GONE, GONE, GONE
A small and well-measured breakfast-party, with the tea and the bacon
and eggs provided, to expectation and experience, should not be
disturbed by the sudden irruption of a rough, unshaven, crumple-shirted,
and worst of all, unfed young fellow, who cannot remember when his last
meal happened. Therefore I only sent word of my arrival, and went for a
swim in Stoneman's lake, as my custom was throughout the year, while
Sally was preparing me some bread and milk. But while I was getting
through this, and thinking of putting myself into church-going gear, my
sister Grace ran in, and embraced me, as warmly as if I were on the
Stock Exchange.
"Oh, George, I think you are so noble," she declared, as if she had
found me at last too large for her understanding, "to stay away so many
weeks"--I had not been away for a week and a half, but let her have a
girl's arithmetic--"simply for the sake of other people's affairs,
without even appointing anybody to look after your own, all that long
while. I thought that I was almost as unselfish as anybody ought to be.
But I am not sure that I could quite have done all that."
"You don't understand things, my dear girl," I replied, with that
superior tone which used to have a fine effect of closure upon the large
feminine parlance. "I knew that hay was going up, and that Mr. Joplin
would have to put five shillings on to every pound he offered me in
October."
"Hay indeed!" she exclaimed with scorn. "George, it is sweet hay--sweet
hay--sour hay! And you have not made it, while the sun shone."
"Speak no more in parables. Speak plain English. What in common-sense
are you driving at? There is no hay in the county to beat ours. And I
defy any rain to have got into the ricks."
"But suppose the ricks are all clean gone. Oh, George, how stupid you
are at metaphors! But if they are gone, without letting you know--oh, I
never could believe that, of foreigners even! And after all the great
things you have felt for such great people!"
"Out with it!" I said, while my spoon went dribbling. "You mean to tell
me, I suppose, if plain English can ever be got from a girl, that Sûr
Imar, and his people, have left the neighbourhood."
"His people indeed! Well, if you can take it in that lofty spirit, you
may as well know everything. I was quite afraid of telling you. But men
are all alike, at least old Sally says so--though what she can know
about it, the poor old soul----"
"When did it happen?" I asked quite calmly, for I wanted no pity about
it; least of all from a girl who had never entered into any proper view
of the question, because I never chose to run and gush to her.
"That is more than we can tell. They must have packed up very quickly,
unless they left all their dogs and diamonds behind them. But we only
heard of it yesterday, through Slemmick, who had it from Farmer Ticknor.
That seems a little rude, considering that you were to have taken me
down so soon, to fall at the feet of the Lesghian Bandit. But of course
we must not judge them by our own ideas. Perhaps, as we had never called
upon them----"
"They would not have troubled their heads about that. They look at
things from a higher level. But perhaps they might have sent a boy to
tell me, if they had found any time to spare. My dear child, in a
quarter of an hour I shall be ready; and then we will go to church
together."
Let any man tell me what else he would have done, and I shall be much
obliged to him. Not that it could help me very much, for such a thing
can scarcely happen twice to any fellow; but that I should like to
compare his view of it with what went on in my own mind. Nothing is
easier than to talk, when you see the thing a long way off, or (which is
even better) only read about it, or give a bold verdict without a
glance; which is the wisest course of all.
All that I can say about my part, is that reason did not count for a
halfpenny in the business. Pride (which is often a matter of temper, or
self-esteem set up to crow, but when it arises in a modest nature is the
proper power to keep it sweet)--pride said to me: "I am well aware that
you never stuck up for being humble. You hate any fellow that goes in
for that, because you believe him a hypocrite. And so he is, ninety-nine
times per cent; the one per cent being a true Christian, a quantity
altogether negligible. You are not up to that mark. But you are a
self-respecting Englishman. Show it, my fine fellow, by whistling at
people, who have not known you better than to snub you."
I listened to this, and it all seemed true, as beyond all doubt it ought
to be. And I went through everything so well that Grace (who was
watching me with tender interest, to learn perhaps how the Stockbroker
would take it if she vanished out of his investments) did her best to be
pleased for my dear sake; and yet for joint-stock sake afforded me as
cold a kiss, when she said good-night, as any man insisting on the
abstract woman can hope to receive from the concrete.
This alone was enough to show me that I was on the wrong tack
altogether. Women are delightful in their talk, if nobody contradicts
them, about their finer nature, and purer standard, and higher mission
to ennoble us. All this we acknowledge, and should feel it more if they
said less concerning it. But the worst of it is, that if any man regards
them as they demand to be regarded, he may stand with his back to the
wall while they go by.
Now a man, however dull-witted he may be, has sense enough to know that
in any nice point touching his behaviour to the better half of life, a
member of that half can show him what to do far better than he can
discover it. Nothing could be clearer than that Grace despised the
haughtiness and the hardness which she herself would have shown in her
own case. "How her eyes would have flashed!" thought I--and then came a
vision of other eyes, gentle, true, deep-hearted eyes, sad with some
dark mystery perhaps, compelled to keep their tears unseen; but
wavering, jiltish, deceitful--never. And then I began to recall her
kindly, and found it very comforting.
For when the sweet face came before me, with the soft radiance of those
eyes, and the play of those lips that trembled lest they should open
themselves unduly, and the movement of a heart that wondered whether it
wanted itself to be understood, and a multitude of other little
waverings which a man is too dull to interpret,--when all this came home
to me with unknown power (because I wanted it and nothing else)--
"Away with this stupid pride!" said Love, clinging to my breast, and
whispering; "the Power that made mankind made me, and ordered me never
to be far off in the worst of your tribulations. But I must have faith,
as even He requires in all His dealings with you. I have offered you as
fair a chance as ever was given to a clumsy mortal,--the loveliest
creature, a child of my own, as much too good for you as I am. Because
the Wicked One has raised a mist, in his loathing of human happiness,
are you fool enough to be untrue to me, and shut your blear eyes, and
never open them, until nothing is left worth looking at? Go your own
way. I have plenty of finer fellows to stand by me."
Though he may not have said it so distinctly--and he is not the fellow
anyhow that should talk about a mist--it produced the same effect upon
me. I felt myself, after a little thinking, very many cuts above Jackson
Stoneman and his slippery stuff among the pats of butter. His love was
as sound as a roach, and as merry as a grig; and he was welcome to it: a
thing like a bleak that flits under a film of the water, and jumps at a
midget, and so becomes fit to make pearl of Paris.
When the striking-weight of a clock is too heavy, it slurs the hours
with such a tug that you cannot even count the strokes; and to me, with
that heavy weight upon my heart, time went by untimely: slowly, heavily,
and sluggishly, if ever I began to count the ticks; but out of all
proper chronology, at periods when I kept no eye upon it. Moreover, I
had a number of little things to see to, which had been neglected in my
absence, so that it was Tuesday afternoon when I stood at the door of
St. Winifred, and wondered whether she had fallen back into rust and
ruin once again. The old wall fringed with ivy looked like a billow with
a ruffled crest before the white comb breaks from it, and the slumber of
the valley was not shaken by groan or shudder of the water-wheel. No
smoke was rising from the buttressed chimneys which had been repaired
and pointed, neither was there any sign of life, or sound of the harsh
Caucasian gabble in which many idle souls delighted.
In short, the settlement (which had been so long the puzzle of the
neighbourhood, and the blessing of the rate-collectors, for Sûr Imar
paid always every penny put upon him) was gone, vanished, a vision of
the distance; a pleasant resource for the memory, when not too
conceptive at dinner-time; a fact that would fade into a legend soon,
and find matter-of-fact disproving it.
If I had not been reduced by this time to a meritorious humility--which
I meant to keep up, let it suffer as it might--it would have gone hard
with our language to forego one of its strongest and briefest words,
which the weaker tongues try to pronounce against us, but condemn
themselves by the effort. Being of the purest English birth, and
therefore (as even our enemies admit) an embodiment of justice, I stood
still, and made allowance for all of lesser privilege. They have quite
as much right to their own ideas as the largest of us have to ours. And
it is our power of perceiving that which has made us beloved throughout
the world, or at least by as many as can understand us. Or if they be
few, whose fault is that?
While I was full of these quick thoughts, and exceedingly sorrowful over
them, lo, two streaks of yellow on the dark-green grass, and the
self-possession of Albion was wellnigh rolled over in its own tricks.
_Kuban_ and _Orla_, as mad as March hares, threw all their wild welcome
upon me: kisses, and licks, and the hairiest embraces, and the most
lunatic yells of delight; if ever there has been true love, here was the
prime of it to knock me off my legs.
Any one may laugh at me and all my pride; for the whole of it went to
the dogs in a jiffy. I am blest if I could help a gleam of moisture that
made it difficult for me to see the loyal love in eyes that never told a
lie. "You dears!" I cried, "you faithful dears!" and they would scarcely
let me say it before they were smothering me again, and then they rolled
on the ground as if they had got no legs, and then they jumped up and
looked at one another to be certain of their facts; and then with one
accord they made the valley ring with glorious shouts of joy, and the
dead leaves tremble on the lonely trees. And behold, they had roused a
great figure of a man, who came from a door where I had trembled like a
leaf, and put his hand over his eyes, and gazed at me, as if he had
never seen a man before. And then a little figure ran almost between his
legs, and I halloed to Stepan and Allai.
Stepan showed a warm desire to embrace me, which proved that to him I
was guiltless as yet, while Allai put both hands on his head, and bowed
almost to my gaiters. Now if I could only make these fellows understand,
and then get them to do the like to me, I should learn all about this
sudden flitting, for the smallest of the Lesghians had always seemed to
be in partnership with the greatest.
But alas! what a conflict of languages we had! I think it is St. James
who dwells with great eloquence upon the many miseries we suffer from
the tongue; he has not, however, described for us one of its most
diabolical conditions, when it cannot hit upon the word it wants, and
flies into a fury of perplexity with itself, and indignation at the
stupid ear that keeps it so in limbo. Stepan tried English, and that was
very bad; then I tried Lesghian, but that was much worse. He could see
that I wanted to know why his master had broken up their English home so
suddenly, and without so much as a word of farewell; but all that he
could do towards telling me was to shake his head, and make a great
noise in his throat, and box the boy's ears for laughing at him. Then
something not altogether devoid of true insight occurred to him, for he
shouted in a mighty voice, "Stepan dam fool!" and gave Allai some order,
which sent him to the buildings like an arrow.
Something had occurred to me also, so often are ideas simultaneous, and
while the messenger was gone, I took that leaf of which I have spoken,
from my pocket-book, and handed it to Stepan. He looked at it with great
surprise, and then put it to his lips and on his forehead, and then tore
off a fibre and tasted it. "Adul! Adul!" or some word that sounded like
that, he repeated frequently, and did his utmost to show me that he felt
great curiosity about it. Upon this I pulled out a pencil and drew a
rough sketch of myself being shot at, taking poetic licence to show the
bullet in the air and the leaf dropping from it. Also I tried to
represent a man crouching in a bush and popping at me, and although not
a glimpse had been vouchsafed me of the villain on that occasion, I
allowed imagination to indue him with the plumed hat of Prince Hafer.
This I had no right to do; but surely a little liberty is pardonable
with a gentleman who has taken a shot at one in the dark. At any rate
Stepan fell in most briskly with the inference of this costumiery, and
seemed rather pleased at the confirmation of his own moral estimate and
foresight.
Until I began to think, I was surprised that he should be so calm about
that black attempt to annihilate me; but remembering what he had been
through, I let him take it according to his nature. He liked me, he
approved of me, he thought me a good Englishman; and yet it would have
been no more than the finish of a bear-hunt to him to have carried me
home on the hurdle I jumped, when I went to the rescue of Allai. And I
looked at him, with some disappointment.
"Enemy!" he said; it was the word that had long been hanging in his
windcrop; and now he was so delighted with it that he said it three
times over. "Good Englisk; dam enemy. Stepan see all--all right, dam
enemy!"
His wondrous baldric (better smocked with cartridge-loops than a
parish-clerk could show of plaiting on his Sunday front, in the days
when his wife was proud of him) bulged on his mighty chest with the
elation of this grand discovery. And then he said, "Bad man, bad man!"
in a manner which appeared to me too abstract and philosophical. "No
doubt you consider it very fine fun," I replied with some warmth of
feeling, but the knowledge that he was no wiser.
Then up ran Allai, at a speed which made him resemble a hunted
grasshopper, and I took from his claws a sealed letter, and looked at
them both, in disdain of any hurry. "This will keep," I said very
quietly; for though they knew not the meaning of my words, they might be
asked afterwards how I received it, and they should have no flurry to
report. So I put it in my pocket, like a Briton.
Stepan, and Allai, and one other man not equally well known to me, had
evidently been left to finish the packing of some of the heavier goods,
and the bales of books which had been printed, and to take them, as well
as the beloved dogs, perhaps by some slower route, and rejoin their
master by arrangement. I knew that Sûr Imar had long been preparing to
move, when his period of banishment expired, but I was sure that he had
no intention of departing so suddenly, when I had seen him last. Stepan
contrived to let me know that the luggage was going by a smoker in a day
or two from London pond, as he called it; and having no further business
there, I took leave of him and Allai. The Lesghian giant was dignified
and impressive in his long farewell, and gave me his blessing--as I
supposed--and his invitation to the Caucasus. Also this comfort--"Enemy
gone. No more shoot good Englisk," which was some relief to a heavy
mind. But little Allai, and the two dogs--I could scarcely get away from
them, so loving and so sad were they. The short November day was
darkening, as I left the valley, where I had found so much wild
happiness, and so much deep sorrow to humble me.