A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance

“You ‘re an Englishman, ain’t you?” cried he, as I came in. “You can speak High Dutch, perhaps?”

“I can speak German well enough to be intelligible, sir.”

“All right,” said he, in the same free-and-easy tone. “Will you explain to those old beggars there that they ‘re making fools of themselves. Here’s how it is. My passport was made out for two; for Thomas Harpar, that’s me, and Sam Bigges. Now, because Sam Rigges ain’t here, they tell me I can’t be suffered to proceed. Ain’t that stupid? Did you ever hear the like of that for downright absurdity before?”

“But where is he?”

“Well, I don’t mind telling you, because you ‘re a countryman; but I don’t like blackening an Englishman to one of those confounded foreigners. Rigges has run.”

“What do you mean by ‘run’?”

“I mean, cut his stick; gone clean away; and what’s worse, too, carried off a stout bag of dollars with him that we had for our journey.”

“Whither were you going?”

“That’s neither here nor there, and don’t concern you in any respect What you ‘ve to do is, explain to the old cove yonder, – the fellow in the middle is the worst of them, – tell him it’s all right, that I ‘m Harpar, and that the other ain’t here; or, look here, I ‘ll tell you what’s better, do you be Rigges, and it’s all right.”

I demurred flatly to this suggestion, but undertook to plead his cause on its true merits.

“And who are you, sir, that presume to play the advocate here?” said the judge, haughtily. “I fancied that you stood there to answer a charge against yourself.”

“That matter may be very easily disposed of, sir,” said I, as proudly; “and you will be very fortunate if you succeed as readily in explaining your own illegal arrest of me to the higher court of your country.”

With the eloquence which we are told essentially belongs to truth, I narrated how I had witnessed, as a mere passing traveller, the outrageous insult offered to these poor wanderers as they entered the inn. With the warm enthusiasm of one inspired by a good cause, I painted the whole incident with really scarcely a touch of embellishment, reserving the only decorative portion to a description of myself, whom I mentioned as an agent of the British government, especially employed on a peculiar service, the confirmation of which I proudly established by my passport setting forth that I was a certain “Ponto, Chargé des Dépêches.”

Now if there be one feature of continental life fixed and immutable, it is this: that wherever the German language be spoken, the reverence for a government functionary is supreme. If you can only show on documentary evidence that you are grandson of the man who made the broom that swept out a government office, it is enough. You are from that hour regarded as one of the younger children of Bureaucracy. You are under the protection of the state, and though you be but the smallest rivet in the machinery, there is no saying what mischief might not ensue if you were either lost or mislaid.

I saw in an instant the dread impression I had created, and I said, in a voice of careless insolence, “Go on, I beg of you; send me back to prison; chain me; perhaps you would like to torture me? The government I represent is especially slow in vindicating the rights of its injured officials. It has a European reputation for long-suffering, patience, and forbearance. Yes, Englishmen can be impaled, burned, flayed alive, disembowelled. By all means, avail yourselves of your bland privileges; have me led out instantly to the scaffold, unless you prefer to have me broken on the wheel!”

“Will nobody stop him!” cried the president, almost choking with wrath.

“Stop me; I suspect not, sir. It is upon these declarations of mine, made thus openly, that my country will found that demand for reparation which will one day cost you so dearly. Lead on, I am ready for the block.” And as I said this, I untied my cravat, and appeared to prepare for the headsman.

“If he will not cease, the court shall be dissolved,” called out the judge.

“Never, sir. Never, so long as I live, shall I surrender the glorious privileges of that freedom by which I assert my birthright as a Briton.”

“Well, you are as impudent a chap as ever I listened to,” muttered my countryman at my side.

“The prisoners are dismissed, the court is adjourned,” said the president, rising; and amidst a very disorderly crowd, not certainly enthusiastic in our favor, we were all hurried into the street.

“Come along down here,” said Mr. Harpar. “I ‘m in a very tidy sort of place they call the ‘Golden Pig.’ Come along, and bring the vagabonds, and let’s have breakfast together.”

I was hurt at the speech; but as my companions could not understand its coarseness, I accepted the invitation, and we followed him.

“Well, I ain’t seen your like for many a day,” said Harpar, as we went along. “If you ‘d have said the half of that to one of our ‘Beaks,’ I think I know where you ‘d be. But you seem to understand the fellows well. Mayhap you have lived much abroad?”

“A great deal. I am a sort of citizen of the world,” said I, with a jaunty easiness.

“For a citizen of the world you appear to have strange tastes in your companionship. How did you come to forgather with these creatures?”

I tried the timeworn cant about seeing life in all its gradations, – exploring the cabin as well as visiting the palace, and so on; but there was a rugged sort of incredulity in his manner that checked me, and I could not muster the glib rudeness which usually stood by me on such occasions.

“You ‘re not a man of fortune,” said he, dryly, as I finished; “one sees that plainly enough. You ‘re a fellow that should be earning his bread somehow; and the question is, – Is this the kind of life that you ought to be leading? What humbug it is to talk about knowing the world and such-like. The thing is, to know a trade, to understand some art, to be able to produce something, to manufacture something, to convert something to a useful purpose. When you ‘ve done that, the knowledge of men will come later on, never be afraid of that. It’s a school that we never miss one single day of our lives. But here we are; this is the ‘Pig.’ Now, what will you have for breakfast? Ask the vagabonds, too, and tell them there’s a wide choice here; they have everything you can mention in this little inn.”

An excellent breakfast was soon spread out before us, and though my humble companions did it the most ample justice, I sat there, thoughtful and almost sad. The words of that stranger rang in my ears like a reproach and a warning. I knew how truly he had said that I was not a man of fortune, and it grieved me sorely to think how easily he saw it. In my heart of hearts I knew it was the delusion I loved best To appear to the world at large an eccentric man of good means, free to do what he liked and go where he would, was the highest enjoyment I had ever prepared for myself; and yet here was a coarse, commonplace sort of man, – at least, his manners were unpolished and his tone underbred, – and he saw through it all at once.

I took the first opportunity to slip away unobserved from the company, and retired to the little garden of the inn, to commune with myself and be alone. But ere I had been many minutes there, Harpar joined me. He came up smoking his cigar, with the lounging, lazy air of a man at perfect leisure, and, consequently, quite free to be as disagreeable as he pleased.

“You went off without eating your breakfast,” said he, bluntly. “I saw how it was. You did n’t like my freedom with you. You fancied that I ought to have taken all that nonsense of yours about your rank and your way of life for gospel; or, at least, that I ought to have pretended to do so. That ain’t my way. I hate humbug.”

It was not very easy to reply good humoredly to such a speech as this. Indeed, I saw no particular reason to treat this man’s freedom with any indulgence, and drawing myself haughtily up, I prepared a very dry but caustic rejoinder.

“When I have learned two points,” said I, “on which you can inform me, I may be better able to answer what you have said. The first is: By what possible right do you take to task a person that you never met in your life till now? and, secondly, What benefit on earth could it be to me to impose upon a man from whom I neither want nor expect anything?”

“Easily met, both,” said he, quickly. “I’m a practical sort of fellow, who never wastes time on useless materials; that’s for your first proposition. Number two: you’re a dreamer, and you hate being awakened.”

“Well, sir,” said I, stiffly, “to a gentleman so remarkable for perspicuity, and who reads character at sight, ordinary intercourse must be wearisome. Will you excuse me if I take my leave of you here?”

“Of course, make no ceremony about it; go or stay, Just as you like. I never cross any man’s humor.”

I muttered something that sounded like a dissent to that doctrine, and he quickly added, “I mean, further than speaking my mind, that ‘s all; nothing more. If you had been a man of fair means, and for a frolic thought it might be good fun to consort for a few days with rapscallions of a travelling circus, all one could say was, it was n’t very good taste; but being, evidently, a fellow of another stamp, a young man who ought to be in his father’s shop or his uncle’s counting-house, following some honest craft or calling, – for you, I say, it was downright ruin.”

“Indeed!” said I, with an accent of intense scorn.

“Yes,” continued he, seriously, “downright ruin, There’s a poison in the lazy, good-for-nothing life of these devils, that never leaves a man’s blood. I ‘ve a notion that it would n’t hurt a man’s nature so much were he to consort with housebreakers; there’s, at least, something real about these fellows.”

“You talk, doubtless, with knowledge, sir,” said I, glad to say something that might offend him.

“I do,” said he, seriously, and not taking the smallest account of the impertinent allusion. “I know that if a man has n’t a fixed calling, but is always turning his hand to this, that, and t’ other, he will very soon cease to have any character whatsoever; he ‘ll just become as shifty in his nature as in his business. I ‘ve seen scores of fellows wrecked on that rock, and I had n’t looked at you twice till I saw you were one of them.”

“I must say, sir,” said I, summoning to my aid what I felt to be a most cutting sarcasm of manner, – “I must say, sir, that, considering how short has been the acquaintance which has subsisted between us, it would be extremely difficult for me to show how gratefully I feel the interest you have taken in me.”

“Well, I ‘m not so sure of that,” said he, thoughtfully.

“May I ask, then, how?”

“Are you sure, first of all, that you wish to show this gratitude you speak of?”

“Oh, sir, can you possibly doubt it?”

“I don’t want to doubt it, I want to profit by it.”

I made a bland bow that might mean anything, but did not speak.

“Here’s the way of it,” said he, boldly. “Rigges has run off with all my loose cash, and though there ‘s money waiting for me at certain places, I shall find it very difficult to reach them. I have come down here on foot from Wild-bad, and I can make my way in the same fashion, to Marseilles or Genoa; but then comes the difficulty, and I shall need about ten pounds to get to Malta. Could you lend me ten pounds?”

“Really, sir,” said I, coolly, “I am amazed at the innocence with which you can make such a demand on the man whom you have, only a few minutes back, so acutely depicted as an adventurer.”

“It was for that very reason I thought of applying to you. Had you been a young fellow of a certain fortune, you ‘d naturally have been a stranger to the accidents which now and then leave men penniless in out-of-the-way places, and it is just as likely that the first thought in your head would be, ‘Oh, he’s a swindler. Why has n’t he his letters of credit or his circular notes?’ But, being exactly what I take you for, the chances are, you ‘ll say: ‘What has befallen him to-day may chance to me to-morrow. Who can tell the day and the hour some mishap may not overtake him? and so I ‘ll just help him through it.’”

“And that was your calculation?”

“That was my calculation.”

“How sorry I feel to wound the marvellous gift you seem to possess of interpreting character. I am really shocked to think that for this time, at least, your acuteness is at fault.”

“Which means that you ‘ll not do it.”

I smiled a benign assent.

He looked at me for a minute or more with a sort of blank incredulity, and then, crossing his arms on his breast, moved slowly down the walk without speaking.

I cannot say how I detested this man; he had offended me in the very sorest part of all my nature; he had wounded the nicest susceptibility I possessed; of the pleasant fancies wherewith I loved to clothe myself he would not leave me enough to cover my nakedness; and yet, now that I had resented his cool impertinence, I hated myself far more than I hated him. Dignity and sarcasm, forsooth! What a fine opportunity to display them, truly! The man might be rude and underbred; he was rude and underbred! and was that any justification for my conduct towards him? Why had I not had the candor to say, “Here ‘s all I possess in the world; you see yourself that I cannot lend you ten pounds.” How I wished I had said that, and how I wished, even more ardently still, that I had never met him, never interchanged speech with him!

“And why is it that I am offended with him, – simply because he has discovered that I am Potts?” Now, these reflections were all the more bitter, since it was only twenty-four hours before that I had resolved to throw off delusion either of myself or others; that I would take my place in the ranks, and fight out my battle of life a mere soldier. For this it was that I made companionship with Vaterehen, walking the high road with that poor old man of motley, and actually speculating – in a sort of artistic way – whether I should not make love to Tintefleck! And if I were sincere in all this, how should I feel wounded by the honest candor of that plain-spoken fellow. He wanted a favor at my hands, he owned this; and yet, instead of approaching me with flattery, he at once assails the very stronghold of my self-esteem, and says, “No humbug, Potts; at least none with me!” He opens acquaintance with me on that masonic principle by which the brotherhood of Poverty is maintained throughout all lands and all peoples, and whose great maxim is, “He who lends to the poor man borrows from the ragged man.”

“I ‘ll go after him at once,” said I, aloud. “I ‘ll have more talk with him. I ‘m much mistaken if there’s not good stuff in that rugged nature.”

When I entered the little inn, I found Vaterehen fast asleep; he had finished off every flask on the table, and lay breathing stertorously, and giving a long-drawn whistle in his snore, that smacked almost of apoplexy. Tintefleck was singing to her guitar before a select audience of the inn servants, and Harpar was gone!

I gave the girl a glance of rebuke and displeasure. I aroused the old man with a kick, and imperiously demanded my bill.

“The bill has been paid by the other stranger,” said the landlord; “he has settled everything, and left a trinkgeld for the servants, so that you have nothing to pay.”

I could have almost cried with spite as I heard these words. It would have been a rare solace to my feelings if I could have put that man down for a rogue, and then been able to say to myself, how cleverly I had escaped the snares of a swindler. But to know now that he was not only honest but liberal, and to think, besides, that I had been his guest, – eaten of his salt, – it was more than I well could endure.

“Which way did he take?” asked I.

“Round the head of the lake for Lindao. I told him that the steamer would take him there to-morrow for a trifle, but he would not wait.”

“Ah me!” sighed Vaterchen, but half awake, and with one eye still closed, “and we are going to St. Gallen.”

“Who said so?” cried I, imperiously. “We are going to Lindao; at least, if I be the person who gives orders here. Follow!” And as I spoke I marched proudly on, while a slip-shod, shuffling noise of feet, and a low, half-smothered sob told me that they were coming after me.

CHAPTER XXXIV. A SUMPTUOUS DINNER AND AN EMPTY POCKET

Mr poor companions had but a sorry time of it on that morning. I was in a fearful temper, and made no effort to control it. The little romance of my meeting with these creatures was beginning to scale off, and, there beneath, lay the vulgar metal of their natures exposed to view. As for old Vaterchen, shuffling along in his tattered shoes, half-stupid with wine and shame together, I could n’t bear to look at him; while Tintefleck, although at the outset abashed by my rebukeful tone and cold manner, had now rallied, and seemed well disposed to assert her own against all comers. Yes, there’ was a palpable air of defiance about her, even to the way that she sang as she went along; every thrill and cadence seemed to say, “I ‘m doing this to amuse myself; never imagine that I care whether you are pleased or not.” Indeed, she left me no means of avoiding this conclusion, since at every time that I turned on her a look of anger or displeasure, her reply was to sing the louder.

“And it was only yesterday,” thought I, “and I dreamed that I could be in love with this creature, – dreamed that I could replace Kate Herbert’s image in my heart with that coarse travesty of woman’s gentleness. Why, I might as well hope to make a gentleman of old Vaterchen, and present him to the world as a man of station and eminence.”

What an insane hope was this! As well might I shiver a fragment from a stone on the road-side, and think to give it value by having it set as a ring. The caprice of keeping them company for a day might be pardonable. It was the whim of one who is, above all, a student of mankind. But why continue the companionship? A little more of such intimacy, and who is to say what I may not imbibe of their habits and their natures; and Potts, the man of sentiment, the child of impulse, romance, and poetry, become a slave of the “Ring,” a saltimbanque! Now, though I could implicitly rely upon the rigidity of my joints to prevent the possibility of my ever displaying any feats of agility, I could yet picture myself in a long-tailed blue coat and jack-boots walking round and round in the sawdust circle, with four or five other creatures of the same sort, and who have no consciousness of any function till they are made the butt of some extempore drollery by the clown.

The creative temperament has this great disadvantage, that one cannot always build castles, but must occasionally construct hovels, and sometimes even dungeons and jails; and here was I now, with a large contract order for this species of edifice, and certainly £ set to work with a will. The impatience of my mind communicated itself to my gait, and I walked along at a tremendous rate.

“I can scarcely keep up with you at this pace,” said Tintefleck; “and see, we have left poor Vaterchen a long way behind.”

I made some rude answer, – I know not what, – and told her to come on.

“I will not leave him,” said she, coming to a halt, and standing in a composed and firm attitude before me.

“Then I will,” said I, angrily. “Farewell!” And waving my hand in a careless adieu, I walked briskly onward, not even turning a look on her as I went. I think, I’m almost certain, I heard a heavy sob close behind me, but I would not look round for worlds. I was in one of those moods – all weak men know them well – when a harsh or an ungracious act appears something very daring and courageous. The very pain my conduct gave myself, persuaded me that it must be heroic, just as a devotee is satisfied after a severe self-castigation.

“Yes, Potts,” said I, “you are doing the right thing here. A little more of such association as this, and you would be little better than themselves. Besides, and above all, you ought to be ‘real.’ Now, these are not real any more than the tinsel gems and tinfoil splendors they wear on their tunics.” It broke on me, too, like a sudden light, that to be the fictitious Potts, the many-sided, many-tinted, – what a German would call “der mitviele-farben bedeckte Potts,” – I ought to be immensely rich, all my changes of character requiring great resources and unlimited “properties” as stage folk call them; whereas, “der echte wahrhaf-tige Mann Potts” might be as poor as Lazarus. Indeed, the poorer the more real, since more natural.

While I thus speculated, I caught sight of a man scaling one of the precipitous paths by which the winding road was shortened for foot-travellers; a second glance showed me that this was Harpar, who, with a heavy knapsack, was toiling along. I made a great effort to come up with him, but when I reached the high road, he was still a long distance in front of me. I could not, if there had been any one to question me, say why I wished to overtake him. It was a sort of chase suggested simply by the object in front; a rare type, if we but knew it, of one half the pursuits we follow throughout life.

As I mounted the last of these bypaths which led to the crest of the mountain, I felt certain that, with a lighter equipment, I should come up with him; but scarcely had I gained the top, than I saw him striding away vigorously on the road fully a mile away beneath me. “He shall not beat me,” said I; and I increased my speed. It was all in vain. I could not do it; and when I drew nigh Lindau at last, very weary and footsore, the sun was just sinking on the western shore of the lake.

“Which is the best inn here?” asked I of a shopkeeper who was lounging carelessly at his door.

“Yonder,” said he, “where you see that post-carriage turning into.”

“To-night,” said I, “I will be guilty of an extravagance. I will treat myself to a good supper, and an honest glass of wine.” And on these hospitable thoughts intent I unslung my knapsack, and, throwing as much of distinction as I could into my manner, strolled into the public room.

So busied was the household in attending to the travellers who arrived “extra post,” that none condescended to notice me, till at last, as the tumult subsided, a venerable old waiter approached me, and said, in a half friendly, half rebukeful tone, “It is at the ‘Swan’ you ought to be, my friend, the next turning but two to the left hand, and you ‘ll see the blue lantern over the gateway.”

“I mean to remain where I am,” said I, imperiously, “and to remember your impertinence when I am about to pay my bill. Bring me the carte.”

I was overjoyed to see the confusion and shame of the old fellow. He saw at once the grievous error he had committed, and was so overwhelmed that he could not reply. Meanwhile, with all the painstaking accuracy of a practised gourmand, I was making a careful note of what I wished for supper.

“Are you not ashamed,” said I, rebukefully, “to have ortolans here, when you know in your heart they are swallows?”

He was so abject that he could only give a melancholy smile, as though to say, “Be merciful, and spare us!”

“Bohemian pheasant, too, – come, come, this is too bad! Be frank and confess; how often has that one speckled tail done duty on a capon of your own raising?”

“Gracious Herr!” muttered he, “do not crush us altogether.”

I don’t think that he said this in actual words, but his terrified eyes and his shaking cheeks declared it.

“Never mind,” said I, encouragingly, “it will not hurt us to make a sparing meal occasionally; with the venison and steak, the fried salmon, the duck with olives, and the apricot tart, we will satisfy appetite, and persuade ourselves, if we can, that we have fared luxuriously.”

“And the wine, sir?” asked he.

“Ah, there we are difficult. No little Baden vintage, no small wine of the Bergstrasse, can impose upon us! Lieb-frauen-milch, or, if you can guarantee it, Marcobrunner will do; but, mind, no substitutes!”

He laid his hand over his heart and bowed low; and, as he moved away, I said to myself, “What a mesmerism there must be in real money, since, even with the mockery of it, I have made that creature a bond slave.” Brief as was the interval in preparing my meal, it was enough to allow me a very considerable share of reflection, and I found that, do what I would, a certain voice within would whisper, “Where are your fine resolutions now, Potts? Is this the life of reality that you had promised yourself? Are you not at the old work again? Are you not masquerading it once more? Don’t you know well enough that all this pretension of yours is bad money, and that at the first ring of it on the counter you will be found out?”