EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

JANUARY, 1844.

BLANKS AND PRIZES; OR, THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE.

PART I.

A TALE. BY MRS. GORE.

took the goods the gods provided gratis, but took amazing care of them. The old-fashioned furniCHEERFULLY Overlooking the waters of the ture bequeathed by her grandmother with her Severn, as if taking pleasure in the beauty of its spacious house, was rubbed and scrubbed and bursite, and superior to the interested views usually nished by her diligent hand-maidens, till it acarising from vicinity to a navigable river, stands quired a sort of ironical freshness, like the youthful the town of APSTON, or the town we intend to call airs of an old beau: and had the smallest particle Apston; an airy spot, and a rural: for not only of her curious old china come to mischance, or the are the gardens of the spreading suburbs fair to see, smallest piece of her antique plate been missing, and interspersed with what are called "genteel the magistrates of Apston would have heard of it. residences," but, in summer time, a very fair crop Her servants were charity girls, taken from the of grass makes its appearance in all but the Mar-poor-house, to be drilled into a knowledge of their ket Place. For Apston has only a single manufactory, to balance against a considerable number of widows in easy circumstances, and light-footed single ladies. The tranquillity of the place appears to possess an almost conventual charm for the feebler sex.

No barracks, no manufacturing population, no colliers or miners within distance, to shake with their insubordination the foundations of this peaceful city of refuge. "The spinsters and the knitters in the sun," pursue their work unmolested; and the spinsters and widow ladies their whist, without fear of an intruder more dangerous than Dr. Toddles, the meally-mouthed physician-general of the neighbourhood, or old Mr. Mumbleton, the vicar. St. Ursula and her train might have set up their rest at Apston, without peril to their eleven thousand reputations.

Among the singlest of the single ladies, and residing in the house usually pointed out to strangers as the best in the town, was Miss Lavinia Meade; a damsel who, for the last thirty years, had gone by the opprobrious title of old maid; and who, born to a good fortune, had spent the greater part of her life in rendering it better. Why, it was hard to say: for those who amass fortunes for their successors, have usually objects of affection to inherit their property; whereas Miss Lavinia exhibited no sort of sympathy with her family or fellow-creatures. Her self-denying thrift, therefore, probably arose from an innate taste for hoarding.

But though supposed to spend only a fourth part of her income, and to waste no portion of even that on the superfluities of life, she not only

VOL. XI.-NO. CXXI.

duties: and that their drilling did credit to the crabbed old lady, was avouched b the specklessness of her floors and brilliancy of her andirons. Miss Lavinia was as good a housewife as though there had been any one to applaud or profit by her housewifery. But not a human being took pleasure in the neatness and orderliness of her house, not even herself.

It was, however, at least an object of envy. Not one among the whist-playing widows but would have been thankful to exchange her narrow lodgings for the roomy and commodious mansion of Miss Lavinia Meade; and whereas on the gala evenings devoted to receiving the thrones and dominions of Apston, the Mayor and his deaf wife, Dr. Toddles and his toadying sister, and a horde of minor Misses of small accompt, the rich old maid gloried in an exhibition of her superior gentility and household treasures: there was some excuse for the covetous eyes with which many contem plated her establishment, and many more speculated, like Alexander's courtiers, on the future distribution of her inheritance.

For Miss Lavinia had no immediate relations. The nearest was an aunt, married in British America, of whose family little was known at Apston; and the old lady had been so careful to circulate in the town that she could devise her property to whom she pleased, and that the public charities of Apston had better look to themselves, that her whole tea-drinking acquaintance were justified in trusting that the heirless old maid might win her way to Heaven by loving at least one of her neighbours as herself.

In defiance, therefore, of wind and weather, and

B

cousin to a junior captain of light infantry.

in spite of variabilities of temper, characteristic of | relationship as if no other woman in the world were March rather than the usual simile of April, (for they changed not from sunshine to rain, and vice versa, but from rain to sleet,) her card-parties were sedulously attended. Every newspaper that reached Apston, was offered in succession for Miss Lavinia's perusal; and when it became evident to all that little world, that Miss Toddles, the Doctor's sister, had evil-spoken, lied, and slandered herself into paramount favour at the White House, a general outcry of indignation arose, at the idea of that fine fortune, of three thousand a-year, passing from the hands of one stingy old skinflint into those of another.

It is true, no other at Apston happened to enjoy that distinction. Dr. Toddles had a brother who was a half-pay Colonel of Marines; and Mrs. Mumbleton, a nephew, a Lieutenant in the East India Company's Service. But not a soul among Miss Lavinia's tea-drinkers, saving the stern hostess, had the smallest right to feel nervous at the issue of a second edition of The Courier. She was the only heroine akin to a Peninsular hero, throughout that quiet town.

In process of time, however, Captain Erskine came to be everybody's hero as well as her own. Every individual of the tabby coterie was familiar with his marchings and counter-marchings, his hair-breadth 'scapes, his hopes of promotion, his chances of leave of absence. The three little Misses Prebbles, nieces to the mayor, made spirited sketches of light infantry officers, manœuvring at the head of their companies, both on and off the field of battle,-all supposed to bear reference to Miss Lavinia's cousin; while the Toddleses were often heard to whisper, that if Captain Erskine obtained leave of absence, they only trusted no im

Just, however, as the gossips of Apston, and Miss Hannah among the rest, had begun to look upon this dispensation as unchangeable, a name escaped the lips of Miss Lavinia Meade, unaccountably unfamiliar to the ears of her toadies. She began to talk of "my cousin Captain Erskine;" nay, even to accept the loan of newspapers on the piea of wishing to see whether the Gazette contained honourable mention of this hitherto unmentioned kinsman. For the Peninsular war was at its fiercest; and there was every excuse for those who had Captain-cousins, occasionally feeling hysteri-portant movement of the French armies might take cal at the blowing of the post horn; and no sooner had the Apstonians satisfied themselves that Captain Erskine was not a man of straw, that he had a local habitation in Lord Wellington's camp and a name in the Army List, than they became agitated in their turn with sudden interest in the fortunes of the campaign; and echoed with an unanimous "Amen" the opinion of Miss Lavinia, that the advisers and maintainers of that bloody and devastating war, would have enough to an

swer for.

"To think of so many fine young men, the hopes of so many honourable families, sacrificing their valuable lives in behalf of a set of cigar-smoking, frowsy, priest-ridden Spaniards!" cried Miss Toddles, with a somewhat single-sided view of continental politics; upon which sympathetic hint, all the old ladies, far gone in their cups-of hyson or bohea-groaned in unison.

There were those, however, in Apston who whispered that Miss Toddles had appeared quite as much startled as her neighbours, on first hearing the name of Captain Erskine; and protested that all these lamentations over the perils of "fine young men, the heirs of prosperous families," purported only to discover the nature of the old lady's feelings and intentions towards her kinsman. But whatever curiosity either she or others might entertain on the subject, was soon appeased: for from that day forth, nothing but "Captain Erskine" was heard of at the White House. Whether, as some asserted, Miss Lavinia had only lately been made cognizant of his existence, by a deathbed letter from her aunt, (a younger sister of her mother, married to an American loyalist,) or whether she had kept the secret in her heart of hearts to be wreaked in vengeance at some moment of peculiar spite upon the aspirants to her inheritance, certain it is that from the moment of avowal, she appeared as proud of the

place while his services were withheld from the cause of his country! Though Wellington, in short, might be the hero of Great Britain, in the eyes of Apston, Erskine was the man.

At length, within a year of the "glorious termination" of the Spanish war, the gallant corps, of which Captain Erskine formed a part, was ordered home; that is, all that was left of the gallant corps: for on its disembarkation at Portsmouth, there were scarcely men left to return, with an effective cheer, the warm salutations with which they were greeted by their fellow-countrymen on shore. Worn and torn, they looked like anything rather than the victorious troops of the conqueror of the modern Cæsar.

Apston, however, still beheld them in its mind's eye as the élite of the British army; and, now that there was an immediate probability of an introduction to Captain Erskine, scarcely wondered at the triumphant joy of Miss Lavinia; or the zeal with which the gilt frames and looking-glasses of the White House were unpapered, and its lustres and girandoles released from their canvas-bags, in order to do honour to him who was about to do so great an honour to them all. The idea of possessing familiarly by their firesides a man still reeking from the smoke of the cannon of Soult,-a man fresh from the razing of cities and sacking of convents, was almost too much for the sensibility of a circle to whom even a militia-officer was a rarity. The younger Misses only trusted he might not prove too martial and ferocious for their susceptibility; the elder ones saw, with envious feelings, that Miss Lavinia was no longer ashamed, though her enemies spoke to her in the gate.

On the evening it was known that Captain Erskine would arrive at the White House by the London coach, all Apston held its breath with emotion. By the middle of the following day, one began to inquire of the other, whether the

swashbuckler Captain had been seen, and whether | embraces under the name of "his cousin Lavinia," civilians might presume to lift their eyes in his as Miss Lavinia had been in her cousin the Cappresence. When lo! it transpired that the man tain. But he was too amiable a man to let the who was either the memorable cousin of Miss slightest indication of surprise escape him. He Lavinia or an impostor, was scarcely above the came there to please and be pleased; to concimiddle height, meagre in person, and sallow of liate as well as be coaxed into convalescence; countenance; low-voiced as a woman, and shy as and readily resigned himself to play the longest a girl! Dr. Toddles protested there was no getting rubbers of the longest possible whist, for the smallest a word out of him; and the three Misses Prebbles, possible stake. In a society where he saw as great who lodged opposite, insinuated that, instead of a preponderance of petticoats as the one he had coming to Apston with killing intentions, the gal- just quitted exhibited of red coats, agreeable comlant Captain was evidently come there to die; panionship could not be wanting. Though disapafflicted with an incipient jaundice, or far gone in pointed of a "lovely young Lavinia," the Apstonians a decline. could not all be old, sour, and ugly. After half-aThis was a sad falling off, and a terrible disap-dozen years' hard fighting, he was, in short, easy pointment to Miss Lavinia. She, who had been to reconcile to a tea-table and an elbow-chair. squabbling with tax-gatherers and bullying churchwardens for the last three years on the strength of her assertion, that, "though a lone woman, she had those who would take her part; and that her cousin Captain Erskine would never see her put upon;" had scarcely patience to acknowledge the relationship of the poor enfeebled invalid, who, even in his best of times, could only have been five feet six. She felt humiliated in the person of her self-created Goliath!

There was, however, no help for it. She had threatened people too largely with her cousin, and boasted too loudly of her good intentions in his behalf, to disown him because he was slight and sickly; and aware that, having no other relations in England, it was on her account and at her suggestion he had applied for three months' leave of absence, she set about contracting her ambition to his proportions, and making the best of a bad cousin. She would not afford so great a triumph to the malice of the Toddleses, as reinstate her looking-glasses in their gauze screens, or the lustres in their canvas-bags, till the White House had rendered honour due to Captain Erskine, talis qualis.

For, after all, insignificant as he might look, he was fresh from the field of glory; and though such silly little ladies as the Misses Prebbles might feel disappointed that he had not made his appearance in regimentals, he was unquestionably many degrees nearer the heroic than either the mayor, the vicar, or the apothecary.

The new-comer, meanwhile, little aware of all that had been expected of him, arrived at Apston, hoping to recruit his health and spirits after a harassing campaign, so as to enable him to return to a profession which occupied every ambition of his soul; knowing of the Miss Meade by whom he had been so strenuously invited, only that she was the rich and heirless niece of his excellent mother, by whom, in her last moments, he had been enjoined to cultivate her good-will. He came, therefore without mistrust. Though ill and dispirited, he had experienced in too many professional emergencies the kindliness of the gentler sex towards a suffering soldier, not to feel assured of sympathy in one whose tenderness as a woman must be enhanced by congeniality of blood.

Perhaps, indeed, the Captain may have felt almost as much disappointed in the spare, rectangular, ungainly being who presented herself to his

The gentlemanly manners and yielding temper of Captain Erskine would perhaps have eventually found favour in the feline eyes of his cousin, had not the defeated toady, on perceiving Miss Lavinia grow accustomed to his quiet presence at the White House, seized every occasion to twit her with the unenergetic tameness of her Bobadil; not as presuming to find fault with him on her own account, but expressing her regret that the valiant knight, on whom they had reckoned as so rampant a Romeo, should have sunk into the laughing-stock of the place! Miss Toddles protested that the Misses Prebbles had privately assured her, not one of them would accept him, were he worth a million per annum !

"No fear of their being tempted, I can promise them!" cried Miss Lavinia, in her shrillest tones; and from that day, though more pettish and fractious than usual with the gentle invalid, she began to drop hints among her female friends, that the young ladies of Apston need not look quite so disparagingly upon a man who, if not an Adonis, was heir-presumptive to three thousand a-year!

And now, Captain Erskine had indeed a hard time of it. Between the peevishness of the old maid, who treated him almost as a dependant, and the forced civilities of her associates, he felt thoroughly disgusted. More than two months, however, remained unexpired of his leave; and with only his pay to depend upon, and the remembrance of his mother's dying injunction, he felt that he must bear and forbear with his kinswoman.

It was luckily summer time; and there were the woods, and fields, and animated waters of the Severn, to diversify his walks. Between the river and the ledgy cliffs rising high above, was a winding path on a margin of short green turf, which, at three quarters of a mile from the town, was cut short by the fall of a rapid brook into the Severn. But over the brook was a wooden bridge, connecting the two sides of the narrow valley severed by its waters; a valley of fertile meadows, now compressed by a rocky gorge, now opening with outspreading verdure, through which the little brook meandered like a truant idling away its time, and loath to leave those pleasant pastures, with their thickets of alder and maple, and the gay profusion of wild flowers which water-meadows are aut to engender.

when Captain Erskine ventured to open the cottage-door, and look out without hazard of alarm to its trembling inmates, so sweet and refreshing an air burst in to relieve the stifling atmosphere of that close chamber, that an ejaculation of general thankfulness was irrepressible.

This secluded valley was a favourite resort of Captain Erskine; perhaps, because out of distance for the elderly ladies of Apston, while even the younger ones preferred the frequented promenades in the suburbs of the town. He took care never to ask them why they never bent their steps so far as the Bournefields; and once, when the spot was alluded to at the White House tea-table, spoke of it as damp and dreary,-so that he enjoyed his favourite walk all to himself, that is, almost to himself for once or twice he had noticed there a meanly-dressed young girl, as insignificant-look-young stranger upon her release from her panic. ing as himself, who appeared to be carrying a parcel, as if employed in business.

One very oppressive afternoon, he found her seated halfway in the valley, under shelter of one of the thickets of maple-bushes; and as thunder was beginning to growl in the distance, apprized her, as a mere act of charity, that a heavy storm was coming on, and that a few hundred yards further up the valley, was a house that might afford her better security. Deeply colouring, and apparently too much alarmed at being spoken to, to reply or resist, she rose from the ground, and followed Captain Erskine's directions at so rapid a pace, that when, some minutes afterwards, he availed himself of the same shelter, he found her already installed with the old cresswoman, the proprietress of that wretched abode, to whom she was apparently well known.

"I told ye awhile ago, Miss Margaret, my dear," said the poor woman, familiarly, yet respectfully, "that thunner was coming on, and you'd best bide wi' me till a'ter the storm. But you wouldn't be guided."

"I was in hope of getting home before the rain began," replied the young girl, neither refusing nor accepting the wooden stool pushed towards her by Captain Erskine; but standing beside it, and peering through the small window of the hovel, as if to examine the weather, not very easy to be scrutinized through the cracked and clouded panes. Soon, however, the storm commenced in fearful earnest; and the cottage was so frightfully shaken to its foundation by every fresh peal, that all ceremony among its inmates was thrown aside. Margaret, whoever she might be, hastily flung off her bonnet, and covering her face with her hands, knelt down on the clay-floor, concealing it, either in prayer or agony, against the seat she had rejected; while Captain Erskine was occupied in surmising what would be the result should the electric fluid set fire to the thatch, the lurid flashes seeming every moment to reach the threshold of the hovel which they illumined with fearful brightness.

But either the prayers of Margaret, or the helplessness of the poor old cress-woman, propitiated the genius of the storm. Though at the first outburst it seemed concentrated on that devoted spot, by degrees, the crashing thunder followed less immediately the momentary glare, diminishing alike in violence and frequency. During these pauses, the loud pattering of the rain was now distinctly heard. At length, even the rain seemed to abate. The growling march of the storm had evidently outstripped the limits of the valley; and

i

Margaret rose from her knees, and joined him on the threshold; and while the shower still fell heavily beyond the eaves, all within was so calm, so sheltered, that, instead of warning her from the open air, he stood smilingly congratulating the

But he did not smile long. He saw, from the redness of her eyes, that she had been really weeping, and from the gravity of her brow, that she had been absorbed in prayer. Moreover, the old woman was muttering in her tremulous voice allusions to Mount Sinai and the manifestations of Jehovah in the olden time, which rendered jesting out of place. So Captain Erskine contented himself with speaking kindly instead of jokingly to his new friend: for friends they already were. After that storm and those tears, it was impossible to feel himself a stranger to Margaret. She was no longer the shy girl who sat pulling the beard from an ear of rye-grass under the maple bushes; but a gentle creature, to whom he had whispered words of solace when shrinking from the terrors of the voice of God.

While assisting her to tie on her bonnet, he had occasion to remark the delicacy of her features. She was not a beauty, perhaps; but she was pleasanter to look upon than a score of beauties; and though still apprehensive that she belonged to the workingclass, it could not be to a class of very hard workers; for her hands were slender and white, and smooth as alabaster. He could not be mistaken on that point,—having contrived to hold one of them some seconds within his own when assisting her from her kneeling position.

When the moment of sunshine came that fully justified her departure for the town, Erskine was divided between his desire to bear her company by the way, and his wish to remain behind and crossquestion their poor old hostess. A little management reconciled both temptations. While offering the old woman a pecuniary acknowledgment of her civility, he lingered longer to receive her thanks than was his wont on such occasions, in order to obtain an answer to his question of "Does Miss Margaret belong to Apston?"

"Where else should she belong to, after being born and bred there!" was the unpolished reply. Though, having her own living to get, poor young lady, ever sin' the death of her father, (who was master to the grammar-school, and left her bitter bread, and little enough on't,) she might as well have set up in business elsewhere. Hows'ever, the ladies, she says, begins to employ her; and well they may; for a sweeter, more charitabler young lady never trod the earth. My sons, now at sarvice, were scholars to her poor father: and so she's apt to stop here and rest o' days, on her way up to Hobart's Farm, when she carries home her work."

This was enough for Erskine. He determined no