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Tag: J.F. Smith

  • J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Sixteenth Instalment

    J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Sixteenth Instalment

    Prior to the two Australian newspaper series we’re using to reconstruct The Mystery of the Marsh, the novel appeared serialized in the New York Ledger during the period December 1882 — March 1883. You may recall that Smith moved from Europe to the United States in 1870, residing there until his death in 1890. According to Montague Summers, the author of A Gothic Bibliography (1941; 1964), by that time Smith’s fortune was ‘wasted’, owing to his ‘too ample charities and generosity’, and he died ‘in obscurity, if not indeed in actual want.’

    During that period, Smith wrote original stories for the New York Ledger, a so-called ‘six-cent weekly’ offering diverse family entertainment, but catering mostly for a female readership, with an emphasis on romantic fiction (‘Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls’; Stanford U).

    In considering provenance, as tempting as it is to suggest that Mystery of the Marsh was first published in the New York Ledger, Summers cautions that in America Smith ‘republished many of his old tales and wrote some new romances the titles of which it is baffling to trace.’ The problem is exacerbated by the fact that many stories published in London were given no explicit byline, but rather advertised as ‘By the author of such-and-such.’ It would seem a fool’s errand to go wading through a morass of digitized newspapers in search of a serialized text whose author was unstated and title unsure.

    The copy referenced in the New York Ledger is itself  hard to access. Earhart and Jewell explain how

    While the works of major writers and periodicals are being digitized, there is limited funding for others. For example, scholars have no electronic or even microfilm access to the New York Ledger, the newspaper where Fanny Fern, among the most famous women writers in the nineteenth century, published her weekly columns from 1856 to 1872.

    The American Literature Scholar in the Digital Age, (U of Michigan P, 2011)

    There is little if any doubt, however, that the work is Smith’s own, given its style, catalogue attributions, and details of reference, some of which I’ve mentioned in previous notes. It seems to me that, in one sense, while we cannot know exactly when the work first appeared, such a limitation adds a certain interest to the work, being a function of the channels and technologies of the text’s transmission.

    More on technicalities in a later post. For the time being, let us leave them behind and turn to the pleasure of the text. In this week’s chapter, the Paris duel and its aftermath; and some dubious characters find themselves ensnared. This instalment’s featured image shows a daytime view of one of the ‘alleys’ of the Luxembourg where the duel is fought.

    CHAPTER SIXTEEN

    Result of the Duel — The Victor and his Friends Make Good their Retreat to London — Lord Bury Once More in the Country — Plot and Counterplot

    On reaching the alley of the Luxembourg — the one skirted by the dead wall in which Marshal Ney was shot for his fidelity to the first Napoleon, and truth compels us to add, undoubted treason to Louis the Eighteenth — the late revellers, their eyes still sparkling under the influence of the wine cup, advanced with a confident if not cheerful air, followed by the three Englishman, whose demeanor appeared far more serious.

    Allée au jardin du Luxembourg, Vincent van Gogh, 1886

    At a distance, but out of sight, Monsieur Vezin, with several agents of police, were on their track. The clever detective had received not only his reward, but instructions. If Lord Bury fell, he was to take no steps against the liberty of his antagonist. If Clarence succumbed, he was not to use the information he had obtained or arrest him. The only circumstances under which the last step would be taken — his refusal to fight — did not seem likely to occur; he was already on the ground.

    Although little more than boys in years, the students were men of the world as far as the punctilios of the duel are concerned. They had secured the services of a surgeon on their way to the Luxembourg, measured the ground with mathematical exactness, and placed the pistol in the hands of their principal.

    It had been agreed that the combatants should fire together.

    The fall of the handkerchief was followed by the instantaneous discharge of the weapons. Lord Bury still stood erect, although the ball of Clarence had slightly grazed his temple. Marsham lay senseless on the ground, bleeding from a severe wound in his throat.

    The surgeon approached, looked in his face, and shook his head gravely. Despite the semi-Bohemian life he led, he was a man of honor. Turning to the English group, he said:

    ‘You had better retire, gentlemen, and provide for your safety. The result threatens to be serious, and the government of the day sets its face against duelling.’

    Captain Seymour had taken the precaution of keeping the carriage waiting at the gate of the Luxembourg. In less than an hour Bury and his friends had quitted Paris and were on their way to the nearest frontier town in Belgium.

    Monsieur Vezin took care they were not too closely followed.

    Meanwhile Marsham had been taken back to his hotel, and further surgical assistance sent for.

    * * *

    Tact is one of those qualities which some men are born with; few things are more difficult to acquire. Experience can only partially supply its absence. It lacks the smoothness, the ready spontaneity of the former; then it sometimes blunders, which tact carefully avoids.

    ‘Here, you girls,’ exclaimed Sir George Meredith, handing the “Morning Post” — the fashionable journal of the day — to his daughter as they sat at luncheon, ‘see if you can solve this riddle. I can make nothing of it.’

    Clara addressed herself to the paragraph in the “Morning Post,” and had not proceeded far before a deadly paleness overspread her countenance, and she fell, half-fainting, from her chair.

    With the assistance of Lady Kate and Rose Neville, who were staying at the Hall, the housekeeper and female servants conveyed the deeply agitated girl to her own room. A groom was dispatched to the nearest physician by her half distracted parent, who at intervals stood puzzling his brains as to the cause of the sudden attack. Slowly the perception dawned upon his mind that something in the “Post” had occasioned it

    Snatching up the paper, he perused the paragraph a second time. For the benefit of our readers we shall transcribe it :

    ‘Paris. — Duel in High Life. — On the l8th instant a hostile meeting took place in the garden of the Luxembourg, between Captain Lord B—, of the Guards, and Lieutenant M—-, whose late retirement from the service caused considerable comment in fashionable circles. Both the combatants wore wounded; his lordship in the temple; his antagonist far more seriously in the throat. His life, we hear, is despaired of.’

    What renders the affair still more distressing is the fact of the father of Lord B— being married to the mother of the gentleman whose life is despaired of.

    ‘B stands for Bury,’ muttered the baronet, after reading the paragraph a second and third time. ‘He would never be such a fool as to call Marsham to account, and yet M— designates the rascal clearly enough.’

    ‘But why should Clara faint on reading the news?’ he added.

    Glancing his eyes once more over the journal, he detected a paragraph which had escaped his attention:

    ‘Lord Bury, we are happy to hear, has arrived safely from Paris, and is now staying with his regiment at Knightsbridge.’

    And a little lower down he read:

    ‘Viscount and Viscountess Allworth left town last night for the continent. The state of Mr. M— is considered hopeless.’

    ‘Served the rascal right, if it is really the man I suspect,’ said Sir George, by way of comment. ‘But I have no time to think of him. My mind is occupied with Clara. What could her fainting mean?’

    The speaker paced the apartment for several minutes. A smile at last appeared upon his honest countenance.’ An idea had struck him — one that, we shrewdly suspect, has already occurred to our readers.

    ‘If it should be so,’ he muttered, ‘I have a great mind to write and remind him of his promised visit. But first for the “Morning Post.”‘

    Carefully marking the two last bits of gossip, he directed the housekeeper to convey the paper to Lady Kate Kepple.

    ‘A clever girl that,’ he thought. ‘She will know what I mean. Girls understand each other.’

    Two hours elapsed before his niece made her appearance. She entered the room with a smiling face that boded favourable intelligence of the patient.

    ‘Clara is much better!’ she exclaimed. ‘Quite recovered from her fainting fit. The heat of the weather. Nothing serious.’

    ‘No doubt’ of it,’ replied the baronet. ‘I felt it myself. Dreadfully warm.’

    The morning had been a frosty one. The speakers looked in each other’s face, and laughed. A sense of the ridiculous had struck them both.

    ‘Sir George,’ observed the young lady, regarding him archly, ‘are you aware that you are a very deceitful, treacherous old gentleman?’

    ‘Treacherous and deceitful!’ exclaimed her relative. ‘What can you mean?’

    ‘Exactly what I said,’ answered Kate; ‘and you know it. But we will not discuss the question. It can do no good. If I had a secret,’ she added, ‘I should be very careful how I gave you a clue to it.’

    ‘All girls have their secret,’ observed the father of Clara, playfully, ‘and I feel certain that you are no exception to the rule, for you have a heart.’

    Lady Kate coloured to the temples.

    ‘So you may just as well confess it,’ added the speaker.

    ‘When I have,’ she answered laughingly, as she quitted the room, ‘I will come to you for advice; but not till then.’

    The worthy baronet felt particularly well satisfied with himself. He had acted most diplomatically; conveyed the information he wished to his daughter without permitting his suspicions as to the cause of her illness to appear.

    That same day he wrote to his nephew, alluded frankly to the reports he had read, and asked him candidly how much truth he was to attribute to them. He concluded the letter by reminding him of his promised visit to the country.

    That will do,’ he said, after reading  it  twice; ‘must not appear too pressing. Clara would never forgive me. I wish she were well married.’

    ‘Just the thing,’ thought his lordship, on perusing the invitation. ‘A few weeks rest will be welcome to me. I wonder if Clara knew of her father’s writing. Don’t be conceited, Bury,’ he added, smiling to himself;  ‘even if she does know of it, it means nothing. What more natural? It must be awfully dull in the country.’

    Ten days later he was on his way to Norfolk, but not alone. Tom Randal accompanied him in the character of his valet.

    It is the privilege of every officer in the army to take one man from his regiment to act as a servant, not that the young guardsman had the slightest intention of entrusting his person to the care of the rustic lover of the pretty Phoebe, who, excited by the hope of meeting his sweetheart again, and, if possible, shaking her resolution, forgot all about his determination of wearing no other livery than that of his country.

    ‘Tom,’ said his captain, when everything was settled; ‘we travel in mufti.’

    Mufti, in military parlance, means plain clothes.

    ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ continued the speaker, ‘but you can wear your uniform only on Sundays; weekdays you will have to dress in –‘

    ‘Your Lordship’s livery,’ interrupted the farmer’s son, in a tone of wounded pride.

    The officer fixed his eyes keenly upon him.

    ‘You deserve that I should say yes, for doubting me,’ he replied. ‘Do you think I could humiliate you? I had no other means of obtaining your temporary leave of absence, or I would have tried it. Take that card, Tom, to my tailor. He will supply you with plain clothes that will not disgrace your father’s son — and on Sundays you may break the hearts of half the village girls by wearing your uniform — and a deuced fine fellow you look in it.’

    ‘Phœbe,’ he added, ‘will scarcely be able to resist it.’

    Needless to say, poor Tom Randal was profuse in his gratitude. At the appointed time they started on their journey.

     * * *

    Like a solitary spider in its web, Mr. Brit, senior, sat alone in his chambers. The clerks had quitted at the usual hour, but their employer remained under pretence of having important papers to look through; but in reality to hold a meeting with his agent and confederate, the money lender.

    Benoni, who, whilst seeming attentive only to his duties, had eyes and ears for everything that transpired, was not deceived by their ruse. He had already acquired one piece of practical knowledge in his new profession — that the last thing a lawyer gives is his reason for any act. He prefers putting forth the pretence. Instead of returning as his fellow clerks did, to his lodgings, he resolved to remain in the neighbourhood of the Old Jury and watch the proceedings of his employer.

    To this degrading action he was impelled by a double motive  — curiosity and fear. The allurements of London had already proved too much for him; he had yielded to their blandishments and plunged, without making any real resistance, into a career of vice. As is usual in such cases, the first false step forced on a second. To supply the means of extravagance, the unfortunate youth had appropriated a check, left by a country client in settlement of an account; and even that was not the worst — he had endorsed it with his employer’s name.

    No wonder the possible consequence of this rash act haunted him. He saw but one way of escaping from it — discovering something so damaging to the reputation of the pious Mr. Brit that might in turn place that gentleman in his power.

    It was a terrible game of see-saw Benoni was playing. At one end of the balance stood the hangman with his rope; at the other, even if he succeeded, shame and exposure.

    The odds were desperately in favor of the elder rogue.

    Benoni had concealed himself in a dark, narrow passage, bordered by dirty, gloomy-looking houses. At night the passage was a solitude; few except the hungry and destitute invaded it — or the criminal.

    After standing two hours upon the watch, a prey to his remorseful fears, the concealed spy saw the old money lender, Moses, glide like a shadow from his own den to that of the respectable Mr. Brit.

    ‘Something,’ he thought, ‘but not sufficient. If I could but overhear their conversation.’

    Whilst he stood puzzling his fevered brain to contrive the means, two men, who, from the bottom of the passage, had been watching his proceedings, crept stealthily towards him. They were meanly dressed, their faces partially hid by high shirt collars, then just coming into vogue, and long woollen wrappers twisted loosely round their necks.

    No echoing footfall gave warning of their approach. A cloak was thrown suddenly over the head of the spy, who felt himself dragged still farther into the passage, then down a short flight of steps, leading, as he rightly conjectured, to the basement of one of the houses.

    The prisoner, who had never been remarkable for courage, believing himself to have fallen into the hands of justice, fainted.

    On recovering his senses he found himself seated in an arm chair, his arms bound, and the cloak still over his face. Certain animals, we are told, when closely pressed by the hunter, will pretend to be dead. Benoni was not much of a naturalist, but he had read the Greek fable, and, although restored to consciousness, made up his mind to act the insensible.

    He was rewarded by hearing the following conversation between his captors:

    ‘I tell you,’ said the tallest of the two, ‘it is useless to trust him. He has not the courage of a hare. Can’t you see what a miserable cur he is?’

    ‘But he is cunning,’ replied a thin, squeaking voice, which the listener thought he recognised.

    ‘What security will his cunning give for his fidelity?’

    ‘None; but I have a better than that — his neck.’

    The tall man repeated the words.

    ‘Yes,’ continued the former speaker. ‘He has committed a breach of trust; forged old Brit’s name to a check; no great amount, but sufficient to hang him. The warrant is out.’

    Benoni with difficulty suppressed a groan.

    ‘On his return to his lodgings he will be arrested.’

    At this revelation the prisoner experienced a fresh access of terror. His limbs trembled in every joint, and, yet faithful to the part he was acting, he gave no signs of consciousness till the cloak had been removed and a glass of cold water dashed in his face, when he opened first one eye, then the other, and stared languidly round the room.

    ‘Ah, Wickwar,’ he said, In a faint tone, ‘is that you?’

    ‘In person,’ chuckled the man.

    ‘Always playing some practical joke.’

    ‘You will find it no joke,’ observed the squeaking voice, dryly.

    Benoni recognised in its answer the confidential clerk of Mr. Moses, the money-lender, and experienced an unpleasant choking sensation at his throat.

    ‘Look you,’ continued the speaker. ‘I don’t know that I am much better than you are — only a little more prudent. My employer has no hold on me. Yours has upon you. I have engaged myself to serve this gentleman, who has fallen into the hands of our masters, who are great rogues, but exceedingly clever ones. I am bound to carry out my promise. Now, if you could undertake to guide him to a place of safety, perhaps — mind, I only say perhaps — I might connive at your escaping with him. Do you know of such a place?’

    ‘I do!’ exclaimed Benoni, eagerly. ‘A retreat where the staunchest bloodhounds of the law would not attempt to penetrate.’

    ‘Is it far from London?’

    ‘Thirty miles.’

    ‘By land or water?’

    ‘Much the same either way,’ was the reply. ‘But by water would be safest. What day is it?’

    ‘Thursday.’

    ‘Then I am certain I could perform my promise,’ observed Benoni. ‘There will be boats in the river laden with wild fowl, game and spirits. Four hours’ sharp rowing will land us safely in the Bittern’s Marsh.’

    After a few whispered words between the two men the proposal was agreed to.

    ‘Listen to me,’ said the eldest. ‘Guide me safely to the place you name, and you will not only secure your own safety, but a handsome reward. Attempt to betray me, and I will  blow your brains out. I will not be taken alive.’

    To prove this threat was not an idle one, he drew from his pocket a pair of pistols.

    The three speakers quitted the basement together.

    At the entrance of the passage Wickwar gave a low whistle, and presently a dingy looking cab was seen driving along the Old Jury. Benoni and the tall man entered it, when it immediately drove off. The money-order clerk stood watching it as it disappeared.

    ‘The fools!’ he muttered to himself. ‘Bully and coward — they are well matched.’

    Waiting till the rattle of the wheels ceased to be heard, the schemer crossed rapidly to the other side of the streets and began groping his way in the dark up the stairs leading to the chamber of the respectable Mr. Brit.

    It was no part of that gentleman’s policy — all lawyer’s are gentlemen by act of Parliament — to drive the fugitive, who was no other than their dupe Burcham, out of the country, but to frighten him into some place of concealment where he could communicate neither with friends nor receive advice. The transactions with his dupe through his agent, Moses, had been most profitable, and promised to be more so, but he well knew they could not bear the light. It was with this view the scene we have described had been enacted.

    Needless to add that Wickwar was in the plot.

    ‘Capital, my dear fellow, capital!’ said the lawyer, in a tone of satisfaction, when the last-named personage entered the chambers. ‘Could not have done it better myself.’

    ‘Peautiful!’ exclaimed the Jew. You think he will be quite safe?’

    ‘As in the grave,’ answered the clerk, confidently. ‘Few,’ he added, have ever escaped from the Bittern’s Marsh.’

    This edition © 2019 Furin Chime, Michael Guest

    Notes and References

    he had read the Greek fable: Seems to be Aesop’s fable of the cat and the mice.

    Mufti, in military parlance, means plain clothes: See Hobson-Jobson: a glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive by Sir Henry Yule et al (London: Murray, 1903). Jump to page on Internet Archive.

    Luxembourg Gardens and Latin Quarter locations:

    Montague Summers. A Gothic Bibliography. NY: Russell & Russell, 1964 (1941). Jump to page on Internet Archive.

  • J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Fifteenth Instalment

    J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Fifteenth Instalment

    The scene shifts to Paris, where Smith can draw upon his youthful experience of bohemian life in the Latin Quarter.  A character in our upper echelon has gone there to take care of some … unfinished business — of the serious kind. Here we meet a new brand of character, a detective by the name of Monsieur Vezin. Although, while in the process of introducing him Smith alludes to Poe (1809–49), this Vezin is hardly the stature of the brilliant Le Chevalier Auguste Dupin — the world’s first fictional detective — of The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter. One has only to look at his coarse, mercenary nature and how he snaps up such a mundane mission. Dupin would never lower himself.

    In saying so, I don’t mean to detract from Smith. On the contrary, his subtle realistic approach compares favourably with Poe’s spectacle and artifice, as entertaining as these are in their own right. (An escaped orangutan did it?!)

    Smith’s seemingly gratuitous reference to Poe is complicated, but worth a few minutes trying to untangle. The historical Duchess de Berry (Maria Carolina Ferdinanda Luise; 1798–1870) is famous for her intrigue against Louis Philippe I, King of France, in whose place she aimed to ‘restore’ her son Henri as the legitimate descendant of the overthrown Bourbon dynasty.  In an incident well-known in the history of cryptography, she sent an encrypted letter to a group of anti-monarchists in Paris, advising them she had arrived in order to mount the insurrection. Unfortunately, she forgot to supply them with the cipher-key (the key explaining which ciphers in the message correspond to which letters of the alphabet).

    It was the great politician and orator, the lawyer Pierre-Antoine Berryer, who reputedly worked out the key — definitely not a detective named Vezin. Poe used the idea in his story The Gold-bug, where the plot turns on deciphering an encoded message just as Berryer did. On the other hand, this particular letter of the Duchess’ doesn’t seem to have been ‘compromising’ as such. Perhaps Smith mixes in a vague allusion to Poe’s ‘purloined letter’, since its disclosure ‘would bring in question the honor of a personage of most exalted station’ (Poe, PL).

    Later in the chapter, out of the blue, Smith makes further reference to the absence of a figurative ‘key’, this time in the form of a Latin quotation: ‘nil nisi clavis [deest]’ (‘nothing is wanting but the key’), an arcane Masonic catechism. Does he mean to imply, more broadly, that there exists a missing master-key to some overarching mystery? Shades of Umberto Eco. Is it for the reader, or yet for the author himself to uncover?

    And we notice the echoing of names and identities. ‘Marsham’ has become ‘Marsh’, recalling the eponymous Bittern’s Marsh. We have ‘Lord Bury’, the alluded ‘Duchess of Berry’ and ‘Berryer’. Don’t tell me something is going to be found buried in the marsh?

    Yet the substance of the story unfolds in a straightforward, naturalistic fashion, without a defined, singular, impelling mystery. It is as though the entry of the Poe-esque character, Vezin, acts as a stimulus for ideas that are more characteristic of the Dupin-style of detective fiction, the precursor to the twentieth-century mystery genre. Many incidents in Smith’s novel have a ‘mystery’ or unknown quantity attached to them, waiting to be revealed: boys who turn out to be girls; dark plots; characters with obscure histories in the marsh; and those who have disappeared back into the Bittern’s Marsh …

    Naturally enough, the contemporary reader cannot expect it to conform to a modern mystery. But nevertheless, the conventions of the genre may skew one’s expectations.

    CHAPTER FIFTEEN

    A Glance at Paris — The Avenger on the Track — Students’ Orgie — Preliminaries of a Duel

    When Lord Bury started for France it was with the full intention of calling Clarence Marsham to account for his unmanly conduct to Lady Kate.

    Our traveller’s first halting-place was Paris. It was not his lordship’s first visit to the gay metropolis of our Gallic neighbors. He had been there twice before; seen something of its dissipations, without plunging over head and ears into them. Escaped from the fire, in fact, with only a few feathers singed.

    Faithful to the object of his journey, knowing the character and habits of the man he sought, he frequented once more the scenes he had formerly visited. They failed, however, to attract him. His mind had acquired a more manly tone.

    Paris, Grands Boulevards 1860. Etching

    It is astonishing how soon a naturally healthy appetite sickens of the sugared dainties of our youth.

    Not having discovered Clarence Marsham where he thought he would be found, Lord Bury addressed himself first to the English embassy; next to the prefecture of the police. Neither of them could afford the information be required. No passport in the name of Marsham had been viséd at either place.

    Travelling with a Secretary of State’s passport, which the English Government grants only to the favourite few, his lordship had been received with great civility by the authorities, who really felt anxious to oblige him.

    As he was leaving the prefecture — it was his third visit — a little old man, who had very much the air of a retired grocer or small shopkeeper, addressed him, and after a profusion of bows, such as Frenchmen alone know how to make, blandly inquired if he could be of any service.

    ‘I fear not,’ was the reply. ‘I have already had two interviews with the minister of police, who assures me that everything has been done that could be done.’

    ‘Officially?’ inquired the old man.

    ‘Of course.’ The querist smiled sarcastically. There was an expression of something very like contempt in his small, twinkling grey eyes at the obtuseness of the Englishman that roused the anger of the latter, who asked himself if the Frenchman had played with or been mocking him. Monsieur Vezin noticed this, and hastened to dissipate it.

    ‘No, no, my lord,’ he said, eagerly. ‘The prefect of the police can have no interest in deceiving you. What I meant was simply this: Official investigations are not always the most satisfactory. They have so much to attend to.’

    The traveller naturally felt surprised at finding his thoughts so accurately interpreted, and eyed the speaker more closely.

    ‘You know me?’ he observed.

    The detective smiled.

    ‘I know everyone who comes to Paris in his own name and with a legitimate passport,’ he replied. ‘And those who do not, I know where to find them.’

    ‘Who are you, sir?’

    ‘I am Vezin.’

    I know not whether it tells in their favour or not as a people, but the French have long been celebrated for the marvellous astuteness of their police. It is a speciality, and they are proud of it. And yet, singular contradiction, the humblest tradesman or mechanic would consider himself insulted by being taken for a member of it. Hint to a Frenchman of the middle classes that his morals are loose, he will only laugh at you. Accuse him of untruthfulness, he merely shrugs his shoulders. Call him a spy, and he is ready to fight you.

    Lord Bury was no stranger to the name of the detective. It was of European reputation, although he had not yet made the famous stroke by which he discovered the compromising letter of the Duchess de Berry, which the American poet, Poe, has made such a clever use of.

    ‘It is not the means I should prefer,’ he thought, but Clarence Marsham has left me no other.’

    Turning to the old man, he added, aloud:

    ‘I think, Monsieur, that you can be of use to me.’

    Vezin bowed.

    ‘This is no place for confidence,’ continued the speaker. ‘Follow me to my hotel, where we can converse more freely.’

    ‘With pleasure, my lord.’

    Once seated at the Bristol — the then fashionable hotel — his lordship described his anxiety to discover the whereabouts of Clarence Marsham, but not his motives; in this he was wrong. A detective is something like a confessor — he should be trusted with everything or nothing. The young Englishman ought to have understood this — perhaps he did — but his pride revolted at the thought of painting one so nearly connected with him in his true colours.

    Monsieur Vezin looked puzzled — just sufficiently to justify his asking a few questions.

    ‘Very clear,’ he said;  ‘in fact, perfectly lucid; still in certain cases we require an excess of light. Has the Englishman — I wish to put it as delicately as possible, done anything to render him amenable to the laws?’

    ‘His offence is a social one,’ was the evasive answer.

    ‘And you are in Paris to call him to an account?’ continued the former. ‘You need not reply. I can read the intention in your flashing eyes. I have nothing to do with that. If Mr. Clarence Marsham is in Paris I pledge my reputation to discover his retreat — but it will cost both time and money.’

    ‘You shall have no cause to complain,’ observed Lord Bury, haughtily. ‘Find his address, that is all I ask. You may leave the rest to me.’

    Monsieur Vezin thought so too.

    Three days after the above conversation the detective made his appearance at the Hotel Bristol again;  his employer saw by his eyes that he had been successful.

    ‘Well?’ he exclaimed eagerly.

    ‘I am on the track my lord.’

    ‘Pshaw! Only on the track?’

    ‘That is something,’ observed Monsieur Vezin, quietly; ‘a pledge that I shall run him to earth, as your fox-hunting countrymen say. There is but one difficulty. He has a Secretary of State’s passport,’ he added, significantly, ‘in the name of Marsh.’

    ‘My father must have procured it for him,’ thought Lord Bury, bitterly.

    ‘That there may be no errors,’ continued his visitor, ‘I have called to consult with you before I proceed any further.’

    ‘Not for the world!’ exclaimed his lordship, eagerly. ‘Leave him to me.’

    ‘He has signed a false name.’

    ‘With no political or fraudulent intentions. I can answer for that.’

    ‘Still it is a serious offence by the laws of France. I ought to arrest him.’

    ‘Come, come, Monsieur Vezin,’ said the Englishman, forcing a smile. ‘You are, I am convinced, too gallant a gentleman’ — the word gentleman stuck in his throat — ‘not to appreciate the difficulty in which such a step would place me; my honour and courage might be suspected — the world would suppose that I feared to meet him.’

    ‘It is possible,’ observed the Frenchman, musingly.

    ‘Of course it is,’ said his employer. ‘Let us see if duty or sentiment cannot hit upon a compromise.’

    A compromise was hit upon. Needless to say, it took a tangible shape, and the following agreement made: At an early hour the following morning, Monsieur Vezin was to accompany Lord Bury and two of his English friends, to point out the house in the students’ quarters where Clarence Marsham had taken up his abode. If he accepted the duel, well, the police would wink at its taking place. If he refused, they were at once to arrest him.

    ‘I shall be sure to hit him,’ thought his lordship, as he quitted his hotel in search of a second.

    The detective muttered something very similar as he walked towards the prefecture of police; to be sure, the words were somewhat different.

    ‘He means mischief. I can see it in his eyes,’ he said. ‘Bah! What is it to me if one English dog shoots another? — a troublesome affair off my mind, even if I am well paid for it.’

    ‘The Latin Quarter of Paris has a type apart from the rest of  the pleasure-loving city. It is the centre of Bohemian life in all its varieties. Students, grisettes, dealers in books, old coins, bric-a-brac, antique furniture, costumes and armor, indispensable accessories of the painter’s studio, locate themselves chiefly in the street of the Ancient Comedy, where the once celebrated Cafe Procope still. opens wide its doors. The brilliant galaxy, Balzac, Lamartine, dear old Béranger, Victor Hugo, have long since disappeared from the busy stage of Parisian life.

    Student life in the Latin Quarter has changed but little. Its amusements, occupations, habits, vices, and, let us add, virtues, are still pretty much the same as when the author shared it some fifty years ago. A little study, great extravagance, loyal generosity to a comrade in distress, a rude sense of honor where their own sex are concerned, a general disregard of it towards the weaker and more helpless one.

    Street in Latin Quarter, 1862, photograph, Charles Marville. Source: nga.gov

    The houses occupied by the students are exceedingly numerous. The steady ones board; the pleasure-seeking merely lodge in them. Each set of rooms is a separate fortress; their occupants band in strict alliance for self-defence.

    In the middle ages, the members of the university braved the crown — frequently gave laws to it. At the present day they brave only the police, unless a revolution happens to be upon the tapis; then something like their old spirit returns to them.

    In the street of the Ancient Comedy stands a large hotel which, for nearly a century, has been a favorite abode with the semi-Bohemian race we have just described. On the first floor of the building, Clarence Marsham — or rather Clarence Marsh, as his passport designated him — had engaged one of the most roomy and best apartments. Compared with his neighboring lodgers, his surroundings might be termed luxurious; still they were a sad falling off from the regimental club and the splendors of Allworth House. The youthful profligate did not, however, regret the change very much. In Paris he had found what he deemed compensation in the alluring pleasures of the French metropolis.

    Although his mother had reduced his allowance by one half, Clarence Marsham appeared a veritable Crœsus to his new acquaintances, who ate his suppers, drank his wines, and occasionally borrowed a few francs from him. Not that he was by any means a generous lender; it was a tax he had to pay, and he paid it grudgingly.

    Our roué, who was fast gliding into the habits and manners of his new associates, had invited some half dozen of them to a late breakfast in his rooms. Amongst others were Duhammel, the son of a rich notary; Alfred Oufroy, of an old Norman family; Alphonse Dubarry; St. Ange, brother to the great advocate, — all of them giddy, pleasure loving youths, but extremely sensitive on the one great point of French honor — courage.

    As for morals, in the strict sense of the word, we fear they scoffed at them.

    From Scenes de la vie de boheme (1850), Henri Murger, illustr. Maurice Berty.
    From La Vie de Boheme (1850), Henri Murger, illustr. Maurice Berty.

    The revel was at its height — continued from the orgies of the preceding night — orgies which we cannot take upon ourselves to describe, even if we had the inclination. Glasses were drained, plans for fresh dissipations laid out, and vows of eternal friendship — false as dicers’ oaths — exchanged.

    One instant, bursts of equivocal jest; the next, the half-drunken madcaps broke into one of their student songs — honoured traditions in the Latin Quarter. Their fathers and grandfathers most probably, had sung them under similar circumstances, with the same noisy accompaniments of jingling glasses and rattling of forks and knives.

    Brother students, we are met for mirth and delight,
    And joy the bright goblet of Bacchus shall fill;
    For though woman, dear women, be absent to-night,
    The spell of her beauty is over us still.
    ‘Twas wisely decreed by our masters of old,
    To refuse them degrees, ‘spite entreaties and sighs;
    For once in our halls they would rule uncontrolled,
    And govern each class by the light of their eyes.
    Then think not in Bacchus alone we delight,
    And seek but the cup of the wine-god to fill:
    For though woman, dear woman, be absent to-night,
    The spell of her beauty is over us still.

    The cheers which followed the song and chorus had barely subsided when Monsieur Bellot, the proprietor of the hotel, entered the room. His appearance was hailed by the revellers with bursts of laughter and applause. Clarence insisted on his drinking a glass of champagne in honor of his guests. The Frenchman bowed, swallowed the wine, then gravely informed the host that three gentlemen were in the ante-room who insisted on seeing him.

    The young Englishman looked disconcerted. The recollection of the false passport, and his assumed name, suggested suspicions of the police.

    ‘Who are they?’ he demanded after a pause. ‘Frenchmen?’

    ‘No,’ replied Mons. Bellot, ‘Englishmen. I can swear to that. But their cards,’ he added, at the same time, ‘will doubtless inform you of the purport of their visit.’

    The roué read the names of three officers of Lord Bury’s regiment. His enemy had found him.

    ‘Yes, certainly!’ exclaimed the latter, enforcing a laugh to conceal his embarrassment. ‘They are old friends, show them in.’

    The students noticed with surprise that the three Englishmen, when they entered the room, instead of rushing to their host, embracing him, and indulging in a succession of gyrations which it would puzzle a mathematician to describe, bowed stiffly, and the eldest one, advancing towards Clarence, requested the favour of a private conversation with him.

    ‘A duel,’ whispered Oufroy.

    Duhammel thought it looked very like one.

    ‘How odd these islanders are,’ added a third student. ‘Three seconds to carry one message. But, nil nisi clavis, we have not the key of the enigma yet.’

    ‘You may speak before these gentlemen,’ exclaimed Marsham, in a tone of bravado, trusting that his guests would stand by him.

    ‘Tiens!’ said one of them. ‘The insular appears civilised.’

    Considering that barely four years had elapsed since the battle of Waterloo had been fought, this was rather a handsome admission for a Frenchman to make.

    ‘My Lord Bury,’ said the second, ‘feeling deeply insulted in his honour and personal dignity by the conduct of Mr. Marsh’– he gave him his assumed name — ‘towards a lady whose name it would be indelicate to mention, demands immediate satisfaction for the outrage.’

    Although Clarence was not particularly brave, he was far from being, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, a coward. He knew that his lordship was a dead shot, and began to reflect whether some means might not be found to avoid the meeting. What made the affair more difficult was the Englishman had delivered his message in excellent French.

    ‘Mon Dieu!’ whispered Oufroy in his ear. ‘What are you hesitating about?’

    ‘Looking for his lost courage,’ suggested another of the students.

    Clarence turned towards them, his mind being made up at last.

    ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you are, I believe, all of you, my excellent good friends.’

    To this there succeeded a dead silence His guests were waiting.

    ‘I am placed in a position of extreme delicacy,’ added the speaker, ‘and solicit your advice, pledging myself, of course, to act on it.’

    At this there was a faint murmur of approval.

    ‘The gentleman who has challenged me is so nearly related to me that I hesitate about accepting the provocation.’

    ‘Is he a brother?’ asked Duhammel, the oldest of the Frenchmen present.

    ‘No. His father is the husband of my mother.’

    An ironical smile — in fact, it amounted almost to a sneer — curled the lips of the students, who unanimously assured the speaker that so slight a degree of relationship presented no obstacle to his accepting the duel.

    ‘Curse them!’ muttered Clarence to himself. ‘I am in for it.’ Speaking aloud he added: ‘Thanks, gentlemen; you have relieved my mind of a painful doubt. Perhaps you will arrange the time and place of meeting with my adversary?’

    ‘It must be instantly,’ observed Captain Seymour, the name of the messenger. ‘His lordship is waiting in the Alley of the Luxembourg, hard by.’

    ‘Is the offence so deadly?’ asked Duhammel.

    ‘Most deadly,’ was the reply. Walking close to Clarence, he whispered in his ear: ‘Choose at once ‘between the satisfaction demanded or being arrested, dragged through the streets of Paris, for travelling under a false name and passport.’

    ‘And can you reconcile to yourselves turning informers?’

    ‘Under ordinary circumstances, certainly not; but by violating the laws of honor you have placed yourself beyond the pale of society. The police are already in the hotel, ready to arrest you. The exposure once made, his friends cannot permit Lord Bury to meet you.’

    ‘And shall I fall?’

    ‘You need not trouble yourself for any after results,’ observed Captain Seymour, dryly.

    ‘Should I be the victor?’ added Clarence.

    ‘In that case,’ remarked the former, ‘neither my brother officers nor myself will feel called upon .to denounce you.’

    Cornered at every point, the cowardly insulter of Lady Kate resolved to take the desperate chance. Walking to the table he tossed off in succession two or three glasses of wine; then, turning to his student friends, exclaimed, in an almost joyous tone:

    ‘I am ready.’

    The former had already supplied themselves with both swords and pistols, that the principal might have the choice of weapons on the ground.

    ‘And now, gentlemen, where to?’ inquired Duhammel.

    ‘To the garden of the Luxembourg,’ answered Captain Seymour, gravely.

    A few minutes later the speakers passed by the Odeon, where a bal masque had been held the preceding night. Several of the students who had attended it recognised Clarence and his friends as they passed them.

    Death and dissipation jostled each other on the street. They are old acquaintances, and a familiar nod was all that seemed necessary.

    This edition © 2019 Furin Chime, Michael Guest

    Notes, References, Further Reading

    orangutan: To counterbalance my glib comment, see Sydney Lévy, ‘Why an Ourang-Outang? Thinking and Computing with Poe‘, at Épistémocritique: Littérature et savoirs.

    orgie: Fr. orgy

    grisette: ‘1. A young French working-class woman; 2. A young woman combining part-time prostitution with some other occupation.’ Merriam-Webster.

    upon the tapis: from Fr. ‘sur le tapis’ = ‘on the carpet’; in the context, ‘on the table-cloth’, or ‘under consideration’, as in the English idiom ‘on the table’.

    Crœsus: King of Lydia, 560–547 BCE, whose riches came from gold in the sands of the River Pactolus, where King Midas washed his hands.

    false as dicers’ oaths: ‘Such an act / That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, / Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose / From the fair forehead of an innocent love / And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows / As false as dicers’ oaths: O, such a deed […]’ (Hamlet iii.4). That is, as untrustworthy as a dicer’s vow to quit gambling.

    [Louis de Loménie], R.M. Walsh, trans. ‘Berryer’ in Sketches of Conspicuous Living Characters of France (1841). Available free at Internet Archive.

    Henri Murger, La Vie de Boheme (1850). Available free at Internet Archive.

    Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ (1841), ‘The Purloined Letter’ (PL) (1844), ‘The Gold-bug’ (1843).

    William F. Friedman, ‘Edgar Allan Poe, Cryptographer’ in L.J. Budd and E.H. Cady eds.,  On Poe (1993).

  • J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Twelfth Instalment

    J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Twelfth Instalment

    Margaret Oliphant’s essay ‘The Byways of Literature: Reading for the Million’ (1858) is something of a seminal study in literature and popular culture. Her elegant piece is by turns endearing — particularly in her approval of our man Smith — and a worry for its tone of condescension towards ‘the Million,’ meaning the multitude, the ‘lower classes’.

    Let us give the masses all credit for their gift of reading; but before we glorify ourselves over the march of intelligence, let us pause first to look into their books.

    There is an irony, which is to some extent to be borne out:

    These unfortunate masses! When first the schoolmaster began to be abroad, how tenderly we took care of the improvement of their minds, and how zealously exerted ourselves to make literature a universal dominie, graciously enlightening the neophyte on every subject under heaven!

    Edinburgh-born ‘Mrs Oliphant’ (née Wilson, 1828–97) did not herself hail from an aristocratic background but a more bourgeois family. Her father was employed as a clerk in the customs and excise service, and she was afforded an education solid enough for her subsequently to produce more than ninety novels, among more than one hundred books. She was well received by critics and was Queen Victoria’s favourite novelist.

    Margaret Oliphant (1828–97)

    She fell out of currency until the late twentieth century, when some of her works returned into print, in an atmosphere of renewed interest in women’s writing. Merryn Williams compares her to Jane Austen and George Eliot and considers her ‘indispensible reading for anyone interested in women in the nineteenth century‘ (Women in the English Novel, 1800–1900).

    Bear in mind that the occasional tone of condescension I mentioned is characteristic of the era, in which a revolution in industry — including the attachment of a steam engine to a rotary printing press capable of printing on both sides of a sheet of paper — made possible the production of millions of copies of a single page in a day, and thus the birth of a mass media. Political, moral and financial imperatives came into play: on the one hand, considerations of the education, edification, ‘betterment’ and socializing of the masses; on the other, anxieties about the breakdown of social order.

    Questions arose such as, What kind of reading is appropriate for the working class (obviously, something useful)? And even fears about the ‘contamination’ of one class by another — more than a metaphor when it came down to instituting public libraries.

    In her essay, Oliphant writes of a summer afternoon in a cathedral town. She has charge of a restless child, whom she takes to a grassy patch by the cathedral, beyond the ‘verdant turf of the cathedral close’, having spent sixpence on some miscellaneous literature to amuse her with. The child is more fascinated with the ‘living daisies outside better than the dead effigies within’, and Oliphant spreads the papers out on the grass.

    Grave literature and learning, decorum and dignity, the authorities of society, stood represented in those grave old houses, from which no careless human eye looked out; and scattered over the daisies, with the wind among their leaves, lay the unauthoritative, undignified, unlearned broadsheets, which represent literature to a great portion of our country people, despite of all the better provision made for their pleasure.

    There could not possibly be a more marked or total contrast than between the object of our immediate attention and the scene.

    Thus is revealed an epiphany, which is not too far from the reader-response and reception theories of nowadays, to the effect that, ‘the multitude’, the reading public — those girls in the mills — will freely take what it pleases and do as it likes with the literature that is put in front of it. And so it ought.

    But here’s the good part. Whom should she uncover from her little trove of cheap writings among the daisies? Of course:

    Here is one personage, for instance, whom rival publications vie for the possession of, and whom the happy successful competitor advertises with all the glow and effusion of conscious triumph,—J. F.; nay, let us be particular,— John Frederick Smith, Esq. This gentleman is a great author, though nobody (who is anybody) ever was aware of it […]

    [Y]et we protest we never read a word of his writings, nor heard a whisper of his existence, until we spread out our sixpenny budget of light literature upon the June daisies. What matter? His portrait, from a photograph by Mayall, may be had in those regions where his sway is acknowledged; and the everybody, who is nobody, bestows upon him that deep-rolling subterraneous universal applause which is fame.

    CHAPTER TWELVE

    Goliah Gob’s Watch — Great Excitement in the Village of Deerhurst — Two Fathers and Two Sons — Viscount Allworth and Lord Bury — The Schoolmaster and Benoni

    Our readers, we flatter ourself, will step back with pleasure to see what some of their old acquaintances have been doing all this time.

    There was great excitement in the village of Deerhurst when it was known that Goliah Gob had received a splendid gold watch from one of the girls he assisted to rescue, and the interest was still further increased by the mysterious manner in which it had been conveyed to him — left at his mother’s farm by an itinerant preacher who had slept at the house overnight, and found on the table in his room, addressed to the honest rustic.

    It was a great puzzle to him, no doubt. But the London lawyer knew how to choose his agents.

    Peggy Hurst spitefully declared, without ever seeing it, that the watch would prove brass. Even Susan doubted, but it might be otherwise.

    We wonder if she had an eye to future contingencies. At any rate, she gave her mother, who watched her with the stealthiness of a lynx, no reasonable cause of complaint. She quitted her home, which had become intolerably dull since the departure of William, only on Sundays, to accompany her father to church. Not even his wife’s influence could prevent the old man from attending it. He had done naught to disgrace himself, he said, and would not give his neighbours cause to blame him.

    Mrs. Hurst prudently abstained. She had not forgotten the scene in the justice room at Squire Tyrell’s, the insults of the crowd, and above all, the triumphant, jeering glances of the Widow Gob.

    Absenting herself from church was the one weak spot in the programme she had traced for keeping Goliah and her daughter apart. There might be nothing between them at present; she admitted that, and determined within herself there never should be if she could prevent it.

    The last few days had greatly intensified her hatred of the Gob dynasty.

    ‘Mind and return as soon as the service is over,’ she said, after carefully tying her husband’s cravat.

    ‘I don’t expect anyone will invite us to stay,’ observed her husband, dryly.

    ‘And look closely after Susan,’ added his wife.

    ‘Aye, aye. I’ll take care on her.’

    ‘And watch if she exchanges looks or words with any of the singers in the organ galleries.’

    ‘I can’t,’ said the farmer.

    ‘Nonsense, Peter.’

    ‘I won’t,’ he added, firmly. ‘Susan be a good girl. Why should I play the spy upon her and feel ashamed to look my own child in the face? And it is my opinion there be naught to spy out. Now you know my meaning.’

    Mrs. Hurst looked thunderstruck. It was the first symptom of rebellion against domestic government that had occurred since they had been married. No wonder it startled, if it did not greatly alarm her.

    As for her daughter, she appeared rather amused than otherwise at her mother’s astonishment. Possibly she also did not place much confidence in her father’s resolution.

    ‘Peter,’ gasped his wife, in a tragic tone, ‘answer me one question.’

    ‘I will if I can.’

    ‘Are you in your right senses?’

    ‘No.’ The admission seemed to afford Peggy considerable relief.

    ‘I thought not,’ she muttered.

    ‘But I am coming to them,’ added her husband.

    Catching up his hat with an air of determination, the speaker quitted the kitchen, and, accompanied by Susan, started on his way to church; and Peggy, disconcerted by forebodings of the approaching end of her reign, sank into her easy chair to meditate.

    The truth was, she had stretched her authority too far. She muttered to herself: ‘He misses Willie, and the loss has made him mad.’

    This conclusion appeared to afford her considerable relief.

    ‘It can’t last, and it sha’n’t last,’ she resumed. ‘Why, Peter never ventured to cry snip unless I first said snap! and now — We shall see, we shall see. I’d rather die than give in to him. What would Mrs. Gob say?’

    Many wives have made similar resolutions before, and yet been obliged eventually to yield. Patience, gentle reader; the domestic battle is only just commenced. A shot from the outposts; nothing more.

    Up to our present writing we have barely alluded to the village schoolmaster, and yet he is destined to play an important part in our tale, as well as his treacherous son, Benoni.

    Theophilus Blackmore — or old Theo, as his pupils called him — seemed to have been born without any strong moral perceptions; and yet he was neither dissipated in his habits, vindictive in temper, nor naturally inclined to cruelty. He had no sympathies, no hates, but looked upon life as a mathematical problem, which, once solved, could have no further interest for him.

    His one solitary passion was for books; provided that were gratified, the world with its petty rivalries, jealousies, ambitions and crimes, might jog on as it pleased. They were the one necessity of his existence; he hungered for them.

    Reading had made him a ripe scholar. Science rendered him familiar with the latest discoveries; and yet he had never applied his knowledge to any practical or useful purposes.

    The Village Schoolmaster (1881), Charles West Cope. Source: Leicester Arts and Museums. Public Domain.

    When we say the old man had no sympathies, we ought to have admitted one exception. He felt a sort of dreamy kind of regard for his son Benoni. He had educated, but failed to make a man of him. All the higher qualities of manhood were lacking — honor, truthfulness, courage, fidelity in friendship.

    The fatal influences of his childhood clung to the young hypocrite still.

    How the old schoolmaster ever thought of marrying was a wonder to most persons who knew him. Possibly he wanted a cook or housekeeper. Certain it is that love had small, if any, share in his resolution. Since the death of his wife he had never been known to allude to her. In short, there appeared to be a mystery about the man which no one had ever been able to fathom.

    For several days the continued presence of Benoni in the house failed to excite his attention. When he did notice it he attributed it to the absence of his companion, Willie. As weeks passed, and the youth still avoided going to the village, or event attending church service on Sundays, the curiosity of Theophilus Blackmore became excited; not that he thought of questioning him. He knew his soon too well for that. Truthfulness was not one of Benoni’s characteristics. He took a surer way, and speedily learnt from his pupils the story of the boy’s treachery.

    Some parents would have felt grieved — would have remonstrated, corrected; not so the old bookworm. He regarded it as a thing that was to be — a mere incident in the drama of existence.

    The state of quietude was broken by a very unusual circumstance — the arrival of a visitor, who drove directly to their solitary abode, and remained nearly two hours in close conversation with the owner. Vainly did Benoni try to catch the subject — he was not above listening — but the door of the room was kept locked till the departure of the stranger.

    The following day his father delighted his pupils by informing them that for three days they might take a holiday — business of importance obliging him to pass that period in London. In short, he at once dismissed them, and as they quitted the school-room, settled himself down to one of his favourite authors. The curiosity of his son was excited to the highest pitch.

    ‘Did you say you were going to London?’ he demanded, alter a pause, trusting that his father might impart something more.

    ‘Did you not hear me?’

    ‘Am I to accompany you?’

    ‘No.’

    The querist looked terribly disappointed.

    ‘I have never been in London,’ he observed.

    ‘And what would you do there?’ inquired Mr. Blackmore, sharply. ‘You have not a single friend or acquaintance there that I am aware of. You might have had one, but foolishly lost him by your treachery.’

    The youth colored deeply.

    ‘To preserve a friend,’ added the speaker, ‘we must observe the laws which govern friendship — truth, honor, sincerity.’

    ‘Do you reproach me?’ exclaimed Benoni, getting excited.

    ‘I never indulge in reproaches,’ observed his father, for the first time raising his eyes from the volume before him. ‘They do no good. Besides, you would not feel them.’

    ‘And whose the fault?’ retorted the young man. ‘Yours! You trained me to distrust the natural feelings of the heart, calling them weakness; taught me to be as cold and artificial as yourself; and now find fault with your own work.

    ‘I tried to make you a philosopher,’ said the schoolmaster.

    ‘And trained a hypocrite,’ replied his son.

    ‘We will not dispute on terms,’ remarked the book-worm. ‘They are convertible, as mathematics teaches. What folly induced you to release the two ruffians in the Red Barn?’

    ‘They were from the Bittern’s Marsh,’ answered the youth, sullenly.

    ‘Ah!’ ejaculated his hearer.

    ‘And recognised me.’

    ‘That gave the act some show of reason,’ observed Mr. Blackmore after a pause. ‘An excuse, but not a necessity,’ he added. ‘You should have consulted me.’

    ‘There was no time for consultation. I had to decide,’ replied his son. ‘Consult, indeed! Father,’ he continued, ‘has there ever existed the least confidence between us? I know as little of your past life as of the future. That you are a cold selfish hypocrite, I have long since discovered; but there my knowledge ends. It would be better for us to part.’

    ‘What!’ said the old man sarcastically. ‘The tiger cub would break its chain?’

    ‘You should have forged it stronger,’ was the muttered reply.

    His parent closed the book he had been reading, and commenced pacing up and down the room for several minutes, muttering to himself, ‘Kismet! Kismet!’ the Arabic word for fate. Suddenly he paused in his peregrination, and fixed his glaring blue eyes upon the inflamed countenance of the speaker.

    ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘It is time that we should part. Cold as you think me, I will not suffer you to cast yourself upon the world without some chance of escaping shipwreck. But you must leave the means to me. This visit to London is most opportune. Yes, yes,’ he muttered to himself, ‘I will insist upon it. You must await my return. My absence will not exceed three days. Promise me.’

    Benoni pledged his word to remain. Nor that the speaker placed much reliance upon it; he trusted more to the fact that, with the exception of a few shillings, he knew him to be penniless. That same evening he started upon his journey, and at the time appointed returned to Deerhurst.

    Vainly did his son try to read in his face the success or disappointment of his hopes. The countenance of the Sphinx could not have been more impassive. Unable to endure the suspense of doubt, he boldly questioned him.

    ‘Have you succeeded?’ he demanded.

    ‘Yes,’ was the reply, ‘In a week or two you will enter the office of Brit and Son, London.’

    ‘What are they?’

    ‘Lawyers.’

    ‘Only lawyers!’ remarked Benoni, in a tone of disappointment.

    ‘Did you expect to be articled to a cabinet minister?’ asked his father, sarcastically. ‘Such personages do not generally take apprentices.’

    ‘No. But I –‘

    ‘Shall I tell you what a lawyer really is?’ continued, the former, interrupting him. ‘He is the depository of secrets affecting the honor, and sometimes the fortune, and sometimes the lives, of his clients; an agent to baffle the ends of justice more frequently than to assist them. The fortunes of the fools who trust them pass through their hands, which are birdlimed, and some of the feathers of the golden geese are sure to stick to them. Only lawyers!’ he repeated. ‘You are unworthy to be my pupil if you fail to find your advantage in this.’

    ‘But all lawyers are not alike,’ suggested the young man.

    ‘Perhaps not,’ was the reply. ‘I only state the rule, and waste no time or thought upon the exceptions, I know what is best for you.’

    His son thought so, too, and began to feel pleased with the idea, although it was not the profession he would have chosen. But, then, it promised change — change from the dreary, dull, unloving home to the busy realities of life; activity, success, and possibly revenge upon his former friend, Willie, whose honest scorn of his treachery had deeply stung him.

    Two weeks before the departure of Benoni for London there was to be a wedding at Deerhurst church, which Susan naturally felt desirous of attending. All girls like to be present at weddings; at least we never knew one that did not.

    Peggy Hurst made but a faint attempt to prevent her daughter from going. The wish was so natural. Then her father spoke out, and somehow his wife felt less inclined to oppose him than formerly. It did not appear quite so safe. She was a tactician in her way, and husbanded her forces for serious occasions.

    The church was crowded, as is usual on such occasions. The farmer met several old friends and acquaintances, who appeared something less inclined than lately to censure him very strongly. The fact was, they knew where the shoe pinched. They were mostly married men, and had worn it themselves, Opinions, like the weathercock, were veering round in the old man’s favour.

    Whilst he was chatting with some and shaking hands with others Susan contrived to slip from his side, and made her way to the organ-gallery. Behind the instrument she found Goliah. Of course she appeared very much surprised.

    ‘Dear me, Mr. Gob,’ she exclaimed. ‘You here!’

    ‘Ees,’ answered the rustic; ‘beant this the place?’

    She had forgotten, for the instant, a message she had sent him. There was no time for coquetting. She felt that, and came at once to her purpose.

    ‘I am uneasy in my mind’ she began. ‘Benoni is about leaving for London, and I have written a letter to put my cousin on his guard, for I feel certain some treachery is intended. He has twice held long talks with mother at the bottom of the orchard. I dare not post it in the village. Mother and post-mistress are too intimate. Can’t you take it?’

    ‘You may swear to that,’ replied her admirer — ‘not that I ever heard of thee swearing. I be goin’ wi’ a load of hay in the mornin’. Dear! Dear!’ he added. ‘I do feel mortal bad.’

    ‘What can be the matter with you?’ inquired Susan, archly .

    ‘I think it be love. And now the murder’s out!’

    ‘Nonsense!’ said the village beauty, as she disappeared down the gallery staircase. ‘Mrs. Gob’s dumplings were too heavy! It can only be indigestion!’

    The honest fellow looked after her wistfully.

    ‘It beant dumplings,’ he muttered. ‘Mother’s dumplings are allays light. What will I do?’ he added. ‘Sartin it be love!’

    We think so, too.

    Viscount Allworth would have made an excellent stage manager of a vaudeville theatre. Neither was he without some talent for tragedy. His mise en scene, too, was admirable. He could set his face to any expression he pleased, for, like the Roman actor who of old had worn the mask so long, his features took the impress of bronze.

    For several days his lordship had been expecting a visit from his son, and remained at home, watching with calm confidence his arrival. No sooner did he perceive the brougham enter the square than he walked deliberately to the mirror in the dressing-room, to arrange his countenance for the occasion. Satisfied of his artistic success, he seated himself at a table. The bell had rung for the performance. He was ready.

    ‘Welcome, my dear boy!’ he exclaimed, as the young man entered the apartment. ‘I am glad you are come. I have been anxiously expecting you.’

    ‘Doubtless, my lord,’ was the reply, ‘for the honour of our name is dear to me.’

    ‘The honour of our name is untouched.’

    ‘Hear me, father –‘

    ‘You must first hear me,’ interrupted the aged hypocrite, with well-affected dignity. ‘Unjust accusations are always regretted; forbearance rarely is so. You have heard the rumours?’

    Lord Bury bowed in the affirmative. I have done everything in my power to stifle them — not without success, I flatter myself. Something also I have exacted by way of atonement. Clarence Marsham has quitted the army.’

    ‘His debts compelled him.’

    ‘Not so,’ observed his parent. ‘Lady Allworth was quite prepared to pay them but I refused to listen to any compromise.’

    ‘And where is the scoundrel now?’ demanded the visitor, the, frown upon his brow slightly relaxing.

    ‘In France.’

    ‘Paris?’

    ‘I presume so.’

    At the very moment he uttered the equivocating lie the speaker had a letter dated from Dinent, in Brittany, written by his step-son, in his pocket.

    ‘What more can I do?’ continued his father. ‘I cannot divorce my wife because her son has acted like a fool. Is it not better to let the rumors quietly die out than to create any further scandal? My own conduct has been perfectly clear in the affair, but I leave the decision with you.’

    ‘Possibly you are right,’ observed Lord Bury, after reflecting on the circumstances. ‘At least, I shall not oppose it; but this acquiescence, forced upon me by consideration for my cousin, Kate, will not prevent me from proceeding immediately to Paris and calling Clarence to account.’

    ‘I have no opinion to offer on that point,’ observed the viscount, gravely. ‘And now, Egbert,’ he continued, ‘weigh all that has taken place calmly; question me on any point of my conduct you please, I am ready to answer you.’

    ‘Father,’ replied the young guardsman, ‘I would fain believe, and dare not question you, lest some painful doubts should be re-awakened. God forgive you if you have deceived me!’

    It is a hard thing to force upon a son the terrible conviction that his father is a villain. Lord Bury took his leave, hoping and trusting probably against his better reason. A few minutes after his departure Lady Allworth entered the dressing-room. She had overheard every word that passed.

    ‘Admirable!’ she said. ‘Yes; I think I have pretty well mystified him. We have now a clear field before us. ‘But the bonds?’ he added, eagerly.

    ‘Shall be paid the instant you have signed the lease of the Bittern’s Marsh.’

    This edition © 2019 Furin Chime, Michael Guest

    Notes, References, Further Reading

    dominie: Scottish English term for a schoolmaster.

    [Margaret Oliphant], The Byways of Literature: Reading for the Million’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 84 (August 1858) 200-16. Available at Internet Archive. [Author’s name not given on the text.]

    John Sutherland, ed., Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction, 2d ed. (Routledge, 1988).

    Victorian Fiction Research Guides, ‘Margaret Oliphant‘.

    Lewis C. Roberts, ‘Disciplining and Disinfecting Working-Class Readers in the Victorian Public Library’, Victorian Literature and Culture, Vol. 26, No. 1 (1998),105-132.

  • J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Eleventh Instalment

    J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Eleventh Instalment

    This chapter presents insights into the motivations and machinations in play at the ‘higher end’ of society. A far cry from Mrs. Hurst’s scheme to have William and Goliah banged up for the ‘theft’ of the horse and wagon, motivated partially by her rivalry with Mrs. Gob over her excellent butter.

    Nevertheless, the differences appear to be more in terms of their degrees of subtlety and complexity rather than in essence. Smith presents the moral attributes of the characters in a system of defined binary oppositions, which work at times to undercut each other in the same character. Someone who wears a ‘black hat’ in the first instance may be shown subsequently to have redeeming qualities to some extent. (Cinema quite commonly applies similar techniques.)

    It seems on cue to turn, as we do in the present chapter, to a deeper context of meaning for his play of morality and human nobility. The scene in the regimental headquarters of the Royal Life Guards and Horse Guards (also known as The Blues) serves to diminish the importance of the social hierarchy per se, with this proximity to royalty and empire.

    These are the two most senior regiments of the Royal Household Cavalry, dating to the restoration of Charles II in 1660. They boasted an illustrious record of service at home and abroad in any number of theatres of war over the subsequent centuries, including Waterloo.

    In the Victorian era, the British Empire had become one upon which ‘the sun never set’. A certain mode of history — ‘Whig historiography’ — assumed popularity, one that viewed this position of world leadership as a logical and inevitable development, a march towards global enlightenment based on the principles enshrined in British governance.

    Lord Macaulay’s (1800–1859) five-volume History of England (1848) is considered the archetype of Whig history. But guess in whose history we can discern shades? Correct: in John Frederick Smith’s own volume of the nine-volume Cassell’s lIlustrated History of England (1874):

    The slow building of a constitution which finds no parallel in the world is the most distinctive, as it is the largest feature in English history … If we do not profit in heart and head by the experience which the ages have gathered for us — if we do not grow, as they would have us, not only in wisdom but in humility, in moderation, in humanity — we have to blame, not these unerring teachers, but ourselves.

    Preface to Volume 1

    The Celtic queen Boadicea leading the British revolt against the Romans, 60/61 CE. Frontispiece to Cassell’s Illustrated History of England Vol. 1 (cropped).

    CHAPTER ELEVEN

    Clara Meredith Does not Feel Quite Satisfied with Herself — The Sketch — Return of her Cousin to London

    Clara was seated in the library, thinking over the events of the last few days, and taking herself to task for her conduct to her cousin. To be sure, his neglecting to make her acquaintance in London — her first season, too — was unkind, to say the least of it; but had she the right to resent it, and turn him into ridicule on his arrival in the country? After turning the circumstances over in her mind she came to the conclusion that she had not. It was undignified, to say the least of it; and she felt dissatisfied with herself, and all the more so that he had endured her sarcasm with such polished good humour.

    That her cousin was ultra-fashionable, and not a little fastidious, she did not doubt; but that he merited the title some of her dear friends in London had given him of a “cynical, heartless man,” she could not believe. Had he not danced with the May Queen at her request; defended her from the insulting familiarity of Burcham? Shaken hands with Tom Randal as he reluctantly yielded to his right to protect his rustic sweetheart?

    What better proofs of manhood could he have given?

    ‘Clara,’ said his lordship, as he entered the library, ‘I am come to fulfil my promise. I told you when I made it that I was not much of an artist; but I have done my best.’

    He placed the sketch in her hand.

    The young lady coloured slightly as she received it. She had secretly hoped he had forgotten it; but Bury was a man of his word. Despite the seriousness of her late thoughts she could not help laughing gaily as she contemplated the drawing. It was really exceedingly well done for an amateur, and he had carried out her description to the letter. There stood the old mansion in the distance; Clara, in a short frock and blue sash, screaming on the bank of the pond; his lordship floundering in the water. One of the famous red morocco shoes floating on the surface, and a goose swimming after it.

    The last, by-the-by, was an introduction of the artist’s own, intended, probably, as a slight epigram on the playful malice which had recalled the incidents.

    ‘I am glad,’ observed Clara, recovering her seriousness, ‘that you have recollected your promise, and yet it scarcely amounted to one. But why represent me twice?’

    ‘I scarcely understand you, cousin.’

    His cousin pointed to the goose sailing after the shoe. His lordship smiled.

    ‘I am ever so much obliged to you,’ resumed the fair girl, after a pause. Is it really mine?’

    ‘Undoubtedly, since you have honored me by accepting it. Shall the drawing find a place in your album, or be sent as a contribution to the next fancy fair?’

    ‘Neither one nor the other,’ answered his cousin, with a show of feeling at which she felt provoked with herself. ‘I can dispose of it in a far more fitting way. And yet it is a almost a pity,’ she added, as she crushed the sketch in her little hand, dropped it into the fire, stood watching it until it was consumed, and then, with a quiet courtesy, quitted the room.

    Lord Bury stood for some little time gazing after her in silence. Possibly the problem was becoming interesting to him.

    ‘Pshaw!’ he muttered, as he took up a newspaper to while away the time till luncheon. ‘Why should I feel surprised? Good blood will tell.’

    Had he said good principles, the observation, we suspect, would have been more germane to the matter, as our friend, Shakespeare, says.

    Three days after the interview in the library, which neither of the cousins thought fit to allude to again, Lord Bury, who had just received his letters, informed Sir George that he was obliged to start the following morning, on particular business, for London.

    ‘Nothing unpleasant, I trust. Can I be of any use?’

    ‘Exceedingly unpleasant, uncle, for it concerns the honor of one who ought to be very dear to me. Unfortunately,’ he added, ‘you cannot be of the slightest assistance to me.’

    ‘That scamp of a father, I suppose,’ thought his host, who had noticed the word “ought.” ‘He is always getting himself into some infernal scrape or another. Older, too, than I am.’

    Of course he kept these reflections to himself.

    ‘Possibly I may be able to renew my visit,’ said his lordship, ‘in the shooting season. That is, if I have not worn out my welcome.’

    ‘We are homespun, Egbert,’ observed his relative, ‘and can stand a vast amount of wear and tear. Come when you will, always glad to see you, Make it a promise, and I will keep the home cover for you. Make it your home if you like.

    ‘That is,’ he added, noticing the blush upon his daughter’s cheek, ‘as long as I live, Of course I cannot answer for my successor.’

    ‘That would be unreasonable, Sir George,’ observed the nephew, who had noticed the blush and the correction of the speaker’s offer. ‘Thanks, I will not abuse your hospitality.’

    The next day Lord Bury started for London.

    ‘Well, Sparks,’ said his lordship, when the sergeant-major entered the room the morning after his arrival at headquarters, to report on the condition of his company, ‘anything important?’

    ‘Not very,’ answered the old soldier. ‘There has been a fine young fellow here from the country, who wants to enlist, but won’t engage in any company but yours. Such a chest! Stands six feet two; straight as a pike-staff. Knows the points of a horse as well as the regimental vet, himself. Hope we shan’t lose him.’

    ‘But why in my company?’ demanded Lord Bury.

    ‘Heard that you were a kind officer, most likely.’

    ‘No flattery, Sparks. Did the young fellow you were speaking of give his name?’

    ‘Tom Randal, my lord.’

    ‘Find him; bring him to me instantly,’ exclaimed the officer, greatly interested. ‘You said truly, he is a fine fellow — a man every inch of him.’

    In a few minutes the lover of the pretty Phœbe entered the luxuriously-furnished room of the officer, who frankly held out his hand to him.

    Although the countenance of the new recruit flushed with a momentary satisfaction, he did not accept it.

    ‘You forget,’ he observed, ‘that I am about to become a private soldier.’

    ‘No, I do not,’ replied his lordship; ’till you are enlisted, you are a free man, and a prince might shake hands with you. Once in the ranks,’ he added, ‘it would be different; but that will be neither your fault nor mine.’

    The hand was again extended, and this time cordially shaken. The sergeant discreetly withdrew. He thought it best to leave the officer and his rustic friend together.

    Tom Randal, after the quarrel with his father, had made the best of his way to London on foot; for he had very little money, and proceeded at once to the barracks of the Guards. Our readers know the rest. Vainly did his aristocratic friend try to argue him out of his intention to enlist, pointing out the difficulty of obtaining his discharge when once he had taken the fatal shilling.

    ‘The colonel,’ he added, is a good man — a kind man — but will never consent to let a fine young fellow like you leave the regiment when once engaged in it,’ and advised him to take a few days to consider of it.

    ‘Not an hour, my lord,’ replied the lover of Phœbe. ‘I have lost the only girl I can ever love, and all through my father’s prejudice, pride, and obstinacy. It has cost him his son,’ he added. ‘He shall find I can be as resolute as he is. My mind is made up.’

    Trooper of the Royal Horse Guards, 1828. (Created 1847) Public Domain. Source: Wikipedia

    Lord Bury sent for Sergeant Sparks, and Tom Randal quitted the room, duly enlisted into his majesty’s first regiment of Life Guards.

    The poor fellow, we suspect, had inherited some of the old farmer’s temper; if so, the army was, perhaps, the best school to work it out of him.

    The expiration of his leave of absence was not the only motive which brought his lordship to London. He could easily have obtained a prolongation of it. He had received a letter from one of his most intimate friends, informing him of certain ugly rumours that were whispered in society of an attempt to force his cousin, Lady Kate Kepple, into an unequal marriage with Clarence Marsham, and that Lord Allworth’s name was unpleasantly mixed up with the transaction. ‘Of course,’ added the writer, ‘I do not vouch for the correctness of these reports; but as they are levelled at the honor of your family, I felt it my duty to inform you of them. All I really know is that the chancellor has deprived your father of the guardianship of Lady Kate’s person, and that his step-son has sold out of the army. The last two facts I affirm on my knowledge. There the duty of friendship ends. It is for you to act as you think best.’

    On his way to town, the young guardsman had perused the letter at least a dozen times, and each reading added to his mortification. As we before observed, he was both proud and honorable, weak in some things and extremely sensitive; but, then, we are not drawing a perfect character; absolute perfection, we fear, would be just a little insipid.

    His first visit was to Montague House. There, at least, he expected to learn the truth. Its owner, with whom he was a favorite, received him nervously. Our readers have not forgotten her intense dread of scandal, and the feeling increased tenfold when he had explained the object of his visit.

    ‘It it possible!’ she exclaimed, ‘that, despite my precautions, the unfortunate story has leaked out?’

    ‘It is true, then?’

    ‘I cannot deny it.’

    Lord Bury rose to take his leave.’

    ‘Egbert! Egbert! cannot the affair be hushed up?’

    ‘Impossible!’ was the reply. ‘At present it is only whispered; in a week’s time it will be a common topic of conversation in half the drawing-rooms in London. It is my duty,’ he added, firmly, ‘to see that your conduct and Kate’s should be unquestioned.’

    Again he moved towards the door.

    ‘Stay,’ said her ladyship, lowering her voice to a whisper. ‘You do not know all.’

    ‘For Heaven’s sake, let me hear it, aunt!’

    ‘Kate escaped from Allworth Park in boy’s clothes; walked all one night in them, and slept the next in a barn.’

    ‘Is that the worst?’

    ‘What could be worse?’ replied the aristocratic old maid, blushing deeply as the veiled meaning of his question dawned upon her mind. ‘Is not Kate living — slowly recovering her health and spirits?’

    A terrible suspicion passed from the heart of Lord Bury. He knew the speaker too well to doubt her word for an instant. A third time he was about to depart.

    ‘Stay,’ said Lady Montague, ‘Do tell me where you are going.’

    ‘To see my father,’ answered her visitor, gloomily. ‘I have a hard task before me, but will not shrink from it.’

    This time he succeeded in quitting the room.

    ‘Poor Egbert!’ sighed Lady Montague, as he disappeared. ‘He is very much to be pitied. Why did my sister marry Allworth? I told her he was a roue, repeated all the evil reports I ever heard of him, warned her every way; but it was of no use — seemed to increase her infatuation. If she had accepted some plain country gentleman, or even a bishop’s son I should not so much have minded, although, of course, it would have been a misalliance. But no, she would have a peer. Poor girl; she paid dearly enough for her folly. And yet,’ she added, thoughtfully, ‘I do not think it was all ambition. At the worst,’ continued her ladyship, ‘Kate and I can return to Montague Castle, live like nuns, and when we die, leave our fortunes to found a hospital for old maids.’

    However improbable, the project certainly was not an impossible one, although somehow we have an idea that Lady Kate will feel but little disposed to join in it.

    Viscount Allworth never believed it would be possible to keep the disgraceful escapade of his stepson from the knowledge of society — he knew the world too well for that — so he prudently resolved to make his own share in the transaction appear as harmless as possible. What he most feared was the indignation of his own son, who had lately shown a spirit which startled him.

    ‘Bury behaved exceedingly well in the Chellston affair,’ he muttered to himself, as he turned the incidents over in his scheming brain. ‘Must keep friends with him if possible.’

    Having traced a line of conduct for himself, Lord Allworth was not the man to be easily moved to depart from it; and the less so, that for the first time for years he found himself — thanks to the Chellston trickery — tolerably at ease in his pecuniary affairs; hence the firmness with which he insisted on Clarence Marcham’s retirement from the army.

    ‘Absurd!’ exclaimed his wife, when he informed her of his determination. ‘A mere boyish folly; the world soon forgets such things.’

    ‘In some persons, perhaps, but not in others,’ remarked the husband, gravely. ‘You made no objection when I stated my intention to Lady Montague.’

    ‘Because I did not believe you to be serious. In fact I never know when you. are serious. I considered it merely a sop thrown to the old Cerberus.’

    His lordship appeared greatly shocked.

    ‘I wish, Lady Allworth,’ he observed, but without losing his temper, ‘that you would be a little more refined in your expressions. I am aware that the defects of early education and associations are hard to overcome. Still it may be done. You will oblige greatly by striving to recollect this the next time you speak of my first wife’s sister, a woman of high birth, large fortune, and spotless reputation.’

    There was a momentary lull in the stormy conversation. The viscountess bit her lips to avoid giving expression to her rage at his provoking coolness.

    The husband — and we feel there are but too many like him in the world — enjoyed his wife’s mortification exceedingly.

    ‘I perceive what you are driving at,’ observed the angry woman. ‘You require money?’

    ‘No.’

    The lady gazed at him with astonishment. It was the first time in her married life she had received such an answer to a similar question.

    ‘Money,’ continued the speaker, ‘is an excellent thing in its way. I can’t imagine how some people contrive to exist without it; but it is not everything. Listen to me — my conduct is not so unkind as you suspect. You are far from being a fool, Lady Allworth. I know that you can control your temper on some occasions, and act with prudence.’

    The wife could scarcely repress a smile; she recollected how cleverly she had contrived to outwit him in the settlement of her fortune.

    ‘I have seen the commander-in-chief,’ added the speaker; ‘the affair has got wind through the rascally lawyers. I suspect Clarence is in bad odor at the Horse Guards — very bad. His royal highness is decidedly of opinion that he ought to sell out; and you know what such an opinion from such a quarter means. The price of his commission I am told, will barely pay his debts.’

    ‘Debts!’ gasped the astonished mother; ‘why, his allowance has been most liberal!’

    ‘Not feeling the slightest interest in the subject,’ said his lordship, ‘I made no inquiry as to their amount. You perceive the step is inevitable. Clarence had better return to France; living is cheap there; great resort for half-pay people. But he must decide quickly; in three days he will be arrested.’

    It is quite true that Viscountess Allworth loved her son, but, then, she loved herself a great deal more, and did not care to impoverish herself to pay off his liabilities. He must do that, she thought, by a wealthy marriage. So far from having abandoned the project, she clung to it more tenaciously than ever. Two days afterwards the unmanly scapegrace landed in France.

    We scarcely need to remind our readers that these last arrangements were made during Lord Bury’s visit to the country.

    This edition © 2019 Furin Chime, Michael Guest

    Notes and References

    ‘as our friend, Shakespeare, says’: ‘The phrase would be more germane to the matter if we could carry cannon by our sides’ (Hamlet, V, 2).

    ‘[to take] the fatal shilling’: sign up as a soldier, ‘from the former practice of giving a shilling to a recruit when he enlisted’, wordhistories.net

    Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Baron, 1800-1859, History of England from the Accession of James the Second (1901). Digital facsimile available at the Internet Archive. Link opens Vol. 1.

    Smith, John Frederick, Cassell’s Illustrated History of England (1874). Beautifully illustrated digital facsimile available at the Internet Archive. Link opens Vol. 1.

    While all nine volumes of Cassell’s Illustrated History are sometimes attributed to Smith, Andrew King and John Plunkett reveal that he actually only wrote the first. Subsequently Cassell ‘realized that Smith was less concerned with facts than narrative drive’ and handed the rest of the work over to William Howitt (1792–1879) (King and Plunkett, Victorian Print Media, OUP, 2005, p. 415).

  • J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Recap

    J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Recap

    I’ll keep good the promise made by the 1883 newspaper sources for this reconstructed penny blood mystery, by providing their mid-way summary. The author of the novel is the Englishman John Frederick Smith, the most popular writer of the mid-nineteenth century — but in later years all but forgotten. The annotated instalments include contextual notes along with glimpses of the life of this intriguing writer.

    In order that new readers may begin with the following installment of this story, and understand it just the same as though they had read it all from the beginning, we here give a synopsis of that portion of it which has already been published:

    Two girls, clad in male attire, one evening appealed for help to William Whiston, nephew of Farmer Hurst, of Deerhurst. William — who was accompanied by two friends, Goliah Gob and Benoni Blackmore — gave the fugitives refuge in his uncle’s red barn. Soon afterwards a tramp, named Bunce, took refuge in the barn, and two ruffians came there also, in pursuit of the girls. Bunce defended the girls against the ruffians, till Goliah Gob, a young fellow of gigantic size and strength, came to his assistance. The ruffians were overpowered and bound.

    Isaac Israëls (1865-1934), Bois de Boulogne (1904). Public Domain. Source: 1stdibs.com

    Goliah then summoned William and Benoni, and after consultation William and Goliah set out in a waggon for London with the girls, who proved to be Lady Kate Kepple, an heiress, and her maid Martha. Lady Kate was fleeing from Clarence Marsham, an officer in the Guards, who attempted to force her to marry him. They arrived safely in London, where Kate went to the protection of her aunt, Lady Montague.

    William called on his uncle, Lawyer Whiston, and told him the story. The old lawyer was Lady Montague’s legal adviser, and was delighted to find what part his nephew had played in Lady Kate’s escape.

    Benoni had been left in charge of the bound ruffians in the red barn, with directions to hand them over to the authorities in the morning, but he set them free, and told such a story to Farmer Hurst that Mrs. Hurst insisted on having William and Goliah arrested for stealing the farmer’s horse and waggon. This was done, but Lawyer Whiston came down from London, rescued them, and overwhelmed the Hursts and Benoni with exposure and shame.

    William, who was half-owner of the Hurst farm, then went to London with his uncle.

    Goliah loved Susan Hurst (William’s cousin), and Mrs. Hurst hated him for it. Lawyer Whiston, to whom Bunce showed some old family papers, provided handsomely for the wanderer, and Lady Kate Kepple sent William and Goliah each a handsome watch as a token of her gratitude.

    Clarence Marsham, the persecutor of Lady Kate, was a step-son of an unprincipled nobleman, Lord Allworth, who, after the death of his wife, married Clarence’s mother for her money. Lord Allworth had a son of his own — Egbert, Lord Bury — whom he had swindled out of an estate called Chellston, that Egbert had inherited from his mother. Sir George Meredith, Egbert’s uncle, had bought Chellston.

    Clara Meredith, sole child of Sir George Meredith was a beauty and an heiress. Egbert — Lord Bury — was on a visit to Chellston. Clara felt piqued at Lord Bury, who was an officer of the Guards and noted for his exclusiveness, because when she was on her first visit to London the season before, he did not call upon her. For this reason she snubbed him, reminded him how he had fallen into the duck pond when he was a boy, and requested him to make her a drawing of the scene.

    At the May Day festival Lord Bury defended the May Queen, Phœbe Burr, from a ruffian named Burcham, until her lover, Tom Randal, came upon the scene, and claimed the right to act as her champion. Farmer Randal, Tom’s father, was so incensed at his son for avowing his love for Phoebe that a quarrel ensued and Tom ran away. Clara was a friend of Phœbe’s and resolved to help her to marry Tom despite his father’s opposition.

    This is the state of affairs at Chellston when the following chapter opens …

    This edition © 2019 Furin Chime, Michael Guest

    Next instalment will be Chapter Eleven. All the previous chapters are available at Furin Chime website.