"The luck has been so very bad, so bad, upon my honor, now," grumbles the parson. "To-morrow he will want more; and the next day more; and the next day more; and, in fine, I won't live with this accursed Man of the Sea round my neck. You shall have the story; and Mr. Hunt shall sit by and witness against his own crime and mine. I had been very wild at Cambridge when I was a young man. I had quarreled with my father, lived with a dissipated set, and beyond my means; and had had my debts paid so often by your grandfather that I was afraid to ask for more. He was stern to me; I was not dutiful to him. I own my fault. Mr. Hunt can bear witness to what I say." "I was in hiding at Margate, under a false name. You know the name." "Yes, Sir, I think I know the name," Philip said, thinking he liked his father better now than he had ever liked him in his life, and sighing, “Ah, if he had always been frank and true with me!" "I took humble lodgings with an obscure family. [If Dr. Firmin had a prodigious idea of his own grandeur and importance, you see I can not help it—and he was long held to be such a respectable man.] And there I found a young girl-one of the most innocent beings that ever a man played with and betrayed. Betrayed, I own it, Heaven forgive me! The crime has been the shame of my life, and darkened my whole career with misery. I got a man worse than myself, if that could be. I got Hunt for a few pounds, which he owed me, to make a sham marriage between me and poor Caroline. My money was soon gone. My creditors were after me. I fled the country, and I left her." "A sham marriage! a sham marriage!" cries the clergyman. "Didn't you make me perform it by holding a pistol to my throat? A fellow won't risk transportation for nothing. But I owed him money for cards, and he had my bill, and he said he would let me off, and that's why I helped him. Never mind. I am out of the business now, Mr. Brummell Firmin, and you are in it. I have read the Act, Sir. The clergyman who performs the marriage is liable to punishment, if informed against within three years, and it's twenty years or more. But you, Mr. Brummell Firmin-your case is different, and you, my young gentleman, with the fiery whiskers, who strike down old men of a night-you may find some of us know how to revenge ourselves, though we are down." And with this, Hunt rushed to his greasy hat, and quitted the house, discharging imprecations at his hosts as he passed through the hall. "It is no marriage. It is void to all intents and purposes. You may suppose I have taken care to learn the law about that. Your legitimacy is safe, sure enough. But that man can ruin me, or nearly so. He will try to-morrow, if not to-day. As long as you or I can give him a guinea he will take it to the gamblinghouse. I had the mania on me myself once. My poor father quarreled with me in consequence, and died without seeing me. I married your mother-Heaven help her, poor soul! and forgive me for being but a harsh husband to her with a view of mending my shattered fortunes. I wished she had been more happy, poor thing. But do not blame me utterly, Philip. I was desperate, and she wished for the marriage so much! I had good looks and high spirits in those days. People said so. [And here he glances obliquely at his own handsome portrait.] Now I am a wreck, a wreck!” "I conceive, Sir, that this will annoy you; but how can it ruin you?" asked Philip. "What becomes of my practice as a family physician? The practice is not now what it was, between ourselves, Philip, and the expenses greater than you imagine. I have made unlucky speculations. If you count upon much increase of wealth from me, my boy, you will be disappointed; though you were never mercenary, no, never. But the story bruited about by this rascal, of a physician of eminence engaged in two marriages, do you suppose my rivals won't hear it, and take advantage of it-my patients hear it, and avoid me?" "Make terms with the man at once, then, Sir, and silence him." "To make terms with a gambler is impossible. My purse is always there open for him to thrust his hand into when he loses. No man can withstand such a temptation. I am glad you have never fallen into it. I have quarreled with you sometimes for living with people below your rank: perhaps you were right, and I was wrong. I have liked, always did, I don't disguise it, to live with persons of station. And these, when I was at the University, taught me play and extravagance; and in the world haven't helped me much. Who would? Who would?" and the doctor relapsed into meditation. A little catastrophe presently occurred, after which Mr. Philip Firmin told me the substance of this story. He described his father's long acquiescence in Hunt's demands, and sudden resistance to them, and was at a loss to account for the change. I did not tell my friend in express terms, but I fancied I could account for the change of behavior. Dr. Firmin, in his in Son and father sate a while silent after the de-terviews with Caroline, had had his mind set at parture of their common enemy. At last the father spoke. "This is the sword that has always been hanging over my head, and is now falling, Philip." "What can the man do? Is the first marriage a good marriage ?" asked Philip, with alarmed face. rest about one part of his danger. The doctor need no longer fear the charge of a double marriage. The Little Sister resigned her claims past, present, future. If a gentleman is sentenced to be hung, I wonder is it a matter of comfort to him or not to know beforehand the day of the operation? Hunt would take his revenge. When and how? Dr. Firmin asked himself. Nay, possibly, you will have to learn that this eminent practitioner walked about with more than danger hanging imminent over him. Perhaps it was a rope: perhaps it was a sword: some weapon of execution, at any rate, as we frequently may see. A day passes: no assassin darts at the doctor as he threads the dim opera-colonnade passage on his way to his club. A week goes by: no stiletto is plunged into his well-wadded breast as he steps from his carriage at some noble patient's door. Philip says he never knew his father more pleasant, easy, good-humored, and affable than during this period, when he must have felt that a danger was hanging over him of which his son at this time had no idea. I dined in Old Parr Street once in this memorable period (memorable it seemed to me from immediately subsequent events). Never was the dinner better served: the wine more excellent: the guests and conversation more gravely respectable than at this entertainment: and my neighbor remarked with pleasure how the father and son seemed to be on much better terms than ordinary. The doctor addressed Philip pointedly once or twice; alluded to his foreign travels; spoke of his mother's family-it was most gratifying to see the pair together. Day after day passes so. The enemy has disappeared. At least, the lining of his dirty hat is no longer visible on the broad marble table of Dr. Firmin's hall. But one day-it may be ten days after the quarrel-a little messenger comes to Philip, and says, "Philip, dear, I am sure there is something wrong; that horrible Hunt has been here with a very quiet, soft-spoken old gentleman, and they have been going on with my poor pa about my wrongs and his-his, indeed!-and they have worked him up to believe that somebody has cheated his daughter out of a great fortune; and who can that somebody be but your father? And whenever they see me coming, papa and that horrid Hunt go off to the 'Admiral Byng:' and one night when pa came home he said, 'Bless you, bless you, my poor, innocent, injured child; and blessed you will be: mark a fond father's words!' They are scheming something against Philip and Philip's father. Mr. Bond the soft-spoken old gentleman's name is: and twice there has been a Mr. Walls to inquire if Mr. Hunt was at our house." “Mr. Bond?—Mr. Walis?—A gentleman of the name of Bond was Uncle Twysden's attorney. An old gentleman, with a bald head, and one eye bigger than the other?" "Well, this old man has one smaller than the other, I do think," says Caroline. "First man who came was Mr. Walls-a rattling young fashionable chap, always laughing, talking about theatres, operas, every thing-came home from the 'Byng' along with pa and his new friendoh! I do hate him, that man, that Hunt!-then he brought the old man, this Mr. Bond. What are they scheming against you, Philip? I tell you this matter is all about you and your father." Years and years ago, in the poor mother's lifetime, Philip remembered an outbreak of wrath on his father's part, who called Uncle Twysden a swindling miser, and this very Mr. Bond a scoundrel who deserved to be hung, for interfering in some way in the management of a part of the property which Mrs. Twysden and her sister inherited from their own mother. That quarrel had been made up, as such quarrels are. The brothers-in-law had continued to mistrust each other; but there was no reason why the feud should descend to the children; and Philip and his aunt, and one of her daughters at least, were on good terms together. Philip's uncle's lawyers engaged with his father's debtor and enemy against Dr. Firmin: the alliance boded no good. "I won't tell you what I think, Philip," said the father. "You are fond of your cousin ?" "Oh! for ev—” "Forever, of course! At least until we change our mind, or one of us grows tired, or finds a better mate." "Ah, Sir!" cries Philip, but suddenly stops in his remonstrance. "What were you going to say, Philip, and why do you pause?" "I was going to say, father, if I might without offending, that I think you judge hardly of women. I know two who have been very faithful to you." "And I a traitor to both of them. Yes; and my remorse, Philip, my remorse!" says his father, in his deepest tragedy voice, clutching his hand over a heart that I believed beat very coolly. But, pshaw! why am I, Philip's biographer, going out of the way to abuse Philip's papa? Is not the threat of bigamy and exposure enough to disturb any man's equanimity? I say again, suppose there is another sword—a rope if you will so call it-hanging over the head of our Damocles of Old Parr Street?......... Howbeit, the father and the son met and parted in these days with unusual gentleness and cordiality. And these were the last days in which they were to meet together. Nor could Philip recall without satisfaction, afterward, that the hand which he took was pressed and given with a real kindness and cordiality. Why were these the last days son and father were to pass together? Dr. Firmin is still alive. Philip is a very tolerably prosperous gentleman. He and his father parted good friends, and it is the biographer's business to narrate how and wherefore. When Philip told his father that Messrs. Bond and Walls, his uncle Twysden's attorneys, were suddenly interested about Mr. Brandon and his affairs, the father instantly guessed, though the son was too simple as yet to understand how it was that these gentlemen interfered. If Mr. Brandon-Firmin's marriage with Miss Ringwood was null, her son was illegitimate, and her fortune went to her sister. Painful as such a duty might be to such tenderhearted people as our Twysden acquaintances to deprive a dear nephew of his fortune, yet, after Old Mr. Ridley was of a much cooler temperament, and altogether a more cautious person. The doctor rich? He wished to tell no secrets, nor to meddle in no gentleman's affairs: but he have heard very different statements regarding Dr. Firmin's affairs. all, duty is duty, and a parent must sacrifice | which might make the blood of every Briton every thing for justice and his own children. curdle with horror-as he was free to say. "Had I been in such a case," Talbot Twysden subsequently and repeatedly declared, "I should never have been easy a moment if I thought I possessed wrongfully a beloved nephew's property. I could not have slept in peace; I could not have shown my face at my own club, or to my own conscience, had I the weight of such an injustice on my mind." In a word, when he found that there was a chance of annexing Philip's share of the property to his own, Twysden saw clearly that his duty was to stand by his own wife and children. The information upon which Talbot Twysden, Esq., acted was brought to him at his office by a gentleman in dingy black, who, after a long interview with him, accompanied him to his lawyer, Mr. Bond, before mentioned. Here, in South Square, Gray's Inn, the three gentlemen held a consultation, of which the results began quickly to show themselves. Messrs. Bond and Selby had an exceedingly lively, cheerful, jovial, and intelligent confidential clerk, who combined business and pleasure with the utmost affability, and was acquainted with a thousand queer things, and queer histories about queer people in this town; who lent money; who wanted money; who was in debt; and who was outrunning the constable; whose diamonds were in pawn; whose estates were over-mortgaged; who was over-building himself; who was casting eyes of longing at what pretty opera dancer-about races, fights, bill-brokers, quicquid agunt homines. This Tom Walls had a deal of information, and imparted it so as to make you die of laughing. The Reverend Tufton Hunt brought this jolly fellow first to the "Admiral Byng," where his amiability won all hearts at the club. At the Byngs it was not very difficult to gain Captain Gann's easy confidence. And this old man was in the course of a very trifling consumption of rum and water, brought to see that his daughter had been the object of a wicked conspiracy, and was the rightful and most injured wife of a man who ought to declare her fair fame before the world and put her in possession of a portion of his great fortune. A great fortune? How great a fortune? Was it three hundred thousand, say? Those doctors, many of them, had fifteen thousand a year. Mr. Walls (who perhaps knew better) was not at liberty to say what the fortune was: but it was a shame that Mrs. Brandon was kept out of her rights, that was clear. Old Gann's excitement, when this matter was first broached to him (under vows of profound secrecy), was so intense that his old reason tottered on its rickety old throne. He well-nigh burst with longing to speak upon this mystery. Mr. and Mrs. Oves, the esteemed landlord and lady of the "Byng," never saw him so excited. He had a great opinion of the judgment of his friend, Mr. Ridley; in fact, he must have gone to Bedlam unless he had talked to somebody on this most nefarious transaction, When dark hints about treason, wicked desertion, rights denied, "and a great fortune which you are kep out of, my poor Caroline, by a rascally wolf in sheep's clothing, you are; and I always mistrusted him, from the moment I saw him, and said to your mother, 'Emily, that Brandon is a bad fellow, Brandon is ;' and bitterly, bitterly I've rued ever receiving him under my roof." When speeches of this nature were made to Mrs. Caroline, strange to say, the little lady made light of them. "Oh, nonsense, pa! Don't be bringing that sad, old story up again. I have suffered enough from it already. If Mr. F. left me, he wasn't the only one who flung me away; and I have been able to live, thank mercy, through it all." This was a hard hit, and not to be parried. The truth is, that when poor Caroline, deserted by her husband, had come back, in wretchedness, to her father's door, the man, and the wife who then ruled him, had thought fit to thrust her away. And she had forgiven them: and had been enabled to heap a rare quantity of coals on that old gentleman's head. When the captain remarked his daughter's indifference and unwillingness to reopen this painful question of her sham marriage with Firmin, his wrath was moved, and his suspicion excited. "Ha!" says he, "have this man been a tampering with you again?" "Nonsense, pa!" once more says Caroline. "I tell you it is this fine-talking lawyer's clerk has been tampering with you. You're made a tool of, pa! and you've been made a tool of all your life!" "Well, now, upon my honor, my good Madam!" interposes Mr. Walls. "Don't talk to me, Sir! I don't want any lawyers' clerks to meddle in my business!" cries Mrs. Brandon, very briskly. "I don't know what you're come about. I don't want to know, and I'm most certain it is for no good." I suppose it was the ill success of his embassador that brought Mr. Bond himself to Thornhaugh Street; and a more kind, fatherly little man never looked than Mr. Bond, although he may have had one eye smaller than the other. "What is this, my dear Madam, I hear from my confidential clerk, Mr. Walls?" he asked of the Little Sister. "You refuse to give him your confidence because he is only a clerk? I wonder whether you will accord it to me, as a principal ?" "She may, Sir, she may-every confidence!" says the captain, laying his hand on that snuffy satin waistcoat which all his friends so long admired on him. "She might have spoken to Mr. Walls." "Mr. Walls is not a family man. I am. I have children at home, Mrs. Brandon, as old as you are," says the benevolent Bond. "I would have justice done them, and for you too.” "You're very good to take so much trouble about me all of a sudden, to be sure," says Mrs. Brandon, demurely. "I suppose you don't do it for nothing." "I should not require much fee to help a good woman to her rights; and a lady I don't think needs much persuasion to be helped to her advantage," remarks Mr. Bond. "That depends who the helper is.” "Well, if I can do you no harm, and help you possibly to a name, to a fortune, to a high place in the world, I don't think you need be frightened. I don't look very wicked or very artful, do I?" "Many is that don't look so. I've learned as much as that about you gentlemen," remarks Mrs. Brandon. being deceived and deserted, that you and ma shut the door in my face? You did! you did! I forgive you; but a hundred thousand billion years can't mend that injury, father, while you broke a poor child's heart with it that day! My pa has told you all this, Mr. What's-your-name? I'm s'prised he didn't find something pleasanter to talk about, I'm sure!" "My love!" interposed the captain. 'Pretty love! to go and tell a stranger in a public house, and ever so many there besides, I suppose, your daughter's misfortunes, pa. Pretty love! That's what I've had from you!" "Not a soul, on the honor of a gentleman, except me and Mr. Walls." "Then what do you come to talk about me at all for? and what scheme on hearth are you driving at? and what brings this old man here ?" cries the landlady of Thornhaugh Street, stamping her foot. "Shall I tell you frankly, my good lady? I "You have been wronged by one man, and called you Mrs. Firmin now because, on my doubt all." "Not all. Some, Sir!" "Doubt about me if I can by any possibility injure you. But how and why should I? Your good father knows what has brought me here. I have no secret from him. Have I, Mr. Gann, or Captain Gann, as I have heard you addressed ?" Mr., Sir-plain Mr.-No, Sir; your conduct have been most open, honorable, and like a gentleman. Neither would you, Sir, do aught to disparage Mrs. Brandon; neither would I, her father. No ways, I think, would a parent do harm to his own child. May I offer you any refreshment, Sir?" and a shaky, a dingy, but a hospitable hand, is laid upon the glossy cupboard, in which Mrs. Brandon keeps her modest little store of strong waters. "Not one drop, thank you! You trust me I think more than Mrs. Firm-I beg your pardon -Mrs. Brandon is disposed to do." At the utterance of that monosyllable Firm Caroline became so white, and trembled so, that her interlocutor stopped, rather alarmed at the effect of his word—his word!—his syllable of a word. The old lawyer recovered himself with much grace. "Pardon me, Madam," he said; "I know your wrongs; I know your most melancholy history; I know your name, and was going to use it, but it seemed to renew painful recollections to you, which I would not needlessly recall. Captain Gann took out a snuffy pocket-handkerchief, wiped two red eyes and a shirt-front, and winked at the attorney, and gasped in a pathetic manner. "You know my story and name, Sir, who are a stranger to me. Have you told this old gentleman all about me and my affairs, pa?" asks Caroline, with some asperity. "Have you told him that my ma never gave me a word of kindness-that I toiled for you and her like a servant-and when I came back to you, after honor and word, I believe such to be your rightful name-because you are the lawful wife of George Brand Firmin. If such be your lawful name, others bear it who have no right to bear it—and inherit property to which they can lay no just claim. In the year 1827 you, Caroline Gann, a child of sixteen, were married by a clergyman whom you know, to George Brand Firmin, calling himself George Brandon. He was guilty of deceiving you; but you were guilty of no deceit. He was a hardened and wily man; but you were an innocent child out of a schoolroom. And though he thought the marriage was not binding upon him, binding it is by Act of Parliament and judges' decision; and you are as assuredly George Firmin's wife, Madam, as Mrs. Bond is mine!" "You have been cruelly injured, Caroline," says the captain, wagging his old nose over his handkerchief. Caroline seemed to be very well versed in the law of the transaction. "You mean, Sir," she said, slowly, "that if me and Mr. Brandon was married to each other, he knowing that he was only playing at marriage, and me believing that it was all for good, we are really married?" "Undoubtedly you are, Madam- my client has-that is, I have had advice on the point." "But if we both knew that it was-was only a sort of a marriage-an irregular marriage, you know?" "Then the Act says that to all intents and purposes the marriage is null and void.” "But you didn't know, my poor innocent child!" cries Mr. Gann. "How should you? How old was you? She was a child in the nursery, Mr. Bond, when the villain inveigled her away from her poor old father. She knew nothing of irregular marriages." "Of course she didn't, the poor creature!" cries the old gentleman, rubbing his hands together with perfect good-humor. "Poor young thing, poor young thing!" As he was speaking, Caroline, very pale and still, was sitting looking at Ridley's sketch of Philip, which hung in her little room. Presently she turned round on the attorney, folding her little hands over her work. "Mr. Bond," she said, "girls, though they may be ever so young, know more than some folks fancy. I was more than sixteen when that that business happened. I wasn't happy at home, and eager to get away. I knew that a gentleman of his rank wouldn't be likely really to marry a poor Cinderella out of a lodginghouse, like me. If the truth must be told, I— I knew it was no marriage-never thought it was a marriage-not for good, you know." And she folds her little hands together as she utters the words, and I dare say once more looks at Philip's portrait. "Gracious goodness, Madam, you must be under some error!" cries the attorney. "How should a child like you know that the marriage was irregular ?" “Because I had no lines!" cries Caroline, quickly. "Never asked for none! And our maid we had then said to me, Miss Carry, where's your lines?' And it's no good without. And I knew it wasn't! And I'm ready to go before the Lord Chancellor to-morrow and say so!" cries Caroline, to the bewilderment of her father and her cross-examinant. "Pause, pause! my good Madam!" exclaims the meek old gentleman, rising from his chair. "Go and tell this to them as sent you, Sir!" cries Caroline, very imperiously, leaving the lawyer amazed, and her father's face in a bewilderment, over which he will fling his snuffy old pocket-handkerchief. "If such is unfortunately the case-if you actually mean to abide by this astonishing confession, which deprives you of a high place in society-and-and casts down the hope we had formed of redressing your injured reputation—I have nothing for it! I take my leave, Madam. Good-morning, Mr. Hum-Mr. Gann!" And the old lawyer walks out of the Little Sister's room. "She won't own to the marriage! She is fond of some one else—the little suicide!" thinks the old lawyer, as he clatters down the street to a neighboring house, where his anxious principal was in waiting. "She's fond of some one else!" Yes. But the some one else whom Caroline loved was Brand Firmin's son; and it was to save Philip from ruin that the poor Little Sister chose to forget her marriage to his father. CAPTAIN ALICANT. That majestic General Dubbley, with the green hair and the painfully imposing manner; that melancholy establishment, with an old revolutionary matron in a back-room always making tea, and who might on occasion be caught smoking a clay pipe. There was nothing very prepossessing in either Hopskotch or its hotel to draw me there so often, but the scenery in the neighborhood was fresh and pleasant. Not far from the village the Passaic, as yet a tiny stream, wandered through wooded valleys and formed large calm pools, where the laughing country boys bathed in the hot summer days. The land was broken into green swelling slopes which were crowned by rich crests of wood, where one might hear high up amidst the trees the whirr of the wood-pigeons' wings as they fled before intrusion. A few stray woodcocks were to be found in the summer, feeding on the succulent marges of the little river; and there was a tradition of rattlesnakes having an abiding place on a certain stony hill not far from the village. So you see Hopskotch was not without its attractions. I liked the place well enough. It was calm and stolid, and old General Dubbley did not talk enough to bore one. But if I was tired of the General's description of the way in which he received Lafayette, or the reminiscences of the revolutionary matron in the back parlor, who was continually recording the fact of her having put a gun into the hand of her youngest son to go to Lexington with, I wandered off among the peach orchards with which the neighborhood abounded, and watched the orioles and the blackbirds, or superintended the drunken revels of large blue-bottles as they boozed upon the juice of the fallen and fermenting fruit. Captain Alicant, as I said before, was a regu lar visitor at the Hominy House. He was a hard, weather-beaten old fellow, with such bad sight that he had to be led to the house by a boy and led back home again. But he never would acknowledge that he was blind. He used to sit in the window and gravely comment on the aspect of the outer landscape which he never saw, and criticise the appearance of neighbors of whose presence he was aware only by their voices. The Captain was always accompanied by Punch. Not that I mean he carried a supply of the seductive but stimulating beverage of that name continually about with him, but his invariable companion was a Skye terrier similarly christened; a sort of animated muff on legs; a quaint bundle of hair with large pleading eyes, affectionate heart, and a tendency to get continually into disgrace. Punch, I regret to say, got NE of the habitués of the Hominy House in into more disgrace on my account than on any a short, thick-set, nubbly old gentleman, who had once followed the sea, and was in consequence called Captain Alicant. He inhabited a snug little cottage in the environs of Hopskotch, and spent a portion of each day in the bar-room of the Hominy House. I have described the Hominy and its landlord ere this in Harper's Monthly. VOL. XXIII.-No. 133.-H for the day he met me he formed an attachment for me that was a source of unceasing annoy ance to the Captain. He from that moment forward became a vagabond dog. He would not sleep home of nights, but would trot down at unearthly hours to the hotel, and sit whining and scratching at the door until I got up and let |