Читать книгу Barrington. Volume 1 - Lever Charles James - Страница 7

Before Tom Dill had set out on his errand he had learned all about his father and sister’s dinner engagement; nor did the contrast with the way in which his own time was to be passed at all improve his temper. Indeed, he took the opportunity of intimating to his mother how few favors fell to her share or his own, – a piece of information she very philosophically received, all her sympathies being far more interested for the sorrows of “Clarissa Harlowe” than for any incident that occurred around her. Poor old lady! she had read that story over and over again, till it might seem that every word and every comma in it had become her own; but she was blessed with a memory that retained nothing, and she could cry over the sorrowful bits, and pant with eagerness at the critical ones, just as passionately, just as fervently, as she had done for years and years before. Dim, vague perceptions she might have retained of the personages, but these only gave them a stronger truthfulness, and made them more like the people of the real world, whom she had seen, passingly, once, and was now to learn more about. I doubt if Mezzofanti ever derived one tenth of the pleasure from all his marvellous memory that she did from the want of one.

Blessed with that one book, she was proof against all the common accidents of life. It was her sanctuary against duns, and difficulties, and the doctor’s temper. As the miser feels a sort of ecstasy in the secret of his hoarded wealth, so had she an intense enjoyment in thinking that all dear Clarissa’s trials and sufferings were only known to her. Neither the doctor, nor Polly, nor Tom, so much as suspected them. It was like a confidence between Mr. Richardson and herself, and for nothing on earth would she have betrayed it.

Tom had no such resources, and he set out on his mission with no very remarkable good feeling towards the world at large. Still, Polly had pressed into his hand a gold half-guinea, – some very long-treasured keepsake, the birthday gift of a godmother in times remote, and now to be converted into tobacco and beer, and some articles of fishing-gear which he greatly needed.

Seated in one of those light canoe-shaped skiffs, – “cots,” as they are called on these rivers, – he suffered himself to be carried lazily along by the stream, while he tied his flies and adjusted his tackle. There is, sometimes, a stronger sense of unhappiness attached to what is called being “hardly used” by the world, than to a direct palpable misfortune; for though the sufferer may not be able, even to his own heart, to set out, with clearness, one single count in the indictment, yet a general sense of hard treatment, unfairness, and so forth, brings with it great depression, and a feeling of desolation.

Like all young fellows of his stamp, Tom only saw his inflictions, not one of his transgressions. He knew that his father made a common drudge of him, employed him in all that was wearisome and even menial in his craft, admitted him to no confidences, gave him no counsels, and treated him in every way like one who was never destined to rise above the meanest cares and lowest duties. Even those little fleeting glances at a brighter future which Polly would now and then open to his ambition, never came from his father, who would actually ridicule the notion of his obtaining a degree, and make the thought of a commission in the service a subject for mockery.

He was low in heart as he thought over these things. “If it were not for Polly,” so he said to himself, “he ‘d go and enlist;” or, as his boat slowly floated into a dark angle of the stream where the water was still and the shadow deep, he even felt he could do worse. “Poor Polly!” said he, as he moved his hand to and fro in the cold clear water, “you ‘d be very, very sorry for me. You, at least, knew that I was not all bad, and that I wanted to be better. It was no fault of mine to have a head that could n’t learn. I ‘d be clever if I could, and do everything as well as she does; but when they see that I have no talents, that if they put the task before me I cannot master it, sure they ought to pity me, not blame me.” And then he bent over the boat and looked down eagerly into the water, till, by long dint of gazing, he saw, or he thought he saw, the gravelly bed beneath; and again he swept his hand through it, – it was cold, and caused a slight shudder. Then, suddenly, with some fresh impulse, he threw off his cap, and kicked his shoes from him. His trembling hands buttoned and unbuttoned his coat with some infirm, uncertain purpose. He stopped and listened; he heard a sound; there was some one near, – quite near. He bent down and peered under the branches that hung over the stream, and there he saw a very old and infirm man, so old and infirm that he could barely creep. He had been carrying a little bundle of fagots for firewood, and the cord had given way, and his burden fallen, scattered, to the ground. This was the noise Tom had heard. For a few minutes the old man seemed overwhelmed with his disaster, and stood motionless, contemplating it; then, as it were, taking courage, he laid down his staff, and bending on his knees, set slowly to work to gather up his fagots.

There are minutes in the lives of all of us when some simple incident will speak to our hearts with a force that human words never carried, – when the most trivial event will teach a lesson that all our wisdom never gave us. “Poor old fellow,” said Tom, “he has a stout heart left to him still, and he ‘ll not leave his load behind him!” And then his own craven spirit flashed across him, and he hid his face in his hand and cried bitterly.

Suddenly rousing himself with a sort of convulsive shake, he sent the skiff with a strong shove in shore, and gave the old fellow what remained to him of Polly’s present; and then, with a lighter spirit than he had known for many a day, rowed manfully on his way.

The evening – a soft, mellow, summer evening – was just falling as Tom reached the little boat quay at the “Fisherman’s Home,” – a spot it was seldom his fortune to visit, but one for whose woodland beauty and trim comfort he had a deep admiration. He would have liked to have lingered a little to inspect the boat-house, and the little aviary over it, and the small cottage on the island, and the little terrace made to fish from; but Darby had caught sight of him as he landed, and came hurriedly down to say that the young gentleman was growing very impatient for his coming, and was even hinting at sending for another doctor if he should not soon appear.

If Conyers was as impatient as Darby represented, he had, at least, surrounded himself with every appliance to allay the fervor of that spirit He had dined under a spreading sycamore-tree, and now sat with a table richly covered before him. Fruit, flowers, and wine abounded, with a profusion that might have satisfied several guests; for, as he understood that he was to consider himself at an inn, he resolved, by ordering the most costly things, to give the house all the advantage of his presence. The most delicious hothouse fruit had been procured from the gardener of an absent proprietor in the neighborhood, and several kinds of wine figured on the table, over which, and half shadowed by the leaves, a lamp had been suspended, throwing a fitful light over all, that imparted a most picturesque effect to the scene.

And yet, amidst all these luxuries and delights, Bal-shazzar was discontented; his ankle pained him; he had been hobbling about on it all day, and increased the inflammation considerably; and, besides this, he was lonely; he had no one but Darby to talk to, and had grown to feel for that sapient functionary a perfect abhorrence, – his everlasting compliance, his eternal coincidence with everything, being a torment infinitely worse than the most dogged and mulish opposition. When, therefore, he heard at last the doctor’s son had come with the leeches, he hailed him as a welcome guest.

“What a time you have kept me waiting!” said he, as the loutish young man came forward, so astounded by the scene before him that he lost all presence of mind. “I have been looking out for you since three o’clock, and pottering down the river and back so often, that I have made the leg twice as thick again.”

“Why didn’t you sit quiet?” said Tom, in a hoarse, husky tone.

“Sit quiet!” replied Conyers, staring half angrily at him; and then as quickly perceiving that no impertinence had been intended, which the other’s changing color and evident confusion attested, he begged him to take a chair and fill his glass. “That next you is some sort of Rhine wine: this is sherry; and here is the very best claret I ever tasted.”

“Well, I ‘ll take that,” said Tom, who, accepting the recommendation amidst luxuries all new and strange to him, proceeded to fill his glass, but so tremblingly that he spilled the wine all about the table, and then hurriedly wiped it up with his handkerchief.

Conyers did his utmost to set his guest at his ease. He passed his cigar-case across the table, and led him on, as well as he might, to talk. But Tom was awestruck, not alone by the splendors around him, but by the condescension of his host; and he could not divest himself of the notion that he must have been mistaken for somebody else, to whom all these blandishments might be rightfully due.

“Are you fond of shooting?” asked Conyers, trying to engage a conversation.

“Yes,” was the curt reply.

“There must be good sport hereabouts, I should say. Is the game well preserved?”

“Too well for such as me. I never get a shot without the risk of a jail, and it would be cheaper for me to kill a cow than a woodcock!” There was a stern gravity in the way he said this that made it irresistibly comic, and Conyers laughed out in spite of himself.

“Have n’t you a game license?” asked he.

“Haven’t I a coach-and-six? Where would I get four pounds seven and ten to pay for it?”

The appeal was awkward, and for a moment Conyers was silent At last he said, “You fish, I suppose?”

“Yes; I kill a salmon whenever I get a quiet spot that nobody sees me, and I draw the river now and then with a net at night.”

“That’s poaching, I take it.”

“It ‘s not the worse for that!” said Tom, whose pluck was by this time considerably assisted by the claret.

“Well, it’s an unfair way, at all events, and destroys real sport”

“Real sport is filling your basket.”

“No, no; there’s no real sport in doing anything that’s unfair, – anything that’s un – ” He stopped short, and swallowed off a glass of wine to cover his confusion.

“That’s all mighty fine for you, who can not only pay for a license, but you ‘re just as sure to be invited here, there, and everywhere there’s game to be killed. But think of me, that never snaps a cap, never throws a line, but he knows it’s worse than robbing a hen-roost, and often, maybe, just as fond of it as yourself!”

Whether it was that, coming after Darby’s mawkish and servile agreement with everything, this rugged nature seemed more palatable, I cannot say; but so it was, Con-yers felt pleasure in talking to this rough unpolished creature, and hearing his opinions in turn. Had there been in Tom Dill’s manner the slightest shade of any pretence, was there any element of that which, for want of a better word, we call “snobbery,” Conyers would not have endured him for a moment, but Tom was perfectly devoid of this vulgarity. He was often coarse in his remarks, his expressions were rarely measured by any rule of good manners; but it was easy to see that he never intended offence, nor did he so much as suspect that he could give that weight to any opinion which he uttered to make it of moment.

Besides these points in Tom’s favor, there was another, which also led Conyers to converse with him. There is some very subtle self-flattery in the condescension of one well to do in all the gifts of fortune associating, in an assumed equality, with some poor fellow to whom fate has assigned the shady side of the highway. Scarcely a subject can be touched without suggesting something for self-gratulation; every comparison, every contrast is in his favor, and Conyers, without being more of a puppy than the majority of his order, constantly felt how immeasurably above all his guest’s views of his life and the world were his own, – not alone that he was more moderate in language and less prone to attribute evil, but with a finer sense of honor and a wider feeling of liberality.

When Tom at last, with some shame, remembered that he had forgotten all about the real object of his mission, and had never so much as alluded to the leeches, Conyers only laughed and said, “Never mind them to-night. Come back to-morrow and put them on; and mind, – come to breakfast at ten or eleven o’clock.”

“What am I to say to my father?”

“Say it was a whim of mine, which it is. You are quite ready to do this matter now. I see it; but I say no. Is n’t that enough?”

“I suppose so!” muttered Tom, with a sort of dogged misgiving.

“It strikes me that you have a very respectable fear of your governor. Am I right?”

“Ain’t you afraid of yours?” bluntly asked the other.

“Afraid of mine!” cried Conyers, with a loud laugh; “I should think not. Why, my father and myself are as thick as two thieves. I never was in a scrape that I did n’t tell him. I ‘d sit down this minute and write to him just as I would to any fellow in the regiment.”

“Well, there ‘s only one in all the world I ‘d tell a secret to, and it is n’t My father!”

“Who is it, then?”

“My sister Polly!” It was impossible to have uttered these words with a stronger sense of pride. He dwelt slowly upon each of them, and, when he had finished, looked as though he had said something utterly undeniable.

“Here’s her health, – in a bumper too!” cried Conyers.

“Hurray, hurray!” shouted out Tom, as he tossed off his full glass, and set it on the table with a bang that smashed it. “Oh, I beg pardon! I didn’t mean to break the tumbler.”

“Never mind it, Dill; it’s a trifle. I half hoped you had done it on purpose, so that the glass should never be drained to a less honored toast. Is she like you?”

“Like me, – like me?” asked he, coloring deeply. “Polly like me?”

“I mean is there a family resemblance? Could you be easily known as brother and sister?”

“Not a bit of it. Polly is the prettiest girl in this county, and she ‘s better than she ‘s handsome. There’s nothing she can’t do. I taught her to tie flies, and she can put wings on a green-drake now that would take in any salmon that ever swam. Martin Keene sent her a pound-note for a book of ‘brown hackles,’ and, by the way, she gave it to me. And if you saw her on the back of a horse! – Ambrose Bushe’s gray mare, the wickedest devil that ever was bridled, one buck jump after another the length of a field, and the mare trying to get her head between her fore-legs, and Polly handling her so quiet, never out of temper, never hot, but always saying, ‘Ain’t you ashamed of yourself, Dido? Don’t you see them all laughing at us?’”

“I am quite curious to see her. Will you present me one of these days?”

Tom mumbled out something perfectly unintelligible.

“I hope that I may be permitted to make her acquaintance,” repeated he, not feeling very certain that his former speech was quite understood.

“Maybe so,” grumbled he out at last, and sank back in his chair with a look of sulky ill-humor; for so it was that poor Tom, in his ignorance of life and its ways, deemed the proposal one of those free-and-easy suggestions which might be made to persons of very inferior station, and to whom the fact of acquaintanceship should be accounted as a great honor.

Conyers was provoked at the little willingness shown to meet his offer, – an offer he felt to be a very courteous piece of condescension on his part, – and now both sat in silence. At last Tom Dill, long struggling with some secret impulse, gave way, and in a tone far more decided and firm than heretofore, said, “Maybe you think, from seeing what sort of a fellow I am, that my sister ought to be like me; and because I have neither manners nor education, that she ‘s the same? But listen to me now; she ‘s just as little like me as you are yourself. You ‘re not more of a gentleman than she’s a lady!”

“I never imagined anything else.”

“And what made you talk of bringing her up here to present her to you, as you called it? Was she to be trotted out in a cavasin, like a filly?”

“My dear fellow,” said Conyers, good-humoredly, “you never made a greater mistake. I begged that you would present me