THE HORRID MYSTERY.

YOUNG, yet steady, clever without being disagreeable,-three hundred a year from a public office, without a wife, and five feet eight inches, without an apparent flaw, was Mr. Stephen Fitzgerryall, at the time when, ten years back, he used to walk up the Wandsworth-road, in the morning at ten, on his way to business, and down again at four on his road to dinner, with the unerring punctuality of a locomotive timepiece. "Mr. Fitz has gone to town, mamma," Miss Swinger would call to her parent, so soon as she had witnessed the interesting pepper-andsalt-coloured legs of that gentleman cross each other until they were out of sight. "Mr. Fitz has gone to town-'tis breakfast time." "Mr. Fitz has gone home," would the same young lady say at the hour of four, "tell Mary to serve up dinner." In short, so punctual was he in all his movements, that it was notorious clocks and watches were at a discount, and no constructor thereof could get a living out of the whole neighbourhood. No matter what a gauntlet of fascinations Stephen had semi-diurnally to pass through,-every half-dozenth window might be a loophole from which glances keen and flashing as scimitars glanced forth, those whose battery was not of the ocular character might in vain water their minionette with a display of arm, sufficient to shake the sobriety of a bench of bishops: such sweet creatures as placed their reliance on alabaster necks, with a regularity tiresomely unavailing, exercised themselves by throwing open their windows, and looking up the road and down the road, with all the peacock undulations of Bluebeard's wife looking out for her brothers, still on went Mr. Fitz, with the coldness of an iceberg, and the precision of a quaker; he had all the virtue of Joseph without his trials; for, thanks to civilization, young men of immaculate morals are not to be pulled back by the tails of their coats, as of yore,-Potiphar's wives must reflect, we are under the protection of a new police.

Still the reader will remark that the above-named influences form only a part of the power brought to bear on an eligible young man; that there are other agencies, numerous and potent, scattered in his path, yet coiled out of sight, and under rose-leaves, ready to dart upon him like boa constrictors, and settle his wanderings for ever;-snares which lie hid in grass-green notes, conveying the blandest invitations to partake the apparently harmless refection of tea, or in inquiries by the Misses Jenkins, next door, whether a Mr. Smith had ever held a situation in Mr. Fitz's office, which of course necessitates the propriety of of Mr. Fitz walking into the Misses Jenkins's, to inquire whether it is a Mr. Samuel Smith, or a Mr. John Smith; which again, in the alternation of cause and effect, is sure to distress the Misses Jenkins that Mr. Fitz should have troubled himself to walk in on purpose, when of course the obliging and the blushing young man takes the chair offered to him by one of the young ladies, declaring at the same time, with a distinction not very obvious to any one but himself, that he did not come in on purpose, but merely because he wished to ascertain from the young ladies themselves which Mr. Smith it really was, as trusting these matters to servants, &c. ;" in which profound remark the whole body of the young ladies cordially agree, the brothers bring out the wine, which he assists in putting out of sight until supper appears ;-senti

ment bubbles up like hot springs in Iceland, the invitation is renewed and accepted, and the devoted, although unsuspicious victim, is in a fair way to lose his liberty of a bachelor, much faster than a rail-carriage would transport him to Birmingham.

For a vivid illustration of innocence exposed to all the operations of strategy and art, Hogarth should not have pictured a young countrygirl descending from the waggon into a crowd of the vilest of both sexes, strong case though it be; but he should have hit off a desirable youth of five-and-twenty, with three hundred a year, planted in the centre of a country, where, from the pressure of population on subsistence, marrying men are at an extravagantly high premium, and fifty young ladies are panting, plotting, sighing, and dying for a husband identically answering to his description.

The falls of people resolve themselves into two classes or divisions; those who fall from particular acts, like our first parents, and those who fall from a sort of general genius for falling, rather than for standing upright, and one of these latter was Mr. Stephen Fitz: he saw himself perishing, yet indulged the pain, and with more caution than usually falls to the lot of a young man, he at length attained a position which he had been accustomed to think was never the fate of any but the most careless.

A visible and peculiar change came over the person and carriage of Mr. Stephen Fitz:-his dress was more elaborate, his manner had lost much of its former quiet self-possession, he sometimes drifted into Mr. Jenkins's house, on his way home, instead of presenting himself as heretofore to the affectionate gaze of his mother, before he delighted any of the neighbours;-he took to writing in albums, and affectionately persevered in wheedling, by means of bears-grease and other such bribes, a pair of retiring and modest whiskers that would persist in flourishing unseen, and wasting their sweetness within the desert of his shirt-collar, and he even occasionally asked for and obtained holidays, in which pleasant intervals he was seen, or might have been seen, escorting Miss Julia Jenkins to the Zoological Gardens, the Diorama, and the dozens of other places the orthodox go the circuit of before they finally surrender themselves to the silken(?) bonds of Hymen.

All these little infallible indications, gave full warrant to the neighbours, with their usual freedom from low malice, and petty jealousy, to say that "those Jenkinses had played their cards well :" the projected marriage of Mr. Fitz and Miss Jenkins, became one of the topics of discussion among the young ladies in their morning calls-consents of parents were all secured, old Mrs. Fitzgerryall adorning herself in her best silk, that had been laid up in lavender until it looked as squarely ancient as a Chelsea pensioner; walked into Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins's, at the special invitation of the latter, to see the parents of the "young person" her Stephen had selected as his partner for life,-the conversation was sustained in a beautiful spirit of equality, Mrs. Jenkins very clearly showing that her daughter was a paragon of virtue, combined with such a genius for economy, that her husband would become a Rothschild in time, from household savings alone,-Mrs. Fitz, filling up all the nooks in the aforesaid lady's ramblings, with insinuations that her Stephen was the steadiest young man-the most affectionate son; leading her hearers to believe that a young lady had no losing bargain in gaining him. The maid-servants of the respective families stood every

evening for half-an-hour to discuss the position of things; Sally, the handmaiden of the Jenkinses, conveying the day's biography of her young "missus," for and in consideration of the same quantity and space of the same commodity from Martha, the domestic of the Fitzgerryalls; a determination of maids and mugs, every night converged to the "Stag," to get the supper-beer for the families, and "all about it" for the young ladies, and the whole neighbourhood discussed the impending alliance between the Jenkinses and the Fitzgerryalls.

And now as the time approached still nearer, had a man possessed any one of those useful aids the “ Arabian Nights" sometimes make us sigh after-such as half a yard of conveyancing carpet, to carry him a few thousand miles in a few seconds, or a fairy for his private secretary, he might have flown into Mrs. Jenkins's sitting-room, and been edified by never-ending lectures on domestic policy and household economy, preached by the anxious mother to the trembling daughter; he might have heard the assurances of the former, that "it" (marriage) is a dispensation we must all comply with; he might have been cheered by the encouragements of sisters, and the critiques of aunts on Mr. Fitz, who was the "finest and nicest young man they had ever met with;" he might also have seen satins, ribbons, bonnets, travelling-pelisses, and engravings des modes overlaying each other in admired disorder; cards and silver string, to announce the event, and renew the fainting exertions of all the other young ladies in the parish: all these important preparations might he have seen going on in the parlour of Mrs. Jenkins; preparations that feed one's pride, as they enfeeble one's purse. "When is Miss Jenkins to be married?" is always a question asked and answered a good fortnight before the event; so that young gentlemen and ladies may never feel any uncertainty as to the particular morning on which to plant themselves behind parlour-blinds, and that the servants of all-work may arrange to clean their first-floor windows on that identical day. Accordingly the information in the case had been properly distributed, and all the inmates of Paradise-row were fully prepared to act on it by the time the morning arrived. Venetian blinds were all let down, and young, old, and middle-aged noses of every variety of pattern, might be seen fastened between the green laths; and the servant-girls were putting out their basins of whitening and water, and wielding their window-cloths the first thing after breakfast. The morning of the marriage! Reader, walk with us into the quiet little bedroom of the future bridegroom. He has scarcely slept a wink all night. He has tossed and tumbled about through the dark hours, and wondered whether criminals, the night before execution, felt very much as he did. Wearied with staring up into the darkness, and cogitating upon the future, which is just as dark; he has had a short slumber, and on waking with a start, he finds it is broad daylight. He arises from his bed, and in something of a cold perspiration, he walks to and looks forth from the window. He feels considerable surprise that no difference has taken place in the external world. He sees the milkman swaying along under his yoke, intent upon selling his cerulean fluid; the omnibus-men roll by on their vehicles, with flowers in their mouths, and apparently as much absorbed by sixpences as ever; the baker's boy runs about with his rolls; the sun shines very much as upon any other ordinary day ;—and yet it is unquestionably the day upon which Mr. Stephen Fitzgerryall is appointed to be married. He hurries

back to the side of his bed, shuddering as he goes; he seizes his coat, and industriously urges his legs into the arms thereof-at first, in his agitation, mistaking the garment for his trousers; and when about halfdressed feels such a horrible inclination to rush from the house, and bury himself beyond the reach of all human search, that he seriously thinks of hiring a couple of policemen for the day, to prevent his giving the marriage-party the slip, and leaving them to do as well as they can without the bridegroom. His bridesman, however, aware of his nature, and anticipative of such a catastrophe, has called early to breakfast with him before the ceremony, and now even the possibility of bolting in a panic is gone.

To a contemplative mind, there was something touching in the manner in which Mr. Stephen ate his breakfast that morning. The usual energy and relish with which he detached the large semicircular bites of his buttered roll was gone. He consumed a certain amount of provision in an absent, abstracted manner, staring before him into vacancy, and evidently unconscious of the breakfast-things. It might be, that he saw with his mind's eye a vision of what, in his morbid fancy, he would consider coming events. An annual income of one child, always strong and thriving, perhaps twins-possible loss of situation-sickness occasional-garret lodgings-no servant-wife with the usual talent of sleeping like a top, whilst the unweaned child also possesses its usual talent of crying and screaming all night, as if it had been wound up to do so;-wife never moving-himself obliged to turn out, resembling in his drapery the troubled ghost of a Roman soldier, and walking up and down the room like a sentry, endeavouring in vain to jerk and hush his progeny into a better spirit, until its incessant cries excite in his mind unhallowed thoughts as to where he last laid his razor-case; or, shivering in his shirt, he sees himself making its pap at a little fire. It may be such a vision as the above engages his soul, or perhaps some other dark and desperate piece of consciousness, thus weighs down his spirits, on this his wedding day. We shall see.

All, after his breakfast, was to Stephen a phantasmagoria, or a hideous dream. He reached the church. He saw a confused mass of blue coats and white satin dresses, and, to his extreme astonishment, the owners of the latter laughing and shaking hands, as if nothing dreadful was going to be done. He felt his eyes bloodshot, his tongue parched-the tips of his ears burning red, and for their function, that was so preternaturally sharpened, that he heard a scaramouch of a lad, as he (Stephen) passed into the church, offer to be "blowed, if he ever saw a fellow look in sich a funk, as the chap. as was going to be spliced!" He passively suffered himself to be placed by the bridesman, in a fit position for undergoing the operation; he followed the words of the clergyman mechanically; put the ring first on his wife's thumb, and then on her little finger, before he came to the right one; and even requested to be informed what was his name, when required at the end of the ceremony to write it in the book of the church. He received the compliments and congratulations of his assembled friends, with the air of a man who wondered what the devil they had to compliment him about; and eventually was hustled out of the church and into the coach again, in that providential state of insensibility, which saved him from being finished off altogether by the smirks, tittering, and whispering of the assembled multitude.

And now 'twas done. And now we shall request the reader in the activity and generosity of his imagination, to skip over the fortnight's honeymooning, full of nothing but sunset walks, sentiment, and sixpenny gambling-shops at the sea-side, and suppose our hero to have written to town to announce his speedy return, and to stir up the old people to make ready the new house for his reception. Suppose him also to have left his young wife reclining on the sofa, and luxuriating in the sentimentality of "Alice, or the Mysteries," whilst he was hurried to the packet-office, to learn the hours at which the various packets start for London.

Scarcely had Mr. Stephen Fitzgerryall left the street-door on his errand, when dab, dab, went the postman at the scarcely as yet closed portal. The next moment the civil old landlady of the house tapped at the door of the room in which Mrs. Fitzgerryall was reclining.

"Come in," cried the latter, and in she came, bearing in her hand a letter addressed to Mr. Stephen Fitzgerryall, No.-, High-street, Ramsgate.

The lady took the letter, examined the seal, scrutinized the hand, inspected the four corners, laid it down again, and resumed "Alice, or the Mysteries." She could not, however, reapply herself satisfactorily even to that delightful production, for the letter had disturbed her. Although her husband had always professed to have no secrets, and even given her carte blanche to open all his letters, she at first hesitated to avail herself of the privilege. Female curiosity, we need not say, prevailed, and as she felt her resolution breaking, she felt herself breaking the wax, and the sheet was open. The contents were as follow:

"My dear Stephen,

"Received yours yesterday. Old folks all well, and house (they say) ready to receive you. Every thing is clean and precise, and your little servant of all-work has nothing to do but flirt with the butcher and baker over the railings.

"Accept my congratulations upon your managing your little mystery so well. For my own part, I tell you now, as I told you before, that I think you expended a vast deal of ingenuity and caution in your means of concealment. Why will you persevere in believing that women ever think the worse of men, for such little matters as yours. Whatever they may affect, depend upon it, that at bottom, they look upon them rather as compliments to their sex; and if you had blurted the whole matter out before marriage, Mrs. Fitzgerryall would have had you all the same. It's very laughable really; but I suppose you have let her into the terrible secret by this time (as discovery, I consider to be eventually inevitable), and secured her forgiveness amidst kisses and

tears.

"But more of this when I see you: time presses, and

"I remain,
"Your sincere friend,

"SOLOMON AIMÉ CAPER."

Fancy, O ye young, artless, and pure-souled brides of only a fortnight's standing, the agonizing and complicated sensations of Mrs. Stephen Fitzgerryall on perusing the latter passages of the above

note.

"Mystery? secret? women think no worse of men about it? con