The very name of Captain Cuttwater was odious to every clerk at the Admiralty. He, like all naval officers, hated the Admiralty, and thought, that of all Englishmen, those five who had been selected to sit there in high places as joint lords were the most incapable. He pestered them with continued and almost continuous applications on subjects of all sorts. He was always asking for increased allowances, advanced rank, more assistance, less work, higher privileges, immunities which could not be granted, and advantages to which he had no claim. He never took answers, but made every request the subject of a prolonged correspondence; till at last some energetic Assistant-Secretary declared that it should no longer be borne, and Captain Cuttwater was dismissed with pension and half-pay. During his service he had contrived to save some four or five thousand pounds, and now he was about to retire with an assured income adequate to all his wants. The public who had the paying of Captain Cuttwater may, perhaps, think that he was amply remunerated for what he had done; but the captain himself entertained a very different opinion.

Such is the view which we are obliged to take of the professional side of Captain Cuttwater's character. But the professional side was by far the worst. Counting fathoms of rope and looking after unruly midshipmen on shore are not duties capable of bringing out in high relief the better traits of a main's character. Uncle Bat, as during the few last years of his life he was always called at Surbiton Cottage, was a gentleman and a man of honour, in spite of anything that might be said to the contrary at the Admiralty. He was a man with a soft heart, though the end of his nose was so large, so red, and so pimply; and rough as was his usage to little midshipmen when his duty caused him to encounter them in a body, he had befriended many a one singly with kind words and an open hand. The young rogues would unmercifully quiz Old Nosey, for so Captain Cuttwater was generally called in Devonport, whenever they could safely do so; but, nevertheless, in their young distresses they knew him for their friend, and were not slow to come to him.

In person Captain Cuttwater was a tall, heavy man, on whose iron constitution hogsheads of Hollands and water seemed to have had no very powerful effect. He was much given to profane oaths; but knowing that manners required that he should refrain before ladies, and being unable to bring his tongue sufficiently under command to do so, he was in the habit of 'craving the ladies' pardon' after every slip.

All that was really remarkable in Uncle Bat's appearance was included in his nose. It had always been a generous, weighty, self-confident nose, inviting to itself more observation than any of its brother features demanded. But in latter years it had spread itself out in soft, porous, red excrescences, to such an extent as to make it really deserving of considerable attention. No stranger ever passed Captain Cuttwater in the streets of Devonport without asking who he was, or, at any rate, specially noticing him.

It must, of course, be admitted that a too strongly pronounced partiality for alcoholic drink had produced these defects in Captain Cuttwater's nasal organ; and yet he was a most staunch friend of temperance. No man alive or dead had ever seen Captain Cuttwater the worse for liquor; at least so boasted the captain himself, and there were none, at any rate in Devonport, to give him the lie. Woe betide the midshipman whom he should see elated with too much wine; and even to the common sailor who should be tipsy at the wrong time, he would show no mercy. Most eloquent were the discourses which he preached against drunkenness, and they always ended with a reference to his own sobriety. The truth was, that drink would hardly make Captain Cuttwater drunk. It left his brain untouched, but punished his nose.

Mrs. Woodward had seen her uncle but once since she had become a widow. He had then come up to London to attack the Admiralty at close quarters, and had sojourned for three or four days at Surbiton Cottage. This was now some ten years since, and the girls had forgotten even what he was like. Great preparations were made for him. Though the summer had nearly commenced, a large fire was kept burning in his bedroom—his bed was newly hung with new curtains; two feather beds were piled on each other, and everything was done which five women could think desirable to relieve the ailings of suffering age. The fact, however, was that Captain Cuttwater was accustomed to a small tent bedstead in a room without a carpet, that he usually slept on a single mattress, and that he never had a fire in his bedroom, even in the depth of winter.

Travelling from Devonport to London is now an easy matter; and Captain Cuttwater, old as he was, found himself able to get through to Hampton in one day. Mrs. Woodward went to meet him at Hampton Court in a fly, and conveyed him to his new home, together with a carpet-bag, a cocked hat, a sword, and a very small portmanteau. When she inquired after the remainder of his luggage, he asked her what more lumber she supposed he wanted. No more lumber at any rate made its appearance, then or afterwards; and the fly proceeded with an easy load to Surbiton Cottage.

There was great anxiety on the part of the girls when the wheels were heard to stop at the front door. Gertrude kept her place steadily standing on the rug in the drawing-room; Linda ran to the door and then back again; but Katie bolted out and ensconced herself behind the parlour-maid, who stood at the open door, looking eagerly forth to get the first view of Uncle Bat.

'So here you are, Bessie, as snug as ever,' said the captain, as he let himself ponderously down from the fly. Katie had never before heard her mother called Bessie, and had never seen anything approaching in size or colour to such a nose, consequently she ran away frightened.

'That's Gertrude—is it?' said the captain.

'Gertrude, uncle! Why Gertrude is a grown-up woman now. That's Katie, whom you remember an infant.'

'God bless my soul!' said the captain, as though he thought that girls must grow twice quicker at Hampton than they did at Devonport or elsewhere, 'God bless my soul!'

He was then ushered into the drawing-room, and introduced in form to his grand-nieces. 'This is Gertrude, uncle, and this Linda; there is just enough difference for you to know them apart. And this Katie. Come here, Katie, and kiss your uncle.'

Katie came up, hesitated, looked horrified, but did manage to get her face somewhat close to the old man's without touching the tremendous nose, and then having gone through this peril she retreated again behind the sofa.

'Well; bless my stars, Bessie, you don't tell me those are your children?'

'Indeed, uncle, I believe they are. It's a sad tale for me to tell, is it not?' said the blooming mother with a laugh.

'Why, they'll be looking out for husbands next,' said Uncle Bat.

'Oh! they're doing that already, every day,' said Katie.

'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Uncle Bat; 'I suppose so, I suppose so;— ha, ha, ha!'

Gertrude turned away to the window, disgusted and angry, and made up her mind to hate Uncle Bat for ever afterwards. Linda made a little attempt to smile, and felt somewhat glad in her heart that her uncle was a man who could indulge in a joke.

He was then taken upstairs to his bedroom, and here he greatly frightened Katie, and much scandalized the parlour-maid by declaring, immediately on his entering the room, that it was 'd——- hot, d—-ation hot; craving your pardon, ladies!'

'We thought, uncle, you'd like a fire,' began Mrs. Woodward, 'as——'

'A fire in June, when I can hardly carry my coat on my back!'

'It's the last day of May now,' said Katie timidly, from behind the bed-curtains.

This, however, did not satisfy the captain, and orders were forthwith given that the fire should be taken away, the curtains stripped off, the feather beds removed, and everything reduced to pretty much the same state in which it had usually been left for Harry Norman's accommodation. So much for all the feminine care which had been thrown away upon the consideration of Uncle Bat's infirmities.

'God bless my soul!' said he, wiping his brow with a huge coloured handkerchief as big as a mainsail, 'one night in such a furnace as that would have brought on the gout.'

He had dined in town, and by the time that his chamber had been stripped of its appendages, he was nearly ready for bed. Before he did so, he was asked to take a glass of sherry.

'Ah! sherry,' said he, taking up the bottle and putting it down again. 'Sherry, ah! yes; very good wine, I am sure. You haven't a drop of rum in the house, have you?'

Mrs. Woodward declared with sorrow that she had not.

'Or Hollands?' said Uncle Bat. But the ladies of Surbiton Cottage were unsupplied also with Hollands.

'Gin?' suggested the captain, almost in despair.

Mrs. Woodward had no gin, but she could send out and get it; and the first evening of Captain Cuttwater's visit saw Mrs. Woodward's own parlour-maid standing at the bar of the Green Dragon, while two gills of spirits were being measured out for her.

'Only for the respect she owed to Missus,' as she afterwards declared, 'she never would have so demeaned herself for all the captains in the Queen's battalions.'

The captain, however, got his grog; and having enlarged somewhat vehemently while he drank it on the iniquities of those scoundrels at the Admiralty, took himself off to bed; and left his character and peculiarities to the tender mercies of his nieces.

The following day was Friday, and on the Saturday Norman and Tudor were to come down as a matter of course. During the long days, they usually made their appearance after dinner; but they had now been specially requested to appear in good orderly time, in honour of the captain. Their advent had been of course spoken of, and Mrs. Woodward had explained to Uncle Bat that her cousin Harry usually spent his Sundays at Hampton, and that he usually also brought with him a friend of his, a Mr. Tudor. To all this, as a matter of course, Uncle Bat had as yet no objection to make.

The young men came, and were introduced with due ceremony. Surbiton Cottage, however, during dinnertime, was very unlike what it had been before, in the opinion of all the party there assembled. The girls felt themselves called upon, they hardly knew why, to be somewhat less intimate in their manner with the young men than they customarily were; and Harry and Alaric, with quick instinct, reciprocated the feeling. Mrs. Woodward, even, assumed involuntarily somewhat of a company air; and Uncle Bat, who sat at the bottom of the table, in the place usually assigned to Norman, was awkward in doing the honours of the house to guests who were in fact much more at home there than himself.

After dinner the young people strolled out into the garden, and Katie, as was her wont, insisted on Harry Norman rowing her over to her damp paradise in the middle of the river. He attempted, vainly, to induce Gertrude to accompany them. Gertrude was either coy with her lover, or indifferent; for very few were the occasions on which she could be induced to gratify him with the rapture of a tete-a-tete encounter. So that, in fact, Harry Norman's Sunday visits were generally moments of expected bliss of which the full fruition was but seldom attained. So while Katie went off to the island, Alaric and the two girls sat under a spreading elm tree and watched the little boat as it shot across the water. 'And what do you think of Uncle Bat?' said Gertrude.

'Well, I am sure he's a good sort of fellow, and a very, gallant officer, but—'

'But what?' said Linda.

'It's a thousand pities he should have ever been removed from Devonport, where I am sure he was both useful and ornamental.'

Both the girls laughed cheerily; and as the sound came across the water to Norman's ears, he repented himself of his good nature to Katie, and determined that her sojourn in the favourite island should, on this occasion, be very short.

'But he is to pay mamma a great deal of money,' said Linda, 'and his coming will be a great benefit to her in that way.'

'There ought to be something to compensate for the bore,' said Gertrude.

'We must only make the best of him,' said Alaric. 'For my part, I am rather fond of old gentlemen with long noses; but it seemed to me that he was not quite so fond of us. I thought he looked rather shy at Harry and me.'

Both the girls protested against this, and declared that there could be nothing in it.

'Well, now, I'll tell you what, Gertrude,' said Alaric, 'I am quite sure that he looks on me, especially, as an interloper; and yet I'll bet you a pair of gloves I am his favourite before a month is over.'

'Oh, no; Linda is to be his favourite,' said Gertrude.

'Indeed I am not,' said Linda. 'I liked him very well till he drank three huge glasses of gin-and-water last night, but I never can fancy him after that. You can't conceive, Alaric, what the drawing-room smelt like. I suppose he'll do the same every evening.'

'Well, what can you expect?' said Gertrude; 'if mamma will have an old sailor to live with her, of course he'll drink grog.'

While this was going on in the garden, Mrs. Woodward sat dutifully with her uncle while he sipped his obnoxious toddy, and answered his questions about their two friends.

'They were both in the Weights and Measures, by far the most respectable public office in London,' as she told him, 'and both doing extremely well there. They were, indeed, young men sure to distinguish themselves and get on in the world. Had this not been so, she might perhaps have hesitated to receive them so frequently, and on such intimate terms, at Surbiton Cottage.' This she said in a half-apologetic manner, and yet with a feeling of anger at herself that she should condescend to apologize to any one as to her own conduct in her own house.

'They are very-nice young men, I am sure,' said Uncle Bat.

'Indeed they are,' said Mrs. Woodward.

'And very civil to the young ladies,' said Uncle Bat.

'They have known them since they were children, uncle; and of course that makes them more intimate than young men generally are with young ladies;' and again Mrs. Woodward was angry with herself for making any excuses on the subject.

'Are they well off?' asked the prudent captain.

'Harry Norman is very well off; he has a private fortune. Both of them have excellent situations.'

'To my way of thinking that other chap is the better fellow. At any rate he seems to have more gumption about him.'

'Why, uncle, you don't mean to tell me that you think Harry Norman a fool?' said Mrs. Woodward. Harry Norman was Mrs. Woodward's special friend, and she fondly indulged the hope of seeing him in time become the husband of her elder and favourite daughter; if, indeed, she can be fairly said to have had a favourite child.

Captain Cuttwater poured out another glass of rum, and dropped the subject.

Soon afterwards the whole party came in from the lawn. Katie was all draggled and wet, for she had persisted in making her way right across the island to look out for a site for another palace. Norman was a little inclined to be sulky, for Katie had got the better of him; when she had got out of the boat, he could not get her into it again; and as he could not very well leave her in the island, he had been obliged to remain paddling about, while he heard the happy voices of Alaric and the two girls from the lawn. Alaric was in high good-humour, and entered the room intent on his threatened purpose of seducing Captain Cuttwater's affections. The two girls were both blooming with happy glee, and Gertrude was especially bright in spite of the somewhat sombre demeanour of her lover.

Tea was brought in, whereupon Captain Cuttwater, having taken a bit of toast and crammed it into his saucer, fell fast asleep in an arm-chair.

'You'll have very little opportunity to-night,' said Linda, almost in a whisper.

'Opportunity for what?' asked Mrs. Woodward.

'Hush,' said Gertrude, 'we'll tell you by and by, mamma. You'll wake Uncle Bat if you talk now.'

'I am so thirsty,' said Katie, bouncing into the room with dry shoes and stockings on. 'I am so thirsty. Oh, Linda, do give me some tea.'

'Hush,' said Alaric, pointing to the captain, who was thoroughly enjoying himself, and uttering sonorous snores at regular fixed intervals.

'Sit down, Katie, and don't make a noise,' said Mrs. Woodward, gently.

Katie slunk into a chair, opened wide her large bright eyes, applied herself diligently to her teacup, and then, after taking breath, said, in a very audible whisper to her sister, 'Are not we to talk at all, Linda? That will be very dull, I think.'

'Yes, my dear, you are to talk as much as you please, and as often as you please, and as loud as you please; that is to say, if your mamma will let you,' said Captain Cuttwater, without any apparent waking effort, and in a moment the snoring was going on again as regularly as before.

Katie looked round, and again opened her eyes and laughed. Mrs. Woodward said, 'You are very good-natured, uncle.' The girls exchanged looks with Alaric, and Norman, who had not yet recovered his good-humour, went on sipping his tea.

As soon as the tea-things were gone, Uncle Bat yawned and shook himself, and asked if it was not nearly time to go to bed.

'Whenever you like, Uncle Bat,' said Mrs. Woodward, who began to find that she agreed with Gertrude, that early habits on the part of her uncle would be a family blessing. 'But perhaps you'll take something before you go?'

'Well, I don't mind if I do take a thimbleful of rum-and-water.' So the odious spirit-bottle was again brought into the drawing- room.

'Did you call at the Admiralty, sir, as you came through town?' said Alaric.

'Call at the Admiralty, sir!' said the captain, turning sharply round at the questioner; 'what the deuce should I call at the Admiralty for? craving the ladies' pardon.'

'Well, indeed, I don't know,' said Alaric, not a bit abashed. 'But sailors always do call there, for the pleasure, I suppose, of kicking their heels in the lords' waiting-room.'

'I have done with that game,' said Captain Cuttwater, now wide awake; and in his energy he poured half a glass more rum into his beaker. 'I've done with that game, and I'll tell you what, Mr. Tudor, if I had a dozen sons to provide for to-morrow—'

'Oh, I do so wish you had,' said Katie; 'it would be such fun. Fancy Uncle Bat having twelve sons, Gertrude. What would you call them all, uncle?'

'Why, I tell you what, Miss Katie, I wouldn't call one of them a sailor. I'd sooner make tailors of them.'

'Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, gentleman, apothecary, ploughboy, thief,' said Katie. 'That would only be eight; what should the other four be, uncle?'

'You're quite right, Captain Cuttwater,' said Alaric, 'at least as far as the present moment goes; but the time is coming when things at the Admiralty will be managed very differently.'

'Then I'm d——- if that time can come too soon—craving the ladies' pardon!' said Uncle Bat.

'I don't know what you mean, Alaric,' said Harry Norman, who was just at present somewhat disposed to contradict his friend, and not ill-inclined to contradict the captain also; 'as far as I can judge, the Admiralty is the very last office the Government will think of touching.'

'The Government!' shouted Captain Cuttwater; 'oh! if we are to wait for the Government, the navy may go to the deuce, sir.'

'It's the pressure from without that must do the work,' said Alaric.

'Pressure from without!' said Norman, scornfully; 'I hate to hear such trash.'

'We'll see, young gentleman, we'll see,' said the captain; 'it may be trash, and it may be right that five fellows who never did the Queen a day's service in their life, should get fifteen hundred or two thousand a year, and have the power of robbing an old sailor like me of the reward due to me for sixty years' hard work. Reward! no; but the very wages that I have actually earned. Look at me now, d—- me, look at me! Here I am, Captain Cuttwater—with sixty years' service—and I've done more perhaps for the Queen's navy than—than—'

'It's too true, Captain Cuttwater,' said Alaric, speaking with a sort of mock earnestness which completely took in the captain, but stealing a glance at the same time at the two girls, who sat over their work at the drawing-room table, 'it's too true; and there's no doubt the whole thing must be altered, and that soon. In the first place, we must have a sailor at the head of the navy.'

'Yes,' said the captain, 'and one that knows something about it too.'

'You'll never have a sailor sitting as first lord,' said Norman, authoritatively; 'unless it be when some party man, high in rank, may happen to have been in the navy as a boy.'

'And why not?' said Captain Cuttwater quite angrily.

'Because the first lord must sit in the Cabinet, and to do that he must be a thorough politician.'

'D——- politicians! craving the ladies' pardon,' said Uncle Bat.

'Amen!' said Alaric.

Uncle Bat, thinking that he had thoroughly carried his point, finished his grog, took up his candlestick, and toddled off to bed.

'Well, I think I have done something towards carrying my point,' said Alaric.

'I didn't think you were half so cunning,' said Linda, laughing.

'I cannot think how you can condescend to advocate opinions diametrically opposed to your own convictions,' said Norman, somewhat haughtily.

'Fee, fo, fum!' said Alaric.

'What is it all about?' said Mrs. Woodward.

'Alaric wants to do all he can to ingratiate himself with Uncle Bat,' said Gertrude; 'and I am sure he's going the right way to work,'

'It's very good-natured on his part,' said Mrs. Woodward.

'I don't know what you are talking about,' said Katie, yawning, 'and I think you are all very stupid; so I'll go to bed.'

The rest soon followed her. They did not sit up so late chatting over the fire this evening, as was their wont on Saturdays, though none of them knew what cause prevented it.



CHAPTER V

BUSHEY PARK

The next day being Sunday, the whole party very properly went to church; but during the sermon Captain Cuttwater very improperly went to sleep, and snored ponderously the whole time. Katie was so thoroughly shocked that she did not know which way to look; Norman, who had recovered his good-humour, and Alaric, could not refrain from smiling as they caught the eyes of the two girls; and Mrs. Woodward made sundry little abortive efforts to wake her uncle with her foot. Altogether abortive they were not, for the captain would open his eyes and gaze at her for a moment in the most good-natured, lack-lustre manner conceivable; but then, in a moment, he would be again asleep and snoring, with all the regularity of a kitchen-clock. This was at first very dreadful to the Woodwards; but after a month or two they got used to it, and so apparently did the pastor and the people of Hampton.

After church there was a lunch of course; and then, according to their wont, they went out to walk. These Sunday walks in general were matters of some difficulty. The beautiful neighbourhood of Hampton Court, with its palace-gardens and lovely park, is so popular with Londoners that it is generally alive on that day with a thronged multitude of men, women, and children, and thus becomes not an eligible resort for lovers of privacy. Captain Cuttwater, however, on this occasion, insisted on seeing the chestnuts and the crowd, and consequently, they all went into Bushey Park.

Uncle Bat, who professed himself to be a philanthropist, and who was also a bit of a democrat, declared himself delighted with what he saw. It was a great thing for the London citizens to come down there with their wives and children, and eat their dinners in the open air under the spreading trees; and both Harry and Alaric agreed with him. Mrs. Woodward, however, averred that it would be much better if they would go to church first, and Gertrude and Linda were of opinion that the Park was spoilt by the dirty bits of greasy paper which were left about on all sides. Katie thought it very hard that, as all the Londoners were allowed to eat their dinners in the Park, she might not have hers there also. To which Captain Cuttwater rejoined that he should give them a picnic at Richmond before the summer was over.

All the world knows how such a party as that of our friends by degrees separates itself into twos and threes, when sauntering about in shady walks. It was seldom, indeed, that Norman could induce his Dulcinea to be so complaisant in his favour; but either accident or kindness on her part favoured him on this occasion, and as Katie went on eliciting from Uncle Bat fresh promises as to the picnic, Harry and Gertrude found themselves together under one avenue of trees, while Alaric and Linda were equally fortunate, or unfortunate, under another.

'I did so wish to speak a few words to you, Gertrude,' said Norman; 'but it seems as though, now that this captain has come among us, all our old habits and ways are to be upset.'

'I don't see that you need say that,' said she. 'We may, perhaps, be put out a little—that is, mamma and Linda and I; but I do not see that you need suffer.'

'Suffer—no, not suffer—and yet it is suffering.'

'What is suffering?' said she.

'Why, to be as we were last night—not able to speak to each other.'

'Come, Harry, you should be a little reasonable,' said she, laughing. 'If you did not talk last night whose fault was it?'

'I suppose you will say it was my own. Perhaps it was. But I could not feel comfortable while he was drinking gin-and-water—'

'It was rum,' said Gertrude, rather gravely.

'Well, rum-and-water in your mother's drawing-room, and cursing and swearing before you and Linda, as though he were in the cockpit of a man-of-war.'

'Alaric you saw was able to make himself happy, and I am sure he is not more indifferent to us than you are.'

'Alaric seemed to me to be bent on making a fool of the old man; and, to tell the truth, I cannot approve of his doing so.'

'It seems to me, Harry, that you do not approve of what any of us are doing,' said she; 'I fear we are all in your black books— Captain Cuttwater, and mamma, and Alaric, and I, and all of us.'

'Well now, Gertrude, do you mean to say you think it right that Katie should sit by and hear a man talk as Captain Cuttwater talked last night? Do you mean to say that the scene which passed, with the rum and the curses, and the absurd ridicule which was thrown on your mother's uncle, was such as should take place in your mother's drawing-room?'

'I mean to say, Harry, that my mother is the best and only judge of what should, and what should not, take place there.'

Norman felt himself somewhat silenced by this, and walked on for a time without speaking. He was a little too apt to take upon himself the character of Mentor; and, strange to say, he was aware of his own fault in this particular. Thus, though the temptation to preach was very powerful, he refrained himself for a while. His present desire was to say soft things rather than sharp words; and though lecturing was at this moment much easier to him than love-making, he bethought himself of his object, and controlled the spirit of morality which was strong within him.

'But we were so happy before your uncle came,' he said, speaking with his sweetest voice, and looking at the beautiful girl beside him with all the love he was able to throw into his handsome face.

'And we are happy now that he has come—or at any rate ought to be,' said Gertrude, doing a little in the Mentor line herself, now that the occasion came in her way.

'Ah! Gertrude, you know very well there is only one thing can make me happy,' said Harry.

'Why, you unreasonable man! just now you said you were perfectly happy before Captain Cuttwater came, I suppose the one thing now necessary is to send him away again.'

'No, Gertrude, the thing necessary is to take you away.'

'What! out of the contamination of poor old Uncle Bat's bottle of rum? But, Harry, you see it would be cowardly in me to leave mamma and Linda to suffer the calamity alone.'

'I wonder, Gertrude, whether, in your heart of hearts, you really care a straw about me,' said Harry, who was now very sentimental and somewhat lachrymose.

'You know we all care very much about you, and it is very wrong in you to express such a doubt,' said Gertrude, with a duplicity that was almost wicked; as if she did not fully understand that the kind of 'caring' of which Norman spoke was of a very different nature from the general 'caring' which she, on his behalf, shared with the rest of her family.

'All of you—yes, but I am not speaking of all of you; I am speaking of you, Gertrude—you in particular. Can you ever love me well enough to be my wife?'

'Well, there is no knowing what I may be able to do in three or four years' time; but even that must depend very much on how you behave yourself in the mean time. If you get cross because Captain Cuttwater has come here, and snub Alaric and Linda, as you did last night, and scold at mamma because she chooses to let her own uncle live in her own house, why, to tell you the truth, I don't think I ever shall.'

All persons who have a propensity to lecture others have a strong constitutional dislike to being lectured themselves. Such was decidedly the case with Harry Norman. In spite of his strong love, and his anxious desire to make himself agreeable, his brow became somewhat darkened, and his lips somewhat compressed. He would not probably have been annoyed had he not been found fault with for snubbing his friend Tudor. Why should Gertrude, his Gertrude, put herself forward to defend his friend? Let her say what she chose for her mother, or even for her profane, dram- drinking, vulgar old uncle, but it was too much that she should take up the cudgels for Alaric Tudor.

'Well,' said he, 'I was annoyed last night, and I must own it. It grieved me to hear Alaric turning your uncle into ridicule, and that before your mother's face; and it grieved me to see you and Linda encourage him. In what Alaric said about the Admiralty he did not speak truthfully.'

'Do you mean to say that Alaric said what was false?'

'Inasmuch as he was pretending to express his own opinion, he did say what was false.'

'Then I must and will say that I never yet knew Alaric say a word that was not true; and, which is more, I am quite sure that he would not accuse you of falsehood behind your back in a fit of jealousy.'

'Jealousy!' said Norman, looking now as black as grim death itself.

'Yes, it is jealousy. It so turned out that Alaric got on better last night with Captain Cuttwater than you did, and that makes you jealous.'

'Pish!' said Norman, somewhat relieved, but still sufficiently disgusted that his lady-love should suppose that he could be otherwise than supremely indifferent to the opinion of Captain Cuttwater.

The love-scene, however, was fatally interrupted; and the pair were not long before they joined the captain, Mrs. Woodward, and Katie.

And how fared it with the other pair under the other avenue of chestnuts?

Alaric Tudor had certainly come out with no defined intention of making love as Harry Norman had done; but with such a companion it was very difficult for him to avoid it. Linda was much more open to attacks of this nature than her sister. Not that she was as a general rule willingly and wilfully inclined to give more encouragement to lovers than Gertrude; but she had less power of fence, less skill in protecting herself, and much less of that naughty self-esteem which makes some women fancy that all love- making to them is a liberty, and the want of which makes others feel that all love-making is to them a compliment.

Alaric Tudor had no defined intention of making love; but he had a sort of suspicion that he might, if he pleased, do so successfully; and he had no defined intention of letting it alone. He was a far-seeing, prudent man; for his age perhaps too prudent; but he was nevertheless fully susceptible of the pleasure of holding an affectionate, close intercourse with so sweet a girl as Linda Woodward; and though he knew that marriage with a girl without a dowry would for him be a death-blow to all his high hopes, he could hardly resist the temptation of conjugating the verb to love. Had he been able to choose from the two sisters, he would probably have selected Gertrude in spite of what he had said to Norman in the boat; but Gertrude was bespoken; and it therefore seemed all but unnatural that there should not be some love passages between him and Linda.

Ah! Mrs. Woodward, my friend, my friend, was it well that thou shouldst leave that sweet unguarded rosebud of thine to such perils as these?

They, also, commenced their wooing by talking over Captain Cuttwater; but they did not quarrel over him. Linda was quite content to be told by her friend what she ought to do, and how she ought to think about her uncle; and Alaric had a better way of laying down the law than Norman. He could do so without offending his hearer's pride, and consequently was generally better listened to than his friend, though his law was probably not in effect so sound.

But they had soon done with Captain Cuttwater, and Alaric had to choose another subject. Gertrude and Norman were at some distance from them, but were in sight and somewhat in advance.

'Look at Harry,' said Alaric; 'I know from the motion of his shoulder that he is at this moment saying something very tender.'

'It is ten times more likely that they are quarrelling,' said Linda.

'Oh! the quarrels of lovers—we know all about that, don't we?'

'You must not call them lovers, Alaric; mamma would not like it, nor indeed would Gertrude, I am sure.'

'I would not for the world do anything that Mrs. Woodward would not like; but between ourselves, Linda, are they not lovers?'

'No; that is, not that I know of. I don't believe that they are a bit,' said Linda, blushing at her own fib.

'And why should they not be? How indeed is it possible that they should not be; that is—for I heartily beg Gertrude's pardon—how is it possible that Harry should not be in love with her?'

'Indeed, Gertrude is very, very beautiful,' said Linda, with the faintest possible sigh, occasioned by the remembrance of her own inferior charms.

'Indeed she is, very, very beautiful,' repeated Alaric, speaking with an absent air as though his mind were fully engaged in thinking of the beauty of which he spoke.

It was not in Linda's nature to be angry because her sister was admired, and because she was not. But yet there was something in Alaric's warm tone of admiration which gave her a feeling of unhappiness which she would have been quite unable to define, even had she attempted it. She saw her sister and Harry Norman before her, and she knew in her heart that they were lovers, in spite of her little weak declaration to the contrary. She saw how earnestly her sister was loved, and she in her kindly loving nature could not but envy her fancied happiness. Envy—no—it certainly was not envy. She would not for worlds have robbed her sister of her admirer; but it was so natural for her to feel that it must be delicious to be admired!

She did not begrudge Gertrude Norman's superior beauty, nor his greater wealth; she knew that Gertrude was entitled to more, much more, than herself. But seeing that Norman was Gertrude's lover, was it not natural that Alaric should be hers? And then, though Harry was the handsomer and the richer, she liked Alaric so much the better of the two. But now that Alaric was alone with her, the only subject he could think to talk of was Gertrude's beauty!

It must not be supposed that these thoughts in their plainly- developed form passed through Linda's mind. It was not that she thought all this, but that she felt it. Such feelings are quite involuntary, whereas one's thoughts are more or less under command. Linda would not have allowed herself to think in this way for worlds; but she could not control her feelings.

They walked on side by side, perfectly silent for a minute or two, and an ill-natured tear was gathering itself in the corner of Linda's eye: she was afraid even to raise her hand to brush it away, for fear Alaric should see her, and thus it went on gathering till it was like to fall.

'How singular it is,' said Alaric—'how very singular, the way in which I find myself living with you all! such a perfect stranger as I am.'

'A perfect stranger!' said Linda, who, having remembered Alaric since the days of her short frocks and lessons, looked on him as a very old friend indeed.

'Yes, a perfect stranger, if you think of it. What do any of you know about me? Your mother never saw my mother; your father knew nothing of my father; there is no kindred blood common to us. Harry Norman, there, is your near cousin; but what am I that I should be thus allowed to live with you, and walk with you, and have a common interest in all your doings?'

'Why, you are a dear friend of mamma's, are you not?'

'A dear friend of mamma's! said he, 'well, indeed, I hope I am; for your mother is at any rate a dear friend to me. But, Linda, one cannot be so much without longing to be more. Look at Harry, how happy he is!'

'But, Alaric, surely you would not interfere with Harry,' said Linda, whose humble, innocent heart thought still of nothing but the merits of her sister; and then, remembering that it was necessary that she should admit nothing on Gertrude's behalf, she entered her little protest against the assumption that her sister acknowledged Norman for her lover. 'That is, you would not do so, if there were anything in it.'

'I interfere with Harry!' said Alaric, switching the heads off the bits of fern with the cane he carried. 'No, indeed. I have no wish at all to do that. It is not that of which I was thinking. Harry is welcome to all his happiness; that is, if Gertrude can be brought to make him happy.'

Linda, made no answer now; but the tear came running down her face, and her eyes became dim, and her heart beat very quick, and she didn't quite remember where she was. Up to this moment no man had spoken a word of love to Linda Woodward, and to some girls the first word is very trying.

'Interfere with Harry!' Alaric repeated again, and renewed his attack on the ferns. 'Well, Linda, what an opinion you must have of me!'

Linda was past answering; she could not protest—nor would it have been expedient to do so—that her opinion of her companion was not unfavourable.

'Gertrude is beautiful, very beautiful,' he continued, still beating about the bush as modest lovers do, and should do; 'but she is not the only beautiful girl in Surbiton Cottage, nor to my eyes is she the most so.'

Linda was now quite beside herself. She knew that decorum required that she should say something stiff and stately to repress such language, but if all her future character for propriety had depended on it, she could not bring herself to say a word. She knew that Gertrude, when so addressed, would have maintained her dignity, and have concealed her secret, even if she allowed herself to have a secret to conceal. She knew that it behoved her to be repellent and antagonistic to the first vows of a first lover. But, alas! she had no power of antagonism, no energy for repulse left in her. Her knees seemed to be weak beneath her, and all she could do was to pluck to pieces the few flowers that she carried at her waist.

Alaric saw his advantage, but was too generous to push it closely; nor indeed did he choose to commit himself to all the assured intentions of a positive declaration. He wished to raise an interest in Linda's heart, and having done so, to leave the matter to chance. Something, however, it was necessary that he should say. He walked a while by her in silence, decapitating the ferns, and then coming close to her, he said—

'Linda, dear Linda! you are not angry with me?' Linda, however, answered nothing. 'Linda, dearest Linda! speak one word to me.'

'Don't!' said Linda through her tears. 'Pray don't, Alaric; pray don't.'

'Well, Linda, I will not say another word to you now. Let us walk gently; we shall catch them up quite in time before they leave the park.'

And so they sauntered on, exchanging no further words. Linda by degrees recovered her calmness, and as she did so, she found herself to be, oh! so happy. She had never, never envied Gertrude her lover; but it was so sweet, so very sweet, to be able to share her sister's happiness. And Alaric, was he also happy? At the moment he doubtless enjoyed the triumph of his success. But still he had a feeling of sad care at his heart. How was he to marry a girl without a shilling? Were all his high hopes, was all his soaring ambition, to be thrown over for a dream of love?

Ah! Mrs. Woodward, my friend, my friend, thou who wouldst have fed thy young ones, like the pelican, with blood from thine own breast, had such feeding been of avail; thou who art the kindest of mothers; has it been well for thee to subject to such perils this poor weak young dove of thine?

Uncle Bat had become tired with his walk, and crawled home so slowly that Alaric and Linda caught the party just as they reached the small wicket which leads out of the park on the side nearest to Hampton. Nothing was said or thought of their absence, and they all entered the house together. Four of them, however, were conscious that that Sunday's walk beneath the chestnuts of Bushey Park would long be remembered.

Nothing else occurred to make the day memorable. In the evening, after dinner, Mrs. Woodward and her daughters went to church, leaving her younger guests to entertain the elder one. The elder one soon took the matter in his own hand by going to sleep; and Harry and Alaric being thus at liberty, sauntered out down the river side. They both made a forced attempt at good-humour, each speaking cheerily to the other; but there was no confidence between them as there had been on that morning when Harry rowed his friend up to London. Ah me! what had occurred between them to break the bonds of their mutual trust—to quench the ardour of their firm friendship? But so it was between them now. It was fated that they never again should place full confidence in each other.

There was no such breach between the sisters, at least not as yet; but even between them there was no free and full interchange of their hopes and fears. Gertrude and Linda shared the same room, and were accustomed—as what girls are not?—to talk half through the night of all their wishes, thoughts, and feelings. And Gertrude was generally prone enough to talk of Harry Norman. Sometimes she would say she loved him a little, just a little; at others she would declare that she loved him not at all—that is, not as heroines love in novels, not as she thought she could love, and would do, should it ever be her lot to be wooed by such a lover as her young fancy pictured to her. Then she would describe her beau ideal, and the description certainly gave no counterpart of Harry Norman. To tell the truth, however, Gertrude was as yet heart whole; and when she talked of love and Harry Norman, she did not know what love was.

On this special Sunday evening she was disinclined to speak of him at all. Not that she loved him more than usual, but that she was beginning to think that she could not ever really love him at all. She had taught herself to think that he might probably be her husband, and had hitherto felt no such repugnance to her destiny as caused her to shun the subject. But now she was beginning to think of the matter seriously; and as she did so, she felt that life might have for her a lot more blessed than that of sharing the world with her cousin Harry.

When, therefore, Linda began to question her about her lover, and to make little hints of her desire to tell what Alaric had said of her and Norman, Gertrude gave her no encouragement. She would speak of Captain Cuttwater, of Katie's lessons, of the new dress they were to make for their mother, of Mr. Everscreech's long sermon, of anything in fact but of Harry Norman.

Now this was very hard on poor Linda. Her heart was bursting within her to tell her sister that she also was beloved; but she could not do so without some little encouragement.

In all their conferences she took the cue of the conversation from her sister; and though she could have talked about Alaric by the hour, if Gertrude would have consented to talk about Harry, she did not know how to start the subject of her own lover, while Gertrude was so cold and uncommunicative as to hers. She struggled very hard to obtain the privilege for which she so anxiously longed; but in doing so she only met with a sad and sore rebuff.

'Gertrude,' at last said Linda, when Gertrude thought that the subject had been put to rest at any rate for that night, 'don't you think mamma would be pleased if she knew that you had engaged yourself to Harry Norman?'

'No,' said Gertrude, evincing her strong mind by the tone in which she spoke; 'I do not. If mamma wished it, she would have told me; for she never has any secrets. I should be as wrong to engage myself with Harry as you would be with Alaric. For though Harry has property of his own, while poor Alaric has none, he has a very insufficient income for a married man, and I have no fortune with which to help him. If nothing else prevented it, I should consider it wicked in me to make myself a burden to a man while he is yet so young and comparatively so poor.'

Prudent, sensible, high-minded, well-disciplined Gertrude! But had her heart really felt a spark of love for the man of whom she spoke, how much would prudent, sensible, high-minded considerations have weighed with her? Alas! not a feather.

Having made her prudent, high-minded speech, she turned round and slept; and poor Linda also turned round and bedewed her pillow. She no longer panted to tell her sister of Alaric's love.

On the next morning the two young men returned to town, and the customary dullness of the week began.



CHAPTER VI

SIR GREGORY HARDLINES

Great changes had been going on at the Weights and Measures; or rather it might be more proper to say that great changes were now in progress. From that moment in which it had been hinted to Mr. Hardlines that he must relax the rigour of his examinations, he had pondered deeply over the matter. Hitherto he had confined his efforts to his own office, and, so far from feeling personally anxious for the amelioration of the Civil Service generally, had derived no inconsiderable share of his happiness from the knowledge that there were such sinks of iniquity as the Internal Navigation. To be widely different from others was Mr. Hardlines' glory. He was, perhaps, something of a Civil Service Pharisee, and wore on his forehead a broad phylactery, stamped with the mark of Crown property. He thanked God that he was not as those publicans at Somerset House, and took glory to himself in paying tithes of official cumin.

But now he was driven to a wider range. Those higher Pharisees who were above him in his own pharisaical establishment, had interfered with the austerity of his worship. He could not turn against them there, on their own ground. He, of all men, could not be disobedient to official orders. But if he could promote a movement beyond the walls of the Weights and Measures; if he could make Pharisees of those benighted publicans in the Strand; if he could introduce conic sections into the Custom House, and political economy into the Post Office; if, by any effort of his, the Foreign Office clerks could be forced to attend punctually at ten; and that wretched saunterer, whom five days a week he saw lounging into the Council Office—if he could be made to mend his pace, what a wide field for his ambition would Mr. Hardlines then have found!

Great ideas opened themselves to his mind as he walked to and from his office daily. What if he could become the parent of a totally different order of things! What if the Civil Service, through his instrumentality, should become the nucleus of the best intellectual diligence in the country, instead of being a byword for sloth and ignorance! Mr. Hardlines meditated deeply on this, and, as he did so, it became observed on all sides that he was an altered man as regarded his solicitude for the Weights and Measures. One or two lads crept in, by no means conspicuous for their attainments in abstract science; young men, too, were observed to leave not much after four o'clock, without calling down on themselves Mr. Hardlines' usual sarcasm. Some said he was growing old, others that he was broken-hearted. But Mr. Hardlines was not old, nor broken in heart or body. He was thinking of higher things than the Weights and Measures, and at last he published a pamphlet.

Mr. Hardlines had many enemies, all in the Civil Service, one of the warmest of whom was Mr. Oldeschole, of the Navigation, and at first they rejoiced greatly that Job's wish had been accomplished on their behalf, and that their enemy had written a book. They were down on Mr. Hardlines with reviews, counter pamphlets, official statements, and indignant contradiction; but Mr. Hardlines lived through this storm of missiles, and got his book to be feted and made much of by some Government pundits, who were very bigwigs indeed. And at last he was invited over to the building on the other side, to discuss the matter with a President, a Secretary of State, a Lord Commissioner, two joint Secretaries, and three Chairmen.

And then, for a period of six months, the light of Mr. Hardlines' face ceased to shine on the children of the Weights and Measures, and they felt, one and all, that the glory had in a certain measure departed from their house. Now and again Mr. Hardlines would look in, but he did so rather as an enemy than as a friend. There was always a gleam of antagonistic triumph in his eye, which showed that he had not forgotten the day when he was called in question for his zeal. He was felt to be in opposition to his own Board, rather than in co-operation with it. The Secretary and the Assistant-Secretaries would say little caustic things about him to the senior clerks, and seemed somewhat to begrudge him his new honours. But for all this Mr. Hardlines cared little. The President and the Secretary of State, the joint Secretaries and the Chairmen, all allowed themselves to be led by him in this matter. His ambition was about to be gratified. It was his destiny that he should remodel the Civil Service. What was it to him whether or no one insignificant office would listen to his charming? Let the Secretary at the Weights and Measures sneer as he would; he would make that hero of the metallic currency know that he, Mr. Hardlines, was his master.

At the end of six months his budding glory broke out into splendid, full-blown, many-coloured flowers. He resigned his situation at the Weights and Measures, and was appointed Chief Commissioner of the Board of Civil Service Examination, with a salary of L2,000 a year; he was made a K.C.B., and shone forth to the world as Sir Gregory Hardlines; and he received a present of L1,000, that happy ne plus ultra of Governmental liberality. Sir Gregory Hardlines was forced to acknowledge to himself that he was born to a great destiny.

When Sir Gregory, as we must now call him, was first invited to give his attendance at another office, he found it expedient to take with him one of the young men from the Weights and Measures, and he selected Alaric Tudor. Now this was surprising to many, for Tudor had been brought into the office not quite in accordance with Sir Gregory's views. But during his four years of service Alaric had contrived to smooth down any acerbity which had existed on this score; either the paper on the strike-bushel, or his own general intelligence, or perhaps a certain amount of flattery which he threw into his daily intercourse with the chief clerk, had been efficacious, and when Sir Gregory was called upon to select a man to take with him to his new temporary office, he selected Alaric Tudor.

The main effect which such selection had upon our story rises from the circumstance that it led to an introduction between Tudor and the Honourable Undecimus Scott, and that this introduction brought about a close alliance.

We will postpone for a short while such description of the character and position of this gentleman as it may be indispensable to give, and will in this place merely say that the Honourable Undecimus Scott had been chosen to act as secretary to the temporary commission that was now making inquiry as to the proposed Civil Service examinations, and that in this capacity he was necessarily thrown into communication with Tudor. He was a man who had known much of officialities, had filled many situations, was acquainted with nearly all the secretaries, assistant-secretaries, and private secretaries in London, had been in Parliament, and was still hand-and-glove with all young members who supported Government. Tudor, therefore, thought it a privilege to know him, and allowed himself to become, in a certain degree, subject to his influence.

When it was declared to the world of Downing Street that Sir Gregory Hardlines was to be a great man, to have an office of his own, and to reign over assistant-commissioners and subject secretaries, there was great commotion at the Weights and Measures; and when his letter of resignation was absolutely there, visible to the eyes of clerks, properly docketed and duly minuted, routine business was, for a day, nearly suspended. Gentlemen walked in and out from each other's rooms, asking this momentous question—Who was to fill the chair which had so long been honoured by the great Hardlines? Who was to be thought worthy to wear that divine mantle?

But even this was not the question of the greatest moment which at that period disturbed the peace of the office. It was well known that the chief clerk must be chosen from one of the three senior clerks, and that he would be so chosen by the voice of the Commissioners. There were only three men who were deeply interested in this question. But who would then be the new senior clerk, and how would he be chosen? A strange rumour began to be afloat that the new scheme of competitive examination was about to be tried in filling up this vacancy, occasioned by the withdrawal of Sir Gregory Hardlines. From hour to hour the rumour gained ground, and men's minds began to be much disturbed.

It was no wonder that men's minds should be disturbed. Competitive examinations at eighteen, twenty, and twenty-two may be very well, and give an interesting stimulus to young men at college. But it is a fearful thing for a married man with a family, who has long looked forward to rise to a certain income by the worth of his general conduct and by the value of his seniority—it is a fearful thing for such a one to learn that he has again to go through his school tricks, and fill up examination papers, with all his juniors round him using their stoutest efforts to take his promised bread from out of his mouth. Detur digno is a maxim which will make men do their best to merit rewards; every man can find courage within his heart to be worthy; but detur digniori is a fearful law for such a profession as the Civil Service. What worth can make a man safe against the possible greater worth which will come treading on his heels? The spirit of the age raises, from year to year, to a higher level the standard of education. The prodigy of 1857, who is now destroying all the hopes of the man who was well enough in 1855, will be a dunce to the tyro of 1860.

There were three or four in the Weights and Measures who felt all this with the keenest anxiety. The fact of their being there, and of their having passed the scrutiny of Mr. Hardlines, was proof enough that they were men of high attainments; but then the question arose to them and others whether they were men exactly of those attainments which were now most required. Who is to say what shall constitute the merits of the dignior? It may one day be conic sections, another Greek iambics, and a third German philosophy. Rumour began to say that foreign languages were now very desirable. The three excellent married gentlemen who stood first in succession for the coveted promotion were great only in their vernacular.

Within a week from the secession of Sir Gregory, his immediate successor had been chosen, and it had been officially declared that the vacant situation in the senior class was to be thrown open as a prize for the best man in the office. Here was a brilliant chance for young merit! The place was worth L600 a- year, and might be gained by any one who now received no more than L100. Each person desirous of competing was to send in his name to the Secretary, on or before that day fortnight; and on that day month, the candidates were to present themselves before Sir Gregory Hardlines and his board of Commissioners.

And yet the joy of the office was by no means great. The senior of those who might become competitors, was of course a miserable, disgusted man. He went about fruitlessly endeavouring to instigate rebellion against Sir Gregory, that very Sir Gregory whom he had for many years all but worshipped. Poor Jones was, to tell the truth, in a piteous case. He told the Secretary flatly that he would not compete with a lot of boys fresh from school, and his friends began to think of removing his razors. Nor were Brown and Robinson in much better plight. They both, it is true, hated Jones ruthlessly, and desired nothing better than an opportunity of supplanting him. They were, moreover, fast friends themselves; but not the less on that account had Brown a mortal fear of Robinson, as also had Robinson a mortal fear of Brown.

Then came the bachelors. First there was Uppinall, who, when he entered the office, was supposed to know everything which a young man had ever known. Those who looked most to dead knowledge were inclined to back him as first favourite. It had, however, been remarked, that his utility as a clerk had not been equal to the profundity of his acquirements. Of all the candidates he was the most self-confident.

The next to him was Mr. A. Minusex, a wondrous arithmetician. He was one who could do as many sums without pen and paper as a learned pig; who was so given to figures that he knew the number of stairs in every flight he had gone up and down in the metropolis; one who, whatever the subject before him might be, never thought but always counted. Many who knew the peculiar propensities of Sir Gregory's earlier days thought that Mr. Minusex was not an unlikely candidate.

The sixth in order was our friend Norman. The Secretary and the two Assistant-Secretaries, when they first put their heads together on the matter, declared that he was the most useful man in the office.

There was a seventh, named Alphabet Precis. Mr. Precis' peculiar forte was a singular happiness in official phraseology. Much that he wrote would doubtless have been considered in the purlieus of Paternoster Row as ungrammatical, if not unintelligible; but according to the syntax of Downing Street, it was equal to Macaulay, and superior to Gibbon. He had frequently said to his intimate friends, that in official writing, style was everything; and of his writing it certainly did form a very prominent part. He knew well, none perhaps so well, when to beg leave to lay before the Board—and when simply to submit to the Commissioners. He understood exactly to whom it behoved the secretary 'to have the honour of being a very humble servant,' and to whom the more simple 'I am, sir,' was a sufficiently civil declaration. These are qualifications great in official life, but were not quite so much esteemed at the time of which we are speaking as they had been some few years previously.

There was but one other named as likely to stand with any probability of success, and he was Alaric Tudor. Among the very juniors of the office he was regarded as the great star of the office. There was a dash about him and a quick readiness for any work that came to hand in which, perhaps, he was not equalled by any of his compeers. Then, too, he was the special friend of Sir Gregory.

But no one had yet heard Tudor say that he intended to compete with his seven seniors—none yet knew whether he would put himself forward as an adversary to his own especial friend, Norman. That Norman would be a candidate had been prominently stated. For some few days not a word was spoken, even between the friends themselves, as to Tudor's intention.

On the Sunday they were as usual at Hampton, and then the subject was mooted by no less a person than Captain Cuttwater.

So you young gentlemen up in London are all going to be examined, are you?' said he; 'what is it to be about? Who's to be first lieutenant of the ship, is that it?'

'Oh no,' said Alaric, 'nothing half so high as that. Boatswain's mate would be nearer the mark.'

'And who is to be the successful man?'

'Oh, Harry Norman, here. He was far the first favourite in yesterday's betting.'

And how do you stand yourself?' said Uncle Bat.

'Oh! I'm only an outsider,' said Alaric. 'They put my name down just to swell the number, but I shall be scratched before the running begins.'

'Indeed he won't,' said Harry. 'He'll run and distance us all. There is no one who has a chance with him. Why, he is Sir Gregory's own pet.'

There was nothing more said on the subject at Surbiton Cottage. The ladies seemed instinctively to perceive that it was a matter which they had better leave alone. Not only were the two young men to be pitted against each other, but Gertrude and Linda were as divided in their wishes on the subject as the two candidates could be themselves.

On the following morning, however, Norman introduced the subject. 'I suppose you were only jesting yesterday,' said he, 'when you told the captain that you were not going to be a candidate?'

'Indeed I can hardly say that I was in jest or in earnest,' said Alaric. 'I simply meant to decline to discuss the subject with Uncle Bat.'

'But of course you do mean to stand?' said Harry. Alaric made no answer.

'Perhaps you would rather decline to discuss the matter with me also?' said Harry.

'Not at all; I would much prefer discussing it openly and honestly. My own impression is, that I had better leave it alone.'

'And why so?' said Harry.

'Why so?' repeated Alaric. 'Well, there are so many reasons. In the first place, there would be seven to one against me; and I must confess that if I did stand I should not like to be beaten.'

'The same argument might keep us all back,' said Norman.

'That's true; but one man will be more sensitive, more cowardly, if you will, than another; and then I think no one should stand who does not believe himself to have a fair chance. His doing so might probably mar his future prospects. How can I put myself in competition with such men as Uppinall and Minuses?'

Harry laughed slightly, for he knew it had been asked by many how such men as Uppinall and Minusex could think of putting themselves in competition with Alaric Tudor.

'That is something like mock-modesty, is it not, Alaric?'

'No, by heaven, it is not! I know well what those men are made of; and I know, or think I know, my own abilities. I will own that I rank myself as a human creature much higher than I rank them. But they have that which I have not, and that which they have is that which these examiners will chiefly require.'

'If you have no other reason,' said Norman, 'I would strongly advise you to send in your name.'

'Well, Harry, I have another reason; and, though last, it is by no means the least. You will be a candidate, and probably the successful one. To tell you the truth, I have no inclination to stand against you.'

Norman turned very red, and then answered somewhat gravely: 'I would advise you to lay aside that objection. I fairly tell you that I consider your chance better than my own.'

'And suppose it be so, which I am sure it is not—but suppose it be so, what then?'

'Why, you will do right to take advantage of it.'

'Yes, and so gain a step and lose a friend!' said Alaric. 'No; there can be no heartburn to me in your being selected, for though I am older than you, you are my senior in the office. But were I to be put over your head, it would in the course of nature make a division between us; and if it were possible that you should forgive it, it would be quite impossible that Gertrude should do so. I value your friendship and that of the Woodwards too highly to risk it.'

Norman instantly fired up with true generous energy. 'I should be wretched,' said he, 'if I thought that such a consideration weighed with you; I would rather withdraw myself than allow such a feeling to interfere with your prospects. Indeed, after what you have said, I shall not send in my own name unless you also send in yours.'

'I shall only be creating fuel for a feud,' said Alaric. 'To put you out of the question, no promotion could compensate to me for what I should lose at Hampton.'

'Nonsense, man; you would lose nothing. Faith, I don't know whether it is not I that should lose, if I were successful at your expense.'

'How would Gertrude receive me?' said Alaric, pushing the matter further than he perhaps should have done.

'We won't mind Gertrude,' said Norman, with a little shade of black upon his brow. 'You are an older man than I, and therefore promotion is to you of more importance than to me. You are also a poorer man. I have some means besides that drawn from my office, which, if I marry, I can settle on my wife; you have none such. I should consider myself to be worse than wicked if I allowed any consideration of such a nature to stand in the way of your best interests. Believe me, Alaric, that though I shall, as others, be anxious for success myself, I should, in failing, be much consoled by knowing that you had succeeded.' And as he finished speaking he grasped his friend's hand warmly in token of the truth of his assertion.

Alaric brushed a tear from his eye, and ended by promising to be guided by his friend's advice. Harry Norman, as he walked into the office, felt a glow of triumph as he reflected that he had done his duty by his friend with true disinterested honesty. And Alaric, he also felt a glow of triumph as he reflected that, come what might, there would be now no necessity for him to break with Norman or with the Woodwards. Norman must now always remember that it was at his own instigation that he, Alaric, had consented to be a candidate.

As regarded the real fact of the candidature, the prize was too great to allow of his throwing away such a chance. Alaric's present income was L200; that which he hoped to gain was L600!



CHAPTER VII

MR. FIDUS NEVERBEND

Immediately on entering the office, Tudor gave it to be understood that he intended to give in his name as a candidate; but he had hardly done so when his attention was called off from the coming examinations by another circumstance, which was ultimately of great importance to him. One of the Assistant- Secretaries sent for him, and told him that his services having been required by Sir Gregory Hardlines for a week or so, he was at once to go over to that gentleman's office; and Alaric could perceive that, as Sir Gregory's name was mentioned, the Assistant-Secretary smiled on him with no aspect of benign solicitude.

He went over accordingly, and found that Sir Gregory, having been desired to select a man for a special service in the country, had named him. He was to go down to Tavistock with another gentleman from the Woods and Forests, for the purpose of settling some disputed point as to the boundaries and privileges of certain mines situated there on Crown property.

'You know nothing about mining, I presume?' said Sir Gregory.

'Nothing whatever,' said Alaric.

'I thought not; that was one reason why I selected you. What is wanted is a man of sharp intelligence and plain common sense, and one also who can write English; for it will fall to your lot to draw up the report on the matter. Mr. Neverbend, who is to be your colleague, cannot put two words together.'

'Mr. Neverbend!' said Alaric.

'Yes, Fidus Neverbend, of the Woods and Forests; a very excellent public servant, and one in whom the fullest confidence can be placed. But between you and me, he will never set the Thames on fire.'

'Does he understand mining?' asked Alaric.

'He understands Government properties, and will take care that the Crown be not wronged; but, Tudor, the Government will look to you to get the true common-sense view of the case. I trust—I mean that I really do trust, that you will not disgrace my choice.'

Alaric of course promised that he would do his best, expressed the deepest gratitude to his patron, and went off to put himself into communication with Mr. Neverbend at the Woods and Forests, having received an assurance that the examination in his own office should not take place till after his return from Tavistock. He was not slow to perceive that if he could manage to come back with all the eclat of a successful mission, the prestige of such a journey would go far to assist him on his coming trial.

Mr. Fidus Neverbend was an absolute dragon of honesty. His integrity was of such an all-pervading nature, that he bristled with it as a porcupine does with its quills. He had theories and axioms as to a man's conduct, and the conduct especially of a man in the Queen's Civil Service, up to which no man but himself could live. Consequently no one but himself appeared to himself to be true and just in all his dealings.

A quarter of an hour spent over a newspaper was in his eyes a downright robbery. If he saw a man so employed, he would divide out the total of salary into hourly portions, and tell him to a fraction of how much he was defrauding the public. If he ate a biscuit in the middle of the day, he did so with his eyes firmly fixed on some document, and he had never been known to be absent from his office after ten or before four.

When Sir Gregory Hardlines declared that Mr. Fidus Neverbend would never set the Thames on fire, he meant to express his opinion that that gentleman was a fool; and that those persons who were responsible for sending Mr. Neverbend on the mission now about to be undertaken, were little better than fools themselves for so sending him. But Mr. Neverbend was no fool. He was not a disciple of Sir Gregory's school. He had never sat in that philosopher's porch, or listened to the high doctrines prevalent at the Weights and Measures. He could not write with all Mr. Precis' conventional correctness, or dispose of any subject at a moment's notice as would Mr. Uppinall; but, nevertheless, he was no fool. Sir Gregory, like many other wise men, thought that there were no swans but of his own hatching, and would ask, with all the pompous conceit of Pharisees in another age, whether good could come out of the Woods and Forests?

Sir Gregory, however, perfectly succeeded in his object of imbuing Tudor with a very indifferent opinion of his new colleague's abilities. It was his object that Tudor should altogether take the upper hand in the piece of work which was to be done between them, and that it should be clearly proved how very incapable the Woods and Forests were of doing their own business.

Mr. Fidus Neverbend, however, whatever others in the outer world might think of him, had a high character in his own office, and did not under-estimate himself. He, when he was told that a young clerk named Tudor was to accompany him, conceived that he might look on his companion rather in the light of a temporary private secretary than an equal partner, and imagined that new glory was added to him by his being so treated. The two men therefore met each other with very different views.

But though Mr. Neverbend was no fool, he was not an equal either in tact or ability to Alaric Tudor. Alaric had his interview with him, and was not slow to perceive the sort of man with whom he had to act. Of course, on this occasion, little more than grimaces and civility passed between them; but Mr. Neverbend, even in his grimaces and civility, managed to show that he regarded himself as decidedly No. 1 upon the occasion.

'Well, Mr. Tudor,' said he, 'I think of starting on Tuesday. Tuesday will not, I suppose, be inconvenient to you?'

'Sir Gregory has already told me that we are expected to be at Tavistock on Tuesday evening.'

'Ah! I don't know about that,' said Neverbend; 'that may be all very well for Sir Gregory, but I rather think I shall stay the night at Plymouth.'

'It will be the same to me,' said Tudor; 'I haven't looked at the papers yet, so I can hardly say what may be necessary.'

'No, no; of course not. As to the papers, I don't know that there is much with which you need trouble yourself. I believe I am pretty well up in the case. But, Mr. Tudor, there will be a good deal of writing to do when we are there.'

'We are both used to that, I fancy,' said Tudor, 'so it won't kill us.'

'No, of course not. I understand that there will be a good many people for me to see, a great many conflicting interests for me to reconcile; and probably I may find myself obliged to go down two or three of these mines.'

'Well, that will be good fun,' said Alaric.

Neverbend drew himself up. The idea of having fun at the cost of Government was painful to him; however, he spared the stranger his reproaches, and merely remarked that the work he surmised would be heavy enough both for the man who went below ground, and for the one who remained above.

The only point settled between them was that of their starting by an early train on the Tuesday named; and then Alaric returned to Sir Gregory's office, there to read through and digest an immense bulk of papers all bearing on the question at issue. There had, it appeared, been lately opened between the Tamar and the Tavy a new mine, which had become exceedingly prosperous—outrageously prosperous, as shareholders and directors of neighbouring mines taught themselves to believe. Some question had arisen as to the limits to which the happy possessors of this new tin El Dorado were entitled to go; squabbles, of course, had been the result, and miners and masters had fought and bled, each side in defence of its own rights. As a portion of these mines were on Crown property it became necessary that the matter should be looked to, and as the local inspector was accused of having been bribed and bought, and of being, in fact, an absolute official Judas, it became necessary to send some one to inspect the inspector. Hence had come Alaric's mission. The name of the mine in question was Wheal Mary Jane, and Alaric had read the denomination half a score of times before he learnt that there was no real female in the case.

The Sunday before he went was of course passed at Hampton, and there he received the full glory of his special appointment. He received glory, and Norman in an equal degree fell into the background. Mrs. Woodward stuck kindly to Harry, and endeavoured, in her gentle way, to quiz the projected trip to Devonshire. But the other party was too strong, and her raillery failed to have the intended effect. Gertrude especially expressed her opinion that it was a great thing for so young a man to have been selected for such employment by such a person; and Linda, though she said less, could not prevent her tell-tale face from saying more. Katie predicted that Alaric would certainly marry Mary Jane Wheal, and bring her to Surbiton Cottage, and Captain Cuttwater offered to the hero introductions to all the old naval officers at Devonport.

'By jingo! I should like to go with you,' said the captain.

'I fear the pleasure would not repay the trouble,' said Alaric, laughing.

'Upon my word I think I'll do it,' said the captain. 'It would be of the greatest possible service to you as an officer of the Crown. It would give you so much weight there. I could make you known, you know——'

'I could not hear of such a thing,' said Alaric, trembling at the idea which Uncle Bat had conjured up.

'There is Admiral Starbod, and Captain Focassel, and old Hardaport, and Sir Jib Boom—why, d—n me, they would all do anything for me—craving the ladies' pardon.'

Alaric, in his own defence, was obliged to declare that the rules of the service especially required that he should hold no friendly communication with any one during the time that he was employed on this special service. Poor Captain Cuttwater, grieved to have his good nature checked, was obliged to put up with this excuse, and consoled himself with abusing the Government which could condescend to give so absurd an order.

This was on the Saturday. On the Sunday, going to church, the captain suggested that Alaric might, at any rate, just call upon Sir Jib on the sly. 'It would be a great thing for you,' said Uncle Bat. 'I'll write a note to-night, and you can take it with you. Sir Jib is a rising man, and you'll regret it for ever if you miss the opportunity.' Now Sir Jib Boom was between seventy and eighty, and he and Captain Cuttwater had met each other nearly every day for the last twenty years, and had never met without a squabble.

After church they had their usual walk, and Linda's heart palpitated as she thought that she might have to undergo another tete-a-tete with her lover. But it palpitated in vain. It so turned out that Alaric either avoided, or, at any rate, did not use the privilege, and Linda returned home with an undefined feeling of gentle disappointment. She had fully made up her mind to be very staid, very discreet, and very collected; to take a leaf out of her sister's book, and give him no encouragement whatever; she would not absolutely swear to him that she did not now, and never could, return his passion; but she would point out how very imprudent any engagement between two young persons, situated as they were, must be—how foolish it would be for them to bind themselves, for any number of years, to a marriage which must be postponed; she would tell Alaric all this, and make him understand that he was not to regard himself as affianced to her; but she with a woman's faith would nevertheless remain true to him. This was Linda's great resolve, and the strong hope, that in a very few weeks, Alaric would be promoted to a marrying income of L600 per annum, made the prospect of the task not so painful as it might otherwise have been. Fate, however, robbed her of the pleasure, if it would have been a pleasure, of sacrificing her love to her duty; and 'dear Linda, dearest Linda,' was not again whispered into her ear.

'And what on earth is it that you are to do down in the mines?' asked Mrs. Woodward as they sat together in the evening.

'Nothing on the earth, Mrs. Woodward—it is to be all below the surface, forty fathom deep,' said Alaric.

'Take care that you ever come up again,' said she.

'They say the mine is exceedingly rich—perhaps I may be tempted to stay down there.'

'Then you'll be like the gloomy gnome, that lives in dark, cold mines,' said Katie.

'Isn't it very dangerous, going down into those places?' asked Linda.

'Men go down and come up again every day of their lives, and what other men can do, I can, I suppose.'

'That doesn't follow at all,' said Captain Cuttwater, 'What sort of a figure would you make on a yard-arm, reefing a sail in a gale of wind?'

'Pray do take care of yourself,' said Gertrude.

Norman's brow grew black. 'I thought that it was settled that Mr. Neverbend was to go down, and that you were to stay above ground,' said he.

'So Mr. Neverbend settled it; but that arrangement may, perhaps, be unsettled again,' said Alaric, with a certain feeling of confidence in his own strong will.

'I don't at all doubt,' said Mrs. Woodward, 'that if we were to get a sly peep at you, we should find you both sitting comfortably at your inn all the time, and that neither of you will go a foot below the ground.'

'Very likely. All I mean to say is, that if Neverbend goes down I'll go too.'

'But mind, you gloomy gnome, mind you bring up a bit of gold for me,' said Katie.

On the Monday morning he started with the often-expressed good wishes of all the party, and with a note for Sir Jib Boom, which the captain made him promise that he would deliver, and which Alaric fully determined to lose long before he got to Plymouth.

That evening he and Norman passed together. As soon as their office hours were over, they went into the London Exhibition, which was then open; and there, walking up and down the long centre aisle, they talked with something like mutual confidence of their future prospects. This was a favourite resort with Norman, who had schooled himself to feel an interest in works of art. Alaric's mind was of a different cast; he panted rather for the great than the beautiful; and was inclined to ridicule the growing taste of the day for torsos, Palissy ware, and Assyrian monsters.

There was then some mutual confidence between the two young men. Norman, who was apt to examine himself and his own motives more strictly than Alaric ever did, had felt that something like suspicion as to his friend had crept over him; and he had felt also that there was no ground for such suspicion. He had determined to throw it off, and to be again cordial with his companion. He had resolved so to do before his last visit at Hampton; but it was at Hampton that the suspicion had been engendered, and there he found himself unable to be genial, kindly, and contented. Surbiton Cottage was becoming to him anything but the abode of happiness that it had once been. A year ago he had been the hero of the Hampton Sundays; he could not but now feel that Alaric had, as it were, supplanted him with his own friends. The arrival even of so insignificant a person as Captain Cuttwater—and Captain Cuttwater was very insignificant in Norman's mind—had done much to produce this state of things. He had been turned out of his bedroom at the cottage, and had therefore lost those last, loving, lingering words, sometimes protracted to so late an hour, which had been customary after Alaric's departure to his inn—those last lingering words which had been so sweet because their sweetness had not been shared with his friend.

He could not be genial and happy at Surbiton Cottage; but he was by no means satisfied with himself that he should not have been so. When he found that he had been surly with Alaric, he was much more angry with himself than Alaric was with him. Alaric, indeed, was indifferent about it. He had no wish to triumph over Harry, but he had an object to pursue, and he was not the man to allow himself to be diverted from it by any one's caprice.

'This trip is a great thing for you,' said Harry.

'Well, I really don't know. Of course I could not decline it; but on the whole I should be just as well pleased to have been spared. If I get through it well, why it will be well. But even that cannot help me at this examination.'

'I don't know that.'

'Why—a week passed in the slush of a Cornish mine won't teach a man algebra.'

'It will give you prestige.'

'Then you mean to say the examiners won't examine fairly; well, perhaps so. But what will be the effect on me if I fail? I know nothing of mines. I have a colleague with me of whom I can only learn that he is not weak enough to be led, or wise enough to lead; who is so self-opinionated that he thinks he is to do the whole work himself, and yet so jealous that he fears I shall take the very bread out of his mouth. What am I to do with such a man?'