first redeemed, he may reclaim, his own. It was in joining a set of strolling players that Vivian became acquainted with Peacock; and that worthy, who had many strings to his bow, soon grew aware of Vivian's extraordinary skill with the cue, and saw therein a better mode of making their joint fortunes than the boards of an itinerant Thespis furnished to either. Vivian listened to him, and it was while their intimacy was most fresh that I met them on the highroad. That chance meeting produced (if I may be allowed to believe his assurance) a strong, and, for the moment, a salutary effect upon Vivian. The comparative innocence and freshness of a boy's mind were new to him; the elastic healthful spirits with which those gifts were accompanied startled him, by the contrast to his own forced gaiety and secret gloom. And this boy was his own cousin!
Coming afterwards to London, he adventured inquiry at the hotel in the Strand at which I had given my address; learned where we were; and, passing one night in the street, saw my uncle at the window – to recognise and to fly from him. Having then some money at his disposal, he broke off abruptly from the set into which he had been thrown. He resolved to return to France – he would try for a more respectable mode of existence. He had not found happiness in that liberty he had won, nor room for the ambition that began to gnaw him, in those pursuits from which his father had vainly warned him. His most reputable friend was his old tutor; he would go to him. He went; but the tutor was now married, and was himself a father, and that made a wonderful alteration in his practical ethics. It was no longer moral to aid the son in rebellion to his father. Vivian evinced his usual sarcastic haughtiness at the reception he met, and was requested civilly to leave the house. Then again he flung himself on his wits at Paris. But there were plenty of wits there sharper than his own. He got into some quarrel with the police – not indeed for any dishonest practices of his own, but from an unwary acquaintance with others less scrupulous, and deemed it prudent to quit France. Thus had I met him again, forlorn and ragged, in the streets of London.
Meanwhile Roland, after the first vain search, had yielded to the indignation and disgust that had long rankled within him. His son had thrown off his authority, because it preserved him from dishonour. His ideas of discipline were stern, and patience had been wellnigh crushed out of his heart. He thought he could bear to resign his son to his fate – to disown him, and to say, "I have no more a son." It was in this mood that he had first visited our house. But when, on that memorable night in which he had narrated to his thrilling listeners the dark tale of a fellow-sufferer's woe and crime – betraying in the tale, to my father's quick sympathy, his own sorrow and passion – it did not need much of his gentler brother's subtle art to learn or guess the whole, nor much of Austin's mild persuasion to convince Roland that he had not yet exhausted all efforts to track the wanderer and reclaim the erring child. Then he had gone to London – then he had sought every spot which the outcast would probably haunt – then had he saved and pinched from his own necessities, to have wherewithal to enter theatres and gaming-houses, and fee the agencies of police; then had he seen the form for which he had watched and pined, in the street below his window, and cried in a joyous delusion, "He repents!" One day a letter reached my uncle, through his banker's, from the French tutor, (who knew of no other means of tracing Roland but through the house by which his salary had been paid,) informing him of his son's visit. Roland started instantly for Paris. Arriving there, he could only learn of his son through the police, and from them only learn that he had been seen in the company of accomplished swindlers, who were already in the hands of justice; but that the youth himself, whom there was nothing to criminate, had been suffered to quit Paris, and had taken, it was supposed, the road to England. Then at last the poor Captain's stout heart gave way. His son the companion of swindlers! – could he be sure that he was not their accomplice? If not yet, how small the step between companionship and participation! He took the child left him still from the convent, returned to England, and arrived there to be seized with fever and delirium – apparently on the same day (or a day before that on which) the son had dropped shelterless and penniless on the stones of London.
"But," said Vivian, pursuing his tale, "but when you came to my aid, not knowing me – when you relieved me – when from your own lips, for the first time, I heard words that praised me, and for qualities that implied I might yet be 'worth much.' – Ah! (he added mournfully,) I remember the very words – a new light broke upon me – struggling and dim, but light still. The ambition with which I had sought the truckling Frenchman revived, and took worthier and more definite form. I would lift myself above the mire, make a name, rise in life!"
Vivian's head drooped, but he raised it quickly, and laughed – his low mocking laugh. What follows of his tale may be told succinctly. Retaining his bitter feelings towards his father, he resolved to continue his incognito – he gave himself a name likely to mislead conjecture, if I conversed of him to my family, since he knew that Roland was aware that a Colonel Vivian had been afflicted by a runaway son – and, indeed, the talk upon that subject had first put the notion of flight into his own head. He caught at the idea of becoming known to Trevanion; but he saw reasons to forbid his being indebted to me for the introduction – to forbid my knowing where he was: sooner or later, that knowledge could scarcely fail to end in the discovery of his real name. Fortunately, as he deemed, for the plans he began to meditate, we were all leaving London – he should have the stage to himself. And then boldly he resolved upon what he regarded as the master scheme of life – viz., to obtain a small pecuniary independence, and to emancipate himself formally and entirely from his father's control. Aware of poor Roland's chivalrous reverence for his name, firmly persuaded that Roland had no love for the son, but only the dread that the son might disgrace him, he determined to avail himself of his father's prejudices in order to effect his purpose.
He wrote a short letter to Roland, (that letter which had given the poor man so sanguine a joy – that letter after reading which he had said to Blanche, "Pray for me,") stating simply, that he wished to see his father; and naming a tavern in the city for the meeting.
The interview took place. And when Roland, love and forgiveness in his heart – but (who shall blame him?) dignity on his brow, and rebuke in his eye – approached, ready at a word to fling himself on the boy's breast, Vivian, seeing only the outer signs, and interpreting them by his own sentiments – recoiled; folded his arms on his bosom, and said coldly, "Spare me reproach, sir – it is unavailing. I seek you only to propose that you shall save your name, and resign your son."
Then, intent perhaps but to gain his object, the unhappy youth declared his fixed determination never to live with his father, never to acquiesce in his authority, resolutely to pursue his own career, whatever that career might be, explaining none of the circumstances that appeared most in his disfavour – rather, perhaps, thinking that, the worse his father judged of him, the more chance he had to achieve his purpose. "All I ask of you," he said, "is this: Give me the least you can afford to preserve me from the temptation to rob, or the necessity to starve; and I, in my turn, promise never to molest you in life – never to degrade you in my death; whatever my misdeeds, they will never reflect on yourself, for you shall never recognise the misdoer! The name you prize so highly shall be spared." Sickened and revolted, Roland attempted no argument – there was that in the son's cold manner which shut out hope, and against which his pride rose indignant. A meeker man might have remonstrated, implored, and wept – that was not in Roland's nature. He had but the choice of three evils, to say to his son: "Fool, I command thee to follow me;" or say, "Wretch, since thou wouldst cast me off as a stranger, as a stranger I say to thee – Go, starve or rob, as thou wilt!" or lastly, to bow his proud head, stunned by the blow, and say, "Thou refusest me the obedience of the son, thou demandest to be as the dead to me. I can control thee not from vice, I can guide thee not to virtue. Thou wouldst sell me the name I have inherited stainless, and have as stainless borne. Be it so! – Name thy price!"
And something like this last was the father's choice.
He listened, and was long silent; and then he said slowly, "Pause before you decide."
"I have paused long – my decision is made! this is the last time we meet. I see before me now the way to fortune, fairly, honourably; you can aid me in it only in the way I have said. Reject me now, and the option may never come again to either!"
And then Roland said to himself, "I have