Lord Montacute slightly bowed his head, but said nothing. His father continued.

'Not wish to enter Parliament at present! Why, that is all very well, and if, as was once the case, we could enter Parliament when we liked, and how we liked, the wish might be very reasonable. If I could ring my bell, and return you member for Montacute with as much ease as I could send over to Bellamont to engage a special train to take us to town, you might be justified in indulging a fancy. But how and when, I should like to know, are you to enter Parliament now? This Parliament will last: it will go on to the lees. Lord Eskdale told me so not a week ago. Well then, at any rate, you lose three years: for three years you are an idler. I never thought that was your character. I have always had an impression you would turn your mind to public business, that the county might look up to you. If you have what are called higher views, you should not forget there is a great opening now in public life, which may not offer again. The Duke is resolved to give the preference, in carrying on the business of the country, to the aristocracy. He believes this is our only means of preservation. He told me so himself. If it be so, I fear we are doomed. I hope we may be of some use to our country without being ministers of state. But let that pass. As long as the Duke lives, he is omnipotent, and will have his way. If you come into Parliament now, and show any disposition for office, you may rely upon it you will not long be unemployed. I have no doubt I could arrange that you should move the address of next session. I dare say Lord Eskdale could manage this, and, if he could not, though I abhor asking a minister for anything, I should, under the circumstances, feel perfectly justified in speaking to the Duke on the subject myself, and,' added his Grace, in a lowered tone, but with an expression of great earnestness and determination, 'I flatter myself that if the Duke of Bellamont chooses to express a wish, it would not be disregarded.'

Lord Montacute cast his dark, intelligent eyes upon the floor, and seemed plunged in thought.

'Besides,' added the duke, after a moment's pause, and inferring, from the silence of his son, that he was making an impression, 'suppose Hungerford is not in the same humour this time three years which he is in now. Probably he may be; possibly he may not. Men do not like to be baulked when they think they are doing a very kind and generous and magnanimous thing. Hungerford is not a warming-pan; we must remember that; he never was originally, and if he had been, he has been member for the county too long to be so considered now. I should be placed in a most painful position, if, this time three years, I had to withdraw my support from Hungerford, in order to secure your return.'

'There would be no necessity, under any circumstances, for that, my dear father,' said Lord Montacute, looking up, and speaking in a voice which, though somewhat low, was of that organ that at once arrests attention; a voice that comes alike from the brain and from the heart, and seems made to convey both profound thought and deep emotion. There is no index of character so sure as the voice. There are tones, tones brilliant and gushing, which impart a quick and pathetic sensibility: there are others that, deep and yet calm, seem the just interpreters of a serene and exalted intellect. But the rarest and the most precious of all voices is that which combines passion and repose; and whose rich and restrained tones exercise, perhaps, on the human frame a stronger spell than even the fascination of the eye, or that bewitching influence of the hand, which is the privilege of the higher races of Asia.

'There would be no necessity, under any circumstances, for that, my dear father,' said Lord Montacute, 'for, to be frank, I believe I should feel as little disposed to enter Parliament three years hence as now.'

The duke looked still more surprised. 'Mr. Fox was not of age when he took his seat,' said his Grace. 'You know how old Mr. Pitt was when he was a minister. Sir Robert, too, was in harness very early. I have always heard the good judges say, Lord Esk-dale, for example, that a man might speak in Parliament too soon, but it was impossible to go in too soon.'

'If he wished to succeed in that assembly,' replied Lord Montacute, 'I can easily believe it. In all things an early initiation must be of advantage. But I have not that wish.'

'I don't like to see a man take his seat in the House of Lords who has not been in the House of Commons. He seems to me always, in a manner, unfledged.'

'It will be a long time, I hope, my dear father, before I take my seat in the House of Lords,' said Lord Montacute, 'if, indeed, I ever do.'

'In the course of nature 'tis a certainty.'

'Suppose the Duke's plan for perpetuating an aristocracy do not succeed,' said Lord Montacute, 'and our house ceases to exist?'

His father shrugged his shoulders. 'It is not our business to suppose that. I hope it never will be the business of any one, at least seriously. This is a great country, and it has become great by its aristocracy.'

'You think, then, our sovereigns did nothing for our greatness,—Queen Elizabeth, for example, of whose visit to Montacute you are so proud?'

'They performed their part.'

'And have ceased to exist. We may have performed our part, and may meet the same fate.'

'Why, you are talking liberalism!'

'Hardly that, my dear father, for I have not expressed an opinion.'

'I wish I knew what your opinions were, my dear boy, or even your wishes.'

'Well, then, to do my duty.'

'Exactly; you are a pillar of the State; support the State.'

'Ah! if any one would but tell me what the State is,' said Lord Montacute, sighing. 'It seems to me your pillars remain, but they support nothing; in that case, though the shafts may be perpendicular, and the capitals very ornate, they are no longer props, they are a ruin.'

'You would hand us over, then, to the ten-pounders?'

'They do not even pretend to be a State,' said Lord Montacute; 'they do not even profess to support anything; on the contrary, the essence of their philosophy is, that nothing is to be established, and everything is to be left to itself.'

'The common sense of this country and the fifty pound clause will carry us through,' said the duke.

'Through what?' inquired his son.

'This—this state of transition,' replied his father.

'A passage to what?'

'Ah! that is a question the wisest cannot answer.'

'But into which the weakest, among whom I class myself, have surely a right to inquire.'

'Unquestionably; and I know nothing that will tend more to assist you in your researches than acting with practical men.'

'And practising all their blunders,' said Lord Montacute. 'I can conceive an individual who has once been entrapped into their haphazard courses, continuing in the fatal confusion to which he has contributed his quota; but I am at least free, and I wish to continue so.'

'And do nothing?'

'But does it follow that a man is infirm of action because he declines fighting in the dark?'

'And how would you act, then? What are your plans? Have you any?'

'I have.'

'Well, that is satisfactory,' said the duke, with animation. 'Whatever they are, you know you may count upon my doing everything that is possible to forward your wishes. I know they cannot be unworthy ones, for I believe, my child, you are incapable of a thought that is not good or great.'

'I wish I knew what was good and great,' said Lord Montacute; 'I would struggle to accomplish it.'

'But you have formed some views; you have some plans. Speak to me of them, and without reserve; as to a friend, the most affectionate, the most devoted.'

'My father,' said Lord Montacute, and moving, he drew a chair to the table, and seated himself by the duke, 'you possess and have a right to my confidence. I ought not to have said that I doubted about what was good; for I know you.'

'Sons like you make good fathers.'

'It is not always so,' said Lord Montacute; 'you have been to me more than a father, and I bear to you and to my mother a profound and fervent affection; an affection,' he added, in a faltering tone, 'that is rarer, I believe, in this age than it was in old days. I feel it at this moment more deeply,' he continued, in a firmer tone, 'because I am about to propose that we should for a time separate.'

The duke turned pale, and leant forward in his chair, but did not speak.

'You have proposed to me to-day,' continued Lord Montacute, after a momentary pause, 'to enter public life. I do not shrink from its duties. On the contrary, from the position in which I am born, still more from the impulse of my nature, I am desirous to fulfil them. I have meditated on them, I may say, even for years. But I cannot find that it is part of my duty to maintain the order of things, for I will not call it system, which at present prevails in our country. It seems to me that it cannot last, as nothing can endure, or ought to endure, that is not founded upon principle; and its principle I have not discovered. In nothing, whether it be religion, or government, or manners, sacred or political or social life, do I find faith; and if there be no faith, how can there be duty? Is there such a thing as religious truth? Is there such a thing as political right? Is there such a thing as social propriety? Are these facts, or are they mere phrases? And if they be facts, where are they likely to be found in England? Is truth in our Church? Why, then, do you support dissent? Who has the right to govern? The monarch? You have robbed him of his prerogative. The aristocracy? You confess to me that we exist by sufferance. The people? They themselves tell you that they are nullities. Every session of that Parliament in which you wish to introduce me, the method by which power is distributed is called in question, altered, patched up, and again impugned. As for our morals, tell me, is charity the supreme virtue, or the greatest of errors? Our social system ought to depend on a clear conception of this point. Our morals differ in different counties, in different towns, in different streets, even in different Acts of Parliament. What is moral in London is immoral in Montacute; what is crime among the multitude is only vice among the few.'

'You are going into first principles,' said the duke, much surprised.

'Give me then second principles,' replied his son; 'give me any.'

'We must take a general view of things to form an opinion,' said his father, mildly. 'The general condition of England is superior to that of any other country; it cannot be denied that, on the whole, there is more political freedom, more social happiness, more sound religion, and more material prosperity among us, than in any nation in the world.'

'I might question all that,' said his son; 'but they are considerations that do not affect my views. If other States are worse than we are, and I hope they are not, our condition is not mended, but the contrary, for we then need the salutary stimulus of example.'

'There is no sort of doubt,' said the duke, 'that the state of England at this moment is the most flourishing that has ever existed, certainly in modern times. What with these railroads, even the condition of the poor, which I admit was lately far from satisfactory, is infinitely improved. Every man has work who needs it, and wages are even high.'

'The railroads may have improved, in a certain sense, the condition of the working classes almost as much as that of members of Parliament. They have been a good thing for both of them. And if you think that more labour is all that is wanted by the people of England, we may be easy for a time. I see nothing in this fresh development of material industry, but fresh causes of moral deterioration. You have announced to the millions that there welfare is to be tested by the amount of their wages. Money is to be the cupel of their worth, as it is of all other classes. You propose for their conduct the least ennobling of all impulses. If you have seen an aristocracy invariably become degraded under such influence; if all the vices of a middle class may be traced to such an absorbing motive; why are we to believe that the people should be more pure, or that they should escape the catastrophe of the policy that confounds the happiness with the wealth of nations?'

The duke shook his head and then said, 'You should not forget we live in an artificial state.'

'So I often hear, sir,' replied his son; 'but where is the art? It seems to me the very quality wanting to our present condition. Art is order, method, harmonious results obtained by fine and powerful principles. I see no art in our condition. The people of this country have ceased to be a nation. They are a crowd, and only kept in some rude provisional discipline by the remains of that old system which they are daily destroying.'

'But what would you do, my dear boy?' said his Grace, looking up very distressed. 'Can you remedy the state of things in which we find ourselves?'

'I am not a teacher,' said Lord Montacute, mournfully; 'I only ask you, I supplicate you, my dear father, to save me from contributing to this quick corruption that surrounds us.'

'You shall be master of your own actions. I offer you counsel, I give no commands; and, as for the rest, Providence will guard us.'

'If an angel would but visit our house as he visited the house of Lot!' said Montacute, in a tone almost of anguish.

'Angels have performed their part,' said the duke. 'We have received instructions from one higher than angels. It is enough for all of us.'

'It is not enough for me,' said Lord Montacute, with a glowing cheek, and rising abruptly. 'It was not enough for the Apostles; for though they listened to the sermon on the mount, and partook of the first communion, it was still necessary that He should appear to them again, and promise them a Comforter. I require one,' he added, after a momentary pause, but in an agitated voice. 'I must seek one. Yes! my dear father, it is of this that I would speak to you; it is this which for a long time has oppressed my spirit, and filled me often with intolerable gloom. We must separate. I must leave you, I must leave that dear mother, those beloved parents, in whom are concentred all my earthly affections; but I obey an impulse that I believe comes from above. Dearest and best of men, you will not thwart me; you will forgive, you will aid me!' And he advanced and threw himself into the arms of his father.

The duke pressed Lord Montacute to his heart, and endeavoured, though himself agitated and much distressed, to penetrate the mystery of this ebullition. 'He says we must separate,' thought the duke to himself. 'Ah! he has lived too much at home, too much alone; he has read and pondered too much; he has moped. Eskdale was right two years ago. I wish I had sent him to Paris, but his mother was so alarmed; and, indeed, 'tis a precious life! The House of Commons would have been just the thing for him. He would have worked on committees and grown practical. But something must be done for him, dear child! He says we must separate; he wants to travel. And perhaps he ought to travel. But a life on which so much depends! And what will Katherine say? It will kill her. I could screw myself up to it. I would send him well attended. Brace should go with him; he understands the Continent; he was in the Peninsular war; and he should have a skilful physician. I see how it is; I must act with decision, and break it to his mother.'

These ideas passed through the duke's mind during the few seconds that he embraced his son, and endeavoured at the same time to convey consolation by the expression of his affection, and his anxiety at all times to contribute to his child's happiness.

'My dear son,' said the duke, when Lord Montacute had resumed his seat, 'I see how it is; you wish to travel?'

Lord Montacute bent his head, as if in assent.

'It will be a terrible blow to your mother; I say nothing of myself. You know what I feel for you. But neither your mother nor myself have a right to place our feelings in competition with any arrangement for your welfare. It would be in the highest degree selfish and unreasonable; and perhaps it will be well for you to travel awhile; and, as for Parliament, I am to see Hungerford this morning at Bellamont. I will try and arrange with him to postpone his resignation until the autumn, or, if possible, for some little time longer. You will then have accomplished your purpose. It will do you a great deal of good. You will have seen the world, and you can take your seat next year.'

The duke paused. Lord Montacute looked perplexed and distressed; he seemed about to reply, and then, leaning on the table, with his face concealed from his father, he maintained his silence. The duke rose, looked at his watch, said he must be at Bellamont by two o'clock, hoped that Brace would dine at the castle to-day, thought it not at all impossible Brace might, would send on to Montacute for him, perhaps might meet him at Bellamont. Brace understood the Continent, spoke several languages, Spanish among them, though it was not probable his son would have any need of that, the present state of Spain not being very inviting to the traveller.

'As for France,' said the duke, 'France is Paris, and I suppose that will be your first step; it generally is. We must see if your cousin, Henry Howard, is there. If so, he will put you in the way of everything. With the embassy and Brace, you would manage very well at Paris. Then, I suppose, you would like to go to Italy; that, I apprehend, is your great point. Your mother will not like your going to Rome. Still, at the same time, a man, they say, should see Rome before he dies. I never did. I have never crossed the sea except to go to Ireland. Your grandfather would never let me travel; I wanted to, but he never would. Not, however, for the same reasons which have kept you at home. Suppose you even winter at Rome, which I believe is the right thing, why, you might very well be back by the spring. However, we must manage your mother a little about remaining over the winter, and, on second thoughts, we will get Bernard to go with you, as well as Brace and a physician, and then she will be much more easy. I think, with Brace, Bernard, and a medical man whom we can really trust, Harry Howard at Paris, and the best letters for every other place, which we will consult Lord Eskdale about, I think the danger will not be extreme.'

'I have no wish to see Paris,' said Lord Montacute, evidently embarrassed, and making a great effort to relieve his mind of some burthen. 'I have no wish to see Paris.'

'I am very glad to hear that,' said his father, eagerly.

'Nor do I wish either to go to Rome,' continued his son.

'Well, well, you have taken a load off my mind, my dear boy. I would not confess it, because I wish to save you pain; but really, I believe the idea of your going to Rome would have been a serious shock to your mother. It is not so much the distance, though that is great, nor the climate, which has its dangers, but, you understand, with her peculiar views, her very strict——' The duke did not care to finish his sentence.

'Nor, my dear father,' continued Lord Montacute, 'though I did not like to interrupt you when you were speaking with so much solicitude and consideration for me, is it exactly travel, in the common acceptation of the term, that I feel the need of. I wish, indeed, to leave England; I wish to make an expedition; a progress to a particular point; without wandering, without any intervening residence. In a word, it is the Holy Land that occupies my thought, and I propose to make a pilgrimage to the sepulchre of my Saviour.'

The duke started, and sank again into his chair. 'The Holy Land! The Holy Sepulchre!' he exclaimed, and repeated to himself, staring at his son.

'Yes, sir, the Holy Sepulchre,' repeated Lord Mon-tacute, and now speaking with his accustomed repose. 'When I remember that the Creator, since light sprang out of darkness, has deigned to reveal Himself to His creature only in one land, that in that land He assumed a manly form, and met a human death, I feel persuaded that the country sanctified by such intercourse and such events must be endowed with marvellous and peculiar qualities, which man may not in all ages be competent to penetrate, but which, nevertheless, at all times exercise an irresistible influence upon his destiny. It is these qualities that many times drew Europe to Asia during the middle centuries. Our castle has before this sent forth a De Montacute to Palestine. For three days and three nights he knelt at the tomb of his Redeemer. Six centuries and more have elapsed since that great enterprise. It is time to restore and renovate our communications with the Most High. I, too, would kneel at that tomb; I, too, surrounded by the holy hills and sacred groves of Jerusalem, would relieve my spirit from the bale that bows it down; would lift up my voice to heaven, and ask, What is duty, and what is faith? What ought I to do, and what ought I to believe?'

The Duke of Bellamont rose from his seat, and walked up and down the room for some minutes, in silence and in deep thought. At length, stopping and leaning against the cabinet, he said, 'What has occurred to-day between us, my beloved child, is, you may easily believe, as strange to me as it is agitating. I will think of all you have said; I will try to comprehend all you mean and wish. I will endeavour to do that which is best and wisest; placing above all things your happiness, and not our own. At this moment I am not competent to the task: I need quiet, and to be alone. Your mother, I know, wishes to walk with you this morning. She may be speaking to you of many things. Be silent upon this subject, until I have communicated with her. At present I will ride over to Bellamont. I must go; and, besides, it will do me good. I never can think very well except in the saddle. If Brace comes, make him dine here. God bless you.'

The duke left the room; his son remained in meditation. The first step was taken. He had poured into the interview of an hour the results of three years of solitary thought. A sound roused him; it was his mother. She had only learnt casually that the duke was gone; she was surprised he had not come into her room before he went; it seemed the first time since their marriage that the duke had gone out without first coming to speak to her. So she went to seek her son, to congratulate him on being a member of Parliament, on representing the county of which they were so fond, and of breaking to him a proposition which she doubted not he would find not less interesting and charming. Happy mother, with her only son, on whom she doted and of whom she was so justly proud, about to enter public life in which he was sure to distinguish himself, and to marry a woman who was sure to make him happy! With a bounding heart the duchess opened the library door, where she had been informed she should find Lord Montacute. She had her bonnet on, ready for the walk of confidence, and, her face flushed with delight, she looked even beautiful. 'Ah!' she exclaimed, 'I have been looking for you, Tancred!'



CHAPTER VIII.

The Decision

THE duke returned rather late from Bellamont, and went immediately to his dressing-room. A few minutes before dinner the duchess knocked at his door and entered. She seemed disconcerted, and reminded him, though with great gentleness, that he had gone out to-day without first bidding her adieu; she really believed it was the only time he had done so since their marriage. The duke, who, when she entered, anticipated something about their son, was relieved by her remark, embraced her, and would have affected a gaiety which he did not really feel.

'I am glad to hear that Brace dines here to-day, Kate, for I particularly wanted to see him.'

The duchess did not reply, and seemed absent; the duke, to say something, tying his cravat, kept harping upon Brace.

'Never mind Brace, George,' said the duchess; 'tell me what is this about Tancred? Why is his coming into Parliament put off?'

The duke was perplexed; he wished to know how far at this moment his wife was informed upon the matter; the feminine frankness of the duchess put him out of suspense. 'I have been walking with Tancred,' she continued, 'and intimated, but with great caution, all our plans and hopes. I asked him what he thought of his cousin; he agrees with us she is by far the most charming girl he knows, and one of the most agreeable. I impressed upon him how good she was. I wished to precipitate nothing. I never dreamed of their marrying until late in the autumn. I wished him to become acquainted with his new life, which would not prevent him seeing a great deal of Katherine in London, and then to visit them in Ireland, as you visited us, George; and then, when I was settling everything in the most delightful manner, what he was to do when he was kept up very late at the House, which is the only part I don't like, and begging him to be very strict in making his servant always have coffee ready for him, very hot, and a cold fowl too, or something of the sort, he tells me, to my infinite astonishment, that the vacancy will not immediately occur, that he is not sorry for it, as he thinks it may be as well that he should go abroad. What can all this mean? Pray tell me; for Tancred has told me nothing, and, when I pressed him, waived the subject, and said we would all of us consult together.'

'And so we will, Kate,' said the duke, 'but hardly at this moment, for dinner must be almost served. To be brief,' he added, speaking in a light tone, 'there are reasons which perhaps may make it expedient that Hungerford should not resign at the present moment; and as Tancred has a fancy to travel a little, it may be as well that we should take it into consideration whether he might not profitably occupy the interval in this manner.'

'Profitably!' said the duchess. 'I never can understand how going to Paris and Rome, which young men always mean when they talk of travelling, can be profitable to him; it is the very thing which, all my life, I have been endeavouring to prevent. His body and his soul will be both imperilled; Paris will destroy his constitution, and Rome, perhaps, change his faith.'

'I have more confidence in his physical power and his religious principle than you, Kate,' said the duke, smiling. 'But make yourself easy on these heads; Tancred told me this morning that he had no wish to visit either Rome or Paris.'

'Well!' exclaimed the duchess, somewhat relieved, 'if he wants to make a little tour in Holland, I think I could bear it; it is a Protestant country, and there are no vermin. And then those dear Disbrowes, I am sure, would take care of him at The Hague.'

'We will talk of all this to-night, my love,' said the duke; and offering his arm to his wife, who was more composed, if not more cheerful, they descended to their guests.

Colonel Brace was there, to the duke's great satisfaction. The colonel had served as a cornet in a dragoon regiment in the last campaign of the Peninsular war, and had marched into Paris. Such an event makes an indelible impression on the memory of a handsome lad of seventeen, and the colonel had not yet finished recounting his strange and fortunate adventures.

He was tall, robust, a little portly, but, well buckled, still presented a grand military figure. He was what you call a fine man; florid, with still a good head of hair though touched with grey, splendid moustaches, large fat hands, and a courtly demeanour not unmixed with a slight swagger. The colonel was a Montacute man, and had inherited a large house in the town and a small estate in the neighbourhood. Having sold out, he had retired to his native place, where he had become a considerable personage. The duke had put him in the commission, and he was the active magistrate of the district; he had reorganised the Bellamont regiment of yeomanry cavalry, which had fallen into sad decay during the late duke's time, but which now, with Brace for its lieutenant-colonel, was second to none in the kingdom. Colonel Brace was one of the best shots in the county; certainly the boldest rider among the heavy weights; and bore the palm from all with the rod, in a county famous for its feats in lake and river.

The colonel was a man of great energy, of good temper, of ready resource, frank, a little coarse, but hearty and honest. He adored the Duke and Duchess of Bellamont. He was sincere; he was not a parasite; he really believed that they were the best people in the world, and I am not sure that he had not some foundation for his faith. On the whole, he might be esteemed the duke's right-hand man. His Grace generally consulted the colonel on county affairs; the command of the yeomanry alone gave him a considerable position; he was the chief also of the militia staff; could give his opinion whether a person was to be made a magistrate or not; and had even been called into council when there was a question of appointing a deputy-lieutenant. The colonel, who was a leading member of the corporation of Montacute, had taken care to be chosen mayor this year; he had been also chairman of the Committee of Management during the celebration of Tancred's majority; had had the entire ordering of the fireworks, and was generally supposed to have given the design, or at least the leading idea, for the transparency.

We should notice also Mr. Bernard, a clergyman, and recently the private tutor of Lord Montacute, a good scholar; in ecclesiastical opinions, what is called high and dry. He was about five-and-thirty; well-looking, bashful. The duke intended to prefer him to a living when one was vacant; in the meantime he remained in the family, and at present discharged the duties of chaplain and librarian at Montacute, and occasionally assisted the duke as private secretary. Of his life, one third had been passed at a rural home, and the rest might be nearly divided between school and college.

These gentlemen, the distinguished and numerous family of the Montacute Mountjoys, young Hunger-ford, whom the duke had good-naturedly brought over from Bellamont for the sake of the young ladies, the duke and duchess, and their son, formed the party, which presented rather a contrast, not only in its numbers, to the series of recent banquets. They dined in the Montacute chamber. The party, without intending it, was rather dull and silent. The duchess was brooding over the disappointment of the morning; the duke trembled for the disclosures of the morrow. The Misses Mountjoy sang better than they talked; their mother, who was more lively, was seated by the duke, and confined her powers of pleasing to him. The Honourable and Reverend Montacute himself was an epicure, and disliked conversation during dinner. Lord Montacute spoke to Mr. Hungerford across the table, but Mr. Hungerford was whispering despairing nothings in the ear of Arabella Mountjoy, and replied to his question without originating any in return, which of course terminates talk.

When the second course had arrived, the duke, who wanted a little more noise and distraction, fired off in despair a shot at Colonel Brace, who was on the left hand of the duchess, and set him on his yeomanry charger. From this moment affairs improved. The colonel made continual charges, and carried all before him. Nothing could be more noisy in a genteel way. His voice sounded like the bray of a trumpet amid the din of arms; it seemed that the moment he began, everybody and everything became animated and inspired by his example. All talked; the duke set them the fashion of taking wine with each other; Lord Montacute managed to entrap Arminta Mountjoy into a narrative in detail of her morning's ride and adventures; and, affecting scepticism as to some of the incidents, and wonder at some of the feats, produced a considerable addition to the general hubbub, which he instinctively felt that his father wished to encourage.

'I don't know whether it was the Great Western or the South Eastern,' continued Colonel Brace; 'but I know his leg is broken.'

'God bless me!' said the duke; 'and only think of my not hearing of it at Bellamont to-day!'

'I don't suppose they know anything about it,' replied the colonel. 'The way I know it is this: I was with Roby to-day, when the post came in, and he said to me, "Here is a letter from Lady Malpas; I hope nothing is the matter with Sir Russell or any of the children." And then it all came out. The train was blown up behind; Sir Russell was in a centre carriage, and was pitched right into a field. They took him into an inn, put him to bed, and sent for some of the top-sawyers from London, Sir Benjamin Brodie, and that sort of thing; and the moment Sir Russell came to himself, he said, "I must have Roby, send for Roby, Roby knows my constitution." And they sent for Roby. And I think he was right. The quantity of young officers I have seen sent rightabout in the Peninsula, because they were attended by a parcel of men who knew nothing of their constitution! Why, I might have lost my own leg once, if I had not been sharp. I got a scratch in a little affair at Almeidas, charging the enemy a little too briskly; but we really ought not to speak of these things before the ladies——'

'My dear colonel,' said Lord Montacute, 'on the contrary, there is nothing more interesting to them. Miss Mountjoy was saying only yesterday, that there was nothing she found so difficult to understand as the account of a battle, and how much she wished to comprehend it.'

'That is because, in general, they are not written by soldiers,' said the colonel; 'but Napier's battles are very clear. I could fight every one of them on this table. That's a great book, that history of Napier; it has faults, but they are rather omissions than mistakes. Now that affair of Almeidas of which I was just speaking, and which nearly cost me my leg, it is very odd, but he has omitted mentioning it altogether.'

'But you saved your leg, colonel,' said the duke.

'Yes, I had the honour of marching into Paris, and that is an event not very easy to be forgotten, let me tell your Grace. I saved my leg because I knew my constitution. For the very same reason by which I hope Sir Russell Malpas will save his leg. Because he will be attended by a person who knows his constitution. He never did a wiser thing than sending for Roby. For my part, if I were in garrison at Gibraltar to-morrow, and laid up, I would do the same; I would send for Roby. In all these things, depend upon it, knowing the constitution is half the battle.'

All this time, while Colonel Brace was indulging in his garrulous comments, the Duke of Bellamont was drawing his moral. He had a great opinion of Mr. Roby, who was the medical attendant of the castle, and an able man. Mr. Roby was perfectly acquainted with the constitution of his son; Mr. Roby must go to the Holy Sepulchre. Cost what it might, Mr. Roby must be sent to Jerusalem. The duke was calculating all this time the income that Mr. Roby made. He would not put it down at more than five hundred pounds per annum, and a third of that was certainly afforded by the castle. The duke determined to offer Roby a thousand and his expenses to attend Lord Montacute. He would not be more than a year absent, and his practice could hardly seriously suffer while away, backed as he would be, when he returned, by the castle. And if it did, the duke must guarantee Roby against loss; it was a necessity, absolute and of the first class, that Tancred should be attended by a medical man who knew his constitution. The duke agreed with Colonel Brace that it was half the battle.



CHAPTER IX.

Tancred, the New Crusader

'MISERABLE mother that I am!' exclaimed the duchess, and she clasped her hands in anguish.

'My dearest Katherine!' said the duke, 'calm yourself.'

'You ought to have prevented this, George; you ought never to have let things come to this pass.'

'But, my dearest Katherine, the blow was as unlooked-for by me as by yourself. I had not, how could I have, a remote suspicion of what was passing through his mind?'

'What, then, is the use of your boasted confidence with your child, which you tell me you have always cultivated? Had I been his father, I would have discovered his secret thoughts.'

'Very possibly, my dear Katherine; but you are at least his mother, tenderly loving him, and tenderly loved by him. The intercourse between you has ever been of an extreme intimacy, and especially on the subjects connected with this fancy of his, and yet, you see, even you are completely taken by surprise.' 'I once had a suspicion he was inclined to the Puseyite heresy, and I spoke to Mr. Bernard on the subject, and afterwards to him, but I was convinced that I was in error. I am sure,' added the duchess, in a mournful tone, 'I have lost no opportunity of instilling into him the principles of religious truth. It was only last year, on his birthday, that I sent him a complete set of the publications of the Parker Society, my own copy of Jewel, full of notes, and my grandfather, the primate's, manuscript commentary on Chillingworth; a copy made purposely by myself.'

'I well know,' said the duke, 'that you have done everything for his spiritual welfare which ability and affection combined could suggest.'

'And it ends in this!' exclaimed the duchess. 'The Holy Land! Why, if he even reach it, the climate is certain death. The curse of the Almighty, for more than eighteen centuries, has been on that land. Every year it has become more sterile, more savage, more unwholesome, and more unearthly. It is the abomination of desolation. And now my son is to go there! Oh! he is lost to us for ever!'

'But, my dear Katherine, let us consult a little.' 'Consult! Why should I consult? You have settled everything, you have agreed to everything. You do not come here to consult me; I understand all that; you come here to break a foregone conclusion to a weak and miserable woman.'

'Do not say such things, Katherine!' 'What should I say? What can I say?' 'Anything but that. I hope that nothing will be ever done in this family without your full sanction.' I Rest assured, then, that I will never sanction the departure of Tancred on this crusade.'

'Then he will never go, at least, with my consent,' said the duke; 'but Katherine, assist me, my dear wife. All shall be, shall ever be, as you wish; but I shrink from being placed, from our being placed, in collision with our child. The mere exercise of parental authority is a last resource; I would appeal first, rather to his reason, to his heart; your arguments, his affection for us, may yet influence him.' 'You tell me you have argued with him,' said the duchess in a melancholy tone.

'Yes, but you know so much more on these subjects than I do, indeed, upon all subjects; you are so clever, that I do not despair, my dear Katherine, of your producing an impression on him.'

'I would tell him at once,' said the duchess, firmly, 'that the proposition cannot be listened to.'

The duke looked very distressed. After a momentary pause, he said, 'If, indeed, you think that the best; but let us consult before we take that step, because it would seem to terminate all discussion, and discussion may yet do good. Besides, I cannot conceal from myself that Tancred in this affair is acting under the influence of very powerful motives; his feelings are highly strung; you have no idea, you can have no idea from what we have seen of him hitherto, how excited he is. I had no idea of his being capable of such excitement. I always thought him so very calm, and of such a quiet turn. And so, in short, my dear Katherine, were we to be abrupt at this moment, peremptory, you understand, I—I should not be surprised, were Tancred to go without our permission.'

'Impossible!' exclaimed the duchess, starting in her chair, but with as much consternation as confidence in her countenance. 'Throughout his life he has never disobeyed us.'

'And that is an additional reason,' said the duke, quietly, but in his sweetest tone, 'why we should not treat as a light ebullition this first instance of his preferring his own will to that of his father and mother.'

'He has been so much away from us these last three years,' said the duchess in a tone of great depression, 'and they are such important years in the formation of character! But Mr. Bernard, he ought to have been aware of all this; he ought to have known what was passing through his pupil's mind; he ought to have warned us. Let us speak to him; let us speak to him at once. Ring, my dear George, and request the attendance of Mr. Bernard.'

That gentleman, who was in the library, kept them waiting but a few minutes. As he entered the room, he perceived, by the countenances of his noble patrons, that something remarkable, and probably not agreeable, had occurred. The duke opened the case to Mr. Bernard with calmness; he gave an outline of the great catastrophe; the duchess filled up the parts, and invested the whole with a rich and even terrible colouring.

Nothing could exceed the astonishment of the late private tutor of Lord Montacute. He was fairly overcome; the communication itself was startling, the accessories overwhelmed him. The unspoken reproaches that beamed from the duke's mild eye; the withering glance of maternal desolation that met him from the duchess; the rapidity of her anxious and agitated questions; all were too much for the simple, though correct, mind of one unused to those passionate developments which are commonly called scenes. All that Mr. Bernard for some time could do was to sit with his eyes staring and mouth open, and repeat, with a bewildered air, 'The Holy Land, the Holy Sepulchre!' No, most certainly not; most assuredly; never in any way, by any word or deed, had Lord Montacute ever given him reason to suppose or imagine that his lordship intended to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, or that he was influenced by any of those views and opinions which he had so strangely and so uncompromisingly expressed to his father.

'But, Mr. Bernard, you have been his companion, his instructor, for many years,' continued the duchess, 'for the last three years especially, years so important in the formation of character. You have seen much more of Montacute than we have. Surely you must have had some idea of what was passing in his mind; you could not help knowing it; you ought to have known it; you ought to have warned, to have prepared us.'

'Madam,' at length said Mr. Bernard, more collected, and feeling the necessity and excitement of self-vindication, 'Madam, your noble son, under my poor tuition, has taken the highest honours of his university; his moral behaviour during that period has been immaculate; and as for his religious sentiments, even this strange scheme proves that they are, at any rate, of no light and equivocal character.'

'To lose such a son!' exclaimed the duchess, in a tone of anguish, and with streaming eyes.

The duke took her hand, and would have soothed her; and then, turning to Mr. Bernard, he said, in a lowered tone, 'We are very sensible how much we owe you; the duchess equally with myself. All we regret is, that some of us had not obtained a more intimate acquaintance with the character of my son than it appears we have acquired.'

'My lord duke,' said Mr. Bernard, 'had yourself or her Grace ever spoken to me on this subject, I would have taken the liberty of expressing what I say now. I have ever found Lord Montacute inscrutable. He has formed himself in solitude, and has ever repelled any advance to intimacy, either from those who were his inferiors or his equals in station. He has never had a companion. As for myself, during the ten years that I have had the honour of being connected with him, I cannot recall a word or a deed on his part which towards me has not been courteous and considerate; but as a child he was shy and silent, and as a man, for I have looked upon him as a man in mind for these four or even five years, he has employed me as his machine to obtain knowledge. It is not very flattering to oneself to make these confessions, but at Oxford he had the opportunity of communicating with some of the most eminent men of our time, and I have always learnt from them the same result. Lord Montacute never disburthened. His passion for study has been ardent; his power of application is very great; his attention unwearied as long as there is anything to acquire; but he never seeks your opinions, and never offers his own. The interview of yesterday with your Grace is the only exception with which I am acquainted, and at length throws some light on the mysteries of his mind.'

The duke looked sad; his wife seemed plunged in profound thought; there was a silence of many moments. At length the duchess looked up, and said, in a calmer tone, and with an air of great seriousness, 'It seems that we have mistaken the character of our son. Thank you very much for coming to us so quickly in our trouble, Mr. Bernard. It was very kind, as you always are.' Mr. Bernard took the hint, rose, bowed, and retired.

The moment that he had quitted the room, the eyes of the Duke and Duchess of Bellamont met. Who was to speak first? The duke had nothing to say, and therefore he had the advantage: the duchess wished her husband to break the silence, but, having something to say herself, she could not refrain from interrupting it. So she said, with a tearful eye, 'Well, George, what do you think we ought to do?' The duke had a great mind to propose his plan of sending Tancred to Jerusalem, with Colonel Brace, Mr. Bernard, and Mr. Roby, to take care of him, but he hardly thought the occasion was ripe enough for that; and so he suggested that the duchess should speak to Tancred herself.

'No,' said her Grace, shaking her head, 'I think it better for me to be silent; at least at present. It is necessary, however, that the most energetic means should be adopted to save him, nor is there a moment to be lost. We must shrink from nothing for such an object. I have a plan. We will put the whole matter in the hands of our friend, the bishop. We will get him to speak to Tancred. I entertain not a doubt that the bishop will put his mind all right; clear all his doubts; remove all his scruples. The bishop is the only person, because, you see, it is a case political as well as theological, and the bishop is a great statesman as well as the first theologian of the age. Depend upon it, my dear George, that this is the wisest course, and, with the blessing of Providence, will effect our purpose. It is, perhaps, asking a good deal of the bishop, considering his important and multifarious duties, to undertake this office, but we must not be delicate when everything is at stake; and, considering he christened and confirmed Tancred, and our long friendship, it is quite out of the question that he can refuse. However, there is no time to be lost. We must get to town as soon as possible; tomorrow, if we can. I shall advance affairs by writing to the bishop on the subject, and giving him an outline of the case, so that he may be prepared to see Tancred at once on our arrival. What think you, George, of my plan?'

'I think it quite admirable,' replied his Grace, only too happy that there was at least the prospect of a lull of a few days in this great embarrassment.



CHAPTER X.

A Visionary

ABOUT the time of the marriage of the Duchess of Bellamont, her noble family, and a few of their friends, some of whom also believed in the millennium, were persuaded that the conversion of the Roman Catholic population of Ireland to the true faith, which was their own, was at hand. They had subscribed very liberally for the purpose, and formed an amazing number of sub-committees. As long as their funds lasted, their missionaries found proselytes. It was the last desperate effort of a Church that had from the first betrayed its trust. Twenty years ago, statistics not being so much in vogue, and the people of England being in the full efflorescence of that public ignorance which permitted them to believe themselves the most enlightened nation in the world, the Irish 'difficulty' was not quite so well understood as at the present day. It was then an established doctrine, and all that was necessary for Ireland was more Protestantism, and it was supposed to be not more difficult to supply the Irish with Protestantism than it had proved, in the instance of a recent famine, 1822, to furnish them with potatoes. What was principally wanted in both cases were subscriptions.

When the English public, therefore, were assured by their co-religionists on the other side of St. George's Channel, that at last the good work was doing; that the flame spread, even rapidly; that not only parishes but provinces were all agog, and that both town and country were quite in a heat of proselytism, they began to believe that at last the scarlet lady was about to be dethroned; they loosened their purse-strings; fathers of families contributed their zealous five pounds, followed by every other member of the household, to the babe in arms, who subscribed its fanatical five shillings. The affair looked well. The journals teemed with lists of proselytes and cases of conversion; and even orderly, orthodox people, who were firm in their own faith, but wished others to be permitted to pursue their errors in peace, began to congratulate each other on the prospect of our at last becoming a united Protestant people.

In the blaze and thick of the affair, Irish Protestants jubilant, Irish Papists denouncing the whole movement as fraud and trumpery, John Bull perplexed, but excited, and still subscribing, a young bishop rose in his place in the House of Lords, and, with a vehemence there unusual, declared that he saw 'the finger of God in this second Reformation,' and, pursuing the prophetic vein and manner, denounced 'woe to those who should presume to lift up their hands and voices in vain and impotent attempts to stem the flood of light that was bursting over Ireland.'

In him, who thus plainly discerned 'the finger of God' in transactions in which her family and feelings were so deeply interested, the young and enthusiastic Duchess of Bellamont instantly recognised the 'man of God;' and from that moment the right reverend prelate became, in all spiritual affairs, her infallible instructor, although the impending second Reformation did chance to take the untoward form of the emancipation of the Roman Catholics, followed in due season by the destruction of Protestant bishoprics, the sequestration of Protestant tithes, and the endowment of Maynooth.

In speculating on the fate of public institutions and the course of public affairs, it is important that we should not permit our attention to be engrossed by the principles on which they are founded and the circumstances which they present, but that we should also remember how much depends upon the character of the individuals who are in the position to superintend or to direct them.

The Church of England, mainly from its deficiency of oriental knowledge, and from a misconception of the priestly character which has been the consequence of that want, has fallen of late years into great straits; nor has there ever been a season when it has more needed for its guides men possessing the higher qualities both of intellect and disposition. About five-and-twenty years ago, it began to be discerned that the time had gone by, at least in England, for bishoprics to serve as appanages for the younger sons of great families. The Arch-Mediocrity who then governed this country, and the mean tenor of whose prolonged administration we have delineated in another work, was impressed with the necessity of reconstructing the episcopal bench on principles of personal distinction and ability. But his notion of clerical capacity did not soar higher than a private tutor who had suckled a young noble into university honours; and his test of priestly celebrity was the decent editorship of a Greek play. He sought for the successors of the apostles, for the stewards of the mysteries of Sinai and of Calvary, among third-rate hunters after syllables.

These men, notwithstanding their elevation, with one exception, subsided into their native insignificance; and during our agitated age, when the principles of all institutions, sacred and secular, have been called in question; when, alike in the senate and the market-place, both the doctrine and the discipline of the Church have been impugned, its power assailed, its authority denied, the amount of its revenues investigated, their disposition criticised, and both attacked; not a voice has been raised by these mitred nullities, either to warn or to vindicate; not a phrase has escaped their lips or their pens, that ever influenced public opinion, touched the heart of nations, or guided the conscience of a perplexed people. If they were ever heard of it was that they had been pelted in a riot.

The exception which we have mentioned to their sorry careers was that of the too adventurous prophet of the second Reformation; the ductor dubitantium appealed to by the Duchess of Bellamont, to convince her son that the principles of religious truth, as well as of political justice, required no further investigation; at least by young marquesses.

The ready audacity with which this right reverend prelate had stood sponsor for the second Reformation is a key to his character. He combined a great talent for action with very limited powers of thought.

Bustling, energetic, versatile, gifted with an indomitable perseverance, and stimulated by an ambition that knew no repose, with a capacity for mastering details and an inordinate passion for affairs, he could permit nothing to be done without his interference, and consequently was perpetually involved in transactions which were either failures or blunders. He was one of those leaders who are not guides. Having little real knowledge, and not endowed with those high qualities of intellect which permit their possessor to generalise the details afforded by study and experience, and so deduce rules of conduct, his lordship, when he received those frequent appeals which were the necessary consequence of his officious life, became obscure, confused, contradictory, inconsistent, illogical. The oracle was always dark.

Placed in a high post in an age of political analysis, the bustling intermeddler was unable to supply society with a single solution. Enunciating secondhand, with characteristic precipitation, some big principle in vogue, as if he were a discoverer, he invariably shrank from its subsequent application the moment that he found it might be unpopular and inconvenient. All his quandaries terminated in the same catastrophe; a compromise. Abstract principles with him ever ended in concrete expediency. The aggregate of circumstances outweighed the isolated cause. The primordial tenet, which had been advocated with uncompromising arrogance, gently subsided into some second-rate measure recommended with all the artifice of an impenetrable ambiguity.

Beginning with the second Reformation, which was a little rash but dashing, the bishop, always ready, had in the course of his episcopal career placed himself at the head of every movement in the Church which others had originated, and had as regularly withdrawn at the right moment, when the heat was over, or had become, on the contrary, excessive. Furiously evangelical, soberly high and dry, and fervently Puseyite, each phasis of his faith concludes with what the Spaniards term a 'transaction.' The saints are to have their new churches, but they are also to have their rubrics and their canons; the universities may supply successors to the apostles, but they are also presented with a church commission; even the Puseyites may have candles on their altars, but they must not be lighted.

It will be seen, therefore, that his lordship was one of those characters not ill-adapted to an eminent station in an age like the present, and in a country like our own; an age of movement, but of confused ideas; a country of progress, but too rich to risk much change. Under these circumstances, the spirit of a period and a people seeks a safety-valve in bustle. They do something, lest it be said that they do nothing. At such a time, ministers recommend their measures as experiments, and parliaments are ever ready to rescind their votes. Find a man who, totally destitute of genius, possesses nevertheless considerable talents; who has official aptitude, a volubility of routine rhetoric, great perseverance, a love of affairs; who, embarrassed neither by the principles of the philosopher nor by the prejudices of the bigot, can assume, with a cautious facility, the prevalent tone, and disembarrass himself of it, with a dexterous ambiguity, the moment it ceases to be predominant; recommending himself to the innovator by his approbation of change 'in the abstract,' and to the conservative by his prudential and practical respect for that which is established; such a man, though he be one of an essentially small mind, though his intellectual qualities be less than moderate, with feeble powers of thought, no imagination, contracted sympathies, and a most loose public morality; such a man is the individual whom kings and parliaments would select to govern the State or rule the Church. Change, 'in the abstract,' is what is wanted by a people who are at the same time inquiring and wealthy. Instead of statesmen they desire shufflers; and compromise in conduct and ambiguity in speech are, though nobody will confess it, the public qualities now most in vogue.

Not exactly, however, those calculated to meet the case of Tancred. The interview was long, for Tan-cred listened with apparent respect and deference to the individual under whose auspices he had entered the Church of Christ; but the replies to his inquiries, though more adroit than the duke's, were in reality not more satisfactory, and could not, in any way, meet the inexorable logic of Lord Montacute. The bishop was as little able as the duke to indicate the principle on which the present order of things in England was founded; neither faith nor its consequence, duty, was at all illustrated or invigorated by his handling. He utterly failed in reconciling a belief in ecclesiastical truth with the support of religious dissent. When he tried to define in whom the power of government should repose, he was lost in a maze of phrases, and afforded his pupil not a single fact.

'It cannot be denied,' at length said Tancred, with great calmness, 'that society was once regulated by God, and that now it is regulated by man. For my part, I prefer divine to self-government, and I wish to know how it is to be attained.'

'The Church represents God upon earth,' said the bishop.

'But the Church no longer governs man,' replied Tancred.

'There is a great spirit rising in the Church,' observed the bishop, with thoughtful solemnity; 'a great and excellent spirit. The Church of 1845 is not the Church of 1745. We must remember that; we know not what may happen. We shall soon see a bishop at Manchester.'

'But I want to see an angel at Manchester.'

'An angel!'

'Why not? Why should there not be heavenly messengers, when heavenly messages are most wanted?'

'We have received a heavenly message by one greater than the angels,' said the bishop. 'Their visits to man ceased with the mightier advent.'

'Then why did angels appear to Mary and her companions at the holy tomb?' inquired Tancred.

The interview from which so much was anticipated was not satisfactory. The eminent prelate did not realise Tancred's ideal of a bishop, while his lordship did not hesitate to declare that Lord Montacute was a visionary.



CHAPTER XI.

Advice from a Man of the World

WHEN the duchess found that the interview with the bishop had been fruitless of the anticipated results, she was staggered, disheartened; but she was a woman of too high a spirit to succumb under a first defeat. She was of opinion that his lordship had misunderstood the case, or had mismanaged it; her confidence in him, too, was not so illimitable since he had permitted the Puseyites to have candles on their altars, although he had forbidden their being lighted, as when he had declared, twenty years before, that the finger of God was about to protestantise Ireland. His lordship had said and had done many things since that time which had occasioned the duchess many misgivings, although she had chosen that they should not occur to her recollection until he failed in convincing her son that religious truth was to be found in the parish of St. James, and political justice in the happy haunts of Montacute Forest.

The Bishop had voted for the Church Temporalities' Bill in 1833, which at one swoop had suppressed ten Irish episcopates. This was a queer suffrage for the apostle of the second Reformation. True it is that Whiggism was then in the ascendant, and two years afterwards, when Whiggism had received a heavy blow and great discouragement; when we had been blessed in the interval with a decided though feeble Conservative administration, and were blessed at the moment with a strong though undecided Conservative opposition; his lordship, with characteristic activity, had galloped across country into the right line again, denounced the Appropriation Clause in a spirit worthy of his earlier days, and, quite forgetting the ten Irish bishoprics, that only four-and-twenty months before he had doomed to destruction, was all for proselytising Ireland again by the efficacious means of Irish Protestant bishops.

'The bishop says that Tancred is a visionary,' said the duchess to her husband, with an air of great displeasure. 'Why, it is because he is a visionary that we sent him to the bishop. I want to have his false imaginings removed by one who has the competent powers of learning and argument, and the authority of a high and holy office. A visionary, indeed! Why, so are the Puseyites; they are visionaries, and his lordship has been obliged to deal with them; though, to be sure, if he spoke to Tancred in a similar fashion, I am not surprised that my son has returned unchanged! This is the most vexatious business that ever occurred to us. Something must be done; but what to fix on? What do you think, George? Since speaking to the bishop, of which you so much approved, has failed, what do you recommend?'

While the duchess was speaking, she was seated in her boudoir, looking into the Green Park; the duke's horses were in the courtyard, and he was about to ride down to the House of Lords; he had just looked in, as was his custom, to say farewell till they met again.

'I am sorry that the interview with the bishop has failed,' said the duke, in a hesitating tone, and playing with his riding-stick; and then walking up to the window and looking into the Park, he said, apparently after reflection, 'I always think the best person to deal with a visionary is a man of the world.'

'But what can men of the world know of such questions?' said the duchess, mournfully.

'Very little,' said her husband, 'and therefore they are never betrayed into arguments, which I fancy always make people more obstinate, even if they are confuted. Men of the world have a knack of settling everything without discussion; they do it by tact. It is astonishing how many difficulties I have seen removed—by Eskdale, for example—which it seemed that no power on earth could change, and about which we had been arguing for months. There was the Cheadle churches case, for example; it broke up some of the oldest friendships in the county; even Hungerford and Ilderton did not speak. I never had a more anxious time of it; and, as far as I was personally concerned, I would have made any sacrifice to keep a good understanding in the county. At last I got the business referred to Eskdale, and the affair was ultimately arranged to everybody's satisfaction. I don't know how he managed: it was quite impossible that he could have offered any new arguments, but he did it by tact. Tact does not remove difficulties, but difficulties melt away under tact.'

'Heigho!' sighed the duchess. 'I cannot understand how tact can tell us what is religious truth, or prevent my son from going to the Holy Sepulchre.'

'Try,' said the duke.

'Shall you see our cousin to-day, George?'

'He is sure to be at the House,' replied the duke, eagerly. 'I tell you what I propose, Kate: Tancred is gone to the House of Commons to hear the debate on Maynooth; I will try and get our cousin to come home and dine with us, and then we can talk over the whole affair at once. What say you?'

'Very well.'

'We have failed with a bishop; we will now try a man of the world; and if we are to have a man of the world, we had better have a firstrate one, and everybody agrees that our cousin——'

'Yes, yes, George,' said the duchess, 'ask him to come; tell him it is very urgent, that we must consult him immediately; and then, if he be engaged, I dare say he will manage to come all the same.'

Accordingly, about half-past eight o'clock, the two peers arrived at Bellamont House together. They were unexpectedly late; they had been detained at the House. The duke was excited; even Lord Esk-dale looked as if something had happened. Something had happened; there had been a division in the House of Lords. Rare and startling event! It seemed as if the peers were about to resume their functions. Divisions in the House of Lords are now-a-days so thinly scattered, that, when one occurs, the peers cackle as if they had laid an egg. They are quite proud of the proof of their still procreative powers. The division to-night had not been on a subject of any public interest or importance; but still it was a division, and, what was more, the Government had been left in a minority. True, the catastrophe was occasioned by a mistake. The dictator had been asleep during the debate, woke suddenly from a dyspeptic dream, would make a speech, and spoke on the wrong side. A lively colleague, not yet sufficiently broken in to the frigid discipline of the High Court of Registry, had pulled the great man once by his coat-tails, a House of Commons practice, permitted to the Cabinet when their chief is blundering, very necessary sometimes for a lively leader, but of which Sir Robert highly disapproves, as the arrangement of his coat-tails, next to beating the red box, forms the most important part of his rhetorical accessories. The dictator, when he at length comprehended that he had made a mistake, persisted in adhering to it; the division was called, some of the officials escaped, the rest were obliged to vote with their ruthless master; but his other friends, glad of an opportunity of asserting their independence and administering to the dictator a slight check in a quiet inoffensive way, put him in a minority; and the Duke of Bellamont and Lord Eskdale had contributed to this catastrophe.

Dinner was served in the library; the conversation during it was chiefly the event of the morning. The duchess, who, though not a partisan, was something of a politician, thought it was a pity that the dictator had ever stepped out of his military sphere; her husband, who had never before seen a man's coat-tails pulled when he was speaking, dilated much upon the singular circumstance of Lord Spur so disporting himself on the present occasion; while Lord Eskdale, who had sat for a long time in the House of Commons, and who was used to everything, assured his cousin that the custom, though odd, was by no means irregular. 'I remember,' said his lordship, 'seeing Ripon, when he was Robinson, and Huskisson, each pulling one of Canning's coat-tails at the same time.'

Throughout dinner not a word about Tancred. Lord Eskdale neither asked where he was nor how he was. At length, to the great relief of the duchess, dinner was finished; the servants had disappeared. The duke pushed away the table; they drew their chairs round the hearth; Lord Eskdale took half a glass of Madeira, then stretched his legs a little, then rose, stirred the fire, and then, standing with his back to it and his hands in his pockets, said, in a careless tone approaching to a drawl, 'And so, duchess, Tancred wants to go to Jerusalem?'

'George has told you, then, all our troubles?' 'Only that; he left the rest to you, and I came to hear it.'

Whereupon the duchess went off, and spoke for a considerable time with great animation and ability, the duke hanging on every word with vigilant interest, Lord Eskdale never interrupting her for an instant; while she stated the case not only with the impassioned feeling of a devoted mother, but occasionally with all the profundity of a theologian. She did not conceal from him the interview between Tancred and the bishop; it was her last effort, and had failed; and so, 'after all our plans,' she ended, 'as far as I can form an opinion, he is absolutely more resolved than ever to go to Jerusalem.'

'Well,' said his lordship, 'it is at least better than going to the Jews, which most men do at his time of life.'

'I cannot agree even to that,' said the duchess; 'for I would rather that he should be ruined than die.'

'Men do not die as they used,' said his lordship. 'Ask the annuity offices; they have all raised their rates.'

'I know nothing about annuity offices, but I know that almost everybody dies who goes to those countries; look at young Fernborough, he was just Tancred's age; the fevers alone must kill him.'

'He must take some quinine in his dressing-case,' said Lord Eskdale.

'You jest, Henry,' said the duchess, disappointed, 'when I am in despair.'

'No,' said Lord Eskdale, looking up to the ceiling, 'I am thinking how you may prevent Tancred from going to Jerusalem, without, at the same time, opposing his wishes.'

'Ay, ay,' said the duke, 'that is it.' And he looked triumphantly to his wife, as much as to say, 'Now you see what it is to be a man of the world.'

'A man cannot go to Jerusalem as he would to Birmingham, by the next train,' continued his lordship; 'he must get something to take him; and if you make the sacrifice of consenting to his departure, you have a right to stipulate as to the manner in which he should depart. Your son ought to travel with a suite; he ought to make the voyage in his own yacht. Yachts are not to be found like hack cabs, though there are several for sale now; but then they are not of the admeasurement of which you approve for such a voyage and such a sea. People talk very lightly of the Mediterranean, but there are such things as white squalls. Anxious parents, and parents so fond of a son as you are, and a son whose life for so many reasons is so precious, have a right to make it a condition of their consent to his departure, that he should embark in a vessel of considerable tonnage. He will find difficulty in buying one second-hand; if he finds one it will not please him. He will get interested in yacht-building, as he is interested now about Jerusalem: both boyish fancies. He will stay another year in England to build a yacht to take him to the Holy Land; the yacht will be finished this time twelvemonths; and, instead of going to Palestine, he will go to Cowes.'

'That is quite my view of the case,' said the duke.

'It never occurred to me,' said the duchess.

Lord Eskdale resumed his seat, and took another half-glass of Madeira.

'Well, I think it is very satisfactory, Katherine,' said the duke, after a short pause.

'And what do you recommend us to do first?' said the duchess to Lord Eskdale.

'Let Tancred go into society: the best way for him to forget Jerusalem is to let him see London.'

'But how can I manage it?' said the duchess. 'I never go anywhere; nobody knows him, and he does not wish to know anybody.'

'I will manage it, with your permission; 'tis not difficult; a young marquess has only to evince an inclination, and in a week's time he will be everywhere. I will tell Lady St. Julians and the great ladies to send him invitations; they will fall like a snow-storm. All that remains is for you to prevail upon him to accept them.'

'And how shall I contrive it?' said the duchess.

'Easily,' said Lord Eskdale. 'Make his going into society, while his yacht is preparing, one of the conditions of the great sacrifice you are making. He cannot refuse you: 'tis but the first step. A youth feels a little repugnance to launching into the great world: 'tis shyness; but after the plunge, the great difficulty is to restrain rather than to incite. Let him but once enter the world, and be tranquil, he will soon find something to engage him.'

'As long as he does not take to play,' said the duke, 'I do not much care what he does.'

'My dear George!' said the duchess, 'how can you say such things! I was in hopes,' she added, in a mournful tone, 'that we might have settled him, without his entering what you call the world, Henry. Dearest child! I fancy him surrounded by pitfalls.'



CHAPTER XII.

The Dreamer Enters Society

AFTER this consultation with Lord Eskdale, the duchess became easier in her mind. She was of a sanguine temper, and with facility believed what she wished. Affairs stood thus: it was agreed by all that Tancred should go to the Holy Land, but he was to go in his own yacht; which yacht was to be of a firstrate burthen, and to be commanded by an officer in H.M.S.; and he was to be accompanied by Colonel Brace, Mr. Bernard, and Mr. Roby; and the servants were to be placed entirely under the control of some trusty foreigner accustomed to the East, and who was to be chosen by Lord Eskdale. In the meantime, Tancred had acceded to the wish of his parents, that until his departure he should mix much in society. The duchess calculated that, under any circumstances, three months must elapse before all the arrangements were concluded; and she felt persuaded that, during that period, Tancred must become enamoured of his cousin Katherine, and that the only use of the yacht would be to take them all to Ireland. The duke was resolved only on two points: that his son should do exactly as his son liked, and that he himself would never take the advice, on any subject, of any other person than Lord Eskdale.

In the meantime Tancred was launched, almost unconsciously, into the great world. The name of the Marquess of Montacute was foremost in those delicate lists by which an eager and admiring public is apprised who, among their aristocracy, eat, drink, dance, and sometimes pray. From the saloons of Bel-grave and Grosvenor Square to the sacred recesses of the Chapel Royal, the movements of Lord Montacute were tracked and registered, and were devoured every morning, oftener with a keener relish than the matin meal of which they formed a regular portion. England is the only country which enjoys the unspeakable advantage of being thus regularly, promptly, and accurately furnished with catalogues of those favoured beings who are deemed qualified to enter the houses of the great. What condescension in those who impart the information! What indubitable evidence of true nobility! What superiority to all petty vanity! And in those who receive it, what freedom from all little feelings! No arrogance on one side; on the other, no envy. It is only countries blessed with a free press that can be thus favoured. Even a free press is not alone sufficient. Besides a free press, you must have a servile public.

After all, let us be just. The uninitiated world is apt to believe that there is sometimes, in the outskirts of fashion, an eagerness, scarcely consistent with self-respect, to enter the mansions of the great. Not at all: few people really want to go to their grand parties. It is not the charms of conversation, the flash of wit or the blaze of beauty, the influential presence of the powerful and celebrated, all the splendour and refinement, which, combined, offer in a polished saloon so much to charm the taste and satisfy the intellect, that the mass of social partisans care anything about. What they want is, not so much to be in her ladyship's house as in her ladyship's list. After the party at Coningsby Castle, our friend, Mrs. Guy Flouncey, at length succeeded in being asked to one of Lady St. Julians' assemblies. It was a great triumph, and Mrs. Guy Flouncey determined to make the most of it. She was worthy of the occasion. But alas! next morning, though admitted to the rout, Mrs. Guy Flouncey was left out of the list! It was a severe blow! But Mrs. Guy Flouncey is in every list now, and even strikes out names herself. But there never was a woman who advanced with such dexterity.

Lord Montacute was much shocked, when, one morning, taking up a journal, he first saw his name in print. He was alone, and he blushed; felt, indeed, extremely distressed, when he found that the English people were formally made acquainted with the fact that he had dined on the previous Saturday with the Earl and Countess of St. Julians; 'a grand banquet,' of which he was quite unconscious until he read it; and that he was afterwards 'observed' at the Opera.

He found that he had become a public character, and he was not by any means conscious of meriting celebrity. To be pointed at as he walked the streets, were he a hero, or had done, said, or written anything that anybody remembered, though at first painful and embarrassing, for he was shy, he could conceive ultimately becoming endurable, and not without a degree of excitement, for he was ambitious; but to be looked at because he was a young lord, and that this should be the only reason why the public should be informed where he dined, or where he amused himself, seemed to him not only vexatious but degrading. When he arrived, however, at a bulletin of his devotions, he posted off immediately to the Surrey Canal to look at a yacht there, and resolved not to lose unnecessarily one moment in setting off for Jerusalem.

He had from the first busied himself about the preparations for his voyage with all the ardour of youth; that is, with all the energy of inexperience, and all the vigour of simplicity. As everything seemed to depend upon his obtaining a suitable vessel, he trusted to no third person; had visited Cowes several times; advertised in every paper; and had already met with more than one yacht which at least deserved consideration. The duchess was quite frightened at his progress. 'I am afraid he has found one,' she said to Lord Eskdale; 'he will be off directly.'

Lord Eskdale shook his head. 'There are always things of this sort in the market. He will inquire before he purchases, and he will find that he has got hold of a slow coach.'

'A slow coach!' said the duchess, looking inquiringly. 'What is that?'

'A tub that sails like a collier, and which, instead of taking him to Jerusalem, will hardly take him to Newcastle.'

Lord Eskdale was right. Notwithstanding all his ardour, all his inquiries, visits to Cowes and the Surrey Canal, advertisements and answers to advertisements, time flew on, and Tancred was still without a yacht.

In this unsettled state, Tancred found himself one evening at Deloraine House. It was not a ball, it was only a dance, brilliant and select; but, all the same, it seemed to Tancred that the rooms could not be much more crowded. The name of the Marquess of Montacute, as it was sent along by the servants, attracted attention. Tancred had scarcely entered the world, his appearance had made a sensation, everybody talked of him, many had not yet seen him.

'Oh! that is Lord Montacute,' said a great lady, looking through her glass; 'very distinguished!'

'I tell you what,' whispered Mr. Ormsby to Lord Valentine, 'you young men had better look sharp; Lord Montacute will cut you all out!'

'Oh! he is going to Jerusalem,' said Lord Valentine.

'Jerusalem!' said Mr. Ormsby, shrugging his shoulders. 'What can he find to do at Jerusalem?'

'What, indeed,' said Lord Milford. 'My brother was there in '39; he got leave after the bombardment of Acre, and he says there is absolutely no sport of any kind.'

'There used to be partridges in the time of Jeremiah,' said Mr. Ormsby; 'at least they told us so at the Chapel Royal last Sunday, where, by-the-bye, I saw Lord Montacute for the first time; and a deuced good-looking fellow he is,' he added, musingly.

'Well, there is not a bird in the whole country now,' said Lord Milford.

'Montacute does not care for sport,' said Lord Valentine.

'What does he care for?' asked Lord Milford. 'Because, if he wants any horses, I can let him have some.'

'He wants to buy a yacht,' said Lord Valentine; 'and that reminds me that I heard to-day Exmouth wanted to get rid of "The Flower of Yarrow," and I think it would suit my cousin. I'll tell him of it.' And he followed Tancred.

'You and Valentine must rub up your harness, Milford,'said Mr. Ormsby; 'there is a new champion in the field. We are talking of Lord Montacute,' continued Mr. Ormsby, addressing himself to Mr. Melton, who joined them; 'I tell Milford he will cut you all out.'

'Well,' said Mr. Melton, 'for my part I have had so much success, that I have no objection, by way of change, to be for once eclipsed.'

'Well done, Jemmy,' said Lord Milford.

'I see, Melton,' said Mr. Ormsby, 'you are reconciled to your fate like a philosopher.'

'Well, Montacute,' said Lord St. Patrick, a good-tempered, witty Milesian, with a laughing eye, 'when are you going to Jericho?'

'Tell me,' said Tancred, in reply, and rather earnestly, 'who is that?' And he directed the attention of Lord St. Patrick to a young lady, rather tall, a brilliant complexion, classic features, a profusion of light brown hair, a face of intelligence, and a figure rich and yet graceful.

'That is Lady Constance Rawleigh; if you like, I will introduce you to her. She is my cousin, and deuced clever. Come along!'

In the meantime, in the room leading to the sculpture gallery where they are dancing, the throng is even excessive. As the two great divisions, those who would enter the gallery and those who are quitting it, encounter each other, they exchange flying phrases as they pass.

'They told me you had gone to Paris! I have just returned. Dear me, how time flies! Pretty dance, is it not? Very. Do you know whether the Madlethorpes mean to come up this year? I hardly know; their little girl is very ill. Ah! so I hear; what a pity, and such a fortune! Such a pity with such a fortune! How d'ye do? Mr. Coningsby here? No; he's at the House. They say he is a very close attendant. It interests him. Well, Lady Florentina, you never sent me the dances. Pardon, but you will find them when you return. I lent them to Augusta, and she would copy them. Is it true that I am to congratulate you? Why? Lady Blanche? Oh! that is a romance of Easter week. Well, I am really delighted; I think such an excellent match for both; exactly suited to each other. They think so. Well, that is one point. How well Lady Everingham is looking! She is quite herself again. Quite. Tell me, have you seen M. de Talleyrand here? I spoke to him but this moment. Shall you be at Lady Blair's to-morrow? No; I have promised to go to Mrs. Guy Flouncey's. She has taken Craven Cottage, and is to be at home every Saturday. Well, if you are going, I think I shall. I would; everybody will be there.'

Lord Montacute had conversed some time with Lady Constance; then he had danced with her; he had hovered about her during the evening. It was observed, particularly by some of the most experienced mothers. Lady Constance was a distinguished beauty of two seasons; fresh, but adroit. It was understood that she had refused offers of a high calibre; but the rejected still sighed about her, and it was therefore supposed that, though decided, she had the art of not rendering them desperate. One at least of them was of a rank equal to that of Tancred. She had the reputation of being very clever, and of being able, if it pleased her, to breathe scorpions as well as brilliants and roses. It had got about that she admired intellect, and, though she claimed the highest social position, that a booby would not content her, even if his ears were covered with strawberry leaves.

In the cloak-room, Tancred was still at her side, and was presented to her mother, Lady Charmouth.

'I am sorry to separate,' said Tancred.

'And so am I,' said Lady Constance, smiling; 'but one advantage of this life is, we meet our friends every day.'

'I am not going anywhere to-morrow, where I shall meet you,' said Tancred, 'unless you chance to dine at the Archbishop of York's.'

'I am not going to dine with the Archbishop of York,' said Lady Constance, 'but I am going, where everybody else is going, to breakfast with Mrs. Guy Flouncey, at Craven Cottage. Why, will not you be there?'

'I have not the honour of knowing her,' said Tancred.

'That is not of the slightest consequence; she will be very happy to have the honour of knowing you. I saw her in the dancing-room, but it is not worth while waiting to speak to her now. You shall receive an invitation the moment you are awake.'

'But to-morrow I have an engagement. I have to look at a yacht.'

'But that you can look at on Monday; besides, if you wish to know anything about yachts, you had better speak to my brother, Fitz-Heron, who has built more than any man alive.'

'Perhaps he has one that he wishes to part with?' said Tancred.

'I have no doubt of it. You can ask him tomorrow at Mrs. Guy Flouncey's.'

'I will. Lady Charmouth's carriage is called. May I have the honour?' said Tancred, offering his arm.



CHAPTER XIII.

A Feminine Diplomatist

THERE is nothing so remarkable as feminine influence. Although the character of Tancred was not completely formed—for that result depends, in some degree, upon the effect of circumstances at a certain time of life, as well as on the impulse of a natural bent—still the temper of his being was profound and steadfast. He had arrived, in solitude and by the working of his own thought, at a certain resolution, which had assumed to his strong and fervent imagination a sacred character, and which he was determined to accomplish at all costs. He had brought himself to the point that he would not conceive an obstacle that should baulk him. He had acceded to the conditions which had been made by his parents, for he was by nature dutiful, and wished to fulfil his-purpose, if possible, with their sanction.

Yet he had entered society with repugnance, and found nothing in its general tone with which his spirit harmonised. He was alone in the crowd; silent, observing, and not charmed. There seemed to him generally a want of simplicity and repose; too much flutter, not a little affectation. People met in the thronged chambers, and interchanged brief words, as if they were always in a hurry. 'Have you been here long? Where are you going next?' These were the questions which seemed to form the staple of the small talk of a fashionable multitude. Why, too, was there a smile on every countenance, which often also assumed the character of a grin? No error so common or so grievous as to suppose that a smile is a necessary ingredient of the pleasing. There are few faces that can afford to smile. A smile is sometimes bewitching, in general vapid, often a contortion. But the bewitching smile usually beams from the grave face. It is then irresistible. Tancred, though he was unaware of it, was gifted with this rare spell. He had inherited it from his mother; a woman naturally earnest and serious, and of a singular simplicity, but whose heart when pleased spoke in the dimpling sunshine of her cheek with exquisite beauty. The smiles of the Duchess of Bellamont, however, were like her diamonds, brilliant, but rarely worn.

Tancred had not mounted the staircase of Deloraine House with any anticipation of pleasure. His thoughts were far away amid cities of the desert, and by the palmy banks of ancient rivers. He often took refuge in these exciting and ennobling visions, to maintain himself when he underwent the ceremony of entering a great house. He was so shy in little things, that to hear his name sounded from servant to servant, echoing from landing-place to landing-place, was almost overwhelming. Nothing but his pride, which was just equal to his reserve, prevented him from often turning back on the stairs and precipitately retreating. And yet he had not been ten minutes in Deloraine House, before he had absolutely requested to be introduced to a lady. It was the first time he had ever made such a request.

He returned home, softly musing. A tone lingered in his ear; he recalled the countenance of one absent. In his dressing-room he lingered before he retired, with his arm on the mantel-piece, and gazing with abstraction on the fire.

When his servant called him, late in the morning, he delivered to him a card from Mrs. Guy Flouncey, inviting him on that day to Craven Cottage, at three o'clock: 'dejeuner at four o'clock precisely.' Tancred took the card, looked at it, and the letters seemed to cluster together and form the countenance of Lady Constance. 'It will be a good thing to go,' he said, 'because I want to know Lord Fitz-Heron; he will be of great use to me about my yacht.' So he ordered his carriage at three o'clock.

The reader must not for a moment suppose that Mrs. Guy Flouncey, though she was quite as well dressed, and almost as pretty, as she was when at Coningsby Castle in 1837, was by any means the same lady who then strove to amuse and struggled to be noticed. By no means. In 1837, Mrs. Guy Flouncey was nobody; in 1845, Mrs. Guy Flouncey was somebody, and somebody of very great importance. Mrs. Guy Flouncey had invaded society, and had conquered it, gradually, but completely, like the English in India. Social invasions are not rare, but they are seldom fortunate, or success, if achieved, is partial, and then only sustained at immense cost, like the French in Algiers.

The Guy Flounceys were not people of great fortune. They had a good fortune; seven or eight thousand a year. But then, with an air of great expenditure, even profusion, there was a basis of good management. And a good fortune with good management, and without that equivocal luxury, a great country-house, is almost equal to the great fortune of a peer. But they not only had no country-house, they had no children. And a good fortune, with good management, no country-house, and no children, is Aladdin's lamp.

Mr. Guy Flouncey was a sporting character. His wife had impressed upon him that it was the only way in which he could become fashionable and acquainted with 'the best men.' He knew just enough of the affair not to be ridiculous; and, for the rest, with a great deal of rattle and apparent heedlessness of speech and deed, he was really an extremely selfish and sufficiently shrewd person, who never compromised himself. It is astonishing with what dexterity Guy Flouncey could extricate himself from the jaws of a friend, who, captivated by his thoughtless candour and ostentatiously good heart, might be induced to request Mr. Flouncey to lend him a few hundreds, only for a few months, or, more diplomatically, might beg his friend to become his security for a few thousands, for a few years.

Mr. Guy Flouncey never refused these applications; they were exactly those to which it delighted his heart to respond, because nothing pleased him more than serving a friend. But then he always had to write a preliminary letter of preparation to his banker, or his steward, or his confidential solicitor; and, by some contrivance or other, without offending any one, rather with the appearance of conferring an obligation, it ended always by Mr. Guy Flouncey neither advancing the hundreds, nor guaranteeing the thousands. He had, indeed, managed, like many others, to get the reputation of being what is called 'a good fellow;' though it would have puzzled his panegyrists to allege a single act of his that evinced a good heart. This sort of pseudo reputation, whether for good or for evil, is not uncommon in the world. Man is mimetic; judges of character are rare; we repeat without thought the opinions of some third person, who has adopted them without inquiry; and thus it often happens that a proud, generous man obtains in time the reputation of being 'a screw,' because he has refused to lend money to some impudent spendthrift, who from that moment abuses him; and a cold-hearted, civil-spoken personage, profuse in costless services, with a spice of the parasite in him, or perhaps hospitable out of vanity, is invested with all the thoughtless sympathies of society, and passes current as that most popular of characters, 'a good fellow.'