I think you have no great cause to like him much, sir, continued I, from the account that I have heard.

His choler began to rise, and his eyes a.s.sumed an uncommon ferocity.

Like him! Sweet Jasus s.n.a.t.c.h me out of the world if I don't pay off an old score with him yet, before I die.

I thought as much, sir, answered I.

Sir! Replied he, again staring with reviving alarm and suspicion--

I continued.--To tell you the truth, Mr. Mac Fane, that is the very subject which brought you and I into company this evening. I suspected your hate of Henley, and to be sincere I hate him too.

Had you seen the fellow's face brighten, Fairfax, and after brightening begin to flame, you would not have readily forgotten the picture.

But I am rather surprised to meet you in public, sir, added I.

What do you mane by that, sir?

I thought you deemed it prudent to keep out of the way, on account of that affair?

I felt some gratification in playing thus upon his fears--He now once more put his hand into his side-pocket, and pulling out his pistols laid them before him. By Jasus, sir, I don't very well know what you would be at! But when I understand the full tote of your questions, I shall know how to give an answer.

I could not very well digest this oblique menace; but to have quarrelled with such a rascal would in every sense have been madness.

You have a well-mounted pair of pistols there, said I, Mr. Mac Fane.

I'll bet you the fifty guineas, double or quit, I break this china plate at the first shot, ten paces distant.

By the great grumbler, answered he, but I'll bet you don't! immediately delivering me one pistol, and taking up and unlocking the other himself. Accordingly I placed the plate against the wall, fired, and was not far from the centre. Upon my honour and soul, sir, said Mac Fane, but I find you are a good shot, and I shall be glad to be better acquainted with you.

Having convinced him that I could hit a mark as well as himself, I returned to the subject of Henley; and though I could not bring him to be explicit, I learned from him that he was acquainted with Henley's aversion to prosecute, but does not know on what that aversion is founded. Beside which he confides in a want of witnesses, as I could perceive: except that he has some fear of his accomplice, Webb; a man in whose company this very Mac Fane once attempted to rob Sir Arthur, and whom I suspect he would impeach, but that it would ruin all his gambling views. For he has found means of a.s.sociating with that whole cla.s.s of young fools of fortune, whose perverted education leads them to take pleasure in the impudence and humour of such a fellow, as well as in seeing each other stripped and ruined by turns; but who would never admit him as a companion, did they know he had been guilty of an act so desperate as that of going on the highway. Scarcely any thing short of this can expel such a fellow from such society.

But though he thinks himself secure in consequence of the lenity of Henley, he hates him as sincerely as if he were pursuing him to the gallows. The loss of the three thousand guineas is one great motive; and another is that he felt he was out-braved by Henley, whom he could not terrify, but who on the contrary terrified him.

I found he had even formed a scheme of petty vengeance, which was to waylay Henley with some bruising fellows of his acquaintance, for he is acquainted with daring villains of all descriptions, one of whom was to insult, provoke him to fight, and beat him, while Mac Fane himself should keep at some distance, disguised.

It was with some difficulty I could persuade him to desist from this plan, and join in projects of my own. But at last however he was convinced that to rob him of his mistress, and awaken him from all his dreams of imaginary bliss to the torture I am preparing, would be more effectual revenge than a paltry beating. Not to mention that I firmly believe, instead of being beaten, he would conquer the best prize-fighter they could bring; for he is really a powerful and extraordinary fellow.

But you will perceive, Fairfax, I was obliged to inform him of a part of my own views; and that I might fix him I determined to bid high. I told him I had Henley and another person to secure; and that if he would aid me himself and provide other a.s.sistants to act under his directions, without seeing or being informed of me, I would give him a thousand guineas as soon as all this should be perfectly accomplished.

And, as an earnest of my generosity, I put down the fifty guineas; saying that the wager I had made with him was not a fair one, for that it was fifty guineas to a straw in my favour: he had no chance of winning.

He was quite satisfied with my offer, strengthened as it was by the gratification of his own pa.s.sions. I told him what a puissant hero Henley is, and of the necessity of coming upon him by surprise. I told him I had seen a house, as before described, beyond Knightsbridge, which pleased me; but that I could not find another near enough, in which to secure Henley.

The geography of the place I mentioned seemed to start an idea in his mind, and he told me, if I would meet him in two days at the same tavern, he would in the mean time not only make preparations and procure a.s.sistants, but perhaps bring me further intelligence. As the fellow's brain seemed busy, I did not wish to rob him of the self-satisfaction of invention, and we accordingly parted, making the appointment he proposed.

Of all existing beings, he perhaps was the only one who could in a country like this become the proper instrument of my revenge. And yet, Fairfax, he is a hateful fellow! His language, his looks, his manners, his pa.s.sions, are all hateful! Courage excepted, there is not a single trait in him but what is abominable! He delights in talking of hocking men, chalking them, and cutting them down! Every time his anger rises against any one, these are its attendant ideas. Such a fellow must come to some tragical end. He can never die of old age, and scarcely of disease. Nothing but the lead and steel in which he delights can end him.

So it is, and I have no remedy. But he shall be to me no more than an implement, with which I will carve the coming banquet.

How minute are the chances and events on which we depend! A few slight alterations of incident, and how different would have been the train of my thoughts! She might have been happy with me, for I loved her, Fairfax. I loved her. I feel it more and more; and were but circ.u.mstances a little more favourable, I believe I should turn about and take a contrary path.

But it cannot be! The barrier is insurmountable! An adamantine wall, reaching to the skies! I remember what she said, at her proud uncle's table--'I have an abhorrence, Mr. Clifton, of the errors in which you are now indulging.'--Abhorrence was the word, Fairfax!--It has been at my tongue's end ever since--And when she talked of my errors she meant me.--'I ultimately and determinedly renounce all thought of him!'--This was her language! I knew before which way her heart went; and can I suppose, now she has got a fair excuse, that she will not profit by it?

Oh no! I am not so ill read as that in the pa.s.sions. But I have said the word--They shall never come together!--They never never shall!

C. CLIFTON

LETTER CVII

_c.o.ke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_

_London, Dover Street_

I have received your dissuasive epistle, Fairfax. It found me moody and did not contribute to make me merry. To own the truth, no ghost need rise to tell me the methods I use are inclined to the violent. Can you find me better? Nay can you find any other? I care not for consequences; I brave them all.

Time was that I could have been happy with her! Ay and should, but for this fiend Henley. He sleeps securely! Let him sleep on! I will soon awaken him!

I thought I should have been tortured but by one chief pa.s.sion, and that the love of vengeance would have enveloped me wholly: but they are all devouring me by turns. I certainly hate her, and him I abhor. Yet pictures of imaginary happiness, that might have been, are continually rising, and vanishing in gloomy regret. He too, at the very moment that I could murder him, I am obliged to admire!

Still he shall not have her! Though death overtake him, her and me, he shall not have her! But what is death? A thing to covet, not to dread.

'Tis existence only that is hateful!--Would that my bones were now mouldering!--Why have I brains and nerves and sensibilities?--Oh that I were in the poisonous desert, where I might gulp mephitic winds and drop dead; or in a moment be buried in tornados of burning sand! Would that my scull were grinning there, and blanching; rather than as it is consciously parching, scorched by fires itself has kindled!

I spent all yesterday with that Irish scoundrel. Malignity is his element, and mischief his delight! I suspect by his a.s.siduity that he is poor just at present; for a more industrious demon black Cocytus does not yield. He is already provided with a.s.sociates, and has found another princ.i.p.al agent for the great work. It is a strange expedient!

But these are strange fellows! And yet it is a lucky one; superior to any that I had projected.

When I mentioned the Knightsbridge road at our first interview, Mac Fane recollected that an intimate of his had just set up what was to him a new trade, in the neighbourhood; that of being the keeper of a madhouse. He determined to go and propose the business to him; and as the fellow was preparing to advertise for lunatics, but had not yet got a single patient, there was a complete opening for such a plan.

He proposed taking me to see this intended guardian of maniacs, and his house; and I ordered a post-chaise for that purpose, that I might hide myself in one corner of it, and not let a living soul detect me with such a companion.

As we were going, I enquired if this keeper were an Irishman? He took offence, and retorted--'What did I mane by an Irishman? Becase he is a rogue you think he is an Irishman! By the holy carpenter you need not come to Ireland for that kind of ware! You have a viry pritty breed of rogues of your own! But he is not Irish. He is one of your own sulky English bugs.'

The description was not inapplicable, for I think I never beheld a more lowering, black-browed, evil-eyed fellow, since the hour I first saw light. He had all the gloom of the most irrascible bulldog, but without his generous courage. He seemed more proper to make men mad than cure them of madness. But he had two excellent qualities for my purpose; poverty and a disposition to all ill.

I am got into excellent company! But I care not! I will on! All this seems as if it were but the prologue to the tragedy. But be it that, or be it what it will--I care nothing for myself; and I have little cause to care more for them. She never had any mercy on me; and least this last interview, when I was pleading before her pompous uncle.

I have been obliged to hold consultations with these Satanic rascals, to concert ways and means. The most secure we have been able to devise, relative to Henley, is to have a straight waistcoat, to come upon him suddenly, and to encrust him in it before he shall know what we are about. This with a gag will make him safe. But there must not be less than four fellows, and those stout ones. Nothing must be left to chance.

Three more must be provided for the lady, of whom Mac Fane himself proposes to be one. But he means to keep out of sight of Henley, till he is in custody.

I have various preparations yet to make. Mac Fane is to go and hire me the empty house tomorrow. It is furnished; but it must be aired, for I would not have her die a paltry catch-cold death. I would treat her like a gentlewoman in every respect but one; and in that I will have as little compa.s.sion on her as she has had on me.

It might have been otherwise! I came to her a generous lover! I saw her and was amazed at her beauties, captivated by her enchanting manners, soothed by her unvaried sweetness! But this sweetness she has turned to gall! I adored her, and was prepared eternally to adore! But injury followed injury in such quick succession that apathy itself called aloud for vengeance!

I own it is true what she said at her uncle's, that I had made a resolution not to marry her. But what were my resolutions? She herself could not but feel she had the power to break them all. But she had not the will, Fairfax! It rankles there! She hates me, and what is more d.a.m.nable she loves another!

I must turn my thoughts again to this detested mad-house man, and the scenery around it. All the avenues must be examined, and all the bye-paths and open roads that lead toward both houses inspected, that Mac Fane and his emissaries may make no blunder. I will if possible keep out of the action, but I will be near at hand.

I have a secret wish, the moment all is over, to fly the odious scene; for horribly odious it will be: but it would have the appearance of cowardice. It must end tragically! Not even the poor creatures who stand in the place of her natural guardians, tame as they are, can suffer such an insult. Yet which of them dare look me in the face, and call himself my enemy? And, after injuring her, shall I hesitate at trampling upon them?

I must steel my heart, Fairfax, when I go to the encounter; must recapitulate all my wrongs. I have them noted down severally as they occurred! I need but read to rage! What do I talk?--Read?--Can I forget them? No; night nor day! They are my familiars. They wake with me, sleep with me, walk with me, ride with me, glower with me, curse with me--but never smile with me. They are become my dearest intimates. I cherish and hug them to my heart! Their biting is my only pleasure!