Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2

“It may be, for aught I know,” said she, indifferently. “Mr. Beecher probably knows what he meant. I certainly can answer for myself, and will say that whatever my manner might imply, my heart – if that be the name for it – gave no concurrence to what the Count attributed to me.”

“Do you dislike him?”

“Dislike? No; certainly not; he is too gentle, too obliging, too conciliating in manner, too well bred to create dislike. He is not very brilliant – ”

“He ‘ll be a peer,” broke in Davis.

“I suspect that all his views of life are deeply tinged with prejudice?”

“He’ll be a peer,” continued Davis.

“He has been utterly neglected in education.”

“He don’t want it.”

“I mean that to suit the station he fills – ”

“He has got the station; he’s sure of it; he can’t be stripped of it. In one word, girl, he has, by right and birth, rank and fortune, such as ten generations of men like myself, laboring hard every hour of their lives, could never win. He ‘ll be a peer of England, and I know of no title means so much.”

“But of all his failings,” said Lizzy, who seemed to take little heed of her father’s interruptions, while steadily following out her own thoughts, – “of all his failings, he has none greater or more pernicious than the belief that it is a mark of intelligence to outwit one’s neighbor; that cunning is a high quality, and craft means genius.”

“These might be poor qualities to gain a living with,” said Davis, “but I tell you, once for all, he does n’t need to be brilliant, or witty, or any other nonsense of that kind. He ‘ll have the right to go where all the cleverness of the world couldn’t place him, to live in a set where, if he could Write plays like Shakspeare, build bridges like Brunel, or train a horse like John Scott, it would n’t avail him a brass farthing; and if you only knew, child, what these people think of each other, and what the world thinks of them, you ‘d see it’s the best stake ever was run for.”

Lizzy never replied a word; every syllable of her father’s speech was, as it were, “filtering down” into her mind, and she brooded long over the thoughts thus suggested. Thus, walking along in silence, side by side, they drew nigh the house. They had now gained the little garden before the door, and were standing in the broad full moonlight, face to face, Davis saw that her eyes were red and her cheeks marked by tears; but an impassive calm, and a demeanor subdued even to coldness, seemed to have succeeded to this emotion. “Oh, my poor girl,” broke he out, in a voice of deepest feeling, “if I did n’t know the world so well, – if I did n’t know how little one gains by indulging affection, – if I did n’t know, besides, how you yourself will think of all this some ten or twelve years hence, I could n’t have the heart for it.”

“And – must – it – be?” faltered she out, in a broken accent.

Davis threw his arm around her, and, pressing her to him, sobbed bitterly. “There, there,” cried he, “go in, – go in, child; go to bed, and get some sleep.” And with this he turned quickly away and left her.

CHAPTER X. A RIDE TO NEUWIED

Long before Lizzy had composed herself to sleep – for her heart was torn by a first sorrow, and she lay restless and fevered – her father, mounted on a post-horse, was riding away towards the Rhine. He had desired that the reply to his telegraphic message should be addressed to him at the post-office of Neuwied, and thither he was now bent. It is a strange thing, that when the affections of men of this stamp are deeply moved, – when their sensibilities, long dulled and hardened by the rubs of life, are once evoked, – the feelings excited are less those of gentleness and tenderness than an almost savage desire for some personal conflict. Urging his horse to full speed, Davis spared neither whip nor spur. Alone upon that solitary road, he asked himself aloud if he were less alone in the broad, bleak world? “Is not the ‘field’ against me wherever I go? I never heard of the fellow that had not some ‘moorings’ – some anchorage – except myself.” But a brief hour ago and there was one who loved him with all her heart, – who saw, or fancied she saw, a rich mine of generous qualities in his rough manners and blunt address, – who pictured to her mind what such a nature might have been under happier circumstances and with better culture. “And now,” cried he, aloud, – “now she knows me for what I am, how will she bear this? Will she sink under it, will it crush her, or has she enough of my own blood in her veins to meet it courageously? Oh! if she only knew the world as I do, – what a mean coward it is, how it bullies the weak and truckles to the strong, how it frowns down the timid and simpers to the sturdy! Every man – ay, and every woman – can sell his life dearly; and strange it is, one only learns the value of this secret too late. Let a fellow start with it, and see what it does for him. I went at them single-handed; I went down all alone into the ring, and have they beaten me? I had no honorable or right honorable friends to pick me out of a scrape. It would be hard to find three men, with good hats on them, would bail me to the amount of ten pounds; and here I am to-day just as ready to face them all as ever.”

What canting nonsense do we occasionally read in certain quarters to disparage mere personal courage, – “mere personal courage”! We are reminded that the ignoble quality is held in common with the bull-dog, and that in this essential he is our master; we are reminded that it is a low and vulgar attribute that neither elevates nor enlightens, that the meanest creatures are often gifted with it, and the noblest natures void of it. To all this we give a loud and firm denial; and we affirm as steadfastly, that without it there is neither truth nor manliness. The self-reliance that makes a man maintain his word, be faithful to his friendships, and honorable in his dealings, has no root in a heart that shakes with craven fear. The life of a coward is the voyage of a ship with a leak, – eternal contrivance, never-ceasing emergency. All thoughts dashed with a perpetual fear of death, what room is there for one generous emotion, one great or high-hearted ambition?

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