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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - "Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre Buch 2"

Honore de Balzac - "Unconscious Comedians"

William Blake - "Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience"

Albert Payson Terhune - "Bruce"

The Certain Hour

J >> James Branch Cabell >> The Certain Hour




cure a pardon for me. But not even Bute can override
the laws of England. I would have to be tried first,
and have ballads made concerning me, and be condemned,
and so on. That would detain Honoria in England,
because she is sufficiently misguided to love me. I
could never persuade her to leave me with my life
in peril. She could not possibly survive an English
winter." Here Calverley evinced unbridled mirth. "The
irony of events is magnificent. There is probably no
question of hanging or even of transportation. It is
merely certain that if I venture from this room I bring
about Honoria's death as incontestably as if I
strangled her with these two hands. So I choose my own
death in preference. It will grieve Honoria----" His
voice was not completely steady. "But she is young.
She will forget me, for she forgets easily, and she
will be happy. I look to you to see--even before you
have killed Pevensey--that Honoria goes into Italy.
For she admires and loves you, almost as much as I do,
Horace, and she will readily be guided by you----"
He cried my lord of Ufford's given name some two or
three times, for young Calverley had turned, and he had
seen Ufford's face.
The earl moistened his lips. "You are a fool," he
said, with a thin voice. "Why do you trouble me by
being better than I? Or do you only posture for my
benefit? Do you deal honestly with me, Robert Cal-

verley?--then swear it----" He laughed here, very
horribly. "Ah, no, when did you ever lie! You do not
lie--not you!"
He waited for a while. "But I am otherwise. I
dare to lie when the occasion promises. I have desired
Honoria since the first moment wherein I saw her. I
may tell you now. I think that you do not remember.
We gathered cherries. I ate two of them
which had just lain upon her knee----"
His hands had clenched each other, and his lips
were drawn back so that you saw his exquisite teeth,
which were ground together. He stood thus for a
little, silent.
Then Ufford began again: "I planned all this. I
plotted this with Umfraville. I wrote you such a let-

ter as would inevitably draw you to your death. I
wished your death. For Honoria would then be freed of
you. I would condole with her. She is readily
comforted, impatient of sorrow, incapable of it, I dare
say. She would have married me. . . . Why must I tell
you this? Oh, I am Fate's buffoon! For I have won, I
have won! and there is that in me which will not accept
the stake I cheated for."
"And you," said Calverley--"this thing is you!"
"A helpless reptile now," said Ufford. "I have not
the power to check Lord Umfraville in his vengeance.
You must be publicly disgraced, and must, I think, be
hanged even now when it will not benefit me at all. It
may be I shall weep for that some day! Or else Honoria
must die, because an archangel could not persuade her
to desert you in your peril. For she loves you--loves
you to the full extent of her merry and shallow nature.
Oh, I know that, as you will never know it. I shall
have killed Honoria! I shall not weep when Honoria
dies. Harkee, Robin! they are dancing yonder. It is
odd to think that I shall never dance again."
"Horace--!" the younger man said, like a person of
two minds. He seemed to choke. He gave a frantic
gesture. "Oh, I have loved you. I have loved nothing
as I have loved you."
"And yet you chatter of your passion for Honoria!"
Lord Ufford returned, with a snarl. "I ask what proof
is there of this?--Why, that you have surrendered your
well-being in this world through love of her. But I
gave what is vital. I was an honorable gentleman
without any act in all my life for which I had need to
blush. I loved you as I loved no other being in the
universe." He spread his hands, which now twitched
horribly. "You will never understand. It does not
matter. I desired Honoria. To-day through my desire
of her, I am that monstrous thing which you alone know
me to be. I think I gave up much. Pro honoria!" he
chuckled. "The Latin halts, but, none the less, the
jest is excellent."
"You have given more than I would dare to give,"
said Calverley. He shuddered.
"And to no end!" cried Ufford. "Ah, fate, the
devil and that code I mocked are all in league to cheat
me!"
Said Calverley: "The man whom I loved most is
dead. Oh, had the world been searched between the
sunrise and the sunsetting there had not been found his
equal. And now, poor fool, I know that there was never
any man like this!"
"Nay, there was such a man," the poet said, "in an
old time which I almost forget. To-day he is
quite dead. There is only a poor wretch who has been
faithless in all things, who has not even served the
devil faithfully."
"Why, then, you lackey with a lackey's soul, attend
to what I say. Can you make any terms with
Umfraville?"
"I can do nothing," Ufford replied. "You have
robbed him--as me--of what he most desired. You have
made him the laughing-stock of England. He does not
pardon any more than I would pardon."
"And as God lives and reigns, I do not greatly
blame him," said young Calverley. "This man at least
was wronged. Concerning you I do not speak, because of
a false dream I had once very long ago. Yet Umfraville
was treated infamously. I dare concede what I could
not permit another man to say and live, now that I
drink a toast which I must drink alone. For I drink to
the honor of the Calverleys. I have not ever lied to
any person in this world, and so I may not drink with
you."
"Oh, but you drink because you know your death to
be the one event which can insure her happiness," cried
Ufford. "We are not much unlike. And I dare say it is
only an imaginary Honoria we love, after all. Yet,
look, my fellow-Ixion! for to the eye at least is she
not perfect?"
The two men gazed for a long while. Amid that
coterie of exquisites, wherein allusion to whatever
might he ugly in the world was tacitly allowed to be
unmentionable, Lady Honoria glitteringly went
about the moment's mirthful business with lovely
ardor. You saw now unmistakably that "Light Queen of
Elfdom, dead Titania's heir" of whom Ufford writes in
the fourth Satire. Honoria's prettiness, rouged,
frail, and modishly enhanced, allured the eye from all
less elfin brilliancies; and as she laughed among so
many other relishers of life her charms became the more
instant, just as a painting quickens in every tint when
set in an appropriate frame.
"There is no other way," her husband said. He
drank and toasted what was dearest in the world,
smiling to think how death came to him in that wine's
familiar taste. "I drink to the most lovely of created
ladies! and to her happiness!"
He snapped the stem of the glass and tossed it joy-
ously aside.
"Assuredly, there is no other way," said Ufford.
"And armored by that knowledge, even I may drink as
honorable people do. Pro honoria!" Then this man
also broke his emptied glass.
"How long have I to live?" said Calverley, and took
snuff.
"Why, thirty years, I think, unless you duel too
immoderately," replied Lord Ufford,--"since while you
looked at Honoria I changed our glasses. No! no! a
thing done has an end. Besides, it is not unworthy of
me. So go boldly to the Earl of Bute and tell him all.
You are my cousin and my successor. Yes, very soon
you, too, will be a peer of England and as safe from
molestation as is Lord Pevensey. I am the first
to tender my congratulations. Now I make certain that
they are not premature."
The poet laughed at this moment as a man may laugh
in hell. He reeled. His lean face momentarily
contorted, and afterward the poet died.
"I am Lord Ufford," said Calverley aloud. "The
person of a peer is inviolable----" He presently
looked downward from rapt gazing at his wife.
Fresh from this horrible half-hour, he faced a fu-
ture so alluring as by its beauty to intimidate him.
Youth, love, long years of happiness, and (by this
capricious turn) now even opulence, were the in-
gredients of a captivating vista. And yet he needs
must pause a while to think of the dear comrade he had
lost--of that loved boy, his pattern in the time of
their common youthfulness which gleamed in memory as
bright and misty as a legend, and of the perfect
chevalier who had been like a touchstone to Robert Cal-
verley a bare half-hour ago. He knelt, touched lightly
the fallen jaw, and lightly kissed the cheek of this
poor wreckage; and was aware that the caress was given
with more tenderness than Robert Calverley had shown in
the same act a bare half-hour ago.
Meanwhile the music of a country dance urged the
new Earl of Ufford to come and frolic where every one
was laughing; and to partake with gusto of the benefits
which chance had provided; and to be forthwith as merry
as was decorous in a peer of England.




THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE


"But after SHERIDAN had risen to a commanding
position in the gay life of London, he rather disliked
to be known as a playwright or a poet, and preferred to
be regarded as a statesman and a man of fashion who
`set the pace' in all pastimes of the opulent and idle.
Yet, whatever he really thought of his own writings,
and whether or not he did them, as Stevenson used to
say, `just for fun,' the fact remains that he was
easily the most distinguished and brilliant dramatist
of an age which produced in SHERIDAN'S solemn
vagaries one of its most characteristic products."




Look on this form,--where humor, quaint and
sly,
Dimples the cheek, and points the beaming eye;
Where gay invention seems to boast its wiles
In amorous hint, and half-triumphant smiles.

Look on her well--does she seem form'd to
teach?
Should you expect to hear this lady preach?
Is gray experience suited to her youth?
Do solemn sentiments become that mouth?

Bid her be grave, those lips should rebel prove
To every theme that slanders mirth or love.

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. Second
Prologue to The Rivals.



THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE

The devotion of Mr. Sheridan to the Dean of
Winchester's daughter, Miss Esther Jane Ogle--or "the
irresistible Ogle," as she was toasted at the Kit-cat--
was now a circumstance to be assumed in the polite
world of London. As a result, when the parliamentarian
followed her into Scotland, in the spring of 1795,
people only shrugged.
"Because it proves that misery loves company," was
Mr. Fox's observation at Wattier's, hard upon two in
the morning. "Poor Sherry, as an inconsolable widower,
must naturally have some one to share his grief. He
perfectly comprehends that no one will lament the death
of his wife more fervently than her successor."

In London Mr. Fox thus worded his interpretation of
the matter; and spoke, oddly enough, at the very moment
that in Edinburgh Mr. Sheridan returned to his lodgings
in Abercromby Place, deep in the reminiscences of a
fortunate evening at cards. In consequence, Mr.
Sheridan entered the room so quietly that the young man
who was employed in turning over the contents of
the top bureau-drawer was taken unprepared.
But in the marauder's nature, as far as resolution
went, was little lacking. "Silence!" he ordered, and
with the mandate a pistol was leveled upon the rep-

resentative for the borough of Stafford. "One cry for
help, and you perish like a dog. I warn you that I am
a desperate man."
"Now, even at a hazard of discourtesy, I must make
bold to question your statement," said Mr. Sheridan,
"although, indeed, it is not so much the recklessness
as the masculinity which I dare call into dispute."
He continued, in his best parliamentary manner, a
happy blending of reproach, omniscience and pardon.
"Only two months ago," said Mr. Sheridan, "I was so
fortunate as to encounter a lady who, alike through the
attractions of her person and the sprightliness of her
conversation, convinced me I was on the road to fall in
love after the high fashion of a popular romance. I
accordingly make her a declaration. I am rejected. I
besiege her with the customary artillery of sonnets,
bouquets, serenades, bonbons, theater-tickets and
threats of suicide. In fine, I contract the habit of
proposing to Miss Ogle on every Wednesday; and so
strong is my infatuation that I follow her as far into
the north as Edinburgh in order to secure my eleventh
rejection at half-past ten last evening."
"I fail to understand," remarked the burglar, "how
all this prolix account of your amours can possibly
concern me."
"You are at least somewhat involved in the deplor-
able climax," Mr. Sheridan returned. "For behold! at
two in the morning I discover the object of my
adoration and the daughter of an estimable prelate,
most calumniously clad and busily employed in rumpling
my supply of cravats. If ever any lover was thrust
into a more ambiguous position, madam, historians have
touched on his dilemma with marked reticence."
He saw--and he admired--the flush which mounted to
his visitor's brow. And then, "I must concede that
appearances are against me, Mr, Sheridan," the beau-
tiful intruder said. "And I hasten to protest that my
presence in your apartments at this hour is prompted by
no unworthy motive. I merely came to steal the famous
diamond which you brought from London--the Honor of
Eiran."
"Incomparable Esther Jane," ran Mr. Sheridan's
answer, "that stone is now part of a brooch which was
this afternoon returned to my cousin's, the Earl of
Eiran's, hunting-lodge near Melrose. He intends the
gem which you are vainly seeking among my haberdashery
to be the adornment of his promised bride in the
ensuing June. I confess to no overwhelming admiration
as concerns this raucous if meritorious young person;
and will even concede that the thought of her becoming
my kinswoman rouses in me an inevitable distaste, no
less attributable to the discord of her features than
to the source of her eligibility to disfigure the
peerage--that being her father's lucrative
transactions in Pork, which I find indigestible in any
form."
"A truce to paltering!" Miss Ogle cried. "That
jewel was stolen from the temple at Moorshedabad, by
the Earl of Eiran's grandfather, during the confusion
necessarily attendant on the glorious battle of
Plassy." She laid down the pistol, and resumed in
milder tones: "From an age-long existence as the left
eye of Ganesh it was thus converted into the loot of an
invader. To restore this diamond to its lawful,
although no doubt polygamous and inefficiently-attired
proprietors is at this date impossible. But, oh! what
claim have you to its possession?"
"Why, none whatever," said the parliamentarian;
"and to contend as much would be the apex of unreason.
For this diamond belongs, of course, to my cousin the
Earl of Eiran----"
"As a thief's legacy!" She spoke with signs of
irritation.
"Eh, eh, you go too fast! Eiran, to do him
justice, is not a graduate in peculation. At worst, he
is only the sort of fool one's cousins ordinarily are."
The trousered lady walked to and fro for a while,
with the impatience of a caged lioness. "I perceive I
must go more deeply into matters," Miss Ogle remarked,
and, with that habitual gesture which he fondly
recognized, brushed back a straying lock of hair. "In
any event," she continued, "you cannot with reason deny
that the world's wealth is inequitably
distributed?"
"Madam," Mr. Sheridan returned, "as a member of
Parliament, I have necessarily made it a rule never to
understand political economy. It is as apt as not to
prove you are selling your vote to the wrong side of
the House, and that hurts one's conscience."
"Ah, that is because you are a man. Men are not
practical. None of you has ever dared to insist on his
opinion about anything until he had secured the
cowardly corroboration of a fact or so to endorse him.
It is a pity. Yet, since through no fault of yours
your sex is invariably misled by its hallucinations as
to the importance of being rational, I will refrain
from logic and statistics. In a word, I simply inform
you that I am a member of the League of Philanthropic
Larcenists."
"I had not previously heard of this organization,"
said Mr. Sheridan, and not without suspecting his
response to be a masterpiece in the inadequate.
"Our object is the benefit of society at large,"
Miss Ogle explained; "and our obstacles so far have
been, in chief, the fetish of proprietary rights and
the ubiquity of the police."
And with that she seated herself and told him of
the league's inception by a handful of reflective
persons, admirers of Rousseau and converts to his
tenets, who were resolved to better the circumstances
of the indigent. With amiable ardor Miss Ogle
explained how from the petit larcenies of charity-balls
and personally solicited subscriptions the league had
mounted to an ampler field of depredation; and through
what means it now took toll from every form of
wealth unrighteously acquired. Divertingly she
described her personal experiences in the separation of
usurers, thieves, financiers, hereditary noblemen,
popular authors, and other social parasites, from the
ill-got profits of their disreputable vocations. And
her account of how, on the preceding Tuesday, she,
single-handed, had robbed Sir Alexander McRae--who then
enjoyed a fortune and an enviable reputation for
philanthropy, thanks to the combination of glucose,
vitriol and other chemicals which he prepared under the
humorous pretext of manufacturing beer--wrung high
encomiums from Mr. Sheridan.
"The proceeds of these endeavors," Miss Ogle added,
"are conscientiously devoted to ameliorating the
condition of meritorious paupers. I would be happy to
submit to you our annual report. Then you may judge
for yourself how many families we have snatched from
the depths of poverty and habitual intoxication to the
comparative comfort of a vine-embowered cottage."
Mr. Sheridan replied: "I have not ever known of
any case where adoration needed an affidavit for
foundation. Oh, no, incomparable Esther Jane! I am
not in a position to be solaced by the reports of a
corresponding secretary. I gave my heart long since;
to-night I fling my confidence into the bargain; and am
resolved to serve wholeheartedly the cause to which you
are devoted. In consequence, I venture to propose
my name for membership in the enterprise you advocate
and indescribably adorn."
Miss Ogle was all one blush, such was the fervor of
his utterance. "But first you must win your spurs, Mr.
Sheridan. I confess you are not abhorrent to me," she
hurried on, "for you are the most fascinatingly hideous
man I have ever seen; and it was always the
apprehension that you might look on burglary as an
unmaidenly avocation which has compelled me to
discourage your addresses. Now all is plain; and
should you happen to distinguish yourself in robbery of
the criminally opulent, you will have, I believe, no
reason to complain of a twelfth refusal. I cannot
modestly say more."
He laughed. "It is a bargain. We will agree that
I bereave some person of either stolen or unearned
property, say, to the value of L10,000----" And with
his usual carefulness in such matters, Mr. Sheridan
entered the wager in his notebook.
She yielded him her hand in token of assent. And
he, depend upon it, kissed that velvet trifle fondly.
"And now," said Mr. Sheridan, "to-morrow we will
visit Bemerside and obtain possession of that crystal
which is in train to render me the happiest of men.
The task will be an easy one, as Eiran is now in
England, and his servants for the most part are my
familiars."
"I agree to your proposal," she answered. "But
this diamond is my allotted quarry; and any assistance
you may render me in procuring it will not, of
course, affect in any way our bargain. On this
point"--she spoke with a break of laughter--"I am as
headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile."
"To quote an author to his face," lamented Mr.
Sheridan, "is bribery as gross as it is efficacious. I
must unwillingly consent to your exorbitant demands,
for you are, as always, the irresistible Ogle."
Miss Ogle bowed her gratitude; and, declining Mr.
Sheridan's escort, for fear of arousing gossip by being
seen upon the street with him at this late hour, pre-
ferred to avoid any appearance of indecorum by climbing
down the kitchen roof.

When she had gone, Mr. Sheridan very gallantly
attempted a set of verses. But the Muse was not to be
wooed to-night, and stayed obstinately coy.
Mr. Sheridan reflected, rather forlornly, that he
wrote nothing nowadays. There was, of course, his
great comedy, Affectation, his masterpiece which he
meant to finish at one time or another; yet, at the
bottom of his heart, he knew that he would never finish
it. But, then, deuce take posterity! for to have
written the best comedy, the best farce, and the best
burlesque as well, that England had ever known, was a
very prodigal wiping-out of every obligation toward
posterity. Boys thought a deal about posterity, as he
remembered; but a sensible man would bear in mind that
all this world's delicacies--its merry diversions, its
venison and old wines, its handsomely-bound books and
fiery-hearted jewels and sumptuous clothings, all
its lovely things that can be touched and handled, and
more especially its ear-tickling applause--were to be
won, if ever, from one's contemporaries. And people
were generous toward social, rather than literary,
talents for the sensible reason that they derived more
pleasure from an agreeable companion at dinner than
from having a rainy afternoon rendered endurable by
some book or another.
So the parliamentarian sensibly went to bed.

Miss, Ogle during this Scottish trip was accom-
panied by her father, the venerable Dean of Winchester.
The Dean, although in all things worthy of implicit
confidence, was not next day informed of the intended
expedition, in deference to public opinion, which, as
Miss Ogle pointed out, regards a clergyman's
participation in a technical felony with disapproval.
Miss Ogle, therefore, radiant in a becoming gown of
pink lute-string, left Edinburgh the following morning
under cover of a subterfuge, and with Mr. Sheridan as
her only escort. He was at pains to adorn this role
with so many happy touches of courtesy and amiability
that their confinement in the postchaise appeared to
both of incredible brevity.
When they had reached Melrose another chaise was
ordered to convey them to Bemerside; and pending its
forthcoming Mr. Sheridan and Miss Ogle strolled among
the famous ruins of Melrose Abbey. The parliamentarian
had caused his hair to be exuberantly curled that
morning, and figured to advantage in a plum-colored
coat and a saffron waistcoat sprigged with forget-me-
nots. He chatted entertainingly concerning the Second
Pointed style of architecture; translated many of the
epitaphs; and was abundant in interesting information
as to Robert Bruce, and Michael Scott, and the
rencounter of Chevy Chase.
"Oh, but observe," said Mr. Sheridan, more lately,
"our only covering is the dome of heaven. Yet in their
time these aisles were populous, and here a score of
generations have besought what earth does not afford--
now where the banners of crusaders waved the ivy
flutters, and there is no incense in this consecrated
house except the breath of the wild rose."
"The moral is an old one," she returned. "Mummy is
become merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh
is sold for balsams."
"You are a reader, madam?" he observed, with some
surprise; and he continued: "Indeed, my thoughts were
on another trail. I was considering that the
demolishers of this place--those English armies, those
followers of John Knox--were actuated by the highest
and most laudable of motives. As a result we find the
house of Heaven converted into a dustheap."

"I believe you attempt an apologue," she said,
indignantly. "Upon my word, I think you would in-
sinuate that philanthropy, when forced to manifest
itself through embezzlement, is a less womanly em-
ployment than the darning of stockings!"
"Whom the cap fits----" he answered, with a bow.
"Indeed, incomparable Esther Jane, I had said nothing
whatever touching hosiery; and it was equally remote
from my intentions to set up as a milliner."

They lunched at Bemerside, where Mr. Sheridan was
cordially received by the steward, and a well-chosen
repast was placed at their disposal.
"Fergus," Mr. Sheridan observed, as they chatted
over their dessert concerning famous gems--in which
direction talk had been adroitly steered"--Fergus,
since we are on the topic, I would like to show Miss
Ogle the Honor of Eiran."
The Honor of Eiran was accordingly produced from a
blue velvet case, and was properly admired. Then, when
the steward had been dismissed to fetch a rare liqueur,
Mr. Sheridan laughed, and tossed and caught the jewel,
as though he handled a cricket-ball. It was the size
of a pigeon's egg, and was set among eight gems of
lesser magnitude; and in transit through the sunlight
the trinket flashed and glittered with diabolical
beauty. The parliamentarian placed three bits of sugar
in the velvet case and handed the gem to his companion.
"The bulk is much the same," he observed; "and
whether the carbon be crystallized or no, is the re-
sponsibility of stratigraphic geology. Fergus, per-
haps, must go to jail. That is unfortunate. But true
philanthropy works toward the benefit of the greatest
number possible; and this resplendent pebble will
purchase you innumerable pounds of tea and a
warehouseful of blankets."
"But, Mr. Sheridan," Miss Ogle cried, in horror,
"to take this brooch would not be honest!"
"Oh, as to that----!" he shrugged.
"----because Lord Eiran purchased all these lesser
diamonds, and very possibly paid for them."
Then Mr. Sheridan reflected, stood abashed, and
said: "Incomparable Esther Jane, I confess I am only a
man. You are entirely right. To purloin any of these
little diamonds would be an abominable action, whereas
to make off with the only valuable one is simply a
stroke of retribution. I will, therefore, attempt to
prise it out with a nutpick."
Three constables came suddenly into the room. "We
hae been tauld this missy is a suspectit thieving
body," their leader cried. "Esther Jane Ogle, ye maun
gae with us i' the law's name. Ou ay, lass, ye ken
weel eneugh wha robbit auld Sir Aleexander McRae, sae
dinna ye say naething tae your ain preejudice, lest ye
hae tae account for it a'."
Mr. Sheridan rose to the occasion. "My exceedingly
good friend, Angus Howden! I am unwilling to concede
that yeomen can excel in gentlemanly accomplishments,
but it is only charity to suppose all three of you as
drunk as any duke that ever honored me with his
acquaintance." This he drawled, and appeared
magisterially to await an explanation.
"Hout, Mr. Sheridan," commenced the leading
representative of justice, "let that flee stick i' the
wa'-- ye dinna mean tae tell me, Sir, that ye are
acquaintit wi' this--ou ay, tae pleasure ye, I micht
e'en say wi' this----"
"This lady, probably?" Mr. Sheridan hazarded.
"'Tis an unco thing," the constable declared, "but
that wad be the word was amaist at my tongue's tip."
"Why, undoubtedly," Mr. Sheridan assented. "I
rejoice that, being of French extraction, and uncon-
versant with your somewhat cryptic patois, the lady in
question is the less likely to have been sickened by
your extravagances in the way of misapprehension. I
candidly confess such imbecility annoys me. What!" he
cried out, "what if I marry! is matrimony to be ranked
with arson? And what if my cousin, Eiran, affords me a
hiding-place wherein to sneak through our honeymoon
after the cowardly fashion of all modern married
couples! Am I in consequence compelled to submit to
the invasions of an intoxicated constabulary?" His
rage was terrific.
"Voila la seule devise. Ils me connaissent, ils
ont confidence dans moi. Si, taisez-vous! Si non,
vous serez arretee et mise dans la prison, comme une
caractere suspicieuse!" Mr. Sheridan exhorted Miss
Ogle to this intent with more of earnestness than
linguistic perfection; and he rejoiced to see that in-
stantly she caught at her one chance of plausibly ac-
counting for her presence at Bemerside, and of effect-
ing a rescue from this horrid situation.
"But I also spik the English," she sprightlily
announced. "I am appleed myself at to learn its
by heart. Certainly you look for a needle in a
hay bundle, my gentlemans. I am no stealer of the
grand road, but the wife of Mistaire Sheridan, and her
presence will say to you the remains."
"You see!" cried Mr. Sheridan, in modest triumph.
"In short, I am a bridegroom unwarrantably interrupted
in his first tete-a-tete, I am responsible for this
lady and all her past and its appurtenances; and, in a
phrase, for everything except the course of conduct I
will undoubtedly pursue should you be visible at the
conclusion of the next five minutes."
His emphasis was such that the police withdrew with
a concomitant of apologies.

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