CHAPTER V.

Parliament was at length dissolved; the new writs were issued, and the day of nomination fixed for the Dreepdaily burghs. For a time it appeared to myself, and indeed to almost every one else, that my return was perfectly secure. Provost Binkie was in great glory, and the faces of the unknown Clique were positively radiant with satisfaction. But a storm was brewing in another quarter, upon which we had not previously calculated.

The Honourable Mr Pozzlethwaite, my opponent, had fixed his headquarters in Drouthielaw, and to all appearance was making very little progress in Dreepdaily. Indeed, in no sense of the word could Pozzlethwaite be said to be popular. He was a middle-aged man, as blind as a bat, and, in order to cure the defect, he ornamented his visage with an immense pair of green spectacles, which, it may be easily conceived, did not add to the beauty of his appearance. In speech he was slow and verbose, in manner awkward, in matter almost wholly unintelligible. He professed principles which he said were precisely the same as those advocated by the late Jeremy Bentham; and certainly, if he was correct in this, I do not regret that my parents omitted to bring me up at the feet of the utilitarian Gamaliel. In short, Paul was prosy to a degree, had not an atom of animation in his whole composition, and could no more have carried a crowd along with him than he could have supported Atlas upon his shoulders. A portion, however, of philosophic weavers, and a certain section of the Seceders, had declared in his favour; and, moreover, it was just possible that he might gain the suffrages of some of the Conservatives. Kittleweem, the Tory burgh, had hitherto preserved the appearance of strict neutrality. I had attempted to address the electors of that place, but I found that the hatred of Dreepdaily and of its Clique was more powerful than my eloquence; and, somehow or other, the benighted savages did not comprehend the merits of the Revolution Settlement of 1688, and were as violently national as the Celtic race before the invention of trews. Kittleweem had equipped half a regiment for Prince Charles in the Forty-five, and still piqued itself on its stanch Episcopacy. A Whig, therefore, could hardly expect to be popular in such a den of prejudice. By the advice of M'Corkindale, I abstained from any further efforts, which might possibly have tended to exasperate the electors, and left Kittleweem to itself, in the hope that it would maintain an armed neutrality.

And so it probably might have done, but for an unexpected occurrence. Two days before the nomination, a new candidate appeared on the field. Sholto Douglas was the representative of one of the oldest branches of his distinguished name, and the race to which he more immediately belonged had ever been foremost in the ranks of Scottish chivalry and patriotism. In fact, no family had suffered more from their attachment to the cause of legitimacy than the Douglases of Inveriachan. Forfeiture after forfeiture had cut down their broad lands to a narrow estate, and but for an unexpected Indian legacy, the present heir would have been marching as a subaltern in a foot regiment. But a large importation of rupees had infused new life and spirit into the bosom of Sholto Douglas. Young, eager, and enthusiastic, he determined to rescue himself from obscurity; and the present state of the Dreepdaily burghs appeared to offer a most tempting opportunity. Douglas was, of course, Conservative to the backbone; but, more than that, he openly proclaimed himself a friend of the people, and a supporter of the rights of labour.

"Confound the fellow!" said Bob M'Corkindale to me, the morning after Sholto's address had been placarded through the burghs, "who would have thought of an attack of this kind from such a quarter? Have you seen his manifesto, Dunshunner?"

"Yes--here it is in the _Patriot_. The editor, however, gives him it soundly in the leading article. I like his dogmatic style and wholesale denunciation of the Tories."

"I'll tell you what it is, though--I look upon this as anything but a joke. Douglas is evidently not a man to stand upon old aristocratic pretensions. He has got the right sow by the ear this time, and, had he started a little earlier, might have roused the national spirit to a very unpleasant pitch. You observe what he says about Scotland, the neglect of her local interests, and the manner in which she has been treated, with reference to Ireland?"

"I do. And you will be pleased to recollect that but for yourself, something of the same kind would have appeared in my address."

"If you mean that as a reproach, Dunshunner, you are wrong. How was it possible to have started you as a Whig upon patriotic principles?"

"Well--that's true enough. At the same time, I cannot help wishing that we had said a word or two about the interests to the north of the Tweed."

"What is done cannot be undone. We must now stick by the Revolution settlement."

"Do you know, Bob, I think we have given them quite enough of that same settlement already. Those fellows at Kittleweem laughed in my face the last time that I talked about it, and I am rather afraid that it won't go down on the hustings."

"Try the sanitary condition of the towns, then, and universal conciliation to Ireland," replied the Economist. "I have given orders to hire two hundred Paddies, who have come over for the harvest, at a shilling a-head, and of course you may depend upon their voices, and also their shillelahs, if needful. I think we should have a row. It would be a great matter to make Douglas unpopular; and, with a movement of my little finger, I could turn out a whole legion of navigators."

"No, Bob, you had better not. It is just possible they might make a mistake, and shy brickbats at the wrong candidate. It will be safer, I think, to leave the mob to itself: at the same time, we shall not be the worse for the Tipperary demonstration. And how looks the canvass?"

"Tolerably well, but not perfectly secure. The Clique has done its very best, but at the same time there is undeniably a growing feeling against it. Many people grumble about its dominion, and are fools enough to say that they have a right to think for themselves."

"Could you not circulate a report that Pozzlethwaite is the man of the Clique?"

"The idea is ingenious, but I fear it would hardly work. Dreepdaily is well known to be the headquarters of the confederation, and the name of Provost Binkie is inseparably connected with it."

"By the way, M'Corkindale, it struck me that you looked rather sweet upon Miss Binkie last evening."

"I did. In fact I popped the question," replied Robert calmly.

"Indeed! Were you accepted?"

"Conditionally. If we gain the election, she becomes Mrs M'Corkindale--if we lose, I suppose I shall have to return to Glasgow in a state of celibacy."

"A curious contract, certainly! Well, Bob, since your success is involved in mine, we must fight a desperate battle."

"I wish, though, that Mr Sholto Douglas had been kind enough to keep out of the way," observed M'Corkindale.

The morning of the day appointed for the nomination dawned upon the people of Dreepdaily with more than usual splendour. For once, there was no mist upon the surrounding hills, and the sky was clear as sapphire. I rose early to study my speech, which had received the finishing touches from M'Corkindale on the evening before; and I flatter myself it was as pretty a piece of Whig rhetoric as ever was spouted from a hustings. Toddy Tam, indeed, had objected, upon seeing a draft, that "there was nae banes intil't;" but the political economist was considered by the Committee a superior authority on such subjects to Gills. After having carefully conned it over, I went down-stairs, where the whole party were already assembled. A large blue and yellow flag, with the inscription, "DUNSHUNNER AND THE GOOD CAUSE!" was hung out from the window, to the intense delight of a gang of urchins, who testified to the popularity of the candidate by ceaseless vociferation to "pour out." The wall opposite, however, bore some memoranda of an opposite tendency, for I could see some large placards, newly pasted up, on which the words, "ELECTORS OF DREEPDAILY! YOU ARE SOLD BY THE CLIQUE!" were conspicuous in enormous capitals. I heard, too, something like a ballad chanted, in which my name seemed to be coupled, irreverently, with that of the independent Gills.

Provost Binkie--who, in common with the rest of the company, wore upon his bosom an enormous blue and buff cockade, prepared by the fair hands of his daughter--saluted me with great cordiality. I ought to observe that the Provost had been kept as much as possible in the dark regarding the actual results of the canvass. He was to propose me, and it was thought that his nerves would be more steady if he came forward under the positive conviction of success.

"This is a great day, Mr Dunshunner--a grand day for Dreepdaily," he said. "A day, if I may sae speak, o' triumph and rejoicing! The news o' this will run frae one end o' the land to the ither--for the een o' a' Scotland is fixed on Dreepdaily, and the stench auld Whig principles is sure to prevail, even like a mighty river that rins down in spate to the sea!"

I justly concluded that this figure of speech formed part of the address to the electors which for the two last days had been simmering in the brain of the worthy magistrate, along with the fumes of the potations he had imbibed, as incentives to the extraordinary effort. Of course I took care to appear to participate in his enthusiasm. My mind, however, was very far from being thoroughly at ease.

As twelve o'clock, which was the hour of nomination, drew near, there was a great muster at my committee-room. The band of the Independent Tee-totallers, who to a man were in my interest, was in attendance. They had been well primed with ginger cordial, and were obstreperous to a gratifying degree.

Toddy Tam came up to me with a face of the colour of carnation.

"I think it richt to tell ye, Mr Dunshunner, that there will be a bit o' a bleeze ower yonder at the hustings. The Kittleweem folk hae come through in squads, and Lord Hartside's tenantry have marched in a body, wi' Sholto Douglas's colours flying."

"And the Drouthielaw fellows--what has become of them?"

"Od, they're no wi' us either--they're just savage at the Clique! Gudesake, Mr Dunshunner, tak care, and dinna say a word aboot huz. I intend mysell to denounce the body, and may be that will do us gude."

I highly approved of Mr Gills' determination, and as the time had now come, we formed in column, and marched towards the hustings with the tee-total band in front, playing a very lugubrious imitation of "Glorious Apollo."

The other candidates had already taken their places. The moment I was visible to the audience, I was assailed by a volley of yells, among which, cries of "Doun wi' the Clique!"--"Wha bought them?"--"Nae nominee!"--"We've had eneuch o' the Whigs!" et cetera, were distinctly audible. This was not at all the kind of reception I had bargained for;--however, there was nothing for it but to put on a smiling face, and I reciprocated courtesies as well as I could with both of my honourable opponents.

During the reading of the writ and the Bribery Act, there was a deal of joking, which I presume was intended to be good-humoured. At the same time there could be no doubt that it was distinctly personal. I heard my name associated with epithets of anything but an endearing description, and, to say the truth, if choice had been granted, I would far rather have been at Jericho than in the front of the hustings at Dreepdaily. A man must be, indeed, intrepid, and conscious of a good cause, who can oppose himself without blenching to the objurgation of an excited mob.

The Honourable Paul Pozzlethwaite, on account of his having been the earliest candidate in the field, was first proposed by a town-councillor of Drouthielaw. This part of the ceremony appeared to excite but little interest, the hooting and cheering being pretty equally distributed.

It was now our turn.

"Gang forrard, Provost, and be sure ye speak oot!" said Toddy Tam; and Mr Binkie advanced accordingly.

Thereupon such a row commenced as I never had witnessed before. Yelling is a faint word to express the sounds of that storm of extraordinary wrath which descended upon the head of the devoted Provost. "Clique! Clique!" resounded on every side, and myriads of eyes, ferocious as those of the wildcat, were bent scowlingly on my worthy proposer. In vain did he gesticulate--in vain implore. The voice of Demosthenes--nay, the deep bass of Stentor himself--could not have been heard amidst that infernal uproar; so that, after working his arms for a time like the limbs of a telegraph, and exerting himself until he became absolutely swart in the face, Binkie was fain to give it up, and retired amidst a whirlwind of abuse.

"May the deil fly awa' wi' the hail pack o' them!" said he, almost blubbering with excitement and indignation. "Wha wad ever hae thocht to have seen the like o' this? and huz, too, that gied them the Reform Bill! Try your hand at them, Tam, for my heart's amaist broken!"

The bluff independent character of Mr Gills, and his reputed purity from all taint of the Clique, operated considerably in his favour. He advanced amidst general cheering, and cries of "Noo for Toddy Tam!" "Let's hear Mr Gills!" and the like; and as he tossed his hat aside and clenched his brawny fist, he really looked the incarnation of a sturdy and independent elector. His style, too, was decidedly popular--

"Listen tae me!" he said, "and let the brawlin', braggin', bletherin' idiwits frae Drouthielaw haud their lang clavering tongues, and no keep rowtin' like a herd o' senseless nowte! (Great cheering from Dreepdaily and Kittleweem--considerable disapprobation from Drouthielaw.) I ken them weel, the auld haverils! (cheers.) But you, my freends, that I have dwalt wi' for twenty years, is it possible that ye can believe for one moment that I wad submit to be dictated to by a Clique? (Cries of "No! no!" "It's no you, Tam!" and confusion.) No me? I dinna thank ye for that! Wull ony man daur to say to my face, that I ever colleagued wi' a pack that wad buy and sell the haill of us as readily as ye can deal wi' sheep's-heads in the public market? (Laughter.) Div ye think that if Mr Dunshunner was ony way mixed up wi' that gang, I wad be here this day tae second him? Div ye think----"

Here Mr Gills met with a singular interruption. A remarkable figure attired in a red coat and cocked-hat, at one time probably the property of a civic officer, and who had been observed for some time bobbing about in front of the hustings, was now elevated upon the shoulders of a yeoman, and displayed to the delighted spectators the features of Geordie Dowie.

"Ay, Toddy Tam, are ye there, man?" cried Geordie with a malignant grin. "What was you and the Clique doin' at Nanse Finlayson's on Friday nicht?"

"What was it, Geordie? What was it?" cried a hundred voices.

"Am I to be interrupted by a natural?" cried Gills, looking, however, considerably flushed in the face.

"What hae ye dune wi' the notes, Tam, that the lang chield up by there gied ye? And whaur's your freends, Shanks and M'Auslan? See that ye steek close the window neist time, ma man!" cried Geordie with demoniac ferocity.

This was quite enough for the mob, who seldom require any excuse for a display of their hereditary privileges. A perfect hurricane of hissing and of yelling arose, and Gills, though he fought like a hero, was at last forced to retire from the contest. Had Geordie Dowie's windpipe been within his grasp at that moment, I would not have insured for any amount the life of the perfidious spy.

Sholto Douglas was proposed and seconded amidst great cheering, and then Pozzlethwaite rose to speak. I do not very well recollect what he said, for I had quite enough to do in thinking about myself; and the Honourable Paul would have conferred a material obligation upon me, if he had talked for an hour longer. At length my turn came.

"Electors of Dreepdaily!"--

That was the whole of my speech--at least the whole of it that was audible to any one human being. Humboldt, if I recollect right, talks in one of his travels of having somewhere encountered a mountain composed of millions of entangled snakes, whose hissing might have equalled that of the transformed legions of Pandemonium. I wish Humboldt, for the sake of scientific comparison, could have been upon the hustings that day! Certain I am, that the sibilation did not leave my ears for a fortnight afterwards, and even now, in my slumbers, I am haunted by a wilderness of asps! However, at the urgent entreaty of M'Corkindale, I went on for about ten minutes, though I was quivering in every limb, and as pale as a ghost; and in order that the public might not lose the benefit of my sentiments, I concluded by handing a copy of my speech, interlarded with fictitious cheers, to the reporter for the _Dreepdaily Patriot_. That document may still be seen by the curious in the columns of that impartial newspaper.

I will state this for Sholto Douglas, that he behaved like a perfect gentleman. There was in his speech no triumph over the discomfiture which the other candidates had received; on the contrary, he rather rebuked the audience for not having listened to us with greater patience. He then went on with his oration. I need hardly say it was a national one, and it was most enthusiastically cheered.

All that I need mention about the show of hands is, that it was not by any means hollow in my favour.

That afternoon we were not quite so lively in the Committee-room as usual. The serenity of Messrs Gills, M'Auslan, and Shanks,--and, perhaps, I may add of myself--was a good deal shaken by the intelligence that a broadside with the tempting title of "_Full and Particular Account of an Interview between the Clique and Mr Dunshunner, held at Nanse Finlayson's Tavern, on Friday last, and how they came to terms. By an Eyewitness_," was circulating like wildfire through the streets. To have been beaten by a Douglas was nothing, but to have been so artfully entrapped by an imbecile!

Provost Binkie, too, was dull and dissatisfied. The reception he had met with in his native town was no doubt a severe mortification, but the feeling that he had been used as a catspaw and instrument of the Clique, was, I suspected, uppermost in his mind. Poor man! We had great difficulty that evening in bringing him to his sixth tumbler.

Even M'Corkindale was hipped. I own I was surprised at this, for I knew of old the indefatigable spirit and keen energy of my friend, and I thought that, with such a stake as he had in the contest, he would even have redoubled his exertions. Such, however, was not the case.

I pass over the proceedings at the poll. From a very early hour it became perfectly evident that my chance was utterly gone; and, indeed, had it been possible, I should have left Dreepdaily before the close. At four o'clock the numbers stood thus:--

DREEPDAILY. DROUTHIELAW. KITTLEWEEM.

DOUGLAS, 94 63 192

POZZLETHWAITE, 59 73 21

DUNSHUNNER, 72 19 7

Majority for DOUGLAS, 196

We had an affecting scene in the Committee-room. Gills, who had been drinking all day, shed copious floods of tears; Shanks was disconsolate; and M'Auslan refused to be comforted. Of course I gave the usual pledge, that on the very first opportunity I should come forward again to reassert the independence of the burghs, now infamously sacrificed to a Conservative; but the cheering at this announcement was of the very faintest description, and I doubt whether any one believed me. Two hours afterwards I was miles away from Dreepdaily.

I have since had letters from that place, which inform me that the Clique is utterly discomfited; that for some days the component members of it might be seen wandering through the streets, and pouring their husky sorrows into the ears of every stray listener whom they could find, until they became a positive nuisance. My best champion, however, was the editor of the _Patriot_. That noble and dauntless individual continued for weeks afterwards to pour forth Jeremiads upon my defeat, and stigmatised my opponents and their supporters as knaves, miscreants, and nincompoops. I was, he maintained, the victim of a base conspiracy, and the degraded town of Dreepdaily would never be able thereafter to rear its polluted head in the Convention of Royal Burghs.

Whilst these things were going on in Dreepdaily, I was closeted with M'Corkindale in Glasgow.

"So, then, you have lost your election," said he.

"And you have lost your wife."

"Neither of the two accidents appear to me irreparable," replied Robert.

"How so? Do you still think of Miss Binkie?"

"By no means. I made some little inquiry the day before the election, and discovered that a certain nest-egg was enormously exaggerated, if not altogether fictitious."

"Well, Bob, there is certainly nobody like yourself for getting information."

"I do my best. May I inquire into the nature of your future movements?"

"I have not yet made up my mind. These election matters put everything else out of one's head. Let me see--August is approaching, and I half promised the Captain of M'Alcohol to spend a few weeks with him at his shooting-quarters."

"Are you aware, Dunshunner, that one of your bills falls due at the Gorbals Bank upon Tuesday next?"

"Mercy upon me, Bob! I had forgotten all about it."

I did not go to the Highlands after all. The fatigue and exertion we had undergone rendered it quite indispensable that my friend Robert and I should relax a little. Accordingly we have both embarked for a short run upon the Continent.

BOULOGNE-SUR-MER, _12th August 1847_.

FIRST AND LAST

BY WILLIAM MUDFORD.

[_MAGA._ FEBRUARY 1829.]

Take down from your shelves, gentle reader, your folio edition of Johnson's Dictionary,--or, if you possess Todd's edition of Johnson, take down his four ponderous quartos; turn over every leaf, read every word from A to Z, and then confess, that in the whole vocabulary there are not any two words which awaken in your heart such a crowd of mixed and directly opposite emotions as the two which now stare you in the face--FIRST and LAST! In the abstract, they embrace the whole round of our existence: in the detail, all its brightest hopes, its noblest enjoyments, and its most cherished recollections; all its loftiest enterprises, and all its smiles and tears; its pangs of guilt, its virtuous principles, its trials, its sorrows, and its rewards. They give you the dawn and the close of life, the beginning and the end of its countless busy scenes. They are the two extremities of a path which, be it long, or be it short, no man sees at one and the same moment. Happy would it be for us, sometimes, if we could--if we _could_ behold the end of a course of action as certainly as we do the beginning; but oftener, far oftener, would it be our curse and torment, unless, with the foresight or foreknowledge, we had the power to avert the end.

But let me not anticipate my own intentions, which are to portray, in a few sketches, the links that hold together the _first_ and _last_ of the most momentous periods and undertakings of our lives; to trace the dawn, progress, and decline of many of the best feelings and motives of our nature; to touch, with a pensive colouring, the contrasts they present; to stimulate honourable enterprises by the examples they furnish; and to amuse by the form in which the truths they supply are embodied. I shall begin with a subject not exactly falling within the legitimate scope of my design, but it will serve as an appropriate introduction, and I shall call it

THE FIRST AND LAST DINNER.

Twelve friends, much about the same age, and fixed by their pursuits, their family connections, and other local interests, as permanent inhabitants of the metropolis, agreed, one day when they were drinking their wine at the Star and Garter at Richmond, to institute an annual dinner among themselves, under the following regulations: That they should dine alternately at each other's houses on the _first_ and _last_ day of the year; that the _first_ bottle of wine uncorked at the _first_ dinner, should be recorked and put away, to be drunk by him who should be the _last_ of their number; that they should never admit a new member; that, when one died, eleven should meet, and when another died, ten should meet, and so on; and that, when only one remained, he should, on those two days, dine by himself, and sit the usual hours at his solitary table; but the _first_ time he so dined alone, lest it should be the only one, he should then uncork the _first_ bottle, and, in the _first_ glass, drink to the memory of all who were gone.

There was something original and whimsical in the idea, and it was eagerly embraced. They were all in the prime of life, closely attached by reciprocal friendship, fond of social enjoyments, and looked forward to their future meetings with unalloyed anticipations of pleasure. The only thought, indeed, that could have darkened those anticipations was one not very likely to intrude itself at that moment, that of the hapless wight who was destined to uncork the _first_ bottle at his lonely repast.

It was high summer when this frolic compact was entered into; and as their pleasure-yacht skimmed along the dark bosom of the Thames, on their return to London, they talked of nothing but their _first_ and _last_ feasts of ensuing years. Their imaginations ran riot with a thousand gay predictions of festive merriment. They wantoned in conjectures of what changes time would operate; joked each other upon their appearance, when they should meet,--some hobbling upon crutches after a severe fit of the gout,--others poking about with purblind eyes, which even spectacles could hardly enable to distinguish the alderman's walk in a haunch of venison--some with portly round bellies and tidy little brown wigs, and others decently dressed out in a new suit of mourning for the death of a great-granddaughter or a great-great-grandson. Palsies, wrinkles, toothless gums, stiff hams, and poker knees, were bandied about in sallies of exuberant mirth, and appropriated, first to one and then to another, as a group of merry children would have distributed golden palaces, flying chariots, diamond tables, and chairs of solid pearl, under the fancied possession of a magician's wand, which could transform plain brick, and timber, and humble mahogany, into such costly treasures.

"As for you, George," exclaimed one of the twelve, addressing his brother-in-law, "I expect I shall see you as dry, withered, and shrunken, as an old eel-skin, you mere outside of a man!" and he accompanied the words with a hearty slap on the shoulder.

George Fortescue was leaning carelessly over the side of the yacht, laughing the loudest of any at the conversation which had been carried on. The sudden manual salutation of his brother-in-law threw him off his balance, and in a moment he was overboard. They heard the heavy splash of his fall, before they could be said to have seen him fall. The yacht was proceeding swiftly along; but it was instantly stopped.

The utmost consternation now prevailed. It was nearly dark, but Fortescue was known to be an excellent swimmer, and, startling as the accident was, they felt certain he would regain the vessel. They could not see him. They listened. They heard the sound of his hands and feet. They hailed him. An answer was returned, but in a faint gurgling voice, and the exclamation "Oh God!" struck upon their ears. In an instant two or three, who were expert swimmers, plunged into the river, and swam towards the spot whence the exclamation had proceeded. One of them was within an arm's length of Fortescue: he saw him; he was struggling and buffeting the water; before he could be reached, he went down, and his distracted friend beheld the eddying circles of the wave just over the spot where he had sunk. He dived after him, and touched the bottom; but the tide must have drifted the body onwards, for it could not be found!

They proceeded to one of the nearest stations where drags were kept, and having procured the necessary apparatus, they returned to the fatal spot. After the lapse of above an hour, they succeeded in raising the lifeless body of their lost friend. All the usual remedies were employed for restoring suspended animation; but in vain; and they now pursued the remainder of their course to London in mournful silence, with the corpse of him who had commenced the day of pleasure with them in the fulness of health, of spirits, and of life! Amid their severer grief, they could not but reflect how soon one of the joyous twelve had slipped out of the little festive circle.

The months rolled on, and cold December came with all its cheering round of kindly greetings and merry hospitalities; and with it came a softened recollection of the fate of poor Fortescue; _eleven_ of the twelve assembled on the last day of the year, and it was impossible not to feel their loss as they sat down to dinner. The very irregularity of the table, five on one side, and only four on the other, forced the melancholy event upon their memory.

There are few sorrows so stubborn as to resist the united influence of wine, a circle of select friends, and a season of prescriptive gaiety. Even those pinching troubles of life, which come home to a man's own bosom, will light up a smile, in such moments, at the beaming countenances and jocund looks of all the rest of the world; while your mere sympathetic or sentimental distress gives way, like the inconsolable affliction of a widow of twenty closely besieged by a lover of thirty.

A decorous sigh or two, a few becoming ejaculations, and an instructive observation upon the uncertainty of life, made up the sum of tender posthumous "offerings to the _manes_ of poor George Fortescue," as they proceeded to discharge the more important duties for which they had met. By the time the third glass of champagne had gone round, in addition to sundry potations of fine old hock, and "capital madeira," they had ceased to discover anything so very pathetic in the inequality of the two sides of the table, or so melancholy in their crippled number of eleven.

The rest of the evening passed off to their hearts' content. Conversation was briskly kept up amid the usual fire of pun, repartee, anecdote, politics, toasts, healths, jokes, broad laughter, erudite disquisitions upon the vintage of the wines they were drinking, and an occasional song. Towards twelve o'clock, when it might be observed that they emptied their glasses with less symptoms of palating the quality of what they quaffed, and filled them again with less anxiety as to which bottle or decanter they laid hold of, they gradually waxed moral and tender; sensibility began to ooze out; "Poor George Fortescue!" was once more remembered; those who could count, sighed to think there were only eleven of them; and those who could see, felt the tears come into their eyes, as they dimly noted the inequality of the two sides of the table. They all agreed, at parting, however, that they had never passed such a happy day, congratulated each other upon having instituted so delightful a meeting, and promised to be punctual to their appointment the ensuing evening, when they were to celebrate the new-year, whose entrance they had welcomed in bumpers of claret, as the watchman bawled "past twelve!" beneath the window.

They met accordingly; and their gaiety was without any alloy or drawback. It was only the _first_ time of their assembling after the death of "poor George Fortescue," that made the recollection of it painful; for, though but a few hours had intervened, they now took their seats at the table as if eleven had been their original number, and as if all were there that had been ever expected to be there.

It is thus in everything. The _first_ time a man enters a prison--the _first_ book an author writes--the _first_ painting an artist executes--the _first_ battle a general wins--nay, the _first_ time a rogue is hanged (for a rotten rope may provide a second performance, even of that ceremony, with all its singleness of character), differ inconceivably from their _first_ repetition. There is a charm, a spell, a novelty, a freshness, a delight, inseparable from the _first_ experience (hanging always excepted, be it remembered), which no art or circumstance can impart to the _second_. And it is the same in all the darker traits of life. There is a degree of poignancy and anguish in the _first_ assaults of sorrow, which is never found afterwards. Ask the weeping widow, who, "like Niobe all tears," follows her fifth husband to the grave, and she will tell you that the _first_ time she performed that melancholy office, it was with at least five times more lamentations than when she last discharged it. In every case, it is simply that the _first_ fine edge of our feelings has been taken off, and that it can never be restored.

Several years had elapsed, and our eleven friends kept up their double anniversaries, as they might aptly enough be called, with scarcely any perceptible change. But, alas! there came one dinner at last, which was darkened by a calamity they never expected to witness, for on that very day their friend, companion, brother almost, was hanged! Yes! Stephen Rowland, the wit, the oracle, the life of their little circle, had, on the morning of that day, forfeited his life upon a public scaffold, for having made one single stroke of his pen in a wrong place. In other words, a bill of exchange which passed _into_ his hands for L700 passed _out_ of them for L1700; he having drawn the important little prefix to the hundreds, and the bill being paid at the banker's without examining the words of it. The forgery was discovered,--brought home to Rowland,--and though the greatest interest was used to obtain a remission of the fatal penalty (the particular female favourite of the prime-minister himself interfering), poor Stephen Rowland was hanged. Everybody pitied him; and nobody could tell why he did it. He was not poor; he was not a gambler; he was not a speculator; but phrenology settled it. The organ of _acquisitiveness_ was discovered in his head, after his execution, as large as a pigeon's egg. He could not help it.

It would be injustice to the ten to say, that even wine, friendship, and a merry season, could dispel the gloom which pervaded this dinner. It was agreed beforehand that they should not allude to the distressing and melancholy theme; and having thus interdicted the only thing which really occupied all their thoughts, the natural consequence was, that silent contemplation took the place of dismal discourse, and they separated long before midnight. An embarrassing restraint, indeed, pervaded the little conversation which grew up at intervals. The champagne was not in good order, but no one liked to complain of its being _ropy_. A beautiful painting of Vandyke which was in the room, became a topic of discussion. They who thought it was _hung_ in a bad place, shrunk from saying so; and not one ventured to speak of the _execution_ of that great master. Their host was having the front of his house repaired, and at any other time he would have cautioned them, when they went away, as the night was very dark, to take care of the _scaffold_; but no, they might have stumbled right and left before he would have pronounced that word, or told them not to _break their necks_. One, in particular, even abstained from using his customary phrase, "this is a _drop_ of good wine;" and another forbore to congratulate the friend who sat next him, and who had been married since he last saw him, because he was accustomed on such occasions to employ figurative language and talk of the holy _noose_ of wedlock.

Some fifteen years had now glided away since the fate of poor Rowland, and the ten remained; but the stealing hand of time had written sundry changes in most legible characters. Raven locks had become grizzled--two or three heads had not as many locks altogether as may be reckoned in a walk of half a mile along the Regent's Canal--one was actually covered with a brown wig--the crow's-feet were visible in the corner of the eye--good old port and warm madeira carried it against hock, claret, red burgundy, and champagne--stews, hashes, and ragouts, grew into favour--crusts were rarely called for to relish the cheese after dinner--conversation was less boisterous, and it turned chiefly upon politics and the state of the funds, or the value of landed property--apologies were made for coming in thick shoes and warm stockings--the doors and windows were more carefully provided with list and sand-bags--the fire more in request--and a quiet game of whist filled up the hours that were wont to be devoted to drinking, singing, and riotous merriment. Two rubbers, a cup of coffee, and at home by eleven o'clock, was the usual cry, when the fifth or sixth glass had gone round after the removal of the cloth. At parting, too, there was now a long ceremony in the hall, buttoning up great-coats, tying on woollen comforters, fixing silk handkerchiefs over the mouth and up to the ears, and grasping sturdy walking-canes to support unsteady feet.

Their fiftieth anniversary came, and death had indeed been busy. One had been killed by the overturning of the mail, in which he had taken his place in order to be present at the dinner, having purchased an estate in Monmouthshire, and retired thither with his family. Another had undergone the terrific operation for the stone, and expired beneath the knife--a third had yielded up a broken spirit two years after the loss of an only-surviving and beloved daughter--a fourth was carried off in a few days by a _cholera morbus_--a fifth had breathed his last the very morning he obtained a judgment in his favour by the Lord Chancellor, which had cost him his last shilling nearly to get, and which, after a litigation of eighteen years, declared him the rightful possessor of ten thousand a-year--ten minutes after he was no more. A sixth had perished by the hand of a midnight assassin, who broke into his house for plunder, and sacrificed the owner of it, as he grasped convulsively a bundle of Exchequer bills, which the robber was drawing from beneath his pillow, where he knew they were every night placed for better security.

Four little old men, of withered appearance and decrepit walk, with cracked voices, and dim, rayless eyes, sat down, by the mercy of Heaven (as they themselves tremulously declared), to celebrate, for the fiftieth time, the first day of the year--to observe the frolic compact which, half a century before, they had entered into at the Star and Garter at Richmond! Eight were in their graves! The four that remained stood upon its confines. Yet they chirped cheerily over their glass, though they could scarcely carry it to their lips, if more than half full; and cracked their jokes, though they articulated their words with difficulty, and heard each other with still greater difficulty. They mumbled, they chattered, they laughed (if a sort of strangled wheezing might be called a laugh); and when the wines sent their icy blood in warmer pulse through their veins, they talked of their past as if it were but a yesterday that had slipped by them,--and of their future, as if it were a busy century that lay before them.

They were just the number for a quiet rubber of whist; and for three successive years they sat down to one. The fourth came, and then their rubber was played with an open dummy; a fifth, and whist was no longer practicable; _two_ could play only at cribbage, and cribbage was the game. But it was little more than the mockery of play. Their palsied hands could hardly hold, or their fading sight distinguish, the cards, while their torpid faculties made them doze between each deal.

At length came the LAST dinner; and the survivor of the twelve, upon whose head fourscore and ten winters had showered their snow, ate his solitary meal. It so chanced that it was in his house, and at his table, they had celebrated the first. In his cellar, too, had remained, for eight-and-fifty years, the bottle they had then uncorked, recorked, and which he was that day to uncork again. It stood beside him. With a feeble and reluctant grasp he took the "frail memorial" of a youthful vow; and for a moment memory was faithful to her office. She threw open the long vista of buried years; and his heart travelled through them all;--their lusty and blithesome spring--their bright and fervid summer--their ripe and temperate autumn--their chill, but not too frozen winter. He saw, as in a mirror, how, one by one, the laughing companions of that merry hour at Richmond, had dropped into eternity. He felt all the loneliness of his condition (for he had eschewed marriage, and in the veins of no living creature ran a drop of blood whose source was in his own); and as he drained the glass which he had filled, "to the memory of those who were gone," the tears slowly trickled down the deep furrows of his aged face.

He had thus fulfilled one part of his vow, and he prepared himself to discharge the other, by sitting the usual number of hours at his desolate table. With a heavy heart he resigned himself to the gloom of his own thoughts--a lethargic sleep stole over him--his head fell upon his bosom--confused images crowded into his mind--he babbled to himself--was silent--and when his servant entered the room, alarmed by a noise which he heard, he found his master stretched upon the carpet at the foot of the easy-chair, out of which he had slipped in an apoplectic fit. He never spoke again, nor once opened his eyes, though the vital spark was not extinct till the following day. And this was the LAST DINNER.

THE DUKE'S DILEMMA.

A CHRONICLE OF NIESENSTEIN.

[_MAGA._ SEPTEMBER 1853.]

The close of the theatrical year, which in France occurs in early spring, annually brings to Paris a throng of actors and actresses, the disorganised elements of provincial companies, who repair to the capital to contract engagements for the new season. Paris is the grand centre to which all dramatic stars converge--the great bazaar where managers recruit their troops for the summer campaign. In bad weather the mart for this human merchandise is at an obscure coffee-house near the Rue St Honore; when the sun shines, the place of meeting is in the garden of the Palais Royal. There, pacing to and fro beneath the lime-trees, the high contracting parties pursue their negotiations and make their bargains. It is the theatrical Exchange, the histrionic _Bourse_. There the conversation and the company are alike curious. Many are the strange discussions and original anecdotes that there are heard; many the odd figures there paraded. Tragedians, comedians, singers, men and women, young and old, flock thither in quest of fortune and a good engagement. The threadbare coats of some say little in favour of recent success or present prosperity; but only hear them speak, and you are at once convinced that _they_ have no need of broadcloth who are so amply covered with laurels. It is delightful to hear them talk of their triumphs, of the storms of applause, the rapturous bravos, the boundless enthusiasm, of the audiences they lately delighted. Their brows are oppressed with the weight of their bays. The south mourns their loss; if they go west, the north will be envious and inconsolable. As to themselves--north, south, east, or west--they care little to which point of the compass the breeze of their destiny may waft them. Thorough gypsies in their habits, accustomed to make the best of the passing hour, and to take small care for the future so long as the present is provided for, like soldiers they heed not the name of the town so long as the quarters be good.

It was a fine morning in April. The sun shone brightly, and, amongst the numerous loungers in the garden of the Palais Royal were several groups of actors. The season was already far advanced; all the companies were formed, and those players who had not secured an engagement had but a poor chance of finding one. Their anxiety was legible upon their countenances. A man of about fifty years of age walked to and fro, a newspaper in his hand, and to him, when he passed near them, the actors bowed--respectfully and hopefully. A quick glance was his acknowledgment of their salutation, and then his eyes reverted to his paper, as if it deeply interested him. When he was out of hearing, the actors, who had assumed their most picturesque attitudes to attract his attention, and who beheld their labour lost, vented their ill-humour.

"Balthasar is mighty proud," said one; "he has not a word to say to us."

"Perhaps he does not want anybody," remarked another; "I think he has no theatre this year."

"That would be odd. They say he is a clever manager."

"He may best prove his cleverness by keeping aloof. It is so difficult nowadays to do good in the provinces. The public is so fastidious! the authorities are so shabby, so unwilling to put their hands in their pockets. Ah, my dear fellow, our art is sadly fallen!"

Whilst the discontented actors bemoaned themselves, Balthasar eagerly accosted a young man who just then entered the garden by the passage of the Perron. The coffehouse-keepers had already begun to put out tables under the tender foliage. The two men sat down at one of them.

"Well, Florival," said the manager, "does my offer suit you? Will you make one of us? I was glad to hear you had broken off with Ricardin. With your qualifications you ought to have an engagement in Paris, or at least at a first-rate provincial theatre. But you are young, and, as you know, managers prefer actors of greater experience and established reputation. Your parts are generally taken by youths of five-and-forty, with wrinkles and grey hairs, but well versed in the traditions of the stage--with damaged voices but an excellent style. My brother managers are greedy of great names; yours still has to become known--as yet, you have but your talent to recommend you. I will content myself with that; content yourself with what I offer you. Times are bad, the season is advanced, engagements are hard to find. Many of your comrades have gone to try their luck beyond seas. We have not so far to go; we shall scarcely overstep the boundary of our ungrateful country. Germany invites us; it is a pleasant land, and Rhine wine is not to be disdained. I will tell you how the thing came about. For many years past I have managed theatres in the eastern departments, in Alsatia and Lorraine. Last summer, having a little leisure, I made an excursion to Baden-Baden. As usual, it was crowded with fashionables. One rubbed shoulders with princes and trod upon highnesses' toes; one could not walk twenty yards without meeting a sovereign. All these crowned heads, kings, grand-dukes, electors, mingled easily and affably with the throng of visitors. Etiquette is banished from the baths of Baden, where, without laying aside their titles, great personages enjoy the liberty and advantages of an incognito. At the time of my visit, a company of very indifferent German actors were playing, two or three times a-week, in the little theatre. They played to empty benches, and must have starved but for the assistance afforded them by the directors of the gambling-tables. I often went to their performances, and, amongst the scanty spectators, I soon remarked one who was as assiduous as myself. A gentleman, very plainly dressed, but of agreeable countenance and aristocratic appearance, invariably occupied the same stall, and seemed to enjoy the performance, which proved that he was easily pleased. One night he addressed to me some remark with respect to the play then acting; we got into conversation on the subject of dramatic art; he saw that I was specially competent on that topic, and after the theatre he asked me to take refreshment with him. I accepted. At midnight we parted, and, as I was going home, I met a gambler whom I slightly knew. 'I congratulate you,' he said; 'you have friends in high places!' He alluded to the gentleman with whom I had passed the evening, and who I now learned was no less a personage than his Serene Highness Prince Leopold, sovereign ruler of the Grand Duchy of Niesenstein. I had had the honour of passing a whole evening in familiar intercourse with a crowned head. Next day, walking in the park, I met his highness. I made a low bow and kept at a respectful distance, but the Grand Duke came up to me and asked me to walk with him. Before accepting, I thought it right to inform him who I was. 'I guessed as much,' said the Prince. 'From one or two things that last night escaped you, I made no doubt you were a theatrical manager.' And by a gesture he renewed his invitation to accompany him. In a long conversation he informed me of his intention to establish a French theatre in his capital, for the performance of comedy, drama, vaudeville, and comic operas. He was then building a large theatre, which would be ready by the end of the winter, and he offered me its management on very advantageous terms. I had no plans in France for the present year, and the offer was too good to be refused. The Grand Duke guaranteed my expenses and a gratuity, and there was a chance of very large profits. I hesitated not a moment; we exchanged promises, and the affair was concluded.

"According to our agreement, I am to be at Karlstadt, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Niesenstein, in the first week in May. There is no time to lose. My company is almost complete, but there are still some important gaps to fill. Amongst others, I want a lover, a light comedian, and a first singer. I reckon upon you to fill these important posts."

"I am quite willing," replied the actor, "but there is still an obstacle. You must know, my dear Balthasar, that I am deeply in love--seriously, this time--and I broke off with Ricardin solely because he would not engage her to whom I am attached."

"Oho! she is an actress?"

"Two years upon the stage; a lovely girl, full of grace and talent, and with a charming voice. The Opera Comique has not a singer to compare with her."

"And she is disengaged?"

"Yes, my dear fellow; strange though it seems, and by a combination of circumstances which it were tedious to detail, the fascinating Delia is still without an engagement. And I give you notice that henceforward I attach myself to her steps: where she goes, I go; I will perform upon no boards which she does not tread. I am determined to win her heart, and make her my wife."

"Very good!" cried Balthasar, rising from his seat; "tell me the address of this prodigy: I run, I fly, I make every sacrifice; and we will start to-morrow."

People were quite right in saying that Balthasar was a clever manager. None better knew how to deal with actors, often capricious and difficult to guide. He possessed skill, taste, and tact. One hour after the conversation in the garden of the Palais Royal, he had obtained the signatures of Delia and Florival, two excellent acquisitions, destined to do him infinite honour in Germany. That night his little company was complete, and the next day, after a good dinner, it started for Strasburg. It was composed as follows:

Balthasar, manager, was to play the old men, and take the heavy business.

Florival was the leading man, the lover, and the first singer.

Rigolet was the low comedian, and took the parts usually played by Arnal and Bouffe.

Similor was to perform the valets in Moliere's comedies, and eccentric low comedy characters.

Anselmo was the walking gentleman.

Lebel led the band.

Miss Delia was to display her charms and talents as prima donna, and in genteel comedy.

Miss Foligny was the singing chambermaid.

Miss Alice was the walking lady, and made herself generally useful.

Finally, Madame Pastorale, the duenna of the company, was to perform the old women, and look after the young ones.

Although so few, the company trusted to atone by zeal and industry for numerical deficiency. It would be easy to find, in the capital of the Grand Duchy, persons capable of filling mute parts, and, in most plays, a few unimportant characters might be suppressed.

The travellers reached Strasburg without adventure worthy of note. There Balthasar allowed them six-and-thirty hours' repose, and took advantage of the halt to write to the Grand Duke Leopold, and inform him of his approaching arrival; then they again started, crossed the Rhine at Kehl, and in thirty hours, after traversing several small German states, reached the frontier of the Grand Duchy of Niesenstein, and stopped at a little village called Krusthal. From this village to the capital the distance was only four leagues, but means of conveyance were wanting. There was but a single stagecoach on that line of road; it would not leave Krusthal for two days, and it held but six persons. No other vehicles were to be had; it was necessary to wait, and the necessity was anything but pleasant. The actors made wry faces at the prospect of passing forty-eight hours in a wretched village. The only persons who easily made up their minds to the wearisome delay were Delia and Florival. The first singer was desperately in love, and the prima donna was not insensible to his delicate attentions and tender discourse.

Balthasar, the most impatient and persevering of all, went out to explore the village. In an hour's time he returned in triumph to his friends, in a light cart drawn by a strong horse. Unfortunately the cart held but two persons.

"I will set out alone," said Balthasar. "On reaching Karlstadt, I will go to the Grand Duke, explain our position, and I have no doubt he will immediately send carriages to convey you to his capital."

These consolatory words were received with loud cheers by the actors. The driver, a peasant lad, cracked his whip, and the stout Mecklenburg horse set out at a small trot. Upon the way, Balthasar questioned his guide as to the extent, resources, and prosperity of the Grand Duchy, but could obtain no satisfactory reply; the young peasant was profoundly ignorant upon all these subjects. The four leagues were got over in something less than three hours, which is rather rapid travelling for Germany. It was nearly dark when Balthasar entered Karlstadt. The shops were shut, and there were few persons in the streets; people are early in their habits in the happy lands on the Rhine's right bank. Presently the cart stopped before a good-sized house.

"You told me to take you to our prince's palace," said the driver, "and here it is." Balthasar alighted and entered the dwelling, unchallenged and unimpeded by the sentry who paced lazily up and down in its front. In the entrance-hall the manager met a porter, who bowed gravely to him as he passed; he walked on and passed through an empty anteroom. In the first apartment, appropriated to gentlemen-in-waiting, aides-de-camp, equerries, and other dignitaries of various degree, he found nobody; in a second saloon, lighted by a dim and smoky lamp, was an old gentleman, dressed in black, with powdered hair, who rose slowly at his entrance, looked at him with surprise, and inquired his pleasure.

"I wish to see his Serene Highness, the Grand Duke Leopold," replied Balthasar.

"The prince does not grant audiences at this hour," the old gentleman dryly answered.

"His Highness expects me," was the confident reply of Balthasar.

"That is another thing. I will inquire if it be his Highness's pleasure to receive you. Whom shall I announce?"

"The manager of the Court theatre."

The gentleman bowed, and left Balthasar alone. The pertinacious manager already began to doubt the success of his audacity, when he heard the Grand Duke's voice, saying, "Show him in."

He entered. The sovereign of Niesenstein was alone, seated in a large arm-chair, at a table covered with a green cloth, upon which were a confused medley of letters and newspapers, an inkstand, a tobacco-bag, two wax-lights, a sugar-basin, a sword, a plate, gloves, a bottle, books, and a goblet of Bohemian glass, artistically engraved. His Highness was engrossed in a thoroughly national occupation; he was smoking one of those long pipes which Germans rarely lay aside except to eat or to sleep.

The manager of the Court theatre bowed thrice, as if he had been advancing to the foot-lights to address the public; then he stood still and silent, awaiting the prince's pleasure. But, although he said nothing, his countenance was so expressive that the Grand Duke answered him.

"Yes," he said, "here you are. I recollect you perfectly, and I have not forgotten our agreement. But you come at a very unfortunate moment, my dear sir!"

"I crave your Highness's pardon if I have chosen an improper hour to seek an audience," replied Balthasar with another bow.

"It is not the hour that I am thinking of," answered the prince quickly. "Would that were all! See, here is your letter; I was just now reading it, and regretting that, instead of writing to me only three days ago, when you were half-way here, you had not done so two or three weeks before starting."

"I did wrong."

"More so than you think; for, had you sooner warned me, I would have spared you a useless journey."

"Useless!" exclaimed Balthasar aghast. "Has your Highness changed your mind?"

"Not at all; I am still passionately fond of the drama, and should be delighted to have a French theatre here. As far as that goes, my ideas and tastes are in no way altered since last summer; but, unfortunately, I am unable to satisfy them. Look here," continued the prince, rising from his arm-chair. He took Balthasar's arm and led him to a window: "I told you, last year, that I was building a magnificent theatre in my capital."

"Your Highness did tell me so."

"Well, look yonder, on the other side of the square; there the theatre is!"

"Your Highness, I see nothing but an open space; a building commenced, and as yet scarcely risen above the foundation."

"Precisely so; that is the theatre."

"Your Highness told me it would be completed before the end of winter."

"I did not then foresee that I should have to stop the works for want of cash to pay the workmen. Such is my present position. If I have no theatre ready to receive you, and if I cannot take you and your company into my pay, it is because I have not the means. The coffers of the State and my privy purse are alike empty. You are astounded!--Adversity respects nobody--not even Grand Dukes. But I support its assaults with philosophy: try to follow my example; and, by way of a beginning, take a chair and a pipe, fill yourself a glass of wine, and drink to the return of my prosperity. Since you suffer for my misfortunes, I owe you an explanation. Although I never had much order in my expenditure, I had every reason, at the time I first met with you, to believe my finances in a flourishing condition. It was not until the commencement of the present year that I discovered the contrary to be the case. Last year was a bad one; hail ruined our crops, and money was hard to get in. The salaries of my household were in arrear, and my officers murmured. For the first time I ordered a statement of my affairs to be laid before me, and I found that ever since my accession I had been exceeding my revenue. My first act of sovereignty had been a considerable diminution of the taxes paid to my predecessors. Hence the evil, which had annually augmented, and now I am ruined, loaded with debts, and without means of repairing the disaster. My privy-councillors certainly proposed a way; it was to double the taxes, raise extraordinary contributions--to squeeze my subjects, in short. A fine plan, indeed! to make the poor pay for my improvidence and disorder! Such things may occur in other States, but they shall not occur in mine. Justice before everything. I prefer enduring my difficulties to making my subjects suffer."

"Excellent prince!" exclaimed Balthasar, touched by these generous sentiments. The Grand Duke smiled.

"Do you turn flatterer?" he said. "Beware! it is an arduous post, and you will have none to help you. I have no longer wherewith to pay flatterers; my courtiers have fled. You have seen the emptiness of my anterooms; you met neither chamberlain nor equerry upon your entrance. All those gentlemen have given in their resignations. The civil and military officers of my house, secretaries, aides-de-camp, and others, left me, because I could no longer pay them their wages. I am alone; a few faithful and patient servants are all that remain, and the most important personage of my court is now honest Sigismund, my old valet-de-chambre."

These last words were spoken in a melancholy tone, which pained Balthasar. The eyes of the honest manager glistened. The Grand Duke detected his sympathy.

"Do not pity me," he said with a smile. "It is no sorrow to me to have got rid of a wearisome etiquette, and, at the same time, of a pack of spies and hypocrites, by whom I was formerly from morning till night beset."

The cheerful frankness of the Grand Duke's manner forbade doubt of his sincerity. Balthasar congratulated him on his courage.

"I need it more than you think!" replied Leopold, "and I cannot answer for having enough to support the blows that threaten me. The desertion of my courtiers would be nothing did I owe it only to the bad state of my finances: as soon as I found myself in funds again I could buy others or take back the old ones, and amuse myself by putting my foot upon their servile necks. Then they would be as humble as now they are insolent. But their defection is an omen of other dangers. As the diplomatists say, clouds are at the political horizon. Poverty alone would not have sufficed to clear my palace of men who are as greedy of honours as they are of money; they would have waited for better days; their vanity would have consoled their avarice. If they fled, it was because they felt the ground shake beneath their feet, and because they are in league with my enemies. I cannot shut my eyes to impending dangers. I am on bad terms with Austria; Metternich looks askance at me; at Vienna I am considered too liberal, too popular: they say that I set a bad example; they reproach me with cheap government, and with not making my subjects sufficiently feel the yoke. Thus do they accumulate pretexts for playing me a scurvy trick. One of my cousins, a colonel in the Austrian service, covets my Grand Duchy. Although I say _grand_, it is but ten leagues long and eight leagues broad: but such as it is, it suits me; I am accustomed to it, I have the habit of ruling it, and I should miss it were I deprived of it. My cousin has the audacity to dispute my incontestable rights; this is a mere pretext for litigation, but he has carried the case before the Aulic Council, and notwithstanding the excellence of my right I still may lose my cause, for I have no money wherewith to enlighten my judges. My enemies are powerful, treason surrounds me; they try to take advantage of my financial embarrassments, first to make me bankrupt and then to depose me. In this critical conjuncture, I should be only too delighted to have a company of players to divert my thoughts from my troubles--but I have neither theatre nor money. So it is impossible for me to keep you, my dear manager, and, believe me, I am as grieved at it as you can be. All I can do is to give you, out of the little I have left, a small indemnity to cover your travelling expenses and take you back to France. Come and see me to-morrow morning; we will settle this matter, and you shall take your leave."

Balthasar's attention and sympathy had been so completely engrossed by the Grand Duke's misfortunes, and by his revelations of his political and financial difficulties, that his own troubles had quite gone out of his thoughts. When he quitted the palace they came back upon him like a thunder-cloud. How was he to satisfy the actors, whom he had brought two hundred leagues away from Paris? What could he say to them, how appease them? The unhappy manager passed a miserable night. At daybreak he rose and went out into the open air, to calm his agitation and seek a mode of extrication from his difficulties. During a two hours' walk he had abundant time to visit every corner of Karlstadt, and to admire the beauties of that celebrated capital. He found it an elegant town, with wide straight streets cutting completely across it, so that he could see through it at a glance. The houses were pretty and uniform, and the windows were provided with small indiscreet mirrors, which reflected the passers-by and transported the street into the drawing-room, so that the worthy Karlstadters could satisfy their curiosity without quitting their easy chairs. An innocent recreation, much affected by German burghers. As regarded trade and manufactures, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Niesenstein did not seem to be very much occupied with either. It was anything but a bustling city; luxury had made but little progress there; and its prosperity was due chiefly to the moderate desires and phlegmatic philosophy of its inhabitants.

In such a country a company of actors had no chance of a livelihood. There is nothing for it but to return to France, thought Balthasar, after making the circuit of the city: then he looked at his watch, and, deeming the hour suitable, he took the road to the palace, which he entered with as little ceremony as upon the preceding evening. The faithful Sigismund, doing duty as gentleman-in-waiting, received him as an old acquaintance, and forthwith ushered him into the Grand Duke's presence. His Highness seemed more depressed than upon the previous day. He was pacing the room with long strides, his eyes cast down, his arms folded. In his hand he held papers, whose perusal it apparently was that had thus discomposed him. For some moments he said nothing; then he suddenly stopped before Balthasar.

"You find me less calm," he said, "than I was last night. I have just received unpleasant news. I am heartily sick of these perpetual vexations, and gladly would I resign this poor sovereignty, this crown of thorns they seek to snatch from me, did not honour command me to maintain to the last my legitimate rights. Yes," vehemently exclaimed the Grand Duke, "at this moment a tranquil existence is all I covet, and I would willingly give up my Grand Duchy, my title, my crown, to live quietly at Paris, as a private gentleman, upon thirty thousand francs a-year."

"I believe so, indeed!" cried Balthasar, who, in his wildest dreams of fortune, had never dared aspire so high. His artless exclamation made the prince smile. It needed but a trifle to dissipate his vexation, and to restore that upper current of easy good temper which habitually floated upon the surface of his character.

"You think," he gaily cried, "that some, in my place, would be satisfied with less, and that thirty thousand francs a-year, with independence and the pleasures of Paris, compose a lot more enviable than the government of all the Grand Duchies in the world. My own experience tells me that you are right; for, ten years ago, when I was but hereditary prince, I passed six months at Paris, rich, independent, careless; and memory declares those to have been the happiest days of my life."

"Well! if you were to sell all you have, could you not realise that fortune? Besides, the cousin, of whom you did me the honour to speak to me yesterday, would probably gladly insure you an income if you yielded him your place here. But will your Highness permit me to speak plainly?"

"By all means."

"The tranquil existence of a private gentleman would doubtless have many charms for you, and you say so in all sincerity of heart; but, upon the other hand, you set store by your crown, though you may not admit it to yourself. In a moment of annoyance it is easy to exaggerate the charms of tranquillity, and the pleasures of private life; but a throne, however rickety, is a seat which none willingly quit. That is my opinion, formed at the dramatic school: it is perhaps a reminiscence of some old part, but truth is sometimes found upon the stage. Since, therefore, all things considered, to stay where you are is that which best becomes you, you ought----But I crave your Highness's pardon, I am perhaps speaking too freely----"

"Speak on, my dear manager, freely and fearlessly; I listen to you with pleasure. I ought, you were about to say?----"

"Instead of abandoning yourself to despair and poetry, instead of contenting yourself with succumbing nobly, like some ancient Roman, you ought boldly to combat the peril. Circumstances are favourable; you have neither ministers nor state-councillors to mislead you, and embarrass your plans. Strong in your good right, and in your subjects' love, it is impossible you should not find means of retrieving your finances and strengthening your position."

"There is but one means, and that is--a good marriage."

"Excellent! I had not thought of it. You are a bachelor! A good marriage is salvation. It is thus that great houses, menaced with ruin, regain their former splendour. You must marry an heiress, the only daughter of some rich banker."

"You forget--it would be derogatory. _I_ am free from such prejudices, but what would Austria say if I thus condescended? It would be another charge to bring against me. And then a banker's millions would not suffice; I must ally myself with a powerful family, whose influence will strengthen mine. Only a few days ago, I thought such an alliance within my grasp. A neighbouring prince, Maximilian of Hanau, who is in high favour at Vienna, has a sister to marry. The Princess Wilhelmina is young, handsome, amiable, and rich; I have already entered upon the preliminaries of a matrimonial negotiation, but two despatches, received this morning, destroy all my hopes. Hence the low spirits in which you find me."

"Perhaps," said Balthasar, "your Highness too easily gives way to discouragement."

"Judge for yourself. I have a rival, the Elector of Saxe-Tolpelhausen; his territories are less considerable than mine, but he is more solidly established in his little electorate than I am in my grand-duchy."

"Pardon me, your Highness; I saw the Elector of Saxe-Tolpelhausen last year at Baden-Baden, and, without flattery, he cannot for an instant be compared with your Highness. You are hardly thirty, and he is more than forty; you have a good figure, he is heavy, clumsy, and ill-made; your countenance is noble and agreeable, his common and displeasing; your hair is light brown, his bright red. The Princess Wilhelmina is sure to prefer you."

"Perhaps so, if she were asked; but she is in the power of her august brother, who will marry her to whom he pleases."

"That must be prevented."

"How?"

"By winning the young lady's affections. Love has so many resources. Every day one sees marriages for money broken off, and replaced by marriages for love."

"Yes, one sees that in plays----"

"Which afford excellent lessons."

"For people of a certain class, but not for princes."

"Why not make the attempt? If I dared advise you, it would be to set out to-morrow, and pay a visit to the Prince of Hanau."

"Unnecessary. To see the prince and his sister, I need not stir hence. One of these despatches announces their early arrival at Karlstadt. They are on their way hither. On their return from a journey into Prussia, they pass through my territories and pause in my capital, inviting themselves as my guests for two or three days. Their visit is my ruin. What will they think of me when they find me alone, deserted, in my empty palace? Do you suppose the Princess will be tempted to share my dismal solitude? Last year she went to Saxe-Tolpelhausen. The Elector entertained her well, and made his court agreeable. _He_ could place chamberlains and aides-de-camp at her orders, could give concerts, balls, and festivals. But I--what can _I_ do? What a humiliation! And, that no affront may be spared to me, my rival proposes negotiating his marriage at my own court! Nothing less, it seems, will satisfy him! He has just sent me an ambassador, Baron Pippinstir, deputed, he writes, to conclude a commercial treaty which will be extremely advantageous to me. The treaty is but a pretext. The Baron's true mission is to the Prince of Hanau. The meeting is skilfully contrived, for the secret and unostentatious conclusion of the matrimonial treaty. This is what I am condemned to witness! I must endure this outrage and mortification, and display, before the prince and his sister, my misery and poverty. I would do anything to avoid such shame!"

"Means might, perhaps, be found," said Balthasar, after a moment's reflection.

"Means? Speak, and whatever they be, I adopt them."

"The plan is a bold one!" continued Balthasar, speaking half to the Grand Duke and half to himself, as if pondering and weighing a project.

"No matter! I will risk everything."

"You would like to conceal your real position, to re-people this palace, to have a court?"

"Yes."

"Do you think the courtiers who have deserted you would return?"

"Never. Did I not tell you they are sold to my enemies?"

"Could you not select others from the higher class of your subjects?"

"Impossible! There are very few gentlemen amongst my subjects. Ah! if a court could be got up at a day's notice! though it were to be composed of the humblest citizens of Karlstadt----"

"I have better than that to offer you."

"_You_ have? And whom do you offer?" cried Duke Leopold, greatly astonished.

"My actors."

"What! you would have me make up a court of your actors?"

"Yes, your Highness, and you could not do better. Observe that my actors are accustomed to play all manner of parts, and that they will be perfectly at their ease when performing those of noblemen and high officials. I answer for their talent, discretion, and probity. As soon as your illustrious guests have departed, and you no longer need their services, they shall resign their posts. Bear in mind that you have no other alternative. Time is short, danger at your door, hesitation is destruction."

"But, if such a trick were discovered!----"

"A mere supposition, a chimerical fear. On the other hand, if you do not run the risk I propose, your ruin is certain."

The Grand Duke was easily persuaded. Careless and easy-going, he yet was not wanting in determination, nor in a certain love of hazardous enterprises. He remembered that fortune is said to favour the bold, and his desperate position increased his courage. With joyful intrepidity he accepted and adopted Balthasar's scheme.

"Bravo!" cried the manager; "you shall have no cause to repent. You behold in me a sample of your future courtiers; and since honours and dignities are to be distributed, it is with me, if you please, that we will begin. In this request I act up to the spirit of my part. A courtier should always be asking for something, should lose no opportunity, and should profit by his rivals' absence to obtain the best place. I entreat your Highness to have the goodness to name me prime minister."

"Granted!" gaily replied the prince. "Your Excellency may immediately enter upon your functions."

"My Excellency will not fail to do so, and begins by requesting your signature to a few decrees I am about to draw up. But in the first place, your Highness must be so good as to answer two or three questions, that I may understand the position of affairs. A new-comer in a country, and a novice in a minister's office, has need of instruction. If it became necessary to enforce your commands, have you the means of so doing?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Your Highness has soldiers?"

"A regiment."

"How many men?"

"One hundred and twenty, besides the musicians."

"Are they obedient, devoted?"

"Passive obedience, unbounded devotion; soldiers and officers would die for me to the last man."

"It is their duty. Another question: Have you a prison in your dominions?"

"Certainly."

"I mean a good prison, strong and well-guarded, with thick walls, solid bars, stern and incorruptible jailors?"

"I have every reason to believe that the Castle of Zwingenberg combines all those requisites. The fact is, I have made very little use of it; but it was built by a man who understood such matters--by my father's great-grandfather, Rudolph the Inflexible."

"A fine surname for a sovereign! Your Inflexible ancestor, I am very sure, never lacked either cash or courtiers. Your Highness has perhaps done wrong to leave the state-prison untenanted. A prison requires to be inhabited, like any other building; and the first act of the authority with which you have been pleased to invest me, will be a salutary measure of incarceration. I presume the Castle of Zwingenberg will accommodate a score of prisoners?"

"What! you are going to imprison twenty persons?"

"More or less. I do not yet know the exact number of the persons who composed your late court. They it is whom I propose lodging within the lofty walls constructed by the Inflexible Rudolph. The measure is indispensable."

"But it is illegal!"

"I crave your Highness's pardon; you use a word I do not understand. It seems to me that, in every good German government, that which is absolutely necessary is necessarily legal. That is my policy. Moreover, as prime minister, I am responsible. What would you have more? It is plain that, if we leave your courtiers their liberty, it will be impossible to perform our comedy; they will betray us. Therefore the welfare of the state imperatively demands their imprisonment. Besides, you yourself have said that they are traitors, and therefore they deserve punishment. For your own safety's sake, for the success of your project--which will insure the happiness of your subjects--write the names, sign the order, and inflict upon the deserters the lenient chastisement of a week's captivity."

The Grand Duke wrote the names and signed several orders, which were forthwith intrusted to the most active and determined officers of the regiment, with instructions to make the arrests at once, and to take their prisoners to the Castle of Zwingenberg, at three quarters of a league from Karlstadt.

"All that now remains to be done is to send for your new court," said Balthasar. "Has your Highness carriages?"

"Certainly! a berlin, a barouche, and a cabriolet."

"And horses?"

"Six draught and two saddle."

"I take the barouche, the berlin, and four horses; I go to Krusthal, put my actors up to their parts, and bring them here this evening. We instal ourselves in the palace, and shall be at once at your Highness's orders."

"Very good; but, before going, write an answer to Baron Pippinstir, who asks an audience."

"Two lines, very dry and official, putting him off till to-morrow. We must be under arms to receive him.... Here is the note written, but how shall I sign it? The name of Balthasar is not very suitable to a German Excellency."

"True, you must have another name, and a title; I create you Count Lipandorf."

"Thanks, your Highness. I will bear the title nobly, and restore it to you faithfully, with my seals of office, when the comedy is played out."

Count Lipandorf signed the letter, which Sigismund was ordered to take to Baron Pippinstir; then he started for Krusthal.

Next morning, the Grand Duke Leopold held a levee, which was attended by all the officers of his new court. And as soon as he was dressed he received the ladies with infinite grace and affability.

Ladies and officers were attired in their most elegant theatrical costumes; the Grand Duke appeared greatly satisfied with their bearing and manners. The first compliments over, there came a general distribution of titles and offices.

The lover, Florival, was appointed aide-de-camp to the Grand Duke, colonel of hussars, and Count Reinsburg.

Rigolet, the low comedian, was named grand chamberlain, and Baron Fidibus.

Similor, who performed the valets, was master of the horse and Baron Kockemburg.

Anselmo, walking gentleman, was promoted to be gentleman in waiting and Chevalier Grillenfanger.

The leader of the band, Lebel, was appointed superintendant of the music and amusements of the court, with the title of Chevalier Arpeggio.

The prima donna, Miss Delia, was created Countess of Rosenthal, an interesting orphan, whose dowry was to be the hereditary office of first lady of honour to the future Grand Duchess.

Miss Foligny, the singing chambermaid, was appointed widow of a general and Baroness Allenzau.

Miss Alice, walking lady, became Miss Fidibus, daughter of the chamberlain, and a rich heiress.

Finally, the duenna, Madame Pastorale, was called to the responsible station of mistress of the robes and governess of the maids of honour, under the imposing title of Baroness Schicklick.

The new dignitaries received decorations in proportion to their rank. Count Balthasar von Lipandorf, prime minister, had two stars and three grand crosses. The aide-de-camp, Florival von Reinsberg, fastened five crosses upon the breast of his hussar jacket.

The parts duly distributed and learned, there was a rehearsal, which went off excellently well. The Grand Duke deigned to superintend the getting up of the piece, and to give the actors a few useful hints.

Prince Maximilian of Hanau and his august sister were expected that evening. Time was precious. Pending their arrival, and by way of practising his court, the Grand Duke gave audience to the ambassador from Saxe-Tolpelhausen.

Baron Pippinstir was ushered into the Hall of the Throne. He had asked permission to present his wife at the same time as his credentials, and that favour had been granted him.

At sight of the diplomatist, the new courtiers, as yet unaccustomed to rigid decorum, had difficulty in keeping their countenances. The Baron was a man of fifty, prodigiously tall, singularly thin, abundantly powdered, with legs like hop-poles, clad in knee breeches and white silk stockings. A long slender pigtail danced upon his flexible back. He had a face like a bird of prey--little round eyes, a receding chin, and an enormous hooked nose. It was scarcely possible to look at him without laughing, especially when one saw him for the first time. His apple-green coat glittered with a profusion of embroidery. His chest being too narrow to admit of a horizontal development of his decorations, he wore them in two columns, extending from his collar to his waist. When he approached the Grand Duke, with a self-satisfied simper and a jaunty air, his sword by his side, his cocked hat under his arm, nothing was wanting to complete the caricature.

The Baroness Pippinstir was a total contrast to her husband. She was a pretty little woman of five-and-twenty, as plump as a partridge, with a lively eye, a nice figure, and an engaging smile. There was mischief in her glance, seduction in her dimples, and the rose's tint upon her cheeks. Her dress was the only ridiculous thing about her. To come to court, the little Baroness had put on all the finery she could muster; she sailed into the hall under a cloud of ribbons, sparkling with jewels and fluttering with plumes--the loftiest of which, however, scarcely reached to the shoulder of her lanky spouse.

Completely identifying himself with his part of prime minister, Balthasar, as soon as this oddly-assorted pair appeared, decided upon his plan of campaign. His natural penetration told him the diplomatist's weak point. He felt that the Baron, who was old and ugly, must be jealous of his wife, who was young and pretty. He was not mistaken. Pippinstir was as jealous as a tiger-cat. Recently married, the meagre diplomatist had not dared to leave his wife at Saxe-Tolpelhausen, for fear of accidents; he would not lose sight of her, and had brought her to Karlstadt in the arrogant belief that danger vanished in his presence.

After exchanging a few diplomatic phrases with the ambassador, Balthasar took Colonel Florival aside and gave him secret instructions. The dashing officer passed his hand through his richly-curling locks, adjusted his splendid pelisse, and approached Baroness Pippinstir. The ambassadress received him graciously; the handsome colonel had already attracted her attention, and soon she was delighted with his wit and gallant speeches. Florival did not lack imagination, and his memory was stored with well-turned phrases and sentimental tirades, borrowed from stage-plays. He spoke half from inspiration, half from memory, and he was listened to with favour.

The conversation was carried on in French--for the best of reasons.

"It is the custom here," said the Grand Duke to the ambassador; "French is the only language spoken in this palace; it is a regulation I had some difficulty in enforcing, and I was at last obliged to decree that a heavy penalty should be paid for every German word spoken by a person attached to my court. That proved effectual, and you will not easily catch any of these ladies and gentlemen tripping. My prime minister, Count Balthasar von Lipandorf, is the only one who is permitted occasionally to speak his native language."

Balthasar, who had long managed theatres in Alsace and Lorraine, spoke German like a Frankfort brewer.

Meanwhile, Baron Pippinstir's uneasiness was extreme. Whilst his wife conversed in a low voice with the young and fascinating aide-de-camp, the pitiless prime minister held his arm tight, and explained at great length his views with respect to the famous commercial treaty. Caught in his own snare, the unlucky diplomatist was in agony; he fidgeted to get away, his countenance expressed grievous uneasiness, his lean legs were convulsively agitated. But in vain did he endeavour to abridge his torments; the remorseless Balthasar relinquished not his prey.

Sigismund, promoted to be steward of the household, announced dinner. The ambassador and his lady had been invited to dine, as well as all the courtiers. The aide-de-camp was placed next to the Baroness, the Baron at the other end of the table. The torture was prolonged. Florival continued to whisper soft nonsense to the fair and well-pleased Pippinstir. The diplomatist could not eat.

There was another person present whom Florival's flirtation annoyed, and that person was Delia, Countess of Rosenthal. After dinner, Balthasar, whom nothing escaped, took her aside.

"You know very well," said the minister, "that he is only acting a part in a comedy. Should you feel hurt if he declared his love upon the stage, to one of your comrades? Here it is the same thing; all this is but a play; when the curtain falls, he will return to you."

A courier announced that the Prince of Hanau and his sister were within a league of Karlstadt. The Grand Duke, attended by Count Reinsberg and some officers, went to meet them. It was dark when the illustrious guests reached the palace; they passed through the great saloon, where the whole court was assembled to receive them, and retired at once to their apartments.

"The game is fairly begun," said the Grand Duke to his prime minister; "and now, may heaven help us!"

"Fear nothing," replied Balthasar. "The glimpse I caught of Prince Maximilian's physiognomy satisfied me that everything will pass off perfectly well, and without exciting the least suspicion. As to Baron Pippinstir, he is already blind with jealousy, and Florival will give him so much to do, that he will have no time to attend to his master's business. Things look well."

Next morning, the Prince and Princess of Hanau were welcomed, on awakening, by a serenade from the regimental band. The weather was beautiful; the Grand Duke proposed an excursion out of town; he was glad of an opportunity to show his guests the best features of his duchy--a delightful country, and many picturesque points of view, much prized and sketched by German landscape-painters. The proposal agreed to, the party set out, in carriages and on horseback, for the old Castle of Rauberzell--magnificent ruins, dating from the middle ages, and famous far and wide. At a short distance from the castle, which lifted its grey turrets upon the summit of a wooded hill, the Princess Wilhelmina expressed a wish to walk the remainder of the way. Everybody followed her example. The Grand Duke offered her his arm; the Prince gave his to the Countess Delia von Rosenthal; and, at a sign from Balthasar, Baroness Pastorale von Schicklick took possession of Baron Pippinstir; whilst the smiling Baroness accepted Florival's escort. The young people walked at a brisk pace. The unfortunate Baron would gladly have availed himself of his long legs to keep up with his coquettish wife; but the duenna, portly and ponderous, hung upon his arm, checked his ardour, and detained him in the rear. Respect for the mistress of the robes forbade rebellion or complaint.

Amidst the ruins of the venerable castle, the distinguished party found a table spread with an elegant collation. It was an agreeable surprise, and the Grand Duke had all the credit of an idea suggested to him by his prime minister.

The whole day was passed in rambling through the beautiful forest of Rauberzell. The Princess was charming; nothing could exceed the high-breeding of the courtiers, or the fascination and elegance of the ladies; and Prince Maximilian warmly congratulated the Grand Duke on having a court composed of such agreeable and accomplished persons. Baroness Pippinstir declared, in a moment of enthusiasm, that the court of Saxe-Tolpelhausen was not to compare with that of Niesenstein. She could hardly have said anything more completely at variance with the object of her husband's mission. The Baron was near fainting.

Like not a few of her countrywomen, the Princess Wilhelmina had a strong predilection for Parisian fashions. She admired everything that came from France; she spoke French perfectly, and greatly approved the Grand Duke's decree, forbidding any other language to be spoken at his court. Moreover, there was nothing extraordinary in such a regulation; French is the language of all the northern courts. But she was greatly tickled at the notion of a fine being inflicted for a single German word. She amused herself by trying to catch some of the Grand Duke's courtiers transgressing in this respect. Her labour was completely lost.

That evening, at the palace, when conversation began to languish, the Chevalier Arpeggio sat down to the piano, and the Countess Delia von Rosenthal sang an air out of the last new opera. The guests were enchanted with her performance. Prince Maximilian had been extremely attentive to the Countess during their excursion; the young actress's grace and beauty had captivated him, and the charm of her voice completed his subjugation. Passionately fond of music, every note she sang went to his very heart. When she had finished one song, he petitioned for another. The amiable prima donna sang a duet with the aide-de-camp Florival von Reinsberg, and then, being further entreated, a trio, in which Similor--master of the horse, barytone, and Baron von Kockemburg--took a part.

Here our actors were at home, and their success was complete. Deviating from his usual reserve, Prince Maximilian did not disguise his delight; and the imprudent little Baroness Pippinstir declared that, with such a beautiful tenor voice, an aide-de-camp might aspire to anything. A cemetery on a wet day is a cheerful sight, compared to the Baron's countenance when he heard these words.

Upon the morrow, a hunting-party was the order of the day. In the evening there was a dance. It had been proposed to invite the principal families of the metropolis of Niesenstein, but the Prince and Princess begged that the circle might not be increased.

"We are four ladies," said the Princess, glancing at the prima donna, the singing chambermaid, and the walking lady, "it is enough for a quadrille."

There was no lack of gentlemen. There was the Grand Duke, the aide-de-camp, the grand chamberlain, the master of the horse, the gentleman-in-waiting, and Prince Maximilian's aide-de-camp, Count Darius von Sturmhaube, who appeared greatly smitten by the charms of the widowed Baroness Allenzau.

"I am sorry my court is not more numerous," said the Grand Duke, "but, within the last three days, I have been compelled to diminish it by one-half."

"How so?" inquired Prince Maximilian.

"A dozen courtiers," replied the Grand Duke Leopold, "whom I had loaded with favours, dared conspire against me, in favour of a certain cousin of mine at Vienna. I discovered the plot, and the plotters are now in the dungeons of my good fortress of Zwingenberg."

"Well done!" cried the Prince; "I like such energy and vigour. And to think that people taxed you with weakness of character! How we princes are deceived and calumniated."

The Grand Duke cast a grateful glance at Balthasar. That able minister by this time felt himself as much at his ease in his new office as if he had held it all his life; he even began to suspect that the government of a grand-duchy is a much easier matter than the management of a company of actors. Incessantly engrossed by his master's interests, he manoeuvred to bring about the marriage which was to give the Grand Duke happiness, wealth, and safety; but, notwithstanding his skill, notwithstanding the torments with which he had filled the jealous soul of Pippinstir, the ambassador devoted the scanty moments of repose his wife left him to furthering the object of his mission. The alliance with Saxe-Tolpelhausen was pleasing to Prince Maximilian; it offered him various advantages: the extinction of an old law-suit between the two states, the cession of a large extent of territory, and, finally, the commercial treaty, which the perfidious Baron had brought to the court of Niesenstein, with a view of concluding it in favour of the principality of Hanau. Invested with unlimited powers, the diplomatist was ready to insert in the contract almost any conditions Prince Maximilian chose to dictate to him.

It is necessary here to remark that the Elector of Saxe-Tolpelhausen was desperately in love with the Princess Wilhelmina.

It was evident that the Baron would carry the day, if the prime minister did not hit upon some scheme to destroy his credit or force him to retreat. Balthasar, fertile in expedients, was teaching Florival his part in the palace garden, when Prince Maximilian met him, and requested a moment's private conversation.

"I am at your Highness's orders," respectfully replied the minister.

"I will go straight to the point, Count Lipandorf," the Prince began. "I married my late wife, a princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, from political motives. She has left me three sons. I now intend to marry again; but this time I need not sacrifice myself to state considerations, and I am determined to consult my heart alone."

"If your Highness does me the honour to consult _me_, I have merely to say that you are perfectly justified in acting as you propose. After once sacrificing himself to his people's happiness, a prince has surely a right to think a little of his own."

"Exactly my opinion! Count, I will tell you a secret. I am in love with Miss von Rosenthal."

"Miss Delia?"

"Yes, sir; with Miss Delia, Countess of Rosenthal; and, what is more, I will tell you that _I know everything_."

"What may it be that your Highness knows?"

"I know who she is."

"Ha!"

"It was a great secret!"

"And how came your Highness to discover it?"

"The Grand Duke revealed it to me."

"I might have guessed as much!"

"He alone could do so, and I rejoice that I addressed myself directly to him. At first, when I questioned him concerning the young Countess's family, he ill concealed his embarrassment: her position struck me as strange; young, beautiful, and alone in the world, without relatives or guardians--all that seemed to me singular, if not suspicious. I trembled, as the possibility of an intrigue flashed upon me; but the Grand Duke, to dissipate my unfounded suspicion, told me all."

"And what is your Highness's decision?... After such a revelation----"

"It in no way changes my intentions. I shall marry the lady."

"Marry her?... But no, your Highness jests."

"Count Lipandorf, I never jest. What is there, then, so strange in my determination? The Grand Duke's father was romantic, and of a roving disposition; in the course of his life he contracted several left-handed alliances--Miss von Rosenthal is the issue of one of those unions. I care not for the illegitimacy of her birth; she is of noble blood of a princely race--that is all I require."

"Yes," replied Balthasar, who had concealed his surprise and kept his countenance, as became an experienced statesman and consummate comedian--"Yes, I now understand; and I think as you do. Your Highness has the talent of bringing everybody over to your way of thinking."

"The greatest piece of good fortune," continued the Prince, "is that the mother remained unknown: she is dead, and there is no trace of family on that side."

"As your Highness says, it is very fortunate. And doubtless the Grand Duke is informed of your august intentions with respect to the proposed marriage?"

"No; I have as yet said nothing either to him or to the Countess. I reckon upon you, my dear Count, to make my offer, to whose acceptance I trust there will not be the slightest obstacle. I give you the rest of the day to arrange everything. I will write to Miss von Rosenthal; I hope to receive from her own lips the assurance of my happiness, and I will beg her to bring me her answer herself, this evening, in the summer-house in the park. Lover-like, you see--a rendezvous, a mysterious interview! But come, Count Lipandorf, lose no time; a double tie shall bind me to your sovereign. We will sign, at one and the same time, my marriage-contract and his. On that condition alone will I grant him my sister's hand; otherwise I treat, this very evening, with the envoy from Saxe-Tolpelhausen."

A quarter of an hour after Prince Maximilian had made this overture, Balthasar and Delia were closeted with the Grand Duke.

What was to be done? The Prince of Hanau was noted for his obstinacy. He would have excellent reasons to oppose to all objections. To confess the deception that had been practised upon him was equivalent to a total and eternal rupture. But, upon the other hand, to leave him in his error, to suffer him to marry an actress! it was a serious matter. If ever he discovered the truth, it would be enough to raise the entire German Confederation against the Grand Duke of Niesenstein.

"What is my prime minister's opinion?" asked the Grand Duke.

"A prompt retreat. Delia must instantly quit the town; we will devise an explanation of her sudden departure."

"Yes; and this evening Prince Maximilian will sign his sister's marriage-contract with the Elector of Saxe-Tolpelhausen. My opinion is, that we have advanced too far to retreat. If the prince ever discovers the truth, he will be the person most interested to conceal it. Besides, Miss Delia is an orphan--she has neither parents nor family. I adopt her--I acknowledge her as my sister."

"Your Highness's goodness and condescension----" lisped the pretty prima donna.

"You agree with me, do you not, Miss Delia?" continued the Grand Duke. "You are resolved to seize the good fortune thus offered, and to risk the consequences?"

"Yes, your Highness."

The ladies will make allowance for Delia's faithlessness to Florival. How few female heads would not be turned by the prospect of wearing a crown! The heart's voice is sometimes mute in presence of such brilliant temptations. Besides, was not Florival faithless? Who could say whither he might be led in the course of the tender scenes he acted with the Baroness Pippinstir? Prince Maximilian was neither young nor handsome, but he offered a throne. Not only an actress, but many a high-born dame, might possibly, in such circumstances, forget her love, and think only of her ambition.

To her credit be it said, Delia did not yield without some reluctance to the Grand Duke's arguments, which Balthasar backed with all his eloquence; but she ended by agreeing to the interview with Prince Maximilian.

"I accept," she resolutely exclaimed; "I shall be sovereign Princess of Hanau."

"And I," cried the Grand Duke, "shall marry Princess Wilhelmina, and, this very evening, poor Pippinstir, disconcerted and defeated, will go back to Saxe-Tolpelhausen."

"He would have done that in any case," said Balthasar; "for, this evening, Florival was to have run away with his wife."

"That is carrying things rather far," Delia remarked.

"Such a scandal is unnecessary," added the Grand Duke.

Whilst awaiting the hour of her rendezvous with the Prince, Delia, pensive and agitated, was walking in the park, when she came suddenly upon Florival, who seemed as much discomposed as herself. In spite of her newly-born ideas of grandeur, she felt a pain at her heart. With a forced smile, and in a tone of reproach and irony, she greeted her former lover.

"A pleasant journey to you, Colonel Florival," she said.

"I may wish you the same," replied Florival; "for doubtless you will soon set out for the principality of Hanau!"

"Before long, no doubt."

"You admit it, then?"

"Where is the harm? The wife must follow her husband--a princess must reign in her dominions."

"Princess! What do you mean? Wife! In what ridiculous promises have they induced you to confide?"

Florival's offensive doubts were dissipated by the formal explanation which Delia took malicious pleasure in giving him. A touching scene ensued; the lovers, who had both gone astray for a moment, felt their former flame burn all the more ardently for its partial and temporary extinction. Pardon was mutually asked and granted, and ambitious dreams fled before a burst of affection.

"You shall see whether I love you or not," said Florival to Delia. "Yonder comes Baron Pippinstir; I will take him into the summer-house; a closet is there, where you can hide yourself to hear what passes, and then you shall decide my fate."

Delia went into the summer-house, and hid herself in the closet. There she overheard the following conversation:--

"What have you to say to me, Colonel?" asked the Baron.

"I wish to speak to your Excellency of an affair that deeply concerns you."

"I am all attention; but I beg you to be brief; I am expected elsewhere."

"So am I."

"I must go to the prime minister, to return him this draught of a commercial treaty, which I cannot accept."

"And I must go to the rendezvous given me in this letter."

"The Baroness's writing!"

"Yes, Baron. Your wife has done me the honour to write to me. We set out together to-night; the Baroness is waiting for me in a post-chaise."

"And it is to me you dare acknowledge this abominable project?"

"I am less generous than you think. You cannot but be aware that, owing to an irregularity in your marriage-contract, nothing would be easier than to get it annulled. This we will have done; we then obtain a divorce, and I marry the Baroness. You will, of course, have to hand me over her dowry--a million of florins--composing, if I do not mistake, your entire fortune."

The Baron, more dead than alive, sank into an arm-chair. He was struck speechless.

"We might, perhaps, make some arrangement, Baron," continued Florival. "I am not particularly bent upon becoming your wife's second husband."

"Ah, sir!" cried the ambassador, "you restore me to life!"

"Yes, but I will not restore you the Baroness, except on certain conditions."

"Speak! What do you demand?"

"First, that treaty of commerce, which you must sign just as Count Lipandorf has drawn it up."

"I consent to do so."

"That is not all; you shall take my place at the rendezvous, get into the post-chaise, and run away with your wife; but first you must sit down at this table and write a letter, in due diplomatic form, to Prince Maximilian, informing him that, finding it impossible to accept his stipulations, you are compelled to decline, in your sovereign's name, the honour of his august alliance."

"But, Colonel, remember that my instructions----"

"Very well, fulfil them exactly; be a dutiful ambassador and a miserable husband, ruined, without wife and without dowry. You will never have such another chance, Baron! A pretty wife and a million of florins do not fall to a man's lot twice in his life. But I must take my leave of you. I am keeping the Baroness waiting."

"I will go to her.... Give me paper, a pen, and be so good as to dictate. I am so agitated----"

The Baron really was in a dreadful fluster. The letter written, and the treaty signed, Florival told his Excellency where he would find the post-chaise.

"One thing more you must promise me," said the young man, "and that is, that you will behave like a gentleman to your wife, and not scold her over-much. Remember the flaw in the contract. She may find somebody else in whose favour to cancel the document. Suitors will not be wanting."

"What need of a promise?" replied the poor Baron. "You know very well that my wife does what she likes with me. I shall have to explain my conduct, and ask her pardon."

Pippinstir departed. Delia left her hiding-place, and held out her hand to Florival.

"You have behaved well," she said.

"That is more than the Baroness will say."

"She deserves the lesson. It is your turn to go into the closet and listen; the Prince will be here directly."

"I hear his footsteps." And Florival was quickly concealed.

"Charming Countess!" said the prince on entering. "I come to know my fate."

"What does your Highness mean?" said Delia, pretending not to understand him.

"How can you ask? Has not the Grand Duke spoken to you?"

"No, your Highness."

"Nor the prime minister?"

"Not a word. When I received your letter, I was on the point of asking you for a private interview. I have a favour--a service--to implore of your Highness."

"It is granted before it is asked. I place my whole influence and power at your feet, charming Countess."

"A thousand thanks, illustrious prince. You have already shown me so much kindness, that I venture to ask you to make a communication to my brother, the Grand Duke, which I dare not make myself. I want you to inform him that I have been for three months privately married to Count Reinsberg."

"Good heavens!" cried Maximilian, falling into the arm-chair in which Pippinstir had recently reclined. On recovering from the shock, the prince rose again to his feet.

"'Tis well, madam," he said, in a faint voice. "'Tis well!"

And he left the summer-house.

After reading Baron Pippinstir's letter, Prince Maximilian fell a-thinking. It was not the Grand Duke's fault if the Countess of Rosenthal did not ascend the throne of Hanau. There was an insurmountable obstacle. Then the precipitate departure of the ambassador of Saxe-Tolpelhausen was an affront which demanded instant vengeance. And the Grand Duke Leopold was a most estimable sovereign, skilful, energetic, and blessed with wise councillors; the Princess Wilhelmina liked him, and thought nothing could compare, for pleasantness, with his lively court, where all the men were amiable, and all the women charming. These various motives duly weighed, the Prince made up his mind, and next day was signed the marriage-contract of the Grand Duke of Niesenstein and the Princess Wilhelmina of Hanau.

Three days later the marriage itself was celebrated.

The play was played out.

The actors had performed their parts with wit, intelligence, and a noble disinterestedness. They took their leave of the Grand Duke, leaving him with a rich and pretty wife, a powerful brother-in-law, a serviceable alliance, and a commercial treaty which could not fail to replenish his treasury.

Embassies, special missions, banishment, were alleged to the Grand Duchess as the causes of their departure. Then an amnesty was published on the occasion of the marriage; the gates of the fortress of Zwingenberg opened, and the former courtiers resumed their respective posts.

The reviving fortunes of the Grand Duke were a sure guarantee of their fidelity.

THE OLD GENTLEMAN'S TEETOTUM.

[_MAGA._ AUGUST 1829.]

At the foot of the long range of the Mendip hills, standeth a village, which, for obvious reasons, we shall conceal the precise locality of, by bestowing thereon the appellation of Stockwell. It lieth in a nook, or indentation, of the mountain; and its population may be said, in more than one sense of the word, to be extremely dense, being confined within narrow limits by rocky and sterile ground, and a brawling stream, which ever and anon assumes the aspect of an impetuous river, and then dwindles away into a plaything for the little boys to hop over. The principal trade of the Stockwellites is in coals, which certain of the industrious operative natives sedulously employ themselves in extracting from our mother earth, while others are engaged in conveying the "black diamonds" to various adjacent towns, in carts of sundry shapes and dimensions. The horses engaged in this traffic are of the Rosinante species, and, too often, literally raw-boned; insomuch, that it is sometimes a grievous sight to see them tugging, and a woful thing to hear their masters swearing, when mounting a steep ascent with one of the aforesaid loads.

Wherever a civilised people dwell, there must be trade; and, consequently, Stockwell hath its various artisans, who ply, each in his vocation, to supply the wants of others; and, moreover, it hath its inn, or public house, a place of no small importance, having for its sign a swinging creaking board, whereon is emblazoned the effigy of a roaring, red, and rampant Lion. High towering above the said Lion, are the branches of a solitary elm, the foot of which is encircled by a seat, especially convenient for those guests whose taste it is to "blow a cloud" in the open air; and it is of two individuals, who were much given thereon to enjoy their "_otium cum dignitate_," that we are about to speak.

George Syms had long enjoyed a monopoly in the shoemaking and cobbling line (though latterly two oppositionists had started against him), and Peter Brown was a man well to do in the world, being "the man wot" shod the raw-boned horses before mentioned, "him and his father, and grandfather," as the parish-clerk said, "for time immemorial." These two worthies were regaling themselves, as was their wonted custom, each with his pint, upon a small table, which was placed, for their accommodation, before the said bench. It was a fine evening in the last autumn; and we could say a great deal about the beautiful tints which the beams of the setting sun shed upon the hills' side, and undulating distant outline, and how the clouds appeared of a fiery red, and, anon, of a pale yellow, had we leisure for description; but neither George Syms nor Peter Brown heeded these matters, and our present business is with them.

They had discussed all the village news--the last half of the last pipe had been puffed in silence, and they were reduced to the dilemma wherein many a brace of intimate friends have found themselves--they had nothing to talk about. Each had observed three times that it was very hot, and each had responded three times--"Yes, it is." They were at a perfect stand-still--they shook out the ashes from their pipes, and yawned simultaneously. They felt that indulgence, however grateful, is apt to cloy, even under the elm-tree, and the red rampant lion. But, as Doctor Watts says,

"Satan finds some mischief still, For idle hands to do,"

and they agreed to have "another pint," which Sally, who was ever ready at their bidding, brought forthwith, and then they endeavoured to rally; but the effort was vain--the thread of conversation was broken, and they could not connect it, and so they sipped and yawned, till Peter Brown observed, "It is getting dark."--"Ay," replied George Syms.

At this moment an elderly stranger, of a shabby-genteel appearance, approached the Lion, and inquired the road to an adjoining village. "You are late, sir," said George Syms.--"Yes," replied the stranger, "I am;" and he threw himself on the bench, and took off his hat, and wiped his forehead, and observed, that it was very sultry, and he was quite tired.--"This is a good house," said Peter Brown; "and if you are not obliged to go on, I wouldn't if I were you."--"It makes little difference to me," replied the stranger; "and so, as I find myself in good company, here goes!" and he began to call about him, notwithstanding his shabby appearance, with the air of one who has money in his pocket to pay his way.--"Three make good company," observed Peter Brown.--"Ay, ay," said the stranger. "Holla there! bring me another pint! This walk has made me confoundedly thirsty. You may as well make it a pot--and be quick!"

Messrs Brown and Syms were greatly pleased with this additional guest at their symposium; and the trio sat and talked of the wind, and the weather, and the roads, and the coal trade, and drank and smoked to their hearts' content, till again time began to hang heavy, and then the stranger asked the two friends, if ever they played at teetotum.--"Play at what?" asked Peter Brown.--"Play at what?" inquired George Syms.--"At tee-to-tum," replied the stranger, gravely taking a pair of spectacles from one pocket of his waistcoat, and the machine in question from the other. "It is an excellent game, I assure you. Rare sport, my masters!" and he forthwith began to spin his teetotum upon the table, to the no small diversion of George Syms and Peter Brown, who opined that the potent ale of the ramping Red Lion had done its office. "Only see how the little fellow runs about!" cried the stranger, in apparent ecstasy. "Holla, there! Bring a lantern! There he goes, round and round--and now he's asleep--and now he begins to reel--wiggle waggle--down he tumbles! What colour, for a shilling?"--"I don't understand the game," said Peter Brown.--"Nor I, neither," quoth George Syms; "but it seems easy enough to learn."--"Oh, ho!" said the stranger; "you think so, do you? But, let me tell you, that there's a great deal more in it than you imagine. There he is, you see, with as many sides as a modern politician, and as many colours as an Algerine. Come, let us have a game! This is the way!" and he again set the teetotum in motion, and capered about in exceeding glee.--"He, he, he!" uttered George Syms; and "Ha, ha, ha!" exclaimed Peter Brown; and, being wonderfully tickled with the oddity of the thing, they were easily persuaded by the stranger just to take a game together for five minutes, while he stood by as umpire, with a stop-watch in his hand.

Nothing can be much easier than spinning a teetotum, yet our two Stockwellites could scarcely manage the thing for laughing; but the stranger stood by, with spectacles on nose, looking alternately at his watch and the table, with as much serious interest as though he had been witnessing, and was bound to furnish, a report of a prize-fight, or a debate in the House of Commons.

When precisely five minutes had elapsed, although it was Peter Brown's spin, and the teetotum was yet going its rounds, and George Syms had called out yellow, the old gentleman demurely took it from the table and put it in his pocket; and then, returning his watch to his fob, walked away into the Red Lion, without saying so much as good-night. The two friends looked at each other in surprise, and then indulged in a very loud and hearty fit of laughter; and then paid their reckoning, and went away, exceedingly merry, which they would not have been, had they understood properly what they had been doing.

In the meanwhile the stranger had entered the house, and began to be "very funny" with Mrs Philpot, the landlady of the Red Lion, and Sally, the purveyor of beer to the guests thereof; and he found it not very difficult to persuade them likewise to take a game at teetotum for five minutes, which he terminated in the same unceremonious way as that under the tree, and then desired to be shown the room wherein he was to sleep. Mrs Philpot immediately, contrary to her usual custom, jumped up with great alacrity, lighted a candle, and conducted her guest to his apartment; while Sally, contrary to _her_ usual custom, reclined herself in her mistress's great arm-chair, yawned three or four times, and then exclaimed, "Heigho! it's getting very late! I wish my husband would come home!"

Now, although we have a very mean opinion of those who cannot keep a secret of importance, we are not fond of useless mysteries, and therefore think proper to tell the reader that the teetotum in question had the peculiar property of causing those who played therewith to lose all remembrance of their former character, and to adopt that of their antagonists in the game. During the process of spinning, the personal identity of the two players was completely changed. Now, on the evening of this memorable day, Jacob Philpot, the landlord of the rampant Red Lion, had spent a few convivial hours with mine host of the Blue Boar, a house on the road-side, about two miles from Stockwell; and the two publicans had discussed the ale, grog, and tobacco in the manner customary with Britons, whose insignia are roaring rampant red lions, green dragons, blue boars, &c. Therefore, when Jacob came home, he began to call about him, with the air of one who purposeth that his arrival shall be no secret; and very agreeably surprised was he when Mrs Philpot ran out from the house, and assisted him to dismount, for Jacob was somewhat rotund; and yet more did he marvel when, instead of haranguing him in a loud voice (as she had whilom done on similar occasions, greatly to his discomfiture), she good-humouredly said that she would lead his nag to the stable, and then go and call Philip the ostler. "Humph!" said the host of the Lion, leaning with his back against the door-post, "after a calm comes a storm. She'll make up for this presently, I'll warrant." But Mrs Philpot put up the horse, and called Philip, and then returned in peace and quietness, and attempted to pass into the house, without uttering a word to her lord and master.

"What's the matter with you, my dear?" asked Jacob Philpot; "a'n't you well?"--"Yes, sir," replied Mrs Philpot, "very well, I thank you. But pray take away your leg, and let me go into the house."--"But didn't you think I was very late?" asked Jacob.--"Oh! I don't know," replied Mrs Philpot; "when gentlemen get together, they don't think how time goes." Poor Jacob was quite delighted, and, as it was dusk, and by no means, as he conceived, a scandalous proceeding, he forthwith put one arm round Mrs Philpot's neck, and stole a kiss, whereat she said, "Oh dear me! how could you think of doing such a thing?" and immediately squeezed herself past him, and ran into the house, where Sally sat, in the arm-chair before mentioned, with a handkerchief over her head, pretending to be asleep.

"Come, my dear," said Jacob to his wife, "I'm glad to see you in such good-humour. You shall make me a glass of rum and water, and take some of it yourself."--"I must go into the back kitchen for some water, then," replied his wife, and away she ran, and Jacob followed her, marvelling still more at her unusual alacrity. "My dear," quoth he, "I am sorry to give you so much trouble," and again he put his arm round her neck. "La, sir!" she cried, "if you don't let me go, I'll call out, I declare."--"He, he--ha, ha!" said Jacob; "call out! that's a good one, however! a man's wife calling out because her husband's a-going to kiss her!"--"What do you mean?" asked Mrs Philpot; "I'm sure it's a shame to use a poor girl so!"--"A poor girl!" exclaimed the landlord, "ahem! was once, mayhap."--"I don't value your insinivations _that_," said Mrs Philpot, snapping her fingers; "I wonder what you take me for!"--"So ho!" thought her spouse, "she's come to herself now; I thought it was all a sham; but I'll coax her a bit;" so he fell in with her apparent whim, and called her a good girl; but still she resisted his advances, and asked him what he took her for. "Take you for!" cried Jacob, "why, for my own dear Sally to be sure, so don't make any more fuss."--"I have a great mind to run out of the house," said she, "and never enter it any more."

This threat gave no sort of alarm to Jacob, but it somewhat tickled his fancy, and he indulged himself in a very hearty laugh, at the end of which he good-humouredly told her to go to bed, and he would follow her presently, as soon as he had looked after his horse, and pulled off his boots. This proposition was no sooner made, than the good man's ears were suddenly grasped from behind, and his head was shaken and twisted about, as though it had been the purpose of the assailant to wrench it from his shoulders. Mrs Philpot instantly made her escape from the kitchen, leaving her spouse in the hands of the enraged Sally, who, under the influence of the teetotum delusion, was firmly persuaded that she was justly inflicting wholesome discipline upon her husband, whom she had, as she conceived, caught in the act of making love to the maid. Sally was active and strong, and Jacob Philpot was, as before hinted, somewhat obese, and, withal, not in excellent "wind;" consequently it was some time ere he could disengage himself; and then he stood panting and blowing, and utterly lost in astonishment, while Sally saluted him with divers appellations, which it would not be seemly here to set down.

When Jacob did find his tongue, however, he answered her much in the same style; and added, that he had a great mind to lay a stick about her back. "What! strike a woman! Eh--would you, you coward?" and immediately she darted forward, and, as she termed it, put her mark upon him with her nails, whereby his rubicund countenance was greatly disfigured, and his patience entirely exhausted: but Sally was too nimble, and made her escape up-stairs. So the landlord of the Red Lion, having got rid of the two mad or drunken women, very philosophically resolved to sit down for half an hour by himself, to think over the business, while he took his "night-cap." He had scarcely brewed the ingredients, when he was roused by a rap at the window; and, in answer to his inquiry of "who's there?" he recognised the voice of his neighbour, George Syms, and, of course, immediately admitted him; for George was a good customer, and, consequently, welcome at all hours. "My good friend," said Syms, "I daresay you are surprised to see me here at this time of night; but I can't get into my own house. My wife is drunk, I believe."--"And so is mine," quoth the landlord; "so, sit you down and make yourself comfortable. Hang me if I think I'll go to bed to-night!" "No more will I," said Syms; "I've got a job to do early in the morning, and then I shall be ready for it." So the two friends sat down, and had scarcely begun to enjoy themselves, when another rap was heard at the window, and mine host recognised the voice of Peter Brown, who came with the same complaint against his wife, and was easily persuaded to join the party, each declaring that the women must have contrived to meet, during their absence from home, and all get fuddled together. Matters went on pleasantly enough for some time, while they continued to rail against the women; but, when that subject was exhausted, George Syms, the shoemaker, began to talk about shoeing horses; and Peter Brown, the blacksmith, averred that he could make a pair of jockey boots with any man for fifty miles round. The host of the rampant Red Lion considered these things at first as a sort of joke, which he had no doubt, from such good customers, was exceedingly good, though he could not exactly comprehend it; but when Peter Brown answered to the name of George Syms, and George Syms responded to that of Peter Brown, he was somewhat more bewildered, and could not help thinking that his guests had drunk quite enough. He, however, satisfied himself with the reflection that that was no business of his, and that "a man must live by his trade." With the exception of these apparent occasional cross purposes, conversation went on as well as could be expected under existing circumstances; and the three unfortunate husbands sat and talked, and drank, and smoked, till tired nature cried, "Hold, enough!"

In the meanwhile, Mrs George Syms, who had been much scandalised at the appearance of Peter Brown beneath her bedroom window, whereinto he vehemently solicited admittance, altogether in the most public and unblushing manner; she, poor soul! lay for an hour much disturbed in her mind, and pondering on the extreme impropriety of Mr Brown's conduct, and its probable consequences. She then began to wonder where her own goodman could be staying so late; and after much tossing and tumbling to and fro, being withal a woman of a warm imagination, she discerned in her mind's eye divers scenes which might probably be then acting, and in which George Syms appeared to be taking a part that did not at all meet her approbation. Accordingly she arose, and throwing her garments about her with a degree of elegant negligence for which the ladies of Stockwell have long been celebrated, she incontinently went to the house of Peter Brown, at whose bedroom window she perceived a head. With the intuitive knowledge of costume possessed by ladies in general, she instantly, through the murky night, discovered that the cap on the said head was of the female gender; and therefore boldly went up thereunto and said, "Mrs Brown, have you seen anything of my husband?"--"What!" exclaimed Mrs Brown, "haven't _you_ seen him? Well, I'd have you see after him pretty quickly, for he was here, just where you stand now, more than two hours ago, talking all manner of nonsense to me, and calling me his dear Betsy, so that I was quite ashamed of him! But, howsomever, you needn't be uneasy about me, for you know I wouldn't do anything improper on no account. But have you seen anything of my Peter?"--"I _believe_ I have," replied Mrs Syms, and immediately related the scandalous conduct of the smith beneath her window; and then the two ladies agreed to sally forth in search of their two "worthless, good-for-nothing, drunken husbands."

Now it is a custom with those who get their living by carrying coal, when they are about to convey it to any considerable distance, to commence their journey at such an hour as to reach the first turnpike a little after midnight, that they may be enabled to go out and return home within the twenty-four hours, and thus save the expense of the toll, which they would otherwise have to pay twice. This is the secret of those apparently lazy fellows whom the Bath ladies and dandies sometimes view with horror and surprise, sleeping in the day-time, in, on, or under carts, benches, or waggons. It hath been our lot, when in the city of waters, to hear certain of these theoretical "political economists" remark somewhat harshly on this mode of taking a siesta. We should recommend them henceforth to attend to the advice of Peter Pindar, and--

"Mind what they read in godly books, And not take people by their looks;"

for they would not be pleased to be judged in that manner themselves; and the poor fellows in question have generally been travelling all night, not in a mail-coach, but walking over rough roads, and assisting their weary and overworked cavalry up and down a succession of steep hills.

In consequence of this practice, the two forsaken matrons encountered Moses Brown, a first cousin of Peter's, who had just despatched his waggoner on a commercial enterprise of the description just alluded to. Moses had heard voices as he passed the Lion; and being somewhat of a curious turn, had discovered, partly by listening, and partly by the aid of certain cracks, holes, and ill-fitting joints in the shutters, who the gentlemen were whose goodwill and pleasure it was "to vex the dull ear of night" with their untimely mirth. Moses, moreover, was a meek man, and professed to be extremely sorry for the two good women who had two such roaring, rattling blades for their husbands: for, by this time, the bacchanalians, having exhausted their conversational powers, had commenced a series of songs. So, under his guidance, the ladies reconnoitred the drunken trio through the cracks, holes, and ill-fitting joints aforesaid.

Poor George Syms was by this time regularly "done up," and dozing in his chair; but Peter Brown, the smith, was still in his glory, and singing in no small voice a certain song, which was by no means fitting to be chanted in the ear of his spouse. As for Jacob Philpot, the landlord, he sat erect in his chair with the dogged resolution of a man who feels that he is at his post, and is determined to be "no starter." At this moment Sally made her appearance in the room, in the same sort of dishabille as that worn by the ladies at the window, and commenced a very unceremonious harangue to George Syms and Peter Brown, telling them that they ought to be ashamed of themselves not to have been at home hours ago; "as for this fellow," said she, giving poor Philpot a tremendous box on the ear, "I'll make him remember it, I'll warrant." Jacob hereupon arose in great wrath; but ere he could ascertain precisely the exact centre of gravity, Sally settled his position by another cuff, which made his eyes twinkle, and sent him reeling back into his seat. Seeing these things, the ladies without began, as fox-hunters say, to "give tongue," and vociferously demanded admittance; whereupon Mrs Philpot put her head out from a window above, and told them that she would be down and let them in in a minute, and that it was a great pity gentlemen should ever get too much beer: and then she popped in her head, and in less than the stipulated time, ran down stairs and opened the street door; and so the wives were admitted to their delinquent husbands; but meek Moses Brown went his way, having a wife at home, and having no desire to abide the storm which he saw was coming.

Peter Brown was, as we said before, in high feather; and therefore, when he saw Mrs Syms, whom he (acting under the teetotum delusion) mistook for the wife of his own particular bosom, he gaily accosted her, "Ah, old girl!--Is it you? What! you've come to your senses, eh? slept it off, I suppose. Well, well; never mind! Forgive and forget, I say. I never saw you so before, I will say _that_ for you, however. So give us a buss, old girl! and let us go home;" and without ceremony he began to suit the action to the word, whereupon the real Mrs Brown flew to Mrs Syms' assistance, and by hanging round Peter's neck, enabled her friend to escape. Mrs Syms, immediately she was released, began to shake up her drowsy George, who, immediately he opened his eyes, scarcely knowing where he was, marvelled much to find himself thus handled by, as he supposed, his neighbour's wife; but with the maudlin cunning of a drunken man, he thought it was an excellent joke, and therefore threw his arms round her, and began to hug her with a wondrous and unusual degree of fondness, whereby the poor woman was much affected, and called him her dear George, and said she knew it was not his fault, but "all along of that brute," pointing to Peter Brown, that he had drunk himself into such a state. "Come along, my dear," she concluded, "let us go and leave him--I don't care if I never see him any more."

The exasperation of Peter Brown, at seeing and hearing, as he imagined, his own wife act and speak in this shameful manner before his face, may be "more easily imagined than described;" but his genuine wife, who belonged, as he conceived, to the drunken man, hung so close about his neck that he found it impossible to escape. George Syms, however, was utterly unable to rise, and sat, with an idiot-like simper upon his face, as if giving himself up to a pleasing delusion, while his wife was patting, and coaxing, and wheedling him in every way, to induce him to get upon his legs and try to go home. At length, as he vacantly stared about, he caught a glimpse of Mrs Brown, whom, to save repetition, we may as well call his teetotum wife, hanging about his neighbour's neck. This sight effectually roused him, and before Mrs Syms was aware of his intention, he started up and ran furiously at Peter Brown, who received him much in the manner that might be expected, with a salutation in "the bread-basket," which sent him reeling on the floor. As a matter of course, Mrs Syms took the part of her fallen husband, and put her mark upon Mr Peter Brown; and, as a matter of course, Mrs Peter Brown took the part of her spouse, and commenced an attack on Mrs Syms.

In the meanwhile Sally had not been idle. After chastening Jacob Philpot to her heart's content, she, with the assistance of Mrs Philpot and Philip the hostler, who was much astonished to hear her "order the mistress about," conveyed him up-stairs, where he was deposited, as he was, upon a spare bed, to "take his chance," as she said, "and sleep off his drunken fit." Sally then returned to the scene of strife, and desired the "company" to go about their business, for she should not allow anything more to be "called for" that night. Having said this with an air of authority, she left the room; and though Mrs Syms and Mrs Brown were greatly surprised thereat, they said nothing, inasmuch as they were somewhat ashamed of their own appearance, and had matters of more importance than Sally's eccentricity to think of, as Mrs Syms had been cruelly wounded in her new shawl, which she had imprudently thrown over her shoulders; and the left side of the lace on Mrs Brown's cap had been torn away in the recent conflict. Mrs Philpot, enacting her part as the teetotum Sally of the night, besought the ladies to go home, and leave the gentlemen to sleep where they were--_i.e._ upon the floor--till the morning: for Peter Brown, notwithstanding the noise he had made, was as incapable of standing as the quieter George Syms. So the women dragged them into separate corners of the room, placed pillows under their heads, and threw a blanket over each, and then left them to repose. The two disconsolate wives each forthwith departed to her own lonely pillow, leaving Mrs Philpot particularly puzzled at the deference with which they had treated her, by calling her "Madam," as if she was mistress of the house.

Leaving them all to their slumbers, we must now say a word or two about the teetotum, the properties of which were to change people's characters, spinning the mind of one man or woman into the body of another. The duration of the delusion, caused by this droll game of the old gentleman's, depended upon the length of time spent in the diversion; and five minutes was the specific period for causing it to last till the next sunrise or sunset _after_ the change had been effected. Therefore, when the morning came, Mrs Philpot and Sally, and Peter Brown and George Syms, all came to their senses. The two latter went quietly home, with aching heads and very confused recollections of the preceding evening; and shortly after their departure Mrs Philpot awoke in great astonishment at finding herself in the garret; and Sally was equally surprised, and much alarmed, at finding herself in her mistress's room, from which she hastened in quick time, leaving all things in due order.

The elderly stranger made his appearance soon after, and appeared to have brushed up his shabby-genteel clothes, for he really looked much more respectable than on the preceding evening. He ordered his breakfast, and sat down thereto very quietly, and asked for the newspaper, and pulled out his spectacles, and began to con the politics of the day much at his ease, no one having the least suspicion that he and his teetotum had been the cause of all the uproar at the Red Lion. In due time the landlord made his appearance, with sundry marks of violence upon his jolly countenance, and, after due obeisance made to his respectable-looking guest, took the liberty of telling his spouse that he should insist upon her sending Sally away, for that he had never been so mauled since he was born; but Mrs Philpot told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, and she was very glad the girl had spirit enough to protect herself, and that she wouldn't part with her on any account. She then referred to what had passed in the back kitchen, taking to herself the credit of having inflicted that punishment which had been administered by the hands of Sally.

Jacob Philpot was now more than ever convinced that his wife had been paying her respects to a huge stone bottle of rum which stood in the closet; and he "made bold" to tell her his thoughts, whereat Mrs Philpot thought fit to put herself into a tremendous passion, although she could not help fearing that, perhaps, she might have taken a drop too much of something, for she was unable, in any other manner, to account for having slept in the garret.

The elderly stranger now took upon himself to recommend mutual forgiveness, and stated that it was really quite pardonable for any one to take a little too much of such very excellent ale as that at the Red Lion. "For my own part," said he, "I don't know whether I didn't get a trifle beyond the mark myself last night. But I hope, madam, I did not annoy you."

"Oh dear, no, not at all, sir," replied Mrs Philpot, whose good-humour was restored at this compliment paid to the good cheer of the Lion; "you were exceedingly pleasant, I assure you--just enough to make you funny: we had a hearty laugh about the teetotum, you know."--"Ah!" said the stranger, "I guess how it was then. I always introduce the teetotum when I want to be merry."

Jacob Philpot expressed a wish to understand the game, and after spinning it two or three times, proposed to take his chance, for five minutes, with the stranger; but the latter, laughing heartily, would by no means agree with the proposition, and declared that it would be downright cheating, as he was an overmatch for any beginner. "However," he continued, "as soon as any of your neighbours come in, I'll put you in the way of it, and we'll have some of your ale now, just to pass the time. It will do neither of us any harm after last night's affair, and I want to have some talk with you about the coal trade."

They accordingly sat down together, and the stranger displayed considerable knowledge in the science of mining; and Jacob was so much delighted with his companion, that an hour or two slipped away, as he said, "in no time;" and then there was heard the sound of a horse's feet at the door, and a somewhat authoritative hillo!

"It is our parson," said Jacob, starting up, and he ran to the door to inquire what might be his reverence's pleasure. "Good morning," said the Reverend Mr Stanhope. "I'm going over to dine with our club at the Old Boar, and I want you just to cast your eye on those fellows in my home close; you can see them out of your parlour window."--"Yes, to be sure, sir," replied Jacob.--"Hem!" quoth Mr Stanhope, "have you anybody indoors?"--"Yes, sir, we have," replied Jacob, "a strange gentleman, who seems to know a pretty deal about mining and them sort of things. I think he's some great person in disguise; he seems regularly edicated--up to everything," "Eh, ah! a great person in disguise!" exclaimed Mr Stanhope. "I'll just step in a minute. It seems as if there was a shower coming over, and I'm in no hurry, and it is not worth while to get wet through for the sake of a few minutes." So he alighted from his horse, soliloquising to himself, "Perhaps the Lord Chancellor! Who knows? However, I shall take care to show my principles;" and straightway he went into the house, and was most respectfully saluted by the elderly stranger; and they entered into a conversation upon the standing English topics of weather, wind, crops, and the coal trade; and Mr Stanhope contrived to introduce therein sundry unkind things against the Pope and all his followers; and avowed himself a stanch "church-and-king" man, and spake enthusiastically of our "glorious constitution," and lauded divers individuals then in power, but more particularly those who studied the true interests of the Church, by seeking out and preferring men of merit and talent to fill vacant benefices. The stranger thereat smiled significantly, as though he could, if he felt disposed, say something to the purpose; and Mr Stanhope felt more inclined than ever to think the landlord might have conjectured very near the truth, and, consequently, redoubled his efforts to make the agreeable, professing his regret at being obliged to dine out that day, &c. The stranger politely thanked him for his consideration, and stated that he was never at a loss for employment, and that he was then rambling, for a few days, to relax his mind from the fatigues of an overwhelming mass of important business, to which his duty compelled him to attend early and late. "Perhaps," he continued, "you will smile when I tell you that I am now engaged in a series of experiments relative to the power of the centrifugal force, and its capacity of overcoming various degrees of friction." (Here he produced the teetotum.) "You perceive the different surfaces of the under edge of this little thing. The outside, you see, is all of ivory, but indented in various ways; and yet I have not been able to decide whether the roughest or smoothest more frequently arrest its motions. The colours, of course, are merely indications. Here is my register," and he produced a book, wherein divers abstruse mathematical calculations were apparent. "I always prefer other people to spin it, as then I obtain a variety of impelling power. Perhaps you will do me the favour just to twirl it round a few times alternately with the landlord? Two make a fairer experiment than one. Just for five minutes. I'll not trouble you a moment longer, I promise you."--"Hem!" thought Mr Stanhope.

"Learned men, now and then, Have very strange vagaries!"

However, he commenced spinning the teetotum, turn and turn with Jacob Philpot, who was highly delighted both with the drollery of the thing, and the honour of playing with the parson of the parish, and laughed most immoderately, while the stranger stood by, looking at his stop-watch as demurely as on the preceding evening, until the five minutes had expired; and then, in the middle of the Rev. Mr Stanhope's spin, he took up the little toy and put it into his pocket.

Jacob Philpot immediately arose, and shook the stranger warmly by the hand, and told him that he should be happy to see him whenever he came that way again; and then nodding to Mr Stanhope and the landlady, went out at the front door, mounted the horse that stood there, and rode away. "Where's the fellow going?" cried Mrs Philpot; "Hillo! Jacob, I say!"--"Well, mother," said the Reverend Mr Stanhope, "what's the matter now?" but Mrs Philpot had reached the front of the house, and continued to shout "Hillo! hillo, come back, I tell you!"--"That woman is always doing some strange thing or other," observed Mr Stanhope to the stranger. "What on earth can possess her to go calling after the parson in that manner?"--"I declare he's rode off with Squire Jones's horse," cried Mrs Philpot, re-entering the house. "To be sure he has," said Mr Stanhope; "he borrowed it on purpose to go to the Old Boar."--"Did he?" exclaimed the landlady; "and without telling me a word about it! But I'll Old Boar him, I promise you!"--"Don't make such a fool of yourself, mother," said the parson; "it can't signify twopence to you where he goes."--"Can't it?" rejoined Mrs Philpot. "I'll tell you what, your worship----"--"Don't worship me, woman," exclaimed the teetotum landlord parson; "worship! what nonsense now! Why, you've been taking your drops again this morning, I think. Worship, indeed! To be sure, I did once, like a fool, promise to worship _you_; but if my time was to come over again, I know what----But, never mind now--don't you see it's twelve o'clock? Come, quick, let us have what there is to eat, and then we'll have a comfortable pipe under the tree. What say you, sir?"--"With all my heart," replied the elderly stranger. Mrs Philpot could make nothing of the parson's speech about worshipping her; but the order for something to eat was very distinct; and though she felt much surprised thereat, as well as at the proposed smoking under the tree, she, nevertheless, was much gratified that so unusual an order should be given on that particular day, as she had a somewhat better dinner than usual, namely, a leg of mutton upon the spit. Therefore she bustled about with exceeding goodwill, and Sally spread a clean cloth upon the table in the little parlour for the parson and the strange old gentleman; and when the mutton was placed upon the table, the latter hoped they should have the pleasure of Mrs Philpot's company; but she looked somewhat doubtfully till the parson said, "Come, come, mother, don't make a bother about it; sit down, can't you, when the gentleman bids you." Therefore she smoothed her apron and made one at the dinner-table, and conducted herself with so much precision that the teetotum parson looked upon her with considerable surprise, while she regarded him with no less, inasmuch as he talked in a very unclerical manner; and, among other strange things, swore that his wife was as "drunk as blazes" the night before, and winked at her, and behaved altogether in a style very unbecoming a minister in his own parish.

At one o'clock there was a great sensation caused in the village of Stockwell, by the appearance of their reverend pastor and the elderly stranger, sitting on the bench which went round the tree, which stood before the sign of the roaring rampant Red Lion, each with a long pipe in his mouth, blowing clouds, which would not have disgraced the most inveterate smoker of the "black diamond" fraternity, and ever and anon moistening their clay with "heavy wet," from tankards placed upon a small table, which Mrs Philpot had provided for their accommodation. The little boys and girls first approached within a respectful distance, and then ran away giggling to tell their companions; and they told their mothers, who came and peeped likewise; and many were diverted, and many were scandalised at the sight: yet the parson seemed to care for none of these things, but cracked his joke, and sipped his ale, and smoked his pipe, with as much easy nonchalance as if he had been in his own arm-chair at the rectory. Yet it must be confessed that now and then there was a sort of equivocal remark made by him, as though he had some faint recollection of his former profession, although he evinced not the smallest sense of shame at the change which had been wrought in him. Indeed this trifling imperfection in the change of identity appears to have attended such transformations in general, and might have arisen from the individual bodies retaining their own clothes (for the mere fashion of dress hath a great influence on some minds), or, perhaps, because a profession or trade, with the habits thereof, cannot be entirely shaken off, nor a new one perfectly learned, by spinning a teetotum for five minutes. The time had now arrived when George Syms, the shoemaker, and Peter Brown, the blacksmith, were accustomed to take their "pint and pipe after dinner," and greatly were they surprised to see their places so occupied; and not a little was their astonishment increased, when the parson lifted up his voice, and ordered Sally to bring out a couple of chairs, and then shook them both warmly by the hand, and welcomed them by the affectionate appellation of "My hearties!" He then winked, and in an under-tone began to sing--

"Though I'm tied to a crusty old woman, Much given to scolding and jealousy, I know that the case is too common, And so I will ogle each girl I see. Tol de rol, lol, &c.

"Come, my lads!" he resumed, "sit you down, and clap half a yard of clay into your mouths." The two worthy artisans looked at each other significantly, or rather insignificantly, for they knew not what to think, and did as they were bid. "Come, why don't you talk?" said the teetotum parson landlord, after a short silence. "You're as dull as a couple of tom-cats with their ears cut off--talk, man, talk--there's no doing nothing without talking." This last part of his speech seemed more particularly addressed to Peter Brown, who, albeit a man of a sound head, and well skilled in such matters as appertained unto iron and the coal trade, had not been much in the habit of mixing with the clergy: therefore he felt, for a moment, as he said, "non-plushed;" but fortunately he recollected the Catholic question, about which most people were then talking, and which everybody professed to understand. Therefore, he forthwith introduced the subject; and being well aware of the parson's bias, and having, moreover, been told that he had written a pamphlet; therefore (though, to do Peter Brown justice, he was not accustomed to read such publications) he scrupled not to give his opinion very freely, and concluded by taking up his pint and drinking a very unchristianlike malediction against the Pope. George Syms followed on the same side, and concluded in the same manner, adding thereunto, "Your good healths, gemmen."--"What a pack of nonsense!" exclaimed the parson. "I should like to know what harm the Pope can do us! I tell you what, my lads, it's all my eye and Betty Martin. Live and let live, I say. So long as I can get a good living, I don't care the toss of a halfpenny who's uppermost. For my part, I'd as soon live at the sign of the Mitre as the Lion, or mount the cardinal's hat for that matter, if I thought I could get anything by it. Look at home, say I. The Pope's an old woman, and so are they that are afraid of him." The elderly stranger here seemed highly delighted, and cried "Bravo!" and clapped the speaker on the back, and said, "That's your sort! Go it, my hearty!" But Peter Brown, who was one of the sturdy English old-fashioned school, and did not approve of hot and cold being blown out of the same mouth, took the liberty of telling the parson, in a very unceremonious way, that he seemed to have changed his opinions very suddenly. "Not I," said the other; "I was always of the same way of thinking."--"Then words have no meaning," observed George Syms, angrily, "for I heard you myself. You talked as loud about the wickedness of 'mancipation as ever I heard a man in my life, no longer ago than last Sunday."--"Then I must have been drunk--that's all I can say about the business," replied the other, coolly; and he began to fill his pipe with the utmost nonchalance, as though it was a matter of course. Such apparently scandalous conduct was, however, too much for the unsophisticated George Syms and Peter Brown, who simultaneously threw down their reckoning, and, much to their credit, left the turncoat reprobate parson to the company of the elderly gentleman.

If we were to relate half the whimsical consequences of the teetotum tricks of this strange personage, we might fill volumes; but as it is not our intention to allow the detail to swell even into one, we must hastily sketch the proceedings of poor Jacob Philpot after he left the Red Lion to dine with sundry of the gentry and clergy at the Old Boar, in his new capacity of an ecclesiastic, in the outward form of a somewhat negligently-dressed landlord. He was accosted on the road by divers of his coal-carrying neighbours with a degree of familiarity which was exceedingly mortifying to his feelings. One told him to be home in time to take part of a gallon of ale that he had won of neighbour Smith; a second reminded him that to-morrow was club-night at the Nag's Head; and a third asked him where he had stolen his horse. At length he arrived, much out of humour, at the Old Boar, an inn of a very different description from the Red Lion, being a posting-house of no inconsiderable magnitude, wherein that day was to be holden the symposium of certain grandees of the adjacent country, as before hinted.

The landlord, who happened to be standing at the door, was somewhat surprised at the formal manner with which Jacob Philpot greeted him and gave his horse into the charge of the hostler; but as he knew him only by sight, and had many things to attend to, he went his way without making any remark, and thus, unwittingly, increased the irritation of Jacob's new teetotum sensitive feelings. "Are any of the gentlemen come yet?" asked Jacob, haughtily, of one of the waiters. "What gentlemen?" quoth the waiter. "_Any_ of them," said Jacob--"Mr Wiggins, Doctor White, or Captain Pole?" At this moment a carriage drove up to the door, and the bells all began ringing, and the waiters ran to see who had arrived, and Jacob Philpot was left unheeded. "This is very strange conduct!" observed he; "I never met with such incivility in my life! One would think I was a dog!" Scarcely had this soliloquy terminated, when a lady, who had alighted from the carriage (leaving the gentleman who came with her to give some orders about the luggage), entered the inn, and was greatly surprised to find her delicate hand seized by the horny grasp of the landlord of the Red Lion, who addressed her as "Dear Mrs Wilkins," and vowed he was quite delighted at the unexpected pleasure of seeing her, and hoped the worthy rector was well, and all the dear little darlings. Mrs Wilkins disengaged her hand as quickly as possible, and made her escape into a room, the door of which was held open for her admittance by the waiter; and then the worthy rector made his appearance, followed by one of the "little darlings," whom Jacob Philpot, in the joy of his heart at finding himself once more among friends, snatched up in his arms, and thereby produced a bellowing which instantly brought the alarmed mother from her retreat. "What is that frightful man doing with the child?" she cried, and Jacob, who could scarcely believe his ears, was immediately deprived of his burden, while his particular friend, the worthy rector, looked upon him with a cold and vacant stare, and then retired into his room with his wife and the little darling, and Jacob was once more left to his own cogitations. "I see it!" he exclaimed, after a short pause, "I see it! This is the reward of rectitude of principle! This is the reward of undeviating and inflexible firmness of purpose! He has read my unanswerable pamphlet! I always thought there was a laxity of principle about him!" So Jacob forthwith walked into the open air to cool himself, and strolled round the garden of the inn, and meditated upon divers important subjects; and thus he passed his time till the hour of dinner, though he could not but keep occasionally wondering that some of his friends did not come down to meet him, since they must have seen him walking in the garden. His patience, however, was at length exhausted, and his appetite was exceedingly clamorous, partly, perhaps, because his _outward_ man had been used to dine at the plebeian hour of noon, while his inward man made a point of never taking anything more than a biscuit and a glass of wine between breakfast and five o'clock; and even that little modicum had been omitted on this fatal day, in consequence of the incivility of the people of the inn. "The dinner hour was five _precisely_," said he, looking at his watch, "and now it is half-past--but I'll wait a _little_ longer. It's a bad plan to hurry them. It puts the cook out of humour, and then all goes wrong." Therefore he waited a little longer; that is to say, till the calls of absolute hunger became quite ungovernable, and then he went into the house, where the odour of delicate viands was quite provoking; so he followed the guidance of his nose and arrived in the large dining-room, where he found, to his great surprise and mortification, that the company were assembled, and the work of destruction had been going on for some time, as the second course had just been placed on the table. Jacob felt that the neglect with which he had been treated was "enough to make a parson swear;" and perhaps he would have sworn, but that he had no time to spare; and therefore, as all the seats at the upper end of the table were engaged, he deposited himself on a vacant chair about the centre, between two gentlemen with whom he had no acquaintance, and, spreading his napkin in his lap, demanded of a waiter what fish had gone out. The man replied only by a stare and a smile--a line of conduct which was by no means surprising, seeing that the most stylish part of Philpot's dress was, without dispute, the napkin aforesaid. For the rest, it was unlike the garb of the strange gentleman, inasmuch as that, though possibly entitled to the epithet shabby, it could not be termed genteel. "What's the fellow gaping at?" cried Jacob, in an angry voice; "go and tell your master that I want to speak to him directly. I don't understand such treatment. Tell him to come immediately! Do you hear?"

The loud tone in which this was spoken aroused the attention of the company; and most of them cast a look of inquiry, first at the speaker and then round the table, as if to discern by whom the strange gentleman in the scarlet-and-yellow plush waistcoat and the dirty shirt might be patronised; but there were others who recognised the landlord of the Red Lion at Stockwell. The whole, however, were somewhat startled when he addressed them as follows:--"Really, gentlemen, I must say that a joke may be carried too far; and if it was not for my cloth" (here he handled the napkin), "I declare I don't know how I might act. I have been walking in the garden for these two hours, and you _must_ have seen me. And now you stare at me as if you didn't know me! Really, gentlemen, it is too bad! I love a joke as well as any man, and can take one too; but, as I said before, a joke _may_ be carried too far."--"I think so too," said the landlord of the Old Boar, tapping him on the shoulder; "so come along, and don't make a fool of yourself here."--"Fellow!" cried Jacob, rising in great wrath, "go your ways! Be off, I tell you! Mr Chairman, we have known each other now for a good many years, and you must be convinced that I can take a joke as well as any man; but human nature can endure this no longer. Mr Wiggins! Captain Pole! my good friend Doctor White! I appeal to you!" Here the gentlemen named looked especially astounded. "What! can it be possible that you have _all_ agreed to cut me! Oh, no! I will not believe that political differences of opinion can run _quite_ so high. Come--let us have no more of this nonsense!"--"No, no, we've had quite enough of it," said the landlord of the Old Boar, pulling the chair from beneath the last speaker, who was consequently obliged again to be upon his legs, while there came, from various parts of the table, cries of "Chair! chair! Turn him out!"--"Man!" roared the teetotum parsonified landlord of the Red Lion, to the landlord of the Old Boar--"Man! you shall repent of this! If it wasn't for my cloth, I'd soon----."--"Come, give me the cloth!" said the other, snatching away the napkin, which Jacob had buttoned in his waistcoat, and thereby causing that garment to fly open and expose more of dirty linen and skin than is usually sported at a dinner-party. Poor Philpot's rage had now reached its acme, and he again appealed to the chairman by name. "Colonel Martin!" said he, "can you sit by and see me used thus? I am sure _you_ will not pretend that you don't know me!"--"Not I," replied the chairman; "I know you well enough, and a confounded impudent fellow you are. I'll tell you what, my lad, next time you apply for a licence, you shall hear of this." The landlord of the Old Boar was withal a kind-hearted man; and as he well knew that the loss of its licence would be ruin to the rampant Red Lion and all concerned therewith, he was determined that poor Philpot should be saved from destruction in spite of his teeth; therefore, without further ceremony, he, being a muscular man, laid violent hands upon the said Jacob, and, with the assistance of his waiters, conveyed him out of the room, in despite of much struggling, and sundry interjections concerning his "cloth." When they had deposited him safely in an arm-chair in "the bar," the landlady, who had frequently seen him before in his proper character--that of a civil man--who "knew his place" in society, very kindly offered him a cup of tea; and the landlord asked how he could think of making such a fool of himself; and the waiter, whom he had accosted on first entering the house, vouched for his not having had anything to eat or drink; whereupon they spoke of the remains of a turbot which had just come down-stairs, and a haunch of venison that was to follow. It is a sad thing to have a mind and body that are no match for each other. Jacob's outward man would have been highly gratified at the exhibition of these things, but the spirit of the parson was too mighty within, and spurned every offer, and the body was compelled to obey. So the horse that was borrowed of the squire was ordered out, and Jacob Philpot mounted and rode on his way in excessive irritation, growling vehemently at the insult and indignity which had been committed against the "cloth" in general, and his own person in particular.

"The sun sunk beneath the horizon," as novelists say, when Jacob Philpot entered the village of Stockwell, and, as if waking from a dream, he suddenly started, and was much surprised to find himself on horseback; for the last thing that he recollected was going up-stairs at his own house, and composing himself for a nap, that he might be ready to join neighbour Scroggins and Dick Smith, when they came in the evening to drink the gallon of ale lost by the latter. "And, my eyes!" said he, "if I haven't got the squire's horse that the parson borrowed this morning. Well--it's very odd! however, the ride has done me a deal of good, for I feel as if I hadn't had anything all day, and yet I did pretty well too at the leg of mutton at dinner." Mrs Philpot received her lord and nominal master in no very gracious mood, and said she should like to know where he had been riding. "That's more than I can tell you," replied Jacob; "however, I know I'm as hungry as a greyhound, though I never made a better dinner in my life."--"More shame for you," said Mrs Philpot; "I wish the Old Boar was a thousand miles off."--"What's the woman talking about?" quoth Jacob. "Eh! what! at it again, I suppose," and he pointed to the closet containing the rum bottle. "Hush!" cried Mrs Philpot, "here's the parson coming down-stairs!"--"The parson!" exclaimed Jacob; "what's he been doing up-stairs, I should like to know?"--"He has been to take a nap on mistress's bed," said Sally. "The dickens he has! This is a pretty story," quoth Jacob. "How could I help it?" asked Mrs Philpot; "you should stay at home and look after your own business, and not go ramshackling about the country. You shan't hear the last of the Old Boar just yet, I promise you." To avoid the threatened storm, and satisfy the calls of hunger, Jacob made off to the larder, and commenced an attack upon the leg of mutton.

At this moment the Reverend Mr Stanhope opened the little door at the foot of the stairs. On waking, and finding himself upon a bed, he had concluded that he must have fainted in consequence of the agitation of mind produced by the gross insults which he had suffered, or perhaps from the effects of hunger. Great, therefore, was his surprise to find himself at the Red Lion in his own parish; and the first questions he asked of Mrs Philpot were how and when he had been brought there. "La, sir!" said the landlady, "you went up-stairs of your own accord, after you were tired of smoking under the tree."--"Smoking under the tree, woman!" exclaimed Mr Stanhope; "what are you talking about? Do you recollect whom you are speaking to?" "Ay, marry, do I," replied the sensitive Mrs Philpot; "and you told Sally to call you when Scroggins and Smith came for their gallon of ale, as you meant to join the party."

The Reverend Mr Stanhope straightway took up his hat, put it upon his head, and stalked with indignant dignity out of the house, opining that the poor woman was in her cups; and meditated, as he walked home, on the extraordinary affairs of the day. But his troubles were not yet ended, for the report of his public jollification had reached his own household; and John, his trusty man-servant, had been despatched to the Red Lion, and had ascertained that his master was really gone to bed in a state very unfit for a clergyman to be seen in. Some remarkably goodnatured friends had been to condole with Mrs Stanhope upon the extraordinary proceedings of her goodman, and to say how much they were shocked, and what a pity it was, and wondering what the bishop would think of it, and divers other equally amiable and consolatory reflections and notes of admiration. Now Mrs Stanhope, though she had much of the "milk of human kindness" in her composition, had withal a sufficient portion of "tartaric acid" mingled therewith. Therefore, when her beer-drinking husband made his appearance, he found her in a state of effervescence. "Mary," said he, "I am extremely fatigued. I have been exposed to-day to a series of insults, such as I could not have imagined it possible for any one to offer me."--"Nor anybody else," replied Mrs Stanhope; "but you are rightly served, and I am glad of it. Who could have supposed that you, the minister of a parish!--Faugh! how filthily you smell of tobacco! I vow I cannot endure to be in the room with you!" and she arose and left the divine to himself, in exceeding great perplexity. However, being a man who loved to do all things in order, he remembered that he had not dined, so he rang the bell and gave the needful instructions, thinking it best to satisfy nature first, and _then_ endeavour to ascertain the cause of his beloved Mary's acidity. His appetite was gone, but that he attributed to having fasted too long, a practice very unusual with him; however, he picked a bit here and there, and then indulged himself with a bottle of his oldest port, which he had about half consumed, and somewhat recovered his spirits, ere his dear Mary made her reappearance, and told him that she was perfectly astonished at his conduct. And well might she say so, for _now_, the wine, which he had been drinking with unusual rapidity, thinking, good easy man, that he had taken nothing all day, began to have a very visible effect upon a body already saturated with strong ale. He declared that he cared not a fig for the good opinion of any gentleman in the county, that he would always act and speak according to his principles, and filled a bumper to the health of the Lord Chancellor, and drank sundry more exceedingly loyal toasts, and told his astonished spouse, that he should not be surprised if he was very soon to be made a Dean or a Bishop; and as for the people at the Old Boar, he saw through their conduct--it was all envy, which doth "merit as its shade pursue." The good lady justly deemed it folly to waste her oratory upon a man in such a state, and reserved her powers for the next morning; and Mr Stanhope reeled to bed that night in a condition which, to do him justice, he had never before exhibited under his own roof.

The next morning, Mrs Stanhope and her daughter Sophy, a promising young lady about ten years old, of the hoyden class, were at breakfast, when the elderly stranger called at the rectory, and expressed great concern on being told that Mr S. was somewhat indisposed, and had not yet made his appearance. He said that his business was of very little importance, and merely concerned some geological inquiries which he was prosecuting in the vicinity; but Mrs Stanhope, who had the names of all the ologies by heart, and loved occasionally to talk thereof, persuaded him to wait a short time, little dreaming of the consequence; for the wily old gentleman began to romp with Miss Sophy, and, after a while, produced his teetotum, and, in short, so contrived it, that the mother and daughter played together therewith for five minutes. He then politely took his leave, promising to call again; and Mrs Stanhope bobbed him a curtsy, and Sophia assured him that Mr S. would be extremely happy to afford him every assistance in his scientific researches. When the worthy divine at length made his appearance in the breakfast parlour, strangely puzzled as to the extreme feverishness and languor which oppressed him, he found Sophy sitting gravely in an arm-chair, reading a treatise on craniology. It was a pleasant thing for him to see her read anything, but he could not help expressing his surprise by observing, "I should think that book a little above your comprehension, my dear."--"Indeed! sir," was the reply; and the little girl laid down the volume, and sat erect in her chair, and thus continued: "I should think, Mr Nicodemus Stanhope, that after the specimen of good sense and propriety of conduct, which you were pleased to exhibit yesterday, it scarcely becomes _you_ to pretend to estimate the _comprehension_ of others." "My dear," said the astonished divine, "this is very strange language! You forget whom you are speaking to!"--"Not at all," replied the child. "I know _my_ place, if you don't know yours, and am determined to speak my mind." If anything could add to the Reverend Mr Nicodemus Stanhope's surprise, it was the sound of his wife's voice in the garden, calling to his man John to stand out of the way, or she should run over him. Poor John, who was tying up some of her favourite flowers, got out of her way accordingly in quick time, and the next moment his mistress rushed by, trundling a hoop, hallooing and laughing, and highly enjoying his apparent dismay. Throughout that day, it may be imagined that the reverend gentleman's philosophy was sorely tried; but we are compelled, by want of room, to leave the particulars of his botheration to the reader's imagination.

We are sorry to say that these were not the only metamorphoses which the mischievous old gentleman wrought in the village of Stockwell. There was a game of teetotum played between a sergeant of dragoons, who had retired upon his well-earned pension, and a baker, who happened likewise to be the renter of a small patch of land adjoining the village. The veteran, with that indistinctness of character before mentioned, shouldered the peel, and took it to the field, and used it for loading and spreading manure, so that it was never afterwards fit for any but dirty work. Then, just to show that he was not afraid of anybody, he cut a gap in the hedge of a small field of wheat which had just been reaped, and was standing in sheaves, and thereby gave admittance to a neighbouring bull, who amused himself greatly by tossing the said sheaves; but more particularly those which were set apart as tithes, against which he appeared to have a particular spite, throwing them high into the air, and then bellowing and treading them under foot. But--we must come to a close. Suffice it to say, that the village of Stockwell was long in a state of confusion in consequence of these games; for the mischief which was done during the period of delusion, ended not, like the delusion itself, with the rising or setting of the sun.

Having now related as many particulars of these strange occurrences as our limits will permit, we have merely to state the effect which they produced upon ourselves. Whenever we have since beheld servants aping the conduct of their masters or mistresses, tradesmen wasting their time and money at taverns, clergymen forgetful of the dignity and sacred character of their profession, publicans imagining themselves fit for preachers, children calling their parents to account for their conduct, matrons acting the hoyden, and other incongruities--whenever we witness these and the like occurrences, we conclude that the actors therein have been playing a game with the Old Gentleman's Teetotum.

"Woe to us when we lose the watery wall!"

[_MAGA._ SEPTEMBER 1823.]

If e'er that dreadful hour should come--but God avert the day!-- When England's glorious flag must bend, and yield old Ocean's sway; When foreign ships shall o'er that deep, where she is empress, lord; When the cross of red from boltsprit-head is hewn by foreign sword; When foreign foot her quarterdeck with proud stride treads along; When her peaceful ships meet haughty check from hail of foreign tongue;-- One prayer, one only prayer is mine--that, ere is seen that sight, Ere there be warning of that woe, I may be whelmed in night!

If ever other prince than ours wield sceptre o'er that main, Where Howard, Blake, and Frobisher, the Armada smote of Spain; Where Blake, in Cromwell's iron sway, swept tempest-like the seas, From North to South, from East to West, resistless as the breeze; Where Russell bent great Louis' power, which bent before to none, And crushed his arm of naval strength, and dimmed his Rising Sun-- One prayer, one only prayer is mine--that, ere is seen that sight, Ere there be warning of that woe, I may be whelmed in night!

If ever other keel than ours triumphant plough that brine, Where Rodney met the Count de Grasse, and broke the Frenchman's line, Where Howe, upon the first of June, met the Jacobins in fight, And with Old England's loud huzzas broke down their godless might; Where Jervis at St Vincent's felled the Spaniards' lofty tiers, Where Duncan won at Camperdown, and Exmouth at Algiers-- One prayer, one only prayer, is mine--that, ere is seen that sight, Ere there be warning of that woe, I may be whelmed in night!

But oh! what agony it were, when we should think on thee, The flower of all the Admirals that ever trod the sea! I shall not name thy honoured name--but if the white-cliffed Isle Which reared the Lion of the deep, the Hero of the Nile, Him who, 'neath Copenhagen's self, o'erthrew the faithless Dane, Who died at glorious Trafalgar, o'er-vanquished France and Spain, Should yield her power, one prayer is mine--that, ere is seen that sight, Ere there be warning of that woe, I may be whelmed in night!

MY COLLEGE FRIENDS.

CHARLES RUSSELL, THE GENTLEMAN-COMMONER.

[_MAGA._ AUGUST 1846.]