Chippinge Borough

"Let's have a minute!" pleaded the gentleman assailed.

"Not a minute," boisterously. "See, the table's waiting for you! Captain Codrington's sentiment!"

Men of small genius kept a written list, and committed some lines to memory before dinner. The Captain was one of these. But the call on him was sudden, and he sought, with an agonised mind, for one which would seem in the least degree novel. At last, with a sigh of relief, "Maids and Missuses!" he cried.

"Ay, ay, Maids and Missuses!" the Honourable Bob echoed, raising his glass. "And especially," he whispered, calling his neighbour's attention to Vaughan by a shove, "schoolmissuses! Schoolmissuses, my lad! Here, Vaughan," he continued aloud, "you must drink this, and no heeltaps!"

Vaughan caught his name and awoke from a reverie. "Very good," he said, raising his glass. "What is it?"

"Maids and Missuses!" the Honourable Bob replied, with a wink at his neighbour. And then, incited by the fumes of the wine he had taken, he rose to his feet and raised his glass. "Gentlemen," he said, "gentlemen!"

"Silence," they cried. "Silence! Silence for Bob's speech."

"Gentlemen," he resumed, a spark of malice in his eyes, "I've a piece of news to give you! It's news that-that's been mighty slyly kept by a gentleman here present. Devilish close he's kept it, I'll say that for him! But he's a neat hand that can bamboozle Bob Flixton, and I've run him to earth, run him to earth this morning and got it out of him."

"Hear! Hear! Bob! Go on, Bob; what is it?" from the company.

"You are going to hear, my Trojans! And no flam! Gentlemen, charge your glasses! I've the honour to inform you that our old friend and tiptopper, Arthur Vaughan, otherwise the Counsellor, has got himself regularly put up, knocked down, and sold to as pretty a piece of the feminine as you'll see in a twelvemonth! Prettiest in Bristol, 'pon honour," with feeling, "be the other who she may! Regular case of-" and in irresistibly comic accents, with his head and glass alike tilted, he drolled,

There first for thee my passion grew,
Sweet Matilda Pottingen;
Thou wast the daughter of my tu
tor, law professor at the U
niversity of Göttingen!

'Niversity of Göttingen! Don't laugh, gentlemen! It's so! He's entered on the waybill, book through to matrimony, and" – the Honourable Bob was undoubtedly a little tipsy-"and it only remains for us to give him a good send-off. So charge your glasses, and-"

Brereton laid his hand on his arm. He was sober and he did not like the look on Vaughan's disgusted face. "One moment, Flixton," he said; "is this true, Mr. Vaughan?"

Vaughan's brow was as black as thunder. He had never dreamt that, drunk or sober, Flixton would be guilty of such a breach of confidence. He hesitated. Then, "No!" he said.

"It's not true?" Codrington struck in. "You are not going to be married, old chap?"

"No!"

"But, man," Flixton hiccoughed, "you told me so-or something like it-only this morning."

"You either misunderstood me," Vaughan answered, in a tone so distinct as to be menacing, "for you have said far more than I said. Or, if you prefer it, I've changed my mind. In either case it is my business! And I'll trouble you to leave it alone!"

"Oh, if you put it-that way, old chap?"

"I do put it that way!"

"And any way," Brereton said, interposing hurriedly, "this is no time for marrying! I've told you boys before, and I tell you again-"

And he plunged into a fresh argument on the old point. Two or three joined issue, grinning. And Vaughan, as soon as attention was diverted from him, slipped away.

He was horribly disgusted, and sunk very low in his own eyes. He loathed what he had done. He had not, indeed, been false to the girl, for he had given her no promise. He had not denied her, for her name had not been mentioned. And he had not gone back on his resolution, for he had never formed one seriously. Yet in a degree he had done all these things. He had played a shabby part by himself and by the girl. He had been meanly ashamed of her. And though his conduct had followed the lines which he had marked out for himself, he hoped that he might never again feel so unhappy, and so poor a thing, as he felt as he walked the streets and cursed his discretion.

Discretion! Cowardice was the right name for it. Because the girl, the most beautiful, pure, and gentle creature on whom his eyes had ever rested, was called Mary Smith, and taught in a school, he disavowed her and turned his back on her.

He did not know that he was suffering what a man, whose mind has so far governed his heart, must suffer when the latter rebels. In planning his life he had ignored his heart; now he must pay the penalty. He went to bed at last, but not to sleep. Instead he lived the scene over and over again, now wondering what he ought to have done; now brooding on what Flixton must think of him; now on what she, whose nature, he was sure, was as perfect as her face, would think of him, if she knew. How she would despise him!

The next day was Sunday, and he spent it, in accordance with a previous promise, with Brereton, at his pleasant home at Newchurch, a mile from the city. Though the most recent of his Bristol acquaintances, Brereton was the most congenial; and a dozen times Vaughan was on the point of confiding his trouble to him. He was deterred by the melancholy cast of Brereton's character, which gave promise of no decisive advice. And early in the evening he took leave of his host and strolled towards the Downs, balancing I would against I will not; now facing the bleak of a prudent decision, now thrilling with foolish rapture, as he pondered another event. Lord Eldon had married young and with as little prudence; it had not impeded his rise, nor Erskine's. Doubtless Sir Robert Vermuyden would say that he had disgraced himself; but he cared little for that. What he had to combat was the more personal pride of the man who, holding himself a little wiser than his fellows, cannot bear to do a thing that in the eyes of the foolish may set him below them!

Of course he came to no decision; though he wandered on Brandon Hill until the Float at his feet ceased to mirror the lights, and Bristol lay dark below him. And Monday found him still hesitating. Thrice he started to take his place on the coach. And thrice he turned back, hating himself for his weakness. If he could not overcome a foolish fancy, how could he hope to scale the heights of the Western Circuit, or hurl Coleridge and Follett from their pride of place? Or, still harder task, how would he dare to confront in the House the cold eye of Croker or of Goulburn? No, he could not hope to do either. He had been wrong in his estimate of himself. He was a poor creature, unable to hold his own amongst his fellows, impotent to guide his own life!

He was still contesting the matter when, a little before noon, he espied Flixton in the act of threading his way through the busy crowd of Broad Street. The Honourable Bob was wearing hessians, and a high-collared green riding-coat, with an orange vest and a soft many-folded cravat. In fine, he was so smart that suspicion entered Vaughan's head; and on its heels-jealousy.

In a twinkling he was on Flixton's track. Broad Street, the heart of Bristol, was thronged, for Hart Davies's withdrawal was in the air and an election crowd was abroad. Newsboys with their sheets, tipsy ward-leaders, and gossiping merchants jostled one another. The beau's green coat, however, shone conspicuous,

Glorious was his course,
And long the track of light he left behind him!

and before Vaughan had asked himself if he were justified in following, pursued and pursuer were over Bristol Bridge, and making, by way of the Welsh Back-a maze of coal-hoys and dangling cranes-for Queen's Square.

Vaughan doubted no longer, weighed the propriety of his course no longer. For a cool-headed man of the world, who asked nothing better than to master a silly fancy, he was foolishly perturbed. He made on with a grim face; but a dray loading at a Newport coal-hulk drew across his path, and Flixton was pacing under the pleasant elms and amid the groups that loitered up and down the sunlit Square, before Vaughan came within hail, and called him by name.

Flixton turned then, saw who it was, and grinned-nothing abashed. "Well," he said, tipping his hat a little to one side, "well, old chap! Are you let out of school too?"

Vaughan had already discovered Mary Smith and her little troop under the trees in the farthest corner. But he tried to smile-and did so, a little awry. "This is not fair play, Flixton," he said.

"That is just what I think it is," the Honourable Bob answered cheerfully. "Eh, old chap? Neat trick of yours the other day, but not neat enough! Thought to bamboozle me and win a clear field! Neat! But no go, I found you out and now it is my turn. That's what I call fair play."

"Look here, Flixton," Vaughan replied-he was fast losing his composure-"I'm not going to have it. That's plain."

The Honourable Bob stared. "Oh!" he answered. "Let's understand one another. Are you going to marry the girl after all?"

"I've told you-"

"Oh, you've told me, yes, and you've told me, no. The question is, which is it?"

Vaughan controlled himself. He could see Mary out of the corner of his eye, and knew that she had not yet taken the alarm. But the least violence might attract her attention. "Whichever it be," he said firmly, "is no business of yours."

"If you claim the girl-"

"I do not claim her, Flixton. I have told you that. But-"

"But you mean to play the dog in the manger?"

"I mean to see," Vaughan replied sternly, "that you don't do her any harm."

Flixton hesitated. Secretly he held Vaughan in respect; and he would have postponed his visit to Queen's Square had he foreseen that that gentleman would detect him. But to retreat now was another matter. The duel was still in vogue; barely two years before the Prime Minister had gone out with a brother peer in Battersea Fields; barely twenty years before one Cabinet Minister had shot another on Wimbledon Common. He could not, therefore, afford to show the white feather, and though he hesitated, it was not for long. "You mean to see to that, do you?" he retorted.

"I do."

"Then come and see," he returned flippantly. "I'm going to have a chat with the young lady now. That's not murder, I suppose?" And he turned on his heel and strolled across the turf towards the group of which Mary was the centre.

Vaughan followed with black looks; and when Mary Smith, informed of their approach by one of the children, turned a startled face towards them, he was at Flixton's shoulder, and pressing before him.