University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER XI.

She did not speak you say? continued her husband, rather
eagerly.

No.

Nor I? more eagerly but with affected carelessness.

No.

Very well—proceed. What was your theory; and why
is it of no value now?

Oh, it is only one of a multitude of errors into which I have
been led by you and her. Every time you open your mouths,
I have a new theory to explain the why and the wherefore.

Indeed—

You are both a puzzle and a mystery as—as—

As somebody says—somewhere—hey?

Precisely.

But we are curious to know what you thought of us when
you saw us in the Abbey.

Oh, I drew your character on the spot Sir, and yours too,
Madam; how you will enjoy the joke, when you come to
know what it was! I attributed the trepidation that I saw in
your looks, and the deep anxiety that I saw in yours, my
dear Sir, to a—to a—I beg your pardon, but I—I—

Pho pho, continue to speak out as you have been speaking
hitherto—freely.

With all my heart, if you will continue to look as you have
been looking hitherto—cheerful. But you are getting serious,
very serious, and your wife too. She is no longer the same
woman.

You attributed our behaviour, my anxiety, and her trepidation
to what?

Why, to a fear of your being discovered together, ha, ha,
ha—

Ha, ha—ha! very droll to be sure. Mary!

Edward—

Very droll, to be sure—ha—ha—.

Very—

It never entered my head believe me, added I, that you
mistook me for a madman—

We do believe you—

Or else I might have been able to account for your behaviour
when you saw me, in some other way.

Undoubtedly said he, with a very inquisitive look, which
I thought he appeared rather anxious to turn off with a smile.

What blockheads we are though! continued I, and then I
proceeded to describe the whole of my conjectures in the
Abbey; but I observed that when I spoke of the suspicion I
had of their not being man and wife, she appeared very
uneasy. And they interchanged a look together which troubled
me.

In a word, you see what I have come hither for—

Well Sir—and what have you come hither for? said the
man, starting up as if I had avowed some treachery.

Edward Har— for God's sake dear—recollect yourself!

I do—I do—

I have come hither said I, with a determination to know
who and what you are.

The woman looked at me, and grew very pale; and he
appeared to gather himself up for something serious.

I wish you would tell me who you are, continued I.

He looked me full in the face for half a minute or so, before
he spoke, and then offering me one hand with a free

courteous air, and laying the other on his wife's shoulder—
he replied —No no, you 'll put us in a book if we do.

In a book—zounds! I 'll put you in a book if you don't!

Very well—that you may do and welcome.

No no, dear—no no, said his wife.

Fiddle de dee, sixpence! What have we to fear in a cottage
like this—not a mile from the sea, and a bridge over it
when we desire to escape—

Edward!

To escape? said I.

To escape notoriety, I mean—

Of course, what other escape could you mean! I added,
with a growing desire to know the truth, a desire which at
last became quite insupportable to me.

I will bear this no longer said I—I must know more of
you; or I must leave you, much as I like you both.

Very fair. Did you not undertake to be satisfied with
what you already knew of us—if you could not know more,
when you were first invited over my threshold.

Yes—but—

And did I not tell you that we saw no company—that we
had no neighbours—that our cottage was in a nook of the
hills—that our very name was not a real name—and that our
only servant could not speak a word of English—

Very true—but—

And did I not say, that in begging you to stop at our cottage
for a week, I was doing that which, if you knew the
whole truth, would prove to you that we set a high value on
your good opinion? Did I not say moreover that I urged you
to come, altogether on account of my wife, who having heard
so much of America, was curious to see a tame natyve? and
did I not say, over and over again, that if you could not be
satisfied with such fare, and with knowing little more of us

at the end of the week, than you knew at the beginning, you
had better not go aside from your way?

You did—you did—but I took it for granted that you
did so, only to irritate my curiosity. You know a good
deal of authors—enough to know that nothing stimulates one
of the trade like mystery—mystery about any thing.

Very true.

Perhaps you know more of authors and of authorship than
you are willing to acknowledge?

Perhaps I do.

Perhaps you are a bit of an author yourself?

Perhaps I am.

Well—if I did n't think so!

I a bit of an author! Well done Yankee; ha, ha, ha!

I beg your pardon; I took you for one.

You took me for a player only a week ago.

Very true.—

I a bit of an author! And here he broke out into a hearty
though rather strange laugh.

The woman herself appeared to enjoy the joke; and after
a short pause I ventured to repeat the query in a more available
shape. You are an author—and after a pause—are
you not? said I. Come come, what are you afraid of?—between
friends, you know. It 's a lawful trade enough, though
a beggarly one.

How a beggarly one?

I pray you to observe—Madam the conspirator—that he
does not answer my questions now.

I do observe it, she replied, the water sparkling in her
eyes now that our feud was over.

I wish you would answer me,—are you not an author?

No, I am not.—

You have been, perhaps?

No—but I will own that I had a wish to be an author, and
that I began to scribble with a hope which I clung to—He grew
very serious here, and the color flashed over his fine forehead—
with a hope which I clung to as a mother would cling to her
first-born. It was the man-child of my youth. My heart was
heaving with ambition Sir, and God knows what I might
have done, if I had met with a little aid in the outset of my
headlong career. But I met with none Sir—no aid, no help,
no courtesy, no sympathy. I was put aside for blockheads who
were better known—I had to deal as I could with booksellers,
and to negotiate as I could with booksellers' clerks. I had to
endure the judgment of editors, who cared for nobody whose
hand-writing and whose name were not familiar to them. In
short Sir—I could not bear the trials of authorship, I could
not endure the mortifications that authors are made to endure
so long as they are not popular; and I threw up the pen for
a—for a—for a prouder and a sharper weapon—

Oh the sword—I thought so.

He took no notice of the remark, but proceeded. I agree
with you. Authorship is a beggarly trade, and beggarly, not
so much on account of the pay, though no author can possibly
earn so much in a year, as any one of a multitude of
shopkeepers, mechanics, and professional men may do, while
the majority of authors are kept in a condition more pitiable
than that of a clerk—not so much on account of the pay, as
on account of the mode of dealing to which they are subjected.
They live from hand to mouth—all men of genius do—
and of course they are eternally in debt. And authors having
a sensibility in proportion to their genius, are prodigal of
their money when they have it—never hoarding it up, and
of course are for ever at the mercy of literary by-bidders.
They are always working for a dead horse—they feel keenly—they
never endure a slight, unless it be to escape dishonor,

and therefore too, they are always at the mercy of a
scoundrel tradesman, who when he wishes to defraud an
author, is quite sure to succeed if he can either put him in a
passion, or provoke him to a display of magnanimity. God!
how I suffered, before I had the courage to do what I see
now that I ought to have done years and years before!

And what was that, pray? He got up as he finished, and
paced the room with a look of sorrow combined with irresistible
determination.

Dear Edward! whispered his beautiful wife, staying him
as he strode by, with a look of dismay and perplexity, and
leaning with her whole weight upon his arm, and as he stooped
over, putting her mouth to his forehead, with an expression
of something more than love—it was piety.

Sir, continued he, after struggling with her a moment or
two,—Sir, I have waited whole weeks for a few pounds that
were due me from an editor who had solicited me to work
for him—whole weeks, I assure you, when he was wasting
the money that belonged to his betrayed contributors—and
that woman there was languishing on a sick-bed—a deathbed,
we believed then. We were in want of the necessaries
of life, Sir—my health had given way under the toil which
he had imposed upon me—I could neither eat nor sleep,
such was the state of anxiety into which writing for him had
thrown me. If I heard a knock at the door, it sounded through
my heart—I had lost all confidence in myself; I grew nervous—I
doubted whether I was writing English—I could not
write so much in a whole week as I had written with ease
in half a day, before I took to writing for a trade.

Upon my soul, I replied, the picture you draw is enough to
give any body the heart-ache; you are unjust in your general
remarks, but there is so much truth in what you say of your
own feelings, that you force my mind back to a period of like
suffering, which well nigh drove me mad.

Ah, but how little you know of the misery, the abject
heavy misery of authorship. You are a lucky author—

I a lucky author! God forgive you.

Yes, yes your books are read.

Query—

And you are paid for what you write.

Am I? I 'll tell you what it is; I have written more than
any man of my age that ever lived, I dare say; and altogether,
I have not received so much money, as I have known to be
made by the compiler of a story-book for grown people—or
of a school-book for children.

Indeed—

Ay, and what is more. The publishers have made out
no better than I.

You are merry.

Not at all. I defy an author to be merry on such a theme.

Well Sir, continued he, to proceed with my catalogue; I
have written paper after paper for the magazines, which I
could never get returned when they were rejected, till I had
written for them, or called for them, or sent for them over
and over again; nor paid for when accepted, till I had
quarrelled the money out of the editors or the publishers—

Upon my word, you have been very unlucky. For my
part, I have always been paid, and well paid, for magazine-work,
though to be sure I have had some delay and some
trouble in two or three cases, where I had expected a promptitude,
a delicacy, and a punctuality, such as I had been accustomed
to on the part of — you know whom.

Blackwood, I suppose. You have done with him now I
hear.

Yes, and he with me just now; but I have a crow to pick
with him one of these days. I like his journal—it is quite a
prodigy in its way, full—brimful—to riot and uproar of young

and vigorous life—a paper that has no equal for one kind of
writing—the bold and familiar. He has a plenty of courage
too—he has published for me what no other magazine-proprietor
in the three kingdoms would have dared to publish.
It was with him that I began my career in this country—he
always paid me fairly and promptly, and sometimes liberally
—and I would have died to serve either him or his paper; I did
nearly die once—for I dropped out of my chair while I was
re-writing an article for him which he had accepted, and
which, as on account of its great length he could not immediately
publish it, he had sent to me to look at again before it
appeared, if I thought proper; and I grew so nervous at one
time, that I did not sleep for a week—nay, not for three
weeks as an honest man should sleep—and yet, notwithstanding
all this, I have done with what he calls The Maga.

Ah, but you have had no wife to—glancing at Mary—
to trouble you, or you could not speak in this way of magazine-writing.

Very true—no wife to trouble me.

Delay is death Sir, at such a time.

I believe it, and worse than death, if you know that while
she is dying, the money that you have earned by her sick-bed,
has been lavished by a profligate upon the pleasures of
a profligate.

Pho pho, as you say. You are speaking too bitterly; and
you have been too easily discouraged. Let me tell
you what I have had to endure—I, whom you regard, as a
fortunate author; and see if you do not feel more charitably
disposed toward that class of slave-drivers, who in this country
are called editors. You do not consider what they have
to endure. You overlook their suffering. Their character is
in issue twelve times a year, if they superintend a magazine;
four times a year if it be a quarterly. Think too of the

loads of paper they have to ransack, of the caprice and self-love
and obstinacy of their chief contributors; of the lengthiness
and talkativeness and repetition of new contributors who
are paid by the acre; of the consistency which they are bound
to keep up in some degree throughout a number at least, if not
a volume; and of the irreconcilable views that men are pretty
sure to have upon a subject, when they have each a reputation
at stake; and how unwilling such men are to be trimmed
away and fitted and jointed and dove-tailed by other people.
Think too of the multitude of friends and acquaintances who
are always waiting to be served first, and who are only to be
served by a sacrifice of principle or character, nine times out
of ten. Think too of the friends' friends, who are eternally
in the way of an editor—introduced by nobody knows whom,
as people worthy of patronage—for charity-sake.

Ah Sir, I begin to perceive that an editor has no such
easy life.

Easy life! no indeed—were I an editor I would have
nothing to do with a paper, if it came in the hand-writing of
any body that I personally knew; for why pay such a price
for literary ware, if it will not secure you a choice of the
market?

Very true.

Think too of the multitude more, who on the strength of
a half-hour's acquaintance over a dinner-table, expect to be
received as the familiar friends of an editor, if they choose to
trouble him with one of their insupportable visits. Oh, my
dear Sir—talk of the miseries of authorship! they are nothing
to the miseries of editorship! An author may go where he
likes, and write where he likes, but an editor is for ever at
work in the same spot, like a squirrel in a cage—or an author
in a tread-mill.

A very pretty comparison.—

Very, and then to have to deal with men of the same trade
is of itself a misery; to have to judge their work is yet worse,
to say nothing of reading it—but if you are an author, and
are to judge the work of authors—the most irritable creatures
on earth, your misery is complete.

Upon my word, Mr. C. H., you appear to feel every
word you say.

I do feel every word I say. An author has no bowels for
an editor. If the editor is an author, like Mr. Campbell for
example, he is thought to be guided by jealousy whatever he
may do, when it is fifty to one, that being aware of what may
be said of him by a brother chip, he would go out of his way
to speak more favorably of him than he deserved. And if
he is not an author—like Mr. Jeffry for example—they regard
him as not qualified to judge. Write a book yourself Sir,
they say, before you pretend to judge of our books.

You are making out a good case for the people that I have
hitherto regarded as the very drones of literature.

And then, my dear Sir—to have to be answerable for the
vices and errors, not only of yourself but of every body who
may happen to write for you—

And with a perfect knowledge, that if a blunder be made by
the author he will never speak of it, while made by
you, he will be sure to proclaim it wherever he goes; and
that if by one of your allowed emendations—a very ticklish
thing for you to make by the way, if your man be much in
favor with the public, or if you are disposed to do more than
cross a t, or dot an i for him—you have got him out of a
scrape, or have made him say a very brilliant, a very wise, or
a very beautiful thing which had never entered his head but
for you, he will be sure to have the credit of it, and equally
sure to drop never a word about your agency; while if you
should happen to mistake a favorite word of his, or spoil a

joke, or mismate a bad antithesis or two, whether in reading
the proof or in spelling the manuscript, you know that if you
should live a century you would never hear the last of it.

Preserve me from all editorship!

How devoutly you say that, my dear Edward, whispered
Mary, with an arch look that appeared to have a deal of meaning
in it, for he shook his finger at her and bade her be quiet,
and she put up her lip, so like a child, that I could have
kissed her for it—upon my word I could. So! thought I—
so so! he may know more about editorships after all than
I do—who knows? That woman was a very odd creature
by the by. She told me herself one day when we were together
among the trees—with a sky overhead and about us
bluer than I ever saw before, and the sea before us like eternity,
that she knew not which predominated in her character, the
child, the woman, or the man. But I could have told her—
She had the courage and thought of a man, the heart and
the look of a beautiful, high-spirited superior woman, the
tricks of a child—I do not mean of your every-day child,
but of a dear, simple-hearted, pure and loving child— with
a brow all of wisdom—a lip all of love,—and the carriage
of a something made of all three, so that each preponderated
at times, and neither for a long time. But to my
story—

Preserve me from all editorship, said he.

How devoulty you say that, answered she.

Very much as if you were praying to escape the governorship
of another Barrataria, answered I—

But go on with your plea, added Mr. Edwards—N. B. I
can bear to call him Edwards, though I cannot bear to call
his wife so.

Very well, said I—and then to have to read so much that
you have read forty times before, so much that you are pleased

with, you know not why--when you come to see the proof--
and so much that you are weary of, you know not why, till
you are called upon to pay for it. And then after all, to be
pursued by disappointed authors and bored by successful
ones—to say nothing of the neuter people, who are accepted
occasionally, just enough to keep them in a state of perpetual
bad humor with you; and then to be obliged to say civil
things on a bit of paper not five inches square, to every body
that you refuse to trade with, lest he may call you out, or attack
you in some blackguard paper of the day, or show you
up in a book—or throw himself into a horse-pond for your
sake—oh you have no idea, I tell you again, of the miseries
of editorship.

I begin to believe you;—but now for the miseries of authorship:
you have had your full share it would seem—

That I have; but hear my story and judge for yourself.
When I left America, it was in the hope—

—Here I was interrupted by a knock at the door, and I
stopped—not so much on account of the knock, though it
was the first I had heard for better than five days in the deep,
green solitude where they had concealed the cottage, as on
account of the behaviour of the man, who rose I thought
with a look of more than usual anxiety, and stood as if debating
with himself whether to go to the door or not.

I did not hear the dog Mary, did you?

No, she replied—no—it is very strange.

Very, dear; but we have been so occupied you know, that
if she had barked, we might not have heard her. God bless
me, it is very odd—

Hark—hark—that's her growl, I am sure.

I am not so sure Mary; I do not much like this—

Pho pho, said I, what are you afraid of, in such a spot of

earth—a little green island walled about by the sea, and
guarded by mighty ships—

He made no reply—he did not even hear me; but stood
listening at the door, with his hand upon a huge bolt.

If you do not like to open the door, I will, said I.

His wife caught her breath and gave me such a look that,
if my life had been at issue, I could not have opened the
door. I was actually frightened—my strength and courage
were gone—a terrible idea passed over my heart, one which
I have no power to describe, and I recoiled from her beauty
as if I knew that she was what I dare not mention. But before
I could resolve how to proceed with her, the knock was
repeated.

Ah, we have nothing to fear now, said he, I know that
knock. It is our friend Fontleroy—a person whom I had
met with not long before, and who had attracted my attention
by his extraordinary resemblance to Napoleon Bonaparte.
As he spoke, he threw open the door, and the individual
that I had seen—a small dark, middle-aged man,
with a mild serious air, and great dignity of carriage, entered
the room. Well, are you ready, or am I to wait for you now,
said the stranger—and then he stopped short— he stopped,
for he saw me, and appeared to be a good deal surprised.

Mr. C. H., a particular friend of ours—from America—said
the man-without-a-name, at my elbow.

From America! repeated the stranger with a subdued
voice, bowing very low to me, and then saying to Edwards
with a sort of smile which I did not much like—Are
you ready? we have no time to lose. You are not in America
now.

All ready—I have been waiting for you—was the reply;
we expected you three days ago—and I had nearly given up
the idea.

You had!

Yes—then turning to his wife he added—Mary, love!

She went up to him and threw her arms about his neck,
and put her mouth to his and clung to him—before me and
before the stranger and before two or three people that I saw
outside, not as if he and she were parting for a few hours, but
as if they were parting for a twelvemonth, or a long voyage,
if not for ever.

How is the wind? he added in a whisper, as the new-comer
made a signal to somebody outside.

Fair as it can blow, answered a rough voice at the door.

Ay ay, Sir, an' beautiful dark, dark as Egypt—with a blow
astarn Sir 'll sweep us over the way, like a shot from a twoan'-forty
pounder.

Be still Sir—

Bear up Mary, bear up—I shall be back before you know
it—I must leave you now—farewell, Mr. C. H., farewell.
If I should not come back so soon as I hope, Mary will entertain
you—pho pho Mary, pho pho—don't make a fool
of me. Good by dear—good by Sir.

The next moment they were gone; the cottage was still
as death, and I was left—who could have imagined such a
thing a few days before—left alone with the very woman
that I would have put my life in jeopardy to see.