LARGE AND LONG VIEWS
Sûr Imar had spoken of happiness as resembling a mountain-eagle in the
brevity of its visits, and the speed of its flight away from us, rather
than the gentle dove whose nest is always near our roof, while the
cooing of her soft content pervades the summer evening. And probably he
was right enough as regards his own race and country, where all is
rugged, strong, and fierce, and a pious life too often means pure
impotence for robbery.
But if he only could have seen my father of a sunny morning, sitting in
his little room, with the red cloth on the table, and the drawers of his
cabinet pulled out, and his choicest coins laid gingerly with their
faces tilted towards the light, and a chamois leather, and a box of
powder, and a tiny bottle of acid to be used most sparingly--that Chief
of great stature, and still greater mind, would have perceived that
bliss may come with the downy plume of the dove, as well as the swoop of
the eagle's pinion. For here was an ancient gentleman, who had never
known flash and clash of steel, or the rush of hot blood upon frozen
snow; but had only been damaged by the rapid fall of grain, and no
longer had the spirit to cry out at that; yet in the evening of his days
found pleasure in the coinage of the past, when the currency failed so
painfully. Often he shouted for his wife or daughter, to share some
great discovery, some new interpretation of his magnifying glass, or the
lens of imagination, over some battered disc, resembling the plate which
our blacksmith clamps red-hot on the nose of a vainly squealing porker.
Then was Sir Harold's pleasure at the acme and the apex. What delight is
perfect without something to find fault with? And the fonder one is of
the poor short-comer, the sweeter it becomes to correct the loose idea.
"This indeed is frightful, my dear Grace! Will you never know an old L
from a T? And how often must I tell you, that they run the other way?
There's a tangle of your hair coming in the light again! If you want to
be of any use, which you never can be, do go and cut off at least three
quarters of it. One would think that girls were made of nothing else but
hair. Show me any mops and frizzles, on a feminine obverse. Look at this
fascia! I'll get you one to-morrow. You fetch it round tightly, and then
you cut off all the rest. Unless you like to bunch it, as a jockey does
a horse, I shall speak to your mother about it. Nothing shall be done
that you dislike. But you see for yourself how becoming it is?"
"Lovely, oh, lovely! I am wild about it, father. But the lady has no
nose. Is mine to come off too?"
"She has had a nose, and as good a one as yours. It is the mere accident
of attrition. But here comes George! What can George want now? He knows
that I never should be interrupted, with all these drawers open. If any
rival Numismatist--I am sorry to say there is no honesty among them.
Even the people at the British Museum, when I lent them for comparison,
kept back three most valuable--the gems, the gems of my whole
collection!"
"Well, sir, I don't blame them. It was for the instruction of the
nation." I knew that my father was even more proud than indignant at
this fact--if fact it was, and he had long ago made it one, by telling
it at least twice a-day. "But I don't want to disturb you, sir, and I
don't often do it. Only there are two things that I am bound to consult
you about immediately, if you can spare me a few minutes, without having
to put more important work aside."
My father sighed; for he hated business, as he had good cause to do,
while Grace walked away with a lofty air, like a lady denied the
franchise. Finding myself rather nervous, I began in a craven manner
with other people's business.
"Bandilow wants to know, sir, whether he may break up half-moon meadow,
and plant it with apple- and pear-trees. He says it is the only chance
of his being able to pay his rent, next Lady day."
"But, my dear George," Sir Harold replied, while he spread a silk
handkerchief over his coins, lest the atmosphere of business should
corrode them, "does the silly fellow expect to realise a fruit-crop
betwixt this and then?"
"Very likely he does, for he has found an apple on a tree he planted not
more than two years ago; and the Society for the Promotion of British
Fructiculture has sent him a coloured print of apples bigger than
turnips and brighter than prize carnations. And you know what Lord
Melladew did for him; they would not advance him any money,--in fact, he
had to subscribe to them,--but for a 'nominal price' they supplied him
with a list of fifteen hundred kinds----"
"Oh, I don't want to hear any more about that! I should have some faith
in it, if they put their own money into it, instead of being paid for
persuading other people to invest in it. However, it is no concern of
mine."
"Excuse me, sir, but I think it is. In a sort of sideway, at any rate.
You would not like an old tenant, whose family has held under ours for
at least three centuries, to be robbed by private folly of the little
the public mania has left him. I know the climate of Surrey pretty well,
and there are very few better in England. Last May, the mercury stood
below freezing point at six in the morning, no less than eight times;
and twice it was eight degrees below. Have we any fruit-bloom that can
laugh at that? You would not like an elderly man like Bandilow, with a
large family dependent upon him, to be ruined, would you now? And he is
already in arrears of rent?"
"Certainly I should grieve at that, and throw him off every farthing,
little as we can afford it. But my dear boy, you make the worst of
things, and you are sadly obstinate; which, perhaps, is a family
failing. Men of tenfold your knowledge have proved that the only remedy,
and a very easy one, offered by Providence itself, for the present
starvation of agriculture, is to take to horticulture. If wheat will not
pay at 30s. per quarter, fall back upon apples at a pound a bushel. And
then there is jam, a glorious scheme."
I saw that all reason was in vain. Lord Melladew had got hold of my good
father, and tip-top prices upon West-end counters had been quoted for
orchard average. It was useless to say another word. But who ever ceased
on that account?
"If the wheat crop is precarious, I should like to know what the fruit
crop is. Two years in three give a fair crop of grain; scarcely one in
three of fruit. If we turned every field into a broom of trees, would
even the present low prices hold, in the years when there was anything
on them? The fruit might roll on the ground and rot, whenever the season
was plentiful. Englishmen cannot live on apples; and jam is only fit for
children. But do as you like, sir. Do as you like."
"George, I am guided too much sometimes by the way in which you look at
things. You have formed very strong opinions, and there may be something
in them. Nothing is more wonderful to me than the difference in
character betwixt you and Harold. Harold looks at a thing all round, and
is never quite sure about it. But you make up your mind without looking
at all, and I defy anybody to move you."
"I have made up my mind, sir, about another matter, which I came to put
before you. And though I am not to be moved from it, I do hope that you
will take my view. But is Bandilow to have his way?"
"Certainly," my father answered with a pleasant smile, for he had formed
the most erroneous opinions about me; "is no one to have his way, but my
son George? It is only fair to let a tenant crop his land as he thinks
best, unless he injures it permanently; and especially such a man as
Bandilow, who has stuck to us, when all the others dropped off. And
there is another reason. Many of the newspapers, loving, as some of them
seem to do, to stir up ill-will among Englishmen, keep on declaring that
the landlords form the chief obstacle to the improvement of land. The
thing is absurd. You might just as well say that if you borrow a
hundred pounds of me, I must long for your bankruptcy, lest you should
repay me. What landlord would not be delighted if his tenant could make
£50 an acre, as these people say? I only wish this fruit-craze could
last."
"Father, you are right. What a blessing it would be, if they could only
fetch it round! Let us hope for the best, as they do. And now for the
other question, all about myself; and I hope you will take the same
liberal views. But it is a long story. Have your easy chair, and your
little glass of mead that stops the cough. Well, Harold did some good in
recommending that. You never get the cough as you used to have it."
"Harold is a very clever fellow," my father said, after a sip or two;
"if that boy would only stick to something--or if I could make a blend
of you two--well, well, we can't have everything."
"That is a righteous law for us; but it ought not to apply to you, sir,
whose wishes are so moderate. For instance, I want a thing that I shall
never get. May I call Mother in, to hear what it is?"
In this there was wisdom, gracious wisdom, such as we are inspired with
sometimes, however foolish we may generally be. For whatever opinion my
father might form, he would have my mother looking at him, and then she
would be sure to give a glance at me, and the experience of years would
be belied unless she gave utterance to a conclusion not directly
counter, but sub-contrary, hypenantious--if such a word is
pardonable--to the view which her husband had ventured to form without
waiting for her suggestion. For they had grown so much alike, that both
of them doubted about the joint-stock wisdom; as we all despise
home-produce.
Seeing myself in the right way thus, while indulging in all due
deference, I did my very best to let them know that I had striven after
things above me. My father was ready to concede that point; but my
mother could not conceive it; and was eager to branch out into a long
discourse, about all the great people akin to us in body, but in mind
not as yet awake to it. My father joined me in abbreviating that--though
at such a time it was hard measure--but he heard the old Grandfather
Clock strike one; and if mother got wound up on that chain, the
hour-hand might go round the dial before he got any luncheon! Therefore
he spoke decisively.
"What we have heard from George is not altogether what I expected.
Everybody knows, though he seems to imagine that nobody ever dreamed of
it, that he had found some attraction among those very strange people
that live in the dell. Who they are, or what they do there, it has never
concerned me to inquire. When strangers come into a neighbourhood, and
desire to keep themselves to themselves, no English gentleman would ever
think of obtruding himself upon them. They may be very estimable, and
even of very high rank in a foreign way, as George supposes. But when
they pack themselves up inside a wall, without even a bell, or if they
have one with only fierce dogs to answer it, all we can do is to leave
them to the Police, or the Government, or the Newspapers. The right of
asylum is sacred in England. Of Continental intrigues we know nothing,
and we refuse to be mixed up with them. Even with a Radical Government
in power--my dear, you quite agree with me?"
"In every word that you have said, my dear. But when our George, without
asking his mother, goes out of his way to make strange acquaintance, and
people who pretend to look down upon us----"
"You have no right to say that, my dear. We must not think that they are
so absurd. They have the highest opinion of this Country, as of course
they are bound to have, except as to our one great mistake. And there,
if I understand George aright, Prince--what's his name, Mari? It sounds
like New Zealand, but at any rate his views do him very high credit. He
spoke of Free Trade with very fine contempt; I think you told me so,
George?"
"Sir, he could not find any word strong enough to describe our folly.
And the testimony of an outsider--but you never use such language, sir."
"No, I leave that to younger people, who may live to see the worst of
it. But this gentleman must have great perception, as well as much
integrity. You think that he draws a large revenue, and this young lady
is his only child."
"My dear, you forget how they live out there," said my mother, who was
above lucre, and my father as well too superior to show it. "Who can
tell how many wives they have? And their laws not too respectable, I am
half afraid, upon such points."
"I was very well up in Geography once," my father replied with a smile
at her, "I could construe some of Prometheus vinctus, and I have a coin,
with the rock and the chain and the vulture, but the Titan has been
eaten to nothing by time. It is extremely valuable; yet the British
Museum failed to steal it. That Prince comes from the very same spot. It
may have been struck by his ancestors. George says that they come in a
direct line from Noah's own great-grandson."
"In that case, indeed, who are we to talk of our own children? Who,
indeed, are we?" My mother glanced upward, as if to watch the whole of
creation sliding. "Although to a reasonable mind the Heptarchy is as
much as one requires to be sure of. But I should like to see that girl,
George."
"Stop," said my father, "I am not a sceptic; Mama, you must not set a
bad example. I had my little doubts about the Ark, I must confess, until
so many people attacked it, among them a Bishop of our Church, who
continued to enjoy his income. If he was in earnest, he scarcely could
be honest, and in that case, who would listen to him? And if the Ark
rested upon Ararat, that would be the neighbourhood to know all about
it. I will not contradict Prince Maori."
"But it is the girl I care about;" my mother made a great point of the
tempers of young women. "George is so peaceable, and he never argues. I
cannot risk his happiness with a wife who may be descended from--from
even the females mentioned in the Bible."
"My dear mother, what a hurry you are in. The young lady does not care a
fig about me yet. And I am very much afraid that she never, never will.
Only I thought that I had better let you know."
"This sort of thing has never happened to you before, and that is very
greatly to your credit, George." My father looked stealthily at my
mother, lest her conscience should involve her in some misconstruction
here. "But we must talk it over first, your mother and myself. We could
have no idea that such a thing was happening on our property, I mean--of
course, what used to be ours. It seems to be departing from the proper
way so much, and the practice of the family. I am sure there are plenty
of nice girls round here."
"I am not so sure of that," said my mother, rather quickly, and giving
me a signal to leave the rest to her; "English girls are not at all as
they were in my time. They have dropped all their modest looks and
delicacy. They talk slang, and they speak without being introduced, and
they call one another Jack and Jemmy, and they let young men give them
pairs of gloves, and they come into a room with both arms swinging; and
as for their dresses, and the way they do their hair----"
"Your opinion upon all these points, dear mother, has influenced me
beyond all doubt, even more than I was aware of. But you must remember
that Dariel is also of the most ancient English lineage, gone by quite
as much as you could wish--Crusaders, probably our Richard the first,
and some of his devoted paladins. What can be nobler than to carry on a
peaceful crusade of education, literature, Christianity----"
"They could never do that without plenty of money," said my father, a
man as free from mercenary views as ever tried to raise a shilling. "And
you spoke of some emerald mines, I think. But we must be careful, very
careful, and insist upon verifying everything, quite independently of
their reports. Let me see! I have met the Russian ambassador--but no,
there have been two more since then. However I am not without influence
altogether."
He waved his hand for me to go, and I slipped off, after a good kiss
from my mother, who always gave way to the sentimental vein, when my
father fell into the financial. And sure enough our finances were of a
pensive character just now. My duty was clearly to allow my dear parents
plenty of time to discuss me from my birth up to the present moment; and
finding myself just a little in the fidgets and unfit for steady work,
off I set through the park to our old house, to inquire whether Stoneman
happened to be at home. For he had taken his holiday, and was come back;
and so far as one could judge him by his looks and walk, he found
himself better suited in his native land than elsewhere.