to Russian usage, a rude son of the Don, gloomy-looking messroom, and then to the fully armed, his head encased in a rough fur adjutant's office, where under promise to reshako. He was maintaining a watchful join us "Si chasse, Si chasse," he left us, outlook over the whole surrounding wilder- professedly to see after our horses. His ness. On presenting our letter to the" Si chasse," however, became such a weary officer on duty, I had soon reason to deplore the absence of my Government vouchers, for my letter was returned to me, with the unwelcome intelligence that the Colonel had only a few hours before started for Erivan-that we must have passed him unseen that he had gone on business, which would detain him for days. I hereupon explained the motive of our visit, and suggested that as the letter to the Colonel was one only of formality, the officer in command should break the seal and satisfy its purpose. "A Dieu ne plaise," was the instant reply. "No one but the owner may presume to open such a letter with such a seal, and so addressed." All this was said in a most courteous way, but with looks and tones to show the decision was final. To speak of important official papers which I could not produce would be only to confirm or awaken a Russian's natural suspicion of a stranger's purpose in a land of their recent rule. So I merely asked for my alternative: would they advise me to abandon my project, after so much fatigue, at the moment of its anticipated realisation? "Well," said the one who was evidently their chief, although his uniform bore no signs of it, "if your object is the singular one of visiting our cantonments and the mountain, you will find as hearty a welcome among us as if you were armed with the authority of the Czar himself, instead of arriving as unrecommended strangers." On this, bidding a young officer accompany us, and to see in the mean time, that horses were prepared to carry us, as far as practicable, up the mountain, he requested us to alight, and, excusing his own personal attendance, as sured us that under the subaltern's guidance, the whole station was open to our inspection, "although," he said, "I fear, as it is remote from the capital, and of little importance, your expectations will be disappointed. However, as that is one of the two motives for your honouring us with a visit, it is my duty to aid in its gratification." With such plausible words, bowing and smiling, he relieved himself of our presence. hour, that I began to apprehend we were prisoners condemned to solitary confinement. Happily the door yielded to my hand, and so I escaped into the open air. I entered one block of buildings after another, without finding any but common soldiers, who knew nothing, and so could tell nothing. The sentinels made a movement of respect with their firelocks, but would exchange no words. The desolate outerwilderness was less a painful solitude than this outpost-lair of unseen troopers. All around you rose the solid works of man's defencing hand, while the species shrunk from your search. I lighted at last by the merest accident upon the plausible chief. He was as bland as ever with honeyed words, in spite of my clouded brow. I reminded him that the hours were passing away without our realising his promise. He looked surprised, and requested me to explain myself. "Where are the horses," I asked, "which three hours ago were to be here instantly?" "Pardon me," he replied, "you do not seem to be aware, that as our settlement is small, and rarely visited, and the season for camp exercises closed, our horses are all now turned adrift for pasture. And then, as these are not of high-bred English mettle, but are mere mountain colts, you can easily suppose they will make a wide range in grazing, and will need much time and many men for the battue." "But surely," I said, "you can find us two horses without all this ado?" He was not certain of that. The commonest station-master throughout the Russias was compelled to keep a certain number of horses always in reserve. How much more necessary was this at a military outpost ! But I seemed to forget, that the question is not of two, but twenty-two. Twentytwo!" I exclaimed, laughing right out. "Why you would multiply our two simple selves into as many individualities as are contained in a Spanish grandee's title." "Oh," he replied, "we must provide not for you only, but also for your guard.” "What guard?" I asked. "We want no The young subaltern was chary enough guard to the mountain side, every inch of of his replies to our questions, and deter- which is commanded by your quarters." mined that through him we should be noth-" Oh! pardon me," he said, "you are not ing the wiser for our visit. He had only so informed of this locality as I am. Before recently joined from Moscow, and so knew reaching the ascent, you would have to ride as little of the place as a clod of the valley. through a thick jungle, where you would In fulfilment of his duty he led us to a large be sure to be picked off by some scoundrel LIVING AGE. VOL. VI. 179. scout, unseen, without our being able to render you the slightest assistance. We have no security here but in strong pickets. Even our night sentinels are often relieved of life before they are relieved from duty. Rest quietly here for to-night," he went on; "and start fresh with the early morning. My orderly here will show you a room, and and supply your wants from our humble mess, if you do not choose to join our table. In this out-of-the-way place we have none of the luxuries of bed and board-little, in fact, beyond a welcome." As we had fled empty-handed from the passage of the Araxes, our inner man by this time was in the exhaustion of famine. However, we commanded endurance upon ourselves, and followed our guide as directed. The quarters into which he introduced us consisted of a small room, garnished with a small rickety table, two unsteady chairs, and a wooden bedstead of so unquestionable an appearance, that we feared it had more liberal gifts in store than sleep. The cold-looking whitewashed walls were pierced with three small windows, so scantily provided with panes of glass, that the whistling wind was sporting freely with the dust, which our sudden entrance had roused from its right of place. Beyond the windows nothing relieved the bare walls but the shadows of the Virgin Mary, and her companion, St. Nicolas. It was a dreary welcome to us, disappointed as we were, and destitute of bed and bedding, without which no one undertakes a journey in Russia, and these, in the confusion of the morning, had, forgotten, been left in the carriage with Raphael. Taking counsel, therefore, of our circumstances, we determined to abandon the mountain and return to our vehicle before evening reduced us to further ungracious courtesy at the hands of these ungracious strangers. We lost much time in recovering our steeds and our escort, and when these finally appeared, we saw at a glance that the welcome of the stall had been as liberal as that of the table. Wherever we moved, every one shrunk from our approach as though we were tainted with the plague, and when we finally mounted to depart, no officer appeared to receive our thanks for rare hospitality, or wish us the glückliche Reise, which is the traveller's right even in barbarous lands. We rode out from the camp, shaking its dust from our feet, as of a city doomed to the pilgrim's curse. We moved away moodily silent, with the mountain-shadows lengthening gloomily around us, as the Vampire-Russ broods darkening o'er the Eastern world. The chords within were jarred. Welcome would have been a breathless flight across the desert-wild to charm the angry stir of soul to peace. But we needed to spare our wearied, famished steeds for the struggle of the flood, and so in fierce unrest we measured back our way painfully slow. On reaching the river we found a sentinel still keeping silent watch, but the waters were rushing away, no longer reflecting the joyous smiles of heaven, but sobered, sad with evening's shadows grey. I paused awhile to bring my morning's experience to trace a kindlier passage to the farther shore; and then breasting the flood, though stumbling oft in peril, I stood at last secure. One of our Cossacks, however, striking direct for the opposite bank, and handling his wearied beast impatiently, had, ere long, his horse down upon his haunches, and, floundering from rapids into dark sullen pools, must soon have been borne along as carrion-prey for gathering vultures, had not the stolid sentinel roused him to his peril, and directed him to follow in our wake. The sight of our carriage, and the show of welcome on the part of our attendants, was an agreeable sequel to all the disappointments and fatigues of the day. Reaction followed quick upon my heart. Words and thoughts of kindness arose for those who had shared my dangers or ruffled my peace, and thankful breathings to my God for His shielding care. Our horses speedily put to, bore us cheerily along, as though sharing in the general joy following on fatigues and dangers past. When we reached the station, the old Cerberus was waiting to receive us with the kindly welcome of the Somavah. My spirit, chastened by the sobering whisper of the night, left me powerless for rebuke. I had not the heart to chide him for his misleading counsel of the morning. And per haps, after all, he was himself deceived. Hard thoughts had brooded in my breast against him, as I rode back disappointed from the camp. "He must," I said to myself, "have known of the non-existence of the pontoon of the difficulty of the passage of the absence of the Colonel from the camp, and of the consequent reception we should experience." Nay, I had gone so far as to suppose he had assisted to it. And so, en revanche, I had mentally resolved to show up his delinquencies in the right way, in the right place. Now, however, better thoughts ruled me thoughts of love and peace, and so I dismissed him trem bling to the ceaseless summons of his screaming squaw. In the presence of his greater, I smiled at my lesser plague. Howbeit, twice in an interval of years, to travel far and wearily, and fail at last, in looking from the mountain's side o'er all the patriarchal world, was no slight grief to me. However, 1 brought the muses to my aid; and so, amid the brawling tempest of domestic strife which burst in ceaseless clamour from within, I breathed aloud the gentle dirge which oft has soothed my cares to rest "Come, Disappointment, come! Not in thy terrors clad : Come in thy meekest, saddest guise; The restless and the bad;" and bethinking me of the Cerberus's "disappointment" and "chastening rod," contentment was my instant bliss. My counsel to my countrymen, who, like myself, may sigh to visit the cradle of mankind, is Be sure your papers are of the first authority, always en règle, and never absent from your person. As my experience of private Russian courtesy and hospitality is beyond all praise, and as I have still to linger in the land, and wander among the spurs of Mount Ararat, I must school myself into loving patience. And so, as my midnight lamp is fading into darkness, I bid the jealous spirit of the land "Good-night." "Good night! good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say Good night till it be morrow." BLACKETT BOTCHERBY. BOODLE'S AND CROCKFORD'S CLUBS. Boodle's is chiefly frequented by country gentlemen, whose status has been thus satirically insinuated by a contemporary: "Every Sir John belongs to Boodle's, as you may see, for when a waiter comes into the room and says to some aged student of the Morning Herald, Sir John, your servant is come,' every head is me chanically thrown up in answer to the address." Captain Gronow relates that some gentlemen of both White's and Brookes's had on one occasion the honour to dine with the Prince Regent. Compassionating the members of these clubs for the monotony of their fare at dinner, his Royal Highness summoned his cook, Watier, on the spot to ask him if he would take a house and organize a dinner club. Watier assented, and hence the club which bore his name. Macao was played at Watier's to a ruinous extent, and "the club," according to Mr. Raikes, "did not endure for twelve years altogether; the pace was too quick to last; it died a natural death in 1819 from the paralyzed state of its members; the house was then taken by a set of blacklegs, who instituted a common bank for gambling. To form an idea of the ruin produced by this short-lived establishment among men whom I have so intimately known, a cursory glance to the past suggests a melancholy list, which only forms a part of its deplorable results. None of the dead reached Macao table, when the play was very deep, the average age of man. "One evening at the Brummell, having lost a considerable stake, affected, in his farcical way, a very tragic air, and cried out, Waiter, bring me a flat candlestick and a pistol!' Upon which Bligh (a notorious madman, and one of the members of Watier's), who was sitting opposite to him, calmly produced two loaded pistols from his coat pocket, which he placed on the table, and said, Mr. Brummell, if you are really desirous to put a period to your existence, I am extremely happy to offer yon the means, without troubling the waiter. The effect upon those present may easily be imagined, at finding themselves in the company of a known madman who had loaded weapons about him." ford's Club, also noted for its devotion to play,. was instituted in 1827, in the house No. 20, on the west side of St. James's-street. Crockford had begun life with a fish-basket, and ended most colossal fortune that was ever with the Crock made by play. He began," according to the "by taking Watier's old Edinburgh Review, club-house, in partnership with a man named Taylor. They set up a hazard-bank, and won a great deal of money, but quarrelled and separated at the end of the first year. Taylor continued where he was, had a bad year, and failed. Crockford removed to St. James'sstreet, had a good year, and immediately set about building the magnificent club-house which bears his name. It rose like a creation of Aladdin's lamp, and the genii themselves could hardly have surpassed the beauty of the internal decoration, or furnished a more accomplished maître d'hôte! than Ude. To make the company as select as possible, the establishment was regularly organized as a club, and the election of members vested in a committee. "Crockford's" became the rage, and the votaries of fashion, whether they liked play or not, hast ened to enrol themselves. The Duke of Wellington was an original member, though (unlike Blücher, who repeatedly lost everything he had at play) the great captain was never known to play deep at any game but war or politics. Card-tables were regularly placed, and whist was played occasionally; but the aim, end, and final cause of the whole, was the hazard-bank, at which the proprietor took his nightly stand, prepared for all comers. Le Wellington des Joueurs lost £23,000 at a sitting, beginning at twelve at night and ending at seven the following evening. He and three other noblemen could not have lost less, sooner or later, than £100,000 apiece. Others lost in proportion, or out of proportion, to their means; but we leave it to less-occupied moralists and better calculators to say how many ruined families went to make Mr Crockford a millionnaire, for a millionaire he was in the English sense of the term, after making the largest possible allowance for bad debts. - London Society. PART VII. CHAPTER XX. - POWYS'S BITS OF PAPER. MR. BROWNLOw, perhaps, did not know very well what he meant when he called young Powys into his room. He was in one of those strange states of mental excitement in which a man is at once confused and clear; incapable of seeing before him what he is about to do, yet as prompt and distinct in the doing of it as if it had been premeditated to the last detail. He could not have explained why nor told what it was he proposed to himself; in short, he had in his own mind proposed nothing to himself. He was swayed only by a vague, intense, and overwhelming necessity to have the matter before him set straight somehow, and, confused as his own mind was, and little as he knew of his own intentions, he yet went on, as by the directest inspiration, marching boldly, calmly, yet wildly, in a kind of serious madness, into the darkness of this unknown way. He called the young man to him in sharp, decided tones, as if he knew exactly what he wanted, and was ready to enter fully into it at once; and yet he did not in the least know what he wanted, nor what question he was to ask, nor what he was to say the next moment; the only thing that helped him was, that as he looked out of his office to call Powys, he could see him pick up hastily and put in his pocket the bits of paper, all dotted over with calculations, which he had already remarked on the young man's desk. "Sit down," said Mr Brownlow, "I have something to say to you; " and he resumed his own seat at his writing table as if there had been nothing particular in the conference, and began mechanically to arrange the papers before him as for Powys, he put his hand upon the back of the chair which stood on the other side of the table, and waited, but did not sit down, being bewildered a little, though not half so much as his employer was, by this sudden "Intended! sir," said Powys, "I know that you have been my friend, and a far better friend than I deserved ' Here he made one of those pauses of embarrassment which sometimes mean so much, and often mean so little. Mr. Brownlow, who knew more than Powys did, took it to signify a great deal, and the idea gave him strength to proceed; and the fact is, that for once the two, unknown to each other, were thinking of the same thing-of the bits of paper covered with figures that were in Powys's pocket, only their thoughts ran in a very different strain. think you can have any more trustworthy counsellor." As Mr Brownlow said this, it seemed to him that some one else, some unseen third party, was putting the words into his mouth; and his heart gave a flutter as he said them, though it was little in accordance either with his age or character that the heart should take any prominent part in his concerns. - As for the young man, there came over his face a quick flush, as of shame. He touched with his hand instinctively, and without knowing it, the breast-pocket in which these papers were- - all of which actions were distinct and full of meaning to the anxious eyes that were watching him and he faltered as he spoke. 'I know that you would be my most trustworthy counsellor and I don't know how to thank you," he said; but he had lowered his voice and cast down his eyes. He stood holding the back of the chair, and it trembled in his grasp. le could not meet the gaze that was fixed upon him. He stood shuffling his feet, looking down, red with embarrassment, confusion and shame. Was it that he felt himself a traitor? eating the Brownlows' bread, receiving their kindness, and plotting against them? It seemed to his companion as clear as day. 6. "Sit down," said Mr. Brownlow, feeling his advantage, let us talk of it as friends and then he himself made a pause, and clenched his hand unawares, and felt his heart contract as he put the last decisive question. "What are those calculations you have been making all day? " Young Powys started, and became violently red, and looked up suddenly into his employer's face. No doubt this was what he had been thinking of; but the question was so sudden, so point-blank, that it dispersed all the involuntary softenings of which he had been conscious, and brought back to him all his youthful pride and amour propre and reserve about his own affairs. He looked Mr Brownlow full in the face, and his agitation took a different form. "Calculations, sir?" he said, with even a touch of indignation in his voice; and then he too stopped, lest he should be uncourteous to his employer, who he was confident wished him well though he was so strangely curious. "The only calculations I have made are about my own affairs," he went on. "They are of no interest to any one. I am sorry you should have thought I was taking up my time" "I did not think of your time," said Mr. Brownlow, with an impatient sigh. "I have seen many young men like you who have who have gone wrong-from lack of experience and knowledge of the world. I wish to serve you. Perhaps it is possible - I may have partly divined what is on your mind. Can't you see that it would be best in every way to make a confidant of me?" All this the lawyer said involuntarily as it were, the words being put into his mouth. They were false words, and yet they were true. He wanted to cheat and ruin the young man before him, and yet he wanted to serve him. world' "Sit down," said Mr. Brownlow; come nearer to me and sit down upon this chair. You are very young " He desired his confidence that he might betray I suppose that I am unaccustomed to the it, and yet he felt disposed to guide and counsel him as if he had been his son. The confusion of his mind was such that it became a kind of exaltation. After all he meant him well what he would do for him would be the best. "I am five-and-twenty," said Powys. He It might not be justice-justice was one thing; said it hastily, answering what he thought was kindness, friendship, bounty, another and a kind of accusation; and the words struck the these last he was ready to give. Thus, in the lawyer like a blow. It was not new to him, bewilderment of motives and sentiments that and yet the very statement of that momentous existed in his mind, he came to find himself number seemed to carry a certain significance. again as it were, and to feel that he did really The ill omened fortune which made these two mean well to the boy. "I wish to serve you,' ,"adversaries had come to the one just when the he repeated, with a kind of eagerness. Would other was born. not this be to serve him better than by giving to his inexperienced hands a fairy fortune of which he would not know how to make use? These thoughts went vaguely but powerfully through Mr. Brownlow's mind as he spoke. And the result was that he looked up in the young man's face with a sense of uprightness which had for some time deserted him. It would be best in every way that there should be confidence between them-best for the youth, who, after all, had he ever so good a case, would probably be quite unaware how to manage it and best, unquestionably best, for himself, as showing at once what he had to hope or fear. Of this there could be no doubt. As for Powys, he was touched, and at the same time alarmed. It was the same subject which occupied them both, but yet they looked upon it with very different eyes. The Canadian knew what was in those scraps of paper with their lines of figures and awful totals, and it seemed to him that sooner than show them to any one, sooner than make a clean breast of what was in them, he would rather die. Yet the kindness went to his heart, and made him in his own eyes a monster. "Divined!" he said half to himself, with a look of horror. If Mr. Brownlow had divined it, it seemed to Powys that he never could hold up his head before him again. Shame would stand between them, or something he thought shame. He had not done much that was wrong, but he could have shrunk into the very ground at the idea that his thoughts and calculations were known. In spite of himself he cast a piteous glance at the whiteness of his elbows was that how it came about that Mr. Brownlow divined? Pride, shame, gratitude, compunction, surged up in his mind, into his very eyes and throat, so that he could not speak or look at the patron who was so good to him, yet whom he could not yield to. "Sir," he stammered, when he had got a little command of himself—" you are mistaken. I-I have nothing on my mindnothing more than every man has who has a a-life of his own. Indeed, sir," the poor youth continued with eagerness, "don't think I am ungrateful - but I-I—can't tell you. I can't tell my own mother. It is my own fault. It is nothing to any other creature. In short." he added, breaking off with an effort, and forcing a smile, "it is nothing — nothing! - only Well," said Mr. Brownlow, who felt his utterance stopped by these innocent words, “it does not matter. Sit down; I have still a great deal to say And then he stopped with a gasp, and there was a pause like a pause in the midst of a battle. If Powys had not been pre-occupied by the which to him was so absorbing, though he denied its interest to any other, he could not have failed to be struck by the earnestness, and suppressed excitement, and eager baffled looks of his employer. But he was blinded by his own anxieties, and by that unconscious self-importance of youth which sees nothing wonderful in the fact of other people's interest in its own fortunes. He thought Mr. Brownlow was kind. It did not occur to him that a stronger motive was necessary for these persistent questions and for this intense interest. He was not vainbut yet it came natural to receive such attention, and his mind was not sufficiently disengaged to be. surprised. As for the lawyer, he paused and took breath, and looked into the frank yet clouded face which was so open and communicative, and yet would not, could not, reveal to him the secret he wanted to seize. It was not skill, it was not cunning, that preserved the young man's secret was it innocence ? Had he been mistaken? was there really in Powys's consciousness at least no such secret, but only some youthful trouble, some boyish indiscretion, that was on his mind." As Mr. Brownlow paused, and looked at his young companion, this thought gradually shaped itself within him, and for the moment it gave him a strange relief. He too was absorbed and pre-occupied, and thrust out of the region of such light as might have been thrown on the subject by the whiteness of the seams of the young fellow's coat; and then he had come to be in such deadly earnest that any lighter common-place explanation would have seemed an insult to him Yet he paused. and after a few moments felt as if a truce had been proclaimed. It had not come yet to the last struggle for death or life. There was still time to carry on negotiations, to make terms, to convert the enemy into a firm friend and supporter. This conviction brought comfort to his mind notwithstanding that half an hour before he had started up in the temerity of despair, and vowed to himself that, for good or evil, the decisive step must be taken at once. |