CHAPTER L.--SHOWS HOW LEWIS CAME TO A “DOGGED” DETERMINATION, AND WAS

MADE THE SHUTTLECOCK OF FATE.

“Walter, I am going to leave you,” observed Lewis in a quiet, gentle voice.

Walter, who was seated on a low stool playing with Faust, continued his amusement, merely replying carelessly, “Are you?”

Lewis knew from the nature of the answer that the sound but not the sense of his communication had reached his poor pupil’s understanding, and yet the apparent indifference of the remark pained him; it seemed as if all he loved were falling away from him. He had determined that it would be better for Walter not to be told at once that he was leaving never to return, but to allow the truth gradually to dawn upon him, after he had practically tested his ability to do without him; still he was anxious in some degree to prepare the poor boy’s mind to support the severe grief which he feared his absence would occasion him. Accordingly he returned to the attack.

“Look at me, Walter,” he said. Having caught his eye, he continued, “You did not understand me, dear boy; I am going away--going to leave you for a long time.”

“Ay? how long a time? a week?” inquired Walter.

“A great many weeks,” returned Lewis gravely, “and you must be very good all the time, and do everything as you know I should wish you to do it if I were here: do you understand me, and will you try?”

Walter nodded assent, paused, and then asked, “What will Faust do; may he stay with me?”

Lewis did not answer. Give up Faust, the only thing that he had left to love him! could he make this sacrifice?

“Because, if he may stay, I shall feel sure you will come back some time or other; nobody can leave Faust and not come and see him again--at least nobody who knows him and loves him as well as you and I do,” pleaded Walter, throwing his arm round the dog’s neck.

I am inflicting injury enough on the poor boy as it is, reflected Lewis sorrowfully; I must not deny him this thing, which he has set his heart upon. Well, it only makes the sacrifice the more complete. “Walter, will you be happy if I leave Faust with you?” he inquired gently.

“Oh, yes!” was the joyful reply, “quite happy till you come again.”

“Then he shall stay,” resumed Lewis; “remember he is your dog, I give him to you.”

“Yes, he is my dog,” repeated Walter gleefully; “only till you come back again though, you know,” he added, gazing wistfully at Lewis.

Poor Lewis! his heart was full, he could not trust himself to speak; this little incident had appealed to the affectionate side of his nature, and all but unmanned him. He approached Walter, swept back the soft, fair hair from his forehead, and imprinted a kiss on it, patted Faust’s shaggy head, and turning away abruptly, quitted the room. Ere nightfall he had completed the few arrangements which his sudden departure rendered necessary, and taking with him only a small travelling valise which he slung across his shoulders, he waited till the shades of evening had set in, and leaving directions with his ally Robert, now invested with all the dignity and privileges of butler-hood, in regard to his luggage, which he desired might be forwarded to a certain address in London, he quitted Broadhurst alone and on foot.

The town of H---------- was situated about ten miles from the park gates of Broadhurst, and thither did Lewis direct his steps. He paced along mechanically, with a dull, heavy tread, as unlike his usual free elastic bounding step as possible; he kept his eyes fixed on the road before him, neither glancing to the right nor the left, and all his actions appeared like those of one moving in a dream. The night was dry and warm, and when Lewis had proceeded about six miles on his way the moon came out and bathed hill and valley in a flood of silvery light. Suddenly he paused, as the ruins of a picturesque old abbey, thrown out in bold relief by a dark background of trees, became visible at a turning of the road, and fixing his eyes on the time-worn structure, gazed long and earnestly; then a new idea seemed to strike him, and springing over a gate, he ascended with vigorous strides the green hillside on which the ruin was situated. Passing beneath crumbling arches and over the fallen stone-work covering old graves of a forgotten generation, he reached a portion of the building which seemed in somewhat better repair than the remainder. Having reached the upper end of the chancel, he paused, and leaning his back against the broken shaft of a pillar which had supported one of the arches, gave way to the painful recollections which the place excited. The last time he had visited that spot, Annie Grant had stood by his side, and as he taught her how the mystic piety of our forefathers had striven to symbolise the truths of Christianity in the cruciform cathedral, with its vaulted arches and heaven-aspiring pinnacles, her soft blue eyes had looked into his face with an expression of the respectful love we feel towards one whom we deem better and wiser than ourselves. And now how cruel was the contrast--how completely and painfully alone he felt. Then he longed (who has not at some crisis of the inner-life?) so earnestly that he almost fancied he possessed the power to separate mind and matter, and flying in the spirit to her he loved, to learn whether she thought of him and grieved for his absence. Pursuing the idea, he came to speculate on many things. Had they yet told her he would not return? What reason would the General assign for such an abrupt departure? Would she believe his account, or would her heart divine the true cause? And if it did, would she pity him?--strongest proof of love--he could bear the idea of her pity.

Poor Lewis! perhaps his greatest trial was this, that at the very moment when he gave her up for ever, a latent sense of power told him that he could have won her; this was indeed the “sorrow’s crown of sorrow”--the bitterness of more than self-renunciation, for Annie, too, might be rendered unhappy by his act. Then the future, the blank, fearful future--what lay in store for him there? “Fresh sorrow--no” (and he smiled as men on the rack have smiled when the tormentors have outwitted themselves, and the numbness of approaching death has produced insensibility to pain and robbed them of their victim), “he was dead alike to sorrow as to joy;” but at the moment, as if to prove him weak even in the _vis inertio_ of despair, the possibility of Annie’s union with Lord Bellefield came before him like some hideous phantom, and he was forced to own that there might be depths of misery awaiting him greater than he had yet proved. And thus recalling the past and imagining the future, he afflicted himself with griefs real and visionary, till the moonbeams grew paler and altogether fled, and the stars disappeared one by one, and the red glow of the eastern sky proclaimed the coming day, and the sun arose glorious in his majesty, and his earliest rays poured through the broken roof and fell in a stream of golden light upon the ruined altar; then for the first time that night Lewis thought of Rose, and of what her advice would have been had she known of his unhappiness; and prostrating himself upon the altar-step, he prayed long and fervently.

The reflection that when our sorrow has become too heavy for us to bear there is One mighty to save, Himself in His earthly career a “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” who will strengthen us to support them, must console the deepest mental anguish; and we do not believe that any man has ever prayed truly and earnestly without receiving comfort from so doing. For the very act recognises a belief in the existence and faith in the benevolence of a Being, all powerful alike to avert the evil we dread, and to bestow upon us the good we desire. And Lewis, when he arose from his knees, did so refreshed in spirit, and better fitted to do or to suffer, as he might be required by the changes and chances of that portion of The Railroad of Life over which he had yet to pass.

He reached the town of H-------- as the inhabitants, aroused from their slumbers, were drowsily opening the shop-windows, and making his way to a small, unobtrusive inn, breakfasted. Having ascertained at what hour the last coach passed through for London, he left his valise under the care of the waiter, and passing along several dirty, narrow streets, at length reached a court, in one of the poorest and most wretched quarters of the town. Here, after some trouble and a disagreeable amount of threatening glances from sundry suspicious-looking characters, he succeeded in discovering the abode of a certain Jerry Sullivan. This worthy, having satisfied himself that Lewis was not a member of the detective police, graciously accorded him an interview, wherein Lewis explained to him that, in consequence of a communication made to him by Hardy on his death-bed, he was anxious to investigate the contents of a packet left in possession of his (Sullivan’s) maternal ancestor. This fact, Mr. Sullivan, whose brogue was considerably stronger than his regard for truth, immediately saw fit to deny, and was proceeding to lament the death of his mother, which he averred had taken place that day fortnight, when he was interrupted by the inopportune entrance of the lady in question, who appeared by no means dead, but in a very lively state of virtuous indignation. She immediately silenced her mendacious offspring, and beckoning Lewis into a kind of den which she inhabited, shut the door, and then questioned and cross-questioned him as to his connection with Hardy. Having satisfied herself, by perusing Hardy’s letter, that Lewis was no impostor, she unlocked an old trunk, whence she produced a bundle of papers and a sheet of parchment.

“There,” she said, “that’s the will he spoke of, poor fellow, and them’s the letters--and I only hope as you’ll be able to find the unfort’nate childring, and that they will come into the money all right--it’s nigh £100 year, I’m told.”

“Have you any idea whether Hardy had at all traced his daughter since she left him?” inquired Lewis.

“No; he heard nothink of her, poor chap; he was a’most brokenhearted about her, and that’s what drove him to the courses he took to. He worn’t a reg’lar prig, bless yer; he did a little in the poarching line wiles, but only for the sake o’ the sport, same as you gents--he wor above them things altogether. But I knows more than he did about the gal: there were a young ’ooman here a week ago as had seen her in London, dressed out and riding about in a coach like a lady; but that wor soon arter she fust went off with the young swell, and wor a kind of new toy like.”

“And did not the girl know anything of her since?” inquired Lewis.

“Well, she know’d this much, that when the young lord went abroad with his sister he made his valet stop behind and foller him in a few days with Jane Hardy, arter which she in course lost sight of her; but she thinks he’s left her over in them furring parts.”

“Them furring parts--that must mean Italy,” thought Lewis; and finding the old woman had told him all she knew on the subject, he thanked her for her information, secured the papers about his person, and was preparing to depart, when his companion stopped him, and summoning Jerry, whose main, if not only, virtue appeared to consist in filial obedience, caused him to escort the “young gent” beyond the purlieus of the miserable alley in which their abode was situated.

The visit had taken longer than Lewis had expected; and on his return to the inn he found the coach would pass through in about half-an-hour. Snatching a hasty meal, he placed the papers in his valise, and in a few minutes was on his road to London. The coach stopped at an inn in Holborn, and here Lewis, who, in his present state of mind, was anxious to avoid a meeting with any of his friends, Frere himself not excepted, determined for the next few days to take up his abode. Accordingly, he engaged a sitting-room and bedroom, which, for the sake of privacy and cheapness, were situated at the back of the house, at an altitude little inferior to that of the neighbouring chimney-pots. Having established himself in this uninviting residence, he sat down to try and arrange some plan for the future. He felt that he ought to write to Rose and his mother and acquaint them with his altered destiny; but to do so involved an explanation which he shrank from attempting. He tried to read, but the only book at hand was a volume of Schiller, and with a sickening feeling of despair he threw it from him. At length he bethought him of Hardy’s papers, and untying the string that bound them, he spread them on the table before him. The will, which he first examined, appeared formally drawn up, signed, and attested. The testator left property worth, as far as Lewis could make out, about £100 a year to Jane and Miles Hardy. Laying this aside, he turned over a mass of smaller papers, old game certificates, receipts for rent, and among others a note carefully preserved, endorsed in a bold free hand, “The first letter I ever received from Harriet.” It was an invitation, coquettishly worded, asking Hardy to join a party to the ---------- races, written by her who had sinned so deeply, and had long since gone to give account of the misery she had caused and suffered. Lewis could not look on this record of an affection which even the greatest wrong woman can do to man had been unable wholly to destroy, without the deepest commiseration.

Laying the note carefully aside, he took up the bundle of old letters, and selecting one which was partially opened, glanced carelessly at its contents. Why does he start and change colour as his eye falls upon the handwriting? Why press his hand to his burning brow as the momentary doubt crosses his mind whether all the mental anguish he has lately suffered can have unsettled his brain, or whether that which he beholds is indeed reality? Eagerly does he devour the contents of the epistle, eagerly does he unfold letter after letter till not one of the packet remains unperused. Again, sitting late into the night, does he read and re-read them, then folding them carefully, paces up and down the room, chafing at the lazy hours that drag their weary length and oppose a barrier between his wishes and the coming day, when he may act and resolve doubt into certainty. For the whole of that night, the second during which he had never closed an eyelid, did he measure with restless steps the narrow limits of the apartment. Leaving his breakfast untasted, he hurried, at the earliest business hour, to the chambers of the family solicitor; for half the morning did they remain closeted together--together did they seek the office (yclept by Richard Frere a den of thieves) of Messrs. Jones & Levi, the lawyers who, as the reader may remember, addressed a mysterious letter to Lewis soon after his first arrival at Broadhurst. Carefully did the astute man of law examine and compare papers, and sift evidence, and draw out the crafty rogues with whom he had to deal; and when he had gained all the information he required, steadily and cautiously did he examine the affair in all its bearings; nor was it till he had thoroughly made himself master of the subject that he approached Lewis, and shaking him heartily by the hand, exclaimed, “Well, my dear sir, as far as one can judge in this early stage of the proceedings, I think you have a very good case; and I beg to congratulate you on the prospect before you.”

And what, then, was this prospect, at the mere possibility of which Lewis’s eye sparkled and his cheek glowed with the brightness of renewed hope? It was the prospect of inheriting an ancient and honourable name, of gaining a position which would render him not only equal but superior in rank to Annie Grant, and of possessing an income beside which Lord Bellefield’s fortune, impoverished by the turf and the gaming-table, sank into comparative insignificance. One short year more for him to prove his right before the eyes of men, and then, if Annie were but true to her own heart, he would boldly enter the lists against his rival, and in love or hate Lord Bellefield should find that he had met his match. Well might his step be proud and his bearing joyous and elated, for in twelve hours the whole aspect of life had become changed to him: such shuttlecocks are we in the hands of Fate, as unthinking men term the mysterious ordinances of the Omnipotent.

Had he known the contents of a letter which was even then awaiting him at his banker’s, his new-found joy might have been lessened.