CHAPTER VII

MOTHER AND SON

Rare as epic song is the man who is thorough in what he does. And happily

so; for in life he subjugates us, and he makes us bondsmen to his ashes.

It was in the order of things that the great Mel should be borne to his

final resting-place by a troop of creditors. You have seen (since the

occasion demands a pompous simile) clouds that all day cling about the

sun, and, in seeking to obscure him, are compelled to blaze in his livery

at fall of night they break from him illumined, hang mournfully above

him, and wear his natural glories long after he is gone. Thus, then,

these worthy fellows, faithful to him to the dust, fulfilled Mel's

triumphant passage amongst them, and closed his career.

To regale them when they returned, Mrs. Mel, whose mind was not intent on

greatness, was occupied in spreading meat and wine. Mrs. Fiske assisted

her, as well as she could, seeing that one hand was entirely engaged by

her handkerchief. She had already stumbled, and dropped a glass, which

had brought on her sharp condemnation from her aunt, who bade her sit

down, or go upstairs to have her cry out, and then return to be

serviceable.

'Oh! I can't help it!' sobbed Mrs. Fiske. 'That he should be carried

away, and none of his children to see him the last time! I can understand

Louisa--and Harriet, too, perhaps? But why could not Caroline? And that

they should be too fine ladies to let their brother come and bury his

father. Oh! it does seem----'

Mrs. Fiske fell into a chair, and surrendered to grief.

'Where is the cold tongue?' said Mrs. Mel to Sally, the maid, in a brief

under-voice.

'Please mum, Jacko----!'

'He must be whipped. You are a careless slut.'

'Please, I can't think of everybody and everything, and poor master----'

Sally plumped on a seat, and took sanctuary under her apron. Mrs. Mel

glanced at the pair, continuing her labour.

'Oh, aunt, aunt!' cried Mrs. Fiske, 'why didn't you put it off for

another day, to give Evan a chance?'

'Master 'd have kept another two days, he would!' whimpered Sally.

'Oh, aunt! to think!' cried Mrs. Fiske.

'And his coffin not bearin' of his spurs!' whimpered Sally.

Mrs. Mel interrupted them by commanding Sally to go to the drawing-room,

and ask a lady there, of the name of Mrs. Wishaw, whether she would like

to have some lunch sent up to her. Mrs. Fiske was requested to put towels

in Evan's bedroom.

'Yes, aunt, if you're not infatuated!' said Mrs. Fiske, as she prepared

to obey; while Sally, seeing that her public exhibition of sorrow and

sympathy could be indulged but an instant longer, unwound herself for a

violent paroxysm, blurting between stops:

'If he'd ony've gone to his last bed comfortable! . . . If he'd ony 've

been that decent as not for to go to his last bed with his clothes on!

. . . If he'd ony've had a comfortable sheet! . . . It makes a woman feel

cold to think of him full dressed there, as if he was goin' to be a

soldier on the Day o' Judgement!'

To let people speak was a maxim of Mrs. Mel's, and a wise one for any

form of society when emotions are very much on the surface. She continued

her arrangements quietly, and, having counted the number of plates and

glasses, and told off the guests on her fingers, she, sat down to await

them.

The first one who entered the room was her son.

'You have come,' said Mrs. Mel, flushing slightly, but otherwise

outwardly calm.

'You didn't suppose I should stay away from you, mother?'

Evan kissed her cheek.

'I knew you would not.'

Mrs. Mel examined him with those eyes of hers that compassed objects in a

single glance. She drew her finger on each side of her upper lip, and

half smiled, saying:

'That won't do here.'

'What?' asked Evan, and proceeded immediately to make inquiries about her

health, which she satisfied with a nod.

'You saw him lowered, Van?'

'Yes, mother.'

'Then go and wash yourself, for you are dirty, and then come and take

your place at the head of the table.'

'Must I sit here, mother?'

'Without a doubt--you must. You know your room. Quick!'

In this manner their first interview passed.

Mrs. Fiske rushed in to exclaim:

'So, you were right, aunt--he has come. I met him on the stairs. Oh! how

like dear uncle Mel he looks, in the militia, with that moustache. I just

remember him as a child; and, oh, what a gentleman he is!'

At the end of the sentence Mrs. Mel's face suddenly darkened: she said,

in a deep voice:

'Don't dare to talk that nonsense before him, Ann.'

Mrs. Fiske looked astonished.

'What have I done, aunt?'

'He shan't be ruined by a parcel of fools,' said Mrs. Mel. 'There, go!

Women have no place here.'

'How the wretches can force themselves to touch a morsel, after this

morning!' Mrs. Fiske exclaimed, glancing at the table.

'Men must eat,' said Mrs. Mel.

The mourners were heard gathering outside the door. Mrs. Fiske escaped

into the kitchen. Mrs. Mel admitted them into the parlour, bowing much

above the level of many of the heads that passed her.

Assembled were Messrs. Barnes, Kilne, and Grossby, whom we know; Mr.

Doubleday, the ironmonger; Mr. Joyce, the grocer; Mr. Perkins, commonly

called Lawyer Perkins; Mr. Welbeck, the pier-master of Lymport;

Bartholomew Fiske; Mr. Coxwell, a Fallow field maltster, brewer, and

farmer; creditors of various dimensions, all of them. Mr. Goren coming

last, behind his spectacles.

'My son will be with you directly, to preside,' said Mrs. Mel. 'Accept my

thanks for the respect you have shown my husband. I wish you good

morning.'

'Morning, ma'am,' answered several voices, and Mrs. Mel retired.

The mourners then set to work to relieve their hats of the appendages of

crape. An undertaker's man took possession of the long black cloaks. The

gloves were generally pocketed.

'That's my second black pair this year,' said Joyce.

'They'll last a time to come. I don't need to buy gloves while neighbours

pop off.'

'Undertakers' gloves seem to me as if they're made for mutton fists,'

remarked Welbeck; upon which Kilne nudged Barnes, the butcher, with a

sharp 'Aha!' and Barnes observed:

'Oh! I never wear 'em--they does for my boys on Sundays. I smoke a pipe

at home.'

The Fallow field farmer held his length of crape aloft and inquired:

'What shall do with this?'

'Oh, you keep it,' said one or two.

Coxwell rubbed his chin. 'Don't like to rob the widder.'

'What's left goes to the undertaker?' asked Grossby.

'To be sure,' said Barnes; and Kilne added: 'It's a job': Lawyer Perkins

ejaculating confidently, 'Perquisites of office, gentlemen; perquisites

of office!' which settled the dispute and appeased every conscience.

A survey of the table ensued. The mourners felt hunger, or else thirst;

but had not, it appeared, amalgamated the two appetites as yet. Thirst

was the predominant declaration; and Grossby, after an examination of the

decanters, unctuously deduced the fact, which he announced, that port and

sherry were present.

'Try the port,' said Kilne.

'Good?' Barnes inquired.

A very intelligent 'I ought to know,' with a reserve of regret at the

extension of his intimacy with the particular vintage under that roof,

was winked by Kilne.

Lawyer Perkins touched the arm of a mourner about to be experimental on

Kilne's port--

'I think we had better wait till young Mr. Harrington takes the table,

don't you see?'

'Yes,-ah!' croaked Goren. 'The head of the family, as the saying goes!'

'I suppose we shan't go into business to-day?' Joyce carelessly observed.

Lawyer Perkins answered:

'No. You can't expect it. Mr. Harrington has led me to anticipate that he

will appoint a day. Don't you see?'

'Oh! I see,' returned Joyce. 'I ain't in such a hurry. What's he doing?'

Doubleday, whose propensities were waggish, suggested 'shaving,' but half

ashamed of it, since the joke missed, fell to as if he were soaping his

face, and had some trouble to contract his jaw.

The delay in Evan's attendance on the guests of the house was caused by

the fact that Mrs. Mel had lain in wait for him descending, to warn him

that he must treat them with no supercilious civility, and to tell him

partly the reason why. On hearing the potential relations in which they

stood toward the estate of his father, Evan hastily and with the

assurance of a son of fortune, said they should be paid.

'That's what they would like to hear,' said Mrs. Mel. 'You may just

mention it when they're going to leave. Say you will fix a day to meet

them.'

'Every farthing!' pursued Evan, on whom the tidings were beginning to

operate. 'What! debts? my poor father!'

'And a thumping sum, Van. You will open your eyes wider.'

'But it shall be paid, mother,--it shall be paid. Debts? I hate them. I'd

slave night and day to pay them.'

Mrs. Mel spoke in a more positive tense: 'And so will I, Van. Now, go.'

It mattered little to her what sort of effect on his demeanour her

revelation produced, so long as the resolve she sought to bring him to

was nailed in his mind; and she was a woman to knock and knock again,

till it was firmly fixed there. With a strong purpose, and no plans,

there were few who could resist what, in her circle, she willed; not even

a youth who would gaily have marched to the scaffold rather than stand

behind a counter. A purpose wedded to plans may easily suffer shipwreck;

but an unfettered purpose that moulds circumstances as they arise,

masters us, and is terrible. Character melts to it, like metal in the

steady furnace. The projector of plots is but a miserable gambler and

votary of chances. Of a far higher quality is the will that can subdue

itself to wait, and lay no petty traps for opportunity. Poets may fable

of such a will, that it makes the very heavens conform to it; or, I may

add, what is almost equal thereto, one who would be a gentleman, to

consent to be a tailor. The only person who ever held in his course

against Mrs. Mel, was Mel,--her husband; but, with him, she was under the

physical fascination of her youth, and it never left her. In her heart

she barely blamed him. What he did, she took among other inevitable

matters.

The door closed upon Evan, and waiting at the foot, of the stairs a

minute to hear how he was received, Mrs. Mel went to the kitchen and

called the name of Dandy, which brought out an ill-built, low-browed,

small man, in a baggy suit of black, who hopped up to her with a surly

salute. Dandy was a bird Mrs. Mel had herself brought down, and she had

for him something of a sportsman's regard for his victim. Dandy was the

cleaner of boots and runner of errands in the household of Melchisedec,

having originally entered it on a dark night by the cellar. Mrs. Mel, on

that occasion, was sleeping in her dressing-gown, to be ready to give the

gallant night-hawk, her husband, the service he might require on his

return to the nest. Hearing a suspicious noise below, she rose, and

deliberately loaded a pair of horse-pistols, weapons Mel had worn in his

holsters in the heroic days gone; and with these she stepped downstairs

straight to the cellar, carrying a lantern at her girdle. She could not

only load, but present and fire. Dandy was foremost in stating that she

called him forth steadily, three times, before the pistol was discharged.

He admitted that he was frightened, and incapable of speech, at the

apparition of the tall, terrific woman. After the third time of asking he

had the ball lodged in his leg and fell. Mrs. Mel was in the habit of

bearing heavier weights than Dandy. She made no ado about lugging him to

a chamber, where, with her own hands (for this woman had some slight

knowledge of surgery, and was great in herbs and drugs) she dressed his

wound, and put him to bed; crying contempt (ever present in Dandy's

memory) at such a poor creature undertaking the work of housebreaker.

Taught that he really was a poor creature for the work, Dandy, his

nursing over, begged to be allowed to stop and wait on Mrs. Mel; and she

who had, like many strong natures, a share of pity for the objects she

despised, did not cast him out. A jerk in his gait, owing to the bit of

lead Mrs. Mel had dropped into him, and a little, perhaps, to her

self-satisfied essay in surgical science on his person, earned him the

name he went by.

When her neighbours remonstrated with her for housing a reprobate, Mrs.

Mel would say: 'Dandy is well-fed and well-physicked: there's no harm in

Dandy'; by which she may have meant that the food won his gratitude, and

the physic reduced his humours. She had observed human nature. At any

rate, Dandy was her creature; and the great Mel himself rallied her about

her squire.

'When were you drunk last?' was Mrs. Mel's address to Dandy, as he stood

waiting for orders.

He replied to it in an altogether injured way:

'There, now; you've been and called me away from my dinner to ask me

that. Why, when I had the last chance, to be sure.'

'And you were at dinner in your new black suit?'

'Well,' growled Dandy, 'I borrowed Sally's apron. Seems I can't please

ye.'

Mrs. Mel neither enjoined nor cared for outward forms of respect, where

she was sure of complete subserviency. If Dandy went beyond the limits,

she gave him an extra dose. Up to the limits he might talk as he pleased,

in accordance with Mrs. Mel's maxim, that it was a necessary relief to

all talking creatures.

'Now, take off your apron,' she said, 'and wash your hands, dirty pig,

and go and wait at table in there'; she pointed to the parlour-door:

'Come straight to me when everybody has left.'

'Well, there I am with the bottles again,' returned Dandy. 'It 's your

fault this time, mind! I'll come as straight as I can.'

Dandy turned away to perform her bidding, and Mrs. Mel ascended to the

drawing-room to sit with Mrs. Wishaw, who was, as she told all who chose

to hear, an old flame of Mel's, and was besides, what Mrs. Mel thought

more of, the wife of Mel's principal creditor, a wholesale dealer in

cloth, resident in London.

The conviviality of the mourners did not disturb the house. Still, men

who are not accustomed to see the colour of wine every day, will sit and

enjoy it, even upon solemn occasions, and the longer they sit the more

they forget the matter that has brought them together. Pleading their

wives and shops, however, they released Evan from his miserable office

late in the afternoon.

His mother came down to him,--and saying, 'I see how you did the

journey--you walked it,' told him to follow her.

'Yes, mother,' Evan yawned, 'I walked part of the way. I met a fellow in

a gig about ten miles out of Fallow field, and he gave me a lift to

Flatsham. I just reached Lymport in time, thank Heaven! I wouldn't have

missed that! By the way, I've satisfied these men.'

'Oh!' said Mrs. Mel.

'They wanted--one or two of them--what a penance it is to have to sit

among those people an hour!--they wanted to ask me about the business,

but I silenced them. I told them to meet me here this day week.'

Mrs. Mel again said 'Oh!' and, pushing into one of the upper rooms,

'Here's your bedroom, Van, just as you left it.'

'Ah, so it is,' muttered Evan, eyeing a print. 'The Douglas and the

Percy: "he took the dead man by the hand." What an age it seems since I

last saw that. There's Sir Hugh Montgomery on horseback--he hasn't moved.

Don't you remember my father calling it the Battle of Tit-for-Tat?

Gallant Percy! I know he wished he had lived in those days of knights and

battles.'

'It does not much signify whom one has to make clothes for,' observed

Mrs. Mel. Her son happily did not mark her.

'I think we neither of us were made for the days of pence and pounds,' he

continued. 'Now, mother, sit down, and talk to me about him. Did he

mention me? Did he give me his blessing? I hope he did not suffer. I'd

have given anything to press his hand,' and looking wistfully at the

Percy lifting the hand of Douglas dead, Evan's eyes filled with big

tears.

'He suffered very little,' returned Mrs. Mel, 'and his last words were

about you.'

'What were they?' Evan burst out.

'I will tell you another time. Now undress, and go to bed. When I talk to

you, Van, I want a cool head to listen. You do nothing but yawn

yard-measures.'

The mouth of the weary youth instinctively snapped short the abhorred

emblem.

'Here, I will help you, Van.'

In spite of his remonstrances and petitions for talk, she took off his

coat and waistcoat, contemptuously criticizing the cloth of foreign

tailors and their absurd cut.

'Have you heard from Louisa?' asked Evan.

'Yes, yes--about your sisters by-and-by. Now, be good, and go to bed.'

She still treated him like a boy, whom she was going to force to the

resolution of a man.

Dandy's sleeping-room was on the same floor as Evan's. Thither, when she

had quitted her son, she directed her steps. She had heard Dandy tumble

up-stairs the moment his duties were over, and knew what to expect when

the bottles had been in his way; for drink made Dandy savage, and a

terror to himself. It was her command to him that, when he happened to

come across liquor, he should immediately seek his bedroom and bolt the

door, and Dandy had got the habit of obeying her. On this occasion he was

vindictive against her, seeing that she had delivered him over to his

enemy with malice prepense. A good deal of knocking, and summoning of

Dandy by name, was required before she was admitted, and the sight of her

did not delight him, as he testified.

'I 'm drunk!' he bawled. 'Will that do for ye?'

Mrs. Mel stood with her two hands crossed above her apron-string, noting

his sullen lurking eye with the calm of a tamer of beasts.

'You go out of the room; I'm drunk!' Dandy repeated, and pitched forward

on the bed-post, in the middle of an oath.

She understood that it was pure kindness on Dandy's part to bid her go

and be out of his reach; and therefore, on his becoming so abusive as to

be menacing, she, without a shade of anger, and in the most unruffled

manner, administered to him the remedy she had reserved, in the shape of

a smart box on the ear, which sent him flat to the floor. He rose, after

two or three efforts, quite subdued.

'Now, Dandy, sit on the edge of the bed.'

Dandy sat on the extreme edge, and Mrs. Mel pursued:

'Now, Dandy, tell me what your master said at the table.'

'Talked at 'em like a lord, he did,' said Dandy, stupidly consoling the

boxed ear.

'What were his words?'

Dandy's peculiarity was, that he never remembered anything save when

drunk, and Mrs. Mel's dose had rather sobered him. By degrees, scratching

at his head haltingly, he gave the context.

"'Gentlemen, I hear for the first time, you've claims against my poor

father. Nobody shall ever say he died, and any man was the worse for it.

I'll meet you next week, and I'll bind myself by law. Here's Lawyer

Perkins. No; Mr. Perkins. I'll pay off every penny. Gentlemen, look upon

me as your debtor, and not my father."'

Delivering this with tolerable steadiness, Dandy asked, 'Will that do?'

'That will do,' said Mrs. Mel. 'I'll send you up some tea presently. Lie

down, Dandy.'

The house was dark and silent when Evan, refreshed by his rest, descended

to seek his mother. She was sitting alone in the parlour. With a

tenderness which Mrs. Mel permitted rather than encouraged, Evan put his

arm round her neck, and kissed her many times. One of the symptoms of

heavy sorrow, a longing for the signs of love, made Evan fondle his

mother, and bend over her yearningly. Mrs. Mel said once: 'Dear Van; good

boy!' and quietly sat through his caresses.

'Sitting up for me, mother?' he whispered.

'Yes, Van; we may as well have our talk out.'

'Ah!' he took a chair close by her side, 'tell me my father's last

words.'

'He said he hoped you would never be a tailor.'

Evan's forehead wrinkled up. 'There's not much fear of that, then!'

His mother turned her face on him, and examined him with a rigorous

placidity; all her features seeming to bear down on him. Evan did not

like the look.

'You object to trade, Van?'

'Yes, decidedly, mother-hate it; but that's not what I want to talk to

you about. Didn't my father speak of me much?'

'He desired that you should wear his militia sword, if you got a

commission.'

'I have rather given up hope of the Army,' said Evan.

Mrs. Mel requested him to tell her what a colonel's full pay amounted to;

and again, the number of years it required, on a rough calculation, to

attain that grade. In reply to his statement she observed: 'A tailor

might realize twice the sum in a quarter of the time.'

'What if he does-double, or treble?' cried Evan, impetuously; and to

avoid the theme, and cast off the bad impression it produced on him, he

rubbed his hands, and said: 'I want to talk to you about my prospects,

mother.'

'What are they?' Mrs. Mel inquired.

The severity of her mien and sceptical coldness of her speech caused him

to inspect them suddenly, as if she had lent him her eyes. He put them

by, till the gold should recover its natural shine, saying: 'By the way,

mother, I 've written the half of a History of Portugal.'

'Have you?' said Mrs. Mel. 'For Louisa?'

'No, mother, of course not: to sell it. Albuquerque! what a splendid

fellow he was!'

Informing him that he knew she abominated foreign names, she said: 'And

your prospects are, writing Histories of Portugal?'

'No, mother. I was going to tell you, I expect a Government appointment.

Mr. Jocelyn likes my work--I think he likes me. You know, I was his

private secretary for ten months.'

'You write a good hand,' his mother interposed.

'And I'm certain I was born for diplomacy.'

'For an easy chair, and an ink-dish before you, and lacqueys behind.

What's to be your income, Van?'

Evan carelessly remarked that he must wait and see.

'A very proper thing to do,' said Mrs. Mel; for now that she had fixed

him to some explanation of his prospects, she could condescend in her

stiff way to banter.

Slightly touched by it, Evan pursued, half laughing, as men do who wish

to propitiate common sense on behalf of what seems tolerably absurd: 'It

's not the immediate income, you know, mother: one thinks of one's

future. In the diplomatic service, as Louisa says, you come to be known

to Ministers gradually, I mean. That is, they hear of you; and if you

show you have some capacity--Louisa wants me to throw it up in time, and

stand for Parliament. Andrew, she thinks, would be glad to help me to his

seat. Once in Parliament, and known to Ministers, you--your career is

open to you.'

In justice to Mr. Evan Harrington, it must be said, he built up this

extraordinary card-castle to dazzle his mother's mind: he had lost his

right grasp of her character for the moment, because of an undefined

suspicion of something she intended, and which sent him himself to take

refuge in those flimsy structures; while the very altitude he reached

beguiled his imagination, and made him hope to impress hers.

Mrs. Mel dealt it one fillip. 'And in the meantime how are you to live,

and pay the creditors?'

Though Evan answered cheerfully, 'Oh, they will wait, and I can live on

anything,' he was nevertheless floundering on the ground amid the ruins

of the superb edifice; and his mother, upright and rigid, continuing,

'You can live on anything, and they will wait, and call your father a

rogue,' he started, grievously bitten by one of the serpents of earth.

'Good heaven, mother! what are you saying?'

'That they will call your father a rogue, and will have a right to,' said

the relentless woman.

'Not while I live!' Evan exclaimed.

'You may stop one mouth with your fist, but you won't stop a dozen, Van.'

Evan jumped up and walked the room.

'What am I to do?' he cried. 'I will pay everything. I will bind myself

to pay every farthing. What more can I possibly do?'

'Make the money,' said Mrs. Mel's deep voice.

Evan faced her: 'My dear mother, you are very unjust and inconsiderate. I

have been working and doing my best. I promise--what do the debts amount

to?'

'Something like L5000 in all, Van.'

'Very well.' Youth is not alarmed by the sound of big sums. 'Very well--I

will pay it.'

Evan looked as proud as if he had just clapped down the full amount on

the table.

'Out of the History of Portugal, half written, and the prospect of a

Government appointment?'

Mrs. Mel raised her eyelids to him.

'In time-in time, mother!'

'Mention your proposal to the creditors when you meet them this day

week,' she said.

Neither of them spoke for several minutes. Then Evan came close to her,

saying:

'What is it you want of me, mother?'

'I want nothing, Van--I can support myself.'

'But what would you have me do, mother?'

'Be honest; do your duty, and don't be a fool about it.'

'I will try,' he rejoined. 'You tell me to make the money. Where and how

can I make it? I am perfectly willing to work.'

'In this house,' said Mrs. Mel; and, as this was pretty clear speaking,

she stood up to lend her figure to it.

'Here?' faltered Evan. 'What! be a ----'

'Tailor!' The word did not sting her tongue.

'I? Oh, that's quite impossible!' said Evan. And visions of leprosy, and

Rose shrinking her skirts from contact with him, shadowed out and away in

his mind.

'Understand your choice!' Mrs. Mel imperiously spoke. 'What are brains

given you for? To be played the fool with by idiots and women? You have

L5000 to pay to save your father from being called a rogue. You can only

make the money in one way, which is open to you. This business might

produce a thousand pounds a-year and more. In seven or eight years you

may clear your father's name, and live better all the time than many of

your bankrupt gentlemen. You have told the creditors you will pay them.

Do you think they're gaping fools, to be satisfied by a History of

Portugal? If you refuse to take the business at once, they will sell me

up, and quite right too. Understand your choice. There's Mr. Goren has

promised to have you in London a couple of months, and teach you what he

can. He is a kind friend. Would any of your gentlemen acquaintance do the

like for you? Understand your choice. You will be a beggar--the son of a

rogue--or an honest man who has cleared his father's name!'

During this strenuously uttered allocution, Mrs. Mel, though her chest

heaved but faintly against her crossed hands, showed by the dilatation of

her eyes, and the light in them, that she felt her words. There is that

in the aspect of a fine frame breathing hard facts, which, to a youth who

has been tumbled headlong from his card-castles and airy fabrics, is

masterful, and like the pressure of a Fate. Evan drooped his head.

'Now,' said Mrs. Mel, 'you shall have some supper.'

Evan told her he could not eat.

'I insist upon your eating,' said Mrs. Mel; 'empty stomachs are foul

counsellors.'

'Mother! do you want to drive me mad?' cried Evan.

She looked at him to see whether the string she held him by would bear

the slight additional strain: decided not to press a small point.

'Then go to bed and sleep on it,' she said--sure of him--and gave her

cheek for his kiss, for she never performed the operation, but kept her

mouth, as she remarked, for food and speech, and not for slobbering

mummeries.

Evan returned to his solitary room. He sat on the bed and tried to think,

oppressed by horrible sensations of self-contempt, that caused whatever

he touched to sicken him.

There were the Douglas and the Percy on the wall. It was a happy and a

glorious time, was it not, when men lent each other blows that killed

outright; when to be brave and cherish noble feelings brought honour;

when strength of arm and steadiness of heart won fortune; when the fair

stars of earth--sweet women--wakened and warmed the love of squires of

low degree. This legacy of the dead man's hand! Evan would have paid it

with his blood; but to be in bondage all his days to it; through it to

lose all that was dear to him; to wear the length of a loathed

existence!--we should pardon a young man's wretchedness at the prospect,

for it was in a time before our joyful era of universal equality. Yet he

never cast a shade of blame upon his father.

The hours moved on, and he found himself staring at his small candle,

which struggled more and more faintly with the morning light, like his

own flickering ambition against the facts of life.