A Day's Ride Part 49

"True," they would say, "Potts never cared for Harpar. He was not a man to whom Potts would have attached himself under any circ.u.mstances; they were, as individuals, totally unlike and unsympathetic. How, then, explain this extraordinary act of self-sacrifice? Was he prompted by the hope that the iniquities of the Austrian police system would receive their death-blow from his story, and that the mound that covered him in the churchyard would be the altar of Liberty to thousands? Or was Potts one of those enthusiastic creatures only too eager to carry the load of some other pilgrim in life?"

While I used thus to reason and speculate, I little knew that I had become a sort of European notoriety. Some Englishwoman, however, some vagrant tourist, had put me in her book as the half-witted creature who showed the coins and curiosities at Ambras, and mentioned how, for I know not how many years, I was never heard to utter a syllable except on questions of old armor and antiquities. In consequence I was always asked for by my travelling countrymen, and my peculiarities treated with all that playful good taste for which tourists are famous. I remember one day having refused to perform the showman to a British family. I had a headache, or was sulky, or a fit of rebellion had got hold of me, but I sauntered out into the grounds and would not see them. In my walk through a close alley of laurels, I chanced to overhear the stranger conversing with Hirsch, and making myself the subject of his inquiries; and, as I listened, I heard Hirsch say that one entire room of the chateau was devoted to the papers and doc.u.ments in my case, and that probably it would occupy a quick reader about twelve months to peruse them. He added, that as I made no application for a trial myself, nor any of my friends showed an inclination to bestir themselves about me, the Government would very probably leave me to live and die where I was.

Thereupon the Briton broke out into a worthy fit of indignant eloquence.

He denounced the Hapsburgs and praised the Habeas Corpus; he raved of the power of England, our press, our public opinion, our new frigates.

He said he would make Europe ring with the case. It was as bad, it was worse than Caspar Hauser's, for he was an idiot outright, and _I_ appeared to have the enjoyment of certain faculties. He said it should appear in the "Times," and be mentioned in the House; and as I listened, the strangest glow ran through me, a mild and pleasurable enthusiasm, to think that all the might, majesty, and power of Great Britain was about to interest itself in behalf of Potts!

The Briton kept his word; the time, too, favored him. It was a moment when wandering Englishmen were exhuming grievances throughout every land of Europe; and while one had discovered some case of religious intolerance in Norway, another beat him out of the field with the coldblooded atrocities of Naples. My Englishman chanced to be an M.P., and therefore he asked, "in his place," if the Foreign Secretary had any information to afford the House with respect to the case of the man called Harper, or Harpar, he was not certain which, and who had been confined for upwards of ten months in a dungeon in Austria, on allegations of which the accused knew nothing whatever, and attested by witnesses with whom he had never been confronted.

In the absence of his chief, the Under-Secretary rose to a.s.sure the right honorable gentleman that the case was one which had for a considerable time engaged the attention of the department he belonged to, and that the most unremitting exertions of her Majesty's envoy at Vienna were now being devoted to obtain the fullest information as to the charges imputed to Harpar, and he hoped in a few days to be able to lay the result of his inquiry on the table of the House.

It was in about a week after this that Hirsch came to tell me that a member of her Majesty's legation at Vienna had arrived to investigate my case, and interrogate me in person. I am half ashamed to say how vain gloriously I thought of the importance thus lent me. I felt, somehow, as though the nation missed me. Waiting patiently, as it might be, for my return, and yet no tidings coming, they said, "What has become of Potts?" It was clearly a case upon which they would not admit of any mystification or deceit. "No secret tribunals, no hole-and-corner commitments with us! Where is he? Produce him. Say, with what is he charged?" I was going to be the man of the day. I knew it, I felt it; I saw a great tableau of my life unrolling itself before me. Potts, the young enthusiast after virtue,--hopeful, affectionate, confiding, giving his young heart to that fair-haired girl as freely as he would have bestowed a moss-rose; and she, making light of the gift, and with a woman's coquetry, torturing him by a jealous levity till he resented the wrong, and tore himself away. And then, Catinka,--how I tried the gold of my nature in that crucible, and would not fall in love with her before I had made her worthy of my love; and when I had failed in that, how I had turned from love to friendship, and offered myself the victim for a man I never cared about. No matter; the world will know me at last. Men will recognize the grand stuff that I am made of. If commentators spend years in exploring the recondite pa.s.sages of great writers, and making out beauties where there were only obscurities, why should not all the dark parts of my nature come out as favorably, and some flattering interpreter say, "Potts was for a long time misconceived; few men were more wrongfully judged by their contemporaries. It was to a mere accident, after all, we owe it that we are now enabled to render him the justice so long denied him. His was one of those remarkable natures in which it is difficult to say whether humility or self-confidence predominated"?

Then I thought of the national excitement to discover the missing Potts; just as if I had been a lost Arctic voyager. Expeditions sent out to track me; all the thousand speculations as to whether I had gone this way or that; where and from whom the latest tidings of me could be traced; the heroic offers of new discoverers to seek me living, or, sad alternative, restore to the country that mourned me the _reliquiae Pottsi_, I always grew tender in my moods of self-compa.s.sion, and I felt my eyes swimming now in pity for my fate; and let me add in this place my protest against the vulgar error which stigmatizes as selfishness the mere fact of a man's susceptibility. How, I would simply ask, can he feel for others who has no sense of sympathy with his own suffering nature? If the well of human kindness be dried up within him, how can he give to the parched throats the refreshing waters of compa.s.sion?

Deal with the fact how you may, I was very sorry for myself, and seriously doubted if as sincere a mourner would bewail me when I was gone.

If a little time had been given me, I would have endeavored to get up my snug little chamber somewhat more like a prison cell; I would have subst.i.tuted some straw for my comfortable bed, and gracefully draped a few chains upon the walls and some stray torture implements out of the Armory; but the envoy came like a "thief in the night," and was already on the stairs when he was announced.

"Oh! this is his den, is it?" cried he from without, as he slowly ascended the stairs. "Egad! he hasn't much to complain of in the matter of a lodging. I only wish our fellows were as well off at Vienna." And with these words there entered into my room a tall young fellow, with a light brown moustache, dressed in a loose travelling suit, and with the lounging air of a man sauntering into a _cafe_. He did not remove his hat as he came in, or take the cigar from his mouth; the latter circ.u.mstance imparting a certain confusion to his speech that made him occasionally scarce intelligible. Only deigning to bestow a pa.s.sing look on me, he moved towards the window, and looked out on the grand panorama of the Tyrol Alps, as they enclose the valley of Innspruck.

"Well," said he to himself, "all this ain't so bad for a dungeon."

The tone startled me. I looked again at him, I rallied myself to an effort of memory, and at once recalled the young fellow I had met on the South-Western line and from whom I had accidentally carried away the despatch-bag. To my beard, and my long imprisonment, I trusted for not being recognized, and I sat patiently awaiting my examination.

"An Englishman, I suppose?" asked he, turning hastily round. "And of English parents?"

"Yes," was my reply, for I determined on brevity wherever possible.

"What brought you into this sc.r.a.pe?--I mean, why did you come here at all?"

"I was travelling."

"Travelling? Stuff and nonsense! Why should fellows like you travel?

What's your rank in life?"

"A gentleman."

"Ah! but whose gentleman, my worthy friend? Ain't you a flunkey? There, it's out! I say, have you got a match to light my cigar? Thanks,--all right. Look here, now,--don't let us be beating about the bush all the day,--I believe this government is just as sick of you as you are of them. You 've been here two months, ain't it so?"

"Ten months and upwards."

"Well, ten months. And you want to get away?"

I made no answer; indeed, his free-and-easy manner so disconcerted me that I could not speak, and he went on,--

"I suspect they have n't got much against you, or that they don't care about it; and, besides, they are civil to us just now. At all events, it can be done,--you understand?--it can be done."

"Indeed," said I, half superciliously.

"Yes," resumed he, "I think so; not but you'd have managed better in leaving the thing to _us_, That stupid notion you all have of writing letters to newspapers and getting some troublesome fellow to ask questions in the House, that's what spoils everything! How can _we_ negotiate when the whole story is in the 'Times' or the 'Daily News'?"

"I opine, sir, that you are ascribing to me an activity and energy I have no claim to."

"Well, if you did n't write those letters, somebody else did. I don't care a rush for the difference. You see, here's how the matter stands.

This Mr. Brigges, or Rigges, has gone off, and does n't care to prosecute, and all his allegations against you fall to the ground.

Well, these people fancy they could carry on the thing themselves, you understand; we think not. They say they have got a strong case; perhaps they have; but we ask, 'What's the use of it? Sending the poor beggar to Spielberg won't save you, will it?' And so we put it to them this way: 'Draw stakes, let him off, and both can cry quits.' There, give me another light Isn't that the common-sense view of it?"

"I scarcely dare to say that I understand you aright."

"Oh, I can guess why. I have had dealings with fellows of your sort before. You don't fancy my not alluding to compensation, eh? You want to hear about the money part of the matter?"

And he laughed aloud; but whether at _my_ mercenary spirit or _his own_ shrewdness in detecting it, I do not really know.

"Well, I'm afraid," continued he, "you'll be disappointed there. These Austrians are hard up; besides, they never do pay. It's against their system, and so we never ask them."

"Would it be too much, sir, to ask why I have been imprisoned?"

"Perhaps not; but a great deal too much for me to tell you. The confounded papers would fill a cart, and that's the reason I say, cut your stick, my man, and get away." Again he turned to the window, and, looking out, asked, "Any shooting about here? There ought to be c.o.c.ks in that wood yonder?" and without caring for reply, went on, "After all, you know what bosh it is to talk about chains and dungeons, and bread-and-water, and the rest of it. You 've been living in clover here.

That old fellow below tells me that you dine with him every day; that you might have gone into Innspruck, to the theatre if you liked it--I 'll swear there are snipes in that low land next the river.--Think it over, Rigges, think it over."

"I am not Rigges."

"Oh, I forgot! you 're the other fellow. Well, think it over, Harpar."

"My name is not Harpar, sir."

"What do I care for a stray vowel or two? Maybe you call yourself Harpar, or Harper? It's all the same to _us_."

"It is not the question of a vowel or two, sir; and I desire you to remark it is the graver one of a mistaken ident.i.ty!" I said this with a high-sounding importance that I thought must astound him; but his light and frivolous nature was impervious to rebuke.

"_We_ have nothing to say to that," replied he, carelessly. "You may be Noakes or Styles. I believe they are the names of any fellows who are supposed by courtesy to have no name at all, and it's all alike to _us_.

What I have to observe to you is this: n.o.body cares very much whether you are detained here or not; n.o.body wants to detain you. Just reflect, therefore, if it's not the best thing you can do to slope off, and make no more fuss about it?"

"Once for all, sir," said I, still more impressively, "I am not the person against whom this charge is made. The authorities have all along mistaken me for another."

"Well, what if they have? Does it signify one kreutzer? We have had trouble enough about the matter already, and do not embroil us any further."

"May I ask, sir, just for information, who are the '_we_' you have so frequently alluded to?"

Had I asked him in what division of the globe he understood us then to be conversing, he would not have regarded me with a look of more blank astonishment.

"Who are we?" repeated he. "Did you ask who are we?"

"Yes, sir, that was what I made bold to ask."

"Cool, certainly; what might be called uncommon cool. To what line of life were you brought up to, my worthy gent? I have rather a curiosity about your antecedents."

"That same curiosity cost you a trifle once before," said I, no longer able to control myself, and dying to repay his impertinence. "I remember, once upon a time, meeting you on a railroad, and you were so eager to exhibit the skill with which you could read a man's calling, that you bet me a sovereign you would guess mine. You did so, and lost."