Page images
PDF
EPUB

come companion as he walked by her side.

"Well, you see, he was hindering me of my Mary. And he was all rags when he come here, when first I put him in the way of earning; and we'd made many a trip together, and he's over to the French coast now, among friends of mine! I only wish

His countenance was so fierce as he wished-whatever the wish might bethat Lady Charlotte stopped short in her walk, and stood tremblingly feeling in her reticule for more money. She found a sovereign, with which, in her agitation, she presented him, saying, civilly, "I really am very sorry for you, but you see you should not-you really shouldn't be so unforgiving!"

Then, as she beheld the very welcome sight of Neil approaching with his boatmen, she recovered herself enough to smile a little; and she said, "I thought, at one time, that perhaps you were thinking of robbing me, do you know?"

"Well, I was thinking of it," said the man, carelessly, "but I didn't know who might be up among the rocks there, or whether that very young gent coming mightn't be coming to you; and, besides, you seemed such a harmless soul to take advantage of. But—-”

66

[ocr errors]

He stopped suddenly; his eye lit, and flashed like a signal-gun. By there he is!" he exclaimed, as he darted down the rough shore. Lady Charlotte looked in that direction, and saw two figures-a man in the garb of a common sailor, and a female neatly dressed in rather a foreign peasant style. They were near enough for her to be perfectly able to distinguish both face and form; and in the common sailor she recognised--with extreme alarm-the ever-changing adventurer, James Frere -and in the foreign-looking woman, however disguised, most certainly AILIE!

They were landing when she first observed them. On seeing the man

who had been the companion of her walk running towards them, they stood still. Then James Frere leaped back again into the boat, holding out his hand to his companion, who lightly followed his example; and he pushed off from the shore just as the breathless smuggler reached the water's edge. The man shouted and swore; Frere laughed, and shook an oar menacingly at him. Then a boy, lying at the bottom of the boat-and a man in her, whom they had not yet perceived-shook out the sail, and with a bound and a dip in the waters she was off again, soon to appear only like a white speck in the distance!

The smuggler stood a while watching that boat as she danced over the waves. Then he slowly returned to the spot where Neil had rejoined Lady Charlotte.

"Good evening, ma'am," he said, "and thank you! As to yon man, I'll have him yet. His things are all here. He'll need to come back before many days are out I'll give information." And he strode away slowly over the sands.

If Lady Charlotte could have doubted the accuracy of her own vision, all doubt would have been removed by Neil, who, flushed and eager, said to her, as he came up, "There's that man I saw change his clothes in the railway-he's in the boat. I can't mistake him-he has a most strange countenance. It is heI'll swear to him. Look, Mamma Charlotte!"

"Yes," thought Lady Charlotte, "and I'll swear to Alice Ross." And, when she regained the little gate of the "pastoral" cottage, she passed in very quickly, and told Gertrude the adver

ture.

"And is it not too dreadful, Gertie, his always coming up through a trapdoor in this sort of way?—I mean like a demon who comes up, you know, through a trap-door."

CHAPTER LXIX.

JAMES FRERE IS RECOGNISED BY ANOTHER PERSON.

POOR Lady Charlotte! She was doomed in this tranquil and pastoral retreat to all sorts of agitating scenes connected with the gentleman who thus came up continually, as it were, through a trapdoor!

She was standing-as she herself expressed it-"most harmlessly," talking about the washing of her fine muslins and embroidered cuffs with an old washerwoman, whose pride it was that "she was the principallest laundress of these parts, and washed for the principallest gentry by the sea-side."

The good old soul continued ironing all the time she talked, and looking down with affectionate smiles upon the linen benefitted by her manipulation.

"Ah!" she said, "all the visitors comes to me that can; and it's a real treat to me to see the valets, and lady'smaids, and such folk, coming here as soft-spoken as need be, a-begging and a-praying of me to give their lady or their gentleman the preference-for I can't do all. But I mostly prefers the gentlemen's, and some of them is really wonderful! Lord Sinclair's-his be pretty shirts enough, to iron-werry smooth, soft linen. And Captain Greig's, -them are beauties; all worked across the breastesses-to be sure, how they be worked! And Colonel Vavasour's-his be wonderful, too. And Mr. Gordon's -his'n has little frills down the fronts; they be a deal o' trouble, surely, them little frills; but they're a real pleasure to look at, when the Italian iron's been under 'em. And here's a thing was sent me to wash, that looks for all the world like somebody's skin, but was sent here by a woman they calls a West Injian. They did say she was a wild savage-but, if she be a savage, she be wery

unlike my notion of the creatures, for she's as soft a spoken woman as ever I seed; but this thing is made of pink flannel, to cover her from head to foot, for she shivers with the cold here, and

she comes from some warm island-I'm —but it's beyond

sure I forgets the name—

seas, and there's a governor, and he's as good as king there.

"La! if she ain't coming this minute, and I not half ready."

The aged washerwoman ironed with redoubled diligence; but, before the ironing was done, the door of the cottage was darkened, and in came a sad-looking, sallow woman, past the flower of youth, but still with claims to beauty, her eyes passing languidly over all objects as she advanced, as if nothing in life was much worth noticing, and resting at last in quiet contemplation on the pink flannel garment. You saw at once that she was a Creole, but a gentle

woman.

"Is it finished?" she said, with a soft drawl. "Give it me if it is finished."

The old washerwoman passed a final sweep of the warm iron over the sleeves of the garment in question; flattened, folded, and again passed the iron over; and then, pinning it in a white handkerchief, presented it to the new-comer.

As she did so, the threshold of her cottage was again shadowed, and close to Lady Charlotte-close to the Creole passed in James Frere, followed by Alice Ross.

The latter started visibly at sight of Lady Ross's mother. Fearless as she was, her presence of mind forsook her. She grasped James Frere's arm anxiously.

[ocr errors]

Oh, come away; come away from this place!" she said, in an agitated whisper.

But James Frere was absorbed in another recognition. Another hand lay on his arm, and the languid Creole's eyes were warm with wonder and anger.

"Ah, James, do I see you at last! You cruel James!"

There was an effort on the part of Frere to affect unconsciousness, to affect strangeness; but he also seemed, in the bewilderment of the moment, to lose his self-possession.

"Anita !" he exclaimed.

"Yes, you cruel! Anita! And now

she has found you, she will not again be left. Oh, James, how could you leave me without one word? To wake and find you gone! Oh, James!"

Alice Ross had hitherto stood speechless and motionless, her glittering eyes only, seeming to have some movement in them, rippling like a green gleam over the ocean wave. But, as the Creole accompanied the last words by a pas sionate seizure of Frere's arm, she sprang upon her like a tigress, and shook her off, crying with shrill anger,-"Woman, how dare you call my husband JAMES? How dare you call him by his Christian name before me, whatever your intimacy may have been ?"

"My intimacy? Your husband?” laughed the Creole. "This man is married as much as law can marry him, to ME. I am his wife,-his lawful wife, and I will claim him-for I have a son-even though he deserted me in Jamaica."

[blocks in formation]

THERE was a brief, stormy explanation; incontestable and uncontested truths were evolved from Frere's past history; and at last the Creole, coming close to shuddering Ailie, murmured to her in a voice choked with passion, "Are you so mean a spirit? Would you not some revenge? I am his wife. You are nothing but his mistress. Have you children? I have a son. Think not that I will forgo my claim. All is not for myself. Will you not prosecute for bigamy, as they can in your country? If not, that will I do."

[ocr errors]

Nothing but his mistress!" "Nothing but his mistress!" The words beat backwards and forward in Ailie's brain. At last, she spoke: she hissed the words fiercely through her teeth:

'Deny it!" she said, without looking at him; "deny it!"

"Nonsense!" said Frere, contemptuously. "You must have known it was

SO.

In the bitter gossip reported to Sir Douglas it was told. You knew it. Don't be affected. You knew it."

The light in Ailie's eyes flickered like a flame of phosphorus.

"I did not know it!" she said; and then, looking the Creole over from head to foot, she said, as if to herself, "Did he marry a slave?"

"I am no slave, but a planter's daughter!" angrily retorted the Creole, "and you had best keep your contempt for your own position. I am as educated as you are-richer than you are. My father is dead, and I have come to England. I claim my husband; but he shall be punished. My many nights of tears he shall pay them. I will prosecute him by your laws-I will prosecute him."

Ailie looked at the man whose evil influence had joined with her evil, to create confusion in her destiny. A chill trembling seized her.

"Yes," she said, "you shall suffer. Call vainly on me when your punishment comes-call vainly. I will crush you, I will tread you into the earth. Deceiver!"

Two or three boatmen gathered round the door, attracted by the sound of voices in dispute. Others joined them. Among them came the smuggler. He sprang on Frere, and wrestled and strove to hold him. In a moment a knife glittered in the air; it grazed the bending head of Alice in its descent, and struck the smuggler's breast; was lifted once more, the warm blood dropping from its pointed blade on the women's dresses, and the linen the aged washerwoman had been garrulously gossiping, about, and descended yet more vehemently. They seized him. "Devils, let me go!" he said, and, turning, shook. himself free, and fled over the shore.

He was pursued, but not taken. Swift of foot, and wiry of limb, he reached an almost inaccessible crag, lifted a huge broken piece of stone, and flung it below, scattering his. pursuers as it rolled down with dust and fragments of the rock from one pointed peak to another, and coming at

last with a dead resounding thump upon the shore.

When they looked up, he was gone! Some said he had himself fallen into the ocean, in his frantic efforts to crush those who stood below; some that he had slid down the smooth face of the cliff, and endeavoured, by swimming and diving, to reach a distant point where there was a pathway which led to the sea.

But this much was certain, that, stare as they would along the yellow curves and indentations of the sandy shore, or up by the grey rocks where the seafowl sat mute or rose screaming into the air, no object resembling a human form dotted the distance.

James Frere was dead, or had escaped. And Ailie, too, had vanished, when Lady Charlotte at last recovered sufficiently from the horrors of the scene to look consciously on objects near her.

Ailie had vanished. Only the Creole woman stood there; wiping her bespattered shoulder and neck, and gazing down as in a dream on the smuggler, stretched on the floor; his strong right hand still vainly clutching the folds of linen he caught as he fell,-caught, as the drowning wretch catches at the bending reed, that goes down with him into the darkness and the depths of overwhelming death. To be continued.

THE PROPHET OF CULTURE.

BY HENRY SIDGWICK, FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBridge.

THE movement against anonymous writing, in which this journal some years ago took a part, has received, I think, an undeniable accession of strength from the development (then unexpected) of Mr. Matthew Arnold. Some persons who sympathised on the whole with that movement yet felt that the case was balanced, and that if it succeeded we should have sacrificed something that we could not sacrifice without regret. One felt the evils that "irresponsible reviewers" were continually inflicting on the progress of thought and society and yet one felt that, in form and expression, anonymous writing tended to be good writing. The buoyant confidence of youth was invigorated and yet sobered by having to sustain the prestige of a well-earned reputation while the practised weapon of age, relieved from the restraints of responsibility, was wielded with almost the elasticity of youth. It was thought we should miss the freedom, the boldness, the reckless vivacity with which one talented writer after another had dis

charged his missiles from behind the common shield of a coterie of unknown extent, or at least half veiled by a pseudonym. It was thought that periodical literature would gain in carefulness, in earnestness, in sincerity, in real moral influence but that possibly it might become just a trifle dull. We did not foresee that the dashing insolences of "we-dom" that we should lose would be more than compensated by the delicate impertinences of egotism that we should gain. We did not ima

gine the new and exquisite literary enjoyment that would be created when

[blocks in formation]

removed, and our cause much strengthened, by this new phenomenon.

I have called Mr. Arnold the prophet of culture I will not call him an "elegant Jeremiah," because he seems to have been a little annoyed (he who is never annoyed) by that phrase of the Daily Telegraph. "Jeremiah!" he exclaims, "the very Hebrew prophet whose style I admire the least." I confess I thought the phrase tolerably felicitous for a Philistine, from whom one would not expect any very subtle discrimination of the differentiæ of prophets. Nor can I quite determine which Hebrew prophet Mr. Arnold does most resemble. But it is certainly hard to compare him to Jeremiah, for Jeremiah is our type of the lugubrious; whereas there is nothing more striking than the imperturbable cheerfulness with which Mr. Arnold seems to sustain himself on the fragment of culture that is left him, amid the deluge of Philistinism that he sees submerging our age and country. A prophet however, I gather, Mr. Arnold does not object to be called; as such I wish to consider and weigh him; and thus I am led to examine the lecture with which he has closed his connexion with Oxford, the most full, distinct, and complete of the various utterances in which he has set forth the Gospel of Culture.

As it will clearly appear in the course of this article, how highly I admire Mr. Arnold as a writer, I may say at once, without reserve or qualification, that this utterance has disappointed me very much. It is not even so good in style as former essays; it has more of the mannerism of repeating his own phrases, which, though very effective up to a certain point, may be carried too far. But this is a small point: and Mr. Arnold's style, when most faulty, is very charming. complaint is, that though there is much in it beautifully and subtly said, and many fine glimpses of great truths, it is, as a whole, ambitious, vague, and perverse. It seems to me over-ambitious, because it treats of the most profound and difficult problems of individual and

My

social life with an airy dogmatism that ignores their depth and difficulty. And though dogmatic, Mr. Arnold is yet vague; because when he employs indefinite terms he does not attempt to limit their indefiniteness, but rather avails himself of it. Thus he speaks of the relation of culture and religion, and sums it up by saying, that the idea of Iculture is destined to "transform and govern" the idea of religion. Now I do not wish to be pedantic; and I think that we may discuss culture and religion, and feel that we are talking about the same social and intellectual facts, without attempting any rigorous definition of our terms. But there is one indefiniteness that ought to be avoided. When we speak of culture and religion in common conversation, we sometimes refer to an ideal state of things and sometimes to an actual. But if we are appraising, weighing, as it were, these two, one with the other, it is necessary to know whether it is the ideal or the actual that we are weighing. When I say ideal, I do not mean something that is not realized at all by individuals at present, but something not realized sufficiently to be much called to mind by the term denoting the general social fact. I think it clear that Mr. Arnold, when he speaks of culture, is speaking sometimes of an ideal, sometimes of an actual culture, and does not always know which. He describes it in one page as "a study of perfection, "moving by the force, not merely or "primarily of the scientific passion for "pure knowledge, but of the moral "and social passion for doing good." A study of this vast aim, moving with the impetus of this double passion, is something that does, I hope, exist among us, but to a limited extent: it is hardly that which has got itself stamped and recognised as culture. And Mr. Arnold afterwards admits as much. For we might have thought, from the words I have quoted, that we had in culture, thus possessed by the passion of doing good, a mighty social power, continually tending to make "reason and the will of God prevail." But we find that this

« PreviousContinue »