Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846

"Of course I do. I wonder you have not heard of it. That comes of living in a confounded country where there are neither breeches nor newspapers – help yourself – and no direct railway communication. Glanders bolted as a matter of course, and I can tell you that I thought myself very lucky in getting hold of as much of the deposits as cleared my preliminary expenses."

"Cutts – are you serious?"

"Perfectly. But what's the use of making a row about it? You look as grim as if there was verjuice in the sherry. You ought to thank your stars that the thing was put a stop to so soon."

"Why – didn't you recommend me to apply for shares?"

"Of course I did, and I wonder you don't feel grateful for the advice. Every body thought they would have come out at a high premium. I would not have taken six pounds for them in the month of September; but this infernal potato business has brought on the panic, and nobody will table a shilling for any kind of new stock. It was a lucky thing for us that we got a kind of hint to draw in our horns in time."

"And pray, since the concern is wound up, as you say, how much of our deposit-money will be returned?"

"You don't mean to say," said Cutts, with singularly elaborate articulation – "You don't mean to say that you were such an inconceivable ass as to pay up your letter of allotment? Well – I never heard of such a piece of deliberate infatuation! Why, man, a blacksmith with half an eye must have seen that the game was utterly up a week before the calls were due. I don't think there is a single man out of Scotland who would have made such a fool of himself; indeed, so far as I know, nobody cashed up except a dozen old women who knew nothing about the matter, and ten landed proprietors, who expected compensation, and deserved to be done accordingly. You need not look as though you meditated razors. The Biggleswade concern will pay for this more than thirty tines over."

"I'll tell you what, Cutts," said I in a paroxysm, "this is a most nefarious transaction, and I'm hanged if I don't take the law with every one connected with it. I'll make an example of that fellow Hasherton, and the whole body of the committee."

"Just as you like," replied the imperturbable Cutts. "You're a lawyer, and the best judge of those sort of things. I may, however, as well inform you that Hasherton went into the Gazette last week, and that you won't find another member of the committee at this moment within the four seas of Great Britain."

"And pray, may I ask how you came to be connected with so discreditable a project? Do you know that it is enough to blast your own reputation for ever?"

"I know nothing of the kind," said the Saxon, commencing another cigar. "I look to the matter of employment, and have nothing to do with the character of my clients, beyond ascertaining their means of liquidating my account. The committee required the assistance of a first-rate engineer, and I flatter myself they could hardly have made a more unexceptionable selection. But what's the use of looking sulky about it? You can't help yourself; and, after all, what's the amount of your loss? A parcel of pound-notes that would have lain rotting in the bank had you not put them into circulation! Cheer up, Fred, you've made at least one individual very happy. Glanders is going it in New York. I shouldn't be surprised if half your deposit money is already invested in mint-juleps."

"It is very easy for you to talk, Mr Cutts," said I, with considerable acrimony. "Your account, at all events, appears to have been paid. Doubtless you looked sharply after that. I cannot help putting my own construction upon the conduct of a gentleman who makes a direct profit out of the misfortunes of his friends."

"You affect me deeply," said Cutts, applying himself diligently to the decanter; "but you don't drink. Do you know you put me a good deal in mind of Macready? Did you ever hear him in Lear,

'How sharper than a serpent's thanks it is

To have a toothless child?'

You're remarkably unjust, Fred, as you will acknowledge in your cooler moments. I am hurt by your ingratitude – I am," and the sympathizing engineer buried his face in the folds of a Bandana handkerchief.

I knew, by old experience, that it was of no use to get into a rage with Cutts. After all, I had no tenable ground of complaint against him; for the payment of the deposit money was my own deliberate act, and it was no fault of his that the shares were not issued at a premium. I therefore contrived to swallow, as I best could, my indignation, though it was no easy matter. Seven hundred and fifty pounds is a serious sum, and would have gone a long way towards the furnishing of a respectable domicile.

I believe that Cutts, though he never allowed himself to exhibit a symptom of ordinary regret, was internally annoyed at the confounded scrape in which I was landed by following his advice. At all events he soon ceased comporting himself after the manner of the comforters of Job, and finally undertook to look after my interest in case any fragment of the deposits could be rescued from the hands of the Philistines. I have since had a letter from him with the information that he has recovered a hundred pounds – a friendly exertion which shall be duly acknowledged so soon as I receive a remittance, which, however, has not yet come to hand.

By the time we had finished the sherry, I was restored, if not to good-humour, at least to a state of passive resignation. The Saxon gave strict orders that he was to be denied to every body, and made some incoherent proposals about "making a forenoon of it," which, however, I peremptorily declined.

"It's a very hard thing," said Cutts, "but I see it's an invariable rule that matrimony and good-fellowship can never go together. You're not half the brick you used to be, Fred; but I suppose it can't be helped. There's a degree of slow-coachiness about you which I take to be peculiarly distressing, and if you don't take care it will become a confirmed habit."

"Seven hundred and fifty pounds – what! all my pretty chickens and their" —

Don't swear! It's a highly immoral practice. At all events you'll dine with me to-day at six. You shall have as much claret as you can conscientiously desire, and, for company, I have got the queerest fellow here you ever set eyes on. You used to pull the long bow with considerable effect, but this chap beats you hollow."

"Who is he?"

"How should I know? He calls himself Leopold Young Mandeville – is a surveyor by trade, and has been working abroad at some outlandish line or another for the last two years. He is a very fair hand at the compasses, and so I have got him here by way of assistant. You may think him rather dull at first, but wait till he has finished a pint, and I'm shot if he don't astonish you. Now, if you will have nothing more, we may as well go out, and take a ride by way of appetizer."

At six o'clock I received the high honour of an introduction to Mr Young Mandeville. As I really consider this gentleman one of the most remarkable personages of the era in which we live, I may perhaps be excused if I assume the privilege of an acquaintance, and introduce him also to the reader. The years of Mr Mandeville could hardly have exceeded thirty. His stature was considerably above the average of mankind, and would have been greater save for the geometrical curvature of his lower extremities, which gave him all the appearance of a walking parenthesis. His hair was black and streaky; his complexion atrabilious; his voice slightly raucous, like that of a tragedian contending with a cold. The eye was a very fine one – that is, the right eye – for the other optic was evidently internally damaged, and shone with an opalescent lustre. There was a kind of native dignity about the man which impressed me favourably, notwithstanding the reserved manner in which he exchanged the preliminary courtesies.

Cutts did the honours of the table with his usual alacrity. The dinner was a capital one, and the vine not only abundant but unexceptionable. At first, however, the conversation flowed but languidly. My spirits had not yet recovered from the appalling intelligence of the morning; nor could I help reflecting, with a certain uneasiness, upon the reception I was sure to meet with from certain brethren in the Outer House, to whom, in a moment of rash confidence, I had entrusted the tale of my dilemma. I abhor roasting in my own person, and yet I knew I should have enough of it. Mandeville eat on steadily, like one labouring under the conviction that he thereby performed a good and meritorious action, and scorning to mix up extraneous matter with the main object of his exertions. The Saxon awaited his time, and steadily circulated the champagne.

We all got more loquacious after the cloth was removed. A good dinner reconciles one amazingly to the unhappy chances of our lot; and, before the first bottle was emptied, I had tacitly forgiven every one of the Provisional Committee of the Slopperton Railway Company, with the exception of the villainous Glanders, who, for any thing I knew, might, at that moment, be transatlantically regaling himself at my particular expense. His guilt was of course inexpiable. Mandeville, having eat like an ogre, began to drink like a dromedary. Both the dark and the opalescent eye sparkled with unusual fire, and with a sigh of philosophic fervour he unbuttoned the extremities of his waistcoat.

"Help yourselves, my boys," said the jovial Cutts; "there's lots of time before us between this and the broiled bones. By Jove, I'm excessively thirsty! I say, Mandeville, were you ever in Scotland? I hear great things of the claret there."

"I never had that honour," replied Mr Young Mandeville, "which I particularly regret, for I have a high – may I say the highest? – respect for that intelligent country, and indeed claim a remote connexion with it. I admire the importance which Scotsmen invariably attach to pure blood and ancient descent. It is a proof, Mr Cutts, that with them the principles of chivalry are not extinct, and that the honours which should be paid to birth alone, are not indiscriminately lavished upon the mere acquisition of wealth."

"Which means, I suppose, that a lot of rubbishy ancestors is better than a fortune in the Funds. Well – every man according to his own idea. I am particularly glad to say, that I understand no nonsense of the kind. There's Fred, however, will keep you in countenance. He say – but I'll be hanged if I believe it – that he is descended from some old king or another, who lived before the invention of breeches."

"Cutts – don't be a fool!"

"Oh, by Jove, it's quite true!" said the irreverent Saxon; "you used to tell me about it every night when you were half-seas over at Shrewsbury. It was capital fun to hear you, about the mixing of the ninth tumbler."

"Excuse me, sir," said Mr Mandeville, with an appearance of intense interest – "do you indeed reckon kindred with the royal family of Scotland? I have a particular reason personal to myself in the inquiry."

"Why, if you really want to know about it," said I, looking, I suppose, especially foolish, for Cutts was evidently trotting me out, and I more than half suspected his companion – "I do claim – but it's a ridiculous thing to talk of – a lineal descent from a daughter of William the Lion."

"You delight me!" said Mr Mandeville. "The connexion is highly respectable – I have myself some of that blood in my veins, though perhaps of a little older date than yours; for one of my ancestors, Ulric of Mandeville, married a daughter of Fergus the First. I am very glad indeed to make the acquaintance of a relative after the lapse of so many centuries."

I returned a polite bow to the salutation of my new-found cousin, and wished him at the bottom of the Euxine.

"Will you pardon me, Mr Cutts, if I ask my kinsman a question or two upon family affairs? The older cadets of the royal blood have seldom an opportunity of meeting."

"Fire away," said the Saxon, "but be done with it as soon as you can."

"Reduced as we are," continued Mr Mandeville, addressing himself to me, "in numbers as well as circumstances, it appears highly advisable that we should maintain some intercourse with each other for the preservation of our common rights. These, as we well know, had their origin before the institution of Parliaments, and therefore are by no means fettered or impugned by any of the popular enactments of a later age. Now, as you are a lawyer, I should like to have your opinion on a point of some consequence. Did you ever happen to meet our cousin, Count Ferguson of the Roman Empire?"

"Never heard of him in my life," said I.

"Any relation of the fellow who couldn't get into the lodging-house?" asked Cutts.

"I do not think so, Mr Cutts," replied Mandeville, mildly. "I had the pleasure of making the Count's acquaintance at Vienna. He is, apprehend, the only heir-male extant to the Scottish crown, being descended from Prince Fergus and a daughter of Queen Boadicea. Now, you and I, though younger cadets, and somewhat nearer in succession, merely represent females, and have therefore little interest beyond a remote contingency. But I understand it is the fact that the ancient destination to the Scottish crown is restricted to heirs-male solely; and therefore I wish to know, whether, as the Stuarts have failed, the Count is not entitled to claim in right of his undoubted descent?"

I was petrified at the audacity of the man. Either he was the most consummately impudent scoundrel I ever had the fortune to meet, or a complete monomaniac! I looked him steadily in the face. The fine black eye was bent upon me with an expression of deep interest, and something uncommonly like a tear was quivering in the lash. Palpable monomania!

"It seems a very doubtful question," said I. "Before answering it, I should like to see the Count's papers, and take a look at our older records."

"That means, you want to be fee'd," said Cutts. "I'll tell you what, my lads, I'll stand this sort of nonsense no longer. Confound your Fergusons and Boadiceas! One would think, to hear you talk, that you were not a couple of as ordinary individuals as ever stepped upon shoe-leather, but princes of the blood-royal in disguise. Help yourselves, I say, and give us something else."

"I fear, Mr Cutts," said Mandeville, in a deep and chokey voice, "that you have had too little experience of the vicissitudes of the world to appreciate our situation. You spoke of a prince. Know, sir, that you see before you one who has known that dignity, but who never shall know it more! O Amalia, Amalia! – dear wife of my bosom – where art thou now! Pardon me, kinsman – your hand – I do not often betray this weakness, but my heart is full, and I needs must give way to its emotion." So saying, the unfortunate Mandeville bowed down his head and wept; at least, so I concluded, from a succession of severe eructations.

I did not know what to make of him. Of all the hallucinations I ever had witnessed, this was the most strange and unaccountable. Cutts, with great coolness, manufactured a stiff tumbler of brandy and water, which he placed at the elbow of the ex-potentate, and exhorted him to make a clean breast of it.

"What's the use of snivelling about the past?" said he. "It's a confounded loss of time. Come, Mandeville, toss off your liquor like a Trojan, and tell us all about it, if you have any thing like a rational story to tell. We'll give you credit for the finer feelings, and all that sort of nonsense – only look sharp."

Upon this hint the Surveyor spoke, applying himself at intervals to the reeking potable beside him. I shall give his story in his own words, without any commentary.

"I feel, gentlemen, that I owe to you, and more especially to my new-found kinsman, some explanation of circumstances, the mere recollection of which can agitate me so cruelly. You seemed surprised when I told you of the rank which I once occupied, and no doubt you think it is a strange contrast to the situation in which you now behold me. Alas, gentlemen! the history of Europe, during the last half century, can furnish you with many parallel cases. Louis Philippe has, ere now, like myself, earned his bread by mathematical exertion – Young Gustavson – Henry of Bourbon, are exiles! the sceptre has fallen from the hands of the chivalrous house of Murat! Minor principalities are changed or absorbed, unnoticed amidst the war and clash of the great world around them! Thrones are eclipsed like stars, and vanish from the political horizon!