That Boy Of Norcott's

“Has Norcott promised you the presentation, Bob?”

“No. He can’t make up his mind whether he ‘ll give it to me or to a Plymouth Brother, or to that fellow that was taken up at Salford for blasphemy, and who happens to be in full orders.”

“With all his enmity to the Established Church, I think he might be satisfied with you,” said Cleremont.

“Very neat, and very polite too,” said Eccles; “but that this is the Palace of Truth, I might feel nettled.”

“Is it, by Jove?” cried Hotham. “Then it must be in the summer months, when the house is shut up. Who has got a strong cigar? These Cubans of Norcott’s have no flavor. It must be close on luncheon-time.”

“I can’t join you, for I ‘ve to go into town, and get my young bear trimmed, and his nails cut. ‘Make him presentable,’ Norcott said, and I ‘ve had easier tasks to do.”

So saying, Eccles moved off in one direction, while Hotham and Cleremont strolled away in another; and I was left to my own reflections, which were not few.

CHAPTER V. A FIRST DINNER-PARTY

I was made “presentable” in due time, and on the fifth day after my arrival made my appearance at the dinner-table. “Sit there, sir,” said my father, “opposite me.” And I was not sorry to perceive that an enormous vase with flowers effectually screened me from his sight. The post of honor thus accorded me was a sufficient intimation to my father’s guests how he intended me to be treated by them; and as they were without an exception all hangers-on and dependants, – men who dined badly or not at all when uninvited to his table, – they were marvellously quick in understanding that I was to be accepted as his heir, and, after himself, the person of most consideration there.

Besides the three individuals I have already mentioned, our party included two foreigners, – Baron Steinmetz, an aide-de-camp of the King, and an Italian duke, San Giovanni. The Duke sat on my father’s right, the Baron on mine. The conversation during dinner was in French, which I followed imperfectly, and was considerably relieved on discovering that the German spoke French with difficulty, and blundered over his genders as hopelessly as I should have done had I attempted to talk. “Ach Gott,” muttered he to himself in German, “when people were seeking for a common language, why did n’t they take one that all humanity could pronounce?”

“So meine ich auch, Herr Baron,” cried I; “I quite agree with you.”

He turned towards me with a look of-positive affection, on seeing I knew German, and we both began to talk together at once with freedom.

“What’s the boy saying?” cried my father, as he caught the sounds of some glib speech of mine. “Don’t let him bore you with his bad French, Steinmetz.”

“He is charming me with his admirable German,” said the Baron. “I can’t tell when I have met a more agreeable companion.”

This was, of course, a double flattery, for my German was very bad, and my knowledge on any subject no better; but the fact did not diminish the delight the praise afforded me.

“Do you know German, Digby?” asked my father.

“A little, – a very little, sir.”

“The fellow would say he knew Sanscrit if you asked him,” whispered Hotham to Eccles; but my sharp ears overheard him.

“Come, that’s better than I looked for,” said my father. “What do you say, Eccles? Is there stuff there?”

“Plenty, Sir Roger; enough and to spare. I count on Digby to do me great credit yet.”

“What career do you mean your son to follow?” asked the Italian, while he nodded to me over his wine-glass in most civil recognition.

“I’ll not make a sailor of him, like that sea-wolf yonder; nor a diplomatist, like my silent friend in the corner. Neither shall he be a soldier till British armies begin to do something better than hunt out illicit stills and protect process-servers.”

“A politician, perhaps?”

“Certainly not, sir. There ‘s no credit in belonging to a Parliament brought down to the meridian of soap-boilers and bankrupt bill-brokers.”

“There’s the Church, Sir Roger,” chimed in Eccles.

“There’s the Pope’s Church, with some good prizes in the wheel; but your branch, Master Bob, is a small concern, and it is trembling, besides. No. I ‘ll make him none of these. It is in our vulgar passion for money-getting we throw our boys into this or that career in life, and we narrow to the stupid formula of some profession abilities that were meant for mankind. I mean Digby to deal with the world; and to fit him for the task, he shall learn as much of human nature as I can afford to teach him.”

“Ah, there’s great truth in that, very great truth; very wise and very original too,” were the comments that ran round the board.

Excited by this theme, and elated by his success, my father went on: —

“If you want a boy to ride, you don’t limit him to the quiet hackney that neither pulls nor shies, neither bolts nor plunges; and so, if you wish your son to know his fellow-men, you don’t keep him in a charmed circle of deans and archdeacons, but you throw him fearlessly into contact with old debauchees like Hotham, or abandoned scamps of the style of Cleremont,” – and here he had to wait till the laughter subsided to add, “and, last of all, you take care to provide him with a finishing tutor like Eccles.”

“I knew your turn was coming, Bob,” whispered Hotham; but still all laughed heartily, well satisfied to stand ridicule themselves if others were only pilloried with them.

When dinner was over, we sat about a quarter of an hour, not more, and then adjourned to coffee in a small room that seemed half boudoir, half conservatory. As I loitered about, having no one to speak to, I found myself at last in a little shrubbery, through which a sort of labyrinth meandered. It was a taste of the day revived from olden times, and amazed me much by its novelty. While I was puzzling myself to find out the path that led out of the entanglement, I heard a voice I knew at once to be Hotham’s, saying, —

“Look at that boy of Norcott’s: he’s not satisfied with the imbroglio within doors, but he must go out to mystify himself with another.”

“I don’t much fancy that young gentleman,” said Cleremont.

“And I only half. Bob Eccles says we have all made a precious mistake in advising Norcott to bring him back.”

“Yet it was our only chance to prevent it. Had we opposed the plan, he was sure to have determined on it. There’s nothing for it but your notion, Hotham; let him send the brat to sea with you.”

“Yes, I think that would do it.” And now they had walked out of earshot, and I heard no more.

If I was not much reassured by these droppings, I was far more moved by the way in which I came to hear them. Over and over had my dear mother cautioned me against listening to what was not meant for me; and here, simply because I found myself the topic, I could not resist the temptation to learn how men would speak of me. I remembered well the illustration by which my mother warned me as to the utter uselessness of the sort of knowledge thus gained. She told me of a theft some visitor had made at Abbotsford, – the object stolen being a signet-ring Lord Byron had given to Sir Walter. The man who stole this could never display the treasure without avowing himself a thief. He had, therefore, taken what from the very moment of the fraud became valueless. He might gaze on it in secret with such pleasure as his self-accusings would permit. He might hug himself with the thought of possession; but how could that give pleasure, or how drown the everlasting shame the mere sight of the object must revive? So would it be, my mother said, with him who unlawfully possessed himself of certain intelligence which he could not employ without being convicted of the way he gained it The lesson thus illustrated had not ceased to be remembered by me; and though I tried all my casuistry to prove that I listened without intention, almost without being aware of it, I was shocked and grieved to find how soon I was forgetting the precepts she had labored so hard to impress upon me.

She had also said, “By the same rule which would compel you to restore to its owner what you had become possessed of wrongfully, you are bound to let him you have accidentally overheard know to what extent you are aware of his thoughts.”

“This much, at least, I can do,” said I: “I can tell these gentlemen that I heard a part of their conversation.”

I walked about for nigh an hour revolving these things in my head, and at last returned to the house. As I entered the drawing-room, I was struck by the silence. My father, Cleremont, and the two foreigners were playing whist at one end of the room, Hotham and Eccles were seated at chess at another. Not a word was uttered save some brief demand of the game, or a murmured “check,” by the chess-players. Taking my place noiselessly beside these latter, I watched the board eagerly, to try and acquire the moves.

“Do you understand the game?” whispered Hotham.

“No, sir,” said I, in the same cautious tone.

“I ‘ll show you the moves, when this party is over.” And I muttered my thanks for the courtesy.

“This is intolerable!” cried out my father. “That confounded whispering is far more distracting than any noise. I have lost all count of my game. I say, Eccles, why is not that boy in bed?”

“I thought you said he might sup, Sir Roger.”

“If I did, it was because I thought he knew how to conduct himself. Take him away at once.”

And Eccles rose, and with more kindness than I had expected from him, said, “Come, Digby, I ‘ll go too, for we have both to be early risers to-morrow.”

Thus ended my first day in public, and I have no need to say what a strange conflict filled my head that night as I dropped off to sleep.

CHAPTER VI. HOW THE DAYS WENT OYER

If I give one day of my life, I give, with very nearly exactness, the unbroken course of my existence. I rose very early – hours ere the rest of the household was stirring – to work at my lessons, which Mr. Eccles apportioned for me with a liberality that showed he had the highest opinion of my abilities, or – as I discovered later on to be the truth – a profound indifference about them. Thus, a hundred lines of Virgil, thirty of Xenophon, three propositions of Euclid, with a sufficient amount of history, geography, and logic, would be an ordinary day’s work. It is fair I should own that when the time of examination came, I found him usually imbibing seltzer and curacoa, with a wet towel round his head; or, in his robuster moments, practising the dumbbells to develop his muscles. So that the interrogatories-were generally in this wise: —

“How goes it, Digby? What of the Homer, eh?”

“‘It ‘s Xenophon, sir.”

“‘To be sure it is. I was forgetting, as a man might who had my headache. And, by the way, Digby, why will your father give Burgundy at supper instead of Bordeaux? Some one must surely have told him accidentally it was a deadly poison, for he adheres to it with desperate fidelity.”

“I believe I know my Greek, sir,” would I say, modestly, to recall him to the theme.

“Of course you do; you’d cut a sorry figure here this morning if you did not know it. No, sir; I ‘m not the man to enjoy your father’s confidence, and take his money, and betray my trust His words to me were, ‘Make him a gentleman, Eccles. I could find scores of fellows to cram him with Greek particles and double equations, but I want the man who can turn out the perfect article, – the gentleman.’ Come now, what relations subsisted between Cyrus and Xenophon?”

“Xenophon coached him, sir.”

“So he did. Just strike a light for me. My head is splitting for want of a cigar. You may have a cigarette too. I don’t object Virgil we’ll keep till to-morrow. Virgil was a muff, after all. Virgil was a decentish sort of Martin Tupper, Digby. He had no wit, no repartee, no smartness; he prosed about ploughs and shepherds, like a maudlin old squire; or he told a very shady sort of anecdote about Dido, which I always doubted should be put into the hands of youth. Horace is free, too, a thought too free; but he could n’t help it. Horace lived the same kind of life we do here, a species of roast-partridge and pretty woman sort of life; but then he was the gentleman always. If old Flaccus had lived now, he’d have been pretty much like Bob Eccles, and putting in his divinity lectures perhaps. By the way, I hope your father won’t go and give away that small rectory in Kent. ‘We who live to preach, must preach to live.’ That is n’t exactly the line, but it will do. Pulvis et umbra sumus, Digby; and take what care we may of ourselves, we must go back, as the judges say, to the place from whence we came. There, now, you ‘ve had classical criticism, sound morality, worldly wisdom, and the rest of it; and, with your permission, we’ll pack up the books, and stand prorogued till – let me see – Saturday next.”

Of course I moved no amendment, and went my way rejoicing.

From that hour I was free to follow my own inclinations, which usually took a horsey turn; and as the stable offered several mounts, I very often rode six hours a day. Hotham was always to be found in the pistol-gallery about four of an afternoon, and I usually joined him there, and speedily became more than his match.

“Well, youngster,” he would say, when beaten and irritable, “I can beat your head off at billiards, anyhow.”

But I was not long in robbing him of even this boast, and in less than three months I could defy the best player in the house. The fact was, I had in a remarkable degree that small talent for games of every kind which is a speciality with certain persons. I could not only learn a game quickly, but almost always attain considerable skill in it.

“So, sir,” said my father to me one day at dinner, – and nothing was more rare than for him to address a word to me, and I was startled as he did so, – “so, sir, you are going to turn out an Admirable Crichton on my hands, it seems. I hear of nothing but your billiard-playing, your horsemanship, and your cricketing, while Mr. Eccles tells me that your progress with him is equally remarkable.”

He stopped and seemed to expect me to make some rejoinder; but I could not utter a word, and felt overwhelmed at the observation and notice his speech had drawn upon me.

“It’s better I should tell you at once,” resumed my father, “that I dislike prodigies. I dislike because I distrust them. The fellow who knows at fourteen what he might reasonably have known at thirty is not unlikely to stop short at fifteen and grow no more. I don’t wish to be personal, but I have heard it said Cleremont was a very clever boy.”

The impertinence of this speech, and the laughter it at once excited, served to turn attention away from me; but, through the buzz and murmur around, I overheard Cleremont say to Hotham, “I shall pull him up short one of these days, and you ‘ll see an end of all this.”

“Now,” continued my father, “if Eccles had told me that the boy was a skilful hand at sherry-cobbler, or a rare judge of a Cuban cigar, I ‘d have reposed more faith in the assurance than when he spoke of his classics.”

“He ain’t bad at a gin-sling with bitters, that I must say,” said Eccles, whose self-control or good-humor, or mayhap some less worthy trait, always carried him successfully over a difficulty.

“So, sir,” said my father, turning again on me, “the range of your accomplishments is complete. You might be a tapster or a jockey. When the nobility of France came to ruin in the Revolution, the best blood of the kingdom became barbers and dancing-masters: so that when some fine morning that gay gentleman yonder will discover that he is a beggar, he ‘ll have no difficulty in finding a calling to suit his tastes, and square with his abilities. What’s Hotham grumbling about? Will any one interpret him for me?”

“Hotham is saying that this claret is corked,” said the sea-captain, with a hoarse loud voice.

“Bottled at home!” said my father, “and, like your own education, Hotham, spoiled for a beggarly economy.”

“I ‘m glad you ‘ve got it,” muttered Cleremont, whose eyes glistened with malignant spite. “I have had enough of this; I ‘m for coffee,” and he arose as he spoke.

“Has Cleremont left us?” asked my father.

“Yes; that last bottle has finished him. I told you before, Nixon knows nothing about wine. I saw that hogshead lying bung up for eight weeks before it was drawn off for bottling.”

“Why didn’t you speak to him about it, then?”

“And be told that I’m not his master, eh? You don’t seem to know, Norcott, that you ‘ve got a houseful of the most insolent servants in Christendom. Cleremont’s wife wanted the chestnuts yesterday in the phaeton, and George refused her: she might take the cobs, or nothing.”

“Quite true,” chimed in Eccles; “and the fellow said, ‘I ‘m a-taking the young horses out in the break, and if the missis wants to see the chestnuts, she’d better come with me.‘**

“And as to a late breakfast now, it’s quite impossible; they delay and delay till they run you into luncheon,” growled Hotham.

“They serve me my chocolate pretty regularly,” said my father, negligently, and he arose and strolled out of the room. As he went, he slipped his arm within mine, and said, in a half-whisper, “I suppose it will come to this, – I shall have to change my friends or my household. Which would you advise?”

“I ‘d say the friends, sir.”

“So should I, but that they would not easily find another place. There, go and see is the billiard-room lighted. I want to see you play a game with Cleremont.”

Cleremont was evidently sulking under the sarcasm passed on him, and took up his cue to play with a bad grace.

“Who will have five francs on the party?” said my father. “I ‘m going to back the boy.”

“Make it pounds, Norcott,” said Hotham.

“I’ll give you six to five, in tens,” said Cleremont to my father. “Will you take it?”

I was growing white and red by turns all this time. I was terrified at the thought that money was to be staked on my play, and frightened by the mere presence of my father at the table.

“The youngster is too nervous to play. Don’t let him, Norcott,” said Hotham, with a kindness I had not given him credit for.

“Give me the cue, Digby; I ‘ll take your place,” said my father; and Cleremont and Hotham both drew nigh, and talked to him in a low tone.

“Eight and the stroke then be it,” said my father, “and the bet in fifties.” The others nodded, and Cleremont began the game.

I could not have believed I could have suffered the amount of intense anxiety that game cost me. Had my life been on the issue, I do not think I could have gone through greater alternations of hope and fear than now succeeded in my heart Cleremont started with eight points odds, and made thirty-two off the balls before my father began to play. He now took his place, and by the first stroke displayed a perfect mastery of the game. There was a sort of languid grace, an indolent elegance about all he did, that when the stroke required vigor or power made me tremble for the result; but somehow he imparted the exact amount of force needed, and the balls moved about here and there as though obedient to some subtle instinct of which the cue gave a mere sign. He scored forty-two points in a few minutes, and then drawing himself up, said, “There ‘s an eight-stroke now on the table. I ‘ll give any one three hundred Naps to two that I do it.”

None spoke. “Or I ‘ll tell you what I ‘ll do. I ‘ll take fifty from each of you and draw the game!” Another as complete silence ensued. “Or here ‘s a third proposition, Give me fifty between you, and I ‘ll hand over the cue to the boy; he shall finish the game.”

“Oh, no, sir! I beg you – I entreat – ” I began; but already, “Done,” had been loudly uttered by both together, and the bet was ratified.

“Don’t be nervous, boy,” said my father, handing me his cue. “You see what’s on the balls. You cannon and hold the white, and land the red in the middle pocket. If you can’t do the brilliant thing, and finish the game with an eight stroke, do the safe one, – the cannon or the hazard. But, above all, don’t lose your stroke, sir. Mind that, for I’ve a pot of money on the game.”

“I don’t think you ought to counsel him, Norcott,” said Cleremont. “If he’s a player, he’s fit to devise his own game.”

“Oh, hang it, no,” broke in Hotham; “Norcott has a perfect right to tell him what’s on the table.”

“If you object seriously, sir,” said my father proudly, “the party is at an end.”

“I put it to yourself,” began Cleremont.

“You shall not appeal to me against myself, sir. You either withdraw your objection, or you maintain it.”

“Of course he withdraws it,” said Hotham, whose eyes never wandered from my father’s face.

Cleremont nodded a half-unwilling assent.

“You will do me the courtesy to speak, perhaps,” said my father; and every word came from him with a tremulous roll.

“Yes, yes, I agree. There was really nothing in my remark,” said Cleremont, whose self-control seemed taxed to its last limit.

“There, go on, boy, and finish this stupid affair,” said my father, and he turned to the chimney to light his cigar.

I leaned over the table, and a mist seemed to rise before me. I saw volumes of cloud rolling swiftly across, and meteors, or billiard-balls, I knew not which, shooting through them. I played and missed; I did not even strike a ball. A wild roar of laughter, a cry of joy, and a confused blending of several voices in various tones followed, and I stood there like one stunned into immobility. Meanwhile Cleremont finished the game, and, clapping me gayly on the shoulder, cried, “I ‘m more grateful to you than your father is, my lad. That shaking hands of yours has made a difference of two hundred Naps to me.” I turned towards the fire; my father had left the room.

CHAPTER VII. A PRIVATE AUDIENCE

I had but reached my room when Eccles followed me to say my father wished to see me at once.

“Come, come, Digby,” said Eccles, good-naturedly, “don’t be frightened. Even if he should be angry with you, his passion passes soon over; and, if uncontradicted, he is never disposed to bear a grudge long. Go immediately, however, and don’t keep him waiting.”

I cannot tell with what a sense of abasement I entered my father’s dressing-room; for, after all, it was the abject condition of my own mind that weighed me down.

“So, sir,” said he, as I closed the door, “this is something I was not prepared for. You might be forty things, but I certainly did not suspect that a son of mine should be a coward.”

Had my father ransacked his whole vocabulary for a term of insult, he could pot have found one to pain me like this.

“I am not a coward, sir,” said I, reddening till I felt my face in a perfect glow.

“What!” cried he, passionately; “are you going to give me a proof of courage by daring to outrage me? Is it by sending back my words in my teeth you assume to be brave?”

“I ask pardon, sir,” said I, humbly, “if I have replied rudely; but you called me by a name that made me forget myself. I hope you will forgive me.”

“Sit down, there, sir; no, there.” And he pointed to a more distant chair. “There are various sorts and shades of cowardice, and I would not have you tarnished with any one of them. The creature whose first thought, and indeed only one, in an emergency is his personal safety, and who, till that condition is secured, abstains from all action, is below contempt; him I will not even consider. But next to him – of course with a long interval – comes the fellow who is so afraid of a responsibility that the very thought of it unmans him. How did the fact of my wager come to influence you at all, sir? Why should you have had any thought but for the game you were playing, and how it behoved you to play it? How came I and these gentlemen to stand between you and your real object, if it were not that a craven dread of consequences had got the ascendancy in your mind? If men were to be beset by these calculations, if every fellow carried about him an armor of sophistry like this, he ‘d have no hand free to wield a weapon, and the world would see neither men who storm a breach nor board an enemy. Till a man can so isolate and concentrate his faculties on what he has to do that all extraneous conditions cease to affect him, he will never be well served by his own powers; and he who is but half served is only half brave. There are times when the unreasoners are worth all the men of logic, remember that. And now go and sleep over it.”