MY GENTLEMAN ON THE ROAD
The postillion had every reason to believe that he carried a real
gentleman behind him; in other words, a purse long and liberal. He
judged by all the points he knew of: a firm voice, a brief commanding
style, an apparent indifference to expense, and the inexplicable minor
characteristics, such as polished boots, and a striking wristband, and
so forth, which will show a creature accustomed to step over the heads
of men. He had, therefore, no particular anxiety to part company, and
jogged easily on the white highway, beneath a moon that walked high and
small over marble clouds.
Evan reclined in the chariot, revolving his sensations. In another mood
he would have called, them thoughts, perhaps, and marvelled at their
immensity. The theme was Love and Death. One might have supposed, from
his occasional mutterings at the pace regulated by the postillion, that
he was burning with anxiety to catch the flying coach. He had forgotten
it: forgotten that he was giving chase to anything. A pair of wondering
feminine eyes pursued him, and made him fret for the miles to throw a
thicker veil between him and them. The serious level brows of Rose
haunted the poor youth; and reflecting whither he was tending, and to
what sight, he had shadowy touches of the holiness there is in death,
from which came a conflict between the imaged phantoms of his father
and of Rose, and he sided against his love with some bitterness. His
sisters, weeping for their father and holding aloof from his ashes,
Evan swept from his mind. He called up the man his father was: the
kindliness, the readiness, the gallant gaiety of the great Mel. Youths
are fascinated by the barbarian virtues; and to Evan, under present
influences, his father was a pattern of manhood. He asked himself: Was
it infamous to earn one’s bread? and answered it very strongly in his
father’s favour. The great Mel’s creditors were not by to show him
another feature of the case.
Hitherto, in passive obedience to the indoctrination of the Countess,
Evan had looked on tailors as the proscribed race of modern society. He
had pitied his father as a man superior to his fate; but despite the
fitfully honest promptings with Rose (tempting to him because of the
wondrous chivalry they argued, and at bottom false probably as the
hypocrisy they affected to combat), he had been by no means sorry that
the world saw not the spot on himself. Other sensations beset him now.
Since such a man was banned by the world, which was to be despised?
The clear result of Evan’s solitary musing was to cast a sort of halo
over Tailordom. Death stood over the pale dead man, his father, and
dared the world to sneer at him. By a singular caprice of fancy, Evan
had no sooner grasped this image, than it was suggested that he might
as well inspect his purse, and see how much money he was master of.
Are you impatient with this young man? He has little character for the
moment. Most youths are like Pope’s women; they have no character at
all. And indeed a character that does not wait for circumstances to
shape it, is of small worth in the race that must be run. To be set too
early, is to take the work out of the hands of the Sculptor who
fashions men. Happily a youth is always at school, and if he was shut
up and without mark two or three hours ago, he will have something to
show you now: as I have seen blooming seaflowers and other graduated
organisms, when left undisturbed to their own action. Where the Fates
have designed that he shall present his figure in a story, this is sure
to happen.
To the postillion Evan was indebted for one of his first lessons.
About an hour after midnight pastoral stillness and the moon begat in
the postillion desire for a pipe. Daylight prohibits the dream of it to
mounted postillions. At night the question is more human, and allows
appeal. The moon smiles assentingly, and smokers know that she really
lends herself to the enjoyment of tobacco.
The postillion could remember gentlemen who did not object: who had
even given him cigars. Turning round to see if haply the present inmate
of the chariot might be smoking, he observed a head extended from the
window.
“How far are we?” was inquired.
The postillion numbered the milestones passed.
“Do you see anything of the coach?”
“Can’t say as I do, sir.”
He was commanded to stop. Evan jumped out.
“I don’t think I’ll take you any farther,” he said.
The postillion laughed to scorn the notion of his caring how far he
went. With a pipe in his mouth, he insinuatingly remarked, he could jog
on all night, and throw sleep to the dogs. Fresh horses at Hillford;
fresh at Fallowfield: and the gentleman himself would reach Lymport
fresh in the morning.
“No, no; I won’t take you any farther,” Evan repeated.
“But what do it matter, sir?” urged the postillion.
“I’d rather go on as I am. I—a—made no arrangement to take you the
whole way.”
“Oh!” cried the postillion, “don’t you go troublin’ yourself about
that, sir. Master knows it’s touch-and-go about catchin’ the coach. I’m
all right.”
So infatuated was the fellow in the belief that he was dealing with a
perfect gentleman—an easy pocket!
Now you would not suppose that one who presumes he has sufficient,
would find a difficulty in asking how much he has to pay. With an
effort, indifferently masked, Evan blurted:
“By the way, tell me—how much—what is the charge for the distance we’ve
come?”
There are gentlemen-screws: there are conscientious gentlemen. They
calculate, and remonstrating or not, they pay. The postillion would
rather have had to do with the gentleman royal, who is above base
computation; but he knew the humanity in the class he served, and with
his conception of Evan only partially dimmed, he remarked:
“Oh-h-h! that won’t hurt you, sir. Jump along in,—settle that
by-and-by.”
But when my gentleman stood fast, and renewed the demand to know the
exact charge for the distance already traversed, the postillion
dismounted, glanced him over, and speculated with his fingers tipping
up his hat. Meantime Evan drew out his purse, a long one, certainly,
but limp. Out of this drowned-looking wretch the last spark of life was
taken by the sum the postillion ventured to name; and if paying your
utmost farthing without examination of the charge, and cheerfully
stepping out to walk fifty miles, penniless, constituted a postillion’s
gentleman, Evan would have passed the test. The sight of poverty,
however, provokes familiar feelings in poor men, if you have not had
occasion to show them you possess particular qualities. The
postillion’s eye was more on the purse than on the sum it surrendered.
“There,” said Evan, “I shall walk. Good night.” And he flung his cloak
to step forward.
“Stop a bit, sir!” arrested him.
The postillion rallied up sideways, with an assumption of genial
respect. “I didn’t calc’late myself in that there amount.”
Were these words, think you, of a character to strike a young man hard
on the breast, send the blood to his head, and set up in his heart a
derisive chorus? My gentleman could pay his money, and keep his footing
gallantly; but to be asked for a penny beyond what he possessed; to be
seen beggared, and to be claimed a debtor-aleck! Pride was the one
developed faculty of Evan’s nature. The Fates who mould us, always work
from the main-spring. I will not say that the postillion stripped off
the mask for him, at that instant completely; but he gave him the first
true glimpse of his condition. From the vague sense of being an
impostor, Evan awoke to the clear fact that he was likewise a fool.
It was impossible for him to deny the man’s claim, and he would not
have done it, if he could. Acceding tacitly, he squeezed the ends of
his purse in his pocket, and with a “Let me see,” tried his waistcoat.
Not too impetuously; for he was careful of betraying the horrid
emptiness till he was certain that the powers who wait on gentlemen had
utterly forsaken him. They had not. He discovered a small coin, under
ordinary circumstances not contemptible; but he did not stay to
reflect, and was guilty of the error of offering it to the postillion.
The latter peered at it in the centre of his palm; gazed queerly in the
gentleman’s face, and then lifting the spit of silver for the disdain
of his mistress, the moon, he drew a long breath of regret at the
original mistake he had committed, and said:
“That’s what you’re goin’ to give me for my night’s work?”
The powers who wait on gentlemen had only helped the pretending youth
to try him. A rejection of the demand would have been infinitely wiser
and better than this paltry compromise. The postillion would have
fought it: he would not have despised his fare.
How much it cost the poor pretender to reply, “It’s the last farthing I
have, my man,” the postillion could not know.
“A scabby sixpence?” The postillion continued his question.
“You heard what I said,” Evan remarked.
The postillion drew another deep breath, and holding out the coin at
arm’s length:
“Well, sir!” he observed, as one whom mental conflict has brought to
the philosophy of the case, “now, was we to change places, I couldn’t
a’ done it! I couldn’t a’ done it!” he reiterated, pausing
emphatically.
“Take it, sir!” he magnanimously resumed; “take it! You rides when you
can, and you walks when you must. Lord forbid I should rob such a
gentleman as you!”
One who feels a death, is for the hour lifted above the satire of
postillions. A good genius prompted Evan to avoid the silly squabble
that might have ensued and made him ridiculous. He took the money,
quietly saying, “Thank you.”
Not to lose his vantage, the postillion, though a little staggered by
the move, rejoined: “Don’t mention it.”
Evan then said: “Good night, my man. I won’t wish, for your sake, that
we changed places. You would have to walk fifty miles to be in time for
your father’s funeral. Good night.”
“You are it to look at!” was the postillion’s comment, seeing my
gentleman depart with great strides. He did not speak offensively;
rather, it seemed, to appease his conscience for the original mistake
he had committed, for subsequently came, “My oath on it, I don’t get
took in again by a squash hat in a hurry!”
Unaware of the ban he had, by a sixpenny stamp, put upon an unoffending
class, Evan went ahead, hearing the wheels of the chariot still
dragging the road in his rear. The postillion was in a dissatisfied
state of mind. He had asked and received more than his due. But in the
matter of his sweet self, he had been choused, as he termed it. And my
gentleman had baffled him, he could not quite tell how; but he had been
got the better of; his sarcasms had not stuck, and returned to rankle
in the bosom of their author. As a Jew, therefore, may eye an erewhile
bondsman who has paid the bill, but stands out against excess of
interest on legal grounds, the postillion regarded Evan, of whom he was
now abreast, eager for a controversy.
“Fine night,” said the postillion, to begin, and was answered by a
short assent. “Lateish for a poor man to be out—don’t you think sir,
eh?”
“I ought to think so,” said Evan, mastering the shrewd unpleasantness
he felt in the colloquy forced on him.
“Oh, you! you’re a gentleman!” the postillion ejaculated.
“You see I have no money.”
“Feel it, too, sir.”
“I am sorry you should be the victim.”
“Victim!” the postillion seized on an objectionable word. “I ain’t no
victim, unless you was up to a joke with me, sir, just now. Was that
the game?”
Evan informed him that he never played jokes with money, or on men.
“Cause it looks like it, sir, to go to offer a poor chap sixpence.” The
postillion laughed hollow from the end of his lungs. “Sixpence for a
night’s work! It is a joke, if you don’t mean it for one. Why, do you
know, sir, I could go—there, I don’t care where it is!—I could go
before any magistrate livin’, and he’d make ye pay. It’s a charge, as
custom is, and he’d make ye pay. Or p’rhaps you’re a goin’ on my
generosity, and’ll say, he gev back that sixpence! Well! I shouldn’t a’
thought a gentleman’d make that his defence before a magistrate. But
there, my man! if it makes ye happy, keep it. But you take my advice,
sir. When you hires a chariot, see you’ve got the shiners. And don’t
you go never again offerin’ a sixpence to a poor man for a night’s
work. They don’t like it. It hurts their feelin’s. Don’t you forget
that, sir. Lay that up in your mind.”
Now the postillion having thus relieved himself, jeeringly asked
permission to smoke a pipe. To which Evan said, “Pray, smoke, if it
pleases you.” And the postillion, hardly mollified, added, “The baccy’s
paid for,” and smoked.
As will sometimes happen, the feelings of the man who had spoken out
and behaved doubtfully, grew gentle and Christian, whereas those of the
man whose bearing under the trial had been irreproachable were much the
reverse. The postillion smoked—he was a lord on his horse; he beheld my
gentleman trudging in the dust. Awhile he enjoyed the contrast,
dividing his attention between the footfarer and moon. To have had the
last word is always a great thing; and to have given my gentleman a
lecture, because he shunned a dispute, also counts. And then there was
the poor young fellow trudging to his father’s funeral! The postillion
chose to remember that now. In reality, he allowed, he had not very
much to complain of, and my gentleman’s courteous avoidance of
provocation (the apparent fact that he, the postillion, had humbled him
and got the better of him, equally, it may be), acted on his fine
English spirit. I should not like to leave out the tobacco in this good
change that was wrought in him. However, he presently astonished Evan
by pulling up his horses, and crying that he was on his way to Hillford
to bait, and saw no reason why he should not take a lift that part of
the road, at all events. Evan thanked him briefly, but declined, and
paced on with his head bent.
“It won’t cost you nothing—not a sixpence!” the postillion sang out,
pursuing him. “Come, sir! be a man! I ain’t a hintin’ at anything—jump
in.”
Evan again declined, and looked out for a side path to escape the
fellow, whose bounty was worse to him than his abuse, and whose mention
of the sixpence was unlucky.
“Dash it!” cried the postillion, “you’re going down to a funeral—I
think you said your father’s, sir—you may as well try and get there
respectable—as far as I go. It’s one to me whether you’re in or out;
the horses won’t feel it, and I do wish you’d take a lift and welcome.
It’s because you’re too much of a gentleman to be beholden to a poor
man, I suppose!”
Evan’s young pride may have had a little of that base mixture in it,
and certainly he would have preferred that the invitation had not been
made to him; but he was capable of appreciating what the rejection of a
piece of friendliness involved, and as he saw that the man was sincere,
he did violence to himself, and said: “Very well; then I’ll jump in.”
The postillion was off his horse in a twinkling, and trotted his bandy
legs to undo the door, as to a gentleman who paid. This act of service
Evan valued.
“Suppose I were to ask you to take the sixpence now?” he said, turning
round, with one foot on the step.
“Well, sir,” the postillion sent his hat aside to answer. “I don’t want
it—I’d rather not have it; but there! I’ll take it—dash the sixpence!
and we’ll cry quits.”
Evan, surprised and pleased with him, dropped the bit of money in his
hand, saying: “It will fill a pipe for you. While you’re smoking it,
think of me as in your debt. You’re the only man I ever owed a penny
to.”
The postillion put it in a side pocket apart, and observed: “A sixpence
kindly meant is worth any crown-piece that’s grudged—that it is! In you
jump, sir. It’s a jolly night!”
Thus may one, not a conscious sage, play the right tune on this human
nature of ours: by forbearance, put it in the wrong; and then, by not
refusing the burden of an obligation, confer something better. The
instrument is simpler than we are taught to fancy. But it was doubtless
owing to a strong emotion in his soul, as well as to the stuff he was
made of, that the youth behaved as he did. We are now and then above
our own actions; seldom on a level with them. Evan, I dare say, was
long in learning to draw any gratification from the fact that he had
achieved without money the unparalleled conquest of a man. Perhaps he
never knew what immediate influence on his fortune this episode
effected.
At Hillford they went their different ways. The postillion wished him
good speed, and Evan shook his hand. He did so rather abruptly, for the
postillion was fumbling at his pocket, and evidently rounding about a
proposal in his mind.
My gentleman has now the road to himself. Money is the clothing of a
gentleman: he may wear it well or ill. Some, you will mark, carry great
quantities of it gracefully: some, with a stinted supply, present a
decent appearance: very few, I imagine, will bear inspection, who are
absolutely stripped of it. All, save the shameless, are toiling to
escape that trial. My gentleman, treading the white highway across the
solitary heaths, that swell far and wide to the moon, is, by the
postillion, who has seen him, pronounced no sham. Nor do I think the
opinion of any man worthless, who has had the postillion’s authority
for speaking. But it is, I am told, a finer test to embellish much
gentleman-apparel, than to walk with dignity totally unadorned. This
simply tries the soundness of our faculties: that tempts them in
erratic directions. It is the difference between active and passive
excellence. As there is hardly any situation, however, so interesting
to reflect upon as that of a man without a penny in his pocket, and a
gizzard full of pride, we will leave Mr. Evan Harrington to what fresh
adventures may befall him, walking toward the funeral plumes of the
firs, under the soft midsummer flush, westward, where his father lies.