We had taken the precaution to send, the day before, to secure
our due complement of places--four in all (including one for Mrs
Primmins)--in, or upon, the fast family coach called the Sun,
which had lately been set up for the special convenience of the
neighbourhood.
This luminary, rising in a town about seven miles distant
from us, described at first a very erratic orbit amidst the
contiguous villages before it finally struck into the high-road of
enlightenment, and thence performed its journey, in the full eyes
of man, at the majestic pace of six miles and a half an hour. My
father, with his pockets full of books, and a quarto of "Gebelin on
the Primitive World" for light reading under his arm; my mother,
with a little basket, containing sandwiches and biscuits of her
own baking; Mrs Primmins, with a new umbrella, purchased for the
occasion, and a bird-cage containing a canary, endeared to her
not more by song than age, and a severe pip through which she had
successfully nursed it--and I myself, waited at the gates to welcome
the celestial visitor. The gardener, with a wheel-barrow full of
boxes and portmanteaus, stood a little in the van; and the footman,
who was to follow when lodgings had been found, had gone to a rising
eminence to watch the dawning of the expected planet, and apprise us
of its approach by the concerted signal of a handkerchief fixed to a
stick.
The quaint old house looked at us mournfully from all its deserted
windows. The litter before its threshold, and in its open hall;
wisps of straw or hay that had been used for packing; baskets and
boxes that had been examined and rejected; others, corded and
piled, reserved to follow with the footman: and the two heated
and hurried serving-women left behind standing half-way between
house and garden-gate, whispering to each other, and looking as
if they had not slept for weeks--gave to a scene, usually so trim
and orderly, an aspect of pathetic abandonment and desolation. The
genius of the place seemed to reproach us. I felt the omens were
against us, and turned my earnest gaze from the haunts behind with
a sigh, as the coach now drew up in all its grandeur. An important
personage, who, despite the heat of the day, was enveloped in a vast
superfluity of belcher, in the midst of which galloped a gilt fox,
and who rejoiced in the name of "guard," descended to inform us
politely that only three places, two inside and one out, were at our
disposal, the rest having been pre-engaged a fortnight before our
orders were received.
Now, as I knew that Mrs Primmins was indispensable to the comforts
of my honoured parents, (the more so, as she had once lived in
London, and knew all its ways,) I suggested that she should take
the outside seat, and that I should perform the journey on foot--a
primitive mode of transport which has its charms to a young man with
stout limbs and gay spirits. The guard's outstretched arm left my
mother little time to oppose this proposition, to which my father
assented with a silent squeeze of the hand. And, having promised to
join them at a family hotel near the Strand, to which Mr Squills lad
recommended them as peculiarly genteel and quiet, and waved my last
farewell to my poor mother, who continued to stretch her meek face
out of the window till the coach was whirled off in a cloud like one
of the Homeric heroes, I turned within, to put up a few necessary
articles in a small knapsack, which I remembered to have seen in the
lumber-room, and which had appertained to my maternal grandfather;
and with that on my shoulder, and a strong staff in my hand, I set
off towards the great city at as brisk a pace as if I were only
bound to the next village. Accordingly, about noon, I was both tired
and hungry; and seeing by the wayside one of those pretty inns yet
peculiar to England, but which, thanks to the railways, will soon be
amongst the things before the Flood, I sate down at a table under
some clipped limes, unbuckled my knapsack, and ordered my simple
fare, with the dignity of one who, for the first time in his life,
bespeaks his own dinner, and pays for it out of his own pocket.
While engaged on a rasher of bacon and a tankard of what the
landlord called "No mistake," two pedestrians, passing the same
road which I had traversed, paused, cast a simultaneous look at
my occupation, and, induced no doubt by its allurements, seated
themselves under the same lime-trees, though at the farther end of
the table. I surveyed the new-comers with the curiosity natural to
my years.
The elder of the two might have attained the age of thirty, though
sundry deep lines, and hues formerly florid and now faded, speaking
of fatigue, care, or dissipation, might have made him look somewhat
older than he was. There was nothing very prepossessing in his
appearance. He was dressed with a pretension ill suited to the
costume appropriate to a foot-traveller. His coat was pinched and
padded; two enormous pins, connected by a chain, decorated a very
stiff stock of blue satin, dotted with yellow stars; his hands were
cased in very dingy gloves which had once been straw-coloured,
and the said hands played with a whalebone cane surmounted by a
formidable knob, which gave it the appearance of a "life-preserver."
As he took off a white napless hat, which he wiped with great care
and affection with the sleeve of his right arm, a profusion of
stiff curls instantly betrayed the art of man. Like my landlord's
ale, in that wig there was "no mistake:" it was brought--(in the
fashion of the wigs we see in the popular effigies of George IV. in
his youth)--low over his forehead and raised at the top. The wig
had been oiled, and the oil had imbibed no small quantity of dust;
oil and dust had alike left their impression on the forehead and
cheeks of the wig's proprietor. For the rest, the expression of his
face was somewhat impudent and reckless, but not without a certain
drollery in the corners of his eyes.
The younger man was apparently about my own age, a year or two
older perhaps--judging rather from his set and sinewy frame than
his boyish countenance. And this last, boyish as it was, could not
fail to demand the attention even of the most careless observer. It
had not only the darkness but the character of the gipsy face, with
large brilliant eyes, raven hair, long and wavy, but not curling;
the features were aquiline but delicate, and when he spoke he showed
teeth dazzling as pearls. It was impossible not to admire the
singular beauty of the countenance; and yet, it had that expression
at once stealthy and fierce, which war with society has stamped
upon the lineaments of the race of which it reminded me. But,
withal, there was somewhat of the air of a gentleman in this young
wayfarer. His dress consisted of a black velveteen shooting-jacket,
or rather short frock, with a broad leathern strap at the waist,
loose white trousers, and a foraging cap, which he threw carelessly
on the table as he wiped his brow. Turning round impatiently and
with some haughtiness from his companion, he surveyed me with a
quick observant flash of his piercing eyes, and then stretched
himself at length on the bench, and appeared either to doze or muse,
till, in obedience to his companion's orders, the board was spread
with all the cold meats the larder could supply.
"Beef!" said his companion, screwing a pinchbeck glass
into his right eye. "Beef;--mottled, cowey--humph.
Lamb;--oldish--rawish--muttony, humph. Pie;--stalish, veal?--no,
pork. Ah! what will you have?"
"Help yourself," replied the young man peevishly, as he sat up,
looked disdainfully at the viands, and after a long pause, tasted
first one, then the other, with many shrugs of the shoulders and
muttered exclamations of discontent. Suddenly he looked up and
called for brandy; and to my surprise, and I fear admiration, he
drank nearly half a tumblerful of that poison undiluted, with a
composure that spoke of habitual use.
"Wrong!" said his companion, drawing the bottle to himself, and
mixing the alcohol in careful proportions with water. "Wrong! coats
of stomach soon wear out, with that kind of clothes' brush. Better
stick to 'the yeasty foam' as sweet Will says. That young gentleman
sets you a good example," and therewith the speaker nodded at me
familiarly. Inexperienced as I was, I surmised at once that it was
his intention to make acquaintance with the neighbour thus saluted.
I was not deceived. "Any thing to tempt _you_, sir?" asked this
social personage after a short pause, and describing a semicircle
with the point of his knife.
"I thank you, sir, but I have dined."
"What then? 'Break out into a second course of mischief,' as the
swan recommends--swan of Avon, sir! No? 'Well then, I charge you
with this cup of sack.' Are you going far, if I may take the liberty
to ask?"
"To London, when I can get there!"
"Oh!" said the traveller--while his young companion lifted his
eyes; and I was again struck with their remarkable penetration and
brilliancy.
"London is the best place in the world for a lad of spirit. See life
there; 'glass of fashion and mould of form.' Fond of the play, sir?"
"I never saw one!"
"Possible!" cried the gentleman, dropping the handle of his knife,
and bringing up the point horizontally: "then, young man," he added
solemnly, "you have, but I won't say what you have to see. I won't
say--no, not if you could cover this table with golden guineas, and
exclaim with the generous ardour so engaging in youth 'Mr Peacock,
these are yours, if you will only say what I have to see!'"
I laughed outright--may I be forgiven for the boast, but I had the
reputation at school of a pleasant laugh. The young man's face grew
dark at the sound: he pushed back his plate and sighed.
"Why," continued his friend, "my companion here, who I suppose is
about your own age, _he_ could tell you what a play is! he could
tell you what life is. He has viewed the manners of the town:
'perused the traders,' as the swan poetically remarks. Have you not,
my lad, eh?"
Thus directly appealed to, the boy looked up with a smile of scorn
on his lips. "Yes, I know what life is, and I say that life, like
poverty, has strange bedfellows. Ask me what life is now, and I say
a melodrama; ask me what it is twenty years hence, and I shall say--"
"A farce?" put in his comrade.
"No, a tragedy--or comedy as Congreve wrote it."
"And how is that?" I asked, interested and somewhat surprised at the
tone of my contemporary.
"Where the play ends in the triumph of the wittiest rogue. My friend
hee has no chance!"
"'Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley,' hem--yes--Hal Peacock maybe
witty, but he is no rogue."
"That was not exactly my meaning," said the boy dryly.
"'A fico for your meaning,'" as the swan says. "Hallo,
you, sir! Bully Host, clear the table, fresh tumblers--hot
water--sugar--lemon, and the bottle's out! Smoke, sir?" and Mr
Peacock offered me a cigar.
Upon my refusal, he carefully twirled round a very uninviting
specimen of some fabulous havannah--moistened it all over, as a
boa-constrictor may do the ox he prepares for deglutition; bit
off one end, and lighting the other from a little machine for
that purpose which he drew from his pocket, he was soon absorbed
in a vigorous effort (which the damp inherent in the weed long
resisted) to poison the surrounding atmosphere. Therewith, the young
gentleman, either from emulation or in self-defence, extracted from
his own pouch a cigar-case of notable elegance, being of velvet,
embroidered apparently by some fair hand, for "From Juliet" was very
legibly worked thereon--selected a cigar of better appearance than
that in favour with his comrade, and seemed quite as familiar with
the tobacco as he had been with the brandy.
"Fast, sir--fast lad that!" quoth Mr Peacock, in the short gasps
which his resolute struggle with his uninviting victim alone
permitted--"nothing but--(puff, puff)--your true--(suck--suck,)
syl--syl--sylva--does for him. Out, by the Lord! 'the jaws of
darkness have devoured it up;'" and again Mr Peacock applied to his
phosphoric machine. This time patience and perseverance succeeded,
and the heart of the cigar responded by a dull red spark (leaving
the sides wholly untouched) to the indefatigable ardour of its wooer.
This feat accomplished, Mr Peacock exclaimed triumphantly, "And now
what say you, my lads, to a game at cards?--three of us--whist and
a dummy?--nothing better--eh?" As he spoke, he produced from his
coat-pocket a red silk handkerchief, a bunch of keys, a nightcap,
a toothbrush, a piece of shaving-soap, four lumps of sugar, the
remains of a bun, a razor, and a pack of cards. Selecting the last,
and returning its motley accompaniments to the abyss whence they
had emerged, he turned up, with a jerk of his thumb and finger, the
knave of clubs, and, placing it on the top of the rest, slapped the
cards emphatically on the table.
"You are very good, but I don't know whist," said I.
"Not know whist--not been to a play! not smoke! Then pray tell me,
young man," (said he majestically, and with a frown,) "what on earth
you _do_ know!"
Much consternated by this direct appeal, and greatly ashamed of
my ignorance of the cardinal points of erudition in Mr Peacock's
estimation, I hung my head, and looked down.
"That is right," renewed Mr Peacock, more benignly; "you have the
ingenuous shame of youth. It is promising, sir--'lowliness is young
ambition's ladder,' as the swan says. Mount the first step, and
learn whist--sixpenny points to begin with."
Notwithstanding my newness in actual life, I had had the good
fortune to learn a little of the way before me, by those
much-slandered guides called novels--works which are often to the
inner world what maps are to the outer; and sundry recollections of
"Gil Blas" and the "Vicar of Wakefield" came athwart me. I had no
wish to emulate the worthy Moses, and felt that I might not have
even the shagreen spectacles to boast of, in my negotiations with
this new Mr Jenkinson. Accordingly, shaking my head, I called for my
bill. As I took out my purse--knit by my mother--with one gold piece
in one corner, and sundry silver ones in the other, I saw that the
eyes of Mr Peacock twinkled.
"Poor spirit, sir! poor spirit, young man! 'This avarice sticks
deep,' as the swan beautifully observes. 'Nothing venture, nothing
have.'"
"Nothing have, nothing venture," I returned, plucking up spirit.
"Nothing have!--Young sir, do you doubt my solidity--my capital--my
'golden joys?'"
"Sir, I spoke of myself. I am not rich enough to gamble."
"Gamble!" exclaimed Mr Peacock, in virtuous indignation--"Gamble!
what do you mean, sir? You insult me!" and he rose threateningly,
and slapped his white hat on his wig.
"Pshaw! let him alone, Hal," said the boy contemptuously. "Sir, if
he is impertinent, thrash him." (This was to me.)
"Impertinent!--thrash!" exclaimed Mr Peacock, waxing very red; but
catching the sneer on his companion's lip, he sat down, and subsided
into sullen silence.
Meanwhile I paid my bill. This duty, rarely a cheerful one,
performed, I looked round for my knapsack, and perceived that it was
in the boy's hands. He was very coolly reading the address which, in
case of accidents, I had prudently placed on it--Pisistratus Caxton,
Esq., ---- Hotel, ---- Street, --, Strand.
I took my knapsack from him, more surprised at such a breach of
good manners in a young gentleman who knew life so well, than I
should have been at a similar error on the part of Mr Peacock. He
made no apology, but nodded farewell, and stretched himself at full
length on the bench. Mr Peacock, now absorbed in a game of patience,
vouchsafed no return to my parting salutation, and in another moment
I was alone on the high-road. My thoughts turned long upon the young
man I had left: mixed with a sort of instinctive compassionate
foreboding of an ill future for one with such habits, and in such
companionship, I felt an involuntary admiration, less even for his
good looks than his ease, audacity, and the careless superiority he
assumed over a comrade so much older than himself.
The day was far gone when I saw the spires of a town at which I
intended to rest for the night. The horn of a coach behind made me
turn my head, and, as the vehicle passed me, I saw on the outside
Mr Peacock, still struggling with a cigar--it could scarcely be
the same--and his young friend stretched on the roof amongst the
luggage, leaning his handsome head on his hand, and apparently
unobservant both of me and every one else.