The Dodd Family Abroad Volume I Part 6

and Mary Anne have taken up; and one of the nurses that sat up with him told me that he used to sigh dreadfully at times, and mutter broken expressions about money.

To tell you the truth, Tom, I 'd go back to-morrow, if I could. "And why can't you?--what prevents you, Kenny?" I hear you say. Just this, then, I haven't the pluck! I couldn't stand the attack of Mrs. D. and her daughter. I 'm not equal to it. My const.i.tution is n't what it used to be, and I'm afraid of the gout. At my time of life, they say it always flies to the heart or to the head,--maybe because there 's a vacancy in these places after fifty-six or seven years of age! I see, too, by the looks Mrs. D. gives Mary Anne occasionally, that they know this; and she often gives me to understand that she does n't wish to dispute with me, for reasons of her own. This is all very well, and kindly meant, Tom, but it throws me into a depression that is dreadful.

I see by the papers that you've taken up all kinds of "Sanitary Questions" at home. As for the health of towns, Tom, the grand thing is not to suffer them to grow too big. You're always crying out about twelve people sleeping in one room somewhere, and you gave the ages of each of them in the "Times," and you grow moral and modest, and I don't know what else, about decency, dest.i.tution, and so forth; but what's London itself but the very same thing on an enlarged scale? It's nonsense to fret about a wart, when you have a wen in the same neighborhood. Not that I'm sorry to see fine folk taking trouble about what concerns the poor, particularly when they go about it sensibly and quietly, without any balderdash of little books, and, above all, without a ladies' committee. If there 's anything chokes me, it's a ladies' committee. Three married women on bad terms with their husbands, four widows, and five old maids, all prying, pedantic, and impertinent,--going loose about the world with little subscription-cards, decrying innocent pleasures, and decoying your children's pocket-money,--turning benevolence into a house-tax, and making charity like the "Pipe-water." You remark, too, that the pretty women won't join these gangs at all. Now and then you may see one take out a letter of marque, and cruise for herself, but never in company.

Seeing the importunity of these old damsels, I often wondered why the Government never thought of employing ladies as tax-collectors. He 'd be a hardy man who 'd make one or two I could mention call twice.

I have been turning over in my mind what you said about Dodsborough; and though I don't like the notion of giving a lease, still it's possible we might do it without much danger. "He is an Englishman," you say, "that has never lived in Ireland." Now, my notion is, Tom, that if he be as old as you say, it's too late for him to try. They're a mulish, obstinate, unbending kind of people, these English; and wherever you see them, they never conform to the habits of the people. After thirty years' experience of Ireland, you'll hear them saying that they cannot accustom themselves to the "lies and the climate "! If I have heard that same remark once, I've heard it fifty times. And what does it amount to but a confession that they won't take the world as they find it. Ireland is rainy, there's no doubt, and Paddy is fond of telling you what he thinks is agreeable to you,--a kind of native courtesy, just like his offering you his potato when he knows in his heart that he can't spare it,--but he gives it, nevertheless.

I 'd say, then, we might let him have Dodsborough, on the chance that he 'd never stay six months there, and perhaps in the mean while we 'd find out another Manchester gentleman to succeed him. I remember poor old Dycer used to sell a little chestnut mare every Sat.u.r.day,--n.o.body ever kept her a fortnight,--and when she died, by jumping over b.l.o.o.d.y Bridge into the Liffey, and killed herself and her rider, Dycer said, "There's four-and-twenty pounds a year lost to _me,_"--and so it was too! Think over this, and tell me your mind on it.

I believe I told you of the Polish Count that we took with us to Waterloo. I met him yesterday with my cloak on him; but really the number of my legal embroilments here is so great that I was shy of arresting him. We hear a great deal of talk about the part.i.tion of Poland, and there is an English lord keeps the subject for his own especial holdings forth; but I am convinced that the greatest evil of that nefarious act lies in having thrown all these Polish fellows broadcast over Europe. I wish it was a kingdom to-morrow, if they 'd only consent to stay there. To be well rid of them and their sympathizers, whom I own I like even less, would be a great blessing just now. I wish the "Times" would stop blackguarding Louis Napoleon. If the French like being bullied, what is that to us? My own notion is that the people and their ruler are well met; besides, if we only reflect a little on it, we 'll see that anything is better for _us_ than a Bourbon,--I don't care what branch! They are under too deep obligations to us, and have too often accepted of English hospitality, not to hate us; and hate us they do. I believe the first Frenchman that cherishes an undying animosity to England is your Legitimist; next to him comes the Orleanist.

It's a strange thing, but the more I have to think of about my own affairs, and the worse they are going with me, the more my thoughts run after politics and the newspapers. I suppose that's all for the best, and that if people dwelled too much on their own troubles, their heads would n't stand it. You've seen a trick the horse jockeys have when a horse goes lame of one foot,--to pinch him a little with the shoe of the opposite one; and it's not bad philosophy to practise mentally, and you may preserve your equanimity just by putting on the load fairly. And so it is I try to divert my thoughts from mortgages, creditors, and Chancery, by wondering how the King of Naples will contrive to keep his throne, and how the Austrians will save themselves from bankruptcy! I know it would be more to the purpose if I turned my thoughts to getting Mary Anne married, and James into the Board of Trade; at least, so Mrs.

D. tells me, and although she is always repeating the old saw about "marriages being made in heaven," she evidently does n't wish to give too much trouble in that quarter, and would like to lend a hand herself to the work.

Jellicot has sent his clerk here to tell me that I have been p.r.o.nounced "Contumacious," for not appearing somewhere, and before somebody that I never heard of! Egad! these kind of proceedings are scarcely calculated to develop the virtues of humanity! They sent me something I thought was a demand for a tax, and it turns out a judge's warrant; for aught I know, there may be an order to seize the body of Kenny James Dodd, and consign him to the dungeons of the Inquisition! Write to me at once, Tom, and above all don't forget the money.

Yours, most faithfully,

K. I. Dodd.

Why does Molly Gallagher keep pestering me about Christy? She wants me to get him into the "Grand Ca.n.a.l." I wish they were both there, with all my heart.

I open this to say that Vickars has just sent me a copy of his address to the "Independent Electors of Bruff." I'd like to see one of them, for the curiosity of the thing. He asks me to give him my opinion of the doc.u.ment, and the "benefit of my advice and counsel," as if I had not been reading the very same productions since I was a child. The very phraseology is unaltered. Why can't they hit on something new? He "hopes that he restores to them, unsullied, the high trust they had committed to his keeping." Egad! if he does so, he ought to get a patent for taking out spots, stains, and discolorations, for a dirtier garment than our representative mantle has been, would be hard to find. Like all our patriots that sit in Whig company, he is sorely puzzled between his love for Ireland and his regard for himself, and has to limit his political line to a number of vague threats about overgrown Church Establishments and Landlord tyranny, not being quite sure how far his friends in power are disposed to worry the Protestants and grind the gentry.

Of course be batters up the pastors of the people; but he might as well leave _that_ alone; the priests are too cunning for all that balderdash nowadays. They'll insist on something real, tangible, and substantial.

What they say is this: "The landlords used to have it all their own way at one time. _Our_ day is come now." And there they're right, Tom; there's no doubt of it. O'Connell said true when he told the English, "Ye're always abusing me,--and call me the 'curse of Ireland' and the destroyer of the public peace,--but wait a bit. I 'll not be five years in my grave till you 'd wish me back again." There never was anything more certain. So long as you had Dan to deal with, you could make your bargain,--it might be, it often was, a very hard one,--but when it was once made, he kept the terms fairly and honestly! But with whom will you treat _now?_ Is it with M'Hale, or Paul Cullen, or Dr. Meyler? Sure each of them will demand separate and specific conditions, and you might as well try to settle the Caffre war by a compact with Sandilla, who, the moment he sells himself to you, enters into secret correspondence with his successor.

I'm never so easy in my mind as when I see the English in a row with the Catholics. I don't care a bra.s.s farthing how much it may go against us at first,--how enthusiastically they may yell "No Popery," burn cardinals in effigy, and persecute the nuns. Give them rope enough, Tom, and see if they don't hang themselves! There never came a fit of rampant Protestantism in England that all the weak, rash, and ridiculous zealots did n't get to the head of the movement. Off they go at score, subsidizing renegade vagabonds of our Church to abuse us, raking up bad stories of conventual life, and attacking the confessional. There never were gulls like them! They swallow all the cases of cruelty and persecution at once,--they foster every scoundrel, if he's only a deserter from us,--ay, and they even take to their fireplaces the filthiest novels of Eugene Sue, if he only satisfies their rancorous hate of a Jesuit. And where does it end? I'll tell you. Their converts turn out to be scoundrels too infamous for common contact; their prosecutions fail,--why would n't they, when we get them up ourselves?--John Bull gets ashamed of himself; round comes the Press, and that's the moment when any young rising Catholic barrister in the House can make his own terms, whether it be to endow the true Church or to smash the false one!

As for John Bull, he never can do mischief enough when he 's in a pa.s.sion, but he's always ready to pay double the damage in the morning.

And as for putting "salt on our tails," let him try it with the "Dove of Elphin," that 's all.

I was forgetting to tell you that I sent back Vickars's address, only remarking that I was sorry not to know his sentiments about the Board of Trade. _Ver. sap._

LETTER X. CAROLINE DODD TO MISS c.o.x, AT MISS MINCING'S ACADEMY

BLACK ROCK, IRELAND.

My dear Miss c.o.x,--I have long hesitated and deliberated with myself whether it were not better to appear ungrateful for my silence, than by writing inflict you with a very tiresome, good-for-nothing epistle; and if I have now taken the worst counsel, it is because I prefer anything rather than seem forgetful of one to whom I owe so much as to my dear, kind governess. Were I only to tell you of our adventures and mishaps since we came abroad, there might, perhaps, be enough to fill half a dozen letters; but I greatly doubt if the theme would amuse you. You were always too good-natured to laugh at anything where there was even one single feature that suggested sorrow; and I grieve to say that, however ludicrously many of our accidents might read, there is yet mixed with them too much that is painful and distressing. You will say this is a very gloomy opening, and from one whom you had so often to chide for the wild gayety of her spirits; but so it is: I am sad enough now,--sadder than ever you wished to see me. It is not that I am not in the very midst of objects full of deep interest,--it is not that I do not recognize around me scenes, places, and names, all of which are imbued with great and stirring a.s.sociations. I am neither indifferent nor callous, but I see everything through a false medium, and I hear everything with a perverted judgment; in a word, we seem to have come abroad, not to derive the advantages that might arise from new sources of knowledge in language, literature, and art, but to scramble for a higher social position,--to impose ourselves on the world for something that we have no pretension to, and to live in a way that we cannot afford. You remember us at Dodsborough,--how happy we were, how satisfied with the world; that is, with our world, for it was a very little one. We were not very great folk, but we had all the consideration as if we were; for there were none better off than ourselves, and few had so many opportunities of winning the attachment of all cla.s.ses. Papa was always known as the very best of landlords, mamma had not her equal for charity and kindness, James was actually adored by the people, and I hesitate not to say that Mary Anne and myself were not friendless. There was a little daily round of duties that brought us all together in our cares and sympathies; for, however different our ages or tastes, we had but one cla.s.s of subjects to discuss, and, happily, we saw them always with the same light and shadow. Our life was, in short, what fas.h.i.+onable people would have deemed a very vulgar, inglorious kind of existence; but it was full of pleasant little incidents, and a thousand little cares and duties, that gave it abundant variety and interest. I was never a quick scholar, as you know too well. I have tried my dear Miss c.o.x's patience sorely and often, but I loved my lessons; I loved those calm hours in the summer-house, with the perfume of the rose and the sweetbrier around us, and the hum of the bee mingling its song with my own not less drowsy French. That sweet "Telemachus," so easy and so softly sounding; that good Madame de Genlis, so simple-minded when she thought herself most subtle! Not less did I love the little old schoolroom of a winter's day, when the pattering rain streamed down the windows, and gave, by contrast, all the aspect of more comfort within. How pleasant was it, as we gathered round the turf fire, to think that we were surrounded with such appliances against gloomy hours,--the healthful exercise of happy minds! Ah, my dear Miss c.o.x, how often you told us to study hard, since that, once launched upon the great sea of life, the voyage would exact all our cares; and yet see, here am I upon that wide ocean, and already longing to regain the quiet little creek,--the little haven of rest that I quitted!

I promised to be very candid with you, to conceal nothing whatever; but I did not remember that my confessions, to be thus frank, must necessarily involve me in remarks on others, in which I may be often unjust,--in which I am certain to be unwarranted,--since nothing in my position ent.i.tles me to be their censor. However, I will keep my pledge this once, and you will tell me afterwards if I should continue to observe it. And now to begin. We are living here as though we were people of vast fortune. We occupy the chief suite of apartments at the first hotel, and we have a carriage, with showy liveries, a courier, and are quite beset with masters of every language and accomplishment you can fancy,--expensive kind of people, whose very dress and style bespeak the terms on which their services are rendered. Our visitors are all t.i.tled: dukes, princes, and princesses shower amongst our cards. Our invitations are from the same cla.s.s, and yet, my dear Miss c.o.x, we feel all the unreality of this high and stately existence. We look at each other and think of Dodsborough! We think of papa in his old fustian shooting-jacket, paying the laborers, and higgling about half a day to be stopped here, and a sack of meal to be deducted there. We think of mamma's injunctions to Darby Sloan about the price he is to get for the "boneens,"--have you forgotten our vernacular for little pigs?--and how much he must "be sure to ask" or the turkeys. We think of Mary Anne and myself taking our lesson from Mr. Delaney, and learning the Quad--drilles as he p.r.o.nounced it, as the last new discovery of the dancing art, and dear James hammering away at the rule of three on an old slate, to try and qualify himself for the Board of Trade. And we remember the utter consternation of the household--the tumult dashed with a certain sense of pride--when some subaltern of the detachment at Bruff cantered up to the door and sent in his name! Dear me, how the little words 25th Regiment, or 91st, used to make our hearts beat, suggestive as they were of gay b.a.l.l.s at the Town-hall with red-coated partners, the regimental band, and the colors tastefully festooning the whitewashed walls. And now, my dear Miss Sarah, we are actually ashamed of the contact with one of those whom once it was our highest glory to be acquainted with! You may remember a certain Captain Morris, who was stationed at Bruff,--dark, with very black eyes, and most beautiful teeth; he was very silent in company, and, indeed, we knew him but slightly, for he chanced to have some altercation with pa on the bench one day, and, as I hear he was all in the right, pa did not afterwards forgive him. Well, here he is now, having left the army,--I don't know if on half-pay, or sold out altogether,--but here he is, travelling for the benefit of his mother's health,--a very old and infirm lady, to whom he is dotingly attached. She fretted so much when she discovered that his regiment was ordered abroad to the Cape, that he had no other resource than to leave the service! He told me so himself.

"I had n.o.body else in the world," said he, "who felt any interest in my fortunes; _she_ had made a hundred sacrifices for me. It was but fair I should make one for _her_."

He knew he was surrendering position and prospect forever,--that to him no career could ever open again; but he had placed a duty high above all considerations of self, and so he parted with comrades and pursuit, with everything that made up his hope and his object, and descended to a little station of un.o.btrusive, undistinguished humility, satisfied to be the companion of a poor, feeble old lady! He has as much as confessed to me that their means are very small. It was an accidental admission with reference to something he thought of doing, but which he found to be too expensive; and the avowal was made so easily, so frankly, so free from any false shame on one side, or any unworthy desire to entrap sympathy on the other! It was as if he spoke of something which indeed concerned him, but in no wise gave the mainspring to his thoughts or actions! He came to visit us here; but his having left the service, coupled with our present taste for grand acquaintance, were so little in his favor that I believed he would not have repeated his call. An accidental service, however, that he was enabled to render mamma and Mary Anne at a railroad station the other day, and where but for him they might have been involved in considerable difficulties, has opened a chance of further intimacy, for he has already been here two mornings, and is coming this evening to tea.

You will, perhaps, ask me how and by what chain of circ.u.mstances Captain Morris is linked with the earlier portion of this letter, and I will tell you. It was from him that I learned the history of those high and distinguished individuals by whom we are surrounded; from him I heard that, supposing us to be people of immense wealth, a whole web of intrigue has been spun around us, and everything that the ingenuity and craft of the professional adventurer could devise put in requisition to trade upon our supposed affluence and inexperience! He has told me of the dangerous companions by whom James is surrounded; and if he has not spoken so freely about a certain young n.o.bleman--Lord George Tiverton--who is now seldom or never out of the house, it is because that they have had something of a personal difference,--a serious one, I suspect, and which Captain Morris seems to reckon as a bar to anything beyond the merest mention of his name. It is not impossible, too, that though he might not make any revelations to _me_ on such a theme, he would be less guarded with papa or James. Whatever may be the fact, he does not advance at all in the good graces of the others. Mamma calls him a dry crust,--a confirmed old bachelor. Mary Anne and Lord George--for they are always in partners.h.i.+p in matters of opinion--have set him down as a "military prig;" and papa, who is rarely unjust in the long run, says that "there 's no guessing at the character of a fellow of small means, who never goes in debt" This may or may not be true; but it is certainly hard to condemn him for an honorable trait, simply because it does not give the key to his nature. And now, my last hope is what James may think of him, for as yet they have not met. I think I hear you echo my words, "And why your 'last hope,' Miss Cary? What possible right have you to express yourself in these terms?" Simply because I feel that one man of true and honorable sentiments, one right-judging, right-feeling gentleman, is all-essential to us abroad!

and if we reject this chance, I 'm not so sure we shall meet with another.

How ashamed I am not to be able to tell you of all I have seen! But so it is,--description is a very tame performance in good hands; it is a lamentable exhibition in weak ones! As to painters, I prefer Vandyk to Rubens; not that I have even the pretence of a reason for my criticism.

I know nothing, whatever, of what const.i.tutes excellence in color, drawing, or design. I understand in a picture only what it suggests to my own mind, either as a correct copy of nature, or as originating new trains of thought, new sources of feeling; and by these tests Vandyk pleases me more than his master. But, shall I own it, there is a cla.s.s of pictures of a far inferior order that gives me greater enjoyment than either, I meau those scenes of real life, those representations of some little uneventful incident of the every-day world,--an old chemist at work in his dim old laboratory; an old house Vrow knitting in her red-tiled chamber, the sunlight slanting in, and tipping with an azure tint the tortoisesh.e.l.l cat that purrs beside her; a lover teaching his mistress the guitar; an old cavalier giving his horse a drink at a fountain. These, in all the lifelike power of Gerard Dow, Teerburgh, or Mieris, have a charm for me I cannot express. They are stories, and they are better than stories; for oftentimes the writer conveys his meaning imperfectly, and oftentimes he overlays you with his explanations, stifling within you those expansive bursts of sentiment that ought to have been his aim to evoke, and thus, by elaborating, he obliterates.

Now, your artist--I mean, of course, your great artist--is eminently suggestive. He gives you but one scene, it is true, but how full is it of the past, and the future too! Can you gaze on that old alchemist, with his wrinkled forehead, and dim, deep-set eyes, his threadbare doublet, and his fingers tremulous from age? Can you watch that countenance, calm but careworn, where every line exhibits the long struggle there has been between the keen perceptions of science and the golden dreams of enthusiasm, where the coldest pa.s.sions of a worldly nature have warred with the most glorious attributes of a poetic temperament? Can you see him, as he sits watching the alembic wherein the toil of years is bubbling, and not weave within your own mind the life-long conflict he has sustained? Have you him not before you in his humble home, secluded and forgotten of men, yet inhabiting a dream-world of crowded images? What beautiful stories--what touching little episodes of domestic life--lie in the quiet scenes of those quaint interiors; and how deep the charm that attaches one to these peaceful spots of home happiness! The calm intellectuality of the old, the placid loveliness of the young, the air of cultivated enjoyment that pervades all, are in such perfect keeping that you feel as though they imparted to yourself some share of that gentle, tranquil pleasure that forms their own atmosphere!

Oh, my dear Miss c.o.x! if there be "sermons in stones," there are romances in pictures,--and romances far more truthful than the circulating libraries supply us with. And, to turn back to real life, shall I own to you that I am sadly disappointed with the gay world? I am fully alive to all the value of the confession. I appreciate perfectly how double-edged is the weapon of this admission, and that I am in reality but pleading guilty to my own unfitness for its enjoyments; but as I never tried to evade or deny that fact, I may be suffered to give my testimony with so much of qualification. When I compare the little gratification that society confers on the very highest cla.s.ses, with the heartfelt delight intercourse imparts to the humble, I am at a loss to see wherein lies the advantage of all the exclusive regulations of fas.h.i.+onable life. Of one thing I feel a.s.sured, and that is, that one must be bora in a certain cla.s.s, habituated from the earliest years to its ideas and habits, filled with its peculiar traditions, and animated by its own special hopes, to conform gracefully and easily to its laws.

_We_ go into society to perform a part,--just as artificial a one as any in a genteel comedy,--and consequently are too much occupied with "our character" to derive that benefit from intercourse which is so attainable by those less constrained by circ.u.mstances. If all this amounts to the simple confession that I am by no means at home in the great world, and far more at my ease with more humble a.s.sociates, it is no more than the fact, and comes pretty near to what you often remarked to me,--that "in criticising external objects one is very frequently but delineating little traits and lineaments of one's own nature."

I am unable to answer your question about our future plans; for, indeed, they appear anything but fixed. I believe if papa had his choice he would go back at once.

This, however, mamma will not hear of; and, indeed, the word Ireland is now as much under ban amongst us as that name that is never "syllabled to ears polite." The doctors say James ought to pa.s.s a month or six weeks at Schwalbach, to drink the waters and take the baths; and, from what I can learn, the place is the perfection of rural beauty and quietude. Captain Morris speaks of it as a little paradise. He is going there himself; for I have learned--though not from him--that he was badly wounded in the Afghan war. I will write to you whenever our destination is decided on; and, meanwhile, beg you to believe me my dear Miss c.o.x's

Most attached and faithful pupil,

Caroline Dodd.

LETTER XI. MR. DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ., OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF.

Dear Tom,--I got the bills all safe, and cashed two of them yesterday.

They came at the right moment,--when does not money?--for we are going to leave this for Germany, one of the watering-places there, the name of which I cannot trust myself to spell, being recommended for James's wound. I suppose I 'm not singular, but somehow I never was able to compute what I owed in a place till I was about to leave it. From that moment, however, in come a shower of bills and accounts that one never dreamed of. The cook you discharged three months before has never paid for the poultry, and you have as many hens to your score as if you were a fox. You 've lost the fishmonger's receipts, and have to pay him over again for a whole Lent's consumption. Your courier has run up a bill in your name for cigars and curaoa, and your wife's maid has been conducting the most liberal operations in perfumery and cosmetics, under the t.i.tle of her mistress. Then comes the landlord, for repairs and damages. Every creaky sofa and cracked saucer that you have been treating for six months with the deference due to their delicate condition must be replaced by new ones. Every window that would n't shut, and every door that would not open, must be put in perfect order; keys replaced, bells rehung. The saucepans, whose verdigris has almost killed you with colic, must be all retinned or coppered; and, lastly, the pump is sure to be destroyed by the housemaid, and vague threats about sinking a new well are certain to draw you into a compromise. Nor is the roguery the worst of it; but all the sneaking scoundrels that would n't "trouble you with their little demands" before, stand out now as st.u.r.dy creditors that would not abate a jot of their claims. Lucky are ye if they don't rake up old balances, and begin the score with "_Restant du dernier compte_."

The moralists say that a man should be enabled to visit the world after his death, if he would really know the opinion entertained of him by his fellows. Until this desirable object be attainable, one ought to be satisfied with the experience obtained by change of residence. There is no disguise, no concealment then! The little blemishes of your temper, once borne with such Christian charity, are remembered in a more chastening spirit; and it is half hinted that your custom was more than compensated for by your complaining querulousness. Is not the moral of all this that one should live at home, in his own place, where his father lived before him, and his son will live after him; where the tradespeople have a vested interest in your welfare, and are nearly as anxious about your wheat and potatoes as you are yourself? Unlike these foreign rascals, that think you have a manufactory of "Hemes and Farquhar's circular notes," and can coin at will, your neighbors know when and at what times it's no use to tease you,--that asking for money at the wrong season is like expecting new peas in December, or grouse in the month of May.

I make these remarks in all the spirit of recent suffering, for I have paid away two hundred pounds since yesterday morning, of which I was not conscious that I owed fifty. And, besides, I have gone through more actual fighting--in the way of bad language, I mean--than double the money would repay me for. In these wordy combats, I feel I always come off worst; for as my knowledge of the language is limited, I 'm like the sailor that for want of ammunition crammed in whatever he could lay hands on into his gun, and fired off his bag of doubloons against the enemy instead of round shot. Mrs. D., too, whom the sounds of conflict always "summon to the field," does not improve matters; for if her vocabulary be limited, it is strong, and even the most roguish shopkeeper does not like to be called a thief and a highwayman! These diversions in our parts of speech have cost me dearly, for I have had to compromise about six cases of "defamation," and two of threatened a.s.sault and battery, though these last went no further than demonstrations on Mrs. D.'s part, which, however, were quite sufficient to terrify our grocer, who is a colonel in the National Guard, and a gigantic hairdresser, whose beard is the glory of a "_Sapeur_ company."

I have discovered, besides, that I have done something, but what it is--in contravention to the laws--I do not know, and for which I am fined eighty-two francs five centimes, plus twenty-seven for contumacy; and I have paid it now, lest it should grow into more by to-morrow, for so the Brigadier has just hinted to me; for that formidable functionary--with tags that would do credit to a general--is just come to "invite me," as he calls it, to the Prefecture. As these invitations are like royal ones, I must break off now abruptly.

Here I am again, Tom, after four hours of ante-chamber and audience. I had been summoned to appear before the authorities to purge myself of a contempt,--for which, by the way, they had already fined me; my offence being that I had not exchanged some bit of paper for another bit of paper given me in exchange for my pa.s.sport, the purport of which was to show that I, Kenny Dodd, was living openly and flagrantly in the city of Brussels, and not following out any clandestine pursuit or object injurious to the state, and subversive of the monarchy. Well, I hope they 're satisfied now; and if my eighty-two francs five centimes gave any stability to their inst.i.tutions, much good may it do them! This, however, seems but the beginning of new troubles; for on my applying to have the aforesaid pa.s.sport _vised_ for Germany, they told me that there were two "detainers" on it, in the shape of two actions at law yet undecided, although I yesterday morning paid up what I understood to be the last instalment for compromising all suits now pending against said Kenny I. Dodd. On hearing this, I at once set out for the tribunal to see Vanhoegen and Draek, my chief lawyers. Such a place as the tribunal you never set eyes on. Imagine a great quadrangle, with archways all round crammed full of dirty advocates,--black-gowned, black-faced, and black-hearted; peasants, thieves, jailers, tip-staffs, and the general public of fruit-sellers and lucifer-matches all mixed up together, with a turmoil and odor that would make you hope Justice was as little troubled with nose as eyesight. Over the heads of this mob you catch glimpses of the several courts, where three old fellows, like the figures in a Holbein, sit behind a table covered with black cloth, administering the law,--a solemn task that loses some of its imposing influence when you think that these reverend seigniors, if wanting in the wisdom, are not free from one of the weaknesses of Bacon! By dint of great pressing, pus.h.i.+ng, and perseverance, I forced my way forward into one of these till I reached a strong wooden rail, or barrier, within which was an open s.p.a.ce, where the accused sat on a kind of bench, the witness under examination being opposite to him, and the procureur hard by in a little box like a dwarf pulpit I thought I saw Draek in the crowd, but I was mistaken,--an easy matter, they all look so much alike. Once in, however, I thought I 'd remain for a while and see the proceedings. It was a trial for murder, as well as I could ascertain the case. The prisoner, a gentlemanlike young fellow of six or seven and twenty, had stabbed another in some fit of jealousy. I believe they were at supper, or were going to sup together when the altercation occurred.

There was a waiter in the witness-box giving evidence when I came up; and really the tone of deference he exhibited to the prisoner, and the prisoner's own off-hand, easy way of interrogating him, were greatly to be admired. It was easy to see that he had got many a half-crown from the accused, and had not given up hope of many more in future. His chief evidence was to the effect that Monsieur de Verteuil, the accused, had ordered a supper for two in a private room, the bill of fare offering a wide field for discussion, one of the points of the case being whether the guest who should partake of the repast was a lady or the deceased; and this the advocates on each side handled with wonderful dexterity, by inferences drawn from the _carte_. You see, Verteuil's counsel wanted to show that Bretigny was an intruder, and had forced himself into the company of the accused. The opposite side were for implying that he came there on invitation, and was murdered of malice aforethought I don't think the point would have been so very material with us; or, at all events, that we should have tried to elicit it in this manner; but they have their own way of doing things, and I suppose they know what suits them. After half an hour's very animated skirmis.h.i.+ng, the president, with a sudden flash of intelligence, bethought him of asking the accused for whom he bespoke the entertainment.

"You must excuse me, Monsieur le Prsident," said he, blandly; "but I 'm sure that your nice sense of honor will show that I cannot answer your question."

"Trs bien, trs bien," rang through the crowded court, in approbation of this chivalrous speech, and one young lady from the gallery flung down her bouquet of moss-roses to the prisoner, in token of her enthusiastic concurrence. The delicate reserve of the accused seemed to touch every one. Husbands and wives, sons and daughters, all appeared to feel that they had a vested interest in the propagation of such principles; and the old judge who had propounded the ungracious interrogatory really seemed ashamed of himself.

The waiter soon after this retired, and what the newspapers next day called a _sensation p.r.o.nonce_ was caused by the entrance of a very handsome and showy-looking young lady,--no less a personage than Mademoiselle Catinka Lovenfeld, the prima donna of the opera, and the Dido of this unhappy neid. With us, the admiration of a pretty witness is always a very subdued homage; and even the reporters do not like venturing beyond the phrase, "here a person of prepossessing appearance took her place on the table." They are very superior to us here, however, for the buzz of admiration swelled from the lowest benches till it rose to the very judicial seat itself, and the old president, affecting to look at his notes, wiped his gla.s.ses afresh, and took a sly peep at the beauty, like the rest of us.

Though, as Macheath says, "Laws were made for every degree," the mode of examining witnesses admits of considerable variety. The interrogatories were now no longer jerked out with abruptness; the questions were not put with the categorical sternness of that frowning aspect which, be the lawyer Belgian, French, or Irish, seems an instinct with him; on the contrary, the pretty witness was invited to tell her name, she was wheedled out of her birthplace coaxed out of her peculiar religious profession, and joked into saying something about her age.

I must say, if she had rehea.r.s.ed the part as often as she had that of Norma, she couldn't be more perfect. Her manner was the triumph of ease and grace. There was an almost filial deference for the bench, an air of respectful attention for the bar, courtesy for the jury, and a most touching shade of compa.s.sion for the prisoner, and all this done without the slightest seeming effort. I do not pretend to know what others felt; but as for me, I paid very little attention to the matter, so much more did the manner of the inquiry engage me: still, I heard that she was a Saxon by birth, of n.o.ble parentage, born with the highest expectations, but ruined by the attachment of her father to the cause of the Emperor Napoleon. The animation with which she alluded to this parental trait elicited a most deafening burst of applause, and the tip-staff, a veteran of the Imperial Guard, was carried out senseless, overcome by his emotions. Ah, Tom! we have nothing like this in England, and strange enough that they should have it here; but the fact is, these Belgians are only "second-chop" Frenchmen,--a kind of weak "after gra.s.s," with only the weeds luxuriant! It's pretty much as with ourselves,--the people that take a loan of a language never take a lease of the traditions! They catch up just some popular clap-traps of the mother country, but there ends the relations.h.i.+p!

But to come back to Mademoiselle Catinka. She now had got into a little narrative of her youth, in some old chateau on the Elbe, which held the Court breathless; to be sure, it had not a great deal to do with the case in hand; but no matter for that: a more artless, gifted, lovely, and loving creature than she appeared to have been never existed. On this last attribute she laid considerable stress. There was, I think, a little rhetorical art in the confession; for certainly a young lady who loved birds, flowers, trees, water, clouds, and mountains so devotedly, might possibly have a spare corner for something else; and even the old judge could n't tell if he had not chanced on the lucky ticket in that lottery. I wish I could have heard the case out; I'd have given a great deal to see how they linked all that Paul and Virginia life with the b.l.o.o.d.y drama they were there to investigate, and what possible connection existed between Heck's romances and sticking a man with a table-knife. This gratification was, however, denied me; for just as I was listening with my greediest ears, Vanhoegen placed his hand on my shoulder, and whispered, "Come along--don't lose a minute--_your_ cause is on!"

"What do you mean? Have n't I compro--"

"Hus.h.!.+" said he, warningly; "respect the majesty of the law."