I had but reached my room when Eccles followed me to say my father
wished to see me at once.
“Come, come, Digby,” said Eccles, good-naturedly, “don't be frightened.
Even if he should be angry with you, his passion passes soon over;
and, if uncontradicted, he is never disposed to bear a grudge long. Go
immediately, however, and don't keep him waiting.”
I cannot tell with what a sense of abasement I entered my father's
dressing-room; for, after all, it was the abject condition of my own
mind that weighed me down.
“So, sir,” said he, as I closed the door, “this is something I was not
prepared for. You might be forty things, but I certainly did not suspect
that a son of mine should be a coward.”
Had my father ransacked his whole vocabulary for a term of insult, he
could pot have found one to pain me like this.
“I am not a coward, sir,” said I, reddening till I felt my face in a
perfect glow.
“What!” cried he, passionately; “are you going to give me a proof of
courage by daring to outrage _me?_ Is it by sending back my words in my
teeth you assume to be brave?”
“I ask pardon, sir,” said I, humbly, “if I have replied rudely; but you
called me by a name that made me forget myself. I hope you will forgive
me.”
“Sit down, there, sir; no, there.” And he pointed to a more distant
chair. “There are various sorts and shades of cowardice, and I would
not have you tarnished with any one of them. The creature whose first
thought, and indeed only one, in an emergency is his personal safety,
and who, till that condition is secured, abstains from all action, is
below contempt; him I will not even consider. But next to him--of
course with a long interval--comes the fellow who is so afraid of a
responsibility that the very thought of it unmans him. How did the fact
of my wager come to influence you at all, sir? Why should you have had
any thought but for the game you were playing, and how it behoved you
to play it? How came I and these gentlemen to stand between you and your
real object, if it were not that a craven dread of consequences had
got the ascendancy in your mind? If men were to be beset by these
calculations, if every fellow carried about him an armor of sophistry
like this, he 'd have no hand free to wield a weapon, and the world
would see neither men who storm a breach nor board an enemy. Till a man
can so isolate and concentrate his faculties on what he has to do that
all extraneous conditions cease to affect him, he will never be well
served by his own powers; and he who is but half served is only half
brave. There are times when the unreasoners are worth all the men of
logic, remember that. And now go and sleep over it.”
He motioned me to withdraw, but I could not bear to go till he had
withdrawn the slur he had cast on me in the word coward. He looked at me
steadfastly, but not harshly, for a moment or two, and then said,--
“You are not to think that it is out of regret for a lost sum of money I
have read you this lecture. As to the wager itself, I am as well pleased
that it ended as it did. These gentlemen are not rich, either of them. I
can afford the loss. What I cannot afford is the way I lost it.”
“But will you not say, sir, that I am no coward?” said I, faltering.
“I will withdraw the word,” said he, slowly, “the very first time I
shall see you deal with a difficulty without a thought for what it may
cost you. There; good-night; leave me now. I mean to have a ride with
you in the morning.”
And he nodded twice, and smiled, and dismissed me.
There was nothing, certainly, very flattering to me in this reception.
It cost me dearly while it lasted, and yet--I cannot explain why--I came
away with a feeling of affection for my father, and a desire to stand
well in his esteem, such as I had not experienced till that moment. It
was his utter indifference up to this that had chilled and repelled me.
Any show of interest, anything that might evidence that he cared what I
was or what I might become, was so much better than this apathy that I
welcomed the change with delight. Accustomed to the tender solicitude of
a loving mother, no niggard of her praise, and more given to sympathize
than blame, the stern reserve of my father's manner had been a terrible
reverse, and over and over had I asked myself why he took me from where
I was loved and cherished, to live this life of ceremonious observance
and cold deference.
To know that he felt even such interest in me as this, was to restore me
to self-esteem at once. He would not have his son a coward, he said;
and as I felt in my heart that I was not a coward, as I knew I was ready
then and there to confront any peril he could propose to me, all that
the speech left in my memory was a sense of self-satisfaction.
In each of the letters I had received from my mother she impressed on me
how important it was that I should win my father's affection, and now a
hope flashed across me that I might do this. I sat down to tell her all
that had passed between us; but somehow, in recounting the incident of
the billiard-room, I wandered away into a description of the house, its
splendors and luxury, and of the life of costly pleasure that we were
living. “You will ask, dearest mamma,” I wrote, “how and when I find
time to study amidst all these dissipations? and I grieve to own that I
do very little. Mr. Eccles says he is satisfied with me; but I fear it
is more because I obtrude little on his notice than that I am making any
progress. We are still in the same scene of the Adrian that I began
with you; and as to the Greek, we leave it over for Saturdays, and the
Saturdays get skipped. I have become a good shot with the rifle; and
George says I have the finest, lightest hand he knows on a horse, and
that he 'll make me yet a regular steeple-chase horseman. I have a
passion for riding, and sometimes get four mounts on a day. Indeed, papa
takes no interest in the stable, and I give all the orders, and can have
a team harnessed for me--which I do--when I am tired with the saddle.
They have not quite given up calling me 'that boy of Norcott's;' only
now, when they do so, it is to say how well he rides, and what a taste
he shows for driving and shooting.
“Don't be afraid that I am neglecting my music. I play every day, and
take singing lessons with an Italian: they call him the Count Guastalla;
but I believe he is the tenor of the opera here, and only teaches me out
of compliment to papa. He dines here nearly every day, and plays piquet
with papa all the evening.
“There is a very beautiful lady comes here,--Madame Cleremont. She is
the wife of the Secretary to the Legation. She is French, and has
such pleasing ways, and is so gay, and so good-natured, and so fond of
gratifying me in every way, that I delight in being with her; and we
ride out together constantly, and I am now teaching her to drive the
ponies, and she enjoys it just as I used myself. I don't think papa
likes her, for he seldom speaks to her, and never takes her in to dinner
if there is another lady in the room; and I suspect she feels this,
for she is often very sad. I dislike Mr. Cleremont; he is always saying
snappish things, and is never happy, no matter how merry we are. But
papa seems to like him best of all the people here. Old Captain Hotham
and I are great friends, though he's always saying, 'You ought to be at
sea, youngster. This sort of life will only make a blackleg of you.'
But I can't make out why, because I am very happy and have so much to
interest and amuse me, I must become a scamp. Mdme. Cleremont says, too,
it is not true; that papa is bringing me up exactly as he ought, that I
will enter life as a gentleman, and not be passing the best years of
my existence in learning the habits of the well-bred world. They fight
bitterly over this every day; but she always gets the victory, and then
kisses me, and says, 'Mon cher petit Digby, I 'll not have you spoiled,
to please any vulgar prejudice of a tiresome old sea-captain,' This she
whispers, for she would not offend him for anything. Dear mamma, how you
would love her if you knew her! I believe I 'm to go to Rugby to school;
but I hope not, for how I shall live like a schoolboy after all this
happiness I don't know; and Mdme. Cleremont says she will never permit
it; but she has no influence over papa, and how could she prevent it?
Captain Hotham is always saying, 'If Norcott does not send that boy
to Harrow or Rugby, or some of these places, he 'll graduate in the
Marshalsea--that's a prison--before he's twenty.' I am so glad when a
day passes without my being brought up for the subject of a discussion,
which papa always ends with, 'After all I was neither an Etonian nor
Rugbeian, and I suspect I can hold my own with most men; and if that boy
doesn't belie his breeding, perhaps he may do so too.'
“Nobody likes contradicting papa, especially when he says anything in a
certain tone of voice, and whenever he uses this, the conversation turns
away to something else.
“I forgot to say in my last, that your letters always come regularly.
They arrive with papa's, and he sends them up to me at once, by
his valet, Mons. Durand, who is always so nicely dressed, and has a
handsomer watch-chain than papa.
“Mdme. Cleremont said yesterday: 'I'm so sorry not to know your dear
mamma, Digby: but if I dared, I'd send her so many caresses, _de ma
part_.' I said nothing at the time, but I send them now, and am your
loving son,
“Digby Norcott.”
This letter was much longer than it appears here. It filled several
sides of note-paper, and occupied me till daybreak. Indeed, I heard the
bell ringing for the workmen as I closed it, and shortly after a gentle
tap came to my door, and George Spunner, our head groom, entered.
“I saw you at the window, Master Digby,” said he, “and I thought I'd
step up and tell you not to ride in spurs this morning. Sir Roger wants
to see you on May Blossom, and you know she's a hot 'un, sir, and don't
want the steel. Indeed, if she feels the boot, she's as much as a man
can do to sit.”
“You 're a good fellow, George, to think of this,” said I. “Do you know
where we 're going?”
“That's what I was going to tell you, sir. We are going to the Bois de
Cambre, and there's two of our men gone on with hurdles, to set them up
in the cross alleys of the wood, and we 're to come on 'em unawares, you
see.”
“Then why don't you give me Father Tom or Hunger-ford?”
“The master would n't have either. He said, 'A child of five years old
could ride the Irish horse;' and as for Hungerford, he calls him a
circus horse.”
“But who knows if Blossom will take a fence?”
“I'll warrant she'll go high enough; how she'll come down, and where,
is another matter. Only don't you go a-pullin' at her, ride her in the
snaffle, and as light as you can. Face her straight at what she's got to
go over, and let her choose her own pace.”
“I declare I don't see how this is a fair trial of my riding, George. Do
you?”
“Well, it is, and it isn't,” said he, scratching his head. “You might
have a very tidy hand and a nice seat, and not be able to ride the mare;
but then, sir, you see, if you have the judgment to manage her coolly,
and not rouse her temper too far, if you can bring her to a fence, and
make her take off at a proper distance, and fly it, never changing her
stride nor balk, why then he'll see you can ride.”
“And if she rushes, or comes with her chest to a bank, or if--as I think
she will--she refuses her fence, rears, and falls back, what then?”
“Then I think the mornin's sport will be pretty nigh over,” growled he;
as though I had suggested something personally offensive to him.
“What time do we go, George?”
“Sir Roger said seven, sir, but that will be eight or half-past. He's to
drive over to the wood, and the horses are to meet him there.”
“All right. I'll take a short sleep and be sharp to time.”
As he left the room, I tore open my letter, to add a few words. I
thought I'd say something that, if mischance befell me, might be a
comfort to my dear mother to read over and dwell on, but for the life of
me I did not know how to do it, without exciting alarm or awakening her
to the dread of some impending calamity. Were I to say, I 'm off for a
ride with papa, it meant nothing; and if I said, I 'm going to show
him how I can manage a very hot horse, it might keep her in an agony of
suspense till I wrote again.
So I merely added, “I intend to write to you very soon again, and hope
I may do so within the week.” These few commonplace words had a great
meaning to my mind, however little they might convey to her I wrote
them to; and as I read them over, I stored them with details supplied by
imagination,--details so full of incident and catastrophe that they made
a perfect story. After this I lay down and slept heavily.