Chapter VI (3)

I said, nothing more, lest I should provoke her to bring an action for damages against me; but I found that, in the course of the morning, she went over all the rooms with a curious sort of an instrument, like a tin kettle, from which she emitted jets of scalding steam into all the cracks and crevices, and I will acknowledge that boiled bugs are not half so offensive as raw.

It took us a whole day to get shaken into our new abode, and to eat some exceedingly fat mutton-chops—about the fourth part of what the lady had provided for our dinner. What became of the remainder we never discovered, and I perceived, though Father Bonneville did not, that either from the sea air which we had lately enjoyed, or from some other cause, we had become inhumanly carnivorous, consuming at least, ten times the quantity of beef and mutton in a week than we had ever consumed in our lives before, together with an enormous quantity of bread and butter, and tea enough to have poisoned a Mandarin.

On the following day, with the good Father on my arm, I set out in search of Madame de Salins, taking care to ask our landlady, in the first place, the way to Swallow street.

“If you will just strike away by the market, sir—that is, St. James’ market—I don’t mean Carnaby, that’s a great way off, and take away up toward Oxford street, you’ll come right upon the end of Swallow street—or you can turn in by Major Foubert’s passage.”

I explained to her that I knew neither of the markets she mentioned, and had not the slightest acquaintance with her military friend who kept the passage; and then she laughed, and cried—

“Good lauk-a-daisy! I forgot. What a head I have to be sure; but there are so many things always a runnin’ in it.”

She then entered more into detail, told me the streets I was to take, by the designation of right hand and left hand, and counted up the turnings on her fat fingers, with which better information we set out, and steered pretty accurately. As we went, I could not refrain from talking to my good old friend about Madame de Salins and Mariette.

“Dear little thing,” I said: “I wonder if she recollects me.”

“She is probably no little thing now, Louis,” replied Father Bonneville, with a smile. “You always speak of her as if she was still a child; but she must be nearly a woman now.”

I gave a sigh; for I would fain have had Mariette always a child—the same little Mariette I had loved so well. I did not think she had any right to grow older; and the idea of that sweet little creature metamorphosed into a great, raw school-girl, of between fourteen and fifteen, was almost as painful to me, as the sight of sweet Anne Page changed into a great lubberly boy to poor Slender.

I was destined to a worse disappointment, however. Of all the streets in London, Swallow street was perhaps the most dim, dingy, and unprepossessing I had as yet seen, and when we found out number three, it presented to us a chemist’s shop, of a very poor class, with the windows so dirty, and spotted with dust and rain, that the blue and red bottles within were hardly visible. Over the door was the name of the proprietor “Giraud,” which was promising as a French name, and in we dived to make inquiries. Monsieur Giraud himself, proved, as we expected, a French emigrant, but he was the most sullen, uncommunicative, repulsive Frenchman I ever met with. I suppose exile, misfortune, and a poor trade had soured him. However, he showed us nothing but brutality as long as we spoke English, and was not very civil when we began to talk to him in French.

He knew nothing of Madame de Salins, he said: there was no such person in his house. There had been a whole heap of them, he added, when he bought the place some six months before, and he believed there was a woman and her daughter amongst them, but he had turned them all out, and knew nothing more of them.

The idea of Madame de Salins and my pretty little Mariette being forced to dwell at all in such a dim and dingy den, and then being turned into the street by such an old weazle-faced animal as that, roused my indignation, and I replied sharply, that he seemed to have very little compassion for his fellows in misfortune.

“_Sacre bleu!_ Why should I have compassion upon any men?” he asked bitterly; “they have had no compassion upon me. But I can have compassion, too. There’s that old rogue of a marquis up stairs. I let him have the room, dirt cheap, at his prayers and entreaties, although he would have turned up his nose at me in Paris. You can go and ask him if he knows any thing of the people you want—There, up that stairs.”

I mounted fast, and Father Bonneville followed me; the chemist shouting after me to go up to the third floor. There, in a wretched garret, we found one of the most miserable objects I ever beheld. Seated by a little fire, in a room hardly habitable, was an old man of upward of seventy, shrunk in body and limbs, but with his face bloated and heavy. He had got on an old, tattered dressing-gown, and a thick, black night-cap, and one of his legs was swathed in flannel. He held a little sauce-pan in his hand, over the fire, cooking a _ragout_ for himself, and an empty plate, with a knife and fork, stood upon the table, on which also lay a broad ribbon and a star. When we entered, he started up, and seeing two well-dressed strangers, set down the sauce-pan, wrapped his gown a little closer round him, and then drawing his two heels together, made us the bow of a dancing-master. He forgot not his _politesse_ for a moment, and besought us to be seated, with a simpering, half-fatuous smile, pointing to one whole and one half-chair, and then begged to know to what he might attribute the felicity of our visit—perhaps we were mistaken, he added, as he had not the pleasure of knowing us. We might be in search of some other person, but his poor name was Le Marquis d’ Carcassonne. I felt Father Bonneville, who was behind me, catch my arm suddenly, as if to check me for some reason; but I was anxious to obtain intelligence of Madame de Salins, and I asked the old gentleman if he could give us any news of her. He was profoundly grieved, he said in answer, that it was out or his power. He knew the family, by repute, well, and had heard of them even in London; but it was his inexpressible misfortune not to know where they were or what they were doing. He bowed as he spoke, as if he sought to signify that our audience was at its close, but before we retired, he added—

“May I inquire, monsieurs, if it be not indiscreet, whom I have the honor of seeing? I only ask, that I may tell Madame de Salins that you have done her the honor of calling upon her, in case I should meet with her in society.”

I replied briefly that my name was “Monsieur De Lacy,” but those words produced in an instant the most extraordinary effect. The bloated face of the old man, red and carbuncled as it was, turned deadly pale. He stood for a moment, and I could see him shake. I thought he was going to faint, but the next instant he walked to the chair, seated himself slowly, and waved his hand, saying—“Go, go.” At the same moment, Father Bonneville pulled me by the arm, exclaiming more vehemently than was usual with him:

“Come away, Louis, come away!”

I followed him down the stairs, and out into the street, and then asked—with a heart beating strangely—what was the meaning of all that had occurred, and who that old man was.

“The bitterest enemy of your family,” replied Father Bonneville; “the murderer of your father. And is this the end of all his pride, ruthless ambition and blood-thirsty persecution of the innocent! Ask me no questions, Louis, but avoid that man. The venom may be extinct, but he is a serpent still.”

BANKING MATTERS.

I walked home from the house in Swallow street exceedingly melancholy. That there was some dark mystery about my fate, was clear, and it presented itself in a more painful and tangible shape to my mind now, than it had ever done before; but, in truth, I must own that this was neither the sole nor the principal cause of the gloom that now fell upon me. I had looked forward to the meeting with Madame de Salins and Mariette, with a sort of childish, delighted expectation, which had given a relief to darker and more sorrowful thoughts. A thousand sweet memories of childhood had risen up like flowers to cover the grave of more mature affection; and now they had withered also. A sensation of despondency came upon me; an impression: a feeling that I was never to be happy in affection; and this sort of sombre prepossession seemed to connect itself somehow with the fate of my family and my race.

It must not be thought, indeed, that I gave myself up to such dreary feelings without struggling against them, and even on the way back, I strove to speak cheerfully, and to answer Father Bonneville’s hopeful assertion, that we should find Madame de Salins yet, not quite as confidently, but without any display of the doubts which had possession of my own mind. At heart, however, I had given up all hope. I had never been one of those sanguine people, who believed their fortunes to be written in the chapter of accidents; and what but accident could produce a meeting between us and those we sought for, now that all clue was lost. Where, in that vast world of London—where in that thickly-peopled country, were we ever to hear of two unknown, and probably poor, exiles, such as Madame de Salins and her daughter. The very crowds that passed us in the street, hurrying eagerly and rapidly along, each one thinking of himself with eager face, and hardly noticing the others who passed, seemed to forbid such expectations.

“No, no,” I said to myself. “They are lost to us now, probably forever.”

I would not transact any business that day, although several hours of daylight still remained, and it would have been much better probably to have plunged into dry details at once; but there is generally an apathy about disappointment, at least there was with myself, and obtaining some books from a library, I sat reading somewhat listlessly during the whole evening, for many hours after Father Bonneville had retired to rest. From time to time I laid down the book, indeed, and thought of myself and of my future, and cross-examined myself in regard to the past. The book I had been reading was a sentimental one of the day, but not without considerable power. It treated of Love, amongst other things, and painted that passion with a fire and vehemence rarely seen in the works of English writers. I tried to test my love for my poor Louise, by the sentiments there expressed, and I felt sorry and angry with myself to find that my own feelings had never come up to the standard before me. That I had loved her with a deep, sincere, and strong attachment, I knew.—I was sure; and her gentle sweetness during her last hours, and her early fate, had only endeared her to me more, and made her memory precious to me. But yet I felt disappointed, grieved that I had not experienced that strong, vehement passion which the book before me depicted. It seemed almost to me as if I wronged her—as if she had been worthy of better, more earnest love than mine.

Upon the whole, the reading of that night, and the reflections which came with it, served not at all to cheer me; and I determined the next day to do what I had better have done at once—plunge into business, arrange my affairs, and ascertain precisely what my future means were to be. My first visit, of course, was to be made to the banker who had received the remittances from Germany, and I asked Father Bonneville to go with me. He declined, however, saying that he had some little affairs to transact himself, and would meet me at dinner in the evening. At this time, by an easy transition, he and I seemed to have in some degree changed places. I was anxious about him, careful of him, and hardly fancied that in that vast strange place he was capable of taking care of himself. I made him promise, therefore, that he would take a hackney-coach, and went away, not wishing to seem inquisitive as to his errand, although I could not help believing that I had personally something to do with the business he was about to transact.

At the bankers it was soon perceived by the clerks that I was utterly ignorant of business; but on giving my name, and stating what I wanted, I was introduced into a small, dingy room at the back of the building, where candles were lighted, and were necessary. By their light I perceived a fine-looking old gentleman, with a square face, and a large bald head, glossy as a mirror. My name had been announced to him before I entered, and he rose and shook me warmly by the hand, congratulating me on my safe arrival in England.

“We have had a little trouble,” he said, “about this business, for our friends at Hamburgh have a strange way of remitting money, by mercantile bills, for all sorts of sums, and at very various dates—none of them very long, it is true, but it gives our clerks a great deal of pains in collecting; and if you had arrived a month ago, you would have found that part of the business not concluded, Count.”

“I beg your pardon,” I said, with a smile, “I believe I have no right to the title you give me, although my recollections of France do not go further back than a period when all titles had been abolished. Citizen was the ordinary name in those days, and if strangers gave me any title at all at my age, it was ‘Gamin.’”

The banker seemed surprised, and for a moment looked a little suspicious, as if he thought it might be a case of personation. “But you are the gentleman,” he said, “who married the daughter of Professor—Professor—”

“Of Professor Haas,” I said, in a grave tone.

“Ay, exactly, exactly—Professor Haas,” rejoined the banker. “But you have, of course, the letter announcing this remittance to our hands?”

“Oh, yes,” I answered, now seeing in which way his suspicions turned; “I have both the letter from Hamburgh, and the marriage contract, which I shall always keep. There is the letter;” and taking out my pocket-book, I handed it to him. The banker himself could make nothing of the contents, for it was written it German, of which he did not understand a word; but he sent for a clerk who did, and in the meanwhile pointed out something I had never remarked before in the address, which was written in a good, round, text hand. At the top was written as usual, “à monsieur,” and underneath appeared, somewhat run together, the words “Le comte,” which I had read Louis.

“You see he gives you the ‘Count’ at all events,” said the banker, rubbing his hands.

“I did not remark it before,” I answered; “and I shall certainly never take the title here.”

“By the way, by the way,” said the banker, “if I recollect right, there is a letter for you here;” and handing the one I had given him to the Clerk who had now entered, he said to him, “Be so good as to read that, and let me know what it says.”

The clerk read off fluently, and translated with ease the contents of the notary’s letter, and then said, pointing to me, “This must be the Count de Lacy, sir.”

“He wont have the count—he wont have the count,” cried the banker, laughing.

“Well, sir, I suppose that is as he pleases,” said the grave clerk; “but had I not better get the letter that is here for him?”

It was soon brought, and I found it was from my good friend the notary, containing two documents of much but very different interest. The one was an inscription for the tomb of my poor Louise, drawn up by his fellow executor, in which she was styled Countess de Lacy; and the other was a letter from London, which had been received by one of the principal authorities of Hamburgh, informing him that a rumor had reached persons in England, interested in the welfare of a young gentleman named Louis Count de Lacy, to the effect that he and his tutor Father Bonneville, having emigrated from France, and been driven out of Switzerland, were directing their steps toward the North of Germany, or to Russia; and requesting the authorities of Hamburgh, if they should appear in that city, to notify to Father Bonneville that the allowance previously made would be continued; but that the banking-house at which it was paid was changed to one which had been mentioned in a previous letter.

“This will be good news for Father Bonneville,” I said, handing the letter to the banker, who could make that out very well. He seemed now perfectly satisfied, but still inquired where Father Bonneville was to be found. I replied that he was with me in London, which seemed to satisfy him still more; and the clerk nodded his head, and said in a significant tone, “It’s all right, sir.”

Wonderful it is, how many men who transact a great deal of very important business, are mere machines, guided by their subordinates. They are but the hands of the clock, moved by wheels below them. Probably but for the clerk’s saying, “It’s all right, sir,” I should have got through very little business that day.

Now, however, every thing went on smoothly. Accounts were produced; calculations rapidly made; various particulars, which might as well have been written in Sanscrit, were explained to me in terms which might as well have been Arabic; and in the end I found myself possessed of property which the banker informed me would produce, if rightly invested, an income of about eight hundred pounds a year. As I had never been accustomed to calculate in pounds sterling, I found it somewhat difficult to get the idea thereof disconnected from that of dollars, and the banker had to explain to me, that eight hundred pounds a year made so many _marks banco_, before I perceived that I was what might be considered a very wealthy man—at least in Germany. I knew that the good professor had possessed the reputation of being so; but I was not before aware to what extent his accumulations had gone. My good friend the banker advised me to have the amount invested for the time in public funds, offered his assistance and advice as to its future employment, and ended by inviting both myself and Father Bonneville to dine with him on that day week.

I accepted for myself, but expressed a fear that my old companion would not be well enough to go into society, and then took my leave, for it was by this time late, and the banking-house was at the far end of that dingy, busy, industrious ant-hill called “the city.”

When I got home to our little lodging, I found that Father Bonneville had returned, and was waiting dinner for me; and I could see by his face in a moment, that whatever had been the object of his expedition in the morning, he had been disappointed. I gave him a general account of what had occurred, told him the amount which we might annually count upon, and in the end gave him the letter which had been sent to the authorities at Hamburgh, which seemed to afford him some satisfaction, but not so much as I had anticipated. He made very few comments upon the letter itself, but pointed to the title of Count which had been given to me with a melancholy smile, saying, “You have a right to it, Louis, but if you take my advice, you will not assume it in this country.”

“I do not intend, my dear friend,” I replied; “but really all these mysteries are painful to me. The time must come when all these things should be explained, and I would fain know when that will be.”

“Yet a little, yet a little, Louis,” replied the good father, with a deprecating look. “It may be one or two years, but not more, I think—not more.”

“But, good father,” I answered, “you ought, at all events, to give me the means of tracing out my own history, even though I use them not for the time you mention. Life is uncertain, and were you taken from me, I have not the slightest clue.”

“You will find it amongst my papers, whenever death calls me hence,” replied Father Bonneville. “Every information and proof I collected long ago; and in all the passages which we have lately undergone—in exile—in poverty, and in peril, I have preserved them safely. But I really would not take this name of Count—I would call myself merely Mr. De Lacy. That is a common name in England; and you may very well pass for an Englishman—the other title might do harm.”

I again assured him that I had no intention of assuming any title at all. But however strong might be my resolution, I found it difficult to keep. The banker’s clerks knew me by that title; and the banker himself, when I went to dine with him, used it in introducing me to several people. I declined it, however, wherever I could do so without affectation, and made it sufficiently apparent that it was no assumption of my own.

The party was large; the house in the west end of the town, most magnificent; and a great number of persons were present, some of whom I found were of the _élite_ of London society. It was very much the same sort of party as all others in great capitals; and most of my readers must have seen a thousand such. There were several insignificant puppies, several equally insignificant, but very pretty young women, a majority, however, of highly respectable, well-informed, gentleman-like, but not very interesting people, and two or three of higher qualities, polished, but not worn down in the polishing, with hearts as well as minds, and not only with information, but with the will and the power to apply it. It fortunately happened for me that some of these sat near me at the table. One was a lady of the middle age, who was called Lady Maria, and whose husband, a Commoner, and an eminent lawyer, sat higher up the table; and another was a young man, dressed in the very height of the fashion, and having a somewhat foppish air, which at first prejudiced me a little against him. I soon found occasion to change my opinion however; for, though he did not talk much, whatever he did say was to the point; and allusion having been made to one of those very common cases in great cities, where a man of high rank had behaved very ill to a lady somewhat inferior in station, my friend with mustaches, on the right, burst suddenly forth in a strain of indignant reprobation, which made some of the other guests smile, and one of the ladies say, laughingly, “You have been so long away, Charley, following your uncivilized trade of fighting, that you have forgotten how delicately such civilized vices require to be treated.”

“They shall never be treated delicately by me, my dear aunt,” replied the young gentleman; “and at all events, I haven’t forgotten one thing in my trade of fighting, that there is such a thing as honor, which must be remembered as much in our conduct toward a woman, as in our conduct toward a man.”

When the ladies had retired, he remained next to me, and we had a good deal of conversation. I found he was a cavalry officer, who had seen some service, notwithstanding his youth; and was in London for a few months on leave of absence, in order to recover completely from a severe wound in the chest. He once or twice called me Count; but as we grew better acquainted over the wine, I begged him to drop the title, as it was not my intention to assume it at all, while in England at least.

“It is my right, I believe,” I said; “but I quitted France at a very early period, and have never been so called.”

“Well, I think you are right,” he replied. “Since England has become the exile’s home, as we are proud to call it, we have had such a crowd of Counts and Marquises of different kinds, that we have a difficulty in distinguishing the genuine from the false. You would, of course, pass muster, both from your appearance, and from the fact, which our good friend the banker here has taken care to communicate to tongues that will spread it, that you are that phœnix amongst Counts and Marquises—a rich _émigré_. But the title of Count would do you no good amongst our best people, who will like you quite as well as plain Mr. De Lacy; and as such, if you will permit me, I will ask for you to-morrow.”

I expressed the great pleasure I should have to see him, giving him my address. But I will not dwell longer on this dinner-party, as the few incidents I have related were the only ones which occurred that had any effect upon my fate.

GLIMPSES OF THE LOST.

New circumstances justified many new arrangements, upon which I will only dwell for a moment. The morning after the dinner-party at the banker’s, Father Bonneville and I had a long conversation in regard to our future proceedings. The sum I now possessed seemed almost as large to the good Father’s notions as to my own; for, to say truth, he had not much more experience in money matters than myself. It was agreed that we should set up house-keeping together, I insisted that he should have a little vehicle—one of those neat one horse equipages, in producing which England excels the whole world—and he hinted that I had better have a saddle-horse, when one man would do for both. Between twelve and one o’clock my new friend, Captain Westover, came to see me, and was taken into our councils. He somewhat clouded our sanguine views of wealth, by explaining to us the expenses of English living: but still with all allowances made, we found that we had ample means for any thing within our ambition, and in the course of the explanations which took place, I learned that, in addition to what I had myself, Father Bonneville counted on receiving from some source or another, the sum of three hundred pounds per annum. After half an hour’s chat, Captain Westover proposed to drive me out in search of horses and houses, in a machine of his, then very fashionable in London, called a tilbury, which had brought him to the door. His servant was turned out, and I took the vacant place. He advised me strongly, for a time at least, to take a furnished cottage at some little distance from London. “You can come in when you like,” he said, “and there you will be more out of harm’s way. Excuse me, De Lacy,” he continued with a laugh, “but every man entering a great town like this, must be a little green at first, whatever may be his experience of other places. It would be better for you to come to a knowledge of London by degrees, and that can only be done by living a little way out of it. With all its vices, its knavery, and its abomination, there is no place like this great capital of ours in the world for the comfort of having every thing that one can want, or desire, or dream of, ready for one in an instant. Each man can choose according to his means or his ambition. From the St. Giles cellar of the thief or the professional beggar, to the princely palace of the nobleman or the great merchant, every thing is at hand, and two or three taps of an enchanter’s wand bring it into presence in a moment. So I will answer for it, that we shall find what you want in the way of a house, in two or three hours; but don’t have it too big: otherwise people will be coming to dine with you and stay all night, a most harmonious and agreeable way of being eaten out of house and home.”

Though brisk, active, generous and dashing, Captain Westover was a good man of business, knew whatever he did know, well, was aware of the right price of every thing, and I believe in the course of the next two or three weeks, saved me several hundred pounds, besides putting me completely in the way of doing the same for myself at an after period. I will not dwell upon all our perquisitions. Let me come to the result. Behold me, in the spring of the year, possessed of an exceedingly neat, detached cottage, close upon Blackheath, with a beautiful garden filled with shrubs and flowers, furniture excellent and abundant, two horses in the stable, as pretty a little pony carriage as it was possible to imagine, and a middle-aged groom, who though an active, honest and excellent servant, had just been dismissed by a noble lord, because he had got the asthma, and puffed like a grampus. He did his duty well, however, and I did not mind his puffing. His name, moreover, was Lucas Jones, or Jones Lucas—which, I never could make out, and I do not think he knew well himself.

All the world was at that time volunteering.

Napoleon Bonaparte threatened an invasion of England, and fondly fancied he could swallow up that stubborn little island as easily as he had gulped down half the kingdoms of the continent; but little did he know the spirit that he roused in the people of the land by the very threat. All Great Britain was bristling in arms, and instead of men being dragged away from their homes by forced conscriptions, people of all ranks, classes and degrees, of all ages and characters, of all parties and sects, were rushing in to enroll their names among the defenders of their country, and submitting day after day, to toilsome drills, and unaccustomed modes of life, to the loss of time and money and convenience. But not a lip murmured, not a heart was depressed.

Blackheath was the great training-ground in the neighborhood of London for this military race; and every day in my rides, I met with large bodies of men, in red, and green, and blue, marching and counter-marching, going through the manual, and expending great quantities of powder and perspiration. Magistrates, lawyers, clerks, shopkeepers, and draymen, were all jostling side by side in the charge; and the first battle in England, would have left upon the ground, the most motley assemblage of professions that ever was found in one place.

By pausing often to watch the manœuvres of the volunteers, I accustomed my horse to stand fire very well, and it was with great delight I heard from Captain Westover, that in order to try the skill and precision of the volunteers, a great sham-fight was to be given on Blackheath itself, in which were to be enacted all the operations that might be supposed likely to take place, if a French force were to sail up the Thames, and effect a landing near the little town of Greenwich. I told my gallant informant, that although I had been in the middle of a great battle, and had crossed a considerable portion of the field between the two lines, I had not the most distant idea of what it all meant.

“No, nor have half the men who were in the battle,” said Captain Westover. “We do what we are told; we fight; we succeed, or are beaten off; but all that we know about it is, that there’s a great deal of smoke, a great deal of dust, and a great number of men tumbling down round about us, with a very awkward expression of countenance; and two or three weeks after, when the newspapers come from England, we hear all about the glorious victory we have obtained from the dispatches of the general in command. This is generally what a subaltern knows of the matter; but somehow or another, more comprehensive views are beaten into our heads after awhile, and I will try, if possible, to give you some notion of what is going on on Wednesday. But there is some talk of making me an aid-de-camp for the nonce, which will be a great bore; for I have a whole troop of lady friends coming down to see, without peril, a battle without bullets.”

The day came; and good Father Bonneville, who had a great objection to noise and bustle of any kind, and whose recollections of the battle of Zurich were not the most agreeable, retreated for a couple of days to an inn, at a place called Bromley, while I remained to enjoy the sight.

I must dwell with some detail upon the events of that morning, as they were more important to me than those of any engagement I ever was in.

At an early hour I was out, walking round the scene where the mimic fight was to take place. All was already in a state of bustle and preparation. Cannon were planted: troops were taking up their position: long lines of what were called fencibles, armed with pikes, were stationed on the river bank, and a number of persons were arriving every moment from London to witness the gay scene.

Expecting that the hospitalities of my cottage might be called upon, I had laid in ample provisions, and soon after my return about nine o’clock, Westover was there, mounted on a splendid horse, and dressed in brilliant uniform. He came hurrying in, would not sit down to eat any breakfast, but stood by the table, and dispatched a roll and a cup of coffee while my horse was being saddled.

“We must be quick,” he said. “We must be quick; for I expect the whole staff on the ground by ten, and I wish to introduce you to some good people first.”

We were soon upon horseback, and cantering over the field. My companion led me to the head of several regiments, and introduced me to their colonels, who were generally old soldiers retired from the service, who had sprung into arms again at the first news of danger. One I particularly remember, a Colonel C——, as the finest looking man I almost ever beheld. He could not have been much less than seventy, but he was as upright as a pike-staff, his face blooming like a boy’s, and his hair loaded with a red sort of powder, called I believe, marechal powder, common in his youth. He swore a good deal; but in every other respect, he demeaned himself with an easy, dignified courtesy which I have never seen surpassed.

He was surrounded by a great number of very pretty women, who seemed to adore him, and rather inconvenienced him by their presence; for after giving one or two gentle hints that they had better betake themselves to spots appointed for spectators, he exclaimed, with a wave of his sword, which somewhat frightened them, “Damn it, my dear girls, you had better get out of the way, or by —— we shall have some of the soldiers’ bayonets in your eyes, which would be to my loss, your loss, and all the world’s loss. I’m going to order the charge in five minutes, and though no gallant gentleman will doubt your powers of resistance, we shall carry you at the point of the bayonet, I’ll answer for it. Captain Westover, will you and your friend take my niece Kitty, and these darlings, up to the mill there, where the carriages have been stationed? You had better get on your horses, and drive them before you like a flock of geese.”

We accomplished the service, however, more easily; and I learned from Westover that the gallant old colonel had been one of Wolfe’s officers at the taking of Quebec.

Not long after, the fight began; and by my companion’s management, I remained with the staff during the greater part of the day. I need not pause to describe the roaring of cannon, the firing of musketry, the charging of lines of troops, the taking and retaking of different positions; but I must notice one little event, which occurred about the middle of the day. There had been a sort of lull in the noise and confusion, when suddenly a carriage and four came dashing over the ground toward the mill, just as a battery horse-artillery was galloping like lightning across in a different direction to take up a new position, while at the same moment a cavalry regiment was dashing up to support a party on the right. The gayly dressed post-boys tried to pull in their horses, but men, horses, and ladies in the carriage, were all equally scared, and before they knew what they were doing, were enveloped on every side by the troops. The commander-in-chief spoke a word to Captain Westover; for it was a great object to all that the day should pass over without serious accident, and one seemed now very likely to take place. Away went Westover. Away went I after him, and just arrived in time to turn the horses off the road before the guns were upon them.

“Oh, good Heaven, what shall we do?” exclaimed a lady in the carriage, with her head covered with ostrich feathers.

“Drive across to that little road, and off the ground as fast as you can go,” shouted Westover to the post-boys. “You will get these ladies killed if you do not mind.”

“But where can we see?” screamed the lady from the window.

“You cannot see at all, madam,” answered Westover, impatiently. “If you wanted to see, you should have come earlier—Drive on and clear the ground, boys.”

Away the postillions went. The lady drew back her head from the window with an indignant air, and I saw just opposite to her, in the carriage, the loveliest face I ever beheld. Delicately and beautifully chiseled, every feature seemed to me perfect, in the brief glance I had. But that was not the great charm; for there before me, for that single instant, were those beautiful, liquid, hazel eyes, with the long fringe of dark lashes, which I had never seen any thing like since I had last beheld Mariette.

My first impulse was to gallop after the carriage as fast as possible; but the troops swept round, the carriage dashed away, and all I could do was to ask my companion if he knew who were its denizens.

“Not I,” he answered, hurriedly—“Some vulgar people they must be—none but vulgar people get themselves into such situations as that—a devilish pretty girl in the back of the carriage though, De Lacy—Why, what’s the matter with you, man?”

“Why, I think I know her,” I replied, “and have been looking for her and her mother for a long time.”

“Well, then, ride away after her,” answered Westover; “the post-boys will insist upon feeding their horses, depend upon it; and you will find them either at the Green-Man, or at some of the inns down below. Join me again at the mill after it’s all over; for I intend you to give me some dinner; and I must see all my aunts, and cousins, and mothers, who are congregated there, if it be but for a moment, before they go back to London. They have thought me rude enough already, I dare say.”

I followed his advice, and I believe that I would very willingly, at that moment, have given at least half of all I had in the world to catch that carriage; but I sought in vain. Not a trace of it was to be found, and though there were post-boys enough at all the inns, I could not see one in the same colored jacket as those I was in search of.

“Could it be Mariette?” I asked myself. The features were very different; much more beautiful than those of my little companion. The face was no longer round, but beautifully oval. The hair seemed somewhat darker, too, but the eyes were Mariette’s; and I asked myself again, “Could it be Mariette, or had some other person stolen her eyes?”

Sad, thoughtful, disappointed, I rode slowly back up Blackheath hill, little caring what I should find going on above. But I had been absent nearly two hours; the sham-fight was now over; drums and fifes, trumpets, and all manner of instruments, were playing gay and triumphant airs, friends and enemies were sitting down on the dry grass, eating the plentiful viands prepared for them, and post-boys were leading up strings of horses to draw back the gay parties who had come to witness the scene, to dinners and festivities afar.

I directed my course at once toward the mill, from which several carriages were already driving away; but as I approached, I saw Westover still there, on horseback, at the side of an open vehicle to which the horses had just been attached. He was talking to some ladies inside, one of whom I had seen on the night when he and I first met, and who noticed me by a gentle inclination of the head. Another was a much handsomer and somewhat younger woman, but still past her youth. She seemed to be taking little notice of any thing, and there was a deep, grave melancholy upon her face, not harmonizing well with the gay and exciting scene around. I did not go very near; for the drivers had their feet in the stirrups, ready to mount, two servants in livery were already on the box, and there was no time for conversation. Westover’s aunt, however, beckoned me up, saying, “How have you been pleased, count?” and at the same moment, the other lady fixed her eyes full upon me, and I could see her turn deadly pale. She said a few words to her companion, however, in a hurried and eager manner, although I was replying with some commonplace answer at the moment.

My acquaintance turned her head, saying, loud enough for me to hear, “The young Count de Lacy. Shall I introduce you to him, Catherine?”

There was no reply. The other lady whom she called Catherine, had sunk back in the carriage, and her eyes were closed. She looked to me very much as if she had fainted. I saw her face, but Westover did not; for I was upon his left hand, and his aunt was between him and her companion.

“Shall I tell them to drive on?” he asked.

The other nodded her head, and the word was given; but as they dashed away, I said in a tone of some anxiety, “Do you know, I think that lady has fainted.”

“Which, which?” he cried. “Lady Catherine?”

“Not your aunt,” I said.

“They are both my aunts,” he answered, turning his horse sharply. “You ride on to your hut, De Lacy; I’ll join you in a minute, when I see what has befallen dear Aunt Catherine. She is never well, and rarely goes out. This has been too much for her.”

Away he darted, and I, less pleased with the events of the day, I suppose, than most others there present, took my way slowly over the least incumbered parts of the heath, toward my cottage on the other side, threading my way amongst groups of soldiers, and large masses of gorse. At the pace I went, and by the course I pursued, it took me nearly half an hour to reach my own gate; but I had already dismounted, before Westover overtook me, although he came at a quick trot, with an orderly following him.

I remarked that he was very grave, but his only comment on what had just passed, was, “You were right, De Lacy. My aunt had fainted. Poor thing, she has not strength for such scenes. And now, my friend, I have taken a great liberty with you by inviting in your name, two foreign gentlemen, who could get no dinner anywhere else—for Greenwich is as completely eaten out as an overkept cheese—to come and dine with you. In revenge, you shall come and dine with me next week, and eat and drink enough for three if you can.” I told him I was very glad to see his friends, and the rest of the day passed pleasantly enough, although I must say, I never saw Westover so dull and thoughtful, notwithstanding all his efforts to be gay. The two gentlemen, who followed him soon to my house, I need not notice particularly, as I never saw them afterward, and never cared about them at all. They were the sort of things that do very well to fill a seat at a dinner table, or to be shot at in a line of battle, behaving creditably in both situations, but doing very little else.

OLD FEELINGS AND NEW ACQUAINTANCES.

I did not go to bed till nearly two o’clock in the morning, not that my guests stayed late—far from it. They all took their departure about ten o’clock; but the events of the day, trifling as they may seem, had produced upon my mind an effect difficult to be conceived, or even accounted for. I felt convinced that it was Mariette I beheld, and I reasoned upon her state and condition at the time, without guide it is true, but with more accuracy than might have been expected. I by this time knew the situation of emigrants in general in Great Britain. They had been treated with great kindness by the people of the country; subscriptions had been opened for them, aid had been afforded them; but most of them had fled from France in a state of destitution, and were actually in extreme poverty at that moment. Some were eking out the means of subsistence by teaching, others by mere handicraft employments. I had no reason to believe that Madame de Salins had carried much away with her, and on the contrary, I had much reason to believe, from the wretchedness of the lodging in which she must have dwelt in Swallow street, that she was at one time, at least, in actual distress. The beautiful girl I had seen in the carriage was exceedingly simply dressed, and I asked myself whether my pretty Mariette, as so many had done, might not have engaged herself as a governess in some family, and might not, even now, be undergoing all the miseries and scorns of that most painful situation.

But this was not all. In regard to Mariette I had been guided in my conclusions—to some extent at all events—by plain, simple reason. There were other impressions, however, upon my mind—other matters for cogitation, with which reason had far less to do, and which gained their importance, perhaps from the active embellishment of imagination, perhaps from some of those deeper and more mysterious operations of the mind, or of the heart, which leave reason far behind in their rapidity, and surpass imagination by their truth. The face of that lady, whom they called Lady Catherine, haunted me. The manner in which she had gazed at me—the eager, keen, almost wild glance which she had given me, the paleness which had overspread her face so suddenly, and the fainting fit into which she had fallen immediately my name was mentioned, were not matters of marvel to me, but of deep thought and consideration. It was very natural, where such a mystery hung over my birth and early fate, that I should feel inclined to connect it with every thing strange and unexplained which I saw. But there was something more than all this—something that I cannot explain or describe; which seemed to bear down all thought and argument against it, and which made me feel a conviction, stronger than any reason could have supplied, that there was some tie between that lady’s fate and my own. I did not recollect her in the least—not one feature in her face was familiar to me; but yet the very moment I beheld her—before she even turned her eyes upon me, the sight seemed to waken in an instant, dreams of happy early days—sweet thoughts and feelings, which had slumbered for years unawakened by the careless storekeeper, Memory.

It was therefore over these thoughts and feelings that I paused and reflected, for so many hours.

I have often remarked in the course of life—in others as well as myself—a somewhat curious phenomenon: namely, that when some great and important—shall I call it change? No, not change. There are no changes in human fate. They are all steps—steps toward a certain goal—That when some great and important step, then, in human fate, is to be taken, we feel an impression of the coming fact—we see, as it were, with the eyes of the spirit, without the interference of the cold, hard, short-sighted intellect, the awful magnitude of that which is before us; and we are impelled to mark what at other times would seem the merest trifles with anxious acuteness—to scan, as it were, the very pebbles in our path, lest a rolling stone should make us lose our footing, and hurl us over the precipice which we feel to be near at hand, though the mists and darkness of our earthly being may hide the actual presence of the yawning gulf.

What was to me a lady fainting in a carriage? What was there extraordinary in a delicate woman giving way after an exciting scene, and long and unusual fatigue? What was there in all that I had seen, which could not be explained by a multitude of ordinary circumstances—which I should not have left, at any other time, to rest unthought of amongst the common, insignificant events of a day? And yet I sat and pondered for four long hours, and even after I retired to bed I could not sleep, but was kept awake with the same anxious thoughts.

Father Bonneville returned about two o’clock on the following day; but with a lack of confidence which I rarely showed toward him—for he was so gentle and so good, who could want confidence in him—I did not mention at all, the little incident which had occurred at the mill. I told him, however, all about the supposed sight I had caught of Mariette, but the good Father only smiled at me.

“You are always thinking of Mariette, Louis,” he said, “and if you go on so, I shall really fancy you are in love with her memory.”

“And so I am,” I answered frankly, “I can imagine a father would so love a child, as I love Mariette; and I shall always love her so.”

“My dear boy,” replied Father Bonneville, laying his hand impressively upon my arm, “that is impossible. You and Mariette are no longer children; you might love her as a brother when you last saw her; but if you love her at all, you must love her otherwise now.”

I fell into thought, and I felt that he was right. He gave me but little time to ponder, however, asking me who else I had seen, and I mentioned several names, Colonel C——, the commander-in-chief, a number of young officers, the two strangers who had dined with me, and lastly, in as easy a tone as I could assume, Westover’s two aunts.

Father Bonneville asked their names, and I replied, “Lady Winslow, and a lady they called Lady Catherine—I suppose Lady Catherine Westover; for he said, in the course of the evening, that she was his father’s sister.”

I looked somewhat keenly at Father Bonneville as I spoke; but my words did not seem to produce the slightest effect worth noticing.

“It is droll,” he said. “I do not remember the name of Westover in the English peerage. It must be some new creation, I suppose.”

“I should think not,” I replied, “for there is a calm quietness about them—a want of all arrogance and presumption—an easy, self-possessed tranquillity, which I have always remarked, in this country, accompanies ancient rights, and well assured position.”