The money-lender watched him narrowly.
“Have indeed – matter of great importance – case of thousands, in fact – clear me of all my little unpleasantries.”
“Pooh!” ejaculated the money-lender, dropping the servile now that his client began to implore. “Something on the Heath, or the Derby, or Oaks. I never knew one of your family yet with nous enough to do anything but lose. Now, look here, my lord: are you prepared to pay me four thousand three hun – ”
“No; not a penny!” exclaimed his lordship, earnestly; “but, look here, Braham,” he cried, catching his visitor by the button; “I’ve got something in hand – I have indeed: not betting. Something safe and paying; but you must give me time, and let me have a few hundreds to carry on with.”
“Bah!” exclaimed the Jew fiercely, “I’m not going to be shilly-shallied with any more. Now, look here, my lord; I’ve given you time, and I’ve been patient. You’ve had documents served upon you; but even to the last I wouldn’t be hard. I said to myself, I’ll give him every chance; and I’ve done it; but you only turn round upon me like all the rest, friend as I’ve been to you. And now it has come to this – I’ve asked you to pay me, and you won’t.”
“I can’t, I tell you – ’pon my word I can’t,” exclaimed his lordship, following his visitor to the door, and pressing it back, as the other tried to get it open.
“Very well. Then I must have my pound of flesh!” said the Jew, with a bitter grin. “Only, you see, my lord, we are wiser than our old ancestor, Shylock: we do not bargain for exact weight, and, to avoid the punishment awarded to the shedder of blood, we take the whole body. Your lordship weighs twelve stone, I should think?”
“Fourteen stone,” said the Viscount, complacently.
“Plenty of weight, and to spare, then,” said the Jew, laughing.
“But you don’t mean what you say, Braham?” said his lordship, anxiously.
“I never joke on money matters, my lord; I’ve a couple of sheriff’s officers and a cab across the road, my lord. If you will take the trouble to walk across to the window you can see them.”
Lord Maudlaine took a step across towards the window; but he was back in an instant.
“But I say, Braham,” he exclaimed, “this is getting serious – it is, indeed – and you mustn’t, you know; ’pon my word, you mustn’t. Think of the scandal and the expense; and you won’t do yourself any good, besides ruining me.”
“What do you mean by ruining you?” said the Jew, for the young nobleman’s earnestness was such as no dread of a spunging-house, pure and simple, would have evoked – “what’s in the wind? – what do you mean?”
“Well, I tell you, don’t I? I’ve got something in hand – something good, you know.”
“What is it?”
There was a few minutes’ silence as, driven to bay by his necessities, the scion of the not very noble house stood frowning and biting his lips.
“Just as you like,” said the Jew, coolly. “I don’t want you to tell me.” And he again tried to leave, but his lordship stayed him.
“Now, look here,” said the Jew again. “I’ve always been a friend to you, Lord Maudlaine, and I’ll give you one more chance. What did you go to Italy for?”
There was no answer; and as his lordship stood with his back to the door, the visitor walked across to the window, as if to signal to one of the men waiting with the cab.
“Well, there,” exclaimed his lordship, “to get out of your way.”
The Jew smiled.
“I expected as much. And now, why did you come back?”
“To – because – Well, there; it’s connected with the – with the – the good thing I told you of.”
“Now, look here, young man,” said Abraham, without the “A,” “are we to be friends or enemies?”
“Friends, of course,” said the young nobleman, scowling.
“Then, look here: I must have perfect openness. Just show me that this is something genuine – something worth waiting for, and I’ll wait – of course, for a consideration.”
He waited for some response to his words, but none was forthcoming.
“I’m not going to be treated like this!” exclaimed the visitor, with mock anger. “I’ll soon – ”
“There, there – stop, and I’ll tell you all about it. It is worth waiting for.”
His lordship stopped short again, and his by no means intellectual countenance displayed strongly the shame and humiliation he felt.
“Well?” said the Jew.
“It’s about a marriage – a matrimonial affair.”
The Jew looked at him as if he would read his every thought.
“Plenty of money?” he said, at last.
“One of the richest heiresses in England.”
“Are you sure of that?” said Braham; “or has some foreign countess got hold of you again?”
“Sure? Yes!” cried Maudlaine, excitedly. “The father has been living out of England for years past at the rate of a couple of thousand a year, and his income’s at least twenty. All been increasing and piling up ever since.”
The Jew again looked piercingly at the young man; but it was plain enough that the ability was not in him to invent this as a fiction upon the spur of the moment.
“Well,” said the interlocutor, “go on. Have you any chance?”
“Yes; of course I have,” said Maudlaine.
“Father agreeable?”
“Yes!”
“Lady?”
“Well, yes – pretty well; but that’s all right, I tell you.”
“Meet them abroad?”
“Yes.”
“Have they come back to town?”
“To England – not town.”
“Humph!” ejaculated the visitor, still narrowly scanning his victim. “And that’s why you came back?”
“Of course.”
“Now, look here, Maudlaine,” said the Jew, fiercely, “I’m not a man to be trifled with. I was your slave once, and you did not forget to show it. You are mine now, and you must not be surprised at my turn, now it has come, being brought strongly before your attention. But I’ll be frank with you: I lend money for interest. Well and good: I’d rather wait and let you pay me that money and that interest than have to arrest you. I don’t want to get a bad name amongst your class. Now I’ve not much confidence in you as to promises to pay; but I’ll believe your word of honour. Is all this true?”
“On my word of honour, yes!” said Maudlaine, angrily.
“Who is the lady, then?” The Viscount flushed deeply, bit his lips, and was silent; for to answer this question seemed to him too great a humiliation. “Who is the lady?” was asked again. There was no answer. “I suppose you don’t want my help, then?” said the Jew. “Just as you like. Prove to me that this is worth my while to wait – say six or twelve months – and I’ll lend you a few hundreds to go on with. But, there, I’m not anxious; just as you like. Shall I call up the men?”
“Confound you, no!” exclaimed the young man, angrily. “She is the daughter of a wealthy baronet, of Lincolnshire. Now are you satisfied?”
“No,” said the Jew, taking out pencil and pocket-book; “I want his name.”
“Good old family,” said the Viscount, hastily. “Only child. I am invited down there, and the baronet is quite willing. Will that do?”
“Name – name – name!” exclaimed the creditor, impatiently.
“Sir Murray Gernon. There, then!” cried the young man, furiously.
“Sir Murray Gernon,” said the Jew, quietly, as he tapped his teeth with his large gold pencil-case – “Sir Murray Gernon. Ah! let me see; there was a screw loose there, if I recollect right, years ago. Rich family, though – very. Young lady’s mamma bolted, I think; but that don’t matter to you. Yes, that will do, Viscount – that will do. I think I’ll wait.”
“And you will advance me what I require?” said his lordship, eagerly, forgetting all humiliation in his brightened prospects.
“In reason, yes,” said the Jew, with a mocking smile once more overspreading his face; “but I shall not do it for nothing, my Lord Viscount Maudlaine – I shall not do it for nothing.”
“No,” muttered the young man, “I know that.”
“It’s quite possible that I may go so far as to make my own terms,” said the Jew, with a grin. “But I’ll leave you, now, to think over the matter; and if you want any little help, of course you’ll come to my chambers, where we can renew one of the bills.”
“Confound the bills!” cried the young man, angrily; “I must have a cheque for some hard cash to go on with.”
“Very good. Come to me, then, my lord,” said the Jew, all suavity once more. “Excuse me for hurrying away, but it is for your sake. It is not seemly to have Sheriffs’ officers waiting opposite to an hotel. Good morning, my lord!”
“Good morning!” said the Viscount, sulkily.
“You shall fly a little longer, my fine bird – just a little longer!” said Mr Joshua Braham, as he went out; “but it shall be just as long as I like, and with a string tied to your leg – a string, my fine fellow, of which I hold the end?”
In Peril
“It is of no use,” said Brace Norton, one day, when he had been home about a month, “I can’t fight against fate. I vowed that I’d think no more about her, and I’ve thought about nothing else ever since. I go out very seldom, but when I do, I always seem to meet her. I’ve heard a good deal of milk-and-sugar talk about love; and if this is what is called love, all I can say is that it’s worse than mast-heading. I can’t help it – I can’t keep free of it! What in the world did I get looking at her for, as I did, that day coming home? Brace Norton – Brace Norton, I’m afraid that you are a great ass!”
He sat thinking for awhile, trying to be light-hearted, and to sweep his troubles away, but he soon owned to himself that it was no laughing matter.
“Heaven help me!” he groaned, “for a miserable, unhappy wretch – one who seems fated to make those about him suffer! It seems almost as if I were to endure the same torments as my poor father, without the alleviation of some other gentle hand to heal my wounds. Wounds! Pooh! stuff! What romantic twaddle I am talking! It is time I was off back to sea. But, there, I’ve fought against it, all for their sakes, till it has been enough to drive me mad. I suppose men were meant to be butterflies, and to burn their wings in the light of some particular star; so the sooner I get mine singed off, and get on board ship, the better. There’s no romance there. Anything’s better than this state of torment. Here am I, making myself disagreeable to the best of fathers and the tenderest of mothers; and because things run in a rut different from that which suits me, I go sulking about like a spoiled child in love with a jam-pot; and after making everybody miserable at home, go sneaking and wandering about after the fashion of a confounded tramp poaching somebody’s goslings. I expect I shall be locked up one of these days. Seriously, though, I wish I had not come back,” he said, dreamily; “I wish that a reconciliation were possible; I wish I had never seen her; I wish – I wish – There, what is the good of wishing? What a wretched life this is, and how things do contrive to get in a state of tangle! I don’t think I ever tried to meet her, and yet how often, day after day, we seem to encounter! Even the thought of the old past sorrows seems to bring her closer and closer. Why, then, should not this be the means of bringing old sorrows to an end, and linking together the two families?”
Brace Norton brought his ponderings to a close, as, bit by bit, he recalled the past; and then he groaned in spirit, as his reason told him how impossible was a reconciliation.
“I must dismiss it all,” he at last said, bitterly. “They have had their sufferings; I will not be so cowardly as to shrink from mine. I’ll take an interest in the governor’s pursuits; and here goes to begin. I’ll run over to the Marsh, and see where they are pegging out the drain; but I may as well take a gun, and see if I cannot bag a couple or two of ducks.”
Brace Norton’s reverie had been in his own room; and with this determination fresh upon him, he walked, cheery of aspect, into the room where Captain and Mrs Norton had been discussing the unsatisfactory turn matters had taken, when the young man’s bright look, and apparently buoyant spirits, came upon them like a burst of sunshine.
“Gun? Yes, my dear boy!” exclaimed the Captain, delighted at the change that seemed to have come over his son. “Here you are,” he said, opening a case – “everything to your hand. You’ll be back to dinner?”
“Ay, ay, sir!” cried Brace, strengthened in his resolve, on seeing the pleasure his high spirits seemed to impart to his elders. “I am going to see where they are marking out the drain.”
“To be sure. Quite right, Brace – quite right. I should like, above all things, to go with you.”
“Well, why not?” said Brace, heartily.
Captain Norton smiled, and shook his head, as he pointed to his writing-table, covered with correspondence.
“Too much engaged, my boy – too many letters to write. I’ll go over with you one day, though, if you will.”
“To be sure,” said Brace.
And then he saluted his mother, who held his hands tightly, as if unwilling to part from him, as she gazed fondly in his face. Then having secured the gun and ammunition, he started off, with a bold, elastic step, apparently as free from care as if no cloud had crossed his young career.
He had not gone far before again and again came the longing desire to sit down beneath some shady tree, and picture the soft sweet face that his heart whispered him he loved – the face that seemed to be so impressed upon his brain, that, sleeping or waking, asked for or uncalled, it was always there vividly before his gaze; though, beyond a distant salute and its response, since the day of the accident, he had never held the slightest intercourse with Isa Gernon. He might have laughed at another for being so impressionable; but, none the less, he felt himself to be greatly moved, and hour by hour he felt that the task he had imposed upon himself was greater than he could ever expect to master.
But that day Brace would not yield to the sweet temptation, striving manfully and trying hard to tire himself out. He visited the portions of the great marsh where arrangements were being made for forming the drain; he tramped to and fro over the boggy land with his gun, hour after hour; and at last, utterly weary, he entered the pine-wood on the marsh edge, having unwittingly wandered to the spot where, years before, his father had, in his wild despair, so nearly cast away his life.
It was with a sigh of satisfaction that he leaned his gun against a tree, and seated himself upon the fallen trunk of a large fir; for there was something soothing to his feelings in the solemn silence of this vast nature-temple. There was a soft, warm glow cast aslant amidst the tall smooth pillars by the descending sun, and but for the soft sigh of a gentle gale, and the sharply-repeated tap of the woodpecker sounded at intervals, there was nothing to break the stillness, which to another might have seemed oppressive.
And now, with a fierce rush, the dammed-back thoughts made at him. Now was the time for reverie – here in this solitary place. But no – he would not weakly succumb. It was not to be: he had made a resolution, and he would keep it. He boldly set himself to fight with a power stronger than himself, blindly thinking that he might succeed.
How had he succeeded with his gun?
He smiled as he looked at the result of his many hours’ tramp – one solitary teal; and then for a few moments he was dwelling musingly upon the great subject that had filled his mind during the past month, but only to dismiss it angrily. He sighed, though, the next moment, and the soft breeze bore away the word “Isa”; and then romance faded as Brace sought solace in the small case he drew from his pocket, from which he selected a very foreign-looking cigar, lit it, and leaning back, began to emit cloud after cloud of thin blue vapour, till the tobacco roll was smoked to the very end, when Brace rose, calm and refreshed, ready to journey homeward.
“A sonnet to his mistress’s eyebrow,” said Brace, as he moved over the pine-needles. “Not so bad as that, though, after all.”
He had not proceeded a dozen yards, though, before he remembered that he had left his gun behind, leaning against a tree; and hurrying back, he was in the act of taking it, when a distant cry came floating through the trees.
“Hullo!” exclaimed Brace, as he caught up his gun. “Curlew? No, it was not a curlew; but I’ve grown so used to the wail of the sea birds, that I don’t know those of my native place. Ha! there it is again.”
For once more the cry came ringing faintly by – a long, low, prolonged scream, as of some one in peril; when, roused by the exciting promise of adventure, he ran swiftly in the direction from whence the cry seemed to have come.
In a few minutes he was at the edge of the grove, gazing over the open marsh, to see nothing; when, fancying that he must have come in the wrong direction, he stood listening intently for another cry.
A full minute elapsed – a minute during which he could hear his heart beating heavily – and then once more came the loud wail, plainly enough now, and forming the appealing word that goes home to every heart:
“Help!”
The next moment Brace Norton was dashing over the treacherous bog, leaping from tuft to tuft of the silky cotton rush, avoiding verdant patches of moss, which concealed watery, muddy pools, and finding foothold where the heather grew thickly. Twice he sank in to his knees, but he dashed on to where, at the distance of some three or four hundred yards from the pine-wood, he had made out a figure struggling in one of the profound holes filled with deep amber-coloured water, while, as he rushed on, at times floundering and splashing in the soft peat, it seemed to him that his aid would arrive too late.
A light muslin dress, a portion of which, still undrenched, buoyed up its wearer; a little straw hat, fallen off to float on the dark waters; a pale, upturned, agonised face; long clusters of hair rippling with the troubled element; and two dark, wild, appealing eyes, seeming to ask his aid. Brace Norton saw all this in the few moments ere he reached the side of the pit; but as he recognised the features, a cry of anguish tore from his heart, as, falling heavily, it was some little time before he could regain his feet. Then, with a rush and a plunge, he sent the water foaming in great waves to the green and deceptive sides of the moor-pit, still trembling with the weight that had lately passed over them. Another minute, and with the energy of a stout swimmer he had forced himself through the dozen yards of water that intervened, to reach at and grasp an arm, just as the water was bubbling up above a fair, white forehead, and playing amidst the long tresses floating around. Another instant, and Brace’s arm was supporting the drowning girl, as he swam stoutly towards the side.
The distance was short, but unfortunately the side he reached was but a semi-fluid collection of bog vegetation, half floating upon the water, and which broke away from the arm he threw over it again and again.
He swam off after two or three essays, laboriously now, with his burden, to another part of the pool, but that was worse; the moss breaking away at a touch. He looked towards the other side, some forty yards away, but with his precious load he dared not try to swim the distance.
To make matters worse, the sides of the pool were not perpendicular, but the loose vegetation grew out a couple of feet or so over the water, as if, in the course of years, to cover it with the treacherous green carpet, spread in so many other places over deep black pits; and thus any attempt to gain foothold and climb out was vain; while, for aught he could tell, the pool might have been fifty feet deep beneath his feet.
To stay where he was seemed impossible, so, swimming a few yards, he made to where – partly to rest, partly to think upon the best plan of procedure – he could tightly grasp a tuft of rushes with his disengaged hand. But even this was no safeguard, for he could feel that a very slight effort would be required to draw the tuft from its hold. And now, for the first time, he turned to gaze earnestly in the pallid face so close to his, to find the eyes dilate and horror-stricken, while two little hands were tightly clasped round his neck.
“Do not be alarmed, Miss Gernon,” he whispered, his heart throbbing almost painfully the while. “Give me a few moments to recover breath, and then I will draw you ashore – or rather,” he said, with an encouraging smile, “on to this treacherous moss.”
The smile was intended to chase away the dread of there being imminent danger, and it had its effect.
“I am not very – very much frightened,” she half sobbed, though, unable to conceal her agitation, she clung to him tightly. “I was picking marsh flowers when the rushes suddenly gave way beneath my feet.”
“The place is very dangerous,” said Brace; and then, in an earnest voice – “Thank Heaven, though, that I was so near at hand.”
He paused for a few moments to gaze in her face, and in that brief space of time danger – the water – all was forgotten as their eyes met, for hers to fall directly before his loving, earnest look. For there, in spite of what he had said, in great peril, but with her heart beating against his, so that he could feel its pulsations, all Brace Norton’s resolutions faded away; and for a moment he thought of how sweet it would be to die thus – to loose his hold of the rushes, to clasp his other arm round her, and then, with an end to all the sorrow and heart-burning of this life, with her clinging to him as she might never cling again, to let the water close above their heads, and then —
“What a romantic fool I am,” thought Brace. “Here, a month ago, I thought life one of the jolliest things in the world; and now I’m thinking in this love-sick, unhealthy, French, charcoal-and-brimstone style of suicide.”
The reaction gave his mind tone; for directly after, Brace Norton was thinking how sweet it would be to live, perhaps earning Isa Gernon’s love as well as her gratitude, for saving her sweet life; and with a flush upon his cheek for his weak thoughts, Brace nerved himself for the effort he was about to make.
With his right hand tightly clutching the rush tuft, he tried to thrust his feet into the bank beneath; but in spite of a tremendous and exhausting effort, the sole result was, that the portion of the edge he clung to came away in his hand, and with the plunge, they were the next instant both beneath the water. A few vigorous strokes, though, and Brace was once more at the side with the half-fainting girl well supported, as a bunch of rushes once more supplied him with a hold for his clinging fingers.
“Oh, pray – pray save me!” murmured Isa, faintly, as a cold chill shot through her, and her pale face grew almost ghastly.
“With Heaven’s help I will!” exclaimed Brace, thickly, “or I’ll die with you!”
The words seemed to be forced from his lips by his strong emotion, and he could perceive that she heard them. He knew, too, that she had recognised him at the first. The words took their impassioned tone, in spite of himself; and he repented, as he saw a faint flush of colour – it might have been from indignation – rise to her cheeks.
But there was no time for dallying with thoughts of such engendering, for he knew that every moment only robbed him of so much power, and he prepared for another effort.
“Hold me tightly,” he said. “Don’t be afraid; only let me have both hands at liberty, so that I may be able to drag myself out.”
She did as he wished, and he struggled hard; but the weight clinging to him frustrated every effort, and after five minutes’ vain expenditure of strength, Brace had great difficulty in finding firm hold for his grasp; while his heart sank, as he found that what at first had seemed but a trifling mishap, and an opportunity for displaying his knight-errantry, now began to loom forth in proportions ominous to them both.
He looked in every direction now, where the tall reeds did not shut out the view, for he was beginning to mistrust his own power; but there was not a soul within sight. And now, for the first time, he raised his voice, to cry loudly for help – despairingly, though, for he could not think it possible that aid could be near. He called again and again; but his voice seemed to be lost in the vast space, and sounded faint, adding to the chill of despair creeping to his heart; till, rousing himself, after regaining his breath, he adopted the plan that he should have tried at first.
“Miss Gernon! – Isa! For Heaven’s sake, speak!” he cried, earnestly, as he gazed at the half-closed eyes and the drooping head. “Try and rouse yourself for one more effort!”
