The servant excused himself on account of the stranger's pressing and determined manner, motives which did not in the least reconcile the peer to his admission; but, without any further appearance of distrust, he walked with slow and stately steps to the library, and throwing open the door advanced towards a table, determined not to afford his unwished-for guest a pretext for sitting down by even approaching a chair himself.

The stranger's person merits some slight description, and even a more detailed account of his clothing than is required on ordinary occasions. He was a man perhaps four or five years younger than the peer himself, thin, light, active, with a twinkling gray eye, somewhat too full of moisture, and a number of those long radiating wrinkles which, I believe, are called crows' feet, decorating the corners of the eyelids. His general complexion was white, of that dry and somewhat withered appearance which long habits of dissipation leave behind, when dissipation is not combined with drunkenness. In every glance there was a quick, sharp, prying expression, joined to a somewhat subservient smile, which was strangely enough displayed upon a cast of countenance, the natural expression of which was pertinacious effrontery.

His dress was well worn, and had not apparently been formed originally of any very costly materials; but it had withal a smart cut, and a smart look, which prevented the eye from detecting either the long services it had rendered, or the coa.r.s.eness of the stuff. It was of a rather anomalous description, too, consisting of what was then called a marone frock with a silver lace, a pair of buckskin breeches for riding in, thunder and lightning silk stockings, just showing their junction with the breeches above, and a pair of heavy boots; while ruffles, and a frill of that species of lace which, seeming all darns together, admits the most frequently of being mended, decorated his wrists and his bosom.

Lord Dewry gazed at him as he rose from the chair in which he had been sitting with a look which, if it did not absolutely express the stare of utter strangeness, had very few signs of recognition in it. But the other was neither to be abashed nor discomposed; and his manners, which were those of a gentleman, softened down a good deal of the effrontery which his demeanour displayed. Had he not been a gentleman, and in the habit of mingling with gentlemen, his determined impudence would have been insufferable; and even as things were, that impudence, together with a certain affected swagger in tone and language, which was very generally a.s.sumed by the puppies of the day, and which the visiter caricatured, were quite sufficiently annoying, especially to such a man as Lord Dewry. Conceiving at once that the peer was not peculiarly delighted with his visit, the stranger advanced round the table, and with a low bow addressed him ere he had time to speak.

"I perceive," he said, "that the lapse of time which has occurred since we met, together with the accession of well-deserved fortunes and dignities, and the cares consequent thereupon, has obliterated from your memory, my lord, the person of a former friend. I must, therefore, announce myself as Sir Roger Millington."

The peer bowed haughtily. "I once," he said, "had some acquaintance with a person of that name; but, as you say, sir, the lapse of time has been so great since we have held any communication with each other, that I certainly did not expect it to be so suddenly renewed, and far less to be favoured with an unannounced visit at a time which, perhaps, may not be the most convenient."

"My lord," replied his companion, unrebuffed, "I am happy to find that your lordship's memory extends to our acquaintance at least; and to refresh it in regard to the degree of that acquaintance, I think I could show you some letters in your lordship's hand, beginning, some, 'My dear friend!' some, 'My dear Millington!' some, 'd.a.m.n it, my dear Millington!' with an elegant variety in the terms, whereby your lordship was kind enough to express your friendship for your humble servant."

Lord Dewry coloured highly between anger and shame; but he did not feel at all the more disposed to receive Sir Roger Millington kindly on account of these proofs of their former intimacy. He had not forgotten, any more than his visiter, that they had once been choice companions in both the elegant and inelegant debaucheries of a London life; but a great change in situation, and a total change in feelings, had made the peer as desirous of forgetting the past as the other was of recalling it; and he hated him in proportion as he felt himself thwarted. Sir Roger Millington, however, had calculated his game with the utmost nicety; and once that nothing was to be obtained by gentler means, and determined, therefore, if possible, to force him to the object towards which he could not lead him. Such had been his motive in the somewhat pointed and galling manner in which he had repeated some of Lord Dewry's former expressions of regard, and he was not a little gratified to see the colour rise in his cheek as he spoke.

Lord Dewry's reply, however, which immediately followed, was not quite so much to his taste; for the peer also played his part skilfully; and though, in reality, as angry as Sir Roger desired, he concealed his anger, and replied in the same cold haughty tone. "You recall to me, sir," he said, "days of which I am heartily ashamed, scenes of which we have neither of us reason to be proud, and expressions which I greatly wish could be retracted."

"I am sorry, as your lordship wishes it, that such a thing is not possible," answered the persevering Sir Roger; "but I think, if you will take a few moments to consider, your lordship may find reason to change some of your sentiments. I may have become an altered man as well as Lord Dewry; and if so, his lordship will have no cause to hate or shun an old friend, because he once followed in a course which his lordship led, and has since followed in his repentance. I hear that a mutual friend of your lordship's and my own is coming to England soon, if not already on his way from America--I mean Sir William Ryder; and I should be sorry to have to tell him, on his return, that your lordship casts off your old acquaintances. You had better consider of it, my lord."

"I shall consider nothing, sir," replied the peer, "except that my time is too valuable to be wasted in idle discourse, which can end in nothing; and therefore I have the honour of wishing you good-morning."

Thus saying, he stood for about the s.p.a.ce of a minute and a half, expecting Sir Roger to leave the room; but being disappointed, he himself turned upon his heel, with a curling lip and a flashing eye, and quitted the library, leaving the door open behind him.

Sir Roger Millington stood for a moment or two in some embarra.s.sment, but at length impudence and necessity prevailed. "No," cried he; "no: d.a.m.n it, it will never do to be beaten when one has resolved on such an attack. Curse me, if I don't die in the breach, like other heroes.

Why, if I cannot raise a hundred or two I'm done, that's clear. No, no: I'll not stir;" and casting himself down into a chair, he coolly took up a book and began to read.

CHAPTER XV.

"To be teased with such an insolent scoundrel at such a moment as this!" thought the peer, as he strode hastily to his usual sitting-room: "it is insufferable! I have a great mind to order the villains that let him in to horsewhip him out again for their pains: I believe that they will some day drive me mad among them!" And stamping his foot upon the ground, as was his custom when very angry, he clenched his thin hand as if he would have struck the object of his indignation. Suddenly, however, stopping in the midst of his pa.s.sion, he fell into deep thought, which kept him standing in the middle of the room for two or three minutes; then approaching the bell, he rang it calmly. His own valet, whose peculiar province was to attend to that especial sitting-room, appeared in less time than ordinary. "Is the gentleman who was in the little library gone?" demanded the peer.

"No, my lord," replied his laconic attendant.

"I shall dine in the larger room to-day," said Lord Dewry: "bid Mr.

Scott have the table laid for two, and tell _le Chef_ that the dinner must be different."

The man bowed, and withdrew; and the peer, after pausing for a single moment where he was, re-opened the door, and proceeded through the neighbouring gallery to a vestibule, whence his eye could rest upon the door of the room in which he had left Sir Roger Millington. Here again, however, he paused even for several minutes; and then, raising his head, which had been sunk somewhat upon his bosom, he walked on with a calm, dignified step towards the room which he had quitted not a quarter of an hour before in such great indignation. Sir Roger Millington was seated exactly in the chair which had received his person when the peer left him, and was deeply, and apparently pleasantly, engaged with the book he had taken up. So perfectly comfortable, indeed, did he seem to have made himself, that Lord Dewry, notwithstanding strong determinations to the contrary--the motives of which will be explained immediately--could scarcely refrain from kicking him through the gla.s.s door into the park. He conquered his pa.s.sion, however; and, in a tone which was very different from that which he had used towards the same person a quarter of an hour before, but which was still sufficiently guarded by haughty coldness to prevent the transition from appearing excessively abrupt, he addressed his visiter once more. "Sir Roger Millington," he said, "I am glad to find that you are not gone; for a little reflection makes me regret having treated a former acquaintance somewhat hastily: but the truth is, your arrival has occurred at a moment when I am not only extremely busy, but also when my feelings have been irritated and hurt by various occurrences, which may in some degree have made me forget my courtesy."

"Come, come," thought Sir Roger Millington, "matters are improving!

some fools would have gone away ashamed or affronted! There is nothing like knowing when to keep one's ground--when to beat a retreat! My lord," he continued, aloud, "it gives me the greatest pain to think that I have intruded upon you at such a moment: but I am quite ready to repair my fault by retiring! only requesting your lordship to name some hour to-morrow when I can have the honour of conversing with you on matters of some importance."

"Of importance to yourself or to me, Sir Roger?" demanded the peer, forcing a half-smile; though there had been something in the pertinacity with which his visiter had held his ground that made him almost apprehend that these matters of importance might refer, in some unpleasant manner, to himself.

Had Sir Roger Millington had the slightest means whatever of showing that the matters of which he had to speak were in any degree relative to the peer, he would have ventured the a.s.sertion that they were of importance to him; but as he had not, he judged it expedient to be candid in the more placable mood which his n.o.ble host now displayed; and he accordingly answered, "Of more importance to myself, my lord, I am afraid, than to you."

It was a lucky hit, however; for this proceeding not only quieted all Lord Dewry's apprehensions, but also favoured his views in other respect.

"I am glad to hear it, Sir Roger," replied the baron; "for, to say the truth, I have important business of my own enough upon my hands to tire me of it; and I would rather speak upon any one else's affairs than have any more of myself. But you must not think of leaving the hall, though I am afraid I must be absent from you a considerable part of the day. I shall expect the pleasure of your company for a few days, and I will order my servant to conduct you to your apartments.

You must amuse yourself as best you may till the evening. Here are books enough, you see, if you have turned student; and if you are still fond of field-sports, the gamekeeper will show you where you may find plenty of game. Use the house as your own, I beg; but only excuse the master of it for a few hours."

"My lord, your lordship is too good, too kind," replied his companion, bowing low and lower; "but--"

"Oh, I understand," said the peer; "you have ridden here, and have not dressing materials: never mind, we will cast away ceremony, Sir Roger."

"But if any one could be sent over to the village of Barholm, my lord," said Sir Roger, "since your lordship is so very good, they would find my valise at the inn."

"Certainly, certainly," said the peer, increasing in courtesy at every response--"certainly; we will see about it directly." And he rang the bell once or twice with that air of good-will which was well calculated to wipe away the memory of any former coldness. "Richard,"

he said, as soon as a servant appeared, "send over the errand-boy on horseback directly to Barholm, and bid him inquire for the things Sir Roger Millington has left there at the inn. Bid the groom look to Sir Roger's horse, and then come here to show him to the yellow room.

Attend upon him while he does me the pleasure of remaining here, and see that everything is supplied properly.--Now, Sir Roger, I must beg you to excuse me for a short time, but I shall have the pleasure of seeing you at dinner."

Sir Roger bowed low: the peer withdrew; and the servant, saying, "I will be back in a minute, sir, to show you to your apartments,"

followed, to give the orders he had received to the errand-boy and the under-groom.

Sir Roger Millington cast himself back into his chair, mentally declaring, "'Pon my soul, he seems a devilish good fellow, after all; somewhat hasty, and h.e.l.lish proud, but better at bottom than he lets himself appear. I should not wonder if this card, which, by----, is the last in my hand, should turn up a trump, after all. Egad, that would be queer!"

Such were his first reflections; and he had not time to proceed much beyond them when the servant reappeared, and begged him to follow. The visiter immediately complied; and walking through a suite of handsome rooms, where gold lace, and damask, and pictures, and cabinets, and bra.s.s, and tortoise-sh.e.l.l, and marble, combined to form a very dazzling a.s.semblage of furniture and decorations, he was led up a fine flight of stairs to another story, where, through corridors scarcely less handsomely garnished than the apartments below, he was conducted, murmuring, "What a splendid house!" to a s.p.a.cious bedroom and dressing-room, adorned with yellow damask hangings, and supplied with everything at which luxury had yet arrived in the days whereof we speak. Here, after asking his further commands, the servant left him, and Sir Roger Millington threw himself on one of the sofas, asking, "Well, what the devil can the fellow want? for want something he certainly does. However, no matter; all the better for me. I'm the man for his money, whatever he wants; and, by Jupiter! I'll take good care not to quarrel with the sort of bread and b.u.t.ter that is to be got in this house!"

Leaving Sir Roger Millington to speculate upon such very natural propositions, we may as well follow the peer once more to his private room, and endeavour to ascertain the cause of a change in his demeanour towards the poor knight, which had been, as we have seen, no less sudden than complete.

No sooner had he entered the chamber than he closed the door, and bolted it; approached a small iron chest, which stood riveted to the floor and to the wall, and, opening it with a key which was attached to a strong gold chain round his neck, he folded his arms upon his breast, and gazed in for a moment, biting his lip and straining his eye as if it required no small powers of self-command to proceed any farther. He then drew forth a large holster-pistol, richly embossed with silver--the fellow to that which had been placed in the hands of Edward de Vaux by the gipsy Pharold--and held it for a time in his hand, with his eyes not fixed upon it, but upon some far object in the distant landscape, which nevertheless, he saw not in the least; for the intensity of the mind's occupation at that moment had broken for the time the connection between the intellectual soul and her servants, the corporal senses; so that his eye was as blind to the things on which it was fixed as if it had been seared by lightning.

His thoughts were far away--in other years and in other scenes; and as he laid the weapon down upon a chair beside him, he murmured, "It _must_ have fallen into the river, or it would have been found with the hat."

He then sought for a moment among some papers, from which he selected one; and replacing every thing in the chest as it had been before, turned to the table and gazed upon the sheet, which seemed alone filled with memoranda of dates and numbers that certainly could possess no meaning to any eye but his own. To him, however, their import seemed of great consequence; for again and again he studied them; and ever and anon the contemplation would plunge him into deep fits of thought, from which he only roused himself again to gaze upon the figures as before.

"It will do," he said at length, "it will do; but I must take care of what I am about. Yet of this Roger Millington there is no fear. He would at any time of his life have condemned his own soul for gold, and now he seems beggared and wretched enough. The other people can offer him nothing: I can offer him ease and luxury; and he will not only have no temptation to betray me, but every inducement to keep my secret till the grave closes over us both. And yet," he added, thoughtfully--"and yet I must not put it in his power ever to annoy me hereafter. He must rest in my power rather than I in his. Yet if we can silence this Pharold for ever, all real danger will be past; and I must risk something--I must risk much, for that object."

Such were some of the thoughts which pa.s.sed through the mind of Lord Dewry; nor were his conclusions formed upon a very wrong estimate of the character of his present visiter. The better qualities of Sir Roger Millington were few. The best of them was personal courage, or rather that total thoughtlessness in regard to death, and what is to follow death, which in many men supplies the place of a n.o.bler principle. He had always, too, been what is called generous; and he did, indeed, possess that curious combination of qualities which makes a man pillage and ruin the father of a family, and thus bring want, destruction, and desolation upon a whole household, while at the same time he is willing, on every occasion, to share the ill-gotten wealth of the moment with any one who needs it. His generosity, however, still more displayed itself in wasting, among debauchees like himself, whatever he possessed, and thinking no means ign.o.ble to dissipate what he had thought no means dishonourable to obtain.

Born of a good family, introduced early into the best society, and placed, as a military man, in a situation which should have acted rather to strengthen honourable principles than to lead him from them, he had at first, so long as the actual war lasted, gained some credit and renown as a soldier; but no sooner had a peace succeeded than various gambling transactions, of a somewhat doubtful character, rendered it expedient that he should quit the service. This he was permitted to do without disgrace; but from that hour his progress had been downwards in fortune and society. He had first mingled with gentlemen upon equal terms; and during the greater part of his acquaintance with Lord Dewry had kept himself on the same footing with his companions, by keeping up the same expenses, and by indulging the same vices. He was often very successful at play; and, though it was reported that his scruples were not very great in regard to the experience or the sobriety of those with whom he sat down, as his winnings enabled him, generally, to live in luxury and splendour, there were few found to object to the means of acquirement. He sometimes lost, however; and, as on one or two occasions his losses had been to persons of greater wealth than courage, he was said to have discharged his debt by lending the use of his sword in some of the numerous disputes which vice and debauchery entail upon their disciples.

All these things were suspected; but still Sir Roger Millington was not, on that account, shut out from society. Some people merely thought that in him they knew where to find a _serviceable man_ when they wanted such a thing; and others did not choose to quarrel with one who was in better repute at the Park or the back of Montague House, the two great resorts of duellists in that day, than in St.

James's-street. Gambling, however, is always a losing trade; and, by slow degrees, and with many a brief revival of fortune, Sir Roger Millington was forced down lower and lower in the scale of reputation and estate. It must be a very honourable spirit, indeed, that poverty renders more scrupulous; and such was certainly not the case with Sir Roger Millington. The means of obtaining money seemed to him all honourable if they led him not to Tyburn; and, at length, he would fight with or for any man for a very trifling consideration. By this trade, varied, where he found it necessary, by sycophancy or by impudence, he contrived for some time to keep himself up, till at length some one of his adversaries, more wise than the rest, took courage to refuse to cross swords with a bully and a sharper, horsewhipped Sir Roger when he posted him, fought and wounded the first man of honour that looked cold on him for his conduct, and left Sir Roger Millington no resource but to quit the circles in which he had been formerly received.

These circ.u.mstances had occurred about two years before the knight's visit to Lord Dewry; and it would be more painful and disgusting than amusing or instructive to follow him through the shifts and turnings of the succeeding months. At length the happy thought struck him which we have seen him execute; and with a horse, the last of a once splendid stud, a valise containing all that remained of his wardrobe, three guineas, and some silver in his purse, a vast stock of impudence, and a packet of the peer's old letters, he set out to see whether he could wring anything either from the weakness or the kindness of Lord Dewry, from whom he had won, in former days, many a sum which he now sighed to think upon.

He came, as we have seen, at the very moment when the a.s.sistance of such a person as himself, who was not in the least scrupulous either in regard to oaths or dangers, was likely to prove most serviceable to the peer, provided that any bonds could be invented, so close and clinging as to restrain a man who had never yet been bound by any principles of religion, morality, or honour. On their meeting, the uses to which he might be put had not at first struck Lord Dewry, and he had given way to the irritable impatience natural to his character: but the last words of Sir Roger Millington concerning Sir William Ryder, had struck a chord of a.s.sociation which soon awoke other ideas; and before the peer had reached his own room he had seen and comprehended the variety of services which Sir Roger might render him.

Thought, however, was required, both to arrange and give a tangible form to plans which were yet vague and undefined; and to devise means of so guarding against the very agent he was about to employ as not to fall into a new danger in striving to escape an old one. Men who have involved themselves in the dark work of crime, like those employed in forging red-hot iron, are obliged to touch the objects of their labour with tools of steel, lest they should burn themselves with the bolts they forge. After much thought, however, Lord Dewry believed that he saw means of rendering Sir Roger Millington, not only obedient to his every wish, but faithful also; and though the plans in which he was to be employed, of course required long and intense consideration, the new views that opened before the peer gave him so much comfort that he heard the dressing-bell ring, long before he had expected it, without any feelings but those of renewed security and antic.i.p.ated triumph over those who had before caused him so much doubt and apprehension.

Now Lord Dewry was a shrewd and strong-minded man, who, as far as a violent and proud disposition, and very uncontrollable pa.s.sions, would let him, generally acted upon a regularly-arranged and well-considered system in every thing he undertook: but it is extraordinary how often a man acts upon system without knowing it; for, after all, as before said, we are but mere puppets, body and mind, in the hands of our desires. Lord Dewry had ordered the beggared and threadbare Sir Roger Millington to be taken to one of the most splendid apartments in his splendid house; he had ordered such an intimation to be given to the cook as would place upon the table a rich and luxurious repast; he had directed that repast to be spread in a room full of magnificence; and now he dressed himself with scrupulous care and elegance, without at all being aware that it was all part of a system to re-awaken in the bosom of the penniless knight that thirst for luxury and ease which would render him most willingly and eagerly the tool of him who could bestow it. So it was, however; and though pride had her word too, and told his lordship that such display would make his visiter more humble and respectful, yet the princ.i.p.al object was to show him how many pleasant and desirable things might be obtained by being the very humble and most devoted servant of the n.o.ble lord.

Had Lord Dewry sat and calculated for an hour what system was most likely to produce the desired effect upon a man of the peculiar mental and bodily idiosyncrasy of Sir Roger Millington, he could not have more happily adapted his actions to the circ.u.mstances. In his high and plumy days of fortune, Sir Roger Millington had learned to love and delight in every good thing of the earth that we inhabit; and in his days of debas.e.m.e.nt and poverty he had equally learned to admire and bow down to, in others, the possession of those things which had given him so much pleasure when he possessed them himself. The soft tread of the Turkey carpets, the sight of damask, and lace, and or-molu, an accidental whiff of the distant kitchen, as he pa.s.sed the top of a back staircase--a whiff faint and fragrant as if it came from "the spice islands in the south"--the very feel of the sofa on which he sat, were all so many arguments in favour of any plan, action, or idea which Lord Dewry could possibly suggest; and when, after having received his goods and chattels from the village, selected the best of his wardrobe, and made himself look, as he could do, perfectly gentlemanly, he descended to the drawing-room, it was with an impression of the greatest possible respect and admiration for the talents, sentiments, feelings, thoughts, and virtues of his n.o.ble entertainer.

He was almost immediately joined by the peer, who was surprised but not sorry to see his guest look so much like a gentleman; for though he sincerely desired that he should be such at heart as to do his unscrupulous bidding unscrupulously, yet he was quite willing to have him such, in appearance, as would excite neither wonder nor animadversion.

Hasty as the peer was by nature, and eager as he was in the present instance, he had acquired sufficient command over himself to reserve any more open communication with Sir Roger till a more proper moment; although, had he given way to the impulse of his own heart, he would have entered upon the business which occupied his thoughts at once.

But he felt what an advantage such a course of action would confer upon his guest; and, therefore, without showing the slightest haste or impatience, he spoke a moment or two upon the weather, and the state of the nation, and the alarming increase of crime in the metropolis, and several other things, about which he cared not in the least, and then turned to some of the pictures that hung upon the walls, expatiating upon their various merits with as much learning as a connoisseur, and as much taste as an Agar Ellis. "Yes," he said, "that is a very fine picture, though not so valuable as it looks. It is by one of the disciples of Rubens, and artists believe the heads to be by Rubens himself. But I will show you a real treasure!" and approaching a small panel opposite, covered with two richly-carved and gilded doors, he opened them; and, drawing a silk curtain, displayed an inner frame containing a Madonna exquisitely painted. "That is an undoubted Correggio," he said; "and one of the most beautiful pictures that master ever painted. Remark the exquisite bend of that head, so full of grief and resignation. The beauty of the colouring, too--that tear upon the cheek, the faint pink of the nostril partaking slightly of the blue of the drapery, and the drapery itself, how masterly! Look here, too, at the hands crossed upon the breast! Did you ever behold such beautiful hands? so small and delicate, yet so soft and full!