The Mysteries of Montreal | Page 9

and the matter passed almost completely from our memory.
For three or four days things went on as usual, Mrs. Roberts getting to all appearances better every day, and her husband's visits being paid with due regularity; one day, however, he failed to appear, and Mrs. Roberts seemed very uneasy. After tea she asked for the evening paper, and hastily scanned its columns, when her eye fell on some item of interest, and she became deadly pale. The American war being then in progress I thought she might have learned of the death of a friend or relation, so I inquired if anything were amiss, and was astonished when she pointed out a paragraph containing an account of her husband's arrest for enlisting British subjects for the American army, and smuggling them across the line, She now took me into her confidence, and explained that she was an accomplice of her husband, and that they had made a practice of enlisting men in Montreal. Her husband usually remained here, as it was dangerous for him to travel to and fro, but she was sent as an escort for each recruit, and the baby was used to avert suspicion, as no sentinel would think of scrutinizing a man closely who went across accompanied with his wife and child. The excess of travel had weakened her frame, and now this shock came to still further shake her system; the result was a premature confinement, and a long and weary illness.
Ere she recovered she got a letter from her husband, bearing the New York postmark. It seems he had been liberated on bail, (having influential friends) and had at once made the best of his way to the United States. His wife soon joined him, taking with her the redoubtable rag-baby, which had afforded us so much food for gossip and conjecture.

CHAPTER IV.
A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.
Alfred Grandison was born in the ancient city of Bristol in the year 1831. His father had been bandmaster in a British Cavalry regiment, but had retired some years previous to the birth of little Alfred, and made a comfortable livelihood by teaching the children of the wealthy residents of Clifton, the fashionable suburb of Bristol. Young Alfred soon gave evidence of great musical talent, and used to amuse himself blowing trumpet calls on his father's French horn, although the instrument was almost as big as himself; he also achieved considerable mastery over the piano, the flute and the violin, but, though bright and intelligent enough, and always maintaining a creditable position at school, it was evident that nature had intended him for a musician, and that he could never succeed in anything prosaic or mechanical. Accordingly his father taught him not only to play, but also instructed him in the theory and literature of music, and, when he was old enough, had him entered as a chorister in Bristol Cathedral, where, in addition to vocal music, he was carefully taught the art of organ-playing by the Cathedral organist.
The boy soon became able to play quite skilfully, and when his voice began to give way he obtained a position as organist in the church at Shirehampton, performing on a small instrument with one row of keys. From Shirehampton he shortly removed to a more remunerative position in Bristol, and he was not long there before he fell in love with the daughter of a hotel-keeper in one of the suburbs, whom, in spite of the remonstrance of both relatives and friends, he eventually married, although she was both poor and plain-looking, and at least ten years his senior. "A young man married is a man that's marred" says Shakespeare, and, without venturing an opinion as to the correctness of this theory, we may say that young Grandison had made a great mistake. In a short time his affection, or fancied affection, for his wife became less ardent, and he found himself at the age of twenty-four, married to a woman who had neither taste nor sympathy in common with him, the father of three helpless children, and the recipient of the stupendous emolument of sixty pounds a year. Added to all this his friends, being unwilling to associate with his wife and relations, had, one by one, deserted him, and left him almost alone to brood over his ill-advised alliance.
Whilst moodily glancing at an evening paper he saw an advertisement for an organist who would be willing to go to Canada, and at once seizing at the idea he applied for the post, which he eventually obtained without great difficulty, sailing for Montreal in the spring of 1855, to play the organ and direct the music of one of the leading Episcopal churches in this city. At that time there were, very few musicians of ability in Montreal,