Lawrence Clavering

t one elbow, and Marco Polo's travels at the other; and, alas! I fear that I gave more attention to the adventurer than I did to the theologian. But, in truth, neither author occupie

urrent of the river that my thoughts floated, yet they travelled faster than the current, seeing that while I still looked they had reached the bar where the river clashes w

store for me, and found the rector pacing backwards and forwards across one end of the hall, with his

ved from the Duke of Ormond in England the

k by his unexpected commencement; an

iberately; and then, suddenly bending

question. "Father," I stammered, "I

wice, but pressed me no furt

nce the commission was o

ble relief; "but I can think of but one person in the wo

tor, sharply, "you cou

, with a clumsy effort to retrieve the mi

re no fine feathers in our army, and there is no leisure to parade them were

ried a niece of Lady Joanna St. John--I was well enough acquainted with his diligence to know that the sneer w

ke that I wish to speak

er!" I exclaime

d asks permission of me this morn

, "you will give

ver my eagerness an

d he gave me Lord Bolingbroke's ad

d to utter a brief word of than

so

would revoke his permission. But as I approached him reluctantly

and will not for eight months to come. Think, and think humbly, during those months! Our

aced at his words. "Father

d I hurried to his lodging in no small anxiety of spirit. My Lord Bolingbroke makes but a slight figure in this story of my picture, compared with that he made upon the wider field of a nation's chronicle; and it is very well for me that this is so. For, indeed, I never understood him; although I held him in a great liking and esteem, and considered him to have confronted more adversity and mischance than commonly falls to any one, I never understood him. He was compacted of so many contradictions, and in all of them was so seemingly sincere that a plain man like Lawrence Clavering was completely at a loss to discover the inward truth of him. But as he was a riddle to my speculations, so was he a cherished object to my affections. For even during those last

ll at the table over his wine, when his

-"will ever be content with a makeshift. For my part," he continued, "I do not know but what the makeshift is the better. A few trustworthy friends, a few honest books and leisure wherein to savour their merits--it is what I have chiefly longed for these

in this scurry t

s. Still, I would have faced them had I stood alone. But to make common cause with Oxford! No, I abhor him to that degree, I cannot. It were worse than death. However, let's talk no more of it!" and he recovered himself with an effort, and sat for a little, silent, fingering his glass. "Oxford!" he exclaimed again with a bitter laugh of contempt. "Soft words, and never a thing done! To live till to-morrow was

mes the Third," I

he room. "I rather fancied," he resumed, with a queer smile, "that

istinguish between the occasion for discre

am to judge from the instance you have given me. I had some talk w

, for I knew the Chevalier to possess no more r

orraine, though I have been invited thither. But, in truth, I have had my surfeit of politics."

, to give it into your

that he dropped his hand over the superscription of the letter. "I wil

e room. I began to laugh, and Bolingb

is some

I fancy those few honest books

le. "I don't unde

hand-writing of your letter that you hav

ced at the cover of it. "The hand is strange to me. Perc

brought it. Marshall Berwick has sent him more th

d to you that I had already been invited by the Chevalier to Bar. Doubtless this is to second the invitation." He read it through carelessly, and tore it up. "Ye

to be the soutane, and not the red-c

appointment in his voice; but, maybe, I was over-ready

offer was a-piece with the rest of your kin

d you? Your devotion

ot beneath his gaze. Then he laughed. The laugh was kindly enough; b

," he continued; "but I was misled to bel

the cornetcy," I returned, "even h

s for his officers. He showed me a list not so long ago of twenty-seven colonels whom he had a mind

e I think I hit the true and chief reason, though

ncle in Cumberland

. "He can hardly hold me in that esteem wh

f a sedentary life. Most like it is for that very reason. I have seen something of a war's realities since then; I have seen men turned to beasts by hunger and thirst, and the lust of carnage; I have seen the dead stripped and naked upon the hill-side of Clifton moor w

a sudden; "if your afternoon is not disposed of, I would gladly

the proposal, and together

and we walked to the monastery

ou know th

is the first time tha

e at his burial, and painted with such cunning suggestion and power that, gazing at it, I felt a veritable fear invade me. It was not merely that his face expressed all the horror, the impotent rage, the pain of his damnat

r, in my contemplation of the picture, I had clean forgotten his presence. The painting was indeed so vivid that it had raised u

y, and moved away. Lord Bolingbroke followed me, and we q

te the rebuke which the rector had addressed to me that morning; it pointed a scornful commentary at my musings on the glory of arms. For the figure in the picture cried "hypocrite," and cried the word at me; and so insistently did the recollection of it besiege me that I came near to thinking it no finished painting limned upon the wall, and fixed so until such ti

ence since my last words--"it is the imagination, not the craftsmanship, which fix

ificance in his tone whi

d in the

s to show me the

he re

hy

ou nothing conc

t seemed incredible that he could have fores

ou mean?"

ugh, and pointed a

"and moult and moult people

im very prone to religious exercises. However, he crossed the r

into it out of the April sunshine, it

at the far end of the nave over against us shone blurred and vague as though down some misty tunnel; and from the

d no manner of business. But after a little a Carmelite monk began to preach, and the fire of his discourse, as it rose and fell, now harsh with passion, now musical with tenderness, roused me to a consciousness of the holy ground on which I stood. I bent forward, not so much listening as watching those who listened. I

monk asserted over his congregation, an

flame kindling his words, and compelled belief. Of the matter of his sermon I took no note. Once or twice "the Eve of St. Bartholomew" came thundering at my ears, but for the most part it seemed that he cried "hypocrite" at me, until I feared

nights?" he asked,

cher wrou

e agreed; "but it was

he street, and

-what of him, Lawrence? He is the mere instrument of his eloquence--its servant, not its master. He is

is heart. He was sincere, and therefore he l

of self-reproach, and without thou

advocate. I did not gather you were so devoted to the vocation;" an

lay awake in my bed, painted with fire upon the dark spaces of the room, and the face that bore the shame of hypocrisy discovered, and with that shame the agony of punishment was mine. Or, again, a word of reproof; the mere sight of my Marco Polo was sufficient to bring it into view, and for the rest of that day it would bear me company, hanging before my eyes when I sat down to my books, and moving in front of me when I walked, as it had moved in front of me through the streets of Paris on that first and only occasion of my seeing it. For, though many a time I passed