Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998

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• English

LC Subject Headings:

• Christmas stories.

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The Stolen Mask;
OR THE
MYSTERIOUS CASH-BOX. A STORY FOR A CHRISTMAS FIRESIDE.

BY

WILKIE COLLINS

COLUMBIA, S. C.:
STEAM POWER PRESS OF F. G. DEFONTAINE & CO.,
1864.

THE STOLEN MASK;
OR THE MYSTERIOUS CASH-BOX.

BY WILKIE COLLINS.

INTRODUCTION.

        It may possibly happen that some of the readers of this story have in their possession a plaster "mask"--or, face and forehead--of Shakspeare, which is a cast from the celebrated Stratford bust. These casts were first offered for sale some time since. The circumstances under which the original mould was taken, I heard thus related by a friend, (now no more,) to whose affectionate remembrance of me I am indebted for the specimen of the mask which I now possess:

        A stone-mason at Stratford-upon-Avon was employed, a few years ago, to make repairs in the church. While thus engaged, he managed--as he thought, unsuspected--to make a mould from the Shakspeare bust. What he had done was found out, however; and he was forthwith threatened, by the authorities having care of the bust, with the severest pains and penalties of the law--though for what especial offence was not specified. The poor man was so frightened at these menaces, that he packed up his tools at once, and, taking the mould with him, left Stratford. Having afterwards stated his case to persons competent to advise him, he was told that he need fear no penalty whatever, and that if he thought he could dispose of them, he might make as many casts as he pleased, and offer them for sale anywhere. He took the advice, placed his masks neatly on slabs of black marble, and sold great numbers of them, not only in England, but in America also. It should be added, that this stonemason had been always remarkable for his extraordinary reverence of Shakspeare, which he carried to such an extent as to assure the friend from whom I derived the information here given, that if (as a widower) he ever married again, it should be only when he could meet with a woman who was a lineal descendant of William Shakspeare!

        From the anecdote I have related, the first idea of the following pages was derived. I now offer my little book to the public, in writing which I have endeavored to tell a simple story, simply and familiarly; or, in other words, as if I were only telling it to an audience of friends at my own fireside.

WILKIE COLLINS.

CHAPTER I.

ELOCUTION FOR THE MILLION.

        I should be insulting the intelligence of readers generally, if I thought it at all necessary to describe to them that widely-celebrated town, Tidbury-on-the-Marsh. As a genteel provincial residence, who is unacquainted with it? The magnificent new hotel that has grown on to the side of the old inn; the extensive library, to which, not satisfied with only adding new books, they are now adding a new entrance as well; the projected crescent of palatial abodes in the Grecian style, on the top of the hill, to rival the completed erescent of castellated abodes, in the Gothic style, at the bottom of the hill--are not such local objects as these perfectly well known to any intelligent Englishman? Of course they are! The question is superfluous. Let us get on at once, without wasting more time, from Tidbury in general to the High Street in particular, and to our present destination there--the commercial establishment of Messrs. Dunball and Dark.

        Looking merely at the colored liquids, the miniature statue of a horse, the corn-plasters, the oil-skin bags, the pots of cosmetics, and the cut-glass saucers full of lozenges in the shop-window, you might at first imagine that Dunball and Dark were only chemists. Looking carefully through the entrance, towards an inner apartment, an inscription; a large, upright mahogany receptacle, or box, with a hole in it; brass rails protecting the hole; a green curtain ready to draw over the hole; and a man with a copper money-shovel in his hand, partially visible behind the hole--would be sufficient to inform you that Dunball and Dark were not chemists only, but "Branch Bankers" as well.

        It is a rough, squally morning at the end of November. Mr. Dunball (in the absence of Mr. Dark,

who has gone to make a speech at the Vestry Meeting,) has got into the mahogany box, and has assumed the whole business and direction of the Branch Bank. He is a very fat man, and looks absurdly over large for his sphere of action. Not a single customer has, as yet, applied for money--nobody has come even to gossip with the Branch Banker through the brass rails of his commercial prison-house. There he sits, staring calmly through the chemical part of the shop into the street--his gold in one drawer, his notes in another, his elbows on his ledgers, his copper shovel under his thumb; the picture of monied loneliness; the hermit of British finance.

        In the outer shop is the young assistant, ready to drug the public at a moment's notice. But Tidbury-on-the-Marsh is an unprofitably healthy place, and no public appears. By the time the young assistant has ascertained from the shop clock that it is a quarter past 10, and from the weather-cock opposite that the wind is "Sou'-sou'-west," he has exhausted all external sources of amusement, and is reduced to occupying himself by first sharpening his pen-knife, and then cutting his nails. He has completed his left hand, and has just begun on the right hand thumb, when a customer actually darkens the shop-door at Iast!

        Mr. Dunball starts, and grasps the copper shovel; the young assistant shuts up his pen-knife in a hurry, and makes a bow. The customer is a young girl, and she has come for a pot of lip-salve.

        She is very neatly and quietly dressed; looks about eighteen or nineteen years of age; and has something in her face which I can only characterize by the epithet--lovable. There is a beauty of innocence and purity about her forehead, brow and eyes--a calm, kind, happy expression as she looks at you--and a curious, home-sonnd in her clear utterance when she speaks, which, altogether, make you fancy, stranger as you are, that you must have known her and loved her long ago, and somehow or other ungratefully forgotten her in the lapse of time. Mlixed up, however, with the girlish gentleness and innocence which form her more proininent charm, there is a look of firmness--especlially noticeable about the expression of her lips--that gives a certain charaeter and originality to her face. Her figure--

        I stop at her figure. Not by any means for want of phrases to describe it; but from a disheartening conviction of the powerlessness of any description of her at all to produce the right effect on the minds of others. If I were asked in what particular efforts of literature the poverty of literary material most remarkably appears, I should answer, in personal descriptions of heroines. We have all read these by the hundred--some of them so carefully and finely finished, that we are not only informed about the lady's eyes, eye-brows, nose, cheeks, complexion, mouth, teeth, neck, ears, head, hair and the way it was dressed; but are also made acquainted with the particular manner in which the sentiments below made the bosom above heave or swell; besides the exact position of head in which her eye-lashes were just long enough to cast a shadow on her cheeks. We have read all this attentively and admiringly, as it deserves; and have yet risen from the reading, without the remotest approach to a realization in our own minds of what sort of a woman the heroine really was. We vaguely knew she was beautiful, at the beginning of the description; and we know just as much--just as vaguely--at the end.

        Penetrated with the conviction above mentioned, I prefer leaving the reader (assisted by a striking likeness in the frontispiece) to form his own realization of the personal appelrance of the customer at Messers. Dunball and Dark's. Eschewing the magnificent beauties of his acquaintance, let him imagine her to be like any pretty, intelligent girl whom he knows--any of those pleasant little fire-side angels, who can charm us even in a merino morning gown, darning an old pair of socks. Let this be the sort of female reality in the reader's mind; and neither author nor heroine need have any reason to compIain.

        Well; our young lady came to the counter, and asked for lip-salve. The assistant, vanquished at once by the potent charm of her presence, paid her the first little tribute of politeness in his power, by asking permission to send the gallipot home for her.

        "I beg your pardon, miss," said he; "but I think you live lower down, at No. 12. I was passing, and I think I saw you going in there, yesterday, with an old gentleman and another gentleman. I think I did, miss?"

        "Yes; we lodge at No. 12," said the young girl; "but I will take the lip-salve home with me, if you please. I have a favor, however, to ask of you before I go," she continued, very modestly, but without the slightest appearance of embarrassment; "if you have room to hang this up in your window, my grand-father, Mr. Wray, would feel much obliged by your kindness."

        And here, to the utter astonishment of the young assistant, she handed him a piece of card-board, with a string to hang it up by, on which appeared the following inscription, neatly written:

        "Mr. Reuben Wray, pupil of the late celebrated John Kemble, Esquire, begs respectfully to inform his friends and the public that he gives Iessons in elocution, delivery and reading aloud, price two-and-sixpenee the lesson of an hour. Pupils prepared for the stage, or private theatricals, on a principle combining intelligent interpretation of the text, with the action of the arms and legs adopted by the late illustrious Roscius of the English stage, J. KembIe, Esquire; and attentively studied from cIose observation of Mr. J. K. by Mr. R. W. Orators and clergymen improved, (with the strictest secresy,) at three-and-sixpence the lesson of an hour. Impediments and hesitation of utterance combated and removed. Young ladies taught the graces of delivery, and young gentlemen the proprieties of diction. A discount allowed to schools and large classes. Please to address Mr. Reuben Wray (late of the Theatre Royal, Drury Laue,) 12 High street, Tidbury-on-the-Marsh."

        No Babylonian inscription that ever was cut, no manuscript on papyrus that ever was penned, could possibly have puzzled the young assistant more than this remarkable advertisement. He read it all through in a state of stupefaction; and then observed, with a bewildered look at the young girl on the other side of the counter:

        "Very nicely written, miss; and very nicely composed indeed! I suppose--in fact, I'm sure Mr. Dunball"--Here a creaking was heard, as of some strong wooden construction being gradually rent asunder. It was Mr. Dunball himself, squeezing his way out of the Branch Bank box, and coming to examine the advertisement.

        He read it all through very attentively, following each line with his forefinger; and then cautiously and gently laid the card-board down on the counter. When I state that neither Mr. Dunball nor his assistant were quite certain what a "Roscius of the the English stage" meant, or what precise branch of human attainment Mr. Wray designed to teach in teaching "elocution," I do no injustice either to master or man.

        "So you want this. bung up in the window, my--in the window, miss?" asked Mr. Dunball. He was about to say, "my dear;" but something in the girl's look and manner stopped him.

        "If you could hang it without inconvenience, sir."

        "May I ask what's your name? and where you come from?"

        "My name is Annie Wray; and the last place we came from was Stratford-upon-Avon."

        "Ah! indeed--and Mr. Wray teaches, does he?--elocution for half a crown--eh?"

        "My grand-father only desires to let the inhabitants of this place know that he can teach those who wish it, to speak or read with a good delivery and a proper pronunciation."

        Mr. Dauball feh rather puzzled by the straight-forward, self-possessed manner in which he--a branch banker, chemist, and a municipal authority--was answered by little Annie Wray. He took up the advertisement again; and walked away to read it a second time in the solemn monetary seclusion of the back shop.

        The young assistant followed. "I think they're respectable people, sir," said he, in a whisper; "I was passing when the old gentlermin went into No. 12, yesterday. The wind blew his cloak on one side, and I saw him carrying a large cash-box under it--I did indeed, sir; and it seemed a heavy one."

        "Cash-box!" cried Mr. Dunball. "What does a man with a cash box want with elocution, and two-and-sixpence an hour? Suppose he should be a swindler!"

        "He can't be, sir; look at the young lady! Besides, the people at No. 12 told me he gave a reference, and paid a week's rent in advance."

        "He did--did he? I say, are you sure it was a cash-box?"

        "Certain, sir. I suppose it had money in it, of course?"

        "What's the use of a cash-box, without cash?" said the Branch Banker, contemptuously. "It looks rather odd, though! Stop! maybe it's a wager. I've heard of gentlemen doing queer things for wagers. Or, maybe, he's cracked! Well, she's a nice girl; and hanging up this thing can't do any harm. I'll make inquiries about them, though, for all that."

        Frowning portentously as he uttered this last cautious resolve, Mr. Dunball leisurely returned to the chemist's shop. He was, however, nothing like so ill-natured a man as he imigined himself to be; and, in spite of his dignity and his suspicions, he smiled far more cordially than he at all intended, as he now addressed little Annie Wray.

        "It's out of our line, miss," said he; "but we'll hang the thing up to oblige you. Of course, if I want a reference, you can give it? Yes, yes! of course. There! there's the card in the window for you--a nice prominent place (look at it as you go out)--just between the string ot corn-plasters and the dried poppy-heads! I wish Mr. Wray success; though I rather think Tidbury is not quite the sort of place to come to for what you call elocution--eh?"

        "Thank you, sir; and good morning," said little Annie. And she left the shop just as composedly as she had entered it.

        "Cool little girl, that!" said Mr.Dunball, watching her progress down the street to No. 12.

        "Pretty little girl, too!" thought the assistant, trying to watch, like his master, from the window.

        "I should like to know who Mr. Wray is," said Mr. Dunball, turning back into the shop, as Annie disappeared. "And I'd give something to find out what Mr. Wray keeps in his cash-box," continued the banker-chemist, as he thoughtfully re-entered the mahogany money-chest in the back premises.

        You are a wise man, Mr. Dunball; but you won't solve those two mysteries in a hurry, sitting alone in that Branch Bank sentry-box of yours! Can anybody solve them? I can.

        Who is Mr. Wray? and what has he got in his cash-box? Come to No. 12 and see!

CHAPTER II.

MR. WRAY AND THE BRITISH DRAMA.

        Before we go boldly into Mr. Wray's lodgings, I must speak a word or two about him, behind his back--but by no means slanderously. I will take his advertisement, now hanging up in the shop window of Messrs, Dunball and Dark, as the text of my discourse.

        Mr. Reuben Wray became, as he phrased it, a "pupil of the late celebrated John Kemble, Esquire," in this manner: He began life by being apprenticed for three years to a statuary. Whether the occupation of taking casts and clipping stones proved of too sedentary a nature to suit his temperament, or whether an evil counsellor within him, whose name was vanity, whispered: "Seek public admiration, and be certain of public applause," I know not; but the fact is, that, as soon as his time was out, he left his master and his native place to join a band of strolling players; or, as he himself more magniloquently expressed it, he went on the stage.

        Nature had gifted him with good lungs, large eyes, and a hook nose; his success before barn audiences was consequently brilliant. His professional exertions, it must be owned, barely sufficed to feed and clothe him; but then he had a triumph on the London stage, always present in the far perspective, to console him. While waiting this desirable event, he indulged himself in a little intermediate luxury, much in favor as a profitable resource for young men in extreme difficulties--he married; married at the age of nineteen, or thereabouts, the charming Columbine of the company.

        And he got a good wife. Many people, I know, will refuse to believe this--it is a truth, nevertheless. The one redeeming success of the vast social failure which his whole existence was doomed to represent, was this very marriage of his with a strolling Columbine. She, poor girl, toiled as hard and as cheerfully to get her own bread after marriage, as before; trudged many a weary mile by his side from town to town, and never uttered a complaint; praised his acting; partook his hopes; patched his clothes; pardoned his ill-humor; paid court for him to his manager; made up his squabbles--in a word, and in the best and highest sense of that word, loved him. May I be allowed to add, that she only brought him one child--a girl? And, considering the state of his pecuniary resources, am I justified in ranking this circumstance as a strong additional proof of her excellent qualities as a married woman?

        After much perseverance and many disappointments, Reuben at last succeeded in attaching himself to a regular provincial company--Tate Wilkinson's at York. He had to descend low enough from his original dramatic pedestal, before he succeeded in subduing the manager. From the leading business in tragedy and melo-drama, he sank at once, in the established provincial company, to a "minor utility"--words of theatrical slang signifying an actor who is put to the smaller dramatic uses which the necessities of the stage require. Still, in spite of this, he persisted in hoping for the chance that was never to come; and still poor Columbine faithfully hoped with him to the last.

        Time passed--years of it; and this chance never arrived; and he and Columbine found themselves one day in London, forlorn and starving. Their life at this period would make a romance of itself, if I had time and space to write it; but I must get on as fast as may be, to later dates; and the reader must be contented merely to know that, at the last gasp--the last of hope; almost the last of life--Reuben got employment, as an actor of the lower degree, at Drury Lane.

        Behold him, then, now--still a young man, but crushed in his young man's ambition forever--receiving the lowest theatrical wages for the lowest theatrical work; appearing on the stage as soldier, waiter, footman, and so on; with not a line in the play to speak; just showing his poverty-shrunken carcase to the audience, clothed in the frowsiest habiliments of the old Drury Lane wardrobe, for a minute or two at a time, at something like a shilling a night--a miserable being, in a miserable world; the world behind the scenes!

        John Philip Kemble is now acting at the theatre; and his fame is rising to its climax. How the roar of applause follows him almost every time he leaves the scene! How majestically he stalks away into the green room, abstractedly inhaling his huge pinches of snuff as he goes! How the poor inferior brethren of the buskin, as they stand at the wing and stare upon him reverently, long for his notice; and how few of them can possibly get it! There is, nevertheless, one among this tribe of unfortunates whom he has really remarked, though he has not yet spoken to him. He has detected this man, shabby and solitary, constantly studying his acting from any vantage-ground the poor wretch could get amid the dust, dirt, draughts, and confusion behind the scenes. Mr. Kemble also observes, that whenever a play of Shakspeare's is being acted, this stranger has a tattered old book in his hands; and appears to be following the performance closely from the text, instead of huddling into warm corners over a pint of small beer, with the rest of his supernumerary brethren. Remarking these things, Mr. Kemble over and over again intends to speak to the man, and find out who he is; and over and over again utterly forgets it. But, at last; a day comes when the long-deferred personal communication really takes place; and it happens thus:

        A new tragedy is to be produced--a pre-eminently bad one, by-the-by, even in those days of pre-eminently bad tragedy-writing. The scene is laid in Scotland; and Mr. Kemble is determined to play his part in a Highland dress. The idea of acting a drama in the appropriate costume of the period which that drama illustrates, is considered so dangerous an innovation that no one else dare follow his example; and he, of all the characters, is actually about to wear the only Highland dress in a Highland play.^*

        * A fact! See Boaden's Life of Kemble, vol. i., p. 326.

        The night comes; the play begins. Just as the stage waits for Mr. Kemble, Mr. Kemble discovers that his goat-skin purse--one of the most striking peculiarities of the Highland dress--is not on him. There is no time to seek it--all is lost for the cause of costume! he must go on the stage exposed to public view as only half a Highlander! No! Not yet! While everybody else hurries frantically hither and thither in vain, one man quickly straps something about Mr. Kemble's waist, just in the nick of time. It is the lost purse! and Roscious after all steps on the stage, a Highlander complete from top to toe! On his first exit, Mr. Kemble inquires for the man who found the purse. It is that very poor player whom he has already remarked. The great

actor had actually been carrying the purse about in his own hands before the performance; and, in a moment of abstraction, had put it down on a chair, in a dark place behind the prompter's box. The humble admirer, noticing everything he did, noticed this; and so found the missing goat-skin in time, when nobody else could.

        "Sir, I am infinitely obliged to you," says Mr. Kemble, courteously, to the confused, blushing man before him. "You have saved me from appearing incomplete, and therefore ridiculous, before a Drury Lane audience. I have marked you, sir, before; reading, while waiting for your call, our divine Shakspeare--the poetic bond that unites all men, however professional distances may separate them. Accept, sir, this offered pinch--this pinch of snuff."

        When the penniless player went home that night, what wonderful news he had for his wife! And how proud and happy poor Columbine was, when she heard that Reuben Wray had been offered a pinch of snuff out of Mr. Kemble's own box!

        But the kind-hearted tragedian did not stop merely at a fine speech and a social condescension. Reuben read Shakspeare, when none of his comrades would have cared to look into the book at all; and that of itself was enough to make him interesting to Mr. Kemble. Besides, he was a young man; and might have capacities which only wanted encouragement. "I beg you to recite to me, sir," said the great John Philip, one night; desirous of seeing what his humble admirer really could do. The result of the recitation was unequivocal; poor Wray could do nothing that hundreds of his brethren could not have equalled. In him, the yearning to become a great actor was only the ambition without the power.

        Still, Reuben gained something by the goat-skin purse. A timely word from his new protector raised him two or three degrees higher in the company, and increased his salary in proportion. He got parts now with some lines to speak in them; and condescension on condescension! Mr. Kemble actually declaimed them for his instruction at rehearsal, and solemnly showed him (oftener, I am afraid, in jest than in earnest) how a patriotic Roman soldier, or a bereaved father's faithful footman should tread the stage.

        These instructions were always received by the grateful Wray in the most perfect good faith; and it was precisely in virtue of his lessons thus derived--numbering about half-a-dozen, and lasting about two minutes each--that he afterwards advertised himself, as teacher of elocution and pupil of John Kemble. Many a great man has blazed away famously before the public eye, as pupil of some other great man, from no larger a supply of original educational fuel than belonged to Mr. Reuben Wray.

        Having fairly traced our friend to his connexion with Mr. Kemble, I may dismiss the rest of his advertisement more briefly. All, I suppose, that you now want further explained, is: How he came to teach elocution, and how he got on by teaching it.

        Well: Reuben stuck fast to Drury Lane Theatre through rivalries, and quarrels, and disasters, and fluctuations in public taste, which overthrew more important interests than his own. The theatre was rebuilt, and burnt, and rebuilt again; and still old Wray (as he now began to be called) was part and parcel of the establishment, however, others might desert it. During this long lapse of monotonous years, affliction and death preyed cruelly on the poor actor's home. First, his kind, patient Columbine died; then, after a long interval, Columbine's only child married early; and woe is me! married a sad rascal, who first ill-treated and then deserted her. She soon followed her mother to the grave, leaving one girl--the little Annie of this story--to Reuben's care. One of the first things her grand-father taught the child was to call herself Annie Wray. He never could endure hearing her dissolute father's name pronounced by anybody; and was resolved that she should always bear his own.

        Ah! what woeful times were those for the poor player! How many a night he sat in the darkest corner behind the scenes, with his tattered Shakspeare--the only thing about him he had never pawned--in his hand, and the tears rolling down his hollow, painted cheeks, as he thought on the dear lost Columbine, and Columbine's child! How often those tears still stood thick in his eyes when he marched across the stage at the head of a mock army, or hobbled up to deliver the one eternal letter to the one eternal dandy hero of high comedy! Comedy, indeed! If the people before the lamps, who were roaring with laughter at the fun of the mercurial fine gentleman of the play, had only seen what was tugging at the heart of the miserable old stage footman who brought him his chocolate and newspapers, all the wit in the world would not have saved the comedy from being went over as the most affecting tragedy that was ever written.

        But the time was to come--long after this, however--when Reuben's connexion with the theatre was to cease. As if fate had ironically bound up together the stage-destinies of the great actor and the small, the year of Mr. Kemble's retirement from the boards, was the year of Mr. Wray's dismissal from them.

        He had been, for some time past, getting too old to be useful--then, the theatrical world in which he had been bred was altering, and he could not alter with it. A litle man with fiery black eyes, whose name was Edmund Kean, had come up from the country and blazed like a comet through the thick old conventional mists of the English stage. From that time, the new school began to rise, and the old old school to sink; and Reuben went down, with other insignificant atoms, in the vortex. At the end of the season, he was informed that his services were no longer required.

        It was then, when he found himself once more forlorn in the world--almost as forlorn as when he had first come to London with poor Columbine--that the notion of trying elocution struck him. He had a little sum of money to begin with, subscribed for him by his richer brethren when he left the theatre. Why might he not get on as a teacher of elocution in

the country, just as some of his superior fellow-players got on in the same vocation in London? Necessity whispered, doubt not, but try. He had a grand-child to support--so he did try.

        His method of teaching was exceedingly simple. He had one remedy for the deficiencies of every class whom he addressed--the Kemble remedy; he had watched Mr. Kemble year by year, till he kncw every inch of him, and, so to speak, had learnt him by heart. Did a pupil want to walk the stage properly? teach him Mr. Kemble's walk. Did a rising politician want to become impresaive as an orator? teach him Mr. Kemble's gesticulations in Brutus. So, again, with regard to strictly vocal necessities. Did gentleman number one wish to learn the art of reading aloud? let him learn the Kemble cadences. Did gentleman number two feel weak in his pronunciation? let him sound vowels, consonants and crack-jaw syllables, just as Mr. Kemble sounded them on the stage. And out of what book were they to be taught? from what manual were the clergymen and orators, the aspirants for dramatic fame, the young ladies whose delivery was ungraceful, and the young gentlemen whose diction was improper, to be all alike improved? From Shakspeare--every one of them from Shakespeare! He had no idea of anything else; literature meant Shakspeare to him. It was his great glory and triumph, that he had Shakspeare by heart. All that he knew, every tender and loveable recollection, every small honor he had gained in his own poor blank sphere, was somehow sure to be associated with William Shakspeare!

        And why not? What is Shakspeare but a great sun that shines upon humanity--the large heads and the little, alike? Have not the rays of that mighty light penetrated into many poor and lowly places for good? What marvel, then, that they should fall, pleasant and invigorating, even upon Reuben Wray? So, right or wrong, with Shakspeare for his text book, and Mr. Kemble for his model, our friend in his old age bravely invaded provincial England as a teacher of elocution, with all its supplementary accomplishments. And, wonderful to relate, though occasionally enduring dreadful privations, he just managed to make elocution--or what passed instead of it with his patrons--keep his grandchild and himself!

        I cannot say that any orators or clergymen anxiously demanded secret improvement from him (see advertisement) at three and six-pence an hour; or that young ladies sought the graces of delivery, and young gentlemen the proprieties of diction (see advertisement again) from his experienced tongue. But he got on in other ways, nevertheless. Sometimes he was hired to drill the boys on a speech-day at a country-school. Sometimes he was engaged to prevent provincial amateur actors from murdering the dialogue outright, and incessantly jostling each other on the stage. In this last capacity, he occasionally got good employment, especially with regular amateur societies, who found his terms cheap enough, and his knowledge of theatrical discipline inestimably useful.

        But chances like these were as nothing to the chances he got when he was occasionally employed to superintend all the toilsome part of the business, in arranging private theatricals at country houses. Here, he met with greater generosity than he had ever dared to expect; here, the letter from Mr. Kemble, vouching for his honesty and general stage-knowledge--the great actor's last legacy of kindness to him, which he carried about everywhere--was sure to produce prodigious effect. He and little Annie, and a third member of the family whom I shall hereafter introduce, lived for months together on the proceeds of such a windfall as a private theatrical party--for the young people, in the midst of their amusement, found leisure to pity the poor old ex-player, and to admire his pretty grand-daughter; and liberally paid him for his services full five times as much as he would ever have ventured to ask.

        Thus, wandering about from town to town, sometimes miserably unsuccessful, sometimes re-animated by a little prosperity, he had come from Stratford-upon-Avon, while the present century was some twenty-five years younger than it is now, to try his luck at elocution with the people of Tidbury-on-the Marsh--to teach the graces of delivery at seventy years of age, with half his teeth gone! Will he succeed? I, for one, hope so. There is something in the spectacle of this poor old man, sorely battered by the world, yet still struggling for life, and for the grand-child whom he loved better than life--struggling hard, himself a remnant of a by-gone age, to keep up with a new age which has already got past him, and will hardly hear his feeble voice of other times, except to laugh at it--there is surely something in this which forbids all thought of ridicule, and bids fair with every body for compassion and good-will.

        But we have had talk enough, by this time, about Mr. Reuben Wray. Let us now go at once and make acquaintance with him--not forgetting his mysterious cash-box--at No. 12.

CHAPTER III.

MR. WRAY AND HIS FAMILY.

        The breakfast things are laid in the little drawing-room at Reuben's lodgings. This drawing-room, observe, has not been hired by our friend; he never possessed such a domestie luxury in his life. The apartment, not being taken, has only been lent to him by his landlady, who is hugely impressed by the tragic suavity of her, new tenant's manner and "delivery." The breakfast-things, I say again, are laid. Three cups, a loaf, half-a-pound of salt butter, some moist sugar in a saucer, and a black earthenware tea-pot, with a broken spout; such are the sumptuous preparations which tempt Mr. Wray and his family to come down at nine o'clock in the morning, and yet nobody appears!

        Hark! there is a sound of creaking boots, descending, apparently, from some loft at the top of the house, so distant is the noise they make at first. This sound, coming heavily nearer and nearer, only stops at the drawing-room door, and heralds the

entry of--Mr. Wray, of course? No! no such luck; my belief is, that we shall never succeed in getting to Mr. Wray personally. The individual in question is not even any relation of his; but he is a member of the family, for all that; and as the first to come down stairs, he certainly merits the reward of immediate notice.

        He is nearly six feet high, proportionately strong and stout, and looks about thirty years of age. His gait is as awkward as it well can be; his features are large and ill-proportioned, his face is pitted with the small-pox, and what hair he has on his head--not much--seems to be growing in all sorts of contrary directions at once. I know nothing about him, personally, that I can praise, but his expression, and that is so thoroughly good-humored, so candid, so innocent even, that it really makes amends for everything else. Honesty and kindliness look out so brightly from his eyes, as to dazzle your observation of his clumsy nose, and lumpy mouth and chin, until you hardly know whether they are ugly or not. Some men, in a certain sense, are ugly with the lineaments of the Apollo Belvidere; and others handsome, with features that might sit for a caricature. Our new acquaintance was of the latter order. Allow me to introduce him to you: THE GENTLE READER--JULIUS CÆSAR. Stop! start not at those classic syllables; I will explain all.

        The history of Mr. Martin Blunt, alias "Julius Cæsar," is a good deal like the history of Mr. Reuben Wray. Like him, Blunt began life with strolling players--not, however, as an actor, but as stage-carpenter, candle-snuffer, door-keeper, and general errand boy. On one occasion, when the company were ambitiously bent on the horrible profanation of performing Shakspeare's Julius Cæsar, the actor who was to personate the emperor fell ill. Nobody was left to supply his place--every other available member of the company was engaged in the play; so, in despair, they resorted to Martin Blunt. He was big enough for a Roman hero; and that was all they looked to.

        They first cut out as much of his part as they could, and then half crammed the rest into his reluctant brains; they clapped a white sheet about the poor lad's body for a toga, stuck a truncheon into his hand, and a short beard on his chin; and remorselessly pushed him on the stage. His performance was received with shouts of laughter; he went through it; was duly assassinated; and fell with a thump that shook the surrounding scenery to its centre, and got him a complete round of applause all to himself.

        He never forgot this. It was his first and last appearance; and, in the innocence of his heart, he boasted of it on every occasion, as the great distinction of his life. When he found his way to London, and as a really skillful carpenter, procured employment at Drury Lane, his fellow workmen managed to get the story of his first performance out of him directly, and made a standing joke of it. He was elected a general butt, and nick-named "Julius Cæsar," by universal acclamation. Everybody conferred on, him that classic title; and I only follow the general fashion in these pages. If you don't like the name, call him any other you please; he is too good-humored to be offended with you, do what you will. He was thus introduced to old Wray:

        At the time when Reuben was closing his career at Drury Lane, our stout young carpenter had just begun to work there. One night, about a week before the performance of a new pantomime, some of the heavy machinery tottered just as Wray was passing by it; and would have fallen on him, but for "Julius Cæsar," (I really can't call him Blunt!) who, at the risk of his own limbs, caught the tumbling mass, and by a tremendous exertion of main strength, arrested it in its fall, till the old man had hobbled out of harm's way. This led to gratitude friendship, intimacy. Wray and his preserver, in spite of the difference in their characters and ages, seemed to suit each other, somehow. In fine, when Reuben started to teach elocution in the country, the carpenter followed him, as protector, assistant, servant, or whatever you please.

        "Julius Cæsar" had one special motive for attaching himself to old Wray's fortunes, which will speedily appear, when little Annie enters the drawing-room. Awkward as he might be, he was certainly no encumbrance. He made himself useful and profitable in fifty different ways. He took round hand bills soliciting patronage; constructed the scenery when Mr. Wray got private theatrical engagements: worked as journeyman carpenter when other resources failed, and was, in fact, ready for anything, from dunning for a bad debt, to cleaning a pair of shoes. His master might at times be as fretful as he pleased, and treat him like an infant during occasional fits af crossness--he never replied, and never looked sulky. The only things he could not be got to do were to abstain from inadvertently knocking everything down that came in his reach, and to improve the action of his arms and legs on the principle of the late Mr. Kemble.

        Let us return to the drawing-room and the breakfast things. "Julius Cæsar," of the creaking boots, came into the room with a small work-box (which he had been secretly engaged in making for some time past) in one hand, and a new muslin cravat in the other. It was Annie's birth-day. The box was a present; the cravat, what the French would call, a homage to the occasion.

        His first proceeding was to drop the work-box and pick it up again in a great hurry; his second, to go to the looking-glass, (no such piece of furniture ornamented his loft bed-room,) and try to put on the new cravat. He had only half tied it, and was hesitating, utterly helpless, over the bow, when a light step sounded on the floor-cloth outside. Annie came in.

        "Julius Cæsar at the looking-glass! Oh, good gracious, what can have come to him!" exclaimed the little girl, with a merry laugh.

        How fresh, and blooming, and pretty she looked, as she ran up the next moment; and telling him to stop, tied his cravat directly--standing on tip-toe. "There," she cried, "now that's done, what have you got to say to me, sir, on my birth-day?"

        "I've got a box, and I'm so glad it's your birthday," says Julius Cæsar, too confused by the suddenness of the cravat-tying to know exactly what he is talking about.

        "Oh, what a splendid work-box! how kind of you, to be sure! what care I shall take of it! Come, sir, I suppose I must tell you to give me a kiss after that," and, standing on tip-toe again, she held up her fresh, rosy cheek to be kissed, with such a pretty mixture of bashfulness, gratitude and arch enjoyment in her look, that "Julius Cæsar," I regret to say, felt inclined then and there to go down upon both his knees and worship her outright.

        Before the decorous reader has time to consider all this very improper, I had better, perhaps, interpose a word, and explain that Annie Wray had promised Martin Blunt, (I give his real name again here, because this is serious business,) yes--had actually promised him that one day she would be his wife. She kept all her promises; but I can tell you she was especially determined to keep this.

        Impossible! exclaims the lady reader. With her good looks, she might aspire many degrees above a poor carpenter; besides, how could she possibly care about a great lumpish, awkward fellow, who is ugly, say what you will about his expression?

        I might reply, madam, that our little Annie had looked rather deeper than the skin in choosing her husband; and had found out certain qualities of heart and disposition about this poor carpenter, which made her love--aye, and respect and admire him, too. But I prefer asking you a question, by way of answer. Did you never meet with any individuals of your own sex, lovely, romantic, magnificent young women, who have fairly stupefied the whole circle of their relatives and friends by marrying particularly short, scrubby, matter-of-fact, middle-aged men, showing, too, every symptom of fondness for them into the bargain? I fancy you must have seen such cases as I have mentioned; and when you can explain them to my satisfaction, I shall be happy to explain the anomalous engagement of little Annie to yours.

        In the meantime, it may be well to relate that this odd love affair was only once hinted at to Mr. Wray. The old man flew into a frantic passion directly, and threatened dire extremities if the thing was ever thought of more. Lonely and bereaved of all other ties, as he was, he had, in regard to his grand-daughter, that jealousy of other people loving her, which is of all weaknesses, in such cases as his, the most pardonable and the most pure. If a duke had asked for Annie in marriage, I doubt very much whether Mr. Wray would have let him have her, except upon the understanding that they were all to live together.

        Under these circumstances, the engagement was never hinted at again. Annie told her lover they must wait, and be patient, and remain as brother and sister to one another, till better chances and better times came. And "Julius Cæsar" listened, and strictly obeyed. He was a good deal like a large, faithful dog to his little betrothed; he loved her, watched over her, guarded her, with his whole heart and strength; only asking in return the privilege of fulfilling her slightest wish.

        Well; this kiss, about which I have been digressing so long, was fortunately just over, when another footstep sounded outside; the door opened; and--yes! we have got him at last, in his own proper person! Enter Mr. Reuben Wray!

        Age has given him a stoop, which he tries to conceal, but cannot. His cheeks are hollow; his face is seamed with wrinkles, the work not only of time, but of trial, too. Still, there is vitality of mind, courage of heart, about the old man, even yet. His look has not lost all its animation, nor his smile its warmth. There is the true Kemble walk, and the true Kemble carriage for you, if you like! there is the second hand tragic grandeur and propriety, which the unfortunate Julius Cæsar daily contemplates, yet cannot even faintly copy! Look at his dress again. Thread-bare as it is, (patched, I am afraid, in some places,) there is not a speck of dust on it, and what little hair is left on his bald head is as carefully brushed as if he rejoiced in the love-locks of Absalom himself. No! though misfortune, and disappointment, and grief, and heavy-handed penury have all been assailing him ruthlessly enough for more than half a century, they have not got the old fellow down yet! At seventy years of age, he is still on his legs in the prize-ring of life; badly punished all over, (as the pugilists say,) but determined to win the fight to the last!

        "Many happy returns of the day, my love," says old Reuben, going up to Annie, and kissing her. "This is the twentieth birth-day of yours I've lived to see. Thank God for that!"

        "Look at my present, grand-father," cries the little girl, proudly showing her work-box. "Can you guess who made it?"

        "You are a good fellow, Julius Cæsar!" exclaims Mr. Wray, guessing directly. "Good morning; shake hands." (Then, in a lower voice, to Annie,) "Has he broken anything in particular since he's been up?" "No!" "I'm very glad to hear it. Julius Cæsar, let me offer you a pinch of snuff," and here he pulled out his box quite in the Kemble style. He had his natural manner and his Kemble manner. The first only appeared when anything greatly pleased or affected him--the second was for those ordinary occasions when he had time to remember that he was a teacher of elocution and a pupil of the English Roscius.

        "Thank ye, kindly, sir," said the gratified carpenter, cautiously advancing his huge finger and thumb towards the offered box.

        "Stop!" cried old. Wray, suddenly withdrawing it. He always lectured to Julius Cæsar on elocution when he had nobody else to teach, just to keep his hand in. "Stop! that won't do. In the first place, 'Thank ye, kindly, sir,' though good humored, is grossly inelegant. 'Sir, I am obliged to you,' is the proper phrase--mind you sound the i in obliged--never say obleeged, as some people do; and remember, what I am now telling you, Mr. Kemble once said to the Prince Regent! The next hint I have to give you is this--never take your pinch of snuff with

your right hand finger and thumb; it should be always the left. Perhaps you would like to know why?"

        "Yes, please, sir," says the admiring disciple, very humbly.

        " 'Yes, if you please, sir,' would have been better; but let that pass as a small error. And now I will tell you why, in an anecdote. Matthews was one day mimicking Mr. Kemble to his face, in Penruddock--the great scene where he stops to take a pinch of snuff. 'Very good, Matthews; very like me,' says Mr. Kemble, complacently, when Matthews had done; 'but you have made one great mistake.' 'What's that?' cries Matthews, sharply. 'My friend, you have not represented me taking snuff like a gentleman; now, I always do. You took your pinch, in imitating my Penruddock, with your right hand; I use my left--a gentleman invariably does, because then he has his right hand always clean from tobacco to give to his friend!' There! remember that; and now you may take your pinch."

        Mr. Wray next turned round to speak to Annie; but his voice was instantly drowned in a perfect explosion of sneezes, absolutely screamed out by the unhappy "Julius Cæsar," whose nasal nerves were convulsed by the snuff. Mentally determining never to offer his box to his faithful follower again, old Reuben gave up making his proposed remark, until they were all quietly seated round the breakfast table; then he returned to the charge with renewed determination.

        "Annie, my dear," said he, "you and I have read a great deal together of our divine Shakspeare, as Mr. Kemble always called him. You are my regular pupil, you know, and ought to be able to quote by this time almost as much as I can. I am going to try you with something new--suppose I had offered you the pinch of snuff, (Mr. Julius Cæsar shall never have another, I can promise him,) what would you have said from Shakspeare applicable to that? Just think now!"

        "But, grand-father, snuff wasn't invented in Shakspeare's time--was it?" said Annie.

        "That's of no consequence," retorted the old man; "Shakspeare was for all time; you can quote him for everything in the world, as long as the world lasts. Can't you quote him for snuff? I can, Now, listen. You say to me, 'I offer you a pinch of snuff?' I answer from Cymbeline (Act iv., scene 2:) 'Pisiano! I'll now taste of thy drug.' There! won't that do? What's snuff but a drug for the nose? It just fits--everything of the divine Shakspeare does; when you know him by heart, as I do--eh, little Annie? And now give me some more sugar; I wish it was lump for your sake, dear; but I'm afraid we can only afford moist. Anybody called about the advertisement? a new pupil this morning--eh?"

        No! no pupils at all; not a man, woman, or child in the town, to teach elocution to yet! Mr, Wray was not at all despondent about this; he had made up his mind that a pupil must come in the course of the day; and that was enough for him. His little quibbling from Shakspeare about the snuff had put him in the best of good humors, He went on making quotations, talking elocution, and eating bread and butter, as brisk and happy, as if all Tidbury had combined to form one mighty class for him, and resolved to pay ready money for every lesson.

        But after breakfast, when the things were taken away, the old man seemed suddenly to recollect something which changed his manner altogether. He grew first embarrassed; then silent; then pulled out his Shakspeare, and began to read with ostentatious assiduity, as if he were especially desirous that nobody should speak to him.

        At the same time, a close observer might have detected Mr. "Julius Cæsar" making varous uncouth signs and grimaces to Annie, which the little girl apparently understood, but did not know how to answer. At last, with an effort, as if she were summoning extraordinary resolution, she said:

        "Grand-father--you have not forgotten your promise?"

        No answer from Mr. Wray. Probably, he was too much absorbed over Shakspeare to hear.

        "Grand-father," repeated Annie, in a louder tone; "you promised to explain a certain mystery to us, on my birth-day."

        Mr. Wray was obliged to hear this time. He looked up with a very perplexed face.

        "Yes, dear," said he; "I did promise; but I almost wish I had not. It's rather a dangerous mystery to explain, little Annie, I can tell you! Why should you be so very curious to know about it?"

        "I'm sure, grand-father," pleaded Annie, "you can't say I am over-curious, or Julius Cæsar either, in wanting to know about it. Just recollect--we had been only three days at Stratford-upon-Avon, when you came in, looking so dreadfully frightened, and said we must go away directly. And you made us pack up; and we all went off in a hurry, more like prisoners escaping, than honest people."

        "We did!" groaned old Reuben, beginning to look like a culprit already.

        "Well," continued Annie; and you wouldn't tell us a word of what is was all for, beg as hard as we might. And then, when we asked why you never let that old cash-box (which I used to keep my odds and ends in) out of your own hands, after we left Stratford--you wouldn't tell us that, either, and ordered us never to mention the thing again. It was only in one of your particular good humors, that I just got you to promise you would tell us all about it on my next birth-day--to celebrate the day, you said. I'm sure we are to be trusted with any secrets; and I don't think it's being very curious to want to know this."

        "Very well!" said Mr. Wray, rising, with a sort of desperate calmness; "I've promised, and, come what may, I'll keep my promise. Wait here; I'll be back directly." And he left the room, in a great hurry.

        He returned immediately, with the cash-box. A very battered, shabby affair, to make such a mystery about! thought Annie, as he put the box on the table, and solemnly laid his hands across it.

        "Now, then," said old Wray, in his deepest tragedy-tones, and with very serious looks; "promise

me, on your word of honor--both of you--that you'll never say a word of what I'm going to tell, to anybody, on any account whatever--I don't care what happens--on any account whatever!"

        Annie and her lover gave their promises directly, and very seriously. They were getting a little agitated by all these elaborate preparations for the coming disclosure.

        "Shut the door!" said Mr. Wray, in a stage whisper. "Now sit close and listen; I'm ready to explain the mystery."

CHAPTER IV.

MYSTERIES OF THE CASH-BOX.

        "I suppose," said old Reuben, "you have neither of you forgotten that, on the second day of our visit to Stratford, I went out in the afternnon to dine with an intimate friend of mine, whom I'd known from a boy, and who lived at some little distance from the town--"

        "Forget that!" cried Annie; "I don't think we ever shall--I was frightened about you, all the time you were gone."

        "Frightened about what?" asked Mr. Wray, sharply. "Do you mean to tell me, Annie, you suspected"--

        "I don't know what I suspected, grand-father; but I thought your going away by yourself, to sleep at your friend's house, (as you told us,) and not to come back till the next morning, something very extraordinary. I was the first time we had ever slept under different roofs--only think of that!"

        "I'm ashamed to say, my dear"--rejoined Mr. Wray, suddenly beginning to look and speak very uneasily--"that I turned hypocrite, and something worse, too, on that occasion. I deceived you. I had no friend to go and dine with; and didn't pass that night in any house at all."

        "Grand-father!" cried Annie, jumping up in a fright, "what can you mean!"

        "Beg pardon, sir," added "Julius Cæsar," turning very red, and slowly clenching both his enormous fists as he spoke--"Beg pardon; but if you was put upon, or made fun of by any chaps that night, I wish you'd just please to tell me where I could find 'em."

        "Nobody ill-used me," said the old man, in steady, and even solemn tones. "I passed that night by the grave of William Shakspeare, in Stratford-upon-Avon Church!"

        Annie sank back into her seat and lost all her pretty complexion in a moment. The worthy carpenter gave such a start, that he broke the back rail of his chair. It was a variation on his usual performances of this sort, which were generally confined to cups, saucers, and wine-glasses.

        Mr. Wray took no notice of the accident. This was of itself enough to show that he was strongly agitated by something. After a momentary silence, he spoke again, completely forgetting the Kemble manner and the Kemble elocution as he went on.

        "I say again, I passed all that night in Stratford Church; and you shall know for what. You went with me, Annie, in the morning--it was Tuesday; yes, Tuesday morning--to see Shakespeare's bust in the church. You looked at it, like other people, just as a curiosity--I looked at it, as the greatest treasure in the world; the only true likeness of Shakespeare! It's been done from a mask, taken from his own face, after death--I know it; I don't care what people say, I know it. Well, when we went home, I felt as if I'd seen Shakspeare himself, risen from the dead! Strangers would laugh if I told them so; but it's true--I did feel it. And this thought came across me, quick, like the shooting of a sudden pain; I must make that face of Shakespeare mine; my possession, my companion, my great treasure that no money can pay for! And I've got it! Here! the only cast from the Stratford bust is locked up in this old cash-box!"

        He paused a moment. Astonishment kept both his auditors silent.

        "You both know," he continued, "that I was bred apprentice to a statuary. Among other things, he taught me to make casts; it was part of our business--the easiest part. I knew I could take a mould off the Stratford bust, if I had the courage; and the courage came to me; on the Tuesday, it came. I went and bought some plaster, some soft soap, and a quart basin--those were my materials--and tied them up together in an old canvass bag. Water was all I wanted besides; and that I saw in the church vestry, in the morning--a jug of it, left I suppose since Sunday, where it had been put for the clergyman's use. I could carry my bag under my cloak quite comfortably, you understand. The only thing that troubled me now was how to get into the church again, without being suspected. While I was thinking, I passed the inn door. Some people were on the steps, talking to some other people in the street; they were making an appointment to go all together, and see Shakespeare's bust and grave that very afternoon. This was enough for me; I determined to go into the church with them."

        "What! and stop there all night, grand-father?"

        "And stop there all night, Annie. Taking a mould, you know, is not a very long business; but I wanted to take mine unobserved; and the early morning; before anybody was up, was the only time to do that safely in the church. Besides, I wanted plenty of leisure, because I wasn't sure I should succeed at first, after being out of practice so long in making casts. But you shall hear how I did it, when the time comes. Well, I made up the story about dining and sleeping at my friend's, because I didn't know what might happen, and because--because, in short, I didn't like to tell you what I was going to do. So I went out secretly, near the church, and waited for the party coming. They were late--late in the afternoon, before they came. We all went in together; I with my bag, you know, hid under my cloak. The man who showed us over the church in the morning, luckily for me, wasn't there; an old woman took his duty for him in the afternoon. I waited till the visitors were all congregated round Shakspeare's grave, bothering the poor woman with foolish questions about him. I

knew that was my time, and slipped off into the vestry, and opened the cupboard, and hid myself among the surplices, as quiet as a mouse. After awhile, I heard one of the strangers in the church (they were very rude, boisterous people) asking the other, what had become of the 'old fogy with the cloak?' and the other answered that the must have gone out, like a wise man, and that they had all better go after him, for it was precious cold and dull in the church. They went away, I heard the doors shut, and knew I was locked in for the night."

        "All night in a church! Oh, grand-father, how frightened you must have been!"

        "Well, Annie, I was a little frightened; but more at what I was going to do, than at being alone in the church. Let me get on with my story, though. Being autumn weather, it grew too dark after the people went, for me to do anything then; so I screwed my courage up to wait for the morning. The first thing I did was to go and look quietly, all by myself, at the bust; and I made up my mind that I could take the mould in about three or four pieces. All I wanted was what they call a mask; that means just a forehead and face, without the head. It's an easy thing to take a mask off a bust--I knew I could do it; but, somehow, I didn't feel quite comfortable just then. The bust began to look very awful to me, in the fading light, all alone in the church. It was almost like looking at the ghost of Shakspeare, in that place, and at that time. If the door hadn't been locked, I think I should have run out of the church; but I couldn't do that; so I knelt down and kissed the grave-stone--a curious fancy coming over me as I did so, that it was like wishing Shakspeare good night--and then I groped my way back to the vestry. When I got in, and had shut the door between me and the grave, I grew bolder, I can tell you; and thought to myself--I'm doing no harm; I'm not going to hurt the bust; I only want what an Englishman and an old actor may fairly covet, a copy of Shakspeare's face; why shouldn't I eat my bit of supper here, and say my prayers as usual, and get my nap into the bargain, if I can? Just as I thought that----BANG went the clock, striking the hour! It almost knocked me down, bold as I felt the moment before. I was obliged to wait till it was all still again, before I could pull the bit of bread and cheese I had got with me out of my pocket. And when I did, I couldn't eat; I was too impatient for the morning; so I sat down in the parson's arm-chair; and tried, next, whether I could sleep at all."

        "And could you, grand-father?"

        "No--I couldn't sleep either; at least, not at first. It was quite dark now; and I began to feel cold and awe-struck again. The only thing I could think of to keep up my spirits at all, was first saying my prayers, and then quoting Shakspeare. I went at it, Annie, like a dragon; play after play--except the tragedies; I was afraid of them, in a church at night, all by myself. Well, I think I had got half through the Mid-summer Night's Dream, whispering over bit after bit of it; when I whispered myself into a doze. Then I fell into a queer sleep; and then I had such a dream! I dreamt that the church was full of moonlight--brighter moonlight than ever I saw awake. I walked out of the vestry; and there were the fairies of the Mid-summer Night's Dream--all creatures like sparks of silver light--dancing round the Shakspeare bust! The moment they caught sight of me, they all called out in their sweet nightingale voices: 'Come along, Reuben! sly old Reuben! we know what you're here for, and we don't mind you a bit! You love Shakspeare, and so do we--dance, Reuben, and be happy! Shakspeare likes an old actor; he was an actor himself--nobody sees us! we're out for the night! foot it, old Reuben--foot it away!' And we all danced like mad; now, up in the air; now, down on the pavement; and now, all round the bust five hundred thousand times at least without stopping, till----BANG went the clock! and I woke up in the dark, in a cold perspiration."

        "I'm in one too!" gasped "Julius Cæsar," dabbing his brow vehemently with a ragged cotton pocket handkerchief.

        "Well, after that dream I fell to reciting again; and got another doze; and had another dream--a terrible one, about ghosts and witches, that I don't recollect so well as the other. I woke up once more, cold, and in a great fright that I'd slept away all the precious morning daylight. No! all dark still. I went into the church again, and then back to the vestry, not being able to stay there. I suppose I did this a dozen times without knowing why. At last, never going to sleep again, I got somehow through the night--the night that seemed never to be done. Soon after daybreak, I began to walk up and down the church briskly, to get myself warm, keeping at it for a long time. Then, just as I saw through the windows that the sun was rising, I opened my bag at last, and got ready for work. I can tell you my hand trembled and my sight grew dim--I think the tears were in my eyes; but I don't know why--as I soaped the stone all over to prevent the plaster I was going to put on it from sticking. Then I mixed up the plaster and water in my quart basin, taking care to leave no lumps, and finding it come as natural to me as if I had only left the statuary's shop yesterday; then--but it's no use telling you, little Annie, about what you don't understand. I'd better say shortly I made the mould, in four pieces, as I thought I should--two for the upper part of the face, and two for the lower. Then, having put on the outer plaster case to hold the mould, I pulled all off clean together, and looked, and knew that I had got a mask of Shakspeare from the Stratford bust!"

        "Oh, grand-father, how glad you must have been then!"

        "No, that was the odd part of it. At first, I felt as if I had robbed the bank, or the King's jewels, or had set fire to a train of gunpowder to blow up all London; it seemed such a thing to have done! Such a tremendously daring, desperate thing! But, a little while after, a frantic sort of joy came over me; I could hardly prevent myself from shouting and singing at the top of my voice. Then I felt a perfect

fever of impatience to cast the mould directly, and see whether the mask would come out without a flaw. The keeping down that impatience was the hardest thing I had had to do since I first got into the church."

        "But, please, sir, whenever did you get out at last? Do pray tell us that!" asked "Julius Cæsar."

        "Not till after the clock had struck twelve, and I'd eaten all my bread and cheese," said Mr. Wray, rather piteously. "I was glad enough when I heard the church door open at last, from the vestry where I had popped in but a moment before. It was the same woman came in who had shown the bust in the afternoon. I waited my time, and then slipped into the church; but she turned round sharply, just as I'd got half way out and came up to me. I never was frightened by an old woman before; but I can tell you she frightened me. 'Oh! there you are again!' says she. 'Come, I say! this won't do. You sneaked out yesterday afternoon without paying anything; and you sneak in again after me, as soon as I open the door this morning--ain't you ashamed of being so shabby as that, at your age--ain't you?' I never paid money in my life, Annie, with pleasure, till I gave that old woman some to stop her mouth! And I don't recollect either that I'd ever tried to run since leaving the stage (where we had a good deal of running, first and last, in the battlescenes;) but I ran as soon as I got well away from the church, I can promise you--ran almost the whole way home."

        "That's what made you look so tired when you came in, grand-father," said Annie; "we couldn't think what was the matter with you at the time."

        "Well," continued the old man, "as soon as I could possibly get away from you after coming back, I went and locked myself into my bed-room, pulled the mould in a great hurry out of the canvass bag, and took the cast at once--a beautiful cast! a perfect cast! I never produced a better when I was in good practice, Annie. When I sat down on the side of the bed, and looked at Shakspeare--my Shakspeare--got with so much danger, and made with my own hands--so white and pure and beautiful, just out of the mould! Old as I am, it was all I could do to keep myself from dancing for joy."

        "And yet, grand-father,' said Annie reproachfully, you could keep all that joy to yourself--you could keep it from me!"

        "It was wrong, my love, wrong on my part not to trust you--I'm sorry for it now. But the joy, after all, lasted a very little while--only from the afternoon to the evening. In the evening, if you remember, I went out to the butcher's to buy something for my own supper; something I could fancy, to make me comfortable before I went to bed (you little thought how I wanted my bed that night.) Well, when I got into the shop, several people were there; and what do you think they were all talking about? It makes me shudder even to remember it now! They were talking about a cast having been taken--feloniously taken, just fancy that--from the Stratford bust!"

        Annie looked pale again instantly at this part of the story. As for "Julius Cæsar," though he said nothing, he was evidently suffering from a second attack of the sympathetic cold perspiration which had already troubled him. He used the cotton handkerchief more copiously than ever just at this moment.

        "The butcher was speaking when I came in," pursued Mr. Wray. " 'Who's been and took it,' says the fellow, (his grammar and elocution were awful, Annie!) 'nobody don't know yet; but the Town Council will know by to-morrow, and then he'll be took himself.' 'Ah,' says a dirty little man in black, 'he'll be cast into prison for taking a cast--eh?' They laughed, actually laughed at this vile pun. Then another man asked how this had been found out. 'Some says,' answered the butcher, 'he was seen a doin' of it through the window, by some chap looking in accidental like. Some says, nobody don't know but the church wardens, and they won't tell till they've got him.' 'Well,' says a woman, waiting with a basket to be served, 'but how will they get him?--(two chops, please, when you're quite ready)--that's the thing; how will they get him?' 'Quiet easy; take my word for it;' says the man who made the bad pun. 'In the first place, they've posted up hand-bills, offering a reward for him; in the second place, they're going to examine the people who show the church; in the third place--' 'Bother your places!' cried the woman, 'I wish I could get my chops.' 'There you are, Mum,' says the butcher, cutting off the chops, 'and if you want my opinion about this business, it's this here: they'll transport him right away, in no time.' 'They can't,' cries the dirty man, 'they can only imprison him.' 'For life--eh?' says the woman, going off with the chops. 'Be so kind as to let me have a couple of kidneys;' said I, for my knees knocked together, and I could stand it no longer."

        "Then you thought, grand-father, that they suspected you?"

        "I thought everything that was horrible, Annie. However, I got my kidneys, and went out unhindered, leaving them still talking about it. On my way home I saw the hand-bill--the hand-bill itself! Ten pounds reward for apprehending the man who had taken the cast! I read it twice through in a sort of trance of terror. My mask taken away, and myself put in prison, if not transported--that was the prospect I had to give me an appetite for the kidneys. There was only one thing to be done; to get away from Stratford while I had the chance. The night coach went that very evening straight through to this place, which was far enough off for safety. We had some money, you know left, after that last private theatrical party, where they treated us so generously. In short, I made you pack up, Annie, as you said just now, and got you both off by the coach, in time, not daring to speak a word about my secret, and as miserable as I could be the whole journey. But let us say no more about that--here we are, safe and sound; and here's my face of Shakspeare--my diamond above all price--safe and sound, too! You shall see it; you shall look at the mask, both of you, and then, I hope, you'll

acknowledge that you know as much as I do about the mystery!"

        "But, the mould," cried Annie; "haven't you got the mould with you, too?"

        "Lord bless my soul!" exclaimed Mr. Wray, slapping both hands, in desperation, on the lid of the cash-box. "Between the fright and the hurry of getting away, I quite forgot it--it's left at Stratford!"

        "Left at Stratford!" echoed Annie, with a vague feeling of dismay, that she could not account for.

        "Yes; rolled up in the canvas bag, and poked behind the landlord's volumes of the 'Annual Register,' on the top shelf of the cupboard, in my bed-room. Between thinking of how to take care of the mask, and how to take care of myself, I quite forgot it. Don't look so frightened, Annie! The people at the lodgings are not likely to find it; and if they did, they wouldn't know what it was, and would throw it away. I've got the mask; and that's all I want--the mould is of no consequence to me now--it's the mask that's everything--everything in the world!"

        "I can't help feeling frightened, grand-father; and I can't help wishing you had brought away the mould, though I don't know why."

        "You're frightened, Annie, about the Stratford people coming after me here--that's what you're frightened about. But, if you and Julius Cæsar keep the secret from everybody--and I know you will--there is no fear at all. They won't catch me back at Stratford again, or you either; and if the church wardens themselves found the mould, that wouldn't tell them where I was gene, would it? Look up, you silly little Annie! We're quite safe here. Look up, and see the great sight I'm going to show you--a sight that nobody in England can show but me--the mask--the mask of Shakspeare!"

        His cheeks flushed, his fingers trembled, as he took a key out of his pocket and put it into the lock of the old cash-box. "Julius Cæsar," breathless with wonder and suspense, clapped both his hands behind him, to make sure of breaking nothing this time. Even Annie caught the infection of the old man's triumph and delight, and breathed quicker than usual when she heard the click of the opening lock.

        "There!" cried Mr. Wray, throwing back the lid; there is the face of William Shakspeare! there is the treasure which the greatest lord in this land doesn't possess--a copy of the Stratford bust! Look at the forehead! Who's got such a forehead now? Look at his eyes; look at his nose. He was not only the greatest man that ever lived, but the handsomest, too! Who says this isn't just what his face was; his face taken after death? Who's bold enough to say so? Just look at the mouth, dropped and open--that's one proof. Look at the cheek, under the right eye; don't you see a little paralytic gathering up of the muscle, not visible on the other side--that's another proof. Oh, Annie, Annie! there's the very face that once looked out, alive and beaming, on this poor old world of ours! There's the man who's comforted me, informed me, made me what I am! There's the 'counterfeit presentment,' the precious earthly relic of that great, great spirit who is now with the angels in Heaven, and singing among the sweetest of them!"

        His voice grew faint, and his eyes moistened. He stood looking on the mask, with a rapture and a triumph which no speech could express. At such moments as those, even through that poor, meagre face, the immortal spirit within could still shine out in the beauty which never dies--even in that frail old earthly tenement, could still vindicate outwardly the divine destiny of all mankind!

        They were yet gathered silently round the Shakspeare cast, when a loud knock sounded at the room door. Instantly, old Reuben banged down the lid of the cash-box, and locked it; and as instantly, without waiting for permission to enter, a strangar walked in.

        He was dressed in a long great-coat, wore a red comforter round his neck, and carried a very old and ill-looking cat-skin cap in his hand. His face was uncommonly dirty; his eyes uncommonly inquisitive; his whiskers uncommonly plentiful; and his voice most uncommonly and determinately gruff, in spite of his efforts to dulcify it for the occasion.

        "Miss and gentlemen both, beggin' all your pardons," said this new arrival, "vich is Mr. Wray?" As he spoke, his eyes traveled all round the room, seeing everything and everybody in it; and then glancing sharply at the cash-box.

        "I am Mr. Wray, sir," exclaimed our old friend, considerably startled, but recovering the Kemble manner and the Kemble elocution as if by magic.

        "Wery good," said the stranger. "Then, beggin' your pardon again sir, in pertickler, could you be so kind as to 'blige me with a card o' terms? It's for a young gentleman as wants you, Mr. Wray," he continued in a whisper, approaching the old man, and quite abstractedly leaning one hand on the cash-box.

        "Take your hand off that box, sir," cried Mr. Wray, in a very fierce manner, but with a very trembling voice. At the same moment, "Julius Cæsar" advanced a step or two, partially doubling his fist. The man with the cat-skin cap had probably never before been so nearly knocked down in his life. Perhaps he suspected as much, for he took his hand off the box in a great hurry.

        "It was inadwertent, sir," he remarked in explanation--"a little inadwertency of mine, that's all. But could you 'blige me vith that card of terms? The young gentleman as wants it has heerd of your advertisement; and, bein' d'awful shaky in his pronunciashun, as vell as 'scruciatin' bad at readin' aloud, he's 'ard up for improvement--the sort of secret thing you gives, you know, to the oraytors and the clujjymen, at three and six an hour. You'll heer from him in secret, Mr. Wray, sir; and precious vork you'll 'ave to git him to rights; but do just 'blige mo vith the card o' terms and the number of the 'ouse; 'cos I promised to git 'em for him to-day."

        "There is a card, sir, and I will engage to improve his delivery, be it ever so bad," said Mr. Wray,

considerably relieved at hearing the real nature of the stranger's errand.

        "Miss, and gentlemen both, good mornin'," said the man, putting on his cat-skin cap, "you'll heer from the young gentleman to-day; and wotever you do, sir, mind you keep the h'applicashun a secret--mind that!" He winked and went out.

        "I declare," muttered Mr. Wray, as the door closed, "I thought he was a thief-taker from Stratford. Think of his being only a messenger from a new pupil!, I told you we should have a pupil today. I told you so."

        "A very strange looking messenger, grand-father, for a young gentleman to choose!" said Annie.

        "He can't help his looks, my dear; and I'm sure we shan't mind them, if he brings us money. Have you seen enough of the mask? if you haven't, I'll open the box again."

        "Enough for to-day, I think, grand-father. But, tell me why you keep the mask in the old cash-box?"

        "Because I've nothing else, Annie, that will hold it, and lock up, too. I was sorry, my dear, to disturb your 'odds and ends,' as you call them; but really there was nothing else to take. Stop, I've a thought! Julius Cæsar shall make me a new box for the mask, and then you shall have your old one back again."

        "I don't want it, grand-father! I'd rather we none of us had it. Carrying a cash-box like that about with us, might make some people think we had money in it."

        "Money! People think I have any money! Come, come, Annie! that really won't do! That's much too good a joke, you sly little puss, you!" And the old man laughed heartily, as he hurried off, to deposit the precious mask in his bed-room.

        "You'll make that new box, Julius Cæsar, won't you?" said Annie, earnestly, as soon as her grandfather left the room.

        "I'll get some wood, this very day," answered the carpenter, "and turn out such a box, by tomorrow, as--as--" He was weak at comparisons; so he stopped at the second "as."

        "Make it quick, dear, make it quick," said the little girl, anxiously; "and then we'll give away the old cash-box. If grand-father had only told us what he was going to do, at first, he need never have used it; for you could have made him a new box beforehand. But, never mind, make it quick now."

        Oh, "Julius Cæsar;" strictly obey your little betrothed in this, as in all other injunctions! You know not how soon that new box may be needed, or how much evil it may yet prevent!

CHAPTER V.

CHUMMY DICK.

        Perhaps, by this time, you are getting tired of three such simple, homely characters as Mr. and Miss Wray, and Mr. "Julius Cæsar," the carpenter. I strongly suspect you, indeed, of being downright anxious to have a little literary stimulant provided in the shape of a villain. You shall taste this stimulant--double distilled; for I have two villains all ready for you in the present chapter.

        But, take my word for it, when you know your new company, you will be only too glad to get back again to Mr. Wray and his family.

        About three miles from Tidbury-on-the-Marsh, there is a village called Little London; sometimes popularly entitled, in allusion to the characters frequenting it, "Hell-end." It is a dirty, ruinous-looking collection of some dozen cottages, and an ale-house. Ruffianly men, squalid women, filthy children are its inhabitants. The chief support of this pleasant population is currently supposed to be derived from their connection with the poaching and petty larcenous interests of their native soil. In a word, Little London looks bad, smells bad, and is bad; a fouler blot of a village in the midst of a prettier surrounding landscape, is not to be found in all England.

        Our principal business is with the ale-house. The "Jolly Plough-boys" is the sign; and Judith Grimes, widow, the proprietor. The less said about Mrs. Grimes' character, the better; it is not quite adapted to bear discussion in these pages. Mrs. Grimes' mother (who is now bordering on eighty) may be also dismissed to merciful oblivion; for, at her daughter's age, she was--if possible--rather the worse of the two. Towards her son, Mr. Benjamin Grimes, (as one of the rougher sex,) I feel less inclined to be compassionate. When I assert that he was in every respect a complete specimen of a provincial scoundrel, I am guilty, according to a profound and reasonable maxim of our law, of uttering a great libel, because I am repeating a great truth.

        You know the sort of man well. You have seen the great, hulking, heavy-browed, sallow-complexioned fellow often enough, lounging at village corners, with a straw in his mouth and a bludgeon in his hand. Perhaps you have asked your way of him, and have been answered by a growl and a petition for money; or, you have heard of him in connection with a cowardly assault on your rural policeman; or a murderous fight with your friend's game-keeper; or a bad case for your other friend, the magistrate, at petty sessions. Anybody who has ever been in the country, knows the man--the ineradical plague-spot of his whole neighborhood--as well as I do.

        About eight o'clock in the evening, and on the same day which had been signalized by Mr. Wray's disclosures, Mrs. Grimes, senior--or, as she was generally called, "Mother Grimes"--sat in her armchair in the private parlor of The Jolly Ploughboys, just making up her mind to go to bed. Her ideas on this subject rather wanted acceleration, and they got it from her dutiful son, Mr. Benjamin Grimes.

        "Coom, old 'ooman, why doesn't thee trot up stairs?" demanded this provincial worthy.

        "I'm a-going, Ben--gently, Judith--I'm a-going!" mumbled the old woman, as Mrs. Grimes, junior, entered the room, and very unceremoniously led her mother off.

        "Mind thee doesn't let nobody in here to-night," bawled Benjamin, as his sister went out. "Chummy

Dick's going to coom," he added, in a mysterious whisper.

        Left to himself to await the arrival of Chummy Dick, Mr. Grimes found time hang rather heavy on his hands. He first looked out of the window. The view commanded a few cottages and fields, with a wood beyond on the rising ground--a homely scene enough in itself; but the heavenly purity of the shining moonlight gave it, just now, a beauty not its own. This beauty was not apparently to the taste of Mr. Grimes, for he quickly looked away from the window back into the room. Staring dreamily, his sunken sinister grey eyes fixed upon the opposite wall, encountering there nothing but four colored prints, representing the career of the prodigal son. He had seen them hundreds of times before; but he looked at them again from mere habit.

        In the first of the series, the prodigal son was clothed in a bright red dress coat, and was just getting on horseback (the wrong side;) while his father, in a bright red dress coat, helped him on with one hand, and pointed disconsolately with the other to a cheese-colored road leading straight from the horse's fore-feet to a distant city in the horizon, entirely composed of towers. In the second plate, master prodigal was feasting between two genteel ladies, holding gold wine glasses in their hands; while a debauched companion sprawled on the ground by his side, in a state of cataleptic drunkenness. In the third, he lay on his back; his red coat torn, and showing his purple skin; one of his stockings off; a thunder-storm raging over his head, and two white sows standing on either side of him--one of them apparently feeding off the calf of his leg. In the fourth--

        Just as Mr. Grimes had got to the fourth print, he heard somebody whistling a tune outside and turned to the window. It was Chummy Dick; or, in other words, the man with the cat-skin cap, who had honored Mr. Wray with a morning call.

        Chummy Dick's conduct on entering the parlor had the merit of originality as an exhibition of manners. He took no more notice of Mr. Grimes than if he had not been in the room; drew his chair to the fire-place; put one foot on each of the hobs; pulled a little card out of his great-coat pocket; read it; and then indulged himself in a long, steady, unctuous fit of laughter, cautiously pitched in what musicians would call the "minor key."

        "What dost thee laugh about like that?" asked Grimes.

        "Git us a glass of 'ot grog fust--two lumps o'sugar, mind--and then, Benjamin, you'll know in no time!" said Chummy Dick, maintaining an undercurrent of laughter all the while he spoke.

        While Benjamin is gone for the grog, there is time enough for a word or two of explanation.

        Possibly you may remember that the young assistant at Messrs. Dunball and Dark's happened to see Mr. Wray carrying his cash-box into No. 12. The same gust of wind which, by blowing aside old Reuben's cloak, betrayed what he had got under it to this assistant, exposed the same thing, at the same time, to the observation of Mr. Grimes, who happened to be lounging about the High Street on the occasion in question. Knowing nothing about either the mask or the mystery connected with it, it was only natural that Benjamin should consider the cash-box to be a receptacle for cash; and it was, furthermore, not at all out of character that he should ardently long to be possessed of that same cash, and should communicate his desire to Chummy Dick.

        And for this reason. With all the ambition to be a rascal of first-rate ability, Mr. Grimes did not possess the necessary cunning and capacity, and had not received the early London education requisite to fit him for so exalted a position. Stealing poultry out of a farm-yard, for instance, was quite in Benjamin's line; but stealing a cash-box out of a barred and bolted up house, standing in the middle of a large town, was an achievement above his power--an achievement that but one man in his circle of acquaintance was mighty enough to compass--and that man was Chummy Dick, the great London house-breaker. Certain recent passages in the life of this illustrious personage had rendered London and its neighborhood very insecure, in his case, for purposes of residence; so he had retired to a safe distance in the provinces, and had selected Tidbury and the adjacent country as a suitable field for action, and a very pretty refuge from the Bow street runners into the bargain.

        "Wery good, Benjamin, and not too sveet," remarked Chummy Dick, tasting the grog which Grimes had brought him. He was not, by any means, one of your ferocious house-breakers, except under strong provocation. There was more of oil than of aquafortis in the mixture of his temperament. His robberies were marvels of skill, cunning and cool determination. In short, he stole plate or money out of dwelling-honses, as cats steal cream off breakfast-tables--by biding his time, and never making a noise.

        "Hast thee seen the cash-box?" asked Grimes, in an eager whisper.

        "Look at my 'and, Benjamin," was the serenely triumphant answer. "It's bin on the cash-box! You're all right; the swag's ready for us."

        "Swag! Wot be that?"

        "That's swag!" said Chummy Dick, pulling half-a-crown out of his pocket, and solemnly holding it up for Benjamin's inspection. "I haven't got a fi' pun' note, or a christenin' mug about me; but notes and silver's swag, too. Now, young Grimes, you knows swag; and you'll have your swag before long, if you looks out sharp. If it ain't quite so fine a night to-morrer--if there ain't quite so much of that moonshine as there is now to let gratis for nothin'--why, we'll 'ave the cash-box!"

        "Half on it for me! Thee knows't that Chummy Dick!"

        "Check that ere talky-talky tongue of your'n; and you'll 'ave your 'alf. I've bin to see the old man; and he's gived me his wisitin' card, with the number of the 'ouse. Ho! hol ho! think of his givin' his card to me! It's as good as inwitin' one

to break into the 'ouse--it is, every bit!" And, with another explosion of laughter, Chummy Dick triumphantly threw Mr. Wray's card into the fire.

        "But that ain't the pint," he resumed, when he had recovered his breath. "We'll stick to the pint--the pint's the cash-box." And, to do him justice, he did stick to the point, never straying away from it, by so much as a hair's breadth, for a full half-hour.

        The upshot of the long harangue to which he now treated Mr. Benjamin Grimes, was briefly this: he had invented a plan, after reading the old man's advertisement first, for getting into Mr. Wray's lodgings unsuspected; he had seen the cash-box with his own eyes, and was satisfied, from certain indicatlons, that there was money in it--he held the owner of this property to be a miser, whose gains were all hoarded up in his cash-box, stray shillings and stray sovereigns together--he had next found out who were the inmates of the house; and had discovered that the only formidable person sleeping at No. 12 was our friend the carpenter--he had then examined the premises, and had seen that they were easily accessible by the back drawing-room window, which looked out on the wash-house roof--finally, he had ascertained that the two watchmen appointed to guard the town, performed that duty by going to bed regularly at eleven o'clock, and leaving the town to guard itself, the whole affair was perfectly easy--too easy, in fact, for anybody but a young beginner.

        "Now, Benjamin," said Chummy Dick, in conclusion--"mind this; no wiolence! Take your swag quiet, and you takes it safe. Wiolence is sometimes as bad as knockin' up a whole street--wiolence is the downy cracksman's last kick-out when he's caught in a fix. Fust and foremost, you've got your mask," (here he pulled out a shabby domino mask,) wery good; nobody can't swear to you in that. Then, you've got your barker," (he produced a pistol,) "just to keep'em quiet with the look of it, and if that want do, there's your gag and bit o' rope" (he drew them forth,) "for their mouths and 'ands. Never pull your trigger, till you see another man ready to pull his. Then you must make your row; and then you make it to some purpose. The nobs in our business--remember this, young Grimes--always takes the swag easy; and when they can't take it easy, they takes it as easy as they can. That's visdom--the visdom of life!"

        "Why thee bean't a going, man?" asked Benjamin in astonishment, as the philosophical housebreaker abruptly moved towards the door.

        "Me and you mustn't be seen together, to-morrer," said Chummy Dick, in a whisper. "You let me alone; I've got business to do to-night--never mind wot! At eleven to-morrer night, you be at the cross roads that meets on the top of the common. Look out sharp; and you'll see me."

        "But if so be it do keep moon-shiny," suggested Grimes.

        "On second thoughts, Benjamin," said the housebreaker, after a moment's reflection, "we'll risk all the moonshine as ever shone--High street, Tidbury, ain't Bow street, London--we may risk it safe. Moon, or no moon, young Grimes! to-morrer night's our night!"

        By this time he had walked out of the house. They separated at the door. The radiant moon-light falling lovely on all things, fell lovely even on them. How pure it was! how doubly pure, to shine on Benjamin Grimes and Chummy Dick, and not be soiled by the contact!

CHAPTER VI.

A MORNING VISIT.

        During the whole remainder of Annie's birth-day, Mr. Wray sat at home, anxiously expecting the promised communication from the mysterious new pupil whose elocution wanted so much setting to rights. Though he never came, and never wrote, old Reuben still persisted in expecting him forthwith; and still waited for him as patiently the next morning, as he had the day before.

        Annie sat in the room with her grand-father, occupied in making lace. She had learnt this art, so as to render herself, if possible, of some little use in contributing to the general support; and, sometimes, her manufacture actually poured a few extra shillings into the scantily filled family coffer. Her lace was not at all the sort of thing that your fine people would care to look at twice--it was just simple and pretty, like herself, and only sold (when it did sell, and that, alas! was not often,) among ladies whose purses were very little better furnished than her own.

        "Julius Cæsar" was down stairs, in the back kitchen, making the all-important box--or, as the landlady irritably phrased it, "making a mess about the house." She was not partial to saw-dust and shavings, and almost lost her temper when the glue-pot invaded the kitchen fire. But work away, honest carpenter! work away, and never mind her! Get the mask of Shakspeare out of the old box, and into the new, before night comes; and you will have done the best day's work you ever completed in your life!

        Annie and her grand-father had a great deal of talk about the Shakspeare cast, while they were sitting together in the drawing-room. If I were to report all old Reuben's rhapsodies and quotations during that period, I might fill the whole remaining space accorded to me in this little book. It was only once that the conversation varied at all. Annie just asked, by way of changing the subject a little, how a plaster cast was taken from the mould; and Mr. Wray instantly went off at a tangent in the midst of a new quotation, to tell her. He was still describing, for the second time, how the plaster and water were to be mixed, how the mixture was to be left to "set," and how the mould was to be pulled off it, when the landlady, looking very hot and important, bustled into the room, exclaiming:

        "Mr. Wray, sir! Mr. Wray! Here's Squire Colebatch, of Cropley Court, coming up stairs to see you!" She then added, in a whisper: "He's very hot-tempered and odd, sir, but the best gentleman in the world--"

        "That will do, ma'am! that will do!" interrupted a hearty voice, outside the door. "I can introduce myself; an old play-writer and old play-actor don't want much introduction, I fancy! How are you, Mr. Wray? I've come to make your acquaintance; how do you do, sir!"

        Before the Squire came in, Mr. Wray's first idea was that the young gentleman pupil had arrived at last--but when the Squire appeared, he discovered that he was mistaken. Mr. Colebatch was an old gentleman with a very rosy face, with bright black eyes that twinkled incessantly, and with perfectly white hair, growing straight up from his head in a complete forest of venerable bristles. Moreover, his elocution wanted no improvement at all; and his "delivery" proclaimed itself at once, as the delivery of a gentleman--a very eccentric one, but a gentleman still.

        "Now, Mr. Wray," said the Squire, sitting down, and throwing open his great-coat, with the air of an old friend; "I've a habit of speaking to the point, because I hate ceremony and botheration. My name's Matthew Colebatch; I live at Cropley Court, just outside the town, and I come to see you, because I've had an argument about your character with the Reverend Daubeny Daker, the rector here!"

        Astonishment bereft Mr. Wray of all power of speech, while he listened to this introductory address.

        "I'll tell you how it was, sir," continued the Squire. "In the first place, Daubeny Daker's a canting sneak--a sort of fellow who goes into poor people's cottages, asking what they've got for dinner, and when they fell him, he takes the cover off the saucepan and sniffs at it, to make sure that they've spoken the truth. That's what he calls doing his duty to the poor, and what I call being a canting sneak! Well, Daubeny Daker saw your advertisement in Dunball's shop window. I must tell you, by-the-by, that he calls theatres the devil's houses, and actors the devil's missionaries; I heard him say that in a sermon, and have never been into his church since! Well, sir, he read your advertisement; and when he came to that part about improving clergymen at three-and six pence an hour, (it would be damned cheap to improve Daubenny Baker at that price,) he falls into one of his nasty, cold blooded, sneering rages, goes into the shop, and insists on having the thing taken down, as as insult offered by a vagabond actor to the clerical character--don't lose your temper, Mr. Wray, don't, for God's sake--I trounced him about it handsomely, I can promise you! And now, what do you think that fat jackass Dunball did, when he heard what the parson said? Took your card down--took it out of the window directly, as if Daubeny Daker was King of Tidbury, and it was death to disobey him!"

        "My character, sir!" interposed Mr. Wray.

        "Stop, Mr. Wray! I beg your pardon; but I must tell you how I trounced him. Half an hour after the thing had been taken down, I dropped into the shop. Dunball, smiling like a fool, tells me about the business. 'Put it up again, directly!' said I; 'I won't have any man's character bowled down like that by people who don't know him!' Dunball makes a wry face and hesitates. I pull out my watch, and say to him, 'I give you a minute to decide between my custom and interest, and Daubeny Daker's.' I happen to be what's called a rich man, Mr. Wray; so Dunball decided in about two seconds, and up went your advertisement again, just where it was before!"

        "I have no words, sir, to thank you for your kindness," said poor old Reuben.

        "Hear how I trounced Daubeny Daker, sir--hear that! I met him out at dinner, the same night. He was talking about you, and what he'd done--as proud as a peacock! 'In fact,' says he, at the end of his speech, 'I considered it my duty, as a clergyman, to have the advertisement taken down.' 'And I considered it my duty, as a gentleman,' said I, 'to have it put up again.' Then, we began the argument, (he hates me, because I once wrote a play--I know he does.) I won't tell you what he said, because it would distress you. But it ended, after we'd been at it, hammer and tongs, for about an hour, by my saying that his conduct in setting you down as a disreputable character, without making a single inquiry about you, showed a want of Christianity, justice, and common sense. 'I can bear with your infirmities of temper, Mr. Colebatch,' says he, in his nasty, sneering way; 'but allow me to ask, do you, who defend Mr. Wray so warmly, know any more of him than I do?' He thought this was a settler; but I was at him again, quick as lightning. 'No, sir; but I'll set you a proper example, by going to-morrow morning and judging of the man from the man himself!" That was a settler for him; and now, here I am this morning, to do what I said."

        "I will show you, Mr. Colebatch, that I have deserved the honor of being defended by you," said Mr. Wray, with a mixture of artless dignity and manly gratitude in his manner, which became him wonderfully; "I have a letter, sir, from the late Mr. Kemble--"

        "What, my old friend, John Philip!" cried the Squire; "let's see it instantly! He, Mr. Wray, was 'the noblest Roman of them all,' as Shakspeare says."

        Here was an inestimable friend indeed! He knew Mr. Kemble and quoted Shakspeare. Old Reuben could actually have embraced the Squire at that moment; but he contented himself with producing the great Kemble letter.

        Mr. Colebatch read it, and instantly declared that, as a certificate of character, it beat all other certificates that ever were written completely out of the field; and established Mr. Wray's reputation as above the reach of all calumny. "It's the most tremendous crusher for Daubeny Daker that ever was composed, sir!" Just as the old gentleman said this, his eyes encountered little Annie, who had been sitting quietly in the corner of the room, going on with her lace. He had hardly allowed himself leisure enough to look at her, in the first heat of his introductory address, but he made up for lost time now, with characteristic celerity.

        "Who's that pretty little girl?" said he; and his bright eyes twinkled more than ever as he spoke.

        "My grand-daughter, Annie," answered Mr. Wray, proudly.

        "Nice little thing! how pretty and quiet she sits making her lace!" cried Mr. Colebatch, enthusiastically. "Don't move, Annie; don't go away! I like to look at you! You won't mind a queer old bachelor, like me--will you? You'll let me look at you--wou't you? Go on with your lace, my dear, and Mr. Wray and I will go on with our chat."

        This "chat" completed what the Kemble letter had begun. Encouraged by the Squire, old Reuben artlessly told the little story of his life, as if to an intimate friend; and told it with all the matchless pathos of simplicity and truth. What time Mr. Colebatch could spare from looking at Annie--and that was not much--he devoted to anathematizing his implacable enemy, Daubeny Daker, in a series of violent expletives; and anticipating, with immense glee, the sort of consummate "troucing" he should now be able to inflict on that reverend gentleman, the next time he met with him. Mr. Wray only wanted to take one step more after this in the Squire's estimation, to be considered the phoenix of all professors of elocution, past, present and future; and he took it. He actually recollected the production of Mr. Colebatch's play--a tragedy all bombast and bloodshed--at Drury Lane Theatre, and more than than that, he had himself performed one of the minor characters in it.

        The Squire seized his hand immediately. This play (in virtue of which he considered himself a dramatic author) was his weak point. It had enjoyed a very interrupted "run" of one night; and had never been heard of after. Mr. Colebatch attributed this circumstance entirely to public misappreciation; and, in his old age, boasted of his tragedy wherever he went, utterly regardless of the reception it had met with. It has often been asserted that the parents of sickly children are the parents who love their children best. This remark is sometimes, and only sometimes, true. Transfer it, however, to the sickly children of literature, and it directly becomes a rule which the experience of the whole world is powerless to confute by a single exception!

        "My dear sir!" cried Mr. Colebatch, "your remembrance of my play is a new bond between us! It was entitled--of course you recollect--'The Mysterious Murderess.' Gad, sir, do you happen to call to mind the last four lines of the guilty Lindamira's death-scene? It ran thus, Mr. Wray:

        Murder and midnight hail! Come all ye horrors!

        My soul's congenial darkness quite defies ye!

        I'm sick with guilt--What is to cure me? This! (Stabs herself.)

        Ha! ha! I'm better now--smiles (faintly)--I'm comfortable!' (Dies.)

        "If that's not pretty strong writing, sir, my name's not Matthew Colebatch! and yet the besotted audience failed to appreciate it! Bless my soul!" (pulling out his watch,) "one o'clock, already! I ought to be at home! I must go directly. Good-bye, Mr. Wray. I'm so glad to have seen you, that I could almost thank Daubeny Daker for putting me in the towering passion that sent me here. You remind me of my young days, when I used to go behind the scenes, and sup with Kemble and Matthews. Good-bye, little Annie. I'm a wicked old fellow, and I mean to kiss you some day! Not a step further, Mr. Wray; not a step, by George, sir; or I'll never come again. I mean to make the Tidbury people employ your talents; they're the most infernal set of asses under the canopy of heaven; but they shall employ them! I'll engage you to read my play, if nothing else will do, at the Mechanics' Institution. We'll make their flesh creep, sir; and their hair stand on end, with a little tragedy of the good old school. Good-bye, till I see you again, and God bless you!" And away the talkative old squire went, in a mighty hurry, just as he had come in.

        "Oh, grand-father, what a nice old gentleman!" exclaimed Annie, looking up for the first time from her lace cushion.

        "What unexampled kindness to me! What perfect taste in everything! Did you hear him quote Shakspeare?" cried old Reuben, in an ecstasy. They went on, alternately, in this way, with raptures about Mr. Colebatch, for something like an hour. After that time, Annie left her work, and walked to the window.

        "It's raining--raining fast," she said. "Oh, dear, we can't have our walk to-day!"

        "Hark! there's the wind moaning," said the old man. "It's getting colder, too. Annie, we are going to have a stormy night."

        * * * * * * *

        Four o'clock! And the carpenter still at his work in the back kitchén. Faster, "Julius Cæsar," faster. Let us have that mask of Shakspeare out of Mr. Wray's cash-box, and snugly ensconced in your neat wooden casket, before anybody goes to bed tonight. Faster, man--faster.

CHAPTER VII.

A NIGHT VISIT.

        For some household reason not worth mentioning, they dined later that day than usual at No. 12. It was five o'clock before they sat down to table. The conversation all turned on the visitor of the morning; no terms in Mr. Wray's own vocabulary, being anything like choice enough to characterize the eccentric old squire, he helped himself to Shakspeare, even more largely than usual, every time he spoke of Mr. Colebatch. He managed to discover some striking resemblance to that excellent gentleman (now in one particular, and now in another,) in every noble and venerable character, throughout the whole series of the plays--not forgetting either, on one or two occasions, to trace the corresponding likeness between the more disreputable and intriguing personages, and that vindictive enemy to all plays, players, and play-houses, the Reverend Daubeny Daker. Never did any professed commentator on Shakspeare (and the assertion is a bold one) wrest the poet's mighty meaning more dexterously

into harmony with his own microscopic ideas, than Mr. Wray now wrested it, to furnish him with eulogies on the goodness and generosity of Mr. Matthew Colebatch, of Cropley Court.

        Meanwhile, the weather got worse and worse, as the evening advanced. The wind freshened almost to a gale; and dashed the fast falling rain against the windo