Читать книгу A Whim, and Its Consequences - G. P. R. James - Страница 4

It was the autumn of the year, when men who do such things, shoot pheasants, and go hunting. The leaves had fallen from the trees, and were blown about in heaps by the chill wind; or if any hung upon the sapless branches, it was but as the tatters of a shroud on the dry bones of some violated tomb; the grass in the fields was brown, and beaten down by wind and storm; the streams were flooded with yellow torrents from the hills, and waved about in wild confusion the thick, fleshy stems of the water weeds; and the face of earth, cold and spiritless like that of a corpse, glared up to the sunless sky, without one promise of the glorious resurrection of the spring. It was night, too, dull, gray night. The raven's wing brooded over the whole world; clouds were upon the firmament; no moonbeam warmed with sweet prophecy the edge of the vapour; but, dim and monotonous, the black veil quenched the starry eyes of heaven, and the shrill wind that whistled through the creaking tree-tops, stirred not even the edges of that dun pall so as to afford one glimpse of things beneath.

There was a dark clay-like smell in the air, too, a smell of decay; for the vegetable world was rotting down into the earth, and the death of the year's life made itself felt to every sense. All was dark, and foul, and chilly as a tomb.

With a quick, strong step, firm, well-planted, unwavering, a man walked along with a stick over his shoulder, and a bundle on the hook of the stick. There was nothing gay or lightsome in his gait. It betokened strength, resolution, self-dependence, but not cheerfulness. He whistled not as he went: the wind whistled enough for the whole world. He neither looked up nor down, but straight forward on his way; and though the blast beat upon his breast and over his cheek, though the thin, sleety rain dashed in his face, and poked its icy fingers in his eyes, on he went sturdily. He never seemed to feel it. He was either young and hardy, or had bitter things in his heart which armoured him against the sharp tooth of the weather--perhaps both. He seemed to know his way well too, for he paused not to consider or look round; but on--on, for many an hour he walked, till at length a stream stopped him, hissing along under its sedgy banks, and in some places overtopping them with the swollen waters.

There he halted for an instant, but not longer; and then with a laugh, short and not gay, he walked straight on, following the path. The turbid torrent came to his knee, rose to the hip, reached his elbows. "Deep enough!" said the night wanderer, but on he went. The stream wrestled with, and shook him, tugged at his feet, strove to whirl him round in its eddies, splashed up against his chest, and, like a hungry serpent, seemed to lick the prey it was fierce to swallow up. He let go the stick and the bundle, and swam. It was his only chance to reach the other bank alive; but he uttered no cry, he called for no help: perhaps he knew that it would be in vain. He could not conquer without loss, though he gave the torrent buffet for buffet, but, like a determined band fighting against a superior force, he smote still, though turned from his direct course, and still made progress onward, till catching the root of an old tree, he held firm, regained his breath and his footing, and leaped upon the bank.

"Who are you? and what do you want here?" asked a voice the moment after, as he paused by the tree, and drew a deep breath.

The wayfarer looked round, and saw, by what light there was a man of apparently his own height and strength, standing by an alder near. "I must first know where I am," he said in return, "before I can tell you what I want."

"Come, come, that will not do," replied the other; "you must have some sharp object, to swim across such a night as this, and must know well enough where you were coming, and what you were coming for. Who are you? I say--and if you do no tell, I will make you."

"That were difficult," answered the other; "but I will tell you what I am, and why I swam the stream, if that will do. I am a man not of a nature nor in a mood to be turned back. The river lay in my way, and therefore I came over it; but I have lost my bundle, which is a pity; and I am wetter than is pleasant."

"As for your bundle," said the other, "that will stick upon Winslow wear; and as for your being wet, I could help you to dry clothes if I knew who you were."

"Not knowing will not prevent you," rejoined the other. "Winslow wear!--Now I know where I am. I was not aware I had walked so far by seven good miles. Then I must be in Winslow park."

"Not far wrong," said the other man; "but you seem to be a somewhat strange lad, and wilful withal. As you have lost your bundle, however, and got your clothes wet, you had better come with me; for after all, I dare say you mean no harm, and I may as well help you to a dry jacket."

"I mean no harm to any one," was the reply; "and I think I must stop somewhere near, for my clothes will not dry so soon to-night as they would in the summer sunshine."

"Certainly not," answered the other, "there is more chance of saturation than evaporation."

The swimmer of the stream turned suddenly and looked at him, in some surprise: then fell into a fit of thought: and in the end, without noticing his companion's fine words observed, "I am not getting any dryer by standing here: and you are getting wetter; for the rain is coming on more fiercely. If you have any will to give me shelter and dry clothes, now is the time. If not, I must go and seek them elsewhere."

"Suppose I say you shan't," inquired the other, "what would you do then?"

"Walk away," was the answer.

"And if I stopped you?" said the other.

"Pitch you into the river, and see if you can swim it as well as I did," rejoined the wayfarer.

"The chances would be against you, my friend," rejoined his new companion: "we are about the same height and size, I think; and not very different in make. Suppose us equal then in strength. You have, however, taken a walk to-night long enough to make you lose seven miles of your count; you have swam that river in flood, and have lost somewhat of your strength at every mile of the way, and every yard of the water. Your strength and mine then, being at first equal quantities, you must inquire, whether a can be equal to b, minus c the walk, and d the stream?"

"Yes," answered the other, "for there is one thing you do not take into account."

"What is that?" asked the arithmetician.

"Despair!" said his new-found friend; "for I tell you fairly, that if you make me try to pitch you into the river, I do not care a straw whether I go in with you or not."

"That is a different affair," replied his companion drily; "despair is an unknown quantity, and I have not time to arrive at it; so come along."

The other did not make any answer, but walked on with him, following a path which in ordinary times communicated with that which he had pursued on the other side of the stream, by a little wooden bridge, which had been apparently washed away in the flood. Both the men mused; and probably there was a good deal of similarity in the questions which they were separately trying in their own minds. When man first meets man, to each is presented a problem which he is bound to solve as speedily as possible. Every man is a sphinx to his neighbour, and propounds an enigma, which the other must answer, or woe be to him. The riddle is, "What is within this casket of flesh before my eyes?" and none can tell how important may be the solution. We may be parted soon, whether the impression made by the one upon the other be like the ripple of the wind upon the sea, or profound as the channel which the torrent has worn in the rock; for--

"--many meet, who never yet have met,

To part too soon, but never to forget."

But on the contrary, under the most adverse circumstances, without a probability, against all likelihood, the companion led in by the hand of chance, is often linked with us by fate through life--bound by the iron chain of circumstances to the same column in the prison of destiny as ourselves, destined to work at the same day-labour, and accomplish, with our help, the same task. None but the dull, then, ever see another human being for five minutes, without asking, "What is the god of the temple? what are his powers?"

There was not a word uttered by either, as they walked along. Yet each knew that the other was not an ordinary man; but the person whom the wayfarer had found upon the bank was much more curious in his inquiries; for the other, though a quick and active-minded creature, had many other thoughts in his bosom, stronger, more continuous than those which the character of his companion had suggested, and which the latter might cross and recross, like the thread upon the shuttle, but did not interrupt.

Now for the first time on his long way--he had walked thirty miles that night--he sometimes looked around him. The faint gray of dawn aided his eyes; but the objects were not cheerful. The scenery indeed was fine. There were hill and dale; and river and lawn; wood and heath; fern, hawthorn, birch, oak, beech, and solemn yew, with the broad, sturdy chestnut, and the tall, ghostlike larch. There were jays amongst the trees, just stirring and screaming in the first light; and herds of deer, with the thick-necked bucks lifting their heads to snuff the morn. Nevertheless, there was a something which spoke neglect--a keeper's house untenanted, with broken windows--long rasping arms of bramble stretching across the paths, some trees cut down and rotting where they lay, a Greek temple in ruins, with marble columns, which in their own fair clime would have remained pure as the snows of Olympus, green with the dark mould of English humidity. Ducks were dabbling among their favourite weed, where swans had swam in the clear water; and an infinite number of rich exotic evergreens, untrimmed and forgotten, were mingling their low branches with the long, rank grass. There was no mistaking it. The place had been long neglected.

They passed quite across the park to a spot where the solid brick wall had been carried out of the straight line, to enclose about half-an-acre of ground beyond the exact limits. An open fence of wood-work separated that half-acre from the actual park. The brick wall run round without, forming three sides of a parallelogram. The space within was neatly cultivated as a garden; and there were, besides the long, straight rows of cabbages amongst the well-trained trees, several beds of autumn flowers, still in bloom. They were as stiff as all late flowers are; but still they were flowers, and it was autumn; and they gave signs of care in the midst of neglect, of vigour amidst decay, of life in death.

There was a little wicket-gate in the centre of the wooden fence, with a latch, which the wayfarer's companion raised, and led the way down a gravel walk, to a house amongst the apple-trees at the other side, resting against the wall of the park--a small house of two stories--built of brown brick, and covered with white and yellow lichens. Another moment and they were within the door, which was not locked. The room they entered had a brick floor, clean swept and reddened. Everything was in good order, and a wood fire, which was already lighted, had fallen into that state where glowing eyes look out from the white ashes, like those of a lion from a bush. The walls had two rows of shelves hanging against them, and a great old dark oak armory or press, carved with apostles and wild beasts. Balaam and his ass, were there too; and the old prophet and the lion. The shelves supported, the one, crockery, the other, old books with greasy backs. Standing in front of the books, on the same shelf, were two or three small cups of precious old china, and an ink-glass. Amongst the crockery, were a bullet-mould, a powder-horn, and half-a-dozen floats. There was a neat white curtain over the window, and every one of the tiny panes was as clear as a diamond.

The wayfarer looked around him with a faint smile, and then turned to his host; and the two gazed upon each other in silence for a minute. If there had been a struggle between them on the bank of the stream, it would have been a very doubtful one; for never were two men better matched. As they stood there, they looked like two well-chosen carriage-horses, of an equal height within a quarter of an inch, both broad in chest, strong in limb, thin in flank, both tanned with exercise and exposure; both of that hardy rich brown complexion, where the hair seems to curl from very vigour, and both in the prime of strength and activity, though in point of years lay the principal difference between them. The master of the house might, perhaps, be three or four years older than his guest; but as the latter was at least four or five and twenty, age gave the other no advantage.

The wayfarer was dressed in a dark velveteen shooting-jacket, leathern gaiters, and strong but well-made shoes; and under the coat was a waistcoat, with long rows of little pockets, for holding gun charges. He had what is called a foraging cap on his head, and a good deal of whisker and hair. His nose was straight, his eyes hazel, his teeth fine, and his chin rounded and somewhat prominent. The other was dressed in a fustian coat, with large pockets, thick hobnailed shoes, and leathern gaiters, with a straw hat upon his head, and corduroy breeches on his thighs. His features were good, and, like his guest, he had a straight nose and a rounded chin, with eyebrows exactly like the other's; but the eyes, instead of being hazel, were of a dark gray, and his beard and whiskers were closely shaved, and hair cut short. There were several points of difference between them, but more of similarity; and the similarity depended upon feature, form, and complexion, the difference more upon adventitious circumstances.

"You are my double," said the master of the house, after they had gazed at each other for some time, both feeling that there was a strong resemblance; "and as such you have as good a right to wear my clothes as myself. They are not as good as yours; but they are dry, which makes them better for the time."

He opened the old armory, which was full of guns and fishing rods, and from one of two drawers at the bottom took out a very little used suit of country-made clothes.

"There," he said, "put those on; and we will afterwards go and see if we can find your bundle at the wear. Here, come into the back room, and I will give you a clean shirt and stockings. I never let cotton and wool lie together; for they might quarrel, being near akin."

The other followed, and after having fulfilled his promise as to the shirt and the stockings, the master of the house left him, and returned to blow the fire into a blaze.