I am apt--judging egotistically, perhaps, from my own experience--to
measure a young man's chances of what is termed practical success in
life, by what may seem at first two very vulgar qualities; viz., his
inquisitiveness and his animal vivacity. A curiosity which springs
forward to examine every thing new to his information--a nervous
activity, approaching to restlessness, which rarely allows bodily
fatigue to interfere with some object in view--constitute, in my
mind, very profitable stock in hand to begin the world with.
Tired as I was, after I had performed my ablutions, and refreshed
myself in the little coffee-room of the inn at which I put up, with
the pedestrian's best beverage, familiar and oft-calumniated tea,
I could not resist the temptation of the broad bustling street,
which, lighted with gas, shone on me through the dim windows of the
coffee-room. I had never before seen a large town, and the contrast
of lamp-lit, busy night in the streets, with sober, deserted night
in the lanes and fields, struck me forcibly.
I sauntered out, therefore, jostling and jostled, now gazing at
the windows, now hurried along the tide of life, till I found
myself before a cook' shop, round which clustered a small knot
of housewives, citizens, and hungry-looking children. While
contemplating this group, and marvelling how it comes to pass that
the staple business of earth's majority is how, when, and where to
eat, my ear was struck with "'In Troy there lies the scene,' as the
illustrious Will remarks."
Looking round, I perceived Mr Peacock pointing his stick towards
an open doorway next to the cook's shop, the hall beyond which was
lighted with gas, while, painted in black letters on a pane of glass
over the door, was the word "Billiards."
Suiting the action to the word, the speaker plunged at once into the
aperture and vanished. The boy-copanion was following more slowly,
when his eye caught mine. A slight blush came over his dark cheek;
he stopped, and leaning against the door-jambs, gazed on me hard and
long before he said--"Well met again, sir! You find it hard to amuse
yourself in this dull place; the nights are long out of London."
"Oh," said I, ingenuously, "every thing here amuses me; the lights,
the shops, the crowd; but, then, to me every thing is new."
The youth came from his lounging-place and moved on, as if inviting
me to walk; while he answered, rather with bitter sullenness, than
the melancholy his words expressed--
"One thing, at least, cannot be new to you; it is an old truth with
us before we leave the nursery--'Whatever is worth having must be
bought; _ergo_, he who cannot buy, has nothing worth having.'"
"I don't think," said I, wisely, "that the things best worth having
can be bought at all. You see that poor dropsical jeweller standing
before his shop-door,--his shop is the finest in the street,--and I
dare say he would be very glad to give it to you or me in return for
our good health and strong legs. Oh no! I think with my father--'All
that are worth having are given to all;--that is, nature and
labour.'"
"Your father says that; and you go by what your father says!
Of course, all fathers have preached that, and many other good
doctrines, since Adam preached to Cain; but I don't see that the
fathers have found their sons very credulous listeners."
"So much the worse for the sons," said I bluntly.
"Nature," continued my new acquaintance, without attending to my
ejaculation--"nature indeed does give us much, and nature also
orders each of us how to use her gifts. If nature gave you the
propensity to drudge, you will drudge; if she gives me the ambition
to rise, and the contempt for work, I may rise--but I certainly
shall not work."
"Oh," said I, "you agree with Squills, I suppose, and fancy we are
all guided by the bumps on our foreheads?"
"And the blood in our veins, and our mother's milk. We inherit other
things besides gout and consumption. So you always do as your father
tells you! Good boy!"
I was piqued. Why we should be ashamed of being taunted for
goodness, I never could understand; but certainly I felt humbled.
However I answered sturdily--"If you had as good a father as I have,
you would not think it so very extraordinary to do as he tells you."
"Ah! so he is a very good father, is he! He must have a great trust
in your sobriety and steadiness to let you wander about the world as
he does."
"I am going to join him in London."
"In London! Oh, does he live there?"
"He is going to live there for some time."
"Then, perhaps, we may meet. I, too, am going to town."
"Oh, we shall be sure to meet there!" said I, with frank gladness;
for my interest in the young man was not diminished by his
conversation, however much I disliked the sentiments it expressed.
The lad laughed, and his laugh was peculiar. It was low, musical,
but hollow and artificial.
"Sure to meet! London is a large place: where shall you be found?"
I gave him, without scruple, the address of the hotel at which I
expected to find my father; although his deliberate inspection
of my knapsack must already have apprised him of that address.
He listened attentively, and repeated it twice over, as if to
impress it on his memory; and we both walked on in silence, till,
turning up a small passage, we suddenly found ourselves in a large
churchyard,--a flagged path stretched diagonally across it towards
the market-place, on which it bordered. In this churchyard, upon a
grave-stone, sat a young Savoyard; his hurdy-gurdy, or whatever else
his instrument might be called, was on his lap; and he was gnawing
his crust, and feeding some poor little white mice (standing on
their hind-legs on the hurdy-gurdy) as merrily as if he had chosen
the gayest resting-place in the world.
We both stopped. The Savoyard, seeing us, put his arch head on one
side, showed all his white teeth in that happy smile so peculiar to
his race, and in which poverty seems to beg so blithely, and gave
the handle of his instrument a turn.
"Poor child!" said I.
"Aha, you pity him! but why? According to your rule, Mr Caxton, he
is not so much to be pitied; the dropsical jeweller would give him
as much for his limbs and health as for ours! How is it--answer me,
son of so wise a father--that no one pities the dropsical jeweller,
and all pity the healthy Savoyard? It is, sir, because there is a
stern truth which is stronger than all Spartan lessons--Poverty _is_
the master-ill of the world. Look round. Does poverty leave its
signs over the graves? Look at that large tomb fenced round; read
that long inscription:--'virtues'--'best of husbands'--'affectionate
father'--'inconsolable grief'--'sleeps in the joyful hope,' &c., &c.
Do you suppose these stoneless mounds hide no dust of what were men
just as good? But no epitaph tells their virtues; bespeaks their
wives' grief; or promises joyful hope to them!"
"Does it matter? Does God care for the epitaph and tombstone?"
"_Date qualche cosa!_" said the Savoyard, in his touching patois,
still smiling, and holding out his little hand.
Therein I dropped a small coin. The boy evinced his gratitude by a
new turn of the hurdy-gurdy.
"That is not labour," said my companion; "and had you found him at
work, you had given him nothing. I too have my instrument to play
upon and my mice to see after. Adieu!"
He waved his hand, and strode irreverently over the graves back in
the direction we had come.
I stood before the fine tomb with its fine epitaph; the Savoyard
looked at me wistfully.