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Ebook has 898 lines and 120345 words, and 18 pages

Editor: Robert Chambers and William Chambers

CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

IMPERFECT RESPECTABILITIES.

Everybody must have had some trouble in his time with imperfect respectabilities. Nice, well-dressed, well-housed, civil, agreeable people are they. No fault to find with them but that there is some little flaw in their history, for which the very good don't visit them. The degree to which one is incommoded with imperfect respectabilities, depends of course a good deal upon the extent of his good-nature, or his dislike of coming to strong measures in social life. Some have an inherent complaisance which makes them all but unfit for any such operation as cutting, or even for the less violent one of cooling off. Some take mild views of human infirmity, and shrink from visiting it too roughly. They would rather that the sinners did not cross them; but, since the contrary is the fact, what can they do but be civil?

One great source of perplexity in the case, is the excessive urbanity of the imperfect respectabilities themselves. They come up to you on the street with such sunny faces, and have so many kind inquiries to make, and so many pleasant things to say, that, for the life of you, you cannot stiffen up as you ought to do. Some haunting recollection of a bad affair of cards, or some awkward circumstances attending an insolvency, will come across your mind, and make you wish the fellow in the next street; but, unluckily, there he is, cheerful, even funny, talking of all sorts of respectable things, such as the state of the money-market, and what Sir George said to him the other day about the reviving prospects of Protection; and what avails your secret writhing? He holds you by the glittering eye. You listen, you make jocular observations in reply; the cards and the insolvency vanish from your thoughts; you at length shake hands, and part in a transport of good-humoured old acquaintanceship, and not till you have got a hundred yards away, do you cool down sufficiently to remember that you have made a fool of yourself by patronising an imperfect respectability.

One of the most curious points in the physiology of an imperfect respectability, is the fact of his almost always having something remarkably agreeable and attractive about him. Going down a peg in reputation seems somehow to have a specific effect upon the temper. From a bear it will convert a man into a perfect lamb. He becomes obliging to the last degree, has a kind word for everybody, and is never so happy as when he is allowed to render you some disagreeable piece of service. Scott, who knew everything, knew this, and hence it was that he made Glossin so very polite to the ostler at Kippletringan. When a stranger comes to settle in a country place, the imperfect respectability is sure to be amongst the first to call and offer his services. He likes a new family, and thinks it a duty to be ready to do the honours of the place. He is also, to a remarkable degree, a family man. None is seen so often going about with wife and daughters. In fact, he is exemplary in this respect. Few pews, moreover, so regularly filled as his. When a subscription is got up, it is a positive pleasure to him to subscribe; ten times more to be allowed to come upon the committee, and join other two in going about with a paper. The effect of all this is, that the imperfect respectable is often a highly popular character. Everybody likes him, and wishes him at the devil.

While the imperfect respectability bears up so well before his old acquaintance, who can tell what may be the reflections that visit his breast in moments of retirement? Let us not be too ready to set him down as indifferent to the consequences of the sin which once so unfortunately beset him. Let us not too easily assume that he has not felt the loss of place and reputation, because he laughs and chats somewhat more than he used to do. I follow my poor old friend to his home, and there see him in his solitary hours brooding over the great forfeit he has made, and bitterly taxing himself with errors which he would be right loath to confess to the world. He knows what men think and say of him behind his back, notwithstanding that not a symptom of the consciousness escapes him. And let us hope that, in many cases, the contrite confession which is withheld from men is yielded where it is more fitly due.

TALES OF THE COAST-GUARD.

THE LAST REVEL.

He soon reappeared, and took a chair by the fire, which, after civilly saluting me, he stirred almost fiercely, eyeing as he did so the blazing coals with a half-abstracted and sullen, cowed, disquieted look altogether unusual with him. At least wherever I had before seen him, he had been as loquacious and boastful as a Gascon.

'What is the matter, doctor?' I said. 'You appear strangely down upon your luck all at once.'

'Hush--hush! Speak lower, sir, pray. The fact is, I have just heard that a fellow is lurking about here--You have not, I hope, asked for me of any one?'

'I have not; but what if I had?'

The door was suddenly thrown open, and the doctor fairly leaped to his feet with ill-disguised alarm. It was only the bar-maid, to ask if he had rung. He had not done so, and as it was perfectly understood that I paid for all on these occasions, that fact alone was abundantly conclusive as to the disordered state of his intellect. He now ordered brandy and water, a pipe, and a screw of tobacco. These ministrants to a mind disturbed somewhat calmed the doctor's excitement, and his cunning gray eyes soon brightly twinkled again through a haze of curling smoke.

'Did you notice,' he resumed, 'a female sitting in the bar? She knows you.'

'A young, intelligent-looking girl. Yes. Who is she?'

'There are, indeed, but faint indications of the mirth and lightness of youth or childhood in those timid, apprehensive eyes of hers.'

'She never had a childhood. Girls of her condition seldom have. Her father's booked for the next world, and by an early stage too, unless he mends his manners, and that I hardly see how he's to do. The girl's been to Lymington to see after a place. Can't have it. Her father's character is against her. Unfortunate; for she's a good girl.'

'I am sorry for her. But come, to business. How about the matter you wot of?'

'Here are all the particulars,' answered Lee, with an easy transition from a sentimental to a common-sense, business-like tone, and at the same time unscrewing the lid of a tortoise-shell tobacco-box, and taking a folded paper from it. 'I keep these matters generally here; for if I were to drop such an article--just now, especially--I might as well be hung out to dry at once.'

I glanced over the paper. 'Place, date, hour correct, and thoroughly to be depended upon you say, eh?'

'Correct as Cocker, I'll answer for it. It would be a spicy run for them, if there were no man-traps in the way.'

I placed the paper in my waistcoat-pocket, and then handed the doctor his preliminary fee. The touch of gold had not its usual electrical effect upon him. His nervous fit was coming on again. 'I wish,' he puffed out--'I wish I was safe out of this part of the country, or else that a certain person I know was transported; then indeed'--

'And who may that certain person be, doctor?' demanded a grim-looking rascal, as he softly opened the door. 'Not me, I hope?'

I instantly recognised the fellow, and so did the doctor, who had again bounded from his chair, and was shaking all over as if with ague, whilst his very carbuncles became pallid with affright. 'You--u--u,' he stammered--'You--u--u, Wyatt: God forbid!'

'I'd drink yours,' continued the reckless scamp, as he paused for breath, drew the back of his pipe-hand across his mouth, and stared as steadily as he could in my face--'I'd drink your health, if I only knew your name.'

'You'll hear it plainly enough, my fine fellow, when you're in the dock one of these days, just before the judge sends you to the hulks, or, which is perhaps the likelier, to the gallows. And this scamp, too,' I added, with a gesture towards Lee, whom I hardly dared venture to look at, 'who has been pitching me such a pretty rigmarole, is, I see, a fellow-rogue to yourself. This house appears to be little better than a thieves' rendezvous, upon my word.'

'Wyatt regarded me with a deadly scowl as he answered: 'Ay, ay, you're a brave cock, Master Warneford, upon your own dunghill. It may be my turn some day. Here, doctor, a word with you outside.' They both left the room, and I rang the bell, discharged the score, and was just going when Lee returned. He was still pale and shaky, though considerably recovered from the panic-terror excited by the sudden entrance of Wyatt.

'Thank Heaven, he's gone!' said the doctor; 'and less sour and suspicious than I feared him to be. But tell me, sir, do you intend walking from here to Hythe?'

'I so purpose. Why do you ask?'

'Because the young girl you saw in the bar went off ten minutes ago by the same road. She was too late for a farmer's cart which she expected to return by. Wyatt, too, is off in the same direction.'

'She will have company then.'

'Evil company, I fear. Her father and he have lately quarrelled; and her, I know, he bears a grudge against, for refusing, as the talk goes, to have anything to say to him.'

'Very well; don't alarm yourself. I shall soon overtake them, and you may depend the big drunken bully shall neither insult nor molest her. Good-night.'

It was a lonely walk for a girl to take on a winter evening, although the weather was brilliantly light and clear, and it was not yet much past seven o'clock. Except, perchance, a deer-keeper, or a deer-stealer, it was not likely she would meet a human being for two or three miles together, and farm and other houses near the track were very sparsely scattered here and there. I walked swiftly on, and soon came within sight of Wyatt; but so eagerly was his attention directed ahead, that he did not observe me till we were close abreast of each other.

'You here!' he exclaimed, fairly gnashing his teeth with rage. 'I only wish'--

'That you had one or two friends within hail, eh? Well, it's better for your own health that you have not, depend upon it. I have four barrels with me, and each of them, as you well know, carries a life, one of which should be yours, as sure as that black head is on your shoulders.'

He answered only by a snarl and a malediction, and we proceeded on pretty nearly together. He appeared to be much soberer than before: perhaps the keen air had cooled him somewhat, or he might have been shamming it a little at the inn to hoodwink the doctor. Five or six minutes brought us to a sharp turn of the road, where we caught sight of the young woman, who was not more than thirty or forty yards ahead. Presently, the sound of footsteps appeared to strike her ear, for she looked quickly round, and an expression of alarm escaped her. I was in the shadow of the road, so that, in the first instance, she saw only Wyatt. Another moment, and her terrified glance rested upon me.

'Lieutenant Warneford!' she exclaimed.

'Ay, my good girl, that is my name. You appear frightened--not at me, I hope?'

'O no, not at you,' she hastily answered, the colour vividly returning to her pale cheeks.

'This good-looking person is, I daresay, a sweetheart of yours; so I'll just keep astern out of ear-shot. My road lies past your dwelling.'

Nothing was said that I heard for about a mile and a half, when Wyatt, with a snarling 'good-night' to the girl, turned off by a path on the left, and was quickly out of sight.

'I am not very far from home now, sir,' said the young woman hesitatingly. She thought, perhaps, that I might leave her, now Wyatt had disappeared.

'Pray go on, then,' I said; 'I will see you safe there, though somewhat pressed for time.'

We walked side by side, and after awhile she said in a low tone, and with still downcast eyes: 'My mother lived servant in your family once, sir.'

'The deuce! Your name is Ransome, then, I suspect.'

'Yes, sir--Mary Ransome.' A sad sigh accompanied these words. I pitied the poor girl from my heart, but having nothing very consolatory to suggest, I held my peace.

'There is mother!' she cried in an almost joyful tone. She pointed to a woman standing in the open doorway of a mean dwelling at no great distance, in apparently anxious expectation. Mary Ransome hastened forwards, and whispered a few sentences to her mother, who fondly embraced her.

'I am very grateful to you, sir, for seeing Mary safely home. You do not, I daresay, remember me?'

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