Wrestling with wind and wave to the last,
Like a great sea-monster fighting at bay:
The fisherman tells how he heard the bells
Ring in the lulls of the pitiless blast,
Mingled with wild farewells.
Still as the wrecked beneath its waves,
Dreamless of all life's good or ill:
A boat on the shore and nothing more
Tells of the dead who sank to their graves,
To the sound of the wild sea's roar.
THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP
BY W. M. THACKERAY.
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CHAPTER XXVII.
I Charge You, Drop Your Daggers!
GENERAL BAYNES began the story which you and I have heard at length. He told it in his own way. He grew very angry with himself while defending himself. He had to abuse Philip very fiercely, in order to excuse his own act of treason. He had to show that his act was not his act; that, after all, he never had promised; and that, if he had promised, Philip's atrocious conduct ought to absolve him from any previous promise. I do not wonder that the general was abusive, and out of temper. Such a crime as he was committing can't be performed cheerfully by a man who is habitually gentle, generous, and honest. I do not say that men can not cheat, can not lie, can not indict torture, can not commit rascally actions, without in the least losing their equanimity; but these are men habitually false, knavish, and cruel. They are accustomed to break their promises, to cheat their neighbors in bargains, and what not. A roguish word or action more or less is of little matter to them: their remorse only awakens after detection, and they don't begin to repent till they come sentenced out of the dock. But here was an ordinarily just man withdrawing from his promise, turning his back on his benefactor, and justifying himself to himself by maligning the man whom he injured. It is not an uncommon event, my dearly beloved brethren and esteemed miserable sister sinners; but you like to say a preacher is "cynical" who admits this sad truth—and, perhaps, don't care to hear about the subject on more than one day in the week.
So, in order to make out some sort of case for himself, our poor good old General Baynes chose to think and declare that Philip was so violent, ill-conditioned, and abandoned a fellow, that no faith ought to be kept with him; and that Colonel Bunch had behaved with such brutal insolence that Baynes must call him to account. As for the fact that there was another, a richer, and a much more eligible suitor, who was likely to offer for his daughter, Baynes did not happen to touch on this point at all; preferring to speak of Philip's hopeless poverty, disreputable conduct, and gross and careless behavior.
Now MacWhirter having, I suppose, little to do at Tours, had read Mrs. Baynes's letters to her sister Emily, and remembered them. Indeed, it was but very few months since Eliza Baynes's letters had been full of praise of Philip, of his love for Charlotte, and of his noble generosity in foregoing the great claim which he had upon the general, his mother's careless trustee. Philip was the first suitor Charlotte had had: in her first glow of pleasure, Charlotte's mother had covered yards of paper with compliments, interjections, and those scratches or dashes under her words, by which some ladies are accustomed to point their satire or emphasize their delight. He was an admirable young man—wild, but generous, handsome, noble! He had forgiven his father thousands and thousands of pounds which the doctor owed him—all his mother's fortune; and he had acted most nobly by her trustees—that she must say. though poor dear weak Baynes was one of them! Baynes who was as simple as a child. Major Mac and his wife had agreed that Philip's forbearance was very generous and kind, but after all that there was no special cause for rapture at the notion of their niece marrying a struggling young fellow without a penny in the world; and they had been not a little amused with the change of tone in Eliza's later letters, when she began to go out in the great world, and to look coldly upon poor, penniless Firmin, her hero of a few months since. Then Emily remembered how Eliza had always been fond of great people: how her head was turned by going to a few parties at Government House; how absurdly she went on with that little creature Fitzrickets (because he was an Honorable, forsooth) at Dum-
