Chapter 7 MAURICE RECEIVES PLENTY OF ADVICE.

Maurice Hinchford had been told by Mattie to wait in the shop until she returned; and, obedient to her mandate, he had taken his seat on a very tall, uncomfortable stool, on which he could have remained perched more at his ease had a balance-pole been provided. Here he had remained, looking round the shop, and taking stock of its manifold contents-glancing askance now and then at Ann Packet, whose curiosity was not entirely satiated until Mr. Gray intruded on the scene.

At the first click of the door-handle, Maurice looked round expecting to see his cousin, but was disappointed by the presence of a small and agile man in black, who leaped on to a second chair beside him, and commenced nodding his head vigorously.

"Good evening, sir," said Maurice. "Mr. Gray, I presume?"

"We have met before, sir-my name is Gray."

"Really!-I do not remember--"

"Possibly not, sir; there are many unpleasant reminiscences we are always glad to escape from," said Mr. Gray. "I am connected with one. You and I met on the platform of the Ashford railway station, one winter's night, when Miss Wesden claimed my protection from a snare that had been laid for her."

"Oh!"

Maurice had dropped into a hornet's nest. Whom next was he to confront before his cousin Sidney came upon the scene?-from whom else was he to hear a sharp criticism on those actions of the past, which no one regretted more than he. Luck was against him that night.

"You remember me?" said Mr. Gray. "Before the train departed I gave you a little counsel for your future course in life-a warning as to whither a persistence in your evil habits would lead you-you remember?"

"Oh! yes-I remember."

"Have you taken that warning to heart?-I fear not. Have you been any wiser, better, or more honest from that day?-I fear not. Have you not rather proceeded on your evil course, despising the preaching of good men, the warning of God's word, and gone on, on-down, down, without a thought of the day when all your actions in this life would have to be accounted for?"

Bang came Mr. Gray's hard hand on the counter, startling Maurice Hinchford's nerves somewhat, and causing innumerable articles in the glass cases thereon to jump spasmodically with the shock.

"I-" began Maurice.

"Don't interrupt me, sir-I will not be interrupted!-you have come hither of your own free will, seeking us out, and fearing not the evidence of our displeasure, and now, sir, you must hear what is wrong in your acts, and what will be good for your soul. Do you know, oh! sinner, that that soul is in deadly peril?"

"I know-"

"Sir, I will not be interrupted!" cried Mr. Gray again; "I am not accustomed to be interrupted when I am endeavouring to awaken a hardened conscience to a sense of its condition, and I will not be now. And I call upon you at this time-now is the accepted time, sir, now is the day of salvation-to amend, amend, amend! You have been a spendthrift, profligate, everything that is bad; you have studied yourself in every action of life, and neglected the common duties due to your neighbour as well as to your Maker. You have gone on smiling in your sinful course, heeding not the outcry of religious men against your hideous career, recking not of the abyss into which you must plunge, and on the brink of which, you-a man, with an immortal soul committed to your charge-are standing now! One step more, perhaps, one wilful step forward, and you are lost for ever. Lost!" he shouted, with the frenzy of a fanatic, as well as the vehemence of a good man carried away by his subject; and the shrill cry made the glasses round the gas lamps ring again, and vibrated unpleasantly through Maurice's system. This was becoming unendurable.

"If you will allow me-" began Maurice.

"Sir, I will not be interrupted!" shouted Mr. Gray, with more hammering upon the counter; "I know what is good for you, and I insist upon a patient hearing. You are a man in danger of destruction, and I cannot let you go blindfold into danger, without bidding you stop whilst time is mercifully before you. Let me divide the subject, in the first place, into three heads."

Maurice groaned inwardly, and stared at the preacher. There was no help for it; there was no escape. He might jump to the floor and fly for his life; or he might tip up Mr. Gray's chair, upset that gentleman, and then gag him; but neither method would bring him nearer to that purpose for which he had ventured thither; and until Sidney appeared there was nothing to do but sit patiently under the infliction and listen to the full particulars of his dangerous state. He put his hands on his knees, surveyed the speaker, and submitted; in all his life he had never heard such a bad opinion of himself, or listened to so sweeping a condemnation of all his little infirmities. Mr. Gray ran on with great volubility, pitching his voice unpleasantly high; Maurice's blood curdled, once he was sure his hair rose upon his head, and more than once cold water running down the curve of his back bone could not have more forcibly expressed the sensations of the moment. And then those horrid bangs upon the counter-always coming when least expected, and going off like cannon shots in his ears; and the gesticulatory flourishes, and the falsetto notes when more than usually excited, and, above all, the unceasing flow of invective and persuasion-an unintermittent shower-bath of the best advice, powerful enough to swamp a congregation.

Maurice's head ached; his eyes watered; the shop grew dizzy; the books and prints revolved slowly round him; the ceiling might be the floor, and the floor the ceiling, with the gas branch screwed upside down in it, for what he knew of the matter; he lost the thread of the discourse, and found the heads thereof inextricably confused; he understood that he was a miserable sinner-the worst of sinners-or he should not be sitting there with all those horrible noises in his ears; the figure in the chair before him, heaved up and down, moved its arms right and left, possibly threw double summersaults; it was all over with the listener-he was going silly, he scarcely knew now with what object he had come thither-oh! his head!-oh! this never-ending, awfully rapid Niagara of words!

He made one feeble effort at resistance.

"Look here, old fellow-if you'll let me off-I'll-I'll build a tabernacle," he burst forth; and again that terrible "Sir, I will not be interrupted!" stopped all further intrusion upon the subject of discourse.

Mr. Gray was delighted with that subject, with that listener-one of the finest specimens of iniquity he had encountered for many years!-and he did not think of stopping yet awhile. Where was the hurry?-time, although valuable, could not be better spent than on that occasion-his heart was in the task he had set himself, and he would do his very best!

Mattie came to the rescue at last; she had been watching the delivery of the sermon for some time over the parlour blind, informing Sidney, who had entered the parlour, of the energy of the father, and the patient endurance of his cousin.

Disturbed as he had been by his cousin's arrival, and undecided for some time as to the expediency of granting him an interview or not, Sid could not refrain from a smile at Maurice's unenviable position. He remembered Mr. Gray's first charge upon his sins, and the unsparing length to which he had extended his remarks upon them; he could imagine the position of Maurice Hinchford at that juncture, and realize the feelings with which that gentleman heard and suffered.

"I think I'll go to him now, Sidney," said Mattie.

It had been Sidney and Mattie-as between brother and sister-for a long time now.

"Will your father admire the intrusion?" asked Sid, drily.

"Perhaps he is doing good," said Mattie, who regarded matters akin to this more seriously than the blind man; "I'll wait a while."

And all this time Maurice was praying for help. It had not been a very pleasant idea, that of facing his cousin for the first time; but now the thought occurred to him that he would rather face the very worst-even that obnoxious being, of whom the preacher earnestly warned him-than hear this man inveigh against his sins any more.

Mattie quietly entered the shop. The spell was broken; Mr. Gray paused with his right arm above his head-he was just coming down with another bang on the counter-and Maurice leaped off his stool, to which he had been transfixed, and shook hands violently with Mattie in his bewilderment.

"He will see me, Miss Gray?"

"Yes. If you wish it."

"Thank you-thank you! Is he in the parlour?"

"Yes."

"And so be warned, young man-there is no excuse left you-not one, now. You have been warned of all the evils which a guilty life incurs upon those who go on their way defiantly!"

"Oh! yes-I have been warned, sir; there's not a doubt of it-I'm afraid I have put you to a great deal of trouble?" said Maurice, not yet recovered from his confusion.

"In a good cause, I don't mind trouble."

"Very kind of you, I'm sure. In the parlour, you said, Miss Gray?-then I'll go to him at once. It must be getting very late."

Mr. Gray was proceeding to follow Maurice, when Mattie touched him on the arm and arrested his progress.

"I think we had better leave them together. Their business is scarcely ours."

"What?-ah! exactly so, my dear. But I wish you had not interrupted me quite so unceremoniously-the impression I was making upon that young man was wonderful! Great heaven! if it is left for me to work his regeneration at the last, how proud I shall be! Mattie, I think I have moved him-he has already said something about building a tabernacle, a chapel, or something; but I scarcely caught the words at the moment-think of that man, so wicked, and perverse, and designing, proceeding after all, in the straight and narrow way! It's wonderful!"

In the meantime, Maurice Hinchford had entered the parlour, closed the door behind him, and advanced towards the figure at the table, sitting in the full light of the gas above his head. Maurice paused and looked at him.

Sidney had changed; he was looking older; there was a thread or two of silver in the dark waving hair; and the eyes, which blindness had not dimmed, had that melancholy vagueness of expression, by which such eyes are always characterized.

"Well, Sidney-I am here at last."

"I am sorry that you have taken the trouble to call."

"Indeed!-why?"

"I think you and I are best apart. We know each other far too well, by this time."

"Have patience with me, Sidney. I think not."

He drew a chair nearer his cousin, and sat down. He had not offered to shake hands with Sidney; he felt that his cousin would have resented that attempt; that he was regarded as a man who had done a grievous wrong, and from whom no professions of friendship or cousinly regard would be received. He had come with a faint hope of doing good-in some way or other, he scarcely knew himself; of extenuating in some way-almost as indefinite to him-the past conduct which had placed him in so sinister a light.

"Sidney," he said, "I wish that you had accepted that invitation to meet me which I made you. I could have explained much."

"No explanation, Maurice, would have been satisfactory to me at that time."

"Will it be now, then?" he asked, eagerly catching at the words which implied possibly more than his cousin had wished to convey.

"I would prefer dismissing the subject altogether," Sid replied. "If you will tell me candidly and honestly that you are sorry for the past, I will be glad to hear it-and believe it."

"You bear me no malice, then?"

"No-I have outlived it."

"Then you will--"

"I will do nothing, but remain with those good friends who have taken pity on my helplessness," he said, sternly.

"Sidney, pray understand me. I don't wish you to think me a wholly bad man-God knows I am not that-I have never been that. I have had bad friends, evil counsellors, if you will-mine was never a resolute nature, but one easily led away from the first. I was an only son, spoiled by an indulgent father, spoiled by the money which was lavished on me, spoiled by the crowd which the spending of that money brought about me-nothing more."

"That is bad enough," said Sid.

"I own that. I own that I was flattered to my moral ruin, Sidney-that they, who called themselves my friends, cheered on that downfall, and made it easy to me-scoffing at all worlds purer than their own. I was young, vain, impressionable, and far from high-principled when I first met Harriet Wesden at Brighton."

"I would rather not hear the story," said Sidney, uneasily.

Maurice paid no heed to the remark, but went on hastily; and Sidney, suppressing his intention to arrest the narrative, sat still and listened to its weaknesses, its mystery, and yet its truth.

"Harriet Wesden was a romantic school-girl-a young woman who knew little of life, or had read the fictions, highly-coloured, concerning it, till she might have belonged to dream-land for the realities about her. She was led away by a senior scholar, too, as romantic as herself, and more designing; and she and I met, talked, corresponded-fell in love with each other."

"I deny that."

"Patience, Sidney; on my soul we did! I was not a villain, but a man led away by my vanity and this girl's preference for me, and I loved her. I don't say that it was a very true or passionate love; but it was a love, which burned fiercely enough for a time-which would have been purer and better, but for the evil counsellor and false friend who was always with me, to treat life, and love, and honour as a jest."

"The man I met at your house?"

"No. A man who has died since then-thank God, I was almost adding, for he worked me much evil, and death only freed me from him."

"Go on."

"When Harriet Wesden and I parted, I believe we truly loved each other. I had assumed a false name at the outset, and had maintained it throughout our strange courtship-fearing the discovery of governesses, and not knowing the character of her to whom my folly had lured me. I was to go abroad at my father's wish, and I left, fully resolving to write to her, and own all, and ask her if she would wait for me. Then came long absence, fresh scenes, new friends, new dissipations, a belief that she would easily forget me, being but a child when I had seen her last; and so the old, old story, varied scarcely from the many that have gone before it. Sidney, she did forget me-did discover that, after all, it was but a fleeting fancy of her own."

"No."

"I think the next part of my story proves that. I met her again after an absence of a few years, in the streets, near her house in Suffolk Street, whither I had conducted my father to see yours. All my old passion for her revived-but it was a struggle with her to endure my presence at first. Still I was from the old days; I revived in her memory the one romance that had been hers-I had not played a false part therein, and could easily excuse my long silence. I found out the friends whom she visited in the neighbourhood of New Cross; I formed their acquaintance, and met Harriet Wesden more frequently. Her old assertion that she never wished to see me again-that she loved another, whose name she would never confess to me-wavered. I saw it, and, carried away by the impression created, I did my best to win her."

"Away from me?-well, you succeeded. She wrote to me at that time, confessing her inability to think of me longer as a lover."

"She wrote, not knowing her own mind, I believe. At that time she was disturbed in thought concerning us-she was often cold and repellent to me, and it was difficult to understand her. Well, Sid, throughout all this, I loved her."

"Why keep to your false name, then?"

"I was ready to confess the truth, at every interview; then I put off the avowal, after my old fashion. I knew by that time that your father and yourself were lodging at the stationer's shop, and I formed a shrewd guess as to the rival I had in her affections. Finally, Sid, there came that night at New Cross, when she was carried away to Ashford. As I hope to be saved, I had no design against her then; in good faith, I was her escort to the railway station; it was only as we approached that station, that the ruse suggested itself-that the devil whispered in my ear his temptation. I knew the time of the mail-train; I had been by it en route to Paris only a few weeks since; I led her along, unsuspecting of evil, to the other side of the railway station. She was with me in the carriage before I became conscious of the heinousness of the act I had committed. Even then I intended her no harm; I trusted all to circumstance; I was even prepared to marry her, rather than lose her; I was under a spell, Sidney!"

"Yes-the spell of the devil."

"When she discovered the truth, I found that I had secured her hate, rather than her love; at Ashford station she faced me like a tigress, and, full of the honest indignation that possessed her, held me up to the shame I deserved before a host of people-pointed me out as a coward and knave who had sought to cruelly deceive her. She claimed the protection of that-that terrible man in the shop there-he was at Ashford as you know-and I was glad to hide my head in the railway carriage, and be borne away from his withering contempt. That's the story. I will not tell you of the sorrow which I experienced for the harm that I had done her-of the shame that has remained with me since then-of the turn which she even gave to my character. Sidney, I would have made any reparation in my power-but I was baffled and degraded, and dared not look upon her any more."

"That man I met at your house-he knew the story?"

"He knew the beginning of it; and for Harriet Wesden's sake-and to redeem her character in the mind of a man who has not a high estimate of women-I told the end."

Sidney sat and thought for a while. Then he pronounced his verdict.

"All this assures me that you are easily led away-that it is only chance that has kept you from being wholly a bad man. You are weak, vacillating, and unprincipled-you are no Hinchford."

"I have tried to do my best all my life, but somehow failed," said Maurice, ruefully; "impulse has led me wrong when my heart has meant right-candidly, cousin, I have been a fool more than once. But you cannot believe that I would do harm to any human being in cold blood?"

"Possibly not. But what virtue is there in that?"

"Let me add, Sidney, that I honestly believe that I have been altering for the better for the last two years. I have seen the emptiness of all my friends' professions; their greed of gain and love of self; have turned heart-sick at their evil-speaking, lying, and slandering. I feel that I haven't a friend; that I have 'used up' all the pleasures in the world, and that there is nothing I care for in it."

"Yours is a bad state, that leads to worse, as a rule, Maurice."

"I know it-I feel it."

"And you are truly sorry for all the harm that you have done us in life-Harriet, I, and others?"

"With all my heart-truly sorry."

"I can forgive you, then. I have been taught by good friends to be more charitable in my heart towards men's motives. A year ago, I thought I should have hated you all my life."

He held forth his hand, which Maurice took and shook heartily in his.

"Understand me," said Sidney, still coldly, "I forgive you, but I do not need your help, and your presence, under any circumstances, will always give me pain. We shall never be true friends-we shall respect each other better apart."

"Is it fair to think that? You who have heard me declaim against my vain and objectless life."

"Yours is a life to rejoice at, and to do good with, not to mourn over. Seek a wife, man, and settle down in your sphere, honoured by good men, and honouring good things."

"Ah! fair advice; but the wife will come for my money's sake, for the good things which I possess, and which she and her relations will honour in their way, with all their heart, and soul, and strength!"

"Timon of Athens!" said Sidney, almost satirically.

"Sidney, I would give up all my chances for one or two true friends. You don't know what a miserable wretch I am!"

"You will be better presently. You have seen too much life lately, and the reaction has rendered you blasé. Patience and wait. As for the wife--"

"Well?"

"Seek out Harriet Wesden again, and do her justice."

"But you--"

"She never loved me, Maurice; you were her first love, and her last. She is leading a life that is unfit for her, and you can make amends for all the shadows you have cast upon it."

"I could never face her."

"Then you are a greater coward than I thought."

"It's odd advice," he muttered; "seek out Harriet Wesden again! Oh! I know how that will end, and what 'good' will result from that. But you wish it?"

"Yes," said Sidney, after a moment's further reflection.

"And her address?"

Sidney repeated it; he took it down in his pocket-book, and then rose to depart.

"I am going now. I may trouble you once again, Sidney, if you will allow me."

"As you will-if you think it necessary."

Maurice Hinchford shuffled with his feet uneasily, keeping his eyes fixed on his blind cousin.

"May I ask," he said at last, "if-if you are happy here?"

"Yes, as happy as it is possible for one in my condition to be."

"They are kind to you?"

"Very kind."

"They are a sharp couple-father and daughter-they--"

"Oh! don't speak ill of them, Maurice; you do not know them, and cannot estimate them at their just worth."

"I might endure the daughter, for hers is a pleasant sharpness that one doesn't object to; but, oh! that dreadful vigorous little parson, or whatever he is."

"Good night," said Sidney, meaningly.

"One moment-I'm off in a minute now, Sid. There's one thing I did wish just to allude to-nothing about money, mind," he added hastily, noticing Sidney's heightened colour and proud face, and remembering Mattie's previous caution.

"What is it?" asked Sidney.

"I did wish to say how sorry I was to hear of the calamity, that had befallen you-that the bad news, which was told me to-day for the first time, has shocked me very much. But you'll not believe me-you still think I'm hard, cruel, and indifferent."

"No, I don't think that. But I don't care to dwell upon a painful topic."

"And about advice-what medical advice have you had, may I ask?"

"Not any."

"No advice!-why not?"

"I was told long ago that when blindness seized me, it would be irretrievable. I was warned of its approach by an eminent man, who was not likely to make a mistake."

"We are all liable to mistakes in life," said Maurice, "and it might happen--"

"Pray dismiss the subject, Maurice."

"I met with a foreign oculist in Paris-he was an Italian, I think-who--"

"Good night-good night," said Sidney, hastily; "when a man has been trying hard to teach himself resignation, it is not fair to disturb him with ideas like these."

"Your pardon, Sid-I am going at once. Good night."

"Good night."

Sidney did not extend his hand again, and Maurice made no attempt to part in a more friendly manner than they had met; profuse civilities could do no good, and though Maurice had gained his cousin's forgiveness, he had not roused his respect, or won upon his sympathy.

He passed into the shop, and took up his hat that he had left there on the counter. Mr. Gray looked at him, as at a fine subject which adverse fate was to snatch away from his experiments.

"You are going, young man?"

"Yes, sir-I hope I have not put you or your daughter to any inconvenience."

"No, sir," was his reply, beginning to turn up the collar of his coat above his ears, "no inconvenience. You are a stranger to this neighbourhood, and I'll just see you in the straight way, if you'll allow me."

"Oh! dear no, thank you," said the alarmed Maurice; "I'm well up in the way now-I could not think of taking you away from home at this time of night-thank you, thank you!"

He seized his hat, dashed at the lock, wrenched open the door, and flew for his life down the dark streets-no matter whither, or how far out of his route, so that he escaped Mr. Gray's companionship.

Half an hour afterwards, he was at New Cross railway station-the scene of his old duplicity-arranging for a telegraphic message to a Dr. Bario, resident in Paris.

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