned his
dark face upon his friend.

' Of course I am. Do you think I ever interest myself for
nothing ? J. donble-B. is going to romp in gaily. My share
in the busiuess is to marry the girl, s.i'1 take the other half 01
the pile.'

2j3 THE SEAMY SWE.

' Oh,' said Stephen, ' this is a very pretty sort of proposal. 1
am to give you half of my estate, am I ?'

' It isn't yours yet. Very likely it never will be yours. You
are to exchange quarrelling and fighting for friendship, doubt for
certainty, claim for possession. Why, I think it is too much
that I offer you. We should say a third, not a half — and J.
double-B. takes the girl off your hands, marries her, gives out
that you've behaved noble, and sets your character up for life.
Think of that now.'

' Perhaps she won't have you,' said Stephen, evidently soften-
ing.

'Ha — h'm !' Jack replied, with a sweet smile, stroking his
chin and smoothing his moustache, which was a fine full growth.
' We shall see. If a man is not absolutely repulsive, he always
has a chance. Hang it, Hamblki, you ought to know the sex.'

Evidently Jack Baker thought he knew it himself. He looked
so irresistible, with his confident pose, and his air as of a pea-
cock brandishing an enormous tail, that Stephen laughed aloud.

' Go in and win, if you can,' he said. ' Get engaged to the
girl, and then make your terms with me. You may, if you like,
feel your way to a compromise. I don't want to be unreason-
able. Give me three-fourths or so, and let the thing slide.'

' Yes,' said Jack, ' I should think you tcould let the thing slide
for three-fourths. That means over two hundred thousand.
Why, there's spending in that for forty years if you managed
it properly. You'll be under the turf in twenty. If Alderney
meant anything, it is not three-fourths nor one-fourth either
tLwt you'll get.'

As a matter of fact, Alderney meant nothing except an ex-
pression of profound conviction. Gilbert had not told any one,
as yet, the nature and extent of his discoveries. Even Alison
only knew that she had stood by the grave of her mother, for
whom she might shed tears of sorrow unmixed with shame.

A second time, therefore, Jack Baker drove to the house on
Clapham Common. On this occasion, however, he had a secret
and private purpose of his own, which made him rather nervous.

Miss Hamblin received him with less frigidity than before.
In fact, the girl was so happy that she felt benevolent even to
an emissary of her uncle.

On the previous visit her eyes had been heavy with tears, and
her cheek pale from insulted pride. Now she felt herself once
more her father's very daughter, the rightful heiress. A softer
light glowed in her face, the light of sunshine ; her check was
rosy, her lips were smiling, her dark eyes were soft and limpid
when she lifted them to greet her visitor.

Jack Baker thought he saw the light of welcome in those
eyes, and took courage. Lie was more splendidly attired than

AN AGREEABLE COMPROMISE. 271

on his former visit. The season of early summer admitted the
gorgeousness of white waistcoat, light dust-coat, scarlet tie,
lavender gloves, white hat. His coarsely handsome ffice, marred
by the tokens of indulgence, was not unpleasant. To be sure,
Alison thought, comparing him mentally with her own lover,
the man cannot help not being a gentleman : that is his mis-
fortune, not his fault. But she thought he looked good-
tempered, dun bon naturcl.

' I come again, Miss Hamblin,' said Jack, with the sunniest
of smiles and an airy wave of his hand, ' as an ambassador from
your uncle, who still, I need hardly tell you, deplores the contest
in which he has become unavoidably engaged.'

' Really,' said Alison, ' I am surprised to learn it. To be sure,
he can always retire from it.'

' I am here to make another proposal, or rather, to sound you
as to your own views, if you will honour me hy confiding them
to me.' Jack dropped his voice, and tried to look insinuating.

The man, thought Alison, looks like a draper's assistant
offering a shawl.

' Had you not better sit down and make the proposal in com-
fort, Mr. Baker ?' she said, smiling. It was really pleasant to
think of receiving proposals for a compromise when even thing
was settled and proved.

' Thank you, Miss Hamblin,' said Jack, taking a chair. It
was more encouraging to be asked to sit down, but, somehow,
he felt less at his ease. The room overpowered him : it was so
full of flowers, dainty pictures, embroidery, and all the little
things with which a young lady who need not consider cost loves
to surround herself.

' Mr. Stephen Hamblin has never, I beg you to believe, been
indifferent to your feelings in this matter,' Jack began. ' He
has often lamented to me the hard position to which you might
be reduced, if — — '

' Thank you,' said Alison. ' Never mind my hard position.
Let us come to the offer. Do not you think, however, that it
would be best to make it in writing to my guardians ?'

' Xo ; certainly not. Mr. Hamblin would wish to deal with
you direct,' said the ambassador. ' It is with his niece, not with
his cousins, that he wishes to restore a good understanding.'

' Very well. Pray let me hear his proposal.'

' It is hardly a proposal ; only a suggestion. What do you
think of his withdrawing his claim, not because it is an unjust
claim, but in your own interests, and out of consideration to
yourself ? In withdrawing it, he would naturally look to com-
pensation.'

' Yes,' said Alison, smiling. ' Yea ; I suppose, compensation
for having set up an unjust claim.'

272 THE SEAMY SIDE,

' One would say a half of the whole estate — something of that
sort.'

' I see,' said Alison. ' I should have to give him half in order
to get anything.'

' Quite so,' said Jack. ' Should you consider that proposal a
liberal one ?'

' What did I tell you when you came here last, Mr. Baker ?'
she asked quietly. ' Let me remind you. I said that I would
hear nothing of any compromise until my father's name was
vindicated. That must be my answer again. My uncle was
the only man who dared to assail the memory of that most
honourable and upright man. Nothing could make me sur-
render my right to defend it. I will have all, or nothing.'

' Is that your determination, Miss Hamblin ?'

' It is, and I am sorry you have taken the trouble to come
here on a fruitless errand.'

' My own trouble, Miss Hamblin,' said Jack, ' in your cause
is nothing, absolutely nothing.'

' I think,' said Alison, ' that if my uncle had asked me in
January last, as he had so little and I so much, to give him
money, I should have given it. Now, however, the case is
altered. I have been publicly branded in an open court ; I go
about the world with a stain upon my birth. I have been
charged with having no right or title to my father's estate. Do
not you see what a difference that makes ?'

' But,' said Jack, ' think of the money. Think of the tre-
mendous pile of money you are throwing away.'

' You cannot understand,' said Alison. ' You cannot, un-
fortunately, see that it has always been impossible for me to
make any kind of compromise. If I said that three months
ago, in my shame and despair, I must surely say it again and all
the more, now that '

She stopped suddenly.

' They have found something,' thought Jack.

' But will you credit him with good intentions ?' he asked
softly and sweetly.

' Certainly not,' said Alison, in a hard voice. ' Certainly not;
his intentions have always, from the very first, been as bad as
they could be. I wish never to see my uncle again, never to
hear from him. However,' she rose, and her face changed with
a smile, 'that is nothing to you, Mr. Baker. Our business is over,
I think.'

Now here was his chance. It came and found him unprepared,
because he had not expected that it would take this form. All
the way clown in the cab he had been thinking how he could best
open the business. lie had encouraged himself by little exhor-
tations, such art, 'Go m and win, J. double-B. . . Don't be

AN AGREEABLE COMPROMISE. 273

afraid, — she is but a woman. All women are alike. You're not
so bad-looking, my boy ; you've got a manner of your own with
them ; you've got the dibs ; lots of girls would give their back-
hair to get J double-B.' and so on, little epigrammatic sen-
tences of encouragement thus delicately and feelingly put.

Now the time was come, and he hardly seemed equal to the
occasion. Only a woman before him — all women are alike ; yet
Miss Hamblin, somehow, was not quite the same as Lotty, and
Polly, and Topsy, who had, as previously stated, been called to
the inner bar, and ' taken silk ;' and it came upon him with
rather a crushing force, that he had never seen any woman like
Miss Hamblin before. But he was not without pluck, and he
began to stammer, turning very red, and looking uncomfortable.
' I could hope, Miss Hamblin, that so far as I am personally
concerned, the — the intimacy of myself and Mr Stephen
Hamblin may be no bar to my — my — friendship with your-
self.'

' Your friendship, Mr. Baker ?' What could the man mean ?
' Why, I was not aware that we were even acquaintances. '
' I mean, that is,' said Jack, getting more hot in the nose.

' That when we meet in society, you will allow me '

' It is not at all likely that we shall ever meet in society,' said
Alison quickly. Then she thought she had said a rude thing,
and added — ' Because I go so little into any kind of society.'

' But if we were to meet, Miss Hamblin — and besides, I will
try to meet you — people who have the will, you know.' Here
he smiled, and looked so knowing, that Alison longed to box his
ears. ' After church, say — I'm not much of a hand at church
myself — but I could turn up when the sermon was over, you
know.'
Alison began to grow indignant.

' I think I would rather not meet you " when the sermon is
over," ' she said quietly.

' if you would let me call upon yon,' Jack went on, thinking
he was progressing famously, ' I should like it best. We could
talk here, you know, or in the gardens and conservatories. I
dare say you are pretty dull in this great house all by yourself.
I could cheer you up, perhaps. Let me try, Miss Hamblin '
' Cheer her up ?' she looked in amazement.
' I'm not a bad sort,' he continued, warming to his work.
' Come to know me, I am rather a good sort ; at least they tell
me so.' He assumed a smile of satisfaction which made her
shudder. ' I may have my faults like most men. To begin with,
I am not come, like you, of a great City House. I had my own
business to make, and I've made it. The dibs are all of my own
piling' — he thought this might sound vulgar — ' and when I say
" dibs." of course I mean the money, because I began as nothing

18

274 THE SEAMY SIDE.

but a clerk. You wouldn't think that, Miss Hamblin, would
you, to look at me now ? However, here I am — just as you see
me. I've got a big business in tea ; really, a big business.
There's my cab at the door for you to see the kind of hack I
can afford — cheap at a hundred ; and I'm quite a young man
still, Miss Hamblin, and perhaps not so bad looking as seme —
eh ? Handsome Jack I have been called. We should run well
together ; and the long and the short is that, if you will let me
pay my attentions to you, I am ready, money or no money.'

Alison burst out laughing. She was so happy in her mind
that she was amused rather than offended. The man's vulgarity,
his impudence, his mock humility, his personal conceit, his in-
tense belief in himself, amused her. She clapped her hands to-
gether as delighted as any schoolgirl at a joke, and burst into
merry peals of laughter, which utterly routed and discomfited
the wooer.

' Pay your attentions to me, Mr. Baker ?' she cried ; ' oh, I am
so sorry, because I am obliged to decline that delicate offer, so
delicately made. Another girl, Mr. Baker, must have the happi-
ness of receiving your attentions. And oh ! I really feel what
I am giving up : the big business in tea, and the cheap hack,
and the — the dibs, and the young man, still young, called Hand-
some Jack. But there are many other girls, I am sure, who take
a deep interest in tea, and expensive hacks, and dibs, and Hand-
some Jacks. You will have better luck with them, no doubt.
Good-morning, Mr. Bunter Baker.'

She laughed in his face, and left him there standing, hot and
flushed. His knees felt shaky, and monosyllables trembled on
his lips.

He wiped his forehead, and asked himself if she meant it.
For really, this derisive way of receiving his suit had not pre-
sented itself to his mind as a possibility. She might refuse him,
he thought ; that was possible, but not probable, considering his
big business, and his — well, his handsome person — why not
acknowledge the truth ? Often persons of the opposite sex
called him Handsome Jack — all women are alike — why not Miss
Hamblin ?

Hang it ! was there anything ridiculous in him ? Couldn't
the girl say ' no' without laughing in his face ? Perhaps, after
all, she was only egging him on. Plow if he were to try the
very next Sunday morning and hang about the doors of the
church when the congregation were coming out ?

She was gone ; the door stood open. As he gathered up his
hat and gloves he became aware that in the doorway stood a
boy, with white hair and pink cheeks, who appeared to be en-
joying some excellent joke. That is, he was laughing from ear
Uj ear when Jack turned round, and on being observed, he

AN AGREEABLE COMPROMISE. 275

pulled out a pocket-handkerchief, and went through a panto-
mime of sorrow, which inspired Mr. J. Bunter Baker witb a
strong desire of horsewhipping that boy. Had he been listen-
ing ?

' Oh ! oh ! oh !' cried the pink boy, retreating warily in the
direction of the pantry. ' Oh ! oh ! what a dreadful thing !
She won't have him ; she throws away his dibs and despises his
tea : our full-flavoured at two-and-f our, and our reelly choice at
three and two. She won't have him, even though they call him
Handsome Jack. Ho ! ho ! Handsome Jack !'

Mr. Baker rushed at the boy. Young Nick threw himself
into the pantry and locked the door. He heard his baffled
enemy immediately afterwards retreating, and opening the door,
began a prolonged and most unearthly yell as of agony, at which
Mr. Baker fled hurriedly, and all the household rushed to see
what was the matter, headed by Mrs. Cridland.

' It's all right, old lady,' said her son, tranquilly ; ' he's gone,
I perceive.'

' Who ?' asked his mother.

' Handsome Jack. Oh, Alison !' he went on, ' what a pity 1
You've thrown him away ! He's gone for good.

• " Let others wed for rings, and things, and pearls,
"lis oh 1 a Writing-master's wife to be — ee — ee — ec." '

CHAPTER XXXII.

HOW STEPHEN STILL HAD DREAMS).

A little cloud in the sky, no bigger than a man's hand. Stephen
saw it in the heavens when Jack Baker quoted Alderney Codd's
words. If Jack, who never looked skywards, had seen it, it
would have spread over the whole horizon, and obscured the
sun long before he returned from his embassy. He sought his
friend immediately.

' It is all up,' he reported ; ' I am certain they have found out
everything.'

' What have they found out ?' asked Stephen.

' I don't know. She didn't tell me. But I am certain '

' Hang it, man ! be reasonable,' Stephen said. ' What makes
you certain ?'

' Look here, Hamblin. I find the young lady happjr, radiant,
not cast down at all. She is all smiles and happiness ; she isn't
the least afraid of you. When I suggested a companion, she

18—2

276 THE SEAMY SIDE.

first laughed and then she smiled. You know their conning
way -when they have got a secret all to themselves and like to
hug it ; and then she became grave, and tried to work herself
into a rage, but couldn't see her way, even though she talked
about you. But what she said afterwards was more important
still.'

' What was that ?'

' " Tell my uncle," she said, "that if I refused any compromise
three months ago, when I was in doubt and despair, ten times

as much would I refuse to make any now, when " And

then she broke off short. Make what you like out of that,
Hamblin. To me it means fighting, with plenty of evidence
in the background. And I wish I saw my way clear to that
thou. — that I fooled away on your representations.'

' Come, Jack,' said Stephen, trying to make a show of con-
fidence which he did not feel— ' come, don't be alarmed about
your little venture. It's as safe as the Bank ; I tell you for the
hundredth time that they cannot have found anything, because
there is nothing to find. My brother never married. Let them
do their worst. And as for the money, it doesn't matter to
you how long you wait.'

' Doesn't it ?' said Jack. ' I can tell you then that's nonsense.
Why, there's scarcely a House in London that can let an out-
standing thousand go like that. Hang it ! it takes long enough
to make. And one never knows what may happen. I've got
the biggest thing on at the present moment — but never mind
that.'

So the great speculator in tea had his personal anxieties, a re-
velation which brought some comfort to Stephen's soul.

' Another thing,' Jack went on, smoothing his moustache and
speaking with a little hesitation, ' you may attach no importance
to it, but I do. When a girl who is going to be a pauper gets
an offer of marriage from a man— well, a man like myself — she
don't as a rule burst out laughing in his face.'

i Was that what happened to you, Jack ?' Stephen asked,
sm iling.

' Yes, it was. I don't mind, to you, owning that it was. Sho
laughed in my face. Yet I actually proposed to her, although
she may not have a penny. What do you think of that, Ham-
blin ?'

' Think of your proposal ? Why, I suppose it was on the
same principle as that on which you lent me the thousand
pounds. You thought there was money behind — eh '? From
me or my niece, one or the other, you would stand to win.'

' Very likely,' said Jack ; ' but why did she laugh ? that's what
I want to know. I'm not a man accustomed to be laughed at.

STEPHEN DREAMS. 277

What is there ridiculous about me ? Isn't a Bunter Baker as
good as a Hamblin ?'

' Can't say, I'm sure,' replied Stephen. ' If you attach any
importance to the whims and fancies of a girl like that, you had
better ask her for a reason. So she wouldn't have you. Ah !
you see, my boy, it is very well to talk about a girl going to be
a pauper ; but Alison isn't a pauper yet, and she doesn't quite
understand what poverty means. Go and ask her this time
next year.'

' You think you will have the estate, then ?'

' I am sure I shall. And I need not tell you, Jack Baker,
that unless that little '

' Stop !' cried Jack ; ' I tell you again that I won't have that
magnificent creature — who ought to be on the boards, by Gad !
in black velvet, and she'd outshine the lot — called a little devil.'

' Very good,' said Stephen, ' call her what you like. What I
mean is, that unless she submits and eats humble pie, she shall
not have one brass farthing out of me, whether you marry her
or whether you do not.'

Stephen, alternating between fits of despondency and elation,
was now in the latter stage. He was confident, he was ready
to mete out punishment or reward to his enemies cr friends, as
they deserved it.

Jack Baker went away to the City. Stephen continued in this
hot fit of confidence. No harm could come to him ; his case
was strong and sound ; yet a little while, and the enemy would
give in. Everybody knows the state of mind which, as super-
stitious folk hold, precedes some great calamity. The victim is
foolishly, childishly, recklessly confident and happy ; he dis-
regards those warnings which used to play so large a part in the
lives of our ancestors : magpies, black cats, crows, hares, run
across his path unheeded ; screech-owls hoot and he hears them
not ; brindled cats mew and he only laughs ; knives are crossed,
salt is spilled, dreams are told before breakfast, and he recks
not ; the visions of the night have brought him squalling babies,
and he forgets them ; he stumbles at the threshold and thinks
nothing of it ; the day is Friday, the thirteenth, and he regards
it not ; every kind of miraculous warning is lavished upon that
man, and he goes on to his doom, laughing and careless. Stephen
was that reckless man : his dream had but one more day to run,
and, as if anxious to make the most of it, he revelled, and
lolled, and hugged himself in the contemplation and imagination
of his coming wealth.

' They have been searching, advertising, running here and
there for six months,' he said to himself ; ' nothing has come of
it, because there has been nothing to iome. Why, I knmv that
Anthony was never married. As for Alison's mother, they

278 THE SEAMY SIDE.

must find one for her, and I dare say they ■will. And as
Anthony was never in Scotland, I am not afraid of any attempt
being made to prove a marriage. Old Billiter hates me, but then
old Billiter is not a common rogue. That is very certain.'

It was a fine afternoon in June. From his chambers in Pall
Mall he looked up and down that street, and rejoiced in the
sight of the rich, who enjoyed, though they hardly appeared to
enjoy, the wealth which was about to be his.

' They were born to it,' he murmured, sitting in an easy-chair
at the open window, and watching the jeunesse doree, as, splendid
in raiment, knightly in bearing, they went up and down the
steps of the clubs, or sauntered along the pavement ; ' they
were born to it ; they never knew anything else, I suppose.
Why the devil do they look so melancholy ? They should
have been hungry after unattainable pleasures, like me, to
know what money can bring, what it is worth, even at five-and-
f orty. They should have been sons of a methodical and frugal
London merchant, who would keep them to a starvation allow-
ance of pocket-money, would look on every little outburst as a
mortal sin, would inculcate the most rigid views of religion, and
then leave almost everything to an elder brother, who didn't
know how to spend, and hadn't a spirit above his indigo bags.
Then they would look more contented than they do now.

' I had some spending out of those few thousands : they
lasted a couple of years, I think, if I remember right. Then
came my mother's little fortune, all her savings ; not much,
but something to give a man another little fling. There was no
occasion to save it, because Anthony himself told me he had
promised my mother never to give me up. Why, it would have
been unchristian not to have accepted that most sacred trust. I
did accept it. I said to myself : "Stephen, old boy, you are
your brother's charge ; you are the desolate orphan for whom
ho has pledged himself to find the comforts and the luxuries as
well as the necessaries of life." And I must say that Anthony
behaved like a trump in every way except one — he had no
business to bring that girl home.

' She's done all the mischief. If it had not been for her, I
should have stepped without a question into the property.
And her impudence ! no compromise, if you please. Why, I
only meant to bring her to an offer, and then to throw it back
in her face. Sorry she refused Jack Baker, though. That
young man thinks I am likely to let her have half, does he ?
Ho ! ho ! what a sell for him when he had got her, when it was
too late, when he had found out her temper, and when he really
knew that she wasn't going to have a penny. You, Miss Alison
Hamblin, or whatever you may choose to call yourself, may go
to the devil. As for making vou an allowance, I'd rather chuck

STEPHEN DREAMS. 279

the money into the Thames. I shall have her here on her knees
before long.

' The partners, too : I wonder how much of Anthony's money
was locked up in the House. Sure to be a very large sum.
Well, I shall get them here on their knees too. And then I
shall withdraw it all, and smash the House. What do I care
for the House ? I've got the money, and I'm going to spend
it. Time that the Hamblins left off saving.

' There is Alderney Codcl, what shall I do with him ? Let
him go on his knees, too, and I will see. He is a useful sort of
man, one of those who go up and down and talk ; I think I
shall forgive Alderney, and lend him money occasionally. A
man is better for a jackal or two to run about at his bidding.'

Then he closed his eyes, and went off into a vision of im-
possible joys which the money was to purchase him. They were
chiefly the joys which come from watching other people's envy
and admiration, because, as a matter of fact, Stephen had all
his life enjoyed almost everything that a rich man can command.
One thing, however, was wanting : he could not boast of pos-
session. He was always dependent.

Well, that was over now ; he was free : he was rich, or was
going to be in a very little while : he was going to step before
the world as the undoubted possessor of a princely fortune.

He was roused from his reverie by a modest knock at his
door.

It was, to his amazement, no other than Alderney Codd him-
self, who had abstained from calling since the day of his joining
the side of the enemy.

' You, Alderney !'

' Yes, Stephen,' replied Alderney, meekly. ' May I come in ?'

' Come in, man, come in,' said Stephen. ' Why, your new
friends seem to treat you better than your old ones. When
you and I went about together, you never could afford such
coats and hats. How do you do it, Alderney ?'

Stephen spoke quite pleasantly. This encouraged Alderney.

' I have been engaged in regular work,' he said, ' for the
partners in the House.'

' He speaks as if there was only one House in the world.'

' There is but one for me,' replied Alderney, simply. ' I have
been engaged in making researches in parish-registers.'

' And what have you found ?'

' Nothing,' said Alderney.

' Of course you have not found anything. And you never
will. Are you going to give up a wild-goose chase and come
back to your old friends ? I forgive you, old boy, and you may
return whenever you like.'

' Thank you, Stephen,' said Alderney, with great humility ;

280 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' that is very good of you. And I always said you had a good
heart. I have found nothing. And I fear I cannot much
longer venture to draw upon the House for time spent in
reading registers. But if I have found nothing, Gilbert Yorke
has.'

Stephen started and turned pale, for Alderney looked round
the room and whispered these words.

' What do you mean, Alderney ?'

' I do not know They haven't told me yet. They will tell
me, of course, presently ; but I know nothing except that
Alison is happy, and that Gilbert Yorke has written letters
which have put your cousins Augustus and William in excellent
spirits.'

' What have they found ?'

' I tell you I do not know. One thing only I heard. The
lia' words which Augustus said to his partner were these : " So
then, after all, Alison need not blush for her mother." This
morning another letter came from him, the purport of which I
do not know. And he has now arrived at the office and is
closeted with the chiefs.'

Stephen sprang to his feet.

' " So, then, Alison need not blush for her mother ?" That
was what you heard. " Need not blush ? " What construction
do you put upon those words, Alderney ?'

' What can be put ? Stephen, for the sake of old times,
give in. There is yet time. No one knows that I have called
here ; no one will ever suspect that I heard those words, or that
I came here to warn you. There is time ; sit down. For
heaven's sake, don't stare at me in that way. Sit down, and
write to Augustus. Withdraw your claim : say that you are
sorry , say that you will not stand between Alison and her
father's fortune. Stephen, if you do this, all may yet be
well.'

Stephen's lips were parched, and his throat dry.

' Don't chatter, Alderney,' he said. ' Let me think. " She

need not " Why, it may mean anything. You have no

reason for believing it to bear the construction that you want
me to put upon it.'

' No. Yet I am certain, from the satisfaction of both, that
the words do bear that construction.'

Stephen laughed ; yet his laughter had no mirth in it.

' You are not a bad fellow, Alderney, though you have gone
over to the wrong side. But you are not, in this instance, par-
ticularly wise. You believe, I dare say, that there is something
found out at last.'

' I am sure of it.'

'And you come to worn us. Very good. I am obliged to

STEPHEN DREAMS. 281

you, Alderney ; but I shall remain as I am. No surrender :
my whole claim or nothing.'

' Then, Stephen,' said Alderney, sighing, ' it will be nothing.'

' That is my look-out.'

' Stephen, think how the whole matter may be amicably
arranged before it is too late. You have made your cousins,
your niece, the whole family, your enemies. When they triumph,
you will have no mercy shown yon. Out of your brother's
estate you will have nothing. I do not know the extent of
your own fortune, but I do know that it is very heavily dipped,
and I doubt whether you can live as you have been accustomed
to live upon your private resources.'

' That too, Alderney, is my look-out.'

' Another thing,' persisted Alderney, ' your brother Anthony
intended — there can be no doubt whatever that he intended to
leave the bulk of his estate to his daughter ; you cannot deny
that.'

' On the contrary, I do not know what my brother's inten-
tions were. He never confided them to me.'

' He was so good a fellow, Stephen, that you ought to respect
his wishes. What do you honestly think he meant to do ?'

' I believe that he proposed leaving me, not Alison, the for-
tune which should be mine by law, and making an adequate
provision for his daughter. Acting on this belief, I have twice
sent an ambassador to Alison, offering a compromise. Twice
my message has been received with scorn, and my messenger
insulted.'

' Then I can say no more,' said Alderney. ' As we say with
the Classic, " Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat." Your
brain is turned, Stephen.'

' Come, Alderney, I will not discuss the thing with you any
more. It is absurd ; I shall not surrender anything ; and I
will bring that girl to submission before I have done.'

' You will not do that, Stephen, if I know Alison Hamblin.
She is as determined as yourself.'

' We shall try,' said Stephen, smiling unpleasantly.

Alderney withdrew. He had done his best, and things must
take their own course. But he was troubled. There would
now be no such pleasant family reconciliation as he had looked
forward to.

He returned to the City, and sought his cousiii Augustus.

' Tell me,' he said, ' if you have found anything.'

Augustus got up, and shut the door carefully.

' Alderney,' he said, ' I thought this morning that we had got
out of the mess. I find now, after an interview with Gilbert
Yorke. that we have only got into one.'

' A mess !— what kind of a mess ?'

232 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' 1 wish we had never looked into the thing at all. I almost
wish we had let Stephen have the estate and do what he liked
with it.'

' But what is it ?'

' I cannot tell you till to-morrow. I can only say that tho
greatest surprise, the greatest consternation, has fallen upon
us.'

' But I overheard you this morning saying that Alison need
not blush for her mother.'

' I did say so. That was in consequence of a letter from
Gilbert. Her mother's marriage is clearly established.'

' Then I do not understand.'

' Never mind now, Alderney,' said Augustus ; ' we have to
consider what is best to be done. You had better leave us now.
Say nothing, guess nothing. Come here if you like to-morrow
at twelve — we have invited Stephen to confer with us at that
time — then you will learn all.'

He quietly pushed Alderney out of the room, and returned
to his desk, where he sat with his paper before him, puzzled
and bewildered.

Presently his partner, William the Silent, came into the
room, and sat on the other side of the table. Both shook their
heads without speaking.

' Augustus,' said William.

' William,' said Augustus.

Both shook their heads again, and then William got up and
went out again as silently as he had entered.

Stephen's golden dream was disturbed ; tranquillity, which is
a necessary for golden dreams, had deserted him. He left his
chambers and wandered to his club ; he tried to play billiards,
but his hand shook. Three old fogies who played whist every
afternoon asked him to take a hand ; he did : he revoked, and
saw no Blue Peters, and trumped his partner's trick, and forgot
the cards, and committed every atrocity that a whist-player can
commit : he broke the whole code of Cavendish. After seeing
a double bumper fooled away, his partner rose in silent dignity,
and left the house.

Then Stephen tried to read the papers, and found no inte-
rest in any. He wandered about the streets, torn by a doubt
whether he had better not even now agree with his adversary
quickly.

At dinner-time he expected Jack Baker, but that worthy did
not appear. He dined alone : he sat in the smoking-room with
a magazine before him, which he did not read, thinking over
what might happen, and taking a gloomy view of things
which even the claret had not been able to remove. At nine
he went home to his chambers.

STEPHEN DREAMS. 2S3

Two letters were on his table. The first was from Jack
Baker.

' My dear Hamblin',' he said.

' Send me over at once as much as you can spare of the
thousand pounds I lent you ; or raise money somehow, and let
me have it all. I suppose you have heard what has happened ?
There has not been so sudden a fall in prices in the memory
of man. I am hit, but I shall weather the storm somehow, I
dare say. Let me have the money to-morrow.

1 Yours ever,

'J. B. B.'

' He's smashed,' said Stephen, putting down the letter ;
' smash is the meaning of that letter. Well, he has had his
day. As for the rest of the thousand, I had better stick to it.'

He opened the other letter. It was from his cousin, Augustus
Hamblin.

' My dear Cousin,' (Stephen laughed),

' We shall be glad if you will call upon us in Great St.
Simon Apostle, at twelve o'clock to-morrow morning. We have
a most important communication to make to you : a discovery
which we have only this morning learned.
' Yours sincerely,

' Augustus Anthony Hamblin.'

Stephen put the letter down, and began to think what it
might mean. Presently he extinguished the light and sat be-
side the window. The prospect was gloomy now, indeed. An
important discovery; what could this mean ? The ground was
slipping away from under his feet. As he had been confident in
the morning, so he was despairing now. He saw before him a
vagabond and poverty-stricken old man, subsisting on the alms
of his cousins, wandering from place to place, hungering after
the enjoyments which he could not afford, sinking lower and
lower, becoming daily more and more pinched, more wretched,
more dependent. A miserable outlook : a wretched dream.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

HOW STEPHEN HEARD THE NEWS.

' I had almost forgotten Mr. Bragge,' said Augustus, opening
one of his letters the next morning.

This was a note from the private detective, stating that the

234 *HE SEAMY SIDE.

last clue which promised remarkably well had terminated with
no useful result ; in fact, it ended with a labouring man who
was suffering from delirium tremens. He regretted that his re-
search had turned out so badly ; but, he added, another clue
had been discovered, the nature of which he would for the
moment keep secret. He proposed to follow this up vigorously;
he had no doubt that it would lead to a complete solution of the
case. Meanwhile, he enclosed an account of his expenditure
up to date, and would be obliged if Mr. Hamblin would send
him another cheque for twenty pounds on account.

It was a dreadful blow for Mr. Theodore Bragge when he re-
ceived a settlement in full of his account, with the information
that the case was now closed, and his services would be no more
required. He had long made up his mind that there was nothing
to find out, and that he might go on for the rest of his natural
life, following up clues with a large salary at a percentage, so
to speak, on his expenditure. Meat and drink — especially drink
— the case had been to him. He will never, he owns with tears,
again find employers so generous as the firm of Anthony Ham-
blin and Co.

The day was Wednesday, which was young Nick's half-
holiday.

He resolved to spend it with the writing-master, but thought
he would drop in at the office first. In fact, after taking a turn
round Lower Thames Street, Idol Lane, Eastcheap, Rood Lane,
and a few other places dear to a boy of imagination, where the
stream of Pactolus runs with the deepest, strongest, and
yellowest current, he found himself in the square of Great St.
Simon Apostle, about half-past two in the afternoon. He ex-
changed a few compliments in whispers with the junior clerks,
and then mounted the broad stairs, and began to ramble idly
about the passages. He passed with reverence the doors of
Mr. Augustus and Mr. William Hamblin, the partners, and pre-
sently stood before that on which was still to be read the name
of Mr. Anthony Hamblin. He shook his head gravely at sight
of this. Then his eyes lit up, and his white eyebrows lifted,
and his pink face shone with mirth and mischief, and he laughed
in silence, shaking all over in enjoyment of the imaginary situa-
tion.

' If they knew,' he murmured ; ' if they only knew !'

Then he turned the handle softly, and looked into the room.

No one was there : the room had not been used since the death
of its owner: the familiar furniture was there, the old-fashioned,
heavy, oaken table, without cover, which had probably been
built for the very first Anthony, remained in its old place, with
the wooden chair in which the last Anthony had been wont to
sit, and the blotting-pad which he had used, before it. In one

HO W STEPHEN HEARD THE NEWS. 285

corner stood a low screen of ancient -workmanship, also a family

heirloom. There were portraits of successive Anthonys on the
wainscoted walls, and there was a cabinet in massive mahogany,
with glass doors ; but the contents of the cabinet were kept
secret by means of curtains which had once been green.

In spite of the boy's possession of so great a secret, he felt a
ghostly feeling creep on him as he softly closed the door behind
him, and entered the room on tiptoe. He shuddered, as one
shudders when reminded of a dead man. Then he recovered
himself again, and began curiously to examine the room and its
contents. First he opened the drawers : in the one immediately
before the chair was a novel — ' Ho ! ho ! that was the way in
which Uncle Anthony spent his time in the City, was it ?' — in
the other two he found a heterogeneous mass of things — cigar-
cases, portraits of Alison, memorandum-books, letters, menus of
dinners, cards of invitation to civic banquets, and so forth ;
things which the boy turned over with interest. Then he
thought that he would at last discover the contents of the
mysterious cabinet. He opened it ; three of the shelves con-
tained Indian curios, covered with dust : they had been brought
home on one of the earlier voyages by the first Anthony, and
had never left the office. But on one shelf stood a decanter,
still half filled with sherry, and a box of biscuits.

When there was nothing more to see, the boy solemnly seated
himself in Anthony's chair, and, after a silent but enjoyable
laugh, proceeded to meditate.

His reflections turned naturally upon the importance of the
secret which he carried about with him, and of the grandeur
which would be his whenever he chose to disclose it. Grandeur
unheard of, grandeur never before achieved by mortal boy : the
part, indeed, played in history by boys, save and except the
drummer boy, the call boy, and the printer's devil, has always
been ludicrously out of proportion to the number of boys
existing at any period. Grandeur ? Why it would be spread
all over the House how he, Nicolas Cridland, had not only
discovered the secret, alone and unaided, but also kept it until
the right time came. When would that time come ? Surely,
soon. Would Uncle Anthony resolve upon continuing his
disguise as a teacher of writing while he, Nicolas, was received
as a clerk in the House ? while he rose gradually higher and
higher, even in the distant days when he should be received as
a partner? Surely the day must some time come when he
should be able to stand proudly before the partners, Augustus
and William, and lay his hand upon his heart and say . ' Aoiljony
Hamblin is not dead, but living. I alone have known n; all
along.' Then Mr. Augustus would get up from that chair in
which the boy was sitting — he rose from the chair himself, and

286 7 HE SEAMY SIDE.

acted it in dumb show — and say : ' Young Nick — no, Nicolas
Cridland, whom we are proud to call cousin — you have shown
yourself so worthy of confidence, that we instantly appoint you
principal buyer and manager at the dock sales, for the firm.
You will attend the next sale on Thursday afternoon, with the
samples in your pocket.'

The boy had got through this speech — always in dumb show
- — and was thinking how to reply with a compliment at once to
the sagacity of the firm in selecting him for such responsible
business, and to his own extraordinary discretion, prudence, and
secrecy, when he heard steps outside. The room was at the end
of a long passage, so that the persons to whom the feet belonged
were clearly proposing to visit the room. The vision of great-
ness instantly vanished, and the boy rushed for shelter behind
the screen. It was a low screen, about five feet three high,
quite incapable of hiding Lady Teazle, had she been of the
average height of English women, but high enough to shelter
the boy, who, indeed, sat upon the floor with his hat off, and
looked through the chinks where the screen folded.

The party which entered the room consisted of the two
partners, Mr. Billiter, and Gilbert Yorke. To the boy's terror,
the old lawyer, after looking about for a place to set down his
hat, placed it on an angle of the screen. Fortunately he did not
look over. Then they all sat down, Augustus Hamblin at the
head of the table. Gilbert Yorke placed before the chairman a
bundle of papers. Everybody looked at his watch, and all wore
an air of grave importance.

' Lord,' said the boy to himself, ' now, if I were only to jump
up like Jack-in-the box, and tell them who was teaching what,
where he was teaching it, and for how much, and who was
getting his boots downer at the heel every day, how they would
stare ! I've half a mind to do it, too.'

But he did not, because just then his interest in the situation
grew more absorbing ; for the party was completed by the arrival
of none other than Stephen Hamblin himself.

He arrived in the midst of an observation which was being
made by Mr. Billiter, as if following up a conversation.

' Life,' he said, ' is a succession of blunders, chiefly committed
through laziness, and a foolish desire to avoid pi-escnt trouble.
Come in, Stephen, and sit clown. I was saying that most crimes
are the result of laziness. You are going to be told of a most
amazing blunder which has led us all astray.'

' He looks mighty black,' young Nick murmured, gazing in-
tently through the chink; 'almost as black as when ho was
turned out of the house. Lord ! if lie knew. Shall I jump up
and tell them all ? I would if I thought that Anthony wouldn't
go mad.'

HOW STEPHEN HEARD THE NEWS. 287

' I am here,' said Stephen, who did indeed look black, ' with-
out my solicitor. The course is unusual, but the interview
must be considered privileged. One thing, however, before we
begin, if Mr. Billiter is going to revive old stories in his usual
pleasant manner, I shall go away at once.'

' I have nothing to say at this interview,' said the lawyer ;
' at least, I think I have nothing to say.'

' The communication we have to make to you, Stephen,' said
Augustus, ' is of so grave a nature, so important, and so un-
expected, that wo have invited Anthony's solicitor, your father's
solicitor, to be present. You will acknowledge that we were
right ?'

' Important and unexpected ? Then you have, I suppose,
found out that Anthony was never married ?'

These were brave words, but Stephen was evidently ill at
ease. In fact he had passed an uneasy time. Alderney Codd's
warning, which he had met with bravado, came back to him in
the dark hours. And after a sleepless night he kept his appoint-
ment with shaken nerves.

' We have decided,' Augustus continued, ' on at once telling
you everything.'

' That is so far candid. Probably you have concluded be-
tween you that it will be to your advantage to tell me every-
thing ?'

' You shall judge of that yourself, Cousin Stephen.' Augustus
was very grave, and spoke slowly. ' We have known you all
your life. It was in this room that you received dismissal from
the House in which you might even have become a partner.'

He spoke as if no higher honour, no greater earthly happi-
ness, could befall any man than to become a partner in the
House of Anthony Hamblin and Company.

The boy, looking through the chink of the screen, shook his
head solemnly.

'D the partnership, and the House too!' said Stephen.

' I told you that I would not listen to the revival of old stories.
If that is all that you have to say '

He rose and seized his hat.

' It is not all ; pray sit down again. We have to go back
twenty years. Carry your memory back for that time. Where
are you ?'

' I am waiting to hear,' said Stephen, sullenly.

Then Augustus told Stephen the same story which Miss
Nethersole had told Anthony ; almost, too, in the same words.
He told how two men had visited a little town when on a fishing
excursion, how one of them eloped with a girl of eighteen, named
Dora Nethersole, and how she had died deserted and neglected
at Bournemouth.

288 THE SEAMY SIDE.

Stephen listened with unmoved countenance.

' This is the sort of information,' he said, ' which one gets
from advertising, and church registers, and that sort of thing.
How does it bear upon the case ?'

' You shall hear immediately, Stephen. The man who eloped
with the girl, who was married to her at Hungerford, who lived
with her at Lulworth, and who deserted her there, leaving her
to starve and die of neglect and sorrow, was not — Anthony at
all. It was no other than yourself, Stephen.'

' I allow you to put the case your own way,' said Stephen,
' because I am anxious for you to get to the point, if any, which
bears upon present business.'

' It was you, and not Anthony, who deserted Dora Hamblin ;
it was Anthony, and not you, who soothed her last moments,
and consoled her in the hour of death. Here is a copy of her
last journal, which you may take away and meditate upon.'

' I know all about her death,' said Stephen, callously ;
' Anthony told me. of that. It is an old, old story : twenty
years old. and forgotten. What has it to do with the business
in hand, and the claims of that girl ?'

' Everything ; because you have been quite right all along —
Anthony was never married- '

' Ah !' said Stephen, a sudden flush of joy and relief crossing
his face.

' Was never married at all, and he left no will.'

' Then I am the heir of all.'

He raised himself upright, and looked round with an air of
mastership.

' You are the heir of all,' repeated Augustus, solemnly.

' Good. I give you notice that I will do nothing for the girl
— nothing at all.'

' Stop,' said Augustus ; ' more remains to be told. When
Anthony wrote to you that your wife was dead, he did not
inform you of what he thought you unworthy to know — that
she left a child.'

' A child !'

' A girl. She became Anthony's care. He brought her up to
consider herself his daughter. Alison Hamblin is the daughter
of you, Stephen, and of Dora, your wife.'

' My gum !' This was the whispered utterance of the boy
behind the screen.

Stephen's face became darker still. He gazed with hard eyes
at the speaker.

'My daughter!' he said slowly. 'Alison is my daughter?
Have you proof of this ?'

' We havo — wo have ample proof.'

' Mind, I will not accept her as my daughter without it. I

HOW STEPHEN HEARD THE NEWS. 2S9

■want no daughter. I shall require the most exact corrobora
tion of this extraordinary statement.'

' You shall have it,' said Augustus.

' You are not worthy ' cried Gilbert, springing to his feet

at the same moment.

' Sit down, young man,' said Mr. Billiter ; ' there is more to
say.'

' There is something very much more serious to say,' continued
Augustus Hamblin. ' Remember, Stephen, that Miss Nether-
sole, in answering your wife's letter, offered her an allowance
of one hundred and fifty pounds a year, payable on the first
day of every year. How often did you draw that money ?'

Stephen started.

' How often ? till she died.'

' We have here,' he went on very slowly, ' copies — they are
copies only, and you can have them to look at if you please — of
eight receipts, all drawn by you. Two of them are signed by
your wife : six of them are forgeries — by yourself.'

' It's a lie !' shouted Stephen, bringing his fist down upon
the table.

' You did not, then, receive the money ?'

' Certainly not.'

' Unfortunately,' said Augustus, ' the clerk who honoured the
draft every year knows you by sight, and is ready to swear to
you ; the experts who have examined the signatures swear that
they are all in your writing ; the lady who suffered the loss of
the money is ready to prosecute criminally. You will be charged
with the crime ; you will be tried for the crime. You now
know why I reminded you, at the outset, of the cause of your
dismissal from the House.'

Stephen said nothing. He looked round him stupidly. This
was a blow, indeed, which he did not expect.

' We have anxiously considered whether we should commu-
nicate these things to Alison, your daughter. We would
willingly have spared her all knowledge of them ; but, out of
respect for the memory of the man whom she will always regard
as her father, we must tell her that it was not he who killed
his young wife by neglect and ill-treatment. We shall have to
let her know that it was the man who was always called her
uncle who did this thing. As regards the forgeries, we think
we have a simple means of keeping the matter in the back-
ground altogether.'

' What is that ?' asked Stephen, eagerly.

' It is this : Go away at once. Execute a deed of gift in
favour of your daughter. Never return to England, and draw
upon us for any reasonable amount of annuity.'

Stephen was so dismayed by the prospect as presented by hia

19

290 THE SEAMY SIDE.

cousin, that he made as if he would accede to these terms.
His face was not pretty to look at.

' If I do- not accede ?' he asked.

' Then Miss Nethersole will find out — she must be told— who
it was that robbed her of so much money : and she is a hard
woman. It seems to me, Stephen, that the choice is one which
does not admit of much consideration. Fourteen years in a
convict's prison is not to any man's taste ; you would get small
enjoyment out of your wealth, if it were to be purchased at
such a price. Disgrace and shame are before you on the one
hand : on the other, safety and silence. If you care to think
of such a thing in addition, you may consider that your daughter,
who would otherwise know nothing of this episode in your
career, would begin her new relationship with the horror of
such a crime, and the disgrace of such a conviction.'

' My daughter,' murmured the unhappy man. ' Yes, I had
forgotten ; that is, I had not thought about my daughter.'

' It is in your daughter's interests that we have told you the
whole truth. Otherwise we might have been tempted to let
things take their own course, in which case you would probably
have been arrested in a few days, without receiving the slightest
warning.'

'I should, however,' said Mr. Billiter, sweetly, 'suggest Spain.
It is a country which, under all circumstances, is likely to prove
attractive to you for a long time.'

Stephen grunted a response.

' All this,' murmured young Nick, behind the screen, ' is real
jam — blackberry jam. I wouldn't have missed this for pounds.
Wonder if they will find me out ? Wonder if I'm going to
sneeze ?'

He held his nose tight to prevent such a fatal accident, and
listened and peeped harder than ever.

' Mr. Augustus,' he said, ' has got him in a cleft stick. My !
if he isn't the miserablest of sinners. Some sense in going to
church if you are such a sinner as Uncle Stephen. Looks it
too, all over ; every inch a sinner.'

' It is absurd,' said Stephen, ' to deny a thing which you de-
clare you can prove. If the thing demanded it, if it were neces-
sary, the charge would be met with a complete answer.'

' But it is not necessary,' said Mr. Billiter.

' As it is,' said Stephen, trying to s;rnile, ' all I have to r.ay is
that — you have won. I retire. I am ready to renounce, in the
interests <>C my daughter — if she is my daughter — the — the —
bulk of this fortune to which I am now the undoubted heir.
When can the papers be signed ?'

' You can come to my office to-morrow morning,' said Mr.
Billiter, cheerfully ; ' I will promiso to make no allusions to

HOW STEPHEN HEARD THE NEWS. 291

the past, and you can draw a cheque in advance to meet and
pay any outstanding liabilities before you go abroad.'

' As I am going abroad,' said Stephen, with a simplicity
which did him great credit, ' it would be quite absurd to pay
any of my debts.'

He put on his hat and walked out of the room ; his shoulders
were bent, and though he tried to walk with his old swagger, he
had something of the appearance of the whipped hound. This
is inevitable under such disagreeable circumstances.

The other four, left alone, congratulated each other on the
success of their diplomacy.

Then they broke up and went away. Mr. Billiter took up
his hat without looking over the screen, and the boy was left
alone.

He remained there, not daring to move, for five minutes ;
then he slowly got up, and danced a little double •shuffle round
the chair in which Stephen had sat.

' I'm the luckiest boy in all the world !' he cried, though his
face was pale at the sudden shock of this discovery. ' I know
all their little secrets all round. But oh !' — he stopped dancing,
and became very grave — ' what an awful example, to a future
partner in the house, is the history of Stephen Hamblin ! If he
wasn't Alison's father — and there's another start of the very
rummiest— if he wasn't Alison's father, and so it had to be
kept dark, I would write that history out fair for use in schools.
It should be set to music — I mean, to Latin exercises — and it
would be a great deal more useful than the doings of the im-
postor Balbus. " The Wicked Hamblin," it should be headed.
Ahab and Ahaziah — both of them — were saints with rings

round their heads, compared to Uncle Stephen. And even '

he hesitated for another historical example — ' even Jehoram
was an an^el of light.'

CHAPTER XXXIV.

HOW STEPHEN DEFIED THEM ALL.

Stephen Hamblin went home to his chambers. The time was
four o'clock. He bore with him the manuscript which his
cousin had given him. His step was weary, and the lines in his
dark face were heavily marked.

There was a note lying on his table : it was a second letter
from Jack Baker, urging immediate repayment of the money.

292 THE SEAMY SIDE.

Stephen threw it aside impatiently: Baker's troubles mattered
little to him : he had other things to think of.

He sat down presently, and tried to think.

He could not arrange his thoughts. He could not put things
together in anything like sequence. They had discovered what
he thought could never be found out— the forgeries of the re-
ceipts: they had found, too, what he never suspected or dreamed
of — the existence of a daughter. Anthony told him that his
wife was dead. Anthony told him with cold voice, but with-
out a word of reproof, that his wife was buried in the cemetery
of Bournemouth. Anthony had not told him, nor had he sus-
pected, that there was a child.

Why had Dora kept that secret from him ? "Why had Anthony
kept that secret ? He laughed aloud as he recalled a thing long
since forgotten — how Anthony had gone, himself, and spoken
to Rachel Nethersole about her sister, while he and Dora were
actually plotting and planning for their secret marriage at Hun-
gerford. No doubt Anthony was in love, and remained in love
long after he, Stephen, had come out of it ; no doubt he kept
this child as a sort of souvenir of that dead and hopeless passion.
Poor old Anthony ! he always was a soft-hearted sort of man :
little better than a fool when it came to the commoner emotions
of humanity. Why, he himself could always get round Anthony.

A daughter.

Alison Hamblin, the girl whom he had been accustomed to
hate, to plot against, and to curse, was his daughter ; that was
a very surprising circumstance. For his own part, he had
never felt in the slightest degree a paternal instinct towards
her — quite the contrary. He had always regarded her with
sentiments of extreme dislike ; he hated her like sin, he said,
untruthfully, because he was not one of those who hate sin.
She came between himself and a possible succession. How
could he avoid hating her ? Even now, when he was told with
one breath that she was his daughter, he was ordered with the
other to resign his rights in her favour, or else

That was it— or else— — He turned this alternative over
and over in his mind. That, at least, was clear enough. The
documents were forged : in his own chambers he could acknow-
ledge so much ; he had himself — being pressed for money, and
being quite sure that his brother would never go to Newbury,
where awkward inquiries might be made — written those papers,
signed them, and — most fatal error ! — presented them himself.
Why, if only he had observed the common precaution of getting
another man to hand them in across the counter — if. only he had
sent a clerk or some other irresponsible person! But to go
himself — to forget that his name belonged to a great city House,
and was sure to attract attention — he must h—ve been mad.

HO W STEPHEN DEFIED THEM ALL. 293

To be sure it was not wise to forge the tilings at all. But
then he was so hard up at the time ; he had private ex-
penses which he could not well explain to Anthony ; he had
lost his own money : he wanted everything he could lay hia
hands on ; that hundred and fifty every year seemed like a little
windfall, providentially sent. We need not imagine that
Stephen was at all repentant about the crime ; he was only
sorry that it had been found out. Hardened persons, habitual
criminals, go off in two directions : they are very sorry when
things are discovered, and they are angry when they think of
the necessities of the moment which made the crime absolutely
unavoidable. But neither state of mind is at all akin to what
the good chaplain of the prisons means by a heartfelt re-
pentance.

'How much goes to a "reasonable" annuity?' he thought,
reflecting on the proposal ; ' the estate is worth twelve thousand
a year, at the very least. I shall be reasonable on two. Yes,
two thousand will do for me.'

' As for that woman, Rachel Nethersole, she must be five-and-
fif ty. Perhaps she will go off suddenly : some of these old cats
do when they are not too venomous. Then I could get back
to England.

' Things might be worse. Considering what a tremendous pull
they've got, things might be worse. I suppose that fighting is
out of the question. A man can't fight, unless he is obliged,
with the prospect of a— a — suit of yellow and grey, and no
tobacco, and no drink, and no companionship. Hang it all !

' Gad !' he brightened up a little ; ' there are plenty of fellows
knocking about the Continent under a cloud : good fellows, too,
who have got hard up, and done something which has been
found out. One pull for me that I shall know their little
histories and they won't know mine. I know them all already.
I shall meet the Honourable Major Guy Blackborde, who
cheated at Monaco when I was there, and was turned out of
the army : and Captain de Blewdeville, who got into the little
mess at the Burleigh Club when I was a member, and had to
go. By Gad ! I shall enjoy it. And with two thousand a year
one will be cock of the walk.

' Of course I shall not stay in Spain : the cookery is too
disgusting. The old woman will forget all about me, or she
will relent, or something, and then I shall go to Paris, and so
back to London. And as to Alison, why — why '

Here he stopped, then he went on to consider what he should
start with. Two thousand a year, say. That means more than
a hundred and fifty a month, five thousand francs a month : a
great deal may be done with that. Then there was still seven
hundred or so left out of Jack Baker's thousand. Of course he

294 THE SEAMY SIDE.

was not going to pay that away. Then there was the furniture
of his chambers, which was good, with the pictures and statuettes,
which were not good, having been taken chiefly with money
advances : furniture and pictures could be sold by private con-
tract ; altogether he would begin the new life, 'outre mer, with a
thousand pounds of capital, in addition to two thousand a year
income. That was better than in the old days. And if things
went wrong, there was always his daughter, he thought, to fall
back upon.

Lastly, there was one thing more : he might marry. A man
of his means was an eligible parti; there were plenty of widows
with good incomes on the Continent ; if their reputations were
a little cracked, what matter ? so was his.

It will be seen that this was the meditation of a perfectly
selfish man. Stephen Hamblin rose to great heights of selfish-
ness. He had divested himself, as much, perhaps, as man can
do so, who is not Cassar, Kaiser, Czar, of any consideration for
any other human being whatever. He was unto himself a god.

He laughed, thinking of matrimony. And then he remem-
bered the manuscript which his cousin had placed in his hands.
He opened it and read it.

' The Journal of a Deserted Wife.'

We have read this tearful document. We have seen how it
affected a man of middle age, and a very young man, both of
whom carried their hearts ever in the right place. This man
was not affected at all, although he was the person chiefly in-
terested in it. He read it right through slowly and carefully,
without betraying the slightest emotion. When he had quite
finished it, he tossed the paper on the table.

' That's done with,' he said. ' Hang it ! it was done with
twenty years ago. Rachel seems to have developed a fine
thirst for revenge. Luckily she thought it was Anthony :
luckier still that Anthony got drowned. I suppose it was this
document that he was going to communicate to me when he
made that appointment which he never kept. It would have
been deucedly unpleasant. I should have had to get away at
once, while he informed the magistrate that it was not he, but
his brother, who had married Dora Nethersole.

' So Anthony took the child ; and I never knew there was a
child at all. Just like Dora, not to tell me. A little mystery ;
something to hide ; something to make her important. limy
she did exasperate me ! And what a relief it was to feel free !
and what an almighty ass I was not to let Anthony marry her
at the very beginning, when he wanted to ! That was my in-
fernal conceit. I wanted to cut out the model brother ; and
the end of it is that I've got a daughter who turns up, after
twenty years, and cuts vie out.'

HO IV STEPHEN DEFIED THEM ALL. 295

ITe toot up the manuscript again, and read the concluding
paragraph.

' She knew she was going to die, and she couldn't take tha
trouble to write and tell me so. Her husband wasn't to know
it. Must needs write to Anthony. It's all of a piece. That is
what she called wifely obedience. As for the letters she did
write to me at that time, they were dismal enough, but not a
word about dying.

' They hand me over this precious journal in order to soften
the hardness of my heart, I suppose. Well, my heart is pretty
tough by this time. The tears of a woman — especially if the
tears are twenty years old — are not likely to trouble it. What
does soften a man's heart is to be caught in a cleft stick, as I
have been caught — to have the ball in my hands, and be com-
pelled to drop it. Good heavens ! here I am, the undoubted
owner of a quarter of a million of money, besides all the land
and houses, and I've got to go away for life on an annuity, or

else — or else why, it seems almost worth fighting for. One

might get off ; these things are not easy to prove ; the evidence
would rest entirely on the clerk who knew me. But then there
are the papers ; they are in my handwriting ; and it would be a
deuced uncomfortable thing to stand in the dock under such a
charge, and more uncomfortable still to get quodded — hang it !
one might be in for fourteen — • — no — no — I can't fight. I must
submit. I will go to-morrow.'

The idea of the convict garb made his hands to tremble. He
sought and found consolation in a small glass of brandy neat.

' My last appearance to-night in the club, I suppose, or any-
where else. I feel as if I were going to die and be buried.
Well, there are one or two places I know of in Paris, and Naples,
and Vienna. A man with a couple of thousand a year may get
along anywhere.'

He was interrupted by a knock at the door. It was his friend,
Jack Baker.

The honest Jack looked down on his luck. He showed it by
a red cheek, a twitching lip, an anxious eye, and apparel slightly
disordered. Stephen, on the contrary, showed few outward
and visible signs of discomfiture. His cheek was paler than
usual : his eyes were hard and glittering ; but he was not dis-
mayed nor cast down : he met the reverses of fortune with
anger, not with despondency.

' Bid you get any notes ?' asked Jack.
' What notes ?'

Stephen's mind was full of more important things.
' My notes of last night and this morning.'
' Oh ! yes — yes.' He searched among the letters on the tablo.
' Excuse me, I had forgotten them — ah ! you asked me to pay

295 THE SEAMY SIDE.

into the bank the thousand pounds you advanced me — do
you ?'

' I did last night. This morning — Hamblin,' breaking in with
a sudden eagerness of manner, ' you haven't paid it into my
bank yet, have you ?'

' No, certainly not ; I have been busy all day.'
' Good — don't ; pay it to me in notes and gold.'
' What's the matter, Jack ?' For his voice and manner both
betokened something disastrous.

Mr. Bunter Baker tried to laugh, but the effort was not suc-
cessful.

' A check in the flow of prosperity,' he said — ' just a slight
check. As I said in my letter, there has been a most unpre-
cedented and most sudden fall. All my calculations were upset,
and I had the biggest thing on, too. Hamblin, if it had turned
up trumps, I might have gone out of business to-day with a
hundred thousand pounds. As it is — well — as it is — all the
trade know already, and all the world will know to-morrow. I
am — for the moment only — compelled to suspend '

So here was another man come to grief. Stephen stared un-
sympathetically. It was as he thought. The thought crossed
his mind that perhaps he might meet Mr. Bunter Baker on the
Continent in an extreme condition of shabbiness.

' The Bank will have to meet the differences this time,' Jack
went on. ' Well ! they have had a very pretty penny out of
me, one way and another.'

' And what will you do ?'

The man of self-reliance tossed his head.

' A man like me,' he said, ' falls light. I shall lay by for a
bit while the liquidators take hold of the estate and get what
they can for themselves first, and the creditors next, out of it.
When things have blown over, I shall come back again and
carry on the same old game. That thousand will come in
mighty handy. I saw the directors to-day, and had it out with
them. They said nasty things, but, as I told, them, they couldn't
expect me to be a prophet. I wanted prices to go up. I always
do. I did my little best to keep them up. And after all,
they've been paying sixteen per cent, for the last eight years,
and can afford a little loss. They take the risk and share the
profits. I don't grumble, why should they V

He sat down and hurled this question at Stephen as if he was
personally concerned in the success of the bank.

' I knew there would be a smash some day,' he went on ; 'at
least, I thought there might be. I went for big things, and
they came off one after the other, beautiful ; and for bigger,
and U»v.y cu;;:e off ; and then I went for the very biggest thing

HOW STEPHEN DEFIED THEM ALL. 297

possible, and it hasn't come off. Very well, then — You can let
me have that thousand back, Hamblin, can you ?'

' You remember, Jack, the conditions on which it was
borrowed ?'

' Hang the conditions !'

' By no means. You were to have three thousand when I
came into the estate. Very good ; I have come into the estate.'

' Nonsense !' This was something like news.

1 It has been ascertained that my brother never married. Do
not ask me any questions, because the rest is family business.
My brother never married, as I always told you. There-
fore '

' Therefore, the three thousand are mine,' cried Jack with
great delight, clapping Stephen on the shoulder. ' When shall
you be ready to part ?'

' That I cannot say. But I suppose there will be no further
opposition to my raising money on the estate. Meantime, my
dear boy, I cannot let you have your original thousand back,
because it is all spent/ Stephen looked quite youthful and ex-
pansive as he uttered this genial string of falsehoods. ' How-
ever, as I suppose a little ready money would be handy just
now '

' It would,' said Jack ; ' lend me what you can.'

' I will give you,' replied Stephen, taking his cheque-book,
' seventy-five. That will be something for you to go on with.
Another hundred, if you want it, in a week or two. You can
depend upon me, my dear fellow. Stephen Hamblin never for-
gets a friend.'

They shook hands warmly. That was the sort of sentiment
which went home to the heart of Jack.

'No more,' he said, ' does J. double-B., especially,' pocketing
the cheque, ' when he's got some of the ready to remember him
by.'

Fully satisfied with the advance, and the assurance of further
help, Jack took his leave. After all, he had done pretty well
with his venture. Three thousand to come in after he had made
his composition with creditors was not a bad sum to begin again
upon. And he always had his reputation for luck to fall back
upon.

As he went out he passed, in the door, Miss Hamblin. He
took off his hat as she passed up the stairs to her uncle's cham
berg. Her face was pale and anxious.

' Ah,' thought Jack, ' she has found out by this time, and

she's going to make things square with her uncle. Well, she'll

find him in good temper. And now I think she'll begin to be

sorry that she didn't have me! Laughed at me, by Gad !'

He turned as he passed through the door, to look once more

298 THE SEAMY SIDE.

at the tall and graceful figure of the most splendid girl he had
ever known.

Alison mounted the stairs, and found herself for the first time
knocking at Stephen Hamblin's door.

He had lit a cigar, and was making a few calculations in
pencil, when she opened the door and timidly stole in.

He put down the cigar, and rose with surprise, and a feeling
of pain and shame. Before him, with crossed hands and down-
dropped eyes, stood — his daughter.

' You here, Alison, of all places in the world ? I thought at
least I should have been spared this.'

' I have just now learned the truth,' she said, with trembling
voice ; ' my cousin Augustus told me — what you know — what
they have found out.'

' Did they invite you to come here and see me ?'

' No ; I thought you would like to see me, and say something
— if only that you may forgive me for the hard things that I
have said and thought about you.'

' Oh, come, Alison !' cried the man, impatiently, ' we do not
want sentiment, you and I. Be reasonable. You don't sup-
pose I jump for joy because you are my daughter. You
don't suppose that I expect you to fly into my arms because they
say I am your father. Don't let us be fools.'

The tears came into the girl's eyes. She had been a fool ;
she had deluded herself into the belief, as she drove into town,
that he would be touched by the discovery ; she thought they
would exchange words of regret and reconciliation ; she looked
for some words of endearment ; and this was the way in which
she was met.

' Sit down, then, and talk. But don't begin to cry, and don't
talk sentiment. First of all, what did Augustus tell you ?'

' That you are my father, and that you did not know that
yc i had a child at all.'

' G-ood — that is true. What else did he tell you ?'

'Nothing else — yes: he said that you had renounced your
claim to the estate and were going away. I came to ask
you '

' He did not tell you why,' Stephen interrupted,

' No.'

' Since he did not, I shall not,' he said, with the air of a man
who had been doing good by stealth. ' Sufficient that it is so.
I am going to travel, and to forget in travel, if possible, all the
annoyances I have had in this business. I hardly blame you,
Alison. It would be absurd to blame you, altogether, for the
attitude you assumed. When I became quite certain that my
brother had never married, I resolved to befriend you. I made
two distinct offers to you, which you refused with scorn and

HOW STEPHEN DEFIED THEM ALL. 299

contumely. You remember that — I do not, I say, reproach you ;
that is all over. Now that I learn the truth, I recognise the fact
that my brother desired that you should never find it out, and
that he wished yorf to inherit his property. Therefore, I retire.'

This was very grand, and Alison was greatly affected.

' But it is all yours,' she said.

' It is all mine, until I have signed a deed of transfer — to you,'
he replied, waving his hand as one who confers a kingdom.

She could not reply.

'I will tell you more,' her father went on. 'I believe the
reason why my brother kept this thing a secret was, that I mar-
ried the girl with whom he was in love. He spoke to her sister,
Miss Nethersole, about her : I, meantime, spoke to the young
lady herself. As Miss Nethersole refused to listen to the match
proposed by the elder brother, on some religious ground, I be-
lieve, the younger brother thought it was no use for him to try
that way. So he persuaded the girl into a secret marriage, and
the day after they were married they eloped.

' Well ' — he went on, carefully folding up the ' Journal of a
Deserted Wife,' and putting it into his breast-pocket, to prevent
the chance of her seeing it — ' we were not suited to each other.
Put it, if you please, that I was too young to be married — that
I have never been what is called a marrying man ; we were un-
happy together. I said that it would be well to part for a time:
I left her — it was by her own wish and choice — at the seaside :
you were born : she told me nothing about it : she fell ill : she
wrote to my brother when she became worse : she died : he
told me of the death, but not of the birth : I forgot all about
my marriage : it was just exactly as if I had never been mar-
ried at all.'

This was a rendering of the history which had somehow a
false ring about it ; it was too smooth and specious. But
Alison tried to believe it.

' Mind,' he said, ' I do not attach any blame to my wife ; I
should be unwilling for you to think that she was to blame.
Let ail the blame, if there is any, fall on me. Some, perhaps,
on my brother, but not much. No doubt, poor Anthony acted
for the best, and persuaded himself that the wisest thing for
you was to bring you up in ignorance of your parentage ; later
on, ho became fond of you, and grew more unwilling still to
part with you. So he invented the fiction of your being his
daughter. It was clever of him, but it has led us all into
strange paths. Things would have been different with me, and
with you too, if we had known all along what we were to each
other.'

' And now,' asked Alison, ' can there never be anything be-
tween us but formal friendship ?'

3oo THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Never,' said Stephen, shaking his head and putting his hands
into his pockets, as if he was afraid that his daughter might
offer to fondle them. ' Never. Do not let us pretend to try.
Why, we could not begin all at once to bill and coo to each
other. I could never endure, for instance, such endearments
as you used to lavish on your supposed father.'

' No,' said Alison, sadly, ' that would be impossible. But
kindness of thought '

' Rubbish, Alison. You will marry some day, I suppose '

' I am going to marry Gilbert Yorke.'

' Ah !' He started. Gilbert Yorke was the young man who
had been present at the family council. ' Ah ! you will marry
him ! That makes it doubly impossible for us ever to be friends.
You are going to marry a man — well, never mind. No more
sentiment, Alison. You have got a father, and I have got a
daughter. It is a relationship which begins to-day. Let it end
to-day.'

It was harsh, but Alison somehow felt a little relieved. She
would have liked a few words of sympathy, of hope, of kind-
ness. She could not contemplate without a shudder the simple
operation of kissing her ' uncle,' Stephen the Black. And she
was humiliated to find that one whom she had always regarded
as the Awful Example was actually her father.

' By-the-way,' he went on, pleasantly, ' I think I have got one
or two things here which you might like to have.' He opened
a desk and began to rummage among the papers. ' I know that
Anthony sent the things to me when Dora died. I put them
away, and I haven't looked at them since. Ah ! here they
are.'

He handed to Alison a small packet containing a portrait of
a sweet-faced girl, with light hair and blue eyes, very different
to her own ; and another containing one or two books of devo-
tion : this was all that remained of Dora Hamblin.

' Now go, Alison,' said Stephen. ' You may cry over them at
home if you like. Good-bye. You will not see me again for a
very long time— perhaps never.'

Alison took them tearfully.

' Now go, Alison,' repeated Stephen, in his harshest voice ;
' go, I say ; cry over them at home as much as you please.
Have you anything more to tell me ?'

' No,' she replied. ' Stay, I have a message from my aunt
Rachel.'

' From Rachel Nethersole ?' Stephen became suddenly and
deeply interested. ' She is with you, is she ? She knows ?
What does that excellent lady say ? What did she tell you ?'

' When I told her what I had learned, she cried, and said that she
wanted nothing now but to ask pardon of my father — I mean,

HOW STEPHEN DEFIED THEM ALL. 301

your brother. When I said I was coming here, she kissed me,
and bade me tell you that for my sake she would forgive you
all. " All," she told me to say.'

' Did she ?' cried Stephen, as a new light came into his eyes.
' Did she ? She will forgive all, will she ? A brave old girl.
That is right — and — and — Alison, I think I shall reconsider that
question of the transfer.' He looked his daughter in the face
with a sudden change of manner which startled and terrified
her. ' Perhaps it will be best to arrange things differently. I
shall see. I shall think things over. Go now.'

He almost pushed her out of his room.

Then, left quite alone, he gave way to every external sign of
joy. These signs were undignified, and we therefore pass them
over.

' I've done them again !' he cried. ' By Gad ! I've done them
again. And I shall have the handling, all to myself, of the
whole big pile.'

CHAPTER XXXV.

HOW YOUNG NICK FETCHED THE WRITING-MASTER.

The boy remained behind the screen, as we have seen, until
the footsteps in the passage were silent. Then he envVged
from his hiding-place. His face was scared, though his move-
ments, as we have seen, indicated joy. The occasion bad come,
then, at last. This was the day, the very day, for which he had
so longed — the day of greatness. On no other occasion could
Anthony Hamblin be so dramatically, so usefully restored to his
own people ; in no other way could the discomfiture of Stephen
be so complete. He had been proved to be a forger ; that
would be a blow to Alison, should the fact be told her : by
Anthony's intervention the thing might be hidden. He was to
be the heir to the whole estate ; he was to go away on a large
annuity : very good, he would have to go on nothing.

He rapidly reviewed the arguments for immediate action, and
then, resolved to lose no time, he slipped cautiously out of the
room, passed with noiseless step by the doors of the two partners,
and ran down the broad staircase.

In the doorway he found Gilbert Yorke, who was waiting for
a cab to take him to Clapham.

' Well ?' asked young Nick, with his usual twinkle, ' have you
found anything ? Have you got the marriage ?'

Gilbert laughed, and nodded.

' You shall hear all about it,' he said, ' in good time.'

302 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Ah !' replied tnc boy, ' now you think you've been mighty
deep, I suppose. Mark my words, Gilbert Yorke. You'll own,
before long, that there's one who has been deeper. Where are
you going now ?'

' I am going to Clapham, to tell Alison something-'

' Oh, very good. Yes ; ycur exertions have been creditable,
I'm sure. But my turn will come later on, and then, if you
find your nose out of joint, don't say I did not warn you.'

Gilbert laughed again.

' What did I say once ?' the boy went on, folding his arms, and
leaning against the doorpost ; ' " Just when you think every-
thing is cleared up, you turn to me and I will astonish you."
That is what I said. Now is everything cleared up ?'

' It is. I can tell you so much. Alison will learn all from
me in half an hour. This evening there is going to be a sort of
family council at the House.'

' Ah ! Please tell the partners, with my compliments — Mr.
Nicolas Cridland's compliments — that if they think everything
is cleared up, they are mightily mistaken. And as for Alison,
remind her that the writing-master leads a happy life. Now
don't botch that message, young man. Give it her in full, just
as I have told you.' He began to look positively demoniac,
dancing on the pavement, and twinkling with his pink eyes
under his white eyebrows. ' Oh, ah ! Yes ; all cleared up.
Ha ! ha ! ho ! ho ! what a jolly game it will be, to be sure.'

Gilbert began to think young Nick was off his head. There
coula be nothing more to know.

1 I'm ihe man in the play who turns up at the last moment,
and pardons the conspirator for love of the lady he wants to
marry. I'm the man who comes home with a pocket full of
money, and pays off the wicked lawyer. I'm the man who draws
aside the curtain with a " Houp-la 1 Hooray 1 There-you-are-
and-who'd-a-thought-it ?" '

Then the cab came up.

' If you want to see larks — if you want to be taken aback as
you never were so taken aback in all your born days before — if
you want to see ME in the proudest moment of my life — you turn
up at the house to-night about nine o'clock or thereabouts.
Oh ! and if you arc going there now, you may tell the old lady
that I've got important business in the City, and shall not come
home to tea — that's all. Ta-ta !'

He pulled his hat farther over his forehead and strode out of
Great St. Simon Apostle with as much noise and importance
as boots at fourteen can produce. When he got to the end of
Carmel Friars, he turned to see if by any chance Gilbert was
following him. He was not.

Then he pursued his way as rapidly as possible down Grace.

THE WRITING-MASTER. 303

church Street, Eastcheap, to Tower Hill, past the entrance to
the docks, through Cable Street to Jubilee Road, where he
knocked at the door of the house in whose window was the
advertisement of Mr. Hampton, "Writing-master.

Mr. Hampton was not in. He would return, perhaps, at five
or so, but the woman could not tell.

This was extremely annoying, because, all the way along,
Nicolas had been arranging in his own head a little drama
between himself and Anthony. He was to assume the Grand
Style which Mr. Matthew Arnold so much admires ; he was to
be calmly, impressively judicial : he was not to argue, but to
command. And Anthony was not to argue either, but to obey
the superior will of the boy. Young Nick possessed a lively
imagination, and really worked up a very fine scene, something
on the lines of a w r ell-known situation in Atlialie, which he had
been reading lately at school.

All this was completely spoiled, because the drama was in-
complete without two performers, and one of them was away.

Nicolas haunted the hot street all the afternoon, growing
every moment more impatient, and continually losing more of
the Grand Style, till at last there was none of it left at all.

At five o'clock the writing-master had not returned. Then
the boy went to the coffee-house where he had first made his
wonderful discovery, and ordered tea, with shrimps and water-
cresses. He had great joy in the independence of this meal,
but he was anxious to bring off his grand coup, and could not
linger. After it he went again to the house, and being tired of
walking up and down on the shady side of the pavement, asked
permission to wait in Mr. Hampton's room.

He sat down in Anthony's arm- chair, and presently, being
tired, went fast asleep. When he awoke it was nearly eight
o'clock, and already in the badly-lighted room it was growing
dark. Before him stood his uncle.

Young Nick sprang to his feet, and clutched him by the arm.

' I've been waiting for you all the afternoon,' he cried, re-
proachfully. ' Where have you been idling about ?'

' I've been keeping punishment school,' said Anthony humbly ;
' my turn conies once a month.'

'0 Lord!' the boy ejaculated with infinite disgust; 'he's
been keeping punishment school, while I've been looking for
him. However, you've come at last — sit down. Have you had
your tea ?'

' I've had some tea and bread and butter with the boys,' re-
plied his uncle.

1 Well ! you shall have some champagne and grilled chicken
for your supper,' the boy told iiim encouragingly. ' A spread

304 THE SEAMY SIDE.

eagle and champagne for supper you shall have, or I'll know
the reason why.'

' What on earth do you mean ?'

' Exactly what I say. The game's finished ; it is all found
out, and you may put on your hat and come home with me as
soon as ever you like.'
'All found out?'

' Part ferreted out, part made out. Gilbert Yorke had a lot
of things told him by Miss Nethersole, and fished up the rest.
He's not a bad sort, that young man, if he didn't fancy himself
too much. I suppose I ought not to grumble because he's cut
me out with Alison. What a donkey you've been, Uncle
Anthony, to be sure ! What a donkey ! Fancy wanting to
screen Uncle Stephen ! You see I know the whole story —
forged receipts, runaway marriage — all. So don't pretend any
more. What a donkey !'

' It was for Alison's sake,' pleaded the donkey. ' I wanted
to save her.'

1 And the end of it is, that you haven't saved her. She knows
who her father is by this time, and might just as well have
known before. A pretty father for a young woman who re-
spects the fifth commandment.' He looked at his watch. ' A
quarter past eight,' he said ; ' plenty of time. I told him about
nine o'clock.'

' You told whom ?'

' Gilbert Yorke. Told him to look out for games of a most
surprising kind at nine o'clock. Now just you listen, and don't
say a word till I tell you to speak.' If it was not the Grand
Style, it was the Cocky style, which has been overlooked by
critics, and is yet sometimes extremely effective. ' All you've
got to do is to listen to me, and behave accordingly. Sit down.'
The writing-master humbly took a chair. By this time he
had got disreputably shabby, and it was not so dark but that
the condition of his boots was apparent, though the shininess
of his coat-sleeves was partly hidden. The heels had long been
down. Now they were gone at the toes, and chinks in the leather
revealed on either foot a patch of white.

' You don't look as if your salary was paid regularly,' said
the boy sternly, pointing to the boots.

' It's such a very small salary,' replied the poor man ; ' and
eating costs such a lot. One must eat, you know. It is not
altogether the profession one would choose for a son, that of
writing-master in a private academy.'

' No,' said Nicolas, with severity ; ' it certainly is not. How-
ever, you can get your hat, and come away to Clapham with
me, because that fooling is over.'

' Nonsense !' said Mr. Hampton ; ' what should I do that fo»

3o6 THE SEAMY SIDE.

' Why, of course, Miss Nethersole. It's raining uncles and
aunts. Do be quiet, and don't interrupt ; time's getting very
short.' The boy considered a minute—' Oh ! about the kissing.
Aunt Eachel meets Alison and takes her hand gingerly, as if
Bhe was something that must be handled, for fear of breaking,
like a Richmond maid-of -honour. " My niece," she says — that's
all — and kisses her on the forehead. In the evening Gilbert
arrives, and Alison and he go into the garden and kiss each
other in the conservatories. I know where I can stand and see
them, and they don't know. Then they come back and pretend
they haven't had their arms round each other. And to think
of the way that girl used to pound away about truth and fibs,
when I was a boy !'

' I suppose,' said Anthony, presently, ' that we shall get some-
thing coherent in time.'

' It's coming,' replied Nick ; ' where shall I begin ? After
the Bournemouth expedition, letters and telegrams came thick
from Gilbert, and Alison carried on in a most agitating way.
Meals went anyhow. Several times I had to order the pudding
myself. We knew she'd got a new aunt, and we made as much
fuss over her as if it was a new baby.

' Very good. Gilbert came back, and there was a tremendous
talking. It was then that kissing set in with such vigour. And
one evening I heard him tell Alison that he had kept back part
of the story, and would tell her afterwards. He has told her,
I suppose, by this time, for I left him on his way to Clapham
Common — in a hansom cab, if you please ! I've got to travel
on the knife-board. The day after he came back — it was in
the evening : Alison was playing, and Gilbert was sitting by
her whispering soft things in her ear : my mother was asleep :
I was beginning one of those exercises, " The lettei'3 which I
have received. The letters which my cousin (feminine) says
she has burned " — you know — when the door opened, and a lady
appeared. She just marched in, without being announced.
She was in black, and she had a black bag with her — a lady with
»harp chin, and a mouth that looked a little bit like the useful
end of a pair of scissors. She set eyes on me first, and stared.
It isn't manners, but I don't mind it much, because it isn't
every day that people get a chance of seeing an Albino. So I
nodded to encourage her, and then she looked at the old lady,
who was fast asleep with her mouth open ; then she saw Alison,
who rose to meet her. " You are Alison Hamblin ?" she asked ;
" you are more like your uncle than your father. I am your
aunt, Rachel Nethersole. Let us try to bo friends." Then
kissing set in, and I was introduced, and Gilbert did a lot of
talking.'

' Poor Alison,' said Anthony, hoarsely.

THE WRITING-MASTER. 307

The boy was glad to see these signs of emotion, and turned
his head.

' You see, uncle, Miss Nethersole didn't know everything.
You and I know better than that.'

' How do you know ? What do you know ?'

' I know now as much as you do,' replied the boy. ' I wish I
had known it five months ago. You and your writing- master-
ing !'

' Does anybody else know ?'

' We all know everything — except that one thing that you
and I know. And you've got to tell that to-night. Let me
go on.

' Miss Nethersole agreed to stay, and they fetched in her
things. Presently we had something hot — a kidney it was — for
supper. I needed it. Evenings like that tell upon the strongest
man. Three women to be comforted all at once is a large
order.'

Nicolas sho^k his white locks en p7iilosoj>Jie, and went on :

' After supper — Aunt Rachel did pretty well with the kidneys,
but I had to lead the way, as usual — we all sat round, while
Alison held her new relation's hand — you know their silly way
— and we began to talk about you. The new aunt does not
like you, uncle, and I saw her make faces while Alison and the
old lady went on about your having been such a good man. I
crammed my handkerchief in my mouth. Jiminy !

' That was yesterday. And as if there wasn't enough to tell
you, something else more important still happened to-day.
Now, listen, with all your might. As it was a half -holiday I
came up to town after dinner, to see what news there was in
the City. Mighty little doing, as I found out from a little
conversation with the senior clerks. However, as I was coming
on to see you, I thought I would just drop in and look at your
old room. Nobody has ever used it ; your name is on the
door ; the furniture is untouched ; there's your old blotting-pad,
covered all over with heads in ink, in front of your own old
chair. And there's the cabinet with the glass doors ; I always
wondered what you kept in that cabinet, uncle. Once I thought
it was piles of money ; then I thought it must be skeletons ;
then I thought very likely it was specimens of indigo. Well,
to make quite sure, I opened the doors and found what it is
you do keep there. Fie, uncle ! I thought better of you. A
decanter full of sherry and a couple of glasses ! also a box of
cigars, and half a dozen boxes of cigarettes. Call that business ?
When I had satisfied myself upon that point, I went and sat
down in your chair, just to feel what it was like to be a rich
man ; and then I made myself a little speech, nobody being
there to hear. I was getting along first-rate, thinking what a

20—2

THE WRITING-MASTER. 305

Claphara ? I never heard of that place. All that to me ia
gone and forgotten. I am nothing now but a half -starved usher,
and I shall never be anything else.'

' And Alison, is she forgotten too ? "What you did for her
sake, Uncle Anthony, five months ago, you will have to undo
for her sake.'

' Boy ! tell me what has happened !'

Young Nick laughed. He was entire master of the whole
situation. It belonged to him. He held the strings of Destiny.
He was the Deus ex machina whose functions he had that very
morning, with contempt for the mercantile uselessness of Latin,
painfully construed.

He looked at his watch again.

' We've got a few minutes to spare.' Then he began his
narrative, of which he delivered himself slowly and with im-
portance, reflecting that this would certainly be regarded ever
after as the greatest day of his life, and desirous of leaving
nothing to regret in its history, no shortcoming, no failure, no
lack of power to rise to the dignity of the situation.

' It began last week, when Alison took Mrs. Duncombe *

'Mrs. Buncombe?'

' Oh yes ! she's been staying with us since we found her
out. But she was no good, and knew nothing ; you took care
of that. Your craft and subtlety about that baby, Uncle
Anthony, astonished everyone. Nobody more than myself, I
must own, though perhaps I ought to know the world by this
time.

' However,' he went on, after a little pause, during which he
shook his head in a modest depreciation of himself, ' that is
nothing. Alison and Mrs. Duncombe went off to Bournemouth.
Of course, Gilbert Yorke went with them. I was not invited
to go, so I stayed at home and took care of the old lady. We
had Normandy pippins. Of course I suspected that something
was up, and when Alison came back, two days later, crying and
laughing both together, I was quite certain. Well, I listened,
and I made out. They'd found out where Alison's mother was
buried, and taken her to see the grave. That was why she was
crying. The reason why she laughed was because Gilbert Yorke
had begun the kissing all over again. However, as Alison
wouldn't wait for me, I can't object. There's a mighty lot of
kissing going on now, down at the House. The old lady and
Alison are at it all the morning, with a — " Oh, my dear ! how
glad I am !" and " Oh, auntie ! how happy I am !" And in the
afternoon it's Aunt Rachel's turn ; I shouldn't care much about
kissing Aunt Rachel myself, but girls will kiss anything.'

' Aunt Rachel ?'

Anthony Hamblin began to feel in a dream.

jo8 THE SEAMY SIDE.

clevei sort of a man I was going to turn out, when I heard foot-
steps, and as I didn't wish to be caught, and look as much like
a fool as it is possible for this young man to look, I nipped
behind your old screen — you remember it, uncle — and sat down
and hstened. Mean, wasn't it ? Wait till you hear what I
found out, then you will jump for joy — and — oh ! Jerusalem !

' There was Mr. Augustus first, and then Mr. "William — he's
had his wig put into black on your account — and then Mr.
Bilbfcer. Last came Gilbert Yorke, looking mighty important.
A regular procesh, only they didn't sing a hymn. While they
were disposing themselves in attitudes round the table like
head-masters before a caning, or like ambassadors and pleni-
potentates at least, in marches Uncle Stephen.'

' What did they want with him ?'

'Now, uncle, do not interrupt. That spoils every man's
style. CiEsar, when he was writing his Commentaries for the
Third Form, would never allow any interruption ; nor would
Cornelius Nepos when he hammered out his biographies for the
Second. Mr. Augustus it was who went for him. " It's all
found out," he says ; " there was never any marriage, and you
are the heir to the whole estate !" " Oh my gum !" said Uncle
Stephen, turning very red ; " then I suppose you are all going
to apologise, are y u ?" " Devil a bit," said Mr. Augustus.
Are you interested now, uncle ?'

' Go on, boy — go on.'

Anthony Hamblin was pacing the little room, showing every
sign of agitation.

' Then Uncle Stephen looked surprised. " You hardened
villain !" says your cousin, looking^ like a judge on the bench,
" there was no marriage of your brother, but there was of your-
self. And who was your wife, and where is your daughter ?"
"What daughter?" says Stephen. "Alison," says Augustus.
Well, Stephen was a bit staggered at that, as you may suppose.
" And don't you think," says Augustus, " that we are going to
sit down quietly and see you chuck the money. Quite the other
way about and contrariwise. You've got to give it up and go
away on a pound a week for the rest of your life." " Am I ?"
says Stephen. " You are," says Augustus. " Don't you wish
you may get it?" says Stephen. " I do," says Augustus, "or

else " " Else what ?" says Stephen. " Else," says Augustus,

" we shall have to remind you of six little bits of paper bear-
ing a dead woman's signature. Her sister will prosecute for
forgery — for-ge-ry, Stephen ; and it means fourteen years' quod,
with skilly and cold water. How will you like that, Cousin
Stephen ?" Then they all chimed in, liko a chorus in a play,
"How will you like that, Cousin Stephen?" I thought of
joining ia myself, but didn't. Stephen took it quito comfort-

THE WRITING-MASTER. 309

ably. He's a desperate wicked chap, that Stephen. Fancy
going about with six forgeries on your conscience — a most awful
wicked chap. He never said he was sorry: never said he wished
he hadn't done it — not at all. He only growled ; and then he
said something about going abroad on a pension ; and then he
put m his hat and walked out of the room.'

' Is it possible ?'

' So now you see. You ran away : you left me, your little
comforts, and your home, in order to save Alison from finding
that her father wasn't you at all, but the other fellow, and from
learning what a desperate bad lot he is. And now, she will
learn it all, and there will be the most terrific row that ever was
heard of. Stephen Hamblin will very likely be charged with
forgery — that's a very pretty thing to happen in the family —
and Alison Hamblin will learn that he is her father. That's
what has been brought about by your running away, to say
nothing of the awful expense in crape.'

Anthony stood irresolute.

'What shall I do?' he cried. 'The very worst has come to
pass — the very thing that most I dreaded. I thought to avert
this blow. I thought that my own death would do it. I thought
that sorrow was better than disgrace ; and Alison has had the
sorrow, and now will have the disgrace.'

' She need not if you will return, because then Uncle Stephen
will be coopered, and Aunt Rachel can be squared. You can
stop the prosecution. Come, Uncle Anthony ; they won't mind
your boots.'

' It isn't the boots I'm thinking of,' said Anthony, gravely.

' Is it the feeling that you will look such an ass '?' asked the
boy with ready sympathy. 'No one could look a bigger donkey
— that's true — if he was to try with all his might. But never
mind that ; the servants are all in mourning still — ho ! ho ! —
and the old lady's got a new cap trimmed with crape home yes-
terday — ho ! ho ! — and there's the black band round my hat—
io ! ho ! ho ! — and there's the tablet in Jie church — ho ! ho !
ho ! ho ! What a game it will be ! You'll have to pay the bill
for everything but your own funeral. I wish we could hire a
mourning coach for us to go home in — I wonder if my pocket-
money would run to it.'

The boy, who was half hysterical by this time, broke into in-
extinguishable laughter, which naturally led to choking and
to tears.

' Come, Uncle Anthony.' He wiped his eyes, and put his
uncle's hat on for him. ' What a shocking bad hat V He took
him by the hand, and led him unresisting into the street. ' I've
got three shillings in my pocket, that will take us to Clapham
Common. We will walk up to the door. I will smuggle you

3 < o THE SEA M V SIDE.

into the study. Then I will go away and bring you ' His

voice broke again into a sob. ' Poor Alison !' he cried ; then he
brushed away his tears. ' First thing you must do, is to put on
a pair of new boots. Any other man but myself would be
ashamed to be seen walking in company with such beasts of
boots. I always used to keep you respectable in the old time,
and I mean to again, remember that.'

CHAPTER THE LAST.

HOW YOUNG NICK ACHIEVED GKEATNESS.

When Stephen Hamblin saw his daughter fairly out of the room,
and got through those manifestations of joy of which we have
spoken, he began, once more, to reconsider everything. Now
the message which Miss Nethersole sent him by means of his
daughter was nothing short of an Evangel, a Blessed Gospel, to
him. It relieved him, at one stroke, of all anxiety on the one
side where his armour was weak ; and even while he thought of
the opportuneness of this truly Christian message, a way
occurred to him by which he might, even without it, face the
worst and challenge his enemies to do their worst.

' Augustus and the crew,' he thought, ' rejoiced to have that
trump card in reserve. They knew that I did not suspect its
existence, and was not prepared to answer it. They played it
fairly well, considering. But not so well — no, not so well as I
mean to play my trump card, presently. It is not only forgive-
ness, but justification.'

This message of Rachel's, too, showed him how wrong he had
been in his treatment of Alison. He should not have met her
approaches with coldness : he should not have received her
timid advances with a snub ; he should have welcomed her :
hfild out his arms : tried, at least, to kiss her : and, without a
murmur, should have submitted to any endearments which the
girl might offer. To be sure, the style and title of daughter
no more commanded his affection than that of niece : his heart,
which had long since ceased to feel any warmth towards
Alison's mother, by no means leaped up at the meeting with
Dora's daughter. Quito the reverse. He felt that the whole
thing was a gene ; he would very much have preferred Alison to
have continued Anthony's daughter.

You cannot, however, by wishing, reverse the current of
affairs. That is an axiom in the First Book of Fate ; and the

YO UNG NICK A CIIIE VES ORE A TA/ESS. 3 1 1

wise man makes the best of materials in his hands. The mate-
rials in Stephen's hands was a girl ready to acknowledge him
as her father, and do her best to enact the part of Christian
daughter ; a sister-in-law who had been deeply wronged, and
who, for the sake of that daughter, was ready to forgive and
forget the past : a little knot of conspirators, eager to get rid
of him, to push him off the scene, to land him, once and for all,
across the Channel.

Very good : but one thing they had forgotten. Not only did
Miss iSTethersole forgive, which they either did not know or
took care not to mention, but in striking at him they would strike
at Alison. Yes, and at themselves ; at the family name, at
everything held dear by the Hamblins.

The more he turned the matter over in his mind, the more
he became convinced that to strike the flag at once was impolitic
and — still more— useless. A change of front was not only pos-
sible, but advisable.

' Why,' asked this just man, ' should I abandon what is mine
because they threaten ? What can they do ? What can they
prove ? Would they dare to try it ? And since the woman
sends me that message, why there is nothing more to be feared.
I will stay.'

After dinner he thought the thing over again, and became so
convinced that his best course was to take advantage of Rachel
Nethersole's forgiving disposition, that he sent for a cab and
drove to Clapham, to ' my own place,' he said to himself. ' And
I dare say,' he continued, being now very cheerful over the
new prospects, ' I dare say that the time will come when I may
endure the girl's affectionate ways as Anthony used to. Pre-
tend to like them, too. It's awkward becoming a father when
you least expect it. A grown-up girl, too, with a temper of
her own, one with whom you have had rows ; it is a very em-
barrassing position, and requires a great deal of presence of
mind. This afternoon I was a fool. I've been a fool all day,
I think. Things came upon me too unexpectedly. A man
can't stand a big fortune, and a grown-up daughter, and
threatenings of criminal proceedings all at once. However, I
have cooled down, and shall play my next card very much.
better, as my dear friends and cousins will shortly discover.'

It was somewhat unfortunate that he chose that evening to
carry out his purpose, because it was the time which the part-
ners, accompanied by Mr. Billiter, had chosen for their family
council.

Gilbert Yorke, Alderney Codd, Mrs. Cridland, and Misa
Nethersole all assisted on this occasion, the importance of which
was realised by no one so much as by Alderney Codd. Tha
fur coat was necessarily discarded owing to the return of sum-

312 THE SEAMY SIDE.

mcr, but its place was worthily taken by broadcloth of the best
and newest, while the condition of wristbands, front, and collar
showed what an excellent thing a little steady occupation is for
a man. True, his work was over ; there was no more employ-
ment for him in rummaging among registers : but he had not
yet realised that the suspension of work meant cessation of
income. At present he was entirely filled with a sort of holy
joy on account of Anthony's rehabilitation, and he had thought
of a beautiful verse from Horace which he intended to quote
as soon as he could find an opportunity. It was not entirely
novel, but then Alderney's scholarship was not entirely fresh —
over-ripe, perhaps. The effort to lug in the lines somehow
proved unsuccessful for the first half -hour or so, during which
Augustus was explaining the new position of affairs, how
Stephen had resolved on leaving his daughter in undisputed
possession — taking only an annuity out of the estate. These
dry details gave no opportunity for Horatian sentiment.

Augustus Hamblin took the opportunity of reminding Alison
— this was a precautionary measure, in case she should allow
herself to fall in love, so to speak, with her father, and then
find out about the receipts, and be humiliated — that the dis-
covery of her parent need not lead to any alteration in her own
feelings concerning him, because he was going away for good.
The observance of the fifth commandment, he explained, bind-
ing upon all Christians, would in her case be effected by the
pious memory of the man who had stood in loco parentis, in the
place of a parent to her. Here Alderney thought he saw his
chance, and struck in, ' Quis desiderio' but was interrupted by
a gesture from his cousin, who went on to set forth that in her
real father Alison had before her an example which her friends
would not advise her to follow, and although filial piety would
not dwell upon his faults, it was impossible to hide them alto-
gether ; and, in fact, it had always been a thorn in the side of
the family generally, that this member of it had turned out so ill.

' Things being so,' Augustus concluded, ' we could not but
feel that for you and your fortune to be at the mercy of a man
who has never shown even the most common prudence in money
matters, would be a very disastrous thing. And it was with
the greatest joy that we received from him an assurance that
he was willing to accept an annuity, and not to take upon him-
self the responsibilities of paternity. In other words, my dear
child, you will be in exactly the same position as if you were
really Anthony's daughter.'

' I have seen him,' said Alison, quietly. ' He has told me
that he does not want a daughter, fie can nev?r feci any affec-
tion for me ; it is better that we should part.'

' Much better,' said Augustus

YOUNG NICK ACHIEVES GREATNESS. 313

' I confess that it would be impossible for me to practise the
same respect and obedience towards him as to my dear fath — I
mean my uncle Anthony '

' Always your father, Alison,' said Gilbert.

' Quis desidei'io,' by Alderney again, when the door was thrown
open, and the new father appeared.

He was acting elaborately ; he had thrown aside the dark and
down look with which he received Alison in the afternoon ; he
had assumed an expression of candour mixed with some kind of
sorrowful surprise, as if he was thinking of the past ; his dark
eyes were full, as if charged with repentance.

1 Alison,' he said, looking about the room, ' I see you are with
my cousins, my very good friends, and Mr. Billiter, my well-
wisher from youth upwards. I have disturbed a family gather-
ing. May I ask, my child, what poison concerning your father
they have poured into your ears ? Miss Nethersole ! Is it
possible ?'

Aunt Rachel shook her head violently, and pushed her chair
back. But Stephen thought of the message.

Alison sprang to her feet, but was silent. She tried to speak,
but could not. Gilbert held her hand.

' Stephen,' cried Augustus, ' what is the meaning of this lan-
guage ? You have already forgotten the interview of this
morning. Must we tell your daughter all ?'

' All that you please,' said Stephen, airily ; ' you are free to
tell Alison whatever you like.' He took her hand and drew her
gently from Gilbert. ' Alison, my daughter, let me repeat your
own words : " We have thought hard things, we have said hard
things of each other. That was because we did not know the
truth. Now we know it, let us not be separated."

' I was wrong this afternoon, because I had not yet realised
what it meant to me, this gift of a daughter. I have thought
it over since, and have resolved that it will be better for me,
and for you too, if I renounce my scheme of living abroad, and
instead, become your father, guardian, and best friend. As for
my former life, it has been, I admit, devoted to pleasure ; that
is all finished. I was then a man without ties, and therefore, to
a certain extent, a selfish man. Now I have you, my daughter,
I have some one else in the world to live for. My brother
Anthony acted, no doubt, for the best, but he acted wrongly
towards me. Had I known, had I suspected, that you were my
child, my course would have been different indeed ; perhaps it
would have been as blameless as that of my cousin, Alderney
Codd.'

Alderney jumped in his chair and changed colour. It was to
be hoped that Stephen was not going to begin revelations at this
inconvenient time.

3M THE SEAMY SIDE.

' I say so much, Alison,' Stephen went on, while Mrs. Crid-
land sat clutching Miss Nethorsole's hand in affright, and tha
partners with the old lawyer stood grouped together — Gilbert
retained his position behind Alison — ' I say so much because you
ought to know both sides. It matters little, now, why my
cousins have become my enemies. You see that they are. I
come here to-night proposing new relations. I take blame for
the things I said this afternoon. Forgive me, my child. Your
father asks for his daughter's forgiveness.'

' Oh !' cried Alison, moved to tears by this speech of the
fire prodigue, ' do not speak so. Do not talk of forgiveness.
There is nothing to forgive.'

' Together, my dear, we can face our enemies, and bid them
do their worst.'

He drew her to his side and laid her hand on his arm, in a
manner as paternal and as true to nature as an amateur heavy
father at private theatricals.

' This is truly wonderful,' said Mr. Billiter.

' Let them do their worst,' continued Stephen

' Why, in Heaven's name ' began Augustus, but was

stopped by Stephen, who went on without taking the least
notice of him.

' Miss Nethersole,' he said, ' I owe to you an explanation of a
very important kind. I have read to-day the journal of my
late wife, with feelings of the deepest sorrow. My neglect was
not wilful, but accidental ; the reduction of my wife's allowance
was due to a heavy pecuniary loss : our separation was by
mutual consent : I never received any letters from her at all. I
coneluded that she had carried her threat into execution and
left me. When I had my remittances returned from Lulworth,
I concluded that she had gone away from me altogether.'

' But, man,' said Rachel Nethersole, puzzled with this glib
show of explanation, ' you went on drawing her allowance
from me.'

'I did,' said Stephen, frankly — ' I did ; and the hardest, the
most cruel, the most unjust accusation ever made against any
man was made against mo this morning by my own cousin.
Alison, you shall hear it, unless, indeed, they have already told
you.'

' What we have spared your daughter,' said Augustus,
solemnly, ' you, too, would do well to spare her.'

' Spare her !' Stephen repeated. ' It was out of no considera-
tion for me. Rachel Nethersole, I drew that hundred and fifty
pounds a year for six years after my wife's death. She could
not, poor thing, l-eceive any of it. But how was I to know
that ? Who told me of her death ? What did I know ?'

' This is truly wonderful !' said Mr. Billiter again.

YOUNG NICK ACHIEVES GREATNESS. 315

1 Dora, before we parted to meet no more, signed a number of
receipts. It was understood that she was not to be troubled in
the matter. I heard no more. I went on presenting the re-
ceipts. I drew the money. That money, Rachel Nethersole
has been strictly and honourably laid up ever since, to be re-
turned to you when occasion should serve. I first laid it up for
Dora, but, after six years, I heard from Anthony that she was
dead, and then resolved to hand it over to you. But my life
has been, as I said before, a selfish one. The money was there,
but the occasion never came. At the same time, Rachel, I
thank you most heartily for the message of forgiveness sent me
by Alison. Although there was nothing to forgive, I accept
the message as a token of goodwill.'
Rachel stared at him, as one dumbfounded.
' Am I,' she asked, ' out of my senses ? Is this true ?'
Mr. Billiter laughed in his hard, dry way.
' Quite as true, madam,' he said, ' as any other of the state-
ments you have heard. Pray go on, Stephen.'

' No ; I shall not go on. I have said all I had to say to
Alison, my daughter, and to Miss Nethersole, my sister-in-law.
To them explanations were due. To you, my cousins, and to
you, lawyer of the Devil, I have nothing to say except that, as
this is my house, you will best please me, its owner, by getting
out of it at once.'

The position was ludicrous. They who had come to tell
Alison gently how her father, having been such a very bad
specimen of father or citizen, had acquiesced in their proposal
and was going to the Continent for life, never again to trouble
anybody, stood looking at each other foolishly, the tables turned
upon them. They were quite powerless. The master of the
situation was Stephen. He was quite certainly the heir to the
great estate : everything, including his daughter, was his, and
in his power. The difficulty about the Letters of Administra-
tion could not any longer stand in his way : the crime was
forgiven for the daughter's sake : and what, in Heaven's name,
would be the end of the great Hamblin estate, grown up and
increased through so many generations, developed by patient
industry and carefulness to its present goodly proportions,
fallen into the hands of a profligate, a black sheep, a prodigal
son, who would waste, dissipate, lavish, squander, and scatter
in a few years what it had cost so many to produce ?

' It is a sad pity,' said Mr. Billiter, speaking the thoughts of
all.

' Stephen,' said Alderney, ' if you are really going to take

the whole estate for yourself '

'I certainly am,' Stephen replied with a short laugh.

' Then there are one or two things that you must do. As a

316 THE SEAMY SIDE.

nian of honour and generosity, you must do ficm. There is
Flora Cridland, for instance ; you must continue to behave
towards her as Anthony did.'

' Go on, Alderney.'

' Here is Gilbert Yorke, engaged to Alison.'

' Go on.'

His face expressed no generous determination to do anything
at all.

' Well,' said Alderney, his nose becoming suffused with a
pretty blush, ' if you cannot understand what you have to do, I
cannot tell you.'

' I know what you mean. I am to continue to give my cousin,
Flora Cridland, a lavish allowance for doing nothing. Flora,
you know my sentiments. I am to take, with my daughter, all
the hangers on and lovers who may have hoped to catch an
heiress. Mr. Yorke, at some future time you may have an
interview with me, in order to explain your pretensions. Lastly,
Alderney, I am to lend you as much money as Anthony did,
ami?'

' I was not thinking of myself,' said Alderney meekly. ' I
only thought, as the poet says : " Suave est ex magna toller r
acervo." It is delightful to help yourself from a big pile.
However '

But Alison broke away from her father's arm, and caught
the protective hands of Gilbert.

' No,' she said, with brightening eyes, ' Gilbert will not need
to ask your permission ; he has my promise. And he bad the
encouragement of my — my uncle Anthony.'

'Right, girl,' said Rachel Nethersole ; ' you are right. If he
turns you out, you shall come to me.' She too crossed over to
her niece, and a pretty group was formed of Alison in the
middle, Gilbert at her right, and Rachel at her left.

Stephen's face darkened : but he forced himself to be genial.

'Well,' he said, with a smile, ' one cannot expect daughters
like mine to become obedient in a moment. Marry whom you
please, Alison. Your husband, however, must look to please
me before any settlements are arranged. Rachel Nethersole, I
am sorry to see that your usual common-sense has failed you
on this occasion.'

Rachel shook her head. She mistrusted the man by instinct.

' If I could believe you,' she murmured : ' if only I could
believe you '

There happened, then, a strange sound in the hall outside —
shuffling steps — a woman's shriek — the voice of young Nick,
thrill and strident, ordering unknown persons to be silent ; in
fact, they were William the under-gardenor, and Phoebe the
under-housemaid, and ho was entering the house with his captive

YOUNG NICK ACHIEVES GREATNESS. 317

when they rushed up the steps and Phoebe screamed, thinking
in the twilight of the June night that she was looking upon the
face of a ghost.

' Silence, all of you !' cried young Nick, excitedly, trying no!
to speak too loud ; ' you chattering, clattering, jabbering bundle
of rags, hold your confounded tongue ! Take her away, Wil-
liam, stop her mouth with the handle of the spade — choke her,
if you can. Now, then.'

They hardly noticed the noise in the study. It happened
just when Miss Nethersole was expressing her doubts as to
Stephen's perfect veracity. Everybody was discomfited. Mrs.
Cridland was miserably wiping her eyes, thinking of the days
of fatness, gone for ever : Miss Nethersole was uncomfortably
suspicious that the man had not told her anything like the
truth : the two partners were silent and abashed — they felt like
conspirators who had been found out : Gilbert was hot and
angry, yet for Alison's sake he was keeping control of his temper.
Stephen himself was uncomfortable, trying to devise some
method of restoring confidence, cursing Alderney for forcing
his hand. Alderney was ready to sit down and cry : Mr.
Billiter was apparently saying to himself for the third time :

' This is truly wonderful !'

And then Alison broke from Gilbert and Rachel, and, stand-
ing like a startled deer, cried :

' I hear a step — I hear a step.' And for a moment she stood
with her hands outspread, listening.

Stephen took no notice of his daughter's extraordinary ges-
ture. He addressed himself to Rachel, having his back to Che
door.

' I repeat, Rachel,' he said, ' that you have nothing to suspect
or to disbelieve. I did not know for six years and more of the
death of my wife '

He did not hear the door open behind him : he hardly ob-
served how Alison, with panting breast and parted lips, sprang
past him : he did not hear the cry of astonishment from all,
out he felt his dead brother's hand upon his shoulder : he
turned and met his dead brother face to face, and he heard
him say : ' Stephen, that is not true ; you knew it a week after
her death.'

All the pretence went out of him : all the confidence : all the
boastf ulness : he shrunk together : his cheek became pallid :
his shoulders fell and were round : his features became mean :
he trembled.

'Go,' said Anthony, pointing to the door — 'go! I know all
that you have done and said — go ! let me never see you more,
lest I forget the promise which I made by the deathbed of our
mother.'

jiiS THE. SEAMY SIDE.

Stephen passed through them all without a word.

In the general confusion, no one noticed Alderncy.

He waited a moment and then crept furtively out, andcaughi
Stephen at the door.

' Courage/ he said ; ' Anthony will come round. All is not
yet lost.'

'You stand by a fallen friend, Alderney ?' said Stephen,
bitterly. ' Nay, man, go back and get what you can. I am
ruined.'

' Dives eram dudum' replied the Fellow of the College. ' Once
I was rich. Fecerunt me Iria nudum — three things made me
naked : Alea, vina, Venus. You are no worse off, Stephen,
than you were.'

As Stephen walked rapidly away across the common, it was
some consolation to think that at this, the darkest moment of
his life, he could reckon on the friendship of one man in the
world — and on the promise made at a deathbed by another.
As for the game — he had played for a high stake — he stood to
win by long odds — and he lost.

' Oh, my dear ! my dear !' cried Alison, forgetting her father
altogether, as she clung to Anthony, and kissed him a thousand
times. ' Oh, my dear ! I said you would come back to me some
time— somehow. I said you would come back.'

# * # #

Ten minutes later, when the confusion was over, young Nick
touched his uncle on the arm, and whispered :

' It's all right about that desk in the office, of course ? Yery
good. And now if I was you, I would sneak upstairs and
change my boots, and put on another coat. I'll amuse Alison

while you are gone Old lady,' he stood in the

full light of the gas, with his right hand modestly thrust into
his bosom, and his left hand on his thigh — ' Old lady, and every-
body here present, I give notice that I am about to change my
name. Henceforth I mean to be known as Nicolas Cridland
Hamblin, Esquire, about to becoi; e, as soon as I leave school, a
clerk in the firm of Anthony Hamblin and Company, Indigo
Merchants, Great St. Simon Apostle, City.

THE END.

5! ILING AKD SONS, TlilNJEKo AND ILIX'TKOTYFERS, GUILDFORD.

[January, 1887.

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Robin Gray.

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