Chapter XLV (5)

"Devoid of the power of flight, it could have had small chance
of obtaining food by preying upon the members of its own class;
and, if it did not exclusively subsist on dead and decaying
organised matter, it most probably restricted its attacks to
the class of reptiles, and to the littoral fishes, _Crustacea_,
&c., which its well-developed back-toe and claw would enable it
to seize, and hold with a firm gripe."--_Transactions of the
Zoological Society_, iii. p. 331.

We confess that, setting aside various other unconformable features in the structure of the Dodo, the fact, testified by various authorities, of its swallowing stones, and having stones in its gizzard, for the mechanical triturition of its food, (a peculiarity unknown among the raptorial order,) is sufficient to bar the above view, supported though it be by the opinion of our most distinguished living anatomist.

In a recent memoir by Professor J. F. Brandt (of which an abstract is given in the _Bulletin de la Class. Phys. de l'Acad. Imp. de St Petersburg_, vol. viii. No. 3) we have the following statement:--

"The Dodo, a bird provided with divided toes and cursorial feet,
is best classed in the order of the Waders, among which it
appears, from its many peculiarities, (most of which, however,
are quite referable to forms in this order,) to be an anomalous
link connecting several groups,--a link which, for the reasons
above given, inclines towards the ostriches, and especially also
towards the pigeons."

We doubt the direct affinity to any species of the grallatorial order, an order which contains the cursorial or swift-running birds, very dissimilar in their prevailing habits to anything we know of the sluggish and sedentary Dodo. Professor Brandt may be regarded as having mistaken analogy for affinity; and, in Mr Strickland's opinion, he has in this instance wandered from the true method of investigation, in his anxiety to discover a link connecting dissevered groups.

What then is, or rather was, the Dodo? The majority of inquirers have no doubt been influenced, though unconsciously, by its colossal size, and have consequently sought its actual analogies only among such huge species as the ostrich, the vulture, and the albatross. But the range in each order is often enormous, as, for example, between the _Falco cærulescens_, or finch falcon of Bengal, an accipitrine bird not bigger than a sparrow, and an eagle of the largest size; or between the swallow-like stormy petrel and the gigantic pelican of the wilderness. It appears that Professor J. T. Rheinhardt of Copenhagen, who rediscovered the cranium of the Gottorf Museum, was the first to indicate the direct relationship of the Dodo to the _pigeons_. He has recently been engaged in a voyage round the world, but it is known that, before he left Copenhagen in 1845, he had called the attention of his correspondents, both in Sweden and Denmark, to "the striking affinity which exists between this extinct bird and the pigeons, especially the Trerons." The Columbine view is that taken up, and so admirably illustrated, by Mr Strickland, the most recent as well as the best biographer of the Dodo. He refers to the great strength and curvature of bill exhibited by several groups of the tropical fruit-eating pigeons, and adds:

"If we now regard the Dodo as an extreme modification, not of
the vultures, but of those vulture-like frugivorous pigeons,
we shall, I think, class it in a group whose characters are
far more consistent with what we know of its structure and
habits. There is no _a priori_ reason why a pigeon should not
be so modified, in conformity with external circumstances,
as to be incapable of flight, just as we see a grallatorial
bird modified into an ostrich, and a diver into a penguin. Now
we are told that Mauritius, an island forty miles in length,
and about one hundred miles from the nearest land, was, when
discovered, clothed with dense forests of palms and various
other trees. A bird adapted to feed on the fruits produced by
these forests would, in that equable climate, have no occasion
to migrate to distant lands; it would revel in the perpetual
luxuries of tropical vegetation, and would have but little need
of locomotion. Why then should it have the means of flying? Such
a bird might wander from tree to tree, tearing with its powerful
beak the fruits which strewed the ground, and digesting their
stony kernels with its powerful gizzard, enjoying tranquillity
and abundance, until the arrival of man destroyed the balance
of animal life, and put a term to its existence. Such, in my
opinion, was the Dodo,--a colossal, brevipennate, frugivorous
pigeon."--(P. 40.)

For the various osteological and other details by which the Columbine character of the Dodo is maintained, and as we think established, we must refer our readers to Mr Strickland's volume,[22] where those parts of the subject are very skilfully worked out by his able coadjutor, Dr Melville.

[22] In regard to the figures by which it is illustrated, we beg
to call attention very specially to Plates VIII. and IX., as the
most beautiful examples of the lithographic art, applied to natural
history, which we have yet seen executed in this country.

We shall now proceed to notice certain other extinct species which form the dead relations of the Dodo, just as the pigeons continue to represent the tribe from which they have departed. The island Rodriguez, placed about three hundred miles eastward of the Mauritius, though not more than fifteen miles long by six broad, possessed in modern times a peculiar bird, also without effective wings, and in several other respects resembling the Dodo. It was named _Solitaire_ by the early voyagers, and forms the species _Didus solitarius_ of systematic writers. The small island in question seems to have remained in a desert and unpeopled state until 1691, when a party of French Protestant refugees settled upon it, and remained for a couple of years. The Solitaire is thus described by their commander, Francois Leguat, who (in his _Voyage et Avantures_, 1708) has given us an interesting account both of his own doings in general, and of this species in particular.

"Of all the birds in the island, the most remarkable is that
which goes by the name of the _Solitary_, because it is very
seldom seen in company, though there are abundance of them. The
feathers of the male are of a brown-gray colour, the feet and
beak are like a turkey's, but a little more crooked. They have
scarce any tail, but their hind part, covered with feathers,
is roundish like the crupper of a horse: they are taller
than turkeys; their neck is straight, and a little longer in
proportion than a turkey's, when it lifts up its head. Its eye
is black and lively, and its head without comb or cap. They
never fly; their wings are too little to support the weight of
their bodies; they serve only to beat themselves, and to flutter
when they call one another. They will whirl about for twenty or
thirty times together on the same side, during the space of four
or five minutes. The motion of their wings makes then a noise
very much like that of a rattle, and one may hear it two hundred
paces off. The bone of their wing grows greater towards the
extremity, and forms a little round mass under the feathers, as
big as a musket-ball. That and its beak are the chief defence of
this bird. 'Tis very hard to catch it in the woods, but easier
in open places, because we run faster than they, and sometimes
we approach them without much trouble. From March to September
they are extremely fat, and taste admirably well, especially
while they are young; some of the males weigh forty-five pounds.

"The females" continues our enamoured author, "are wonderfully
beautiful, some fair, some brown,--I call them fair, because
they are of the colour of fair hair. They have a sort of peak
like a widow's upon their beak, which is of a dun colour. No
one feather is straggling from the other all over their bodies,
they being very careful to adjust themselves, and make them all
even with their beaks. The feathers on their thighs are round
like shells at the end, and, being there very thick, have an
agreeable effect. They have two risings on their crops, and the
feathers are whiter there than the rest, which lively represents
the fair neck of a beautiful woman. They walk with so much
stateliness and good grace, that one cannot help admiring and
loving them; by which means their fine mien often saves their
lives. Though these birds will sometimes very familiarly come
up near enough to one, when we do not run after them, yet they
will never grow tame. As soon as they are caught they shed
tears without crying, and refuse all manner of meat till they
die."--(P. 71.)

Their natural food is the fruit of a species of plantain. When these birds are about to build, they select a clean place, and then gather together a quantity of palm-leaves, which they heap up about a foot and a half high, and there they sit. They never lay but one egg, which greatly exceeds that of a goose. Some days after the young one has left the nest, a company of thirty or forty grown-up birds brings another young one to it; and the new-fledged bird, with its father and mother, joining with the band, they all march away to some by-place.

"We frequently followed them," says Leguat, "and found that
afterwards the old ones went each their way alone, or in
couples, and left the two young ones together, and this we
called a _marriage_. This particularity has something in it
which looks a little fabulous; nevertheless what I say is
sincere truth, and what I have more than once observed with care
and pleasure."

Leguat gives a figure of this singular bird, which in his plate has somewhat of the air and aspect of a Christmas goose, although, of course, it wants the web-feet. Its neck and legs are proportionally longer than those parts of the Dodo, and give it more of a _struthious_ appearance: but the existing osteological evidence is sufficient to show that it was closely allied to that bird, and shared with it in some peculiar affinities to the pigeon tribe. It is curious that, although Rodriguez is a British settlement, we have scarcely any information regarding it beyond what is to be found in the work last quoted, and all that we have since learned of the Solitary is that it has become extinct. Of late years Mr Telfair made inquiries of one of the colonists, who assured him that no such bird now existed on the island; and the same negative result was obtained by Mr Higgins, a Liverpool gentleman, who, after suffering shipwreck on Rodriguez, resided there for a couple of months. As far back as 1789, some bones incrusted by a stalagmite, and erroneously supposed to belong to the Dodo, were found in a cave in Rodriguez by a M. Labistour. They afterwards found their way to Paris, where they may still be seen. We are informed (_Proceedings of the Zoological Society_, Part I. p. 31) that Col. Dawkins recently visited these caverns, and dug without finding any thing but a small bone. But M. Eudes succeeded in disinterring various bones, among others those of a large species of bird no longer found alive upon the island. He adds that the Dutch, who first landed at Rodriguez, left cats there to destroy the rats, which annoyed them. These cats are now so numerous as to prove very destructive to the poultry, and he thinks it probable that these feline wanderers may have extirpated the bird in question, by devouring the young ones as soon as they were hatched,--a destruction which may have been effected even before the island became inhabited by the human race. Be that as it may, Mr Telfair sent collections of the bones to this country, one of which may be seen in the museum of the Andersonian Institution, Glasgow. Mr Strickland mourns over the loss or disappearance of those transmitted to the Zoological Society of London. We have been informed within these few days that, like the head of the Danish Dodo, they have been rediscovered, lying in a stable or other outhouse, in the vicinity of the museum of that Society. Both the Glasgow specimens, and those in Paris, have been carefully examined and compared by Mr Strickland, and their Columbine characters are minutely described by his skilful and accurate coadjutor, Dr Melville, in the second portion of his work. Mr S. very properly regards certain peculiarities, alluded to by Leguat, such as the feeding on dates or plantains, as confirmatory of his view of the natural affinities already mentioned.

So much for the Solitaire of Rodriguez and its affinities.[23] A singular fact, however, remains to be yet attended to in this insular group. The volcanic island of Bourbon seems also to have contained _brevi-pennate_ birds, whose inability to fly has likewise led to their extinction. This island, which lies about a hundred miles south-west of Mauritius, was discovered contemporaneously by Pedro de Mascaregnas, in the sixteenth century. The earliest notice which concerns our present inquiry, is by Captain Castleton, who visited Bourbon in 1613. In the narrative, as given by Purchas, we read as follows:--

"There is store of land-fowl, both small and great, plentie of
doves, great parrats, and suchlike, and a great fowl of the
bignesse of a turkie, very fat, and so short-winged that they
cannot flie, beeing white, and in a manner tame; and so are all
other fowles, as having not been troubled nor feared with shot.
Our men did beat them down with sticks and stones."--(Ed. 1625,
vol. i. p. 331.)

[23] The companions of Vasco de Gama had, at an earlier period,
applied the name of _Solitaires_ to certain birds found in an
island near the Cape of Good Hope; but these must not be confounded
with those of the Didine group above referred to. They were, in
fact, penguins, and their wings were somewhat vaguely compared
to those of bats, by reason of the peculiar scaly or undeveloped
state of the feathers in these birds. Dr Hamel has shown that the
term _Solitaires_, as employed by the Portuguese sailors, was a
corruption of _sotilicairos_, an alleged Hottentot word, of which
we do not profess to know the meaning, being rather rusted in that
tongue. We know, however, that penguins are particularly gregarious,
and, therefore, by no means solitary, although they may be extremely
_sotilicairious_ for anything we can say to the contrary.

Bontekoe van Hoorn, a Dutch voyager, spent twenty-one days in Bourbon in 1618, and found the island to abound in pigeons, parrots, and other species, among which "there were also _Dod-eersen_, which have small wings; and so far from being able to fly, they were so fat that they could scarcely walk, and when they tried to run, they dragged their under side along the ground." There is no reason to suppose that these birds were actual Dodos, of the existence of which in Bourbon there is not the slightest proof. That Bontekoe's account was compiled from recollection rather than from any journal written at the time, is almost certain from this tragical fact, that his ship was afterwards blown up, and he himself was the sole survivor. There is no likelihood that he preserved his papers any more than his portmanteau, and he no doubt wrote from remembrance of a large _brevipennate_ bird, whose indolent and unfearing tameness rendered it an easy prey. Knowing that a bird of a somewhat similar nature inhabited the neighbouring island, he took it for the same, and called it Dodo, by a corresponding term.

A Frenchman of the name of Carré visited Bourbon in 1668, and in his _Voyages des Indes Orientales_, he states as follows:--

"I have seen a kind of bird which I have not found elsewhere; it
is that which the inhabitants call the _oiseau solitaire_, for
in fact it loves solitude, and only frequents the most secluded
places. One never sees two or more of them together, they are
always alone. It is not unlike a turkey, were it not that its
legs are longer. The beauty of its plumage is delightful to
behold. The flesh is exquisite; it forms one of the best dishes
in this country, and might form a dainty at our tables. We
wished to keep two of these birds to send to France and present
them to his Majesty, but, as soon as they were on board ship,
they died of melancholy, having refused to eat or drink."--(Vol.
i. p. 12.)

Almost immediately after M. Carré's visit, a French colony was sent from Madagascar to Bourbon, under the superintendence of M. de la Haye. A certain Sieur D. B. (for this is all that is known of his name or designation) was one of the party, and has left a narrative of the expedition in an unpublished journal, acquired by Mr Telfair, and presented by him to the Zoological Society of London. Besides confirming the accounts given by preceding writers, this unknown author affords a conclusive proof that a second species of the same group inhabited the Island of Bourbon. We are indebted to Mr Strickland for the original passages and the following translation:--

1. "_Solitaires._--These birds are so called because they always
go alone. They are the size of a large goose, and are white,
with the tips of the wings and the tail black. The tail-feathers
resemble those of an ostrich; the neck is long, and the beak
is like that of a woodcock, but larger; the legs and feet like
those of turkeys."

2. "_Oiseaux bleus_, the size of _Solitaires_, have the plumage
wholly blue, the beak and feet red, resembling the feet of a
hen. They do not fly, but they run extremely fast, so that a dog
can hardly overtake them; they are very good eating."

There is proof that one or other of these singular and now unknown birds existed in Bourbon, at least till toward the middle of the last century. M. Billiard, who resided there between 1817 and 1820, states (in his _Voyages aux Colonies Orientales_) that, at the time of the first colonisation of the island, "the woods were filled with birds which were not alarmed at the approach of man. Among them was the _Dodo_ or _Solitaire_, which was pursued on foot: they were still to be seen in the time of M. de la Bourdonnaye, who sent a specimen, as a curiosity, to one of the directors of the company." As the gentleman last named was governor of the Isles of France and Bourbon from 1735 to 1746, these birds, Mr Strickland observes, _must_ have survived to the former, and _may_ have continued to the latter date at least. But when M. Bory St Vincent made a careful survey of the island in 1801, no such species were to be found. The description of the bill and plumage shows that they were not genuine Dodos, but merely entitled to be classed among their kindred. Not a vestige of their remains is in the hands of naturalists, either in this or any other country.

We have now finished, under Mr Strickland's guidance, our exposition of this curious group. The restriction, at any time, of such large birds to islands of so small a size, is certainly singular. We cannot, however, say what peculiar and unknown geological changes these islands may have undergone, by which their extent has been diminished, or their inter-connexion destroyed. Volcanic groups, such as those in question, are no doubt generally of less ancient origin than most others; but it is by no means unlikely that these islands of Rodriguez, Bourbon, and Mauritius, may once have formed a united group, or much more expanded mass of terra firma than they now exhibit; and that, by their partial submergence and separation, the dominions of the Dodo and its kindred have, like those of many other heavy chieftains of high degree, been greatly diminished and laid low. But into this question of ancient boundaries we cannot now enter.

How pleasant, on some resplendent summer evening, in such a delicious clime as that of the Mauritius, the sun slowly sinking amid a gorgeous blaze of light, and gilding in green and gold the spreading summits of the towering palms,--the murmuring sea sending its refreshing vesper-breathings through all the "pillared shades" which stretch along that glittering shore,--how pleasant, we say, for wearied man to sit in leafy umbrage, and sup on Dodos and their kindred! Alas! we shall never see such days again.

Dr Hamel, as native of a northern country, is fond of animal food, and has his senses, naturally sharp enough, so whetted thereby, that he becomes "sagacious of his _quarry_ from afar." He judiciously observes, in his recent memoir, (_Der Dodo_, &c.,) that in Leguat's map the place is accurately indicated where the common kitchen of the settlers stood, and where the great tree grew under which they used to sit, on a bench, to take their meals. Both tree and bench are marked upon the map. "At these two spots," says Dr Hamel, "it is probable that the bones of a complete skeleton of Leguat's solitaire might be collected; those of the head and feet on the site of the kitchen, and the sternum and other bones on that of the tree."

"I feel confident," says Mr Strickland, "that if active
naturalists would make a series of excavations in the alluvial
deposits, in the beds of streams, and amid the ruins of old
institutions in Mauritius, Bourbon, and Rodriguez, he would
speedily discover the remains of the dodo, the two 'solitaires,'
or the 'oiseau bleu.' But I would especially direct attention
to the caves with which these volcanic islands abound. The
chief agents in the destruction of the brevipennate birds were
probably the runaway negroes, who for many years infested
the primeval forests of these islands, and inhabited the
caverns, where they would doubtless leave the scattered bones
of the animals on which they fed. Here, then, may we more
especially hope to find the osseous remains of these remarkable
animals."--(P. 61.)

THE SWORD OF HONOUR.

A TALE OF 1787.

Any old directory of the latter half of the last century will still show, to the curious in such matters, the address of Messrs. Hope and Bullion, merchants and general dealers at No. 4, in a certain high and narrow street in the city of London. Not that this, in itself, is a very valuable part of history; but to those who look up at the dirty windows of the house as it now stands, and compare the narrow pavement and cit-like appearance of the whole locality with the splendours of Oxford Square or Stanhope Place, where the business occupant of the premises has now his residence, it will be a subject of doubt, if not of unbelief, that Mr Bullion--who dwelt in the upper portions of the building--was as happy, and nearly as proud, as his successor at the present time. Yet so it is; and, without making invidious comparisons with the distinguished-looking lady who does the honours of the mansion in Oxford Square--her father was a sugar baker, and lived in a magnificent country house at Mussel hill. I will venture to state, that Mr Bullion had great reason to be satisfied with the manners and appearance of the young person who presided at his festive board. Such a rich laugh, and such a sweet voice, were heard in no other house in the town. And as to her face and figure, the only dispute among painters and sculptors was, whether the ever-varying expression of her features did not constitute her the true property of the Reynoldses and Romneys,--or the ever-exquisite moulding of her shape did not bring her within the province of the severer art. At the same time it must be confessed, that the subject of these disputes took no interest either in brush or chisel. A bright, happy, clever creature--but no judge of sciences and arts--was Louise Bullion. Books she had read a few, and music she had studied a little; yet, with her slender knowledge of the circulating library, she talked more pleasantly than Madame de Staël, and sang so sweetly, so naturally, and so truly, that Mrs Billington was a fool to her. She was a parlour Jenny Lind. But Mrs Billington was not the only person who was a fool to her. Oh no!--that sort of insanity was epidemic, and seized on all that came near her. Even Mr Cocker the book-keeper--a little man of upwards of fifty, who was so simple, and knew so little of anything but arithmetic, that he always considered himself, and was considered by the people, a boy just getting on in his teens--even Mr Cocker was a fool to her too. For when he was invited to tea, and had his cups sweetened by her hand, and his whole heart turned, by some of her pathetic ballads, into something so soft and oily that it must have been just like one of the muffins she laid on his plate, he used to go away with a very confused idea of cube roots, and get into the most extraordinary puzzles in the rule of three. Miss Louise, he said, would never go out of his head; whereas she had never once got into it, having established her quarters very comfortably in another place a little lower down, just inside of the brass buttons on his left breast; and yet the poor old fellow went down to his grave without the remotest suspicion that he had ever been in love. The people used to say that his perplexities, on those occasions, were principally remarkable after supper--for an invitation to tea, in those hospitable times, included an afterpiece in the shape of some roaring hot dishes, and various bowls of a stout and jovial beverage, whose place, I beg to say, is poorly supplied by any conceivable quantity of negus and jellies! Yes, the people used to say that Cocker's difficulties in calculation arose from other causes than his admiration of Miss Louise and her songs; but this was a calumny--and, in fact, any few extra glasses he took were for the express purpose of clearing his head, after it had got bewildered by her smiles and music; and therefore how could they possibly be the cause of his bewilderment? I repeat that Mr Cocker was afflicted by the universal disease, and would have died with the greatest happiness to give her a moment's satisfaction. And so would all the clerks, except one, who was very short-sighted and remarkably deaf, and who was afterwards tried on suspicion of having poisoned his wife; and so would her aunt, Miss Lucretia Smith, though her kindness was so wonderfully disguised that the whole world would have been justified in considering it harshness and ill-nature. It was only her way of bestowing it--as if you were to pour out sugar from a vinegar cruet; and a good old, fussy, scolding, grumbling, advising, tormenting, and very loving lady was Miss Lucretia Smith--very loving, I say, not only of her niece, and her brother-in-law, but of anybody that would agree to be loved. Traditions existed that, in her youth, she had been a tremendous creature for enthusiasms and romances; that she had flirted with all the officers of the city militia, from the colonel downwards, and with all the Lord Mayors' chaplains for an infinite series of years; and that, though nothing came of all her praiseworthy efforts, time had had a strengthening instead of a weakening effect on all these passages--till now, in her fifty-third year, she actually believed she had been in love with them all, and on the point of marriage with more than half.

And this constituted the whole of Mr Bullion's establishment--at least all his establishment which was regularly on the books; but there was a young man so constantly in the house--so much at home there--so welcome when he came, so wondered at when he staid away--in short, so much one of the family, that I will only say, if he was not considered a member of it, he ought to have been. For what, I pray you, constitutes membership, if intimacy, kindness, perpetual presence, and filial and fraternal affection--filial to the old man, fraternal to the young lady--do not constitute it? You might have sworn till doomsday, but Mr Cecil Hope would never have believed that his home was anywhere but at No. 4. Nay, when, by some accident, he found himself for a day in a very pretty, very tasteful, and very spacious house he had in Hertfordshire, with a ring-fence of fourteen hundred acres round it, he felt quite disconsolate, and as if he were in a strange place. The estate had been bought, the house had been built--as the money had been acquired, by his father, who was no less a person than the senior partner in the firm of Hope and Bullion, but had withdrawn his capital from the trade, laid it out in land, superintended the erection of his mansion, pined for his mercantile activities, and died in three years of having nothing to do. So Cecil was rich and unencumbered; he was also as handsome as the Apollo, who, they say, would be a very vulgar-looking fellow if he dressed like a Christian; and he (not the Apollo, but Cecil Hope) was four-and-twenty years of age, five feet eleven in height, and as pleasant a fellow as it is possible to conceive. So you may guess whether or not he was in love with Louise. Of course he was,--haven't I said he was a young man of some sense, and for whom I have a regard? He adored her. And now you will, perhaps, be asking if the admiration was returned--and that is one of the occasions on which an impertinent reader has a great advantage over the best and cunningest of authors. They can ask such impudent questions,--which they would not dare to do unless under the protection and in the sanctuary, as it were, of print, and look so amazingly knowing while pausing for a reply, that I have no patience with the fellows at all; and, in answer to their demand whether Louise returned the love of Cecil Hope, I will only say this--I will see them hanged first, before I gratify their curiosity. Indeed, how could I hold up my head in any decent society again, if I were to commit such a breach of confidence as that? Imagine me confessing that she looked always fifty times happier in his presence than when he was away--imagine me confessing that her heart beat many thumps quicker when anybody mentioned his name--imagine me, I say, confessing all this, and fifty things more, and then calling myself a man of honour and discretion! No: I say again I will see the reader hanged first, before I will answer his insolent question; so let that be an understood thing between us, that I will never reveal any secret with which a young lady is kind enough to intrust me.

And this, I think, is a catalogue of all the household above the good old warehouse. Ah! no,--there is the excellent Mr Bullion himself. He is now sixty; he has white hair, a noble, even a _distingué_ figure: look into any page of any fashionable novel of any year, for an explanation of what that means. On the present occasion, you would perhaps conclude that the long-backed, wide-tailed blue coat, the low-flapped waistcoat, tight-fitting knee-br--ch--s, white cotton stockings in-doors, long gaiters out, with bright-buckled square-toed shoes, may be a little inconsistent with the epithet _distingué_. But this is a vulgar error, and would argue that nobody could look _distingué_ without lace and brocade. Now, only imagine Mr Bullion in a court-dress, with a silk bag floating over his shoulder, to tie up long tresses which have disappeared from his head for many years; a diamond-hilted rapier that probably has no blade, and all the other portions of that graceful and easy style of habiliment,--dress him in this way, and look at him bowing gracefully by means of his three-cornered hat, and you will surely grant he would be a _distingué_ figure then,--and why not in his blue coat and smalls?

But _distingué_-looking men, even in court-dresses, may be great rascals, and even considerable fools. Then was Mr Bullion a rascal?--no. A fool?--no. In short, he was one of the best of men, and could have been recognised during his life, if any one had described him in the words of his epitaph.

Well,--we must get on. Day after day, for several months before the date we have got to, a sort of mystery seemed to grow deeper and deeper on the benevolent features of the father of Louise. Something--nobody could tell what--had lifted him out of his ordinary self. He dropt dark hints of some great change that was shortly to take place in the position of the family: he even took many opportunities of lecturing Cecil Hope on the miseries of ill-assorted marriages, particularly where the lady was of a family immeasurably superior to the man's. Miss Smith thought he was going to be made Lord Mayor; Cecil Hope supposed he was about to be appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer; and Louise thought he was growing silly, and took no notice of all the airs he put on, and the depreciatory observations he made on the rank of a country squire. As to Mr Cocker, he was already fully persuaded that his master was the greatest man in the world, and, if he had started for king, would have voted him to the throne without a moment's hesitation. At last the origin of all these proceedings on the part of Mr Bullion began to be suspected. A little dark man, with the brightest possible eyes, shrouded in a great cloak, with a broad-brimmed hat carefully drawn over his brows, and just showing to the affrighted maid who opened the door the aforesaid eyes, fixed on her with such an expression of inquiry that they fully supplied the difficulty he experienced in asking for Mr Bullion in words,--for he was a foreigner, not much gifted with the graces of English pronunciation. This little dark and inquisitive man came to the house two or three times a-week, and spent several hours in close consultation with Mr Bullion. On emerging from these councils, it was easy to see, by that gentleman's countenance, whether the affair, whatever it was, was in a prosperous condition or not. Sometimes he came into the supper-room gloomy and silent, sometimes tripping in like a sexagenarian Taglioni, and humming a French song,--for his knowledge of that language was extraordinary,--and his whole idea of a daughter's education seemed to be, to make her acquire the true Parisian accent, and to read Molière and Corneille. So Louise, to gratify the whim of her father, had made herself perfect in the language, and could have entered into a correspondence with Madame de Sevigné without a single false concord, or a mistake in spelling. Who could this little man be, who had such influence on her father's spirits? They watched him, but could see nothing but the dark cloak and slouched hat, which disappeared down some side street, and would have puzzled one of the detective police to keep them in view. Her thoughts rested almost constantly on this subject. Even at church--for they were regular church-goers, and very decided Protestants, as far as their religious feelings could be shown in hating the devil and the Pope--she used to watch her father's face, but could read nothing there but a quiet devotion during the prayers, and an amiable condescension while listening to the sermon. Rustlings of papers as the little visitor slipt along the passage, revealed the fact that there were various documents required in their consultations; and on one particular occasion, after an interview of unusual duration, Mr Bullion accompanied his mysterious guest to the door, and was overheard, by the conclave who were assembled in the little parlour for supper, very warm in his protestations of obligation for the trouble he had taken, and concluding with these remarkable words--"Assure his Excellency of my highest consideration, and that I shall not lose a moment in throwing myself at the feet of the King." Louise looked at Cecil on hearing these words; and as Cecil would probably have been looking at Louise, whether he had heard these words or not, their eyes met with an expression of great bewilderment and surprise,--the said bewilderment being by no means diminished when his visitor replied--"His Excellency kisses your hands, and I leave your Lordship in the holy keeping of the saints."

"Papa is rather flighty--don't you think so, Cecil?" said Louise.

"Both mad," answered that gentleman with a shake of the head.

"Mr Bullion is going to be Lord Mayor," said Miss Lucretia, with a vivid remembrance of the flirtations and grandeurs of the Mansion-house.

Mr Cocker said nothing aloud, and was sorely puzzled for a long time, but ended with a confused notion, derived principally from the protection of the saints, that his patron was likely to be Pope. All, however, sank into a gaping silence of anticipation, when Mr Bullion, after shutting the door, as soon as his visitor had departed, began to whistle Malbrook, and came into the supper-room.