Читать книгу A Whim, and Its Consequences - G. P. R. James - Страница 5

Man wonders why it happens so often that in our first manhood disappointments, bitter as undeserved, fall upon us--why we are crossed in honourable love--thwarted in noble ambition--frustrated in generous endeavour--distracted in a just course--denied our reasonable expectations. Some reply, It is a part of the original curse, and that we must go on struggling and grumbling. Others--better and wiser men, and far more religious--find out that it is to wean us from earthly affections which, when the world is in its spring loveliness, are apt to take too great a hold upon us. Both may be right; yet there may be something of training in it too. We have things to accomplish in our manhood, a course to be run, a contest to fight out; and at that time of youth we are colts which must be bitted and bridled, put at the longe, have the rollers between our jaws; and many a sore mouth and galled withers must be endured before we are fit for the hard rider, Fate, to get upon our back, and gallop us to the end of our career. Does not that filly sporting in the field think it very hard that she may not go on cantering up and down, with her head held high, and her nostrils snorting fire, or that she may not go on cropping buttercups and sweet grass--all very reasonable desires for a filly--but must come and be driven round and round a ring, with a long whip at her hocks, and a drunken horse-breaker in the middle, holding her from her joyous freedom by a long cord? Truly, she may well think it a hard case; but she was not made for her own service--nor was man.

There is something of the same feeling in the breast of that young wayfarer as he sits there by the fire, after having changed his clothes. That knitted brow and curling lip show that he thinks he has been hardly used by fortune; and yet there is a thoughtful look about his eyes which may indicate a search for, and a discovery of, the ends and objects of disappointment. The power of thought is a wonderful thing. See how it steals over him, smoothing the wrinkle out of the brow, relaxing the bitter turn of the lip. He is forming plans--or building castles--reawakening hope--recovering faith and trust. Something is working in his mind for peace!

"You have made me very comfortable," he said, abruptly, while the other lifted a small tin kettle from the fire, where it had been hissing and spluttering for a minute or two; "and I am now ready to go out and seek my bundle at the wear. My wet things can dry here till I come back."

"We will have a cup of tea first," said his entertainer, "the girl will bring the milk in a minute; and, though I can do without most luxuries, I cannot do without tea. It is the only thing that goes into the mouth which may be considered a luxury of the mind. It is wonderful how it clears a man's head, and gives him a command over his intellect. If I want to solve a problem, or translate a stiff passage, I must have my cup of tea. The Chinese must be a wise people to grow such a herb."

The wayfarer smiled. "You are a strange sort of person," he said; "and, I suppose, are of a better rank and station than your appearance betokens."

"I am the son of the blacksmith's daughter," replied the man, simply; "I can shoe a horse or forge a bar with any man in the country. That I learned from my grandfather. I can shoot a buck or bring down a snipe nineteen times out of twenty. That I learned from the head keeper. I know as much of gardening and botany as the old gardener did, who is now himself a compost, poor man; and I know somewhat more of mathematics, and Latin, and Greek, than the master of the grammar-school, who taught me; but yet I am nothing but the son of the blacksmith's daughter; and I wish to be nothing more."

"But what is your profession or trade?" asked his guest, with apparent interest.

"Profession, I have none," was the man's answer, pouring some water into the tea-pot. "They wished to make a parson of me, I believe; but my wishes did not go with theirs. I liked hammering iron, or shooting deer, or planting flowers and trees a great deal better. I was neither fond of preaching nor being preached to; and, therefore, I studied when I liked, wandered where I liked, read, shot, planted, worked at the forge when I liked. I do believe, from all that I have seen in the world, there has never been a man on earth who did as much what he liked as I have done--except Adam, who had only one thing forbidden him, and did that too. Now, however, I suppose the change is to come--for a change always comes sooner or later in every man's fate. One might as well expect to see four and twenty hours of sunshine as a life without a change--and I suppose I must buckle to some business; for, though I eat little, and drink little, and sleep little, yet that little must be had."

"But why should you not go on as you have hitherto done?" inquired the other. "Has anything happened to deprive you of your means?"

"Yes;" answered his companion, "I had fifty-two pounds allowed me a-year, just a pound a-week, and this little house and garden; and leave to shoot rabbits, ducks, and wild fowl of all kinds, except pheasants, one buck in the year, to keep my hand in, and the right to roam about the park at all times and seasons without question. I made my own terms, and got them. But he who allowed all this is dead, and the people tell me it will not be binding upon his heir. Well, what matters it? I can work; and as soon as I heard how things were, I determined I would first try a gardener's life, as Mr. Tracy, over at Northferry, wants one. I never let myself be cast down by anything; and when you talked about despair, an hour ago, I thought, What a fool you must be."

"I believe you are right," answered his guest, "your philosophy is far the best; but somehow I think you will not be obliged to take the gardener's place unless you like it. But there is some one knocking in the next room. I thought you were alone in the house. Are you married?"

"Poo!" cried the other, "what should I do with a wife? Thank God, there is no female thing about the place but my setter bitch. That is the girl with the milk, knocking at the door in the park wall." And he walked out into the passage to receive what she had brought.

While he was gone the other sat quite still by the fire, with his eyes fixed steadily upon it. He saw not a spark, however. His contemplations were very deep; and as the other came back again, with the milk in his hand, he murmured, "If they would take him, why not another?"

"Well, you were saying just now," continued his companion, carrying on the conversation, "that you thought I should not be obliged to take the gardener's place. I should like to hear what you can know about it."

"Tell me your name," said the visitor, "and I will let you hear."

"You would not tell me yours, when I asked it," said the other, with a smile. "But it does not matter. My name is William Lockwood. Now, what do you say to that?"

"That you have no occasion to take the gardener's place," replied his guest. "Sir Harry Winslow is dead, as you say; but yesterday morning, in order to see what directions he had given for his funeral, the will was opened, and read before the whole family, servants, and secretary, and all. I was there, and heard it, and he did you full justice, left you the annuity and all you have mentioned, and added a legacy of five hundred pounds."

"And he left you nothing," said the other, fixing his eyes keenly upon him, "though you thought you had a right to expect it."

"He left me dependent upon another," replied the young man, "which I will not be," and he bent down his head and thought bitterly.

"That was hard! That was very hard!" said the other; "he was at times a hard man.--It often happens so. Those who have in their youth been what is called gay men, turn out in their old age as hard as the nether millstone. Whatever is in a man's heart remains there for ever, unless that heart be changed by the grace of God. Selfishness, which leads to one kind of vices in youth, leads to another kind in old age. The libertine turns the miser, that is all."

"But he was not a miser," cried the other, sharply, "that must not be said of him; and should not by you, at least, his son."

"Hush!" said the master of the house, sternly, "I do not own him for my father; and I told him so. For the wrong he did my mother, and because of some letters of his which she held, and I hold, he did what he has done for her son. But do not you suppose, young man, that I ever basely truckled to him who injured her. As a child I took the education that was given me; but when I was older and knew more, I steadily refused to acknowledge him for my father, or to obey his behests in any way. It is this that has made me what I am. I would not go to a college as his bastard, and become a priest at his will. I received the small atonement that he offered, as atonement, but as giving no right over me; and I added other things, as demands, to that which he vouchsafed, in order to show that it was a contract I entered into, not a duty I acknowledged. Perhaps he was not a miser, as you say; but yet look at this place, and see what it has become within the last ten years. He has grudged every penny spent upon it since he last lived here himself, and unless it is that my mother's spirit, either visibly or invisibly, wandered round the place, and made it hateful to him for the wrong he had done her, what but the miser could make him discharge servants who had long dwelt here, and deny the means of keeping up in decent state a place that gave him name, and had descended to him from many ancestors? Now, what has he done with you yourself, according to your own admission. You stand in the same relation to him that I do--all the world knows it--your mother was his wife's maid--he educated you, made you his secretary, employed your talents, made you the companion of his amusements, took you out to shoot and hunt, to plays and operas, put you nearly on a level with his lawful sons, and then left you a dependant--I suppose, upon their bounty. You have done well to cast such pitiful slavery from you. I acknowledge you as a brother, which, perhaps, they will not; and the five hundred pounds he has left to me is yours if you will take it."

The young man grasped his hand warmly, but said, "No, no--that can never be. I have hands and arms strong enough to labour for myself, and I will do so. I cannot take what is yours. I have no title to it--I have no claim to it."

"I want it not," replied Lockwood. "I need nought but what I have. I would rather not take ought but what I bargained for."

"At all events I cannot accept it," was the young man's answer; "he left it not to me, but to you, and I will have none of it. Much that you have told me I had never heard before; I was not aware of his having had a son by Lady Winslow's maid, nor that his secretary was that son."

"Men ever know less of their own history than the world knows," said his companion; "but the thing is notorious. No one ever doubted who you were; so let us children without marriage, share what he has left to such, and let the lawful children take the rest amongst them."

"I cannot do that," said the young man; and leaning his head upon his hand, he added, after a few moments' thought, "We will talk of other things, my good brother--since such you are--I must meditate over all this; and when I have done so, I will ask your help perhaps to carry out my future plans of life. I can work as well as you, and am willing to do so, though it has fallen upon me, who did not expect it, instead of upon you, who did."

"My help you shall have as far as it will go," rejoined Lockwood, "but that is not very far. It is true people like me well enough here, because I never wronged any one of a penny, and give the old women rabbits to make broth when they are puling; and they like me, too, because I am one of themselves, and never pretend to be ought else, though my father was a rich man, and I am richer than most of them; but, poor things, the only matter I have to be proud of is, that I am a plebeian. Not that I am ashamed of my dear mother; for if a man will take advantage of a woman's weakness, under solemn pledge to marry her, and then break that pledge, let the shame rise on him, not her."

"Assuredly!" replied his companion, with a ready warmth which would have fully confirmed in the mind of Lockwood, had any confirmation been necessary, the supposition of his guest's illegitimate birth; but the moment after a deepened tint appeared in his cheek, and he said abruptly, "But let us talk of other things, Lockwood. What is the state of the people about here? I hope they have not been as much neglected as the place."

"Why, you should know all about it, Mr. Faber," said Lockwood, "for you used to write all the letters to the steward, he told me. However, they are not altogether so badly off as they might be. The farmer has his land at a fair rent enough, and so he can afford to give fair wages to his labourers. The old man was not hard in that. He took what was but just, for that which was his own, and the men have prospered under it; but he did nothing else for the neighbourhood. Some of the landlords round are different, get as much as they can wring from their tenants--force them to starve their labourers; and then spend a part of the money in parish schools and new churches. I have known many a one who has made every one under him labour like galley-slaves for mere existence, by reason of his exactions, cried up as a most liberal gentleman, because he whitewashed the cottages, and built a school-house. The whitewash and the school-house together did not cost one-tenth of what he took too much for his land; and yet, to hear all the gentry speak of him, you would have thought he was an angel of a landlord. Men are queer things, Mr. Faber."

"Do not call me Mr. Faber, Lockwood," said the other with a smile; "call me simply Chandos; that is better between brothers."

"Ah, that is your Christian name, then," said his stout kinsman; "'C. Faber,' I remember the letter I saw was signed; but I thought the name had been Charles. Take another cup of tea, Chandos: it is wrung from no man's hard earnings, and will do you good."

"After all," said Chandos, resuming the conversation at a previous point, "the man who does not exact too much is by far less culpable, though he do not do all the good to his people that he can, than he who, with a covetous grasp, wrings the last shilling from his property, and spends sixpence of it in instructing the peasantry, whitewashing their houses, or pampering his own vanity. The one is only guilty of doing less than he might, the other of taking more than he ought."

"I am not very sure," answered his companion, musing; "I have thought over these matters a good deal, and I am not fond of splitting hairs about right and wrong. If a man does not do what he ought, he does what he ought not. 'Sins of omission,' as the parson calls them, are, to my mind, sins of commission, as soon as ever a man knows what he ought to do, and does not do it. I have a notion, Chandos, all these fine differences are only ways by which people cheat themselves to avoid self-reproach; and, I believe, what foolish people call the higher classes, are taught to do so more than any others by reading the classics; for a more wicked sort of worthless scoundrels than those old Greeks and Romans never was. The very best of them contrived to mix up so much bad with their best doings, that young lads at school learn not to know right from wrong, and to think things exceedingly fine that were very dirty."

"But there were some truly good and great men amongst them," replied Chandos, whiled away for a moment from himself by his companion's conversation: "they might be too stern and severe, perhaps, in their adherence to right; but still excess of virtue is not likely to lead others wrong who make it their example."

"I'll give you the advantage of the best of them," said Lockwood, "and be bound to pick a hole in any of their coats. We all know about Socrates, a nasty old he-goat, and won't talk of him. But take Lycurgus for an example, I mean, the Spartan. Now what he did to his countrymen would have been nothing better than swindling, if it had been about money instead of laws. He took an oath from them to do certain things till he came back from Delphi; and that certainly implied that it was his intention to come back. But instead of that, he went away from Delphi to Crete, for the express purpose of cheating the Spartans; had his old bones cast into the sea, that they might not play him as good a trick as he had played them; and left his laws to Sparta, and his name to immortality. But if I were to say to any man, 'Lend me five pounds till I come back from London,' and instead of going back, were to run away to Paris, just to avoid my creditor, what would be said of me? Now because the laws of Lycurgus were good, people think that his imposition was glorious; and thus they learn that Jesuitical maxim of the end justifying the means."

"I agree with you so far," said Chandos, gravely, "that there was a great deal of false philosophy, if I may use the term, amongst the ancients: and I am thoroughly convinced that the only true philosophy that ever was propounded to man is to be found in the Bible."

"Archimedes was the greatest man amongst them," rejoined Lockwood, following the course of his own thoughts, a habit of which he was very fond; "and in the study of his life and character, no great harm could be done to any one. But at our schools and colleges, what between Roman emperors, Greek magistrates, and gods and goddesses, we are brought all at once in our early youth into the midst of a crowd of rogues, prostitutes, and libertines, only fit for the back streets of a great town."

Unwittingly, Chandos had been led from many a grave memory and painful consideration to topics which had often engaged his youthful mind; and he replied, with a gay laugh, which showed how naturally light and cheerful was the spirit when free from the oppressive weight of circumstances: "As to the gods and goddesses, I agree with you entirely. There was not a lady amongst them who, in our times, would not have figured in the Arches Court; and as to the men, Apollo was the most gentlemanlike person of the whole, and yet he would have been transported for rape or hanged for felony long ago."

In such easy conversation they went on for half an hour more. It is no figure, but a certainty, that imagination has a charm--I mean, a power unaccountable, and almost magical, of wrapping the mind in a golden mist of its own, which hides or softens all the hard features of the scene around. But often, as with the fabled spells of the necromancer, the slightest thing--a word, a tone, a look--will waft away the pleasant veil, and restore the heart in a moment to the cold and black reality. Such was the case with Chandos. Something apparently indifferent threw him back into deep thought; and after a long pause, he started up, saying, "This is very strange, to be sitting here beside you, Lockwood, within three days! But come, let us seek the bundle I have lost. The clouds are clearing away. There is a gleam of sunshine. When will the like fall upon my fate?"

"Before long, if you are strong-hearted," answered the other, rising also. "One half of every man's fate is his own making; the other half is made for him. Fortune's store is like one of those shops at a country fair, where there are a number of articles of different value, and of different use, each at the price of sixpence. Your sixpence you must pay; but then you have your choice, if you choose but wisely."

"I am not sure of the choice," said Chandos with a sigh; "but I will choose soon, at all events:" and he walked towards the door.

"Stay a minute," cried Lockwood; "I will take my gun. We may find some teal by the wear; and you will want dinner."

As they walked along, the younger of the two remained in silent thought. He was not full of the energetic inspiration of hope; and the flame of expectation had waned dim and low. Doubtless he had dreamed bright dreams in former times--doubtless he had looked at life through youth's magnifying-glass--doubtless his anticipations had been exuberant of the pleasant things of the future. But there seemed a fiat gone out against him,--that he was not to enjoy even that which had seemed within grasp. He looked over the future that he had fancied his own but a few days before, and felt that, like the prophet on "the top of Pisgah, which is over against Jericho," though there was a fair land in sight, his feet would never tread it. He felt that he had been proud, that he was proud; and he resolved to humble himself. But there was a bitterness in his humility which produced a wayward pettishness in all the plans which floated, like wreaths of smoke, before his mind. They were many, many, like the troops of strange forms which sometimes sweep--as it were, interminably--before the eyes in dreams. Varying were they too, shifting and changing in hue, and form, and position, like the streamers of the northern meteor lights. Now he would forth into the great and busy world, and cull honour and distinction with a fiery energy, with the genius he knew himself to possess, with the learning he was conscious he had acquired, with the courage he felt in heart. He would seek the camp, or the court, or the bar, or the pulpit. He would make himself independent, he would make himself great. Then again he said, No; he would cast off all the ties which had hitherto bound him; the ties of blood, of station, of society. He would take his position at the lowest grade, at the very bottom of the ladder. He would try a state entirely new, a condition different from all he had yet tried, and see what would come of it. He could change, if he liked. His mind need not rust in humble life; his abilities would not get mouldy; his small means would accumulate: He would even, he thought, from time to time vary the scene: place humble life and a higher condition side by side, upon alternate days, and judge between them. As first disappointment is always whimsical, it was upon the last scheme that his thoughts most pleasantly rested; and with it he busied himself as, crossing the further part of the park, they approached the river. The point they made for was lower down than where he had swum across; but he paid little attention to anything; and the first thing that roused him was the sudden rising of a plump of teal from the rushes. They whirled round in a dense cloud. Lockwood's gun was up in a moment, fired, and four birds came down together. Then Chandos gazed at the rushing water, red and foaming, and he thought it marvellous that he had ever crossed it alive. "Perhaps it would have been better," he said bitterly to himself, "if I had remained in its fell clasp." He spoke not a word aloud; but Lockwood answered as if he could see the thoughts written.

"Poo! nonsense!" he said; "there is always something to live for in life. And there lies your bundle, drifted ashore at the other corner of the wear. You pick up the teal, and get that one out of the water, and I will go and fetch it."

"How?" said Chandos. But the other made no reply, and, quietly mounting the top of the wear, began to walk along its slippery and narrow path towards the other side of the river. The younger man watched him for a moment with anxiety; but he saw that Lockwood trod the six-inch rail like a rope-dancer, and he turned himself to gather up the dead birds. He had got two, and was reaching over the river to pull out a third, which had fallen into the stream, with his head bent down, when a light touch on the shoulder made him look up.

"Why won't you speak to one this morning, Mr. Lockwood?" said a middle-aged man in a keeper's dress. "I thought it was your gun, but I came down to see notwithstanding; for though Sir Harry is dead, that's no reason the game should be poached."

The man looked down on his face while he spoke, and Chandos then became aware how great was the likeness between him and his companion.

"My name is not Lockwood," he said, rising up to his full height. The man drew a little back in surprise, saying, "Ay, I see you are not, now; but you are devilish like him. Then, my young gentleman, what are you doing shooting here?"

"It was Lockwood who fired," answered Chandos, gravely, with a certain degree of haughtiness in his manner and tone. "He is over there, seeking a bundle which I let fall into the water. There is his head amongst the weeds--don't you see?"

A friendly shout from the person of whom he spoke called the keeper's eyes in the right direction; and in a minute or two more, Lockwood, crossing back again over the wear, stood by them with the bundle in his hand.

"Here it is, Mr. Faber," he said; and instantly a gleam of intelligence passed over the keeper's face.

"Well, I thought you were very like," he said; "no offence to the gentleman I hope;" (for Chandos had coloured a good deal, either at his words, or Lockwood's;) "only he has got whiskers and you havn't, Lockwood. I was going down to your place this morning, to ask you if you would come up and take a bit of dinner with me and my old woman at the abbey; but as the gentleman is with you, I suppose I must not make so bold as to ask him too."

"I will come with all my heart," answered Chandos at once; "only you must take me in these clothes, for all the rest are wet."

Lockwood and the keeper smiled; and the former answered, "We don't stand upon such matters in our station, Sir! Clean hands and a good appetite are all that we need at our table. Well, Garbett, you had better give your dame the birds, to make the dinner bigger; and we will be with you at one, or before, for I dare say Mr. Faber has never seen the abbey."

"Yes I have, often," answered Chandos, abstractedly; "but it was long ago."

"Well I never knew that," replied Lockwood, with a puzzled look: but, bidding the keeper good bye, and still carrying the bundle, he walked back with his companion towards his house, both keeping silence.