Crying for the Light: or, Fifty Years Ago. Volume 3 of 3

CHAPTER XXIX.
THE COLONEL

Society was startled in the autumn of the year to which these events relate by the announcement that Colonel, otherwise Sir Robert Strahan had been shot in a duel on the Belgian frontier. The world wondered why he had to fight a duel. He had the reputation of being an austere and strait-laced man, a great stickler for the proprieties, a strict observer of conventional forms, regular in his attendances on Church ordinances, and very ready to judge harshly of the failings of others. In all the land there was none so proud and priggish, and his wife rejoiced greatly at the work of her hands in transforming a man of the world into a Christian of the regulation pattern.

There were, it is true, many of his fellow-officers and former companions who wondered at rather than admired the change, who questioned its genuineness, and believed, in heart, the Colonel was still the same as when, in his younger days, he played somewhat notoriously the part of a man about town; but then the world is always uncharitable, and its men and women are of a sceptical turn of mind, and ready to doubt people who affect to be superior to their neighbours; and now their hour of triumph had arrived.

This saintly Colonel was no better than other people. In Brussels, unknown to his wife, he had gambled heavily and incurred great losses. In the public dining-hall of the ancient Spartans there was a notice to the effect that no one was to repeat outside the conversation that took place within. In the club of which the Colonel was a member a similar law of honour prevailed, and as the place was outwardly respectable, and was situated in the most respectable quartier, and as its members were men who moved in the first circles on the Continent, it was assumed, of course, that nothing took place but what was respectable. And it was presumed that if its members kept late hours the fact was due to the interesting conversations of the men on the political and other stirring questions of the times. In reality the place was a gambling den of the worst description, where the losers were far greater in numbers than the winners; and amongst the former was our pious Colonel, who had immense faith in his own play, as in everything else that he did, and whose occasional gains, only by confirming his own good opinion of himself, helped him further into the mire.

Then all at once it became known that the worthy Colonel had other children than his legitimate ones. In certain quarters he passed under a feigned name – as Captain Smith – and children learned to know him under that alias. It was a pleasant retreat for the good man when the old Adam was rather strong and seemed ready to crush the renewed man; and thus he led, as many do, a double life.

Most men have their weak moments, their time of temptation, and too often they succumb, but then the falling off is only for a time. But in the Colonel’s case it had unfortunately grown into a settled habit.

My lady little dreamt of what was passing. She had other things to think of than her husband or his doings. She was active – perhaps, rather too active – in her sphere, in good works. The bluest Evangelical blood was in her veins, and when in London no one was a more frequent visitor to the country houses of pious bankers and brewers than herself. In them she was a diamond of the purest water, shining with every Christian grace and virtue. She had addressed drawing-room meetings, she had aided in many a crusade against Popery and Ritualism and other evil things. If any Liberal and devoted clergyman was to be persecuted for trying to elevate the people by Christian ideas not in accordance with her own, she was the first to raise the cry of heresy, to rouse up sleepy bishops, to raise the cry of ‘Treason in the sanctuary!’ to alarm the warders at the gate, to flood the land with cheap tracts and pious newspapers. At Exeter Hall, during the May meetings, there was no more ardent attendant; and her life in Brussels was much the same, though on a smaller scale.

Once, at Louvain, I saw a statue in the cathedral to the memory of Dr. Stapleton. I could not make out who Dr. Stapleton was, or why he was thus honoured. Baedeker and Murray knew him not. Accidentally one day turning over the pages of Froude – certainly one of the most graceful of historians – I discovered that Dr. Stapleton, living at Louvain, was the means of communication, in the ‘spacious times of Queen Elizabeth,’ between the Pope on the one side and the Roman Catholics in England on the other. At Brussels her ladyship acted in a similar way, though on a smaller scale. It was she who kept alive the communication between the Belgian and the English Evangelicals, and helped to circulate among the former the goody-goody literature in which the latter greatly rejoiced. Her activity in the matter was intense. She was always writing to England for supplies – which were sent her without any cost to herself – and in her continental drawing-room, and at her receptions, sleek divines and elect ladies were not few, ever ready to bewail the degeneracy of the times, the growth of Popery and Republicanism and Atheism.

Perhaps it was they who frightened the Colonel away. At any rate it is manifest that he would have been a better husband had she been a better wife. When the news came of his brother’s death it is needless to say that the Colonel was quite ready for a change of life and scene. Indeed, Belgium was getting too hot for him. The lady who passed as Mrs. Smith had discovered the real name and status of her protector. One of the boys – the result of this domestic arrangement – had gone to a Protestant meeting, and there on the platform, and as one of the speakers, was Captain Smith – announced to the meeting as Colonel Strahan. It was not long before his mother learned the news, nor was it long before she turned that news, as far as her pecuniary resources were concerned, to uncommonly good account.

The little domestic arrangement which had been so pleasant at first was now very much the reverse. To shake off the woman was now impossible, and her silence could only be secured at an extravagant price. She had threatened to follow him to Sloville, and it required all his ingenuity to keep the matter a secret.

Already he had made up his mind to stand for the county division; already his name had been ostentatiously paraded as president or vice-president of certain famous religious societies, whose headquarters were London. Already, under the auspices of my lady, the Hall had become the headquarters of the Low Church party.

It was hinted to the Baronet that if he could win the county at the election he might possibly be made a peer. And now this Belgian woman had found him out and rendered his life insupportable. What was he to do? He could not for the life of him tell. There was no one to advise, no one to whom he could tell his trouble. The spirit of a man can sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear? One thing he did do, which he had better not have done – he went over to Brussels again to see what could be done. He had better have kept away.

And there was another matter, too, which gave him trouble. The reputation of the Bank was in danger. At the death of his brother unpleasant rumours respecting its stability had been put in circulation. The late Baronet had, as it was well known, an unpleasant habit of making ducks and drakes of his money. It was the hope of the new one that by his own reputation in pious circles he should be able to live down the evil rumours, and to revive the credit of the Bank. In this way his wife had done him good service, and thus he had secured continued confidence in some quarters and large advances in others. But there were people in the money market who had their suspicions as to the investments of the Bank and the way in which it was managed. More than one capitalist had withdrawn his deposit, and the working partners were growing anxious. Indeed, on the morning of his departure for Brussels they had an interview with Sir Robert on the rather shaky position of affairs. They had lost money on the London Stock Exchange. Some of the mining speculations in which they were engaged had proved disastrous. A great contractor whom they had financed had come to grief. It was true that their London agents had come to their rescue, not that they were over-confident as to the Bank’s affairs, but that they feared the panic its suspension would create. But it was believed that the temporary embarrassment might be tided over. Trade was reviving, and already some of their worst investments were taking a hopeful turn. Hope told a flattering tale, and at any rate there was no occasion for despair. Much was expected from the reputation of the new head of the firm in religious circles; much from a more careful conduct of its officers; much from the improved condition of the money market. Still the Baronet was not happy, and it was with anything but a light heart that he set out for the Belgian capital. His wife offered to accompany him, but he declined the offer. In reality she had no wish to go, or she would have gone, you may be sure of that.

Thus it was in no amiable mood the Baronet once more found himself in his old quarters, in the gay and pleasant city which the clever diplomacy of Lord Palmerston helped to raise to the dignity of a European capital and the seat of a monarchy, which if not ancient is at any rate very respectable. His first object was to keep Mrs. Smith quiet, which, at a considerable cost, he succeeded in doing. Then he dined at the club, drank heavily, played high, lost his money and his temper, and became so insulting to one of the barons with whom he played, that when he got back to the hotel he found there a challenge awaiting him to fight a duel. This was rather more than he had bargained for, but he could not help himself. As an officer – though a retired one – he felt that he could not refuse. A hot-headed Irishman acted as his second, and was so charmed with the idea of the éclat of having to do with a duel, though only in the capacity of a second, that instead of doing all that he could to put it off, he did all that was in his power to promote it. Accordingly it was arranged that the aggrieved parties should meet in an obscure village on the French frontier, where they would be sure to be unobserved. The Belgian baron’s aim was deadly, and Sir Robert Strahan was no more. Short, very short had been his reign, and now it was all over. Speedily was the news telegraphed to the Hall, where everyone was shocked at the unexpected catastrophe. Her ladyship grieved deeply, the girls were in despair. It was hard, just as Providence was opening up a way for their good, and they had conquered the difficulties of a continental exile – it was hard to have all the bitterness of the hated past revived. In due time the body was brought back, and there was another stately funeral and another nine days’ wonder. At first everyone attributed the Baronet’s death to an accident. Such was the version which it seemed wise for many reasons – family, religious, and commercial – to circulate. But in time the real truth leaked out, first in private letters and then in the society journals; and there came a run on the Bank, which the partners were not prepared to meet, and which they could not have met had they been prepared. And there was no alternative but to put up the shutters and to close the doors.

Deep and dire was the consternation spread all over Sloville when it was known that the Bank doors were shut. Sloville was a rising place. Some spirited individual or other was always introducing new industries or putting up new buildings. Speculation was rife; and the leading tradesmen had all large accounts at the Bank, as well as the leading hotel-keepers. All the farmers of the district, as their fathers before them, banked in an establishment so ancient, so well-connected, so renowned.

‘They ha’ got £500 of my money,’ said an angry agriculturist, as he banged away, and banged in vain, at the doors, on which a notice was posted to the effect ‘that in consequence of a temporary difficulty the Bank had suspended business for a few days.’

‘They might ha’ given a fellar a hint,’ exclaimed another aggravated individual.

Every minute the crowd increased. Of widows who had put into the Bank their little all – many of them in tears – and of many who had overdrawn their accounts and trembled at what the result might be to themselves, never had there been got together a more excited crowd. Would the Bank open its doors again? Was it possible that they were actually shut? If the Bank were bankrupt, what would be the dividend to be paid? It was the one great topic of discourse at the market, or in the streets, or in the shops and hotels; indeed wherever man met man, even at church doors.

The Church was hit rather hard, for the money had been nearly raised for the erection of a new church, and all the money subscribed for the purpose had been placed in the Bank. The funds of all the working men’s societies had also been placed there, and they were gone – all the hard-earned savings of a life, all the wise provision of the small tradesman or the thrifty operative against a rainy day. Everywhere was grief and disappointment and despair. It was a sorry sight to see the manager, whom everyone in the town regarded as a friend. Never was man more popular or trusted. He always wore a smile upon his face; that smile was gone – vanished as the last rose of summer. He shut himself up, and was to be seen in the streets no more. He had no conception of what was to happen till there came to him a telegram, as he was sitting down to breakfast with his smiling wife and ruddy, fat-cheeked little ones, that he was not to open the Bank doors. And they were never opened again, with the result that many other doors were closed as well, that millowners had to stop, that their workmen had to be discharged, that for many a poor widow had to resort to the workhouse, and that when matters came to be inquired into closely, it was found that the family at the Hall had been the main cause of the calamity which had suddenly overwhelmed the town and neighbourhood.

Bitter were the denunciations made against them. It was unpleasant. The widow and her daughters wisely fled. They had not been to blame; they were utterly ignorant of the matter – had nothing to do with it in any way, but the public of Sloville regarded them as the worst of robbers, nevertheless. Her ladyship felt that her influence was gone, and she and the young ladies moved to a more congenial neighbourhood, where her ladyship’s Christian graces flourished more than ever, and where she was deemed by the select few who gathered at her ladyship’s dreary parties as one who had been deeply tried in the furnace of affliction, and who had come out of it as refined gold. It was held, however, as a matter of regret, that on her ladyship’s daughters the painful visitation of Providence produced no such hallowed and sanctifying effect. To make matters worse, one of them betook herself to a convent, where, as she told her friends – some of whom, however, rather doubted her statement – she found a peace and happiness she had never known before.

In due time there was a sale at the Hall, at which all the townspeople attended, glad to run up and down from one room to another, to tread the antique stairs, the stately corridors, and to seat themselves on seats and on sofas, some of which were as old as the days of Queen Anne. Jews from Wardour Street came down in shoals, to pick up articles of bijoutry and virtu, to get hold of the old-fashioned ancestors in enormous waistcoats and knee-breeches and full-bottomed wigs, to do duty elsewhere. Filthy hands dogs’-eared the choice books in the library, while snobs bought the deceased Baronet’s carefully-selected stock of wine at absurdly extravagant rates. Everything went to the hammer – carriages and horses, and all the outdoor effects, all the farming and agricultural stock. The sale lasted a week, and brought so many people from far and near as to give quite a stimulus, and to give to the place somewhat of its former gaiety. Shopkeepers and hotel-keepers once more began to smile, and thus, in time, the effect of the sad disaster seemed to pass away.

The only thing to be regretted was that the old Hall was doomed. No gentleman would buy it, as it was too near to the town, and no townsman was rich enough to buy such a place to live in. Further, as the Hall was in a tumble-down state, and required a good deal of repair of an expensive character, it was pulled down, and the material distributed all over the county. In time a manufactory occupied the site of the old Hall, and long rows of dull red cottages grew up where once there were velvet lawns, and gravel walks, and beds of roses.

And thus there vanished for ever from the face of the earth another of

 
‘The stately homes of England —
   How beautiful they stand
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
   Through all the pleasant land.’
 

It is not always that the stately home is the scene of domestic felicity. It is not true that it is unknown in the humble workman’s home. It is to be believed that, as the workman’s home is elevated, it will be redolent not merely of manly virtues – the ability to fight the battle of life and win – but of the graces which at one time the upper ten seemed to consider as their exclusive privilege; and thus, if the cottager waxes strong, we need not deplore that the stately home with all its high-born associations has passed away.

At Sloville there passed away not only the stately home, but the family that lorded it long. Thus time changes and we change with it. Thus old things pass away and all things become new. Thus we may look for a new heaven and earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness – a righteousness inconsistent with a civilization that pampered the rich and depressed the poor, that desolated the cottage to add to the splendour of the hall. It is of the many, not of the few, that we have to think in these democratic days.

And the young heir, what became of him? He was little disappointed when it was hinted to him that he was heir to a bankrupt estate and a dishonoured name. He was young, active, healthy, stout-hearted, perfectly willing to fight the battle of life to the best of his ability. He was fond of his profession, had been successful in it, and was in no hurry to relinquish it. He had seen a little of aristocratic life at a distance, and he was not enamoured of it; it seemed to him unnatural and mischievous. They had many lads from our public schools and men from our universities on board ship, and it seemed to him that they were extravagant, thoughtless, fond of pleasure, frivolous, and useless, and brought up in an altogether wrong way. If they did nothing else he held that they smoked and drank and ate more than was good for them, that they wasted a good deal of time in gambling and dissipation, in reading French novels, in the music-hall and the theatre. He did not believe that society was in a good state when the few were born rich and the many poor. All healthy life seemed to him to be founded on hard work; the curse had been changed into a blessing, and man was only happy and kept out of mischief as he lived by the sweat of his brow. A lazy life had no charm for him, even though he lived in a fine mansion, had servants to wait on him, was clad in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. A gentleman in the conventional sense of the term he could never, and would never, be; that, at any rate, was clear.

‘Well, my boy,’ said the actress, as they met in Liverpool, where they had both come on purpose, ‘what do you think? Would you like to be a gentleman, and lead such a life as your father?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I like hard work. I am comfortable as I am. I am fond of the sea, and if I live to be a captain my utmost ambition will be fulfilled. I have seen a good many gentlemen, on board ship and when I have been to the theatre, and they seem to be a poor, helpless lot, as if they did not know what to do with themselves, with their eyeglasses and their high collars.’

‘But they don’t all wear high collars and eye-glasses.’

‘No, but most of them do.’

‘Think of what you give up – the society of high life – your position in the county.’

‘I have, and I don’t care about it. Swells don’t suit me, and I shan’t suit them. I don’t want to be a landlord where the farmers cannot afford to pay any rent. I don’t want to be bothered with a lot of servants who will be most respectful in my presence, and who will laugh at me behind my back. I don’t want to be stuck up as a mark for needy adventurers and fawning parasites. I cannot believe that society in England will last long in its present position; that the wealth of the country shall be in the hands of the few, who toil not, neither do they spin, and that the men who make that wealth, without whom it could not exist, shall be stowed away in unhealthy cities to live, and breed, and die in such bitterness of poverty as can be found nowhere else. Does not James the Apostle tell the rich man to go to and howl? and I believe that end is near; that is, as soon as the working man has his political rights – a boon that now cannot be long delayed. No, property of the kind you speak of has no charms for me; rather give me

 
‘“A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep.”
 

It is thus I can carry out the mission of the age, to break down the barriers created by the prejudices and ignorance of nations, to make men realize by means of international commerce that we are members one of another, and that God has made of one blood “all nations that dwell on the face of the earth.”’

‘Why, my dear boy,’ said the actress, ‘you are quite a Radical, and a philosopher as well. Where did you get your ideas from? From the newspapers?’

‘Not a bit.’

‘Where from then?’

‘From the Book of Books – the Bible. I have loved to think of such things in the watches of the night as I have been alone on deck.’

‘Well, you have thought to some purpose,’ said the actress. ‘Wentworth will be delighted. I am sure you will fall in with our plan.’

‘What is that?’

‘I’ll tell you as soon as I have seen Wentworth.’

‘You’ll hear from me soon,’ said the actress, as she seated herself in the train, and glided along the iron road till London was reached in safety and in good time. Nor were Wentworth and his wife sorry at his decision. They infinitely preferred him as he was, and thus the matter was allowed to drop, to the infinite regret of a sharp firm of City lawyers, who were quite ready to do battle for the lad’s right, with a chance of making money out of the case somehow before they had done with it. The family lawyers were quite content to let things remain as they were. They had lost money by the family, and had no more wish to trouble themselves about their concerns. There was no chance of anyone coming forward to claim the family honours, and the name of Strahan was dropped out of the book of the baronetage of England for ever.