This man’s metallic; at a sudden blow

His soul rings hard. I cannot lay my palm,

Trembling with life, upon that jointed brass.

I shudder at the cold unanswering touch;

But if it press me in response, I’m bruised.

THE next morning, when the Debarrys, including the rector, who had ridden over to the Manor early, were still seated at breakfast, Christian came in with a letter, saying that it had been brought by a man employed at the chapel in Malthouse Yard, who had been ordered by the minister to use aLi speed and care in the delivery. The letter was addressed to Sir Maximus.

‘Stay, Christian, it may possibly refer to the lost pocket-book,’ said Philip Debarry, who was beginning to feel rather sorry for his factotum, as a reaction from previous suspicions and indignation.

Sir Maximus opened the letter and felt for his glasses, but then said, ‘Here, you read it, Phil: the man writes a hand like small print.’

Philip cast his eyes over it, and then read aloud in a tone of satisfaction: —

Sir, — I send this letter to apprise you that I have now in my possession certain articles, which, last evening, at about half-past seven o’clock, were found lying on the grass at the western extremity of your park. The articles are — 1?, a well-filled pocket-book, of brown leather, fastened with a black ribbon and with a seal of red wax; 2?, a small note-book, covered with gilded vellum, whereof the clasp was burst, and from out whereof had partly escaped a small gold chain, with seals and a locket attached, the locket bearing on the back a device, and round the face a female name.

Wherefore I request that you will further my effort to place these articles in the right hands, by ascertaining whether any person within your walls claims them as his property, and by sending that person to me (if such be found); for I will on no account let them pass from my care save into that of one who, declaring himself to be the owner, can state to me what is the impression on the seal, and what the device and name upon the locket. — I am, Sir, yours to command in all right dealing,

RUFUS LYON.
Malthouse Yard, Oct. 3, 1832.

‘Well done, old Lyon,’ said the rector; ‘I didn’t think that any composition of his would ever give me so much pleasure.’

‘What an old fox it is!’ said Sir Maximus. ‘Why couldn’t he send the things to me at once along with the letter?’

‘No, no, Max; he uses a justifiable caution,’ said the rector, a refined and rather severe likeness of his brother, with a ring of fearlessness and decision in his voice which startled all flaccid men and unruly boys. ‘What are you going to do, Phil?’ seeing his nephew rise.

‘To write, of course. Those other matters are yours, I suppose?’ said Mr Debarry, looking at Christian.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I shall send you with a letter to the preacher. You can describe your own property. And the seal, uncle — was it your coat-of-arms?’

‘No, it was this head of Achilles. Here, I can take it off the ring, and you can carry it, Christian. But don’t lose that, for I’ve had it ever since eighteen hundred. I should like to send my compliments with it,’ the rector went on, looking at his brother, ‘and beg that since he has so much wise caution at command, he would exercise a little in more public matters, instead of making himself a firebrand in my parish, and teaching hucksters and tape-weavers that it’s their business to dictate to statesmen.’

‘How did Dissenters, and Methodists, and Quakers, and people of that sort first come up, uncle?’ said Miss Selina, a radiant girl of twenty, who had given much time to the harp.

‘Dear me, Selina,’ said her elder sister, Harriet, whose forte was general knowledge, ‘don’t you remember Woodstock? They were in Cromwell’s time.’

‘O! Holdenough, and those people? Yes; but they preached in the churches; they had no chapels. Tell me, uncle Gus; I like to be wise,’ said Selina, looking up at the face which was smiling down on her with a sort of severe benignity. ‘Phil says I’m an ignorant puss.’

‘The seeds of Nonconformity were sown at the Reformation, my dear, when some obstinate men made scruples about surplices and the place of the communion-table, and other trifles of that sort. But the Quakers came up about Cromwell’s time, and the Methodists only in the last century. The first Methodists were regular clergymen, the more’s the pity.’

‘But all those wrong things — why didn’t government put them down?’

‘Ah, to be sure,’ fell in Sir Maximus, in a cordial tone of corroboration.

‘Because error is often strong, and government is often weak, my dear. Well, Phil, have you finished your letter?’

‘Yes, I will read it to you,’ said Philip, turning and leaning over the back of his chair with the letter in his hand.

There is a portrait of Mr Philip Debarry still to be seen at Treby Manor, and a very fine bust of him at Rome, where he died fifteen years later, a convert to Catholicism. His face would have been plain but for the exquisite setting of his hazel eyes, which fascinated even the dogs of the household. The other features, though slight and irregular, were redeemed from triviality by the stamp of gravity and intellectual preoccupation in his face and bearing. As he read aloud, his voice was what his uncle’s might have been if it had been modulated by delicate health and a visitation of self-doubt.

Sir, — In reply to the letter with which you have favoured me this morning, I beg to state that the articles you describe were lost from the pocket of my servant, who is the bearer of this letter to you, and is the claimant of the vellum note-book and the gold chain. The large leathern pocket-book is my own property, and the impression on the wax, a helmeted head of Achilles, was made by my uncle, the Rev. Augustus Debarry, who allows me to forward his seal to you in proof that I am not making a mistaken claim.

I feel myself under deep obligation to you, sir, for the care and trouble you have taken in order to restore to its right owner a piece of property which happens to be of particular importance to me. And I shall consider myself doubly fortunate if at any time you can point out to me some method by which I may procure you as lively a satisfaction as I am now feeling, in that full and speedy relief from anxiety which I owe to your considerate conduct.

I remain, sir, your obliged and faithful servant, PHILIP DEBARRY.

‘You know best, Phil, of course,’ said Sir Maximus, pushing his plate from him, by way of interjection. ‘But it seems to me you exaggerate preposterously every little service a man happens to do for you. Why should you make a general offer of that sort? How do you know what he will be asking you to do? Stuff and nonsense! Tell Willis to send him a few head of game. You should think twice before you give a blank cheque of that sort to one of these quibbling, meddle-some Radicals.’

‘You are afraid of my committing myself to “the bottomless perjury of an et cetera”,’ said Philip, smiling, as he turned to fold his letter. ‘But I think I am not doing any mischief; at all events I could not be content to say less. And I have a notion that he would regard a present of game just now as an insult. I should, in his place.’

‘Yes, yes, you; but you don’t make yourself a measure of dissenting preachers, I hope,’ said Sir Maximus, rather wrathfully. ‘What do you say, Gus?’

‘Phil is right,’ said the rector, in an absolute tone. ‘I would not deal with a Dissenter, or put profits into the pocket of a Radical which I might put into the pocket of a good churchman and a quiet subject. But if the greatest scoundrel in the world made way for me, or picked my hat up, I would thank him. So would you, Max.’

‘Pooh! I didn’t mean that one shouldn’t behave like a gentleman,’ said Sir Maximus, in some vexation. He had great pride in his son’s superiority even to himself; but he did not enjoy having his own opinion argued down as it always was, and did not quite trust the dim vision opened by Phil’s new words and new notions. He could only submit in silence while the letter was delivered to Christian, with the order to start for Malthouse Yard immediately.

Meanwhile, in that somewhat dim locality the possible claimant of the note-book and the chain was thought of and expected with palpitating agitation. Mr Lyon was seated in his study, looking haggard and already aged from a sleepless night. He was so afraid lest his emotion should deprive him of the presence of mind necessary to the due attention to particulars in the coming interview, that he continued to occupy his sight and touch with the objects which had stirred the depths, not only of memory, but of dread. Once again he unlocked a small box which stood beside his desk, and took from it a little oval locket, and compared this with one which hung with the seals on the stray gold chain. There was the same device in enamel on the back of both: clasped hands surrounded with blue flowers. Both had round the face a name in gold italics on a blue ground: the name on the locket taken from the drawer was Maurice; the name on the locket which hung with the seals was Annette, and within the circle of this name there was a lover’s knot of light-brown hair, which matched a curl that lay in the box. The hair in the locket which bore the name of Maurice was of a very dark brown, and before returning it to the drawer Mr Lyon noted the colour and quality of this hair more carefully than ever. Then he recurred to the note-book: undoubtedly there had been something, probably a third name, beyond the names Maurice Christian, which had themselves been rubbed and slightly smeared as if by accident; and from the very first examination in the vestry, Mr Lyon could not prevent himself from transferring the mental image of the third name in faint lines to the rubbed leather. The leaves of the note-book seemed to have been recently inse............