Johnny Ludlow

“ Stay where you are, Johnny Ludlow. I choose that you shall be present at this.”
“Johnny need not fret himself that he’ll catch much harm from my iniquities,” said Tod with a sneer.
“Now listen to me, young man,” spoke Mr. Brandon. “If you persist in this insane conduct and refuse to hear reason, I’ll keep you out of danger by putting you in prison.”
Tod stared.
“You owe me a hundred pounds.”
“I am quite conscious of that, sir: and of my inability hitherto to repay it.”
“For that debt I will shut you up in prison. Headstrong young idiots like you must be saved from themselves.” ”

“ He gave a flick to the newspaper, and stared me full in the face. I did not venture to speak.
“Johnny Ludlow, I don’t like your having been initiated into the iniquities of fast life—as met with in billiard-rooms, and similar places.”
“I have got no harm from them, sir.”
“Perhaps not. But you might have got it.”
I supposed I might: and thought of Tod and his losings.
“You have good principles, Johnny Ludlow, and you’ve a bit of sense in your head; and you have been taught to know that this world is not the end of things. Temptation is bad for the best, [356] though. ”

“ I know; and so do you, Johnny Ludlow. I say, though it makes one feel queer to find the world’s slipping away. I had looked for so much jolly life in it.”
“Barrington, you may get well yet; you may, indeed. Ask Pink and Featherstone, else, when they next come; ask Mr. Carden. I can’t think what idea you have been getting hold of.”
“There, that’s enough,” he answered. “Don’t bother. I want to be quiet.”
He shut his eyes; and the darkness grew as the minutes passed. Presently some one came into the room with a gentle step: a lady in a black-and-white gown that didn’t rustle. It was Mrs. Hearn. ”

“ I am. It is that which has changed me; not the calamity itself.”
“Jack, were I you, I should stand up in the face and eyes of all the world, and say to them, ‘Before God, I did not kill Pym.’ People would believe you then. But you don’t do it.”
“I have my reasons for not doing it, Johnny Ludlow. God knows what they are; He knows all things. I dare say I may be set right with the world in time: though I don’t see how it is to be done.”
A smart young man, a new assistant, was behind the counter at Ben Rymer’s, and served me with the pills. Coming out, box in hand, we met Ben himself. ”

“ Selwyn like that—to be a schoolmistress?” interrupted Cattledon, craning her neck.
“Rather than vegetate upon her small pittance,” returned the doctor briskly. “She is an active, capable woman; has all her senses about her. Better teach little boys, and live and dress well, than enjoy a solitary joint of meat once a-week and a turned gown once a-year—eh, Johnny Ludlow?”
He caught up his hat, and went out in a bustle. I laughed. Miss Deveen nodded approvingly; not at my laugh, but at Mrs. Selwyn’s resolution. ”

“ Old Brandon finished up his broth, and put the basin down.
“You are a clever fellow, Johnny Ludlow, but not quite clever enough to deceive me. You’d no more get into such debt yourself, than I should. I have a better opinion of you than that. Who has sent you here?”
“Indeed, sir, I came of my own free will. No one knows, even, [364] that I have come. Mr. Brandon, I hope you will help me: it is almost a matter of life or death.” ”

“ Old Brandon, sipping his tea by spoonfuls, listened, and stared at me with his little eyes.
“And you have been getting up in your brain the Utopian scheme that Sir Robert Tenby would put this curate into the living! and want me to propose it to him! Is that what you mean, young man?”
“Yes, sir. Sir Robert would listen to you. You are friendly with him, and he is in town. Won’t you, please, do it?”
“Not if I know it, Johnny Ludlow. Solicit Robert Tenby to give the living to a man I never heard of: a man I know nothing about! What notions you pick up!” ”

“ The whole world does not seem to be as sinful in its wickedness as I was in my harsh unkindness; and there’s no sort of expiation left to me. If I pass my whole existence laying my hands under other people’s feet in humble hope to serve them, it cannot undo the bitterness of my passion when I exposed him before Johnny Ludlow. The exposure was more than he could bear; and he—he put an end to it. I suffer always, Harriet Roe; my days are one prolonged burning agony of repentance. ”

“ I think—I think,” added Nancy impressively, though with some hesitation, “that she came to let me know I am going to her. I believe I have seen her for the last time. The house has, also, I fancy; she and I will shortly go out of it together.”
What could I answer to that?
“And so it is over at last,” she murmured, more to herself than to me. “Very nearly over. The distress and the doubt, the terror and the pain. I brought it all on; you know that, Johnny Ludlow. I feel sure now that she has pardoned me. I humbly hope that God has.” ”

“ Disreputable for all young men, especially for a very young one like you. I wonder what your father would have said to it!”
“I, at least, sir, am doing no harm in it.”
“Yes, you are, Johnny. You are suffering your eyes and mind [354] to grow familiar with these things. So, their game is over, is it!”
I turned round. They had finished, and were leaving. In looking for me, Tod saw Mr. Brandon. He came up to shake hands with him, and told me they were going.
“Come in and see me to-morrow morning, Johnny Ludlow,” said Mr. Brandon, in a tone of command. “Eleven o’clock.”
“Yes, sir. ”

“ Johnny Ludlow, when I look about me and see the snares spread abroad in this great metropolis by night and by day, and at the crowds of inexperienced lads—they are not much better—who have to run to and fro continually, I marvel that the number of those who lose themselves is not increased tenfold. ”

“ Brandon, with a nod. “She’ll write to stop his coming, if she knows where to write to. The sight of Johnny Ludlow has startled her. You were a great muff to let yourself be seen, young Johnny.”
“Yes, sir, I know I was.”
“Live and learn, live and learn,” said he, bringing out his tin box. “One cannot put old heads upon young shoulders.”
Sunday morning. After breakfast I and Mr. Brandon were standing under the porte-cochère, looking about us. At the banking house opposite; at a man going into the chemist’s shop with his hand tied up ”

“ ROGER BEVERE. I.
“There’s trouble everywhere. It attaches itself more or less to all people as they journey through life. Yes, I quite agree with what you say, Squire: that I, a man at my ease in the world and possessing no close ties of my own, ought to be tolerably exempt from care. But I am not so. You have heard of the skeleton in the closet, Johnny Ludlow. Few families are without one. I have mine.”
Mr. Brandon nodded to me, as he spoke, over the silver coffee-pot. I had gone to the Tavistock Hotel from Miss Deveen’s to breakfast with him and the Squire—who had come up for a week. ”

“ For I hear some of them do it.”
“But they think they have a right to be called so, Uncle John. The question——”
“What right?” sharply demanded Mr. Brandon. “What gives it them?”
“Well—courtesy, I suppose,” hesitated Roger.
“Oh,” said Mr. Brandon.
I laughed. His tone was so quaint.
“Yes, you may laugh, Johnny Ludlow—showing your thoughtlessness! There’ll soon be no modesty left in the world,” he continued; “there’ll soon be no hard, plodding work. Formerly, men were content to labour on patiently for years, to attain [345] success, whether in fame, fortune, or for a moderate competency. ”

“ Is anything the matter, sir?” I could not help asking.
“The matter?” he repeated.
“I thought you looked worried.”
“I am worried with work,” he said, laughing slightly. “While others take their rest, I have to be up at my books and letters. Great wealth brings great care with it, Johnny Ludlow, and hard work as well. Good night, my lad.”
Tod was pacing the room with his hands in his pockets. It was a terrible position for him to be in. Owing a hundred pounds—to put it in round numbers—for a debt of honour. No means of his own, not daring to tell his father. ”

“ The intensely serene look that for some time now had taken possession of his face, I had never seen surpassed in boy or man.
“How quiet the house is, Johnny!” he said, touching my hand. “Where are they all?”
“Helen and Anna went out to ask after Mrs. Frost and Barrington. And the boys—but I think you know it—have gone with Sir John to Evesham. You wouldn’t call the house quiet, John, if you could hear the row going on in the nursery.”
He smiled a little. “Charley’s a dreadful Turk: none of us elder ones were ever half as bad. Where’s the mother?” ”

“ That is one cause, Johnny Ludlow,” she concluded, very tartly.
“Is there any other?”
“Don’t you think that sufficient? I am not going to let them appear before me in rags—and so Crabb Lane knows. But there is another cause, sir. This strike has so altered the course of things that the whole order of ordinary events is turned upside down. Even if the young ones’ frocks were home again, it would be ten to one against their coming to school.” ”

“ The Squire read it aloud to every one, as the soundest letter he’d ever seen written.
“I am afraid their view is the right one—that the children are too thick on the ground, poor things,” sighed Mrs. Todhetley. “Any way, Johnny, it is very hard on the young ones to have to work as poor little Dick did: late and early, wet or dry: and I am glad for his sake that God has taken him.” ”

“ Crayton?”
“I think his father is the Earl of Lackland.”
“Oh, ah; one of Lackland’s sons, is he? There’s six or eight sons, of them, Johnny Ludlow, and not a silver coin amongst the lot. Lackland never had much, but what little it was he lost at horse-racing. The sons live by their wits, I’ve heard: lords’ sons have not much work in them. The Honourable Mr. Crayton, eh! Your two friends had better take care of themselves.”
The thought of how Tod had “taken care” of himself flashed into my mind. I wouldn’t have old Brandon know it for the world.
“I posted a letter to you to-day, sir. ”

“ I expect by this time he must be nearing the journey’s end.”
“It is only a broken arm that he has, sir,” I put in, thinking what a gloomy view he was taking of it all. “That is soon cured.”
“Don’t you speak so confidently, Johnny Ludlow,” reproved Mr. Brandon. “We shall find more the matter with Roger than a broken arm; take my word for that. He has been on the wrong tack this long while. A broken arm would not cause him to hide himself—and that’s what he must have been doing.”
“Some of those hospital students are a wild lot—as I have heard,” said the Squire.
Mr. Brandon nodded in answer. ”

“ That night I dreamt of the strike. It’s as true as that I am writing this. I dreamt I saw thousands and thousands of red-faced men—not pale-faced ones—each tossing a loaf of bread up and down.
“I suppose I may go over and see Eliza,” I said to Mrs. Todhetley, after breakfast in the morning.
“There is no reason why you should not, Johnny, that I know of,” she answered, after a pause. “Excepting the cold.”
As if I minded the cold! “I hope the whole lot, she and the young ones, won’t look like skeletons, that’s all. Tod, will you come?” ”

“ I shall be glad to welcome him,” replied Sir John, dismally. “There’ll not be much here but stupid boys and girls. We shall get no whist to-night. The plague only knows who invented balls.”
It was a little odd that, next to ourselves, Mrs. Hughes should be the first to arrive. She was very pale and pretty, and her husband was a slender, quiet, delicate man, looking like a finished gentleman. Miss Deveen followed them with her eyes as they went up to Lady Whitney.
“She does not look like it, does she, Johnny?” whispered Miss Deveen to me. ”

“ Pym wound up by saying the young lady was his cousin, and he could take care of her without being interfered with.
“Do you trust him, Johnny Ludlow?” asked Jack, as we came away.
“I don’t trust him on the whole; not a bit of it. But he seems to speak truth in saying she is with friends.”
And, as the days went on, bringing no tidings of Verena, Sir Dace Fontaine grew angry as a raging tiger.
When a ship is going out of dock, she is more coquettish than a beauty in her teens. Not in herself, but in her movements. Advertised to sail to-day, you will be told she’ll not start until to-morrow ”

“ He could have done no less had he been going to his hanging.”
“He would have liked to speak, I think, but could not get up courage for it; he is the shyest man possible,” cried Emma. “But he did not go off surreptitiously: some people knew of it. Miss Deveen knew—and Dr. Galliard knew—and we knew—and I feel nearly sure Mr. Chisholm knew, he simpered so the other day when he called for the books. I dare say Johnny Ludlow knew.”
All which was so much martyrdom to Jemima Cattledon, [448] listening with a face of vinegar. ”

“ I asked.
“Oh, he may do that; it’s likely enough,” said Pitt. “But medical students, running their fast career in London, are queer [319] subjects, let me tell you, Johnny Ludlow; they don’t care to have their private affairs supervised.”
“All of them are not queer—as you call it, Pitt.”
“No, indeed,” he answered, warmly: “or I don’t know what would become of the profession. Many of them are worthy, earnest fellows always, steady as old time. Others pull up when they have had their fling, and make good men: and a few go to the bad altogether.”
“In which class do you put Roger Bevere?” ”