One Of Them. Charles James Lever

was soon in his laboratory and at work, the reaction imparting a great impulse to his energy. He set to work with unwonted vigor and determination. Chemical investigation has its good and evil days—its periods when all goes well, experiments succeed, tests answer, and results respond to what was looked for; and others when disturbing causes intervene, gases escape, and retorts smash. This was one of the former; and the subtle essence long sought after by Layton, so eagerly desired, and half despaired of, seemed at last almost within reach. A certain salt, an ingredient very difficult of preparation, was, however, wanting to his further progress, and it was necessary that he should provide himself with it ere he advanced any further. To obtain this without any adulterating admixture and in all purity was essential to success; and he determined to set out immediately for Dublin, where he could himself assist in its preparation.

      “What good luck it was, Grace,” said he, as he entered the room where she sat awaiting dinner for him—“what good luck that the boy should have sent us this money! I must go up to Dublin to-morrow, and without it I must have given up the journey.”

      “To Dublin!” said she, in a half-frightened voice, for she dreaded—not without reason—the temptations he would be exposed to when accidentally lifted above his usual poverty.

      “Ay, girl; I want a certain 'cyanuret' of which you have never heard, nor can help me to any knowledge of, but which a Dublin chemist that I know of will assist me to procure; and with this salt I purpose to make myself a name and reputation that even Mr. Ogden will not dare to dispute. I shall, I hope, have discovered what will render disease painless, and deprive operation of all its old terrors. If my calculations be just, a new era will dawn upon medical science, and the physician come to the sick man as a true comforter. My discovery, too, is no empyric accident for which I can give no reason, nor assign no cause, but the result of patient investigation, based upon true knowledge. My appeal will be to the men of science, not to popular judgments. I ask no favor; I seek no patronage. Herbert Layton would be little likely to find either; but we shall see if the name will not soar above both favor and patronage, and rank with the great discoverers, or, better again, with the great benefactors of mankind.”

      Vainglorious and presumptuous as this speech was—uttered, too, in a tone boastful as the words themselves—it was the mood which Layton's wife loved to see him indulge. If for nothing else than it was the reverse of the sardonic and bitter raillery he often practised—a spirit of scoff in which he inveighed against the world and himself—it possessed for her an indescribable charm. It represented her husband, besides, in what she loved to think his true character—that of a noble, enthusiastic man, eagerly bent upon benefiting his fellows. To her thinking, there was nothing of vanity—no overweening conceit in all these foreshadowings of future fame; nay, if anything, he understated the claims he would establish upon the world's gratitude.

      With what eager delight, then, did she listen! how enchanting were the rich tones of his voice as he thus declaimed!

      “How it cheers my heart, Herbert, when I hear you speak thus! how bright everything looks when you throw such sunlight around you!”

      “'Is this the debauchee—is this the fellow we have been reading of in the reports from Scotland Yard? Methinks I hear them whispering to each other. Ay, and that haughty University, ashamed of its old injustice, will stoop to share the lustre of the man it once expelled.”

      “Oh, think of the other and the better part of your triumph!” cried she, eagerly.

      “The best part of all will be the vengeance on those who have wronged me. What will these calumniators say when it is a nation does homage to my success?”

      “There are higher and better rewards than such feelings,” said she, half reproachfully.

      “How little you know of it!” said he, in his tone of accustomed bitterness. “The really high and great rewards of England are given to wealth, to political intrigue, to legal success. It's your banker, your orator, or your scheming barrister, who win the great prizes in our State Lottery. Find out some secret by which life can be restored to the drowned, convert an atmosphere of pestilence into an air of health and vigor, discover how an avalanche may be arrested in its fall, and, if you be an Englishman, you can do nothing better with your knowledge than sell it to a company, and make it marketable through shareholders. Philanthropy can be quoted on 'Change like a Welsh tin-mine or a patent fuel company; and if you could raise the dead, make a 'limited liability' scheme of it before you tell the world your secret.”

      “Oh, Herbert, it was not thus you were wont to speak.”

      “No, Grace,” said he, in a tone of gentle, sorrowful meaning; “but there is no such misanthrope as the man who despises himself.” And with this he hastened to his room and locked the door. It was while carelessly and recklessly he scattered the harsh words by which he grieved her most that he now and then struck some chord that vibrated with a pang of almost anguish within him, uttering aloud some speech which from another he would have resented with a blow. Still, as the criminal is oftentimes driven to confess the guilt whose secret burden is too heavy for his heart, preferring even the execration of mankind to the terrible isolation of secrecy, so did he feel a sort of melancholy satisfaction in discovering how humbly and meanly he appeared before himself.

      “A poor man's pack is soon made, Grace,” said he, with a sad smile, as he entered the room, where she was busily engaged in the little preparations for his journey.

      “Tom, don't go! don't go! don't!” screamed out the parrot, wildly.

      “Only listen to the creature,” said he; “he 's at his warnings again. I wish he would condescend to be more explanatory and less oracular.”

      She only smiled, without replying.

      “Not but he was right once, Grace,” said Layton, gravely. “You remember how he counselled me against that visit to the Rectory.”

      “Don't! don't!” croaked out the bird, in a low, guttural voice.

      “You are too dictatorial, doctor, even for a vice-provost. I will go.”

      “All wrong! all wrong!” croaked the parrot.

      “By Jove! he has half shaken my resolution,” said Layton, as he sat down and drew his hand across his brow. “I wish any one would explain to me why it is that he who has all his life resented advice as insult, should be the slave of his belief in omens.” This was uttered in a half-soliloquy, and he went on: “I can go back to at least a dozen events wherein I have had to rue or to rejoice in this faith.”

      “I too would say, Don't go, Herbert,” said she, languidly.

      “How foolish all this is!” said be, rising; “don't you know the old Spanish proverb, Grace, 'Good luck often sends us a message, but very rarely calls at the door herself?' meaning that we must not ask Fortune to aid us without our contributing some effort of our own. I will go, Grace. Yes, I will go. No more auguries, doctor,” said he, throwing a handkerchief playfully over the bird and then withdrawing it—a measure that never failed to enforce silence. “This time, at least,” said he, “I mean to be my own oracle.”