QUITTING Mr. Lethbridge, Travers turned with quick step towards the
more solitary part of the grounds. He did not find the object of his
search in the walks of the plantation; and, on taking the circuit of
his demesne, wound his way back towards the lawn through a sequestered
rocky hollow in the rear of the marquee, which had been devoted to a
fernery. Here he came to a sudden pause; for, seated a few yards
before him on a gray crag, and the moonlight full on his face, he saw
a solitary man, looking upwards with a still and mournful gaze,
evidently absorbed in abstract contemplation.
Recalling the description of the stranger which he had heard from Mr.
Lethbridge and the Saundersons, Mr. Travers felt sure that he had come
on him at last. He approached gently; and, being much concealed by
the tall ferns, Kenelm (for that itinerant it was) did not see him
advance, until he felt a hand on his shoulder, and, turning round,
beheld a winning smile and heard a pleasant voice.
"I think I am not mistaken," said Leopold Travers, "in assuming you to
be the gentleman whom Mr. Lethbridge promised to introduce to me, and
who is staying with my tenant, Mr. Saunderson?"
Kenelm rose and bowed. Travers saw at once that it was the bow of a
man in his own world, and not in keeping with the Sunday costume of a
petty farmer. "Nay," said he, "let us talk seated;" and placing
himself on the crag, he made room for Kenelm beside him.
"In the first place," resumed Travers, "I must thank you for having
done a public service in putting down the brute force which has long
tyrannized over the neighbourhood. Often in my young days I have felt
the disadvantage of height and sinews, whenever it would have been a
great convenience to terminate dispute or chastise insolence by a
resort to man's primitive weapons; but I never more lamented my
physical inferiority than on certain occasions when I would have given
my ears to be able to thrash Tom Bowles myself. It has been as great
a disgrace to my estate that that bully should so long have infested
it as it is to the King of Italy not to be able with all his armies to
put down a brigand in Calabria."
"Pardon me, Mr. Travers, but I am one of those rare persons who do not
like to hear ill of their friends. Mr. Thomas Bowles is a particular
friend of mine."
"Eh!" cried Travers, aghast. "'Friend!' you are joking.
"You would not accuse me of joking if you knew me better. But surely
you have felt that there are few friends one likes more cordially, and
ought to respect more heedfully, than the enemy with whom one has just
made it up."
"You say well, and I accept the rebuke," said Travers, more and more
surprised. "And I certainly have less right to abuse Mr. Bowles than
you have, since I had not the courage to fight him. To turn to
another subject less provocative. Mr. Lethbridge has told me of your
amiable desire to serve two of his young parishioners, Will Somers and
Jessie Wiles, and of your generous offer to pay the money Mrs. Bawtrey
demands for the transfer of her lease. To that negotiation my consent
is necessary, and that consent I cannot give. Shall I tell you why?"
"Pray do. Your reasons may admit of argument."
"Every reason admits of argument," said Mr. Travers, amused at the
calm assurance of a youthful stranger in anticipating argument with a
skilful proprietor on the management of his own property. "I do not,
however, tell you my reasons for the sake of argument, but in
vindication of my seeming want of courtesy towards yourself. I have
had a very hard and a very difficult task to perform in bringing the
rental of my estate up to its proper value. In doing so, I have been
compelled to adopt one uniform system, equally applied to my largest
and my pettiest holdings. That system consists in securing the best
and safest tenants I can, at the rents computed by a valuer in whom I
have confidence. To this system, universally adopted on my estate,
though it incurred much unpopularity at first, I have at length
succeeded in reconciling the public opinion of my neighbourhood.
People began by saying I was hard; they now acknowledge I am just. If
I once give way to favour or sentiment, I unhinge my whole system.
Every day I am subjected to moving solicitations. Lord Twostars, a
keen politician, begs me to give a vacant farm to a tenant because he
is an excellent canvasser, and has always voted straight with the
party. Mrs. Fourstars, a most benevolent woman, entreats me not to
dismiss another tenant, because he is in distressed circumstances and
has a large family; very good reasons perhaps for my excusing him an
arrear, or allowing him a retiring pension, but the worst reasons in
the world for letting him continue to ruin himself and my land. Now,
Mrs. Bawtrey has a small holding on lease at the inadequate rent of L8
a year. She asks L45 for its transfer, but she can't transfer the
lease without my consent; and I can get L12 a year as a moderate
rental from a large choice of competent tenants. It will better
answer me to pay her the L45 myself, which I have no doubt the
incoming tenant would pay me back, at least in part; and if he did
not, the additional rent would be good interest for my expenditure.
Now, you happen to take a sentimental interest, as you pass through
the village, in the loves of a needy cripple whose utmost industry has
but served to save himself from parish relief, and a giddy girl
without a sixpence, and you ask me to accept these very equivocal
tenants instead of substantial ones, and at a rent one-third less than
the market value. Suppose that I yielded to your request, what
becomes of my reputation for practical, business-like justice? I
shall have made an inroad into the system by which my whole estate is
managed, and have invited all manner of solicitations on the part of
friends and neighbours, which I could no longer consistently refuse,
having shown how easily I can be persuaded into compliance by a
stranger whom I may never see again. And are you sure, after all,
that, if you did prevail on me, you would do the individual good you
aim at? It is, no doubt, very pleasant to think one has made a young
couple happy. But if that young couple fail in keeping the little
shop to which you would transplant them (and nothing more likely:
peasants seldom become good shopkeepers), and find themselves, with a
family of children, dependent solely, not on the arm of a strong
labourer, but the ten fingers of a sickly cripple, who makes clever
baskets, for which there is but slight and precarious demand in the
neighbourhood, may you not have insured the misery of the couple you
wished to render happy?"
"I withdraw all argument," said Kenelm, with an aspect so humiliated
and dejected, that it would have softened a Greenland bear, or a
Counsel for the Prosecution. "I am more and more convinced that of
all the shams in the world that of benevolence is the greatest. It
seems so easy to do good, and it is so difficult to do it.
Everywhere, in this hateful civilized life, one runs one's head
against a system. A system, Mr. Travers, is man's servile imitation of
the blind tyranny of what in our ignorance we call 'Natural Laws,' a
mechanical something through which the world is ruled by the cruelty
of General Principles, to the utter disregard of individual welfare.
By Natural Laws creatures prey on each other, and big fishes eat
little ones upon system. It is, nevertheless, a hard thing for the
little fish. Every nation, every town, every hamlet, every
occupation, has a system, by which, somehow or other, the pond swarms
with fishes, of which a great many inferiors contribute to increase
the size of a superior. It is an idle benevolence to keep one
solitary gudgeon out of the jaws of a pike. Here am I doing what I
thought the simplest thing in the world, asking a gentleman, evidently
as good-natured as myself, to allow an old woman to let her premises
to a deserving young couple, and paying what she asks for it out of my
own money. And I find that I am running against a system, and
invading all the laws by which a rental is increased and an estate
improved. Mr. Travers, you have no cause for regret in not having
beaten Tom Bowles. You have beaten his victor, and I now give up all
dream of further interference with the Natural Laws that govern the
village which I have visited in vain. I had meant to remove Tom
Bowles from that quiet community. I shall now leave him to return to
his former habits,--to marry Jessie Wiles, which he certainly will do,
and--"
"Hold!" cried Mr. Travers. "Do you mean to say that you can induce
Tom Bowles to leave the village?"
"I had induced him to do it, provided Jessie Wiles married the
basket-maker; but, as that is out of the question, I am bound to tell
him so, and he will stay."
"But if he left, what would become of his business? His mother could
not keep it on; his little place is a freehold; the only house in the
village that does not belong to me, or I should have ejected him long
ago. Would he sell the premises to me?"
"Not if he stays and marries Jessie Wiles. But if he goes with me to
Luscombe and settles in that town as a partner to his uncle, I suppose
he would be too glad to sell a house of which he can have no pleasant
recollections. But what then? You cannot violate your system for the
sake of a miserable forge."
"It would not violate my system if, instead of yielding to a
sentiment, I gained an advantage; and, to say truth, I should be very
glad to buy that forge and the fields that go with it."
"'Tis your affair now, not mine, Mr. Travers. I no longer presume to
interfere. I leave the neighbourhood to-morrow: see if you can
negotiate with Mr. Bowles. I have the honour to wish you a good
evening."
"Nay, young gentleman, I cannot allow you to quit me thus. You have
declined apparently to join the dancers, but you will at least join
the supper. Come!"
"Thank you sincerely, no. I came here merely on the business which
your system has settled."
"But I am not sure that it is settled." Here Mr. Travers wound his
arm within Kenelm's, and looking him full in the face, said, "I know
that I am speaking to a gentleman at least equal in rank to myself,
but as I enjoy the melancholy privilege of being the older man, do not
think I take an unwarrantable liberty in asking if you object to tell
me your name. I should like to introduce you to my daughter, who is
very partial to Jessie Wiles and to Will Somers. But I can't venture
to inflame her imagination by designating you as a prince in
disguise."
"Mr. Travers, you express yourself with exquisite delicacy. But I am
just starting in life, and I shrink from mortifying my father by
associating my name with a signal failure. Suppose I were an
anonymous contributor, say, to 'The Londoner,' and I had just brought
that highly intellectual journal into discredit by a feeble attempt at
a good-natured criticism or a generous sentiment, would that be the
fitting occasion to throw off the mask, and parade myself to a mocking
world as the imbecile violator of an established system? Should I
not, in a moment so untoward, more than ever desire to merge my
insignificant unit in the mysterious importance which the smallest
Singular obtains when he makes himself a Plural, and speaks not as
'I,' but as 'We'? /We/ are insensible to the charm of young ladies;
/We/ are not bribed by suppers; /We/, like the witches of 'Macbeth,'
have no name on earth; /We/ are the greatest wisdom of the greatest
number; /We/ are so upon system; /We/ salute you, Mr. Travers, and
depart unassailable."
Here Kenelm rose, doffed and replaced his hat in majestic salutation,
turned towards the entrance of the fernery, and found himself suddenly
face to face with George Belvoir, behind whom followed, with a throng
of guests, the fair form of Cecilia. George Belvoir caught Kenelm by
the hand, and exclaimed, "Chillingly! I thought I could not be
mistaken."
"Chillingly!" echoed Leopold Travers from behind. "Are you the son of
my old friend Sir Peter?"
Thus discovered and environed, Kenelm did not lose his wonted presence
of mind; he turned round to Leopold Travers, who was now close in his
rear, and whispered, "If my father was your friend, do not disgrace
his son. Do not say I am a failure. Deviate from your system, and
let Will Somers succeed Mrs. Bawtrey." Then reverting his face to Mr.
Belvoir, he said tranquilly, "Yes; we have met before."
"Cecilia," said Travers, now interposing, "I am happy to introduce to
you as Mr. Chillingly, not only the son of an old friend of mine, not
only the knight-errant of whose gallant conduct on behalf of your
protegee Jessie Wiles we have heard so much, but the eloquent arguer
who has conquered my better judgment in a matter on which I thought
myself infallible. Tell Mr. Lethbridge that I accept Will Somers as a
tenant for Mrs. Bawtrey's premises."
Kenelm grasped the Squire's hand cordially. "May it be in my power to
do a kind thing to you, in spite of any system to the contrary!"
"Mr. Chillingly, give your arm to my daughter. You will not now
object to join the dancers?"