A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance

“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 considerable extent. “It went, the doctor said, within a hair’s-breadth of the artery.”

I made no comment upon this story. From the moment I heard it, I felt as though I was travelling with the late Mr. Palmer, of Rugeley. I was as it were in the company of one who never would have scrupled to dispose of me, at any moment and in any way that his fancy suggested. My code respecting the duel was to regard it as the last, the very last, appeal in the direst emergency of dishonor. The men who regarded it as the settlement of slight differences, I deemed assassins. They were no more safe associates for peaceful citizens than a wolf was a meet companion for a flock of South Downs. The more I ruminated on this theme, the more indignant grew my resentment, and the question assumed the shape of asking, “Is the great mass of mankind to be hectored and bullied by some half-dozen scoundrels with skill at the small sword?” Little knew I that in the ardor of my indignation I had uttered these words aloud, – spoken them with an earnest vehemence, looking my fellow-traveller full in the face, and frowning.