Confessions of an Etonian Part 9

I was agreeably surprised with the number of works I crept through; among which, my favourites were Byron's works throughout, with his life by Moore; Butler's a.n.a.logy, White's Farriery, and Dwight's Theology, which last is as full of poetry as Childe Harold.

The last half hour of each night or morning, I invariably enjoyed with my feet on the fender, in dreamy contemplation of the past, wreathed in the fumes of a cigar, and soothed by the lowly and desultory murmurs of the geese in the straw-yard beneath my window.

At the distance of about two miles from me, was Winthra, a seat of his Grace the Duke of Northumberland. Though the smallest of his several domains, it was the most beautiful; nor was it diminutive, being six miles in circ.u.mference. This paradise was placed in the centre of a country which was hideous in the extreme. Here then, was "the diamond of the desert."

We may remember that, in olden times, the amorous Edgar, on the fame of Ordulph's lovely daughter, despatched a confidant to her distant home in order to ascertain whether her beauty was of such transcendency as report declared it.

In this spot, then, the ancient seat of the Earls of Devon, the future queen, Elfrida, lived. A park it has ever been, from that day to this; and as one winds his silent steps between the stems of the giant and ruined oaks, the impression is, that here the spirits of Druids linger and roam as the last refuge left them untouched by the hand of man.

It contained the two sides of an extensive valley, sweeping gradually down to the Winthra, a beautiful trout-stream murmuring along the ravine. The only inhabitant of the enormous mansion was a worn out and pensioned butler; so that my sole companions of the solitude were the deer, and these being never or seldom meddled with, had increased to mult.i.tudes; and when one observed the huge and lofty walls with which the whole was shut in, he felt indeed in Ra.s.selas's happy valley.

Here, then, have I pa.s.sed days and days, without seeing one soul, reading, sketching, fishing, and bathing. Only once was I sensible of an intruder.

One bright moonlight night, I was pa.s.sing along by the banks of the stream, when I observed on the other side something which I was confident, from familiar acquaintance with the spot, was not wont to be there. As it was lying on the pebbly beach, partly in the chequered shade of a beech-tree, and partly in the water, I was totally at a loss to imagine what it might be, but had a strong foreboding that it was a human body. A little lower down there was a shallow, through which I pa.s.sed; and on reaching the spot, I must acknowledge that I was equally horrified to find that the object of my anxiety was a freshly-killed deer. The poor thing had evidently come here to drink, when it had been seized upon by some dog; and I cannot express my mixture of rage and remorse as I watched the damp, warm vapour slowly rising from the lacerated and b.l.o.o.d.y flank, and contemplated the beautiful but dimmed eye, glazed by the pale moonlight. Our peaceful sanctuary was violated!

I borrowed the very old gun of the very old butler, and watched for the moment of my revenge till daybreak, but it was never satiated.

A few months after this, having received an invitation to a delightful residence near the sea, and at the same time to meet some families of the county, among whom was to be "my own dear somebody," Seymour and I had set off in high glee with such a break in the monotony of our monastic habits.

That afternoon, then, I was riding by the side of this "somebody." A sort of confidence had arisen between us, very delightful and unaccountable; except simply that, on one side of me, as I rode along the edge of the cliffs, there was the Atlantic looking lowering and stormy, mingled in the horizon with the still drearier sky, broken or relieved by the contrast of a very lovely girl.

At this moment it was blowing and raining heavily, and, as she cantered along, my admiration of her was anything but diminished, when I witnessed the cheerful and good-natured indifference with which she treated a boisterous day of "bleak and chill December."

Being an ardent sort of little personage, she had been descanting with considerable animation and enthusiasm on a subject which affected her deeply. Her hair, completely dripping, was hanging down her cheek, now freshened by the coldness of the pelting rain. I cannot conceive how anything could look more beautiful than this girl did at that moment.

At the same time though she appeared serious and melancholy, and, I think, a little out of humour too, while her hat, which was too large for her, had, from the wet, become quite shapeless, and appeared pressed down over her face, so that I could not forbear laughing, in spite of everything, though at the moment I felt wofully wretched!

Interrupting herself, and looking up towards the clouds, she pointed out to me, with her whip, a portion of blue sky, perhaps intimating a cessation of the storm. Regardless of either, I coolly as thoughtlessly put my hand out to take hers! but owing to the action of our horses, missed it. She never saw the attempt, and I narrowly escaped making a great fool of myself.

The most egregious act of folly, I think, a man can be guilty of, is to allow himself to meet with "a refusal."

We may easily have tact enough to know, beforehand, the real state and probable result of the case.

In the present one, this girl and her family would have seen me at the bottom of the Red Sea, ere my hopes and wishes on the subject had met with, "a consummation so devoutly to be wished."

Two days afterwards, I was standing once more on the deck of a steamer, with my carpet-bag at my feet, bound for a foreign port.

The Church I have resigned for ever--my parish, Winthra Park, both deserted--and my humble abode! "its hearth is desolate."

BOOK THE THIRD.

CHAPTER I.

We are aware that, when we "train up a child in the way he should go, he will not depart from it;" but fortunately, when it is that in which he ought not to go, he certainly will depart from it when he can.

Thus having consumed nearly half my life--at all events, the _better_ half--at a public school and the University, preparatory to a profession, my antipathy for which was exactly proportioned by my inapt.i.tude for it, the sole result is, that I can now answer to the definition of a real gentleman, "one who has no visible means of a maintenance."

I begin to suspect, then, that it may be, now and then, just worth while to condescend and observe how a child's disposition may incline him to go; and though, as an humble disciple of John Locke, I am quite sensible of the absurdity of "innate ideas," yet it is very evident that, at an early period of our lives, we evince traits which are infallibly indicative of the bent of our dispositions, which are just as our natures may have been const.i.tuted, and this bent is better known by the name of genius.

Now it has been beneficently, and I will say beautifully ordained, that an individual, by gratifying this instinctive impulse of his genius, not only augments his own happiness, but that of his species also, and, I sometimes fondly hope, even that of the Creator himself.

Over an extent of country is distributed a variety of soils, one adapted for one kind of produce, another for another, and the aggregate may amount to so much. Counteract this arrangement, and surely the result will be far inferior. Indeed, where is the agriculturist who is not strictly attentive as well as acquiescent to this tendency?

How exactly, then, do I imagine this to apply to the variety of dispositions among ourselves; and if we follow, with regard to their natures, the same economy, then shall we see how simply true it is, that when we train up a child in the way he _should_ go, he will not depart from it.

The conviction of this truth makes me curious to ascertain the way I ought to have gone; not that I am unaware of my present tastes, but which, probably, are the mere effects of education, and consequent and acquired habits, while my early ones have long since been lost or "warped by the kind severity of the pedagogue."

Possessing a tolerable memory with regard to events, I will, then, just rummage about its lumber-room, and see if I cannot tumble out some long-forgotten recollection on the subject, if I may so express myself; but I sincerely trust that it may not turn out to be a tendency for the poet, or some such inclination incompatible with the fortunes of the youngest of younger brothers.

After some pains to effect this object, I fear I must conclude that I have never evinced any marked genius, one way or another, unless it be for that of the vagrant! What a shock to my theory!

Though an idle boy, I was ever a restless one. Whenever I had an opportunity, I was certain to give my nursery-maid the slip, and ramble through the fields and coppices, though at the cost of a whipping, or, at all events, the deprivation of my supper. I could never see a distant hill, but I longed to reach its summit to see what was on the other side; and had I been more conversant with holy writ, I should have been ever sighing, "O, that I had wings like the dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest." In short, every spot in the distance seemed to be more sunny and delightful than that which I at the moment occupied. For hours would I lean my forehead against the cold gla.s.s of the nursery window, and contemplate the n.o.ble hill that swelled in the horizon. There, I had no doubt, was the end of the world. Then would I conjecture whether it were possible to get there and back again, and whether life was long enough for such a voyage. I then fixed my eye on a large beech-tree--which, blessings on it, is still standing--that I conjectured to be placed about midway. I next counted the number of fields between us, in which I included the lawn.

I knew that it was not a very great voyage to traverse this last to the Ha-ha and back. Following up these data, I arrived at the astounding conclusion that the whole original expedition might be accomplished in one day!

This, then, I had resolved to do; but which, after many failures, I never accomplished until several years subsequently, when I determined not only to effect this distance, four whole miles, but to push on to the sea-side, seventeen miles beyond. Now, this was a voyage, and I designed to perform it unknown to any one. As I was ignorant of the probable duration of such an undertaking, I was anxious to take a sufficient wardrobe, and therefore required a valise; but not being able to procure one, I purloined a long leather-legging of my father's, b.u.t.toned it up, and stuffed it with my clothes, and which now, when turned in at the ends, and strapped to the saddle with the b.u.t.tons downward, would have imposed itself as a respectable valise on the most experienced "travelling gentleman." The next morning, I rose before the sun, and squeezing through the bars of the stable window, threw out the saddle and bridle, went into the park up to my knees in dew, caught poor little Forester, and was away, while all at home were still fast asleep.

"Men are but children of a larger growth;" and in lieu of Horsa's-hill in front of my home, I have now extended my ambition to a region, which, let me confess, without any particular reason, I have pictured to myself as the nucleus of glaciers and avalanches--of mountains and mighty rivers. At all events, thither will I now hasten, if it was only to support my theory--at any rate, that I may enjoy the credit of being throughout a consistent character--though, by-the-bye, I might just as well have been the dreaded poet!

On examining my map, I found that the shortest way to the spot I had in view was to go across the paddock and the Downs for the sea-side, where I went on board for St. Malo, and from this corner of France I must find my way across to Geneva, at the other corner.

The pa.s.sage across the Channel was, as I expected, far from agreeable; for when a man wishes his "native land good night" in single blessedness, with but a slender purse in his pocket--and as his country's sh.o.r.es diminish, while sea-sickness increases--he cannot but cast a lingering look towards the scene of his youth far behind him, which he is leaving, perhaps for ever, to wander he knows not whither.

Thus have I paid for that liberty, which has enabled me to explore my solitary way through the most interesting countries of Europe. During my pilgrimage, as I have traversed the monotonous plains of La Vendee, the awful grandeur of the Alps, and the lovely yet sublime scenery of Italy, under every aspect--in summer and in winter, in sunshine and in storm--so have I, at times, been elated by the buoyant hopes of the present, as well as bowed down to the dust when I looked forward to the future. I have risen with the sun, my spirits vying with the freshness of the dawn; but how often "has my sun of hope set without a ray, while the dark night of dim despair shadowed only phantoms!"

Alone, and on foot, I have accomplished thousands of miles over France, Piedmont, Savoy, Switzerland, Tyrol, Lombardy, and Italy--I have toiled along the dusty road, beneath the noontide heat of an Italian sun, or wandered over trackless Alpine heights through the midnight storm--have rested on princely couches, or on the wheaten straw of the peasant--I have joined the mazourka in palaces, or the tarantala in the wilds of Calabria--I have revelled in the scenery of Claude, or brooded over the lofty solitudes of Salvator Rosa and the brigand--I have experienced the frivolity of France, the dissipation of Florence, the profligacy of the Venetian, the degeneracy of the Roman, and vindictiveness of the Neapolitan, the insincerity of the impoverished n.o.ble, and the truth of honest poverty--I have wondered in the gaudy sanctuary of the Papist, teeming with devotees, or pondered amid the n.o.bler simplicity of the Heathen's Temple in the deserts of malaria.

Like the Bohemian, I had, indeed, dearly purchased this liberty! at the cost of every tie, even of religion itself, though perhaps unconscious of it at the time. I then enjoyed robust health, the main-spring of scepticism. Deprived, then, of the source of true happiness, and without any defined object in view, the career before me was a dreary one--though for the present my spirits were buoyed up by the excitement attendant upon novelty.

CHAPTER II.

My main guide through France was the Loire, which led me by a meandering route of nearly five hundred miles to the neighbourhood of Lyons.

Knowing, at that time, so little of the language of those who surrounded me, as actually to envy the fluency of a parrot which I heard chattering with, I suspect, the true Parisian accent, I can scarcely account for the feeling of thorough nonchalance with which I commenced my pilgrimage, and which ever accompanied me to its conclusion. It was seldom even that I was sensible of loneliness, though I must bear witness to the almost inspired truth of the poet, when he says:--

"But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world's tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless, This is to be alone--this, this is solitude!"

And no one but the solitary pedestrian, entering a crowded city in a foreign land, can know this intense loneliness; but--