WEARYFOOT COMMON. 66 Well, Mr. Slopper," said the latter, when he found that everything else was in vain, "I think you will sit down and be agreeable, and let me call for another, when I tell you that I have only been going a little game with you. The fact is, the letter is in favor of that Boy-him they call Oaklands " "I know that, Mr. Poringer: do you think I haven't both eyes and ears for what is going on, more especially when people is in a flurry and speaks like actors on the stage?" classes is not admitted, and kept by Mr. Joshua | fore Mr. Poringer, who was in an uncommonly Slopper, says he, and stop the letter for an hour "I don't know," replied the artist; "my rascally boy has taken mine to clean, and I could not get hold of him this morning to ascertain where it is. Mr. Slopper was asking for you just now." "And is he gone?" said Mr. Poringer, starting. No, here he is." Mr. Slopper hereupon entered with a small pewter measure of a colorless liquid, and a single shallow glass. "That won't do, Mr. Slopper," said Mr. Poringer; "it is some days since we have drunk together, and I vote for a couple of regular tumblers of cold without-at my expense." "I'm obleeged, Mr. Poringer," replied Mr. Slopper; "but I must be at Downing Street before five, and it ain't the thing to walk fast: it don't look well in us who is used to carriage exercise." "No more it don't; we must draw a line, as you say; but you see you couldn't spin it out to half-past four, if you was to crawl like a fly in treacle, and I want to talk to you about a house I'm a-thinking of." Mr. Slopper, on turning his eyes to the clock, was surprised to find it so much earlier than he had supposed; and accordingly the little measure was exchanged for two goes of cold without. But the eyes of Claudia were upon her messenger: they rarely left him indeed till her high behests were accomplished, and on this occasion she had been more emphatic in her orders than usual. He was to beware of accident for his life; these were her words, and although he did not exactly fancy that he ran any risk of a violent death in the event of failure, the penalty seemed to his imagination, from its very shapelessness, to be quite as bad. He accordingly drank his gin and water with great gulps, and got up be two of the governor any day; and it was her "You are an ignorant person, Mr. Slopper," said Mr. Poringer, rising with dignity; "you can not talk of a gal being worth two of a lord. know nothing about the Sally-law, or you would what pays you your salary, give me the letter!" Since you won't attend to the head of the family "Give you the letter! Here's a go! My in person without the orders of Miss." eye! I wouldn't give the letter to his lordship "Don't put me to taking it from you, Mr. Slopper, for I should be sorry to hurt you: but a right to order what he pleases about his own you see, I have promised Lord Luxton, who has mean to keep my promise." "Come, come, Mr. Poringer, no nonsense of letters, and that kind. Hurt me! Why, I could tie a knot two men approacbed close to each other, Mr. on you any day, for as stiff as you are;" and the Slopper flushed and indignant, and Mr. Poringer imperturbably calm. "What does it all mean, I say," said the for"I'm a-going to punch your head presently, mer, "are you a-going to rob me?" if you have spirit enough for it." "I have spirit enough to serve your turn, and ing of heads-the chest must do the business. I a good few to spare. But I won't have no punchand she wouldn't on no account have couldn't afford it. Miss likes everything that's handsome; me looking at her with an eye that seemed as if blowed up with gunpowder, and a cheek like a "You are right," said Mr. Poringer candidly, monkey's with a couple of walnuts in it." "blackened eyes is gone down to the lower classes. You are a thoughtful and respectable man, Mr. Slopper; and I'll punch your chest and stomach, and have a try at your collar-bone, and we'll see what comes of it." "Gentlemen, gentlemen!” cried the landlord, hurrying into the room-surely this is not friendly! Would you make a row in my very parlor, and endanger my licence?" "But it's honor, Mr. Jolter what are we to do?" "Why, if you must go to work, isn't there the yard? How could I know anything about it if two gentlemen chose to meet promiscuous in the back settlements, and if Jim the potboy picked up one of 'em, and Taproom Tom dandled the other? But go out separate, and turn away your flushed face, Mr. Slopper, when you are passing the bar. The advice was taken in stanter; and no wonder, for Mr. Jolter looked like a stout justice of the peace, and his hat might have covered handsomely any number of thous ands a year you could name. a general smash. Five to four on Poringer, and takers shy. ¡, The battle, although exciting to the critical spectators, would hardly awaken much interest in these pages; and more especially, as it was prolonged interminably by the slowness of Mr. Poringer. When Mr. Slopper came down, which he did several times, he sat only for an instant on the motherly knee of Jim the potboy, and was on his legs again like a good one; but Mr. Poringer never could be prevailed upon to front him till time was just on the eve of being up. At length that gentleman who had been chipped in almost all his compartments-received a mighty punch full on the pit of the stomach, which, for the first time, brought him down like a steeple: and he sat for a moment, as uncon sciously as a baby on the knee of Taproom Tom, who held him with the tenderness of a wet nurse. At this moment a church clock struck, and Mr. Poringer sprang up, with a grin half of pain, half of triumph. It is five o'clock, Mr. Slopper!" said he, "you may take your letter as soon as you please. I don't want no more of this-do you?" Jim, the potboy, was a little old man, lame, but able-bodied. He had never been anything he could remember but a potboy at the Chequers, and was regarded as one of the fixtures. Tap room Tom, who presently made his appearance. with a dirty towel under his arm, had been for many years in the situation of a servant out of place. He was dressed in a faded livery, con. "I'm obleeged, Mr. Poringer," replied Mr. sisting of a green cutaway-coat, renching below Slopper;" and since you are satisfied, so am I. the calves of his legs, with yellow facings, knee- As for the letter, it is in the proper hands by this breeches of no color in particular, and white time, I have no doubt per favor of Mr. Driftneckcloth and stockings in a state of chronic wood!". Mr. Poringer looked as if he would dirtiness, that had never been known to change have sunk again into the arms of Taproom Tom; either for better or worse. Tom succeeded about but collecting himself, he put on his clothes, and once a year in obtaining a place, but kept it only walked his aching bones off the field of battle. for a few days, when he was discharged for fight ing in the kitchen: upon which he drifted back naturally to the Chequers, where he served in the taproom from taste, and was much liked on account of his quietness and civility. It was tacitly understood that he was to get a plate of victuals now and then from the house, and be permitted to drink as often as the guests invited him; so that, upon the whole, Tom did not lose much by the loss of his place. 1. Mr. Jolter, without making any allusion to the scene in the yard, presented the two gentlemen as they went out with a glass of brandy, of which Mr. Slopper declared himself much the better; while Mr. Poringer emptibu his glass without uttering a word, and walked stily homewards, looking as if he was discoursing inwardly in the strain of our army in Flanders. He would have been somewhat comforted, however, had he known of Mr. Driftwood's adBut these two were not the only spectators ventures. The unfortunate artist, in his gene who had assembled. It is surprising how infor- rous engerness to serve his friend, after walking mation of an interesting nature percolates. The some distance, became nervous as to time, and back-wall of the yard was very soon swarming called a cab. The horse was slow, the cabman with coachmen and stablemen from the mews be- crusty, and to complete: the calamity, a Tectotal hind several gentlemen's servants were show-procession thought fit to block up the street for a ing their heads above the side walls; and from considerable time. Driftwood jumped out in all a buz of criticism arose when the combatants despair, dived into the crowd, and like Milton's stripped, or, in technical language, peeled to the fiend, waist. Mr. Slopper was a well colored man, in comfortable condition, but not flabby, He had some good flesh and blood covering his bones, and looked as if he would take a considerable quantity of mauling before you got well into his ribs. His hands, however termed by the learn ed of a former day bunches of fives were the grand feature. They were immense hands; and when doubled up and wielded by a tall stout in dividual, like Mr. Slopper, appeared to be fit to one-two-three-four-five! bring down an ox Mr. Poringer was a spare, angular man, of a bluish-gray color. He looked like a porringer you might break bnt couldn't bruise; and being apparently built. like a Chinese-junk, in compartments-probably squareeven if broken, it would be only a local chip, not With head, hands, wings, or foot pursued his way. He was at length at Charing Cross; he was beyond Whitehall; a clock struck with a deep sonorous tone-Oh, to see the dial of the Horse Guards!-but it was hidden by the projecting parts of the building, and he could only count the strokes, his heart sinking at every clang " CHAPTER XXI. THE RESULT OF THE LETTER. IN the meantime, he whose interest was at stake, whose fortunes seemed to hang upon the fate of the battle, and to whose rescue the gener-simplicity of the veteran's contrivance. Surely ous artist hastened with the maddening slowness no less guileless human being could suppose it of a man ridden (so heavily by the nightmare that possible for him, who had no other friend in the he can only crawl when he fain would fly, was world, to be deceived by such a stratagem. But profoundly unconscious of every effort made to to accept a sum, the alienation of which would save or ruin him. Lord Luxton was in an agony reduce his only friend to almost absolute povof suspense, the very honor of his house, he erty in his old age, was not to be thought of; thought, depending upon the delay of the letter and with a swelling heart he proceeded at once and yet every now and then he felt a qualm of to the lawyer of Lincoln's Inn, not so much terror at the part he had himself played, and the to have his conviction confirmed as to the change of relations it might occasion between source of the money, as to ascertain how it could him and his indispensable; daughter. Claudia be, returned in safety to the donor. Being intiwas in a dream. the highest and grandest she had mately acquainted with the captain's affairs, he ever in her life indulged; but there were mo- knew that it was quite impossible for him to ments when the light forsook her eye and the have, raised such a sum otherwise than by the color her cheek, as some idea flashed across her sale of the house-property he possessed at the brain of the possibility of accident. Robert Common. His first question, therefore, had refalone was calm without hope and without fear.erence to this point, and he was astonished to He had seen Sara for the last time: the star of find everything in statu quo-that the captain's the Common, had set forever. He pursued the small fortune was untouched. business that was before him, however, with a dogged resolution, That very day he saw the master of the ship, in which he was to sail, with whom it was arranged, that he should render certain services in return for his passage. He would not spare himself even for an hour; but there are faculties that are not, entirely the slaves of the will; and when going homewards in the evening, he knew it would be vain to summon to the literary task before him those powers of invention and imagination, that are obedient only to the practised author and not always to him. He turned away, therefore, into one of the solitary roads of the outskirts, stretching into the country, where even the hum of the mighty city is unheard, and where he could watch unseen the trooping stars taking their places in the sky-no longer for counsel but for doom. When he reached home, everybody was in bed and after a few hours of rest, he got up and went forth again, before the other denizens of the house were astir It was a gray, chill morning, but before he had reached the Docks, the goal of his slow and solitary walk of many miles, the sun had already some power, and the busy popu: lation had come out like insects to creep, to toil, to gather, to buzz, to sting. A burning blush rose into the young man's face as he made this discovery. Sara was out of the question. Her whole property was only just enough to keep her in ordinary comfort; and a wild generosity like this would diminish it by much more than one-half, for in the present state of interest, such a sum could not be realized without a serious sacrifice. It had come, therefore, from the haughty Faleontowers! It was not an acknowledgment of his services, but an alms thrown disdainfully to his poverty. He was too mean and low, as they had told him undisguisedly, for the preferment they had intended for him, and this was the indemnification his taunts had extorted from their pride. Lord Luxton, he knew, was not at that hour at home. He. was at his club; and thither Robert bent his steps, with a rigid compression of his lips, and a fierce determination in his eye, which made the more nervous of the piétons shrink aside as he passed: Sending in his card from the anteroom, he determined to wait there, if it should be for hours, till the peer came forth. But his patience was not tried, for in a few minutes Lord Luxton sauntered into the room, with the newspaper in one hand, and his gold spectacles in the other. He bowed slightly and haughtily, and, without asking his visitor to be is the result?" After his business was finished, he turned his steps westward, and, more from habit than any-seated, said: thing else, called at Driftwood's studio in Jer- "You have come respecting the letter? What myn Street, where he had been accustomed to receive his letters, He expected no letters now, "That is the result!" replied Robert, putting however, his association with the world was at the bank-note into his hand. The peer stared. an end; and on being told that the artist was "Will you explain yourself?" said he. "If from home, he was turning listlessly away, when you have received the appointment I applied for the servant requested him to step in, saying that yesterday, well and good. If not, it is no fault she would bring him something that had come of mine that the application is too late, as the for him by post. He took the key of the studio ministry were unseated last night by mere accimechanically, let himself in, and the girl pres- dent. What is this?" and he looked at the val ently brought him a letter addressed in a hand uable document with a surprise that could not he was not acquainted with. It was a blank en-be mistaken. Robert was confounded. He velope with enclosure folded in blank paper; gazed into his ex-patron's eyes, and saw to the and this was a Bank-of-England note shallow bottom. There was no consciousness pounds. there. Lord Luxton obviously knew nothing of the money; and as for the appointment, that was a subject which Robert had dismissed from his mind, and he cared not a straw whether his lordship had spoken the truth respecting it or not. for one "I find I have made a mistake," said he; "the banknote I received an hour ago in a blank envelope, and I did you the injustice to suppose that you had taken this insulting mode of requiting the services you would not openly acknowledge. I beg your pardon, my lord-goodmorning." But as he was turning away, a new thought sent the blood once more to his brow. Claudia was generous-at times even nobleminded. Was it improbable-was it not certain -that on calm consideration she had taken a different view of the case from her father, and that she had had recourse to this truly womanlike contrivance to indemnify him, so far for his disappointment, without betraying her own agency? The idea led him into a train of thought which brought out, and rendered luminous, various individual points in her conduct and manner interesting to his self-esteem, but till now confounded with the general mass; and Robert even fancied at the moment, that as the door shut upon his last memorable leave-taking, he had heard, amid the sound, a calling voice that thrilled through his brain, not so much like a woman's, as resembling the cry of those -airy tongues that syllable men's names On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses! Lord Luxton looked keenly at his agitated visitors and the astute man of the world, instructed by his knowledge of the context of circumstances, read in his expression the new suspicion that had risen within his mind. "Stay," said he; "I think I can assist you in unravelling this matter. A few days ago, when Miss Falcontower was at my law agent's at Lincoln's Inn, she encountered the daughter or niece, or something, of the gentleman by whom you were educated; and she was informed by the solicitor, that he had very reluctantly, and not without strong remonstrance, taken orders to sell as much of that young person's little patrimony as would produce one thousand pounds." Robert sat suddenly down on a chair, for he felt as if about to fall; but when the peer, now at once reassured, stepped forward with real sympathy, he rose again as suddenly, smothering, with a mighty effort, a sob that swelled his chest almost to suffocation. "My lord," said he, "I have already asked your pardon for my unjust suspicion: I now thank you from the bottom of my soul. The information you have given me cancels the debt that was between us-Farewell!" and he left the room with a steady step. And this for me! said he to his own swelling heart, as he walked rapidly along the street-this for the outcast of the Common! My great, my noble Sara! And to think that the highest stretch of generosity I can make in requital, is to give her the pain of my rejecting her offered sacrifice, and then to desert her forever! In the midst of his reflections he found himself, he knew not why or how, again at the door of the studio, and again he was told of another postletter. It ran as follows: "DEAR BOB-You will be surprised to hear from me so soon-and perhaps you did not ex pect to hear from me at all. But I must write what I have to say in few words, or I shall never get through, for I am not used to it, and the pens are not so good now as we had them once on a day. Sara, besides, is not on any account to know of this, and the letter will be taken by myself to the post-office in the village-all on the sly. "The fact is, you must come down: if you leave England without doing so-if it is only for a day or two-I shall never be able to forgive you-at least, I don't think so. Nobody can make any hand of Sara but you, for Elizabeth and I are not up to her; and she has fallen into such a lucination-I think my sister calls it that-as would astonish you. Sara, you know, has a nice little property of her own, just enough to keep her comfortable, and no more; but although this makes her comparatively rich, for she had nothing to depend upon before but the poor little trifle of pocket-money I could afford, she seems to have all on a sudden taken it into her head, that instead of rising into independence, she has fallen into the depths of poverty. Of course, she knows to the contrary, and talks grandly enough of her little fortune; but I mean, she goes on as if she was desperately poor-and, in short, dearly as I love Sara, I cannot help seeing that riches, instead of opening her views, have made her a sort of a miser! "She is up with daylight, working, working, working, when there is no need for it now. The gowns, and ornaments, and things she bought in London, she has hidden away, or else she changed her mind before leaving town, and sold them again. The new piano she ordered, and was in such a mighty impatience about, insisting upon its being here as soon as ourselves, has never come to hand; and she has taken such an affection for the old one, that used to put Elizabeth, not to talk of Miss Heavystoke, out of temper, that she says she is glad the people have disappointed her. The old gowns she had condemned she is now furbishing up, and piecing and darning; and she has refused an invitation to the vicar's, Elizabeth thinks, to save the wear of her. evening-dress-if she has an evening-dress to wear. "So you see, Bob, you must come down, and take her roundly to task in your own way. The thing is very serious, I assure you; for this sort of lucination grows upon one, and I have heard of people starving themselves to death, when they might have eaten guineas by the hundred. The poor girl, besides, is in indifferent spirits, which I daresay is a symptom; although Mr. Seacole, who is here just now, does everything he can to amuse her, and sometimes takes her out to walk with him. Now do come, old fellow, for I am very uneasy. You know it was you who was Sara's master, not Miss Heavystoke; you taught her to think and feel differently from the other girls of the Common; and I am sure she wouldn't displease you in anything you were in earnest about, not for a thousand pound. So no more till we meet from Your old friend and fencing-master, NATHANIEL SEMPLE. "P.S.-I hope I have explained myself; but WEARYFOOT COMMON. "You see me now," said Robert, in an absent Sara reminds me in a very remarkable way of a |ness of mine to inquire, but I fear you are not so "Yes; but I ought by rights to have seen you hours ago, for I went up to Margery's on purpose as soon as it was light enough to find my way. Of course you were off. Your bed had lain in-I suppose for five minutes, at the time with morning which was which; and Margery when, as they say in the play, night was at odds was sure you would return to breakfast. Of This communication brought the nature of course you didn't; and then the old girl got the love-sacrifice still more vividly into view. alarmed, and went wringing her hands through A sum of money is a very indefinite fact, and is the house as if they were to be clear-starched, regarded differently by different minds; but here and said she was sure you were off to Austra we see stated distinctly the realities of which lia, just to dodge your destiny, escape the dethat is only in a vague and general sense the nouement, and break her heart. Well, well, I representative. Sara, by giving up her pecuniary hope the letter will make amends for all," and independence, had devoted herself for his sake he began to search the pockets of his coat seria"What letter?" demanded Robert. to a life of toil, retirement, poverty, and self-de-tim. "Oh, I'll tell you about that;" and he resumnial. She had relinquished the pleasures of "You must know I society, the triumphs of youth and beauty, the gratifications of taste-content with the secreted his gossipping attitude. enjoyment of having done so for him! Robert, looked into the Chequers yesterday, just to have when he had finished the letter, allowed it to a glance at the morning paper. Well, there were drop on the table, crushed his hands together as two individuals there, Mr. Poringer and Mr. if in an agony of physical pain, and stood Slopper; and I saw the former while the other trembling from head to foot like a girl. But the was out of the room, fumbling with the clockshy of talking to such persons, a modern master will of the man was strong, and his power putting it back, as it turned out. I am of course immense. To accept the sacrifice, and thus set the com- being in quite a different position; but you may fort and happiness of Sara's whole life upon the guess how I pricked up my ears when I gathercast, would be weakness or worse; to refuse it-ed from their conversation, that Mr. Slopper was to trust to the influence of years in calming the carrying a letter in your favor from the Falconregrets of her heart, and in the meantime to fling towers to the Home Office, and that Mr. Porinhimself headlong into the melee and strive des-ger was sent after him by Lord Luxton, without perately, franticly, with Fortune for her blessing, his daughter's knowledge, to prevent its delivery even as the patriarch of old strove with the angel before five o'clock. Upon this point the two inof the Lord-was demanded by stern, ruthless, dividuals quarrelled, and Mr. Slopper, if he had uncompromising principle. This hardness of not been on duty, would fain have had a tussle character, for so it must be termed, was perhaps with the enemy. I made a sign to him not to pardonable in him-the rescued vagrant-the balk his inclination; he understood what I would regenerated child of sin, gilt, and infamy-the be at; and, in short, when Mr. Poringer, with a refined and accomplished gentleman, whose heart was scared from boyhood with recollections that made him recoil with a shudder from the But we have lightest suspicion of dishonor. no intention to defend him. The human heart at the best presents a fearful spectacle; and few suspect the close and sisterly relationship that exists between the genii who govern it-Vice and Virtue. scornful look of defiance, left the room for the back-yard, he gave me the letter, and I ran with it like a lamplighter. Well, you see, after all I was too late." "Too late! Did you not talk of”— "Hush! hush! I was too late. And so""If you have a letter in reply, give it me instantly!" "Well, there it is: but don't put me out. It Whilst he was still in the midst of the agita- was after five before I reached the Home Office; tion of the conflict, the door of the studio sud- but seeing a gentleman coming down the steps, denly opened, and Mr. Driftwood almost totter-I put the despatch into his hand at a venture. inwardly shaking his head and bending his ed in, his face flushed, and his brow streaming He opened it, read it, and looked as if he was with perspiration. "Where's that boy?" cried he--" never mind!" brows; but there was another enclosed--adand he threw himself into the sitter's chair like a dressed in a lady's hand I could see-and when "Thank goodness!" he mut- he read that, he paused, hesitated, and then subsiding wave. tered "I could not have done twenty yards walked back into the office, desiring me to folmore for my life. Oaklands, this was unkind: low. In ten minutes I had the answer safe in my you young fellows never think of your friends. breast-pocket, and came off in triumph." Here I waited for you at Margery's last night for two the artist paused to observe his friend. Robert hours-I did, upon my honor: I hung on to the had rapidly glanced over the missive, and it was Where you could hard to tell at first the nature of the emotion it last drop of the half-pint. have been at so untimely an hour it is no busi-produced. But gradually the shock assumed the |