FRANCIS ARDRY--HIS MISFORTUNES--DOG AND LION FIGHT--GREAT MEN OF THE
WORLD
A few days after the circumstance which I have last commemorated, it
chanced that, as I was standing at the door of the inn, one of the
numerous stage-coaches which were in the habit of stopping there, drove
up, and several passengers got down. I had assisted a woman with a
couple of children to dismount, and had just delivered to her a band-box,
which appeared to be her only property, which she had begged me to fetch
down from the roof, when I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder, and heard a
voice exclaim, 'Is it possible, old fellow, that I find you in this
place?' I turned round, and wrapped in a large blue cloak, I beheld my
good friend Francis Ardry. {163a} I shook him most warmly by the hand,
and said, 'If you are surprised to see me, I am no less so to see you,
where are you bound to?'
'I am bound for L---, {163b} at any rate I am booked for that seaport,'
said my friend in reply.
'I am sorry for it,' said I, 'for in that case we shall have to part in a
quarter of an hour, the coach by which you came stopping no longer.'
'And whither are you bound?' demanded my friend.
'I am stopping at present in this house, quite undetermined as to what to
do.'
'Then come along with me,' said Francis Ardry.
'That I can scarcely do,' said I, 'I have a horse in the stall which I
cannot afford to ruin by racing to L--- by the side of your coach.'
My friend mused for a moment: 'I have no particular business at L---,'
said he; 'I was merely going thither to pass a day or two, till an
affair, in which I am deeply interested, at C--- {164} shall come off. I
think I shall stay with you for four-and-twenty hours at least; I have
been rather melancholy of late, and cannot afford to part with a friend
like you at the present moment; it is an unexpected piece of good fortune
to have met you; and I have not been very fortunate of late,' he added,
sighing.
'Well,' said I, 'I am glad to see you once more, whether fortunate or
not; where is your baggage?'
'Yon trunk is mine,' said Francis, pointing to a trunk of black Russian
leather upon the coach.
'We will soon have it down,' said I, and at a word which I gave to one of
the hangers-on at the inn, the trunk was taken from the top of the coach.
'Now,' said I to Francis Ardry, 'follow me, I am a person of some
authority in this house;' thereupon I led Francis Ardry into the house,
and a word which I said to a waiter forthwith installed Francis Ardry in
a comfortable private sitting-room, and his trunk in the very best
sleeping-room of our extensive establishment.
It was now about one o'clock: Francis Ardry ordered dinner for two, to be
ready at four, and a pint of sherry to be brought forthwith, which I
requested my friend the waiter might be the very best, and which in
effect turned out as I requested; we sat down, and when we had drank to
each other's health, Frank requested me to make known to him how I had
contrived to free myself from my embarrassments in London, what I had
been about since I quitted that city, and the present posture of my
affairs.
I related to Francis Ardry how I had composed the Life of Joseph Sell,
and how the sale of it to the bookseller had enabled me to quit London
with money in my pocket, which had supported me during a long course of
ramble in the country, into the particulars of which I, however, did not
enter with any considerable degree of fulness. I summed up my account by
saying that 'I was at present a kind of overlooker in the stables of the
inn, had still some pounds in my purse, and, moreover, a capital horse in
the stall.'
'No very agreeable posture of affairs,' said Francis Ardry, looking
rather seriously at me.
'I make no complaints,' said I, 'my prospects are not very bright, it is
true, but sometimes I have visions, both waking and sleeping, which,
though always strange, are invariably agreeable. Last night, in my
chamber near the hayloft, I dreamt that I had passed over an almost
interminable wilderness--an enormous wall rose before me, the wall,
methought, was the great wall of China:--strange figures appeared to be
beckoning to me from the top of the wall; such visions are not exactly to
be sneered at. Not that such phantasmagoria,' said I, raising my voice,
'are to be compared for a moment with such desirable things as fashion,
fine clothes, cheques from uncles, parliamentary interest, the love of
splendid females. Ah! woman's love,' said I, and sighed.
'What's the matter with the fellow?' said Francis Ardry.
'There is nothing like it,' said I.
'Like what?'
'Love, divine love,' said I.
'Confound love,' said Francis Ardry, 'I hate the very name; I have made
myself a pretty fool by it, but trust me for ever being caught at such
folly again. In an evil hour I abandoned my former pursuits and
amusements for it; in one morning spent at Joey's there was more real
pleasure than in--'
'Surely,' said I, 'you are not hankering after dog-fighting again, a
sport which none but the gross and unrefined care anything for? No,
one's thoughts should be occupied by something higher and more rational
than dog-fighting; and what better than love--divine love? Oh, there's
nothing like it!'
'Pray, don't talk nonsense,' said Francis Ardry.
'Nonsense,' said I; 'why I was repeating, to the best of my recollection,
what I heard you say on a former occasion.'
'If ever I talked such stuff,' said Francis Ardry, 'I was a fool; and
indeed I cannot deny that I have been one: no, there is no denying that I
have been a fool. What do you think? That false Annette {165} has
cruelly abandoned me.'
'Well,' said I, 'perhaps you have yourself to thank for her having done
so; did you never treat her with coldness, and repay her marks of
affectionate interest with strange fits of eccentric humour?'
'Lord! how little you know of women,' said Francis Ardry; 'had I done as
you suppose, I should probably have possessed her at the present moment.
I treated her in a manner diametrically opposite to that. I loaded her
with presents, was always most assiduous to her, always at her feet, as I
may say, yet she nevertheless abandoned me--and for whom? I am almost
ashamed to say--for a fiddler.'
I took a glass of wine, Francis Ardry followed my example, and then
proceeded to detail to me the treatment which he had experienced from
Annette, and from what he said, it appeared that her conduct to him had
been in the highest degree reprehensible; notwithstanding he had indulged
her in everything, she was never civil to him, but loaded him continually
with taunts and insults, and had finally, on his being unable to supply
her with a sum of money which she had demanded, decamped from the
lodgings which he had taken for her, carrying with her all the presents
which at various times he had bestowed upon her, and had put herself
under the protection of a gentleman who played the bassoon at the Italian
Opera, at which place it appeared that her sister had lately been engaged
as a danseuse. My friend informed me that at first he had experienced
great agony at the ingratitude of Annette, but at last had made up his
mind to forget her, and in order more effectually to do so, had left
London with the intention of witnessing a fight, which was shortly coming
off at a town in these parts, between some dogs and a lion; {166} which
combat, he informed me, had for some time past been looked forward to
with intense eagerness by the gentlemen of the sporting world.
I commended him for his resolution, at the same time advising him not to
give up his mind entirely to dog-fighting, as he had formerly done, but,
when the present combat should be over, to return to his rhetorical
studies, and above all to marry some rich and handsome lady on the first
opportunity, as, with his person and expectations, he had only to sue for
the hand of the daughter of a marquis to be successful, telling him, with
a sigh, that all women were not Annettes, and that upon the whole there
was nothing like them. To which advice he answered, that he intended to
return to rhetoric as soon as the lion fight should be over, but that he
never intended to marry, having had enough of women; adding, that he was
glad he had no sister, as, with the feelings which he entertained with
respect to her sex, he should be unable to treat her with common
affection, and concluded by repeating a proverb which he had learnt from
an Arab whom he had met at Venice, to the effect that, 'one who has been
stung by a snake, shivers at the sight of a string.'
After a little more conversation, we strolled to the stable, where my
horse was standing; my friend, who was a connoisseur in horse-flesh,
surveyed the animal with attention, and after inquiring where and how I
had obtained him, asked what I intended to do with him; on my telling him
that I was undetermined, and that I was afraid the horse was likely to
prove a burden to me, he said, 'It is a noble animal, and if you mind
what you are about, you may make a small fortune by him. I do not want
such an animal myself, nor do I know any one who does; but a great
horse-fair will be held shortly at a place where, it is true, I have
never been, but of which I have heard a great deal from my acquaintances,
where it is said a first-rate horse is always sure to fetch its value;
that place is Horncastle, in Lincolnshire; you should take him thither.'
Francis Ardry and myself dined together, and after dinner partook of a
bottle of the best port which the inn afforded. After a few glasses, we
had a great deal of conversation; I again brought the subject of marriage
and love, divine love, upon the carpet, but Francis almost immediately
begged me to drop it; and on my having the delicacy to comply, he
reverted to dog-fighting, on which he talked well and learnedly; amongst
other things, he said that it was a princely sport of great antiquity,
and quoted from Quintus Curtius to prove that the princes of India must
have been of the fancy, they having, according to that author, treated
Alexander to a fight between certain dogs and a lion. Becoming,
notwithstanding my friend's eloquence and learning, somewhat tired of the
subject, I began to talk about Alexander. Francis Ardry said he was one
of the two great men whom the world has produced, the other being
Napoleon; I replied that I believed Tamerlane was a greater man than
either; but Francis Ardry knew nothing of Tamerlane, save what he had
gathered from the play of Timour the Tartar. 'No,' said he; 'Alexander
and Napoleon are the great men of the world, their names are known
everywhere. Alexander has been dead upwards of two thousand years, but
the very English bumpkins sometimes christen their boys by the name of
Alexander--can there be a greater evidence of his greatness? As for
Napoleon, there are some parts of India in which his bust is worshipped.'
Wishing to make up a triumvirate I mentioned the name of Wellington, to
which Francis Ardry merely said, 'bah!' and resumed the subject of
dog-fighting.
Francis Ardry remained at the inn during that day and the next, and then
departed to the dog and lion fight; I never saw him afterwards, and
merely heard of him once after the lapse of some years, and what I then
heard was not exactly what I could have wished to hear. He did not make
much of the advantages which he possessed, a pity, for how great were
those advantages--person, intellect, eloquence, connection, riches! yet,
with all these advantages, one thing highly needful seems to have been
wanting in Francis. A desire, a craving, to perform something great and
good. Oh! what a vast deal may be done with intellect, courage, riches,
accompanied by the desire of doing something great and good! Why, a
person may carry the blessings of civilization and religion to barbarous,
yet at the same time to beautiful and romantic lands; and what a triumph
there is for him who does so! What a crown of glory! of far greater
value that those surrounding the brows of your mere conquerors. Yet who
has done so in these times? Not many; not three, not two, something
seems to have been always wanting: there is, however, one instance in
which the various requisites have been united, and the crown, the most
desirable in the world--at least which I consider to be the most
desirable--achieved, and only one, that of Brooke of Borneo. {168}