Tales and Sketches.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 14, 29 April 1871, Page 16

Tales and Sketches.

THE WINNING HAZARD. CHAPTEB I. * tExfumo dare lucem London —that ‘ City of Extremity that wilderness; that vast emporium into which and out of which so much of this world’s worst and best, goes and comes— Jhas been half emptied for its annual holiday, the Derby, and is again filled by the returned sight-seers. The night after is usually an unquiet one. There is a sort of practical wisdom in combating the depressing effects of a day’s pleasure by the stimulus of an evening’s riot To one who bears in his remembrance the nastinesses he h&s swallowed during the day—the champagne, the claret cup, the salad, the pates—night can bring little solace. Similia similibus curantur —folly is the only cure of foolishness. Hey, then, for the gardens of brightness ! Hey for the music hall! Hey for the Haymarket! It does I imagine, cheer one s own despondency a little to witness the misery of other people: it is with a view to this kind of comfort that John Lowther, a tall, handsome, young Yorkshireman, is shouldering his way through the press of half intoxicated men and impudent women who throng the pavement of the classic streets above mentioned on this the early morn after the Derby. Jack, however, is not a performer in this devil’s dance. Leaning on the arm of his friend, Arthur Brown, he grins sardonically at the humors of the market of Apollyon. Of a sudden a strange jangle of voices rises above the dim of the street; the moving crowd twists lip into a thick knot, gathered about a confused changing centre —there is a row in fact. Jack and his friend plunge into it, and soon find themselves at the inner edge of the moving circle. A powerful black has got his arm round the neck of a young stripling, whose dress shirt and white tic are all bedaubed with blood, and is hammering away at him remorselessly. There are loud cries of pity from the women, shouts of anger or encouragement from the men. Jack looked on, wondering what it was all about, when suddenly the swaying theof crowd broughtthestruggling combatants against him, and the heavy heel of the black descended on his toes. Jack was so gifted with a strong sense of personal dignity, that a push or a blow, even if accidental, would light him up into a fierce glow of rage. Seizing the black by the collar, he cleared a little space for himself by a wave of his stick, and then smote him twice sharply on the shins. The black jumped high into the air, howling, releasing his victim in the anguish of the moment. He then turned in rage on his new assailant. At that moment the rush of a reinforcement of police divided the crowd and the combatants. The black retreated unmolested, whilst the police pounced upon the unfortunate little fellow who had been receiving a thrashing. But Jack seized him by the arm. * He’s a. friend of mine, and that black beast has been pitching into him. Go after him’ . • ‘Now, look here, sir,’ said the superintendent, 1 don’t you interfere where you’ve no business. I apprehended this young chap for breaking the peace.’ ‘ For being broken to pieces, you mean, said Jack calmly. ‘ Isn’t is bad enough to be half killed by a ruffian, whom the bobbies daren’t tackle, without being dragged to prison for it afterwards ?’ « Go it Charley !’ cried the women approvingly, whilst the crowd had gathered thicker round this new disturbance, and groans, and cries of ‘ Shame V were rising all round. ‘Now, none of this gammon, said the superintendent fiercely, his esprit de corps wounded at the reflection cast upon the courage of his troop. ‘ You let him go, or I’ll have you run in too.’ Just then the young man in the white tie recovered his speech. ‘ Ask if there’s any Barty’s men here,’ he said feebly to Jack. * My friend wishes to know if there are any Barty’s men here,’ Jack cried in his clear dulcet tones. Now it so happened that there were a good many Barty’s men in the Haymarket on that particular morning, and that Barty’s men and the police were mutually antagonistic ; so that this innocent inquiry of Jack’s was like a match applied to gunpowder. There was an immense rush, a swaying to and fro, whilst a compact mass of young men cut their way to the centre of tbe crowd. For a moment the police were separated from their prisoner, and Jack took advantage of this space to back himself out of the tumult; the youth lie had rescued hanging on the arms of him and his friend. So plunging into the quietness of a back street, the turning of a corner placed them out of the sight of the defenders of law and order. ‘ What shall we do with him Jack ?’ ‘Lemme go back and polish’m off pleaded the stripling. ‘Take him into the Mall, and leave him there till he’s soberer,’ suggesed Jack. ‘ Let the young begger go,’ said Arthur. * I won’t,’ said Jack; ‘ I’ve taken a

fancy to him. He’s a decent little chap, I fancy when he’s sober and I daresay he’s got a mother at home.—Where do you live, old fellow.’ ‘Eldon Schqua. Come and she us tomorrow old fellow; gov’nor’ll ask you dinner. Go back to Market now, and polish off the nigger. C’m long old fellows.’

‘All right/ said Jack; ‘ oome along;’ setting his face towards Brompton, however. The youth was hazy as to the points of the compass, and stumbled along trustingly ; but when instead of finding himself in the noisy pandemonium, he reached the quiet echoing square, he rebelled. ‘Come youngster, what’s your number ?’ * Shan’t tell you, shall go back t’ Market.’ > • ‘ Tell us your number, or we we’ll pitch you into this area.’ ‘ Well, it’s sixteen, then.’ Sixteen was found, but proved to be a ladies’ school.

‘ The beggar’s deceiving us, Arthur: feel his pocket and see if he’s a cardc&se.’ ‘No cardcase, but a latch key.’ * We’ll try the doors, then, till we find the right one. It’s a Chubb, so we shan’t get into the wrong house.’ They knew the right door, however, by the struggles their captive made to get away from it. The key was inserted—the door opened. It seemed a sort of sacrilege to brake into the quiet of home from those noisome vapors of the street. The houses in Eldon Square, Brompton, are tall family mansions—white, big, and reputable. The door of this particular house opened into a hall of good size ; benches on either side, the gas burning dimly in a lamp over head, shewed a staircase- of broad, low stone steps, covered with carpet of Turkey. ‘ Let’s leave him on a bench, and cut it,’ said Arthur. But before they had made up their minds what to do, a light shone from above, and down the stair there tripped lightly a girl holding a candle in her hand.

Jack was dazzed and confounded ; # for the girl who tripped down the stairs, carrying a lighted taper in her hand, was very lovely. She was in evening dress, with a shawl thrown carelessly over her shoulders. Her hair released from its bonds, flowed, in a golden stream upon her white and polished shoulders. She was fair, with a rosy blush of-Health on her cheeks and of full well rounded form ; and her foot and ankle twinkling in a rapid descent, made Jack’s heart twinkle and flutter too.

‘ Tib, how late you are; how angry papa would be.’ Then she saw the two men who were with her brother, and retreated to the stairs indignant, wondering. Jack didn’t know what to do. To say that he felt like a fool, is nothing ; all the folly, the riot, and the roughness of his life seemed to rise up against him, as he stared at the fair vision which came down the stairs of No. 32 Eldon Square, Brompton. If ever a man felt his fate in one supreme moment of his life, .that man was Jack Lowther; that moment was 3.30 a.m., the day after the Derby in Maccaroni’s year. ‘ I beg your pardon,’ said Jack humbly, stepping forth under the light of the lamp: ‘ but your brother has had an accident, and we’ve brought him home.’ Then the young girl came forward, wrapping her shawl firmly round her. She saw that her brother was streaked with blood as to his face and garments, and she took hold of him with both her hands. * What’s the matter ?’ she said hoarsely. ‘ What have you done to him ?’ ‘He’s had an accident,’ repeated Jack : ‘knocked his head against something : it isn’t, it isn’t There’s no danger, you know.’

* ’M all right,’ said the youth feebly; ‘ lemme go back, and polish’m off.’ Then the girl recoiled, seeing the truth of the matter, and turned round fiercely on the two men.

‘ You are his friends— you, who lead him into these horrible iniquities, and then bring him back to disgrace his home ! Leave him here to me; leave him, and get you gone.’ Jack was a little hurt. ‘As I never saw your brother before to-night, and have had a deal of trouble to bring him here, I think your rather unjust. If I’d known you didn’t want him, I’d have left him in the streets; as it is, we’ll leave him now, and say good-night.’ So tbey trundled their companion on to the hall mat, and left him there. But before they reached the bottom of the steps, they heard a great crash, and looking back they saw that the youth had fallen athwart the doorway, and that his sister was kneeling beside him, crying. Jack’s heart smote him, and he turned back. ‘ He’s not so bad; he has been knocked about. Let me carry him in, and put him on a sofa’ He’ll be all right after he’s had a sleep.’ She turned and looked at him through her tears : he seemed honest; he looked like a gentleman. ‘ If. his father finds him in this state, he’ll turn him out of the house—l know he will. ' Oh, what shall I do!’

‘ Look here !’ said Jack : ‘ I’ll take him home in a cab to my chambers, and polish

him up, and send him back in the morning quite respectable.’ Jack must have been hard hit to make such an offer as that. To nurse a tipsy young cub, faugh ! but he’d do anything for that fair young girl. * Thank you !’ she said, * thank you so much ! I think I can trust you.’ ‘lndeed, you can,’ said Jack. ‘l’ll bring him back to you all right in the morning. See, here’s my card. Have you an Inverness wrapper you can give me, to put round him ?—Thanks !—Now, old fellow, get on to your pins. That’s right.—Good-night, Miss - By the way, I don’t know your name.’ ‘Valeria Waldron.’

* Good-night, Miss Waldron.’ Jack supported his burden to the corner of the square, where Arthur Brown stood waiting for him.’ ‘Good heavens, Jack! what are you going to do with that little wretch P’ ‘ Going to take him home with me, and put him in repair fit to meet his governor in the morning.’ ‘ Cool that,’ said Arthur, ‘ turning our chambers into a reformatory.’ Jack hailed a cab in the Brompton road ; and deposited his charge safely on his own bed in the chambers, No. 45 Brick Court Temple, which he shared with his friend Brown. For himself, he sat up in his big leather easy chair till broad daylight, smoking and thinking. Something he thought about the events of the day, of the great race he had seen, of the money he had lost on Barbarian ; but more of the beautiful girl who lived in Eldon square, and of the prospect of seeing her again on the morrow. CHAPTER 11. ‘Every letter she has writ hath disvouched the other.’ Dr Julius Augustus Waldron boasted himself a descendant of the Palaeologi. Looking at his daughter’’ you might have thought that she was an offshoot of that race existing before the Deluge, whose daughters mated with the sons of God. Looking at the doctor, you would have thought you had discovered a specimen of the missing link between man and the gorilla. Tiberius Waldron, whose acquaintance we made in the Haymarket, took after his father. The doctor had a frightful temper—a temper altogether so cranky and uncertain, that no man could long work with him. Yet he was a man of broad sympathies, of great power. Institutions which he had founded had taken root and flourished ; theories which he had urged against the whole weight of professional conservatism, had come to be half acknowledged and wholly acted upon. But Waldron had no share in the success, no recognition in the acknowledgment. In his own sphere of life he hadn’t a friend, hardly a patient. Fortunately an ample fortune made him independent of professional success. The doctor delighted in young men. He would take them up, cultivate their acquaintance, and drop them with equal facility. During the ascending process they were angels—descending, they were the other thing. When Jack brought home the battered but well mended prodigal, Waldron was delighted with his new acquaintance. It has already been said that he was of uncertain temper. Had he been brought into contact with his son the night before, he would probably have turned him out of the house, and never spoken to him again. But the circumstance that his son had made a friend in young Lowther mollified him wonderfully. He contented himself with hunting his son round the dining room, making at.him with a thick stick. Tiberius having escaped unhurt, and the doctor having broken the glass water jug on the sideboard, and drenched himself with the contents, the sky cleared, and Waldron came forward to greet his visitor, who had watched the scene with much amusement.

‘ Pardon my rudeness in rehearsing this domestic scene before you, but you know well that for youth only prompt punishment is effectual. I can half forgive that young reprobate for his conduct, in that it has brought about an acquaintance with Mr Lowther. One of the Low tilers of the north, I presume ?’ ‘Yes ; I’m a Yorkshireman,’ said Jack. ‘Of which branch, may I ask—the titled or untitled ?’ ‘I don’ know much about branches,’ said Jack ; ‘my father’s Septimus Lowther, a parson at Guisethorpe.’ ‘ The Honorable and Reverend Septimus Lowther,’ said the doctor. ‘I remember him at Oxford, We went out in the same year. Delighted to know hia son.’ Waldron, though theoretically a leveller, was wonderfully fond of his own small dignities. He never forgot the superiority of an M.D. Oxon., to one who held a diploma from a London university or the Royal College of Physicians. True, he had had to learn 'his business after his technical education had nominally been completed, but he bore a tender love to his Alma Mater for all that, and had a contempt for those who had not passed through the same curriculum. ‘ Then, Mr Lowther, you must be a connection of my very esteemed old friend, Lady Lavinia Morgan.’

« She's my aunt,’ said Jack. ‘Your aunt, to be sure ! By a rather singular coincidence, I have had a letter from her this very morning.’ ‘Oh, said Jack, ‘she’s coming up to town to day.’ * Such was her intention, said the doctor ; but X regret to say that my valued friend isn’t equal to the fatigue of a journey. * She has given up her visit to town.’ Jack started, and his countenance changed. It wasn’t only that he would lose the society of his aunt by this change of her plans—that he might have borne with equanimity—but it had been an unfailing custom with his aunt (who had a fine property in North Wales at her own disposal), on her annual visit to London, which generally occurred in the month of May, to invite Jack to a tete a tete dinner. During the rest of her visit, she was usually surrounded by doctors and parsons. After dinner, when the old lady had sufficiently catechised her nephew, and had finished her third glass of port, she would hobble away; and as Jack stood by the open , door of the dining room, she would graciously permit him to give her a parting kiss, and would slip into tkis hand a little cadeau. It would generally be a tract. ‘ Are you Prepared ?’ ‘ To-morrow you shall die ;’ ‘ Sinner, beware some such cheerful and inspiriting motto would be on the cover. The contents were generally more satisfactory, for lurking among the pages Jack would find a crisp, crackling Bank of England note for a hundred pounds or so. Sometimes, when the old lady was in a particularly good mood, there would be two notes of the same denomination.

Now, Jack happened to have immediate and pressing need of a hundred pounds before the next Monday morning. He had received due notice that his aunt was coming to town —had been invited to the usual tete a tete dinner on the Friday evening following. That a hundred pounds at least would be in his possession before he left the old lady, he had no reason to doubt. The intelligence he had just received from Dr Waldron therefore came upon him as a sudden and disagreeable blow.

‘lt's very extraordinary,’ said Jack. * Why, I heard from her this week, and she said positively she was coming up today. lamon my way to Euston station to meet her.’

‘You’ll find a telegram, no doubt, when you get back to your chambers.’ * But why shouldn’t she write to me ?’ Jack was evidently disturbed and incredulous. , ‘ Here’s her letter, my dear sir,’ said the doctor, rather amused at Jack’s perplexity. * Bead it for yQurself.’ * It isn’t her writing,’ said Jack. ‘No; it’s her housekeeper's writing,’ said the doctor.

The letter was on the crested paper which Lady Lavinia used, but the writing and composition were those @f a person not highly educated. ‘Lady Lavinia Morgan presents her compliments to Mr Waldron. She feels rery sick and porely, and isn’t able to come to London. Her ladyship thinks ahe will be better presently, but must fix my thoughts on the kingdom of the New Jerulum. As accidents might happen, and her ladyship would like to repose her bones with my ancestors, would you be kind enough to send one of the new patent metallic hair tite coffins. The measure is fire foot four. Only, as servants might talk, it must be packed in a oak case, and marked glass with care, and addressed Mrs Winifred Boberts, Housekeeper, Plas, Dinorwich, carriage paid. As my mistress is porely, I write these few lines in haste.’

‘What a.queer go !’ said Jack, gnawing the ends of his moustache. * Why the duce should the old lady write for a coffin to you?’

‘ Ah, that I’m not surprised at. I happen to be the chairman of the patent Airtight Metallic Coffin Company, Limited ; that is, of the London Board. See, I’ll give you a few prospectuses. You might like some shares, or your friends might. Stop ! That’s the prospectus of the Lacteal Cake Company. Never mind ; you might like to look over it. Take ’em all, take ’em all.’

Jack sat wjth the papers in his hands, taming them over idly. ‘ What the deuce should the old woman want with a coffin before she dies ?’

‘Ah, ah/ said the doctor, * there we stumble across a psychological phenomenon Many people are moved by a stange anxiety for tho future of their bodies. It’s a sort of protest against death, confined usually to childless people. Those in whom life has not reached its natural development strain their poor wits to develop some preternatural life/ * I didn’t think my aunt had ever been bittten in that way/ said Jack. ‘Well, she’s had a tendency to New l j Uß vr 6m latel 7- You see a wealthy old lady like your aunt has the benefit of all the fresh religious taps which may be turned on. Now the Jerusalemites believe that a certain number of mankind, called the elect, won’t die at all, and that wm, seems to please your aunt amazingly, i 'kb ■

and she's been doing all she can to be made one of the elect.’

‘ Come,’ said Jack, ‘that won’t do, you know; that won’t be fair. She isn’t bound to leave her land to me, although I am her natural heir ; but she ought to leave it to somebody. As for her not dying, it would be a regular, swindle. Besides, what WQuld she do with her coffin ?’

‘ Ah, that illustrates another point in the Jerusalemite creed. Besides the elect who don’t die at all, there are a certain number of post elect, who will die for a time, a short time only. We’ve sold a good many air tight coffins for the post elect.’ r ‘ Will you allow ’em anything for returned empties, after they’ve come out of their shells?’ said Jack.

‘ Come and have some luncheon,’ said the doctor, evading this question, ‘ and I'll introduce you to my daughter.’ (To he continued .)