The Disowned Part 51

"Not at present, I thank you," said Wolfe, mildly; "I care little for the inclemencies of the heavens, and you may find many to whom your proffered defence from them may be more acceptable. But tell me if the Mr. Mordaunt you mentioned was ever residing in town, and in very indifferent circ.u.mstances?"

"Probably he was," said the cautious Brown, who, as we before said, had been bribed into silence, and who now grievously repented that pa.s.sion had betrayed him into the imprudence of candour; "but I really do not busy myself about other people's affairs. 'Brown,' said the late Lady Waddilove to me, 'Brown, you are a good creature, and never talk of what does not concern you.' Those, Mr. Wolfe, were her ladyship's own words."

"As you please," said the reformer, who did not want shrewdness, and saw that his point was already sufficiently gained; "as you please. And now, to change the subject, I suppose we shall have your attendance at the meeting at W---- to-morrow?"

"Ay," replied the worthy Brown: "I thought it likely I should meet many of my old customers in the town on such a busy occasion; so I went a little out of my way home to London, in order to spend a night or two there. Indeed, I have some valuable articles for Mr. Glumford, the magistrate, who will be in attendance to-morrow."

"They say," observed Wolfe, "that the magistrates, against all law, right, and custom, will dare to interfere with and resist the meeting.

Think you report says true?"

"Nay," returned Brown, prudently, "I cannot exactly pretend to decide the question: all I know is that Squire Glumford said to me, at his own house, five days ago, as he was drawing on his boots, 'Brown,' said he, 'Brown, mark my words, we shall do for those rebellious dogs!'"

"Did he say so?" muttered Wolfe, between his teeth. "Oh, for the old times, or those yet to come, when our answer would have been, or shall be, the sword!"

"And you know," pursued Mr. Brown, "that Lord Ulswater and his regiment are in town, and have even made great preparations against the meeting a week ago."

"I have heard this," said Wolfe; "but I cannot think that any body of armed men dare interrupt or attack a convocation of peaceable subjects, met solely to pet.i.tion Parliament against famine for themselves and slavery for their children."

"Famine!" quoth Mr. Brown. "Indeed it is very true, very! times are dreadfully bad. I can scarcely get my own living; Parliament certainly ought to do something: but you must forgive me, Mr. Wolfe; it may be dangerous to talk with you on these matters; and, now I think of it, the sooner I get to W---- the better; good morning; a shower's coming on.

You won't have the umbrella, then?"

"They dare not," said Wolfe to himself, "no, no,--they dare not attack us; they dare not;" and clenching his fist, he pursued, with a quicker step, and a more erect mien, his solitary way.

When he was about the distance of three miles from W----, he was overtaken by a middle-aged man of a frank air and a respectable appearance. "Good day, sir," said he; "we seem to be journeying the same way: will it be against your wishes to join company?"

Wolfe a.s.sented, and the stranger resumed:--

"I suppose, sir, you intend to be present at the meeting at W---- to-morrow? There will be an immense concourse, and the entrance of a new detachment of soldiers, and the various reports of the likelihood of their interference with the a.s.sembly, make it an object of some interest and anxiety to look forward to."

"True, true," said Wolfe, slowly, eying his new acquaintance with a deliberate and scrutinizing attention. "It will, indeed, be interesting to see how far an evil and hardy government will venture to encroach upon the rights of the people, which it ruins while it pretends to rule."

"Of a truth," rejoined the other, "I rejoice that I am no politician.

I believe my spirit is as free as any cooped in the narrow dungeon of earth's clay can well be; yet I confess that it has drawn none of its liberty from book, pamphlet, speech, or newspaper, of modern times."

"So much the worse for you, sir," said Wolfe, sourly: "the man who has health and education can find no excuse for supineness or indifference to that form of legislation by which his country decays or prospers."

"Why," said the other, gayly, "I willingly confess myself less of a patriot than a philosopher; and as long as I am harmless, I strive very little to be useful, in a public capacity; in a private one, as a father, a husband, and a neighbour, I trust I am not utterly without my value."

"Pish!" cried Wolfe; "let no man who forgets his public duties prate of his private merits. I tell you, man, that he who can advance by a single hair's-breadth the happiness or the freedom of mankind has done more to save his own soul than if he had paced every step of the narrow circle of his domestic life with the regularity of clockwork."

"You may be right," quoth the stranger, carelessly; "but I look on things in the ma.s.s, and perhaps see only the superficies, while you, I perceive already, are a lover of the abstract. For my part, Harry Fielding's two definitions seem to me excellent. 'Patriot,--a candidate for a place!' 'Politics,--the art of getting such a place!' Perhaps, sir, as you seem a man of education, you remember the words of our great novelist."

"No!" answered Wolfe, a little contemptuously; "I cannot say that I burden my memory with the deleterious witticisms and shallow remarks of writers of fancy. It has been a mighty and spreading evil to the world that the vain fictions of the poets or the exaggerations of novelists have been hitherto so welcomed and extolled. Better had it been for us if the destruction of the lettered wealth at Alexandria had included all the lighter works which have floated, from their very levity, down the stream of time, an example and a corruption to the degraded geniuses of later days."

The eyes of the stranger sparkled. "Why, you outgoth the Goth!"

exclaimed he, sharply. "But you surely preach against what you have not studied. Confess that you are but slightly acquainted with Shakspeare, and Spenser, and n.o.ble Dan Chaucer. Ay, if you knew them as well as I do, you would, like me, give--

'To hem faith and full credence, And in your heart have hem in reverence.'"

"Pish!" again muttered Wolfe; and then rejoined aloud, "It grieves me to see time so wasted, and judgment so perverted, as yours appears to have been; but it fills me with pity and surprise, as well as grief, to find that, so far from shame at the effeminacy of your studies, you appear to glory and exult in them."

"May the Lord help me, and lighten thee," said Cole; for it was he.

"You are at least not a novelty in human wisdom, whatever you may be in character; for you are far from the only one proud of being ignorant, and pitying those who are not so."

Wolfe darted one of his looks of fire at the speaker, who, nothing abashed, met the glance with an eye, if not as fiery, at least as bold.

"I see," said the republican, "that we shall not agree upon the topics you have started. If you still intrude your society upon me, you will, at least, choose some other subject of conversation."

"Pardon me," said Cole, whose very studies, while they had excited, in their self-defence, his momentary warmth, made him habitually courteous and urbane, "pardon me for my hastiness of expression. I own myself in fault." And, with this apology, our ex-king slid into the new topics which the scenery and the weather afforded him.

Wolfe, bent upon the object of his present mission, made some inquiries respecting Mordaunt; and though Cole only shared the uncertain information of the country gossips as to the past history of that person, yet the little he did know was sufficient to confirm the republican in his belief of Algernon's ident.i.ty; while the ex-gypsy's account of his rank and reputation in the country made Wolfe doubly anxious to secure, if possible, his good offices and interference on behalf of the meeting. But the conversation was not always restricted to neutral and indifferent ground, but ever and anon wandered into various allusions or opinions from the one, certain to beget retort or controversy in the other.

Had we time and our reader patience, it would have been a rare and fine contrast to have noted more at large the differences of thought and opinion between the companions: each in his several way so ardent for liberty, and so impatient of the control and customs of society; each so enthusiastic for the same object, yet so coldly contemptuous to the enthusiasm of the other. The one guided only by his poetical and erratic tastes, the other solely by dreams, seeming to the world no less baseless, yet, to his own mind, bearing the name of stern judgment and inflexible truth. Both men of active and adventurous spirits, to whom forms were fetters and ceremonies odious; yet, deriving from that mutual similarity only pity for mutual perversion, they were memorable instances of the great differences congeniality itself will occasion, and of the never-ending varieties which minds, rather under the influence of imagination than judgment, will create.

CHAPTER LXXV.

Gratis anhelans, multa agendo, nihil agens.--PHAEDRUS.

["Panting and labouring in vain; doing much,--effecting nothing."]

Upon entering the town, the streets displayed all the bustle and excitement which the approaching meeting was eminently calculated to create in a place ordinarily quiescent and undisturbed: groups of men were scattered in different parts, conversing with great eagerness; while here and there some Demosthenes of the town, impatient of the coming strife, was haranguing his little knot of admiring friends, and preparing his oratorical organs by petty skirmishing for the grand battle of the morrow. Now and then the eye roved upon the gaunt forms of Lord Ulswater's troopers, as they strolled idly along the streets, in pairs, perfectly uninterested by the great event which set all the more peaceable inmates of the town in a ferment, and returning, with a slighting and supercilious glance, the angry looks and muttered anathemas which, ever and anon, the hardier spirits of the pet.i.tioning party liberally bestowed upon them.

As Wolfe and his comrade entered the main street, the former was accosted by some one of his compatriots, who, seizing him by the arm, was about to apprise the neighbouring idlers, by a sudden exclamation, of the welcome entrance of the eloquent and noted republican. But Wolfe perceived and thwarted his design.

"Hush!" said he, in a low voice; "I am only now on my way to an old friend, who seems a man of influence in these parts, and may be of avail to us on the morrow; keep silence, therefore, with regard to my coming till I return. I would not have my errand interrupted."

"As you will," said the brother spirit: "but whom have you here, a fellow-labourer?" and the reformer pointed to Cole, who, with an expression of shrewd humour, blended with a sort of philosophical compa.s.sion, stood at a little distance waiting for Wolfe, and eying the motley groups a.s.sembled before him.

"No," answered Wolfe; "he is some vain and idle sower of unprofitable flowers; a thing who loves poetry, and, for aught I know, writes it: but that reminds me that I must rid myself of his company; yet stay; do you know this neighbourhood sufficiently to serve me as a guide?"

"Ay," quoth the other; "I was born within three miles of the town."

"Indeed!" rejoined Wolfe; "then perhaps you can tell me if there is any way of reaching a place called Mordaunt Court without pa.s.sing through the more public and crowded thoroughfares."

"To be sure," rejoined the brother spirit; "you have only to turn to the right up yon hill, and you will in an instant be out of the purlieus and precincts of W----, and on your shortest road to Mordaunt Court; but surely it is not to its owner that you are bound?"

"And why not?" said Wolfe.

"Because," replied the other, "he is the wealthiest, the highest, and, as report says, the haughtiest aristocrat of these parts."

"So much the better, then," said Wolfe, "can he aid us in obtaining a quiet hearing to-morrow, undisturbed by those liveried varlets of hire, who are termed, in sooth, Britain's defence! Much better, when we think of all they cost us to pamper and to clothe, should they be termed Britain's ruin: but farewell for the present; we shall meet to-night; your lodgings--?"

"Yonder," said the other, pointing to a small inn opposite; and Wolfe, nodding his adieu, returned to Cole, whose vivacious and restless nature had already made him impatient of his companion's delay.

"I must take my leave of you now," said Wolfe, "which I do with a hearty exhortation that you will change your studies, fit only for effeminate and enslaved minds."

"And I return the exhortation," answered Cole. "Your studies seem to me tenfold more crippling than mine: mine take all this earth's restraints from me, and yours seem only to remind you that all earth is restraint: mine show me whatever worlds the fondest fancy could desire; yours only the follies and chains of this. In short, while 'my mind to me a kingdom is,' yours seems to consider the whole universe itself nothing but a great meeting for the purpose of abusing ministers and demanding reform!"