Fergus Hume

“ Carlo Boldini to Clara Trall. I am his wife--not you."
"Thank God!" said Olive. "Oh, thank God!"
"You are an infernal scoundrel," cried Jim, advancing on Boldini. "I have a good mind to wring your neck."
Clara threw her arm round the man. "Let us go, Lord Aldean. No words can alter things now. I am Clara Boldini, and she"--pointing to Olive--"is nothing."
"I am a free woman, at least. Heaven be praised, I never was that man's wife. I know now why you agreed so readily to our bargain," she said, turning on Boldini. "Go, you miserable creature, and lead a better life if you can." ”

“ Carson marry Olive?"
"I suppose so. I do not see how he can very well prevent it."
"Oh, he is blind, and so are you," cried Tui, indignantly. "If he loves Olive, why on earth doesn't he marry her? Mr. Carson's a smiling Cheshire cat. Mr. Mallow indeed! He ought to be called Mr. Feeble-Mind. If I were a man and loved a girl, I'd tell her so."
"Suppose the girl wouldn't let the man get that far?" said Aldean, significantly.
"What nonsense! As if any man, who was really and truly in love, ever stopped from speaking his mind." ”

“ Oh, my heart, my love, my dearer self, be kind to one whose life is yours."
Olive dried her eyes and became more composed as Mallow changed his tone. She turned towards him with face as white as marble.
"Laurence," she said quietly--"for I dare call you Laurence--I love, I have always loved you, and I always shall love you; but I am not my own mistress. I would to Heaven that I were; but I am helpless. I must marry this man, not for the money--ah, no; the money can go, but because my dear father left a letter for me in which he urged me to obey his dying wish and marry Angus Carson. ”

“ Lord Aldean laughed, Mallow coloured, and Mrs. Drabble, much shocked, apologized for her daughter's candour.
"But indeed she is such a sharp little thing that there is no keeping anything from her," wailed Mrs. Drabble; "and the doctor, I am sorry to say, tells her many things that a child should not hear."
"I am a Red Anarchist, like father," announced Margery, proudly. "We intend to make everybody equal."
"Do you, indeed?" laughed Aldean, drawing the child to his knee. "And what is to be done with me?"
"You are to be called Mr. Aldean, and made to work." ”

“ If we are to be heard, we must perforce make a hearing for ourselves. Supplication is useless, hopeless. By terror alone can we wrench the attention which is our right. That is why we resort to force; that is why you hear of bombs, Mr. Mallow. For the safety of their lives even a king, an emperor, must heed us. Persistence in that direction will in the end secure to us the attention which we claim--the attention which is our right. That will be the dawn of the new era, Mr. Mallow, for we shall conquer. Till then--but there," said Madame, resuming her knitting, "I have much to do. ”

“ The plan of escape appealed to Aldean as simple and skilful and safe enough. Forgetting their relative positions, he sprang to his feet, and shook Rouge heartily by both hands.
"Thank you! thank you!" he cried. "Neither Mr. Mallow nor myself will ever forget your kindness."
"Bah!" Rouge shrugged his shoulders. "It is nothing. What would you have? Monsieur Mallow has been good to me. He has given me money and kind words. No, Monsieur, I am no ingrate to permit one so beneficent to perish. Death is for the evil, not for the good." ”

“ I trust that the girl, who was singularly controllable, if I remember rightly, is growing in beauty and wisdom, and that she is beginning to reflect on the responsibilities of wealth and position which the near approach of her twenty-first birthday will shortly render it incumbent upon her to assume. With such a companion as you, my dear Rubina, and with so admirable and conscientious a guardian as the rector of Casterwell, I feel satisfied that our beloved Olive has become possessed of those elegant and necessary accomplishments which should embellish the character of a young gentlewoman. ”

“ All who may know of my identity with Trall are dead. The existing document strengthens my position, and in no way can the death of Carson be traced to me. I shall die in the odour of sanctity, after all; and, indeed, if what the doctor says is true, this cursed accident is going to bring about that event very shortly. Well, if I die, I die; my life has been a hard one, and if I have sinned, I repeat, Nature is to blame, not myself. I have directed by my will that the twenty-one volumes of my cipher diary are to be burnt, since it is only for my own gratification that I have written them. ”

“ Miss Bellairs, smile; Aldean, make a joke; Miss Ostergaard, laugh for goodness' sake."
"I can't," replied the last-named lady, "until Lord Aldean makes his joke. One can't make bricks without straw or mirth without jests."
"I always have to think out my jokes," said Aldean, innocently; which remark brought forth the required mirth.
"You are like the man whose impromptus took him years to invent," said Olive, beginning to be merry. "Mr. Mallow, what is the latest news from town?"
"Men are in love; thieves are in gaol, and women still use looking-glasses." ”

“ We want no so-called universal suffrage, since we cannot get away from our own personal sovereignty. We cannot and will not make ourselves accomplices in the crimes committed by our so-called representatives. We will remain our own masters, and he amongst us who strives to become a chief or leader is a traitor to our cause. Our work it is to conquer and defend common property, and to overthrow governments by whatever name they may be called. To do this we must work, we must invent, we must sacrifice. Brains, money, labour, lives--let all go for the attainment of our end. ”

“ On the road to Casterwell, eh? I'm going there myself."
"To see Miss Bellairs, did you say?" asked Mallow, impatiently. "There's nothing wrong, I hope?"
"Good gracious, no. Why should there be anything wrong?"
"Why, indeed," said Aldean, laughing. "Lawyers and wrong never go together."
"Ha, ha! very good, my lord; but we are a much-maligned profession. No, Mr. Mallow, nothing is wrong with Miss Bellairs. On the contrary, everything is very right. I bring her the good news that Mr. Carson has arrived."
"Oh," said Mallow, with a glance at Aldean, "have you seen him?" ”

“ If there is any one to blame, it is yourself. As a spy, you can hardly expect mercy."
"I am not a spy."
"Then your interpretation of the word differs from mine. You came here under the pretence of joining us, from conscientious motives; but your real errand is to criminate myself and the doctor in the murder of this man Carson. Your intentions were dangerous to our personal safety; ergo, we lock you up! Can you blame us?"
"If the tiger has the tiger's nature who can blame him?" retorted Mallow. "You killed Carson; I dare say you will not hesitate to murder me." ”

“ Some day I'll tell it to you, if only to show you how lost a man can become, body and soul. Drabble is a devil--curse him! Hush! don't speak; I'll go--I'll go. I only wanted to tell you that the secret of your real intentions is quite safe with me. If you can ruin Drabble, and with him that stony-hearted Jezebel, do it--do it, I say. Tread them under foot--make them suffer as I have suffered, as they have made me suffer."
Trall, gripping Mallow's hand, shook it violently, and disappeared round the corner of the street. ”

“ Madame passed swiftly to the end of the cellar, where the unfortunate Trall still moaned over his niece. With a look of contempt, the woman stirred him with her foot.
"Rise," she said sternly. Slowly he got on his feet, a dishevelled, tumbled object, and muttered something about Clara. "You fool!" said Madame. "Is that all you have learned with us? To value your own miserable life or that of any other man or woman? When we take the oath we surrender our lives, to be saved or lost for the good of the cause. Clara has proved false. She must die. Nothing can save her." ”

“ Ah!" sighed Mr. Brock, "a terrible end to a mistaken life. But I thought that Drabble was more of a Socialist than an Anarchist?"
"He was everything that's bad," said Laurence, shortly. "Olive is now comforting Mrs. Drabble, poor soul! By the way, Mr. Brock, Margery told me about that wrist-button."
"Dear, dear; the poor child must not worry about that. I forgave her taking it; children will finger things, and Margery's mind was quite perverted by her father's peculiar views.--Still," he added, with a smile, "Margery really had more right to it than I. It originally belonged to Drabble." ”

“ Miss Ostergaard, whose Christian, or rather Maori name, was Tui, loved Olive as her other self, and frequently came to stay at the Manor House. She was now twenty years of age, and so pretty that she won every heart left uncaptured by Olive. With dark hair, dark complexion, and two wonderful dark eyes like wells of liquid light, she made such havoc amongst young and susceptible males that she should have been shut up as a too delightful damsel dangerous to the youth of the community. Her last victim was the hapless Aldean. ”

“ By nature I am not a bad man. It is the want of money that has induced me to do many things I would not otherwise have done. It led me from borrowing to swindling; but I have stopped short at that. If I am accused of murder, I am wrongly accused. Angus Carson was not killed by me. By whom he was killed I know no more than the man in the moon. Four or five years ago, while on leave in London, I met with Dr. Drabble. He is about as big a scoundrel as ever deserved the gallows. ”

“ She could not deny that the husband chosen for her by her father was both attractive and agreeable, that he was even lovable in some ways--perhaps in his very weakness. Laurence was pre-eminently a man of strength; a man imperious and self-sustaining; a man who would love a woman and master a woman, and fulfil the fundamental law of Nature that the male is the lord of creation from an oyster to a wife; in short, a man stable as the universe, fixed as the stars. ”

“ We Anarchists are without rulers. We fight against all the usurpers of power--against those who wish to usurp it. Our enemy is the landowner who keeps the land for himself, who makes the peasant work for his advantage. Our enemy is the manufacturer who fills his factory with slaves. Our enemy is the State, be it Anarchical, Oligarchical, or Democratic. Its official and staff of officers, magistrates, police-spies--all these are our enemies. Our enemy is every thought of authority, call it God or the devil, in whose name the priests have so long ruled the people. ”