Pierce Egan

“ It elevates, sir—never seeks to reduce her chances of happiness; and rather frets itself out in silence and secrecy, than it would, by the gratification of its inclinations, jeopardise her future peace and contentment.”
“I admit, sir,” replied Hal, “the force of your argument, but I deny the truth of its intended conclusion. I yield to no being in the world in the disinterestedness of my passion for Miss Wilton. I would sacrifice my love and myself a thousand times rather than occasion her one moment’s care or privation. ”

“ I look with fright and horror upon any other future. I can endure anything with you, submit with a smile to the frowns of fate, bear cheerfully any ills which may arise—you know, Hal, poverty ought not to scare me—I can bear troubles and trials with you, I can bear nothing if I am to be torn from you and given to another.”
“My own darling Flora!” cried Hal, pressing her tenderly to his heart.
A flush of heat rushed to his forehead and his cheeks. ”

“ You have been left in a position of great trust in the midst of a heavy calamity; much will be demanded of your energy and self reliance; remember ‘God helps those who help themselves’, therefore, while you are grateful for, place no reliance in, promises. Farewell!—we shall meet again. May it be when you will not need my assistance!”
With a wave of the hand, he hurried out of the room, closely followed by Mr. Graba, leaving Flora, no less than Lotte, in a state of bewildered astonishment. ”

“ I further caused him to be informed that as soon as you were able to leave your chamber, you would go to him, and explain all that I was unable to communicate.”
“Oh, sir! let me go to him at once,” cried Flora eagerly.
“If you feel strong enough, certainly,” replied Mr. Harper.
“Oh, sir! I am quite strong enough, quite—indeed I am. I so long to see him; I have so much, so very much to say to him.”
“Be it so; Hal shall accompany you to protect you. You cannot go alone.” ”

“ I’ll serve every man on ’em with a writ, Jukes. And them as can pay, I’ll foller up; an’ them as is straw. I’ll screw some costs out on—eh, Jukes. There, d’ye see that!”
As he concluded, he produced a fifty pound note, given to him by Grahame.
“There’s lots more where that came from,” he cried, “and I’ll work up that mine until I’ve got a pretty trifle out on it.”
Jukes looked at the note with the eyes of a vulture, and bent towards Chewkle with the manner of a spaniel. He adored money, and reverenced those who possessed it. ”

“ It was one of the last new dies, and was bright as from the Mint.
“What a beautiful piece of silver!” he exclaimed, with a grin of satisfaction. “Well, you are a gentleman! When you come again, sir, ask for me—my name is Maybee: everybody here knows Josh Maybee, anything I can do for you in the prison I will: out of it, you know, is not at present in my line. God bless you, sir! good day—oh! stay, you had better knock and see whether Mr. Wilton is in his room. If not, I’ll run into the ground, and hunt him up.”
Flora tapped gently at the door, but there was no response. ”

“ The old man drew her to his breast, and pressed her convulsively there, sobbing, as he did so, like a child. Hal, with water glittering in his eyes, turned his face from them, and looked out upon the bustling noisy groups in the racket ground beneath.
Shabby Josh Maybee made an effort to clear his throat, as if he had swallowed a cobweb, and felt that, in spite of all his economic resolutions, at least twopence of the half-crown would instantly be melted into beer. ”

“ With rage and fury swelling his frame, and forming a hundred schemes of a deadly revenge, the foiled Colonel hastened in the opposite direction to that Hal had taken.
“And this dark-skinned villain hopes to take to his arms the fairest, brightest piece of Nature’s handicraft,” Hal muttered, as he pursued his way homeward. “He will vex and trouble her by his detestable addresses. Oh, Flora, dearest! if I may not aspire to your hand, or hope for your love, I may, at least, pass my life in protecting you from the machinations of such villains as this. ”

“ I would hazard all I might ever hope for in this world that you will prove her only like golden ore—the purer for the fiery ordeal she may have had to undergo.”
“God bless you, Hal, for those comforting words! they have relieved my heart of much bitter agony,” cried Charley, fervidly.
“Ay!” responded Hal, shrugging his shoulders, “but you should have had faith in Lotte. She deserves it if ever one of her sex did. I am on my way to meet Mark Wilton, and it shall go hard but I disabuse his mind of any false notions he may have taken into his head.” ”

“ You would be bewildered without some one to make inquiries for you, and be, perhaps, rudely assailed by the unreflecting or the callous and the impertinent. Yes; Hal shall go with you, and you will, believe me, find the prison somewhat different to the picture you have sketched in your imagination.”
Flora listened in silence, and acquiesced in the arrangement, not that the disagreeable part of it would be the society of Hal—nay, she would have gone with Jukes rather than not have gone at all, malicious ogre as she considered him—but she would have preferred to have gone alone. ”

“ No; life hath no more a motive to render it worth its endurance. A rifle and the prairies of the Far West shall be my world; there at least in the vast solitudes I can, uninterrupted, dwell upon her memory, revel in glorious visions of her angel face”——
A hand placed lightly upon his shoulder interrupted his soliloquy.
He turned sharply to find at his side Colonel Mires.
“A word with you,” he said to Hal, abruptly. “Follow me.”
“No!” returned Hal, coldly. “What you can have to say to me can as well be said here as elsewhere. We are unobserved.” ”

“ I deem it advisable to make you thus much acquainted with my plan to spare you the agony of useless displays. At Funchal, I hope to induce you to become my wife—at least, I will ensure that you shall never be the bride of another.”
He ceased. Flora made no reply. The note which informed her of the sudden death of Mr. Vivian, professing to be written by Mrs. Harper, was a forgery, acknowledged to be such by the Colonel. She cared little for the rest; she had faith in being rescued, or in effecting an escape from the clutches of the scoundrel who had made her prisoner and was bearing her away. ”

“ Grahame drew her dress angrily from the clutch of Evangeline. She stepped back as the face of her half-swooning girl bowed itself upon her feet, and she said sternly—
“Malcolm, raise this raving girl from her self-degradation. Unworthy of her name, she pleads for one who has disgraced herself—and in vain; Evangeline, retire to your room, and there remain until you can meet me in a manner becoming your position as a Grahame.” ”

“ Hal rushed forward and caught him in his arms. The emotion had been too much for him, and he had fallen into a swoon. Hal laid him tenderly on his bed, and unloosed his neckcloth, while Flora, procuring some water from a brown pitcher, which stood in a corner of the apartment, bathed his temples and his lips with it. ”

“ She turned her eyes hastily around the apartment, Chayter was no longer there. She was alone.
She took up the letter and held it to the lamp, so that she might see the superscription clearly. She started as she recognised the handwriting.
“Heaven! I thought so,” she ejaculated. “It is from Hugh. How thoughtless to address to me here!”
She examined the post-mark, which bore the name of Southampton. She drew a long breath, as though to nerve herself to meet the contents of the letter, which she felt would have a marked influence upon her future destiny, and then she broke the seal. ”

“ She never can be yours. Now, Mr. Vivian, I am not unmindful of your past services; I appreciate them warmly, and am most unlikely to forget them by any breach of the laws of hospitality, but you must see this can no longer be a place for you to visit. I must, therefore, take my farewell of you. I shall be happy to hear of your future welfare and of your fame, for I have always entertained an opinion that a high destiny awaits you. At any time that I can be of service”——
Hal made an impatient, indignant gesture. Mr. Wilton bowed.
“I understand the feeling,” he said, “and I honour it. ”

“ The visage of the little man shone like burnished gold. His eyes danced and sparkled, and he chuckled as if animated by the most pleasurable emotions.
“Aha! friend Chewkle,” he exclaimed, placing his cold, fishy hand upon Chewkle’s fevered wrist; “you are active this morning—full of business—away from home to a lawyer’s office—then hurrying back in a cab to your charmingly retired abode—away in a cab back to the solicitors, and now, ha! ha! eh? I’ll be sworn to Mr. Grahame’s, in the Regent’s Park, with a communication—I say a communication, he! he! Brisk fellow, sharp fellow, smart dog.” ”

“ Such were his thoughts as he gazed upon her while she was speaking to her father’s solicitor. She was so beautiful, so very, very beautiful, that the more his eyes perused her fair lineaments, the more deep became his determination not to be shaken off.
But she never turned her eyes towards him; and when, by her quietly dropping her share in the conversation, it rested between him and Mr. Charlock, she silently glided from the room.
Had it not been for the presence of Mr. Charlock, Mark would have followed her example ”

“ All you have been telling me may be lies, you know, my Chewkle; I don’t mean to insinuate that such is the case, but when one is called to pay down for bare assertion, then it is necessary to be cautious.”
“I’ve told you truth, sir,” replied Chewkle, with earnestness, and then, thoughtlessly, as the forged deed flashed through his mind, he said, “And I could tell you some information about Mr. Grahame as you’d like to have.”
“Not you,” said Nathan Gomer, coolly.
“You have lent him a heap of money, haven’t you?” inquired Chewkle, with a tone as much as to say, “I know you have.” ”

“ She had a struggle, at first, to wrest the empire from Evangeline, but she was so forcible in her reasoning, and so kind and gentle in her manner, that Eva yielded up the sway, on the understanding that she should spend the greater portion of her time at her sister’s bedside.
And now the house assumed an aspect of quiet. The Duke of St. Allborne had just begun to find favourable qualities in Margaret, not visible to the eyes of others, but bright in his, for her homage to him had been so direct that he could but notice and approve it. Direct flattery rarely disgusts the weak-minded ”

“ He has only to make a flourish with a pen, and there he is a free man agin with all his traps about him.”
Mr. Jukes paused. Young Vivian approached old Wilton.
“Your position is a grave one, Mr. Wilton,” he said: “let me respectfully suggest that if a simple signature will free you from two heavy claims”——
“Two thousand pounds, two thousand pounds!” interposed Jukes, elevating his voice as he repeated the amount of the sum.
“Simple signature!—simple signature!” almost screamed the old man. “You do not know what you ask, young sir. Sign it. Never! I will starve, rot, die, first.” ”

“ Harper had been seized with apoplexy, and had expired after Hal had left Highbury at dawn that morning.
Robert gazed with an insolent air of triumph upon the shocked white features of Hal, who stood transfixed like a statue, and he said to him—
“I’m master here now; I suppose you know that. If you don’t, I’ll soon make you know it. The old man’s gone off and left no will behind him. Do you know that? because if you don’t, you will know it from this time, and be made to know it, too. I am the heir and sole master of all here. ”

“ What, however, was his astonishment and fury when he found that Harry Vivian was the hero of the interview, the stranger who had infused into Flora’s manner that apparent happiness, in which, of late especially, it had been so deficient.
His first impulse was to rush from his covert, fasten upon him, and strangle him; but the physical proportions of Hal were such as to compel him to reflect, in spite of his intense vindictiveness, upon the prospect of success in such a step. To be himself overpowered and fail, would be destruction to his hopes ”

“ In the meantime, Nathan Gomer, on returning to his easy chair, drew up his knees to his chin, and went through some extraordinary evolutions. He rubbed his yellow hands with delight, and his golden visage glistened and beamed with felicity.
“Cunning Chewkle!” he cried—“cunning, cunning Chewkle. Ho! ho! ho! such a cunning fellow! Mr. Josh Maybee is the man, eh? Confined in Spike Hotel, which is the Queen’s Prison. I will be closeted with him while Mr. Chewkle is admiring the carpetbags, and longing to secure the heaviest in the waiting-room of the railway. ”

“ I can see her turning sorrowfully away when you deny her access to me, but she is now to me an angel of such spotless purity, and I so foul, so black, so begrimed with wickedness, that were she to lay her tender hand upon me, and with those immaculate lips press my hot forehead, I should shrink from her, fearing to pollute her by the contact. ”

“ Hal, sensitive, and restive under suspicion as to his status in society, drew a card from his card-case, and in a very decided tone, which sounded like command, said, as he handed the small piece of thin pasteboard to him—
“You will please to say that I am desirous of seeing Miss Wilton, and that I shall esteem it a favour if she will grant me an interview at once and alone.”
The hall-porter instantly summoned a man-servant, dressed in a livery of deep violet hue, and gave him the card and the message. ”