The Virginians Part 32

The other went on: "We are the best of friends, but we are flesh and blood: and I don't pretend to do more for him than is usually done for younger brothers. Why give him money? That he should squander it at cards or horse-racing? My lord, we have cards and jockeys in Virginia, too; and my poor Harry hath distinguished himself in his own country already, before he came to yours. He inherits the family failing for dissipation."

"Poor fellow, poor fellow, I pity him!"

"Our estate, you see, is great, but our income is small. We have little more money than that which we get from England for our tobacco-and very little of that too-for our tobacco comes back to us in the shape of goods, clothes, leather, groceries, ironmongery, nay, wine and beer for our people and ourselves. Harry may come back and share all these: there is a nag in the stable for him, a piece of venison on the table, a little ready money to keep his pocket warm, and a coat or two every year. This will go on whilst my mother lives, unless, which is far from improbable, he gets into some quarrel with Madam Esmond. Then, whilst I live he will have the run of the house and all it contains: then, if I die leaving children, he will be less and less welcome. His future, my lord, is a dismal one, unless some strange piece of luck turn up on which we were fools to speculate. Henceforth he is doomed to dependence, and I know no worse lot than to be dependent on a self-willed woman like our mother. The means he had to make himself respected at home he hath squandered away here. He has flung his patrimony to the dogs, and poverty and subserviency are now his only portion." Mr. Warrington delivered this speech with considerable spirit and volubility, and his cousin heard him respectfully.

"You speak well, Mr. Warrington. Have you ever thought of public life?" said my lord.

"Of course I have thought of public life like every man of my station-every man, that is, who cares for something beyond a dice-box or a stable," replies George. "I hope, my lord, to be able to take my own place, and my unlucky brother must content himself with his. This I say advisedly, having heard from him of certain engagements which he has formed, and which it would be misery to all parties were he to attempt to execute now."

"Your logic is very strong," said my lord. "Shall we go up and see the ladies? There is a picture above-stairs which your grandfather is said to have executed. Before you go, my dear cousin, you will please to fix a day when our family may have the honour of receiving you. Castlewood, you know, is always your home when we are there. It is something like your Virginian Castlewood, cousin, from your account. We have beef, and mutton, and ale, and wood, in plenty; but money is woefully scarce amongst us."

They ascended to the drawing-room, where, however, they found only one of the ladies of the family. This was my Lady Maria, who came out of the embrasure of a window, where she and Harry Warrington had been engaged in talk.

George made his best bow, Maria her lowest curtsey. "You are indeed wonderfully like your brother," she said, giving him her hand. "And from what he says, cousin George, I think you are as good as he is."

At the sight of her swollen eyes and tearful face George felt a pang of remorse. "Poor thing!" he thought. "Harry has been vaunting my generosity and virtue to her, and I have beer, playing the selfish elder brother downstairs! How old she looks! How could he ever have a pa.s.sion for such a woman as that?" How? Because he did not see with your eyes, Mr. George. He saw rightly too now with his own, perhaps. I never know whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.

After the introduction a little talk took place, which for a while Lady Maria managed to carry on in an easy manner: but though ladies in this matter of social hypocrisy are, I think, far more consummate performers than men, after a sentence or two the poor lady broke out into a sob, and, motioning Harry away with her hand, fairly fled from the room.

Harry was rus.h.i.+ng forward, but stopped-checked by that sign. My lord said his poor sister was subject to these fits of nerves, and had already been ill that morning. After this event our young gentlemen thought it was needless to prolong their visit. Lord Castlewood followed them downstairs, accompanied them to the door, admired their nags in the phaeton, and waved them a friendly farewell.

"And so we have been coaxing and cuddling in the window, and we part good friends, Harry? Is it not so?" says George to his charioteer.

"Oh, she is a good woman!" cries Harry, las.h.i.+ng the horses. "I know you'll think so when you come to know her."

"When you take her home to Virginia? A pretty welcome our mother will give her. She will never forgive me for not breaking the match off, nor you for making it."

"I can't help it, George! Don't you be popping your ugly head so close to my ears, Gumbo! After what has pa.s.sed between us, I am bound in honour to stand by her. If she sees no objection, I must find none. I told her all. I told her that Madam would be very rusty at first; but that she was very fond of me, and must end by relenting. And when you come to the property, I told her that I knew my dearest George so well, that I might count upon sharing with him."

"The deuce you did! Let me tell you, my dear, that I have been telling my Lord Castlewood quite a different story. That as an elder brother I intend to have all my rights-there, don't flog that near horse so-and that you can but look forward to poverty and dependence."

"What! You won't help me?" cries Harry, turning quite pale.

"George, I don't believe it, though I hear it out of your own mouth! There was a minute's pause after this outbreak, during which Harry did not even look at his brother, but sate, gazing blindly before him, the picture of grief and gloom. He was driving so near to a road-post that the carriage might have been upset but for George's pulling the rein.

"You had better take the reins, sir," said Harry. "I told you you had better take them."

"Did you ever know me fail you, Harry?" George asked.

"No," said the other, "not till now"-the tears were rolling down his cheeks as he spoke.

"My dear, I think one day you will say I have done my duty."

"What have you done? asked Harry.

"I have said you were a younger brother-that you have spent all your patrimony, and that your portion at home must be very slender. Is it not true?"

"Yes, but I would not have believed it, if ten thousand men had told me," said Harry. "Whatever happened to me, I thought I could trust you, George Warrington." And in this frame of mind Harry remained during the rest of the drive.

Their dinner was served soon after their return to their lodgings, of which Harry scarce ate any, though he drank freely of the wine before him.

"That wine is a bad consoler in trouble, Harry," his brother remarked.

"I have no other, sir," said Harry, grimly; and having drunk gla.s.s after gla.s.s in silence, he presently seized his hat, and left the room.

He did not return for three hours. George, in much anxiety about his brother, had not left home meanwhile, but read his book, and smoked the pipe of patience. "It was shabby to say I would not aid him, and, G.o.d help me, it was not true. I won't leave him, though he marries a blackamoor," thought George "have I not done him harm enough already, by coming to life again? Where has he gone; has he gone to play?"

"Good G.o.d! what has happened to thee?" cried George Warrington, presently, when his brother came in, looking ghastly pale.

He came up and took his brother's hand. "I can take it now, Georgy," he said. "Perhaps what you did was right, though. I for one will never believe that you would throw your brother off in distress. I'll tell you what. At dinner, I thought suddenly, I'll go back to her and speak to her. I'll say to her, 'Maria, poor as I am, your conduct to me has been so n.o.ble, that, by heaven! I am yours to take or to leave. If you will have me, here I am: I will enlist: I will work: I will try and make a livelihood for myself somehow, and my bro--my relations will relent, and give us enough to live on.' That's what I determined to tell her; and I did, George. I ran all the way to Kensington in the rain-look, I am splashed from head to foot,-and found them all at dinner, all except Will, that is. I spoke out that very moment to them all, sitting round the table, over their wine. 'Maria,' says I, 'a poor fellow wants to redeem his promise which he made when he fancied he was rich. Will you take him?' I found I had plenty of words, and didn't hem and stutter as I'm doing now. I spoke ever so long, and I ended by saying I would do my best and my duty by her, so help me G.o.d!

"When I had done, she came up to me quite kind. She took my hand, and kissed it before the rest. 'My dearest, best Harry!' she said (those were her words, I don't want otherwise to be praising myself), 'you are a n.o.ble heart, and I thank you with all mine. But, my dear, I have long seen it was only duty, and a foolish promise made by a young man to an old woman, that has held you to your engagement. To keep it would make you miserable, my dear. I absolve you from it, thanking you with all my heart for your fidelity, and blessing and loving my dear cousin always.' And she came up and kissed me before them all, and went out of the room quite stately, and without a single tear. They were all crying, especially my lord, who was sobbing quite loud. I didn't think he had so much feeling. And she, George? Oh, isn't she a n.o.ble creature?"

"Here's her health!" cries George, filling one of the gla.s.ses that still stood before him.

"Hip, hip, huzzay!" says Harry. He was wild with delight at being free.

CHAPTER LVII. In which Mr. Harry's Nose continues to be put out of joint

Madame de Bernstein was scarcely less pleased than her Virginian nephews at the result of Harry's final interview with Lady Maria. George informed the Baroness of what had pa.s.sed, in a billet which he sent to her the same evening; and shortly afterwards her nephew Castlewood, whose visits to his aunt were very rare, came to pay his respects to her, and frankly spoke about the circ.u.mstances which had taken place; for no man knew better than my Lord Castlewood how to be frank upon occasion, and now that the business between Maria and Harry was ended what need was there of reticence or hypocrisy? The game had been played, and was over: he had no objection now to speak of its various moves, stratagems, finesses. "She is my own sister," said my lord, affectionately; "she won't have many more chances-many more such chances of marrying and establis.h.i.+ng herself. I might not approve of the match in all respects, and I might pity your ladys.h.i.+p's young Virginian favourite: but of course such a piece of good fortune was not to be thrown away, and I was bound to stand by my own flesh and blood."

"Your candour does your lords.h.i.+p honour," says Madame de Bernstein, "and your love for your sister is quite edifying!"

"Nay, we have lost the game, and I am speaking sans rancune. It is not for you, who have won, to bear malice," says my lord, with a bow.

Madame de Bernstein protested she was never in her life in better humour. "Confess, now, Eugene, that visit of Maria to Harry at the spunging-house-that touching giving up of all his presents to her, was a stroke of thy invention?"

"Pity for the young man, and a sense of what was due from Maria to her friend-her affianced lover-in misfortune, sure these were motives sufficient to make her act as she did," replies Lord Castlewood, demurely.

"But 'twas you advised her, my good nephew?"

Castlewood, with a shrug of his shoulders, owned that he did advise his sister to see Mr. Henry Warrington. "But we should have won, in spite of your ladys.h.i.+p," he continued, "had not the elder brother made his appearance. And I have been trying to console my poor Maria by showing her what a piece of good fortune it is after all, that we lost."

"Suppose she had married Harry, and then cousin George had made his appearance?" remarks the Baroness.

"Effectivement," cries Eugene, taking snuff. "As the grave was to give up its dead, let us be thankful to the grave for disgorging in time! I am bound to say, that Mr. George Warrington seems to be a man of sense, and not more selfish than other elder sons and men of the world. My poor Molly fancied that he might be a-what shall I say?-a greenhorn perhaps is the term-like his younger brother. She fondly hoped that he might be inclined to go share and share alike with Twin junior; in which case, so infatuated was she about the young fellow, that I believe she would have taken him. 'Harry Warrington, with half a loaf, might do very well,' says I, 'but Harry Warrington with no bread, my dear!'"

"How no bread?" asks the Baroness.

"Well, no bread except at his brother's side-table. The elder said as much."

"What a hard-hearted wretch!" cries Madame de Bernstein.

"Ah, bah! I play with you, aunt, cartes sur table! Mr. George only did what everybody else would do; and we have no right to be angry with him, really we haven't. Molly herself acknowledged as much, after her first burst of grief was over, and I brought her to listen to reason. The silly old creature! to be so wild about a young lad at her time of life!"

"'Twas a real pa.s.sion, I almost do believe," said Madame de Bernstein.

"You should have heard her take leave of him. C'etait touchant, ma parole d'honneur! I cried. Before George, I could not help myself. The young fellow with muddy stockings, and his hair about his eyes, flings himself amongst us when we were at dinner; makes his offer to Molly in a very frank and n.o.ble manner, and in good language too; and she replies. Begad, it put me in mind of Mrs. Woffington in the new Scotch play, that Lord Bute's man has wrote-Douglas-what d'ye call it? She clings round the lad: she bids him adieu in heartrending accents. She steps out of the room in a stately despair-no more chocolate, thank you. If she had made a mauvais pas no one could retire from it with more dignity. 'Twas a masterly retreat after a defeat. We were starved out of our position, but we retired with all the honours of war."

"Molly won't die of the disappointment!" said my lord's aunt, sipping her cup.

My lord snarled a grin, and showed his yellow teeth. "He, he!" he said, "she hath once or twice before had the malady very severely, and recovered perfectly. It don't kill, as your ladys.h.i.+p knows, at Molly's age."

How should her ladys.h.i.+p know? She did not marry Doctor Tusher until she was advanced in life. She did not become Madame de Bernstein until still later. Old Dido, a poet remarks, was not ignorant of misfortune, and hence learned to have compa.s.sion on the wretched.

People in the little world, as I have been told, quarrel and fight, and go on abusing each other, and are not reconciled for ever so long. But people in the great world are surely wiser in their generation. They have differences; they cease seeing each other. They make it up and come together again, and no questions are asked. A stray prodigal, or a stray puppy-dog, is thus brought in under the benefit of an amnesty, though you know he has been away in ugly company. For six months past, ever since the Castlewoods and Madame de Bernstein had been battling for possession of poor Harry Warrington, these two branches of the Esmond family had remained apart. Now, the question being settled, they were free to meet again, as though no difference ever had separated them: and Madame de Bernstein drove in her great coach to Lady Castlewood's rout, and the Esmond ladies appeared smiling at Madame de Bernstein's drums, and loved each other just as much as they previously had done.

"So, sir, I hear you have acted like a hard-hearted monster about your poor brother Harry!" says the Baroness, delighted, and menacing George with her stick.

"I acted but upon your ladys.h.i.+p's hint, and desired to see whether it was for himself or his reputed money that his kinsfolk wanted to have him," replies George, turning rather red.

"Nay, Maria could not marry a poor fellow who was utterly penniless, and whose elder brother said he would give him nothing!"

"I did it for the best, madam," says George, still blus.h.i.+ng.

"And so thou didst, O thou hypocrite!" cries the old lady.

"Hypocrite, madam! and why?" asks Mr. Warrington, drawing himself up in much state.

"I know all, my infant!" says the Baroness in French. "Thou art very like thy grandfather. Come, that I embrace thee! Harry has told me all, and that thou hast divided thy little patrimony with him!"

"It was but natural, madam. We have had common hearts and purses since we were born. I but feigned hard-heartedness in order to try those people yonder," says George, with filling eyes.

"And thou wilt divide Virginia with him too?" asks the Bernstein.

"I don't say so. It were not just," replied Mr. Warrington. "The land must go to the eldest born, and Harry would not have it otherwise: and it may be I shall die, or my mother outlive the pair of us. But half of what is mine is his: and he, it must be remembered, only was extravagant because he was mistaken as to his position."

"But it is a knight of old, it is a Bayard, it is the grandfather come to life!" cried Madame de Bernstein to her attendant, as she was retiring for the night. And that evening, when the lads left her, it was to poor Harry she gave the two fingers, and to George the rouged cheek, who blushed, for his part, almost as deep as that often-dyed rose, at such a mark of his old kinswoman's favour.

Although Harry Warrington was the least envious of men, and did honour to his brother as in all respects his chief, guide, and superior, yet no wonder a certain feeling of humiliation and disappointment oppressed the young man after his deposition from his eminence as Fortunate Youth and heir to boundless Virginian territories. Our friends at Kensington might promise and vow that they would love him all the better after his fall; Harry made a low bow and professed himself very thankful; but he could not help perceiving, when he went with his brother to the state entertainment with which my Lord Castlewood regaled his new-found kinsman, that George was all in all to his cousins: had all the talk, compliments, and pet.i.ts soins for himself, whilst of Harry no one took any notice save poor Maria, who followed him with wistful looks, pursued him with eyes conveying dismal reproaches, and, as it were, blamed him because she had left him. "Ah!" the eyes seemed to say, "'tis mighty well of you, Harry, to have accepted the freedom which I gave you; but I had no intention, sir, that you should be so pleased at being let off." She gave him up, but yet she did not quite forgive him for taking her at her word. She would not have him, and yet she would. Oh, my young friends, how delightful is the beginning of a love-business, and how undignified, sometimes, the end! What a romantic vista is before young Damon and young Phillis (or middle-aged ditto ditto) when, their artless loves made known to each other, they twine their arms round each other's waists and survey that charming pays du tendre which lies at their feet! Into that country, so linked together, they will wander from now until extreme old age. There may be rocks and roaring rivers, but will not Damon's strong true love enable him to carry Sweetheart over them? There may be dragons and dangers in the path, but shall not his courageous sword cut them down? Then at eve, how they will rest cuddled together, like two pretty babes in the wood, the moss their couch, the stars their canopy, their arms their mutual pillows! This is the wise plan young folks make when they set out on the love journey; and-O me!-they have not got a mile when they come to a great wall and find they must walk back again. They are squabbling with the post-boy at Barnet (the first stage on the Gretna Road, I mean), and, behold, perhaps Strephon has not got any money, or here is papa with a whacking horsewhip, who takes Miss back again, and locks her up crying in the schoolroom. The parting is heart-breaking; but, when she has married the banker and had eight children, and he has become, it may be, a prosperous barrister,-it may be, a seedy raff who has gone twice or thrice into the Gazette; when, I say, in after years Strephon and Delia meet again, is not the meeting ridiculous? Nevertheless, I hope no young man will fall in love, having any doubt in his mind as to the eternity of his pa.s.sion. 'Tis when a man has had a second or third amorous attack that he begins to grow doubtful; but some women are romantic to the end, and from eighteen to eight-and-fifty (for what I know) are always expecting their hearts to break. In fine, when you have been in love and are so no more, when the King of France, with twenty thousand men, with colours flying, music playing, and all the pomp of war, having marched up the hill, then proceeds to march down again, he and you are in an absurd position.

This is what Harry Warrington, no doubt, felt when he went to Kensington and encountered the melancholy, reproachful eyes of his cousin. Yes! it is a foolish position to be in; but it is also melancholy to look into a house you have once lived in, and see black cas.e.m.e.nts and emptiness where once shone the fires of welcome. Melancholy? Yes; but, ha! how bitter, how melancholy, how absurd to look up as you pa.s.s sentimentally by No. 13, and see somebody else grinning out of window, and evidently on the best terms with the landlady. I always feel hurt, even at an inn which I frequent, if I see other folks' trunks and boots at the doors of the rooms which were once mine. Have those boots lolled on the sofa which once I reclined on? I kick you from before me, you muddy, vulgar highlows!

So considering that his period of occupation was over, and Maria's rooms, if not given up to a new tenant, were, at any rate, to let, Harry did not feel very easy in his cousin's company, nor she possibly in his. He found either that he had nothing to say to her, or that what she had to say to him was rather dull and commonplace, and that the red lip of a white-necked pipe of Virginia was decidedly more agreeable to him now than Maria's softest accents and most melancholy moue. When George went to Kensington, then, Harry did not care much about going, and pleaded other engagements.

At his uncle's house in Hill Street the poor lad was no better amused, and, indeed, was treated by the virtuous people there with scarce any attention at all. The ladies did not scruple to deny themselves when he came; he could scarce have believed in such insincerity after their caresses, their welcome, their repeated vows of affection; but happening to sit with the Lamberts for an hour after he had called upon his aunt, he saw her ladys.h.i.+p's chairmen arrive with an empty chair, and his aunt step out and enter the vehicle, and not even blush when he made her a bow from the opposite window. To be denied by his own relations-to have that door which had opened to him so kindly, slammed in his face! He would not have believed such a thing possible, poor simple Harry said. Perhaps he thought the door-knocker had a tender heart, and was not made of bra.s.s; not more changed than the head of that knocker was my Lady Warrington's virtuous face when she pa.s.sed her nephew.

"My father's own brother's wife! What have I done to offend her? Oh, Aunt Lambert, Aunt Lambert, did you ever see such cold-heartedness?" cries out Harry, with his usual impetuosity.

"Do we make any difference to you, my dear Harry?" says Aunt Lambert, with a side look at her youngest daughter. "The world may look coldly at you, but we don't belong to it: so you may come to us in safety."

"In this house you are different from other people," replies Harry. "I don't know how, but I always feel quiet and happy somehow when I come to you."

"Quis me uno vivit felicior? aut magis hac est Optandum vita dicere quis potuit?"

calls out General Lambert. "Do you know where I got these verses, Mr. Gownsman?" and he addresses his son from college, who is come to pa.s.s an Easter holiday with his parents. "You got them out of Catullus, sir," says the scholar.

"I got them out of no such thing, sir. I got them out of my favourite Democritus Junior-out of old Burton, who has provided many indifferent scholars with learning;" and who and Montaigne, were favourite authors with the good General.

CHAPTER LVIII. Where we do what Cats may do

We have said how our Virginians, with a wisdom not uncommon in youth, had chosen to adopt strong Jacobite opinions, and to profess a prodigious affection for the exiled royal family. The banished prince had recognised Madam Esmond's father as Marquis of Esmond, and she did not choose to be very angry with an unfortunate race, that, after all, was so willing to acknowledge the merits of her family. As for any little scandal about her sister, Madame de Bernstein, and the Old Chevalier, she tossed away from her with scorn the recollection of that odious circ.u.mstance, a.s.serting, with perfect truth, that the two first monarchs of the House of Hanover were quite as bad as any Stuarts in regard to their domestic morality. But the king de facto was the king, as well as his Majesty de jure. De Facto had been solemnly crowned and anointed at church, and had likewise utterly discomfited De Jure, when they came to battle for the kingdom together. Madam's clear opinion was, then, that her sons owed it to themselves as well as the sovereign to appear at his royal court. And if his Majesty should have been minded to confer a lucrative post, or a blue or red ribbon upon either of them, she, for her part, would not have been in the least surprised. She made no doubt but that the King knew the Virginian Esmonds as well as any other members of his n.o.bility. The lads were specially commanded, then, to present themselves at court, and, I dare say, their mother would have been very angry had she known that George took Harry's laced coat on the day when he went to make his bow at Kensington.

A hundred years ago the King's drawing-room was open almost every day to his n.o.bility and gentry; and loyalty-especially since the war had begun-could gratify itself a score of times in a month with the august sight of the sovereign. A wise avoidance of the enemy's s.h.i.+ps of war, a gracious acknowledgment of the inestimable loss the British Isles would suffer by the seizure of the royal person at sea, caused the monarch to forgo those visits to his native Hanover which were so dear to his royal heart, and compelled him to remain, it must be owned, unwillingly amongst his loving Britons. A Hanoverian lady, however, whose virtues had endeared her to the prince, strove to console him for his enforced absence from Herrenhausen. And from the lips of the Countess of Walmoden (on whom the imperial beneficence had gracefully conferred a high t.i.tle of British honour) the revered Defender of the Faith could hear the accents of his native home.

To this beloved Sovereign, Mr. Warrington requested his uncle, an a.s.siduous courtier, to present him; and as Mr. Lambert had to go to court likewise, and thank his Majesty for his promotion, the two gentlemen made the journey to Kensington together, engaging a hackney-coach for the purpose, as my Lord Wrotham's carriage was now wanted by its rightful owner, who had returned to his house in town. They alighted at Kensington Palace Gate, where the sentries on duty knew and saluted the good General, and hence modestly made their way on foot to the summer residence of the sovereign. Walking under the portico of the Palace, they entered the gallery which leads to the great black marble staircase (which hath been so richly decorated and painted by Mr. Kent), and then pa.s.sed through several rooms, richly hung with tapestry and adorned with pictures and bustos, until they came to the King's great drawing-room, where that famous "Venus" by t.i.tian is, and, amongst other masterpieces, the picture of "St. Francis adoring the infant Saviour," performed by Sir Peter Paul Rubens; and here, with the rest of the visitors to the court, the gentlemen waited until his Majesty issued from his private apartments, where he was in conference with certain personages who were called in the newspaper language of that day his M-j-ty's M-n-st-rs.

George Warrington, who had never been in a palace before, had leisure to admire the place, and regard the people round him. He saw fine pictures for the first time too, and I dare say delighted in that charming piece of Sir Athony Vandyck, representing King Charles the First, his Queen and Family, and the n.o.ble picture of "Esther before Ahasuerus," painted by Tintoret, and in which all the figures are dressed in the magnificent Venetian habit. With the contemplation of these works he was so enraptured, that he scarce heard all the remarks of his good friend the General, who was whispering into his young companion's almost heedless ear the names of some of the personages round about them.

"Yonder," says Mr. Lambert, "are two of my Lords of the Admiralty, Mr. Gilbert Elliot and Admiral Boscawen: your Boscawen, whose fleet fired the first gun in your waters two years ago. That stout gentleman all belated with gold is Mr. Fox, that was Minister, and is now content to be Paymaster with a great salary.

"He carries the auri fames on his person. Why, his waistcoat is a perfect Potosi!" says George.

"Aliena appetens-how goes the text? He loves to get money and to spend it," continues General Lambert. "Yon is my Lord Chief Justice Willes, talking to my Lord of Salisbury, Doctor Headley, who, if he serve his G.o.d as he serves his King, will be translated to some very high promotion in Heaven. He belongs to your grandfather's time, and was loved by d.i.c.k Steele and hated by the Dean. With them is my Lord of London, the learned Doctor Sherlock. My lords of the lawn sleeves have lost half their honours now. I remember when I was a boy in my mother's hand, she made me go down on my knees to the Bishop of Rochester; him who went over the water, and became Minister to somebody who shall be nameless-Perkin's Bishop. That handsome fair man is Admiral Smith. He was president of poor Byng's court-martial, and strove in vain to get him off his penalty; Tom of Ten Thousand they call him in the fleet. The French Amba.s.sador had him broke, when he was a lieutenant, for making a French man-of-war lower topsails to him, and the King made Tom a captain the next day. That tall, haughty-looking man is my Lord George Sackville, who, now I am a Major-General myself, will treat me somewhat better than a footman. I wish my stout old Blakeney were here; he is the soldier's darling, and as kind and brave as yonder poker of a n.o.bleman is brave and-I am your lords.h.i.+p's very humble servant. This is a young gentleman who is just from America, and was in Braddock's sad business two years ago."

"Oh, indeed!" says the poker of a n.o.bleman. "I have the honour of speaking to Mr.--?"

"To Major-General Lambert, at your lords.h.i.+p's service, and who was in his Majesty's some time before you entered it. That, Mr. Warrington, is the first commoner in England, Mr. Speaker Onslow. Where is your uncle? I shall have to present you myself to his Majesty if Sir Miles delays much longer." As he spoke, the worthy General addressed himself entirely to his young friend, making no sort of account of his colleague, who stalked away with a scared look as if amazed at the other's audacity. A hundred years ago, a n.o.bleman was a n.o.bleman, and expected to be admired as such.

Sir Miles's red waistcoat appeared in sight presently, and many cordial greetings pa.s.sed between him, his nephew, and General Lambert: for we have described how Sir Miles was the most affectionate of men. So the General had quitted my Lord Wrotham's house? It was time, as his lords.h.i.+p himself wished to occupy it? Very good; but consider what a loss for the neighbours!

"We miss you, we positively miss you, my dear General," cries Sir Miles. "My daughters were in love with those lovely young ladies-upon my word, they were; and my Lady Warrington and my girls were debating over and over again how they should find an opportunity of making the acquaintance of your charming family. We feel as if we were old friends already; indeed we do, General, if you will permit me the liberty of saying so; and we love you, if I may be allowed to speak frankly, on account of your friends.h.i.+p and kindness to our dear nephews: though we were a little jealous, I own a little jealous of them, because they went so often to see you. Often and often have I said to my Lady Warrington, 'My dear, why don't we make acquaintance with the General? Why don't we ask him and his ladies to come over in a family way and dine with some other plain country gentlefolks?' Carry my most sincere respects to Mrs. Lambert, I pray, sir; and thank her for her goodness to these young gentlemen. My own flesh and blood, sir; my dear, dear brother's boys!" He pa.s.sed his hand across his manly eyes: he was choking almost with generous and affectionate emotion.

Whilst they were discoursing-George Warrington the while restraining his laughter with admirable gravity-the door of the King's apartments opened, and the pages entered, preceding his Majesty. He was followed by his burly son, his Royal Highness the Duke, a very corpulent Prince, with a coat and face of blazing scarlet: behind them came various gentlemen and officers of state; among whom George at once recognised the famous Mr. Secretary Pitt, by his tall stature, his eagle eye and beak, his grave and majestic presence. As I see that solemn figure pa.s.sing, even a hundred years off, I protest I feel a present awe, and a desire to take my hat off. I am not frightened at George the Second; nor are my eyes dazzled by the portentous appearance of his Royal Highness the Duke of Culloden and Fontenoy; but the Great Commoner, the terrible Cornet of Horse! His figure bestrides our narrow isle of a century back like a Colossus; and I hush as he pa.s.ses in his gouty shoes, his thunderbolt hand wrapped in flannel. Perhaps as we see him now, issuing with dark looks from the royal closet, angry scenes have been pa.s.sing between him and his august master. He has been boring that old monarch for hours with prodigious long speeches, full of eloquence, voluble with the n.o.blest phrases upon the commonest topics; but, it must be confessed, utterly repulsive to the little shrewd old gentleman, "at whose feet he lays himself," as the phrase is, and who has the most thorough dislike for fine boedry and for fine brose too! The sublime Minister pa.s.ses solemnly through the crowd; the company ranges itself respectfully round the wall; and his Majesty walks round the circle, his royal son lagging a little behind, and engaging select individuals in conversation for his own part.

The monarch is a little, keen, fresh-coloured old man, with very protruding eyes, attired in plain, old-fas.h.i.+oned, snuff-coloured clothes and brown stockings, his only ornament the blue ribbon of his Order of the Garter. He speaks in a German accent, but with ease, shrewdness, and simplicity, addressing those individuals whom he has a mind to notice, or pa.s.sing on with a bow. He knew Mr. Lambert well, who had served under his Majesty at Dettingen, and with his royal son in Scotland, and he congratulated him good-humouredly on his promotion.

"It is not always," his Majesty was pleased to say, "that we can do as we like; but I was glad when, for once, I could give myself that pleasure in your case, General; for my army contains no better officer as you."