DEAD MEN’S SHOES.
There are some persons, living in agreeable town or country localities,
who contend that “place” has nought to do with happiness, just as others
who have never felt the want of money, gravely assert that gold is the
“least good, and the greatest care in life.” To disprove, however, the
truth of both these ingenious theories, I apprehend it would be merely
necessary to strip the one class of persons of a little superfluous
gilding, and to transplant the other to a less agreeable habitation,
when, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, their views, feelings,
and expressions would undergo a wonderful, and not altogether desirable,
alteration. It is a something really beautiful and cheering and
strengthening to hear how people preach; that is, it would be so if one
were not occasionally treated to a sight of how they practise. It is one
of the easiest and commonest thing in life to tell your neighbour to
carry his heavy burden in silence, but one of the most difficult to bear
a much lighter load without grumbling considerably yourself.
All think their own sorrows the greatest; and, considering that the
music of their lament must be, or at least ought to be, quite as
acceptable to others as it proves to themselves, go through the world
humming it complacently; and, when another person sets up an opposition
murmur, indignantly endeavour to silence him by exclaiming “Pray cease
your pitiful song, listen to mine,”—never thinking he may deem his
melody far more full of pathos than theirs, and that, at all events, he
has quite as good a right as they to annoy every mortal in creation with
the melancholy dirge which he has composed in honour of his wrongs and
trials and misfortunes.
Which brings me to what I intended to advance at starting, namely, that
although it is edifying to hear people talk about the duty of being
contented, and saying how resignedly _they_ could live anywhere—on
anything; still, those who feel what others have never more than
imagined, may surely be forgiven if they strive to revenge themselves on
fate by repining a little at her decrees.
It were better and nobler policy, I admit, either to bend patiently, or
to rebel valiantly; but there are some who cannot exactly shape their
destinies as they would, and yet who find it impossible not to fret and
murmur occasionally: and it is no small aggravation of their grief to be
perpetually told “you should” by those, who, were they in a similar
situation, would lose no opportunity of informing the world “We are
suffering saints and long-enduring martyrs;” “See ye not the terrible
disasters which have befallen the ‘salt of the earth;’” “Behold our
misfortunes, and how we bear them.” “Solely because,” they might
generally add, “we are compelled to do so, whether we like it or not.”
There never was man of mortal mould who bore his griefs more
uncomplainingly than Ernest Ivraine, or who looked more miserable upon
them; there never existed any one who asked less sympathy, or received a
smaller portion of it; there never was a human being who walked more
silently and mournfully through life; nor in the length and breadth of
England could there have been discovered an individual, who, having an
equally heavy burden to bear, not for days merely, but for years, did
bear it externally with such exemplary patience, and made so little
noise about its weight.
“Constant dropping wears the stone,” however; and, though the hourly
fall of vexatious tormenting pebbles produced apparently no ill effects
on the temper of the miser’s eldest born, there was—furrowed by the
weary untiring stream of annoying events—a deep channel in his heart,
through which sullen angry feelings and evil thoughts and many
disappointments flowed always and ever ceaselessly.
Hatred and ignoble wishes are the darkest demons which can dwell in the
heart of man. Affection and generous purposes are the guardian angels of
the soul. And it was these most antagonistic principles that made and
marred, and threatened and preserved, the peace and the well-being of
Ernest Ivraine.
Hatred to his father, love to his brother; hatred to the man who
blighted his life, and doled out with scanty hand the barest necessaries
of existence; who, denying himself and family all those comforts and
luxuries so usual in, and essential for, respectability in their
station, shut the high wooden gates of “Paradise” on the world at large,
and lived within the enclosure of brick walls—bounding to the east,
south, north, and west, his swampy domain—a miser amongst his money
bags, most utterly alone. Hatred to the man who would not die, who
starved on and maintained, by some inexplicable process, the mysterious
connection between soul and body; whilst better and stronger and
healthier and more useful men sickened, day by day, sunk—some slowly,
some rapidly—and expired. Everywhere death journeyed; at every door he
occasionally knocked, save through the morasses and at the gate of
“Paradise.” The old miser kept every other creditor at bay, why not the
universal one? he never paid a debt he could avoid; and, when payment
was inevitable, he delayed the act of justice as long as possible. Why
should he, therefore, not contrive to evade for years the liquidation of
that debt which compassionate nature exacts at length from every one of
her weary, or grateful, or haughty, or disobedient children?
It was with a species of mute despair that Ernest Ivraine beheld how
resolutely the old baronet stuck to his money chests; how each new
mortgage deed, which he locked up in his _escritoire_, seemed to remove
a wrinkle from his furrowed brow; how every shilling of interest he
received infused a drop of warm fresh blood into his veins; how every
guinea he could wring from any one, by law, or fraud, or intimidation,
brought strength into his gaunt spare frame, new lustre to his hollow
gleaming eye, additional force and harshness to his voice, and a greater
thirst for gold, and a firmer purpose to live for its possession.
Day by day Ernest Ivraine saw that which, as Henry once had said, _must_
come to him, decrease in value. Every hour his father’s speedy death or
his father’s favourable will became of more importance to the impatient
watcher for death’s tardy approach: the gloom on the young man’s brow
grew deeper, and the anxiety of his soul more intense, as he beheld
fresh mortgages piled on the entailed estate, and the money thus raised,
either lent out at higher rates of interest, or else invested in houses
and lands and properties, in which, unless he could induce his parent to
bequeath them to him, he had no interest or claim, direct or indirect.
Some said he was resigned, others that he was mercenary; his relatives,
that he was only constitutionally melancholy, habitually discontented:
Ernest Ivraine himself knew what a dark vampire-like thought was tearing
his heart to pieces, whilst he was merely dimly conscious that affection
for Henry was the bright star that shone on steadily amidst all the
gloom of surrounding objects; that it was the soft spot of his soul, the
green oasis in the wilderness, which prevented the whole of his present
and future becoming a dreary unprofitable waste.
Love for the brother who had gone forth so nobly and bravely to battle
with and in the world; who had done what _he_ could not do,—cast the
accursed thing far from him and fled, as a good man may flee from the
temptation he feels he would be impotent to withstand, came it but near
enough him. Love for the youth who, when a child, had been dear unto the
heart of her who was now an angel in heaven; for him who had been his
companion as a boy, his friend as a man: who was so full of courage and
gentleness, of soldier-like bravery and womanly tenderness: who had
despised and spurned the vague promise of future wealth: who had urged,
in accents which rung through life in Ernest’s ears, his brother to
choose the nobler and the better part: who had suffered, because of his
parent’s cruel partiality for the metal that lures men on to perdition,
equally with Ernest, and yet who had prayed him not to hope for _their_
parent’s death: who could not go without bidding that parent farewell:
who had wept to leave, not Paradise and its riches, but home and his
stern dark brother behind him.
There was good in both,—there must have been, else Ernest had never been
loved by Henry; good to be preserved or eradicated; good to be developed
or to be crushed; good that had come to both, not from father or
grandfather, not from any Ivraine, Baronet or Mister, who ever walked
over the earth and darkened it with his shadow,—but from a gentle woman,
who, in default of houses and lands, great wealth and noble lineage,
left to those two—her only children—something of her own tender, honest
nature, which sent the younger out a resolute wanderer into the world,
and preserved the elder from utter ruin during years haunted by dark
thoughts and dark wishes and dark everything, save deeds.
Often in the winter evenings, when the white wood ashes strewed the
hearth, and an almost extinguished log smouldered dimly away to powder,
Ernest sat with his face buried in his hands, pondering on that last
interview with his brother, thinking and considering and pondering, till
at length, forgetful of all save the dreary present and the bright free
world beyond, he started up to go forth, then and there, an humble
follower in Henry’s footsteps. But the old doubts, the old fears, the
old plans, the constant expectations, came sweeping the next moment
through his mind; and, sinking down again, he murmured, “Not now, it
cannot be,” and surrendered himself captive once more to the demon who
kept him chained for ever in that house, listening with intense longing
and gloomy impatience for the solemn measured footfalls of him who came
so tardily—Death.
That numerous class of would-be consolers and real afflicters, whom we
briefly term “Job’s comforters,” have a custom of telling those whose
griefs are so severe and self-evident as to preclude the present
possibility of doubt or mitigation, that, if they will only have
patience, time must soothe their sorrows or perhaps remove them
altogether; and it was a firm idea of this kind which enabled Ernest
Ivraine to bend, with an outward semblance of melancholy resignation to
his—fate, for so he was pleased to term that weary servitude which he
could have left any day, as Henry had done, proud and strong in noble
self-reliance.
But, feeling thoroughly satisfied that the lapse of time would
ultimately end all by removing his father to eternity, he waited and
endured for years, and never made an effort to follow his brother, who
had just written him one brief line before leaving England.
“Nothing else presenting itself,” he said, “I have fairly enlisted;
before this reaches you, I shall be on my way to Portsmouth, thence to
India. Dear Ernest, my brother, will you not come and do likewise?”
No, Ernest would not. When he refused to listen to Henry’s entreaties,
whilst his feelings were excited and his mind irritated, it was scarcely
probable he would take what he considered a step bordering almost on
insanity, when cold prudence had resumed her dominion over the impulses
of his soul, and stood pointing for ever with one chill hand towards the
desolate struggling world, and with the other fixedly at his father’s
money chests.
He remained, therefore, a dark, solitary, almost sordid misanthrope
amongst the dreary swamps of Paradise, striving to humour the miser’s
temper in all things, agreeing without question to his slightest wish,
and yielding to his lightest fancy with the weakness of a woman,—but
still, after the sulky manner of an obstinate child: bearing all taunts
with the meekness of a saint; maintaining that profound silence which
had come to be one of his distinguishing characteristics; lounging
listlessly about the grounds; eternally pondering on when this would
end, and striving with all his soul to advance not merely himself in the
old man’s good graces, but also his foolish brother Henry, who, being
the miser’s favourite son, and having almost a hand certain on the
golden coffer, had chosen to fling the key from him in disgust, because
he lacked the patience and the calculating nature necessary to enable
him to wait till death, entering the mansion, should give him leave to
turn the same in the wards and take possession of the guineas and
title-deeds and mortgages of Sir Ernest Claude Ivraine, Baronet,
deceased.
There were many men (even amongst those who termed the elder son
mercenary) who would have seized the opportunity afforded by Henry’s
rashness, to insinuate themselves into the old miser’s good graces by
speaking harshly and unjustly of the absent one; but Ernest was not such
as these. It might have won esteem from any one whose esteem was worth
possessing to see how carefully Ernest, for months after his brother’s
departure, strove to conceal from the baronet knowledge of the step he
had so decidedly taken: but the young man had no confidant; he never
spoke of his thoughts or actions to human being: the wrong he did all
men were at liberty to note if they would, for the wrong is frequently
far too apparent, and is generally seized and remarked upon with
avidity; but his virtues and his good deeds were fully revealed unto the
eye of Him alone, Who seeth all things, and Who knew the deep
disinterested love Ernest Ivraine bore towards his absent brother, whom
never, even in thought, did he dream of striving to supplant in the
affections, or rather in the will, of his parent. No; if Henry were left
well off, he knew wealth abundant would come to him; if, on the
contrary, fortune smiled for once on his own dark gloomy brow, he would
share all equally with the fair-haired youth who so resembled his
mother. He remained at Paradise to keep his other relatives at bay, to
detect their schemes, defeat their plans, guard the castle of the old
man’s understanding from being undermined by their ingenious stratagems
and devices; but rivalry of Henry, his own brother! Ernest, though he
had confessed so openly to desiring his father’s death, would have hated
himself had such an idea ever entered into his brain; nay more, had any
one presented it to him, he would have loathed the heart that suggested,
and the tongue that spoke, the insinuation which mind and feeling and
affection all alike indignantly rejected.
For weeks and weeks the miser never inquired about Henry; but, at last,
whatever of love dwelt in his soul for mortal being, yearning towards
his younger born, he became vaguely uneasy at his protracted absence,
and accordingly asked Ernest casually “when his brother would be home?”
“Not for a long time I fear, sir,” he answered.
“Why, what is he doing? where has he gone?” demanded the baronet, a
touch of anxiety softening his usually harsh tone.
“He has gone to India,” was Ernest’s reply; and, as the answer grated on
his ear, the old man walked towards a window like one struck with some
sudden pain. He gazed with vacant wandering eye over swamps and fields
and trees, but his mental vision took no cognizance of these things; at
the moment he forgot even his hoards of useless treasure, for Henry, his
youngest son, the only being on earth for whom he had, since boyhood,
entertained a shadow of unselfish affection, it seemed had uttered
_that_ night no idle threat when he said he “was going away for years,
perhaps for ever.”
Now he had actually departed; deserts and oceans, forests, mountains,
plains, waters, stretched between the baronet and the ever murmuring,
ever repenting, always noble, high spirited youth. Henry had passed
forth from the home of his childhood; his father’s hand had securely
closed the gates behind him, and the old familiar places (desolate and
forlorn though they might be,—still once familiar) knew him “no more.”
And, as Longfellow says that the sound of those two words resembles the
moaning of winter winds through ancient pine forests, so the rapid
reflection that on earth they might never meet again, sent a chill cold
feeling to the miser’s soul.
“I thought nothing, save the loss of a sovereign, could have so moved
him,” reflected Ernest; but Ernest was wrong. God is good and great;
there is no land, however barren, that hath not some verdant spot, some
oasis shining in the midst of the desert; and, even in this most sordid,
selfish world there never yet existed any mortal being who did not love
something—child, father, brother, wife—well, after his fashion.
Now that knowledge of Henry’s being more dear than aught save gold could
be to the baronet’s heart entered into the comprehension of Ernest
Ivraine, he strove more sedulously than ever to keep the old man in
darkness concerning _how_ his son had gone forth to breast the storms of
fate; to prevent his learning that an Ivraine, one of _his_ mean, proud,
haughty, contemptible race, was serving his God, his king, his country,
and himself in the ranks,—a common soldier; that Henry had chosen to
bind the long chain of scarlet slavery round his neck, sooner than
submit to the more unendurable, inactive slavery of home; that, amongst
those whom Sir Ernest had always considered the lowest of the low—the
sons of the tillers of the earth, the paid defenders of their native
land, the poor, the uneducated, the strong-handed, the bone and sinew of
Britain—one of his blood was living. The elder son endeavoured, with
paternal zeal and tenderness, to keep such dreadful knowledge from his
father. But the winds of heaven bear secrets to the minds of those from
whom mortals vainly hope to bar them out; and thus at length, somehow,
through the officiousness of some meddling friend or evil-disposed
relative, the baronet at length heard truth which, if disagreeable, is
always sure to rise out of the bottom of her well and to float
conspicuous on every surface bubble.
“How has your brother gone out to India, sir?” broke forth Sir Ernest
one day, immediately on his return from the nearest large town.
“He really did not precisely inform me,” said the elder son, fervently
trusting that that and many another equivocation he had uttered on the
same topic would be forgiven him.
“Don’t tell me falsehoods,” thundered out his father, “I know perfectly
well how he has gone, and what he has done: disgraced his name and his
house, himself and myself, his connections in every part of the kingdom.
Heavens! grant me patience to think of it! Henry Ivraine, my son—yes,
_my_ son, a common private—a vagabond soldier!”
“That he has entered the army, I believe,” said Ernest, the blood
rushing for once up into his sallow cheek; “but how, in what rank,
whether as officer or as private, no person save some one in his fullest
confidence can exactly tell; nor has any one a right to surmise without
accurate information on the subject. Thus much I do know, however, sir,
positively, no matter who may strive to turn your heart against him,
that, let his position in the service be high or low, inferior or
exalted, Henry Ivraine, _your_ son, _my_ brother, will never disgrace
one of us: he would not be a vagabond, if he were a beggar; I should
believe in his truth and integrity and honour if I saw him stand before
me an accused felon to-morrow, and I have faith and hope that whatever
he may be now, he will rise to name and station and fortune yet.”
“He will,” angrily repeated the baronet, with a horrible distortion of
face; then, suddenly checking the remainder of the sentence, he said,
sneering bitterly, “You grow eloquent,” and abruptly left the apartment.
And Ernest, seeing that _their_ chances were lessened by one half,—that
on him alone depended their hopes of wealth, or even a bare competency,
braved more resolutely and gloomily than ever the depressing swamps and
vapours of Paradise from day to day, week to week, year to year,
guarding and striving to advance his brother’s interests and his own,
longing, dreading, hoping, fearing for the approach of him who alone
could fully reveal and finally decide their destinies—Death.