St. Ives (Annotated) E-Book

Robert Louis Stevenson

• Herausgeber: ePembaBooks
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

• This edition includes the following editor's introduction: The Travels of Robert Louis Stevenson

"St. Ives" (AKA St. Ives: The Adventures of a French Prisoner in England) is an unfinished novel created by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson in 1897 that was completed in 1898 by Arthur Quiller-Couch. Unable to write, Stevenson dictated thirty chapters of the novel to his stepdaughter, Mrs. Strong, as a diversion from his debilitating illness. Written while Stevenson lived in Samoa, "St. Ives" was the author's last title.

Set during the Napoleonic Wars, "St. Ives" narrates the adventures of the dashing Viscomte Anne de Keroual de St. Ives, a Napoleonic soldier enlisted as a private under the name of Champdivers, after his capture by the British and during his stay as a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle.

Leseprobe

Robert Louis Stevenson

St. Ives

Table of contents

The Travels of Robert Louis Stevenson

ST. IVES

Chapter I - A Tale of a Lion Rampant

Chapter II - A Tale of a Pair of Scissors

Chapter III - Major Chevenix Comes Into the Story and Goguelat Goes Out

Chapter IV - St. Ives Gets a Bundle of Bank-notes

Chapter V - St. Ives is Shown a House

Chapter VI - The Escape

Chapter VII - Swanston Cottage

Chapter VIII - The Hen-house

Chapter IX - Three is Company, and Four None

Chapter X - The Drovers

Chapter XI - The Great North Road

Chapter XII - I Follow a Covered Cart Nearly to My Destination

Chapter XIII - I Meet Two of My Countrymen

Chapter XIV - Travels of the Covered Cart

Chapter XV - The Adventure of the Attorney's Clerk

Chapter XVI - The Home-coming of Mr. Rowley's Viscount

Chapter XVII - The Despatch-box

Chapter XVIII - Mr. Romaine Calls Me Names

Chapter XIX - The Devil and All at Amersham Place

Chapter XX - After the Storm

Chapter XXI - I Become the Owner of a Claret-coloured Chaise

Chapter XXII - Character and Acquirements of Mr. Rowley

Chapter XXIII - The Adventure of the Runaway Couple

Chapter XXIV - The Inn-keeper of Kirkby-lonsdale

Chapter XXV - I Meet a Cheerful Extravagant

Chapter XXVI - The Cottage at Night

Chapter XXVII - The Sabbath-day

Chapter XXVIII - Events of Monday: The Lawyer's Party

Chapter XXIX - Events of Tuesday: The Toils Closing

Chapter XXX - Events of Wednesday: The University of Cramond

Chapter XXXI - Events of Thursday: The Assembly Ball

Chapter XXXII - Events of Friday Morning: The Cutting of the Gordian Knot

Chapter XXXIII - The Incomplete Aeronauts

Chapter XXXIV - Captain Colenso

Chapter XXXV - In Paris.- Alain Plays His Last Card

Chapter XXXVI - I Go to Claim Flora

The Travels of Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson, whom many will know for masterpieces such as "Treasure Island" or "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," was an unrepentant traveller for much of his life. His poor health, instead of relegating him to a sedentary life, made him look for places to take care of his tuberculosis, which led him first to places like the French Riviera and then to the Pacific. However, far from staying in a sanatorium, Stevenson travelled through Europe and countless islands, voyages that he later put down in writing or that inspired him to write books such as " St. Ives," written while he lived in Samoa, "Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes" or "In the South Seas."

In 1888, Stevenson took possession of the yacht Casco in San Francisco with the goal of travelling to the Pacific Ocean with his entire family. The pure sea air of the southern islands had been strongly recommended to him and it was an unparalleled opportunity to travel that part of the world. Stevenson spent some time in Hawaii, where he made friends with its king, before sailing down to Tahiti, New Zealand and Samoa, passing through islands as far away as Kiribati and Abemama, and even Australia.

Throughout this journey, Stevenson continued to write fiction, such as "The Devil in the Bottle," one of the Scottish author's best stories, set in a mansion in Hawaii and featuring another of the places he visited on his travels, the leper colony of Molokai. His novel "The Master of Ballantrae" was also written at this time.

He later gave an account of his travels in "In the South Seas," a fascinating reflection of the Pacific islands, their people, customs and traditions, all accompanied by the reflections of the ever-sharp Stevenson. In fact, the author decided to stay and live on the Samoan island of Upolu, where he bought a villa and ended up becoming an important public figure, earning the esteem of the natives and the reprobation of the colonial authorities.

As a complement to the work of "In the South Seas" you can read "The Cruise of the Janet Nichol," an account of his last voyage in the Pacific, written by his wife, Fanny Van de Grift, as well as "Travel," a most interesting collection of essays on travel.

The Editor, P.C. 2022

ST. IVES

Robert Louis Stevenson

The Adventures of a French Prisoner in England

The following tale was taken down from Mr. Stevenson's dictation by his stepdaughter and amanuensis, Mrs. Strong, at intervals between January 1893 and October 1894 (see Vailima Letters, pp. 242-246, 299, 324 and 350). About six weeks before his death he laid the story aside to take up Weir of Hermiston. The thirty chapters of St. Ives which he had written (the last few of them apparently unrevised) brought the tale within sight of its conclusion, and the intended course of the remainder was known in outline to Mrs. Strong. For the benefit of those readers who do not like a story to be left unfinished, the delicate task of supplying the missing chapters has been entrusted to Mr. Quiller–Couch, whose work begins at Chapter XXXI.

[S. C.]

Chapter I - A Tale of a Lion Rampant

It was in the month of May 1813 that I was so unlucky as to fall at last into the hands of the enemy. My knowledge of the English language had marked me out for a certain employment. Though I cannot conceive a soldier refusing to incur the risk, yet to be hanged for a spy is a disgusting business; and I was relieved to be held a prisoner of war. Into the Castle of Edinburgh, standing in the midst of that city on the summit of an extraordinary rock, I was cast with several hundred fellow–sufferers, all privates like myself, and the more part of them, by an accident, very ignorant, plain fellows. My English, which had brought me into that scrape, now helped me very materially to bear it. I had a thousand advantages. I was often called to play the part of an interpreter, whether of orders or complaints, and thus brought in relations, sometimes of mirth, sometimes almost of friendship, with the officers in charge. A young lieutenant singled me out to be his adversary at chess, a game in which I was extremely proficient, and would reward me for my gambits with excellent cigars. The major of the battalion took lessons of French from me while at breakfast, and was sometimes so obliging as to have me join him at the meal. Chevenix was his name. He was stiff as a drum–major and selfish as an Englishman, but a fairly conscientious pupil and a fairly upright man. Little did I suppose that his ramrod body and frozen face would, in the end, step in between me and all my dearest wishes; that upon this precise, regular, icy soldier–man my fortunes should so nearly shipwreck! I never liked, but yet I trusted him; and though it may seem but a trifle, I found his snuff–box with the bean in it come very welcome.

For it is strange how grown men and seasoned soldiers can go back in life; so that after but a little while in prison, which is after all the next thing to being in the nursery, they grow absorbed in the most pitiful, childish interests, and a sugar–biscuit or a pinch of snuff become things to follow after and scheme for!

We made but a poor show of prisoners. The officers had been all offered their parole, and had taken it. They lived mostly in suburbs of the city, lodging with modest families, and enjoyed their freedom and supported the almost continual evil tidings of the Emperor as best they might. It chanced I was the only gentleman among the privates who remained. A great part were ignorant Italians, of a regiment that had suffered heavily in Catalonia. The rest were mere diggers of the soil, treaders of grapes, or hewers of wood, who had been suddenly and violently preferred to the glorious state of soldiers. We had but the one interest in common: each of us who had any skill with his fingers passed the hours of his captivity in the making of little toys and articles of Paris; and the prison was daily visited at certain hours by a concourse of people of the country, come to exult over our distress, or—it is more tolerant to suppose—their own vicarious triumph. Some moved among us with a decency of shame or sympathy. Others were the most offensive personages in the world, gaped at us as if we had been baboons, sought to evangelise us to their rustic, northern religion, as though we had been savages, or tortured us with intelligence of disasters to the arms of France. Good, bad, and indifferent, there was one alleviation to the annoyance of these visitors; for it was the practice of almost all to purchase some specimen of our rude handiwork. This led, amongst the prisoners, to a strong spirit of competition. Some were neat of hand, and (the genius of the French being always distinguished) could place upon sale little miracles of dexterity and taste. Some had a more engaging appearance; fine features were found to do as well as fine merchandise, and an air of youth in particular (as it appealed to the sentiment of pity in our visitors) to be a source of profit. Others, again, enjoyed some acquaintance with the language, and were able to recommend the more agreeably to purchasers such trifles as they had to sell. To the first of these advantages I could lay no claim, for my fingers were all thumbs. Some at least of the others I possessed; and finding much entertainment in our commerce, I did not suffer my advantages to rust. I have never despised the social arts, in which it is a national boast that every Frenchman should excel. For the approach of particular sorts of visitors I had a particular manner of address, and even of appearance, which I could readily assume and change on the occasion rising. I never lost an opportunity to flatter either the person of my visitor, if it should be a lady, or, if it should be a man, the greatness of his country in war. And in case my compliments should miss their aim, I was always ready to cover my retreat with some agreeable pleasantry, which would often earn me the name of an "oddity" or a "droll fellow." In this way, although I was so left–handed a toy–maker, I made out to be rather a successful merchant; and found means to procure many little delicacies and alleviations, such as children or prisoners desire.

I am scarcely drawing the portrait of a very melancholy man. It is not indeed my character; and I had, in a comparison with my comrades, many reasons for content. In the first place, I had no family: I was an orphan and a bachelor; neither wife nor child awaited me in France. In the second, I had never wholly forgot the emotions with which I first found myself a prisoner; and although a military prison be not altogether a garden of delights, it is still preferable to a gallows. In the third, I am almost ashamed to say it, but I found a certain pleasure in our place of residence: being an obsolete and really mediæval fortress, high placed and commanding extraordinary prospects, not only over sea, mountain, and champaign, but actually over the thoroughfares of a capital city, which we could see blackened by day with the moving crowd of the inhabitants, and at night shining with lamps. And lastly, although I was not insensible to the restraints of prison or the scantiness of our rations, I remembered I had sometimes eaten quite as ill in Spain, and had to mount guard and march perhaps a dozen leagues into the bargain. The first of my troubles, indeed, was the costume we were obliged to wear. There is a horrible practice in England to trick out in ridiculous uniforms, and as it were to brand in mass, not only convicts but military prisoners, and even the children in charity schools. I think some malignant genius had found his masterpiece of irony in the dress which we were condemned to wear: jacket, waistcoat, and trousers of a sulphur or mustard yellow, and a shirt of blue–and–white striped cotton. It was conspicuous, it was cheap, it pointed us out to laughter—we, who were old soldiers, used to arms, and some of us showing noble scars,—like a set of lugubrious zanies at a fair. The old name of that rock on which our prison stood was (I have heard since then) the "Painted Hill." Well, now it was all painted a bright yellow with our costumes; and the dress of the soldiers who guarded us being of course the essential British red rag, we made up together the elements of a lively picture of hell. I have again and again looked round upon my fellow–prisoners, and felt my anger rise, and choked upon tears, to behold them thus parodied. The more part, as I have said, were peasants; somewhat bettered perhaps by the drill–sergeant, but for all that ungainly, loutish fellows, with no more than a mere barrack–room smartness of address: indeed, you could have seen our army nowhere more discreditably represented than in this Castle of Edinburgh. And I used to see myself in fancy, and blush. It seemed that my more elegant carriage would but point the insult of the travesty. And I remembered the days when I wore the coarse but honourable coat of a soldier; and remembered further back how many of the noble, the fair, and the gracious had taken a delight to tend my childhood…. But I must not recall these tender and sorrowful memories twice; their place is further on, and I am now upon another business. The perfidy of the Britannic Government stood nowhere more openly confessed than in one particular of our discipline: that we were shaved twice in the week. To a man who has loved all his life to be fresh shaven, can a more irritating indignity be devised? Monday and Thursday were the days. Take the Thursday, and conceive the picture I must present by Sunday evening! And Saturday, which was almost as bad, was the great day for visitors.

Those who came to our market were of all qualities, men and women, the lean and the stout, the plain and the fairly pretty. Sure, if people at all understood the power of beauty, there would be no prayers addressed except to Venus; and the mere privilege of beholding a comely woman is worth paying for. Our visitors, upon the whole, were not much to boast of; and yet, sitting in a corner and very much ashamed of myself and my absurd appearance, I have again and again tasted the finest, the rarest, and the most ethereal pleasures in a glance of an eye that I should never see again—and never wanted to. The flower of the hedgerow and the star in heaven satisfy and delight us: how much more the look of that exquisite being who was created to bear and rear, to madden and rejoice, mankind!

There was one young lady in particular, about eighteen or nineteen, tall, of a gallant carriage, and with a profusion of hair in which the sun found threads of gold. As soon as she came in the courtyard (and she was a rather frequent visitor) it seemed I was aware of it. She had an air of angelic candour, yet of a high spirit; she stepped like a Diana, every movement was noble and free. One day there was a strong east wind; the banner was straining at the flagstaff; below us the smoke of the city chimneys blew hither and thither in a thousand crazy variations; and away out on the Forth we could see the ships lying down to it and scudding. I was thinking what a vile day it was, when she appeared. Her hair blew in the wind with changes of colour; her garments moulded her with the accuracy of sculpture; the ends of her shawl fluttered about her ear and were caught in again with an inimitable deftness. You have seen a pool on a gusty day, how it suddenly sparkles and flashes like a thing alive? So this lady's face had become animated and coloured; and as I saw her standing, somewhat inclined, her lips parted, a divine trouble in her eyes, I could have clapped my hands in applause, and was ready to acclaim her a genuine daughter of the winds. What put it in my head, I know not: perhaps because it was a Thursday and I was new from the razor; but I determined to engage her attention no later than that day. She was approaching that part of the court in which I sat with my merchandise, when I observed her handkerchief to escape from her hands and fall to the ground; the next moment the wind had taken it up and carried it within my reach. I was on foot at once: I had forgot my mustard–coloured clothes, I had forgot the private soldier and his salute. Bowing deeply, I offered her the slip of cambric.

"Madam," said I, "your handkerchief. The wind brought it me."

I met her eyes fully.

"I thank you, sir," said she.

"The wind brought it me," I repeated. "May I not take it for an omen? You have an English proverb, 'It's an ill wind that blows nobody good.'"

"Well," she said, with a smile, "'One good turn deserves another.' I will see what you have."

She followed me to where my wares were spread out under lee of a piece of cannon.

"Alas, mademoiselle!" said I, "I am no very perfect craftsman. This is supposed to be a house, and you see the chimneys are awry. You may call this a box if you are very indulgent; but see where my tool slipped! Yes, I am afraid you may go from one to another, and find a flaw in everything. Failures for Sale should be on my signboard. I do not keep a shop; I keep a Humorous Museum." I cast a smiling glance about my display, and then at her, and instantly became grave. "Strange, is it not," I added, "that a grown man and a soldier should be engaged upon such trash, and a sad heart produce anything so funny to look at?"

An unpleasant voice summoned her at this moment by the name of Flora, and she made a hasty purchase and rejoined her party.

A few days after she came again. But I must first tell you how she came to be so frequent. Her aunt was one of those terrible British old maids of which the world has heard much; and having nothing whatever to do, and a word or two of French, she had taken what she called an interest in the French prisoners. A big, bustling, bold old lady, she flounced about our market–place with insufferable airs of patronage and condescension. She bought, indeed, with liberality, but her manner of studying us through a quizzing–glass, and playing cicerone to her followers, acquitted us of any gratitude. She had a tail behind her of heavy, obsequious old gentlemen, or dull, giggling misses, to whom she appeared to be an oracle. "This one can really carve prettily: is he not a quiz with his big whiskers?" she would say. "And this one," indicating myself with her gold eye–glass, "is, I assure you, quite an oddity." The oddity, you may be certain, ground his teeth. She had a way of standing in our midst, nodding around, and addressing us in what she imagined to be French: " Bienne, hommes! ça va bienne?" I took the freedom to reply in the same lingo: " Bienne, femme! ça va couci–couci tout d'même, la bourgeoise!" And at that, when we had all laughed, with a little more heartiness than was entirely civil, "I told you he was quite an oddity!" says she in triumph. Needless to say, these passages were before I had remarked the niece.

The aunt came on the day in question with a following rather more than usually large, which she manoeuvred to and fro about the market and lectured to at rather more than usual length, and with rather less than her accustomed tact. I kept my eyes down, but they were ever fixed in the same direction, quite in vain. The aunt came and went, and pulled us out, and showed us off, like caged monkeys; but the niece kept herself on the outskirts of the crowd, and on the opposite side of the courtyard, and departed at last as she had come, without a sign. Closely as I had watched her, I could not say her eyes had ever rested on me for an instant; and my heart was overwhelmed with bitterness and blackness. I tore out her detested image; I felt I was done with her for ever; I laughed at myself savagely, because I had thought to please; when I lay down at night sleep forsook me, and I lay, and rolled, and gloated on her charms, and cursed her insensibility, for half the night. How trivial I thought her! and how trivial her sex! A man might be an angel or an Apollo, and a mustard–coloured coat would wholly blind them to his merits. I was a prisoner, a slave, a contemned and despicable being, the butt of her sniggering countrymen. I would take the lesson: no proud daughter of my foes should have the chance to mock at me again; none in the future should have the chance to think I had looked at her with admiration. You cannot imagine any one of a more resolute and independent spirit, or whose bosom was more wholly mailed with patriotic arrogance, than I. Before I dropped asleep, I had remembered all the infamies of Britain, and debited them in an overwhelming column to Flora.

The next day, as I sat in my place, I became conscious there was some one standing near; and behold, it was herself! I kept my seat, at first in the confusion of my mind, later on from policy; and she stood, and leaned a little over me, as in pity. She was very still and timid; her voice was low. Did I suffer in my captivity? she asked me. Had I to complain of any hardship?

"Mademoiselle, I have not learned to complain," said I. "I am a soldier of Napoleon."

She sighed. "At least you must regret La France," said she, and coloured a little as she pronounced the words, which she did with a pretty strangeness of accent.

"What am I to say?" I replied. "If you were carried from this country, for which you seem so wholly suited, where the very rains and winds seem to become you like ornaments, would you regret, do you think? We must surely all regret! the son to his mother, the man to his country; these are native feelings."

"You have a mother?" she asked.

"In heaven, mademoiselle," I answered. "She, and my father also, went by the same road to heaven as so many others of the fair and brave: they followed their queen upon the scaffold. So, you see, I am not so much to be pitied in my prison," I continued: "there are none to wait for me; I am alone in the world. 'Tis a different case, for instance, with yon poor fellow in the cloth cap. His bed is next to mine, and in the night I hear him sobbing to himself. He has a tender character, full of tender and pretty sentiments; and in the dark at night, and sometimes by day when he can get me apart with him, he laments a mother and a sweetheart. Do you know what made him take me for a confidant?"

She parted her lips with a look, but did not speak. The look burned all through me with a sudden vital heat.

"Because I had once seen, in marching by, the belfry of his village!" I continued. "The circumstance is quaint enough. It seems to bind up into one the whole bundle of those human instincts that make life beautiful, and people and places dear—and from which it would seem I am cut off!"

I rested my chin on my knee and looked before me on the ground. I had been talking until then to hold her; but I was now not sorry she should go: an impression is a thing so delicate to produce and so easy to overthrow! Presently she seemed to make an effort.

"I will take this toy," she said, laid a five–and–sixpenny piece in my hand, and was gone ere I could thank her.

I retired to a place apart near the ramparts and behind a gun. The beauty, the expression of her eyes, the tear that had trembled there, the compassion in her voice, and a kind of wild elegance that consecrated the freedom of her movements, all combined to enslave my imagination and inflame my heart. What had she said? Nothing to signify; but her eyes had met mine, and the fire they had kindled burned inextinguishably in my veins. I loved her; and I did not fear to hope. Twice I had spoken with her; and in both interviews I had been well inspired, I had engaged her sympathies, I had found words that she must remember, that would ring in her ears at night upon her bed. What mattered if I were half–shaved and my clothes a caricature? I was still a man, and I had drawn my image on her memory. I was still a man, and, as I trembled to realise, she was still a woman. Many waters cannot quench love; and love, which is the law of the world, was on my side. I closed my eyes, and she sprang up on the background of the darkness, more beautiful than in life. "Ah!" thought I, "and you too, my dear, you too must carry away with you a picture, that you are still to behold again and still to embellish. In the darkness of night, in the streets by day, still you are to have my voice and face, whispering, making love for me, encroaching on your shy heart. Shy as your heart is, it is lodged there— I am lodged there; let the hours do their office—let time continue to draw me ever in more lively, ever in more insidious colours." And then I had a vision of myself, and burst out laughing.

A likely thing, indeed, that a beggar–man, a private soldier, a prisoner in a yellow travesty, was to awake the interest of this fair girl! I would not despair; but I saw the game must be played fine and close. It must be my policy to hold myself before her, always in a pathetic or pleasing attitude; never to alarm or startle her; to keep my own secret locked in my bosom like a story of disgrace, and let hers (if she could be induced to have one) grow at its own rate; to move just so fast, and not by a hair's–breadth any faster, than the inclination of her heart. I was the man, and yet I was passive, tied by the foot in prison. I could not go to her; I must cast a spell upon her at each visit, so that she should return to me; and this was a matter of nice management. I had done it the last time—it seemed impossible she should not come again after our interview; and for the next I had speedily ripened a fresh plan. A prisoner, if he has one great disability for a lover, has yet one considerable advantage: there is nothing to distract him, and he can spend all his hours ripening his love and preparing its manifestations. I had been then some days upon a piece of carving—no less than the emblem of Scotland, the Lion Rampant. This I proceeded to finish with what skill I was possessed of; and when at last I could do no more to it (and, you may be sure, was already regretting I had done so much), added on the base the following dedication:

À LA BELLE FLORA

LE PRISONNIER RECONNAISSANT

A. D. ST. Y. D. K.

I put my heart into the carving of these letters. What was done with so much ardour, it seemed scarce possible that any should behold with indifference; and the initials would at least suggest to her my noble birth. I thought it better to suggest: I felt that mystery was my stock–in–trade; the contrast between my rank and manners, between my speech and my clothing, and the fact that she could only think of me by a combination of letters, must all tend to increase her interest and engage her heart.

This done, there was nothing left for me but to wait and to hope. And there is nothing further from my character: in love and in war, I am all for the forward movement; and these days of waiting made my purgatory. It is a fact that I loved her a great deal better at the end of them, for love comes, like bread, from a perpetual rehandling. And besides, I was fallen into a panic of fear. How, if she came no more, how was I to continue to endure my empty days? how was I to fall back and find my interest in the major's lessons, the lieutenant's chess, in a twopenny sale in the market, or a halfpenny addition to the prison fare?

Days went by, and weeks; I had not the courage to calculate, and to–day I have not the courage to remember; but at last she was there. At last I saw her approach me in the company of a boy about her own age, and whom I divined at once to be her brother.

I rose and bowed in silence.

"This is my brother, Mr. Ronald Gilchrist," said she. "I have told him of your sufferings. He is so sorry for you!"

"It is more than I have the right to ask," I replied; "but among gentlefolk these generous sentiments are natural. If your brother and I were to meet in the field, we should meet like tigers; but when he sees me here disarmed and helpless, he forgets his animosity." (At which, as I had ventured to expect, this beardless champion coloured to the ears for pleasure.) "Ah, my dear young lady," I continued, "there are many of your countrymen languishing in my country, even as I do here. I can but hope there is found some French lady to convey to each of them the priceless consolation of her sympathy. You have given me alms; and more than alms—hope; and while you were absent I was not forgetful. Suffer me to be able to tell myself that I have at least tried to make a return; and for the prisoner's sake deign to accept this trifle."

So saying, I offered her my lion, which she took, looked at in some embarrassment, and then, catching sight of the dedication, broke out with a cry—

"Why, how did you know my name?" she exclaimed.

"When names are so appropriate, they should be easily guessed," said I, bowing. "But indeed, there was no magic in the matter. A lady called you by name on the day I found your handkerchief, and I was quick to remark and cherish it."

"It is very, very beautiful," said she, "and I shall be always proud of the inscription.—Come, Ronald, we must be going." She bowed to me as a lady bows to her equal, and passed on (I could have sworn) with a heightened colour.

I was overjoyed: my innocent ruse had succeeded; she had taken my gift without a hint of payment, and she would scarce sleep in peace till she had made it up to me. No greenhorn in matters of the heart, I was besides aware that I had now a resident ambassador at the court of my lady. The lion might be ill chiselled; it was mine. My hands had made and held it; my knife—or, to speak more by the mark, my rusty nail—had traced those letters; and simple as the words were, they would keep repeating to her that I was grateful and that I found her fair. The boy had looked like a gawky, and blushed at a compliment; I could see besides that he regarded me with considerable suspicion; yet he made so manly a figure of a lad, that I could not withhold from him my sympathy. And as for the impulse that had made her bring and introduce him, I could not sufficiently admire it. It seemed to me finer than wit, and more tender than a caress. It said (plain as language), "I do not and I cannot know you. Here is my brother—you can know him; this is the way to me—follow it."

Chapter II - A Tale of a Pair of Scissors

I was still plunged in these thoughts when the bell was rung that discharged our visitors into the street. Our little market was no sooner closed than we were summoned to the distribution, and received our rations, which we were then allowed to eat according to fancy in any part of our quarters.

I have said the conduct of some of our visitors was unbearably offensive; it was possibly more so than they dreamed—as the sightseers at a menagerie may offend in a thousand ways, and quite without meaning it, the noble and unfortunate animals behind the bars; and there is no doubt but some of my compatriots were susceptible beyond reason. Some of these old whiskerandos, originally peasants, trained since boyhood in victorious armies, and accustomed to move among subject and trembling populations, could ill brook their change of circumstance. There was one man of the name of Goguelat, a brute of the first water, who had enjoyed no touch of civilisation beyond the military discipline, and had risen by an extreme heroism of bravery to a grade for which he was otherwise unfitted—that of maréchal des logis in the 22nd of the line. In so far as a brute can be a good soldier, he was a good soldier; the Cross was on his breast, and gallantly earned; but in all things outside his line of duty the man was no other than a brawling, bruising, ignorant pillar of low pothouses. As a gentleman by birth, and a scholar by taste and education, I was the type of all that he least understood and most detested; and the mere view of our visitors would leave him daily in a transport of annoyance, which he would make haste to wreak on the nearest victim, and too often on myself.

It was so now. Our rations were scarce served out, and I had just withdrawn into a corner of the yard, when I perceived him drawing near. He wore an air of hateful mirth, a set of young fools, among whom he passed for a wit, followed him with looks of expectation; and I saw I was about to be the object of some of his insufferable pleasantries. He took a place beside me, spread out his rations, drank to me derisively from his measure of prison beer, and began. What he said it would be impossible to print; but his admirers, who believed their wit to have surpassed himself, actually rolled among the gravel. For my part, I thought at first I should have died. I had not dreamed the wretch was so observant; but hate sharpens the ears, and he had counted our interviews and actually knew Flora by her name. Gradually my coolness returned to me, accompanied by a volume of living anger that surprised myself.

"Are you nearly done?" I asked. "Because if you are, I am about to say a word or two myself."

"O, fair play!" said he. "Turnabout! The Marquis of Carabas to the tribune."

"Very well," said I. "I have to inform you that I am a gentleman. You do not know what that means, hey? Well, I will tell you. It is a comical sort of animal; springs from another strange set of creatures they call ancestors; and, in common with toads and other vermin, has a thing that he calls feelings. The lion is a gentleman; he will not touch carrion. I am a gentleman, and I cannot bear to soil my fingers with such a lump of dirt. Sit still, Philippe Goguelat! sit still and, do not say a word, or I shall know you are a coward; the eyes of our guards are upon us. Here is your health!" said I, and pledged him in the prison beer. "You have chosen to speak in a certain way of a young child," I continued, "who might be your daughter, and who was giving alms to me and some others of us mendicants. If the Emperor"—saluting—"if my Emperor could hear you, he would pluck off the Cross from your gross body. I cannot do that; I cannot take away what his Majesty has given; but one thing I promise you—I promise you, Goguelat, you shall be dead to–night."

I had borne so much from him in the past, I believe he thought there was no end to my forbearance, and he was at first amazed. But I have the pleasure to think that some of my expressions had pierced through his thick hide; and besides, the brute was truly a hero of valour, and loved fighting for itself. Whatever the cause, at least, he had soon pulled himself together, and took the thing (to do him justice) handsomely.

"And I promise you, by the devil's horns, that you shall have the chance!" said he, and pledged me again; and again I did him scrupulous honour.

The news of this defiance spread from prisoner to prisoner with the speed of wings; every face was seen to be illuminated like those of the spectators at a horse–race; and indeed you must first have tasted the active life of a soldier, and then mouldered for a while in the tedium of a gaol, in order to understand, perhaps even to excuse, the delight of our companions. Goguelat and I slept in the same squad, which greatly simplified the business; and a committee of honour was accordingly formed of our shed–mates. They chose for president a sergeant–major in the 4th Dragoons, a greybeard of the army, an excellent military subject, and a good man. He took the most serious view of his functions, visited us both, and reported our replies to the committee. Mine was of a decent firmness. I told him the young lady of whom Goguelat had spoken had on several occasions given me alms. I reminded him that, if we were now reduced to hold out our hands and sell pill boxes for charity, it was something very new for soldiers of the Empire. We had all seen bandits standing at a corner of a wood truckling for copper halfpence, and after their benefactors were gone spitting out injuries and curses. "But," said I, "I trust that none of us will fall so low. As a Frenchman and a soldier, I owe that young child gratitude, and am bound to protect her character, and to support that of the army. You are my elder and my superior: tell me if I am not right."

He was a quiet–mannered old fellow, and patted me with three fingers on the back. " C'est bien, mon enfant," says he, and returned to his committee.

Goguelat was no more accommodating than myself. "I do not like apologies nor those that make them," was his only answer. And there remained nothing but to arrange the details of the meeting. So far as regards place and time we had no choice; we must settle the dispute at night, in the dark, after a round had passed by, and in the open middle of the shed under which we slept. The question of arms was more obscure. We had a good many tools, indeed, which we employed in the manufacture of our toys; but they were none of them suited for a single combat between civilised men, and, being nondescript, it was found extremely hard to equalise the chances of the combatants. At length a pair of scissors was unscrewed; and a couple of tough wands being found in a corner of the courtyard, one blade of the scissors was lashed solidly to each with resined twine—the twine coming I know not whence, but the resin from the green pillars of the shed, which still sweated from the axe. It was a strange thing to feel in one's hand this weapon, which was no heavier than a riding–rod, and which it was difficult to suppose would prove more dangerous. A general oath was administered and taken, that no one should interfere in the duel nor (suppose it to result seriously) betray the name of the survivor. And with that, all being then ready, we composed ourselves to await the moment.

The evening fell cloudy; not a star was to be seen when the first round of the night passed through our shed and wound off along the ramparts; and as we took our places, we could still hear, over the murmurs of the surrounding city, the sentries challenging its further passage. Laclas, the sergeant–major, set us in our stations, engaged our wands, and left us. To avoid blood–stained clothing, my adversary and I had stripped to the shoes; and the chill of the night enveloped our bodies like a wet sheet. The man was better at fencing than myself; he was vastly taller than I, being of a stature almost gigantic, and proportionately strong. In the inky blackness of the shed it was impossible to see his eyes; and from the suppleness of the wands, I did not like to trust to a parade. I made up my mind accordingly to profit, if I might, by my defect; and as soon as the signal should be given, to throw myself down and lunge at the same moment. It was to play my life upon one card: should I not mortally wound him, no defence would be left me; what was yet more appalling, I thus ran the risk of bringing my own face against his scissor with the double force of our assaults, and my face and eyes are not that part of me that I would the most readily expose.

" Allez!" said the sergeant–major.

Both lunged in the same moment with an equal fury, and but for my manoeuvre both had certainly been spitted. As it was, he did no more than strike my shoulder, while my scissor plunged below the girdle into a mortal part; and that great bulk of a man, falling from his whole height, knocked me immediately senseless.

When I came to myself I was laid in my own sleeping–place, and could make out in the darkness the outline of perhaps a dozen heads crowded around me. I sat up. "What is it?" I exclaimed.

"Hush!" said the sergeant–major. "Blessed be God, all is well." I felt him clasp my hand, and there were tears in his voice. "'Tis but a scratch, my child; here is papa, who is taking good care of you. Your shoulder is bound up; we have dressed you in your clothes again, and it will all be well."

At this I began to remember. "And Goguelat?" I gasped.

"He cannot bear to be moved; he has his bellyful; 'tis a bad business," said the sergeant–major.

The idea of having killed a man with such an instrument as half a pair of scissors seemed to turn my stomach. I am sure I might have killed a dozen with a firelock, a sabre, a bayonet, or any accepted weapon, and been visited by no such sickness of remorse. And to this feeling every unusual circumstance of our rencounter, the darkness in which we had fought, our nakedness, even the resin on the twine, appeared to contribute. I ran to my fallen adversary, kneeled by him, and could only sob his name.

He bade me compose myself. "You have given me the key of the fields, comrade," said he. " Sans rancune!"

At this my horror redoubled. Here had we two expatriated Frenchmen engaged in an ill–regulated combat like the battles of beasts. Here was he, who had been all his life so great a ruffian, dying in a foreign land of this ignoble injury, and meeting death with something of the spirit of a Bayard. I insisted that the guards should be summoned and a doctor brought. "It may still be possible to save him," I cried.

The sergeant–major reminded me of our engagement. "If you had been wounded," said he, "you must have lain there till the patrol came by and found you. It happens to be Goguelat—and so must he! Come, child, time to go to by–by." And as I still resisted, "Champdivers!" he said, "this is weakness. You pain me."

"Ay, off to your beds with you!" said Goguelat, and named us in a company with one of his jovial gross epithets.

Accordingly the squad lay down in the dark and simulated, what they certainly were far from experiencing, sleep. It was not yet late. The city, from far below, and all around us, sent up a sound of wheels and feet and lively voices. Yet awhile, and the curtain of the cloud was rent across, and in the space of sky between the eaves of the shed and the irregular outline of the ramparts a multitude of stars appeared. Meantime, in the midst of us lay Goguelat, and could not always withhold himself from groaning.

We heard the round far off; heard it draw slowly nearer. Last of all, it turned the corner and moved into our field of vision: two file of men and a corporal with a lantern, which he swung to and fro, so as to cast its light in the recesses of the yards and sheds.

"Hullo!" cried the corporal, pausing as he came by Goguelat.

He stooped with his lantern. All our hearts were flying.

"What devil's work is this?" he cried, and with a startling voice summoned the guard.

We were all afoot upon the instant; more lanterns and soldiers crowded in front of the shed; an officer elbowed his way in. In the midst was the big naked body, soiled with blood. Some one had covered him with his blanket; but as he lay there in agony, he had partly thrown it off.

"This is murder!" cried the officer. "You wild beasts, you will hear of this to–morrow."

As Goguelat was raised and laid upon a stretcher, he cried to us a cheerful and blasphemous farewell.

Chapter III - Major Chevenix Comes Into the Story and Goguelat Goes Out

There was never any talk of a recovery, and no time was lost in getting the man's deposition. He gave but the one account of it: that he had committed suicide because he was sick of seeing so many Englishmen. The doctor vowed it was impossible, the nature and direction of the wound forbidding it. Goguelat replied that he was more ingenious than the other thought for, and had propped up the weapon in the ground and fallen on the point—"just like Nebuchadnezzar," he added, winking to the assistants. The doctor, who was a little, spruce, ruddy man of an impatient temper, pished and pshawed and swore over his patient. "Nothing could be made of him!" he cried. "A perfect heathen. If we could only find the weapon!" But the weapon had ceased to exist. A little resined twine was perhaps blowing about in the Castle gutters; some bits of broken stick may have trailed in corners; and behold, in the pleasant air of the morning, a dandy prisoner trimming his nails with a pair of scissors!

Finding the wounded man so firm, you may be sure the authorities did not leave the rest of us in peace. No stone was left unturned. We were had in again and again to be examined, now singly, now in twos and threes. We were threatened with all sorts of impossible severities and tempted with all manner of improbable rewards. I suppose I was five times interrogated, and came off from each with flying colours. I am like old Souvaroff: I cannot understand a soldier being taken aback by any question: he should answer, as he marches on the fire, with an instant briskness and gaiety. I may have been short of bread, gold, or grace; I was never found wanting in an answer. My comrades, if they were not all so ready, were none of them less staunch; and I may say here at once that the inquiry came to nothing at the time, and the death of Goguelat remained a mystery of the prison. Such were the veterans of France! And yet I should be disingenuous if I did not own this was a case apart; in ordinary circumstances, some one might have stumbled or been intimidated into an admission; and what bound us together with a closeness beyond that of mere comrades was a secret to which we were all committed and a design in which all were equally engaged. No need to inquire as to its nature: there is only one desire, and only one kind of design, that blooms in prisons. And the fact that our tunnel was near done supported and inspired us.

I came off in public, as I have said, with flying colours; the sittings of the court of inquiry died away like a tune that no one listens to; and yet I was unmasked—I, whom my very adversary defended, as good as confessed, as good as told the nature of the quarrel, and by so doing prepared for myself in the future a most anxious, disagreeable adventure. It was the third morning after the duel, and Goguelat was still in life, when the time came round for me to give Major Chevenix a lesson. I was fond of this occupation; not that he paid me much—no more, indeed, than eighteenpence a month, the customary figure, being a miser in the grain; but because I liked his breakfasts and (to some extent) himself. At least, he was a man of education; and of the others with whom I had any opportunity of speech, those that would not have held a book upside down would have torn the pages out for pipe–lights. For I must repeat again that our body of prisoners was exceptional: there was in Edinburgh Castle none of that educational busyness that distinguished some of the other prisons, so that men entered them unable to read, and left them fit for high employments. Chevenix was handsome, and surprisingly young to be a major: six feet in his stockings, well set up, with regular features and very clear grey eyes. It was impossible to pick a fault in him, and yet the sum–total was displeasing. Perhaps he was too clean; he seemed to bear about with him the smell of soap. Cleanliness is good, but I cannot bear a man's nails to seem japanned. And certainly he was too self–possessed and cold. There was none of the fire of youth, none of the swiftness of the soldier, in this young officer. His kindness was cold, and cruel cold; his deliberation exasperating. And perhaps it was from this character, which is very much the opposite of my own, that even in these days, when he was of service to me, I approached him with suspicion and reserve.

I looked over his exercise in the usual form, and marked six faults.

"H'm. Six," says he, looking at the paper. "Very annoying! I can never get it right."

"O, but you make excellent progress!" I said. I would not discourage him, you understand, but he was congenitally unable to learn French. Some fire, I think, is needful, and he had quenched his fire in soapsuds.

He put the exercise down, leaned his chin upon his hand, and looked at me with clear, severe eyes.

"I think we must have a little talk," said he.

"I am entirely at your disposition," I replied; but I quaked, for I knew what subject to expect.

"You have been some time giving me these lessons," he went on, "and I am tempted to think rather well of you. I believe you are a gentleman."

"I have that honour, sir," said I.

"You have seen me for the same period. I do not know how I strike you; but perhaps you will be prepared to believe that I also am a man of honour," said he.

"I require no assurances; the thing is manifest," and I bowed.

"Very well, then," said he. "What about this Goguelat?"

"You heard me yesterday before the court," I began. "I was awakened only―"

"O yes; I 'heard you yesterday before the court,' no doubt," he interrupted, "and I remember perfectly that you were 'awakened only.' I could repeat the most of it by rote, indeed. But do you suppose that I believed you for a moment?"

"Neither would you believe me if I were to repeat it here," said I.

"I may be wrong—we shall soon see," says he; "but my impression is that you will not 'repeat it here.' My impression is that you have come into this room, and that you will tell me something before you go out."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Let me explain," he continued. "Your evidence, of course, is nonsense. I put it by, and the court put it by."

"My compliments and thanks!" said I.

"You must know—that's the short and the long," he proceeded. "All of you in Shed B are bound to know. And I want to ask you where is the common sense of keeping up this farce, and maintaining this cock–and–bull story between friends. Come, come, my good fellow, own yourself beaten, and laugh at it yourself."

"Well, I hear you—go ahead," said I. "You put your heart in it."

He crossed his legs slowly. "I can very well understand," he began, "that precautions have had to be taken. I dare say an oath was administered. I can comprehend that perfectly." (He was watching me all the time with his cold, bright eyes.) "And I can comprehend that, about an affair of honour, you would be very particular to keep it."

"About an affair of honour?" I repeated, like a man quite puzzled.

"It was not an affair of honour, then?" he asked.

"What was not? I do not follow," said I.

He gave no sign of impatience; simply sat a while silent, and began again in the same placid and good–natured voice: "The court and I were at one in setting aside your evidence. It could not deceive a child. But there was a difference between myself and the other officers, because I knew my man and they did not. They saw in you a common soldier, and I knew you for a gentleman. To them your evidence was a leash of lies, which they yawned to hear you telling. Now, I was asking myself, how far will a gentleman go? Not surely so far as to help hush a murder up? So that—when I heard you tell how you knew nothing of the matter, and were only awakened by the corporal, and all the rest of it—I translated your statements into something else. Now, Champdivers," he cried, springing up lively and coming towards me with animation, "I am going to tell you what that was, and you are going to help me to see justice done: how, I don't know, for of course you are under oath—but somehow. Mark what I'm going to say."

At that moment he laid a heavy, hard grip upon my shoulder; and whether he said anything more or came to a full stop at once, I am sure I could not tell you to this day. For, as the devil would have it, the shoulder he laid hold of was the one Goguelat had pinked. The wound was but a scratch; it was healing with the first intention; but in the clutch of Major Chevenix it gave me agony. My head swam; the sweat poured off my face; I must have grown deadly pale.

He removed his hand as suddenly as he had laid it there.

"What is wrong with you?" said he.

"It is nothing," said I. "A qualm. It has gone by."

"Are you sure?" said he. "You are as white as a sheet."

"O no, I assure you! Nothing whatever. I am my own man again," I said, though I could scarce command my tongue.

"Well, shall I go on again?" says he. "Can you follow me?"

"O, by all means!" said I, and mopped my streaming face upon my sleeve, for you may be sure in those days I had no handkerchief.

"If you are sure you can follow me. That was a very sudden and sharp seizure," he said doubtfully. "But if you are sure, all right, and here goes. An affair of honour among you fellows would, naturally, be a little difficult to carry out; perhaps it would be impossible to have it wholly regular. And yet a duel might be very irregular in form, and, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, loyal enough in effect. Do you take me? Now, as a gentleman and a soldier."

His hand rose again at the words and hovered over me. I could bear no more, and winced away from him. "No," I cried, "not that. Do not put your hand upon my shoulder. I cannot bear it. It is rheumatism," I made haste to add. "My shoulder is inflamed and very painful."

He returned to his chair and deliberately lighted a cigar.

"I am sorry about your shoulder," he said at last. "Let me send for the doctor."

"Not in the least," said I. "It is a trifle. I am quite used to it. It does not trouble me in the smallest. At any rate, I don't believe in doctors."

"All right," said he, and sat and smoked a good while in a silence which I would have given anything to break. "Well," he began presently, "I believe there is nothing left for me to learn. I presume I may say that I know all."

"About what?" said I boldly.

"About Goguelat," said he.

"I beg your pardon. I cannot conceive," said I.

"O," says the major, "the man fell in a duel, and by your hand! I am not an infant."

"By no means," said I. "But you seem to me to be a good deal of a theorist."

"Shall we test it?" he asked. "The doctor is close by. If there is not an open wound on your shoulder, I am wrong. If there is―" He waved his hand. "But I advise you to think twice. There is a deuce of a nasty drawback to the experiment—that what might have remained private between us two becomes public property."

"O, well!" said I, with a laugh, "anything rather than a doctor! I cannot bear the breed."

His last words had a good deal relieved me, but I was still far from comfortable.

Major Chevenix smoked a while, looking now at his cigar ash, now at me. "I'm a soldier myself," he says presently, "and I've been out in my time and hit my man. I don't want to run any one into a corner for an affair that was at all necessary or correct. At the same time, I want to know that much, and I'll take your word of honour for it. Otherwise, I shall be very sorry, but the doctor must be called in."

"I neither admit anything nor deny anything," I returned. "But if this form of words will suffice you, here is what I say: I give you my parole, as a gentleman and a soldier, there has nothing taken place amongst us prisoners that was not honourable as the day."

"All right," says he. "That was all I wanted. You can go now, Champdivers."

And as I was going out he added, with a laugh: "By the bye, I ought to apologise: I had no idea I was applying the torture!"

The same afternoon the doctor came into the courtyard with a piece of paper in his hand. He seemed hot and angry, and had certainly no mind to be polite.

"Here!" he cried. "Which of you fellows knows any English? O!"—spying me—"there you are, what's your name! You'll do. Tell these fellows that the other fellow's dying. He's booked; no use talking; I expect he'll go by evening. And tell them I don't envy the feelings of the fellow who spiked him. Tell them that first."

I did so.

"Then you can tell 'em," he resumed, "that the fellow, Goggle—what's his name?—wants to see some of them before he gets his marching orders. If I got it right, he wants to kiss or embrace you, or some sickening stuff. Got that? Then here's a list he's had written, and you'd better read it out to them—I can't make head or tail of your beastly names—and they can answer present, and fall in against that wall."

It was with a singular movement of incongruous feelings that I read the first name on the list. I had no wish to look again on my own handiwork; my flesh recoiled from the idea; and how could I be sure what reception he designed to give me? The cure was in my own hand; I could pass that first name over—the doctor would not know—and I might stay away. But to the subsequent great gladness of my heart, I did not dwell for an instant on the thought, walked over to the designated wall, faced about, read out the name "Champdivers," and answered myself with the word "Present."

There were some half–dozen on the list, all told; and as soon as we were mustered, the doctor led the way to the hospital, and we followed after, like a fatigue–party, in single file. At the door he paused, told us "the fellow" would see each of us alone, and, as soon as I had explained that, sent me by myself into the ward. It was a small room, whitewashed; a south window stood open on a vast depth of air and a spacious and distant prospect; and from deep below, in the Grassmarket, the voices of hawkers came up clear and far away. Hard by, on a little bed, lay Goguelat. The sunburn had not yet faded from his face, and the stamp of death was already there. There was something wild and unmannish in his smile, that took me by the throat; only death and love know or have ever seen it. And when he spoke, it seemed to shame his coarse talk.

He held out his arms as if to embrace me. I drew near with incredible shrinkings, and surrendered myself to his arms with overwhelming disgust. But he only drew my ear down to his lips.

"Trust me," he whispered. " Je suis bon bougre, moi. I'll take it to hell with me and tell the devil."

Why should I go on to reproduce his grossness and trivialities? All that he thought, at that hour, was even noble, though he could not clothe it otherwise than in the language of a brutal farce. Presently he bade me call the doctor; and when that officer had come in, raised himself a little up in his bed, pointed first to himself and then to me, who stood weeping by his side, and several times repeated the expression, "Frinds—frinds—dam frinds."

To my great surprise the doctor appeared very much affected. He nodded his little bob–wigged head at us, and said repeatedly, "All right, Johnny—me comprong."

Then Goguelat shook hands with me, embraced me again, and I went out of the room sobbing like an infant.

How often have I not seen it, that the most unpardonable fellows make the happiest exits! It is a fate we may well envy them. Goguelat was detested in life; in the last three days, by his admirable staunchness and consideration, he won every heart; and when word went about the prison the same evening that he was no more, the voice of conversation became hushed as in a house of mourning.

For myself, I was like a man distracted; I cannot think what ailed me: when I awoke the following day, nothing remained of it; but that night I was filled with a gloomy fury of the nerves. I had killed him; he had done his utmost to protect me; I had seen him with that awful smile. And so illogical and useless is this sentiment of remorse that I was ready, at a word or a look, to quarrel with somebody else. I presume the disposition of my mind was imprinted on my face; and when, a little after, I overtook, saluted, and addressed the doctor, he looked on me with commiseration and surprise.

I had asked him if it was true.

"Yes," he said, "the fellow's gone."

"Did he suffer much?" I asked.

"Devil a bit; passed away like a lamb," said he. He looked on me a little, and I saw his hand go to his fob. "Here, take that! no sense in fretting," he said, and, putting a silver twopenny–bit in my hand, he left me.

I should have had that twopenny framed to hang upon the wall, for it was the man's one act of charity in all my knowledge of him. Instead of that I stood looking at it in my hand and laughed out bitterly, as I realised his mistake; then went to the ramparts, and flung it far into the air like blood–money. The night was falling; through an embrasure and across the gardened valley I saw the lamp–lighters hasting along Princes Street with ladder and lamp, and looked on moodily. As I was so standing a hand was laid upon my shoulder, and I turned about. It was Major Chevenix, dressed for the evening, and his neckcloth really admirably folded. I never denied the man could dress.

"Ah!" said he, "I thought it was you, Champdivers. So he's gone?"

I nodded.

"Come, come," said he, "you must cheer up. Of course it's very distressing, very painful and all that. But do you know, it ain't such a bad thing either for you or me? What with his death and your visit to him I am entirely reassured."

So I was to owe my life to Goguelat at every point.

"I had rather not discuss it," said I.

"Well," said he, "one word more and I'll agree to bury the subject. What did you fight about?"

"O, what do men ever fight about?" I cried.

"A lady?" said he.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Deuce you did!" said he. "I should scarce have thought it of him."

And at this my ill–humour broke fairly out in words. "He!" I cried. "He never dared to address her—only to look at her and vomit his vile insults! She may have given him sixpence: if she did, it may take him to heaven yet!"

At this I became aware of his eyes set upon me with a considering look, and brought up sharply.

"Well, well," said he. "Good–night to you, Champdivers. Come to me at breakfast–time to–morrow, and we'll talk of other subjects."

I fully admit the man's conduct was not bad: in writing it down so long after the events I can even see that it was good.