Modern Flirtations. Sinclair Catherine
but the interest and excitement of hearing and relating his story were soon superseded by greater wonders and fresher news. In a world where all are rushing on headlong in pursuit of novelty, and where events, great or small, are speedily hurried into one common oblivion, people were tired at last of thinking or talking about young Henry and his concerns.
Every one of the Admiral's friends hinted that he could have managed the whole affair ten times better than Sir Arthur; all blamed him for many things, and praised him for very few; the Admiral was wondered at, criticised, discussed, admired, pitied, and censured, more than he remembered to have been for many years before; and the givers of advice were lavish of propositions and objections, all which were borne by their venerable friend with good-humored indifference, whether adopted or not. At length some perfectly new murders from London came on the tapis in society; those who liked reading in the Jack Sheppard style were satiated with studies from the life; the Mording Post assumed a terrifying interest; and the lady of fashion who consulted Sir Henry Halford about her appetite, because she could no longer enjoy her murders and robberies at breakfast, would have thought, when they were coming out hot and hot every week, that it was a wearisome repetition to speculate another hour upon a murder nearly a month old.
In short, "the Portobello story" ceased to be told or listened to. Henry had had his day. There is no such thing now as a nine days' wonder, because nothing lasts so long. Young De Lancey had been talked of as much as any reasonable being could expect to be talked of; and now it was universally voted a bore whenever the subject occurred in conversation; for, as Lady Towercliffe remarked, with a very long-drawn yawn, when, for the last time, it was alluded to in her presence, "It was a shocking, barbarous, and really startling affair; but all stories should be allowed to die out like an echo, which grows fainter and fainter at every repetition. One cannot be for ever talking of the same thing."
When Henry De Lancey lost one parent, he certainly gained another in Sir Arthur, who often afterwards remarked, that in no instance could virtue be more obviously its own parent, than in the case of any kindness he had shown to this fascinating boy, whose gay, joyous spirits became a source of perpetual amusement to him, while the Admiral seemed to derive new life from watching the frolicsome gambols of his young companion, occasionally enlivened by the gleeful vivacity of his niece Marion, when she escaped a single day from the trammels of school, bringing generally in her train two of her favorite juvenile companions, Clara Granville and Caroline Smythe, both several years older than herself.
On many occasions the sensibility of Henry De Lancey seemed already to have attained almost the depth and intensity of manhood, so strong were the bursts of natural feeling with which he occasionally spoke or acted, while it was deeply affecting to trace throughout the extraordinary progress thus early made in his education, the careful culture given to his remarkable abilities—the pains bestowed by his solitary parent to strengthen his mind for future difficulties and sorrows, the earliest and worst of which she could so little have foreseen or apprehended.
With considerable thoughtfulness of character, however, and natural integrity of mind, which Sir Arthur was delighted from the first to remark, yet, when the merry group of young friends assembled together on the shore of Portobello, building houses of sand, or running eagerly in search of shells, it would have been difficult to say which was the most carelessly happy, while the Admiral seemed to borrow their young spirits for the time, and gazed with ceaseless delight on those joyous countenances, radiant with laughter and smiles, which were archly turned towards their aged playmate, sometimes with a challenge to run after them, or lighted up with smiles of affection when they brought him a bouquet of his favorite flowers, torn roughly from the stems, and crumpled in their little hands.
Sir Arthur often seemed almost ashamed to betray the engrossing interest and delight he felt in his young companion, who gained every day a stronger hold upon his affections, and it appeared as if he were anxious to forget that a time had ever existed when the playful and interesting boy was unknown to his heart; but a circumstance occurred, not long after Henry's adoption, which brought painfully to mind, with greatly increased solicitude, the fearful mystery that hung over his origin, proving also that danger still threatened him from some unforeseen quarter.
While the whole party of his young guests were noisily engaged on the shore in a game at hide-and-seek, one day in the month of July, Sir Arthur had seated himself on a bench within sight of them, sometimes watching their gambols with pleasure, and frequently conning over a newspaper, which proved by undeniable and satisfactory demonstration, that the country was entirely ruined—that the Government was coming to an end—that the Houses of Lords and Commons would be completely demolished—that the ministry had not another day to exist—and, as a grand climax, that anarchy, confusion, bankruptcy, and revolution, were about finally to drop their extinguisher over Great Britain. Sir Arthur had read the same thing in different words every day during fifty years, and under twenty varied administrations; yet still the wonder grew, how a constitution so mismanaged could so long survive, and that when all was wrong at the head of the country, it still had a leg to stand on. The Admiral's patriotic meditations had been several times interrupted by repeated complaints from the little girls, that Henry had hid himself so well, that they could not possibly find him; but he was too much pre-occupied to give the subject much attention, till at length Martin announced that the children's dinner had waited some time, and that still the boy was not to be found, though his companions had been searching for him at least half an hour.
Upon hearing this, Sir Arthur hastily started up, making a considerable expenditure of energetic and wondrous explanations, while he gazed around with increasing surprise at the wide waste of sand, like an Arabian desert, with which he was on every side encompassed, and where it seemed to him as if a mouse could not be long concealed.
A hasty and most anxious search was instantly commenced in the garden, while Sir Arthur and Martin shouted the name of Henry at the full pitch of their voices, but in vain; not a sound was heard in reply, nor was there a spot unexamined in which he could by possibility be lurking.
The Admiral now became seriously alarmed at so unaccountable a disappearance, especially when the child's gardening tools, with which he had been last observed, were found mutilated and broken, at a great distance, on the beach—one of his shoes had fallen off close to the water, and his hat lay nearly buried in the tide. Sir Arthur instantly summoned the police to his aid, but the search continued fruitless, till at length the dreadful conjecture became more and more probable, that Henry must have rashly ventured into the water, and been washed away by the waves—in pursuance of which apprehension Sir Arthur summoned more assistance, that the water might instantly be dragged.
Martin, meantime, no less active than his master, had accidentally met a stranger on the beach, who mentioned, on hearing of his alarm, that on the road to Leith, half an hour before, he had observed a boy struggling and screaming in the arms of a female, dressed like a nursery-maid, who complained loudly that the child would not go home, when a young man, rather strangely dressed, and of very singular appearance, had instantly offered his assistance, and carried him forcibly onwards. This gentleman said he had stopped the woman to remonstrate with her on using the boy so roughly, as a cap was drawn over his eyes, and he seemed to suffer agonies of terror, sobbing convulsively, and trembling in every limb; but the man had answered in reply, with a strong Irish accent, that he would see the child safe to his friends, and let no one do the poor boy "a taste of harm." The stranger added indifferently, that it was no affair of his, therefore he ceased to interfere; but he thought both the man and the woman had a very bad expression, and he would not trust either of them with his dog for an hour, to use it kindly.
Without wasting time in returning to communicate what he had heard, Martin hurried forward to Leith, where, with reckless speed and untiring diligence, he threaded all the narrow streets, and elbowed his way among carts, carriages, parcels, and passengers, till at length he reached the pier, to which he had been so eagerly aiming his steps. At its farthest point stood a smoking steam-boat in full boil, while men and women, boxes, packages, bags, and trunks were pouring in; and at length, as he breathlessly approached within some hundred yards, an arbitrary little bell was rung, to summon stragglers on board, and to hurry stragglers away.
A single plank, connecting the steam-boat with the pier, was on the point of being withdrawn,