Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

recognized as the crests of trees, it would have been very difficult to discriminate the earth from the sky, and the mist thickening as he advanced, even these fallacious landmarks threatened to disappear. He had to walk to Mowbray to catch a night train for London. Every moment was valuable, but the unexpected and increasing obscurity rendered his progress slow and even perilous. The contiguity to the river made every step important. He had according to his calculations proceeded nearly as far as his old residence, and notwithstanding the careless courage of youth and the annoyance of relinquishing a project, intolerable at that season of life, was meditating the expediency of renouncing that night the attempt on Mowbray and of gaining his former quarters for shelter. He stopped, as he had stopped several times before, to calculate rather than to observe. The mist was so thick that he could not see his own extended hand. It was not the first time that it had occurred to him that someone or something was hovering about his course.

“Who is there?” exclaimed Egremont. But no one answered.

He moved on a little, but very slowly. He felt assured that his ear caught a contiguous step. He repeated his interrogatory in a louder tone, but it obtained no response. Again he stopped. Suddenly he was seized; an iron grasp assailed his throat, a hand of steel gripped his arm. The unexpected onset hurried him on. The sound of waters assured him that he was approaching the precipitous bank of that part of the river which, from a ledge of pointed rocks, here formed rapids. Vigorous and desperate, Egremont plunged like some strong animal on whom a beast of prey had made a fatal spring. His feet clung to the earth as if they were held by some magnetic power. With his disengaged arm he grappled with his mysterious and unseen foe.

At this moment he heard the deep bay of a hound.

“Harold!” he exclaimed. The dog, invisible, sprang forward and seized upon his assailant. So violent was the impulse that Egremont staggered and fell, but he fell freed from his dark enemy. Stunned and exhausted, some moments elapsed before he was entirely himself. The wind had suddenly changed; a violent gust had partially dispelled the mist; the outline of the landscape was in many places visible. Beneath him were the rapids of the Mowe, over which a watery moon threw a faint, flickering light. Egremont was lying on its precipitous bank; and Harold panting was leaning over him and looking in his face, and sometimes licking him with that tongue which, though not gifted with speech, had spoken so seasonably in the moment of danger.

Book IV I

“Are you going down to the house, Egerton?” enquired Mr. Berners at Brookes, of a brother M.P., about four o’clock in the early part of the spring of 1839.

“The moment I have sealed this letter; we will walk down together, if you like!” and in a few minutes they left the club.

“Our fellows are in a sort of fright about this Jamaica bill,” said Mr. Egerton in an undertone, as if he were afraid a passerby might overhear him. “Don’t say anything about it, but there’s a screw loose.”

“The deuce! But how do you mean?”

“They say the Rads are going to throw us over.”

“Talk, talk. They have threatened this half-a-dozen times. Smoke, sir; it will end in smoke.”

“I hope it may; but I know, in great confidence mind you, that Lord John was saying something about it yesterday.”

“That may be; I believe our fellows are heartily sick of the business, and perhaps would be glad of an excuse to break up the government: but we must not have Peel in; nothing could prevent a dissolution.”

“Their fellows go about and say that Peel would not dissolve if he came in.”

“Trust him!”

“He has had enough of dissolutions they say.”

“Why, after all they have not done him much harm. Even ’34 was a hit.”

“Whoever dissolves,” said Mr. Egerton, “I don’t think there will be much of a majority either way in our time.”

“We have seen strange things,” said Mr. Berners.

“They never would think of breaking up the government without making their peers,” said Mr. Egerton.

“The Queen is not over-partial to making more peers; and when parties are in the present state of equality, the Sovereign is no longer a mere pageant.”

“They say her Majesty is more touched about these affairs of the Chartists than anything else,” said Mr. Egerton.

“They are rather queer; but for my part I have no serious fears of a Jacquerie.”

“Not if it comes to an outbreak; but a passive resistance Jacquerie is altogether a different thing. When we see a regular Convention assembled in London and holding its daily meetings in Palace Yard; and a general inclination evinced throughout the country to refrain from the consumption of exciseable articles, I cannot help thinking that affairs are more serious than you imagine. I know the government are all on the ‘qui vive.’ ”

“Just the fellows we wanted!” exclaimed Lord Fitz-Heron, who was leaning on the arm of Lord Milford, and who met Mr. Egerton and his friend in Pall Mall.

“We want a brace of pairs,” said Lord Milford. “Will you two fellows pair?”

“I must go down,” said Mr. Egerton; “but I will pair from halfpast seven to eleven.”

“I just paired with Ormsby at White’s,” said Berners; “not half an hour ago. We are both going to dine at Eskdale’s, and so it was arranged. Have you any news today?”

“Nothing; except that they say that Alfred Mountchesney is going to marry Lady Joan Fitz-Warene,” said Lord Milford.

“She has been given to so many,” said Mr. Egerton.

“It is always so with these great heiresses,” said his companion. “They never marry. They cannot bear the thought of sharing their money. I bet Lady Joan will turn out another specimen of the Tabitha Croesus.”

“Well, put down our pair, Egerton,” said Lord Fitz-Heron. “You do not dine at Sidonia’s by any