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A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance

by Charles Lever · English · Gutenberg #32692 · 858,718 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance

Author: Charles Lever

Illustrator: W. Cubitt Cooke


        
Release date: June 4, 2010 [eBook #32692]
                Most recently updated: February 28, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32692

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DAY'S RIDE: A LIFE'S ROMANCE ***




Produced by David Widger





A DAY'S RIDE

A LIFE'S ROMANCE


By Charles James Lever.

With Illustrations By W. Cubitt Cooke.

BOSTON:

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

1904.




A DAY'S RIDE:

A LIFE'S ROMANCE.



CHAPTER I. I PREPARE TO SEEK ADVENTURES

It has been said that any man, no matter how small and insignificant the
post he may have filled in life, who will faithfully record the events
in which he has borne a share, even though incapable of himself deriving
profit from the lessons he has learned, may still be of use to
others,--sometimes a guide, sometimes a warning. I hope this is true. I
like to think it so, for I like to think that even I,--A. S. P.,--if I
cannot adorn a tale, may at least point a moral.

Certain families are remarkable for the way in which peculiar gifts
have been transmitted for ages. Some have been great in arms, some in
letters, some in statecraft, displaying in successive generations the
same high qualities which had won their first renown. In an humble
fashion, I may lay claim to belong to this category. My ancestors have
been apothecaries for one hundred and forty-odd years. Joseph Potts,
“drug and condiment man,” lived in the reign of Queen Anne, at Lower
Liffey Street, No. 87; and to be remembered passingly, has the name of
Mr. Addison amongst his clients,--the illustrious writer having, as it
would appear, a peculiar fondness for “Pott's linature,” whatever that
may have been; for the secret died out with my distinguished forefather.
There was Michael Joseph Potts, “licensed for chemicals,” in Mary's
Abbey, about thirty years later; and so we come on to Paul Potts and
Son, and then to Launcelot Peter Potts, “Pharmaceutical Chemist to his
Excellency and the Irish Court,” the father of him who now bespeaks your
indulgence.

My father's great misfortune in life was the ambition to rise above the
class his family had adorned for ages. He had, as he averred, a soul
above senna, and a destiny higher than black drop. He had heard of a
tailor's apprentice becoming a great general. He had himself seen a
wig-maker elevated to the woolsack; and he kept continually repeating,
“Mine is the only walk in life that leads to no high rewards. What
matters it whether my mixtures be addressed to the refined organization
of rank, or the _dura ilia rasorum?_--I shall live and die an
apothecary. From every class are men selected for honors save mine; and
though it should rain baronetcies, the bloody hand would never fall to
the lot of a compounding chemist.”

“What do you intend to make of Algernon Sydney, Mr. Potts?” would say
one of his neighbors. “Bring him up to your own business? A first-rate
connection to start with in life.”

“My own business, sir? I'd rather see him a chimneysweep.”

“But, after all, Mr. Potts, being so to say, at the head of your
profession--”

“It is not a profession, sir. It is not even a trade. High science and
skill have long since left our insulted and outraged ranks; we are mere
commission agents for the sale of patent quackeries. What respect has
the world any longer for the great phials of ruby, and emerald, and
marine blue, which, at nightfall, were once the magical emblems of our
mysteries, seen afar through the dim mists of lowering atmospheres, or
throwing their lurid glare upon the passers-by? What man, now, would
have the courage to adorn his surgery--I suppose you would prefer I
should call it a 'shop'--with skeleton-fishes, snakes, or a stuffed
alligator? Who, in this age of chemical infidelity, would surmount his
door with the ancient symbols of our art,--the golden pestle and mortar?
Why, sir, I'd as soon go forth to apply leeches on a herald's tabard, or
a suit of Milan mail. And what have they done, sir?” he would ask,
with a roused indignation,--“what have they done by their reforms? In
invading the mystery of medicine, they have ruined its prestige. The
precious drops you once regarded as the essence of an elixir vitæ,
and whose efficacy lay in your faith, are now so much strychnine, or
creosote, which you take with fear and think over with foreboding.”

I suppose it can only be ascribed to that perversity which seems a
great element in human nature, that, exactly in the direct ratio of my
father's dislike to his profession was _my_ fondness for it. I used
to take every opportunity of stealing into the laboratory, watching
intently all the curious proceedings that went on there, learning
the names and properties of the various ingredients, the gases, the
minerals, the salts, the essences; and although, as may be imagined,
science took, in these narrow regions, none of her loftiest flights,
they were to me the most marvellous and high-soaring efforts of human
intelligence. I was just at that period of life--the first opening of
adolescence--when fiction and adventure have the strongest bold upon our
nature, my mind filled with the marvels of Eastern romance, and imbued
with a sentiment, strong as any conviction, that I was destined to a
remarkable life. I passed days in dreamland,--what I should do in this
or that emergency; how rescue myself from such a peril; how profit by
such a stroke of fortune; by what arts resist the machinations of this
adversary; how conciliate the kind favor of that. In the wonderful tales
that I read, frequent mention was made of alchemy and its marvels;
now the search was for some secret of endless wealth; now, it was for
undying youth or undecay-ing beauty; while in other stories I read of
men who had learned how to read the thoughts, trace the motives, and
ultimately sway the hearts of their fellow-men, till life became to them
a mere field for the exercise of their every will and caprice, throwing
happiness and misery about them as the humor inclined. The strange life
of the laboratory fitted itself exactly to this phase of my mind.

The wonders it displayed, the endless combinations and transformations
it effected, were as marvellous as any that imaginative fiction could
devise; but even these were nothing compared to the mysterious influence
of the place itself upon my nervous system, particularly when I found
myself there alone. In the tales with which my head was filled, many
of them the wild fancies of Grimm, Hoffman, or Musæus, nothing was more
common than to read how some eager student of the black art, deep in the
mystery of forbidden knowledge, had, by some chance combination, by some
mere accidental admixture of this ingredient with that, suddenly arrived
at the great secret, that terrible mystery which for centuries and
centuries had evaded human search. How often have I watched the fluid as
it boiled and bubbled in the retort, till I thought the air globules,
as they came to the surface, observed a certain rhythm and order. Were
these, words? Were they symbols of some hidden virtue in the liquid?
Were there intelligences to whom these could speak, and thus reveal a
wondrous history? And then, again, with what an intense eagerness have
I gazed on the lurid smoke that arose from some smelting mass, now
fancying that the vapor was about to assume form and substance, and bow
imagining that it lingered lazily, as though waiting for some cabalistic
word of mine to give it life and being? How heartily did I censure
the folly that had ranked alchemy amongst the absurdities of human
invention! Why, rather, had not its facts been treasured and its
discoveries recorded, so that in some future age a great intelligence
arising might classify and arrange them, showing at least what were
practicable and what were only evasive. Alchemists were, certainly,
men of pure lives, self-denying and humble. They made their art no
stepping-stone to worldly advancement or success; they sought no favor
from princes, nor any popularity from the people; but, retired and
estranged from all the pleasures of the world, followed their one
pursuit, unnoticed and unfriended. How cruel, therefore, to drag them
forth from their lonely cells, and expose them to the gaping crowd as
devil worshippers! How inhuman to denounce men whose only crimes were
lives of solitude and study! The last words of Peter von Vordt, burned
for a wizard, at Haarlem, in 1306, were, “Had they left this poor head
a little longer on my shoulders, it would have done more for human
happiness than all this bonfire!”

How rash and presumptuous is it, besides, to set down any fixed limits
to man's knowledge! Is not every age an advance upon its predecessors,
and are not the commonest acts of our present civilization perfect
miracles as compared with the usages of our ancestors? But why do I
linger on this theme, which I only introduced to illustrate the temper
of my boyish days? As I grew older, books of chivalry and romance took
possession of my mind, and my passion grew for lives of adventure. Of
all kinds of existence, none seemed to me so enviable as that of those
men who, regarding life as a vast ocean, hoisted sail, and set forth,
not knowing nor caring whither, but trusting to their own manly spirit
for extrication out of whatever difficulties might beset them. What a
narrow thing, after all, was our modern civilization, with all its forms
and conventionalities, with its gradations of rank and its orders! How
hopeless for the adventurous spirit to war with the stern discipline of
an age that marshalled men in ranks like soldiers, and told that each
could only rise by successive steps! How often have I wondered was there
any more of adventure left in life? Were there incidents in store for
him who, in the true spirit of an adventurer, should go in search of
them? As for the newer worlds of Australia and America, they did not
possess for me much charm. No great association linked them with the
past; no echo came out of them of that heroic time of feudalism, so
peopled with heart-stirring characters. The life of the bush or the
prairie had its incidents, but they were vulgar and commonplace; and
worse, the associates and companions of them were more vulgar still.
Hunting down Pawnees or buffaloes was as mean and ignoble a travesty
of feudal adventure as was the gold diggings at Bendigo of the learned
labors of the alchemist. The perils were unexciting, the rewards prosaic
and commonplace. No. I felt that Europe--in some remote regions--and the
East--in certain less visited tracts--must be the scenes best suited to
my hopes. With considerable labor I could spell my way through a German
romance, and I saw, in the stories of Fouqué, and even of Goethe, that
there still survived in the mind of Germany many of the features which
gave the color-ing to a feudal period. There was, at least, a dreamy
indifference to the present, a careless abandonment to what the hour
might bring forth, so long as the dreamer was left to follow out his
fancies in all their mysticism, that lifted men out of the vulgarities
of this work-o'-day world; and I longed to see a society where
learning consented to live upon the humblest pittance, and beauty dwelt
unflattered in obscurity.

I was now entering upon manhood; and my father--having, with that
ambition so natural to an Irish parent who aspires highly for his only
son, destined me for the bar--made me a student of Trinity College,
Dublin.

What a shock to all the romance of my life were the scenes into which I
now was thrown! With hundreds of companions to choose from, I found
not one congenial to me. The reading men, too deeply bent upon winning
honors, would not waste a thought upon what could not advance their
chances of success. The idle, only eager to get through their career
undetected in their ignorance, passed lives of wild excess or stupid
extravagance.

What was I to do amongst such associates? What I did do,--avoid them,
shun them, live in utter estrangement from all their haunts, their
ways, and themselves. If the proud man who has achieved success in
life encounters immense difficulties when, separating himself from
his fellows, he acknowledges no companionship, nor admits any to his
confidence, it may be imagined what must be the situation of one who
adopts this isolation without any claim to superiority whatever. As can
easily be supposed, I was the butt of my fellow students, the subject of
many sarcasms and practical jokes. The whole of my Freshman year was a
martyrdom. I had no peace, was rhymed on by poetasters, caricatured by
draughtsmen, till the name of Potts became proverbial for all that was
eccentric, ridiculous, and absurd.

Curran has said, “One can't draw an indictment against a nation;” in the
same spirit did I discover “one cannot fight his whole division.” For a
while I believe I experienced a sort of heroism in my solitary state;
I felt the spirit of a Coriolanus in my heart, and muttered, “I banish
_you! _” but this self-supplied esteem did not last long, and I fell
into a settled melancholy. The horrible truth was gradually forcing its
way slowly, clearly, through the mists of my mind, that there might
be something in all this sarcasm, and I can remember to this hour, the
day--ay, and the very place--wherein the questions flashed across me: Is
my hair as limp, my nose as long, my back as arched, my eyes as green as
they have pictured them? Do I drawl so fearfully in my speech? Do I drag
my heavy feet along so ungracefully? Good heavens! have they possibly a
grain of fact to sustain all this fiction against me?

And if so,--horrible thought,--am I the stuff to go forth and seek
adventures? Oh, the ineffable bitterness of this reflection! I remember
it in all its anguish, and even now, after years of such experience as
have befallen few men, I can recall the pain it cost me. While I was yet
in the paroxysm of that sorrow, which assured me that I was not made for
doughty deeds, nor to captivate some fair princess, I chanced to fall
upon a little German volume entitled “Wald Wandelungen und Abentheure,”
 von Heinrich Stebbe. Forest rambles and adventures, and of a student,
too! for so Herr Stebbe announces himself, in a short introduction to
the reader. I am not going into any account of his book. It is in
Voss's Leipzig Catalogue, and not unworthy of perusal by those who are
sufficiently imbued with Germanism to accept the changeful moods of a
mystical mind, with all its visionary glimpses of light and shade, its
doubts, fears, hopes, and fancies, in lieu of real incidents and actual
events. Of adventures, properly speaking, he had none. The people he
met, the scenes in which he bore his part, were as commonplace as
need be. The whole narrative never soared above that bread and butter
life--Butter-brod Leben--which Germany accepts as romance; but,
meanwhile, the reflex of whatever passed around him in the narrator's
own mind was amusing; so ingeniously did he contrive to interweave the
imaginary with the actual, throwing over the most ordinary pictures
of life a sort of hazy indistinctness,--meet atmosphere for mystical
creation.

If I did not always sympathize with him in his brain-wrought wanderings,
I never ceased to take pleasure in his description of scenery, and
the heartfelt delight he experienced in Journeying through a world so
beautiful and so varied. There was also a little woodcut frontispiece
which took my fancy much, representing him as he stood leaning on his
horse's mane, gazing rapturously on the Elbe, from one of the cliffs off
the Saxon Switzerland. How peaceful he looked, with his long hair waving
gracefully on his neck, and his large soft eyes turned on the scene
beneath him I His clasped hands, as they lay on the horse's mane,
imparted a sort of repose, too, that seemed to say, “I could linger here
ever so long.” Nor was the horse itself without a significance in the
picture; he was a long-maned, long-tailed, patient-looking beast, well
befitting an enthusiast, who doubtless took but little heed of how he
went or where. If his lazy eye denoted lethargy, his broad feet and
short legs vouched for his sure-footedness.

Why should not I follow Stebbe's example? Surely there was nothing too
exalted or extravagant in his plan of life. It was simply to see the
world as it was, with the aid of such combinations as a fertile fancy
could contribute; not to distort events, but to arrange them, Just as
the landscape painter in the license of his craft moves that massive
rock more to the foreground, and throws that stone pine a little further
to the left of his canvas. There was, indeed, nothing to prevent my
trying the experiment Ireland was not less rich in picturesque scenery
than Germany, and if she boasted no such mighty stream as the Elbe, the
banks of the Blackwater and the Nore were still full of woodland beauty;
and, then, there was lake scenery unrivalled throughout Europe.

I turned to Stebbe's narrative for details of his outfit. His horse be
bought at Nordheim for two hundred and forty gulden,--about ten pounds;
his saddle and knapsack cost him a little more than forty shillings;
with his map, guide-book, compass, and some little extras, all were
comprised within twenty pounds sterling,--surely not too costly an
equipage for one who was adventuring on a sea wide as the world itself.

As _my_ trial was a mere experiment, to be essayed on the most limited
scale, I resolved not to buy, but only hire a horse, taking him by the
day, so that if any change of mind or purpose supervened I should not
find myself in any embarrassment.

A fond uncle had just left me a legacy of a hundred pounds, which,
besides, was the season of the long vacation; thus did everything
combine to favor the easy execution of a plan which I determined
forthwith to put into practice.

“Something quiet and easy to ride, sir, you said?” repeated Mr. Dycer
after me, as I entered his great establishment for the sale and hire of
horses. “Show the gentleman four hundred and twelve.”

“Oh, Heaven forbid!” I exclaimed, in ignorance; “such a number would
only confuse me.”

“You mistake me, sir,” blandly interposed the dealer; “I meant the horse
that stands at that number. Lead him out, Tim. He 's gentle as a lamb,
sir, and, if you find he suits you, can be had for a song,--I mean a ten
pound note.”

“Has he a long mane and tail?” I asked, eagerly.

“The longest tail and the fullest mane I ever saw. But here he comes.”
 And with the word, there advanced towards us, at a sort of easy amble,
a small-sized cream-colored horse, with white mane and tail. Knowing
nothing of horseflesh, I was fain to content myself with such
observations as other studies might supply me with; and so I closely
examined his head, which was largely developed in the frontal region,
with moral qualities fairly displayed. He had memory large, and
individuality strong; nor was wit, if it exist in the race, deficient
Over the orbital region the depressions were deep enough to contain my
closed fist, and when I remarked upon them to the groom, he said, “'T
is his teeth will tell you the rayson of that;” a remark which I suspect
was a sarcasm upon my general ignorance.

I liked the creature's eye. It was soft, mild, and contemplative; and
although not remarkable for brilliancy, possessed a subdued lustre that
promised well for temper and disposition.

“Ten shillings a day,--make it three half-crowns by the week, sir.
You 'll never hit upon the like of him again,” said the dealer,
hurriedly, as he passed me, on his other avocations.

“Better not lose him, sir; he's well known at Batty's, and they 'll
have him in the circus again if they see him. Wish you saw him with his
fore-legs on a table, ringing the bell for his breakfast.*'

“I'll take him by the week, though, probably, a day or two will be all I
shall need.”

“Four hundred and twelve for Mr. Potts,” Dycer screamed out. “Shoes
removed, and to be ready in the morning.”




CHAPTER II. BLONDEL AND I SET OUT

I had heard and read frequently of the exhilarating sensations of horse
exercise. My fellow-students were full of stories of the hunting-field
and the race-course. Wherever, indeed, a horse figured in a narrative,
there was an almost certainty of meeting some incident to stir the
blood and warm up enthusiasm. Even the passing glimpses one caught of
sporting-prints in shop-windows were suggestive of the pleasure imparted
by a noble and chivalrous pastime. I never closed my eyes all night,
revolving such thoughts in my head. I had so worked up my enthusiasm
that I felt like one who is about to cross the frontier of some new land
where people, language, ways, and habits are all unknown to him. “By
this hour to-morrow night,” thought I, “I shall be in the land of
strangers, who have never seen, nor so much as heard of me. There will
invade no traditions of the scoffs and jibes I have so long endured;
none will have received the disparaging estimate of my abilities, which
my class-fellows love to propagate; I shall simply be the traveller
who arrived at sundown mounted on a cream-colored palfrey,--a stranger,
sad-looking, but gentle, withal, of courteous address, blandly demanding
lodging for the night. 'Look to my horse, ostler,' shall I say, as I
enter the honeysuckle-covered porch of the inn. 'Blondel'--I will call
him Blondel--'is accustomed to kindly usage.'” With what quiet dignity,
the repose of a conscious position, do I follow the landlord as he shows
me to my room. It is humble, but neat and orderly. I am contented. I
tell him so. I am sated and wearied of luxury; sick of a gilded and
glittering existence. I am in search of repose and solitude. I order my
tea; and, if I ask the name of the village, I take care to show by my
inattention that I have not heard the answer, nor do I care for it.

Now I should like to hear how they are canvassing me in the bar, and
what they think of me in the stable. I am, doubtless, a peer, or a
peer's eldest son. I am a great writer, the wondrous poet of the day; or
the pre-Raphaelite artist; or I am a youth heart-broken by infidelity in
love; or, mayhap, a dreadful criminal. I liked this last the best, the
interest was so intense; not to say that there is, to men who are not
constitutionally courageous, a strong pleasure in being able to excite
terror in others.

But I hear a horse's feet on the silent street. I look out Day is just
breaking. Tim is holding Blondel at the door. My hour of adventure has
struck, and noiselessly descending the stairs, I issue forth.

“He is a trifle tender on the fore-feet, your honor,” said Tim, as I
mounted; “but when you get him off the stones on a nice piece of soft
road, he 'll go like a four-year-old.”

“But he _is_ young, Tim, isn't he?” I asked, as I tendered him my
half-crown.

“Well, not to tell your honor a lie, he is not,” said Tim, with the
energy of a man whose veracity had cost him little less than a spasm.

“How old would you call him, then?” I asked, in that affected ease that
seemed to say, “Not that it matters to me if he were Methuselah.”

“I could n't come to his age exactly, your honor,” he replied, “but I
remember seeing him fifteen years ago, dancing a hornpipe, more by token
for his own benefit; it was at Cooke's Circus, in Abbey Street, and
there wasn't a hair's difference between him now and then, except,
perhaps, that he had a star on the forehead, where you just see the mark
a little darker now.”

“But that is a star, plain enough,” said I, half vexed.

“Well, it is, and it is not,” muttered Tim, doggedly, for he was not
quite satisfied with my right to disagree with him.

“He's gentle, at all events?” I said, more confidently.

“He's a lamb!” replied Tim. “If you were to see the way he lets the
Turks run over his back, when he's wounded in Timour the Tartar, you
wouldn't believe he was a livin' baste.”

“Poor fellow!” said I, caressing him. He turned his mild eye upon me,
and we were friends from that hour.

What a glorious morning it was, as I gained the outskirts of the city,
and entered one of those shady alleys that lead to the foot of the
Dublin mountains! The birds were opening their morning hymn, and the
earth, still fresh from the night dew, sent up a thousand delicious
perfumes. The road on either side was one succession of handsome villas
or ornamental cottages, whose grounds were laid out in the perfection of
landscape gardening. There were but few persons to be seen at that early
hour, and in the smokeless chimneys and closed shutters I could read
that all slept,--slept in that luxurious hour when Nature unveils, and
seems to revel in the sense of unregarded loveliness. “Ah, Potts,” said
I, “thou hast chosen the wiser part; thou wilt see the world after thine
own guise, and not as others see it.” Has my reader not often noticed
that in a picture-gallery the slightest change of place, a move to
the left or right, a chance approach or retreat, suffices to make what
seemed a hazy confusion of color and gloss a rich and beautiful picture?
So is it in the actual world, and just as much depends on the point
from which objects are viewed. Do not be discouraged, then, by the dark
aspects of events. It may be that by the slightest move to this side or
to that, some unlooked-for sunlight shall slant down and light up all
the scene. Thus musing, I gained a little grassy strip that ran along
the roadside, and, gently touching Blonde! with my heel, he broke out
into a delightful canter. The motion, so easy and swimming, made it a
perfect ecstasy to sit there floating at will through the thin air, with
a moving panorama of wood, water, and mountain around me.

Emerging at length from the thickly wooded plain, I began the ascent of
the Three Rock Mountain, and, in my slackened speed, had full time to
gaze upon the bay beneath me, broken with many a promontory, backed by
the broad bluff of Howth, and the more distant Lambay. No, it is _not_
finer than Naples. I did not say it was; but, seeing it as I then saw
it, I thought it could not be surpassed. Indeed, I went further, and
defied Naples in this fashion:--

     “Though no volcano's lurid light
          Over thy bine sea steals along,
     Nor Pescator beguiles the night
          With cadence of his simple song;

     “Though none of dark Calabria's daughters
          With tinkling lute thy echoes wake,
     Mingling their voices with the waters,
          As 'neath the prow the ripples break;

     “Although no cliffs with myrtle crown'd,
          Reflected in thy tide, are seen,
     Nor olives, bending to the ground,
          Relieve the laurel's darker green;

     “Yet--yet--”

Ah, there was the difficulty,--I had begun with the plaintiff, and
I really had n't a word to say for the defendant; and so, voting
comparisons odious, I set forward on my journey.

As I rode into Enniskerry to breakfast, I had the satisfaction of
overhearing some very flattering comments upon Blondel, which rather
consoled me for some less laudatory remarks upon my own horsemanship. By
the way, can there possibly be a more ignorant sarcasm than to say a
man rides like a tailor? Why, of all trades, who so constantly sits
straddle-legged as a tailor? and yet he is especial mark of this
impertinence.

I pushed briskly on after breakfast, and soon found myself in the deep
shady woods that lead to the Dargle. I hurried through the picturesque
demesne, associated as it was with a thousand little vulgar incidents
of city junketings, and rode on for the Glen of the Downs. Blondel and
I had now established a most admirable understanding with each other.
It was a sort of reciprocity by which I bound myself never to control
_him_, he in turn consenting not to unseat _me_. He gave the initiative
to the system, by setting off at his pleasant little rocking canter
whenever he chanced upon a bit of favorable ground, and invariably
pulled up when the road was stony or uneven; thus showing me that he was
a beast with what Lord Brougham would call “a wise discretion.” In like
manner he would halt to pluck any stray ears of wild oats that grew
along the hedge sides, and occasionally slake his thirst at convenient
streamlets. If I dismounted to walk at his side, he moved along unheld,
his head almost touching my elbow, and his plaintive blue eye mildly
beaming on me with an expression that almost spoke,--nay, it did speak.
I 'm sure I felt it, as though I could swear to it, whispering, “Yes,
Potts, two more friendless creatures than ourselves are not easy to
find. The world wants not either of us; not that we abuse it, despise
it, or treat it ungenerously,--rather the reverse, we incline favorably
towards it, and would, occasion serving, befriend it; but we are not,
so to say, 'of it.' There may be, here and there, a man or a horse that
would understand or appreciate us, but they stand alone,--they are not
belonging to classes. They are, like ourselves, exceptional.” If his
expression said this much, there was much unspoken melancholy in his sad
glance, also, which seemed to say, “What a deal of sorrow could I reveal
if I might!--what injuries, what wrong, what cruel misconceptions of
my nature and disposition, what mistaken notions of my character and
intentions! What pretentious stupidity, too, have I seen preferred
before me,--creatures with, mayhap, a glossier coat or a more silky
forelock--” “Ah, Blondel, take courage,--men are just as ungenerous,
just as erring!” “Not that I have not had my triumphs, too,” he seemed
to say, as, cocking his ears, and ambling with a more elevated toss
of the head, his tail would describe an arch like a waterfall; “no
salmon-colored silk stockings danced sarabands on _my_ back; I was
always ridden in the Haute École by Monsieur l'Etrier himself, the
stately gentleman in jackboots and long-waisted dress-coat, whose five
minutes no persuasive bravos could ever prolong.” I thought--nay, I was
certain at times--that I could read in his thoughtful face the painful
sorrows of one who had outlived popular favor, and who had survived to
see himself supplanted and dethroned.

There are no two destinies which chime in so well together as that of
him who is beaten down by sheer distrust of himself, and that of the
man who has seen better days. Although the one be just entering on life,
while the other is going out of it, if they meet on the threshold,
they stop to form a friendship. Now, though Blondel was not a man, he
supplied to my friendlessness the place of one.

The sun was near its setting, as I rode down the little hill into the
village of Ashford, a picturesque little spot in the midst of mountains,
and with a bright clear stream bounding through it, as fearlessly as
though in all the liberty of open country. I tried to make my entrance
what stage people call effective. I threw myself, albeit a little jaded,
into an attitude of easy indifference, slouched my hat to one side, and
suffered the sprig of laburnum, with which I had adorned it, to droop in
graceful guise over one shoulder. The villagers stared; some saluted me;
and taken, perhaps, by the cool acquiescence of my manner, as I returned
the courtesy, seemed well disposed to believe me of some note.

I rode into the little stable-yard of the “Lamb” and dismounted. I
gave up my horse, and walked into the inn. I don't know how others feel
it,--I greatly doubt if they will have the honesty to tell,--but for
myself, I confess that I never entered an inn or an hotel without a
most uncomfortable conflict within: a struggle made up of two very
antagonistic impulses,--the wish to seem something important, and a
lively terror lest the pretence should turn out to be costly. Thus
swayed by opposing motives, I sought a compromise by assuming that I
was incog.; for the present a nobody, to be treated without any
marked attention, and to whom the acme of respect would be a seeming
indifference.

“What is your village called?” I said, carelessly, to the waiter, as he
laid the cloth.

“Ashford, your honor. 'T is down in all the books,” answered the waiter.

“Is it noted for anything, or is there anything remarkable in the
neighborhood?”

“Indeed, there is, sir, and plenty. There's Glenmalure and the Devil's
Glen; and there's Mr. Snow Malone's place, that everybody goes to see:
and there's the fishing of Doyle's river,--trout, eight, nine, maybe
twelve, pounds' weight; and there's Mr. Reeve's cottage--a Swiss cottage
belike--at Kinmacreedy; but, to be sure, there must be an order for
that!”

“I never take much trouble,” I said indolently. “Who have you got in the
house at present?”

“There's young Lord Keldrum, sir, and two more with him, for the
fishing; and the next room to you here, there's Father Dyke, from
Inistioge, and he's going, by the same token, to dine with the Lord
to-day.”

“Don't mention to his Lordship that I am here,” said I, hastily. “I
desire to be quite unknown down here.” The waiter promised obedience,
without vouchsafing any misgivings as to the possibility of his
disclosing what he did not know.

To his question as to my dinner, I carelessly said, as if I were in
a West-end club, “Never mind soup,--a little fish,--a cutlet and a
partridge. Or order it yourself,--I am indifferent.” The waiter had
scarcely left the room when I was startled by the sound of voices
so close to me as to seem at my side. They came from a little wooden
balcony to the adjoining room, which, by its pretentious bow-window,
I recognized to be the state apartment of the inn, and now in the
possession of Lord Keldrum and his party. They were talking away in that
gay, rattling, discursive fashion very young men do amongst each other,
and discussed fishing-flies, the neighboring gentlemen's seats, and the
landlady's niece.

“By the way, Kel,” cried one, “it was in your visit to the bar that you
met your priest, was n't it?”

“Yes; I offered him a cigar, and we began to chat together, and so I
asked him to dine with us to-day.”

“And he refused?”

“Yes; but he has since changed his mind, and sent a message to say he
'll be with us at eight”.

“I should like to see your father's face, Kel, when he heard of your
entertaining the Reverend Father Dyke at dinner.”

“Well, I suppose he would say it was carrying conciliation a little too
far; but as the adage says, _À la guerre_--”

At this juncture, another burst in amongst them, calling out,
“You 'd never guess who 's just arrived here, in strict incog., and
having bribed Mike, the waiter, to silence. Burgoyne!”

“Not Jack Burgoyne?”

“Jack himself. I had the portrait so correctly drawn by the waiter,
that there's no mistaking him; the long hair, green complexion, sheepish
look, all perfect. He came on a hack, a little cream-colored pad he got
at Dycer's, and fancies he's quite unknown.”

“What _can_ he be up to now?”

“I think I have it,” said his Lordship. “Courtenay has got two
three-year-olds down here at his uncle's, one of them under heavy
engagements for the spring meetings. Master Jack has taken a run down to
have a look at them.”

“By Jove, Kel, you 're right! he's always wide awake, and that stupid
leaden-eyed look he has, has done him good service in the world.”

“I say, old Oxley, shall we dash in and unearth him? Or shall we let him
fancy that we know nothing of his being here at all?”

“What does Hammond say?”

“I'd say, leave him to himself,” replied a deep voice; “you can't go and
see him without asking him to dinner; and he 'll walk into us after, do
what we will.”

“Not, surely, if we don't play,” said Oxley.

“Would n't he, though? Why, he 'd screw a bet out of a bishop.”

“I 'd do with him as Tomkinson did,” said his Lordship; “he had him down
at his lodge in Scotland, and bet him fifty pounds that he could
n't pass a week without a wager. Jack booked the bet and won it, and
Tomkinson franked the company.”

“What an artful villain my counterpart must be!” I said. I stared in the
glass to see if I could discover the sheepish-ness they laid such
stress on. I was pale, to be sure, and my hair a light brown, but so was
Shelley's; indeed, there was a wild, but soft expression in my eyes that
resembled his, and I could recognize many things in our natures
that seemed to correspond. It was the poetic dreaminess, the lofty
abstractedness from all the petty cares of every-day life which vulgar
people set down as simplicity; and thus,--

     “The soaring thoughts that reached the stare,
          Seemed ignorance to them.”

As I uttered the consolatory lines, I felt two hands firmly pressed over
my eyes, while a friendly voice called out, “Found out, old fellow! run
fairly to earth!” “Ask him if he knows you,” whispered another, but in a
voice I could catch.

“Who am I, Jack?” cried the first speaker.

“Situated as I now am,” I replied, “I am unable to pronounce; but of one
thing I am assured,--I am certain I am not called Jack.”

The slow and measured intonation of my voice seemed to electrify them,
for my captor relinquished his hold and fell back, while the two others,
after a few seconds of blank surprise, burst into a roar of laughter; a
sentiment which the other could not refrain from, while he struggled to
mutter some words of apology.

“Perhaps I can explain your mistake,” I said blandly; “I am supposed to
be extremely like the Prince of Salms Hökinshauven--”

“No, no!” burst in Lord Keldrum, whose voice I recognized, “we never saw
the Prince. The blunder of the waiter led us into this embarrassment; we
fancied you were--”

“Mr. Burgoyne,” I chimed in.

“Exactly,--Jack Burgoyne; but you're not a bit like him.”

“Strange, then; but I'm constantly mistaken for him; and when in London,
I 'm actually persecuted by people calling out, 'When did you come up,
Jack?' 'Where do you hang out?' 'How long do you stay?' 'Dine with
me to-day--to-morrow--Saturday?' and so on; and although, as I have
remarked, these are only so many embarrassments for me, they all show
how popular must be my prototype.” I had purposely made this speech of
mine a little long, for I saw by the disconcerted looks of the party
that they did not see how to wind up “the situation,” and, like all
awkward men, I grew garrulous where I ought to have been silent. While
I rambled on, Lord Keldrum exchanged a word or two with one of his
friends; and as I finished, he turned towards me, and, with an air of
much courtesy, said,--

“We owe you every apology for this intrusion, and hope you will pardon
it; there is, however, but one way in which we can certainly feel
assured that we have your forgiveness,--that is, by your joining us. I
see that your dinner is in preparation, so pray let me countermand it,
and say that you are our guest.”

“Lord Keldrum,” said one of the party, presenting the speaker; “my name
is Hammond, and this is Captain Oxley, Coldstream Guards.”

I saw that this move required an exchange of ratifications, and so I
bowed, and said, “Algernon Sydney Potts.”

“There are Staffordshire Pottses?”

“No relation,” I said stiffly. It was Hammond who made the remark, and
with a sneering manner that I could not abide.

“Well, Mr. Potts, it is agreed,” said Lord Keldrum, with his peculiar
urbanity, “we shall see you at eight No dressing. You'll find us in this
fishing-costume you see now.”

I trust my reader, who has dined out any day he pleased and in any
society he has liked these years past, will forgive me if I do not enter
into any detailed account of my reasons for accepting this invitation.
Enough if I freely own that to me, A. S. Potts, such an unexpected honor
was about the same surprise as if I had been announced governor of a
colony, or bishop in a new settlement.

“At eight sharp, Mr. Potts.”

“The next door down the passage.”

“Just as you are, remember!” were the three parting admonitions with
which they left me.




CHAPTER III. TRUTH NOT ALWAYS IN WINE

Who has not experienced the charm of the first time in his life, when
totally removed from all the accidents of his station, the circumstance
of his fortune, and his other belongings, he has taken his place
amongst perfect strangers, and been estimated by the claims of his own
individuality? Is it not this which gives the almost ecstasy of our
first tour,--our first journey? There are none to say, “Who is this
Potts that gives himself these airs?” “What pretension has he to say
this, or order that?” “What would old Peter say if he saw his son
to-day?” with all the other “What has the world come tos?” and “What are
we to see nexts?” I say it is with a glorious sense of independence that
one sees himself emancipated from all these restraints, and recognizes
his freedom to be that which nature has made him.

As I sat on Lord Keldrum's left,--Father Dyke was on his right,--was I
in any real quality other than I ever am? Was my nature different, my
voice, my manner, my social tone, as I received all the bland attentions
of my courteous host? And yet, in my heart of hearts, I felt that if
it were known to that polite company I was the son of Peter Potts,
'pothecary, all my conversational courage would have failed me. I would
not have dared to assert fifty things I now declared, nor vouched for a
hundred that I as assuredly guaranteed. If I had had to carry about me
traditions of the shop in Mary's Abbey, the laboratory, and the rest of
it, how could I have had the nerve to discuss any of the topics on which
I now pronounced so authoritatively? And yet, these were all accidents
of my existence,--no more me than was the color of _his_ whiskers mine
who vaccinated me for cow-pock. The man Potts was himself through all;
he was neither compounded of senna and salts, nor amalgamated
with sarsaparilla and the acids; but by the cruel laws of a harsh
conventionality it was decreed otherwise, and the trade of the father
descends to the son in every estimate of all he does and says and
thinks. The converse of the proposition I was now to feel in the success
I obtained in this company. I was as the Germans would say, “Der Herr
Potts selbst, nicht nach seinen Begebenheiten”--the man Potts, not the
creature of his belongings.

The man thus freed from his “antecedents,” and owning no “relatives,”
 feels like one to whom a great, a most unlimited, credit has been
opened, in matter of opinion. Not reduced to fashion his sentiments by
some supposed standard becoming his station, he roams at will over the
broad prairie of life, enough if he can show cause why he says this or
thinks that, without having to defend himself for his parentage, and the
place he was born in. Little wonder if, with such a sum to my credit,
I drew largely on it; little wonder if I were dogmatical and
demonstrative; little wonder if, when my reason grew wearied with facts,
I reposed on my imagination in fiction.

Be it remembered, however, that I only became what I have set down here
after an excellent dinner, a considerable quantity of champagne, and no
small share of claret, strong-bodied enough to please the priest. From
the moment we sat down to table, I conceived for him a sort of distrust.
He was painfully polite and civil; he had a soft, slippery, Clare
accent; but there was a malicious twinkle in his eye that showed he was
by nature satirical. Perhaps because we were more reading men than the
others that it was we soon found ourselves pitted against each other
in argument, and this not upon one, but upon every possible topic that
turned up. Hammond, I found, also stood by the priest; Oxley was _my_
backer; and his Lordship played umpire. Dyke was a shrewd, sarcastic dog
in his way, but he had no chance with me. How mercilessly I treated his
church!--he pushed me to it,--what an _exposé_ did I make of the
Pope and his government, with all their extortions and cruelties! how
ruthlessly I showed them up as the sworn enemies of all freedom and
enlightenment! The priest never got angry. He was too cunning for that,
and he even laughed at some of my anecdotes, of which I related a great
many.

“Don't be so hard on him, Potts,” whispered my Lord, as the day wore on;
“he 's not one of us, you know!”

This speech put me into a flutter of delight. It was not alone that he
called me Potts, but there was also an acceptance of me as one of
hier own set. We were, in fact, henceforth _nous autres_. Enchanting
recognition, never to be forgotten!

“But what would you do with us?” said Dyke, mildly remonstrating against
some severe measures we of the landed interest might be yet driven to
resort to.

“I don't know,--that is to say,--I have not made up my mind whether it
were better to make a clearance of you altogether, or to bribe you.”

“Bribe us by all means, then!” said he, with a most serious earnestness.

“Ah! but could we rely upon you?” I asked.

“That would greatly depend upon the price.”

“I 'll not haggle about terms, nor I 'm sure would Keldrum,” said I,
nodding over to his Lordship.

“You are only just to me, in that,” said he, smiling.

“That's all fine talking for you fellows who had the luck to be first
on the list, but what are poor devils like Oxley and myself to do?” said
Hammond. “Taxation comes down to second sons.”

“And the 'Times' says that's all right,” added Oxley.

“And I say it's all wrong; and I say more,” I broke in: “I say that of
all the tyrannies of Europe, I know of none like that newspaper. Why,
sir, whose station, I would ask, nowadays, can exempt him from its
impertinent criticisms? Can Keldrum say--can I say--that to-morrow or
next day we shall not be arraigned for this, that, or t'other? I choose,
for instance, to manage my estate,--the property that has been in my
family for centuries,--the acres that have descended to us by grants
as old as Magna Charta. I desire, for reasons that seem sufficient to
myself, to convert arable into grass land. I say to one of my tenant
farmers--it's Hedgeworth--no matter, I shall not mention names, but I
say to him--”

“I know the man,” broke in the priest; “you mean Hedgeworth Davis, of
Mount Davis.”

“No, sir, I do not,” said I, angrily, for I resented this attempt to run
me to earth.

“Hedgeworth! Hedgeworth! It ain't that fellow that was in the Rifles;
the 2d battalion, is it?” said Ozley.

“I repeat,” said I, “that I will mention no names.”

“My mother had some relatives Hedgeworths, they were from Herefordshire.
How odd, Potts, if we should turn out to be connections! You said that
these people were related to you.”

“I hope,” I said angrily, “that I am not bound to give the birth,
parentage, and education of every man whose name I may mention in
conversation. At least, I would protest that I have not prepared myself
for such a demand upon my memory.”

“Of course not, Potts. It would be a test no man could submit to,” said
his Lordship.

“That Hedgeworth, who was in the Rifles, exceeded all the fellows I ever
met in drawing the long bow. There was no country he had not been in, no
army he had not served with; he was related to every celebrated man in
Europe; and, after all, it turned out that his father was an attorney
at Market Harborough, and sub-agent to one of our fellows who had some
property there.” This was said by Hammond, who directed the speech
entirely to me.

“Confound the Hedgeworths, all together,” Ozley broke in. “They have
carried us miles away from what we were talking of.”

This was a sentiment that met my heartiest concurrence, and I nodded
in friendly recognition to the speaker, and drank off my glass to his
health.

“Who can give us a song? I 'll back his reverence here to be a
vocalist,” cried Hammond. And sure enough, Dyke sang one of the national
melodies with great feeling and taste. Ozley followed with something
in less perfect taste, and we all grew very jolly. Then there came a
broiled bone and some devilled kidneys, and a warm brew which Hammond
himself concocted,--a most insidious liquor, which had a strong odor of
lemons, and was compounded, at the same time, of little else than rum
and sugar.

There is an adage that says “in vino Veritas,” which I shrewdly suspect
to be a great fallacy; at least, as regards my own case, I know it to be
totally inapplicable. I am in my sober hours--and I am proud to say that
the exceptions from such are of the rarest--one of the most veracious
of mortals; indeed, in my frank sincerity, I have often given offence
to those who like a courteous hypocrisy better than an ungraceful truth.
Whenever by any chance it has been my ill-fortune to transgress these
limits, there is no bound to my imagination. There is nothing too
extravagant or too vainglorious for me to say of myself. All the strange
incidents of romance that I have read, all the travellers' stories,
newspaper accidents, adventures by sea and land, wonderful coincidences,
unexpected turns of fortune, I adapt to myself, and coolly relate
them as personal experiences. Listeners have afterwards told me that I
possess an amount of consistence, a verisimilitude in these narratives
perfectly marvellous, and only to be accounted for by supposing that
I myself must, for the time being, be the dupe of my own imagination.
Indeed, I am sure such must be the true explanation of this curious
fact. How, in any other mode, explain the rash wagers, absurd and
impossible engagements I have contracted in such moments, backing myself
to leap twenty-three feet on the level sward; to dive in six fathoms
water, and fetch up Heaven knows what of shells and marine curiosities
from the bottom; to ride the most unmanageable of horses; and,
single-handed and unarmed, to fight the fiercest bulldog in England?
Then, as to intellectual feats, what have I not engaged to perform? Sums
of mental arithmetic; whole newspapers committed to memory after one
reading; verse compositions, on any theme, in ten languages; and once a
written contract to compose a whole opera, with all the scores, within
twenty-four hours. To a nature thus strangely constituted, wine was a
perfect magic wand, transforming a poor, weak, distrustful modest man
into a hero; and yet, even with such temptations, my excesses were
extremely rare and unfrequent. Are there many, I would ask, that could
resist the passport to such a dreamland, with only the penalty of a
headache the next morning? Some one would, perhaps, suggest that these
were enjoyments to pay forfeit on. Well, so they were; but I must not
anticipate. And now to my tale.

To Hammond's brew there succeeded one by Oxley, made after an American
receipt, and certainly both fragrant and insinuating; and then came a
concoction made by the priest, which he called “Father Hosey's pride.”
 It was made in a bowl, and drunk out of lemon-rinds, ingeniously fitted
into the wine-glasses. I remember no other particulars about it, though
I can call to mind much of the conversation that preceded it. How I gave
a long historical account of my family, that we came originally from
Corsica, the name Potts being a corruption of Pozzo, and that we were
of the same stock as the celebrated diplomatist Pozzo di Borgo. Our
unclaimed estates in the island were of fabulous value, but in asserting
my right to them I should accept thirteen mortal duels, the arrears of
a hundred and odd years un-scored off, in anticipation of which I had
at one time taken lessons from Angelo, in fencing, which led to the
celebrated challenge they might have read in “Galignani,” where I
offered to meet any swordsman in Europe for ten thousand Napoleons,
giving choice of the weapon to my adversary. With a tear to the
memory of the poor French colonel that I killed at Sedan, I turned the
conversation. Being in France, I incidentally mentioned some anecdotes
of military life, and bow I had invented the rifle called after Minié's
name, and, in a moment of good nature, given that excellent fellow my
secret.

“I will say,” said I, “that Minié has shown more gratitude than some
others nearer home, but we 'll talk of rifled cannon another time.”

In an episode about bear-shooting, I mentioned the Emperor of Russia,
poor dear Nicholas, and told how we had once exchanged horses,--mine
being more strong-boned, and a weight-carrier; his a light Caucasian
mare of purest breed, “the dam of that creature you may see below in the
stable now,” said I, carelessly. “'Come and see me one of these
days, Potts,' said he, in parting; 'come and pass a week with me at
Constantinople.' This was the first intimation he had ever given of his
project against Turkey; and when I told it to the Duke of Wellington,
his remark was a muttered 'Strange fellow, Potts,--knows everything!'
though he made no reply to me at the time.”

It was somewhere about this period that the priest began with what
struck me as an attempt to outdo me as a storyteller, an effort I should
have treated with the most contemptuous indifference but for the amount
of attention bestowed on him by the others. Nor was this all, but
actually I perceived that a kind of rivalry was attempted to be
established, so that we were pitted directly against each other. Amongst
the other self-delusions of such moments was the profound conviction
I entertained that I was master of all games of skill and address,
superior to Major A. at whist, and able to give Staunton a pawn and the
move at chess. The priest was just as vainglorious. “He'd like to
see the man who 'd play him a game of 'spoiled five'”--whatever
that was--“or drafts; ay, or, though it was not his pride, a bit of
backgammon.”

“Done, for fifty pounds; double on the gammon!” cried I.

“Fifty fiddlesticks!” cried he; “where would you or I find as many
shillings?”

“What do you mean, sir?” said I, angrily. “Am I to suppose that you
doubt my competence to risk such a comtemptible sum, or is it to your
own inability alone you would testify?”

A very acrimonious dispute followed, of which I have no clear
recollection. I only remember how Hammond was out-and out for the
priest, and Oxley too tipsy to take _my_ part with any efficiency. At
last--Row arranged I can't say--peace was restored, and the next thing
I can recall was listening to Father Dyke giving a long, and of course
a most fabulous, history of a ring that he wore on his second finger.
It was given by the Pretender, he said, to his uncle, the celebrated
Carmelite monk, Lawrence O'Kelly, who for years bad followed the young
prince's fortunes. It was an onyx, with the letters C. E. S. engraved
on it. Keldrum took an immense fancy to it; he protested that everything
that attached to that unhappy family possessed in his eyes an uncommon
interest. “If you have a fancy to take up Potto's wager,” said he,
laughingly, “I'll give you fifty pounds for your signet ring.”

The priest demurred; Hammond interposed; then there was more discussion,
now warm, now jocose. Oxley tried to suggest something, which we all
laughed at. Keldrum placed the backgammon board meanwhile; but I can
give no clear account of what ensued, though I remember that the terms
of our wager were committed to writing by Hammond, and signed by Father
D. and myself, and in the conditions there figured a certain ring,
guaranteed to have belonged to and been worn by his Royal Highness
Charles Edward, and a cream-colored horse, equally guaranteed as the
produce of a Caucasian mare presented by the late Emperor Nicholas to
the present owner. The document was witnessed by all three, Oxley's name
written in two letters, and a flourish. After that, I played, and lost!




CHAPTER IV. PLEASANT REFLECTIONS ON AWAKING.

I can recall to this very hour the sensations of headache and misery
with which I awoke the morning after this debauch. Backing pain it was,
with a sort of tremulous beating all through the brain, as though a
small engine had been set to work there, and that piston and boiler and
connecting-rod were all banging, fizzing, and vibrating amid my fevered
senses. I was, besides, much puzzled to know where I was, and how I
had come there. Controversial divinity, genealogy, horse-racing, the
peerage, and “double sixes” were dancing a wild cotillon through my
brain; and although a waiter more than once cautiously obtruded his head
into the room, to see if I were asleep, and as guardedly withdrew it
again, I never had energy to speak to him, but lay passive and still,
waiting till my mind might clear, and the cloud-fog that obscured my
faculties might be wafted away.

At last--it was towards evening--the man, possibly becoming alarmed at
my protracted lethargy, moved somewhat briskly through the room, and
with that amount of noise that showed he meant to arouse me, disturbed
chairs and fire-irons indiscriminately.

“Is it late or early?” asked I, faintly.

“Tis near five, sir, and a beautiful evening,” said he, drawing nigh,
with the air of one disposed for colloquy.

I did n't exactly like to ask where I was, and tried to ascertain the
fact by a little circumlocution. “I suppose,” said I, yawning, “for all
that is to be done in a place like this, when up, one might just as well
stay abed, eh?”

“T is the snuggest place, anyhow,” said he, with that peculiar
disposition to agree with you so characteristic in an Irish waiter.

“No society?” sighed I.

“No, indeed, sir.”

“No theatre?”

“Devil a one, sir.”

“No sport?”

“Yesterday was the last of the season, sir; and signs on it, his
Lordship and the other gentleman was off immediately after breakfast.”

“You mean Lord--Lord--” A mist was clearing slowly away, but I could not
yet see clearly.

“Lord Keldrum, sir; a real gentleman every inch of him.”

“Oh! yes, to be sure,--a very old friend of mine,” muttered I. “And so
he's gone, is he?”

“Yes, sir; and the last word he said was about your honor.”

“About me,--what was it?”

“Well, indeed, sir,” replied the waiter, with a hesitating and confused
manner, “I did n't rightly understand it; but as well as I could catch
the words, it was something about hoping your honor had more of that
wonderful breed of horses the Emperor of Roosia gave you.”

“Oh, yes! I understand,” said I, stopping him abruptly. “By the way, how
is Blondel--that is, my horse--this morning?”

“Well, he looked fresh and hearty, when he went off this morning at
daybreak--”

“What do you mean?” cried I, jumping up in my bed. “Went off? where to?”

“With Father Dyke on his back; and a neater hand he could n't wish
over him. 'Tim,' says he, to the ostler, as he mounted, 'there's a
five-shilling piece for you, for hansel, for I won this baste last
night, and you must drink my health and wish me luck with him.'”

I heard no more, but, sinking back into the bed, I covered my face with
my hands, overcome with shame and misery. All the mists that had blurred
my faculties had now been swept clean away, and the whole history of
the previous evening was revealed before me. My stupid folly, my absurd
boastfulness, my egregious story-telling,--not to call it worse,--were
all there; but, shall I acknowledge it? what pained me not less
poignantly was the fact that I ventured to stake the horse I had merely
hired, and actually lost him at the play-table.

As soon as I rallied from this state of self-accusation, I set to work
to think how I should manage to repossess myself of my beast, my loss of
which might be converted into a felony. To follow the priest and ransom
Blondel was my first care. Father Dyke would most probably not exact
an unreasonable price; he, of course, never believed one word of my
nonsensical narrative about Schamyl and the Caucasus, and he 'd not
revenge upon Potts sober the follies of Potts tipsy. It is true my purse
was a very slender one, but Blondel, to any one unacquainted with
his pedigree, could not be a costly animal; fifteen pounds--twenty,
certainly--ought to buy what the priest would call “every hair on his
tail.”

It was now too late in the evening to proceed to execute the measures I
had resolved on, and so I determined to lie still and ponder over them.
Dismissing the waiter, with an order to bring me a cup of tea about
eight o'clock, I resumed my cogitations. They were not pleasant ones:
Potts a byword for the most outrageous and incoherent balderdash and
untruth; Potts in the “Hue and Cry;” Potts in the dock; Potts in the
pillory; Potts paragraphed in “Punch;” portrait of Potts, price one
penny!--these were only a few of the forms in which the descendant of
the famous Corsican family of Pozzo di Borgo now presented himself to my
imagination.

The courts and quadrangles of Old Trinity ringing with laughter, the
coarse exaggerations of tasteless scoffers, the jokes and sneers of
stupidity, malice, and all uncharitableness, rang in my ears as if I
heard them. All possible and impossible versions of the incident
passed in review before me: my father, driven distracted by impertinent
inquiries, cutting me off with a shilling, and then dying of
mortification and chagrin; rewards offered for my apprehension;
descriptions, not in any way flatteries, of my personal appearance;
paragraphs of local papers hinting that the notorious Potts was supposed
to have been seen in our neighborhood yesterday, with sly suggestions
about looking after stable-doors, &c. I could bear it no longer. I
jumped up, and rang the bell violently.

“You know this Father Dyke, waiter? In what part of the country does he
live?”

“He's parish priest of Inistioge,” said he; “the snuggest place in the
whole county.”

“How far from this may it be?”

“It's a matter of five-and-forty miles; and by the same token, he said
he 'd not draw bridle till he got home to-night, for there was a fair
at Grague to-morrow, and if he was n't pleased with the baste he 'd sell
him there.”

I groaned deeply; for here was a new complication, entirely unlooked
for. “You can't possibly mean,” gasped I out, “that a respectable
clergyman would expose for sale a horse lent to him casually by a
friend?” for the thought struck me that this protest of mine should be
thus early on record.

The waiter scratched his head and looked confused. Whether another
version of the event possessed him, or that my question staggered his
convictions, I am unable to say; but he made no reply. “It is true,”
 continued I, in the same strain, “that I met his reverence last night
for the first time. My friend Lord Keldrum made us acquainted; but
seeing him received at my noble friend's board, I naturally felt, and
said to myself, 'The man Keldrum admits to his table is the equal of any
one.' Could anything be more reasonable than that?”

“No, indeed, sir; nothing,” said the waiter, obsequiously.

“Well, then,” resumed I, “some day or other it may chance that you will
be called on to remember and recall this conversation between us; if so,
it will be important that you should have a clear and distinct memory of
the fact that when I awoke in the morning, and asked for my horse, the
answer you made me was--What was the answer you made me?”

“The answer I med was this,” said the fellow, sturdily, and with an
effrontery I can never forget,--“the answer I med was, that the man that
won him took him away.”

“You're an insolent scoundrel,” cried I, boiling over with passion, “and
if you don't ask pardon for this outrage on your knees, I 'll include
you in the indictment for conspiracy.”

So far from proceeding to the penitential act I proposed, the fellow
grinned from ear to ear, and left the room. It was a long time before I
could recover my wonted calm and composure. That this rascal's evidence
would be fatal to me if the question ever came to trial, was as clear as
noonday; not less clear was it that he knew this himself.

“I must go back at once to town,” thought I. “I will surrender myself to
the law. If a compromise be impossible, I will perish at the stake.”

I forgot there was no stake; but there was wool-carding, and
oakum-picking, and wheel-treading, and oyster-shell pounding, and other
small plays of this nature, infinitely more degrading to humanity than
all the cruelties of our barbarous ancestors.

Now, in no record of lives of adventure had I met any account of such
trials as these. The Silvio Pellicos of Pentonville are yet unwritten
martyrs. Prison discipline would vulgarize the grandest epic that ever
was conceived “Anything rather than this,” said I, aloud. “Proscribed,
outlawed, hunted down, but never, gray-coated and hair-clipped, shall a
Potts be sentenced to the 'crank,' or black-holed as refractory!--Bring
me my bill,” cried I, in a voice of indignant anger. “I will go forth
into the world of darkness and tempest; I will meet the storm and the
hurricane; better all the conflict of the elements than man's--than
man's--” I was n't exactly sure what; but there was no need of the word,
for a gust of wind had just flattened my umbrella in my face as I issued
forth, and left me breathless, as the door closed behind me.




CHAPTER V. THE ROSARY AT INISTIOGE

As I walked onward against the swooping wind and the plashing rain, I
felt a sort of heroic ardor in the notion of breasting the adverse waves
of life so boldly. It is not every fellow could do this,--throw his
knapsack on his shoulder, seize his stick, and set out in storm and
blackness. No, Potts, my man; for downright inflexibility of purpose,
for bold and resolute action, you need yield to none! It was, indeed, an
awful night; the thunder rolled and crashed with scarce an interval
of cessation; forked lightning tore across the sky in every direction;
while the wind swept through the deep glen, smashing branches and
uplifting large trees like mere shrubs. I was soon completely drenched,
and my soaked clothes hung around with the weight of lead; my spirits,
however, sustained me, and I toiled along, occasionally in a sort of
wild bravado, giving a cheer as the thunder rolled close above my head,
and trying to sing, as though my heart were as gay and my spirits as
light as in an hour of happiest abandonment.

Jean Paul has somewhere the theory that our Good Genius is attached to
us from our birth by a film fine as gossamer, and which few of us escape
rupturing in the first years of youth, thus throwing ourselves at once
without chart or pilot upon the broad ocean of life. He, however, more
happily constituted, who feels the guidance of his guardian spirit,
recognizes the benefits of its care, and the admonitions of its
wisdom,--_he_ is destined to great things. Such men discover new worlds
beyond the seas, carry conquest over millions, found dynasties, and
build up empires; they whom the world regard as demigods having simply
the wisdom of being led by fortune, and not severing the slender thread
that unites them to their destiny. Was I, Potts, in this glorious
category? Had the lesson of the great moralist been such a warning to
me that I had preserved the filmy link unbroken? I really began to think
so; a certain impulse, a whispering voice within, that said, “Go on!”
 On, ever onward! seemed to be the accents of that Fate which had great
things in store for me, and would eventually make me illustrious.

No illusions of your own, Potts, no phantasmagoria of your own poor
heated fancy, must wile you away from the great and noble part destined
for you. No weakness, no faint-heartedness, no shrinking from toil, nor
even peril. Work hard to know thoroughly for what Fate intends you; read
your credentials well, and then go to your post unflinchingly. Revolving
this theory of mine, I walked ever on. It opened a wide field, and my
imagination disported in it, as might a wild mustang over some vast
prairie. The more I thought over it, the more did it seem to me the real
embodiment of that superstition which extends to every land and every
family of men. We are Lucky when, submitting to our Good Genius, we
suffer ourselves to be led along unhesitatingly; we are Unlucky when,
breaking our frail bonds, we encounter life unguided and unaided.

What a docile, obedient, and believing pupil did I pledge myself to be!
Fate should see that she had no refractory nor rebellious spirit in me,
no self-indulgent voluptuary, seeking only the sunny side of existence,
but a nature ready to confront the rugged conflict of life, and to meet
its hardships, if such were my allotted path.

I applied the circumstances in which I then found myself to my theory,
and met no difficulty in the adaptation. Blondel was to perform a great
part in my future. Blondel was a symbol selected by fate to indicate a
certain direction. Blondel was a lamp by which I could find my way in
the dark paths of the world. With Blondel, my Good Genius would walk
beside me, or occasionally get up on the crupper, but never leave me or
desert me. In the high excitement of my mind, I felt no sense of bodily
fatigue, but walked on, drenched to the skin, alternately shivering with
cold or burning with all the intensity of fever. In this state was it
that I entered the little inn of Ovoco soon after daybreak, and stood
dripping in the bar, a sad spectacle of exhaustion and excitement My
first question was, “Has Blondel been here?” and before they could
reply, I went on with all the rapidity of delirium to assure them that
deception of me would be fruitless; that Fate and I understood each
other thoroughly, travelled together on the best of terms, never
disagreed about anything, but, by a mutual system of give and take, hit
it off like brothers. I talked for an hour in this strain; and then my
poor faculties, long struggling and sore pushed, gave way completely,
and I fell into brain fever.

I chanced upon kind and good-hearted folk, who nursed me with care and
watched me with interest; but my illness was a severe one, and it
was only in the sixth week that I could be about again, a poor, weak,
emaciated creature, with failing limbs and shattered nerves. There is an
indescribable sense of weariness in the mind after fever, just as if
the brain had been enormously over-taxed and exerted, and that in
the pursuit of all the wild and fleeting fancies of delirium it had
travelled over miles and miles of space. To the depressing influence of
this sensation is added the difficulty of disentangling the capricious
illusions of the sick-bed from the actual facts of life; and in this
maze of confusion my first days of convalescence were passed.
Blondel was my great puzzle. Was he a reality, or a mere creature of
imagination? Had I really ridden him as a horse, or only as an idea?
Was he a quadruped with mane and tail, or an allegory invented to typify
destiny? I cannot say what hours of painful brain labor this inquiry
cost me, and what intense research into myself. Strange enough, too,
though I came out of the investigation convinced of his existence, I
arrived at the conclusion that he was a “horse and something more.” Not
that I am able to explain myself more fully on that head, though, if
I were writing this portion of my memoirs in German, I suspect I could
convey enough of my meaning to give a bad headache to any one indulgent
enough to follow me.

I set out once more upon my pilgrimage on a fine day of June, my steps
directed to the village of Inistioge, where Father Dyke resided. I was
too weak for much exertion, and it was only after five days of the road
I reached at nightfall the little glen in which the village stood. The
moon was up, streaking the wide market-places with long lines of yellow
light between the rows of tall elm-trees, and tipping with silvery sheen
the bright eddies of the beautiful river that rolled beside it. Over the
granite cliffs that margined the stream, laurel, and arbutus, and wild
holly clustered in wild luxuriance, backed higher up again, by tall
pine-trees, whose leafy summits stood out against the sky; and lastly,
deep within a waving meadow, stood an old ruined abbey, whose traceried
window was now softly touched by the moonlight All was still and silent,
except the rush of the rapid river, as I sat down upon a stone bench
to enjoy the scene and luxuriate in its tranquil serenity. I had not
believed Ireland contained such a spot, for there was all the trim
neatness and careful propriety of an English village, with that
luxuriance of verdure and wild beauty so eminently Irish. How was it
that I had never heard of it before? Were others aware of it, or was
the discovery strictly my own? Or can it possibly be that all this
picturesque loveliness is but the effect of a mellow moon? While I
thus questioned myself, I heard the sound of a quick footstep rapidly
approaching, and soon afterwards the pleasant tone of a rich voice
humming an opera air. I arose, and saw a tall, athletic-looking figure,
with rod and fishing-basket, approaching me.

“May I ask you, sir,” said I, addressing him, “if this village contains
an inn?”

“There is, or rather there was, a sort of inn here,” said he, removing
his cigar as he spoke; “but the place is so little visited that I fancy
the landlord found it would not answer, and so it is closed at this
moment.”

“But do visitors--tourists--never pass this way?”

“Yes, and a few salmon-fishers, like myself, come occasionally in the
season; but then we dispose ourselves in little lodgings, here and
there, some of us with the farmers, one or two of us with the priest.”

“Father Dyke?” broke I in.

“Yes; you know him, perhaps?”

“I have heard of him, and met him, indeed,” added I, after a pause.
“Where may his house be?”

“The prettiest spot in the whole glen. If you 'd like to see it in this
picturesque moonlight, come along with me.”

I accepted the invitation at once, and we walked on together. The easy,
half-careless tone of the stranger, the loose, lounging stride of his
walk, and a certain something in his mellow voice, seemed to
indicate one of those natures which, so to say, take the world
well,--temperaments that reveal themselves almost immediately. He talked
away about fishing as he went, and appeared to take a deep interest in
the sport, not heeding much the ignorance I betrayed on the subject, nor
my ignoble confession that I had never adventured upon anything higher
than a worm and a quill.

“I'm sure,” said he, laughingly, “Tom Dyke never encouraged you in such
sporting-tackle, glorious fly-fisher as he is.”

“You forget, perhaps,” replied I, “that I scarcely have any acquaintance
with him. We met once only at a dinnerparty.”

“He's a pleasant fellow,” resumed he; “devilish wideawake, one must say;
up to most things in this same world of ours.”

“That much my own brief experience of him can confirm,” said I, dryly,
for the remark rather jarred upon my feelings.

“Yes,” said he, as though following out his own train of thought “Old
Tom is not a bird to be snared with coarse lines. The man must be an
early riser that catches him napping.”

I cannot describe how this irritated me. It sounded like so much direct
sarcasm upon my weakness and want of acuteness.

“There's the 'Rosary;' that's his cottage,” said he, taking my arm,
while he pointed upward to a little jutting promontory of rock over the
river, surmounted by a little thatched cottage almost embowered in
roses and honeysuckles. So completely did it occupy the narrow limits
of ground, that the windows projected actually over the stream, and the
creeping plants that twined through the little balconies hung in tangled
masses over the water. “Search where you will through the Scottish and
Cumberland scenery, I defy you to match that,” said my companion; “not
to say that you can hook a four-pound fish from that little balcony on
any summer evening while you smoke your cigar.”

“It is a lovely spot, indeed,” said I, inhaling with ecstasy the
delicious perfume which in the calm night air seemed to linger in the
atmosphere.

“He tells me,” continued my companion,--“and I take his word for it, for
I am no florist,--that there are seventy varieties of the rose on and
around that cottage. I can answer for it that you can't open a window
without a great mass of flowers coming in showers over you. I told him,
frankly, that if I were his tenant for longer than the fishing-season, I
'd clear half of them away.”

“You live there, then?” asked I, timidly.

“Yes, I rent the cottage, all but two rooms, which he wished to keep for
himself, but which he now writes me word may be let, for this month and
the next, if a tenant offer. Would you like them?” asked he, abruptly.

“Of all things--that is--I think so--I should like to see them first!”
 muttered I, half startled by the suddenness of the question.

“Nothing easier,” said he, opening a little wicket as he spoke, and
beginning to ascend a flight of narrow steps cut in the solid rock.
“This is a path of my designing,” continued he; “the regular approach is
on the other side; but this saves fully half a mile of road, though it
be a little steep.”

As I followed him up the ascent, I proposed to myself a variety of
questions, such as, where and how I was to procure accommodation for the
night, and in what manner to obtain something to eat, of which I stood
much in need? and I had gained a little flower-garden at the rear of the
cottage before I had resolved any of these difficult points.

“Here we are,” said he, drawing a long breath. “You can't see much of
the view at this hour; but to-morrow, when you stand on this spot, and
look down that reach of the river, with Mont Alto in the background, you
'll tell me if you know anything finer!”

“Is that Edward?” cried a soft voice; and at the same instant a young
girl came hastily out of the cottage, and, throwing her arms around my
companion, exclaimed, “How you have alarmed me! What could possibly have
kept you out so late?”

“A broad-shouldered fish, a fellow weighing twelve pounds at the very
least, and who, after nigh three hours' playing, got among the rocks and
smashed my tackle.”

“And you lost him?”

“That did I, and some twenty yards of gut, and the top splice of my
best rod, and my temper, besides. But I 'm forgetting; Mary, here is
a gentleman who will, I hope, not refuse to join us at supper.--My
sister.”

By the manner of presentation, it was clear that he expected to hear my
name, and so I interposed, “Mr. Potts,--Algernon Sydney Potts.”

The young lady courtesied slightly, muttered something like a repetition
of the invitation, and led the way into the cottage.

My astonishment was great at the “interior” now before me; for though
all the arrangements bespoke habits of comfort and even luxury,
there was a studious observance of cottage style in everything; the
bookshelves, the tables, the very pianoforte, being all made of white
unvarnished wood. And I now perceived that the young lady herself,
with a charming coquetry, had assumed something of the costume of the
Oberland, and wore her bodice laced in front, and covered with silver
embroidery both tasteful and becoming.

“My name is Crofton,” said my host, as he disengaged himself of his
basket and tackle; “we are almost as much strangers here as yourself. I
came here for the fishing, and mean to take myself off when it 's over.”

“I hope not, Edward,” broke in the girl, who was now, with the
assistance of a servant-woman, preparing the table for supper; “I hope
you 'll stay till we see the autumn tints on those trees.”

“My sister is just as great an enthusiast about sketching as I am for
salmon-fishing,” said he, laughingly; “and for my own part, I like
scenery and landscape very well, but think them marvellously heightened
by something like sport. Are you an angler?”

“No,” said I; “I know nothing of the gentle craft”

“Fond of shooting, perhaps? Some men think the two sports incompatible.”

“I am as inexpert with the gun as the rod,” said I, diffidently.

I perceived that the sister gave a sly look under her long eyelashes
towards me; but what its meaning, I could not well discover. Was it
depreciation of a man who avowed himself unacquainted with the sports
of the field, or was it a quiet recognition of claims more worthy
of regard? At all events, I perceived that she had very soft,
gentle-looking gray eyes, a very fair skin, and a profusion of beautiful
brown hair. I had not thought her pretty at first I now saw that she was
extremely pretty, and her figure, though slightly given to fulness, the
perfection of grace.

Hungry, almost famished as I was, with a fast of twelve hours, I felt no
impatience so long as she moved about in preparation for the meal. How
she disposed the little table equipage, the careful solicitude with
which she arranged the fruit and the flowers,--not always satisfied with
her first dispositions, but changing them for something different,--all
interested me vastly, and when at last we were summoned to table, I
actually felt sorry and disappointed.

Was it really so delicious, was the cookery so exquisite? I own frankly
that I am not a trustworthy witness; but if my oath could be taken, I
am willing to swear that I believe there never were such salmon-steaks,
such a pigeon-pie, and such a damson-tart served to mortals as these.
My enthusiasm, I suspect, must have betrayed itself in some outward
manifestation, for I remember Crofton laughingly having remarked,--

“You will turn my sister's head, Mr. Potts, by such flatteries; all the
more, since her cookery is self-taught.”

“Don't believe him, Mr. Potts; I have studied all the great masters of
the art, and you shall have an omelette to-morrow for breakfast, Brillat
Savarin himself would not despise.”

I blushed at the offer of an hospitality so neatly and delicately
insinuated, and had really no words to acknowledge it, nor was my
confusion unfavorably judged by my hosts. Crofton marked it quickly, and
said,--

“Yes, Mr. Potts, and I 'll teach you to hook a trout afterwards.
Meanwhile let us have a glass of Sauterne together; we drink it out of
green glasses, to cheat ourselves into the fancy that it's Rhenish.”

“'Am Rhein, am Rhein, da wachsen unsere Reben,'” said I, quoting the
students' song.

“Oh, have you been in Germany?” cried she, eagerly.

“Alas! no,” said I. “I have never travelled.” I thought she looked
disappointed as I said this. Indeed, I already wished it unsaid; but her
brother broke in with,--

“We are regular vagabonds, Mr. Potts. My sister and myself have had
a restless paroxysm for the last three years of life; and what with
seeking cool spots for the summer and hot climates for winter, we are
scarcely ever off the road.”

“Like the gentleman, I suppose, who ate oysters for appetite, but
carried his system so far as to induce indigestion.” My joke failed;
nobody laughed, and I was overwhelmed with confusion, which I was fain
to bury in my strawberries and cream.

“Let us have a little music, Mary,” said Crofton. “Do you play or sing,
Mr. Potts?”

“Neither. I do nothing,” cried I, in despair. “As Sydney Smith says, 'I
know something about the Romans,' but, for any gift or grace which
could adorn society, or make time pass more pleasantly, I am an utter
bankrupt.”

The young girl had, while I was speaking, taken her place at the
pianoforte, and was half listlessly suffering her hands to fall in
chords over the instrument.

“Come out upon this terrace, here,” cried Crofton to me, “and we 'll
have our cigar. What I call a regular luxury after a hard day is to
lounge out here in the cool night air, and enjoy one's weed while
listening to Spohr or Beethoven.”

It was really delightful. The bright stars were all reflected in the
calm river down below, and a thousand odors floated softly on the air as
we sat there.

Are there not in every man's experience short periods in which he seemed
to have lived longer than during whole years of life? They tell us
there are certain conditions of the atmosphere, inappreciable as to the
qualities, which seem to ripen wines, imparting to young fresh vintages
all the mellow richness of age, all the depth of flavor, all the velvety
softness of time. May there not possibly be influences which similarly
affect our natures? May there not be seasons in which changes as great
as these are wrought within us? I firmly believe it, and as firmly that
such a period was that in which I sat on the balcony over the Nore,
listening to Mary Crofton as she sang, but just as often lost to every
sound, and deep in a heaven of blended enjoyments, of which no one
ingredient was in the ascendant. Starry sky, rippling river, murmuring
night winds, perfumed air, floating music, all mingling as do the odors
of an incense, and, like an incense, filling the brain with a delicious
intoxication.

Hour after hour must have passed with me in this half-conscious ecstasy,
for Crofton at last said,--

“There, where you see that pinkish tint through the gray, that's the
sign of breaking day, and the signal for bedtime. Shall I show you your
room?”

“How I wish this could last forever!” cried I, rapturously; and then,
half ashamed of my warmth, I stammered out a good-night, and retired.




CHAPTER VI. MY SELF-EXAMINATION.

Our life at the Rosary--for it was _our_ life now of which I have to
speak--was one of unbroken enjoyment. On fine days we fished; that is,
Crofton did, and I loitered along some river's bank till I found a quiet
spot to plant my rod, and stretch myself on the grass, now reading, of
tender dreaming, such glorious dreams as only come in the leafy shading
of summer time, to a mind enraptured with all around it The lovely
scenery and the perfect solitude of the spot ministered well to my
fanciful mood, and left me free to weave the most glittering web of
incident for my future. So utterly was all the past blotted from my
memory that I recalled nothing of existence more remote than my first
evening at the cottage. If for a parting instant a thought of
bygones would obtrude, I hastened to escape from it as from a gloomy
reminiscence. I turned away as would a dreamer who dreaded to awaken
out of some delicious vision, and who would not face the dull aspect of
reality. Three weeks thus glided by of such happiness as I can scarcely
yet recall without emotion! The Croftons had come to treat me like a
brother; they spoke of family events in all freedom before me; talked of
the most confidential things in my presence, and discussed their future
plans and their means as freely in my hearing as though I had been
kith and kin with them. I learned that they were orphans, educated and
brought up by a rich, eccentric uncle, who lived in a sort of costly
reclusion in one of the Cumberland dales; Edward, who had served in the
army, and been wounded in an Indian campaign, had given up the service
in a fit of impatience of being passed over in promotion.

His uncle resented the rash step by withdrawing the liberal allowance he
had usually made him, and they quarrelled. Mary Crofton, espousing her
brother's side, quitted her guardian's roof to join his; and thus had
they rambled about the world for two or three years, on means scanty
enough, but still sufficient to provide for those who neither sought to
enter society nor partake of its pleasures.

As I advanced in the intimacy, I became depository of the secrets of
each. Edward's was the sorrow he felt for having involved his sister in
his own ruin, and been the means of separating her from one so well able
and so willing to befriend her. Hers was the more bitter thought that
their narrow means should prejudice her brother's chances of recovery,
for his chest had shown symptoms of dangerous disease requiring all that
climate and consummate care might do to overcome. Preyed on incessantly
by this reflection, unable to banish it, equally unable to resist its
force, he took the first and only step she had ever adventured
without his knowledge, and had written to her uncle a long letter of
explanations and entreaty.

I saw the letter, and read it carefully. It was all that sisterly love
and affection could dictate, accompanied by a sense of dignity, that if
her appeal should be unsuccessful, no slight should be passed upon
her brother, who was unaware of the step thus taken. To express this
sufficiently, she was driven to the acknowledgment that Edward would
never have himself stooped to the appeal; and so careful was she of
his honor in this respect, that she repeated--with what appeared to me
unnecessary insistence--that the request should be regarded as hers,
and hers only. In fact, this was the uppermost sentiment in the whole
epistle. I ventured to say as much, and endeavored to induce her to
moderate in some degree the amount of this pretension; but she resisted
firmly and decidedly. Now, I have recorded this circumstance here,--less
for itself than to mention how by its means this little controversy
led to a great intimacy between us,--inducing us, while defending our
separate views, to discuss each other's motives, and even characters,
with the widest freedom. I called her enthusiast, and in return she
styled me worldly and calculating; and, indeed, I tried to seem so,
and fortified my opinions by prudential maxims and severe reflections
I should have been sorely indisposed to adopt in my own case. I believe
she saw all this. I am sure she read me aright, and perceived that I was
arguing against my own convictions. At all events, day after day went
over, and no answer came to the letter. I used to go each morning to
the post in the village to inquire, but always returned with the same
disheartening tidings, “Nothing to-day!”

One of these mornings it was, that I was returning disconsolately from
the village, Crofton, whom I believed at the time miles away on the
mountains, overtook me. He came up from behind, and, passing his arm
within mine, walked on some minutes without speaking. I saw plainly
there was something on his mind, and I half dreaded lest he might have
discovered his sister's secret and have disapproved of my share in it.

“Algy,” said he, calling me by my Christian name, which he very rarely
did, “I have something to say to you. Can I be quite certain that you
'll take my frankness in good part?”

“You can,” I said, with a great effort to seem calm and assured.

“You give me your word upon it?”

“I do,” said I, trying to appear bold; “and my hand be witness of it”

“Well,” he resumed, drawing a long breath, “here it is. I have remarked
that for above a week back you have never waited for the postboy's
return to the cottage, but always have come down to the village
yourself.”

I nodded assent, but said nothing.

“I have remarked, besides,” said he, “that when told at the office there
was no letter for you, you came away sad-looking and fretted, scarcely
spoke for some time, and seemed altogether downcast and depressed.”

“I don't deny it,” I said calmly.

“Well,” continued he, “some old experiences, of mine have taught me that
this sort of anxiety has generally but one source, with fellows of _our_
age, and which simply means that the remittance we have counted upon
as certain has been, from some cause or other, delayed. Is n't that the
truth?”

“No,” said I, joyfully, for I was greatly relieved by his words; “no, on
my honor, nothing of the kind.”

“I may not have hit the thing exactly,” said he, hurriedly, “but I 'll
be sworn it is a money matter; and if a couple of hundred pounds be of
the least service--”

“My dear, kind-hearted fellow,” I broke in, “I can't endure this longer:
it is no question of money; it is nothing that affects my means, though
I half wish it were, to show you how cheerfully I could owe you my
escape from a difficulty,--not, indeed, that I need another tie to bind
me to you--” But I could say no more, for my eyes were swimming over, and
my lips trembling.

“Then,” cried he, “I have only to ask pardon for thus obtruding upon
your confidence.”

I was too full of emotion to do more than squeeze his hand
affectionately, and thus we walked along, side by side, neither uttering
a word. At last, and as it were with an effort, by a bold transition,
to carry our thoughts into another and very different channel, he said:
“Here's a letter from old Dyke, our landlord. The worthy father has
been enjoying himself in a tour of English watering-places, and has now
started for a few weeks up the Rhine. His account of his holiday, as he
calls it, is amusing; nor less so is the financial accident to which
he owes the excursion. Take it, and read it,” he added, giving me the
epistle. “If the style be the man, his reverence is not difficult to
decipher.”

I bestowed little attention on this speech, uttered, as I perceived,
rather from the impulse of starting a new topic than anything else, and,
taking the letter half mechanically, I thrust it in my pocket. One or
two efforts we made at conversation were equally failures, and it was a
relief to me when Crofton, suddenly remembering some night-lines be
had laid in a mountain lake a few miles off, hastily shook my hand, and
said, “Good-bye till dinner-time.”

When I reached the cottage, instead of entering I strolled into
the garden, and sought out a little summer-house of sweet-brier and
honeysuckle, on the edge of the river. Some strange, vague impression
was on me, that I needed time and place to commune with myself and be
alone; that a large unsettled account lay between me and my conscience,
which could not be longer deferred; but of what nature, how originating,
and how tending, I know nothing whatever.

I resolved to submit myself to a searching examination, to ascertain
what I might about myself. In my favorite German authors I had
frequently read that men's failures in life were chiefly owing to
neglect of this habit of self-investigation; that though we calculate
well the dangers and difficulties of an enterprise, we omit the more
important estimate of what may be our capacity to effect an object, what
are our resources, wherein our deficiencies.

“Now for it,” I thought, as I entered the little arbor,--“now for it,
Potts; kiss the book, and tell the whole truth and nothing but the
truth.”

As I said this, I took off my hat and bowed respectfully around to
the members of an imaginary court. “My name,” said I, in a clear and
respectful voice, “is Algernon Sydney Potts. If I be pushed to the
avowal, I am sorry it _is_ Potts. Algernon Sydney do a deal, but they
can't do everything,--not to say that captious folk see a certain bathos
in the collocation with my surname. Can a man hope to make such a name
illustrious? Can be aspire to the notion of a time when people will
allude to the great Potts, the celebrated Potts, the immortal Potts?” I
grew very red, I felt my cheek on fire as I uttered this, and I suddenly
bethought me of Mr. Pitt, and I said aloud, “And, if Pitt, why not
Potts?” That was a most healing recollection. I revelled in it for a
long time. “How true is it,” I continued, “that the halo of greatness
illumines all within its circle, and the man is merged in the grandeur
of his achievements. The men who start in life with high sounding
designations have but to fill a foregone pledge,--to pay the bill that
fortune has endorsed. Not so was our case, Pitt. To us is it to lay
every foundation stone of our future greatness. There was nothing
in _your_ surname to foretell you would be a Minister of State at
one-and-thirty,--there is no letter of _mine_ to indicate what I shall
be. But what is it that I am to be? Is it Poet, Philosopher, Politician,
Soldier, or Discoverer? Am I to be great in Art, or illustrious in
Letters? Is there to be an ice tract of Behring's Straits called Potts's
Point, or a planet styled Pottsium Sidus? And when centuries have rolled
over, will historians have their difficulty about the first Potts, and
what his opinions were on this subject or that?”

Then came a low soft sound of half-suppressed laughter, and then the
rustle of a muslin dress hastily brushing through the trees. I rushed
out from my retreat, and hurried down the walk. No one to be seen,--not
a soul; not a sound, either, to be heard.

“No use hiding, Mary,” I called out, “I saw you all the time; my mock
confession was got up merely to amuse you. Come out boldly and laugh
as long as you will.” No answer. This refusal amazed me. It was like a
disbelief in my assertion. “Come, come!” I cried, “you can't pretend to
think I was serious in all this vainglorious nonsense. Come, Mary, and
let us enjoy the laugh at it together. If you don't, I shall be angry.
I'll take it ill,--very ill.”

Still no reply. Could I, then, have been deceived? Was it a mere
delusion? But no; I heard the low laugh, and the rustle of the dress,
and the quick tread upon the gravel, too plainly for any mistake, and
so I returned to the cottage in chagrin and ill-temper. As I passed the
open windows' of the little drawing-room I saw Mary seated at her work,
with, as was her custom, an open book on a little table beside her.
Absorbed as she was, she did not lift her head, nor notice my approach
till I entered the room.

“You have no letter for me?” she cried, in a voice of sorrowful meaning.

“None,” said I scrutinizing her closely, and sorely puzzled what to make
of her calm deportment. “Have you been out in the garden this morning?”
 I asked, abruptly.

“No,” said she, frankly.

“Not quitted the house at all?”

“No. Why do you ask?” cried she, in some surprise.

“I 'll tell you,” I said, sitting down at her side, and speaking in a
low and confidential tone; “a strange thing has just happened to me.”
 And with that I narrated the incident, glossing over, as best I
might, the absurdity of my soliloquizing, and the nature of the
self-examination I was engaged in. Without waiting for me to finish, she
broke in suddenly with a low laugh, and said,--

“It must have been Rose.”

“And who is Rose?” I asked half sternly.

“A cousin of ours, a mere school-girl, who has just arrived. She came by
the mail this morning, when you were out. But here she is, coming up
the walk. Just step behind that screen, and you shall have your revenge.
I'll make her tell everything.”

I had barely time to conceal myself, when, with a merry laugh, a fresh,
girlish voice called out, “I 've seen him! I have seen him, Mary! I
was sitting on the rock beside the river, when he came into the
summer-house, and, fancying himself alone and unseen, proceeded to make
his confession to himself.”

“His confession! What do you mean?”

“I don't exactly know whether that be the proper name for it, but it was
a sort of self-examination, not very painful, certainly, inasmuch as it
was rather flattering than otherwise.”

“I really cannot understand you, Rose.”

“I'm not surprised,” said she, laughing again. “It was some time before
I could satisfy myself that he was not talking to somebody else, or
reading ont of a book; and when, peeping through the leaves, I perceived
he was quite alone, I almost screamed out with laughing.”

“But why, child? What was the absurdity that amused you?”

“Fancy the creature. I need not describe him, Molly. You know him well,
with his great staring light-green eyes, and his wild yellow hair.
Imagine his walking madly to and fro, tossing his long arms about in
uncouth gestures, while he asked himself seriously whether he would
n't be Shakspeare, or Milton, or Michael Angelo, or Nelson. Fancy his
gravely inquiring of himself what remarkable qualities predominated
in his nature: was he more of a sculptor, or a politician, or had fate
destined him to discover new worlds, or to conquer the old ones? If
I had n't been actually listening to the creature, and occasionally
looking at him, too, I 'd have doubted my senses. Oh dear! shall I ever
forget the earnest absurdity of his manner as he said something about
the 'immortal Potts'?”

The reminiscence was too much for her, for she threw herself on a sofa
and laughed immoderately. As for me, unable to endure more, and fearful
that Mary might finish by discovering me, I stole from the room, and
rushed out into the wood.

What is it that renders ridicule more insupportable than vituperation?
Why is the violence of passion itself more easy to endure than the sting
of sarcastic satire? What weak spot in our nature does this peculiar
passion assail? And, again, why are all the noble aspirations of
high-hearted enthusiasm, the grand self-reliance of daring minds, ever
to be made the theme of such scoffings? Have the scorners never read of
Wolfe, of Murat, or of Nelson? Has not a more familiar instance reached
them of one who foretold to an unwilling senate the time when they would
hang in expectancy on his words, and treasure them as wisdom? Cruel,
narrow-minded, and unjust world, with whom nothing succeeds except
success!

The man who contracts a debt is never called cheat till his inability
to discharge it has been proven clearly and beyond a doubt; but he who
enters into an engagement with his own heart to gain a certain prize,
or reach a certain goal, is made a mockery and a sneer by all whose own
humble faculties represent such striving as impossible. From thoughts
like these I went on to speculate whether I should ever be able, in the
zenith of my great success, to forgive those captious and disparaging
critics who had once endeavored to damp my ardor and bar my career. I
own I found it exceedingly difficult to be generous, and in particular
to that young minx of sixteen who had dared to make a jest of my
pretensions.

I wandered along thus for hours. Many a grassy path of even sward led
through the forest, and, taking one of those which skirted the stream,
I strolled along, unconscious alike of time and place. Out of the purely
personal interests which occupied my mind sprang others, and I bethought
me with a grim satisfaction of the severe lesson Mary must have, ere
this, read Rose upon her presumption and her flippancy, telling her, in
stern accents, how behind that screen the man was standing she had dared
to make the subject of her laughter. Oh, how she blushes! what flush
of crimson shame spreads over her face, her temples, and her neck; what
large tears overflow her lids, and fall along her cheeks! I actually
pity her suffering, and am pained at her grief.

“Spare her, dear Mary!” I cry out; “after all, she is but a child. Why
blame her that she cannot measure greatness, as philosophers measure
mountains, by the shadow?”

Egotism, in every one of its moods and tenses, must have a strong
fascination. I walked on for many a mile while thus thinking, without
the slightest sense of weariness, or any want of food. The morning
glided over, and the hot noon was passed, and the day was sobering down
into the more solemn tints of coming evening, and I still loitered, or
lay in the tall grass deep in my musings.

In taking my handkerchief from my pocket, I accidentally drew forth the
priest's letter, and in a sort of half-indolent curiosity, proceeded to
read it. The hand was cramped and rugged, the writing that of a man
to whom the manual part of correspondence is a heavy burden, and who
consequently incurs such labor as rarely as is possible. The composition
had all the charm of ease, and was as unstudied as need be; the writer
being evidently one who cared little for the graces of style,
satisfied to discuss his subject in the familiar terms of his ordinary
conversation.

Although I did not mean to impose more than an extract from it on my
reader, I must reserve even that much for my next chapter.




CHAPTER VII. FATHER DYKE'S LETTER.

Father Dyke was one of those characters which Ireland alone produces,--a
sporting priest. In France, Spain, or Italy, the type is unknown. Time
was, when the _abbé_, elegant, witty, and well-bred, was a great element
of polished life; when his brilliant conversation and his insidious
address threw all the charm of culture over a society which was only
rescued from coarseness by the marvellous dexterity of such intellectual
gladiators. They have passed away, like many other things brilliant and
striking: the gilded coach, the red-heeled slipper, and the supper of
the regency; the powdered marquise, for a smile of whose dimpled mouth
the deadly rapier has flashed in the moonlight; the perfumed beauty,
for one of whose glances a poet would have racked his brain to render
worthily in verse; the gilded _salon_ where, in a sort of incense,
all the homage of genius was offered up before the altar of
loveliness,--gone are they all! _Au fond_, the world is pretty much the
same, although we drive to a club dinner in a one-horse brougham; and
if we meet the _curé_ of St. Roch, we find him to be rather a morose
middle-aged man with a taste for truffles, and a talent for silence. It
is not as the successor of the witty _abbé_ that I adduce the sporting
priest, but simply as a variety of the ecclesiastical character which,
doubtless, a very few more years will have consigned to the realm of
history. He, too, will be a bygone! Father Tom, as he was popularly
called, never needing any more definite designation, was _tam Marte quam
Mercurio_, as much poacher as priest, and made his sporting acquirements
subservient to the demands of an admirable table. The thickest salmon,
the curdiest trout, the fattest partridge, and the most tender woodcock
smoked on his board, and, rumor said, cooked with a delicacy that more
pretentious houses could not rival. In the great world nothing is more
common than to see some favored individual permitted to do things which,
by common voice, are proclaimed impracticable or improper. With a sort
of prescriptive right to outrage the ordinances of society, such people
accept no law but their own inclination, and seem to declare that they
are altogether exempt from the restraints that bind other men. In a
small way, and an humble sphere, Father Tom enjoyed this privilege,
and there was not in his whole county to be found one man churlish or
ungenerous enough to dispute it; and thus was he suffered to throw his
line, snap his gun, or unleash his dog in precincts where many with
higher claims had been refused permission.

It was not alone that he enjoyed the invigorating pleasure of field
sports in practice, but he delighted in everything which bore any
relationship to them. There was not a column of “Bell's Life” in which
he had not his sympathy,--the pigeon match, the pedestrian, the Yankee
trotter, the champion for the silver sculls at Chelsea, the dog “Billy,”
 were all subjects of interest to him. Never did the most inveterate
blue-stocking more delight in the occasion of meeting a great celebrity
of letters, than did he when chance threw him in the way of the jock
who rode the winner at the Oaks, or the “Game Chicken” who punished the
“Croydon Pet” in the prize ring. But now for the letter, which will
as fully reveal the man as any mere description. It was a narrative of
races he had attended, and rowing-matches he had witnessed, with little
episodes of hawking, badger-drawing, and cock-fighting intermixed.

“I came down here--Brighton--to swim for a wager of five-and-twenty
sovereigns against a Major Blayse, of the Third Light Dragoon Guards; we
made the match after mess at Aldershot, when neither of us was anything
to speak of too sober; but as we were backed strongly,--he rather the
favorite,--there was no way of drawing the bet. I beat him after a hard
struggle; we were two hours and forty minutes in the water, and netted
about sixty pounds besides. We dined with the depot in the evening,
and I won a ten-pound note on a question of whether there ought to be
saffron in the American drink called 'greased lightning;' but this was
not the only piece of luck that attended me, as you shall hear. As I was
taking my morning canter on the Downs, I perceived that a stranger--a
jockey-like fellow, not quite a gentleman but near it--seemed to keep me
in view; now riding past, now behind me, and always bestowing his whole
attention on my nag. Of course, I showed the beast off to the best, and
handled him skilfully. I thought to myself, he likes the pony; he 'll be
for making me an offer for him. I was right. I had just seated myself at
breakfast, when the stranger sent his card, with a request to speak to
me. He was a foreigner, but spoke very correct English, and his object
was to learn if I would sell my horse. It is needless to say that I
refused at once. The animal suited me, and I was one of those people
who find it excessively difficult to be mounted to their satisfaction.
I needed temper, training, action, gentleness, beauty, high courage, and
perfect steadiness, and a number of such-like seeming incongruities.
He looked a little impatient at all this; he seemed to say, 'I know all
this kind of nonsense; I have heard shiploads of such gammon before.
Be frank and say what's the figure; how much do you want for him?' He
looked this, I say, but he never uttered a word, and at last I asked
him,--

“'Are you a dealer?'

“'Well,' said he, with an arch smile, 'something in that line.'

“'I thought so,' said I. 'The pony is a rare good one.'

“He nodded assent.

“'He can jump a bar of his own height?'

“Another nod.

“'And he's as fresh on his legs--'

“'As if he were not twenty-six years old,' he broke in.

“'Twenty-six fiddle-sticks! Look at his mouth; he has an eight-year-old
mouth.'

“'I know it,' said he, dryly; 'and so he had fourteen years ago. Will
you take fifty sovereigns for him?' he added, drawing out a handful of
gold from his pocket.

“'No,' said I, firmly; 'nor sixty, nor seventy, nor eighty!'

“'I am sorry to have intruded upon you,' said he, rising, 'and I beg you
to excuse me. The simple fact is, that I am one who gains his living
by horses, and it is only possible for me to exist by the generosity of
those who deal with me.'

“This appeal was a home thrust, and I said, 'What can you afford to
give?'

“'All I have here,' said he, producing a handful of gold, and spreading
it on the table.

“We set to counting, and there were sixty-seven sovereigns in the mass.
I swept off the money into the palm of my hand, and said, 'The beast is
yours.'

“He drew a long breath, as if to relieve his heart of a load of care,
and said, 'Men of _my_ stamp, and who lead such lives as I do, are
rarely superstitious.'

“'Very true,' said I, with a nod of encouragement for him to go on.

“'Well,' said he, resuming, 'I never thought for a moment that any
possibility could have made me so. If ever there was a man that laughed
at lucky and unlucky days, despised omens, sneered at warnings, and
scorned at predictions, I was he; and yet I have lived to be the most
credulous and the most superstitious of men. It is now fourteen years
and twenty-seven days--I remember the time to an hour--since I sold that
pony to the Prince Ernest von Saxen-hausen, and since that day I never
had luck. So long as I owned him all went well with me. I ought to tell
you that I am the chief of a company of equestrians, and one corps,
known as Klam's Kunst-Reiters, was the most celebrated on the Continent
In three years I made three hundred thousand guilders, and if the devil
had not induced me to sell “Schatzchen”--that was his name--I should be
this day as rich as Heman Rothschild! From the hour he walked out of the
circus our calamities began. I lost my wife by fever at Wiesbaden, the
most perfect high-school horsewoman in Europe; my son, of twenty years
of age, fell, and dislocated his neck; the year after, at Vienna, my
daughter Gretchen was blinded riding through a fiery hoop at Homburg;
and four years later, all the company died of yellow fever at the
Havannah, leaving me utterly beggared and ruined. Now these, you would
say, though great misfortunes, are all in the course of common events.
But what will you say when, on the eve of each of them, Schatzchen
appeared to me in a dream, performing some well-known feat or other, and
bringing down, as he ever did, thunders of applause; and never did he so
appear without a disaster coming after. I struggled hard before I
suffered this notion to influence me. It was years before I even
mentioned it to any one; and I used for a while to make a jest of it in
the circus, saying, “Take care of yourselves tonight, for I saw
Schatzchen.” Of course they were not the stuff to be deterred by such
warnings, but they became so at last. That they did, and were so
terrified, so thoroughly terrified, that the day after one of my visions
not a single member of the troupe would venture on a hazardous feat of
any kind; and if we performed at all, it was only some commonplace
exercises, with few risks, and no daring exploits whatever. Worn out
with evil fortune, crushed and almost broken-hearted, I struggled on for
years, secretly determining, if ever I should chance upon him, to buy
back Schatzchen with my last penny in the world. Indeed, there were
moments in which such was the intense excitement of my mind, I could
have committed a dreadful crime to regain possession of him. We were on
the eve of embarking for Ostend the other night, when I saw you riding
on the Downs, and I came ashore at once to track you out, for I knew
him, though fully half a mile away. None of my comrades could guess what
detained me, nor understand why I asked each of them in turn to lend me
whatever money he could spare. It was in this way I made up the little
purse you see. It was thus provided that I dared to present myself
to-day before you.”

“As he gave me this narrative, his manner grew more eager and excited,
and I could not help feeling that his mind, from the long-continued
pressure of one thought, had received a serious shock. It was exactly
one of those cases which physicians describe as leaving the intellect
unimpaired, while some one faculty is under the thraldom of a dominant
and all-pervading impression. I saw this more palpably, when, having
declined to accept more than his original offer of fifty pounds, I
replaced the remainder in his hand, he evinced scarcely any gratitude
for my liberality, so totally was he engrossed by the idea that the
horse was now his own, and that Fortune would no longer have any pretext
for using him so severely as before.

“'I don't know,--I cannot know,' said he, 'if fortune means to deal more
kindly by me than heretofore, but I feel a sort of confidence in the
future now; I have a kind of trustful courage as to what may come, that
tells me no disaster will deter me, no mishap cast me down.'

“These were his words as he arose to take his leave. Of his meeting with
the pony I am afraid to trust myself to speak. It was such an overflow
of affection as one might witness from a long absent brother on being
once again restored to his own. I cannot say that the beast knew him,
nor would I go so far as to assert that he did not, for certainly some
of his old instincts seemed gradually to revive within him on hearing
certain words; and when ordered to take a respectful farewell of me, the
pony planted a foreleg on each of his master's shoulders, and,
taking off his hat with his teeth, bowed twice or thrice in the most
deferential fashion. I wished them both every success in life, and we
parted. As I took my evening's stroll on the pier, I saw them embark for
Ostend, the pony sheeted most carefully, and every imaginable precaution
taken to insure him against cold. The man himself was poorly clad, and
indifferently provided against the accidents of the voyage. He appeared
to feel that the disparity required a word of apology, for he said, in a
whisper: 'It 'll soon furnish me with a warm cloak; it 'll not leave
me long in difficulties!' I assure you, my dear Crofton, there was
something contagious in the poor fellow's superstition, for, as he
sailed away, the thought lay heavily on my heart, 'What if I, too,
should have parted with my good luck in life? How if I have bartered my
fortune for a few pieces of money?' The longer I dwelt on this theme,
the more forcibly did it strike me. My original possession of the animal
was accomplished in a way that aided the illusion. It was thus I won him
on a hit of backgammon!”

As I read thus far, the paper dropped from my hands, my head reeled, and
in a faint dreamy state, as if drugged by some strong narcotic, I sank,
I know not how long, unconscious. The first thing which met my eyes on
awakening, was the line, “I won him on a hit of backgammon!” The whole
story was at once before me. It was of Blondel I was reading! Blondel
was the beast whose influence had swayed one man's destiny. So long as
he owned him, the world went well and happily with him; all prospered
and succeeded. It was a charm like the old lamp of Aladdin. And this was
the treasure I had lost. So far from imputing an ignorant superstition
to the German, I concurred in every speculation, every theory of
his invention. The man had evidently discovered one of those curious
problems in what we rashly call the doctrine of chances. It was not
the animal himself that secured good fortune, it was that, in his
“circumstances,” what Strauff calls “die amringende Bege-benheiten”
 of his lot, this creature was sure to call forth efforts and develop
resources in his possessor, of which, without his aid, he would have
gone all through life unconscious.

The vulgar notion that our lives are the sport of accident,--the minute
too early or too late, the calm that detained us, the snow-storm that
blocked the road, the chance meeting with this or that man, which we lay
such stress on,--what are they in reality but trivial incidents without
force or effect, save that they impel to action? They call out certain
qualities in our nature by which our whole characters become modified.
Your horse balks at a fence, and throws you over his head; the fall is
not a very grave one, and you are scarcely hurt; you have fallen into
a turnip-field, and the honest fellow, who is hoeing away near, comes
kindly to your aid, and, in good Samaritan fashion, bathes your temples
and restores you. When you leave him at last, you go forth with a
kindlier notion of human nature; you recognize the tie “that makes the
whole world kin,” and you seem to think that hard toil hardens not the
heart, nor a life of labor shuts out generous sympathies,--the lesson is
a life one. But suppose that in your fall you alight on a bed of choice
tulips, you descend in the midst of a rich parterre of starry anemones,
and that your first conscious struggles are met with words of anger and
reproach; instead of sorrow for your suffering, you hear sarcasms
on your horsemanship, and insults on your riding,--no sympathy, no
kindness, no generous anxiety for your safety, but all that irritate and
offend,--more thought, in fact, for the petals of a flower than for the
ligaments of your knee,--then, too, is the lesson a life one, and
its fruits will be bitter memories for many a year. The events of our
existence are in reality nothing, save in our treatment of them. By
Blondel, I recognized one of those suggestive influences which mould
fate by moulding temperament. The deep reflecting German saw this: it
was clear _he_ knew that in that animal was typified all that his life
might become. Why should not I contest the prize with him? Blondel was
charged with another destiny as well as his.

I turned once more to the letter, but I could not bear to read it; so
many were the impertinent allusions to myself, my manner, my appearance,
and my conversation. Still more insulting were the speculations as to
what class or condition I belonged to. “He puzzled us completely,” wrote
the priest, “for while unmistakably vulgar in many things, there were
certain indications of reading and education about him that refuted the
notion of his being what Keldrum thought,--an escaped counter-jumper!
The Guardsman insisted he was a valet; my own impression was, the fellow
had kept a small circulating library, and gone mad with the three-volume
novels. At all events, I have given him a lesson which, whether
profitable or not to _him_, has turned out tolerably well for _me_,
If ever you chance to hear of him,--his name was Podder or Pedder, I
think,--pray let me know, for my curiosity is still unslaked about him.”
 He thence went off to a sort of descriptive catalogue of my signs and
tokens, so positively insulting that I cannot recall it; the whole
winding up: “Add to all these an immense pomposity of tone, with a lisp,
and a Dublin accent, and you can scarcely mistake him.” Need I say,
benevolent reader, that fouler calumnies were never uttered, nor more
unfounded slanders ever pronounced?

It is not in this age of photography that a man need defend his
appearance. By the aid of sun and collodion, I may, perhaps, one
day convince you that I am not so devoid of personal graces as this
foul-mouthed priest would persuade you. I am, possibly, in this pledge,
exceeding the exact limits which this publication may enable me to
sustain. I may be contracting an engagement which cannot be, consistent
with its principles, fulfilled. If so, I must be your artist; but I
swear to you, that I shall not flatter. Potto, painted by himself, shall
be a true portrait. Meanwhile I have time to look out for my canvas, and
you will be patient enough to wait till it be filled.

Again to this confounded letter:--

“There is another reason” (wrote Dyke ) “why I should like to-chance
upon this fellow.” (“This fellow” meant me.) “I used to fancy myself
unequalled in the imaginative department of conversation, by the vulgar
called lying. Here, I own, with some shame, he was my match. A more
fearless, determined, go-ahead liar, I never met. Now, as one who deems
himself no small proficient in the art, I would really like to meet
him once more. We could approach each other like the augurs of old, and
agree to be candid and free-spoken together, exchanging our ideas on
this great topic, and frankly communicating any secret knowledge each
might deem that he possessed. I'd go a hundred miles to pass an evening
with him alone, to hear from his own lips the sort of early training and
discipline his mind went through,--who were his first instructors,
what his original inducements. Of one thing I feel certain: a man
thus constituted has only to put the curb upon his faculty to be most
successful in life, his perils will all lie in the exuberance of
his resources; let him simply bend himself to believe in some of the
impositions he would force upon others. Let him give his delusions the
force acquired by convictions, and there is no limit to what he may
become. Be on the lookout, therefore, for him, as a great psychological
phenomenon, the man who outlied

“Your sincerely attached friend,

“Thomas Darcy Dyke.

“P. S. I have just remembered his name. It was Potts; the villain said
from the Pozzo di Borgo family. I 'm sure with this hint you can't fail
to run him to earth; and I entreat of you spare no pains to do it.”


There followed here some more impertinent personalities as clews to my
discovery, which my indulgent reader will graciously excuse me if I do
not stop to record; enough to say they were as unfounded as they were
scurrilous.

Another and very different train of thought, however, soon banished
these considerations. This letter had been given me by Crofton, who had
already read it; he had perused all this insolent narrative about
me before handing it to me, and doubtless, in so doing, had no other
intention than to convey, in the briefest and most emphatic way to me,
that I was found out. It was simply saying, in the shortest possible
space, “Thou art the man!” Oh, the ineffable shame and misery of that
thought! Oh, the bitterness of feeling! How my character should now be
viewed and my future discussed! “Only think, Mary,” I fancied I heard
him say,--“only think who our friend should turn out to be,--this same
Potts: the fellow that vanquished Father Dyke in story-telling, and
outlied the priest! And here we have been lavishing kindness and
attentions upon one who, after all, is little better than a swindler,
sailing under false colors and fictitious credentials; for who can now
credit one syllable about his having written those verses he read for
us, or composed that tale of which he told us the opening? What a lesson
in future about extending confidence to utter strangers! What caution
and reserve should it not teach us! How guarded should we be not to
suffer ourselves to be fascinated by the captivations of manner and the
insinuating charms of address! If Potts had been less prepossessing
in appearance, less gifted and agreeable,--if, instead of being a
consummate man of the world, with the breeding of a courtier and the
knowledge of a scholar, he had been a pedantic puppy with a lisp and a
Dublin accent--” Oh, ignominy and disgrace! these were the very words
of the priest in describing me, which came so aptly to my memory, and I
grew actually sick with shame as I recalled them. I next became angry.
Was this conduct of Crofton's delicate or considerate? Was it becoming
in one who had treated me as his friend thus abruptly to conclude our
intimacy by an insult? Handing me such a letter was saying, “There's a
portrait; can you say any one it resembles?” How much more generous had
he said, “Tell me all about this wager of yours with Father Dyke; I want
to hear _your_ account of it, for old Tom is not the most veracious of
mortals, nor the most mealy-mouthed of commentators. Just give me _your_
version of the incident, Potts, and I am satisfied it will be the true
one.” That's what he might, that's what he ought to have said. I can
swear it is what I, Potts, would have done by _him_, or by any other
stranger whose graceful manners and pleasing qualities had won my esteem
and conciliated my regard. I 'd have said, “Potts, I have seen enough
of life to know how unjust it is to measure men by one and the same
standard. The ardent, impassioned nature cannot be ranked with the cold
and calculating spirit The imaginative man has the same necessity for
the development of his creative faculty as the strongly muscular man
of bodily exercise. He must blow off the steam of his invention, or the
boiler will not contain it. You and Le Sage and Alexandre Dumas are a
category. You are not the Clerks of a Census Commission, or Masters
in Equity. You are the chartered libertines of fiction. Shake out your
reefs, and go free,--free as the winds that waft you!”

To all these reflections came the last one. “I must be up and doing, and
that speedily! I will recover Blondel, if I devote my life to the
task. I will regain him, let the cost be what it may. Mounted upon that
creature, I will ride up to the Rosary; the time shall be evening; a sun
just sunk behind the horizon shall have left in the upper atmosphere a
golden and rosy light, which shall tip his mane with a softened lustre,
and shed over my own features a rich Titian-like tint. 'I come,' will I
say, 'to vindicate the fair fame of one who once owned your affection.
It is Potts, the man of impulse, the child of enthusiasm, who now
presents himself before you. Poor, if you like to call him so, in
worldly craft or skill, poor in its possessions, but rich, boundlessly
rich, in the stores of an ideal wealth. Blondel and I are the embodiment
of this idea. These fancies you have stigmatized as lies are but the
pilot balloons by which great minds calculate the currents in that upper
air they are about to soar in.'”

And, last of all, there was a sophistry that possessed a great charm for
my mind, in this wise: to enable a man, humble as myself, to reach that
station in which a career of adventure should open before him, some
ground must be won, some position gained. That I assume to be something
that I am not, is simply to say that I trade upon credit. If my future
transactions be all honorable and trustworthy,--if by a fiction,
only known to my own heart, I acquire that eminence from which I
can distribute benefits to hundreds,--who is to stigmatize me as a
fraudulent trader?

Is it not a well-known fact, that many of those now acknowledged as the
wealthiest of men, might, at some time or other of their lives, have
been declared insolvent had the real state of their affairs been known?
The world, however, had given them its confidence, and time did the
rest. Let the same world be but as generous towards _me!_ The day will
come,--I say it confidently and boldly,--the day will come when I can
“show my books,” and “point to my balance-sheet.” When Archimedes asked
for a base on which to rest his lever, he merely uttered the great
truth, that some one fixed point is essential to the success of a motive
power.

It is by our use or abuse of opportunity we are either good or bad
men. The physician is not less conversant with noxious drags than the
poisoner; the difference lies in the fact that the one employs his skill
to alleviate suffering, the other to work out evil and destruction. If
I, therefore, but make some feigned station in life the groundwork from
which I can become the benefactor of my fellowmen, I shall be good
and blameless. My heart tells me how well and how fairly I mean by the
world: I would succor the weak, console the afflicted, and lift up the
oppressed; and if to carry out grand and glorious conceptions of this
kind all that be needed is a certain self-delusion which may extend
its influence to others, “Go in,” I say, “Potts; be all that your fancy
suggests,--

     Dives, honoratus, pulcher, rex deniqne regain,

--Be rich, honored and fair, a prince or a begum,--but, above all, never
distrust your destiny, or doubt your star.”




CHAPTER VIII. IMAGINATION STIMULATED BY BRANDY AND WATER.

So absorbed was I in the reflections of which my last chapter is the
record, that I utterly forgot how time was speeding, and perceived
at last, to my great surprise, that I had strayed miles away from the
Rosary, and that evening was already near. The spires and roofs of a
town were distant about a mile at a bend of the river, and for this I
now made, determined on no account to turn back, for how could I ever
again face those who had read the terrible narrative of the priest's
letter, and before whom I could only present myself as a cheat and
impostor?

“No,” thought I, “my destiny points onward,--and to Blondel; nothing
shall turn me from my path.” Less than an hour's walking brought me to
the town, of which I had but time to learn the name,--New Ross. I left
it in a small steamer for Waterford, a little vessel in correspondence
with the mail packet for Milford, and which I learned would sail that
evening at nine.

The same night saw me seated on the deck, bound for England. On the
deck, I say, for I had need to husband my resources, and travel with
every imaginable economy, not only because my resources were small in
themselves, but that, having left all that I possessed of clothes and
baggage at the Rosary, I should be obliged to acquire a complete outfit
on reaching England.

It was a calm night, with a starry sky and a tranquil sea; and, when
the cabin passengers had gone down to their berths, the captain did not
oppose my stealing “aft” to the quarter-deck, where I could separate
myself from the somewhat riotous company of the harvest laborers that
thronged the forepart of the vessel. He saw, with that instinct a sailor
is eminently gifted with, that I was not of that class by which I was
surrounded, and with a ready courtesy he admitted me to the privilege of
isolation.

“You are going to enlist, I 'll be bound,” said he, as he passed me in
his short deck walk. “Ain't I right?”

“No,” said I; “I'm going to seek my fortune.”

“Seek your fortune!” he repeated, with a slighting sort of laugh. “One
used to read about fellows doing that in story books when a child, but
it's rather strange to hear of it nowadays.”

“And may I presume to ask why should it be more strange now than
formerly? Is not the world pretty much what it used to be? Is not the
drama of life the same stock piece our forefathers played ages ago? Are
not the actors and the actresses made up of the precise materials their
ancestors were? Can you tell me of a new sentiment, a new emotion, or
even a new crime? Why, therefore, should there be a seeming incongruity
in reviving any feature of the past?”

“Just because it won't do, my good friend,” said he, bluntly. “If the
law catches a fellow lounging about the world in these times, it takes
him up for a vagabond.”

“And what can be finer, grander, or freer than a vagabond?” I cried,
with enthusiasm. “Who, I would ask you, sees life with such philosophy?
Who views the wiles, the snares, the petty conflicts of the world with
such a reflective calm as his? Caring little for personal indulgence,
not solicitous for self-gratification, he has both the spirit and the
leisure for observation. Diogenes was the type of the vagabond, and see
how successive ages have acknowledged his wisdom.”

“If I had lived in _his_ day, I'd have set him picking oakum, for all
that!” he replied.

“And probably, too, would have sent the 'blind old bard to the crank,'”
 said I.

“I'm not quite sure of whom you are talking,” said he; “but if he was a
good ballad-singer, I'd not be hard on him.”

“O! Menin aeide Thea Peleiadeo Achilleos!” spouted I out, in rapture.

“That ain't high Dutch,” asked he, “is it?”

“No,” said I, proudly. “It is ancient Greek,--the godlike tongue of an
immortal race.”

“Immortal rascals!” he broke in. “I was in the fruit trade up in the
Levant there, and such scoundrels as these Greek fellows I never met in
my life.”

“By what and whom made so?” I exclaimed eagerly. “Can you point to a
people in the world who have so long resisted the barbarizing influence
of a base oppression? Was there ever a nation so imbued with high
civilization as to be enabled for centuries of slavery to preserve the
traditions of its greatness? Have we the record of any race but this,
who could rise from the slough of degradation to the dignity of a
people?”

“You 've been a play-actor, I take it?” asked he, dryly.

“No, sir, never!” replied I, with some indignation.

“Well, then, in the Methody line? You've done a stroke of preaching, I
'll be sworn.”

“You would be perjured in that case, sir,” I rejoined, as haughtily.

“At all events, an auctioneer,” said he, fairly puzzled in his
speculations.

“Equally mistaken there,” said I, calmly; “bred in the midst of
abundance, nurtured in affluence, and educated with all the solicitous
care that a fond parent could bestow--”

“Gammon!” said he, bluntly. “You are one of the swell mob in distress!”

“Is this like distress?” said I, drawing forth my purse in which were
seventy-five sovereigns, and handing it to him. “Count over that, and
say how just and how generous are your suspicions.”

He gravely took the purse from me, and, stooping down to the binnacle
light, counted over the money, scrutinizing carefully the pieces as he
went.

“And who is to say this isn't 'swag'?” said he, as he closed the purse.

“The easiest answer to that,” said I, “is, would it be likely for a
thief to show his booty, not merely to a stranger, but to a stranger who
suspected him?”

“Well, that is something, I confess,” said he, slowly.

“It ought to be more,--it ought to be everything. If distrust were not
a debasing sentiment, obstructing the impulses of generosity, and even
invading the precincts of justice, you would see far more reason to
confide in than to disbelieve me.”

“I 've been done pretty often afore now,” he muttered, half to himself.

“What a fallacy that is!” cried I, contemptuously. “Was not the pittance
that some crafty impostor wrung from your compassion well repaid to you
in the noble self-consciousness of your generosity? Did not your venison
on that day taste better when you thought of his pork chop? Had not
your Burgundy gained flavor by the memory of the glass of beer that was
warming the half-chilled heart in his breast? Oh, the narrow mockery of
fancying that we are not better by being deceived!”

“How long is it since you had your head shaved?” he asked dryly.

“I have never been the inmate of an asylum for lunatics,” said I,
divining and answering the impertinent insinuation.

“Well, I own you are a rum un,” said he, half musingly.

“I accept even this humble tribute to my originality,” said I, with a
sort of proud defiance. “I am well aware how _he_ must be regarded who
dares to assert his own individuality.”

“I'd be very curious to know,” said he, after a pause of several
minutes, “how a fellow of your stamp sets to work about gaining his
livelihood? What's his first step? how does he go about it?”

I gave no other answer than a smile of scornful meaning.

“I meant nothing offensive,” resumed he, “but I really have a strong
desire to be enlightened on this point.”

“You are doubtless impressed with the notion,” said I, boldly, “that men
possessed of some distinct craft or especial profession are alone needed
by the world of their fellows. That one must be doctor or lawyer or
baker or shoemaker, to gain his living, as if life had no other wants
than to be clothed and fed and physicked and litigated. As if humanity
had not its thousand emotional moods, its wayward impulses, its trials
and temptations, all of them more needing guidance, support, direction,
and counsel, than the sickest patient needs a physician. It is on this
world that I throw myself; I devote myself to guide infancy, to console
age, to succor the orphan, and support the widow,--morally, I mean.”

“I begin to suspect you are a most artful vagabond,” said he half
angrily.

“I have long since reconciled myself to the thought of an unjust
appreciation,” said I. “It is the consolation dull men accept when
confronted with those of original genius. You can't help confessing that
all your distrust of me has grown out of the superiority of my powers,
and the humble figure you have presented in comparison with me.”

“Do you rank modesty amongst these same powers?” he asked slyly.

“Modesty I reject,” said I, “as being a conventional form of hypocrisy.”

“Come down below,” said he, “and take a glass of brandy and water. It
's growing chilly here, and we shall be the better of something to cheer
us.”

Seated in his comfortable little cabin, and with a goodly array of
liquors before me to choose from, I really felt a self-confidence in the
fact that, if I were not something out of the common, I could not then
be there. “There must be in my nature,” thought I, “that element which
begets success, or I could not always find myself in situations so
palpably beyond the accidents of my condition.”

My host was courtesy itself; no sooner was I his guest than he adopted
towards me a manner of perfect politeness. No more allusions to my
precarious mode of life, never once a reference to my adventurous
future. Indeed, with an almost artful exercise of good breeding, he
turned the conversation towards himself, and gave me a sketch of his own
life.

It was not in any respects a remarkable one; though it had its share of
those mishaps and misfortunes which every sailor must have confronted.
He was wrecked in the Pacific, and robbed in the Havannah; had his crew
desert him at San Francisco, and was boarded by Riff pirates, and sold
in Barbary just as every other blue jacket used to be; and I listened
to the story, only marvelling what a dreary sameness pervades all these
narratives. Why, for one trait of the truthful to prove his tale, I
could have invented fifty. There were no little touches of sentiment
or feeling, no relieving lights of human emotion, in his story. I never
felt, as I listened, any wish that he should be saved from shipwreck,
baffle his persecutors, or escape his captors; and I thought to myself,
“This fellow has certainly got no narrative gusto.” Now for _my_ turn:
we had each of us partaken freely of the good liquor before us. The
Captain in his quality of talker, I in my capacity of listener,
had filled and refilled several times. There was not anything like
inebriety, but there was that amount of exultation, a stage higher than
mere excitement, which prompts men, at least men of temperaments like
mine, not to suffer themselves to occupy rear rank positions, but at any
cost to become foreground and prominent figures.

“You have heard of the M'Gillicuddys, I suppose?” asked I. He nodded,
and I went on. “You see, then, at this moment before you, the last of
the race. I mean, of course, of the elder branch, for there are swarms
of the others, well to do and prosperous also, and with fine estated
properties. I 'll not weary you with family history. I 'll not refer to
that remote time when my ancestors wore the crown, and ruled the fair
kingdom of Kerry. In the Annals of the Four Masters, and also in the
Chronicles of Thealbogh O'Faudlemh, you 'll find a detailed account of
our house. I 'll simply narrate for you the immediate incident which has
made me what you see me,--an outcast and a beggar.

“My father was the tried and trusted friend of that noble-hearted but
mistaken man, Lord Edward Fitzgerald. The famous attempt of the year
'eight was concerted between them; and all the causes of its failure,
secret as they are and forever must be, are known to him who now
addresses you. I dare not trust myself to talk of these times or
things, lest I should by accident let drop what might prove strictly
confidential. I will but recount one incident, and that a personal one,
of the period. On the night of Lord Edward's capture, my father, who had
invited a friend--deep himself in the conspiracy--to dine with him,
met his guest on the steps of his hall door. Mr. Hammond--this was his
name--was pale and horror-struck, and could scarcely speak, as my father
shook his hand. 'Do you know what has happened, Mac?' said he to my
father. 'Lord Edward is taken, Major Sirr and his party have tracked him
to his hiding-place; they have got hold of all our papers, and we are
lost By this time to-morrow every man of us will be within the walls of
Newgate.'

“'Don't look so gloomily, Tom,' said my father. 'Lord Edward will escape
them yet; he's not a bird to be snared so easily; and, after all, we
shall find means to slip our cables too. Come in, and enjoy your sirloin
and a good glass of port, and you'll view the world more pleasantly.'
With a little encouragement of this sort he cheered him up, and the
dinner passed off agreeably enough; but still my father could see that
his friend was by no means at his ease, and at every time the door
opened he would start with a degree of surprise that augured anxiety
of some coming event. From these and other signs of uneasiness in
his manner, my father drew his own conclusions, and with a quick
intelligence of look communicated his suspicions to my mother, who was
herself a keen and shrewd observer.

“'Do you think, Matty,' said he, as they sat over their wine, that I
could find a bottle of the old green seal if I was to look for it in the
cellar? It has been upwards of forty years there, and I never touch it
save on especial occasions; but an old friend like Hammond deserves such
a treat.'

“My father fancied that Hammond grew paler as he thus alluded to their
old friendship, and he gave my mother a rapid glance of his sharp eye,
and, taking the cellar key, he left the room. Immediately outside the
door, he hastened to the stable, and saddled and bridled a horse, and,
slipping quietly out, he rode for the sea-coast, near the Skerries. It
was sixteen miles from Dublin, but he did the distance within the hour.
And well was it for him that he employed such speed! With a liberal
offer of money and the gold watch he wore, he secured a small
fishing-smack to convey him over to France, for which he sailed
immediately. I have said it was well that he employed such speed; for,
after waiting with suppressed impatience for my father's return from the
cellar, Hammond expressed to my mother his fears lest my father might
have been taken ill. She tried to quiet his apprehensions, but the very
calmness of her manner served only to increase them. 'I can bear this no
longer,' cried he, at last, rising, in much excitement, from his chair;
'I must see what has become of him!' At the same moment the door
was suddenly flung open, and an officer of police, in full uniform,
presented himself. 'He has got away, sir,' said he, addressing Hammond;
'the stable-door is open, and one of the horses missing.'

“My mother, from whom I heard the story, had only time to utter a 'Thank
God!' before she fainted. On recovering her senses, she found herself
alone in the room. The traitor Hammond and the police had left her
without even calling the servants to her aid.”

“And your father,--what became of him?” asked the skipper, eagerly.

“He arrived in Paris in sorry plight enough; but, fortunately, Clarke,
whose influence with the Emperor was unbounded, was a distant connection
of our family. By his intervention my father obtained an interview with
his Majesty, who was greatly struck by the adventurous spirit and daring
character of the man; not the less so because he had the courage to
disabuse the Emperor of many notions and impressions he had conceived
about the readiness of Ireland to accept French assistance.

“Though my father would much have preferred taking service in the army,
the Emperor, who had strong prejudices against men becoming soldiers
who had not served in every grade from the ranks upwards, opposed
this intention, and employed him in a civil capacity. In fact, to his
management were intrusted some of the most delicate and difficult secret
negotiations; and he gained a high name for acuteness and honorable
dealing. In recognition of his services, his name was inscribed in the
Grand Livre for a considerable pension; but at the fall of the dynasty,
this, with hundreds of others equally meritorious, was annulled; and my
father, worn out with age and disappointment together, sank at last, and
died at Dinant, where my mother was buried but a few years previously.
Meanwhile he was tried and found guilty of high treason in Ireland, and
all his lands and other property forfeited to the Crown. My present
journey was simply a pilgrimage to see the old possessions that once
belonged to our race. It was my father's last wish that I should visit
the ancient home of our family, and stand upon the hills that once
acknowledged us as their ruler. He never desired that I should remain a
French subject; a lingering love for his own country mingled in his
heart with a certain resentment towards France, who had certainly
treated him with ingratitude; and almost his last words to me were,
'Distrust the Gaul.' When I told you awhile back that I was nurtured in
affluence, it was so to all appearance; for my father had spent every
shilling of his-capital on my education, and I was under the firm
conviction that I was born to a very great fortune. You may judge the
terrible revulsion of my feelings when I learned that I had to face the
world almost, if not actually, a beggar.

“I could easily have attached myself as a hanger-on of some of my
well-to-do relations. Indeed, I will say for them, that they showed
the kindest disposition to befriend me; but the position of a dependant
would have destroyed every chance of happiness for me, and so I resolved
that I would fearlessly throw myself upon the broad ocean of life, and
trust that some sea current or favoring wind would bear me at last into
a harbor of safety.”

“What can you do?” asked the skipper, curtly.

“Everything, and nothing! I have, so to say, the 'sentiment' of all
things in my heart, but am not capable of executing one of them. With
the most correct ear, I know not a note of music; and though I could
not cook you a chop, I have the most excellent appreciation of a
well-dressed dinner.”

“Well,” said he, laughing, “I must confess I don't suspect these to be
exactly the sort of gifts to benefit your fellow-man.”

“And yet,” said I, “it is exactly to individuals of this stamp that the
world accords its prizes. The impresario that provides the opera could
not sing nor dance. The general who directs the campaign might be sorely
puzzled how to clean his musket or pipeclay his belt. The great minister
who imposes a tax might be totally unequal to the duty of applying its
provisions. Ask him to gauge a hogshead of spirits, for instance. _My_
position is like _theirs_. I tell you, once more, the world wants men of
wide conceptions and far-ranging ideas,--men who look to great results
and grand combinations.”

“But, to be practical, how do you mean to breakfast to-morrow morning?”

“At a moderate cost, but comfortably: tea, rolls, two eggs, and a
rumpsteak with fried potatoes.”

“What's your name?” said he, taking out his note-book. “I mustn't forget
you when I hear of you next.”

“For the present, I call myself Potts,--Mr. Potts, if you please.”

“Write it here yourself,” said he, handing me the pencil. And I wrote in
a bold, vigorous hand, “Algernon Sydney-Potts,” with the date.

“Preserve that autograph, Captain,” said I; “it is in no-spirit of
vanity I say it, but the day will come you 'll refuse a ten-pound note
for it.”

“Well, I'd take a trifle less just now,” said he, smiling.

He sat for some time gravely contemplating the writing, and at length,
in a sort of half soliloquy, said, “Bob would like him,--he would suit
Bob.” Then, lifting his head, he addressed me: “I have a brother in
command of one of the P. and O. steamers,--just the fellow for _you_. He
has got ideas pretty much like your own about success in life, and won't
be persuaded that he isn't the first seaman in the English navy; or
that he hasn't a plan to send Cherbourg and its breakwater sky-high, at
twenty-four hours' warning.”

“An enthusiast,--a visionary, I have no doubt,” said I, contemptuously.

“Well, I think you might be more merciful in your judgment of a man of
your own stamp,” retorted he, laughing. “At all events, it would be as
good as a play to see you together. If you should chance to be at Malta,
or Marseilles, when the _Clarence_ touches there, just ask for Captain
Rogers; tell him you know me, that will be enough.”

“Why not give me a line of introduction to him?” said I, with an easy
indifference. “These things serve to clear away the awkwardness of a
self-presentation.”

“I don't care if I do,” said he, taking a sheet of paper, and beginning
'Dear Bob,'--after which he paused and deliberated, muttering the words
'Dear Bob' three or four times over below his breath.

“'Dear Bob,'” said I aloud, in the tone of one dictating to an
amanuensis,--“'This brief note will be handed to you by a very valued
friend of mine, Algernon Sydney Potts, a man so completely after
your own heart that I feel a downright satisfaction in bringing you
together.'”

“Well, that ain't so bad,” said he, as he uttered the last words which
fell from his pen--“'in bringing you together.'”

“Go on,” said I dictatorially, and continued: “'Thrown by a mere
accident myself into his society, I was so struck by his attainments,
the originality of his views, and the wide extent of his knowledge of
life----' Have you _that_ down?”

“No,” said he, in some confusion; “I am only at 'entertainments.'”

“I said 'attainments,' sir,” said I rebukingly, and then repeating the
passage word for word, till he had written it--“'that I conceived for
him a regard and an esteem rarely accorded to others than our oldest
friends.' One word more: 'Potts, from certain circumstances, which
I cannot here enter upon, may appear to you in some temporary
inconvenience as regards money----'”

Here the captain stopped, and gave me a most significant look: it was at
once an appreciation and an expression of drollery.

“Go on,” said I dryly. “'If so,'” resumed I, “'be guardedly cautious
neither to notice his embarrassment nor allude to it; above all, take
especial care that you make no offer to remove the inconvenience, for he
is one of those whose sensibilities are so fine, and whose sentiments sa
fastidious, that he could never recover, in his own esteem, the dignity
compromised by such an incident.'”

“Very neatly turned,” said he, as he re-read the passage. “I think
that's quite enough.”

“Ample. You have nothing more to do than sign your name to it.”

He did this, with a verificatory flourish at foot, folded and sealed the
letter, and handed it to me, saying--

“If it weren't for the handwriting, Bob would never believe all that
fine stuff came from _me_; but you 'll tell him it was after three
glasses of brandy-and-water that I dashed it off--that will explain
everything.”

I promised faithfully to make the required explanation, and then
proceeded to make some inquiries about this brother Bob, whose nature
was in such a close affinity with my own. I could learn, however, but
little beyond the muttered acknowledgment that Bob was a “queer 'un,”
 and that there was never his equal for “falling upon good-luck,
and spending it after,” a description which, when applied to my own
conscience, told an amount of truth that was actually painful.

“There's no saying,” said I, as I pocketed the letter, “if this epistle
should ever reach your brother's hand, my course in life is too wayward
and uncertain for me to say in what corner of the earth fate may find
me; but if we _are_ to meet, you shall hear of it. Rogers”--I said,
“this you extended to me, at a time that, to all seeming, I needed
such attentions--at a time, I say, when none but myself could know how
independently I stood as regarded means; and of one thing be assured,
Rogers, he whose caprice it now is to call himself Potts, is your
friend, your fast friend, for life.”

He wrung my hand cordially--perhaps it was the easiest way for an honest
sailor, as he was, to acknowledge the patronising tone of my speech--but
I could plainly see that he was sorely puzzled by the situation,
and possibly very well pleased that there was no third party to be a
spectator of it.

“Throw yourself there on that sofa,” said he, “and take a sleep.” And
with that piece of counsel he left me, and went up on deck.




CHAPTER IX. HIS INTEREST IN A LADY FELLOW-TRAVELLER.

Next mornings are terrible things, whether one awakes to the thought of
some awful run of ill-luck at play, or with the racking headache of
new port or a very “fruity” Burgundy. They are dreadful, too, when
they bring memories--vague and indistinct, perhaps--of some serious
altercations, passionate words exchanged, and expressions of defiance
reciprocated; but, as a measure of self-reproach and humiliation, I
know not any distress can compare with the sensation of awaking to the
consciousness that our cups have so ministered to imagination that we
have given a mythical narrative of ourself and our belongings, and have
built up a card edifice of greatness that must tumble with the first
touch of truth.

It was a sincere satisfaction to me that I saw nothing of the skipper on
that “next morning.” He was so occupied with all the details of getting
into port, that I escaped his notice, and contrived to land unremarked.
Little scraps of my last night's biography would obtrude themselves upon
me, mixed up strangely with incidents of that same skipper's life, so
that I was actually puzzled at moments to remember whether “he” was not
the descendant of the famous rebel friend of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and
_I_ it was who was sold in the public square at Tunis.

These dissolving views of an evening before are very difficult
problems,--not to _you_, most valued reader, whose conscience is not
burglariously assaulted by a riotous imagination, but to the poor weak
Potts-like organizations, the men who never énjoy a real sensation, or
taste a real pleasure, save on the hypothesis of a mock situation.

I sat at my breakfast in the “Goat” meditating these things. The
grand problem to resolve was this: Is it better to live a life of
dull incidents and commonplace events in one's own actual sphere, or,
creating, by force of imagination, an ideal status, to soar into a
region of higher conceptions and more pictorial situations? What could
existence in the first case offer me? A wearisome beaten path, with
nothing to interest, nothing to stimulate me. On the other side lay
glorious regions of lovely scenery, peopled with figures the most
graceful and attractive. I was at once the associate of the wise, the
witty, and the agreeable, with wealth at my command, and great
prizes within my reach. Illusions all! to be sure; but what are not
illusions,--if by that word you take mere account of permanence? What is
it in this world that we love to believe real is not illusionary,--the
question of duration being the only difference? Is not beauty
perishable? Is not wit soon exhausted? What becomes of the proudest
physical strength after middle life is reached? What of eloquence when
the voice fails or loses its facility of inflection?

All these considerations, however convincing to myself, were not equally
satisfactory as regarded others; and so I sat down to write a letter to
Crofton, explaining the reasons of my sudden departure, and enclosing
him Father Dyke's epistle, which I had carried away with me. I began
this letter with the most firm resolve to be truthful and accurate. I
wrote down, not only the date, but the day. “'Goat,' Milford,” followed,
and then, “My dear Crofton,--It would ill become one who has partaken
of your generous hospitality, and who, from an unknown stranger, was
admitted to the privilege of your intimacy, to quit the roof beneath
which the happiest hours of his life were passed without expressing the
deep shame and sorrow such a step has cost him, while he bespeaks your
indulgence to hear the reason.” This was my first sentence, and it gave
me uncommon trouble. I desired to be dignified, yet grateful, proud in
my humility, grieved over an abrupt departure, but sustained by a manly
confidence in the strength of my own motives. If I read it over once, I
read it twenty times; now deeming it too diffuse, now fearing lest I had
compressed my meaning too narrowly. Might it not be better to open thus:
“Strike, but hear me, dear Crofton, or, before condemning the unhappy
creature whose abject cry for mercy may seem but to increase the
presumption of his guilt, and in whose faltering accents may appear the
signs of a stricken conscience, read over, dear friend, the entire of
this letter, weigh well the difficulties and dangers of him who wrote
it, and say, is he not rather a subject for pity than rebuke? Is not
this more a case for a tearful forgiveness than for chastisement and
reproach?”

Like most men who have little habit of composition, my difficulties
increased with every new attempt, and I became bewildered and puzzled
what to choose. It was vitally important that the first lines of my
letter should secure the favorable opinion of the reader; by one unhappy
word, one ill-selected expression, a whole case might be prejudiced. I
imagined Crofton angrily throwing the epistle from him with an impatient
“Stuff and nonsense! a practised hum-bugger!” or, worse again, calling
out, “Listen to this, Mary. Is not Master Potts a cool hand? Is not this
brazening it out with a vengeance?” Such a thought was agony to me; the
very essence of my theory about life was to secure the esteem and regard
of others. I yearned after the good opinion of my fellow-men, and there
was no amount of falsehood I would not incur to obtain it. No, come what
would of it, the Croftons must not think ill of me. They must not only
believe me guiltless of ingratitude, but some one whose gratitude was
worth having. It will elevate them in their own esteem if they suppose
that the pebble they picked up in the highway turned out to be a ruby.
It will open their hearts to fresh impulses of generosity; they will
not say to each other, “Let us be more careful another time; let us be
guarded against showing attention to mere strangers; remember how we
were taken in by that fellow Potts; what a specious rascal he was,--how
plausible, how insinuating!” but rather, “We can afford to be confiding,
our experiences have taught us trustfulness. Poor Potts is a lesson that
may inspire a hopeful belief in others.” How little benefit can any one
in his own individual capacity confer upon the world, but what a large
measure of good may be distributed by the way he influences others.
Thus, for instance, by one well-sustained delusion of mine, I inspire
a fund of virtues which, in my merely truthful character, I could never
pretend to originate. “Yes,” thought I, “the Croftons shall continue to
esteem me; Potts shall be a beacon to guide, not a sunken rock to wreck
them.”

Thus resolving, I sat down to inform them that on my return from a
stroll, I was met by a man bearing a telegram, informing me of the dying
condition of my father's only brother, my sole relative on earth;
that, yielding only to the impulse of my affection, and not thinking of
preparation, I started on board of a steamer for Waterford, and
thence for Milford, on my way to Brighton. I vaguely hinted at great
expectations, and so on, and then, approaching the difficult problem of
Father Dyke's letter, I said, “I enclose you the priest's letter, which
amused me much. With all his shrewdness, the worthy churchman never
suspected how completely my friend Keldrum and myself had humbugged him,
nor did he discover that our little dinner and the episode that followed
it were the subjects of a wager between ourselves. His marvellous
cunning was thus for once at fault, as I shall explain to you more fully
when we meet, and prove to you that, upon this occasion at least, he was
not deceiver, but dupe!” I begged to have a line from him to the “Crown
Hotel, Brighton,” and concluded.

With this act, I felt I had done with the past, and now addressed myself
to the future. I purchased a few cheap necessaries for the road, as few
and as cheap as was well possible. I said to myself, Fortune shall lift
you from the very dust of the high-road, Potts; not one advantageous
adjunct shall aid your elevation!

The train by which I was to leave did not start till noon, and to while
away time I took up a number of the “Times,” which the “Goat” appeared
to receive at third or fourth hand. My eye fell upon that memorable
second column, in which I read the following:--

“Left his home in Dublin on the 8th ult, and not since been heard of,
a young gentleman, aged about twenty-two years, five feet nine and a
quarter in height, slightly formed, and rather stooped in the shoulders;
features pale and melancholy; eyes grayish, inclining to hazel; hair
light brown, and worn long behind. He had on at his departure--”

I turned impatiently to the foot of the advertisement, and found that
to any one giving such information as might lead to his discovery was
promised a liberal reward, on application to Messrs. Potts and Co.,
compounding chemists and apothecaries, Mary's Abbey. I actually grew
sick with anger as I read this. To what end was it that I built up a
glorious edifice of imaginative architecture, if by one miserable
touch of coarse fact it would crumble into clay? To what purpose did I
intrigue with Fortune to grant me a special destiny, if I were thus to
be classed with runaway traders or strayed terriers? I believe in my
heart I could better have borne all the terrors of a charge of felony
than the lowering, debasing, humiliating condition of being advertised
for on a reward.

I had long since determined to be free as regarded the ties of country.
I now resolved to be equally so with respect to those of family. I will
be Potts no longer. I will call myself for the future--let me see--what
shall it be, that will not involve a continued exercise of memory, and
the troublesome task of unmarking my linen? I was forgetting in this
that I had none, all my wearables being left behind at the Rosary.
Something with an initial P was requisite; and after much canvassing,
I fixed on Pottinger. If by an unhappy chance I should meet one who
remembered me as Potts, I reserved the right of mildly correcting him by
saying, “Pottinger, Pottinger! the name Potts was given me when at Eton
for shortness.” They tell us that amongst the days of our exultation
in life, few can compare with that in which we exchange a jacket for
a tailed coat. The spring from the tadpole to the full-grown frog,
the emancipation from boyhood into adolescence, is certainly very
fascinating. Let me assure my reader that the bound from a monosyllabic
name to a high-sounding epithet of three syllables is almost as
enchanting as this assumption of the _toga virilis_. I had often felt
the terrible brevity of Potts; I had shrunk from answering the question,
“What name, sir?” from the indescribable shame of saying “Potts;” but
Pottinger could be uttered slowly and with dignity. One could repose on
the initial syllable, as if to say, “Mark well what I am saying; this
is a name to be remembered.” With that, there must have been great and
distinguished Pottingers, rich men, men of influence and acres; from
these I could at leisure select a parentage.

“Do you go by the twelve-fifteen train, sir?” asked the waiter, breaking
in upon these meditations. “You have no time to lose, sir.”

With a start, I saw it was already past twelve; so I paid my bill with
all speed, and, taking my knapsack in my hand, hurried away to the
train. There was considerable confusion as I arrived, a crush of cabs,
watermen, and porters blocked the way, and the two currents of an
arriving and departing train struggled against and confronted each
other. Amongst those who, like myself, were bent on entering the
station-house, was a young lady in deep mourning, whose frail
proportions and delicate figure gave no prospect of resisting the shock
and conflict before her. Seeing her so destitute of all protection, I
espoused her cause, and after a valorous effort and much buffeting, I
fought her way for her to the ticket-window, but only in time to hear
the odious crash of a great bell, the bang of a glass door, and the
cry of a policeman on duty, “No more tickets, gentlemen; the train is
starting.”

“Oh! what shall I do?” cried she, in an accent of intense agony,
inadvertently addressing the words to myself: “What shall I do?”

“There 's another train to start at three-forty,” said I, consolingly.
“I hope that waiting will be no inconvenience to you. It is a slow one,
to be sure, stops everywhere, and only arrives in town at two o'clock in
the morning.”

I heard her sob,--I distinctly heard her sob behind her thick black veil
as I said this; and to offer what amount of comfort I could, I added,
“I, too, am disappointed, and obliged to await the next departure; and
if I can be of the least service in any way--”

“Oh, no, sir! I am very grateful to you, but there is nothing--I
mean--there is no help for it!” And here her voice dropped to a mere
whisper.

“I sincerely trust,” said I, in an accent of great deference and
sympathy, “that the delay may not be the cause of grave inconvenience to
you; and although a perfect stranger, if any assistance I can offer--”

“No, sir; there is really nothing I could ask from your kindness.” It was
in turning back to bid good-bye a second time to my mother--Here her
agitation seemed to choke her, for she turned away and said no more.

“Shall I fetch a cab for you?” I asked. “Would you like to go back till
the next train starts?”

“Oh, by no means, sir! We live three miles from Milford; and, besides,
I could not bear--” Here again she broke down, but added, after a pause,
“It is the first time I have been away from home!”

With a little gentle force I succeeded in inducing her to enter the
refreshment-room of the station, but she would take nothing; and after
some attempts to engage her in conversation to while away the dreary
time, I perceived that it would be a more true politeness not to obtrude
upon her sorrow; and so I lighted my cigar, and proceeded to walk up and
down the long terrace of the station. Three trunks, or rather two and
a hat-box, kept my knapsack company on the side of the tramway; and on
these I read, inscribed in a large band, “Miss K. Herbert, per steamer
'Ardent,' Ostend.” I started. Was it not in that direction my own steps
were turned? Was not Blondel in Belgium, and was it not in search of him
that I was bent? “Oh, Fate!” I cried, “what subtle device of thine is
this? What wily artifice art thou now engaged in? Is this a snare, or is
it an aid? Hast thou any secret purpose in this rencontre? for with thee
there are no chances, no accidents in thy vicissitudes; all is prepared
and fitted, like a piece of door carpentry.” And then I fell into
weaving a story for the young lady. She was an orphan. Her father, the
curate of the little parish she lived in, had just died, leaving herself
and her mother in direst distress. She was leaving home,--the happy
home of her childhood (I saw it all before me,--cottage, and garden, and
little lawn, with its one cow and two sheep, and the small green wicket
beside the road), and she was leaving all these to become a governess to
an upstart, mill-owning, vulgar family at Brussels. Poor thing! how my
heart bled for her! What a life of misery lay before her,--what
trials of temper and of pride! The odious children--I know they are
odious--will torture her to the quick; and Mrs. Treddles, or whatever
her detestable name is, will lead her a terrible life from jealousy; and
she 'll have to bear everything, and cry over it in secret, remembering
the once happy time in that honeysuckled porch, where poor papa used to
read Wordsworth for them.

What a world of sorrow on every side; and how easily might it be made
otherwise! What gigantic efforts are we forever making for something
which we never live to enjoy I Striving to be freer, greater, better
governed, and more lightly taxed, and all the while forgetting that the
real secret is to be on better terms with each other,--more generous,
more forgiving, less apt to take offence or bear malice. Of mere
material goods, there is far more than we need. The table would
accommodate more than double the guests, could we only agree to sit down
in orderly fashion; but here we have one occupying three chairs,
while another crouches on the floor, and some even prefer smashing the
furniture to letting some more humbly born take a place near them. I
wish they would listen to me on this theme. I wish, instead of all this
social science humbug and art-union balderdash, they would hearken
to the voice of a plain man, saying, Are you not members of one
family,--the individuals of one household? Is it not clear to you, if
you extend the kindly affections you now reserve for the narrow circle
wherein you live to the wider area of mankind, that, while diffusing
countless blessings to others, you will yourself become better, more
charitable, more kind-hearted, wider in reach of thought, more catholic
in philanthropy? I can imagine such a world, and feel it to be a
Paradise,--a world with no social distinctions, no inequalities of
condition, and, consequently, no insolent pride of station, nor any
degrading subserviency of demeanor, no rivalries, no jealousies,--love
and benevolence everywhere. In such a sphere the calm equanimity of mind
by which great things are accomplished, would in itself constitute a
perfect heaven. No impatience of temper, no passing irritation--

“Where the------are you driving to, sir?” cried I, as a fellow with a
brass-bound trunk in a hand-barrow came smash against my shin.

“Don't you see, sir, the train is just starting?” said he, hastening on;
and I now perceived that such was the case, and that I had barely time
to rush down to the pay-office and secure my ticket.

“What class, sir?” cried the clerk.

“Which has she taken?” said I, forgetting all save the current of my own
thoughts.

“First or second, sir?” repeated he, impatiently.

“Either, or both,” replied I, in confusion; and he flung me back some
change and a blue card, closing the little shutter with a bang that
announced the end of all colloquy.

“Get in, sir!”

“Which carriage?”

“Get in, sir!”

“Second-class? Here you are!” called out an official, as he thrust me
almost rudely into a vile mob of travellers.

The bell rang out, and two snorts and a scream followed, then a heave
and a jerk, and away we went As soon as I had time to look around me, I
saw that my companions were all persons of an humble order of the middle
class,--the small shopkeepers and traders, probably, of the locality we
were leaving. Their easy recognition of each other, and the natural
way their conversation took up local matters, soon satisfied me of this
fact, and reconciled me to fall back upon my own thoughts for occupation
and amusement This was with me the usual prelude to a sleep, to which
I was quietly composing myself soon after. The droppings of the
conversation around me, however, prevented this; for the talk had taken
a discussional tone, and the differences of opinion were numerous. The
question debated was, Whether a certain Sir Samuel Somebody was a great
rogue, or only unfortunate? The reasons for either opinion were well put
and defended, showing that the company, like most others of that class
in life in England, had cultivated their faculties of judgment and
investigation by the habit of attending trials or reading reports of
them in newspapers.

After the discussion on his morality, came the question, Was he alive or
dead?

“Sir Samuel never shot himself, sir,” said a short pluffy man with an
asthma. “I 've known him for years, and I can say he was not a man to do
such an act.”

“Well, sir, the Ostrich and the United Brethren offices are both of your
opinion,” said another; “they 'll not pay the policy on his life.”

“The law only recognizes death on production of the body,” sagely
observed a man in shabby black, with a satin neckcloth, and whom I
afterwards perceived was regarded as a legal authority.

“What's to be done, then, if a man be drowned at sea, or burned to a
cinder in a lime-kiln?”

“Ay, or by what they call spontaneous combustion, that does n't leave a
shred of you?” cried three objectors in turn.

“The law provides for these emergencies with its usual wisdom,
gentlemen. Where death may not be actually proven it can be often
inferred.”

“But who says that Sir Samuel is dead?” broke in the asthmatic man,
evidently impatient at the didactic tone of the attorney. “All we know
of the matter is a letter of his own signing, that when these lines are
read I shall be no more. Now, is that sufficient evidence of death to
induce an insurance company to hand over some eight or ten thousand
pounds to his family?”

“I believe you might say thirty thousand, sir,” suggested a mild voice
from the corner.

“Nothing of the kind,” interposed another; “the really heavy policies
on his life were held by an old Cumberland baronet, Sir Elkanah Crofton,
who first established Whalley in the iron trade. I 've heard it from my
father fifty times, when a child, that Sam Whalley entered Milford in a
fustian jacket, with all his traps in a handkerchief.”

At the mention of Sir Elkanah Crofton, my attention was quickly excited;
this was the uncle of my friends at the Rosary, and I was at once
curious to hear more of him.

“Fustian jacket or not, he had a good head on his shoulders,” remarked
one.

“And luck, sir; luck, which is better than any head,” sighed the meek
man, sorrowfully.

“I deny that, deny it totally,” broke in he of the asthma. “If Sam
Whalley hadn't been a man of first-rate order, he never could have made
that concern what it was,--the first foundry in Wales.”

“And what is it now, and where is he?” asked the attorney, triumphantly.

“At rest, I hope,” murmured the sad man.

“Not a bit of it, sir,” said the wheezing voice, in a tone of
confidence; “take _my_ word for it, he 's alive and hearty, somewhere or
other, ay, and we 'll hear of him one of these days: he 'll be smelting
metals in Africa, or cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Heaven knows
what, or prime minister of one of those rajahs in India. He's a clever
dog, and he knows it too. I saw what he thought of himself the day old
Sir Elkanah came down to Fairbridge.”

“To be sure, you were there that morning,” said the attorney; “tell us
about that meeting.”

“It's soon told,” resumed the other. “When Sir Elkanah Crofton arrived
at the house, we were all in the garden. Sir Samuel had taken me there
to see some tulips, which he said were the finest in Europe, except
some at the Hague. Maybe it was that the old baronet was vexed at seeing
nobody come to meet him, or that something else had crossed him, but as
he entered the garden I saw he was sorely out of temper.

“'How d'ye do, Sir Elkanah?' said Whalley to him, coming up pleasantly.
'We scarcely expected you before dinner-time. My wife and my daughters,'
said he, introducing them; but the other only removed his hat
ceremoniously, without ever noticing them in the least.

“'I hope you had a pleasant journey, Sir Elkanah?' said Whalley, after a
pause, while, with a short jerk of his head, he made signs to the ladies
to leave them.

“'I trust I am not the means of breaking up a family party?' said the
other, half sarcastically. 'Is Mrs. Whalley--'

“'Lady Whalley, with your good permission, sir,' said Samuel, stiffly.

“'Of course; how stupid of me! I should remember you had been knighted.
And, indeed, the thought was full upon me as I came along, for I
scarcely suppose that if higher ambitions had not possessed you, I
should find the farm buildings and the outhouse in the state of ruin I
see them.'

“'They are better by ten thousand pounds than the day on which I first
saw them; and I say it in the presence of this honest townsman here, my
neighbor,'--meaning _me_,--'that both _you_ and they were very creaky
concerns when I took you in hand.'

“I thought the old Baronet was going to have a fit at these words, and
he caught hold of my arm and swayed backwards and forwards all the time,
his face purple with passion.

“'Who made you, sir? who made you?' cried he, at last, with a voice
trembling with rage.

“'The same hand that made ns all,' said the other, calmly. 'The same
wise Providence that, for his own ends, creates drones as well as bees,
and makes rickety old baronets as well as men of brains and industry.'

“'You shall rue this insolence; it shall cost you dearly, by Heaven!'
cried out the old man, as he gripped me tighter. 'You are a witness,
sir, to the way I have been insulted. I 'll foreclose your mortgage--I
'll call in every shilling I have advanced--I 'll sell the house over
your head--'

“'Ay! but the head without a roof over it will hold itself higher than
your own, old man. The good faculties and good health God has given me
are worth all your title-deeds twice told. If I walk out of this town as
poor as the day I came into it, I 'll go with the calm certainty that
I can earn my bread,--a process that would be very difficult for _you_
when you could not lend out money on interest.'

“'Give me your arm, sir, back to the town,' said the old Baronet to me;
I feel myself too ill to go all alone.'

“'Get him to step into the house and take something,' whispered Whalley
in my ear, as he turned away and left us. But I was afraid to propose
it; indeed, if I had, I believe the old man would have had a fit on
the spot, for he trembled from head to foot, and drew long sighs, as if
recovering out of a faint.

“'Is there an inn near this,' asked he, where I can stop? and have you a
doctor here?'

“'You can have both, Sir Elkanah,' said I.

“'You know me, then?--you know who I am?' said he, hastily, as I called
him by his name.

“'That I do, sir, and I hold my place under you; my name is Shore.'

“'Yes, I remember,' said he, vaguely, as he moved away. When we came
to the gate on the road he turned around full and looked at the house,
overgrown with that rich red creeper that was so much admired. 'Mark my
words, my good man,' said he,--mark them well, and as sure as I live, I
'll not leave one stone on another of that dwelling there.'”

“He was promising more than he could perform,” said the attorney.

“I don't know that,” sighed the meek man; “there's very little that
money can't do in this life.”

“And what has become of Whalley's widow,--if she be a widow?” asked one.

“She's in a poor way. She's up at the village yonder, and, with the help
of one of her girls, she's trying to keep a children's school.”

“Lady Whalley's school?'” exclaimed one, in half sarcasm.

“Yes; but she has taken her maiden name again since this disaster, and
calls herself Mrs. Herbert.”

“Has she more than one daughter, sir?” I asked of the last speaker.

“Yes, there are two girls; the younger one, they tell me, is going,
or gone abroad, to take some situation or other,--a teacher, or a
governess.”

“No, sir,” said the pluffy man, “Miss Kate has gone as companion to an
old widow lady at Brussels,--Mrs. Keats. I saw the letter that arranged
the terms,--a trifle less per annum than her mother gave to her maid.”

“Poor girl!” sighed the sad man. “It 's a dreary way to begin life!”

I nodded assentingly to him, and with a smile of gratitude for his
sympathy. Indeed, the sentiment had linked me to him, and made me wish
to be beside him. The conversation now grew discursive, on the score of
all the difficulties that beset women when reduced to make efforts
for their own support; and though the speakers were men well able to
understand and pronounce upon the knotty problem, the subject did not
possess interest enough to turn my mind from the details I had just been
hearing. The name of Miss Herbert on the trunks showed me now who was
the young lady I had met, and I reproached myself bitterly with having
separated from her, and thus forfeited the occasion of befriending her
on her journey. We were to sup somewhere about eleven, and I resolved
that I would do my utmost to discover her, if in the train; and I occupied
myself now with imagining numerous pretexts for presuming to offer my
services on her behalf. She will readily comprehend the disinterested
character of my attentions. She will see that I come in no spirit of
levity, but moved by a true sympathy and the respectful sentiment of one
touched by her sorrows. I can fancy her coy diffidence giving way before
the deferential homage of my manner; and in this I really believe I
have some tact. I was not sorry to pursue this theme undisturbed by
the presence of my fellow-travellers, who had now got out at a station,
leaving me all alone to meditate and devise imaginary conversations with
Miss Herbert. I rehearsed to myself the words by which to address
her, my bow, my gesture, my faint smile, a blending of melancholy with
kindliness, my whole air a union of the deference of the stranger with
something almost fraternal. These pleasant musings were now rudely
routed by the return of my fellow-travellers, who came hurrying back to
their places at the banging summons of a great bell.

“Everything cold, as usual. It is a perfect disgrace how the public are
treated on this line!” cried one.

“I never think of anything but a biscuit and a glass of ale, and they
charged me elevenpence halfpenny for that.”

“The directors ought to look to this. I saw those ham-sandwiches when I
came down here last Tuesday week.”

“And though the time-table gives us fifteen minutes, I can swear, for I
laid my watch on the table, that we only got nine and a half.”

“Well, I supped heartily off that spiced round.”

“Supped, supped I Did you say you had supped here, sir?” asked I, in
anxiety.

“Yes, sir; that last station was Trentham. They give us nothing more now
till we reach town.”

I lay back with a faint sigh, and, from that moment, took no note of
time till the guard cried “London!”




CHAPTER X. THE PERILS OF MY JOURNEY TO OSTEND.

“Young lady in deep mourning, sir,--crape shawl and bonnet, sir,” said
the official, in answer to my question, aided by a shilling fee; “the
same as asked where was the station for the Dover Line.”

“Yes, yes; that must be she.”

“Got into a cab, sir, and drove off straight for the Sou'Eastern.”

“She was quite alone?”

“Quite, sir; but she seems used to travelling,--got her traps together
in no time, and was off in a jiffy.”

“Stupid dog!” thought I; “with every advantage position and accident
can confer, how little this fellow reads of character! In this poor,
forlorn, heart-weary orphan, he only sees something like a commercial
traveller!”

“Any luggage, sir? Is this yours?” said he, pointing to a woolsack.

“No,” said I, haughtily; “my servants have gone forward with my luggage.
I have nothing but a knapsack.” And with an air of dignity I flung
it into a hansom, and ordered the driver to set me down at the
South-Eastern. Although using every exertion, the train had just started
when I arrived, and a second time was I obliged to wait some hours at
a station. Resolving to free myself from all the captivations of that
tendency to day-dreaming,--that fatal habit of suffering my fancy to
direct my steps, as though in pursuit of some settled purpose,--I calmly
asked myself whither I was going--and for what? Before I had begun
the examination, I deemed myself a most candid, truth-observing, frank
witness, and now I discovered that I was casuistical and “dodgy” as an
Old Bailey lawyer. I was haughty and indignant at being so catechised.
My conscience, on the shallow pretext of being greatly interested about
me, was simply prying and inquisitive. Conscience is all very well when
one desires to appeal to it, and refer some distinct motive or action to
its appreciation; but it is scarcely fair, and certainly not dignified,
for conscience to go about seeking for little accusations of this kind
or that. What liberty of action is there, besides, to a man who carries
a “detective” with him wherever he goes? And lastly, conscience has the
intolerable habit of obtruding its opinion upon details, and will not
wait to judge by results. Now, when I have won the race, come in first,
amid the enthusiastic cheers of thousands, I don't care to be asked,
however privately, whether I did not practise some little bit of rather
unfair jockeyship. I never could rightly get over my dislike to the
friend who would take this liberty with me; and this is exactly the part
conscience plays, and with an insufferable air of superiority, too, as
though to say, “None of your shuffling with me, Potts! That will do all
mighty well with the outer world, but _I_ am not to be humbugged. You
never devised a scheme in your life that I was not by at the cookery,
and saw how you mixed the ingredients and stirred the pot! No, no, old
fellow, all your little secret rogueries will avail you nothing here!”

Had these words been actually addressed to me by a living individual, I
could not have heard them more plainly than now they fell upon my ear,
uttered, besides, in a tone of cutting, sarcastic derision. “I will
stand this no longer!” cried I, springing up from my seat and flinging
my cigar angrily away. “I 'm certain no man ever accomplished any high
and great destiny in life who suffered himself to be bullied in this
wise; such irritating, pestering impertinence would destroy the temper
of a saint, and break down the courage and damp the ardor of the
boldest. Could great measures of statecraft be carried out--could
battles be won--could new continents be discovered, if at every
strait and every emergency one was to be interrupted by a low voice,
whispering, 'Is this _all_ right? Are there no flaws here? You live in a
world of frailties, Potts. You are playing at a round game, where every
one cheats a little, and where the Drogueries are never remembered
against him who wins. Bear that in your mind, and keep your cards
“up.”'”

When I was about to take my ticket, a dictum of the great moralist
struck my mind: “Desultory reading has slain its thousands and tens
of thousands;” and if desultory reading, why not infinitely more so
desultory acquaintance? Surely, our readings do not impress us as
powerfully as the actual intercourse of life. It must be so. It is
in this daily conflict with our fellow-men that we are moulded and
fashioned; and the danger is, to commingle and confuse the impressions
made upon our hearts, to cross the writing on our natures so often that
nothing remains legible! “I will guard against this peril,” thought I.
“I will concentrate my intentions and travel alone.” I slipped a crown
into a guard's hand, and whispered, “Put no one in here if you can help
it” As I jogged along, all by myself, I could not help feeling that one
of the highest privileges of wealth must be to be able always to buy
solitude,--to be in a position to say, “None shall invade me. The
world must contrive to go round without a kick from _me_. I am a
self-contained and self-suffering creature.” If I were Rothschild, I 'd
revel in this sentiment; it places one so immeasurably above that busy
ant-hill where one sees the creatures hurrying, hastening, and
fagging “till their hearts are broken.” One feels himself a superior
intelligence,--a being above the wants and cares of the work-a-day world
around him.

“Any room here?” cried a merry voice, breaking in upon my musing; and
at the same instant a young fellow, in a gray travelling-suit and
a wideawake, flung a dressing-bag and a wrapper carelessly into the
carriage, and so recklessly as to come tumbling over me. He never
thought of apology, however, but continued his remarks to the guard, who
was evidently endeavoring to induce him to take a place elsewhere. “No,
no!” cried the young man; “I'm all right here, and the cove with the
yellow hair won't object to my smoking.”

I heard these words as I sat in the corner, and I need scarcely say how
grossly the impertinence offended me. That the privacy I had paid for
should be invaded was bad enough, but that my companion should begin
acquaintance with an insult was worse again; and so I determined on no
account, nor upon any pretext, would I hold intercourse with him, but
maintain a perfect silence and reserve so long as our journey lasted.

There was an insufferable jauntiness and self-satisfaction in every
movement of the new arrival, even to the reckless way he pitched
into the carriage three small white canvas bags, carefully sealed and
docketed; the address--which! read--being, “To H.M.'s Minister and Envoy
at------, by the Hon. Grey Buller, Attaché, &c” So, then, this was one
of the Young Guard of Diplomacy, one of those sucking Talleyrands,
which form the hope of the Foreign Office and the terror of middle-class
English abroad.

“Do you mind smoking?” asked he, abruptly, as he scraped his lucifer
match against the roof of the carriage, showing, by the promptitude of
his action, how little he cared for my reply.

“I never smoke, sir, except in the carriages reserved for smokers,” was
my rebukeful answer.

“And I always do,” said he, in a very easy tone.

Not condescending to notice this rude rejoinder, I drew forth my
newspaper, and tried to occupy myself with its contents.

“Anything new?” asked he, abruptly.

“Not that I am aware, sir. I was about to consult the paper.”

“What paper is it?”

“It is the 'Banner,' sir,--at your service,” said I, with a sort of
sarcasm.

“Rascally print; a vile, low, radical, mill-owning organ. Pitch it
away!”

“Certainly not, sir. Being for _me_ and _my_ edification, I will beg to
exercise my own judgment as to how I deal with it.”

“It's deuced low, that's what it is, and that's exactly the fault of
all our daily papers. Their tone is vulgar; they reflect nothing of the
opinions one hears in society. Don't you agree with me?”

I gave a sort of muttering dissent, and he broke in quickly,--“Perhaps
not; it's just as likely _you_ would not think them low, but take _my_
word for it, _I'm_ right.”

I shook my head negatively, without speaking.

“Well, now,” cried he, “let us put the thing to the test Read out one of
those leaders. I don't care which, or on what subject Read it out, and
I pledge myself to show you at least one vulgarism, one flagrant outrage
on good breeding, in every third sentence.”

“I protest, sir,” said I, haughtily, “I shall do no such thing. I have
come here neither to read aloud nor take up the defence of the public
press.”

“I say, look out!” cried he; “you 'll smash something in that bag you
're kicking there. If I don't mistake, it's Bohemian glass. No, no; all
right,” said he, examining the number, “it's only Yarmouth bloaters.”

“I imagined these contained despatches, sir,” said I, with a look of
what he ought to have understood as withering scorn.

“You did, did you?” cried he, with a quick laugh. “Well, I 'll bet you
a sovereign I make a better guess about _your_ pack than you 've done
about _mine_.”

“Done, sir; I take you,” said I, quickly.

“Well; you 're in cutlery, or hardware, or lace goods, or ribbons, or
alpaca cloth, or drugs, ain't you?”

“I am not, sir,” was my stern reply.

“Not a bagman?”

“Not a bagman, sir.”

“Well, you 're an usher in a commercial academy, or 'our own
correspondent,' or a telegraph clerk?”

“I 'm none of these, sir. And I now beg to remind you, that instead of
one guess, you have made about a dozen.”

“Well, you 've won, there's no denying it,” said he, taking a sovereign
from his waistcoat-pocket and handing it to me. “It's deuced odd how
I should be mistaken. I 'd have sworn you were a bagman!” But for the
impertinence of these last words I should have declined to accept his
lost bet, but I took it now as a sort of vindication of my wounded
feelings. “Now it's all over and ended,” said he, calmly, “what are
you? I don't ask out of any impertinent curiosity, but that I hate being
foiled in a thing of this kind. What are you?”

“I 'll tell you what I am, sir,” said I, indignantly, for now I was
outraged beyond endurance,--“I 'll tell you, sir, what I am, and what I
feel myself,--one singularly unlucky in a travelling-companion.”

“Bet you a five-pound note you're not,” broke he in. “Give you six to
five on it, in anything you like.”

“It would be a wager almost impossible to decide, sir.”

“Nothing of the kind. Let us leave it to the first pretty woman we see
at the station, the guard of the train, the fellow in the pay-office,
the stoker if you like.”

“I must own, sir, that you express a very confident opinion of your
case.”

“Will you bet?”

“No, sir, certainly not”

“Well, then, shut up, and say no more about it. If a man won't back his
opinion, the less he says the better.”

I lay back in my place at this, determined that no provocation should
induce me to exchange another word with him. Apparently, he had not made
a like resolve, for he went on: “It's all bosh about appearances being
deceptive, and so forth. They say 'not all gold that glitters;' my
notion is that with a fellow who really knows life, no disguise that was
ever invented will be successful: the way a man wears his hair,”--here
he looked at mine,--“the sort of gloves he has, if there be anything
peculiar in his waistcoat, and, above all, his boots. I don't believe
the devil was ever more revealed in his hoof than a snob by his shoes.”
 A most condemnatory glance at my extremities accompanied this speech.

“Must I endure this sort of persecution all the way to Dover?” was the
question I asked of my misery.

“Look out, you're on fire!” said he, with a dry laugh. And sure enough,
a spark from his cigarette had fallen on my trousers, and burned a round
hole in them.

“Really, sir,” cried I, in passionate warmth, “your conduct becomes
intolerable.”

“Well, if I knew you preferred being singed, I'd have said-nothing about
it. What's this station here? Where's your 'Bradshaw'?”

“I have got no 'Bradshaw,' sir,” said I, with dignity.

“No 'Bradshaw '! A bagman without 'Bradshaw'! Oh, I forgot, you ain't
a bagman. Why are we stopping here? Something smashed, I suspect. Eh!
what! isn't that she? Yes, it is! Open the door!--let me out, I say!
Confound the lock!--let me out!” While he uttered these words, in an
accent of the wildest impatience, I had but time to see a lady, in deep
mourning, pass on to a carriage in front, just as, with a preliminary
snort, the train shook, then backed, and at last set out on its
thundering course again. “Such a stunning fine girl!” said he, as he
lighted a fresh cigar; “saw her just as we started, and thought I 'd run
her to earth in this carriage. Precious mistake I made, eh, was n't it?
All in black--deep black--and quite alone!”

I had to turn towards the window not to let him perceive how his words
agitated me, for I felt certain it was Miss Herbert he was describing,
and I felt a sort of revulsion to think of the poor girl being subjected
to the impertinence of this intolerable puppy.

“Too much style about her for a governess; and yet, somehow, she
was n't, so to say--you know what I mean--she was n't altogether _that_;
looked frightened, and people of real class never look frightened.”

“The daughter of a clergyman, probably,” said I, with a tone of such
reproof as I hoped must check all levity.

“Or a flash maid! some of them, nowadays, are wonderful swells; they 've
got an art of dressing and making-up that is really surprising.”

“I have no experience of the order, sir,” said I, gravely.

“Well, so I should say. _Your_ beat is in the haberdashery or hosiery
line, eh?”

“Has it not yet occurred to you, sir,” asked I, sternly, “that an
acquaintanceship brief as ours should exclude personalities, not to
say--” I wanted to add “impertinences;” but his gray eyes were turned
full on me, with an expression so peculiar that I faltered, and could
not get the word out.

“Well, go on,--out with it: not to say what?” said he, calmly.

I turned my shoulder towards him, and nestled down into my place.

“There's a thing, now,” said he, in a tone of the coolest
reflection,--“there's a thing, now, that I never could understand, and
I have never met the man to explain it. Our nation, as a nation, is just
as plucky as the French,--no one disputes it; and yet take a Frenchman
of _your_ class,--the _commis-voyageur_, or anything that way,--and you
'll just find him as prompt on the point of honor as the best noble in
the land. He never utters an insolent speech without being ready to back
it.”

I felt as if I were choking, but I never uttered a word.

“I remember meeting one of those fellows--traveller for some house
in the wine trade--at Avignon. It was at _table d'hote_, and I said
something slighting about Communism, and he replied, '_Monsieur, je suis
Fouriériste_, and you insult me.' Thereupon he sent me his card by the
waiter,--'Paul Déloge, for the house of Gougon, _père et fils_.' I tore
it, and threw it away, saying, 'I never drink Bordeaux wines.' 'What do
you say to a glass of Hermitage, then?' said he, and flung the contents
of his own in my face. Wasn't that very ready? _I_ call it as neat a
thing as could be.”

“And you bore that outrage,” said I, in triumphant delight; “you
submitted to a flagrant insult like that at a public table?”

“I don't know what you call 'bearing it,'” said he; “the thing was done,
and I had only to wipe my face with my napkin.”

“Nothing more?” said I, sneeringly.

“We went out, afterwards, if you mean _that_,” said he, quietly, “and he
ran me through here.” As he spoke, he proceeded, in leisurely fashion,
to unbutton the wrist of his shirt, and, baring his arm midway, showed
me a pinkish cicatrice of consid

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