MISS BROWN. A ROMANCE. BY ROBERT B. BROUGH. CHAPTER XIII. enough to know that it was a bad sort of night for a lightly-clad traveller to be out in: the unnatural heat and stillness portending an inevitable storm. But, truth to tell, the gentle badinage of Colonel Arthur Morrison, as to the experiences of Jones, during the eventful day just passed, had been founded on sound observation. IN WHICH OSCAR T. JONES HAS A BAD NIGHT Jones had mingled with the cricketers, and for OF IT. them. The curious drinks which his professional skill had enabled him to compound for their reUR friend freshment he had himself partaken of, not wisely, Oscar T. but too well. The result was, that, at this Jones re- actual one o'clock in the morning, Oscar found mained himself in a condition, not of physical unsteadiunderness-his chest had never been more expansive or what he his step more assured and majestic-but in a state supposed of mental serenity that rendered him indifferent to be Miss to any but surrounding circumstances. He was Brown's oblivious of the past and reckless of the future. window, He was conscious only of the joyous present. doubling The night was calm, the air perfumed, and the the parts, shadow of Miss Brown flitted to and fro on the as it were, window-blind in front of him. of Romeo and the Apothe cary (he was certainly fat enough for both together)-that is to say, half actuated by a sudden and somewhat maudlin attack of the tender passion, and half by a genuine anxiety as to the condition of his laudanum patient-until the light in the casement was extinguished. Our stricken baker then suddenly reflected that he had been all the time looking at the wrong window-that the chamber in which he had been privileged to attend Miss Brown was situated at another side of he house. Highly dis gusted with the surmise that he had been wasting much valuable sentiment (and some choice mental quotation) upon the chamber-candlestick of a cookmaid-perhaps even of Thomas!-our friend proceeded to make a circuit of the premises, determined to commence his devotions afresh at the proper shrine, provided he should find a lamp still burning on the altar of his divinity. Rose Cottage was built on a rather abrupt acclivity, the summit of which was faced by Miss Brown's chamber. Jones was disappointed to find the upper part of the house, on that side, in total darkness. A light, however, was burning on the ground-floor. Oscar ascended the hill a few paces, in order to get a full view over a tall wild-briar hedge, and discovered this to proceed from a pair of lawn windows reaching to the ground, and opening into a little patch of garden more secluded than that in front of the house. These windows, in fact, belonged to the inner parlour of the cottage, which had been converted, as we know, into a sleeping apartment for the Major's accommodation. The blind was down; but our portly swain was inexpressibly delighted to see it occasionally darkened by a flitting shadow, in the outline of which he easily recognised the (to him) graceful proportions of Miss Brown. With true Sybarite economy, our friend looked carefully around him for an advantageous position before fully yielding himself to the soothing influences of the situation. Fortune was decidedly in his favour. A giant elm had been cut down only the day before, and the rustling branches had not yet been removed from it. One of these lying near the ground afforded Oscar a natural arm-chair, that oscillated pleasantly under his by no means inconsiderable weight. Having taken possession of this, our hero, for the time being, ignited a cigar, and luxuriously gave himself up to meditation. Under the circumstances that have been enumerated-including the cricket-match, the balmy air, the lateness of the hour, and, last not least, the extempore elm-tree cradle-is it to be wondered that, in a very few minutes, Oscar had slipped from his perch fast asleep, and lay snoring ignominiously amid the long grass; with a sheltering canopy of foliage murmuring lullabys above him. How long he had slept he could not tell. But he awoke, amid what seemed the yelling and screeching of all Pandemonium let loose. The impending storm had burst. The boughs writhed, moaned, and clattered above the awakened sleeper's head, as if the giants had returned to earth and were plying their clubs again. Torrents of rain descended upon his up-turned face. The lightning blinded and the thunder deafened him. The crash of falling trees was heard on every side, and severed branches whizzed like black rockets through the air. His first sensation was naturally one of abject, unreasoning terror. It was impossible at once for him to realize his actual position. He was drenched to the skin and benumbed with cold. He tried to call out, but there seemed a vice pressing at his throat;-to rise, but he was one continuous cramp from head to foot. Moreover, he was fairly lashed to the earth by the strong grass and brushwood that the rain had beaten around him. He hoped that it was a hideous dream. It was a lovely night-unseasonably calm and sultry-more like the middle of July than the commencement of October. Had Mr. Jones been in full possession of his reflective powers, Gradually, consciousness returned to him. He it is probable he would have been weatherwise was able to raise his head, and saw-a few yards VOL. I. H No. 7. below him-the Major's cottage, with the light still burning in the window. He remembered now. He would have made a desperate effort to rise and fly to shelter-when all his senses were again paralyzed by a wonder more startling than any of the tempest's terrors. It was the sound of a human voice, speaking, in a lull of the storm, apparently within a yard or two of his face. "Well, mate! if you call this a night for business, give me pleasure, say I." "What are you grumbling at?" said another voice, in the same immediate vicinity. "I didn't make the weather, did I? We should have caught it anywheres else, just the same, coming on so sudden as it did. Hook it if you've a mind.” "I didn't say that; only, I don't see there's anything to be done. The woman don't mean to go to bed. There's her shadder again!" "Well, it's worth waiting a bit for. We're just as well here as anywheres. We can't get no wetter." By this time the listener had divined that the speakers were watching the cottage from behind the trunk of the elm in front of which he had fallen asleep. "But I tell you it's no use," the first speaker continued; "the woman's on the lay before us. I see her as plain as can be try to take it out of his bosom." "Ah! but did she get it ?" "Well, not that time; he woke up. she's on to it, take my word." brave as Ajax. He argued that the ruffians would not make their attempt for some minutes. The hotel was not half a-mile distant. Oscar ran at the top of such speed as he could command-all benumbed and aching as he was-till he reached it. He then threw a shower of stones at Morrison's and Alfred Thorne's windows, and shouted to them to follow him at once to Rose Cottage, with any assistance or weapons they could procure. Having accomplished this, the valiant Jones returned alone and unarmed to the scene of danger. CHAPTER XIV. MISS BROWN YIELDS. MEANWHILE a strange scene was enacting inside Rose Cottage, in that same lighted chamber with the lawn windows. The personages were Major Gaveston and his unfailing attendant Miss Brown. The arrival of Mr. Lascelles had thrown the invalid into a state of great excitement. The pecuniary solace brought by the capitalistacceptable as it was - had been more than counterbalanced by the effect of some of his communications. The Major had been in a high state of fever, with a tendency to delirium. His mind evidently wandered. He talked incesBut santly, with more or less coherence; sometimes muttering and chuckling to himself, sometimes declaiming fiercely and distinctly. "But did you see the flimsies ?" "Well, I can't say it was flimsies: but it was papers; and precious tight hold he kept on 'em. Hows'ever, if it was, we've only the Johnny's word for the amount-and he was awful lushy, and, as like as not, putting the pot on for a bounce." "He'd changed three on 'em at the bar-and said there was twenty in all; and he see the Major put 'em in his bosom. Hows'ever it's my game. You needn't be in it if you don't like. "Taint only the flimsies I do it for." "I say mate, mind, there's to be none of 'Don't you be afeard. I ain't going to touch him. Only, if he's so easy frightened to death as they say, maybe the sight of Corporal Tom Morris, coming on him sudden, will do it as well as anything else; and thus there'll be no tales told. I'd like a parting word with him for old times' sake." "Look! what's that rolling down the hill ?" "I don't see nothing. Bough of a tree most likely. Hell! how it's blowing." The object rolling down the hill was no other than Jones, who had shrewdly chosen this lateral mode of locomotion to escape observation. He soon rolled himself into a shady hollow, when he rose with much difficulty and crept on his hands and knees, by a circuitous route, through some sheltering brushwood to the back of the cottage. What was to be done? Should he alarm the inhabitants? That seemed the most obvious course. But a timely reflection upon the Major's perilous condition, and consideration for the ladies, checked its adoption. Mr. Lascelles, his future son-in-law, was the favourite object of his bitterest invectives. "The rascal! the low, sixty-eighty-twenty thousand per cent. Jew thief!" he exclaimed, over and over again. "To aspire to the hand of my child-Ralph Gaveston's child-and she an heiress. With the alliance I could claim through her! And to go to him! If he were only a gentleman, and I could find an excuse to shoot him; or if he had not got me -" At this passage, or one to the same effect, the Major's soliloquy on this subject would die away in confused grumblings. He derived great consolation from the fact, that he had been able during the day to decipher some passages in the letter which he had so jealously guarded since the day before. He read these repeatedly, and chuckled over them like a delighted schoolboy over a conquered puzzle. "Ha, ha!" he would say, "there is some sight left in these smoke-dried eyes yet. We'll see our way yet. Good Jones! Worthy Jones! The blundering booby, with his tom-fool sense of honour! To give me the letter, above all people. Oh rare! And poor Brett! to repent at the last moment of the trick we have so often laughed at together. I can't make it all out yet. But it seems like a full confession of the letter to invite that milksop Morrison to her chamber-the plot to surprise them, and all the rest of it. I must destroy it, of course. But there is more in it that I must spell out. Meantime it is safe-safe here." Again and again did the Major take the letter from his breast, read, and replace it, till the Jones was a man of prompt decision, and as reiteration amounted almost to a monomania. It happened, however, that on this stormy night he woke up-at about the same time that Oscar Jones was so unceremoniously aroused by the elements from his Arcadian couch- and exclaimed angrily, but in a firm strong voice, "I think all the devils are in the air to torment me! I will get this over. Nurse, bring me a taper." Miss Brown was at her usual post in her usual dress, but scarcely with her usual humble demeanour. She stood rigidly erect, while there was a fire in her eyes not accustomed to dwell there. She handed a lighted taper to her master. He drew the letter from his pocket, and was about to thrust it into the flame. Miss Brown's hand trembled violently, and the candlestick fell to the ground. "Curse your stupidity!" said the Major; "can't you hold a candlestick properly? Light it again." Strange to say, Miss Brown made no movement to obey the command. "Why, what is the matter with you? Is it that laudanum fit I hear of? or is it true that you do drink ?" Miss Brown made no answer. She might have been a statue, but that she pressed her lips convulsively, and her breath came thickly. "Curse you! Have you no tongue ?" Miss Brown had none for present use at any rate. With an irresolute hand, the Major thrust the letter back into its former resting-place, muttering-" Perhaps it is as well." He then glanced furtively round in the direction of the nurse. He had evidently some motive for conciliation, for he made two or three feints at addressing her-resulting in the (for him) unusually gracious apology, "I beg your pardon, nurse, for speaking to you harshly; but I know you are a sensible woman, and can overlook it. I-I want to ask you a bit of professional advice; for, after all, you are worth all the doctors together." "What is it, sir ?" Miss Brown inquired, in a scarcely audible voice. "You have attended scores of our fellows, of course, in all sorts of cases. Now, when they get fever from an old wound like mine, how do they generally behave? What's the matter, nurse? Aren't you well ?" "They act variously, sir," said the nurse, after a pause, and with an effort. "It depends upon the nature of the case." Occasionally." "And, no doubt, imagine ridiculous things, absurd lies, and impossibilities ?" "Frequently." "I have felt some symptoms of that kind myself lately. I have one particular vision that haunts me. I can't think what it means. If you should hear me talking about it, don't laugh at me, that's all-though it is very ridiculous." "I will not sir; be assured." There was a pause: but the Major had not done with his subject. He resumed, with affected carelessness "What is that old story-a stupid thing in rhyme-about the French officer who had in jured a girl-a nnn-and thought he always saw her sitting in a chair beside his bed, and when they brought in a real nun, like the woman he had described, cried out there are two!' and fell dead ?" "I do not know the story," said Miss Brown, faintly; falling back a pace or two, and resting on the back of a chair. "I'll describe the woman to you, if you like Miss Brown. She is always before me when I get light-headed. Very attentive of her, isn't it? A slight pale woman, with large grey eyes, bareheaded-" CONCERNING STEPHEN. BY GODFREY TURNER. MR. GRIMWIG, in "Oliver Twist," said be only knew two kinds of boys--mealy-faced boys and beef-faced boys. Oliver, it will be remembered, was mealy. I enjoy the acquaintance of an extensive circle of London waiters; but I "It's all ridiculous nonsense, of course," said have never been able to discover more than two the Major; "but fortunately-Ha! ha!-kinds-plump waiters and slim waiters. My there is no such danger in my case. For the old friend Stephen is one of the slim. woman that haunts me-I told you it was a I do not know that I ought to tell you, () woman, I think-is a purely imaginary per- many-headed One, where Stephen carries the sonage-purely imaginary. If she did exist, napkin of office and answers to the voice of him indeed," here the Major's voice fell and trem- who calls. The place, you see, is the snuggest bled, and there was a wild look of terror in his of the few snug places whither I can confidently eye-" and they were to bring her before me, repair to dine in peace; yea, unflustered by the then the doctors would have something-Ha! coming and the going, the clutter and the stare ha!-to crow about, and I should collapse like of many diners. For Stephen is the slim head. the French Mousquetaire. I know I should !" waiter at a tavern which is on the whole dis Why did Miss Brown's eyes glare so wildly, inclined to court a great deal of custom, but is and why did she clasp her forehead so convul- content rather with the good name it bears sively, as she stood behind the Major's chair? among a limited number of habitués and a few coteries, each permanently and inseparably wedded to one particular table. Dr. Johnson. it is said, did not like to be too much agreed with; and this house of public entertainment does not like to be too much resorted to. Strange customers bring new ideas into a place; and new ideas are not wanted in either of the three rooms at old Casserole's. There are three rooms-that is to say, three public ones; and! there is besides a room just large enough for a square party, on the entresol. Merry sounds have I heard flow from that room. Casserole is the name of the first proprietor, who went out of the business years and years ago, carrying with him a comfortable competency, and the grateful regard of all who had tasted his dinners. The old boy visits annually the scene of his former exploits, coming across the seas from his Gallic retirement for this especial purpose. Stephen will tell the story of that life, now near its close. Casserole was a sailor in his youth, and, though a Frenchman, was somehow pressed into the British navy. When pensioned off at last, he opened a little cook-shop, distinguished in one respect only from those unctuous and vapoury establishments which flavour the poorest quarters of the City: Casserole's cookery was good. Why did Miss Brown whisk off her cap so suddenly and throw it behind her? "With quantities of streaming brown hair falling about her neck and bosom " Away went Miss Brown's combs, and down came her glorious cataracts of chesnut tresses about her shoulders. "As if she had been suddenly surprised in her nightdress or deshabille—” With one convulsive wrench, Miss Brown tore down the upper portion of her homely black dress, and hastily disarranged her white undergarments. "With a red mantle, or something-I know it was red-thrown, as if hastily, over her shoulders-" Miss Brown glanced quickly round the room, and seized a red cloth from a side-table, which she huddled about her shoulders as a drapery. "Bare white arms-very white-" Swiftly Miss Brown rolled up her short white sleeves, baring her arms to the very shoulders. "One of them is always extended-proudly, as if ordering a presumptuous lover away-or denouncing a villain-a conspirator-a traitor. Very angry eyes; and, though she never speaks, her lips always moving, as if to say-" "LIAR AND DASTARD!" shrieked Miss Brown, as she suddenly stood before the Major-the very living woman he had described, in all her indignant fury. The Major uttered no sound. He glared stupidly at the startling vision. The muscles of his face stiffened; his jaw drooped lower and lower, and his head fell forward on his breast. My God! it is done!" exclaimed the affrighted woman. "Let me not see him." She drew her disordered clothes about her burst open the lawn windows, and, without cloak or head-covering, hurled herself out into the tempest-wilder than the storm itself. (To be continued.) Up a turning, down a bye-street, which winds out of a thoroughfare at the back of a workhouse, between Sloane Square and the point where the north-east end of Norton Folgate joins the western boundary of Newington Butts, Casserole's cook-shop stood. Thither went the labouring man for bouilli, for stewed breast of veal and sorrel, or perchance for a ragoût. The difference between such food and the sickly, sodden roast leg of pork, with its greasy concomitant of sage and onion; or the hard boiled beef; or the scorched and tepid shoulder of mutton, splashed in a pool of tallowy water, was highly appreciated by the humble gourmands who dwelt in Casserole's vicinity. Soon he began to have customers from districts a little removed. The fame of his stews, his sautés, and his salmis, his entlets and his fillets, his fricandeaux and his fricassées, his pigs' pettitoes à la Sainte Ménéhoulde, his fly-to-the-winds in the fashion of the female financier, his suprêmes de cock-sparrow aux concombres three-a-penny, his kickshaws and his thingamies, his fribbles and his frabbles-the fame of these things and many more spread very quickly beyond all knowledge of the bye-street leading out of the thoroughfare at the back of St. Bumble-le-Big. A post-captain with whom he had served was the first one to find out Casserole. A little room in the rear of the cook-shop was partitioned off in no time, and the captain's friends came there very often, and ate very much, and drank a great deal more, perhaps, than was good for them, and had a roaring time of it. By the period of the post-captain's being made an admiral, and taking thereupon and thenceforth to habits of imbecility-when he and his companions deserted Casserole's in a body, and were never beheld by human eyes afterwards, except in club windows, and on the subscription seat outside the Library at Cheltenham-by this period, I say, Casserole's had risen into high repute. The house never attained, fortunately, a very extended celebrity. But having discarded all outer signs of the cook shop business, it has gone on steadily winning the esteem and affection of people characterised by a fine sense and knowledge of what is what. There were in front of us, when we had made The waiter on that occasion was Stephen himself. He looks no older by a day's waiting than he looked when we paid him our bill, which was so much below the amount we had reckoned on that we had another half bottle of Côte Roti, and, after that, coffee and curaçoa. O that curaço! Like Mr. Leech's agriculturist, we would have gladly taken some of it in a " moog." Friend of mine, with whom that memorable dinner was divided, will these words reach your studio or wandering tent in the far country? Send me back in return a little picture of thee and me, with honest boyish faces rather scared, with wide-stretched eyes looking towards the door, with hands nervously clutching the cloth, and with the omelette between us in the very act of shrinking. On a beautiful Wednesday in spring, two young gentlemen might have been observed walking along the road which leads from Upper Holloway in the direction of the Regent's Park and the West-end of the metropolis. They were school-fellows, and had got a half-holiday. They had heard of Casserole's and were going to try it. They were in joint possession of a fund which had been carefully hoarded and made up with the laudable and determined purpose of spending it all in one jolly good dinner. Many a handsome and conspicuous tavern did they pass on their way through the broad streets of luxurious London; many a wide-flung portal and spacious hall cried to them, Enter, noble sirs; but they did not pause or turn aside until they came to a little squeezed-up passage with a narrow swinging door. This, then, was Casserole's. How un- I believe that Stephen has found in some corner pretending, and how hospitable it looked! The of Casserole's cellars the elixirof eternal slimness. aspect, I should observe, was the same in those He never looked absolutely youthful as long as I bright days that it is even now. There was the have known him; but he seems to have gone on same plain front, with its wood and iron work in the resolute determination never to look old. painted a dark green. There was the same in- His whiskers are as bushy as ever, and are scription, in yellow ochre: CASSEROLE, RESTAU-trimmed exactly in the same fashion, and are as RATEUR. There were the same words upon the free from any tinge of age. Stephen has cultilamp-had it been Aladdin's it could hardly vated, with pre-eminent success, a confi lential have possessed more interest for us just then-air which is occasionally affected by some the words, in a kindly compromise between the waiters, but which, with him, has passed into French and English tongues, "Dinners à la habit, almost into character. He will tell you carte." There was the same low-browed window, what you had better have for dinner; and there with its rows of curiously-shaped bottles, are few people I know who would refuse at least labelled with the names of their contents and to listen. His own faith in the goodness of of the foreign distilleries whence they had pro- Casserole's cuisine is a refreshing fact. I am ceeded. We saw at the bottom of a colourless convinced that he thinks it a privilege to dine fluid a thickly and evenly-spread deposit of there; and next in value to the viands and the golden particles, and we repeated under our wine Stephen rates his own attendance. breath the inscription on the square flask, ingrate once complained that for the amount of Eau d'or-water of gold! How we longed to his reckoning, he had not. been supplied with shake it up, and see the bright yellow spread half as many dishes as he had partaken, but the itself through the clear and luscious crystal! day before, at the establishment of Messrs. Saw An |