Vassall Morton Part 4

"Then I am not of your mind," said Rosny; "gravel or mud, brickbats or paving stones, they are the same to me, the world over. Halloo, Wren,"

to a mustachioed youth who just then joined them; "we are bound to your room."

"That's as it should be. But where are the rest?"

"Coming--all in good time; here's one of them."

A dapper little person approached, with a shining beaver, yellow kid gloves, a switch cane, and a very stiff but somewhat dashing cravat, surmounted by a round and rubicund face.

"Ah, Chester!" exclaimed Wren; "the very man we were looking for. Come and take a gla.s.s of punch at my room."

"Punch, indeed!" replied Chester, whose face had changed from a prim expression to one of great hilarity the moment he saw his friends--"no, no, gentlemen, I renounce punch and all its works. The pure unmixed, the pure juice of the grape for me."

"But, Chester," urged Wren, "won't the pure mountain dew be a sufficient inducement?"

"The good company will be a sufficient inducement," said Chester, waving his hand,--"the good company, gentlemen,--and the good liquor.

But what have we here? Meredith and Vinal walking side by side. Good Heavens, what a conjunction!"

The objects of Chester's astonishment, on a flattering invitation from Wren, joined the party, which, however, was weakened by the temporary secession of Rosny, who, pleading an errand in the village, left them with a promise to rejoin them soon. His place was in a few moments more than supplied by a new party of recruits, among whom was Stubb.

Arrived at Wren's room, the desk and other appliances of study were banished from the table; bottles and gla.s.ses usurped their place, and the company composed themselves for conversation, most of them permitting their chairs to stand quietly on all fours, though one or two, like heathen Yankees from the backwoods, forced them to rear rampant on the hind legs, the occupant's feet resting on the ledge over the fireplace.

A few minutes pa.s.sed, when a quick, firm step came up the stairs, and Rosny entered.

"How are you again, d.i.c.k?" said Meredith.

"Good evening, Mr. Rosny," echoed Stubb, who sat alone on the window seat.

"Eh? what's that?" demanded Rosny, turning sharp round upon the last speaker, with a face divided between indignation and laughter.

"I said, 'Good evening,'" replied Stubb, much disconcerted.

"And why didn't you say, 'Good morning,' yesterday, eh?--when I met you in Boston, eh? He gave me the cut direct," turning to the company.

"Mr. Benjamin Stubb, here, gave me the cut direct! It was the pepper-and-salt coat and the thunder-and-lightning breeches that Stubb couldn't think of bowing to when he was walking in ---- Street, with a lady. Look here, Stubb,"--again facing the victim,--"what do you take me for? and what the devil do you take yourself for? I know your dirty family history. Your grandfather was a bricklayer, and the Lord knows who your great grandfather was. The best Huguenot blood of France runs in _my_ veins! My ancestors were fighting at Ivry and Jarnac, while yours were peddling coal and potatoes about London streets, or digging mud in a ditch, for any thing you or I know to the contrary." Stubb gasped. "Your father has a crest painted on his carriage; but where did he get it? Why, Cribb, the engraver, stole it for him out of the British peerage."

Stubb, who was weak and timorous, here rose in great confusion, muttered something about conduct unbecoming to a gentleman, and meaning to require an explanation, and abruptly left the room.

"That job is finished," said Rosny, composedly seating himself. "_His_ bill is settled for him."

"But, d.i.c.k," said Morton, who had been laughing in his sleeve during the scene, "do you want to be considered as a Frenchman or an American?"

"I'm an American," answered Rosny--"an American and a democrat, every inch."

Rosny had adopted democratic principles and habits partly out of spite against the cla.s.s to which Stubb belonged, and which he was pleased to designate as the "codfish aristocracy," and partly because he thought that he could thus most effectually gain the ends of his impatient, hankering ambition. His ancestor, the head of an eminent Huguenot race, had been driven to America by the persecutions which followed the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The family had lived ever since in poverty and obscurity; yet this fiery young democrat nourished an inordinate pride of birth, and never forgot that he was descended from a line of warlike n.o.bles.

"No, no," said Rosny, as Morton pushed a gla.s.s towards him, "drinking is against my rule-- Well, as it's about the last time,"--filling the gla.s.s,--"here's to you all."

"The last time!" said Morton; "that's a dismal word. If my next four years are as pleasant as these last have been, I will never complain of them."

"I tell you, boys," said Meredith, who was tranquilly puffing at his cigar, "the cream of our lives is skimmed already. Rough and tumble, hurry and worry--that will be the story with most of us, more or less, to the end of our days."

"Rough and tumble!" exclaimed Rosny; "so much the better. 'Scots play best at the roughest game'--that's just my case. Who wants to be always paddling about on smooth water? Close reefed topsails, a gale astern, and breakers all round--that's the game."

"Every one to his taste," said Chester, shrugging his shoulders. "I suppose a salamander loves the fire, but I don't. 'The race of ambition'--'the unconquerable will'--pshaw! _Cui bono?_ One chases after his object, and when he has got it, he turns from it, and chases another. I profess the philosophy of Horace--enjoy the hour as it flies. Ah! he was a model man, a man after my own heart, a gentleman and a man of the world. He could drink his Falernian, and thank the G.o.ds for their gifts."

Rosny whispered in Morton's ear, "Chester ought to have been born a century ago, among the John Bulls, up in the c.o.c.kloft of Brazen Nose College, or some such antediluvian hole."

In spite of these derogatory remarks, Chester, besides being one of the best scholars in the cla.s.s, was noted for a social, jovial disposition, which, though, like Fluellen's valor, a little out of fashion, made him a general favorite.

"Speaking of the next four years," said Wren, "I wonder what plans each of us has made for that time. For my part, I have no plan at all, and should be glad to profit by the suggestions of the rest. Come, Chester, what do you mean to do?"

"Expatiate," said Chester, expanding his hands, and thereby revealing an odd little antique ring which he wore; "take mine ease, roaming, like the bee, from blossom to blossom. I will leave the earnest men--bah!--the men with a mission--to grub on in their vocation. I will renounce this land of cotton mills and universal suffrage. First for Paris, to walk the Boulevards, and go to the masked b.a.l.l.s and the opera;--_vive la bagatelle!_--then for Rome, to saunter through the Vatican and the picture galleries,--but not to moralize with a long face over fallen grandeur, and the mutability of human affairs. No, no, gentlemen, I belong to another school of philosophy. I will sit among the ruins of the Forum, and laugh, like Democritus, at the image of Death. Then I will recreate myself at Capri, like the Caesars before me; then enjoy the _dolce far niente_ at Florence, and read the Tuscan poets in the shades of Vallombrosa."

"But, Chester," interposed Wren, "don't you ever mean to marry and settle down?"

"I object to that phrase, 'settle down.' It calls up disagreeable images. It reminds one of the backwoods, log cabins, men in shirt sleeves, and piles of pine boards and lumber. Yes, certainly, I mean to marry. What man of taste would leave matrimony out of his scheme of life? One likes to gather his treasures round him, his pictures, his vases, and statues; and how can he adorn his rooms with an ornament more exquisite--where can he find a piece of furniture more charmingly moulded--than a beautiful woman?"

This flourish, between jest and earnest, he p.r.o.nounced with a graceful wave of his hand.

"If, when you have married your beautiful woman," said Morton, "you find you have caught a Tartar, it will serve you right."

"Hear him," said Chester; "hear the barbarian. He will always be conjuring up some image of disquiet. 'Rest, rest, perturbed spirit.'"

"He could not rest, if he tried," said Horace Vinal.

"No, he is one of those unfortunates who lie under a sentence of endless activity. It is a disease, with which men are afflicted for the sins of their ancestors; and for the sins of mine I was born among a whole nation of such. Perpetual motion, bustle and whirl,--I grow dizzy to think of it. They cannot rest themselves, and will not let any one else rest. Always pursuing, always doing, never enjoying. A true American cannot enjoy. He would build a steam saw mill in Arcadia, and dam up the four rivers of Paradise for cotton factories."

"But, Chester," said Wren, "that is not at all like Morton; you know he hates utilitarianism."

"Yes, but still he cannot rest. He would not build saw mills and dams; but he would be sure to fire his rifle at some of Adam's live stock, and set all Eden by the ears. Come, Morton, I have told the company my plans. Let us hear what yours are."

"My guardian wishes me to enter the law school."

"You are twenty-one now," said Vinal, "and can do as you please."

Vinal was a very tall and slender young man, with a strongly marked face, though thin and pale; a grave, thoughtful eye, and compressed lips, expressing a kind of nervous self-control. His dress was very elaborate and scrupulous, though without the smallest trace of foppery. He was less popular in the cla.s.s than Morton, but had the reputation of greater talents. This he owed, perhaps, to his habitual reserve; for every one thought that he understood Morton thoroughly, while few pretended to fathom the silent and self-contained Vinal.

"I should like well enough to study law," was Morton's non-committal answer.

"I thought, Morton, that you were more of a philosopher. Here you are, a young fellow, full of blood, and worth half a million, and yet you speak of buckling down to the law. That is all well enough for poor dogs like me, who go into the mill from necessity. We drudge on for twenty years or more, till we have sc.r.a.ped together a competency, or something better, perhaps, and then we find that we have forgotten how to enjoy it. We have grown so used to harness that we are good for nothing out of it, and sacrifice body and soul to our profession. You have reached already the point that we are straining for. The world is all before you, man; launch out and enjoy yourself."

"Didn't you just say," asked Rosny, "that Morton couldn't rest, if he tried?"

"I said he could not rest, but I did not say he could not enjoy himself. Look at him: his cheek is ruddier and browner than any of us.

n.o.body would believe that a fellow like that was not made to enjoy life. I know Morton. He could roam from blossom to blossom, as Chester says, with as good a will as any body. He has an eye for the fair s.e.x, correct as he is at present. He knows a pretty face from a plain one.

The devil will catch him yet with a black eye and a rosy cheek."

"Then," said Morton, "he will show his good opinion of my taste."

Rosny, who had his own reasons for disliking Vinal, here broke in without ceremony,--