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the fellow in the play-the Critic,' hey?-devilish amusing play, that Critic.' Monstrous witty man Sheridan; and so was his son. By Gad, sir, when I was at the Cape, I remember

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The old gentleman's garrulity, and wish to conduct Arthur to the Cape, perhaps arose from a desire to avoid the subject which was nearest his nephew's heart; but Arthur broke out, interrupting him-"If you had told me this tale sooner, I believe you would have spared me and yourself a great deal of pain and disappointment; and I should not have found myself tied to an engagement from which I can't, in honour, recede."

"No, begad, we've fixed you-and a man whose fixed to a seat in Parliament, and a pretty girl, with a couple of thousand a-year, is fixed to no bad thing, let me tell you," said the old man.

"Great Heaven, sir!" said Arthur; "are you blind? Can't you see?"

"See what, young gentleman ?" asked the other.

"See, that rather than trade upon this secret of Amory's," Arthur cried out, "I would go and join my father-in-law at the hulks! See, that rather than take a seat in Parliament as a bribe from Clavering for silence, I would take the spoons off the table! See, that you have given me a felon's daughter for a wife; doomed me to poverty and shame; cursed my career when it might have been—when it might have been so different but for you! Don't you see that we have been playing a guilty game, and have been over-reached ;-that in offering to marry this poor girl, for the sake of her money, and the advancement she would bring, I was degrading myself, and prostituting my honour?"

"What in Heaven's name do you mean, sir?" cried the old man.

"I mean to say that there is a measure of baseness which I can't pass," Arthur said. "I have no other words for it, and am sorry if they hurt you. I have felt, for months past, that my conduct in this affair has been wicked, sordid, and worldly. I am rightly punished by the event, and having sold myself for money and a seat in Parliament, by losing both.”

"How do you mean that you lose either ?" shrieked the old gentleman. "Who the devil's to take your fortune or your seat away from you? By G-, Clavering shall give 'em to you. You shall have every shilling of eighty thousand pounds."

"I'll keep my promise to Miss Amory, sir," said Arthur. "And, begad, her parents shall keep theirs to you."

"Not so, please God," Arthur answered. "I have sinned, but, Heaven help me, I will sin no more. I will let Clavering off from that bargain which was made without my knowledge. I will take no money with Blanche but that which was originally settled upon her; and I will try to make her happy. You have done it. You have brought this on me, sir. But you knew no better and I forgive————

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"Arthur-in God's name-in your father's, who, by Heavens, was the proudest man alive, and had the honour of the family always at heart-in mine-for the sake of a poor broken-down old fellow, who has always been dev'lish fond of you-don't fling this chance away-I pray you, I beg you, I implore you, my dear dear boy, don't fling this chance away. It's the making of you. You're sure to get on. You'll be a Baronet; it's three thousand a-year: dammy, on my knees, there, I beg of you, don't do this."

And the old man actually sank down on his knees, and seizing one of Arthur's hands, looked up piteously at him. It was cruel to remark the shaking hands, the wrinkled and quivering face, the old eyes weeping and winking, the broken voice. "Ah, sir," said Arthur, with a groan, "you have brought pain enough on me, spare me this. You have wished me to marry Blanche. I marry her. For God's sake, sir, rise! I can't bear it."

"You-you mean to say that you will take her as a beggar, and be one yourself?" said the old gentleman, rising up and coughing violently.

"I look at her as a person whom a great calamity has befallen, and to whom I am promised. She cannot help the misfortune; and as she had my word when she was prosperous, I shall not withdraw it now she is poor. I will not take Clavering's seat, unless afterwards it should be given of his

free will. I will not have a shilling more than her original fortune."

"Have the kindness to ring the bell," said the old gentleman. “I have done my best, and said my say; and I'm a dev'lish old fellow. And-and-it don't matter. And-and Shakspeare was right-and Cardinal Wolsey-begad—' and had I but served my God as I've served you'-yes, on my knees, by Jove, to my own nephew-I mightn't have been Good-night, sir, you needn't trouble yourself to call

again."

Arthur took his hand, which the old man left to him; it was quite passive and clammy. He looked very much oldened; and it seemed as if the contest and defeat had quite broken him.

On the next day he kept his bed, and refused to see his nephew.

429

CHAPTER XXXIII.

IN WHICH THE DECKS BEGIN TO CLEAR.

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W

Pen

HEN, arrayed in his dressing - gown, walked up, according to custom, to Warrington's chambers next morning, to inform his friend of the issue of the last night's interview with his uncle, and to ask, as usual, for George's advice and opinion, Mrs. Flanagan, the laundress, was the only person whom Arthur found in the dear old chambers. George

had taken a carpet-bag, and was gone. His address was to his brother's house in Suffolk. Packages, addressed to the newspaper and review for which he wrote, lay on the table, awaiting delivery.

"I found him at the table when I came, the dear gentleman!" Mrs. Flanagan said, "writing at his papers, and one of the candles was burned out; and hard as his bed is, he wasn't in it all night, sir."

Indeed, having sat at the Club until the brawl there became intolerable to him, George had walked home, and had passed the night finishing some work on which he was employed, and to the completion of which he bent himself with

all his might. The labour was done, and the night was worn away somehow, and the tardy November dawn came and looked in on the young man as he sate over his desk. In the next day's paper, or quarter's review, many of us very likely admired the work of his genius, the variety of his illustration, the fierce vigour of his satire, the depth of his reason. There was no hint in his writing of the other thoughts which occupied him, and always accompanied him in his work: a tone more melancholy than was customary, a satire more bitter and impatient than that which he afterwards showed, may have marked the writings of this period of his life to the very few persons who knew his style or his name. We have said before, could we know the man's feelings as well as the author's thoughts-how interesting most books would be!more interesting than merry. I suppose harlequin's face behind his mask is always grave, if not melancholy—certainly each man who lives by the pen, and happens to read this, must remember, if he will, his own experiences, and recall many solemn hours of solitude and labour. What a constant care sate at the side of the desk and accompanied him! Fever or sickness were lying possibly in the next room: a sick child might be there, with a wife watching over it terrified and in prayer; or grief might be bearing him down, and the cruel mist before the eyes rendering the paper scarce visible as he wrote on it, and the inexorable necessity drove on the pen. What man among us has not had nights and hours like these? But to the manly heart-severe as these pangs are, they are endurable: long as the night seems, the dawn comes at last, and the wounds heal, and the fever abates, and rest comes, and you can afford to look back on the past misery with feelings that are anything but bitter.

Two or three books for reference, fragments of torn-up manuscript, drawers open, pens and inkstand, lines half visible on the blotting-paper, a bit of sealing-wax twisted and bitten and broken into sundry pieces-such relics as these were about the table, and Pen flung himself down in George's empty chair-noting things according to his wont, or in spite of himself. There was a gap in the bookcase (next to the old College Plato, with the Boniface Arms), where Helen's bible

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