Chapter V: (viewed by Henry W. Lucy.) (2)

"Do you carry them about with you, Meredith? I mean"--noticing the surprise in the other's face--"is it wise--safe, do you think, to go about these lonely places with all that--" breaking off, and hurriedly adding: "But, of course, we can't let you go to-night. You must put up with what we have to offer, until the morning at any rate." A sudden thought had crossed his mind. Might it not be possible to appeal to Meredith for a loan? "What a quarter of that money would do for me just now! If I could only open my heart to him, as Madge says. Pshaw! Easy enough for girls, such as she, to open their hearts. She wouldn't have been so ready to advise me to do that, had she known all."

"Mr. Meredith would, perhaps, prefer the inn in the town, Laurence; he might find it more comfortable," put in his sister, a little puzzled by the change in his tone; but, supposing it might be only to keep up appearances, she went on: "There will be a moon, and----"

"Oh, nonsense!" hurriedly interrupted her brother. "You will not mind roughing it for one night, eh, Meredith? Of course you must stay."

"I hope so, indeed," said Mrs. Verschoyle, to whom her daughter had had no time to give the hint her brother bade her give. "I trust you will accept our poor hospitality, Mr. Meredith."

"There, that settles it, Meredith. You can't refuse my mother, now; or she will be lamenting the little we have to offer."

"It is not little to me," replied Meredith, in all sincerity. The chance of spending a few hours in the society of Margaret Verschoyle was, indeed, beginning to mean a great deal to him. He had not, before, met any woman who interested him in this way; and, already, he knew that none other ever would. She said very little now; having, he noticed, become more silent and abstracted as her brother grew effusive, apparently in the endeavour to make up for his previous lack of courtesy.

"This is our only drawing-room, Mr. Meredith," she presently said, as she and her mother rose from the table and went towards the window. "You must please try to imagine we are not here."

"I would rather not do that, Miss Verschoyle," he replied, rising to join them.

"But won't you----? You would not find this claret so bad," said Laurence, adding, as the other declined: "Well, then, a cigar on the terrace, if we can dignify it by that name."

"Not now, thank you. Later on, perhaps, if you will join me."

"Then, I will look after your bag. At the station, didn't you say? We might send Sally's brother, eh, Madge?" hurriedly quitting the room.

Meredith remained with the ladies in the oriel window, whilst the rough-looking maid-servant awkwardly cleared the dinner table, assisted now and again by a smiling word from her young mistress.

"You have a good view from here, Mrs. Verschoyle."

"It is good to me, Mr. Meredith. Fortunately, the brickfields are on the other side; and, seen from here, the part of the ruin, and the old garden and orchard, have a charm of their own for me. But one misses the old elms that used to hide the town, which my daughter thinks looks best when you don't see it," with a smile at the young girl.

"And so do you, dear. Being romantic, you prefer it when there is a mist over it, and you have to imagine what is behind the veil, don't you?" replied her daughter, with pretty defiance. "A serious thing to have a romantic mother, is it not. Mr. Meredith? In these days, too--romance! She had need have a matter-of-fact daughter, had she not?"

He smilingly kept up the same tone, his admiration deepening for the brave heart that could make a jest of her difficulties. How well the mother and daughter seemed to understand each other in making the best of their colourless lives. He soon found they could talk about something besides the narrow experiences of their everyday world. They were accustomed to think intelligently, and were not without a spice of humour, as well as a romance to cast a glamour over their surroundings. Good listeners, too; showing a desire to hear what was going on in the world of thought; and, now and again, asking questions which kept his wits at work for a reply--a not unpleasant exercise to Allan Meredith, accustomed to use them.

An hour passed quickly away. It was only the uneasy glances the young girl was beginning to cast towards the door which reminded him that Verschoyle had left them so long. When he re-entered the room, Meredith noticed that the sister's eyes turned anxiously towards him.

"I made sure about your bag by seeing after it myself, Meredith," he began. "Remembered the mistakes Sally's brother is apt to make, you know, Madge; and thought he might demand the post bag, or something of that sort."

He appeared more desirous now of making conversation, reminding Meredith of some of their Oxford experiences, inquiring about mutual friends, and what not. But his gaiety did not sit quite naturally upon him, and there was an under-current of excitement in his tone and manner. One there saw that his gaiety was only on the surface, and that he eyed Meredith closely and speculatively when he thought himself unobserved.

"Two thousand pounds! Two thousand!--and a quarter of that would save me," he was thinking. Were the notes in that wallet of which he could trace the outline in the breast pocket of the other's coat? His eyes were turned again and again, as if fascinated, to that breast pocket, while he talked on _àpropos_ of anything that suggested itself. Presently, in reply to some remark of his mother's with reference to the rising moon, and the ghostly way in which its beams seemed to steal about the ruin, he said: "Do you know that we can boast of having a ghost, Meredith?"

"Our very own, who watches over the fortunes of the house," said his sister. "At least, that is the tradition. When last heard of, he was wandering about, with his hand uplifted as if in warning. Not very original, is it? And not of much use, unless he will tell us what we are being warned against."

"Have you seen him, Miss Verschoyle?"

"Oh, no. Even he seems to have deserted us now."

"Speak for yourself, Madge," said her brother, stealing a side glance towards Meredith.

"Have you, then, Laurence?" she ejaculated, turning quickly towards him. "I thought you were inclined to make a jest of the monk."

"I am inclined to do that no longer, perhaps."

"Do you mean that you _have_ seen him? You told me nothing about it, Laurence."

"When I knew what a fright it gave you only to imagine you saw him?"

"But I was only ten years old then, you know. I was frightened, Mr. Meredith," she said, turning to him with a smile. "But even then I was quite as curious as frightened; for though I fell upon my knees and hid my face, I begged him not to go until I got sufficiently used to him to be able to ask what I wanted to know."

"Had he not the grace to do that, Miss Verschoyle?"

"Well, it was only an old military cloak of my father's, which Laurence had hung over a broom in a corner of the school-room to try my courage."

"I wonder what questions you would ask now?"

"Oh, there are so many things one would like to know," the sweet face shadowing, and the eyes taking an anxious expression.

"Is the monk supposed to have a predilection for any particular chamber?" asked Meredith. "Ghosts are uncertain visitors, I know; but it would be something to pass a night where one might be expected."

"You might find it no jest if he came," said Laurence.

"Oh, I should take him seriously enough. In fact, I have something of Miss Verschoyle's feeling. There are so many questions one would like to ask."

She was glancing curiously towards her brother. "Why did he take that tone--he that, until now, had been as ready as the rest to jest at the ghost?" But she had no time to speculate as to what was in his mind. Now that he had returned, she might consider herself off duty in the matter of doing her share towards entertaining; and she had to help Sally to prepare a room for the guest, her invalid mother to attend to, and to contrive a fitting breakfast for the morrow.

The two young men passed out on to the grass terrace before the window, lighted their cigars, and strolled to and fro in the moonlight. There was very little interchange of thought. Allan Meredith was speculating as to how best he could set about helping Margaret Verschoyle's brother; and beginning to fear it would be very difficult to do so, unless he were more inclined than he now appeared to put his shoulder to the wheel. He had little sympathy for a nature such as Verschoyle's; and, unconsciously perhaps to himself, the few words he uttered conveyed what was in his mind to the other, who was quick to resent it.

"Put me in the way of earning money, indeed! No use asking him for a loan; he would be putting all sorts of awkward questions," thought Verschoyle, with the uneasy consciousness that he would find it difficult to explain without incriminating himself. "No, I won't try it! It must be the other way--there's no help for it now. Once out of this hole, I'll put my shoulder to the wheel, and pay him back with the first money I earn. He isn't likely to want the money if I took all instead of a quarter, and I won't take a penny more than that. It will only be a loan after all, which, if he were like anyone else, I could openly ask him for. Yes, I'll do it! If he sees through the trick, it will be easy to say it was only a jest done to try him. But I think I can manage it so quietly that he won't wake, and then I am safe."

On re-entering the room they had quitted--the only habitable sitting-room the Priory could now boast--they found it untenanted, the mother and daughter having retired for the night. The two men sat in desultory conversation, maintained with some effort, until, in reply to a question from Laurence, Meredith admitted that he had had a long day and was inclined for bed. They went up together, and Laurence showed the other into a large, barely-furnished, and somewhat desolate-looking room, with two doors and one high, narrow, iron-barred window.

"Sorry we have no better quarters to offer you, Meredith."

"I am no sybarite, Verschoyle. You'll say that when you see my room at home. My housekeeper is always bewailing my lack of appreciation of what she calls comfort"--taking out his pocket-book as he spoke, and putting it on to the dressing-table before removing his coat.

Laurence took quick note of the position of the book upon the table. "Well, good-night, old fellow"; adding, with an elaborate assumption of carelessness: "Oh, by the way, I'd nearly forgotten: there's a key in that door--the one belonging to this must be lost, I fancy; but it seems hermetically sealed. You can't open it, you see," turning and pulling at the handle; "and you are safely barred in at the window," with a little laugh.

"All right, Verschoyle. A barred window and a locked door ought to be enough. Good-night," telling himself they must talk over things in the morning. Too late to enter upon what he wanted to say, just then. In the morning Verschoyle should be made to see that here was a friend who was not to be put off; they must go into matters together. Verschoyle must be induced to set to work, and in the meantime it must be so contrived that the mother and daughter should be better cared for. "Tell him that I have taken a great fancy to this old place; and, between ourselves, give him a few thousands for it, perhaps--to be settled on them--yes, certainly settled on them."

Once in his own room, Verschoyle sank into a seat and buried his face in his hands. "If there were but any other way than this! If only the man had not gone there bragging about his thousands!" trying to persuade himself that there had been bragging, and almost hating Meredith for the wrong he was about to do him. "He would not do it! Let the worst come to the worst--he would not!" springing to his feet again, and fiercely shaking his fist as against some unseen tempter.

The clock in a distant church tower chimed twelve. One vibrated on the night air: it would soon be too late! Morning would dawn, and the opportunity be gone! Shivering with the remembrance of what the morning might bring--ruin, disgrace, his whole life blighted--he once more decided there must be no drawing back. With set teeth and determined eyes he went towards a chair upon which lay a folded garment. He shook it out--a long, dark, military cloak--and proceeded, in awkward but tolerably efficient fashion, to pin the cape so as to, as nearly as possible, resemble a monk's hood. Changing his boots for slippers, he enveloped himself in the cloak, drawing the hood well forward so as to cover nearly the whole of his face; then softly opened the room door, and stood listening with bated breath.

No sound broke the stillness. He stole noiselessly forth, and entered a small room, the door of which was ajar, as he himself had placed it a couple of hours previously. This room opened into the larger one in which was Allan Meredith. Laurence stole silently to the communicating door, locked, and with the key outside. It had been well oiled; but this notwithstanding, there was a slight sound, like thunder to his guilty ears, as he turned the key in the lock.

He waited breathlessly for a few moments again, then, hearing no sound from within, softly pushed open the door and looked in. His eyes were, at once, directed towards the bed. Yes, Meredith was, apparently, fast asleep. To make quite sure, he stood silent and motionless, listening intently. The quiet, even breathing of one in deep slumber reached him. He moved softly towards the dressing-table, his eyes still turned upon the bed; then stood motionless again, a tall black figure in the semi-darkness.

Why did he hesitate? What was it that suddenly impelled him to tell the truth, and cast himself upon the mercy of the man lying there--his good angel battling for him? The scales trembled in the balance for a moment, and then it was as though he had chosen--"Evil, be thou my good"; and the way was, at once, made easy for him.

His eyes lighted on a dark object, which he knew at once must be what he was in search of, lying on the white toilet cover of the dressing-table. His hand closed over it, his eyes turning once more towards the bed. Not a movement, not a sound!

Pocket-book in hand, he noiselessly crept out, locked the door on the outside again, and sped back to his own room.

Half the danger was over. He had now but to abstract the money he wanted, and replace the book where he had found it. He put the book on the table, and sat down.

"What was that? A sigh--a whispered word? Or was it coward conscience?" He sat back aghast for a moment; then, with a resolute face, bent forward, laying his hand upon the book. Suddenly he paused, raising his head again. A sound--a movement? Surely he heard something! He hurriedly blew out the light, and sat with all his senses on the alert. Again! Something or someone was in the room!

Meredith! Had Meredith seen and followed him--had the time come to act the part of jester? Unconsciously, he was gazing straight before him into the dressing glass, faintly reflecting, in the pale, grey light of the summer night, the objects around. Again a slight movement, hardly displacement, of the air; but sufficient to intimate a presence there.

Should he break into a laugh, and challenge Meredith--should he----Great heavens! Mirrored in the glass, he saw a shadowy form moving silently towards him--a form draped in cowl and gown. The monk!

Laurence Verschoyle fell back in his chair, his eyes fastened upon the figure faintly outlined in the dim light, the left hand raised, as if in solemn warning, and the right stretched forth towards--the pocket-book!

He saw it taken from the table, then everything faded from his vision, and he lost consciousness.

When, at length, he came to himself, it was a little confusedly; and it was some time before he remembered where he was and what had happened. The pocket-book! His eyes went hurriedly over the table. Gone! It had been no dream, then--no trick of the senses. He flung out his arms upon the table and buried his face upon them. Suddenly a faint hope sprang up in his heart. It must have been Meredith! His own fears, and the dim, uncertain light, had imparted the spectral, shadowy appearance, and exaggerated the whole effect. Meredith must have imagined--as in case of emergency he was to have been induced to imagine--that a jest was being played off upon him, and had determined to return it in kind, managing somehow to get himself up for the rôle. Had they not been talking about the monk and his gesture of warning? Yes; Meredith, of course!--beginning to recover his nerve. He had been caught, and Meredith had not been caught; that was all, and he had only to treat the whole thing as a jest.

But all this notwithstanding, there was an under-current of something very like fear in his mind which caused him to watch the slowly broadening light of day with feverish impatience for the time when he could enter Meredith's room. It would not do to go too early, lest his very anxiety should arouse the other's suspicions. Everything now depended upon his being able to treat the whole thing as a jest. He threw off his disguise, washed and dressed, and then sat listening for the usual sounds of Sally's movements about the house.

When the clock struck six he could contain himself no longer, and made his way to Meredith's room, going to the door which opened into the corridor. Meredith, in response to his knock, unlocked the door and admitted him.

"Up already, Meredith?"

"Yes, I am accustomed to rise early."

As he advanced into the room, Laurence darted a quick look towards the dressing-table. There lay the pocket-book! He had been right; it had appeared as a jest to Meredith, and he had played one off in return. "Had I only guessed and kept my wits about me, instead of making a fool of myself, by going off in a fainting fit, the jest might have been better kept up."

"I see you can make, as well as take, a jest, old fellow," he began, with an attempt at a laugh.

"I was too sleepy and lazy to do more than take it, Verschoyle. I saw what was done both times; but the restoration was managed best."

"Restoration?"

"The putting the book back."

Laurence Verschoyle dropped into a chair, gazing at the other with widely opened eyes. "Do you mean to say you did not? For Heaven's sake, tell me the truth, Meredith! You followed me to my room and brought the book back. I--I--saw you!"

"That you did not, and could not have done, Verschoyle. I did not rise from the bed after I lay down until six o'clock this morning, just before you came in."

"You must--either awake or asleep, you must have!" catching at a last hope that the other might have walked in his sleep.

"No; on my honour; I was tired, but I could not sleep. I saw the ghostly appearance each time: and I was struck by the difference in the second. It was a more ghostly affair altogether. I saw, in fact, only a hand and part of an arm."

Laurence went hurriedly to the door opposite that by which he had entered, and turned the handle: locked on the outside, as he had left it!

"The first came that way," said Meredith, who had followed him with his eyes; "but not the other."

"Meredith, it was I who came, and I came but once!" ejaculated Laurence, shudderingly.

He covered his face with his hands a few moments; then, in sudden desperation, confessed the whole truth. "I meant to rob you! I dressed up as the monk for the purpose. I took the book, intending to abstract five hundred pounds; and, if you woke and challenged me, was going to say that it was done to try your pluck. I had taken it to my room. It lay on the table before me, and I was about to open it, when a feeling I can't describe came over me. I knew I was not alone. I was sitting before the dressing-table, and, glancing into the glass, saw the reflection of a figure standing behind me--the figure of a monk! A deathlike hand was put forth. I saw the fingers close over the book, and then I suppose I lost consciousness, for I can remember no more."

"The monk!" Meredith gazed at the other, and became gravely silent again.

"I was in terrible straits," hurriedly went on Laurence. "I meant last night to appeal to you for a loan; but I fancied you seemed rather hard and stand-offish, and what I had to tell was not easy to tell. There was a prison before me, Meredith, unless I could get money, which there seemed no chance of my being able to get, and the knowledge that you had all those notes about you tempted me. I meant to take the five hundred, put the rest back, and trust to the chance of your not suspecting how it had gone. Of course, I cheated myself with the belief that if I could set myself straight this time, I would put my shoulder to the wheel and repay you somehow. I think I see myself as I am--now, and I know I shall not again try to retrieve my fortunes that way. You can't despise me more than I despise myself!"

"I am very sorry," said Meredith. "I did not imagine you were in such immediate necessity. I only wish you had told me last night, when all this might have been prevented"--still speaking a little abstractedly. Was it to be regretted, after all, that Verschoyle had been brought face to face with himself in this way, since it had brought about such a revulsion in his mind? He presently decided what course he would take, and went on:--

"Look here, Verschoyle. I intended last night to ask you to let me help you in some way, and only delayed until this morning because I wanted to reflect a little as to the best means of doing so. We will go into that later on. I will only say now that you need be under no anxiety as to the money. I have a good income--more, a great deal, than I desire to spend--and there is a large surplus lying idle at my banker's just now. Use it to set yourself straight with the world, old fellow"; then, as the other made a gesture of dissent: "Let me have my say. You shall repay me when you have made your way--as a man of your ability is sure to do. Nonsense, you have your mother and sister to consider, you know."

"My poor mother and Madge. Meredith, you could never imagine what my sister has been to us."

"Couldn't I?" thought Meredith.

"She has kept us going the last six months; and though the pressure was growing heavier and heavier, she never----What a selfish brute I have been!"

"Come, it's something to recognise that!" thought Meredith. "There's some hope for you, after all"; adding to the other: "We will get these bills settled at once, and then we can see what you are most inclined to turn to."

The two young men went down together, and found breakfast awaiting them--a more varied and bountiful repast than had been set before them the previous evening, Sally having run down to an adjacent farmhouse for supplies. The two breakfasted together alone. Mrs. Verschoyle kept her room till later in the day, and her daughter, who was superintending in the kitchen, had only time to look in with a morning greeting.

After breakfast the two young men held consultation together, then set off for the town, called at the lawyer's office there, and sent off sundry telegrams. When they returned to the Priory later in the day, it was explained that Meredith had been helping Laurence with his advice on business matters.

"He is the best old fellow in the world, Madge--acting with the noblest generosity! I think all our troubles will soon be over now," said Laurence to his sister when they were alone.

"Generosity! Oh, Laurence, you won't take his money?" she ejaculated, a ring of sharp pain in her voice. "Not his money!"

"I won't take advantage of him, Madge. I swear it. Something has happened. I am a different man, and my whole life will be changed."

His tone and manner gave her more hope than even his words.

"I am going to set to work in earnest; and he will be repaid for all he means to do."

"Are you sure?" she murmured; adding a little doubtfully, with the remembrance of past experience: "But how?"

"That you will see later on."

She was to see, in another way than that he supposed. Meredith lost no time in striving to gain the prize he had set his heart upon, returning again and again to the Priory until he had won his wife.

It was the last evening of their stay at the old place. On the morrow Margaret Verschoyle was to be his wife, and they were to go direct to his beautiful Devonshire home for the purpose of comfortably installing her mother there, before setting forth on the tour. Mrs. Verschoyle's health had wonderfully improved with the knowledge of her children's bright prospects; and wonders were expected from the soft Devonshire air.

They had been reading a letter from Laurence, full of hope and enthusiasm for the new life he had begun in Canada, where he had chosen to make his start, Meredith having rendered the way easy for him.

As they lingered on the terrace, the happy girl ventured to whisper out the confession that had to be made before she became his wife. She must have no secrets from him now.

"Allan, you know now--Laurence has told you what he meant to do. But there is something else you ought to know. How shall I tell you? He thought he saw a ghost that night; but, oh, Allan, it was I!"

"I don't think he would have done it after all, darling. I believe he would have made a clean breast of it in the morning, in any case."

"But are you not surprised to hear it was I who played the ghost the second time?"

He replied only by a caress.

"I did it in the desperation of the moment, and fear gave me courage."

"The first time I have heard of fear giving courage," taking the sweet face between his hands and looking into her eyes.

"Oh, well! I meant fear for him. I thought--I feared that Laurence was going into your room--I watched him go; and then, putting on a long waterproof cloak, and drawing the hood over my head to look like the monk, I followed him. It was I who put the pocket-book back."

"How did you manage it?" with a smile.

"You see, you had left your window a little open. I climbed the thick ivy that runs up the wall--I had often done it when a child--slipped my hand between the bars of the window, and put the book upon the table."

"But you forgot to raise your hand in warning; and ghosts are not generally in such a hurry, I think, to say nothing of the size of the hand."

"It was a scramble; did you hear me fall?"

"I heard a little 'Oh!'"

"Then you _did_ know?"

"I knew Verschoyle had a very good sister."

"Allan, I do not think he suspects. Ought I not to tell him the truth?"

"Not yet. Since the impression has worked such good effects, as well let him remain under it for a while. Time enough to knock down the scaffolding when the building is completed--eh, darling?"

_Illustrated Interviews._

XXII.--SIR ROBERT RAWLINSON, K.C.B.

The Boltons, South Kensington, does not cover a very wide area--it is a circle of houses with a church in the centre, surrounded by trees, amongst the boughs of which the birds seem to sing and make merry from New Year's Day to the ringing out of the old year. This is the third time our note-book and pencil have been busily employed in this very pleasant corner of Kensington. At No. 16, Madame Albani has chatted over five o'clock tea and deliciously thin bread and butter; at No. 27, Mr. F. C. Burnand once frankly declared that to become a successful humorist one must needs possess a serious turn of mind, and refuse to yield to it!

I remember this as I cross to the opposite side of The Boltons to No. 11, where the great civil engineer and eminent sanitarian lives--the man who saved many a life in the Crimea, and has numerous works due to his engineering skill, not only in this country, but in distant lands. There is little about his house suggestive of the craft of which he is a past master. He pleads a most artistic hobby: that of pictures; and after spending a day with him and Lady Rawlinson--they have been happily married for sixty-three years--I made a hurried survey of the artistic treasures on the walls once more, and tried to single out a picture which had not some history attached to it. It was impossible. And the day's pleasure ended in not only listening to the story of a not uneventful life, but the bringing away of a collection of pictorial anecdotes of remarkable and often historical interest.

_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]

In appearance, Sir Robert, though on the very day I sit down to write he enters upon his eighty-third birthday, still retains that striking physique which singled him out as a probable "long liver" in the "fifties." He is tall, and his hair and beard are quite white--his spirits quick, undampable, and merry. That he is an enthusiast on many things is evident from the rapid way in which he discusses his pet subjects. Take Landseer, for instance. The great animal painter never produced a canvas of which Sir Robert could not tell you its story. On matters of hygiene--particularly of that relating to armies in the field--he is an indisputable authority, whilst he has always had the domiciliary condition of the people near at heart--the proper house accommodation of the people is a subject he is always ready to discuss. On all these matters, and many more, the great engineer speaks frankly, kindly, and well.

The holly-bushes look delightfully green from the study windows. Here is a fine bust of Her Majesty, by Noble, and a statuette of Miss Florence Nightingale, with whom Sir Robert frequently came in contact during the Crimean War. There are several family portraits; and a couple of strikingly clever sketches of Paganini, by Landseer, draw from their present possessor the remark that he never heard the famous violinist, because the prices charged for admission were beyond his means, but he caught sight of him by waiting at the door of the theatre until he came out. Marshall, the painter, is represented by an old lady picking a goose.

_By Sir Edwin Landseer._]

_By Sir Edwin Landseer._]

"I like that picture," said Sir Robert, "because the face is the nearest resemblance to my old mother I ever saw. There's a couple of curious sea pieces," pointing to a pair of pictures done on two pieces of rough deal board--"Storm" and "Calm." "They were painted by Richard Dadd, the mad artist. He had an illusion that his father was the devil. He was pronounced mad, and was confined in Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum. But come upstairs."

On the upper landing hang several remarkable examples of Dadd's work. One is a canvas executed before he went out of his mind; two depict his efforts afterwards. One of the latter is an Eastern market place, the other "The Crooked Path"--an incident from the "Pilgrim's Progress"--done on a sheet of brown paper, and dated Broadmoor, September, 1866. Every face painted bears the sign of insanity! The staircase, which is flooded with light from the beautiful stained-glass window, has many fine canvases, notably Landseer's original study for the companion to "Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time," a genuine Holbein of Harry the Eighth, a Linnell, small but precious, for it cost three hundred guineas, and the sketch for Sir Joshua Reynolds's "Holy Family."

In a small ante-room near here hangs a portrait of Miss Florence Nightingale as she appeared when engaged in her noble duties in the Crimean War. We pause for a moment before a moonlight scene--a picture of the graveyard in the Crimea, and Sir Robert crosses to a table and takes from it a forty-two pound shot, which he places in my hand--a shot of steel, forged and not cast.

"I keep that picture to remind me how very near I was being put to rest there myself," he said, thoughtfully; then, pointing to the cannon ball, he added, "Yes, and that very nearly did it. The story goes a long way to prove that nothing is ever lost by being polite."

Sir Robert Rawlinson is probably the only man living who has been knocked off his horse by a cannon ball. It was Sunday morning, the 18th of June, 1854, in the Crimea, that Sir Robert--then Mr. Rawlinson--was riding out with some young artillery officers down a ravine called "The Valley of the Shadow of Death." A great crowd of our soldiers were assembled on Cathcart's Hill, and the Russians began firing. Mr. Rawlinson called out to a captain:--

"I'm not going any farther; good morning," and raised his hat to salute him. As he did so the shot came whizzing along in front of him, cutting the reins, the pommel of the saddle, and driving a steel purse against the crest of the hip-bone, making a large flesh wound, and seriously bruising the bone. The rider thought he was cut in two.

_From a Painting by Richard Dadd._]

"Now, had I not raised my hat," said Sir Robert, merrily, "my right arm must have been taken off, as the shot perforated my coat beneath the arm. It has left a deep hole in my hip as a gentle little reminder!"

How pleasant were the picture stories told of the etchings and engravings in the bedroom! Over the door are the dogs of Sir Walter Scott, by a pupil of Tom Landseer--valuable, for it is the only proof taken from the plate in that state. And the Landseers! Over the mantel-board are "Night" and "Morning," and near by an etching--and Sir Robert said he considered it better than the engraving--of "The Monarch of the Glen," a picture which Landseer originally painted for the Refreshment Room of the House of Lords for 300 guineas, but which, much to the artist's chagrin, was rejected by a Fine Arts Committee, of which the Prince Consort was chairman. Here is "The Midsummer Night's Dream."

"I was talking to Landseer one day," said Sir Robert, "and I asked him why he had painted the dwarf yellow.

"'Oh!' he replied, 'that's mustard-seed, _and he must be strong_!'

"You notice the white hare in the picture," continued Sir Robert. "Landseer never made mistakes, but if anybody imagined he did, he was very smart in replying to the charge. A lady pointed out to him that she thought the rabbit was wrong--she had never seen a rabbit's legs placed like that. Landseer was equal to the occasion, for he replied:--

"'That is not a rabbit, madam; _it's a white hare_!'"

In a corner is the engraving of the portrait of Landseer himself, with a couple of dogs peeping over his shoulder. It was painted when the artist was sixty-three years of age with the aid of a looking-glass--and the retriever and collie came and looked over their master's shoulder to see what he was doing. What better title could have been found for it than "The Connoisseurs"? Landseer gave this picture to the Prince of Wales. We talked for a long time about Landseer. In Sir Robert's earlier days he was associated with Robert Stephenson, and we remembered a little story of a picture specially painted for Stephenson by Landseer.

"Stephenson was a man of a very kindly disposition and exceptionally simple tastes," said Sir Robert, "and some railway people wished to present him with a piece of plate of the value of 500 guineas. He had already received some £2,000 worth of plate, and assured his would-be kindly donors that he would rather have a picture by Landseer. This remark delighted the artist very much, and he said: 'This is the first time I ever heard of a fellow who preferred a picture to silver plate. Well, he shall have a good one.' The result was 'The Twins.'"

_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]

I could not help asking Sir Robert to allow me to tell him the sequel to this incident--a little anecdote related to me by the late Mr. Henry Graves, the famous print-seller, of Pall Mall, who probably knew Landseer better than any other man. The picture shows a sheep with twins by its side, and was the only painting the artist ever finished straightaway, instead of working on a number at the same time, as was his wont.

The picture was in the possession of Mr. Graves. He received a communication from America, saying that Landseer's work had never been seen in America; could it be lent for exhibition for a month in New York, in consideration of which they would take 500 guineas' worth of proofs, and insure it for £1,000? Here is the story in Mr. Graves's own words:--

"My American correspondent came over to look to the safety of the picture. We were dining together with some friends one night, and about eight o'clock he said:--

"'I must be off to Liverpool--the boat goes at twelve o'clock to-morrow.'

_From a Photograph._]

"I pressed him to stay, remarking he could go by the early train in the morning and be in good time. He remained, and left on the morrow; the train was delayed, and he lost the boat. That vessel went down. But what about the picture? We wrote over to New York so as to get the necessary documents to claim the insurance, but they replied, 'What do you mean? The picture is being exhibited!' I had sent 'The Twins' in good time to Liverpool, and the authorities there noticing the case labelled 'Valuable picture by Landseer--great care,' and having a boat then going, were just in time to get it on board. Indeed, I believe it was the last thing received on board by the captain. So the picture went before, and the agent fortunately went after, the boat that was never heard of. It now hangs in the house of Mr. Stephenson's nephew."

The drawing-room walls are covered with works of art--Sidney Cooper, George Frip, Müller, J. B. Pyne (who was Müller's master), Absalon (who designed the grand curtain for Her Majesty's Theatre), and Brittan Willis are all well represented. Absalon gives "Crecy" and "Agincourt" as they are to-day. In the latter picture the mill is shown where it is said the King stood while the Black Prince won the battle. A striking portrait of Lady Blessington is by Shalon, and there are no fewer than three valuable portraits of the Queen, one of which is the chalk drawing by Winterhalter, and the other is the original picture of Her Majesty painted by Parris from the orchestra of Drury Lane Theatre, a reproduction of which was published in the third number of this Magazine, together with the story associated with it, told me by the late Mr. Henry Graves, who sat by the side of Parris when he made the sketch. Lewis is responsible for "Interior of a Harem."

"Very expensive man to buy," Sir Robert said. "A few of his pictures were to be sold, and I attended the sale. One was a little larger than this, on a similar subject, and I thought I would buy it as a companion work. But it went for eleven hundred guineas!" Over a fine cabinet are a pair of dogs in pencil, by Landseer. "Racket" was drawn when he was ten years of age and "Pincher" a year later. The Satsuma ware and Sèvres china scattered about the apartment are exceptionally choice, and the curious cloth which covers the table in the centre of the room--a table, by-the-bye, which belonged to our Ambassador to France during the great Revolution of 1793--came from the Sultan's palace at Constantinople, and is worked with His Majesty's name in silk in the centre.

But what is unquestionably the most interesting among the contents of the drawing-room is the cabinet of Japanese ivories. It contains probably the finest collection of such Japanese handicraft in miniature in the kingdom. There is everything in ivory, from a beggar with his rosary to a beauty with painted cheeks and almond-shaped eyes. You may handle the quaintest of ideas carried out in ivory; a skeleton carrying a baboon--calculated to beat Holbein's "Dance of Death" all to pieces; skulls with cobras intertwined--indeed, the serpent is everywhere; and all with some mystic meaning.

_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]

_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]

"The date of the workmanship of these," said Sir Robert, "must go back for centuries."

"I should think to the very beginning!" Lady Rawlinson remarked. And amongst these curios are rare jade bowls of white and green, and shining in the midst of all--as big and almost as brilliant as the noonday sun--is the largest ball of pure rock crystal in Europe. An exquisitely-carved rhinoceros horn in the shape of a goblet might possibly come in useful, for the legend associated with it runs that should poison be put in it, and some unkind friend request you to drink, the deadly liquor would disappear of its own accord.

We looked in at the small library, and then went into the dining-room. As in the drawing-room, the walls are hidden from view by artistic works--Landseer, Frith, Phil Morris, Müller, Ansdell, Ansdell and Phillip, Hefner, Weiser, Creswick, Sant, John Wilson, Junr., Solomon, and Henry O'Neil--the latter artist's "Return of the Wanderer" being in a conspicuous position. As Sir Robert points them out, he seems to see an unwritten story on every canvas. He singles out the Müller as his greatest treasure, for it was the last and possibly the best work the artist ever chronicled with his brush, and he died eight days after its completion.

Pointing to the first study of Frith's "Dolly Varden," Sir Robert said: "Frith painted three 'Dolly Vardens.' One of these was a commission from Dickens in 1844, for which he received £20. When Frith asked Dickens if he wanted the sketch, his reply was, 'No, of course I don't.' That is the sketch which Dickens refused, for which I paid the small sum of fifteen guineas. At his sale the picture, for which he gave £20, realized one thousand guineas.

_From the Drawing by Sir Edwin Landseer._]

_From the Drawing by Sir Edwin Landseer._]

"Those donkeys on a common are by Ansdell, R.A. I gave him an order to paint me some donkeys, and he painted them in an old churchyard with tombstones. I complained to him in a joking sort of way.

"'Oh!' he replied, 'I thought a churchyard was just the place for a sanitary commissioner!'

"There is another canvas by Ansdell and Phillip, R.A.--a Spanish scene. Ansdell painted the mule and surrounding landscape, whilst Phillip put in the two figures. The young girl on the mule is Ansdell's daughter. That is Sant's own little girl in the picture called 'The Fairy Tale,' and 'The Gossips' is by Solomon, to which a story was written by Miss Power, the niece of Lady Blessington. Whilst Solomon was painting 'The Gossips' for me, he was engaged on a portrait of Jenny Lind, who, by the way, used to live here in The Boltons. Solomon told me of some of the great singer's odd expressions which she made use of whilst her portrait was in progress of being painted.

_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]

"'No, no,' she would cry, 'it's not like me! You haven't made my nose big enough. Don't you see my nose is all over my face? Oh! and look at my hair. It isn't green enough!'

"'Not green enough?' Solomon exclaimed.

"'No; don't you see that my hair is the colour of what you call hay before it is made?'"

So, brimful of these stories, we sat down together by the fire. I heard of a most useful life--a successful career, conceived and carried out by the man who related it. Whatever success has fallen to Sir Robert Rawlinson's lot has been honestly laboured for. Sir Robert to-day is a real example, a personified definition of--Industry. He refers to it all very quietly--there is not a tittle of over-estimated powers about his speech. He started life with a purpose--he has lived it with a will. Born at Bristol on the 28th February, 1810--his father, Thomas Rawlinson, of Chorley, Lancashire, was a mason and builder, his mother a Devonshire woman. Sir Robert barely went to school--he frankly declares that his education only cost three-halfpence a week. He worked at his father's business at Chorley, and before he was twenty-one he was a stone-mason, bricklayer, millwright, carpenter, sawyer, and even a navvy, and all with a view of grounding himself in everything of a practical nature which would tend to make him an engineer--a profession on which his heart was set.

"When I was one-and-twenty," he said, as he contemplatively turned over the past pages of his life in his mind, "I was residing at Liverpool and entered the Dock office under Jesse Hartley, the greatest dock engineer the world has seen. I remained there for five years, for the last three of which I was Hartley's confidential draughtsman and adviser. Then I went on to the London and Birmingham Railway, the Blisworth contract, under Robert Stephenson. Stephenson was remarkably considerate and indeed a gentleman, and treated me with almost brotherly kindness. I was in charge of the masonry. The railway was in a cutting about two miles long and sixty feet deep through rock, with an intervening bed of clay, which had to be cut out and then filled in with masonry. I was then twenty-six."

Mr. Rawlinson completed the work successfully. At the age of thirty, he once more went to Liverpool, filling the post of Assistant Surveyor to the Corporation. He remained there for two and a half years, when, on the recommendation of his first employer--Jesse Hartley--he was appointed engineer to the celebrated Bridgwater Canal. Then I listened to the story of how he came to design and complete the wonderful hollow brick ceiling over St. George's Hall, Liverpool; the lightest work of its kind, probably, in the world.

"Whilst I was in Liverpool," Sir Robert said, "I met young Harvey Lonsdale Elmes, the architect of St. George's Hall. He was about twenty-four years of age, yet he captured 1,500 guineas, being the three premiums offered for designs for St. George's Hall, the New Law Courts, and the New Collegiate Institute. We often met and talked together. I assisted him in getting out the plan for the foundation, and I laid the first brick of St. George's Hall. Elmes was consumptive. He went for a time to the Isle of Wight. He became worse, and the doctors ordered him to winter in Kingston, Jamaica. One day, before leaving England, he sent for me.

"'Rawlinson,' he said, 'if anything would give me a chance of coming back with my life, it would be to see my building in your hands!'

"What could I say? I undertook the task until I handed it over to the great London architect, Mr. Cockerel, who completed it."

Now came an important epoch in Mr. Rawlinson's career. In 1848 the Public Health Act was passed and he was appointed the first engineer superintendent inspector. He made the first inquiry and wrote the first report on Dover--he subsequently inspected and reported on the state and condition of towns and villages from Berwick-on-Tweed to Land's End, from Liverpool to Hull.

_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]

"The Commission of Inquiry lived until 1854," continued Sir Robert. "It met with such violent opposition in Parliament that it had to be broken up, though it was immediately revived by Lord Palmerston, under the chairmanship of Sir Benjamin Hall. I was at this time engineer to the Birmingham and Wolverhampton Waterworks." The lad who had been stone-mason and bricklayer, sawyer and carpenter, was earning £5,000 a year. It was at this point in our conversation that Sir Robert referred to the Duke of Wellington.

"I used to see him," he said, "walking down from Apsley House to the Chapel Royal, St. James's, in white trousers and blue frock-coat with brass buttons. Whenever he was in London on a Sunday he used to attend the early morning eight o'clock service at St. James's, and when I had any friends who wanted to see the great Duke, I used to take them to church. Frequently he, with myself and friends sitting at a good point of vantage, would be the only people there. But this by the way. Now came the winter of '54 and '55--the time of Crimea. In the spring of 1855 I was sent out as Engineering Sanitary Commissioner to the East. There is a portrait hanging there of Dr. Sutherland and myself taken in our hut in the Crimea.

"I was down in Lancashire one Saturday and came up to Euston in the evening, arriving there at ten o'clock. My wife was there with the brougham waiting for me--much to my surprise. She said, very quietly, 'I've got a note for you from Lord Shaftesbury; he's called several times to-day.' I knew what it meant--the Government wanted me to go out to the Crimea. The note read: 'Dear Rawlinson,--See me to-night if possible; if not, at eight o'clock to-morrow morning.' We drove away to Grosvenor Square at once, but Shaftesbury was dining with Palmerston. I went again at eight o'clock in the morning. He was sitting in his library.

"'Well, Rawlinson,' he said, with a gloomy expression, 'we are losing our poor army in the Crimea. I've induced Palmerston to agree to a Sanitary Commission. Dr. Sutherland and Dr. Gavin will go, but I want an engineer. Will you go?'

"The whole thing now comes vividly before me. When I learned afterwards that from December to March, out of an army of 32,000 men, 11,000 had died through starvation and climate--in three months more at the same rate there would have been no British Army!

"'I'll go, my lord,' I said.

"He embraced me like a woman.

"'You shall take such powers as men never took before,' he said, and he kept his word. The Commission sailed on the following Thursday, at the end of February, landed at Constantinople on the 6th March, and the next day we went over to the great hospitals on the Asiatic side, where the men were dying at the rate of sixty and seventy a day. The wards were full of sick and dying, there was no adequate ventilation, and the area outside of the hospitals was covered with filth and the carcasses of animals. The cleansing was heavy work. On the second day of our arrival I had the upper portion of the windows broken to let ventilation into the rooms. Armenians and Greek labourers cleared away the carcasses--for the Turks would not touch them--and subsequently the hospitals were white-washed. By mid-summer our hospitals were the cleanest in Europe--so Florence Nightingale wrote home. The mortality decreased from sixty and seventy per thousand to twelve and fourteen, and went on improving. The French did nothing, although they had some palaces on the European side for their sick. They neither drained, ventilated, nor cleansed the surroundings--men, nurses, officers and doctors went down with fever--they telegraphed home for nurses and doctors; the reply was, 'there were none to spare.' _Peace was absolutely necessary!_"

_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]