William Henry Giles Kingston

“ When the wretched Andrew Brown is run up to the yard-arm there will be no one to mourn him, and Harry Tryon may disappear without a stain of disgrace upon the name.”
He attempted to rise—he could do so with difficulty—to take a few turns up and down the narrow cell. Scarcely ever was he left in silence. There was the ripple of the water against the ship’s side; above him the steps of other prisoners as they, like him, paced to and fro. Now and then there were shouts and cries of men driven to despair by their approaching fate, others singing and shouting with careless indifference. ”

“ As he looked at the group of excited beings with sparkling eyes, the rouge cheeks of the ladies, with here and there a black patch to hide a blemish, or to set off the fairness of their skins; the haggard faces of the men, with their perukes pushed on one side, their lips puckered, pressed close together, many of them holding the cards with trembling knees, evidently with one foot in the grave, Harry could not help hoping that he might never become like one of them, and he longed once more to be back at Stanmore in the company of Mabel. ”

“ Great was his surprise, on returning to the drier part of the beach, when the light of a lantern fell on a man’s countenance he recognised—the features of his old acquaintance, Captain Falwasser. Several other persons were seated near him: one was a female, and the other an old man.
“What, my friend Harry Tryon!” exclaimed the captain, grasping him. “My life, I know, is not the first you have saved. Harry, I have news for you,” he said, as if recollecting himself. “You shall have it by-and-bye. But these poor people require to be housed. ”

“ You will have many opportunities in London; I must beg that you will not throw them away. You may be the possessor of a large fortune, and yet unless you know how to manage it, it may be of little use to you. Many a man, with three or four thousand a year, does more than others with thirty or forty thousand. I would have you also, Harry, pay every attention to the wishes of your guardian, Mr Kyffin. He is a very respectable man, and will probably save money, and as far as I can learn, as he has no other relations of his own, he will undoubtedly leave it to you. ”

“ Up the Thames was the prison ship. Here Harry, with a number of mutineers, was conveyed. Many of his companions were desperate characters, who seemed only to dread the punishment they might receive. He felt that unless he could be proved innocent, death was the only alternative he could desire. Yet it was hard to die. He had looked forward to a life of happiness with one to whom his undivided heart was given; one well worthy of the affections of the best of men. His honour was gone. ”

“ Before long, Admiral Wallace hobbled in, his voice sounding loud and cheery through the half-filled rooms, as Mr Sleech bowed and salaamed to him with due respect, and the Misses Sleech performed the courtesies they had learned from M. Millepied, their dancing-master.
“Well, Sleech, you have done the thing well,” cried the admiral. “I little thought to see anybody else than an Everard in this house. However, the world’s turned upside down; rogues get into honest men’s places, and honest men come to the wall—that’s the way affairs go at present.” ”

“ Down sank the bows, and with one awful plunge the proud frigate rushed downward into the ocean depths. A wild cry arose, such as even the bravest utter in a moment of extreme peril. Jacob and Harry leaped on the small raft. The grey dawn had just before broke. Some of the larger rafts, not yet completed, were sucked down with the sinking ship. Several boats suffered the same fate. Others were swamped. The small raft was whirled round and round, a few men clinging to it, Harry and Jacob among them keeping their hold. ”

“ She was in a worse humour even than usual.
“Fortune won’t desert me,” she said at length, as they were nearing home; “there’s another chance; I intend to purchase some lottery tickets: they can bring me through, though nothing else can, unless, Harry, when you marry the little heiress you take care of your old grand-dame; you owe her something for bringing you up as a gentleman, for if I had not taken you up you would have been even now a merchant’s clerk in the city! Faugh! that such should be the fate of a grandson of General Tryon.” ”

“ What a blessed thing is hope, even in regard to mere mundane matters. Harry had at this time nothing else to live upon. After all the grand expectations he had enjoyed, to find himself at last only a merchant’s clerk with 100 pounds a year! Roger Kyffin’s society might possibly have been more improving to Harry than that of his grandmother. At the same time, after a few weeks, it must be owned that Harry began to wish for a little change. Roger Kyffin had been in the habit of living a good deal by himself, and had not many acquaintances in the immediate neighbourhood. ”

“ Within half an hour of the time he fell in with Jacob Tuttle few would have recognised in the smart, young, sailor-like-looking lad, the sedate London-dressed merchant’s clerk. Harry felt freer than before in his new dress, and promising to return to old Dame Tuttle’s cottage, he hurried away towards Stanmore. It was dusk when he approached the house; but he knew every path and sylvan glade in the grounds, and had already thought of the best place in which to watch for a chance of meeting Mabel. By climbing a high paling he got round to the garden side of the house. ”

“ He also held Mr Sleech in considerable esteem. It is surprising that he did so, but the fact was, that that individual was a most consummate hypocrite—he otherwise would not certainly have deceived such acute observers as Mr Coppinger and his managing clerk. Harry could not have met with a worse person as a companion in London. Young Gilby might have led him into scrapes, while the other, by imbuing him with his own principles, and introducing him to profligates and designing knaves, might injure his future prospects, and destroy him body and soul, as many another young man has been destroyed. ”

“ Harry afterwards heard that the young man had shot himself, utterly ruined. Such has been the fate of many a man after losing his all at a gambling-house. Such in reality was the use to which the Guildhall of London was at that time put. As the numbers were called out, Harry guessed by the expression of Lady Tryon’s countenance that one after the other of those she held in her hand had turned up blanks. Even the rouge on her cheeks could not conceal the deadly pallor which was creeping over her countenance. ”

“ If I get the 20,000 pound prize you shall have 1,000 pounds, I will promise you, to cut a figure with in town, and then to go down and marry pretty Mabel Everard. Ah, Harry! you are a fortunate fellow to have such a kind old grandmother as I am, and to be loved by such a sweet girl as Mabel. I know your secret; she loves you, you rogue, and you have only to ask her, and she will marry you at once. I can manage her father; he is a good-natured, easy man, and has a great respect for me. ”

“ Silas professed to be a “friend of the people.” Harry’s generous heart rose in rebellion against anything like tyranny and oppression, and Silas easily persuaded him that the French Revolution had been brought about by the tyrannical way in which the aristocracy had treated the people.
“Let me ask you, Harry,” he said, “are not our own people treated very much in the same way? Look at our ill-fed, ill-clad soldiers, robbed on all sides, and left to perish like dogs from neglect. Then see our sailors. Were you ever on board a man-of-war, Harry? ”

“ Had Lord Malmesbury been successful in his negotiation for peace, things might have been different, but what can be worse with consols down to fifty-seven, a fearful run on the Bank of England, and now a suspension of payment in specie altogether, with this dangerous mutiny of the fleet as a climax! Then look at Ireland—half the country in a state of rebellion; the people shrieking out for the assistance of the French, and cutting each other’s throats in the meantime. Then these Jacobin clubs in London and throughout all our large towns, doing their utmost to bring about a republic in England. ”

“ Would he be able to return to the position he had abandoned in Mr Coppinger’s counting-house, and, with the assistance of his guardian, labour till he had gained an independence? She thought Harry would be capable of anything. Her father would, at all events, be ready to help him by every means in his power. He surely could refuse nothing to the man who had saved his life so bravely at the risk of his own. Her father had always been looked upon as a man of great influence. ”

“ Life in London and in dusty chambers was not exactly what he had been accustomed to, but still, where an important object was to be gained, he was ready to submit to anything. Lady Tryon laughed at the notion. He might certainly eat his dinners at the Inns of Court and live in dusty chambers, but as to making anything by so doing, the idea was preposterous. A young fellow like him, of good family and presentable appearance, must marry an heiress. He was fit for that, and nothing else.
Harry saw that there was no use discussing the matter with his grandmother. ”

“ On the contrary, the more a man could drink, the better he was thought of by his ordinary companions. Sleech smiled as he saw Harry toss off tumbler after tumbler of wine. It was cool claret, and tasted like water. The tempter had now his victim more than ever in his hands. The papers were brought out. Harry put his name to several.
“I wish you could write old Kyffin’s name as well as you do your own,” observed Sleech, “or your uncle’s. I say, Harry, why were you not called Stephen Coppinger? Your grandmother’s name was Coppinger, wasn’t it? In my opinion it’s a better name than Tryon. ”

“ Harry behaved remarkably well under circumstances so novel to him, and Mabel, at all events, thought that she had never seen him looking so handsome.
“He would make a charming page,” Lady Tryon whispered in her ear; “I must try and get their Majesties to take him.”
Meantime the sky had cleared, the sun shone forth brightly. The guests were soon seen in their gayest costumes crossing the lawn to the tents, the band struck up and played the most joyous tunes, and the King came to the window and clapped his hands with delight. ”

“ He remembered old Sleech at Lynderton, a smooth-spoken, oily-tongued, civil gentleman, profuse in his bows to gentlemen on horseback or ladies in their carriages, but very apt to button up his breeches pockets at the approach of a supplicant. As to his character he knew nothing, except that he was looked upon as a lawyer of sharp practice. Once upon a time Harry would not have wished to be seen walking down Lynderton Street in company with Silas Sleech, but now things were altered. In London people needed not to be so particular as to their associates. ”

“ There was one, however, with which he entirely failed, Harry would never be allured by meretricious beauty. Silas was puzzled. He took good care to conceal his own sins from public view.
“The young one is deep,” he thought to himself. “He knows what he’s about, I am pretty sure of that.”
Harry, though duped by Silas, had never made him his confidant. He saw that Harry delighted in excitement, and took him once or twice to hear the debates in the House of Commons. They were pretty stormy sometimes, when Fox, and Pitt, and Wyndham were on their feet. ”

“ Harry fortunately recollected Lady Tryon’s man of business. He sent for him, as he did also for Mr Kyffin.
“I will leave you still here,” said his old friend, who came that very evening, “and when your grandmother’s affairs have been arranged you must come to my house. I hope that you will find yourself left comfortably off. Let me entreat you not to be idle, Harry; it is the very worst employment a man can engage in.” Harry shook his head. “I doubt my being well off,” he answered. “We will hope for the best,” said Mr Kyffin. Harry had good reason for his doubts. ”

“ She knew he was with the captain. Poor dear young lady! it will break her heart, and Mary’s, too, and Madam Everard’s, too, and mine if it was not too tough. I wish that I had received marching orders with the colonel not to see this day; and yet it is a soldier’s duty to stand fast at his post, and that’s what the colonel told me to do, and that’s what, please God, I will do, and look after these poor ladies, and little Mary, too, and widow Tuttle: they will all want help. Oh, sir! when a battle’s fought or a ship goes down with all her crew it’s those on shore feel it. ”

“ On one side were the walls of the castle, on the other stretched away the greensward, the wide-spreading trees, and the long glades of Windsor forest. Along the terrace were scattered numerous groups of persons, some standing on either side, others walking slowly up and down in conversation, now bowing to those they passed, now stopping to speak a few words to acquaintances. Below, the park was crowded with persons of every degree, all of them in gala costume. The eyes of the greater number turned frequently up towards the terrace, where some object especially attracted their attention. ”

“ Harry, calling to the people assembled, formed a party of men with ropes and spars who, secured one to the other, were to rush into the sea, and endeavour to drag out those who were washed overboard. Others were to stand by, ready to carry them up the beach out of the reach of the waves. The arrangements were made not a moment too soon. With a loud crash the lugger was seen rushing up the beach. In another instant, the following sea, with a loud roar, washed completely over her, and she was driven broadside on to the shore. ”

“ However, he was a very good fellow, although he could not play cricket or row a boat, and as Mabel certainly gave him no encouragement, Harry began to like him.
By the time Harry was eighteen Mabel had become a lovely and an amiable girl. No wonder that being much in her society he should have loved her. Lady Tryon, who had always indulged him, was not long in discovering the state of his affections, and instead or attempting to check him, she encouraged him in his wish to obtain the hand of Mabel Everard. ”

“ Harry saw Lady Tryon into her carriage, and saying that he would walk home, went back to pay his adieus to the ladies. Mabel looked more beautiful than ever, and gave him a smile which made him feel very happy.
“By-the-bye,” said the Colonel, drawing him aside, “if you ever have an ‘affair of honour,’ you must promise to ask me to be your second. Remember I am an old soldier, and you could not have a better man. ”

“ I should be ready to start with you to-morrow, or the next day at the very furthest.”
“You seem in a desperate hurry to take a plunge into something, Harry,” answered Captain Falwasser.
“I know the world better than you do, so let me advise you to reflect well before you leap off firm ground. I would not ask what has gone wrong with you, but I will wager you are not worse off than hundreds of other young men have been. Some who took leaps in the dark are bitterly repenting their folly. Those who paused before they jumped are happy and prosperous. ”

“ With a heavy heart Paul Gauntlett heard the lawyer’s decision, though even then he seemed very doubtful whether he ought to submit to Madam Everard’s orders.
“I would rather a thousand times have fought it out to the last, and died in the breach,” he exclaimed, dashing his stick on the floor. “However, if it must be, it must be, and it’s not the first time a scoundrel has gained the day and got into the place of an honest man.” ”