A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance

“We began to fear you were lost, sir,” said François, breaking in upon my gloomy revery I cannot say how long after. “The horses have been at the door this half-hour, and all the house searching after you.”

I did not deign a reply, but followed him, as he led me by a short path to the house. Mrs. Keats and Miss Herbert had taken their places inside the carriage, and, to my ineffable disgust, there was the German chatting with them at the door, and actually presenting a bouquet the landlord had just culled for her. Unable to confront the fellow with that contemptuous indifference which I knew with a little time and preparation I could summon to my aid, I scaled up to my leathern attic and let down the blinds.

“Do you mean,” said I, through a small slit in my curtain, – “do you mean to sit smoking there all day? Will you never drive on?” And now, with a crash of bolts and a jarring of cordage, like what announced the launch of a small ship, the heavy conveniency lurched, surged, and, after two or three convulsive bounds, lumbered along, and we started on our day’s journey. As we bumped along, I remembered that I had never wished the ladies a “good-morning,” nor addressed them in any way; so completely had my selfish preoccupation immersed me in my own annoyances, that I actually forgot the commonest attentions of every-day life. I was pained by this rudeness on my part, and waited with impatience for our first change of horses to repair my omission. Before, however, we had gone a couple of miles, the little window at my back was opened, and I heard the old lady’s voice, asking if I had ever chanced upon a more comfortable country inn or with better beds.

“Not bad, – not bad,” said I, peevishly. “I had such a mass of letters to write that I got little sleep. In fact, I scarcely could say I took any rest.”

While the old lady expressed her regretful condolences at this, I saw that Miss Herbert pinched her lips together as if to avoid a laugh, and the bitter thought crossed me, “She knows it all!”

“I am easily put out, besides,” said I. “That is, at certain times I am easily irritated, and a vulgar German fellow who supped with us last night so ruffled my temper that I assure you he continued to go through my head till morning.”

“Oh, don’t call him vulgar!” broke in Miss Herbert; “surely there could be nothing more quiet or unpretending than his manners.”

“If I were to hunt for an epithet for a month,” retorted I, “a more suitable one would never occur to me. The fellow was evidently an actor of some kind, – perhaps a rope-dancer.”

She burst in with an exclamation; but at the same time Mrs. Keats interposed, and though her words were perfectly inaudible to me, I had no difficulty in gathering their import, and saw that “the young person” was undergoing a pretty smart lecture for her presumption in daring to differ in opinion with my Royal Highness. I suppose it was very ignoble of me, but I was delighted at it. I was right glad that the old woman administered that sharp castigation, and I burned even with impatience to throw in a shell myself and increase the discomfiture. Mrs. Keats finished her gallop at last, and I took up the running.

“You were fortunate, madam,” said I, “in the indisposition that confined you to your room, and which rescued you from the underbred presumption of this man’s manners. I have travelled much, I have mixed largely, I may say, with every rank and condition, and in every country of Europe, so that I am not pronouncing the opinion of one totally inadequate to form a judgment – ”

“Certainly not, sir. Listen to that, young lady,” muttered she, in a sort of under growl.

“In fact,” resumed I, “it is one of my especial amusements to observe and note the forms of civilization implied by mere conventional habits. If, from circumstances not necessary to particularize, certain advantages have favored this pursuit – ”

When I had reached thus far in my very pompous preface, the clatter of a horse coming up at full speed arrested my attention, and at the very moment the German himself, the identical subject of our talk, dashed up to the carriage window, and with a few polite words handed in a small volume to Miss Herbert, which it seems he had promised to give her, but could not accomplish before, in consequence of the abrupt haste of our departure. The explanation did not occupy an entire minute, and he was gone and out of sight at once. And now the little window was closed, and I could distinctly hear that Mrs. Keats was engaged in one of those salutary exercises by which age communicates its experiences to youth. I wished I could have opened a little chink to listen to it, but I could not do so undetected, so I had to console myself by imagining all the shrewd and disagreeable remarks she must have made. Morals has its rhubarb as well as medicine, wholesome, doubtless, when down, but marvellously nauseous and very hard to swallow, and I felt that the young person was getting a full dose; indeed, I could catch two very significant words, which came and came again in the allocution, and the very utterance of which added to their sharpness, – “levity,” “encouragement.” There they were again!

“Lay it on, old lady,” muttered I; “your precepts are sound; never was there a case more meet for their application. Never mind a little pain, either, – one must touch the quick to make the cautery effectual. She will be all the better for the lesson, and she has well earned it!” Oh, Potts! Potts! was this not very hard-hearted and ungenerous? Why should the sorrow of that young creature have been a pleasure to you? Is it possible that the mean sentiment of revenge has had any share in this? Are you angry with her that she liked that man’s conversation, and turned to him in preference to you? You surely cannot be actuated by a motive so base as this? Is it for herself, for her own advantage, her preservation, that you are thinking all this time? Of course it is. And there, now, I think I hear her sob. Yes, she is crying; the old lady has really come to the quick, and I believe is not going to stop there.

“Well,” thought I, “old ladies are an excellent invention; none of these cutting severities could be done but for them. And they have a patient persistence in this surgery quite wonderful, for when they have flayed the patient all over, they sprinkle on salt as carefully as a pastry-cook frosting a plum-cake.”

At last, I did begin to wish it was over. She surely must have addressed herself to every phase of the question in an hour and a half; and yet I could hear her still grinding, grinding on, as though the efficacy of her precepts, like a homoeopathic remedy, were to be increased by trituration. Fortunately, we had to halt for fresh horses; and so I got down to chat with them at the carriage-door, and interrupt the lecture. Little was I prepared for the reddened eyes and quivering lips of that poor girl, as she drank off the glass of water she begged me to fetch her, but still less for the few words she contrived to whisper in my ear as I took the glass from her hands.

“I hope you have made me miserable enough now.”

And with this the window was banged to, and away we went.

CHAPTER XXV. I MAINTAIN A DIGNIFIED RESERVE

I was so hurt by the last words of Miss Herbert to me, that I maintained throughout the entire day what I meant to be a “dignified reserve,” but what I half suspect bore stronger resemblance to a deep sulk. My station had its privileges, and I resolved to take the benefit of them. I dined alone. Yes, on that day I did fall back upon the eminence of my condition, and proudly intimated that I desired solitude. I was delighted to see the dismay this declaration caused. Old Mrs. Keats was speechless with terror. I was looking at her through a chink in the door when Miss Herbert gave my message, and I thought she would have fainted.

“What were his precise words? Give them to me exactly as he uttered them,” said she, tremulously, “for there are persons whose intimations are half commands.”

“I can scarcely repeat them, madam,” said the other, “but their purport was, that we were not to expect him at dinner, that he had ordered it to be served in his own room and at his own hour.”

“And this is very probably all your doing,” said the old lady, with indignation. “Unaccustomed to any levity of behavior, brought up in a rank where familiarities are never practised, he has been shocked by your conduct with that stranger. Yes, Miss Herbert, I say shocked, because, however harmless in intention, such freedoms are utterly unknown in – in certain circles.”

“I am sure, madam,” replied she, with a certain amount of spirit, “that you are laboring under a very grave misapprehension. There was no familiarity, no freedom. We talked as I imagine people usually talk when they sit at the same table. Mr. – I scarcely know his name – ”

“Nor is it necessary,” said the old woman, tartly; “though, if you had, probably this unfortunate incident might not have occurred. Sit down there, however, and write a few lines in my name, hoping that his indisposition may be very slight, and begging to know if he desire to remain here to-morrow and take some repose.”

I waited till I saw Miss Herbert open her writing-desk, and then I hastened off to my room to reflect over my answer to her note. Now that the suggestion was made to me, I was pleased with the notion of passing an entire day where we were. The place was Schaffhausen, – the famous fall of the Rhine, – not very much as a cataract, but picturesque withal; pleasant chestnut woods to ramble about, and a nice old inn in a wild old wilderness of a garden that sloped down to the very river.

Strange perversity is it not; but how naturally one likes everything to have some feature or other out of keeping with its intrinsic purport! An inn like an old chateau, a chief-justice that could ride a steeple-chase, a bishop that sings Moore’s melodies, have an immense attraction for me. They seem all, as it were, to say, “Don’t fancy life is a mere four-roomed house with a door in the middle. Don’t imagine that all is humdrum and routine and regular. Notwithstanding his wig and stern black eyebrows, there is a touch of romance in that old Chancellor’s heart that you could n’t beat out of it with his great mace; and his Grace the Primate there has not forgotten what made the poetry of his life in days before he ever dreamed of charges or triennial visitations.”

By these reflections I mean to convey that I am very fond of an inn that does not look like an inn, but resembles a faded old country-house, or a deserted convent, or a disabled mill. This Schaffhausen Gasthaus looked like all three. It was the sort of place one might come to in a long vacation, to live simply and to go early to bed, take monotony as a tonic, and fancying unbroken quiet to be better than quinine.

“Ah!” thought I, “if it had not been for that confounded German, what a paradise might not this have been to me! Down there in that garden, with the din of the waterfall around us, walking under the old cherry-trees, brushing our way through tangled sweetbriers, and arbutus, and laburnum, what delicious nonsense might I not have poured into her ear! Ay! and not unwillingly had she heard it. That something within that never deceives, that little crimson heart within the rose of conscience, tells me that she liked me, that she was attracted by what, if it were not for shame, I would call the irresistible attractions of my nature; and now this creature of braten and beetroot has spoiled all, jarred the instrument and unstrung the chords that might have yielded me such sweet music.”

In thinking over the inadequacy of all human institutions, I have often been struck by the fact that while the law gives the weak man a certain measure of protection against the superior physical strength of the powerful ruffian in the street, it affords none against the assaults of the intellectual bully at a dinner-party. He may maltreat you at his pleasure, batter you with his arguments, kick you with inferences, and knock you down with conclusions, and no help for it all!

“Ah, here comes François with the note.” I wrote one line in pencil for answer: “am sensibly touched by your consideration, and will pass to-morrow here.” I signed this with a P., which might mean Prince, Potts, or Pottinger. My reply despatched, I began to think how I could improve the opportunity. “I will bring her to book,” thought I; “I will have an explanation.” I always loved that sort of thing, – there is an almost certainty of emotion; now emotion begets tears; tears, tenderness; tenderness, consolation; and when you reach consolation, you are, so to say, a tenant in possession; your title may be disputable, your lease invalid, still you are there, on the property, and it will take time at least to turn you out. “After all,” thought I, “that rude German has but troubled the water for a moment, the pure well of her affections will by this time have regained its calm still surface, and I shall see my image there as before.”

My meditations were interrupted, perhaps not unpleasantly. It was the waiter with my dinner. I am not unsocial – I am eminently the reverse – I may say, like most men who feel themselves conversationally gifted, I like company, I see that my gifts have in such gatherings their natural ascendancy, – and yet, with all this, I have always felt that to dine splendidly, all alone, was a very grand thing. Mind, I don’t say it is pleasant or jolly or social, but simply that it is grand to see all that table equipage of crystal and silver spread out for you alone; to know that the business of that gorgeous candelabrum is to light you; that the two decorous men in black – archdeacons they might be, from the quiet dignity of their manners – are there to wait upon you; that the whole sacrifice, from the caviare to the cheese, was a hecatomb to your greatness. I repeat, these are all grand and imposing considerations, and there have been times when I have enjoyed these Lucullus cum Lucullo festivals more than convivial assemblages. This day was one of these: I lingered over my dinner in delightful dalliance. I partook of nearly every dish, but, with a supreme refinement, ate little of any, as though to imply, “I am accustomed to a very different cuisine from this; it is not thus that I fare habitually.” And yet I was blandly forgiving, accepting even such humble efforts to please as if they had been successes. The Cliquot was good, and I drank no other wine, though various flasks with tempting titles stood around me.

Dinner over and coffee served, I asked the waiter what resources the place possessed in the way of amusement. He looked blank and even distressed at my question: he had all his life imagined that the Falls sufficed for everything; he had seen the tide of travel halt there to view them for years. Since he was a boy, he had never ceased to witness the yearly recurring round of tourists who came to see, and sketch, and scribble about them, and so he faintly muttered out a remonstrance, —

“Monsieur has not yet visited the Falls.”

“The Falls! why, I see them from this, and if I open the window I am stunned with their uproar.”

I was really sorry at the pain my hasty speech gave him, for he looked suddenly faint and ill, and after a moment gasped out, —

“But monsieur is surely not going away without a visit to the cataract? The guide-books give two hours as the very shortest time to see it effectually.”

“I only gave ten minutes to Niagara, my good friend,” said I, “and would not have spared even that, but that I wanted to hold a sprained ankle under the fall.”

He staggered, and had to hold a chair to support himself.

“There is, besides, the Laufen Schloss – ”

“As to castles,” broke I in, “I have no need to leave my own to see all that mediaeval architecture can boast. No, no,” sighed I out, “if I am to have new sensations, they must come through some other channel than sight. Have you no theatre?”

“No, sir. None.”

“No concert-rooms, no music-garden?”

“None, sir.”

“Not even a circus?” said I, peevishly.

“There was, sir, but it was not attended. The strangers all come to see the Falls.”

“Confound the Falls! And what became of the circus?”

“Well, they made a bad business of it; got into debt on all sides, for oil, and forage, and printing placards, and so on, and then they beat a sudden retreat one night, and slipped off, all but two, and, indeed, they were about the best of the company; but somehow they lost their way in the forest, and instead of coming up with their companions, found themselves at daybreak at the outside of the town.”

“And these two unlucky ones, what were they?”

“One was the chief clown, sir, a German, and the other was a little girl, a Moor they call her; but the cleverest creature to ride or throw somersaults through hoops of the whole of them.”

“And how do they live now?”

“Very hardly, I believe, sir; and but for Tintefleck, – that’s what they call her, – they might starve; but she goes about with her guitar through the cafés of an evening, and as she has a sweet voice, she picks up a few batzen. But the maire, I hear, won’t permit this any longer, and says that as they have no passport or papers of any kind, they must be sent over the frontier as vagabonds.”

“Let that maire be brought before me,” said I, with a haughty indignation. “Let me tell him in a few brief words what I think of his heartless cruelty – But no, I was forgetting, – I am here incog. Be careful, my good man, that you do not mention what I have so inadvertently dropped; remember that I am nobody here; I am Number Five and nothing more. Send the unfortunate creatures, however, here, and let me interrogate them. They can be easily found, I suppose?”

“In a moment, sir. They were in the Platz just when I served the pheasant.”

“What name does the man bear?”

“I never heard a name for him. Amongst the company he was called Vaterchen, as he was the oldest of them all; and, indeed, they seemed all very fond of him.”

“Let Vaterchen and Tintefleck, then, come hither. And bring fresh glasses, waiter.”

And I spoke as might an Eastern despot giving his orders for a “nautch;” and then, waving my hand, motioned the messenger away.

CHAPTER XXVI. VATERCHEN AND TINTEFLECK

Had Fortune decreed that I should be rich, I believe I would have been the most popular of men. There is such a natural kindness of disposition in me, blended with the most refined sense of discrimination. I love humanity in the aggregate, and, at the same time, with a rare delicacy of sentiment, I can follow through all the tortuous windings of the heart, and actually sympathize in emotions that I never experienced. No rank is too exalted, no lot too humble, for the exercise of my benevolence. I have sat in my arm-chair with a beating, throbbing heart, as I imagined the troubles of a king, and I have drunk my Bordeaux with tears of gratitude as I fancied myself a peasant with only water to slake his thirst. To a man of highly organized temperament, the privations themselves are not necessary to eliminate the feeling they would suggest. Coarser natures would require starvation to produce the sense of hunger, nakedness to cause that of cold, and so on; the gifted can be in rags, while enclosed in a wadded dressing-gown; they can go supperless to bed after a meal of oysters and toasted cheese; they can, if they will, be fatally wounded as they sit over their wine, or cast away after shipwreck with their feet on the fender. Great privileges all these; happy is he who has them, happy are they amidst whom he tries to spread the blessings of his inheritance!

Amid the many admirable traits which I recognize in myself, – and of which I speak not boastfully, but gratefully, being accidents of my nature as far removed from my own agency as the color of my eyes or the shape of my nose, – of these, I say, I know of none more striking than such as fit me to be a patron. I am graceful as a lover, touching as a friend, but I am really great as a protector.

Revelling in such sentiments as these, I stood at my window, looking at the effect of moonlight on the Falls. It seemed to me as though in the grand spectacle before my eyes I beheld a sort of illustration of my own nature, wherein generous emotions could come gushing, foaming, and falling, and yet the source be never exhausted, the flood ever at full. I ought parenthetically to observe that the champagne was excellent, and that I had drunk the third glass of the second bottle to the health of the widow Cliquot herself. Thus standing and musing, I was startled by a noise behind me, and, turning round, I saw one of the smallest of men in a little red Greek jacket and short yellow breeches, carefully engaged in spreading a small piece of carpet on the floor, a strip like a very diminutive hearth-rug. This done, he gave a little wild exclamation of “Ho!” and cut a somersault in the air, alighting on the flat of his back, which he announced by a like cry of “Ha!” He was up again, however, in an instant, and repeated the performance three times. He was about, as I judged by the arrangement of certain chairs, to proceed to other exercises equally diverting, when I stopped him by asking who he was.

“Your Excellency,” said he, drawing himself up to his full height of, say, four feet, “I am Vaterchen!”

Every one knows what provoking things are certain chance resemblances, how disturbing to the right current of thought, how subverting to the free exercise of reason. Now, this creature before me, in his deeply indented temples, high narrow forehead, aquiline nose, and resolute chin, was marvellously like a certain great field-marshal with whose features, notwithstanding the portraits of him, we are all familiar. It was not of the least use to me that I knew he was not the illustrious general, but simply a mountebank. There were the stern traits, haughty and defiant; and do what I would, the thought of the great man would clash with the capers of the little one. Owing to this impression, it was impossible for me to address him without a certain sense of deference and respect.

“Will you not be seated?” said I, offering him a chair and taking one myself. He accepted with all the quiet ease of good breeding, and smiled courteously as I filled a glass and passed it towards him.

I pressed my hand across my eyes for a few moments while I reflected, and I muttered to myself, —

“Oh, Potts, if instead of a tumbler this had really been the hero, what an evening might this be! Lives there that man in Europe so capable of feeling in all its intensity the glorious privilege of such a meeting? Who, like you, would listen to the wisdom distilling from those lips? Who would treasure up every trait of voice, accent, and manner, remembering, not alone every anecdote, but every expression? Who, like you, could have gracefully led the conversation so as to range over the whole wide ocean of that great life, taking in battles and sieges and storm ings and congresses, and scenes of all that is most varied and exciting in existence? Would not the record of one such night, drawn by you, have been worth all the cold compilations and bleak biographies that ever were written? You would have presented him as he sat there in front of you.” I opened my eyes to paint from the model, and there was the little dog, with his legs straight up on each side of his head and forming a sort of gothic arch over his face. The wretch had done the feat to amuse me, and I almost fainted with horror as I saw it.

“Sit down, sir,” said I, in a voice of stern command. “You little know the misery you have caused me.”

I refilled his glass, and closed my eyes once more. In my old pharmaceutical experiences I had often made bread pills, and remembered well how, almost invariably, they had been deemed successful. What relief from pain to the agonized sufferer had they not given! What slumber to the sleepless! What appetite, what vigor, what excitement! Why should not the same treatment apply to morals as to medicine? Why, with faith to aid one, cannot he induce every wished-for mood of mind and thought? The lay figure to support the drapery suffices for the artist, the Venus herself is in his brain. Now, if that little fellow there would neither cut capers nor speak, I ask no more of him. Let him sit firmly as he does now, staring me boldly in the face that way.