A Day's Ride Part 28

You think this same candor is a small quality. Well, show me one thoroughly honest autobiography. Of all the men who have written their own memoirs, it is fair to presume that some may have lacked personal courage, some been deficient in truthfulness, some forgetful of early friendships, and so on. Yet where will you find me one, I only ask one, who declares, "I was a coward, I never could speak truth, I was by nature ungrateful"?

Now, it would be exactly through such confessions as these our knowledge of humanity would be advanced. The ship that makes her voyage without the loss of a spar or a rope, teaches little; but there is a whole world of information in the log of the vessel with a great hole in her, all her masts carried away, the captain invariably drunk, and the crew mutinous; then we hear of energy and daring and ready-wittedness, marvellous resource, and indomitable perseverance; then we come to estimate a variety of qualities that are only evoked by danger. Just as some gallant skipper might say, "I saw that we couldn't weather the point, and so I dropped anchor in thirty fathoms, and determined to trust all to my cables;" or, "I perceived that we were settling down, so I crowded all sail on, resolved to beach her." In the same spirit I would like to read in some personal memoir, "Knowing that I could not rely on my courage; feeling that if pressed hard, I should certainly have told a lie--" Oh, if we only could get honesty like this! If some great statesman, some grand foreground figure of his age would sit down to give his trials as they really occurred, we should learn more of life from one such volume than we glean from all the mock memoirs we have been reading for centuries!

It is the special pleading of these records that makes them so valueless; the writer always is bent on making out his case. It is the eternal representation of that spectacle said to be so pleasing to the G.o.ds,--the good man struggling with adversity. But what we want to see is the weak man, the frail man, the man who has to fight adversity with an old rusty musket and a flint lock, instead of an Enfield rifle, loading at the breech!

I 'd not give a rush to see Blondin cross the Falls of Niagara on a tight-rope; but I'd cross the Atlantic to see, ay, the Lord Mayor or the Master of the Rolls try it.

Now, much-respected reader, do not for a moment suppose that I have, even in my most vainglorious raptures, ever imagined that I was here in these records supplying the void I have pointed out. Remember that I have expressly told you such confessions, to be valuable, ought to come from a great man. Painful as the avowal is, I am not a great man!

Elements of greatness I have in me, it is true; but there are wants, deficiencies, small little details, many of them,--rivets and bolts, as it were,--without which the machinery can't work; and I know this, and I feel it.

This digression has all grown out of my unwillingness to mention what mention I must,--that I pa.s.sed my night at the little inn on the table where we supped. I had not courage to a.s.sert the right to my bed in the Count's room; and so I wrapped myself in my cloak, and with my carpetbag for a pillow, tried to sleep. It was no use; the most elastic spring-mattress and a down cushion would have failed that night to lull me! I was outraged beyond endurance: _she_ had slighted, _he_ had insulted me! Such a provocation as he gave me could have but one expiation. He could not, by any pretext, refuse me satisfaction. But was I as ready to ask it? Was it so very certain that I would insist upon this reparation? He was certain to wound, he might kill me! I believe I cried over that thought. To be cut off in the bud of one's youth, in the very spring-time of one's enjoyment,--I could not say of one's utility,--to go down unnoticed to the grave, never appreciated, never understood, with vulgar and mistaken judgments upon one's character and motives! I thought my heart would burst with the affliction of such a picture, and I said, "No, Potts, live; and reply to such would-be slanderers by the exercise of the qualities of your great nature."

Numberless beautiful little episodes came thronging to my memory of good men, men whose personal gallantry had won them a world-wide renown, refusing to fight a duel. "We are to storm the citadel to-morrow, Colonel," said one; "let us see which of us will be first up the breach." How I loved that fellow for his speech; and I tortured my mind how, as there was no citadel to be carried by a.s.sault, I could apply its wisdom to my own case. What if I were to say, "Count, the world is before us,--a world full of trials and troubles. With the common fortune of humanity, we are certain each of us to have our share. What if we meet on this spot, say ten years hence, and see who has best acquitted himself in the conflict?" I wonder what he would say. The Germans are a strange, imaginative, dreamy sort of folk. Is it not likely that he would be struck by a notion so undeniably original? Is it not probable that he would seize my hand with rapture, and say, "Ja! I agree"?

Still, it is possible that he might not; he might be one of those vulgar matter-of-fact creatures who will regard nothing through the tinted gla.s.s of fancy; he might ridicule the project, and tell it at breakfast as a joke. I felt almost smothered as this notion crossed me.

I next bethought me of the privileges of my rank. Could I, as an R.

H., accept the vulgar hazards of a personal encounter? Would not such conduct be derogatory in one to whom great destinies might one day be committed? Not that I lent myself, be it remarked, to the delusion of being a prince; but that I felt, if the line of conduct would be objectionable to men in my rank and condition, it inevitably followed that it must be bad. What I could neither do as the descendant of St.

Louis, or the son of Peter Potts, must needs be wrong. These were the grievous meditations of that long, long night; and though I arose from the hard table, weary and with aching bones, I blessed the pinkish-gray light that ushered in the day. I had scarcely completed a very rapid toilet, when Francois came with a message from Mrs. Keats, "hoping I had rested well, and begging to know at what hour it was my pleasure to continue the journey." There was an evident astonishment in the fellow's face at the emba.s.sy with which he was charged; and though he delivered the message with reasonable propriety, there was a certain something in his look that said, "What delusion is this you have thrown around the old lady?"

"Say that I am ready, Francois; that I am even impatient to be off, and the sooner we start the better."

This I uttered with all my heart; for I was eager to get away before the odious German should be stirring, and could not subdue my anxiety to avoid meeting him again. There was every reason to expect that we should get off unnoticed, and I hastened out myself to order the horses and stimulate the postilions to greater activity. This was no labor of love, I promise you! The sluggardly inertness of that people pa.s.ses all belief; entreaties, objurgations, curses, even bribes could not move them. They never admitted such a possibility as haste, and stumped about in their wooden shoes or iron-bound boots, searching for articles of horse-gear under bundles of hay or stacks of firewood, as though it was the very first time in their lives that post-horses had ever been required in that locality. "Make a great people out of such materials as these!" muttered I; "what rubbish to imagine it! How, with such intolerable apathy, are they to be moved? Where everything proceeds at the same regulated slowness, how can justice ever overtake crime? When can truth come up with falsehood? Whichever starts first here, must inevitably win." To urge the creatures on by example, I a.s.sisted with my own hands to put on the harness; not, I will own, with much advantage to speed, for I put the collar on upside down, and, in revenge for the indignity, the beast planted one of his feet upon me, and almost drove the c.o.c.k of his shoe through my instep. Almost mad with pain and pa.s.sion, I limped away into the garden, and sat down in a damp summer-house. A sleepless night, a lazy ostler, and a bruised foot are, after all, not stunning calamities; but there are moments when our jarred nerves jangle at the slightest touch, and even the most trivial inconveniences grow to the size of afflictions.

"We began to fear you were lost, sir," said Francois, breaking in upon my gloomy revery I cannot say how long after. "The horses have been at the door this half-hour, and all the house searching after you."

I did not deign a reply, but followed him, as he led me by a short path to the house. Mrs. Keats and Miss Herbert had taken their places inside the carriage, and, to my ineffable disgust, there was the German chatting with them at the door, and actually presenting a bouquet the landlord had just culled for her. Unable to confront the fellow with that contemptuous indifference which I knew with a little time and preparation I could summon to my aid, I scaled up to my leathern attic and let down the blinds.

"Do you mean," said I, through a small slit in my curtain,--"do you mean to sit smoking there all day? Will you never drive on?" And now, with a crash of bolts and a jarring of cordage, like what announced the launch of a small ship, the heavy conveniency lurched, surged, and, after two or three convulsive bounds, lumbered along, and we started on our day's journey. As we b.u.mped along, I remembered that I had never wished the ladies a "good-morning," nor addressed them in any way; so completely had my selfish preoccupation immersed me in my own annoyances, that I actually forgot the commonest attentions of every-day life. I was pained by this rudeness on my part, and waited with impatience for our first change of horses to repair my omission. Before, however, we had gone a couple of miles, the little window at my back was opened, and I heard the old lady's voice, asking if I had ever chanced upon a more comfortable country inn or with better beds.

"Not bad,--not bad," said I, peevishly. "I had such a ma.s.s of letters to write that I got little sleep. In fact, I scarcely could say I took any rest."

While the old lady expressed her regretful condolences at this, I saw that Miss Herbert pinched her lips together as if to avoid a laugh, and the bitter thought crossed me, "She knows it all!"

"I am easily put out, besides," said I. "That is, at certain times I am easily irritated, and a vulgar German fellow who supped with us last night so ruffled my temper that I a.s.sure you he continued to go through my head till morning."

"Oh, don't call him vulgar!" broke in Miss Herbert; "surely there could be nothing more quiet or unpretending than his manners."

"If I were to hunt for an epithet for a month," retorted I, "a more suitable one would never occur to me. The fellow was evidently an actor of some kind,--perhaps a rope-dancer."

She burst in with an exclamation; but at the same time Mrs. Keats interposed, and though her words were perfectly inaudible to me, I had no difficulty in gathering their import, and saw that "the young person"

was undergoing a pretty smart lecture for her presumption in daring to differ in opinion with my Royal Highness. I suppose it was very ign.o.ble of me, but I was delighted at it. I was right glad that the old woman administered that sharp castigation, and I burned even with impatience to throw in a sh.e.l.l myself and increase the discomfiture. Mrs. Keats finished her gallop at last, and I took up the running.

"You were fortunate, madam," said I, "in the indisposition that confined you to your room, and which rescued you from the underbred presumption of this man's manners. I have travelled much, I have mixed largely, I may say, with every rank and condition, and in every country of Europe, so that I am not p.r.o.nouncing the opinion of one totally inadequate to form a judgment--"

"Certainly not, sir. Listen to that, young lady," muttered she, in a sort of under growl.

"In fact," resumed I, "it is one of my especial amus.e.m.e.nts to observe and note the forms of civilization implied by mere conventional habits. If, from circ.u.mstances not necessary to particularize, certain advantages have favored this pursuit--"

When I had reached thus far in my very pompous preface, the clatter of a horse coming up at full speed arrested my attention, and at the very moment the German himself, the identical subject of our talk, dashed up to the carriage window, and with a few polite words handed in a small volume to Miss Herbert, which it seems he had promised to give her, but could not accomplish before, in consequence of the abrupt haste of our departure. The explanation did not occupy an entire minute, and he was gone and out of sight at once. And now the little window was closed, and I could distinctly hear that Mrs. Keats was engaged in one of those salutary exercises by which age communicates its experiences to youth.

I wished I could have opened a little c.h.i.n.k to listen to it, but I could not do so undetected, so I had to console myself by imagining all the shrewd and disagreeable remarks she must have made. Morals has its rhubarb as well as medicine, wholesome, doubtless, when down, but marvellously nauseous and very hard to swallow, and I felt that the young person was getting a full dose; indeed, I could catch two very significant words, which came and came again in the allocution, and the very utterance of which added to their sharpness,--"levity,"

"encouragement." There they were again!

"Lay it on, old lady," muttered I; "your precepts are sound; never was there a case more meet for their application. Never mind a little pain, either,--one must touch the quick to make the cautery effectual. She will be all the better for the lesson, and she has well earned it!" Oh, Potts! Potts! was this not very hard-hearted and ungenerous? Why should the sorrow of that young creature have been a pleasure to you? Is it possible that the mean sentiment of revenge has had any share in this?

Are you angry with her that she liked that man's conversation, and turned to _him_ in preference to _you?_ You surely cannot be actuated by a motive so base as this? Is it for herself, for her own advantage, her preservation, that you are thinking all this time? Of course it is. And there, now, I think I hear her sob. Yes, she is crying; the old lady has really come to the quick, and I believe is not going to stop there.

"Well," thought I, "old ladies are an excellent invention; none of these cutting severities could be done but for them. And they have a patient persistence in this surgery quite wonderful, for when they have flayed the patient all over, they sprinkle on salt as carefully as a pastry-cook frosting a plum-cake."

At last, I did begin to wish it was over. She surely must have addressed herself to every phase of the question in an hour and a half; and yet I could hear her still grinding, grinding on, as though the efficacy of her precepts, like a h.o.m.oeopathic remedy, were to be increased by trituration. Fortunately, we had to halt for fresh horses; and so I got down to chat with them at the carriage-door, and interrupt the lecture.

Little was I prepared for the reddened eyes and quivering lips of that poor girl, as she drank off the gla.s.s of water she begged me to fetch her, but still less for the few words she contrived to whisper in my ear as I took the gla.s.s from her hands.

"I hope you have made me miserable enough _now_."

And with this the window was banged to, and away we went.

CHAPTER XXV. I MAINTAIN A DIGNIFIED RESERVE.

I was so hurt by the last words of Miss Herbert to me, that I maintained throughout the entire day what I meant to be a "dignified reserve," but what I half suspect bore stronger resemblance to a deep sulk. My station had its privileges, and I resolved to take the benefit of them. I dined alone. Yes, on that day I did fall back upon the eminence of my condition, and proudly intimated that I desired solitude. I was delighted to see the dismay this declaration caused. Old Mrs. Keats was speechless with terror. I was looking at her through a c.h.i.n.k in the door when Miss Herbert gave my message, and I thought she would have fainted.

"What were his precise words? Give them to me exactly as he uttered them," said she, tremulously, "for there are persons whose intimations are half commands."

"I can scarcely repeat them, madam," said the other, "but their purport was, that we were not to expect him at dinner, that he had ordered it to be served in his own room and at his own hour."

"And this is very probably all your doing," said the old lady, with indignation. "Unaccustomed to any levity of behavior, brought up in a rank where familiarities are never practised, he has been shocked by your conduct with that stranger. Yes, Miss Herbert, I say shocked, because, however harmless in intention, such freedoms are utterly unknown in--in certain circles."

"I am sure, madam," replied she, with a certain amount of spirit, "that you are laboring under a very grave misapprehension. There was no familiarity, no freedom. We talked as I imagine people usually talk when they sit at the same table. Mr.--I scarcely know his name--"

"Nor is it necessary," said the old woman, tartly; "though, if you had, probably this unfortunate incident might not have occurred. Sit down there, however, and write a few lines in my name, hoping that his indisposition may be very slight, and begging to know if he desire to remain here to-morrow and take some repose."

I waited till I saw Miss Herbert open her writing-desk, and then I hastened off to my room to reflect over my answer to her note. Now that the suggestion was made to me, I was pleased with the notion of pa.s.sing an entire day where we were. The place was Schaffhausen,--the famous fall of the Rhine,--not very much as a cataract, but picturesque withal; pleasant chestnut woods to ramble about, and a nice old inn in a wild old wilderness of a garden that sloped down to the very river.

Strange perversity is it not; but how naturally one likes everything to have some feature or other out of keeping with its intrinsic purport!

An inn like an old _chateau_, a chief-justice that could ride a steeple-chase, a bishop that sings Moore's melodies, have an immense attraction for me. They seem all, as it were, to say, "Don't fancy life is a mere four-roomed house with a door in the middle. Don't imagine that all is humdrum and routine and regular. Notwithstanding his wig and stern black eyebrows, there is a touch of romance in that old Chancellor's heart that you could n't beat out of it with his great mace; and his Grace the Primate there has not forgotten what made the poetry of his life in days before he ever dreamed of charges or triennial visitations."

By these reflections I mean to convey that I am very fond of an inn that does not look like an inn, but resembles a faded old country-house, or a deserted convent, or a disabled mill. This Schaffhausen Gasthaus looked like all three. It was the sort of place one might come to in a long vacation, to live simply and to go early to bed, take monotony as a tonic, and fancying unbroken quiet to be better than quinine.

"Ah!" thought I, "if it had not been for that confounded German, what a paradise might not this have been to me! Down there in that garden, with the din of the waterfall around us, walking under the old cherry-trees, brushing our way through tangled sweetbriers, and arbutus, and laburnum, what delicious nonsense might I not have poured into her ear! Ay! and not unwillingly had she heard it. That something within that never deceives, that little crimson heart within the rose of conscience, tells me that she liked me, that she was attracted by what, if it were not for shame, I would call the irresistible attractions of my nature; and now this creature of braten and beetroot has spoiled all, jarred the instrument and unstrung the chords that might have yielded me such sweet music."

In thinking over the inadequacy of all human inst.i.tutions, I have often been struck by the fact that while the law gives the weak man a certain measure of protection against the superior physical strength of the powerful ruffian in the street, it affords none against the a.s.saults of the intellectual bully at a dinner-party. _He_ may maltreat you at his pleasure, batter you with his arguments, kick you with inferences, and knock you down with conclusions, and no help for it all!

"Ah, here comes Francois with the note." I wrote one line in pencil for answer: "am sensibly touched by your consideration, and will pa.s.s to-morrow here." I signed this with a P., which might mean Prince, Potts, or Pottinger. My reply despatched, I began to think how I could improve the opportunity. "I will bring her to book," thought I; "I will have an explanation." I always loved that sort of thing,--there is an almost certainty of emotion; now emotion begets tears; tears, tenderness; tenderness, consolation; and when you reach consolation, you are, so to say, a tenant in possession; your t.i.tle may be disputable, your lease invalid, still you are there, on the property, and it will take time at least to turn you out. "After all," thought I, "that rude German has but troubled the water for a moment, the pure well of her affections will by this time have regained its calm still surface, and I shall see my image there as before."

My meditations were interrupted, perhaps not unpleasantly. It was the waiter with my dinner. I am not unsocial--I am eminently the reverse--I may say, like most men who feel themselves conversationally gifted, I like company, I see that my gifts have in such gatherings their natural ascendancy,--and yet, with all this, I have always felt that to dine splendidly, all alone, was a very grand thing. Mind, I don't say it is pleasant or jolly or social, but simply that it is grand to see all that table equipage of crystal and silver spread out for _you_ alone; to know that the business of that gorgeous candelabrum is to light _you_; that the two decorous men in black--archdeacons they might be, from the quiet dignity of their manners--are there to wait upon _you_; that the whole sacrifice, from the caviare to the cheese, was a hecatomb to _your_ greatness. I repeat, these are all grand and imposing considerations, and there have been times when I have enjoyed these _Lucullus c.u.m Lucullo_ festivals more than convivial a.s.semblages. This day was one of these: I lingered over my dinner in delightful dalliance. I partook of nearly every dish, but, with a supreme refinement, ate little of any, as though to imply, "I am accustomed to a very different _cuisine_ from this; it is not thus that I fare habitually." And yet I was blandly forgiving, accepting even such humble efforts to please as if they had been successes. The Cliquot was good, and I drank no other wine, though various flasks with tempting t.i.tles stood around me.

Dinner over and coffee served, I asked the waiter what resources the place possessed in the way of amus.e.m.e.nt. He looked blank and even distressed at my question: he had all his life imagined that the Falls sufficed for everything; he had seen the tide of travel halt there to view them for years. Since he was a boy, he had never ceased to witness the yearly recurring round of tourists who came to see, and sketch, and scribble about them, and so he faintly muttered out a remonstrance,--

"Monsieur has not yet visited the Falls."