Paul Clifford — Complete
one from whom a heavy burden had been suddenly raised, and who was no
longer prevented from the eagerness of hope by the engrossing claims of
a bodily pain. He had always been bland in society, but now his
courtesy breathed less of artifice,--it took a more hearty tone. Another
alteration was discernible in him, and that was precisely the reverse of
what might have been expected. He became more thrifty, more attentive
to the expenses of life than he had been. Though a despiser of show and
ostentation, and far too hard to be luxurious, he was too scientific an
architect of the weaknesses of others not to have maintained during
his public career an opulent appearance and a hospitable table. The
profession he had adopted requires, perhaps, less of externals to aid it
than any other; still Brandon had affected to preserve parliamentary as
well as legal importance; and though his house was situated in a quarter
entirely professional, he had been accustomed to assemble around his
hospitable board all who were eminent, in his political party, for rank
or for talent. Now, however, when hospitality and a certain largeness of
expenses better became his station, he grew closer and more exact in his
economy. Brandon never could have degenerated into a miser; money, to
one so habitually wise as he was, could never have passed from means
into an object; but he had evidently, for some cause or another, formed
the resolution to save. Some said it was the result of returning health,
and the hope of a prolonged life, to which many objects for which wealth
is desirable might occur. But when it was accidentally ascertained that
Brandon had been making several inquiries respecting a large estate in
the neighbourhood of Warlock, formerly in the possession of his family,
the gossips (for Brandon was a man to be gossiped about) were no longer
in want of a motive, false or real, for the judge's thrift.
It was shortly after his elevation to the bench, and ere these signs of
change had become noticeable, that the same strange ragamuffin whom
we have mentioned before, as introduced by Mr. Swoppem to a private
conference with Brandon, was admitted to the judge's presence.
“Well,” said Brandon, impatiently, the moment the door was closed, “your
news?”
“Vy, your 'onor,” said the man, bashfully, twirling a thing that stood
proxy for a hat, “I thinks as 'ow I shall be hable to satisfy your
vorship's 'onor.'!” Then, approaching the judge and assuming an
important air, he whispered, “'T is as 'ow I thought!”
“My God!” cried Brandon, with vehemence. “And he is alive,--and where?”
“I believes,” answered the seemly confidant of Sir William Brandon,
“that he be's alive; and if he be's alive, may I flash my ivories in a
glass case, if I does not ferret him out; but as to saying vhere he be
at this nick o' the moment, smash me if I can!”
“Is he in this country,” said Brandon; “or do you believe that he has
gone abroad?”
“Vy, much of one and not a little of the other!” said the euphonious
confidant.
“How! speak plain, man; what do you mean?”
“Vy, I means, your 'oner, that I can't say vhere he is.”
“And this,” said Brandon, with a muttered oath,--“this is your boasted
news, is it? Dog! damned, damned dog! if you trifle with me or play me
false, I will hang you,--by the living God, I will!”
The man shrank back involuntarily from Brandon's vindictive forehead
and kindled eyes; but with the cunning peculiar to low vice, answered,
though in a humbler tone,--
“And vet good vill that do your 'oner? If so be as how you scrags I,
will that put your vorship in the vay of finding he?”
Never was there an obstacle in grammar through which a sturdy truth
could not break; and Brandon, after a moody pause, said in a milder
voice,--
“I did not mean to frighten you! Never mind what I said; but you can
surely guess whereabouts he is, or what means of life he pursues.
Perhaps,”--and a momentary paleness crossed Brandon's swarthy
visage,--“perhaps he may have been driven into dishonesty in order to
maintain himself!”
The informant replied with great naivete that such a thing was not
impossible! And Brandon then entered into a series of seemingly careless
but artful cross-questionings, which either the ignorance or the craft
of the man enabled him to baffle. After some time Brandon, disappointed
and dissatisfied, gave up his professional task; and bestowing on the
man many sagacious and minute instructions as well as a very liberal
donation, he was forced to dismiss his mysterious visitor, and to
content himself with an assured assertion that if the object of his
inquiries should not already be gone to the devil, the strange gentleman
employed to discover him would certainly, sooner or later, bring him to
the judge.
This assertion, and the interview preceding it, certainly inspired Sir
William Brandon with a feeling like complacency, although it was mingled
with a considerable alloy.
“I do not,” thought he, concluding his meditations when he was left
alone,--“I do not see what else I can do! Since it appears that the boy
had not even a name when he set out alone from his wretched abode,
I fear that an advertisement would have but little chance of even
designating, much less of finding him, after so long an absence.
Besides, it might make me the prey to impostors; and in all probability
he has either left the country, or adopted some mode of living which
would prevent his daring to disclose himself!” This thought plunged the
soliloquist into a gloomy abstraction, which lasted several minutes, and
from which he started, muttering aloud,--
“Yes, yes! I dare to believe, to hope it. Now for the minister and the
peerage!” And from that time the root of Sir William Brandon's ambition
spread with a firmer and more extended grasp over his mind.
We grieve very much that the course of our story should now oblige us to
record an event which we would willingly have spared ourselves the pain
of narrating. The good old Squire of Warlock Manor-house had scarcely
reached his home on his return from Bath, before William Brandon
received the following letter from his brother's gray-headed butler:--
HONNURED SUR,--I send this with all speede, thof with a hevy bart,
to axquainte you with the sudden (and it is feered by his loving
friends and well-wishers, which latter, to be sur, is all as knows
him) dangeros ilness of the Squire. He was seezed, poor deer
gentleman (for God never made a better, no offence to your Honnur),
the moment he set footing in his Own Hall, and what has hung rond me
like a millston ever sin, is that instead of his saying, “How do you
do, Sampson?” as was his wont, whenever he returned from forren
parts, sich as Bath, Lunnun, and the like, he said, “God bless you,
Sampson!” which makes me think sumhow that it will be his last
wurds; for he has never spoke sin, for all Miss Lucy be by his
bedside continual. She, poor deer, don't take on at all, in regard
of crying and such woman's wurk, but looks nevertheless, for all the
wurld, just like a copse. I sends Tom the postilion with this
hexpress, nowing he is a good hand at a gallop, having, not sixteen
years ago, beat some o' the best on 'un at a raceng. Hoping as yer
Honnur will lose no time in coming to this “house of mourning,” I
remane, with all respect,
Your Honnur's humble servant to command,
JOHN SAMPSON.
[The reader, who has doubtless noticed how invariably servants of
long standing acquire a certain tone from that of their master, may
observe that honest John Sampson had caught from the squire the
habit of parenthetical composition.]
Sir William Brandon did not give himself time to re-read this letter,
in order to make it more intelligible, before he wrote to one of his
professional compeers, requesting him to fill his place during his
unavoidable absence, on the melancholy occasion of his brother's
expected death; and having so done, he immediately set off for Warlock.
Inexplicable even to himself was that feeling, so nearly approaching to
real sorrow, which the worldly lawyer felt at the prospect of losing his
guileless and unspeculating brother. Whether it be that turbulent and
ambitious minds, in choosing for their wavering affections the very
opposites of themselves, feel (on losing the fellowship of those calm,
fair characters that have never crossed their rugged path) as if they
lost, in losing them, a kind of haven for their own restless thoughts
and tempest-worn designs!--be this as it may, certain it is that when
William Brandon arrived at his brother's door, and was informed by
the old butler, who for the first time was slow to greet him, that the
squire had just breathed his last, his austere nature forsook him at
once, and he felt the shock with a severity perhaps still keener than
that which a more genial and affectionate heart would have experienced.
As soon as he had recovered his self-possession, Sir William made
question of his niece; and finding that after an unrelaxing watch during
the whole of the squire's brief illness, nature had failed her at his
death, and she had been borne senseless from his chamber to her own,
Brandon walked with a step far different from his usual stately gait to
the room where his brother lay. It was one of the oldest apartments
in the house, and much of the ancient splendour that belonged to
the mansion ere its size had been reduced, with the fortunes of its
successive owners, still distinguished the chamber. The huge mantelpiece
ascending to the carved ceiling in grotesque pilasters, and scroll-work
of the blackest oak, with the quartered arms of Brandon and Saville
escutcheoned in the centre; the panelled walls of the same dark
wainscot; the armorie of ebony; the high-backed chairs, with their
tapestried seats; the lofty bed, with its hearse-like plumes and
draperies of a crimson damask that seemed, so massy was the substance
and so prominent the flowers, as if it were rather a carving than a
silk,--all conspired with the size of the room to give it a feudal
solemnity, not perhaps suited to the rest of the house, but well
calculated to strike a gloomy awe into the breast of the worldly and
proud man who now entered the death-chamber of his brother.
Silently William Brandon motioned away the attendants, and silently he
seated himself by the bed, and looked long and wistfully upon the calm
and placid face of the deceased. It is difficult to guess at what passed
within him during the space of time in which he remained alone in that
room. The apartment itself he could not at another period have tenanted
without secret emotion. It was that in which, as a boy, he had himself
been accustomed to sleep; and, even then a schemer and an aspirant, the
very sight of the room sufficed to call back all the hopes and visions,
the restless projects and the feverish desires, which had now brought
him to the envied state of an acknowledged celebrity and a shattered
frame. There must have been something awful in the combination of those
active remembrances with the cause which had led him to that apartment;
and there was a homily in the serene countenance of the dead, which
preached more effectually to the heart of the living than William
Brandon would ever have cared to own. He had been more than an hour in
the room, and the evening had already begun to cast deep shadows through
the small panes of the half-closed window, when Brandon was startled by
a slight noise. He looked up, and beheld Lucy opposite to him. She did
not see him; but throwing herself upon the bed, she took the cold hand