"I d-d-don't attend any place of worship at all, morning, afternoon, or evening. I've long given up going to church altogether. I can only be frank with you; I'll tell you why...."

And as they walked along the talk drifted on to very momentous subjects indeed, and led, unfortunately, to a serious falling out--for which probably both were to blame--and closed in a distressful way at the other end of the little wooded hollow--a way most sudden and unexpected, and quite grievous to relate. When they emerged into the open the parson was quite white, and the painter crimson.

"Sir," said the parson, squaring himself up to more than his full height and breadth and dignity, his face big with righteous wrath, his voice full of strong menace--"sir, you're--you're a--you're a _thief_, sir, a _thief_! You're trying to _rob me of my Saviour_! Never you dare to darken _my_ door-step again!"

"Sir," said Little Billee, with a bow, "if it comes to calling names, you're--you're a--no; you're Alice's father; and whatever else you are besides, I'm another for trying to be honest with a parson; so good-morning to you."

And each walked off in an opposite direction, stiff as pokers; and Tray stood between, looking first at one receding figure, then at the other, disconsolate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'YOU'RE A _THIEF_, SIR!'"]

And thus Little Billee found out that he could no more lie than he could fly. And so he did not marry sweet Alice after all, and no doubt it was ordered for her good and his. But there was tribulation for many days in the house of Bagot, and for many months in one tender, pure, and pious bosom.

And the best and the worst of it all is that, not very many years after, the good vicar--more fortunate than most clergymen who dabble in stocks and shares--grew suddenly very rich through a lucky speculation in Irish beer, and suddenly, also, took to thinking seriously about things (as a man of business should)--more seriously than he had ever thought before.

So at least the story goes in North Devon, and it is not so new as to be incredible. Little doubts grew into big ones--big doubts resolved themselves into downright negations. He quarrelled with his bishop; he quarrelled with his dean; he even quarrelled with his "poor dear old marquis," who died before there was time to make it up again. And finally he felt it his duty, in conscience, to secede from a Church which had become too narrow to hold him, and took himself and his belongings to London, where at least he could breathe. But there he fell into a great disquiet, for the long habit of feeling himself always _en evidence_--of being looked up to and listened to without contradiction; of exercising influence and authority in spiritual matters (and even temporal); of impressing women, especially, with his commanding presence, his fine sonorous voice, his lofty brow, so serious and smooth, his soft, big, waving hands, which soon lost their country tan--all this had grown as a second nature to him, the breath of his nostrils, a necessity of his life. So he rose to be the most popular Unitarian preacher of his day, and pretty broad at that.

But his dear daughter Alice, she stuck to the old faith, and married a venerable High-Church archdeacon, who very cleverly clutched at and caught her and saved her for himself just as she stood shivering on the very brink of Rome; and they were neither happy nor unhappy together--_un menage bourgeois, ni beau ni laid, ni bon ni mauvais_. And thus, alas! the bond of religious sympathy, that counts for so much in united families, no longer existed between father and daughter, and the heart's division divided them. _Ce que c'est que de nous!_ ... The pity of it!

And so no more of sweet Alice with hair so brown.

Part Sixth

'"Vraiment, la reine aupres d'elle etait laide Quand, vers le soir, Elle pa.s.sait sur le pont de Tolede En corset noir!

Un chapelet du temps de Charlemagne Ornait son cou....

_La vent qui vient a travers la montagne Me rendra fou!_

"'Dansez, chantez, villageois! la nuit tombe....

Sabine, un jour, A tout donne--sa beaute de colombe, Et son amour-- Pour l'anneau d'or du Comte de Soldagne, Pour un bijou....

_La vent qui vient a travers la montagne M'a rendu fou!_'"

Behold our three musketeers of the brush once more reunited in Paris, famous, after long years.

In emulation of the good Dumas, we will call it "cinq ans apres." It was a little more.

Taffy stands for Porthos and Athos rolled into one, since he is big and good-natured, and strong enough to "a.s.sommer un homme d'un coup de poing," and also stately and solemn, of aristocratic and romantic appearance, and not too fat--not too much ongbong-pw.a.n.g, as the Laird called it--and also he does not dislike a bottle of wine, or even two, and looks as if he had a history.

The Laird, of course, is d'Artagnan, since he sells his pictures well, and by the time we are writing of has already become an a.s.sociate of the Royal Academy; like Quentin Durward, this d'Artagnan was a Scotsman:

"Ah, was na he a Roguy, this piper of Dundee!"

And Little Billee, the dainty friend of d.u.c.h.esses, must stand for Aramis, I fear! It will not do to push the simile too far; besides, unlike the good Dumas, one has a conscience. One does not play ducks and drakes with historical facts, or tamper with historical personages. And if Athos, Porthos & Co. are not historical by this time, I should like to know who are!

Well, so are Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee--_tout ce qu'il y a de plus historiques_!

Our three friends, well groomed, frock-coated, shirt-collared within an inch of their lives, duly scarfed and scarf-pinned, chimney-pot-hatted, and most beautifully trousered, and balmorally booted, or neatly spatted (or whatever was most correct at the time), are breakfasting together on coffee, rolls, and b.u.t.ter at a little round table in the huge court-yard of an immense caravanserai, paved with asphalt, and covered in at the top with a glazed roof that admits the sun and keeps out the rain--and the air.

A magnificent old man as big as Taffy, in black velvet coat and breeches and black silk stockings, and a large gold chain round his neck and chest, looks down like Jove from a broad flight of marble steps--as though to welcome the coming guests, who arrive in cabs and railway omnibuses through a huge archway on the boulevard, or to speed those who part through a lesser archway opening on to a side street.

"Bon voyage, messieurs et dames!"

At countless other little tables other voyagers are breakfasting or ordering breakfast; or, having breakfasted, are smoking and chatting and looking about. It is a babel of tongues--the cheerfulest, busiest, merriest scene in the world, apparently the costly place of rendezvous for all wealthy Europe and America; an atmosphere of bank-notes and gold.

Already Taffy has recognized (and been recognized by) half a dozen old fellow-Crimeans, of unmistakable military aspect like himself; and three canny Scotsmen have discreetly greeted the Laird; and as for Little Billee, he is constantly jumping up from his breakfast and running to this table or that, drawn by some irresistible British smile of surprised and delighted female recognition: "What, _you_ here? How nice!

Come over to hear la Svengali, I suppose."

At the top of the marble steps is a long terrace, with seats and people sitting, from which tall glazed doors, elaborately carved and gilded, give access to luxurious drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, reading-rooms, lavatories, postal and telegraph offices; and all round and about are huge square green boxes, out of which grow tropical and exotic evergreens all the year round--with beautiful names that I have forgotten. And leaning against these boxes are placards announcing what theatrical or musical entertainments will take place in Paris that day or night; and the biggest of these placards (and the most fantastically decorated) informs the cosmopolite world that Madame Svengali intends to make her first appearance in Paris that very evening, at nine punctually, in the Cirque des Bashibazoucks, Rue St.

Honore!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AN ATMOSPHERE OF BANK-NOTES AND GOLD"]

Our friends had only arrived the previous night, but they had managed to secure stalls a week beforehand. No places were any longer to be got for love or money. Many people had come to Paris on purpose to hear la Svengali--many famous musicians from England and everywhere else--but they would have to wait many days.

The fame of her was like a rolling s...o...b..ll that had been rolling all over Europe for the last two years--wherever there was snow to be picked up in the shape of golden ducats.

Their breakfast over, Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee, cigar in mouth, arm in arm, the huge Taffy in the middle (_comme autrefois_), crossed the sunshiny boulevard into the shade, and went down the Rue de la Paix, through the Place Vendome and the Rue Castiglione to the Rue de Rivoli--quite leisurely, and with a tender midriff-warming sensation of freedom and delight at almost every step.

Arrived at the corner pastry-cook's, they finished the stumps of their cigars as they looked at the well-remembered show in the window; then they went in and had, Taffy a Madeleine, the Laird a baba, and Little Billee a Savarin--and each, I regret to say, a liqueur-gla.s.s of _rhum de la Jamaque_.

After this they sauntered through the Tuileries Gardens, and by the quay to their favorite Pont des Arts, and looked up and down the river--_comme autrefois_!

It is an enchanting prospect at any time and under any circ.u.mstances; but on a beautiful morning in mid-October, when you haven't seen it for five years, and are still young! and almost every stock and stone that meets your eye, every sound, every scent, has some sweet and subtle reminder for you--

Let the reader have no fear. I will not attempt to describe it. I shouldn't know where to begin (nor when to leave off!).

Not but what many changes had been wrought; many old landmarks were missing. And among them, as they found out a few minutes later, and much to their chagrin, the good old Morgue!

They inquired of a _gardien de la paix_, who told them that a new Morgue--"une bien jolie Morgue, ma foi!"--and much more commodious and comfortable than the old one, had been built beyond Notre Dame, a little to the right.

"Messieurs devraient voir ca--on y est tres bien!"

But Notre Dame herself was still there, and la Sainte Chapelle, and Le Pont Neuf, and the equestrian statue of Henri IV. _C'est toujours ca!_

And as they gazed and gazed, each framed unto himself, mentally, a little picture of the Thames they had just left--and thought of Waterloo Bridge, and St. Paul's, and London--but felt no homesickness whatever, no desire to go back!

And looking down the river westward there was but little change.

On the left-hand side the terraces and garden of the Hotel de la Rochemartel (the sculptured entrance of which was in the Rue de Lille) still overtopped the neighboring houses and shaded the quay with tall trees, whose lightly falling leaves yellowed the pavement for at least a hundred yards of frontage--or backage, rather; for this was but the rear of that stately palace.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A LITTLE PICTURE OF THE THAMES"]

"I wonder if l'Zouzou has come into his dukedom yet?" said Taffy.

And Taffy the realist, Taffy the modern of moderns, also said many beautiful things about old historical French dukedoms; which, in spite of their plentifulness, were so much more picturesque than English ones, and const.i.tuted a far more poetical and romantic link with the past; partly on account of their beautiful, high-sounding names!