I MEET OLD FRIENDS
Notwithstanding the prognostications it pleased us to indulge, we had a
tolerably smooth voyage. On a clear cold Sunday morning we were sailing
between a foreign river's banks, and Temple and I were alternately
reading a chapter out of the Bible to the assembled ship's crew, in
advance of the captain's short exhortation. We had ceased to look at
ourselves inwardly, and we hardly thought it strange. But our hearts
beat for a view of the great merchant city, which was called a free
city, and therefore, Temple suggested, must bear certain portions of
resemblance to old England; so we made up our minds to like it.
'A wonderful place for beer cellars,' a sailor observed to us slyly,
and hitched himself up from the breech to the scalp.
At all events, it was a place where we could buy linen.
For that purpose, Captain Welsh handed us over to the care of his
trusted mate Mr. Joseph Double, and we were soon in the streets of the
city, desirous of purchasing half their contents. My supply of money
was not enough for what I deemed necessary purchases. Temple had split
his clothes, mine were tarred; we were appearing at a disadvantage, and
we intended to dine at a good hotel and subsequently go to a theatre.
Yet I had no wish to part with my watch. Mr. Double said it might be
arranged. It was pawned at a shop for a sum equivalent in our money to
about twelve pounds, and Temple obliged me by taking charge of the
ticket. Thus we were enabled to dress suitably and dine pleasantly,
and, as Mr. Double remarked, no one could rob me of my gold watch now.
We visited a couple of beer-cellars to taste the drink of the people,
and discovered three of our men engaged in a similar undertaking. I
proposed that it should be done at my expense. They praised their
captain, but asked us, as gentlemen and scholars, whether it was
reasonable to object to liquor because your brother was carried out on
a high tide? Mr. Double commended them to moderation. Their reply was
to estimate an immoderate amount of liquor as due to them, with
profound composure.
'Those rascals,' Mr. Double informed us, 'are not in the captain's
confidence they're tidy seamen, though, and they submit to the
captain's laws on board and have their liberty ashore.'
We inquired what the difference was between their privileges and his.
'Why,' said he, 'if they're so much as accused of a disobedient act,
off they're scurried, and lose fair wages and a kind captain. And let
any man Jack of 'em accuse me, and he bounds a india-rubber ball
against a wall and gets it; all he meant to give he gets. Once you fix
the confidence of your superior, you're waterproof.'
We held our peace, but we could have spoken.
Mr. Double had no moral hostility toward theatres. Supposing he did not
relish the performance, he could enjoy a spell in the open air, he
said, and this he speedily decided to do. Had we not been bound in
honour to remain for him to fetch us, we also should have retired from
a representation of which we understood only the word ja. It was
tiresome to be perpetually waiting for the return of this word. We felt
somewhat as dogs must feel when human speech is addressed to them.
Accordingly, we professed, without concealment, to despise the whole
performance. I reminded Temple of a saying of the Emperor Charles V. as
to a knowledge of languages.
'Hem!' he went critically; 'it's all very well for a German to talk in
that way, but you can't be five times an Englishman if you're a
foreigner.'
We heard English laughter near us. Presently an English gentleman
accosted us.
'Mr. Villiers, I believe?' He bowed at me.
'My name is Richmond.'
He bowed again, with excuses, talked of the Play, and telegraphed to a
lady sitting in a box fronting us. I saw that she wrote on a slip of
paper; she beckoned; the gentleman quitted us, and soon after placed a
twisted note in my hand. It ran:
'Miss Goodwin (whose Christian name is Clara) wishes very much to know
how it has fared with Mr. Harry Richmond since he left Venice.'
I pushed past a number of discontented knees, trying, on my way to her
box, to recollect her vividly, but I could barely recollect her at all,
until I had sat beside her five minutes. Colonel Goodwin was asleep in
a corner of the box. Awakened by the sound of his native tongue, he
recognized me immediately.
'On your way to your father?' he said, as he shook my hand.
I thought it amazing he should guess that in Germany.
'Do you know where he is, sir?' I asked.
'We saw him,' replied the colonel; 'when was it, Clara? A week or ten
days ago.'
'Yes,' said Miss Goodwin; 'we will talk of that by-and-by.' And she
overflowed with comments on my personal appearance, and plied me with
questions, but would answer none of mine.
I fetched Temple into the box to introduce him. We were introduced in
turn to Captain Malet, the gentleman who had accosted me below.
'You understand German, then?' said Miss Goodwin.
She stared at hearing that we knew only the word ja, for it made our
presence in Germany unaccountable.
'The most dangerous word of all,' said Colonel Goodwin, and begged us
always to repeat after it the negative nein for an antidote.
'You have both seen my father?' I whispered to Miss Goodwin; 'both? We
have been separated. Do tell me everything. Don't look at the
stage—they speak such nonsense. How did you remember me? How happy I am
to have met you! Oh! I haven't forgotten the gondolas and the striped
posts, and stali and the other word; but soon after we were separated,
and I haven't seen him since.'
She touched her father's arm.
'At once, if you like,' said he, jumping up erect.
'In Germany was it?' I persisted.
She nodded gravely and leaned softly on my arm while we marched out of
the theatre to her hotel—I in such a state of happiness underlying
bewilderment and strong expectation that I should have cried out loud
had not pride in my partner restrained me. At her tea-table I narrated
the whole of my adventure backwards to the time of our parting in
Venice, hurrying it over as quick as I could, with the breathless
termination, 'And now?'
They had an incomprehensible reluctance to perform their part of the
implied compact. Miss Goodwin looked at Captain Malet. He took his
leave. Then she said, 'How glad I am you have dropped that odious name
of Roy! Papa and I have talked of you frequently—latterly very often. I
meant to write to you, Harry Richmond. I should have done it the moment
we returned to England.'
'You must know,' said the colonel, 'that I am an amateur inspector of
fortresses, and my poor Clara has to trudge the Continent with me to
pick up the latest inventions in artillery and other matters, for which
I get no thanks at head-quarters—but it's one way of serving one's
country when the steel lies rusting. We are now for home by way of
Paris. I hope that you and your friend will give us your company. I
will see this Captain Welsh of yours before we start. Clara, you
decided on dragging me to the theatre to-night with your usual
admirable instinct.'
I reminded Miss Goodwin of my father being in Germany.
'Yes, he is at one of the Courts, a long distance from here,' she said,
rapidly. 'And you came by accident in a merchant-ship! You are one of
those who are marked for extraordinary adventures. Confess: you would
have set eyes on me, and not known me. It's a miracle that I should
meet my little friend Harry—little no longer my friend all the same,
are you not?'
I hoped so ardently.
She with great urgency added, 'Then come with us. Prove that you put
faith in our friendship.'
In desperation I exclaimed, 'But I must, I must hear of my father.'
She turned to consult the colonel's face.
'Certainly,' he said, and eulogized a loving son. 'Clara will talk to
you. I'm for bed. What was the name of the play we saw this evening?
Oh! Struensee, to be sure. We missed the scaffold.'
He wished us good-night on an appointment of the hour for breakfast,
and ordered beds for us in the hotel.
Miss Goodwin commenced: 'But really I have nothing to tell you, or very
little. You know, Papa has introductions everywhere; we are like
Continental people, and speak a variety of languages, and I am almost a
foreigner, we are so much abroad; but I do think English boys should be
educated at home: I hope you'll go to an English college.'
Noticing my painful look, 'We saw him at the Court of the Prince of
Eppenwelzen,' she said, as if her brows ached. 'He is very kindly
treated there; he was there some weeks ago. The place lies out in the
Hanover direction, far from here. He told us that you were with your
grandfather, and I must see Riversley Grange, and the truth is you must
take me there. I suspect you have your peace to make; perhaps I shall
help you, and be a true Peribanou. We go over Amsterdam, the Hague,
Brussels, and you shall see the battlefield, Paris, straight to London.
Yes, you are fickle; you have not once called me Peribanou.'
Her voluble rattling succeeded in fencing off my questions before I
could exactly shape them, as I staggered from blind to blind idea, now
thinking of the sombre red Bench, and now of the German prince's Court.
'Won't you tell me any more to-night?' I said, when she paused.
'Indeed, I have not any more to tell,' she assured me.
It was clear to me that she had joined the mysterious league against my
father. I began to have a choking in the throat. I thanked her and
wished her good-night while I was still capable of smiling.
At my next interview with Colonel Goodwin he spoke promptly on the
subject of my wanderings. I was of an age, he said, to know my own
interests. No doubt filial affection was excellent in its way, but in
fact it was highly questionable whether my father was still at the
Court of this German prince; my father had stated that he meant to
visit England to obtain an interview with his son, and I might miss him
by a harum-scarum chase over Germany. And besides, was I not offending
my grandfather and my aunt, to whom I owed so much? He appealed to my
warmest feelings on their behalf. This was just the moment, he said,
when there was a turning-point in my fortunes. He could assure me most
earnestly that I should do no good by knocking at this prince's doors,
and have nothing but bitterness if I did in the end discover my father.
'Surely you understand the advantages of being bred a gentleman?' he
wound up. 'Under your grandfather's care you have a career before you,
a fine fortune in prospect, everything a young man can wish for. And I
must tell you candidly, you run great risk of missing all these things
by hunting your father to earth. Give yourself a little time: reflect
on it.'
'I have,' I cried. 'I have come out to find him, and I must.'
The colonel renewed his arguments and persuasions until he was worn
out. I thanked him continually for his kindness. Clara Goodwin besought
me in a surprising manner to accompany her to England, called herself
Peribanou, and with that name conjured up my father to my eyes in his
breathing form. She said, as her father had done, that I was called on
now to decide upon my future: she had a presentiment that evil would
come to me of my unchecked, headstrong will, which she dignified by
terming it a true but reckless affection: she believed she had been
thrown in my path to prove herself a serviceable friend, a Peribanou of
twenty-six who would not expect me to marry her when she had earned my
gratitude.
They set Temple on me, and that was very funny. To hear him with his 'I
say, Richie, come, perhaps it's as well to know where a thing should
stop; your father knows you're at Riversley, and he'll be after you
when convenient; and just fancy the squire!' was laughable. He had some
anxiety to be home again, or at least at Riversley. I offered him to
Miss Goodwin.
She reproached me and coaxed me; she was exceedingly sweet. 'Well,' she
said, in an odd, resigned fashion, 'rest a day with us; will you refuse
me that?'
I consented; she knew not with what fretfulness. We went out to gaze at
the shops and edifices, and I bought two light bags for slinging over
the shoulder, two nightshirts, toothbrushes, and pocket-combs, and a
large map of Germany. By dint of vehement entreaties I led her to point
to the territory of the Prince of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld. 'His income is
rather less than that of your grandfather, friend Harry,' she remarked.
I doated on the spot until I could have dropped my finger on it
blindfold.
Two or three pitched battles brought us to a friendly arrangement. The
colonel exacted my promise that if I saw my father at Sarkeld in
Eppenwelzen I would not stay with him longer than seven days: and that
if he was not there I would journey home forthwith. When I had yielded
the promise frankly on my honour, he introduced me to a banker of the
city, who agreed to furnish me money to carry me on to England in case
I should require it. A diligence engaged to deliver me within a few
miles of Sarkeld. I wrote a letter to my aunt Dorothy, telling her
facts, and one to the squire, beginning, 'We were caught on our arrival
in London by the thickest fog ever remembered,' as if it had been
settled on my departure from Riversley that Temple and I were bound for
London. Miss Goodwin was my post-bag. She said when we had dined, about
two hours before the starting of the diligence, 'Don't you think you
ought to go and wish that captain of the vessel you sailed in goodbye?'
I fell into her plot so far as to walk down to the quays on the
river-side and reconnoitre the ship. But there I saw my prison. I
kissed my hand to Captain Welsh's mainmast rather ironically, though
not without regard for him. Miss Goodwin lifted her eyelids at our
reappearance. As she made no confession of her treason I did not accuse
her, and perhaps it was owing to a movement of her conscience that at
our parting she drew me to her near enough for a kiss to come of
itself.
Four-and-twenty German words of essential service to a traveller in
Germany constituted our knowledge of the language, and these were on
paper transcribed by Miss Goodwin's own hand. In the gloom of the
diligence, packed between Germans of a size that not even Tacitus had
prepared me for, smoked over from all sides, it was a fascinating
study. Temple and I exchanged the paper half-hourly while the light
lasted. When that had fled, nothing was left us to combat the sensation
that we were in the depths of a manure-bed, for the windows were
closed, the tobacco-smoke thickened, the hides of animals wrapping our
immense companions reeked; fire occasionally glowed in their
pipe-bowls; they were silent, and gave out smoke and heat incessantly,
like inanimate forces of nature. I had most fantastic ideas,—that I had
taken root and ripened, and must expect my head to drop off at any
instant: that I was deep down, wedged in the solid mass of the earth.
But I need not repeat them: they were accurately translated in
imagination from my physical miseries. The dim revival of light, when I
had well-nigh ceased to hope for it, showed us all like malefactors
imperfectly hanged, or drowned wretches in a cabin under water. I had
one Colossus bulging over my shoulder! Temple was blotted out. His
face, emerging from beneath a block of curly bearskin, was like that of
one frozen in wonderment. Outside there was a melting snow on the
higher hills; the clouds over them grew steel-blue. We were going
through a valley in a fir-forest.