not prevent him from testing its correctness. At least we looked back, and observed him searching diligently. But I suppose he was right, because the "parish" certainly found nothing in the pockets. loved me. Had I come to her gallant and strong, rich and noble, one born in high station, the son of a brave and successful father, I might have had a chance. Day after day I wandered here, brooding over It was to this place that I came, as to a wilder- my own wrongs, with bitter and accusing soul. The chin upon my hand, thinking of what ought to have been. During this time I was with Celia as little as possible, and at home not at all. Both she and the captain, I remember now, were considerate, and left me alone to worry through with the trouble, whatever it was. It was not all hopeless; it was partly that, for the first time in my life, I thoroughly understood what I was, what my prospects were, and what I might have been. I said at the beginning that it takes a long time for a hunchback entirely to realize what his affliction means; how it cuts him off from other men's pursuits; and how it isolates him from his youth upward. I saw before me, as plainly as I see it now, a solitary life; I thought that the mediocrity of my abilities would never allow me to become a composer of eminence, or anything better than the organist of a church and the teacher of music in a country-town; I should always be poor, I should never have the love of woman, I should always be a kind of servant, I should live in obscurity and die in oblivion. Most of us live some such lives at least they can be reduced, in hard terms, to some such colorless, dreary wastes of weary years; but we forget the compensations. My dream was true of myself; I have actually lived the life of a mediocre musician; I have few friends; and yet I have been perfectly happy. I did not marry Celia; that I may premise at once; and yet I have been happy without her. For I retained her love, the pure and calm affection of a sister, which is with me still, making much of me, petting and spoiling me almost while I write, as it did twenty years ago. Surely there was never any woman before so good as Celia ! The vision of my life was prophetic; it looked intolerable, and it has been more than pleasant. Say to yourself, you have thirty years to live; you will rise every morning to drudgery; you will live poorly, and will make no money; you will have no social consideration; you will make few friends; you will fail to achieve any reputation in your profession; you will be a lonely man-is that a prospect to charm any one? Add to this, that your life will be contented; that you will not dislike your work; that you will not live for yourself alone; that your days will be cheered by the steady sunshine of affection-and the prospect changes. Everything in the world is of magic. To some this old town of ours has seemed dirty, crowded, mean; to me it is picturesque, full of human interests, rich in association. To some my routine would be maddening; to me it is graceful and pleasant. To some-to mosta career which has no prizes has no joys. To me it is full of joys. We are what we think ourselves; we see everything through the haze of imagination; why I am told that there is no such thing as color in Nature, but that it is an effect of light-so long as the effect is produced I do not care; let me only thank the Creator for this bunch of sweet-peas in a glass before me, with their soft and delicate tints more beautiful than ever human pencil drew. We see what we think we see; people are what we think they are; events are what they seem to us; the man who least enjoys the world is the man who has the faculty of stripping things of their “ effects;" who takes the color from the flower, or the disinterestedness from love. That is common-sense, and I would rather be without it. me. One evening-it was after dusk, and rather cold I was still sitting in the enjoyment of a profound misery, when I became aware of a Voice addressing The Voice was inside my head, and there was no sound, but I heard it plainly. I do not pretend that there was anything supernatural about the fact, nor do I pretend to understand how it happened. It sprang from the moody and half-distracted condition of my mind; it was the return of the overstretched spring; it was the echo of my accustomed thoughts, for the last fortnight pent-up and confined in narrow cells to make room for the unaccustomed thoughts. This is, exactly, what the Voice said to me: ter. "You were a poor Polish boy, living in exile, and Heaven sent you the captain to educate you, give you the means of living, and make you a Christian gentleman, when you might have grown up among the companions of profligate sailors. You are an orphan, with neither mother, brother, nor sisYou have no relations to care for you at all. Heaven sent you Leonard to be your brother, and Celia to be your sister. From your earliest infancy you have been wrapped in the love of these two. You are deformed, it is true; you cannot do the things that some men delight in. Heaven has sent you the great gift of Music; it is another sense by which you are lifted above the ordinary run of men. Every hour in the day it is your privilege as a musician to soar above the earth, and lose yourself in divine harmonies. You have all this—and you complain! "Ungrateful! With these favors you sit here crying because you cannot have one thing more. You would have Celia love you, and marry you. Are you worthy of such a girl? "Rouse yourself! Go back to your work. Show a brave and cheerful face to the good old man your benefactor. Let Celia cease to wonder whether she has pained you, and to search her heart for words she has never spoken; work for her and with her again; let her never know that you have hungered after the impossible, even to sickness. "And one more thing. Remember Leonard's parting words. Are you blind or are you stupid? With what face could you meet him when he comes home, and say, 'Leonard, you left me to take care of Celia; you trusted to my keeping the secret of your own love. I have betrayed your confidence, and stolen away her heart.' Think of that!" The Voice ceased, and I arose and walked home, changed. The captain looked up, as I entered the room, in a wistful, sad way. "Forgive me, sir," I said. "I have been worrying myself-never mind what about-but it is over now, and I am sorry to have given you trouble." "You have fought it down, then, Laddy?" he asked, pulling off his spectacles. I started. Did he, then, read my soul? Was powder, but also Celia's as well. On that account it my secret known to all the world? was. Only to him, I think. "When I was a young fellow," he went on, walking up and down the room with his hands behind him, "I fell in love-with a young lady-I believed that young lady to be an angel, and I dare say she But I found that she couldn't be my angel, so I went to sea, which was a very good way of getting through that trouble. I had a spell on the West Coast-caught the yellow fever-chased the slavers -forgot it." I laughed. was set apart for one of the Tyrrells' four annual dinner-parties, and was treated as a church-festival or fast-day. This was the period of early Christianity, when any ecclesiastical days, whether of sorrowful or joyful commemoration, were marked by a better dinner than usual, and the presence of wine. On Ash-Wednesday and Good-Friday we had salt-fish, followed, at the Tyrrells', by a sumptuous repast, graced by the presence of a few guests, and illustrated, so to speak, by a generous flow of port, of which every respectable Briton then kept a cellar, carefully labeled and laid down years before. The "Do you recommend me to go out slave-chasing, novus homo in a provincial town might parade his sir?" "You might do worse, boy. She is a beautiful creature, Laddy; she is a pearl among maidens. I have always loved her. I have watched her with you, Laddy, and all the love is on your side. I have seen the passion grow in you; you have been restless and fidgety. I remembered my own case, and I waited. No, my boy, it can't be; I wish it could; she doesn't look on you in that light." After supper he spoke allegorically : "I've known men-good men, too-grumble at their posts in an action. What does it matter, Laddy, when the enemy has struck, where any man has to do his duty? The thing is to do it." plate, his dinner-service, his champagne—then reckoned a very ostentatious wine. He might affect singularity by preferring claret to port, and he might even invite his guests to drink of strange and unknown wines, such as Sauterne, Bucellas, Lisbon, or even Hock. But one thing he could not do: he could not boast of his old cellar, because everybody would know that he had bought it. Mr. Tyrrell was conscious of this, and, being himself a novus homo, he evaded the difficulty by referring his wine to the cellar of Mr. Pontifex, the husband of Mrs. Tyrrell's aunt. Now, Mr. Pontifex was a man of good county family, and his port, laid down by his father before him, was not to be gainsaid by the most se This parable had its personal application, like vere critic. Criticism, in our town, neglecting literamost of the captain's admonitions. ture and the fine arts, confined itself to port in the "You have been unlike yourself, Laddy, lately," first instance, municipal affairs in the second, and said Celia. "Yes, Cis, I have been ill, I think." "Not fretting, Laddy, over things?" "It seems hard, poor boy, sometimes, does it not? But your life will not be wasted, though you spend it all in teaching music." She thought I had been brooding over my deformity and poverty. Well, so I had, in a sense. Enough of my fit. The passion disappeared at length, the love remained. Side by side with such a girl as Celia one must have been lower than human not to love her. Such a love is an education. I know little of grown women, because I spend my time among girls, and have had no opportunity of studying woman's nature except that of Celia. But I can understand what is meant when I read that the love of woman may raise a man to heaven or drag him down to hell. Out of this earthly love which we share in common with the lowest there spring for us all, as we know, flowers of rare and wondrous beauty. And those who profit most by these blossoms sometimes express their nature to the world in music and in verse. CHAPTER XV. LA VIE DE PROVINCE. THE 24th of. May was not only the queen's birthday, and therefore kept a holiday in the port with infinite official rejoicings and expenditure of politics in the third. As the two latter subjects ran in well-known grooves, it is obvious that the only scope for original thought lay in the direction of port. Round this subject were grouped the choicest anecdotes, the sweetest flowers of fancy, the deepest yearnings of the over-soul. A few houses were rivals in the matter of port. The Rev. Mr. Broughton, our old tutor, was acknowledged to have some '34 beyond all praise, but, as he gave few dinner-parties, on the score of poverty, there were not many who could boast of having tasted it. Little Dr. Roy had a small cellar brought from Newfoundland or New Brunswick, whither, as everybody knows, the Portugal trade carries yearly a small quantity of finer wine than ever comes to the London market. The Rev. John Pontifex inherited, as I have already said, a cellar by which Mr. Tyrrell was the principal gainer. There were two or three retired officers who had made good use of their opportunities on the Rock and elsewhere. And the rest were nowhere. As Mr. Broughton said, after an evening out of the "best" set-that is, the set who had cellars worth considering-the fluid was Lamentable. Good or bad, the allowance for every guest at dinner was liberal, amounting to a bottle and a half a head, though seasoned topers might take more. It was port, with rum-and-water, which produced those extraordinary noses which I remember in my childhood. There was the nose garnished like Bardolph's with red blossoms; there was the large nose, swollen in all its length; there was the nose with the great, red protuberance, waggling as the wearer walked, or agitated by the summer breeze; and there was the nose which paled while it grew, carrying in its general appearance not a full-voiced song and pean of rum, like its brothers of the ruddy blossom and the ruby blob, but a gentle suspicion of long evening drinks and morning drams. Some men run to of George Tyrrell's stamp-were more moderate. A simple bottle of port after dinner generally sufficed for their modest wants; and they did not drink rum at all. The captain, for his part, took his rations regularly: a glass of port every day, and two on Sunday; a tumbler of grog every night, and two on "Beside him, his back to the empty fireplace, stood, tall, commanding as if the place belonged to him, Herr Raumer."-Page 23. added, of course, the feasts and festivals of the Church. Let us return to these occasions. weight as they grow old; some dry up. It is matter | Sunday. To Sundays, as a good Churchman, he of temperament. So some of those old topers ran to red and swollen nose, rubicund of color and bright with many a blossom; while some ran to a pallid hue and shrunken dimensions. It is true that these were old stagers-the scanty remnant of a generation most of whom were long since tucked up in bed and fallen sound asleep. The younger men On Good-Friday it was-it is still, I believe-de rigueur to make yourself ill by eating hot cross-buns, which were sold in the streets to the tune of a simple ditty sung by the venders. On Whit-Sunday, who 靠 so poor as not to have gooseberry-pie, unless the season was very backward? Lamb came in with Easter, and added its attractions to heighten the spiritual joy of the season. Easter-eggs were not yet invented; but everybody put on something new for the day. The asceticism of Lent had no terrors for those who, like ourselves, began it with more than the customary feasting, conducted it without any additional services, broke its gloom by Mothering Sunday, and ended it by two feasts, separated by one day only. The hungriest Christian faced its terrors with cheek unblanched and lips firm; he came out of it no thinner than he went in. As for the spiritual use he made of that season, it was a matter for his conscience to determine, not for me to resolve. We marked its presence in church by draping the pulpit, reading-desk, and clerk's desk, with black velvet instead of red. The Rev. Mr. Broughton always explained the bearings of Lent according to the ordinances of the Church, and explained very carefully that fasting in our climate, and in the northern latitude, was to be taken in a spiritual, not a carnal sense. It was never meant, he said, that Heaven's gifts were to be neglected, whatever the season might be. Nor was it intended by Providence, in the great Christian scheme, that we were to endanger the health of the body by excessive abstinence. This good shepherd preached what he practised, and practised what he preached. During Lent the hymns, until I became organist, were taken more slowly than at other seasons, so that it was a great time for the old ladies on the triangular brackets. The captain, who had an undeveloped ear for music, said that caterwauling was not singing praises, but it was only fair to let every one have his watch, turn and turn about, and that if the commanding officer-meaning Mr. Broughton-allowed it, we had to put up with it. But he gave out the "tools" with an air of pitiful resignation. On Trinity-Sunday Mr. Broughton, in a discourse of twenty minutes, confronted the Unbeliever, and talked him down with such an array of argument that when the benediction came there was nothing left of him. It is curious that, whenever I, which is once a year, read that splendid encounter between Greatheart and Apollyon, I always think of Mr. Broughton and Trinity-Sunday. When Apollyon was quite worsted and we were dismissed, we went home to a sort of great, grand-day dinner, a gaudy, a city feast, a commemoration banquet, to which all other Christian festivals, except Christmas, were mere trifles. For on Trinity-Sunday, except when east winds were more protracted than usual, there were salmon, lamb, peas, duckling, early gooseberries, and asparagus. certain position. The Tyrrells, for instance, could hardly do less than give four dinner-parties in the year. Others not in so good a position might maintain their social rank with two. Retired officers were not expected to show any hospitality at all. To be sure, this concession was necessary, unless the poor fellows, who generally had large and hungry families, were allowed to entertain, after the manner of Augustus Brambler, on bread-and-cheese. Mrs. Pontifex, again, who had very decided Christian views, but was of a good county family, admitted her responsibilities by offering one annual banquet of the more severe order. A bachelor, like Mr. Verney Broughton, was exempt from this social tax. He gave very few dinners. To make up for this, he would ask one man at a time, and set before him such a reminiscence of Oriel in a solid dinner, with a bottle of crusted port after it, as to make that guest dissatisfied with his wife's catering for a month to come. The guests were divided into sets, with no regard for their special fitness or individual likings, but simply in accordance with their recognized social status. The advantage of this arrangement was, that you knew beforehand whom you would meet, and what would be talked about. I knew all the sets, because at most of their entertainments I was a guest, and at some a mere umbra, invited as ami de famille, who would play and sing after dinner. On these occasions my profession was supposed to be merged in the more creditable fact of my illustrious birth. When strangers came I never failed to overhear the whisper, after the introduction: "Count Pulaski in Poland, but refuses to bear the title in England. Of very high Polish family." One gets used to most things in time. Mr. Tyrrell divided his dinner-guests into In October we had lawyers, one or two four sets. doctors, perhaps a clergyman, and their wives. At the summer-feast (which was the most important, and was fixed with reference to the full moon for convenience of driving home) there were the important clients, who came in great state in their own carriages. In February we entertained a humbler class of townspeople, who were also clients. And in December we generally entertained the mayor and officers of the borough, a thing due to Mr. Tyrrell's connection with the municipality. The May banquet was wholly of a domestic character. The dinners were solid and heavy, beginning early and lasting an immense time. After dinner the men sat for an hour or two, consuming large quantities of port. "If this," Celia used to say, "is society, I think, Laddy, that I prefer solitude." She and I used to sing and play duets together after dinner, occasionally giving way to any young lady who exI pected to be asked to sing. The songs of the day were not bad, but they lasted too long. It is more than possible to tire, in the course of years, of such "Isle of Beauty" or a melody as "Love not" (a very exasperating piece of long-drawn music), or "The Sweet Young Page," a sentimentally beautiful thing. The men, some of whom had red faces after the port, mostly hung about the doors together, while From Trinity-Sunday to Advent was a long stretch, unmarked by any occasion of feasting. used to wonder why the Church had invented nothing to fill up that space, and I commiserated the hard lot of Dissenters, to whom their religion gave no times for feasting. The influence of custom hedged round the whole of life for us. It even regulated the amount of our hospitalities. Things were expected of people in a VOL. IV.-2 |